Hatman1801

A Hero Tale {Complete}

Alvios held his ground. He met Yzeira's gaze squarely, but what he said swam through his head somewhat. Would it be pointless? Was it both, or neither? The man who knew no parallel. Maybe he did stand an iota of a chance, if he drew out the full extent of his power. Was he giving Yzeira too much credit, or not enough? Alvios had waited months upon months thinking about meeting this man. He had fantasized it a few times, occasionally with despair, occasionally with hope.

He had slaughtered a village, but none of them compared to Alvios now. He was acknowledging the fact that, despite this group bringing about Armageddon, Alvios was among the strongest humans around. He had little doubt that he could have defeated Ada, and he defeated Vale.

He furrowed his brow for the few seconds this all ran through his head... and then shrugged, his demeanor shifting from his rage to his peace.

"You don't need to speak for me, Bruce. Yzeira is right. When I stepped in here and saw him, I thought, somewhere in the back of my mind, that fighting him would be pointless." His focus had never left Yzeira, but he addressed him again. "But that was the me of a minute ago. I came in here and saw you from the perspective of our first meeting, as an ant beneath your boot that you decided not to crush. Looking at you now, I'm still a few inches shorter than you I suppose."

Alvios slipped his hand off of Vale's sword. His vision was no longer red with fury, and despite still being ready to fight, it didn't feel quite right to cast the first stone. "I believe I don't attack you now because it would be rude. I am not the only one you have wronged. Whether or not I could kill you right now is irrelevant. I simply lack the right until everyone else is here to share in that victory or defeat."

A glint of white in Alvios' eyes, and his mouth turned upwards slightly, in a small smirk. "Both my allies and your own Order. I am not here to duel you. My allies, friends, are all here to do battle with you and your Order in its entirety. My revenge is insignificant. What is important is saving the world from your oblivion."

A Hero Tale {Complete}

Keep a cool head Alvios. We have a plan. The other Order members need to die first. You're smarter than your instincts.

He took a slow breath through his nose, his eyes still locked on Yzeira. The man still had that eerie sense of calm and aloofness that he remembered. A combination of tranquil and intimidating. The same aloofness he had while slaughtering his village. He felt his fingers tighten on the blade, but he didn't draw it. If they wanted to attack Yzeira outright, he would need the others. If they wanted to continue eliminating the rest of the Order first, then he needed to have patience. However difficult that might be.

"... I have two questions for you, Yzeira. One for knowledge, one for pride. I want to know why you are so interested in Jenso. I also want to know if you remember who I am."

A Hero Tale {Complete}

Alvios had taken a short time to recuperate before following Bruce, muttering a few curses under his breath as he did so. He didn't hurry, but he did think that his ally following Vale into the tower by himself was a dumb idea. He had watched him carefully while building up his Ki again, and was surprised when the Tower showed no resistances to Bruce's entry.

"The Tower repelled Bruce's giant attack from earlier, so why not the one who made it? I doubt its protections are faltering or something. Perhaps it only tries to repel whatever might destroy it, and not individuals. Which would mean we aren't seen as threats...infuriating, but understandable. The Tower isn't what's going to kill Bruce though if he lingers in there without the rest of us, dammit."

He had a hand on the hilt of Vale's sword as he stepped through the door. He rather liked the blade; perhaps a little too long for his taste, it had excellent balance, and the edge felt like it was cutting the air around it just by existing. A good substitute for a Ki blade if he needed.

"Bruce, I know wandering is your thing, but you really shouldn't--"

Alvios stopped mid-step. He no longer cared what Bruce had to say to Vale. He no longer cared much about Bruce's well-being either. He only heard the sound of his own heartbeat, felt the tightening of his grip, smelled his own cold sweat, tasted bitter dryness in his mouth, and saw only red.

"You."

A Hero Tale {Complete}

Alvios stood still for a moment, shaken. The fight had gotten far more intensely than he could have hoped, and once Vale grabbed his face and mentioned his eyes, his heart had skipped a beat, wondering what terrible visual prowess he could have been blessed with. But...nothing happened. Watching the vampire fumble around with vials, and begin stumbling off towards the tower in retreat, Alvios contemplated what to do. Most of his right arm and part of the right side of his face had lost their glow, the blast from his sword alongside the fight's apparent conclusion leading him to avoid fully cowling himself.

He decided to let him go for now. If anyone more powerful decided to leap out and protect Vale if he tried to pursue, it would have been bad for the entire group. Besides... Alvios knelt down on the ground, reaching out with his left hand, carefully coating it in more Ki, and carefully grasped the hilt of Vale's abandoned sword.

"He won't be as threatening without this unique blade... and who knows? Maybe it'll be useful against the other members of the Order."

A Hero Tale {Complete}

Alvios clashed against Vale, mentally cursing himself all the while. Why wouldn't the vampire carry around extra blood if it fully rejuvenated him like that? It was foolish and arrogant of him to think that Vale exclusively relied on recklessness if the opponent could injure him before he could get their blood, or if the opponent had no blood. He sacrificed quite a bit to punish Vale for the earlier attack; his typical trading strategy had worked poorly.

Well, time to abandon the other... Alvios held fast to his sword, and waited until Vale had committed to the attempt to grab his face. Once he was certain, he detonated the sword in his hand, in the same manner he had detonated the one he had thrown earlier. Point-blank, it would hit both of them and leave Alvios without either of his empowered blades until he could reconstitute them. Still, it would be worth it to further injure Vale and keep him at bay.

A Hero Tale {Complete}

Alvios' eyes widened. Of course the bastard had spare blood on him for emergencies. If this healed him or empowered him, it would put Alvios at an immediate disadvantage. He reacted as fast as possible; he pointed his left towards Vale, and all of the fragments of the sword he had detonated earlier rose up and flew at the bloodsucker as a torrent of fragmented light shards. With his other, he impaled the ground with his sword, and discharged Ki. The ground beneath Vale began to crack, as the Ki wave went underground and threatened to come up right below him.

Hopefully, Vale wouldn't be able to dodge both while he was injured. He didn't waste time waiting to see the results though. One the wave had been discharged, he rushed forward, blade in hand and ready to slash Vale across the torso once the short distance between them was covered.

A Hero Tale {Complete}

"So, you do drink it. Shatter!" At his command, the blood flickered white, and crystallized into several tiny shards of Ki. Each one detonated, smaller and smaller. It was akin to licking pieces of shattered glass that constantly broke into more tiny pieces of glass.

Also at the command, Alvios winded sharply, hand going to his now-open wound. The poison had dulled his precision; the wound now looked like horrible scar tissue, the blood around the wound detonating as well, tearing open the knife wound in a more serrated fashion. It glistened as it healed itself, but he couldn't focus enough power there to permeate it with his Lightforge Ki any longer without hurting himself. Instead, the veil expanded, covering the wound in a vaguely transparent light. The blood that had managed to flow through the veil hardened and dissipated as well.

"Suck on that."

A Hero Tale {Complete}

Alvios twitched; he should have expected the dagger to be more than just an athame. His regeneration was counteracting the paralysis and bleeding, and the Ki in his blood conveniently purged it even more quickly, but there was a distinct numbness around the impact point where Vale's dagger hit him. A few of those stabs in the wrong places before he had a chance to fully cleanse it, and his mobility would be skewed.

"Do you?" Alvios upped the intensity of the blade in Vale's gut, twisting it and slowly enlarging it, and moved his other the best he could to block Vale's sword swing. If Vale let him keep empowering the blade piercing him, he'd find himself either fully impaled or shredded by the expanding Ki.

"Poison against the doctor? You picked the wrong opponent. And here I was scared that you were actually some kind of fantasy vampire."

A Hero Tale {Complete}

Alvios' eyes narrowed, and he quickly formed a light-blade around his own off-hand, like a katar. Something was wrong. Despite claiming his fear of it before, he agreed to the trade. He thrust this new blade at Vale's torso, aiming to mimic the wound at least, or do worse if the blade detonated as the javelin did. He had a plan. A bad plan that would take utmost precision on his part and was entirely reliant on his current analysis, but he had a plan, and it put him in how he preferred close-quarters; trading blows, and outlasting with healing. A risky move, a losing one against a blood drinker.

I'm not as strong as Jenso, as fast as Jeff, as durable as Oz, or as grandiose as Bruce. I'm the doctor, the support, the man they can rely on to have their back. My Ki is less impressive in scale, but sharp, efficient, and unique in its own way. My grand attack back there was only capable because of Jenso's raw power, and they know it. Still... Alvios began permeating his own blood carefully with Ki. If Vale truly did drink blood, he could treat it the way he treated every sword, burst, or that javelin; detonated and shattered. If he tripped this up, he might end up tearing up his own bloodstream. The automatic regeneration of Lightforge would help, but he wouldn't last long before needing to heal himself, and stopping to do that was impossible against this opponent.

Alvios' expression had gone from careful analysis to a determined grin, and he would match Vale's enthusiasm with his own. He believed in himself.

A Hero Tale {Complete}

"Oh, did your Order buddies talk about me? I'm honored." Alvios braced his sword against his side to clash with Vale's, and flicked his eyes to the javelin embedded in the ground behind his opponent. With a simple thought, it detonated in a radiant explosion of Ki energy, some of it the equivalent of shrapnel with its high density.