Disclaimer:  Not my characters, no profit incurred, just trying to fix a minor...problem.  ::g::
Rated: R simply for the squick of having to think like these two.  Oh, and any mistakes can be blamed on my cat.  He kept crawling in my lap while I was typing, you see....

The Real Reason Endgame Never Happened
 

Plymouth, Massachusetts, 1755

Jacob Kell watched from the end of the dock and barely managed not to take the Lord's name in vain.  The Highlander had evaded him again and this time Connor MacLeod had not only escaped, but he had taken his friend, Kastagir, with him.

"A merchant.  The man's a merchant," Kell growled, staring out at the dimming join of sky to sea.  This time both the Highlander and his friend had gotten away because Kell hadn't realized MacLeod owned the ship.  A pity.  Killing Kastagir would have cut out another piece of Connor MacLeod's heart....

As he stood there considering how best to find them or hurt MacLeod, another immortal's presence rolled across his skin in a sensation not unlike being directly in front of an avalanche.  The man who walked down the pier to meet him looked like an impending landslide, too:  easily seven feet tall, shoulders like a ox, and a heavy traveling cloak that didn't quite hide the outline of his blade.

"I'm not here for you," Kell said with the calm certainty of his faith, "unless you simply insist."

"You're not standing on this pier for your health."  Mocking eyes examined him and the huge man added, "You don't look like you'd know what a woman's for, either, so that let's that out."  The contemptuous tone rolled over Kell, a roar of derision and humiliation that burned across his skin.  Through his rage, he head the man growl, "You want the Highlander."

"Connor MacLeod is mine," Kell snarled, his conviction battered by that noise and this walking threat to his plans.  He held up his head to show the white collar around his throat, the crucifix that stood out clearly against the cloth.  "Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord, and I am His tool."

"Your Lord is weak," the stranger grated out in a voice like rocks rumbling downhill.  "As weak as you are."  Shockingly bright eyes studied Joseph Kell from head to foot and the other immortal pulled a great sword.  "Die with your sword or without it," and he attacked.

Kell ducked back, pulling his own longsword from his cloak with the same faint twinge of revulsion he always felt for his eroded vows.  Priests weren't supposed to shed blood -- the blood of the Lamb had been shed for all, and should have been sufficient.  This was the Game, though, and Kell had always reasoned that he could do his Lord no good dead.  Martyrdom wasn't a viable option for him.

Unfortunately, at the end of a pier, running from this shockingly strong, shockingly fast man wasn't an option either.  Before he could dive into the water, his unnamed opponent brought his boot up in a kick which crushed Kell's genitals against his pelvic bone and dropped him to his knees, hands around his sword hilt from training but trying to cradle his abused balls from instinct.  Kell knelt there, blinded by the tears of pain, longsword parallel to his calves and protruding behind him as the anguish rocked him back and forth, nearly forcing his stomach into rebellion.

He never heard the descent of the blow that separated his head from his body.

The quickening roared across the pier, stronger than the Kurgan had expected, and he drank it in with hoarse cries of pleasure and denied pain.  He ate the other man's hate for MacLeod, his memories of skulking deaths in the Highlander's shadows, and the plots and plans for more of such deaths.  The overriding obsession for Connor MacLeod's pain, the need to carve his life away in an attempt to make the Highlander desire death, only made the Kurgan shake his head as he looked at the burning wood behind him, the cold sea in front of him, and the black-clad body at his feet.

He shrugged, cleaned his sword on his opponent's body, hastily rifled his pockets for money and any written notes about the Highlander, then spat his contempt onto the corpse.  "Plans.  Despair.  What's wrong with just taking the Highlander's head?" he demanded irritably as he glanced up.  The fire was roaring toward him with blue and green flickers as the sea-salted wood shivered into flames.

The Kurgan snarled at the metaphors and imagery clogging his usually straightforward attack on life.  This quickening couldn't settle nearly fast enough to suit him.

"Artists," he sneered and leapt into the waiting water.
 

~ ~ ~ finis ~ ~ ~

  Comments, complaints, suggestions for more ways to kill Kell?  Send 'em here!
 

Gorgeous graphics by