Gears of Survival — Episode #4 — like the flipping of a card

(inspired by a Table-top Roleplaying Game i’m currently enjoying with my friends)

He leaned against the trunk and sighed heavily, hoping his heaving wouldn’t reveal his position.

Goddamn you, Penelope!

She wasn’t bluffing when she wrote she would deal with him personally. Now he sure had no doubt. Not that he had ever underestimated her. But something deep down had kept telling him to hope, due to their past friendship, if for no other reason.

Now she was here, a few yards across the trees on the soaked battlefield; riding a massive robotic beast and leading a party of Bulls. Any hope of her redemption: gone.

You’ve joined the Bulls, Penelope, the frickin’ Bulls!

He bit his lips, closed his eyes, and listened to the pounding rain. His stealth skills were unmatched, and there was always that ‘other’ Talent should worse come to worst. He inhaled deeply and dared to shift slightly in order to peep behind his shoulders.

The battle raged beyond the trees, the raing grew heavier. His comrades had found their courage and were fighting the red-cloaked Bulls like there was no tomorrow. Juliano felt guilt gnawing at his soul. This was after all his fight. They were risking their skin because of him, if not for him. He tried to spot Charlotte in the rampant clash of metal against steel, amidst the blasts of explosives and shouts of glory against cries of pain.

All he saw was one of the bandits running wildly towards his direction. Poor folks. These bandits, in their ruined tower of a dwelling, had become the Bulls’ targets just because of him too. All he could do was at least help one of them out of his ruin.

“Keep running,” whispered Juliano, making sure the chased bandit heard his voice coming from a different spot entirely.

He was never so sure, actually, of how his Talent worked out on his ‘targets’. Each brain seemed to conceive his Flows differently. Maybe it depended on how strong and resilient it was; not even Juliano wholly understood until he saw their reactions. This one bandit, for instance, halted only slightly at the sound of his voice, murmured some “what? where?” and obeyed the next moment.

With that danger cleared, Juliano let out a sigh of relief and leaned his head against the trunk then closed his eyes.

Face your bloody enemy, you coward!

He got up and turned, ever so leaning against the tree trunk as if he were stroking it. And there she was! Shouting and giving orders from that horrendous robotic beast. She held her tone like an empress, and the Red-cloaks on the grass obeyed with added vigor. Juliano shut his eyes once more and focused on her image, even though it struck at his heart like a stake.

“Penelope,” he whispered from behind the tree. “Why are you doing this?”

…. Juliano kept his eyes shut and reached for the Flows within him.

“Penelope…” Penelope, Why?!!

If she was hearing him in her mind, she was doing a bloody good job at pretending she wasn’t.

“Goddamn you, Penelope.” And with that said, Juliano sped further towards the battlefield; moving stealthily from tree to bush, bush to tree. He preferred bricked walls and barricades, but could still do great with trees and leaves.

“Hold it right there, scum!”

Juliano stopped where he was, slightly crouching, and looked to his left. He lifted his left arm, closed his right eye, aimed, and pressed the trigger. It worked! His Tinkering wasn’t that bad after all — and Eyepatch’s mechanical engineering had indeed helped. The Bull was on the ground, his forehead pierced. But Juliano was already on the open battlefield: striding between this slash of a sword here, jumping behind that blast of gunfire there. The rain sure helped in concealing him, or tricking anyone’s eye into believing they had only just seen a spark or a reflection from the falling water.

Thunder struck, and Juliano thanked the heavens. But that wasn’t the end of his luck yet. Eyepatch had managed to bring the metallic bull on which Penelope stood with his mechanical explosions. She was Juliano’s for the taking.

“Penelope!” he yelled in the rain, letting go of whether anyone heard or spotted him any longer.

She raised her head to look at him, and a wild grin flashed across her beautiful face.

“Forget it,” said Juliano, stopping short of hand’s reach from her and aiming his armed bracer at her. As if you’re going to shoot her if she reaches for her weapon !

She straightened and look at him in the eye. Her eyes, so green! They seemed to shine depsite all this rain.

“Do it!” she said in a voice firmer than the sizzling rain and cries of battle around them.

“I’m not here to kill you, Penelope. Just tell me: why?”

Another smirk crossed her wet delicate face. “See Juliano”. She didn’t even seem to mind that he was aiming a knife at her. “That has always been your problem: you’re too hesitant.”

A puff of smoke. Juliano blinked. Penelope disappeared.

“No! NOOOO!!”

Crying and rummaging desperately through the white dust was all in vain. The rain soon vanquished it entirely, but Penelope was nowhere to be found. Hopelessness overwhelmed him. She had been right in front of him and…

How the hell did she do that? Why the hell…. “Penelope, come out!”

The others were looking at him. Eyepatch was covered in a blend of blood, sweat and… various dismembered body parts. To the contrary, Charlotte looked as clean as though she had just come out of a bath, save for her mouth which was bloody — something did appear odd about it though, as if she didn’t look to worried or hurt by it. Dark-eyes seemed quite intact and as composed as though he had only just been at a game of Pointers & Markers; with his weird bow hanging against his shoulders. Blackhawk had surely Turned; Juliano never imagined he would ever see a werewolf standing still and panting as if awaiting an order (actually, he had never believed he would ever see a werewolf, in the first place).

The rain eventually died out, as if signalling the time for capturing Penelope had also expired.

“She’s gone,” he murmured desperately, hands dangling and shoulders hunched.

“And so will we, unless someone has a plan on how to take all those.” Eyepatch was pointing at a fresh number of Red-cloaks ahead — Juliano noticed the man’s right arm was actually one piece of solid metal.

An army of around twenty Bulls were banging their unsheathed swords against each others’ and making threatening war cries that echoed on the field. Blackhawk growled back, and Juliano noticed Eyepatch grinning: the werewolf’s growl had indeed silenced the Bulls.

“Look out!” Charlotte hurled herself at Juliano.

The explosion deafened him as he felt Charlotte’s weight cut him off the ground and his breath leaving him. The taste of mud was worse than he ever imagined, and the way the world swirled as he and the she-elf tumbled over each other… well, he couldn’t deny he kind of somehow liked it.

“That growl may have stopped them from yelling.” Charlotte was already on her feet while Juliano’s world still seemed off-balance. “But it will hardly stop-”

Blackhawk didn’t let Charlotte finish. Juliano’s jaw dropped as from the corner of his eye he ‘saw’ the beast leaping forward into a swift jog which covered the yards between them and the line of Bulls faster than an Augutech bullet. The Bulls roared once more. A grenade was thrown at Blackhawk.

He grabbed that!

“Is he insane?!” Charlotte’s hands covered her gaping mouth and her eyes widened.

The werewolf growled once more, pressed the grenade in his fist against his chest and launched himself mightily into the astounded army of Bulls who had barely even started to scatter. Juliano didn’t bother to cover his ears or shut his eyes.

BANG !

Dust. Grass. Smoke. Silence.

… and a werewolf rising back on his feet with a growl that could have set Pravia in terror.

Juliano yelled as happily as when he had first been given a wooden toy back at the orphanage at the age of seven. His sounds of joy were shortly ridden over by Eyepatch and Charlotte’s cries of war as they sprinted into battle. The few Red-cloaks that remained — Juliano managed to count around eight to twelve — didn’t last too long against the military engineer’s shining sword of steel and the she-elf’s crippling rifle. Juliano managed to get back on his feet and deal some serious injuries too.

Fighting under pressure and soaked in fear was one thing. But like this… this was different! This was like the heroic battles he used to read about when he was still a lad: striking at the foe with such power and adrenaline while surrounded and encouraged by friends (yes, it might be about time he admitted that).

“No, I need you alive,” he whispered at one of the last surviving Bulls before he stealthily slashed at the lower part of his leg with his dagger. And you will be alone. Without your friends. “Your friends are dead, mate,’ he ended, dragging the Red-cloak down into wet filthy ground.

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