idolpro | Shrike's Heart (#4)

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Shrike's Heart (#4)

The woman before you is beautiful—fair of features, with lovely golden skin and luxurious long black hair, petite. You have the immediate and distinct impression that she's just let go of your hand, and she steps back, and smiles.

It's not quite a happy smile.

"I'm sorry," she says. "There's just nothing I can do, as things are. But the way is there; it just needs to be lit."

You open your mouth—maybe to say something, or to express confusion—but you have to cough, and taste something metallic, spattering black blood onto the ground in front of you. Then you realize—blood seeps from opening wounds in your arms, your chest, your stomach, your face. It rims your eyes and trails from your nose and you feel like you're dissolving—

—and you fall through the ground like it's the surface of a lake, and go down, down, down.

> Wake Up

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Ama-- Flower mom! The last of the town's barricaded in the mansion!

[Oh, are we air-comboing a man now? Griffin can get behind that.

He leaps up into the air, opens up Crow with a string of vicious slashes, before spinning in a living, vertical buzzsaw, cleaving him over and over and over until they both slam into the earth.]

[ He's faster, but you're the more skilled combatant by far, and also you're all stunting. He seems to have an endless arsenal of knives at his disposal, but—

maybe this place doesn't actually want him to win.

the glaive slices through his light armor, rendering it nearly useless; he slashes back, but it's only a shallow wound. he's on the defensive, and realizing he's outnumbered.

he manages to roll out of the way of Griffin, Buzzsaw of Death, but still gets clipped, his tunic opening up in a sea of red gashes. he's clearly weakening, but this seems to egg on his bad personality. ]

Come on, come on! This is great! Why let it stop with me, if you're like that? It never stops, anyway. Blood begetting blood begetting blood—

[Called by the sounds of battle, Cardigan shifts from sprinting to bounding into the fray like a ram, sword already aimed in a center mass strike with all the frantic energy of their run behind it.]

It is time for you to stop. [gentle. inexorable. he draws his sword from the parasol and attacks, all unearthly grace almost like dancing but barely any strength, trying to at least get rid of the last of Crow's armor, to clip his (figurative) wings.

maybe there isn't much he can do, but there is something he can do to make this better. a better world, without this violent man in it, and one more step towards-]

[ Okay you know what.

You all seem to have this pretty handled and that is going to be one very dead man.

While everyone is busy he's going to go try to open the door to the mansion. ]

[ the door to the mansion is still barred from the inside. you can hear the faint sounds of voices, alarmed, unsure what's going on. ]

Oh come the fuck on --

[ Are there any windows he can reach? He's going to try something. ]

[ there are; there's a number of ground-level windows within easy reach. ]

[ He sure is going to pick up a stone and throw it at a window to break it. ]

Can't believe this is how I'm going to end up breaking and entering...

[ this is how you're going to end up breaking and entering. you find a decent-sized stone and yeet that thing through the window with all of your strength 2, and it shatters because real glass is actually very fragile.

also people are screaming now. ]

[ Rip window, Eclipse is climbing in and holding up his hands to show he is unarmed.

Maybe he should have taken into account people would be panicking though, whoops. ]

-- Excuse me!

[ there's a general sort of pause as people see how small and unarmed you are; a man in roughly the center of the room who seems somewhat more richly-dressed and well-fed than the others still recoils, though. A woman nearby volunteers, skeptically— ]

Who the hell're you?

[ Ah, that sure is suspicious man, huh. He looks back outside the window to check that the battle is over, then -- ]

The one who's here to tell you all that there's an extremely dead would-be assassin outside. I suggest that if any of you want to leave, now would be a good time.

Re: THE BATTLEFIELD

handpuppets - 2020-02-22 07:45 (UTC) - Expand

Re: THE BATTLEFIELD

inspiteful - 2020-02-22 07:54 (UTC) - Expand

[ Cardigan arrives on the scene and—no one expecting that, and, in the moment after Persephone slices through the last of Crow's armor, they just—absolutely run him through. Blood blossoms around the wound, soaking through his tunic and running down his front, and he looks down, a little disbelievingly. ]

's funny; I didn't see it ending this way...

[ and then he staggers for the last time, and falls face-first to the ground, knives falling from his nerveless fingers. ]

Oh look, I did find a tool.

[Griffin kicks him for good measure.]

You.

[will shake the blood off his blade and sheathe it in the parasol. once Griffin is done kicking him, will kneel down next to Crow's body and trace a necromantic symbol on his forehead, the familiar one to ensure that he passes into Lethe. and closes his eyes.]

...may you be better in your next lifetime.

Edited 2020-02-22 07:21 (UTC)

[ Amaranth looks down at the man's fallen body and sighs, then cleans the blood from her blade. ]

...A pity. He surely would have lasted longer, if he were not so sorely outnumbered.

[ a pause; then, turning to Ǵ̷͟ŕ̢͢i̕͟f͘҉̵͜f̢́í̷́n̷̨̧̨ ] "Flower Mom," really?
—In any event, can you give us a few more details on what's going on here? As well as what name we should be calling you right now.

[Shrugs apologetically] Heat of the moment. I can go by Tsuba.

[He taps the big mansion doors,]

The head honcho the army's looking to take out is holed up in there - along with all the other survivors in the city. Seems like he's using'em as meat shields.

Sounds like a piece of shit, but. We can't let everyone else meet the same fate as the poor fucks out in the field.

...[that is definitely a man he wants to murder too.] I, ah, see. Of course he is.

[ though, funny you should mention that, because there's some sounds of scuffling from inside the mansion, and a little bit of shouting, and then there's a creak and the doors open—

people come pouring out, some making a mad dash past you, others looking around uncertainly. some are children or infirm. there's one man calling after them, leaning on the door frame, at the end. ]

[turning to face him, at the end]

Re: THE BATTLEFIELD

handpuppets - 2020-02-25 17:58 (UTC) - Expand

Re: THE BATTLEFIELD

worthathousand - 2020-02-26 00:19 (UTC) - Expand

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gigadevilbreaker - 2020-02-26 00:28 (UTC) - Expand

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forgottenmercy - 2020-02-26 01:07 (UTC) - Expand

Re: THE BATTLEFIELD

handpuppets - 2020-02-26 02:23 (UTC) - Expand

Re: THE BATTLEFIELD

inspiteful - 2020-02-26 02:49 (UTC) - Expand

Re: THE BATTLEFIELD

worthathousand - 2020-02-26 02:58 (UTC) - Expand

Re: THE BATTLEFIELD

handpuppets - 2020-02-26 04:16 (UTC) - Expand

Re: THE BATTLEFIELD

gigadevilbreaker - 2020-02-26 07:26 (UTC) - Expand

Re: THE BATTLEFIELD

worthathousand - 2020-02-26 09:39 (UTC) - Expand

Tsuba, then. [ it sounds familiar, though she can't quite place where she's heard it ]
"Amakura" will do for me—it is my family name.

And I agree. The way that man fought... he was some sort of exalt; he'd easily have slaughtered the lot of them, had you not struck back.

Okay... I'm sure I know what an exalt is, but. Uh, run it by me again just in case.

Oh—ah.

I imagined it would have come up by now, if you've been witness to Shrike's memories.
Exalts are the Princes of the Earth—former mortals who have been empowered by the elemental dragons or by the gods.

That power is what gives us the strength to match gods and armies. And, ah... [ a pause, realizing something ] ...given how we slew that would-be assassin, you and [ lowering her voice for their sake ] Cardigan may be exalts here, too.

[ speaking of which: hey ST, did it feel like she was channeling essence in that combat? ]