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Posted: Tue Feb 05, 2008 12:21 pm
"Move aside! Move aside!"
Shouts came from the back of the crowd that had gathered around the street corners and the disused intersection. The loud cries of several men ordered a path to be cleared and without a single word of protest from the crowd it was done just as they said. There were three of them walking toward the intersection where Scarker was taking challenges. From their looks they were obviously far better off than the destitute citizens of the Yellow District; one openly carried a pistol in a holster on his hip, another was more subtle and carried one in a shoulder holster beneath his jacket.
"Awright, what's goin' on here? What's all the commotion?" The man in charge spoke with a thick city accent while tapping a wooden baseball bat across his shoulder with an air of superiority. Like the others he was wearing what could be passed off as a suit jacket and a decent pair of slacks, but the man also wore an untucked, unbuttoned shirt underneath and had his hair slicked back with enough grease to fry a turkey in a look that just screamed 'gutter trash'.
Regardless, several members of the crowd shouted out in reply. They shouted that Scarker had been taking fights for money. They shouted that he'd beaten up a good number of tough-guys already. They shouted that he was practicing witchcraft.
"...oh raaly now?" the thug said, quirking an eyebrow at the last one. Sure enough, it was there plain as day. Scarker squatting in the middle of the street waving glowing hands all over a bleeding man.
"HAY!"
The thug shouted in a voice that came straight out of his cajones. He picked up the bat he'd been resting across his shoulder and wapped it a couple of times firmly back down on the threadbare shoulder of his jacket.
"If you're lookin' for a fight I'll be happy to give ya a beatin'."
As if emboldened by the thug's words, the crowd seemed to take a step forward all at once.
Either this man was some sort of hometown hero in this neighborhood, or the people of this city didn't take kindly to witches, mutants, and things that weren't human.
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Posted: Wed Feb 06, 2008 1:50 pm
Scarker stands up and goes through the motions of looking over his new challenger with his blind eyes.
"Alright, then you get a couple of choices, sir. First, if you don't want me usin' magic, say so now. Second, which weapons do you wanna fight against, the staff, one blade, or two? Third, what's your wager? Two gets you five, max bid of 20 copper. Last, you get to choose the win conditions, K/O, submision, first blood, whatever you want. I only have one stipultion: No guns. There are a lot of people around here, and it'd be a shame if you missed and accidentally killed one of these innocent bystanders."
He walks over to the table, handing a copper to each of the kids - who smile widely and give him a thumbs up before going back to their guard duty - and runs a hand over each of his weapons.
"Name your terms and ready yourself. By the way, my name's Scarker, can I have the honor of knowing yours?"
His tone on the word 'honor' implies that it really isn't an honor, and he's just trying to make his last fight of the day more interesting.
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Posted: Tue Feb 12, 2008 2:00 pm
(( Sorry there, flu got me. ))
"You've certainly got a lot to say for someone who come in here meddlin' with these people's lives," the thug snorted and cleared his throat; then spat an oozing loogie onto the street corner. "If yer here lookin' for trouble I ain't got no qualms 'bout stickin' ya."
The thug swung his bat in the air a few times, loosening up his shoulder as he did so; then slapping laquered wood against the palm of his hand.
"Step off, boys." At his word, the goons on his wings took a step back to the same distance as the rest of the people standing around were waiting at. They weren't going to get involved if the new guy in town wanted to start a brawl with the 9th street boys. At least not until the boss said it was okay to get involved, that is.
"John Dunn, bud. And you've got a lot of nerve to set up shop down here without comin' to pay your respects to Mr. Riley first. So hows about we get you some ice for that concussion and take you on down to see 'im, eh?"
The bat in his right hand swung low across his body like a player warming up for the pitch.
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Posted: Tue Feb 12, 2008 4:40 pm
(No worries)
"Not a paying contestant? Well, I'll have to apologize to Mr. Riley when I see him. Still, there's time for one more fight before the sun goes down, so if you insist, let's get your beating over with as quickly as possible. Feel free to cede defeat if you have to, I wont think any less of you or your little stick."
There's a clear ringing as Scarker's blades are dragged across the table. It may be then that the thug gets his first idea about them. There's nothing fancy, other than the well maintained black paint which does nothing but magnify the sharp, unpainted steel edges of the blades. Likewise, they could hardly be called elegant, except for the simplistic curve of their cutting edge. The grips didn't even look comfortable in the mage's hands, but the deadly simplistic purpose of those steel slabs was mimicked clearly by the man's loose stance. Of course, this may be John Dunn's only good look at them from a distance.
Scarker explodes into motion, rushing forward at the man with his blades in front of him, laying on top of one another. He tilts them as he rapidly approaches, sliding them apart to perform a scissor slash from John's left hip to his right shoulder.
Admittedly, it wasn't the most fatal strike Scarker had ever tried to do. Granted, the keen edges of the blades would certainly spill a lot of blood if they connected, but he wasn't leaning in to the strike enough for the blades to do serious damage, and it's a rather easy matter to stop such a slash, as there would be a prefect place to put the club when the blades slid apart to an angle and started pulling away. In fact, he looked almost bored as he lunged.
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Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 1:06 pm
(( This time it was just me not seeing your post for a bit and then having things to do over the weekend. xp I'm really not the best person to be exchanging with unless a rapid-succession can be done. Tend to get sidetracked a lot and not carve out the time in my day to make posts. ))
Well that one was fairly obvious, wasn't it? Scarker lunged forwards with his blades in a scissor-slash, and John Dunn swung his bat. A pretty lazy, half-hearted upwards swing. He didn't have to swing it hard to do a good amount of damage to a man's head, but he could swing it even lighter when he was just throwing a monkey wrench into the machine.
Scarker's 'scissors' would close around the business end of a baseball bat before they got much further. Unless those things were impossibly sharp or there was an unbelievable amount of force behind them, leverage would be on John's side today.
His next step would be to the right, past Scarker's left shoulder. Twisting the handle of the bat skywards as he did so, he would first of all apply a solid barrier to the back of the weapon in Scarker's left hand so that he couldn't pull it back immediately, and second of all the twisting motion would wrench the bat free of the blades with only a few minor chips off of the wood and a shallow gash on either side to show for it.
It sure wasn't much for an opening attack, but John wasn't keen on throwing the love-tap that would have happened if he'd tried to punch across his body with the left... and he really did want that bat back, after all.
Scarker had started off with the advantage of having two weapons there. The advantage was all but gone now, with John standing where he was.
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Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 2:16 pm
(( If you wanna try to schedule something, send me a PM. Other than that, just expect that I can post once a day, and will. If that means it's only a turn a week, so be it. I've unfortunately experienced slower, and have enough patience. ))
While certainly, the loss of his two-weapon advantage was annoying, but that had never been his true advantage in the first place. The true advantage was having a self-designed weapon that could mold to situations as fast as you can.
Scarker quickly reversed his grip on the weapon in his right hand, and adjusting his stance so that his back was facing John. He swung the blade around, edge down, to stab behind him. His accuracy would be uncanny, although seeing as his mage sight didn't blind spots, it was only to be expected. This time, there's a lot more force behind the blow, even though it's aimed toward a non-lethal spot on his opponent's right side.
He didn't bother trying to move his left blade, knowing that his strength was less than phenomenal and the act would only distract him from his stab. So his left arm stays right where it is.
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Posted: Thu Feb 21, 2008 12:12 pm
(( Maybe so... but hopefully I'll just catch you on sometime. My schedule is pretty unpredictable lately, what with school (and thus fluxuating amounts of homework), work, and other obligations (both IRL and HoH). ))
Well... damn... was this guy crazy or something?
John had stepped up beside Scarker's left arm to give him an edge over that two-sword style that the guy was using. He'd expected that the guy would try and back away, or get himself turned to face John again, but... damn.
Even if he reversed like that, Scarker was still taking a willing disadvantage by turning his back to the other man. It didn't have anything to do with having eyes in the back of his head or something like that. It had everything to do with having elbows that only bent one direction. Reversing his grip would give Scarker a little extra reach with that thing, but it'd still be an awkward motion with comparatively little extension compared to a forward thrust, even with the cross-body motion that he'd have had to use with the right blade. But there was another disadvantage to this as well... whether he was striking with that right hand across his body in the front, or swinging it behind him like he was, there was really only one attack that he could make: a thrust. Knowing exactly what was going to come at you made staying out of the way of it a whole lot easier... it was how those kids at the corner arcade kept kicking his a** in those games. Predictable move patterns.
John was dumbfounded by this guy's strategy for a moment... conveniently, the moment that it took Scarker to switch his grip on that sword of his. Getting out of the way was as easy as fading back a step and moving the other way... towards the right if Scarker kicked out his elbow, towards the left if he kept it close to his side.
The rest was just accepting an invitation.
The guy had offered John his back, so after grabbing the butt of the bat with his left and choking up on the handle to the tapering part with his right, he decided to take the guy up on that offer; bringing the hardwood instrument down in a wide vertical swing for the eyes this guy had in the back of his head.
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Posted: Fri Feb 22, 2008 9:28 am
Scarker's elbow did kick out, making his opponent feint back to the right, but his elbow didn't stop. He continued into a counter-clockwise spin to face his opponent, dropping as he spun to give him more time before the club came down. His left blade was brought above his head to parry the club, while his right blade was brought around to show off the last special function of the blade.
Rather than try to slash or stab while the sword was backward, and thus awkward for those functions, he punched. There was almost no force on the edge that was directly in front of his knuckles, and if John didn't back off, then the blade would only press in on his stomach, threatening a little, slicing some of his shirt at the most. If he did back away, the edge wouldn't follow, and he would hold his stance, almost tauntingly.
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Posted: Tue Mar 04, 2008 12:22 pm
(( ...this is what I was afraid of, here. I had a bunch of work last week and had to fix my computer twice. So now I'm 11 days behind in responding to you. See? xp ))
The guy had pretty quick reflexes to get his arm up that fast... no, that wasn't it. The guy had pretty good eyes to catch the thing coming at the back of his head.
John's two-handed smash with the bat cracked hard against the edge of the sword without an ounce of mercy in it. The sharpened edge sank in a good quarter inch on the wood, causing a few small chips to splinter off around the gash, but all in all the solid piece of wood held up pretty well under pressure. It was a Louisville Slugger, after all. The tip of Scarker's sword would move a few inches at the tip from the force of the impact on the weapon. Even if the guy was tough enough to stop the thing dead in its tracks with his hand, catching it on a long blade gave John the advantage of leverage enough so that the back of Scarker's weapon would sink uncomfortably close to his face in the hasty defense.
"Punk."
It was the sole of John Dunn's left shoe, however, that made it painfully close to Scarker's face when all was said and done... or maybe his chin, if he was looking up from his dropped stance... or even his chest, since the narrator can't remember if Scarker is supposed to be one of those HEUG GAIZ that have been skulking around the place lately. A fast kicking-in-the-door style kick that he was so familiar with as a strongarm member of the local neighborhood watch.
Blade punch? Only if the guy had the reach for it while he was falling over backwards.
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Posted: Tue Mar 04, 2008 4:27 pm
(( Stop apologizing. I told you, I can wait for a long time. Besides, the quality is well worth it, been a long time since I got the chance to think this much about a fight. )) Scarker takes the foot straight to his chin, being neither exceptionally large, nor particularly buff. He's sent back on his heels, being held up by the sword that's thoroughly entrenched in John's bat and the surprisingly resilient tip of the sword in his right hand ripping through the pavement beside him. His jaw works its way back into place as he stops to catch his breath, realizing that he'll need a little help. He starts charging energy for a spell and strikes up a conversation to stall for the last second he needs. "Seems I get my interesting fight. Sorry for underestimating you, someone stupid enough to fight someone carrying two unknown weapons while only using a baseball bat... I shoulda guessed you had somethin' going for you. But you know, I got something goin' for me too." His head was down as he yanks his right blade out of the ground, reversing his grip on it yet again, but he doesn't make any other visible move. Although, if the guy was paying attention, he may notice a very slight breeze going in the direction that Scarker's in. In fact, everyone in the square would be able to notice a slight breeze going towards Scarker, regardless of what direction from him they're in. Charge (as of next turn): 1 + 1/3
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Posted: Tue Mar 04, 2008 7:48 pm
(( Oh yeeeeeah. Scarker was the super -old- guy, not the super -huge- guy. I just remembered that there was something obscene about his stats, and I suppose I've been having to deal with too many "built like a tank" people lately due to HoH. )) This guy was pretty cheeky.
"Yeah, I got somethin' going for me..." John said, placing the head of the bat in his left hand and rubbing the blemished surface with his palm to break away any rough chips that were barely hanging on. Seeing as Scarker had called a time out to work a kink out of his jaw by mouthing off, John figured he had time to give the ol' girl a pat for a job well done... maybe tie his shoes... straighten his jacket... take a piss. Maybe. It all depended on how long this guy was planning on running his mouth.
Hoisting the bat up over his shoulder again, John snapped the fingers of his left hand and cocked his head a bit to the side in a subtle gesture. "...so if you show me yours, I promise you'll be seeing mine."
Khaaaaaaakkk~
John cleared his throat rudely, slushed it around for a bit, and then spat a loogie onto the street curb with a pretty pissed off expression.
Pthooooook!
"The hell is wrong with you witchy types? Always trying to make things more than they are. Huh!?" He raised the bat up a few inches and slammed it down hard on the meaty part of his shoulder. His manner made it pretty clear that he'd rather be slamming on the crunchy part of the magic user's head. "Everything's gotta be mystical this and secrets of the universe that! You must be thick in the head if you can't see what this is right here in front of you. This is a pissed off guy with a bat and two beers in him lookin' to kick your a**."
That was it. That freak had spent enough time licking his wounds and whatever the hell else he was doing. John strode right up towards him ready to put this show back on the road where it belonged.
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Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2008 3:08 pm
"Mystical? Secrets of the universe? I don't think so." Scarker reached out with the energy and grabbed hold of the bat, right above and below the grip. He forces the energy to move in separate directions, attempting to split the business end of the bat off. Since he's using enough energy to lift him and throw himself around at good speed, unless there's something special about the bat, it wont last. "I just don't like loosing. I also don't think that two beers is going to be enough of a painkiller if you keep going on. You have two choices. One, you can keep trying to attack me and I'll slice ribbons of flesh from your unarmed a** until you get the idea that you've lost. Two, you can cede defeat now and escort me to this Mr. Riley, where I give you enough money to buy a new bat and get yourself hammered at the shady establishment of your choice." The mage stands, looking straight into John's eyes with his own blind ones, although now they're gaining a tint of gold. He raises the sword in his right hand onto his shoulder and the sword in his left hand is lowered in front of his legs. "It's your call." Charge: 1/3
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Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2008 7:42 pm
John was pretty quick to drop the bat when it suddenly and mysteriously decided it wanted to explode. He wasn't that confused about it, though... hell, it all made perfect sense to him.
"It's your call," John said right back to him with a pretty unfriendly tone. "You gonna come peaceably along or you gonna keep makin' witchcraft in a city full of xenophobes?"
A couple blank stares and scratched heads from the crowd settled the impression that a lot of these poor folk had no idea what the term meant. They did know, however, that the people in that town and particularly the poor sector that they were in who would be welcoming to a magic-spouting weirdo that barely passed as human were few and far between.
"Either way, I'm gonna kick your a** before the day is out."
John cracked his knuckles and waited for a reply.
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Posted: Thu Mar 06, 2008 9:12 am
Scarker straps the blades to his back and reaches out his left hand to the table. With the last of his gathered energy, he causes his staff to fly to it, then twirls it impressively around himself before thudding the end into the pavement with it in his right hand.
"I'll come quietly, I was pretty certain that I just made that clear. Just keep on believing that you're better than me, maybe it'll help us get along."
His eyes start fading back to silver as he puts on a pair of sunglasses. With the fading light of sunset, he's almost looking like a normal human. All that would really set him apart from the people around him would be his undamaged, well tailored clothing. Seriously, even his leather trenchcoat looks like it's never even heard of dirt, and what little is visible of its silk lining is flawlessly groomed. He massages a kink out of his right shoulder before going.
"Too much fighting today anyway. You'd think after the first dozen I would have gotten a more skilled turnout, but nope, it took fifty people for someone like you to show up, maybe I'll have better luck tomorrow. Anyway, lead on, Johnny-boy."
Scarker's face remains emotionless, no friendly smile or vindictive grin, not even a dissatisfied scowl as he talks. It's almost like whatever tone his speech had was completely by habit, or what people expected to hear, and he was just going through the motions. He'll follow the goon and his lackies as soon as they start off in any direction. He doesn't care whether he's in front of the lackies or behind them, really. He's not going to take his attention off of them one way or another.
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Posted: Mon Nov 24, 2008 6:10 pm
Tugging on his hat, the blonde out worlder approached the city from the west, the bright red cloak covering his left arm, his right arm put and holding down his large straw hat. Not due to fear of being blown off, as it was tied to his chin, but for various habits. His movement was quiet and deliberate, with no signs of anything quick.
He wore old world style armor, and carried around a pair of swords at his hip. Their hilts sheen with golds and silvers, he was tall, about 6'4 in height and built large but not too large. He was a good three miles out from the city itself, approaching it at slow pace which would take about an hour and a half to reach the city itself.
His armored boots pressed lightly against the ground, making no noise even when stepping over leaves or branches or any other ground trash. This new world was new to him, advanced in technology and quite impressive in scope and range of peoples. It surprised him some, faced with the off chance he would get into a fight in a large city sent his blood pumping.
He was unaware of the dangers this place may hold, or the danger of firearms as of yet. He was only a recent arrival to Gaia, and had only had time to find about the HoH and find a small team he was recruited into. Though he had yet to meet his team.
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