ArchivedLogs:Thorns of Clay

Thorns of Clay
Dramatis Personae Masque, Jim	2013-05-15 warning: general bodyhorror squelch. (Part of Thunderdome.)
Location Thunderdome
It's a warehouse, or something like it; at least it's spacious, and was probably once industrial; at the moment it's largely just empty. There are tracks in the floor from long-since disused equipment and the construction of walls and high exposed-beam ceilings is sturdy. The center of the room has been excavated, since this place was in actual daily use. In the middle a pit has been gashed out of the concrete; it's not /deep/ and it serves more as a foundation than anything else; around its wide circular perimeter a cage has been erected. Nearly reaching up to ceiling-height, it is constructed of thick sturdy metal bars wrapped in a thinner wire mesh. Surrounding the cage there is a lot of empty space. Some nights, though, when fights are in session, the room is filled; with people, with cameras (though no outsiders' cameras are allowed in), with paper betting slips and folding chairs. The spotlights in the ceiling are bright-bright-bright, the better to illuminate the fighters within the centerpiece cage. The last fight has been quite a disappointment, if the audience is any indication. Their collective noises have ebbed to a steady, low rumble in anticipation for the next show. The last two contestants are only just being grabbed and THWACKED into submission - one less so than the other, considering a girl passed out (dead?) in the center of the ring has ceased moving. Around her head and down her arms, magenta-coloured crystals have formed and been broken, bits and pieces of it littering the gouged out mini-arena like vibrant chunks of sugar, yet sharp as shards of glass. One man busies himself with sweeping the caged in area clear of them with a big, wooden broom, but he's not being too thorough. Yet another carries the girl out of there by her long, auburn hair, while a third and fourth approach the fight's last victor - a man, a teenager? Covered in fur, reminiscent of a sloth, complete with elongated arms and two long, curved claws on each hand. Exhausted and covered in bleeding gashes of red and shiny magenta /bits/. He too is escorted out, less than kindly. The men return with another mutant in tow -- Masque, handled ever so carefully with rubber gloves and a single baton-smack to the side of his chest to urge him to /get a move on/, is lead into the center by several men at once. Though he initially makes several attempts to SWIPE his hands at their faces, obedience finds him all too quickly once he is actually lead into the bright lights, the noise wrapping around his brain like a blanket. He shudders, /hisses/ and ducks forward as he is released, then eyes his surroundings in a mixture of both wonder and terror all at once. Pupils big enough to make his irises look like nothing but a dull grey outline. He may... also, have drooled on his collar a little. The lights /flare/ brighter, to accompany that familiar voice piping up: The announcer, tearing through the constant noise and making it, too, increase in volume through cheers and more indeterminable droning, "LLLADIES AND GENTLEMEN, GET YOURSELVES UP AND READY FOORRRRRR-- /THE FLESHMANCER/." And the crowd goes WILD. "LOOKS LIKE HE'S IN A MOOD TO ENTERTAIN! LET'S SEE HOW HE DOES AGAINST--" There's a pause, as if the announcer himself can't /quite/ believe what he's about to say either, "/THE ENT/!" Jim's lead up to the fighting arena has gotten sedate - ish. At least his movements after the first few wild seconds of removal from the kennels have gotten mindfully slow, broadcasting his intentions. It certainly makes it easier to see where he's going and what's going on when he's not getting zapped and prodded and shoved. He - braces once he enters the main room, as the roar of the crowd bears down, his clenched jaw making the strange shallow parallel swipes at his cheekbone constrict strangely where the elasticity of rough-bark skin doesn't quite... align in its grain. He begins that grim trek towards the central cage with the same long rapid strides as before, resigned and in his resignation he's letting all the noise and excitement just run its damn course and /jump up/ his system when -- His eyes suddenly latch onto something. Something waiting for him there, just outside the cage. Rising up from a large plastic pot with the words 'True Value' on it: young slender gray-white trunk, branching off in the fractal systems of expanding nature, topped with /lush/ new spring leaves. A young sapling, but not too young, sitting quietly alongside the entrance to the cage ring. "Bon appetite, freak-" a voice is muttering behind him, sounding absurdly /pleased/ and Jim isn't even listening, he's launching forward with a kind of -... /throat/ noise of desperation, seizing onto the trunk at it's thickest point, just below where it splits open in its first Y, like he intends to /choke the life/ out of it. His eyes are wide, /desperate/ and there's this quiet... 'krnkl' sound. A sound of the leaves on the tree wilting instantly, curling in suddenly dead and dry, the trunk desiccating with little creaks as cracks, warping, shrinking, the roots making silky earth-tearing sounds as they crumple in like dying spider legs. All too soon, he's dragged away from it, swipe-swipe-SWIPING after it for one more BITE, "-nngh! nh.- Just! -hh." The cage is slammed shut behind him. And now. It's just him and Masque under the spotlights. "/Ent/," Jim, breathing through his /teeth/, can't seem to decide if this is hilarious or the last fucking straw before he just burns it all down with his MIND. "Seriously? For a pack of bloodthirsty psychopaths, they got some /fucking geeky/ literary tastes." He's... probably not really saying this to Masque. Hi, Masque. Jim is eyeing you with his hands open and clawed up at his sides. Already moving into preparation to circle wide. Masque's attention is fleeting at this point. Nothing holds it very long - whatever they've put in his food has taken full effect, and he's hardly sentient enough to keep his jaw from dropping open, agape, at every turn of his head. Of which there are many, slow as they come. The lights get a glower as he attempts to turn away from them but fails to - what with them shining down from all directions. The audience is a roar he cannot possibly push from his mind, and cacophony of deafening horror bearing down on him. Whether he's even noticed Jim or his act of /plant-devouring/ at all seems dubious, at this point. Turning with his brain seemingly only able to give orders to one limb at a time while the others /trail/ behind through sheer privilege of being /attached/ to him, it's a miracle he's even managed to stay upright. Well, semi-upright, slouched over, head low. His gaze slides from half-lidded eyes laboriously slowly across the bars, what can be seen beyond, then... oh, there you are, Jim. Hello. Except not so much 'hello' and more 'jesus fucking christ where the fuck did you come from'. He makes an angry, choked sort of noise before reeling gracelessly to the side, /away/, only to have it be rewarded with a ZZP. It does little but to cause him to throw his hand up at his neck, nails digging into his own collarbone as he turns his attention downward. HGRGH what the hell was that. "-oh, come on." Jim says in a miserable /snarl/. His own collar keeps bzz-BZZT'ing as he keeps at a distance, vibrating against the black-burnt wood of his neck, but he doesn't seem to /notice/ it until the thin tendrils of smoke creeping up from beneath his collar start to thicken and the wood /spits/ again - /this/... he looks down at with a /livid/, pop-eyed frown. Since scarfing down that tree, he looks instantly healthier in many ways, perked up and /lively/. His hair remains gray, the side of his face remains warp-indented with those faint hairline cracks as though it were dry, cold clay when smushed. But a few lean green shoots are poking out now, hopeful little buds. Jim throws open his hands and yells at the crowd, "He's /fucked up/. You cocksucking sons of bitches can't be fucking serious!" The only answer is the feeling of a very light ribbon of heat lick up past his cheek. A light yet-invisible whisper of flame, as wood sparks dangerously hot under his collar. He slaps at it with a yelp, doing what just about any creature unhappy with a collar would instinctively do - he tries to /walk backwards/ out of it, "Shit shit shit shit. - alright!" And then he turns on Masque, bracing his feet against the ground. The roar of the crowd /bathes/ them in thick liquid waves. "Fuck. This how you like it?" He mutters it so quietly, Masque may not even hear. Doesn't matter. "This how it is?" He reaches behind his head, grabs onto his own shirt, drags it up over his head and throws it aside. "Sorry, Masque. 'f you can even fucking hear me." He begins to stride across the distance towards the once-Morlock man. And as he does. arms extending outwards at his sides, his body begins to CHANGE. Roll. Knot up, expand into /sharp/ spikes. The movement appears the only thing that DOES make it to Masque, who lifts his head just in time to see a mass of spikey plant man coming toward him. And in his mind? Oh, this is likely ten times worse, still. A murderous monstrosity charging his way while the distorted bellow of the audience filters its way through his chemically stunted brain functions. Whether he thinks he knows what he's supposed to do is debatable, in his current state of mind. Whether he thinks he knows what he NEEDS to do, however, becomes clear once he's let himself lean upward and back with an angry scowl, arms raising as he /lurches forward/ with hands outstretched and the coordination of a bat with a paper bag over its head. If that bat had the ability to melt flesh with any exposed part of its skin. There is no holding back, this time. Not even if he wanted to. As Jim becomes a creature of nightmare, and Masque's shadow throws itself in thrashing stark vectors under the different angled spotlights, there's a breathless moment. Sound stops for Jim, and his head lowers a single increment, watching the other man as though he were the only living person in the room. He says one word, wearily, grimly, as though answering some unspoken question. "Yeah." Just that. Like an 'okay'. And he throws forward an arm (or a branched off portion of his arm?) to give Masque a nice easy target to latch onto - it /sags/ under the lurching hand that finds it . Jim's other hand grabs forward, or at least the part of it that is still hand, the knuckles twisted and gnarled, one finger shooting off in sprigs, to try and seize onto Masque's other bony wrist. And he /bears/ forward, his legs and feet splitting open amorphously into snarls of treeroots to trip up around Masque's feet. All of it silent. Every motion deliberate. His face: just cast iron grim. With Masque's attention constantly shifting between things that may or may not actually all exist outside of his mind, he might seem like an easy target - and this certainly does promise to be a quick fight with the way he does exactly as Jim predicted, growling incoherently all the way. As soon as one of Jim's arms is grabbed, Masque seems to intend to use it to try and steady himself, grabbing on tightly while simultaneously attempting to painlessly rake his spidery fingers through the tree-like limb. But steadying himself suddenly becomes a lot harder when the tangles gather up around his feet before his other wrist is seized, only to be violently /pulled back/ in reflex. Regardless of whether it is released, and either through cornered-animal instinct or a stroke of drug-induced madness, he lets himself drop to the side before /ramming/ a shoulder toward Jim's torso. Roughly for the sternum, though that's likely not entirely by /decision/ so much as where he happens to fling himself. Complete with a somewhat absent, "/HHNGH/." It quickly stops looking like a fight at all really, and becomes a strange violent homage to nature and destruction. Jim watches - /watches/ his arm collapse under Masque's hand; its texture tough, maybe gritty like hard mudclay containing rock-grit where treebark no longer has any connection to the human medium Masque works through. It makes a strange wet wood crunch as the far end droops under the mashing of what bones or stiff flora fibers were supporting it, collapses in slow motion while on the other side, his fingers /tear loose/ with a velvety 'crrnnnghhhh... - RCH', stretching for a moment, developing fault-cracks and then falling away with a rumple of leaf-rustling to the ground. Where these things fall, there's an instant responding strain of muscle?plant?fiber, a feeling of /swelling/ under Masque's hands, and just as quickly more branches - gnarled, /deformed/, misshapen - RUPTURE outwards, replacing them, pouring over Masque's hands with sharp spikes to rake over knuckles, spear through his palms. "-hh!" This is only out where their limbs are, there's a whole different world here, where bodies collide. Jim's chest /dents/ when Masque slams into it, making a kind of shallow … mold of Masque's bony shoulder. There isn't much - /breath/ in Jim to knock loose, his inner parts gone hard and solid, and, like his extremities, he is /morphing/ under Masque, against Masque, /around/ Masque. His skin twists, grows hard yet it's /pouring/ outwards like a thick thorny tar that flakes, contorts. Over the course of many years, a tree will eventually grow /around/ fence posts embedded to close to them. In fast-motion, this process is sped up to impossible speed all around Masque's body in a bruising /pour./ One of Masque's hands /slips/ away in the nick of time, but another is caught within the very heart of the spikey sharp trap newly created on Jim's arm, skin tearing and blood starting to pour down between cracks of his barky dry exterior. With his slamming into Jim proving useful, he looks almost... content for a moment, just to stand there, leaning into the little dent he's created. His eyes fixated on something even more terrible, it seems, something off into the distance. Perhaps solely existing in his MIND but there for /him/ all the same. This almost fearful, dreading lopsided gazing at nothing persists even while he is enveloped, his free arm dangling at his side while the one nearest to Jim is enveloped along with part of Masque's side, like he doesn't /quite/ understand what is going on /right near him/ even while sharp thorns pierce his chest, side and entirety of one arm. This sends streams of red pushing downward between plant and skin, dripping in messy patterns over the floor. Even his mutant ability seems to have had its switch turned to 'off'. Only a little while later do the lights seem to come back in Masque's headspace - vaguely, anyway. Not through pain (in fact, is he feeling any of it at all?), but through the sensation of continued growth of thorny mass reaching the shoulder of his yet untangled arm. Which causes Masque to panic, his whole /face/ pulling tight, teeth bare and eyes wide. He /leans/ has heavily as he is able into the body slowly encasing him while that one free hand swings messily for Jim's face. FLICK. On switches the melting again, blunting thorns long after a number of them have already done their damage. Jim's face, through all of this - isn't even shocked. It's /everything else/, dreadful, /bitterly/ gritted hard, almost just - tired, too. Mournful. Resigned. His own eyes also wide, his teeth also bared, he throws up a hand - or... a forked branch-end of gnarled knuckly branches and catches Masque's wrist again. Or tries to. Even if this means it will start /splitting/ his arm up the long way if Masque continues to fight his way after Jim's face. "-lk... k." Masque pressing forwards is a Masque /pressing deeper/ into Jim's chest and body. Which begins to sag under his efforts, the spikes smashing down and folding against MELTMODE. The... /off/ texture of plant cells that complicate what parts of his body that are still human make the process less smooth. It catches, gives, then snags again, sending up a creaking of wood protesting under increasing weight. Too late, Jim tries to yank back, probably /dragging/ Masque along with him, and then instead he just -- lurches forward, throwing both of his arms around Masque's head and trying to SMASH it against his shoulder. Either default melting will press it right on through. Or else the ever twisting-writhing-GROWING plantcells will start to grow /outward/. To envelope. Masque's swinging arm is caught by the wrist, his fingers attempting a an angry, splayed curl downward in an attempt to find what is causing this restriction in movement. But then - THUD, goes his head, against Jim's shoulder. It elicits a groan in confusion and a fierce /pull/ away-- tearing his own flesh but not actually allowing him to /go/ anywhere, prompting a sad sort of crumpling of his eyebrows above unfocused eyes. "Nnhhn...?" Stuck. As though he seems to realise the fight is coming to an end, the new thorns that grow inward to pierce his flesh do so without the numbed deformations. Yet more blood escapes from the narrow space between Jim and Masque as it runs in miniature streams down newly encroached upon skin and bark, down boots and pools at their feet. The 'Fleshmancer' leans into his opponent, still, but only by virtue of gravity. His eyes remain half open even as thorny growth start to catch onto his face as well, but he is growing increasingly paler as time goes by - likely unconscious already. It seems that for now, at least, Masque's struggle has ceased. No sooner has Masque's face impacted with Jim's shoulder than Jim actually is /pulling in/ the spines jutting up there. As he starts going slack, more withdraw, Jim's arms (or the rough approximation he has at the moment) remaining locked around Masque for a small eternity. Dead, horrified silence has filled the room. Jim had all but forgotten the crowd, and to be fair, the crowd has all but forgotten /themselves/, same wretched revolted noises of horror, deep visceral "Oohs!" and that ONE GUY who can't hold his stomach, still leaning miserably over a bucket but watching this last dark moment unfold in the ring. Jim isn't panting. He's not trying to catch his breath. Possibly because his lungs and ribs aren't entirely breathing-shaped anymore - or wouldn't be, if they were fully formed inside his wooden body. Bizarrely, his nostrils /flare/ rhythmically as though he /were/ panting. All of his spikes have withdrawn, some of them warped and folded, some of them sharp and /hard/, all of them bloody. As some announcement is made, something loud and excited that stokes the crowd into wild cheers (distantly, in the back of his mind, he hears "Ent! Ent! Ent!"), Jim is slowly crouching down, tree-knob knees folding with a creak of wood, and he sets Masque on the ground. And then he sits down on his ass, draping the fucked up remaining mess of his arms off either knee, dropping back his head. And waits for them to come and collect this mess up to bring them back inside.