[M] Angel of the Night (Holey & Angel) IC

[Holeypaladin]

Harold had expected this religious zealot to be offended by his words. Many of the things she had said and done were quite suspicious, as well... why would this servant of Varvara decide to accompany him out to these runes, and why had she kept her weapon drawn the whole time? She had mentioned that Varvara worked in the shadows, in a very subtle manner... but she herself wasn't very subtle.

When the woman swung her axe at him with her full force, it was hardly the stroke of a trained assassin. It was the actions of a warrior... one who faced her opponents head on, rather than striking from the shadows. And because of this, Harold was able to see it coming in time to react. He was, after all, an incredibly experienced warrior, himself, and his reflexes weren't those of an ordinary human.

As he himself was unarmed, he had no weapon with which to parry this blow... but a strike of that level of force was best countered by other means anyway. Ducking under the swing, he extended a hand towards the woman and incanted, "Jedark tersha" in the Draconic language. This caused a massive telekinetic force to impact the woman, enough to send her flying up into the air. A human would come crashing down with enough impact to knock them out, but Harold was unaware that this particular woman had wings.

Regardless whether she fell or simply hovered in the air, this brought him enough power to summon forth a weapon. Tapping into his foundry circuit, he summoned the first weapon that came to mind... a dragonbane sword. Designed to penetrate dragon scales and cause massive damage to their flesh, this was the weapon of a dragonslayer. It also happened to be quite effective against half-dragons, as well.

[AngelDellaNotte]

Being thrown into the air caught her off guard, she knew Harold had magic abilities but to be able to use them so quickly without much perpetration meant he had a fair amount of skill. As she sailed close to thirty feet into the air the force of the blast caused her to flip over several times until she dispelled the enchantment hiding her wings. It took another couple of flaps to steady her, as she hovered in the air above the dragon slayer. He drew a sword that she could tell from the glean on it was made of dragon's bane. She would need to be careful when fighting him to avoid the bite of the blade.

It probably would have been easier to kill the man with a sneak attack, let them get to the ruins then as he was examining them strike at him from behind where he would never have seen the attack coming. But Fleur wasn't an assassin, she was a warrior and though she had killed many times before in battle she had never killed an unarmed opponent. She had always killed them after a battle was fought and she had earned the kill. Something inside her just wouldn't allow her to kill in cold blood. If Varvara wanted this dragon slayer killed like that she should have sent one of the imps in her service not a warrior angel. Pumping her wings and gaining speed in her wings Fleur descended to the ground at the speed of race horse in it's prime. She held the tip of her spear straight at Harold aiming to impale him much like a jouster would do.

[Holeypaladin]

As he saw the woman extend wings to catch herself in mid air rather than fall to the ground, her identity was finally revealed to the knight. Those wings were indistinguishable... she was, indeed, an angel. One of Varvara's warrior angels... attempting to kill him. For what? Had she intended to kill him the whole time, or was this an impulsive reaction to the words he said? She wasn't speaking... but perhaps he could get her to.

However, he would first need to deal with the incoming charge. As the angel swooped down from the sky in an attempt to impale him, Harold tapped into his foundry circuit once again. He didn't specialize in defeating humanoid opponents, but he had been forced to fight them on numerous occasions. Dragons occasionally assumed a humanoid form, after all, so this was no different, so far. Tapping into his foundry circuit, he summoned forth a shield in front of him. This shield had the Dancing property, and therefore needn't be held in order to block the incoming attack. However, the force behind the blow was quite powerful, and a dancing shield wouldn't be able to resist such a strike. For this reason, he took hold of the shield with his left arm, angling it to deflect the incoming spear attack to the side. As the blow hit with force, Harold felt the shock on his arm, but in deflecting the blow he had a split second to deliver a retaliatory strike with his blade, attempting to disable one of the angel's wings and therefore her ability to fly. They were large targets, and, though beautiful, they were currently the enemy.

"Just for clarification," he said as the angel passed him, "Are you attacking me because your angry, or is your goddess just evil?" Angels tended to be terrible liars, so he figured he'd at least try to get some information out of her by getting her to start talking.

[AngelDellaNotte]

"What does a godless heathen like you know of good and evil?" Fleur growled spinning to the right to avoid any sort retaliation attack. She touched down the ground her the ball of her left foot pivoting on the ground. She turned so her wings were away from the dragon slayer knowing he would go straight for her wings mortal always did and while the idea sound logical to take away the ability to fly an angel's wings were much stronger than a bird's wings. She could take several hits to them before it affected her ability to fly, although she wasn't sure about the dragons bane blade. She had never been struck there before with dragons bane and didn't know if it would cause more damage than a regular blade or not. She was hoping not but didn't want to find out. Fleur spun her blade around with her pivot but her landing was a little on the clumsy side and she only managed hit him on the back of the head with the pole of the spear before jumping into the air again.

[Holeypaladin]

"Apparently more than you do," the knight replied sarcastically. "All you know is how to obey orders like a mindless drone. It's a wonder you have any semblance of intelligence at all, as a golem construct can obey orders and have the same effect." The haft of the polearm harmlessly glanced off his helmet, as he hadn't bothered to avoid it entirely.

Releasing his grip on the shield, he let it continue to block the polearm of its own accord. Currently, the angel held a reach advantage over Harold, but this could be easily rectified. Surely she would expect him to fight her at close range, attempting to get within sword reach of her, but in order to do so, he would have to somehow get past her polearm.

"Morality is so simple that the dumbest child can figure it out," he muttered. "But I suppose a brainwashed mind-slave lacks the intelligence of a five year old." His words were meant to distract her, as his shield blocked her vision from what he was summoning in his left hand. As the shield moved aside, however, his double barreled flintlock pistol was pointed right at her, and with a thunderous explosion, discharged a dragonbane projectile at point blank range, aimed for her center of mass.

[AngelDellaNotte]

As the knight spoke she noticed some movement behind his shield but couldn't fully see what it was. She growled at his words but the thought of one of her tutors appeared in her mind. Thoreau, she had hated the man for years, he was a master fighter who always taunted her while fighting, making comments about her lack of pure blood. It wasn't until many years later she realized his taunting had been a lesson not to let her anger get the better of her. This dragon slayer was doing the same thing, insulting her in the hopes of making her angry and loose focus.

She wouldn't let that happen a growl escaped her throat as she finally saw what was in Harold's hand noticing the pistol. She swore under her breath, having never really liked firearms they were a coward's weapon in her mind. Any idiot could point a gun and shoot it, skill was taken to wield a real weapon. Even a bow and arrow took years of study to master. She could see the bullets barreling through the air noticing the glint of dragon bane on the bullet. She attempted to fly out of the path of the bullets but even her angel speed wasn't fast enough as she felt the one of the bullets ripped through her right wing. It hurt but it didn't burn like it had when she had been struck with a dragons bane blade. Well that answered that question.

She dropped down to the ground holding her spear before her protectively as she flexed her wings feeling the sting of the wound. The bullet went straight through the wing and while it hurt it didn't completely prevent her from flying, she still would be able to but wouldn't have the speed she was used to. It would be best to stick to a ground battle for now and only fly if she needed. First though she needed to get that gun out of the fight. She held her hand up summoning a small ball of fire in her hand, it was barely the size of her palm when she threw it at the pistol the ball hitting the barrel and coating it quickly turning the metal red hot.

[Holeypaladin]

The knight was surprised by the angel's ability to somehow evade the line of fire at the last split second, but he had at least scored a minor injury to her wing. It wasn't much, but it was better than a miss. The woman's response, however, was... not what he had expected. Her magical strike had been directed not at him, but at the pistol... as if the pistol was considered a bigger threat than the man wielding it. Well, it wasn't his only weapon, so as the metal heated, he simply discarded the weapon, tossing it into the air.

"Not even denying it, are you?" he continued to taunt her, leveling his gaze at the woman in order to see how she would react next. "You should at least give one of those 'since you're about to die anyway, I might as well tell you the whole plot' speeches like a good evil overlord would do. It's the sort of thing that would suit someone who is lawful stupid, like yourself."

Timing his attacking, Harold stepped in, using his shield to provide cover against the polearm in order to get close enough to strike with his sword. As he delivered his blow, however, his pistol, discarded but still with a bullet in the second chamber, fired as if on its own from a different angle as the knight distracted his opponent with a direct frontal assault.

[AngelDellaNotte]

"I have faith, something a man like you apparently knows nothing about." She said, spinning her spear around to block the blade of the sword away from her. The pistol discharging startled her but she tried not to let it bother her and pushed back on the sword moving it further from her and closer to Harold the two of them seeming to have a push and pull going on. The two of them looking to have an even amount of strength. Despite the pain it caused in her wings Fleur flapped them giving her the extra strength she needed to knock Harold over.

She stood over him with her spear posed to strike down but paused staring at him not at all sure what she was doing. Yes, she had been ordered by her goddess to kill this man but never fully understood their alliance with the dragons. Before she could think more on it or strike at the dragon slayer she heard a roar in the sky behind her and looked up to see a good sized red dragon circling above them. By the pattern on the scales on the dragon Fleur could recognize the dragon as Iyliam, a lesser red dragon in the service of Saryn. He was a young dragon but quite cruel she always hated when he was in the heavens.

A couple years ago he had made several attempts to woo her into his bed but they had been crude and insulting. She had refused the dragon angering him to strike her. Varava had been quite displeased when she had gone past defending herself to out right defeating the dragon wounding him and embarrassing him in front of the other dragons who still taunted him about being bested not only by a woman but a angel. Since then the two had managed to remain peaceful around each other physically but their verbal barbs at each other were constant. So much to the point that Varvara always found some sort of assignment for Fleur when the dragon was around.

The dragon dropped down closer to them seeming to be heading straight toward them he let out another roar then spouted a large flame from his mouth. Fleur spread her wings out wide and crouching down wrapping them around herself and quite by accident around Harold as well. Being half red dragon she had a higher tolerance for fire, it was painful but she was able to absorb the flames.

[Holeypaladin]

The angel was skilled.. far more skilled than any human Harold had fought. And far stronger than a woman her size should be. Ordinarily, he could overpower anything short of a dragon by brute force alone. Then again... half-dragons were much stronger than humans, due to the draconic blood that flowed through their veins. In an attempt to make the angel feel like she had the upper hand at close range, the knight allowed himself to fall to the ground. In reality, it was a tactic to prepare her for another strike, but as she raised her spear, he sensed hesitation. Had his words gotten through to her, or was it something else?

A familiar-sounding roar interrupted their conflict, as the dragonslayer heard the familiar sound of a red dragon. It was unusual for a dragon to be seen this close to Lucia... unheard of, in fact, unless the dragons were, as Harold now suspected, in league with the treacherous goddess Varvara herself. At first he thought it was reinforcements arriving to support the angel, but when the dragon breathed its fire...

Even as the angel inadvertently shielded him with his wings, the knight's eyes narrowed. "He's trying to kill us both," he stated the obvious. Thankfully, the angel's dragon blood allowed her to resist the flames, though Harold's own armor was also designed to resist dragon breath, as he'd be a rather ineffective dragon slayer otherwise. "Truce for now, while we slay the dragon?" A three way fight wouldn't serve either of them, and if the angel still desired to kill him, she could make a second attempt once the dragon was dealt with.

[AngelDellaNotte]

Fleur hissed in pain standing up her wings singed around the edges. The only good thing was that the dragonfire had cauterized the bullet wound on her wing. “What the hell are you doing?” Fleur said, stepping away from Harold ignoring his comment about working together. She walked toward the dragon who had landed a short distance from them.

“Saryn sent me to ensure you can do what your lady claims you can. But apparently don't have the ability to kill a simple human.” The dragon roared smoke coming from the corners of his mouth.

“I have the ability or have you forgotten how you got that scar on your side?” Fleur growled moving closer and pointing her spear at a long scar on the dragon's left flank.

Iyliam growled loudly rising up on his hind legs, “Enough of this! I'm going to finish this and if a pesky angel falls in the process so be it. Shame how I'll have to explain to your goddess how despite my best efforts I couldn't save her precious Fleur.” The dragon said, launching another blast of fire at her. Fleur managed to wrap her wings around herself again, not knowing how much dragonfire she could absorb. She hissed in pain as the dragon refused to let up pounding her with the flames.