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Post by Gresian on Feb 12, 2017 17:55:33 GMT -6
Despite the fact that he got the exact result he was looking for in terms of how he executed his attack, Gresian was rather surprised he had actually got such a clean shot on her. He expected at least an attempt to step back, something, be instead he was just met with a perfect target. Her lack of defense was certainly something he didn't mind as it made things a bit easier for him, and her haphazard swings made it a bit easy to dodge incoming attacks, but those were mistakes he felt like she wouldn't live to regret. He halted his attack as he watched her assess her wounds, him perfectly ready to watch her keel over any second and bite the dust. He even began to put his sword away, shaking his head at her with an exaggerated sigh, "If you thought you could become a huntress like that, I'm afraid you're sorely mista-"
He cut himself short as Heidi showed that she wasn't down just yet, and was in fact quite ready to continue going. He quickly re-drew his sword, preparing himself for another barrage. He continued to watch her as she dealt the cloth and her tank top. He was amazed that she was able to act so normally after such a blow, though he suspended his awe with the more immediate warning bells that rang in his head. She was a lot tougher than he had given her credit for, certainly something to look out for as things progressed. He let her searching eyes find his, and in the brief moment they locked, his eyes were filled with a childish joy, like a little boy waking up on Christmas morning and getting the toy he always wanted.
"Trust me sweety, the best is yet to come!" He cheered, acting rather immature for both his age and the situation. While he certainly was taking the scenario seriously, he wasn't one to let a heavy tone ruin a mood. He snickered a little as he watched her test her finger's movements. It was almost comical to him how this fight was unfolding, with all the twists and surprises with a hilariously angry girl to boot. He saw her rage as nothing more than a mere joke, it was just a pathetic little hissy fit from a little girl who could do no more than cry to mommy about some mean man picking on her.
Of course, that opinion did absolutely nothing to change the fact that despite an apparent lack of any sort of discipline or technique she had a lot of strength and constitution going for her. Despite knowing better, he continued to watch Heidi as she grabbed her sword again, and he continued to watch as she hurled the huge swath of earth and water in his direction. It was a common enough trick to see, though not usually at this scale, so he felt rather confident in how he'd go about this. His guess was that she wouldn't bother trying to fake him out, so either she'd just use the screen to push him back, or use it to block his view of an oncoming attack. He decided to go with her just trying to push him back, him assuming that she didn't have the brains to think up the second option. He prepared for the incoming crash of the screen, ready to let it sweep him away so he could reduce the impact. When Heidi's blade began to come down, he was completely taken by surprise, and all he could do to stop it from finishing him off right there was activate his aura's defense, bracing against the hit with his sword as it shoved his feet into the ground a bit. It was a devastating blow for him to take, but his aura took most of the damage for him.
"B*tch!" He cursed, feeling an ache in his arms from holding the attack away from his head. As if in sync with his swear, the bandage he had wrapped around his neck popped off, a large scaled frill expanding out fully that was easily twice the size of his head. "I didn't think you had enough brain cells to think that one up you little monster, or perhaps you were just really angry with that mud and wanted to hit it so you'd feel better." Despite being in a rather unfavorable position, he continued with his snide remarks and jovial tone. While his words were certainly laced with a great deal more malice, they still seemed to sound like he was having fun with this. Suddenly, a bright flash overtook his body, the illumination ability of aura. Coupled with it was a blast of offensive aura directed towards Heidi's blade, the two different aura abilities working together in an attempt to stun Heidi or make her ease up pressure on the blade as Gresian attempted to move away from her.
"You know, I wonder where all this rage is coming from," He stated calmly, a sickening sense of malice dripping from his words as he spoke, "Perhaps it's time you faced your demons, gave them a chance to say hi and talk about your problems. Though I'd warn you, the demons don't tend to be very empathetic." His sadistic smile grew even wider, the image becoming more sinister than it was previously. Immediately, the feeling of malice and disdain, as well as the reek of stale blood that emitted from Gresian's aura, skyrocketed, the stench becoming overwhelming and the feelings hanging heavy in the air. And with that as the only warning, it began. A slight red tint would begin to form in Heidi's vision, and voices would begin to whisper into her ear, targeting whatever memory or insecurity would hurt the most. Of course, Gresian had no clue what the voices were saying, but that was something he didn't need to know. "Be careful about your anger too, after all, you might end up seeing red if you let it flow unchecked."
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Post by Jackie Clovis on Feb 16, 2017 15:18:57 GMT -6
Forcing down with all of her considerable strength, Heidi couldn't help a venomous grin of her own as she watched Gresian strain beneath her blade, a bare hair's breadth from being cleaved in two. Had she recovered and swung again, she might have been able to bash the resistance right out of him, but her narrow focus couldn't even consider the idea. Not now that she finally had him pinned down and under her power, not when she knew she could outlast his efforts to resist with her own efforts to crush him. She grinned savagely, her golden eyes horrible mirrors, reflecting back all the sadism and cruelty the scruffy rogue had shown. " Keep talking, little man." She cooed in her richly sweet Legion accent, betraying not even the slightest hint of effort as she pressed down upon him with every intention of crushing him into dust. It was much to her chagrin, however, that he did continue talking. Talking quite a lot in fact. A surge of pressure against her descending blade and a flash of light followed, but Heidi did not falter for so much as a second. She had the utmost confidence in her strength and absolutely every intention of making this day Gresian's last, and it would take more than his paltry shows of resistance to dissuade her. Blinking against the sudden glare, that larger fighter grit her teeth and redoubled her efforts, pushing so hard that the ground began to give beneath both hers and Gresian's feet. She didn't notice the red that crept in at the corner of her vision; Not at first. Nor did she notice the quite voices that began insinuating themselves into her ears. As far as she was concerned, she had won. Gresian simply wasn't strong enough to force her blade off, and if his own body didn't betray him, that flimsy joke of a sword surely would, so all she needed to do was keep pushing, keep crushing, until he fell to pieces like the fragile toy he was. His own words were as much meaningless noise to her, the last words of a dead man, the final murmurs of a corpse. Yet they were not the only voices she could hear. Heidi's skin, as good as armour, began to prickle and creep, and her hackles and gorge slowly rose with the gooseflesh that spread across her body. It wasn't the smell that bothered her, a smell she'd only just become consciously aware of, but the taste and sound that accompanied it. It was a creeping, alien sensation, as strange to Heidi as lucidity to a maniac. For as unaffected as she usually was by things like nerve and fear, this sudden shift was especially pronounced. " What're you doing?" She asked through gritted teeth, finally recognizing what must be happening, that he must be doing something to her. Whether it was his semblance or some other weakling's trick, she couldn't say, but she knew he must be to blame. But before Gresian could answer, another voice did for her, a voice she hadn't heard in years. You've always been weak... The bottom of Heidi's stomach fell out at the sound of it, so crisp and clear than she might have been whispering right into her ear. You will always be weak..." What?" She asked sharply, eyes flashing right and left, as if to find the phantom voice's owner, though she knew well enough to whom it belonged. It spoke more to her single-mindedness that her momentary inattention was not also accompanied by the slightest relief in the pressure she was exerting against Gresian's sword. A coward, a failure... A disappointment..." That's not true!" She shouted, voice booming explosively with vehemence and outrage, " I'm not like her! I'm strong! I'm brave! I'm unstoppable!" Viciousness and bile accompanied her words, before her lambent golden eyes returned to Gresian, and her savagery reasserted itself. " You're doing this, worm!" She said, as if she hadn't already been planning on breaking him in two, and his outrageous insolence had just sealed the deal. Rage was an amazing vaccine for fear, and Heidi seemed to embody that fact as she bellowed at the smaller man, all trace of beauty excised from her features by a single minded fury wholly unique from the incidental anger she'd shown prior. She wasn't going to crush him, she decided, she was going to break him. She was going to push and push until he had nothing left, and when his weak little body finally gave out, she was going to cut it into pieces, starting at the outside and working her way in. A very different scent of stale blood would fill the air by the time she was done; His blood, with his body no more than quivering meat beside it. You are not our daughter...Heidi's blood froze, and the anger drained from her face along side all color. Her mouth dropped slackly open, her eyes went wide, and her throat went dry. Both of them. Both their voices, as crystal clear as the last time she'd heard them. An abomination, an excuse... Nothing but the product of an unwell mind...A tremor quaked through Heidi, as strong as if she'd been shocked, and her colossal strength faltered, if only slightly, providing Gresian with a brief reprieve. " No..." She said quietly Then the anger returned, her strength reasserted itself and she crushed down on the smaller man with all her hatred. " NO! I'M REAL! I'M HERE!" Her eyes flashed wildly, her pale face feverish as she shouted, her voice booming back at them from the mountains around them. " I'M JUST AS GOOD AS HER, YOU HEAR ME!?" She bellowed at Gresian, eyes wide with fervor and anger, her inhuman strength weighing down upon him like the mountains surrounding them, " I'M BETTER! I'M STRONGER, I'M TOUGHER, I'M BRAVER!" Tears glistened in the corners of her eyes, as golden as the jewels that wept them. She could barely see for the red that clouded her vision, but she stared at him all the same. " I'm not some figment of her imagination..." She muttered, almost pleading, " I'm here. I'm Real! Why can't you see that!?" Arms beginning to shake, hands white knuckled around the hilt of her gargantuan sword, Heidi's face contorted in a parody of impotent fury and agonized disbelief. One day you will vanish, and she will never let you return..." NO!" Heidi shrieked through gritted teeth, trying urgently to squash Gresian even as her own body started to betray her. " She can't live without me!" She hates you... She wants to be free of you..." She's weak! She's a coward! She needs me!" You will be the death of her, or she will be the death of you..." SHUT UP!" The air itself seemed to quake as Heidi's inhumanly strong lungs and preternaturally powerful voice exploded from her twisted mouth. The whole valley quaked with her despairing cry. At last, she let up the pressure, but only to swing her sword up and then bring it down with all her mind. "SHUT UP!"Gresian |
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Post by Gresian on Feb 16, 2017 21:47:08 GMT -6
For the first time in a very long time, Gresian was contemplating his mortality. While he walked a dark path full where death could come to claim him at any moment, those dark thoughts had grown numb in his mind. In this moment, however, the knowledge that he was being pushed up against the cold blade of death with rather bleak chances of avoiding his fate awoke those long dead thoughts. If he had the luxury, he would have laughed from the sensation, but as it stood he couldn't afford to take even the smallest amount of energy away from keeping Heidi's blade which loomed above his head from cleaving him in two. As things stood now, Gresian couldn't perform his usual tricks and gimmicks to gain an upper hand, so he was banking on his semblance to save him. It was the first time he had to put his life in the hands of it, he usually just used it as a way to mess with people before he killed them and didn't really use it for combat purposes.
For the first little bit after it activated, he was concerned that Heidi would just power through it, that she wouldn't be affected by it the way he hoped she would. However, the moment Heidi asked what he was doing, it was clear that she wasn't just able to ignore it. From there, his confidence in the situation began to build again. His arms were numb from holding off the crushing attack that threatened to end him, his legs shaking from the force slightly, but as he continued to hear Heidi react to the voices she was hearing he was able to believe he might survive this horrible mess he got himself into by underestimating his opponent's cunning.
As he continued to listen to her argue with the voices, he let a small grin play onto his face, something that was abruptly wiped away by the sudden increase of strain on his body as Heidi pushed down harder with her sword. It was at that moment that Gresian looked into her eyes, seeing the intense fire of pure rage within. Any normal man would have cowered in fear from such a gaze, but it instilled a sense of excitement in Gresian. He had never seen such an unadulterated anger in the eyes of anyone before. Sure, he had seen his fair share of dirty glares, but nothing that was as raw as what he saw now. While he wasn't sure what exactly had happened, he had a pretty good guess that his semblance had something to do with a sudden switch in how she held herself, her anger subsiding for a brief moment of what truly looked like distress before the flame in her eyes returned, a bit muddled compared to before in Gresian's opinion. And then there were the tears, whether they were from her rage or from whatever she was hearing Gresian didn't know.
During Heidi's whole struggle with the voices she was hearing, Gresian made sure to pay attention to what she said out loud. Since he had no clue what the voices really were saying, he had to take the cues from Heidi's words, him piecing together what he heard as best he could. It only painted broad strokes of what the truth was, but that was all he needed to understand if he wanted to use it to his advantage.
And that was when his saving grace came, the point where Heidi lifted her sword to bring it down for a crushing blow. At that moment, Gresian dashed from his position to get away from the impending blade, finally free from the unbearable pressure. That freedom to move had its toll, though, as while he was able to mostly get out of the way before Heidi slammed her blade back down, his left arm didn't fully escape. A sickening crunch could be heard as a fair amount of his arm and his hand was caught by the blade as it came down. While his aura kept his arm from being severed from his body, the appendage went limp and the bones cracked and muscles got crushed.
"F*CK! YOU F*CKING WH*RE!" He bellowed out in agony, each of his attempts to move anything past his elbow sending a searing pain through his entire arm. "This is probably the reason why they like her better than you," He stated, using what little context clues he had from what she said to try and piece together what his semblance was doing with her. From what he heard Heidi say, there seemed to be a 'her' that she was being compared to, and it sounded like Heidi was on the losing end of that comparison. Other than that, he only used 'they' because he didn't know if the voice or voices were a boy or girl, him being completely unaware how accurate of a term 'they' was to the situation.
Gresian moved back so that he was just out of the reach of the sword, hoping to stall for time to regain some of his energy before returning to the offense. He knew that he couldn't take any more risks like he had, as he wouldn't be able to hold her blade off like that a second time considering the state of his arm. "You know, I bet that she wouldn't be affected as badly by this, I bet she is a whole lot stronger than you are. I bet that they would agree with me on this." His words came out as a sneer, his cocky attitude returning to him as he stalled for time. By now, the voices had grown from being a faint whisper to being the same volume as a normal speaking voice, the red tint to Heidi's vision increasing at a similar rate. The red tint wouldn't decrease her ability to make out depth or shapes, but just make everything more and more red. "Let's be real here sweety, you know that they are right about all this, just stop trying to deny it and accept the truth." He was trying to break her spirit with this, trying to break her will to fight. If he could convince her to give in that would be the end right then and there, but he had a nagging suspicion that she wouldn't break so easily.
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Post by Jackie Clovis on Feb 17, 2017 20:26:39 GMT -6
She holds all the power... She wants you dead...
You will disappear... She will kill you...
You belong to her... She will finally be happy...
...As though you never existed.
You are her...No longer caring where the voices were coming from, or even who was actually speaking them, Heidi howled wordlessly, her cry shaking free snow from the white capped peaks as much as a mile from where she stood. Yet, no matter how hard she screamed, tearing apart her own throat with the effort, she could neither silence nor submerge the words they spoke to her. They were coming at her from all sides now, as if surrounding her, and it took every last bit of self control for Heidi not to lash out with her sword. Some part of her, at least, was still focused on the faunus rogue and his toxic words. Even as all her worst fears were brought into the open, some part of her continued to fight. Then he said something that shot ice water into her veins. " This is probably the reason why they like her better than you..." No, Heidi thought, reeling and disorientated, just barely mustering the strength to keep her sword raised. No, he couldn't possibly know. He couldn't possibly hear them. Could he? Were the voices speaking to him as well? Did he know what they were saying. A leaden weight settled in the pit of her stomach, and Heidi felt fear like she'd never known it before. In an instant, she was convinced he knew everything about her and Jackie, and that he understood who and what they were more finely than even their own parents had ever done. It should have made her want to kill him, want to beat the life out of him so that he could never share their secrets, but it only made her want to run. To drop her sword and flee as fast as her inhumanly powerful legs could carry her. Stunned silence replaced her despairing howls, as every instinct she had warred with all the urges she felt, rendering her mute and still as stone. Tears were trickling down her cheeks, streaming from her fear maddened eyes, as the face beneath twitched and quivered in a frenzy of emotion. She was supposed to be stronger than this. She was supposed to be stronger than fear. She was the best, the greatest, a goddess in a world of toys. Yet she didn't feel much like a goddess. She felt small and frail, the way Jackie must have felt, knowing she was ever the weakest and most vulnerable. Ever the outcast and disappointment. Heidi was supposed to protect her, wasn't she? That was why she'd been born. It was her job to protect her poor little sister, so unloved in an uncaring world, too big for her to live in alone. Yet she found herself unable to do it. For the first time in her life, Heidi considered retreat, coming just a hair's breadth from escaping this nightmare, just the way her little sister would have. That such an escape would doom them both barely seemed to factor, compared with Heidi's ultimate need to be free of this crushing terror. Then he said something else, something Heidi only barely heart over the pounding of her own heart, but something that sent fine cracks fissuring all the way through his finely wrought armor of fear. " You know, I bet that she wouldn't be affected as badly by this," For a split second, in her delirious state, she almost agreed with him. " I bet she is a whole lot stronger than you are." But something inside her, cold as ice and hard as diamond, rebelled against the idea. " I bet that they would agree with me on this." And Heidi knew he was wrong. The voices swelled, lending ascent to his words, but the golden eyed girl could only blink in bafflement. 'No,' she thought, ' No, you're all wrong...' She knew Jackie could not endure this, because she was everything Jackie was not. Jackie was weak, Jackie was a coward. Fear was to Jackie what water was to an open flame, ever ready to snuff her out. " Let's be real here sweety, you know that they are right about all this, just stop trying to deny it and accept the truth." " No..." Heidi whispered, staring through reddened vision at the tiny man, one of a billion tiny men in a world too small for the likes of her. A world wherein she reigned supreme. A world where she was ever the strongest, ever the toughest, ever the bravest, with no threat too great to stand against her. " She needs me... They knew that." Heidi blinked the last of the tears from her eyes, and her voice swelled with confidence, " That's why they let me stay!" She straightened, eyes blazing, even as the voices shrieked murderously in her ears. " That's why they let me be their daughter!" Snarling, Heidi hefted Orthus, the blade they had given her, a sword within a sword, like she was a sword within Jackie. Black and implacable and dangerously beautiful. " You don't know a damn thing!" And she swung at him, carving through the ground at his feet and sending up huge chunks of sod and stone in the process. " I am real, Damn you!" She swung again, shattering the landscape like it was made of glass, cutting swathes through the dirt as deep as her arm. " My name is Heidi Clovis, you piece of sh*t, And I Am Here!" a bolder, sliced into half a dozen pieces, burst off the tip of Heidi's flailing sword as she sought to bury it in Gresian's heart. " DO YOU HEAR ME!? I AM HERE!" Gresian |
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Post by Gresian on Feb 18, 2017 12:36:40 GMT -6
 - Gresian Esten - “You never know where life will take you. Sometimes it brings you down a path full of lovely flowers and smiling faces, but more than likely it will stab you in the back and leave you for dead in an abandoned alleyway”WORDS: xxx | TAGS:Jackie Clovis | NOTES: Finally got a template for him! An expression of pure joy filled Gresian as he watched her proud stature disappear the moment he spoke about whoever 'she' was and how the 'they' liked her better. It was such a moment of victory to see that look on Heidi's face, but he knew he'd just have to keep it up until he had enough strength to finish her off or until she gave up, whichever came first. He continued to watch her expression, watch the tears roll down her face as she quivered. For such a strong willed woman, when she fell she certainly fell hard. Naturally, such success had pushed him to continue, him trying to build to the final crushing moment to cause her to finally give in. That's when things went south for him. As he spoke he noticed Heidi gain a little bit of that pesky rage of her's back, but it was too late to turn back now. He had bought enough time for him to be able to recover a bit, and while his left arm was completely useless now it was better that it at least could possibly be salvaged given the right treatment.
He didn't have time to think about his arm though, as Heidi launched her counter attack at long last. He quickly back stepped away from the first strike, some of the resulting debris hitting him but nothing he couldn't handle. The fight seemed to have looped back to how it started, Gresian evading the strikes of the brash Huntress while trying to find a good opening. He knew he couldn't take many risks, so he had to be careful about which opening he would try and strike and how he would do it. He continued to pay attention to her babble on about how she was real, something he didn't fully grasp the meaning behind. Is she having a break down? Perhaps she was created? It would certainly explain the strength if she was a robot, but why would a robot have blood? He couldn't make sense of it all, at least not yet, so he had to just play off of what he did know.
"If you're only kept around because she needs you, then what do you think will happen when that's no longer the case?" He questioned, trying to get her back off her game. He didn't want to branch out to too many different things this time considering how poorly that worked the first time around, so he could only hope that this would get to her, "You won't be needed, you won't be here anymore." Once again, he didn't fully understand what he was saying, but he had been taking that gamble so far so he might as well press on with it.
"Now tell me, is that a life worth living? A life knowing you'll be discarded the moment you aren't needed anymore? I've seen plenty of those kinds of lives before, and I can assure you that none of them have nice little fairy tale endings. Life isn't just some game full of sunshine and rainbows where everything works out in the end, it's a cruel world where those who aren't needed and can't make themselves needed rot and wither."
While a bit dark, those words might have been profound if they had come from someone else, but from Gresian there was a deep seeded darkness and malice behind each syllable, a drive not to have his target make a better life for themselves, but to get them to give up on the one they currently had.
He then attempted to take another jab at Heidi, quickly switching from evasion to moving in, dropping down like he had when he had performed his leap the first time, but on this occasion he didn't reverse the movement. His body continued to lower to the ground and before long he was sliding across the dirt next to Heidi's leg before twirling his blade around to take a slash at the back of her knee. He knew it wouldn't do much considering how she was able to brush off his other strikes, but in theory if he could slowly take out one limb at a time she would eventually go down like any other opponent. If he wasn't first intercepted by Heidi's blade, he would spring off to the side to get out of the danger zone, digging his sword into the ground slightly to help him stand up quickly. Usually it was a maneuver he could pull off easily without using the sword, but with his left arm out of commission it wasn't as easy. The moment he was on course to being upright he got his sword at the ready, firing another volley of bullets at the leg he just hit. Shin of GS + Adox |
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Post by Jackie Clovis on Mar 3, 2017 13:06:00 GMT -6
Fury mounting once more, spilling out of Heidi in all directions like a horrible flood, the tall huntress' fine features knotted up in an expression that could only be described as feral. While she resisted further attempts to erode her confidence, if Gresian's intention had been to distract the dangerous girl, he succeeded expertly. While she did not relent from her tireless assault, and actually redoubled, his sudden reversal from defense to offense plainly found her off-guard, catching her midswing in fact. It would have been easy for Heidi, strong and indomitable as she was, to hold back and direct her attacks with a bit more grace and efficacy, but she had long abandoned any pretense of reservation. When she struck Gresian again, she meant to take off as big a piece of him as she could, and that meant swinging her sword long she was trying to split the world. Then the poison tongued snake dashed forward, too quick for the clumsy swing Heidi had made at him, and something suspiciously like pain burnt up the side of her leg. Without thinking, Heidi tried to twist and bring her blade to bear on the spot where she now perceived her foe to be, only to wince slightly as her maimed leg went out beneath her. The landscape around them had been utterly ruined in their exchanges, disfigured in a way that even a shrapnel mine could not have accomplished, and there was no longer any even ground on which to stand. For someone slippery like Gresian, it hardly seemed to matter, but Heidi was carrying nearly one hundred kilograms in her ungainly sword, and was not small herself, and the fractured earth split beneath her reckless foot falls. The swing she had rightly intended for the very center of Gresian's skull went painfully wide, while Heidi spilled down to kneeling on her injured knee. A surprised gasp escaped her mouth, which had grown slack with disbelief that he'd actually managed to trip her, never suspecting that she had been just as responsible for the upset as Gresian's well timed slash. Having once again buried Orthus, midway up its blade this time, Heidi tried to lever herself back to standing, only for the pain in her leg to renew itself in brutal earnest. Her disbelief rapidly became concern that Gresian might have actually managed to hurt her, before the thunderous crack of his trick-weapon inured her to the true cause of the suddenly intensified discomfort. Not that it stopped her from pitching backwards onto her ass rather than back onto her feet. Heidi wasn't just stronger and tougher than other people, she was faster too. it was a quality she perceived, less as herself acting and reacting more quickly, but as the rest of the world moving more slowly than she did. Thus, though she only spent a few moments on the ground, she had more than ample time to appreciate everything that had just taken place. Her eyes swept first over the leg Gresian had unerringly struck, twice in as many seconds, and found the skin around her kneecap turning a mottled brown beneath the thin streak of blood welling up from the cut he'd given it. Next, her eyes flicked to Orthus, still held in one hand and still buried halfway to the hilt in the dirt. She wasn't actually sure when they had transitioned from fighting in the stream to fighting on the neighboring bank, not that the bank they were fighting upon was anywhere near recognizable. Lastly, her furious, disbelieving golden eyes flicked to the architect of her fury and frustration. Pain was truly a remarkable thing; It could either drive one to headless, heedless frenzy, or slap them in the face with some much needed clarity. The pain presently throbbing in her knee was of the latter sort, an bucket of icy water to quench her burning anger. It did not wholly excise her anger, of course, but let her finally think beyond it. Red was still crawling through her vision, faint whispers were still trifling at the edge of hearing, but with some much needed perspective. She had no doubt that she could beat Gresian, or that he was, at least physically, incapable of beating her, but she was losing this fight and she knew it. It seemed grotesquely unfair that she should be his better in every conceivable way, and yet she was still fighting on her back heel, but she was no longer blind to the obvious. Somehow he had managed to weather her assaults, and even answered her with a bit more injury than she was used to, and had only received a broken arm for his troubles. It was then that a smile curled across her lips. " Gotta hand it to you..." She said, twisting Orthus slowly in its earthy embrace, " Been a while since I got a work out like this." The whispers nagged at her ears, the red throbbed in her vision, but she ignored them and peered, undaunted, at the small man before her. " You know what it's like, don't you, being better than everyone else?" Twisting Orthus back the other way, as easily as if it had been sitting ontop of the ground instead of almost a meter into it, " The tedium. The frustration. The outrage that all those little, fragile people want you to play by their rules..." Her eyes never left his, even as her free hand searched across the ground behind her and she sat up to mask its movements. Even as she twisted and ground Orthus in the dirt, knuckles white from how tightly she was gripping it. " But you have to ask yourself..." Her fingers closed around a rock just slightly bigger than her palm, and her lips gave a cruel twist, " How much longer can you keep this up?" Pulling that rock into view for Gresian to see, holding it fast between forefinger and thumb, with the muscles and tendons standing out on her arm like iron cables beneath fine silk. " I can keep going all day; I'm not even winded." Heidi wasn't even out of breath. She was as careless and reposed as if her leisurely stroll upstream had never been interrupted. The rock in her hand suddenly cracked, though it made surprisingly little noise in the process. Rather than a sharp crack, the three pieces only sighed apart while the rest of Heidi's fingers curled tightly around them. Slowly, knuckles and fingers working back and forth, she ground those three pieces together until tiny grains of stone started to trickle out of her hand. " And I'm not even alone out here." With a sudden flick of her wrist, nearly too quick to be seen, Heidi sent the remains of the rock flying towards Gresian. She had reduced the stone to about half a dozen pellets, each about the size of her thumb nail. Pretty close, in fact, to the size of the bullets Gresian had shot her with, and traveling nearly as fast. Not that Heidi was actually expecting to cause any real harm with them. No, the real harm was reserved for her sword, which she had twisted to be pointed right at Gresian while she did the little trick with the rock. Pulling herself towards it by the handle, Heidi then drove her bare foot into the blunt edge of the massive cleaver, hard enough to give herself a bruise and really aggravate those already surrounding her knee, but also hard enough to swing the colossal blade upward and out of its earthen sheath in a manner no normal fighter could replicate. Orthus cut cleanly through the aggrieved ground before bursting free in a shower of dirt and rock, right towards Gresian's side. It did so with enough force behind it to pull Heidi back to her feet like a puppet on strings, though the tall huntress winced visibly as she put weight back down on her injured knee. Not that her momentary discomfort did anything to arrest the huge piece of sharpened metal she'd set swinging at Gresian's ribs. Gresian |
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Post by Gresian on Mar 5, 2017 22:28:44 GMT -6
- Gresian Esten - “You never know where life will take you. Sometimes it brings you down a path full of lovely flowers and smiling faces, but more than likely it will stab you in the back and leave you for dead in an abandoned alleyway”WORDS: 1271 | TAGS: Jackie Clovis | NOTES: All fixed up. Gresian was pleased with how his offensive push went, and judging from how she had taken to a knee after it, he had done his job well enough. However, he noticed a distinct lack of reaction to his words, let alone anything else that might have been passing through Heidi's mind, so with a bit hesitance, he dropped the use of his semblance. It was clear she had gotten used to it, and with a steeled mind against it the effect would just end up being a waste of aura on his part. He had to give her credit, she was able to take a lot of abuse both physically and mentally, though he hoped he'd be able to wear her down eventually with his more precise blows and tricks.
He was surprised when a smile formed on her lips, definitely not something most in her position would do. The bigger surprise though, was the fact that her words weren't aggressive, but complimentary. At least, that's how they started. To his surprise, a lot of what she said was stuff he agreed with, the world was full of weaklings, people too soft and too naive for their own good. She was amusing, maybe one of the naive people out there but certainly amusing. He was continuing to enjoy the fight more despite the state of his arm, a wide and careless grin on his face as he looked at his opponent, his eyes making contact with hers but not giving his full attention there. He assessed her wounds, made careful calculations about her movements and the way she coped with the damage. He didn't feel threatened by the beast before him, but his calculating demeanor was showing through a bit.
When Heidi posed her question and revealed the rock she had grabbed, he put himself on alert. She was cocky, boasting about her stamina, and her ease with crushing the rock further proved to him what he already knew about her capabilities as a fighter. She was a tough cookie, no doubt about it, but that was all she seemed to care about. She displayed strength, boasted of stamina, but none of that changed the fact that she lacked control and finesse. If she had those aspects pegged down she might have been a much larger threat, but as it stood it was those traits that allowed him to keep her from smearing him across the ground without a chance of retaliation. The one thing her claims revealed however, was that she apparently wasn't alone. While he didn't have the time to get an answer out of her as to what she meant by that, he kept that tidbit of information in his mind as to avoid any unnecessary surprise.
The quick sign of muscles activating gave Gresian a split second to realize that the ground up rock Heidi was holding was about to fly his way, and in an equally short time a slight green flash could be seen coming from his cloak, the material becoming unnaturally rigid as a result. The chunks of rock came to a halt the moment they hit his cloak, the improvised weapon being rendered useless. However, the follow-up strike that was quite literally launched at him was a bit more concerning. He watched as the large blade flew forth from the ground, flying towards him with great speed and force. He shifted his body to try and get out of the way, his sidestep getting out of the blade's sights. However, the cross-guard of the hilt hit his side hard, knocking him back a short distance as he skidded to a halt. It knocked his breath out of him, leaving him gasping for air for a brief moment before he recomposed himself. It hurt, most definitely, but with the odd increase to the defense of his cloak it didn't hit quite as hard as it could have.
"You want to know something? You were right about how the rest of the world is so fragile," He stated, finally replying to her. His voice seemed devoid of any burden, as if his ruined arm and the hit to his stomach were absolutely nothing. While he was still hurting from the former quite a bit, he certainly didn't show it. "Every day I see people who are unfit to live in this world, people who are cowards, who are naive to what's around them, naive to the cruelty of this god forsaken place," As he continued, his muddy brown eyes teemed with an undefinable expression, somewhere between joy and disdain, between clear thought and a lack thereof. His face warped into a dark expression that mirrored the look of his eyes, unnatural and without any clear emotion to be read from it. "I'll let you in on a little secret though, those fragile people come in more than one shape or size. Some of them are the most physically fit and toughest people you've ever met, some of them are powerful and seemingly without rival when it comes to raw strength. It's the mind that's important, because even if you're the heaviest hitter in the world, you can't do sh*t with that strength when you're curled up on the ground like a little b*tch." His words took on the same ambiguous tone as his body language, the joy he had displayed before being swallowed up by this new show of his truer nature. There was still amusement visibly coming from him, but it was less defined than before, muddled by the onslaught of the uncanny expression he now possessed.
Rather predictably, his statement was punctuated by laughter. Not the usual twisted, howling laughter he displayed, but something more hollow, something emptier. It wasn't overly loud, just the same volume as any other laugh would be. However, there was no obvious joy behind it, nor was there the typical mania to it, all there was was the sound of air being forced from his lungs to create short bursts of sound that melded together, laughing in the purest sense of the word without any life behind it. This void of a laugh gave it a slight chill, as if the temperature had suddenly dipped a few degrees.
He did not just stand still as he laughed though, he began to approach Heidi in a slow fashion, much akin to the stereotypical stride of a killer in a horror film approaching their victim in a dead end alley. His sword was held at the ready, prepared to defend against any strikes from Heidi's blade, knowing all too well what letting his guard down in this situation would accomplish. His slow pace suddenly changed though, the only warning being a dark gleam that overtook his eyes for a brief moment before they returned to their void expression. He made a dash forward, this time not trying to pull anything fancy. He expected that Heidi would anticipate some sort of switch up as he had done that each time he had gone for a strike, but this time he simply rushed bodily forwards, slicing his sword for the same leg he had hit before. The only change to his motion was the sharp turn to the left he took after attempting his strike so that he could get out of Heidi's immediate range. If successful in getting away, he'd kick his right foot up rather high on one of his steps, using his right hand to grab to small knife hidden in the sole before throwing the concealed blade towards his opponent's head before looping back to where he started.
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Post by Jackie Clovis on Mar 15, 2017 16:25:08 GMT -6
Though her knee was aching and the scratches and bruises on her back were burning, Heidi was still smiling. Even her unsatisfying hit, little more than a glancing blow by her own standards, brought with it a much needed punch of excitement. Finally, she felt as though she was back where she belonged, back in the heat of battle. It wasn't until she really took stock of her surroundings that she noticed her vision was no longer throbbing red and that the whispers had finally ceased, though Heidi didn't immediately connect these two details with her seemingly revivified enthusiasm for battle. Perhaps she should have. Slowly, the monumental huntress resumed her usual magnificent height as she blithely swung her sword back around to rest absently on her shoulder. She took a relaxed breath, drawing deep of humidly cool air that surrounded them and tasting the verdant suffusion of upturned earth at her feet. As quickly as if it had never ebbed at all, Heidi's confidence and comfort were returned in full, such that the towering woman would have looked more at home in an climate controlled sparring room, rather than the thoroughly tilled devastation she actually inhabit. Perhaps it was this welcome sense of security which kept her from immediately pressing the attack long enough for her opponent to frame his own response to her, mostly rhetorical, observations. At first, Heidi regarded his words with the same contemptuous interest she might have given a beowulf that had spontaneously decided to speak the common tongue in an unaffected Riften accent. She had genuinely thought he might be able to identify with the banality of being so much stronger than everyone else, he was simply too confident of his own abilities to assume otherwise, but she had also just been talking sh*t in the hopes of getting a cheapshot in. She had hardly expected him to answer her. Her smile slipped a tiny bit as he continued, however, and her stance, while remaining jocular and relaxed, took on a preparatory set.
"Do you see me on the ground, little man?" Heidi asked him with what might have been actual curiosity nested in her, otherwise, mocking sneer. She found that she didn't quite like the sound of his new laugh. It wasn't quite enough to unsettle her, not sans-semblance, but there was something wrong about it, and something uncomfortably familiar. Gooseflesh prickled across her bare arms and shoulders, and Heidi's unease waxed with it.
She saw the attack coming. Naturally. Though she might not have been trained in the classical sense, having never had much use for traditional techniques, she could still spot a straight forward attack when one was thrown at her. She simply didn't spot Gresian's soon enough. Some of it was contempt for his ability to do her any real harm, but part of it was also her expectation that he would come at her in some unconventional way and that she should simply wait for him to telegraph it. She realized her error around the same time the smaller man was making a swing, much to her chagrin, for her injured knee. She was faster than he was; This was an objective fact. Heidi was faster than everyone who didn't have a semblance that dealt exclusively with augmenting speed. But she had also been sloppy in allowing him to get so close uncontested. Sloppy and over confident. Hissing sharply through her teeth, Heidi shifted her weight off of her injured leg, tried to get her knee out of the and tried, simultaneously, to swat the smaller man aside with the flat of her blade. Had she tried only to dodged or simply struck a bit sooner, she might have avoided his attack altogether, where as her unwillingness to do the former and failure at the latter ensured the exact opposite. Her hiss became a snarl as the cold bite of steel scythed across her knee again while the broadside of the sword chased vainly after Gresian's retreating form. The only upside was that, as she completed the swing, Orthus snatched something small and, to Heidi's mind, inconsequential out of the air and sent it spiraling into the forest a few hundred yards away.
"A knife?" She snapped, not smiling at all now, "Your bullets barely bruise me and you think a knife is going to hurt me?"
Rallying to give chase and put a bit of steel behind her most recent point, Heidi winced as she shifted weight back to her attacked knee. Slowly, her eyes slid down to the most recent cut, already welling red with blood, before a disgusted clucking sound escaped reflexively from her mouth. It wasn't a deep cut, no deeper than the one he'd put in her back, but he'd got her right on the joint of her knee and she was pulling the wound open as she moved. Her phenomenal constitution would see such an inconsequential cut closed in a couple of hours, but right then it hurt way more than it should have. Incongruously, this realization brought Heidi's smile back to her lips. How long was it since someone had meaningfully injured her? She couldn't even remember. Shifting her weight back to her uninjured leg, Heidi brought Orthus down in an unconventional low guard, one that covered her wounded knee, and grinned openly at the smaller man. He was much worse off than she was; Even with his pitiful aura for protection, she had disabled one arm and probably cracked a pair of ribs. Still, he was actually making this fight worth her time, and that was more than anyone else could have said.
"I won't argue with you though..." She said, switching gears to suit her newfound appreciation for the situation, as she too advanced upon him with a languorously murderous pace, only partly meant to keep her knee from splitting open any further, "Mind is just as important as body."
Dropping her shoulders, she let Orthus' cleaver edge graze through the ground, cutting yet another trench into the thoroughly abused earth.
"Isn't the boredom maddening, though?" Cooing quietly, sympathy dripping from each word, Heidi's golden eyes grew wide in parody of sudden softness of her voice. "Doesn't it just eat at you? I bet that's why you do it; You find it exciting, killing those weaker than you." her skin tingled as she said the words, and her grin inched a degree wider.
"Tell me I'm wrong, little man."
Then she swung. It was an ugly, stupid swing that clearly didn't care whether it caught Gresian on the blade or on the flat, but one that made up for what it lacked in grace and technique with sheer brute force. It brought several small stones and a bisected rock up with it, as it burst from the earth Heidi had been slowly sinking it into as she approached the smaller man. She reversed her grip as her swing brought Orthus level with her shoulders and immediately brought the sword back the way it had just come, to deliver a sudden, earth shattering chop with its blunt edge.
"Tell me!" She cried happily, golden eyes wide. "Tell me what that corpse in the river did. Tell me why you killed him!"
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Post by Gresian on Mar 16, 2017 23:04:38 GMT -6
- Gresian Esten - “You never know where life will take you. Sometimes it brings you down a path full of lovely flowers and smiling faces, but more than likely it will stab you in the back and leave you for dead in an abandoned alleyway”WORDS: 1356 | TAGS: Jackie Clovis | NOTES: Monologues are hard to write, but so worth it. Through it all, the void expression never faded. The hints of something indescribable within the nothingness of his expression held through it all. Once again, with the exception of the knife, he had pulled off his strike without flaw, the lumbering oaf before him being in his mind too dull witted to properly face him. Her swings stung like a b*tch, but she rarely actually made a dent. She fell for his traps, and got too welcome to the belief that they'd keep coming. To him, she was simply naive. Weak of mind and horribly naive, the worst kind of people. However, despite that, there was something refreshing about her. She walked the walk and talked the talk in a way only those who truly were on top could ever under, even if she was a one trick pony.
What filled him with the most amusement about this whole ordeal however, was the fact that despite her claim to great power, he had rendered one of her legs rather damaged to the point that using it was difficult. True, it wasn't quite as bad as what she did to his arm, but one thing he had going for him was that taking out his arm only prevented him from using his tricks with ease, a little advantage to using one handed swordsmanship. It was an upset to him that he basically couldn't use his trick cloths, but he could live without against such a burly opponent. Every wince or sound Heidi made because of the wound to her leg made a spark of joy fly through his eyes before being eaten up by the abyss that consumed them, all of those being shows that what he was doing was getting to her.
He listened intently as she began to speak back, beginning to enjoy their little chat with a spot of bloodshed. He could tell there was some form of connection between the two on the way they viewed the world, but in his mind he had reason to believe he was a hell of a lot more mature and developed in his sense of the world. She was on the right track, if not a bit off.
Then came the swing, a small hop backwards being all it took for the initial slice to be rendered ineffective for the most part. The rocks that flung up would've been a problem, if not for his cloak, but the real threat loomed above when Heidi reversed her grip on the blade. A quick roll to the right was the response from Gresian, him hoping that his tucked position would keep Heidi from spotting the brief grimace that crossed his face as he rolled over his injured arm. Using his good hand, he popped himself back up off the ground, spinning briefly just above the ground as his feet twisted into place. He dug his sword into the ground to stabilize his landing, something that his left hand would've done if it weren't for the circumstance. Admittedly, the roll hurt more than usual due to the current stiffness of his cloak, but he felt it was much better to dodge with a little soreness than to not and be cleaved in two.
And then came the question of the day, a tired question to Gresian, but one nonetheless. Why did the man have to die? He had heard it over and over before, in the media, in funerals, from the family as he killed his target right in front of them, he usually just brushed it off, but he felt something different this time. He felt like Heidi was someone who might get it if he explained it to her, perhaps he could teach her a little about the world. For the first time since this battle began, the thought crossed his mind that maybe killing her wouldn't be the best idea. Of course, he couldn't just let her go without finishing the fight, didn't want to be viewed as a coward and he certainly had invested enough time and energy into it that it'd feel sad if it wasn't completed. Regardless, he had decided to dignify the question with an answer, so he turned his gaze directly to Heidi's eyes.
"You want to know why he's dead? I'll explain the exact reason," He began, holding his body at the ready for any attempts to cut him off. He wasn't one to ramble on and expect his opponent to do nothing, but he hoped for the sake of his pseudo-student that she'd settle down for a moment. "The reason's actually very simple, at some point the man had pissed off the wrong person, and that was that. The person who got angry with them wanted them dead, so they paid me to do it for them and now the target lies out in the middle of nowhere in a river. It isn't my job to ask why the man was wanted dead, just how much was willing to be spent to make sure the job got done. You see, there are things in life that happen with no explanation, no reason, they just happen and you have to deal with it." The tone of his voice changed ever so slightly, taking on an oddly warm tone as if he earnestly wanted Heidi to understand what he was saying. "I didn't start off killing for money you know, I was once a starry eye'd kid looking to become a Hunter, a protector of the people. Surprise, the Hunters who really lead those heroic lives are few and far between. Most get stuck with dead end jobs, the missions they take on hardly being enough to live off of, let alone in a glamorous way. Some, simply don't get jobs because all the missions are too difficult for them, others just never are able to find those valorous and difficult ones despite their capabilities. Eventually, those kinds of people find out that the only way to keep themselves afloat is to take on less savory jobs, which lead to even darker and grimmer ones. Before you know it, you're slicing necks with as much ease as you'd butter toast." He paused, letting the words sink in. He'd said a lot, and as mentioned before he didn't fully trust in her mental capacity to comprehend things. "You see, contrary to popular belief, the world doesn't care who you are. It doesn't matter if you're the strongest around or if you're the most pitiful thing in existence, it will do all it can in it's power to bite you in the *ss and make you live a hell on earth. Really, living in a world like that is a huge pain, a pain that is perpetuated by naive and weak people in a desperate attempt to see if the dice will role in their favor and give them the change to escape the life they were meant to live. So, why bother living in that world? Why not create your own life where you can do as you please, it's a lot more fun. I mean, some people accuse you of being a coward and running away, but they're all too naive to understand that the world they live in isn't worth sticking with." With that, he let a more lively smile creep back onto his face. He was never great at doing speeches, often found them a waste of time, but for once he actually cared about getting his message across. "So, I guess that's why the man had to die. He got the wrong person wanting him dead, and there was someone who learned the true nature of the world around who just so happened to be in the business of enjoying themselves. I mean, the guy who ordered the death is cowardly for not being able to do it himself, but that just proves how few people understand the freedom of living a free life." Finally done talking, he continued to just stand there for a moment, trying to let the words sink in for his opponent to comprehend. Shin of GS + Adox |
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Post by Jackie Clovis on Mar 20, 2017 14:46:28 GMT -6
As Gresian gave his explanation, it suddenly seemed to Heidi that they weren't all that alike after all. Yet, strangely, this idea was not accompanied by the sort of contempt that usually followed her consideration of others and their points of view. She had thought it was boredom that made him kill the man in the stream, but it had been simultaneously more and less complicated reasons that had shown the corpse his fate. Finding herself strangely relieved that her most recent attack -half-hearted though it had been- had been insufficient to incapacitate Gresian, Heidi brought Orthus standing beside her, point sunk into the dirt while she listened. Smiling still, she listened with uncharacteristic patience for the murderer to outline his motivations, idly twisting her sword deeper and deeper into the wounded earth while he spoke. For her part, Heidi at least identified with Gresian's desire for a comfortable life. While she didn't think he, nor any other porcelain person on the face of Remnant, could truly appreciate the challenges her own existence posed her, she shared his desire for the small comforts that only money could buy. Comforts like good food, good drink and the revelrous company of others, that someone might be there to appreciate her strength and beauty. Such things did not come free and were seldom cheap, but she had often made do by taking what she could from those too weak to stop her, and allowed her inheritance to make up the balance. Even Heidi recognized such a state could not endure forever, however. Sooner or later, the paltry sum left to her by her parents and the tolerance of the weaker world would give out, and she'd be forced to secure other means to enjoy the life she deserved. Hunting had been the obvious solution to her; Her parents had both been hunters, and they had been affluent enough to raise two children before leaving each a sizeable inheritance. Three children, Heidi amended silently, her smile slackening slightly as she made the mental concession, yet with only two inheritances. Still, not including their final disowning of her, Heidi's parents had not been poor. Thus, she too had decided to hunt. It was a vocation that would let her put her unparalleled strength to good use, and one where being the strongest actually mattered. One where she could prove to the world how great she was, and force them all to recognize her as a person. It would be a much better life than the isolated and lonely existence Jackie aspired to. Yet, if what Gresian said was true, then there was a third option she'd not previously considered. An option that would pay better and allow her a truer freedom than even the life of a huntress would have provided. She cared nothing for the deaths of others, and though she knew Jackie would not approve of murder for money, she also knew her little sister would not interfere if Heidi decided it was the route to follow. Jackie, after all, had never stopped Heidi from stealing from those too weak to stop her, just like she'd never stopped Heidi from hurting those that annoyed her. Jackie, when you got right down to it, was just like everyone else in Remnant; Too weak to stop Heidi from doing as she pleased. Until that very moment, Heidi had only ever tolerated the laws others impressed upon her because it was the most convenient way to get what she wanted, and she had often broken those same laws when they became inconvenient to her... So why not kill? Why shouldn't Gresian be allowed to kill whomever he wanted, just so long as he was stronger? Why shouldn't he be paid for the service, by those who couldn't do it themselves? Why shouldn't he live as he chose to, if everyone else was too weak to stop him? Why shouldn't she? " You know what?" Heidi asked in a surprisingly gentle tone, like that of one friend to another, " I am glad I haven't killed you yet." Straightening up, she drew in a deep and indulgent breath through her nose, one that laid back her strong shoulders and puffed out her chest. Then, waving her free hand as if to take in the whole world, she breathed out a long and leisurely sigh. " You don't really get it..." She told him, but without the barb of contempt she might have otherwise included in her words, " Not entirely. But I suppose you get enough of it." Her magnanimous tone swelled, and Heidi took her hand from her sword and left it, standing upright and half buried to the hilt, to make another all-encompassing gesture to the verdant hills and gray, white capped mountains around them. " You can see the rules and the laws for what they are. No rule protected that man..." She jabbed a finger at the stream as she moved out from behind her sword, " No law stepped in and stopped you from cutting him, no law staunched his blood." Taking her eyes off of him, she examined the cut he'd put in her leg -which had already stopped bleeding, though would take some time to begin closing- and frowned mildly as she did so. Breathing deeply again, Heidi swung her hands up behind her head and let all the picturesquely defined muscles on her tall frame stand out through her sodden clothes, and looked dismissively down the valley. She made no overtly offensive movements. It was as though her forbearance -in having listened to what he had to say- entitled her to similar patience from him. Yet also as though it didn't matter if he was patient or not, that she didn't feel threatened enough by him to fear a failure to put up with her words. " Laws are paper and wind, but the world seems to have forgotten that. Once upon a time, the weak all decided the strong could no longer do what they wanted and the strong -for some reason- let them, and everyone forgot that paper does not stop a sword and wind does not bind a wound." Even saying this, Heidi injected no contempt or loathing into her words, as she was simply stating things the way she saw them. Falling silent, Heidi stared distantly past Gresian with her smile vanished from her lips. In that moment, she looked so idealized and statuesque, that she might have been an anatomical statue of Pre-Fall Mistral. " The Hunters I came out here with are heading this way." She said finally, her eyes glinting gold in the the shadowed valleys of her face. No sound Gresian -nor any other normal human- could hear would lend credence to her words, but she did not sound to be dissembling. Her words were just as matter of fact as they had been while she talked about paper shields, and considerably more joyless. " They must have heard my shouting." She did not sound pleased by that fact, and casually dropped her hands from behind her head to curl two fists at her side. " That, or one of them has a tracking semblance." Not that it really mattered which. Looking at Gresian, hunter of men, Heidi scowled darkly. He had been holding his own against her, and even managed to hurt her a little in return, but he did not stand a chance against three other students and a hunter chaperone, even if Heidi decided to stay out of the fight. Good as he was, she had crippled one of his arms and likely sapped half his aura in their fight, which was not even considering how much his fight with the corpse had demanded of his fragile body. " They are moving fast. Probably they think I was trying to escape." Turning back to her sword, Heidi clamped her hand around the hilt and brusquely twisted it. All at once, the entire gargantuan weapon shrank to the size of a scabbarded bastard sword, only three quarters its prior length and less than half its previous width. Hefting it with no less difficulty than before, she dropped it absently down on her shoulder -in a way that would have likely dislocated a normal woman's arm- and turned back toward the stream. Sparing Gresian one final glance, Heidi recalled everything he'd said, and everything she had heard, and let them cement in her mind. Not just what he'd said about laws and killing, but what she'd heard whispered in her ears when the whole world had turned red. She'd underestimated him, just as she underestimated everyone, but he'd actually been strong enough that it had mattered. " Go claim your prize, Manhunter." She said dismissively -though she did not condescend and call him 'little man' again- and started away. Before she'd gotten three steps -no longer wincing from the incidental movement of her knee, though more extreme would surely prove painful- Heidi hesitated and looked back over her shoulder, the one not bearing her absurd sword. " The world doesn't need people like us." Heidi said, hearkening back to something she'd heard and he had said, " But fuck the world." And with that, Heidi resumed her course to meet back up with the weaklings chasing after her, leaving one weakling behind her. And the man who killed him. Gresian |
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