Serious: This City is Too Small (Closed)

"...for the two of us, anyways," Seppy stated, leaning back on his barstool. The large tan pack on his back writhed a bit, drawing a few odd looks from fellow patrons. Since he'd walked in, everyone had wondered what he kept inside the thing. Hour by hour, fewer people wished to know.

"Interestin' story there, Mr...what was it, again?"

Smiling his broad, fanged smile and laughing, Seppy waved the barkeep off.

"Seppy, no mister. Jus' Seppy. Always jus' Seppy." Pausing for a moment, Septera turned his head left and right. "You guys can call me Seppy, too. Jus' Seppy."

The pirates who'd been gathering around him with increasing density laughed maliciously. The barkeep backed away, smelling trouble. For his part, Septera didn't seem to care.

"I 'ere yer a 'unter, Mr. Seppy."

"I said it's jus' Seppy," Seppy repeated, a hint of annoyance in his voice.

"Be 'at as it may, Mr. Seppy, we're not keen on yer kinda arroun' 'ere. Moight even say we's as much a stake in yer vanishin', is all."

Septera spent a moment pondering the merits of vanishing. It sounded nice, in principle, but he wasn't sure if he'd enjoy it nearly as much as he thought he would once it'd actually happened to him.

"Sorry, no. Not interested, 'is all'."

The pirate who'd been talking took a mean look at having his accent mocked. He pulled out a knife and held it to the bounty hunter's throat.

"Maybe you ain' quoit gettin' the pozishin yer in..."

All at once, everybody in the bar who'd been curious about the contents of Septera's backpack got their answer. Whether they were satisfied or not with what they got was uncertain; what was certain is that two long, hideous, barb-tipped purple tentacles were it's contents. They deftly wrapped themselves around the neck and waist of the pirate who'd been holding a knife to Septera's throat a moment earlier. The man swiped his blade at Seppy's throat, only to witness it pass through as if he weren't there.

"Hi!" he announced cheerfully, holding the man above his awe-stricken crew. "I'm Seppy."

"S...Seppy..." the man parroted, indicating he understood.

"Right. Jus' Seppy."

The nameless pirate nodded dumbly as the barkeep stared in mixed shock and horror. One moment, the various inhabitants of the bar were watching a man float in the air, suspended about his neck and waist by tentacles. The next, they were showered in viscera as the tentacles parted ways, taking their respective halves of the man with them. It took a moment for someone to figure out what had happened; by the time the first pirate screamed, another victim was halfway in the making.

When every pirate in the bar had been rended brutally asunder, Seppy stood up and paid his tab. Shoulders hanging low, stooped, he made his way to the door. The two writing tentacles floating above him wormed their way back into his pack, and he buckled it for good measure. Smiling, his face half-covered in blood, he waved at the barkeep.

"I'll be back, don't worry," Seppy calmly assured the man, who very much wished he wouldn't. "I always patronize a good place, you know!"

Stalking his way out onto the streets, Seppy wondered if any inns thereabouts had vacancies left.

Miyus eyes drifted from the big chocolate cake to the delicious, small bisquits, barely grazed the cookies and finally stopped to stare at the sweetmeat.
Her stomach rumbled, and her mouth watered. She hadn't eaten anything for full three days.
A sigh escaped her as she turned away from the shop window.
The last of her money had been used to buy bandages for a man with a bad wound on his leg. She didn't regret it, but it'd have been nice if she still had something left to buy food...
And she didn't know what to do.
She let her eyes wander through the crowd, not looking for anything in particular.
"Oh my..."
She ran up to a huge man who was walking down the street, a very worried look on her face.
"What happened to you? Your face is bloody! Are you okay? Is there anything I can help you with?"
She had no clue who he was. But then again, she rarely ever did when helping someone.

Seppy had been off in his thoughts when the young woman ran up to him. Her hair was white, and she smelled like the earth. His eyes reflexively shot up and down her form; his head tilted to the side a bit to see she was barefoot out on the street. Her hair was white, yet she was young, it's contrast with the brown of her eyes made her look odd to, an old lady and a child in one.

"My face...?" he asked tentatively? He touched the side of his face, pulling his clawed fingers away and staring at the blood that came with it. His lips pulled into one of their broad, clueless smiles.

"It's not mine, don't worry," he stated happily, as if the fact were a welcome discovery to him as well. "It's, err, leftovers. I was attacked."

There was something else she had said, something that turned in Seppy's mind for a moment or two as he stood there, wiping the blood from his face with his furry forearm. She'd asked if there was anything she could help him with.

"Oh, there is," Seppy stated casually, looking around for something to wipe his now bloodied forearm off on. He decided on the hanging cloth of an awning that sheltered a cafe's outer tables from the sun, much to the disdain of the patrons, who didn't say anything.

"I haven't been able to find anything lately," he continued, his voice lowering with what might be annoyance. "I need a head, a big fat head. I'm out of money from the last one." His lips pulling back to reveal a friendly, almost childishly innocent smile, marred by the presence of a double set of fangs.

"The bounty office on this island is bare, it's like pirates just don't exist here." His smile faded slightly and he pulled a stack of posters from his vest, shuffling through them. He sighed and put them away, his face now wearing a comically childish look of disappointment.

"So yeah...you probably can't help me. Damn..."

Miyus eyes widened in shock. A bounty hunter? What was it with her and her bad luck?
And she knew what he was getting at. She had already flinched a little when he had gotten the posters out.
But playing into his hands now wouldn't help her either.
There would have been many things to say, and many actions to take, but her brain couldn't think of a good one. That's what you got for being fixed on helping people. Your brain thought in a specialized way.
"So you're... not hurt then? T- that's a relief... Sorry I can't help you, m-maybe you'll have better luck next time. I wish I could at least give you some money, but it seems I'm broke, too."
She had wanted to say it in a cheerful voice, but she could tell by the way she was shaking that it sounded more like a rabbit before the fox.

The look of disappointment on Seppy's face slowly faded. His eyes narrowed; though there was no intelligence or wisdom in them, there was a sort of feral, instinctual cunning. The yellow gaze pierced her to her core, as if reading her thoughts and her being. A savage smile slowly crept to his lips.

"That's right...I know. I know yer game. Yer a..."

He stepped forward, his impressive mass looming over her, casting her into shadow, the tentacles hidden in his pack writhing in anticipation.

"Yer a Bounty Hunter!" he cried out accusingly. "You know a good hit and you don't want to share it!"

Seppy rocked back on his heels, his face falling sad. He reached out a hand and grasped her shoulder, shaking her a bit.

"C'moooooon," Seppy begged, his eyes pleading. "We can split it fifty-fifty. It'll go faster with two."

His large, savage eyes opening wide and shining, the savage hunter put on a hopeful smile.

"Pleeeease?"

What? What? What?
What was going on now?
"No, I'm sorry, I'm not...."
Wait, was she really going to correct him? Really?
More importantly, was she apologizing?
"I... I mean, I'm not exactly a bounty hunter, but... well, I can help you if you want."
Bounty hunting had never been her desired profession. Something about killing people for money just... Well, it wasn't her.
But that poor man needed help, and she was out of money.
"I don't know of any pirates in this town."
That wasn't exactly true. She had come here on the ship of one.
"But if we find one, I won't take the money, you can have it all."
She shivered. Bloodmoney.
"C-could you just, uhm..."
Her stomach growled. Yeah, that.

It was clear to Seppy that he had fallen into the web of an extremely brilliant, clever, and dedicated hunter. The genuine nervousness and fright she toned into her voice, the way she gently redirected his words...his jaw fell open a bit in awe. It was clear he was dealing with an absolute master of deception, someone who would not be brought to bear so easily. Resolute, however, Seppy powered his way on.

"You're good," he admonished, his voice accusing and respectful both at once. "But I won't lose...I think."

He was about to launch into a rant about feminine wiles when the sound of her stomach rumbling reached his ears. He knew at the instant that was her game. She wanted him to play along, to fall into her web of lies. She wanted to remove him from the game, to take the head all for herself. His face twisted into a sneer of contempt for just a moment, before it corrected itself into a smile.

"Are you hungry, eh? Jus' follow me. We'll get yer filled. I know a good place."

They walked for a short while before coming to a small stand off the side of the street. Parting the curtains with his hands, Seppy lead his new and incredibly talented master hunter friend in.

"Seven bowls, ya," Seppy instructed. "Six pork and beef with scallions, one..."

Turning his head down to face the genius deceiver, Seppy spoke from the corner of his mouth.

"One...whatever she wants."

A few miles off the coast of the island, a vessel glided under the dark sea; within the interior's workshop, a fishman sat on the floor, tinkering with a rubix cube.

Grovire couldn't really help himself. He got up, walked to the waste chute placed on the side of the wall, and with an almighty heave, vomited every content of his stomach into the dark chute. Then he sat back down.

Their captain had went off on his own to find extra leads on Silt. they had been left to follow the breadcrumb trail through the seas to any islands he might have stopped by. They had made progress, and had almost caught him, yet he slipped out of their grasp, like he'd always done for the past few encounters.
Grovire sighed, solving the rubix cube, then putting it down. The puzzling challenge was all that kept him from thinking of the ocean they were moving under, and now it was done, he could focus on the sickening groans of the vessel.

"The curse?" a deep voice asked inquiringly, as the ship's temporary captain stepped into the workshop. His plated heavy form took up most of the doorway, but no menace emanated from him. Only concern. Crut deeply cared for his comrades, even accursed traitors.

Grovire gave him a baleful look. "That, sir, is of no concern to you. 10 miles," he curtly added before Crut could speak, "from landfall. Navigation is notoriously hard these days, especially when your captain goes on one of his signature solo acts. In any case, it shouldn't be far now."

Crut sighed. "You know Salvat had no choice, nor did he want to leave us." he reasoned with the cynical shipwright. "We must keep on the trail while it is fresh. Silt might even be on the island."

Grovire waved his hand in exasperation, relenting. "Very well, whatever you say. The more pressing matter, however," Grovire looked directly into Crut's beady eyes, "is how we move on the island without causing a god almighty panic, which, by the way, you did a splendid job of expanding back at the last island, very good job." Grovire added cynically.

Crut sighed again. He seemed to be sighing quite alot these days. "I've devised a plan. Don't worry. It's just........"

Grovire's eyes narrowed. "Just? Just what, sir?"

Crut nervously broke eye contact for a second, then looked back into Grovire's eyes.

"You're a part of it." Crut finished the sentence.

And as the vessel moved through the waters, Grovire heaved his stomach's contents all over the floor.

"Thank you, that's so nice of you!"
It was rare that people actually gave her anything. All the happier she was about it, her smile even sweeter than usual.
"Uhm, I think I'll take..... do you have something with fish? I'll have that."
They used to serve fish in the bar where she had worked.
She was so happy to finally get some food, she completely forgot that her new friend happened to be a bounty hunter.
"You know, you're actually a nice guy. At first I was so afraid because I thought you wanted my....Eeek!"
She covered her hand with one mouth. Close one! She felt bad about lying to him, but it seemed like she had to.

Seppy nodded, drinking the bowls one after another. The idea of using utensils seemed foreign to him; broth and stray noodles ran down his face. He wasn't really all that fond of the stuff, but it was among the cheaper foodstuffs he could buy. People charged annoyingly high prices for fresh meat, and this island had nowhere for him to go hunt his own game.

"A nice guy?" he asked, finishing his fifth bowl and picking up his sixth, snorting at the meager portion of pork in it. Thinking twice about it he put the bowl back down, scratching a stray noodle out of his short beard and looking down at the girl, lips spreading in another fangy smile. Then she almost spilled the beans, and his eyes sharpened a bit.

"Why wouldn' I be?" Septera slammed a palm down onto the counter, leaning forward so that his face was extremely close to Miyu's. His nose twitched twice, testing the air. He kept his eyes on hers, his round pupils seeming oddly out of place with the other feline aspects of his appearance. After a moment he pulled his head back. Swiftly, Seppy slugged down his last bowl.

"Of course I'm after it," he said around the lip of the bowl, putting it into the pile with all the others. "Your bounty." He once again turned his head to her, his chin tilted up, his eyes looking down the length of his nose at her, his smile threatening. A few moments passed as he stared at Miyu searchingly.

"So...won' you share it?" he finally asked. "Seriously, like...I don' have enough money to last another week. C'mon, we're both hunters, so share yer bounty head?" His resources at their end, Seppy had returned to childishly begging. She had this air of holding a secret from him, the hunter was sure of it. He knew beyond any doubt that Miyu was holding back.

There it was again, that tension. Why did he have to be so nice one second, then talk about her bounty the next one? It made her nervous, and it confused her.
"I... I wish I could...."
In any case, she couldn't. She didn't know any pirates on this island, and she didn't survive this long to give her head to anyone.
She finished her meal ( unlike him, she liked the idea of using utensils) and sighed slightly.
Then she tried putting a weak smile back on her face.
"Uhm, why don't we just search the harbor? I- I'm sure well find someone sooner or later."
At least that had always been the case with her so far.

For a moment, there was a terse silence as Seppy stared into space, creeping out the stall owner and giving no sign to whether or not he had hard Miyu's suggestion. He slowly turned his head, his lips curling back into another bizarrely innocent and distinctly feral smile.

"You're a good person, y'know that?!" he announced, loudly enough to disturb a few people who were walking by and shock the vendor into dropping a pot, which clattered loudly on the wooden floor. Seppy's eyes regarded Miyu with genuine affection. She wasn't being direct, sure, but she'd suggested a place. The hunter was convinced she was sharing.

"Us bounty hunters, like me 'n' you, we gotta work together! 'S hard to jus' up an' find work any which where...any person in this city could be a pirate, but if I don't know they got a bounty or where to find 'em, it doesn't do me any good. A hunter like you maybe'd know a face, a name...maybe keep yer pretty hands clean'n let me do the dirty half the work...y'know?"

Counting out his tab to the penny and leaving a dishearteningly tiny tip, Septera hopped off of his stool and held open the stand's curtain, waiting for Miyu to pass thereout before letting it fall back into place. As she walked towards the harbor he would occasionally hop up onto low roofs, bounding across from one to the next until he hit the next cross street, only to turn and stare at the young pirate until she'd caught up with him. Everyone tried to pay no attention to him.

When they reached the final road, Seppy leapt from the corner of a cobbler's and bolted down the road, knocking various and sundry pedestrians to the side in his haste. When Miyu finally arrived Seppy was wrapped around a lamp post directly at the edge between the beaten dirt road and the wood of the harbor's docks, rubbing his face against the cold metal and smiling, a distant and happy look in his eyes. He turned these happy eyes onto Miyu as soon as she arrived, his pupils dilating with anticipation.

"Wha's next boss...err?" Seppy paused, then stood upright in shock, his form looming up over her and revealing it's great size for a single moment. He quickly slouched back forward to his regular height, his eyes closing and his smile turning to a sheepish grin.

"Oh...sorry. Seppy. Jus' Seppy." He opened his eyes, leaning forward a bit more, until his head was level with hers. "No misters or -sans or anything like that. Jus' Seppy." His right hand extended and he waited with a patient smile. On his shoulders, his backpack writhed with excitement.

He thought she was a bounty hunter, like him... That was what kept her safe, most likely.... But she didn't like it. She was not the type to sell people to the marine, for whatever the reason...
The whole way to the harbor, she was deep in thought. What was she supposed to do now? She wasn't concerned about her safety, but she didn't want to fight him. He seemed like such a good person.
She was abrubtly ripped out of her thoughts when he spoke to her again.
"Miyu. My name's Miyu Delaney."
She took his hand, smiling. Seppy? That sounded like a pets name. How cute.
... Wait, as a bounty hunter, wasn't there a possibility he'd know her?
And she had still told him her name? What had she been thinking?

A rich looking man walked along in the main street; with him was a fishman slave being held by the man through a chain leash tied around his neck. The fishman wore rags, the man wore a gallant robe.

and yet, the man looked very nervous. He looked about, like he would die any second if he made the wrong move. The fishman watched him pointedly, his eyes plainly saying "screw up and you die." The man flinched, and looked forward again, trying to look more confident.

As soon as he'd shaken Miyu's hand, his facial features changed slightly. It seemed like he was trying to remember something, his eyes taking on a distant look. He held up a single finger by way of signaling she should wait a moment, before reaching into his vest and pulling out a stack of bounties again. He shuffled through them, looking back and forth between the stack of posters and the girl infront of him.

"Rrrrr...I thought so," he stated, his voice low, feral, coming from somewhere very deep in his throat. His eyes fixed on her again, intense, the pupils so large that his irises were the faintest bands of yellow. He leveled the finger he had used to pause her in her direction.

"Right over there," Seppy continued, it becoming apparent that his finger was pointing the slightest bit to the side of her, into the distance. Following his accusing claw, a massive man with a brown captain's coat and an ugly, grizzled face could be seen walking down the dock. Flipping the poster he had stopped on around, Miyu could see the man's face above the name "Yoren 'The Oxstripper' Idulio". He had a fourty million beli bounty.

"'S our mark, right?" Hiding the paper, Seppy crouched lower to the ground, his eyes never leaving the huge pirate. "Nasty kinda guy...trades in human leather. Strips it from the victims live, bit by bit." Licking his lips, nostrils flaring slightly, Septera stood back to normal height and began casually walking towards the street, his eyes hitting the road ahead of him. Though he no longer watched his prey overtly, however, it was clear that all of his senses were entirely directed at it.

"Doesn' even make sense," Seppy muttered under his breath. "Human leather's useless..."

Normally an alert and reactive being, in his excitement the hunter was so wholly consumed with his prey that he ignored the duo he was walking directly towards. He snapped his eyes onto the pair, fishman and 'master', at the last second, dancing aside on the ball of his foot a split second before he'd have crashed into the fishman.

Septera spared the two a quick snarl, raising half of his upper lift to reveal a single double-set of fangs instinctualy, before pivoting his weight and darting around behind them with some muttered cursewords. He did turn for just a moment, however, to make sure Miyu was following. Even if he'd spotted their mark all on his own, she'd brought him there; he'd still share. It was only proper.

Grovire's 'master' was so witlessly horrified by the unexpected run in, the fishman had to pinch him hard. "Keep walking." he whispered quietly but harshly. The captive whimpered and obeyed.

There was so many things wrong with this plan in Grovire's mind; for starters, the ship's own shipwright was out of his ship, and back in the chains he used to be in; then again, he had little enough pride to act the part of a slave, so that much was accurate. They had captured a human captive, a slaver, and had utilised him for occasions such as this. Still, not everyone believed the first thing they saw as truth; one example, that oddball that had evaded and snarled at the duo. If Grovire was to run into more superhuman freaks with living backpacks (he had noticed the backpack on the odd human's back writhing with movement, detected by his resonance sonar) there would be a problem.

Right now, though, his problem was simple; finding someone. Silt wasn't the one he and his captive were looking for, however, but rather a would be contact of his. It was possible that Silt may have met with one individual before, and had stolen an artifact from a safehouse of this person. The fishmen had searched the lonely island and the cabin, to find nothing but tanned human skin. Grovire smirked. And humans had the gall to call fishmen monsters.

They knew the man's identity by searching the human tannin facility (a large one in the cabin's basement) by the name 'Oxstripper'; they had pulled two and two together, and Captain Salvat has identified the man as a human leather trader. Though what he did was of no concern; that he had an artifact meant that the world government confided in him at a point; that means he might know where the other artifacts are; and that meant Silt's movements and direction across the seas would be more predictable.

All that Grovire had to do, was to locate this 'Oxstripper' human, and bring him down. Then bring him to the submerged vessel for questioning. Simple, quick, clean and easy, right?

"Not a chance in breezy blue hell." Grovire thought as he smirked again. He knew two things when he passed the odd human and his child companion; one, they meant business, and two, they were going after business. Grovire had visually identified the leather trader. Now was a matter of finding him.

"Turn." Grovire whispered to his captive. The man looked doubtful, but obeyed regardless. They walked back down the street.

The thought of leaving nagged on Miyus insides as they walked towards his victim. Wasn't she just pushing her luck by staying?
But still... doing such things...
"He's a bad man..."
She whispered more to herself than to her companion.
"I cannot forgive him."
For the first time today, she felt angry. Yes, she was going to bring that man down, and if she had to, then she'd let Seppy have his bounty too.

Step by step, they drew closer to the place where the huge man lumbered amidst his crew, talking and keeping a watchful eye on the crates being unloaded from the boat behind him. Occasionally his great girth would shake with laughter, his brown coat flapping in the breeze.

As if kept at bay by some invisible wall, there reached a place where Seppy would go no closer to the man. Pacing up and down this imaginary line, weaving about the buildings that broke it, Seppy seemed deep in thought.

"Gotta wait 'till night, gotta wait a bit..." he stated thoughtfully, glancing ruefully down the dock at his quarry and then back to the ground. "Can't go yet, too many of 'em...gotta wait." Turning once more to Miyu, Seppy fished out a handful of thousand beli notes.

"Find us a vacancy. It doesn' matter where, I'll find you." Smiling proudly, he pointed towards his nose. "I remember you now, so I can always find you."

"Get a room and wait for me. I'll come 'n' get you before I go after 'm." His smile faded, and his expression grew shocked for a moment, as if he just realized he'd said something very wrong.

"I mean, I'm not gonna skip out on ya or anything! Trackin's jus' what I'm good at, 'n' someone's gotta keep an eye on 'm, and someone's gotta get us a base...I promise we're still splittin' it, fifty fifty!"

Miyu took the money and nodded.
She reminded herself to stay calm as she walked off to find something.
So he could track her now? She sighed. What had she gotten herself into?
He might be nice now, but what if he found out who she was? She'd have a personal bounty hunter on her tracks!
She stopped as a sign caught her eye. A motel, small and run down, and most likely a meeting point for pirates or other criminals.
But for her, it was enough. As long as it had a bed, it was fine with her.

Her suspicions about the motel being a kind of meeting point turned out to be true, but what did she have to fear? She was a pirate, too. She could take care of herself.
As soon as she was in her room, she let herself fall on the bed. God, how long had it been since she had a bed to sleep on?
She had gotten so used to the hard floor that it seemed like heaven, even though it was scratchy and smelly.
She just wanted to relax and wait for Seppy to pick her up... actually, it was fine with her if he didn't. The bounty on her head really stood between them and a healthy friendship.
She felt herself getting tired.
"Stay awake!" She reminded herself time after time.
After an hour, she was fast asleep.

It wasn't long before the sun began it's westward journey and sank into the sea, casting a decidedly un-ominous pink and orange glow over the world in it's final moments. Seppy was tempted to watch it, but his nose constantly reminded him that he was busy. As the shadows lengthened and the sky above grew dark, as the street lights came on the alleys emptied of light, Septera vanished from the eyes of man.

A pair of familiar scents seemed to follow him everywhere he went; it became clear very quickly that he wasn't alone in his pursuit. It didn't matter whether the pair that was coming after him was after him or his mark. What did matter was that he couldn't identify the scents. It bothered him to know that he'd smelled them before and couldn't place them.

As Seppy has hoped, most of Idulio's crew had dispersed throughout the town to find bars and gambling houses and the red light district. He had with him now only a small retainer, with no signs of being shadowed by any other guard. As the massive tanner made his way through the city, Seppy picked up yet another familiar scent. By craft or coincidence, the pirate was headed towards Miyu.

When he finally stopped outside the seedy, cliche'd out hotel, the hunter was certain that his friend was inside. Mentally, Seppy complimented her on her powerful deductive skills in predicting the place that Yoren would choose to spend the night. He almost felt ashamed, for a moment, that he had spent hours tracking the man when she'd been able to so casually stay one step ahead of their mark. Miyu was good, a pro hunter like none other. Seppy was sure of it.

Feeling confident that his target would remain in one place, Seppy ventured back out into the city. Yoren's crew would have a number of smaller bounty heads among them, of this he was certain. It wasn't cheating Miyu, technically; he was still going to split the man's bounty fifty-fifty. This was just side work.

In the mean time, she could keep her eyes on their prize. Seppy grinned inwardly. He could see her silent, vigilant in the lobby, inconspicuously watching the man walk in and following him undetected to his room. He knew she would be on top of everything. The pirate'd not make off from under their noses, nor would anyone else steal their kill.

"Good work, Mew," Seppy quietly offered her from a distance, mispronouncing her name. "Stay sharp!"

------------------------------------------------------------

"The usual room, sir?"

Yoren nodded, barely paying any attention to the motel keeper as he handed over the keys to a set of rooms that had been converted, at the pirate's orders, to a suite ages ago. One of Idulio's goons took them, falling back into step with the small group. They crossed over to the wall, throwing open the door and stepping out into the alley. A short ways back, a set of stairs lead to the motel's basement level, wherein a seedy bar of sorts had been established.

Seating themselves at a table outside of most earshot, the three goons began discussing the day while their boss sat in silence. After a time he spoke, the others falling silent the moment his lips moved.

"We lost some boxes today," Yoren growled, his voice as grizzly and unpleasant as his face. "We're going to need to prepare another three bails by tomorrow."

"'As roighd, boss, bud 'ow-"

"We'll clean out the rooms tonight. This place is booked almost to maximum occupancy. Around midnight I'll send out a Den Den call and get a few more bodies down here to help with the whole thing. Tranq 'em in their beds, drag 'em out by the ankles. Nobody'll stop you."

"An' 'en...?"

Yoren smiled, short, rounded, broad teeth worked flat from chewing on rawhide gleaming a sickly green in the scant blue light of the bar.

"Rack 'em up in the boat. I'll take care of the rest."

Meanwhile, Miyu had awakened. To be exact, almost an hour ago. She looked outside and sighed. It was already dark, where was Seppy?
She couldn't help but worry a little.
But then again, shouldn't she be happy that he was gone?
It would be more logical. She laid back on the back. She was wide awake, but she didn't have anything to do, and she wasn't the type to drink and gamble. Besides, she wouldn't spend the rest of Seppys money like that.
She closed her eyes and tried to just think of nothing.

The night hours slipped away one by one, the streets outside growing quiet as all but the seediest sorts retreated to the relative safety of their homes. Faint sounds of music and loud, raucous laughter could be heard drifting up from the dive below the motel here and there. The upper levels of the hotel were, for their part, more or less silent.

There was a sound outside the door to Miyu's room, quiet but easily audible on the still air. There was a light sound of jingling, and the door slowly, quietly swept open. The hallway was darker than the room, which was lighted by street lamp, moon and stars through it's windows. Somebody walked in, treading lightly, clearly trying to make as little noise as possible.

"Asleepin', oi?" the voice whispered. It was a deep, accented, unfamiliar voice to Miyu. The warning was given only a split second early; following the words almost immediately, a dart glinted through the silvery-white light streaming in through the beam of the light the window spilled into the room, directly towards the girl on her bed.

-------------------------

"Fourteen," Seppy reminded himself happily, stuffing the drippy red bag into a crate and covering the whole affair with bags of trash. "Fourteen of them with bounties!"

They'd all been between five and seventy-five hundred thousand, but the lot added up to a decent chunk of extra change. It'd been easy, relaxing hunting to boot. A crew of such men could be dangerous when confronted all at once, but left to wander the city and indulge their vices, they were as helpless as a babe.

"I better get back to Mew," he thought out loud, as if explaining himself to the fourteen bounty heads hidden inside a crate beneath a pile of garbage. "If I keep 'er waitin' too long, she might jus' go ahead and kill Oxstripper without me..."

Begging his leave of the hidden ex-pirates, Seppy soundlessly pulled himself up onto a roof with his tentacles. His backpack was, at the moment, removed from his back and tucked inside his belt. There was no need for it during the night; nobody would see Seppy that he didn't want to see him in any case. Gentle as a breeze, the hunter sailed between the rooftops, unseen and unheard by the world of stark orange light and sharp shadows in the streets and alleys below.

Testing the air, Septera corrected his course and began the hop, skip, and jump back towards the motel.

Why was there someone in her room?
Maybe a misunderstanding. Maybe the keeper had given him the wrong keys.
Or maybe it was just Seppy! Yes, that had to be it!
She heard him talk and felt a little shaken. No, not Seppy. Definitely not Seppy.
Years of having to fear being murdered in her sleep had made Miyu alert to the movements of her enemies.
And this one was moving towards her. Fast.
"Eeek! White snake!"
Her arm, now smoke, shot forward and grabbed the intruder. It was just a reflex. Next, it slammed him to the ground head first. Only reflex, too.
Miyu jumped up.
"Oh my go, are you okay?"
Most people didn't get killed from something like that. She hurried to the intruders side. The smoke turned back into her arm.

The man let out a groan as he impacted with the floor, then was silent. Miyu could see, upon moving him into the light, that he was a coarse looking man of middling years, with missing teeth and a grim expression. His hair, which wrapped down past his ears and filled a massive beard below his jaw, was black and grey. There was about him a smell of suffering; blood, sweat, tears. Something told her it was not his own.

As the moment passed, Miyu became aware of an itching sensation on her shoulder; she'd been so involved in addressing her assailant that she'd never done anything about the dart thrown at her. A tiny line of red, the faintest scratch, marked her skin just a few inches down from her neck. A hint of fatigue, a loss of balance marked the slow advancement of the tranquilizer that had entered through the abrasion.

The sound of footsteps rushing down the dark hallway outside the room could be heard. A moment later two dark shapes replaced the first in the doorway, looking into the room with deep, shadowy frowns on their faces.

"Ew li'l bitch," one spat, stepping into the room, "took out Ludvich y'did." The man's breath was rot and sour beer.

"'Is one's a l'il froighten'd is all," the second said, a deeper voice that stunk as much as the first. "C'mon 'ere love, we's not fixin' a 'urt you. Just haveta take ya t'see govna is all," he assured Miyu, stepping forward.

Something glinted silver in their hands as they advanced; each man had a gun drawn on her. The smell of rot and human suffering became overwhelming.

Miyu grabbed her shoulder.
Her blood soaked the dress and turned its white into a deep red on that spot.
Those people... she was afraid of them... and also a little angry.
But she couldn't do anything as they came closer, paralyzed from whatever had hit her shoulder and was now ciruculating in her blood.
She hit the floor and lost conciousness.

((I dunno if that's what the poison does, so I just had a guess.))