[IC] Pistol Grip Pump (Gweyr Vs. Donny)

[Doc Doctor]

A woman, and a fine one at that. All alone. The sun had just set. Everything was perfect. Gweyr would be able to hear the man's footsteps as he slowly walked behind her, features obscured by a black trench coat and hat. Beneath the coat where she couldn't see, he held a hammer in his right hand. Were she to glance behind, he'd address her with a thick accent in a keening, almost whiny tone, as if Squidward had combined his voice with that of the Kentucky Fried Colonel's.

"'Ascuse me missus, buuut I hafta wounda what a yaowng lady suchiss yasawlf is doon' aouwt 'n abaowt inna place suchiss this, mmhmmmm...?"

[Athinar]

Gweyr jumped as she heard the voice from behind. Whirling around, she looked at the man in the black coat and hat. The voice was unnerving enough, but with the obvious attempt to hide his face... This man did not mean well. Backing up, she looked towards the end of the alley, where the cars roared past, the rain keeping the drivers from noticing Gweyr's distress. There was only one way to keep him from assaulting her, but Gweyr hoped it wouldn't come to that.

"U-Um, sir? I- I don't k-know why it's i-important for you to know."

Reaching behind with her right hand, Gweyr gripped the haft of her glaive, the oak steadying her nerves.

[Doc Doctor]

@Athinar

The man had noticed her reaching behind her back. A taser? Pepper spray? Perhaps even a gun. Donny slid his left hand into the side pocket of his trench coat as if it weren't no big thang, looking up so that she could see his face.

Deep sunk eyes. A porno stache. No eyebrows. For fucks sake, he was a ginger. Ewww. But...

His faint, dorky smile came easy, and he looked like the sort of schmuck that would fit in at the local YMCA, doing jumping jacks in neon short shorts with all the other wimpy dads. Then again, the real nasty ones always looked unsuspecting, didn't they? A face doesn't define a bad guy.

He'd continue walking until he was only a few feet away from her.

"Ayuh, but is dang'rous aouwt heeyuh mam, what with awll thuh rapists an' thuh gangstas... T'ain't naow place for a pretty lil' white wummun t'hang arouwnd."

[Athinar]

@Doc Doctor Gweyr, terror evident on her face, pulled her glaive out from behind her, and, holding it in both hands, interposing it between the man and her, she said, "Listen. I'm going to go to the end of the alleyway. And you're- you're gonna stay back, okay?" Backing up nervously, Gweyr put some distance between the two of them. If he made one wrong move, she'd toss a fireball at him.

[Doc Doctor]

@Athinar

Donny let out a loud, panicked scream as Gweyr whipped out her glaive. Just the sort of reaction you'd get when aiming a knife at some random nerd. But Donny came from a different place than Gweyr. Where he was from, life and death were matters to be resolved in an instant. Anyone could kill anyone with a little luck and a bullet in the back. Out here, you didn't brandish a weapon unless you were going to use it. You didn't pull out a blade and try to talk things over. You either killed, or got killed, and though tricks are petty, a good one never needs to be used twice against the same enemy.

Donny would have dropped his hammer and turned clockwise as if about to flee, as any sane pedestrian would after some nutty chick got medieval in a dark alley. Before the hammer, still obscured by his coat, hit the ground, Donny's scream would have muffled the ratcheting click of the .44 Magnum being cocked as it was drawn. The shot would come as the hammer landed between his feet and he was in the middle of his turn, Gweyr seeing just his left side.

An old gunslinger trick. If you want to pull a piece on someone so they don't see the barrel poking through your coat, turn your flank to them and aim along your abdomen with the gun flat against you. Keep your shooting arm out of sight so they don't see the bend in your elbow.
No protrusions, no clues, no chance. Especially when the victim is a shy, moral girl who probably wouldn't kill a man, however creepy, who seemed about to flee as was requested of him.

The revolver was aimed for Gweyr's midsection. If the large round struck, it would bore an impressive, clean hole straight through her solar plexus, between the lungs, into the aorta, and out through the spine.

Donny preferred using his hammer on helpless women, and this one was not helpless in the least. In a criminal empire, you had only one life to live and you didn't prolong it by taking chances. She was armed with something far more substantial than a stun gun, and he had never tried to take on anything badder than a baseball bat in close combat before. Perhaps if she didn't die or pass out right off the bat, he could still use the hammer. It wouldn't be a satisfying end to the evening otherwise.

[Athinar]

@Doc Doctor Gweyr yelped at the loud sound of a gunshot echoing off the tight alley walls. Reflexively casting Interposing Hand, the shimmering hand, mostly transparent, appeared in front of her, deflecting the bullet into the brick of the alleyway. Making the hand disappear immediately after, Gweyr ducked to the right, and summoning a thick fog, lunged in with the glaive, stabbing towards his midsection. If he was the kind of man to pull a trick like that, then he wouldn't let her go. She needed to take him down first.

[Doc Doctor]

@Athinar
Unfortunately for Gweyr, the .44 Magnum's bullet exceeded the speed of sound by nearly 300 fps. To say it was one seriously powerful motherfucking gun would be an understatement. In 1971, it was widely regarded as the strongest hand gun in the world. Even in modern times, few men can handle its kick.

If Gweyr still brought out the magic, Donny would carry through with his motion and flee for several yards before turning around mid-sprint like a football player about to catch a ball and lashing his left hand out of his coat pocket. The pocket had a hole in it. He'd have plucked a grenade from his belt and haphazardly chucked it right at her.

But...

If Gweyr were sharp of sight and able to have avoided or endured the .44 Magnum round, she'd see that the grenade hadn't even had its pin pulled. There were no invisible strings or remote detonation panels on it. It was simply a normal grenade that hadn't been primed.

As Donny loosed the grenade, he seemed to understand what he had done. His childish face twisted into a scrunched up howl of dismay. Professional killer, feared across the country. And he had just given his opponent a way to blow him up.

[Athinar]

@Doc Doctor
Gweyr, luckily, had already begun backpedaling, and the bullet flew past her face, drawing a deep red line where it scraped past her cheek. When the grenade was flung at her, she simply brought the flat of the glaives' blade around, smacking it back towards the man in a near effortless motion. With the same skill and grace that she had flung the grenade back at the man, she summoned a fireball in her left hand, and flung it right at the grenade.

[Doc Doctor]

@Athinar

It was a trap. Donny knew she wouldn't be able to resist lobbing his own grenade back at him. Right as the glaive struck the grenade and when Gweyr was focused on hitting her target, a second bullet would strike the explosive. He'd have cocked his revolver with amazing speed and put a bullet right on course with pinpoint accuracy, firing from the hip. Then again, he had the advantage of actually knowing what was going to happen. Speed was just a bonus.

The killing range of a grenade is five meters. Unless Gweyr could somehow move fifteen feet in an instant, she'd be blown to pieces.

[Athinar]

@Doc Doctor Luckily, Gweyr was a trained mage, brilliant fighter, and around 300 years old. Old enough to instinctively know when something was up. She didn't know exactly what, but the man was wily, slippery, like an eel. As soon as she had begun to cast fireball, she saw the man aim his gun. As he fired, a mystical suit of armor surrounded her, which, while it kept her from dying, it didn't keep her from getting flung around. Flying back about 30 feet, Gweyr slammed into the concrete, and was briefly dazed by the impact. Several cracks, glowing a light blue, had appeared on the back of the armor's helm, and the entire breastplate of the suit was cracked, chipped, and generally torn up.

Using her innate arcane abilities, Gweyr tripled her agility, and even though the armor looked heavy, it was indeed weightless. Looking for her glaive, all she saw was a charred, twisted length of wood and a half-melted, bent piece of slag. Grenades were no joke. However, the man was holding a gun. Which, being metal, was most likely made of a ferrous metal, such as steel. Holding out her right hand towards the man, energy collected there for a millisecond before lightning arced through the small space with an incredibly loud thunderclap, headed towards the gun the man held. This was no magical lightning, this was completely normal obscene amounts of electricity being hurled at the nearest metal object. Which was the gun, now that her glaive was flung away.

[Doc Doctor]

@Athinar

Donny didn't have the inclination to sit down and feel shell shocked about how magic was real. That woman had turned into a purple knight and tanked a grenade. Whatever he was getting himself into, he could worry about later. Right now he had to make sure this witch bitch stayed down.

As Gweyr was briefly dazed, Donny dropped his left hand down to the hammer of his revolver and fired off two bullets in quick succession, the gun barely bucking in his steady grip.

One in the torso, one in the head, mafia style. There was a lot more than 1,000 psi behind those bullets. Magic or not, facing a Dirty Harry special head on was a bad idea. He could shoot faster than she could, and with lethal timing and relentless consistency, pinning her down and forcing her to defend.

However... He was still using a six-shooter. Had Gweyr been keeping count?

[Athinar]

@Doc Doctor Luckily, the armor held up to the bullets, although the breastplate shattered, dissipating into a glowing blue mist, while the rest of the armor stayed intact. Mostly. Gweyr could now see through a large, gaping hole in the helmet which bled blue mist, smelling like ozone. The impact of the bullet was far from lethal, but it did appear to break her left arm at the shoulder.

Ignoring the pain, she still went through with the spell, casting a lightning bolt right at this creep, although it would hurt like a bitch when this all was over.

[Doc Doctor]

@Athinar

Seeing that the woman was still alive, Donny fired off two more rounds...

Only for the metal slugs to attract the sudden lightning spell and divert it away from Donny, the bullets melting before they reached Gweyr. He'd then reach into his pocket to withdraw a clip for his Magnum, the cylindrical chamber clicking open.

[Athinar]

@Doc Doctor In the span of time it took Donny to reload, it took Gweyr even less time to cast five Magic Missiles, which all rapidly flew at the creep at the speed of a bullet. When they hit him, it would do about as much damage as, say, a rock flung at the same speed, and disappear after contact.

Gweyr aimed one at his chest, one at his gun arm, one at his head, one at the ground between his legs, and one to the immediate right (from Gweyr's perspective, the gun is on the left, and his open hand is on the right) of the man, so that even if he tried to dodge to the right or drop prone he would still get hit.

[Doc Doctor]

@Athinar

Donny would leap to his right, having expected another spell. What he didn't expect were five spells. The one that had been launched at his gun hand would take him in the belly, the rest missing. He'd land on his side, gasping for breath but with still enough sense to have not fallen upon his shooting arm. His bulletproof vest had certainly saved his bacon. He still felt like he had broken a rib though.

Gun aimed at Gweyr, Donny would slowly attempt to rise to his feet, the heel of his left hand poised just above the Magnum's hammer, which had already been cocked back. He could empty the weapon in a second, and with far greater tact than how the magic missiles had been launched. He wouldn't settle for aiming all over her body. He'd watch where she moved and would adjust to hit her anyways.

But for some reason he wasn't shooting yet. He had something to say.

[Athinar]

@Doc Doctor Gweyr said nothing, rather, leaping up towards the wall to her left insanely fast, at a position about 5 feet above and behind the man's right side. Flipping around in midair, she kicked off the wall with the same incredible speed, and extending her leg, still clad in magical armor, performed a dropkick at 84 miles per hour, aimed at the man's left collarbone.

No time for talk.

No time for mercy.

[Doc Doctor]

@Athinar

Donny really hadn't been expecting this. He went to the movies now and then, saw a few Harry Potters. Wizards and witches weren't supposed to be able to go all Spiderman on your ass.

Still, despite having been born in an era of relative peace and security, he was a genuine warrior, with the adaptational reflexes to go with it. Donny would hurl himself backwards to both avoid the kick and keep Gweyr in sight, though he'd have been far too surprised to shoot after her.

He'd roll to his feet, and there would be a grenade in his left hand. Not only that, but something was attached to the pin of the explosive. It was a ring clip. He'd let the grenade tumble from his fingers. It would stop a half foot from the ground, suspended by a nearly invisible wire that Donny held in his hand, leading up to his digital watch.

Sweet Lordy alive, it was a razor wire grenade flail. A razor wire grenade flail in one hand and a .44 Magnum in the other. By this point most entities would call it a day and get the fuck out of Dodge. "First-Degree" Donny's eyes glinted dully from a distant streetlight as he took a step towards Gweyr, cold rain pattering down on his hat.

[Athinar]

@Doc Doctor Gweyr's eyes narrowed as the man dodged, and pulled out a flail made of a razor wire and a grenade. Well then. Gweyr kicked off the ground, leaping into the air, and once she was at her apex, twenty feet up, directly above the man, she cast a lightning bolt directly at him. Now this was a quandry. Either he would shoot at her, and the bullets would melt, or the lightning would arc towards the razor wire, causing the grenade to explode. If he didn't shoot, the lightning bolt would be aimed towards the gun, as the largest metal thing there.

Gweyr had no problems doing this. This man was obviously a menace.

[Doc Doctor]

Donny was, perhaps, smarter than Gweyr had anticipated. He knew, however, that attempting the same trick twice is foolish. She was beyong the reach of his flail, and if he detached the grenade and tossed it at her she might intercept it in the process.

He'd step down on the grenade and jerk up with the wire to pull the pin free, at the same time firing a round several feet to the woman's left to draw away the electricity. He had somehow predicted that a lightning bolt was about to come. Perhaps he had felt his hair standing up on end and had smelt ozone?

A split second later he'd be sprinting to his right, keeping an eye over his shoulder and the Magnum cocked. The grenade had a six second fuse and wouldn't detonate until about three seconds after the witch landed right on top of it. She had better be quick.

[Athinar]

@Doc Doctor And quick she was. Dropping down, Gweyr counted off one second, not knowing how much time was left on the grenade's timer, grabbed it, and flung it like a baseball at the creep. Summoning a thick fog, Gweyr jumped up, and grabbed onto a fire escape, hidden in the thick mist.

Aiming in the general area of where she saw the man last, she launched several magic missiles towards him, in a burst-fire scatter pattern, such as one would find from an assault rifle.