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 The map's several years out of date and does not at all have all the modifications and camp outs and construction that's happened since the worlds merged.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

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.

Finding one blood trail amidst the carnage is going to be a challenge given how many dead and wounded there are carved up and splashed about, but only a few of them are likely whole enough to be traveling. There is a path to follow, but not as much blood on the ground that can be easily identified as only his. In the billowing dust is a thin man of perhaps eighteen or nineteen with blood streaming down his face from a cut just at the hairline from likely debris instead of Knives' weaponry given he still has a head at all, sitting against a wall with Knives' vivid blue jacket wrapped around himself like a shield against further debris. On the plant it had been rather short, but it all but swallows this smaller form, and nothing's likely to puncture it should the militia choose to open fire into the smoke again. It's a direction to start in, dotted in bootprints in the dust and the spotting of dark crimson. Further away in that direction is the sound of spraying water, a copper pipe for one of the nearby buildings neatly sliced open and pulled to the side in a shower some six feet off the ground. There's blood in the runoff, but the drying further prints that lead away no longer have that trail of red to follow but even that is drying beneath the heat of the suns. It's likely by now that Wolfwood's target has begun to do something about those wounds, how fast could he heal in comparison to Vash? A small family of three trot away from the epicenter as fast as they dare, the father with a belt tied tight around his bisected arm to stem the bleeding, the dangling buckle the one Knives had been wearing earlier.

In just a few minutes, Knives could put a lot of distance between himself and that militia if he chose to, he did have wings sometimes after all. It might seem like an utterly hopeless task, with the dust and people scrambling to escape and the beginnings of people scrambling towards the mess to help with rescue efforts, except against one brick building about two blocks away in the same general direction of the earlier clues is a long wet print of where someone sodden had leaned to rest, very recently, faint streaks of red and a broken lock to a cheap goods warehouse.

No, there's a lot of blood on the ground, that's true, and while it's easy to tell whose blood is whose at first, which boots are Knives and which are soldiers or frightened civilians -- there's just him and Knives here bleeding, after all -- as soon as the trail heads off into the smoke and dust, it mingles with the trails of far too many other people.

It's a good thing for that young man that Wolfwood is once again unarmed, because that blue jacket stands out amid the rest of the white stone and clay of the city structures. If he had a gun, he'd have shot the boy before ever seeing his face. As it is, his snarled demand to know where that bastard went is met with only confusion. Thankfully there's more boot prints here, the same size as Knives's, and Wolfwood hurries on, only too aware of how fast Knives can travel, and how much time he's already lost.

He loses the trail again just past that broken water pipe, completely missing the man with Knives's belt tight around his arm as a tourniquet. All he can do is follow the dusty footsteps in the road, but with all the cross-traffic and chaos, it's barely half a block before that trail too runs cold. Knives could have gone down any one of these side streets, he thinks, moving ever forward, head on a swivel as he scans the crowd for any signs of the tall blond. He could have ducked into any of these buildings, scaled any of these buildings, unfurled that great white wing of his and flown away, out of town the way Wolfwood had first demanded. Chances are, he's long gone. Chances are, the next time Wolfwood'll see Knives again, it'll be in the aftermath of whatever plan the asshole has been hatching all this time. It'll be too late, again.

But then a wet spot against a brick wall catches his eye, barely visible in the haze. Behind him, the militia is taking back control of the streets, herding everyone who can move back into their homes and clearing away the injured. It's fast, efficient, and a testament to what they've learned over the past few months. Knives would be a fool to still be in the city, Wolfwood thinks, heading towards that wet spot, and the door next to it. If he had any sense at all, he'd be gone, and getting further away every minute.

Unless he was too injured to leave. There's the faintest smear of red in that drying wet spot, and the lock to the door has been broken with tremendous strength. Moving as silently as he can, Wolfwood opens the door and slips inside, closing it behind him. There he stops, listening. Is Knives really here?

"Hey asshole! The punishment didn't take." He cranes his head, listening. "Come out come out wherever you are."

The dust and debris of the slaughter further away hasn't reached this far, and inside it's as clean as any warehouse can hope to be, which is to say not really all that much. There's food stored, sacks of flour and sealed barrels of meat, row upon row of folded clothing goods waiting for sale, none of it particularly fancy looking, and no trail at all inside to mark where Knives might have gone. But he is there, a pair of thin blunted blades buried in his thigh to dig out a bullet that had lodged itself near the bone, and he looks up when the air pressure changes slightly, still and silent. Hearing Wolfwood's voice is both a surprise and not, he'd thought the man was unaugmented, but maybe all the cybernetics were internal instead of more obvious limb replacements! He hadn't beheaded the man, so he assumes those core machine enhancements had seen to the rest in the last little while. As he doesn't fear any human at all, the reappearance of this one isn't enough to prevent him from returning to his de-bulleting, the faint scent of blood detectable closer to where he is in the stale warehouse air.

He can't hear a thing, but there's the faintest whiff of iron in the air that, when paired with the smear on the wall outside, tells Wolfwood that he's on the right track.

"You should've known you can't kill me." Step by cautious step he moves further into the warehouse, checking behind every stack of pallets, every row of shelves. There's no sign that there's anyone in here, no broken containers or things shifted out of place. If that lock had been broken by a thief, the place would be ransacked, right? But it's neat and tidy as any warehouse, which means whoever broke that lock wasn't looking for food. They were looking for privacy.

"Your pet scientists saw to that." Twice he's died here, and twice he's been brought back without any vials, even his clothes repaired and cleaned. It's a good bet, in his mind, that it'll keep happening, and the thought comes as a real comfort. He can keep chasing Knives for as long as it takes, at this rate. "You think the body count out there was bad? That's nothing compared to what those psychopaths did in your name. How many people they killed." His foot scrapes on the stone floor as he moves deeper into the warehouse, squinting in the dim light for any signs of his prey. "How many kids they killed."

Outside, a garbled voice on a loudspeaker is trying to force the city residents indoors. There's a lot of panic out there, though -- it's going to take more than verbal commands to pacify the populace after this. "And that's not even getting started on the fucked up things you did to your brother."

"My brother is dead!"

It's super effective! No sooner does Wolfwood spit the accusation than the thunderous response follows, cold and furious and stationary; Knives isn't moving yet, maybe he really was injured badly. But it's also very close, so close that if he chose he could test Wolfwood's immortality again. Nowhere in this warehouse was beyond his reach. "Long before your great-grandmother was in diapers, don't think you can counsel me on the harm done to kin when you offered your own up as a sacrifice!" Angrily he yanks the bullet out and tosses it aside, where it tinks to a stop on the floor.

There he is.

"You know, I think I'm glad to hear that." He really should have picked up a rifle from one of those dead soldiers outside, he's realizing... but it's too late now. He'll fight with his bare hands, his feet, his teeth, anything he can find to throw, and it'll be enough. "Spares him the torture you would've put him through otherwise."

He stops when he comes around the corner and can finally see the other man. Knives doesn't look good, and that just stretches Wolfwood's smile out all the wider. "Is that what happened? You messed with him one time too many, things got out of hand?"

The taunts would be a lot more meaningful if he had any idea at all what Wolfwood was even trying to imply, the work of his servants killing people, yes that made sense that was why he had tamed an entire pack of particularly savage humans and trained them to hunt. "Do you just say whatever comes to mind and hope something sounds familiar?" There's not even a base for him to build off of as to what 'messing with him' is even supposed to be since torture was absolutely out of the question. In spite of that, it's easy to tell Wolfwood's trying to use it to hurt him, he's just missing the mark, and the look he's given as he turns the corner is one that makes it clear not only did those jabs not landing, he isn't even catching the implication. Fighting Knives even now is not the best of ideas, as proven by the way the long bladed tentacles reappear like rearing cobras. If he didn't damage the core of possible cybernetic enhancements, it stood to reason that Wolfwood would not die, but the goal hadn't been to kill him to begin with, he'd wanted the human to see the devastation wrought by his own idiocy and learn from it! No learning had happened, because here he is making more obnoxious mouth-noises. The three sets of blades flatten, their serrations curved backwards as they strike with incalculable speed, testing to see if he's going to try to dodge. It'll be like being swiped by a chainsaw if they land, he's not yet aiming for a binding blow.

Of course this one doesn't get what Wolfwood's saying. His brother didn't have to suffer at his hands for decades. But there's too many Vashes wandering the planet now, and eventually this asshole's going to find one of them... and who knows what he'll do then?

Wolfwood really doesn't stand a chance against him, but if he can keep worrying at him like the dog he is, he can at least slow Knives down.

That doesn't mean, though, that he's going to stand still at let Knives impale him! A couple blades curl up out of Knives and spring forward, and Wolfwood throws himself hard to the side, moving faster than a normal human ever could. He comes out of his roll and grabs the first thing at hand, which turns out to be a paint can, seizing hold of the wire at the top and flinging it fast as a bullet right at Knives's head. He'll be right behind it, if he isn't stopped by then, a second can in his hand ready to swing at whatever part of Knives is open.

"What are you hoping to accomplish? Do you think this will save anyone, if I want them dead?" It's funnier than it should be in these circumstances to Knives, watching one of these creatures desperately try to do anything at all aside from inconvenience him. The troops had better chances outside, with their storms of bullets that made defense against all of them impossible, but this one man, with a paint can? The offending can is swatted aside with one tendril, the blades kept flat to prevent it from being sliced open and dousing him in paint mix, and nothing prevents Wolfwood from getting as close as he'd like. When a fist is swung at him, he raises a bloody-fingered hand to catch it and if he can keep his grip crush it like he had the wrist not long ago. The other will likely follow the first, or a kick, and the next he will attempt to simply remove instead of break with another fast moving razor.

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This got long.

all my homies love long tags

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