Xilepphi grinned in satisfaction as he settled between the one of the large ammunition cases and the space behind the cushy grey and white couch. His target had been exceedingly paranoid, it's true; showing up at the latest meeting armed to the teeth had proved that. And perhaps it was a low blow to be lying in wait for him in his room behind large amounts of furniture. But he was the second in command and therefore, should be continually on his toes. And if he wasn't…. Xilepphi was there to take advantage of that. He loaded the rocket he had specially designed for this occasion into his Panzerschreck and stowed it carefully behind the couch. He counted down the last few seconds until… Xigbar dropped from the ceiling through a spatial portal, striped ponytail flying behind him. His guns were clutched possessively in his hands, straps filled with purple shards criss-crossing his chest. He glanced cautiously, but not carefully, around the room and then turned and began to put away his ammo straps.
Bad idea, Xilepphi thought, resting his Panzerschreck on the couch back and taking aim. He made sure the rocket was still loaded, then pulled the trigger and let it fly. The force threw him back into the wall and both that and the explosion made Xigbar jump. The red head swore as the second in command leapt back just in time to avoid the rocket, which hit the white wall with a crack and a flash.
"Holy crack monkeys!" The space element screamed, staring for a second at the long blackened mark, whispering trails of smoke, which read, "Tag!". Now swinging himself around, he pointed at Xilepphi, now revealed, yelling,
"Hah! You missed me, bastard!" Then he wrenched a hole in space, stepped through it, and disappeared. The arsonist grinned nastily, for he knew where Number Two had gone. The game is on, he thought, snapping his fingers to teleport himself to the training hall.
Another explosion flowered in midair as a well placed shard-bullet pierced a red and black rocket, sending scraps of metal flying and towards the faces of the two combatants. Both flew backwards from the explosion, one through a spatial portal, the other simply appearing on the other side of the large white room.
"You're gonna have to do better than that!" Xigbar cried, scorch marks decorating both his guns and cloak. Some shrapnel had cut open a few black lines on his cheeks and forehead.
"You think I'm even trying that hard?" Xilepphi called back, landing on a platform and lowering his weapon in order to load another rocket. He as well had thin black lines on his face and arms, the result of the razor edges of the Freeshooter's ammo. The scarlet haired nobody hefted the Panzerschreck back onto his shoulder pad, then blinked out of sight, leaving Xigbar to carefully scan the room for glimpses of his opponent. Feeling a sudden rush of air behind him, Number Two spun around and unloaded a trio of lavender spearheads in the space where he had been standing, which then embedded themselves in the whitewall there. Somewhat expecting this from Xilepphi, as this was not their first game of Tag, the zebra-haired nobody glanced back and forth around the training hall, looking for shadows on the ground that would indicate where his opponent was. And then he swore silently as he felt the wide barrel of a rocket launcher gently nudging the center of his back.
"Are you prepared to be tagged?" The newest nobody's mockingly tenor voice asked from behind his back as Xigbar quietly prepared a darkness portal directly before his feet.
"As if!" The eye-patched nobody crowed, and quickly raised the darkness portal to a height of ten feet and rushed through. A swift curse and the explosion of gunpowder followed his heels, but he spun sideways out of the door, letting the rocket shoot off into space, aimed as the portal was right back at Xilepphi. The arsonist let out a yelp as he turned and realized his own projectile was shooting towards him, and pulled the trigger again. The resulting explosion shot Xigbar backwards and engulfed the space element in acrid grey smoke. Keeping excessively quiet despite the adrenaline rushing to his brain, number two desperately tried to see that red hair through the aerial debris. He suppressed another long string of curses after a flying chunk of rock nearly conked him in the head but his restraint failed when the so sought-after man suddenly appeared in front of him.
"HA!" The attacker cried, flinging an ivory-colored powder all over the Freeshooter's black coat.
"Dude, what the Hell!" The space element scorned as the smoke cleared, looking down at his cloak, which now seemed to have been splattered with bleach. "You just ruined one of my best outfits!" But the dangerous expression he saw on Xilepphi's face as he looked up stopped his complaints. The man held a lighter.
"I spent days, working on this in Vexen's lab." The red head said, a mad-scientist look insane enough to rival the ice element's crawling over his face.
"Uh, what?"
"You will explode now." He cackled unstably, lobbing the small flame at Xigbar's coat.
"Tag, you're it!" The arsonist screamed, blinking out of the training area as the lighter slowly arched through the air…
"Oh, shit-"