I'm so horrible. I said I'd have this up tomorrow... two weeks ago. Ugh.

Anyway, turns out I didn't win, but I made it to the finals, and I'll do my duty of showing you guys everything I had. There's also a second Blood-Sport planned - same account, new management, entries accepted through the end of November (ALL complete entries accepted), tournament begins New Year's Day 2010. Characters from all IZ races will be in this one, not just Irkens. I myself am entering an elderly Vortian swordmaster.

Disclaimer: Irkens and Invader Zim belong to Jhonen Vasquez and Nickelodeon. Blood-Sport belongs to its management. Silver belongs to The Darkest Prince. Niz belongs to Irken-Maniac. All else is (c) me.

Blood-Sport Round 5:

Between Black and Silver

Transmission Reacquired

Domm pulled the vehicle into the sharpest turn he had managed, steering around a toppled building that had been cleaved by an orbital laser during the Irken conquest. Niz was thrown ribs-first into a sideways ledge and cried out in pain, but still kept his grip on Domm. Domm slowed as he turned back towards the power plant; it appeared to him that he'd lost Silver en route, and he was almost there.

Driving through the city, Domm was amazed at the state of the ruined planet – there wasn't even a single corpse of the native species in either the industrial or city zones, and the architectural damage seemed shockingly low considering the Irken Empire's usual lack of subtlety. He'd had Erris do a background check on the planet, but the results had been unbelievable at the time – after a short and less-than-promising attempt at a land war, the Irkens had withdrawn to use the planet for field testing of military weapons. What finished the race off was a prototype bacterium – one that fed primarily on water. The idea had been for the viruses to devour the water-based creatures and then die off when there was no more liquid water, and the virus had been a partial success. It hadn't affected the glaciers, the atmosphere or the salty oceans, and thus didn't have the terraforming effects the scientists had hoped for, but it had killed off most of the population before they had found the virus couldn't reach them in the heart of the arid wasteland. So it was that the Armada's land units had landed in the wasteland and slaughtered the remaining 4% of the population (not without casualties, as it was mostly soldiers and survivalists remaining), marking the only major battlefield as well as the only location with older corpses.

"Well, Niz, looks like we're here," Domm called out. Niz replied with a sort of moaning growl and Domm turned to see if the necromancer's lower jaw was still attached or if it had been ground away at some point. That's when he saw the plasma beam, and although he slammed on the brakes, it was too late to do much about it.

The aqua-colored beam struck the front wheel of Domm's construction cycle, and everything pretty much went to hell. In the split second before the blast radius expanded to encompass the entire vehicle, it flipped forward and Domm and Niz were both thrown over the colorful implosion. At this range, the high-yield plasma blast was a total sensory overload to Domm – the smell of ozone, a deep roaring, and a bright blue flash threatening to supercede all else. He was only dimly aware of Niz tumbling and rolling as he was dragged into the blue dome, bits of asphalt flying past him as they were also drawn in, and hugging the ground with the strength he could gather so that the same didn't happen to him. The next thing Domm managed to gather was that he was on fire – or at least his vest was, wreathed in crackling flames. Whatever else the clothes on this planet were, they were flammable; Domm scrambled on the ground, peeling the burning bits of clothing away from him and singing his hands a bit. When the hellish roaring was replaced by the ringing of his aural cavities, Domm looked up and beheld teal flames engulfing the twisted remains of his vehicle and a still, unmoving, but relatively whole Niz. Domm struggled to his hands and knees, dry-retched a few times, and finally got to his feet, grabbing his chainsaw and whipping his head around blearily.

He didn't have to look far. Silver walked away from his motorcycle, having put the kickstand down, and retracted his plasma cannon. "I'm a pretty good shot, aren't I?" he asked merrily. "But seriously, you're overdue for a nasty end."

"Shit," Domm muttered as Silver extended his four tentacles, two tipped with scorpion tails, all lashing. He reached into his PAK and threw a steam grenade towards Silver, running towards the plant as Silver jumped back cautiously. The entrance to the large, sprawling complex was less than fifty meters from him; by the time Silver had found out the steam was harmless and made his way through it, Domm was through the fence (no real task, considering the gate was torn from its hinges) and inside. Cursing, Silver followed, his longer strides covering ground quicker than the mercenary's.

Neither noticed when a burned Irken corpse got up and silently followed them through the fence's gate and the revolving doors.

---

"So why are you a mercenary, anyway?" Silver asked as he walked calmly after the running Domm. His tentacles lashed out, but Domm ducked and weaved, dodging one crashing metal tendril after another. Steel panels covering the walls were heavily dented or even torn apart, but Domm was like Silver – trained to be a fighter since smeethood, and with no shortage of raw talent. Even weakened, pushed to the edge of his adrenaline rush, striking him was no easy task.

"Not that it's any of your business…" Domm gasped, leaping over a low-swinging tentacle and swinging his chainsaw to 'scare off' another impending one, "but the Irken Empire decided at some point to kill off all the cases in the program that trained me. You would have left, too."

"But those orders have long since been dropped!" Silver tried to surround Domm with his tendrils, careful not to let him sever them, but to no avail as Domm ducked through a set of sliding double doors. "You can come back any time!" He tried to get through the doors, but Domm had disabled them from the other side.

"I owe nothing to the Empire that attempted to have me executed! Miyuki's orders would have seen me put down! And everybody thinks of her as the GREATEST Tallest of our era!" Silver slammed his two scorpion tails into the door's seam and pried it open, only for Domm to leap out from his hiding place in a corner and sever one of the two sharp-tipped appendages. Instantly he was beset by the other three tentacles, forcing him back and away from the relatively vulnerable Silver.

"That regime isn't even in power anymore! What about your duties to the Irken race?!" Silver countered, his temper rising as he allowed himself to be drawn into the argument. He went for a pincer attack, only for Domm to extend his bladed spider legs and parry two of the tentacles while he severed the last one.

"Don't give me that old-fashioned concept! You really think just because I'm born into a species, I owe that species for my whole life?" Domm swung the saw again, but Silver's tentacles retracted, even the two undamaged ones on his left side. Instead, Silver produced two weapons that made Domm's blood run cold.

"Yes! Yes, I think that's perfectly reasonable!" In his left hand, Silver held an old-fashioned steel katana, gleaming under the fluorescent lights of the nuclear plant's hallways. It was dirty, but seemed exceptionally well-made, with great attention to detail. In his right, he held a beam sword, its blade roughly the same length as the katana. The handle drew power from his PAK, which was connected to it by a cord, and the energy it produced lit up the whole room. It was this sword that Domm was afraid of, because beam swords were the 'rock' to his chainsaw's 'scissors'. "Like it or not, Domm, you are an IRKEN, and you have to contribute to the species if you don't want us to go extinct!"

"Shove it up your ass!" Domm shot out the spider legs on his right side and punched them into a nearby ventilation shaft, pulling the grate out. "I don't give a damn about the Irken species! I only care about myself and a few close friends!" He tossed the grate at Silver; the Irken general cut right through it, but it gave Domm a moment to crawl into the grate. "The universe is a harsh place, and you need to learn not to care about people you've never met!"

"I'm not finished with you yet!" Silver snarled, running after Domm, but he was simply too large for the shaft. Luckily, it ran along the outside of the wall for a few moments before turning 90 degrees and leaving the hallway, so Silver began hacking at the shaft with his blades. Domm had to scramble for his life, dodging the alternating steel and laser blades that cut at the floor of the shaft. Suddenly, the solid katana burst up through the shaft, and it struck flesh.

Silver drew back his katana and inspected the blood dripping from it. "Hmm… there's no way I finished him off. Only the sharp side has blood on it; I didn't impale him." He reared back, and cleaved clean through the shaft with his beam sword, but by now Domm was in the vents above a completely different hallway, stopping to wipe at the slash Silver had left between his antennae before he got blood on the lenses of his goggles.

"Alright, I'll just have to kill the lights and sneak up on him. Shouldn't be too hard." Domm kicked out the nearest grate and landed on his feet, but barely kept his footing. "Then again…" Getting to his feet with a cough, Domm noticed a footstep and turned. "I shouldn't be surprised, I suppose."

"You…" Niz rasped. His cloak, along with most of his other clothes, were pockmarked with spots that had simply burned away in the plasma, and unfortunately, so was his skin. One eye had partially clouded over black, and most of the flesh around it was missing. "I refuse to lose to the likes of you. I have died too many times already. I will not die today…" he shuddered, then ran at Domm. "I'm so weak, dammit, but I WILL NOT DIE TODAY!" With a snarl, claws extended like an animal's, he rushed straight at Domm.

"Thank you for being so predictable," Domm sighed, and drew his chainsaw, stabbing it clean through Niz's abdomen with the teeth pointing upward. Niz gasped and stopped, and Domm revved the Grimm's motor, creating a spray of congealed blood out of Niz's back that splattered across the entire hallway. "So, how about you tell me how I finish you?"

"Go to hell!" Niz's arms flailed for purchase, something, anything… he grabbed Domm's already wounded scalp with one claw and slashed at it. Yelping, Domm slapped out at Niz with his free hand, knocking the black mask off his forehead and exposing similar wounds… scars spelling out 'X-I-X' on the Necro-Irken's skull for all to see. "My shame is not for you to behold!" Niz caught Domm's slapping wrist and started to twist it; Domm responded by pulling the chainsaw up through Niz's torso. As soon as the grinding became more metallic, Niz's eyes widened and he dedicated both arms to pushing Domm's saw back down.

"You have a terrible poker face, Niz. I see… that unique PAK of yours is what keeps you getting up from all these mortal wounds. If I were to, say, split it in half, you'd flop over dead like you're so overdue for."

"You wouldn't! You'd upset the very balance of life and death-"

"I don't really want to hear it!" Domm attempted to pull his Grimm Special up and bisect the necromancer, but Niz held fast to the blade's handle, his feet leaving the ground in an effort to keep Domm from cutting through. Roaring in sync with his saw, Domm lifted Niz, using his blade as a grip, and swung him against the wall. A few bashes against the wall later, Domm was panting, but Niz wasn't letting go. "Dammit!" Domm suddenly pulled back with his saw, slicing at what was left of Niz's claws as he pulled free of the smaller Irken. Niz gasped as the fresh wave of pain slowed him, and Domm drew back his saw to behead his foe. "This ends now."

"I couldn't agree more." A metal tentacle suddenly wrapped around Niz and lifted him up, using him as a bludgeon to knock Domm off his feet and into a large scarlet case marked 'IN CASE OF EMERGENCY, BREAK GLASS' (which Domm did, but not willfully). As Silver walked fully into view, another tentacle, tipped with a scorpion tail, extended from his PAK. Niz tried to squirm free, the hooked weapon punched several holes in his chest and one more through his eye. Niz screamed in pain, and Silver responded by throwing him through a safety glass door into the next room. "That was rather therapeutic," Silver chuckled, turning on Domm.

It was then that he noticed something rather large and heavy had fallen from the emergency case into Domm's lap. If Domm didn't have a minor concussion, he would probably have paid more attention to it himself. "What have we here?" Silver's words woke Domm up and he made a grab for the device, but Silver pulled it away and smiled a very nasty smile. "It's a fuel rod gun. Rather appropriate for defending a nuclear fission plant." He turned the safety off, and the weapon unfolded into rather impressive proportions, becoming an oblong weapon designed to be wielded two-handed, supported on one shoulder like an RPG launcher. Silver did so, and the end of the gun flipped open to reveal four barrels. A scope unfolded in front of his right eye. "I like it."

Domm jumped out of the way with a scream, which proved to be a prudent decision when a ten-inch-long, inch-wide, glowing green rod punched into the sheet metal where his head had been. Silver whipped the gun around, but at this distance it was rather hard to aim and Domm was able to dodge the next three fuel rods as well – although two of them finished destroying the glass that Silver had tossed Niz through. Noticing the new exit, Domm swung out a spider leg to bash the fuel rod gun out of Silver's arms. The Irken general hung on, but he was thrown off-balance and Domm had time to jump backwards into the next room. He wasn't prepared for what it contained.

Domm had been expecting another hallway – but this room was huge and cylindrical, a shaft thirty feet wide and ten stories deep. The upper half of the room was dotted with catwalks, steel ladders and stairways connecting the catwalks, and control panels (also on the catwalks); he had emerged onto one of the highest levels. The bottom of the room was full of tanks protected by lead shielding; judging by the large mechanical claw that hung in the air above them, Domm guessed that it was a room for sealing off the high-yield waste in the power plant. The catwalk Domm stood on stretched across the void, as well as connecting to the perpendicular catwalks above and below with stairways. Niz was trying desperately to stand up several yards in front of him, and not making much headway. "Wow," Domm said; he was too tired for wit.

Then he heard the sound of something sliding into position as Silver prepared to fire his weapon again, and he decided to get the hell out of the way. Four more fuel rods blasted out, one of them grazing Niz and another punching deep into the necromancer's damaged eye, but Domm managed to dodge by swinging up onto the highest catwalk with his spider legs. Running out onto the catwalk as he reloaded, Silver let loose another fuel rod; Domm tried to use his high ground as cover, but was in for an unpleasant shock when the fuel rod tore easily through the steel mesh platform he crouched on. Running down the walkway, he managed to avoid two more clips of four fuel rods each.

"You can't just keep using that thing, Silver! It's going to run out of rods soon!" Domm reached a control panel and gave it a cursory glance before pounding his fist on the biggest, reddest button he saw. A dull klaxon filled the air as the lead shields at the bottom of the room slid open; a message from Domm's PAK told him that the radiation levels were dangerously high, but that the PAK could prevent any radiation poisoning if he left within twenty minutes. No matter… I plan to put a stop to this here and now.

"You're right… I'd better make these next shots count!" Silver's PAK tentacles extended again, but instead of reaching towards Domm, they shot out to either side of the exhausted mercenary. Domm prepared for a pincer attack again, but the tendrils wrapped around the catwalk and began to pull as Silver braced his ankles against the railing of the platform he himself stood on. "I'd like to see you dodge while in freefall!" And he could probably do it, Domm fretted; already, the catwalk was beginning to groan in a few key places.

"Oh well… I had no way of attacking you from up here anyway!" Taking a few steps back, Domm then ran forward and vaulted off the control panel, leaping into the air with his chainsaw at the ready. Surprised, Silver launched a fuel rod at him and pulled his tentacles back in, but missed with both. His second shot would have hit Domm point-blank, but the mercenary had seemingly fallen short of his goal, dropping down in front of Silver. Silver, for his part, didn't believe Domm had fallen for a second, and he dropped the huge gun immediately to retrieve his two swords. When Domm swung up and over the other side of the catwalk Silver stood on, the taller Irken turned on his heel and blocked the Grimm with his laser blade. There was nothing Domm could do but gulp and push back at the growing roar as the chainsaw sword attempted to tear through concentrated, contained energy. Finally, with a shriek, the bladed chain broke at one link or another and rocketed into the air, embedding itself into the distant ceiling. "My… chainsaw!" Domm moaned, jumping backwards to a lower platform to dodge Silver's follow-up with his other blade.

"How did it stick up in the roof like that?" Silver asked, hefting his fuel rod gun again.

"The chain rotates at 0.997 times the speed of sound," Domm explained lovingly. "That's where the cutting power comes from. It was a fantastic weapon, and it's saved my life so many times over, and you… YOU RUINED IT!" He was on the edge of tears as all six of his spider legs unfolded, lifting him ten feet into the air so he was at Silver's height again. "You'll suffer for that!"

"No, you'll suffer for the trouble you've caused me!" Silver took aim with his massive new gun.

"You'll both suffer for all eternity!" The two turned to Niz, who wasn't looking quite… himself. His intact eye had darkened to a deep, true black that reflected no light, and his missing eye was leaking an evil-looking smoke into the air. Shadows swirled around him, and he was clutching at his chest with both hands, looking ready to burst out laughing… or screaming.

"Huh. You know, if being a necromancer makes you that hard to kill, I should look into it," Domm said.

"Oh, definitely," Silver agreed. "Niz… OPEN WIDE, BITCH!" He fired several more fuel rods at the Necro-Irken, but Niz shot into the air like a rocket, dodging them with ease.

"Shadow Scythe Tentacles!" Niz screamed in an eerily echoing voice, and multiple Shadow Tentacles formed from his cloak, each tipped with a scythe blade. Seeming to slow in midair, he waved a skeletal claw (since being burned by the plasma, there was no flesh on his hands to disappear or reappear) and the blades came rocketing down at both of them. Domm retracted his spider legs, dodging the first attacks by simply falling out of the way, but Silver was forced to drop his fuel rod gun and run. When the tentacles blocked his way, he hacked at them with his swords, and parried the strikes coming from all directions as best he could. Still, the inky black weapons began to leave small cuts in his skin and armor where his guard began to slip. Domm was even worse off, forced to rely on his spider leg blades to block the tendrils.

Niz landed on the ground near Silver. The Irken general tried to slash at his foe, but Niz was much faster now, and attacks with blades of metal and light alike were easily evaded. After a few such dodges, Niz drew back his shadows and formed a more traditional scythe in his claws, forcing Silver back with lightning-quick swings. Silver eventually made a jetPAK-assisted jump to the higher catwalk to catch his breath. "Come and get me, you little bitch!" he shouted over the power plant's alarms. "It's about time we put you down for good!"

"We will NEVER be silenced!" Niz snarled back. The shadow scythe in his hands extended as he held it straight up, becoming disproportionately larger the further it got from his body. Soon he was holding a massive shadow above his head, with a blade larger than Silver's body. "Taste our true power!" He swung the scythe down, forcing Silver to dive out of the way as the blade cut straight through the platform. Silver began a mad scramble to get to the next section of the platform as the length he stood on began to collapse, falling until it hung vertically from the wall.

Laughing, Niz raised the tremendous scythe for another strike, but had to suddenly dismiss it as he turned to block Domm's punch. "That was pretty quick, right there," Domm said, making a grab for Niz's PAK. Niz dodged back and opened his mouth wide, and a shadow tentacle launched out and struck Domm's chest, knocking him on his back. Swallowing the tentacle, Niz concentrated the darkness into his hands, using his umbrakinesis to create a huge blade at the end of each finger. "What the hell is this now?" Domm muttered, rolling back to his feet. At the far end of the platform, Silver jumped down, making a dash for either his fuel rod gun or Niz's back – Domm couldn't tell from this angle.

"Shadow Scythe Claws!" Niz looked very pleased with himself (themselves?) as he advanced on Domm, the massive catlike claws posed in front of him to strike. Domm lashed out with his own scythes, but Niz deflected them with ease and stabbed forward with his other hand. Domm hit the deck and slashed at Niz's ankles, forcing Niz into the air. A volley of fuel rods flew at Niz as well, forcing Domm to stay on the ground, but the crazed necromancer blocked them easily with his new claws. Niz perched briefly on the handrail, seemed to store up energy for a moment, and finally launched himself towards Silver with a roar.

Silver decided to abandon the platform when he saw a whirling dervish of six black blades coming at him, and jumped to a lower level. It was a good thing, too, because Niz's whirling blades minced the catwalk, sending himself and Domm falling to the next level down as well. Domm used his spider-legs to absorb the shock, while Niz just flipped to land on his feet, re-absorbing his claws. "I've had ENOUGH of you!" Silver blasted several more fuel rods at Niz. They embedded themselves in his chest, but he didn't even stagger.

"Now, we will bring hell to you. SHADOW GATE!" Niz raised his arms as if celebrating, and the cloud of shadow leaking from his eye began to coalesce into a more solid darkness behind him. Soon the shadows behind him had become an ebon void several feet in diameter, and new shadow tentacles formed along the edges, writhing and snaking through the air. "Lash out! Devour them!" At Niz's command, the tentacles began striking somewhat blindly in Silver and Domm's general direction, grabbing onto whatever they could and dragging it into the Gate. Domm dodged out of the way, and a piece of handrail was torn loose instead; Silver jumped back, but his fuel rod gun was grabbed and torn from his hands, forcing him to fall back on his swords again. Any piece of metal, including dangling parts of the collapsed walkways above, that was grabbed would be fed into Niz's Shadow Gate. They couldn't see what happened to the stuff, but the roar of metal fatiguing was very suggestive.

"Alright, mercenary, I'm not too keen on being eaten by whatever Niz is turning into!" Silver snapped as he slashed away several tentacles. The cut shadows fell into scraps that then were sucked back into Niz, reforming the tentacles. Domm noticed idly as he jumped to the lowest level catwalk that nothing in the room was casting shadows anymore; Niz had absorbed them all. He had no time to wonder exactly how powerful the physics-warping Irken was as he slashed at the shadows around him; Zor had been powerful too, but he was dead now. "Any bright ideas?" Silver was backed up against the wall now, trying desperately not to let the tendrils disarm him or wrap around his forearms.

"Just one." Domm reached back into his PAK and found exactly what he was looking for – Ethys' last flash grenade. Suddenly, he stopped moving, and offered it out to one of the tentacles as if he were offering a sugar cube to a horse. The shadow tentacle eagerly grabbed the orb and pulled it into the Gate – and suddenly Niz's remaining eye opened in shock. "This will be cool." Domm turned away, slapping away one last tentacle.

The only sound was a windy rustling – it was as if a small cyclone had spawned around Niz. The Gate cracked and finally shattered as radiant white light poured out from its heart; the remaining scraps of shadow whirled around the necromancer at high speeds before returning to their original sources in the room. More light shined from Niz's empty eye socket and his mouth as he gasped for air, falling to his knees. The pieces of shadow fleeing him tore at his antennae and cloak, shredding both as they left him. "It hurts… what did you do… to us?!"

"Oh, come on, that's got to be one of the oldest ones in the book," Domm complained as he rubbed at his eyes. Even turned away with his eyes closed and goggles on, that had been bright.

"Thanks, you saved my ass," Silver said earnestly as he dropped down to Domm's level, clutching both swords white-knuckle. "But it's time I closed the deal!" He rushed at Domm, ready to make mincemeat of him, and for the first time in decades Domm wasn't sure what he had left to fight with.

But from the other side, Domm was being attacked as well. Having his powers torn from him didn't halt this dark-eyed, more murderous Niz's will to fight, and he vaulted off his own current position, hurtling towards Domm like a meteor. "I will not let this be! I am INDESTRUCTIBLE!" Domm did the first thing that occurred to him.

He dove off the catwalk.

Niz was unable to change his flight path, and Silver was too surprised by Niz's continued presence to chase Domm. They did the only thing that they could – they attacked each other instead. Silver's katana embedded itself in Niz's abdomen, sliding easily through the area that Domm's saw had ground into paste, and his light sword lopped off one of Niz's arms with ease. Niz, for his part, cut the power cord to Silver's sword with his ragged bone claws, and as light as he was, his momentum was still sufficient to knock Silver flat on his back and stun him.

Grunting as he pulled himself off the larger Irken, Niz gasped as he saw his severed arm slide between the bars of the handrail. "NO!" Still run through with a katana, he dove after it, only then realizing he'd have nowhere to land himself. In the two seconds after falling, Niz noticed Domm hanging from the catwalk by his spider legs, and reached out for him, managing to grab the surprised Irken by the wrist. "Oh, shit," Niz muttered as he looked down in time to watch his arm fall into a huge basin. Inside the basin was a cache of dangerously radioactive, energy-grade plutonium columns, the sort used to power the plant – and to top it all off, they were suspended in a very deep pool of water. He may as well have been hanging above lava.

"Get off of me," Domm said quietly. Niz looked up at him, and Domm was very surprised – first, because Niz's intact eye had mostly reverted to orange, and second, because Niz had an almost childlike expression of fear on his face. Domm had been so used to anger and resigned determination from this foe that he didn't think any other expression was possible.

"Domm…" Niz whispered dryly. "I need you to kill me."

"Fine. Just let go, and I'll shut you into that basin."

"No, no – you need to knock me loose! I… I can't kill myself." At Domm's inquisitive quirked eyebrow, Niz went on. "I'm… afraid." Suddenly he was angry again. "Do you think I would hang so tenaciously to life if I wasn't afraid to die?! Every time I suffer a wound, Death grabs my hand, and I pull free. I always say 'NO'. The truth, Domm, is that I've been dead before. Really, and truly dead. I don't remember any of it, and I am so fucking terrified," Niz stopped to stifle a sob, "so terrified that there might not BE anything on the other side of death. I'm afraid it truly is the End.

"But this is no way for me to live. You saw that… that other side of me. I had to fight it today longer than any other time before. It hasn't even fully receded this time." As if to emphasize, the blackness began to creep up Niz's eye again. "I... don't think I'll resurface if it takes over again, and I don't want to be responsible for that monster being on the loose with my body and my powers. Just do your job, Domm… finish me off. And promise me you'll repent for all those you kill."

Domm extended his scythe-legs. "I have nothing to repent for," he said, although he knew it was a lie. "Death is the natural end to life. I kill when my job calls for it, and that's that." The tips of his blades lashed downward and dug into the joint of Niz's shoulder, snipping muscle and ligament, separating the bones. Domm was too busy concentrating on Niz's expression and maintaining his own to notice the small, black spidery creature that crawled from Niz's PAK, up Domm's spider leg, and into his own open PAK. "Goodbye, Niz." And with that, the Necro-Irken dropped into the water, and he sank like a stone. His arm came loose and dropped in a second after.

Looking up, Domm searched around until he noticed a huge blue button on the wall, next to one of the doors leading into the shaft. 'EMERGENCY BASIN LOCK', it read. "Huh, how convenient." Domm fished one of Zor's old orbs out of his side pocket and pulled back his arm, throwing it like a baseball at the lock. It hit the wall about a foot to the side of the button. "Damn." He grabbed the other and threw it the same way, and this one struck above the button by about six inches before dropping to the floor far below. "FUCK!" Domm shouted. Then things got worse, when 180 pounds of Irken General landed on Domm's back. Domm screamed in agony as his PAK was nearly torn loose from his spine; Silver's boots dug into the back of his hips, and his hands pushed down on Domm's shoulders. Two of Domm's spider legs lost their purchase on the platform, retracting into his PAK; he managed to keep the last pair in place, though.

"Let's finish this, my friend!" Silver dug his claws under Domm's PAK, scraping at his shirt and skin. "Shit, yours is really secure, isn't it? Wait, you bonded your PAK to your spinal cord!? How do you perform routine maintenance?"

"Have somebody… that I can trust to do it for me!" Domm grunted. He tried to deploy his bladed spider legs again, but Silver forced the panels shut with one hand.

"That must be nice, being naïve like that." Silver extended the PAK tentacle that was still tipped with a scorpion tail. "Oh well. I'll just have to cut out part of your spine when I pull this PAK off. Same result, but a little messier. Or I could just punch through the base of your skull…"

It was at that moment that Domm came up with a truly insane plan. Of course, he had to try it. With a moan, he used his spider legs to pull himself up enough that the first section of each leg stuck out straight to his side before bending at a ninety degree angle; it looked rather like his PAK was a wide trapeze that he and Silver hung from. With that accomplished, Domm began to roll backwards in place, first slowly, then faster as he completed a rotation. Silver was forced to retract the tentacle and straddle his shorter foe, hanging on for dear life as Domm began to spin in place like a master's yo-yo.

"What the fuck are you doing?!" Silver screamed. Vertigo took over and he accidentally vomited; the vomit shot from his mouth like a fire hose, and suddenly he understood. He was also even more disgusted, but from the vomit, not Domm's gambit.

Domm began to feel lightheaded as he spun in place, but he held onto consciousness by laughing as madly and loudly as he could. Silver didn't even hear it, as the speed stole the air from Domm's lungs as soon as he opened his mouth. I hope to Irk I don't accidentally unscrew my PAK legs or something. If this works it'll be a miracle.

It was a race to see who could hold onto consciousness longer – and Silver lost, although it may have been because he was farther from the center of the 'wheel'. He blacked out for only a split-second, but it was enough to loosen his grip, and he was launched by the centrifugal force. By pure luck, he was thrown straight up, passing by the closest catwalk, and he laughed in relief. "Joke's on you, Domm! I'll land safely, and finish you then!"

It was then that Domm moved to the last and most vicious stage of his ploy. He brought out his bladed spider legs, extending them straight above his head. Silver may have destroyed the chainsaw Domm brought with him, but at the speed Domm was spinning, he was nothing if not a giant circular saw – and Silver was right in the path of his blade. There was a shower of sparks and a quiet yelp, and Silver was thrown to the catwalk on his back. He did land safely; however, he had the more pressing issue of having both arms severed to deal with.

Slowly, Domm stopped spinning, and he hung in place for a moment just to shake the dizzy feeling. When he finally pulled himself back up, he noticed that the catwalk he had been hanging from was also sliced through, but the cables it hung from kept it in place rather cleanly. Panting, he gave Silver a quick once-over – the general had fallen into shock, and would almost certainly bleed to death on his own. Domm decided he didn't have the energy to finish him off, and instead grabbed the damaged beam sword lying on the same level's walkway. Maybe Lio can help me rig this to one of my spare chainsaw batteries. He trudged over to the exit that featured the big blue button, and looked down into the basin before yelping in surprise. Something skeletal was in the large basin, thrashing around at surface level, and shadows were extending out from it. HOLY SHIT I didn't need to see that! Domm quickly slammed on the button, and the lead-lined lid of the basin slid shut, imprisoning what may or may not have still had Niz in there somewhere. Domm dry-wretched over the railing of the walkway a few times, expecting vomit, but none came; finally, he just turned and left. "Total… write-off," he growled.

---

Ah, here it is. Stooping, Domm picked up Niz's black mask. He had used it as a headband to cover up the scars that other contestant had left on him. Domm felt at the bandages he had recently applied to his scalp where Silver had nearly impaled his skull. He had used so many strips of medicated gauze that it was practically a bandanna, covering the entire top of his head except for gaps where his antennae poked through. Deciding against it, Domm placed the eye-mask around his neck instead.

"Erris?" Domm called into his communicator. "You there?" No answer. He turned to one of the camera drones following him – not just his own, but Niz's and Silver's, one following at a respectable difference while another floated next to him and the third hovered ahead and above. "You guys aren't getting a signal either, are you?" The screen where Domm could usually converse with a scummy Irken reporter was showing a blank blue. "I thought not. Must be all the lead in here." Domm shivered and continued forward – he didn't want to show how weak blood loss and fatigue had left him, but he felt like passing out in a puddle of his own saliva.

"Where the HELL do you think you're going?!" As Domm turned to respond to the voice, he felt a metal spike slamming into his ribs, just below his left arm. He cried out in pain, falling to his knees, and Silver's two remaining PAK tentacles quickly constricted around Domm's left arm, squeezing and pulling at it. Silver was soaked in his own blood, still seeping from his shoulders and from his mouth with every pained exhalation. His skin was as grey as a Vortian's in the flickering light, one eye was clenched shut, and his teeth were gritted. "Did you really think I'd let you get away with that?!"

"Give it up, Takahiro," Domm spat. "You're out of the running, and you know it. There's no chance you'll be champion-" the sentence was punctuated with a scream as he felt a bone snap in his forearm. The tendrils kept on crushing, and blood was soon dribbling from Domm's sleeve.

"I KNOW that! But I have my pride, and there's no way in hell I'd let a faithless, cutthroat, sell-sword, DEFECTIVE like you win!" Silver screamed hoarsely. "I don't even HAVE to kill you here! I'll just cripple you and let the PROPER champion finish the job!"

"If I had kept my faith in the Empire… I would have been killed…" Domm gasped, his hands crackling with his unique birthright.

"THEN YOU SHOULD HAVE DIED!" Silver roared.

Domm made no reply verbally. Instead, he grabbed one of the tendrils with his free hands, sending a wave of disrupting static up to Silver's PAK. The many-hued current reached Silver, who quickly descended into wordless screams as his PAK, overtaxed as it was keeping him alive and conscious, began to blow out system after system. Finally, Silver loosened his grip on Domm's arm and sank to the floor, lifeless and unresponsive.

"Shit, that was a close one…" Domm got up and stared at his trembling left arm, hanging loosely from his shoulder, blood dripping from his fingers, his sleeve shredded to reveal similarly torn flesh underneath. He turned away and made it nearly ten steps before collapsing himself. "That was too close," he muttered, passing out.

End of Round 5

That explosion that destroys Domm's bike is a little improbable, the way Domm is flipped somewhat out of harm's way. I'm taking artistic license with that one.

Silver spends the majority of Part II dominating the fight, partially because he's a general who got to the semifinals and partially because Domm and Niz were both just in major fights, while Silver starts out rosy fresh. I tried to do justice to Silver mostly by having him beat Domm up, and to Niz mostly by having him survive outrageous punishment. Also, I gave both of them insanely complicated and over-the-top deaths (well, as you can see Silver's didn't actually finish him off, so I basically killed him twice). As I told ngrey, Irken-Maniac and I have been waiting to fight each other for a while, so I've had the idea to drop Niz into nuclear waste for the better part of a year now.

Then I decided to put a fuel rod gun in the nuclear power plant, because that's a good place to put fuel rod guns for emergency defense, amiright? So Silver grabs that and gets even more out of control. He's not very accurate with it, but a lot of time is spent running from it all the same.

I try to set up a conflict with each character Domm fights. Silver's conflict with Domm here is obvious - Silver disapproves of Domm being freelance. Niz's is a little more subtle, although not much (I'm not really one for subtlety). Niz's conflict with Domm is simply that he doesn't want to die.

I had that last scene planned from the beginning as well; I left it out of the rough draft on dA to give people who read that a little more to look forward to. Silver's conflict with Domm is finally resolved (kinda), and he manages to destroy one more thing of Domm's before the final match starts (he did an awful lot of that). Next, look forward to a flashback about the execution Domm and Erris were up for. Oh, and Domm's last two lines there were pretty much jacked from the Rank 2 fight in No More Heroes, because I'm a hack.

Read thedarkestprince's and Irken-Maniac's entries, too; those two rock very hard, and you get to see Domm get boiled alive/his hand taken off and face sliced in half vertically. I'm still not sure how I beat them both.