2013.10.20 - Xtreme Action Training with Gilad: Round 1

THREE DAYS:

"So, um, about that whole Eternal Warrior thing... would you mind giving me a few tips? If you have time, I mean."

Gilad's expression barely shifts as he studies the Princess of Gemworld's anxious face. "Time is something I possess in great abundance, Princess Amethyst," the stoic immortal Sumerian replies, entirely deadpan. "So what you're requesting is whether I will use the time to demonstrate whatever you may need to learn?"

The scarred warrior's visage shifts ever so slightly as he considers. "Very well. I will call you. You will meet me anywhere, I believe?"

TODAY: Perhaps the call from Gilad is unexpected, and the location a bit surprising: Istanbul, Turkey. On a private property, with what appears to be a farm village with a very old church nearby.

Perhaps more annoyingly, the Istanbul farm was under siege by heavy downpours of rain. Standing there, sword in hand, Gilad waits patiently. Whether for Amethyst's arrival, or for the inevitable onslaught of questioning on just why he'd taken a few days, not informed her until the last minute, and why for heaven's sakes he picked a -rainy day-...

For the past three days, Amethyst has been dying a slow death. Ask an immortal if he had time. Really. She had gone over that sentence a hundred times in her head, too. Never noticed until Gilad got that look in his face--the one Amethyst wasn't really sure was there. He's a hard man to read. Maybe the hardest in the world.

The princess is not surprised to get dragged out to somewhere exotic. It is very easy for her to imagine how well-traveled Gilad is and he hinted at it, besides. Three days is more than enough time to get to Istanbul by plane.

Unless he ran there. Maybe he ran. Or used Sumerian magic. Or maybe the Earth ate him and spit him up on the other side.

Amethyst takes longer. Hours, in fact. She had to arrive by flying unicorn. Luckily, it can magically approach fantastical speeds and she is okay with sleeping in the saddle. Istanbul is still over five thousand miles away from New York City.

Her slender steed descends through the rain, gently touching down in the increasingly watery mud. Princess Amethyst is soaked, though her peculiar clothing is water repellant and likely keeping her warm. She dismounts, hugging her arms to her torso and picking her way closer to Gilad.

"This is pretty epic," she says, voice raised to compete with the heavy rain.

A faint almost-smile crosses Gilad's lips. Or maybe it was a faint almost-frown. It would probably be easier to distinguish were it not for the rainwater trickling down the man's face, plastering hair to skin.

"You asked for tips. I would begin by asking you: What do you see here?" the Eternal Warrior asks. The sword he possesses remain sheathed across his back.

His eyes remain fixed on Amethyst's eyes, rather than shifting towards the countryside, and if she were at all observant, that could mean one of two things: that the answer he was seeking as not in the environment, but in -how- Amethyst thought; Or, he was waiting for -some- action from her. Which was it?

And as if to help her along, lightning flashes, briefly darkening Gilad's face as his silhouette is framed by the electric flash, a bare split-second before thunder pealed.

The reason why Amethyst is alive and cutting deals with Mephisto today rather than eaten by some Gemworld dragon is simple: she's really good at learning things. Teachers love her. Most teachers. She's never trained under a 10,000 year old Sumerian before. The part where he fell out of the sky and choked out The Hood while burned half to death was very intimidating.

Amethyst is watching Gilad. Initially, it is because she wants to hear the entire question before doing anything. She continues watching because the question is vague and she wants a hint. Maybe he'll look at something, purposefully or not.

Not that lucky. The princess glances down at his stance, then back up to his eyes. She purses her lips, unflinching as lightning strikes.

"You recently put your sword away," she says, gesturing at his hand with her own. "I can see red marks on your hand that look like the hilt. You must have been holding it for awhile."

Holding his hands up, Gilad nods slowly, as he reaches for his spiked gloves, before putting them on, and then taking his sword again. "You -are- observant, then. Let us see then, whether you can analyze the situation you are in. Why do you think I chose this location?"

Steeled eyes remain fixed on Amaya, showing no quarter as he presses onwards, challenging her, not with his sword, but with words. Whether she could hold up and think with the stare of an ancient immortal fixed on hers, that would remain to be seeing.

If she came expecting training in fighting, she would have one. It just would not be the sort she might have expecting.

Amethyst stands her ground, physically and conversationally. She lets the rain drown her hair, eschewing magical protection. Her face is level and straight, eyes open. She approached from an angle where the storm was blowing in at her back. It's easier to see this way.

"I do not know," the princess answers honestly. "I don't know you well enough to guess based on personal factors. I don't know the area, so I can't guess based on that, either. It's out of the way. Even with the village nearby, chances are people won't bother us."

This time there -was- no mistaking it, as Gilad's lips part slightly to allow his teeth to show in the faintest glimmer of a smile. "Good. At least your people are in the hands of a thoughtful princess. You know that you do not know. But..." He motions towards the rain. "It is a simple enough lesson - you can choose your weapon. You can choose your adversary. You can even choose the time and place of your battle. The one thing that you cannot choose is wisdom. That is hard-won. But you have the makings of, at the least, a sensible tactician."

His face turns up towards the downpour, before he turns. "Come, Amaya. We will be choosing our battles. The first thing you will learn, then, is that the church over there is a waystation for the Sisters of Doom."

Amethyst receives the praise silently, keeping her emotions under tight control. It's easy, in this weather and with Gilad opposite of her.

His smile does make her hopeful. Maybe this will be easier than she thought. Maybe she's already amazing.

The princess moves to stand side by side with the Eternal Warrior, following his gaze to the church before them. "I have never heard of the Sisters of Doom."

Her statement omits the following thoughts: ohmygod, death nuns. Oh well, not like I haven't already killed angels!

"You would not have, of course. They exist primarily to hunt down the 'Great Satan'," Gilad replies, his voice tinged with a bit of contempt and sardonism. "We shall see how well you observe in the middle of battle."

The parish church was lit up well enough, and Gilad stands there. Rather than go for his sword, however, the eternal warrior pulls out the semi-automatics at his side, and then turns to Amethyst. "So, since you know nothing about the enemy, and I do, what would you think I know that you do not?"

Oh. Great Satan. That makes everything better. Amethyst has only heard Satan qualified with Great in positive contexts.

She shifts on her feet, not uncomfortable but unsure of what to do with herself. Gilad is in charge, so she ends up standing and waiting. And eying his semi-automatic. Her gaze goes back up to his when he speaks. "You know their motive, or one of them. You may know what they have access to, which could meant that you know what they have here. You might know their doctrine, if they have one, official or unofficial."

The princess nods toward the church. "You know this is a waystation even though I don't see any obvious markings, so you might know a lot more about it. Maybe you've been watching them. You might know the interior layout and who's in there. Their schedules."

"Mmmhmm. You obviously acquitted yourself quite well in Hell, but since you seem to want additional tips..."

The uzi is pressed into Amethyst's non-sword hand. "Do everything you can to give yourself an advantage going into battle. You can choose your battles to strike when they do not expect it, where they do not expect it, and who they do not expect."

"This is very simple. When you go in... shoot everywhere."

There was a brief pause. "And preferably not in my direction."

Amethyst takes the gun like it is a very awkwardly shaped paperweight. She transfers it from left hand to her right, and then back after looking at Gilad.

"Um. Use this instead of magic?"

He said sword hand. Taking this as a cue, Amethyst gestures and conjures her ghostly, glittering sword. It is muted, casting no light. "Are we both going in?" Gone is the stoic, understanding pupil. Amethyst sounds unsure.

"Yes," Gilad says.

And that's all he says, as he arms the other semi-automatic, and walks up to the church doors...

The doors fly open thanks to one swift, powerful kick.

And inside, apparently kneeling in supplicant prayer towards a figure on a cross, were people clad in nun habits, eyes flying open to stare in shock at the grim stoic eternal warrior... and an uncertain princess.

There was a moment of stunned silence, and Gilad, for some reason, does not open fire. It's as though he were waiting for something...

"THE GREAT SATAN'S BROTHER! ANNI-PADDA!"

And that would be it.

And if there were any doubts about the situation, that the nuns are pulling out semi-automatic rifles and screaming obscenities about Gilad's hereforth unmentioned brother might go a long way towards encouraging one to -shoot first- and ask questions later...

Amethyst follows Gilad, staying a pace behind. She takes advantage of being out of his sight to inspect her gun, turning it over and trying to puzzle out what everything does. Her being a fairly well read woman, she can guess. It's not good enough. Would he be made if she just tosses it ?

Gilad is too fast. When the door is kicked open, Princess Amethyst has her sword lowered and gun turned around sideways so she can make sure the safety is off. She looks up, eyes wide, unmoving during the standoff.

"WHY ARE YOU SATAN'S BROTHER," Amethyst shouts, throwing herself into the church and behind a pew as the nuns open fire. She begins to fumble with her sword and gun, trying to get them into one hand to cast a shielding spell, but then--

Shoot everywhere.

Amethyst takes a few quick breathes, inhales, holds it, and then springs up with her finger on the trigger. An uzi is a kind of magic wand, and she's casting magic missile on everyone in a robe.

Gilad would not really be mad if she'd just simply tossed the uzi ... as long as it were empty of its ammo first. But a loaded weapon being tossed aside? Foolishness, he would call it.

"Don't -just stand there!" Gilad calls out. "Don't let the enemy draw bead on you!"

Leaping up onto the pews, Gilad starts running down the long row firing away at an angle, so that the nuns' attention are towards him, and not the princess with the wildly firing uzi. "We'll talk about my idiot brother later!" he exclaims, with perhaps the most animated tone in his voice in all of Amethyst's experience with the Eternal Warrior...

"KILL THE GREAT SATAN'S BROTHER!!!"

"HE BROUGHT THE WHORE OF BABYLON!!!"

"KILL HER TOO!!!"

And if Amethyst were all that observant, she might notice something -off- about the Sisters of Doom and the way they were running in their habits, firing a trail of hot lead after Gilad...

BANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGclickclickclickclickclickclick--

Amethyst tosses the uzi aside, twirling her fingers on the return. A flickering bubble appears around her, just in time. Even though Gilad is the far more exciting target, this is a tiny sanctuary and there are a lot of bullets. This is one rainstorm she's missing out on.

The Whore of Babylon gets a few guns leveled at her.

"--oh, fuck no," the princess hisses. She tenses and then hurls her mystical sword through the air; it whirls end over end before burying itself halfway deep into a nun's chest, coming out the other side. Gesturing broadly with both hands now, a dozen more ghostly blades sparkle into existence, floating in a semicircle before her.

"Wait." Amethyst stops, surrounded by her laurel of swords. "Are those guys?"

Evidently she doesn't care, because the swords go darting out, snaking through the air like cruise missiles and hungry for blood.

With both uzis spent, the Sisters of Doom (or rather, Brothers of Doom) have been whittled down to a scant few. But the zealots hardly seem fazed, even as disorganized and discombobulated as they are by the surprise attack.

And while bullets had struck home and Gilad stood bleeding, the Eternal Warrior was still going strong, closing in with his own sword. The nuns certainly didn't have their own swords to counter, but they swung their own uzis, all the meanwhile screaming.

"CHOKE SATAN IN HIS BROTHER'S BLACK SINKING BLOOD!" -SPLOOOSH- And Gilad's sword cleaves through his (her?) neck.

"KILL THE WHORE BEFORE SHE FORNICATES WITH THE BEAST OF REVELATIONS!" shouts one before Amethyst's sword cleaves through her (his?) heart.

"Why is the Bible so freakin' gross?" Amethyst shouts, hands moving in ominous patterns.

Her animate sword army proceeds in orderly fashion, zipping from closest nun to the next. They are not clean and orderly. They hack at the closest limbs, slicing and cutting, only thrusting when a target presents itself. Thrusting requires working back out of a torso, which is time consuming.

The princess clears an ever-widening circle around her, cleaning up the sinister nunnish resistance left over from Gilad's piercing charge.

Amethyst raises her voice as if addressing a crowd. There is not really one left. "I am not a whore. I am wearing a tiara. You people are assholes."

Excellent, the girl adapted quite well, including learning the finer points of using a sword in melee battle rather than one-on-one combat situations.

And when Amethyst is done, she'll find Gilad having seated himself in the front row of the pews, having watched the final clean-up while gouging bullets out of his wounds with a knife and tossing them aside with gritted teeth. Immortal as he may be, and used to being stabbed, shot, burned, drowned... it still -hurt-.

"Very good, Amethyst," Gilad replies, flicking one final bullet away with a splatter of blood, wounds already starting to heal over. "An excellent job. Although I doubt any of them are left to receive the princess's scolding."

No, he certainly wasn't joking, not with that deadpan scarred face.

Standing up, turning a body over with his foot and confirming that, yes, the Brothers of Doom -didn't- have the mammaries appropriate for feeding babies, Gilad observes dryly, "Aram certainly makes the most interesting enemies."

The swords return to her as one, fading as they draw closer and disappearing before reaching her. The princess walks into the center aisle, looking at the gruesome aftermath as she strolls toward the altar. She comes to Gilad and watches him pick out a bullet with a restrained expression. "All that Whore of Babylon stuff was just guilt by association, right?"

She watches Gilad's movements, the adrenaline leaving her allowing room for a cold reconfirmation that this is just a test. "Is that your brother's name? Aram?" Amethyst studies the fallen brother's face. "Is he an immortal, too? He's not, um, evil or anything, is he?"

"The Sisters of Doom were never the sanest cult to begin with," Gilad replies dryly. "So yes, you can rest assured that we had the misfortune of being associated with 'The Great Satan'. Knowing Aram, it's quite likely something occured while he was drunk out of his mind."

EPHESUS, ANTOLIA, SUMMER, 10 B.C.E.:

"But father, he drank half our inventory!"

"Yes, Clovius, but for that and a few hundred drachmas, I procured the secret of his immortality elixir! You must gather these ingredients for me! Quickly!"

THE TRADE-ROUTE CITY OF DEDAN, 48 C.E.

"... pig's urine, goat's bile, and a dollop of bitter herbs. On his deathbed, my poor father was still begging me to fetch him another flagon of the stuff!"

"Hmm. Immortal... strong... a deceiver... and really disgusting...! The demon who beguiled your father..."

NOW:

"It's better we don't know," Gilad sighs.