2020-01-11: The Devil vs the Dragon
- Log: The Devil vs the Dragon
- Cast: Ida Everstead-Rey, Pearl
- Where: Klein Port Ward
- Date: January 11, 2020
- Summary: A peaceful night in Klein is disrupted when a masked assailant strikes at one of Guild-Galad's wealthy.
=============================<* Klein Port Ward *>============================== Gateway to the rest of Filgaia, bursting with goods from ports around the world, the Port Ward of Klein City has all the sights and scents one might expect of a region on the sea and populated by sailors. Occupying the least rocky terrain and the most favorable access to the coast in the area, it has capacity for many ships all at once, and is always abuzz with officials checking goods and manifests and trying to ensure that taxes, duties, and laws are properly observed in trade... though they are not always successful. Given the quantity of travel here, there are many inns and common houses and other businesses catering to those who come and go, and the sight of the Central Ward up at the top of the cliffs nearby can provide the sense that the whole ward is under a watchful eye. To the paranoid, anyway--for the most part, matters are smooth, though there's a significant local police force that seems to some to exist mostly to break up the fights between bored men and women of the sea on leave. It's said that the markets here have at least a little something from all over the world, though perhaps most popular are textiles: with the ocean so close to the cliffs, the ports grow quite chilly at night. BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nj2d8U-CO9E
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
It's a lovely evening in Klein Ward. The sky is darkening, and gentle snowfall dusts the ground with powdery white. Gaslamps glow on the sides of the road, illuminating passers-by--all bundled up, all with somewhere to be. Ida Everstead-Rey is no exception. With her face all but hidden by a scarf and hood, she fits right into the anonymous crowd. She carries nothing with her as she walks down the street, passing a row of public houses. The sounds of carousing filter out of open doors: clinking glasses, raised voices, the occasional musical instrument or bawdy tavern song.
Up ahead, the Endeavor sits at port, lights glowing from behind its portholes. The little yacht is Ida's home away from home, and she's headed there after a visit to a publishing-house, and a hot meal. Her eyes scan the street around her, nevertheless--there are worse parts of town, but Ida has learned not to let her guard down.
DC: Ida Everstead-Rey switches forms to Martial Artist Ida!
<Pose Tracker> Pearl has posed.
Darkening, but not completely dark. The light lingers, a little too long for some. A figure clad in black stands atop the roof of a warehouse as she watches those who travel through the docks. Her chosen target had made an appearance, finally. There had been many interesting fighters in that clash in Spira. Now was the time to test them herself.
There are no words as she leaps from the roof, and descends upon Ida. There is the lightest sound of feet hitting ground, before the attacker lashes out with a swift kick for the back of Ida's knee, and already moving to drive an open palm strike into the side of her neck.
It's a vicious opening gambit, but if Ida can't survive this, then she wasn't worth pursuing in the slightest, and her death is deserved, as far as the assassin is concerned.
GS: Pearl has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Umbral Blitz! GS: Pearl has completed her action. GS: Ida Everstead-Rey takes a glancing hit from Pearl's Umbral Blitz for 66 hit points! GS: Riposte! applied to Pearl! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey's Force Evade activates! GS: FP up!
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida walks past the mouth of an alley. The smell of garbage wafts out, carried on the wind--she wrinkles her nose, and hastens her steps. Her vision is narrowed by her hood, and her hearing is muffled. Pearl's footsteps blend perfectly into the ambient sounds of the streetscape.
CRACK
A foot slams into the back of Ida's knee. The impact sends a spike of agony up her thigh, and down her calf. A cry of surprise tears free from her lips as she stumbles forwards, staying upright by virtue of a last-second shift in weight. She raises both arms, one warding off strikes to the chest, the other stopping at neck-height. Ida's hand grips her attacker's, and directs it away, answering brutal force with fluid movement. Pearl's open palm races past Ida's face with inches to spare.
The world slows down just enough for Ida to start processing details--the unrelenting aggression in her foe's movements, the cut and color of her uniform. She realizes that she recognizes them. Ida drives one palm at Pearl's right shoulder, and the other at her stomach. She flows from these initial strikes into a steady rhythm of flicks and palm-blows. It's the same movements she employed in the fight with Maekir--the same ones Maekir himself employed.
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Pearl with Open Palm! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has gained 1 Combo! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action. GS: Pearl takes a glancing hit from Ida Everstead-Rey's Open Palm for 68 hit points! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey assumes the Stoic stance!
<Pose Tracker> Pearl has posed.
Pearl feels her second strike slide past, but it's too late to abort. She tries to shift her footing, but it's too late. Ida's first palm strike drives into Pearl's shoulder, and and there's a satisfying impact. The second palm comes for her stomach, and she contorts her body so that the second strike grazes her. She starts moving backwards, forced to concede ground or take a hit. So concede ground she does, each successive palm getting closer and closer, even as she twists and dodges.
This is is an unacceptable situation. As the next strike comes, instead of dodging, Pearl moves to take the strike, and sweeps down to try and grab Ida's outstretched arm. She then attempts to trying lift the arm up, all in the service of setting up for the next attack.
And then with her free hand in a claw strike, she swipes at Ida- arm trapped or not- to rake at Ida's chest with dark purple ki. It cuts and tears, flesh and ki both. It's corrosive and horrible, something you don't want anywhere near you, unless you're wielding it.
GS: Pearl has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Inverse Claw! GS: Pearl has gained 2 Combo! GS: Pearl has completed her action. GS: Ida Everstead-Rey takes a glancing hit from Pearl's Inverse Claw for 79 hit points! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey's Force Evade activates! GS: FP up!
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Pearl's gambit pays off. Her hand closes around Ida's forearm, wrenching it upwards in what would be--should be--a disabling maneuver. A too-familiar heat pours into Ida's shoulder, the sensation of muscle and bone being pulled in ways they were not meant to go. A second sort of heat flows in to replace it as her Hyadean graft takes up the slack. Ida's arm simply flows with Pearl's wrenching tug, bending unnaturally. Rather than resist, Ida moves with it.
It's barely enough to keep Pearl's next strike from hitting her dead-on. Claws shred into Ida's coat, cutting through both clothing and the flesh beneath. Sickly purple energy flows into her body, and a sudden wave of painful, queasy dizziness comes with it. Behind her, a drunk starts to cheer.
Ida's arm snaps free from Pearl's grip. She staggers backwards, slamming into a pile of crates stacked at the dockside. She presses a hand to her wounds, but she already knows what's happened before she sees it--droplets of crimson and quicksilver cling to her fingers. "Who are you?" Ida chokes out. "Who sent you?!"
At the same time, Ida's other hand blurs into her coat, and comes up clutching something--an ARM that gleams with a Demonbone patina. She aims and fires on instinct, the sharp crack of gunfire echoing down the street. A round flies at Pearl's center-mass, trailing a cloud of thick, choking smoke. It clings to Ida's body, a shroud of burned gunsmoke powder.
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Pearl with Ebon Devil Cloud! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action. GS: Pearl takes a glancing hit from Ida Everstead-Rey's Ebon Devil Cloud for 55 hit points! GS: Riposte! applied to Ida Everstead-Rey!
<Pose Tracker> Pearl has posed.
That's an unexpected response. Human arms do not bend that way. They also don't bleed silver. "Interesting." As Ida snaps free, Pearl tries to move to press the attack. This is a mistake. As Ida's arm cracks up, she is forced to abort and flip backwards. The rounds strikes a leg, tearing cloth and flesh alike, blood sailing into the air.
She is lucky that she didn't take the full hit. It slams into the wall of a one of the warehouses forming the alley. Bricks shatter, and a smoking hole is left in the building. Pearl makes a rough landing, but she doesn't make a sound. Standing on that should hurt, right?
It's impossible to see anything under the mask except the cold grey eyes staring at Ida. "That information will only benefit you should you live. Make surviving your first concern."
And then Pearl flips backward again, to impact against the wall and launch herself at Ida, that purple ki surrounding her foot. This isn't just the cutting ki of before. Instead, this eats away at an opponents spirit, slowly and cruelly.
GS: Pearl spends 1 Combo on Poison! GS: Pearl has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Shadow Dragon Kick! GS: Pearl has gained 2 Combo! GS: Riposte expired! GS: Pearl has completed her action. GS: Ida Everstead-Rey completely evades a hit from Pearl's Shadow Dragon Kick! GS: FP up!
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
The blood is damning. Even more damning is the fact that it stops a few seconds later--an odd, silvery flickering catches the light as hundreds of minute strands stretch across the gashes. Beneath them, blood vessels constrict, very nearly sealing off. Ida barely has to think about the whole process; by now, it's almost second nature to her.
That gunshot bought Ida time, but it's also attracted attention. Some of the passers-by are staring, but even more have noticed that this is more than some barroom brawl that spilled into the street. The smarter among them are running. Someone is shouting, drunkenly, for the constables. Ida's eyes narrow in the thin line of face between her hood and scarf. She sets her jaw, and raises both hands.
Pearl's reprisal is lightning-fast. Adrenaline surges through Ida's system, and her Hyadean neural architecture takes over. The Shadow Dragon assassin slows before Ida's eyes until she's almost moving at normal speed. Even that's a narrow thing. Ida's stomach lurches as her foe's lifeforce sharpens and changes--whatever art she's using, it's not right. As Pearl flies at her foot-first, she throws herself to the side, hitting the ground belly-first and skidding across the snowy street. The wash of chi just barely grazes Ida's back, and even that light touch is enough to make her recoil inwardly. Ida digs her fingers into the cobblestones to arrest her skid, plants her feet, and then shoves herself upright. Without so much as a word, she lunges at Pearl, driving a fist for the other woman's jaw. As she strikes, her own lifeforce boils from her knuckles, surrounding her hand in a brilliant aura--firey red-orange, surrounded by pale golden-white.
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey spends 1 Combo on Gatling, loading 1 into Gatling! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Pearl with Unbroken Lotus Fist! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action. GS: Pearl completely evades a hit from Ida Everstead-Rey's Unbroken Lotus Fist! GS: FP up! GS: Your next attack with the Sneak flag will display with the name Inverse Strike.
<Pose Tracker> Pearl has posed.
The problem with an attack like this is that once you're committed, you can't stop it. She goes past Ida's back as the Ida seems to move unexpectedly faster. That fraction of a second is all that it takes go wide, and Pearl slides across the ground and rolls up. She notices the call for the guards, and smirks under the mask. "Will you finish this before they arrive? Or shall I add more bod-"
She cuts off mid sentence, as Ida comes in fast with a powerful strike at Pearl's jaw. She sways backward, and the fist misses her by a fraction of an inch. She can feel the burning flame of Ida's aura, the golden white that surrounds it. It burns, a more pure and righteous flame than Pearl's own.
It disgusts her. Rage is visible in her grey eyes.
In the moment that she sways back, she leans into it. What was an evasion becomes a backwards flip kick, as her body is suddenly wreathed in shadow, the magic that is Althena's Blessing. It's a swift, brutal attack, but the range is difficult to judge.
GS: Pearl has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Inverse Strike! GS: Sneak! You have gained 1 Combo! Only you see this message. GS: Pearl has gained 1 Combo! GS: Pearl has completed her action. GS: Sneak! The true nature of Pearl's attack becomes clear! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey takes a glancing hit from Pearl's Umbral Ambush for 89 hit points! GS: FP up!
<Pose Tracker> Pearl has posed.
Something is wrong. The woman that launched the kick dissipates into shadow. Where the hell is she?
Coming from the side at full speed, her hand wreathed in purple ki. Rather than closing into a fist, she drives forward with the tips of her fingers, driving toward's Ida's liver- or where it's supposed to be on a human. An attack that, even without the ki of the shadow dragon behind it, can drop a human in pain on it's own.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida doesn't want to admit it, but Pearl has a point. The longer this fight goes on, the greater the risk of bystanders ending up in danger. Not that the assassin gives Ida any time to consider the matter. The martial artist bobs back, twisting her upper body out of the way as Pearl's foot races at her jaw. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees movement, and feels the flow of that sickening energy. Sensing her mistake a moment too late, Ida twists on a heel, and crosses her arms to guard her chest. Pearl's strike glances off her elbow, and then clips Ida's side. Even that glancing strike sends spikes of agony through her flesh--but it's not the crippling wound Pearl intended for it to be. It's as if she struck armor hidden beneath Ida's skin.
It might just remind her of when she fought Maekir.
"Ghk," Ida says, eloquently. She twists away from Pearl, her gaze flicking about before settling on the pile of crates. Heat flows down Ida's legs as her lifeforce twists and coils in her muscles--and she leaps for it, alighting on the corner of the uppermost crate. A sharp kick sends the stack toppling, and Ida springs upwards, letting the crates fall on her assailant!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Pearl with Crates!!! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action. GS: COUNTER! Pearl counterattacks Ida Everstead-Reywith Counter Attack! GS: Sneak! The true nature of Ida Everstead-Rey's attack becomes clear! GS: Pearl takes a solid hit from Ida Everstead-Rey's Devil's Draw for 168 hit points! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey's Stoic stance ends. She enters the Avenger stance! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey takes a glancing hit from Pearl's Counter Attack for 95 hit points! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey's Force Evade activates! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey enters CONDITION GREEN!!
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
By now, drawing an ARM is so natural to Ida that she can do it in mid-air. Devil's Due all but blurs into her hands, and she takes aim with her sixth sense as well as her eyes. Ida finds the very center of the seething, violent aura that is Pearl's chi, and fires!
<Pose Tracker> Pearl has posed.
That metallic impact, that armour so hard that you would expect something bulky and obvious. Pearl draws back her hand, aching slightly from the impact. "What are you, I wonder?"
The assassin sees the crates crashing down, and chooses not to dodge. Instead, she launches herself upwards, aiming to smash through the crate with her, and catch Ida off guard.
This puts her right in the path of the blast from Devil's Due. It slams into her, and she fires a blast of key reflexively to try and block it. She's too slow, and it flies for Ida instead.
The blast drives her into the ground, the hard brick ground of the docks. The ground shatters under her, leaving a small crater.
Is she finally down?
She stands up, answering that question. "Very well. Let us see if you can prove your worth." Pearl stands still for but a moment, and that purple ki surrounds her hand again. This time, it is concentrated and more corrosive. More power behind it, encased in one hand.
And in one smooth motion, she drives towards Ida's center of mass with the strike, full power behind it. A maneuver that might give away who she is.
"Shadow Dragon Palm!"
GS: Pearl has activated a Force Action! GS: You have activated the Force Action Full Clip! GS: Pearl spends 4 Combo on Headshot and Gatling, loading 2 into Gatling! GS: Pearl has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Shadow Dragon Palm! GS: Pearl has gained 1 Combo! GS: Pearl has completed her action. GS: Ida Everstead-Rey takes a solid hit from Pearl's Shadow Dragon Palm for 193 hit points! GS: Cripple! applied to Ida Everstead-Rey! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey enters Critical health and gains 25 FP! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has Fallen! She is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida wasn't expecting that counterattack. Pearl's chi blast blows clean through the crate, splintering it with an echoing crack. Bits of wood and metal clatter to the dockside--whatever was inside is now shrapnel. The blast keeps going; it strikes Ida head-on, slamming onto her as she alights on the rooftop. Her feet skid across the snow-covered tiles, and slip out from under her. Ida falls forwards, and slams into the roof. Her breath rushes from her lungs in a burst of white vapor.
As she scrambles to her feet, terror ignites inside Ida's chest--the kind she hasn't felt since Macalania. It animates her. Ida twists around as she hears a second set of feet on the rooftop--
Pearl's open palm slams into Ida's torso, head-on. Purple-black chi crawls across her frame, and everything goes white. Ida's body tries to scream, but there is no breath in her lungs--Pearl just drove the air out of them, and each time she tries to breathe, all she feels is a horrible, agonized seizing. Her legs go limp beneath her.
Ida collapses to the rooftop, face contorted in a rictus of agony.
<Pose Tracker> Pearl has posed.
As the ki leaves Pearl, she returns to battle stance. She waits for the counter attack. It doesn't come. She walks over to Ida, and kneels down next to her. "Is that it?" She asks.
The assassin reaches down to grab Ida by the back of the head and pulls her up to look at her.
"Is this really all you have!?" She yells, as she hauls Ida up, shifting her grip to her throat. It's crushing, further limiting any breathing. "Is that all it takes to finish you!?" She gets angrier and louder, driving a fist into Ida's solar plexus.
"Pathetic!" Her fist drives into Ida again, punctuating each word. "Weak! Worthless! Useless!" A wolflike growl rattles out of her.
"I have precious little time here to waste on the weak. I am done with you."
And then she swings out with a roundhouse kick, sending Ida towards the sea, a ruthless and brutal strike.
"Drown. It's a better death than you deserve."
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
'Is that it?'
Ida's mouth opens. Part of the blurry mess that is her world resolves into Pearl's masked face. She offers no immediate resistance as Pearl's fingers tangle in her hair, and haul her upright. Then those fingers are tightening around her throat--for a moment, she's seeing her assailant, and remembering the Watcher. Ida raises both hands, scrabbling against Pearl's grip--her fingers lengthen and sharpen, but any damage she's likely to do is accidental.
Pearl does not relent. Even with that selective armoring, Ida's battered, weakened body can only offer so much resistance.
'Pathetic! Weak! Worthless! Useless!'
Behind Ida's eyes, something else flickers to life. Memories of similar agony flit through a nascent consciousness.
...Berserk stands over him, bellowing with laughter.
"Is that the best you can do, runt?! I oughtta feed you to the compounder, see if it can make a better warrior than you!"
Impact after impact hits home. Pearl declares that she is done, and slams a foot into their ribs with enough force to lift them off the roof and send them flying across the street. They feel pain, and chill air, and then the sudden shock of freezing water. Bubbles rise up around them.
...no...
...not like this...
Ida's body sinks beneath the surface. Within a minute, all that's left is a slick of blood.
FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER
A pair of women stand aboard the prow of the Endeavor. One of them, an older woman in a naval greatcoat, frowns. "Perhaps she went to ground," says Xenia, the captain of Ida's ship, "but that's not like her."
"I think they're still searching for 'em," says the other woman. Further down the deck, a low, metallic scraping echoes over the waves. "I don't know if one of them was her, but--holy--"
A figure crests the side of the ship, and pitches unceremoniously onto the deck. Ida's face is blue, all but bloodless. The remains of her gloves cling to hands covered in Hyadean biometal. Bright green eyes stare clean through Xenia as her head turns.
Their lips move, creak out something that might be a name.
"...astr..."
Xenia all but tears off her greatcoat, draping it over them. "...can't..." She hefts them up, carries them. The last thing they hear before darkness claims them is the sound of her boots on the deck.