Playing For Keeps - Ch 61 (Adv) - Emergency Room Emergency (Patreon)

I wasn’t sure anyone in the ER would be able to react to my order in time to take cover; even with all my stats I barely enough time to plant myself in front of the waiting room, expand my shield, and activate all my physical buffs. Just gotta hope I can tank the impact with [Bludgeoning Resistance] and recover before Tyrian goes on a rampage.

A split second before the ambulance impacted the glass door, Bia’s cyan-armored form sprinted past me and smashed through the door before it could open, scattering the glass outward instead of in. She was wearing a helmet now that looked fully sealed, and brought her arms up as if planning to shove the ambulance away.

It was an insane, desperate move… which made it all the more impressive that it actually kind of worked.

The hood of the ambulance crumpled under her hands, and Bia planted her feet as her palms came into contact with the frame and engine. The back end of the ambulance tipped up, flipping entirely over her head, and the whole thing came smashing down on its roof. It was still sliding, but a huge amount of its momentum was gone, and I was able to slam my shield against it to bring the wrecked van to a stop.

“What the f–?” I heard Dr Theoriakolos gasp.

“CLEAR THE ROOM, NOW!” I roared, drawing Dawn Cracker even as “Dancing Mad” started building in my ears. “THIS ISN’T OVER, EVERYONE GET OU–!”

Tyrian’s Aura, barely phased by the crash, suddenly lunged toward me. I pulled the trigger at the same moment the ambulance’s doors were smashed off their hinges. One of them flipped end over end, its velocity killed by the buckshot, but the other clipped my elbow. The vambrace I’d bought from Wayland kept the impact from breaking through [Steadfast], but it still jarred me enough to throw my aim too wide to fire again before Tyrian himself collided with me.

He was cackling all the way through the two-footed flying kick, planting his boots against my breastplate and kicking off into a backflip. Landing on the bumper of the upside-down ambulance, he wasted no time raising his weapons and opening fire. “Hello again, boy! Did you enjoy my surprise!?”

I caught the first few shots on my shield, and then had to lunge to the right to catch the next few as he started tracking targets other than me. “Fuck you!”

Not my cleverest comeback, but I was a bit more focused on covering the civilians who were cowering instead of fleeing.

“Oh, but you’re the one that’s fucked, boy,” Tyrian smirked, keeping one gun on me and taking aim at a someone over my head. “You don’t stand a chance by yourself, especially if you’re busy trying to protect these ants at the same time!”

Good thing I’m not by myself, then. Tyrian took his shot, but it just splintered the linoleum floor as the ambulance suddenly dropped out from under him. The van tipped up onto its missing back door, and when Tyrian landed in front of it I was right there to ram my shoulder into his sternum and smash him into the already crumpled drive train. Sorry, fucker. I’m not trapped in here with you.

His breath wheezed out, but his Aura held and he immediately started slashing at mine, each scrape shaving away my HP as his Semblance let him ignore my [Aura] and [Steadfast].

Stepping in, I triggered a new Xíngquán skill and drove my palm forward, but he grabbed the axle above his head and lifted both his feet off the floor, dodging over my strike and kicking me in the face as my hand tore through the ambulance’s metal undercarriage.

[Bēngquán (Passive/Active) LV 3 EXP 3.61%][A Form that embodies crushing linear force, like an arrow shot directly forward.][ACTIVE – MP: Varies.]

Must remember to thank Ren for teaching me the rest of the Cycle of stances.

Tearing my hand free and hopping back, I took a second to glance around. There was a fire alarm ringing, and most of the patients who were able to move on their own had flex deeper into the hospital. Outside, a few people had gathered, but quickly scattered again when Tyrian and I started shooting. Bia was fine, as far as I could tell, but she hadn’t reentered the fray since flipping the ambulance back over, so I presumed she was looking for an opening.

In which case, let’s keep this fucker’s attention on me.

‹???›LV ???Tyrian CallowsHP: [–––––––––– 89%–––––––– · ·]

I glanced at my HUD. Down to 92% already myself though. Wanting to keep his attention on me, I stepped back and placed myself in front of the handful of souls still in the waiting room before forcing a laugh that my Mastered [Acting] skill made completely natural-sounding. “Is that the best you’ve got?”

Tyrian’s eyes narrowed, and instead of targeting another patient he pointed one of his guns at a frozen triage nurse who was too far away for me to get between them. “I wonder, will you keep laughing when I splatter her pretty brains all over the wall?”

“If you’re such a chicken-shit that you can’t fight an eighteen-year-old without threatening hostages, no wonder you ran away the other night,” I retorted.

One of his fanatical eyes twitched, and he pointed both guns at me. “Arrogant chatter. I’ve killed far better Hunters than you, boy. You couldn’t take me together with Qrow; without him you don’t stand a chance.

You know what, that’s unfortunately a good point. Where the fuck is Qrow? There’s no way he didn’t spot the fucking ambulance crash. I flared [Detect Aura] again, searching for his soul. There he is… with a pair of Auras I don’t recognize? The hell?

Reaching up to wipe the blood from my nose, I just scoffed. “This ‘arrogant boy’ cost you your precious tail,” I reminded him. “And all those stings you were sure were lethal were barely a footnote in my night.”

Tyrian’s eye twitched again, and his aim rose fractionally. His Aura visibly flowed over his weapons as he drew a bead between my eyes with both. “A timely reminder that I owe you and that red-haired bitch a painful death.”

The last few patients and nurses were scrambling away, so I kept the shit-talk flowing. “Then what are you doing, getting ready to shoot me? You want to pull the trigger and have it be over? Or do you want to get up close and personal, look me in the eye when you shear through my Aura and bury those blades in me? Hm?”

Tyrian stared at me, then started to giggle hysterically. “It’s funny… I know you’re playing me…”

[Bluff successful!]

“–But you’re RIGHT!” He lunged, and it took all of my 350ish buffed DEX to draw the Family Sword fast enough to meet him.

Lucky me–!

Rather than clash with me, Tyrian immediately pulled back and slashed again and again, trying to overwhelm me with his speed. He was easily the fastest enemy I’d faced, not counting whatever bullshit Zora had pulled, but I was still just barely keeping up. Mostly by the grace of being pretty damn good with a shield by this point. Having armor covering my vitals was also paying off, because it meant that the first few attacks he managed to slip past my shield simply clattered off my breastplate.

Of course, after the third time that happened — which only took maybe twenty seconds — Tyrian showed the real reason he was such a dangerous opponent and completely changed up his rhythm. No longer standing in place, he started dancing back and forth, circling away from my shield and slipping his blades between the gaps of my vambrace and rerebrace, or below my breastplate.

He also kept laughing the entire time, which was actually remarkably distracting. I wouldn’t say I was giving as good as I got, because his slippery style was serving him pretty well. I was still managing to connect with his Aura regularly, but all my hits were glancing, especially in comparison.

Despite Tyrian’s Semblance cutting through my Aura and tearing chunks of my HP away, I kept my [Aura] skill running, both for the stat boost and because converting all my regen to HP kept me topped up. While distinctly more painful, this is actually a blessing in disguise, coz it means he’s not depleting my MP, which gives me more time for my buffs. At least, up until I drop dead at 0 HP.

“What’s wrong?” he cackled. “No more smart remarks? Could it be that you’re beginning to feel the blood loss?”

I wasn’t, but I also wasn’t about to tell him that. It was a good guess considering how many times he’d nicked me, and it immediately occurred to me to try bluffing him with it.

“These little… papercuts?” I gasped. I was playing up my shortness of breath, but not by as much as I’d have liked. Should’ve spent my banked points. “I can do this… all day!”

“You’re much more impressive than I gave you credit for, boy~” Tyrian crooned. “I truly thought that cowardly lion would be the closest I’d get to a good fight, but you’re not bad… and you brought Qrow for me to play with! Now there’s a fun one~”

“I don’t… think he… swings that way…!”

“Fortunately, I don’t need him to!”

Tyrian abruptly darted back toward my shield side, causing my latest slash to miss entirely. His weapons carved another bloody trail across my lower back. At the same time, his shortened tail whipped out, trying to swipe my feet out from under me, but [Steadfast] gave me enough poise to withstand it. Instead, I swung out hard with my shield, connecting the most solid hit since I’d rammed him into the ambulance and cracking through his Aura to break his nose once again.

“Argh!”

‹???›LV ???Tyrian CallowsHP: [–––––––––– 76%–––––– · · · ·]

Got me down to 62% though, I estimated with another glance at my HUD, even as I put my back into a follow-up slash. Need to turn this in my favor…

Despite being staggered, Tyrian managed to catch it on both his weapons. He didn’t have the cleanest stance, but I had his hands temporarily occupied while he was off-balance and his Aura was down, so I capitalized in the simplest way I could think of.

I reared back one steel-toed boot and kicked him in the balls. Indigo would be proud.

Tyrian let out a high-pitched wheeze and shoved me back before I could do it again — which, yes, I definitely tried — glaring at me through streaming eyes. He seemed to instantly give up on the ‘not shooting me’ plan, opening fire to keep me at a distance. I could have accepted a few grazes in exchange for closing the distance again, but it wasn’t necessary. He’ll have to reload sometime.

More importantly, I had definitely kept Tyrian’s attention solidly on me, which was the entire point of the last minute or so of combat, and when the moment came that his fire rate paused, I didn’t need to do anything.

Bia, who had been messing with something under the hood of the ambulance this whole time — presumably making sure the damn thing wouldn’t explode — reentered the fray wielding a massive mace or warhammer, which she swung in a wide arc to take advantage of her momentum.

Tyrian’s head snapped around, and he threw himself into a dive that caused the huge club to sail over his head.

Rather than pull the missed attack, Bia completed the follow-through by whirling it up over her head and collapsing it back into its shotgun form, firing a narrow cone of heavy buckshot that forced Tyrian to abort the shot he was lining up and roll behind the remains of the ambulance, still balanced on its rear end.

“Looks like it’s you and me, Jaune,” she said, stepping up beside me.

“Wouldn’t have it any other way. Assuming this coward doesn’t run away again,” I said loudly, watching Tyrian’s soul in my mind’s eye. He seemed to be dithering, torn on whether or not he should retreat, so I tried again. “Not that anyone could rely on him to do something right.”

[Taunt successful.]

No [Charm] bonus since he’s definitely not an ally or neutral, but I guess the CHA bonus from [Aura] is worth more than I gave it credit for.

Sure enough, Tyrian yelled, “I am a devoted servant of my goddess! She relies on me to destroy her enemies!”

“I’m sure she can count on you to make a mess of things while actually-competent people get things done,” I jeered, circling to the right while Bia went left. “Probably gives you orders that are the opposite of what she wants, so when you inevitably fuck them up, you advance her plans by accident.”

I already had my shield raised when I stepped around the van, anticipating the gunfire that immediately plinked off it. I had not anticipated Tyrian flinging himself at me like a linebacker, finally taking me off my feet and dragging me to the floor with him. He scrambled upward, pinning down my arms with his knees, and started cackling again as he rained punches down on my face, breaking my nose over and over as [Gamer’s Body] instantly healed it.

“How’s this for a fuckup, boy!?”

Fuck, my HP is dropping like a rock!

Pressing my pinned hands against the floor, I brought my legs up in a reverse-crunch and grabbed his head with my calves, slamming them back down to rip Tyrian off me.

Kipping upright and blowing blood out of my nose, I went right back to talking shit. “Still can’t kill an Academy Freshman. Did you even have orders to come here or were you just desperate for something to fuck up after sitting on your thumbs for too long?”

Apparently I was genuinely getting to him, because Tyrian didn’t bother shooting or even jumping around like he’d done during his fight with Qrow. He just launched himself back at me, slashing like a maniac, and ironically becoming much easier to block.

“I am my goddess’ most trusted–!”

“You know she hates the gods more than anything, right?” I interrupted, carving huge chunks out of his Aura with a series of stabs I’d stolen from Indigo. “She probably cringes every time you call her that.”

“What would you know!?” Tyrian sneered.

“No, seriously, the only things she wants dead more than her ex-husband are the gods who cursed her,” I insisted, keeping my gaze on Tyrian so as to not give away Bia creeping up behind him.

She was shockingly silent in her armor, as was the mech-shift that turned her shotgun back into a mace — though that descriptor seemed woefully inadequate considering the haft alone was taller than either of us, being at least two meters long before accounting for the striking head.

“You really don’t know a damn thing about her, do you? Then again, I wouldn’t tell you anything important either; less chance of you fucking up something that actually matters that way.”

“Why you–!”

Winding up again, Bia whirled her weapon in a full revolution overhead before taking her swing. Tyrian seemed to notice at the very last second, spinning on the spot and raising his blades to catch her swing, but even if he’d had time to set his feet he wouldn’t have stood a chance of holding his ground. There were some kind of Dust emitters integrated into the mace’s striking face, and I thought I recognized the telltale purplish-black shimmer of Gravity Dust as Bia caressed a trigger near the base.

Tyrian’s Aura flared as brightly as I’d ever seen just in time before shattering decisively. Bia’s attack sent him rocketing across the room, where he smashed clear through the triage desk before ending up half-embedding in the stone wall behind… but he was not reduced to chunky salsa the way he should have been.

Shame, that.

I had spent a good portion of the last few days debating with myself whether I was going to try disarming and capturing Tyrian, or if I should just kill him on the spot. Now that the moment had arrived… I genuinely still hadn’t decided. On the one hand, taking an anti-execution stance is Good and arguably Just, and not really the sort of thing that brooks exceptions. On the other, this is Tyrian we’re talking about. He’s a known mass-murderer, a convicted serial killer, and he’s deranged enough that he’ll never repent for his crimes on his own considering he willingly serves the Queen of the Grimm. If he doesn’t die where I can see him, he’ll almost certainly turn up again, gunning for me and the people I care about.

“You… again…!” Tyrian wheezed, glaring at Bia before shifting his hateful gaze to me as I stalked toward him. “I’ll… remember… this…!”

“Not for long, you won’t,” Bia said coldly, stalking forward and raising her weapon again.

“My goddess… will succor me…” Tyrian’s hand crept up to his neck, and he tore his shirt away, revealing a flattened, black mark over his chest. When his finger touched it, the mark seemed to inflate into a small sphere, filling with a reddish smoke and revealing fragments of white on the bottom.

Is that…?

I activated [Detect Grimm], and my eyes widened. “Stop him!”

Bia lunged, but in the second it took her to cross the room, the tiny orb popped off Tyrian’s chest, revealing a round row of bonelike teeth, like a lamprey’s mouth and several ‘tongues’ still embedded in his flesh. It instantly vomited a spray of black goo that enveloped Tyrian completely, and his furious glare never left me as he seemed to sink into the black.

Bia’s mace smashed down an instant too late, crushing the miniature Grimm and scattering the black substance, but Tyrian had vanished.

Salem head turned, causing Arthur to cut off his ongoing diatribe about the revenge he planned to take in Atlas. It was nothing he hadn’t recited a dozen times before, and while she had been patient enough to allow it while nothing else was going on…

“My Lady?” Hazel questioned.

Salem didn’t reply, simply raising a hand and conjuring a small pool of Grimmstuff at the foot of her throne’s dais. It bubbled threateningly, causing Hazel and Arthur and a badly-injured Tyrian seemed to rise out of it. His Aura was severely depleted; his nose, left arm, and — judging by his labored breathing — several ribs were broken; and the end of his tail was missing.

“Thank… you… Goddess…” he forced out, heedless of his own injuries.

She raised an imperious eyebrow, and asked, “What were you doing in Mistral?”

“Hunting… traitor… Lionheart…” Tyrian breathed.

“Oh?” Salem leaned forward. “Has Leonardo found the will to defy me? How unexpected. And how did you come to be in this state? By the time I looked through your Seer, it was already dead.”

“That… boy…!” he raged, making no effort to move.

“Boy?” Arthur drawled, moving to look down at Tyrian. “You were this soundly defeated by a child? Perhaps you should have left him to his fate, Milady.”

Tyrian ignored him, which was itself a sign of how injured and furious he was.

“You chose to act without my direction, and were intercepted and defeated by a child?” Salem wondered. “Who precisely rendered you to such a state?”

“That… Arc… boy…!”

Arthur’s gaze sharpened, and he knelt down. “Arc? Did you say Arc? What did he look like?”

“Blond…” Tyrian gasped. “Tall…”

Watts drew his Scroll and pulled up a picture. “Is this him?”

“Yesss…” Tyrian hissed, the image seeming to spark new depths of hate.

“Arthur?” Salem prompted, and Watts straightened up, turning his Scroll to show her. Her other eyebrow rose to join the first, because she recognized the scars on the boy’s face. “This is the boy who thwarted you in Atlas?”

“He and his wretched sisters,” Arthur seethed.

“Arc, was it?” Hazel tilted his head. “That was the name to claim the bounty for Samiri and Krios, as well.”

“I see…” Salem mused.

Tyrian continued to lay there, broken, awaiting her judgment.

“As it happens, I too, recognize that child,” she revealed. “He was present when Amphivena was killed, bearing an interesting blade.”

Her finger tapped on the arm of her throne, before she made her decision.

“Hazel, stabilize Tyrian and bring him to Julian for treatment. Arthur, tell me what you’ve gathered about this…” Her gaze flicked to the name at the top of the Scroll’s screen. “…Jaune Arc.”

Name: Jaune ArcLevel: 62 (Next: 13.79%)Title: InitiateRace: HumanAge: 18Job: Journeyman HuntsmanClass: PaladinSemblance: The GamerHP: 1474/8431MP: 2951/4619STR: 229 (100)CON: 293 (105)DEX: 165 (54)INT: 139 (51)WIS: 116 (53)CHA: 162 (53)Points: 117Money: 965,025LStatus: Cursed – Yellow Death [High]

A/N: If you’re enjoying this story, feel free to check out my discord server at https://discord.gg/H6V854Fvbg

You don’t know how close I was to just directly quoting Commando when Jaune taunted Tyrian. Also, I originally planned to spend Jaune’s banked points in this fight, but the way it ended up flowing, Bia carried him well enough to not need them. Can’t wait for hoarding them to bite him in the ass.

Unfortunately, Tyrian’s escape here was pretty necessary, but maybe next time.

Speaking of next time, expect a bit more of the hospital before we start wrapping up in Mistral.

Discussion Prompt

Where do you fall on the question of Tyrian’s fate? I’m personally anti-execution, because I have this wild notion that the government shouldn’t be allowed to murder people, and (as Jaune points out) that isn’t a stance that really brooks exceptions… but on the other hand, Tyrian is basically a cartoon supervillain, and comparing him to a real person isn’t exactly apples to apples. Like, executing the Joker might be against Batman’s code, but honestly, with the number of people he’s killed someone should probably have dealt with him by now.(I recognize this is a contentious question. Keep it civil, please.)