Burly Brawl
You grit your teeth hard enough to send up sparks and give the Hunter's unmoving body a vicious kick.
"Suicide's a fuckin' sin, pissant."
Some scorching invective from Eileen brings you back to reality. Health assessment now, irrational and ultimately unsatisfactory revenge on inanimate object later. You rush over to her side, only to get knocked nearly off your feet by an agitated sweep of her arm.
"I'm fine. I'm fine, you great oaf. Just give me some space."
Recognizing that regeneration is no excuse for being gung-ho with your body parts, you oblige. She fishes in her coat as the footsteps grow closer, seemingly from multiple directions. Once she's found the blood vial she was looking for, you stick your head out the doorframe to survey the situation.
The windowed hallway beyond stretches far in either direction. Through one of said windows, you spy a cavernous foyer, dominated by thick pillars and a chandelier that might as well have "will fall at a dramatically-appropriate time, quite possibly on somebody's head" written on it in impact font. A handful of hooded men, numbers indeterminate, scuttle towards your position from the lower level. Annoying, but not a cause for worry.
The four massive wolf-men flanking them, however...
You lower yourself as much as you can and scoot to allow Eileen room to join you. She's quite spry for having just been soundly biffed by a kraken-in-a-can.
"You good?" you whisper.
"I'm fine. Just lost my cool."
"Right, then. I'm dropping that."
"What?"
Your bayonet's sheared through the chandelier's thin chain before the question mark's made it to your ear. The overweight ornament fulfills its obvious purpose with a delightful crunch, taking out two hooded men and one of the wolves. The remaining rugs-to-be scan the room in a blur of motion before looking directly at your position. You can almost hear their muscles tensing, the tile cracking beneath them as they prepare to jump.
"I'll take the fuzzballs if ye'll take the sonofafuck."
One of the beasts cannons into you mid-sentence like a semi-truck made of shag carpet, taking out a solid chunk of masonry in the process. Eileen shoves her blades into its side before disappearing and, in the resulting confusion, you replace its windpipe and femoral artery with bayonets.
Its piercing blue eyes take a surprising amount of time to dim, and when you kick it away through the gap it made, you note the ragged hole in its brainpan that neither you nor Eileen inflicted.
The remaining two thunder towards you, tearing up chunks of the floor as they close in on you. Unfortunately, they chose to take the long way rather than join their friend, putting a rather long and narrow hallway between you and them while also lining them up for convenient lasering.
The one in front, which unfortunately had its mouth open, goes down almost immediately, while the second one takes enough fire to nearly melt the flesh from its face before collapsing at your feet, smoldering and smoking in decidedly non-appetizing fashion.
You remind yourself that Yumie isn't Korean and thus your planned joke is not only culturally insensitive, which you could live with by itself, but also inaccurate.
On the floor, Eileen's felled another three brainmunchers. The other two circle her warily, weaving complex patterns with their hands and keeping her directly between them while she struggles to normalize her breathing. You're not sure she was ever built for extended fights, but her age hasn't helped.
She's still moving well, thankfully, and the bastards aren't pressing the advantage. She'l be alright oh bloody hell there's a fifth one.
You don't have time to bring the club to bear before the previously-unseen wolf tackles you through the now-exploded window. The two of you land a level down, right in the midst of Eileen's little skirmish. You'd slap yourself for getting blindsided if your arms weren't presently pinned to the ground by several hundred pounds of angry canine.
With a grunt, Eileen shanks it through the throat, but before you can establish your footing, your gangly friends make their move. Arcane light bursts from their hands and slams into the two of you. Your limbs refuse to move despite your best efforts, bound by translucent wisps of heathen magic that, so help you God, somebody's getting burned at the stake for.
One of the two hangs back, still wary, while the other approaches you in the same fashion as the one you PRIDE FC'd earlier and clamps onto your shoulders. Without the ability to properly shift your weight, there's no point in trying to headbutt this one.
But they forgot to lock your jaw.
The thing shrieks as you bite into its face, flesh and bone and ichor crunching between your teeth like the world's most vile Cornish hen. Your limbs now free, you spit its own face in its face before smashing the staggering abomination's head into paste with the club.
You turn and grin at the other one, lips and teeth discolored and bits of skull still dripping from them. You're pretty sure that if it had testicles, they'd be somewhere in its chest cavity by now.
It turns to run, second-guesses itself, and loses its head to Eileen's blades before it has time to process the colossal mistake it made in losing focus.
The two of you sit down and breathe deeply, surrounded by the corpses of blokes with hairy testicles for faces and werewolves with bloody great holes in their think-meats that were apparently pre-existing conditions. You look down and realize you're sitting on the torn remains of a banner; it must have been hanging from the chandelier or the sides of the upper section. You can only make out "PELA RECITAL" on the largest scrap.
"How's that for a story, eh?" you ask your companion. She holds up a finger and peels off her mask, taking great gulping breaths.
"Just be sure," she huffs after a time, "you mention that I saved your clumsy ass twice after you got outsmarted by dogs."
"Hey, I had ta eat one o' these eggheads for ye. Ye wanna see what they taste like?"
She just smiles in return, and this time offers no resistance when you help her to her feet. She keeps a hand on your shoulder as the two of you walk towards the towering green doors that, if your internal compass isn't completely fucked, lead back towards the building's front gate.
"Never thought I'd get old, Anderson," she mutters. "It's hard."
"Happens ta all of us eventually."
"No," she sighs, putting a little more weight on you, "not all of us."
To your annoyance, the doors refuse to budge. Once you're sure Eileen's stable on her feet, you step back and aim the club after a perfunctory knock.
"Hello?" you hear. "Are you human?"
[] Write in...
"Suicide's a fuckin' sin, pissant."
Some scorching invective from Eileen brings you back to reality. Health assessment now, irrational and ultimately unsatisfactory revenge on inanimate object later. You rush over to her side, only to get knocked nearly off your feet by an agitated sweep of her arm.
"I'm fine. I'm fine, you great oaf. Just give me some space."
Recognizing that regeneration is no excuse for being gung-ho with your body parts, you oblige. She fishes in her coat as the footsteps grow closer, seemingly from multiple directions. Once she's found the blood vial she was looking for, you stick your head out the doorframe to survey the situation.
The windowed hallway beyond stretches far in either direction. Through one of said windows, you spy a cavernous foyer, dominated by thick pillars and a chandelier that might as well have "will fall at a dramatically-appropriate time, quite possibly on somebody's head" written on it in impact font. A handful of hooded men, numbers indeterminate, scuttle towards your position from the lower level. Annoying, but not a cause for worry.
The four massive wolf-men flanking them, however...
You lower yourself as much as you can and scoot to allow Eileen room to join you. She's quite spry for having just been soundly biffed by a kraken-in-a-can.
"You good?" you whisper.
"I'm fine. Just lost my cool."
"Right, then. I'm dropping that."
"What?"
Your bayonet's sheared through the chandelier's thin chain before the question mark's made it to your ear. The overweight ornament fulfills its obvious purpose with a delightful crunch, taking out two hooded men and one of the wolves. The remaining rugs-to-be scan the room in a blur of motion before looking directly at your position. You can almost hear their muscles tensing, the tile cracking beneath them as they prepare to jump.
"I'll take the fuzzballs if ye'll take the sonofafuck."
One of the beasts cannons into you mid-sentence like a semi-truck made of shag carpet, taking out a solid chunk of masonry in the process. Eileen shoves her blades into its side before disappearing and, in the resulting confusion, you replace its windpipe and femoral artery with bayonets.
Its piercing blue eyes take a surprising amount of time to dim, and when you kick it away through the gap it made, you note the ragged hole in its brainpan that neither you nor Eileen inflicted.
The remaining two thunder towards you, tearing up chunks of the floor as they close in on you. Unfortunately, they chose to take the long way rather than join their friend, putting a rather long and narrow hallway between you and them while also lining them up for convenient lasering.
The one in front, which unfortunately had its mouth open, goes down almost immediately, while the second one takes enough fire to nearly melt the flesh from its face before collapsing at your feet, smoldering and smoking in decidedly non-appetizing fashion.
You remind yourself that Yumie isn't Korean and thus your planned joke is not only culturally insensitive, which you could live with by itself, but also inaccurate.
On the floor, Eileen's felled another three brainmunchers. The other two circle her warily, weaving complex patterns with their hands and keeping her directly between them while she struggles to normalize her breathing. You're not sure she was ever built for extended fights, but her age hasn't helped.
She's still moving well, thankfully, and the bastards aren't pressing the advantage. She'l be alright oh bloody hell there's a fifth one.
You don't have time to bring the club to bear before the previously-unseen wolf tackles you through the now-exploded window. The two of you land a level down, right in the midst of Eileen's little skirmish. You'd slap yourself for getting blindsided if your arms weren't presently pinned to the ground by several hundred pounds of angry canine.
With a grunt, Eileen shanks it through the throat, but before you can establish your footing, your gangly friends make their move. Arcane light bursts from their hands and slams into the two of you. Your limbs refuse to move despite your best efforts, bound by translucent wisps of heathen magic that, so help you God, somebody's getting burned at the stake for.
One of the two hangs back, still wary, while the other approaches you in the same fashion as the one you PRIDE FC'd earlier and clamps onto your shoulders. Without the ability to properly shift your weight, there's no point in trying to headbutt this one.
But they forgot to lock your jaw.
The thing shrieks as you bite into its face, flesh and bone and ichor crunching between your teeth like the world's most vile Cornish hen. Your limbs now free, you spit its own face in its face before smashing the staggering abomination's head into paste with the club.
You turn and grin at the other one, lips and teeth discolored and bits of skull still dripping from them. You're pretty sure that if it had testicles, they'd be somewhere in its chest cavity by now.
It turns to run, second-guesses itself, and loses its head to Eileen's blades before it has time to process the colossal mistake it made in losing focus.
The two of you sit down and breathe deeply, surrounded by the corpses of blokes with hairy testicles for faces and werewolves with bloody great holes in their think-meats that were apparently pre-existing conditions. You look down and realize you're sitting on the torn remains of a banner; it must have been hanging from the chandelier or the sides of the upper section. You can only make out "PELA RECITAL" on the largest scrap.
"How's that for a story, eh?" you ask your companion. She holds up a finger and peels off her mask, taking great gulping breaths.
"Just be sure," she huffs after a time, "you mention that I saved your clumsy ass twice after you got outsmarted by dogs."
"Hey, I had ta eat one o' these eggheads for ye. Ye wanna see what they taste like?"
She just smiles in return, and this time offers no resistance when you help her to her feet. She keeps a hand on your shoulder as the two of you walk towards the towering green doors that, if your internal compass isn't completely fucked, lead back towards the building's front gate.
"Never thought I'd get old, Anderson," she mutters. "It's hard."
"Happens ta all of us eventually."
"No," she sighs, putting a little more weight on you, "not all of us."
To your annoyance, the doors refuse to budge. Once you're sure Eileen's stable on her feet, you step back and aim the club after a perfunctory knock.
"Hello?" you hear. "Are you human?"
[] Write in...
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