Vice Fits You

[Nirov]

Bang

Flocks of birds took off from their nests, their loud cries echoing as the shot rang out. The trees shook with a fury unknown to the forests, their green leaves falling in a cascade to the ground. As the flurry of life came to a crashing halt, a white-haired man clung desperately to the trunk of a tree, and his own heart. Blood poured out, quickened by the slowing beats of the heart inside. Red mixed with brown and green to create a mess of the man's once snow-colored shirt; he didn't care. Sweat poured from his brow almost as quickly as the blood, his vision blurred by moist droplets of fear. With the birds gone, and other creatures taking their cue, the forest once again settled into a dead silence.

The smell of decay was all over the man; not his own, but of the sullied works he committed. He was a graverobber, and one of the best. His picture was posted all over Scara Brae and in parts of Corone; poorly sketched likeness of him on wanted posters behind small shop counters and government owned buildings. They called him Viktor, but few knew if that was his real name. Though only middle-aged, he managed to display the weathered appearance of someone withered by time. Now his guilt and the infamy of his deeds had caught up to him.

The dead silence ceased. Heavy and deliberate footsteps came from directly in front of the dying man, stopping only to move around thickets of small trees and bushes. The same footsteps Viktor had heard for a mile, starting back in town and following him all the way here. The same footsteps he tried desperately to avoid by running through the forests; by getting off the main road and into a thicker canopy. The same footsteps that stopped just as the shot was fired; just as Viktor had turned to face his tracker.

The dying man tried desperately to stand up. With one hand he tried to stop the bleeding; the other clawed at the thick brown bark. His nails bent, twisted, broke and shattered all in vain. His already weak legs had given up hope, Viktor was sure to follow. His eyes gleamed as he remembered the flintlock pistol tucked tightly in his belt. He squirmed like an insect, twitching, thrusting his freehand in search of his only means of survival.

Too late. The figure was before him; a shadow of height and power. Cold and steady, the figure said no word; made no sound. It was almost like every tree around him, causing Viktor to groan with what little strength he had left. His unfocused and failing eyes caught a glimpse of a pearl handled pistol the figure held, as if showing it off. A pearl handled gun, his gun, and no longer Viktor's.

The shovel at his side! With any luck, perhaps he could still beat this figure away. His hand, now bloodied, shot out, searching the dirt for his small shovel.

The sound of a snapped twig; droplets of blood flew from the heaving form of Viktor. Soon he realized it was no twig, but the sound of the figure crushing his hand with a heavy, malevolent boot. Another boot came down, now on Viktor's face.

It sounded like a branch this time.

[Whiteshadow]

"Oh stop that." Eternium murmured grogilly. He sat up rubbing his eyes as he moved from his former resting place, an overhanging tree who's branches made it perfect for shelter. Dweia, curious green eyes a gleam and restless from her daytime naps, had batted his nose until he was awake, and now he scowled sourly at her black form. "Thanks. And I was having a wonderful dream, too."

The cat simply purred happily and rubbed her head against his hand.

He rolled his eyes and picked her up, setting her on his lap while she curled up and yawned slightly, exposing tiny sharp teeth that, if she really wished to, were more than chompers used for nibbling. "Ah geez, you wake me up just to go back to sleep!?" he murmered irritably, but nonetheless began petting her as she purred and closed her eyes. The experiment smiled. He had always loved cats, even on Earth. Their sleek forms and their calm grace reminded him of much better things.

Eternium looked up into the morning sun and sighed as he felt its warmth over take him. While he had powers of both darkness and light, he found that he often used the light more than the dark. Eternium frowned. What was it that the old man had said to him? Ah yes...


"As you may have noticed," the professor began as he walked Eternium in to the plain room. "You have abilities beyond that of any normal human. While others may choose to ignore it, I have found it upon myself that I shall teach you how to use those abilities." At this the professor looked up with a slight smile on his face, and the experiment felt like that for a moment the older man didn't realize he was there. "But enough of me jabbering. Please, Eternium, tell me what you know of your powers."

The experiment looked at his white hands. "Well..." he began slowly. "I know that as long as there is light, I can do this - " and several swords of light spun around his wrist. "But in the dark, I don't know what I can do."

The professor raised an eyebrow. "Oh? Why is that? You told me that you had been experimenting on your own. Didn't it occur to you to try your power in absolute darkness?"

The experiment looked uncomfortable. "Um,well, yes sir. But the truth is..." He hesitated before answering. "...I'm honestly afraid to try."

The professor raised his other eyebrow, and stroked his chin thoughtfully. "Hmm. And why is that? Fear of the dark itself, or..."

"More like fear of what I'm able to do in the dark. " Eternium was more confident now that he was talking about something relating to himself. "When I'm in the light --" the swords spun around his head. "I know exactly what i'm doing and I know what the outcome will be. But with the dark..." Another pause. "I don't feel I know anything at all. " After this speech Eternium fell silent and looked away.

"Well, that's probably because you are more affiniated to, well, the lighter side of you power. " Unperturbed by Eternium's speech, he carried on. "Just practice more with dark side to get used to it."

"Yeah, right old man." Eternium spoke softly and chuckled. "Easy enough to say, but entirely different story going through." He sighed and picked up Dweia, who purred contentedly in his armors. "Lets go back to Scara, ok?" he whispered to the cat, and was about to leave when suddenly gunshots rang out through the air.

Dweia awoke immediately, hissing and spitting on his shoulder as she dashed out of his arms. "Damn it, not this morning" he grumbled, and dashed towards the sound of the gunfire. He moved quickly across the soft morning ground, his genetically enhanced body ignoring the strain the speed was putting on it, as he leapt from ground to tree to tree as easy as monkey would, using his feet to gently land on each surface before bounding away.

He heard a cracking of bones, and at this alarms went through his head. Immediately three swords of light materialized and began circling his body, points facing outwards, as in defense of what was coming.

[Nirov]

The cool grass was a welcomed relief to what seamed like a sweltering morning heat. Nirov, decked out in a long fog coat and heavy boots, laid back and relaxed near his morning's kill. Thick, heavy breathes were huffed from his tired form, sprawled out on the ground like a vagrant. Lately it seemed he was always tired, up at the first peaks of light in the morning until the moon hung high in the sky. No rest for the weary; No rest for the wicked.

Viktor alone would fetch the hunter the small reward of three hundred gold pieces. Had there not been a bonus in place for the capture of his brother as well, he would have never gone after such a petty man. But the thought of 800 pieces of gold was good, especially to a man in debt.

Nirov sighed and lifted his heavy body from the earth. He took the pistol from his pocket, grimacing at the stains of gunpowder on his once white gloves; his appearance seemed to constantly suffer from his work. The pistol, once part of a matching set, was grossly disfigured from years of use by grubby hands. "Pearl shouldn't stain gray." Even if the weapon had any aesthetic value, Nirov deplored them as cowardly. "Advantage was one thing, but the gun gave even a peasant the chance to take down a lord."

However, the weapon still had a jump to do. Slipping the decrepit thing in his pocket, Nirov lumbered over dew stained grass to the corpse. Cracking the bones and twisting the muscles in his body, he contorted to find some strength left for the task at hand. The trees around him stood witness as he lifted body over his shoulder, his face taking on all sorts of hideous forms. The smell of death, even on the fresh kill, was evident. Droplets of blood collected out the mouth and fed a steady stream on Nirov's long, dark coat. It wouldn't have surprised the man to find that Viktor emptied his bowels at the moment of death, purely out of spite for his killer. A grunt of distaste and the unlikely duo was off.

The body's head shook from side to side as Nirov took careful footing not to slip. His waves of dark hair clung wet with sweat, stiff from a week of unwashed hell. A shower was in the killer's future, but only after he got the corpse into the nearest town for storage.

[Whiteshadow]

Eternium landed on the spot just as the duo dissapeared, and due to his timing the experiment completely missed the two. However, that didn't stop him from seeing the blood on the ground, large, copious amounts of the stuff. He grimaced. Whoever had done this hadn't been very subtle about whoever they killed, as the viligante's eyes spied bits of flesh and bone on the dirty ground. The killer had, however, brought the body with him/her, it seemed, as Eternium spied a trail of blood leading off to Scara Brae.

What sort of business would a killer find there? He wondered ironically, and immediately he was on the killer's trail dashing forth with his three swords hovering about him, ever on the watch for danger. It didn't take that long to catch up to the men, however, and soon he saw the form of a tall man carrying a body over his shoulder walking off to town.

"Halt!" Eternium shouted, trying to sound as official as possible. He added an inflect of a British accent he had picked up from Earth to try and authenticate the whole experience. "Who are you and what are you doing with that body?"

[Nirov]

The wear and strain of life was getting to Nirov. Normally he would hear the hurried footsteps of eager youth chasing after him, their hurried and feverish pace a dead give away to any hunter worth his ears. But the long days, the smell of death, another number of other excuses just got in the way.

The sun felt as if it was smothering the man; its rays beat down upon his neck and the dead body he carried. As the words rang out, mixed with some strange sort of accent that seemed untraceable, he slipped the corpse from off his shoulders to slide right in a puddle of mud. The bounty hunter was exhausted; he dreamt only of a hot bath and a sturdy bed for the night. However, the intrusion gave him some excuse to stop and rest; perhaps even see if this new creature had a price on its head.

Nirov never turned, he never even moved save when he dropped the body. Smooth and crisp air left his mouth, warmed by frustration and a growing resentment of these roadblocks that presented themselves.

"Who am I, you ask?" It was a deadpan response, giving not even a hint of the malice that stayed below at a nice boil. "I am death, and I'm merely retrieving one of my children."

It would have been easy to just say he was a bounty hunter. Everything he was doing was perfectly legal, even if it did lack the tact of bringing in the subject alive. But if trouble reared it's head, he had that to fall back on. For now, it was a game; a vain hope to garner some amusement out of this invasion of privacy.

"Not a cloud in the sky." Too beautiful a day to being doing such work.

[Whiteshadow]

Eternium quickly scanned the man, his senses feeling through the air for the normal feeling that one gets when around such a man. For the man's response had puzzled the viligante. He had admitted to being a killer, in more than one sense of the word, but this man held none of the dangerous scent that Eternium had often identified with the cold-blooded.

Could he have been mistaken? Could this man be bringing this body for some other purpose? Logic scrambled as the white-haired warrior had his blades of light dissapear once more, and he walked up to the weary-looking man with no animosity.

Indeed, this man was weary. He bespoke it like it was an actual entity, a living growth upon his back. As Eternium came to the front of him he saw that the man was covered in blood and sweat, though most of the blood was not his own. "I apologize then, Death." He dropped the British accent. "It just seemed...suspicious. Not everyone is known to carry random bodies through the woods, y'know." He chuckled slightly but kept his blue eyes upon the other man's own blue, tired eyes.

"If I may ask though, what are you really doing. I'm sorry if I may be inconviencing you, but I am a bounty hunter of Scara Brae." Eternium knew it was foolish and dangerous to state what he was out so openly, but his man gave an air of trust that Eternium began to embrace.

[Nirov]

"What the devil is this man?"

The man was odd to say the least. He did not seem at all put off by Nirov's joke; in fact, he did not seem to even understand it. The soft chuckles were a warning sign to the hunter, who balled his fists up tightly in case of attack. The young man seemed too naive; and as his white clad form moved into Nirov's field of vision, the words "bounty hunter" were muttered.

Nirov was no fool. He'd been in the business long enough to know that if he had even mentioned that the corpse in his possession had a price on his head, a fight to collect would break out. Like most predators, bounty hunters would scavenge from time to time to survive. The man, already near his limits, was in no mood for a fight. not even with a seemingly naive fool.

The hunter thought quickly, cursing his wit for not being on hand. He needed an excuse, and he plastered a dull expression on his face until something could be thought up. The silence was deafening; there was no rustle of wind or soft swaying of trees in the soft morning life. The world seemed as dead as poor Viktor.

"A bounty hunter," he said calmly, "I hear that's a pretty dangerous occupation. I myself am just a simple servant of a well-off holy man who travels from village to village curing the ills of the local people." Although Nirov kept a rather dead expression, inside he was grinning and cheering his name. With the right honey-suckle words he could have this other bounty hunter doing the drudgery for him. He shook his head a little and relaxed his muscles.

"In fact, that's what I was doing before you showed up. This man here," he nodded as he nudged the body, "was possessed by a rather nasty demon. My master sent me here to slay it," he withdrew the gun, pointing it limply at the ground. "Now I must bring the body back to him so that he may bring this poor man back, for he still clings to some life."

Nirov sighed with complete honesty, using his own weariness to fuel his acting. "Yet, I fear my sickly form just can't carry him anymore."

[Whiteshadow]

The albino cocked an eyebrow. A likely story, but this one held the stench of deceit with it. When Eternium first met the man, he felt an air of truth, of honesty, but that seemed to fade away as the albino had confronted him. However, what really set Eternium nerves on end was when he pulled out the weapon that he had used to kill the man and, although the dangerous end was pointed at the ground, the albino knew that it could be brought up in a flash to kill him.

"Really. Why then have I not heard about it? And why use a firearm, when you, as the servant to this self-proclaimed holy man, should have at least some small holy powers yourself?" Eternium openly questioned the man and his motives. "And finally, why bring the body with you if it was necessary to not only slay the demon but the man as well? You see, there are several things wrong with your story. I would appreciate honesty, but I cannot force it out of you." Eternium started to turn away, but turned back with a dangerous glint in his eye. "At least, not here."

As he turned back he saw the man's face, the one who had been murdered, and immediately Eternium's mind flashed to a wanted poster he had seen in the Galloping Nightmare, a shadowy tavern with a reputation all its own.

"Ah! I see!" Eternium immediately smiled and his entire demeanor changed. "Your a bounty hunter yourself, aren't you my friend? I've seen his picture up on a wanted poster several times." He pointed at the dead corpse lying in the mud. "Why didn't you just tell me in the first place?" He frowned slightly as he helped the other man out and picked the corpse up, ignoring the blood and the mud it was getting on his coat. "And why the hell are you bringing the entire body? You know Devin accepts just the head for identification, right?"

[Taskmienster]

This thread has been sitting for a full year. Since no response has been made to create activity I am going to be moving this. If you would like it to be reopened please feel free to PM myself or another staff member and they will be able to move it for you back to Scara Brae.