“Alerar? Ah, cutter, you need to get out more. This ‘verse is bigger than just your quaint little rock ‘ere, jig?â€
The tiefling smirked as he watched. He could mark the pain and the rage sliding across his opponent’s aura like oil on water, as the older man dragged himself to a knee in the dirt and dust and flowers. The man's shock when his flesh had parted around an unseen blade had been almost as priceless as the vitriol that followed.
Doesn’t matter ‘ow far up someone’s arse you ram that silver spoon, ‘urt ‘em enough and the gutter always comes out.
His tongue slithered across his teeth, leaving wet trails of blood coating his gums as he allowed himself a half-second to weigh his options. Aurelianus had seen how easily and messily the bastard had destroyed one of his illusory doppelgangers with a gesture.
’ard to miss, cutter, even without keepin’ your eyes peeled.
The summoned phantasm had shattered, quickly returning to the ephemera he had been raised from with no flash, no fanfare. Just gone. The rest had spread out like a pack of hyenas, all white teeth and mocking laughter.
The three remaining reflections circled back through the flowers and grass to the real Aurelianus, as his cloak of obfuscation dropped away. The sun caught every point of every hook and jag-sharp blade adorning his baroque armour, mirrored by his coterie. They moved around and between each other, always moving, but never taking their eyes off the downed man. More than a few hands went to blades as they saw the electricity crackling and sparking around his fingertips again, but the real warlock was a touch cannier than that. He could smell the searing skin and meat, his mouth watering. He used his own abilities to cauterise his wounds in the same way. But if the human genuflecting before him thought it was going to make a difference, well… the predator’s smile finally split his face halfway to his ring-laden ears, loosing trickles of Infernal blood to carve through the dust and grime on his features.
"Must admit, that's a good look on you," he smirked, "kneelin' before your betters."
Sweat and blood gathering around the top of his high leather collar, the half-devil cocked his head curiously, watching the white pulse of power dancing through the other man’s eyes and it set his blood aflame with new and horrendous ideas. It was looking into the eye of a living storm. So much for not finding new raw materials, he mused with a dark chuckle that devolved into a wet, hacking cough.
“’ope you don’t mind, cutter, but I’ll be takin’ one of your eyes after this is all said and done,†one of the illusions smiled, idly scratching the braided strips of skin peeled and stitched back around his arm.
“Maybe both,†Aurelianus added, running his fingers over the coiling hydras inked along his scalp. Like the rest of his tattoos, these were also obscured and damaged by the plethora of wounds he had self-inflicted over the months.
“Speakin’ of which…†chimed in another with undisguised relish, the knives in his hands always twirling.
As one, in the same moment as the storm-caster went for his own weapons, the pack attacked.
The three in front were the illusions, Aurelianus himself warier now after seeing the other version of himself being crushed as if by an invisible fist. It was a cute trick, but not one he planned to be on the receiving end of. He watched the fractured bolts of electrical energy dancing over his opponent, feeling the few actual hairs he had on his body reacting to it. He could taste pennies again. Even as his trio of false-flags drew level with the human, ghost-blades drawn back to whistle down from all angles, Aurelianus’ unblinking eyes flicked to the sky and back. Still clear, he thought.
And that made bugger all difference last time, his internal dialogue countered.
That was why he had sent in his distractions first, and true to their purpose, they drew the target’s fire.
The pulse of energy was not a surprise, but it still spread out in a heartbeat. It engulfed the copies first, all of them shattering into non-existence amid the spreading bubble. It hit the tiefling a moment later, as he threw his armoured left arm in front of his face instinctively. He waited to feel the spasming, white-hot kiss of lightning searing through his veins and flashing his blood to stinking black steam… but it never came. Instead, it snatched his Baatorian blade out of his fist before he too was picked up and cast aside like a stone being skimmed by a particularly spiteful child. The speed with which he left his feet almost whip-lashed the half-devil, the sheer amount of metal adorning him virtually giving him wings. Whatever his opponent’s latest power, he could feel it singing through every blade and barb across his asymmetrical armour, plucking every chain and hook embedded in his tissue. The strobing sun stabbed his sight as he spun through the air, eyelids still pinned wide. It almost felt like—
The thought was driven from his mind at the same time his breath was driven from his lungs.
Hitting the ground harder than he might have liked, his natural agility hampered somewhat by the speed he had been repelled, the warlock smashed into a small patch of daffodils like he had been fired from a cannon, carving a furrow through the rich earth in an explosion of yellow petals. He rolled with the impact as much as he could, but even so he could feel the tell-tale groaning protest of cracked ribs inside his chest as he finally slowed enough to roll to his feet. Spitting, he tried to clear his mouth of grass and flowers. Stray sparks and whipping discharges of energy danced across the tiefling, his muscles twitching wherever they touched. They arced between hook and barb, flashed across talismans, charms and piercings before they died away. With a violent shake of his head to clear the ringing white-noise from his senses, the half-breed wiped gritty dirt from his right eye and blinked—
It took a second, the warlock’s thin fingers probing around his other eye. Sure enough, the steel pins that had held his lids in place were gone, leaving only one to glare wide and malevolent at the human now further across the field. There were other injuries calling out for attention – bruises, scrapes and a few new nicks and cuts from his own attire – but they were an irrelevance for now. Taking a breath to gauge how bad the hurt to his ribs was, Aurelianus decided this little blow-for-blow had gone on long enough. The only thing he had on his mind at the moment was just how he was going to mutilate this wanker after he was done.
It was a pleasant thought.
Seeing the human with a pair of daggers in hand, Aurelianus’ bloody smile spread again. If the man wanted to go toe-to-toe with chivs, that was his mistake to make. Stalking back toward him across the open ground, he reached for his own twin knives before remembering the one that had been snatched from his hand. A cold, seething hatred coiled around the tiefling’s heart; those were his favourite blades. Not that he was short of them, but it still poked his pride. And if he had a hard time finding it after the bout, the warlock would console himself by seeing how much of Whitevale he could spread his opponent's body across before he penned him in the dead-book.
A hand flashed to the holster under his left arm, three spitefully serrated shurikens dancing between his fingers. His other hand went to his belt, closing around the rough leather of the kpinga knife there. The three-bladed weapon bore an enchantment that made it a less likely prospect to be disarmed of.
Working up to a charge now, every loping stride sending a beat of pain through his ribs, the horned malcontent closed the distance again. He still had more than a few nasty surprises up his own imaginary sleeves, demonstrated perfectly as he brought up his fistful of shurikens. With one between each finger, Aurelianus kicked off the ground in a short jump, pirouetting nimbly in the air to add some momentum before they were whipped towards the patrician figure ahead. A malign light gleamed in the half-devil’s eyes as he sent a pulse of his own magicks behind them. The whip-crack of displaced air was like a gun shot in the otherwise still air, the eldritch blast sending the projectiles hurtling forward as he landed, far faster than his own arm could have managed.
A bit like ‘e just did to yo—
Aurelianus clamped down on the thought even as it formed.
His attack wasn’t done yet and he wanted to time this next bit perfectly. Even as he fired off his callous volley, the warlock’s willpower was working away on something else. Behind his opponent, the air roiled and wavered more than it already was from the still-climbing sun beating down on both combatants. He shaped Shahab’s Lash as he ran, the ability now second-nature to him, and from the ground at the human's back burst a swirling pillar of clinging, corrosive Hellfire – hopefully just as the man was dealing with Aurelianus’ opener. After seeing the effects that the soft-looking cutter could have on metal, he wasn’t hanging his hopes on it being lethal but it would keep his opponent’s attention squared on him. In the time it took him to think it, the column soared five-men high, casting lunatic shadows convulsing over the ground. The Hellfire itself threw off its own illumination but also devoured light, straining the eye with retina-scarring streaks of black the longer one looked. It was an added artistic flourish that saw it take on the visage of some serpentine nightmare; the mirror image of the hydras flanking his crest of quills. Three heads made of void-black flame uncoiled on sinuous necks, spattering the grass with liquid droplets of the same.
With a whooshing roar, the magickal construct attacked, the relentless inevitability of a wave crashing down from above.
