[Intermission, Part 3] Desden Collides

Rave took two bounding leaps down the stairs, steadying her breath with a trained mastery. Her footsteps barely touched the dust-covered floor as she skated on thin layers of light below her shoes. The plan was supposed to be simple: Travolta, or Baldy as she called him when they running incognito, and she would enter the barrier via the hallway after tracking down the smugglers to their purpose here. Jimmie would trap one of them and make it a fair fight. A fair fight where I beat the crap out of two-bit thieves... not whatever the Hell these assholes are. Their intel was bad: four artificers, and the scale of their operations were supposed to mean they were punk thieves. The barrier was even an Artificer one, Jimmie promised! But even if they were one smuggler short, the two remaining would be more than enough to kill an amateur Fateweaver like Jimmie. That possibility put haste into her steps, and had her throwing open the door to the teacher office below the lab.

There Jimmie was, as predicted... staring mindlessly at the blood mage. "Sleep," whispered the vampire, and the Fateweaver collapsed into a nearby office chair. "Finally! I was worried you all came prepared to piss me off." Desden cracked his neck as he stared at Rave, his sharp-toothed grin ever present. Between them, set onto the plain teacher's desk behind Jimmie, was the stainless steel box of his design: a mechanism to create semi-barriers in barriers, letting reality itself be the material of a cage to ensure the capture of virtually anything short of an Outsider. It just needed to stay in one piece to keep functioning; the keypad in front of it would only take Jimmie's secret code. Without it, the topmost side would remain dilated, emanating the field one floor above that now trapped Yarrick Dell. Desden didn't know what the box was, but he figured it was the key to freeing his partner. "This your boyfriend, sugar tits?"

"No, and don't call me sugar tits unless you want me to light up your world."

The older man cackled. "Yeah, I don't think that'll be happening. The moment I touch your partner here, I'll be able to... well, have you ever seen a human whose heart's exploded? It's pretty ugly stuff." He snapped his fingers, and the blackened claws there clicked for effect. "Just a touch, just like that. Blood starts coming out of all sorts of places and... well, it doesn't have to be that way. You can take the boy, or you can take the box... I'm generous, so you can pick one."

Rave walked at profile to the vampire, past the first row of teacher desks, glorified, wall-less cubicles held together by bolts that made two teachers face each other at all times. Jimmie and the box remained at the center of their exchange of glares when she finally reached his alley between desks. "You won't let me have anything, I bet. But I'll take everything."

"Have if your way, sugar tits." The two bolted for Jimmie, Desden naturally faster and longer-limbed and her shooting forward with the hidden light under her steps. She called out to Jimmie, but he didn't stir. The vampire's cackling only paused long enough to whisper the incantation of blood boil, one of the more heinous of the blood mage arts. He was ready to pretend to reach for the sleeping fool... and then to slip his hand forward and slay the punk teen before she had any chance to stop him. The two neared the center, neck and neck, Rave had a hand closer to Jimmie, ready to pull his shoulder, but Desden was already reaching for that offending hand, no longer sporting his ruse-!

"Fuck you." Her fingers rose up from Jimmie's jacket, and made a gun pointed at Desden's face.

"Ha...?" A flash of blinding light to buy her some time, to stun a blood mage with his crazy body mods... but in truth, her power over pure light, however minimal it had been compared to the sun and stars, was still verily the hallowed energy of Gaia. It burst from her fingertips and sent Desden reeling back, screeching as he held his half-melted face. Rave slid back, pulling Jimmie on the wheeled office chair before diving back towards the box to throw it on his lap. She'd finish him later, she told herself; right now Jimmie had to be taken somewhere safe, and if Travolta was worth a damn then he was already done with the fire chick-

"Not so fast, you little bitch!" He bounded up onto the desks as he ran across them, his face regenerating into some hideous, twisted effigy of a man, and all the fangs of his stretching mouth glittered with spit as he howled. Rave pivoted, launching Jimmie's chair behind her as she focused a beam of light onto the creature. It narrowly missed his shoulder, burning the flesh there but not stopping his charge. She cursed as she clamored onto the desk, the monster almost upon her, when she spun on the ball of her right shoe to deliver a vicious, light-infused kick right into his chest. His run didn't stop, even as the foot cleaved into the skin and ribs of his torso like so much clay, but he rolled off of the foot and towards the ground as his innards began to melt... and with a wild flail, clawed into her jeans. He pierced the cloth there, and touched her skin for only a moment... for just enough.

Rave cried out in agony as a blistering ache climbed up her leg, bursting veins near the place he touched. The damage only slightly lessened as it passed her pelvis, causing a chain reaction of agonizing heat that coursed through her body, into her heart, and up to her face. Overheating blood burst from her fingertips, lips and small patches all over her body, and she was left a convulsing mess on the desk of Mr. Tanaka. Desden remained on the floor, clutching his open gut as he tried to keep his various organs in long enough for his ribs to slowly grow back. He could barely manage more than a hissing breath, but still he felt a bit of mirth beyond the screaming of dead nerves. "Holy... shit... I... thought only the... holy families... could pull... shit... like that..." He felt an urge to vomit, despite his alternative diet, and so decided to keep his thoughts to himself until the wounds finally sealed, leaving thin scar tissue where he ought to have an abdomen. If he could drink one or both of these idiots dry, he'd be right as rain once again, and with enough mana stolen to finish the job.

Slowly, and with an audible groan, Desden curled up to survey Rave, still **** on a desk, her wounds mostly superficial except the number he pulled on her leg. She was bleeding enough that she'd probably lose the leg if left unattended long enough, not that he intended to let her hang on to life that long. He had to work fast... except that just beyond Jimmie, the other blood bag waiting to get drunk, was the unimpressive Baldy, apparently just joining the fight and now making his own dash towards the two bodies. "Hey... wait... if you want them to l-" Baldy wasn't listening, and Desden could barely manage to stand, much less threaten the bastard's allies. Instead, Desden prepared his incantation, thinking he'd have enough time with Baldy distracted by dragging away the two downed losers to let him finish.

Instead, Travolta jumped and took a single step on the edge of a desk that nearly sent it flipping over along with the opposing desk to which it was bolted. The distance between him and Desden shrunk faster than the latter's incantation. The man ran at him with no light, no threat of holy power; just his angry, determined expression and bared knuckles. Desden did his best to stand erect as he quit his incantation, having run out of time to complete it. His claws readied to tear at the man when he finally came in range, as the hardened flesh and bones of Desden would surely be enough to tank whatever attack the mere man had to offer... until Travolta punched him.The fist came down at an angle, striking Desden just below the neck... and pounded his sternum nearly into dust, crushed a lung, broke the spine, and blew multiple holes into the flesh of the vampire's lower back. Desden's abdomen caved in around the impact before he was launched downward and backwards, bouncing off of the floor and stumbling, ass over elbows, away from the vicious, extended fist. Travolta breathed heavily as he watched the villain go, sure he had killed the mage as his body rolled out of sight from the tumble. His knuckles were now burnt and bloodied; he may as well have punched a wall, but surely it did the trick. He walked over to Rave and Jimmie, hoping the latter could be woken up in time to take the former out of the barrier and to a hospital while he finished up... but stopped his march when he noticed the blood dripping sideways from his hand. He watched the droplets fly through the air, arcing over the desks and towards where the creature had come to rest. Blood began to pour in a heavier flow, and by the time Travolta covered his hand with the other he found the wounds gushing as blood was forcefully drained from his arm and through the air. "What the... fuck...?!"

Travolta's grunts turned to a low scream as his blood poured into the gullet of the beast... and when at last he managed to staunch the flow with gauss from a pouch in his pants, his arm was already numb and pale without the two pints he'd lost through it. Desden rose, his stretched lips coated in the vitae of his enemy, his chest and spine repaired. His neck cracked with a sudden adjustment, and his body seemed... longer than Travolta remembered it. "A man's got his limits, boy... and you've crossed mine twice over. Too bad for you that I've tasted your blood..." Travolta braced for a fight as best as he could, his weakened arm barely able to lift past his waist... but he felt a growing cold in his body, unnatural and all encompassing. "Blood is the root of man, the one which stretches to his first and last day on Earth. I now know you, and now I've always known you..." The fighter began to crumble to the ground, his body shivering as his blood pressure began to drop. Desden's abdomen slowly filled in the thin layer of skin meant to keep his innards from spilling out, returning to him the defined, starved abs of his normal frame. His face slowly returned to its human state, and with a gleeful laugh he bounded and leapt over the desks, pouncing over Travolta's prone body. He rotated and crawled all over it, gliding his claws over cold-sweating flesh. A perverse, heavy breath rolled out with Desden's taunts. "Don't worry, child... the memory of your blood is all I could steal from there, with only the taste I got... your existence would remember the blood in minutes, if it got the chance, and you'd feel right as rain..." Travolta curled into a ball as he struggled to remain conscious. The blood in his veins existed in an undone state, a mystical flow of an ethereal substance that served as blood, but only barely. It permeated his entire body... it threatened an instant ****. "Of course... if I drink the nether-blood now, well..." Desden breathed his hunger through his fangs, and lowered his mouth towards Baldy's neck.

"I told ya."

Lithe hands clamped down over Desden's ears, and his eyes went wide as he raised his gaze. ".. Ha?!"

"Don't call me sugar tits."

The agony of standing on her ruined leg was pushed aside, and Rave inhaled sharply. The breath of life converted to the mana in her hand, manifesting all of her command over Light. The brightness of the sun passed into her palms, and focused on summoning a potent ray of sacred light connected between them to form, at their center, a nova of radiance... right into the core of the vampire's head. Beams of light blasted out from his eye sockets, his nostrils, even his mouth as the beauty of Gaia erupted inside his skull, starting a inhuman screech closer to a dire bat's sonar than the voice of the man once known as Desden. The screeching raised in volume, and Rave cringed as she focused on pausing the growing intensity of the light to take in more breaths, alternating between restoring her mana only to dump it back into her hand to keep the scalding radiance alive and trapped inside the rotting brain matter of the blood mage. A ball of undead essence and energy began to materialize around the two, spewing out all that Desden had consumed, year after year, to achieve his state. Ghostly images of zombies, ghouls and undead women chained to beds slowly leaked from him, terrifying Rave, nearly freezing her breath as she focused on channeling more mana than she ever had to before, on keeping her aching fingers pressed against the softening head of her foe. The monster's howls were joined by those of his victims and pets, and soon the darkness solidified and engulfed them in pulsating, tenebrous mass, dissipating finally as a fine smoke. Rave continued to hold her hands in the air where Desden's head had once been, and only now did she finally crumble, nearly landing face first in the fine ash pile, the linens, and single **** collar before her.

Travolta, no longer under the dead blood mage's influence, slowly got back up, wincing as his ruined hand remained so when he put his weight on it. Rave looked up at him, a streak of white now blasting through the pink of her hair on the left side of her head. She looked pale, and... scared, which was foreign to see on her. Travolta hated it, and leaned forward to hug her. "It's over... hey, it's... you alright?"

"Shut up," she muttered, but she didn't take herself off of his chest.

Behind her, Jimmie yawned as he rubbed his eyes. He peered around, suddenly alarmed as he realized it wasn't a dream. "Wh... Wh..." He looked down and cradled the massive cube he had set off. "... Wha..."

"Just stay here, Jimmie," Travolta muttered, slowly rising, "and get some healing stims on Rave's leg before it falls off."

Rave furrowed her brow up at him. "What about the fire bitch?"

"She's fighting the Gorbachev," Travolta answered, as if such were a satisfactory answer. Rave shook her head, unsatisfied. "First your leg, then we'll go up and finish the job." Jimmie tended their wounds, unaware of the origin of the ash pile present. The nervous youth drew a pack from his pocket to toss it to Travolta, letting him mend his hand before finding the stimpack. He was injecting the swollen, hideous leg of Rave with said stim when he suddenly perked up, his eyes up to the ceiling. "What is it, Jimmie? Did she finish her up already?"