Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Unpleasant Reunions

Pained step by agonized painful step, he crawled out of the crater.

Rocks shattered in his path, providing handholds and foot rests exactly where he needed them. The ground itself helped him make his way out of the abattoir that once had been a Snake lair. Blood streaming down his armor from both his own wounds and the brutality he'd inflicted on the serpent men, he was only half-conscious by the time he reached the pit's edge...

...and completely unconscious a moment afterwards as a fist lifted him by his face up and over the far side of the chasm below, sending him in a sprawling arc through the air!

Ravyn felt the wind leave his lungs as he landed, flat of his back, on broken asphalt. Reeling, gasping for breath, he stared up in shock as his assailant leaped over the pit towards him. The man crouched, sprang into the air and cleared the wide scale-strewn gap before Bloodrayn could focus or move.

Booted feet caught him in the stomach, forcing out the thin bit of breathing he'd been able to draw, suffocating and crushing at the same time. Only Ravyn's armor kept him from rupturing under the huge man's weight but it still hurt. A lot.

A fist greeted his face again, followed by another. And another. And another. He was being pummeled too fast to gather his wits, too hard to shrug off the impacts. His lip split again, his eye began to swell and his ears were ringing. The assault was blinding and impossibly strong, powerful enough to start powdering the earth beneath Ravyn's cracking skull. Whoever this was, the man's intent was clear. He was out for blood.

Well, if he wanted blood, he could choke on a bit of his own. Snarling and acting out of instinct, Ravyn let his aggression take hold. If he wasn't going to get time to think, he wouldn't waste another second on thought. As the next dark fist came down, he smalled upwards, catching it with the hardest part of his forehead as he called forth more of the strange black stone to protect the spot.

The sudden move was rewarded with the sound of shattering bone and a vicious curse! The man leaped free, sending another shockwave through Ravyn's vitals while jumping to the nearest rooftop and staring down in fury and pain. Climbing to his feet, Bloodravyn shook his head to clear his blurring vision. If he was going to fight this man, he would have to be able to see him first.

They stared at each other, murder in the eyes of one and confused rage in the other. It took less than a second for Ravyn to recognize his attacker; the man had always been distinctive, unchanging since the day he and the other Vigilant put the homocidal bastard behind bars...

"Lethane."

The cussing man flexed his broken hand, grinning past obvious pain as his fingers started resetting within moments. "In the flesh, Duck." Blood was streaming past his teeth and only then did Ravyn realize that during the punch flurry, Lethane had also bitten him on the shoulder. There was a seeping wound there, the plate that once protected it torn completely off and crumpled nearby.

The pause was a good thing; Ravyn's eyes were coming back into clear vision and he was breathing again. There was poison in his system - a legacy of the serpents he'd just massacred. They had taken their toll on him, unfortunately. He would have been hard pressed to take this villain before the coma even with a team beside him. Now, alone and wounded, he was outclassed and he knew it.

"You're on the wrong side of the sea, Duck. Let me help you get back home, hero!" Lethane leaned into a hunch, shoulder out, and sprang straight down off the roof. Ravyn did everything he could to avoid the blow, dodging to the side as fast as his battered body would allow. The main force of Lethane's crushing strike hit the street beside him, sending concrete and tar in a violent spray! Try and he might, Bloodravyn couldn't completely evade the pale blue killer in black leather straps.

One fist collided with his chest, sending him flying as far and as fast as the shrapnel of the villain's landing. Ravyn's breastplate split open from the force, tearing away as every strap burst and every power line exploded in a spark shower of guttering plasma. His flesh underneath cut open by a dozen shallow blades of bent steel, Bloodravyn hit the ground and rolled out of his ruined armor. "Ahhhhh!"

Lethane stood up out of his own small crater, wiping blood from his lips. "Mmmm... My favorite song." His inhuman eyes flashed feral as he broke into a blurred sprint, closing the distance between him and Ravyn at breakneck speed. Likely, his speed, Ravyn's neck.

Ravyn did the only thing he could. With no time to stand, he rolled to the side and lashed out with his plated leg, kicking at shin level as Lethane reached his prone body. The impact was enough to spin Ravyn around and crack his leg through an inch of ionic-hardened steel. But as much as it hurt him, it had a far greater effect on his leather-garbed foe.

Lethane howled in frenzied pain as his legs swept out from under him. Unable to jump away because of the sudden lack of footing, he tumbled out of control past Ravyn and smashed head first into... and through... a six story building. Bricks and timbers rained down from the marauder-shaped hole he left behind.

Bloodravyn staggered to his feet. His leg was aching like it was on fire. In fact, it was on fire. Not that the flames were hurting him, though. They were writhing over the obsidian spikes plating every inch of his limb from knee to ankle. His other leg was quickly growing to match, armoring itself in tectonic fury. Shaking his head, still not understanding what was happening to his body, Ravyn lumbered as fast as he could into the ragged hole after Lethane. If he gave the agile madman a chance to recover, this fight would be very short and very one-sided.

Lethane was nearly nine feet of lithe muscle, almost elven in the Tolkien sense of the word, and all slayer. Sharpened teeth, razor claws and incredible strength in a midnight cerulean frame as resistant to damage as hardened titanium, Lethane had been one the hardest captures of his life as a member of Paragon City's finest. That was five years ago and as far as Ravyn knew, Lethane had been languishing in the Zig since that titanic battle.

He moved slowly through the wreckage of the abandoned building, wasting exactly five seconds wondering how Lethane managed to get out of the Zig before realizing what a stupid question that was. Moving past a broken mirror, covered in dirt and cobwebs, he looked directly at the fiend responsible for this killer being on the streets.

Gritting his teeth, he continued on, determined to put an end to this sin.

He found Lethane tangled in a mass of steel cables, a toppled set of old city clothes lines bent around him. The rampaging beast was breathing heavily, wounds from his ballistic passage through the tenement house all over his body. Eyes wandering, teeth clenched around rasping anger and bubbling anguish.

"Proud... proud of yourself, Duck?" It was obvious Lethane was trying to move but his bonds had him lashed in terrible angles, broken bones keeping him from freeing himself.

Ravyn didn't answer. Instead, he wrenched a huge piece of rebar out of the ground, breaking it off at a sharp angle. Instantly, the end of the huge impromptu spear burst into plasmic fire. Bloodravyn hid his surprise at the ignition, raising it over his head as he advanced on Lethane's trapped body. "This ends... now..."

Lethane grinned, seemingly unconcerned by his peril. "Looks that way, hero." Then, spitting blood, he laughed. "Oh wait, not hero any more, is it?"

That shocked Ravyn into delaying his coup de grace. "You... you know about that?"

The bestial killer nodded as much as the wire around his neck allowed. "Oh yes. You're the other 'Chosen One'. Of course I know about you, idiot." Here Lethane was, trapped and about to die and he still had more balls than brains.

Ravyn hefted the girder again, watching Lethane's face through the slow waterfall of molten metal dripping from its burning point. He needed to end this, to undo this mistake... but curiosity was staying his hand. "Other Chosen One?" He couldn't help himself. He had to know what Lethane was talking about.

Lethane licked his lips, apparently liking the taste of any blood. Even his own. "Yeah. The Fortunatas have been talking about the Chosen One from the Zigguraut for years, Duck." He was still heaving for breath but the pain was calmed now. He was healing even as they spoke. There wasn't much time left to finish this battle. "Some think it's you."

Another spit of blood. "Some think it's me."

Ravyn had heard enough. This was all just a stall tactic and he couldn't dare let it go on any longer. The fiend was as resilient as he was fast. Any more time to recover and he'd be able to break free regardless of the pain. "Well, this should settle the matter." He brought the rebar back up; this had to be the end of it. There was no room for mercy with a man like this...

Lethane chuckled. "Shouldn't you be falling down right now?"

Ravyn blinked again. "What?"

"You know, from the hemlock."

He looked at the trapped man in abject bewilderment. "Hemlock?"

The long eared slaughterhouse with legs grinned again. "Yeah, hemlock. I eat it every day. Don't hurt me one bit, of course, but it gets in my skin. My blood. My..." He licked his teeth. "My spit."

The strength started to flood out of his arms, forcing him to drop the steel beam as he crashed down under his own weight. "You... sadistic... bastard..."

Evan as he started to black out, Bloodravyn heard the snap of steel cords nearby and the shift of tangled metal as his quarry struggled free. "You have no idea, my little Duck." A shadow fell over Ravyn, the shape of man concealed in the darkness of his own blackout.

The last thing he heard before tumbling into unkind unconsciousness was an evil laugh and soft words right next to his face.

"But you will..."

2 comments:

Zay B. Eve said...

Heh, awesome.

Love the imagery, and the feel of the whole fight, very well paced and easy to 'see'.
:)

erisraven said...

Ouchies! Just goes to show, plot exposition can kill.