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[The pirate consults his compass, and mutters several choice swears as he goes forward to meet them.] Then you will do me the honor of staying behind me, madam.

[ reluctantly, she falls a few steps back. it isn't exactly obedience. there are three of them -- she won't be left unemployed. ]

Gee, since you asked so nicely. [ she sounds hostile, sure. but she's not hostile towards jack. ]

[Jack wastes no time with a comeback. Even though he hates doing it this way, he charges in with sword drawn, aiming to cut the Achilles tendons of the first of the fighters--a regular soldier, nothing special about him. Once the man is moaning on the ground, he leaves and launches against the second...an Elite.

This is going to be significantly more difficult. The Shifter remains just behind, eyes glowing.]

[ buffy has no intention of hanging back more than is absolutely necessary; in fact, she is keen on distracting that shifter for jack's sake so he isn't left engaging two enemies at once. the elite will be challenge enough.

she circles the two engaged in combat -- keeping half a glance on the downed soldier in case he should prove to be a problem again. her slayer abilities may be gone but her tactical training under giles is still firmly at play. ]

[The pirate dances in and out, just out of reach of the other soldier. He is badly outmatched.]

[ it's a thing she hates to see but joining that particular match would be a worse decision that going after the shifter. the sooner he is out of the way, the sooner she could clean up the one on the ground and give jack a hand. but the important question is whether she can get him out of the way at all.

she stops just short of the shifter's reach. the valentine's fight with kadaj was just over a year ago but she can still remember the shocks of pain and the debilitating hits. it puts more hesitation into her than she is used to. ]

[It's not going all that well for Sparrow. He has landed a few superficial cuts and taken a few as well--to the arm, the side, the jaw. His quickness and canniness are keeping him in the game.]

[At one point, though, he seems to catch a break; he darts in and opens a long, bloody gash along the elite's throat.]

[And celebrates maybe too early.]

[And doesn't realize his foe is still more than capable of delivering a crushing blow to his knee...]

[And of lifting him clear off the ground by the throat. Until it is too late.

Sparrow kicks and struggles in his grip as the elite soldier laughs at him.]

[ meanwhile, buffy was just tossed backwards a few feet. now? now there is definitely more of her blood in the mess.

but this puts her close to the elite and she scrambles to her feet, risking taking her eyes off the shifter in order to thud heavily into the elite's back. no strength behind it, but maybe she can give jack an opening. ]

[The pirate is suffocating to death. Buffy's efforts only earn her more gruff laughter from the Elite; the monstrous warrior turns toward her, aiming a blow with his sword.]

[ desperate measures. buffy's duck and dodge doubles as a chance to wrench the pole of her scythe between the elite's knees and twist brutally, hoping to trip him up. it leaves her on the ground -- vulnerable -- but freeing jack isn't pure self-sacrifice. she'll need him to get through this. she just needs the elite to drop him and so needs to use methods that depend less on strength and more upon the weak parts of her enemy. ]

[Jack is tossed aside as the Elite, thoroughly angered now, stumbles and turns on the woman.

The pirate manages to get to hands and knees, taking long, choking gasps of air. He shakes his head to clear it and tries to gain his feet.]

[ the whole maneuver sends her scythe flying. she can see it, but she can't reach it. not with the elite turning on her. she comes up with a punch -- hissing loudly when her knuckle crumple on the elite's jaw. ]

[Jack finally manages to stand and retrieve the fallen sword. His left leg will not bear weight.

The choice is not a simple one: kill the shifter, and re-strengthen Buffy, or try to kill the elite captain, who looks ready to spit her on his sword.

Sparrow trusts her. God, he trusts her. Muttering not swears but a quick prayer he turns away from her to engage the shifter, aiming to behead the devil.]

[ after the failed punch, the elite catches buffy's wrist in his hand, twisting brutally until there is a snap. something in that arm is broken but the pain flares up so high that she can hardly pinpoint the exact where of the break. she claws out with her opposite hand. girly fight techniques -- dragging nails across whatever skin she can reach. digging in and trying to play the old game of redirecting pain into power. it's not working.

she stumbles backwards. jack going after the shifter? good. she is glad he made that choice. it's the best opportunity they have. she needs to get back to the scythe -- so she side-steps, hoping to avoid the elite's reach but only ends up caught up from behind. too slow. unable to react.

she bites down hard on the thick arm acting as a restraint across her chest; the elite twitches but doesn't let go. ]

[Fortunately for Jack, the Shifter had made up his mind that the pirate was out of the fight. He was closing in on the struggle between the Elite and the Slayer, giving Sparrow a window of opportunity to take his wings as a trophy.

Jack staggered up behind the unaware Shifter and sliced cleanly through the his feathers, dropping him. The glowing eyes closed. Whatever hold he had had over Buffy, the pirate hoped, was broken.

There is no time to wonder about this, or to gloat over the victory. It is now Jack's turn to buy Buffy some time. To be a distraction. He hefts a dagger in his hand before hurling it at the Elite's back, burying it to the hilt deep into the joint of his wing. When he yells, his voice is hoarse, brutalized from the soldier's grip:]

Bastard.

Edited 2011-02-28 05:21 (UTC)

[ this is brutal. she can feel consciousness being squeezed out of her and her struggling does little to change that. this is worse than the test on her eighteenth -- then, she had a chance. she had holy water. now she has nothing. she thrashes her head backwards, hoping to smash the guy's nose in. it only adds yet another batch of pain.

only she hears his yell and before buffy even feels the strength flood back into her body, she realizes that she has one last thing. she has jack sparrow. the elite's grip loosened but by now she can kick and shove and break free. the after-panic of being helpless is still clear on her face and she takes it out on the elite with a firm, snappy roundhouse kick. this should deliver the soldier deftly into jack's care. ]

[Armored wings. The pirate isn't prepared for how tough they are as the soldier is thrown back toward him by Buffy's kick. His sword is sharp, though. He manages to hack one wing mostly all the way through at the base before his knee gives way again---not totally disconnecting the wing, but harming it. Badly. It dangles from a few shreds as the enraged and now seriously injured Elite tries to pin Sparrow to the ground with his sword.

Jack rolls out of the way, getting to his feet once more, somehow.]

[ she stoops to reclaim her scythe, spinning it easily in her hand. it's her turn now to come up behind the elite, slamming her heel into the small of his back. she takes her blade to the hanging wing. it's easy to sever but the second armoured one will take more work than she can complete considering the soldier's extreme aversion to losing it encouraged a lot of wriggling away.

so buffy steps back to regain her footing. she wants to punish the soldier for taking the power from her -- it may have been the shifter who worked the magic, but it was this elite who had been the physical agent of that helplessness. this earns him a heavy kick to the gut before he can stand. ]

[Jack is happy to stand and watch, favoring that left leg. Smiling not entirely wholesomely at the slayer toying with her prey as he wipes the blood from his face.]

[ the elite becomes incapacitated pretty quickly. she leans in and hacks the second wing off as though she has been doing it all day. mostly because it's what she has been doing all day.

in the end, she steps back and sighs a very long and troubled sigh. ] Check the third one. He was still alive. [ at least, he was a few minutes ago. ]

Not anymore, Annie. [Because Sparrow has just slit his throat. And looks rather miserable about it, surprisingly.]

Bastards.

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1/?

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DONE

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