[center][img=http://i.imgur.com/FvaLtwD.png][/center]

[center][b]Anatolian Wilderness: Battle III[/b]
[b][i]All I see is red; all I see is red; all I see is red
A bed of roses - red, red, red
A pool of blood - red, dead, dead
Red is all I see[/i][/b][/center]

---

Better late than never, as most are want to say.

From the background, as his mind wrangled with the possibilities and with thorough analysis (something he's usually not prone to doing, but in this case, his mind needed something to grasp onto before diving in headfirst) Royce kept to himself the majority of the fight, watching as friend and foe alike clashed. It was different, odd with how few of them there were now, like something was missing, more than just the friends that actually were. It hit Royce in the gut, churning until it exploded in a burst of pain that he never truly felt but within the confines of his mind, just ached. It threw him into the side of a tree, made him heavily dependent on the bark that scratched through burnt and muddied clothing, though somehow still operational in its capacity to protect him. Maybe standing around wasn't the best idea; surveying the fight seemed ridiculous, at this point, and proved no more a distraction than the clouds in the sky. That made Royce almost desperate, reaching for his rapier as if it held all the answers.

The sword felt heavy in his hands, almost weighed him down from where he kept to the tree. If not for the sturdy sentinel, he'd more than likely tumble, face caked in the dirt below his feet. The weapon was never an extension of himself—he never let it be for fear of attachment, ridiculous as it seemed—but looking at it now, waving it through the air haphazardly, it seemed even less so a part of him. He let it. Let it fall to his side in a display almost careless, moronic even as his eyes, half-lidded glazed over the tumbling Magdelina, the raucous Kimberly, fur flying, to Remi's silent guard and fearless leader Olivia, to what he'd jest as his twin, Em, and finally toward their livid Sophia and Aaron's bravado full force. And it ached, in his chest and the hand that held loosely to the sword, tip nipping at the ground to scratch the leaves.

He wanted it to stop.

The blobs closest to the edge of the field went down first, his rapier stabbing loosely into their frantic, large eyes like he could care less if it even killed them. And he continued, caring lazily for any swipes or lashes that found their way to him. Royce picked up his pace, red finally tinging the rim of his vision, until the careless stabs became more precise, more surgical, and with something behind each that Royce could identify, but choice not to, in fear or simple want of ignorance. And he flew, leaped from foe to foe in his quickening pace, stabbing until his sword was tinged in blue-black goo and felt less heavy, more attached—another thing he'd willingly ignored, for the better, he proposed. The goo made way for a purple miasma, brushing from the pours of his skin and sliding onto the blade itself, hissing as it climbed down to the tip and fell in thin strings. They cried then, aching as their nervous systems exploded in a flurry of purple and black, only lasting as long as the blade sunk into their flesh and Roy relished the sound. Reveled and pumped through with adrenaline in the cry of anguish as a tongue lashed out, his foot pinning it down with as much speed and his rapier slicing clean through the reddened flesh and he cried along with another beast, mocking acid burning is tongue and throat, as Royce let loose the rapier, watching it arch into the air until it found itself embedded in the side of the smaller creatures.

Everything engulfed into blackness after that, pouring through as he fell into the abyss of dirtied, anguished hands, and found himself back into the red tinged world of the living in that instant. Grasping onto the handle of the blade, Roy unleashed it from the beast, smiling wide at the xeno's unearthly scream as it moved to attack. The body of it slammed into his side, tossing him, rolling him through the patch of grass and dirt, grunting into every hit until he slid back onto his feet. Brows creased in contempt, Royce dove forward to relinquish the anger pent inside, letting the sword seep through the eye as a tongue wrapped tight to his forearm. It pulled, stopped the tip from piercing anything of more importance, threatening to break Royce's arm with a simple flick of the powerful organ.

Pulling himself forward, he narrowed his eyes to stare the beast dead center, almost daring it, almost wanting it to unleash the series of pain through bone and muscle until he felt only the numbness. And the xeno pulled, only tugging sharply for but a second to hear something strain but not snap. Royce tugged harder, his other hand brandishing a brown, vine like substance as the thorns that grew from it sunk into the flesh of the blob's tongue. He pulled then pushed, the blade rushing forward until it found the underbelly, found the ground beneath it and his arm, now laden with brambles found itself deep in the large eye socket of the xeno. Royce savored the moment, then, letting the blackened, tainted blood of the beast drip cleaning down the vines twisting tighter around his forearm before letting it all go.

Unleashed from within the beast, vines exploded with spores and thorns coating the air around it, finding beasts as it dug its way through the earth, spirits laughing as they twisted and turned, invisible to the eye, round and round each limb of large, dull green vine and digging deep into the flesh in bursts of orange spores. The beasts around him backed off, finding it better not to skewer themselves in the large plantlike structure that burst forth from their fallen comrade like a parasite looking for more suitable a host. The large vines found their way to the nearest ally, Kimberly, wrapping large armor around the man's fearsome form and bursting forth a small spray of orange into the foes around him on impact, digging snugly enough to be considered a second skin. As soon as the vines appeared, so did Royce, a portal screaming his arrival as unwilling hands pushed him from the nethers, dark twisting off him like a shroud.

Hands finding fur beneath the plant armor he'd fashioned for the man, Royce offered him a smile in spite of the mental war he was currently waging, logic winning out over impulse for just that moment. And in that instant, he flashed a look at the nearest Prime, the large sentry's eyes meeting his own before it reeled back with a cry and a warning. The spirit within him burst forth in a blaze, silver eyes flashing red for the split second it materialized, searing its figure like a brand into the beast's mind. And that cry turned hostile, eyes still locked onto Royce's own, as well as the smile, a predatory flash of his teeth as he matched the stare.

"I think I feel like dying tonight," he offered to no one in particular, though he was certain his words flew fine toward Kimberly's keen ears, "How about you, Kimmy?" directing those words louder and pointedly, but without cutting off his staring match with the beast before them.

[hider=Summary] -Roy pretty much made a bloody swath through the battle field until he reached the others, particularly near Kim.
-His blade is coated thickly with blood and neurotoxin, so that his attacks, however ineffective, at least cripple the beasts for the second the poison sticks.
-Roy suffered some minor damage from a random blob's Crush and Tongue Lash before killing it ruthelessly
-Roy's enjoying the killing too much. Maybe a little too much. I wonder what it'll be like for him should they find more humanoid foes to deal with. I'm both aching and fearful to find out.
-Roy's using this all to vent out everything he's trying to bottle up, sad-face.
-Roy cast Bramble Spores on himself and then on the dead blob, as well as anything within the vicinity.
-Bramble Spores catch most of the blobs near Roy and Kim, casting Curse and Darkness on most of them, killing some.
-The bramble from Roy's ability latches onto Kim, acting as a sturdy armor against his targets
-Roy caught Beta Prime's eye not too far off whilst Kim attacks Alpha Prime, immediately casting Fox-Eye ability on it and keeping it locked in the ability long enough for it to seep through (hopefully) and throw it into a frenzy. The ability marks it with another round of Despair, but also Protection before it goes berserk.[/hider]