Beggars Can't Be Choosers[Job/Ayero]

The Fanalis woman arches a slim eyebrow at Yakuroro’s remark before giving a short nod of understanding. The feeling of the tiny chimera’s paws on her waist is unexpected and she blinks down in surprise at the young bonehead before a genuine smile of appreciation crosses her face. Akatetsu’s concern with protecting her was touching, seeing as how the halfling was too standoffish and guarded to become this close with someone. That, and the child’s innocence and affection reminded her very much of the younger siblings she used to spend her days caring for. Placing a protective hand atop the smooth bone of Tetsu’s skull, Ayero focuses her attention on Yakuroro and their targets.

She remains silent, sword gripped tightly in hand throughout the short exchange. As the two men begin to make their way towards the carpet, the Fanalis consciously slows her breathing, inhaling deeply as she watches them careful and reestablishes the grip on her weapon. ”Well, aren’t you a fetching young thing? Fetching young things fetch quite a bit of Huang…” One of the men coos as he approaches her, reaching for the whip at his belt. Suppressing a growl through clenched teeth, Ayero shifts her gaze between the two men, trying to figure out how to approach the situation.

“You’re not very bright, are you, love? But I suppose this saves us the trouble of having to fill our quota…” The other man speaks with a grin, cracking his knuckles before slipping a pair of brass knuckles over them. For a moment Ayero’s eyes fall on Yakuroro and “father”. Seeing the opening and wasting no time, Jarahn lunges at the woman with a fist pulled back, ready to strike. Startled by the attack and mentally regretting her slip-up, Ayero is only able Akatetsu away from her before taking a fist to the gut. Cringing from the blow, the Fanalis woman bends slightly from the pain in her stomach before pushing herself into action. Using her now lowered position to her advantage, Ayero shifts her footing and ejects herself from the carpet at her assailant. Gripping her talwar tightly in one hand, she pulls her free arm in front of her chest before digging her elbow into the back of Jarahn’s right elbow, effectively paralyzing the limb. Alarmed and irritated, the man takes a heavy swing at the woman with his mobile arm, only for her to duck narrowly and quickly jam her elbow into his other arm.

Before she even has a moment to breathe, the sound of leather slapping skin resonates through the air as Ben’s whip wraps around the arm she was using to paralyze his partner with. Growling, the Fanalis woman tugs violently at the whip before Ben had a chance to immobilize her any further. As he careens toward her, the halfling side moves to the side and steps as if to move behind him. With her talwar already drawn in her free hand, she digs the blade into Ben’s shoulder and begins to spiral around his body at 20 m/s. Unable to move from the quick and painful assault, the man cries out in pain as Ayero withdraws her blade from the end of the long wound at his hip. Shaking the slackened whip from her wrist as Ben crumples into a bloodied heap, she turns her attention toward Jarahn once more.


[Stamina: 110/160]

Techniques used:

Kō Kuikku-Mahi:

Devil's Graze:

Yamua snicker softly under his breath before picking a stone of a pouch on his belt and slipping it into a sling which he began to spin casually in his left hand, "Sorry, but you won't be seeing any of my precious children. They've been forbidden to see the light of day until they know to respect my authority. Helps with disciplining them." A sickly grin danced across "Father's" face and he made it clear that the time for talk was now over as he began Steady Shooting as he spun the sling to fire off a polished stone before swinging it back into his pouch to fire another at a steady pace sending five of the rocks flying through the air towards the magician.

Yakuroro stood firm and held a strong spiteful gaze on the man as each of the stones struck a shield of magoi bouncing harmlessly off the magician's borg. "I've got some experience raising children myself..." Yakuroro said as he began walking towards Yamua slowly and without any sign of worry or rush. "More than discipline, they need the warm love of the sun and a caring parent to grow healthy and strong, don't you know that?" The slaver scoffed at the Imuchakk's words and performed a Quick Step and closed the distance between them and begin flanking around to Yakuroro's rear as he shouted in anger.

"I don't need a blue giant to tell me how to be a father! I've been raising kids for years and the only thing that makes them strong is suffering! Because I suffered more than anyone, I am the strongest and can teach them how to be like me!"

The argument sounded like that of a madman. Clearly Yamua's mind had been addled by years of his own slavery and fighting in the coliseum. But Yakuroro was unaware of this man's fate. All he knew was that this "father" was not in his right mind, nor was he someone who could be left to his own devices. Without even turning around to follow Yamua's movements, Yakuroro rose his staff upwards and spoke the name of his spell,

"Deep Blue!"

A massive amount of water then began to form in the air around them converging in on Yakuroro and Yamua just as the latter tried to draw his blade. The Imuchakk had made sure to form the spell a bit off center of himself so he would not accidentally catch Ayero or Akatetsu in the large 25m diameter sphere of liquid. Both the men would be swept up into the currents which pulled Yakuroro to the center and left Yamua 5m from the edge but too disorientated to tell just how close he was to potential escape. Yamua had successfully drawn his scimitar and took notice of Yakuroro's large figure, distorted in the water but clear from the way his form silhouetted against the refracted sunlight coming into the sphere from above.

With his prey in sight, Yamua threw caution aside and began swimming towards the Imuchakk. Determined strokes would carry the man through the water at an impressive speed but it would still take time for the man to reach Yakuroro. Alas, this would be a terrible decision on Yamua's part as a single twisting current within the water sphere rushed through towards the human from the outer edges of the body of liquid and curved to smash into him from behind. The current carried Yamua in a corkscrew trajectory curving around the middle of the sphere orbiting Yakuroro whom was treading water at its center.

There, in the water, Yakuroro brought his staff close to his body and closed his eyes as he listened to the rukh and prepared yet another spell. There was a second current moving through the sphere, this one remaining very close to its outer edge. Yakuroro focused on the location of this current and began to perform a variation of his cavitation magic. In the past, Yakuroro had used this magic on a large scale creating a single massive bubble, but this time he would  supply less magoi to a single bubble and spread it out to create several smaller ones.

Yamua was being tossed around by the currents but finally regained his composure and performed a Sentence Blow usually reserved for killing disobedient slaves and cleaved through the water current. His movements finally settled and he turned to face Yakuroro just as the Imuchakk pointed his staff upwards to the second current which was out of "Father's" sight. The magician's magoi flew towards the current as he spoke the name of the spell, "Carnival of Bubbles." The name which the rukh had imparted to Yakuroro would be distorted from the water but it rung true to the blue and green rukh all the same. The magoi in the current began forming bubbles and each one was carried along with it towards their mutual target.

Yamua would begin swimming towards Yakuroro once more, but he would find himself struck from above by a second water current. This time, the current held within a set of cavitation bubbles which where pressed into the man by they current. Yamua would be sent crashing into the ground with B-tier force only to be pummeled by a series of explosive shock waves as the cavitation bubbles collapsed and generated an intense heat. The human's bones would suffer sever damage and his body received burns from the scalding hot water as the bubbles did an additional B-tier of damage.

Yakuroro let the spell fade and the water came splashing down spreading in all directions putting out the campfire and leaving Ayero shin deep temporarily. Akatetsu by this point had gotten back on the carpet and knew his fathers spells well enough that he rose the flying decor high enough to escape wetting. The Imuchakk would land on the ground and let out a sigh as he glanced towards Yamua's mangled but still living body, "Looks like you weren't that strong after all...Perhaps now you'll believe my words." With that, the magician turned his attention towards his fanalis companion to see if she was doing alright against her own opponents.

160/250 - Magoi

1000+/1000 Carnival of Bubbles Training:

Abilities Used:

Exhaling slowly, the red head turns her body fully toward the remaining man. With both arms paralyzed, Jarahn looks conflicted between rage and fear, especially after seeing the condition the young woman had put his companion in. As Ayero steps closer, he opens his mouth to speak but can’t seem to form a thought. Or so it may have seemed, if the warrior woman didn’t lunge forward and slam a close fist into his jaw. The sound of cracking bones can be heard as the assault send him careening backwards , Ayero sprinting after Jarahn to deliver several slashes to his torso and throat with her blade. Defeated, the slaver’s body twitches as he lays upon the ground, light slowly draining from his eyes in time with the loss of blood.

Taking in a deep breath to cope with the adrenaline rushing through her blood, Ayero turns her focus back toward Ben laying on the ground several feet away. Satisfied that both men were either nearly deceased or otherwise gravely injured, her attention is drawn back to Yakuroro. She gives his body a once-over to asses him for damage and finds nothing obvious. Glancing around him, she spies Yamua’s crushed body on the ground and grunts in approval. ”You took care of that rather quickly.” She comments, reminding herself that the seemingly carefree magician was dangerously skilled. ”I don’t suppose you got any information out of him?”

While there wasn't much reason to worry about Ayero's safety considering that she herself was quite the capable warrior, Yakuroro was still relieved to see that she had finished her battle relatively unscathed. In response to her question Yakuroro simply smiled and played dumb as he began looking around, eyes scanning the water covered ground. "Nothing of note sadly, he was quite stubborn about insisting that he was a good father..." His crystal blue peepers saw what they'd been looking for. A sign of something out of place. Water to his right that was spread across the ground making the floor muddy seemed to be draining into...a bush? That was certainly out of the ordinary. "But I think we might not need him to tell us anything to do what we came here to do." Yaku continued as he walked over towards the shrub.

See the light of day indeed. The Imuchakk was able to move the bush aside to reveal that it was a fake put in place to cover up the entrance to a tunnel. "There is a ladder and an underground chamber here!" Yakuroro called out before making his way down into the hole. The first set of torches near the ladder had been doused by the water but there were many more dotting a long hall way with cages on either side. "I believe we've found the prisoners...Don't worry everyone, we will get you out soon!" Yakuroro then looked up and offered a hand to help Ayero down off the ladder should she desire as it had a bit of a drop before reaching the bottom.

The Fanalis quirked a brow ever so slightly, head tilted to the side as she studied the magician’s face. ”I see.” Was her only comment, unwilling to press the subject further. She could have sworn that she had heard him conversing with “Father” at one point during their scuffle, but she’d been rightfully focused on her own two opponents to discern what they were actually saying. Pursing her lips in thought, the halfling figured that that Father’s slaves couldn’t be far. Thankfully Yakuroro’s keen eyes seemed to have an idea.

The pair quickly made the descent underground, intent on finding and freeing the captives, the Balbadd Captain among them. She stares at Yakuroro for a moment, perplexed when he offers her his hand as she reaches the end of the ladder. After several moments of hesitation she takes the giant’s hand and allows him to help her to the ground, sending him a curt nod of her head as thanks.

After completing their mission and ensuring that the Captain was safe and in the right hands after his ordeal, the pair collects their reward. ”That went rather smoothly. Thank you for your aid. Now that that is out of the way, I suppose it’s time for that meal I promised you two.” The halfling places a hand over her own stomach, now growling in protest. ”I’m sure that you two are quite hungry as well by now, correct?” She slides her gaze over to the Imuchakk and the young bonehead, glad that the trio had come out of their mission relatively unscathed. Something in the Fanalis was satisfied at the idea of slaying slave traders, no matter how cruel their methods were.

After helping Ayero down from the ladder, Yakuroro turned around and was faced with the reaching hands of many prisoners begging for freedom. The Imuchakk assured them all that they'd be released shortly but first demanded that the VIP they'd come for was identified and safe. The old captain looked to be in low spirits and rather upset over something, but for all intents and purposes he was uninjured and free of harm.


Yakuroro nodded at the sight of the captain and after confirming his identity, the magician began breaking the locks on the cages and one by one former slaves poured out and rushed for the ladder into sunlight. "Be sure to squint if you've been down here for a while!" Yakuroro called after the first few men as the dim lighting of the underground chamber would have their eyes weak to the brilliance of open sunlight. "Thank you for the quick rescue..." The trade captain said to Yakuroro as he was helped from his cage. "I own a small fleet of trade vessels in the nearby port town. Please stop by later, I have a...request." and with that, the man joined the throng of potential slaves back to the surface.

Afterwards, Yakuroro would be joining Akatetsu on the flying carpet once more as Ayero spoke and offered to treat them to a meal. Both of their stomachs growled hungrily at the mere mention of food and Yakuroro grinned out of embarrassment. "I would be glad to accept." Akatetsu growled in agreement, "Gyao Gyao!"