FANN

The masked pirate Tarley avoided Fann's katana strike with an acrobatic roll that put him across the alleyway he'd lured them into and away from both knights. Fann muttered a curse and rested his sword over his shoulder.

“You move around a whole lot huh?” Fann said. “It's annoying.”

“Frequent dodging, fast strikes, and razor sharp weapons?” J'vann smiled. “Now why does that fighting style sound just the tiniest bit familiar?”

“Yeah but I do it with style!” Fann insisted.

“Might have a point there,” Tarley said, shifting on his knees to stretch his legs. “Not as limber as I used to be. Starting to feel my age I suppose. I ain't got the captain's advantages. But I got a few tricks of my own.”

There was a shimmer around his body and the pirate disappeared completely. J'vann searched the alley around them, looking for any sign whatsoever of the pirate's motion. As far as the Verdant Knight could tell, there was absolutely none. Fann sheathed his sword and stood with his eyes closed as a voice reverberated out of the shadows, it's source impossible to pinpoint.

“The Mirage Regalia is the power powerful illusion Regalia in the universe,” he laughed. “I was a hunter before I became a pirate, I know the advantages of a good blind. You didn't even realize you were in an alleyway, remember? I made you think there was a whole city going on around you! Just wait until you see what happens when I put all that talent to work delivering one last fatal aaahhhhhhh!”

Fann slashed his sword and the illusion hiding Tarley disappeared. The pirate stumbled back holding up his forearms, where deep slashes dripped blood onto the street.

“Damn,” Fann said. “That was supposed to kill him, he dodged at the last second.”

“HOW!?” Tarley demanded.

“My Bat Regalia,” Fann said, not really seeing the harm in explaining and besides, he liked to hear himself talk. “I can hear your heart beating. Even with you muffling your movements while you walk. Wait, deja vu, I already won a fight like that on this planet! Yeah that bandit guy with the Smoggy Regalia or whatever!”

“You mentioned that,” J'vann confirmed.

“That little shit!” Tarley snarled, clenching and unclenching his hands to make sure he could still use them. “He didn't say anything about that!”

“Is it my fault your boss is incompetent?” Fann asked.

“He's not my boss,” Tarley said. “He's the captains grandbrat. Alright fine, if the illusions won't work I won't bother.”

The pirate slashed but Fann was able to parry his claws. Barely. Tarley was at least as fast as Fann was, and whatever his claw blades were made of was capable of deflecting Fann's vibroblade katana. Fann swung for the pirate's midsection but he avoided the blade with a backflip that reversed itself midway through, turning into a leap that brought his claws inches from Fann's throat in an instant.

If this is him old and stiff and losing a step I'm glad he's not in his prime.

He held off the claws with the flat of his blade, Tarly's charge slamming Fann to the ground with the pirate on top of him. Blood dripped onto Fann's face from the cuts in the pirate's arms as he tried to get his blades into Fann's throat.

“Hey!” Fann called out. “I know look super pretty when I fight but if you stopped watching my ass and helped out that would be kinda great!”

“And what is it that you think I am doing?” J'vann said in frustration from somewhere across the alleyway. Fann risked a glance only to see him thrusting and swinging his log at absolutely nothing. “Every time I think I have a clean hit he slips away!”

“Ah hell,” Fann grumbled.

“Just because my illusions don't work on you,” Tarley chuckled, “doesn't mean I can't use them on your friend over there.”

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“Hey!” Fann said. “Hey, that's an illusion! It's not really him!”

“What?” J'vann stepped back and blinked, looking around the alley. His eyes passed right over Fann and Tarley, coming to rest on another empty spot. He charged it with bludgeon raised.

“No good!” Tarley chuckled. “He can't tell where your voice is coming from. If it wasn't for your freaky hearing powers my illusions would be unbeatable.”

Fann replied by jerking his katana to the side, shifting the pirate's weight and making him stumble. He turned the sideways motion of his arms into an elbow across Tarley's face that sent him sprawling on the alley floor. Knowing that wouldn't be enough to keep the pirate down for long Fann rolled to his feet and sheathed his sword, bolting for J'vann. He leaped the last two feet, slamming his shoulder into J'vann's side and sending them both to the ground in a tangle of limbs.

“Fann,” J'vann said, picking himself up. “What....”

“He's got you all turned around with those illusions,” Fann said. “I mean alright, the thing where you corrected your aim to a different fake pirate might have been funny if we weren't fighting for our lives, but...”

“I find this opponent remarkably irritating,” J'vann said with gritted teeth.

Movement and a shadow over the pair of them heralded Tarley's fresh attack. J'vann swung his bludgeon out but the bandit caught on it in midair, hanging from it like a bat from a wall, his claws buried in the conjured weapon's bark.

“Fann,” J'vann said. “From what I can tell the pirate's illusions only mimic sight and sound, correct? So this weight I feel means this is the genuine enemy?”

“Uh huh,” Fann said, a little wide eyed at how easily J'vann was holding up the weight of his cudgel and the acrobatic pirate.

“Excellent,” J'vann said, swinging the bludgeon.

Fann didn't blame the pirate for not reacting. Fann could barely believe how easily the Verdant Knight could swing his weapon with an extra hundred and fifty pounds (at least) of pirate on the end. Tarly slammed into the wall, the bludgeon slamming into his gut. He choked and gaged, bloody spittle flying from the holes in his mask.

“Holy crap,” Fann said as the pirate scuttled away down the alley, glaring at them and wiping blood off his mask.

“Go,” J'vann said, sitting down on the alley floor. He closed his eyes, hands gripping the bludgeon upright in front of him. “He is an experienced fighter, he will not make the same mistake again. I cannot aid you in melee combat this battle, but there may be another way I can help.”

Fann nodded, trusting that whatever J'vann had planned it was the best he could think of. Fann turned his attention completely to the pirate. They charged, their meeting punctuated by sparks as Fann's blade crossed with the bandit's claws, over and over again, strike after strike. Neither of them drew blood but the pirate's injuries were starting to tell, Fann was beginning to figure out Tarly's rhythm...

And then he sneezed.

Fann felt stupider than he ever had in his entire life, but he couldn't help it. All of a sudden, in the middle of that lethal clash of blades and skill, his body betrayed him and he sneezed. No a little twitch of the nose either, a thundering cannon blast that forced his eyes to close and made his whole upper body shudder for a split second.

Enough time for the Tarley to get a hit in.

The pirate cut four bloody slashes across his chest. The attack was hasty and shallow but it hurt, surprise and pain making the Bat Knight stumble against the alley wall.

“You're good, kid,” Tarley said. “(cough) Real good. But ain't that always the way? You got (cough) all the talent in the (cough cough) world and then (cough) something stupid comes along and (cough cough) wrecks the whole (cough)damn (cough cough) what the hell (cough) what the hell is happening?”

He clutched his mask, eyes wide, and it took Fann a second to catch up and realize the pirate couldn't breathe. In desperation Tarly tore his helmet off revealing a ragged, weathered face. Its owner took one deep clean breath before Fann stabbed him through the heart and he fell dead to the alley floor.

“That has got to be,” Fann said, cleaning the blood off his blade through another enormous sneeze, “the meanest technique I've ever even heard of.”

The Verdant Knight had made flowers, huge purple and yellow trumpet things, grow from the raised end of his cudgel. From within their delicate petals rose a cloud of dusty pollen. Fann and Tarly had been too focused on the fight to notice, but now it was done Fann could easily see the yellowish dust wafting through the alleyway.

“I reasoned the small breathing holes on his mask would not handle airborne impurities well,” J'vann said. “I am sorry your respiratory system was also affected.”

“Yeah well it's okay now,” Fann said. “He's dead, you can stop.”

“Forgive me,” J'vann said. “But given the nature of our opponent I am going to need some assurances you are who you say you are. That you are, in fact, even real.”

“Hey,” Fann reached out and put a warm hand on J'vann's arm. “It's me.”

“Yes it is,” J'vann smiled, and the flowers he had summoned began to wither. “We had better hurry to see if our comrades require any help.”

“Yeah we should,” Fann said. “Hey, is it just me or was that a little too easy? For one of Balthazar Nodd's crew?”

“I noticed the same,” J'vann said. “But then I realized we were absolutely the worst opponents for him. Your Bat Regalia protected us from his illusions, and my Verdant Regalia produced detrimental affects as well.”

“Detrimental affects,” Fann laughed. “That's one way to put it, I think my eyes are swelling up. But it's weird isn't it? That they sent the exact wrong assassin after us?”

“The fog of war is an ancient concept,” J'vann shrugged. “Such coincidences happen on the battlefield all the time. Luckily or unluckily. Or both, depending on which side you favor in the conflict.”

“Yeah,” Fann said thoughtfully. “Yeah I suppose so. Alright, let's get moving.”