toku matsudaira, geezermancer (giri) wrote in emillion, |
Cian felt the rush of speed from the spell, a welcome addition as he ducked out of the way of a swinging stone limb. “Hey you!” he called out. “Ugly fucker! Why don’t you save yourself some pain and just keel the fuck over?” Another card was sent flying, his luck still strong enough to fracture the crystal further. Would breaking it entirely stop the thing? Now seemed the time to find out. Another card went sailing as the bright, buoyant feeling of luck flickered, flickered. The card slid harmlessly from the stone beside the crystal. Before Cian could go for his dice pouch again, some invisible force slammed into him from above, pushing him flat to the broken cobbles until his bones creaked. He felt his rib breaking, his vision graying. The effects of Gravity could be deadly; putting an end to the field was of utmost importance, before the man succumbed to it. Concentrating with every inch of his being, Toku reached out to the Mist that blanketed the city, not a call on the help of a long-time friend but an entreaty to a relatively new one. His command of the Mist was not yet perfect, but it answered, wrapping itself around the Babil in a toxic embrace, the Dark element. At the strike against its weakness the monster roared and relented, taking a few pounding steps back. Toku willed the Mist to follow, to envelop the monster as though it were an ethereal extension of his limbs, fingers grabbing for purchase. Cian could barely stand, but he forced himself to do it, though his body screamed in protest. He’d have tried to tell himself that he’d had worse, but he was better at deluding others. But even though his luck was all but gone, he still withdrew another pair of dice, threw. But the bright flash of light that resulted was weak, hardly worth the effort of throwing at all. Compared to what the mage was dishing out, it would be a fucking tickle. Fuck everything. The earth shook again, an aftershock of the clusterfuck still going down in the center of town. He lost his balance, fell again (his ribs were somewhere past screaming now) just as the monstrous stone creature seemed to free itself from the grip of the Mist and lunged toward him. He had nearly died three times in his life -- four if you counted the plague. He remembered each instance, the darkening of his vision as though entering a tunnel, the hot explosion of pain, the coppery tang of blood on his tongue, the sound of his own heartbeat. It was almost thrilling -- almost -- in the moment the adrenaline rushed in, before it became -- Darkness. Don’t go outside, she had said. She’d promised to tell him if his resolution to stay alive would be broken. Had she tried? Had he, at the worst possible moment, misunderstood? But then, fate was a finicky fucker. You could try to swindle it, but in the end, you’d lose. Death always won the final hand. He did not see his life flash before his eyes. He did not think of regret (what use was regret to a man such as him?). He thought only, I guess it’s now, and then, as he dropped, nothing at all. The Babil roared, perhaps a celebration of the man’s defeat; but the victory would not lie with the monster if Toku could do anything to help it. The incantation for Angel Whisper was already on his lips, beating wings weaving a second chance around the man’s fallen form. As though it knew what was happening, the Babil’s roar turned to rage, and it charged Toku. This time, aided by Hasteja, he managed to clamber out of the way in the nick of time, and the Babil crashed into the building behind him, rocking the structure. Once more, Toku wrapped a veil of Mist around the creature, saw the telltale weakening in its stance. Out of the corner of his eye he watched the man, waiting for him to stir. |