Shock's wRHG: http://forums.stickpage.com/showthread.php?92596-Penny-Dreadful
Devi's wRHG: http://forums.stickpage.com/showthread.php?80681-Light
Spoiler (Click to Show)
Penny leant against the bridge railing, looking down to the waters below, the trembling reflection of her figure silhouetted against the moon. Her first battle was tonight, and she had arrived early to scope out the scene for potential advantages to play to her favour. However, having been told nothing more of her opponent than his or her name meant Penny had little to go on, and eventually resorted to waiting for the challenger to arrive. Time passed. Five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen. Whoever Light was, they were late now. The battle was arranged for half ten. It was now twenty-nine to eleven. Penny’s hand gripped the sleeve of her coat in irritation. This was unacceptable.
Eventually, after another few minutes, her attention was brought to her right, a figure making their way down the bridge. A hulking mass of armour, the reflected moonlight twinkling in its every movement as it approached. Well now, Penny thought to herself, how often do you see a Knight of the Round Table walk through town? This had to be her challenger…
The armoured being came to a stop a respectable distance from her. The deep voice it spoke in confirmed Light to be male, just in case the stature and attire didn’t give clear enough a hint. “You must be Penny Dreadful…”
Her first response was a small sigh, mostly to herself. She couldn’t believe that was the name the Organisation was actually going with. Needless to say, the mute wasn’t the one who had come up with it, but once Ms. Dempsey did, she couldn’t exactly object to it either…
Penny nodded to answer Light’s question and slowly raised her left arm, deciding whether to reach for her weapon or point to her watch to indicate the battle was starting three minutes late. As Light drew his own sword, however, her decision was made for her, and she pulled her machete from her coat, poising for anticipated attack.
“This organisation,” the voice boomed from the armour once more, as Light took a step closer, “is filled with… disgusting beings, sinners and monsters.” Raising his sword, ready to strike, Penny could feel his eyes glaring down on her. “I have slain each and every such atrocity to come my way, and now they have the nerve to send me… an ant?” The ‘ant’ simply stepped to one side to avoid the swing as the blade sunk into the floor and she gave her own attack in turn. The machete bounced off the armour, leaving but one paltry scuff. “Whatever secrets of yours they hide from me do not matter, vermin. I shall see to it you are butchered.”
The steel was raised once more, and the gladiators engaged.
It would be clear to anyone were witnesses present that the match in swordsmanship was fairly one-sided. Light’s fighting prowess, refined through years of war, battles and hunts, was proving a challenge to the relatively inexperienced Penny, whose prey was usually unarmed and defenceless. Nevertheless, she was showing to be capable of holding her own against the knight, shirking most attacks with little effort and countering others with her own blade. She wasn’t striking back just yet, however, but biding her time. She’d spotted a crucial weak point, a gap in the armour between the chestplate and upper arm to allow for the wearer’s movement. It was only exploitable at the right angle, and Penny couldn’t quite reach it without risking opening herself for an attack with that sword. She’d survive a stab, maybe, but the force of Light’s slashing would end her, enhanced healing be damned.
Penny felt the back of her heel tilt back, trying in vain to find support. She’d been pushed to the very edge of the bridge with Light’s assault, the railing the only thing keeping her from toppling into the river just now. If she could make a move, she needed to do it before she was made to take a swim. Calculating her window of opportunity perfectly, she made a dive to her left to gain some moving room. Pivoting round, her first attack came fierce and precise; the machete sliced through the air and sunk into the designated weak point, Light’s arm collapsing under the weight of the sword it could no longer brandish. The mighty being roared in pain, a last burst of stamina bursting through the wounded appendage for one last heavy swing-
Penny was still somewhat experienced against the supernatural, but from her previous battle, she’d learned that anything involving sudden lights was bad. Very bad. No sooner than Light’s sword slammed to the floor did the night sky turn bright as day, only for an instant, and the floor below her feet swayed and crumbled, an entire section of bridge cascading into the river. Had she moved any later, she would likely have been buried and drowned. Though had she moved earlier, she would certainly have been able to avoid having her left arm severed by whatever sorcery had just been conjured.
As she picked herself back up, Penny glared back to her opponent. She could see her machete still lodged in his upper arm, with no ideal way of retrieving it. Likewise, Light seemed incapable of using his own now, it firmly lodged in the remains of a stone pillar below. She could feel his eyes burning into hers, neither backing down. “Well now,” he said, a faint hint of veiled irritation in his voice, “it looks like this shall be settled with our fists. I will take pleasure in crushing you like an insect with my bare hands.” As he looked back down to his isolated blade, Penny could detect the voice wavering slightly with his next sentence, “…I wouldn’t have needed that to kill the likes of you, anyway.”
He wasn’t so much convincing her of that as he was himself. What was worrying was that he was probably right. If the battle kept going the way it was, Penny would likely be dead within ten to fifteen minutes.
With no warning, Light charged forward, and the melee resumed. This time, ‘battle’ was not the word. The merciless serial killer was made the victim of a brutal pummelling. With her dominant arm lost, her defence was effectively null against the hulking metal beast’s rage-fuelled blows. Evidently, losing his weapon upset him a little more than he was letting on. His bad arm cracked Penny’s carpals. The good arm shattered her mask and mandible. His knee slammed into her abdomen with enough force to cause her to spew blood, desperately gasping for air.
Finally, after an estimated two-and-a-half minutes, the assault ended. Light stepped back, fatigue starting to set in. And yet, somehow, the little wretch was still standing, albeit barely. “…You…You’re impossibly… stubborn!” Light had blatantly lost his cool, raising his voice. “I am yet to fail in my hunting vile cretins like you, and I shall not let you be the first. …Why can’t you just die?”
Through the bloodied face, a smirk slowly grew. The Ripper had found her confidence.
“…Oh, I don’t know. Maybe you’re just not hitting me hard enough.” Her voice was slow, monotonous. Now the battle was going to turn in her favour. Light did not respond immediately, clearly taken aback by both finally hearing the girl’s voice, and the utter nerve of her taunting him. Like it would work. “…Y-… You’re mocking me?! I’ll have you know I’ve refrained from ending your pathetic life thus far. I enjoy watching worms like you squirm.”
“And I’ll have you know that thanks to a healing factor, you could beat me to a pulp ‘till the cows come home. I’ll still be here.” Penny took a step closer to her victim, closer to the bridge’s remaining support pillar she’d estimated to be near enough directly below her. “But we’d both grow bored of that, eventually…”
Light straightened himself, towering over the impossible girl once more. “Well then, perhaps I should just blow a hole through your head! I see this ‘factor’ you speak of didn’t grant you your arm back.”
Penny’s smile shrunk slightly, partly through a slight twinge of pain as her ribs started repairing themselves.
“Hmm, that might just work. Maybe. But you’ve no way of doing that, surely?” There was the possibility that Light genuinely didn’t, but Penny was counting on calling the armoured man’s bluff.
“Hmph!” Light’s hand raised level with Penny’s head, light emanating from the palm. “Poor choice of final words, hellspawn.”
The trap had been sprung. Within her clenched hand, Penny had concealed a throwing knife. A flick of her wrist, it whistled through the air, finding a bloody home in the helmet’s eye socket. With one more roar of agony, Light unleashed his wrath. A burst of concentrated light pierced the scene, sky lit bright as day once more, and in a cloud of dust and rubble, the entire bridge crumbled, stone, flesh and steel alike disappearing into the waters below.
Silence consumed the park for minutes. Finally, the victor emerged; a while downstream, Penelope finally managed to pull herself ashore, left arm lost prior clenched between her teeth.
For an amount of time she could not possibly determine, she lay on the riverbank, staring skyward. She’d had her prey try and fight back before, but that… there were no words. She, the Fifth Ripper, the stoic assassin. Thanking every religious entity she didn’t believe in that she’d managed to survive. In all her life, she’d never felt so… weak. So helpless, so scared.
So… alive…[/spoiler]
Spoiler (Click to Show)
“I shall do this my lord, I shall do it in your name and word.” Light stood back up from his right knee and exited the darkened room, a small light extinguishing itself as he left.
---
“Next please!” A man from down the lit up corridor shouted, standing right outside a door. Light approached the man, stopping in front of him, staring with a cold frozen stare right into his eyes. The man was wearing a suit and tie, as if he was dressed for a formal occasion.
“If looks could kill.” The man whispered to himself nervously, he was completely dwarfed in comparison to the man in armor’s size. “You must be Light, correct? The battle manager wants to see you inside.”
Light simply shoved the man away into the wall and opened the door forcefully. He looked inside the room and saw a desk with a silhouetted figure sitting behind it. The room was hardly lit, with the roof lamps seemingly low on power, with curtains down right behind the desk, but with no light emanating from it.
“You called for me, mortal?” Light was so cold in his words; you’d think his voice would freeze into solid ice. He sat down on the ground in front of the table with his legs crossed, still being the largest thing in the room.
“I guess I did, we have arranged a new battle for you. We felt as if it was time for you to ‘avenge’ yourself after your last battle.” The silhouette said, with a large cartoony smile appearing on his head and illuminated brightly. Light gave no reply, he simply clenched his iron fist, rattling his armor as his whole arm shook in rage.
“I’ll take that as you want to fight, you will be fighting a Penny Dreadful. She’s an autistic killer with a superiority complex.” The shadowed man read from a piece of paper resting on the desk, it was blank when Light tried to see what it said, but the shadow continued to read it as if there was a whole biography on it. “You interested?”
---
“What is this autistics you speak of? Is it some sort of evil spell? What is this superiority complex as well?” Light questioned, still not familiar with many concepts in this new world he was to explore.
“In my words? No. In your words? Yes. It’s a mental disability that people can be born… now when I mean mental disability I mean a demon is stopping her from using her mind properly. Don’t worry about the superiority complex thing though, that’s nothing important” This immediately made Light stand up with a great big smile under his helmet as he shouted.
“My lord! I have found this darkness-controlled woman you speak of! I will purge her of her darkness and show her the right way in your honor!” The silhouette simply sat there staring at the armored man’s outburst, but he couldn’t help himself from a slight chuckle at this display.
“Where is she? I must know immediately where to find her!” The paladin declared, barely trying to hide the joy and excitement in his voice. He was nearly shaking with excitement.
“The town market, its to the right of the police station that’s down the road by this building, and to the right of the big building with a clock on it.” The shadow man barely finished his sentence, when Light simply started to sprint to the outside, breaking the door and some of the wall when running through the doorway. The man from earlier barely made it out of the colossuses path.
As Light left the building, the shadow figure simply smiled his bright smile and chuckled. “The fool has no idea what he’s up against, but no matter, at least the ratings will sky rocket.”
---
As Light approached the market, he noticed the amount of people lined up, anxiously waiting for something. It wasn’t too hard to guess what it was they were waiting for; news had leaked out about the fight and people wanted tickets to experience it firsthand. Continuing onwards, Light passed by the guards in the main entrance, with one trying to stop him. But before the policeman attempted to stop the armored intruder, a second one grabbed the man by the shoulder, whispering something into his ear. Light paid no mind to this and continued through to his battle.
Inside he found the market still fully intact, but with large walls set up around the whole area, where people were seating themselves, enthusiastic to see the event. Kids, teenagers, adults, and older were among the crowd, as money was passed around, presumably for betting purposes. This enraged Light, but he calmed himself down, reminding himself of his task. As he turned around to face his opponent, he was startled to see a young woman with a porcelain mask right up in his face. Light however was sure to not show his surprise, refusing to show weakness to his enemy.
“It is not too late my child, release your darkness and I can show you the right path.” The woman gave no reply and simply stood there staring at him with her blank eyes, but not at his eyes. A large holographic countdown sign illuminates a high distance away, going from 20 seconds and slowly going downwards as Light continued his discussion.
“If you choose this passage, you realize that your fate will be sent down the path of purging? You must repent! Free yourself in the name of our lord!” Light carried on, getting louder and louder, waving his hands in the air, not minding that she wasn’t even looking at his face. He had a mixture of kind sincerity but also with a feeling of extreme brutality.
The woman again gave no comment and simply started to walk backwards, away from Light.
“Very well. Yo