#arkights skadi

[petterwass]

Fear The Orca (fanfiction)

Eisenhardt sighed as he looked back over the small band of mercenaries that were snaking their way through the rocky defile towards the small, sleepy and most importantly, unsuspecting village of Flintholdt. While not in any way a soft-hearted perro, he did not care overly much for these kinds of missions.

But in the end, work was work, and if his band didn't take it someone else surely would. And anyway, the band leader, "Carver" Ristjaan wasn't a man to care for hearing dissenting opinions and Eisenhardt was in no mood to be the next fool Carver left flayed and nailed to a tree somewhere for speaking his mind.

All in all, he mused, it would have been better for everyone if the villagers had accepted Rushcorp LLC's "generous" offer to move off the mineral deposits they were squatting on, save his men the exertion. But they hadn't. And so they would die. And he and the rest of the band would get paid.

Suddenly a flash of bright red at the mouth of the defile startled him back to the present: there was a woman standing there who he would have sworn was not there a second ago. Tall and broad of shoulder, clad in dark blue and white, heeled boots and a large, wide-brimmed hat of curious design adding even more to her height and... for some reason clutching a large, bright red plushie of some marine mammal?

Her large eyes seemed empty and almost unfocused, glinting reddish in the waning sunlight and a shock of incredibly white, almost silvery hair flowed down her back.

Clearly some sort of old wandering madwoman, judging be her outfit and white hair. No matter, she would be killed to stop her from raising an alarm.

A shame really, as she was quite beautiful, but they had a schedule to keep, and no time to entertain themselves with her body before killing her.

While he was pondering this, Carver Ristjaan had made his way to the top of the column, apparently intent on claiming this kill for his own. He was more than welcome to, besides Eisenhardt thought that there was something slightly unnerving about this fey white-haired woman and her strange toy.

MOVE, WOMAN. He heard Ristjaan thunder from within that helmet of his, voice grating, like he rinsed his mouth with gravel every morning.

The strange woman just mutely shook her her, almost imperceptibly. Foolishly standing her ground against the mountain of a man.

I WON'T ASK AGAIN!

The woman once again shook her head and spoke.

No. Her voice was soft but held no hint of fear.

SO BE IT THEN!

Ristjaan advanced on the woman, heavy armour plates creaking with the motion and raising his crab-carver, from which he toko his monike, clearly intending to split the insane woman in twain with a single blow.

Eisenhardt breathed out in relief; at least Ristjaan was intending to make this quick, clearly feeling the time pressure. Good, he had no stomach for listening to the screaming of another of Ristjaan's victims for hours. Made it hard to sleep afterward.

As the great axe descended on her, the woman suddenly moved.

Those large red eyes focused and every mercenary in the defile stopped in their tracks, feeling for all in the world like a small minnow that had come to the attention of something large. Something predatory. With lots of large teeth. It was... almost atavistic in a way. Something in that suddenly focused stare that went past his eyes and deep into his most primal reptile brain and grabbed it in a chokehold.

The woman moved like nothing he had ever seen before, flowing easily past Carver's overhead swing inside his guard. One hand snapped out, almost languidly, deceptively soft as her knuckles made contact with the thick haft of Ristjaan's axe and snapping it cleanly in two with a crack.

Then she pivoted and swung, both hand sending the red plushie upwards in a perfect, vicious upswing.

It impacted on Ristjaan's armoured chest with a CRACK! of breaking ribs and the screeching of buckling metal. The large man went flying sideways into the rocky side of the defile, impacting hard enough to crack both his spine and the rock wall before rebouding into the opposite wall, buckling his helmet and Eisenhardt imagined with a wince, probably breaking his skull, before landing with a heavy THUD! again at the white-haired woman's feet. And was still.

Her eyes found Eisenhardt's, having clearly figured out that he was second in command and held him in a fearful iron grip as he began to shake, praying to any gods he could remember that she would stay where she was and not come hunting for him. Because he knew, that if she did, none of his band would leave this defile alive.

He thought that after so many years and so much blood spilled that he did not fear death. But this, being stared at by this...predator, was something completely different.

She didn't. Instead she absentmindedly started to try and clean the blood off her plushie with a small handkerchief, eyes suddenly liquid and empty again.

As she turned, and he saw her silhouette against the sky, something clicked for him, old warnings half-remembered from older mercenaries, warning about monster wearing a broad hat and with inhuman power.

As the mecenaries milled around in confusion, no one being at all eager to walk up to the fearsome woman to either take her on or retrieve Carver's corpse, he turned to his companions.

Sound the retreat. I know who she is, and we ain't getting through here. That there is Skadi, the bounty hunter. Some of you might have heard of her.

They call her the Walking Catastrophe because if you get between her and what she's after you have as much chance as a naked man in the wastelands facing down a Catastrophe; you either get out of the way or you die!

He turned to one of his companions that was carrying a Originium Radio.

Inform Rushcorp that the mission was a bust and return their money. Tell them that Ristjaan was killed by a force of nature and the defile was blocked. Making completeing the mission impossible. And then block any further jobs from them. If the Walking Catastrophe is involved with this village, I want to be nowhere within a hundred miles of the damn place!

The Hunter watched as the mercenaries turned and left, satisfied with having resolved the mission with a minimum of deaths.

[sleepyminty]

Most of them are abysshunters but the bloodborne hunter still the mvp

[wakasagayhime]

funny little ship chart i did so i could tell everyone all about my favorite fishies (original here)

[superchat]

@cerastes hey (: