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 Posted: Tue Mar 13, 2012 7:04 pm
  Setting:Allegiances and friendships get mixed up in a raging bar fight.
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Kurama no Koishi generated a random number between
1 and 3 ...
1!
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Posted: Tue Mar 13, 2012 7:05 pm
Outcome
Van throws better drunk punches 8|
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Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2012 4:03 am
Van hadn’t been able to respond to Kiran’s words, what with the ensuing brawl, nor did she feel particularly obligated to. The distraction of such a rapid turn of events was a bit much, however, if the only thing the captain wanted was an excuse not to reply. For the moment, the sole Noble in the tavern was the last thing on her mind, as the woman felt anger swell up in her gut at the fact that she’d just been hit in the face, something she especially prided herself on. Rubbing her cheek where she’d been hit, Van curled her fingers into a solid fist and threw it into the face of the nearest Lunarian, incidentally one of the ones who’d started the fight.
It wasn’t her trademark leopard fist. The tavern was no place for such an honorable art—they were in a brawl. Ducking to the side to avoid a flying chair put the captain directly in the path of two fighting Lunarians, and they knocked each other over, taking Van with them in a domino effect. Indignant, the woman didn’t hesitate to slug the first, then the second with clenched fists as hard as she could, realizing belatedly that one of them was the very same blue-haired Noble she’d been cordially conversing with earlier.
“I saw that, by the way,” she called above the noise, lifting a manicured finger to point at Kiran, calling him out on the gold he’d swiped from the table. “I don’t know if I can overlook that—ow!” It was something of a random moment to have a sudden surge of loyalty to her faction, but it was all, for the most part, the Legion’s money he’d taken! Regardless, they’d both been pulled into a coiling, drunken mess of bodies, and getting out of it had nothing to do with allegiances. It was every Lunarian for himself (herself, in Van’s case).
Still, Van couldn’t help but add as she swung another punch, “Not on the same side anymore, are we?”
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Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2012 4:38 pm
The Legionnaire had bowled right into Kiran, and before he could untangle himself from the mass of limbs that ended up on the floor of the bar, he felt a sharp blow to the head that made him see spots for a brief moment. He kicked at the man crushing him under his heavy weight then scrambled to his feet. Chaos and destruction continued to ensue. Kiran side stepped out of the way as a bottle flew in his direction. When he wanted to teach the cheater a lesson, starting a brawl was the last thing on his mind. A fight in this setting didn't exactly work in his favor.
Someone out there controlling the wheel of fate must be laughing at him at that very moment. The cheater may have been outed, but Kiran hoped that none of the Legionnaires, besides Van, learned of his allegiance to the Nobles. He dodged to avoid being knocked over, again, by a collapsing man that had a bottle smashed over his head. In dodging, he bumped into another Lunarian beside him. He had a brief glance at the grisly haired giant of a Lunarian before he ducked out of reach of the trunk like arms that reached to squeeze him like a vice. Kicking back, he slammed his foot into the man's knee.
Upon overhearing Van's comment, Kiran chuckled. "What if I cut you in?" he called back to her. She had agreed to help him uncover the cheater's way, before the fight broke out, and he saw no reason not to give her half the take. "Part of that pool belonged to us anyway." It only made sense, to him, that they got their money back. Maybe with a little interest on it. These men, he reasoned, were throwing their money away anyway. At least this way, it wasn't going to that smug, cheating Legionnaire.
But that moment of cockiness as he grinned over at Van cost him. He didn't even have a chance to respond to her question about sides before a chair was smashed against his back. He could feel splinters dig into his back as the wooden legs snapped upon contact. Spinning around, he punched at anyone standing within range, whether that person was the one that hit him with the chair or not.
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Posted: Thu Mar 15, 2012 2:10 am
Where were the bouncers? Van found herself wondering as the fight raged on without any sign of letup. At this point, the captain wouldn’t have put it past them to join the fight themselves; they looked like a shady lot all the same. Drunk Lunarians were terrible at throwing punches, but the other, less sober half were the ones to watch for. In the mess of bodies, it was hard to distinguish between the two. Grabbing a free chair leg, Van swung around and clocked an unidentified man upside the head, feeling a grim sense of victory as he went down.
“I’ll hold you to that,” she called back, feeling her lips tug upward in amusement. The situation was an interesting change in pace—for once, they weren’t fighting each other, at least not yet. “If you try anything funny, though, I’ll cut you.” He was, after all, the only Noble in the bar. Van didn’t have any plans to out him as such at the moment, as the fight they were in was already out of hand. If she were to do so, she first had to make sure that she was far, far away from the fight, preferably near the door.
Their banter was cut short, however, and Van looked on as a large Legionnaire sent a chair crashing onto the Noble’s back. Closing the distance between them now, the woman raised her makeshift club, intending to retaliate at the larger man. It wasn’t clear whether she was trying to protect Kiran or her money, but such reasoning was quickly negated when the Noble spun around and whacked her in the face—the second such hit of the night.
Stumbling back, Van spat experimentally, tasting blood. She wasn’t terribly hurt, but she wasn’t about to be very forgiving either. “Hey, don’t touch the face!” She threw the chair leg in her hand at Kiran now, hoping to deliver the same hit.
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Posted: Thu Mar 15, 2012 5:49 pm
It was almost hard to believe that one little nudge could provoke an all out brawl. Yet in the blink of an eye, chaos ran rampant. By now, the Legionnaire captain that Kiran had tracked down to this bar and meant to keep an eye on was long gone. He cursed his luck for letting that Legionnaire captain slip out of his sight. But with the fighting going on inside the bar, it would be a struggle for him to reach any exit out of the bar, even with his stealth skills.
"You have my word," he shouted, grinning from ear to ear. He didn't doubt that Van would make good on that threat if he tried to cheat her from her fair share of the money. Not that he had any plans to do so. He fully planned to meet up with Van sometime after they got out of this fight to give her half the money that he swiped from the table. So far, the only weapons that people were taking up were chairs and bottles and cups. This fight could get even uglier if they brought out knives and daggers and other sharp, bladed weapons.
As he turned to retaliate against the Legionnaire that whacked him with the chair, it registered too late in his mind that Van had appeared behind him. His fist connected with her face before he could think to pull the punch. The chair leg that she threw glanced off his forehead but was a strong enough blow to make him clutch his head and mutter out a few curses from the pain. "I didn't mean to hit you!" he shouted for all the good it would do. With tempers flaring, and much of the rest of the patrons in the bar out for blood, Kiran couldn't be sure that Van would see that it was an accident and not an intentional strike against her. It wouldn't be the first time that a misunderstanding occurred between them.
"I was trying to hit whoever used my back to break that chair," he explained, his head throbbing from the blow from the chair leg. He hadn't seen the culprit that wielded the chair, but he was fairly certain that it wasn't Van that hit him that time.
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Posted: Fri Mar 16, 2012 4:49 pm
The Legionnaire captain Kiran had let escape from the pub wasn’t the only one he had to worry about tonight. Just because they had been on speaking terms for a while certainly didn’t mean anything had changed about which sides they responded to. It was typical, then, for any enemy to say one thing and then turn around and do the opposite. Between Van and Kiran especially, their fights always seemed to be caused by miscommunication and particular distrust. She didn’t believe his claim that it’d been an accident.
All of their other fights had been “accidents,” after all, and they’d still become full fights—in this case, a bar brawl. The captain felt a bit stupid at this thought, actually—she attributed a level of deceit to the Noble that was probably higher than it actually was. She hadn’t, after all, forgotten the circumstances of their first meeting.
The fight had pulled them apart from each other, and Van fought to get back to where Kiran was standing. He only bobbed in and out of her range of sight, with all the fighting bodies in between them. For every step forward she took, she had to duck, or throw a punch, or get swiped at, and this hindered her progress. Settling instead for arguing above the noise, Van pushed against a burly man who was twice her size, trying to make herself heard.
“I’m sure you didn’t mean to,” she shouted, though the sarcastic tone was somewhat lost in the roar of the fight, “Just like your being here was an accident as well, hm, you damn Noble?” The captain only realized what she’d said after the fact, clamping her hand over her mouth in dull surprise as she watched some of the men around her turn to look at Kiran. Oops.
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Posted: Fri Mar 16, 2012 7:50 pm
He could see her trying to make her way over toward him through the thick crowd of fighting bodies, but Kiran was not in the least bit interested in meeting face-to-face with Van at that moment. In his mind, she had already paid him back for the accidental punch to the face when she whacked him with the chair leg. Van, however, did not look like she agreed with his thoughts. This fight was growing increasingly out of hand, and he began to wonder why there was no guard of some sort barging about trying to break up the brawl.
A hand seized the back of Kiran's vest as he tried to dance out of range of another Legionnaire's fist. The yank backward brought him in line to receive a smack from the back of a fist the rammed into the left side of his face. Kiran twisted out of the vest, leaving the attacker momentarily surprised by the slippery escape. If the vest got lost, it wouldn't be anything to cry about as he had several replacements back at his apartment. He took advantage of the man's stupefied state and kicked him between the legs, bringing the Legionnaire down to a curled up, whimpering mass.
"Why is it always like this with you?" Kiran shouted after hearing Van's voice cut over the noise. He wasn't stupid enough to believe her anger with him had no reason behind it. From the very beginning his actions did nothing to establish any sense of trust between them, being Noble only made that distrust that much sharper. If he hadn't tried to steal her amethyst pendant, their relationship might have very different, especially if they had never learned which side the other was on. But he had apologized for that incident and had even let her keep the pendant after their first battle was fought. Why did every little accident since then have to be misunderstood between them? Perhaps there was no hope for a friendship between them in the end.
Her final words seemed to echo in him. Kiran's eyes widened frightfully, panic seizing control of his body as the eyes of the surrounding Legionnaire's turned on him. What he feared since Van first sat down beside him at the table finally came to pass. Part of him had hoped that whatever their relationship was would keep her from outing him as a Noble, and that part felt a little betrayed. His eyes hardened as he glared at Van. He took a step toward her, mouth opening to shout at her, when a thick arm suddenly snaked around his neck and yanked him backward into the body of a giant, burly Legionnaire. The grip tightened until it nearly cut off his breath.
"And what would Noble scum be doing here, eh?" demanded the Legionnaire, whose breath reeked of alcohol. Kiran clawed at the arm, tried to pry it free enough for him to at least take a breath. The situation was bad, and Kiran couldn't think of a way out of it.
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Posted: Sat Mar 17, 2012 1:39 am
“You’re saying it’s my fault?” Van screeched in response, pulling free of the man blocking her way to take a few steps closer to the Noble in the middle of the fight. In her mind, it wasn’t, at least not entirely. Kiran had always been the one to start things, especially in the very beginning, though Van had always been the one to misunderstand. They started out on a sour note as students back in the Academy. For every step forward they seemed to take as friends, for every period of shaky coexistence between them, they took two steps back when things like this broke out.
Van watched as the fight slowly shifted toward Kiran. Some of the Legionnaires continued fighting among themselves, and the captain artfully avoided these fistfights as she maneuvered toward the blue-haired man. Those who’d decided to put aside their petty differences and turn their attention to Kiran gathered around him now, and things looked ominous for the Noble by the time Van made her way to the front. He was caught under the vice grip of one of the men who’d previously been sitting at their table, turning bluer by the second.
She could stand there and watch the man die. She’d seen it often enough before. Or, if she was going to do anything about it, she knew now she only had seconds to deliberate. Van might have been angry with him, but she hadn’t been upset enough to pull a knife on him back at the very beginning. In all the times they met in a fight, they’d never tried to kill each other—they disagreed, but it wasn’t enough to warrant even drawing blood. She didn’t feel inclined toward him, either, not in the way she’d jump in to save anyone else in need. Their relationship had been too rocky to encourage very much by way of favorable viewpoints. If he went, he’d only be one less fighter alive to kill her men.
But this was a cowardly way to kill someone. Somehow, she couldn’t simply stand there. Reaching into her boot for the concealed karambit she always carried around, she made a sudden lunge back into the fight. Deftly hooking her thumb in the small knife, Van slashed the tiny blade along the Legionnaire’s arm, causing him to let go of the captive Kiran. “This is my fight, a*****e.”
Turning, she swung a punch at Kiran with her other arm for good measure.
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Posted: Sat Mar 17, 2012 2:46 pm
"Of course not!" Kiran snapped back. It would be easy to pin all the blame on her for all their misunderstandings, but Kiran knew some of it was his fault too, so he would accept his portion of the blame. Whether or not Van realized that fact or not wasn't really relevant. Even if he explained things out plainly, he believed his words would fall mostly on deaf ears, especially given the current situation. Too much chaos raged around them for them to sit down and have a nice civil conversation, and being able to hold a civil conversation seemed to depend on the day of the week. Sometimes they could speak amicably while other times were fueled by anger.
Try as he might, Kiran couldn't reach well enough to deliver a sharp blow to the Legionnaire's head and make him release him. He rammed an elbow backward into rock hard abs that made the bones in his arm ache. The action only resulted in the ogreish brute to squeeze his arm tighter around Kiran's neck. His vision started to darken around the edges, and he gasped desperately for air. Because of the height of the Legionnaire, Kiran's feet dangled at least an inch off the floor. Even if he could get his feet planted firmly on the ground, he doubted that he could overturn the Legionnaire. It would be like trying to uproot a tree and throw it over his back. Instead, he settled for attempting to find a position that didn't cause the arm to crush his throat as much, which seemed rather impossible.
A howl of pain deafened his ear, and he briefly wondered if that scream had escaped him. Then his knees slammed hard against the floor. And he could breathe! Kiran tried to fill his lungs as much as possible with each breath. How had he managed to get free of that death grip? He wondered until he heard Van's voice. Looking up, he only caught a glance of the big Legionnaire waving about his bleeding arm like a fool. Then Van's fist connected squarely with his face. He was on his back staring up at the ceiling.
"Perhaps we should conclude this business outside," he suggested in a weak, raspy breath that he found rather pathetic. He remained on the ground, not quite trusting himself to tip right over if he got to his feet at that moment. The room was still spinning somewhat. Even if by some miracle he could beat Van in a fight, which wasn't looking too likely at that moment, he had no doubts that the rest of the Legionnaires would let him simply walk out of this bar. One thing was for sure: He would need a new means of spying on the Legionnaires.
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Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2012 2:00 am
It was always too easy to fall back on fighting as conversation, instead of sitting down for a normal, civilized chat. This was especially true for Van, who’d always preferred to fight first, and talk later. This trait had never aided her in her goals, and she was nearly rid of the instinct by the time she’d been promoted to captain. Why this discipline so much with Kiran, Van could never tell, because whether their meetings ended in fights seemed to be as random as the wind. Now, as she stood over the Noble lying on the ground, fists clenched, she couldn’t bring herself to hit him while he was down—bar fight or no.
Ducking quickly as the Legionnaire she’d assaulted made a swing at her, the captain rounded a high kick into the man’s jaw. Not waiting for him to fall, she reached down and pulled Kiran up by one arm, shoving him roughly in front of her out of the writhing crowd just as shouts from the entrance of the tavern announced the arrival of the Neutral Guard. “Move,” she hissed, thankful for the distraction that allowed them to escape.
Finally, she pushed the fighter out of the back exit, allowing the metal door to slam behind them before she did anything else. For a moment, she merely glared at the other Lunarian in the dim moonlight illuminating the alleyway. The change in environment had wrought a change in her temperament—all of a sudden, the thrill of the fight no longer pulsed through her veins, and she could now feel each and every scrape and bruise that had been inflicted upon her in the midst of the brawl, including Kiran’s. Sighing, she folded her karambit and hid it back into her boot, before returning her violet gaze to the shirtless, injured man standing in front of her now. He looked homeless.
“Don’t come back here, Kiran.” Her expression and voice had softened, though her face was still severe. “I can’t grant you the same courtesy, if you do.”
Her statement was purposefully vague. She had attacked one of her own to get him to let go of Kiran, when a more heartless, cutthroat captain would have been perfectly content to let things take their natural course. Van couldn’t agree with the idea that she’d saved his life, of course, and a Noble’s, no less. She preferred to view it instead as delaying death, for surely she wouldn’t hold back if they met again on the battlefield, right? Lifting an open hand, she gave him one last push to the shoulder.
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Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2012 4:55 pm
The room stopped spinning, or at least wasn't spinning as much. He almost thought he might be able to handle standing up without needing something to lean on for support. His attention quickly snapped back to his surroundings as he noticed the brute of a Legionnaire's large foot was about to crush him as he took a swung at Van. Kiran rolled out of the way just in time to avoid that foot dropping down right on his chest. Van delivered a beautiful round house kick that Kiran nearly applauded. Even if they were on opposite sides of the war, he could still appreciate another fighter's skills. But he hardly had the chance when Van dragged him off the floor and started shoving him.
Hearing all the shouting, Kiran threw a look over his shoulder. The sight of the Neutral Guard was enough encouragement for him to want to get out of that bar even faster. Being in a bar fight full of Legionnaires and no other Nobles to help him was a bad enough situation without having the Neutral Guard thrown into the mix. He still didn't very much regarding the Neutral Guard, but he wasn't all that eager to find out would happen to everyone involved in the bar fight now that the Neutral Guard had arrived.
Once outside, Kiran took in a deep breath of the night air, feeling a mild sting from his nose. It, at least, didn't feel like that punch had broke his nose. The cool air felt good on his hot flesh sticky with sweat, and maybe a little blood. He rubbed at his face just below his nose as he turned around to face Van. "I promise I wasn't even thinking about it," he said, knowing there would be no hope of lurking in that bar again to spy on Legionnaires. Not now that they all know his face and that he is a Noble. He would have to find another means of spying on Legionnaires when they are most likely to let secrets slips, a way that didn't involve a chance of another run in with Van.
"I hope you'll accept my thanks for getting me out of there." He was more than grateful that Van had dragged him out of the bar and away from the mob of rowdy, drunk Legionnaires. She could have left him there at the mercy of her fellow Legionnaires, after all. So he was thankful that she had saved him from that, even if they were about to come to blows again. "And here's your cut." He pulled out the purse of money where he had stored the coin that he snatched from the table, not wanting her to think he had forgotten about that deal. He tossed the purse to Van.
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Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2012 12:41 am
Van only stared at the fighter, disbelief threatening to take over her carefully straight-faced expression. That he was still standing there after her harsh dismissal and after she’d outed him as a Noble was, to say the least, something she hadn’t expected of him. While she was grappling with the fact that she’d felt the slightest bit of hesitation leaving him at the mercy of her fellow compatriots, he was standing there, seemingly willing to talk. The captain caught the coinpurse on reflex, though now that she held the money in her hands, it only made her more uncomfortable.
“Don’t thank me,” she answered stiffly, not offering a reason as to why. Their business wasn’t over yet, and she could easily remedy that by dealing a finishing strike right now. Whatever she and Kiran were, they weren’t friends, not yet, and it was possible that they might never be.
Any other Lunarian might have done the very same thing she had, pulling the underdog out of a fight that would have resulted in potentially fatal injuries. It wasn’t as if it had conflicted with Van’s sense of justice, either—she’d always done what she wanted, independent of the Legion. Now that she held Captain rank within her faction, though, she wasn’t so free to do as she pleased anymore. She had people to report to, and the burden of many lives on her hands. Kiran’s wellbeing wasn’t her responsibility, and while it wasn’t necessarily true, she felt as if she’d stepped outside of her jurisdiction by saving him.
A shake of the head later, Van quickly closed the distance between them, and as the space between them closed to mere inches, she pulled her fist out, connecting with the fighter’s bare abdomen in a close quarters punch. Opening her hand, she let the purse drop unceremoniously to the ground. “Keep it.” She didn’t want it, not when it would remind her of what had happened tonight. Without waiting for a response, she turned her heel and stalked off into the darkness, without so much as a look back.
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Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2012 4:29 pm
Kiran massaged his neck. It didn't feel like the big brute had crushed anything in his throat, but it still felt sore from vice like grip the Legionnaire had had on him. The thick metal door kept the noise from inside the bar muffled, making it difficult to discern what was happening beyond it. Kiran hoped none of the Neutral Guard came out this way in search of any escaped fighters from the bar brawl while they remained standing here. If Van wished to continue the fight, he hoped they made it a quick one or at least moved to a new venue to avoid draw attention of the Neutral Guard.
His attention turned back to Van as he raised a curious eyebrow at the unusual stiffness in her voice. Kiran frowned at her. Where exactly did this situation put their relationship? He knew they could hardly be called friends, but they had times when they got along well enough that it could be possible to forget they were enemies. If he tried to keep the war off his mind.
Kiran grunted when Van's fist thrust into his abdomen. It wasn't a particular hard punch, but it was forceful enough. If she had wanted, she could have made him double over in pain if she had put her strength into it. His gaze remained steadily on her, never looking away from Van's eyes even as the purse hit the ground with a thump made louder by the silence of the night.
As greedy as he was, there were times, as few and far between as they were, that he didn't care for the money before him. This was one of those times. The coin in that bag mostly came from the Legionnaire gamblers, not even half of it belonging originally to him. He didn't want this money any more than Van seemed to want it. For a time, he watched her disappear into the darkness, like a child trying to win a staring contest though no one else knew of the challenge. Then he remembered the arrival of the Neutral Guard and fled the area.
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