[IC] Black Deaths, Dark Hearts (Ruby vs Zande)

[Athinar]

Ruby, you there? The gruff voice came over the female assassin's earpiece.

Climbing the cliffside was no easy feat, and utilizing climbing spikes on the feet, and climbing axes made it a little easier, but Ruby scaled the cliff quickly. The target was in the dojo at the top, and she had to move quickly, else he move on to another location. Pausing, she pushed the button in the earpiece. "Yes, dad. What do you want? I'm almost there."

With a smoker's cough, her father spoke. Kid, be careful. I've heard a lot about this guy, none of it good. I don't want to lose you to some jungle fighter.

Rolling her eyes, Ruby said, before moving back up, "Relax, Dad. I'll do what I'm paid to do. This man is going down, no matter how good he is." Shutting off the comm with a shake of her head, Ruby arrived at the dojo, and turned on the thermal imaging scanner in the HUD piece that she had over her eye.

Wherever this guy was, he couldn't hide from her scanner.

[Doc Doctor]

As Ruby arrived a dark shape would pass beneath the pale moon, a brief, eerie squawk trilling overhead. Were Ruby to glance up, she'd be able to see a large black vulture circling high above her. Upon looking across the dojo with her thermal scanner, the thief might be surprised to find the red glowing shape of a figure staring right back at her, squatting less than twenty yards away in plain sight. Somehow the target had known she was coming. No insects chirped, no wind blew, no wood creaked. The venue had become shrouded in a heavy, unnatural silence.

[Athinar]

Ruby ignored the bird, sparing it but one glance, to see what kind it was. A vulture. Big deal. What interested her was the thermal signature of the man, who was staring directly at her. Swearing under her breath, she ducked down behind a paper wall, out of sight. Aside from the howling of the wind blowing through the holes in the paper walls of the dojo, the building was silent. The man probably knew she was there, so she began to move silently along the corridor of the dojo, avoiding wooden floor boards that would squeak, or cause her to trip.

Keeping a close watch on his thermal signature, she crept around the dojo's hallways, trying to get behind him.

[Doc Doctor]

The figure remained where it was. If Ruby paid close attention, she'd be able to notice smaller thermal signatures tumbling from... Oh. He was taking a shit on the floor.

[Athinar]

Wrinkling her nose, Ruby cringed in distaste. Was he... crapping in the middle of the dojo's yard? Disgusting. Still, it might allow her to catch him off guard. Pulling the piton gun out of its holster, she leveled the launcher at the savage, and taking a deep breath in, fired. The firing of a grappling device at a target reminded her of Batman, except... Batman's grappling hook wasn't as... pointy as the piton. Hopefully it would hit, so Ruby held on tight, so she would be ready to pull herself forward.

[Doc Doctor]

No doubt Ruby had entered the decrepit halls of the dojo to avoid being seen. However, the headhunter's spotter was a creature of many talents. Vultures have not only sight that is among the best in the animal kingdom, but a sense of smell without equal. A mature one can detect a scent in concentrations as tiny as a few parts per billion in the air. Contrary to popular belief, the famous circling of vultures was not a result of them waiting for prey to die. They circle to determine the exact location of food.

Zande's vulture would drift lazily down in tightening rings above the location where the most obvious threat to its master hid, just as it had been trained to passively do. The initial squawk had alerted the headhunter, and now he knew to keep the corner of his eye focused upon where his pet hovered.

Another animal fact. Many predators, when engaged in open combat, would void their bowels to reduce body weight. Fighting bears shat themselves. Big cats too. Zande had done so for the same reason. A glimmer, a pop. A fast moving object had entered his peripheral vision. A giant arrow? A silent cannonball? Not enough time to evade. He had to block. He twisted his back in the direction of where the vulture had singled out its target, the grappling hook banging harshly against the thick blades of the axes harnessed to Zande's back.

Assuming it didn't explode or anything, the cannibal would shoot out from his crouch and sprint in the direction of the rope with blistering impetus, the long claws of his boots gouging grooves in the floor. The sound of his top speed was comparable to several kitchen knives being repeatedly dashed against a wall. He knew what it was in a fraction of a second. He had seen grappling hooks before, used to scale castle walls. In a moment he would have been able to close half the distance, aiming to get as close as possible before swooping low and whisking a wicked skinning knife from his belt to ram through the rope of the grappling hook and deep into the ground as it began to contract. He knew that if it were of metal cord, he'd have to stab it rather than slice it. And besides, this way it wouldn't hit him in the back of the head.

[Athinar]

The savage's reaction time was remarkable. Stabbing the knife through the metal cord of the piton launcher's cable, and into the ground, he caused Ruby to be pulled forward, as the piton gun began to retract. As she ripped through the rotting paper wall, she kicked off the floorboards, leaping into the air, above the savage. Letting go of the piton, and letting it retract, Ruby pulled her telescoping Bo staff from its cylindrical sheath on her lower back, and whipped it out, instantly forming a solid Bo. With the same motion, she swung downwards, an experimental strike, to test the man's defenses.

[Doc Doctor]

The wild Zande was not one to be tested. He did not mess around. As Tanya burst into view, his left hand darted over his shoulder and seized upon the handle of the monstrous axe known as Hot Steppa, nearly seven pounds of razor-ridged metal. It slipped free of its sheath as if it were greased, whizzing forth in a ghoulish arch set to cleave through the woman's right arm and into her breast, just beside the shoulder. He threw his entire momentum into the blow, leaning his weight upon the attack and chambering his right fist by his side. He cared little for what she did with her bo staff. He was still able to reposition since he had at least one foot on the ground. He would choose to lean or sway at the last moment and let her strike him across the right shoulder, possibly breaking the clavicle or dislocating the arm if she remained dedicated to her attack. No, Zande cared only that his opponent was in the air, unable to move out of the space she was occupying and in the midst of an attack that left her vulnerable. If Hot Steppa struck home, her life would surely be forfeit as her body was slung unceremoniously to the floor in a bouncing, blood soaked heap, subclavian and brachial arteries torn apart and the left lung ruptured. At the point of no return whereupon both blows might land, the headhunter would unleash a lunatic, stentorian scream.

[Athinar]

Ruby's eyes widened, and pupils dilated, as she saw the scene unfold. If she followed through with the strike, she would surely die. So, she aborted the strike, and rather than aim to strike, Ruby thrust the Bo down at the ground, and using the staff as a focal point, twisted away from the savage. Letting go of the staff, Ruby grabbed a smokebomb from the pocket attached to her belt, and in one fluid motion, threw it down at the ground, making sure to hold her breath. As it impacted, filling the dojo's yard with smoke, Ruby unsheathed her knives, and sidestepped quietly to the right, so the blind swings of the savage, if it attempted any, wouldn't hit her.

[Doc Doctor]

Zande may have been unable to see his opponent, but he made up for it in audacity. As Ruby let go of her staff, the headhunter would drop his axe and reach out to snatch the bo staff with both hands before it could fall. He'd then whirl around as the smoke enveloped them, swinging the length of metal in a wide sweep at the level of where he figured the thief's center mass would be. Sidestepping wouldn't help in this situation. It had more reach than either of his axes, yet could still deliver bone smashing force. Trying to block it with a set of five inch knives would go just about as well as one would imagine, if one were meant to stop the enraged swing of a baseball bat in the hands of a major league hitter.

[Athinar]

Ruby watched on the thermal view as the savage grabbed her Bo, and began to swing it at her, level to where her ribs were. While the metal staff had a heat signature almost equal to the dojo's air, she could see the man's hands, grasping her staff, and she knew how long the weapon was while extended, so she could approximate where the end of the Bo was.

As the staff almost hit her, Ruby did not dodge. Rather, she used the hilts of the knives as a barrier between her hands and the metal rod, catching it, and twisting it around, attempting to disarm the savage. However, if the maneuver succeeded, she would again, drop the staff, and dash towards the savage in a serpentine manner, and perform a low cut aimed at his midsection.

If the force with which the man struck was too much, then Ruby would roll with the blow, allowing herself to get pushed back, so she didn't drop her knives, or get knocked off balance.

[Doc Doctor]

Zande didn't fight like a reasonable man. He threw everything he had into a life or death assault, completely without physical or mental restraint. The staff would impact the daggers with a desperate, reverberating pressure which might actually damage her wrists from the shock. Were she to be pushed back, Zande would hop back and hurl the metal rod at her knees. Whilst she was dealing with that he'd scoop up his fallen axe once more, wielding it in his left hand and using his right to reach around behind his head. If given the opportunity, he would pull the terrible visage of a thick, black steel tribal mask down over his face, which had been hanging on the back of his neck. What was to come after that would make the first few minutes of the fight seem like a sweet dream.

[Athinar]

Ruby was in fact pushed back, but she was also trained in seven different martial arts. She didn't get to where she was without toughening up. The shock caused her arms to vibrate, and she was pushed back even more, feet skidding through the dirt. When the Bo was thrown at her knees, she quickly sheathed her knife, and, as the rod was about four inches from her knees, kicked it up with her right foot, and caught it in both hands. The savage had the brutal-looking ax in his hand, and he was reaching for something behind his head, a mask. The smoke was already beginning to dissipate, so Ruby grabbed two smokebombs, and threw one at the man's face. It wasn't fast enough to prevent him from putting on the armor, but if it hit, it would cover his head with smoke. Regardless of whether it hit or not, Ruby would throw a smokebomb on the ground between them, and fall back silently into the halls of the dojo. The man had too wide of a swing. Fighting him in the open was a disadvantage. In the dojo, while the rotting walls were merely paper, the beams of the broken building would hamper wide swings.

[Doc Doctor]

As nimble as a cat, Zande swayed to the side and slipped past the smoke bomb thrown at him. He stood still as the area once again filled with smoke. She was playing hard to get. He unslung his second axe and slid back into the darkness of the dojo corridors, a living trap waiting to be sprung.

[Athinar]

Ruby kept an eye on him as she moved through the dojo, once more. She couldn't beat him outright, so maybe this situation called for a little ingenuity. Creeping silently down the corridor, Ruby placed a smokebomb every two yards. Her intention was so that when the savage came after her, she would step on the bomb, obfuscating the hallway. In these enclosed spaces, the smoke would be even thicker. Perfect.

[Doc Doctor]

Zande wasn't going to play hide and seek. The moment he knew he was out of view, he'd sneak up to a broken wall and peer through to see where his vulture was circling. The bird's sense of smell was invaluable. She was looping around a corridor not too far from his own. The headhunter would attempt to slip out unseen and head on up to the old wall he estimated she was behind. He didn't know exactly where Ruby was, but this was a superior option to taking a nap and waiting her out. He'd cock his right arm back, gritting his teeth and digging his feet into the ground. This one was going to be a doozy.

If nothing were done to impede the assault, then with outrageous force the axe would cleave through the wall in a horizontal line at waist height. If the thief were within five feet of the spot where the headhunter swung, her body would be separated just as easily as butter before a knife.