Match 25
#23 Nimia “The Rising Star” Altamirano
Vs.
#22 Jaime “The Cannibal” Pitcher
Inventory
Darling - A mystical saber imbued with the powers of fire and ice; Fire LV 3, Ice LV 1
Death & Debt - Two .44 Semi-Automatic Magnums, formerly named Sonya & Cleon; imbued with fiery bullets.
Lucky - A .357 Seven-Chambered Magnum Revolver with a ♣ symbol printed on the handle; [Passive Effect: Luck+; Active Effect: Bullets are more likely to hit targets, even by ricocheting
Wealthy - A .357 Seven-Chambered Magnum Revolver with a ♦ symbol printed on the handle; [Active Effect: Infinite Ammo]
Nimia’s phone - For contacting people.
“You know, while I appreciate the fact that I’m clearly your favorite of our weird little group, are you sure you want me for back-up on this kind of job?” Greenie asked as she steered their speedboat through the canals of Gourmand, a fancy little place down south, “Eerie bayou towns aren’t really my scene.”
“Aw but Greenie, who else could drive the boat?" Nimia asked as she lounged, putting her feet up and idly running her scaly hand through the water, "Shelly’s not good with water and the boys would sink like stones. Well, ingots and bricks, but you get my point.”
“Ha ha, yeah, you’re a riot. Seriously though, did they all need to go on some humanitarian trip right now?”
“Eh. I have a huge boat, there were a lot of freed slaves who needed places to settle down, and my fun new teammates all wanted to make sure they did get to safe places fine, so I’m willing to extend some generosity here.”
“Feh. I guess. We could’ve brought the chopper though.”
“And miss out on this lovely scenery? Nah.”
And it was pretty nice. For all Greenie’s complaining, Gourmand was less an eerie, rundown borough of rotting buildings and invading moss and more like a fancy, upscale leisure town, the type to play host to eager tourists looking for easy attractions and cajun cuisine. And yet, beneath the shine and sparkle, there was a darkness lurking, just like there always was.
Bright lights cast large shadows, and the shadow of Gourmand was a powerful Don who ran the underworld of the region with an iron fist, backed by the Red Rose and held up by his own cunning brutality and ruthless pragmatism. The Don was ranked too, so that helped, and held a reputation as a man untouchable in his own territory.
So it came as a bit of a surprise to see his corpse hanging from its ankles in front of a large, colorful casino. His open throat certainly added a splash of red to the mostly blue and gold backdrop, as did the lieutenants of his crew hanging next to him, their own wounds ranging from similar slit throats to partial decapitations. What stood out as interesting to Nimia though, because honestly she was pretty numb to gore at this point, was that the murdered gangsters were all hung with vines, not ropes.
There were more bodies deeper in, and plenty were more gruesomely and theatrically displayed, often in ways that definitely shouldn’t be possible for a human body with a normal skeleton. Pitcher had an artistic side, apparently.
And a gardening side too, considering she saw one poor bastard sprouting flowers from his eyes and branches from his chest.
“Eugh...I know the ranks are made up of crazy murderers, but I didn’t think they’d get this freaky,” Greenie complained, looking greener than usual.
“Eh. You see one lamppost impalement, you’ve seen them all,” Nimia replied.
“...I’ve seen at least three varieties of ‘lamppost impalement’ in the last minute.”
“Yep, and all that changed was which part was impaled. There’s no pizzazz to that.”
The nuances of artistic murder aside, it took a bit to track down Pitcher, mostly because the 22nd wasn’t hanging out anywhere obvious. Really, by the time Nimia found him, she’d resorted to going house to house while Greenie waited with the boat.
“Are you really leaving me alone in the creepy murder town?” Greenie whined at the time, glancing around with a nervous frown.
“Yup. Don’t worry about it though, I’m sure there’s nothing freaky hiding in the water.”
“...” Now her eyes were glancing at the canal. “...You’re a dick.”
“Guilty.” And she both was, and would be, in very different senses of the word. But before the guilt would come, she had a murderer to meet.
And she was honestly a bit surprised to find that her first impression of the man was that he had a really nice ass. It probably helped that he wasn’t covering that view in the slightest, but still, definitely a surprising first thought.
Jaime Pitcher was a man with green skin. A slender man, almost disarmingly so; not quite thin, but rather smooth looking. Otherworldly, in a lot of ways, not least because his “hair” looked more like vines, falling around his head like the tentacles of an octopus.
The only things he was wearing were a brown apron and a pair of wooden high heels, the straps twisting up his ankles and digging into his shins. Aside from those, he was totally naked, and pretty unashamed of it, judging by how easy he was moving as he chopped up vegetables at a kitchen counter.
Nimia wasn’t sure who the house belonged to, originally, but it was cozy. A patio door led inside to a nice little dining room that connected right to the kitchen, and that’s where Pitcher was working, beside a steaming, boiling pot. “Afternoon, Miss Altamirano. Feel free to take a seat.”
“Well if you insist.” Nimia sat, putting her booted feet up on the dining as she watched him work. “Do I get to ask what’s on the menu, Mister Pitcher?”
“Hmm, perhaps you do? You never know until you try.” He turned to her with a wide grin, his teeth sharp and brown in the lights and his eyes covered. On his left shoulder was a ♂ symbol tattooed in bright red, standing out against the rest of his skin. “If you’re worried about my epithet, that’s a fair concern.”
“But you won’t tell if it’s right.”
“Nah, I’ll tell you right now it’s chicken. I’m not a freak, Twenty-Three, I’ve just gotten...bitey when my blood’s up. Besides, how can I be a cannibal if I’m not even human?”
“Huh. I guess the rules do say it’s anyone sapient that’s allowed to join in, right? So what does that make you?”
“Someone who’s figured out a way of working in this hellhole we call an Earth,” he replied, turning back to his cooking, “I gotta keep some secrets, don’t I? Some have big ambitions, some try to become gods, but I’m fine bein’ a murderhobo with some tricks in his skin.” His body suddenly shifted, his skin twisting to a raw red like flayed skin as he turned the other way, showing his now yellow teeth beneath a canopy of fleshy tendrils. On his right shoulder, there was a ⊕ symbol in vibrant green. “Let’s just say I found my own way through life and leave it there.”
“Fair enough. Is that why you’re sticking around at twenty-two?”
“Nah, that’s cuz the fucking rat ahead of me is a tough bastard to get to and I decided, fuck it, I might as well enjoy life in my own warped way while I’ve got it.” His apron was white now, and the heels on his feet looked like they were made of bone.
“So you kill people for fun?”
“That I do. Usually, I just find someone I think it’d be fun to fuck with, someone who forgets that the only untouchable out there ain’t them, and then I play my game. What the game is varies, and I tend to change things up, but this time, I wanted to go at least a bit bigger. The Don here, he went by Kessel, his mother’s name. His pops though is Scorava himself. You know him?”
“Yup, he’s Luigi’s dad. Also a bigshot and the Twelfth.”
“And Attilio’s pops, don’t forget that. The way I figure it, with you coming after me, it’s about time to go big or give it up. And hell, if the wind’s blowing the way I think it is, now’s a damn good time to make my move. Thanks for that, by the way.”
“Heh. Well you’re welcome for the hope, but don’t think I’m about to hold back. I’m still aiming for the top.”
“Oh I’d be mad if you did. But before that, I oughta show you some hospitality.” Pitcher reached upwards, taking two bowls from the cabinet, and filled them both. He downed his own in one swift motion, letting out a satisfied sigh and a breath of steam, before he brought the second over to Nimia. “Hope you enjoy it.”
“I might. I guess we’ll see.” Nimia took the bowl from him and looked into the soup. Noodles, carrots, small leaves of something or other, and bits of chicken floated in the broth. If he did anything to it, she couldn’t tell.
Pitcher smiled, his teeth sharp and brown under a green canopy. “Eat up.”
The scales on her arm twinged. “...Thanks for the meal.” She brought the bowl to her lips and drank. It went down hot enough to hurt, and warm enough to soothe.
When she finished the bowl, a hail of gunfire shredded the kitchen and she was already moving, flipping over her chair and setting the bowl down on the floor–gently, no need to break it–while Pitcher twisted towards the bullets, a look of shock and rage quickly forming on his scarlet face as a shell of bone formed over his body.
More men burst into the room–armored men, in red riot gear with assault rifles in their hands–and fired as Pitcher leapt through the wall, charging out at the damned fools who dared to interrupt his mealtime. Then they noticed Nimia, who raised a hand in greeting. “Sup.”
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She was already moving as the closest soldiers turned and raised their guns, her Darling out and cutting straight through the men in red as they tried to gun her down. She wasn’t entirely sure on all the specifics of the situation, but context clues made her think the thugs with red roses on their body armor–which really wasn’t too hard to cut through–were probably working for the major crime boss she knew had red roses as his thing.
The fact that Pitcher admitted to killing the guy’s son also made it very likely that this new batch of professional killers made it pretty likely Scorava’s redcoats were here to kill the 22nd, not her. Of course, Nimia was also ranked and aiming to eventually kill Don Scorava himself, so his goons aiming to claim her head too was pretty damn likely, especially since some dicks just threw grenades into the house she’d just made a total mess of.
On a whim, she decided to move back and inventory the bowl from earlier before she dove straight through the nearest window and rolled out onto the street, already moving fast as a good chunk of the building erupted in a fireball.
And out there, she only found more chaos as Pitcher eagerly leapt into the fray, his apron long forgotten in favor of being armored in gore-streaked bone. He moved quick among men with assault rifles and shotguns, crushing skulls in his hands with ease.
That was somewhat impressive, but the real danger came with what he did to the bodies after, throwing them at their former allies and doing something to make them burst in showers of blood and sharp bone. His hands would plunge into bodies and rip their skeletons into spiked trees of bone, stretching and twisting upward in ways that no human could. The man was making a garden of bones, and the poor redcoats sent against him were just material for him to work with.
It was a shame they didn’t seem to grasp that concept though, or realize that they really should leave Nimia alone to kill her own target instead of trying to shoot/blow her up. Really, you’d think they’d be smarter about it, but nope, there went the grenades from the attachments on their rifles, and up went a good chunk of buildings in fire and explosions, which Nimia used to cover her movements as she split heads from necks and chest from abs. Not always cleanly, but it wasn’t like anyone was around to mind the blood spray.
Pitcher was making much more of a mess anyway, though he’d actually switched back to green from what she could see. She wasn’t entirely sure why, up until she noticed the distant crack of sniper rifles firing into thick wooden trunks. It seemed Pitcher needed material to work his magic, so while breaking bodies with their own bones was easy once he was up close, he couldn’t do the same at long range. Which she decided to test by pulling her newest revolver and firing an incendiary round his way.
The wall of wood that shot up didn’t quite absorb it, but the fire didn’t spread nearly as much as she liked before it burst into splinter the size of spears. Spears that Pitcher grabbed and pitched, piercing through a distant rifleman. Sucked for that guy, but Nimia had more important things to focus on, such as the snipers trying to shoot her too.
Buncha dicks couldn’t even stick to killing one guy, they had to aim for her too and make her waste time switching chambers and firing now explosive bullets at the distant assholes. Impressively explosive bullets, considering the chunks they blasted out of whatever buildings they hit, and while she was wasting some time having to kill off rando redcoats, she wasn’t wasting bullets on account of her very fancy new gun. Perks of killing off the rich.
Of course, she still had the 22nd to contend with, and now there was a whole lot of smoke and fire cutting off her view of the killer plant-and-bone man. She flicked the cylinder back to incendiary rounds and waited. When the wood beneath her feet began to shift, she leapt back to avoid being speared. The spikes of wood stopped, then shot forward, extending like branches as they aimed to impale her before she cut through them with her burning saber.
“Ha! Nice trick, twenty-three!” Pitcher called, his voice sounding out all around Nimia, making it impossible to pinpoint his location, “I guess it’s a little too easy to guess fire will work on plant powers!”
She paused, then flipped backward right as the dock below her feet erupted into splinters when Pitcher leapt straight through it, water dripping from his bone-white armor. “But how about bone?”
He rushed in, blades of bone extending from his forearms as he stabbed and cut at her, each swing and jab deflected or dodged with the help of her blade as she flicked her ammo over to corrosive rounds. She didn’t get a chance to test her theory though due to the massive plumes of fire cutting both fighters off from one another.
The intervening arsonist had red roses painted across his black armor, but he wasn’t a full member of the Scorava Family or even a blood relative; he was a ranked killer looking to get paid and move up in the world, and the wrist-mounted flamethrowers he had on were meant to help him with that task.
“Tch, interrupting asshole,” Nimia muttered, then scowled again as she heard gunfire picking up again as more redcoats came rushing in, shooting wildly until her bullets caught them in the chests. She ignored the screams of pain and sizzling skin as she scanned the burning town. The smoke was getting thick and heavy, lowering her field of vision by the second.
She still moved quickly through it though, sword in one hand and gun in the other as she heard the rush of flames and the crack of bones.
She didn’t expect the arsonist to have a massive flaming sword, but she had her own flaming saber so she felt she could let it go. It wasn’t like it was doing him much good either as he clashed with Pitcher, who contemptuously batted away the arsonist’s swings with his blades–
23 -> 22
Nimia went rigid as she felt her neck burn. A genuine shock hit her that she quickly shook off, keeping her focus in this situation.
The same couldn’t be said for the 93rd, who stiffened the instant he felt his chest burn from the sudden number change. His hesitation spelt his doom as Pitcher darted in and stabbed a sharp blade of bone straight up and through the bottom of 93’s helmet, piercing through his head in a burst of blood.
“Huuuuuuuuuhhhhhh…” Pitcher said, tilting his head as he stared at the corpse in front of him, then looked at Nimia on the dock across from him. Water and smoke separated them, but she could still tell he was smiling. “You felt that too. Someone ahead of us is trying to move up in the ranks.”
His helmet pulled back from his face and he stuck out his tongue, letting it dangle over his chin. Standing stark against the pink of his tongue was the number 21 standing out in stark black, steaming slightly from its recent change.
The new 21st stared at the new 22nd. She stared back, and smirked.
“I gotta say, that kind of pisses me off,” she admitted, “It feels like I just lost out on a fight.”
“Ha! Y’know, I can’t say the same! I’m glad I get to skip ahead!” He laughed. “A step to the top is still a step, even if someone yanks you up!”
“Eh. Not my style. I prefer to enjoy my fights. Meet new people, kill new monsters. All that.”
“Neh heh heh~ You’re lookin’ real monstrous yourself there, twenty-two.”
“Yep. If you want to be queen of the monsters, you oughta look the part, don’t you think?”
“Sure do. I want to plant my naked ass on that same throne, and I don’t mind lookin’ as gruesome as I can when I take the king’s crown for myself. In fact, I’ve even been lookin’ to add to my repertoire! Just limitin’ myself to meat and plants seems like too little, don’t it? Course, I haven’t found what I want yet, but I’m sure I’ll get there.”
“Heh. Maybe. Maybe I’ll do the same. I’ve already added a few things to my style.” She raised her Darling, showing her off. “Darling here can turn all fiery, but you already knew that one. She can also turn icy, but I haven’t quite figured it out, and I’m positive there’s supposed to be at least two others in it, at least according to the woman called dragon I stabbed, but I haven’t even noticed them if there are. As for Wealthy here-” She raised her revolver. “-she’s more of a new girl on the team. Each chamber is filled with a different type of ammunition for seven in total. So that’s explosive, incendiary, electric, corrosive, frigerative, armor-piercing, and adhesive. The last one’s a little weird, but eh, I might find some use for it at some point.”
“Layin’ all your cards on the table, huh? Well, I guess I oughta pay that back.” Pitcher chuckled, his spike of bone still pierced through the former 93rd’s skull. “First off, I’ve got a limit on what I can affect. Blood, flesh, bone, wood, grass, plants in general, all of those I can work with. I need to be touching them, but every part of my body works for it. Second off–”
There was a horrific, ripping, crushing sound as Pitcher’s spike retracted, pulling every bit of blood, flesh, and bone the 93rd had in with it, leaving his armor to collapse to the ground with only a few dry, torn off chunks inside it. “–that means I have full body control of anyone I touch or pierce, so long as the blade’s still connected to me. So fair warnin’: If I knick you, you’re dead.
“And lastly but not leastly, I’ve been playin’ around for the past few minutes. Showin’ off in either red or green. But see, here’s a fun trick to it...” His grin widened, splitting his face wide as Nimia saw a second row of teeth form, his skin mottling between a bloody red and a murky green. “I don’t have to switch.”
A burst of wood from under his feet sent Pitcher leaping up into the air, his body covered in dense, bony armor as Nimia first fired incendiary rounds, then switched to piercing when it became clear the flames weren’t catching on the wet bone.
A piercing round went straight through Pitcher’s head in a spray of gore and he dropped into the water, his momentum completely ruined in an instant, though that didn’t stop the boards under Nimia’s feet from suddenly bursting, twisting, and trying to skewer her as they sharped into spear-like branches.
She leaped and jumped off of them as they shot upwards and curved around, but there were so many all around, so a quick thought had her decide to turn up the heat, her Darling burning with her passion for survival. Then, when that wasn’t hot enough, she substituted it with her immense rage at the world around her and her desire to win above all else.
The resulting blaze consumed a good chunk of the pier in one move, and her swings burnt every branch aiming for her to cinders in seconds. In the sweltering heat and choking smoke, none of which bothered Nimia, the barest sound of a crack was the only warning she got before Pitcher, armored in bone, leapt for her throat.
There was still a hole visible in his head as he swung and stomped and lashed out with arms that twisted and extended like fleshy whips. Sharp cuts split them off and cauterized the flesh, but that did little as the burnt meat erupted into more spiked tendrils, twisting through plant and meat as Pitcher took in as much material as he could around him, his feet fusing to the wood beneath as he rooted into the docks–
Then Nimia shot him in the heart.
Death and Debt gleamed in the raging fires, and Pitcher jerked with every burning shot that burst through his chest and set his skin alight. It cut straight through his armor, piercing out his back as he spasmed, the flames licking up his body.
“A-Allllriiight, yooooou didn’t mentionnnnn those,” Pitcher said, his body shaking and lighting up with flames as he flopped back, his split arms collapsing into limp vines. He still stood though, his back bent unnaturally as he kept his feet rooted in the dock.
“Eh. I gotta keep some secrets, don’t I? Sides, you didn’t mention you could survive a headshot.”
“Geh heh heh...yeaaaah, didn’t...mmm, but I didn’t think I’d get shot in the head eitherrr…” He twitched, then straightened back up only to hunch forward, his bony armor visibly rippling as something pulsed beneath his skin. “I think you helped me figure something out though...Call it an epiphany…”
“And what’s that?”
“Plant and meat alone aren’t cutting it...There’s no point to binaries. Trinities’re where it’s at.” He chuckled and lifted his head. The hole was still there, and she could see the pulsing of whatever replaced his brain in there. “Buuuuut that adds the questionnn...what goes with plants…’n meat?”
“‘Plants’ counts for fruits and vegetables, right? And fish would count under meat?”
“...already blowin’ my mind here onnn ways I could’ve uuuused this, buuut yeah, sounds about riiight…”
Nimia nodded, then lunged as Pitcher erupted into mouths and teeth and desperate, grasping flesh and roots. Her darling slammed into his chest, straight through his heart, and he stopped still, shuddering and quivering.
“How about metal?” she offered as she twisted the blade.
“...nnnnaaah, g-gotttt...ta b-be organic…”
Nimia nodded, then tore her sword down, cutting through his belly and out his hip as flame raged across his skin. The hole in his head had teeth, and was drooling. “What about...mushrooms? Those aren’t plants or animals, I think.”
“...hhuuuuuh...good point. Very good point…” His wound cracked a smile. “Good idea there. Especially since I can go telling people I’m a fungi.”
Nimia snorted and cut his head off.
22 -> 21
Nimia took a slow breath, snorted again, then had to cover her mouth to keep from giggling. “Snrk-ff, mh, god fucking damn it that’s so stupid though...”
She shook off her mirth and idly kicked Pitcher’s head into the water. “May you keep your stupid sense of humor in the next life, you murderous nutjob.”
She sighed, waiting for Greenie to call her a hypocrite. Then she paused. “...wait. Where the hell is Greenie?”