Even in mid-stride, racing after Max Dirks with a bleeding hole in his gut and his heart racing hard enough to drum in his ears, Letho's eyes saw everything.
On one flank of his fleeing quarry, the mercenary Godhand Striker vaulted skywards and unleashed a salvo of gunfire from mid-air towards the Marshal's target. "Always a showoff," was about as much of a thought as Letho could spare on his old acquaintance. Down below the flying gunman stood a girl far too lovely to be Godhand's daughter and far too young to be his lover. Far too green for the Cell too, but he wasn't one to chastise; he had a daughter even younger than this petite thing and she had a knack of getting herself in trouble as well. This lass, however, seemed to have her aim and her dagger set on Max as well, and Letho could have none of that. And as if this uncanny couple wasn't enough, on the opposite side of the arena was the young magician that only moments before committed fiery suicide. He seemed rather zesty for a dead dress-wearing coward, though, summoning icy projectiles and directing them towards the man who suddenly became everyone's worst enemy.
Letho couldn't exactly blame them for their dislike towards the cocky varlet; hell, he wanted to put the man six feet under the muck himself. Which was turning out to be somewhat of a problem. With the majority of the surviving combatants turning their gazes – and more importantly, their tools of destruction – towards Max Dirks, it was far too probable that one of them would strike their mark. And thus robbing Letho of his vengeance.
It was a ridiculous pursuit, Letho knew, this vendetta for the false death of the youth the Marshal didn't even know properly. At the end of the day, when the bloodwork was done and people went home, they would all awaken on a cold slab with a bald head of a monk hovering over them, telling them to take it easy. Telling them it was all honky-dory. Telling them that the arm they lost in the fighting was successfully reattached, that the gory mess of their spilled guts was just a gruesome memory, that their death hour has come and miraculously gone. No hard feelings, no grudges; it was all as fake, make believe, like a street performer pulling a rabbit out of the false bottom of the hat, right? Only it wasn't. After feeling the heat of the battle so many times, Letho Ravenheart knew that men showed their true faces when their blades met and their blood soaked the soil. Taking that piece of insight into account, Max Dirks proved to be not only a deceitful scoundrel, but a cowardly one as well. And while those traits alone weren't enough to warrant an permanent death, Letho felt that a temporary one could do the man good. Make him taste his own mortality as he chokes on his own blood. It was a lesson Max clearly needed to learn and a lesson that the Red Marshal decided to give him personally.
"Can't do that if the man is dead," was his concluding thought, and even as it occurred to him, a course of action was plotted by his mind. It was less of a conscious decision and more of a battle reflex, sort of a compulsion that had a life of its own and kicked in when required. Still dashing after the gunslinger – a rhinoceros chasing a cheetah, it looked like, but a damn quick and pissed off rhino – Letho brought his trashed gunblade to his chest with his right and then sent it flying with a fierce backhanded motion. Six feet worth of brown metal spun on a deadly curved trajectory that meant to connect two particular points in the arena; the spot where the tiny dark-haired lass was standing and the one where Godhand Striker was supposed to land.
He didn't stop to acknowledge the effects of his attack, didn't have the time. The wizard had already begun his icy barrage, intent to bombard Max until the gunman was either frozen or bludgeoned to death by his missiles. "Can't have that either." Letho wasn't swift enough to catch the first one, but by the time the second ball was airborne he slid to a halt between the ice mage and his target, swatting the projectiles away with his enchanted gauntlet. Compared to the sheer power of those the chef-mage fired at him minutes before, turning these away felt like knocking irksome wasps.
“AWAY WITH ALL OF YOU!!!” the Marshal hollered, conjuring his anti-magic field. The next globe of ice crashed against the sphere harmlessly, exploding in a rain of crystal. He could feel their eyes on him, not just those belonging to the competitors, but those inquisitive ones from up in the auditorium. His hand reached for the last weapon in the scabbard on his back, the motion making him wince as the pain flared in his stomach. He could feel weakness creeping up on him, the familiar feeling he experienced already once today, but it was still faint, reminding him of the blood he kept spilling down the length of his pants. And once again he willed it aside and brandished a plain looking dagger, pointing it towards Max Dirks. “His life is not for any of you to take!”
And even as he spoke those words, the gray metal of his dirk seemed to lose coherence and liquify as if it was made of mercury. And more importantly, it seemed to grow in size, bubbling outwards and expanding until it was roughly the same size the Lawmaker had been. In a matter of seconds the simple miniature blade evolved and reformed itself into a double-bladed sword. Letho held it at midpoint single-handedly, like one would hold a spear, pointing one of the tips towards the man in the trench coat.
“It is mine.”
And with that, he charged at Max Dirks once again. He thought he heard another voice in his head, sounding vaguely familiar, but he was far too furious, far too strained, far too dead set on vanquishing his enemy to decipher the meaning of the words. Instead Letho did what he did best, and let his blade do the palavering. The double sword spun in his hands with so much speed that even the sharpest eye saw nothing but a revolving blur, the propelling motion meant to block any projectile coming Letho's way and tear Dirks to shreds.
Out of Character:
Sent the Lawmaker spinning towards Lilian and Godhand, slapped away Atzar's icy balls (haha, Atzar's icy balls) and I'm coming for YOU again, Max!:D Also, just to clarify, Letho is using his Vorpal Blade and it looks something like this