Waterstrider

Canvas Town, Tseludia Station, Pantheonic Territory, Fifthmonth, 1634 PTS

With Rachel’s assistance, it did not take Irid and the others very long to encounter the man named Juen Hadal. To Irid and the rest, most Seiyal faces tended to blend together, but Juen’s bearing and the way he dressed made it clear that he had a high position.

His dark robes were wet with blood, and as she watched, he carefully wiped the length of his staff on the clothes of a woman who was laying on the ground, apparently attempting to wipe the blood off of it. The woman was a farsei in white robes, one who Irid vaguely recognized but had never spoken to. She lay on the ground before the man, breathing slowly. She wasn’t dead, but Irid suspected that she may be dying.

The crushed collarbone that was hemorrhaging blood served as a strong clue, in her estimation.

Sensing her presence, the man turned towards her, but paused in surprise as her appearance registered to him. Quickly, his eyes narrowed as he realized what she was, his face wearing an expression filled with disgust. Juen sneered, and spoke some words in seiyin that Irid suspected must be derisive in some way. That was simply the manner in which she expected this sort of Seiyal to act towards her. The Orthodox Path and the Reth were ancient enemies, after all. Her opinion towards him was little better. Particularly due to the fact that he was a genocidal monster who was trying to slaughter the weak.

As expected of the Orthodox Path, she thought. They were cruel and inhuman, each and every one of them. And the Ceirrans were even worse. Servants of the Devil of Light.

Smog still flowed out of her skin, draping over her body as if she were wearing a cloak of mist. Irid smiled, baring her pointed teeth at the man as she stretched her claws out in an intimidating pose, ready to make a move. Juen simply raised his staff, flicking some of the blood off of the end in an arrogant motion as he spoke a few more words, steadily approaching towards her. Just like her own smog, a vibrant green mist began to emanate from his body, making Irid wary.

Irid took the effort to relax her body, certain that a fight was imminent. There was no alternative, unless she fled, but Irid knew there was little chance of that. She had made a promise to the Lady Shade, and would not break it unless her circumstances became truly desperate.

Juen suddenly charged, his steps speeding rapidly as he put great force into his legs. If he had a proper movement technique, the attack might have been quite threatening, but as matters were, Irid had plenty of time to react, as within the dark mist she was more than able to outpace him.

The martial artist’s staff slammed down towards her, and from the sound of its passage through the air alone, Irid could tell the force of its motion. She stepped backwards, fading into the mist, and charging back towards him from another direction. Juen cursed, trying to shift his momentum to defend, but he did not have the time.

Her hardened nails tore into the genesis practitioner’s shoulder, streams of sanguine miasma bleeding into the air in their wake, and diving into Juen’s shoulder. He tensed up, not because of the pain, but because of the sanguine miasma which had formed inside of his body, and steadily increased due to the wound. It was an advantage of the Reth, part of the reason that they generally preferred to fight barehanded when they were in melee combat.

Juen said a few more words, but Irid did not bother to respond. It was presumably curses, recriminations, or something else that she had little interest in. She attempted to duck under his next swing. She expected to easily dodge an attack at that speed, but could feel herself slowing as she passed through the small area of green mist, as if something was sapping away at her momentum.

Fortunately, she managed to reach just far enough to avoid the attack, feeling his staff sweep through her loose hair as it passed above her. Irid dove past his legs, swiping for his shins as she rolled by. Juen kicked out with one of his feet, sending her skidding across the floor, back into the dark mist which continued to fill the room. She could see him coughing slightly, and smiled as she slowly rose back to her, coughing a clod of blood out of her own mouth.

She might have been injured, thought Irid, but his own would be much worse by now. Between the poisonous smog and the sanguine-producing gash in his shoulder, Irid knew that there would be a limit to how much longer Juen could fight effectively.

She lurked in the darkness around him, searching for an opportunity to strike. Juen, meanwhile, simply stood in a careful stance, eyes shut, as if he were trying to pay closer attention to his other senses. His breaths were extremely slow and shallow, as if to reduce the amount of smog he breathed in. It was wasted effort, but Irid could not blame him for trying.

Suddenly, Juen charged once again, sweeping his staff low to the surprise of Irid, and driving her legs out from under her. She toppled to the ground with a grunt, and barely managed to roll out of the way as he slammed it downwards towards the center of her chest. This time, Irid was unable to react quickly enough, her motions dulled by the restraint of the verdant fog. The swing grazed her ribs with a loud, extremely painful cracking noise. She winced in pain as she scrambled away, fairly certain that the blow had fractured more than one rib. Though the man’s motions were predictable, each of them held unbelievable force, and the green mist surrounding him slowed any part of her which entered to attack him. He might be slow, she thought, but if she could not attack without slowing to match, that weakness might as well not matter at all.

Juen’s fighting style was one of sheer dominance, thought Irid. His powerful strength made even the weakest attack a severe threat, and his excellent spacial control allowed him to pressure opponents, keeping them at the perfect distance. Irid’s main advantage lay in her agility, but to take advantage of it, she needed to make bigger, faster movements, thus causing her to tire out much faster. Not for the first time, Irid wished she had a firearm. She was not like the Seiyal; she had no fixation on ‘traditional’ weapons and battle tactics. If a firearm was better in a given situation, that would be what she wished to use. Lady Rachel would likely be able to find her one, she thought, though that was a matter for later.

As Irid once again scrambled out of the man’s way, trying to buy herself time to regroup, she suddenly realized that she could hear a third set of footsteps. Though a Reth’s eyes could to a certain extent pierce through the gloom of their smog, the stranger was on the far side of the hall, and she had no way of identifying whether they were friend or foe. Juen’s head was cocked, listening carefully, and Irid was fairly certain the man had noticed the sounds before her.

Taking advantage of his distraction, Irid made her move, diving once again toward Juen, claws bared and ready to carve once more into his flesh. Juen stabbed forward with his staff, forcing her to veer off to the side and miss her chance. However, her attack opened a window for an ally.

Another Reth charged from the smoke, diving towards Juen’s back and forcing him to spin to force the new combatant away with his staff. The Reth man backed up once more into the smog, and Irid recognized him as Agaral. Though they did not get along particularly well, she very much appreciated his appearance at such a time. This fight would be far more manageable with his assistance. Without it, she felt that she might well have been the one who died first, before too long.

Glancing at one another from opposite sides of their opponent, Irid’s eyes met with Agaral’s, and with a few quick motions, the two were able to establish a proper strategy. Relentless pressure was their ally, thought Irid. They would not allow Juen to stall. They had no hope of beating a genesis practitioner in a competition of endurance, after all.

As Irid flexed her fingers, she saw a strange motion from the corner of her eye, and quickly gave it a quick look. At the edge of the smog cloud, Irid saw an odd alien whose species she found difficult to discern, standing next to a Seiyal in a black and red robe. As they did not appear to be attacking one another, she decided that it was unlikely the alien was a threat, and ceased to waste time with mindless observations. The current situation was far more pressing. She returned her attention to Juen, who raised his staff once again to fend off Agaral’s blow. He still seemed unwinded, though his breathing seemed to have become rougher, presumably from the smog inhalation.

With Agaral’s assistance, she thought, this battle had a legitimate chance of success. Irid slowed her breathing, making sure not to exacerbate her wounded ribs, and prepared to attack once more.

Reth Governance: [In the modern era, the Reth do not have a true government, finding themselves willing to rely on the Pantheonic Government and the Church of Saaya to handle their logistics. With the relatively small and scattered population they have in the current era, there is little need for any more structured command. Prior to their exile from Canvas, the Reth homeland was ruled by an elected council. The final members of the council died in the homeland before the race’s evacuation, and it was never reconvened. Some of the larger Reth enclaves have considered forming such a government again. The Church of Saaya has, notably, stood against this proposition.]