HOME | DD

Description
Swamps. Why'd it have to be swamps? He couldn't have arrived in somewhere nice and pleasant, like the desert or at a holiday resort. Did this planet have holiday resort? It better damn well have one, otherwise he was going to complain to the manager.
"When life gives you lemons." Sideos complained as he balanced himself along a thick, hanging branch and tried to not wobble and fall over the edge. Damn this was tough, he should have packed more things. Like a rope for one.
Or a towel. Towels were forever useful.
But he had his cloak, and that worked kind of like a towel. It had done when he had first arrived and landed waist deep in some horrible nasty swamp. Ugh, he had that amazing entrance, the universe had tuned in to see him boast about how utterly amazing he was and what happens?
The first shots of him in the tournament have him covered in mud and swatting flies. Way to kill the momentum.
He had already learned pretty quickly however that staying on the ground was a very, very bad idea. Mostly when his leg had almost been bitten off by one of those giant lizard-things that lived in the swamp.
Again, not the kind of thing he wanted Cambot seeing.
"Cambot old pal," Sideos announced as he hopped across a small gap between two branches and landed elegantly, almost cat-like, on another, "I want you to edit out that landing. And me almost being eaten. In fact you should probably just delete everything up 'till this point, kay?"
"Sir, this goes out live constantly to Bloodsports Live dot com." The small, hovering robot that was floating silently behind the irken answered. "Any edits will be done before the highlights show at nine o'clock Eastern Irk Time."
Sideos paused, balanced perfectly on one of the branches and looked back to the robot. "... lame." He sighed and continued on, hopping from one branch to another. "Well fine, I am the people's champion after all, I guess they should see every bit of my journey from start to finish, even the really stupid parts." He turned and winked back at the camera, "Warts and all!"
"Yes sir." The robot agreed dutifully.
Sideos hopped across some more branches before stopping and looking up, deciding it was worth climbing to the top of the tree and taking a look where he was. Maybe he could spot somewhere less... swampy. Quickly he began clambering up the tree, using a combination of branches and his own razor sharp claws to get to the top. He was barely out of breath however, so used to this kind of stuff that by now he was a well oiled machine, built for this kind of back-to-nature kind of fighting.
When his head popped out of the top of the tree, covered in leaves of course, his mad purple eyes widened. "... well Cambot, if I die now, that's a hell of a last memory."
The world opened up before him. Green, an endless carpet of green. For the first time it seemed to Sideos that he could hear and smell the world. Around him everything was filled with life, a group of birds fluttered out of some trees in the distance, flying up into the mid-afternoon sky, singing strange songs of their world.
Below he could hear the sound of water flowing in a myriad of lakes, rivers and streams and within them Sideos knew there were the giant lizards with their skin thick like a plate of armour, teeth the size of canon shells. Not sharp, no, they didn't need to be sharp when the beasts had the biting power strong enough to puncture through the side of a tank.
The smell of the swamp blanketed him, crawling at his clothes, pulling at his antennae and rubbing on his skin like an oversized animal of it's own. That strange rancid smell that somehow became almost sweet. The scent of green and water. The mix of wet muddy soil and dry bark and the squelch of bubbling swamp under foot.
He moved to sit on one thick, outstretched branch, deciding to take a break for a moment and just admire the view. Cambot hovered up beside him quietly.
"Breath in thar air, Cambot." Sideos announced as he took in a lungful and breathed out again. "Nature, Cambot, it's an awesome force."
"I would not know, sir," The robot replied quickly. "I cannot breathe or process such concepts as the beauty of nature."
"What can you do then?" Sideos replied with a slight frown at the annoying little bot.
"I can record and send images, sir." Cambot replied again in it's simple manner.
"... you need to get a girlfriend." The irken laughed before leaning against the tree.
"I cannot get a girlfriend, sir."
"Why not?"
"I cannot feel-"
"Alright alright." Sideos waved a hand a the robot with a frown. "I get the idea. You're boring."
The irken sighed and got up, deciding that sitting around all day would not be productive, and if he was here for a while, he had to get productive. Besides, he still had no idea who the hell he was supposed to go after, hopefully not some giant tank of a person who had more guns than sense. He hated those kind of guys.
Sideos had momentarily forgotten how dark the swamp was once you got under the canopy. The view above betrayed the real feeling of the swamp, like a sore with a pretty colour. Under the blanket of green there was only dark and gray. The noises of nature got louder, an almost deafening static of buzzing and croaking and growling like motor engines. Above him several birds flipped about on the trees. They were short, squat looking things with long, thin bills.
They too were murky, dark green and black with beady, hungry, starved little eyes popping out their tiny tennis-ball sized heads.
Sideos noted one and smirked. "Yeah, yeah, fuck you too buddy."
"Please do not swear, this is live television." Cambot hummed out beside him.
"Hey, it's part of my bad boy charm." Sideos added with a grin as he looked to Cambot. "How else do you think I- erm." He paused, for the first time since arriving he looked somewhat worried before looking away. "Nevermind."
Cambot did not reply, though somewhere far behind the camera, the producers of the show were very intrigued to know just what it was that Sideos was hiding.
But that was arbitrary for now.
"Right, well, I guess I better get started with killing whatever lil' bitch thought he could have me." Sideos stretched out, almost cat-like, before hopping from branch to branch once more. "Cambot, details!"
The robot hovered up beside Sideos, easily keeping pace with the psycho irken, and shot out a small rotating hologram of a somewhat small looking irken dressed in a long white lab coat. "Combat opponent selected. Subject, Robin."
"Robin?" Sideos paused to raise an antennae... and swat away some flies that were buzzing around him. "What lame kind of name is that?"
Cambot ignored the question. "He is a knife specialist and trained assassin."
Now this got Sideos's attention, he even bothered to stop swatting flies to look to Cambot. "Assassin? Do I know the group?"
"Your files indicate that it is likely you have met them before." Cambot announced, switching off the hologram.
"Cool." The irken chuckled before beginning to move further down the branches, almost getting to the ground. "It means I know what I'm going up against."
Well not really, he had no idea what the hell he was going up against. Other than the name and the title of 'assassin' Sideos didn't know anything about this little guy. Though that would soon end, the moment they met Sideos would begin mentally picking the guy apart. He looked forward to it, he'd been doing so many boring missions as of now that he barely had chance to really play around with his targets.
They were all kind of the same, just tough guys with mother issues mostly.
But this guy, he had a lab coat on, that meant he was smart. If he was smart that meant he'd be a challenge. Challenges were always fun.
However, what wasn't fun was this goddamn arena he had been thrown into. He landed onto the ground and felt the mud squelch around his boots. Immediately he winced. Jumping down was a bad idea but he knew that in this environment the one thing his opponent would expect would be a tree-based assault.
Coming from the ground would give him a considerable advantage.
Well, that's if he didn't sink into this thing first. As long as he kept away from the water he should be fine... even if he had to squelch his way through the mud to do so.
"Cambot, I'm blaming you for this idea." Sideos announced with a growl. "I'm never listening to you again."
"But sir, I didn't say-"
"Shut up Cambot." Sideos quickly cut in. "You're a bad robot. Bad bad robot."
Cambot decided that it was better to be quiet. Clearly he had been given the craziest bastard there was. Best to nod and go long with it.
It was at this point that Sideos suddenly froze. His eyes had spotted movement in the distance. It was too big to be his pray, that was for sure. It was something moving along the bank. What was that thing? It looked about the size of a small car and covered in mud and dark green scales.
Then it turned it's head slowly. Beady, unblinking eyes looked around the swamp in a sudden, jerky manner and it slowly opened it mouth, letting out a low, loud croak that sounded more like a huge burp. Two sacks either side of it's face blew up as it did so, making it seem even bigger than it was.
Sideos had no idea what it was, but he knew it was both really cool and really dangerous. He wondered if he could use the vines around him to lasso the creature and ride it to glory. That'd make sure to reach the news.
The creature shuffled on into the water, moving from awkward waddling to soft, deadly gliding through the murky swamp, the only thing revealing it's presence were the blunt ridges on it's back and those tiny, horrible bile-yellow eyes peaking out over the water.
Again Sideos was weirdly moved by the awe-inspiring beauty of the place. Oh sure, it stunk, it was muddy, it was dark and gloomy and overall disgusting. But it was still amazing to see it in first person.
Then the beast noticed him.
"Bollocks."
The roar the giant lizard gave out was practically deafening and the speed the monster came at him was incredible. Who thought such a huge beast could move so quickly? He tried to run through the mud but his feet were being sucked down. "BOLLOCKS, BOLLOCKS, BOLLOCKS!"
The beast was perfectly adapted to it's environment, webbed feet to cross mud quickly, wading motion to take the weight from side to side, massive jaws lined with two tows of teeth. It barked-roared again, causing Sideos to try and climb up the nearest tree in response.
He began scrabbling quickly, his claws digging into the bark, but it wasn't getting him up fast enough. His claws were fine, but his boots were slick with mud and no matter what he did he couldn't get a foothold.
Sideos knew he had to think quickly, so he did the first thing that came to mind. Just as the beast opened it's jaws and rushed at the tree, he leapt at it. The creature didn't seem to have seen this coming, and went running into the tree with a mighty CRACK of flesh on thousand year old tree bark.
However, the irken sailed through the air and landed flat onto the back of it, ending in a small roll. He turned his whole body at the end of the roll and stabbed his claws down, the blades slicing through the thick hide of the breast and instantly latching Sideos onto the animal.
The creature yowl-barked in pain and began thrashing around, already disorientated by headbutting the great tree. Sideos clung on for dear life, there was no way in hell he was falling off this thing now he was on it. He could train it to be his mount and ride it through the world dishing out beatdowns!
Or... well he could just kill the thing and use it's skin as a make-shift tent. OH, then he'd get to quote that popular movie! Okay yes, he'd do that. Taming this horrible beast would take too long, and besides, he was more of an Uggle person.
He began stabbing down into the creatures back, causing it to thrash and throw itself against the huge swamp trees in an attempt to rid itself off this annoying bug with the stabby hands. Sideos however knew if he was going to bring it down, he would have to target the brain.
It seemed however that his little friend had decided to go and simply drown his passenger. The lizard began quickly turning and moving back towards the large, brown-gray water of the swamp.
Sideos however, was swifter. He moved up the body of the beast like an arrow, determined not to drown, but at the same time, determined to look as cool as possible while NOT drowning.
The beast entered the water, splashing loudly and water dropping over the irken like rain. Great, his opening fight on Blood Sports TV and he was covered in horrible pale blue blood, brown water and smelly mud.
This was going as well as he'd hoped.
He reached the head, his balance perfect after years of training of turning his body into the perfect conduit for fighting. Raising a claw his eyes locked onto the top of the head of the beast, which was quickly drawing down into the murk. In half a second he had calculated where the brain was, the shape of the brain, and where he needed to strike to break through the skull. Give or take a centimetre or two.
And then it was taken from him.
An arrow suddenly seemed to sprout out of the head of the lizard, spurting more blue blood all over Sideos's shirt. The irken jumped back by instinct only, however, when he landed on the beast he found his footing unsteady. The lizard was falling over slowly into the water.
"FUCK." The irken shouted as he ran and leapt up grabbing onto the nearest tree. There was a second, and in that second he could hear it, that indispensable sound of metal moving through air.
He jumped out, grabbing onto an outstretched branch as the arrow that had been destined for his back hit the bark of the tree. Sideos moved quickly, leaping by chance, grabbing onto tree and branch by luck as more arrows came at him.
The irken saw an opening, or more accurately, some cover. Sideos jumped, and in that moment an arrow came out of the trees, spinning towards him. His purple eyes logged where it had come from, an in the same instance, they caught a flash of white.
Just as he cleared the gap, he heard a rip. His feet hit a branch wide enough to support a chair and instantly his back hit the trunk. Sideos looked down to his cloak and saw it now sported a small hole where, presumably, an arrow had ripped it open.
"... HEY ARSEHOLE!" Sideos shouted loudly, "You ripped my cloak! I paid good money for this thing!" Well he didn't really, he stole it off some begger who kept asking him for change.
What? Oh come on, you know the sort, don't deny you didn't want to punish them for being so bloody irritating!
"You won't be needing it when you're dead!" A voice called back. Ah, they fell for it.
Sideos's however frowned. He was masking his voice, the electronic tinge annoyed him. However, the fact he was talking was enough, after all, the first step was to get dialogue with your enemy.
"So you're Robin, right?" Sideos called out again, this time slowly inching around the branch wondering which was the best way to clear the space between his tree and wherever Robin was.
"Yeah, and you're Sideos, right?" A voice answered back. "I can't believe you dodged my arrows."
"Hey, pal, I'm amazing. Wanna meet face to face and you can see how amazing I am?" Sideos tempted with a grin.
"No way, I've heard about you." Robin's masked voice shouted from within the swamp. "You're like some crazy martial artist, I'm going to stay right here and throw knives at you until you look like a pincushion."
Heh, well, Sideos couldn't say he wouldn't have done the same in Robin's position. At least the guy had tactics.
"Come on guuuuuy." Sideos called out slowly as he began looking around him. He had to find a quick way to get from A to B and take this guy out. Or at least get close enough to begin putting on a good show, at this point all the poor viewers at home would see were two guys standing in trees shouting at one another. "Think of the audience at home! Think of the merchandising rights!"
"Who cares about that!" Robin called back. "I just wanna win this and go home." Then, though to some it might not seem it but to Sideos it was as plain as day, there was a slight shift in accent and tone. "And kill everyone here of course!"
This caused the sociopathic irken to pause for a moment. A tone shift usually meant one of two things, this kid was acting and acting well and had slipped up, or there was more than one personality running around in his opponent's head.
Sideos grinned slowly. Maybe this would be more fun than he thought?
He spotted a rout, it would require a little free running and far more luck, but it could work if he was swift enough. And he'd never doubted himself, so, he knew he could do it. "You know, it's funny, cos I was thinking of just making friends, networking, that kind of thing. Slaughtering everyone here never crossed my mind."
As Robin went to answer, Sideos moved. He ran up the tree, and used the momentum to push and leap from it onto a branch, which he turned on and leapt to another one. There was another arrow but it missed widely and Sideos smiled. He had obviously caught Robin by surprise.
Another leap and he grabbed a branch, swinging on it to another one, another leap onto a thick branch, a run up a tree trunk, then a jump, arcing through the air before crashing into a bunch of leaves and landing onto a large branch.
Sideos spun, knife-like fingers stretched out... only see that his movement was matched.
A tiny figure stood before him, even as Sideos's fingers were pointing up against his throat. It was fine however, because the figure had one knife pointed at Sideos's face and another held up behind him, ready to throw at an moment's notice.
The kid knew defence, Sideos would give him that.
Sideos's eyes however began moving over his opponent like a scanner, reading every little detail he could. Robin was wearing a long, white labcoat with some small stains near the wrists and dirt along the bottom. He had brown pants and black boots, again patterned with the sloppy swamp mud and a royal purple coloured shirt. He had a pair of binoculars dangling around his neck and from a pocket was a half-eaten chocolate bar of some sort.
Robin seemed to be bouncing slightly on the souls of his feet, his antanne twitched erratically and his hands waved just slightly, though his grip was sure and confident. On his back a quiver of arrows jostled from the movement, the bow cast to the branch behind him.
Robin's tired dark red eyes had a deep sort of determination to them and yet Sideos could tell that this was a troubled mind. He looked almost deceivingly like a smeet with his babyface looks and toying half-smile he had on his lips.
It was his antennae that actually caught Sideos's attention the most. Both angled up before drooping down in a sharp manner and spiking back up again, both seemed to shift to the left slightly, and most oddly, both ended not in the usual sharp scythe but in little orbs that seemed to float at the end. One was black, the other white.
"Nice shirt, bro." Sideos grinned quickly. "Love the colour."
"Thanks." Robin seemed to still be in shock, obviously he'd never seen anyone do something like Sideos had just done. He was probably more used to people using guns. "Nice... jumping."
"Mind taking the knife from my throat?" Sideos asked with a charming smile. "We need to establish our pre-fight banter a little more, you know, for the highlight reel they'll show later tonight."
"... you're weird." Robin said slowly, however, his eyes flicked to the blade-claws pointing to his own throat and looked back up. "... alright, but you first."
Sideos quickly withdrew his hand, again, surprising Robin. However, he also moved back fluidly, like a snake recoiling from a strike, that same smile still playing on his lips. Robin bounced back, his body more energetic and tense. The branch they were on was large, and clearly Robin had picked it for it's thickness, a nice place to sit and camp out.
"Well nice to meet you." Sideos bowed low before standing up fully, towering over the smeet-like man. "I'm Sideos, the best killer in the empire."
"Right..." The tiny irken seemed very on edge with Sideos standing in front of him. Probably because this was the last place he ever wanted to be, with the hand-to-hand legend standing barely an arms length away from him. "I'm Robin... erm... that's it."
Sideos chuckled, it was obvious the tiny irken was trying to figure him out. Good luck with that, it took one psychiatrist almost fifteen years to try and crack that case...
For a fleeting second, a terrible scowl crossed his face before vanishing. Feto... No, no he wasn't thinking on that, this was more important. Zikki needed him to focus.
Robin himself seemed to have noticed this expression but didn't say another on it. Instead, he quickly announced, "I have to admit, that leaping, it was impressive. I've never had someone dodge so many arrows before." His smile turned to a smirk. "But now it's a point blank shot, you made a big mistake coming to fight me face to face."
"... sure bro." Sideos clicked at him and pointed a finger like a gun. "Whatever you say little dude."
Robin growled. "Don't call me little."
"Why not, shortie?" Sideos quickly snarked at him. Robin had made a huge mistake in getting mad. Now Sideos had an immediate tool to whip him with. "Whatcha gonna do, shout at me? You might need a megaphone cos, you know, you're like all the way down there and I'm waaay up here. You probably have short man's syndrome, do you ride a chopper with a thong wearing girlfriend?"
"SHUT UP." Robin shouted loudly, "SHUT. UP. You don't know anything about me!"
Sideos's eyes sparkled suddenly, true sadism now entering his being. "Oh I know lots about you." He took a deep breath. "You're a knife wielder which means you rarely like getting up close and personal however I can tell that you have some talent in that area because of the way you hold the knives."
Robin looked to the blades in his hands, but Sideos didn't pause for long.
"You wear a lab coat meaning you're into science however you don't have any official marking meaning you either work on your own or you're a scientist for pay, the stain on your wrist also indicates you work with chemicals meaning you probably poisoned your blades." Sideos grinned widely. "Which makes you cautious, no wonder you're hiding up in the tree tops, or is it something else?"
The taller irken chuckled and continued. "You have a pair of binoculars around your neck, now a stupid person would assume you're scouting but in this environment," He raised his arms and looked around at the mass of leaves, branches and twigs pointing out everywhere. "What are you going to see? No, no, you brought them along because you like looking at something else."
As if on cue, a flock of birds suddenly rose from the canopy above them, screeching and cawing loudly. "Bird watching. Lame."
He grinned and crossed his arms slowly. "But I gotta wonder why someone who refuses to look down would climb so high up, perhaps because you don't like the big lizards down there? Or maybe it's because you fear water more than you fear heights."
Robin seemed to have a very confused expression, though it could also be mistaken for fear. He looked down, shivered, then looked back to Sideos. "What are you, psychic or something?"
"Nope, just very observant." Sideos grinned. He began slowly approaching Robin, one sure step in front of the other. Robin went to hold the knife at him but his hand was twitching, nervous, obviously the fact that Sideos had, within the space of about five minutes, picked apart most of his personality wasn't one that struck confidence into the smaller man.
"Keep away from me, weirdo." Robin barked, though his threat was paling. "I mean it."
"Or what, you'll insult me a second time?" Sideos began raising a sharp clawed hand slowly, Robin's eyes tracking it's movement. "I don't really think so."
Suddenly, almost unnoticeably, there was a sort of... click within Robin's eye. The tiniest of ticks.
Sideos only just managed to duck as a knife went swinging by where his arm used to be.
"Hey!" The irken called out, but was cut off, another knife swing, this one far too close to his face than Sideos was comfortable with. "Stop that!"
Robin was suddenly on the assault, and Sideos had to leap backward to keep out of range. Though the smaller irken was far faster and more agile than Sideos had thought, which was shocking since Sideos was pretty sure he'd gotten the guy down to a dot.
The irken however was not one to dance about forever.
Robin stabbed forward but with the flick of a hand Sideos pushed his hand away, and in the same movement, used Robin's momentum against him, aiming a quick jab into Robin's stomach. The assassin however turned his body, the blow hitting his side rather than his stomach.
The blow was still enough to knock the irken down over the side of the branch however.
Sideos paused as Robin fell back with a scream, panting just a little and kind of shocked. What the hell was that? He'd pegged the younger man for beaten, at least in the mind anyway, and yet he was fighting aggressively, uncaring for any harm he could get.
Plus he'd suddenly got up close and personal. That was NOT in the profile.
Sideos slowly moved towards the end of the branch, peering over and wondering if the little rat bastard had hit any branches on the way down.
There was no body. There was only Robin. Standing on a lower branch. With an arrow flying at Sideos's body.
And worse, he hit.
Though Sideos had managed to move back before it could hit his heart, the intended target, the arrow went across his shoulder, slicing into his skin as it did.
"BOLLOCKS." Sideos screamed, grabbing his now bleeding shoulder tightly. "You sneaky little bastard!"
"I AM NOT LITTLE!" Robin screamed from below him. "Besides, I hit you! SO HA!"
Oh so NOW the Robin he'd profiled had shown back up again. Super. What the damn hell was wrong with this guy? One moment he was about to go feral on him, the next he was back to firing arrows!
The wound wasn't deep, but it was hardly a scratch. It would bleed like crazy and hurt like hell for a while, and worse, it made a wound-point for the assassin to target. Sideos knew he would, assassins always went for the weak spot for a quick kill.
Sideos on the other hand preferred taking his opponent apart in pieces.
But than again, he was a sociopath.
The irken growled and looked to where Robin had been, his eyes narrowing dangerously. Oh the little bastard was going to pay for this.
Robin however seemed to be gaining confidence. The fact he'd scored a hit meant that he was winning, and as long as he kept the distance up he realised that he could win this. Sideos had no guns, no knives, no nothing. Hell he didn't even have good armour, just that dirty cloak and an old shirt.
Oh sure, Robin couldn't talk what with his clothes but at least he had something to SHOOT at his opponent.
The smaller irken notched another arrow but did not pull it into place. Not yet. Everything had gone weirdly quiet and in his experience that only meant that his enemy was trying to sneak around him.
Robin knew Sideos had to close the gap, or he was useless. Therefore, the smaller irken quickly began moving further down. He hated doing so, as it meant surrendering the canopy above to the taller irken, who seemed rather well versed in parkour.
Robin wasn't exactly a couch potato, years of assassin training saw to that, but he knew he wasn't on this guys level. He was supposed to be. He was trained to strike once and escape into the shadows, not stand and battle until exhausted.
He had to force Sideos to play this battle HIS way or at least as much as he could. Robin scowled to himself, knowing that Sideos had pushed one of his more sinister personalities to the surface. He couldn't afford to just lose control like that again, he had been lucky and caught the irken off guard.
He knew that the psychopath would tear him apart if he ever got that close again.
Robin noticed that everything around him had gone very, very still. He notched another arrow slowly...
There was a movement, and he spun quickly, shooting the arrow into the leaves. It was like the swamp had erupted around him as everything went crazy. Leaves fell like rain, there was a loud screeching and the huge, ugly birds scattered everywhere.
Something fell through the branches, snapping a few as it dropped to the ground.
Robin looked over the side of the branch he was on and his heart fell slightly. There was one of the birds, huge and black, twitching on the ground with an arrow sticking out it's chest and blood pooling about it.
"Poor thing." Robin muttered to himself.
"Daymn you really hit that thing, huh?" Robin almost leapt off the branch in shock, turning to see Sideos right beside him, looking down to the dead bird. The irken looked over to Robin and smirked. "Stone cold killa! Shootin cops pow pow pow with ya nine, dawg!"
Robin blinked at this. "... what?"
"SURPRISE!" Suddenly a foot connected with Robin's face, kicking him right off the branch. Sideos however didn't stop there. He pressed his advantage, leaping off the branch and spearing Robin in mid-air, slamming him down into another branch. However, the branch snapped, and Sideos faltered.
Robin, though winded, too his chance and punched Sideos in the face, in the torso, anywhere his fists could reach.
The two then collided with another branch with a rather loud CRUNCH. Sideos felt a shoulder pop out of place and pain ripped through him. Robin too felt a rib crack as the two now went into freefall, rushing towards the ground.
Robin grabbed onto Sideos. Sideos grabbed onto Robin. Each trying to push each other to be the one to break the other's fall.
They hit the ground with a smack, thick mud acting almost like a brick wall as they collided with the floor... and yet, when Sideos opened his eyes, he saw only a large black orb around him.
He still hurt like a motherfucker though.
"What the..." He looked around slowly before noticing Robin gradually getting to hsi feet, groaning. "What the fresh hell is this?"
"It's a protection orb. It's supposed to be used to deflect bullets, lasers," Robin narrowed his eyes at Sideos as he began trying to wipe the mud off him. "Not morons."
"So I guess it wouldn't work on you." Sideos grinned back quickly as he tried to get a solid footing.
"Neeer." Robin stuck a tongue out at Sideos. "You're the moron who leapt after me and broke the branch. It's only thanks to the shield cushioning the blow that we're both alive."
"Correction, you're dead and you don't know it yet." Sideos finally re-took his fighting stance finding something nice and solid to stand on, even if his feet were up to his ankles in mud.
"What, is that some eastern thing?" Robin mused as he too found a stance. He drew out his knives, realising that he could not simply run away, he would have to fight and hope the mud slowed the frighteningly fast Sideos down.
Sideos paused to raise an antennae in confusion before viciously smiling. "Oh that was good."
"Thank you."
"You're still gonna to die horribly."
"Don't think so."
"Uh-hu."
"No way."
"Tot-" Sideos didn't get to finish his taunting. The ground under him suddenly wobbled. For a moment he wondered if it was an earthquake, then he realised nothing else was shaking.
Other than Robin of course.
The two irkens practically fell over as the mud shifted beneath them... then began rising slowly.
It seemed that the irkens had picked the worst possible place to stand. On the backs of two of the huge lizard-like beasts that had been presumably sleeping until the aliens had gone flying into them.
And unlucky for the due, it also turned out that this particular species of giant lizard did not enjoy having potential food land onto their backs while they were sleeping.
"Bollocks!" Robin shouted as the monster rose out of the mud, water and slop sliding from it and Robin himself having to grab onto one of the ridges on it's back to stop from falling off.
"Now you're stealing my lines!" Sideos shouted out, he too struggling to keep himself from sliding off. "Oh you're just ASKING to be killed!"
There was a sudden switch in Robin, that indecipherable tick that Sideos had picked up on before. "FUCK YOU!"
The beasts under them roared and began thrashing at one another, each seeing the food standing on the other's back. As they began trying to jump up, the two irkens attacked.
Sideos leapt forward, his strike precise and focused... and it hit. Three claw marks raked across Robin's chest, the knife in Robin's hand missing Sideos only by an inch. However, the smaller irken surprised the taller as the moment he landed, he turned and threw a blade at Sideos.
It whizzed past his face, cutting a neat scar across his chin.
Sideos put a claw to the new bleeding cut and blinked.
"Fifteen minutes." Robin snarled out, taking another knife out of his belt. "A paralysing agent is now running through your blood. You have ten minutes until you're unable to move." He snickered and held out his coat slightly, little green needles glinting in his pocket. "And I have the antidote."
Sideos didn't doubt it, already he could feel his cheek numbing from the pain that should be aching through his jaw. "You tiny little bastard."
"I AM NOT TINY!" The irken rushed forward again, just as the beast under him roared and leapt up, jaws rushing for Sideos. The psycho however was faster. Much faster. He leapt forward and bounced off the nose of the lizard to jump kick Robin in the chest, knocking the wind right out of him.
Robin however did not go flying into the mud, as Sideos had predicted. Instead the huge tale of the lizard rose up, and Robin hit it hard. He clung on as the two monsters under them fought, forgetting the food battling on their backs.
Sideos couldn't get steady footing, both from the mud covering his feet and the violent throws of the beast under him.
Robin however didn't need steady ground. He ticked and suddenly began moving back, trying to gain his breath and throwing another knife. Sideos only dodged as he fell over, but he rolled and got on all fours.
He leaped forward, rushing to get as close as possible. Robin moved back, leaping from one lizard onto the other and again throwing another knife. The knife missed and hit the lizard, sticking in his side. Sideos jumped faster than Robin could see and the smaller irken screamed as a knife-like claw hit through his side.
Sideos grinned as blood flowed around the wound, however, there was no pause from Robin... and again, Sideos had not read this. He screamed in blind pain as fire seemed to rush across his side, a knife digging into his flesh.
He elbowed Robin in the face, then followed it up with a swinging jab to his face and then a kick to his middle. Robin fell back, clutching his wound.
Pain was aching through him, intense pain, like he's been shot through the stomach or something. It was trying to spread over him like a tide, washing through his muscles, attacking him like an opponent. Sideos almost broke his own teeth clenching down, forcing his mind from the pain. He pulled the dagger out and tossed it aside while also trying to cover his wound with one hand. "What the fuck was that?"
"Poison," Robin replied through a hiss, "Do you feel it? Burning through you, like a virus, eating at your will." He grinned slowly, and in that second, Sideos looked to his enemy with a new gaze.
This was another Robin. No the cold calculator who kept his distance, but a psychopath. In that slowed down moment, it hit Sideos like a train.
Robin had split personality disorder.
This Robin was insane, fearless, he'd wade through blows to rip Sideos apart in close combat. He reminded Sideos at once of a rather intelligent Tika, or at least, one that could speak.
And that actually made him a little nervous. The fearless ones were the most dangerous. But he also swelled with a new confidence. He now knew just how to beat Robin. But he had to be fast. The growing numbness in his body to the fire he was barely keeping his mind off, he knew if he allowed Robin to keep out of his reach for only a few minutes longer he'd either be killed, or be eaten.
"So," Sideos grinned. "Little dude, you gonna cry at me or actually fight."
The smaller irken yelled and ran forward and Sideos jumped back, moving towards the mouth of the beast and almost fell, the monster roared, and was suddenly joined by three more roars. They were all closing in, blood was filling the air and Sideos spent a second to glance.
The two beasts were tearing into each other.
It was pretty fitting to be honest.
Robin leapt forward, tackling Sideos. He tried stabbing down with his blade, but Sideos grabbed Robin's arm and held it tightly, his own claws quickly digging into Robin's flesh and drawing blood through his cloak.
The irken had hit Sideos far harder than he thought he could however, and what was bad, was that Robin seemed to notice. "Moon-Belt," The crazed irken cackled amongst the roars of lizards around them. "Decreases the weight of gravity on me, increases my strength."
"Cheater." Sideos chuckled, though blood was running out of his side too quickly for his liking. "You should practice properly, then you could do shit like this!"
Sideos grabbed Robin and fell onto his back, moving his legs up and kicking Robin backwards. The irken flew down to the mouth of the giant lizard, however, he grabbed an arrow from his quiver and used it like a hook, stabbing it into the lizard's head to stop himself rolling into it's jaw.
The monster roared, thrashing. However, other beasts could smell the blood and Sideos yelped as a pair of jaws crashed down through the flesh beside him. He jumped up, again rushing to close the distance. Pain was acting through him, but he was forcing himself to push on. 'Think of Zikki, Sid, think of Zikki.'
Robin was up and fighting, swinging wildly at Sideos with the last dagger he had. Sideos dodged easily, mostly through the stumbling from the thrashing lizard under him. He could no longer toy with Robin, he had to see the opening he needed.
But the burning poison and paralysing pain was slowing him down, causing his movements to become sluggish, predictable. Robin, through tactic or not, had begun robbing Sideos of the thing that gave him his edge. His speed.
Sideos's jabs were swift strikes, hitting Robin all over, slicing trough his arm, his body. Sideos's legs kicked into his sides. The smaller irken was managing to shift out the way, even as Sideos hit him, the blows were light, cuts and bruises at most.
And then it came. There was a deafening roar from his side and both irkens turned. There were a pair of jaws coming at them, attached to one of the massive lizards.
Sideos saw his opening.Through the pain and numbness and fire rushing through his limbs, he grabbed Robin tightly, the young irken distracted by the sight of the monster-lizard.
Sideos rushed at Robin, pushing him over but in the same moment, reaching forward and snatching one of the needles from within Robin's coat. Robin suddenly realised the bad point of having a moon-belt, it didn't just make him faster, it made everything around him heavier. Which included the jaws of a several tonne lizard.
Sideos grinned and smirked as he jumped onto Robin, pressing him down with a foot as he launched himself off the lizard. "Seeya later, alligator."
He missed the jaws of the monster by only a few inches. Robin's screams ended quickly within the jaws of the monster, and suddenly there was a shower of blood and flesh everywhere. Sideos landed into the mud heavily, feeling most of his body cry out in pain. However, he had the needle still held tightly in his hand.
Sideos jammed it into his arm, pushing the liquid into him and tossing the empty needle away. Then he began crawling through the mud towards the nearest tree, where he hide quietly under the huge arching roots as the monsters fought and battled in a bloodbath.
He was panting softly, his body still battling fire, numbness, soothing cold and outright pain. He hadn't been pushed so much in so long, dammit, maybe he had underestimated the difficulty of these fighters?
No. No he had not. He had won, he was still the best. But he had let himself get slack, he had forgotten why he was supposed to be here.
"One.... down... Sideos..." A crackling came from his side and for the first time since the fight, Sideos realised that Cambot was still with him, the usual red dot of recording replaced by an eery green. Sideos's eyes turned quickly, though he didn't move, he was too exhausted, too busy trying to will himself to heal faster.
"Who... Feto?" Sideos spoke quietly, but yet, with a deep fury that not even Robin had seen.
"Hope... are in... pain." The crackling continued, followed by a slow, mechanical laugh. "Zikki... says hello." Then there was a long scream.
Sideos was on his feet, pain, numbness, all forgotten. His eyes were on fire. "YOU LEAVE HER ALONE, YOU BITCH!"
He raised a fist, ready to smash Cambot into pieces.
That was until there was a notable twich from Cambot. "Sir, please do not destory company equipment."
Sideos paused, his body suddenly seeming so... thin, so small. Then he forced his swagger back on, sitting back down and grinning. "Oh, no problemo, Cambot." Sideos's eyes looked away, seemingly to see the bloodbath die down, but really to hide something deeper from within the purple of his gaze.
Worry.
"I'm the best in the empire, Cambot." He finally announced. "And I gotta keep proving it. But for now." He moved to a dry spot under the tree and sighed. "I gotta take five."

Description
Swamps. Why'd it have to be swamps? He couldn't have arrived in somewhere nice and pleasant, like the desert or at a holiday resort. Did this planet have holiday resort? It better damn well have one, otherwise he was going to complain to the manager.
"When life gives you lemons." Sideos complained as he balanced himself along a thick, hanging branch and tried to not wobble and fall over the edge. Damn this was tough, he should have packed more things. Like a rope for one.
Or a towel. Towels were forever useful.
But he had his cloak, and that worked kind of like a towel. It had done when he had first arrived and landed waist deep in some horrible nasty swamp. Ugh, he had that amazing entrance, the universe had tuned in to see him boast about how utterly amazing he was and what happens?
The first shots of him in the tournament have him covered in mud and swatting flies. Way to kill the momentum.
He had already learned pretty quickly however that staying on the ground was a very, very bad idea. Mostly when his leg had almost been bitten off by one of those giant lizard-things that lived in the swamp.
Again, not the kind of thing he wanted Cambot seeing.
"Cambot old pal," Sideos announced as he hopped across a small gap between two branches and landed elegantly, almost cat-like, on another, "I want you to edit out that landing. And me almost being eaten. In fact you should probably just delete everything up 'till this point, kay?"
"Sir, this goes out live constantly to Bloodsports Live dot com." The small, hovering robot that was floating silently behind the irken answered. "Any edits will be done before the highlights show at nine o'clock Eastern Irk Time."
Sideos paused, balanced perfectly on one of the branches and looked back to the robot. "... lame." He sighed and continued on, hopping from one branch to another. "Well fine, I am the people's champion after all, I guess they should see every bit of my journey from start to finish, even the really stupid parts." He turned and winked back at the camera, "Warts and all!"
"Yes sir." The robot agreed dutifully.
Sideos hopped across some more branches before stopping and looking up, deciding it was worth climbing to the top of the tree and taking a look where he was. Maybe he could spot somewhere less... swampy. Quickly he began clambering up the tree, using a combination of branches and his own razor sharp claws to get to the top. He was barely out of breath however, so used to this kind of stuff that by now he was a well oiled machine, built for this kind of back-to-nature kind of fighting.
When his head popped out of the top of the tree, covered in leaves of course, his mad purple eyes widened. "... well Cambot, if I die now, that's a hell of a last memory."
The world opened up before him. Green, an endless carpet of green. For the first time it seemed to Sideos that he could hear and smell the world. Around him everything was filled with life, a group of birds fluttered out of some trees in the distance, flying up into the mid-afternoon sky, singing strange songs of their world.
Below he could hear the sound of water flowing in a myriad of lakes, rivers and streams and within them Sideos knew there were the giant lizards with their skin thick like a plate of armour, teeth the size of canon shells. Not sharp, no, they didn't need to be sharp when the beasts had the biting power strong enough to puncture through the side of a tank.
The smell of the swamp blanketed him, crawling at his clothes, pulling at his antennae and rubbing on his skin like an oversized animal of it's own. That strange rancid smell that somehow became almost sweet. The scent of green and water. The mix of wet muddy soil and dry bark and the squelch of bubbling swamp under foot.
He moved to sit on one thick, outstretched branch, deciding to take a break for a moment and just admire the view. Cambot hovered up beside him quietly.
"Breath in thar air, Cambot." Sideos announced as he took in a lungful and breathed out again. "Nature, Cambot, it's an awesome force."
"I would not know, sir," The robot replied quickly. "I cannot breathe or process such concepts as the beauty of nature."
"What can you do then?" Sideos replied with a slight frown at the annoying little bot.
"I can record and send images, sir." Cambot replied again in it's simple manner.
"... you need to get a girlfriend." The irken laughed before leaning against the tree.
"I cannot get a girlfriend, sir."
"Why not?"
"I cannot feel-"
"Alright alright." Sideos waved a hand a the robot with a frown. "I get the idea. You're boring."
The irken sighed and got up, deciding that sitting around all day would not be productive, and if he was here for a while, he had to get productive. Besides, he still had no idea who the hell he was supposed to go after, hopefully not some giant tank of a person who had more guns than sense. He hated those kind of guys.
Sideos had momentarily forgotten how dark the swamp was once you got under the canopy. The view above betrayed the real feeling of the swamp, like a sore with a pretty colour. Under the blanket of green there was only dark and gray. The noises of nature got louder, an almost deafening static of buzzing and croaking and growling like motor engines. Above him several birds flipped about on the trees. They were short, squat looking things with long, thin bills.
They too were murky, dark green and black with beady, hungry, starved little eyes popping out their tiny tennis-ball sized heads.
Sideos noted one and smirked. "Yeah, yeah, fuck you too buddy."
"Please do not swear, this is live television." Cambot hummed out beside him.
"Hey, it's part of my bad boy charm." Sideos added with a grin as he looked to Cambot. "How else do you think I- erm." He paused, for the first time since arriving he looked somewhat worried before looking away. "Nevermind."
Cambot did not reply, though somewhere far behind the camera, the producers of the show were very intrigued to know just what it was that Sideos was hiding.
But that was arbitrary for now.
"Right, well, I guess I better get started with killing whatever lil' bitch thought he could have me." Sideos stretched out, almost cat-like, before hopping from branch to branch once more. "Cambot, details!"
The robot hovered up beside Sideos, easily keeping pace with the psycho irken, and shot out a small rotating hologram of a somewhat small looking irken dressed in a long white lab coat. "Combat opponent selected. Subject, Robin."
"Robin?" Sideos paused to raise an antennae... and swat away some flies that were buzzing around him. "What lame kind of name is that?"
Cambot ignored the question. "He is a knife specialist and trained assassin."
Now this got Sideos's attention, he even bothered to stop swatting flies to look to Cambot. "Assassin? Do I know the group?"
"Your files indicate that it is likely you have met them before." Cambot announced, switching off the hologram.
"Cool." The irken chuckled before beginning to move further down the branches, almost getting to the ground. "It means I know what I'm going up against."
Well not really, he had no idea what the hell he was going up against. Other than the name and the title of 'assassin' Sideos didn't know anything about this little guy. Though that would soon end, the moment they met Sideos would begin mentally picking the guy apart. He looked forward to it, he'd been doing so many boring missions as of now that he barely had chance to really play around with his targets.
They were all kind of the same, just tough guys with mother issues mostly.
But this guy, he had a lab coat on, that meant he was smart. If he was smart that meant he'd be a challenge. Challenges were always fun.
However, what wasn't fun was this goddamn arena he had been thrown into. He landed onto the ground and felt the mud squelch around his boots. Immediately he winced. Jumping down was a bad idea but he knew that in this environment the one thing his opponent would expect would be a tree-based assault.
Coming from the ground would give him a considerable advantage.
Well, that's if he didn't sink into this thing first. As long as he kept away from the water he should be fine... even if he had to squelch his way through the mud to do so.
"Cambot, I'm blaming you for this idea." Sideos announced with a growl. "I'm never listening to you again."
"But sir, I didn't say-"
"Shut up Cambot." Sideos quickly cut in. "You're a bad robot. Bad bad robot."
Cambot decided that it was better to be quiet. Clearly he had been given the craziest bastard there was. Best to nod and go long with it.
It was at this point that Sideos suddenly froze. His eyes had spotted movement in the distance. It was too big to be his pray, that was for sure. It was something moving along the bank. What was that thing? It looked about the size of a small car and covered in mud and dark green scales.
Then it turned it's head slowly. Beady, unblinking eyes looked around the swamp in a sudden, jerky manner and it slowly opened it mouth, letting out a low, loud croak that sounded more like a huge burp. Two sacks either side of it's face blew up as it did so, making it seem even bigger than it was.
Sideos had no idea what it was, but he knew it was both really cool and really dangerous. He wondered if he could use the vines around him to lasso the creature and ride it to glory. That'd make sure to reach the news.
The creature shuffled on into the water, moving from awkward waddling to soft, deadly gliding through the murky swamp, the only thing revealing it's presence were the blunt ridges on it's back and those tiny, horrible bile-yellow eyes peaking out over the water.
Again Sideos was weirdly moved by the awe-inspiring beauty of the place. Oh sure, it stunk, it was muddy, it was dark and gloomy and overall disgusting. But it was still amazing to see it in first person.
Then the beast noticed him.
"Bollocks."
The roar the giant lizard gave out was practically deafening and the speed the monster came at him was incredible. Who thought such a huge beast could move so quickly? He tried to run through the mud but his feet were being sucked down. "BOLLOCKS, BOLLOCKS, BOLLOCKS!"
The beast was perfectly adapted to it's environment, webbed feet to cross mud quickly, wading motion to take the weight from side to side, massive jaws lined with two tows of teeth. It barked-roared again, causing Sideos to try and climb up the nearest tree in response.
He began scrabbling quickly, his claws digging into the bark, but it wasn't getting him up fast enough. His claws were fine, but his boots were slick with mud and no matter what he did he couldn't get a foothold.
Sideos knew he had to think quickly, so he did the first thing that came to mind. Just as the beast opened it's jaws and rushed at the tree, he leapt at it. The creature didn't seem to have seen this coming, and went running into the tree with a mighty CRACK of flesh on thousand year old tree bark.
However, the irken sailed through the air and landed flat onto the back of it, ending in a small roll. He turned his whole body at the end of the roll and stabbed his claws down, the blades slicing through the thick hide of the breast and instantly latching Sideos onto the animal.
The creature yowl-barked in pain and began thrashing around, already disorientated by headbutting the great tree. Sideos clung on for dear life, there was no way in hell he was falling off this thing now he was on it. He could train it to be his mount and ride it through the world dishing out beatdowns!
Or... well he could just kill the thing and use it's skin as a make-shift tent. OH, then he'd get to quote that popular movie! Okay yes, he'd do that. Taming this horrible beast would take too long, and besides, he was more of an Uggle person.
He began stabbing down into the creatures back, causing it to thrash and throw itself against the huge swamp trees in an attempt to rid itself off this annoying bug with the stabby hands. Sideos however knew if he was going to bring it down, he would have to target the brain.
It seemed however that his little friend had decided to go and simply drown his passenger. The lizard began quickly turning and moving back towards the large, brown-gray water of the swamp.
Sideos however, was swifter. He moved up the body of the beast like an arrow, determined not to drown, but at the same time, determined to look as cool as possible while NOT drowning.
The beast entered the water, splashing loudly and water dropping over the irken like rain. Great, his opening fight on Blood Sports TV and he was covered in horrible pale blue blood, brown water and smelly mud.
This was going as well as he'd hoped.
He reached the head, his balance perfect after years of training of turning his body into the perfect conduit for fighting. Raising a claw his eyes locked onto the top of the head of the beast, which was quickly drawing down into the murk. In half a second he had calculated where the brain was, the shape of the brain, and where he needed to strike to break through the skull. Give or take a centimetre or two.
And then it was taken from him.
An arrow suddenly seemed to sprout out of the head of the lizard, spurting more blue blood all over Sideos's shirt. The irken jumped back by instinct only, however, when he landed on the beast he found his footing unsteady. The lizard was falling over slowly into the water.
"FUCK." The irken shouted as he ran and leapt up grabbing onto the nearest tree. There was a second, and in that second he could hear it, that indispensable sound of metal moving through air.
He jumped out, grabbing onto an outstretched branch as the arrow that had been destined for his back hit the bark of the tree. Sideos moved quickly, leaping by chance, grabbing onto tree and branch by luck as more arrows came at him.
The irken saw an opening, or more accurately, some cover. Sideos jumped, and in that moment an arrow came out of the trees, spinning towards him. His purple eyes logged where it had come from, an in the same instance, they caught a flash of white.
Just as he cleared the gap, he heard a rip. His feet hit a branch wide enough to support a chair and instantly his back hit the trunk. Sideos looked down to his cloak and saw it now sported a small hole where, presumably, an arrow had ripped it open.
"... HEY ARSEHOLE!" Sideos shouted loudly, "You ripped my cloak! I paid good money for this thing!" Well he didn't really, he stole it off some begger who kept asking him for change.
What? Oh come on, you know the sort, don't deny you didn't want to punish them for being so bloody irritating!
"You won't be needing it when you're dead!" A voice called back. Ah, they fell for it.
Sideos's however frowned. He was masking his voice, the electronic tinge annoyed him. However, the fact he was talking was enough, after all, the first step was to get dialogue with your enemy.
"So you're Robin, right?" Sideos called out again, this time slowly inching around the branch wondering which was the best way to clear the space between his tree and wherever Robin was.
"Yeah, and you're Sideos, right?" A voice answered back. "I can't believe you dodged my arrows."
"Hey, pal, I'm amazing. Wanna meet face to face and you can see how amazing I am?" Sideos tempted with a grin.
"No way, I've heard about you." Robin's masked voice shouted from within the swamp. "You're like some crazy martial artist, I'm going to stay right here and throw knives at you until you look like a pincushion."
Heh, well, Sideos couldn't say he wouldn't have done the same in Robin's position. At least the guy had tactics.
"Come on guuuuuy." Sideos called out slowly as he began looking around him. He had to find a quick way to get from A to B and take this guy out. Or at least get close enough to begin putting on a good show, at this point all the poor viewers at home would see were two guys standing in trees shouting at one another. "Think of the audience at home! Think of the merchandising rights!"
"Who cares about that!" Robin called back. "I just wanna win this and go home." Then, though to some it might not seem it but to Sideos it was as plain as day, there was a slight shift in accent and tone. "And kill everyone here of course!"
This caused the sociopathic irken to pause for a moment. A tone shift usually meant one of two things, this kid was acting and acting well and had slipped up, or there was more than one personality running around in his opponent's head.
Sideos grinned slowly. Maybe this would be more fun than he thought?
He spotted a rout, it would require a little free running and far more luck, but it could work if he was swift enough. And he'd never doubted himself, so, he knew he could do it. "You know, it's funny, cos I was thinking of just making friends, networking, that kind of thing. Slaughtering everyone here never crossed my mind."
As Robin went to answer, Sideos moved. He ran up the tree, and used the momentum to push and leap from it onto a branch, which he turned on and leapt to another one. There was another arrow but it missed widely and Sideos smiled. He had obviously caught Robin by surprise.
Another leap and he grabbed a branch, swinging on it to another one, another leap onto a thick branch, a run up a tree trunk, then a jump, arcing through the air before crashing into a bunch of leaves and landing onto a large branch.
Sideos spun, knife-like fingers stretched out... only see that his movement was matched.
A tiny figure stood before him, even as Sideos's fingers were pointing up against his throat. It was fine however, because the figure had one knife pointed at Sideos's face and another held up behind him, ready to throw at an moment's notice.
The kid knew defence, Sideos would give him that.
Sideos's eyes however began moving over his opponent like a scanner, reading every little detail he could. Robin was wearing a long, white labcoat with some small stains near the wrists and dirt along the bottom. He had brown pants and black boots, again patterned with the sloppy swamp mud and a royal purple coloured shirt. He had a pair of binoculars dangling around his neck and from a pocket was a half-eaten chocolate bar of some sort.
Robin seemed to be bouncing slightly on the souls of his feet, his antanne twitched erratically and his hands waved just slightly, though his grip was sure and confident. On his back a quiver of arrows jostled from the movement, the bow cast to the branch behind him.
Robin's tired dark red eyes had a deep sort of determination to them and yet Sideos could tell that this was a troubled mind. He looked almost deceivingly like a smeet with his babyface looks and toying half-smile he had on his lips.
It was his antennae that actually caught Sideos's attention the most. Both angled up before drooping down in a sharp manner and spiking back up again, both seemed to shift to the left slightly, and most oddly, both ended not in the usual sharp scythe but in little orbs that seemed to float at the end. One was black, the other white.
"Nice shirt, bro." Sideos grinned quickly. "Love the colour."
"Thanks." Robin seemed to still be in shock, obviously he'd never seen anyone do something like Sideos had just done. He was probably more used to people using guns. "Nice... jumping."
"Mind taking the knife from my throat?" Sideos asked with a charming smile. "We need to establish our pre-fight banter a little more, you know, for the highlight reel they'll show later tonight."
"... you're weird." Robin said slowly, however, his eyes flicked to the blade-claws pointing to his own throat and looked back up. "... alright, but you first."
Sideos quickly withdrew his hand, again, surprising Robin. However, he also moved back fluidly, like a snake recoiling from a strike, that same smile still playing on his lips. Robin bounced back, his body more energetic and tense. The branch they were on was large, and clearly Robin had picked it for it's thickness, a nice place to sit and camp out.
"Well nice to meet you." Sideos bowed low before standing up fully, towering over the smeet-like man. "I'm Sideos, the best killer in the empire."
"Right..." The tiny irken seemed very on edge with Sideos standing in front of him. Probably because this was the last place he ever wanted to be, with the hand-to-hand legend standing barely an arms length away from him. "I'm Robin... erm... that's it."
Sideos chuckled, it was obvious the tiny irken was trying to figure him out. Good luck with that, it took one psychiatrist almost fifteen years to try and crack that case...
For a fleeting second, a terrible scowl crossed his face before vanishing. Feto... No, no he wasn't thinking on that, this was more important. Zikki needed him to focus.
Robin himself seemed to have noticed this expression but didn't say another on it. Instead, he quickly announced, "I have to admit, that leaping, it was impressive. I've never had someone dodge so many arrows before." His smile turned to a smirk. "But now it's a point blank shot, you made a big mistake coming to fight me face to face."
"... sure bro." Sideos clicked at him and pointed a finger like a gun. "Whatever you say little dude."
Robin growled. "Don't call me little."
"Why not, shortie?" Sideos quickly snarked at him. Robin had made a huge mistake in getting mad. Now Sideos had an immediate tool to whip him with. "Whatcha gonna do, shout at me? You might need a megaphone cos, you know, you're like all the way down there and I'm waaay up here. You probably have short man's syndrome, do you ride a chopper with a thong wearing girlfriend?"
"SHUT UP." Robin shouted loudly, "SHUT. UP. You don't know anything about me!"
Sideos's eyes sparkled suddenly, true sadism now entering his being. "Oh I know lots about you." He took a deep breath. "You're a knife wielder which means you rarely like getting up close and personal however I can tell that you have some talent in that area because of the way you hold the knives."
Robin looked to the blades in his hands, but Sideos didn't pause for long.
"You wear a lab coat meaning you're into science however you don't have any official marking meaning you either work on your own or you're a scientist for pay, the stain on your wrist also indicates you work with chemicals meaning you probably poisoned your blades." Sideos grinned widely. "Which makes you cautious, no wonder you're hiding up in the tree tops, or is it something else?"
The taller irken chuckled and continued. "You have a pair of binoculars around your neck, now a stupid person would assume you're scouting but in this environment," He raised his arms and looked around at the mass of leaves, branches and twigs pointing out everywhere. "What are you going to see? No, no, you brought them along because you like looking at something else."
As if on cue, a flock of birds suddenly rose from the canopy above them, screeching and cawing loudly. "Bird watching. Lame."
He grinned and crossed his arms slowly. "But I gotta wonder why someone who refuses to look down would climb so high up, perhaps because you don't like the big lizards down there? Or maybe it's because you fear water more than you fear heights."
Robin seemed to have a very confused expression, though it could also be mistaken for fear. He looked down, shivered, then looked back to Sideos. "What are you, psychic or something?"
"Nope, just very observant." Sideos grinned. He began slowly approaching Robin, one sure step in front of the other. Robin went to hold the knife at him but his hand was twitching, nervous, obviously the fact that Sideos had, within the space of about five minutes, picked apart most of his personality wasn't one that struck confidence into the smaller man.
"Keep away from me, weirdo." Robin barked, though his threat was paling. "I mean it."
"Or what, you'll insult me a second time?" Sideos began raising a sharp clawed hand slowly, Robin's eyes tracking it's movement. "I don't really think so."
Suddenly, almost unnoticeably, there was a sort of... click within Robin's eye. The tiniest of ticks.
Sideos only just managed to duck as a knife went swinging by where his arm used to be.
"Hey!" The irken called out, but was cut off, another knife swing, this one far too close to his face than Sideos was comfortable with. "Stop that!"
Robin was suddenly on the assault, and Sideos had to leap backward to keep out of range. Though the smaller irken was far faster and more agile than Sideos had thought, which was shocking since Sideos was pretty sure he'd gotten the guy down to a dot.
The irken however was not one to dance about forever.
Robin stabbed forward but with the flick of a hand Sideos pushed his hand away, and in the same movement, used Robin's momentum against him, aiming a quick jab into Robin's stomach. The assassin however turned his body, the blow hitting his side rather than his stomach.
The blow was still enough to knock the irken down over the side of the branch however.
Sideos paused as Robin fell back with a scream, panting just a little and kind of shocked. What the hell was that? He'd pegged the younger man for beaten, at least in the mind anyway, and yet he was fighting aggressively, uncaring for any harm he could get.
Plus he'd suddenly got up close and personal. That was NOT in the profile.
Sideos slowly moved towards the end of the branch, peering over and wondering if the little rat bastard had hit any branches on the way down.
There was no body. There was only Robin. Standing on a lower branch. With an arrow flying at Sideos's body.
And worse, he hit.
Though Sideos had managed to move back before it could hit his heart, the intended target, the arrow went across his shoulder, slicing into his skin as it did.
"BOLLOCKS." Sideos screamed, grabbing his now bleeding shoulder tightly. "You sneaky little bastard!"
"I AM NOT LITTLE!" Robin screamed from below him. "Besides, I hit you! SO HA!"
Oh so NOW the Robin he'd profiled had shown back up again. Super. What the damn hell was wrong with this guy? One moment he was about to go feral on him, the next he was back to firing arrows!
The wound wasn't deep, but it was hardly a scratch. It would bleed like crazy and hurt like hell for a while, and worse, it made a wound-point for the assassin to target. Sideos knew he would, assassins always went for the weak spot for a quick kill.
Sideos on the other hand preferred taking his opponent apart in pieces.
But than again, he was a sociopath.
The irken growled and looked to where Robin had been, his eyes narrowing dangerously. Oh the little bastard was going to pay for this.
Robin however seemed to be gaining confidence. The fact he'd scored a hit meant that he was winning, and as long as he kept the distance up he realised that he could win this. Sideos had no guns, no knives, no nothing. Hell he didn't even have good armour, just that dirty cloak and an old shirt.
Oh sure, Robin couldn't talk what with his clothes but at least he had something to SHOOT at his opponent.
The smaller irken notched another arrow but did not pull it into place. Not yet. Everything had gone weirdly quiet and in his experience that only meant that his enemy was trying to sneak around him.
Robin knew Sideos had to close the gap, or he was useless. Therefore, the smaller irken quickly began moving further down. He hated doing so, as it meant surrendering the canopy above to the taller irken, who seemed rather well versed in parkour.
Robin wasn't exactly a couch potato, years of assassin training saw to that, but he knew he wasn't on this guys level. He was supposed to be. He was trained to strike once and escape into the shadows, not stand and battle until exhausted.
He had to force Sideos to play this battle HIS way or at least as much as he could. Robin scowled to himself, knowing that Sideos had pushed one of his more sinister personalities to the surface. He couldn't afford to just lose control like that again, he had been lucky and caught the irken off guard.
He knew that the psychopath would tear him apart if he ever got that close again.
Robin noticed that everything around him had gone very, very still. He notched another arrow slowly...
There was a movement, and he spun quickly, shooting the arrow into the leaves. It was like the swamp had erupted around him as everything went crazy. Leaves fell like rain, there was a loud screeching and the huge, ugly birds scattered everywhere.
Something fell through the branches, snapping a few as it dropped to the ground.
Robin looked over the side of the branch he was on and his heart fell slightly. There was one of the birds, huge and black, twitching on the ground with an arrow sticking out it's chest and blood pooling about it.
"Poor thing." Robin muttered to himself.
"Daymn you really hit that thing, huh?" Robin almost leapt off the branch in shock, turning to see Sideos right beside him, looking down to the dead bird. The irken looked over to Robin and smirked. "Stone cold killa! Shootin cops pow pow pow with ya nine, dawg!"
Robin blinked at this. "... what?"
"SURPRISE!" Suddenly a foot connected with Robin's face, kicking him right off the branch. Sideos however didn't stop there. He pressed his advantage, leaping off the branch and spearing Robin in mid-air, slamming him down into another branch. However, the branch snapped, and Sideos faltered.
Robin, though winded, too his chance and punched Sideos in the face, in the torso, anywhere his fists could reach.
The two then collided with another branch with a rather loud CRUNCH. Sideos felt a shoulder pop out of place and pain ripped through him. Robin too felt a rib crack as the two now went into freefall, rushing towards the ground.
Robin grabbed onto Sideos. Sideos grabbed onto Robin. Each trying to push each other to be the one to break the other's fall.
They hit the ground with a smack, thick mud acting almost like a brick wall as they collided with the floor... and yet, when Sideos opened his eyes, he saw only a large black orb around him.
He still hurt like a motherfucker though.
"What the..." He looked around slowly before noticing Robin gradually getting to hsi feet, groaning. "What the fresh hell is this?"
"It's a protection orb. It's supposed to be used to deflect bullets, lasers," Robin narrowed his eyes at Sideos as he began trying to wipe the mud off him. "Not morons."
"So I guess it wouldn't work on you." Sideos grinned back quickly as he tried to get a solid footing.
"Neeer." Robin stuck a tongue out at Sideos. "You're the moron who leapt after me and broke the branch. It's only thanks to the shield cushioning the blow that we're both alive."
"Correction, you're dead and you don't know it yet." Sideos finally re-took his fighting stance finding something nice and solid to stand on, even if his feet were up to his ankles in mud.
"What, is that some eastern thing?" Robin mused as he too found a stance. He drew out his knives, realising that he could not simply run away, he would have to fight and hope the mud slowed the frighteningly fast Sideos down.
Sideos paused to raise an antennae in confusion before viciously smiling. "Oh that was good."
"Thank you."
"You're still gonna to die horribly."
"Don't think so."
"Uh-hu."
"No way."
"Tot-" Sideos didn't get to finish his taunting. The ground under him suddenly wobbled. For a moment he wondered if it was an earthquake, then he realised nothing else was shaking.
Other than Robin of course.
The two irkens practically fell over as the mud shifted beneath them... then began rising slowly.
It seemed that the irkens had picked the worst possible place to stand. On the backs of two of the huge lizard-like beasts that had been presumably sleeping until the aliens had gone flying into them.
And unlucky for the due, it also turned out that this particular species of giant lizard did not enjoy having potential food land onto their backs while they were sleeping.
"Bollocks!" Robin shouted as the monster rose out of the mud, water and slop sliding from it and Robin himself having to grab onto one of the ridges on it's back to stop from falling off.
"Now you're stealing my lines!" Sideos shouted out, he too struggling to keep himself from sliding off. "Oh you're just ASKING to be killed!"
There was a sudden switch in Robin, that indecipherable tick that Sideos had picked up on before. "FUCK YOU!"
The beasts under them roared and began thrashing at one another, each seeing the food standing on the other's back. As they began trying to jump up, the two irkens attacked.
Sideos leapt forward, his strike precise and focused... and it hit. Three claw marks raked across Robin's chest, the knife in Robin's hand missing Sideos only by an inch. However, the smaller irken surprised the taller as the moment he landed, he turned and threw a blade at Sideos.
It whizzed past his face, cutting a neat scar across his chin.
Sideos put a claw to the new bleeding cut and blinked.
"Fifteen minutes." Robin snarled out, taking another knife out of his belt. "A paralysing agent is now running through your blood. You have ten minutes until you're unable to move." He snickered and held out his coat slightly, little green needles glinting in his pocket. "And I have the antidote."
Sideos didn't doubt it, already he could feel his cheek numbing from the pain that should be aching through his jaw. "You tiny little bastard."
"I AM NOT TINY!" The irken rushed forward again, just as the beast under him roared and leapt up, jaws rushing for Sideos. The psycho however was faster. Much faster. He leapt forward and bounced off the nose of the lizard to jump kick Robin in the chest, knocking the wind right out of him.
Robin however did not go flying into the mud, as Sideos had predicted. Instead the huge tale of the lizard rose up, and Robin hit it hard. He clung on as the two monsters under them fought, forgetting the food battling on their backs.
Sideos couldn't get steady footing, both from the mud covering his feet and the violent throws of the beast under him.
Robin however didn't need steady ground. He ticked and suddenly began moving back, trying to gain his breath and throwing another knife. Sideos only dodged as he fell over, but he rolled and got on all fours.
He leaped forward, rushing to get as close as possible. Robin moved back, leaping from one lizard onto the other and again throwing another knife. The knife missed and hit the lizard, sticking in his side. Sideos jumped faster than Robin could see and the smaller irken screamed as a knife-like claw hit through his side.
Sideos grinned as blood flowed around the wound, however, there was no pause from Robin... and again, Sideos had not read this. He screamed in blind pain as fire seemed to rush across his side, a knife digging into his flesh.
He elbowed Robin in the face, then followed it up with a swinging jab to his face and then a kick to his middle. Robin fell back, clutching his wound.
Pain was aching through him, intense pain, like he's been shot through the stomach or something. It was trying to spread over him like a tide, washing through his muscles, attacking him like an opponent. Sideos almost broke his own teeth clenching down, forcing his mind from the pain. He pulled the dagger out and tossed it aside while also trying to cover his wound with one hand. "What the fuck was that?"
"Poison," Robin replied through a hiss, "Do you feel it? Burning through you, like a virus, eating at your will." He grinned slowly, and in that second, Sideos looked to his enemy with a new gaze.
This was another Robin. No the cold calculator who kept his distance, but a psychopath. In that slowed down moment, it hit Sideos like a train.
Robin had split personality disorder.
This Robin was insane, fearless, he'd wade through blows to rip Sideos apart in close combat. He reminded Sideos at once of a rather intelligent Tika, or at least, one that could speak.
And that actually made him a little nervous. The fearless ones were the most dangerous. But he also swelled with a new confidence. He now knew just how to beat Robin. But he had to be fast. The growing numbness in his body to the fire he was barely keeping his mind off, he knew if he allowed Robin to keep out of his reach for only a few minutes longer he'd either be killed, or be eaten.
"So," Sideos grinned. "Little dude, you gonna cry at me or actually fight."
The smaller irken yelled and ran forward and Sideos jumped back, moving towards the mouth of the beast and almost fell, the monster roared, and was suddenly joined by three more roars. They were all closing in, blood was filling the air and Sideos spent a second to glance.
The two beasts were tearing into each other.
It was pretty fitting to be honest.
Robin leapt forward, tackling Sideos. He tried stabbing down with his blade, but Sideos grabbed Robin's arm and held it tightly, his own claws quickly digging into Robin's flesh and drawing blood through his cloak.
The irken had hit Sideos far harder than he thought he could however, and what was bad, was that Robin seemed to notice. "Moon-Belt," The crazed irken cackled amongst the roars of lizards around them. "Decreases the weight of gravity on me, increases my strength."
"Cheater." Sideos chuckled, though blood was running out of his side too quickly for his liking. "You should practice properly, then you could do shit like this!"
Sideos grabbed Robin and fell onto his back, moving his legs up and kicking Robin backwards. The irken flew down to the mouth of the giant lizard, however, he grabbed an arrow from his quiver and used it like a hook, stabbing it into the lizard's head to stop himself rolling into it's jaw.
The monster roared, thrashing. However, other beasts could smell the blood and Sideos yelped as a pair of jaws crashed down through the flesh beside him. He jumped up, again rushing to close the distance. Pain was acting through him, but he was forcing himself to push on. 'Think of Zikki, Sid, think of Zikki.'
Robin was up and fighting, swinging wildly at Sideos with the last dagger he had. Sideos dodged easily, mostly through the stumbling from the thrashing lizard under him. He could no longer toy with Robin, he had to see the opening he needed.
But the burning poison and paralysing pain was slowing him down, causing his movements to become sluggish, predictable. Robin, through tactic or not, had begun robbing Sideos of the thing that gave him his edge. His speed.
Sideos's jabs were swift strikes, hitting Robin all over, slicing trough his arm, his body. Sideos's legs kicked into his sides. The smaller irken was managing to shift out the way, even as Sideos hit him, the blows were light, cuts and bruises at most.
And then it came. There was a deafening roar from his side and both irkens turned. There were a pair of jaws coming at them, attached to one of the massive lizards.
Sideos saw his opening.Through the pain and numbness and fire rushing through his limbs, he grabbed Robin tightly, the young irken distracted by the sight of the monster-lizard.
Sideos rushed at Robin, pushing him over but in the same moment, reaching forward and snatching one of the needles from within Robin's coat. Robin suddenly realised the bad point of having a moon-belt, it didn't just make him faster, it made everything around him heavier. Which included the jaws of a several tonne lizard.
Sideos grinned and smirked as he jumped onto Robin, pressing him down with a foot as he launched himself off the lizard. "Seeya later, alligator."
He missed the jaws of the monster by only a few inches. Robin's screams ended quickly within the jaws of the monster, and suddenly there was a shower of blood and flesh everywhere. Sideos landed into the mud heavily, feeling most of his body cry out in pain. However, he had the needle still held tightly in his hand.
Sideos jammed it into his arm, pushing the liquid into him and tossing the empty needle away. Then he began crawling through the mud towards the nearest tree, where he hide quietly under the huge arching roots as the monsters fought and battled in a bloodbath.
He was panting softly, his body still battling fire, numbness, soothing cold and outright pain. He hadn't been pushed so much in so long, dammit, maybe he had underestimated the difficulty of these fighters?
No. No he had not. He had won, he was still the best. But he had let himself get slack, he had forgotten why he was supposed to be here.
"One.... down... Sideos..." A crackling came from his side and for the first time since the fight, Sideos realised that Cambot was still with him, the usual red dot of recording replaced by an eery green. Sideos's eyes turned quickly, though he didn't move, he was too exhausted, too busy trying to will himself to heal faster.
"Who... Feto?" Sideos spoke quietly, but yet, with a deep fury that not even Robin had seen.
"Hope... are in... pain." The crackling continued, followed by a slow, mechanical laugh. "Zikki... says hello." Then there was a long scream.
Sideos was on his feet, pain, numbness, all forgotten. His eyes were on fire. "YOU LEAVE HER ALONE, YOU BITCH!"
He raised a fist, ready to smash Cambot into pieces.
That was until there was a notable twich from Cambot. "Sir, please do not destory company equipment."
Sideos paused, his body suddenly seeming so... thin, so small. Then he forced his swagger back on, sitting back down and grinning. "Oh, no problemo, Cambot." Sideos's eyes looked away, seemingly to see the bloodbath die down, but really to hide something deeper from within the purple of his gaze.
Worry.
"I'm the best in the empire, Cambot." He finally announced. "And I gotta keep proving it. But for now." He moved to a dry spot under the tree and sighed. "I gotta take five."