2019-11-20: Struck True
- Log: Struck True
- Cast: Loren Voss, Ivan
- Where: Damzen City - Main Street
- Date: November 20, 2019
- Summary: Ivan happens across Loren, who is seeking information about Odessa, the former recognizes the latter as Solarian. Things come to blows quickly. An intervention prevents the scenario from growing truly unfortunate for all parties.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
Ugh.
Not even a few days into intelligence-gathering and Loren already remembers why he hates doing this. He's pretty sure the last one was having him on. But he still has to do due diligence.
As a captain (a reality that had only really hit home when he'd seen his nameplate, that still is in the process of sinking in and becoming an actual part of his identity) he's got people to supervise now, which would theoretically mean that he could give someone else the dirty work --
Except he'd realized when going through their records that not a single one of them was really suited for recon work (as if he is, ha ha ha) or had experience of much of anything outside of either 'an immediate combat zone' or 'medical ward work'.
He's still a medical officer, which means that his underlings are... also medical officers. He had then after that had a good long consideration about his first year of recon work.
...Which is a good part of the reason why he is here now, alone, and deeply reconsidering his decisionmaking. Five whole days of putting up with this--
And he hasn't learned anything new about Odessa that they don't already know.
And he's going to have to keep doing it.
The sprawl of Damzen City outside the walls makes the main drag look damn civilized by comparison. He's not sure that all of these places are inhabited.
Pushing his glasses up his nose, he pauses a moment outside the door to the ramshackle hovel he's approached. The outfit he'd gotten from that weird tailor -- what was her name? Katherine? -- ended up being a good match for the clothing around here, so at least he probably looks like he fits in.
At least there's that.
He knocks.
...Assuming anyone actually is in here anyway.
<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.
The people who forced Lydia into servitude are remote, unreachable, and shrouded in mystery, leaving Ivan with little more to do about the whole thing than make theatric, impractical vows of setting everybody involved on fire, which he may or may not be sincere about. He's spent a fair amount of time agonizing over the fact that there's nothing for him to do about any of it but aimlessly 'investigate,' hoping some clue about how to find and defeat a highly advanced civilization will drop into his lap.
So when he catches sight of Thomas -- or whoever he is -- just walking around, minding his own business like he isn't part of an evil empire... ... well, just imagine some Kill Bill sirens or something going off in Ivan's head. It's that kind of mood.
It's not until a minute or two has passed, with no one coming to answer Loren's knock, that the ex-assassin decides his moment has come, and drops down from the roof, his arm swinging around to try to hook a knife up against Loren's throat.
"Tell me how to get to Solaris, if you don't all your skin getting melted off your bones today!"
A tongue of flame flicks up in his other hand, so that he doesn't send confusing mixed threat messages or anything.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
Of course no one knocks. He already knew how this was going to play out. He moves to open the door anyway--
Which is naturally when an assassin drops down behind him.
As a point of fact, the basic medical track through Jugend doesn't contain a whole lot of weapons-training. This is because between combat tactics and strategy, ether manipulation, the actual medical training, surface history, language, and all the rest, there's not really a whole lot left in terms of time for it.
But they do get some, and specifically:
Loren's left hand snaps upwards to try and snag Ivan's dagger hand by the wrist. If he catches it, he twists it, attempting to force him to drop the weapon. He's not gentle.
...they get self-defense training as a part of the package.
"What the-- hell do you think you're doing--" he breathes, his gaze snapping over to the flame in the other man's hand.
Fire. That was his--
Whose?
He snaps from the fugue state almost instantly, which is to his credit.
"So that's-- what this is about," he says, still struggling with the the knife hand in some capacity or another, his attention otherwise returning the flame. Defending against this sort of magic is a pain--
"You want to know? Fine!"
He lets a moment pass before he tells Ivan precisely how he can get there.
"You can't. So give it up."
<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.
Ivan's knife hand is captured and diverted, but he doesn't part with the weapon easily, gritting his teeth with a hiss of pain as the joint is twisted, and unleashing the brewing fireball toward Loren in the hopes of causing some combination of harm and distraction and reclaiming his weapon hand to regroup.
"What do you mean, I can't?! You'd better give me something, or I'll roast you just for working with them! Do you have any idea what they did to Lydia? They warped her body... they messed with her identity... they stole her freedom... they crammed a whole other person into her head... they tortured her with some kind of television machine...!" More fire flares to life, this time from Ivan himself, rippling up around him like an aura.
"There's no point in protecting people like that! Unless you were involved in it, yourself..."
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
Loren continues to struggle with the knife.
"I mean that you can't. There's no way for you-- drop the knife already --to get there. Or do you think that we're that stupid?"
Which is then when Ivan reels off the litany of what they did to Lydia.
Is he Lydia's brother? --No, they don't look alike. Friend? ...Boyfriend?
"Some kind of-- nngh, what are you--"
Light, crystalline and hard, erupts about him. The immediate flames roll off the edges of the barrier but it's still close enough and hot enough that he grits his teeth nonetheless.
That was sloppy, he reprimands himself, jaw clenching in a way that presages dental trouble to come if he keeps it up.
"It's none of my business!" he snaps in response, attempting to tread on Ivan's instep. The ludicrousness -- to him -- of the situation hits home. Here he is fighting for his life against some assassin--
And that could be the whole legacy of him right there. Born, fucked up and killed a lot of people, brought shame upon his family, died to a knife in some Emperor-forsaken rats nest.
More than despair, here is fury at that last potential milestone.
"I'm giving you ten seconds to clear off, and then you're dead!"
<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.
Ivan scowls as the fire passes uselessly over the barrier like water pouring over glass.
"Shut up! There's absolutely a way to go there -- you go there, don't you!?" Ivan demands.
Loren stomps Ivan's instep, and his face gives a twitch. While Ivan is hardly immune to pain, he makes it a point of pride not to let it persuade him into slowing down or stopping when he's set his mind on something. And what he's set his mind on is giving some manner of thrashing to the first live person from Solaris he's had a chance to get his hands on since the incident.
There's a flash of his ring, and his knife is replaced by a heavy warhammer that takes shape in his hands in a burst of light, crashing down toward Loren from overhead.
"I'm the one who's killing you, you condescending asshole!"
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
"Not for you there isn't!" he retorts.
Which, technically speaking, is absolutely true.
From the earth or the heavens, you could search Filgaia for a lifetime and never find Solaris.
As a Gebler officer, he knows why but not how. And he wouldn't divulge the first for anything, even certain death.
For someone as shameful as he is, it would be the more dignified option to die before divulging.
Unlike her he'll never get the 'pleasure' of being a traitor. They'd just kill him.
The heat seems to linger on the magical shield for those few moments before it dissipates, evaporating into thin air.
He's still grappling with Ivan when there is abruptly no knife.
He has the impression of something descending at speed. His hand leaves Ivan's wrist, snapping upwards in pure reflex, white light honeycombing outwards in a shield--
He'd done it without looking. Which means he hadn't adjusted for force appropriately. He'd thought, sword.
It's a warhammer.
"Ngh...k," Loren utters approximately, shunting the force of impact only halfway across his shield, the other half of it resonating painfully down along his arm. More power floods into the spell, trying to offset the incoming force and rebalance himself appropriately. How long can he hold this out though--
Teeth still grit, he reaches for his sword with his right hand and as he had once in a practice fight against Leah months and months and months ago
drops
both the shield and himself. He delivers a low, sweeping kick for Ivan's legs, intending to send him sprawling.
"You'll have to get in line first!"
<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.
Ivan sees Loren react with pain, but doesn't get the satisfaction -- or regret -- of the blow connecting with bone. His own frustration deepens. That's when Loren drops, and sweeps a kick out for Ivan's legs. Ivan lets the heavy weapon vanish back into his ring, and springs into a flip, his feet leaving the ground as Loren's kick flies out. He lands in a roll a short distance away and darts a hand into his coat, sending a trio of throwing knives flying toward him. In the rising anger over being unable to land a hit on this man who has the misfortune to be symbolically standing in for Solaris, he's forgotten whether he intended to kill Loren or just scare him. Fire continues to rise up from him in a haze, to no obvious purpose.
"I don't see anyone else here waiting to do it, so I guess I'll do it for them!"
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
Leah had only let him connect that time because it had been a training match.
And because of the nature of her body.
Ivan doesn't grant him the chance to connect; the ex-assassin is away before he can complete the leg sweep. He rises, swiftly, as if to give chase--
And gets an array of knives to the chest for his trouble.
Loren slows to a stop, glancing down at himself. Two of them were glancing shots; the knives are currently wedged in the door to the abandoned shack.
The third one, not so much of a glancing shot. It's stuck somewhere to the left, at an angle in his chest. Probably wedged against a rib, knowing his luck.
Red slowly stains his jacket. This, perhaps, is the last and final straw in today.
"That's it."
He sheathes his sword with a certain finality.
"You're DEAD!"
A crack races its way towards where Ivan now stands, the earth itself rending asunder to surge skywards beneath the other young man--
If he's not quick on the draw, that is.
<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.
Ivan surveys his handiwork, and gives a fierce smile to find that one of the knives struck true. That smile quickly wavers with uncertainty. He really doesn't remember what he wants out of this. Does he want this person to die, or does he just want to be able to prove to himself that Solaris isn't untouchable? He wanted some sort of solution... some sort of angle. Something besides wandering and hoping...
"What the hell kind of a place doesn't have any way to get there?!" he demands.
He's not watching for the next attack, and the ground opens, before erupting beneath him and throwing him high into the air as a sudden spike of rock emerges under his feet. Ivan crashes down again, landing in a jumble of pain. He immediately tries to rise, with limited success. Flame is pouring off of him now in uncoordinated bursts and flares. It is certainly unsafe to approach him at this point, but approaching is unlikely to be Loren's first impulse.
Ivan gives a cry of rage and frustration.
At the very least, the earthquake and pyrotechnics are likely to draw an audience soon, if Loren doesn't take the opportunity to leave.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
"A place that people like you can't touch!" Loren snaps, well and truly furious for the pain in his chest, piled like a cherry atop today's indignities. "Because this is the end for you!"
As oneliners go, it probably needs work, but sometimes, in the heat of the moment--
His focus is elsewhere besides. Sinking into the rock, hauling on its stress, feeding it his own stress, urging it to buckle and rise and rip upwards as he wishes.
There are times when he wants to rip everything apart--
Ivan's cry rings out amidst the violence unwinding as the earth becomes undone.
Flame itself seems to be pouring off of Ivan. Loren, undeterred, advances, his hand on the hilt of his sword. He's going to kill him--
"Oy! What's all this, then?!"
The shout rings out, clear and loud through Damzen's outskirts. There is no mistaking the identity of a voice like that.
Loren hesitates. A small war unfolds within between prudence and pride.
His hand slowly eases off the hilt of his sword. He takes a half-step back.
Then turns and runs in the opposite direction.
Prudence wins. He's already been in jail enough times for one life.