«» Jade Slipping into Shadow «»
«» Jade in Khanate Chapter Ten «»
«» Shadowrealm Heartland «»
o0O¥O0o
Come the morning, such as it is in the Shadowrealms, Jade has the breakfast of champions before her first duel against a shadowkhan warlord. That is to say she would have: if Section Thirteen were the champions and the scavengings of their canteen the breakfast; but victuals they are. It is plenty enough that Jade has to stomach when she steps out into the arena. The shadowkhan that Jade has got to know are out there; she'd known that they would be, with them being the tribal warlords. It isn't all of it at all though, as each of them has brought their personal retinue to this gladitorium; twenty to a warlord makes nigh on two hundred shadowkhan there to see Jade's debut. The one and only supporter under Jade's banner is her loyal leechkhan. Ogami opens the proceedings.
« Jade Khan you wish our support to you; in your quest for talisman chi. Yet our code cannot bestow more than is conquered; regardless of our debt to you. We give fair challenge to you. Do you accept? »
« Bring it on swordmeister. »
« Jade Khan we accept the challenge of you. Who stands forth against this warrior? »
The ninjakhan cracks neck and knuckles in a very Dark Jackie way and observes.
« Hai! A human hatchling! This is a mockery. Even that one could defeat her. »
Ninjakhan points directly at the least of the shadowkhan; the little leechkhan.
« Back off creepazoid. You wanna pick on my buds? Tch! Gotta get through the Jadester first. »
« Bah! Do you think that you're any challenge to me! »
The duel of words is broken by a squidkhan, the who one had given Jade her banner the evening before.
« Umm. No. It should be I who make the challenge. Please permit me to face Jade Khan. »
« Usagi is the challenger to you Jade Khan. Take stance for passage of arms. »
« Ogami Khan; she should face a true warrior. Let me show her the meaning of combat! »
« It was Usagi who issued challenge, while you blustered. Be at peace; Jade Khan will contest you in the fullness of time. »
« So long as she can survive. Usagi if you presume to play soft with her you'll have me to fight next. »
« Let all be assured that should Jade Khan be victor it shall be true victory. If it be aught the less then her life is concluded. Commence! »
Usagi Squidkhan and Jade face each other in the cleared space at the heart of the plateau. Even before the combat has started,I the field is pitched against Jade: without a clear win they'll kill her off anyways and her opponent is gonna try and win all ways; it is that or else Usagi faces off against the ninjakhan. Formally, they bow to each other.
« Hiyaaaaaa! »
Jade leaps up and lashes out with a flying dropkick, as fast and hasty as ever. Usagi doesn't so much as trouble to move or to dodge but, the instant before Jade's foot connects, the terrible teeth of a head that is all jaws snap tight around her ankle. Jade is trapped in midair: dangling from the jaws of the squidkhan, she is fiercely tossed and torn; like a chew toy in the mouth of a terrier. Game as ever Jade swings in and strikes out with her fists, even as she is dangling upside down, the squidkhan simply seizes her striking arm in the lower set of jaws. Jade is caught like a flag on a flagpole, held by both arm and leg, as Usagi sways from side to side. Moving swiftly and violently the squidkhan has Jade's captured body swinging about like a banner in a gale; shredding her flesh, wrenching her limbs in their sockets, making her giddy and nauseous. Then the squidkhan sharply gapes opens the upper set of Jaws: giving Jade's leg a sudden liberty; so that her body drops down in a short and abrupt flight that is arrested by all of her weight falling onto her still trapped arm, in a torturing, contorting halt.
Usagi keeps still for only as long as it takes for Jade to take the full of the pain and the injury of this crashing stop. From then the squidkhan makes use of the last of Jade's momentum; bends double and low; before springing back to full height and snapping the triangular head upwards. Jade, with her arm locked in Usagi's jaws, is flung skywards and heads highwards as the squidkhan lets go of her altogether. Inevitably her flight has to become a fall and it ends with her falling back into the razor jaws. She plummets headfirst: till the fangs of the squidkhan clamp onto her body just below the arm. The vicious, upper enamel pierces Jade's flesh; as Usagi takes bite upon bite out of her — feeding her falling body through the maw, as if she is cloth in a sewing machine. By the time the teeth have chewed their way across her hip and along her leg to down the ankle Jade is dangling from Usagi's jaws just as she was at the very start of the fight. With an expert flip and dip of the head, the squidkhan wheels Jade around, till her uninjured arm is snared and wrenched about by the gnashing jaws.
It looks as if Jade is going through the meatgrinder all over again and her fists will be no more help than before. She doesn't agree with that for any kind of fun though: so she rams her one loose knee hard into the eye of a smug and overconfident shadowkhan. With a squeal the squidkhan jerks away an injured eye and hurting head; the jaws unclench in a reflex action: Jade flys free, hurtling through the air to land hard, heavily and hurtingly on the very brink of a lavabrook. She is back to her feet and back in the fight as they two face each other again.
« Hiyaaaaaa! »
Jade takes a run and a leap as she fires off a furious flying kick; this time she is coming in low to break the squidkhan into two halves, as well as to keep away from the Jade-munching head. The squidkhan doesn't move by so much as a whisker and actually allows Jade to drive in hard; then keep on driving and diving deep into the inside of the squidkhan. The creature has become some form of a dark tunnel into which the form of Jade is disappearing. In one instant Jade is powerbombing into Usagi (in a hardhitting horizontal kick from ground level) and the very next instant she is hurtling out of an inky hole that has just opened high in the sky. Jade drops out curled into a bare and shivering ball: all of her unclad flesh is white with chill; while her teeth chatter like a crab army.
« Cold - Cold - Cold » Jade sees where she is and her eyes bug « High - High - High »
Taken utterly unawares Jade has all of the force of her own energetic kick, as well as the deadly dynamo of gravity, combining to turn her into a divebombing, planeless, unshielded, kamikaze, suicide. Jade has been taken out by Usagi's signature move; the uncanny ability that has won the squidkhan so very many victories. This is the end of the fight for Jade; as all of her aims and ambitions are gong to shatter on the unforgiving ground; along with her own exposed and far too fragile form. There is nothing that could have prepared her for this or protected her from this. Somehow though, even though she lands with a grunt and a groan and definite damage, she manages to break the fall just of enough to be okay. Isn't it just the luckiest of coincidences that Hatsuné and Mugen chanced to practice high falls with her last night.
For a moment Usagi is taken aback; that a move that has taken out many a mighty shadowkhan and demon has done not nearly enough injury to this raw, half-formed, soft-skinned, mortal, child. In utter embarrassment Usagi springs upon Jade: enveloping and transporting her, uplifting her and then releasing her; for another bone-battering, body-bruising, bomb-run. This isn't any longer any kind of a fight; there is no way at all for Jade to fight off ebony ectoplasm or take issue with the air and the ground that are her assailants. The arctic chill of the inbetween bites into a skinned Jade; down to her very bone and marrow. All that Jade can do is to do the best she can, using the lessons from last night, and endure the endless piledriving pounding as best she can.
Usagi dares not do less than the worst … not even after taking Jade down to nothing. All of the other shadowkhan are standing in judgement of this duel; so Jade's reduction and destruction must be the most vicious and violent of performances. For every time that Jade is consumed and redoomed there is another and different danger for her to face down-below. Jade has to withstand a kaleidoscope of perils: the piercing of skin-slicing volcanic glass; the stabbing spears of crystal formations; the blistering bursts of furious fumaroles; the scalding spurt of geysers and her own ouching, aching self dropped in to begin an avalanche that rolls her roughly downslope.
All of this time however Usagi has entirely underestimated Jade; so long as she has breath in her body she will fight if she can. So far she hasn't had anything of a chance but now she has. The stones that have knocked her about, rocked her about, roughhoused her about, all of the way to a hurting heap at the bottom; they are still heaped about and they are ammunition. Usagi is sweeping in, sure of swallowing Jade up and dropping her down again; she is a bit above, just where the landslip has stopped partway upslope but this won't be any of a problem. How wrong can a shadowkhan be and how deadly can a Jade be; as she sends the largest and hardest stones that she can flinging down on her approaching enemy. It isn't single stones alone that Jade brings to the battle: she starts another avalanche and sends it surging down at Usagi; only to see it vanish inside of the void that is the squidkhan.
« Suckerific! Where did that lot go? Awww. Rats. »
Usagi has taken brutal advantage of the squidkhans' darkgate power to turn the avalanche back against Jade. It is all coming downslope from above her in an inescapable tide that sweeps her up, sweeps her along, sweeps the feet from under her. Jade goes tumbling, rumbling, jouncing and bouncing all the way to very foot of the steep slope. Her vulnerable, insubstantial flesh is set against those all too substantial rocks and slabs that slam, smash, mash and mangle her; making her nothing more than a bloodied cookie in a blender. It isn't the end though; the avalanche does end and Jade finds herself back on level ground and free of the grinding nightmare that has nearly destroyed her. Jade sees Usagi away in the distance, the squidkhan has kept safely away from the avalanche but is now coming in to make an end of her. Jade will have something to say about that; she leaps to her feet to greet the squidkhan with a deadly kick … only she can't as her body betrays her and won't obey her, while the squidkhan descends upon her.
o0O¥O0o
A/N
Oh! Sorry! You want to know what happens to Jade now?
Well there's a hint at the end of Chap 11 but you'll have to go all the way over to Chap 12 for the full and revolting details. Oh yeh and there is character death in this here fic.