high_seas | Men vs Woman

"One would be difficult to do should the other be accomplished."

Assuming the poison she had mentioned was intended to kill... which, why wouldn't it have been? There was no mistaking the murderous intent. He'd seen it so many times before, usually in the eyes those he was facing right before his blade made it to their throat.

"Stand down now. It would be a shame were I forced to kill you."

He couldn't hear the same voices she was hearing or any of the thoughts that drove her to this action. Haytham could only see the struggle in her movements. Sometimes she was quick and light full of purpose and at other times she... there hesitation!

Seizing the chance he lashed out quickly with his sword, hoping to disarm his opponent before she could make good her threat to 'spar' with him.

It was the perfect time to strike. The internal struggle was more than enough to distract Elissa from Haytham's movement until it was too late, but even after the longsword went spinning from her hand, she still had her dagger. Masking her surprise, she reacted in reflexes as well-honed as the Templar's and ducked away from him before he could strike again.

"Well-played, Kenway," Elissa drawled in grudging acknowledgement of his timing. She tossed the long dagger from her left hand to her right and used her left to pull a hunting knife from her belt. "I will not let it happen again."

He had no way of knowing, but she meant the hesitation and not his strike. It was so tiring to keep fighting with the Voice and its alluring offers even if the price to pay was so very, very steep. It had been impossible to sleep and now... she just wanted to rest. Elissa did not want to see anyone on the crew die, especially at her hand, but she couldn't fight it anymore. Not when her father kept calling her. Pup? Can you hear me, Pup? I cannot find you. Elissa?

I am here, Father.
And the visage that was facing Haytham very slowly... smiled.

"You could just surrender and save us the trouble of this meaningless battle."

The first strike was always the easiest, it was the one least expected and therefore the one that could be the least prepared for. The next would have to be more cautiously done. Holding his sword between them, Haytham kept it pointed at Elissa as he paced around her, hoping the movement might cause her to present another weakness he could exploit.

"Why are you doing this? You've nothing to gain by this senseless attack."

The betrayal burned in his mind but he tried not to focus on that. It wasn't Elissa who betrayed him it was this... this condition that caused her to act as the others had on their ships. He tried to think, what had been said of that over the journals...

"You are feeling paranoid, confused... like you must attack us in order to gain, what?"

"More than I ever thought possible," Elissa replied with narrowed eyes. She kept pace with Haytham, lightly moving on the balls of her feet as they slowly circled the deck. "You thought you won, Howe, but you did not and you never will. My father was your best friend and you betrayed us in the worst possible way. I will never forget the night your men attacked our castle after Fergus had led most of our army to assist the king at Ostagar."

Her voice was full of cold venom and she was looking at Haytham in a completely new way - with undisguised hatred. "That night still haunts my memories and my nightmares, but you have not won! Your men broke into Fergus' room to kill his wife and slay my little nephew. You tried to kill me, but four weren't enough against a Mabari and a half-naked Cousland." She struck out at Haytham's sword, wary of his wrist and their hidden blades though she was seeing Rendon Howe.

"I left my Father to die in a pool of his own blood while he held in his guts with one hand because he made me leave him and Mother. But you didn't win."

"I am going to get him back. I'm going to get them all back."

She was coming undone right before his eyes, descending down into the madness of her past and he in her mind had become that other man, the butcher of her family, Howe? Haytham frowned despite his best attempt to remain disconnected from it all. During a fight like this he couldn't afford the distraction of remembering his own past or the twinge of jealousy he felt in that at least she had known the name of the man who had destroyed her family. How long had he been searching for his father's killer?

"Elissa!"

He shouted even as her dagger slid along the length of his sword before being directed away from his body with a twist of a wrist.

"That man, Howe, he is not here! Come to your senses woman!"

With her dagger sliding off the tip of his blade into the nothingness of air his wrist swiveled again, using the momentum of deflecting her attack to produce a counter attack. She was wearing armor but the her stomach was the most convenient area of attack. He zeroed in there trying to at least land a hit and begin the process of wearing her down.

She was wearing armor, true. Studded dragon hide armor with a hole in the left shoulder - and now the dragon hide deflected most of the damage offered by Haytham's sword, but not the strength of the blow. The breath went out of Elissa when that fierce blow hit, but did not fully penetrate the hide. Dancing backward, her expression darkened.

"SILENCE! I will no longer listen to your lies. My father trusted you!" Elissa darted forward with a flurry of attacks from her short sword-sized dagger and her hunting knife. The lengths of the blades were shorter in this configuration than she was used to wielding and she had not yet fully accomodated for the shortened range of attack. Most all of the blows fell very short, though they did put up a flashing, slashing screen.

His voice... was different. He spoke her name in a different way than Howe's dripping disdain. Well, well. Bryce Cousland's little spitfire. All grown up and still playing the man. said Howe's voice in her head, an echo of that last night at Castle Cousland before it was set aflame by betrayal and death.

The diminutive length of her weapons was a weakness exploited to the fullest. The longer blade was countered with his sword while the shorter quicker weapon was dodged mostly by benefit of the distance he was able to keep between them. Haytham kept her at bay but her hacking and slashing did keep him at bay too. There was no real way to do much but defend until her furious attack subsided... or a means to throw her off could be found.

"Those things you are seeing are not real! They happened in the past! It's over!"

With a quick jump backward he landed on the other side of the mop and pail left on the deck behind him by a careless deck swabber, Connor maybe? Whether it was or not he'd have to remember to thank them later as he managed to kick the pail when he landed right into Elissa's pathway, giving her the obstacle of a bucket to dodge and the soapy water to make the deck slippery.

She managed to leap the bucket, but landed awkwardly on the spill, foot slipping enough that she tumbled forward into a somersault. "It isn't over until the last Cousland is dead, Howe," she said in a calmer tone that still held a threat. Each step carried her toward Haytham, though now she was unhurried and focused.

The rational part of Elissa's mind was gone now or she would have realized she had already killed Howe months ago. It was that part of her mind that made Haytham into Howe when she snapped, however, because it was too difficult to keep killing those she'd come to care about since arriving here. Murder was necessary. There was no escaping it. The Voice insisted upon it.

Spoken of in an earlier conversation this was the worst case scenario. Elissa was armed and well beyond the reach of reason. With her knowledge of weapons and poison there really was only one other option available.

How quickly the fervor of the moment gave way in his mind to a sense of serene calm. Not that this is what he wanted or wished for he simply fell back on the skills he had been cultivating since childhood. Acted on instinct and skill instead of the mind's little doubts or the heart's gentle weaknesses.

Haytham knew what to do and how to do it. It was only a matter of timing and skill to see it done. Elissa stumbled and rolled but was on her feet again far too quickly to act. As her dagger swept towards him again he caught the blade and forced it and, by virtue of her holding onto it so tightly, Elissa backwards. It was only a pace and it took a good deal of strength to accomplish but it gave the Templar the time to draw and aim his pistol. Left-handed, granted... it was an awkward way for a one who favored the right hand to hold a gun, but he hadn't dared drop his sword. Not with her blades still so very close to him.

"I give you one last chance to stand down."

If she so much as twitched he would fire.

"Tis more than I shall give to you."

Elissa threw herself closer to him, lashing out with her hunting knife at his pistol in an attempt to direct it outward even as she utilized her dirty fighting skills by trying to knee 'Howe' in the groin. Compared to her normal self, Elissa's grey eyes were all wrong now, oddly glittering with madness and a deep, unrelenting hatred. The warmth and good humor of that night spent warding off the cold was nowhere to be seen.

He fired.

The bullet flew towards the broken panel of her armor but the aim was off. It was too high. The pellet only creased the surface of the plate upon her shoulder, leaving a streak of black powder in it's wake but no damage of any value and no injury to the target.

Even if he been able to keep the gun in his hand after Elissa's dagger wrenched it away from him it was useless now. The flintlock musket only held the single shot. With it's payload gone the weapon was little more than a paperweight.

The whole of his action had been a clumsy last ditch attempt to save her from herself, thinking her recent bought with a gun might have been a deterrent for her attack. He had been wrong. In her madness even the fear of another gun shot had proved ineffectual... and he was paying the price for that now. Doubled over in pain from the accuracy of her knee he was now open to an attack himself.

Elissa kept pressure on her dagger in order to keep Haytham's sword locked against it and out of the way. She loomed over his pained form with her wickedly sharp dagger. "Shall I stab you in the back as you did my family? Or gut you like the pig you are?" she spits at him - literally.

Once, when Elissa first communicated with Ban via the journal, she'd threatened to split him from ball sac to thyroid, if he made good on his threats to her crew mate Harlock. She was perfectly capable of doing so, even if that had mostly been an empty threat.

Now, however, the possibility of it was very real, though Haytham's broad back made a much better target while he was hunched over in pain. Light glinted from the razor sharp edge of her hunting knife as the Warden raised it over her head with one hand in preparation to stab it through the Templar's spine.

A high-pitched cry of an eagle pierced through the air, a faint wind followed, then it was as if the light rustling of feathers could be heard. This avian species would be unusual to find this far out at sea but that didn’t explain away its characteristic call. Yet, if anyone looked toward the sound, they would detect nothing with the eyes.

In an instant, Ratonhnhaké:ton materialized, seemingly out of nothing as he placed himself between the combatants. He threw his weight against Elissa, encouraging her to fall backwards to the floor. Normally, he wouldn’t have hesitated to release his hidden blades and finish the job, but this woman had been one of their allies only a month ago. He still wanted to attempt reason, like it had been discussed before.

That did not mean, that he would let her off so easily. Noticing the chink in her armor, he swung his tomahawk soundly toward her left shoulder. His sudden arrival, and the pain that would derive from that blow should be enough to buy him some time in terms of deciding how best to disarm her.

If there was any chance that the battle between Haytham and Elissa would proceed unhindered, it had been shattered by the explosive nature of that firearm.

He wanted to comment on the compromising position he’d found his father in but he was too focused on this woman to risk splitting his attentions.

Edited 2014-01-15 10:14 (UTC)

"Don't hesitate!"

He spat the words of warning. If Elissa were taken off guard by the sudden arrival then she needed to be eliminated. Now.

"She's quite mad with delusions!"

Compromising position that it was at least Haytham recovered quickly. He righted himself and once more raised his sword for defense soon after Connor... landed? How had he gotten there so quickly?

"Careful Connor. There is some kind of oil on her blades and she made claim to poison earlier."

Conner's blow landed with ridiculous ease. Thanks to his surprise attack, Elissa had no opportunity to dance away from his tomahawk. Her furious scream echoed the earlier cry of the eagle when the tomahawk cleaved through her studded dragon leather as well as her shoulder, ruining the joint and breaking bones. The Warden's hunting knife dropped from the now unresponsive fingers of her left hand to the soapy deck at her feet.

Elissa's left arm hung uselessly at her side as blood slowly stained her shoulder a slick, dark red that was nearly black.

However, she still held her dagger securely in her right hand and its sharpened edge was whipped toward Connor in a frenzied attempt at retaliation. Thanks to her madness, she seemed to be ignoring the pain or adding it to her rage.

With his strike aiming true, her left arm was rendered useless. His father was shouting instructions, but considering how he’d allowed himself to nearly be struck down prematurely, Ratonhnhaké:ton decided to trust his own instincts. There was no time to swing his tomahawk over to block the dagger, in a hasty and potentially perilous decision he raised his left arm, bent his hand out of the way and allowed his hidden blade to slide from it’s sheath.

The blades met, in a deafening clang. Not having met her knife squarely, Elissa’s weapon slid nearly effortlessly down his own. When it reached the gauntlet, Ratonhnhaké:ton gave it a shove to force it away from his body. He’d at least taken the warning about the poison into consideration.

“This is not like you... come to your senses!”

He didn’t claim to know everything about Elissa, but he knew enough that she would not normally strive to take the lives of her crewmates. As soon as he was able he placed some distance between himself and the mad woman.

Then he answered Haytham,” When you told me not to hesitate...... was I to take that to mean it was time to carry out what we discussed before?” ... Because he couldn’t leave this up to Haytham, obviously. Drawing back might have seemed like a missed opportunity, but it was all a part of his plan.

Edited 2014-01-16 01:41 (UTC)

Haytham moved away from his son, pacing around the deck to flank their enemy... Just like a pack of wolves cornering an injured deer she was soon surrounded. It was a strange and tragic situation to think of Elissa as an enemy, but so it was. Wishing for it to be otherwise was pointless.

"I've already tried to reason with her, she'll have none of it!"

The Templar's blade sang through the air as he looked for an opening, but finding none sent his sword in to to make one.

"We must end this quickly Connor!"

She was suffering.

Haytham had been Elissa's sole focus before Connor's arrival and now the darker, younger man was the target of her madness. All of her earlier talking and talking and talking had been replaced with growls and snarls. If she had use of both arms and both of her weapons, she might have had at least a slim chance against the pair of seasoned fighters, but with her longsword 'Starfang' a few yards away on deck and her left arm hanging useless, she was doomed to eventual defeat.

Unfortunately, in her current state of mind, that was not a consideration. She was now like a wounded, maddened animal, striking and slashing at Haytham's sword when it approached as she tried to get closer to Connor with her poisoned dagger. As she was busied with parrying the elder Kenway's blow, she was rather easy prey for the younger one.

Elissa was acting like a wild beast, it was because of that he didn't intend to take her lightly. Animals were often at their most desperate when they became cornered or felt trapped. It was as Haytham had stated. Although he had tried to speak with her, she was beyond words now. This foul sickness had invaded her mind and animated her limbs to do it's bidding. Completely under the witch's control, as he'd seen others fall prey to George Washington's power he knew the only way left to end it.

When Haytham said they should end this quickly, Ratonhnhaké:ton relaxed his stance but his eyes were still trained on her. His movements might have been considered odd but what they didn't know was by his feet the manifestations of three large predatory wolves were gathering. The spirits were visible to him but like the eagle before, they were usually not picked up on by anyone that had not completed the Sky Journey.

These three great beasts, growled ominously, waiting for the signal to pounce. When it was given they leapt from their haunches and attacked her from three different sides. Their powerful teeth and claws repeatedly battered her armor and sought out exposed flesh. The lead wolf, went straight for her neck. They were merciless in their assault and would not give up until their work was completed.

Edited 2014-01-16 08:34 (UTC)

Elissa was knocked this way and that by her invisible attackers, the wolf on the left latching on to her left arm and nearly ripping it off. If not for the fact that her armor held it captive, that arm would probably have fallen to the deck. She screamed again as powerful jaws dug into her studded leather and heavy bodies she could not see solidly hit.

Her high-pitched, maddened scream was abruptly cut off when her throat was torn out, the sound becoming a gurgle and then ceasing while blood fountained from the ragged hole that was left behind. She was dead before she hit the deck.

Edited 2014-01-17 04:37 (UTC)

What in the hell had just happened?!

There were not many things that could so deeply shock the battle hardened Haytham as this had. He stood there gaping, open mouthed, at his son as he remained serenely poised exactly as he had been before Elissa had erupted in a fountain of blood and destruction. Standing and watching on as if this were some how normal!

He took a step closer before kneeling down at Elissa's side. This was not the man Connor had known who blew a man's brains out with out a second thought, who tortured soldiers for information promised them freedom before ending their lives instead. Haytham reached out and very gently closed Elissa's eyes.

It had to be done but how had it happened? Did it really need to be as brutal as this? His voice when he spoke was ragged with confusion, unspoken remorse... and anger.

"What in the hell did you just do?"

The way Elissa was taken down was far from pleasant but it was strategically more practical than risking getting close to her poisoned cutlery again. It was also something she likely would not have been able to prepare for. The blood, and the gore went hand and hand. Although he might not have enjoyed the task, Ratonhnhaké:ton could stand by and regard what was happening coolly.

He didn't spare Haytham a glance until the man moved over to the body to close the now deceased Elissa's eyes. The contrast became startling not just to Haytham but to Ratonhnhaké:ton himself. By the time he had known his father, Hatham had been hardened by his experiences, and ruthless in his own actions. This range of emotions that the other was going through seemed so completely foreign to him.

If this was repugnant to Haytham, then... how far had Ratonhnhaké:ton fallen from his own ideals? Although he had always ignored his mother's warnings about resorting to drinking the red willow tea, and undergoing the Sky Journeys he had always felt like he could control himself. That he wouldn't be the one to fall prey and be seduced by the allure of all that power. Seeing the expression from his father... it was one of the first times that Ratonhnhaké:ton began to question if he'd gone too far. When you see someone you considered to be one of the most cruel and unforgiving on missions suddenly looking at you so aghast... it does make you wonder how roles had become so reversed.

He was different than George Washington though.. he'd convinced himself of that. Washington used the apple to control others free will. What Ratonhnhaké:ton had done here was to protect the rest of the crew and free Elissa of the witch's influence. It.... was completely different. Though perhaps... her death could have been dealt with more swiftly, and smoothly.

"I called upon the spirit of the wolf to end her suffering.." I did exactly what I was supposed to. "She is no longer a threat to herself or those she once cared about."

As the two men spoke, Elissa's body faded away, leaving behind her weapons and quite a lot of blood. There was no noise. No fanfare. She was just gone.

Starfang, her longsword, was across the deck where it landed when Haytham disarmed her. Her serpentine dagger was nearby where her body fell as well as her hunting knife. From their condition, she was particular about keeping her blades clean and in good repair.

(Later, if anyone looked in her room, her journal would still be there and her fancy longbow and arrows could be discovered.)

Elissa's body faded away even as he knelt there watching it. Damn this... this... magic. Nothing made sense about it at all! How could a body be there and then gone? How could 'the spirit of the wolf' descend on some one and rip their throat out? Her weapons would have to be carefully collected later but for now they were left where they had fallen as the Templar regained his footing and stood, though he stayed silent for some time recollecting his thoughts.

Keeping away from the poisoned weapons had been a wise course of action but it was the only thing Connor had done that he agreed with. Watching a stranger torn apart was a far cry from watching some one you had grown fond of over the months die in the same way. She had deserved a quick, clean death...
Obviously he should have handled it himself instead of relying on his son...

"It's done now."

There was no reason to speak on it any more. His thoughts were for himself, no one else and... he had no idea what he might say on the matter anyway.
A 'magical' son... a dead friend...
His voice was not to be trusted but lowered as it was he did speak if only to issue an order.

"We should check the others, to see that they are still themselves."

Men vs Woman

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GDI XD. Let's all hold hands and get along

Would that we could

Tried doing that in the other thread! XD

We did XD

THREAD HOP!

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