thebastion | [185 and 186] The miles are getting longer, it seems, the closer I get to you [OPEN]

Seriously... the sooner the better, this thing is givin' me a headache just smellin' it.

[Damn sensitive demons senses.

Though at least they knew it was there at all, thanks to her. Especially with Colin's equipment being unable to scan for undead.]

At least vampire dust doesn't have much of a smell. That's the one plus-side to vampire-slaying: easy clean-up.

[Anya draws her sword now and joins Colin in front of the door. She pulls it open, hurriedly back-stepping in case it's somehow waiting right there-- but it isn't. Apparently it's at least smart enough to wait for them to come to it. And it is awfully dark down there. Not likely the electricity is working either.

...but at least it isn't a bunny.]

Speaking of fire, I hope you're ready with that.

[And with that she's starting carefully down the steps with her sword held in front of her.]

Hold it.

[Colin reaches out to put a stilling hand on Anya's shoulder]

Do you mind a little damage to the place? We can do a better entrance than that. Just a little something that doesn't have us walking into a meat grinder.

[He gestures to the floor, then pantomimes a flat surface. Next, gestures his fist crashing to the floor, and splitting the flat surface. He wants to get through to them that breaching the floor would be safer, without warning any creature down there what's coming. But doing so silently is not an easy task.]

[It's also messy and risks injury if not done right, Colin.

Not that they weren't risking injury just by being there.

To Anya's comment, Rin nods and thumbs Kurikara out of it's scabbard, not taking the entire blade out but moving it enough that the blue-flame horns appear on her head, and a wash of heat comes from her body.

Whatever your plan is, Anya, she's ready.]

[Anya looks rather affronted at this suggestion, especially with Colin's silent demonstration. He wants to inflict more damage on her store? Not to mention all the stock down there they might break. Her own plan may not be more involved than "the pointy end goes into the vampire," but she shakes her head in disagreement and tries to shrug off his hand.

Of course, being even one step into the basement has made her vulnerable. The ubervamp below has grown impatient waiting for its prey, and before she can press forward, it leaps up to grab her ankle through the riser and pulls.

She screams, but she has enough presence of mind to try to brace herself with her other foot, and turns the blade of her sword down to stab at it.

And she thought "From beneath you it devours" was meant to be figurative.]

And that is what I was trying to avoid. Go in low, Rin, and pick your target! I'll back you up!

[Colin's already leaping into the basement, bypassing the stairs entirely and bouncing off the wall to land on the basement level. High gravity training makes acrobatics like that somewhat easier.]

[Unfortunately, when it comes to combat, he relies on his scanner to feed him targeting information. That scanner is unreliable when it comes to the undead, and it's going to take visual scanning for it to work well for him. That's going to take some time. So if he wants this fight to go smoothly, it's time to give Rin openings. And that means pissing off the vampire to get it off of Anya.]

Yoo-hoo, Mister Leech! You're not gonna get a meal that easily!

[As if to emphasize it, he lifts his head to bare his neck, and he rubs his palm along his jugular in a blatant taunt. Meanwhile, he's drawing his pistol in his other hand.]

[Well shit. That escalated quickly.

Rin actually jumps when Anya is grabbed if only because it happens so damn suddenly that she wasn't fully prepared for it.]

Hang on, Anya!

[She follows suit after Colin, dropping to the basement floor after a running jump has her landing with a slight skid across the floor, kicking up wisps of blue flames her he wake.

She wheels around after that, yanking Kurikara from it's scabbard and igniting her power full force, ears growing long and the tuft of her tail gaining the same flames as the ones on her head.

Keeping her body low to the ground, she lets out a growl, charging at the undead creature with the intent of swiping at it's legs with her flaming blade.]

[It's not exactly a spacious basement; a cluttered table occupies a lot of the floor space in the middle of the room, and all four walls are crammed with shelves. The fight is going to be cramped.

It's questionable whether the vampire understands anything of Colin's words, but it can recognize the taunt of a bared neck. It releases Anya, its claws slicing the skin of her leg, and turns towards him with a snarl. It isn't stupid enough to charge him blindly with Rin leapong down, though. It waits for Rin to charge and then leaps up onto the table to avoid the fiery blade, and from a low crouch it swipes for whichever one of them it can reach with its claws.

Meanwhile, Anya carefully pulls her leg back up through the risers and takes a moment to recover herself while the other two have it distracted.]

[Okay, he seems to have pissed off the vampire now, which is what he was going for, but now what? A pistol won't do anything against this thing until he can put the barrel right in its mouth...]

[On the other hand, it did just make the issue of targeting less pressing. The cramped quarters of this fight were working against them, but fortunately, it was working against ALL of them. A plan quickly started forming in Colin's head, just as the vampire clawed at them.]

[Colin raised his arm to block, and he yelled in irritation and pain as the vampire's claws tore through his arm. But, to Colin's fortune, and probably the vampire's confusion, it was not a deep wound. Colin's skin and muscles were woven with synthetic microfibers, and trying to cut through them was akin to trying to cut through body armor. Not impossible, especially not for a super-strong vampire... but a lot more difficult.]

Rin, get ready! It's going up!

[Colin's hands shot out... to the table the vampire was standing on. He might normally give it a taunt before doing something like this, but he didn't want it to have a chance to get out of range again. Instead, he simply put all of his augmented strength into lifting the table and hurling it up towards the ceiling. It wouldn't do much more than daze a vampire, but a daze is all they'd need to turn the tide.]

Shit--!

[Rin lets out a startled, angry and slightly pained shriek as her attack goes directly under her target. She barely has enough time to right herself in a way that sends her rolling beneath the table and out the other side, enduring a scratch from what didn't hit Colin as well as a good bump on her shoulder from the sudden unplanned roll.

She's back up on the other side in a second, though, blood snaking down from her upper arm but otherwise fine.

Fine and without another opening for attack, up until the point where Colin calls out to her.]

Ready!

[And then the table and the vampire went up to the ceiling, probably striking it hard enough to crack it given the force Colin gave it. But stunning it was about all that was good for after all.

Stunning was what Rin needed, though, and she uses the small space to her advantage with that. Launching herself up, she kicks off the stairwell railing and practically throws herself at the vampire, lashing out with blade and fire before it has the chance to fall back down.

The blue flames cut a swath through it, and she can feel the blade of Kurikara at the very least connect and cut, though how much damage she actually did remains to be seen.

Mostly because there really is only so much room in there, and she can't stay up forever. Her landing is far less graceful than her leap, and she comes crashing down in to a stack of boxes. Luckily the flames don't do much more than gently singe a few corners given that her full power had been expended at the vampire, but the stack does a good job of burying her.

Oops.]

[Anya lets out a small cry that is probably lost in the sound of things crashing into other things. Her table! Her merchandise! They better not have broken anything important.

Smacking into the ceiling doesn't stun the vampire for very long, and it's lucky that Rin takes quick advantage of the opening, even if she botches it a little. The actual blade of the sword leaves only a relatively shallow cut across the vampire's chest, but the flames catch its shirt on fire. That's the only thing preventing it from immediately going after Rin, as even if it is back on its feet quickly enough, it has to devote its attention to patting out the flames before they can turn it to dust.

It's at this point that Anya comes limping down the stairs and angrily swings her sword as hard as she can at the vampire's neck.

Unfortunately she has normal human strength and not Slayer strength, so the sword just sort of lodges partway through and now they have a vampire with a sword sticking out of its neck.

We're all doing really great here.]

[Well, that could have gone better. Unfortunately, Anya's still too close for Colin to fire a shot or close into melee without risk of hitting her. Still, it's something. And Colin knows that sometimes things translate perfectly without words. So, in order to keep the vampire's attention off of Anya, and off of Rin, he backs up, and starts to laugh uproariously at the vampire. He points at the vampire's neck, letting out a loud guffaw, and speaks all the while, his tone jovial in what he HOPES the vampire will interpret as being made fun of.]

Help Rin up, I'll keep Fangs' attention on me!

[With that, he starts patting at his shirt in an exaggerated manner, mocking the vampire's own efforts to put out the flames, and he keeps laughing.]

Look at you! You're like a marshmallow that's been pulled off a campfire!

[Maybe the vampire's plight is a little funny.]

Edited 2014-05-27 17:11 (UTC)

[It could have. But it could have gone worse too. Really, for the cramped spaces that Rin isn't used to fighting in, all the merchandise that Anya is so afraid of breaking (even though most of it probably won't have much use back in the Bastion anyway), and the simple fact that Anya doesn't have the strength to be fighting against this thing...

Well. They're still alive.

That's one point in their favor.

For the moment, though, Rin was going to focus on trying to get out of the boxes while flailing around like a turtle stuck on it's back.]

Hnnng-- this sucks!

[What do you mean they don't need petrified hamsters.

For once Anya doesn't argue with Colin's suggestion, but ducks along the edge of the room to where Rin is flailing. She grabs for the girl's free arm to haul her back to her feet.

Meanwhile the vampire growls--or tries to; it comes out a little wheezy--as it yanks the sword out of its neck and tosses it aside, apparently not interested in fighting with the weapon. Instead it lunges again for Colin with its claws.]

[Claw me once, shame on you. Claw me twice, and I've clearly never sparred with a Mrrshan before.]

It's so cute!

[Colin leaps aside, coming against a shelf. For a moment he seems trapped, but no.. he MEANT to do that. He puts his arm into the stock on the shelf, and hurls it forward into the Vampire's face.]

Come on! COME ON!

[There's less humor now, his irritation coming out again.]

I don't think you're gonna be gettin' as much stuff outta here as you wanted. Sorry.

[Rin gratefully takes Anya's hand, and with a bit of awkward butt wiggling and leg flailing she's finally able to get a foot on the floor and propel herself back up to her feet.

Right. Back in to the fray--

Or not yet.]

I'm gonna need a better openin' than that!

[A shelf to the face is a good distraction but she's liable to get smacked if she tries going for him right now.]

Just aim for the gaping wound in its neck and finish the job.

[Anya speaks hurriedly, turning away from Rin as soon as the girl is back on her feet because she's pretty sure the jars of eyeballs she hears smashing into the vampire's face are not going to slow it down. If it stays focused on Colin, he might be in trouble ~~and decide to break more of her stock~~.

Indeed the vampire barely flinches and tries to backhand Colin across the face in retaliation.

Anya grabs the nearest piece of her broken table and hurls it at the back of its head, more to get its attention than to do any damage.]

Hey, ugly! Out of all the necks in the room, mine is clearly the most bitable. Come on!

[And with that she is going to limp-run back towards the stairs, because heck if she can contribute to being anything more than a distraction right now. But vampires really like prey that's injured and running away. Oh god why is she doing this, they could just go upstairs and save the cash register.]

[Colin takes the backhand... and he doesn't even flinch. In fact, he just smiles. This isn't a friendly smile. This isn't a playful smile. This one is predatory, a look to rival any vampire on the hunt.]

No. That is not okay.

[He's used to people trying to strike him across the face. It's happened a fair amount even. Human. Elerian. Mrrshan. Psilon. BULRATHI. He knows what kind of effect he has on people. He's usually tolerant of it. ONCE. The vampire already landed a blow on him earlier. It's already shown an expressed desire to kill them, feed on them. And given the kind of day he's been having, he is through being tolerant.]

[So, braced against the shelf as he was, Colin has a firm launch point. Even if the vampire chooses to turn after Anya, Colin won't let that be the end of it. With one foot braced against the shelf, Colin steps forward with the other and throws a haymaker straight at the Vampire's jaw. He doesn't bother to hold back his strength, and with Newton's laws working with him, none of the force behind the punch will be wasted.]

LET'S SEE YOU EAT WITHOUT TEETH!

[Rin really, really hopes this plan works and that punch does what it's supposed to, because she really needs one good opening to do what she's about to do.

Sword back in her hands, she doesn't go for anything fancy this time. She waits for the vampire to get distracted by Anya, then for Colin's wild punch to land before charging forward with the blade out.

And should her hit land, it'll be a perfect through and through right at the chest, flaming blade and all.]

[The vampire doesn't go after Anya, but there's a moment where it is clearly tempted, and that is the moment that Colin's fist connects with its jaw, sending it stumbling backwards and even succeeding in knocking out a few sharp teeth. And that's when Rin's sword finds it.

If it were a normal sword, Anya would be facepalming about now, but because it is on fire, stabbing the vampire through the chest with it actually works out. This time, the fire goes too deep for the vampire to have any chance of putting it out. It only takes a few moments to burn through its heart, and at that point the rest of its body turns to ash and falls, blackening the floor.

Not quite halfway up the stairs, Anya lets out a sigh of relief.]

Oh, good.

[To say that Colin was unfazed by the hit he'd taken would be inaccurate. His face was reddening and swelling slightly at the impact point, but it was still not as bad as it could have been.]

Yeah, every time I run into one of you leeches, I'm reminded why dad hates you...

[He rubs his fist then, scowling at the ash on the floor. He looks up then, his expression friendlier now.]

So. One vamp down. We expecting any more?

[Rin slumped and let her sword arm fall to her side, still flaming and out but otherwise unneeded. She let out a relieved sigh with it.]

I don't smell anythin' else. Just a lotta ash now.

[Sniff.]

[Anya brightens immediately.]

That means we can start the real work now.

[She takes a step back down, is quickly reminded that she has claw-wounds in her leg, and starts back up again.]

Let me just find the first aid kit first.

Gonna need a long soak in the hot spring when we get back.

[It was a mutter, Colin's in a poor mood. He eyes Anya's wound, and he sighs.]

Lemme take care of that injury for you. I've got a medkit on me.

[He gives Rin a glance.]

Nice work with the lick, Rin-Rin.

Yeah, well, I ain't totally useless.

[Rin put her sword away at her hip, dousing the flames on her and the blade.]

So I take it we're gonna try to haul as much as we can back?

[185 and 186] The miles are getting longer, it seems, the closer I get to you [OPEN]

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