Complete Private Western Brisshal Fearless

[Lune]

The block attempt was quick, but the angle was probably too awkward that the blade was easily knocked aside, allowing her to slash his thigh and quickly heal the cut in succession.

"Okay, this is fucked up. I'm not participating in this!"

Is this really fucked up? Yes. Were there any other alternatives? A lot. But this was the fastest and most efficient way to jog up that muscle memory. That and solving Ash's ghost problem at the same time. The man displayed every swordsmanship technique available like swift, proper distancing footwork and blocking but without the attacks.

You know, the most important reason why people wield swords? Slashes and thrusts?

Small strikes won't be enough. She needed to appear more as a threat, something that Ash could legitimately fight back as the only means to stop her. Even though she had to up the stakes. Gripping the sword with both hands, Lune stomped on the ground.

And speaking of which.

"Stay out,"

There it was.

"Will you act or are you gonna let them?" The woman provoked.

And then, she quickly leaped forward rushing, coming in with another two-handed overhead slash, dropping her guard completely and aiming for his shoulder. The movement combined with the stare made it seem like she was not playing around.

"Choose, Ash. Take control."

@Ash Vargold

 

[Ash Vargold]

Ash growled as yet another another wound was inflicted and healed. A growing part of him, separate from the fear, was feeling insulted. Lune was pushing him into a corner, ignoring his words in pursuit of some kind of therapy by combat.

"You can't keep that up forever. And you don't get anything out of killing me."

Auto-assist was a detriment to most high-level players. Its attacks were rigid and its tells were obvious to anything with intelligence. But for everything it automated, there were just as many things it didn't.

When to strike and when to feint. When to block and when to dodge. How much space was safe, and when he could risk closing the distance to strike at a revealed weakness. Ash, for better or worse, had learned how to play a different game entirely from what Lune was now trying to teach him.

Ash raised his guard to block Lune's swing. Metal scraped against metal as he shifted his blade's angle in an attempt to bind it against its hilt. He sighted the opening left by the wild slash. Instinct processed the information - was this a true opening, or was he being baited? - and returned its response.

Ash pressed forward, using his weight and height in an attempt to break the bind and push Lune back. Aimed differently, the sword would have come close to slicing toward her torso - as it was, it was more about the threat, an attempt to make space. But it was Ash's first aggressive move in this duel, and in that one attack his problem was made clear.

Ash had learned how to start an attack. There was nothing wrong with his form or his instinct. It would have been more than enough to let Auto-assist carry the attack through.

"This is me taking control, by not playing your stupid game!"

And because of that, Ash had never learned how to finish it himself.

@Lune​

 

[Lune]

"Yes, I can." There was no necessity to kill him in a training-slash-torture anyway, the pain and exhaustion would eventually be threatening enough.

The swordswoman was quite surprised when Ash opted to trap her blade close to his sword's hilt, before quickly pushing her back. With her guard up high, the torso was exposed, and she fully expected the follow-up attack.

Finally?

No.

She expected a painful strike coming from a great start-up. Instead, the sword barely cuts her, only managing to do clothing damage and a shallow cut on her upper abdominal area. Lune was baffled after experiencing the same thing that happened to the makeshift dummy doll. The wound closed in no time, indicating how minor the injury was.

"A game?" She exhaled, disappointment painted all over her face. "A matter of life and death is not a game. I do not take pleasure from this in the slightest." The woman shook her head slightly, sticking her sword into the ground before slowly walking to her right.

Inching closer and closer to the embedded great cleaver. That's right, the big one. "Last year, the magia were taken control, destroying cities and killing innocents." With one motion, she pulled it out of the ground, wielding it with one hand.

"Would you just hesitate because they look like us? Rely on a system that conveniently turns off anytime it wants like auto-assist, logging out, and pain inhibitor?" He chose not to let the ghosts interfere. But with that comes the responsibility of Ash having to take matters into his own hands.

Now, distance was not going to be a problem. She dashed and prepared an upward swing.

"Finish things that you start. Your attacks, put intent behind it."

@Ash Vargold

 

[Ash Vargold]

"Hesitating means I still remember none of this is normal."

Ash kept pulling back - the point of his attack had been spacing rather than damage, after all. A chance to catch his breath, to recenter himself as the rattle of his heartbeat in his ears threatened to drown out Lune's voice, that cursed rhythm reminding him that he was

alone.​

He had no strength from allies, and the chill of the dead were no comfort. Lune was... well she was fucking crazy, wasn't she? Was this really the same woman Aisling had met at a company party, that once-rising musical star that joked easily with Brian?

This is what Terrasphere does to people.

A murmur of instinct scraped through his mind as Lune reached for her cleaver. He knew the words and feelings that would call the dead to snatch the blade out of her reach, knew that not all the fear roiling in his skull was his

alone​

but he wouldn't let them win.

What Ash had studied assumed both fighters wielded weapons of the same shape and size. Defending against a giant fucking cleaver wasn't included, because no one in real life would ever use one. He stepped back, mind whirling, do I block this can I dodge this all of you just leave me

alone.

​

The step wasn't big enough. The block wasn't strong enough. Lune's cleaver swung neatly upwards across Ash's chest, slicing neatly through flesh and cloth both. Red stained green as he staggered backwards, clutching at the bleeding gash

and the blood-red eye peering out from within it.​

But Lune only had a moment to see it before Ash, deafened by the dissonant rhythm of his heart, rose up with a strangled growl and lunged, the point of his sword aimed for her stomach.

@Lune​

 

[Lune]

The big cleaver looked extremely deadly, but of course she wasn't trying to split people open at the moment, making sure to pull her attacks to only hit with the point or the shallow edge. It has reach, and normal swords wouldn't be able to block it, so she half-expected Ash to sidestep and counterattack.

The upward slash connected, with Lune pulling at the last second to ensure any inflicted injury wouldn't be fatal. Her left hand quickly reached forward, intending to quickly close the wound that she just inflicted before she noticed something weird during the split-second. Beyond the bloody, vertical gash that she created on his chest, an eye, staring at her.

"... What?" She murmured under her breath. The next moment, a growl came out of Ash, and she wasn't prepared for the attack that came so fast and sudden.

Too late, no room to sidestep, no time to block. Lune tossed the cleaver away and braced, trying to harden her skin as fast as possible.

The pain in her chest grew as she could feel cold steel pierce her stomach, slightly to the left. The whole blade made it through, prompting Lune to use both of her hands to hold Ash's sword arm and hand tightly to prevent more damage such as pulling the sword off.

"What... did I just awaken?" Heavily breathing and blood coming out of her mouth, she asked Ash while half-joking, hoping that he would snap out of it. "Seems worse than the ghosts." It seemed familiar somehow, a nightmare she had seen before in Freya's memories.

@Ash Vargold

 

[Ash Vargold]

Th-thump, th-th-ththth-

Ash's stare was blank, seeing something other than the sword in Lune's gut or the blood leaking from her mouth. He was back there, drowning in sea-salt scented darkness and acid and fire and screaming and

alone.​

...wakeupwakeupwakeup...

He wasn't going to die. Not here, not again! And if Lune wouldn't leave him

alone​

then he would just have to make her. She'd made it more than clear that she wouldn't listen to him...

"You want me to finish things? Play by Terrasphere's rules? Then let's start with you."

The single red eye rolled towards Lune, as if it had carved a socket into the man's chest. Ash moved, trying at first to pull the sword free. When that failed, he instead threw his weight forward, trying to use height and weight to destabilize her and knock her to the ground, where he could... he could...

@Lune​

 

[Lune]

She managed to stop the caenis from pulling the sword out, but now they both were kind of stuck in a stalemate while Lune was trying to figure out what was exactly happening.

Her eyes traveled downwards, stopping at the nightmarish crimson gaze staring right at her from the inside of Ash's chest. Distracted, the woman was taken aback when the man instead was pushing towards her, using his body weight to bring her down.

"Crap,"

With the steel blade still embedded in her stomach, the woman lost her footing and was forced onto the ground, still gripping both of the raging beastfolk's wrists tightly. "You gotta wake up, Ash..." She could feel the thumping of the magical steel shard inside her chest, trying to fight back against the other steel, threatening to burst forward out.

A lot of things came into her mind, but her first priority was to snap Ash out of whatever this state was really quick. With both hands occupied trying to not get ripped apart, she still had her go-to magic conductor; her voice.

Channeling her Harmonic Magic, she unleashed a shout carrying Astramancy gravity blast aimed point-blank at Ash with the intent of pushing him away into the air as she let go of his wrists and gripped the sword instead.

"Wake... UP!!!"

@Ash Vargold

 

[Ash Vargold]

"I said that I didn't want to do this, but no one ever listens to me." Ash continued to keep up the pressure, his own gaze blank as the red eye continued to dart in its socket. Now that he had Lune pinned, that meant he could...

he could...

"WAKE UP!!!"

Ash had no way to defend against Lune's point blank attack. His grip slipped off the hilt of the longsword as he was knocked aside and sent rolling across the forest floor. There was a thump as he knocked into a tree, followed by a pained hiss as he clutched at his head-

whatamidoingineedtogetout

-and for a moment, Ash's thoughts broke past the roar of his heart.

It smelled like blood. He smelled like blood. The spirits were in a frenzy of fear. There was no darkness or acid or dying players-

Wait, no-

There was the one he'd just run his fucking sword through.

"What did I...?"

Something was wrong. Wrong with him. He raised a hand to his chest and briefly brushed the surface of the eye squirming there, and paled. "Nononono...."

He had to get out.

The dead continued to whirl and fret as Ash struggled with his shaking hands to open the palm menu. Was it... was it flickering? No, no, it couldn't be, there was no Dissonance here, the thing in his chest was something different.

The UI was fine. The log-in button was there. Just beyond it he could see Lune, still skewered through, in need of help but-

"I'm sorry."

-he pressed the button, and vanished.

@Lune​

 

[Lune]

The force sent Ash flying, rolling on the grass before stopping as he hit a big tree hard. The woman quickly examined whether he snapped out of whatever condition was he in before.

And it worked, it definitely wasn't the same tone as when that strange eye stared at her. Lune quickly tried to calm him down while still immobile on the ground.

"Deep breaths...Take it easy..."

Ash quickly opened his palm menu, before pushing the logout button shortly.

"I'm sorry."

And just like that, the beastfolk disappeared. Well, that didn't work out at all. Baffled, Lune just rested her head on the grassy soil. "Crap. I messed up, didn't I?"

She looked down to her abdomen, where a sword was still impaling her onto the ground, albeit non-fatally for an enhanced human like herself. Sighing, she decided to just lay on the dirt for a while, until at least she felt less like a shit for what just happened.

@Ash Vargold