sunnydalealum (
sunnydalealum) wrote2007-12-22 11:29 pm
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It's five-thirty at the offices of Wolfram & Hart New York, and the regular workday is winding down.
Some people, of course, don't leave till much later, even under ordinary circumstances.
Which these are decidedly not.
"I'll need as many of you on guard as I can get." Emma's walking fast as she speaks, coming down the hall from her office, her heels clicking on the hallway floor. Brianna, soft-footed in sneakers and carrying an incongruous guitar case, keeps pace on her right; a handful of others trail in her wake. "All of you, ideally. Start calling now, and let's see if we can get everyone in by eight, start things rolling by nine -- Ajani?"
Some people, of course, don't leave till much later, even under ordinary circumstances.
Which these are decidedly not.
"I'll need as many of you on guard as I can get." Emma's walking fast as she speaks, coming down the hall from her office, her heels clicking on the hallway floor. Brianna, soft-footed in sneakers and carrying an incongruous guitar case, keeps pace on her right; a handful of others trail in her wake. "All of you, ideally. Start calling now, and let's see if we can get everyone in by eight, start things rolling by nine -- Ajani?"
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The sound that sorceror 1 makes as he collides unexpectedly with sorceror 2 is more like a very unhappy THWAK. (In yellow with spiky black edges.) Philippus backhands the third one, grabbing his hood as she goes by and dragging him through the lines. Her axe, off-balance and black and what she privately has always considered to be ridiculously spiky, goes down through the center of the root, and she tosses the sorceror over one of the bowls as she scoops up the Scythe.
Then she grabs the table by one leg, pivoting and dragging it with her; she'll likely need a shield or a weapon. Or, if the sorcerors are down, she can just throw it over the rest of the design and call this little ritual about as disturbed as it can get.
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As she pivots, the table twists away from her hand.
One of the first two sorcerors is stumbling to his feet, raising his arm, hissing words in a language she doesn't recognize --
The table rises into the air, and slams broadside into her.
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She drops down below it, one palm hitting a clear spot on the floor, hooking the Scythe on her back, grabbing the table's underside, and slinging it his way. He'll at least have to reverse its momentum; she's already fleeing for the door, fleet-footed, blessed by Artemis.
She pauses long enough to kick another sorceror as he starts to rise. Stay down, thank you.
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The table crashes into the far wall, in splinters, and the sorceror that flung it is still standing, hand stretching towards her.
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She kicks the door, figuring anything short of outright paralysis beats whatever magic is about to come her way. It cracks, but doesn't give, and she pivots and charges back at him.
First drop him; then get the door.
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Meanwhile, the two other robed figures are slowly getting to their feet.
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The two go down together in a tangle of dark-red fabric, one crying out in a high-pitched whistling hiss.
The third lunges at her, fire flaring from its hands.
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She moves to the door in a quick rush, watching the flame, ready to evade, and rather hoping it sets fire to it. That won't be good for the locking spell.
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The fire obscures her view of the demon itself, until it divides like someone sweeping aside curtains. And the demon's ... changed.
Red robes fall in a heap to the ground as something four-legged and gray-furred and feral leaps directly at her face.
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She brings the Scythe off her back, bringing it around into the path of the creature.
It's the bracelets that betray her. They're of a different work and shape, but in this moment of practiced movement they feel the same. The Sycthe smashes into it flat-first as she spins, slamming it into and through the door with a most satisfying crash. . .
. . . but its claw tore through the skin at her elbow, the bracelets the wrong shape and thickness to protect at that angle.
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There's a dull acidic burn to the pain that's slightly less familiar.
The hellhound moves feebly in the wreckage of the door, whining.
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Brianna's voice speaks into her ear, three short furious words: "You treacherous bitch."
There are three more Slayers -- zhirelin -- piling through the door, and charging.
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"Brianna." Philippus puts the Scythe back on her shoulders as she twists to take the new impact, flipping over, palm hitting the floor again and the other scraping Brianna off and shoving. "Wrong hold." She comes back up on her feet. "Connie! You never start with your hands high enough." Connie meets the floor, although she catches the back of her shirt to slow her fall. "Juliet--" she swings around to Connie's other side, knocking the zhirel's guard aside and sending her into the wall, "you've always been tricky to knock out first hit. Well done."
There's a distraction now; Brianna's getting up and there's a hellhound bounding in. Philippus is wearing something that to her whole fighting style says I am an axe! and it hits the ground, half to either side of her.
"Stand aside, Erica."
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For all her anger and bravado, she's visibly alarmed. They've all sparred with Ajani before, in the workout sessions in the company gym; she's never been this strong. Where's it coming from?
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Philippus rolls her eyes. Okay, that's Mary-Anne, a demon she can't be sure is harmful; she traps her and throws her into a sorceror who's probably going to duck next time. That's Ha'krt, who she doesn't know is harmful, demon or not; she blocks a triad of bony darts thrown at her. She spins the Scythe, deflecting a nasty-looking dagger, and knocks him out with a controlled hit to the side of the head. Let's see--oh! Bob from accounting, a vampire. Dust.
Brianna again. She blocks twice and then kicks her back.
She's slowing. Her elbow's starting to report very bad sensations indeed.
She's not stopping, though.
"That's not going to happen." She starts for the door, again, purposefully.
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She should be able to wrest it back out of the younger woman's grasp, easily, but it's not coming.
Connie's second kick, the one that doesn't miss, slams into her elbow just above where the hellhound's claw caught. The dull burn of the wound flares abruptly into white-hot corrosive pain.
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She glances over as the sorceror raises a hand, and time does not stop as much as her muscles simply take over. The greenish dart that flies from his hand leaves concentric rings in the air, and it leaves a mark on the silver panel of her bracelet, but then it plants itself harmlessly in the ceiling.
The impact is enough for her to temporarily decide the other arm can now be distinguished as the good arm.
Which leaves Connie staring just long enough for an open-palmed smack between the eyes that has her down.
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Erica steps forward, visibly bracing herself. She's telegraphing her attack, that's not like her --
At the same moment two of the others strike from behind, hard and fast.
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The spell this time looks different; she simply sidesteps as it approaches, fast enough to dodge.
But there's now a zhirel charging right into it.
She doesn't kill. She won't. It's a mortal girl. She's bought time and she'll do her duty as Gaea gave it. She brings her arm straight out--right in front of Juliet's face--and the spell hits her bracelet and wraps around, spreading up her good arm in a wash of pain.
Juliet hits her as she pulls it back to recover; there's a sort of general dogpile a moment later.
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Hands are closing on her wrists and shoulders, pulling her up onto her knees, holding her there with her arms behind her back in classic prisoner position. One hand presses heavily down between her shoulders, a pressure that shouldn't be hard to shrug off -- except for the alarming weakness.
A pair of high heels stops in front of her, and a hand pulls her hair back, forcing her face up to meet Emma's cold stare.
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"Your rogue has killed one of my apprentices, aemmabal'whinn, and injured the other." Its voice is no further clue, thin and flutelike. "I trust there shall be compensation."
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Her face is creased only slightly with a look of troubled concern, but there's some other emotion under it: a roiling caldera of anger and bewildered fear, a tension visible only in the flick of her eyes. A look that says how the hell could a screwup like this happen, and how can I get out of it --
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She doubts she'll be taken prisoner. If she is, she doubts she'll be kept one for long. She just watches, face blank with three thousand year's worth of cultivated serenity.
She has one regret, and only the one: she isn't dying for her Queen.
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"Hold out her arm," she says abruptly.
One of the zhirelin does so, and the clawed arm is pulled forward into Phil's line of sight.
Livid red streaks are spreading up and down the arm, and the flesh around the wound has swollen and darkened to near-black.
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