Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Bernard Sult and Amadeus Darkside: Losing Binding and Unwelcome Reminders

They watched the opposing forces approach. The five of them stood together. Sult, Darkside, Binding, Mirth and Heatwave. The dark-haired elemental was tense, fingering a pistol in a shoulder holster. Darkside looked quite calm and relaxed. He felt he could keep any enemy at bay with mental blocks, but he wasn't sure how many he could stop at once. Turned out to be nine. Mirth was fidgeting. Either nerves or excitement. Binding's face was unreadable. He just stood there passively staring out, eyes locked with one of the approaching.

Bernard was soon caught up in a whirlwind of 'strike, dodge, defend' over and over and over, and half the time he wasn't defending himself, he was creating a barrier of air to stop someone else getting hurt. He was small, hard to hit, and if he helped defend others they would probably return the favour. He heard the bang of Memphis' gun as he shot one person, swung to what had been behind him, fired again and swung back to his initial position, firing a third time. He had lost sight of Melantha and Amadeus, but he could see the area where Mages were having their mind wavelength tapped into. Something hit Sult on the back of the head and he fell to his hands and knees. Someone stood over him, but a blast of energy knocked whoever they were away. He tried to scramble to his feet, but others were too close. He was being pushed and shoved and trampled. A bullet that he hoped had been Memphis aiming elsewhere zoomed past his face. He looked up, saw the detective curse and reload, trying to use the air to defend himself at the same time. A big guy loomed up on him from behind, about to grab his neck. Bernard threw a fire ball and the man's coat set alight. This caught Memphis' attention, and he swung and fired at point blank range. Someone heaved Sult up and he rejoined the fold.

Amadeus was panicking slightly. People kept getting too close before he could block them, hurt their minds or dismantle mental blocks Mevolent had applied to keep people like him out. He stumbled away from another sorcerer as he reached for him, trying to dismantle a block. It wasn't going too well. Someone charged into the sorcerer and Darkside allowed himself a relieved sigh. He continued to walk backwards, taking down enemies from the inside. He caught sight of someone he recognised. He shook his head in denial. He knew where he had last seen this man. It had been in the last vision he had had. Normally visions for him were fits that left him with splitting headaches and stupid blurs of a future that he couldn't decipher at all. It had been a recurring vision, and every time it got clearer and the headaches got worse. There had been a group of people standing as a man rose from flames like a phoenix. One man had been in shadows. Still dead when the first man rose, but to arrive soon after. Baron Vengeous had been the man in shadows, which meant the man rising from the flames...
A man turned to him, a man on his side. "Amadeus! Are you okay?" He could probably tell he wasn't focussing.
"The vision...the one I kept having...I saw Mevolent return! I saw it all! Nobody believed me!"
"You are pretty unreliable."
"But I said the name in my sleep, I was told I did! Didn't it alert anyone?"
"You lived during the first war. Nightmare, maybe?"
"I'm not Memphis bloody Heatwave!" Then he tripped over his shoelace and fell back, switching back to his mental attacks the moment he realised what had happened.

Sult also tripped over backwards on something. Something that grunted and groaned. It was Isaac Binding. He was badly wounded, his breathing laboured and his face covered in a layer of sweat. He scrambled off the bigger man and helped him lie back, protecting him long enough to get him taken off the field. Now he was stuck on his knees, fighting from below in a sea of legs. He decided he hated people.

It was a little while later, the fight was won. Bernard parted from Javier, their conversation over, and walked towards where Darkside lay curled up on the ground. "You're not having a vision, right?"
"Nah. I saw a fight in my vision about Mevolent. It could have been this fight, but I saw someone close to me die. I couldn't tell who, I just knew they were close." He looked up at Bernard, biting his lip. "That vision was ages ago, and it wasn't this fight."
"Isaac's dead." They turned as Memphis walked over, having broken the news so subtly. "Could have been him."
"No...the person was smaller...I saw this all happen though. I knew Mevolent was coming back and nobody believed me."
"I did." Bernard mumbled. They both stared at him. "So did Isaac, but nobody believed him either. He had a reputation for being gullible." He looked up at Memphis. "What about you?"
"Amadeus is unpredictable and unreliable, but he is my closest friend and the one person I trust more than anyone else. The one time he has a clear vision, of course I take it to heart. River said she noticed the change when you told me. I told her it was nerves to do with parenthood." He looked away. He seemed relatively unharmed but for a patch of blood on his shoulder. He insisted it was someone else's.

~*~*~*~

FINALLY! It is complete. If there isn't another major fight including the US Sanctuary, my plans are screwed.

6 comments:

  1. Nice chapter, B-J!

    Sorry, I have absolutely no power over the US sanctuary. I'm sure there will be another battle, though.

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  2. B-J if you want to collaborate with me thats alright I write for the US Grand Mage so email me

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    1. Yeah, I'm going to have to collab with you sometime too, Zaf, because I'm on my way to the USA as we speak, and I do not come in peace.
      Rest assured- I'll make certain there's another battle.

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    2. That would be cool, but I'm not sure how much contact my characters would have with yours and I don't think I'm very good at collaborative writing on one chapter...would be cool to try though.

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