Ian stepped onto the pavement as a cold current had settled in the suddenly not so hospitable town. Strangely, the gathered townsfolk’s attention wasn’t directed towards him nor Lehra. Approaching the group, they were able to look past and see the glare of metal reflecting the sunlight onto the worried citizens’ faces. The man wielding the piece of metal wore a crooked smile. The small band gathered behind him didn’t look any less unhinged.
“Where is the sword wielder I’ve been hearing so much about?” the man said.
His Asian looking face was largely covered by wild bangs of black hair, but they couldn’t succeed at hiding the numerous scars that crossed every feature of his menacing face. He was still smiling as he glanced aside to Ian and Lehra. Two teens that don’t look scared. My suspicions just spiked, he thought.
“You there, what’s your name?” the shady man said as he pointed to Ian with his piece of metal.
Studying the shape of the thing a bit more, Ian pondered it could be easily mistaken for a measly crowbar. A perfect tool for such an insignificant crook. But, perhaps through Raghitey, he knew the thing was something quite more significant.
“Ian Mantris. What do they call you, Barr Crow?” Ian said.
Lehra must’ve infected him with her snarky comments. They were getting him deeper into trouble, as they did to her.
“Kamamura. You’d be wise to keep that mouth of yours closed,” Kamamura said.
“How about we just call you Ugly,” Lehra suddenly said.
“Lehra!” Ian hissed. What was she doing…
“Wait you…” Jent yelled. “You coulda cut my freakin’ fingers, tiny!”
His hand was practically buried in bandages, presumably done by his dear mother.
“I was careful. You really do drink too much, Jent,” Lehra said.
“Lehra, is that… your father’s sword? I thought that scum got it…” an older man in his forties said.
“Soon it will and with your head on it, mister mayor,” Ugly Kamamura said, reminding the sleepy townsfolk of his presence and the threat he should be posing. Not to mention some necessary fear. “If you don’t persuade those two to hand their swords over.”
“How about you take them from us, Ugly,” Lehra said.
“Lehra!” Ian said once again. Did she just rescue him from one drunken guy to get him up against a whole gang of quite literal cutthroats?
“An excellent suggestion. I’m short some swords and a few corpses. You can help me with that,” Kamamura said, the corners of his mouth curling up without him actually smiling. His scars running alongside intensified the inhuman look he threw Ian as he gestured with his sword how he’d kill him, all the while enjoying the process.
“My lieutenant will soften up your girl. I’ll keep you alive to see the end of her breath,” Kamamura said.
Ian had seen that grin without joy before. He’d seen what it could cause.
As slowly but steadily as possible, Ian took out the long blade from his backpack and held it in front of him, its tip touching the edge of the Legendary crowbar sword.
Just when it seemed Kamamura would spend a little more time launching threats at Ian, he suddenly lunged and barely missed the boy as the latter dodged the dirty move.
“Ian!” Lehra yelled as she pulled out Nekathir.
Without warning, a fist made contact with her forehead and she staggered backwards as she tried to regain a fighting stance.
“You’re fighting me,” the before mentioned lieutenant said as he swung his sword at her neck.
Ian mustered all his strength to get Raghitey moving and swung it at Kamamura who easily dodged it and struck Ian’s shoulder with the blunt end of his sword. The only end his sword had. It didn’t exactly cut through his skin, but the metal force pounding his bone hurt like hell. He had to gain some distance, this guy was too sneaky.
Meanwhile Lehra was up against someone with just a regular sword, but apart from drawing an ounce of blood to scare a local drunk, she had little experience with handling her sword to defend herself against someone actually handy with a weapon. A deadly kind of weapon. Kamamura’s lieutenant had said ‘Venom’ to identify himself before lashing out at Lehra’s throat, barely missing her jugular as he still drew blood. She clenched the wound in her throat as she struggled to keep fighting, dishing out typical novice strikes like high lashes and exaggerated thrusts. Then, Venom struck again, this time hitting the young girl’s shoulder as he enjoyed the pain he was causing. She yelped in agony.
“Lehra!” Ian said as he turned to look where she was.
“Lehra!” the mayor said as he stepped forward before being pushed back by one of Kamamura’s shady henchmen. No one was to interrupt this fight.
Kamamura didn’t waste any time correcting his unworthy adversary and closed the distance between him and Ian before striking with his legendary crowbar straight at the teenager’s heart. This time however, Ian blocked it.
He looked back at Ugly from Lehra and said: “I’m going to break you for doing this to her and me.”
And then ever so slightly, Ugly’s lips simply curled into a smile.
Ian didn’t have time to ask why that ugly son of an even uglier woman was smiling at him as if he’d won already. The teenager looked down and glanced for a second at the crowbar end that hooked itself onto Raghitey. He tried to pull it out, but couldn’t. Even though he was slightly uneased at the function the strange shape of Kamamura’s blade turned out to have, not to mention the prospect of dying anytime soon now, Ian didn’t look scared. With their swords locked into position like this, neither one of them could make a move and as soon as Kamamura used his trick to unhook them to carry on with the fight, Ian would’ve caught onto it and it wouldn’t work again. Then why was that ugly Asian smirking at him and drilling a hole in his head with that piercing gaze? If Ian could just unhinge them first, he’d surprise his opponent.
Lehra meanwhile knew that if she didn’t learn to handle her sword quick, she might as well throw it in the sand and hope for a quick, clean death. By the look of that Venom guy with his dark angular eyebrows unsettling her along with his cold gaze, hoping for anything but an excruciating death at the hands of this vile man was self-sadistic.
Her shoulder was hurting like hell but her throat didn’t stop bleeding and she didn’t have more than two hands. With her sword in only one hand, she could hardly stand her ground as she blocked one single attack from Venom, it pushed her back far more than she’d hoped it would. She lashed out in a bit of a desperation attack and through sheer luck she caught Venom off guard and hit him in his left shoulder. Lehra flashed an itty bitty smile at returning the favor. Her opponent flashed his teeth.
“Tell me, have you figured out your sword’s power? I hope she has,” Kamamura said.
He looked at Lehra clenching her throat as her hand was drenched in blood and she was barely standing. However Venom was surprised by the little girl landing a hit on him, he wasn’t about to let her live a minute longer now. Time for Ian to return a favor.
But as he studied his sword to figure out how to get it out of the impasse the crowbar sword had put him and it in, he noticed something strange about the curve of the sword. Was it somehow changing? It grew longer before his eyes and before he realized Kamamura had activated some horrid power within the blade which he now experienced firsthand. It crawled all the way up to the tip of his blade and then lashed out at his face as it carved itself into his face. He remembered screaming as he pulled on his sword, struggling to break it free from the sadistic snake. And his slithering sword.
It was unclear how much damage the sword had done to Ian and he didn’t care as long as he could stand as he tried to shake off the wound and the blood. With a desperate pull Ian broke free of the metallic snake and its holder and managed to hold onto his sword as well. Ian started shaking as he asked: “What did you do to me?” The throbbing pain wouldn’t stop and Ian felt the warmth of his own blood gushing over his cheek.
Kamamura simply laughed for a second before he responded: “It’s what I’m gonna do to you.”
Ian had collapsed on his knees and struggled to get back up. It was now or never. He swung his sword and hit his triumphant opponent dead in the knee, shattering his knee pad. Venom glanced aside as he prepared to finish off the little girl and saw his master grasping his knee and dropping his sword as he bit his tongue in excruciating pain. The other henchmen rushed to their leader’s side and ignoring his orders of protest and some death threats, they quickly carried him and his sword to safety with Venom following and covering their retreat as the townsfolk proceeded to throw everything they could find at them. Before Ian passed out he saw the townsfolk rushed to his and Lehra’s sides and gathered around. Then, he passed out.