confronting Evandau

[gistful]

Characters: Evandau, Anton, Hawke, Septimus, whole bunch of others
Date: August 28th, 2014
Location: The Midnight Hotel, may move to outside one of its entrances in one of the five sectors
Situation: It’s time to confront Evandau.
Warnings/Rating: Probable violence, will update accordingly.

By the time Hawke calls Evandau out, the Hotel is as prepared as it’s possible to be. The radio set has been brought in so they can communicate with the teams outside using the portable WWII handset Akito jerry-rigged. Anton has warned the gang-kedan, particularly the Dust-user and distributers, most of whom are hiding upstairs. The commons aside from the lobby have their doors closed; judging by the rowdiness in the living-room still filtering through the door, ‘noise pollution’ is the going excuse. Anton wants his current patrons as protected as they can be, which is why he encouraged a couple of those present to guard the stairs up.

There are a fair few people in the lobby, which isn’t unexpected, but Anton has warned each and every one of them about the Hotel rules and the fact that, if any of them jumps the gun, he will be forced to defend Evandau. Nothing would ruin the plan more than Anton being obliged to stand up against those with whom he would rather be allies. He doesn’t know most of them, but it’s clear that they’re friends of others who are in on the plan; the only person who worries him is Wreath, sitting quietly in a corner behind the entrance.

Anton himself is behind the reception desk, going through his ledgers and waiting quietly for Evandau to arrive, and keeping Daisy the shotgun close at hand under the counter. Just in case.

Comments

[Water]

[skeletonenigma]

Skulduggery had been watching the group of eleven people outside the Water Sector entrance from the moment he realised they were a group, rather than just innocent bystanders who happened to be clumped together. Despite his disguise, he really wasn't surprised when they stepped forward and attacked.

He was surprised when some of the weapons were black.

The odds were terrible, and none of the kedan cultists were even hesitating. It afforded very little opportunity to ask them exactly why they were attacking. Skulduggery chalked that unfortunate fact up as their loss, and went immediately for the nearest one, intending to take their blackened dagger from them.

[ironwood]

The man Skillduggery attacks doesn't seem to be surprised or worried- he doesn't even move. As if getting the man closer was the very point of this whole endeavor. He waits for the attack, ready to strike back-

Except he never does. Instead, Skullduggery will find himself being attacked by three of the other Kedan: one makes an unnatural jump to his back, her legs obviously having been shapeshifted for that very purpose. Another two Kedan simply run at him from his left and right side respectively. The female Kedan has a rope, the two male Kedan attacking him both have black, soaked-looking daggers.

[skeletonenigma]

That makes it difficult to focus on the first dagger. Skulduggery is forced to improvise, pulled backwards by the kedan on his back the way he is. He reels backwards, drawing the other two attackers in, and then he thrusts his hands out, blasting all three of them away with an abrupt wall of air.

It gives him enough of a reprieve that Skulduggery can draw his revolver, and he whirls to empty the bullets into any of the cultists who come too close.

[ironwood]

The wall of air hits them, throwing them to the floor. Even though they don't seem to mind pain at all the shock still makes them pause for a moment, probably giving Skullduggery time to think and act.

Nearby, one of the cultists reveals yet another weapon: a bow and an arrow. The arrow's tip is completely black, and it's now being pointed straight at him.

[skeletonenigma]

Bows and arrows are enough of a relic of the past that Skulduggery isn't watching out for them. By the time he sees the arrow being pointed straight at him, the arrow's been let loose, and it's all he can do to knock it slightly off-course with the air before the tip nicks one of his ribs on its path through him.

The resulting pain is enough to break the illusion giving Skulduggery his disguise, and the disguise drops. He curls inward briefly with a sharp cry, then straightens and fires with unerring accuracy into the cultist's leg before stumbling backwards.

That hurt.

He has an ace up his sleeve, but he can't use it while other Foreigners are there. That only leaves him a few options. With the revolver still in hand, Skulduggery speaks quickly before the kedan can resume their attack. "If you'd like to surrender," he says, "now is the time."

He doesn't expect a response.

[ironwood]

And he doesn't get one.

Instead, he's shown them a slight weakness, so soon the archers take their places in the first line. The cultists he's hurt with the fire crawls away, as if actually worried he'll get in the way of his comrades. All of the arrows have pitch black tips, and all of them are being shot at once towards various parts of Skulduggery's body.

They restock the arrows quickly, ready to shoot again.

[skeletonenigma]

Well, that's one option down. Skulduggery still has fairly high hopes of resolving this without killing anyone, but discounting violence seems to be out of the question. Fair enough.

In the single spare moment he has, Skulduggery takes stock. There are more Foreigners fighting back than there were before the attack, which is good. Hawke is nearby, holding his own. That's all Skulduggery has time to see before the arrows fly.

It's difficult to catch Skulduggery off-guard twice, and even more so using the same technique. None of these arrows reach their mark. They all shudder to a stop in air solid enough to hold them in place, and then they all fall to the ground as one the moment Skulduggery releases the air. He drops and slams the ground with both palms to send an unbalancing quake underneath the archers' feet; then he rushes forward to meet the first one head-on the moment she recovers.

[ironwood]

The moment the arrows didn't hit their target they discarded their arrows, so when Skulduggery attacks them they were ready for retreat. The quake under their feet unbalances them and makes them fall to their knees so they don't get the time for that before he's on them. Some of them seem to have a knife ready to use as a secondary weapon, the woman he jumped to attack among them.

She lashes out- blindly, it's obvious she isn't used to fight with a short-range weapon. But she doesn't need expertise, she just needs a little tiny scar, a little way for the poison to get in...

[skeletonenigma]

Being brainwashed doesn't lead automatically to expert fighting skills, which the woman is hopefully learning quickly. Dodging the knife's blind lashes is easy enough. Unbalancing her is a little harder, but Skulduggery tries anyway, getting in under the arm holding the knife and twisting into her hips to throw her to the ground.

[ironwood]

It works rather easily, and Skulduggery will probably be able to tell the woman has obviously only been trained in a very basic way, if anything at all. But the thing is: she isn't alone. She was the first one to attack him because she had been the one he had attacked.

As he's busy with that particular cultist another Kedan jumps impossibly high to then fall down on Skulduggery's back, trying to stab him right between his shoulder blades.

[skeletonenigma]

Skulduggery feels the shift of the air above him just in time to move forward, although a little late to dodge the cultist entirely. The knife misses his shoulder blades and mercifully misses the middle of his spine as well. It may have nicked another rib on its path through his ribcage, but Skulduggery chooses to believe that the lack of pain is because it hasn't, rather than because the earlier near-miss is numbing him to pain entirely.

If he falls forward, the Kedan will have the advantage, and he'll lose entire bones. Best to avoid that. Skulduggery instead launches himself into the air and flips over in the hope that the sudden momentum will be enough to dislodge the cultist. If it isn't, he's making a grab for the knife at the same time.

[ironwood]

The cultist doesn't even attempt to keep holding on: the knife has done its job. They can't be sure if the poison will work in this magical foreigner, but the kedan decieds he can't lose valuable time by waiting to see if it works out or trying to spread more poison.

She jumps away, leaving the knife behind. And Skulduggery will find the cultists have lost interest in him completely. They will attack him if he gets in their way, but now that he's been already wounded they need to focus on those who aren't.

[skeletonenigma]

Skulduggery's back on his feet before he notices that no one's trying to attack him anymore. Since situations like these are usually feints, he takes another few seconds to be absolutely sure he's in the clear, and then moves off to help those Foreigners who haven't been quite so lucky.

He doesn't get very far before he hears Anton's voice booming from the Hotel entrance, sounding the retreat. It forces him to change tactics, helping people make it safely back into the Hotel rather than stand their ground and fight the cultists off. If anyone asks, he tells them Anton is built for fighting alone against impossible odds.