Title: Smash and Grab
Rating: T for some head-biting.
Summary: Isabelle is kidnapped again. She gets rescued, but not by Jack. Fallon/Isabelle. Based on the game Fallon's Fury.
Disclaimer: The characters are the property of Disney and Legendary Entertainment. Addicting Games owns Fallon's Fury. I make no money off of anything.
Smash and Grab
Fee-fi-fo-fum,
I smell the blood of an Englishman,
Be he alive, or be he dead
I'll have his bones to grind my bread!
- The Giant, Jack and the Beanstalk
...
The pigs squealed in terror, their fat, pink bodies darted in all directions as he stomped relentlessly forward. The pen where they'd been kept was now reduced to broken bits of wood. He bent down to scoop a few of the juicy little animals into his mouth, relishing the meaty taste, letting it fuel his bloodlust as he marched into battle.
A pitiful little arrow hit him below his collarbone. He didn't bother to look for the archer, just lashed out with his fist at the newest obstacle in his way. The roof of a house exploded, sending up a mushroom cloud of stone, dust, and wood. Humans were screaming, but he hardly cared; the tiny sounds were engulfed beneath the roar of rage in his ears. Things squished wetly beneath his feet, but that didn't bother him either.
Nothing mattered except his goal. His princess.
The bastard who took her is going to pay, and so will Jack when I sink my teeth into him. Tidings of the kidnapping had been late reaching him. Isabelle was taken by the upstart Count Geoffrey two days ago and Fumm had just received word of it through his human friend, the serving girl. It had been Fumm who'd brought the news to him while he'd been resting in his mountain cave. His roar of fury had rattled a few stalactites loose and frightened a colony of bats for good measure. The Count wishes to ransom her for half the kingdom, Fumm said. Jack and Elmont would try to avoid a fight. After relaying this, Fumm had shaken his head in exasperation.
There was the whine of something traveling at great speed. He brought a hand up to flick the stone away before it could strike his face. Jack and the Guard Captain are fools, he thought, wished to try to barter for her life, to negotiate, as they called it, whereas he was in favor of a more aggressive approach.
Intense, bone-crunching, blood-spraying aggression.
Fumm was at his side, as well as Fee and Fye and Foe. All of them armed, armored, and, judging from the grins on their faces, thoroughly enjoying themselves. He didn't blame them. Seldom did the opportunity come up for a good fight these days, what with the truce they had with Isabelle's folk. The princess had declared the people of Cloister were off-limits as far as eating went, and she had grown inside his heart to such an extent that he actually obeyed her. But she never said anything about traitorous, thieving cowards. The thought came just as a soldier on horseback rode in close enough to aim a lance at his ankle. The metal tip barely penetrated his tough flesh before both rider and mount were flung into the air by his kick, their twin screams lost among the general sounds of terror and war. The path was inclining steadily upward, and Fallon had a gut-feeling that they would soon lose the protection of the trees and emerge onto open grassland. It matters not. Let Count Geoffrey see his death approaching. He pounded his fist into another small hut, sending more peasants fleeing.Out of the corner of an eye he saw Fumm loading a stone into the cup of his sling. He let it fly, and Fee cursed when the stone skimmed over the top of his head to strike a guard tower sticking up like a white tooth at the crest of the hill. The building shattered into powdered stone. Fee turned, pushing back a few lanky strands of hair to glare at Fumm.
"Oi, watch where you're shootin' that thing!"
Fallon smirked. It was good to be having fun with his brothers again. His small head yelped an enthusiastic battle cry as he stomped forward, clearing the top of the hill.
The first of the flaming rocks hit him square in the chest. He stumbled back, cursing, as another missile left a trail of searing heat by his ear. Beside him, Fye was roaring as he used his great battle-ax as a club, blocking and swatting the burning stones away. They were good-sized chunks of quarried granite, large enough to kill several humans at once, and they bloody hurt!
He spotted a lone tree. About waist-high, it was too small to use as cover but would make a perfect club. "Spread out!" Fallon roared as he pulled the tree up by the roots and quickly stripped off its leaves. "Knock those blasted things out of the sky and keep going!"
Fye was laughing as he dodged amongst the burning hail. He was bulky enough that a few hits wouldn't do him much harm. The painful burn on Fallon's chest was already receding into a dull ache. Roaring and snarling, he turned the missiles aside with his club, sending them streaking like meteors back in the directions from which they'd been launched. Soon his impromptu club was burning like a torch in his hand, and he thought he must've been such a fearsome sight to these little human soldiers; a two-headed giant roaring, stomping, and brandishing fire. He felt glorious.
Fumm shouted from close by. "The castle!" A quick glance and he could see his younger brother loading another stone into his sling. His black hair was ruffled, his teeth were bared, and a fey light was in his eyes. "We have them!"
Indeed we do, he thought as he surveyed Count Geoffrey's fortifications. The castle was built of gray stone, surrounded by high ramparts notched with arrow slits. The firestorm increased as they drew closer, the panicky soldiers sensing approaching doom. Fools. They hadn't even raised the drawbridge, but simply placed a small garrison of lightly armed infantry upon it as a barrier. Even as his club sent the last burning stone careening with a steaming splash into the moat and he closed the last bit of distance between them, he could smell the sourness of men in mortal terror. The defenders were fidgety, shaking, close to breaking ranks. Either Count Geoffrey was confident to the point of stupidity, or he didn't believe in giants.
Fallon was about to make him believe.
A roar loud enough to rival thunder tore from his throat as he leapt full onto the stone bridge. Men scattered like ants, dropping sword and shield in their haste to get away. One swipe of his smoking club knocked half of them into the moat; he kicked one tough-soled foot at the rest. Bodies sailed into the air like bits of chaff. One of the soldiers, a white-haired man clad in steel and black leather that Fallon assumed to be a Guard Captain, turned and shouted, "Damn you, Geoffrey! I told you the girl was protected by giants!"
Geoffrey.
Fallon squinted down into the swirl of dead or fleeing humans and spotted a portly man with golden curls roughly shoving his way through the bristling crowd; his only hope of survival was to escape back into the castle. The heavy purple and silver robes he wore marked him as a nobleman. Oh no, you don't! The burning club was tossed away, forgotten. In two steps, Fallon was standing over his prey, then bent down and, like a striking snake, caught the little human in one thick-fingered hand. Count Geoffrey's face grew white as cream as he was lifted up to meet the giant's furious eyes.
"WHERE IS SHE!"
Geoffrey stammered, his voice high and frightened as a little boy's. "I-I-In the d-dungeon!"
"Give her to us!"
"Do as he says!" he called down to what remained of his men. The Guard Captain disappeared through the castle gate. The Count wriggled in his grasp, tears glimmering in his eyes, and Fallon felt his blood surge. Time to end this.
"Well, little man," he growled, "shall I kill you fast or slow?" Geoffrey whimpered as the fingers holding him clenched tighter, making things crunch and shift painfully inside his body From somewhere far off, thunder rumbled, and Fallon felt a few spatters of cold rain hit his shoulders. "Does she live?"
"S-S-She's a-alive and w-w-whole." Sweat flowed in runnels down the Count's face, darkening the fanned collar of his robe. Fallon's nose wrinkled at its foulness. "P-Please!" he begged.
Looking past his weeping, terrified prisoner, Fallon saw the Guard Captain emerge from the castle's depths, carrying a limp feminine form in his arms. "Fast, then," he said, and with a vicious snarl closed his mouth upon the head of the screaming man, whose final shriek cut short as giant teeth severed his neck at the third vertebra. With a savage twist, Fallon tore the Count's head from his body, while muscle spasms rippled through the blood-drenched torso, jerking the arms and legs in a grotesque corpse-dance. The purple robes were soaked black with wet, salty warmth, and Fallon chewed and swallowed quickly, his attention turning to the unconscious woman the Guard Captain was ever so carefully laying at his feet.
Isabelle. She shone like a golden star, her silk dress clinging to her form in enticing ways. He knelt down and gathered her into his gore-streaked hands. Inhaled her scent. She smelled of her usual sweetness, but with an undercurrent of something bitter that shot up his nostrils like a sword. They'd drugged her.
Rain was coming down in earnest now. He turned with the princess in his cupped hands and saw his four brothers standing together in a loose ring at the mouth of the drawbridge, awaiting his orders. Fye was picking something out of his teeth. The last of the Count's soldiers, seeing their escape route blocked, were making desperate jumps into the moat. White foam shot up as each man hit the turbid gray water, and he supposed some of them might even be lucky enough to survive.
A growl rumbled deep within Fallon's chest, the fire in his heart banked but not extinguished. His small head mimicked the sound, and for once, it was passably frightening.
A streak of lightning painted the sky white as he marched back across the drawbridge, passing between Foe and Fye, who stepped aside to make sure he had enough room. They sensed his anger.
He called out to them without turning around. "Tear the place apart."
Fallon almost wished he could stay and help his brothers take the castle apart piece by piece, but he had other business to attend to. The princess would awaken soon, and she wouldn't be in Jack's arms. She would be with him, in his cave, in his giant embrace. Her eyes would flutter open and she would see that it was he, not Jack, who had saved her.
And I had better receive that kiss she owes me.
...
Author's Note: Yes, I know that it is way OOC for Fallon to do something like this, but this is meant to be a side story to "Seed of Darkness." And if that little tale pans out the way I want it to, then Isabelle and Fallon will grow to care for each other more. Like Clarice and Hannibal Lector, but maybe not quite as disturbing. :) And "Fallon's Fury" is a pretty fun game, and kinda gives you a little insight into his character. I figure if Fallon cared enough to rescue the princess, he'd be the type to negotiate with his fists.