A Curse Upon Thee 2-2
Whatthefuckwhatthefuckwhatthefuuuuuu-
A roar broke through the night as Finn skidded through thick mud, hair plastered to his back as freezing water dripped off his naked skin. His bath in the river was pointless, his body more of a mess than it was just a minute ago. Ass caked with the grime and muck of the riverbank, his body more mottled brown than pink at this point.
Unfortunately, he didn’t have time to care about anything as small as being dirty.
The spot where his chest had just been was smashed right into the river, hammered down to a small crater as a thick wooden club the size of a power pole hit home.
–uuuuuuck!
Wet mud and freezing water blinded him with a spray that felt like a punch even as he scrambled backwards on all fours, taking the sloping bank like a drunk crab. The scrape of jagged river stones against his bare hands and feet was almost enough to distract him, but the long bloody scratches went ignored in the face of an ugly and certain death.
“What the actua-!”
He rolled hard to the left, naked body bursting through the moss-filled mess that was a rotten log, just as the massive log came swinging back around and just barely missed him.
What it didn’t miss was the tree right above him though, that terrifying arc shearing the top half of the tall pines and showering Finn in sharp splinters.
He ducked the shrapnel, one hand over his face. “MOTHERF-!”
With speed the monster shouldn’t have, that same club came down again exactly where his head had just been a heartbeat ago, completely dusting a good chunk of a boulder into gray powder.
He ducked again, diving full-body into the mud and bursting back onto his bare feet. Son of a bitch! Slipping and sliding in the slick of the mud, trying to keep his balance was as much of a battle as trying to stay alive in front of the monster still trying to turn him into jelly. At least eleven feet tall if it wasn’t a full twelve, the mountain of sickly green meat was built entirely out of bulging slabs of mucus-tinted muscle.
Ugly as it was, that simple fact didn’t do anything to keep it from trying to kill Finn.
He dove back again, nearly falling back into the rushing river water as the tree-trunk of a club pulled at his wet hair with the wind pressure of a near-miss.
What the fuck is this thing’s problem? Finn spat a mouthful of mud out as he ducked back as the green creature stumbled from its whiff, throwing himself into some thorny bushes. Chest heaving as his locket bounced up and down, the redhead sucked in ragged lungfuls of the cold night air. I didn’t even do anything. I was just taking a bath. What kinda fantasy park ranger bullshit is this?
Blue eyes blinked as water dripped into them, Finn peeking through tangled leaves and branches as the absolute unit stood knee-deep in the river. Its club came down and down, all around it, actively tearing the bank apart with a roar louder than the rushing water.
…what? Finn stared, mouth half-open. Why can’t it…
He hadn’t gone all that far from where it was, so… how bad are this thing’s eyes?
After thinking about it for a second more, Finn realized that he didn’t really feel like finding out anymore. Hell, he just wanted to run.
Only problem was… my clothes.
Right on the opposite side of the river, everything from his shirt to his underwear was still exactly where he sat it down. … fuck. Teeth grit, he came to another conclusion. I can’t be running around the Hundred-Acre-Woods at night full ass-and-balling.
With a sigh, Finn made his move.
Bursting out of the bushes, he had only one target and there was only one obstacle in the way of that. The second the thorns snapped around him, that misshapen head snapped straight towards him and Finn found himself staring at filmy white eyes.
Oh, you gotta be kidding me. Those eyes were staring aggressively at absolutely nothing, but those half-torn ears were twitching every second, almost every sound he made on the ground pulling its attention.
Blind. The giant ugly bastard was completely blind. I’m scared of a super mutant running around with a tree trunk. Finn bit back a curse, shaking his head as he flexed his fingers. Fuck that. You’re dying for making me get mud in my asshole.
To do that, though, he knew he would need more than just his clothes. Slaughter Demon. He needed that ugly fur-handled meat cleaver as much as he needed clothes, because fighting a giant troll already sounded like hell. Doing it ass-cheeks out was just torture.
Okay… Finn stared up at the monster with twitching ears, his breathing quiet as he waited for the right moment to do this. Now! The second his feet slapped the mud, both he and the ogre were moving.
Gotcha! Five fingers found the wood handle, soft black fur brushing against his hand, the same second his other hand closed around a handful of wet cotton. My boxers?
He managed to snatch up his knife and his underwear but everything else he’d brought with him to the river wasn’t quite so lucky.
Not as that tree-trunk weapon came down like a meteor strike.
“My clothes!” His only set of clothes was smashed to a smear of cloth and denim right against the rocks as Finn threw himself away from certain death. “F-fuck!”
His jaw clamped shut as actual anger spiked hard and sharp into his voice. Everything he’d just planned about staying quiet went out the window as a thick vein in his neck throbbed, pulsing just as hard as the ropy green ones all over the monster’s deformed torso. “I’m gonna gut your for that, you overgrown broccoli freak!”
Finn scrambled quickly into his soaking wet boxers, freezing fabric clinging to his hips as he stood his ground on the muddy riverside. “Alright, World War Hulk.” He hissed the words through teeth clenched tight, ready to end this snot-colored probem. “Let’s see exactly what you’ve got.”
Rushing forward again, Finn dug into his own gut and pulled hard on his Cursed Energy.
The sudden surge of power was almost to knock him off balance, even as it forced him forward in a blur. What the h- He barely felt like he was running anymore, feet barely breaking the surface of the mud as he moved easily twice as fast as he ever did in Kyoto.
It wasn’t just his body, either.
Cursed Energy moved faster inside him, the thick aura of red running cleaner and way smoother than he could ever remember it being. He barely even had to think about it as it circulated, raw energy just sliding effortlessly through his body like it was being routed through dozens of different and newly opened little… gates?
What the hell did that Scottish bastard do to my body? Unfortunately, Finn didn’t have the time or the oxygen to give the change any more thought as he kept fighting, ducking, and dodging for his life.
He was definitively faster than the monster, his body a literal blur of bright red dancing around those tree-trunk legs and darting through the muddy shallows. But even with his Reinforcement dialed this high, Finn knew this ogre-troll-giant thing was no joke.
BATTLE OGRE : Blind Human Hunter
GRADE: SEMI-TWO
The world froze for a heartbeat, words in a thick block of black-and-red splashing across his eyes in that same split-second. The fuck?!
It vanished with a blink as Finn breathed out a confused squawk. The hell was that?
Apparently, that was all the answers the world had chosen to give and the ogre took that moment to smash its maul down again with a roar. Leaving Finn no time to process, he was forced back into the fight.
The words might have been more confusing than they were helpful, but they were definitely a little bit helpful. Semi Grade Two, huh? He already knew the ogre-thing wasn’t just an animal, considering it had a weapon and a loincloth. Anything that had clothes and tools was at least Semi-Grade 2 and the physicals matched up with at least the bottom end of Grade Two.
Again, nothing he didn’t know. Nice to have it confirmed, though.
Even with that little confirmation, it did nothing to change that he was still up against an ever-mean and ever-green biological engine of pure destruction that could probably juggle cows if it felt like it. Hell, every single time that tree trunk whiffed Finn’s skull and made the ground suffer for it, Finn had to fight to keep his balance under what felt like a small earthquake.
“Missed me, ugly!” His taunt cut sharp over the rushing water as he darted back and planted his bare feet on a half-submerged boulder.
“Right here!” Finn burst into the air with a single jump, leg muscles and Cursed Energy carrying him an easy nine feet straight up in a single move. Another shout burst free — wordless this time — as he twisted his hips and drove a brutal kick directly into the thick, meaty side of the creature’s ribs.
The impact was a gunshot, echoing through the trees at night, as the ogre grunted and stumbled a full five steps back. It was visibly hurt, but visibly hurt wasn’t good enough for a reinforced kick Finn knew for an absolute fact could have easily folded a small pine three times over.
The ogre roared loud, fury and pain coming together to give it more strength as that heavy club came back around with a brutal backhand.
Finn was already moving, flipping his entire body backward through the air and out of the path of destruction. He landed clean, bare feet kissing the mud of the shallows. Without missing a single beat, he immediately tossed the heavy, fur-handled weapon straight up into the night sky above him.
Without another word, he jumped right back at the green monster, body twisted almost perfectly horizontal to dodge another devastaring hammer-blow.
His right hand lashed out fast at the absolute peak of his jump, Finn snatching the heavy grip of the falling weapon as it spun back down.
Another wordless roar, all adrenaline and anger, burst out of him as he brought the wide blade down with all the force he had. The ugly cleaver hit home perfectly, slicing effortlessly through layers of leathery green hide, and carving a jagged, bleeding canyon straight down the length of the arm the ogre held the weapon with.
“Gotcha, bitch!”
Thick blood steamed in the cold night air, so dark green it was almost entirely black, erupted out in a pulsing stream; the stuff staining the rushing river water around the ogre’s legs.
Finn hit the water and immediately danced backward, putting a solid ten feet of distance between them as he waited for the wound to do the job and make the monster fold like an omelette under the blood loss.
There was no folding.
Instead, the monster just let out a deep grunt as its free hand came up to its face. A glob of slimy green spit flew from its mouth, splattering against his oversized palm for a second before the ogre slathered the gunk over the open wound.
It blatantly ignored the massive, gaping wound on its arm, hacked up a massive, disgusting glob of thick, incredibly slimy green spit directly into its good palm, and aggressively slathered the foul gunk straight over the bleeding canyon of sliced muscle.
“…Are…” Blue eyes went wide as torn flesh and severed muscle began to heal up at once, skin knitting together the longer Finn watched. “Are you kidding me? You have magic spit? Do I have magic spit?”
He didn’t get a single chance to test that as the ogre roared again and charged forward, as blind as ever and uncaring of that fact. The ground thudded again, Finn sliding back off the already-ruined riverside and fell back into the water. His bare feet slid against the slick river stones as he desperately fought just to stay upright.
Lizard brain instinct and something else he couldn’t put a name to drove him and, without thinking twice, Finn slammed both of his bare hands together. The wide steel blade of the weird dagger was sandwiched tightly between his palms in an unfamiliar handsign, Finn immediately pulling on his Cursed Energy as the gates inside him worked with him and poured directly into his hands.
Something sharp and blisteringly hot like a wooden match struck against his soul, something sparking to life as it traveled rapidly down the entire length of the cold steel.
Finn’s own breath caught tight in the back of his throat as words slid free. “Flames Among Ashes: Burning Brand!”
An aggressive edge of pure red-orange fire burst to life with intense blistering heat, covering the entire surface of Slaughter Demon and bringing new light to the moonlit fight.
His blue eyes reflected the flames, Finn’s pale face stretched into a grin as wide and dangerous as any that he’d ever worn in his entire life.
“Oh, fuck yeeessss!”
– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –
Birthday Suit Scuffle – 50 GP
Fight in the nude like nature intended.
Like An Onion – 100 GP
Wound an ogre.
Not Easy Being Green – 100 GP
Kill a Battle Ogre.
ROLL: Psychic Abilities – Pyrokinesis (Matches) (100) [WoD: Sorcerer] {Destruction}:
You possess the psychic power of pyrokinesis, the innate ability to generate and control heat and fire through will alone rather than formal sorcery. At this level, Matches, you can cause a single object within physical reach to burst into flame as though lit by an actual match.
ROLL: Magic-Enhanced Attacks (0) [Lyrical Nanoha] {Destruction}:
You can reinforce your strikes or weapons with mana, allowing your blows to hit harder and inflict greater damage than they otherwise would. Whether used to break through defenses, empower a weapon, or simply add force to your attacks, this lets you channel magic directly into physical offense.
ROLL: Adventuring Clothing (100) [Danmachi] {Benevolence}:
A set of multipurpose clothing imbued with the power of salamanders and undines. It protects the wearer from fire, cold, and water, grants resistance to heat- and water-based attacks, improves swimming ability by reducing water resistance and pressure, resists ordinary wear and tear, and automatically cleans away dirt and filth.
Grimoire Points: 900