Rhiannon Lee (rhiannon_lee) wrote in birthrightrpg, @ 2020-08-18 21:13:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | katherine williams, rhiannon lee |
Fighting for a Good Cause
Who: Katherine & Rhiannon
What: Rumble on Fremont Street
When: Night, Present
Where: Downtown Las Vegas
Ratings: Violence, Language
The Las Vegas strip might be home to big-name hotels and casinos, but downtown still had Fremont Street, a mash-up of unique attractions like the Neon Museum, the Golden Nugget’s shark tank, the mob museum, a slot-machine inspired zip line, an LED canopy, street performers, restaurants, and bars. It was crowded. It was loud. It was overpriced.
It was a tourist trap full of camera phones with triple-lens designs and low-light performance.
Rhiannon Lee sat by the window of a cafe at the intersection of Fremont and Casino Center Boulevard. A glass of water and a plated sandwich sat in front of her, one sip and two bites taken out of the pair, enough so that the waitress would stop asking if everything was tasting alright. Two twenty dollar bills curled under a bottle of ketchup, buying her the courtesy of a minute to herself. She had picked up a used book on her way to the diner, literally plucking the top book from the street vendor’s stack and dropping him a couple of bills. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People sat open under her right hand. Rhiannon turned to a random page and started to skim. “...It’s an upward spiral of growth that leads to progressively higher forms of responsible independence and effective interdependence? Jesus Christ, make it stop.”
Rhiannon sighed, eyes ticking to the time on her phone, and glanced out the window.
A good vampire could blend into a crowd. An arrogant one didn’t care. One Katherine Williams occupied the space of somewhere in between, though presently had her reasons for keeping bunkered down.
She had made a point of telling her abductor, who would, with hope, inform his employer, that she would be heading across the border. A challenge was the last thing someone like Katherine would typically back down from, though. Just like someone who refused to fully get out of her way, who found themselves soon met by a wedge of shoulder shoving them out of the way.
“Hey! The hell is your problem?”
“Fuck you, is my problem. Get.”
Briefcase-carrying executives could be highly strung, but they weren’t the types to push an issue when the aggressor’s body language had them walking the walk. Or, in this case, flicking out a switchblade, right in front of everyone. Enough to cause a commotion in the crowd around her before Katherine started moving on.
Rhiannon’s presence hadn’t gone unnoticed, seated just a few feet away. She spared her a glance, the weapon was slipped away and she marched on with head down.
The glass of water wavered at Rhiannon’s mouth. A look of recognition settled on her features as she caught sight of a familiar face beyond her reflection in the pane of glass. Then, cold fury. Rhiannon grabbed her phone and shoved her chair backwards. The wooden legs shrieked across the tile, a horrendous noise that caused other diners to draw shoulders up to ears and turn to see what was going on.
The brown-haired girl stalked up the center aisle of the restaurant. She stopped to tip two mixed drinks off a high-top cafe table with an x-shaped base.
“Oh my god! What the f--!”
“Excuse me.” Rhiannon hefted it over her shoulder and continued on her warpath to the exit. Frozen, pink booze and ice chunks left a dotted trail behind her. The tabletop cracked against the glass front door as she stepped onto the sidewalk. Hostesses, diners, and pedestrians who might’ve been confused or alarmed to see a table leveraged as a weapon veered out of her way when they saw her face.
She was on Katherine in fifteen yards.
“You stupid bitch!” The hunter wielded the steel and cast-iron base of the table like a battering ram at the vampire.
Katherine had already turned, checking peripheral vision for the oncoming tornado. Even in a crowd, there had been too much warning of noise. And she swerved, catching the - admittedly, impressive - use of table in her own grasp.
"You, again? Girl... You got a real fuckin' hard-on for me, don't cha'?"
And she shoved her, table and all, in an effort to try and put some distance between them. A lot of force could be put behind something that big and she had no desire to get in its way.
"I got bigger bear to hunt, you little piss-ant," she warned with the glare of a mountain lion. "This ain't the time."
“Not my type of cat,” Rhiannon growled back, stumbling on her heels but staying upright. A bystander put up his hands to protect himself and effectively broke her backward momentum. She elbowed him out of the way for his trouble. Civilians, always inconveniently in the way when you started a street fight in the middle of the tourism district.
The hunter felt an ever-widening circle of eyes and ears on them. She could almost hear the digital bloops of fingers hitting record, of live Las Vegas street cams pumping footage at viewers. “You think I give a shit what’s on your agenda? Come on!” Striking table against a lamp post, she separated the top from its base and saucered it at the vampire.
Being flung by an ordinary person would have hurt. Getting thrown by someone like that, was like getting hit by a truck. Katherine, true to form, hadn't just stood there, waiting. She had already slashed out that switchblade to defend herself with, ready in case the other woman tried to rush her.
It went flying out of hand, scattering harmlessly across the pavement, the moment that flying disc connected with torso and sent the vampire flying into a lamppost.
"You're frisbee-ing me to death?! C'mon...! How'd I know he was one of yours?!"
Katherine was doing her best to roll back to feet, but it had taken too long and Rhiannon was already too close. All she could do was suddenly brace for impact.
Rhiannon’s body weight crashed full-bore into the vampire, the pair of them tumbling into the roadway, taking out tourists’ legs and a fire-eating street performer like a pair of bowling balls into pins. People screamed. A tongue sizzled.
“It’s called recon, you amateur!” And even though she hadn’t been thinking about Tom the artifact dealer at the start of the show, he was suddenly top of mind as art blended into life. Rhiannon kicked stray limbs aside and grappled her way to the top of the heap to throw a punch at Katherine.
Animated or not, a human cadaver reacted in the same way as any living counterpart would do. Skin and muscle dented, stretched and jaw went slack, allowing kinetic energy to disperse in a wave through Katherine's skull. Another squished into her guts and was driven with such force that air would have been a serious issue, had the vampire physically needed to breathe.
It was what triggered the uppercut to Rhiannon's chin and immediate grab for hair, wanting to smash the hunter's face against concrete. "Hope your union does dental," she spitefully taunted. A Rhiannon Lee-flavoured meat-paste was just begging to be spread over that sidewalk.
When the fist struck Rhiannon’s chin, the world went Starry, Starry Night for a split-second. The LED screens and neon lights seemed to swirl and smear, long enough that she wasn’t prepared for the violent, downward tug of her head and hair to street. Her eyebrow smashed on the ground. The hunter reared back, capillaries spewing red into the air, a veritable rainstorm of droplets pattering on the vampire’s cheeks and mouth.
Rhiannon saw it. Now that was personal. You know what…?
“Fuck this!” Still straddling Katherine, she snatched a crucifix on a chain from her hip pocket and plastered it against the vampire’s cheek. Hell hath no fury like a Catholic vampire hunter. "The power of Christ compels you!" she mocked, straight to the nearest bottle of liquid foundation, because this was going to leave a mark.
There was a bellowing growl of pain to accompany the violent HISS of burning flesh. The bolstering of willpower through religious iconography was always that much more effective when being administered with a flaming sense of righteousness.
It stopped when Katherine made a grab for that hand by the wrist, forcing it away in a slow-motion arm wrestling contest. Her other clamping around Rhiannon’s throat and starting to squeeze, impulsively yelling in her face, “I WILL SKIN YOUR FUCKING HAMSTER!”
Legs kicked ineffectually beneath her, but it didn’t stop Katherine trying to roll her away by force.
Rhiannon’s free hand slapped and clawed at Katherine’s face, going for the eye sockets, burgundy nails gouging into the closed lids. They would heal if she did any actual corneal damage, but it would suck for a while. To any onlooker, it would’ve looked like a veritable cage match between women, but those more attuned to such brawls would no doubt wonder why the hunter hadn’t gone for a weapon with some punch, which was precisely why Rhiannon began to do so when her face started turning purple. She’s going to crush my trachea, she thought, dangerously close to passing out.
Leaving Katherine’s eyes be, Rhiannon fumbled into her waistband and yanked out a wooden stake. The sharp tip of it pressed into the vampire’s shirt, scraping and scratching for purchase as fireworks exploded in her field of vision. The force of Katherine’s torquing about finally compromised Rhiannon’s balance and she somersaulted to the bottom of the fight.
Just then, a young tourist broadcasting on Facebook Live loomed into their periphery. “Holy shit, man! LARPers!” he yelled excitedly, getting into the shot with a thumbs up.
Between getting burnt and almost being rendered blind - something Katherine had a legitimate fear of - this was already turning more dangerous for her than Rhiannon. They didn't call them hunters for nothing, that was for sure.
You bet she let go to stop getting staked.
"No, you... Don't..."
There was real effort behind the vampire's grab for Rhiannon's weapon. Fuck, this was not good. And even worse for business, judging by the cellphones she was beginning to notice.
The pointed end was facing her, making it useless to try and reverse the momentum. It also got in the way of even an attempt to try and lunge at Rhiannon with fangs. Up this close, it was... Odd. Katherine was, facially, the younger. Had been turned younger than the hunter now was. But unlife came with its own share of weathering and the vampire didn't existentially view herself as old, so much as sailing through history.
It gave her the strangest impulsive curiosity: How would she have looked at Rhiannon's age, if remaining human?
The stake's sharpness had her blink back to reality and Katherine forced herself off, scurrying back a few steps, trying to put some distance between them before the vengeful Rhiannon could right herself. Just enough to grab a hold of a helmet on the rear of a nearby motorbike, hurling it like a bowling ball in the hunter's direction to distract her.
Something she could use, something she could use, something... Ah! Time to use someone else's head!
Muttering a, "Get over here," she grabbed an onlooker and threw him against a shop window, smashing it. Sports supplies... Namely, baseball bats. Katherine went for a metal one and twirled it for the weight.
"Let's test those ballet lessons."
And Katherine swung.
Rhiannon’s stake rattled across the ground.
Whoosh!
A swing and a miss! The first horizontal swipe of athletic weaponry avoided Rhiannon’s head by a quarter-inch, the hunter diving back and sideways into a handspring just in time to feel its wake tickle her hair. “Ballet?” Rhiannon asked, rising to full height. “I’m not the one wearing dresses. Yeah. I heard about that--!” The second time, she wasn’t so fortunate. Clang! Aluminum struck the hunter’s forearm, the noise ricocheting off their surroundings.
Rhiannon staggered back and clutched her injury in disbelief. “Ow, Katherine! What the f---?!” The look on her face was incredulous, as if to say, ’I wasn’t actually going to stake you!’ Her ulna better not be broken. She’d be out of the ring for weeks. Circling now, she waited for the bat to swing again and caught it, beginning a vicious battle of tug-of-war over the Louisville Slugger.
Waiting, waiting, bap! Shoving the knob end at Katherine’s obnoxiously tiny nose.
Damned right Katherine struck out at her for that taunting reminder. Eyes widened as she did it, as if conveying a soundless, ‘Shut uuuup,’ but the vampiress did hold back from using it a second time. Truthfully, she had been expecting Rhiannon to come with a knife or crowbar or… Something solid. Getting a crucifix burned into her face and risking blindness was, in a way, more annoying than bracing to allow herself to get stabbed.
But that was more like it.
All Katherine needed was to hear tiny birds tweeting in the air, because she sort of stumbled back like the air had turned into water trying to sweep the militant brunette off her feet. She was still bleeding from the religious sizzle-flash and now the dam had opened down her naval cavities, too.
Owww, her nooooose...
Unfortunately, the dazed concussion had also led to her letting go of the bat and Katherine tried blinking, shaking her head, only to make the sensation altogether worse. Damn, but she felt nauseous.
“You got some lipstick, Rhi…? ‘Cause I want to look pretty before you fuck me in the ass!”
The aggression came out as suddenly as it was spiteful. Katherine lungs with an attempt to scratch, but only succeeded in an ungainly pirouette; cursing aloud as she only just prevented herself from falling over. If Rhiannon chose that moment to thunk her, she didn’t have any way to stop her. Only react with a half-delayed yowl.
“I’m a dinosaur… Everyone fears the dinosaur,” muttered the bedraggled fiend from beyond the grave. “I am a shitting Tyrannosaur… Hnnn!”
Katherine simply no longer seemed to possess the mental clarity to catch a hold of her. So, instead she caught a hold of the motorcycle, itself and hauled it above her head like a giant boulder.
“Suck my exhaust pipe, bitch!”
And hurled it, trying to lurch into a haphazard run, crowd-first.
Oh, no. Rhiannon saw the bike coming, eyes widening in mental freak-out. Felt the unseen presence of a half-dozen onlookers behind her who would be smashed if she ducked. In the split-second she had to decide what to do, the hunter braced for impact and put up her arms to catch it like an outfielder. The bike crashed into her hands and upper body. Rhiannon’s feet carried her three staggering steps back before she hit the pavement on her ass in a rough slide, jeans shredding, ass abrading, face squashed by the soft seat.
She shoved the bike aside, its mirror breaking off the frame, and collapsed on the sidewalk, allowing herself a couple of seconds to breathe, collect herself, and figure out what was broken and what still worked. Her back was on fire. Her clavicle was questionable. The cell phone in her pocket was definitely broken.
One, two, three, UP.
The hunter stumbled to her feet and started walking before her body had a chance to argue about it, shoving a bloody path through onlookers. Next time they were going to fight for real; it was a hell of a lot easier to just behead a bitch.