Enjoying The Anger [Solo]
Posted: Mon Nov 08, 2021 11:36 pm
5 Ash 121
The Knob, Zaichaer
The Knob bustled with activity as it always did, and Vanessa pushed her way through the crowd with her usually bluntness. The streets were congested, and stagecoach drivers shouted at foot traffic as they rattled on down the cobbled roads. They shouted at Vanessa too, and that injustice enraged her. There was a time when no one would have dared, when people would have known better than to raise their voice at Captain Quill.
Six years was a long time to be out of the business, and no longer did she command the same respect. People still kept their distance, and most kept their eyes down, but they were not afraid of her, not how they had been.
What Vanessa did not understand was why that bothered her as much as it did. Her life was better now, by every metric. She had regular employment, borderline unrestricted access to an entire Estate, and was paid well enough to drink herself to sleep like she intended to do tonight. Try as she might, Vanessa could find little wrong with the life she lived, but still there was a burning.
She harbored no ill will towards House Michaelis, which made the thoughts stranger to her still. How could it be that she desired to be feared, when so too did she want to be the lurker in the loch for Anton? The answer was simple, but it eluded Vanessa's grasp as she made her way down to the bar. If she could not straighten out her feelings, then she could at the very least drown them.
The Bottomless Keg was her first stop of the evening, and already it was half-full with patrons when she strolled in. This place had been a frequent haunt of her, and even had even been where she had taken Anton for his first night out drinking.
A quiet washed over the bar when she crossed the threshold, and that familiar sense of power rushed through Vanessa. All eyes on her, bated breath, and finally some damned respect. At once she felt as strong as ever, and the conflicting feelings melted away to nothing. Striking fear into the hearts of men was an invigorating thing, it seemed.
The feeling lasted until the barkeep reached under the bar, retrieved a cudgel, and pointed one end towards her. “Out.”
Stunned, it took Vanessa a few moments to respond while she simply leered at the stout man behind the counter. “Excuse me?” She finally managed to say, the disbelief dripping from every word.
“You heard me, bitch. Turn around, and never show your face in here again.” the barkeep said, bolder than she had ever seen him.
Heat rushed to her face, anger rising. What was the meaning of this? It had just been a fight that had gotten out of hand! “You're joking.” Vanessa said, but the look on his face and the club in his hand made clear that he had no room for humor when it came to her.
On either side of the bar, a bouncer now unhooked their own cudgels and begun to make their way towards her. Both were younger than her and held their weapons with unfamiliarity. Even so, neither were afraid of her, and instead wore scornful expressions on their scarred faces. Vanessa kept tabs on their positions even while her attention was on the owner.
“My coin spends the same here as anyone else's.” Vanessa said, trying to keep her voice level despite the anger that boiled just under the surface.
She failed in her efforts, but that anger did little to dissuade the barkeep from his stance. “Not anymore it doesn't. You bring the damn corps into my bar? Piss off. Find somewhere else to black out. You ain't wanted here.”
And yet Vanessa did not move. This had not been the first bar she had been banned from outright, but her dour mood made this one sting more than it should. That stinging quickly bloomed to rage, and soon Vanessa was making her way towards the counter.
Then, one of the bouncers swung their cudgel at her, and something in Vanessa snapped.
With roiling rage, Vanessa dodged the swing by instinct and swiftly rounded on her assailant. “Big mistake.” she seethed, and then stepped into him. With predatory swiftness, she trapped the man's arm with her own, snatching up his wrist into the crook of her arm to deny him his weapon. He tried to wrench himself free, fixated on regaining control, but Vanessa's grip was strong.
With the man so occupied, it was easy for Vanessa to take control of the melee. She pulled back her fist, and caught him hard with a haymaker, Catching his jaw, she was sure she felt something in his mouth break while a satisfying jolt ran up her knuckles to her wrist.
The bouncer cried out in newly ignited agony, and brought his other hand around to grab for her hair. He was desperate to get her away from him now, and so Vanessa's goal was to deny him.
He caught a handful of her long tresses of brown hair, and yanked hard enough that Vanessa's head was wrenched off painfully towards one side. She grimaced, but bore the pain well enough. If this was his final gambit, Vanessa was sorely disappointed.
To break free, Vanessa employed one of the oldest tricks in the book. A true classic.
She broke his nose with a clean punch, and he relinquished his grip on her hair to grab for his face.
His hand came away bloody, and his expression turned to shock. Spurred on by his employer, he tried to match her blows, but came nowhere near. He was dragging, and wanted only to be free. No coin was worth this.
She blocked his offensive well enough with her forearm and pushed back against his desperate attempts to untangle her. To soften his assault, Vanessa smashed her knee into his groin, and at once he groaned like all the fight had gone out of him. His grip slacked on his club, and she saw tears welling unbidden in his eyes.
Pathetic.
She smashed his stones once more for good measure and then brought herself hip to hip with him. One of her legs crossed behind his own, and Vanessa threw him over her hip and down crashing to the wooden floor while still holding onto his arm.
He wailed as he fell, his elbow hyperextending and arm now bent at an odd angle. His club clattered to the ground at Vanessa's side, and she kicked it away. He tried to push himself away from her, but Vanessa closed the distance and buried her boot into his stomach. He had tried to avoid her at first, but soon resolved to put himself into the fetal position and withstand her onslaught until it was over. He did not have to wait long, as Vanessa soon turned when she heard an incensed shout bellowing from behind her.
She was just a bit too slow, and his club smashed down across her shoulder before she could round on him fully The pain was intense, and agony burst from every nerve. She rolled with the strike by instinct, soon facing him head-on. Spotting that he was pulling back his arm for another brutish swing to match the first, Vanessa stepped back and dropped into a well centered stance. Then she lifted her boot, and sent it crashing into the man's stomach.
She knocked the wind from him, and he scrambled to recover in a flurry of wheezes and chokes. So unused to being struck, his offensive stalled. Vanessa pressed this advantage and ratcheted back her leg again. Angling down her next strike found his shin, and he yowled in surprise as the heavy sole of her boot tore into him and left his pant leg splotched with blood.
He retreated sullenly now, limping like a common stray. Stumbling back towards the tables dotting the center of the establishment, the wounded man set to make his stand there with his back towards the patrons. Many of these swill-guzzlers watched on with a equal parts interest and fear. None dared try to draw the attention of the corps, but neither did any want to earn Vanessa's ire by trying to stop her. Those that were smart simply drank their beer, while the rest howled their approval or disdain for either side.
“Break his damned spine!” A man shouted.
“Earn your pay, you layabout!” Bellowed another, sending beer splashing towards the bouncer.
“Put her on her ass, yeah!” Another voice called, and an empty bottle of beer sailed through the air, missing Vanessa by fart and breaking on the ground some distance away.
Vanessa ignored the rabble to stalk her prey but he did not make closing the distance easy for her. He swung his cudgel madly to try and ward her off, but Vanessa was not deterred. Rather than waiting for an opening, Vanessa created one by lunging at him suddenly She took a strong, heavy blow to her stomach for her trouble, but was near enough for her next assault. Her knuckles met his chin in a fevered uppercut, and blood sprayed from his lips to mist across Vanessa's shirt and coat. Not satisfied with just one strike, she followed through. She grabbed the back of his head, and then punched him again with her other fist.
Reaching up, the man pushed his hand against her face to try and push her away, but he underestimated how little concern Vanessa had for fighting fair. She let him get his hand across her face before she tore into his palm by biting down. The coppery taste flooded her mouth, and his screams rang in her ears.
In response, he swing his club again at her side He hit her hard, but struck little of importance. His reward was her wrenching her head back to tear at his palm like a rabid beast. Finally, Vanessa spit the man's own blood back into his face so that the two finally matched.
Reaching out, Vanessa grabbed an empty glass mug from a nearby table and tested its weight. The man looked at it, and tried to speak. Perhaps he meant to curse her, or to surrender, but Vanessa gave him no time to do either She instead swung the glass hard into the man's face and knocked him off balance. The hired muscle grunted, but tried to bring a hand up to stop her. Before he could, Vanessa brought the mug down once more and hammered the end of it into the man's temple,
So close to him now, Vanessa could feel how the impact had effected him. His entire brain had shut down in the immediate aftermath of the impact, each of its functions forgotten. Muscles failed and thoughts disappeared, even if only for a few short seconds But that gossamer thread of silence spelled the end for this encounter. For when he returned to himself, he was met with such splitting pain that it gave rise to nausea.
The goon's vision spun out in scattering stars, then he stumbled and clutched a chair for support moments later. Vanessa kicked it out from under him, and then brought her heel down on his back while he lay prone before her. She stomped him again when he reached feebly for his club, and put her weight down hard on his fingers until he shrieked. Only then did she pull away, the imprints of her boot dappling his hand.
The barkeep did what he could to stop her, but he was no fighter. He had thought these bouncers would have been enough. He had been wrong.
He swung at her from behind the safety of the counter, but she simply grabbed his wrist and slammed it down on the bar. She seized him then by the neck with her other hand, and pulled him over the counter. With such strength, Vanessa tossed the man away from her, and he collapsed on the ground when he finally found it.
Reaching behind the counter, Vanesa grabbed a few bottles of booze blindly. Pulling back one in each hand, Vanessa examined her haul before tucking them under an arm and peppering the barkeep with a handful of silver avens as payment. Only then did she stalk towards the exit.
“You'll need more guards.” was Vanessa's dry observation to the owner.
Both bouncers were recovering, but not quickly enough. Neither seemed in any hurry to get back to their feet despite their employer's howling. For that measure of intelligence, the two were spared any further injury from Vanessa when she left the bar and headed back towards the West End.
No one stopped her, no alarms had been raised nor guards called for. The Knob was patrolled precious little, and those that did had a predisposition to ignore the lesser crimes that occurred there, so long as the perpetrators were human.
Instead, Vanessa took a long, slow walk back to the Michaelis Estate. She passed by her own apartment on the way, and the irony that it was above a bar did not elude her.
The fight had left her energized, adrenaline and endorphins rushing through her and numbing the pain for a short time. Even when it faded, the aches were a satisfying sort. She certainly did not like to feel a tightness in her side where a welt was forming, nor was the pain of lifting her arm a great comfort, but that was not all there was. She had survived and made manifest her will. Such pain there was, but it only served to remind her of her victory. When coin or loyalty failed, that funny feeling was what drove people to die for their countries.
The thoughts lingered when she finally made it through the doors of the estate with her coat done up to hide the bloodstains on her shirt. On her way to the guest room, she quietly greeted both of Anton's younger siblings when they cheerfully bid her welcome. That stoked a warmth within her, even if she knew not why. They had never known a life without Vanessa around, and she was sure Anton had spoken of her in somewhat positive terms. There had even been a short time where Amelia had thought Vanessa had been her aunt, though those notions were kindly, but quickly trained out of her by her parents.
Vanessa made it to the guest room near to her ward's. Along the way, she knocked once on Anton's door with the bottom of her fist so that he would know she had returned. She knew not if it truly helped him, or perhaps she had instead just pulled him from the edge of sleep.
Once in the guest room, Vanessa did not even make it to the bed. She sagged down to the ground, and put her back to the door so that her weight barred it shut.
There, alone in the dark of an unlit guest room, Vanessa drank.