Ch. 20: Fabian

Rosy didn't recognize this guy, which probably explained why he was still alive. His appearance just annoyed her that much. He was human, tall, but lightly muscled, basically screaming to everyone that he barely ever used the gaudy greatsword on his back. His armor was just as annoying as his weapon of choice, brand new, blindingly white, and absurdly bulky. All of this managed to combine itself into the ultimate affront against every real warrior ever.

A trained warrior himself, even Adrian with his famously cool head would have lost it upon laying eyes on this idiot.

"Where are the people that actually matter?" Rosy asked. She was being scary calm, her vampire coolness at its peak. Sense of danger clearly broken, the idiot slapped her across the face. In response, Rosy's left wrist involuntarily skipped from the rope binding it to the wooden pole holding up the tent. She pressed it against her back in hopes that the pin would bring her back to her senses. Luckily, it just barely worked.

"You clearly don't know who I am, so I'll tell you. My name is Fabian, and I'm responsible for the resistance's supply chain." Connecting the dots managed to both calm and irritate Rosy at the same time.

"You want revenge for your suppliers, then, huh?"

"With you out of the way, we'll be able to get supplies from all four corners of Noctus, expanding our supply lines tenfold." This idiot obviously thought that Rosy chose her own targets to eliminate.

"Yeah, you'll be able to use all those murderers and slavers to supply yourself. If you use the same methods as my father, there's no point in trying to stop him." She explained. 

"It's the only choice that we have."

Angered, Adrian shook his head. "There's almost always another way." He argued.

"Well, neither of you will see it. I'm going to show these people how weak you really are, princess. Once I win, I'll execute both of you." Fabian told them.

"You're insane! You can't duel Rosy!" Adrian told Fabian. Rosy was too busy meditating to control her bloodlust to agree with him.

"You're useless without your mind games, and so is your father. That's what I'll show everyone. Bring them outside!" A few people came in, untied the two and escorted them to an open space outside, unblindfolding them in the process. Nobody made any mention of the fact that Rosy's left hand was already untied.

Once they had enough room for the duel, they gave Rosy a longsword, since they weren't going to give either of them back their enchanted swords. The longsword was so large and unwieldy that even Rosy needed two hands to properly wield it.

At her display of uncommon strength, someone in the crowd whistled at Rosy, but neither Adrian nor Rosy cared in the least.

"Rosy." Adrian warned, sensing the bloodlust thrumming through her veins. She just shook her head in an unsuccessful attempt to clear it.

"Ready?" Fabian called. He had taken some useless pose, sword pointed at her. It didn't even look cool, and it had virtually no use in a real fight. His sword was pointed at her, but that was as useful as his pose got.

"This is stupid." Rosy wanted to make it sound like a warning, but by the time it passed through the thick fog of vampire instincts in her brain, it sounded incredibly arrogant.

"Don't you dare look down on me!" Rosy's disrespect finally made Fabian snap, and he rushed toward her with the intention of slicing her head off in one clean blow. 

"Pitiful." It barely slipped out as a whisper as she easily ducked the swipe, a counter blow instinctively making its way towards Fabian's armor. He wasn't going to be able to block it, and it was clearly going to end up slipping through a chink in his armor. At the last moment, she managed to change her blade's trajectory so that it didn't instantly skewer him, but the force of the longsword still knocked Fabian off of his feet. 

"Don't get up." Adrian hoped against hope under his breath. Unfortunately, the idiot didn't hear Adrian's plea, or didn't listen.

"I was told that you were good with a blade, not just lucky. I guess they were wrong, princess."

Adrian held his breath when he saw Rosy relax upon hearing Fabian say that. 

"You're too pitiful to be worth killing. Your blood would make me want to vomit." At this point, not even Adrian could guess whether Rosy was finally giving into her instincts or not. Luckily, nobody watching who happened to possess a brain would actually end up minding it if Rosy lost it on Fabian. He kind of reminded Adrian of that jerk, Bastion.

Fabian charged Rosy again, recklessly forgoing all tactics. Naturally, Rosy didn't even bother using her sword, simply swept his legs, kicking him in the butt and turning her back to him, showing him that he posed no threat to her.

Next, Bastion tried a sneak attack, but Rosy punched him in the gut and grabbed his face, pushing it into the dirt. Unfortunately, he got up again. And again. Finally, Rosy's bloodlust reached its limit. She mercilessly twisted his wrist during an upswing, causing him to drop his greatsword. From there, she plucked it out of the air, dropping her own longsword in the process, before mercilessly slamming the pommel into his face. He dropped like a sack of rocks, already unconscious, but Rosy's eyes were already flashing red with bloodlust.

She raised his sword, ready to slice straight through Fabian's head like a watermelon in a bloodlust induced rage. Adrian couldn't stop it in time. Nothing he could possibly say was going to get through the fog around her mind right now, he could just feel it. Then, a miracle happened.

"Stop!" A voice rang out from the crowd. Something about this voice got through the fog, when Adrian's voice couldn't. The sword stopped, hovering an inch above Fabian's chest, her head clearing.

"That idiot. I thought that we all agreed that we wouldn't follow through with your idiotic plan. I'm sorry, Rosy. You two, come with me."