Before December, he’d never known a Doublefang or TriP outside a passing glance. There were rumors of brutality only spoken in his absence--their absence? Was this one aware he was really only one person with a nasty habit of disassociation or--
He really didn’t have the time for this. Too many thoughts, too many worries, too many outcomes, too much--whatever Livio/Razlo classified as. Overkill, maybe.
On that note...it was funny he didn’t know more about the way they fought--he’d certainly never seen his Livio with a Punisher in hand. He’d have to buy time. Lots of it.
How? Without Sylvia, he--
Midvalley had nearly forgotten the weight around his wrist: a band of metal closed around it, with a dark green crystal embedded into it. Without Sylvia...he was still armed. He was however still on the short end of things, pitted against superior reaction time, strength, and speed. With next to no experience in actually wielding the artifact as a weapons, Midvalley was only able to throw a wall of ice up between himself and the incoming bullets.
Was this irony? --using the very defenses he’d been given to guard against an attack, but only using against a stranger who was technically the same person but not? Fuck it. He could never fully figure out irony. What he would though, was note the strange tingling feeling left in the wake of casting. It wasn’t like a foot going numb or that shitty burn you get with a UTI--none of that. It was...hard to explain. Like your focus was dimming out or something. His adrenaline had yet to drop from its sudden spike, but something was missing now.
In any case, for this brief moment, there was some kind of a barrier between them. And while part of him begged to run, to flee, to hide--to do anything but stick around, he found himself reminded of an idiot with spiky blonde hair, streaked with black. The very kind of guy who’d stand his ground and make a fucking fool on himself risking his life.
Capable of silencing an entire room with Sylvia, countering sound waves from multiple directions and cancelling them out, hearing the scrape of metal on metal as a trigger began to pull back would be nothing. One target. He could do that. Suddenly things seemed more manageable.
Listen for an attack. Defend. Keep a distance away.
Not easy, but not impossible. He hoped.
“Okay, I really don’t know where you’re getting that kind of shit, but I really have been clean!” He began to back up, unsure if the other would open fire first, or attempt to jump the wall or crash through it. It cleared them both in height, but wasn’t much taller and it wasn’t much wider than it was tall--just a simple barrier.
“Ask Vash! Love and peace, right?” Where Livio would find the man--any of them, Midvalley wasn’t sure. But having the Plant as a character witness still ought to have counted.
...there was one-up to Vash too, wasn’t there?
“Ask Nick!” Of three he’d met, there was still one in town who’d never left. “Nick can vouch for me!” His hands were staking. Standing one’s ground ought not to have been so terrifying.