toku matsudaira, geezermancer (giri) wrote in emillion, |
The Tenements clinic had been designated a safe place to rest, for a relative value of the word. The exhausted fighters, mages and bards who had dived into the fray throughout the day needed to replenish their strength, but what rest they could obtain would be limited―if their body’s exhaustion could deafen them to the chaos and screaming outside, long enough to sleep a few hours, long enough to be ready for another day of fighting. While some slept, others kept vigil; they let their guards down only when they knew others were watching out for trouble nearby. Toku had taken one of the late shifts, waking as the sun began to dawn on another day of destruction. Many were still asleep, Peony among them. Their conversation about the best way to assault the Tower troubled him, but his pondering was interrupted by intensified screaming from the street, and the earth’s complaints as something massive pounded on it with every step, made it shake. A Samurai beside him stood up, but Toku said, “I will go.” Many of the beasts so far had been weak to some type of magicks, and the threat had to be dispatched as soon as possible. A fighter’s aid would have been ideal—but they were stretched thin as it were, and the situation was far from ideal. He went outside and followed the chaos, to an alleyway where he found the Babil wrecking havoc—and most worrisome of all, a man trapped between it and a building. “I shall distract the beast!” Toku called. The wind, burdened down with the weight of the Mist seeping through the streets, nevertheless answered his call, buffeting the beast with violence, eliciting a roar from it. Its attention was now solely on the mage attempting to fell it. With his back against the wall, Cian, who’d thought his luck had finally run out, aimed and fired right at the crystal in the ugly fucker’s weird stone body. He heard the shout just as it was bearing down on him, and then there was a rush of wind, and he was finally out of the crosshairs. He’d have run, if he’d thought he could get away with it. But his attempt to return to his building for supplies had nearly cost him his life -- he’d replenished his stock of dice and bullets and nearly been buried by a fucking elemental -- and now there was nowhere left to go. Whoever was fighting the creature for him now at least seemed to know what the fuck he was doing. It was better odds than being alone. He wiped blood from his eyes -- he’d taken a hit to the head or two around the time he’d lost his communicator -- and holstered the gun. Fucking thing wasn’t doing him a damn bit of good. Now that the thing wasn’t right on top of him, he could risk the dice. He took a pair up, hurled them at the bastard who’d nearly had his head. For a moment, he thought nothing had happened -- of all motehrfucking times to malfunction -- but then he felt it, as though the dice were tumbling chaotically about inside his skull, as though optimism had just been injected into his veins to mix with the blood. Luck. Yeah, it was changing. He drew a card, threw it, watched it connect perfectly with the crystal from an impossible angle, send cracks through it. To know that the man was not a helpless civilian was a relief—but there was little time to be thankful as the Babil, enraged, charged the mage that had attacked it first. Before he could move out of the way, Toku found himself pinned against a wall, his arm trapped in place by the beast’s weight. Through the pain of broken bones, he gritted out another incantation, the wind pushing back the beast away from him, this time even more violently than before. There was no time to waste but, luckily, the Gambler was not his only ally. As the beast stumbled back once more, Toku began Hasteja, to keep himself and the other man as swift as possible to avoid the brunt of the monster’s attacks. Blood trickled down the sleeve of his already damaged robe, but the clinic was nearby—as soon as the threat was dispatched, he would return. |