Instability: the fall of Man. It was a forever growing trend stemming from the very origins of mankind itself; even the divinities before them fought for power and pride. That trend had only progressed, with battles becoming less and less justifiable over time. Men waged war for land, money, women, and power--some even declared full scale holocausts just to right the wrong of something so minor as an insult, and no matter the trivial nature of the conflicts, were were always men ready to fight and die for their leaders--their kings, their queens, princes, emperors, prime ministers, religious leaders, presidents.

And then there were those who sought profit from these battles, professional soldiers, devoid of belief, politics, religion--men and women whose preferences were only those who produced the highest profits. Loyalty could be purchased, and on a regular basis, it was.

Mankind was no longer in control of its own destiny. The influence of other worlds was a disease, a plague that wrung the throats of nations and tore the loose fabric between kingdoms. Demon kings, angelic generals, lords of light, soldiers of darkness--they were not natives of this world, and they struggled over it as if it were property ripe for the claiming. Armies of men fell in line, not to protect their land from the other-worldly dominion, but to seek more land. Most alien warlords had no interest in enslaving or destroying man--most simply sought domination. If men wished to swear loyalty in exchange for fields and rights to property, then so be it. That was the justification of many.

A nameless war in a forgotten city; an entire conflict stricken from history. Constant were the shouts and cries of battle, while civilians--men, women, children, and elderly alike--cowered, and when they were found, suffered their individual fates. Embers still held the land hostage, once a city that spanned half-way across the horizon. From mountain to mountain, there was supposed to be constructs of stone, erected into the sky for more space efficient living, made for the people--so many people. So many people . . .

The sun was descending upon the city, her tallest structures fallen, their stone walls now jagged barriers between streets. Clashes could still be heard, roars of bloodied men still bellowing throughout the city, innocents still running, shouting, screaming, and fire still billowing. Nearly a quarter of the land had been engulfed in flames.

Another war fought to stake a claim, another army lead by a demon king, and another batch of lust driven human beings seeking more of what they'd not the courage to claim prior. These unmapped, unnamed lands experienced the worst of the fallout of otherworldly influence.

This territory, this uncharted and untamed land where any city-state could be its own nation--this was a place where good men, with good names, died, and were lost to history.

Heavy breaths fled him; he could barely keep dominion over his panting. His nerves demanded that he shake all over, but his better instincts commanded him not do. Covered in what could only be described as a tarnished red duster, torn and tattered, the man pressed his back up against the thick sandstone wall, part of what remained of a demolished two story residence. His black hair, kept short and out of his eyes, was matted with sweat. This enemy had him on a decent run; he was nervous, fidgety--unlike himself. Here he was, an operative specializing in reconnaissance, sabotage, and assassination--nervous.

"Crimson" was how most referred to him, a substitute for a name he never provided. On his toes and knees he sat, back to the wall, a massive gap half of a foot to his left. Iron cranked repetitively in his left leg and right arm, twisting painfully like a machine in dire need of oil, but the origins of these sounds were left unseen, covered by a long sleeved shirt and tattered slacks. It was only under the cover of the war itself that he could go unheard.

Sade isn't here right now. He had to keep telling himself. She's waiting for me.

His mission was over. The operation was a failure; that problem could be dealt with in the future. Crimson's main problem now was evacuation from the city. Not that his enemy was going to keep that in mind; making that clear was not even worth the effort. He was going to have to fight his way out . . .

He had no one to depend on, though; his only ally--his partner, was far distant from the war torn city-state. For her, that was better. For him, that was the best. She'd have never survived here, even with him to protect her. Neither side recognized them as friend or foe; he was a soldier without distinction; in the end, an enemy to both sides. Crimson had his determination, though; it was not his previous life or his organization that he had to survive this, but for the woman waiting for him at their rendezvous point.

With a revolver in his right, gloved hand, and a new load of six shells in his left, he snapped the chamber of his weapon open with no more than a flick of his thumb. Six shots were loaded in succession, and the chamber was snapped spun on its axis and snapped back into place. Crimson scooted closer to the gap, cautious to avoid tipping off his enemy--or enemies, if there were more in the area. With a quick glance, he checked outside the gap. The last he recalled, the aggressor was on the other side of the debris filled street, possibly in the burning residence across the brick road, or even the slightly more in-tact structure adjacent.

There was a number of spots for an enemy to hide, and Crimson knew to be ready for that. Finding nothing at first glance, he swung his body around, quickly kneeling within the gap with his weapon held taught both hands, his right arm straight, finger on the trigger, and his left elbow bent out, his left hand holding onto his right hand near the butt of the firearm. All he needed was an opening . . .

“You know the difference between men and animals, Crimson?”

His voice was soft and ethereal. It came from every where at once, bouncing off of the angles and rounded curves of the buildings, pushing through the crackling fire of the immolated structure only a few yards away, even seemingly oozing up from the ground itself. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that the reverberation of his voice was not natural; no, he did this on purpose, to mislead and confuse.

“Animals kill out of necessity. A wolf will only kill a rabbit when it is hungry. If you feed a wolf until its damn near bursting and put a family of foxes next to it, do you know what will happen? Let me answer that for you. Nothing’ll happen, nothing at all. It’ll lay there, happy as can be that it’s full, and watch the foxes run away. It has no purpose other than this.”

There was a pause, a slight but sonorous chuckle, and the sound of feet scraping against the ground. This, like his voice, was ever-present; this, like his voice, was meant to mislead.

“Don’t get me wrong, they have their faults too. They’ll also kill for territory, for land. Sound familiar? Wipe out an entire family, a whole nation of eyes and ears and hearts and minds and souls, for a few miles of dirt and trees. You know, this isn’t even a war anymore? A war. A war has…history. It goes down in books, gets imprinted in the minds of children and never leaves them. But when this is all over, there won’t be anyone left to tell the story. A stranger comes by and all he’ll see is smoking dirt and skeletons. No one will know what happened but us, Crimson.”

Then the mysticism stopped. All of a sudden the footsteps walked only a singular path, all of a sudden his voice became crystalline in timbre and came from only one direction. All of a sudden he was in view, framed against the burning building, the heat of the flames licking the back of his neck. His hair was stark white, his eyes a brilliant gold, and his smile so sinister and so wide that it looked as if he would swallow the whole world.

His sword’s tip was embedded rather deeply in the ground, and the man’s arm was fitted neatly against the upward facing hilt of this blade. He leaned against his sword casually, as if the tension in the air was not absolutely buzzing with murderous intent, as if his mind didn’t reel with pleasure at the thought of taking yet another life. Before him the ground lay in disarray, a number of haphazard cracks extending a few feet in either direction but no more than that.

“Or should I say just me? Maybe I’ll be the only one to remember.”

Once Crimson heard his opponent speaking to him, he prepared to locate him--listening in closely in an attempt to discern the location of the enemy . . . but he soon realized that it was impossible. The man's voice was coming from everywhere; from the right, left, front, behind, the sky--even the ground. It impossible to locate him . . .

At worst, the enemy was in the same building as him--possibly standing behind him. That was a worst case scenario, as, despite Crimson's formidable abilities with hand to hand combat, if his enemy was already behind him, then the battle would have already been over. Up to this point, teleportation hadn't been hinted to, but it was still early in the game; he and his opponent both had their talents hidden to one another. Teleportation, or some other form of spacial manipulation, was still very possible. That realization caused Crimson to twist around quickly, aiming his weapon behind him.

Nothing. Beside of him--nothing. Crimson found it impossible to detect the actual location of his enemy. It was nerve wracking. The man was getting the effect he desired . . .

It was then that Crimson heard a distinct location. Again, he reversed his position quickly, aiming his weapon straight ahead. The entire action was unconscious; Crimson could tell direction when there truly was a means of discerning it. His job would have been momentously harder if he hadn't such a capability.

He did not fire as soon as he had his enemy in sight, though. This wasn't necessarily an assassination. The man had a battle lust, but that didn't require him to die today. If at all possible, Crimson was going to try and avoid it, but if it turned out that fighting to the death was a requirement to proceed, then so be it. Soldiers who killed other soldiers should not lament it as a murder, but accept that they had survived and moved on. When a conscious being stepped into a battle with a weapon, they were supposed to understand the chances of death. If one couldn't accept those chances, then the individual was far from an asset on the battlefield. The man across the street from Crimson, though . . . whoever he was working for in this conflict, be it the angelic lord or the demon king, he was certainly a valuable asset . . .

"You can still walk away," announced Crimson, his voice deep, dark; he'd even sound sinister if he used the right inflections. "Neither of us need to die here. We can both retain knowledge of this day . . ."

He stood there, resolute and unshaken, as his foe made a sudden appearance from behind the building he had chosen as cover. He stood there, resolute and unshaken, even as he stared into the barrel of the gun with the very same mannerisms in which the gun looked at him; eyes unblinking and made of steel.

“What?” His voice was saturated in the confusion that his furrowed brow seemed to scream. “Walk away?”

Tilting his head for added emphasis, he took steps forward until the rubber sole of his shoes were coddled and welcomed by the broken scars marring the ground. He squared his shoulders some, a feeble attempt to add a layer of strength to his effete frame. His brilliant, gold eyes locked onto Crimson’s own and he began to speak; slow and dawdling but, above all, filled with purpose.

“Don’t be foolish, you know we can’t walk away. Men like you and me Crimson, we’re set in our ways. We don’t come to a place like…” He looked around and motioned with his free hand at their setting. “Like this. And we don’t bring these…” Now his sight fell to the blade he held in his right hand, tilting it one way and the other, scrutinizing the edge under different facets of light. “Tools of war without intent to use them.”

The heathen sighed heavily as he reached into his pocket, withdrawing three glinting scalpels thereafter tucked neatly into the crooks of his fingers spaced evenly between his knuckles. He turned his now spiked hand one way and then the other, inspecting these murderous implements in much the same way he had done to his blade.

“Ask a fish not to swim, Crimson. Tell a bird not to fly. Demand of a man that he simply no longer live, and you’ll know what it means to ask me to walk away.”

Now his eyes lolled to the skies, and he traced the contours of the heavens.

“When I was younger, I used to dream of being a knight. A hero, you know? I’d fight for the people, for my country, for my love and my honor and my pride. A hero. Jeez, the twisted plans that fate has in store for us, huh?”

His left hand flicked outwards and the scalpels nearly hummed as, with an almost insane speed, they closed the distance between the heathen and Crimson. Only one of them as aimed to strike his target true; the center one would hit the center of Crimson’s chest if left unimpeded. The scalpel on the far left would embed itself into the building while the scalpel on the far right, somehow angled, would dig into the ground behind Crimson.

The crimson sheet that coated the projectiles was a detail likely lose in their speed.

Out of respect for human life, he allowed his enemy the chance to speak. Crimson had little to say; conversation was not a strong point of his, and he was much more awkward than that at conveying his ideologies. The man between Crimson and a route out of this city was right about one thing, though: a man did not lift a sword without knowing death as potential. Although Crimson did not necessarily agree that they were required to use their weapons just because they possessed them, he understood--and agreed--that they were to be used with intent to kill. A blade was not crafted to sit upon a mantle, it was forged to spill blood, and a firearm was no different.

Once the man had retrieved weaponry from his pockets--scalpels, were they? at first, he thought they were knives--Crimson was on alert, and once they were thrown, he was immediately defensive. Letting go of his firearm with his left hand, he brought his right arm back, covering his chest with his forearm to the very best of his ability. As a result, one of the three scalpels struck him. Gears turned and the grind of metal continued, unstopped, and the short blade seemed almost harmless where it was, lodged into the bottom of his forearm, six inches from his wrist. Without even a second of hesitation, he took aim once more--ignoring the blade within his arm. He could not feel it, and it was clearly impeding him very little, if at all . . .

Crimson had certain assets, particulars about him that made him a valuable ally in a combat situation, and likewise an opponent to either fear or take very seriously. There were only a few of those assets, however--but therein lie his strength. Crimson almost exclusively lacked an excess of supernatural abilities; his were primarily unnatural--far from normal and on equal grounds with other techniques, but acquired and stemming from vastly different origins. One of those particular combat assets happened to be his aim.

It was a cold day in hell when Crimson did not at least graze his target. Given a different weapon--something more accurate than the design of a revolver, at least--it was far less a chance that he'd kill, were it his intent, but a guarantee. Unfortunately, those weapons fired only a single shot. Against multiple enemies, they were terrible ineffective, and with the loud nature of these firearms, it was extremely uncommon for him to have just one enemy by the time the conflict was over.

Truthfully, he did not necessarily need to hold his firearm with both hands. It was, for all intents and purposes, done just to make himself feel just a bit more normal. The left hand was meant to stabilize the shooter's aim--to keep the weapon steady by reducing the effect of the weight upon the right arm. Were it not clear enough already, Crimson's right arm was far from normal. During that split second in which he aimed his weapon straight forward once again, it was worth note that he permitted his left arm to drop to his side.

With his eyes on the center of the man's chest, barrel aimed straight down, perfectly perpendicular to the street, Crimson squeezed the trigger . . .

The heathen had, like so many others strewn throughout this world, a number of ‘arcane’ skills that could be replicated by nearly anyone else given enough time for preparation and the proper materials. Magic was a common thing in these parts, and to think that your magic gave you a decisive edge in battle against another fellow’s magic was a mistake that only novices made. This heathen looked to his magic as a tool, a useful component at any given time, but not as his weapon.

What this man had that no one else did was his wit, his intellect, his foresight; his ability to think twenty step ahead of his opponent at any given point in time, to position the parts of a greater machine at the right time and at the right place for the right type of reaction. When you strip down all of this wizards and mages and legends to their base components, they were all just men. He was just a man, Crimson was just a man, and at the end of all of this deception and subterfuge, they would do as men were wont to do.

They would kill.

For the most part, the heathen was Spartan in practice. He carried no more on him than the essentials. With that kind of personality in mind, it was hard to imagine that the red glimmer to his scalpels was meant to be something as base and simple as simple ornamentation. No. Those that had fought, and lost, to him before would have whispered to this man that everything this heathen did had a purpose.

The scalpel, embedded in his arm, was thus gloriously ignited. It was a highly localized explosion but nonetheless dangerous and volatile. As the projectile was actually inside of Crimson’s arms, it would expand outwards from the point of origin, and leave his arm in only one of two possible states; either torn to shreds, nothing more than fragmented bone and torn sinew, or at the very least rendered useless.

While Crimson was busied with the thought of his own survival, the heathen took this time to prepare. He brought his thumb to push past the periphery of his lips and nipped the tip of the digit with his teeth. Blood gathered there and, after a while, began to ooze into the center of his palm.

“Do you see now? Are you starting to understand?”

It was before Crimson had the chance to pull the trigger that the scalpels erupted--both beside of him, behind him, and upon his arm. Dust erupted before Crimson, and for a brief moment, he went unseen. The three explosions, so close to him, kicked up dirt, dust, smoke, and debris about his entire presence, limiting vision of him. There was, however, no cry of pain. Not even a groan of discomfort. It took a few seconds for the dust to finally lift, during which he had no response for his opponent.

With the dust's lifting, Crimson's opponent would find no change in his stance. He was still knelt upon the ground, his left arm still by his side, and his right still extended out, firearm in hand--aim unchanged. There was something his opponent had to learn about Crimson, something that would have the game changed indefinitely: smoke poured from his right forearm, billowing in excess like pollution from an industrial tower, and as it cleared, there was no blood--no bone, no muscle. The sleeve of his dust had been torn, ripped to shreds and burnt just like the sleeve of his undershirt.

But there was no blood. Nothing natural. The very nature of Crimson's abilities were unnatural--it was not magic, psychokinesis, or spiritual will; he was not a supernatural being. Thick steel framework lined the exposed forearm, industrial screws driven in, and pin inserts near his wrist, some of which were blown off amidst the last attack. Jagged metal rods lay within the fragmented framework of his forearm, and though shadows from the remnants of his duster and shirt sleeve covered it, a series of intricate gears replaced the functions of his elbow, connected to the rods, which allowed individual movements of his entire forearm, wrist, and fingers.

All of this, for the most part, was covered in what appeared to be a leather wrapping, but the scalpel's detonation had caused damage. Part of the leather wrapping had a hole blown in it, causing the entire thing to become lose. Similarly, where the scalpel had impacted with and sunk into the leather, there, too, was a hole within his arm. It was little more than structural damage, though; one would have been able to see the inner functions of his forearm, as scorched metal was bent as if a strong individual had grabbed between the gaps and pulled a bit.

Crimson's fight had been brought forth.

"War . . . is my reason to be. It is my purpose," Crimson began, pausing for a moment as he cocked back the hammer of his revolver, "Tomorrow, there will be another battle--and I will put an end to the creature who brings forth that war, just as I have today, and as I have for years past. My request was not a misunderstanding . . . it was mercy."

He treated those as his parting words, giving his opponent no chance to attack again between his final word and the pull of the trigger. Thunderous reverberations struggled against brick and sandstone, echoing through the street not once, but twice: no more than a fraction of a second following the first shot, he had quickly drawn back the hammer and released a second--a quick-shot technique, but used with only one hand. His aim was for the center of his enemy's sternum, leaving very little room to dodge--and if he could not avoid the first shot, the second shot's chances of doing more than grazing by the man would become very, very high.

Yes, there was much that the heathen had to learn about his opponent, and these introductory methods were his way of finding out. He did not dare structure his plans on faulty, insubstantial foundations and, as such, held no illusions that his scalpel-detonation gambit would have ended the man’s life. But now he knew that the man was not simply a man but that he was something far more cold and metallic; by all stretches of the imagination, it was markedly better that he find this out now and at a distance than deeper into the skirmish and up close.

Now it was Crimson’s turn to speak and the heathen’s turn to listen, and this role he filled without qualm. He merely stood there, blood pooling steadily into the cupped palm of his hand, as his eyes scrutinized every visible aspect of the man. He began to take deep breaths, flushing his organic system with that precious oxygen and delighted himself in the light-headed, dizzying effects to follow. Not many would advocate this specific course of action when staring down the barrel of an obscenely powerful gun, wielded by an obscenely powerful gunman.

But you gotta live for something, right?

His hand twitched moments before he heard the hammer stretch back from the barrel and almost a full second before the hammer righted its course and struck the end of a bullet case. The adamantine devil screeched as it parted air moments after blood, having spiraled to the ground, splattered against the broken lines. The bullet infiltrated his periphery, the invisible boundaries that the heathen had set into place, and the magic of the spell-circle was already pumping through his veins.

He could see the bullet, and its brother, crawl through the air like slugs. Smiling only to himself, the heathen stepped to the side and the bullets were free to pass through empty air[1]. To Crimson, it must have been a horrifying sight. The heathen standing absolutely still and then blurring to one side just in time to avoid death; then the sight of bullets themselves, becoming nothing as they passed overhead of the markings on the ground.

Quickly, he circled the markings and, once behind them, flicked his wrist. The last scalpel was loosed. Like the bullets before it, the scalpel now had to pass over the nondescript insignia and it gained a boost to its speed; almost fast enough to slip out of vision and with enough force behind it to punch a clean hole through Crimson’s chest.

With that matter taken care of, he ran his blood palm along the width of his blade and marked it red.

----

1: Localized Spell Circle – Haste: As the name implies, the circle provides a localized form of haste. Things within its ambit, non-organic things included, gain a supernatural boost to their speed.

Slowed down, brought to a snail's pace-- Crimson's bullets had been effectively neutralized. They passed by the heathen, one after the other, one following the other. There was no other notion required to identify the accuracy of Crimson's shots: as they passed by the heathen, the first shot was noticeably a foot ahead of the second shot, but there was no variation in direction or area. A straight line could have been drawn from the barrel of Crimson's gun to the first shot, and the second bullet would have perfectly intersected. While his arm barely recoiled, he was still able to correct his aim perfectly and quickly, at that.

As soon as he saw the narrow shots slowed, Crimson drew his forearm back, the barrel of his gun aimed to the sky. At that point, he ceased to be a threat, knowing that another shot would have just been a waste of ammunition. Catching the image of the heathen with another "knife," Crimson twisted his body in a whole movement to duck back behind the broken wall once again. The scalpel barely missed him and continued back into the ruined structure, presumably to hit a wall, itself, and stick there 'less the heathen commanded its detonation--or had means of controlling their direction once they were released.

Maneuvering away from it allowed Crimson more opportunities than if he were to simply shoot it out of the air. First and foremost, he was not wasting ammunition on it, and secondly, he was provided a brief stint of time with which to think about what just happened.

Interesting. He is either speeding up and slowing down time, or has some sort of barrier in place.

The tactic had been employed by others before, but not in that particular manner. The method of combating it was the same--though, he was going to need all six shots. Before Crimson did anything else, he snapped the chamber out and replaced the two used shells.

Dealing with either of these two defenses was very much the same. All Crimson had to do was swing back around, revolver held out, aim specifically to the right of the heathen, with his left hand parked less than an inch from the hammer. The intent was to release a total of six shots, all using a quick-shot technique, releasing each bullet a fraction of a second after the other. Five of them rang out, echoing throughout the dead street, one to the far right, at face level, another inches to the right at hip level, one directly at the chest, one to the left--face level, and finally one to the far left at hip level. Crimson was firing at the heathen and no more than five feet from him.

The goal was simple: if the heathen had erected a barrier, then Crimson would have produced enough firepower to damage it--or! If the heathen could slow down or speed up objects around him, he'd be unable to avoid any particular shot, and even while slowed, the effects would not be removed. Even if he wound up standing in front of one to avoid the other, that bullet would be still be capable of burrowing into his body without resistance--or, in the best case scenario, the heathen would be unable to keep it at the slow pace once it neared him enough.

He jumped.

It was a basic formula, really. Few gunmen expected their quarry to simply jump to safety, as the time needed to jump almost always superseded the time needed to fire, and that once in the air a man was all but defenseless. That was precisely why the heathen acted in such a manner, because it was unexpected and, of course, because he had thought the process out quite thoroughly before it was even a necessity.

Crimson had a gun. Crimson had a gun and was very good with it. It was far from a leap of faith to imagine that whenever one saw Crimson, one would be face with such devastating firepower. He had surmised, and rightly so, that should Crimson ever come out from behind his cover, he would do so when he had clear intent on striking and a solid enough opinion formed that his attempt would be successful.

The very moment that he spied motion was the very moment that the heathen acted. He jumped at an angle, forwards and upwards simultaneously, and was immediately taken to the skies by the sudden increase of speed. Crimson was faster than he had expected, even when leaving enough room for error the gunman showed non pareil skill in wielding his weapon of choice. One of the bullets aimed to the side of his face, having also been granted preeminent speed by the arcane, clipped his foot.

The bullet’s stopping power was nothing to laugh at, but as it had manage only to bore through one of his extremities, it did not stop the heathen, merely altered his trajectory. It caused the heathen to spin on an axis, quite rapidly actually, until he landed unceremoniously atop the very building that Crimson used for cover.

His foot was bleeding, for obvious reasons, and his face fucking hurt. He was, however, no worse for the wear. The blood that had once stained his blade was wholly and completely missing, absorbed by the blade itself though an outsider was likely to think that it had merely been lost in his expeditious travel.

The heathen said nothing, he merely worked. Right hand held his sword resolutely, for if warfare had taught him anything it was that to release his weapon was to welcome death, and his left hand shot awkwardly out to his side. A smoky beacon of white light left his palm, sluggishly traveling beyond the rooftop until it fell to the ground a distance to Crimson’s back.

As soon as his enemy was airborne, Crimson had his weapon trained on him. It soon became clear that Crimson had a bit of a problem, though: no matter his abilities in close range combat, he was superior in ranged combat. If absolutely necessary, he'd fight in proximity--in situations where ammunition conservation was required, and he was sure of his victory in proximity, usually, but this didn't happen to be either situation. Crimson had enough shots on him to last a good while, and if he made too slow of a movement in close range, there was a good chance that the heathen would have been able to unleash some sort of barrier or field that slowed time enough for Crimson to be at a severe disadvantage.

With the heathen airborne towards the roof of the bombed out residence, Crimson knew to get the hell out. It wasn't so much an attack from above that he was anticipating, but a situation of close range combat that he didn't have full confidence in--not at the moment, at least. Not until he understood more about what the heathen could do altogether. Once he had more information, he'd be more willing.

Crimson spared no time in springing forward, jumping ahead several feet and landing into a roll--a somersault. For a brief moment, he was able to see what was behind him in mid-somersault--invaluable information, as he deemed it necessary to swing around the instant he was stationary, and once again train his gun upon the heathen. The light had just been deployed, and reached where Crimson had once been stationary.

Now in the midst of the cracked and ruined street, Crimson fired the last shot in his revolver, aimed at the roof, where the heathen stood--aimed specifically at the heathen's heart.

What happened before that--the beam of light--would have to be regarded at a later time, if Crimson's shot again failed. After this, reloading was a necessity; he was going to have to find cover somewhere to reload, where he could also consider the new development.

As Crimson leveled his arm to the rooftops, the baseball-sized mote of light that hovered lightly where he once stood pulsed vehemently, and a diffuse cloud of white washed over the whole of the area. It passed over Crimson, too quick and too ubiquitous to merely side-step, but would offer him nothing; no pain, no threat, nothing. It pulsed once again as Crimson squeezed the trigger tight and fired off his remaining round, though again nothing seemed to manifest from the mysterious beats.

Were the heathen any less of a wary man, he might have died just then. But his caution was keen and his prudence was profound; he had adhered any movement on Crimson’s part to mean something more than mere locomotion, and realized that it was much harder to hit a moving target than it was one standing perfectly still, regardless of skill.

He spun away as quickly as Crimson aimed and, rather than have the bullet tear through his heart, it merely ripped through the sinew of his right shoulder; luck and luck alone had bade that bullet miss his bone, so he retained at least a feasible range of motion.

He was growing tired of this, of being the only one on this battle field that bled. Naturally, there was the assumption that he was the only one that could bleed, but the principle was the same. He would have to disarm Crimson, take from him that devil of a weapon that shot molten lead faster than he dared to move. He had managed to roll out of sight and listened intently; in this barren town there were only the sounds of his heart, the sounds of Crimson, and the ever-present crack as wood was warped beneath the oppressive heat of fire. From that burning building, you know the one I mean.

The heathen clutched his sword to his chest, still holding true to that final testament taught to him years ago, and it thrummed silently, in protest to its master’s pain. He would have to stop his bleeding soon. He was not bleeding profusely, mind you, but enough that it would become a bother should it continue unchecked. No matter, it was repast for his blade; he tilted the tip into the trail of cerise ichor he had unwillingly squeezed from his form and his sword drank of it freely.

A third pulse from the smoky, white beacon and the time had come. A distant hum sounded, then the dissonant grating of metal screeching against metal. From all around, it had come. Metal was called for. Useless metallic debris taken from the streets, nails pried from the buildings that once offered cohesion, and if anything had a metal framework within a 10 mile radius? Foggedahbout it.

It was an attack merely in the gathering. The shards of metal were a fusillade that attacked Crimson from all sides but his front, daring to rip through him as easily as rice paper given the strong pull affecting them. Only Crimson himself was free from the star’s grasp, the bio-electric rhythms of his organic tissue enough to offer some manner of disruptive field.

Soon, the shining star was now a metallic bastion and the heathen had vanished from his hiding spot, crashing with a modicum of grace to the ground behind the building, so that a crumbling infrastructure separated him and his foe.

((Sorry 'bout the wait.))

As solid metals jolted by his head, Crimson felt a tug upon his hand--particularly his right hand. His gun. He had again failed to kill the enemy, but for the moment, that ceased to be all that large of a problem. The main issue had become the mass of metal collecting at the top of the old, bombed out house, progressively tearing it down into nothing . . .

Fortunately, Crimson had a tight enough grip on his firearm that it was going anywhere. Although his limbs weren't drawn towards it, they were metal--pure metal, with gears and internal functions that he couldn't necessarily function without. Nonetheless, with fingers of metal, if he had a grip and decided not to let go, he wasn't letting go. There was a significant tug upon his weapon, but it wasn't leaving his person, less his arm was removed in the process.

He's drawing in metals . . .

For a moment, Crimson stared, making his deductions, and each conclusion was the same: take cover. With the amount of metal it was taking in, though, there was enough time to take cover, and enact an impromptu plan of his.

Crimson intended to give the heathen a significant problem--something that could cause significant damage to him, were he nearby the gathering mass of small metals, or the mass itself. Setting his hand upon the outside of his left thigh, he tapped several times and prodded as if he were opening a safe, before setting his hand side-first against his leg, collecting a series of objects into his palm as walked away, ever so casual in his step. The pull was tugging these out of him--out of his body, if only because of the nature of what they were: not a biological object, or biologically dependent, but concealed within something biologically dependent . . . weapons contained within his leg.

Without looking back, he let his hand go, allowing the five small, black orbs be drawn from his hand at such a fantastic pace. By the time they struck, he was stepping into the structure on the opposite side of the street, what would have to become his new source of cover.

At which point, the explosions would commence: metal orbs detonating upon light impact, igniting and tear a hole in that which they touched--and there were five of them. One went off after the other, igniting and exploding, likely to rend a majority of these metals into shrapnel which was unlikely to stick to the gathered form, and lurch out in all directions--multiple traps used to turn a large object into a veritable grenade, and a fairly large grenade at that. Crimson was fortunate to be behind cover by that point.

These were just traps, though. They had no practical use in any other situation--excepting these. Usually, were someone to step upon one so cleverly buried under the ground, the catastrophic effect would rend the individual legless, and depending upon a shrapnel situation and/or positioning, potentially both legs. These items were amazing for stopping approaching foes, but they had to be set, and Crimson hadn't the opportunity to set them here. They had no practical use as thrown explosives, nonetheless. Unless the heathen were drawing metal, he'd not have to worry about such items . . .

(OOC: No problem babygirl.)

The explosions, pitted so near the very foundation of the building that the hovering mote of might had chosen to be its pedestal, so rocked the infrastructure and brought it crumbling to its knees with such expedience that not even the tearing of its metal frame could bring. Swift, destruction had come to it. But alas, the star and its many adamantine satellites proved stoic and unshaken. Had the fiery detonation caught the debris mid-stride, it might have been able to shake it off course, but when attached to its center, whatever had reached that far was there to say.

The explosions did not go unheeded, however. The nails and pieces of railing and metal bearings or what have you that had found their way there were moved; they shot out, some even bore through wall or ground, but the magnetic pull, acting the part of a mother in this case, did not let her children stray far nor stay out too long. Soon enough, without even a hope of reaching the heathen who was resting on the other side of the building, they were one cohesive unit once again.

The metal sphere began to rise, yearning more and more to scrape against the sky, and at that precise moment, the white-haired heathen had lost himself in a destitute alleyway. There, and nowhere else, one could hear the sizzling of flesh being cooked and smell the scent that soon followed. He did not grown, did not even mutter, as he pressed a brightly glowing, burning hand into his wounds to stop the bleeding. There, he regarded his blade, and mused on how immaculate it remained regardless of how much blood it had been stained with. On a level that eyes could not see and hands could not yet feel, the blade began to vibrate.

“It’s time.”

Blight of the Morning Star.

A very precisely measured half of the total mass, which would yield grossly disproportional fusillades as larger things had a tendency to weigh more than smaller things, were leveled against the single living creature in this town large enough to be a man. The items (railings, nails, nuts, bolts, screws, along with two familiar and very sharp scalpels) were jettisoned at Crimson wholly and with a speed that the previous draw simply could not match. Behind the star, the air was vented and horribly perforated due to the recoil of the attack, cutting clean tunnels through the dust that the destruction of the buildings had wrought.

The metal rain would leave Crimson filled with more holes than a slice of Swiss cheese served up by a guy with OCD and a fascination with the number fifty.

Crimson, sitting behind the cover of the stone wall, however minimal it was, was somewhat protected. He figured as much, at least. The structure was in as bad of shape as the last he had taken cover in--shelled out, barely clinging to tangible form. For the time being, it would have to suffice, and it would. Steel, iron, and all sorts of other metals deflected off course upon striking the outside of the bombed out residence, focused upon the wall behind which Crimson sat.

Unfortunately, it could only last for so long.

Not realizing this, Crimson took to preparing for the next onslaught. Against supernatural powers like this, he was going to require something artsy. Brute force strength obviously wasn't going to work; something irregular and difficult to predict, on the other hand, may prove far more effective against the heathen. Truthfully, Crimson didn't know if this was true or not. He simply understood the concept of experimentation. If his base tactic didn't work, then he had to try something with a completely different approach. It was a reduction in power, but he could live with that.

Shell casings were discarded when the chamber was ejected from his revolver, smoking frames left as a reminder of his existence. The same ammunition was not replaced, though. Instead, Crimson had searched within his coat for something different--the same size, but the design was completely different. These shots, not crafted out of lead, were much lighter than the lead ammunition. The effects against solid surfaces were going to be interesting, to say the least . . .

It was as soon as he had the chamber cocked back into the revolver that he realized his new appendage: a fork jammed into the back of his left hand. The wall was giving way, stone was eroding and blasting away, leaving holes of vulnerability. This spot wouldn't do anymore.

Without a second thought, Crimson had spun around, and made off into a dash within the structure. A window ahead lead straight into a gap between houses, where another window awaited. Holes were blasted into the stone walls, and as Crimson ran headlong for what appeared to be a sandblasted kitchen, he had a steady stream of utensils and hardware smothering the structure, tearing holes and spewing forth dirt and dust behind Crimson's every step. It was a close call, truly, as the slew of metals could very well be as lethal as a firearm.

Enacting his escape plan, the man kicked forward, shoulder first into the wide window, instantly shattering the glass--cutting himself, even, but of inconsequential damage. The narrow gap had been effectively ignored, too, as Crimson had leaped in an angle to hit both windows, breaking through the glass into the adjacent structure's former living room, love seat, couch, coffee table set, and all. Crimson landed shoulder first and rolled to a stop. This structure was much more stable, at least . . .