poor kids

“Now…begin!”

Adam launched forward the moment he had the go ahead, twirling Crocea Mors deftly before grabbing it by the sheath. Thrusting his hand forward suddenly, he launched the sword from its sheath, jabbing the youngest of the three brothers—Ethan—hard in the sternum with its hilt. Almost the moment the attack drove the younger boy back a step, Adam was upon him, sliding low and swinging with the sheath, knocking his feet out from under him. At the same time, he reached up with his left hand and grabbed his borrowed sword, rising even as he spun it like a windmill.

Seeing the attack on his brother—or, at least, seeing Adam abruptly in his brother’s place—Aaron twisted in place and grit his teeth. Ports opened up on his curling ram-horn helmet even as a colored visor slide down to shield his eyes, and a series of Dust rounds began to launch from it, guided by the targeting system that had been built into the device.

Even so, he was too slow to react to Adam’s flickering approach. Characters and calculations scrolled across his visor, giving him a moments warning as Adam brought his sword low to his right and swung it in a wide arc. He backed away at the last second and Adam’s attack hit only air.

Granted, mostly because his left hand no longer held a sword. In mid-swing, he’d released the blade before continuing the motion of his attack as if he held it—and then, even as the first ‘attack’ completed, his right hand curled around its hilt and followed up, attacking from a completely different angle.

As the second brother went flying back, Adam’s free hand snaked back around and grasped the sheath his right had released. With a quick button push, the shield began to expand and he threw it towards the eldest brother, momentarily obscuring his vision. Taking advantage of the opportunity to close in, Adam slammed his left hand into the back of the shield, smashing it into the younger man’s face before making it retract back into a sheath with another button push as Laurence stumbled back.

Grasping the sheath like a second sword, Adam jabbed its end into the boy’s stomach to force him even further off balance before angling Crocea Mors like he was preparing to hammer a nail into drywall. Thrusting it forward, he drove it straight into the sheath with enough force that Laurence’s feet lifted into the air—but he did even have a chance to fly away before Adam grabbed the sheathed blade, spun quickly, and slammed it into the back of his head hard into to send cracks through the floor.

Cracking his neck as three bodies touched down, his eyes fell upon the final member of the team and he approached with calm, steady steps, slowly drawing his blade.

The fight ended moments after it began.