Night 55: Stairwell by Waiting Room/Lobby 1
[from here]No sound came from inside the stairwell, but that amounted to little at times. Still the Digimon stretched her senses, moving quickly and quietly into the dark. None were in this place yet, despite the small crowd in the hall below. It might mean none have moved upstairs, or it might simply mean they were quicker than she
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She could tell that someone else was nearby, probably that woman, but for now she didn't have time to worry about that other than to make sure that a) the woman wasn't attacking her, and b) they weren't bothering with the same target.
There were two more still coming after them, and the stairwell didn't leave much room to move. She could bring out the acrobatics, but flipping away from the oncoming rats wasn't an option; she'd run into the other fighter a few steps up. Morgan decided her best move might be to keep it simple: she stood her ground as they came and slashed out with a firm grip when they got close. The goal was to hit them mid-leap and at least fend off anything she didn't cut through.
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The sound echoing in the stairwell was only a hindrance. It wasn't possible for the Digimon to accurately gauge how many creatures there were. From the sound, it could be four to seven, and she would only know for certain when they stopped their attack through death or retreat. It had been a while, she thought. Since she had faced creatures like this.
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The two ascending rats made their leaps as expected. In the dark, however, it was hard to land a good strike more than once. The end of the blade caught one by the side, slashing open a gash that split across its torso and back leg. Not a fatal wound, but at least it changed the rat's trajectory enough to keep it from catching her. The thing landed at her feet, squirming in pain and trying to regain its footing.
The second rat was unscathed, but again, avoiding the blade strike caused the path of its jump to change. It landed on the step behind Morgan instead of on one of her legs as intended. Not bothering with turning around again, the thing simply continued onward, aiming for the next available prey up the stairs.
Unfortunately for it, said prey was ready for the attack. The blade drove down and caught the rat by the back of its flank, eliciting another shriek in the stairwell. The thing was pinned now, but claws still swiped up at Renamon's arms, lashing out wildly for any trace of blood.
The rat with the scalpel wounds was starting to recover some now. The wounds were a hindrance, but not fatal. Once it was ready to move again, it too went for Renamon, aiming for her ankles.
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Now that the other rats weren't an immediate threat, she could spend a couple of precious seconds lining up a precision swipe: bringing her blade close to her face, Morgan swung it down across her body in a sharp diagonal line. If she'd done it right, it should be enough to slice right through the body of the rat attached to her, cleaving it just about in half from one side to the other.
She hoped the one at her feet would still be there when she'd dealt with this one, but probably no such luck. Too bad. It'd be fun to punt that disgusting rodent down the stairs like a dried-out skull.
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The probability of success was high, but there were still more to consider. She belatedly heard the quick patter of feet before thick teeth and claws tore into an ankle. She moved on reaction without thinking--pulling her leg upward, and then quickly against the wall nearby to crush the creature into it.
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The rat under Renamon's blades finally expired then, claws slumping to the ground as the thing gave one last shrill breath. The other rat, however, did get a nice juicy chunk of ankle before it was crushed. Even vermin like these got their last wishes sometimes, it seemed.
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"You fight like a cow!" she taunted as she drove the blade down alongside of her leg, attempting to skewer the rat like a shish kabob. Then she wrinkled her nose. "Yeah, I see why insult swordfighting went out of style." Seriously, whoever had first confused the ability to memorize like fifteen lines of rhyming repartee with wit had probably had a pretty short swordfighting career.
But that wasn't the important thing right now. "Is that all of them?" she demanded of the other fighter.
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She flicked the blade she had been using and returned it to the back of her belt. The claws got a perfunctorily wipe against her pants, then she touched her fingers to her wounded wrist, determining the damage. Manageable. Nothing severe. The woman called upward, and Renamon's attention diverted to the other, raising a brow. "For now, yes," she answered matter-of-factually. There were no other creatures in the stairwell at the moment.
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That done, she turned to the woman a few steps up. Not that she'd needed the help, obviously, but she could appreciate that someone else had been around to lower the amount of time she had to waste on those...things. "Nice work," Morgan said as she climbed ahead to narrow the gap between them, determinedly ignoring the pain in her leg. "I'm Morgan LeFlay, Mighty Pirate Hunter™. And you are?"
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"You've been here awhile, I'm taking," she added, half-dryly. Actual weapons were not common, but she seemed at ease with using it. Though if Morgan was... a pirate hunter, as she said, Renamon supposed knowing the intricacies of swordplay would be necessary in the field.
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"How long have you been here?" she asked. If it was even longer, that wasn't too impressive, but the woman might still have learned something she could use. Like what was worth looking at on the second floor. If she was honest, Morgan was kind of taking a stab in the dark heading upstairs.
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The question was echoed at her, and her eyes closed briefly in thought. How long. "Close to a month," she answered. "Three weeks, three days."
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It did confirm that Renamon had been around a while, though, and that made her a prime informant. Whatever Morgan could find out by talking to her rather than wandering around in the dark could save time. As a student of Dante Dragotta, she knew the value of learning from the best. Or, in this case, at least the most experienced she'd run across so far.
"I don't want to hold you up. Keep going, and I'll tag along. If you don't mind," she said, adding the last sentence just in time. Even with clients and other people whose good side she wanted to be on, polite requests rather than orders were still admittedly kind of an afterthought. "I'd like to talk with someone who's been here a while. Have you ever seen that Landel guy?"
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[to here]
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