NIGHT 64: MEDICAL WING HALL

[envy_the_sinners]

_{[From here]}

Looking around, Scar wasn't quite sure what to expect upon this returning visit to the medical wing. It was silent, for now. Scar shined his light around each corner as he moved silently through the room, ready for something to jump out at him at any moment. He wasn't sure of what to expect, but he held his scalpel at the ready with his free hand. It was feeble protection at best, but Scar was a sitting duck without his alchemic arm.

He still wasn't sure if he would actually want it back, though.

Comments

[complicatedliar]

For a moment, Loki was torn. He had a job to do, of course. It was non-negotiable. But the group had split, and he still had his autonomy on this. He could choose which part of the group was the greatest threat, which needed more than illusions and required bloodletting.

Loki didn't particularly relish attacking women, and he regarded Castiel as, while not necessarily a friend, something approaching it.

So he rationalized that decision with the last bit of free will he had: even though Rapunzel and Castiel were the weakest link in this chain. Kratos was a far greater threat, after all. And, in Loki's opinion, likely needed to be taken down a peg. He might as well see about wounding the man, since Flynn was still inconsequential and could easily be taken down again if he got stroppy.

Unseen, he moved along behind the two remaining men, calling a dagger into each hand. Simultaneously, he snapped the two daggers at the men with inhuman speed, one for each. As always, he aimed for strikes that would disable, aiming for the legs.

[forsworn]

Kratos watched with a sense of satisfaction as Rapunzel took off down the hall, dragging Castiel along with her. In a way, this was the best possible solution. Even though he'd been hiding it, he was still recovering from last night's adventure, and with his angelic form so severely limited, there wasn't much he could do against an opponent like Lingormr, who wielded supernatural powers of his own.

So, now it was a test to see who would last longer: him, or the night. He could count Eugene too, but it was likely that Lingormr would focus his efforts more on the man who could still do something, as little as that something was.

Something whistled through the air - another knife, Kratos realized dully, as he attempted to side step. Lingormr's arm was faster, though, and the blade cut through the back of his calf. With a grunt of pain, he stumbled forward a step, but managed to stay on his feet. The cut wasn't deep enough that he couldn't put any weight on the injured leg, but it would certainly be harder to move--normally, not an issue, but it was different when his opponent was capable of invisibility and thus could attack with hardly any warning.

Even so, he wasn't ready to give up just yet. He'd sustained many leg injuries in his life and fought through most of them; he would do the same until he absolutely couldn't stand anymore. In one fluid motion, Kratos pivoted on his good foot and swung his sword down through a wide arc, directing the resulting shockwave back in the direction the knife had come from.

[brokensmolder]

Eugene's heart was hammering in his throat for the few tense seconds it took Rapunzel to charge one of the not-Lingomrs, collect Castiel, and disappear through a doorway further down the hall. It could have gone so badly...but it hadn't. Rapunzel was out of harm's way, for now. And that just left him and Kratos.

And Lingomr.

Suddenly, there was another flash of metal and Eugene fell heavily onto his now twice-wounded leg, bleeding from both the new gash in his calf and the reopened on in his thigh. "T-this just isn't my day," he hissed through teeth gritted against the pain. "What's it with you and legs, anyway?" He felt weak and shaky, and even without trying he knew he wouldn't be able to stand without help, much less fight, but he held onto that frying pan anyway. Kratos was off doing something fancy with a sword, and the that Eugene could do was bang some illusory shins to back him up.

[complicatedliar]

Loki had already begun to move the moment he'd thrown the daggers. He expected Kratos to be a canny opponent, after the quick way the man had reacted at the beginning of the attack, and because of the impression he'd gotten previously during the night they'd gone to the medical wing.

He wasn't quite expecting the shockwave, however.

The concussive force of the wave threw him back into the wall and he hit with a resounding crack. The shock of it was enough to break his concentration. All of the illusions temporarily shattered, leaving only him and all of the blood on the floor visible.

"Ah..." he wheezed, then started chuckling. Loki pulled himself away from the dent he'd made in the wall, cracks radiating out from the impact point. He was sore and winded, one of his ribs twinging in a familiar and unpleasant way. But he'd gotten far worse from Thor, who packed a much nastier kind of shockwave. "Excellent trick, Kratos. I've some more of my own; pity I'm not allowed to use them."

He called the daggers back to his hands, catching them with a practiced motion, spinning them idly. Even as he did so, he dropped an illusion around himself, telling it to multiply and moved quickly to the side. A moving target, after all, was much harder to hit.

Thor might have taken this as some invitation for an epic clash, a great battle between warriors. Loki was not his false brother in any way. He had no desire to make this a play at war; he simply took from it the lesson that he would have to treat Kratos with more caution.

[forsworn]

"I thought you deserved at least one; it seemed only fair." To be honest, Kratos hadn't been expecting the shockwave either--as in, expecting it to hit. It was instinct to retaliate as quickly as possible, and he'd just gone with the option that made the most sense given his mobility and positioning.

Thus, he couldn't help but smile inwardly at this very small and petty victory, despite its cost: he was still on guard, sword raised, but already, his arms were beginning to ache--his injured one, especially--and his breath was starting to come short and fast. The damage from last night was only compounding the fatigue that came with the use of his mana, and with the injury to his leg, things were just adding up. They needed to escape this fight before it escalated any further.

Kratos glanced down at Flynn. "I'm sorry; I can do something about your leg, but not with my hands tied like this. I'll have to ask you to hold on for just a bit longer." How much longer, he couldn't say. They were back to multiple Lingormrs popping up in a dizzying sort of way, and there was no way he could launch another attack of the previous one's magnitude, not if he wanted to heal Flynn later.