LAND OF THE BLIND
Author:
Notmanos
E-mail:
notmanos
at yahoo dot com
Rating:
R
Disclaimer:
The characters of Angel are owned by 20th Century Fox
and Mutant Enemy; the character of Wolverine is also owned by 20th
Century Fox and Marvel
Comics. No copyright infringement is intended. I'm not making any
money off of this, but if
you'd like to be
-------------------------------------------a patron of the arts, I won't object. ;-) Oh, and Bob and his bunch are all mine - keep your hands off! 8
Logan was content to go alone, but no one was content to let him. So while Logan went back to his place to shower and change, he, Angel, and Giles did a bit of brainstorming. Brendan was the only one who knew where the pier seventeen was, so he was vital to the planning, and he was glad. He did feel useful, and it was nice for a change to not feel like the third wheel, the guy who was just kind of there, like an extra on the bridge of a Star Trek set. It was obvious Angel couldn’t go. If he killed the guy in the first place, he wasn’t going to be welcomed with open arms, and he knew it, but he didn’t like the idea of Logan going in there without back up. Ironically, Giles didn’t seem concerned at all. “Logan is more than capable of taking care of himself,” he said coolly. “Probably more capable than any of us. I wouldn’t worry about him.” Angel gave him a funny look, then asked him what Brendan had been wondering as well: “How do you know him?” Which led to Giles telling them a story about a crazed Watcher who cut a deal with an evil demi-god to open a Hellmouth in the heart of London, presumably to give the good guys a “focal point” for the battle against evil. He and Logan faced the Watcher down, and Logan cut him in half. “He said he could have controlled it better if Ned hadn’t been trying to burn his face off,” Giles concluded, as if that hadn’t been a really bizarre thing to say. “I’ve no idea, but I do believe most people probably need protection from Logan, not vice versa. It‘s a good thing he‘s on our side.” Angel didn’t disagree, but he said, “That doesn’t mean he can’t be hurt.” “I know,” Giles replied, with the same sense of reserve as before. “But having seen his face grow back, I have a difficult time working up an overwhelming sense of concern.” There was no good answer to that, was there? Although it was a hard sell, Brendan was able to convince them he could go along with Logan - in full Brachen face - just to make sure he could get in with little incident. After all, these fights weren’t technically open to Humans, although no one in the room had any doubt that Logan would win every single fight, no matter what demon opponent they threw in with him. Fighting was his thing, after all, and as Giles had pointed out, he had a gift for it. Giles figured he could use a type of cloaking spell to make him smell demon to other demons, allowing him to at least enter the crowd without gaining too much attention. He’d be checking out the lieutenants in the audience, and deciding which one was the most likely prospect for tailing - and Brendan figured, keeping an eye on him, although neither Giles nor Angel said that. But he was the “kid”, and they were being protective of him. Angel would be loitering in the shadows outside, ready to intervene if there was any trouble, but they all considered that a last resort, as it would blow their cover. There was a curious conversational aside between Angel and Giles, Angel asking cryptically if “she” was all right, never naming the she in question, but Giles seemed to know, and said she was. Brendan was dying to know what that was about, but since they said it in whispered tones, he knew he wasn’t supposed to have heard that. Wasn’t that always the way? He was always shut out of the really good gossip. He and Giles waited in the lobby for Logan’s return, as it was starting to get awkward in Angel’s small, dark room. Giles asked him about himself, which Brendan always found a thorny topic, and yet there was something so avuncular and calming about Giles that he ended up telling him everything: how his mom was in prison on drug charges, and would have done less time if she’d actually killed someone. How he wrote her letters every month, although he’d never gotten around to mentioning he was a mutant, nor that he discovered he was half demon. He’d never known his father, and his mom had never talked about him, making him wonder if she even knew he was a demon, since she had struggled with her drug problem all her life, and quite possibly didn’t even know who his father was. He also talked about how Matt had been killed by vampires, leading him to this choice of profession. Giles listened with few comments, and when he did talk, he gave him what seemed to be sage advice, re! minding him that being controlled by his own passions when it came to vampires could be deadly, and if he was determined to actually become some kind of vampire hunter, it was safer to not only be in a group, but to learn from someone who had been doing it for some time. Brendan just wasn’t sure if he was referring to himself, Angel, or Logan. Maybe all of them. Logan showed before sunset, and Brendan just didn’t know how he did it. He was wearing what was clearly a new green tank top out of the package - there was still a crease in it where it was folded, just at mid chest level - jeans old enough to be carbon dated, with small holes and what could have been cigarette burns sparsely sprinkled about the legs, and hiking boots that looked like they’d done their share of hiking. And he looked great, like some macho icon that just stepped out of a drive in movie screen. How the fuck did he do that? If he wore stuff like that, he always looked as schleppy as hell, like he should be holding a sign on a freeway off ramp. Maybe it was just the attitude. Logan clearly didn’t give a rat’s ass what anyone thought of him, how he looked or who he was, and that was just cool and sexy. You couldn’t fake that, or at least not well - you had it or you didn’t. It wasn’t arrogance, but it wasn’t exactly sang-froid either; Logan just honestly didn’t give a shit. Could he die tonight? Was the world going to end? Was the restaurant going to be full? All of this was a big “whatever” to him, he’d adapt, which was frightening in its basic nihilism, and yet still wildly attractive. Or maybe he just never got over his “bad boy” thing. Or it was Logan’s arms. He had great arms, like he had a great chest; in fact, the shirt was tight and thin enough that you could see the contours of his chest, and a shadow of hair beneath, and … he really needed to stop thinking like this. Logan was a friend and mentor and you didn’t think about them that way, especially if they were straight and there was no way in hell they’d ever look at you in the same way. And if he was ever so inclined, he could kick his ass from here to San Bernardino. So no, he couldn’t think of him that way, as much as he wanted to, as fun as it was. He tried to get his head in the game, ignoring the lust, which was difficult. He managed, though, and Thrak’s cab screeched up to the front of the hotel just in time. They piled in, although Giles hesitated and stared at Thrak, wondering aloud how an Ugg demon could possibly drive (Logan’s response: “Don’t ask. Don’t even think about it, unless you want nightmares for weeks.”) but then they got under way. Thrak raced to their destination like it was a contest, and as he cornered wildly, Brendan found himself smashed up against Logan a couple of times. It was not nearly as fun as it should have been, since Logan gave new meaning to the term “hard body” - holy shit, how was he ever comfortable in his own skin? Then again, there was something appealing about a guy with such a solid body … No, that way led to trying to picture Logan naked, and madness. Thrak actually brought them to the waterfront, but not the specific pier, as there was no way to drive on that. Which was fine, as no one wanted to stay in the cab a moment longer, and it gave Giles a chance to cast the spell on himself while Brendan showed Logan where the abandoned nightclub was (closed down due to fire code violations about four months ago - apparently the wiring in the structure was really shoddy and dangerous, and the owner couldn’t afford to have the place rewired). They looked on, crouched behind someone’s beater car, and watched as demons started to filter in, the sky turning crimson over the gray-blue ocean as the angry red eye of the sun began to set. It was equally beautiful and eerie. “No vamps in this?” Logan asked. That was a good question. He tried to remember what Thrak had gargled at him, but since he had an eidetic memory - his utterly useless mutant power - the only reason he had any problems with recall was his proximity to “The Chest”, as he and some of the girls at school used to call it. (Logan’s chest seemed to deserve its own capitals.) “No. Brezakaran wants soldiers as close to invulnerable as possible. Vamps are usually good for that, until you get into the whole daylight issue.” Logan nodded. “He wants twenty four hour party people. Figures.” See, did you have to take a class to learn how to say pithy things like that? Or did you just learn it as you went along? He never had a good quip until after the fact. They already had a plan as to how they were going to handle this. Giles, faking being a half-breed, was going to go in the front, just an audience member here for the fights. He and Logan were going to go around to the back, the fighter’s entrance, and try and get in. Bren was going to be playing his “agent”, and since his age was hard to discern in Brachen face, they figured they could get away with that. They assumed that the screeners would give Logan a hard time since he was Human, but Logan was ready for them. Since he was supposed to be just his “agent”, Logan told him to hang back and not interfere, no matter how the fight seemed to be going - he had to impress them on his own, and he intended to. Far be it from him to get in Logan’s way, especially if he was mad. They let Giles go first, then waited five minutes before approaching the back entrance. Brendan decided he’d try and be like Ratso Rizzo, in Midnight Cowboy, but then remembered the character was technically a pimp, and also he died. So maybe just the generic huckster then. He’d dated Matt for a long time, hadn’t he? He should know how to do it. The screeners at the back door were two types of demons he’d never encountered before. They were big - six six and six five, respectively - with broad chests even bigger and more muscular than Logan’s, and arms as thick as telephone poles. The tallest one was as red as a sunburn, completely hairless, with a crown of tiny horns, no bigger than a vampire’s fangs, growing in a semi-circle around his scalp. His eyes were small and close set, making his face look permanently pinched and pissed off. The slightly shorter guy was Saint Tropez tan, with an almost Human guise offset slightly by the fact that his nose was just a couple of small slits in the center of his face, and he just had the one eye - one big eye, about the size of a grapefruit, chocolate brown with a bright orange pupil, and his buzz cut black hair wasn’t hair on closer inspection; it was something a little more wiry, and seemed to move on its own, waving back and forth in obvious contradiction to the directi! on of the wind. One smelled like cheap aftershave, and the other smelled like coleslaw, although he wasn’t as good as parsing smells as Logan, so he didn’t know which was which. The red guy elbowed the cyclops and gestured to them as they came up, and they started laughing. “We didn’t order any food,” the red guy said to him, as his cyclops buddy laughed so hard he had to turn away and wipe a big ass tear from his eye. How was he going to play this? Well, how would Matt play this? Brendan looked the red guy straight in the eye, and said, “Sorry, see were looking for the Octavian matches. I didn’t realize this was the sissy boy gang bang. Point us in the right direction, and you can get back to blowing donkeys, or whatever it is you people do.” Matt was gay and as suave as hell, but there was nothing he enjoyed more than a really nasty, bitchy insult. They stopped laughing rather abruptly, and gave him laser intensity glares. If Logan hadn’t been with him, radiating quiet but palpable menace, he may have been worried. But he wasn’t, because he knew Logan was just waiting for an excuse to go medieval on their asses. “What the hell did you just say, you punk bitch?” the red guy snapped. “Are you afraid to let me in to your little dog and pony show?” Logan said, his voice pitched so low it was a soft rumble. It worked as well as a slap. Both the red guy and the cyclops shifted their baleful stares to Logan, and Logan stared back implacably, violently unimpressed. The red guy reached out and snagged the front of Logan’s tank top, ripping it as he balled the material in his fist and pulled Logan closer to him. “You wanna get killed, Human?” Logan never broke his stare. “Get your hand off me.” “Make me, fuckhead,” the red guy spat in his face. Famous last words. Brendan took a step back instantly, to avoid getting blood on his clothes. Logan moved so fast that the guy probably didn’t even see it coming. He gave red a quick, brutal rabbit punch to the throat, which made him gag and loosen his grip. As soon as the red guy took a step back, Logan grabbed his arm and twisted, fast and hard - the sound of his bone snapping was as loud as a firecracker. The red guy dropped to his knees, making a strange noise like a leaking balloon, and the cyclops rushed in from the side to protect his buddy, throwing a roundhouse punch, three inch spikes suddenly growing all along his arms and hands. Logan saw the attack coming and stepped under the punch, delivering a hard punch to the cyclops’ midsection, one that made all the air rush out of him in an “oof”. He followed that up instantly with a stiff handed, open palm shot to the underside of the cyclops’ chin, making his head snap back so violently he stumbled back and lost his balance, falling hard onto his ass. By that time, Logan had already spun into a low side kick that impacted the cyclops’ head so hard that Brendan winced, and was honestly surprised that his eyeball had flown straight out of its oversized socket. Logan was back looking down at the red guy, fist pulled back in a threatening manner, before the cyclops thudded to the pier. “Is that all you got, asshole?” he gro! wled. The red guy looked up at him with a sneer, but the tears running from his eyes as he struggled to draw a breath undercut any desired menace. He gestured to the door behind him with his good hand, and rasped, “Go get yourself killed, ape man. I’ll enjoy watchin’ you get dismembered.” Logan looked at him, and suddenly his grim game face broke, and he gave him a sly grin and a wink before mouthing the words “Too easy”. See, you just couldn’t fake cool like that. No non-combatants were allowed through the back, so as soon as Logan had disappeared through the door, he left the screener demons to lick their wounds and regain consciousness (how cool was that? He didn’t even have to pop his claws) and went through the crowd entrance, although he was barely able to squeeze in - the place was packed, virtually to the rafters. The rafters were pretty close too, because for some reason the floor was raised. The Orbital electronica classic “Satan” pounded through the walls as he squeezed through the demon bodies, some smelling much better than others, but his Brachen spikes finally came in handy, helping him clear a path through the crowd. He got to the bar and grabbed a beer before searching for Giles. It took him a while, but he finally found him near the railing looking down at the fighter’s pit in the dead center of the club, explaining the raised floor. There was a clear spot on the right side wall, and as soon as static flickered through it, he knew why - t.v. wall, so everybody could see the carnage no matter where they stood. As he came up beside Giles, he looked at him askance, and it seemed to take the guy a couple of seconds to recognize him beneath the red spikes and teal skin. “How’re you doing?” he asked, trying not to be offended. Giles hadn’t seen him in his demon face before, so that was only fair. “I think my ears are bleeding,” he replied, scowling slightly at the unseen speakers. He then pointedly glanced at the bottle of Wicked Pale Ale he was holding, and asked, “Are you old enough for that?” He scoffed, and claimed, “They carded me. So yeah.” Which wasn’t true at all - if you were a demon, no demon bar “carded” you - but he was hoping that Giles hadn’t been in enough demon bars to know that. Although he looked dubious, he couldn’t prove he was lying or rip it out of his hand, so he looked down at the pit with a “harrumph”. After a moment, he asked, “How did it go?” “Smooth as butter. Logan didn’t even break a sweat taking them out. Hell, he didn’t even have to unleash the hardware. He’s a total stud.” Giles gave him a funny look for the, but then shrugged. “Well, he’s … something.” Suddenly the music and lights started to fade, and a microphone descended from the ceiling, coming to a stop directly over the empty white pit as it lit up, as if from a hidden spotlight. A man flew out of the crowd on four gossamer wings and hovered over the pit, so he could speak directly into the mike. He was a slender Gaizkin demon, two and a half feet long, with a thin, tapered body covered in a smooth, waxy white carapace, his head bulbous and dominated by two huge segmented eyes, four of his eight slender arms/legs grabbed the mike, and his mandibles opened. At first there was just a clicking noise, but it soon translated. “Welcome to tonight’s fights! We have a full card, so let’s get under way. Remember, no throwing objects at the combatants, and no jumping in the pit - unless you’re prepared to die. Open the gates!” Brendan could just barely see three doors on either side of the pit. Two opened, and a demon emerged from each - one a thickly muscled green Ressik, the other a vaguely bluish Humanoid demon he didn’t recognize. “How soon before Logan comes up, you think?” Brendan asked, as the fight commenced. It didn’t last long - as soon as the Ressik could grab the blue guy’s head, he snapped his neck with a violent crack, and seemed to be ripping his head clean off his neck with his bare hands. He tore it free with a noise that was so wet and disgusting that Bren actually thought he might vomit even though he was looking away. He guessed that the Ressik was holding up the head when the crowd cheered wildly, but he didn’t look. He looked at Giles instead, who blanched, and seemed not to like what he was seeing, but mostly he just looked angry. “Soon. They’ll get the weak ones out of the way first.” “Weak? Logan isn’t weak!” “No, but he’s Human. To most demons, that equals weak.” “Let’s hear it for the winner, Auvaukan!” the Gaizkin clicked over the crowd’s roar. They roared even louder, and Brendan looked back down into the pit in time to see a couple of dreadlocked Hunhau demons come out of that mysterious third door and drag the dead body through the hatch. He couldn’t help but wonder if they’d dump it in the ocean, or chop it up for someone’s breakfast. “I think I see a lieutenant,” Giles muttered, gaining his attention. Brendan followed his gaze across the pit. On the other side, almost directly across from them, was a nattily dressed Ahtabai demon, which could pass for Human, save for their pointed “elf” ears, triangular fingernails, and slitted eyes like snakes. Beside him were two muscular Freniks with no necks, whose demeanor just screamed bodyguards. Neither he nor Giles stared, because that would have been suspicious. “How do we get to him?” Brendan wondered. “We don’t. We wait. When we get a chance, we’ll get closer. If Logan does his job right, that’s all we’ll need to do.” There was another bout, but this one took a bit longer, as the two demons seemed more evenly matched. He didn’t recognize either breed. The bloody fight eventually ended up with a disemboweling, as the brown demon with a tapered snout like a hyena obviously had teeth like them as well. Brendan was amazed how quickly the Hunhaus could clean up all the blood and body parts. After announcing the winner, who disappeared through the door he entered through, the Gaizkin said, “We have an … unusual contestant tonight, perhaps he has a suicide wish. Place your bets now - this should be over soon.” He didn’t identify anyone, but he didn’t need to. Clearly they were referring to the Human. The gate beneath them opened, and a large, gray, armor shouldered Ghaddar demon came out, all scales and muscle, with a face that was half teeth; the other half looked like it had been smashed in with a cast iron skillet. The gate across the way opened, and out stalked a shirtless - oh Christ in a bucket, you could eat dinner off those pecs - Logan, his attitude saying that he just owned the place, in spite of the general height and width advantage that the Ghaddar had on him. The crowd reacted with great confusion, several pockets of the crowd laughed contemptuously, and the Ghaddar seemed to look at the spectators at the upper railings as if appealing for some explanation as to why he’d been given the gag prize. Logan ignored the crowd, ignored the noise, and just started stalking towards the Ghaddar. Logan’s usual strategy was to wait for the other guy to attack, unless something really pissed him off, so Brendan figured he was trying to goad the Ghaddar into making the first move. Although he’d always known that being on the defensive was not a position you wanted to be in ever, Logan told him once that he liked to see a guy’s fighting style, which he could usually roughly discern by his choice of attack. He didn’t recommend it for anyone who didn’t have a rapid and thorough healing factor; it was just a thing he liked to do. He liked to see their weak spot, and hit it hard. The Ghaddar finally noticed his approach, and lunged for him, provoking an approving and amused roar from the crowd. “Tear that dog up!” a woman shouted gleefully. Logan was slammed into the far wall by the Ghaddar, his throat in its big gloved hands, and it looked like the Ghaddar was trying to repeat what the Ressik did to its victim in the first match. Logan let the crowd work itself into a frenzy before he took control. He did several things at once, which was all the more remarkable for the fact that he was being strangled at the same time. He launched a solid kick that landed right between the Ghaddar’s legs with a painful thump, and grabbed one of the Ghaddar’s fingers, yanking it back until it snapped like a twig. He loosened his grip on his neck, and Logan twisted and slammed a solid elbow - an adamantium laced elbow - in his mutilated face. The Ghaddar staggered away, struggling to stay on its feet as its ears probably rung and its balls surely hurt, and the crowd let out a horrified gasp, the cheering dying suddenly as confusion suddenly reigned. The Ghaddar was probably more stunned than any of them - he couldn’t know about the metal in Logan’s body, the metal that gave him that little extra something, especially when he didn’t hold back. He wasn’t holding back anymore. The Ghaddar lunged for him once more, but Logan side stepped this time, coming in at the last second to trip him, and send the Ghaddar slamming face first into the wall. The crowd was growing hostile, although confusion roiled beneath the surface. Giles touched his arm, and they started threading through the crowd towards the lieutenant. “This hasta be a joke,” a demon muttered to his companion as they went past. Logan grabbed the Ghaddar by the back of the head and rammed his face into the wall several times, hard enough that you could almost feel it, and the crowd was now reacting in disgust. He followed up with a vicious kidney punch - well, it would have been a kidney punch on a Human; no telling what it was on a Ghaddar - but then just backed off, as if going to his separate corner. Why? Brendan wasn't sure, unless he was milking it, or just because he wanted to piss off the crowd, which was starting to sound like a single angry entity. He cast a glance down into the pit, and thought he caught, briefly, a nasty little grin on Logan's face. Yep, he was pissing off the crowd. Perhaps a payback for the initial laughter. God, that guy just loved to push his luck. And what did it say about his sad psychological make up that he found that insanely attractive? Although there was a smear of rust brown blood on the wall from his split open head, the Ghaddar gathered his wits and launched off the wall with a roar, armored shoulder aimed squarely at Logan. Logan did nothing, just seemed to wait for it, and Brendan stopped to watch, suddenly sure he was going to get himself splattered. Why didn't he ... Oh. Logan stepped aside at the last second, and sprung his claws. They cut straight through the Ghaddar's shoulder, which he didn't notice until the crowd seemed to inhale as one, a shocked intake that would have been comical under any other circumstances. The Ghaddar looked at the blood fountaining from his left arm socket in alarm, then noticed his arm laying on the floor near the center of the pit. "Withdraw," Logan shouted, and it was loud in the sudden silence of the crowd. "I don't wanna cut you to pieces." Now the crowd was coming back to life in hostile murmurs. "That's no Human," one hissed. "Aren't those weapons?" said another. "They aren't allowed weapons." "Mutie," one said, so contemptuously it sounded like a curse. "Fucking mutie." The Ghaddar seemed momentarily confused, and stared between his arm and Logan for a good, long moment. "Fuck you, mammal!" he finally replied, and shook off the glove on his right hand, revealing that it wasn't so much a hand as it was a talon, a gnarled appendage ending in ten inch claws on each of his three fingers. He jumped up, almost like he had springs in his legs, and came down right behind Logan. Who was ready for him. He crouched down instantly as the Ghaddar's claws cut through the air where his chest used to be, and jabbed his claw behind him without looking, cutting right through the Ghaddar's left leg. Correction: he cut it off, just below the knee joint, which became obvious when the Ghaddar fell over, the bottom half of its leg remaining firmly planted on the floor. He was taking him apart in pieces, like he was the Black Knight. More blood spurted from the wound, and the crowd was now angry. While it showed that it enjoyed dismemberment in the previous match, apparently they only enjoyed it if the thing doing the dismembering was a demon. Before the Ghaddar could recover from this wound, Logan finished the job, driving his claws through what passed for his throat and ripping to one side. His head didn't violently detach, just did so gently, rolling to one side in a brief cascade of blood. It was a mercy killing at this point, since Brendan couldn't see how the Ghaddar could have survived with a major artery in its leg severed. Someone in the crowd screamed in horror - one of those that had been cheering when the Ressik held up his opponent's severed head. The rest of the crowd followed with noises of angry discontent, and it sounded dangerous, like they were about to storm the pit en masse. Brendan looked around, wondering what they should do, and Giles grabbed his arm and whispered, "Don't look suspicious. We're not with him." "But ... Giles, what if they do something?" "Then Logan will kill them. I seriously doubt there's anyone in this crowd he can't handle." That was a good point. A chant started up from the back, "Kill the Human!", and while the Hunhaus came out to get the body, the gate didn't open for Logan, so he remained in the pit. Although he looked annoyed, he didn't seemed surprised. But then again, Logan did these sort of "ultimate fighting" things as a partial career, didn't he? He just didn't use the claws - well, as far as he knew. Without declaring him the winner, without announcing the next match, the opponent gate opened, and the ugliest damn thing that Brendan had ever seen came out. It looked like a walking blob, covered in black bristly hair, like the kind you found on flies. It had four very long tentacle like arms, and while he couldn't discern a face or any shape to its body beyond spheroid, it seemed to have a shark's mouth where its torso should be, a wide and lipless gash with three rows of small, jagged ivory teeth. "What the hell is that?" he asked. Giles sucked a sharp breath through his teeth. "A Thulu demon. They'll eat anything that moves, and some things that don't. I didn't know they came this far North." "Global warming?" The Englishman shrugged. "Perhaps." Two of the Thulu demons' tentacled arms whipped up, grabbed the lowest railing, and started swinging around the pit like a demented Tarzan that supplied his own vines. Logan watched it, growing increasingly annoyed, and finally the thing swung down at him, mouth first. Logan ducked the bite, but just barely (how big did its mouth open?! Was its whole body its mouth?), and slashed up at the same time, cutting into it, making something green - blood? - splash down to the pit floor. But while that happened, two of its other tentacles grabbed Logan's arms, and yanked him forward towards its gaping maw. Brendan grabbed the rail, tensing in anxiety, and Giles put a hand on his shoulder, both comforting and restraining. Logan was on his own here. The thing bit Logan's head, and probably would have taken the top of his skull clean off ... except Logan didn't have a normal skull, did he? Not anymore; not with all that adamantium in him. The thing's teeth punctured his skin but broke on the adamantium, falling to the pit like shards of broken glass. It made a strange buzzing noise, like an angry wasp, and while Logan was in a really awkward position - arms restrained by tentacles, head partially jammed in the creature's mouth - he somehow wasn't defenseless. He jumped up, and kicked hard into the creature's midsection/lower mouth, and the thing's grip on him was so strong he was able to do it again, a donkey kick right to the gut. Apparently the key to making Logan defenseless was nailing all his limbs down, and even then you were taking your chances. The Thulu figured out he was just helping his opponent hurt him and slackened its grip, letting Logan fall to the pit floor, but that meant Logan had some room to maneuver now. This time he kicked up straight into its mouth, sending even more of its teeth flying, and you could hear the things hit the walls as hard as pebbles. The crowd was now watching the spectacle in mute, dangerous horror. Enraged, the thing screeched and let go of one of Logan’s arms so he could slam him face first into the wall, hard enough that the floor seemed to shake. He then slammed him into the opposite wall, and then the original one, so fast that Logan looked like a rag doll in his grasp. Brendan wondered what the hell he was thinking - he thought he could win even one pit fight? If it was him down there instead of Logan, he’d be stone dead by now. Just the look of the Thulu was giving him a heavy case of the heebie jeebies. Somehow, Logan - though determination or simple blind luck - was able to slash out with his claws blindly and cut the tentacle that was holding him. It broke free, and Logan went slamming into the wall again, but this time he got his arms up in time to avoid meeting it face first. The thing screeched like a power saw hitting metal, green blood spray from its tentacle stump like a hose, and surged towards Logan, who rolled back up to his feet, but looked terribly groggy. And beaten - he looked like he had a crown of blood, crimson covering his face like a mask even though the bite marks of the Thulu had healed over already. His nose had been broken, but it looked like it was already healing, and the bleeding had slowed to a trickle. Tentacles lashed blindly towards him, but Logan just slashed as a response, and sent another tentacle flying across the pit. “He’s going to do it again,” a voice said, audible in the disgruntled silence of the crowd. Brendan looked, and saw the Ahtabai looking down at the pit with a razor thin smirk, his golden eyes glittering with something like mirth. “He’s going to kill it.” The Ahtabai seemed to find the prospect both impressive and funny as hell. The Thulu threw itself at Logan, as if trying to squish him against the wall, but Logan dropped down and under the Thulu, rapidly punching the underside of the thing - no, not punching, stabbing, splattering himself with thick green blood as he tried to puncture something vital. It screamed again and grabbed Logan’s ankle with one its intact tentacles, dragging him out and tossing him across the pit. But Logan used his claws this time to catch himself on the wall. “Giles, we have to help him,” he hissed in the ex-Watcher’s ear. “He doesn’t need help.” “He doesn’t know how to kill that thing.” “He already did.” Glancing at the television wall, he started to see what Giles was saying. The thing was still screeching and flailing, charging at Logan, but it was leaving a thick trail of green blood in its wake. Logan had punctured something vital; it was still going, but mostly on rage alone. Holy shit. Until this moment, Brendan hadn’t been aware how hard his heart was pounding in his chest, or how tightly he was gripping the railing. Yes, this was Logan, and he should know he could handle all of this, but there was just something about a giant hairy demon that was all appendages and teeth throwing your friend into walls that made you instinctively cringe. As the Thulu made its final lunge, Logan jumped off the wall and landed on top of the thing, plunging his claws into what could theoretically called its back. It bucked and threw Logan off, but that was all it had left. It struggled to stay on its tentacles, slipping in its own blood, and finally plopped down to the floor in a messy heap. Intact tentacles squirmed briefly, then fell slack. The silence was absolute. So much so, he could hear Logan groan as he climbed to his feet and wiped both his blood and the Thulu’s blood off of his face. His chest was now so spattered with red and green he could have been wearing a shirt. He rolled his neck from side to side, as if loosening it up, and the Hunhaus came out to clear out the corpse - but once again, Logan’s gate didn’t open. No; oh hell no. Logan held his bloody arms out as if invitation, a shrug and a tacit “Come and get me” that made the demons in the crowd hiss and boo, and Brendan shook his head in disbelief. How much punishment could one man take? And he wasn’t talking about Logan; he was talking about himself, having to just stand by and watch as the ugliest motherfucking demons he had ever seen tried to beat Logan to death. Everything in him screamed at him to jump in and help. He hadn’t realized it would be so hard just to watch. He just assumed Logan would cut through them all without ever getting hurt. And even worse, he knew Logan would’ve called him an idiot. He knew he was going to get hurt when he agreed to this - Logan didn’t care about pain. He couldn’t be hurt any worse than he already had been. What a sad commentary that was. “Make this interesting,” the Ahtabai shouted, his voice oddly light, like this was amusing side show. “Open it up!” The crowd roared in triumphant approval, and he turned to Giles, alarmed. If they liked it, it couldn’t be good. “What does he mean by that?” Giles looked slightly taken aback, and since that was almost the most emotion he’d ever seen him express, Brendan’s stomach went into instant freefall. “It’s a melee. All the remaining competitors against him.” “What?!” He looked down sharply as the gates opened, and all the remaining demons swarmed out en masse, burying Logan in a sea of angry bodies.
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