It was always difficult for her to judge what time it was in Cylus. Why it wasn’t colder was beyond her. If you asked her, without the warmth of the suns it would make sense that everything would just freeze to death. She wondered whether or not the moons gave off heat and if not how the temperature stayed livable during these cold times. “I wonder whether or not there is an entity responsible for these phenomena,” she thought aloud as she stopped and turned to look at the same pub as the day before. It seemed quiet tonight, at least for this part of town.
That aside, Luvi tended to pass by this one particular pub every morning and night when she went to and from her home. It was the only pub she knew by name and the one of the only that she frequented. She hadn’t been huge on alcohol when growing up since it wouldn’t do her any good to go around drunk and she could only think of terrible things that could go wrong. Of course, this was before she became a woman and learned that drinking was one of the most amazing things on the planet.
Luvi was standing outside the pub because something had come with the season, and it wasn’t just cold weather. The darkness had a way of putting people on their toes and the bar had hired some extra security. She didn’t think standing outside a building was fun in the least, but it was a paycheck nonetheless.
Nothing seemed out of the ordinary at first, but an odd pattern caught her eye. There was always a man who seemed to roll with a tough crowd. His name was Mark and he just felt like trouble. That very man walked towards the pub, nearly bumping into Luvi who was lost in her thoughts. He sneered at her as he passed by, but he’d done nothing wrong so Luvi could hardly justify taking action against him.
An hour passed, then another. It was boring, cold work but Luvi was content with the entire evening passing that way. There was the odd sound here and there, but she dismissed them. Fate had other plans, however. She eventually heard someone shout “Security!” from inside the bar which jolted her from her relaxed state.
“Must be trouble,” she told herself as she pushed the doors open and took a look around. Trouble was an understatement. There was a brawl that had broken out in one of the corners of the bar. Luvi saw smashed chairs and a table that had been knocked off of its legs. She hadn’t been able to make out what those crashing sounds had been, but now they made sense.
Luvi pushed her way past the onlookers, wondering where the rest of the security team was at. When she got to the fight, she noticed that her two coworkers were off to the side, nursing bruised faces.
“So, it’s that bad,” Luvi thought as she drew her swords. Job aside, she felt as if it were her duty as a citizen of this nation to stand up to injustice. She intended to do just that, regardless of whether her boss commanded it or not.
“There you are,” said her employer who had pushed his way over to her. “DO something about this,” he said as he motioned towards the five or so people who were intent on beating each other into submission.
“What happened,” Luvi asked, not entirely sure how she was meant to help. Her instincts told her to jump in and start slashing away until the aggressors were dead, but that was a little extreme and she didn’t know who was at fault. She felt it was best to get the information she needed as calmly as possible so she didn’t accidentally make a mistake that harmed the wrong person.
“That one, with the moustache, he started taunting the one with the blue shirt. They started going at it and their friends joined the fray,” explained the owner of the bar as he ducked under a mug that had missed its target.
“Of course he’s involved,” Luvi thought, finally noticing that the one who’d the taunting was Mark. “Alright, I’ll do my best not to kill them,” she said as she threw herself into the fray.
Luvi charged at the one closest to her, shoving her shoulder into his chest and using her enhanced strength to push him across the floor until she reached the wall. She slammed him against it, perhaps a little harder than she’d intended, but her attack had done what she’d wanted. She winced at the pain in her shoulder, noting that her angle must have been off. She’d never tried a move like that so mistakes were to be expected.
As the man fell to his knees, his wind evidently knocked out of him, Luvi turned her attention to the others. Her entrance had drawn their attention and they all stopped for a moment, eying the swords in her hands.
“Stay out of this, girl,” sneered one of them.
Luvi didn’t have anything witty to say, rather she adjusted her grips, hoping that the act of brandishing her weapon would cause them to back down. Her tactic might have worked on a normal sensible group of people, but these were the aggressive sort that had their own weapons to pull out.
“If you want to bring blades into this, so be it,” said another. He drew a knife from his pocket, pointing it at Luvi menacingly.
“A knife? Against a sword? You must be crazy,” said the mage with a fake yawn. She didn’t intend to cut these men up – in fact, she’d wanted to try hitting them with the dull ends of her katana. It would be enough to bruise, but if she held back she doubted they would suffer any lasting injuries. That was going to be considerably harder if they were going to use weapons against her.
“Pretentious little…” started the knife wielder but Luvi didn’t give him a chance to finish his sentence. She crouched down for a moment then launched herself at him, closing the gap quite quickly before digging her feet into the ground to stop exactly where she’d wanted to. She twisted her entire body as she swung one blade to slam into the knife. The force of her strike would have likely been enough to disarm the man even without runes. With runes, however, the knife flicked from his hand in an instant, burying itself deep in the ceiling.
Luvi kept her momentum going, bringing the dull edge of her other sword down onto the man’s arm. She held back, not wanting to break it, and found that she was able to do as she intended. The man let out a yelp of pain and leapt backwards out of fear. She felt a lack of empathy for the man as he clutched at his arm. It was a side effect of her mutation, though she didn’t wish death on him. It was more that she wouldn’t have actually cared if she had accidentally struck him too hard.
She didn’t have time to consider what else to do to the man because she was tackled from behind. Taken by surprise, the two went tumbling to the ground. Try as he might, it was quite difficult to keep Luvi down. This one was good at close quarters combat, but he found it difficult to pin her down because she was able to move so powerfully. He pulled as hard as he could and he still could not get her arms into the right position.
Once Luvi finally made sense of the position she was in, she jammed her elbow into the man’s jaw which got him to release her almost immediately. She scrambled up to her feet and was ready to dish out some more pain, but noticed that nobody was fighting anymore. It was a shame, because the only one she’d actually wanted to harm was Mark and he’d already fled the scene.
“Well, I guess that’s that,” she said as she scooped up her swords and approached the owner.
“Well done,” he said to her as he eyed the scene with a pained look. “I only wish you’d gotten here sooner, then I might not have lost so much furniture.”
“Eh, sorry about that,” Luvi said as she sheathed her swords. She massaged her left shoulder, feeling the pain start to grow. She sincerely hoped that she hadn’t injured it too badly.
“It’s quite alright. Let’s get a drink in you. I think you’ve more than earned your pay,” the owner said as he waved over the bartender.
Luvi sipped away at an ale for a few minutes then started to help clean up. She took it easy on her injured shoulder but otherwise she was able to help move some of the heavier furniture without much issue. When she got a moment to think, she tried to picture how she could have better shoulder checked that man. Had her posture been too stiff? Had she come in at a bad angle? She’d have to do some tests once she recovered.
