|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Mon May 30, 2011 5:10 pm
Camelot had a lot of experienced with Youma. If there was one thing he was confident, or at least growing towards confident in, it was fighting the creepy, freaky or just odd monsters that popped up all around the city.
Except on an off day, like today.
Clearly something in the universe was aligned incorrectly, or he had stepped on too many cracks and passed under a ladder while breaking a mirror on his way to work. Something was off, because everything seemed to be going wrong.
And his confidence was spiraling downwards.
"You're supposed to be a knight, aren't you?! Use your sword!" A civilian yelled from behind him. Camelot turned to glare at him. The man was huddling in a corner, clinging to his girlfriend and, if Camelot could read him right, actually hiding behind her. She was positioned in front of him and though he had his overly muscled arms around her he was not turning his body protectively, not cuddling her closer to his side. No, she was practically on his lap.
Camelot was getting s**t about his fighting style from a coward meathead. Awesome.
"Unfortunately," the Page of Earth grunted, shoving his shield against the claws that were nearly breaking through the old, sad wood circle, "I left my sword at home."
He had a cut on his face, running along the line of his jaw from his ear down under his chin. The youma had managed to swipe its large claw across the side of Camelot's face, prevented from tearing his face clean off by a mostly fortuitous stumble backwards on the Page's part. Blood was running down his neck and, worse, his back, but he had to ignore it.
The youma roared at him, slamming its other hand down on top of the one caught in Camelot's shield, trying to hammer its claws through the wood. And through the knight's arm, if he wasn't careful.
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue May 31, 2011 1:41 am
It was hard for Gehenna to have bad days. He'd come home, found a job and a place to stay in a matter of days, and on top of it all he'd found out he was a bad a** Gladiatoresque super hero. Sure, being stabbed and punched and thrown across buildings sucked a little but all in all he counted everything as an improvement in his life. There were still things that he could improve on, but for the time being he was happy just being Gehenna.
He was rather cheerful as he walked aimlessly through the streets. He didn't appear to have any purpose in mind, even though he was powered up. One hand was holding a supersized slushie up to his mouth and the other was carrying a handful of grocery bags overstuffed with junkfood. In fact, all he appeared to be doing was returning from a dramatic grocery run.
Unfortunately for Gehenna and rather fortunately for Camelot, Cimmerian had started stressing the importance of this aura reading thing that Gehenna usually had no time for and as he was just about to cross through an intersection and be on his way, something tickled at his mind. For once, he didn't ignore it and continue on, but stopped and tilted his head as if it would help him decipher it.
A youma, he could get that one right away, and.. something much more positive. Senshi or Knight he didn't know, but the noise coming from an alley nearby meant that something was wrong. He sighed and, after staring longingly at the street that stretched out before him and towards his apartment, he turned and decided to investigate.
When he rounded the corner and saw what he knew instantly to be a Knight, a growl rose in his throat. He needed to get the youma's attention before the older guy got his arm ripped clean off. He set his groceries down and with one last, wistful glance at the slushie in his hand, he took a few running steps forward and lunged it right at the beast's face.
"Hey ugly," sometimes Gehenna's wit was not at its best, "it's my turn." As unwise as it was to challenge a youma, he looked confident and even went so far as to make a challenging 'bring it on' motion with his gloved fingers.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue May 31, 2011 12:47 pm
Camelot was a bit surprised when he was splashed by something sticky and sweet smelling. Run off from the other Knight's attack on the youma, it seemed, but he was certainly thankful for it. It wasn't the worst thing he had been hit with since becoming a Knight, after all. That had to belong to that awful skunk youma.
He felt the youma pull its arms free of the shield, which was now not much of a shield so much as a tattered and splintered piece of wood clinging helplessly to his arm. He frowned at it, sad to see it in such a state, though he knew it would be restored the next time he needed it.
Still, the little thing was the whole reason Tony was now Camelot. It was like watching someone rip a library book in half. Sentimental value and nothing more, at the moment.
It certainly wasn't going to be useful in the fight.
"Thank you!" Camelot called, waving his hand from behind the youma. The monster, for its part, was ignoring the older Knight now. It turned to look at the new arrival, growling and lurching forward. Not graceful, but certainly thick with muscles, mostly in its shoulder and back. It had long, barreled arms that ended in almost comically overlarge hands. Almost, because they ended in devilish looking claws.
It lunged at Gehenna, swinging at him.
Camelot, who looked like he was already sporting older injuries and was favoring his shield arm to him carefully, moved after it. He didn't know how he might be helpful, but he didn't want the Knight who had come to help him get hurt because of him.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2011 1:12 am
"Yeaaah, don't mention it," Gehenna said lowly, sarcastically almost, in return to the Page's gratitude. Sure, it had been his choice to stop and help but now as he stared at the half ton monster narrowing the gap between them, he was starting to rethink his decision. Hindsight and all that.
In the few seconds he knew he had before the youma was within attacking distance, Gehenna looked around frantically for anything that would give him an advantage over the much larger opponent. Just as it closed in, he found an old, rusty escape ladder half pulled down to the ground. He glanced once at the youma and then made a lunge for it, narrowly escaping the swiping paws. In fact, he was pretty sure he felt them graze over the back of his armored belt.
His hands grasped the bottom rung of the hanging ladder and quickly pulled the rest of his body up so he could climb onto the first landing. Once there, he was a good few feet above the youma's head - but he had also cornered himself pretty well. In the back of his mind he really wished Meri was around, she was always the distraction for his asskicking and he was learning pretty quickly that fighting solo sucked.
Well, not exactly solo, he realized.
Glancing around quickly, he reached for one of the half rusted through railings. He gave it a couple of hard yanks until it finally snapped off, revealing one sharp, gleaming edge. He stared at it then glanced down at the youma, then back to the weapon. Finally he leaned as far over the edge of the fire escape railing as he could manage without being afraid it would snap, and tried to get the other Page's attention.
"Hey, shield dude, catch this!" Despite his lack of eloquence, Ghen was pretty sure this was a full-proof plan. He pulled back his arm and let the makeshift spear fly - right for Camelot. Ghen just hoped he caught it by the blunt end.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2011 11:32 am
Camelot winced when the youma swung for Gehenna, but saw the other knight duck just in time to get out of the way of its mighty clawed hand. That was a relief, and he was immediately trying to come up with a way to join back in on the fight.
To help.
His arm was killing him. It was very much broken, though not from this fight. A skirmish with a Negaverse soldier in the library, which resulted in both of them spilling down the stairs. He was sporting some cracked ribs as well. It did not help him, coming into a fight like this with injuries already, and he got his first lesson in how truly dangerous the life of a knight, or a senshi as the case may be, really was. They didn't have control over when they had to fight, what trouble found them, or what condition they were in when it did. Maybe they could choose not to power up, but for Tony it was impossible.
If someone was in trouble, his instincts took over. He was Camelot before he even thought about it, throwing himself in danger's way just to save some punk and his innocent girlfriend. Worth it, in the end, but only if he didn't get himself killed. He was lucky someone had stepped in to keep that from happening this time.
When Gehenna called to him, Camelot looked up immediately, perplexed but catching on. He sort of had to, lest he get himself impaled.
"Whoa!" he yelped, ducking out of the way and catching the pole at the same time. He looked at the new weapon, gripping it and then moving to draw the youma's attention to himself. "Over here, Tiny!" He bellowed in his best 'come kill me' voice. He attacked it as it turned, jamming the sharp end of the rail up under one of its massive arms, hoping to strike something vital. Did youma have organs? So far, Tony's tactic for fighting them had always been akin to fighting zombies: go for the head.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Jun 05, 2011 1:31 am
Well, that wasn't the tactic that Gehenna would have used, but he supposed that Camelot had done him a favor. He always preferred stealth if he could manage it, though that was usually up to Cimmerian and her bow. Still, he could tell from his perch that the Page with the shield had landed a blow - not a killing one, but a blow none-the-less.
The youma roared out in what Ghen assumed was pain and a dribble of dark, black ooze splattered the ground beneath him. He was wounded, but even Ghen knew that wounded beasts were sometimes the most violent ones. Add that to a brainless monster and it could spell disaster.
Realizing that the already wounded Page probably didn't have much of a chance if he stayed up on the landing and did absolutely nothing, Ghen began to look around for another weapon. Video games definitely made city brawls more interesting - there were so many more props. In the end, Ghen just spent a while spinning in slow circles and hoping a misplaced javelin would reveal itself among the trash. <******** it," he hissed finally, beneath his breath, and crossed the landing to the old, dusty window of the building he was next to. He drew back his hand, curled up his fist, and planted it through the old glass. It shattered into a dozen pieces (none of which pierced his hand, thankfully, because of his gloves) and after a quick once over he picked up the biggest piece he could find. It was about a foot long, but lacking a good grip.
So maybe he'd get a little booboo trying to slay the beast.
Without a second thought he propelled himself off the fire escape, landed and made a run for the youma. At the very last second he leaped into the air and aimed 300-style for the exposed neck of the flailing beast. The stab landed, slicing quickly through the beast's skin, but in a last attempt to get Ghen off it flung out an arm - right into his chest.
There was a sickening sound of claws as they scratched across the metal chest piece and Ghen went flying through the air, stopped only when he collided back first into a dumpster. His gaze swam and darkened around the edges, so much so that he could barely make out the youma as it screeched with a voice straight from some b-rated horror flick and finally exploded into dust.
He leaned his head back against the dumpster and mumbled something unintelligible under his breath, aware of a dull pain in his hand where his glass dagger had backfired and slashed open his palm as well as it had the best's neck. Then his other hand came up and touched the bleeding gashes across his chest, where the claws had found exposed skin between his plate and shoulder.
It wasn't the worst he'd received, but he could probably use some stitches.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Jun 05, 2011 10:38 am
Camelot held on to the javelin as best he could, but his grip was weakened by the pain lancing through his arm. The youma turned suddenly, thrashing violently as its dark blood was spilled, and slammed its thick arm into the side of Camelot's face. He was sent sprawling, hitting the ground and, for a moment, not moving.
Everything was spinning. Tony had never admitted to truly understanding when people said they had the senses knocked out of him, but now he got a first hand experience in it. For a moment he didn't know where he was, which way was up or if he would fall should he try to move. He didn't know how to speak or breathe or move for a terrifying moment, his brain acting like it was made of mush.
Rattled by the force of the blow, he pushed his hands against the floor and tried to get to his feet, but somehow managed to knock himself over to the side. Finally, sounds of the fight started drifting back to him, penetrating the muddle haze of throbbing background noise the world had plunged into. He looked back over his shoulder as his vision cleared, spotting Gehenna was attacking the youma. And then being sent flying.
Instincts took over where senses and almost consciousness failed. Camelot found his feet and got to them. He moved over to Gehenna, kneeling near him.
"Are you alright?" he asked, seeing the injury and wincing. He wasn't squeamish as far as injuries went, but it looked like it hurt and that was why he flinched. He felt guilty.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Jun 06, 2011 7:20 pm
Ghen grimaced and tried to sit up as the older Page rushed to his side. The muscles in his chest rippled around the gash as he tried to sit up and he groaned, flopping back against the dumpster with a sigh.
Penny was going to kill him if she had to pick him up from the hospital again.
"Mostly, it's just a flesh wound." He managed a smirk at his little joke, but was almost immediately back to grimacing. He spared only a second to look over the other Page and double check that he hadn't suffered some debilitating injury when his back was turned. He seemed alright, minus whatever had already been done, and Ghen didn't honestly have the time to spare giving him an exam.
"I might need to take a trip to the emergency room, though." He tried to sit up on his own yet again, bent over at the center, and grimaced as the slashes stretched and pulled and caused another surge of bubbling blood. <******** me a hand, bro?" His brows raised as he held out a hand, in the hopes Camelot would help pull him to his feet. If he was smart, he would have already been digging out his phone to call Penny or Delphine, but he could deal without the judgment for the moment.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Jun 07, 2011 11:18 am
"Whoa, don't move," Camelot said, his face growing more serious as concern moved away from panic and toward focus. He needed to make sure the Page wasn't downplaying his injury and trying to walk away from the fight without at least getting it checked out.
It looked serious from where Camelot was sitting.
At the reference, which Tony did manage to catch, he gave Gehenna a look that silently said now was not the time to be making jokes. It was a well practiced, serious face to deter the younger crowd from whatever mischief they were up to in the library. Or the chastise his son when he said or did something inappropriate. So it was very well practiced, considering Nate couldn't open his mouth or flex his finger without angering someone.
"I think you do," Camelot agreed, moving to help him. He took the younger Page's hand, helping him up, then put Gehenna's arm over his shoulder to keep him supported. "The library is near here. We can get the blood stopped, and call an ambulance. Well go in the side entrance, no one will see us."
He looked around while speaking, taking note that the civilians he could easily blame for starting this whole mess had vanished quite expertly. At least he didn't have to take any more abuse from the muscle headed boyfriend and his human shield of a girlfriend. Hopefully the guy would be getting a lot of his own trouble for that one.
Not that Tony liked wishing ill on anyone...
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Jun 10, 2011 3:04 am
Gehenna frowned at the look on Camelot's face after his attempt to lighten the mood. It wasn't something he really appreciated, mostly because it reminded him of a look his father had often given him. Of course, that had just kind of been his father's natural face. Regardless of whether or not he liked it though, it did the job and Ghen stopped trying to downplay the injury - only by just not saying anything, though.
He lay there patiently as Camelot tried to inspect him and then helped push himself to his feet when Camelot pulled up on his arm. It still hurt like a b***h, but not so much as when he'd tried to do it on his own. He let Camelot take his arm and began to shuffle as he moved along, though he did speak up again when the older Page laid out his plans.
"Why are we going to the damn library?" Ghen hadn't been to a library since he'd put up the posters of Khal and he hadn't been there for years before that - he definitely hadn't been planning to go back so soon. Not to mention, he had no idea what in a library could be helpful to this situation. Was he going to stop his bleeding with book pages? That seemed unlikely.
"Whatever, do what you need to man" he said tiredly, shifting uncomfortably with his arm over Camelot's shoulder. The guy had a plan, which was more than he could say for himself. His brain just went: wound, ???, hospital, profit.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Jun 10, 2011 9:23 am
Camelot sighed.
"Just trust me," he said, nodding his head in an effort to look and sound confident. He led them back to the library, which was a blessedly short distance away. He went to the side, down the alley, and then let Gehenna lean on a wall.
"Pretend you're not watching," he said nervously, glancing around and making sure he couldn't feel any other power signatures in the area before he powered down. He told himself he would have to start being a lot more careful about his identity, but for now he felt he had to. He had the keys on him, but he didn't want to break the lock and have to replace it. Librarian first, it seemed. So he powered down to unlock the door.
Once it was open, he moved to help Gehenna again, this time with a bit more effort, a broken arm and a limp, but he got them inside without much trouble. It was empty, closed, but he was careful not to turn on any lights until they walked the dark, but familiar to him, path to the front desk and then back into the work room.
He turned on this light, because there were no windows in this room, just two doors on either end. It housed the refridgerator, a sink, and a row of cabinets and below them drawers with a counter top. Many things the staff could use or might need were stored here.
Like the medical kit, which Tony was personally keeping well stocked.
"Here, we can at least clean it and bandage it?" He offered, knowing that the hospital wasn't always the answer. Usually the best method, but sometimes it was just impossible to get someone to go.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Jun 12, 2011 6:12 pm
Gehenna grimaced as he was set up against the wall, just like he had grimaced with every step it had taken them to get to the library. He still wasn't sure why they were there - or at least, he wasn't until he saw the other Page power down.
"You've got to be joking," he almost groaned after her spoke, but it trickled off into a laugh. He was surprised and shocked, ultimately amused. Not that it really made it hurt any less. "Librarian by day and Page by night, hm?" He let Tony help him hobble through the library and towards the back room, then just leaned against a counter while the older man began to rummage through the cabinets to find what he could only assume was some kind of medical kit.
As he waited, the energy began to drain more and more quickly, and he realized that his injury wasn't going to let him sustain his powered form for much longer. At least the other page had already shown him who he was, now at least he could power down in good faith that he could track him down and beat the hell out of him if he dared betray whatever unspoken pact Knights had.
So, he powered down and offered the other page a smirk.
"Kam, I don't think we were properly introduced last time." He would have offered his hand to shake, but that seemed like a lot of effort and if the other man was going to try to bandage him up, they needed to get off his civilian shirt. Luckily it was just a simple white wife beater, but the front of it was already blossoming in red stains. "Scissors?" His brows rose at the question and he gestured to his shirt - wife beaters weren't awfully expensive anyway.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Jun 13, 2011 10:12 am
"Well, we all have our day jobs," Tony chuckled, knowing that he was a strange example for a knight. Not just because he was a librarian, but because he was of an older sort. He heard it often enough to almost be used to people commenting on the weirdness of his being a knight. Whether they knew he was the librarian or not, of course.
He managed to pull the first aid kit out of the cupboard with a grin, triumphant, then looked up to see the knight had powered down. He hadn't noticed, of course, because he couldn't sense power signatures at the moment.
"Oh!" He said in surprise. Now, of course, he had to wonder how he had missed it, but he supposed everyone thought that when the identity of their powered up acquaintance was revealed. How no one managed to guess who Camelot was, as far as Tony was concerned, was some kind of miracle rather than magic.
"Anthony Darrow," he said politely, nodding his head.
Opening the kit, he found a small pair of scissors, which he gave to Kam to use on his shirt. He didn't want to overstep any boundaries, after all. Meanwhile, he prepared a bowl of water and some bandages. Once Kam was ready, Tony made to clean the injury up a bit, wincing at the sight of it. It was a bit difficult with his broken arm, but he could manage it well enough without doing any more damage in the process.
"This will sting," he said, with classic paternal patience and an air of necessity. He just had to clean the wound, and once that was done he put on the bandage and took a step back. Good enough to keep him from bleeding all over the place some more. "You should really go to the hospital... I'm no where near a doctor, though I could help you find books on one."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Jun 13, 2011 11:39 pm
Kam took the scissors the other man offered and not-so-carefully stripped open the front of his shirt. If his injury hadn't of been right across the chest, he probably could have just ripped the damn thing open and been done with it. Regardless, he set the scissors down and let Tony go to work without too many complaints.
It stung, and he much would have preferred Tony were a lady, but by the time that he was done Kam looked thankful and had no complaints. He was still tired and felt like s**t because bandages weren't even close to a cure all, but at least he wouldn't bleed to death quite so quickly now. He didn't know how he was going to get away with hiding stitches from Penny though, and he was sure he was going to need them in the end.
"Thanks," he mumbled, tossing the remains of his shirt over one shoulder and pushing himself off of the counter. He would throw them out in a dumpster somewhere so no one got any weird ideas about the librarian murdering people in his downtime or something. It was hard enough to keep a secret like being a Knight, he imagined, without pesky nerds looking for murder mysteries in public trash cans.
"I'll just walk over there, I don't feel like shelling out the cash for an ambulance." He almost shrugged before the pain in his chest pulsed and reminded him that his shoulders were connected to more than just his arms. "And I'll make sure I come by in the next couple of days so you know I didn't die on the way there."
He smirked and offered the other Page a wave but, just as he was about to disappear back out of the door, he stopped and pointed at Tony's arm. "Be more careful with that, okay? Try not to get involved with youma until it's done." He nodded awkwardly once he'd said it and then just slipped out. Concern wasn't exactly his forte.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Jun 14, 2011 8:36 am
Tony would very much appreciate the thought of not throwing bloody clothes out in the dumpster behind the library. He hadn't thought of it, of course, but it would still avoid a lot of trouble and that was always a good thing.
The librarian frowned, nodding his head. He was worried that Kam wouldn't make it to the hospital, but maybe he was being paranoid. His own injuries, his arm and ribs, were burning angrily but he would take some painkillers, ibuprofen most likely, and hope for the best.
"That would be good, thank you," he said, nodding his head. He would probably fret until Kam stopped by again, anyway, but at least he knew the young man had the intention of checking in. Of course, maybe knowing that would just make him fret even worse.
Looking surprised, he glanced down at his arm and then sheepishly put it behind his back, nodding his head.
"I'll do my best," he said, watching as the younger knight left. He sighed and immediately set to worrying, moving to clean up the supplies he had taken out, then get himself home. There were prescription pain killers there, he remembered, and he was due. That was something to look forward to, at least.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reply
