Rusty's Rules of Demon Fighting

The shattering of my baton came as a bit of a shock, but I didn’t have much time to recover, because Grendel was grinning like a fool as he leapt to the attack. Apparently, he had tweaked his protections since our last encounter and had healed up too, since there was no hint of any wounds I had inflicted on him.

He leaped with both claws extended to try and get to my head, but I had just enough of my wits and my own reactions speed to grab each of his wrists and fall backwards, flipping him head first into the solid cement floor.

The impact of the move surprised us both, I lost my grip on his wrists, his head bounced a couple of times as he skidded away to land in a heap against the far wall.

Knowing I didn’t have much time, I leaped back to my feet and spun to face the critter, just as he used the base of the wall to launch another leaping attack at me.

I reached behind me and grabbed the hilt of the Witchbane blade that was sheathed there. I had it out just in time to dodge away from his latest attack and slash out unsuccessfully with the unfamiliar weapon. The blade felt heavy in my grip and distinctly...wrong.

We began circling each other again, he seemed to wary of the blade, like he recognized that the blacker than black blade could actually harm him.

Seeing the look of caution in his alien eyes, I waved the blade just a little bit, brandishing it while smiling and waving with one hand for him to try me out. He kept his distance, and even shifted directions in his circling with me when I changed to move to meet him sooner. He seemed to respect both the weapoon I was carrying and the degree of difficulty I was giving him.

I didn’t hear anything from my companions, our battle was being fought in a kind of eerie silence. Had I been alive, I would have thought that due to the rushing adrenaline and tunnel vision that accompanies highly stressful situations. But I no longer exeperience such things, so I could easily hear little sounds that were separate from the struggle I was engaged in. A quick glance during one of our shifts in direction confirmed that Ravyn and Herne seemed to be alive and breathing, but were either unconscious or too hurt to move much.

Not knowing the extent of any of their injuries, I figured I needed to move to finish this as quickly as I could. So I faked to my right like I was changing directions again and then dove forward in a modified forward roll where I came up with both hands on the hilt, trying to drive the blade into its chest. At least that was the effect I was trying for.

Unfortunately, I am not an experienced knife fighter, and I had never tried such a move before...I was too slow. Just for future referemce to any budding young demon hunters out there...it is never a good thing to throw yourself onto the ground in front on a faster, more agile foe. Let’s call that Rusty’s First Rule of Demon Fighting.

As I was coming up out of my nearly perfect move and looking to stab the bastard, I found myself looking for my opponent. Apparently he had faked his own response and had continued circling, allowing him to send my ass sprawling with powerful blow to my head with one closed fist. The blow was damn powerful, I realized anew the advantages to already being dead, since there a damn good chance that such a blow would have killed me had I been inconveniently alive at that moment.

I had managed to keep hold of my weapon and managed to twist onto my back and bring the blade up in defense as the thing pounced on me. I slashed out at the first claw I saw, managing to slice a half his taloned fingers off in a desperate move. It roared in pain and leaped back. So I had found a weapon that could pierce his protections and he didn’t like the feel of it one bit.

As it backpedaled, I bounced back up and started advancing, slashing wildly each time I got close enough to possibly hit it. Holding it’s wounded claw with the other, it kept bounding backwards with each of my attacks. Rusty’s Second Rule of Demon Fighting: Once you find something that works, keep doing it until your opponent finds a way to stop it!

The only problem with my current strategy (and it was a huge one) was that I pushing the damn thing right back towards Ravyn and Herne’s unconscious forms!

I slowed my attacks as soon as I noticed that I was pushing him in the wrong direction. I dropped into a more defnsive crouch, but also began preparing to leap forward in case he tried to do anything to my companions.

As soon as I stopped pressing the attack though, he stopped moving backwards and at this point he didn’t seem to have much interest in people he saw as no threat.

It was in that moment though that I noticed Ravyn moving every so slightly. I could see her eyes looking at me, imploring me not to say or do anything to bring to get her noticed. Those eyes burned with a hatred of this creature deeper than anything I thought possible from the normally bubbly and effervescent Ravyn. She was reaching under Herne’s body ever so slowly for something with one hand.

The creature was adjusting quickly to the setback and was already flexing its wounded claw, apparently working the pain out of its system. He was in a battle crouch as well now. We stared at each other for moment, but I could tell he was getting ready to make a move. I didn’t know what it was planning to do, so I thought maybe I would try to buy some time for Ravyn.

“Hey buddy,” I called out, “Don’t you like my little knife? Didn’t feel very good did it?”

His eyes narrowed, it either understood me, or was trying to figure out whatever trick he thought I was going to try next.

I needed to keep it distracted and focused on me, so I motioned with my free hand towards the blade and started talking again. “Hey you know what? I don’t think it is very fair of me to use this big nasty knife on you anymore, how about I put it down and we settle this fight naturally, man against demon?”

That perked its interest.

“Now I’m going to put this thing down to the side over here, but I don’t want you trying to jump me when I do that, OK?”

Did it just nod in agreement? Hell, I don’t know, but it sure seemed like it at the time. I made a big show of setting the knife off to my side, keeping my eyes locked on his the whole time. He didn’t make any sudden moves, so I set the blade down and got back into my battle crouch.

Now let me just say that what I just did was a serious violation of several of Rusty’s Rules of Demon Fighting, namely numbers 4--Never make deals with demons, and 6--Don’t put away your weapons until the damn smoke clears, but they are my own damn rules, so I can break them if I want to.

Once I was up and in my crouch again, the beast actually smiled like he thought I was a fool. Perhaps I am, but there was a method to my madness, Ravyn was silently getting into a crouch of her own, grimacing in pain and rage simultaneously, clutching at something I couldn’t quite make out.

I leaped forward, hands outstretched just as he made his own move, lunging in my direction with both claws out and ready to snatch at me. We grappled there, my arms on his writsts, his claws and fangs trying to reach at me. We stood there locked in a struggling embrace, each testing the sheer strength and the balance of the other, he was grunting with exertion, I was grunting out of a desire to hide Ravyn’s footsteps as she stood up and moved towards us with deadly intent in her burning eyes.

Too late it noticed that she was approaching. I held on firmly as he tried to break free. Slowly, deliberately, and with more malice than I ever thought possible from her, Ravyn came up behind the thing, limping and holding one arm close to her wounded side. She raised one of the Witchbane blades over her head with her good arm and hissed out, “Die, you fucking beast!”

With that she plunged the black blade into Grendel’s back with all of the force she could muster.

The blade pierced through its tough hide, but bounced off of some bone to sheer through the shoulder of his previously unwounded arm. There was an explosion of dark, roiling energies, whether it was from the blade or Grendel himself, I couldn’t tell. The force of the explosion knocked Ravyn back towards Herne, smoking hilt still in her hand.

The force of it blasted against me, but I had been able to maintain my grip on the wrist attached to the shoulder she had cut into, the whole arm ripped free from the beast, sending both of us flying.

Grendel was screeching in pain as he fell. He was still wailing in a strange, unearthly kind ofway as he staggered up using his one, wounded clawed hand and staggered away, trailing a stream of greenish ichor as he went.