Jace vs Marius
HoH season 11. Source: valucre.net static Gaia dump.
Table of contents
Jace was mad.
You would be too if your team had just, in front of a live audience about a hundred million deep, brought new meaning to the term "to suck a ********." The pocket of the Cajun's olive drab cargoes felt about a hundred-k lighter than it should, thanks to those no account scatheads and a bookie by the name of Toothless Frank. He felt the sting of wounded pride far more acutely than his financial loss, though; there was an extra thunder to the rogue's booted footfalls as he stormed into the crowded parking lot, violent curses rumbling in mutters from his lips.
The long, calloused digits of Jace's right hand curled tighter around the shaft of perfectly lethal looking crowbar, until his knuckles had gone shock white. This thing was the Cadillac of modern thuggery. 28" of glistening titanium alloy with the butt end modified to a sharp, tapered point.
"AAAUUUGGH!" The Cajun roared suddenly, the thunder of his voice echoing from every corner of this vacant parking lot. He had a lot of rage to vent -- the normal kind, if you could believe it. Not the murderous moods that his condition sometimes brought on, but your run-of-the-mill, poor loser in a bar brawl,, land-yourself-in-jail kind of rage -- and it bubbled with such a fervor under this brawny, 6'1" exterior, the littlest thing might set him off.
(Like a green and yellow team decal on the back of this Chevy pickup?
Yeah. That would do.)
Crash!
The truck's rear window shattered as easily as a teenage girl's heart (He'd broken his fair share of those, too.) to the swing of Jace's skull-cruncher. Shards of infinitesimal glass shrapnel scattered in a spray across the asphalt and littered the cargo bed of the pickup. God that felt good!
Jace drew back, dropping his arm back to his side and letting a deep draw of cold air fill his lungs through a bull-like flare of nostrils. It came so easily, channeling the full, poisonous culmination of his anger through his arm and down to the tips of his fingers, down the length of his crowbar, and into whatever poor thing found itself on the receiving end. A good vent was a truly underrated thing.
"Now," he began pacedly, a French bayou accent thick upon that baritone drawl. Blue eyes drifted around the perimeter of the lot. "Where te ot'er guy?"
There was still far more fun to be had.
Ugh.
His brain echoed a different sort of 'Aaugh', the other person in the area (his opponent) had spoken no more than two sentences and already he had a level of contempt that encroached on venomous. The biracial fighter could no more stand for the corruption of his native tongue than an author could aid in a book burning of his own texts. Stupid Americans. Visibly he cringed, and shuddered slightly at the second massacre that must be taken into account with the second language. In no more than a handful of words, a single man had insulted the culture of two countries - well done.
Marius had felt strange lately, as if he was not entirely himself. All of his actions seemed a shell of his ordinary life, thoughts and feelings included. This body did not quite seem his own but he could not prove such a thought. At least for the moment. The Parisian felt like he had worn too many layers of clothing and his brain had been stuffed with wool. Whatever this malady of conscious was, it had started some weeks ago so at this point he could ignore it to an appreciable degree.
Before he announced himself though, he unwound. Sitting upon the hood of an orange Tercel, the great bright beast slumbered uncared for beneath his finery and his fanny. His chosen spot of relaxation had apparently been through a warzone given the level of damage its chassis had sustained. Whoever had brought the car to this spot had either been a madman with a tow truck, or a madman with determination. It seemed that this was more likely a combination of both. And while his opponent (though Marius did not know this) sorted through the sordid array of cars looking for a weapon, the man stretched upon the car. Hands held into fists and straightened out in front of him, Marius began to do an Old Timey spin on the Burpee. Up and down he jumped in this strange fashion, denting the hood more and more, creating ruckus that amplified in sound, and working up a sweat.
Unfortunately he got no more than half a dozen in before the hinges on the hood completely slid apart and he avalanched off the front of the car. Smacking his head uncomfortably against the aluminum and pavement. On the way down he cried out a curse, MERDE! thus totally announcing where he was and why he was there: to do Burpee's or something. In a fit of grunts and exertion he pulled himself back up from the ground and looked at the hood that he stood upon again: it would do. Marius stepped away and plied it up from the ground before shoving it under his armpit.
Now he had to wait.
It wouldn't take the Frenchman's native swear to clue Jace in as to his whereabouts; he was doing a fine job of revealing himself bouncing on the hood of that old clunker like an overdressed monkey. The blue-eyed cajun quirked a brow, gave a quick roll of his head to (pop-pop-pop) loosen up stiff neck vertebrae, and followed the noise, swingin' that titanium devastater loosely at his side. (It was not, in fact, scrap metal the cajun had plucked from a rusty mechanic's closet, but a gleaming, custom-modified weapon that had suited the rogue delightfully well over the years.)
A slight pause befell Jace's steps when his opponent came into view, and took a great summons of will to keep from chuckling. The car hood, burnt orange pain peeling from years of disuse, looked a fiercely awkward thing to try and manipulate. It was nearly as wide as Marius was tall, and with no good place to get a "handle" on things.
The cajun presumed his adversary would use it as some form of shield, but kept his mind (not clouded by drugs on that particular afternoon) open to other possibilities. Getting set in one's premature assumptions had been the demise of many a fool.
Now, normally at this point Jace would let his mouth curl into a lopsided smirk and offer a casual "bonjour, ami," but something about the self-righteous stinkeye he was getting from his opponent dissuaded him of the usual courtesies. He jumped right to the heart of things, instead.
Before Marius had been given the chance to adjust that hood to some actually useful position, Jace took a deep one-handed swing for his opponent's knees with the curved, forked end of his prybar, his body twisting a few degrees to close off his torso protectively from his opponent. His free arm lifted some into a guarding position, fingers just barely curled in and ready to spring into action, be it a grab or a block, or even a grope for the knife at his hip, in half an instant.
Half-turn.
Marius didn't even think as he performed the actions necessary to keep himself free of immediate danger. He merely acted upon instinct as any person would. Let's be honest here though the Cajun wasn't attacking silently. Especially not in a place such as this where there was plenty of room for sounds to reverberate and deepen in crescendo. However it was such a simple move to keep himself from being struck with such a large area to work with. Granted the aged car part dented where the hook failed to find purchase. Despite the distance between the two, the Cajun could count himself lucky that Marius had chosen such an unwieldy defense. Or was it a defense? The Parisian never actually let it be known to anyone but himself what it was he had intended to do with the hood.
For the briefest of instants, he looked his opponent in the face. Marius almost looked surprised, humored if nothing more but he did not utter another word. With the rebound now in his court, a quick push off the ground project the man a good stride or two away. Putting distance between the two for a moment as he weighed his options quickly and deliberately. Should he waste the time? Probably. Why not? And with that... Marius' finery began to recede in to his skin. Quickly exposing the synthetic muscle bundles and fiber impellers that helped make him preternaturally dangerous. The issue was that until the clothing had come and gone, he could do no more but stand around. (AKA until the end of this post)