The Radical Ibex [IC]

[JNAProductions]

Adora's eyes go wide-not in fear, but in anticipation. She lunges against Igor, but despite the man's injuries, his blade meets hers in a shower of sparks and a jolt of energy against both of the swordsfolk. She moves to cut his legs out from under him with a sweep of her own, but Igor performs a small hop and keeps the pressure on her.

While the melee is beginning, Ibex merely sighs, drawing an archaeotech pistol out.

[Lord Ruby34]

Mercedes did not want to fight an inquisitor. Even setting aside that merely resisting was an act of treason, inquisitor's were almost uniformly dangerous combatants. But Mercedes knew she hadn't committed treason, she knew that the inquisitor was hiding something, that he was somehow dangerous. And she refused to submit.

So when the woman came forward, Mercedes faded back, trusting Igor's protection. Her pistol was already in her hand, though she hadn't consciously drawn it. It went off with a retort like thunder on the mountain, in the pattern that had been drilled into her since the first time she had ever held steel in her hands. Two shots, lightning quick, fired towards the inquisitor's chest and another towards his skull.

Spoiler: OOC

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Sorry that took a bit, I haven't attempted to actually write action in some time. I'm not happy with what I've got, but I didn't want to delay anyone any longer.

[JNAProductions]

The bullets strike home.
The Inquisitor flinches, bleeding, as his pistol goes wide and blasts part of the doorframe into oblivion.

By the time Mercedes is able to take proper stock, the bullet wounds have already closed, and Ibex is leveling the pistol at her.

[MrAbdiel]

Igor's keen eyes map the combat as it unfolds; trained senses taking in the periphery of the combat even as his primary focus is on the deadly duel. When Mercedes bolt pistol barks three times and the Inquisitor jerks back, he knows there is no coming back. Ibex is dead, and if the God-Emperor is merciful, they will be able to piece together a-

Ibex is not dead. He straightens up, and the bolter's hideous wounds in his body and head are sealing in observable time.

Witch. Mutant. Enemy.

As another fan of sparks from clashing blades and fields splashes over him, he cannot be certain of the source of the miraculous recovery. Certainly some witches are capable of knitting flesh - but there was no ozone in the air, no warpish snap of manifestation. Was Ibex a mutant? A psyker of such power and subtlety he is beyond detection? Or something even worse?

For the immediate second, he needs to survive, and see Mercedes survive likewise. Ibex is tracking her with his strange pistol, and Igor never quite mastered the iron veil, the near paranormal instinct for superior swordsmen to unconciously track the movements of an enemy's wrist, fingers and firearm sufficient to use the flat of the sword to almost presciently intercept bullets and bolts. He had taken the early hypnoindoctrination foundations, and he could strike thrown weapons and arrows from the air with reasonable regularity - no more than one or two per second, but still - but he had never been able to catch a bullet or lasbolt. The blade did not need to travel faster than the round - just faster than the trigger finger - but he could hardly trust his life and Mercedes' to that desperate bid.

Instead, he leans on the advantage he has: with the longer blade, he is slower than Adora, but he dominates the space and can force her movements more easilly. With driving, menacing blows rising one after another, he weaves his blade in a figure-eight and tries to keep his combat with the bladeswoman between Ibex and Mercedes, and uses his superior reach and footwork to try to open avenues of fire for Mercedes only when the Inquisitor's henchwoman is obstructing his aim.

[Lord Ruby34]

[I]Mutant? Heretic![/I The thoughts flash through Mercedes head almost too quick to process. A rage rises in her, both horrified and righteous. Ibex was a traitor, a threat to the whole Imperioum, and it was her duty to see him dead. She wished, in that moment, that she was a full sister, entrusted with holy power armor and bolter, able to take battle directly to the treacherous inquisitor. But she was only a novitiate, her final oaths unsworn, and armed with a pistol and carapace.

She dodged instead, rolling behind Igor while a holy war song coming to her lips unbidden. If her revolver couldn't do the deed, perhaps Igor's blade could. Mercedes knew she was an exceptional shot, her marksmanship had always been praised as a gift from the emperor, and she would have to trust that gift here. As she her roll, Mercedes steadied her hand, aimed, and fired, all in less than a fraction of the second. Her bullet when soaring towards the Swordswoman's left ankle with a heavy retort.

[JNAProductions]

Adora, reacting with augmented (or perhaps something more sinister) reflexes, kicks her leg away from Mercedes' bolt, and towards Igor's knee.

But her attention, fully on the two of you, doesn't account for Ibex's aim. He fires again, trying to hit Igor, but instead leaving Adora with half her torso missing.

[MrAbdiel]

The swordswoman's leg clips his knee, and he drops to it in a jarring instant. The woman is fast, and skilled, and he brings the shock blade across his body hoping to defend himself before he can rise - but then the shot from the Inquisitor's pistol annihilates his ally in a shockingly callous execution. Igor had expected his shepherding of the woman into the firing line to put off Ibex's shooting all together. Now it was just the two intrepid investigators against the Inquisitor who wanted them dead.

Igor gets his foot under him just as Adora's body is toppling forward. As the power blade slips from her fingers and the light from her eyes, Igor lets his weapon go to a a one handed grip, and uses the momentum of his rise to grab Adora's topping corpse on shoulder and palm and heaves it back at Ibex. It's faster to go through and over than around, and with no desire to end up like Adora, he races to close the gap and engage the Inquisitor in melee, where it will be harder to bring that pistol to bear!

[JNAProductions]

Adora twitches, still trying to aid her master even in death.

Ibex cusses as her body is flung at him, but another shot leaves nothing left of Adora but her blade and a few motes of dust. But in that time, Igor has closed the distance, and is able to bring his blade to bear.

[Lord Ruby34]

Mercedes circles, keeping her nearly empty revolver trained on the heretic inquisitor. Part of her was eager to join Igor in the melee, but caution won out. They didn't know what other abilities Ibex might have, and a shot with her gun might be able to give Igor a second of surprise if the man suddenly attacked with psychic power. Mercedes also took a moment to sweep her eyes over the area, looking for anything that might be of use.

[MrAbdiel]

Closing on Ibex, Igor can't afford to delay. His tactics shift instantly, the opposite of his approach with Adora. He could not afford to let her close; he cannot afford to let Ibex establish distance to point that weapon at him, or Mercedes. The shock field snaps out of life with an audible crackle and Igor closes his hand around the blade's generous ricasso, choking up on it and shortening his reach. He strikes out with the pommel again and again at the inquisitor, bashing towards his face, trying to provoke the natural response - to cover the face, blind oneself for a moment, then try to bring the pistol to bear. If he falls for it, Igor will be ready to slash at that gun hand - either to break the weapon, or shed some of the fingers holding it!

[JNAProductions]

Igor's blow is met with an explosion. He's sent flying, Mercedes to a lesser extent, and Ibex appears to be simply gone-reduced to chunky salsa.
Of course, the impact is nothing to be trifled with. Igor's barely conscious enough to observe Ibex's death, while Mercedes has enough wherewithal to drag Igor into the (now partially ruined) home for cover before collapsing.

---

You wake up in a tent. Peering around, you see it's set up near the house you fought at. There's a medic with his back turned, rummaging through a hastily set up medical stand.

[MrAbdiel]

Igor's eyes snap open long enough to understand his immediate setting; and then for the pain to settle in. Only the length of his sword's difference between him and Ibex - and the inquisitor was... what... killed? Maimed? He can barely recall. But he can see from both eyes; his hearing is not a ringing drone. Before alerting the medic, he feels around for a weapon - if his sword is nearby, or atleast something heavy, before he croaks for attention.

"Hey. Hey. What happened?"

[JNAProductions]

There's something heavy-the central post of the tent. Maybe not usable as a weapon, but if hostilities ensue, it could cause a distraction by pulling it down.

The medic looks over. "You're awake! That's... Something," he says. "There was an artillery strike ordered. Just mortar shelling, really."

[Lord Ruby34]

While she dragged Igor to cover the thought that kept repeating in Mercedes's head was This can't be it. Ibex was a dangerous heretic, an inquisitor, some kind of mutant. His death had to have been a trick. Victory was never this easy.

When she came to, those same thoughts continued to fill her head, only to be replaced by other concerns. Who was the medic, was she still armed, was Igor seriously injured? She hadn't had time to check before collapsing.

[JNAProductions]

Neither of you are armed-your weapons are not visible, and certainly not on your person. But you aren't shackled or restrained in any way.

[MrAbdiel]

"Mortar shelling..?"

He risks painfully sitting up to see his surrounds better, when the medic doesn't seem hostile. "On a farm? From where? If you're responsible for tending out injuries, I'm grateful - but I'll need more information about how we came to be here."

[Lord Ruby34]

Mercedes's head was ringing enough that she was inclined to believe that the mortars were shelling them. "What happened to Ibex?" The question escaped Mercedes's lips before she could even think about the indelicacy. She probably shouldn't have asked about the weirdly demonic inquisitor by name, or even alluded to the fact that she knew him.

[JNAProductions]

"Probably still waiting for his cattle," the medic says. "Haven't seen him since-"

"That's enough, soldier," General Zodden's voice comes in, followed shortly by the woman herself. "Wait outside the tent, please."

The medic looks at her, with a slightly incredulous face, but follows orders. "Yes ma'am."

She squats back on her legs, so she can look you both closer to the face. "I wasn't going to let you risk yourselves without some backup. I had a small recon team trailing you. After Ibex's woman found and took out Calix, I told them to hold a mortar at the ready, and to shell the area if anything truly suspicious went down. They took a recording of the fight-it's blurry, but decipherable." She stands up. "I had to watch it three times to really get what happened. Using his own woman as a tool-that's what Inquisitors do. But that... that infernal regeneration? From a bolt? That's not natural. That's not holy."

Zodden sighs. "That being said, we have only one video of evidence for the moment."

[MrAbdiel]

Igor takes this all in, quietly. Now that the adrenaline is clear, the possibility of being executed by an Inquisitor as a traitor to the Imperium seemed bigger, and more awful some how. And Calix... They hadn't exactly been friends, but they had trusted each other. The loss of the Martian was troubling, too; a darker spot, in the shadow of that larger looming threat.

"Thank you, General. I don't know what would have happened if you hadn't done what you did. But the ram has touched the wall, now. I guess we don't know if Ibex crawled off and put himself back together somewhere, or if he's still doing so; but if your men didn't find anything in the farmhouse, our only other option is to get back to that spaceport and take that guncutter by force. If there's any answers to what Ibex is wrapped up in, it'll be in there."