To his surprise, there was no snarled retort, or dry, sarcastic insult; Godhand Striker reacted like the aging, experienced battlehorse he was. The mercenary took a swift step back, stones crunching under boot heel, and with a stroke nearly faster than Kross's eyes could follow, he severed the stone spear in its middle. The death lord had to stop himself from marveling at the exact precision and cleanliness of the cut; the muramasa had passed straight through the rock as though it had been passed through a mountain stream. The spearhead arced into the air, spinning end over end, but neither man made the mistake of looking up to watch its flight.
Mundane, sandy brown stones lifted off the canyon floor and slapped together in a horizontal line with several sharp clicks, then flowed together, erasing the seams that seperated each individual one, before turning a familiar jade green. Kross ignored the sharp whistling coming from overhead as he merged the transmuted rocks into his damaged weapon, baring his teeth as he poured his will into the stone, wicked, hooked blades sprouting from the sides of the spear. He lunged, raising his foot to punish the earth wiith a titanic stomp and throw the mercenary off guard, when, shockingly, Godhand reached a hand out and caught the broken spearhead wiithout a single hint of effort. The silver haired man launched himself forward, stabbing the point of the green blade towards the death lord's eyes.
A strangled obscenity wrenched itself from Kross's throat, and he opened his floodgates, pouring raw, elemental power into the weapon seeking to blind him. A muted yellow light flashed in its core, and as though he could feel the sudden violent pulse that began to crack it, Godhand hurled the spearhead over the death lord's shoulder. Several dozen feet away, it detonated like a fragmentation grenade, splashing razor sharp splinters around it. The noise was distracting enough for Kross to hesitate for a breath, giving Godhand more than enough time to fluidly change his stab turned throw into a hammer punch. Kross grunted, the force of it rocking him, nearly forcing him to his knees. The canyon itself shuddered, as though someone had dropped a boulder into it.
There was no time to bat at one another with useless threats and demeaning insults, no time for grandiose, flashy, crowd pleasing shows of talent. There was barely time to breath. The sadistic glee that had painted a distended, cruel smile on his face was gone. So was the laughter that could only come from a blood hungry sociopath with meth in his lungs, and hate in his heart. It was not that he wasn't enjoying himself; no, far from it. His eyes had the hunger and focus of a wolf scenting fresh hot blood, steaming through the trees, leafless for the moment, sleeping for the warm, silently grasping at the sky with bony fingers.
Now, Kross was trying to kill Godhand Striker.
The mercenary wound back wiith his sword, and all the incentive the death lord needed to retreat was the thought of the flawless cut through his weapon. Lifting a clawed hand, Kross unleashed a mild, hurriedly prepared blast of energy into Godhand, stumbling the man for barely a second, but giving him time enough to hurl himself away wiith a powerful backwards leap. Baring his monstrous teeth, he cocked his arm back, the energy surging and flickering, and then he fired his spear like a javelin, borne on natural magnetic energy. Godhand, seeming to anticipate the action, was already dodging to the left, throwing himself through the air and rolling as he landed. Kross hissed furiously, but it was too late; the spear had already hit the ground, with an ear shattering explosion that sent massive cracks up the neighboring canyon wall and threw a cloud of dust and broken rock into the air.
He hung in the air for a second, not even batting his eyes towards the elven archers who aimed arrows upon him. They sliced through the air, and then bounced off of his hide harmlessly. Grinding his teeth, Kross released a cry of eminent, vicious, wild rage and threw himself to the ground like a comet. Incredibly, Godhand sheathed his muramasa with a sneer, braced himself, dug his feet in - and met the bellowing death lord with a sound that witnesses would describe as the voice of a god, the two locking together. Grunting, the mercenary tossed Kross over his hip and onto the ground, raising a fist with the strength to split helms. Kross growled loudly and whipped a leg up into the side of Godhand's neck with inhuman agility, and scrambled to his feet.
Without hesitation, the two came at each other again, like wild animals in contest over a juicy peice of the kill. It looked so much like a mirror image of the earlier close quarter fight with Xem'zund that it was eerie; neither mercenary nor death lord's strikes could be seen before they collided with enough force behind them to reduce lesser men to gruesome tooth speckled pulp. The fists of the two brutalized one another for nearly three minutes, neither refusing to give ground to the other, the interior of the canyon sounding as though it was being shelled by heavy artillery cannons.
Suddenly, they burst apart, a vicious string of vile expletives spewing from Kross's mouth. He held his left arm closely to his chest, and it bent downward, at an awkward angle. The glassy black horn on his right temple had been shattered, leaving a jagged stump jutting out of the dark gray skin. Godhand was smirking smugly, despite the bleeding trenches that had been ripped across his chest and right arm, and the wound that had nearly cleaved bone just a hair beneath his left eye. Grimacing, Kross raised his uninjured arm and tensed the hand into a trembling claw. The ground around the mercenary trembled for a moment, making small stones jitter and shake on the canyon floor. Then, in the blink of an eye, a dozen long arms of stone pulled themselves up from the dirt and darted towards Godhand, their intent clear; to rend, crush, catch and dismember.
But they never had a chance. The mercenary's hand shot to the hilt of his sword, and with turn executed at break neck speed, he drew the muramasa, and severed the hands at their wrists
Kross came from above.
Silent as an assassin on the highest paying mark of his career, the death lord dropped down from the sky, softening his landing with a controlled magnetic sheath around his body. Fearsome as a feeding lion, Kross leaped forward, opening his jaws wide, wider, even wider than humanly possible, his tongue, long and pointed, covered in slick spittle. And swift as a master of war, Godhand Striker thrust his muramasa through the death lord Kross's stomach.
The blade hadn't had the leverage it needed earlier when it had brushed the demon hide, but now, it had all the strength and momentum of a titan behind it, driving it in deep. However, the cold peice of unbreakable metal slicing into his guts didn't stop the death lord. He pushed forward, sinking the sword in deeper, locked his hand around the wrist of Godhand's sword-arm, and pitched his head downward, locking his jaws into the mercenary's shoulder, tasting sweat-salted flesh and tangy, sweet blood, even as the lights began to fade from his otherworldly eyes, and the pulsing cracks in his skin began to close.
The dagger like teeth slid out of the meat, and the face that met Godhand's eyes was a very familiar one. Gone were the intersecting, gruesome scars, as well as the healthy, tanned skin. As though the horned, green eyes demon had been a chrysalis of wasting, instead of rebirth, the man that stood, pinned on the legendary sword, looked older, twenty years older than the sneering Kross. Dark circles hovered beneath gray eyes like drops of ink on sickly, pale flesh. Thin, nearly colorless lips pulled back to reveal the same predatory grin.
"You fucking cunt!" Dan Lagh'ratham cocked his head back, and spat on Godhand's chest. "You fucking stabbed me!" The mercenary looked bewildered for a split second, before he pulled back and punched Dan across the face, pulling the sword free - though not without a sizeable spurt of blood.
The fuck are you doing here?" Godhand demanded, ready to cut the death lord - because, after all, that was still what he was - in two if he came at him again. But Dan only laughed, the psychotic, cracked sound finding its way back in again.
"Hey, I was bored, you know? Plus, Xem'zund promised to find my daughter if I ate or knocked off a couple assholes giving him trouble.
"You're a god damned, brainless idiot." Godhand scowled, relaxing a little. "How the hell did you change appearance? Some kind of voodoo black magic hocus pocus bullshit?"
"It's...ah, fuck it, I'll explain it later."
Finish him, Kross! The voice sliced into his mind like a finely honed razor blade from untold miles away, and Dan winced, clutching the side of his head that had sported the broken horn.
"Not so damn loud! Why don't you fuck off, man? I ain't had a smoke break in I don't know how long. And Union Charter states - "
Fine. I will. Dan opened his mouth to say something else, but stopped when he felt the air in the canyon grow ice cold. His jaws shut with a snap, and his eyes were drawn to a point in space between him and Godhand, where a tiny pinprick of swirling, dark violet had burst out of nothing. He didn't even have a moment to curse before he leaped forward and shoved Godhand back with his good arm, and tried to jump away.
It happened in an instant; the tiny ball suddenly swelled with massive power as a necromantic flare tore itself open in the air, catching his arm from the elbow down inside. What felt like a million frosty daggers shredded skin, muscle and bone as the spell continued to grow larger, threatening to envelope him; and then it imploded in a humongous scarlet firebal, pulling him off his feet and hurling him across the canyon, where he smashed for a second into the ground, the breath leaving his lungs. He bounced two more times, high into the air, before again hitting the dirt, tumbling several dozen feet before coming to a rest.
He laid there for a minute, struggling to breath, hearing nothing but a sharp stinging as blood poured from his ears. Finally, he sat up painfully, looking at the stump where his forearm should be. It stunk of decay, and as he watched for a few breaths, blackened flesh crumbled away and fell onto his lap.
"Fuck me," he groaned, in a voice he couldn't hear, and then squinted into the distance, where he could see Godhand rising, untouched by the necromancer's assault. "I knew I shouldn't have trusted that son of a bitch." Carefully, he climbed to his feet, a little unbalanced, and then paused for a minute, wobbling unsteadily. Three amber stones on the back of his injured hand flashed a bright gold, and without a sound, puff of smoke, or blinding glare of ethereal light, the Ether Band took Dan Lagh'ratham far from Raiaera.
Out of Character:
All bunnying perpetrated on Godhand was preapproved by himself. All I ask of this thread for spoils is that the lock on Dan's Saraelian abilities is removed. Let's just say Xem'zund destroyed the seal once and for all. I'd think that would be well within a demigod's capabilities.
Thanks for letting me guest spot here.