07-07-2025, 07:06 PM
Polaris Fight! --- i only wrote a few starter pieces for Secret World, so if you're interested at all, let me know and I'll plunk 'em down here for funsies over your morning margarita.
“C'mon big boy, show me what you really got!”
The problem is, it’s got more than me. Way, way more than me. It fills the horizon like a malevolent wall, rising up in a shuddering wave and I'm so close we're nearly waltzing. Broken scales and sloughing skin, writhing gray flesh full of things crawling in the folds; things that I’m trying very hard not to recognize. There's too many eyes, too many slithering tentacles with slime dripping madness into the waters and over everything the rank, fetid stench of long rotted death.
Does it understand english? Because this time I barely have time to see it coming at all. Frantically throw myself to the side as it snakes up like a mountain, faster than something that big should be able to think, let alone move and three tons of alien imperative comes down way too damned close, swamping the water around us in a foul tsunami.
I’m spun away in a tumble, spitting swamp and muck and things I definitely don’t want to think about. Grope around desperately in the dark waters. Fuck. Fuck. An aeon later my cramped fingers close again around the grip.
I am not going to be anyone’s.. any thing’s afternoon brunch, no matter how big it is. Just. Not. Happening. Flip the sodden mass of hair out of my eyes for the umpteenth time, staggering to my feet even as I drag the weapon back up to the surface with me.
If I get out of this in one piece, I’m getting a haircut. A pixie bob. Something cute and terribly, utterly short.
“That it?!”
“Cuidado, niña!” He flashes in from the side, brushing past me like he’s not even winded, the steel machete a black streaked extension of his arm. "Go faster," he growls, “or we're all dead.”
There’s no time to spit anything back. He connects with something, a spinning move, two handed and faster than I can track and there’s yet more blood in the water then, another ounce of flesh carved away. Out of nowhere it occurs to me that if we’re going to paper cut this thing to death, somebody should probably dial out for pizza.
It screams but I’m not even sure what it felt, I’m not even sure it can feel. It doesn’t seem to care, of course. It still wants me, swinging its massive head around, it doesn’t care about the other mewling things in the water. I’m the one it wants, the one that it needs, I’ve made damned sure of it. At least how to piss something off is one lesson well learned.
A heart blink and twenty feet away now, his hand rises towards me, palm out. He’s right under it, almost completely obscured by the heavy shadow. I can’t see his face and I have no time to decide if I’m grateful for that or not.
Copper and offal, the sudden heat grabs me by the throat and I gag. The arcing magic squirms over my skin like an unwelcome lover, washing my vision to red; greasy and slick and sly. It crawls under my uniform like a thousand angry centipedes.
Blood magic, blood mage, rough and impatient as they almost always are. It's what they do, it's who they are, masters of stealing life to bind to other purposes, everything bleeding out with the pain and ichor. This time it's vectored transfusion to heal my wounds, ease the blossoming flower bruises, drain away the lactic acid in muscles straining to keep dodging and out of the way in this one-sided chase. He’s no doubt siphoning some off for himself, the sanctimonious bastard.
I hate blood mages the most. It's like paying for sex - you get what you need, all right, but it feels like you have to scrub everything with a wire brush afterwards. But energy rises even as the taste of scorched metal recedes, things knitting back together inside me fast and sweet. I need it; just as he needs me if we’re all going to get through this nightmare.
Standing hock deep in void and mire, I have a sudden overwhelming wish to be back in the nice, safe classroom with Steven's cultured tones; his gray on gray suit and cool hazel eyes, the trim goatee and fine kid leather gloves. The image is so strong I can almost smell the lilacs under the window, almost see the warm wood of the study walls rising around me. Back when everything was so nice and clean and blessedly theoretical.
He'd definitely never have gotten himself trapped like this, slogging it out in some screwed up, phased out reality, partnered up at head office with some inner city punk who probably cribbed his first spell book from his cracked out grandma. The others aren’t much better; some chick with identity issues and a pair of guns to her limp credit and her wisecracking boyfriend or brother or familiar or whatever the hell he is.
Take it, darling. Use it, save the bitchy mood for later. Work with what you've got, not what you wish you had. Every tool has a use.
Right on cue it screams as it finds me again and it lumbers forward, one baleful eye out of dozens spearing me where I stand. Six tons of elder godlet if it weighs a pound and we apparently weren’t invited to the tea party.
Bring up the hammer and set myself, borrowed strength making it seem easy. Paper cuts it is.
“C’mon, big boy!” I shout, just in case it does understand. “Bring it!”
“C'mon big boy, show me what you really got!”
The problem is, it’s got more than me. Way, way more than me. It fills the horizon like a malevolent wall, rising up in a shuddering wave and I'm so close we're nearly waltzing. Broken scales and sloughing skin, writhing gray flesh full of things crawling in the folds; things that I’m trying very hard not to recognize. There's too many eyes, too many slithering tentacles with slime dripping madness into the waters and over everything the rank, fetid stench of long rotted death.
Does it understand english? Because this time I barely have time to see it coming at all. Frantically throw myself to the side as it snakes up like a mountain, faster than something that big should be able to think, let alone move and three tons of alien imperative comes down way too damned close, swamping the water around us in a foul tsunami.
I’m spun away in a tumble, spitting swamp and muck and things I definitely don’t want to think about. Grope around desperately in the dark waters. Fuck. Fuck. An aeon later my cramped fingers close again around the grip.
I am not going to be anyone’s.. any thing’s afternoon brunch, no matter how big it is. Just. Not. Happening. Flip the sodden mass of hair out of my eyes for the umpteenth time, staggering to my feet even as I drag the weapon back up to the surface with me.
If I get out of this in one piece, I’m getting a haircut. A pixie bob. Something cute and terribly, utterly short.
“That it?!”
“Cuidado, niña!” He flashes in from the side, brushing past me like he’s not even winded, the steel machete a black streaked extension of his arm. "Go faster," he growls, “or we're all dead.”
There’s no time to spit anything back. He connects with something, a spinning move, two handed and faster than I can track and there’s yet more blood in the water then, another ounce of flesh carved away. Out of nowhere it occurs to me that if we’re going to paper cut this thing to death, somebody should probably dial out for pizza.
It screams but I’m not even sure what it felt, I’m not even sure it can feel. It doesn’t seem to care, of course. It still wants me, swinging its massive head around, it doesn’t care about the other mewling things in the water. I’m the one it wants, the one that it needs, I’ve made damned sure of it. At least how to piss something off is one lesson well learned.
A heart blink and twenty feet away now, his hand rises towards me, palm out. He’s right under it, almost completely obscured by the heavy shadow. I can’t see his face and I have no time to decide if I’m grateful for that or not.
Copper and offal, the sudden heat grabs me by the throat and I gag. The arcing magic squirms over my skin like an unwelcome lover, washing my vision to red; greasy and slick and sly. It crawls under my uniform like a thousand angry centipedes.
Blood magic, blood mage, rough and impatient as they almost always are. It's what they do, it's who they are, masters of stealing life to bind to other purposes, everything bleeding out with the pain and ichor. This time it's vectored transfusion to heal my wounds, ease the blossoming flower bruises, drain away the lactic acid in muscles straining to keep dodging and out of the way in this one-sided chase. He’s no doubt siphoning some off for himself, the sanctimonious bastard.
I hate blood mages the most. It's like paying for sex - you get what you need, all right, but it feels like you have to scrub everything with a wire brush afterwards. But energy rises even as the taste of scorched metal recedes, things knitting back together inside me fast and sweet. I need it; just as he needs me if we’re all going to get through this nightmare.
Standing hock deep in void and mire, I have a sudden overwhelming wish to be back in the nice, safe classroom with Steven's cultured tones; his gray on gray suit and cool hazel eyes, the trim goatee and fine kid leather gloves. The image is so strong I can almost smell the lilacs under the window, almost see the warm wood of the study walls rising around me. Back when everything was so nice and clean and blessedly theoretical.
He'd definitely never have gotten himself trapped like this, slogging it out in some screwed up, phased out reality, partnered up at head office with some inner city punk who probably cribbed his first spell book from his cracked out grandma. The others aren’t much better; some chick with identity issues and a pair of guns to her limp credit and her wisecracking boyfriend or brother or familiar or whatever the hell he is.
Take it, darling. Use it, save the bitchy mood for later. Work with what you've got, not what you wish you had. Every tool has a use.
Right on cue it screams as it finds me again and it lumbers forward, one baleful eye out of dozens spearing me where I stand. Six tons of elder godlet if it weighs a pound and we apparently weren’t invited to the tea party.
Bring up the hammer and set myself, borrowed strength making it seem easy. Paper cuts it is.
“C’mon, big boy!” I shout, just in case it does understand. “Bring it!”
