nomans_land | Octovern, since that's where all the cool kids are.

Octovern, since that's where all the cool kids are.

Rated R for violence.

1.

It's a good thing all those wanted posters show a black haired angry twin of Vash the Stampede, because the one with hair so pale it might as well be white hasn't been noticed yet by anyone of the Federal sort. Just one more dust covered caravan cockroach in a city full of them.

It has taken Knives the better part of three months to get here.

On foot for almost all of it.

Being picked up a few iles out was nice but almost pointless by then, still, he'd hitched a ride, gotten dropped off and promptly relocated to the nearest restaraunt, bar or otherwise useful source of water and food, neither of which he actually needs.

Pretend to eat and drink, even if you don't have to

He also has no need for human clothing, but he's at least bothered with that, and is dressed in depressingly ordinary bluejeans and boots, black turtleneck shirt and sky blue crop top jacket, fingerless gloves on his hands and dark sunglasses more often than not hiding his both eyes and a twisting pale scar. It hides every single glowing line he struggled to easily obscure or that could catch an unexpected reflection of the light. He could be anyone, if 'anyone' paid for every single transaction in coins instead of paper bills, but nothing flags to humanity as obviously NOT human, which is the point. He doesn't think to hide from his own kind. Why would he?

And so he sits, a careworn bag sitting at his feet, working very slowly through a blueberry muffin and a tall glass of water with a lone icecube in it. Nothing to see here, move along.

2.

Knives, pack once more over his shoulder and map in hand, is losing the fight with navigation. The map's several years out of date and does not at all have all the modifications and camp outs and construction that's happened since the worlds merged. Which leaves him standing on the side of the road at a crossroads that simply doesn't exist on the map, scowling at the grid-marked map in his hands.

This is absolutely Ann Street. Ann Street should run right to North Street, but it does not. Not anymore.

Now there's an entire gun shop in the way and several shanty-town level buildings, and he's not entirely sure North Street even exists anymore. A trio of armed Federal troops march past; they ignore him and he only gives them a cursory look until they stop to update the wanted posters nailed to the gun shop's wall. While they might be on the lookout for a certain pair of notorious outlaws, he just doesn't fit the profile.

The names on some of those posters, though..

He crosses the street, dodging a tomas-pulled wagon, and stops in front of the dozens of posters to study them with a furrowed brow. Whoever's coming up with these things clearly is a terrible artist, while that's his name it looks nothing like him except for the beauty mark. "...Really? Not even a price tag?"

Aren't these supposed to come with a bounty, instead of 'Reward Upon Capture'?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Would a drink really help Wolfwood not say foolish things? Knives hasn't been around too many humans, if he thinks that's the case.

"No, I'm not your employee anymore. I watched you die.” He grins suddenly, a flash of those fangs. He might be terrified, but every predator knows that showing fear to something bigger and scarier than you is a good way to die quick. He already figured himself a dead man when he spotted Knives – might as well run his mouth while he can. “Best day of my life.”

It was also the worst day of his life, but Knives doesn't need to know that. “So keep your fucking courtesy.”

This seems to cause the plant to hesitate, head tilting to one side like a puzzled dog. Well, if he really wants it, and he really, really seems to want it..

"If you're so intent on your own slaughter I'll grant your wish, but why are you so desperate to die?"

It's pretty obvious Wolfwood's gunning for an execution and Knives will provide as wasteful as it is, but he'd always assumed the man's convictions went further than that. Part of his jacket uncoils like a rearing cobra, delicate layered blades fanning open in a gleam of light along sharp edges. If the goal had been to not be noticed, that's going out the window very soon. "Execution at the hands of someone who you know isn't involved seems unusually stupid for someone of your caliber and education. Are you sure you want to continue this?"

Does he ever have a goal when he starts running his mouth? It's just part of who he is, a habit that even the Eye couldn't shake loose. He talks shit when he's nervous, when he's outright scared, when he's faced with something he can't handle. It makes his opponents take him less seriously, sometimes, or makes them mad so they make mistakes, giving him openings. Like now: any second now, somebody in this place is going to notice the supernatural stuff happening with the plant-blond man, and there'll be screaming, panic, and eventually, feds and militia, Earth forces. Vash.

He doesn't want to die. He really doesn't. But some things are bigger than himself, and the safety of Miz Melanie and the rest of the orphanage brats, currently housed nearby, is the best of all those things. "What I want is for you to leave. Leave the city, leave the planet, and never come back."

A 'good Knives'. Who'd he been kidding? If his response to a couple mild insults is to threaten death, then there's nothing good about him. "I don't care what world you're from or what you're involved in. I still know you. I know what you are, and I know nobody here is safe until you're gone."

Nearby is a terrible place to be, when Millions Knives proves his name. Hopefully those orphanage brats aren't that close at all, since Wolfwood chose to repeatedly poke a bear and then pretend he wasn't begging for it when it turned on him. But humans were always good at playing the victim when they cause their own downfall.

"If you're really worried about anyone's safety at all, why are you going out of your way to try to provoke me into doing harm?" A second slow, long coil of blades joins the first; if Wolfwood had hoped he was dealing with some powerless remnant it seems he was gravely mistaken. It's not his first mistake today. "If you think nobody here is safe unless I'm gone, then you also think I'm not going to stop with just you. So why do you want to die? Why do you want this city to die?"

There's no sense in talking to him -- angels don't listen to the words of pathetic mortals. "I don't--"he snarls, but before he can finish whatever he was going to say, the young woman at a nearby table finally spots the coil of blades rising from Knives, and lets out a bloodcurdling shriek, tripping over her chair in her frantic attempt to run away from the monster.

Here they go.

"Get out, run!" Wolfwood hollers, turning in her direction. He uses the motion to reach behind himself, drawing the stolen revolver and bringing it around with every single bit of his strength of speed. He's gonna shoot Millions Knives in the goddamn face. The only one dying here is you, he thinks at Knives, squeezing the trigger.

The people here in this shop are hopelessly outmatched, lacking the sheer numbers needed to get past Knives' defenses. He sighs, a much put-out sound as a shrill scream rings out, and as soon as she trips terrified toward the door in an effort to escape, one of the two coils of blades flashes out like a striking snake to try to, much like a snake, enshroud her in loops of sharp blades and bring her escape attempt to a sudden stop.

Shooting Knives in the face goes about as well as Wolfwood likely expects, the sharp ting of metal impacting metal as the second ribbon of blades fans open in a blur of protection, burying the bullet in the ceiling. There's a third sinister coil of metal now, and this reaches immediately to try to snare Wolfwood the same way he tried to the screaming girl. If he catches either one, too much struggling is going to be rather painful but the cutting edges aren't turned inwards just yet. Maybe he intends them to flay themselves apart in their efforts to escape. Or he's planning to monologue them to death while they're a captive audience.

Wolfwood isn't the only person in the restaurant with a gun -- this is, after all, Noman's Land. The screaming woman freezes as the loop of blades coils around her, shrinking in on herself to try to avoid being cut on the sharp edges. The rest of the restaurant patrons and staff are divided in their reactions -- about half scream and run for the door, shoving each other out of the way as they run. The other half pull guns of various calibers out of their coats and belt holsters and open fire, a barrage of bullets that aren't aimed so much as sprayed in Knives's direction. Some of the shots go wild and hit Wolfwood, tangled as he is in Knives's blades.

He's still going to shoot Knives. There's eight bullets -- seven, now -- left in that gun, and no matter how tightly that coil of blades holds him, he's still going to keep firing. Anything else is giving up, and he has to keep Knives occupied as long as possible so that the panicking waitresses can get away, and call the feds.

Richochets are suddenly about to be a problem for everyone, with the amount of bullets flying, and Knives tolerates it for a few seconds before generating more of his lethal toys and setting to destroying each and every weapon turned on him, including Wolfwood's. It's going to mean losing thumbs or hands for a few if he can catch them all, and the worthless ingrates are unlikely to even be thankful they're still alive. Look at them scurry like the vermin they were. Somewhere in the swirling silver cascade, two single blades flash out, to bury themselves in the door's frame and jam it shut.

Only then, when he finally silenced the roar of gunfire does he even bother to rise, his gleaming barrier of metal leaving him bereft of his nice jacket, but he still has his turtleneck on. Dark colors mean it's impossible to tell if he's been struck by any of their efforts. Did creatures such as he even bleed red? "The next person to pull a weapon dies. Settle down and I'll allow you all to leave alive, but I will tolerate no more of this foolishness." He knows plenty about humans, he's been raising them for long enough, breaking the wild ones and culling the impossible. In every crowd there's always a few defiant ones, but if the rest thought they'd escape alive, half the time they'd turn on their own kind. The lack of dead so far might tip that in his favor, if they think they might get mercy.

Wolfwood is one of those he expects defiance from, but Knives hesitates to simply kill him and be done with it. Or any of them, but it's Wolfwood he's watching.

The ordinary humans in the restaurant were willing to open fire on a threat that appeared right in the middle of their breakfasts, but they've all seen too much death and destruction caused by superpowered people over the last year. There's groans and whimpers from the injured ones, but without their guns, what can they do against somebody like Knives? One of the men, wizened from the sun and with one eye lost long ago to a horrific looking scar, has gone ashen with fear as he murmurs Knives's name under his breath. Who else but the brother of the Typhoon can summon blades like that? The name rings like a death toll over the small group, and they all go very silent and still, fully expecting that, regardless of what Knives says, that this encounter will end with their deaths.

Wolfwood doesn't know how to be silent or still. His gun's empty but it's still a weapon, and if he could move he'd be happy to use it as a club to knock Knives's brains out. But even the Punisher isn't stronger than an independent plant. He strains against the coils of metal, unmindful of any damage he takes from the blades. The feds are coming, and when he hears the commotion, when he hears about the summoned blades, Vash will be coming. Vash will deal with this. Knives won't get away this time.
Wolfwood's grin is bloody and feral as he claws his way ever closer to Knives, fighting his way forward with every ounce of strength in him.

"You should've stayed dead, you bastard."

Terror is fine as long as it's not noisy terror, the moans of the injured but not likely to die an acceptable compromise. "I never died. It's never been close." Even with the dark sunglasses on, Knives' expression turns pitying. What a ridiculous notion, him of all people, dying. When he was a child, that could happen and nearly did, but grown, and against such a paltry thing as this little uprising? This effort to get closer is allowed, and it's tangible through the loops of metal that he's allowing it. "What did you think was going to happen when you chose to go out of your way to pick an argument? All I'm here for is a meal." His muffin has been the victim of a stray bullet, splattered in blueberry pieces all over the table. He didn't really mind, he didn't want to choke the rest of it down anyway. "These people didn't have to get hurt. They could have remained blissfully unaware, but you just had to light a match and see if anything explosive was around. If I didn't know better I'd say you were hoping I'd kill them all so you didn't have to."

He glances at the humans, now thoroughly cowed, but that wouldn't last. Any opportunity would be an opportunity taken. He lingers for a long moment on the man who bears a scar like his own, and the grip he has around Wolfwood tightens, intending to lift him clear of the ground. It's going to hurt, there's no way to be flesh and blood and be held in place by that many knives and not get cut. "It seems the rest have better sense than you do, Punisher. I won't kill them for your stupidity, now that they're properly respectful. Hopefully they'll stay smarter than you, and won't make me regret freeing them. Out the back, all of you." All of them, including the woman who'd screamed and tried to flee, released of her cage of shiny metal, but not including Wolfwood. Knives isn't concerned at all about the Feds, the closest he has to any idea of who they are is the paramilitary force of July, and what could they hope to ever do? If he knew, he probably wouldn't leave anyway, such is his certainty of his superiority over every living thing in this city.

He let them go? The humans stream through the door the second they're released, climbing over each other in their rush to get out, to get away. Wolfwood's breath hisses through his teeth as Knives lifts him, bleeding from a dozen places (including a bullet wound low in his side that'll cause a lot of problems here shortly, if he's still alive by then). Why did he let them go? Why didn't he just kill them all? He was eager enough to pull his blades out when Wolfwood taunted him, but he didn't kill a single one of those humans. It doesn't make any sense.

This Knives is strange, but he's still Knives. He's still a murderer... isn't he? He still can't be trusted.

"You don't get a meal." His tone is furious, his face twisted into a snarl, but his heart's pounding a mile a minute with terror. For all his bravery, he doesn't want to die, not here. Not like this. "You don't get to hide, asshole. They deserved to know about the monster they were dining with."

Octovern is no longer officially under martial law, but there are still officers and agents of half a dozen agencies on every street corner. By now, that terrified waitress has found one of those officers and told them about the man who somehow created knives from thin air. Alarms are going off in the capitol building at that description, and there'll be soldiers, and armored vehicles, and every other weapon they can scrounge up converging on this restaurant in, oh... two and a half minutes.

He laughs, sharp and dry. "That's an odd stone to be throwing in this particular glass house, Punisher, or were you planning on listing your own sins to them?" There's a difference to Knives in Wolfwood and those nameless, faceless people he'll never care about and never know. They might prove worthy of life, families, offspring. Wolfwood, on the other hand.. it might take generations to carefully breed out his flaws, if they're inheritable. "You should have left the monster to sleep, if you thought you knew what it was capable of. This blood, those injured people would have been unharmed if you kept your mouth shut, or had the sense to back down." He picks up his pack and pockets the coins he'd made earlier. No point in wasting them. The motion isn't entirely smooth, a hitch that marks some unseen pain that he isn't visibly acknowledging. Was there a Stampede rushing to Wolfwood's rescue? It seems not, or surely one would have appeared, right in the nick of time to save him from a thousand tiny cuts. Maybe he's waiting outside. Knives is headed that way, and he's going to drag his victim with him.

Humans aren't good at doing the sensible thing. At least one or two are going to run for whatever passes for guardsmen in this place, and then he'll have to disarm them too. How tiresome! If there were more cities he could draw a respectable foundation pool from, maybe he would kill them all and be done with it, except there isn't according to the news. He gives his coiled blades a little shake, frowning and muttering to himself. "Perhaps this stupidity can be trained out, even if you're not my dog."

If there’s a Stampede on the way, he’s sure taking his sweet time! This block is about to become a war zone, though, as every tank and plane and soldier in the city is funneled in the direction of the repeated reports that Millions Knives is back in town. The neighborhood hasn’t noticed yet, so there’s still people milling about, going on with their days (although some of them have stopped, seeing the people running out the back door of the restaurant, and there’s fingers being pointed and the beginnings of worried discussion)… but there’s a rumble from the north side of town that promises to interrupt the day with chaos and explosions very soon.

That little shake digs the blades even deeper into Wolfwood’s skin. His suit is ruined, absolutely sliced to shreds. He still can’t figure out why he’s still alive, though.

“Yeah, I’m stupid. Stupid as hell, but I’m no coward.” He saw that hesitation as Knives reached for the pile of coins, and he’s doing the math on Knives’s healing, based on what he’s seen of Vash. If he can spot the dark place on Knives’s black clothes that indicates bleeding, better believe that’s his new target… assuming he ever gets his hands free again. Until then, he’ll just have to run his mouth. “B’sides, you didn’t give me a chance to run. You saw me first. I didn’t have a choice. Can’t let you sneak around, an’ do whatever you’re planning.”

Chaos reigns whenever either of Rem's children roam free, it's merely the intention behind it that changes. And chaos is soon to descend! "Was it a courageous path to try to assure many die alongside you? That sounds like cowardice to me." Freed of the need to protect himself from hails of bullets all but the one long tentacle of blades realign themselves from sharp metal to what looks like blue fabric strip by strip until he has his jacket mostly intact again. Wolfwood might get lucky, in time, the blue will definitely mark blood far more clearly than black.

"I had no reason to give you a chance to run. Nicholas the Punisher is amongst my most loyal and dedicated, and he'd have appreciated a free drink." A loyalty earned through the continued safety of those he cares about, and there was no Vash to lure him astray. He couldn't help but feel disappointed, of all his Guns only Legato was less likely to stray, but the rest also didn't have a string of orphans who's quality of life and survival hinged on being cooperative and loyal. "I'll have to think of a nefarious plan, since you're so certain that I have one. I'll make it appropriately monstrous." Speaking of chaos, it's probably going to ignite as soon as he steps outside with his ribbon of blades holding an entire grown man off the ground, and these new ones might not be given the same level of grace he'd shown the others inside, not with the smell of blood following them out. Monsters are bad enough, short tempered and injured monsters.. this might be going from a bad situation to a catastrophic one.

The other people in the restaurant would have been acceptable collateral damage, had they all died, yes. The whole block would be an acceptable loss if it meant stopping Knives from whatever he had planned. He tried to wipe out all of humanity, last time – a dozen or so people caught in the crossfire wouldn’t even keep Wolfwood up at night.

“Oh please. You don’t take a shit without havin’ three nefarious plans for wipin’ your ass.” Even from up in the air, there’s no mistaking the growl of approaching tanks. Hope Knives is ready for a full-scale assault, because this little restaurant is about to become a hole in the ground. Unable to move, Wolfwood just bobs along, wondering distantly if the Earth forces will end up shooting him before Knives has a chance to slice him in half. Even odds, really.

“I know you’re not gonna tell me why you’re here, but do me a little credit for knowin’ there’s a reason, an’ it’s not a reason that’s good for the people here.”

And that’s all he’s got time to say, because Knives was right – as soon as he steps through that door and gives the soldiers outside a target, they’re going to open fire. There’s soldiers everywhere -- standing out in the street, crouched alongside and behind the handful of armored vehicles that the city has left after the last time a Millions Knives came to town, there’s snipers on nearby rooftops… they’re everywhere, and they all open fire at once. At the ends of the street there’s still civilians being evacuated, running as fast as they can in all directions, just so long as that direction is away.

"I've never had to take a shit as you so crassly put it, so I don't need plans for that." There's that pitying look again. Like he had such vulgar needs. "My reason for being here is a muffin and a glass of water, which you ruined." Where else was he supposed to find enough humans? Everywhere else was dead! Dead, like his wasted time on four generations of carefully selected Chosen Ones and meticulous genealogy records. He pushes the door open and steps into the street behind the restaurant.

Pandemonium erupts. He must share some level of the same uncanny awareness Vash has for approaching danger, because as hot lead sprays the brick and ground and spangs off the coil of metal holding Wolfwood aloft, the thing he once called Lord and Master has slammed long jagged looking things that might be wings or a shield between himself and the hail of gunfire, the edges of each one lit with their own incandescent blue-white power. It's not on purpose that this also deflects most of what's flying at them from Wolfwood, but it's also clear that this wasn't a flawless defense; from behind and slightly above it's easy to spot the streaks of vivid crimson across the faded blue of jeans and brighter blue of his jacket. The alien creature does indeed bleed red, and distracted as he is by this onslaught, the coil looping around Wolfwood loosens. Knives was fast, inhumanly fast, but it seems Vash the Stampede's faster, he might have been hit once, but that much? The knives that made up the defensive wings split and curl upward like the petals of an upside down flower, chain upon chain upon chain of serrated edges. He saw heavy artillery, those would have to be the first to go, and anything near them. This time, people will die. He can't see what he's aiming for as the thin whips are put to their grisly work in a growing, spreading whirlwind of flashing metal.

Everywhere else is dead, yeah! And whose fault is that?

Wolfwood holds perfectly still as the barrage of gunfire erupts, because two very important things are happening right at this moment. Knives's grip on him is slipping, and Knives is hurt. He barely even dares to breathe, watching Knives like a hawk. He doesn't have any weapon other than that empty revolver, but the instant he thinks he's got a shot, he's going to strike out with it. Whether he hits Knives with the butt end or stabs him with the barrel, it doesn't matter -- he'll make a decision in the moment, but either way, he's going to make his lord and master bleed.

The human army -- because at this point, that's the only name for a force this large -- is also doing their best to make the independent plant bleed. The soldiers with their rifles are setting up a never-ending spray of bullets, looking for any opening in Knives's defense. Around him, the pavement is quickly being reduced to dust, and the whole front of the restaurant is already splintered, glass shattered everywhere and rock fragments flying. It had survived the first time a Knives entered the city, but it won't survive the second.

The tanks, with their artillery, have moved into position in a semicircle around the restaurant, although it's a good bet there's some in the streets and alleyways behind the place, just in case Knives tries to run. The command is given via radio, but only some of the tanks are able to fire. The rest are caught in Knives's attack, falling into gory slices. Screams and cries ripple up out of the dust cloud, but Knives hasn't won yet -- there's still several large shells heading his way, and more soldiers. There's always more bodies to throw at a fight.

Not his! He wasn't even here for it; if he had an ark to fly around on he wouldn't have walked the whole way, riding around in style would have been much nicer.

The amount of rubble and dust being kicked up is not to the benefit of the desperate forces of Octovern and the Feds, rapidly they just have to aim into the growing cloud and hope they hit something that isn't just more razor metal, and Knives isn't the only one in the obscuring haze. The loss of one man while trying to take down such a threat as the Humanoid Typhoon's brother is a small price to pay against the alternative, what happened to every other city on the planet. From the dust rises a small number of identical thin, delicate looking things like serrated fan blades, each no bigger than a forearm, about hip height; there's ten or so at first, but in the flash of roaring cannons, ten flicker in the rapidly changing light and become a hundred which as they fan open become a thousand. Sparks fly as bullets repeatedly find some mark or other in the growing haze. His exponentially multiplying row upon row of blades may be new to the forces of this world facing him, but it doesn't take a genius to figure out what's about to happen. Artillery shells blow gaps into the glistening pattern and spray shrapnel through the debris cloud, bullets disrupting the path of individual knives as they layer themselves row upon row.

Knives' defense isn't perfect, can't be against such numbers, and the cannonfire that rips through the thin blades and sprays debris and fire across his more durable ones leaves gaps that smaller but no less lethal things can slip through. The opening Wolfwood wants is there, the pure chaos around them has distracted Knives enough where he simply hasn't the time to worry about someone not being a problem.

Edited 2023-10-13 02:32 (UTC)

The soldiers can definitely tell something's happening! They just don't know what. The Knives in this world fought with blades shaped like scythes, like wolf's jaws, like fans. They've never seen stacking blades like what's forming in that cloud of dust, and they don't know how to stop it, or defend against it. All they can do is keep firing.

The dust and grit are choking his vision, but there's no mistaking the sudden drop in Knives's hold on him as a rocket blasts through Knives's blades. It's a small gap, but it's all he needs. Wolfwood doesn't let himself think, doesn't hesitate even for a second -- the instant that opening reveals itself he thrusts his arm forward with all his strength, the arm that casually swings a three hundred pound machine gun like it's a handbag pistoning out to drive the barrel of his revolver as deeply into Knives's side as he can manage.

He's not running away this time, asshole. Last time, he let Vash fight alone. This time, he's staying to the end.

It seems like there should be more resistance, even though plants too are made of flesh and blood. Every scar on Vash's battered hide proved how easily they could bleed just like a human when finally caught, but while the muzzle of the gun grinds ineffectively along the hem of his too-short jacket, once that strange material ends just below his ribs, there's little resistance at all. It's not much different than driving a chunk of steel with that much force into anything else human shaped, the way skin and muscle yields, and Wolfwood could have mustered the force needed to easily drive his weapon straight out the other side had a hand not closed around his wrist and brought it to a sudden stop with the gun buried halfway up the cylinder and trigger, barrel sunk deep. The shirt there seems like it was wet before he even struck, but now it's hot, fresher. There's no cry of pain if it could have even been heard over the thunder of gunfire but the entire web of duplicate knives and the one so loosely coiled around Wolfwood shiver in a roil of flashing silver that allows a scattered few more through its wall of safety.

The formation tightens back up the same time he tightens his grip, as does the ribbon of blades, though the sharp edges flex and rotate inward so that when it seeks to wrap the Punisher's limbs and torso to keep him from moving again, it'll leave terrible wounds doing it. Terrible but not immediately lethal, any more than the slick streams of crimson down the grip of the revolver is likely to kill Knives. His breath jerks around the revolver once, twice, and then the endlessly multiplying razors fan outward in one sudden fluid motion a hundred or more feet in every direction.

He's seen Vash bleed, up close and personal, watched the man dig a bullet out of his side and keep going. He knows how tough independent plants are, but he also knows that they're flesh. He knows they can die.

So when the moment comes and the gun sinks into Knives's side, there's a flash of elation and hope. This won't kill Knives, he's sure of that, but it'll hurt. It'll slow him down, wound him enough that the Earth forces and the local militia, whoever the hell it is who's firing at them, they'll be able to get more shots in. He's going to help kill this monster. He's going to do some good for once.

But it doesn't slow him down. Knives seizes his wrist before he can even stab the gun into Knives's side fully, and Wolfwood can't help but cry out as the bones in his wrist grind together in that steel grip. The blades around him tighten, fresh pain in a dozen dozen places as the edges slice in, and surely this time they won't stop. Surely Knives has had enough of him now.

But the blades stop, merely holding him in place as all around them come the screams of the dying, explosions, buildings falling into rubble, all barely seen through the thick cloud of dust and smoke. Wolfwood never saw the destruction at Jeneora Rock, but he heard enough about it from Shorty and the old man to have a good idea what just happened. To understand why the city -- or at least, the part that they're in -- has gone silent.

Wolfwood slumps in his blade cocoon, bleeding freely into the dust below. He failed.

As the numbers of attacking humans are being thinned out, Knives finds it a little easier to reconstruct his defenses enough where bullets are no longer getting through, and cloud of dust and blades rotates, flicking blood off and reconfiguring to a new pattern to seek hostile targets the first sweep might have missed. If he hears no gunfire from a given direction, that direction is not assaulted, even if there's screams or voices or other noise, and there is a lot of other noise. The pain of countless wounds, some minor, some not so much like the gun wedged into his side are irrelevant in the face of what's happening here. He didn't have time to think before and could only react, it's getting easier now, moments snatched here and there for outrage. The revolver is yanked free and if Wolfwood doesn't keep his hold on it toss it aside and then use the same bloody hand to grab the undertaker's jaw and turn his head into the debris haze. "No no no, you don't get to die yet. This is your punishment, Punisher." He jerks the other arm out, sweeping wide at the only partially seen battlefield, face tight with pain and fury. Blood follows the motion, dripping from some bullet or shrapnel wound. "This! This is your fault. They didn't have to die, none of them had to die." His distress is real by how raw it sounds, how many people even are in Octovern? What if this had been the residential area, and now there would be too few humans left for a healthy founding population? He couldn't not defend himself, then there would be nobody left who'd even try to force humanity into civility before every plant died. Every crack of a gun was another death knell in his reimagining of Rem's wishes for peace, his brother's dreams!

"What did you think would happen?" That question again, Knives can't grasp it, can't see any way that this could have gone where people didn't wind up slaughtered if panicky fear was how the city reacted. "They could have lived." It has broken, twisted echoes of Vash's endless protests, except Vash never would have killed them all, he'd have just died, wouldn't he? "How many are dead because you just had to run your mouth and frighten them?" Though Knives obviously intends Wolfwood to survive to see the end of this, there's a reflexive unconscious way every single one of his sharp razors spread and contract with his breathing like ripples in a pond and the stone thrown to cause them, pain. They're going to dig deep enough one time or another to kill.

Nearly all of the militia are dead, but that was just the first wave. If Knives wants to avoid losing any more of his potential breeding stock, he might want to leave the city before the Earth ships mobilize, and the local forces are able to get that last ion cannon powered up. The previous Knives destroyed so much of the world that they're going to take no chances, and the humans won't hesitate to wipe this entire quarter of the city off the map to stop him. There will be civilian losses -- there already have been, given how tightly populated Octovern is right now -- but that's a sacrifice they're willing to accept to save whoever's left.

Wolfwood tries to hold on to his revolver, but with a broken wrist his fingers won't cooperate, and Knives is able to easily snatch it away. Knives grabs his chin, forcing his head up, and Wolfwood blearily takes in the destruction around them, red-tinged from the blood pouring down his face. Knives's blades flex in his wounds like waves, the pain making his voice shake... but there's no regret in his expression when he rolls his eyes away from the battlefield to glare up at Knives.

"Now they know what you look like." He can hear the grief in Knives's voice, but it doesn't make any kind of sense to him. Knives, Nai... whoever he is, he hates humans. Doesn't he? "There's nowhere for you to hide. They're gonna kill you." There's still no sign of any Vash, but that's all right. A Vash would try and stop Knives, sure, but he'd also try to keep the man alive. This is better. "I just wish I could see that. See you get what you deserve."

There's a lot of blood pooling on the ground beneath him. Even if Knives wanted to keep him alive, it's too late -- he's bleeding out.

There may be no saving anyone hostile in Octovern at all should Knives be attacked again. He hadn't hesitated to kill anyone here who turned a weapon on him, that wasn't going to change just because the numbers grew higher. "They already knew, you vapid creature. There were posters." He stole one, for posterity. It's not even his poster, it's an artist's rendition of what his brother might have looked like if he lived, and a fancy title and list of crimes to go with it. "All you've accomplished is your own end, and that of countless others who should have never been involved. They won't be able to kill me, and you already know it. A wasted effort." Innocents were certainly already dead or dying, trapped in the ruins of battered buildings nearby or caught in the crossfire. He would preserve what he could. Humanity's survived bottlenecks before, the minimum viable population was ... was ... he grasped after the memory, buried in schooling when he was only a year old. Five hundred? But one of those saved would not be Wolfwood. Whatever fueled his remarkable strength, he couldn't let the taint of bad temperament leech into the remaining pool of candidates. "I'm going to have to find the woman who raised you. I should have before, make certain your aberration isn't a matter of education..." He retracts his blades then, all of them, each instrument of destruction vanishing into the rolling smoke and ash of demolition. Though he's bled plenty himself, he knows he'd hit some artery or organ to produce that much from Wolfwood, and he had no need to hang onto dead meat.

He can die alone in the dust and haze, a failure to the end. One devastated nearby building with its walls undermined collapses inward, brick and mortar turned to dust and the sound of its collapse only just muting the panicked screams of those trapped inside. The thick shroud of brick dust haze and gunsmoke is the only concealer Knives makes use of, just one more bloody and battered form lost in the haze and ruins of what had once been a nice bit of restaurants and saloons.

There were posters of Vash, and, more recently, of Knives. But that wasn't this Knives -- the one Wolfwood saw was a surly, black-haired man who looked very little like the monster standing before him. This one's face clearly wasn't famous enough if he was able to get served in a restaurant like a person! But that would change, now. They'd be watching for him.

All you've accomplished is your own end, Knives says, and Wolfwood would love to be able to yawn in his face. Blah blah blah, Knives is right and perfect and everyone else's efforts are meaningless and futile, yeah, he's heard the lecture. But his mouth is too dry for words, and honestly, Knives isn't worth the trouble. He's injured, and the city knows he's here. It cost a lot of lives, sure, but it was worth it.

But then I'm going to have to find the woman who raised you, says Knives, and Wolfwood's whole being narrows to a single point. Not Miz Melanie! He can't let that happen, he can't...! Knives drops him on the dusty ground, and all Wolfwood can manage is to dig his fingers into the churned up sand as the world goes dark. Please, not her!

The last time he died, it took about an hour for him to come back to life. This time, it's barely a handful of minutes. The blood puddle he's lying in hasn't even cooled with Wolfwood jerks awake with a gasp, Knives's final threat running through his mind. He's alive. Shit, he's alive again.

And Knives can't be far.

In the near distance he can hear the mobilizing forces of the various militias moving in, and he's got no plans to be here when they arrive. He's got no idea which direction Knives went... but he'd made the man bleed, didn't he? And Wolfwood's a good dog. If Knives was bleeding enough to leave any kind of trail at all, Wolfwood's on it, moving silently through the dust and smoke, teeth bared and ready for round two. Knives isn't getting away that easily.

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This got long.

all my homies love long tags

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