Suzaku picks up the sword at his feet. He holds it in front of himself, ready to block any sudden attacks from his opponent.

Tyson, for his part, relaxes his stance and let's the point of his sword brush the nebulous ground. He holds it in only one hand, his other hand making motions as if he was conducting a choir. "Suzaku Kururgi. I challenge thee to a life or death match. The rules are simple. You hit me first, you win. I hit you first, and I win. Winner takes the other's life."

Suzaku stands still, looking at the slightly fat man. "And if I refuse?"

Tyson roles his eyes. "Come on! Refusing isn't an option. If I really wanted it, this world could have driven you insane the second you got caught in it. I'm giving you a sporting chance because I want to, not because I have to."

Suzaku clenches his sword tighter. "So be it." he lowers the tip of his sword slightly and dashes forwards.

With surprising speed, Tyson brings his sword to a ready position. Suzaku's charge is deflected almost offhandedly. Suzaku jumps backwards to avoid the retaliatory strike.

Tyson takes two steps forward and puts his sword in a defensive position similar to Suzaku's at the beginning of the battle. "If you are just going to rush me like that, this is going to be a quick battle." Tyson braces his sword with his other hand-

Suzaku's eye go wide as he realizes that the speed and strength that Tyson had utilized was all one handed. With two hands providing power to the blade...

Suzaku ducks a swing at his head and makes a leap with his blade extended, attempting to gut the man. Tyson elegantly loops his missed swing into a parry and deflects the blow. Suzaku looses his balance and almost drops his sword, but drapes it across his back in time to deflect the vertical blow aimed at his neck. He stands up with Tyson's blade still pressing down on him. When he gets to eye level with Tyson, they glare at each other. Suzaku can see the Geass in the man's eyes.

He disengages his blade from behind his back and turns to deflect a lightning quick recovery. Steel clashes loudly in the otherwise silent space and echoes off of far off walls. The two swordsmen swing faster and faster, each trying to get an edge.

Suzaku swings a bit too wide, and Tyson swoops in, Suzaku barely deflecting the blow. He puts a few seconds distance between his opponent and pauses to catch his breath. Once he was able to breath properly again, he straightens up and meets eyes filled with Geass.

Tyson stands twenty feet away, where Suzaku had left him, grinning.

Suzaku readies his Geass. He didn't want to use it... Wait, where was it? Before, it had always felt like a little bit of pressure behind his eye.

Tyson inexplicably notices, though Suzaku was sure that he hadn't given his intentions away. "Oh, that. I took the liberty of disabling your Geass. It would make this fight a lot less exciting, don't you think?"

Suzaku doesn't answer, and instead charges Tyson again.

Tyson easily blocks the incoming strike and then twists his sword, causing Suzaku to involuntarily let go of his own weapon. He stumbles and lands on his back, his sword a good four feet away from him.

"See? Take away your robot, your Geass, and your backup, and you become helpless." Tyson steps on Suzaku's sword, shattering it. "Now, it's time to say goodbye." He raises his sword over his head and prepares to strike Suzaku right through the chest.

"Wrong." Suzaku growls. "I'm far from powerless."

Tyson's sword plunges down, but before it can hit Suzaku, it breaks apart. A loud crack booms out as the ceiling fractures and light starts pouring through. Suzaku grins at the confused look on Tyson's face. "Remember, if you know something isn't real, you can ignore it."

The black world crumbles away and Suzaku seizes the real Tyson by his shirt. "Unfortunately for you, the real world can't be so easily manipulated."

Suzaku yanks his pistol from his holster and thinks him over the head. Tyson goes limp.

Suzaku drops the body to the floor and looks at his surroundings.

"Where am I?"

o-o-o-o

L2 hides behind a small pillar that looks like it had once been part of a casino. Honestly, he knew he should be putting all his focus into fighting his opponent, who still was full of energy, but part of his mind kept drifting back to this pillar. It's modeled after the ancient Greek pillars that fancy restaurants use, and had probably once been completely white.

"There you are!" Hibiki yells.

In the next instant, L2 found himself being bear-hugged to death from behind. He immediately takes a breath and holds it and tenses his muscles to avoid being crushed. Hibiki lifts L2's feet off the ground and starts shaking.

L2 suddenly let's himself relax and the arms holding him slacken enough for him to get out from the grip. He draws his firearm, aims-

And when he pulls he trigger, the gun is in Hibiki's hand, leaving L2 to make finger guns at him.

Hibiki smirks. "You are way to slow."

L2 reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a knife. He swings it wildly, but Hibiki just darts backwards at inhuman speeds and brandishes his newly acquired gun. "Huh. Now I have the gun." He smirks. "Didn't anyone ever tell you not to bring a knife to a gun fight?"

L2 shrugs. "I've brought spears to a FLEIJA fight. Oh yeah, I won that one."

Hibiki laughs. "Oh, but that wasn't an ordinary spear."

L2 shrugs again. "Semantics." With a blink and you'll miss it toss, the knife in his hands goes sailing-

And hits Hibiki in the shoulder, blunt end first. Hibiki roars with rage as L2 quickly starts grabbing debris and chucking it at his attacker. Unlike before, when L2 was trying to fight hand to hand, the stuff was actually hitting him, if not for very much damage. L2 smiles a nasty smile.

"So, what's your Geass, hmm? Judging by before I'd say you probably have power to stop someone's perception of time. I used to know someone like that."

"Ah, so you met Rolo." Hibiki grunts. "He was a failure, imperfect. I'm better."

"Ah, so, no heart stoppage?"

"No."

L2 grabs a piece of rebar and throws it with all his might, but about halfway through the motion the bar disappears and reappears on the ground. Hibiki has a hold on L2's wrist, and was bending it down to put him into a lock. L2 struggles out and kicks off of the larger man. His freedom is short lived though, as he suddenly is face first on the ground and being crushed by Hibiki.

L2 tries to struggle, but as Hibiki bounces up and down he can hear his bones breaking and reforming, then breaking again. L2's right arm gets bent backwards at an angle that makes it almost impossible to effectively use it during combat. L2 bucks his body off the rubble, but Hibiki is ready for him this time. He maintains his grip on L2, and ends up going for the neck.

L2 quickly finds himself completely unable to breathe. While not life threatening (at least to an immortal) it is still disconcerting enough the first thing he tries to yank the arm from around his throat. Hibiki's grip gets tighter and tighter-

A shot rings out and L2 drops to the ground. He looks up to find Hibiki has a red, dripping hole in his forehead. Hibiki is mouthing some words, but he collapses before L2 can make sense of them.

Turning towards the direction the shot had come from, L2 finds Suzaku holding a pistol and an ornamental sword that has blood dripping from its edge.

Suzaku waves the sword. "L2! You alright?"

L2 nods and coughs to get the closed throat feeling away. "Where's Kallen?"

"I don't know. I didn't see her on my way to you." Suzaku points a thumb over his shoulder. "I found their HQ over there. It's inside the tower, but near the bottom."

L2 nods. "Signal the sub. We need to get our device up onto the surface now."

"Too bad it's not going to work." Says a voice.

Both Suzaku and L2 look up to find Tamaki looking down at them.

"After all, the real hero of the Black Knights is here to kill you, and I always get my man."

o-o-o-o

Kallen quietly hides under yet more rubble. Jennifer is stalking along the surface of the scrap metal mountain, kicking through it like leaves in the fall. Kallen is forced to blink as a screw that is kicked up bounces off of her before settling on a broken trash can lid.

"I know you're here!" Jennifer screams. "Let me see you!"

Kallen remains silent. She had, in the brief time they had been fighting, figured out Jennifer's Geass limitation. It was direct line of sight, so hiding in a mound of junk made her temporarily safe from the wracking pain that stems from nowhere.

Despite the pain not having any real injury to go with it, Kallen felt the need to grab her leg to see if it was still functioning properly. Her left hand carefully reaches down.

Jennifer's head snaps to Kallen's position as she bumps a metal sheet hard enough to start a small cascade. Kallen bolts upright and dodges a punch. The sound of a fist striking a metal sheet and the resulting scream is vaguely satisfying.

Jennifer cradles her arm and growls. "I'm through with you!" She raises her hand up and pulls it down sharply. A roar sounds from the tank at the top of the junk mountain and a shell just as big as Kallen's arm whips past her face.

Kallen almost forgets how to move for a second due to the sheer shock. The tank's turret realigns slightly, and-

Kallen jumps upwards and to the left, and the shell grazes her leg, not doing significant damage, but enough to send her off her planned trajectory.

Jennifer raises her hand a third time. Kallen runs up to her and grabs her in a bear hug. Jennifer freezes in place as the tank's turret turns to point towards the both of them. from this angle, any shot would hit both of them, probably killing them both as well.

"So, looks like we've reaches an impasse." Jennifer says. "Want to call it a draw?"

"Nope." Kallen reaches up and grabs Jennifer's upraised hand. "I want to win."

Kallen tugs the hand down.

The roar of the tank is followed by a burst of pain in her chest. She looks down to find the strike had broken her left ribs on the way by... but at least she still had lungs.

Kallen gets up and averts her eyes from the mutilated corpse in front of her.

"What kind of person want's to hurt others as a primary wish?" She mutters before turning towards the tower that was her goal and walking.