[IC] Fateful Convergence

[Vocalia]

Biting her lip, Hayley weaved to her side to dodge the incoming punch, just as it crushed the very spot she was standing on previously. I'm lucky my leg's still intact, but how am I going to take on this guy?! Not wanting to give up without a fight, she turned back towards the man, distanced herself and waited for him to charge at her. Knowing that he could squash her like a bug, she decided to try and use his weight, strength and powers against him. She had only one shot because, if she failed, he would grind her into paste.

[Daxam]

Watching the fight, Isaac curses himself for not putting up more of a fight to keep Hayley out of the ring. That's it, I'm going in! he tells Vincent, who was busy cheering Hayley on, as he weaves through the crowd.

Meanwhile, in the cage, the man pulls his fist out of the ground and looks at Hayley. "Not bad for a scrawny little bitch," he says as more stone begins to encase his body. "If only we coulda met on friendlier terms. Then, maybe we would've wound up...somewhere else." Chuckling, he then adds, "Actually, I just might take your unconscious body to that place after we're done here. I'll take you as my trophy, along with all that cash." That said, he stomps on the ground, causing the entire floor to rumble. As it shakes, he charges, fist drawn back to strike.

[Vocalia]

Hayley barely had enough time to keep herself steady as the floor beneath her feet shook, as if wanting to buck her off. Before she had time to think, the man had come charging at her general direction. This is it! It's all or nothing! she thought as she steadied herself for his incoming assault. Biding her time, she waited at the last second when the man was close enough for her to reach and, as his fist came flying, she weaved sideways, placed her back against his hard-rock torso and used his sheer speed and weight as a leverage to topple him face-first against the arena floor by twisting his outstretched arm and tipping him over on his front foot.

[Daxam]

Isaac, who had arrived at the wall of the cage, watches in awe as the man sails across the ground, landing a few feet away from Hayley, his face skidding across the ground. Isaac was just about to start cheering, thinking it was over, when the man suddenly jumped to his feet. Wheeling around, he yells, "You bitch!" Encasing his entire arm in spiked plates of stone, he swings his fist toward Hayley. Before it can even come close, Isaac, using his power to destabilize the steel cage, turning part of the wall into powder, runs into the cage and throws himself at Hayley, pushing her out of the way as the man's fist sails through empty air. Panting, he looks down at her and asks, "Are you alright?"

[Vocalia]

Similarly winded, a panting Hayley looked up at her savior and nodded almost absentmindedly. "I'm alive, at least..." she replied, but then pushed Isaac to the side and rolled with him as the man came crashing with a downwards blow, narrowly missing them both. "Isaac, get out of here! This guy would kill us both!" The blonde quickly picked herself up onto her feet and helped Isaac up, realizing that there was no way they could escape this fight. "Are you out of your fucking mind?!" she hissed as she glanced at the raven-haired man.

[Daxam]

While they avoided the man's attack, Isaac suddenly feels a lance of pain stabbing through his head. Reaching up as she asks if he was out of his mind, he grins and replies, "I'm about to be..." Rising to his feet as he feels himself slipping away, slowly being replaced by another, more vicious, presence, he uses the last of his conscious energy to yell, "Hey, ugly! Over here!" The man immediately turns and begins charging at Isaac, who's eyes were clouding with a violent storm of madness. Once within range, the man swings his fist and makes solid contact with Isaac's cheek hard enough to make a small shockwave. However, Isaac, or, rather, the man that was Isaac, stands there, unfazed. Then, in a voice much crueler than Isaac's own, he says, "Is that all you got? I know babies that can hit harder than that!"

[Vocalia]

Pushed away by the shockwave, Hayley hit her back against the steel cage while the man made a point blank contact with Isaac's cheek. "Isaac!!" The blonde felt her previous sense of urgency replaced by raw rage. She was about to make a headlong charge had it not been for him speaking up.

Or, rather, had it not been for the sudden change in his tone.

"Is that all you got? I know babies that can hit harder than that!"

What?!

"Isaac?" The blonde, now feeling a sense of dread, looked into his eyes, only to see a maelstrom of insanity and cruelty within his steely grey eyes. Despite being on the receiving end of a hit that could crumble a human body from the inside, nothing seemed to have happened to him. Physically, he had not budged from his spot and, mentally, he was visibly unfazed by the attack. Once again, this left Hayley in a state of shock, so much so that she could only stand and watch from where she stood.

[Daxam]

"Wh...what the hell?" the man asks, still having not moved his hand away from the man that was Isaac's cheek. Looking into his eyes, he notices that the calmness that used to be in them was now replaced by nothing but insanity and malevolence. Finally realizing the danger, he tries to pull his hand away, but stops, finding that he can't move it. The smaller man was holding onto his wrist in a vice-like grip, grinning maliciously. Aside from a thin trail of blood from his lip, he looks unhurt. Then, with a cruel grin, he says, "My turn."

Suddenly, he begins twisting the man's wrist, making the larger man cry out in pain as he falls to his knees. "Aw, did that hurt?" the cruel version of Isaac asks. Twisting his arm even further, he adds, "Where's all of that arrogance now, huh? Where's the man that put so many people in the hospital and crippled one for life?! Huh?! Where is he?!" Suddenly, with a sickening snap, the man's arm breaks, the bone splitting through the skin as he screams in pain. The man whose eyes are alive with insanity laughs, a cruel sound teeming with madness, as he kicks the larger man in the chest, sending him to the ground as he yells, "Weak, weak, weak! Is there anyone man enough to stand up to me around here?! Come on, I'll take on all comers!!!"

[Vocalia]

This guy's mental! I gotta do something! Hayley thought with sheer fright as 'Isaac' easily turned the tables against the man. Watching him taunt the big brute and actually inflict injuries on him, as sadistic as it was, brought some satisfaction to her, but it was trumped by the fact that he was clearly loosing his mind and seemed to be on the single-minded quest for chaos and blood. Believing that he could easily turn on the audience, most of whom she suspected to be not as strong, or even as special, as the man he had cruelly dispatched. "Hey, you!" she called out to him, dropping all friendliness in favor of adrenaline-induced alertness. She ran in between him and her opponent, now with a broken arm. She didn't know where her sudden bravado came from, but she decided not to think about it further and adopted a fighting stance, facing a crazed 'Isaac'. "I don't know what the hell happened to you, but this stops here!"

[Daxam]

'Isaac' turns to Hayley and smirks. "Ah, you're Hayley, aren't you?" he asks, the crazed light not once flickering from his gaze. "From what I've seen and heard through Isaac's eyes and ears, you're really quite something. And now, here you are, putting yourself in harm's way for a man who would've turned you into a grease stain without a second thought. I tell you, I really admire that kind of fight in a woman! And the fact that you're pretty hot really helps, too." Walking up to her, he curls his fingers around Hayley's chin and says, "The name's Vincent. Everything that bitch Isaac isn't, I am, which pretty much means I'm a man." He then raises an eyebrow, his smirk growing, and asks, "How about you and I head back to your place? I've always wanted to see what your bed looks like."

[Vocalia]

Vincent? This nutcase actually has a name? Hayley thought fearfully as she watched Vincent stepping close to her, invading her personal space and actually touching her. It's like a split personality disorder... Not only does he know who I am and what Isaac has been seeing and hearing, he also talks about him like they're two different people! I've been taking in a complete psycho all this time! Man, am I a total idiot!

"Instead of worrying what my messy bed looks like, why don't you worry about that loose head of yours?!" Taking in the initiative for an offensive, Hayley aimed a kick at his torso, but her main aim was to ward him off instead of inflicting any sort of damage on the man who turned the brute that nearly turned her to paste into a bloody wreck.

[Daxam]

Without averting his eyes from hers, Vincent catches Hayley's leg with ease. Only when he had her leg in his hand did he look at it, letting out a quiet whistle as he does so. Letting go of her chin, he pushes Hayley's pant leg up a bit, saying, "My, what a nice set of legs you have here~! What I wouldn't give to see--" A sudden, angry yell interrupts him as the man with the broken arm jumps to his feet, a large stone club in his hand. "I'll teach you to--" he starts, only to stop once his airway was blocked by a sudden surge of blood. Piercing him from behind, angled just above Hayley's head, is a large spike of iron, which had torn a hole through his abdomen. "I hate being interrupted," he says as the spike retreats back into the ground and the man falls, convulsing as he coughs up blood.

[Vocalia]

The sight of blood frightened the audience into silence and Hayley felt a sense of dread now sitting side by side with her survival instinct. As much as she disliked the brute, even she didn't wish death upon him, let alone one so agonizing. "Let me go, you sick bastard!" she growled and tried to pry her leg away, but when it was clear that Vincent wouldn't let her go, she moved closer and smashed her head against his temple in an effort to make him let her go. All she came out with, however, was a dizzying pain and she didn't even know if it would work against the super-powered man.

[Daxam]

Vincent barely reacted to Hayley's headbutt, aside from slowly looking at her. As he releases her leg, tendrils of iron raise from the ground and affix themselves to his fingers, becoming long, razor-sharp claws. Giving a cry out outrage, he swings his claws toward Hayley, but stops when the edges are just inches from her face. His face contorting into a mask of pain, he growls, "Isaac...you bastard..." Clutching at his head, he starts writhing, fighting for control against his kinder counterpart.

[Vocalia]

Awaiting swift death, the blonde closed her eyes as she waited for what was seemingly inevitable, but then she heard him growl and began to writhe in pain and realized that Isaac was trying to wrestle control from him. "Isaac, I know you're in there somewhere! Fight this bastard!" Hayley cheered, hoping against all odds that the kind and definitely not insane man could prevail against this maniac of a personality. Although she still had a lot of questions and a good deal of distrust, she would very much prefer to deal with Isaac than Vincent.

[Daxam]

Vincent fixes Hayley with a cold glare, only to look away as Isaac continues his assault. After what seemed like an eternity, Vincent's body suddenly goes limp, but remains standing, as the iron around his fingers turns into liquid and falls to the ground. Slowly he straightens up, panting as if he had just run across the country and back. Opening his eyes, the storm of madness gone from them. Smiling tiredly, he says, "Sorry...about that...No doubt you have...a lot of questions..."

[Vocalia]

"Fuck yeah, I do," Hayley panted and returned the smile, "but I'm glad to see you back." Their reunion was marred by the boos of the audience and the noise of the enforcers' footsteps as they enter the arena, the sanctioned medics having pulled the bleeding man out of the ring. "Forget the questions! We're getting out of here now!" The blonde shouted as the enforcers surrounded them, ready to take them down for sabotaging the fight.

[Daxam]

Isaac watches as the enforcers begin surrounding him and Hayley. Looking around, he sees that they all seem scared, having seen what he could do, but that doesn't stop them from doing their jobs. Looking back to Hayley, he asks, "What should we do? We can't run, but if we tried fighting, it'd only get worse." Fight them, fight them! Vincent cries, obviously already having forgotten what had happened moments ago.

[Vocalia]

"Running's not an option! We fight or we're screwed. That's all there is to it," Hayley replied, both annoyed and relieved to see his less violent side back with him. He's a loon, but at least he's a decent loon this time and not a manic, psycho loon, she thought as she adopted a fighting stance. However, before she or the enforcers could initiate an attack, something inside her chest seemed to pulsate, causing her to gasp in shock. What the-?! What was that just now? she thought just as she felt the pulse one more time and slowly started to lose consciousness, but her body didn't drop her stance despite what was happening to her.

What's... going... on...?

The enforcers were oblivious to what was happening to her and finally took the command to apprehend the two of them, but before they could attack them, something emerged from each of their shadows. A gigantic human hand, whose palm is large enough to cover the enforcers' bodies, and an accompanying forearm appeared out of the shadows. The bizarre limb was seemingly covered in black slime that glinted under the light of the arena. While the enforcers were busy panicking over the sudden appearance of the giant black hands, said hands promptly fell upon them, smashing them against the arena floor like bugs with such force that the entire arena and the audience seats trembled.

Without warning, Hayley suddenly pulled Isaac by the arm out of the open cage just as the hands, having done their job, melted away into the shadow, leaving the enforcers battered, bruised and traumatized, but alive. The blonde led him out of the fighting arena and away into the alleyways before stopping once they were far enough.

[Daxam]

Isaac watches as giant hands erupt from the enforcer's shadows and smash them against the ground, injuring but not killing them. Before he had time to process what happened, he was being pulled along by Hayley, out of the arena and into one of the surrounding alleyways. Once they were safe, he looks at her for a long few moments before asking, out of curiosity rather than fear, "What was that? Have you ever done anything like that before?"