This is the Ultimate Showdown [Closed]

[aboveangrybees]

Who| Steve Rogers & Shepard (plus the people who find them at the end)
What| Two super soldiers fight to the death.
Where| Just outside the amusement park
When| End of week 4
Warnings/Notes| Lots of violence and Death of both characters

This week hasn't been easy, it's been a struggle to keep his head about him. He lost Stark and Xavier last week, then just the other day Clementine's face graced the sky in announcement of her passing. All of that, he could have swallowed, but then Peggy came out of the fog like a dream and a nightmare, pale and unresponsive like she was shell shocked. Sure, he knew she wasn't really Peggy, but he wasn't able to do anything about it, it made him feel useless. In the end, it was Bucky who put her down.

For the last couple days, he's been separated from Thor and Bucky, having parted ways after the thing with Peggy's face died. He wanted to see if he could help people, forget how helpless he felt with her there. But losing them wasn't intentional.

He keeps a firm grip on his makeshift shield and crowbar, the bag holding his food and water slung over his shoulder, as he's searches near but not in the amusement park, hoping to find one or both of his remaining allies. 

Comments

[earthborn]

It had just been a week. Things had been looking up, or as up as they could look; stupid, to hope. Stupid, stupid, stupid; but she'd coped, with a curse and a change of plans, when she'd seen Sandy's face in the sky. The plans had changed again when, less than a day later, it was Thane.

And still, she had seen nothing of Garrus.

So this was life, now. Arena after arena, outliving her usefulness, outliving her friends. When she was calm, she could think, she could let it go in the long arch of the main goal. Get out of the Arena, get quit of Panem, get rid of the Reapers, and then... It was a series of ever more impossible tasks, each compounded by time. Every life lost here was like the time it took to eject a thermal clip and reload, important enough, but momentary in nature. Just the same, between the thing that had been Kolyat, between the loss of so many friends, and the food running low, all Shepard really wanted to do was hit something. Someone. Someone who could take it, and hit back.

...Hello, what's this, coming around the dilapidated curve of fence that divided the amusement park from the scrubby remnants of ancient Americana? Tall, strong, and convenient. Good. Shepard hefted the sledgehammer in her hands and settled into a crouch behind the protective screen of plywood and paint. '500 Yards to Endless Fun for the Whole Family,' promised the peeling greyness; only twenty between her hiding place behind it and the man himself.

[aboveangrybees]

For a moment he swears he feels eyes on him, but it's gone almost as fast as it came. His movement doesn't falter, though it slows as he casts a look around him, but is unable to see anything that would have caused the feeling. Perhaps someone passing by in the fog, who left as fast as they saw him, hoping not to cross paths with him. Problem is, he didn't hear movement. Well, maybe they're just that quiet, his senses aren't as sharp when they have him dulled down like this.

Still, he keeps his guard up regardless as he continues making his way closer to where Shepard lies in wait for him, completely unaware of her presence or plans for him.

[earthborn]

There's a prevailing myth among the crew that Shepard has no patience and cannot sit still and do nothing for more than ten seconds at a time. It is untrue; she didn't gain her N7 designation by chance, after all.

Shepard held very still, and watched him pass, lumping along with the pack over his shoulder like this was a proper deathmarch. When she sprung the trap it was smooth, all in one motion. Stand, step out, swing.

Watch out, Steve, you're not immortal anymore.

[aboveangrybees]

His back was left open, so sure that nothing else was around as he continued on, but then she's there.

Steve only has enough time to realize he's about to be attacked, twisting his body to get his shield between him and the attacker, knowing there's no time to dodge to the side, but she's too fast. The sledgehammer collides with his side, sending a shock of pain through his system and throwing him a small distance. (And seriously, do sledgehammers have something against him?)

Instead of landing prone on the ground, Steve pushes his hand out and under him, using the momentum of his body to spring himself up and away from his attacker. Before his feet are even planted steady on the ground, Steve has his shield up and between them - ready, but defensive.

But Steve has every desire to end this with words. "I don't want to fight you," his voice is strong and sure. "I'm not a threat unless you make me one."

[earthborn]

"I'm not sure you've quite got the hang of this game," Shepard replied, a grim and joyful spark lit behind her eyes to see his calm, his agility. A lifetime ago, it seemed so very recent despite the intervening years, she'd spent her nights before the holographic glow of a vidscreen and her days walking the battlefields, looking for someone, something tough or lucky enough to put an end to her. Suicide by proxy, they called it.

It was nice to know, some things never really died. They just slept for a while. Oh yes, Captain Rogers, you're just Jane's kind of guy.

She picked up her hammer and moved, all pretense gone, ready to burn her strength, the full force of her will and power focused on the man in front of her. Cave in the shield, cave in his head; she wondered if, maybe, this was what Krogans meant by 'bloodrage'.

[aboveangrybees]

After experiencing a portion of her strength once, he knows his shield will handle only one full attack from that sledgehammer before it's rendered mostly useless. He wants to preserve that until he needs it.

When she moves for him, he holds steady, waiting for her to close the distance, looking as if he's going to defend against the assault, but when she's on him, he ducks and sidesteps with a turn that moves him behind her, dodging the attack. Immediately he moves to slam the edge of his shield down on her arm, aiming to disarm her.

Even if the hit doesn't land, Steve throws himself back and rolls away, coming up into a crouch with his shield ready.

"Not my kind of game," and it really isn't. "I'm giving you one last chance to walk away from this, I suggest you do," if she comes for him again, he'll fight to disable her, no more talk. He shucks off the bag from his shoulder, less weight for faster movement.

[earthborn]

He's either noble, an idiot or both. It's his first arena, so she just rolls her eyes and refrains from the lecture. What does he think this is? It's a cagematch. They could walk away, maybe from this fight, or the next, or every one along the way until you got to the one you couldn't walk away from. Until the Game-makers threw a dragon at you, or until you...

Well, until you met someone like Shepard.

Shepard, who brought her hammer up in a vicious upward arc, a momentum-heavy blur that bore a stone-and-half weight towards her target. She stepped into the strike, knowing he was nimble, knowing it would do her no good and bent herself against her shoulder to bull forward like a linebacker.

Pacifism, as a choice distinguishable from bloodthirstiness, was nonexistent in the arena. One could claim some kind of moral high ground, but what use would it be to you? Steve wasn't her enemy any more than she was his; it wasn't enmity that drove her on. What was it that Grunt had said? I will do what I was made for: fight, and determine the strongest.

No more talk.

[aboveangrybees]

Well, that was plenty answer enough for Steve. She meant business and if Steve didn't start fighting back more rapidly, he was going to be royally screwed. He was going to fight to disable her, but he was already getting a feeling someone was going to die by the end of this and he had no intention of it being himself.

So, no more talking it was.

The strike was easy enough to dodge out of the way of, but she thought fast and caught him in the chest with her shoulder as she bulled him over. Pain of the impact arched through him for only a second before he looped his arms around her, aiming to pin her arms and perform a suplex - dropping his shield in the process. With his grip around her secure, he plants his feet and uses her momentum against her to bend back and slam her into the ground.

As soon as he feels her make contact, he lets go and easily straightens like the move was nothing for him to preform. He quickly kicks up his shield as he steps back and around to face her again, catching it with ease.

[earthborn]

Damned guardian bastards. She knew this song and dance; you set off a grenade to pull it off-center, or pop the bastard in the knee to bring down the disadvantage. There were any number of solutions presupposing access to biotics, but very little of her experience fighting Cerberus had been under the circumstances of having not so much as a fucking hold-out pistol. She'd have cheerfully eaten shit for a Carnifex.

The suplex was a nice move, and for just a moment she's seeing double. Fifteen years old, she'd have scrambled up and right into his guard, but instead Shepard spat red and grew canny, licking her lips around the smile. First blood to the blond. Nice.

He's not running, and she isn't charging, not yet, only circles around like a tiger, forcing him to move if he wants to keep his guard. When the melee joins again, it's fast and explosive; she's not really sure if he moved first and her reaction a reflex, or if it were the other way around.

[aboveangrybees]

Blood. Well, at least that's out of the way, but it also feels like a beginning. This is irreversible now and he knows he's not walking away from this until she spills his blood too. That one of them will be bled dry by this fight.

Steve keeps his following of her movements to a minimum, enough to keep her in sight, ready to defend himself, but when she moves again, he reaches up to block it. She's a powerhouse and more than enough of a challenge that when he blocks her initial attack, he inadvertently leaves himself open to attack.

Even as he immediately realizes, there's no time to fix it.