Born to Kill

Detorqueo snorted. Maybe this one would do after all. He took a drag on the bottle, then handed it off to Fei. "Here ya go."
 
Luther

"Also, can I please call you master? Pretty please?"

Luther had had quite enough. The others might have been standing around, taking this seriously but he had a lot of things to do. He didn't have time for something like this. "No, you can't. And quite frankly, I can do without all this crap." He tilted his head down slightly so his eyeglasses slid down to the tip of his noise and he could see over the lens.

"I don't know about the rest of you but I'm not taking any more part in this. I'm no one's master. So leave me alone. And I never want to see you or any of you ever again."

And with that said, Luther pushed his sunglasses up to the bridge of his nose, whirled around, and stalked off. No amount of words, or actions could make him stop or even turn around.

Lydia

"...Th-this...This isn't really a dream...is it?"

Lydia smiled and shook her head. She was finally free after all those centuries and now ... now she was in human form again. It slipped her mind that whatever dangers she and her siblings had fought so long ago might come back to haunt them now.

Lydia was so happy that she threw her arms around Patrick's neck again! "It's alright, Patrick. You'll get used to. It's really quite--" She blinked as her feeling of joy was immediately snuffed. It was like a splash of ice cold water
on a really hot day, a realization so strong it couldn't be ignored. "I ..." She slowly let go of Patrick's neck. She suddenly didn't feel so well.

"I don't know about the rest of you but I'm not taking any more part in this. I'm no one's master. So leave me alone. And I never want to see you or any of you ever again."

Lydia stepped back and swallowed, not paying attention to Luther's sudden exit. "Uh ... I ..." She winced as her stomach cramped up. A feeling of fear rose above the flash of pain. What was happening to her?! Her body suddenly became transparent and then became flesh and blood again. She looked around at her siblings and their wielders.

"Hel ... Help me ..." were the last words she stammered before she suddenly vanished into thin air!


... And as if that wasn't shocking enough, Kari suddenly found herself back in her weapon form!

A voice echoed in Patrick's mind. It was a different voice, a woman's voice, older, deeper than Lydia's voice had been.

"Patrick ... Patrick ... Lydia has disappeared. She can no longer serve as your weapon and the evil forces that threaten your world will strike soon. Luther has denied his right to bear Kari as his weapon. Please ... say you will be her master. If not, Kari will be stuck in weapon form until a new master can be found."
 
Patrick had barely recovered from the sudden assault as once again he was embraced by the girl. She disappeared a mere few seconds after that leaving him grasping at air, and longing to rescue a maiden he barely even knew from whatever had grasped her. Stumbling to the ground the confusion heightened when one of the people turned back into a weapon again, and to top it all off there was a mysterious voice in Patricks mind once more.

Overwhelmed by all these events in rapid succession, Patrick briefly took the time to sit straight and get his mind in order. If this wasn't a dream then some action at least needed to be taken. These weapon-people were endangered by something and he had already failed one of them, he could hardly sit by and ignore the apparent suffering they went through.

Patrick pulled himself together quickly, stepped up towards the fallen blade, glaring at the man who had grabbed his hair so suddenly as if silently telling him to back off his case. "Kari....i-if that's your name...I seem to have lost my partner before I even knew her, and Luther seems to not want to wield you. Despite my inability to save your friend, would you be willing to be my weapon...I...I mean...I'd be honored to be your master."
 
The sword stood where it was in the ground, it's eye fixed on Patrick.
...You act like I have a choice. If you want to forge your own destiny, then grasp my handle and accept greatness and the mastership of me that comes with it.
 
"Well of course you have a choice. I'm offering you a chance to wait for someone better suited to come along. I'm not sure if you noticed, but I'm hardly a knight in shining armor." Patrick Sighed. "I'm starting to wonder if 'I' have a choice at all. I'm still not convinced I haven't lost my sanity. I mean...I'm TALKING to a freaking SWORD."

Patrick glared at Detorque once more and defiantly closed his hand around the hilt. "But I suppose I can take your crummy little response as a sign of approval. Now if we could just go home, please? I haven't eaten yet..."
 
The sword vanished, and Patrick felt something wrap around his waist..

Kari rubbed against Patrick's neck from her position behind him, purring slightly.
"Yes, master..." She held his ear in her teeth for a bit, then giggled and let go.
"So..." Kari folded her arms behind her head and walked after Patrick, away from the tree and towards his house. "Last I was around was just when Diocletian started to be the big thing...I think. Mighta been a couple decades or so later. What all's changed since then?"
 
Fei

Fei watched Patrick and his new sword head away from the tree, like the other pairs before them. It was all pretty hard to believe but she had to accept it. She smirked when the guy glared at Detorqueo.

"You certainly know how to make friends," she said to the man behind her. She let out a breath and began walking to her apartment. She rubbed her temples and vaguely wondered if she should stop by the pharmacy on the way. On second thought, maybe not. She was certain she had more aspirin at home and with the fact she had Detorqueo trailing behind her ... he definitely was not the type to play nice with people.
 
"Diocletian?" Patrick raised his eyebrows and looked back at the girl that was now following him. "Sounds Roman. IF it's truly that long since you've been...free...I can't really answer that question without taking you to a library." The teenager shook his head and looked forward again, thinking that he should do some groceries still, as he had not done so and he was getting hungry.

"I suppose the easiest way to tell you what has changed is: the world." Patrick shrugged and turned into an alley that would lead towards the grocery store. "You're currently on a continent that wasn't even discovered when you were last here. Rome has fallen, the Jews have their own state, and men have walked on the surface of the moon."

Shaking his head again, Patrick ducked into another alley, a shortcut that would take him to the front of the store. "I'll see about getting you a history book when we get home, and you'll be able to catch up some."
 
"Rome was pretty split up last time I remember. Shame about the jews...how did people get to the moon, through? Are people still worshipping the gods? What's a continent? And are there still warlords all across the land?"

Kari looked down for a bit. "I'm sorry master, I must be trying you with these questions.."

((mm, thinking that they will meet their COMBAT in either the alleyway or the store. Store would cause more chaos...))
 
The teenager turned around in the alleyway to face his newly acquired weapon and frowned lightly. Looking around if anyone was watching them first he leaned in close to her and spoke in soft tone.

"Hey listen, could you stop calling me 'master'? It's...rather conspicuous these days as slavery is abolished." He sighed softly and close his eyes for a second as he continued to speak.

"As for your questions. There are no true warlords anymore, at least, not exactly. People got to the moon in a sort of, flying device, that can move at great speeds, and is called a space-shuttle. A continent is a giant mass of land that is largely situated in a single tectonic plate, I can get you some books about that if you want to know more. Lastly..."

Patrick bit his lips, then sighed again and shrugged. "I know this must come as quite a shock to you. But the romans abandoned their old faith and adopted Christianity as their prime religion. The leader of the church is called the pope, and lives in Rome still. Christianity is the prime religion in most of the western world now."

Taking a step back, he turned around again, wanting to walk the last few steps out of the alley and towards the shop. "Now, I'm going to get some groceries, but when we get home I can get you books about anything you want to know. I promise."
 
Kari grew quiet as Patrick talked.
"...I'm sorry, master...but it's how I am built to address you." A lie, but he could probably live with it.
"As for Christianity...I suppose we can fix that problem when the time comes. If there aren't any warlords, are there at least still proscriptions? My siblings tended to hate those, but I they're fun."

She drew closer to Patrick as they walked down the alleyway.
"I don't like the feeling of this place..."
 
CLANK!

CLANG!

CLANK!


Only a couple of yards away, someone was rummaging in a trash can. One empty can, then another, and a third was thrown out. The last one bounced and then rolled, stopping at Patrick's feet. For a couple of more minutes, there were the sounds of rummaging and then it stopped.

A silhouette lifted his head and tilted it back to sniff the air, like a dog. Great big sniffs as if he'd caught wind of something delicious. He turned his head to Patrick and Kari and just stood there. A silent figure cloaked in darkness, studying the two of them.
 
Detorqueo snorted. "I don't exist to make friends. I exist to make people die in horrible, painful ways," he informed her as he followed her to her home. Or so he presumed, at any rate. His Wielder hadn't seen fit to share her plans.

After a few moments of awkward silence, he asked, "I don't suppose you know how to fight? I've had a previous wielder who didn't. It was messy."
 
A brief look at the strange appearance in front of him got Patrick to conclude that it wasn't that much of a strange appearance at all. Just another Hobo scrounging around the back-alleys to get himself something to eat, or maybe something to sell.
Patrick averted his gaze and put his hands deeply into his pockets, before he attempted to walk past the man.

When the figure moved to block him however, the youth backed off and re-created some distance between the two of them, instinctively backing away of what might be a threat.

"Look, I'm sorry man." Patrick tried, in an earnest tone of voice. "I don't have a whole lot of cash on me right now, and I still need to do grocery shopping, or I'll have nothing to eat tonight."

The figure said nothing and moved a step towards him, which made Patrick take a step backwards. The figure sniffed some more, and then a low growl emanated from him...it...whatever it was.

"Eh...Kari..." The young man tried. "What's going on here?"
 
Skye

Skyestepped back, away from the guy with the mask who was giving her a look so scornful she might have been a servant who had spit on her master's shoes. "Look, I think this is all a big mistake. I'm just ... going to go back to my life and pretend like none of this had ever happened." That other guy had done it, she could, too, right? "Just ... don't follow me. Or I'll call the cops."

Somehow that threat felt hollow but it was all she had. Skye took a few more steps backwards, then turned heel and ran out of sight!

***

"She was not fit to be your Wielder, Marius," a woman's voice, the same from earlier who had spoken to Patrick and Kari, said. Without a Wielder, Marius found himself back in weapon form and lying on the ground. "But perhaps the next one will be found worthy of you."

Nadia blinked as a girl went running past her. "Va tutto bene?"* she asked in Italian. Curious, she walked over to the tree only for her foot to nudge something. She looked down and found a pair of beautiful knives. Maybe the girl had dropped these? She bent to pick up the knives and then turned but the other girl was already gone. There was no one else.

"I wonder who you belong to. If you were mine, I would never lose you," she said, unwittingly accepting ownership of Marius and setting him free from his weapon form if he chose to become human again.

***

Fei

The question was enough to make her pause and give Detorqueo a sideways glance. "Uh ... no ... nothing like they do in the movies, that's for sure. I can just do the basics. Punch a guy, kick him in the nuts." She didn't know why but admitting it to this guy made her feel embarassed, like she should know how to do more. She raised an eyebrow. "You're not going to make me wake up at the crack of dawn to go running around, doing weird stuff in the name of learning how to fight, are you?"

Fei stopped under the canopy that led to her apartment building. Her cell phone was vibrating. She looked at the caller I.D. Her boss at work. Yay. She put it on "Ignore" and studied him. "Detorqueo ... Warp. Your name is 'warped' in Latin?" A part of her mused that her dad's Latin lessons had come in handy after all.

*"Is everything okay?"
 
Kari moved next to Patrick.
"I'm not sure..." She smiled, a toothy grin showing. "But I think he wants to die. Ready, master?"
 
The man didn't seem so human now. He was growling and didn't seem sure who to attack first. When Kari inched closer to Patrick, he let out a louder growl that bordered on a roar and launched himself at Patrick!

The creature appeared to be spurred by hatred and anger. His arms were swinging wildly and he knocked over trashcans and kicked crates that were in his way. He seemed intent on only one thing: destruction.
 
There was a flash, and Kari was back in her sword form. The spiked tail on her hilt wrapped around Patrick's right arm, digging into his skin. Her voice sounded in his head, somewhat apologetically.
"Sorry about this, master...I will accept punishment for it later. For now I think you need my help, even if it hurts."
 
Patrick winced briefly before stepping back. He felt lighter for some reason. Quicker too.
It was at that point that his vision seemed to blur. The air seemed to grow stale around him as a trashcan came flying towards his head as if drifting through a thick liquid. Patrick sidestepped it calmly, wondering at his new perception of the world.

The next thing he found himself doing was jumping to the side as the beastly figure launched itself at him. Despite his enhanced perception and speed, the claw that had suddenly appeared on the creature ripped the side of his shirt. Patrick was going to have to get used to moving in time. With his new ability, he saw things coming, but apparently, his body did not match the speed of his sight yet.

Patrick had very little time to ponder about it though, as the beastman, initially suprised by the youths sudden agility, had recovered himself and had luanched himself towards him with renewed vigor.

The student, unaccustomed to the fighting, froze and clung tightly to the sword-girl while closing his eyes holding Kari out in front of him. The creature crashed into Patrick, and the smell of it's hot breath made him with to throw up.

Not that it mattered, it was all over now, he would die, all because of this whole mess he got himself involved him. Patrick wondered if things would have been different had he not picked up the sword. Maybe he would have had a chance to better himself, find love, all that stuff. He regretted dying a virgin, though not as much as regretting dying young.

And then the beast stopped. It stopped it's growling, and suddenly, the weight of the beast-thing and it's horrid stench fell away. Patrick hesitantly opened his eyes, not yet completely willing to believe that he would live. The beastman lay on the ground, a gaping hole in it's abdomen where Kari had pierced it as the creature had impaled itself on the sword.

Patrick sagged through his knees, sitting against the cold stone wall in the alley, sighing with relief, but suddenly exhausted by the fight. His hands were shaking, and his breath was ragged as slowly the fact that he was alive dawned on him. He was alive, but by a narrow margin.

"Kari...You'd better have an explanation for all of this really quick..."
 
"I'm sorry, master..." Kari was back in her human form, checking over Patrick.
"My siblings and I each have our own abilities-that was mine. I need to draw your blood to use it, but I figured you could use the help. Those wounds should heal quickly, they just hurt."

She pulled his shirt off of him, then looked over his side wound. It seemed fine at first...She poked once. Yeah, he'd be fine.
"Well since you know so much about it...they must be after me and my siblings. We should get going to the store, your wounds will be fine."

So far, this master was turning out to be...subpar. She'd do something, but...it wasn't her position to correct him, and the last time one of her siblings tried that...

So she'd follow him for now, filling her role as a good, obedient slave. For now.