Standing at the base of the stairs, Aurelianus gauged his opponent with a cursory inspection. Lean, but well-fed. He smelled of money, and the various corruptions that invariably brought with it. Salt and pepper and silver pikin’ spoons from the looks of him he sneered mentally. He marked the metal soles on the man’s shoes – maybe he was trying to make himself look taller? - but among the rest of the finery and prim dress he saw, the guttersnipe could only tumble to one conclusion.
Nonce, he thought, smirking to himself and feeling the flies crawling around everywhere sweat was gathering on his skin. Everything about the man’s appearance tempted him with softer meat, but he reined in his darker humours for the moment. His fingers curled and uncurled, wire biting into worn incisions.
Substance was not show; the warlock knew to look a bit deeper and with a shift in perceptions, he opened his witch-sight as he waited on the smarmy looking basher joining him. Instantly the colour of the world drained away, bleached a kaleidoscope of greys. Tiny motes of flickering other-colours dotted here and there in his peripheral, smaller animals and birds in the surrounding plant-life. None of that registered to the tiefling though; instead, his hungry eyes drank in the swirling, bleeding, shifting swirl of colour that made up the human’s soul.
Oh, there was power hidden away there. That much was plain to see. His forked tongue probed at his gum to try and dislodge a remnant of the root, unable to blink. Even as he watched, vague smears of blue-white flickered through the aura.
Uh, cutter, remember the stor— his mind chimed in, the voice like a rusty nail in the meat of his brain.
“Bar it,†he muttered to himself, idly scratching his gums with ragged nails. “Clear skies, see?â€
Was that another tooth growing in? He tried to ignore the nagging thought, entranced by the play of colour funneling down towards his opponent’s right hand. It was almost like--
Really think you should move it, the thought came unbidden again, derailing his train of thought.
He just had to lure the rube into the darkened interior, and let the proximity tip the scales in the half-breed's favour. Shifting another few steps up the staircase, moving backwards and keeping the unassuming looking man in his sights, the half-devil cocked his head, feeling sticky runnels of congealed sweat slide across his brow. His pupils flickered almost imperceptibly in their beds of gold as he returned to his more mundane senses. He realised his mistake almost instantly as he clocked the blue-white flashes were still visible, dancing in a corona around the blue-blood’s fingertips.
Even as the patrician figure across the small space threw his hand forward, the blade-clad planewalker was on the move. The roar of thunder pounded against his eardrums, giving lie to the undisturbed canvas of blue above them, blanketing out every other noise as he vaulted the short bannister lining the stairs. He rolled with the impact; his attire gouging patches from the flower bed flanking the entrance walkway. Before he could even get back to his feet properly though, his shadow was thrown out in stark relief in front of him, as jagged and misshapen as his current form. A fist of force smashed him across the ground in skidding bounces, away from the epicentre of whatever had kicked him inside the head. His vision sparked into static for a few juddering seconds as he rolled to a stop.
Should’ve listened to me earlier, you pikin’ tit, the voice chided him. Aurelianus could feel its gloating smirk and it pushed him back to his feet, serrated teeth bared in response. He refused to think about the fact he could still feel them moving.
A quick scan for damage showed a few new trickles of blood leaking across his frame. Either from small splinters of the church lodged in his skin, or from some of the chains and hooks that wound around and, in some places, through his form. The wounds were ignored though, a drop in the bucket, and instead a smirk tore across the fleshcrafter’s mouth as he surveyed his surroundings. The church itself was gone, the tortured edifice now only visible as a grim silhouette through the cloud as spears of sunshine perforated the gloom. The centre obliterated with colossal elemental force and, the rest groaning its way into an inexorable collapse into itself.
“Heh. Storm. I get it,†he chuckled wetly, as the bell that had led him to this unexpectedly promising scrap finally toppled free from its precarious moorings, hitting the debris and broken structure of the church with a final, mournful death knell. He could still taste the ozone in the air, like sucking a penny. Fortunately it was dulled by the thick coating of filth filling his mouth, clinging to the wet recesses of the split down his chin.
Did that make him the weathervane? Metal on his armour, metal on his weapons, metal in his.. every other part. Just your soddin’ luck. A sneer tugged at the corner of his lip as he started edging back away from the thickest of the covering debris field.
The cloud of particulate in the air from the devastation had cut down visibility, but with a wolf’s grin, the tiefling reasoned he didn’t need to see to pen this sod in the dead-book. The still air kept it from shifting, and it hung like a curtain of molasses. Summoning his will, he raised a swathe of void-black Hellfire into the enshrouding dust, wood and thatch. The temperature soared rapidly and curling tendrils of smoke choked the air within a handful of heartbeats. Wary eyes on the sky as it vanished behind the coal-black eddies, fingers running grooves into his already abused scalp, Aurelianus let his wits do the legwork. Instinctive response had been the difference between life and death for him more than a few times. Low-animal cunning was his preferred approach to a fight.
Well, the idea of getting him in an enclosed space went out the pikin’ window, he mused as the billowing smoke continued to pour into the sky. He willed his invocation hotter. At the back of his mind he realised with relish that the fire and lightning in the air had at least killed off the bastard flies. His wounds still itched like the clap, and now without the covering furry bodies, he could see the sickly sheen to the exposed meat under his skin. They burned like a cast-iron bitch, and he was sure he could still feel writhing under his skin. For once, he found himself praying for maggots.
Thinkin’ might be an idea to focus on the wanker tossin’ thunderbolts. He’s likely to ‘ave you in the dead-book ‘fore the infections do. A fair point, he reasoned.
Deeming the smoke to be thick enough for his needs, the canny half-breed let his eyes shiver back to his preternatural perceptions again, and took off running. He sprinted low, still feeling the grime coating his coverless eyes but using his eldritch sight soothed the discomfort somehow. The smog and soot smothering the small arena fell away to once again reveal the roiling oil-slick of the other man’s soul, cutting through the need for mundane human sight. He circled out wider towards the opponent’s flank. It was doubtful the bastard could penetrate the concealing mess still blowing out from the results of his cocky display, but with a vicious snigger, the snake-eyed sadist decided to err on the side of caution.
Just as his blade-bound form emerged at full-sprint off to the man’s left, Aurelianus thumbed one of the rings on his right hand. Three interlocking rings of silver seemed to blur and blend through each other and with a mental command, the canny warlock summoned his help.
Around his form, four more shimmering shapes gained solidity until the tiefling was surrounded by perfect quadruplet versions of himself. They all looked exactly like him, but even as they sprinted, they weaved and ducked among themselves while closing the distance. All acted independently, splitting at an unspoken command and veering in from all sides. The actual, corporeal tiefling on the other hand, triggered the ring’s secondary charge and felt his own visibility searing away like fat in a pan. It was done so quickly, among the mirror versions of himself, that it was likely to – hopefully - go unnoticed.
As the pack of razor-laden, fevered planetouched cleared the gap, Aurelianus drew one of the serrated Baatorian knives from his lower back, the rough hide of the grip more familiar than the curve of a lover’s cheek. With the rest of his ‘friends’ swinging weapons or throwing coils of Hellfire towards the sorry sod that had crossed his path, the tiefling brought up his Pain Mirror. It took little mental effort for him now to form the sympathetic bond between his body and that of the older human. With an unseen smile, he savagely hammered the vicious, toothed knife into the meat of his own thigh. It tore through the armour and everything beneath it. Giving it a vindictive twist with cruel satisfaction, he looked down to see the weapon withdraw from his leg without leaving a mark on him or his attire. He was pristine. Well, as pristine as he had been beforehand. He lashed out again, almost in the same instant he removed it, the knife punctured the back of his calf with the same result. Red glyphs pulsed along the length of his shiv, the enchantment woven into the green-steel robbing the blood of its ability to clot.
No, deciding to tip the odds more firmly in his favour from the outset, the cruel invocation of the Pain Mirror manifested the ugly wounds on the walking storm before him instead. Overwhelming force was all well and good, but fighting dirty had always been the more fun prospect.
No such thing as a fair fight, cutter.
Now the question remained; just how thoroughly could he prove that point today?
