The Divine Cataclysm [S21G8*] (FINAL ROUND: The Forest)

[Wojjan]

And then The Monster was chained once more. She clicked her pocketwatch shut, and closed off an entire universe along with it.

"I think we can all agree that this entire season was a terrible idea."

Miel D'Oeil, The Duchess to her former contestants, spoke as she wrote the words in red ink, perhaps for on her own tombstone. As the season's representative, she was responsible for setting it up so what of the grandmasters left alive figured it her duty to clean it up.

"But stopping here is, according to inconvenient multiversal law, not an option. We have an issue left undecided. When all the imbeciles responsible sleep in silence, all the utterly unsporty contestants that had defeated them dealt with, and every battle brought to an... unforeseen closure, we still have a pressing matter on our hands. I believe the Director called it Allstars Allstars Allstars."

In her right hand, a bladed rosary. In her left, a black butterfly mask.

"And that is where you come in. Pyrfaen and Rene, I'm sure you need no introduction to each other. When you escaped The Amazing Discord, I tracked all of you down. Yes, Ghost, including you. Barring an error margin on relative time, you two are the last two standing from the entire colorful cast. So it comes to you.

"With no battles to host, with no contestants to enter, the decision for this season's winner comes down to the two who had considered themselves free from the battles, but just as from much each other. And so it shall end."

She clenched the rosary in her palm. Honey-coated blood leaked out of her wounds. The mask in her right hand fizzled and burnt to ashes.

"You will find the round I place you in to at first seem considerably empty. A forest with nothing but trees. No owl that lives in the branches, no moss that grows over the bark. No wind or sunlight on your face and no smell or taste in the environment. You will feel no thing. You will see no threat. But when you learn its true use, you will do best to fear harrowing hell.

"I send you to this season's resting place. All of what remains alive or unkillable that has had anything to do with this battle has been banished to this abyssal realm. And considering the havoc about in this place, all what has died in the process might just have found a way back already. You will find your own grandmaster, The Monster, to be powerless in this environment for it's there I have myself created him. This closed bubble represents the mistakes I, the mistakes we made. It is all of this Season under one hood, sealed away never to be seen again. It is our Hell, it is our Higan, it is our afterlife.

"But one of you has to remain for history's sake. Either of you will be bard of our stories, the exchanges between grandmasters neither of you had picked up on. Either of you shall bear the mark of this season in their palm and enter the collosal timeless project the Director is concocting. One of you will be the victor of a fruitless match, the bearer of a paper medal, the forger of lead gold.

"Lady and gentleman, condemn this world and all it has wrought! Bring death to the other, and bring death to the memory of Season Twenty-one.

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The Divine Cataclysm is a battle between Ixcaliber, playing as Pyrfaen and DragonFogel playing as Rene Gade. It only features the last round of the last battle in an entire season, and all the drama and intrigue that went on during these battles is implied. Nothing is set in stone other than the fewest little details I put up to make a nice intropost, and even those are as fickle as Ix or Foges would demand it.

Seeing as this battle is only one round, nobody has any excuse not to read it, so be sure to follow this up! The more people read this the more opinions I can get to make the ultimate decision on who wins this entire phony season.

[Ixcalibur]

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I just want the profile in the actual thread

Username: Ixcaliber
Name: Pyrfaen
Race: Legendary Sword
Gender: Feminine
Text Colour: #ED1C24 on #DFC530
Description:

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Pyrfaen is a Legendary Sword and as such she has sort of a Legendary Aura about her. Anyone who sets their eyes upon her knows they are looking upon a Sword of Legend even if they aren’t specifically aware of the legends that surround Pyrfaen. She is a two-handed sword with a long gold handle, a silver blade and a ruby set into her base. Though she is a Legendary Sword she’s not really a sword designed for actual combat so to speak. She’s more ceremonial and consequently her edge is not exactly razor-sharp. That said she can still inflict some damage if wielded properly. She is remarkably light for such a large and heavy looking sword.

Sur Ethan the Bold, better known as Ethan Cromwell of 12 Bridge Street is just some guy. He used to work in an office and he still wears the shirt and red tie that he wore while he did so. He’s about twenty with pale skin, a wild mop of ginger hair and freckles. He’s tall and thin, probably best described as lanky, and he’s moderately attractive.

Personality wise Pyrfaen is fascinated with tales of Great Heroes and the Legendary Weapons that they use. This is due to the fact that the legend in which she features is not all that exciting. She sincerely hopes that eventually she will be the blade of a Great Hero and she will finally be part of a legend that doesn’t totally suck. To this end she tries to encourage anyone who wields her to have Adventures, to be noble and bold and righteous, no matter who or what they are. She sings with an astounding soprano though her songs are all in some long dead language that nobody understands any more except for her. They are all ballads about ancient Heroes fighting evil and generally being heroic.

Ethan is a daydreamer. He’s little more than a kid and he used to have an office job that he hated, until he got a hold of Pyrfaen. She showered him with praise about how heroic he could be and all the Adventures he could be having and wow he thought this sounded great, so off he went on Adventures. He is young and idealistic and incredibly impressionable. He sort of has a thing for Pyrfaen which is a touch awkward sometimes because she is a sword and thus not sexually compatible.

Abilities: Pyrfaen has something of an influence over her wielders. While she sings she can make them more adept at combat, though that said she can’t make them all that good at combat because she isn’t all that good herself. Essentially she can make them good enough not to accidentally injure themselves, but they are unlikely to be winning any swordfights just through this. Ethan has no abilities.

Backstory: The Legend of Pyrfaen is actually pretty dull. You don’t really want to hear that. Instead what is more exciting is the story of how Pyrfaen and her previous wielder, Sur Gregory The Indefatigable, got pulled into a battle to the death against seven other beings. Sur Gregory was, unlike Sur Ethan, an actual knight. He had long flowing blonde hair, a noble steed and the most magnificent beard that had ever been seen. He didn’t make it. Ethan Cromwell happened to be working in what was the setting of the round immediately following Sur Gregory’s death. Pyrfaen would have rather preferred someone who had a little more experience than this kid to be her new wielder, but with the situation being what it was she had to make do. Plus there was something sort of charming about Ethan’s innocence.

Together they managed to escape the battle and went looking for Adventures. This didn’t last long though, before she knew it Pyrfaen was dragged back to finish off an old foe and perhaps forge a new Legend in the process.

[Dragon Fogel]

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Name: Rene Gade
Race: Human
Gender: Male
Color: Blue
Description: Rene is a tall, reasonably good-looking blonde-haired man who wears a flashy, mostly blue outfit, including a large hat an an impractically long cape. He carries a spear, as well as a belt pouch with an assortment of other gear inside it.
Rene is extremely confident in himself, much more than is justified, and will frequently boast that his opponent cannot defeat "ze great Rene Gade!" These boasts are usually followed up with humiliating defeats, which Rene insists are merely temporary setbacks.
Rene's primary concern is proving himself to be the best fighter in the world - of course, he knows (thinks) he already is, but he has to show it.
Abilities: In theory, Rene Gade should be a competent fighter. In practice, however, his need to show off gets in the way, as does his cape; he generally trips over it at least three times a day. Of course, he never actually does anything about this, because the cape is too important to his image.
Rene has a spear, a small crossbow with a few bolts, a few small stones and a sling, a hand mirror, and an assortment of objects that are of no real use but that he insists are of great importance.
Biography: Rene Gade was a bounty hunter and mercenary. He took on various odd jobs of generally questionable legality and failed half of them miserably. He would probably have languished in obscurity if not for one mission, when the crime lord Lars Ennie hired him to kill his chief rival, Jay Walking.
It was a difficult mission, but Rene succeeded in killing Walking and about two-thirds of his men, largely due to blind luck. This was much to the displeasure of Ennie, who had been expecting him to fail spectacularly. The attack was supposed to convince Walking that he would be safer if he allied himself with Ennie, but now that alliance was not only infeasible, but unrewarding.
Ennie was going to send his men to kill Gade, but when they arrived at his home, he suddenly vanished before their eyes.

It was at this point that Rene was entered in the Amazing Discordance. He and seven others had been taken from their homeworlds to fight to the death; however, out of his seven opponents, there was one in particular who caught his attention: Sur Gregory the Infatigible, wielder of the legendary sword Pyrfaen.
Rene Gade knew that the defeat of a legendary hero would be the perfect test of his strength, and so he challenged Gregory at every opportunity throughout the battle, until Round Two when Gregory was run over by a space bus.
And then the third round came. Though Gregory was dead, Pyrfaen had been brought through, and a local, Ethan Cromwell found the sword and became Sur Ethan the Bold. Rene realized that this was his true destiny - that Sur Ethan would be an even greater hero than Sur Gregory, and that Rene's victory over him would be all the more rewarding. And so he challenged Sur Ethan the Bold to a duel, which Ethan accepted (at the prompting of Pyrfaen).
Meanwhile, two of the other contestants had found a way to use their powers and the local technology to create a transdimensional warp device, which would be able to send them all back home. They had just turned it on and were about to step in, when Rene and Ethan barged in on them, dueling. Then Rene tripped on his cape and tumbled into the portal, which sent him back home. Unbeknownst to him, Ethan had jumped in afterwards, at Pyrfaen's request, only to be returned to his own home dimension.
Rene Gade was annoyed. He had been about to achieve his greatest triumph, only for victory to be snatched from him at the last moment. And now he might never see the legendary Sur Ethan again!
Until one day, when he once again vanished from his world...

[Ixcalibur]

And so it was that the ballad of Sur Ethan the Bold and his Legendary Blade Pyrfaen continued; the momentary blip that had been his escape no more than the clearing of the throat of destiny to prepare for the feats that were yet to come. For somewhere in these curiously clinical woods there was a foe that was worthy of them, whose defeat would paint them with glory and ensure that they would be remembered for time immemorial. This victory would prove to an anticipant world that they were heroes, good and true with the stature of titans and hearts as noble as… something that is really noble and all round great people to be looked up to and respected and lauded with medals and stuff.

“Yeah I think you kind of lost control of that one somewhere.” Sur Ethan remarked. Pyrfaen hummed in agreement. The pair of heroes took in their new environment, their battlefield for their inevitable triumph over the wicked Rene Gade and his diabolical machinations, the woodland arena in which their accomplishments would finally be recognised. It was… well… it was underwhelming.

The forest was empty, though perhaps empty was not strong enough a word to illustrate just how little there was in the forest. The trees around them were not identical as such but there was a similarity about them that was somehow unnerving. They were tall and thin with pale bark and grey leaves. The ground was unnaturally flat with grey/green grass and not a single patch of unearthed dirt. The entire thing gave the impression of artificiality. It put Sur Ethan in the mind of a computer game, specifically in the mind of a game where one patch of land had been painstakingly rendered and then copied and pasted wherever it was applicable. Through the canopy above the sky was a blank white ceiling and thick white fog obscured anything more than a couple of meters in any given direction.

“I must say,” Pyrfaen commented, “I was rather hoping for somewhere more populated, where bystanders could gape in awe as we have our climactic showdown with that foul villain Rene. Frankly I’m kind of worried that after we have bested him nobody will believe the tales we shall tell of our exploits and we shall have no means of proof other that our word.”

“No problem,” Sur Ethan replied fishing his mobile phone from his pocket, “I can take pictures with this; then everyone will have to believe us.”

“Marvellous!” Pyrfaen trilled. “Sur Ethan you are truly Ingenious. When we return home there will be many a song about your quick thinking, resourcefulness and technological prowess.”

“…It’s just my phone.” Ethan replied awkwardly. He held the phone out in front of him, adjusted his pose, put on what was his best approximation of a serious hero face and took a picture. “It’s nothing to get worked up about; it’s not even the latest model.” Pyrfaen was for the moment silent, and awkwardly after slipping his phone back into his pocket Sur Ethan continued; “I guess we should get moving?”

“Indeed.” Pyrfaen replied. “Even as we speak who knows what kind of evil schemes Rene might be putting into motion?”

“I think he’d have a hard time concocting any kind of evil scheme in a place like this.” Ethan mused to himself as he set off in a random direction, it didn’t seem to matter which as every direction looked more or less the same.

“Posture Ethan.” Pyrfaen cut in. “Heroes don’t slouch, heroes stride.”

“Oh yeah, sorry.” Sur Ethan straightened up and attempted to adopt a more heroic stance. His efforts were clumsy and awkward but Pyrfaen didn’t have the heart to tell him he looked like a pigeon. The important thing was to be confident and really if you had that then you could walk however you chose. Ethan really did not have that confidence.

“I guess maybe he could be trying to set the trees on fire?” Ethan suggested, “Burn the forest down that kind of thing. I sort of don’t think that would actually make any difference to this place as a whole.” Pyrfaen hummed in agreement, she didn’t like this place just as much as he did, but primarily because she found it hard to believe a Battle of Legend could take place in such a hollow place. As the pair moved through the fog they didn’t notice as the trees began to thin and then as the floor beneath them was replaced by grey asphalt. Before they knew it they were standing in a fuzzy grey alleyway, the walls of which were decorated by shining neon signs advertising herbal remedies, earth-style cuisine and companionship, though usually not all on one sign. Various alien vagrants warmed their appendages over fires burning in dustbins and despite the lack of the feeling of wetness Ethan was pretty sure it was raining. Everything around them was faded and washed out in pale greys, but despite that there was something familiar about the place.

Ethan spotted him first. Rene Gade was locked in a struggle with one of the locals, some kind of hunched creature with a rattish snout, numerous beady eyes, a pair of ragged antlers that were fractured and snapped here and there and Rene’s hat grasped in his tiny taloned hands.

“You do not know who you are messink viz!” Rene exclaimed. “Why do you even vant zis? You cannot even vear a hat!”

“Halt foul foe!” Ethan cried holding Pyrfaen aloft. “Cease your wicked schemery and face me in one on one… the… um… traditional combat of heroes… I mean um… a duel!” He was bad at this. Rene turned and his attention diverted the rat-deer-thing managed to get the upper hand, wrestle the hat from Rene’s grip and then make a getaway down one of the alleyways.

“How dare you address ze great Rene Gade in such an insolent fashion!” Rene stared at the kid in bewilderment. “Who are you supposed to be anyvay?”

“You do not recognise me?” Sur Ethan asked, getting more into his heroic role with every word he spoke. “Mayhap the time you spent absent has addled your noggin. I am Sur Ethan the Bold; aka Your Nemesis and this is our Final Showdown, but only one of us can survive this and that one of us will be me.”

“Perhaps it is you who is delusional, I do not know you and I vould not vaste my time on you even if I did.” Rene replied. “Excuse me I have a score to settle with a rat creature.” He turned dramatically, his cape sweeping behind him and ran down the first alleyway he saw in the hope of reclaiming his precious hat.

“That was weird.” Ethan said. “Should I go after him? Also where are we exactly?” Suddenly something clicked for Pyrfaen.

“I know this place.” She said, her voice sad and distant. “This was where Sur Gregory died. And the way Rene didn’t recognise us, I’m guessing this was before he died as well.”

“Oh man.” Sur Ethan said, “Are we doing time travel now? That is so cool! Do you think we changed history? Do you reckon Rene doesn’t have his hat any more because of us?” Pyrfaen made a noise that was an aural approximation of a shrug.

“I don’t know how this works.” She said. “Maybe?” There was a thoughtful pause. “Saving the life of a hero is almost as heroic as defeating a dastardly villain… Come now Sur Ethan the Bold, we have a Legend to write; and a bus to catch.”

[Dragon Fogel]

Rene Gade laughed as he walked through the woods. Fate had been kind to him.

"So! Ze great hero Ethan is here. Zis is perfect! At last, I vill defeat him and prove once and for all zat Rene Gade is the greatest fighter in ze vorld!"

There was no one to hear Rene's words, but that had never stopped him before.

"All I need now is to set ze stage properly for ze battle. Zere is but one proper way to make an entrance in ze forest, after all."

Rene started climbing one of the trees, but found its surface unusually smooth and lacking in handholds. And all the branches were further up. He had only climbed up about two feet before he slid down and crashed to the ground.

"Zis vill not do!" he shouted to nobody in particular. "Ze tree is faulty. I vill have to use another."

But his next attempt yielded the same result, as did the next thirty. Finally, Rene began to conclude that there was something wrong with the forest.

"Who is responsible for zis travesty of a forest?" he shouted. "I cannot make ze dramatic leap down from the treetops if I cannot even reach zem!"

Rene was so angry that he didn't even talk to himself for nearly five minutes as he stormed through the forest. He barely even noticed as the forest gave way to a cave.

And then he heard the battle cry.

"You cannot win, foul beast! Your fiery breath, mighty wings, and scaly hide may deter lesser warriors, but Sur Gregory the Indefatigable will prevail!"

Rene was not one to show shock under most circumstances, except when he lost a fight. But when Sur Gregory ran past him, paying him no attention except to raise an eyebrow at his outfit, he was surprised.

"Sur Gregory!" Rene shouted. "How can zis be? I saw you die to ze space bus before my blade had ze chance to finish you!"

"I've got no idea what you're talking about, stranger," Gregory replied. "Or what you're doing here, for that matter. But you should just leave now. You've clearly got no chance of slaying the dragon and claiming the legendary blade."

Sur Gregory ran off, with no further explanation, as Rene tried to grasp what happened. It took a few minutes, but finally, something clicked in his mind.

"Sur Gregory did not know me. Zere is no way any man could have forgotten ze honor of being my nemesis. Zis must be in ze past, before ze battle!"

Rene smiled.

"And he said somezing about ze legendary blade. Zis must be just before he finds ze Pyrfaen! But if I pass ze trial first, and claim ze sword, zen I vill have outdone Sur Gregory! It is ze perfect plan!"

He started to run after Sur Gregory, then fell facefirst on the ground as he tripped on his cape.