Zack, Zero, Damian, Ythmir.

[Ragereaper]

The woods outside of a city. Not far off, there is the sound of a waterfall cascading down. It is almost twilight. The woods are silent as the creatures of the day settle in for the night and creatures of the night are just starting to awaken. Game trails follow seemingly random paths.

The wood is in a state of middle of spring, the leaves still soft from blooming and flowers were still trying to make it. The water in the falls icy cold from the water melting in the mountains seen in the distance. A gentle wind blows through the trees, but the soft leaves cause the sound to be muted.

A small clearing, no larger than a log cabin. The grass here is tall, feeding off of the light of the sun that reaches all the way down. In the center of the clearing is a large boulder, covered in lichen.

Not far off from the clearing lies a plain. The grass is even taller here, and there isn't a single object of interest for miles.  

[Ragereaper]

Name: Damian
Age: Unknown (memory loss)
Race: Human Reaper
Profession: Mercenary
Powers: Above human strength, fast healing, Immunity to shadow magic
Abilities: Martial arts and swordsmanship. And a tendency for idiotic bouts of bravery.
Appearance: He has a mop of black hair, atop a head that stands nearly six foot off the ground, that's cropped short in places, but in others it has grown longer, creating a look that a child has cut his hair. He has wide blue eyes. He wears simple clothes, usually forgoing armor in preference to speed.

Name: Ythimir
Age: Unknown (memory loss)
Race: Kasmeer Reaper
Profession: Nanny/monk
Powers: Above Average strength, fast healing, Immunity to necromantic/corruption magics
Abilities: Martial Arts, and his claws can put a gash in steel
Appearance: Tiger felinid, he stands at seven feet tall, his coloration depends on the time of year and the region that he's in. He usually wears a leather jerkin and cloth pants. He has alert orange eyes.

Damian strolled leisurely through the forest, picking his way along a rabbit trail easily enough, being used to areas when he had to walk with no path at all. "So, did they actually give us anything besides a general location to find these 'assassins?' Or are we just wandering around at this point?" Damian asked up to the trees, though no one was seen easily. He didn't really expect an answer to his query. He just felt like hearing something. The forest was always so eerie at this time, so quiet and the depth of everything was wrong. Ahead, he could see a small river flowing lazily, but he couldn't even tell how far away it was. It could be five feet away or twenty feet away. He would just have to walk to find out. If his feet got wet soon, it was five feet away.

A sigh floated down to him after a moment. "You're the one that wanted to take on this mission because you were bored." The voice was quick and clipped, and had an accent, not cause by any sort of regional dialect, but more because he had to speak around large fangs. "And now you're telling me that you didn't even pay attention?" A tutting noise came down to him. "Very wrong of you, ser."

Damian merely rolled his eyes at the voice. "That didn't answer my question," he reminded the voice. The truth was he had payed attention. Somewhat. He knew that one of them was a human at least. And that they were supposedly assassins. And there were two of them. Which gave them an idea of just how dangerous these two were considered. Damian wasn't usually asked to do something unless there were quite a few individuals involved. Ythmir only came along with him to make sure that he didn't get into trouble.

Ythmir was traveling by the trees, crossing from branch to branch on the closely packed trees, though occasionally, a scrabbling of claws on bark was heard as he leaped between trees that weren't close enough for crossing by branches, or the branches were too weak to support that kind of weight. "They let us know what they're supposed to look like. One of them is a human, the other one is suspected to be green..." Damian could almost hear the Kas raising his eyebrow as he recited that bit of knowledge. "I never really considered that the sickly might be a threat."  

[creech85]

Zack & Zero.
Age's : 25, 26
Race: Anorakan. Human
Ability: Zack's fangs have varied poisons which cause paralysis and slowness of muscles in all races other than undead. His skin allows for complete camouflage in any surroundings. Constrictive muscles allow for slow increases of strength.

Zero uses and advanced form of acupuncture mixed with martial arts. After much practice he developed telekinesis and abnormal human abilities. Another ability lay hidden considered a curse by him he tries not use it.

Bio. The two run a small incense and acupuncture shop in the market while waiting for contracts.

Zero sat calmly meditating in the tall grass of the field. A small circle of grass had slowly formed around him as he focused on weaving the grass with his telekenesis. This took all of his concetration and left him to the mercy of whomever might come along. Only after they had spoke up or tiuched him would be realize they were there.

Zack had laid on a rock not too far from Zero letting the sun soak into his scales as he watched for trouble. This involved more tasting the air for random smells than actually looking for things. Numerous smells caught his attention but none seemed of any real threat as of yet.
( Zero is a small man sitting down in tall grass. Zack is not cloaked )  

[Ragereaper]

Damian came upon the stream, splashing water on his face, the chilled water shocking his senses into a higher state of awareness. As the water had touched his face, he had taken in an involuntary breath of air that he now let out and turned to sit at the edge. Ythmir was visible to him now when he looked up. He wasn't trying to stay hidden from sight, and was sitting with his back against the tree, relaxing. Or so it seemed. Damian knew that he had made it there some time before Damian, moving through the trees like a squirrel more often than a cat. But as silent as he moved through them, there was no mistake. And when he was on the ground, he was even more stealthy, it was hard to imagine. It sometimes unnerved Damian, knowing that he was alive upon the good graces of this predator.

Now was not one of those times. "You see anything up there?" he called to the recumbent feline.

Ythmir didn't even open an eye when he replied, "There's a clearing in that direction," he indicated the direction by swinging his tail in the direction of the clearing and continued, "might be something there. Other than that, there doesn't appear to be anything close by of any remark. Unless you find that tree that you walked in circles around for an hour of some remark, then I found another tree that looks remarkably like it. Even has the same mark on it to tell you that you had been there before. It's right over there," this time he pointed, indicating a tree with a large trunk, though it wasn't particularly tall. It was really a tree made up of several smaller trees that just grew together over time.

Damian glared up at the cat who seemed to just be having a good time. Yth had known the whole time that Damian was merely walking in circles, and had kept him going for quite some time until the human had cut an asterisk in the side of the tree with his sword. Then the feline had him walk one more time around the tree and Damian had figured him out. The tree in question here wasn't the same tree. The other had been the forest matriarch, and a hickory instead of this conglomerate of oaks.

"We'll check out the clearing," he hissed at the cat. He stayed where he was for a few more moments, enjoying the brief respite, then, swinging his weight forward, pulled himself onto his feet. It was still a bit of a trek before he would reach the clearing, he imagined. Ythmir hadn't actually told him how far away the clearing was, but there was only so much he would be able to see from the top of his tree.

So it was some small surprise when he saw the clearing not long after he had set from the brook. But the light of the fading day played tricks on him once again, and it was a much longer trek than he had imagined it would be. The twilight was already fading as he reached the clearing. He made a sigh of relief as he made it, more for show than for needing to catch his breath.

In the center of the clearing sat a small man meditating, which Damian thought strange at the time of day. Now would be a good time to pack that up and leave, but he had met a few who could get so zen that they didn't realize the time of day.

The mercenary, not being one for the subtlety of tact, shouted to the man, "HEY! Have you seen a strange assassin around here? Might be seen with a companion that might be described as... sickly? No. Green? Yeah, that's the one. Has he been seen around here?" Damian figured he'd kill two birds with one stone: wake the man up and see if he could get information leading to the whereabouts of the targets.

Ythmir, who had followed silently from the trees, shook his head at how idiotic his companion sometimes seemed, and often wondered if the idiocy was actually all an act for some reason. A clever facade to throw off those who might do combat with him. He also often discarded that idea, believing that nobody could act that well. His companion was an idiot. There was no escaping that.  

[creech85]

Zack opened his eyes the sound of the voice caught his attention. He kept low still laying on the rock so as not to call attention to himself. He was more more than fifty feet from Zero but still able to cover the distance if needed. His natural camouflage took over rendering him nearly invisible, the twilight only made the reptile that much harder to see as it slowly began to slink into the tall grass.

Zero slowly faded out of his trance being sure not to ruin the progress he had made mentally. It was rare that they were sought out after work seeing that they left so little evidence behind. Zero even made sure not to take jobs around Zack's shedding times so as not to leave any evidence. But if the man was looking for a green and strange man he would show them strange.

"May I ask what business you might have wit an assassin?" Zero's voice was calm and quiet almost borderline whispering. As he stood he reach into the wrists of each sleeve pulling long slender needles from each one simultaneously. Light placing them into specific points of his shoulders he reached in again to repeate the process. Zero only needed to buy time to place all the specific needles. And as an Asian mind games came easy. "And what might these two look like?"  

[Ragereaper]

Damian scratched at his head, thinking the question over. "Umm, well, I was actually bored and someone contacted me to track them down after some assassination, or something." He let that linger in the air for a moment as he noticed the small man moving his arms. He hated the twilight, even though it was now quickly fading into the full night, but it still had enough of a presence that he couldn't tell what the man was doing. It put him on edge, and his eyes narrowed marginally. "No description, just that one of them is suspected to be human and the other to be of a green color." Suspicion started to coat his words as he spoke. "The assassination was recent, very high profile. No visible wounds on him, but the clerics say that he was too healthy to drop dead for no apparent reason. He was a war hero, a general I guess, who fought at the front lines when he could." His eyes darted to the side for a mere second as he thought he saw something moving there, but he saw nothing. The damned light playing its tricks on him. "Apparently, they scried the moment of death afterwards and they saw it was an assassination."

Ythmir, still waiting in the trees had noticed some movement for a second, near the rock, but there was nothing there. His attention returned to Damian as he had his conversation, figuring the movement had merely been the wind in the grass, but something didn't set right with him about it. His mind was distracted from that line of thought as Damian began reciting what they had been told. That b*****d had been paying attention the whole time after all! Again, his thoughts strayed to believe that his companion merely played the fool to make the fool of others, namely Ythmir.

"Despite the scrying," Damian continued, "There wasn't much information gleaned about the assassin." Damian felt edgy, like there was something happening that he should know about but didn't. He wanted to reach for his sword to make it easier to get to if needed, but it was on his back. He didn't want to give rise to any suspicions, if indeed there were others to give rise to suspicions to. "You wouldn't have happened to see anyone, would you?" he asked. In the light, the man most likely wouldn't be able to see Damian's facial features, but the suspicious eyebrow was audible in his voice.  

[creech85]

Zero sighed hearing the news of the scryers. He always hated dealing with scryers, both of the past and present. Most of the time they made jobs difficult. And other times just down right impossible. "Human and green?...."

He had placed the ones on his shoulder as the man had talked and began placing four more into his chest. All that was needed after that was the six along his back. But reaching behind him would be see an act of aggression and no doubt get him in trouble before the reptile was close enough. After he was able to place the few on his chest Zero would fold his arms in front of him to collect three needles in each hand. "... The gave you so little to go on how do you even know they will be in this direction? "

Zack could see very little of the other man working more on smell and soundas he crept slowly through te grass. The element of surprise always dictated the beginning of a fight and he was not about to ruin his chance at making this one sided. Little flashes from the needles catching the moonlight as Zero moved kept distracting Zack, but also let him know if the human was ready or not. Waiting for their usual signal could be a pain sometimes. The only thing Zack was unsure of was the other smell in the air. Almost as if a large well kept pet was waiting to ambush them. How ironic.  

[Ragereaper]

Damian shrugged at the insinuation. "The scryers are incompetent, but they're the best I have to go on. They had a feeling of this area, so, as my only lead, I'm here," he stated as though it were an obvious conclusion. Something dawned upon the mercenary. "I never did catch your name." There was no sound to verify it, but he knew that Ythmir was on the move. Something wasn't right.

Something wasn't right about this entire situation. Ythmir could feel it in his whiskers. The human being questioned by his fool had a steady stream of flashes of light coming from him. Or more appropriately, his hands as they moved about his body. Were it not for that, Ythmir would merely think that he was stretching out the kinks he had acquired from sitting still too long. And there was something wrong with the grass as well. It wasn't moving properly somewhere. The wind in the grass was being disturbed, and causing a new wave, but he couldn't tell where the source was. And there were no strange odors in the area, either.
Ythmir leaped to the ground lightly, landing on a tree root with no more sound than a leaf falling. The risky part done, he crouched low, blending into the grass, his coat breaking apart his pattern. He was moving to where the grass was disturbed, moving as a ghost. He knew that he ran the same risk as whoever he was hunting now that his bulk might disturb the grass, but it was better than letting whatever this thing was make it's move.  

[creech85]

Zero had just finished place ing the needles in his arms and began placing the few in his chest and stomach he needed. "Green you say?" He made a slow hum as if to give it thought as he finished that set. Sliding both his hands into his sleeves he grabbed three more needles in each hand and slowly began to back away. "I do believe you should have more information before following a lead. You never know what you will find. "

Zack was way ahead of Zero now as far as the stratagem was concerned. It was all too practiced and the humans part took a bit longer too complete. He only had to wait for the man to fall into place.

Zero pulled the needles from his sleeves and quickly threw them behind him. A flick of his wrists caused them to be pulled back to him and stick into his back at specific points. He reach up pulling his hood over head head reviewing the skull pattern that lined up with his own head. "Sadly I know nothing about you, but I don't think I have that choice."  

[Ragereaper]

Ythmir almost wished that he had stayed up in the tree. From the ground, it was hard to tell where anything was, and even moreso when he had to remain below the level of the grass. He retained where he was, and where he was going, but he didn't know where what he was looking for might most likely be, nor if it had moved at all. Up in the tree, he would still have been able to find that out. He suppressed his want to growl in frustration, and sampled the smell of the air again. Nothing out of the ordinary graced his senses. He was at least greatful that even in the waning light, he could still see clearly. The sticks that another might have tread on, giving away their position, he was easily able to step around.

Already on edge, the strange man's quick movement sent him over, and he grabbed his sword, the blade already halfway out, revealing the black Stygian metal, before he realized that the man hadn't attacked. Not yet. "You know more about me than I know about you," Damian stated, not resheathing the sword. He didn't like the hood covering the strange man's face either. It made everything so much more difficult. And to make matters worse, it had just reached the point where light faded by the second. Soon the world would be black. A new moon was already in the sky, though with it on a black surface, it became difficult to find. "I merely wish to know your name." He was even edgier than ever now.  

[creech85]

Zero's legs twitched a bit wanting to react prematurely to the man pulling his sword half out of its sheath. He could already feel the buildup of energy forming in his upper torso. It was now only a matter of time before he would be forced to pull the needles and act, this man was defiantly afte him and Zack. "I am but an acupuncturist. " he paused for a moment now thinkin on the subject at hand. " Don't you think you should be going after the assassins employer and not the assassin? Makes more sense to me."

Zack now edged closer to the man in front of his companion. If the man wasn't going to draw the conclusion the reptile would etch it into his mind. Now close enough to make a good rush Zack did just that. Keeping low he quickly closed the gap still under the cover of the grass. Once close enough to stricken he stood upright his neck coiled back and mouth open as he made the loud hiss and showed his retractable fangs. This was a shock value distraction as he directed his tail under the cover of the grass to grab the mans ankle and pull him off his feet.