There was a Shadow. 

For all intents and purposes it was a normal shadow - an area on which the sun did not shine directly, due to the rays being intercepted by something physical. The very same applied here, which would have made the shadowy ordinary, had it not been for where it was. 

Eclipses were not unheard of. In fact, where Lily came from, there existed beings who could create en eclipse if they so desired. But eclipses were the product of the moon blocking the sun, and covered enormous swathes of land. This, however, was smaller. And the shadow was not so much on the ground.

It was on the clouds. 

Above even the clouds, was [i]something[/i] so large that it cast an enormous shadow upon the clouds, shrouding the city of Echoes in near-perpetual twilight. It was as large as Draco - a nickname the dragon had grown fond of - when he unveiled his true form, perhaps even larger still. And it just hovered there. Silent. Looming. From this distance it was difficult to decide exactly where exactly it hovered. It was not directly above, that much she could tell, but even then only a general direction could be ascertained. [i]North,[/i] she thought. She didn't know what was that way, except more of this city that posed as their arena. What even was there in this city? Oren had alluded to more treasures, like the enchanted flask she had received, being spread around the city, and even possibly obtainable should they help out some of the College staff, should she encounter them. It was a risk, seeing as she could never know exactly what she'd end up getting, but it was also an opportunity. 

If all artifacts were of a similar level of power as the one she had received, then hoarding them might become a very valid tactic in the coming battles. If her estimations, based on what she had witnessed from it up until now, the Flask could severed limbs, and perhaps even otherwise mortal wounds. It was not an estimation she wanted to test, but if it ever came to it, at least she would have a solution. Moreover, it was an incredible trump card, being able to fully, or partially, heal her own wounds. If done stealthily, it could trick her opponent into believing her possessing innate regeneration, which would damage their morale seeing as they could not harm her - as seen from their perspective. At worst, they would know that she had a means to restore her vitality, and either seek to remove it from her, or beat her into submission with such force that she could not even muster consuming the elixir. 

Enemies like those were her favourite. The easiest to outmanoeuvre.

Those were thoughts for later, however, as Lily, Brucie, and Mouse were outside. For the first time since their arrival in the case of the former two. The 'Drone' that Lily had spotted earlier had departed, allowing them to move without worrying about being spotted by some alien machine, of which they knew nothing. They now stood in the shade between two large warehouses, looking up at the sky; Brucie to Lily's left, Mouse to her right. The elixir she held carefully in a tail, letting the others form a cocoon around it even as she, and they, moved, preparing for the coming confrontation. She had expended all of her lightning yesterday, and so needed to store up as much as possible. She also still wasn't sure why Mouse had decided to stay. She had given him some food and a warm place to sleep, as well as company. But aside from that she had done very little for him. It certainly wasn't enough to earn the respect of most animals, but this one... It spoke of previous interaction with humans, or those similar to humans. Question was, who had he been with until then? At the end of the day it was an unimportant question, but still a small curiousity she wanted to quench at some point, if the chance revealed itself. 

She brought her attention back to her surroundings, looking up the narrow alley they were in. It led to a wider road and the main entrances to the buildings themselves. She had a good idea of what was up there, even without a lot of prior knowledge of the area. All she had seen so far had been a bird's eye view of the surrounding lands when she first arrived, and though that told her little of the specifics, it gave her an idea. Disregarding the obvious entrances and more warehouses, it would lead to something of a main street in the district. But not one to take chances, Lily motioned for Brucie and Mouse to stay. "Stay here," she said and moved forward, her steps making nary a sound as she moved - just one of the perks of becoming what she was. Graceful movement had become second nature. 

She reached the end of the alley in short order, having kept her tails up off the earthy ground so as to not kick up a dust cloud. Peeking around the corner, weaving a simple illusion around herself to make her less noticeable, she looked around. It was pretty much as anticipated with multiple doors to huge hangars, most closed and some opened, but nothing in the way of movement or signs of any recent activity. She glanced up, towards the roofs, and saw only a helicopter fly by, easily audible even from so high up. Other than that, however, there were no immediate threats so she waved at Brucie and Mouse to follow. The dog, surprisingly, moved even before Brucie did. And also moved with significantly less noise. [i]I suppose that is what I get for teaming up with a guy like him,[/i] she mused. 

"So what now?" Brucie asked, having the foresight to keep his tone of voice low, even if the gruff and somewhat grinding quality of his voice made it split the quiet easily. 

"I'm not sure. The main road, so to speak, is here. And I'm sure it will lead somewhere, but I don't know exactly." She cast a glance at Mouse who had begun sniffing the immediate area around them, either out of curiousity or because he had found something. For now, he simply seemed curious. "I also don't want to just walk out there. Far too many angles of attack. Even with my hearing, I won't discount the fact that there are contestants in the tournament who can sneak up on me. And even if I were to be dumb and risk it, there's still my next opponent. I don't know where they are, so I could risk walking in the wrong direction." 

Brucie seemed unconcerned, speaking as Lily had come to expect of him: Bluntly and informally. "Why don't ya just use one of those questions that pun-guy offered everyone?" She had spoken of the message to him during their dinner, and the question brought made her consider. Why, indeed, hadn't she? 

"I don't want to waste it," she lied. "Not only that, but the guy's an ass. Don't want to deal with him." [i]Last one wasn't a lie. But I can't just say that I had already forgotten about it.[/i] 

Brucie, however, did not seem to catch the lie. He simply shrugged. "Up to you. Do whatcha wanna do." 

Of course. Of course he'd say that. Sometimes he was like a slave, bound to share only her opinions unless ordered otherwise. But then again, it fit, didn't it? She had his soul, the thing most precious to him. Why would he not do as she pleased? ...Why indeed? She glanced at Brucie out the corner of her eye, keeping most of her attention on the mouth of the alley. He had been very enthusiastic about killing her when first they met, but now he was like a loyal friend, following her wherever she went. He even acted like a friend around her - albeit a rowdy one - something which she had never expected. Was this a common thing when you took someone's soul here? Did their allignment, so to speak, change? Did they actually become akin to friends to whoever defeated them? And if so, would they actually fight for them? Brucie had expressed interest in getting into fights, but was that for his own enjoyment alone, or would he actually be willing to fight alongside her, for [i]her[/i] sake? And on top of that, would that mean that the more opponens someone took alive, the largr a fighting force they could have? It was something to consider. A question to ask. But later. 

Now she had to decide what to do. Brucie had given her a good idea: To call upon Oren and ask for the direction to her opponent. It would be the easy thing to do, but she only got to do it three times. First, she wanted to rule out other options. That meant trying to find out if her opponent was nearby without the help of that... [i]person.[/i] 

She crouched down and put a hand on Mouse, getting his attention. "Do you smell anything?" She asked, not quite sure if she expected an answer or anything. He had been sniffing around quite a bit in the last few minutes, but he didn't see to have caught any interesting scents. The slight tilt of his head and flopping of his ears, however, told her about what she expected: He understood exactly nothing of what she had said. 

[i]Well then,[/i] she thought, forcing her ears to lay down across her skull, putting her hands over them to block out as much sound as she could. She then closed her eyes and, hoping against hope that she could smell anything herself. 

The result was expected. Nothing. She could smell maybe a little bit of dog, and possibly sea water, because of Mouse and Brucie, but aside from that there was nothing. She removed her hands from over her ears and stood up again, earning a questioning look from Brucie which she pointedly ignored. [i]Of course. Sense of smell increased just enough for cheese to get even more disgusting, but not enough to be actually useful. Joy.[/i] She eventually sighed and resigned herself to the fact that she would have to seek help from the single most obnoxious individual she had ever come across. 

[i]How someone can ever be more annoying than Sindri. Granted, he was at least interesting,[/i] Lily mused, and absently tapped the phylactery with a nail. She eventually mustered enough willpower to summon Oren. "But there's no button," she muttered out loud. 

Brucie, having remained silent up until this point, looked over her shoulder and down at the phylactery - Lily to put a hand over her cleavage. He, however, paid no mind to it. "Why don'tcha just talk to it? Figure if there's no buttons, it's voice activated?" He blinked at the look she gave him, prompting him to continue. "Ya looked like you wanted to contact the guy like I said, and then mentioned no buttons. I figured it's cause you didn't know how to contact him." She shrugged his mechanical shoulders. "Just talk to it - him." 

A part of her wanted to whine that he was irritating, but another - stronger - part of her wanted to just get it over with. That, at least, wouldn't make her appear petulant. So she grabbed the Phylactery by one of its syringes, pulling it up so that she could see it. "Oren," she began, "I need to speak with you." 

Peppy as ever, the announcer's voice came in response only a few moments later.  "Hello again, fluffer!  Fraternizing with the enemy, are we?  Then again, I really liked ol' Brucie, so in a way you're doing me -hell, even the world- a favor.  I mean, the dude's like a mech shark!  Or shark mech.  AND he likes my puns.  Could you ask for better?" He chuckled.  "I guess you're asking for yourself, though.  What can the great and powerful Oren do for you?"

[i]I pity his parents.[/i] "You said that you could point us in the direction of our next opponent," Lily said tersely. "So tell me, where is he in relation to me?" 

"I did say that, didn't I?  Well, if I had to hazard a guess based on the tracking chips implanted in his phylactery, I'd say he's roughly in the realm of exactly half a mile west-northwest of your position.  To be frank, I fear he's grown complacent in his recent victory.  It'll be up to you to set him straight."

Obnoxious or not, Oren had given her tangible information to go on. No vague statements, only poor attempts at humour and wittyness. She ignored his last comment and instead looked to Brucie, who had overheard the conversation and was currently wearing a broad smile. Whether at the compliments toward him, or the ever-dry "fluff" jokes. She quickly decided that seeing a shark smile was even more off-putting than hearing a fomorian laugh. 

"We head out," Lily said, craning her neck past the corner of the building. There still weren't anything of interest out there. "West-northwest he said. That means it's roughly-" she looked to her right where the main road lead to what she assumed was to more populated areas, then to the left where it seemed to lead to little but a junkyard. Granted, there were still buildings, but they were more run-down than functional. The ground was sand instead of dirt, too, and in the distance she swore she could see tiny shapes moving. Whatever, or whoever, these shapes were, they were brazen and unafraid. And there were more then one of them, which mean that it was either a potentially safe place to move in the open, or it an unsafe place: It all depended on how they treated newcomers and intruders. 

Hopefully well. 

She walked out on the main street and looked around her, and when no one sprung out to attack her she waved for Brucie and Mouse to follow. The road steadily transitioned from packed dirt to packed sand, and occasionally a mix of both dirt and sand. As they approached more and more of the metallic constructs in the distance became visible, and soon they were able to see a great collection of just about nothing. There were machines seemingly all over the place, spread haphazardly around with no clear pattern. She walked between two multi-armed contraptions each several times her height, uncertain what even this thing was supposed to accomplish.

"Looks like some junk yard for failed omnics," Brucie mused from behind her, drawing Lily's attention. She glanced at him over her shoulder, receiving a shrug. "Thinking robots where I come from. Went rogue some years ago and resulted in a war. Still trouble to this day." 

Self-aware robots? That was something. Even where Lily came from they didn't have that kind of sophisticated software. Granted, they did have the ability to create pseudo-aware life, in the form of golems and the like. This did, of course, require someone capable of infusing the empty shell that was the golem with pseudo-life. Their respective worlds aside, what stood silently and lifelessly around them were metal giants, good for nothing but scrap or serving as a source of spare parts. By the looks of it, there had already been some parts stripped off of some of them. A smell of oil and dust permeated the area, much like an old workshop from Lily's world. It wasn't entirely unpleasant, but certainly not entirely pleasant either. 

A quiet whimper came from somewhere close behind her. Turning around she saw Mouse backing away from a bipedal mesh of metal and wires - back towards her. It stood looking at them near soundlessly, only a series of muted clicks and sounds of spinning parts gave away its functionality. Its single, large, mechanical eye blinked at them like a camera shutter once before it turned and walked away, its movements stiff and purposeful. [i]As one would expect of a robot,[/i] Lily mused. At least it hadn't shown itself as being a threat, even if Mouse had been frightened by it. She knelt down and ran a calming hand over his neck and back, straining her ears to listen for any other movement in the vicinity. Perhaps luckily, that one robot was the only one near, and had just let them pass.

"No other robots nearby," she muttered, only loud enough that Brucie could hear. Straightening, she turned her back to where the robot had been, once more facing the towering piles of discarded metal junk and alien machinery. "Oren said my next opponent would be about half a mile this direction. If I'm not mistaken that probably means almost one kilometre, give or take a few. And that was well over ten minutes ago. So I would guess that he's somewhere in a radius of three hundred metres of us right now." 

As she spoke, mostly to herself more than Brucie and Mouse, the former of the two stood and half-listened, his thoughts going somewhere else. Once Lily had finished her contemplations, Brucie cleared his throat to get her attention. "Say, fl-Lily, you mentioned fighting and such. I was wondering... would ya mind if I tagged along in 'em? I mean, you're strong and such yourself, but it can't hurt to have me on board. And I also noticed yesterday, when I asked about your tactics, that you never even mentioned me. I just... lemme be honest. I wanna fight. It's boring if I don't." 

Lily met his honest - could sharks look honest? - gaze with a lifted eyebrow. One more so out of surprise than disdain. He [i]had[/i] mentioned that he'd rather stick with her and find some ruckus to cause than just go back to normalcy, hadn't he? Not only that but he'd made it pretty clear that he would have just gone around, trying to find trouble on his own if she hadn't accepted his offer of staying with her as an ally. But he was right, she hadn't considered him when she planned how she would approach her next battle. She had always been a soldier, never an officer. She had received orders and fulfilled them, and sometimes when her orders were as simple as to just cause havoc, she had relied on her own capabilities more so than her fellow fighters. It had just been the way Demon-Class shifters like her fought. [i]I suppose that's why I never became an officer. I'm not a very good teamplayer.[/i] She grimaced, looking past Brucie. 

Thing is, he was right. He would be an asset, not a liability. He had the brawn and durability that she did not, and even with most of his ranged equipment destroyed, he was still a force to be reckoned with. He hadn't ever actually seemed to be in pain whenever she attacked him, and a soldier that wasn't deterred by pain was a terrifying to behold. So long as they knew their limits and didn't take hits for no reason, they were a force to be reckoned with. 

In the end, Lily gave Brucie a nod. "Alright. You do cover for some of my weaknesses. I don't have any solid plans, but most likely you would be most useful to me as a distraction and front-line fighter. I may be fast enough to outrun a car, but I don't have the durability that you do, so if I suffer a solid hit, that might be the end of me. Having you on the front-line, however, will help at great deal. Sounds good?" 

A broad smile stretched across Brucie's visage, his rows of teeth being as eerie as ever. He let out a hearty chuckle and, still grinning broadly, banged his chest. "Of course it sounds good! I get to pummel some sod into the ground? Couldn't be better. But now we only need to find him." 

Despite herself, Lily couldn't quite help the smile that tugged at her own lips, the shadow of crow's feet appearing at the corners of her eyes. "Good to hear. He'll be relatively nearby. Look for someone who's human - I don't think I saw any robots when the rules were announced - that will most likely be our guy." 

"Will do, Boss-Lady!" 

Brucie's eagerness was infectious, and Lily felt her smile broaden, showcasing her long canines. "And you, Mouse," she whispered, scratching him behind one ear. "You make sure to stay near. Got it?"

Mouse sat down on his haunches, mouth opening and tongue lolling out. She chose to interpret his doggy grin as acknowledgement.