Bad!
This was bad bad bad bad bad. This was why he had never liked hunting whole herds of prey; that bunch in the forest hadn't been so scary because there was lots of cover he could duck behind... but out here in the open? With a whole room of them targeting just him and the master's friend? And with that 'friend' intent on making China out to be the more threatening of the two of them?
It was horrible! It was terrible! It was a nightmare! Or it would have been, maybe, if China had actually been capable of having nightmares. It was what he imagined a nightmare would look like. It was very, very scary.
But even as he sought to sink into his seat, whilst also trying to map out the quickest, safest route to the doorway... or at least to a window... he had a sudden thought, then, which appeared in his mind as if by magic, and whimpered slightly when he realised that, as usual, his genius mind had hit the nail on the money; Clownpiece liked Dane a lot, and so wouldn't want anything bad to happen to him. She would be pleased if the Ceramic Beast were to heroically save him from danger... and very sad if he ran away and left her friend.
And if she was sad then there was no way she would use her happy special magic thing to make him feel all nice and safe and big and strong. If this master cast him aside, as his first had, he may never feel good again. China whined, knowing he would have no choice but to fight if anyone started anything... but maybe there was still hope? Perhaps there was a way of convincing these foods to let them go without violence?
On second thought, though, that big guy who had given him the meat did look so very juicy... much, much fresher than the food he'd been given. They all did, actually. These were a fine collection of foods, he had to admit... he could have sworn that they hadn't looked all that special when he'd walked into the building... but now, for some strange reason, they seemed much more attractive prospects...
“No! No! Bad-bad me! Bad self! Think-think before say-speak! Must not-not fight-fight! Master be much happy-pleased if-if me do smart-wise thing and talk way-way out this.” China turned his head away from them all, looking off to one side as he 'thought' to himself and absolutely did not speak those words aloud, before looking back and facing the man holding Dane, raising his whispery voice slightly, “Yes-yes! Fast-quick person right-correct first time! Me eat all yum-yums unless... unless...”
He trailed off, unsure what to actually say. If he were to simply demand that they let him and the master's friend go then it would be obvious that he was just trying to avoid conflict... yet if he asked for something they would never give up, then the herd would just stampede and crush them both. He absent-mindedly scratched the still-intact portion of his head with one hand for a few seconds, before realising that the sudden chorus of discordant screeches which had sprung up was actually being caused by his own claws carving deep grooves through his porcelain carapace.
At that point, he hurriedly stopped and hid the offending hand behind his back, as if that could somehow conceal what he had just done from the room at large.
“Yes-yes! Me has it!” he cried in a voice so loud that it might even have been audible had someone else in the room been speaking quietly at the same time, “Such brilliant-genius idea-thought me has had-had, oh yes, all you yum-yums need-must do if want-want not be eaten is-is give baby-little food for me snack! Is small-tiny demand, me know-agree, but me-me feeling kind-nice today.”
He nodded several times as the inhabitants of the tavern stared at him in silence.
He wasn't quite sure who started it, but suddenly all the foods were yelling and moving, most of them in his direction. For an instant he was frozen stiff, almost unable to believe it was happening. He couldn't work out why they all seemed so worked up... and then it hit him. Ugh. Of course, it all made sense now! They didn't have any babies with them. It was an extremely minor and subtle detail, so it was no surprise that even a mind as great as his had failed to pick up on it until now, but it wasn't actually possible to trade something that you did not actually have.
In hindsight it seemed so clear that he could have slapped himself in the face for not thinking of it sooner, if it weren't for the fact that actually doing that would shatter both his hand and most of what remained of his head into hundreds of little pieces.
Instead, he gave a squeal of fright which was thankfully lost amidst the din of charging, roaring foods, and leaped off his chair, knocking it to the ground as he scrambled backwards as quickly as six primary limbs and two powerful tails could drive him.
He had jammed his one remaining eye shut in terror, but could still hear them coming, their heavy feet pounding on the wooden floor, the nearest he knew to be the one Dane had called 'barkeeper', but whom China still thought of as the meat-bringer... he had seemed less obviously afraid than before when he brought the Ceramic Beast his meal, but now he actually laughed as he approached, as if he had been amused at the sight of a supposedly fierce predator falling gracelessly to the ground and beating a hasty retreat.
Hearing one footfall almost directly in front of him, the golem let out a frightened moan and lashed out with one hand.
The laughing stopped instantly.
He waited. There was still noise, coming from over nearer the door, he thought... though with his eye closed and having forgotten where the door actually was almost the moment he looked away from it, he couldn't be too sure. The people headed for him seemed to have more or less stopped, though, and the number of yells had died down considerably.
Tentatively, he opened his eye.
The first sight that met it was that of his own blood-drenched talons; the hand he'd taken a wild swing with having apparently connected in some way.
The second thing he noticed was the substantially paler barkeeper, holding its gut with both hands, as the food tried and failed to keep sanguine liquid from pouring down his front.
Finally, he took in the other three yum-yums who had headed his way. They had stopped dead in their tracks, staring at the bearded wall of bulging muscle which had just been taken down in a single, clumsy swipe.
At last, the big meal realised that it was dead and fell to its knees. The force of the impact knocked its hands loose and as it slumped to one side, a mouthwatering pile of organs poured out from the wide slit that ran all the way across the food's belly. Suddenly intoxicated by the wonderful aroma, China grabbed fistfuls of intestinal tract and began stuffing them into his maw, slurping them down surprisingly noisily for a person whose speaking voice could hardly rise above a whisper.
This sudden urge to consume consumed him for only a couple moments, though, before he remembered his predicament and came to his senses, looking back up at the three opposing him, checking to see if they had been trying to sneak up whilst he was distracted. A trail of guts still hung down his chin. All three looked faintly nauseated and wholly terrified.
He was just about to start congratulating himself on having scared them off when two of the trio gave terrified wails and charged straight for him. One held a small yet sharply pointed knife, of the sort that the two-legs liked to use to eat their meat, whilst the other had picked up a chair. The former may have been a much scarier weapon for any ordinary meaty, fleshy creature, but with no blood or organs to lose, the Ceramic Beast had much less to fear from it than from even the most inefficient of bludgeoning weapons.
He therefore shied away from the chair-wielder, who was coming from his right, and – dropping the last of the lovely guts for now – darted towards the one with the blade. China grabbed him with both sets of arms just a fraction of a second after the knife plunged into his stomach. A few small, new cracks spread outwards from the point of impact, but that was all. With no capacity to feel pain and no innards beyond a black and empty void, he had little to be concerned about.
He spun, moving the yum-yum around to place it between himself and the dreaded chair. He then closed his eye and mouth, and could tell that the knife-wielder was confused; the way his scream trailed off uncertainly made that clear enough.
And then, after a pause that lasted two long seconds, he opened his maw once more, though not to its full extent. This would have looked a lot more impressive, he thought, if a large chunk of his face had not been missing... but the food wasn't mentioning it, so he must be doing okay even despite that minor flaw. Instead, it seemed transfixed by the hovering, pupilled orb that hung without support inside the dark abyss of his cranium. Unlike his primary pair of eyes, which were nothing more than some sort of magical paint, lacquer or enamel, this one was a truly three-dimensional object.
The orb twitched, the pupil flicking up to look over his prey's shoulder at the two others behind it; the chair-wielder and the other scared food, who still had yet to make a move. The one with the chair held aloft lowered it slightly, bringing it into a more defensive position, unnerved by the sudden change in the landscape of the Ceramic Beast's face. China focused again on the two-legs he held.
And then he stretched his mouth as wide as it could go and shrieked.
This noise was so much drastically louder than his normal speaking volume that when he had first discovered himself capable of this – over a century ago now, during his 'exciting' (read: terrifying) and dangerous travels of the world, long, long before he met the little light-person and arrived in the white place – he had actually choked, coughed, and fled in terror from the prey he had been screeching at. It wasn't until a short while later that it had actually sunk in that he had been the one making that sound, not his would-be meal.
Back in the present, his victim opened its own mouth to scream back at him, though its agonised wail was rendered completely inaudible beside China's mighty shriek. One of the two-legs yum-yums' hands still clutched the knife embedded in his body, and at this point it began yanking the blade free and stabbing with it, again and again, as best it could given that its upper arm was held pinned in place by two of China's own.
The Ceramic Beast paid little attention to this, though, his eye darting around to monitor the rest of the room as he screamed. The chair-person had dropped its improvised weapon, had backed off several paces, and along with the unmoving food, was now holding both hands pressed tightly to its ears, in an attempt at blotting out the awful racket China was making.
Past them, Dane and the female-looking two-legs still fought, though he had already slain both of its companions. Despite him clearly having it on the ropes, having given it several shallow cuts already, whilst it had yet to so much as nick him, the woman fought on seemingly without fear. It wielded a pair of long, slim knives with amazing skill, its hands darting out to block blow after blow as the swordsman rained them down upon it.
With its own blades being so much shorter than his, though, and Dane himself being skilful enough not to leave even the slightest opening for her to close the distance, China didn't really see how it could possibly fool itself into thinking that it still stood even a ghost of a chance.
On top of that, it quickly became apparent to him that the swordsman had far greater reserves of stamina than his foe did; despite its skill, its build was clearly more curvy and soft and tender and juicy and tasty than the stringy, wiry muscles of a person like Dane. Already it was panting heavily, and shaking with the impact of each of his blows as it blocked them, being forced to back away, step by begrudging step.
The inevitable conclusion of their combat must surely have been just as obvious to the knifewoman as it was to China, yet she fought on regardless, refusing to even try to flee or plea for mercy. It was stupid. Utterly, mind-bogglingly foolish... and yet, at the same time, somehow impressive. Seeing someone so hopelessly outmatched, but refusing to back down even so, made him feel small. Small and empty and unimpressive.
He noticed then that he had stopped shrieking, and that his captive had ceased stabbing him in the gut. He could hear the sounds of their combat now, the clang of steel loud against the sudden silence in the wake of his scream. He shifted his pupil back towards the yum-yum in his arms. Its own eyes had rolled up into its head, its arms hung limp by its sides, and thin trails of blood ran from its ears.
He dropped the still-warm corpse at his feet like trash, regarding the two foods still facing him from his full height. He blinked, his vertical maw briefly snapping shut over his floating eye before opening again. He then flung himself forwards. He could likely have ignored them and just started eating, and they most likely would have turned to flee of their own accord... yet he suddenly felt this strange urge to prove himself. He wanted to show that he could charge fearlessly into battle too... even though he knew that to be a boldfaced lie. He was only able to do this because he now had realised that these prey foods were even weaker than he was... which of course meant that attacking them would prove nothing at all.
Even so, he did it. Bearing the former chair-person to the ground, his powerful jaws clamped onto either side of its skull, and then, before it could do a thing to defend itself, they closed with a mighty crunch, as he bit all the way through the bone. With only the one eye at the moment, which was covered whilst his maw was closed, China could not tell how the other two-legs was reacting to this sudden takedown, until after he had swallowed, raised his head, and once more parted the two, fang-lined sides of his head that served as his mouth for the moment.
The final fellow – a scrawny, straw-blond meal with a wispy moustache and bags under its eyes – was staring in abject horror down at the Ceramic Beast's latest victim. His own eye flicking down to follow its gaze, China noticed that having bitten off only the front portion of his food's head, he had missed out on half the brains. Scooping those up in one paw, he looked back up at the scrawny survivor, watching it as he tossed them down his gullet.
It had tears running from its eyes, it was pale as chalk, and it shook its head slowly, as if unable to accept that this was happening. Then the spell on its mind seemed to break, and it turned to bolt.
It managed a whole two strides before Dane's longsword licked its throat. The prey stumbled and fell, a gout of red lifeblood bursting forth from its severed jugular.
As the master's friend crossed the floor towards him, China's eye darted back over to the woman. Fallen now, of course, its succulent body having been practically hacked apart. It was mind-boggling to think that it could have endured so much brutality without ever turning to run.
He felt bad. Empty. Worthless. Insignificant... and worst of all, he couldn't even understand why he felt this way; the actions of that two-legs' were objectively incorrect, there could never be any point in fighting a battle one was doomed to lose. So why was he suddenly so ashamed of not sharing that same, suicidal trait called 'bravery'?
As always when confused and disheartened by something, China's response was comfort food. Or it would have been, rather, had the swordsman not chosen that moment to speak up, “No eating. We don't have time for that now. It would have been better to destroy the evidence, but since you've most likely alerted half the damn neighbourhood with your screaming, we'll just have to leg it and hope for the best.”
The master's friend's heavy hand landed on his shoulder, and then, somehow, inexplicably, they were in a different place.
China blinked, and stumbled, falling onto all sixes, a wave of fatigue washing over him suddenly, along with an abrupt spell of dizziness.
He could do nothing more than gape like a goldfish, his throat being too worn out after having screamed so loudly for him to actually form words, as he swivelled his head madly around, taking in the cobbled pavement, grey, stone walls, muddy puddles and various bits and pieces of assorted refuse. This was some sort of dingy alleyway, it seemed, with the only light coming from the sky above, what little there was of it that could penetrate the thick, dark clouds above.
He noticed that the blood had vanished from the fast person's clothes, and looking down at himself, saw that he was also clean. Not healed, though. He still had a battered and broken head and numerous small holes and interconnected cracks running across his stomach, as well as the usual heart-shaped hole in his chest. For his part, Dane now had a shallow - but long - cut along his ribs on the left side of his chest.
It was pretty obvious that they had been in a fight. If anyone spotted them, making the connection between these two and the tavern massacre would hardly require a huge leap of the imagination.
This was bad bad bad bad bad. This was why he had never liked hunting whole herds of prey; that bunch in the forest hadn't been so scary because there was lots of cover he could duck behind... but out here in the open? With a whole room of them targeting just him and the master's friend? And with that 'friend' intent on making China out to be the more threatening of the two of them?
It was horrible! It was terrible! It was a nightmare! Or it would have been, maybe, if China had actually been capable of having nightmares. It was what he imagined a nightmare would look like. It was very, very scary.
But even as he sought to sink into his seat, whilst also trying to map out the quickest, safest route to the doorway... or at least to a window... he had a sudden thought, then, which appeared in his mind as if by magic, and whimpered slightly when he realised that, as usual, his genius mind had hit the nail on the money; Clownpiece liked Dane a lot, and so wouldn't want anything bad to happen to him. She would be pleased if the Ceramic Beast were to heroically save him from danger... and very sad if he ran away and left her friend.
And if she was sad then there was no way she would use her happy special magic thing to make him feel all nice and safe and big and strong. If this master cast him aside, as his first had, he may never feel good again. China whined, knowing he would have no choice but to fight if anyone started anything... but maybe there was still hope? Perhaps there was a way of convincing these foods to let them go without violence?
On second thought, though, that big guy who had given him the meat did look so very juicy... much, much fresher than the food he'd been given. They all did, actually. These were a fine collection of foods, he had to admit... he could have sworn that they hadn't looked all that special when he'd walked into the building... but now, for some strange reason, they seemed much more attractive prospects...
“No! No! Bad-bad me! Bad self! Think-think before say-speak! Must not-not fight-fight! Master be much happy-pleased if-if me do smart-wise thing and talk way-way out this.” China turned his head away from them all, looking off to one side as he 'thought' to himself and absolutely did not speak those words aloud, before looking back and facing the man holding Dane, raising his whispery voice slightly, “Yes-yes! Fast-quick person right-correct first time! Me eat all yum-yums unless... unless...”
He trailed off, unsure what to actually say. If he were to simply demand that they let him and the master's friend go then it would be obvious that he was just trying to avoid conflict... yet if he asked for something they would never give up, then the herd would just stampede and crush them both. He absent-mindedly scratched the still-intact portion of his head with one hand for a few seconds, before realising that the sudden chorus of discordant screeches which had sprung up was actually being caused by his own claws carving deep grooves through his porcelain carapace.
At that point, he hurriedly stopped and hid the offending hand behind his back, as if that could somehow conceal what he had just done from the room at large.
“Yes-yes! Me has it!” he cried in a voice so loud that it might even have been audible had someone else in the room been speaking quietly at the same time, “Such brilliant-genius idea-thought me has had-had, oh yes, all you yum-yums need-must do if want-want not be eaten is-is give baby-little food for me snack! Is small-tiny demand, me know-agree, but me-me feeling kind-nice today.”
He nodded several times as the inhabitants of the tavern stared at him in silence.
He wasn't quite sure who started it, but suddenly all the foods were yelling and moving, most of them in his direction. For an instant he was frozen stiff, almost unable to believe it was happening. He couldn't work out why they all seemed so worked up... and then it hit him. Ugh. Of course, it all made sense now! They didn't have any babies with them. It was an extremely minor and subtle detail, so it was no surprise that even a mind as great as his had failed to pick up on it until now, but it wasn't actually possible to trade something that you did not actually have.
In hindsight it seemed so clear that he could have slapped himself in the face for not thinking of it sooner, if it weren't for the fact that actually doing that would shatter both his hand and most of what remained of his head into hundreds of little pieces.
Instead, he gave a squeal of fright which was thankfully lost amidst the din of charging, roaring foods, and leaped off his chair, knocking it to the ground as he scrambled backwards as quickly as six primary limbs and two powerful tails could drive him.
He had jammed his one remaining eye shut in terror, but could still hear them coming, their heavy feet pounding on the wooden floor, the nearest he knew to be the one Dane had called 'barkeeper', but whom China still thought of as the meat-bringer... he had seemed less obviously afraid than before when he brought the Ceramic Beast his meal, but now he actually laughed as he approached, as if he had been amused at the sight of a supposedly fierce predator falling gracelessly to the ground and beating a hasty retreat.
Hearing one footfall almost directly in front of him, the golem let out a frightened moan and lashed out with one hand.
The laughing stopped instantly.
He waited. There was still noise, coming from over nearer the door, he thought... though with his eye closed and having forgotten where the door actually was almost the moment he looked away from it, he couldn't be too sure. The people headed for him seemed to have more or less stopped, though, and the number of yells had died down considerably.
Tentatively, he opened his eye.
The first sight that met it was that of his own blood-drenched talons; the hand he'd taken a wild swing with having apparently connected in some way.
The second thing he noticed was the substantially paler barkeeper, holding its gut with both hands, as the food tried and failed to keep sanguine liquid from pouring down his front.
Finally, he took in the other three yum-yums who had headed his way. They had stopped dead in their tracks, staring at the bearded wall of bulging muscle which had just been taken down in a single, clumsy swipe.
At last, the big meal realised that it was dead and fell to its knees. The force of the impact knocked its hands loose and as it slumped to one side, a mouthwatering pile of organs poured out from the wide slit that ran all the way across the food's belly. Suddenly intoxicated by the wonderful aroma, China grabbed fistfuls of intestinal tract and began stuffing them into his maw, slurping them down surprisingly noisily for a person whose speaking voice could hardly rise above a whisper.
This sudden urge to consume consumed him for only a couple moments, though, before he remembered his predicament and came to his senses, looking back up at the three opposing him, checking to see if they had been trying to sneak up whilst he was distracted. A trail of guts still hung down his chin. All three looked faintly nauseated and wholly terrified.
He was just about to start congratulating himself on having scared them off when two of the trio gave terrified wails and charged straight for him. One held a small yet sharply pointed knife, of the sort that the two-legs liked to use to eat their meat, whilst the other had picked up a chair. The former may have been a much scarier weapon for any ordinary meaty, fleshy creature, but with no blood or organs to lose, the Ceramic Beast had much less to fear from it than from even the most inefficient of bludgeoning weapons.
He therefore shied away from the chair-wielder, who was coming from his right, and – dropping the last of the lovely guts for now – darted towards the one with the blade. China grabbed him with both sets of arms just a fraction of a second after the knife plunged into his stomach. A few small, new cracks spread outwards from the point of impact, but that was all. With no capacity to feel pain and no innards beyond a black and empty void, he had little to be concerned about.
He spun, moving the yum-yum around to place it between himself and the dreaded chair. He then closed his eye and mouth, and could tell that the knife-wielder was confused; the way his scream trailed off uncertainly made that clear enough.
And then, after a pause that lasted two long seconds, he opened his maw once more, though not to its full extent. This would have looked a lot more impressive, he thought, if a large chunk of his face had not been missing... but the food wasn't mentioning it, so he must be doing okay even despite that minor flaw. Instead, it seemed transfixed by the hovering, pupilled orb that hung without support inside the dark abyss of his cranium. Unlike his primary pair of eyes, which were nothing more than some sort of magical paint, lacquer or enamel, this one was a truly three-dimensional object.
The orb twitched, the pupil flicking up to look over his prey's shoulder at the two others behind it; the chair-wielder and the other scared food, who still had yet to make a move. The one with the chair held aloft lowered it slightly, bringing it into a more defensive position, unnerved by the sudden change in the landscape of the Ceramic Beast's face. China focused again on the two-legs he held.
And then he stretched his mouth as wide as it could go and shrieked.
This noise was so much drastically louder than his normal speaking volume that when he had first discovered himself capable of this – over a century ago now, during his 'exciting' (read: terrifying) and dangerous travels of the world, long, long before he met the little light-person and arrived in the white place – he had actually choked, coughed, and fled in terror from the prey he had been screeching at. It wasn't until a short while later that it had actually sunk in that he had been the one making that sound, not his would-be meal.
Back in the present, his victim opened its own mouth to scream back at him, though its agonised wail was rendered completely inaudible beside China's mighty shriek. One of the two-legs yum-yums' hands still clutched the knife embedded in his body, and at this point it began yanking the blade free and stabbing with it, again and again, as best it could given that its upper arm was held pinned in place by two of China's own.
The Ceramic Beast paid little attention to this, though, his eye darting around to monitor the rest of the room as he screamed. The chair-person had dropped its improvised weapon, had backed off several paces, and along with the unmoving food, was now holding both hands pressed tightly to its ears, in an attempt at blotting out the awful racket China was making.
Past them, Dane and the female-looking two-legs still fought, though he had already slain both of its companions. Despite him clearly having it on the ropes, having given it several shallow cuts already, whilst it had yet to so much as nick him, the woman fought on seemingly without fear. It wielded a pair of long, slim knives with amazing skill, its hands darting out to block blow after blow as the swordsman rained them down upon it.
With its own blades being so much shorter than his, though, and Dane himself being skilful enough not to leave even the slightest opening for her to close the distance, China didn't really see how it could possibly fool itself into thinking that it still stood even a ghost of a chance.
On top of that, it quickly became apparent to him that the swordsman had far greater reserves of stamina than his foe did; despite its skill, its build was clearly more curvy and soft and tender and juicy and tasty than the stringy, wiry muscles of a person like Dane. Already it was panting heavily, and shaking with the impact of each of his blows as it blocked them, being forced to back away, step by begrudging step.
The inevitable conclusion of their combat must surely have been just as obvious to the knifewoman as it was to China, yet she fought on regardless, refusing to even try to flee or plea for mercy. It was stupid. Utterly, mind-bogglingly foolish... and yet, at the same time, somehow impressive. Seeing someone so hopelessly outmatched, but refusing to back down even so, made him feel small. Small and empty and unimpressive.
He noticed then that he had stopped shrieking, and that his captive had ceased stabbing him in the gut. He could hear the sounds of their combat now, the clang of steel loud against the sudden silence in the wake of his scream. He shifted his pupil back towards the yum-yum in his arms. Its own eyes had rolled up into its head, its arms hung limp by its sides, and thin trails of blood ran from its ears.
He dropped the still-warm corpse at his feet like trash, regarding the two foods still facing him from his full height. He blinked, his vertical maw briefly snapping shut over his floating eye before opening again. He then flung himself forwards. He could likely have ignored them and just started eating, and they most likely would have turned to flee of their own accord... yet he suddenly felt this strange urge to prove himself. He wanted to show that he could charge fearlessly into battle too... even though he knew that to be a boldfaced lie. He was only able to do this because he now had realised that these prey foods were even weaker than he was... which of course meant that attacking them would prove nothing at all.
Even so, he did it. Bearing the former chair-person to the ground, his powerful jaws clamped onto either side of its skull, and then, before it could do a thing to defend itself, they closed with a mighty crunch, as he bit all the way through the bone. With only the one eye at the moment, which was covered whilst his maw was closed, China could not tell how the other two-legs was reacting to this sudden takedown, until after he had swallowed, raised his head, and once more parted the two, fang-lined sides of his head that served as his mouth for the moment.
The final fellow – a scrawny, straw-blond meal with a wispy moustache and bags under its eyes – was staring in abject horror down at the Ceramic Beast's latest victim. His own eye flicking down to follow its gaze, China noticed that having bitten off only the front portion of his food's head, he had missed out on half the brains. Scooping those up in one paw, he looked back up at the scrawny survivor, watching it as he tossed them down his gullet.
It had tears running from its eyes, it was pale as chalk, and it shook its head slowly, as if unable to accept that this was happening. Then the spell on its mind seemed to break, and it turned to bolt.
It managed a whole two strides before Dane's longsword licked its throat. The prey stumbled and fell, a gout of red lifeblood bursting forth from its severed jugular.
As the master's friend crossed the floor towards him, China's eye darted back over to the woman. Fallen now, of course, its succulent body having been practically hacked apart. It was mind-boggling to think that it could have endured so much brutality without ever turning to run.
He felt bad. Empty. Worthless. Insignificant... and worst of all, he couldn't even understand why he felt this way; the actions of that two-legs' were objectively incorrect, there could never be any point in fighting a battle one was doomed to lose. So why was he suddenly so ashamed of not sharing that same, suicidal trait called 'bravery'?
As always when confused and disheartened by something, China's response was comfort food. Or it would have been, rather, had the swordsman not chosen that moment to speak up, “No eating. We don't have time for that now. It would have been better to destroy the evidence, but since you've most likely alerted half the damn neighbourhood with your screaming, we'll just have to leg it and hope for the best.”
The master's friend's heavy hand landed on his shoulder, and then, somehow, inexplicably, they were in a different place.
China blinked, and stumbled, falling onto all sixes, a wave of fatigue washing over him suddenly, along with an abrupt spell of dizziness.
He could do nothing more than gape like a goldfish, his throat being too worn out after having screamed so loudly for him to actually form words, as he swivelled his head madly around, taking in the cobbled pavement, grey, stone walls, muddy puddles and various bits and pieces of assorted refuse. This was some sort of dingy alleyway, it seemed, with the only light coming from the sky above, what little there was of it that could penetrate the thick, dark clouds above.
He noticed that the blood had vanished from the fast person's clothes, and looking down at himself, saw that he was also clean. Not healed, though. He still had a battered and broken head and numerous small holes and interconnected cracks running across his stomach, as well as the usual heart-shaped hole in his chest. For his part, Dane now had a shallow - but long - cut along his ribs on the left side of his chest.
It was pretty obvious that they had been in a fight. If anyone spotted them, making the connection between these two and the tavern massacre would hardly require a huge leap of the imagination.
Quote:Dane spends 1 SP to activate his Tier 1 Utility Super Move 'Blink', then uses one instantaneous 80M teleport. He has 4 blinks remaining.
![[Image: chinasig3.png]](https://image.ibb.co/gG00sd/chinasig3.png)