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Kalanna Rai
Assassin for Hire
Joined: 21 Jan 2006
Topics: 173
Posts: 3102
Location: The Frozen North
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2897 Strata-gems
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 Posted: Sat Feb 09, 2013 5:01 am Post subject: When Shards Collide |
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Someone recently asked the question of who would win in a fight between two of my characters. The thought intrigued me enough that I've been pondering it for a while and here's my answer. Some of you might recognize these two, they're older characters of mine, but if you don't don't worry. It's just a bit of mindless fluff anyway. Enjoy!
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Blood and Whisky
The red head was a slender man and a little short of stature. His hazel eyes glittered intently, an almost feral light in them as they caught the last light of the setting sun. Leather covered him from head to toe, like a suit a motorcycle racer might wear, reinforced at elbow and knee with curved steel plates. In either hand a katana was held. He was relaxed despite the wake of bodies he'd carved his way through already this day. Somewhere in the back of his head that big band Michael Bublé song was playing, keeping him loose. Travis loved swing like no other brand of music.
He wasn't sure what had happened, why the world had gone mad, or where the hell half of the crazy shit he'd witnessed in the past twelve hours had come from. But as he stood there on a chunk of rubble, he could easily surmise that vampires were not the worst of his problems. There were plenty of daylight horrors to contend with. Although with the coming night vampires would certainly become an issue.
He was about to hop down from the rubble, to resume cutting his way back toward his apartment, his safe house for the night. He had too many enemies in the vampire community to risk being out once they began their hunt. Then something, some presence, caught the attention of his sixth sense and made him turn his head.
His footfalls echoed louder than they should have in the still air, heavy boots with their shiny metal buckles tromping heedlessly across the broken urban environment. The red leather of his duster shifted and twisted with each long stride his legs took, steel hair shimmering in the dying light. His wings were slightly upraised, light glinting off their metal pinions. Two heavy guns thumped against either hip, briefly glimpsed when his coat would twist enough to expose them. One hand held the hilt of a massive broadsword, gore dripping from it's crusted length.
The tall man paused, silver eyes catching sight of a lone man standing on an up-thrust section of broken sidewalk. His tongue licked cracked lips and one pale brow quirked upwards. Here was an opponent. Every instinct he possessed screamed at him to put a bullet in the chest of the figure as it turned toward him but some small bloodthirsty part of him didn't think that was sporting.
He reached into one of the many pockets in the red leather duster, pulling out a flask and taking a sip. Today had been one hell of a day. One minute he'd been charting a course, the next he'd been neck deep in things that wanted to chew the meat off his bones...and worse. He didn't know where he was, didn't know who this man was, and didn't care. One more body for the pile. As the liquor burned down his gullet, Angelo reflected that this strange place was good enough to die in as any.
Travis watched carefully as the free hand of the oncoming figure reached downward, the tension in his muscles not relaxing when only a flask returned with it. The blood of the other smelled like nothing he'd ever encountered. Not human certainly...not divine...it almost smelled like there was a mechanical aspect to it. Certainly there was a hellish one. Could this...thing be the source of the disturbance. It was foolish, Travis knew, making the first move. But he did anyway.
Smiling slightly in a resigned fashion, he pushed off from the broken concrete below and raced down it at top speed. To a human he'd have crossed the two hundred yards between himself and the other figure in the time it took to draw one startled breath. To him it was just a run, a sprint. Raising his blades he aimed one in a low slash to take out the knees and the other high to cut at the face.
Angelo had just managed to get the flask back in his pocket, twisting his body slightly and bringing up a wing as he did so, when the two blades glanced off his steel feathers. Whirling, realizing he'd been engaged, he drew a pistol and brought the big sword around in the bladed equivalent of a roundhouse. The weighted edge of his duster rose, whipping in the circle with him as he sought to get a fix on his opponent.
The asshole was fast. Faster than anything he'd encountered so far yet. He couldn't track it, couldn't sense it, but he felt his wings connect with something solid and watched a line of blood trace itself in the air. The air! Pushing off, bringing his wings down, he gained a vantage on his foe. At first he saw nothing but a stirring cloud of dust that slowly settled. As the sun fell away the slender figure of the shorter man was revealed, red hair stirring gently in the wind as he stared upward.
It could fly, this significantly changed Travis's strategy. It moved surprisingly fast, fast enough to open a good gash on his forearm. He'd honestly not really expected them to be metal, at least not sharp as knives. He licked away the line of blood left on his healed skin and grinned up at the thing, fangs exposed now that blood was in the air. Sheathing his blades, he kicked up a rock and hurled it with all his strength at the flying target. By no means the Atlas of the vampire world, Travis was still strong enough that the projectile whistled along with lethal force.
The rock hit Angelo square in the wing, spinning him as if he'd been shot with a five pound ball. The feathers on that wing rumpled in, dented and twisted like a fine foil, and his whole wing went numb as his skeleton shook with the impact. Another projectile streaked past him and he rapidly realized that the air was no safe place for him as long as that bastard could chuck rocks and whatever else at him.
He made for cover, back toward the upthrust chunk of concrete that the other had originally been standing on. Drawing his pistols, he rolled in the air and fired back at where the thing had been. No doubt the thing was fast enough to dodge his bullets...but Angelo was slightly counting on that. After all this thing was fast and apparently it was strong enough to hurl rocks like a cannon. What else could it do?
Bullets came at him, twinkling like stars in the night, easy to avoid. Like nerf balls thrown lazily through the air. Guns were a horrible weapon against a vampire, Travis had told that to anyone who'd listen. At least the thing seemed to be landing, ducking back down behind the towering chunk of concrete. He drew his swords as he lept up the pile of broken rubble, hoping to bring them down on the other.
Instead he was met with a pincushion of steel. His opponent seemed to have flung all the damaged feathers from one wing at once into the air. Perhaps all at the same time in the same motion. Certainly the other hadn't had that much time to plan this. Travis stumbled backwards out of the shrapnel field he'd inadvertently blundered into, sweeping his swords through the air to bat the steel feathers away.
Angelo could see the other now that he'd unbalanced him and he took the precious second he had to hurl his flask at the other male. The liquid splashed into the air and Angelo rolled down the debris pile. He hit the ground on his knees, drawing his sword, getting the edge up just in time to parry the first blow of the other. For an instant they were face to face and he could see the smirk on the face of the other, fangs gleaming from the corners of the other's reddened mouth. What the hell was it? That seemed familiar, an old human legend he'd heard once. The name escaped him though.
Still the smell of alcohol was strong and the bangs of the other were damp, obviously it had taken the route through the booze rather than the route through the feathers. Good. That was what Angelo had wanted. Although he was pissed that he'd had to waste the last flask of good liquor he had. Who knew when he'd find another drop to drink in this forsaken place. He turned again, keeping his wings close as his only personal defense against the other male. Now all he needed was a light.
He reeked now, the liquid burning his eyes for a few moments and causing both his speed and accuracy to suffer as he blinked to clear them. For an instant he was face to face with the other, staring into those silver eyes, smelling it's rummy breath. It looked almost like a normal man but Travis could tell, those eyes held the same 'too old' depths that were a telltale of the ageless. Another immortal of some kind then.
He danced backward, wiping his eyes. He couldn't believe it had hurled it's flask at him. Whoever this other man was, what he was drinking would kill him even if Travis didn't. He shook his wet hair out of his face, lifting his blades, just as he heard the uniquely metallic sound of a flint striking to produce a spark. And then he realized he'd just been doused in something that was likely highly flammable.
The snake of flame had just begun to curl out from where the other was kneeling when Travis bolted away. The night was here in earnest anyway. He couldn't risk one of his enemies catching him in combat with the angel-human-drunkard thing anyway. He stopped a few yards away, blade sheathed, and inclined his head. Perhaps another day they'd fight again.
Angelo waited, tension in every muscle, for the inhuman to return. A vampire, that's what it was he realized a few minutes later. Shaking his head, collecting his flask from where it had fallen, he shook the last droplets onto his tongue. Lowering the flask his eyes met those of another man. A quick flick of his eyes to either side allowed him to realize he was flanked.
"Where did he go?"
The voice spoke and it spoke a language he could understand. It also hissed it's words slightly around elongated fangs. With a sigh Angelo rolled his shoulders and grinned, hands reaching into his pockets for whatever flammables might be contained therein. With a half laugh under his breath and a tone of fakely sincere apology, he spoke.
"I can't understand your accent mate."
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And thus does the duel of the vampire and the pirate end. Would you like to see other battles, other mashups? If so feel free to toss a suggestion my way.
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"It's not just about living forever...the trick is living with yourself forever..."
"Music makes you braver."
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