Participants:
| Scene Title | Getting Dangerous |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Magnes loses his first fight at the Pancratium. Nina is merciful, at least. |
| Date | February 18, 2009 |
The Pancratium is named for Pankration — a sport introduced in the Olympic games of 648 BC — but it would be more fitting to compare it to the coliseums of the Roman era. The roar of the crowd demands blood, and the men and the women who take to the cages are hailed as gladiators more than they are athletes at the top of their form. For Magnes Varlane, standing at the center of the makeshift arena, surrounded on all sides by barbed wire and mesh fencing, the first match of the evening is likely to be an englightening, if painful, experience.
There's no way for him to know what ability the woman on the other side of the cage possesses, but she's tall, forbidding, and a little rough around the edges — three things that Magnes is not.
It's a good thing Muldoon promised him that he wouldn't come to any permanent harm tonight, much as the spectators in the audience might wish otherwise.
"CRUSH! CRUSH! CRUSH!"
"NI-NA! NI-NA! NI-NA!"
Magnes is totally tall! He just hunches… like Superman! He stares at Nina nervously, wearing his clear contacts, a black t-shirt, baggy blue jeans, and light blue sneakers. He takes deep breaths, backing up a bit since he has no idea what to expect. "L-listen, I don't wanna hurt a girl, but I'm doing this to protect someone, so please don't hate me for this…" Then, in an attempt to possibly intimidate her, he raises his leg and suddenly slams it down like a sack of bowling balls with a very loud thump. "See? I can hurt you, so, just quit, alright?" he pleads, clearly not wanting to fight.
Red hair hangs stringily over parts of her face, damp with sweat that darkens the strands closest to the scalp. Nina wears tight clothing, black, covering her from ankles to shoulders, leaving her arms bare. There's a belt around her waist, which sports a knife. No indication of her ability at all, but the bare arms seem to have fresh wounds, scabbed over, in various locations. Some deep, some just healing cuts. That could be from knife fighting, easily enough.
At the words of her opponent, she raises eyebrows. "You're going to be a very interesting student, boy," she says softly, drawing the knife out even as he slams his foot down. Strength of some sort, a demonstration. "You do appear to be strong, but this isn't a game. You will get hurt." There's a coldness in her eyes that causes her to step forward, the knife held in her hand. "And so will I." The knife is brought up against the inside of her arm, and she stabs herself, drawing a line of blood through flesh. The pain is visible on her face, but she doesn't make a sound. Then again, the audience roaring might cover it.
"Wait!" Magnes yells, quickly running over to her with a deep look of concern. He reaches for her wrist with the knife, trying to stop her as he clearly misunderstands the situation. "Just quit and it'll be alright!" he urgently assures.
Lips peel away from her teeth, an expression that could easily be a grimace, and may also be a smile. A skeletal smile. Nina's hand stops drawing a line along the inside of her arm, and the cutting ceases, but the bleeding has already started, flowing down her arm and toward her hand. "It will when you realize what you've gotten into, child," she says, allowing him to hold onto her wrist while the bleeding arm drops to her side, trails of blood flow, but none of the droplets make it to the floor ring. A moment later that hand rises up, and a spike aims for the arm holding her wrist. A red spike, only two inches long, an inch exposed. It's dark red, nearly black.
"What the hell?!" Magnes exclaims in sudden alarm, narrowly pulling back as the very tip of her spike glides right across the under-side of his arm, clearly a lucky dodge with no skill behind it at all. He continues stepping back, checking his arm to find a slight trickle of blood. She drew first blood…
"You're serious, aren't you? You're really gonna go through with this. I can't let you win, I have to show I'm valuable, and save Abby!" he declares with a sudden determination in his tone. He hunches down, much like someone on skates would, then jumps up and thrusts both feet forward. Logically he should fall right on his ass, but instead he starts falling forward, aiming both legs at her. He's made his entire body heavy, he has to hit and end this quickly! Of course he's very easy to dodge.
Let's. Get. Dangerous.
Heavy legs kick out at her, but Nina's more skilled in this department than he is, she moves out of the way enough that he only catches her in the leg at the furthest point of his outward kick. It still impacts, though, but without the momentum of the full kick, it only knocks her back against the edge of the cage. The knife clatters to the floor. The spike does not. Despite her arm still bleeding, the blood doesn't make it to the stage floor, but the spike in her hand doesn't get bigger either, it starts to form into something else… the spike seems to attach to the tip. Half solid, half liquid, she whips her arm outward, and a red whip made from blood reaches out for him, trying to hit him as he comes out. The darker chunks in the otherwise liquid whip act like pieces of glass in water. Water that can be controlled fluidly. It's not formed enough to do more than leave small cuts along skin, draw more blood, but it's a nice sight for the audience. They crave blood? She gives them blood.
Magnes' shirt gets one long rip through it, leaving just as long of a cut under it. When he lands, it's against the cage, and hard, causing it to buckle slightly before he quickly makes himself light again. He stands on the side of the cage, looking 'up' at her. "We don't have to do this! It's not like you want to fight, right? So I'll hit you, and you sell it…" he suggests, breath heavy as he looks down at the blood rising from the long cut.
"Alright, think, I can do this. Save Abby, save Abby…" he repeats, standing up straight, walking down the cage, then stands on the floor again. "But if you're gonna keep fighting seriously, then I have to get serious too!" He grabs the edge of the cut shirt, then suddenly rips it off, holding it in his right hand. "I can win!"
"This is my job," Nina speaks in a thick voice. The wound on her arm is no longer bleeding. There's a fresh scan along the line she cut herself, formed far too quickly. The blood coming out of him, though… it gets no such benefits. The blood isn't pouring out of him, as she didn't slash any major arteries, but it does drip. What was gathered up by his shirt remains on the shirt, but what pools along his chest starts to move away from him, forming into the whip and increasing the thickness. New darker spots start to form.
"Fighting for a girl." She gives a laugh, before she flicks her arm again, lashing out with the whip. This time she's aiming for the space right beside him. He'll only get hit if he dodges into the slash.
Magnes looks down at his chest with wide eyes, having no idea what to think of what's happening to his blood. Then comes the whip, and he swings his arm out to try and get the whip wrapped around his arm, having no idea if the whip is actually solid or not, he just has to take a chance.
"You're doing this for money? Hurting people who haven't done anything? Then, I guess, even if you're a girl… you're a villain!" he declares, trying to charge for her no matter what actually happens to his arm, then swings the rolled out shirt down to try and hit her attacking shoulder. If it hits, she'll find the shirt is a hell of a lot heavier than a shirt should be.
The darker pieces of blood inside the liquid whip dig deeply into skin as it starts to wrap around, entangling him. It constricts, lacerating, gaining strength from his own blood, beginning to pull it out as she gets access to more blood. It doesn't last long, though. The villain (her ability could belong to no one else, the way she's using it) gets caught in the shoulder. There's a pop. The arm is knocked out of socket with a yell, and she releases the whip, staggering back up against the edge of the cage again. The bruising on her leg that she'll have is nothing when compared to the dislocated shoulder. That may have also fractured her upper arm. The liquid blood finally hits the floor of the cage, slashing a bit, leaving behind multiple shards of hardened material that look like black broken pieces of glass.
Lips peel away from her teeth as she snarls at him, and she focuses on the blood flowing from his arm. It will take too long to make a difference, but she pulls upon it, trying to drag it out of him. The blood on the floor, the pieces that were still liquid, slide across to him too, moving to his feet like a living organism.
Magnes yells loudly just as her arm gets dislocated, staggering back at the intense pain in his arm. There's only slight relief when the grip is loosened, but he starts trying to wrap his arm up as she draws blood from it, not being able to do much about the blood on the floor. He doesn't even notice the blood moving to his feet.
"This is fighting, real fighting…" he says to himself, though loudly enough for her to hear as sweat beads down his forehead and chest. "I'm sorry I hurt you, but I'm gonna save Abby, no one's gonna stop me."
He pauses a moment, not making a move on her, instead he announces quite loudly, "Ladies. Gentlemen. You have eaten well. You've eaten New York's wealth. Its spirit. Your feast is nearly over. From this moment on — none of you are safe." he says with a very serious expression… probably quoting something.
It is real fighting. Real blood. Real wounds. There's real bones that can be broken and hearts that could be ripped out. Blood is a powerful thing, though. It seeps along the cage floor, unnoticed, reaching out like an extention of the alien creature from a movie older than the boy is. With a sudden surge, it moves forward, while he speaks loudly to the audience, spiking out to his legs, his pants, wrapping around his feet and lower legs in a constricting mass of liquid. The cords reach up like fingers, wrapping, but not digging, not cutting. Instead, the liquid cords turn solid, wrapping around his legs and feet, and the attaching to cracks in the cage floor. As strong as steel. With her unwounded arm, she dives forward, picking up the knife that she dropped at the beginning, straighting up with it in her unwounded hand. Her other arm hangs down, teeth gritted in the pain.
"What…?" Magnes asks, looking down at his legs, struggling to pull up. He even tries to turn gravity upside down, making himself incredibly heavy, including his clothing, which makes his pants raise all the way up, smacking him right in the nuts before gravity goes back to normal again. "Aaaaahhh!" he yells in pain, suddenly grabbing his crotch.
Did he just… Nina blinks as he does something that causes him to grab at his crotch. The crowd might well be laughing at this point. She wouldn't blame them for it. The sad part is— once hardened, even she can't break the binds holding him down, the thinner fingers crack already, though, against his weight. They aren't hardened quite as much as they could have been. Enough to count. Enough to hold him still. And she's sure someone can cut him out. Stalking forward with her knife, she gets close enough to settle the blade against his cheek, while he recovers from hitting himself in the balls with his pants. "I could kill you," she says in a thick voice. "Say you lose, and it's over." His hands are still free, if holding his crotch.
Magnes speaks in a strained tone, looking up at her from his crouched position. "I'm gonna say I lose this time, 'cause the only way I could win from this close might seriously hurt you, and I don't wanna do that…" he says, partially saving face, and partially meaning it. He may be a stupidly chivalrous nerd, but even he can't admit to being beaten by a woman with no excuse! "Alright, I lose!" he announces, rising a little higher with a wince down at his crotch.
Victory. Nina can't help but smile, even if it's marred by the grimace of pain from her dislocated shoulder. All the blood she'd been pooling around for use is allowed to spill on the floor, and she doesn't look nearly as pale as she should for someone who lost as much blood as she did— blood is something she controls, though, so likely, she can suffer losing much more than he could. Even as he claims defeat, she pulls the knife away in such a manner that slashes his cheek, leaving another trail of blood. "I hope your next opponent is a man, for your sake," she grates out, kicking at the hardened tendrils of blood. They crack further, but enout remains. Someone iss going to need to help him get out.
The cage doors open, and two men bustle inside to assist Magnes now that he's officially thrown in the proverbial towel. The chanting cry of "CRUSH! CRUSH! CRUSH!" hasn't subsided — if anything, it's only increased in intensity and fervor.
But fortunately for Magnes, there will be no crushing tonight. Not all fights end in the deaths of one of the combatants, though accidents have sometimes been known to happen.
Just not around Nina Norwich.
 February 18th: It Starts With A Body |
Previously in this storyline… Next in this storyline… |
 February 18th: Chin Up, Soldier |