Bickering Children [Mission]

Okay - it wasn't up for debate that the night before had been one giant mess. He had wanted to go out and get drunk to celebrate all his progress in Reim, but then he had met that nice old man. Whilst he had enjoyed the man's company, he had been all but forced out of the bar to make sure that the man got home without getting into a fight or falling down in an alleyway somewhere. 

He very much doubted the guards would have been sympathetic to the man's plight if he was disturbing the peace, so he had no real regrets about what he'd done. That being said, he hoped tonight would be a more successful night on the town. Get a good few drinks down, find a nice girl, have some company even if nothing else. Everything should be able to turn up roses this time. 

As he entered the tavern (the same one as last night - the one that everyone in town recommended for being homely), his eyes scanned over the crowd as he walked back in. The bartender recognized him and gave him an apologetic grin, as if apologizing for what had happened the night before. He smiled back, as if assuring him it was okay, before taking a seat at the back of the bar, letting his staff rest leaning against his chair. 

This place really was quite nice. The townsfolk weren't lying when they said that this place was homely - The Three Footed Mare was one of those places you only got off the beating path; large enough for maybe twenty people at a time, yet filled with great wine and great company if you talked to the right person. In a place like this, you could find almost anyone you could imagine. A heliohaptian, a man from Kou, a mage, a swordsman, an archer, or an old Reiman veteran. Unfortunately, the last one was the same one that he had talked to last time. 

He sighed under his breath as he noticed the same old man from last night sitting at the bar. It wasn't so much that he disliked the man, but more that he was certain that he was going to be used as a way of getting rid of the man again. That all but scuppered his chances of meeting a cute girl tonight. Maybe he should just start going somewhere else. 

As the bartender delivered a small chalice of wine to his table, apparently on the house after his help last night, he murmured to himself that maybe, despite all odds, tonight would not be as horrific as one might first assume from first glance. Even if the old man was here, he didn't seem to be as hideously drunk as he was last night. Maybe he would have some more restraint.

Sadly, it appeared that would not be the case as the bar filled with the sounds of the little man from Kou and the old man arguing. It seemed his services would once again be required. 

Reliving the Glory Days II - 510 / 1000
Blazing Aura - 0/1000

"You filthy slit-eyed bastard!" Actilien roared at the man at the back of the room who had apparently not been willing to put up with the man's badmouthing for any longer than he already had. Now, Seti wanted to just sit back and ignore the entire situation going on, but the bartender was already looking at him with a look of fear and concern. 

Perhaps, he seemed to be asking, your friendship with the old man will help cool him down? Unfortunately, the man's suspicion was wrong. Seti had seen anger like this before plenty of times, and the best thing to do was to keep your head down and not antagonize it any further. If seti intervened, he knew that the Kou man was going to see it as a sign of weakness and would antagonize the man in revenge for his own earlier insult, and it would spiral from there. 

"You took over our country, replaced our emperor, slaughtered our forces, and then have the nerve to act as if you can just be one of us? We don't want you in our country, and we certainly don't want you in our bar." Our bar? The man seemed not to notice that he was the only one who had an issue with the man, and he was the one being antagonistic. 

"You can talk, you old fart. Tell me - when was the last time you did anything but talk about the past and gloat about your victories. My country might be vicious, but at least they still do things unlike you. My country is powerful and glorious, whilst you're just old and bitter." Okay, the other man was really asking for a fight now.

With every regard passed between the two of them, it became more and more likely that a fight was going to break out at some point. He didn't want to think about it, but he was almost certain now that, one way or another, a fight was going to start between the two men. His avoidance of the confrontation seemed to have had no effect - they were going to get into a fight regardless. 

"Actilien... Please stop this already..." he piped up, deciding that it couldn't possibly get any worse at this point. Unfortunately, it seemed like his friendship with the man would never have been enough to get him to settle down. 

"Shut up, Seti This is between me and mister Kou over there."
"Bring it, you old fogey! When I beat your ass, I'll make you apologize for all those insults towards Kou before I make you choke on your words. "
"You couldn't make me even if you tried."

Then, the build up to the fight broke like the banks of the river that flowed alongside Heliohapt - the old man threw his stool, landing a direct hit on the man, slamming right into his chest and doing god knows how much damage.

Reliving the Glory Days II - 1000 / 1000
Blazing Aura - 0/1000

Oh Horus! As the chair landed, the Kou man threw himself at his "opponent", slamming his fist into his face and probably breaking his nose. The violence was pretty graphic and it was clear to everyone in the bar that it was only just beginning. Normally, bars that were at risk of something like this happening would have the bartender keep a sword or something above the bar to make sure that nothing could happen, but it seemed like this place hadn't kept up that fine tradition. 

As the other men and women looked on terrified, Seti stepped up and grabbed his staff, deciding that things had gone far enough. Moving out of the booth and onto the floor, he physically threw himself between the two men, attempting to break them apart physically. 

"For the love of god you two - You're fighting like children! You both came out here to drink, why don't you just sit down and ignore each other like actual adults?" His tone was not angry but rather irritated, like a suffering mother who's children were being difficult to each other. The old man was a good man but he always started stuff like this, and the Kou man... well, an officer should never allow themselves to be provoked so easily. 

For a moment, it seemed to work as they both seemed to look at him in surprise rather than continuing the bar, but then Actilien just used that moment to grab a bar stool and attempt to slam it into the soldier's head. So, the old man was the one that he would have to force to stop. 

It was clear that this fight wouldn't stop until he forced it to stop himself, and yet at the same time he didn't want to hurt the man too much. He had a fondness for him after all, even though he did some profoundly stupid things like picking a fight with a fully armed officer. 

"Fine!" Muttering the name of the spell, a burst of light came over the room as an exoskeleton of light began to form over his body, making a luminescent white shell that burned with the heat of a roaring flame. The bar-stool even set alight as it brushed past him, causing the old man's eyes to widen in surprise as the flame scorched his hand, leaving him recoiling in pain from the sudden scorching. 

Damage: 1B
Blazing Aura - 401 / 1000

170 / 200:

As the flame continued to engulf the stool, Actilien threw it to the floor for fear of it burning himself even more, before launching a punch at the young man's face. The fact that they had gone from friends the night before to this was almost a little bit sad, but it was the only way that he was going to be able to learn.

Fighting was never enjoyable, especially when you were on good terms with the person who you were having to fight against, but it seemed like he had little choice right now. The man was furious, and he was looking at Seti with the same eyes that he had been giving the soldier earlier. The Kou soldier, however, appeared content to just sit back and let Seti handle this, considering the fact that he was more interested in the fact that a man appeared to have just spontaneously burst into light.

Once again Actilien launched himself at him, aiming a punch at him. It seemed his drunken state made him illogical, as the light that had just set his stool on fire was the same one that was cloaking the person's body that he was attempting to punch. As you can likely predict, that punch hit into the exo-skeleton, setting the man's coat on fire and delivering rather severe burns up his arm.

Launching a left hook at him, the fire slammed into his cheek, leaving a huge burn mark and singing off his hair as he fell to the floor.  His coat becoming more and more engulfed with every passing second, Seti noted that this was probably enough. Dropping the spell, he moved to rip the man's coat off before it did any more damage to him, tossing it over onto his own table... where the wine proceeded to go up in flames.

It was at this point that Seti noticed something he probably should have earlier. The stool wasn't the only thing made of wood - the entire bar was. Where he had been standing had turned into a burning circle of flames, and it seemed that more and more of the bar was going down in flames with every passing second.

"... Oops."

Damage: 1B + (1B) = 1A
Blazing Aura - 769 / 1000
Stamina: 165 / 200

A good five minutes after the fight, Seti and the Kou man were sat on the curb of the street. Guards were carrying away the body of the Actilien, and the fire had somehow managed to be put out. Still, Seti was blushing pretty heavily whenever he felt the bartender's eyes on him. It seemed that all the good things he'd done around the bar had been made null and void now, as he could feel the hatred of the man burning into his back when the man thought he wasn't looking.

"I already said sorry." he murmured to himself, before sighing and turning to the Kou man. "I'm sorry, I never asked - Are you okay? You got hit pretty hard by the stool back there." The man laughed slightly, and nodded
"Yeah. But, I've had worse. Don't feel like anything's broken, and that's the important thing."

"Fair enough. By the way, I never asked... what is your name, anyway?" It might have been a little rude of him, but beforehand there had been no opportunities for a conversation. The two of them had made that very clear.
"Colonel Len Fon, at your service." The man snapped to attention, likely more out of muscle memory than anything else.

There was obviously something the man wasn't saying, but he wasn't going to force it out of him. If he didn't want to say it, he wasn't going to have to. Instead, he just nodded, pulled the hood of his coat up and began to walk away in the opposite direction to the bar. He needed to get as far away from here as physically possible or he was going to cringe to death.

The gold in his pocket from the guards for their help in putting the man down and stopping the fire would have felt nice in any other situation, but tonight he had ruined a good drinking place, gotten into a fight with someone he liked and had to hand said person over to the city guards. Tonight was not the kind of night that could be made better with coinage.

Blazing Aura: 1000/1000