soul_logs | [Closed] But we are ready and prepared to fight

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[Closed] But we are ready and prepared to fight

Characters: Steve Rogers and Hades
Location: Scandinavia
Rating: PG-13
Time: May 24th
Description: A forgotten God and a living Legend go troll-hunting.

After maybe an hour of speaking with the locals, following hints and getting a vehicle Steve and Hades finally arrived in the outskirts of a forest that was supposedly part of a famous park. Hades had left most of the speaking to the human Meister, assuming correctly that doing so would inspire more faith and cooperating from those they met.

The place their tracking had led them to was the shore of a big river that was filled with water that was of a muddy blue-green color and kept making small noises as the floods rushed by. A light rain was falling and the barest hint of faint mist had build up along the surface of the water.

Hades walked up to it until sand mixed with the earth beneath his feet and only a few steps divided him from taking another unwanted swimming lesson. “According to what that one said the last victim was snatched from about here.” He took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a moment. It wasn’t the ocean, but all that water still reminded him of his late brother. Silly stupid brother who had went down while trying to punch giant scorpions in the face. “…I don’t think that dying in the water is really preferable to dying on the land.”

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Hades' shifts first into his Weapon form first and only then replies. "Always." The kishin eggs still holds one end of is Weapon form and is now trying to use it to whip them both around like a toy on a string.

"The one from he other side will reach us in two minutes and a little less than fifty seconds. You have until then to deal with this one."

Steve worries for a moment about Hades, being pulled from two ends definitely doesn't seem pleasant. But he quickly pushes that aside, trying to maintain his ground as he maneuvers the meteor hammer to either hit the troll or make it lose his hold. However, the troll is strong, and despite his strength, he's slipping up a bit.

"Less than three minutes. Seems like plenty of time." He quips in return, but doesn't say much else.

"Hmph", Hades comments with his trademark noise that can hold a thousand different meanings depending on his mood and circumstance as he observes the tug-of-war with his Weapon form. "First actions, then talk."

The troll evades the first hit by bending to the side, but it gets hit by the second because it doesn't want to let go of its prey. The hit is enough to make it stagger. Feeling that something is off Hades frowns lightly, his mood echoing through their resonance. "Watch ou-" He doesn't have time to finish his warning before the kishin egg already stumbles back, misses its footing underwater with one leg and starts keeling over backwards while it is still clinging to the Meteor Hammer like a lifeline.

Damn, this was going to be wet again, wouldn't it?

Edited 2013-05-14 03:42 (UTC)

Steve doesn't disagree with him on that one. He continues to focus and steady his grounding, but he can feel the strain reaching its maximum.

He feels Hades' mood, but it doesn't prevent him from losing his grip on the meteor hammer as the troll falls back into the river, causing a large splash around him. Letting out a small curse, Steve rushes over to the river, ignoring how wet his clothes are getting. He just needs to get Hades out of there.

The thuds of the approaching second troll come closer and closer as the thrashing of the first one disrupts the ground of the river and turns the water the color of mud. It still hasn't let go of the Weapon and Hades observes with mild combination of worry and interest that it is using his Weapon-form like a reversed fishing line. Steve would definitely have to watch out not to get hit.

The water probably slows his movement a bit, but he pulls out his shield to block the strikes, hoping that the thing can last for now. Once he gets close enough, he jams the shield into the troll's neck, hoping that he'll release Hades from the blow.

The shield barely lasts and Hades sends a pulse of his Weapon-inherent madness wavelength through the Meteor Hammer's chain in order to repulse and confuse the troll so that Steve can hit it properly. He still has no intention to actively help anyone, but if Hades has the choice between who of the two gets to swing him then he still prefers Steve.

Ignoring the gurgling scream of the injured troll as it lets go in order to clasp its injured neck Hades transforms back just long enough to move within Steve's reach before he shifts right back into a Weapon again.

His Weapon form is humming with a faint sensation of power as if it were greeting Steve. 'What did I say?'

Steve notes that the troll starts to move around in confusion, figuring that Hades might have had a hand in that. He appreciates the help, attacking the troll would have been a lot more difficult without that interference.

Releasing his cracked shield, Steve grabs the meteor hammer, returning the sensation that he feels from Hades. Without wasting any more time, he swings at the troll with the weapon, aiming to strike it in the head. "Action first."

"Heh" An image of small teeth shining up in an unpleasant smile reflects in the material of the Meteor Hammer for a moment as its head comes down and cracks through the back of the head of the kishin egg as if it were an overripe melon. Almost immediately thin, black hair-like tendrils spring forth from the Weapon and remove the corrupted soul from the disintegrating body, sucking it into the Weapon.

There is a short pleasant hum that reveals that Hades' does have emotions like pride (and a vengeful side) in his voice when the god speaks up again. "10 seconds until the second one rushes you. It seems like it is going for a running tackle."

It's the first time Steve's seen a Weapon absorb the souls before, almost feeling a little uncomfortable at the sight. He doesn't like the thought of Weapons getting stronger from absorbing souls, but he mentally brushes it aside for now, wanting to be focused on the battle at hand. He can't be sidetracked when the other kishin egg is about to strike.

"At least this one doesn't have the element of surprise." Steve moves into position, gauging the distance and preparing to move and strike with the meteor hammer at the opportune time.

If he were in his humanoid form Hades would have given Steve an ill-boding look while his full attention were on him as he caught traces of his Meister's reaction to his tacking claim of that soul.

"Hmph", the Weapon commented as the kishin egg slowed down for exactly one step at the sight of it's dying comrade and then charged them headfirst with a loud challenging roar. "This one is less clever."

"We'll take advantage of that."

As the troll begins to charge towards them, Steve starts to swing the meteor hammer to strike at its vulnerable head. It's definitely gruesome, but excessive violence is something that he's familiar with. There's really no time to hesitate either.

The kishin egg charges blindly ahead until the head of the Meteor hammer crashes violently into his and just sends it flying. For a moment the body just keeps running, endangering the team through its sheer amount of mass that is still driven forward by its own momentum.

Hades transforms back once it falls to the ground. "This seems too easy."

Steve is glad that this one went down rather quickly, better that it doesn't cause much harm to them. Still, Hades does have a point, things are rarely this easy. He remembers warning Tony about the same thing with Loki.

"There could be more of them, hiding around. Waiting for a surprise attack again."

"Hmph." Hades' standard answer is nonchalant.

Stepping forward, he says "There are still kishin eggs clos-" He trails off as his body stiffens for a moment when the sensation of hot wires being rammed through his veins races through Hades in a brief wave. Ah, so that wasn't the truth. He shakes his head lightly, smiling knowingly to himself. "There are no kishin eggs clo-" Again he doesn't get to finish his sentence.

The Greek god turns to Steve once his body relaxes once more. "There is one kishin egg close-by." This form of confirming the truth without actually bothering with the in-between is a bit violent in this world, but it is still the most familiar way for Hades to find something out. All in all he thinks that the brief intense pain might even be better than the usual lack of feeling anything when he finds that he can't say something.

Steve notices when Hades' body suddenly stiffens and he frowns a little at that. He wonders if something is wrong. "Are you alright, Hades?" Steve does look concerned, Hades is his partner for this mission after all.

Oh, and there's still one kishin egg left? Looks like they ran into a lot this time. It's good that they managed to get this far though. "Can you locate its position?"

His concern earns him a sideways glance. "It is but the usual side-effects of me trying to say something that isn't true."

He takes a small breath and makes a step towards the woods. "I can." But it will hurt. He does not say this. Figuring out the right direction for them to go takes Hades a few moments where he keeps turning different directions while he keeps mumbling under his breath just to cut himself short over and over again. Out of habit he has switched back to speaking Greek, but if Steve bothers to listen he will quickly notice that it's always the same words. Verification through falsification had the bad habit of being quite case-sensitive.

When he is finally able to finish the sentence and switches back to English Hades is paler than usual and the hand he uses for pointing shakes lightly. "That direction."

Steve pieces the information together, so Hades feels pain whenever he lies. Guess that explains a lot of things and now he's using it in a tactical way, judging by the repeated words. But still worrying. It's not like he wants the guy to hurt himself for this. It doesn't feel right to him and he places a hand on his shoulder when Hades points in that direction.

"That's enough." He looks at his slightly shaking hand and pale face.

Hades stiffens under the touch and without him noticing his breath catches for a moment. Then he regards Steve cooly before he slips out from under his touch. "I'd prefer if you don't do that."

Steve lowers his hand to his side, his expression slowly returning to a neutral form, although he's still a little concerned.

"Do you need to rest?" It's a risk, but Steve doesn't want Hades to keep on pushing himself and collapse.

"It's no reason for concern." It was true. His breathing had mostly normalized already and his moves were less shaky already. Hades takes this as a reason to give Steve a haughty glance, but his eyes remain serious.

"I'd be a bad god if that much pain could hinder me long." Being touched as if it were nothing special still tends to ruffle him more, even though his poker face usually holds. Hades is too used on being either overlooked or avoided to expect the contact with living things. He takes a little breath before he gathers up his ridiculous long amount of hair and starts wringing it out. Some gods might have had a way of looking even more divine and desirable when they were doused in water, but Hades simply looks and feels wet as he grimaces.

"..Although I will probably never understand the charm of taking baths in rivers."

He notices that Hades is recovering from earlier, his breath evening and his movements more stable. If he's sure about continuing, then Steve won't stall for more time here.

"You're still not invincible." Steve is familiar with giving a comrade a small squeeze on the shoulder or helping them to safety, so it didn't occur to him to not show some support to Hades. It's part of being in the war, helping out a fellow soldier if they need it. Of course, not everyone here is soldiers, something that Tony said to him once before.

He is polite enough to not comment about Hades' appearance at least. "Not the most pleasant feeling, is it?"

Hades doesn't deign that question an answer, albeit his expression paired with his silence speak quite vocally for themselves. 'Companionship' is a term that means as little to him as 'friendship' or 'loneliness' do. They are things that happen to others, others whose life is a lot more short and frail than his. In Hades' way of existing they simply make no sense when related to himself, which in turn causes him to repeatedly lose his proverbial balance when somebody tries to treat him like one of them.

It's not that he doesn't appreciate it, he simply does not understand it.

Starting to walk, the god opts to belatedly reply to Steve's first comment. "I know. I would consider it quite terrible if I were." It doesn't take them long to find another kishin egg once they get close to the woods. "You ought not to desire it either if you are wise."

Steve would probably find that existence a little disheartening, companionship was always a big thing to him during the war. Even before it, with Bucky always there to support him. Of course, loneliness is something more common to him nowadays, but he'd rather feel that than not understand it at all.

He begins to follow Hades through the water. "I don't." It's a little refreshing to hear a 'god' say that it would be terrible if he was invincible though. "Not being able to die, it's not something I'd want."

"Oh?" Hades sounds nonchalant as he continues on. Hies ears move a bit every now and then, turning towards small noises they pick up as they progress to where their presumed third enemy is.

"What makes you feel that way?" Most people want to die never.

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