@lostsonofsparda from here
+ - Andante was usually able to make it to her apartment before Gamaliel's goons could get to her. usually. but today, perhaps she hadn't managed her time so wisely, or perhaps she'd spent too long trying to throw off pursuers both real & imagined, they actually managed to get the jump on her. really an embarrassing failure on my part, she managed to think to herself even as they advanced on her, blades drawn.
only five, though, that's pretty small for a first wave. The nephilim pulled her own angelic sword from its hidden sheath at her thigh, and held it before her defensively, the moonlight glinting off the blade. no words were exchanged; Andante didn't bother to speak with them anymore before a fight. What even was there to say, anyway? Beg them for mercy they weren't capable of showing? Ask them for a reason why? Taunt them, wonder why they were picking on a poor little half-angel without their boss present? Stupid.
a million different possible outcomes, plans of attack, plans of escape coursed through the nephilim's whirring mind. if she could draw blood, she could draw a banishment sigil... no, that would take too long, require too much blood, they were too close... even worse, she'd managed to allow them to back her into an alley, from which she couldn't flee. it really looked like a full-on fight this time.
& a fight it was, with all five surging in upon her. Andante was skilled at combat, but five on one with hardly any room for maneuvering left the brawler-turned-sword wielder on the back foot. Weaving like a danger around five separate blades was not easy, but desperation for survival can make any entity, supernatural or otherwise, capable of great things. On their own they could take one down, and did, her blade slicing across his throat and pulling out his divine energy. But she was only so fast, only so prepared, and a second angel was able to drive its sword into the flesh of her shoulder. Adrenaline -- & the knowledge that worse wounds awaited them if they stumbled -- kept Andante from faltering. She whipped around, ready to react, only to see the long end of a katana driven directly into the angel's core.
A new enemy? no, a rescue -- it took a moment for Andante to catch sight of the new entry, and she was more shocked by this than the attack itself. That half-devil swordsman... Vergil, he called himself. And in those mere seconds that Andante had taken to recognize him, he had taken the four angels by surprise, and slain them.
" I ... I had it under control. You didn't need to do that." Stupid proud nephilim, you're lucky to be alive! Just thank him!
"Considering you were moments away from being overwhelmed, I would say I found you just in time," was his cool response, before turning to ask if she was injured.
It was fairly clear she had been stabbed in the shoulder, though she did a fair job of pretending it didn't hurt, even as her blood dripped to the pavement. She was part angel, after all; the wound would heal quickly. No, she was more embarrassed than anything.
" I'm fine... but we should leave, before more show up. "
