Round Two

[Rattrap]

Damien wasn’t sure what he was doing so far north; he was strolling alongside a river that would eventually span out into the bay, and then the ocean. It was the bay that they had come in after visiting Shadow Moon Isle in search for the dragon; that venture had been a rather complete failure. Damien pretty much expected it to be -- chasing legends was a waste of good time.

But, he went along anyway. Those three were strange, simply put. It was…an experience staying with them for as long as he did. But, after returning in defeat, they had gone their separate ways. Damien didn’t know if Nikolai, Stella Luna, and Roland were still traveling together or not. He didn’t much care, now. Time had moved on, and Damien was an advocate for living in the now.

He found himself north enough to see the sky again; it’d been some time since he had done that last. The stars were out in full numbers, yet many were obscured by the moon’s far brighter glow. It was looking like a full moon; or close to. It got hard to tell when it really neared. Damien kept walking north, indifferent about his first glance of the sky in a while. He was bored.

The ranseur caught the silver light and seemed to light up itself, propped over his shoulder in its usual position, hand clasped not too far from the bottom to hold its balance. The magical crossbow was strapped to his forearm; it was a nuisance anywhere else, getting in the way of his more acrobatic stunts. Besides, as it was, all he needed to do was point his arm at someone and pull the trigger with the other -- that was the joy of the crossbow. There wasn’t actually any bolt to load, no string that needed to be pulled.

His very unused short sword swung gently with his stride, and all six daggers underneath his vest were still of their own accord, moving no more than the vest naturally did. The getup was made to conceal the fact they were there, after all. Damien wasn’t sure if he much cared about that little goal, though.

“Where the hell’s that drow, any way? Audma-whatever. Bastard’s supposed to be big evil. Hopin’ to get a good challenge coming back here. But noooo! What do I get? Some chump bounty hunter with sword tricks. If Big Red doesn’t come back soon, I’m outta here.”

It was after he stopped talking to himself that Damien noticed the noise -- he realized he’d been listening to it halfway through his monologue, but it simply hadn’t clicked until then. The night wasn’t silent -- the crickets were out in full, the river was weaving its soothing noises over every bump, bank or rock. But this was an unnatural sloshing noise.

Damien wasn’t surprised to see the two climbing up the bank from the river. He was surprised to recognize them as the two orcs they’d thrown off the ship some ungodly amount of time ago.

“Geez, have you two been swimming all this goddamned time? It was probably more convenient to die.”

The two glanced up sharply, and they were quite apt to identify the ranseur and the man controlling it. They both drew sabers, not answering to Damien’s quip. Instead, they advanced with nothing but hatred in their eyes.

“Oh, I see how it is. Give a nice warm welcome for your good old buddy, huh? Seriously, though, you two should’ve just stopped swimming and died. It would’ve hurt less.”

Damien undid the straps on the crossbow, tossing it as softly as one could some dozen yards behind him. The grass was abundant here, and the landing was softened. He swung about the ranseur and gestured the two over.

“Well, c’mon, then. Let me show you how all your friends got killed. First-hand, to boot.”

The two obliged, moving forward slowly and cautiously. One headed straight for Damien, and Two started circling. Damien just kept his eye on the one heading straight for him, leaving the other one unchecked. Or, unwatched, anyway. Out of sight, out of mind was far from the mentality.

One roared, and leapt forward. Two did much the same, without the noise, from behind -- the attacks were clear-cut and simple, with intent to maim and kill quickly. Damien swiveled to the side, bringing the ranseur up at opposite angles -- ends moving respectively to parry or bat away the oncoming blades.

It is a simple mathematical property that between any two points, there is a straight line. The ranseur was plenty of straight line to work with.

And so it began.

The two orcs kept to their flank, delivering their blows in a different number of combinations. Damien did his best to keep himself in a straight line between the two - fighting with both ends of the ranseur in too much of a defensive manner. After a minute and a half of that, neither of the orcs had shown any slight interest in backing off, and Damien was getting tired of defense.

“All right, chumps, this ain’t goin’ no where. So I’m gonna have t’ kill you now…”

Two brought his sword down at Damien, One adding in his own simple horizontal slash. The spike-less end of the ranseur was brought up against the horizontal attack, the orc immediately changing his attack to force the pole-arm down. The short man used his grip on the spear as a fulcrum point, adding more force to the spiked end that flew up to meet the other blade, catching it between the spikes. The other end was forced to the ground, One readying himself for the next attack.

Damien hurled himself over his ranseur, gripping to it tightly -- he rolled over it, essentially, spinning it. The sword caught in the spikes was twisted from Two’s grasp, sending it some good distance away. In swinging himself over, his feet moved to assault One, first foot moving to catch the incoming blade, the second delivering its heel to the orc’s jaw. One backed off in recoil, grunting before he stepped into the fray again.

During that miniscule downtime, Two had continued to combat Damien, sword less. The orc ducked under the ranseur as it was thrust for his throat, dashing under the spear to tackle the man holding it. Damien let the pole-arm take its own course, relinquishing his hold, as he leapt into the air, kicking off One just as he returned and using Two’s shoulder as a nice hand-stand point as he flipped cleanly over him; sort of. While One was surprised, as his opponent wasn’t even facing him, Two wasn’t apt to just let the man flip. The orc’s hands shot up and clamped on Damien’s while he was swinging against gravity. Damien’s original course of action prevented, he chose another one -- his legs spun in the air, spinning him as well, and he brought his knees up to drive them into the orc’s back at the end of his ride.

His hand was released, and Two stumbled forward, caught and turned by One towards the sword he was so disarmed of. The orc dashed off to retrieve his weapon, while Damien calmly walked to pick up his.

“So, it looks like we’re two to zip, my lead. You two chums ready to give up yet? No? Well, then, bring it on.”

They began flanking, again, twirling their blades expectantly. Damien figured they weren’t about to simply have a repeat of the beginning of the fight; he’d shown them, well enough, he could face two opponents. Unless they thought of something tricky. Or he thought of something tricky first.

“Y’know, this whole ‘going around behind me’ thing didn’t work out so well for you two last time. But, as I doubt you’re actually listening to me, or if you can even understand me, you’ll probably just go and do it anyway…”

They charged him, yelling, with their blades pointed out to kill. What else would they be doing? Damien fell backwards just before they’d collide with him, driving the ranseur down over him, first, for something to hold onto -- he’d stop, at something like a ten degree angle from the ground, body ridiculously straight -- only his feet touched the ground, and his hands held up most of his weight on the ranseur. A precarious position, for sure, but it allowed the two orcs to clash right above him. And they did, changing their attacks to parry each other, rather than gore each other as Damien had hoped. So they weren’t complete idiots; oh well.

[Rattrap]

Damien swiveled himself again, bringing his right foot over the left to kick Two in the knee cap. He continued spinning, though, and rising simultaneously. Angled, he rose, bringing the ranseur spinning around him -- the blunt end fended off One’s sword, the pointed end made Two jump away to avoid, and the pointed end made a complete round trip as Damien was finally getting properly standing into One’s face, the spikes biting into flesh and promptly ripping through it -- there was a *crack* as it hit the orc in the face, and some not altogether comforting ripping noises as Damien rolled against his own weapon to keep the momentum going.

The orc fell to the ground, cheeks and wall lining torn completely away, leaving half his lower skull revealed and glistening in the moonlight.

Then came Two, sprinting in for a low-going uppercut slash from behind. Damien righted the ranseur, points up, and used it as a supportive ‘spring-board’, if you will, leaping once again into the air and adding to his height by pressing down on the pole-arm as it stood vertically -- not attached to the ground in any way, but Damien did this fast enough that the weapon hadn’t lost its center of gravity.

The orc tried to stop himself, but it was much too late. Damien landed on his shoulders like a small child would get a ride from his father, and threw the ranseur (which he’d kept a hold of once his altitude was greater than that of the top of the weapon, taking it with him) forward, blunt-end down first -- it hit the ground at an angle and immediately began falling, but not before the orc -- aided much by a sudden top-heaviness due to Damien, along with his previous momentum, fell onto it.

The ranseur tore through the orc, severing spine and goring organs alike, ripping his torso out his back as he slid over it. Damien rolled off just about when the orc finally reached the ground and took a look at his work -- the ranseur was covered in guts. He grinned, stepped over the body, and plucked the pole-arm from the mess. Every inch of it was covered in something, but that’s why there was a river nearby. He chucked it down to the bank, preparing to go fetch and wash it as soon as he went off to retrieve his crossbow.

“I told ya guys it wouldn’t work out for ya.”

When he stood back up from picking up his crossbow, Damien was surprised, to say the least, when the blade stabbed through his side, from the back out the front. The blow must’ve missed in some way or another, as that particular spot didn’t have anything vital -- just over to the left, or far left, would’ve done the trick. So Damien wasn’t so surprised, then, when he turned to look at the faceless orc.

“Ouch. That was a cheap blow, guy. That's not a very nice thing to do to an old friend.”

He brought up the crossbow and fired at the orc, point-blank. The setting was, evidently, the earth one, as the orc’s head promptly disintegrated in a splintering mess of bone and rock.

The crossbow was once again tossed aside, and the sword was wrenched from his side, letting the blood flow freely.

“Lovely,” he said, and started working on ways to keep himself alive.