Disclaimer: Don't own and never will. Now you don't need to pull out the scary lawyers. Please don't.
The tension in the room was almost unbearable. Hay Lin and Khor circled one another, looking for an opening, anything that might give them even the slightest advantage when the fight began.
Then, in a blur of movement so fast Hay Lin almost missed seeing it, Khor attacked, swinging his blades in a downward chopping movement. Hay Lin twisted her body sideways and she felt the wind of the strike as it passed her face. Khor twisted his blades and swung both at Hay Lin's stomach, attempting to slice her open and Hay Lin spun out of the way of the strike, stepping back at the same time and extending her long cane blades to point the blades at Khor.
With a roar, Khor charged again, this time swinging his swords in a twirling blur of circular movements and Hay Lin leapt into the air, somersaulting over his head, striking her blades downwards at Khor's carotid artery at the same time.
It should have resulted in a deadly, lethal strike. Even with his thick fur coating, Hay Lin's steel blade would have penetrated his neck. But at the last minute, Khor leaned forward slightly and instead of hitting that vital spot, her blade merely sliced his back open with a shallow cut. But even before Hay Lin had landed, she was already stabbing her sword towards Khor, who parried the strike and spun his second blade at her exposed arm.
Had Hay Lin been a normal swordswoman, she would have lost her arm there and then. Instead, she twisted her arm away and the blade merely slashed her lower arm open with a shallow cut that extended down her arm. Hay Lin however did not let that stop her and she launched a volley of fast stabbing strikes that forced Khor slowly back as he struggled to keep up.
Then it happened.
Parrying another strike, Khor spun his second sword and smashed the blade into the handle of Hay Lin's cane sword, sending it spinning away. He quickly followed this up with a fast spinning movement that almost sliced Hay Lin's throat open and only her fast reflexes and a slight shift backwards had saved her from dying a second time.
Breathing heavily, the two fighters stared one another down. Hay Lin could feel the sweat dripping off of her forehead and a distant stinging feeling in her arm where Khor had managed to cut her open.
She gripped on to her remaining cane sword and as Khor swung his sword down she slipped sideways until she was behind him but before she could do anything, he had spun around and struck again. Again she slipped sideways and again he struck. Again she slipped sideways, but this time instead of spinning around in the direction she had gone, Khor suddenly pun in the other direction and Hay Lin almost lost her arm as Khor sent her second cane sword spinning away with a loud clatter. An evil grin crossed his face and he leapt forward with both swords swinging. The first strike was so close to her face that it severed a loose hair and the second nicked her shoulder as she somersaulted backwards. She placed her hands on the sword strapped at her side, a long sword that would work against her normal style. There was no way she could dance around with the same agility with a blade like that. Khor grinned and leapt forward, swinging both his blade downwards.
Hay Lin parried with her sword still in its scabbard, one hand on the hilt, the other on the tip. Then she pulled out her swords, two short blades from both ends of the scabbard. Khor paused in surprise for a fraction of a second, but that was all that Hay Lin needed. Leaping forward, she sliced both swords through Khor, the higher blade slicing his neck in half, the other cutting through his stomach.
As he keeled over, Hay Lin shook the blood from her swords with a flick of her wrist.
"The Kodachi Nito-Ryu, the dual katana is not to be underestimated," she said. Pausing only to retrieve her swords, she rushed after her friends.
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An Earth-shattering roar.
With screams of pain and anger, Cornelia charged at Shagon, swinging her massive blade down on his head with a crash. Shagon only narrowly evaded being split in two. Before he could attack, Cornelia sliced her sword in a sideways swipe that Shagon narrowly avoided.
"Temper, temper," he said with a little shake of his finger. "The little girl could hardly have been that important to you after all. She was just your little sister, a girl who had magic," he paused and looked firmly at her. "Magic that was forever beyond your reach. You must have resented that."
Cornelia simply swung her sword in a sideways swipe, this one less controlled and accurate than the last.
"How DARE you talk about her! You have no RIGHT!" she snapped, tears rolling down her cheeks as her emotions flooded her. The worst part of Shagon's taunts was that they hit a nerve, a part of her past she still felt ashamed of and would never admit to, even with her closest friends.
Cornelia HAD resented her sister's magic at first. She had resented the fact that of the two of them, she was the one who had lost out on the magical blood, SHE was the one who took after their magic-less mother and it was Lillian who had inherited their father's magical powers.
"I NEVER resented her," she hissed through gritted teeth and Shagon laughed.
"Oh but you did," he replied, leaning forward. "I can feel it. Such anguish, such regret, it's almost melodramatic."
Cornelia swung her sword upwards at tremendous speed, but this one was even sloppier and Shagon ducked beneath the swing and leapt forward, swinging his twin blades at her chest. At the last moment Cornelia stepped back and the blades narrowly missed her chest and vital organs, slicing instead into her legs with deep crippling cuts that cut into bone.
"Are you having fun yet?" Shagon asked in a taunting voice as he watched Cornelia fall to the ground, her legs bleeding and almost useless. She ignored him and gritted her teeth. Using her sword as a crutch, she stood up, gritting her teeth against the pain.
"I'm not done yet," she replied and Shagon laughed once more.
"You can barely stand as it is," he replied dryly. "Soon you will bleed to death and you can't close the gap between us."
"Don't let your anger rule you,"
Will's words echoed through Cornelia's head and she gave a grim smile. That woman made a bad habit of being right when Cornelia was wrong. She had let Shagon taunt her, wind her up and play her like a violin and now she was losing blood and the fight and she could barely stand. In fact, all Shagon had to do was simply stand and wait for her to lose consciousness or simply bleed out entirely. Picking her sword up one more time, she gestured to Shagon to come closer. He simply cocked his head and shook it. Instead he put his wings back on his back and folded his arms.
Raising her sword above her head, Cornelia began to spin the blade round, faster and faster until it was nothing more than a blur. Shagon simply laughed.
"Are you trying to impress me with that futile effort?" he asked with a jeer. "You'll bleed to death before you could ever hope to reach me," he paused and leaned forward. "Futile deaths seem to run in your family. Is that why you sister died so pointlessly?"
Cornelia ignored his taunts and the pain that came with them. She needed to concentrate and more importantly she needed to keep her emotions under control. If she didn't do this right, then she wouldn't have a chance to do anything. Already her vision was beginning to blur around the edges as blood loss took its toll on her.
"Pathetic," Shagon sneered, "You can't even find the energy to rep-"
He was suddenly cut off when Cornelia suddenly threw her still spinning blade at him. He had a brief momentary "oh" of surprise before the blade sliced him in two.
Cornelia smiled as she saw Shagon die, before feeling her legs buckle from under her and as her vision dimmed and faded away, she saw a concerned Hay Lin running towards her.
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Tridart's attack came fast and furious, stabbing sharply with one blade then the other in an almost beautiful dance of death.
Irma's response was equally fast as she caught the first attack in her toothed sword and twisted in hard away from the second and closing the gap between her and Tridart and striking to his face with the hilt of her sword. Then with a twist of her toothed sword, she broke one of his lethal sai swords in half.
"You little b-"
"Language, please!" Irma chastised with a smirk. "They're going to tell stories about us and I would prefer kiddies to be able to watch this without hearing bad words."
"You joke at a time like this?" Tridart asked with a snarl. "Your friends are no doubt dead and dying and you will soon follow them and you think that's funny?"
"I'm not the one with a broken blade," Irma replied with a smirk. "Are you always this talkative, or am I just lucky?"
Tridart growled and flipped the broken sai sword in his hand, hooking the blade catcher on his thumb with practised ease and lunged with his unbroken sword. Irma spun aside and caught the unbroken blade in her toothed sword with a smirk, but Tridart wasn't finished. Sliding his unbroken sword forward, he smashed the hilt of his broken weapon into Irma's sword and there was a cracking noise.
For a moment, it seemed like his strike had achieved nothing. For a moment it appeared that Irma would simply twist her toothed blade and Tridart's remaining unbroken sai sword would snap. Then it happened.
There was a cracking noise and suddenly Irma's toothed sword sudden broke in two, leaving her little beyond the hilt. Irma stared dumbfounded at the broken weapon now in her hand.
"Fair turnabout I believe?" Tridart asked with a smirk, before flipping his sword in his hand and he leapt into the air, quickly followed by a downward strike aimed firmly at Irma's jugular. Irma twisted aside and Tridart's blade skimmed of her right breast and cutting her open with a shallow wound.
"Why Tridart, I didn't know you felt that way," Irma mocked with amusement. "But I don't like to rush things."
"The only thing I want to rush with you is your death!" Tridart hissed by way of reply. Irma simply shrugged and tossed aside the broken remains of her toothed sword. Then she moved into a guard position with her rapier and began bouncing on the balls of her feet.
He lunged, his remaining sai sword aiming at Irma's chest, who parried and turned out of the way of the strike, spinning into an elbow strike, but at the last moment Tridart ducked out of the way. Without stopping, Irma continued her spin to slice Tridart's arm. Or at least, it would have sliced Tridart's arm open had he not twisted out of the way. The two combatants spun in what could practically be called a dancing motion and swapped places from where they had been when they started.
"So tell me, when your champion falls to my ladies blade, will you fight her?" Tridart asked and Irma rolled her eyes.
"You need some new material. You keep playing the same song over and over again," she replied. "Are you getting worried that I'll beat you?"
"Never!" he hissed and Irma chuckled.
"You're just being caught out by my awesomeness, that's your problem," she added and Tridart lunged once more, but as she twisted out of his way he flipped the blade in his hand and sliced across Irma's stomach. As she fell back, he followed it up with a sharp stabbing motion into Irma's that impaled her against the floor.
"And now the inevitable conclusion of our battle," Tridart said in an almost bored voice as he walked over to her. "And just like the last time we fought, you will die."
Irma gritted her teeth. Tridart's sword had gone through her collarbone and by the Gods it hurt. Grabbing her sword, she pulled herself further onto Tridart's blade with a swift movement ran her sword through Tridart's throat.
"The fight isn't over until one side is no longer capable of being a threat," she hissed as Tridart fell to the ground. Dropping her sword, she grabbed Tridart's blade and with considerable effort pulled it out. Pulling away her clothing from the area where Tridart's blade had penetrated, she swiftly cleaned the wound and applied a tourniquet.
"You know, it would have been a bit more considerate of you to NOT break my collarbone and shoulder," she said through gritted teeth at the corpse of Tridart. Picking up her sword, she walked towards where Taranee and Will went.
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Taranee's double ended sword spun in a circular blur as she moved the sword from side to side. Ember slowly backed away and took a fighting stance, her twin flaming scimitars held in guard.
Then it happened.
Taranee's sword was still spinning as fast as it had when she started, still a lethal blur that threatened to slice any foe who dared approach in two. Ember didn't even bother trying anything so conventional. Instead, she leapt over Taranee, twisting to strike as she landed. Taranee pulled away from the strike in time to avoid losing her head. But more importantly, she had lost her rhythm, if only for a moment and that was enough for Ember. Pressing her advantage, she attacked with a ferocity that rivalled Taranee's, spinning into one attack after another. Taranee was slowly pushed back as she struck Ember's sword time and again. As Ember continued to push her back, Taranee dropped and spun her sword at Ember's leg as she spun closer and sliced her leg open.
It was a shallow cut and soon followed up by Taranee spinning her blade again to thrust the other side at Ember's stomach. Ember twisted aside and the blade skimmed Ember's side. Ember growled and Taranee leapt into the air over her head, spinning her sword into a downward cutting motion and Ember slammed the hilt of her sword into Taranee's stomach and sent her crashing to the ground hard, then she slashed downwards with both her swords.
Taranee rolled sideways, avoiding the deadly strike but Ember's swords slashed her right shoulder open and breaking her collarbone in the process.
"Fuck!" she exclaimed painfully. That had hurt! To make the situation worse, she had lost her glasses and the world was simply a blur. Ember grinned and spun her swords in her hand.
Taranee gritted her teeth and grabbed her sword in both hands. Leaping forward with a sharp spinning motion, she launched a series of fast moving strikes from a dozen different angles, driving Ember back once more. The strikes weren't precise, but they were close enough to threaten to slice Ember fatally.
Ember caught Taranee's sword between her twin scimitars in a cross block and with a sharp cutting motion snapped Taranee's sword with a crack. Now only one half of her double ended weapon remained. Ember spun her swords and swung her left sword down hard. Taranee twisted out of the way, only for Ember's second sword to swing across her knee, breaking her kneecap. Taranee let out a string of unprintable expletives as she fell to the ground, dropping her sword. Ember remained as wordless as ever and instead walked up to Taranee and raised her sword. Time appeared to slow down, as if everything was moving in slow motion. Taranee grabbed the bombs from her pouch and threw them past Ember to the grallas glass that was behind her. Ember's mouth made a small 'oh' of surprise before the bombs detonated and ripped the room apart in an explosion that shook the entire building.
Taranee was lucky. Ember absorbed the full force of the blast and instead of being killed instantly, she was thrown out of the room with enough force to break several bones and her skin was covered in burns. It was little short of a miracle that she survived at all.
"Well, I guess that's what my old sensei meant by last ditch move," she said with a chuckle, despite the agonising pain rippling through her body.
"You are one crazy girl," Irma said as she stepped up to Taranee and Taranee chuckled.
"You have to be to fight with a sword like mine," she replied before chuckling again. "It got the job done, didn't it?"
"Yeah, but maybe next time you could try a little less with the interior decorating," Irma joked as she surveyed the collapsed doorway to the room. "We can't get through to the Throne Room now."
Taranee coughed twice, before leaning back. She could feel the world around her begin to blur.
"My friend's in there. I'd bet on her any day," she said as the world slowly faded away.
Irma simply looked at the broken doorway and grimaced. She didn't like leaving others to do her fighting, but there was no way that she could get to the Throne Room now. Taranee's injuries were far too serious for her to leave and even if they weren't, she had no way of getting through. And there was a strength in Will that she trusted, a strength that was both rare and…difficult to quantify. Gritting her teeth, she attended to Taranee's injuries as best she could.
AN: I know that I've left Will's fight with Nerissa out, but I think that deserves a chapter to itself.