The King of Nothing At All~Open

Reim was big. Big, and - Ura took in a deep lungful of air, then wheezed - smelly. He smiled at Sheba, who was sniffing at a stall with a peculiar half-grin on her snout. She made it all worth it. Even a particularly pushy street merchant with about as much fat hanging off him as the beef he advertised couldn't sour the smiling boy's mood. He was impressed by the complex machinery that littered the city like so many grains of sand, but restrained his urge to examine every little thing. It was Sheba's and his' anniversary, after all.

"Has it been...six years now?" Ura counted backwards off his fingers. Numbers and figures had never sat well with him. An annoying tickling sensation on his leg caused him to reflexively scratch at the offending itch. His hand brushed skin, and Ura's eyes widened upon realizing that someone had the nerve to pick his pocket. The shock of this revelation was so great that Ura almost forgot to turn around and catch a glimpse of the sneaky thief. He caught a glimpse of a blue scarf retreating quickly through the surrounding throng, blending in with the colorful crowd. Ura shrugged.

"Not like I have anything worth taking anyway," he muttered, turning his back on the thief. He sympathized with the poor bugger, recalling his own less-than-savory exploits a few years back. Sheba trotted over to Ura and sniffed his pants, tails swaying. "Okay, you got me." Ura marveled at her ability to pick out the scent of her favorite treats among the powerful odors that waged a stinky war over Reim's crowded streets. He reached into his left pocket. Then his right. Ura frowned, and took a moment to think.

......

"That bastard!"

Twenty minutes, three broken barrels, and a wagon of overturned fruit later...

They had the boy cornered. The nasty little pustil had made quite a bit of headway against the panting duo, but Sheba could smell her favorite cat-liver from over a mile away if need be. And nothing got between Sheba and her cat liver. The angry fox had the thief cornered, the runt's back pressed against a massive stone wall. His dirt-streaked hands clutched the liver tight and showed no signs of letting go. While Ura admired the boy's stubborn streak, he knew things were gonna get ugly real fast if the boy didn't cough it up.

"Hey, kid. Let the fox have her liver and I'll buy you a real meal." Ura mimed eating a delicious, mouth watering steak with his imaginary fork, but wasn't sure he got the point across. What with the giant bandage wrapping around the lower portion of his face.

And then the kid started crying.

Even Sheba was taken aback. Ura gestured helplessly. Since when did street kids get to be so weak? He opened his mouth to reassure the kid that Sheba wouldn't eat him alive when the unthinkable happened.

All three stared at the boy's chest in shock. A jagged spear tip jutted from the center, dripping a noxious green liquid. Ura watched, mouth agape, as the boy toppled forward in a heap to reveal a burly beast of a man. Said man calmly bent down and yanked the weapon out of the boy's limp body without a word, and began to walk away.

"MMMPH!" A muffled yell issued for the first time in months from Ura's bandaged lips. "Gods damn it," Ura swore as he unraveled the dumb bandages. The man had stilled at the sound of Ura's first strangled cry, and an amused smirk slid across his lips. "If I were you, I'd best be leavin' this little encounter a mystery." The smirk grew wider. "Boy."

A discarded mound of trash floated slowly across the center of the alleyway, and a lone flute trilled solemnly in the distance. Then, silence.

The quiet was broken by a soft growl, and Ura slowly folded his arms over his chest. "Do you know," he said, punctuating every word, "who I am?"

The smirk grew impossibly wide.

An answering smile split Ura's face, sweet as sugar. "I am the King of Nothing At All," he pointed at the man, "and you are my subject."

Sheba leapt.

It had been a few days since Liber finished his reconnaissance of Remano's sewers and he had finally managed to get the stench completely out of his hair. His clothing? Those were a lost cause. Liber had made sure to burn the batch and obtained new garments of near identical style and design. His lean frame and supple muscular body was wrapped in a light toga of sorts that left one of his nipples exposed to the open air. The outfit included a cloth-like wrapping around Liber's abdomen that appeared to be bandages and a pair of firm fitting sandals that had decent gripping on the soles. His hair was combed back but still flared out in a wild fashion, the only part of it that seemed tame being the pair of exceptionally long braided strands that were far longer than the rest of his mane.

There was still a week or so before Liber's next coliseum fight and he was spending his hours searching the streets for any more signs of Kou agents located in the city. All such searching had been fruitless thus far, but that did not mean that Liber should give up. No matter how disheartened he became, the fanalis assassin would keep up his investigations until he discovered the root of the infection of foreign powers which had struck at the very heart of reim, ripped it out, and replaced it with a treacherous bile.

This search had led the Fanalis to sneak about the city in a variety of ways. For the next few days Liber slipped into crowds and blended in with the common folk as he drifted from conversation to conversation eavesdropping on them all the while. Very rarely did information of use pop up and when it did, it had nothing to do with the Kou presence that he hoped to learn more of. Liber stalked the shadows and darted from alley way to alley way practicing quick escape routes and shortcuts that could be used to chase down running targets. His past work as an assassin proved to be of use and through all this execution of those skills, they gradually became more and more polished over time.

The final day of the week leading up to his next match had come and there was still no progress in Liber's investigations. This day's search had led Liber onto the city rooftops and he leapt from building to building stopping every once and a while to scan the surrounding area for anything suspicious. One such stop would have Liber stumbling upon an interesting scene. A boy being chased by a young man and a fox. It seemed as though the child was clinging to some kind of food. He was likely a homeless or poor kid desperate for a meal. But the man and his beast companion didn't appear to be interested in letting the child go which suggested to Liber that the piece of meat the youngster had in his hands was stolen from his pursuers. The Fanalis watching from above felt a pang of mixed feelings on the matter as his values clashed.

One one hand, it was an injustice upon the young man to have his belongings stolen, but on the other...such injustice was only brought about by the injustice of poverty the child surely suffered through. Frowning, Liber felt unable to determine which part was in the right and which one deserved to be stopped. Ultimately, he decided that it was not his place to intervene. Liber's mission was not to play hero today, it was to seek out and remove the cancer that had infected his homeland. His bright maroon eyes were just about to look away when he saw the sudden and unexpected murder take place. A man had come out of no where and stabbed the boy from behind with a spear. Judging from the young man's reaction, he did not know this stranger and was just as shocked about the development as Liber had been.

The shock was quickly overpowered by a sense of anger and prejudice. If Liber was looking for an injustice that warranted his intervention, the sudden slaughter of a defenseless child stood out like a beacon that called out for action. Leaping into the air, Liber swept an arm through the air launching a Pressure Prick needle towards the spearman's leg. If it landed successfully, it would paralyze the limb making it difficult for the mysterious murderer to dodge the fox's subsequent attack if that was indeed what it had leapt for.

Flipping once, Liber landed nearby into a crouching position. He stood without even so much as looking at Ura, all of Liber's gaze and focus was on the killer. An expression of animosity profoundly deep was on the fanalis man's face as his crimson hair shifted from the standing motion. Liber's face then softened as he turned to look at the child who was still face first on the ground and burst off the ground leaving a small foot sized crater in the ground here he stood due to his fanalis strength. Liber would stop as he reached the child's side and knelt down bringing the quickly fading life into his arms. Liber rolled the boy over face up and peered down at him with sorrowful eyes seeing the life quickly draining from the child's face.

Blood spilled out from the boy's body like a free flowing river and the life juices seeped into Liber's clothing. But the assassin ignored the way his clothes were being soiled and how his hands became covered in the red blood. There was no sign of panic in the man who himself had been responsible for much more brutal murders. He accepted the gore of this child's final moments as though it were natural and instead of showing fear, he embraced the youth with warmth and clarity. Holding back his anger towards the killer for now, Liber forced a smile down at the boy and asked, "Do you have any family? Tell me your name and I will pass your final words to them should you have any."

~1000+/1000 Stealth C -> B~
Stamina - 140/160

Spoiler:

((The boy is your creation so I'll leave his final words up to you. But gosh, it was hard thinking of how to enter this thread. When making open threads in the future, you might want to think about ways other players could enter and end your post with some kind of prompt to indicate those ways. Leaving off in the middle of an action like your beast leaping at someone makes it hard for other players to jump in since we can't control the NPCs you've set up without permission and therefore don't know the results of said leap. I hope this friendly suggestion helps you out in future threads   ))

~The battle was over before it had even begun~

Ura watched with clenched teeth Sheba's surprise leap towards the spear-toting man. The boy had little doubt that the attack would miss, but it would distract the man long enough for Ura to see if the child really was dead. An involuntary shudder coursed up his body. The boy's death...it wasn't my fault, was it? Ura took a step forward, then was once again rewarded with yet another shocking turn of events.

"GAAAAAHHH!" The boy's killer swayed, clutching his bleeding chest. Then the man's right leg folded, and he went down in an ungainly heap on the alleyway cobblestones. Ura's eyes bulged as the spear clattered to the ground, fresh poison still dripping from its wickedly curved edge. Sheba daintily pawed at the still body, gave it a deep sniff, and sneezed.

The man was out for the count.

A flash of red caught Ura's eye, and his adrenaline spiked. Yet another man held the bleeding thief's body in his arms, looking down at it with a most peculiar expression. What the-?

"Sheba. The boy has another unwelcome visitor." Ura said this in a tone that left no doubt as to what he intended Sheba to do to the red-headed guest. Sheba glanced at Ura out of the corner of her eye, then used one of her tails to pick up a decidedly gooey-looking bit of offal. A frown creased Ura's brow. Then Sheba cocked her tail back, aimed and let loose.

Splat! Ura was lifted off his feet as a lump of poo the size of his head smacked into his chest with lightning speed. Then his head thumped against the ground, and a comfortable blackness put a temporary halt to his utter bewilderment.

---------

Sheba eyed her misguided companion as he crumpled to the ground in a manner similar to the man before him. It had been meant to teach the boy a bit of patience, and the Two-Tailed Fox felt no guilt at her action. She was a predator, and offered no pity to misguided cubs like Ura. Such was the way of the desert. She turned around and padded over to The Man Whose Head Is On Fire. The fox sensed no hostility from the newcomer- only warmth. Sheba was disappointed that Ura had failed to recognize this obvious fact. She silently made her way towards The Meat-Snatcher, intending to stop the poison she could smell coursing through his limp body with A Fox's Kiss. She would start with his chest, but doubted the boy would live long enough to fight it off. Unless the boy's bleeding wounds were bandaged.....

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

"Do you have any family? Tell me your name and I will pass your final words to them should you have any."

Ran's eyes flickered open to the most amazing shade of green. His stomach hurt, and he felt light-headed. But the eyes stared at him, imploring him to answer. "Ra-" he choked. It was getting hard for him him to breathe. Panic flared in his chest, but Ran couldn't move. "I-I-I don't wan-" The world spun, and the boy struggled to suck in air. Oberon's poison... Poison. Ran clutched on to the word like a lifeline, not ready to give up on the world quite yet.

~OOC~
Stamina: 140/150

Spoiler:

((That was a fantastic post for someone who was confused about how to start it. You did exactly what I hoped you'd do! Note for future reference: Feel free to play around with the NPC, or in this case, Ura's unconscious body as you see fit. As long as it advances the plot [whatever that is] and doesn't involve Ura dying, I'm all for it! Tragic threads are okay too   ))

As Liber watched the child struggle to speak, he had already determined that there was no chance for his survival. The actions of Ura or the man who stabbed the kid were all meaningless background events to the fanalis. If he sensed killing intent or an incoming attack, he'd react accordingly, but no such threat came and all his attention could remain on the boy's final moments. But as Liber received what he believed would be the thief's final words, the fox came over and imparted licks with a healing saliva onto the child. Liber's eyes went wide in surprise and he looked down at the fox for a moment. "...so you think he can be saved?" Liber had his doubts. The child had been speared through the chest and mentioned poison. But something in the beasts actions made Liber consider that it was worth at least trying to save the boy.

Carefully, Liber picked the boy up and moved over to a wall leaning him to sit back up against it. From there, the fanalis tore his own clothing to be used as bandaging to wrap the wound and stop the bleeding. It was a shame his new clothes had to suffer tearing so soon, but the cost of cloth was had to compare to that of a young life. After dressing the injury as best he could, Liber would lift the child in his arms once again and turned to look at Ura and his fox. Liber nodded to the fox and leapt back to the roof tops where he would rush towards the nearest healer in the city. After leaving the boy in good hands along with payment for the services, Liber would return to the scene of the crime hoping that the healer could do something to spare the boy's life. It would be crushing to go through all this effort only to find the child as a corpse next they meet.

Upon returning to the unconscious Ura Temi, Liber would begin searching him over. "I'm not stealing anything, but you can't talk so I need to find out who your friend here is." Liber said aloud not really expecting the fox to understand human speech. But hopefully the calm and non aggressive tone of his voice would let the beast know he meant no harm. As Liber looked the man over he checked his pockets and sleeves for any kind of objects that might identify who he was or what he did for a living. Liber wasn't having any luck and was nearing the end of his search around the time that Ura would be regaining consciousness. Ura's eyes would open to find himself staring up at a glaringly exposed nipple feeling a groping hand searching the inside of his thigh rather close to his groin.

Liber was searching for hidden weapons, you never know what one might hide strapped to the inside of their leg after all. He was bent over Ura grasping at his inner thighs patting them down for hidden items. Little did he know how disturbing that might be for someone who just woke up. A very strange misunderstanding was about to occur...

Ura was having the oddest dream. Clouds of foul-smelling locusts encircled his chest, making him gag and retch. They slowly spread downward, spiraling down his waist, his legs, his...thighs? Ura opened his eyes to the smell of sweat and poo, squinting up at a dark shape that blotted out the sun when it hit him.

I'm being groped. Ura squinted harder. And by the looks of it, the man had already started to take off his clothes. Ura hesitated as an uncharacteristically dirty thought crossed his mind, then shuddered. The man was good-looking, but not that good looking.

And where is Sheba? A wave of panic swept Ura's prone body, and he jerked his knee up at the groper's tender area with as much force as he could muster. He was sure Sheba wouldn't have let anyone else "mate" with him while she was around to stop it.

Little did Ura know....