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Scarcely thinking, you dart into the alley, grab your suitcase and hurl it at the blackguard with all your might.
He turns at the sound, and as a result takes the blow full in the face. He tumbles to the ground, swearing. As soon as his grip slackens the boy pulls out of his grasp and tries to crawl away, coughing and pale-faced.
[X] The man may be down, but he's not out yet. Give him what for!
[X] The man may be on the ground, but he most likely won't stay there. Time to leg it!
[X] Ask the boy if he's all right. If he clearly isn't, no matter what he says, take him to a hospital. Um... after you ask him where it is, rather.
Heart pounding, you stride quickly over to the fallen foe.
"Shame on you, you murderous brute!" you cry, kicking him hard in the ribs.
He catches your foot and casually pulls you to the ground.
With a shriek, you throw a wild punch at his face, only to gasp in horror. Not only does he not so much as blink, his skin is like marble; your knuckles bounce back red and raw, and his face is completely unharmed.
And what a face it is. The eyes are those of a madman, with a shining curiosity and hunger that fills you with feminine dread. The skin is slack and sallow, with an unhealthy greyish hue around the eyes and mouth-
"Well, here's a much better meal."
Oh, God above, the mouth!
He wraps an arm around your waist, but hisses in pain and pulls back in confusion when your thorns leap to your defence.
Tears of relief spring from your eyes when you see the deep wounds gouged out of his hand. Your spirit can hurt him! You won't die here today!
[X] Press the offensive! With your spirit enhancing your body you're sure to defeat him.
->[X] All of the punches!
->[X] Joanna used Headbutt!
->[X] Mystery box
->[X] Write in (a way to make it clear which type of fighting philosophy and style you'd prefer Joanna to have)
[X] Run for it.
->[X] With the kid.
->[X] With your bag.
[X] Don't let me hear you say life's taking you nowhere
Wrenching yourself from the ground even as the horrible man hops to his feet, you launch into a flurry of blows, pounding at his torso with all your might. He staggers backward, his skin ripping under your assault, but... he's laughing. Damn him! Mad though he be, you won't hold back against such a fiend! With a mighty shout you swing your right fist with all your might.
A sickening chorus of snaps and the emergence of a sliver of bone through his skin heralds your realization that his ribcage has been crushed. His eyes widen in fear, and at last, he falls.
You step back, watching him fall to the ground, in shock.
Then relief washes over you in a wave. You did it! You finally prevented it from happening! You saved-
"Miss..." Your turn to see the boy, still on the ground, reaching toward you with an outstretched hand. "Run...!"
It's at that moment a hand takes hold of your throat, and whatever the boy is saying becomes much less important.
"That's an interesting trick... have you little witches finally learned something new?"
Your eyes widen in shock, as though they could drink in the air your mouth cannot. His wounds... you saw your hands make them, you saw it with your own eyes, so where are they? His shirt is in shreds but his chest is completely unblemished! That cannot be!
He's... he's not human...!
"Well, didn't do you much good, did it?"
A hot fog descends over your mind as he tightens his hold on you, almost certainly breaking the skin and oh merciful God in heaven his fingers are in your veins DIO FATHER HELP!
Three pencils take him in the side of the head. The fourth gets him in the neck. All the wounds land with a force that sends his head reeling to the side, and you'd swear you see them crackle with electricity.
He howls in pain and turns to look back down the alley.
"Unfortunate," Prof. de Owen says placidly, pulling another handful of the writing implements from his jacket pocket. "It's occasions like this that make me reconsider my decision not to acquire a gun." He throws another volley with his left, then another with his right; your attacker's face becomes a snarling pencil stand.
Roaring, your attacker drops you and charges your teacher.
de Owen's outstretched hand impales him through the heart in a burst of amber light.
"Golden Years Overdrive," he says, sounding as dull as ever. "You should have stayed in bed, signiore."
If the man has any final words, they are drowned out by the chiming of the church bells as his body disintegrates into dust.
"But then, if I carried a gun, I'd be obliged to come to the attention of every government of every country I pass through," he muses, removing his jacket as he strolls over to you. "That would be frightfully disruptive of my travel plans." He drapes the jacket gently around your shoulders, and offers you a hand up.
[X] You take it, and thank him for saving your life.
[X] You take it, and ask him where the closest hospital is; that boy's in a bad way.
[X] You take it, and ask what on earth was wrong with that man.
[X] You will stand under your own power, thank you very much, and demand to know why he refused to give chase to help retrieve your belongings. True, he saved your life, but your life would not have been in peril if he had handled matters like a man!
[X] You will stand under your own power, thank you very much, and demand to know why he refused to give chase to help retrieve your belongings. True, he saved your life, but your life would not have been in peril if he had handled matters like a man!
Professor de Owen says he knows a doctor a few streets over. He lifts the boy into his arms in a bridal carry, despite the child's weak protests.
Your mind is screaming at you to ask the professor what on earth is going on, but you don't want to upset the boy any further; he's already struggling to breathe.
Any lingering resentment you might have felt about him stealing your suitcase (now safely tucked under your arm) evaporates when he looks up at you with those big, frightened brown eyes. Now that you get a good chance to look at him, he seems frightfully spindly to you compared to the boys around his age in Abney Park.
"Would you ask him his name, please?" you ask de Owen.
de Owen speaks to the boy in Italian, and the little urchin answers, "Mario. I'm Mario."
"Mario..." It's a name for an opera singer. Or like Marius, from Les Misérables. "My name is Joanna, Mario. It's all right, you're safe now; we're bringing you to a doctor."
Your teacher translates this, and the fear in Mario's eyes retreats.
"I'm sorry, Signorina Giovanna," the boy whispers in a heavy Italian accent. "Your angel will bring them all down on you."
"Don't be ridiculous," you say, "it's water under the bridge, really."
"I'm sorry," he repeats, and he keeps muttering it over and over until he slips into unconsciousness.
=
The doctor is a kindly man with a frankly gigantic black moustache and terrible breath. He and Mario apparently attend the same church, and it doesn't take him long to bring in the boy's mother and siblings.
Del's infamous death grip has nothing on the bear hug Margherita Zeppeli locks you into once Professor de Owen gives her a (heavily edited) explanation of the events that led to her son's injury. There is much babbling about how you ought to be granted a beatification and so forth, and by the end of her questioning (through an increasingly-weary Prof de Owen) you've been invited to Sunday dinner, scolded for recklessly endangering your life against that brute, and promised language lessons by Mario's younger sisters, who promptly begin running around the office pointing at things and shouting their names in Italian until you shout them back.
You eventually, somehow, manage to extricate yourself, with promises to visit the young man later in the week when you've settled in.
It's only a few moments after you're out the door that Professor de Owen says, "You mustn't feel too badly that you almost lost. The upper-form girls will be impressed that you stood your ground at all; even they don't fight one-on-one when they can help it."