• Graded • Duel of the fakes

[Zip]

[Note: we're collabing and godmodding for realz. We allow each others. We cool bout it, man. We coo. but maybe we like the T-rex and the ceratops, y'know. we just understanding in da face of a great meteor from space]

111th Vhalar 717

This is Fiona Zippomaria O’Connor.

Her friends, few as they are, call her Zipper. Her enemies call her Zipper. Her boss calls her Zipper. Her Black Guard partner called her Zipper. Her brother, when he isn’t throwing an insult her way, calls her Zipper.

Her thoughts and impulses and inner fantasies and dreams call her Zipper.

Fiona’s a bygone name in a moth-eaten book deeply buried in an long forgotten orphanage drawer somewhere. Anyone who knew her by that relic of a name is either dead, an addict, annoying, ancient, or filthy one-eyed shapeshifters wanted by the Etzori military for treason against the state (though it goes without saying that counts under annoying too). Fiona was her birth name - something forced onto by a mother she barely knew and yet still thought about too much.

It meant ‘fair’. It meant ‘white’.

What the actual fuck was ‘fair’ and ‘white’ supposed to be.

It was a name picked out of the sky; a brand upon the cattle that was her because she imagined a number was too dehumanizing.

Zipper, a stupid childhood moniker, was more identity than some arbitiary name forced upon her could ever be.

Zipper’s many things: Black Guard, criminal fixer, mage, slur manufacturing factory, but these are add-ons, these are renovations to hide away the foundation that is Zipper the street rat - loud, scrappy, and someone that had to learn to run before Transmutation and some learned scuffles gave her a way to fight.

She hadn’t run -truly run- in a long time. She never needed to anymore: panicked running from a failed pick pocketing gave way to deliberate pacing.

Today, she wishes she had a chance to practice.

[Oberan]

This is Oberan Brackling.

Mortalborn son of Audrae --Immortal of Deception, Fear, Secrets, and Shadows-- controlling the domains of Larceny, Thrill, and Mischief. Once he went by the name Djas; Phantom Thief and scourge of a thousand and one cities. Those trials are long past though, his name forgotten, his his skills rusted, his shadow reign lost to history.

There are many things one could call Oberan; thief, crook, drunk, god, fool, jester, or cunt. Some of these are more true than others, depending on who you were asking. The truest of all though, was this: troublemaker. Whether he looked for it, or it came to him, trouble always followed in his wake. Sometimes that served as quality entertainment for him, other times… well, things went south.

And today was a trial where things had gone south rather badly.

Today he was running.

Running like the devil himself was giving chase, and, in a sense, that was not a hyperbole at all.

The scene seemed to play out in slow motion:

Two arch-enemies in the etzori bazaar minding their own business. The details of the past didn’t matter now -something about creating a mirror clone of her, turning her bodyguard’s blade to grass, and nullifying her magic- but the present was this:

Oberan was observing the stores and tents and booths as a vulture would observe a dying goat, waiting for his chance to strike. He saw an opening when the shopkeep wasn’t looking, moved in close, snagged what he could, and moved on to the next target - and there were more than enough of them to occupy him for an afternoon and more.

Zipper was doing some last bit shopping before her trip back to Foster’s. Grumbling, haggling, complaining about the weather and the smell under her breath, wearing an expression of someone that had just had her boots shat on - all signs pointed to the fact that she was in a pretty good mood, all things considered.

That changed instantly in the next moment.

One badly timed attempt at palming a trinket had left Oberan caught red-handed, the observant vendor’s hand tightly clenched around his wrist. The Mortalborn punched him in the nose immediately and legged it, violently pushing past the crowd, knocking over a familiar face as the vendor yelled and screamed, unable to give chase.

[Zip]

Six trills.

The first four were spent on surprise, a gasp, and a quickly uttered “Watch where you’re fuckin’ going, cuntface.” as she dusted herself off and pushed herself up to her feet.

The fifth trill was spent on surprise of a different kind: the acknowledgement of incredibly unlucky coincidence.

The sixth trill gave her the smile of a ripper hunting a whore.

“Hey Oberan.” she said, as if greeting an old friend, right before her leg drew back to slam a knee into his face before he could get up.

The Mortalborn cussed and swore, recognising the voice all too well, unfortunately. He turned to look at her because of it, pulling his head aside as he spotted the attack. Missing his nose, the knee grazed his cheek instead, hard enough to hurt. He scrambled to his feet, and made a break for an alleyway, though not before stomping Zipper hard on the shin.

Zipper’s forced ether into her arms, summoning an ether missile to smash into Oberan’s back - but nothing came. No crackle, no surge that built to a blaze around her hand, no smoted Oberan. She had… well, let’s just say the difficulties of the Foster’s situation had escalated to the point where she had to, well, overextend quite a bit and quite frequently. The brief trip back was in part to recuperate, recover her ether stores in a slow and orderly fashion after the-

“Performance issues,” Oberan taunted as he fled, looking over his shoulder briefly, “Happens to the best of us!” His smug grin was as much an insult as his words were.

Nope. Fuck him and nope.

That abortion wasn’t getting away. Not today. One time was unexpected happenstance, twice was bad luck with incomplete information. Thrice? Thrice was unacceptable. There were no more excuses left for her. She gave chase after him, her legs finding speed in them that she hadn’t felt in arcs.

She swore she heard a creak.

[Oberan]

Truly, getting away unseen was a more favorable outcome just about every time, but there was an argument to be made for being chased. Not only did the chance of being caught provide him with a whole boatload of exhilarating thrill, the wonderful drug that was adrenaline flowing through his body freely, but it also reminded him of a game of tag… the only difference being that ‘it’ catching him wouldn’t end the game. No, instead she’d rip him into a million pieces, if her face was any indication of her mood.

He looked over his shoulder again; nope, it was even worse. He suspected she would keep him alive through the whole damn ordeal.

Still, he let out a giddy laugh, feeling very much alive in the moment. It was absolutely perfect. He had to hand her that, she could always tear away the mundane and the dull, replacing them with life or death situations. Not a good quality to have per se, but Bran liked it nonetheless.

Uh oh, fence.

Oberan did not slow down, speeding up instead. Three steps, two steps, one… He jumped, one hand on the obstacle as he threw his legs over it, continuing his sprint on the other side. A quick glance was cast to his pursuer. Yep, she was still there.

To his surprise, she simply pressed her hands to the fence. So puzzled and shocked was he to see what she did, that he stopped for a moment - and then it hit him. She was falling back on muscle memory, on her preferred solutions. She was trying to do the metal twisting crap she pulled on him in the tavern room.

“Peeeeeformance issues,” he cooed. It was good for their encounters to finally be on his home turf for once.

[Zip]

Zipper pressed her hands to the fence, pushing into the wood in anticipation of the parting that would come with Corrosion. One trill in, she stared in confusion. Two trills in, she scowled. Three trills in, and her brain overrode arcs of arcane muscle memory. She stood there for a moment, even Oberan’s taunt a distant, albeit deeply annoying, sound, as she considered how anyone lived without the conveniences granted to them by magic.

Rules of the mundane then. Rules of the fuckin’ mundane.

She tried to recall how he did it, how she used to do it, taking a few steps back and coming in on a successful albeit clumsy vault, a hand gripping the fence as she swung her right leg forward: a more elementary version of the vault that Oberan had pulled off. To her annoyed surprise, he was waiting for her. Just standing there with his arms folded and that huge smile on smug, unshaven face. He didn’t need to do all that: the fact that he waited was insult enough.

She raised her hand up again before putting it down. No ether missile would come for her today.

“I see you’re still coming after all. For a moment there I thought you would give up.”

Zipper’s scowl deepened. “For a moment I thought you were dead. Nope, I’m just a seer.” she said, wasting precious breath on the insult.

She dashed forward, perplexed at how he still was standing there. He was fucking with her, wasn’t he? Cocky cock of a cunt. Audrae must have been the runt of the Immortals if all her spawn could do was run and jape. Only when Zipper had crossed most of the distance between the two of them did he turn around and begin running once more, taunting her every step of the way.

And every step was more of a labor than either of them cared to admit: two has-beens softened by inactivity. Neither were unfit by any measure of the word, quite the opposite actually, but they had clearly spent their arcs focused on other pursuits - just not an actual, literal one.

[Oberan]

If there was any advantage Oberan had over the young woman on his tail, it was his divine heritage. An impressive pedigree passed down from Shadow and Fear that not many could equal. With it came a unique set of powers, abilities for him to use at his own convenience: a roulette of infinite possibility that gave him a wealth of options even the immortals could not dream of, the power to open just about anything he wished to open, and the ability to leech of the thrill of others. The latter came in very handy in many situations, enhancing the potency of adrenaline, and in turn increasing his physical capabilities. Prolonging the time he could remain running was one of its many uses, though there would be a toll to pay later on.

He siphoned small amounts, stealing whiffs and sips here and there, careful not to take too much lest he would be a wreck afterwards. Still, it wasn’t enough, the foul-mouthed blackguard still on his heels, determined to extract her revenge. The mortalborn wa quite surprised to hear that even physical effort did not seem to curb the deluge of unimaginative swears leaving her mouth.

They sped out of the alleyway and back onto the crowded bazaar, apparently having run around the block, and Oberan quickly slipped among the people, twisting and bending his body to duck under arms and held hands, and squeeze through the small openings between bodies. He didn’t run, not wanting to be too conspicuous by disturbing the sea of people. Besides, he needed to catch his breath for a moment or two now he had the chance. Thrill Control could keep him going, but he really did not want to reap the consequences.

[Zip]

She was a lot smaller the last time she had to do this.

But this, unlike the long-forgotten flexibility of her youth, was not something she would forget easily. Navigating the flow of a crowd bent on trying to wash you away was the first thing the first thing a street rat learned. It was hunting grounds, tall protective grass, and deadly currents all at once. For a diminutive child, sliding and weaving through a crowd set apart those that thrived in the bazaar and those that found their slim fortunes elsewhere.

And Zipper excelled at avoiding people in more than one sense of the word.

He thought he was being clever. He thought he had found camouflage in the sea of bodies he had taken refuge in. He thought he could lose himself from her - it was insulting to the both of them on more than one level. She was Black Guard. Both street rats and Black Guard preyed on the Bazaar - the only difference was the distinction between scavenger and predator. She, like all the others that had found patrol here, had divvied up the entire chunk between themselves for the traditional protection racket that had gone on for generations.

As a rookie, her range didn’t extend beyond a few booths.

As a mean veteran of nearly an arc, her territory -when she wasn’t dallying in Foster’s anyway and hiring a ‘babysitter’ that took part of her take- was a modest but not insignificant stretch that was adjacent to this street.

Point is: she knew this street.

Which meant it took her no effort at all to slip out to a side alley, move up towards her currently less crowded street adjacent to the current one, gain ground on him, grab a toy bat from a protesting child, and slip back into the street at the tail end, lying in ambush with her children’s toy at his anticipated exit point.

[Oberan]

Oberan wasn’t sure if he was feeling smug or disappointed when he noticed he’d lost the woman in the crowd. While it did mean he hadn’t lost his touch after all, it also meant the end of this little game, and thus of Oberan’s entertainment for the trail. He looked around, taking great care to scan everyone around him, keeping his eyes peeled for any sign of her. None. He sighed, beginning to relax a little, slowly letting the crowd take him along, drifting with the flow of the people, sticking to the middle of the stream.

He found himself deposited into one of the side exits that led into a less crowded street. Detaching himself from the river of bodies, he slipped out and away, free at least from the tangled warmth of commerce and people. Free from that deranged, psychotic Black Guard bitch that had kept chancing upon him again and again and again like a rabid dog that lived next to him, barking at his door every time he walked out for some fresh air.

He had lost her once more. He very much intended it to be the last time.

So imagine Oberan’s surprise when he was whistling down the alley, contemplating his newfound freedom from Zipper when a bat swung at the space his face was a mere moment ago, a low duck the only thing between him and what was, he suspected, was a very bad headache. At the very least.

If one was inclined to be more optimistic.

[Zip]

“Stop-”

She swung with all the grace of someone who had never used a club before, he dodged with the grace of someone who, well, had no grace. To anyone passing by, they must have both looked like idiots.

“Fuckin-”

It occurred to Zipper, not now of course but when the heat of the moment had passed, that going away after a godspawn, even one as cowardly and flaky as the cunt before her right now, without any arcane backing was probably not going to be on the list of best decisions she had made in her life. The fact that she was doing as well as she had spoke less about her competency without her magic, but more about Oberan’s complete and utter ineptitude at, well, anything. No wonder he was so far from home. She had seen the mettle of the Shadow ladies back in Foster’s when they passed through, and what he was-

He was a guy.

It was the most obvious thing in the world, but it had only struck her now: he was a guy.

And the Naer hated men like she hated him, which was to say: a lot.

He hadn’t seen his mum in decades because...

“Dodging. Mummy never loved you, Ranny? I’ve seen the Naer and, you sir, are no Naer. How did a culture of hard cunts piss out an undeniable error such as yourself.”

“Fuck off,” he growled, evading another swipe from the toy, “I’d wipe the floor with you if I’d polished myself back to what I was eleven arcs ago.”

She hit her mark. She would never know the full details, but she was close enough that it stung.

“Back when you were still at her teet,” Zipper sneered, swinging again and again and again. “Did she give up on you before or after she tried to cut off your testicles and parade you around as a girl for the other ladies?”

[Oberan]

There was a twitch in the muscles under one of his eyes, teeth gnashing and dark orbs having lost their mischievous luster; instead they now began smoldering with anger. He could evade those sloppy attacks all trial, but the snide remarks could not be dodged. He lashed out, closing the distance swiftly with a bit of footwork, lining himself up nicely for a kidney punch. He was going to end it, right now. WIth a growl born from frustration and anger both, he drove his fist hard under her ribs, striking twice in quick succession.

The thing about the kidney punch is that it worked.

It really worked. It didn’t matter weight, size, skill (well it did matter), whatever, a shot to the kidney was a shot to the kidney. Oberan was not some martial genius. Her taunts, though cruel, were on the mark regarding his warrior pedigree - or lack thereof, in this case. He was a drunk, a thief honed in shadow, but he was not a fighter. Perhaps he had been, once, but he certainly wasn’t anymore. He was not especially strong or especially skilled, and his punch did not have the finesse he had envisioned in his head.

But even if he hit like a complete bitch, the kidney punch worked because it was, to put it bluntly, THE FUCKIN’ KIDNEY.
It wasn’t like a gut punch - it sizzled. It sent what was inside the kidney flowing out and about and, well, Oberan was no doctor, but he knew enough-

Zipper was doubled over, a yelp escaped her. She clutched her ribs and stumbled back, the bat dropped and forgotten. “You l-little fuck.” she managed to blurt out.

He didn’t respond, instead closing the distance once more to go in for the kill. Most of his skill may have been lost with the time, but even an unskilled man could fight if he wanted to. Not with grace, nor with finesse, with rage and brute force alone. Oberan maybe wasn’t angry enough to be be powered by rage, but there was a way for even a man of his stature to put a whole lot of force behind his punches. Shifting his feet, the mortalborn aimed a blow at Zipper’s temple, putting his whole weight behind the punch. It wasn’t graceful, it wasn’t polished. It was a wide swing, easily dodged if the target wasn’t debilitated, but it had power aplenty.