[IC] Academia Abyssus: Adventures in a Modernized Hell

[Ostarion]

One moment, a magical carpet ride. The next moment, an arena. Elren quickly assessed his surroundings. A decently sized blade beside him and one beside his opponent. He examined his opponent, he had failed to pay attention to this one during the carpet ride; a male who was both taller than Elren, and significantly more well-dressed than any of the other riff-raff that were on the magical carpet ride.

Except for SharkMan, maybe.

Elren knew that he was not skilled with most bladed weapons regardless of what they were, and he was never really inclined to fight anyone anyway - let alone fight someone in duel conditions. He also had to take into condition his first impressions here. Losing the fight would likely maintain the idea that he was weaker, less dangerous and would also probably help to secure the idea that he was friendly, but it would be painful and morbid; he'd die (again), after all. On the other hand, he could try his hand at an underhanded tactic, but doing so would likely make his opponent view him badly, but it did mean that he would have a chance at victory. Elren decided on the latter option - he didn't want to die (again). After all, it would just be a spur-of-the-moment-panic-into-subsequent-devious-plan-to-beat-someone-through-unfair-and-dishonest-means.

He'd simply hit the guy over the head when he let his guard down, run over to the knife and get a few stabs in - seemed simple enough. Or it could go terribly wrong and Elren would die a horrible death. Worth a try though.

"Well." Elren said, standing up.

"It seems as though I've found myself at a bit of an impasse. Never been one for fighting, really."

He began to approach the centre of the arena, hands above his head, almost as if he was being searched.

"I'll let you have this - I'd lose anyway."

[BCTheEntity]

Aaaand I got teleported before I could do anything. Goooody. And ohhhhhh fuck. No, no, nonononononononono what the fuck what the fuck why HER, why- what is- WHY IS SHE SO PLEASED ABOUT THIS? No, stop being a sadist out of nowhere! Oh shit, OH SHIT SHE'S COMING RIGHT FOR ME- without really thinking, I grab my knife from the stand and lunge out of her way with a yell, slashing my knife wildly back in her direction as I fall, fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck that's going to get me killed I don't want to die no no not again please no...!

[OwO]

Marianne was suddenly in an arena. She didn't quite remember anything from earlier; it was like her brain was never writing anything down. Not that it wrote things down in the first place. She mustered all of her mental strength and remembered earlier.

Marianne was falling. It wasn't quite pleasant. The landscape was quite hellish. Probably because they were in hell. She fell onto a net, and was turned into a Marianne-sandwich when they all were smooshed into the large net bag.

Then she fell onto a carpet. She didn't move. She was too confused to move. The blackened skies turned into something rather normal. Not too interesting, by Marianne's standards. People were yelling and arguing between themselves. Marianne was kind of just drifting off at this moment.

The arenas came and formed. That's when Marianne decided to stand up. She was put into some sort of square-ring. She saw to the right of her was some sort of mini-rapier. Marianne simply ignored this. She looked forwards and saw a man sleeping in the other corner. She searched what little she knew and remembered something very important. The entire situation reminded her of WWE. Her confused look turned into a grin when she began to run at the sleeping man. Once she was close to him, her mouth opened. "BODY SLAM!" She yelled out, leaping into the air, her body starting to fall directly above the sleeping man.

[Shiinen]

The wild slashing proved to be a ineffective way of fighting with these daggers. They were made for stabbing and she could see that just fine -- but the poor kid at her feet was a damned poor sport at using a blade. She couldn't see the point of trying to inch away like he was now. A small giggle fell from her lips as she leaned back to avoid the wild slashing and took a single step forward for every inch back he made until she had just about had enough of his silly little game. There was no need to play Cat and Mouse, he just needed to-

"Take your execution like a man. You're not worth holding a gun and sure as hell not worth my being here if you coward out like this again. You didn't have it in you to kill me, and that landed me in hell to show you how to shoot a damned gun that you threatened me with. I think this is only fair, don't you?~"

And with that? A sudden rush forward, an aim to slide the blade of her dagger right through the forearm of the hand holding the dagger that he had grabbed in a frenzy and promptly yank the blade upwards to split it open from the base and through his hand. If the damned boy didn't squirm so much, she wouldn't need to do this but...Well, he wasn't going to need that arm anyways. Disarm the target first, then execute before they could find another means to retaliate -- just like The General had taught her.

"Give me your name, by the way? I don't think I caught it between the death threat and pulling the trigger."

[BCTheEntity]

Forearms are small targets, and extremely mobile given their location on the body. Somewhere in the back of my mind, it strikes me that trying to aim for the forearm was a bad idea on her part, given how readily I could just move it out of the way. This tiny vestige of logic is hidden underneath a screaming mass of terror and pain as her blade impales the flesh of my arm and cuts it open - a flesh wound, not the disabling strike she was apparently going for after I yanked my arm out of the way, but painful enough to force an agonised scream from me, blood is flowing from the wound, it hurts too much, I can't think, my being has focused on the injury and the insane lady who caused it, who's trying to kill me-

'No- no, you- GET AWAY-!'

And then a most curious thing happens. From my perspective, I seem to generate a shockwave of some sort, flinging her and her weapon across the smallish area, almost pushing her to the edge of the ring. I'm slightly confused as to what just happened, but I imagine this is one of those... powers... that the demon from before mentioned. Apparently, I can create shockwaves, though instinct tells me that this is but one extreme of the ability I just exhibited.

It, and the sudden slightly drained feeling I have, also tell me that I'll probably not be able to pull that off again more than once. Got to figure out what else it does quickly, then... standing up again, I switch my knife to my undamaged arm's hand, and slowly edge towards her, still antsy in case she does something unpredictable. If I have a fantastic power, so does she, and hers might be far stronger than "just" a shockwave... or at least more directly harmful. Because seriously, I don't want to die. Gotta be ready to dodge, or what have you...

[Shiinen]

So the guy didn't want to die after all he'd damn well done. What a coward! And it seemed like she was the ass of the group of people around here, first being hit by a shark and now what seems to be a randomized shockwave. Forced to the edge of the arena, Ein didn't hesitate in pushing herself up and looking at the male before her. A churning in her stomach was making everything worse, on top of this. She'd managed to hit him, but he'd squirmed just the right direction to make her attempt at slicing his hand open fail. She was...

Hungry.

She was absolutely starving at this point. She wanted to eat something so badly, so terribly so...The worse possible moment to be thinking of food, and yet, as Roger made a slow pace at her...Ein picked up her dagger and stared at it. Sharp blade, thin handle, not too terribly long...Something that slide down the throat without many problems, if she considered it honestly on top of all things...

Shouldn't have been much of a surprise that she tilted her head back and let the blade slide right down her throat, a bulge setting to show where the handle was, in order to eat it. Yes. She took her weapon and she ate it. And with it came a rumbling of sorts - but wait...it didn't feel like her stomach...The blade didn't even seem to be hitting anything past her throat...And then came what felt like the worse sensation she'd felt -- even surpassing the bullet to the head.

Like acid pouring into her body and deconstructing the entirety of the blade, slowly, but surely to the point that she could feel the metal melting down...

And like that, she took a step forward, a small twitch in her face from a newer sensation of something crawling under her skin and causing her to take a deep breath as she advanced towards where the male was. Nails...That's what it was like. Insects crawling up through her limbs and nails settling in and pushing against the insides of her fingertips. What in the world was this...?

"...Planning on taking me down without my help this time?... Or am I gonna have to do everything myself, kid?"

Despite her words, she seemed a bit shaken up as her body continued to churn the eaten weapon again and again and again. It should have caused her some bleeding at this point -- why did she even eat it? ...Whatever it was, she'd have to keep going through it until she came to a stop and held her arms out for her opponent. Her mind seemed to be flip-flopping everywhere at this point as she had made her spot further away from the edge than she had been forced to.

"Well? Come on then. See if you can kill me."

[Lord Santa]

The carpet shifted under Victor's sleeping body and he rolled over, uncomfortable. The demon snapped loudly and Victor was transported onto one of the sections of carpet but he just rolled over in annoyance and kept sleeping.

"Oh, this lazy grandson." His Grandpa said.
Unfortunately for Victor's peace of mind, his grandpa was fully committed to making Victor's life miserable productive.
His grandpa floated down near Victor's exposed ear.

"WAKE UP!" His Grandpa yelled.

"Shut up." Victor growled, hand shooting out.
His clenched fist should've smashed into the floating skull that served as his grandpa, before going down to grab the carpet. However, it met something considerably more fleshy before being pushed into his back as something - no, someone - landed on him.

"Guh." Victor said as the body hit him, smashing him into the floor.
He was pinned, half asleep and in pain. What a way to start the day.
"Some wake up call." Victor sighed.

He rolled out from under the girl, before getting up and brushing himself off.
"You know, I've had enough of being assaulted by girls today." Victor said, stretching.
He yawned, still slightly sleepy. He was too groggy to see much else.
"I'm not even into that kind of stuff." He muttered, stretching his neck. "So are we supposed to be doing something, or are you just happy to see me?"

He took a good look at the girl and realised he had no idea who she was. A good thing, really. If it was the girl that stabbed him, it would've been a different matter, but it wasn't. With that said, he had no idea what was going on.
"Well, I don't even know you, so nevermind. At least tell the dude you just bodyslammed what's going on." Victor said.

[RoflsMazoy]

Altzer looked up as his surroundings suddenly changed, then he looked down at the knife in front of him. Then he looked up again, at his opponent. Then he fell back down again, laughing. (The hell's with that sentence? Like, c'mon man)

She was so short! (Dude, that's mean) He was fighting her? (Yes.) He was starting to hurt now, so he tried to stop laughing. Then he looked up again and he restarted. (...) A few seconds later he got up properly. And then fell over again, laughing some more. (Dude.)

This was probably the first time he'd ever had to look down on someone, and the girl was sort of hard to take seriously.

"H-Ha-ha ha ha!" He said, tears in his eyes, "Ha, ha." He sighed for a second, controlling himself. "How good are you with a dagger?" He asked.

[OwO]

Marianne was soaring through the air when she was met with a fist. It hit her right in the stomach. She landed on the guy, letting out a rather loud "Fuahhh!" It wasn't any day that someone would punch you when they're asleep. Marianne landed right on the man. It hurt for both parties. Marianne had no idea that wrestling hurt that much.

"So are we supposed to be doing something, or are you just happy to see me?" Marianne heard. She was quite confused by this. She didn't know what they were supposed to be doing. She just thought it was like WWE. The next bit confused her even more. Are you just happy to see me? What was the meaning in that? Does she enjoy the company of the man? Does she want to be with him? Just what is happy? What does happy mean?

These thoughts only an idiot could have were cut short by the next question, "Well, I don't even know you, so nevermind. At least tell the dude you just bodyslammed what's going on." Marianne, again, didn't actually know what was going on. She was just as confused as she was (which is saying a lot because she was awake the entire time). Marianne looked around. There were many people fighting around her. Each one in an arena like their own.

"I think we supposed ta fight." She said. She turned her body so she was also facing up. She laid on his chest sideways, and grabbed his leg. She pulled on it, bringing it over her shoulder.

[BCTheEntity]

I'm scared. I'm very, very scared. For one thing, I'm bleeding rather heavily; for another, I'm in a fight with a crazy person; and for yet another thing, the crazy person just ate her fucking weapon. Holy shit. I don't know whether to be impressed or not. I'm going to go with "somewhat, but mostly drowned out by horror at the situation in general". Yeah, that sounds good.

But she's made a huge mistake here. She's standing still, and of all things letting me take a free shot at her. Which I could take... or, I could stall as if scared and take some time to think. Then again, I'm going to stall anyway, so I may as well think my situation over regardless.

The biggest problem is, it's me or her: I don't want to kill her, but I know she's going to murder me if I don't, and I don't want to die a lot more than I don't want to kill anyone. With that in mind, let's think about my apparent super-power: shockwaves. Or, if I think about it combined with that flash of insight I had a moment ago, something resembling a shockwave. I'm not convinced that I'd do much of relevance to her if I just did the shockwave thing again, and I only have one shot of it left, if my body's slight aching is correct. Got to figure out what it does, then... it was a shockwave, and hit her very rapidly...

...what if I did it slower, then? Maintaining my distance for the moment, I focus on trying to repeat the shockwave, but slower, not an instant thing; consequently, something similar to the shockwave, more of a dome of translucent energy this time around, begins expanding outward from me, moving out from myself at quite a slow pace... immediately, I'm aware that this is far different to the shockwave in terms of resilience. I'm struck with the utmost confidence, the confidence that this wall of energy hasn't got a chance of being penetrated by any human amount of force she can muster.

And the abrupt knowledge that it's not going to last longer than a few seconds... and yet will expand outward for its entire duration. If the earlier shockwave was anything to go by, this wall's going to extend across a huge area relative to the amount of space we're actually fighting in. She'd be limited to quite a small amount of space, if she got caught out and trapped by it...

And at that, it occurs to me that a ring-out, simply forcing her off the edge, might be an entirely effective solution.

I could do it. I could end her murderous tendencies here and now.

Without further ado, I and my expanding barrier charge directly at her, as fast as I can run, my own self emitting a loud, wordless yell the entire time. And let's hope the surprise charge, my momentum, and the barrier's outward movement combined are enough to force her out.

[Cyanide Sweetie]

Poppy braced her legs as the carpet shifted under her. Glancing up she realized she was standing across from the pompous man from earlier who had the cards. He took one look at her and dissolved into laughter, falling over he picked himself up and then fell over again. Son of a bitch Poppy thought gritting her teeth. She glanced down at the knife and stewed on how to best approach the situation. She could go for the knives and try to fuck his shit up with it, but then she had to take in the fact that the stupid bastard could throw god damn sharks. She decided to try another route. Ignoring his question, she put on her best wide-eyed awed expression and shuffled up to him, passing the knives without another glance. "S-sempai?" She breathed. When she got his attention she made herself flush. "W-wow!! I cant believe its you!!" she fanned her flushed face. "You're so handsome up close!" A man that looked like that couldn't not like an extra preen for his feathers, she reached a shy hand out to gently run a finger against the frill of his cravat. looking up at him she fluttered her eyelashes. She wet her lips with her tongue and then parted them to speak. Using this as an opening she grabbed him by the cravat, she wretch back her arm and punched the asshole in his laughing mouth.

[Lord Santa]

"Yup. Demon lad told you to fight so-" His grandpa started.

"Ow." Victor said as the girl grabbed his leg.
It appeared that the girl had him in some kind of hold. More pain today, which kind of sucked.
"You know, I only have your word for it that we have to fight." Victor grunted. "How do you know we have to fight, anyway?"

"When you're put on one side with someone else on the other and a knife between you, what else are you supposed to do?" His grandpa said helpfully.

"Demon guy's exact words?" Victor whispered urgently, quietly enough for the girl not to hear.
His grandpa sighed, because he knew Victor would try to weasel out of exerting effort any way he could.

"He said he shouldn't have to explain anything else." His grandpa sighed.

"My brilliant clairvoyant mind has told me that we don't actually have to fight." Victor said quickly, struggling against the hold. "And if you let me go I'll tell you exactly why. So stop being dumb and let me go for a minute!"

[Shiinen]

The sudden run he took at her, the wordless battle cry, the gamble at her life...Looks like the little bitch that couldn't shoot her in the alleyway was trying to fight for his life. It was an unfortunate moment of puberty, given that she wasn't exactly content with letting him kill her with cheap tricks, above all things. But hey...He wasn't the only one with little tricks up his sleeve, now was he? The demonic being had informed her that everyone had their own ability manifested from their personality, so...Perhaps this was the point where hers came in -- perhaps it was the reason why her stomach continued to churn and churn to no end, digesting and reforging her own weapon on top of what felt like a strange mass in her body. Nothing specific, but...forging itself to be something of the sort...?

...So she backed up, ever-aware of the edge behind her, as the force of that shockwave pushed against her hard to get her moving. Further, further, further, up until the point that she felt her foot touch the edge of the arena. ...Well, there went to a leap of faith in trying to make things even in what he'd made her do, and he didn't want to make things even like a good and honorable guy. It wasn't that she hated the kid, or was mad at him for ignoring her inquiry for his name. It was more of the fact that...

She really wanted to kill him.

And as that invisible force pushed her off of the arena, but she wouldn't go down without trying to take him with her at that.

Settling the score, like The General would. She'd climb out from the depths of this damned place if she needed to.

But here the kid was, and he wasn't even playing fair! What kind of man resorted to pixies and fairy dust against a girl in a death match?! That was just rude! Ruder than rude, she barely caught onto the edge of the carpet and dug her nails in to it to try and keep her grip. Impervious fucking carpets floating in the air, cards turning into sharks, magical fucking wind --

What was this, Alice in Wonderland?

Despite everything, and with her digits particularly hurting from just the edge of that field of sorts he'd created pressed up against them, she couldn't help but be a little aggravated at the circumstances she found herself in- then again, dangling off of Aladdin's carpet looking up at your killer never was a normal circumstance that she'd think to find herself in. Hell, she was gonna be more settled on hanging on the edge for a moment and catching her breath. It was hard work doing this shit sometimes.

[OwO]

Marianne was asked another question. Again, she didn't know how to answer. She tried to figure out why she was fighting; there was no benefit to fighting. She could get hurt from it. She let go of the hold, but she still sat on the chest of the random man she was fighting.

The man started to talk about his clairvoyant mind. Clairvoyant. Marianne didn't know that word. Honestly, she didn't know a lot of words. Marianne asked the most intelligent question that her mind could muster: "What's clear voy ant mean?". She heard the man telling him to go, and then he realized that she should probably move. She fell over, and rolled off of him, her skateboard hitting him in the legs.

[Lord Santa]

Oh good. More pain, more annoyance. The girl’s skateboard knocked into his legs, causing untold amounts (probably not much) of damage. Victor sighed, for more than one reason.

The first was pain. He was sure all the physical contact would at the very least leave a bruise. Well, that might be too optimistic of him. Secondly, the girl was kind of dumb. That much was obvious, anyway. It wasn’t like everyone knew the word clairvoyant, but there were at least a few things to keep in mind.

They were in hell. 30 people were split up into pairs on either side of a carpet with a knife in between. Some abyssal demon said that he shouldn’t have to explain anything. It was pretty obvious that it was a battle to the death. The fact that the girl had believed they didn’t have to fight proved that she was at least gullible.

Victor muttered quietly in a low voice as he got up to a sitting position.
“Gramps, give me everything you got on what just happened.” Victor said.

“If I do that, you’ll just get out of this, wouldn’t you?” His grandpa said nonchalantly.

“If you don’t tell me, you’ll be in a whole lot of trouble.” Victor muttered, getting to his feet. “I’m sure grandma would love to hear of your… exploits.”

His grandpa visibly shuddered.

”Fine.” His grandpa said. “Just this onc-”

“Do it fast, or I’m dead.” Victor hissed. “Again.”

He’d muttered to his grandpa just quiet enough for the girl not to here, but it would doubtlessly look like he was talking to himself if she was looking at him. That wouldn’t convince her that he wasn’t crazy, but maybe he was. He wouldn’t really lose much if she did, though, so it would be probably be fine. Maybe.

“Ahem.” Victor coughed, on his feet.
In truth, he was buying time as his grandpa told him the details.

“Before you fell asleep, a white haired guy threw a shark at a girl. Demon guy explained that you all have powers.” His grandpa said quickly.
“Clairvoyance is…” Victor said, pausing for dramatic effect (and time).
“Then demon guy said something about a test… I don’t remember, I wasn’t really paying attention.” His grandpa continued.
“Let’s just say I can see… stuff.” vaguely.
“Then you all got split up into pairs. Gotta say, there’s a lot of interesting ones, kehehe…” His grandpa said weirdly.
Get your mind out of the damn gutter, old man. Victor thought, but he didn’t say it out loud.
“You see, I was asleep, but I could hear stuff. See stuff.” Victor added quickly.
“Hoo, yes. Wonderful pairings. Power clashes. Those two will be done soon. This batch is turning out well…” His grandpa chortled.
Just shut up! Victor thought.
He had already found out everything he needed to know.

Victor coughed again, setting out the facts in his head.
“My power is clairvoyance.” Victor lied. “To see stuff, and hear stuff, I can’t normally see.”
He sounded confident, more structured. Hopefully, this would convince the girl that he was telling the truth. Because in all honesty, he had no idea what his power was at all.

“So I know stuff, like how demon guy said that he shouldn’t have to explain anything.” Victor said convincingly. “A lot of people thought that meant that they had to kill each other to pass the test…”
As Victor said that, a person on some other carpet nearby fell off and smashed into the ground below. His body bloomed into raspberry jam below.
“But look at it this way…” Victor said quickly, to keep the girl’s attention. “He never actually said that killing the other person would mean you pass, right?”

[RoflsMazoy]

Pain suddenly erupted from his mouth, and he fell onto the ground, clutching his nose. Though he was in pain, his body was still wracked with laughs as he rolled around on the floor. Luckily for him he'd bent down slightly so he'd only been hit in the nose, but he still couldn't stop laughing. (Yeah, I got nothing to say so I may as well stop.)

There was no way he could take this seriously, the girl was probably the funniest thing he'd ever seen!

"Ha!- Ow, Ha!- Ow," He said as he spazzed out on the ground. "Uh- ha! ha, ha-!" Blood was filling up his nose now and he couldn't breathe. He got up to his knees, breathing hard. He pressed his fingers to his nose and blew hard, blood squirting all over his clothes.

He sobered up a bit, and sat down wearily. "Oh god," he said, finally calming down some what, "You're the funniest person I've ever seen."

[Cyanide Sweetie]

"You're the funniest person I've ever seen."

Poppy was a trembling ball of rage. She knew she was short but for fucks sake! She wasn't a god damn Oompa Loompa!! She was breathing quickly her blood boiling in her ears. She was ready to tear this jerk limb from mother fucking limb.

She clinched and unclenched her fist feeling the sting of her knuckle where it had made contact with his pretty colorless face, which now had a shocking splash of vivid red on it. The pain sent chills of pleasure up her spine. The ecstasy distracted her from her rage enough that she could grit out the question that was needling her. Glaring daggers at him she growled between clenched teeth, "What. The . Fuck. Is. So. Funny?".

She tried to look menacing while trying not to think about the sad fact that even with him sitting on the ground she was barely standing a head and a half taller than him.(I think thats right? )

[OwO]

Marianne listened to what the smart man had to say. In all honesty, Marianne had tuned out most of what he was talking about. She didn't hear what clear voy ants were. She just had a dumbfounded look on her face. Suddenly, the boy had said something very sharp and quickly. Marianne realized that she should be listening to what the man had said. He said something about not killing each other.

"Eh? Killin'? Whaddya mean killin'? I thought we were wreslin'" She said, her voice in a very confused tone.

She looked around her; the other students were trying to make oreilles de crisse out of each other. It was a huge shock for the confused Marianne.

"EH? Why are they trynna kill each otha?" She yelled out, panicking. She didn't know what to do. She wasn't prepared for this. She stood up and began to run a round the arena.

"We gotta help 'em not kill each otha!" She said, smashing her right hand into her left palm. She looked outside of their arena, her back facing towards the sleeping edge-filled man. She began to formulate a plan (an overstatement) using what little of her knowledge she had.

[Crimmy]

@Ostarion
---
"That would be a favourable outcome," admitted the noble young man, brushing a few strands of his flaxen blonde hair away from his eyes. "However, I am uncertain to whether or not our gracious hosts would accept it."

They had been brought to this dangerous arena under the intention that they would combat each other. No, the gleaming blade of the beautiful knife near him was testament to the true purpose. They were to commit an act of murder here in the depths of the underworld, and though it was a truly terrifying prospect for young Liudolf, he could not see any other option that the powerful demonic forces likely responsible for their situation would entertain. It was not the way of his family to lower themselves to such baser instincts, to become killers in a strange test that would seemingly decide their fates in this Hell. But what other logical choice was there?

His opponent appeared to be giving up in the face of such a choice.

But what was his decision? In what manner would the young Tegerfelden scion act?

Could he kill the other for the purposes of this test?

He did not know.

[Lord Santa]

Victor didn't really know what to think of this situation. He had a plan all drawn out in his head, but he hadn't taken into account just how stupid the girl was. There wasn't a kinder way to say it. She was super stupid, and he didn't know how that made him feel.

On one hand, he was glad that she was dumb. As it turned out, she was making him not have to fight by herself. On the other hand, the carefully planned plan, that would've been a master stroke of improvisational strategy, became largely unnecessary. And he honestly didn't know what to think about it. Should he be rejoicing that he didn't have to bother, or cursing because he did bother and ended up doing something pointless?

Victor sat down and sighed, tired and confused. For one, he just wanted to go back to sleep. He wished he hadn't stolen whatever it was from the girl, because if he didn't, he wouldn't have to deal with this. Maybe if he didn't steal stuff, he wouldn't be in this mess.

Unfortunately, whatever happened, it happened. Now he was here, and he had to deal with it any way he could.

"You know, we're too far away to do anything." Victor said idly.