Prelude to a Legend

A brawl followed by a fairly certain doom. Warning: HELLUVA CLIFFHANGER.

                The thugs circled Neko like vultures as the old man crawled toward his cane.  Neko took note of his surroundings.  All the thugs wore black jackets, and were wearing enough jewelry to make them jingle like sacks of coins.  The first thug was covered in tattoos, and his left eye was bone white.  The second had casts on his wrists, and he hung back further than the others.  The third had a cybernetic ocular unit in place of his right eye, and it was done poorly.  The black lens had small scratches from the surgery, and the tissue around the eye was scarred.  All of them had a tattoo on their right cheek, a black crescent moon.  An easy fight.

 

                Neko struck first.  He fired a punch at the thug with the casts, who staggered backward as his nose broke.  The thug with a cyborg eye lunged at Neko from the left, bringing down his fist like an iron mallet.  Neko stepped forward and pivoted counterclockwise as he threw a punch.  The thug yelped like a kicked puppy as his implant popped out of its socket with a sickening, squelching pop, and groaned as he passed out from the pain.  The one with the casts dove to the ground in a low kick, aiming for Neko’s legs from behind.  Neko heard him coming and jumped, landing squarely on his nearly healed broken wrists as he came down.  The thug choked back a scream, but he could not silence the tears or the pain on his face.  The half blind thug unsheathed a vicious dagger, with crusty dried blood on it.  He slashed at Neko’s midriff, and missed by a hair as Neko fell onto his back.  The thug leapt, his dagger held high, looking like a demonic mural.  Neko rolled aside just in time, and the knife pierced the ground to the hilt.  The thug forgot about Neko as he tried to free his blade, but Neko wasn’t foolish.  He snuck from the thug’s right to his left before the thug noticed he moved, and threw all his weight into a punishing blow to the head that bore a sickening crack like a grim bell.  All was still.

 

                The old man had was sitting against the far wall, clinging to his cane.  Neko turned to him and he flinched.  “You ok?” Neko asked.

                “That was amazing…”  the old man said in a raspy, tobacco scarred voice.  “Where did you learn to fight like that?

                “Here and there.” Neko grinned, thinking of the many sparring matches he’d had with Kate.  Neko helped the old man up.  “Come on, we shouldn’t stick around here.”

                “Oh please” said a cruel sounding voice behind them.  “Don’t leave on our account.”

                “Are you idiots ready for a re-“  Neko choked on the last word as he turned and saw more than four thugs.  Many, many more.  “Reinforcements,” Neko said, deceptively calm.  “I take it?”

                “No,” said a bald one with bulging muscles and a cyborg arm, clearly the leader. “We’re your worst nightmare.”  The gang of thugs started chuckling as they brandished their daggers, jangled their chains, and readied various other blunt objects.  Neko got cocky.  He figured since he probably wouldn’t survive this, he might as well go out dripping with sarcasm.

                “Oh you couldn’t be my worst nightmare,”  Neko chuckled.  “There aren’t any giant spiders.”   A vein pulsed in the leader’s forehead.

                “Kill them” he growled.  Neko dropped into a fighting stance, ready to die in battle.  The old man twisted the handle on his cane, and pulled the handle away from the rest of the cane, unsheathing a long, narrow blade, silver and pristine as slice of moonlight.

                “Young one!” the old man yelled in his wheezing rasp, “Take this!”  with all the strength he could muster, he tossed the sword to Neko.  The sword spun thru the air in a graceful air, embedding itself in the ground in front of Neko.  Neko stopped for a moment, feeling a strange intensity wash over him.  An odd aura of mystery and power.  Neko reached out to the blade, deaf to the yells of the oncoming horde.  His fingers closed around the handle, and the world as Neko knew it ceased to exist.

 

Reviews

[Anonymous]

OH wow! that was amazing! Please right more, I loved it! Wow. But wait, isn't one of the thugs a girl? Just make sure that you keep the pronouns consistent

[Anonymous]

Ok, so I haven't even read the rest of the chapter yet, but I love the fact that all of a sudden the old man goes all ninga style on Neko and breaks out a sword and then addresses him as "young one", that is just simply amazing