V S M Assembly

[Altanis]

Galand spun and twirled his spear with deft precision, slashing and smashing the onslaught of stone out of the air with ease. He laughed mockingly at the effort, bolting forward and weaving around into a spinning pivot to drive the harpoon blade of his spear into Altanis and skewer her clean through.

The blow never landed, though.

A shimmering field of scarlet energy sprang to life, the blade glancing off of it like a steel wall, much to the warrior demon's surprise. It was similarly surprising when what felt like a sledgehammer struck his chin, his head suddenly rocketing upward and sending him flipping ass over teakettle through the air, landing in an unsteady heap when he finally hit the ground again.

Reaching up to re-adjust his mangled helmet back into its proper place, he snorted in delight. "So you do have some fight in you, then? Then maybe this'll be interesting after all!"

"I have more than some fight in me," Altanis growled, her entire body shimmering in a haze of scarlet. She hated that she had to get serious to this extent against a single opponent. She had scarcely exerted so much force even during the events of the last Dante's Abyss, when there had been hundreds of targets to contend with. That she was being forced to go so far against one...

"Gyahahaha!" Galand was back on his feet in an instant, spear in hand, and whirled it around in a broad arc. Sand and dust kicked up in the force of the maneuver, and then a second spinning sweep followed. "Bunzaradun!" he roared, as his spear spun into a blurring tornado. Chunks of the ground and nearby buildings were torn free, pulverized into fragments as a hailstorm of blows rained down upon everything. Like a rainstorm small explosions, every one throwing up clouds of rubble and dust.

Altanis was forced to retreat, drawing well back and frantically throwing out wave after wave of mental force to ward off the worst of the force coming her way. Even so, she didn't escape entirely unscathed, winding up covered in deep gashes and puncture wounds from the sheer speed of the attacks. They were relatively shallow, compared to more decisive and fully wound-up strikes, but still more than enough to be deadly.

The gale of strikes ended, revealing Galand standing in the midst of a wrecked street, green eyes blazing through his helmet and his mouth torn open in a screaming grin of delight. He bolted forward, his footsteps churning and tearing apart the already ruined ground even further as he hurled himself forward at a low angle, seeming to hover and slide over the ground like a meteor.

Altanis held her ground, thrusting both hands forward to release a wave of energy that met the warrior demon head-on, releasing a burst of raw force like a bomb going off.

 

[Altanis]

Smoke and dust plumed into the air from the ruins of the next street over, as Jean-Ray Morgans staggered around the corner of an alleyway. "Fucking hell...all that chaos and no weapons or bombs or anything." She huffed, wiping a soot-laded hand over her face in a vain attempt to get her unruly hair out of her eyes. "God damn inhuman monsters..."

She took a deep breath, waiting for the next inevitable boom and accompanying snarls and cackles, then bolted forward. It was a risky game, she knew. Every little gap between buildings or alleyway was a chance she might be spotted by that freak -- Galand, or whatever his name was. If he spotted her, it was all over. She was nowhere near fast enough to evade him, or strong enough to tangle with him for more than a few seconds.

She nearly tripped over a loose stone in the road, and instantly shivers ran up her spine. Visions of that metallic armor opening up its snaggletoothed maw and coming down with a screeching chomp on her woefully unprotected flesh flashed through her mind, and she whimpered instinctively. Flashes of white-hot phantom pain jolted across her body in several places, tormenting her with what it might feel like.

Then she was up and running again, and the portal out of here was right there for her to see.

Can't believe I'm gonna make it out of here so easy...

Then everything came crashing down around her, quite literally. The crimson hide of Altanis suddenly occupied Morgans' entire field of view as she was blindsided by the centaur, sending the both of them crashing into a wall and bringing the entire thing crumbling down with a terrific noise.

"You didn't think I was just going to let you get away that easily, did you?!" Galand roared, as his armored boot came crashing down through the rubble, mere inches from turning Altanis's head into pulp. "We're nowhere near through with our game, yet!"

 

[Altanis]

The ground heaved upward under Galand's feet as Altanis snarled, sending the warrior demon scrambling backward into a tumbling leap. "Miss Morgans...I can keep him distracted and focused on me for a moment," she growled, forcing herself back upright. "Kindly make your escape in that time."

"Yeah, no shit," Morgans snapped. "Like I wanna stick around and find out what dying when I'm already dead is like." She was slower to get back on her feet, but soon enough was upright as well.

...just in time for Galand's towering presence to loom out of the dust behind her, his spear crashing into the ground. "You keep makin' plans like it's gonna be easy to get past me." His amused tone had dropped entirely, replaced by an almost echoing, low gravelly rumble. The words struck like a hammer blow, shaking and throbbing in the (mostly) human woman's chest, making her whirl around reflexively to do something between ward off a blow and dive out of the way of one.

The lanky brute's eyes burned with an almost literal green flame as he tightened his grasp on his spear, wrenching it free of the ground and hefting it up across his body, winding up for a massive swing. The action would have been more at home for a sword, or for a halberd with both hands. Galand didn't care about what was practical, though; in his hands, with his brute strength, a stick picked up from a forest trail would have been lethal when swung with so much wind up.

The swing never came, though.

A shimmering aura of hazy red flared up around the spear, holding it firmly in place even as Galand strained with all his might against it. "You damn bitch!" he roared, rounding on Altanis and releasing his deathgrip on his weapon. He instead struck out with his bare hands, landing a fierce double blow that echoed throughout the area with a wet, meaty crunch-thud and sent the hellspawn centaur staggering and stumbling back. Dark, black blood erupted from her mouth along with a spray of venomous spittle, and her hold on the spear faltered.

Altanis's vision went hazy and blurred, white and black and gold and red spots dancing and twirling like stars before her eyes as she wrestled with unconsciousness right then and there. For all his nonsense about games and his 'laughing old geezer' mentality, it was clear enough to her now. Galand was a warrior from the ground up. He knew how to strike for the kill even with his bare hands, he knew how to get the upper hand and keep it, he knew how to manipulate a battle's momentum. He know how to fight, at its basic and most primitive levels. Altanis wasn't just outmatched, she was entirely outclassed.

Physically, Galand could have probably gone toe-to-toe with any of the heroes from the great wars under Goreskan. They had all of them been incredibly strong and mighty, worth more than a hundred regular soldiers. Altanis was never a physical powerhouse, and her battlefield experience lay far more in magic and manipulation, so being overpowered by someone that was at such a level wasn't surprising. It was, in fact, every bit the expected outcome.

However...it did make her absolutely furious.

And Altanis's anger was a terrible thing to behold.

 

[Altanis]

Altanis's expression twisted and hardened into a cold, icy thing. Her lips parted, baring her pointed teeth in a silent snarl. Inky blood ran down her chin, dripping steaming to the ground below. "Galand..." she growled. "Your strength is admirable...but not enough, in this instance."

A simple flick of one hand and the warrior demon's own spear suddenly spun through the air like a buzzsaw, nearly severing one of his arms before the blade struck, impaling him through the chest in a fountain of black and violet fluid.

"Grrraaaaagh!" He threw back his head in a screeching roar of pain and surprise, staggering with the force of the blow. "Uuuurgh.....ghuuuurh....!" He heaved and groaned, dropping to one knee and clutching at the point of the spear protruding from his chest. "You...magic-bitch!" he roared, his voice sending tremors through the earth. He smashed a fist into the ground, sending another tremor through the ground. "You think you can win with a little trick like that?! You think that's enough to handle me?!"

In an instant, he was back on his feet and rearing back to throw another bone-splintering punch...but he was brought to a swift halt, immobilized in place. Dim, hazy wisps of crimson smoke fluttered and flowed about him. His entire body strained, the metal armor-hide he was made of threatening to start shearing and tearing under his simple drive to hit Altanis in that moment.

But he couldn't budge.

The tactician's expression curled up into a grin. "Just as I thought," she murmured. "For all your experience in battle, you're still a domineering and cocky type. You never go all-out at first. You toy with your enemies, see just how much 'fun' you can get out of them. Adjust your strength to match what's thrown back at you." She laughed, extending a hand toward Galand and turning her palm up, fingers raised in a claw-like gesture. "You arrogantly think no one could match you...but your temper ruins you. When someone pulls a trick you weren't expecting, does something to actually get to you...you fly into a tantrum, like a child."

"You stop holding back. You become...predictable."

Galand's shaking body lurched forward a few inches, his monstrous strength forcing Altanis to furrow her brow and focus more intently to keep him bound in place. "How?!" he snarled, the green glow of his eyes flaring and sparking to fill the entire eye slits of his helm. "You couldn't have always been this strong, strong enough to hold me in place!" His voice took on a desperate, frantic edge, shaking and trembling as he plowed on with his words. "It was all you could do to keep fending me off before!"

"I was testing you..." Altanis spat to one side, a phlegmy wad of blood and spittle that immediately ate through the chunk of rubble it landed on. "Seeing exactly how strong you were, when you really cut loose. Seeing if I could actually hold you in place like this. It isn't easy..." She grinned again, baring her bloodied teeth mockingly. "...but I can."

"And nuts to you, demon-man!" came the voice of one Jean-Ray Morgans, as she stomped down within arms' reach of the portal leading back to the living world. "This is your loss." And she dove through.