Chapter 5: Just Like Old Times

Talon and Dinah spar in Whitsworth arena and both appear to be evenly matched. Will the Sapphire Sniper be able to defeat such a skilled assassin?

Whitsworth’s arena was in the middle of town where it was easily accessible for anyone in Pelmridge.  As his large chariot re-entered town it caught the attention of many townsfolk, especially when it entered the vacant arena.  As soon as the vehicle stopped, Talon and Dinah jumped out and headed to the battle area.  Willard followed Talon to the right side, while Whitsworth and two of his servants followed Dinah to the left side.

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” Whitsworth demanded to the hired assassin.  “They say you’re one of the best…but I’ve seen this man in combat, he’s no slouch hand to hand!”

“I don’t think you have anything to worry about, Mr. Whitsworth.” Dinah said calmly and respectfully, “Growing up me and Talon always used to spar together…I always was better than him.  I’m sure he’s still good, but the fact remains that I’m better.”

“You better be.” Whitsworth replied.  “Because we need these two for this job, and Lord Corbin won’t be satisfied unless everything goes perfectly!”

“Like I said,” Dinah said as she started removing her weapons.  “Don’t worry about it.”

Talon watched as Dinah removed her segmented bow staff, pocket of ninja stars, and two small stilettos (the dagger not the shoes).  He examined the woman from head to toe.  She wore black and purple battle gear, and he could tell from her dress that she was a high ranking assassin within the Order.

“What’s the deal with this girl?” Willard asked as Talon handed him his small dagger, bow, and quiver of arrows.

“What do you mean?” Talon replied, “I knew her when we were kids…that’s all.”

“No, it’s not that.” Willard responded, “How many fights have we been in together?  Probably well over two-hundred…at this point you’re always laughing at your opponent, saying things to downplay their skill…if anything, one of your flaws in battle Talon is you constantly view your opponent as weaker then you…but for some reason, you’re actually taking her seriously?  Are you concerned that she may be better then you, Talon?”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” the Sapphire Archer retorted, “I just recognize that she’s a highly ranked assassin…I know she’s dangerous, but it doesn’t matter because I AM better than her.  Just stand back here, watch my stuff, and observe…you’ll see how much better I really am then her!”

“I didn’t realize you had something to prove.” Willard muttered as Talon walked onto the battle platform.

Dinah and Talon met at the center.  Dinah was holding two katars with short silver blades.  She threw one katar to Talon, who quickly caught the weapon and set it on his arm.

“What are you doing?” Willard’s voice bellowed from behind.  “I thought this was a hand to hand fight, you guys don’t need blades?”

“That’s right!” Whitsworth agreed from the other end, “I don’t want either of you hurt for the job!”

“Relax both of you.” Dinah said loudly to the two men, but looking into Talon’s eyes.  “This is how we spar in the Order…Talon knows what’s going on.”

“Yeah I remember.” Talon said as he looked at the katar he currently wore.  “These blades are moderately dull, but still can draw blood.  You can’t kill anyone with these things though…so in this duel, the first one to draw blood at any of the “death spots” (that is, area of the body that if stabbed would cause certain death) of a person is considered the victor.

“Just like old times.” Dinah said with a competitive smile to Talon, as she held her katar and readied for battle.

“Similar.” Talon retorted, “But I think you’ll find I’ve gotten a lot better than when I was ten.”

“I hope so.” Dinah said, as the two fighters started to pace around each other, “Otherwise this would be really boring for me.”

Talon was the first to throw a punch at Dinah, who quickly blocked it with her fist, and tried to give a low kick to Talon, who quickly jumped over her foot.  As the two began to throw blows and block, a crowd began to surround the arena, watching from the fences that blocked outsiders.  Within a matter of minutes word got out in the small town of the fight that was happening in the arena and many spectators surrounded the arena to watch the unannounced event.  Many regulars at the bars and taverns started to cheer for the “mysterious girl in purple” because they were hoping someone could finally show Talon up and put him in place.  Once the crowd began to gather, Lyon and his gang, who were all still nursing small wounds from their last tussle, also came to watch the blue haired sniper in action.  While his men cheered for Talon, now respecting him and Willard for taking on their whole band alone, Lyon kept his mouth shut, simply watching attentively.

“You know it’s funny we ran into you.” Talon spoke, as he blocked a couple fast kicks from Dinah.  “Because I decided not to kill a sorceress not to long ago because she reminded me of you.”

“Ah that’s sweet.” Dinah said, now dodging punches from Talon.  “So you thought she was cute, huh?”

“Not what I meant.” Talon breathed heavily, as he gave a quick thrust  with his bladed fist towards Dinah, who caught it and threw him backwards.  “You haven’t changed at all.  Still arrogant, and still unable to take anything seriously.”

“And you haven’t changed either.” Dinah replied, after she threw Talon forwards, and was watching him hit the ground.  “Still grumpy and slow.”

“Hurry this up!” Whitsworth commanded from the sidelines impatiently, “Enough with this childish banter!  If this fight progresses any more, I’ll be late for dinner!”

“We wouldn’t want that.” Dinah muttered under her breath as she simply nodded to Whitsworth. “Alright Talon, I hope you’ve gotten better, otherwise this is going to hurt.”

As Talon jumped to his feet, he was met by Dinah lunging towards him and punching him in the stomach.  She followed the punch with a swift spinning crescent kick to the face that Talon just barely blocked.  The two attempted to throw the same “kill” move at each other with their katar, only to instinctively block the other.

Willard watched the fight amazed at how similar their fighting styles were.  It was a very entertaining fight, as both played off the mistakes of the other in battle.  The problem was, neither Dinah nor Talon  made many mistakes.  Willard realized early in the fight that usually Talon’s style compared to most brawlers would be considered skillful and almost perfect, next to Dinah’s, it seemed sloppy and not as well thought out.  As the battle raged on, Willard started to mentally prepare himself for a long boat trip to Reuben and a grumpy and defeated Talon as a travel companion.

Talon threw punch after punch, “deathblow” after deathblow (that is, a punch with his bladed fist) only to have them blocked and countered by attacks by Dinah.  The two danced around the arena, jumping over each other, reversing martial art holds, and dodging devastating blows, all as a large and entertained crowd watched with much enthusiasm.

Talon wasn’t simply thinking about his spar with Dinah during the fight.  Inside he was trying hard to fight the reoccurring urges to lash out in a violent frenzy.  Deep within him he felt the almost addictive and dangerous feeling that he gave into in his last fight with Lyon.  This feeling of blood lust was swelling in his stomach, trying to be released, but Talon struggled to keep his mind focused and intentional on his motions.  Logically, he knew that breaking out in a ferocious frenzy like he did before would only end in Dinah outsmarting him, and pinning the winning blow with her katar.  Even more than that, Talon was worried about the flare of murderous rage that appeared within him during his fight with Lyon.  This was a feeling that the marksman did everything he could in this moment to resist.  He focused on watching Dinah, reminding himself of his childhood rival, and if he was honest, his first best friend. 

As the battle continued, the blood lust feeling became harder to resist.  Each blow Dinah laid on Talon, whether hand or foot caused a boiling trigger to go off in Talon head.  He found himself becoming angrier, and quicker to react (but also quicker to make a wrong move that Dinah could capitalize on)  Finally Talon began to sweat and throw punches rapidly, almost as in a frantic frenzy.  Dinah could keep up, and while she was hit by a few, she knew to dodge and parry most.  Talon couldn’t help but yell and growl out of rage as he tried with all his might (might that not even he knew he possessed) to strike down his competitor.

“Phew!” Dinah  dodged two deathblows, “You are as persistent as ever, Talon.  That’s good! I always liked that about you.”

Upon hearing his old friend’s voice, Talon was able to maintain some control over himself.  He halted his offensive raid, and paused, as he collected his mind and breathed easily.  Dinah looked at him with surprise, as she did not expect him to be this out of shape as to need a moment to catch his breath after sparing for this short length of time.

“Don’t tell me that is all you have.” Dinah said, “If this was a real fight, you’d be dead right now, archer-boy!”

“Don’t kid yourself.” Talon spoke between breaths as he looked up at his opponent, “I’m just getting warmed up.  But I’ve seen what I’ve wanted to.  I wanted to spar you to see if you were someone who had no ability to protect herself, if we were being paid to protect a weakling who could never get the job done.  Obviously you have some skills, so we’ll take the job.”

Talon took his katar off and threw it to Dinah, who caught it instinctively.  She looked at the sniper with disbelief as he turned around and walked towards Willard.

“Wait…That’s it?” Dinah shouted at her rival.  “You’re done?  You’re giving up?  You’re full of it Talon!  I’ve never known you to quit during a fight.  We’re not done yet!”

The archer waved his hand up in the air to casually brush Dinah’s taunts off.  “Tell your boss that we’ll take the job.”

“I don’t get it.” Dinah thought, “We were not fighting hard, and he seems out of breath and slightly fatigued.  Did becoming a mercenary make Talon soft?  I didn’t think I’d lose…but come on!  That was hardly a fight!”

Talon made his way back to Willard and gathered his weapons.  The large blue armored man could not stay silent after his friend's forfeit.

“What the heck was that?” Willard demanded, “You gave up!  Talon. I have never known you to give up!  You’re pride is such that I didn’t think you knew how to give up!  What’s going on Talon, you’re not telling me something!  You’ve been acting really funny lately…and I don’t mean the funny kind of funny, I mean the “this is serious” kind of funny!”

“Stop you’re yapping!” Talon snapped at his partner, “I just wanted to see she could fight, to see if we had a chance to succeed in this assassination mission.  Now that I know she’s decent, we can go make three hundred gold pieces easily!  Now what’s wrong with this picture?”

“Well, when you put it that way…” Willard reasoned in his head, “It does some pretty logical…But hey Talon, I got one question for you.”

“Just one, if it will stop your constant talking.” Talon sighed in annoyance as he flung his quiver over his shoulder.

“Where you guys using any kind of techniques that involved burning each other, because your neck is kind of…”

Talon quickly touched the left side of his neck, and felt as if he was touching a scolding hot pot.  His neck wasn’t hurting, but when he touched it with his finger he quickly moved his hand back in pain.  The archer examined his finger to see that there was now a burn sore on the tip, with smoke coming from it.  He withdrew his dagger and held it in a way to see the reflection of his face on the blade.  Examining his neck Talon saw a very small segment of his neck, black and charred with smoke coming from it.  The spot slowly faded to his normal pale skin color as the smoke blew away.

“What is happening to me?” Talon thought to himself.  The fact was he knew the truth even if he denied it to the others.  The truth was that Talon had hoped to have defeated Dinah in a hand to hand match.  He wanted to prove to her that he was better then her, once and for all.  But during the fight, the uncontrollable urge to kill almost became too strong within the Sapphire Sniper, so he decided to withdraw before it was too late.  And now, with this black spot showing up on his neck…Talon stared at his reflection confused, and slightly scared.

“Hey big guy!”  Dinah’s loud female voice was heard from behind the two mercenaries.  Dinah took from her pocket a small wallet and golden pendant  and threw it at Willard's feet.  “No hard feelings…I needed some money for the boat fare over here, so I just borrowed some.  It was nothing personal, really.  The way I see it, since we’re going to be working together, we should probably get past that whole ordeal.  I’ll pay you back eventually.”

Willard couldn’t help but smile as he picked up the wallet and pendant and put them in his breastplate.  She was loud, rude, and her ability to fight made her more of a man then he cared to admit, but the blue knight could not deny the charm that Dinah seemed to present without challenge.  As Willard smiled to himself, Dinah stared at Talon who was deep in thought with great concern.  She knew the blue haired archer well enough to know that something was wrong.  Talon never gives up fights even if death is certain…why surrender in such an insignificant and harmless spar?  Dinah was silent as she joined the two mercenaries back on Whitsworth chariot to return to his mansion and prepare for departure.  On the road back, she thought about how Talon was right earlier…these weren’t just like old times.  In fact, something was very different.

Reviews

[StillShorterThanYou]

I can't wait to see what happens next >,< This is so exciting! Assassins for the win!

[DarkCrono15]

Glad you like it!