Not "bride", so much - no. Still, you've got it close enough, among the group of y'all. Here's your no-prize - one of the discarded bits from the original version. This would be during one of the iterations where I had Vincent swearing like a Marine. I've d---ed out the applicable words.
----------------
He curles his face into a scowl, cries out some words in one of the Tongues That Ought Not Be and makes an arcane gesture that launches a vivid bolt of dark lightning toward me. This is a man who has not done his homework.
You see, you don't get into CustSec without being special. We fight interdimensional threats on a daily basis. To get in you have to be fit, you have to be smart, and you have to have at least one thing that you can do amazingly well. Some of us are combat experts - gun, blade or unarmed. Some are mystics - spiritmasters, magii, or whatever. Hard to tell the difference between those guys some times. Some folks have specific psychic abilities, like the agent in B squad who can tell you your enemy's strengths and weaknesses in nothing flat. I love that guy. My power is that I'm very, very Real. I Exist harder than almost anyone else around here, and this dimension is more Real than most. I'm hard to hurt and bloody hard to kill. I earth out stresses in Probability. I shed hostile magic like a duck sheds water. So when this guy tosses a bolt of Darkest Sorcery at me, I don't bother to dodge. I feel no need to cringe. I just brace myself and get ready to act like it meant something.
The unholy bolt strikes me dead on and crackles across my skin, giving off a weird and eldritch light. It tingles a little.
And that's when he starts ranting at me about how weak and insignificant I am in the face of his earth-shattering powers.
You know? I've been dealing with s--- all day. All f---ing day, and this guy, this *poser* has been the cause of most of it. I've taken it, and I've gritted my teeth and smiled, because I had no choice. This time is different, though. I do have a choice. I *don't* have to stand here and take it from *him*. He didn't go through *customs*. Legally, he doesn't *exist*. The beast within snarls an ugly little snarl, and I slide in slow and smooth. I have plenty of time. He thinks I'm still reeling from whatever the f--- he tried to do to me, and he'll be absorbed in his gloating for a good five minutes if I don't snap him out of it first. Supervillains are such massive f---ing egotists
I get up nice and close, wind up, take a moment to choose exactly where I want to plant my fist, and let him have it, putting my entire body behind the blow. Oh, that felt good. He reels, stumbling back a few paces, and staring at me in horror and confusion. "You hit me. I was in the middle of a villainous speech...and you *hit* me. How...?"
Clearly they have some deeply f---ed up rules in the world he lives on.
"Oh, yeah." I say, grinning. "That's right. You're the ---hole who was too good to go through Customs."
I walk up to him again, taking my time. After all, according to his rules, I'm in a rant. He probably thinks that he has to just stand there like a dumbf--- and listen.
"You didn't give anyone the chance to tell you."
I ball up my left fist and let him have it low in the gut. He bends over a bit, coughing, as the wind gets knocked out of him.
"You see, the rules are different here."
Proper application of my right fist straightens him back up again and pushes him back a few more steps. Maybe he loses a few teeth. Won't matter soon.
"Maybe where you came from you were some all-powerful black magus."
I reach out and latch my left hand, gentle but firm around the right side of his neck.
"but here...?"
I wrap my right hand around the other side, and lift him off the ground by his head. I pause a moment, drawing it out, savoring the look of rage, terror, and utter bewilderment in his eyes, as he struggles feebly against me.
"Here, you're just a punk."
I snarl, I flex, and there is a sickening, liquid crunch.
"...and punks *die*."
I loosen my grip, and his body drops, landing in a crumpled heap. I spit on it for good measure. _--hole.
That's when things stop going according to plan.
Black smoke wisps out of his robe, quickly joined by tendrils from his mouth and eyes. It pours together and accumulates into a writhing ball about a foot and a half above his chest, and his face decays as the rest of his body seems to collapse. Now, I know the drill. This is obviously a Dark Inheritance of some sort - some Power entirely independant of the life of the wielder. It's spelled "badmojo" in a hundred different languages, and at this point, I really ought to be getting the hell away from it, in the hopes of not getting any on me. Instead, I stand there rubbernecking like a moron. A rookie mistake. I come out of my stupor and start to move within less than half a minute, but by then it is reaching for me, and it is far too late.
--------------
I told you it was no prize.
One no-prize remaining for whoever can figure out what *Vincent*'s hiding.
Also, my apologies for the wait. I've hit a point where the next bit depends on what the *girl* wants to do, and I'm realizing that I've not developed her nearly enough as a character.
----------------
He curles his face into a scowl, cries out some words in one of the Tongues That Ought Not Be and makes an arcane gesture that launches a vivid bolt of dark lightning toward me. This is a man who has not done his homework.
You see, you don't get into CustSec without being special. We fight interdimensional threats on a daily basis. To get in you have to be fit, you have to be smart, and you have to have at least one thing that you can do amazingly well. Some of us are combat experts - gun, blade or unarmed. Some are mystics - spiritmasters, magii, or whatever. Hard to tell the difference between those guys some times. Some folks have specific psychic abilities, like the agent in B squad who can tell you your enemy's strengths and weaknesses in nothing flat. I love that guy. My power is that I'm very, very Real. I Exist harder than almost anyone else around here, and this dimension is more Real than most. I'm hard to hurt and bloody hard to kill. I earth out stresses in Probability. I shed hostile magic like a duck sheds water. So when this guy tosses a bolt of Darkest Sorcery at me, I don't bother to dodge. I feel no need to cringe. I just brace myself and get ready to act like it meant something.
The unholy bolt strikes me dead on and crackles across my skin, giving off a weird and eldritch light. It tingles a little.
And that's when he starts ranting at me about how weak and insignificant I am in the face of his earth-shattering powers.
You know? I've been dealing with s--- all day. All f---ing day, and this guy, this *poser* has been the cause of most of it. I've taken it, and I've gritted my teeth and smiled, because I had no choice. This time is different, though. I do have a choice. I *don't* have to stand here and take it from *him*. He didn't go through *customs*. Legally, he doesn't *exist*. The beast within snarls an ugly little snarl, and I slide in slow and smooth. I have plenty of time. He thinks I'm still reeling from whatever the f--- he tried to do to me, and he'll be absorbed in his gloating for a good five minutes if I don't snap him out of it first. Supervillains are such massive f---ing egotists
I get up nice and close, wind up, take a moment to choose exactly where I want to plant my fist, and let him have it, putting my entire body behind the blow. Oh, that felt good. He reels, stumbling back a few paces, and staring at me in horror and confusion. "You hit me. I was in the middle of a villainous speech...and you *hit* me. How...?"
Clearly they have some deeply f---ed up rules in the world he lives on.
"Oh, yeah." I say, grinning. "That's right. You're the ---hole who was too good to go through Customs."
I walk up to him again, taking my time. After all, according to his rules, I'm in a rant. He probably thinks that he has to just stand there like a dumbf--- and listen.
"You didn't give anyone the chance to tell you."
I ball up my left fist and let him have it low in the gut. He bends over a bit, coughing, as the wind gets knocked out of him.
"You see, the rules are different here."
Proper application of my right fist straightens him back up again and pushes him back a few more steps. Maybe he loses a few teeth. Won't matter soon.
"Maybe where you came from you were some all-powerful black magus."
I reach out and latch my left hand, gentle but firm around the right side of his neck.
"but here...?"
I wrap my right hand around the other side, and lift him off the ground by his head. I pause a moment, drawing it out, savoring the look of rage, terror, and utter bewilderment in his eyes, as he struggles feebly against me.
"Here, you're just a punk."
I snarl, I flex, and there is a sickening, liquid crunch.
"...and punks *die*."
I loosen my grip, and his body drops, landing in a crumpled heap. I spit on it for good measure. _--hole.
That's when things stop going according to plan.
Black smoke wisps out of his robe, quickly joined by tendrils from his mouth and eyes. It pours together and accumulates into a writhing ball about a foot and a half above his chest, and his face decays as the rest of his body seems to collapse. Now, I know the drill. This is obviously a Dark Inheritance of some sort - some Power entirely independant of the life of the wielder. It's spelled "badmojo" in a hundred different languages, and at this point, I really ought to be getting the hell away from it, in the hopes of not getting any on me. Instead, I stand there rubbernecking like a moron. A rookie mistake. I come out of my stupor and start to move within less than half a minute, but by then it is reaching for me, and it is far too late.
--------------
I told you it was no prize.
One no-prize remaining for whoever can figure out what *Vincent*'s hiding.
Also, my apologies for the wait. I've hit a point where the next bit depends on what the *girl* wants to do, and I'm realizing that I've not developed her nearly enough as a character.