Riven Wight

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Izzy bore her fangs and her hands clenched once more when Cutter made Trevor choke, but she stayed where she was, one foot further in front of the other. Her snarl deepened at his threats of destroying Trevor’s brain.
“Some ‘man of God’ you are,” she growled through clenched teeth. “You’re as bad as the things you hunt. I haven’t hurt anyone, killed anyone. But you? How many innocent bystanders have you killed, Guillotine Cutter?” She snorted and shook her head. “But I suppose that doesn’t matter to you, does it? People like you don’t care whose blood gets spilt in their conquests. They could kill a nation of innocents and not bat an eye as long as they destroyed that one person they’re after.”
She looked to the ground beneath her as Cutter requested to begin, then to the manicured grass between her and Cutter, quickly gauging the distance between them as she took a couple slow, deep breaths. She raised her gaze slowly back to her opponent with a stony expression. It was now or never.
“That’s what you wish, then?” At last, Izzy let herself look to Trevor, her eyes locking with his. “The only thing you have to be sorry about, is not backing off when I told you I didn’t want friends.” She placed her feet together and loosened her fingers with an exhale, trying to release her cares and worries with the single breath. “Like I said. They only bring you pain. Sometimes,” her words slowed slightly, wondering how well he remembered their first conversation, trying to give a discrete warning to be ready, “avoiding people altogether is the best plan there is. Especially when you can still enjoy the sun while doing it.” She spread her arms out to her sides, as if basking in nonexistent sunlight... or, perhaps, the first sign of surrender.
With that, she took another deep breath and dug her heels into the dirt. She tilted her head toward the sky, eyes closed, arms reaching toward the sky and wrists crossing above her head as she willed herself to transform into one of the things she had felt a connection with for as long as she could remember.
She felt her body change. Her form grew and shifted until, in the blink of an eye, a mature oak stood in her place, its thick foliage a lush, summery shade of green. Izzy felt more than saw the world around her, the roots that had sprouted beneath her thick and strong as they snaked through the dry earth toward the wetter dirt beneath. It took her a fraction of a second to remember her mission, but, even to a tree, Cutter was still a threat.
She drove her roots through the ground. They shot toward Cutter and Trevor just beneath the earth, and surfaced beneath Cutter’s feet to wind up his body, to pry his grip from Trevor. She needed to separate them, to loosen Cutter’s hold enough for Trevor to escape without giving the hunter time to harm her friend.

Schooled in Magic

@OfWindAndRain

No worries. Don't feel like you have to match the length of my last one, though. I mean, we're into close character interaction now, which is usually where your shorter posts start happening. With me, the first couple starting posts, plot posts, and loner posts tend to be more "advanced-length," then said interaction usually more along the lines of casual.

School work is just KIND OF important. Heh. Procrastination. I know it well. xD Glad you got actual work done. That should always come first (says the girl who gladly puts off things she needs to do to write or something)!

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Izzy’s glare darkened as Cutter moved Trevor. Holding her breath, she watched for any sign the action hurt her friend, the desire to attack Cutter resonating through her with a vengeance. But she had to be smart about this. Trevor’s life--and, ultimately, her own as well as Cerasus’--depended on it. She only hoped what she and Riley had shortly discussed before her departure would work. She closed her eyes for a short moment as he continued speaking, taking a couple deep breaths and forcing her hands to unclench.
“Poor, pitiful little Guillotine Cutter,” she began, her voice stiff despite her efforts to sound sarcastically sympathetic. “Abandoned by your companions. Sent on a suicide mission by your church. So desperate without your aberration bodyguards, so heartless as to capture an innocent human.” Anger made her tone sharp as she said the last. “If it wasn’t for Theurge and Episode keeping Damocles’ attention, I’m betting you’d have been the easiest one for him to take down!” She smirked at him, her gaze locked with Cutter's and trying to avoid looking directly at Trevor.
She took a slight step forward. “Tell me, Guillotine Cutter,” she spat his name, “what is it you gain from all this?” She gestured to the field around her without taking her eyes from him. “Fame? Fortune? Or do you just get to continue to live in your little world of denial?”

Mystic Orphanage (Aristocles and Siaya Dragalorn)

Glad to hear! :-) How's life, besides presumably busy? Heh.

Mystic Orphanage (Aristocles and Siaya Dragalorn)

Well, hello, stranger! ^.^ I was going to message you if I didn't hear from you soon, just to make sure you were doing okay and still interested in this.

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Izzy turned to Riley once more when he offered another “hint,” a frown pulling at her mouth. Still, she listened intently, not wanting to waste any time on arguments. If it could help her save Trevor, she would take it. She nodded slightly at the first, but inhaled sharply at the second. Slowly, stiffly, she nodded again.
“For the record,” she said a few minutes later before she embarked on her mission, standing in the doorway with her back to Riley, “it wasn’t just your mistake.”
With that, she rushed to the school, the road leading to the athletic-turned-battlefield all too familiar. Only this time, she traveled it for more reasons than just to retrieve Cerasus’ remaining limbs. Now, she had a life to save. No matter what she had to do, she would get Trevor to safety.
Reaching the field, she slowed to a stop and sauntered the remaining few yards to where Guillotine Cutter waited, Trevor with him. She only glared at the man when he spoke, her chin lowering slightly and back perfectly straight.
She looked to Trevor when he called out to her and held her breath, trying to keep her expression hard and unreadable. Her muscles were tight, and she just managed to keep herself back, to not lunge at Guillotine Cutter. Her face twisted with fury when the man cut off Trevor’s words, and her hands clenched. She tried to wipe the expression from her face, her neck twitching with the effort.
“Nice to see you again, too, Guillotine Cutter,” she said stiffly, then crossed her arms. “Though, from the last time, I didn’t think you needed to stoop so low.” She nodded toward Trevor though her eyes stayed on Cutter, every ounce of willpower going toward keeping her cool. “Are you that afraid?”

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Izzy faltered near the top of the staircase at the thought of Guillotine Cutter watching her, unseen, but the action was nearly unperceivable. On the main floor, when Riley placed a hand on her shoulder, she stopped and turned around with an irritated snort. He still had not answered her question. Her gaze bore into his, annoyance mingling with the rest of the emotions on her face.
Her nails dug into her palms at the thought of Trevor being used as a weapon against her. Fear flashed through her eyes at the request to fight tonight, but only for a moment. After all, that was exactly what she had planned on doing, officially or otherwise. Whatever it took to get Trevor away from the hunter, away from this wretched world.
“Wouldn’t have it any other way,” she growled. When she continued, her words were rushed as she turned from him to head to the front door. “You said you misjudged him. Did you see what he could do? What am I going up against?”

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As surprising as Riley’s tone was, Izzy’s gaze darkened as he spoke, as if, had he not modified their deal, Trevor’s kidnapping would be just as tragic to him as the boy’s death had been. The expression intensified at his statement of Episode’s actions being nothing more than “part of combat.” But there was a far more important issue to expend time on than his listless attitude toward the well being and involvement of “regular people.” She did not want his explanations. She wanted to take action.
“Guillotine Cutter,” she said through her teeth. She squared her jaw and looked Riley in the eye for a moment. "You saw him." She turned again and headed into the hall beyond the large storage closet, her steps clipping furiously on the cracked tiles, her hands still clenched. She headed to the stairs leading to the main level. “Where’d he take Trevor?”

Schooled in Magic

Nothing actually planned, no. Whatever comes my way!

Edited the post. :-)

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Izzy held her breath, watching Trevor lean back and waiting for his response. When he paused, Izzy looked back to her lap, rolling the half-full soda bottle in her hands as he continued speaking. She shook her head at his comment about himself.
“From what I have seen of you, I doubt it.” She looked up as he moved from the desk, watching him put away his already emptied bottle then head toward the door. Part of her did not want him to leave, wanted to invite him to stay a little longer, that their last meeting, even if just for a short while before they could hang out again, did not have to end yet.
But, “Thank you, Trevor,” was what she said instead, reminding herself that the sooner he was away, the better. “For everything. You’re... a really good friend.”
When he paused and turned back toward her, she stood as he spoke.
“After everything you’ve done for me, just name it.” Her gaze met his as he stepped toward her and gave his request. She nodded, her expression resolute. When he held out a fist, she raised her own, putting as little force behind their fist-bump as she could. She only nodded again in thanks to his well-wishes, and watched him leave, listening to his footsteps receding through the halls.
For nearly the next three hours, she tried to stay busy, though there was little for her to do in the school. After trying to read a couple more comics she had difficulties investing her full intention into, she had even considered stalking Cerasus for a short while if for no other reason than to keep herself occupied. Instead, she decided to explore the school, to see what she could find that looters and vandals had not already staked claim to. She passed Cerasus a couple times in her search, but offered only a nod in acknowledgement.
In a storage room in the basement level, she found a filing cabinet that someone had forgotten to empty. Though the files and pages inside were weathered and many sported water damage, it was here, rummaging through pages in various stages of decay and trying--but failing--to not think about Trevor or the last battle standing between her and humanity, that Riley found her.
Torn between irritation, dread, and the anxiety that he had come to declare the date of her final fight, she looked up from the file she held, its contents consisting mostly of childishly scribbled essays. When she registered Riley’s appearance and expression, she inhaled and quickly sat the file down. A knot formed in her stomach.
“Riley? What’s wrong?” She held her breath.
Izzy stared at Riley for a moment in shock as his answer sunk in. She felt suddenly sick.
“He’s...what?” The hunters. It had to have been the hunters. Her hands clenched, and her nose and lips rose in a snarl. “How?” she snapped. “When? Where’d those foul, loathsome beasts take him?!” She stormed toward the door, then stopped in the doorway and faced him. "I swear, if they so much as touch one hair on his head..." she finished the statement with a seething snort. She had sent Trevor away, and he ended up getting kidnapped. If Episode had no issue with killing him, there was no telling what the three would do now.