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 Posted: Tue Nov 28, 2006 11:26 am
--------------------------- Never quite thinking about how large Morrigan's house was, Quint stood in front of it for a while, simply gawking in awe. She had asked before why the succubus had a need for all those rooms, but put that question to the side. Now Quint truly contemplated it, coming to the conclusion that maybe Morrigan threw a lot of parties what she wasn't around, needing those rooms for the people who are too wasted to leave. Again, the voice called to her, telling Quint to walk inside. Obeying, the massive wooden doors seemed to open effortlessly, courtesy of the near infinite bats that resided in the estate. Smiling, she began their favorite game: 'Fire Snuff'. Quint would conjure small balls of flame, and throw them across the room. The bats would quickly wrap themselves around the warm fire, then try to put it out as fast as possible. It was a fun exercise for both Quint and the bats, and always ended too soon. " Come...stairs.." Before throwing her last ball, Quint cocked her head to the sound only she heard, lazily tossing the 'toy' to a corner, where it was near instantly smothered. Strolling softly to the stairs, she couldn't help asking what exactly Rake did to her mind, which began to hurt from simple curiosity. " Room..end hall.." Pressing much distraction from her head pains to a side she didn't know she had, Quint began to climb the stairs, a single suite standing out above all the rest. Hands became clammy, breathing shallower. Why this feeling of hesitation filled her, she had no idea.. Now in front of the door, it seemed to be a lot larger than from down the hall. Even the doorknob looked larger, Quint placing both hands upon it. *Click* The door creaked open...
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Posted: Wed Nov 29, 2006 6:16 am
Inside the Master Bedroom, Aka Morrigan's Room, the air was quite stale. Months of not being lived in, plus the fact that the windows were all shut left the overall feeling of the room in a steady state. Lights were dim, but there wasn't much to see inside: A kept bed, a chair that sat facing away from the bed, dresser that had no clothes.
Quint squinted at these few items, one hand clenching a patch of hair. One foot walked in front of the other, they feeling like another force had control. Slowly, she properly sat down in the chair that sat in front of the succubus' bed, it feeling awkward. She looked around.
As far as she remembered, being in this room never happened before. However, there was another pecking at her mind, telling of another tale. Quint felt almost crazy when that voice became more prominent, telling her to turn around. She complied, giggling a bit as her breasts sat up on the back of the chair. Though there was just an empty bed in front of her, Quint could clearly see someone in it: Morrigan.
Wearing a business white undershirt with long red pants, Morrigan lied in the bed, her eyes peering through Quint's muddled psyche, uncrossing tangled wires. She asked 'Morrigan' with eyes believing, "...Is it really you?"
'Morrigan' shook her head sadly. "I'm sorry darling, but no." Before Quint could react, she resumed speaking. "Still, what happened to you Quint?"
Quint looked at a hand, it almost foreign to her now. "I...don't remember.." She went on to tell her everything she could actually remember about the past couple days, and how she couldn't recall anything before that.
Mouth agape, Morrigan looked to be welling up in the eyes. "Quint...there's something I want you to do. First, when was the last time you were home?"
Now sitting somewhat upright, "A long time ago, this I can say without lying." Quint laughed a little, keeping her mood high.
"Then go there. Figure yourself out. Act afterwards." 'Morrigan' smiled, then faded out, Quint's mental state now somewhat clearer.
Getting up from the chair, Quint, for the first time since her sister returned, felt like someone was with her. That feeling was assuring, and she left the room in the same condition, except for a chair that was now a bit warmer. Down the stairs, into the main hall, and to the door Quint walked, the wings on her back giving a quick cry of farewells to the other bats, they responding in kind. A warm breeze greeted Quint as she stepped out the door, but the welcome was ignored. Taking off in her usual fashion, she found herself on a second quest. Rake would have to wait, right now Quint had to fix what the daemon snapped into many pieces.
"I won't be long.." He grinned.
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Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2007 8:35 pm
Screeeh!!
Soft fluttering disrupted otherwise calm air, the troop of loaned bats returning to their temporary home. Quite tired and upset, the helpers' call alerted the other bats that resided, they opening the door.
Flooding in, a commotion arose, other bats screeching happily. Then it was time for stories, Quint's help telling of the few things that happened: Roan's mission, touching of Corbin's cars, excitement in being able to feed on a different platform. All of this excited Morrigan's servants, they wanting to know more. Quietly, the arrivals told that they too could be in on the fun. Getting a little louder with chirps, they guaranteed that noone would be alone again, mixing up food and something to do outside.
Silence as the swarm thought. It wouldn't be very loyal to Morrigan, but they would be with someone they thought she trusted, and would be back at the first sign of her arrival. Cooing amongst themselves, some came forward at first, followed then by the rest of the pack. Happily, Quint's bats asked the last stragglers to come. Declining, a few explained that they would wait for Morrigan, it showing she still had contact with her entire troop.
Estatic in the rate of approval, Quint's unit called out, adding the new squad of bats to his arsenal. Asking for final check, the guardian team formed, going for key points of the house to survey. A black mass of ever changing forms began out the door, throwing out a message to Quint of their return. Both Quint and his help hoped that the succubus wouldn't be too cross with them, with Quint needing the help, and her bats scratching to get out of the mansion.
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Posted: Tue Mar 27, 2007 12:25 am
Slapping himself from the past hour of searching, Quint ended his jog at Morrigan's mansion, still kicking himself for his retardation in not going to the most likely rendezvous point first. Before he could reach the front steps, what seemed to be a panic from inside the walls pushed upon the doors, a wide expansion of bats pouring out of the opening.
They embraced Quint, some performing their duties in assistance with flight as the others fluttered about, waiting for some sort of order. Morrigan's bats all shared a mental link as well as a sibling-like love for each other, they also adding to Quint's already decent mobility by packing tightly onto his arms and legs, moving in the same direction that Quint did. From now on, whenever Quint would make a motion, his bats would aid by making the action easier to do, and give him more power doing it.
However, this would drain his supply of energy a ton faster than mere flight did, so he'd never be able to use it often. Still, he was grateful.
"Nice of you to join." Quint thanked, testing out his new abilities with a quick hop..
..That turned into a leap that cleared Morrigan's home!
"This'll...take some work.." He muttered to himself, landing softly on the opposite side, breathing elevated. Examining his body, Quint walked around to the front, opening the doors. It was quiet inside, but he felt someone was there, and was mostly sure he wasn't still crazy..
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Posted: Tue Mar 27, 2007 7:50 am
Quint was quite right, for he was not yet going crazy. There was indeed someone inside Morrigan’s mansion, and that someone was Dante. Since the House of Babylon was still under construction and Morrigan had departed for her vacation, he had temporarily found himself homeless. That being the case, he had decided to stay in the room that Morrigan herself had provided him upon his first arrival to the island. It wasn’t a terrible arrangement to say the least either. He gave her bats company, and they kept him relative company.
Right now, specifically, he was sitting at the table in the dining room; an uncharacteristically annoyed expression written on his face. Ok then, uncharacteristic considering that neither Gatz nor Rio were present at the moment. The look was in part to the fact that someone had taken more than half of the bats, and therefore half of his company, away from him while he was out grocery shopping; and the other half was because what he had seconds before thought to be a simple teacup had suddenly grown wings and flew right out of his hand, soiling the crotch of his pants with Sake in the process.
Placing his hands firmly on the table, he rose from his seat and followed where the bat had gone. Morrigan was not yet back, he knew that beyond a shadow of a doubt. If she were, the bats would have most certainly have decorated the entire mansion for an event of such magnitude. Therefore, if not Morrigan, he was determined to meet whomever it was that seemed to be enjoying so dearly the thought of stealing his company and beat them until they were two or three feet shorter at least.
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Posted: Tue Mar 27, 2007 8:46 am
Stepping inside, Quint let his curiosity flow as he called out.
"Someone there? If there is, please come out!" He asked politely, wanting to catch the intruder with honey than vinegar.
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Posted: Tue Mar 27, 2007 12:10 pm
Dante had not even managed to clear half the distance between his chair and the doorway to the parlor before he heard the voice calling out. Since the last few times Quint had crossed his path the boy was in a female form, it was the furthest face from his mind as he tried to mentally connect the sound with a familiar person. Thus, upon failing to remember anyone who sounded like that he, ironically, determined the other person to be no less than an intruder himself. Perhaps even a thief of some sort or another.
As he continued his path towards the entrance, he paused at the doorway of the dining room. Due to the mansion’s unique floor plan, if he stood just right he could see whomever this person may be without revealing his position. Of course, since Quint’s back was currently towards him, he was unable to see a face. Good for Dante, bad for Quint. He slipped up against the wall adjacent to the door that he had just exited and moved closer to the person first by sliding his left foot towards his right, and then moving his right foot ahead just a bit, and repeating said action again and again until he was at the very corner of the wall. Doing so allowed him to silently sneak up behind the person for a surprise attack.
After waiting but a few moments, Dante sees an opening. He quietly slips up behind the ‘would be robber‘, not wanting him to know that he is there until it is too late. Once he is within striking distance, he loops his left arm under his victims left and wraps it upwards, folding his hand over behind the neck in a half nelson hold. He then uses his free arm to grab Quint’s left arm, pulling it up and across the face before locking both hands together behind Quint’s head. A more astute practitioner of submissions would recognize this to be nothing short of a ‘Cobra Clutch’.
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Posted: Tue Mar 27, 2007 2:31 pm
Taking a second, Quint knew that someone was around, but every sense except his sixth was still on stand-by, unaware of the threat just behind him..
Snatched from behind, Quint's shock disallowed him to resist what was going on, his left arm now double wrapped up by his captor. He struggled slightly, knowing that with each passing second was one closer to his unconsciousness. Breathing shallowly, Quint gasped out a few snarling words.
"You realize.." He began, taking another small breath, "That if I get out of this, you're dead." For some reason unknown to Quint, his bats refused to help him in this time of crisis. He would scold them later, but now his only priority was keeping oxygen flowing to his brain, he using his right arm to get underneath his assailant's, trying to give his neck a little bit of..breathing room.
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Posted: Wed Mar 28, 2007 4:08 am
Dante couldn’t help but smirk how easily he had caught the intruder. What sort of shoddy thief breaks into a place, calls out as though he knows someone is there, and allows themselves to be captured anyway. For whatever reason, the thought never once crossed his mind that his victim seemed to be unarmed. Perhaps he was just overused to inferior warriors and their overwhelming overconfidence.
“Then you must know then that I will continue this hold long after you pass out, until every one of your bodily functions shut down one by one.”
Dante responded to Quint's threat with a rather gruff tone, half from anger, half from the exertion of the hold. While he was speaking, he felt the first few attempts at resistance to the hold. His next course of action was to immediately tighten the grasp that his hands had on each other. Doing so resulted not only in the desired effect of more torque, but it caused Quint’s arm to slip down from in front of his face to being literally across his esophagus. Thus, it became less of a hold and more of a choke that would rob far more air at a faster rate.
While all of this was going on, Dante thought about what exactly to do next. There were several ways that he could make the hold even worse than it already was. The problem was in deciding exactly which variation to use. Would it even be wise to do so, or would modifying it any farther make it more complicated, and therefore easier to escape from?
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Posted: Wed Mar 28, 2007 8:58 am
Reflexively, Quint's eyes tightened, they seeming to want to pop out of their sockets. He ran through a couple of outcomes, all of which left him hapless to this man. That to him however was bull.
Gravity, the force that keeps a man down. If harnessed correctly, a person can carry or even throw someone much larger, and likely stronger. As his skull began to warm from the lack of oxygen, Quint hopped up and spun sideways just enough to send both men into a spiral that ended up with Quint on top of his enemy, still being choked. Though from here he had a bit more time before passing out, due to his blood not having to pump as hard to get to the brain.
His legs were always free, and he took the time to kick at the intruder's stomach. A second ago he would have went for the crotch, but he felt that it was more of a cheap shot, and decided against it.
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Posted: Wed Mar 28, 2007 9:47 am
For the most part Quint’s counter was a very good one, as he had caught Dante off guard with it. However there were two flaws; one that Quint did predict, and one he could not have been accounted for, especially considering that the lack of oxygen had dulled his brain somewhat. Obviously the one he had assumed would happen was that Dante had indeed maintained the hold despite the landing on his back with Quint’s full weight on his stomach as he hit the floor. However Quint could not have known Dante’s reaction to being thrown in such a manner. Finding himself in midair suddenly had caused Dante to tighten every muscle in his body to brace for the inevitable contact with the ground, save only his neck which he wisely tilted forwards to keep the back of his head from impacting which would have surely knocked him out. The problem in that for Quint is that Dante’s abdominal muscles were still fully tightened at the moment of the kick, so not only was pain avoided, but also loss of breath. In essence, Quint’s follow-up was all but useless.
As always, Dante’s mind was at work for the next move. It had taken him only seconds after hitting the floor to know what the proper recourse was. Immediately following the kick, he quickly wrapped his legs around Quint’s midsection in a grapevine-like maneuver and began to squeeze. Not only did Dante intend to force all of the air out of Quint‘s lungs prematurely with his pelvis bone and legs, but it also served to take away any offense that Quint could manage with his entire lower body. A wise move, to say the least, as this left Quint with nothing but his right arm free and only precious seconds left before the inevitable.
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Posted: Wed Mar 28, 2007 9:57 am
Around this time, with options being voiced over by pleads of air from a body, some people panic. However, even hanging on by a string, Quint managed to keep it together, his right arm, while useless in prying his neck free, was able to reach the ground.
From beneath both fighters, the ground rumbled, and from the tile floor a pair of thorny vines shot up, pausing before wrapping themselves around that attacker's arms, trying to pull Quint's neck free. With their struggle, jagged thorns cut into the man's skin, it hopefully somewhat human, he feeling a deep pain throughout his arm. Quint could see the darkness cause his vision to tunnel, not sure if his half-thought up idea would work.
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Posted: Wed Mar 28, 2007 10:27 am
Prior to the appearance of the vines, Dante had felt that his victory was assured. Quint, though he still wasn’t aware that it was Quint, was fading fast in his arms and his options were limited. Now however, he found himself desperately trying to maintain his grip with all of the vines pulling against him. He may have seemed to have been winning the struggle with what appeared to him to be a living plant at first, but the vines seemed to have far more endurance that his limbs. His attempts to maintain the hold were frustrated further by the sharp barbs that ripping his clothes and penetrated his skin, his bright green blood leaking from the many cuts and scrapes …. wait a second. Green?
But for Dante there was a bright light at the end of the tunnel. Morrigan’s bats, though they had stayed neutral for the entirety of the fight thus far, saw the vines that ripped through Morrigan’s flooring as a direct threat to their mistress’ property. True, they knew Quint had summoned them well enough, but it was pointless for them to attack him in response at this point. Instead they attacked the moments’ most dire threat: the vines themselves. In a flurry of black wings and bodies, they engulfed the green masses, devouring every last vine, spikes or no spikes. Though it was not their intention to help Quint against Dante or vise-versa, it could not be ignored that they had more or less sealed Quint’s fate. Just chalk it up to them being more loyal to Morrigan that to either of her suitors.
Meanwhile, with the vines out of the way, Dante continued and for that matter doubled his efforts. He couldn’t chance leaving another opening like that, for it was certain that the bat’s ‘help’ was a fluke and certain not to happen again. He could tell he didn’t have much longer to hold on until his victory, and then he could tend to the intruder’s punishment and the bats could begin to clean up the mess that had been made.
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Posted: Wed Mar 28, 2007 10:45 am
Appearance of the vines to Quint sent a victory rally through his body, they providing a brief relief from the strangle, much needed air oxygenating his blood. Just starting to move his free arm again, his eyes widened at what he could see happening, but didn't believe.
Morrigan's bats, seeing the vines as a direct threat, chewed at and ate the thorny wraps that held Quint's captor, freeing his arms from what could have been a march in another direction. As his assailant's arms wrapped once again around Quint's neck, all he could think of was how he was truly betrayed by 'his' bats, even though it wasn't completely their fault. Specks of light came to his eyes, arms gave out one last struggle to break free, but that was for naught. Quickly his body softened, arms giving in. Quint was now completely knocked out, yet he could still feel his heartbeat, fearful at the fact of it then slowing..
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Posted: Thu Mar 29, 2007 4:23 pm
.: Dante, MUST you kill ALL the help I manage to get before I get around to it myself? :.
*The sardonic voice in Dante's head could belong to only one person in the whole world, and the fact it even voiced itself here, led to the obvious question of whether its owner was actually present or not, or merely enjoying another of her frequent and warped games... or prehaps that there was some point to this.
Somehow, the voice even managed to convey the fact that its absent owner was smoking.*
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