• Mature • Fancy Seeing You Here... Who Are You? (Yndira)(Graded)

81st of Ashan 718

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Kasoria
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Fancy Seeing You Here... Who Are You? (Yndira)(Graded)

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81st Trial, Ashan, Arc 718
South Etzos, Underground
2nd break
Sometimes it really was just a job. No different to many others, in the manner by which it was approached. It was a task to be completed, and while like most men he would have preferred to have just got paid for being his usual charming self, it needed to be accomplished. More than that, there had to be an element unspoken but clearly understood in the execution.

Execution. Not a word to get familiar with tonight.

Kasoria sighed and kept strolling through the demented warren of tunnels, passages, sewers, crypts, sunken buildings and abandoned mines that made up the Etzos Underground. All of these locations, hundreds of them, had congealed together over the centuries and under the surface of the city, making one singular network that was so chaotic that it laughed at such a precise word. Kasoria had been exploring, playing, and utilizing them for nearly thirty-five arcs, and he knew that he'd seen barely half them. Probably less, since he kept to the South Side, of course.

Something bigger than a rat skittered in the darkness down a passage to his side. The little man kept walking, sparing it only a swift, instinctive glance. Darkness there, and fuck-all more. It could have been a beggar. A fugitive. A dog. A cat. A monster from the pits of hell. All Kasoria knew, was that it wasn't giving him any trouble... and he'd have enough of that coming tonight.

Well. Relatively.

He frowned as he walked, not trusting the light mood he seemed to be in. He had reason for it, that was true. His journey to Westguard and back had been... well, more than fruitful. He left with a secret he could not speak and when he returned, it was with the memory of an embrace around his shoulder. Young, skinny but strong arms around his neck, and a voice calling him "Dad".

He didn't just frown, then. He bit down until his jaw twitched and jerked under his beard and he banished the damned memory. That was something for a safe place, or as safe a place as he had in his world. Tonight, he was working, and he didn't need fond, sunny memories fucking with his Fatesdamned professional disposition. Swift hands glided across his body, vanished under folds of cloth. The gladius at his hip... the karambit at his back... the rows of throwing knives strapped to each leg... all there, all secure.

Yet when he was done, he tightened his hands in to fists, and thought he would not need all that metal.

"Those wankers at the Bat have ducked me for the last fucking season," Bangun Vorund had told him a couple of breaks before, barely looking up from his parchment-clogged desk. "That's two in a row now, and all they do is fuck up Devin's collectors. So you're gonna straighten out the cunts, y'hear me?"

He'd looked up briefly, however. Pointed at his pet assassin with the stylus that dripped ink constanty but he never bloody replaced. Just to make his point clear, and Kasoria grimaced for a trill. He knew what was coming. Even after two bloody arcs-

"No bloody corpses, y'understand? Not a sodding charnel house, like that last place."

"It was hardly the last place-"

"Oh, you know what I mean. Dead men don't pay, and without the money, fuck are we doing this for?" Vorund sighed and tapped his stylus against the desk, regarding Kasoria carefully, irritably. So much to do, for a captain of industry such as him. But even shit like this couldn't be ignored. Word could get out, spread, take root, then Kasoria and others like him would be swamped with "clients" getting fucking cocky. "I know this is a little... beneath your rank, if y'follow. But they say there's some bad boys watching over that place. Figured I'd send over a worse one."

Kasoria hadn't made a comment about the job being beneath him, or being better or worse than anyone. He just raised an amused eyebrow and took his leave. Ilos looked up from his desk and Kasoria could feel the stink wafting off the look. Still stewing about Foster's Landing. Kid needed to learn when to let things go, and see they weren't any kind of problem in the first place.

Some people don't learn. Speaking of which...

A low, indistinct roar whispered against his ears, as he stepped into a tunnel like a tavern. Who know what great works were dragged and paraded through it? Although... but the stench, he'd say it used to be a sewer. It was also a perfect amplifier, and he could hear the wordless buzz of voices carries along it. The Buried Bat. That took him back. An unofficial South Side institution for quite a while, passing through several hands, mainly because it was quite the lucrative location. Set in a cavern that was part enormous cellar and ruin, part carved into the rocks under Etzos itself, the roof seemed to always be playing host to at least some sleeping or twitching nocturnal flying squirrels.

But under them... that's where the money was made. Not just booze and food, but whores and Euphoria, stolen goods and sellsword work, deals struck and drugs traded. The owners got a cut of course, and with such a profitable business in hand, he hired a whole squad of rough men with the scars and calluses to prove their pedigree.

Bangun Vorund wanted them broken, but not eliminated. He wanted them alive, but scarred and mutilated. Both warned and a warning, to anyone else thinking of spurning his generous offer of protection.

Kasoria sped up. His light mood returned, but it was tinged with something... hungry. Eager. He'd relied on metal for the last few jobs. Needed it, of course, but he knew all the while that he was just better with his fists. His knees. Elbows. Forehead. Hell, everything he could turn into a weapon, and now he got the chance to stretch those muscles. He turned the corner where he knew the gate would be and-

Blinked. It was unguarded. More than that, it was ajar, thin blade of lamplight spilling out into the dry, sunless stones, letting out a storm of cursing and shouting along with it.

The bloody hells...?

As he got closer, he started to guess why. Not from anything he could see, but his ears pricked up as he heard-

Well, Fate's Fuckery. Looked like someone had beat him to it.

Thanks for Jade for the template
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Fancy Seeing You Here... Who Are You? (Yndira)

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The scene was set not with great ballroom and hanging chandeliers but with pisspots and candles drowning in their own wax. In a bar in a shithole with equally shitty people, evidently. The dark haired Naer had walked in with the intention of only eating, and yet she had found herself sick to her stomach. Disgusting, dingy - they were no better than strays on the streets, these patrons. Which had made her stick out like a sore thumb. Not dressed in her fineries, but certainly not wearing stained clothing. But - that was beside the point. What mattered was her intention, and that was to eat and she was finding nothing worth risking a bite for.

Nadine had opted out of coming with her to this disastrous mission, and maybe the woman had been right, but to this point the Naerrikk was not so pleased. She'd sat through a bevy of jokes, or what she thought to be so, for close to a break and she was growing hungrier with each bit. She could have easily gone for something else to eat - oh, but the cravings. It was no longer the typical hunger that could dealt with through the usual means and thus - she was still here. Still listening to nonsense, until she had had enough.

It made perfect sense, in her mind, that the best way to quiet a man was to shove a glass in his face. The broken end of a bottle, really, into his cheek. She hadn’t learned the Common words for ‘shut’ and ‘up’ so it had logically been the next step. However, it was not precisely the correct one. It had earned her a slap hard enough to leave her ears ringing and the annoyance turning into something else as she was quickly disarmed and nearly repaid in kind for her actions. It was...quite a scene, watching the Naer kick and fling curses and the men volleying their own back as they avoided stray limbs. It was turning into a right brawl, and too be fair - Yndira had to say she was enjoying it. Maybe it would work up an appetite enough that she would be willing to lower her standards in the quality of the meat she ate.

For now, she would lunge forward, jaw snapping as her teeth sank into flesh.
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Fancy Seeing You Here... Who Are You? (Yndira)

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The dance had started and he was a few steps behind, but one look at his partner and Kasoria was less annoyed than he usually would be.

Gone was the stoic, trudging attitude he'd been cloaked in before; the one that said this was just another job, livened up only by the limitations his master imposed. The fact was, Kasoria needed to stretch his born muscles, not just his skills with sharpened steel. Dull and beneath him though it was (and wouldn't he chuckle at that later on: a slum boy like him, deciding what was beneath him), he was too old to pretend he didn't enjoy the challenge.

Then he walked through doors that should have been guarded, up to a bar that should have been crowded, and saw instead a knot of punters all jeering and jostling and even cheering at some tangled melee he couldn't quite see.

No great surprise, there.

Shoving aside his perpetual, undying grudge against creation for making him barely five-feet-five-inches in heeled shoes, Kasoria wormed his way around the crowd. Well, this was an embuggerance, for sure. He was supposed to be the center of attention that night. A living, breathing, crippling advertisement to the will of his master. But instead he'd been upstaged, and now had to work even harder to shift the spotlight-

-then he heard a ghastly wail, and the sound of flesh tearing. Not parting, or slicing. Tearing. As if by huge and hungry teeth.

Fuck me.

No-one seemed to notice the little man as he slid into the front of the knot of onlookers, ringing the woman that seemed composed of fury and flailing limbs. They were too focused on the man with the bloody, torn cheek, going at the lithe, brown female who looked more animal than human. Kasoria blinked as he studied her. Definitely not a local. The way she moved, even the way she fought... well, no, scratch that last one. Biting was hardly unusual in an Etzosi brawl.

Then he frowned. Swallowing what you bit off was, though.

"Fates, the fuck do I pay you people for?!"

That indignant line was enough to snap his focus back to his mission. A fat lump of a man trying to hide that in expensive clothing was raging behind the bar, flanked by a quartet of burly muscle. He snapped his fingers and two of them made for the woman, the other two staying close to their master. Kasoria could see other bobbing heads approaching from across the breadth of the tavern, converging like sharks on thrashing prey.

The woman was busy with the angry, jilted customer in front of her. Not for much longer, but long enough she wouldn't see the man behind her-

So your plan doesn't apply. So what? Change it.

Kasoria had been scrapping and brawling and killing across the cobbles and alleys of Etzos to know that plans were all well and good, until things actually started happening. Then you analyzed the situation, tossed the fucker away, and made a new one. So when he saw the six-foot-plus sack of meat raise his fist, he didn't think. He didn't need to. He knew what had to be done, and just lunged-

-leg bursting up and forward and down-

CRUNCH

Yndira would have heard a scream, high and agonized, and not from anyone she was fighting. A quick glance behind her would have seen the little man in ragged clothes fly from the circle watching her, straight at the thug sneaking up on her, and planting his foot squarely against his knee. From the side. At quite some fucking speed.

Something snapped inside that thick leg. It bent completely the wrong way, and the man went down, hanging onto the bar for dear life-

-Kasoria snatching up an abandoned bottle as the man thudded down to one knee-

CRASH

-smashing it across a head shaped like a boulder, knocking him senseless-

-then backhanded across the man's face, earning another howl of agony as nose and lips and an eye were slashed to ribbons-

CRACK

-before ending the big man's waking agony with a knee to the face. He felt bones crack and bloody flesh press into his breeches, the man's head snapping back as the blow knocked him into blissful, painless sleep. The other man the owner had dispatched stopped in his tracks, jaw dropping when he saw the tiny figure in shit-smelling clothes, lay waste to his partner and then stand with the woman.

Both of them almost back to back, surrounded by enemies.

Now. This is better.

"I come with word from Bangun Vorund," Kasoria said, loudly and clearly into the brief, stunned silence he had created. "Time to pay your dues... Erik."

The garishly-dressed man behind the bar almost turned the same shade of red as his lapels.

"G-Get the fucking pair of them!"

Kasoria grinned, and his knuckled crackled as he clenched them into fists. He did not know the woman, but she knew she was a dancer. For now, as the hulking figures drew close, that was enough.
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Fancy Seeing You Here... Who Are You? (Yndira)

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If not for the light, they would be but shreds. If not for the light, she would have long since dined on them all and moved on. But there was light and she was forced to take a bite piece by piece, starting with a cheek slick with sweat and stank of booze. If not for the hunger, she might have thrown it right up, but it dulled her sense of taste and down the flesh went. Was this beneath her? In every single aspect of the word she could conjure up in the heat of the moment. And yet, here she was: picking at people like a carrion bird picking at a carcass. Blood dripped on her hands and over her lips where the man's cheek had passed, a gaping wound on the side of his face that she took more pride in than she would care to admit. But she was not done, and soon he would be.

Oblivious was she to the approach of two other men, joining the brawl at the behest of their employer - who she would also be oblivious to. If he really wanted her dealt with, he would approach her himself, but that wasn't going to happen, now was it? Not when all she saw was red and tasted the sharp tang of copper on her tongue beneath the salty bite of sweat. Not when she already gone this far, and saw no point in backing down. The man's much larger form was still slightly hunched, clutching the freshly gifted wound as she made to bite him once more, teeth sinking as nails bit down towards bone.

It was a scream and the shatter of glass that directed her attention elsewhere - behind her. She released her hold as the man released his from her hair, favoring instead to cradle his bleeding arm, a font of blood spilling to the floor as he stumbled back. Perhaps to grab a weapon or something to staunch the bleeding; she no longer cared. There was the press of another body against her back, the Naer straightening in response for a trill before relaxing as the rumble of speech passed through her.

She understood nothing he said aside from a name and dues. Her gaze darted toward the mentioned Erik, eyes narrowing as she regarded the man, then his goons as they drew closer. She earned herself a partner and while it was not what she had set out for in the first place, it was a welcomed thing as she turned her attention back to the moment. When this was done, perhaps she would get her own dues from this Erik.

There was no question of this man's skill but what were they to do? Yndira didn't play well with others; she'd learned that time and time again, and being put into a situation where such a thing was necessary - it wasn't what she'd wanted. "What do now, small man?" She wasn't much bigger than he; she had no place to picking on such a thing but her size had always been an advantage. Her voiced carried something like amusement, though it was far from genuine.

Whether he answered or not, their opponents would not wait for them to sort themselves out. Brandishing steel and blades that glinted in the light, they would come forward. Some, however, would be more willing to approach the Naerikk, the relatively safer option of the two encircled targets.
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Fancy Seeing You Here... Who Are You? (Yndira)

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Very fucking original.

Kasoria would dearly have loved to shoot back something equally stinging at the saucy bitch, but he knew better than to waste the trill on useless patter. This was old territory for him; rank and cruel and familiar in a way few other things were. An Etzos crowd, drunk and stinking of various narcotics, buzzing with raw adrenaline alongside chemical excitement. Now they had a new piece of theater to enjoy, as Erik's thugs closed in on them and then charged-

Closest first.


A redhead lunged at Kasoria with a dagger, curved, nasty little sod that he wanted to jam through his eyes-

-only for the little man to catch his lunging arm with both hands, at the forearm, spinning as his hands shot up. He stopped with his back to the man, his arm over his shoulder, with his elbow resting right over the center of it-

CRACK

Kasoria jerked down until the hand and the knife were pressed to his chest. His shoulder was the fulcrum against which he balanced and bent and broke that arm at the elbow. The scream that followed was an unholy horror, blasting his ears, obliterating the sound of everything else-

-but not his sight, and the vision of a second minder launching a kick between his legs-

-which he sidestepped, right hand jerking up to yank the dagger from Redhead's useless, powerless hand, twitching in front of his chest-

-left arm snapping around the Kicker's leg as he caught it in his armpit. Kicker had all of a trill to realize he was standing on one leg, with his other trapped, and just as he went to either pull away or start hopping-

Kasoria stabbed his new dagger into the man's leg, just below the groin. He could feel the bone scraping against the blade as he ripped it down, opening up flesh and muscle until he hit the kneecap. The scream went on and on and mingled with the first, until he let go the blade and hammered a straight right into the crippled man's face. Knocking him onto his back, crying and cursing and praying and clutching a blood-pissing leg that he'd probably lose-

-giving him an opening to half-turn, slamming a rear elbow into Redhead''s wailing face as he did. Blood splattered from burst lips, splattering onto the bar and the beard the man wore-

-Kasoria adding more to it when he finished turning, bracing his hands at the side of the man's head and-

CRACK CRACK

CRUNCH


The crowd seemed to jump at each impact. Watching with that usual sickened yet entranced Etzos vibe that Kasoria had been raised around, as he slammed the man's skull into the teak bar until he went limp. Probably not dead, though. Just with a face that resembled a half-eaten steak and an arm that would probably land in the same surgeon's basket as Kicker's leg.

There was a lull. A pair of trills, maybe less. But they were all a brawler like him needed. A handful of blinks to flash a gaze around the crowd. See the majority of it already backing away from the carnage, including those handful of likely faces that seemed... hungry. As if they wanted a piece of the action, if only to get into Erik's good graces. Then they'd seen what that would cost... and they were rethinking. But not all of them.

A couple were hurling themselves at the blood-soaked bitch who'd started all this, but another came screaming in at Kasoria, lashing out with a textbook left hook-

Wait for it.

-and the little man jerked his head back, blow passing in front of his face, sliding away from the bar-

One more, maybe.

Boxer's guard was up when a right cross came at Kasoria instead, and now his left forearm shot up to block the blow before it landed-

Wrong arena, mate. This ain't fisticuffs.

-and his left foot came up and stamped down a half-trill later, square onto Boxer's knee from inside his stance. There was a wet, crunching sound as the ball of that bone was popped clean of of it's ligament-wrapped socket, and Boxer went down with a yelp of pain-

-which Kasoria cut off with a knee to his face, now he was at the right level for it. The kid's head snapped back and blood flew in an arc over his head. Glassy eyes crossed as he stared up at the ceiling, the countless shining rodent eyes up there blinking back down at him... and then he fell onto his back, and did not move again.

He'd not even settled before some came screaming at him from the crowd, shoving a couple of whore aside, hatchet raised high as he charged at Kasoria. Clearly aiming to split him in two with one blow-

-never landing it-

-the little man reached up and grabbed his wrist before it landed and twisted to the side, other hand snaking under the man's armpit. Kasoria's hips strained and his legs burned but he ignored both, screaming out himself as he used Hatchet's momentum against him-

-and his charge instead became a dive over the bar, Kasoria lifting him just enough, just for a moment, to go barreling across the blood-splattered wood and into the shelves behind it. Hatchet's war cry turned into a scream of rage, right before it became him choking through an ocean of glass as he went crashing into a few dozen choice bottles. Kasoria didn't even watch to see if he got back up. Odds are he wouldn't, and in the meantime, he had to worry about Erik finally getting the bright idea to-

"Two hundred nels!" The fat little man cried out. Half the eyes in the Bat snapped to him (well, the human ones), and the jangling purse he was holding in the air. "To anyone that carves up their cunts and gets them the fuck outta my bar!"

Bugger, Kasoria thought, cracking his neck from side to side as the mood in the bar turned against them in a distinctly Etzos fashion. Money had been offered, after all. Fair coin for hard work. A language all could understand, and the shady clientele of The Bat thrived on. Hoped that wouldn't occur to him until later.

He didn't show that on his face, though. Instead... he just reacted. Erik had raised. Kasoria matched it by carefully and smoothly unsheathing his karambit. Holding it ready and letting the whole bar seeing that evil-looking weapon. Vorund wouldn't be happy, he could just tell. But if anyone died, he would just blame the woman.

Then he tossed a glance over at her progress, from where the screams and grunts and snarls were issuing from, and saw that wouldn't be such an exaggeration after all.[/googlefont]
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Fancy Seeing You Here... Who Are You? (Yndira)

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He didn't answer. Why was it that half the men she ran into were absolute asses? The Naer didn't rightly care that he was busy with his own attackers - he was perfectly capable of speaking while fighting. He was using his hands...and short legs. His mouth wasn't occupied by taking a chunk out of someone in the moment. It was only a trill or so that she had to shoot him a glare before a pair of arms was hoisting her up into the air and squeezing as if to crush her.

He was coming close to it, but perhaps not close enough. Her retaliation came quickly, nails burrowing into flesh as she flailed about. Her heel met his knee - once, twice, thrice - before it buckled and her captor needed to shift his weight. She swung her leg again, angling it for the sweet spot between his legs and putting in as much force as possible. The howl that left him was music to her ears, dropped down to the floor now before resorting to her first weapon of choice for that evening. A smashed bottle over the head had not been something Yndira had thought would suffice in taking him down, but perhaps she'd swung hard enough to do it. However, he would not be her only opponent, another throwing himself at her.

The same smashed bottle would find a new home in someone's leg - she wasn't sure where but she didn't care either - and proceeded to drag her nails upward through to his jaw, yanking him forward to have his nose get acquainted with her knee, the meeting highlighted by a wet crunch. There was a moment of stillness that couldn't mean anything good, and it was soon filled with the familiar jingle of coins.

This was all good and well, really. More people were throwing themselves at her and for once she was tired of it. She was not meant for drawn out combat - at the moment - and on top of that, she was still hungry. It made for some less than pleasant conditions and soon enough everything looked appetizing. It was what prompted her to use her teeth again, to bear them in a less than ladylike fashion as she confronted the masses hungry for something else. A mixed party of violence, complete with the blood and gore she was undoubtedly becoming used to.

But this would be a lot easier if it were dark in here. "Small man - lights. Help." They were four strained words, carried across on a less than pleased tone. Someone had managed to land on a punch to her side and another had nicked her upper arm with a knife. Her saving grace had been that the all too eager company of challengers were practically fighting among themselves to get a chance at her.
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Fancy Seeing You Here... Who Are You? (Yndira)

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There was no artistry now. No grace or elegance. Now his enemies didn't throw themselves at Kasoria individually, with everyone else either waiting for weakness or an opening or just observing the show. Now the offer of reward had acted like blood tossed into the water. The mood had shifted, crackled, grown claws and teeth and made ravenous the faces of the crowd surrounding them both.

Now he fought not single spies, but a wall of greedy flesh that knew no honor, or code, or mercy. Fortunately, neither did he. But he would have appreciated the woman shutting her mouth for a moment.

"What did-"

That particular moment of stupidity cost him a punch to the face. But it was sloppy. No twist of the hips nor tightened wrist lending the blow real power. Just the hurried, half-formed work of a barroom scrapper. Kasoria's vision jerked to the side with his face, but snapped back on target a half-trill later-

-pain eclipsed by anger, flaring in him like a bottle of grog tossed into a fire-

-empty left hand shooting up to deflect the Puncher's left cross, leaving his front exposed-

His right lashed out twice, side to side, left and right. The first blow ripped open gouges across the tops of his thighs, making the man scream out in agony as his legs started to die under him-

-the second, backhanded swipe doing much the same, but lower, Kasoria crouching as he brought the curved blade biting into the man's legs just above the knees, killing whatever strength the man had left in them, before rocketing back up-

-drawing back his right, lashing out with his left-

-straight punch crushing the man's nose and sending him sprawling back into the approaching press of bodies.

Then they were one him, and Kasoria was in no place or frame to argue to mock or reply. Everything that came close to him he parried or slashed at or kicked or swatted with some limb or weapon. A bottle was swung at his head from the side and he ducked, retaliating with a karambit-tipped punch to the groin. Twisting it was he yanked the weapon free, relishing in the unnaturally-high shriek as the would-be Bottler went down shrieking and pawing as his ruining genitals. Before the man had even fallen another was pawing at his shoulder and Kasoria pivoted, back now against the bar-

That won't do.

-twisting motion lending more force to the knee that he brought up to deal with the Grabber, burying his kneecap under the man's ribcage, turning a kidney into mush before bracing his hand behind the man's head and smashing it into the bar-

-finishing it with a mutilating slash from his blade across his face. Grabber fell down and away, screaming and wailing like so many other, a carpet of writhing figures crippled and disfigured by the rage of the man and woman. But there were more. All pressing closer and jostling and Kasoria knew he had no chance-

"Shite!"

-especially when one of them grabbed one of the dozen or so six-foot candelabras lining the walls of The Bat. Tall, heavy, topped with flaming candles, it was a fine weapon if you were big enough and had the room to wield it. The man who picked it up was the former, but he didn't have the latter. Kasoria's eyes widened and he ducked as the one-eyed brute roared and swung hard enough to knock his head off-

-only for his target to vanish, and the out-of-control weapon smashed into a pair of hapless goons menacing Kasoria's right. They went down with yells and the crunch of broken bones, but One-Eyes was already raising the weapon again, aiming to bring it down like an executioner's ax on the squatting Kasoria-

Fuck that!

-who shot up and threw himself up and over the bar, shoulders rolling across the wood just before the pronged end of the candlestick-holder hammered gouges and wood chips out of where he'd just been.

"GEDIM!"

There was a brief roar of approval, though Kasoria guessed that since that was Erik's voice, he wouldn't be joining the charge. He got up just as another would-be brawler jumped up onto the bar, kicking out at him-

-Kasoria caught the blow, pulling down and smashing the man's crotch onto the bar. Something burst and coating in the insides of the man's breeches with something Kasoria didn't want to think about, but before he'd even fallen off there were more pouring over the wood and-

-a blade slashed against Kasoria's ribs, chain-mail vest saving him, but only barely. Giving him only a moment to turn to his right and punch the wielder with the karambit, not caring if the blade ripped right through his eyes and probably killed him before his screaming body hit the floor. A boot or a brick or a bottle slammed into his back and knocked him down, on top of the gurgling man. He crawled and quickly, bar getting crowded, looming figures atop it blocking all light, sending giant shadows stretching over him.

The little man snarled and got up, karambit slashing at the ankles of the nearest of the mob. A man, a woman, in that order, fell down howling, at least one foot on each of them now useless. Kasoria didn't have time to finish them, still backing away from the mob, barely glimpsing Erik grinning beyond the feral press of faces, and the girl having her own problems, until he felt heat behind him and-

The fuck was that about light?

-grabbed the candelabra behind him and threw it in the path of the people behind the bar, blocking their progress for a moment. Now he had to worry about those on top of it and in front of it, still closing in on him. The aura of light the candles had provided was killed in a blink. With the loss of it and the holder One-Eye still handled like a club, a patch of shadow was formed against one wall, and when a screaming tattooed thug launched himself at Kasoria-

-only for the assassin to twist out of his way, tripping him as he went, sending him face-first into another candelabra before hacking at the back of his neck with his karambit-

Kasoria found himself in a pool of shadow. All around him were gleaming eyes and blades but there was no light. Should the girl look over, she would see his shadowy form in that stretch of black, small and slight and breathing hard, but far from finished. Kasoria wasn't thinking on her, though. He had eyes only for the crowd, lessened but still hungry for gold and blood. Closer and closer, eager to finish this little bastard off and make their money.

"Happy now, you silly FUCKING girl?!"
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Yndira
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Re: Fancy Seeing You Here... Who Are You? (Yndira)

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She was more than happy. Maybe she'd have thanked him if that was in her nature, but it wasn't so she didn't. Besides; he'd be thanking her soon enough, as he should be. With the lack of light came a comfort that she likely should have sought out from the very beginning. The seamless slip into the intangibility of shadow fitted over her like a new gown. It'd be next to impossible to see the smile plastered on her lips, a cross between maniacal and depraved to match the equally unsettling glow of her eyes in the darkness, the little bit of light one would be able to use to distinguish her from the darkness.

Previous combatants would have felt her slip through their fingers, no longer flesh and blood to hold onto. And furthermore, for their troubles, they were given the gift of perpetual darkness as nails slid through collagen and tendons and whatever else was in there - producing a batter of fluids and tissue as they dragged across from one eye to the next. Their howls filled the air, the only hint of where she was or had been. But she took her time and they followed in her wake like an eager puppy, close enough to nip at her heels.

The naer was indeed happy with this progression. The tides had certainly changed, what with most being incapacitated in her wake. Perhaps when she lit the candles again, she'd take her time to fully reward them for their hard work, but that was a thought for a later time. With her stature as it was - still small - her reach was limited to those directly in front of her. Those willing to could very easily clamber over those who'd failed thus far, stumbling over one another in the darkness and following only the glint of flashing knives. One came so close as to knick her again, cutting through shadow but digging into nothing.

Not as planned, but good enough; they were forming their own wall without Yndira really trying. Her smile widened, eyes roving over this discovery for the moment. But now she needed to find that Raggedy Man and get to the fat one who'd sent all these people at them like dogs to meat. That, and she'd do just fine taking that nice little prize he'd offered to kill the both of them. Of course, finding her partner in crime was no difficult feature; he was his own storm of carnage and all she had to do was follow the wake of it (and maybe she did add to the debris left behind with a felled body or two but that was beside the point).

Watching him at the eye of his own storm, the naer paused for a few trill. He could hold his own and she could take the coin and leave him. He should have expected as much - theirs was a hasty alliance made in the heat of the moment in a room full of obstacles. And now that the stumbling blocks in her way were cleared, she had no further use for him.

"Move, small man."

She did not surprise herself. It was a thought she'd had before - kill everyone and take everything from their pockets. Would teach Nadine not to let her walk about on her own like this again any time soon. Would likely give her a good amount of nel to spend on something nice - a new dress, a better skirt; possibilities were endless. And cutting it with just the fat man wouldn't give her as much as she wanted.

And she was nothing if not greedy.
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Kasoria
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Re: Fancy Seeing You Here... Who Are You? (Yndira)

He wasn't ready to die. Those were not the words he would have chosen. He simply accepted that it would happen. He already had, long ago.

Before his son was born, and Fates he wanted to see him one more time. Before his father had died, and he wished he could have begged that old bastard's forgiveness, even if the words would have been a lie. The moment he took up a sword in service to powers outside the law, and his name was renowned and cursed among those elements... Kasoria had accepted that this would likely be his fate.

It's how you face it that matters, he'd always told himself. Because at The End, what else is there?

A wall of angry flesh and cruel weapons pressed closer, and Kasoria prepared to give a good accounting of himself. One little dead bastard, purchased as such at the price of... he'd say half-a-dozen dead or crippled sons-of-cunts. He spat to the side and flexed his fingers around his curved blade. Flexed his other hand into a tight fist. Waited for the first dead man to try-

-thrusting at him with a short sword-

Too much weight on your lead foot, wanker.

-twisting to his side, smacking his hand into the man's wrist and knocking the blade off course, swordsman stumbling forward-

-straight into Kasoria's slashed karambit, opening up his throat, letting him finish his stumble with blood gushing between his hands.

Another was right behind, swinging for his head with something that looked like a bat with a brick attached to it, and Kasoria ducked-

Too high, boy. Leaves you open to one of these.

-slashing sideways with the karambit as the heavy, blocky weapon head sailed over the top of him, wielder looking down in horror to see his stomach cleaved open and his guts start to hiss and steam out of the ragged gash. He stumbled back, horrified and screaming and there were more, more coming in, all at once-

-Kasoria hacking and punching as the press slammed into him like a wave, all technique gone as he-

-took a punch to the face-

-clawed out a shrieking eye with his free hand-

-took a boot to the ribs, another to the kidney, killing his legs-

-but not before he buried his knee between someone else's legs, doubling them over, feeling something burst under the joint as it impacted-

-something drew blood on his face, something else clawed at his legs and he was snarling and cursing and hacking as best he could as the shadows enveloped him and then-

Then they weren't. They were fleeing. Because something far worse than him had arrived, and facing it wasn't worth dying for.

Kasoria couldn't quite believe it, until he saw the source. The shadows that covered half the bar now had claws and teeth and were cackling with insane, dripping joy. Men were slashing and hacking at nothing, only... it wasn't quite nothing. It wasn't beyond sight. Kasoria's jaw dropped even as he looked on, scrum around him breaking and running. There were arms there. Hands, talon'd and long as daggers. Teeth like those great, savage fish that fishermen talked about, that could eat a man whole. Men tried to kill with with steel and muscle and all they did was die. Horribly.

Soon they realized they couldn't, and they ran.

"N-No!"

Oh, yes.

Erik was not having a nice night. A bar brawl and attempted extortion had turned into a fucking abattoir married to a battlefield, and he was not fucking sticking around anymore. The shadow creature was obliterating whatever security and authority he had; everyone else was scattering, fleeing, bolting for doors and under tables, into the back room, just away. Feet were beating down corridors all around them and they weren't coming back. So it was time for him to do the same-

"Shit!"

Kasoria cursed as he realized he could still see the fat fuck. Which was because he was still in the half of the bar that was lit by the candles and torches that still remained. He was terrified out of his tiny, greedy mind, but he knew what he was looking at... and he knew it couldn't step into the light. So did Kasoria. He'd dealt with her kind before, and barely survived the encounter.

But he learned what it was that came for him, stole his senses and left her grisly warning. One of the Naerikk. Shadow-Witches. That could walk in the light if protected, but without them...

They still could, but not in that form. And he's already running.

Kasoria started to run. Leaping over a fallen table and grinding his teeth in agony as his bloody leg howled under him when he landed. Erik was running as fast as he could but he'd got too close to enjoy the show, relish the chance to see fresh blood spilled at his whim. Now he was wishing he'd kept his distance and Kasoria drew a blade from the sheath at his thigh as he pulled on the door handle to the back-

THUNK

"Fuck me!"

Erik flinched back as the throwing knife smacked into the door frame. His legs nearly went to jelly as he saw the blade wobble and shake in front of him and he paused-

Why, why did he-

-pause-

Moron. I was aiming for your fucking hand, too.

He never had time to question before Kasoria hammered into him from the back. Impact and body weight smashing him back into the door and slamming it closed. Making the fat man howl as he slid down to the ground. Kasoria looked over his shoulder and saw the shadow... thing (he still wasn't sure assigning genders to them was even possible... wait, weren't they all women, or something?) hissing and spitting in her new realm of darkness. Dying and crippled men writhed at her feet, but she could not move beyond the shadows. Not in that form. Until...

"Ah, fuck."

... that form changed yet again. A whole panorama of darkness, shades of shadows enough to make an artist weep, started to vanish, or fade, or congeal together. Soon the shadows became solid. They gained form and shape and... clothes, apparently. Within a few moments there was the girl he'd glimpsed before. Copper skinned and with a shock of white hair like a light-starved blaze in the darkness. Glaring at Erik. At them both.

Hungrily.

"Need..." He paused, swallowed, cursed his mortal form and injuries clamoring against his tongue. "Need this one alive, girl."

"F-Fuck, pleaseAAAAAOOOOOOWWWWWWWWW-!"

Kasoria snatched the throwing knife out the wall and slammed it into Erik's fleshy shoulder before the fat man could even finish his plea. Pain driving him back down to the ground, sobbing and begging without words. His fucking boss... just had to make it difficult. Now it was a fucking bloodbath in here, and yet, he'd still refrained for killing the one man that mattered.

"Look," he spoke over his shoulder again, keeping the tremor out his voice as the shadow-witch started to walk towards them, "Wadaya want? The gold he was bitchin;' about?" He patted the fat man down and relieved him of a purse as fat as his fist. Tossed it over to her with one easy swing... that was not, actually, because he'd managed to collect a nasty cut there, too. "There y'go."

He let go the blade and faced her. In the light. Making very sure he was in the light. She didn't seem to mind, or care... and he let her see his hands slowly curl into fists.

"Any other night, I'd... I'd say fuck it, gut the fat fuck. But orders is orders, and mine is... don't kill the fat fuck." He shrugged, as if he sincerely wished events were otherwise. "So he don't get touched."

"T-Touched?! You-You fucking stabbed me-"

"Want me to do it again?!"

Erik shut the fuck up. Clearly his input was not going to help resolve this drama. Kasoria sighed and kept his gaze focused on the young waif who was anything but. He ran a hand through his hair, sweeping it back and coating it bloody was the fluid that had leaked across his palm. He shook his head and there, she might see it, before she came to a decision.

She might see that calm behind his glare. Almost like... acceptance.

"Yer welcome, by the way," he said, figuring if he was about to die, it wouldn't be with a plea on his lips. "For earlier. Figure that... mess back there you just did, makes us even."
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Re: Fancy Seeing You Here... Who Are You? (Yndira)

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It was great to be feared.

The mere sight of the mass of previous challengers - all more than ready to relieve her of breath - cowering before her was something else. Like they'd been struck with some realization that robbed them of their coni-induced bravery. And she marveled at how great a sensation it was, to have brought them to this point. Not unlike those she'd tricked before into the fallacy of security. Perhaps it might have evenbeen something instinctual to feel this elation. Something in that Naer blood that might have even made her mothher proud - but then again, she didn't care much for her mother and she didn't care about making hher proud. Besides - she'd been dead for a long time; nothing for her to see now.

But, where the raggedy man was concerned, she was slightly confused. Did he not realize he was safe there in the light? Or, relatively safe. He could have easily cut her down with little effort. He could have done so the moment she stepped into the light, her illusion returning. But fear was a persistent thing that rendered logic and reason null and void. It was likely this that had the raggedy man making the proposition. Like a bargaining chip for his life. A solid gamble - her attention flitted to thhe bag of nel. She watched it arch in the air and fall short, a few steps away. But she had no intention of retrieving it just yet.

It was an effortful process for Yndira to school her features, return them to the ennui that lingered before all that transpired went down. Head cocked to the side, she regarded the bag of coin for a trill longer before looking back to the raggedy man as he continued. No touching the fat man - curious. But none of her business and unimportant if it meant she'd be getting his money. And aside from that, she could always come back and find him another day.

"No touch." The confirmation was drawled out, almost bored. Like she would leave him be. For now.

But she could feel some sense of superiority without touching him. Pointing at the fat man, pinned to the wall with a knife, she pointed down to the bag of coin. "Get it for me."
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