A single moment sang out into eternity. An instant poised to destruction of the Innocent, yet Vengeance would not have that this day. Its thirst would be slaked by blood of Guilty.
He lorded his power and strength over a woman half his size and heavily pregnant. She had only the pathetic protection of her arm lifted to try and push him away. Laughing coarsely, he crushed his hand around her delicate windpipe, lifting a cruelly sharp blade already baptized in her blood.
Eerily, a second woman watched this carnage with a calm and pretty smile, eager to see another living being beaten and slashed to death. She held a blanket and had an empty car seat at her feet.
It was in that wildly swinging balance of life and death that Death struck keen and true: blade met blade, and the sword sent the knife spinning away. Hysterical glee met cool calculation. Dropping the badly injured woman, the man flung himself at her would-be savior.
He saw only a female figure that he far outweighed. She had seen all that he was, and knew already how to take him down. The blade sang its eerie song as it slashed surgically precise across the thick muscles of his throat, a cut which parted his jaw from his skull, his tongue severed in an explosion of blood. He had time to look down just in time to see the second slash, vertical and deep, and the abrupt spill of his internal organs and blood.
The irony of those cuts being the ones he intended to make upon the pregnant woman was sadly lost upon him.
As his finally glottal gurgling silenced, the paladin turned upon the second woman, merciless, pitiless, far more so than this woman and her accomplice.
"I called the police!" the woman screeched, scrambling back. She flung a lawn chair down before her, then another as she struggled to escape the very right hand of Vengeance. The paladin followed, kicking aside obstacles with ease. With contempt.
Vengeance demanded terror for terror, pain for pain, blood for blood, yet Expedience was required by it as well. Halcyon's fingers flicked at her throat, at the beaded choker around her neck. Four obsidian glass points, thin as paper and wickedly sharp, were withdrawn. She flicked them neatly at the other woman as she tried to conceal herself in a storage cupboard.
The screeching pronounced the solid hit of most of the tiny weapons, and she followed it with a swift throw of one of her swords, pinning the wooden door shut, and judging from the full throated screaming, the woman as well.
Halcyon removed her gloves as she strode back to the wounded woman. A terrible figure, as even first responders were apt to be. She held her hands up, palms out, for peace.
"I shall heal ye," she noted in a kind, gentle voice. The wounded woman swallowed hard, nodding, her eyes wide open in shock, her body wracking in pain.
It was not a goddess of evil, it was not a thing of evil, to strike back with such force in protection of the innocent. And hand in hand, the goddess walked with Restoration. For Vengeance could never truly be done until all was made right. There would be no Justice without both.
As Halcyon finished healing the poor woman, several police officers rushed to the scene: an open banquet hall in a lovely park. One slipped and nearly fell in the blood on the grass. The others uneasily ranged around the situation, three with pistols drawn, two others with cross bows ready, and every one of them breaking into a cold sweat.
Those that had never run up against a paladin flush in their power suddenly understood the magnitude of it.
Yet she turned to face the officers with her hands at her sides, her chin lifted. Haloed in purest silver, she seemed as fantastic a creature as they had ever seen.
"...Please lay down your weapons..." a woman called, sharp and clipped.
"We shall be here till evening if that is truly what ye wish; I has a lot o' weapons," Halcyon responded, not without humor. She was a warrior, a paladin. She could take down evil with a pipe cleaner and a jaunty song of praise.
"Okay. Yes, please do that," the woman responded, taking another grip on her pistol, "I am Officer Kay Weller, RhyDin Police. Could you please tell us what is going on here? We received a call from Mrs. Fina Quelton saying that a maniac was trying to kill her and her baby."
"I be not certain what happened here. I arrived in time to take that one there, off of the young woman, here," Halcyon responded, pointing her chin first to the dead man and then to the woman she had rescued, "If Mrs. Quelton t'were the one to call ye, then she be in that storage cupboard yonder. She fled once I had finished with her man. Bein't certain if she be alive or nay."
"Oh, boy," the man beside Weller hissed.
"You're not kidding," Weller muttered.
Just to make matters worse, a gray horse the size of an SUV cruised up behind Halcyon and whinnied, his tail lashing, ears pinned back. Weller swallowed hard. She remembered her Da telling her tales of trying to do police work back when RhyDin was lousy with Paladins.
Unreasonable, fanatic, most of them insane, and all of them so perfectly convinced of their gods given right to take Law into their own hands. Willing to even turn upon the law, in fact, if it got into the way of their perfect Justice.
This one, however, had not started spouting off about the gods, had not flatly refused to lay down her weapons, and even called off her war-horse. This could go okay, Weller told herself, daring to hope.
He lorded his power and strength over a woman half his size and heavily pregnant. She had only the pathetic protection of her arm lifted to try and push him away. Laughing coarsely, he crushed his hand around her delicate windpipe, lifting a cruelly sharp blade already baptized in her blood.
Eerily, a second woman watched this carnage with a calm and pretty smile, eager to see another living being beaten and slashed to death. She held a blanket and had an empty car seat at her feet.
It was in that wildly swinging balance of life and death that Death struck keen and true: blade met blade, and the sword sent the knife spinning away. Hysterical glee met cool calculation. Dropping the badly injured woman, the man flung himself at her would-be savior.
He saw only a female figure that he far outweighed. She had seen all that he was, and knew already how to take him down. The blade sang its eerie song as it slashed surgically precise across the thick muscles of his throat, a cut which parted his jaw from his skull, his tongue severed in an explosion of blood. He had time to look down just in time to see the second slash, vertical and deep, and the abrupt spill of his internal organs and blood.
The irony of those cuts being the ones he intended to make upon the pregnant woman was sadly lost upon him.
As his finally glottal gurgling silenced, the paladin turned upon the second woman, merciless, pitiless, far more so than this woman and her accomplice.
"I called the police!" the woman screeched, scrambling back. She flung a lawn chair down before her, then another as she struggled to escape the very right hand of Vengeance. The paladin followed, kicking aside obstacles with ease. With contempt.
Vengeance demanded terror for terror, pain for pain, blood for blood, yet Expedience was required by it as well. Halcyon's fingers flicked at her throat, at the beaded choker around her neck. Four obsidian glass points, thin as paper and wickedly sharp, were withdrawn. She flicked them neatly at the other woman as she tried to conceal herself in a storage cupboard.
The screeching pronounced the solid hit of most of the tiny weapons, and she followed it with a swift throw of one of her swords, pinning the wooden door shut, and judging from the full throated screaming, the woman as well.
Halcyon removed her gloves as she strode back to the wounded woman. A terrible figure, as even first responders were apt to be. She held her hands up, palms out, for peace.
"I shall heal ye," she noted in a kind, gentle voice. The wounded woman swallowed hard, nodding, her eyes wide open in shock, her body wracking in pain.
It was not a goddess of evil, it was not a thing of evil, to strike back with such force in protection of the innocent. And hand in hand, the goddess walked with Restoration. For Vengeance could never truly be done until all was made right. There would be no Justice without both.
As Halcyon finished healing the poor woman, several police officers rushed to the scene: an open banquet hall in a lovely park. One slipped and nearly fell in the blood on the grass. The others uneasily ranged around the situation, three with pistols drawn, two others with cross bows ready, and every one of them breaking into a cold sweat.
Those that had never run up against a paladin flush in their power suddenly understood the magnitude of it.
Yet she turned to face the officers with her hands at her sides, her chin lifted. Haloed in purest silver, she seemed as fantastic a creature as they had ever seen.
"...Please lay down your weapons..." a woman called, sharp and clipped.
"We shall be here till evening if that is truly what ye wish; I has a lot o' weapons," Halcyon responded, not without humor. She was a warrior, a paladin. She could take down evil with a pipe cleaner and a jaunty song of praise.
"Okay. Yes, please do that," the woman responded, taking another grip on her pistol, "I am Officer Kay Weller, RhyDin Police. Could you please tell us what is going on here? We received a call from Mrs. Fina Quelton saying that a maniac was trying to kill her and her baby."
"I be not certain what happened here. I arrived in time to take that one there, off of the young woman, here," Halcyon responded, pointing her chin first to the dead man and then to the woman she had rescued, "If Mrs. Quelton t'were the one to call ye, then she be in that storage cupboard yonder. She fled once I had finished with her man. Bein't certain if she be alive or nay."
"Oh, boy," the man beside Weller hissed.
"You're not kidding," Weller muttered.
Just to make matters worse, a gray horse the size of an SUV cruised up behind Halcyon and whinnied, his tail lashing, ears pinned back. Weller swallowed hard. She remembered her Da telling her tales of trying to do police work back when RhyDin was lousy with Paladins.
Unreasonable, fanatic, most of them insane, and all of them so perfectly convinced of their gods given right to take Law into their own hands. Willing to even turn upon the law, in fact, if it got into the way of their perfect Justice.
This one, however, had not started spouting off about the gods, had not flatly refused to lay down her weapons, and even called off her war-horse. This could go okay, Weller told herself, daring to hope.