The bar was getting demolished by all the fighting. The bartender had ducked under the bar and grabbed the staff she'd hidden there. Sneck had already done something similar. He reached for the shelves and saved a bottle of Tequila, which he was now chugging.
"Jason, if these are friends of yours you better deal with em'!"
"Them? Nu-uh," He took a swig and pointed towards the chaos, "Not when they're like this, I'll get killed!"
"Goddamnit Jason, why do torment me like this? This is the tenth time you've trashed my bar you fucker! I swear to God if you don't pay for the damages by tomorrow morning I'm gonna turn you into a woman and whore you out till' your cootch is squirting blood and cum! YA HEAR ME!"
"Yeah yeah I hear ya." he said dismissively.
A massive wave of Ki slammed into the bar. It was stopped dead in its tracks, but now the bar was rather obviously cracked.
"Wow, you shielded the bar!"
"Yep! It can handle anything up to Ancient or A-rank!" She said with an undeniable sense of pride.
"Errr, I think that last one was A-rank." He pointed at the crack.
"FUCK! Do you know how much that costs! How the fuck do you draw so many damn freaks to yourself you bastard!"
"Dunno, maybe it's cuz I'm so damn sexy." He smiled devilishly and resumed chugging.
"Fuck you. (You sexy bastard)."
"Free Booze!" said a horned teenager as he leaped for what remained of the shelf, and the few bottles of liquor still undamaged. The bartender ermified him just before he could grab a bottle of Spirytus vodka.
"Ermification! That means you…" She put her finger to his lips, grabbed the nearly stolen Vodka, and started talking.
"Got sick of ruining lives, at least that way. I loved doing it ya know, taking everything that mattered away from them. Their despair, their sorrow, the look on their face as I did it to them," A cold, evil smile crept across her face, but faded quickly, "but after a few decades it just stopped being fun. Or rather, I realized what I was. I was nothing more than a bureaucrat, a fucking bureaucrat of all things! I was a bound spirit, a god damned slave to the system!"
"So what does that have to do with anything?"
"Everything you dumbass. Upon that realization I quit and used my substantial savings to open my own bar in a place everyone considered 'entrepreneurial suicide.' (Really drives down the cost ya know) I showed them didn't I? Even if people like you swing by every once in awhile and raze it I still make money hand over fist. And every drink I sell to some down and out loser is another step down his own personal path to ruin. This is so much better. No arbitrary system, no reliance on anything outside myself. Just smooth talk and obscene profit. This was always my true calling. Wish I'd have seen that from the start."
"Heh, for a moment there, I almost forgot just how evil yet wonderfully awesome you are Tynave."
"Heh, here's to true evil." She said happily.
"To true evil!" He responded. They toasted fifths and started chugging.
"Say Tynave…ever think of changing sides?"
"Huh? You mean, becoming a truly good person with a shitload of angst on their back cuz' of all their past misdeeds? Plagued forever with the memory of their most vile sins?"
"Yeah, something like that."
"Hahahaha! You've spent too much time spent around that priest friend of yours. Good thing you came here before you went straight!" She took a large swig.
"Afraid I'd hate you if I did?"
"Wha, n-no! Th-That's not it!" she was blushing.
"Hahahaha! That's it! I'm right! I am more than a fun romp in the hay to you aren't I! Could it be," He leaned in close with a devious grin, "That you actually love me? My radiant Ty-nave-chan?" He kissed her, hard. She let him linger for an instant, then pushed him away forcefully.
"Why you two-timing little... Drinking contest," She quickly retrieved the remaining bottles and laid them out before them, "Now!"
"Thought you'd never ask." They commenced drinking.
"Hah…hah…" Both Vajra and his opponent were panting from exhaustion.
"I've heard, of your kind. To think, that you're actually, *gah*!" He grabbed the bleeding wound on his side, "this powerful..."
"Same to you, Ki master. Fighting you was, *wince*…" a sharp pain flowed through his abdomen, "an honor. Tell me, what is, your name?"
"Liang, Liang Bu Johnson."
"I am Vajra, Vajra SunnyNight."
"The radio host?"
"Yeah… you a fan?"
"I listen… every day I can…"
"You agree with my sentiments then!" He said with a cartoonishly hopeful look in his eyes.
"Not really, I just tune in for the music,"
"Cruuushed!" he blurted out like a baka ranger, but then Liang continued,
"It's so…unique. There's nothing like it over here. Strong, desperate, harsh, heavy, yet tender and sorrowful at times...It speaks to me on a very deep level. What is it? You, of all people, must know." This restored Vajra's status to normal.
"Hmmm," He assumed a pensive pose for a second, then put his fist in his palm, "Yeah! Always involves this guitarish sounding instrument that you just can't seem to find over here correct?"
"Yeah. What is it called?" He asked.
"God's gift to the eardrums of the universe! Also known as the electric guitar. I do believe you're a metalhead Mr. Johnson."
He tipped his head sideways, "Metalhead?"
"No time for that dissertation. Here, take this." He tossed him a black flash drive with a crude drawing of someone giving the finger on it, "That hack'll enable you to patch into the internet from any terminal on this side. That drive's the key to a gate, a gate to a whole new world."
"Internet? What's that?"
"You know how we have right? The Mahou net?"
"Yes, I spend most of my free time on it."
"Old world version of it. They thought of this first ya know, and it shows. Better music, better trolls..."
"And this helps me how?" He interrupted.
"It's the only place you'll find what you crave. It's where I get most of my music. Give me your mahou mail address once we're done here. I'll give you a ton of badass artists to look up on youtube."
"Funny *cough*, I thought we were trying to kill each other. I'll never get that mail if you die."
"Hey, we just might survive this. And you'd find what I want you to eventually." He closed his eyes and smiled serenely.
"You do know we're evenly matched right?" asked Liang to change the subject, "We're both near our limits and one of us likely won't survive the next exchange of attacks."
"Damn right. So how about we catch our breath," He breathed deeply, "And use our ultimate deathblows, sound good?"
"Yes. Let's end this. Using the strongest attacks we can summon…" Responded Johnson.
"That's the way!" He clasped her hand together, a multitude of sharpened objects of hate materialized above Bu as Vajra began to mutter a rather evil sounding incantation. The swords, chainsaws, and other implements of destruction were engulfed in a solid, blue light...
As he was doing that, Liang assumed a stance, his right palm pointing at Sunnynight. Motes of light began to form and flow from Vajra's chest into Liang's palm. Vajra felt a bit of his strength leave him as each mote flowed away from him. Liang got every aspect of this attack from a dream a few nights before, yet at this instant its name escaped him. It ultimately didn't matter, Ki users don't need to declare the name of their attack for it to work. Still, the fact he couldn't declare it bothered him in this case. He actually respected this enemy, enough to say that he actually liked him. He at least owed him the name of the technique that ended him, but he just couldn't provide it...
"Sorry Vajra, I swear that next time I'll give you the name of this mystery. Please survive…"He thought clenched his fist with killing intent…
Vajra got done 'casting' a few instants instant before his opponent. No attack was an 'ultimate deathblow' in his eyes if it couldn't be launched faster than the enemy's. Good thing he just barely managed to live up to his own standards. He cried out the name of his spell, Imber Adamantis! (Steel Rain!) At that declaration the blades suddenly shot towards his foe at incredible speed, blue streaks trailing behind them as the cracks of sonic booms filled the air.
If one so dared to do all the math they would discover that both attacks ultimately "went through" at the exact same time, the mystic equivalent of a cross counter. Both of them were fucked up beyond most recognition as a result. Their lives should have ended there to be honest, but their "will to live" was too strong. They had friends, lovers, ideals, it all kept them from going into the light. They simply weren't done yet. So instead of dying they both lie unconscious, the snow stained red with their blood. Vajra's dripping out of his mouth, Bu's oozing from his wounds (and one impaled shoulder), a psychotic smirk plastered across the face of the former, a serene look on the latter. Their fight a draw in every sense of the word.
Sneck and Tynave were now totally shitfaced and trying to film the fights whilst eating popcorn and chugging yet more drinks. Most of the bar was in ruins now, the front wall and most of the roof was damn near non-existent. Snow was piling up on the floor.
"Damn this ish good stuff! You're gonna get a bunch of new *hic* subscriptions cuz of this!" Yelled Sneck.
"You still *hic* owe me for the damageses." She responded.
"I love owing you me love." He kissed her deeply. She retaliated by shoving her tongue down his throat. Sneck summoned some prophecy and manipulation spirits to man the cameras. There were many fights, many epic moments and speeches, and only a few cameras. They managed to catch most of the good stuff though.
"You're not bad. Who trained you?" Asked Inari.
"Your boyfriend just got done fightin' im." The were-tiger responded as he dodged a series of pressure waves.
"Sorry, that guy's a bit too crazy and idealistic to be my boyfriend. Besides," She dodged one hell of a right hook and countered with a roundhouse heel to the back of his head, "He's taken."
It sent him into the dirt, but he instantly recovered and launched himself away. "Ohhh? I see," He put his fist to his chin and nodded frequently, "Yes it all makes sense now. In truth you are the master of the middle-aged scrawny human with the oversized katana stuck to his back who just blasted that battle fetishist into next week correct?" He said all that in one breath.
"Damn right I did!" She said as she charged, "A few months ago he didn't know a sword from a twig," Her opponent raised his defenses, she hammered away at him with inhumanly fast blows, blows which he managed to absorb skillfully, "Now look at him, could hold his own against the best we got. Aren't you impressed?" She smiled gleefully. Ariadne professors would kill for students like him. Was she so wrong for wallowing in it a little?
"As IF," He responded indignantly, "Weren't those guns he was using!" He parried her last attacks, sent her flying with a punch to the breastplate, and flared his aura. She recovered just in time to intercept a flurry of fist pressures. She cut through most of them, but the last two pierced her defenses. She was sent towards the horizon with a bloody face and a shattered breastplate. If fell away from her piece by piece, revealing her midsection as well as her favorite tube top.
"I'm surprised a furry like you even knows," She recovered midair, landing on a magic circle conjured from a charm hidden under her breastplate (that ended up on her belly when it was shattered, as per her preparations), and launched herself at him while slashing the air, "What they are!" She screamed as she sent two immense pressure waves towards him.
"Not as uncommon as you think ironing board!" He dodged the waves that would have taken his arms off (just barely though). They now stood several meters apart, circling each other slowly as they allowed their enemy to catch their breath, blood dripping onto the white snow.
"Damn useful I guess," he continued, "No incantation whatsoever, pure physical damage, and faster than hell. They'd be a real game changer. If it wasn't possible for us to deflect, dodge, or intercept bullets."
"And the full auto ones are so fucking cheap. No real art to them beyond spray and pray. Don't even have to pray at 'point-blank' range. Still, Alex is on to something. They are pretty damn effective in the hands of a master like him." She responded.
"Indeed. I knew it from the moment I saw you. You and I are almost exactly alike in our view of the world. So how about it? Willing to forgive our trivial differences and give me a chance?" He asked hopefully.
"No way." She responded instantly, "I still don't like furries, and you called me ironing board just now. Only my closest friends get to call me that and not lose a limb. And even then," She assumed a stance, "I make them pay."
"I bet," He smiled as his aura flared, "So, want to end it the same way my sifu did?"
"Sure, why not?" Fucking blatant lies, but her delivery was perfect on all levels. The greatest teachers learn from their students.
"Alright then." His aura flared and burned like that of a legendary intergalactic warrior. He was going to turn this dragon kin into one hell of a gory crater...
"Sur-prise." She uttered right after she appeared behind him and cut him down. Word to the wise, if someone's alias is something along the lines of "bilateral bitch", plan accordingly.
"You…"
"Please. Did you really expect me to be as honorable as those two over-dramatic fucktards?"
"No…" He touched her tube top as he fell towards the dirt, transmuting it into dust, "but it was worth it." He said as he glanced her nipples but a moment before it all went black.
"DIE!" She screamed venomously as she raised her swords and thrust them at his heart.
"NO!" Yelled Itsuki as he tackled her, deflecting her otherwise fatal blow into empty air.
"You dumb fuck, I'll fucking kill you!" The look in her eyes...terrifying.
"I don't care! It's still not right! Niven'd never forgive me if I let you!"
"Do you honestly think you can take me on you little dipshit!" Her aura flared as she assumed a stance, eyes filled with hate.
"Do you honestly think I'll let you stop me from doing what I think is right?" He said as he stood up, as he reached for his staff. He was obviously as serious as she was. They glared at each other for a long moment…
"Ok fine. You win." She conceded as she sheathed her swords and draped a discarded cloak over herself, "But do you really have to heal an enemy?" She asked in an annoyed tone.
"You know I have to, my master would demand nothing less. However, that doesn't mean I can't break it into segments right?" He said with a wide smile on his face.
"Heal me first dipshit." She pointed to her bloodied face.
"No. This victim's critical." He said as he placed his glowing hands on the wounds, "Triage says he goes first. But, since you're a friend, I'll heal you right after I stabilize him regardless."
"Ahahahahaha! You're just like the old man. Loosen up a bit Itsuki, being serious all the time is bad for your health."
"I can't 'loosen up' when there's so much blood!" He protested.
"Sure you can. Just do this!" She approached him and stretched out his face. She was still bleeding herself, but she didn't want her friend worrying himself to an early grave and thought this would get him to relax.
"Sop ith!" He demanded.
"This is what you get for being an overly idealist idiot."
"Then wyt tho follow othne."
"Cuz I can," She was having quite a bit of fun stretching his face harder and started moving her arms up and down to increase the discomfort, "don't need a deeper reason than that. Now, you gonna stop being worried about everything and everyone all the time like your master, or am I gonna have to keep playing with your face?"
"Yeth. Yeth! I'll sthop ith!"
"Good." She released him, his face returning to its previous form in a most painful, yet humorous, manner, "Feel better now?"
"Why'd you do that!" he protested. He held back his answer of 'Yeah'.
"I think I just told you. Now," She pointed to her face, "Heal me."
As she said that Cipher walked through the remains of the door. All fights were resolved by then. Those who remained standing were too exhausted to fight anyone else. So they sauntered up to the bar, congratulating each other on their victories. Tynave was already up and waiting with a warm smile on her face as the first patrons approached. Sneck was still behind the bar, sitting upright. He tossed an empty fifth to the side, shattering it on the wall as he produced a new one from behind him.
"I swear, he's got boozespace." Thought Alex. Everyone else around had a similar thought, just put differently.