Krystal's vision was blurry and lopsided as she had been teleported out of the Royalist Battle Chamber and to her starting zone of the battle arena chosen for her. The Twisting Nether of Kew, it didn't have a good ring to it in the game of survival, but here she was; there was no turning back now. Her body was unsteady at best and her mind hazy, hard wind blew straight in her face as it felt like she was caught in a sandstorm. Krystal stumbled and fell off whatever it was she was standing on but quickly grabbed the ledge as her eyes were finally clearing up. She stared back down into the empty abyss that was surely death if she fell off her starting zone.
Krystal struggled to pull herself up, she couldn't get stable gripping on her feet and her grip was slipping. She climbed as fast as she could as Krystal could feel the weight of the rocks collapsing underneath of her. Just as she pulled herself up and over the ledge the rocks she had been standing on crumbled and fell into the blackness. The match hadn't even started yet and she had nearly been killed already. A loud screeching sound broke through the sky like some kind of hidden speaker or televised screen spoke to her.
"Don't worry about that Royalists." It was Nemesis speaking as he addressed all the competitors, "That was just a minor side effect due to the teleportation device. It should all clear up in just a few minutes. You have two days to find one another and fight before we send special tricks to force you all to collide together. Let the match begin!"
Even though the match had officially begun Krystal sensed no action or conflicts taking place. Although this was quite the huge battlefield and only five contestants moving about. Krystal finally regained all her conscious thinking and the headache had stopped but she could hear a slight ring in her ear. After her vision had cleared up she took notice of her battle arena.
It was hot, sandy and dry. There was nothing but an open barren wasteland covered in strange purple rock formations everywhere. And endless sand storm ravaged across the land as Krystal had to cover her face from breathing in to much sand. The heat wasn't overbearing but you didn't want to stay in it for so long, and Krystal was on the move stepping over huge rock formations like fallen trees in a forest. Doing anything in this battlefield would be quite difficult. She wondered how she could survive two days in this barren hell. But first thing was first, she needed to find water and then shelter.
Krystal scurried across the formations but finding anything in this storm would be extremely difficult, you could hardly see ten feet in front of you and your senses of hearing were dimmed down tremendously. Another Royalist could be just around the corner and you could never tell and it could be the end of you. But with such a large battlefield and only five contestants there must be some space put in between each fighter, at least Krystal hoped so.
X
She had been walking around for hours. Krystal's feet started to ache, her paws had been rubbed raw with grabbing nothing but stone and the vixen could tell she was starting to get dehydrated. You couldn't tell what time of the day it was here, and large predators came to stalk out prey at night. She knew she had to hurry or else her time here in this arena could be cut short. She hadn't seen any sign of vegetation around ever since the start of the match; it was nothing but a large rocky basin. Krystal came to the top of a hill hoping to spot out anything but saw nothing out of the ordinary here, after letting out a heavy sigh did she try and shield herself from the wind by taking cover behind a pillar, and think things through.
There had to be some type of vegetation here in this arena, how could they expect the Royalists to live two days if there was nothing to drink, eat, or even take shelter from. That is the final countdown began after two days and it was just the Royalist in a battle for survival against the natural elements of the battleground.
But they couldn't be true; a being could only go 72 hours without any source of water. The Royalists could die of thirst before any action even began and that would be just plain boring for the viewers. There had to be some water, some vegetation in this arena, Nemesis had said it himself. The only question was where?
Krystal stood back up and scanned the formation around her, trying to find a path to make her way back down. She took her first step but the ground was unstable and she slid into an all out slide on her back down the basin.
"Shit!" She tried to navigate herself; her fiber of being was being torn apart from passing on rocks and sand flying in her face from the high velocity of speed. She was reaching for anything to grab because she didn't know whether the trail lead to the very bottom of the basin or even of a cliff edge. On a turn Krystal's right arm smacked hard against a rocky pillar as pain surged through her body, the bone could have been broken instantly due to the high velocity and sudden impact. She continued to keep sliding downwards deeper into the basin. Her falling journey finally came to an end as Krystal came face first into some type of natural spring water and broke the surface straight into the depths below.
Krystal swam up to the top feeling throbbing pain from the impact of the water and then the surface below. She grasped for breath as she swam to the edge of the spring, sand was embedded in the cuts around her face that she received while sliding down and it stung that much more. She took this moment to look around; vegetation was everywhere as she had landed in a spring that was hidden deep within the depths of the basin. There was no telling how many of these hidden springs had been around the arena, or how far down she had slipped from the starting arena. She had survived her long falling journey, and decided to take a slight rest as she laid her head down onto the sandy shore.
That's when her heart skipped a beat at the sound of a large splash behind her. Krystal looked back with large fearful eyes as her head instantly rosin up, someone had been following her. She quickly scurried to her feet but her arm was keeping her down, there was no way she could fight whoever had been following her in this condition, but there was no point running either as it looked like all passageways were blocked off with heavy vegetation and would require the use of some kind of weapon to get through.
The vixen feared for her life as she backed up away from the pool but stumbled back down to the ground. Krystal pulled herself to hide behind some heavy dark briar as she awaited the stalker to come and claim her life. Krystal watched as a rather large lupine broke the surface of the water, and in much better shape then Krystal had been falling all the way down. If he had followed her this far down the entire time he must have been well prepared to face her. Krystal knew this lupine well.
Crypt was his name. He was one of the biggest, strongest, and even most intellectual Royalists still alive in the Death Tour today. The lupine was a deadly fighter not only because of his brute strength, but his genius mind as well. He scanned head to toe the entire hidden valley around him with his piercing yellow eyes searching for his prey. But came up with nothing.
"Dammit; I lost her." He shook off some of the mud that stuck to his body from the way down and crawling on the wet sandy mud. Krystal watched silently as he took a hold of his purple machete from across his back as she wondered where Crypt had gotten it from. Then the idea struck her, he created that blade himself to use as a weapon!
He cut through some heavy vines searching for the vixen until he came to the conclusion that she wasn't around; she had to be on the move now. He quickly made his way toward the most logical path she would have taken as he sliced down more and more vines trying to keep on her tail.
Krystal waited for about half an hour to pass before she finally started to move from her hiding place, and could no longer sense his mind nearby. She grunted painfully as she tried to crawl out of her hiding spot and finally managed to climb to her feet with only the use of her left arm but the pain had already start to diminish. A single question rang through Krystal's mind as she couldn't figure it out.
"How could he not see me?" She wondered as she walked back toward the water to re-hydrate herself but stopped as she stared at her own self-reflection. She was covered from head to toe in mud. She looked back toward her hiding spot as it was rather dark behind the briars; it was a natural camouflage that had hidden her very life from Crypt's blade. Ideas springed into the vixen's mind as she quickly went to work. She had figured out how she would survive on this barren hell for the next few days until only two remained.
X
A few hours had passed as Krystal took a slight break from all her hard work. She had decided that this natural spring would be her hide out until they were pushed to confrontation in two days. Krystal had created herself a couple of throwing knives from the rocky pillars surrounding the spring as they were the top of the points. With some practice she would come to be dead-on accurate with each throw and hopefully each throw would grant her a kill. She had peeled off the skin from the vegetation cut down by Crypt as they were long and durable. About fifty feet above the spring there was another section of briars hanging down in the valley and behind them was an open clearing. Krystal had strung and stringed up a hammock to take cover and sleep in during this time. She was well above the ground and hidden carefully well. If anyone had stumbled into the valley spring they would be easy prey to pick off. Krystal carefully carved a light infantry blade out of the stone just like Crypt had. The blade reminded her of what normal Cornerian army short swords were shaped like. The vixen held up the blade to the dim light that pierced through the shadows. The stone blade was a light glowing purple as she had never seen material like this. The stone was brittle enough to form a weapon out of it yet durable enough to slice through the thick vegetation here.
Water was easily taken care of as all Krystal had to do was climb down and get what she needed from the spring, and with that came possibly her greatest advantage. The vixen had indeed thickened the mud coat over her entire body, making sure not to leave a speck of blue revealed. She was covered head to toe in her natural camouflage and would be practically invisible behind the briars and in these darkened surroundings. This place was perfect for a stake-out except one detail; there was no wildlife around here. She hadn't seen any forms of wildlife flocking around, not even a small mouse or rat to scurry through.
But right now it hadn't mattered; she had everything she would need in order to survive. Food would come with tomorrow; right now she just needed rest. Krystal took cover in her hammock and set her weapons aside. Her eyes felt heavy as exhaustion took over her. She didn't know if any Royalists had been killed yet or if they were all still lurking just around the corner, waiting just like she was to claim a life.
"I'm aliveā¦for now."
