A long awaited match...

The base was quiet, and it wasn’t the peaceful quiet. The air was thick with anticipation. Link couldn’t stand it. Yet he continued to sit there serenely as he sipped a cup of green tea. Today was the day, the one day he never wanted to come. Although he outwardly appeared calm, his mind was in turmoil. Everyone always sympathized with the person about to be executed; what they didn’t realize was the trauma and stress the executioner had to endure. But he had promised Viva, and Link was a man of honor. At length he arose, and after a deep sigh, collected his swords and walked up the steps into the sunlit bustle of Mac Anu.

The happy buzz of the streets was foreign to Link’s ears. He felt nothing like the other players as they went about their shopping or conversations. Link walked morosely towards the bridge and the Chaos gate beyond. Since all his concentration was on the spinning mirror that would help end a life, he didn’t notice Braveheart walking behind him. Brave put his hand on Link’s shoulder, which let Link know he was there. Link turned his head to look at Brave, and the look they shared said everything. Across the bridge stood Tatiana, and when Link came over to her she hugged him tightly. Krystal nodded to him, and he smiled. Not a word was spoken, but Link knew everyone was there for him. He walked to the chaos gate and was transported to the field.

Link appeared on a cliff top overlooking a barren stretch of tundra. Most of the land was covered in a sheet of ice, but there were a few patches of snow scattered here and there.
“The poor bitch,” Link whispered to himself. Unwittingly she had chosen the environment he had grown up in. His boots were designed to have traction on ice, and his coat would keep him warm. This is the kind of surroundings he would thrive in. He took a deep breath of cold dry air, he was home.

Viva took a deep breath and opened her eyes. The reflection in the Mac Anu river gazed back at her, mimicing her motions exactly as she sat in a crouched position with her legs drawn up to her chest and her arms wrapped around them. She was rocking slightly as she balanced with both her feet flat on the ground, not unlike some of the residents of a mental institute.The overwhelming sense of failure filled her. The Womb Child was loose, and for nearly a month Viva had tried to track and find the Child, but to no avail. She was being strung along by the spiritual hermaphrodite, who had adapted to The World at a rate that Viva had never seen before. Now she was hunting. Now even the hackers considered the spirit a threat.

But spirits and wires were not supposed to mix. The just weren't supposed to. It defied most everything that was in place reguarding the spirit world and the physical one. Viva took a deep breath, already the Child had devoured at least one player. That player was now either in a coma or insane. Because when the Child devoured, she fed on one's soul, pysche and puer, not the physical body. How many players actually knew about their levels of pysche and their puers, Viva didn't know. But from the looks of it, very few. They probably didn't even recognize their own Unconsciousness....

The goth shook her head, clearing the thoughts from her mind. The hunt would come later, now she had to fight for her life, again. Why had she made that desperate promise to Link? What had inspired her to do such a stupid thing? Ah yes, it was the fear that she would be unable to free herself from the Womb Child. If she couldn't free herself then the only option was death. The persona that had fallen ill, it had to die. Because to get over a disease, it was necessary to transcend it, and the most effective way of doing so was by dying.

But for Viva, simple death was not enough. Death at the hand of one who motivated and pushed her, that was her goal. Link had an ability that few others had, he drove her crazy. It was a type of competition, like fuel to a fire. And right now she had the rage to live, despite the fact that she knew she was infected still. The Child, from the moment she had entered The World, had begun to become part of it. By now she would be a sort of psuedo-hacker virus spirit....

Viva blinked again and found herself pacing back and forth at the Chaos Gate. She had been so lost in thought that her Unconscious had kicked in and led her to her impending doom. But then again, she was double Link's level. Perhaps this time things would be different. She was afterall going to fight like hell. Perhaps it wasn't her death that was required to cure the illness. Smiling slightly Viva raised her hand and felt the golden rings encircle her, liftingher away to the field.

Her converses touched down on the snow and ice covered field. Above her a pale moon hung in the sky. She'd fought in this field before, during the Tournament. Against much higher level players too. She tested the ice and determined that it was not a slippery patch. Her grey eyes sought out Link, there he was, she had appeared behind him. Carefully she skated, using her wand to help her traction, around till she knew she was in his range of vision. She removed her cloak and let it drop to the ground feeling the pale moonlight on her skin, it almost illuminated her. But I'm too damned to appear holy now aren't I?
"Link," her voice not breaking despite the emotions flooding her. Disable his earth attack. "Make this swift. Dek Ganz!"

SP:101-10=91

Come and get it. Link had immediately launched from the clifftop, thereby avoiding the attack. What he hadn't counted on was how high that cliff actually was. He sailed out into the air and dove, without any grace, towards the rapidly advancing earth. His coat helped slow his descent, but he had to get ready to land much too quickly. He flipped over so that he hit the ground with his feet, but he dropped into a roll and came back up none the worse for wear. As his coat settled around him he called out, "What, no witty banter? No monologue about why you asked me to do this? Fine, lets do this. Juk Rom!" he shouted pointing his sword at the cliff where he had been not twenty seconds before.

sp 20/30

Viva watched as her stat affecting attack missed, and as Link did some very impressive acrobatics in the air. Upon landing he yelled at her as if he sounded disappointed,
"What, no witty banter? No monologue about why you asked me to do this? Fine, lets do this. Juk Rom!" Viva watched the wood attack sail into the towering ice cliff and begin to chip away at the structure. A few shards of ice spun off the cliff and hit her, much to the effect of several tiny needles pricking her body and drawing blood. Then she noticed the cliff beginning to weaken as the attack finally died out. Ohhh, did you mean to crush me in a frozen tomb? Viva pushed off the ice with the end of her wand and began to skate around Link in about a ten foot circumference. The cliff had not yet fallen, but was getting mighty close, gravity would do the rest of the work.

"Sorry to disappoint you Link," Viva said as she moved around him. The feeling of failure welling up in her chest again "But even if I were to supply a monologue or banter with you, it wouldn't change anything." She stopped skating around him and locked her grey eyes onto his, somewhere near them the cliff was beginning to crack and crumble. But that didn't matter too much now. Nothing really seemed to matter at the moment. A sense of exhuastion that was not unlike the same one she'd experiance during the final round of the Tournament, was beginning to fill her.
"You could never feel what I feel. Rai Rom!"

91+1=92-10=82

Link was a little disappointed she had escaped the cliff. he had hoped she would have stayed and be entomed in the debris. But that would be too frickin easy. The cliff collapsed into a heap of ice and snow as Viva cast her second spell of the duel. Thats right my ducky, exhaust yourself. Of course that entailed that he make himself a target, but Link enjoyed that. He backflipped out of the way, avoiding the worst of the electric malestrom. As it stood he got a mild shock, which while doing damage, galvanized him; most of his movement so far had been lethargic. But now he was ready to fight, and he was going to do it his way, which didn't include any more spell casting.
"Well thats fine, I really wasn't in the mood for it anyways. Now then, lets dance," Link replied as a memory of Kat came back. He pushed it back as he took four steps to build up speed and dropped to his knees. He skidded across the ice towards Viva, his sword held parallel to the ground at about waist heigth. Today, I stop running from my past.

sp: 21

((OOC: Link I"m sorry but due to personal matters I'm currently unable to continue our duel at this current time. I forfiet and hopefully will get my head back on straight enough so that we can do a re-rematch. I apologize if this has inconvienced you in any way. //OOC))