Sutoratosu

he said he'd be away for a few days... so I don't know, guess he hasn't gotten back yet.

"Oh, I have no intention of killing him..." Deric said, smiling cruely as he picked Marca up off the ground by the lapels of his long coat. A moment later both he and his captive disappeared... only to come back into sight atop the same building that Boho had materialized on top off earlier. Deric was dangling the man's feet and body over the edge, seemingly prepared to drop him down to the street below. "I tries killing this whore son before... to no effect, as you can plainly see. Look, he even withstands fatal drops!" He let go of the rapist, letting his body drop the thrity feet to the ground below. Freyal hit feet first, completely crumbling as his legs shattered like glass and his pelvis and lower spinal cord along with them. He lay there on the ground, paralyzed, staring up at his childhood friend with what was... fear. "Do you see?" Deric asked, laughing as he disappeared and reappeared on the ground beside him. his demeanor was getting a bit disturbing... "3 stories, three fucking stories he dropped, and the bastard is lucky enough to manage to land on his feet and not his front of back. But it accomplished what I wanted." He lifted up his foot and stumped with every once of weight he had down onto Freyal's stones... which solicited no response from the man, having lost all feeling in the region from his injuries. "He can feel nothing now, his stones and his pillow is broken... can't commit rape if you can't preform, now can you?" Boho, surprisingly, stepped up, having seen enough of this. "Remember the oath you took, brother," he warned subtly. "You're a magistrate, not an interrogate or a master of tortures. The duty of those bearing the white is to administer justice fro transgression and little else beyond that, and it is to administer justice in a quick and decent manner." he was walking towards Deric as he gave his speech, seemingly unphased by the wild, wolf like look in the man's eyes. "No one here is going to tell you that this man deserves to live, believe me, with all the shit he's done, he's gettin the kiss of death for his sentence. Go on, if you're gonna end his ass, then just end his ass and be done with the deed. Don't draw it out into some cruel and unusual punishment, that right there is the road to the dark side, and once you go to fully to the darkside, you won't want to come back out. I've seen it happen before, it ain't pretty... especially when I was the one who had to put em down." Deric considered the elder Magistrate's words for a moment... then shook his head. "Mercy and Justice mean nothing in this particular situation." He said simply. "This is about vengeance, it's what it's always been about, plain and simple. I stopped upholding the law the moment I left my duties and my sword behind... the oath I took is meaningless to me now, it stopped meaning anything when she died and none of us were able to save her or intervene... how could we call ourselves magistrates, defenders of the public good, if in the end we couldn't even defend one of our own from a transgressor?" he drew Lucretia's sword as he spoke, though he cast a glance back at the group. "Tell me though... how would you punish him? Leonidas?" "Well, in my time, back in Ocrea... the penalty for rape, though it was a crime that was barely ever actually investigated by authority; if something happened, usually the men of the family dealt their own brand of justice, but the penalty for both official and non official condemnation... was hanging from the appropriate male appendage. once it... was rent from the stress, the transgressor was either allowed to bleed out while being forced to was it blood gush from the wound... that's if the authorities were dealing out the punishment. if it was the family... he would then be beaten to death, smashed in via relentless clubbing from all the immediate male relatives of the victim. In Ocrea it was a crime that went unspoken off, but one that was severely punished nevertheless." "Hmmm... hanging from the pillow and then being clubbed to death..." Deric glanced at Boho. "I've only been appointed to put one Rapist to death, and the method I used was the sword. clean and quick, bucko. like Death penalties should be..." Deric glanced at Lucian next, scoffing a bit at the funky magistrate's preaching for no cruel and unusual punishment in this situation. "Never been in the situation when I could face down a rapist one to one," he admitted. "Though if my father were to ever stand before me, I'd put one in between his eyes. Keep it quick and rather clean. Sure, torturing him could be justified, but my mother would never condone taking it that far. She'd want the punishment for what he did to her to be humane and not filled with gore." The magistrate actually even glanced at Abasalom as the boy started to get up off the ground, having heard everything. "Hm...? Oh, even me?" he asked, surprised. "Um... very well then. I have a older sister, works for the Sultan's personal guard for his daughter's protection... I haven't actually seen her in a long time, but if I were to find out someday had... had defiled her as this man did to your love..." He looked over at Stratos. "I think i'd honestly take my vengeance as far as taking a page from the Sky Slayer's handbook and burn them all alive at the stake in an open field." Deric actually nodded at the boy's honesty, liking the idea of fire. He next looked at Zoliver. "What about you, boy?" he asked him "how would you punish a crime like Marca here has committed?" Meanwhile, Sinbad and Shavian stood towards the outskirts of the group as Deric asked his questions. They both could feel a sudden prescence behind them though... then beside them. if either of them turned their heads, they'd notice a young woman in armor and a white cloak standing in between them both. Her beauty was astounding to say the least, her face fair and fine with eyes a deep amber in color. Her gold blonde hair was cut in a short style, framing her face as she stood there watching the whole scene. Her expression was unreadable, but her eyes were fixed on Deric and Marca. And if anyone else bothered to cast a look over, they'd see her as well... but then quick as lightning, she was gone, vanished... had she even been there at all? had it merely been a phantasm from the past?

Murdoc Elimus looked at the highway man with a bit of scrutiny, though his response didn't show it "Very well, I can see your point..." he sighed. "People or so ignorant that they automatically jump to the conclusion that horses are just ordinary mindless beast, you might well be accosted because of that stupidity from them. Go on, I will wait by the staircase. And make sure you purchase saddlebags if you find any." with that said, he trotted off towards the building, noticing several other horses tied to a riding post not far from the stone stairs leading inside. "Let me guess, brother," one of them, a stallion with fur a dark, near black brown like freshly tilled fertile earth, said as he approached. "Your rider told you have to stay outside like a dog as well." "Indeed he did..." Elimus said. "Indeed he did." "Well, join the club, my friend." The stallion moved over a little, making room for Elimus to stand next to the post. "Human's, eh? so pompous... thinking us to be savage and basic. we try to converse with them and they ignore us. try winnying, and they tell us to be silent. trot around a little they tell you to calm yourself... and so out of options, you decide to return their disrespect with one of your own and shit on the floor of their establishment in insult.. and the bastards throw you out." "This sounds to specific to be a hypothetical case." Elimus said. "I know..." the Stallion answered. " That's because it's the story of what happened to me not even ten minutes ago. I went in with my rider, tried to apprise the fool that he was getting swindled, and he brushes me off like some base animal every single time...before finally casting me out here. it's humiliating" "Ah yes..." Elimus sighed. "The struggles of a black stallion..." Meanwhile, the doors to the emporium loomed large before Matrim...

Deric only chuckled darkly at the Turks advice. "Suffer?" he asked. "Suffer? him?" He shook his head, finding the concept apparently hilarious. "You think this is suffering? Compared to what he did to her? Go on, Marca... tell them what you did to Lucretia. Tell them what your crime that night was." Marca said nothing, simply glancing around at the party surrounding him, then up at Deric, face unreadable. "Tell them." Deric again ordered, taking Marca's own knife and pressing it against the criminal's cheek, easily drawing blood as it passed through the flesh. "Tell them or else I will smash your god damn skull in right here and now." Another moment of hesitance... then finally the admittance of guilt. "I...I raped her. and then I slit her throat and left her for Deric and her brother Jezicalo to find the next morning."

She's done for, Mareek thought to himself as he watched the fight carry on. I can tell already, she's losing her grip over the situation while Henry over there is about as calm as ever and so are his partners. A light emitting from his jacket let him know that Java had gotten through with his work, pulling it out again and looking down as Jacob shouted at the screen. "It's run by fellow students" Java said in a message on the device. "Mostly upperclassmen. Unknown if faculty has any inkling of it's existance, but highly likely given the extent of the site's data and how long it's been up and running. Predictions of likelihood of winning the cup also found for each competitor." "Bring up Kristen's page again." The porygon2 did, scrolling right down to the analysis section... Mareek only sighed when he saw it, shaking his head. "Well that explains a lot... it's looking to be like what they anticipated." He was interrupted by the shouting and booing from the spectators, fully audible from the display in the room. "It's a bit impressive though," Mareek observed to himself with a tinge of respect in his voice, loud enough for Jacob to hear him. "They're all sitting up there, spewing out hate and condemning his fighting style... and yet Henry's just carrying on as if he doesn't hear them at all..."

Maya nodded at Iain, seemingly the first of her party to arrive at the docks she headed over to help the ship hands load supplies onto the smaller vessel. Without a word she picked up one of the lighter crates and made her way up the boarding plank, all the while keeping a weary eye on the water far below as she finally stepped onto the deck and place it down, heading back for another soon afterwards.

Oh, derp... sorry, don't know how I read over that part.

Marca was shocked, but not paralyzed, The King of theifs saw the turk winding his attack the moment the thought had entered the man's mind and within a split second kicked the knife out of his hand before it could impale his foot. A quick leap backwards followed, resulting in Darius's steel striking nothing but air. Marca snarled at the two of them, withdrawing a Pure Muinnat dagger from his side and sizing up which to slice and dice first. The heroe's were unknowingly in great danger, for the magic metal, in a purely wrought form, without being alloyed with steel and other metals and having it's natural magic vibration diluted by it, as it commonly was when made into weapons because of which... well, one could say that Muinnat had a tendency to... cut through steel and wood and flesh like they were nothing. "So you call me a boy, eh?" Marca said to Gideon. "Well, this boy is going to turn you into a Eunuch, you Dirosi pile of shit. Tell me, which would prefer, root to stem, or just the stones to be taken?" Before either man could comment however, there appeared Deric behind the criminal, Lucretia's Muinnat sword in hand as he stalked up to her killer in complete silence, using the window of opportunity Darius and Gideon had created. The scarlet blade, reminiscent to that of Rosefeller, Atton's great sword, took on a familiar hazy glow of white as Deric held it up and wound it back behind his neck as if about to arc his arm to deliver a decapitating blow to his old friend. Gideon and Darius both noticed he was increasingly gaining speed in his pace. And then there came to strike. Bright as the sun, a hazy white arc hurtling towards Marca's jugular with wraith-like speed... But contrary to what the men would've expected, the strike did not kill him... nor was his head rolling. But nevertheless, the look of pain on his face was exquisite and intense, as if he'd felt every single nerve ending in the strike zone flaring at once. Deric stood frozen in his strike position, watching as the thief stumbled and fell to his knees. The magistrate had no mercy however, for he then proceeded to drive Lucretia's weapon through the assailant's back, the tip and length of the blade exiting through his solar plexus, still cloaked in white. There was no visible wound left when Deric drew it back out of his foe-man though... but Marca clutched his chest regardless, as if he had been impaled and was actually bleeding out. The ground was what caressed his face as Deric finished his assault with a swift and low round house kick connecting to the jaw. "How....how...." Marca could barely get the words out in between his pained breaths. "What... are you...? How....?" "Figured out how to use these abilities a little." was all Deric answered with, sheaving his blade and looking at Darius and Gideon as he collected the knife Marca had dropped. "This fight's over. His dragon's incapacitated and wouldn't even listen if he were conscious, his jewel's been destroyed, and he's pinned." He walked over and placed an armored boot on the thief's chest, making sure to put all his weight on it. "All of you, get over here," he ordered, glaring down into Freyal's face with a mix of anger and solemnity. "Freyal is going to admit his crimes before he meets his fate." ((Do note: This boss battle is not over. It has just transitioned into a Shatter Point moment as well as a boss fight. What you say and do in the following scene will determine whether or not Deric awakens into Arthur before or after Marca has been dealt with for good and for all))

Wait, it has? I thought you still had writers block and that you were going to get the thread up when you could.... EDIT: Ah...I see, so I'm guessing we're basically supposed to share the Kal' Enenderal IC thread with Asgall's team until we make land fall on the other continent then, is that what you meant for us to do? Sorry if it seemed kinda obvious, I looked t the IC and then the OCC thread, saw that it had Asgall's party members, and figured it was meant for them alone, like the other one was meant for Ailios' party alone, and that ours would be up eventually... :/

Hmm... well, in terms of overall teams, I think they'd both have a decent chance to win since it's kinda evenly matched (Like, no one has a complete type pwnage over the other) Though, it seems that Henry's style is more effective and tried and tested in terms of his past experiences, while IMO Kristen appears to not have that level headed advantage given what we've seen of her battles so far. She seems a bit rash in her actions at times during a fight, allowing emotion to influence her orders instead of analyzing the situation and using that to determine her response. So I'd give the win to henry due to seemingly slightly/ moderately superior scenario and combo training with his partners ((EX, like the combo he used to test her reaction this match. I have yet to see Kristen actually use a preplaned combo in a fight... but then again, I just kinda skimmed over them, so might be wrong about that.)), the ability to keep a level head, and more past overall experience from his time in Ore

"You..." Marca snarled as the mericless insults were hurled at him left and right. He leapt off the top of the dragon's head, somersaulting through the air with frightening dexterity and agility before landing in between Gideon and Darius, sweeping his foot around in a low arc and sending both the men to the ground in a single swift motion. He held up the Sorcery jewel as he glared down at the two, a red glow beginning to bath his face. The dragon roared and a fire was seen beginning to gather at it's maw as he began to activate the artifact. "YOU!!" The sound of a gun shot. a quick bang. Like thunder in the wind. That was all that was heard afterwards, cutting the man off and leaving him standing there gazing dumbly at the empty palm where the control jewel used to be just moments ago. On the ground all around him was thousands of twinkling shards of red... The dragon suddenly collapsed onto the stones just like Absalom had, seemingly unable to move itself...and Marca was just as frozen from the shock of how easily he'd just been tricked by this lot.

Alright, seems pretty straightforward from your exmaple. I'll think up of something to do for one.

thanks. I'll see what I can find out on Snap's end.

"It doesn't matter where he got it..." Leon said to Zoliver through gritted teeth and with a hoarse whisper. "Whether he got it from a king or pilfered it from the church archives themselves, the thing's still illegal by the laws of True Magic, Mind Rape is almost as grave an offense as Necromancy..." Marca though, answered Zolvier's question with a smug grin. "Why, I stole it just this morning," he said proudly. "Yes indeed, pilfered it from the halls of the Great Samiel himself, I did. You remember, Deric, don't you?" "Look at you," Deric shook his head in disgust, ignoring the question. "Stealing, killing, raping minds...what the fuck went wrong with you, Marca? I know you loved her just as I did, but if this what that love drove you to do over time... then it was not love; twas Love's ugly impersonator; Obsession. How much do you think Lucretia weeps now, looking down from the starry heavens and having watched all your crimes? do you really think you're actions would make her affections for you grow if she were still alive? Do you think she'd condone any of this? The smirk faded from his mug at that. his face looked uncertain, and his eyes with it.

"Oh fine..." Marca sighed, lowering the jewel and releasing his hold on the child. The next moment, Absalom collasped to the stones beside Gideon, the bloody shard of glass falling from his grip and shattering. After a mmoment or two, he began stirring... though he was faint. Luckily the boy wasn't very adept at using knifes; the wound he'd dealt Gideon didn't do as much harm as it could've... "I promised Theos he could have you alive anyway..." "How about you stop hiding behind your damn mount and come down here?" Leonidas taunted the man strategically. "Fight us like a real man instead of leaving the lizard to do all the work. Unless you're too afraid of being torn apart by us?" Well, this was certainly a different tactic... If the fool could be convinced to conduct a battle on the ground instead of his Wyrm... and if they could get his control gem... but how powerful could Taunting and shaming really be? Especially against someone with such apparent little regard for shame?

"Hell, you're about to join the sky lord in a few minutes," Marca chimed arrogantly. "I guess there's no harm in telling you lot before you die." He reached into the folds of his coat and produced a scarlet jewel, expertly cut and catching the light of the moon on it's many exquisite faces, giving a red glow to the Theif King's face. "If you must know, it's this little jewel right here. I whip it out, focus on someone... And bwamo!" The stone flashed with bright light as Absalom's eyes blazed with a similiar color before returning to normal. The next minute though, he was charging at Gideon, sweeping down with his arms as he ran and collecting a shard of glass from the ground, rotating it in his hand and holding it like a dagger as he went in to kill the turk... "I can control anyone or anything I want, like they're a puppet!" Marca proclaimed as he watched the Dirosi boy about to murder Gideon from behind...

"It must've been devoured...like he claims." Deric answered, nodding to the beast before them and completely oblivious to Gideon's plotting nearby. "Not very surprising, honestly. In a fight between a creature that can control fire and heat, and one of the cold and snow... well, deciding who would be the winner doesn't exactly take an accomplished scholar to figure out." "Indeed it doesn't," Marca agreed. "And I have to say, it was quality entertainment for me, setting those two against one another after you up and fled the field. I was honestly surprised by how quickly the Ice one fell to Theos here though... a pity it couldn't have gone on longer." Leonidas, meanwhile, gave a stern halt gesture to everyone who'd seen Gideon's silent proposal, nodding his head quickly to the Dragon and it's apparent handler and mouthing 'No, get the information about how he's doing this in the first place before you go attacking, morons...' Whether or not they knew it, the Dragoneer had a damn good point. Sure, they could kill Marca right here and now while he's distracted... but what good would that do if whatever he'd done to the dragon didn't wear off with his death? They'd all be hunted down and torched immediately afterwards if the charm was something permanent.