milliways_bar | (no subject)

It's all down to a question of reflexes, and Punie is willing to wager her own against any and all contenders. And what princess of Magical Land would she be to turn down an offer like that?

"If you throw it straight up into the air," she says, without so much as a blink, "I'll do my best to make it an extra-special explosion."

This time when she twirls her wand, there is a bit more purpose in how she handles it.

Oh, shi--! Autor knows that look.

He'd usually take the time to revel in that gaze, to try and take apart exactly what appeals to him about it, but no, he can only glance at her face for a second--maybe less--because he's hurled the powder keg as high as he can and now he's running, bent at the waist, until hopefully he's scratched out enough space between him and the bomb, and heavens, he's never laughed so hard in his life, and perhaps, he thinks, it's safe to look back...

The moment the bomb leaves his hands, Punie's eyes are on it. She doesn't move a muscle until it is almost at the highest point of its flight, and then her hand flashes through the air in a blur of red and white --

The shattering sound of the explosion rocks the practice range.

But instead of the patter of casing fragments, the echo is chased only by a soft, strangely shimmering noise. And instead of smoke, the air is full of delicate, dazzling sparkles, a veritable blizzard of silvery-gold glitter falling in a whirl around Punie and slowly drifting toward Autor on a gentle breeze.

Edited 2013-03-14 05:49 (UTC)

Beautiful, Autor thinks, smiling as his gaze lands on the girl surrounded by stardust. And destructive.

He raises his hands to catch the fireflies as he crosses to Punie. Of course, by the time he stands before her, he's been touched by Midas. Brushing off his blazer is as useless as as removing sun streaks, and his hair may as well be gilded.

He doesn't care.

Autor removes his glasses to clean them--a sign of trust, indeed, as he's blind without them. "I must confess that I envy you your magic," he says, "but I do not envy the people who will have to clean up after us."

"Oh, that won't be necessary."

It is just as well that Autor has taken off his glasses, as it will spare him and his vision the brunt of what happens next.

At the center of the glittering storm, Punie raises her other hand and snaps her fingers once, loud and sharp.

The resulting flare is utterly blinding, engulfing both of them in a soundless explosion that nonetheless packs a good deal more punch than the original bomb's detonation.

There's not a mark on either of them by the time anyone's vision has a chance to clear. No scorches on grass or clothing, no scratches on glass or skin that were not there before Autor threw the shell into the air. The glitter has vanished entirely, down to the slightest traces, and all that remains is a faint haze around them and a slightly acrid smell, like that left behind by burnt gunpowder.

Punie's smile is as bright as ever.

(She did promise him an extra-special explosion, after all.)

Autor tilts his head, listening to her tone before he processes her words. His instincts tell him to run again, but before he--Snap.

The boy rides out the flare with one arm thrown above his face, having automatically dropped into the disconnected state his brain assumes when threatened. He grits his teeth to avoid hurling an invective just as he hurled the bomb.

And then, stillness. He blinks a few times, finishes cleaning his glasses, and then replaces them on his face.

"Neat trick," he says, trying to focus on her with vision still spotted with white. "I suspect that is a fraction of your magical power?" She'd crush me. How delightful. "Why did you choose to make the secondary explosion silent?"

Her snap still rings in his ears.

Edited 2013-03-14 17:09 (UTC)

"I didn't want to leave a mess all over everything. And the first explosion was loud enough, wasn't it?" She beams at him. "You made it really strong. I just made it magical."

Punie will happily give credit where credit is due. If it encourages him to keep playing with fire, so much the better.

She holds up her wand. "Did you want to try anything else?"

Autor tries not to grin at that pop of unexpected praise. He really does. Clearing his throat in an effort to prevent his flush, he turns to the rest of the bombs.

"Well, there is one more of those," he says, gesturing to the other powder keg, "and, of course, the flash bangs."

He draws one of the paper-wrapped cylinders out of his pocket. Which, in retrospect, is not the best place to keep something packed with powders, both black and aluminum. The thought that she might blow his hand off occurs to him again, and he shivers.

"Not that it matters, but these have an ignition mechanism rather than a fuse," he says, pointing out the long, curled piece of paper on the end. "The grenade takes less than a second to set off once you tug here, so you need to be prepared for the light and sound. I'm working on a version which explodes on impact."

Now he grins. "A little flare like this will likely be paltry compared to what you've just done, but we shall see."

Edited (unfinished thoughts all over.) 2013-03-14 17:42 (UTC)

Punie studies the cylinder with interest. Her expression isn't quite calculating, but she is definitely weighing possible options -- most of which fortunately do not involve setting it off without warning.

"This time...hm. Maybe set it on the ground? It'll be easier to watch it that way." A slight tilt of her head. "Though it's more of a surprise if it can explode just before impact. You wouldn't want to give someone even that little bit of extra time to see it and get out of the way, right?"

Autor tilts his head. Clearly the gears are spinning. "Good point. Aside from creating a tiny"--there's that word again--"fuse, I haven't made any progress towards grenades that explode before impact. Hmm. I'll think on that."

Autor turns his back on her and feels his heart speed up in the process, lest she change her mind and blow him up from a distance. He walks about five feet away and gingerly--strange, I didn't have a problem handling this before--lays the grenade on a dry-ish patch of earth.

Then he jogs back to her and stands closer than before, with his hands resting on his hips. Marginally closer.

"Your move," he says, gesturing with the hand he's not using to adjust his glasses.

Punie hums thoughtfully. The explosion will be much smaller than that from the heavier shell, but she can still harness its energy.

This time, she brings her wand down in a sharp slashing motion, so quickly that there is an audible zip of displaced air. It seems to have a ripple effect, as the flash-bang grenade suddenly leaps into the air, spinning upwards as if struck from below.

When it explodes a moment later, a few feet above the ground, the entire force of the blast is directed down at the exact spot where Autor had placed it.

...for the amount of powder involved, the resulting crater is impressive to say the least. It is barely a foot in diameter, and almost as deep, but it is as neat and perfect a circle as if Punie had drawn it with a pair of compasses.

This time, her hum is short and satisfied. "It helps to have a target," she says, glancing at Autor. Deliberately.

Autor glances back, just as deliberately, and raises a brow. "I presented my back to you while I was holding the bomb. Why didn't you take advantage of that?"

You can take me out at any time, he thinks. Why not now, with a weapon and vulnerabilities of my own devising?

Showing his back to her yet again, he smirks and saunters to the new hole in the ground. "I'd hate to think of you as going soft," he says, looking for a stick to explore the smoothness of the packed-earth.

Once there, he tilts his head and offers her a lop-sided, nearly-but-not-quite-gentle smile. "You probably don't need any of these, but if you have an interest, I can make some for you the next time, when you're, er, when you watch..."

Trailing off, Autor clears his throat. He resumes poking at the hole with his stick, thoroughly impressed with her scalpel-like precision.

"Why should I want to take advantage of it?" Surprisingly, Punie almost looks hurt, or at the very least disappointed. If it's an act, it's a convincing one, as she scuffs the earth with the toe of one shoe. "Do you want me to? It's not a very nice thing to tease someone about, if you don't. You don't need to make things easier for me."

There is a moment's pause before she adds, with careful emphasis:

"I wouldn't want you to make things easier for me."

In a twisted way, this is as near to a confession as Punie is likely to come.

The change in her demeanor punches him in the chest. At first, Autor blanches, and his jaw drops. Then his cheeks burn hotter than the powder keg, and darker than the reddest of his smoke bombs.

"Really? That's funny," he murmurs, dropping the stick as he moves to her. "I thought you'd say something like, 'I wouldn't get to hear you scream'."

Autor stands before her, bowing slightly as he folds a clenched fist behind his back. His gaze smolders with jealousy, hatred, and a competitive flame.

"You're creative," he says, offering his hand. "So surprise me. But yes, I will fight you every step of the way."

He hopes it's a long way.

The color is high in her cheeks as well, healthy and pink with a maiden's flush of youth. She couldn't look more delighted.

"I'll do my very best," she promises him -- and then her expression shifts as she adds, suddenly cold and serene, "If I don't have a person or two by my side who wants to kill me, how can I call myself the Queen?"

She still has her wand in her hand, but magic won't do here. Not with the incendiary he surely has primed and waiting for her the moment she starts to reach for his hand.

However, a swift strike of her right foot to the sensitive spot just above his left kneecap -- not hard enough to break anything, but forceful enough to send white-hot pain shooting up and down his leg -- may do quite nicely for a start.

Her tone cools his belly, and prepares him for the coming pain, but not nearly enough. Autor doesn't give her the satisfaction of his crying out, though she may catch the sharp intake of breath through his teeth.

Still glaring through his pained smile, he drops to one knee as gracefully as he can manage--pretending, of course, that it's not the buckling that causes him to bow before her for a second time, but intent. He snatches her hand while he's falling, drawing her knuckles to his lips, but only for a second--tiny bombs with tiny fuses tend to explode mightily, he's learned.

And, of course, just after he captures her fingers, he lets loose the expected grenade at her feet with his other hand.

She can't deny that her heart skips a beat when he takes her hand, which only adds to her excitement.

The live grenade between them is no small part of that excitement as well.

Autor's already in motion, so part of her reaction is made a little easier. It's the work of a moment to flick her wand and send the grenade flying in the opposite direction, then yank him forward, leaping back to put them both mostly clear of the immediate blast radius. She can feel her shoulder dislocate from the sharp motion, but she had expected as much, and the most important thing is to avoid the shock wave from the explosion.

(She has years of training, and any number of brief shielding spells. He has neither.)

Punie manages to land on her feet, skidding briefly before coming to a half-crouched stop. Autor lands with far less grace -- mostly on his side, partly on his stomach -- several feet behind her, having skidded much farther than that.

Okay, now he's never laughed so hard in his life. Apparently abject terror is the best way to catapult him into a giggle-fit.

He pushes himself into a sitting position, and tests his leg before standing. It hurts--oh, everything hurts, so very much--but facing her down on his own two feet is more than worth any pain. Carefully, he pats down his hair and brushes what mud he can from his blazer.

"Your reflexes are about what I expected," he says, smirking.

Though why take me with you on your flight, young maiden? he wonders, tilting his head. You'd prefer I had bruises rather than burns?

He has flash bang grenades in his pockets if she wants to give it another go, but then he'd not be surprising her. He'll have to come up with something else.

Punie turns, enough for him to see her right arm hanging mostly useless at her side. A quick push sets the shoulder back into its socket -- with a sound that shoulders should not normally make -- and she rolls it gently to secure it in place.

"It was easier because you were moving." And because you were holding my hand. Her skirt has a bit of dirt on it as well, near the hem; she dusts it off as best she can. "You didn't think I'd let you get blown up into little tiny bits, did you? I still want to watch you make some more of your explosives."

And give him some more time to plot his next move.

Autor's eyes widen at her arm; he didn't actually think she'd been hurt. In fact, he still can't picture her damaged, as immortal as she is. He finds the dust on her skirt fascinating.

That he didn't do any of that is terribly irritating.

Ah, so she does know I'm not a fighter! Autor thinks. A frown supplants his smile, but only for a moment. Of course she knows. My stance gives me away. Well, I'll have to work within those limits, until I break them.

"That's very generous of you," he says, holding his hands out, palms up, as he crosses to her. He sighs, closing his eyes. "I'll try my best to make you regret the kindness you bear me."

Her cute fluffy mascot has sworn a bloody oath to never give her a moment's true peace. Her adorable little sisters would try -- have tried -- to remove her from the line of succession without a second thought. Even her beloved mother is eagerly awaiting the day when the heir to the throne will step forward to claim it, and only one of them will survive the outcome.

All the same, Punie has been looking for a new challenge. She may have found one.

And he blushes easily.

With her free hand, she takes one of his outstretched ones. "It's not kindness, silly," she says, with just a hint of teasing. "It's patience."

In fact, he's blushing now, as bright as a flame laced with strontium chloride. The boy doesn't wince, fearing reprisal for the grenade trick, but he does bite his bottom lip at the feather-light pressure of her fingers.

She has such delicate hands, he thinks, running his thumb over her knuckles. Delicate, and able to break my wrist in a heartbeat.

"Oh?" he says lightly, curling his lips into a fierce smirk. He doesn't notice the way his voice dropped into a rough timbre. "What a rare gift I've been given, then. Is your patience often rewarded?"

He's pretty sure he knows the answer to that, but... Surprise me.

She nods, smiling up at him. "And I can be very, very patient..."

Still holding his hand, she brings her other one up between them, to her eye level. Her candy-cane-striped Princess Rod is tucked against her palm, held securely by three fingers -- but pinched between her thumb and forefinger is one of Autor's remaining flash-bang rounds, picked from his pocket in his moment of distraction.

"...when I want to be."

Autor doesn't dare jerk his hand of her hold; she'd snap his fingers with little effort. His heartbeat slams his inner ears.

She managed to pin him, disarm him, threaten him, insult him, and embarrass him--all in a move. That she needs patience to deal with him, that she's waiting for him to catch up is just...

Oh, how he hates her.

"Cute," he murmurs, grinning fiercely. With his free hand, he reaches out, slowly, and--if she lets him--flicks her gently on the ear.

Remarkably, Punie does let him -- and she giggles softly, because it tickles.

(He has a lot of promise, and a lot of hatred, and she likes both almost equally.)

It doesn't stop her from immediately hooking a foot around his ankle and knocking him off-balance, of course. But the maneuver isn't to throw him to the ground, or pin him down, or do him (further) injury in retribution. Instead, still holding his hand, she twirls them both around until they're facing the direction of the bar.

"We should go and clean up," she declares pertly. "All these yucky powders on our hands and clothes might make the tea taste bad."

Autor probably also needs a bandage or six at this point.