Barfight In Bern (For Addy):

[vic]

Victor sighed as he stepped into the bar, the big man having to lower his head as he walked through the door. He walked up to the counter,and sat down.
"One cold cider in a tall glass please." Victor said, the bartender passing him a drink. He took a swig from it as he watched the bar. Most of them appeared to be mercenaries, young and old, some looking old enough to have fought in the bandit war, others just mere fledglings.
He sighed. He saw too many men after the bandit war, traumatized by the horrors of it, seek solace in the alcohol. Even those that hadn't took to the drink these days, both as enjoyment and a way to get ones mind off of things.
This sort of peace was quickly shattered when he accidentally knocked over someone's drink.
"Oy! You spilled my drink! Not cool! *hic*" The man said, clearly intoxicated.
"I'm sorry. I'll buy you another." Victor said calmly.
"Damn straight you will! You're buying me another drink, and another, and another.. *hic* And you ain't going nowhere till I drink'em all." The man said.
Like hell Victor would have said yes to that.
"Id said I'd buy you another drink. Not ten." he said.
"Why you stubborn old coot... mebbe THIS'LL getcha too!" The drunkard said before throwing a bottle at him that he dodged with little effort.
Unfortunately, that soon created a familiar chain reaction set of events that led to the whole bar being engulfed into a chaotic brawl.
He sighed. This always seemed to happen to him...
Judging from how far away the entrance was, he was going to have to fight his way out.
He punched his way through several men, careful not to inflict any broken bones as he made his way to it.
Best to leave before the authorities showed up, after all.

[Adelaide]

"Oi, miss, you deaf?!" shouted the patron across from Adelaide. "I said buy me a drink! Another ale, since you clearly didn't hear me the first time!"

That was the last time Adelaide would show selfless piety to a stranger. She had enough spare change to quench a stranger's thirst with a single flagon of ale, but now he was simply abusing the privilege. The lack of tact in strangers these days was appalling. It merely reinforced how Adelaide already perceived strangers - crude and unnecessary to engage. In a rare streak of compassion, however, she elected to betray her morality just this once.

"Ain't got all day, missy!" shouted the belligerent man. "Fill me up, wench!"

That sent sparks flying across Adelaide's brain. "What did you call me, you bloody oaf?!" she shouted indignantly, looking down at her own three-quarters empty glass.

"You heard me, wench!" taunted the man. "Another!"

A rueful, albeit irritated smile creased Adelaide's face. "Fine. Have one on me!"

Then she lobbed the contents of her glass at his beet red face, soaking it along with his askew facial hair and unremarkable haircut. He spluttered, shook several times in his seat, then affixed Adelaide with a gaze of pure fury, then howled at her. She ducked a lobbed glass sans liquid, which shattered on a wall behind her. Enraged, she immediately sank her outstretched fist into his stomach, causing him to howl with pain.

"Take it back. I dare you! Can't fight, can ya?!"

As the fight began near her table, another seemed to be brewing further down, then another...

[vic]

Hm. He had to admit that the domino effect that he had caused turned out to be quite the brawl. At this point, it was borderline pandemonium in there.
Two men tried to rush at Victor, and he simply based their heads together with a resounding Thunk and when another tried to tackle him, he dodged, then backhanded him.
Another tried to grab him from behind, and he slammed a powerful kick at them directed twoards someplace...unkind that left the man a heap on the floor, clutching a certain part.
"My, my. You gentlemen REALLY seem to be lacking in technique. Have you considered something less risky for a habit, like, say, reading?" he said, unable to resist the urge to crack a quip like some rookie.

But really, even accounting for drunkeness, they really weren't so hard as they were tenacious, coming at him from all around constantly.
Sure, he wasn't as young as he used to be. But did that stop him from kicking ass? No.
He knew deep down that for him, he loved the kinesthetics of combat. A chaotic machine of physical effort and mental cunning that was difficult to tame, but nearly unstoppable once it was in full swing.
Shoving aside a few more, he could finally see the exit to the bar...
Only to find that, much to his dismay, that there were several more rather brutish drunk thugs waiting nearby for him, and one thief who was eagerly robbing anyone knocked down in the chaos.
Victor decided to leave the thief for now, and focus on the thugs.
"Evening, Gentlemen. I was just about to leave". he said, gesturing for them to come at him.
There were 5 of them, and one of him
A bit large, yes, but nothing he couldn't handle.

[Adelaide]

As the fight escalated, Adelaide fought her way threw swathes of angry drunk men and women alike - but mainly the former. Men were far more predisposed to drunken bouts of rabble-rousing. This certainly wasn't her first bout with these kinds of people. She dodged, bobbed, and weaved, throwing punches at unsuspecting patrons here and there. It didn't help that she herself was a couple of drinks deep already. She ducked another punch and aimed a kick at the coin purse dangling between a man's legs. His outcry was a shriek that hit an octave usually reserved for calling dogs.

Then Adelaide heard some commotion further down along the bar. "Oh, man, this place is getting heated!" she observed breathlessly, adrenaline pumping through her body at a near-breakneck pace. Her heart was beating so hard that it could probably be mistaken for the ante-tremor to an earthquake, though this was less from adrenaline and more from the alcohol assailing her system.

She glimpsed a man, not wrinkled enough to be considered elderly, but well into veteran age, rounding on not one, but five rough-looking thugs at once. He had a determined glint in his eye - the kind you could only find in a man that was all too familiar with the art of combat, or the choreography of war. Adelaide filed through the cloud of humans in order to reach this mildly interesting man. Then again, everything seemed interesting when drunk.

"Oi, are you going to fight all those thugs by yourself?" Adelaide called in a slur.

[vic]

Victor was still fighting his way through the five men, who began to dogpile him all at once, bringing him down to the ground. At times, he hated his right leg which wasn't nearly as firm and fast as his left, which is why he went down so easily.
"Get... off... of me!" he snarled as he channeled sheer raw anger into strength into his right arm, then sending it at one man with enough to knock him off, taking a few more blows in the proccess, wincing a bit. Even for drunkards, he supposed, they were pretty strong. At least one was a fighter,judging from the power in the fists. He nearly considered using Venisanctus then and there and just freezing them, but decided against it.
Although getting then all off was going to be a challenge, especially since they had gotten some pretty good grips on him in such a short time. .
God, he hated getting old sometimes.
That's when he heard a woman call out, possibly an ally he could use.
He thought quickly in his head wether it was appropiate to do so.
On one hand, this was his mess, so he should clean it up...
On the other hand, seeing as she was clearly (along with quite a few others) a few pints to the wind, and he was pinned down, he figured it wouldn't hurt for them to team up to give them a quick and painful lesson in manners.
"Unless you want to jump in, I guess i'LL have to!" he said to her.

[Adelaide]

"Don't you get smart with me, Granddad, I-I'm-I'mma inna fighting mood!" spluttered Adelaide as she swayed on the spot. The liquor she had downed beforehand was finally starting to take hold. While she wasn't heavy, her height and taut, athletic stature made it so that Adelaide could only metabolize alcohol slowly and in large quantities. Normal sips did not affect her in any way whatsoever. In fact, it often dehydrated her.

Adelaide awkwardly sidestepped and aimed a punch at one of the man's attackers. It collided with his jaw and Adelaide swore she heard a pronounced crack issuing from the impact site. Surely she hadn't hit the man with such force that it shattered his jaw at the origin? Adelaide was renowned throughout her battalion for having an extremely hard punch - the price of having to adapt to the wiles and wills of a predominantly-male army.

In any event, the man howled in pain and began hopping around madly like he had just had scalding-hot water poured into every orifice of his body and onto his skin. Another man, clearly indignant that his associate had been injured, aimed a kick at Adelaide's shin. While painful, it would probably leave nothing more than a bruise.

"Ow! Damn you!" she howled, then attempted to trip him, using her right ankle as a pendulum to send him toppling onto his back with a resounding crash that was ultimately lost in the clamor of the brawl. That left a couple remaining, and Adelaide was raring to sink her fists into whoever she damn pleased.

[vic]

He was starting to regret this. She was clearly drunk (and disrepectful too). At best, this was going to end badly...
Or not, judging from the resounding punch that she aimed at one of his attackers.
"Excellent form. Even while drunk, she managed to hit with enough force to dislocate his jaw... could put me to shame." he thought as he watched the man hop around in pain.
Although he had to make note about how one of the man's associates kicked her in the shin. One of the prices of being drunk, he knew, was a gap in reaction time.
However, her quick retaliation in tripping him proved effective, leaving only two remaining.
"Thank you. Now then... as for you two... say goodnight." he said, slowly rising back up, shaking off the two men off of him slowly.
"Payback time." he said with a evil smirk on his face, the type of smile that one uses before dealing someone immense pain.
He then began a vicious counterattack on the two men.
To the first one, who tried again to tackle him, he dealt a one-two punch to them, knocking them out.
The other tried to back attack him, managing to latch onto his back.
Victor grunted in pain as the man began to pound on him from there. He couldn't throw the man, due to the man's weight, but he could knock him out with a hard jerk back of his head, causing the man to fall off.
"Thank you for help, young lady." he said to Addy as he dusted himself off.

[Adelaide]

"Young lady? Young lady?!" Adelaide asked, somewhat aghast. "I... I am... young, yes... female too. Hm. Very yes. Very good yes." Her words was dissolving into the uncertainty that was incoherence. Things were starting to spin, but the older man clearly had done a good job of knocking his other attackers out. But Adelaide was still on fire with the fury of drunken adrenaline. It was quite a cocktail to behold.

"I'm not done! Pour me another! Let me punch someone else!" Then she threw a punch at another bystander, this one a hulking behemoth of a man over a head taller than her, and immediately regretted her decision. Her fist nearly shattered under the pressure, but the next part of the problem was yet to come. She ducked a punch from this larger man, which felt like a whiff of air that ruffled her already unruly mane of hair.

"Oh. I should-shouldn't have done that. Right. No. Sorry, man! Sir man! Heh, you should be knighted! Sir Man!"

The hulking man was not amused. Frantic, Adelaide turned to the older man. "Shoot. I, uh. Prolly shouldn't have done that. Defend me?"

To consider Adelaide frazzled beyond belief would be understating the spectacle as a whole. What had she gotten herself into, this time? And why he she decided to get blotto drunk? The short answer was because she could. She never paused to think if she should do it, but rather if she could do it. And do it, she could.

[vic]

He had to wonder at first. Was it possile that it was actually some male rogue disguised as a female for whatever reason? He had seen such ploys before...
Then again, he figured that if that were the case, why would they react badly to the feminine program?
Of course, there was the possibility they were drunk...
A possibility that was soon validated when he saw her pick a fight with someone much taller and muscular than her.
Judging from how the punch seemed to make her hair even more of a mess than before, and how little damage her punch did to the man, if she got hit once by him, she was going to probably have something broken at the very least.
The quip though made him sigh. It was pretty awful, and frankly, she really shouldn't have done that. He decided to put it down to alcohol as well, and sighed when she asked him for help.
"I would normally leave you at this point to suffer the consequences of your foolishness, seeing as you aren't in lethal danger right now. But since I do owe you, consider us even for this. But in the future, do be more prudent in picking your battles. Careless and reckless people tend to die young, after all." he said in a slightly scolding tone as he stepped up to the unamused hulk, who was almost his size. Judging from the strength of his arm muscles, and beefy legs, he figured the man was some sort of axe fighter, a knight, a brigand, or maybe even a berserker, general, a Warrior, or even a Great Knight seeing as the man looked only slightly younger than Victor.
"Definitely an Berserker. Or else that's a Axe Fighter with one helluva punch." he thought as the axe fighter punched much too fast for a knight, and the force of the punch to the chest was the hardest he felt all night, and nearly made him hurl then and there. In his experience, only someone who was truly dedicated to the axe had that kind of strength.
Managing to suppress the urge to hurl, hr grunted as he retaliated with a powerful uppercut to the man's jaw that would have knocked most others out.
He smiled a bit as he began to get into this.
A challenge was always welcome.

[Adelaide]

"I... uh, okay, sir. Thanks," Adelaide mumbled breathlessly. She felt hot blood rising in her face, which she knew boded ill. The alcohol and anger still sang deep in her veins. The berserker-looking fellow seemed intent on aiming at her, but she managed to duck a few more blows before the older, veteran-looking man intervened. He had the build of a paladin, possibly a great knight, or she could be mistaken entirely. It was admittedly hard to tell, and being inebriated did not help things any.

Adelaide cringed as she watched the man suffer a painful blow to the sternum, but, wow. He probably had seen worse before, so this danger may not have been new to him in his advanced age. But Adelaide was only twenty-one, definitely less than half his age. She watched more, reluctantly impressed with his brawling skills. She watched as he effortlessly delivered an uppercut to the berserker's jaw, though the rest of the brawl was still unfolding. Adelaide herself became enthralled with the bout, so much so that she forgot that she had even been drinking in the first place. Additionally, it slaked whatever thirst she had for another drink.

At any rate, it was a welcome reprieve to know that the horse-sized berserker was no longer rounding on her. Perhaps he considered the veteran to be a more worthy opponent, which wasn't unexpected. The manner in which these kinds of events turned always favored the tenured, and if not the tenured, then the bold.

[vic]

He could hear her muttered expression of gratitude as he fought, his mind switching into that little space he called 'combat mode'.
Filtering out all other unnecessary things, he focused solely on whatever he was currently facing with the eyes of a predator waiting to pounce, his opponent doing the same.
By now only a fool would assume his opponent was drunk and let down his guard as both appraised the other.
It was now a question of who struck first.
His opponent chose to make the first move, trying to tackle Victor down by rushing at him.
Victor knew he couldn't dodge it...
So he instead decided to meet it head on.
Bracing himself for the impact as much as possible, it soon turned into a close quarters shoving match, the force of the tackle nearly knocking Victor down. It took all his strength to resist, pushing back.
This was a decisive struggle. Whoever won here would have a free shot at a staggered opponent, a melee deadlock that would be a battle of endurance and strength, something that Victor knew the younger man would win in terms of strength.
So Victor took a little trick out of the book of dirty fighting, and headbutted his opponent, causing them to flinch, slackening just a bit.
That let Victor turn the tide by managing to follow it up with a shoulder tackle of his own, knocking down his opponent in the proccess.
"You're good, i'LL give you that. Stop now and all you'LL have is a few bruises. I'd hate to put someone like you out of buisness." he said.

"Hah! Are ye kidding me? I was going ta just smack the wench a wee bit, but yer much more fun to fight! If I went down this easy, I, Salack would have ta hang up me axe! Arrrrrrrrr.... and I thought most land-people were wimps who couldn't stand the fury of a seaman like me! Come on... let's fight till one of us drops!" The man said, laughing as he got up.

Victor recognized the name from some of his recent travels. Salack was a experienced mercenary who was known for his ruthlessness as a former pirate until he decided that he liked smashing people more than he liked getting gold.
It was also said that Salack could drink a whole tavern dry without getting a single bit drunk.
Looks like the reputation on his power wasn't all hype. The man was someone he'd have to take seriously.
"Hmph. Let's do this." he said.
Both were also drawing a sizable crowd at this point, some of the barfights dying down as people began to watch and make bets.
It was truly a sight to behold.

[Adelaide]

Now that the crowd were hedging bets, some collectively and some not, Adelaide reached into her coin purse and fished around for a few coins. She would bet on the old man, of course, since he looked as tough as an old turkey. He rounded the berserker, named Salack... wait. Adelaide had heard that name before. Salack was a feared former denizen of the seas, perhaps one of the greatest operating off the Bernese coast before adjusting his operations to suit the land. One time, he had broken someone's neck because he had been shortchanged by only three gold coins. What was he doing at this tavern alone without a crew? Then Adelaide recalled that he enjoyed testing his strength against the common gentry, including veterans, so that people would know his name and be able to match it to his girth. Adelaide stood no chance, and she strongly suspected that this veteran had his work cut out for him too.

"Salack..." she felt her lips form soundlessly. Granddad's in trouble, alright... well, maybe not. Salack could use a good wallop! Pow!

Sheesh, even her thoughts were discombobulated. Adelaide would have to make a mental note not to drink so much next time. Sauntering up to the brawl, she threw in a small handful of gold coins and jerked a thumb outward towards the older, smaller, but arguably evenly matched man. It was actually a fairly well-matched contest.

"You got this! Knock 'em silly!" shouted Adelaide at the veteran from the forming crowd.

[vic]

By this point, both men couldn't care less. Screaming a battle cry,the two began to enage in a battle of punches, each one meeting the other's, fists clashing like rapid-fire blades in a melee duel, driving the crowd wild.
Then both unleashed two hard cross-counter uppercuts to the other in a series of deadly blows, culminating in Victor and Salack headbutting each other, stunning Salack, and letting Victor take this opportunity to slam a two-handed hammer punch to Salack's head, making the berserker go smack into the ground. Both ignored the pain, the result of having gone through so many bloody battles.
By this point, the barfight elsewhere was called off as everyone watched this epic power struggle.
Then Salack got back up, roaring mad.
Victor knew what this meant.
It meant Salack had gone into the rage state berserkers were known for.
Salack launched into a vicious counterattack, doing a axe kick that Victor barely dodged before launching into a flurry of explosive punches that returned the favor of the aforementioned hammer punch.
Victor, to his credit,would not go down so easily.
So when Salack tried again, the deadlock from before ensured, only this time,a lot more furious than before.
It was another long and hard clash before Victor finally managed to stun Salack again, this time hitting him with a powerful roundhouse.
The key difference this time was that Salack this time didn't get back up.
For a moment, the crowd went silent in shock from Salack's knockout before launching into an explosive set of cheers.
Victor, for his part, finally let his mind snap out of it as he panted. That had been a damn long and brutal fight.
He enjoyed that.