[Decked Halls] Hits, Hooks, and Haymakers

[Balthazar Black]

19 Ymiden 721

In the scramble after he was tackled, Balthazar caught a knee to the stomach. It hurt for a moment, but it hadn't been a hard enough or well formed enough strike for the pain to last long. Balthazar pushed himself into a little roll with his elbow to get on top of the man who'd tackled him. Balthazar swung his arm out just a little and them slammed it down like a hammer onto the sides of the man trying to keep him on the floor in a flailing mess of limbs and body mass. The hits seemed to hurt the man more than his knee had hurt Balthazar because the Flame Trooper felt the man's grip on him slipping slowly. Balthazar managed to push himself free of the big man and get onto his feet again while the man tended to his ribs.

Balthazar threw a quick glance around again, looking for Woe, and found him dislocating a man's arm. He saw him for a moment before the battle cry behind him stole his focus. Like he'd done before, Balthazar dropped into a low spin and swept his leg out to trip the next charging opponent which finally got the message across that they shouldn't charge at him. The charging man crashed onto the ground and two more moved in a little more cautiously with their hands raised. One moved from the front and the other moved in from a little bit off to the side. It was strange, in that moment, that Balthazar felt a certain clarity. He remembered his last Crucible perfectly. He remembered the mistakes he'd made that he paid for in pain. He- oh a fist was coming towards his face.

There wasn't quite as much time to reflect in combat as there was in conversation. As the first fist flew in Balthazar shifted his head to the left, causing it to fly over his shoulder. He grabbed the man who'd thrown the punch by his overextended arm and turned to swing him towards the second man only to find the first one a little more sturdy on his feet than expected. The second man's fist caught Balthazar across the face and while he didn't drop his grip on the first man, Balthazar did stumble to the side a little- and he dragged that man with him.

The first man, the one who's arm was trapped over Balthazar's shoulder, threw a jab into Balthazar's stomach and as he drew his hand back for the second swing, Balthazar gave up on his plan to throw the man. New plan, take them down. He let go of the overextended arm and smacked the second jab aside. With two steps Balthazar got behind the first man and delivered a paralyzing jab into the back of his calf. The first man groaned in pain and the second man rushed in to hit Balthazar while he was distracted but Balthazar caught his fist by the wrist, pulled it to the side, struck him with an equally paralyzing blow into the bicep. Balthazar dropped quickly and struck the man in both of his thighs with the same force as he'd hit the man's bicep.

The work done, Balthazar pushed the second man into the first man and they both hit the ground hard. He moved towards where he'd seen Woe last and caught a brief glimpse of his ally again. In this case, his perfect memory helped him keep track of the direction he'd last seen Woe in but even then it was a test of focus because Woe wasn't exactly standing still. When Balthazar saw him this time, Woe had just lifted his legs and allowed his body to roll backwards. Balthazar made it about another two steps and in that two steps he came dangerously close to Woe- not dangerously close because he was in Woe's reach, but dangerously close because now the bodies they flung and the people they shoved would certainly impact each other.

Balthazar wanted to get to him to make sure he didn't take too hard a beating. He wanted Woe to come out of the Crucible looking good by more than a Yari standard. He'd almost reached Woe when the brute who had lifted the mortalborn into the air began to rise from where his tumble had left him. Thinking it would be better to stop him first, Balthazar shifted in his path and once the brute was reasonably on his feet, Balthazar slammed a shoulder into him to put him onto his back again.

"Sixty trills!" A voice that Balthazar struggled to hear over the fighting called out.

[Woe]

Often enough in fights as large as this, there came a point where all technique and thought of tactics blurred in the tumble of dozens of men raining blows upon each other. When the cry went out, ”Sixty trills!” Woe didn’t know what to make of it. Had sixty trills passed and they had four to go or had four bits gone and now they were on the final stretch of the endurance melee? He couldn't tell, the time that was passing hadn't been foremost among the subjects on his mind.

Woe couldn’t be sure that four bits had passed in combat. The moments seemed to bleed into one another that he felt he’d been there for only a half bit. In the confusion and rush of the fight, he’d lost track of time.

Yet he was capable enough of tracking Balthazar’s movements as his fellow fighter moved to intercept the man that Woe had topped over himself. Knocking him with a shoulder slam to put him onto his back once more, pinning him to the ground.

Woe could see the merit of working together here, unlike the earlier rounds where it’d seemed like every man for themselves. So he tried to keep up with the Yari, following his lead and supporting his movements and maneuvers as best he could, while contending with the men who were still fresh and ready for a fight.

So going forward, he followed Balthazar's movements, trying to discern his intent and accommodate that as well as he could. When Balthazar slammed his shoulder into the man, Woe engaged with the one that was directly behind Balthazar, trying to catch him unawares.

Woe attacked his arm, as it struck out to deliver a jab, and sent his own free hand in a knuckle thrust into his ribs. When another man came into the sphere of the two fighters, Woe complicated his attacks by using the man he was currently tangled with as a human shield of sorts, ducking behind him and allowing him to absorb the brunt of the other fighter's aggression.

[Balthazar Black]

19 Ymiden 721

Balthazar did not recall them calling out times the last time he had fought in the Crucible but he had been altogether less perceptive and skilled at that time. He still struggled with the same questions Woe was. Had it been sixty trills or were there only sixty trills left? It didn't feel like the fighting had been going on that long but it never did when you were focusing on not being bludgeoned to death by many men. Balthazar brought his knee down on the brute he'd leveled to keep him down for a few more trills before backing towards Woe who was battling a man who'd almost taken Balthazar from behind. Woe used the man as a shield very well, in Balthazar's opinion but Balthazar didn't want to make Woe do it for long.

He delivered five remarkably fast jabs into the back of the downed brute's calf to stun the muscle, then he pushed off the large man and swept the leg out from under the fighter who was attacking Woe's human shield. Balthazar came up again and stomped on the stomach of the tripped fighter, pushing all the air out of his lungs to buy more time. Balthazar turned, trying to get a glimpse of Woe again to see if he'd moved and instead he saw a fist flying towards him. He was faster. He seemed to be faster than most. So he pulled his head back and out of the way of the swing just in time to avoid it and just in time to deliver his own jab into the armpit of the newcomer who'd swung at him. The newcomer cringed and grabbed his armpit, dropping his guard so that Balthazar could move in with a hard elbow to his chest that threw the fresh fighter onto the ground. Fresh didn't mean skilled all the time.

[Woe]

The man abusing Woe's human-shield was swiftly and effectively dealt with and swept aside by Balthazar's offensive. "Thanks for the save." Woe said quickly, and then took up position at Balthazar's back, making certain that they could cover all angles of attack from then on.

Many of the remaining fighters had already received a hit or two, or else weren't so fresh between all the rushing and the tumbling and blundering blows that the low-life fighters had been tossing about. They were as much a danger to their selves as they were to Woe or Balthazar, given that they weren't exactly an effective military unit, trained to fight in a team. This was an all out Yari brothel brawl.

Not that Woe took much pleasure in it, all things considered. He was swiftly coming to the conclusion that such fighting clubs weren't worth much to actual fighters, who made their coin or name by their blade or fist. Even so, he had committed to the brawl by now, and there was no exiting it without winning the round.

Of course Opal stood ready to whisk him away once the thirty bits elapsed. But they were nowhere near that, to Woe's reckoning.

While Balthazar faced his side of the room, Woe had a few fighters of his own to contend with. He tried not to crowd too closely to Balthazar's back, lest a blow go astray and hit the paradigmed mage. But he did take a few steps forward, allowing that they would converge on him, only to dart out of reach at the last moment, aiding their momentum and knocking two of the three heads together.

Momentarily stunned, this took two of them out of the immediate moment in that fight, and Woe took that initiative to launch into a full-on assault against the one remaining squared away at him. He blocked a low-punch to his solar plexus, and then twisted the arm, elbowing the soft tissue of his joints.

A few trills later, the men who'd had their heads knocked together converged once more on Woe. The mortalborn took the grappled arm of the man he was attacking, and tossed him under the legs of one fighter, while spinning a back kick at the other.

He barely had enough wherewithal to note what Balthazar had gotten up to...

[Balthazar Black]

19 Ymiden 721

"Any time." Was about all the verbal response to Woe's thanks that Balthazar could get out before combat took his focus again. Woe went to his back and it gave Balthazar a very defined set of opponents to fight. They were getting smarter but they were getting more tired as well. Balthazar and Woe probably had more endurance between the two of them than most of the fighters but they were certainly testing that limit. Balthazar further from Woe than Woe did from him when he went on the attack again. He launched forward with a series of quick punches at the closest brawler who fumbled to block them. He managed to get his hand up for the first two, but Balthazar struck precisely. His punches slipped past the tired guard into his opponent's shoulders and abdomen to weaken him.

Balthazar knocked the man down with an uppercut before turning to the next closest and blocking a haymaker with his forearm. One arm blocked and the other lashed out like lightning, striking hard in the middle of the brawler's chest and knocking him backwards. Another approached from the left so Balthazar abandoned his current fight to block a low kick with his shin. It hurt, not the best block, but he was Fire Forged so the impact hurt the one who'd kicked a little bit more. The kicker stumbled backwards off balance and Balthazar hooked his right foot behind the kicker's to pull him off his feet.

How many times could they fall down and get up before they were too tired to get up again?

Even Balthazar was beginning to feel the strain. His combat showed it. He stopped surging forward and began waiting for them to come to him. When they did, rather than strike back he would redirect them into each other. One fighter ran with a wide hook so Balthazar caught his arm, turned his body with the momentum and then flung him into the legs of another charging brawler. There was the unfortunate consequence that as Balthazar adopted this strategy of throwing people into each other, he accidentally tossed someone Woe's direction in a poorly aimed shot at someone near Woe. People were unconventional thrown weapons.

[Woe]

There was something to be said for a disorganized melee, where everyone was beyond trying to land effective techniques, and it all just became a miasma of flailing limbs. Normally, when Woe had a whip this was his element. He was well used to doling out pain en masse to crowds of enemies, demoralizing and sapping their will to fight on with the mortification of their allies. But he had only his fists for the moment, and he'd decided that was how it was going to be.

At any rate, he got caught in a jumble of a gauntlet of fighters coming after him, ducking after a clothesline swing, landing a small jab to the assailants lower rib. He situated his legs to disrupt their balance, and proceeded onto the next one, who he decked in the face as he rose to full posture. He was tiring, to be sure, and probably wouldn't outlast Balthazar in any event. The paradigmed mage was the one doing the heavy lifting here, he suspected.

Another swing came at him, and he blocked it, locking the arm and thrusting his fist into the attacker's armpit. The nerve pinched, he doubled back in pain, leaving Woe facing the last of the gauntlet. A large lotharro. Why did it have to always come down to the Lotharro?

Woe was quick under most circumstances, but he couldn't very well slip past the Lotharro's iron chokehold, which he wrapped around the mortalborn's neck. He lifted Woe with one arm, and though Woe tried to grapple with his thumbs, his fingers, attempting to break them, he found his grip as hard, as if it was cast iron. He was running out of breath.

So before he ran entirely out of breath, he swung his legs, up and around the Lotharro's long arm, kicking the vicious manbeast's head with his heel, and trying to gain some sort of leverage as he performed an arm bar. It seemed to work, as the Lotharro shifted on his feet, allowing Woe to use that motion to gain momentum with his grapple of the man's arm. Soon enough, he was twisting it backward, and the grip on his neck loosened. But Woe wasn't done at that.

He leveraged his position to send the Lotharro stumbling back, onto his backside, and began wracking his arm in a well-executed armbar submission hold. He furrowed his brow, blood on his eye as he squeezed the Lotharro's will to resist...

[Balthazar Black]

19 Ymiden 721

It seemed like it would never end. Every time Balthazar knocked someone down or threw them one way, someone else showed up to take their place. Balthazar had almost abandoned normal striking completely and instead began relying entirely on throws and sweeps to knock opponents down. If they couldn't stand, they couldn't fight. The problem was that while this approach bought him more time than a simple punch would, it didn't really hurt the other brawlers as much as his fists and feet would. It did the job though. It kept the larger number of fighters occupied long enough. He threw body after body into body after body until suddenly-

"STOP!" Durden's voice called out, booming over the cheering of the crowd and calling the unfiltered brawl to an end. Balthazar wasn't sure if it had ended because they'd run the timer or if it was because Durden had seen someone get seriously injured so he stumbled backwards with his guard still raised for a few trills. He caught a glimpse of Woe holding another fighter in an arm-bar before looking over to see what Durden had to say. The cheering began to quiet down and the brawlers who were left on their feet seemed to relax. Durden looked to Woe. He was waiting for him to disengage the arm-bar and when/if he did, Durden would continue. "Welcome to the Decked Halls." Durden said to the two of them. He offered Woe a hand to help him back into an upright position and didn't seem to pay Balthazar as much attention. "Get some water. We're taking a short break and then the next fights will start. You did well."

I wish Rakvald could have seen that. Balthazar kept his thought to himself and doubled over a little to catch his breath. He remembered his first Crucible with the creature of man and he remembered how it felt after. The pain and aches from the hits that slipped through began to rise and the adrenaline would begin to fade but for the moment it was still doing its job. Balthazar approached Durden and Woe once he'd caught his breath and said "You're not half bad without the whip."

[Woe]

Woe was let up by one of the brawlers, or perhaps it was Durden or Balthazar. In his mid-fight haze, he could barely see straight, let alone comprehend what he did see. He might've suffered a bit of a concussion, and would probably want Soraia to take a look at him. In any event, it appeared the fight was over, as the floor cleared after Durden's voice rang out to empty it of brawlers. Woe staggered to his feet, then helping the Lotharro up to his feet in turn. The beastly man growled at Woe as he nearly yanked him down to the floor, but managed to get up without dislocating anything. He rubbed his shoulder, where Woe had formed the arm-bar, and glared at him. Perhaps a future rival if Woe ever visited again.

Balthazar congratulated him on his skill without even a whip. Woe shrugged, You're pretty good without magic."

Then Woe began to think, how long had the fight been really? Ten minutes since he arrived at the alleyway where the Decked Halls were, and then a few minutes of introductions, and finally the fight itself. He began counting the potential time lapse until he heard Opal's voice in his mind's ear. Beckoning him back home. "I think it's time to go." Woe said, and was whisked away with Opal, his time with Balthazar having run out for the time being.

As Woe emerged at the other end of his journey, he rode for Soraia's house, to see if she would treat him, or toss his hide out on the front steps.

[Doran]

Balthazar:

Knowledge:
Basic throws

Loot: Membership in the fight club.
Lost: -
Wealth: -
Injuries: Nothing that hasn't already healed by now.
Renown: 10, for surviving the Crucible.
Magic XP: -
Skill Review: Appropriate to level.
Points: 15

Woe:

Knowledge:
Combat (Unarmed): Performing an arm bar on an opponent.
Tactics: Basic tag team tactics.

Loot: Membership in the fight club.
Lost: -
Wealth: -
Injuries: Nothing that hasn't already healed by now.
Renown: 10, for surviving the Crucible.
Magic XP: -
Skill Review: Appropriate to level.
Points: 15

- - -

Comments: I thought that Balthazar's situation was described well at the beginning of the thread. It was unfortunate that Durden refused to believe that he had passed the Crucible before and didn't recognize him without his mutations, but it sure made for an interesting thread!

It's been a while since I've read a thread where Woe still had his mutations. I found it interesting that he thought that Balthazar might have paradigmed himself voluntarily - and that he didn't ask him.

But then again, shortly before the Crucible is probably not the right time to have a conversation in that regard!

I thought that you two did a really great job at describing the fight club, and what more, you made the fight exciting to read!

I agree. None of the other fighters have the tactical mindset of Balthazar and Woe. Both of them are incredibly skilled fighters. I didn't know that Woe had Expert Unarmed in addition to being skilled with the whip, by the way!

I didn't really doubt that both Balthazar and Woe would make it, but there were a few moments during the fight where I was on edge regardless.

I really hope that we'll see Balthazar and Woe fight together again sometime. I enjoyed seeing them together in this thread.

With that being said, congratulations on making it through the Crucible, and enjoy your rewards!

P.S.: Woe, you forgot to add "Whip" to the list of skills used. "Athletics" might also have played a part in my opinion.