Serious: This City is Too Small (Closed)

((It's a tranq, yeah.))

Miyu awoke not long after, the tranquilizer having been only administered to her in a small dose. She was laying on the metal floor of an extremely cold room; it had the look and smell of a meatlocker. There was little light inside, all they had coming from a single nude bulb hanging at the center of the room. Many others, all unconcious, were piled around her in their sleeping clothes.

Nobody had been tied yet; the goons must be fairly certain that their captives would be out for a good while longer. There was a sound of talking outside the door, which flew open for a moment. Outlined in the brighter light of whatever was outside the room, two hulking men threw in another pair of tranquilized victims. The door slammed shut on squeaky hinges, a latching sound indicating that it had been locked.

Everyone inside was locked in the cold, stiffling room for good. Anyone not made of smoke, at least.

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

"Smoke?" Seppy asked himself, sniffing the air in the room where he'd expected to find his improvised partner. "A nice li'l girl like that smokes...?"

Seppy stood, dumbfounded, at the center of the room. His nose was not lying; this was the room where she'd been staying. The hallways all stunk too much of rotted meat, for some odd reason, for him to discern her scent. For a moment, a pang of hurt shook the hunter to his core. He feared he'd been abandoned.

Shaking his head, Seppy resolved that this could not be the case because he really didn't want it to be. Working through it, using child-like powers of denial, he decided that she'd just gone scouting. He was about to walk from the room when a very fresh scent hit his nose; blood, freshfallen.

Like an arrow, Seppy found the spot on the floor where a drop of blood had fallen. It smelled clean, healthy, feminine. His eyes turned to the dark corners of the room, his pupils dilating. A moment later he'd found the weapon; a small silver dart still stuck in the wall.

Before his mind could get to puzzling out what had happened here, Seppy was distracted by a noise from outside the room.

"We alrea'y gawt thad one," a grizzly male voice stated, grunting as he dragged something along the hall.

"Looks loik someone bin in 'ere it does," another replied, dropping something with a meaty 'thunk'. "Won' 'urt none t'check it again."

The two peered inside. The bed was empty, the room was silent.

"Yer imay-jinen things!" the first accused. There was a grunt as the second lifted whatever he'd been carrying, and both headded out down the hall. A purple stain on the ceiling, Seppy followed them from the room. He knew where the smell of rotting meat had come from; he just had to follow it.

A short while later, he came to a meatlocker in the motel basement, accessed from inside. There was a well lit hallway leading between the motel proper and the seedy dive underneath it; the freezer was likely shared between the two establishments. As soon as the two had dumped their cargo into the frigid room, they bolted the door and turned back to the hotel.

Seppy cringed at the smell; the meat inside had not been well kept. Staring at the door, he wondered what he should do. Miyu might be in there, though Seppy doubted it; she had the air of a hunter much too skilled and experienced to let herself be caught. Something else had to be the case.

Pondering, hidden in a far corner of the hall, Seppy waited for something to change.

Miyu didn't fully understand at first, her head was still hurting, either from the tranquilizer or from the impact when she had hit the ground, she couldn't fully grasp anything at the time.
There were... people lying there... This wasn't her room... What had happened?
Her eyes widened as she remembered all about Seppy and their target., and everything made sense all of a sudden.
Her heart started pounding faster. She was afraid. Would she die?
No, of course not. And panicing wouldn't help now.
She calmed herself down and stood up.
First, she checked a few of the prisoners, they were all okay, but had lost conciousness.
Then, she went to the door and laid a hand on it, attempting to push it open. Of course, it was locked. But that wasn't a problem. As long as there was a the slightest opening, smoke could get through.
Now, she just needed to modify one of her techniques a little.
"White launcher..."
She whispered. It was the only technique she knew in which she completely dissolved, even if only for a moment.
The smoke got outside through any opening it could find.
A moment later, she was outside, and in her normal form again.

The 'rich noble' had to be yanked back by Grovire to keep from walking out into the open in which the smoke girl appeared out of nowhere in. "Quiet." Grovire hissed to his captive. He nodded nervously in acknowledgement.

They had been tracking the Oxstripper human through the streets, at a fair distance away. Trailing the target proved to be tedious and watchful work. The other two had seemed to follow the human leather tanner from a distance. Whoever these bounty hunters were, they had superb tracking skills.

Still following the Leather tanner's trail (his heart beat faintly, but sent out a slight hint of continuous waves of vibration through the body and the stones) he had followed the light but substantial breadcrumb trail to the hotel.

And so, Grovire and his captive ended up here, observing at a cloud of smoke that materialised into a young human female. Grovire's eyes narrowed in distaste; the bounty hunter's comrade was a logia. That would be a problem. As if Yoren and his posse wasn't enough of a worry. Plus, there was the odd human and his backpack to worry about, seeing as he could be around anywhere here, given his remarkable hunting skills.

So Grovire waited. Caution was one thing the task of hunting Silt had granted the fishmen. The captive man's teeth began to chatter. Grovire grabbed the man, and held his mouth shut.

"That's a neat trick," Seppy commented. A set of hooded bulbs, hanging from the ceiling, provided wells of light down the length of the corridor. The shadows it cast above were deep, screened by the light that hit the floor. The hunter dropped out of the shadows of the ceiling, landing a short ways from Miyu. "Bein' made a smoke has to make things a lot easier, eh?"

A familiar scent caught his nose, and Seppy turned his head down to the far end of the hall. It was just a hint, only for a moment; the entire hallway reeked entirely too much for him to be using his nose for any more than cursory tests without heaving. But there, down the ways, he had smelled fear, and something else. Shrugging, he decided to cross that bridge when he got there.

"You did a good job, Mew," Seppy quietly appraised, turning back to the girl. There was a broad smile on his face, one of those innocent things turned feral by his fangs. "Found 'em all on your own...chased 'em down here." His smile fell and his eyes looked up and too the left as one of the barbed purple tentacles swaying silently in the air above him lowered to scratch his head.

"Makes me feel kinda useless, actually," he mused, the other tentacle bending and ducking and weaving about, as if it grew impatient. Seppy's expression leveled out and he nodded, turning his gaze back to Miyu and smiling once again.

"Well, work still t'be done, right Mew?" he asked, more to reassure himself than anything. Nodding a second time, in answer to the question he had just asked her, he began unwinding the length of spiked chain from around his waist.

"That smoke thing...can you do that again? If you fill the room up good, it won't slow me down too much, but it'll keep the goons guessing. Jus' not too much, though. 'S hard enough to smell anything down here already. I jus' need enough t'make it a little hazy. Like a foggy morning."

As he spoke, he began walking towards the end of the hall. His stride was graceful, strangely out of place and almost humourous for a man of his size and build. Still, he made no sound, though Miyu could almost hear the sigh of his tentacles, shifting and flexing and writhing about in the air above, their barbs glinting with each pass under one of the pools of light.

After a short time, they came to another door. Sounds of every manner of debauchery could be heard coming from the other side, at varying volumes. Touching his head against the wall, Seppy nodded and broke out into an even broader smile, his tentacles going disturbingly, dead still.

"Go," he hissed through his teeth, his eyes watching the door.

At first, she was shocked. Then she was happy.
Had he come all this way to help her? That was so sweet of him!
...Even though he had gotten it all wrong again... But she was used to that.
And se had seen so many weird things already, she was hardly surprised to see the tentacles. Granted, it was weird, but...
What he was asking her for would be easy, a white out, just in less offensive form. She could do that anytime.
While following him down the hallway, her steps a lot less quiet than his (but she was doing her best) she kept her eyes on the tentacles.
Fascinating, the way they moved...
Then, he suddenly stopped and she lifted her gaze from the tentacles to see a door.
On his command, she reacted on reflex.
"White out."
She barely whispered it, but on her command, her arms tuned into smoke. It filled the hallway and searched for an opening in the door, which was easy to find. Slight like fog it creeped through, making the atmosphere even scarier than it already was. With smoke like that around, people would just instinctively know sometihng was wrong with this place.

There was a brief moment of time when nothing changed; those inside the room seemed not to notice anything. There was a sudden chilling silence, the laughter and talking ceasing, and a single word screamed from behind the door.

"Fire!"

Seppy understood that this was an opening. He pulled the door open, just enough to squeeze through. There was a disturbing phenomenon about the way he moved through the smoke; his body didn't disturb it at all. As he crept low into the room, Miyu could see that the smoke did not whirl or eddy around his body. Oddly, some ways off to his left and behind him, there was a disturbance in the smoke as if someone were moving through it, only nobody was there.

Yoren could be seen standing to full height, eyes narrowed and searching through the smoke suspiciously. All of the incidentals had flown from the dive, headed up the stairs out into the alleyway. Only the Oxstripper and his men remained, the latter in a cautious circle around the former, their backs all towards their boss.

The smoke began to fill the room with a dense haze; the top half of the room was mostly obscured while the bottom half, lacking windows, collected the smoke in a gently rolling white pool that submerged everything to neck height. The room was dead silent except for the grating of a tone dial box in the background, playing some seedy ancient song.

"I'll give you five seconds to show yourself before I wear your hide," Captain Idulio boomed, the smoke seeming to flee his voice in trembling waves.

In answer, one of his crewmen's heads popped off. As blood began to spray the awe stricken and horrified crewmates around him, a pair of purple snakes shot up out of the sea of fog and dragged two more in. One had time to scream before letting out a pained gurgle.

"Time's up," Yoren growled, unwinding a savage looking whip from his belt. The thing was covered in horrid, blood-crusted hook and blades. The thing would stick into whatever flesh it touched instantly, and wouldn't leave a man's body without taking his skin along. It seemed to wriggle and squirm in his hand as if alive, it's barbs completely ignoring the Oxstripper's own flesh.

There was another tense moment, and then the last of Yoren's men made a break for the door. One tripped with a startled yelp and fell into the smoke, going completely silent as if the miasma had swallowed him whole. The other made it out the door; a feral snicker drifted up from the white sea.

"One of 'em always gets away," Seppy groused, speaking up to the ceiling to keep his voice from giving him away.

"You're a professional," Yoren stated, backing up slowly to stand against the bar. "A man like you could stand to make a lot more than the measly fourty on my head doing real work. I make triple my own bounty a week."

"Yah, yer right..." Seppy admitted, deliberately giving away his location. "But I don' wanna. Huntin's only fun when the prey can fight back." Silently, he scurried over to the bar, pressing himself against it and creeping towards the hulking man.

"Like my men?" Yoren quipped, not taking the bait. "If you want a fight, show yourself and you'll get the fight of your life..."

"Gotta kill the pride to get to the alpha," the hunter responded, once again echoing his voice to mask his location.

"Spoken like a true pirate, cur." The hair on Seppy's neck and arms rose. Though he wasn't a dog, he didn't appreciate having his pedigree called into question.

A deep, savage, offended growl filled the room. The smoke began to coil and writhe in one area, a glimmer of purple floating above the sea into the hazy air above. With a speed seeming wholy out of place for a man of his size, Yoren seized the opportunity in an instant, taking out a huge section of bar with his whip.

Before he had retracted his arm, a black length of chain, with spikes all it's own, flew up out of the bubbling roil, swinging directly at Idulio's neck. His free arm raised to stop it; the chain wrapped around his forearm instead of his neck. A moment later the arm was tugged sharply to the side, one of the barbed tentacle tips latching itself onto the man's massive bicep.

Yoren gave a sharp hiss as he felt the chain and limb begin pulling his arm apart. There was a sick snapping noise, his elbow bending in ways elbows should never bend. The captain gave out a deep roar, then swung the mangled limb towards the far end of the bar with all of his might. A bundle of black and purple followed, the sea of smoke parting a short ways behind it, slamming into the wall and piercing through it.

"So this is my assailant," Yoren stated, his voice sounding surprisingly flat for a man with an arm broken in three places. The room rapidly emptied of smoke, the hole in the wall seeming to suck it all in. Seppy stood, covered in bits of broken bar, a ways off to the side of the hole. "A cur indeed."

"Imma cat, dammit! Caaaaaaaat! Nya!" Seppy's protests were petulant, replete with foot-stomping and fist-balling. The Oxstripper laughed.

"And to think, I was almost afraid of you," Yoren spat, stepping through the thinning smoke towards Seppy. Seppy, in turn, seemed to calm down, putting his own familiar smile back on.

"I'm not the one y'should be afraid of, cap'n," Seppy warned. "Scarier sorts 'n me in this world."

He didn't turn his eyes or make any sign, but Miyu could feel the meaning of his words. The hunter was asking for backup.

Grovire hid, and heard the commotion from outside the room.

He gathered that he'd heard enough.

The fishman turned to the captive. "Well," he commented. "Your job is nearly done, human." the man's face switched from worry to relief. "You'll be out of my hands after one more little job."

The man frowned. "What job....?" he asked with a little suspicion.

It was at that time that Grovire had picked the man up by the scruff of his neck, evoking a look of surprise from the captive.

"Believe." Grovire whispered.

And with that, he lobbed the man into the room.

Miyu had covered her mouth with her hand, just because she was afraid she would've shouted Seppys name.
She looked at him, wishing she could do something.
Then he talked about something scarier in this world than he was, and somehow, she knew what he meant. He needed help.
She stood in the doorframe and stretched her arm out.
"White Snake!"
One second, her arm was still flesh, the next, it was white smoke, shooting towards Yoren in the form of a snake.

"Scarier than you?" Yoren asked, incredulously. "You do yourself too much credit assuming you're scary at all. Now be a good little freak and die!"

Yoren drew his whip arm back, and Seppy readied himself to move. Neither of the two got a chance to do anything, however; they were both distracted by a pitiful wail as a man flew into the room, crashing into a table and chairs. Seppy recovered from the shock a split second faster than his foe. When Idulio looked back to the hole he'd made in the wall, the hunter was gone.

"Of all the damn..." the Oxtstripper growled, readying himself. The diversion had worked perfectly on both ends, however; while Yoren sought to find the assassin, he didn't pay any attention to the doorway in which Miyu stood.

"White Snake!"

By the time he could see Miyu, Yoren was already being enveloped in white smoke. He winced slightly as his broken arm was pressed to his side, his face growing a shade redder. His grimace broke, however; he smiled broadly, showing his dull, yellow teeth. The scourge fell from his hand, and he turned all of his attention on the girl.

"What is this now?" Yoren asked, seemingly undaunted. "So the smoke was your doing?" His shoulders nearly doubled in girth, his arms growing to match. Brown fur crept out from under his skin, covering his neck and face. Short, pointed horns sprouted from the man's head, beneath his brown captain's hat. With a mighty shrug the smoke burst off from around the man, who's face now bore an animal's snout above the mouth. His eyes were tiny black beads hidden in the shadow of his cap, glowing with hatred.

"I'll make you regret that, girl," Yoren promised, his voice growing lower. His fingers had turned black and hardened, like hooves, and he now took up all the space between the floor and ceiling. "Regret it a whole lot. Thousand Ox Great Stampede!"

As the words left the captain's lips, he began rushing forward with the speed and power of a train engine. The man's good fist was drawn back, ready to punch. The floorboards below him cracked and splintered like water in his wake; it seemed as if he'd be able to break through a wall of steel with the force and momentum of his charge.

Seppy took Yoren's distraction with Miyu to be an opening. He leapt out from behind the bar at the man, going for his exposed back as he passed. Mid flight, however, he caught the bar with his tentacles and pulled himself back. Where he would have been a second later if he had continued his assault, a massive black python, covered in hideous hooks and barbs, sailed through the air.

"Even the damn weapon!?" Seppy bitched, staring with powerful annoyance at the whip, which was now a twenty foot snake. He crouched down on the balls of his feet and watched Yoren move like a whole herd contained in one man towards his partner. It wasn't in his power to do anything for her yet; he had the damn whip to deal with.

As a hunter and an assassin, Seppy tended to dislike fights in the open. His pride told him he could still have taken the man in an honest, open fight, but he didn't like the idea of being left battered, weak, and bleeding in a city full of enemies. Calling for Miyu had seemed like a good way to help him win the fight without exerting himself too much at the time; now, it looked like he'd only succeeded in getting her in trouble. Cursing his laziness, Seppy swung his chain at the snake.

"'S never as simple as 's supposed t'be..."

Miyu stared at the monster, her eyes filled with terror.
For a while, she could only wait for her mind to kick in. even when it did, though, her actions rlied solely on reflexes.
For once she was thankful that she had to fight so many opponents in the past. She looked toher side and grabbed the only thing usable as a weapon, a pipe.
"White vine!"
The smoke carried her high up, just above yorens head.
Then it disappeared, and she fell towards his head. She sed the speed of the fall to strike him with the pipe, directly between his eyes.

Yoren's charge continued unabated, the wall around the door disintegrating before him as if it were no more solid than the smoke Miyu had sent at him earlier. She shot up just in time; the force of his passing was almost enough to knock her out of the air. As she came down the pipe thudded against his head with a loud, hollow ringing sound, then shattered.

The pirate's hooves tore through the floor as he skidded to a stop out in the hall, his hat falling to the ground. A great bony ridge extended across his forehead, parting in the middle to form the horns that had appeared during his transformation. His face bled a bit, but it was clear that the crown of horn had spared him any major pain.

"Little bitch...Thousand Ox Hoof Stamp!"

Turning his back to the hallway and lunging at Miyu, Yoren's good arm pounded the air, each of his five hoof-hard fingers extended. His arm retracted and thrust over and over again, it's movement a blur, hundreds of finger-sized shockwaves ripping through the air in the girl's direction.

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

"Watch out for snakes!" Seppy warned himself, dodging another blow from the stupid python.

Miyu did her best to avoid the attacks, turning insto smoke at times, jumping aside at others.
Still, after a while, she was hit by one.
It hurt. But the shock was worse.
She was sent flying and crashed through one of the thin walls.
She didn't want to stand up again. she wasn't used to pain. Her body wouldn't move.
And as she was lying in the remains of the wall, for the first time in years, she cursed her own fate inside. She didn't deserve any of this. Not even her bounty.
And now she might have to die because of it...

utter chaos.

At least, that was the best Grovire hoped to achieve in this present situation. Then again, a target with an ox zoan fruit just made things a little more complicated. Grovire smirked as he aimed his fist for the ceiling. Time for more chaos then.

"So much for the plan." Grovire smirked. Then his eyes narrowed in focus, as he began to feel his literal being, each and every fibre in his body, vibrate with steadily, controlled unbridled kinetic energy; the floor began to shudder, then lay still, until finally, only his fist was shaking.

"100 joules," Grovire whispered, feeling the weight of his curse threatening to stop his beating heart cold, as he drew his fist back. "true punch!" And with all his might, he hit the ceiling.

Nothing happened.

Then, the ceiling began to tremble; subtly at first, then that trembling rolled into a tremor, then into a quake; pieces of the ceiling began to fall off.

Yoren continued his assault, eyes bloodshot red with rage and fury. The girl was a logia, sure enough, but perseverance won the day. His lips curled into a savage smile as he watched her thrown back by the impact of his blow.

"Such pathetic creatures, bounty hunters..." he stated, stepping forward into the room. "Not enough guts to be a real pirate, not enough resolve to be a marine. Just die and spare those of us with real goals the trouble!"

His hand flew forward again, a barrage of rippling shockwaves flying towards his fallen opponent. Just then the roof came undone, a large chunk of wood falling directly into the path of his attack. The wood splintered and exploded, the air filling with dust and shards of rotted timber. When he could see the wall again, his prey was gone.

"Just how many of you wretched pests are there!?" Idulio bellowed, swinging around to face the doorway out to the hall. His eyes narrowed as he stared at Grovire through the falling bits of deteriorating roof. Yoren's chest began to expand at an alarming rate as he took in a deep breath.

"Ten Thousand Ox Bellows!"

All at once Yoren expelled the air from his lungs in a gust of gale-force wind. The roof utterly disintegrated from the combined force of Grovire and the pirate's attack. The night sky was visible above them, chunks of asphalt falling in around the edge of the hole; the dive had extended under a backstreet.

"Fish leather isn't my normal trade, but there's market enough for it." Yoren reached reflexively for his whip, remembered it was off fighting on it's own, and balled his good hand into a fist. With a snort he began charging towards the fishman with his signature wrecking-ball force, arm pulled back.

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

"Y'alright?" Seppy asked Miyu, helping her stand up. His tentacles unwound from around her torso, where they'd grabbed her to yank her out of the way. The hunter hadn't been sure she wouldn't just turn to smoke and stay put, but he'd had to try anyway. "Damn, this guy is tough for a lousy fourty. Mew, you with me?"

A short ways away, the once-living snakewhip had reverted to it's normal form, torn and shredded down it's whole length. Seppy resembled his foe in that regard; his entire body was covered in scratches and scrapes from the ordeal. Just to be safe, he lobbed a massive piece of asphalt on top of the thing; if it came to, he didn't want it becoming a problem again.

"Jus' wait here an' rest up," Seppy instructed, standing up and skulking back towards the fight. "I'll tie this up nice 'n' fast now."

Grovire swore. That was not part of the plan. Still, a good plan allowed modifications to fit new situations.

With that in mind, Grovire ducked as the ox human threw a powerful punch; with that, he rolled away to his right flank; his left arm was a little numb, so he wouldn't be using that. So he moved in a spiral motion around the target, keeping an eye on his target's face and limbs, towards Yoren's left flank. He raised his right arm now.

(( I'm waiting for Gore. Also, you guys can run the NPC if you want. I really just sort of made the stuff up as I went along, so your guess on what he'd do is as good as mine. He's pure improv. ))

Miyu raised her hand as seppy left, as if trying to hold him back.
"W-wait...seppy..."
She could only do so much as whisper, when she wanted to shout.
Why was she so useless? As a logia, shouldn't she be able to do more?
She got to her feet, still a little dizzy, but the pain was worse.
She wasn't a fighter. She just wasn't. But she'd have to ignore that today.
"Let me... help... you."
She wondered if he had gotten by now that she wasn't a tough bounty hunter, but actually a weak pirate. If so, then she should use this chance to run away.
But it was in Miyus character that she wouldn't leave a friend behind.

Yoren slammed through the wall behind where Grovire had been standing only seconds earlier, sending yet another spray of wood mulch into the air. His eyes were now blood red, his mouth foaming.

"How many of you damn pests do I have to kill!?" Idulio roared, swinging his bad arm up towards the fishman like a limp battering ram. His attack froze midway, a grunt of irritation escaping his throat.

His entire good arm was wrapped in purple tentacles; his back one had been seized about in a figure-four leg lock. Both of Seppy's arms were wrapped around the massive oxman's neck, his head pulled back to face the ceiling.

"You worthless little...get off of me!"

Seppy had needed to get the element of stealth back; once he'd had it, the fight had moved back into his corner. Unfortunately, he realized, while he had restrained the beast, the man's neck was entirely too big to break, even using his entire body as leverage.

"Jus' give up 'n' let me break that fat neck a yers," Seppy commanded, sounding almost annoyed that his foe was clinging to life so tenaciously. Yoren, in turn, slammed his back against a wall, ignoring Grovire and Miyu for the time being.

"Quit it!" Seppy whined angrily.

"Quit my damn back, you mongrel!"

Yoren continued flailing around, bounty hunter locked across his shoulders, engaged in childish bickering with his assailant.

Get real, he'll kill you as soon as he finds out about you.
He's not a friend, he's an enemy.
Miyu used one hand to support herself on the wall while making her way out to the street again. She looked back.
"I'm sorry... please don't die..."
There was no way he could hear her, but she felt better saying it.
Slowly, she made her way down the street.

((Two things: waiting on Wyrm, and secondly, are you out of this RP, Gore? Or just leaving the scene for now?))

(Naah, she's just leaving the scene. she'll probably collapse somewhere, or something.))

((Going to wait one more day for Wyrm, then finish out the fight on my own if he seems to be MIA.))

(Oookay!)

((Seems Wyrm is probably out, soooo...))

A handful of pirates slowly gathered into the ruined remains of the shady little dive in the back alley behind the hotel. Some walked in through the smashed doorway to the hall that connected the seedy hotel with the bar, others through the door. Several peered in through the hole in the ceiling that opened up directly into the alley behind the building. All wore the same look of disbelief.

Yoren Idulio, the Oxstripper, lay motionless on the floor of the ruined barroom. Smashed tables and chairs lay everywhere around him, ruined beams and bits of ceiling littered the floor, which itself was smashed into ruts. The room was a complete, twisted wreck of what it had been. Yoren matched the scenery.

His body was a mockery of the human form, a massive vaguely hominid mess of ox and human body parts. One foot was a great hoof, the other an ordinary booted sort. His broken arm lay limp, at an angle to his body no arm should ever be, the hand with five mangled human fingers. The ex-pirate's "good" arm was still covered in fur, it's fingers made of the rock-hard stuff of his hooves. The tree-trunk neck was still furry, larger than any man's should be.

None of his remaining crew, as they stared with shock, revulsion, and dismay, could say for certain whether Idulio's head had remained human or ox at the time of his death. The head was missing. The Oxstripper, local legendary fiend and a man who's power and misdeeds far exceeded his bounty, had fallen.

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

Seppy was covered in blood, a burgundy sludge of crimson and purple swirled together in a velvety pallet all over his black clothes and violet fur. Over his shoulder was a sack of large beli notes; he'd made over sixty million that night, between all of his small catches and the big fry combined. In spite of the night's hardships, Seppy couldn't help but wear a big smile. It'd been a pretty good haul, even if hard-won.

The biggest problem the hunter faced was finding his partner. He couldn't get a good fix on her scent, covered in a mix of Idulio's and his own blood. First order was for him to find a place to clean up and change; once he did, finding Miyu would be easy enough.

That the other hunter had left mid-fight worried him some. She was strong and experienced, and should have had no problem delivering the coup-de-grace with Yoren immobilized. It'd been a long, hard struggle to break the pirate's fat, thick neck. Still, Seppy knew she must have her reasons. He'd find them out when he met up to give over her share of the take.

"Damn weird hunter, Mew," he mused, finding a sufficiently empty looking house and shimmying open a window. "Still, fair's fair. Jus' gotta getcha yer pull..." Seppy's thoughts drifted as he spoke the last words aloud. Would that be it? Take their money and split? For some reason, the thought killed Septera's otherwise lively smile, his lips drooping into a frown.

"Maybe...y'need a partner?" he asked, as if she were there, his smile rallying a bit. "Even a top-rate hunter like you'd want some backup, righ'?"

Drawing himself a bath in the empty home, Seppy pondered how he'd pitch the idea of forming a guild or a band or something to Miyu. The idea of having someone with powers like hers around was extremely appealing to an assassin who preferred covert opps.

That, and she'd been nice to him. It was very rare for the mutant hunter to find people who were so nice. More than the smoke, he'd miss her for that.

((He is busy with exams guys, sorry Wyrm is my brother, he has exams after that he is free))