Eamer VS Akula

So it came to be decided that Dr Eamer and Dr Akula would meet on a hill one stormy night and have a punch up. Whoever won would take over the Thought Foundry and the defeated one would disappear from the blogosphere and never be seen or heard from again.

Lightning cracked, thunder boomed, and all the other things associated with dark and stormy nights happened too.

At midnight the two men stood on the hill and faced each other.

"You can't win, Eamer! You know that, don't you?" Akula shouted, his face white, teeth glinting. "You're a big softy! This blog belongs to someone with guts! Someone who knows how to have a good time! Someone who knows what it means to truly live, and I know more about that than you do!" He laughed wildly, shaking beneath his black and red cloak. "And I'm the Undead!"

Eamer didn't flinch, but held his head high, rain dripping down his rugged jawline. "That's what you think, Sharky!" he called out over the sounds of the elements, refering to the NATO codename for the Russian nuclear submarines, Akula, Russian for shark. "This is my blog, and I don't care how well you dress, you're a bad apple, and I'm here to show you on your way for good!"

"Come on then!" Akula shouted.

"Right, I will!" Eamer replied.

"I'm waiting!" taunted Akula.

Eamer ran at the figure in black, head down, head-butting him in the stomach and lifting his feet an inch off the ground. Akula hammered on Eamer's back with his fists as he was driven backwards and into a tree. Eamer lifted his head and their eyes locked.

Akula grinned. He said, "My turn!"

Akula shoved Eamer, who tripped over a tree root and went sprawling on his back in the mud, and in a second Akula was on him, hands around Eamer's neck, squeezing. Eamer brought up a fist in an uppercut, knocking Akula's head back and bringing out a scream of pain.

"Aargh!" shouted Akula, staring down at Eamer with a look of hurt in his eyes. "I bit my tongue!"

Eamer twisted onto his front and tried to crawl away, but Akula grabbed his boot to pull him back. The boot, lace broken for ages, came off in his hand, and a warm stench exuding from it cause him to flinch back and cast the thing aside. "Grargh! That's garlic!" he snorted in disgust, before sneezing uncontrollably for several seconds. "I thought we agreed. No garlic, crucifixes, silver bullets, stakes, icons or four-leaf clovers. And I wouldn't bite, scratch, turn into a bat, levitate, or turn into mist!"

Eamer shrugged apologetically. "Sorry about that. Last night's pizza."

"Graargh!" Akula hissed, and pounced on him.

"Ah ah ahh," said Eamer waving a finger. "No hissing."

Akula stopped short, eyes wide. "No hissing!? What do you mean, no hissing!?"

"You're unfairly using your superhuman eerie undeadness to frighten me and gain the upperhand," Eamer explained patiently. "And that's just not cricket."

Akula threw his head back and laughed, "Not cricket, he says!"

Eamer chose just that second to bring his knee up as hard as he could into the vampire's groin.

A long, pain-filled howl filled the night, passing over the rooftops of the villages below, causing dogs to wimper and midwives to cast wary glances at their ceilings.

Eamer stood holding his boot, watching the dark, stooped figure of the defeated prince of darkness limp dejectedly down the hill. He could just hear the mumbled words " ... not cricket, he says ... " drifting back up to him on the breeze, and then Akula was gone.

Eamer sighed and gave a weary smile. "Right," he said. "Now. Where was I?"