[centre][h2]The Zenith - Xoxi's Super Cool Fortress of Awesome[/h2]
[h1]Above Boston[/h1]
[sub]21st January, 2011[/sub][/centre]

The projector began to display the rather shoddily captured footage from a old and battered camera set up somewhere around the arena to showcase the spectacle to the world at large. As of this second, there was no-one in the arena, with the feed filled with the hustle and bustle of countless angry people demanding that their bets be made void as a result of Sickle’s surrender.

Of course, Wonderland disagreed.

Naturally, the people continued to whine and moan - at least until Sickle entered the room. Afterwards, they still complained, but did so much quieter. 

Kairi grimaced slightly at the display. “Sickle-Cell. He’s the one from earlier today. I wish he’d just stop this crusade of his.”

“Fat chance of that,” Aedan replied. “You’ve got to admit, though, it’s working. I’ve never seen a city full of criminals so utterly scared of one man.”

The Ward leader shook her head. “It’s not one man. It’s the group as a whole. Not even the people, but the ideology behind it. Death and terror as tools to keep the population in line. It works, sure, but it isn’t any different from the sort of stunts the Nazis pulled.” Glancing at the screen, she furrowed her eyebrows. “You can’t tell me he wouldn’t wipe out the entire criminal population of Boston in a heartbeat, if he could.”

“Even if he had the chance to take them alive.”

[@Gardevoiran]

[hr]

[centre][h2]The Circus Maximus[/h2]
[h1]Victory Road[/h1]
[sub]21st January, 2011[/sub][/centre]

“Luckily, you can leave,” Sickle said with no small amount of disdain. “I have to go and suffer through the rest of this charade knowing full-well I can’t do a thing to stop it.” Turning, he made his way back into the darkness of the Circus. Luckily for him it [i]was[/i] dark. It meant no-one could see the slight hobble in his walk.

After the hoo-hah had died down, the Pipeline announced a slight alteration to the night’s line-ups. Knight and Ifrit’s battle against Talion and Kaze would be pushed back to the last of round one, with both sides getting another contender. It was fully intended to become the headline match with the addition of Gamble on the Protectorate side and Zabaniya for the independants. This brought the number of combatants on each team to three in what was a relatively small arena. 

And it promised to be one hell of a fight.

In the next fight, Arms Race made a valiant effort at defeating Vegas, what with his teleporting weapon-play, but it was cut short by her hard-light shields locking down his mobility. She took the victory in the second match - much to the dismay of the betters who assumed she’d follow suit and throw the match.

Askaryan and Vector went at one another’s throats more violently than any cape that night had tried to seriously injure one another. On the other hand, Nightlight wiped out the entirety of Geryon’s clones with only a handful of blasts. By the time Vector had settled her win over her rival, she fired a single shot at Nightlight - which he absorbed and used to scorch the arena as a whole. Many people had assumed Vector to cinch it, but her fixation on Askaryan had proved her undoing. 

Round number 4 went to Switchboard, by essentially making everyone else defeat one another. Careful and well-planned use of his ability to switch their vision upside down, or trigger muscle-spasms from pain resulted in a very easy victory, even over the feared Caustic.

Achlys and Pipeline dominated their match against the hard-to-hit Funhouse and the hard-to-defeat Painkiller by using the perfect combination of their two powers. Pipeline fed Achlys’s mist form with liquid of his own creation, giving her a variety of properties to choke and gas their opponents with. 

Finally, the main event came. As the competitors assembled in the arena, the heroes on one side came face-to-face with their enemies. Black Kaze, still proudly wearing her inmates outfit from Japan from years ago. Zabaniya, the shadow-manipulator dressed from head-to-toe in black studded leather. And the unheard of Talion, standing in an almost aristocratic jacket of crimson. Underneath, however, was a much more combat-oriented sleeveless black vest top. His mask was simple white porcelain, with a cracked black motif over one eye. Through it, his face could be seen, if only slightly. 

He visibly took in and sized up his opponents. As his gaze fell on the last of them, the girl in the armour, a barely-audible whisper drifted across. “You shouldn’t be here.”

As Poker Face stood and prepared to announce the beginning of the final match of the first round, a number of figures approached him. The leader of whom was a woman, dressed all in black. Only her mouth was visible beneath her mask. 

With a smile, she extended her hand towards the microphone. “My dear, would you kindly hand me that?”

Each word slammed into Tony’s senses like a sledgehammer. An uncanny [i]pressure[/i] crushed his very mind, his will, and buckled the world around him. Every syllable was a discordant mess, broken and spoken by a hundred different voices from all directions all at one. The sentence alone stretched on and on, seemingly taking an eternity to actually be finished, even though it should only have taken an instant. Finally, the words began to dull, the ache began to subside.

And the woman stood, with microphone in hand.

She fondly caressed his cheek and blew him a kiss, as she took pride of place looking down on the arena below. One member of her entourage - another girl, all in black - held her hand tightly. Her voice boomed across the room. “Tsk tsk, Talion. We had a deal.”

“Now, be a good boy, and [i]kill them all[/i].”

As his eye glazed over, Talion's shoulders slumped. The sound of his heavy breathing was all that filled the arena, until a quiet growl rose from the man. When he finally looked back to the heroes, it was obvious that whatever restraint had been there was now gone. With a hideous roar, he took off at full=pelt, aiming a solid punch at Gamble.

Conflux, on the other hand, offered the mic back to Tony with a saccarine-sweet smile. "Your co-operation was much appreciated, sweetheart."

[@Migyudon][@Lasrever][@Old Amsterdam][@SkinnyTy][@PlatinumSkink][@Duoya]