[Nexus] Riverside 14

[The Alexandrian]

[AMENside - Duel]

Hector and Clarissa are left alone in their war-torn little patch of AMENside. All alone but for the dead, the undead, and the redead. After Clarissa slows down his bullet and steps out of its trajectory, Hector returns it to normal time. The silver-haired assassin and recently retired godslayer has very good magical control over time. This is an established fact over in HALO, but of course there was no way for Clarissa to know that. So the demon goddess (I'm not certain what to even call her, but I guess I'll just keep throwing out names and epithets until something sticks) may be surprised by the bullet speeding up and zipping past her before she will release it. It's not enough to squarely hit her, as she did step aside, but perhaps it will graze her temple or crease her cheek before she can get completely out of the way. Perhaps it will leave an ugly red mark on her beautiful face. Perhaps it will serve as a reminder of the dangers of overconfidence. Perhaps if it cannot pierce her skull, it will pierce her condescending mask instead. Clarissa is about to get a fight that will be a great deal more equal than she expects.

Oh? "Grrr! You can not hope to defeat me, puny mortal! But, just for my own amusement, I will deign to handicap myself to give you a fair fight!" And I'm the cliched one? Hector tosses aside his rifle and draws two short swords. You're dealing with a professional now. You'd better bring your A-game.

[AMENside - Immortal Kombat!]

A mundane bullet pierce Clarissa's skull? Hah! I daresay nothing can pierce Clarissa's skull for how can something bore into nothing!

You see, Clarissa has no skull to act as either an object or a subject to any verb whatsoever! What use has an ooze for a skeletal structure (save nourishment, of course)?

Indeed, Clarissa is, for all intents and purposes, an ooze. No other creature is better suited to function as her vessel for a multiplicity of reasons which are not so relevant to this fight to be worthy of discourse at present beyond simple acknowledgement. Of course, there was no way for Hector to know that. It seems that both characters may have underestimated their respective opponent.

While the bullet does graze the substance forming the aesthetic facsimile of skin stretched taut (but not so taut as to be anything but fetching) over a regal cheekbone, it is about as wounding to Clarissa as one might expect given her body's nature. Not a drop of blood drips from her flesh and stains her fair "skin" red. After a moment of convalescence, she is as healthy as she was before the bullet parted her. Nevertheless, she is both visibly and vocally impressed by Hector's skill. A smile crosses her lips, a disturbing (and equally disturbed) smile befitting a feline that has cornered a new toy with which to play.

"Not bad. Not bad at all. Dishonorable, though. If anything, this minor scuffle of our's has damaged our street cred. You and your's have fought dirtier than I have for the entire duration of this skirmish!"

An amused Clarissa laughs! This was too much fun! HALO didn't seem to have an ounce of honor of which to speak! They even, much like Han in the famous revision, shot first!

Now is not the time for menacing laughter, however. Even as Clarissa laughs, she attempts to walk up to Hector, thereby closing the distance between the two. Her claymore's reach is quite a significant amount more than that of Hector's shortswords, I presume. Therefore, after she is within range, she'll attempt to gently poke at his midsection with the tip of her claymore, not that I imagine it'll connect being so slooooow, gentle, and telegraphed.

"Before we start slicing each other up, I do have a question for you, Benny-boy. You're with WATCH, correct? Since when were we considered a potentially apocalyptic threat? I mean, we didn't even mastermind this whole Riverside takeover fiasco. It was your agent who is responsible for this all of that pointless death and destruction, Kenobi, so if you're here to 'make us pay' for that event or something silly like that, either your org is playing you for a fool or there's something very, very wrong with your teensy-tiny brain."