gawain robards (embattle) wrote in disorderic, @ 2017-12-19 17:57:00 |
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Gawain Robards was a very stupid man. But Rabastan was pleased to have an opportunity to don his robes and mask — the fact that it was for a mission the Dark Lord had personally assigned him made it all the better. Flanked by Graham, the two Death Eaters stood in a lozenge of shadow outside Robards’ home. Flexing a gloved hand, he gave the younger man an appraising look before his attention turned to the entrance ahead of them. “Remember what we talked about,” he told Graham, raising his wand. “If he’s smart — and he is smart, even if he’s an idiot — he’ll have something waiting for us.” With that, he blew Gawain Robards’ door off its hinges with a sharp flick of his wand. Graham was nervous. And excited. But mostly nervous. He'd been given this particular assignment directly by the Dark Lord, and he wasn't going to fuck this one up. Or do anything stupid. He was going to impress — or at the very least, he wasn't going to disappoint. He nodded at Rabastan's words, looking over the house with his wand at the ready. He grinned at the blast behind his mask, itching to to get moving and confront the former Auror that the Dark Lord had taken such exception to. After the blast debris cleared he moved in, bringing up a shield charm to protect him from anything nasty coming his way. Except it didn't protect his feet, Graham quickly finding himself slowly sinking into the floorboards. He almost panicked, until he remembered the Dark Lord's words and the presence of Rabastan behind him. "Be careful," he called back to Rabastan. "The floor is booby trapped." He started thinking through counter spells, trying various things to get his feet unstuck. At least two, Gawain noted from a room over. The proximity wards had triggered not long ago, and the Auror sagely lay in wait, trusting in familiar terrain and the added defenses, rather than rushing out to meet the assailants with brash bravado. He tapped his wand to the wall, muttering an incantation softly under his breath, to prime some of the more offensive spells he’d added to the walls now that he was absolutely sure these were dark wizards. Rabastan warily approached the entryway, adding his own hastily muttered counter-spells to the mix. The shifting quicksand came to a standstill, allowing Graham to move with ease. The older Death Eater sidestepped past him, sharp eyes roaming over their surroundings. Beneath his mask, he let some delight bleed into his smile — Robards clearly wasn’t going to make this easy for them. He always appreciated a challenge. He took a few cautious steps forward, then motioned for Graham to join him. “It looks like — fuck,” he hissed, as arresting chains shot out of a nearby potted plant. The chains vanished with a wave of his wand, but his victory was short-lived: another step forward had him contending with a very violent rug. “This is kid shit,” he called back to Graham, sighing wearily as the rug captured his foot. “Guess he’s not such a big bad Auror after all,” Graham sneered, with all of the misguided confidence of youth. He carefully stepped further into the house, turning to one of the closed doors to check the room. He didn’t get a chance to open it, the door instead exploding out in a shower of debris and splinter. Graham’s hastily reinforced shield charm took a lot of the damage, and he was feeling smug for a second until he realised his left leg was suddenly feeling off. Glancing down, he bit back a curse when he realised a chunk of wood had buried itself into his thigh. He wrenched it out, temporarily sealing the wound with a basic healing spell Imogen had taught him once. It would at least stop him from bleeding out before he got proper medical attention. “Watch the doors,” he mentioned unnecessarily, casually tossing the chunk of wood aside. “Luxacaeci!” Gawain boomed as he side-stepped into the hallway. The blinding flash had scarcely finished bursting from the tip of the Auror’s wand before he was weaving another spell through the air. “Surgo,” he intoned, spell directed at the Death Eater closest to him that had tangled with the doors. Rabastan raised a gloved hand to shield his eyes from the blinding light, hobbling backward as the rug continued to roll up. After some tremendous effort, he managed to wrench his leg free from the rug’s grasp. His vision was still blurred, but he could just make out Robards’ outline through. “Volnero,” he snarled, slashing his wand through the air. Graham went flying back, crashing into a wall, smacking the back of his head against the wall. He crashed to the ground, wincing as he did. “Incendio Maxima!” He yelled, sending a fireball at his attacker, aiming wildly in his general direction. The odds were still stacked against him however experienced he may have been, and Gawain had to make a quick decision. A flourish of his wand brought a shield to catch the slashing curse, and he side-stepped back into the room allowing the roaring fireball to make contact with the wall and burst, spitting flames along the wallpaper. It ignited instantly, and the crackling flames greedily spread out. Keeping calm in the face of the adversity, Gawain moved once again to the hallway. If he gave up the advantage now his distractions would be for nought. “Bombarda Maxima!” he bellowed, and then shot a pair of arresting chains to follow while they were distracted. A shield slammed down around Rabastan with a lightning fast flick of his wand. It blocked the brunt of the explosion, but it could only do so much about the searing heat: the Death Eater struggled to keep his eyes open as he held the shield. A heartbeat later, his eyes comically widened behind his mask as he noticed the arresting chains hurtling toward him. His cloak billowed out as he pivoted on his heel, narrowly avoiding the chains. He laughed as he hurled a volley of jagged ice shards in Robards’ direction. Graham was barely back to his feet when he had to yank up a rough shield to protect himself, trying to clear his head with a quick shake. The dizziness gave him an idea and he grinned behind his mask as he flung a vertigo spell at Gawain. The one Death Eater’s reactions were crisp and on point; the other’s aim was sloppy. Inexperience, Gawain believed. Even as the spells had left his wand he took a step backwards and readied himself for the expected counter-attack. The Auror wasn’t laughing and he certainly didn’t find this situation amusing, but there was a grim satisfaction in finally confronting his adversaries in a pitched fight. Perhaps it was allowing that thought which lead him to to his error. Gawain’s movement away from the masked foes lead him closer to the roaring blaze, and with it the thick smoke that stung his eyes. Blinking furiously and holding back a cough, Gawain brought up a shield a half-second slow. Jagged shards of ice tore through his holiday sweater and cut into his chest. He sucked in a breath and his lips threw into a thin, taut line. Another spell impacted against his shield causing it to drop. Figuring his opponents would keep up their assault, Gawain muttered a quiet ‘Protego Horribilis’. Advanced defensive magic, the shield shimmered with a silvery hue. The thick smoke wafting into the hallway made it difficult to see, but Rabastan could still make out the gleam of a protective shield. He took a couple strides forward, intent on driving the Auror back in the flames, before a green ball of acid flew from his wand. It would eat through Robards’ shield and leave him vulnerable to the Cruciatus. But the spell immediately rebounded against the shield, bouncing once on the wooden floor before it hit Rabastan squarely in the chest. He let out a yowl of pain as he staggered backward, the acid burning through the front of his robes and into his flesh. Confused by this turn of events, Graham looked between Rabastan and the former Auror, barely able to make out the shield in place. He didn’t understand how the curse had rebounded on Rabastan, but he was pissed off. But not stupid enough to risk a similar rebound. He aimed his curse for the floor near Gawain’s feet, about a foot away from the shimmering of the shield. “Confrigo!” There was no time to assess what damage that happened for the floorboards erupted a pace in front of him and sent splinters showering through the shield and into his legs. Specifically designed to deflect dark magic, it did nothing against anything else. Twirling around on a pivoted foot away from the brunt of it, Gawain whirled around and responded with precision towards the Death Eater who wasn’t dealing with his own dark magic: “Depulso! Vinculumus!” “For fucks—“ Graham went flying back, crashing past furniture and walls as he did. He finally stopped in a crumpled heap, his wand skittering out of his grip, his mask askew. He didn’t have a moment to fix either of these problems, arresting chains quickly following him. He threw up an arm to try and stop them from wrapping around him, and instead just succeeding in knocking his mask even further askew, the chains wrapping around him and trapping his arm against his chest. Without missing a beat or celebrating his success, the experienced Auror strode forward ignoring the pain in his chest and legs. Gawain shot another another set of arresting chains down the hall passed his down opponent to keep the second Death Eater busy, and then ranked upward with his wand, summoning the mask to his hand. Graham yelled as his mask flew away, unable to do anything more than try to fight against the chains and nervously eyeing off the fire he’d set. This was… not good. Gawain stared intently at the young, boyish face (familiar, but he couldn’t place it in the heat of the moment) of the downed Death Eater struggling against the magical chains. Committing it to memory and getting a solid impression for a pensieve memory, he turned his attention back to the more experienced opponent. The more experienced opponent, yes, but Rabastan Lestrange was not in good shape. The arresting chains had dissipated with an arc of his wand, but the effort took something out of him. Drawing in reedy breaths through clenched teeth, he leaned against the wall. The burns on his neck and chest were severe, and the pain combined with the thick, acrid smoke made his throat seize up. He had experienced dark magic before, but never his own — the wound consumed. This was bad. They needed help. Hiking up the sleeve of his robes, he pressed two fingers to the brand on his forearm. His property backed onto Robards’s home, and Hugo had been keeping a keener eye on the place for the duration of the campaign. He'd been lazily enjoying the sight of the hint of flames and smoke that had just started to be visible through the windows, content to just watch and imagine what could be happening at the former Auror’s house. It’d almost be a shame if he died, but then Hugo could expand his own property and -- the burn of his Dark Mark broke him sharply from his reverie. Within a split second, mask on and wand ready, he apparated to the front of the house. Tripping on one of the charmed carpets and stumbling, although managing not to fall, Hugo charged down the hallway past splintered floorboards to intervene. His arrival was announced with his own blasting curse, aimed as best as he could at Robards. “Shit,” Gawain swore aloud at the arrival of the third Death Eater. Barely, the Auror’s shield charm directed the blast curse into the ceiling. Debris rained down into the hallway and forced Gawain the take a few steps backwards once more putting him on the edge of the roaring flames. Pushing himself off the wall, Rabastan stalked forward with his aimed at the wall behind Robards — a wall that was barely visible for all the flames. He summoned object after object and flung it at the Auror: a bookshelf, an armchair, a desk. All of it was ablaze. The explosion at his feet had Gawain taking another step back, pressing him into the fire itself. Flames and intense heat licked at his back and limbs; and the arm of his sweater caught on fire itself. But his attention was drawn by the immolated furniture a Death Eater was hurling at him. Each one battered successively against his shield, weakening it until it collapsed altogether. And then Gawain was struck by a flying end table and sent flying backwards through the blaze altogether where he landed roughly on his rear end and doused himself in water. Coughing violently and steeling himself against the pain, he could only glare through watering eyes at the two Death Eaters. Worse, he knew he was losing the battle here. Hugo yelled out in triumph as he saw Robards’s shield fall, firing another curse towards him. Closer to the fire, the flames close to nipping at his feet and smoke obscuring his vision, he sent a killing curse towards Robards’s figure. Over the crackling and popping of the growing inferno it was difficult to hear any of the incantations. Only the telltale flash of green signaled to Gawain that one of this opponents had launched the killing curse. A flick of his wand summoned the remainder of the burning nightstand in front of the curse, and it exploded brilliantly upon impact. With the blaze getting out of control and his own mounting injuries in addition to a fresh opponent — who knew how many more — Gawain had to make a decision. That choice was to fight another day. “Vote Robards,” he called before coughing once more. Glaring through the pain, Rabastan lobbed off a final slashing hex at the Auror. Going through the motions of Apparating left Gawain defenseless, and the curse opened up his arm. With a crack, the Auror vanished leaving his smoldering home to the Death Eaters. |