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"So why are you fighting me?" one said to the other, somewhere down the line. They were lined up against a wall, swords locked, and waves crashing far below. They appeared to be at something of an impasse.
"I have been instructed to, by my boss, who may or may not be evil," said the other, who name happened to be Michael. He shrugged as he spoke, somehow managing not to drop his sword or allow the first man to free his own sword. "It pays the bills, though. He's not doing anything too bad. Why are you fighting me? If you gave up, you could go home fine."
The first man allowed himself a moment to stare dramatically off into the distance. "True love," he said after a while.
Michael shrugged again. That was a pretty good reason.
They stayed stuck for a moment, and then nodded at each other, freed their swords, and stepped down from their precarious position to begin fighting anew on safer ground. Michael even put aside his blade to allow the man in dark red the first shot. They fought valiantly and chivalrously for long minutes, neither gaining an advantage. Then Michael tripped over a rock, and just as suddenly as the fight began, it was over.
"I suppose I have to kill you now," said the man in dark red, sighing. This was his least favourite part of dueling.
"You could knock me out instead," Michael suggested. He smiled very beseechingly from his sprawl on the ground. There were many things Michael wanted to be, but dead was not any of them. "It would say, um, that you were a man of great mercy. Women like that, you know."
"I think you'd like that more than women would," the man in dark red observed, but he did as requested, only knocking Michael out with a decisive blow to the back of the head. Then he stuck Michael's sword in the ground next to him, sheathed his own, and went along on his way.
Climbing out of the rocks by the sea, he came to a grassy area, where more rocks dotted the hill. He could tell that the man he pursued had come this way because there were fresh tracks in the mud, precisely the shoe size of the ones that had been in the sand. Like all good tracker, he knew that most of good tracking wasn't great skill, but common sense and good observation skills.
But as he suspected, an ambush lay in wait. The man in red sidestepped a great blast of fire, and came face to face with the woman who'd launched it at him. Her green hair sparked with static and she grinned a vicious (or possibly vivacious) grin. "I don't know who the hell you are," she said, "but no one hunts us down and lives to talk about it!"
"I don't know who the hell you are either," said the man in dark red. "I didn't plan to hurt any of you if I don't have to."
"That's what they all say," said the green woman, leveling another blast at him.
The man in red didn't get hit by any of her blasts. He didn't seem very surprised about this, either, though the green woman certainly did. Eventually she paused for breath, and he very quickly and efficiently ran up and knocked her out. "Sorry," he added regretfully, and continued on his way.
When he crested the hill he found a table, a man bound and gagged in front of it, and a large black-haired woman lounging in a chair behind it. "It took you long enough," the woman said irritably. "I was almost worried I was going to have to come rescue you." She stood up and pushed the table out of the way, stepped over the bound man, and swept the man in dark red up in her arms and proceeded to kiss him thoroughly. "Come on, you've got to take me to your ship," she said, when they broke apart.
"As you wish," said the man in red.