Brium pulled his curved machete from under his arm, and made himself ready; the pistol laid on the ground beside him, loaded with the slide still locked back. All he had to do was pick it up, press the slide release and he was good to go.
But she was almost to him, running at full speed, and Brium knew he didn't have time to do so.
So, he pulled the curved machete from the crook of his arm, and held it with both hands, favoring his right, and he made himself ready.
She was on him in mere moments.
She began her attack with a swipe across his chest; Brium parried it easily, deflecting her blade with a loud clang. She struck out with her elbow, narrowly missing the gash on his shoulder; the place she was aiming to hit. She was smart, this girl. And she was good.
And this Brium had established in these two short moves.
Now Brium had to learn more.
He dodged another well placed blow.
"So, what's your name?" he asked, parrying another swipe away with another clang. She didn't answer, her face contorted with concentration; she just continued her barrage of samurai sword assaults.
Of course she didn't answer.
Brium dodged another attack; she was inhumanly fast. This only helped to solidify her status as a creation of the School. He had half expected her to transform into a wolf like thing similar to the Erasers, but that hadn't happened. And if her skin tight T-shirt proved anything, it stated that she had no wings.
So what exactly had the School done to her?
Brium just kept dodging each blow or deflecting the ones he couldn't. She was toying with him; this wasn't as good as she was.
He was trying to figure out how best to approach this situation. If she had been an Eraser, he would have struck back by now, not dodged every blow.
He had tried the same tactic of defense only on the first Erasers that had come looking for him when he had escaped the School. Brium had been under the mistaken impression that they still had a shred of humanity left, so he had tried talking to them to sway them from the Shool's iron grip. He had been wrong, and after a few failed attempts to talk rationally to the brutes, he settled on simply killing them on sight.
They were what they were, and nothing Brium had said had, or could, change that.
This girl, on the other hand…
Maybe she still had a chance.
Brium ducked another blow, and wondered when he'd be deemed a worthy enough opponent for this girl to stop pulling her punches. Truth be told, he was in a fair amount of pain from the multiple wounds inflicted on him by that final Eraser brawl, but it was ignored pain. But it still affected him.
So now, Brium had to deal with an opponent who wasn't fighting to the best of her ability, who may still have a chance to redeem herself.
Judging by the School's record, that seemed unlikely, but Brium had to try.
He had to.
"I don't normally get physical on the first date. Especially not with a girl whose name I don't even know," he said, sucking in a breath as he pounced backward putting space between him and the girl.
The pair danced a dance of potential death among a forest of trees and dead Erasers, all of which were obstacles in their paths. Brium had to be careful to not run into a tree, or trip on a root or the body of an Eraser, as he leaped and jumped every which way to avoid being diced by the girl's sword.
She ignored his comment of course, and concentrated solely on attacking him. She lunged forward trying to spear him with her sword, but he danced out of the way again.
"Do you even know why you're doing this?" Brium asked, blocking another blow, and bringing his face close to hers; she was so much smaller than he, it really was incredible. He was taller by at least a foot. "Do you even know what I did? Why they want me?"
No answer. Well, no verbal answer. She simply responded by slashing at him again. He couldn't keep up dodging like this forever, and she seemed to know that.
"You have a choice, you know," Brium said, taking a quick few steps back to put some temporary space between him and his assailant. "You don't have to be a tool to implemented by them whenever they deem fit. They'll just use you until it kills you. In fact, I'll bet Jeb just brought those Erasers to be killed, because you were here all along. He thinks you can take me out all by your lonesome. Those Erasers were just window dressing. Or maybe at the most something to wear me down a bit before he sent you after me."
Brium dodged another swing, and glanced at Jeb. "Isn't that right, Jeb? You brought them all here to die, didn't you?"
Jeb just stared back, a look of interest on his face; Ari stood stone still beside him. Neither made a sound.
And that one glance at Jeb was all it took. In an instant she was fighting for real.
She lashed out with her left hand, and punched Brium in the gash on his shoulder; the spot where she had aimed before. She then brought the sword down and slashed a cut from Brium's right collarbone to his sternum.
He jumped back, assessing the damage. The cut had hit his rib cage and had probably left some deep furrows in some of his ribs. That would take time to heal; it was already bleeding very bad. Brium could feel the warmth spreading over his chest and belly.
This had to end soon. One way or another it had to end.
She was running out of time to redeem herself.
The girl stepped back and adopted a fighting stance, before coming at him again.
She sliced, and Brium deflected it with his machete. He punched her right in her jaw with a left hook. She lurched back, and Brium finally got a better look at her eyes. He was stunned by what he saw.
Nothing.
No emotion, no reactions, just a blank silence. Even though her eyes were a bright blue there was nothing behind them that would imply a rational sentient being existed.
It didn't help Brium's judgment of her.
"Now I know you can talk, so talk to me," Brium said, noting where he was; he was looking for something in particular. This girl had really turned it up a notch, and Brium figured he may need some assistance. He spotted it behind the girl, about fifteen feet in front of Jeb and Ari, both of whom were too busy watching him to take any notice.
The first machete that Brium had thrown was still stuck in that Eraser's forehead.
And it was then that Brium made an attack with his blade for the first time. He swung on her and she blocked it, but Brium once again reached over and punched her in the jaw; the same place as before.
She lurched back once again, and in a flash Brium had summoned what was left of his strength and made a bolt towards the first machete.
He had only taken a few steps when the girl had recovered and had set after him, so he knew it was going to be close.
Ari had assumed that Brium was going to attack him and Jeb, and Brium couldn't blame him, seeing as he was running full speed toward them, and he was mildly amused at Ari's surprise at the sudden charge, and even more surprise when the charge stopped. Surprise (and any other easily defined emotion) didn't play well on Ari's strange wolf features.
It was pretty much downright hilarious.
But no time to consider that, Brium thought as he reached the downed Eraser with the machete protruding from its forehead.
He grasped the blade with his left hand and wrenched free.
And spun to face the girl.
A little too late.
He looked up and saw the light glint off of her sword as it came for him. He brought the machete in his right hand up to block and got immensely lucky.
The blade had stopped before it could cleave a very deep gash in his head, but it had cut at least an eighth of an inch into the flesh an inch or so above his right eye, probably hitting his skull.
Brium wondered what Jeb had meant when he had said 'don't damage him permanently'. Some of the blows the girl had tried to give him seemed pretty permanent.
She wasn't done; she swung the blade free, and with lightning speed jabbed it through Brium's left forearm. Right in between his radius and ulna bones.
The result was Brium dropping the weapon he had traveled across the battlefield to get. He thought he'd need it to win this particular battle.
But another route to victory had just presented itself.
The girl's sword was still jabbed clean through his arm, and Brium decided to keep it that way.
He quickly raised the blade in his right hand, flipped it around to use the dull end, and hit the girl hard on her wrists, and the again quickly across her temple.
She let the sword go and toppled sideways hitting the ground hard.
Brium stood to his full height, and spun quickly to face Jeb and Ari, who had moved a few feet back to stay away from any possible hits from the fight.
Brium let fly with all of his strength with the machete in his right hand.
Neither Jeb nor Ari expected an attack, and the blade impaled Ari in his right shoulder, burying itself fully into his flesh, and knocking him spinning to the ground.
Brium didn't even stop to consider what he imagined would be a wonderfully hilarious look of complete surprise and bewilderment on Jeb's part. He spun back to face his temporarily downed opponent, while ripping the samurai sword from his left forearm, grasping it firmly in his blood slicked right hand; he noted the spurt of blood from his arm that came with it.
He wondered briefly how much blood he had left to bleed.
He felt the sword in his grip; it had a solid feel, and Brium estimated that it was probably well constructed. Only the best for the minions of the School.
Speaking of which…
Brium faced the girl just as she was rising to her feet.
She didn't even look upset; Brium wondered why she had even smiled when Jeb had ordered her to fight him. That was the only time she had shown emotion, or had said anything.
Brium was simply gasping for air but gave one of his smiles anyway.
"I don't think I'd like a second date," he said.
She crouched; she was going to attack him, an armed opponent, with no weapons of her own.
Brium's face turned grim.
"Don't do it…"
But she did. Her face never changed from it's perpetual blankness.
Brium let her come to him and let her momentum do all the work.
The blade of the sword entered right below her left breast, probably clipping her heart. She slammed into Brium, and he wrapped his punctured left arm around her shoulders to prevent any other attack from her.
She gasped as she was run through by her own blade.
The girl tried to move, but Brium had her in a solid grip. He lowered his mouth to her right ear and whispered softly, "What did you think was going to happen?"
He pulled back to look at her face; the only thing it registered was pain. No regret, no moment of sudden clarity that she was about to die. The School had broken her. She wasn't a person.
She had no soul.
He leaned back in, making sure she wouldn't try a last ditch attack. He imagined she wouldn't and probably couldn't at all as soon as she slumped in his arms, not even able to hold herself up anymore.
"I wish I could say I was sorry," Brium whispered in her ear. "I really wish I could."
And he twisted the blade.
The girl let out a final gasp and went completely still.
The only sounds left were Brium's breathing and Ari writhing in pain about twenty feet away.
Brium lowed the girl's body to the ground, next to the body of an Eraser and pulled the blade free from her torso.
He looked up to where Ari was still on the ground, trying to get back up with Jeb's help.
How very touching.
Brium marched over the multiple dead Erasers to the Ari and Jeb, every part of his body hurting. He roughly shoved Jeb to the ground and kicked Ari in the chest so the wolf boy fell back and hit the ground again. Brium flipped the samurai sword in his hands, so it pointed downward, and he stabbed it into Ari's left shoulder right to the hilt, effectively pinning him down.
Ari howled in pain, but it was cut off quickly as Brium him in the side of the head.
It stunned Ari into silence, and the next blow knocked him into complete unconsciousness.
And Brium didn't stop moving.
He was upon Jeb in a flash, pulling the man to his feet with both hands by the scruff of his white jacket.
"I sincerely hope you're satisfied," Brium said, before head butting Jeb. Hard
Jeb gasped in pain, and Brium let him fall to the ground.
Brium had hit Jeb pretty hard for what a human could take, and the man had to be seeing stars.
He wasn't going anywhere.
Brium was feeling lightheaded now; the blood loss he was experiencing was starting to take a noticeable effect.
He breathed deep. It was time to precede with his plan; the only reason he had just put himself through all of this in the first place. It was all to get to Jeb. And now Brium had the chance to do something he had wanted to do for as long as he could remember.
Which was no small feat.
"All right Jeb," Brium breathed deep, using every ounce of pain resistance he had. "I'm going to ask you some questions, and I'm going to receive the answers to said questions in a concise, organized, complete manner."
Brium pulled his Harpy knife from his right thigh pocket and flipped it open with a click. He walked around Jeb, who was still too dazed to even attempt to get up.
Brium picked up Jeb's left hand.
"And I will get the answers I want, Jeb," Brium breathed in again, fighting the wooziness. "I'm going to come back in a few minutes and when I do, we are going to hold what I believe will the most enlightening conversation I've ever had."
"What are you going to do, Brium?" Jeb asked quietly, blinking a few times in an attempt to alleviate his dizziness .
"This," Brium said quietly.
And with one well executed motion, Brium used the Harpy's serrated blade to good use and he quickly sawed Jeb's pinkie finger off.
Author's Note:
Had this written for a while, actually. And I have another Brium chapter ready!
Hope everyone's enjoying the story!