The atmosphere of the industrial district was much calmer and serene compared to the heart of the city. Orange-hued lights speckled the multitude of warehouses, pipes, catwalks, and other such structures which, in the daytime, would be teeming with workers. Now, very few besides guards and the oh-so-lucky late-night workers could be found if one looked hard enough. The lack of eyes and evenly spread light made a perfect atmosphere for anyone wishing to remain unseen; especially within junk or storage yards where scraps of all sorts of material could be found.
Hy-Basil had chosen the location from need. A strong pull to stay as far from civilization as possible while still being practical was her guide when she found herself within the quieter district. That guiding feeling failed her though. Instead of an easy night, it seemed fate had other plans. Plumes of steam or smoke billowed up from tall stacks, pushing her to avert her direction, but she continued to zone in on the signature that had caught her attention mere minutes before.
Whoever had chosen a locale that was not well lit, nor showed any signs of a late-night guard. The tall building, almost desolate in appearance was surrounded by a large yard riddled with metal pipes of all sizes. Here and there a stack of concrete blocks could be found, some deteriorating while others appearing newly stacked. It was there she followed the signature to. Where she soon heard the tell-tale sound of metal on metal. Pipes perhaps? Something else?
With careful steps, the Knight slipped around the stacks of material. The lack of light forced her night vision to work overtime as she tried to decipher the source of the sound. Someone… was up ahead. Were they running machinery of some sort? She couldn’t hear the sound of mechanics but a gentle steady stream of something smokey in nature was wafting upwards from some sort of machine. Wait...it moved. Like and animal sifting through rubble.
What had she stumbled upon?
“Pilfering from a business?” She remarked in a loud voice. In her hands was her staff, a gentle wafting incense cloud rising from the burner attached to it. “I thought for sure the Negaverse was at least above petty thievery.”
Too long. Too brittle. Too light. Too large.
Faustite picked through the haphazard stacks of piping, his dwindling patience hidden in his furrowed brow. Blacked hands grasped for what they could. He found all manner of equipment here: PVC piping, rebar, excavated terracotta. Sometimes steel, sometimes material unidentifiable to him, but none truly struck him as perfectly weighted and well-balanced in his grip. Over each he passed, ever picking away through detritus for the proper match.
But he found none here, so he went there. He crossed warehouse rooftops, smokestack bricking, commercial fencing, climbed construction equipment, ducked under suspended cranes, and loitered beyond liberal caution tape in his search. Nothing. Not one crowbar, not one fire poker or broken curtain rod or abandoned screwdriver suited his needs. He needed a deterrent to skin, to flesh, to bone --
A voice hailed him and he froze where he crouched. Endless trails of smoke eked out from his pipes, beckoning all strangers to come and see. He blanched, his expression hidden. A heady silence fell between them to buffer her accusatory words. A sardonic laughter welled in his throat. He swallowed it down and broached her.
"You're mistaken." He straightened then. Feet positioned a shoulder width apart, black hands relieved themselves of their burdens and clasped together before his vest. Black-ringed eyes turned on her appraisingly. The burner, the corset, the lilting trails of forest green and bark brown - the clack of metal busting open at his side while he sprinted down an alleyway, frantic. Her suspicious eyes searching him afterward, probing a wealthy family's son for an identity let loose in the night. Faustite's jaw tightened.
"You're mistaken," he tried again. "Do you really think petty thievery matters to the Machiavellian? No." He stepped out from his recess, treading carefully over stray pipes. "We steal time. Lives. Attachments. We take what we can and feed it to the machine. What use are moral pedantics here?" He opened out arms, taking in the bristling starkness of the industrial yard against a moonless night sky.
A frown threatened to crease his features. "I thought you would've learned that by now."
Must not have been expecting company, eh? She mused to herself as the figure froze in its search. For a brief moment, she thought perhaps she had mistaken and the thing in front of her was a youma of some sort. Her speculation turned into mild surprise, and disgust, as the ‘person’ spoke and stood from a crouched position. The darkness of the night, near complete from lack of moonlight, made it difficult to see details of the agent, but some features were unmistakable. Pipes, spewing smoke were lined down a back and eyes void of any color when turned upon her. It almost looked like a creature out of some B-rated horror flick.
Its speech was not what she would have expected. In fact, despite its apparent need to repeat itself, she was slightly impressed with the use of vocab. Whoever it had been before had been well-learned and spoken. Interesting. And it posed the question, ‘Why would a learned person subject themselves to the life as a half-youma?’ Surely the cons outweighed the pros.
“I suppose it would depend on your own expectations of yourself. How good of a person you intend to be and how likely you are to step on everything and everyone around you to meet your goals. Morals aside, I would have thought pure pride would be enough to keep someone like you from fishing around in rubble like a common thief.” A shrug of her shoulders may have been missed due to the furs adorning them and lack of proper illumination. “Apparently, I still have things to learn.
“Now, care to enlighten me why a creature like you is out here in the middle of nowhere looking through rubble? Surely you have more important things to do? If I am correct in what I’ve learned, of course.” She raised a brow. “Surely your master would scoff at the idea of you scurrying about like the youma….excuse me, half youma, that you are?”
Hy-Brasil took several steps towards her opponent. Curiosity was winning out despite her apparent disgust of the half youma. After all, she’d only met two before, one before she’d even known what he was. A booted foot kicked a small piece of rebar, and it skittered into the bottom of the pile in which her ‘guest’ had been searching. Now a mere 8 feet or so away she was able to pick out a few more details. The most interesting, on top of the eyes and smoking pipes, were his hands which she had thought were partially gloved. Instead, it looked as if he had dipped them in a vat of ink which never was bothered to be scrubbed clean. His attire spoke of someone who took care in how they presented themselves. Despite the rummaging, through piles of junk, he seemed to be well groomed.
Curious indeed. Who was this entity?
"We. Not I." He eyed her hawkishly in her approach, his gaze only falling to the clattering of rebar toward his position. The twisted chunk of metal beat its own song against the still-warm tarmac before it reached a stop, just inches away from his shrapnel pile. It, too, would make a good weapon. The slight twist at its tip promised leverage against bone or weapon. "If you're looking to preach, you've got the wrong audience." Invariably, his attention found her again.
She paid him no ear. His mouth twitched. Fingers brushed lightly over the peaks and valleys of the knuckles on his opposite hand. His fist clenched and unclenched behind the cover of his other palm. She gouged him at pride, goaded him with dehumanization. Of course she did - his lack of human appearance urged her to revoke all rights to humanity. Schörl so often resorted to the same.
Laws only applied to humans, after all.
But he swallowed his anger, stewed it inside. Savored the bitter bile left in its aftermath before swallowing that down just the same. He reminded himself to breathe, to watch her breathing. To look for the way her lips sounded out words and her hands danced along the beat of her patronizing. "Why should I care to enlighten you?" He bit back sharply. "When was it your business?" He dressed her down, then half-turned toward his original focus that evening. Bending at the waist, one arm pinned behind back, he reached for the discarded rebar. And when he brought it to attention, his fingers held it so deftly as one holds a flute.
"You think being a half-youma discounts my humanity. And my intelligence, if we count your lectures on morals. If you've already discarded my autonomy for me, then why bother asking me anything at all? Why not just attack me, like you did last time?
"Because you need me to attack you first. You need that balm for your guilty conscience." And you're weak for it, too. It takes strength to carry guilt. Strength that you're unwilling to build.
A grin appeared as an index finger gently tapped on the smooth wood of her staff. “Oh, I am well aware that what I say has little effect on what you will do or say. It’s really just interesting to see your reactions. You’re a curiosity to me. One I doubt I’ll ever be able to puzzle out but must at least try to connect the lines of.” Bright blue eyes roved over the beast as he moved his attention to the rebar. Slim fingers curled around the piece of metal and seemed to almost test the weight and size of the scrap before rising, holding it like some precious treasure.
So I am no threat to you then? Why else would he return to his perusing of the junk scattered at his feet? Sure, she was well with peripherals but that was besides the point. Was he an idiot or just very sure of himself? The red-head wasn’t sure which was the best answer to that question. Maybe a mixture of both? His words were heavily weighted and it felt like he was speaking from a place above her. What makes him so damn confident? Is it a ruse? A way to make himself feel more powerful than he is?
Then came the jab. His attempt to make sense of her own actions or lack thereof. Assumptions about her own morals brought a laughter to parted lips that passed as a scoffing huff. How dare this thing assume to understand her motives. How often had he come across such needful people that attacking an agent of chaos was a toll upon their conscience? If nothing else, it should bother them for not taking that first blow and pushing to rid the world of yet another problem.
Another Cinnabar. Cold. Hungry. Cruel.
Within seconds, fingers that had been casually tapping upon wood, engrossed in an internal beat were wrapped, white-knuckle, around the weapon. Her second hand flying to grab hold also tugged the sinew rope that held the burner to the shepherds hook close to the staff. The result was an almost full reign utility of the weapon as long as she kept the burner held tight.
“I don’t need a reason for attacking.” Her words were tight between teeth as she sprung forward. The extra length of her weapon meant the distance between herself and her foe was shortened at a more considerable rate. With the burner held close, she swung the hooked end of her staff towards the half-youma’s shoulders. All intentions were to knock him down from his metaphorical high spot.
A lesson was to be learned in this for the youma; assuming he survived: Not all order members had a conscience that needed to be coddled.
You're wasting your breath so you can objectify me? Brilliant. Faustite's thoughts translated into a deadpanned stare as she marched on with her preaching. She declared him a curiosity, an anomaly, a sideshow freak. A carnival curio. A gawker's fantasy. Was her reaction truly so surprising? Was it any different than Elex Yorke, when he once lived as a source of pride for his parents? A trophy is as much an object as a fetus in a jar. He suppressed a snarl.
Could he make something of this sordid view? A part of him promised a show of it. A part of him urged a sideshow grand and supreme - a spectacle befitting of such callous regard for him as a person. He needed no honest conversation, did he? Her supercilious speech and attitude formed their own trials in his social deconstructions. She provided half the platform on which he could found his opinions. His dismissals already found their own scandalous mark; was it due to his sentience? His accuracy?
It was both, wasn't it? Black eyes grew lidded as he regarded her. Her posture stiffened, her back straightened. Incensed, he noted.
Her weapon appeared once more, strikingly similar to the manner of Negaverse weapon manifestation. She throttled it, and Faustite half-thought she meant to use it for a garrote, but the low lighting cast her figure in shadow. She darted, and he shifted feet through the dirt, drawing an arc of his former position. She moved with a certainty that he could barely track; she moved with a speed unbecoming of her. She swung for him, and he broadened the distance.
The incense burner lurched for him, passing a hair's breadth before his shoulder - an uncomfortable closeness. He caught the scent of sandalwood at once. Again, he drew ground between them - one, two steps backward to buy time. To buy breath enough to try his theory. "Your actions prove otherwise," he hissed out. "Why preach moral high ground when you can attack at will? You don't know anything about tactics, do you? Or do you expect to get under a stranger's skin so quickly?
"What wit do you have, knight? You're just a bag of bones." He ducked further away, toward the building's umbral shadow.
For a moment, Hy-Brasil thought the half-youma was going to take her on. His shift and widened stance gave the illusion in the dim light that he was prepared to counter her attack. Expectation was her staff hitting flesh or for the creature to dodge and retaliate while she was left partially open, but expectation didn’t meet reality. Instead it seemed a retreat was in order for her opponent. One step, two step and he was out of immediate range.
Pausing at his words she laughed as he ducked away to find safety amongst the building’s looming shadows. True, his uniform would do him well in such a dark atmosphere but there was little he could do to mask the scent of minerals, almost coppery in smell, that wafted in his wake. “You realize I am not the only one here able to attack at will, right? You could have just as easily done the same, instead you decided to entertain me.” She said in a bellowing voice to the retreating form. She had no comment for his tactics jab. Instead she gritted teeth and set after him and did her best to ignore the biting words.
Following his trail was simple enough. Her nose, a fleeting glimpse of a moving form, and the occasional clank of metal from a stray piece of junk unseen in the dark led her along. “Perhaps my intent wasn’t to get under your skin.” She said finally as another glimpse of movement highlighted by a small, weak lamp above caught her attention. “Maybe all I wanted was to study you. See how much you was human compared to beast. Perhaps I hit a sore point in my questioning?”
The building loomed above them. Tall smokestacks lay dormant with the lack of activity within, but weak, almost pointless orange-hued lights brightened the area enough to create long shadows and ruin any night vision. “Wit can only get someone so far.” She yelled out, spinning on a heel in search of her opponent that continued to utilize any bit of darkness. “Unless of course you have found a way to slay someone with your silver tongue?”
Faustite claimed no greater night vision himself, but his angle afforded more consistent darkness than hers. The late hour's counterpoint to the sun, the flood lighting from recent construction projects peered out dimly over his shoulder. He watched her shadowed movements with grim resolution.
To respond, to continue talking, to entertain her meager jabs would give away his position. Her yells and frequent shifts in the dark confirmed as much. But was doing so not its own advantage? The sooner he doused her in smoke, the sooner he could leave her and continue his duties. Schörl stressed an acute understanding of time and its intrinsic worth, even if the youth was time-stopped by monster infusion or left to die at a faster rate for it. Precious seconds lost to this impromptu tango, without gathering information or corrupting her or killing her outright, counted against him here. Gritting teeth, he slowed his movements to a halt.
"Don't pride yourself, Knight." He stepped out enough that no walls constrained him - enough space remained that he could move at will and worry not about breaking concentration. "Your counterpoints hold no water. You're just talking to hear yourself speak." I've known many like that. I realized I don't miss it. I don't miss the posturing, or the smell of gristle on their breath, or their wine-drunk smugness when they think they've explained enough of life to me.
I don't miss people like you, Knight. But they miss people like me.
He kept hands readied, willing to block should she follow his sonance with a swing to the face. But she was fast - terribly fast; he barely stepped away when she telegraphed her attack. How could he hope to catch a sudden blow? Adrenalin answered with his doubts. "Do you really think fists and bludgeons and knife blows are the worst this world can give you?" Locking jaw, he kept his tongue away from his teeth.
A shadow cast. Movement to her right. The faint smell of salty minerals still lingered in the air. Her prey hadn’t left to seek shelter elsewhere. If his signature wasn’t enough to indicate his apparent interest in their encounter the stench of his youma half was certainly a strong enough indicator. Blue eyes squinted into the darkness, working to put definition to the shadows around her. Hy-Brasil was well aware that a surprise attack could come her way. She had no indication where her opponent was precisely. Taking advantage of her obvious lack of sight would be a strong advantage and one she would have taken herself if the tables had been reversed.
Of course, not everyone had common sense when it came to combat as became apparent of her half-youma target. His form separated from the darkest of shadows cast by the building they were in close proximity to. His words were boasts of a boy who was trying to buy time or weasel his way out of a tight situation. Why else would he present himself like an actor seeking out his spotlight? Perhaps he used his time to call for reinforcements. Now that was a sobering thought, and one that caused the Earth Knight to tense in anticipation of her next attack.
Gauging the distance and obstacles between her and her foe, Hy-Brasil opted for a straight on attack. With her staff gripped tightly in her right hand she navigated several piles of rubble and scrap with easy leaps. Barreling down on the Captain with full speed, she used her momentum to swing the hooked part of her staff at him. The burner, left free to continue the momentum on it’s own would swing back towards the staff, creating an encircling effect. Like terrible performer being pulled from a stage, Hy-Brasil intended to pull her opponent right towards her, possible strangling him in the process. With a closer proximity Hy would be more in her element where fists and kicks were more effective.
He saw movement in the dark, felt the pressure of displaced wind on his face. But he received no telegraph from his attacker - not in the dark. The sudden crook of hook around neck startled him inexorably, an assurance that he proved too slow to face the knight alone again.
He counterattacked nonetheless; he knew more potency now than he did as a lieutenant, hale and human. Rope wrapped throat, and he spread arms. A familiar click; he felt himself jerk forward toward his attacker. Smoke exploded about them both --
Faustite breathed his relief. Here in his own fog of war, he knew an advantage. The heat pressed to skin, the caustic darkness, the deafening boom -- each provided a familiarity on which he thrived. They each protected him by assaulting his attacker. They bought him time that he couldn't buy himself. The addition of the growing youma in his form afforded him more agency than humanity would have given him. He didn't want to fight her with a captain's juvenile weapon. He didn't want to rely on his admittedly poor hand-to-hand combat prowess, even as Schörl taught him an ever greater repertoire of counters to the most common guerrilla tactics. He wanted smoke and darkness; he wanted a sea of heat.
He wanted all the stars gone from the sky. He wanted direction impotent and wan.
Finally, Faustite thought, and called to mind the Cathedral's visage. The intersecting cavern and corridor, the ubiquitous crystalline structures, the ever-present call of youma interlacing the atmosphere. Yet all around him, only smoke remained. The shepherd's crook still caught his neck, the rope still bound his throat. Asphalt still supported him from beneath his feet. Catcalls and car horns and carnal conversations still occurred within the breadth of his hearing. He couldn't leave.
The realization cast away his confidence. Panic set in as blacked hands clawed for freedom against the hook, against the rope binding his throat. He searched for the sandalwood weight that kept him entrenched with his attacker. He needed it gone, he needed to be free of her --
She hadn’t expected the onslaught of smoke. In her surprise she gasped the acrid substance in and her lungs protested with a heave of coughing. Eyes burned and watered. The only thing running through her mind was to gain fresh air. Even the contaminated city air would be more pleasurable than the cloud she was in.
The Knight was not willing to let go of her opponent though. Oh no. She could feel like pulling and moving like a fish caught on a hook and she was not about to let him go. In a desperate gamble for fresh air, Hy-Brasil anchored herself and swung her staff with the Captain still attached as he struggled against her weapon.
She needed air!
Letting momentum carry her she went along with the motion. The direction had to lead her to cleaner air. Something she could withstand. Taking a risk she sucked in a breath and found the air less inhospitable but still not the cleanest. Coughing racked through her again, but this time she dared open her eyes to see if she still had her catch after attempting to fling him and herself out of the smoke.
Scrambling and pulling at the cords afforded him no advantage; Faustite felt firmly entrenched in the knight's hold as she swung the both of them off-kilter. He stumbled out of his own smoky haze by the neck, sandalwood still burning away his sense of smell, and adrenaline urging him to snap the rope in half. But his boyish grip offered no great advantages here - not over disentangling himself unseen or for breaking his bindings. He flagged in his resistance.
She still coughed and hacked; he still had time. Faustite gripped the wooden staff and wrenched it toward himself with all the strength he mustered. Arms shook with pending adrenaline, and eyes searched for retorts before she could strike at him again, unseen by cloak of night and greater skill. He hated her for her swiftness. Begrudged her for her skill.
Schörl would kill him twice over if he failed here.
Too far they moved from his cloud of smoke to suck it into her lungs. He could act nothing upon it when so far. And if she would not relinquish his weapon, then he would stray for the blackened cloud as much as his legs would allow him. He would wrench and pull and fight his yoke until the knight relinquished her new cattle or followed him into his blackened den.
Free from the choking haze, Hy-Brasil was able to cough her lungs free of the last of the acrid smoke. Much to her dismay, her little ‘prize’ seemed to be of the mind that she needed to remain within the black waste. His struggles were barely noticed until a very insistent pull caused the Knight to stumble forward.
Well trained muscles took over as she felt her body thrust forward not of her own accord. Instinctually she let go of her staff and instead of fighting the direction she was pulled she went with it and utilized the extra strength to shoulder into Faustite. With their positioning, it ultimately meant that she pushed them back into the black smoke. She was prepared this time and held her breath.
How long would the smoke last?
It didn’t matter.
Not missing a beat, even when she felt their bodies hit the ground, the Knight Kicked and punched blindly at the Captain. Her eyes couldn’t peer through the black smog as it circled and fell around them. She had no idea how long it would last, but she damn well was not going to let the Captain get away from her so easily.
He bought freedom with his plan. Feet stumbled over each other as he entertained his inertia. The knight spared him no quarter -- he lurched, her shoulder check shooting pain through his collar on contact. He wheezed for breath in dismal recognition of irony; had he any breath, he would laugh. Instead he stumbled, twisted, fell with her into the dark.
The dark. But the knight struck him once, twice, thrice before his mind caught up with him. Arms raised to parry, he winced against the heated pain and new metal that pooled in his mouth. Another strike to the cheek. Another blow to the shoulder. A third to the nose, now throbbing in on itself. Wet slipped in runnels down his pale face. He hadn't time. He needed to act. His smoke descended around him; how much time had he to act? Could he wrench her weapon off if he could buy himself a few precious seconds?
Faustite choked down air. He lowered parry long enough to gesture at her, her unguarded nose and her vulnerable mouth and her squinted eyes. The smoke obeyed as ever. It funneled toward her with purpose, condensing and undulating through the air in a manner natural to only him. He rasped his own cough.
Her blows struck like iron to an anvil. Heavy damage lifted memory from his bones -- of greenstick fractures, compound fractures, hairline fractures, bruised ribs, bloody noses. His clavicle tabbed into the soft meat of his chest with vehemence. Each breath racked him with heavy pain. Lightheadedness plagued him. He needed his window of opportunity lest she finish him here.
How disappointing. Dead by a knight because you couldn't gauge your own skill --
With each kick or punch Hy-Brasil grew more confident in her target. She knew where he was and her attacks became more precise, more focused. She could feel, more than see, his attempts at guarding himself. The hard impact of her fists hitting arms was a well known sensation after all.
Then, in a flash, she realized the block was gone and in that second the darkness around them seemed to shrink and move. She had no time to react, to even fully realize what was happening before the smoke was forcefully being drawn down her throat, nose, and even her eyes. The world stopped for a moment for the Knight. All that she knew was the burning sensation overtaking her senses. Her own lungs, trying their best to cough and heave the smoke out felt as if they were drowning in acid.
A hand clutched at her chest while another steadied her on the ground where she knelt, doubled over and heaving. Every part of her wanted the smoke out. It was so painful! For a brief moment she thought she was going to drown in whatever it was the smoke had turned into.
As that thought crossed her mind, when she was sure she was going to heave out more than just the liquid in her lungs, did everything become clear. It was so sudden that wracking coughs escaped her as she wheezed in air. It was like her body couldn’t get enough of it.
Her eyes, still feeling the lingering burning effect from the attack focused in on Faustite and a renewed rage kindled. However long it was she’d been dealing with her own pain obviously hadn’t been much time in reality considering the boy was just freeing himself from the confines of her weapon.
With one last, body wracking cough, Hy-Brasil half crawled towards the Captain and pulled back her fist. Eyes still burning and watering it was a gamble that she’d hit her mark.
Faustite scrambled with the censor, finding purchase at last. The rope gave slack enough when he ducked the censor through it, and soon slipped free with a couple wrenches against his yoke. The staff clattered and he stooped at once to seize it. And when he righted himself, he saw the dregs of his magic faded from her lungs.
Again, he found no time to react. His parry rose only halfway before she struck him with a blow, to the bruised clavicle, and his chest caved in tellingly. A snap sounded - no different than a gracile twig - muffled just so by a bed of skin and flesh. He reeled backward. His breath caught and dragged against a foreign obstruction but he raised his hands to battle and readied the staff in hand. His gaze tracked her, winded as she was, weary as she was, through the darkness. He raised the staff --
And pain struck him down. His halved clavicle crunched against its restraints, crushed nerve endings and blood vessels in its path. He yelped and gasped ait air to fill those passages, to right the bone with shallow breaths. Blood drained from his face as his heart rate piqued.
Faustite feared to look down. Imagination drew rivulets of blood from his chest, coating a sword of cold. Calling a name unspoken. He remembered it -- he remembered raw betrayal coursing through his veins in place of the blood that left him. He remembered his body going slack, his hands growing numb, his thoughts raveling into the air half-bidden. He yearned for the chest just within reach, for the gem that could sate this terrible pain --
Finally his gaze snapped down and he saw, with mixed relief, a pitched bridge beneath his skin. Breath stumbled against the pain that caught up to him. He looked to her, a cold sweat first forming. "Stop," he called to her, and let her staff clatter to the floor.
She missed her mark. She had imagined watching the Captain nursing to a broken, bloody nose but the Knight failed in her weariness. Instead, she felt before she even heard the snapping of bone beneath her fist. It was an odd sensation to experience, the caving of someone’s clavicle, but it wasn’t wholly unpleasant knowing her target. In fact, she felt smug as he reeled back away from her blow.
She watched as he grasped her own weapon. Rocking back onto her heels she raised a brow as she staggered herself back to a standing position. Another coughing fit, this one less intense the previous, gave her pause, but she never took her eyes away from the half-youma. “Using my own weapon against me?” She said in a raspy voice. “A bit desperate are we?”
Then he dropped it. A sound, not unlike that of a child in pain escaped him as he yelped out his pain. His face drained of color and…
What the hell was going on? She took a step backwards. Unable to push forward with her attacks. Why? WHY?
That plea. So much like wounded kids’.
Frustrated at herself at the situation she growled out a raspy grunt as she spun on her heels and turned her back to him a hand running through her red mane. “********!” She cursed, kicking at a small piece of broken cement. It skittered across the dusty ground, disappearing into the darkness. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t. No matter who…what the Captain was she couldn’t bring herself to follow through. The battle was hers. She’d ******** won! All she needed to do was end it. Rid the world of one more agent. It wouldn’t be terribly hard at this point. Another few good jabs, a hit to the temple, the back of the head.
God. How could she?
Why couldn’t she?
As if it had a mind of its own, the incense from her burner snaked from it’s resting place on the ground beside the half-youma. It floated and swirled it’s way around as it billowed upwards and surrounded Faustite in a hazy green cloud.
Faustite felt faint. Pain boiled in his chest while he struggled to keep his breaths shallow. Eerie suspicion settled over him -- was he going into shock? He needed to teleport, to leave this knight behind to her own pointless struggles against the Negaverse war machine. He needed a visit to the infirmary if his clavicle broke, and he felt certain against the torrential pain that it did. Every small movement reminded him of the body's interconnectedness - especially with musculature sliding over the break and skewering itself with every movement.
Her sudden outburst confirmed his suspicions; he needn't waste energy on teleporting. His yield worked, bought him some time. His hands shook with an unease endemic to shock now. His body felt cold, his hair wet with cold sweat. He turned from her --
But clouds billowed up around him, a perversion of his own smoke, smelling of sandalwood. The fine green haze clung to him, ensorcelled him, and yet he felt no grave injury to his person. He choked not. He coughed not. Rather, shock's fierce grip slackened while he stood in her mists. Agony dulled down to simple pain. Every breath of sandalwood taken meant a measure of analgesic for his face and chest. The blood stopped flowing freely from his nose.
And he laughed. Quietly at first. He tried to stifle it altogether, yet failed as the action clawed itself out of his throat. He laughed at her, at himself. Is this it, then? Is this all it takes? A broken bone and I quit. A surrender and she heals me, sends me on my way. Small wonder this war has never ended. Where's the devotion? Where's the drive to fight or die for the cause? Half-measures. Or does she mean to heal me enough to beat me again?
The reason doesn't matter. I won't be staying for it. With his chest still screaming and his head still throbbing, Faustite collected enough of his concentration to disperse into the darkness.
strickenized
fin
