Forest Ghosts [Sarge, Complete]

[Fabula Caromed]

And back to an impasse. Most people would be discouraged by continual failures, over and over again. Fabula was having just the time of her life. She hadn't yet found anything on the planet that she had to work so hard to keep up with. Her attacks were too predictable and his defense too prescient to simply bowl over with pure brute force. She'd have to adapt if she wanted to improve. Fortunately, she was always looking to do just that.

Fabula gave her lightsabers a quick twist in her hands, refreshing her grip on them and giving a quick grin across to the man in front of her. She didn't need to say anything. Combat was the purest form of conversation. Until you had fought someone, you didn't truly know them...and she was getting to know this one pretty well indeed. He wasn't kidding earlier when he said he hadn't felt the need to change in hundreds of years. His staid dedication to the same maneuvers, the same blocks and occasional improvised unarmed attacks was all impressive.

In order to get anything done with him, she'd need to remove that infuriatingly lightsaber-retardant gun from the equation, and in order to do that she'd need to approach from a different angle. She started another full frontal assault, as before. She charged, as before. She telegraphed herself extremely hard, as before. This time, though, she brought herself to a stop right outside his reach.

Fabula brought one lightsaber to bear against his shoulder, the other finding its path much lower down, towards his leg. She hesitated just a moment in-between the attacks, faking a single slash to hold one lightsaber back, as she had done before. When she switched to offense with that one, too, hopefully it would catch him off-guard. She didn't expect it to, of course, so when her right-hand saber met resistance in the least, she pulled it back and offered up a new movement, a quick flourish into a momentous thrust around his opposite shoulder.

She kept an eye out for kicks and, as she'd figured out, blasters.

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

Again a frontal assault, and this time there would have to be a gimmick. He'd fought too many times to ever expect people to keep trying the same move time and time again. The trick was, as ever, to figure out what they were going to do.

He'd made peace with not being able to keep his blaster intact. It was a great countering weapon but when your opponent had two weapons it wouldn't do because it limited offensive capabilities. And then came the stop, and he'd already set himself into blocking something unexpected.

A stop wasn't what he'd anticipated, but that's why he'd set himself. He now had no blade atop the rifle, and so this was where it got fun. He used the top of his blaster again to block the first strike, and wasn't surprised to find her attacking with the other.

A one-two punch was nothing eventful. What was eventful was that he now had no ability to shoot, as the saber was digging into the barrel. Loosening his grip on the blaster, he let it slid down until the stock took the shot aimed for his knee.

The weapon spun in his hands and he let go of it as he popped the ejection button for the powerpack, taking several hurried steps back as she thrust toward where his shoulder was going to be, he threw the pack straight up and into the lightsaber as he made space.

Ready-made grenade.

 

[Fabula Caromed]

Now, the cool thing about lightsabers is that they cut things. Relatedly, the problem with lightsabers is that they cut everything. Even the things you don't want them to cut. Especially the things you don't want them to cut. She could certainly see him tossing something at her. And she could definitely see that it was going to hit her weapon. What she didn't see (or maybe just didn't understand, because she had yet to see a blaster in real life) was what was about to collide with her.

There was one hell of an cracking sound and, per normal, Fabula recoiled. Her right hand snapped back from the force of the blast, and her lightsaber, deactivated by the pressure-activated handle, spun up into the air behind her. She stopped and stared at her hand, a little roasted but otherwise undamaged by the relatively small explosion. She actually stared at it for a much longer time that one would probably have expected out of her.

When she brought her eyes off of her hand again, they were practically shining with pure, undiluted, uncontrolled Rage. She dropped her jaw and screamed in a Force-spun fury, her limbs crackling with the remainder of the Dark power that she had seen no need to access. Just a friendly fight, after all. No one trying to kill her. That was, until there were explosions and knives.

She slung her right hand back, calling her wayward 'saber and igniting it in mid-flight. Her spirit consumed by unfathomable hatred, she totally forgot the idea of strategy she had held before. She charged, faster than before, the Rage lending power to her muscles. She attacked, harder than before. Straight-on, brutal, unrelenting. Slash after slash after slash. She wasn't really aiming for his weapon anymore. She was just trying to cause as much brutality as possible.

The atmosphere around her was electric with passions, but she only cared about the negative. Hatred, fear, pain, and anger anger anger. The battle was when she felt alive, but when she lost control of that one last little drop-off, she didn't so much care about living as making something else dead. She'd lost count of how many times she'd slashed at him, one after another after another. Not like she was counting in the first place. She was too busy being super-duper angry.

And somewhere, in the back of her mind, Fabula was pouting at having lost control over something so petty.

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

She stared at her hand, and normally the explosion would have been larger, but she'd only used a lightsaber. Had he shot the pack, they'd both be dead. He used that time to collect his blade and pick up his useless weapon. Reattaching the bayonet as she pulled her saber in, he was prepared just in time to block.

And block.

And block.

She was playing his game now.

Blind fury met cold, calculating tactical sense.

But while his blade would hold out practically for forever, his rifle wouldn't. When her saber finally cut through the stock she'd likely go forward in a near-stumble as her momentum carried her through the unexpected lack of resistance.

Using what he hoped would be a split-second advantage he swung the stock up and under her chin with as much force as he could manage to crack her head back, and then sent it forward to hit her in the windpipe.

 

[Fabula Caromed]

Progress! The searing sound of her blade cutting through the metal almost snapped her out of her trance on its own. After all, she didn't want to kill h-

"Ggkh!" Fabula doubled back for what had to be the fourth time since she started fighting this guy. Breathing was now a chore. Her Rage had fallen away from her like...something that falls very fast. It was too much for her to make up similes now. Falling back a few steps, she steadied her footing and prepared for whatever it was he was going to do.

She could hold her breath a bit, and a quick muttered spell would fix any damage done to her neck. She wasn't worried about it. What she was worried about was the part where this nerf herder had just tried to blow her up and he still had a knife. 'Focus, Fabs. He's out of tricks.'

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

His face was split by a grin as what he liked to call her 'sanity' returned. The leash had been broken, but she'd re-tethered it. All was well. Shrugging his cloak around him again, he faded from sight and dipped his head so that not even that was visible.

"Satisfied?"

 

[Fabula Caromed]

Taking a moment, Fabs gurgled a few sounds beneath her breath. While the words couldn't come out due to the damage to her throat, she knew them in her mind, which was all she needed to have to lend credence to the spell. Simple mending, nothing impressive. After a few seconds, she could breathe again. After a few more seconds, she tried to speak.

"If- kkgh-...ahem. If you're backing down, then I suppose we can call this one off." She smiled a bit, releasing both her lightsabers and clipping them back to her belt. "A warrior need not kill to prove her prowess. Life is not the measure of victory, nor is victory the measure of life." After a moment's pause, she dropped her head in a curt bow. "Basically, there's no need to win as long as the fight was good."

She was getting the post-fight tingles, of course. Fabula tried her damndest to keep attention away from the fact that she was blushing just a little. "I've learned a lot today. Sorry it had to come at the expense of your gun." That piece of crap was archaic. She actually didn't feel much remorse for cutting it up. But why be rude to someone who had just given you the fight of your (extremely short) life?

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

Oh did that gurgle make him smirk something fierce, but he didn't say anything. That would just be impolite; he fancied he typically wasn't an impolite person. "You wanted a fight, you got it. I fight to kill, so fighting you was a bit different than normal... to say the least."

Everything he'd done, despite her thinking he was being a bit too dangerous, had been perfectly safe by his estimation. Injured? Perhaps. Killed? Hardly. He'd figured the fight would be to first blood, but this was as good a time as any to stop.

Her cheeks were pink, not red, but he chalked that up to the exertion. Sarge was daft with women. "You aren't sorry, but I'll accept it anyway." There was a chuckle as he kicked it. The gun was actually new. But the ancient blaster rifle it was based off of was strong, plasma based instead of laser, and long enough to perform as a quarterstaff - his most important trait for a weapon.

"This is a very random question, but I find you're a bit at odds with the Witches I've met so far. You aren't going to try and claim me? Use me for labor? Or even attempt to take me to your clan? Why is that?"

Most clans probably didn't know he was, by Witch tradition, a freeman. Any men walking about on the planet from offworld were usually free game for women to try and mark as their own - they were always looking for labor around here.

 

[Fabula Caromed]

Fabs just shook her head. "Power like yours should never be caged." She quickly followed up with a shrug, listing against a tree to relax for a bit. "Besides, I could have a dozen men in the space of a blink if I wanted them. Owning property means nothing. Domination means nothing. The only thing that matters is the fight."

Yeah, in retrospect, that was quite a bit out of sorts with the Witchy Code of Conduct, even for a Nightsister. Fabula took a moment to think, then smirked and gave another shrug. "And honestly, how often do you see fully-dressed Witches carrying lightsabers wandering around the forests actively looking for something that is probably going to kill them?" Her smile was relaxed by now. She'd sated her Rage, and all that was left was a very normal, very pleasant girl. "Maybe I'm the black sheep, but I don't think you'd find much to complain about in that."

There were a few other things to cover, of course. They weren't through yet. Now that Fabs had fought him, she knew this Sarge better than anyone else on the planet. "I'm going to tell the slaves that ask that our battle was fought in the spirit realm, the only place where ghosts can be killed. That should keep your legend alive in case you want to come back here and stir up some more trouble."

"I'd offer you my word that you won't be bothered again," she said as she reached up to brush a lock of messy, dark hair out of her face. "But I don't think that you need my word for that, or that you'd accept it." Her smile was genuine, as benevolent as a nursemaid's.

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

She was not unlike a female version of him, if he wasn't as tempered by his experiences. It was odd to see someone with an anger that could control every fiber of their being who, like him, knew about it, controlled it, and was otherwise entirely personable when it wasn't in control.

Most other angry people he met were just plain angry all the time - they weren't any fun. "Not often, but the appearance of difference doesn't mean there is actually any." His jaw came back into view, an amused smile pulling at his lips.

This was his typical conversational position, and she'd figure that out soon enough he'd imagined. "That legend is older than dirt, so even if you told them different they'd probably not believe you; or they'd think you were a bit off your rocker."

He laughed faintly; a throaty chuckle, really. "You're right, no and no. I don't need it, nor would I accept it. Too many lies to go believing people now."

This time the smile was a bit sad. "A pleasure, Fabula. Truly." Walking over to her, a hand and arm appears as he extends a dirty, calloused palm to shake, it was a hand she might notice had curiously long fingers for a male, especially one in his line of work.

 

[Fabula Caromed]

Without hesitation, Fabs took the man's hand and shook it as best she could with her jittery muscle control. She almost thought for a moment about bending down to kiss his hand in a true reversal of custom, but that would've been more funny than meaningful. Instead, she just gave the moment the respect it deserved. "Likewise, Sarge. It's nice to be able to talk to a real warrior instead of beasts and witches."

She took a look at the sky and frowned a bit. "If I'm out any later, Mother will ask questions. I'd prefer not to leave too much of a trail out here." Giving him one last salute, just a quick flick of her fingers from her forehead, she turned to start on her way back to the Morte Clan stronghold. "Today has been the most pleasurable day of my short life, Ghost. Thank you again."

She didn't say goodbye when she walked off, back towards Witches and slaves and Nightsisters and Books of Shadows and away from the battlefield. There was no need for things like that. Destiny had a way of keeping the like-minded in touch.