Not An Optimist

"I am not letting anybody gypsy curse me," Harth says decisively. "None of that 'no true happiness, ever' rule!" He rolls, trying to get up-- trying to get to his feet-- oh that leg hurts--

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Hey, if they don't both hurt, Sokka hasn't beaten his kneecaps correctly. When he looks back to Harth and eyes him, he's definitely considering finishing the job.

He doesn't look again at Katara-- it's Harth that will see the struggle in his eyes. He wants him dead, wants him dead so bad, but Katara...

The club is gripped and before either can stop him, it's swung-- and Harth's knees should make another, sickening crunch.

"...There are manacles in the engine room - Harper made some. Go get them, Katara - Mel and Zuko, too, if you can find them. And a gag."

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...

These were urgent circumstances, but she had to know:

"Made some for who?!"

She remembered the whole "I'm going to chain you up" debacle.

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"Kinky rutting with his girlfriend, I'm hoping!"

That'd be Harth. On the ground. Going ow. A lot.

This? Did not really please him. He rolled again; but-- you know, there were things he just didn't regen from fast enough.

"If you keep me, they're dead. Bova has Danny and the dogs have House and Cameron and if they come within mind-shot of me I'll have them ripped apart. I am... not... going to let you make an Angel out of me!"

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"ARE YOU SERIOUSLY ASKING ME THAT, KATARA?!"

Umm, yeah, this is really not the time, hence Sokka's screaming. And when he sees Harth roll, a foot is out to shove him over, back onto his back and glaring to keep his eyes on the vampire.

"Then we've lost people we already considered lost. How many will we lose if we let you go?

"Katara, go. Now."

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There was terror in her eyes.

"...How do I know you won't kill him when I leave?"

And what if he managed to get back up and kill Sokka?

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Sokka? Harth has perfectly good hands. You can step on him, but that's not going to hold him down.

Because he pushes up with one hand, grabs with the other, and LATCHES HIS TEETH INTO SOKKA'S CALF.

...Well, what did you expect him to do?

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He looks away from Harth for that one second-- and it's to look at Katara with annoyance and no small amount of hurt. "Because I'm telling you I won't! Now will you just--

"AUGH!"

That HURTS, damn it, and Sokka's club comes up and--

He could bash him in the head so easily. So easy.

But he gets the collarbone instead, looking to get rid of those teeth.

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You know what? There was an easier way to do this.

As Harth recoiled and Sokka pulled his leg free, she uncapped her waterskin, pushed out her arms and Harth's body was firmly encased in ice.

And since she knew from experience that he could break out too easily if it was too thin, and since the air was still full of moisture from the rain, she blew, frost and then ice forming layer upon layer until he was...cemented to the ground with a pretty thick layer of ice.

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Harth?

Glared.

Stuck.

Not happy.

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Sokka?

Bleeding.

Glaring back.

"You better thank her, asshole, 'cause if I had my way, your brains would be dashed against the floor.

"Katara, please, go get Zuko and Mel and the manacles, just in case. I won't kill him. I'll just break all his joints if he starts to get up."

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She ran.

And...and Mel was not with the first person he saw, walking through the first floor hallway, and she was a little afraid of him going out there without her there, because Sokka said he wouldn't kill him, but Zuko...

"Zuko! Harth! Outside! We trapped him!"

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The vampire looks at him for a long moment, before he says, "It would be justice to kill me. To do what she's going to do--"

He shakes his head. "It will take the demon-- and it will push it back. The soul will return -- and then I'll do nothing but suffer. I will know no joy, no kindness, nothing. I will go mad. Ask Buffy what a Soul does to a vampire! Sure, it's only four years of killing, maiming and hate-- not centuries, like Angel-- but it will be enough."

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"You know what she told me?" Sokka asks softly, looking back at Harth once Katara's gone.

"She told me she saw you before - without the monster. Real, human. When that lady was around, maybe even when she wasn't. You know what that means?"

He takes a step back, just one, and then crouches down beside the vampire, still holding onto his club.

"It means he's still in there. It means he watches all of this, all you've ever done to us, and he's not fighting back. So if we get rid of you - the demon - and put the boy back in - the soul - we're still punishing someone responsible.

"It'll be enough. It'll be punishment for your crimes and it'll be better than anything we could give you here by ourselves.

"I hope she can do it. Death is too good for you."

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"I could turn you," Harth says quietly. "And then you'd know what it's like. That soul doesn't have a chance-- that woman brought it out, brought it back-- but all the boy did then? Was cry. Because that's all it can do now. Imagine-- you are in a cage, Sokka- A dark, black cage, where you are manacled, kept barely alive-- and you watch animals rip the world apart before you. That-- is what occurs to a Slayer's soul when they're turned. They usually go mad."

He did, after all.

He sneers now. "You think man is stronger then monster. I think that's a laugh. He was a child, weak and frail, always in Mel's shadow. Now? I am Harth Fray, the one who will lead!"

A slightly frozen god, but a god.

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Sokka just looks at him.

"...You're a little boy who got frozen to the floor by my baby sister. And Harth Fray, the one who will lead? Couldn't kill a little human boy.

"Man can be stronger. You just aren't."

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"That's something Zuko needs to learn: Leaders... never have to do their own dirty work. You better go inside and tell Zuko not to come out. They'll kill you all if you're out here when they get here. If you leave-- I'll let you live."

There is distant howling.

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Sokka's eyes narrow, confused at first, distrusting--

But he knows those howls. He knows them very well. It's why his face goes slack, eyes suddenly wide.

But then his jaw sets, grip tightened on the club and knife.

"I'm not letting you get away again."

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"Then, do you want me to turn you, or one of them? I haven't seen if the magog are capable of it--"

Harth's grinning. Howls get closer.

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The jerk of his chin is so sharp, it looks like he may have snapped his neck doing it -- but he glares at Harth with more hate than anyone should ever have in their eyes.

"You wouldn't. You've seen me with Katara. You know what I'd do to you if I had the power to keep you from her - permanently. Or anyone else in the apartments.

"I'm safer - and weaker - alive, and you know it."

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"Guess you're going to die," Harth says quietly.

The howling is closer; the last pack of vampire magog pile up at the gates. THis time they fight smarter -- they team work, he's been teaching them-- they launch two over the gate without climbing, leaving the gate and it's ward alarm silent.

Yes, Sokka: two giant, furry, flying alien vampires are coming your way.

Fast.

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Yeah, they are. The fear Harth smelled before? Is nothing compared to the scent coming off Sokka now as he stands and lifts his club, watching as they approach, a swarm, fighting smarter, piling up...

He's trembling, Harth. Can you see it? But he's also holding tight to his club, knuckles white.

"I want you to know," he says softly, as Magog get closer and closer to the gates, "I would have enjoyed killing you-- more than anything else in the world."

Just so he knows, while the giant, furry, flying aliens are launched and Sokka's club comes up to bash one of them right in the face.

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Two more come over the wall, but then there is no more-- the otheres are waiting on the other side. The gate, after all, can be easily opened from this side. But only one goes for Sokka, the other three bee-lining for Harth.

...and the one really doesn't like being hit in the face, Sokka. It hits back with one big furry arm.

Hard.

"For that," Harth calls, "I will make your death excruiatingly painful. You're still... Number two!"

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It probably doesn't like being hit in the face by a spirit-blessed weapon more than any other kind of hitting.

Knocked straight into the wall takes the wind out of Sokka, and also breaks open the slice in his belly Harth had put there, making him grunt as skin breaks and his t-shirt begins to absorb the blood.

He turns back anyway, though, ready to attack again, club up and ready--

But they're getting Harth free. No, no, no, no, no, no

"NO!" His knife, his club, both are used and, god, he launches, trying to knock them away, get them away, where the hell are Katara, Zuko, and Mel?!

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