2018-02-14: To Which All Things Toe
- Log: To Which All Things Toe
- Cast: K.K., Kahm Yugh, Kent Hauch
- Where: Ironbell Mines
- Date: 2/14/2018
- Summary: After making their way past Krosse's borders, Kahm and Kent follow rumors of the the Trial Knight's appearance to an abandoned mining town. But the enigmatic knight is not the only force that greets them...
<Pose Tracker> K.K. has posed.
Krosse was a friendly place. And it still is, really.
As long as you're someone who belongs there.
It started months ago. Nothing that would have ever pinged upon the radars of those watching these lands unless they truly cared to see. Talk of nightmares amongst the populace. Difficulty sleeping. Some unmentioned and unknown fear. Given how soon it nipped upon the heels of Adlehyde's razing at the hands of the Metal Demons, none of this was particularly concerning. Nor even, perhaps, when their King withdrew support from the devastated kingdom. Selfish, perhaps. Maybe even uncharacteristic.
But times of desperation bring out surprising sides to all people.
And then, this. Krosse's closing of its borders would seem abrupt, to any who had not been paying close attention to the slow dissolution of an increasing suspicious kingdom and its increasingly paranoid king. The boundaries of Krosse are now guarded vehemently; checkpoints once left largely abandoned now thrum with activity and the presence of the King's Royal Guard. And the citizens of Krosse seem all but intolerant of the presence of those they don't know, whether they truly be an outsider or not. Friendly to each other. To friends and family. Shut in and hostile to everything else.
Rumors of disappearances soon chased after. Agents of Solaris, too, counted amongst their ranks; anyone who didn't belong within Krosse's borders, anyone who dissented with the King's choices, all of them shuffled off towards the checkpoints in Krosse... and then simply disappeared.
Concerning enough. But perhaps what is moreso, to those who know the signs to look for, is the rumors of other things. Strange animal behavior. Unusual activity and weather. And claims of villagers and townsfolk in the various settlements of Krosse of bizarre sightings.
Sightings of a knight, clad head to toe in radiant white armor.
Any amount of pressing would yield a description too close to the entity known as the Trial Knight to be denied. And the trail of breadcrumbs, for those who dared to follow, would inevitably lead them to this place: once a prosperous town, Ironbell Mines had been long since abandoned after the depths of the mines had been plumbed dry and became too unstable to work any further. Without their livelihood, people left the town behind -- another of many inevitable, sorry stories dotting the decaying land of Ignas.
Now? Now, this place is a ghost town of crumbling buildings and dust, wood-wrought homes in shambles and most windows broken by looters and scavengers who have picked this town dry. The cavernous entrance to the Ironbell Mines are like a toothless, sad maw of a dead beast, opening up to a yawning chasm that promises nothing but emptiness and abandoned mining equipment. There is nothing here, not anymore.
Nothing but the vaporous traces of Malevolence wafting through this place, evidenced in the black and violet smoke that wafts upwards from the cracked and dry earth to those with the sight to see it... spewing from the dead maw of those mines like a dying sigh.
<Pose Tracker> Kahm Yugh has posed.
Somewhere, far away in a seldom-used office in the halls of Bledavik's royal palace, in a folder neatly marked 'Unfinished Business', there was a report on the mysterious figure known as the trial knight. Although Kahm had only met the unknown armored figure once, the meeting had left an ominous impression. Further reports of the being's involvement in various calamities that had besieged the continent-and an assault against Lieutenant Commander Hawwa-had solidified K.K.'s place as a verifiable threat to peace and order on Ignas.
And yet, resources were low, and Kahm's business had often kept him away from the knight's sphere of influence by happenstance. Such was not the case with Krosse, where the ongoing, peculiar machinations within the nation's borders had finally attracted the attention of Filgaia's unseen administrators. A few disappearances of the populace might not be unexpected, but a clear trend of abductions that included their own informants was a separate matter. Solaris had a vested interested in being the only state that operated this kind of activity en masse, and King Krono had been playing to the beat of his own drum long enough.
It had been several days since the Major had managed to infiltrate Krosse with several other operatives by virtue of falsified ID papers, and it hadn't taken long for pointed questions in the right place to paint a passingly familiar picture. The answers were given in furtive and suspicious glances, and it was clear his questions were as unwelcome as his presence by the endlessly narrowed glares of an otherwise docile populace. It was an unusual, he thought, for Krosse's character to change this much in so short a time...but perhaps less so in an age where demons and worse walked among them.
Rumors of the trial knight's presence in Ironbell Mines had set the Major on this path, but not before passing his knowledge on to Kent and the Ties through the usual vectors. The gang leader, he knew, should also have something of a score to settle with the strange knight. What's more, he still had debt to work off in Kahm's view.
The Solarian's measure steps guided him slowly through the abandoned town's desolate landscape, eyes and ears taking in what little character the ruin had to offer. The air was familiar in a way he distinctly did not welcome, and his mind drifted back to the last place he'd felt this sensation, far and away in a grotto overrun by malice...
"This isn't natural." He said, perhaps obviously, to no one in particular but himself and the ghosts.
<Pose Tracker> Kent Hauch has posed.
Not just Solaris agents - ever since the link between the Black Ties and Gebler became more obvious, Kent Hauch has been using their advanced resources to spread footholds out even more aggressively among his corner of Filgaia, aiming in the short term to become the black market king of the Badlands.
One day, Krosse simply swallowed up the entire Black Ties contingent, including several Jackets - Kent even knew the names of one or two of them.
Kent Hauch has arrived alone. Frankly, in this situation, better to have Kent alone than his gang at his back, or even his Suits. He and Kahm are at a level of understanding that means the gang leader no longer needs to posture around him. Teamwork becomes possible - and worse, the gang leader can act on his animal cunning rather than focus his energies on appearing violent and invincible.
As they near the entrance to the mine, walking through the dead and dry town, Kent's heavy bootsteps come to a sudden halt behind Kahm. If the officer should turn around, he'll find the man crouched over a crack in the earth, waving his hand through thin air, expression unreadable.
"Thass one way to look at it," he mutters. He clenches his fist on nothing, showing his teeth. "A'course, the alternative's a tricky pill to swallow, innit?" He pushes himself back up, Red River's hose tapping against the lava tank on his back. He gives the tank an elbow, popping the lid open long enough for him to heft a large rock he'd picked up into it with a gentle plop-hiss.
His eyes sweep over the town. All the buildings look like nothing so much as kindling to him. He flicks his tongue over his lips, the fingers on his right hand flexing before he continues forward again.
<Pose Tracker> K.K. has posed.
Eyes that see a world to be burned sweep the landscape of this decaying ruined. There is nothing there but Kent Hauch's tinder, dilapidated and rotting. Empty, and forgotten. And raising vapors of black and violet, like fumes to ignite the inferno.
This isn't natural.
It's the easiest thing to assume. That this place -- the feeling that pervades it -- is abnormal. Anomalous. None of this should be here. A perversion of the natural way of things.
The easiest thing to assume. Because...
A'course, the alternative's a tricky pill to swallow, innit?
"'Tis easier, to bury one's head in the sand."
The voice comes, just as Kent turns away from his burning vigil of the deadened town that surrounds both himself and Kahm, as they start to press towards the abandoned depths of the mine's entrance. Tinny, warped by some sort of metal interference and yet resolute in a way that refuses to be ignored or denied. Familiar, to both of them, even if one not heard by either in some time.
And all they need do is look behind them to see the source, just as described, just as rumored: a knight, dressed in heavy white armor, polished to a radiant shine that seems to lose none of its luster despite the gray clouds blotting at the skies. Perched upon the corner of the crumbling ruins of a saloon rooftop overlooking the mine proper, the horned, faceless helm of K.K. turns down to regard both of them with the unseen weight of their stare. Regarding.
Judging.
"The law among the lawless," observes the Trial Knight, slowly, head tilted towards Kahm. They hold no weapons. But every inch of them exudes immediate threat. That helm turns, once more, towards Kent.
"He who burns." And that helm tilts. Waiting.
"So, then. You chose to come where the law cannot reach."
Like they were expected.
<Pose Tracker> Kahm Yugh has posed.
"Reality is complicated enough without indulging flights of fancy, Kent." Kahm spoke quietly, turning to regard the other man as if he'd known he was there all along. Malevolence was an unknown phenomenon on Ignas-on Filgaia, for that matter-and nothing in their records suggested anything like it had occurred before. It was a blight in God's garden (or what remained of it), and ought to be cleansed as such.
He knows enough about the gang leader now to recognize the look in Kent's eyes as he surveyed their surrounding. The man had an instinct Kahm could leverage if the situation called for it, and thought it wise that the surface dweller had come alone.
"'Tis easier, to bury one's head in the sand."
Kahm had not heard the voice in months, but it was not one who's tone and timbre he would soon forget. The Solarian's gaze turns around, then upwards, blue eyes narrowing in a growing sense of threat as they met the opaque visor of K.K.'s enigmatic regard. What arrogance, he thought, to assume a posture above them. A corrective was long overdue.
"When it begins.." He quietly asided to Kent, "Make sure they can't escape."
The man's steps toward judging figure were quick and purposeful, his mind arrayed for the offensive before he even addressed the armored figure. That K.K. seemed unsurprised of their presence did not escape Kahm either, but he could dwell on it later-it was hard to believe their entry into Krosse could've been detected.
"Trial Knight." He said, voice filled with all stern authority K.K.'s sobriquet suggested. "The list of crimes at your feet has grown too numerous to bother recounting. Is this another?"
Whether he means this forsaken place, or the whole country itself, is up to interpretation.
Last connect was from 52.119.26.224 on Wed Feb 14 20:52:11 2018.
<Pose Tracker> Kent Hauch has posed.
"Iss only complicated if you're lettin' it sort itself out, Yugh," Kent responds, half-dreamily. "Everything's just fuel and fire."
K.K.'s voice comes at the perfect time to pull Kent's attention away from what this place should be and back to what it is. His eyes focus as he looks away and up. He comes to a stop, straddling another crack in the ground, allowing the purple haze to curl around his legs.
"The law ain't been able to reach me my entire life!" Kent jeers back. He reaches over his shoulder, unclipping Red River's pistol from its tank. "An' you've got a damn sight shorter arms!"
Kent rolls a step forward and, while Kahm yells, immediately sets his own tone. The tablet over his heart thrums as his foot impacts heavily. Too heavily. Kahm saw the solidity Kent had begun to employ instinctively when he came to the Black Wardrobe - here, he is drawing on it actively.
The dry ground cracks further under his foot, rifts spreading a short distance around him as he almost seems to join with the earth, rising out of it instead of stepping along it. A dull red glow burns in the ground beneath him, casting him in a strange light, an updraft rippling his ash grey coat.
"If you're here in such a nice dramatic place'n'all, I'm guessin' you 'ad somethin' to do with my disappearing men." Kent's glower intensifies. "They got nothin' to do with whatever you've got to do with me."
Kent glances toward Kahm after his aside. His eyes narrow slightly before he looks back to K.K..
<Pose Tracker> K.K. has posed.
"My crime is naught but planting a seed."
The claim comes -- and audacious as it may be, cryptic though it certainly is, it comes steeled with an unbendable will reinforcing its every syllable. Arms folded at their chest, standing from on high, their entire posturing is undoubtedly imperious. Like they stood above the visitors to this ghost town.
Like they are beyond the reach of Kahm Yugh's vaunted authority.
Slowly, their arms uncross. Slowly, the Trial Knight begins to shift.
"I did not water it. I did not shine the sun upon it. I did naught to nourish it." Their booted heel plants against the rotting corner of the saloon roof, feeling the wood crunch beneath the weight of their presence until it gives no longer. Until they are braced against that crumbling edifice.
"This harvest comes from none but man."
Cracks fissure and grow beneath Kent Hauch, the throb of heat pulsing through them like the lifeblood of the planet itself were reponding to his call. The spiritual pulse of a Medium's communion hangs heavy in the air as the leader of the Black Ties calls out towards the knight about--
"Your men," once more, like when they first met, while those words do not end with a questioning inflection... every metallic-wrung syllable so plainly stated seems to call into question the reality behind that claim. "Are not here.
"You have begun to burn brighter, Kent Hauch. But it is still not yet enough to catch the flame."
You can burn hotter yet still.
Fingers stretch. K.K. presses their weight upon that protesting roof's surface. Wood cracks dangerously beneath them.
"'Law has no meaning to the lawless,'" their words come as an echo once more, to the night they first encountered Kahm. Deliberately uttered as that unseen stare levels its weight upon Kent, as if to draw Kahm's attention towards him. Light glows at the palms of the knight, with mounting intensity. Their helm tilts, towards Kahm.
"You attempt to exert your authority where it has no place, nor understanding. Your partner understands the truth, boy."
And by the time Kent Hauch turns his attention back towards them--
"And ere long, you shall as well."
--the Trial Knight has -launched- into the air, the full weight of their upwards thrust -bursting- wood into so much debris. The roof of the saloon crumbles, the building collapsing into nothing but so much tinder as K.K. descends towards Kahm and Kent. Brandishing a massive warscythe of white, blue and gold, seemingly wrought from nothing but their will along within a radiant flash of light...
"Or you shall suffocate within the ignorance of your clout!"
... as it comes down in a mighty swing intent to slice into the both of them in one fell swoop if they do not move fast enough.
<Pose Tracker> Kahm Yugh has posed.
Like before, the trial knight spoke in riddles and metaphors, and Kahm's face wore disdain openly in response. There was an edge of a glance towards Kent as K.K. extended the comparison towards the gang leader, emboldened by the taller man's own boasting. "Don't be goaded by them." He muttered out from the corner of his teeth.
A weight fell upon them in that moment, between K.K.'s malodorous intention, Kent's furious invocation, and Kahm's own calling upon his inner will, such that he'd not felt since he'd faced off against 'Azazel' in the disputed zone. Old anger, still potent, burned up the back of his neck before he subdued it into proper place.
By then the armored one had leapt from their precarious perch and aimed to cut them down, their insult still ringing in Kahm's ears as that conjured scythe swung towards him. Indignation quelled as the Major's preternatural nimbleness carried him forward in a low dive and roll, feeling the razor-thin margin of air between his body and the passage of that wicked blade in a fatal might-have-been. The seeming creation of matter jogged his memory for the haphazard reports and notes they'd compiled of K.K.'s abilities, all of which defied a conventional sense of thinking. He didn't know what the armored figure was quite capable of, and that put him at a disadvantage.
All the more reason to end this quickly.
"You're the one who doesn't understand." He shot back, heat on his throat as his blade swung free from it's scabbard on recovery from the role. "Like the demons, you harass the flock only at the tolerance of the Shepherds."
Absentmindedly he'd slipped into accursed metaphor himself, Kahm came at the knight's flank, the tip of his blade thrusting with a wreath of crackling electrical force about it, the ether element of his choice furiously channeled through the weapon and delivered unto K.K's body.
<Pose Tracker> Kent Hauch has posed.
Kent is a sensitive soul and he hears EVERY TONE, K.K.. Reading tones is very important as a crime man. K.K. mashes on Kent's worst button and the cracks beneath him widen, the glow becoming angrier. Veins spread across his temple.
As the Knight's weight shifts and the roof begins to creak, Kent shifts his weight back, thumbing controls on Red River. The gun's barrel stretches and widens, the Metal Demon-era material flexing, the weapon unmistakeable as anything else.
"Enough a'yer DAMN TALK!" he barks.
Unfortunately for Kahm, Kent is well and truly goaded. K.K. has seen too much of what lies within the gangster to fail at that. He's seen the Kent without the Hauch.
As Kahm rolls away, Kent takes a more active defense, lifting Red River and hosing dull orange lava at the oncoming knight's arm. The molten stone hardens to tephra on hopeful impact with the Trial Knight - burning hot and heavy, but increasingly brittle as it cools. "Actin' like a bloody God. Or at least like a bloody God should, not like the weaklings currently claimin' the title."
Kent surges forward at the Knight, left foot anchored to the ground, willing to take some of the blow to get this hit in - a tremendous knock-the-door-down stomp kick aimed for K.K.'s chest, a strike completely at odds with the aesthetic of its lofty, ornate target.
<Pose Tracker> K.K. has posed.
Cracked ground sunders beneath the weighted force of K.K.'s impact with the earth; magma spits spiteful heat into the open air and slathers onto the armored figure's thickly-gauntleted forearm, reflected in all its orange-yellow wrath off the polished surface of the knight's massive blade as it sings through the air that Kahm Yugh once occupied.
Like the demons, you harass the flock only at the tolerance of the Shepherds.
Crouched into the ground as their weapon completes its swing, the Trial Knight's response is not an immediate one; lava hardening towards cooling rock on their arm, they abandon that scythe seconds later; the weapon disperses in a flash of bright white particles that float effervescent through the arid skies.
"And for whom do the Shepherds toe the line?"
The Solarian comes from the flank, Kent from the front. Kahm's blade sings an electric song of violent, and the Black Tie roars his angry defiance. K.K. sees their trajectories; there is little way they can avoid them both at once.
"That to which all things toe."
And so they simply do not.
First, Kahm comes; the ether-infused sword -stabs- forward with one lightning-infused tip. K.K. -shifts- themselves and -lashes- out with their unburdened hand, -grabbing- the blade with the shriek of metal on metal. They feel the electrically-infused magic conduct along whatever strange alloys their armor is made of, shocking through them violently until smoke cakes off their body -- but even as they spasm, they move -with- the momentum of that sword, -thrusting- it forward and relying on the stern, strong grip Kahm has upon that blade to send him -careening- away.
"Tell me, Shepherd. What is a man when divested of what empowers him?"
And only seconds later, does Kent introduce the sole of boot towards K.K.'s chest.
At the exact same moment that K.K. introduces the molten rock-reinforced fist of their gauntlet to Kent's sternum.
Kent's blow is strong enough to dent the chest of K.K.'s armor inward with a hideous crunch of metal that tarnishes the ornate shine of that plate. And K.K. defiantly moves -into- the blow, -resisting- the force and pain behind it to simply -slug- Kent straight in the dead center of his chest with tephra-shattering force -- to, with any luck, launch Kent off his feet...
... and directly into Kahm, to send them both barreling further into the ghost town.
"Even Gods may burn, Kent Hauch." The pronunciation of that last name, just slightly different. The smoke, rising violently from their body. Armor, bent violently inward. Fingers spasming.
And yet they charge on after Kent and Kahm, curved short swords flashing to life in their palms with deadly intent as they rush with singular, deliberate purpose deeper into the dead village.
"But you have not the spark yet strong enough to light that tinder."
<Pose Tracker> Kahm Yugh has posed.
Kahm had expected K.K. might try to grab the blade-the armor looked sufficient to stay even the bite of Solarian steel-but the sword had never been the real threat. It was a merely a vector for the etheric payload the operative had put behind it, which he invests fully and wrathfully into the trial knight the moment the seized the blade. It was potent, powerful....and yet not enough to fell the armored figure where they stood.
Instead, Kahm felt himself flung forward, suddenly thrown off balance in body and mind as K.K. added another philosophical barb to their physical maneuvering. Who watches the watchmen, in other words? It was a ridiculous question to the Solarian's ears, one that could only be born of a mind too ignorant and surfacebound to appreciate the shape of truth. Their rule was absolute, unquestionable, and no one-neither the demons, veruni, or shevites-could hope to truly contest it and last.
And yet the question remained, burning in the Major's mind as he found himself shoved-possibly by Kent!-further into the hearth of this miserable village.
Ostensibly speaking, there were no standing orders on what to do about the trial knight. Strictly speaking, they ought to be captured and brought in for questioning if possible, but the attack on the Lieutenant Commander demanded an answer. And he was empowered to make his own decisions in the field.
Multiple decisions solidified as K.K. bore down on them with twin sword flying, Kahm's blade flashing back in a blink-and-miss-it series of parries, ripostes, and jabs, flashes of etheric might occasionally sparking between the contest of blades. Even so, the pressure of the assault was such that he was forced to grudgingly concede ground, step by step.
"Even without sanction, I have strength enough to see you cast down." He resolved, and came at the trial knight with a different technique, striking with out with a one-handed grip only to follow up with another: a second blade, brightly shaped from his etheric element, sprung into form from his other hand. It was far less coherent than K.K.'s own mysterious technique, but it would suffice for Kahm's purposes.
<Pose Tracker> Kent Hauch has posed.
Kent and K.K. impact, main force on main force, dust and shattering rock blowing back away from them. Kent's chestbone refuses to cave in. For a moment, it seems like the gang leader himself will refuse to move, his presence upon the Filgaian ground inevitable...
...he becomes human in an instant as his expensive boot comes free of the ground, that hyper-solidity winking away. That means it is a man and not a moutnain that crashes into Kahm, for which he may be abstractly grateful. The two impact and roll jumble-tumble further into the town, away from the mine.
It's a whole lot of motion and grunting, and with K.K.'s charge dominating all of Kahm's attention, he might not notice that as he steps up to match blades with the Trial Knight, the expected Kent Hauch backup fails to materialize.
Kent Hauch fails to materialize entirely.
He has darted into the nearby building, a slouching two-story saloon, wood grey, dead, and dry. Boots thudding, grey coat swishing around his heels, Kent stalks toward the bar where a few bottles of alcohol have survived the scavengers, swiping a hand over his sweaty head as he rips the small swinging door that closes off the bar free, grabbing an armful of booze. He turns, eyeing Kahm and K.K. facing off, biting down on the cork of a cheap scotch and ripping it free.
He takes a moment to have a drink - about a third of the bottle.
Kent then resumes his work, hurling the bottles away from him in twos and threes, letting them shatter against the walls. The dry wood greedily soaks up the alcohol as he looks left and right, holding an arm up and tilting it obscurely.
<Pose Tracker> K.K. has posed.
Sparse remnants of electricity crackle at the white surface of K.K.'s armor as they bear down upon Kahm Yugh. They are relentless and unyielding, like a force of nature made manifest on earth, in the first stroke of their weapons. A blade for a blade, the edge of one of their short swords deflects off the sharpened tip of Kahm's, sparks raining in that dead space that lies between them.
Those blows are always aimed somewhere fatal enough to require immediate defense. The knight does not feint, does not hesitate. As if everything they do was driven by some sort of absolute conviction.
And it makes the way those blows seem designed to push them both further inward -- to drive -all- of them deeper into the ghost town of Ironbell -- all the harder to notice in the heat of the moment. Every way they move. Every moment they concede ground.
Ever deeper.
The lifeless, stale air of Ironbell fills with the sound of weapons creating their melody of violence, sparks of etheric lightning punctuating points between moments. Kahm goes without support; but if K.K. notices the absence of Kent as the Black Tie absconds to the dilapidated remains of the saloon, they say nothing.
They simply press their assault on Kahm all the harder for the man's absence.
Deeper. Deeper. Until they are near the saloon that Kent has made his temporary home. Until Kahm is countering with words laced with resolve and blades forged from lightning.
"You know not what your strength is." The first blade comes, and the bite of his strike is caught with merciless certainty between K.K.'s own blades. They hold it there, firmly --
--until that second, ether-forged weapon drives into the surface of K.K.'s armor, igniting it in a deep charge of electricity that vomits their wild, branching arcs across white armor. The damage is mainly seen within the way the Trial Knight convulses violently within the throes of that assault, in the sputtering spark of that blade that drives a deep furrow through the plating of armor almost -- almost -- deep enough to reach whatever might amount for flesh beneath.
But through it all? ... The Trial Knight holds fast to their blades. Almost through sheer force of overwhelming will, they seek to keep Kahm's physical weapon pincered long enough through that charge -- until they -break- free by -snapping- Kahm's blade upward in an effort to shove him backwards and potentially disarm him. And if he goes stumbling, if he is driven back --
--he will have all of a precious handful of seconds to react between the moments K.K.'s swords break apart and reform --
--into the long, elegant point of a gold-edged speartip, driving forward to impale him.
Their voice, an electrified hiss amidst the metallic warble.
"... A child, denying potential in favor of swaddling himself in the comforts of another's laurels."
<Pose Tracker> Kahm Yugh has posed.
Kahm is quite unaware of Kent's sudden disappearance, K.K.'s assault such that the Major dares not divert an iota of his attention to anything but keeping the knight's strikes at bay. In terms of strength, will, and fury....the trial knight was commendable. Exemplary, even. The force of will behind those blows was not the domain of the ignorant, and the knowledge sat uncomfortably with him.
The steel blade was held by the two, but the non-blade strikes hard and mercilessly, unmaking itself in coruscating storm of electric violence across the trial knight's form even as it's shaped managed-nearly-to piece that seemingly impregnable armor before it vanished. If K.K. had seen a taste of Kahm's honed fury in his swordplay, the bite of that second blow is like an ocean of rage boiling over, a spasm of chaotic hatred focused and channeled imperfectly, whiplashes of lightning occasionally striking across stones and dirt.
Everything was a killing blow, no punches were pulled. Still, the knight stands defiantly alive, blades thrusting up and forcing Kahm's blade away and out of his hand. It was no easy thing, to disarm him so, and Kahm recovers just in time to make a quick analysis: between his sword on the ground, K.K.'s lunging spear, and the just-realized absence of Kent.
There, in the same interstitial pressure Azazel had forced upon him, Kahm made a choice.
He tries to dodge to the right. Not quickly enough this time, as the point of the spear catches him in the flank and pierces through layers of intermeshed clothing and composite armor, the burn of the point embedding deeply in flesh. A white, hot point of pain lit in Kahm's mind like a small sun, unquenched but not-unfamiliar warmth the spread around the wound. That was the first second.
In the next, one hand grabbed the haft of the spear as his feet set him against the knight, leaning forward in rebellion against the pain. The trial knight's assessment burned hotter now in his thoughts than the throbbing agony of the spear wound.
That hatred will be your greatest strength, but only if you keep it in check. I have wrought the cage, but you must forever guard the prisoner.
Power hums in the palm of the hand that holds the spear, but that wasn't the way of it this time. Kahm's other hand moves deftly, coming up with his sidearm, thrust forward as close the point-blank range of the knight's helm as his positioning allows, grip and aim unperturbed.
"You are not fit to be my judge!" He asserts, the cracking report of repeated gunfire punctuating his every renouncing word.
<Pose Tracker> Kent Hauch has posed.
Kent Hauch is not motivated by the same lofty ideals as Kahm Yugh or anything like the inscrutable K.K.. Ostensibly, he is here because to have refused to come would have put his indispensible alliance with Gebler at risk - but in actuality, he sees someone placing themselves arrogantly above him and it reminds him of everything he'd dragged himself above since his childhood.
Nothing can stand above Hauch. He will pull them into the slag.
With this singular bloody-mindedness, Kent tilts his arm one more time, looks at the sagging support pillars, selects one, and gives it a single solid kick. The shock travels up his shin as wood cracks and snaps, the entire saloon shifting. He steps back, clicking Red River back into place, muttering irritated curses to himself as he finds the right angle.
"Can't bloody spark, you say. Fookin' bellend. Show you a spark."
The chamber and barrel of Red River start to glow a blinding white.
"Got a spark right up yer polished white arse, don't I?"
The Core Bullet fires with a sharp hiss, punching through the pillar at an upward angle, flying out through the back of the saloon like a star jumping toward the clouds.
All at once, the dead building explodes into flame, the outrageously hot bullet catching the alcohol-soaked wood and blasting a hole through the support pillar. Kent pulls his jacket over his face as he bears down and stomps hard, crushing through the wood on the floor, dropping into the storage cellar beneath and pulling on Dinoginos's solidity once more as the flaming wreck sloughs toward K.K. and Kahm.
Kent trusts Kahm to have expected this to eventually happen.
<Pose Tracker> K.K. has posed.
<poem> When mining towns grow desperate, they delve deep. They spread wide. Even the town itself is not safe. Mine shafts spread wide underneath the very foundation of everything they built, ironically undermining their stability in an attempt to ensure it.
Desperation mires this place. It feeds the dissonance that wreathes this dead town well. The heat vapors cling and tingle with the sentiments of those who had given up hope and left this land to rot. The dead and buried forgotten by their kin. It makes it an excellent breeding ground for that Malevolence. But more importantly...
It makes it an excellent location for a trap to be sprung.
Skewered upon the end of that spear, bright scarlet drips down pristine white metal warmed upon the heat of Kahm's life. The Trial Knight holds fast, their faceless gaze bearing down upon Kahm within relentless silence. In one second, a single droplet of blood falls thick from the haft of their spear.
In the second, Kahm Yugh is gripping that weapon to try to hold it fast...
... as he presents K.K. with the barrel of his gun.
You are not fit to be my judge!
BANG
The first shot goes off just as the spear in Kahm's hands disperses into a million shards of light. Metal shatters, bits of white alloys glinting in the cloud-blotted sky as the Trial Knight is shot point-blank. They bend backwards, as the second shot drags across the surface of that helm, digging an ugly scar against what remains unshattered.
The third, open air, as the Trial Knight flips backwards with the momentum of the first, heels -screaming- across cracked earth into a purposeful position--
--just as the building behind them ignites in a glorious inferno that consumes every pathetic excuse for support that carcass of a saloon had left to it. Their head snaps up towards the shadow looming high. They see the tilt of the building. They lunge.
Got a spark right up yer polished white arse, don't I?
Too late.
CRA-KOOM
The sound of the flaming wreckage that was once a bar COLLAPSES upon K.K.. Support beams, walls, rooftop, flaming pillars all bury the knight within their fiery wrath as K.K. disappears within the ruin. It burns brightly, greedily, even after the thick plumes of dust that kick up and glut the skies begin to finally settle. Wood creaks, trembles, cracks. Rubble falls like an inconsistent drizzle off of splintered architecture.
And it all burns so brilliantly...
"'Tis not I who judges you."
... but not brilliantly enough.
The voice comes, when everything has settled. Just as it seems safe to come out of hiding. Just as Kahm and Kent can begin to regroup.
Just as the wreckage -explodes- away and the conflagration swatted aside with the rise of the Trial Knight from that ruin like they were born to it. Armor scorched, melted -- and helmet cracked open violently along its left side, revealing a small stream of crimson scarlet blood, the small sign of burns...
... and a golden eye that burns as unquenchably as the sun itself.
"'Tis yourselves."
Their hands rise high. Light coalesces.
"You who have known naught but the caress of the heavens. You, who thinks himself dragged above the depths you are yet chained to."
And Kent and Kahm only have a single second.
"Know you the mire of the pit!"
A single second before that light condenses into the form of an improbably immense hammer that SMITES the very earth with titanic force.
A single second to feel the ground tremor, quake, and fissure beneath them...
... a single second to realize the foundation of this land has been tunneled into an oblivion of mine shafts before the ground beneath them cracks and collapses.
To cast them into the unknowable dark of the pit that has been just below their feet.