| Match 1 - Brian Ailshie GI Joe Ninjas vs. Sailor Scouts Quarter Finals Bracket 3 - Stone of Tear Looking up, Scarlet and Jinx see jets of fire erupt from the windows of one of the rooms of the Tower above the parapet they�re standing on. A moment later there are matching jets of bubbles. After a moment of silence, there is an annoyingly loud crying sound. The two Joes go to investigate. Finding the room isn�t hard, the sobbing and wailing of the girl. The noise is fairly painful to listen too. Entering the room they see a girl with long blonde hair lying on the ground in a heap. The noise is definitely coming from her. �Mars and Mercury, Waaaaaa, sacrificed themselves for me! Waaaa-Haaaa-haaaauu! Now they�re gone! Aaaaaahh-Waaaaaaah!� The girl in the sailor outfit wails. Then Jinx points to two bodies laying on the ground near the girl. They also wear sailor outfits, with different colored trim. Both are clearly dead. One is bleeding profusely from several bullet holes; the other has arrows in each of her eyes. With a gasp, Scarlet points across the room. Looking up, Jinx recognizes the forms of her cousins. Snake-Eyes and Stormshadow are mangled and burned. Jinx lets out a strangled sob, and then both Joes turn on the still crying girl. Their arms raise and fall and put the wailing girl out of everyone's misery. Suddenly a rose strikes Jinx on the shoulder, cutting deeply, and Tuxedo Mask appears. He strikes Scarlet across the neck with his cane snapping it. Holding his cane like a sword, he then battles Jinx. It isn�t long before Jinx realizes she has her enemy outmatched by her skill and longer weapon. She pushes the tuxedoed warrior back with blow after blow that he is barely able to block. Then he gets a lucky hit on her wounded shoulder and she drops her weapon. Lifting his hand, Tuxedo Mask ends it with a blast of power from his hand. The Joe ninja crumples and falls to the ground. Winners: Sailor Scouts (4-2) GI Joe Ninjas (5-1) Match 2 - Mark Ailshie Venture's Quest vs. The Empire Quarter Finals Bracket 2 - Lamp Post Woods, Narnia "Puny Humans! Prepare to die!" General Grievous steps forward against both Rog and Rygara, but the two warriors are not intimidated. Rog roars and charges, attacking overhand with his axe. Grievous deflects the slash with his android arm, and almost succeeds in yanking the axe out of Rog's hands. Then Grievous seperates his arms, draws sabers, and is suddenly a humming, engine of lightsaber menace. He laughs in his mechanical throat, but Rygara steps forward to intercept his attack. He swings two of his sabers in her direction, expecting to slice right through her armor, and is astonished to find that her shield can deflect lightsabers! (this has been established in previous rumbles--because of the gems imbedded on Rygara's shield, it can deflect the light-intensive blade) Rygara parries and knocks off one of Grievous' hands. The cyborg growls in frustration and pushes the attack, but now Rog attacks from the other side, and the General is hard pressed to parry the attacks of both warriors. Rygara is in her zone, focusing on her attacks and defenses, fully aware by now of her superiority to her opponent. But suddenly, a voice of doubt enters her mind. "Keep your guard up, you worthless toad!" Rygara started, and almost missed a parry. That had been the voice of her father, Arman! "Keep your guard up! You're getting sloppy!" And suddenly, she could hear the crash and parry of another duel, another fight, long ago. She felt her muscles tiring under that eternal attack, felt her will and confidence being sapped by his constant criticisms. Unable to fight, she fell back and left Grievous to Rog. "You're dead!" Arman shouted in her mind. "You're too weak and too slow and you keep dropping your guard! If you're just going to die, you can do it with your own sword, not mine! Do you understand?" I'm trying, Rygara answered silently. Trying so hard...She was dimly aware of a floating dark figure coming nearer and nearer to her. "My son must do better than try," Arman snapped. "You're weak and soft, like your mother and sisters. Perhaps you'd like to go back into the house and play with dolls?" No! She begged. Anything but that! Anything but to be one of them. But she could see his disapproval, his final disapproval. He meant it this time�he would send her inside to her mother and she would never feel his approval again--would never earn her sword. The dark cloaked figure was even with her face now, and Rygara heard a distant hiss like someone sucking air through a rasping throat. "MIAN!" called Yonder, close at hand. Suddenly, a burst of light, crisp and clean and bracing, extinguished the shadowy darkness. Rygara blinked and saw the Dementor flee before Yonder's light. The dwarf held his spear before him like a scepter, and the dementor fled from his light. Rygara pulled air into her lungs and tried to shove the terror back into her stomach where it would do no harm. Meanwhile, Rog had been struggling to fight against Grievous' three arms alone. Rog is a mighty warrior, but three metal arms wielding lightsabers is a bit beyond his abilities. Finally, the General sneaks past his dodges and slashes off his axe-arm. Rog roars in pain and dives to attack. Grievous is taken aback by this sudden attack, but not enough to be hurt by a one-armed warrior without a weapon. He backhands Rog into a tree, and the warrior falls dead. Now, Grievous laughs his deadly laugh and advances on Rygara and Yonder, his three remaining arms spinning with deadly peril. Venture draws an arrow to his cheek and looses, sending the shaft directly into Greivous' eye. The Cyborg screams in agony, not only because he has been blinded, but because that is one of the few parts of his body that can still feel pain. Rygara speeds in while he is distracted, and spears him with her father's ancestral sword. The blade goes through the gap in his armor and punctures his heart underneath. The cyborg thrashes in his death throes, and then lies still. Throughout all of the above, Palpatine has stood just under the cover of the trees, a small smile on his lips. Now, he raises his hands and a dozen trees are torn out of the ground. He waves his hands maliciously at Venture, and the trunks shoot toward the elf like heavy projectiles. Venture dodges one or two of them, but one finally crushes his leg against the ground. Once he is pinned, one of the other trees stops abruptly in mid air and drops with all its weight on Venture's chest. The elf is crushed like a rat under a heavy boot. Rygara shouts in anger and pain and swoops toward the Emperor with her sword. Palpatine grins and a lightsaber is sudddenly in his hand. They fight, and this time Rygara knows very quickly that she is outmatched. The old man spins like a corkscrew through the air, slashes at her shield, then immediately counters and slashes at her legs, her face, her arms. Rygara is good, but even she is helpless against the master of the Sith. "In the Name of Mian..." Yonder begins, raising his spear high, but suddenly the earth around him rises up like a wave and crushes him. Palpatine doesn't know who this 'Mian' is, but he saw what that name did to the Dementor. Rygara sneaks in during the slight distraction and scores a solid blow on Palpatine's shoulder. Palpatine cries out in surprise, and Rygara presses the attack. But then Palpatine raises his fingers and bolts of blue lightning strike against her metal breastplate, her metal guantlets, and the metal greaves upon her legs. The force lightning is meant to cause unbearable pain before death, but this time the electricity passes stright to Rygara's heart and shocks her into stillness. The Emperor hears movement under the dirt where the dwarf went down, and takes a moment to retrieve his lightsaber. Yonder pushes his way through the dirt, only to find himself alone against this juggernaut of the dark side. He raises his spear and calls on Mian. The tip glows like lightning, and when Palpatine sends dark bolts in his direction, the spear absorbs their power. Palaptine scowls. Only a Jedi should be able to do that! He dives at the dwarf with the same corkscrew method that he used on the woman, and the dwarf is certainly nowhere near as powerful of a warrior as she had been. In moments, Palpatine cuts him down, and the Empire advances to face the Dragon Reborn Winner: The Empire Match 3 - Brian Ailshie Jedi Knights vs. Team X Quarter Finals Bracket 1 - Ancient Babylon Anakin, Padme, and Obi-Wan wander the Hanging Gardens. Suddenly they find themselves attacked by a blue-skinned alien, a man with a strange accent, and a tall droid wearing clothes. Padme blasts the droid, but somehow the shot bounced off the droid�s steel skin. The guy in the long coat flung a sabacc card at Anakin; which Skywalker flipped back at him with the force. But it exploded as soon as Anakin grabbed it. Thinking quickly the Jedi leaped at the guy, dodged under the staff he swung, and cut him down. The blue Beast faired just as poorly against Obi-Wan. A scream from Padme alerts the two Jedi. The Naboo Senator holds her head as if under attack as a man in a wheeled chair rolls out from behind a building. The steel-skinned droid backhands Padme. She lands crumpled against the wall of the building. The bald guy then attacks the Jedi with his mind powers. Of course the Jedi are trained to defend against such attacks and Obi-Wan is able to hold it off. Anakin on the other hand, is furious at the death of his wife. He goes sith! Twirling as he leaps he cuts down the steel skinned droid. He doesn�t even pause to notice that the droid was really a human. Pushing with all the power of the Force against the bald man, he advances. Obi-Wan moves to help his Padawan, and the split in concentration is enough to weaken the guy in the wheeled chair. Assuming his powers to be the force, both Jedi decide he must be a new Sith Lord and cut him down as well. Winners: Jedi Knights (5-1) Team X (3-2-1) |