Hell City: Wicked Nights

[BluBlood]

Janet hacked out a lucrid, painful wad of blood, hands and knees holding her up tentatively from the basement floor. No one was interested to pick her up or help the young, stubborn witch, the audience slamming against the arena's fence and screaming slander and motivation. The noise humidly filled the air, sweat and blood also thick enough to taste in this dank, dark hell.

This was a personal hell that Janet regularly visited. Monster and warlocks, lurkers and succubi, they all came down to this pit as allies or rivals, fighters or the crowd. Drinks were thrown around hardily, generous bottles brought out by the bartenders who were the ringleaders in this freak show.

They organized fights between the few creatures in the city, the mutants and magic members in Los Angeles. Most of them were young, weak and only beginning to understand the supernatural in themselves. There were A lot who found themselves in denial, commiting suicide or murders, crimes until somebody burnt them out. Others tried to seek purpose, be it in thievery or heroism, vigilantic as it is. And many more, like Janet, just wanted to beat the pulp out of another dirtbag.

But her ass was close to being kicked. Five seconds down, she started to rise, heavily breathing through the tendrils of blood. A blonde ponytail caked to her stained neck, her fists up to guard her face again. The crowd roared in excitement--this bitch was masochistic.

"Is her opponent going to finish the job?"
the voice boomed over the loudspeaker.

Under the tinged lights, Janet kept her stance low and hands defensive. Her own purple tanktop was stained from her opponent, the witch's knives to the wayside now. All she had left was what little energy burst could be thrown at the person, and what strength prevailed in hand-to-hand combat.

 

[Assallya]

The succubus moaned ecstatically as her opponent rose, drinking in the lusts of the audience. She had been worried that the witch would capitulate, stay down and rob her of the kill. The rules forbade murdering a fallen opponent and this audience wanted blood. They always wanted blood. They washed themselves in the pain and suffering of those they witnessed. Their hearts slammed in their chests, and the desire burned in their veins, and stoked the heat of their loins. Even as she stalked the witch, one of the spectators, a wealthy sponsor in the front row was being milked by his blond companion of the evening, her face buried in his crotch.

"Mmmmm..." Eisheth murmured pleasantly, raising her slender arms into the air, feeding on the lust, on their desire to see this Janet further pummeled, "Good. You rise."

Eisheth truly wanted to kill this bitch. The audience would go wild and she would be satiated for some time. Like a vampire Succubi had to feed simply to survive. Wealthy vampires could maintain a herd of humans to feed upon. Succubi called them harems. She had been destitute, living on the streets ever since she'd accidentally drank her boyfriend, rendering him a lifeless husk. These fights meant she didn't have to whore herself just to eat. They also put money in her purse, a substantial amount.

The succubus stalked, inky black shadows swirling about her pale naked form, shadows concealing what men found arousing, offering only telling glimpses of her nubile form. Her wings, ephemeral wisps of shadow flapped once, snapping like a whip. She was of the Tenebrae breed, not that she knew her people's history nor how she and her ilk were created by the Fallen in the depths of the Nine Circles. The Tenebrae were forged of the shadow that concealed rapists and whores.

Moving forwards, testing how much resolve still existed in her prey Eisheth's bare feet slipped across the matted surface of the caged ring. Her long black tresses writhed like a Medusa, shadows moving within the blue black waves. Pure black eyes gazed mirthfully across Janet's form as she considered taunts to mess with her prey's fighting prowess, to incite her to rage and mistakes.

 

[BluBlood]

Deep down, Janet tasted the tired flames, stoking her hands in a dull aubergine energy. They were sluggish in their wake, but nonetheless, her heart's desire fueled them with intent. She had bitten off more than she could chew, but the banged up fighter had true grit staring out over a broken nose. The knuckles popped in her fists and she stepped the last length between herself and the she-demon.

"You know if you finish this, Cunt," her husky voice carried out, rattling, scarcely raising above their surroundings, "I will come back. I made the right choices in my life to fucking ensure that..!" Janet leaped openly, hands together in a hammering throw to the succubus' throat. The momentum had come up over her head at her final sentence, and now she threw her clasped hands down in her jump's descent upon Eisheth. The purple flames pulsed in her last breath, her last exhale, she assumed it to be... A brilliant light burst out, between them, Janet's shout an echo following the intense burst.

 

[Assallya]

The succubus continued to gloat mirthfully, waiting for her opponent to rise. Shadows danced around her fingers, forming long claws and then evaporating over and over. She thought the little witch humorous. Returning from the dead, how preposterous.

She was about to guffaw, to taunt the girl further, when she moved. Eisheth had thought the girl without any remaining spirit but here she was, not just rising but propelling herself forward into a leap. A flurry of blows followed and Eisheth was hard pressed to defend herself. Grandstanding for the audience had lowered her guard and if it hadn't been for the strange auburn glow around the woman's hands Eisheth wouldn't have had a chance to react.

Cheers began anew, the crowd going wild as fists hammered down on Eisheth's forearms, a double fisted stab at her throat was barely warded away. She almost smiled when the witch leaped upwards. A bad idea in any fight. Being in the air only made you vulnerable, unable to change direction or properly brace oneself. She was about to act, raising up clawed fingers to impale Janet as she came down when everything went white.

The crowd winced, the screams for blind stopping momentarily as the the flash blazed, light washing over Eisheth's pale flesh. It burned away her claws, swathing her body in warmth and driving away all shadow. In an instant, Eisheth stood naked in the middle of the ring. The shadows that had concealed her flesh had been burned away, her dark hair no longer swaying with her emotions. Pale white skin that looked to have never seen a lick of sun and accented only with a tattoo of a writhing western style dragon around one bared breast and a slim band around one angle. She reeled backwards, defenseless, with one hand covering her blinded eyes, trying desperately to get her bearings.

"You fucking bitch!" Eisheth screamed angrily as the crowd, having recovered more quickly from the flash, began screaming for blood once more.

 

[BluBlood]

Through the blast, those claws had caught Janet for the last time, not going unscaved in her last burst of willpower. They ensnared her stomach and ripped threw the thin tanktop. The shearing effect of her abdominals had Janet back on the ground, coughing up blood over the short distance between her and Eisheth.

"Goddamnit," she whispered, hair hanging low over her shoulders now. The blonde was beat down for the first time by the brand new beauty, a heretic that the witch had never met on this side of the city. This wasn't her first fight in the cage, but now as she pulled herself up with the help of the fence, Janet had never been so pulled apart in her adult life.

Blue eyes pierced the long blond veil of hair, a stiff hand with broken knuckles pushing the mess back over her widow's peak. The porcelain figure seemed so fragile on the splintered old floorboards, the succubus undressed from her obsidian visage.

"I don't know if we can call either one a winner, folks, how do you assholes feel about it???"

As the two women had a simmering stare down, the wave of energy went into snearing and howling over both of them in a tie. It washed over her psyche and the noise seemed to carry out through an encroaching darkness. Janet's eyes broke contact and lost their anger to the loss blood turning her unconscious...

A sudden gust of wind blew the chain linked door open, and Janet's body was caught by a much younger man before her head smacked the floor. He couldn't have been more than out of high school, chipped glasses flashing in the light as he looked the witch over. His interruption on the fight had the bouncers coming swiftfully to seize him. But as soon he had come, the boy had himself and the cradled witch vanishing in the air...

---

"What kind of end was that? Sorry folks, we will get another round going soon. Meanwhile, let's get the naked she-devil off the stage, please."

 

[Assallya]

All she could see was a sea of coloured lights, mostly primary colours, as the retinas in her eyes had been bleached by the sudden flash of light. She struggled to see, eye's blinking. She needed a moment, just a moment or two to call forth the shadows from within herself again, to undo the dispelling. Until then, she was nearly helpless and completely at the witch's mercy.

Eisheth had curled up, expecting a counter attack while blinded. her ears straining to hear sound of Janet approaching. She could hear nothing but the crowd. She had no means of knowing that he opponent, Janet, was unable to follow through on her attack. writhing in agony.

The something happened. The milk she drank had soured. Those in the audience no longer embracing their dark lusts but instead harbouring bitternes. Her eyes began to clear as the announcer's voice bellowed and Eisheth was stunned. A tie? That explained the crowd's reaction.

"You," she called out to the air as she spied someone or possibly something steal away her opponent, "Get back here you bitch!"

Multiple hands reached out for her as her shadows returned, caressing her figure once more. She struggled against the pair of trolls as they pulled her from the ring.

 

[BluBlood]

The trolls had pulled Eisheth down and around to the bar, not extending the effort to fight off taunts and physical harassment on behalf of the tie in the match. A neutral end to a game was given less glory than a loser in the remnants of aupernatural culture. At an eventual end, they landed at the bar, the succubus was handed over to the bar tender, whose hand was the taloned clutches of an eagle. It escaped the dance of neatly pouring a cocktail, clasping the delicate demon doll by the throat in a dominant manner.

A woman in her early thirties, short spiked hair the tawny color of a hawk and eyes piercing gold, massaged the slender throat with seductively elegant claws. "Give me one good reason why I should pay your ass even a minimal effort for that kind of shit-show you had out there with the witch-bitch," she conveyed with hostility. The cocktail was slid across the wooden bar in the same breath that the hostess pulled the succubus in her free arm, willingly tasting the blood off her cheek. It had the customers at the counter, old loyal advocates, snickering and snorting behind rows of teeth.

"Harper, lay it on easier than that, she's the not your type."

A tall, brunette young man in the comfort of a leather dark jacket spoke lightly from a whistle over. In the midsts of the music and voices, he cut clear to the tender, looking up from his empty shot glass half heartedly. A hazel eyed charm in a charcoal sweater and dark blues jeans fitting like a pin of calm recess in the mayhem. His sharp jaw was set in a practical angle, awaiting the avian enchanted woman to let go of the slender creature held like prey to the poised raptor.

 

[Assallya]

Eisheth knew enough to be afraid. Even if Harper was a normal human Eisheth would be afraid. There were other forms of power beyond the supernatural. Still, in Eisheth's opinion none of this was her fault. It was the elementalist, the air spirit or whatever the thing was that had snatched her prey. She'd been ready to kill or be killed. She'd also been thwarted. She had wanted to relish in the feast, to drink in that lust. Now she had barely fed and she'd have to go back to whoring or starve. She wasn't fond of doing that.

She was about to reply when the man intervened. She didn't know this one. He was beautiful and she could tell there was something about him. It was that cold assured sense of being master of his desmense.

"Maybe she is," Eisheth replied, carefully, making no movement that could result in an evisceration of her throat, "If you would enjoy it."

 

[emeow]

"Some would think she is everyone's type from the way she behaves" a soft voice chimed from the other end of the bar. A delicate feline sat atop of a shelf high up watching everyone interacting with each other. Half interested in the on goings in the bar, half interested in the paw that it was licking at it shifted in its seat slowly standing.

"One would have thought that a being as smart as she was it would have known better than to play with her food..." she slowly started to weave in and out of the bottles on the bar. "Then again I may have made the mistake in assuming she was smart. I thought all hunters were." it shook its soft grey furry head. The deep blue eyes looking over to Eisheth's before smiling to the man's.

"She does look like she could provide entertainment still though. Another match perhaps... a mission if you need something... your bed warmed if you were desperate" the cat chuckled smiling to the man again the cat's smile unnerving almost it's eyes twinkling as if it was unnatural at best,