If I could attack with a more sensible approach, obviously that's what I'd be doing...
In the training room at the Main Gauche, there's a Slayer with her Christmas present, going through a few sword exercises she remembers from before. It's been a while since she's had a sword in her hands, but now that she does... It's easier to fall back into than she would have thought. Muscle memory comes easily to Slayers
( Read more... )
"I don't take their flesh, if that offends you," he says, and reaches up a claw to pull away the cape which covers the lower half of his face - or what's left of it. His lower jaw is missing entirely, leaving his vampiric canines hanging into empty space. His throat has closed up as well; the back of his 'mouth' has sealed in a mass of scarred tissue, and the bloodfangs are translucent and fairly obviously disused. "I feed on... energy."
Never tell a human, or whatever this creature is, that you wish to sap their soul. Even if they sustain no permanent damage, it's unlikely they'll enjoy hearing it.
"As for help..." He gives a dry chuckle, weakly replacing the halfcape, "this is the state to which I was bound. Hardly an illness, Doctor. There is no potion or poultice which can erase the need to feed."
This close - oh, Raziel wants to reach out, wrestle him to the ground, but the thing is still in his hand, and he glances toward it. It's not so much a flick of his eyes as a shift of his head; his eyesight is good, but he doesn't have eyeballs to shift focus any more. It's easy to tell where he's looking. Raziel might not know what, if anything, is the seat of his vitality, but old instinct warns him not to grapple with it in a position to get his heart.
Reply
He glances down to the sonic screwdriver just as Raziel does, and then looks back up at him, smiling a little. "Oh, that's not a weapon, by the way. Sonic screwdriver - practically harmless, but very useful. But this... energy you feed off. What is it, exactly? Well, I don't expect you to know in exact terms, most people don't know the scientific breakdown of the things they eat, but..."
Reply
Raziel can't help it. His eyes narrow on the Doctor's face, and he says "I would be more than willing to demonstrate."
He might be failing, weakening, losing the last vestiges of the strength with which he holds himself together, but he's still fast, and the creature before him is in almost as much a state of surrender as the humans which once offered themselves to him. He lunges forward, crashing into the Doctor in a rough embrace and opening the deep pull at the core of himself, finding the well of life energy (so CLOSE) and drinking-
-and it's not human, whatever this is that's flooding back into him. It overtakes him in a rush, washing over him, filling him up so quickly and completely that the Reaver manifests before he can stop himself, that he reels back, lightheaded. Heady wines had this effect, aeons ago; now it's receding into a buzzing full-body ache, like he's overstuffed on energy and aching to contain it all.
The Reaver, full and white, crackles from his right claws.
This is not what generally happens.
Reply
As Raziel reels back, there's suddenly seven feet of pissed-off angel helping him get even further back -- by means of a perfectly executed roundhouse kick. And the fact that the freakish ghoul suddenly has a weapon? Well, that only makes it all the more vital that he get his ward away from him.
"Back off. Right now." Charlie's tone is a step away from a growl, the weakness and dizziness the Doctor's feeling playing across his mind, but not slowing him down in the slightest.
Reply
Raziel skitters back another step or two, putting just above striking distance between them and displaying his claws in a defensive posture. He has no interest in attacking Charlie, but he has no interest in potentially being beaten within an inch of dissolution again.
"...your friend will recover," he says, attention flicking to the Doctor and back to Charlie again. "And I will not be needing to replenish my strength again for some time. ...unless you persist in attacking me."
Though he has quite a few questions as to what that being is.
Reply
"I'd kill you myself if it wasn't counterproductive," he growls at the Doctor, already moving to steady him. And it's good for his sake that sarcasm apparently doesn't count as a lie.
Just TELL the energy-sucking ghoul thing that your sonic screwdriver's useless as a weapon. That's the BEST plan.
Charlie briefly considers the merits of forming some kind of social organization for guardian angels with idiotic wards, but quickly discards it as impractical. The problem with idiotic wards would be that they make time off an impossibility.
Reply
"What... Oh, that's not even fair!" It wasn't precisely a lie... Sure, he feels like he's going to fall over, but besides that...
Reply
"The real question is whether you can walk. Because if you need to be carried..."
Reply
"I can walk," he says, taking a couple steps to prove his point. The fact that he wobbles a little... or kind of a lot... Well, Charlie shouldn't worry too much about that. Really.
Reply
Leave a comment