Battle

I’m going to be running out of houses very quickly if this keeps up.

Peace and quiet are things which never last long, and as such one day I looked out the window to see that my house was surrounded by dense fog. Great way to start the day.

Though, it wasn’t just the fog. Outside waited Javert, as well as some buddies he’d brought along. All this searching, and he just shows up at my door. If only he’d called ahead of time, I could have put on something nice. He and the half dozen masked guys didn’t seem to be in any hurry; I expect if I’d stayed inside, they’d have continued to wait patiently in the driveway.

Course I wasn’t going to stay inside. It would be most impolite to keep Javert waiting out in the cold, so I had to go and greet him. Setoth came too, though he stayed rather far back. I bet he thought he looked so cool, leaning against that wall with an expression of disinterest. All he was missing was the leather jacket and the greased back hair. The paddle he was holding would have looked out of place in the picture, but I’m not one to deny a man his weapon of choice.

But we had to get things started, so I shouted a Mark Twain quote at him, which he responded to with a quote from Yevgeny Zamyatin’s “We”. Thus getting the formalities out of the way, Javert motioned for two of the masked proxies to move forward, which they did, at a rather clumsy charging pace.

The first was carrying a baseball bat, which he stupidly had raised above his head, as in preparation for a swing. This left the rest of him wide open, making it easy to stab him in the gut. He went down easy; these were no unstoppable corpses, just kids who had been misfortunate enough to be sent to fight me. Protip to any potential proxies out there: before you join with the tall guy, try to learn some of the basics of fighting. It may help you survive a few seconds longer when you have to fight someone like me.

My second opponent had a knife instead of a bat, but was just as inexperienced as the other. Sidestep one of his wild lunges, trip him, then slit his throat before he could stand back up. Just a minute had passed, and I’d already gone through a third of the cannon fodder.

Javert sent the next two proxies forward, because apparently he wanted to stick to the time old tradition of a villain sending their minions forward in groups small enough for the hero to easily dispatch them. The first tried to punch me; instead, he got his wrist broken. Then stabbed through the eye with a knife.

Our fourth proxy appeared to be the most intelligent one. Upon seeing what had happened to the three before him, he decided to go after the lesser appearing target, and charged at Setoth. Not that this proved to be any better a choice, as before the proxy could do anything, Setoth hit him in the throat with his paddle. At’a boy, Setoth. When in doubt, aim for the jugular. Several more quick blows to the head knocked the proxy down, and discouraged him from getting up again.

The remaining two redshirt minions were looking rather worried at this point, slowly backing up while casting fearful glances at Javert. Luckily for them, he did not order them forward. Instead he laughed, and stepped forward himself.

Javert: “Of course, this has to be settled between the two of us. Anything less would be anticlimactic.”

And fight we did. I still had the knife I’d been using on hand, so I tried stabbing with that; he grabbed my wrist and made me drop the knife. Javert went for a punch, which I blocked, followed by a punch of my own. This back and forth went on for some time, and I believe Javert was becoming rather surprised. Unlike our previous encounter, where Javert had rather shortly beaten me down, this time I was holding my own against him. But holding my own wasn’t going to be enough to beat Javert.

After some savagely fun beatings, the two of us broke away to regain our breath. As the two of us are prone to doing in these lulls, conversation began.

J: “You’ve been getting better.”

A: “Of course I am. I always eat my fruits and vegetables. And drink lots of milk.”

J: “Good. That will make it more satisfying when I give you the justice you deserve.”

A: “I’ve been meaning to tell you this Javert, but you’ve got a screwed up sense of justice.”

J: “Maybe from your perspective. But ridding the world of a monster like you is justice in its finest form.”

A: “Yeah, I’m really just not seeing it. What have I done to deserve this monstrous label?”

J: “Is that even a question which needs be asked anymore?”

A: “No, really. Since coming to Austin, what have I done? Killed a few people, but all them were trying to kill me. I can’t claim to have committed any deeds which are truly monstrous for months now. You though, Javert, you’ve gone all out with the moral depravity, haven’t you? Before it was just minor antagonism against me, but then you went and kidnapped someone. I have to congratulate you, for dropping yourself down to my level with such speed.”

J: “Don’t compare me to you/” Oho, was that a crack I was seeing in Javert’s guarded expression?

A: “Why ever not? Though, to be honest, considering what a good boy I’ve been lately, I’d almost say that you’ve become worse than me. Were a member of the Austin PD to happen to stroll by, I know which one of us he’d be arresting.” Brief pause, followed by me whispering, “Hint: It wouldn’t be me.”

J: That definitely got a reaction out of him; smile turned into a frown, and there was quite a lot of controlled rage behind his voice. “Everything I have done has all been done for His greater go-“

A: “Yeah, yeah, greater good, end justifies, the means, all that. Great defense; it allows you to do pretty much anything you want to and still claim that you’re the good guy. Especially if you claim that it’s all for God; I mean, who am I to claim what’s right and wrong if GOD HIMSELF is giving you orders?”

J: “Be quiet.”

That was when he charged at me and punched me in the face. Not very polite, all things considered.

A: “Aw, come on Javert. No need to be all aggressive just because I pointed out that your entire moral justification is based on the assumption that you’re already right. You should take the knowledge that you’ve committed the logical fallacy of begging the question with honor and dignity!”

That got me a punch to the gut. Such an action could not be left unresponded to, so there was another brief interlude of us beating the crap out of each other before we broke, and the conversation resumed.

A: “So, Javert, I’ve been doing some research.”

He didn’t answer. Far too busy glaring at me.

A: “Found out an interesting fact. Your family thinks you’ve disappeared. You didn’t explain anything to them at all, did you? Just up and vanished one day, leaving them behind without a word.”

J: And that was the major blow; I’d seen the cracks appearing, but this was what started to tear them apart “I couldn’t tell them where I was going. I needed to make sure they were safe.”

A: “Safe? From what, me? Whether or not you told them wouldn’t change my ability to drive back down and kill them. It’s less than an hour trip away. I could kill them in the morning and still have the whole day free. Nah, you not telling them wasn’t to protect them from me; it was to make sure they didn’t see what you were up to. I wonder what your little boy would have thought had he seen you laughing while you watched me slaughter your companions?”


Javert didn’t respond with words; just a wild shout and a blind charge. Very little thought or technique was put into his attack. Such a foolish mistake. If you’ve been paying attention, you may have noticed that I had yet to draw my sword during this fight. That was because I was saving it for a moment such as this. Before Javert could reach me, I swung the sword out of the sheath, into his stomach. As he doubled over from the blow, I swung the sheath, hitting him in the head. Javert fell to his knees, and once more I struck him in the head, knocking him to the ground. He tried frantically crawling back onto his feet, eyes glaring at me with all the hate in the world. Couldn’t let him do that, oh no, so I provided several more blows to the head, neck, and back. He kept screaming, “I’LL KILL YOU!” and other similar variations, but there was little chance of him carrying out these threats. His cool, collected manner was gone, replaced by blind, talentless anger. A pity, really; in seconds, the fight had gone from pure entertainment to an easy victory.

Thinking that it was an easy victory brought about the inevitable turn for the worse, and a few moments later I was pondering many mysteries, such as why the fog was suddenly tinted orange, or why the temperature had risen, or why I was smelling something burning, and oh good god was that my house on fire?

Slender Man had manifested within the fog, and with him came fire, which gutted my old home. Setoth, being a sensible person, immediately ran for the car. I, not being a sensible person, stayed put. Round 2, Mr. Man, and this time I didn’t need to worry about protecting some stupid girl….

Tentacles tore out of Slender Man’s back and came at me. No ominous build up, this was Slendy going straight for the kill. And I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.

I charged forward, into the oncoming attack. The tentacles looked like a black mass, but there were gaps between them, just enough to move through. It would be impossible to dodge everything, but I could minimize the damage. I twisted and jumped through them, trying to predict the path of the constantly weaving lines. I took several hits, more than I could count; scratches along my entire body, long gashes down my legs, the tip of my left ear cut off…. My shirt was left a ruin, which made me sad. I liked that shirt. The important fact was that I was managing to keep my vital organs intact, or intact enough for me to keep pushing forward. Then, I could see the end. Slendy’s tie, a wonderful target to be aimed for. I lunged forward with my sword, aiming to strike down this creature….

But then my sword was gone. One moment there, next moment, my hand was empty. Forward momentum propelled me forward, weaponless, towards Slender Man. More tentacles came out of his chest, and wrapped themselves around my arm. The grip was stronger than anything I’ve felt before, and they slowly started to pull me inwards. I tried swinging my other arm to punch the thing, but more tentacles came out and gripped that fist as well. With both my hands trapped, I was being slowly pulled in towards Slender Man.

Whatever nastiness would have ensued is something I can only speculate on, as the sound of several gunshots created a bit of a shocked silence. I took a moment to look away from Slendy, and saw Javert, holding his gun, and firing it, not at me, but at Slender Man, while shouting, “No! He’s mine! I will kill him! Only me!”

Slender Man did not seem to take this rebellious spirit well. He released his grip on me (and by that I mean he threw me into a tree with what I consider to be an excessive amount of force), and began to slowly walk towards Javert. Javert continued to fire at Slender Man, madly screaming about how he was the only person allowed to kill me. One of the still standing proxies ran over and tried to restrain Javert, only to be shot in the face as a result. Even after ineffectually firing the rest of the clip into Slender Man, Javert continued to pull the trigger, over and over, as though it had become an automatic motion. Only once Slendy was a meter away did Javert throw aside the gun and charge. His charge was less successful than mine had been, and he was enveloped in tentacles within seconds. As the tentacles wrapped around Javert, he began to scream in pain. But even between the cries, he still was trying to shout his intent to kill me.

The sound of a car horn turned me away from the spectacle of Javert and Slendy, reminding me that Setoth was still inside my car. He shouted, “I know you’re worried about your boyfriend, but get in the car now!” Such a polite fellow. I was torn, for part of me did still wish to charge back into the fray, but Javert fighting Slender Man was such a delicious irony that I couldn’t bring myself to interfere. I got into the car, and Setoth drove, taking us away from the fire and fog.

Right before we left, I threw one of my knives out the window at the last standing proxy. Missed him (you try hitting a target while you’re in a moving car), but damn, did I make him jump. I wish I could have seen his expression under that mask.

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