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 Posted: Thu Apr 26, 2007 12:05 pm
The flash of a blade, but it was already way too late to change her destination. The edge bit into the bottom of her feet with a hiss and a sudden rush of blood, then the impact of what was following hit home.
The force would be enough to shove up against Joshua's guard, regardless of what shape her feet were in, there would still be the rest of her nailing him solidly.
If he were strong enough, he'd be pushed back a little, if not she'd end up making a gouge in the ground by shoving him over and riding the incoming wave of heated air against his braced body.
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Posted: Thu Apr 26, 2007 12:40 pm
The sudden impact was more than jarring; in fact it was closer to being hit by a truck. A splatter of hissing blood sprayed across his face as the Salamander's leg was cut into by the blade, but there was little time to revel in a small victory as the blast front trailing behind the creature washed past.
A taste of his own medicine maybe, but the irony was lost among the chips of stone that showered him and the ground that rapidly gave way to sky when the torrent of hot air sent him clear of the roadside.
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Posted: Thu Apr 26, 2007 12:57 pm
She sprang off him, feeding a bit more force to the slide he'd experiance, feeling the blade actually go deeper before she launced herself of, and landed with a thud, rolling a little down the hill before coming to a painful stop. Her ribcage was heaving and the ground around her started to break apart, becoming molten as she lost control in the atmosphere.
One of her bladed arms dug into the ground as she heaved herself upright, noticably limping in an odd parady of Sunstrike. It seemed to be the day for ironies.
Again the wounds would begin to hiss and cauterize, but the limp would remain, something in a ligament or tendon probably torn, or whatever served as such for a being from a differant plane.
Regardless, she would make her way back to the fight, digging Joshua out of the ground if need be.
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Posted: Thu Apr 26, 2007 1:25 pm
After something like that, it wouldn't be the ground that she would have to dig him out of. The blast was coming up the hillside, and it would continue to be going up even after the ground leveled out. When the superheated air finally dispersed further up the mountain its passenger enjoyed a much cooler return trip to the ground.
Another blade of air cut into the road surface; further away from where the others had been, and Joshua's fall was slowed slightly as he dropped into the ripping torrents of wind.
And then he laughed, rubbing the Salamander's blood from his face with the heel of his hand. Black splotches covered his face and chest where the magma-like blood had left burns on the skin. His hand grabbed his shirt at the shoulder and tore what was left of it; having been cut, burned, blasted, and then burned and blasted again, there was little enough of the blood soaked rag left as it was.
'Wonderful... perfect...'
He flicked the sword tip to the side, shaking the Salamander's blood to the ground in smoking droplets.
"You're really something," he shouted, even though he couldn't see the creature from where he was standing, "making me work... heh."
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Posted: Thu Apr 26, 2007 1:31 pm
She bit off something unintelligable at the words, just coming into view, molten footprints and lashing tail in her wake. Then she'd pause, obviously staring at him through the armour across her face.
Something has eaten your mind... It was a nice way of her saying that Joshua had lost a few fruit loops on his way to the cereal bowl. She heaved a breath and leveled herself, before continuing upwards, advancing cautiously.
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Posted: Thu Apr 26, 2007 1:49 pm
"This isn't about a mind," was his laughing reply as he reached around his left side with his right hand; wiping some of the blood from the first gashes the Salamander had left onto the edge of his right hand, "it's about instinct."
His right hand snapped out, flinging a dagger-like projectile at the creature ascending the mountainside as he took off at a run towards it.
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Posted: Fri Apr 27, 2007 2:45 am
Her head jerked back just as Joshua threw the bladed object, letting it plow deeply into her side. Something was wrong, seriously wrong, the magic that supported her existance on this plane was usually a slowly seeping thing, like an hourglass.
But something felt like the hourglass had just been smashed on the ground. It let ripples of ash flow off her body, let the blade pass easily from her flesh.
Finally she focused on the man running for her, backing up a pace before bracing herself to meet him head on.
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Posted: Fri Apr 27, 2007 11:14 am
And meet him she would; but not head to head like they had before.
Joshua's left thrust the tip of his sword downwards into the earth behind him and then simply left it behind as he continued baring down on the Salamander. Before he had met the creature's charge without flinching and been driven back... he could tell by her step to change stance that she was planning to meet his charge without flinching; but had no intention of losing ground because of it.
If it were possible, his grin would have widened.
This was a beautiful moment. This was the essence of joy. An opponent with physical strength that far exceeded his own, the speed to catch him off guard, and a nearly limitless reserve of energy hiding just beneath the surface. Of the three reasons he had to continue living, this was number two. And so he would show this creature what it was like to go up against joy rather than fear.
The Salamander had braced itself against a charge. It had prepared for an opponent rushing it along the ground. What it received was a sudden leap and the slam of two boot heels against its torso.
He didn't need to send her falling backwards, nor did he need her to break her guard completely, or to throw her back over the ledge. All he needed was two steps back, and he intended to get them.
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Posted: Sat Apr 28, 2007 4:19 am
A compromise.
Her arms raised as he lept, actually exposing the middle of her torso to the brunt of the force, air exploding into fire as her breath rushed out into the atmosphere.
One step back, a swing of the tail for balance, and the arms came down together like a guillotine on whatever was solid enough in range. Luckily for Joshua it was the muscled side instead of the bladed, there was no time to think about rotations. Since she was already doubling over from the blow the movement would almost be natural.
Blood now exploded backwards from the wound in her side and pain made her entire body shiver from wounded feet to the top of her head.
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Posted: Sat Apr 28, 2007 8:36 am
The momentum stopped, and gravity realized that it had been holding its breath in anticipation.
The Salamander's arms crashed down when her body buckled; the brunt of the force of the slam being absorbed by the top leg while, finally getting its bearings, gravity decided to throw in its two cents as well. His trip to the ground wasn't necessarily a pleasant once, but it was certainly short.
'Just another few-'
Scraped palms thrust against the road surface and the bottom leg pulled under him as he practically bounced upon hitting the ground; immediately standing and even trying to preserve what little momentum had been left as he threw the weight of his body against the creature. With her hunched over posture and her head exposed, the Salamander was about to receive a sudden elbow slam to that faceplate she loved so much.
'-inches!'
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Posted: Sat Apr 28, 2007 1:20 pm
A solid golden eye finally showed through and blinked as the grillwork shifted with the blow, knocking her upper torso sideways. Joshua was proving hugely stubborn, but she was at least as pig-headed, if not more.
The tail caught him around both legs and yanked the weight out from underneath, plowing the reaper back into the ground and then sliding him in a snap, away from her being, throwing up more dust and grit.
DO BETTER, LITTLE DEATH!!!!
The words could almost been an attack in and of themselves, they were just that firey.
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Posted: Sat Apr 28, 2007 2:44 pm
He had thrown his weight against the Salamander to knock it back, but it looked like all he had really done was piss it off... well, piss it off and throw his body weight against it. When the creature's tail ripped the footing out from under him he was left with all that weight but no way to direct it; instead falling forwards, not back, into the creature.
'Little Death' reached out and grabbed the Salamander by the ears, the spines, the mask, or whatever it had protruding from the smug little face behind all that metal.
"If you insist."
Three inches to go? 'Big Red' would come willingly or have her face ripped in half just as her shoulders had. He'd probably end up breaking his nose on that face guard of hers, but it wouldn't stop him from making good on his threats to show her just how intimate they were planning to get.
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Posted: Sat Apr 28, 2007 3:08 pm
She snarled and whipped her head around, trying to dislodge him, soon it would show that she couldn't possibly do so without snapping her neck, the weight against her head was just too much.
Fire continued to scortch the air between them and she finally half stumbled backwards in the step that he wanted, unwillingly and with much protest.
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Posted: Sat Apr 28, 2007 4:38 pm
He hadn't even tried to get his footing back after pulling the Salamander over with him. The closest thing he made to an effort to stand was holding tenaciously to the sides of the creature's head as hoisted himself back up with her as his stable base.
Whatever it would take to bring her down with him. Feet on the ground didn't matter at this point.
"Dance for me..." the 'Little Death' growled under his breath before wrenching the Salamander's head and his together with a violent clash of faces. With that metallic mask protecting her all he'd accomplish would be giving her a splitting headache and him a broken nose, but as the blood ran down his chin and onto the Salamander's chest, he put words to his intentions. "Gale."
And then there was no more sky. No more earth. Nothing to know up from down. A whirlwind burst to life, completely enveloping them and sucking the both of them up into the air without a moment's hesitation. It tore up the earth as it spun, sucking stones, dust, ash, and brush in with them to a tumbling, spinning world with no sense of of direction other than which way the air was spinning.
The eye of the storm was forty or fifty feet wide, and they would be circling around it inside a wall of wind that had that sword sitting serenely at the epicenter.
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Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2007 11:37 am
Those pale golden eyes widened as his face came to meet hers with a clang of force, making her ears ring with the sound. Then the rest of her senses were forfeit as they were tossed headlong into a windstorm.
Instantly she curled into a ball, bringing her legs up and tumbling, still burning brightly in the midst of the tunnel. Joshua would find himself half embraced, but not out of any kind of fear, there was a degree of uncertainty, a little loss of balance, but not fear.
We do not do for death, that which we cannot even do for the devil.
A breath, a whisper within her clutches, and finally a hand yanked out of the sheath of muscle, rested lightly against his lips. The fingers were warm, too warm, close to burning.
Goodbye, little death dealer, reaper, Joshua.
Fire began to leak into the air like liquid, the storm became more then a storm, it became an inferno as air and flame danced and collided. The flame reached where the air did not, sucked itself into a spiral that appeared within the eye, directed not to the opponant.
But his weapon.
It built stroke upon stroke, movement against movement, even as she spoke, even as she ripped herself from his grip, faceplate shattering, jagged scars appearing on her flesh, she had only those eyes on a face smooth but for the gill like structures around her cheeks. There was still an amusement there as she whirled off, became the fire, became the strike that impacted the ground around the sword with enough heat to tear it out of a surface that was just ash before any of the real fire hit.
The white and blue flame impaled itself on the hilt and flowed outwards, wrapping around the steel and magic and sucking the air and oxegyn back into itself, forcing the ability right down the weapons "throat."
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