( From play between my baby and I. Mature content within.)







"I'm thinking....Mexican"" Strangely he speaks this, and eyes that don't believe these words shuffle and sift through the high clouds; red, orange and gold. "Egh," pensively returning to the subject. Walking along the boulevard, his Martyr aside, Val draws on his cigarette and minds the various signposts and dining kiosks. "Well....what do you think?" He looks to her for affirmation. " 'Cause really, I'll eat anything."



Dressed to impress, Martyr walked next to him. She wore a collared little yellow and white plaid dress that nearly stretched to her knees. The sleves stopped at her shoulders and left her arms bare and pale for the world to see. Her legs were a different story; visions of white stockings tucked in at the feet beneath a pair of black Mary Janes that were worn in the middle from her constantly being on the tips of toes. Her hair was down, mocha stretching toward her rear and trembling within the wind; pulled back with a yellow head band leaving chunks of coffee bean bangs to mingle with the only thing on her ensemble that didn't match—those violet eyes which were surrounded by copious amounts of lash. She wore make-up today, a subtle amount of foundation, cinnamon blush, and light brown eye shadow. Her lashes were painted in a thick black mascara curling them up and out. "O-oh....I c-could eat j-just about anything right n-now." Martyr whispered, her voice trailing just above a whisper.



Fresh from an afternoon at the office, Val is sharply assembled and astutely aired. The tones of his fabrics are outlandish in comparison to the blank and severe colors worn most often. His slacks are crisp and a light gray and buckle-bound by a black belt with a silver clasp. His shirt is black and clean and evenly pressed and tucked below a grey, four-button vest. What's new is the tie; it's blue and happy and doesn't quite fit his strict assembly. He tugs on the knot uncomfortably, filing up the avenue with his young fiance.

"Yeah....the same. There's an Italian place a few blocks out. It's a-ways from downtown, but it's worth it." Val looks down and keeps eyes on the rhythm of his steps.



Martyr's eyes trailed up to Valcroix, and the corners of her mouth were manipulated into something of a childish smile. "Y-you lead, V-val...I will f-follow." Then, in some amount of playfulness she attempted to bump her boney hip against his. This, of course, resulted in the off-balance immortal stumbling. She grasped his forearm to keep herself upright and allowed a little gasp to fill her lungs. "I d-don't care w-what we eat. As long as y-you're across that t-table, and looking at m-me." As if they were highschool kids, she trailed that same hand that was grasping for balance down his wrist to tuck it into his palm and attempted to lace her fingers within his. Mocha bangs were not long enough to hide that natural glow of her cheeks, which defined the artificial cinnamon dusting she'd given them. "I l-love you, V-val...I c-can't w-wait to m-marry y-you." Martyr whispered softly, that voice lost to the soft whisper of the wind.



Tightly, he holds on. It isn't force, it's a link, it's perfection and a simple representation of the complexities of their love. Val lifts his head and a jolly buoyancy refits his cold mouth and a smile appears. "I love you too, Martyr." He appears timid and maybe embarrassed. She held the keys to this version of the ma—-but he trusted and understood her above it all. With the violet-eyed darling hitched to his side, they continue until the buildings up-on-high level out and lessen and are no longer glassy and formal. This end of the city isn't a crag or a project, but is certainly a far-cry from the downtown bustle and accredited composure. Soon, Val lifts his eyes questionably. How long had it been since they'd passed another person' He stops ad wheels around in a complete circle like a pup on his tail.

"Hm. Desolate." The sky was low and fiery and the big juicy tangerine sun looks on doubtfully; where had the people gone?

Val pulls a little knife from his pocket. He opens his palm and it rests upon it. It was something he'd crafted from the remnants of Nazareth's blade. It doesn't rattle or relay some ominous energy. But it felt heavily as he solemnly admires it.

Val retrieves the blade from his pocket. His eyes whirl energetically, like powered dynamos. Red lightning bent into half-circles emblazon these eyes, flash and deaden them. In his hand, the blade glows. This light amplifies until he's no longer holding steel and fiber but instead white, white light. The light expands forward in three curved feet, backwards in a single straight foot and the pulsating sounds of handled energies persist between them. With the blade shaped the process concludes with a sharp, harrowing sound that feels like a high-frequency shriek. And then steam, billowing, rocketing steam from the blade-of-light, as if it had been taken from tempering flames and washed in cooling water. Now perfect steel lays curled in his fingers, a sword like any-other. He steps forward and little threads of smoke peel from the glimmering, manifested weapon.



His steps are dramatic. His opponent's are not. The cloaked figure, who had been intently and crookedly admiring Val's technique, leaps ahead, pulls back his arm and slings it forward. Val's body contorts back and away to avoid the fist. What Val hadn't seen now stands evident. When the creature swung, the fist pulled ahead of the fabric of its sleeve and exposed its weapon; a metal talon. Not nearly as large as Martyrs, but it bore an uncomfortable semblance. Val, now in a low and prowling pose, lifts his body and twists the blade, aiming a fierce slash at the beast's chest, a blow that would rightfully halve him should it land uncontested. The cloaked stranger opens the talon and meets the blade and the horrible outburst of metal-opposing-metal shocks the air with piercing hallows and bursting sparks.





Silent and helpless, Martyr can only watch as the two go at it. Her lip trembled, her back straightened, and her fist came up to her mouth allowing her teeth to sink in and abuse the flesh of her knuckles. Violet orbs expanded, and soon became surrounded with the whites of eyes as she noted that very familiar arm. "Is that m-my"" The girl's broken lyrics trailed off into her saliva-moistened fist as she took a step backwards. She'really liked this dress. When Val took her shopping for it last week, she thought to herself, how careful she'd be with it. Now" Now it seemed as helpless a cause as she, and her eyes tucked for only a moment behind lid and lash as the doe-eyed damsel tried to think of a solution. Martyr could blast him with her soul, it was true. A clear shot might easily take the creature, man, whatever he was, out. Unfortunately a blast like that was hard to concentrate, and risked Val's body in the process" Not to mention it felt like giving birth all over again. With one more step back, she began to weigh her options.





Val's blade remains locked with the apparition's steel fingers. Because he'd stepped into it, the hilt rattles strenuously inside his white-knuckled grasp and a face just as stressed contorts furiously as it recognizes the stern calm emanating from his becloaked opponent. Val draws his foot behind the right, lessens the applied force and replies with a three-point maneuver; one, he rips his blade away from their contact and forces the being to fall victim to his own inertia; two, he angles the blade so that it's nose faces down and away and concludes with the third; a fearsome strike that appears in the air as naught but a sickle of light, like a fall star's tail, a laser rounding a bend.

The beast in white sinks on his springy knees and comfortably evades the wildly swift attack. Val, mindful of his unkempt application of force, steps back and warily eyes the fickle phantom. It hops back on its feet precisely but stands with no pose, no techinique or stance. Its arms hang and rock with the wind.

Val sighs and frustratingly eyes the newly dimmed sky. When he sigh concludes a concert of disdaining motions leave him slumped and defeated and above all else, bored. The specter finds opportunity in this and lunges once more.

Three yards lay measured in tarmac between the pair. One long stride from the white-cloaked being brings him between one and a half and it's here that he rifles his sharp hand at Val; Val, who stands, admiring sky and the one bedamned star that is fussy and spoiled enough to glimmer in a polluted city sky. Between the men, an explosion. It's not mighty, merely a tussle of dust and dirty fragments. When the dust clears the specter's hand is strangely mired in a tall formation of sand. Before his arm escapes the fickle particles, Val snaps a small, small eye on it and the mound flashes white with a light that had likened the shaping of his blade. More smoke, but it clears quickly and his opponent's arm was no longer buried in a wall of stand but instead stone.

"Okay....Now," he perks his brow exasperatedly and lumbers over halfhearted to the beast that didn't bother to struggle. "We get some answers."



There wasn't much weight in her stare to the ground as her lover and the creature battled. She had faith in Valcroix's ability, this much was true, but feeling helpless" Unable to do anything but hope for either a woundless battle, or a chance to heal him' It was torture of the worst kind. Martyr wasn't a fighter, that was for sure"but she had boundaries, and Val, save for Max, was her biggest one. He was one of the few little tripwires to cross and make the immortal insane with rage. Now" What could she do' Bat at him with that rangy, wet noodle of an arm' As the explosions of dust and sand erupted from their settled place on the ground, Martyr would gasp each and every time; her eyes dared the fray for only seconds at a time before she moved back to stare at the space between her separated Mary Janes. A heart would pound in her chest, to the point where she felt as if her ribs were going to bruise from the inside out with the kicking of the muscle that screamed and writhed for her lover to be safe. The beating in her ears told stories of him not coming home, of him abandoning her with Max" Tales of explaining to her too-young daughter, that daddy wouldn't be coming home today. His voice alone could pull her from this reverie, and calm that rampant organ which resided in the safety of the bony cage that was her chest. "O-oh, V-val"" Martyr rushed over to him, wanting to stay by his side for three eternities; ready and willing to block any incoming attacks with her body.



Val boasts to his young lover with brows that waggle and a smile that could rightfully challenge the sharpness of his sword. His opponent's hand and forearm were borne in stone now, the stone that Val had cleverly transmuted from the sand. It was a sharp move, and he wouldn't hesitate to show.

"It's alright, Martyr. This one isn't going anywhere." He pats the rock formation warmly, like he would upon the back of his best friend; and given his reputation, Martyr could rightfully inform him that it was his best and only friend.

Wasting no more time, Val snags the specter's hood and draws it back. What now stands exposed is a young and formally handsome face of defined cheekbones and tanned, sunwarmed skin. His nose his pronounced and pointy, and his mouth is long, but detached and mindless and uncaring. Though these definitions of flesh now stand, the right of both Val and Martyr's attentions would be starkly paid to his eyes where two carved-out cavities hollowly stare. And in these holes, two brilliant, though crudely cut, amethysts.

"What..." With an open mouth, Val turns to the young Martyr. "The hell is this?"

Val skims through the robes slowly. He pats on his thighs and belly and clasps onto its hardened shoulder for support while the hand delves deeper. There's a sound like paper crunching and Val's eyes' squint suspiciously. A parchment, yellow and aged looking, is pulled from the breach of the dead specter's cloak. Val takes the lines and his face petrifies; flat and dead as the severed head crudely left lopsided near the sidewalk. Val folds the page, stands up, washes some sandgrains from his knees and then peers longingly down the avenue. He walks away in silence and the blade rattles against the bumpy tarmac as he drags it limply like a child would their doll.

Of course Martyr would have heard him read;

Remember him. He was born for martyrdom, my love.

Finally, Val turns and leans his head back and all the sharp bangs spread away from his face. "C'mon, Martyr. Let's just...go."



Those brilliant violet morsels rise at him as his mind recites the words. "M-martyrdom"" The girl questioned, scrambling and skipping to his heels. She'd managed to keep herself from being dirtied up from the fight'still wasn't hungry, though. "B-born" W-what d-does that m-mean"" The girl asked, thoroughly in the dark to the whole situation. Still, she followed after him like a sad puppy to its master, clinging to his coat tails. "V-val" Are y-you? Are y-you ok-kay"" The stammering savior asked with a tilt of her head and a frown on her face. Better question! Why aren't we selling those things!" I seriously had my heart set on a torture chamber.

Shut it, Phoenix! No, you! No, you! And so forth"



After she'd rushed to meet him, Val had turned away and begun to walk aimlessly down the middle of the street. Too many things collide within the boundaries of his mind. It felt like a thick graveyard miasma had settled grimly over his thoughts. He swings the blade over his shoulder so that the unsharpened end rests upon it, casually.

His eyes light up sarcastically but he doesn't smile, "I'm not sure. This is all rotten."

He knew she would ask for his thoughts on the origin of their attacker. He had ideas, but none seemed feasible enough to warrant a conversation. Nazareth was hardly so elaborate, and the adversaries he'd encountered during his new life in business wouldn't go so far. No, they'd hire a sharpshooter. Happened once before.

Val stops and turns his head over the shoulder not housing his blade. Red eyes linger on the sight of the boy's body. They're deadened and prospective. Then, he turns to Martyr. He looked younger and under the influence of emotion. "Should we....do something for him' Because he's dead, there's no residual energy to interrupt my shaping. I could turn him to dust." It sounded cold, but the thought purchased some relief for his knotted belly.



You're always such an insensitive jerk! Yeah, and you're an uppity b*tch.. Yeah' Well you're a c- Her words were left to the imagination as Val cut off her argument with Phoenix, mental in every sense of the word. The girl thought long and hard about what he'd said, before dropping those brilliant violet tales to the ground and kicking up dirt with her left shoe. "O-oh' I s-suppose" T-turning him t-to d-dust w-would b-be better than l-leaving him on the g-ground." Not by much, but it's not like they knew the guy. Martyr finally nodded her answer to him, and puffed out her little cheeks before turning that body away on heels. This one, she couldn't watch"



Before she'd finished, Val was already jogging over to the restful specter. It bothers him, but he collected the head between his hands just after setting the blade on the ground, then carries it to the body. He doesn't try to fit it where it had once comfortably been attached, but he made a respectable effort. What's strange is the arrangement that follows; he folds the boys arms over his chest, neatly, then pushes onto his eyelids until they mask the pretty jewels. Just from the sight of the rocks pushing and ribbing against the skin of those eyelids, Val cringes internally as he discovers a portion of the pain this boy must have endured daily. He feels no satisfaction for granting it, but Val figures death could be no worse than the poor life he'd lived. He presses his hand against the apex of his chest and then a great two-pronged wind blows opposite of this touch, a wind of grey dust. It's airy and thin like steam, and runs away from Val's hand resentfully. Val stands and steps through the haze that embalms the air where the body had laid.