Fic: Observations on Sentinels & Guides in Victorian London - Part Twelve (A) (PG-15)
Title: Observations in Sentinels & Guides in Victorian London
Author: Ryuuza Kochou
Pairing/Characters: Holmes/Watson
Rating: PG-15
Word Count: 5192 Spoilers: None; complete AU
Summary: A Victorian era AU where Sentinels and Guides are members of everyday society. Starring Sentinel! Holmes and Guide! Watson.
Part Twelve: Holmes and Watson, kicking ass. We all like to see that. In two parts
Authors Notes: Wow, now this was fun to write. Fair warning though, I’m usually far, far too prone to sheer embarrassment to write anything graphic in the sex department. I go all red and my head might explode all over the place from the pressure.
Notes/Warnings: Adult themes, a lot of violence, light gore, man-kissing and light bad language. General badass behaviour.
Disclaimer: All owned by the estate of the late Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and associated folk. Written for fun and not for profit
Part One:
http://community.livejournal.com/holmeswatson09/684238.html
Part Two:
http://community.livejournal.com/holmeswatson09/698815.html
Part Three:
http://community.livejournal.com/holmeswatson09/699151.html
Part Four:
http://community.livejournal.com/holmeswatson09/728249.html
Part Five:
http://community.livejournal.com/holmeswatson09/728426.html
Part Six:
http://community.livejournal.com/holmeswatson09/738373.html
Part Seven:
http://community.livejournal.com/holmeswatson09/752970.html
Part Eight:
http://community.livejournal.com/holmeswatson09/767937.html
Part Nine:
http://community.livejournal.com/holmeswatson09/798168.html
Part Ten:
http://community.livejournal.com/holmeswatson09/839282.html
Part Eleven:
http://holmeswatson09.livejournal.com/851707.html
Part Twelve:
It was a strange thing to see - that any face so beautiful could somehow twist into something so ugly. But the Prophet’s face did just that, twisting in unflattering ways, heedless of the blade jabbed at his throat.
“No! Mine!” But the Prophet wasn’t actually a fool, because he clawed at Watson and not Holmes, knowing the Sentinel would move to protect the Guide.
Holmes swivelled expertly, lightning fast, swinging said Guide out of the line of fire and almost but not quite avoiding the clawed strike himself. Cloth parted soundlessly as did flesh, and blood left a Morse code arc of red dots through the air briefly. Lines of red seeped into what was left of Holmes coat sleeve, descending down the lines of his arms and dropping from his fingertips. The Talons were sharper than steel.
Holmes did not cry out though; he did not even seem to realize blood had been drawn. He felt his Guide start in his firm grip from where he’d been swung out of harm’s way, but it was more concern than shock or fear. He knew his Sentinel had been injured and he was a Guide and doctor both.
Holmes didn’t look the Guide in the eye - he didn’t dare. He didn’t dare linger his senses on his Guide’s form, because he knew he would not be able to stop at one brush. Instead, he spun back around, releasing his Guide and bringing the wooden sword sheath around with him, sliding it neatly between two Talons of the five raised for the second strike to jab the Prophet in the cartilage of the neck with incisive precision. The blonde Sentinel backpedalled, choking.
All of this happened in the blink of an eye.
Holmes could sense the two dozen Sentinels on board, scurrying from below like wet ants, soldiers and sailors both pouring onto the deck in a confused mass, as the lights of the French ship loomed ever closer. There was a din of yelling, criss-crossing orders and panic. Amidships around the main mast and main hatch was already a writhing mass, and gunshots rang out from the bow platform above their tableaux, with sailors and Sentinels both pouring up and down the ladders and stairs to reach the wheel platform. Theirs was but one small drama in an increasing amount of catastrophe; though it was getting bigger by the second.
There was a tearing sound, and pressure was expertly applied to the long slashes across the top and back of Holmes’ shoulder, neatly and quickly staunched with a makeshift bandage made from the entirely of one shirtsleeve, torn from under the Guide’s jacket. It smelled of him.
Then Holmes felt a pair of shoulder blades line up with his own as the Guide pressed against him, back to back. The very fact that his Guide took it upon himself to cover his Sentinel’s back - well, Holmes just had to smile. He gripped the blade beneath the handle and slid it grip first across his new bandage so the Guide could take it.
“This is yours, I believe,” Holmes said lowly as he did so. “It is my honour to return it.”
The Guide did not move. “You may use it, Sentinel. Your foes blades are much sharper than mine, but I have nothing else to offer.”
Holmes snorted. “You give much just by breathing; by being here, with me and alive,” Holmes felt the Guides breath hitch. “Take it. Keep yourself safe. I have need of only that, and of the sheath.”
A huff of breath, and the Guide took the blade, his fingers brushed Holmes hand as he did, which made the Sentinels breath twist in his throat. “The wounded, the cornered, and the mad,” the Guide said softly. “I do not know which the Prophet is. Be careful.”
“Drebber,” the Prophet rasped, swaying back to full height. Holmes’ strike had not been hard enough to crush the larynx, only enough to cause the airway to temporarily close due to trauma. “Hold my Guide from me.”
Drebber, who had been staring open mouthed at the spectacle while Strangerson vanished into the melee, started forward.
“Ah, Mister Drebber,” Holmes broke in, his cheerful voice belying sudden fury tightening across his shoulders. “I did warn you, didn’t I, about harming my tribe? Well, my schedule is busy, but I have found someone with even more reason to kill you. Sentinel Hope, if you would?”
Drebber felt a heavy finger tap his shoulder and turned into the face of death. Drebber’s ruddy cheeks went fish belly white as Hope slowly smiled at him, eyes dark as the pit of hell.
“Howdy Enoch,” he drawled, his voice calm only with supreme self control. “Remember me? D’you remember what you stole from me? We have unfinished business now, don’t we?”
Drebber gasped out pleas. “It was the Elders...my father...they made me! The Elders! Please, please, I’m sorry, please...” the man started to blubber. “I never intended her to die, please believe that! I couldn’t control...I was feral...please, don’t kill me!”
Hope bared his teeth like a rabid mountain lion. “You dare beg for your life? You dare plead for it - from me?!”
Drebber threw the first punch - anger and nerves and sheer fear rocketed his fist. “It was the word of God, you heathen bastard!”
And then they were on each other, heaving and grunting and screaming, a tangle of blurred fists and bodies, knocking and tearing at each other like wild dogs.
“Go, my Guide,” Holmes asked of him softly. “Away from here, somewhere safer.”
He felt unexpected fingers tangle in his hair, as the Guide reach back and behind, pulling his head back so the back of their two skulls rested against each other. “My heart says I’m safest with you. But I will do as you wish.”
“Guide,” The Prophet snarled at them. “You will not touch him!”
Holmes gently nudged the Guide with his shoulders. The other man gave a soft sigh, and then the wonderful seeping warmth across Holmes back was gone.
“I will kill you,” the Prophet growled. “He is mine, and I will kill you for interfering. I will bathe in your blood.”
“The amount of blood in the human body does not make for an adequate bath,” Holmes replied in a bored tone. “Riskan the Cannibal tried it, and said he found the lack of volume quite irritating. He had to use a hip bath, he told me. Right before I slit is throat.” Behind the Prophet, the white-clad Chosen had emerged from the open door, Gabriel white-faced among them. Holmes raised the wooden sheath as the Prophet blinked in shock. “I face monsters every day, Sentinel. I fight them, and stamp them into the cobblestones, I sacrifice them to the gods of my city. If you think you’re the worst I’ve faced then you are sadly mistaken. I do not allow such creatures to walk the streets of my tribe; I do not allow them to walk under the living sky. Not with my tribe needing me. I bleed to keep them safe, I’ve fought to very nearly the last breath in my body against superior numbers, against torture and assassination, until I’ve nearly starved to death and am insane from exhaustion. And that,” Holmes smiled darkly. “Was when I had nothing to lose. Come at me, Sentinel. Come at me, if you dare.”
The Prophet charged.
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Watson gritted his teeth as he walked away from his Sentinel; oh God, he hadn’t been prepared for that voice. But he knew why it had been asked of him, and it was the same reason Watson himself could not adequately fight with the Sentinel near. The bonding heat made them both far too distracting and distracted.
It was total chaos on the deck now. Someone had shot the captain for trying to surrender and now sailors piled on Sentinels, Sentinels clawed at other Sentinels, Guides were being dragged up from the depths to be used as shields.
That was being taken care of; he saw a flash of gold and Lady Bradstreet was there, wielding a truncheon like a knight wielding a sword, dispatching enemy after enemy, freeing what Guides she could. Her husband shielded her blind spot, armed with a revolver, picking of targets expertly if they aimed at her. He herded the Guides towards on the stern of the ship along the rail, away from the fighting. Watson went towards them but pulled up short as he nearly tripped over a body; a body with a precisely cut throat.
Watson’s eyes narrowed.
Someone grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and yanked him off balance. “This is the one! This is the one the Chosen said f-“ the rest ended in a wet gurgle which Watson knew to be fatal.
The would-be capturer collapsed in a heap, a thin metal blade expertly pinned deep in his ear. His companion, who had also been reaching for Watson, folded up in a choking red mess, an identical blade piercing his neck with a damp thwack. Whether they were sailors or Sentinels it was impossible to tell.
“Watson!” Lestrade bellowed from his fighting space amidships. “Get to the bow! Get to the Farsight!” the Inspector then spun like a whirling dervish, slicing two would be attackers but getting gripped from behind and lifted off the ground by a third. The Inspector was no stranger to street fighting though and crushed a booted foot into a handy kneecap. He was dropped as his restrainer bellowed and was swamped in a scrum of other men. Watson moved to help him, slashing away two men who had advanced on the Inspector from Watson’s side of the fight, but the Inspector cut in as Watson made to move closer.
“Don’t you dare! Get to the bow, now!” Lestrade thrust an elbow straight up, breaking the jaw of a huge sailor coming in from behind. “Go! Now!”
Watson hesitated, but other Yarders were moving in. Besides, he saw a flicker out of the corner of his eye that made his blood run cold.
Strangerson was there, lurking in the doorway under the raised platform of the bow; Strangerson, who had cut his way from the stern to the bow like a bloodthirsty ghost and was now sitting there like a spider, waiting for one of the Guides to reach his web. Strangerson, who was intelligent and cunning and knew his chances of survival would increase with a hostage, especially if there were no Sentinels actually guarding the Farsight.
The Guides would go right past him to reach the bow deck and the rail of the ship where the Farsight must be tethered. It would only take one.
Watson strode up the deck like an officer about to reprimand a subordinate, ignoring the cries and chaos around him. Strangerson must have felt his steely glare, because his eyes flickered up to Watson and narrowed when they saw him emerging from the chaos like a battleship from the mist. He vanished into the stern hold.
Watson went after him. There were still more Guides below.
No one had noticed yet, that the dark horizon all around the embattled frigate was being slowly ringed by glowing lights. Somewhere quite small, but they were drifting nearer with every minute that passed.
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The fight itself was hard to witness - both fighters were blurs of motion, action and reaction, more like dancers than mortal enemies. The Prophet’s face was set in a twisted scowl and Holmes face was dark with sheer focus. They were both bloodied and bruised within the first few blows. Sentinels had no concept of holding back.
Holmes gripped his modified weapon hard; the rare snakewood was actually holding up very well against the Talons. Holmes used it for defence only, knocking askew claws that slashed too close or thrust too hard; offense was fists, elbows, knees, feet. Holmes had been educated in a gentleman’s way of fighting, but deep in his soul he knew the rough, rule-less, ruthless street fighting was where his talents found their shining apex. The Prophet was getting frustrated as his magnificent weapons cut only air while Holmes iron fists and stone hard joints landed on nerve clusters and weak points.
Not that the Prophet was a bad fighter, by any means. He had clearly been taught how to use his breadth and height to his advantage, how to negate any slowness they caused with his own hyperbolic reflexes, using his hearing to identify pulse points and arteries for slashing. But he had walked into a fight with weapons he had no experience using and that had thrown him slightly off centre. And when you were off centre before Sherlock Holmes, he made damn sure you stayed that way.
The Prophet hissed as Holmes successfully feinted his way to a painful jab to the kidneys, the sheath knocking the thrusting Talons precisely off their tangent. They left a scratch across Holmes’ cheek and temple, as they flew past his face, but by the time the Prophet could rake them back across the man’s throat, Holmes had swayed out of range. The Prophet thrust his other hand forward, hoping to use Holmes sway to overbalance him and sink the Talons into his chest, but instead of rolling his weight forward like a man trying to stay on his feet after bending backward would do, Holmes simply went further back, past the point of balance, so the Talons thrust harmlessly into the air above Holmes now horizontal chest. One of Holmes iron hand grips fastened mercilessly to the Prophet’s wrist, and he used the Prophets arm to hold on to while his foot swung high, catching the Prophet under the chin. Holmes was yanked back into a standing position as the Prophet was thrown back, white hot pain twisting through his jaw and his mouth suddenly full of copper and salt.
The Prophet spat in Holmes face as the man followed his backpedal, aiming another punch. The red spray momentarily blinded Holmes, but all Sentinels learned to fight with all their senses and he was able to dodge the deadly slash of claws across his midsection.
The pair both stepped back, circling warily.
The Prophet wiped the blood spilling from his mouth with the back of one hand. White fire was burning in his already tortured mind, screaming and demanding that the intruder be eliminated. Just seeing the interloper dare to touch that beautiful Guide, to sully him, was driving the Prophet mad. And to see the Guide respond....his whole being screamed denial of that. The Guide was his! That most divine creature, sent to him as prophesised...it simply could not be anything else.
“You are thinking of the Guide,” said his opponent in a low, dark voice, somehow much more dangerous than a growl. “I would thank you to stop. Now.”
The Prophet scowled. “He was sent to me by the Lord Himself; who are you to argue with that? You will be sent to Hell for daring to interfere with His plans. Are you so arrogant that you think you can defy Gods will?”
Holmes snorted. “I do not believe in such things. Anything beyond my ability to sense can take care of itself and would hardly require anything of me. If any God requires my belief, then He can ask for it personally and prove it. But if there is any such being, yes, I would fight him; I would fight a hundred of them, if they tried to keep my Guide from me. Any God who would try it is not worth a prayer. I give my loyalty to the things that I know must exist; my Guide, and my tribe. And you, great Prophet?” Holmes sneered. “You stand on this rotting hulk with these rabid hunting dogs, fancying yourself a deity in mortal clothing? I may not believe, but I am not so arrogant as to put words in a creator’s mouth. What of your tribe, Sentinel?” Holmes lips curled over the title. “You left them alone and unprotected? What kind of Sentinel can still call himself one after that?”
The Prophet bristled. “I did as I was commanded by the Holy Father!”
“Left your tribe vulnerable?”
“Yes!”
“Took all the Sentinels in your Clan with you, chasing some madman’s dream of conquest?”
“I was commanded by God! I saw Him and spoke to Him when I was a child!”
“And you did not question? You did not think to question, even though that is your great advantage?”
“Of course not! He who questions the Word is committing blasphemy! There is no greater sin! He commanded and I am His obedient servant!”
“And if your God told you to kill the Guide? For choosing me over you?”
“He will never choose you!” The Prophet roared. “But if he did - if he disobeyed the Word, I would save him! No other but the one Chosen by God will have him. He would be like the sacrificial lamb, killed before his innocence would be tainted by evil. God commands this and I obey. That is my duty.”
“And for that alone,” Holmes said, advancing, his eyes like pools blacker than space. “You deserve no mercy at all.”
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Watson checked every corner, every blind spot. He knew a down and dirty fighter when we saw one. Strangerson wouldn’t announce himself or his intentions. He would simply creep up at a vulnerable moment and do his level best to kill any way he could.
Tense and wary, Watson crept further down into the bowels of the ship, finding the storeroom loaded with all manner of bales and crates. Provisions for the long trip home.
Watson’s empathic senses were ragged at the edges, ballooning out and then shrinking in, trying desperately to latch onto his Sentinel and then being repelled by everything else that was happening. But still he tried to stretch out, to get a fix on Strangerson’s signature.
Too late, he remembered; Strangerson had a way of disappearing.
The knife lift a gouge on his shoulder where soldier instincts had managed what his empathy couldn’t, and had thrown Watson out of the path of the fatal thrust. Watson turned, his sword crossing his body defensively, as Strangerson stepped out from his invisible spot between two crates into the mercifully empty gap which Watson had stumbled into. He gaze was level and his face was blank. He felt nothing - utterly nothing.
Watson glared at him. “For a man of such strong convictions of righteousness, you are quick enough to run away.”
A diffident shrug. “The Prophet will die. Or the other. Who cares? There will be more Prophets. There will be more Guides. Eventually we will have enough power to do anything we want. You will wish you had joined us freely, then. God is on our side. We will prevail. There is no other possible outcome.”
Watson nearly gaped at the man. “You have no feeling for your comrades? For your own leader?”
“Only the strong will survive, because only the strong should. In a way, this is a means to remove the weak and uncertain from the equation. They do say God moves in mysterious ways, after all. And as for the Prophet?” Stranger’s phlegmatic shoulders rose and fell again. “He was no leader. He could not organise a tea party for one. He was a big and strong and rather stupid boy who was so weak in the face of his senses as a child that he thought he actually saw God in one of his fever deliriums. His father was an equally credulous and devout man who believed him, and the Elders of our Church much the same. Their thoughts turned to conquest.”
“And naturally, they needed someone like you to help them,” Watson sneered.
“Naturally,” Strangerson replied, matter of factly. “They lived in a world inside their own heads. How could they hope to fathom how big and complicated the world was? But I could,” an unexpectedly dark emotion flashed in his eyes, but was then gone. “I know exactly how hellish it really is. But with enough power we could turn it into whatever we wanted.”
“What you wanted,” Watson snapped.
“And it was all going fine,” Strangerson continued, ignoring this. “Except for those wretched Talons. The Prophet was annoyingly insistent about having them, because of his alleged prophetic vision. It forced us to step out of the shadows, where we had succeeded so far. But enough people could see the light of God in our work, Mister Watson. Enough people to help us gain access, enough to help us escape...ah, but for you, and your ignorant interference in our work. I could have had London’s Dark Sentinel quietly murdered so as not to be a threat. I had not anticipated his so fast a reaction to our presence, all because of you.”
Watson was having trouble seeing past the red mist in his eyes. “I can’t say I hate to disappoint you, Strangerson. Drebber is a mass of uncontrolled gluttony and the Prophet is half mad and confused and deceived, but you,” Watson shook his head. “You know just what you’re doing. You know what kind of pain you inflict. You make me far sicker than they ever could.”
“The Prophet is puffed on his own self importance, Mister Watson,” Strangerston replied levelly. “But I am the one who really hears God. I know that He does not issue lofty commands or enlightened missions. He stands beside you in everything you do, allowing you to triumph. Allowing you to live. And I am the one who has always survived.”
Watson thrust and parried, knocking the shorter knife blade aside from its upwards trajectory toward his ribcage, using his free hand to deliver a very satisfying punch across the thin man’s face. “Not this time.”
Strangerson frowned, more vexed than angry, before twisting his knee upwards. Watson pivoted his lower half to avoid the obvious target, one leg askew to the ground which gave Strangerson the opportunity to crunch his foot down hard, striking sideways onto the knee joint.
It hit the shrapnel still embedded there.
White hot agony flashed upward throughout Watsons entire being, and he couldn’t stop the moan of pain from slipping out through his clenched teeth. Strangerson noticed, so he moved to kick the joint again while they grappled and Watson only saved himself by thrusting down with his sword and slicing though the leather of one of those clerk-like shoes.
Strangerson grunted as his foot was jabbed, but managed to moved it sideways to keep it from being impaled and twisting his body and arm that was locked around Watsons, trying to wrench the sword from his grasp.
Watson let it go. Strangerson was then suddenly off balance by the lack of opposing force and tried to counterbalance, but not before he received a punch to the solar plexus that knocked the wind out of him. As he doubled, he took a knee to the nose.
But Strangerson was used to fighting from all angles. As he went down he grabbed at Watsons bad knee, sword sliding away from them both, and viciously dug his fingers into the scar tissue there, dragging a yell from Watson, who collapsed as his knee joint gave.
They wrestled on the ground but Strangerson hadn’t gone all the way down, and he was able to grip Watson’s hair and slam his head against the wooden floor. Dazed, Watson gasped and then realized Strangerson’s cold, phlegmatic hands had clamped like a vice around his throat and he was squeezing hard, with all the easy confidence of experience.
And still, no emotion. Perhaps a faint flicker of interest to see how hard he needed to press. One of Watson’s hands was trapped under Strangerson’s straddling knees and the other clawed desperately at Strangerson’s face, trying to gouge his eyes. But Strangerson was no amateur, to be distracted by that. He knew all he had to do was hold on until Watson was too weak to fight from lack of air.
Watson futilely gasped for it; the world greyed as he fought but there were no mistakes in Strangerson’s grasp, no gap or weakness through which to draw air. His lungs screamed as the grey became darker, and darker, and darker.
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Some order had been restored on the deck now. The Yarder Sentinels had subdued most of the deck crew. Those that were left had lost heart; the ring of lights was turning into a ring of ships of every make and model; drawn or ordered to the renegade frigate. Even now the Sentinels on board heard the ships yelling to one another in half a dozen languages.
The Chosen still huddled at the back, by the aft door. Hope was on the other side, watchful and anxious, and bloodied from head to toe. The mess that was barely recognizable as human, let alone the late Drebber, had been left face down on the deck, unmourned.
The Prophet was tiring. Mind you, so was Holmes; but the Prophet’s exhaustion was easier to see - bathed in sweat, Grecian profile varnished in red, breath coming in quick, if measured, gasps. Holmes had caught him a blow across one temple and now one of his eyes was swelling shut. His clothing was torn and wet. Two of his fingers were malformed on one hand beneath the Talon fittings and the way his breath came in shallow gasps revealed something to be very wrong with his ribs. A shoulder looked the wrong shape and he was covered in bruises.
Holmes looked no better. Tiny drops of red were literally everywhere on the deck, from a hundred tiny scratches and cuts. His clothing was a ragged and patchwork mess of slices, stained dark and red.
The Prophet was frustrated. The other man simply would not stop. The Prophet had drawn more blood, that was true, but Holmes had accepted those hits with calculated precision, never getting too badly hurt and inflicting maximum damage to his opponent as he slipped and slid under his guard time and again. It was infuriating.
Suddenly, Holmes twitched. His whole body twitched, as if he had just been slapped. And then he was on the Prophet, fists driving in mercilessly, pounding with a sheer determination that hadn’t been fully revealed before. The Prophet blocked and slashed, suddenly on the defensive, but Holmes was almost invisible as he moved, he moved so fast. Pain blossomed in a dozen sites on the Prophet’s body before he had time to adequately defend.
That’s when he heard it; that wonderful heartbeat he had unconsciously tracked...slowing....
The Prophet roared his rage, be bellowed it to the world, but Holmes’ rage was not like that. It was silent; deadly and merciless. There was no glee, no triumph, no anger in his blank face. The Prophet was an obstacle to be removed, and nothing more.
The wooden sheath forced the Talons on both hands up and out, and three quick blows hit his chest, so fast they were almost one.
The Prophet’s heart stuttered. Enough trauma in the right place could do it. A shot of adrenaline made him draw one set of claws back for thrusting.
The wooden sheath rocketed towards him; this time the angle was dead straight and his windpipe would be crushed utterly.
“My Lord!” Came the scream of terror, just as a white clad shape came in between the two fighters.
It was a testament to Holmes supreme self control that he was able to wrench the sheath off target before it could land a fatal blow on Gabriel. Enemy or not, this was a Guide in front of him, and some instincts simply could not be ignored.
The Prophet, however, burning with mad fury, had no such altruistic impulse. Seeing the opening he suddenly had, the Talons were thrust hard into Holmes ribs, just above his hip. But not deep, not enough to eviscerate.
They had to go through Gabriel first. The Chosen stared in bewilderment at the red coated Talons protruding from his stomach, his mouth opening and closing soundlessly. He turned in shock to face his Prophet as they were withdrawn, his face a wordless plea.
Unheeded. The Prophets other hand raked across Gabriels face, shoving him aside and onto the deck. “Stop interfering!” The Prophet screamed. “Stop interfering or I’ll kill you all!”
Gabriel let out a strangled cry, one hand pressing the neat holes left in his midriff, and another clutching his disfigured face, slashes gaping from hairline to jaw line. If Holmes was any judge, the Guide had just been blinded in one eye.
The wounded, the cornered and the mad, Holmes thought. The three opponents who were the most singularly dangerous. Clever, clever Guide. He had spotted it. The Prophet had always been at least two of the three, and now...
If the Prophet could do that to a Guide, then he was too far gone to ever be saved. Not that Holmes had ever had any intention of doing so.
“Be honoured, your death serves a higher purpose,” The Prophet turned his back on Gabriel, who wailed.
Holmes gave him a cold stare before saying. “I’m not sorry to say,” he drew himself up. “That you death will serve absolutely no purpose at all. You just deserve to die.”
And then the world evaporated into utter carnage. Holmes was suddenly just there, feral and unstoppable, sheath thrown from his hands because it was in the way. Bones cracked and shattered, organs were ruptured, muscles were tenderized bloody messes, tendons were snapped. In the space of about five seconds, Holmes’ split knuckles were doing the work of three men with steel clubs.
The Prophet howled, frothing at the mouth as he tried to defend. But there was no defence against this; not against something this fast and this intent. In two blows his face was completely unrecognizable and in other few hits his legs gave out under the sheer pressure of Holmes advance.
Holmes followed him down, his face sprayed with red, teeth bared. In desperation, the Prophet thrust both hands forward, trying to impale the demonic visage before him. Two iron hands and steel grips arrested the movement, like Holmes was stopping a toddlers tantrum.
Holmes the Dark Sentinel looked down at his battered opponent, gave his Dark side a moment to enjoy the mortal terror in his opponents eyes before forcing his hands fold inward, breaking wrists in the process.
Holmes didn’t give the other Sentinel time to cry out before he thrust the Talons home.
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End Part Twelve A