FMH: Everything ~ Twenty-Five

- Luke -

“This is more like it.” The Murderhobo looked on approvingly as the enemy forces put themselves in nice, neat rows, packed densely together so that they could try and diffuse the force of any heavy weapons coming their way. He knew that it wouldn't help them against him, but there was no possible way that they could know it. Patience had never been his forte; it always confused him when people would say such pithy sayings as ‘good things come to those who wait’. In his experience, standing around doing nothing was a good way to be killed.

Even so, he wanted to know what Taylor was planning. Over the next few minutes, he saw her surgically strike into the crowd, and each time she did so, various dogs would vanish off the battlefield. As far as he could tell, she was targeting Ascenders, and he decided that might be a fun thing to do as well. “At least it will be more interesting than only taking out a bunch of pathetic humans that are here seeking ‘glory’ in death, or something. No need to give them what they're actually looking for.”

As he contemplated the forces, he tried to figure out where exactly the Ascenders were hiding—thinking that perhaps he should try the game of taking them down with as few additional casualties as possible—he realized that the press of people had a secondary effect that was somewhat frustrating. All of those lives together tended toward hiding the stronger life among them. Not perfectly, but he could not work out the exact position of the truly powerful among them. Still, he had what he considered to be a great idea.

“If I only kill a few dozen people and the Ascender, it's still less wasteful than breaking all of them, right?” Then he remembered that all of them were enemies anyway, so it didn't particularly matter if they got what they wanted. If they were seeking glory in death, maybe they would find it. He could help them. Luke switched his equipped weapon manifestation to a bottle he had found so long ago, then aimed it carefully at center mass of the area that seemed to have a large congruence of power.

“Hup!”

He activated Shockwave on the bottle, just as it started to leave his hand, and the mana-glass flew true. It struck the first line of humans, the force more than adequate to annihilate and obliterate every human in a cone from that point to nearly the end of the ranks. But only almost all of them. There were two Ascenders who had been hiding in that area, and they were still on their feet, even if they were swaying slightly and bleeding heavily.

Luke jumped over the defensive line, running at the two Dog Tamers who remained in this section of the fight. He heard calls for him to return to his own people, to stop putting himself at risk, but thanks to the King's orders… he was as autonomous as it was possible to be at this point. So long as he was doing something to farther the completion of his quest, no one could order him to do anything he didn’t want to do. Everything was on the table, including actually having fun in combat. “This is refreshing. I like this.”

“Who are you? How dare you attack us, Officers of The Hunt! Do you know how many treaties you have broken simply by standing where you are at this moment?” The man on the right didn't have fancy clothes, which was somewhat of a disappointment to Luke. He hoped that this man would at least have some sort of fun combat ability. “Hey! What are you-”

The spear that manifested in Luke's right hand skewered the shouting man, then nearly bisected him as it was ripped out to the side. Luke's expression shifted to a scowl, and he looked over at the other Ascender who was still on his feet. “Are you as boring as this guy was?”

“You're one sick puppy,” the man stated in Luke's language—heavily accented—then followed up with some other unintelligible language that Luke didn't care to try and parse. All the Murderhobo knew for certain was that this man most definitely wasn't as boring. Even if his clothes were more functional than the Lieutenant’s from his irritatingly unresolved fight earlier in the day, they were still fairly grand. He also managed to summon two dogs before Luke was upon him, though these creatures were far closer to real dogs than the Berserker had expected.

They looked similar to Presa Canario, whereas every other dog he had seen brought onto the field was some kind of mythological greater species. Perhaps this man was a non-commissioned officer tasked with guiding and leading troops. At least that would explain why at least two of his summons were extremely large dogs mostly meant for guarding and herding cattle. Unfortunately for this man, ‘not boring’ wasn't exactly a resounding guarantee of being able to survive for any length of time.

Damage Dealt: 112 stabbing. 212 damage lost in overkill!

“I thought the Ascenders of the dynasty were supposed to be stronger than my kingdom's usual stock.” Luke spat to the side, frustrated with how the day had been going so far. Either his enemy had been too slippery and escaped combat, or so weak it wasn't worth engaging them in the first place. “Pathetic.”

A new voice intruded into his ear holes, notable only in that it was calm even though the person it belonged to was standing in a field of absolute carnage. “Perhaps you're looking for a greater challenge? I suppose I can play with you, if you're a good boy.”

Before even turning to take in the visage of his new opponent, Luke threw a bottle at them. Only when he heard a loud *clink* of it being deflected and no damage notification showing up to block his view, did Luke bother to turn around and look. There was a young man standing there, someone who looked to be roughly twenty years old, holding a short whip in one hand and a wooden chair—of all things—in the other. “Can you fight? Or are you just going to die?”

“I can tell you true, Ascender of the Hollow kingdom, that this glorious champion has no intent of an ignoble loss in a churned cesspit such as this.” The young man bowed forward slightly. “You may call me-”

“Don’t care.” Luke activated Bum Thunder and crossed the distance between them, leading with his left hand just to get some additional practice using a spear on that side. No reason not to get better at the same time as defeating an enemy. The chair swung up, blocking the sharpened tip of his weapon, and to Luke's surprise… the attack ended there. He jolted to a stop, finding that his momentum had been arrested by the seemingly simple seating implement.

“Bad. No.” The Ascender lightly whipped Luke's outstretched arm, the length of braided leather failing to do anything other than get a slight rip as it struck against his spiky armor. “There are rules of decorum to be followed when fighting, even when you're fighting for your life or your honor!”

“Honor is stupid. What good is your standing and reputation, if you don't survive the fight?” Luke could already tell that this was going to be a fun time, and so he mentally called for Cookie to start making her way toward him. Until then, he switched weapons, equipping a Battering Ram Knuckle on his left and his Scourge on his right. With a quick punch, he caused the other man to take a single step back, then Luke leapt into the air and reached out with his Scourge. “That's not a whip. This is a whip.”

“No, they're both whips.” The still-calm assailant countered the attack with his chair, and the words with a ghost of a smile showing on his lips. “I am so glad I stepped forward to meet you today.”

“We've never been formally introduced.” Luke barked a laugh at his own joke, twirling his Scourge and sending it *snapping* across the air. This time, when his strike was blocked, one of the legs of the chair was broken, sending splinters of wood flying into the air. Pressing his advantage, he switched the scourge to a bottle midair, throwing it almost directly down. It hit the bottom of the chair's seat, and the strange choice in weaponry fully broke apart.

His opponent went very still as he looked down at the stick that he was currently holding. For a moment, Luke thought that he was going to get another easy, boring kill.

Then there was a drastic shift in the man's demeanor. He went from a calm, noble, and honorable officer to a fuming, spoiled child in the blink of an eye. “This was a chair from my father's table! Are you kidding me right now? First of all, how stupidly strong are you that you can break it? Secondly, do you even know what it's going to take to replace this thing? I'm going to have to get an entire new set of chairs for the table; otherwise, they won't match!”

The man arched his back backwards so far that Luke was sure he was about to fall over, then he flung his arms out to the side and *screamed* like a toddler having a tantrum. It seemed that was actually a defensive ability, because Luke was pushed back while he was still in midair, forced to reset before being able to capitalize on the slightly upset man's distraction. The air began to distort, and dozens of dogs began forcing themselves into this world.

These weren't the sad excuses for magical beasts that Luke had been fighting in the last few minutes. No, these were what he had been looking for from the start: a real test. Their sizes ranged anywhere from coming up to his knee to standing several feet above his head. Several of them were glowing with magical effects already; some seemed to shift in and out of reality, even though the pawprints they were leaving on the soil revealed that they were absolutely present, and a few of them appeared to be on fire.

“Hot dog. Now it’s a party.” Feeling the incoming mana signature that could only belong to one thing, Luke held out his hands and caught Cookie before landing on the ground. He didn't wait around to see what would happen. Instead, as soon as his feet were on the soil, he was once more leading the charge with his face.

Fireballs, auras of destruction, stealthy beasts popping out of nowhere to try and tear into his flesh… to Luke, it just felt like being home.