A Relentless Ruckus

Stone chips and powder erupt into the street as two figures plow through the wall which separates most of Eparchy from it’s dedicated Lowlanders quarter. Still managing to keep her feet even through a wall, Bryti keeps her ironclad grasp… until Echo finally manages to push her into another wall, this one made of decidedly non-decorative, foot thick stone. Moving at considerable speed, she impacts the stone with a resounding clang.

Bryti sucks in a breath as the massive warrior tries to drive the breath out of her against the wall. She twists and stomps sideways on his knee. Rage or no, mechanics cause Echo to lose his balance. Bryti braces her other foot on the wall and launches herself free of his grasp.

Instead of continuing the offensive, she darts just a little further up the street. She turns and readies a defensive stance. As her aura continues, the handful of small cuts and scrapes she received from the wall slowly start to close.

"What is wrong, Echo?" She asks him, "Are you only skilled at strangling unarmed scholars?"

Still riding the initial adrenaline rush, Echo snarls and rushes headlong towards Bryti. He launches himself into a sprinting haymaker, but although the impact causes her armor to ring once more, it doesn’t cause much impact other than a trail of blood spread across it. If Echo feels any discomfort, he shows none.

His narrow eyes focus on hers. Through clenched teeth, he growls out a response. “INSUFFICIENTLY.”

"So it's a hobby then?" Bryti snarls.

She counters with a right hook to Echo's jaw. It hits hard enough to rattle cobblestones, but scarcely causes his head to move. Bryti grunts in surprise and darts back again, shaking the hand that struck him.

“A RESPONSIBILITY.” he snarls, after taking the blow. As Bryti launches away again, he tries to grab at her, but fails to connect. Instead, he trundles forward, not trying to strike so much as bodyslam her.

"Odd," Bryti glances at his stance, "I thought an Aggro's duty was to protect-"

Bryti attempts to punctuate her sentence with a diving punch to Echo's midsection. Though the blow connects with a crack, it is not enough to stop him. He slams into her and drives her back, crashing through an errant cart as Samra continue to flee.

“IT IS. TO PROTECT. ALWAYS. TO PROTECT.” He quickly capitalizes on her tumble, advancing quickly with a series of pounding blows to her sides. One even makes a solid connection with a gap in the armor. “IF ONLY-”

Bryti connects with a vicious headbutt directly to his nose. The blow actually draws blood, but the sheer impact briefly staggers both of them. Bryti shoves him off and shakes her head, snarling.

"You don't get to choose!" She spits, "Duty doesn't end because someone is annoying-"

As Echo’s head snaps forward, blood running freely from his nostrils, his expression is… focused. The snarling and grunting are gone. Now, it is only fury.

“Who are you, to LECTURE ME, on Duty? On Responsibility? What do you protect? What is left TO Protect?” He launches his foot forward, aiming for her chest… but Bryti manages to react in time, seizing the massive limb.

"What I protect," Bryti snarls as she grabs his leg, "Is our future!"

Echo feels the extremely unusual experience of being lifted bodily off the ground. Bryti literally throws him sideways, smashing him. through an unsuspecting lamp post. Bryti turns and takes a defensive stance again as he stands,

"Because that is all that we have left."

Recovering his feet, Echo rises again, using the shattered remnant of the lamp post. “If you speak true… hng... then… It is Sickening.” With a crack, the tortured pole snaps off at the base just as he raises to full height. He looks down at it… then tosses it away. He hunches down.

“For you defend… one… who would destroy it!” He practically leaps into a sprint, arms outstretched to seize hold of Bryti.

"What-" Echo's response causes Bryti to hesitate just long enough for him to get through.

Carrying the inertia, Echo pushes her once more into a solid stone wall… but, rather than hold her, this time he begins Slaming her repeatedly against it. The stone crackles and flakes under the punishment.

In time with the slams, Echo belts out.

“I. Am. Aggro. I. Defend. The Crag. Even. From. Themselves!”

From somewhere, a knee hits Echo in the gut, driving him back from her. She pushes off the wall and swings a haymaker with a scream, hitting hard enough to crack the pavement under him.

"Then you're an ANIMAL!" She yells as she swings for his head again, "Worse than! Even a beast knows the difference between its prey and its FAMILY!"

Echo staggers with each blow, driving him into a crouch. With a single enormous fist, however, he catches the last of Bryti’s blows. The trembling rage has returned to his expression. “He would have Killed Them!” From his lower position, he uses the other hand to throw a forceful blow into her gut. “Culled Them!” Punch. “Left Them To Die!” Punch.

A sharp elbow to the back of the head interrupts him. Bryti staggers back and kicks him in the chest, but rather than press an attack she uses the blow to create distance. She staggers back, one hand clutching her stomach instinctively. Echo has hit her hard enough to dent Mithral. As she gasps to regain her breath, something clicks.

“The blight,” she growls, “He was going to let people die to save food.”

Echo stands slowly. Red mingles with the green that flows from his exposed scalp. “He… had chosen them. He had lists.” It takes a moment for him to regain his balance, but finally, he spits a gobbet of blood at her feet.

“They. Would. Have. LET HIM!” He sails into another headlong charge… but this time, feints to the left, then moves right alongside her, aiming to body-check her through a thin pane of quartz.

Bryti is a difficult person to fool when she is paying attention. Instead of engaging his feint, she quickly darts out of his grasp and lets his momentum to the work.

“RRAAaagh-” Echo manages before hurtling through the pane of quartz. It shatters as he strikes it, sending fragments, some sharp as knives, in every direction. He tumbles through the fragile crops behind it, ending up on his back. He screams in wordless fury.

"Did they?" Bryti asks calmly.

Echo claws at the sod and foliage for purchase, slowly rising to his feet once more. “I stopped them. I protected them. The Aggro did as we always do. As we always will do. We…” He moves into a crouch. “Paid The Price.”

He charges once more, thundering through the sod… but just before arriving, his hand shoots up, and a mitt full of mud is slung at Bryti’s face right before impact. Bryti tries to duck aside, but the wet loam smacks into her face. She steps back with a snarl and looses a wild backfist, but it’s too late to stop Echo as he slams into her again. This time, he delivers his own punishing assault from above, screaming. “We Fought For Them! We Killed For Them! We Died For Them! We Paid The Price!” Blood flies from his elbow as it splits open under his unceasing barrage. “He! Would have killed Hundreds! To Save Thousands! We! Sacrificed Dozens! To Save The Whole of Our Kind!”

Bryti suddenly shoves forward. She swings her forehead into his fist hard enough to crack his finger bones. She replies with another fist low to his gut, then rises with one to his chin.

“Then you did your DUTY!” She screams through blood and mud, “Now? Now you are the one deciding who lives and dies! You are the one with a list! You don’t want to kill him to protect! You want to do it to satisfy your own HUNGER!”

That word is punctuated by a strike hard enough to split even a Lycan’s impervious skin on her own knuckles. With an expulsion of air, Echo goes flying, across the road, and into the structure with a Bryti-shaped imprint on it. Unfortunately, the tortured wall does not survive the impact. Masonry crumbles as Echo tumbles inside the building.

There is a momentary silence (apart from the crumbling and screaming, of course)... but only scant seconds pass before Echo’s spread-eagled form begins to rise once more. Bryti doesn’t interrupt his rise, instead calmly taking another defensive stance as she catches her breath and allows her numerous wounds to very slowly heal. She says nothing.

“You think you know me? You know my Hunger? You know my Soul?” His words are surprisingly calm… free of much of the trembling rage that filled them prior. “You do not even know Yourself. But in this moment… I Do.”

He looks to his hand. Fingers splay in wrong directions. His thumbnail is cracked to the quick. Blood seeps from numerous cuts and breaks. He places his other hand over it… and tugs.

“You see my Fury. The Echo which made my name. But the Hunger you see in it… it is Yours. Animal. You want to hurt. You want to Conquer. You want to Dictate… To Me… Who I am. And what my Duty Is.”

He looks down at his hand again. His fingers wiggle, popping a little.

“You want me to be Dominated… or to Disappear. But I will not go quietly!”

And with that, he begins making bounding leaps towards Bryti once more, scattering crumbled masonry as he goes. Bryti has not dropped her defensive stance. Echo did his level best to telegraph that strike as much as possible. Bryti drops to the side and elbows him in the ribs, but he is still able to get a strike in sideways, catching her in the cheek. She grunts and steps back, gauging him carefully.

“Perhaps I am an Animal,” She growls, “But only one of us has tried to murder a crag today.”

He clutches at his ribs. While he took the same blow, many times before, it seems this one was more telling. Echo grimaces. “And what do you believe Provoked that? Do you think me mindless beast, as he does? That was not the only of his transgressions. It is not the last of his transgressions this very day. All of this, and all it precipitates, is his doing.”

He sounds… suddenly exhausted. His words are robbed of much of the strength they had before. “Tell me, as you know us so well as to stand in Judgement on his behalf; Do you believe him to be Truly Crag?”

Bryti pauses. She watches him carefully, wary for another attempt to catch her off guard. She is right to worry… even now, he is looking for an opening. Gauging. Bryti flexes her fingers. The aura that surrounds her still holds up.

“You’re right,” she relents, “I know very little about the crag and your way of life. Why would he not be?”

He seems somewhat surprised at this response. However, he does not fail to answer. “To be a Crag… it is to serve The Crag. To be a part of its people. To Strive for them. To Bleed for them. You, who have only even seen a fragment of him that I have… Will you say he cares for any but himself?” Strength is returning to his words.

Bryti glances at the skin regrowing over her fists, then back to Echo.

“Yes,” She says, “Though I note he’s awful at it."

This time, the surprise is enough to actually throw him off. Tinged with suspicion, he simply responds “What?”

Bryti breathes a careful breath before responding.

“When I cured the Hunger’s affliction,” she speaks quietly enough that only he can hear, “First volunteered to stay and help. He did his best to assist and stay with him, speaking to him at length to keep him sane. He did so even though he was terrified of me. I cannot, for the life of me, think of a selfish reason for him to act in such a way.”

Echo seems… legitimately put off his guard by that. He is baffled. Bamboozled, even.

His brow furrows, and his frown deepens. “...He… What is this? What sense is this? Do you just carry confusion like a curse? I have never heard, never seen, such care from him for his own kind… he is callous. Abrasive. Merciless. You have heard him speak. Then what could compel him to show such kindness… to a Lowlander?”

“Friendship?” she sighs, “That is a silly answer, I know, but I don’t have a better one. As far as I could tell, First sees him as some kind of… beacon of sanity in the lowlands. They have talked at length before, apparently. I was not about to question it at the time.”

She gives her hands a curious look as the aura fades.

“The traits you spoke of… selflessness, devotion to community… they exist in the lowlands too. Perhaps First saw that one does not need to be a Crag to… be a Crag.”

Echo’s face contorts to confusion… and then, a sudden realization. And astonishment. He looks at Bryti… actually looks at her, not just her stance and movements.

“That almost sounds… a Wisdom.” he manages, disbelieving.

Bryti rubs some of the blood from her nose.

“Well I’m bound to get some of that eventually.”

“Sauver non! Non Sauver! Sauver heel! Non Sauver heel!” Pleading in a mix of Elven and Sylvan precedes the thunder of heavy hippopotamus feet on solid stone pavers. “Sauver! Non!” Litoria is not successful at preventing the hippo from charging, but she is at the very least successfully directing said charge away from the foreign military leader who is currently not actually engaged in combat with anyone.

Sauver plows into Bryti, with an aggressively happy headbutt. Bryti has only just looked back up the street when she suffers the impact. She is picked up off her feet by the hippo and half-rolled onto her back. Litoria sees Bryti, still covered in fist shaped dents, blood, and mud, blink up at her.

“We have resolved our conflict with words,” Bryti wearily reports.

Something nearby collapses.

“Eventually,” Bryti notes.

Echo considers the hippo with suspicion… but seems to take note of the pulverized wall covering her. And trailing behind her. And in the street. And… on his person. Indeed, he seems to suddenly realize the devastation that surrounds him.

His expression drops.

“Fuck.”

-FIN-