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Cold, bottomless violet eyes without mercy regarded Carolyn's, boring deep. Krausse was no psychic, but the look in Carolyn's eye, the expression on her face, the way she held the gun; without a doubt, she was a human with a dark past of violence and disregard for the sanctity of human life. Was Krausse a better man for judging her as such? No; in fact, he was a hypocrite, his past so jaded and bloody that even Stalin would have to bow to the atrocities against life Krausse had committed. When it came to battle, though, Krausse couldn't help but become the murderer, everything inside of him crying out for him to kill, to draw his blade across the throat of his enemy, to watch the life flow from the corpses of fools who dared to forget he was the embodiment of death. There was an important difference between himself and Carolyn, though: he felt remorse. He woke up at nights covered in cold sweat and tried for hours to wash the blood off of his hands he knew was there, but he could never see. He knew that he was a horrible person and believed that no act could ever redeem him, as he was too lost in his own self-hatred to even try beyond the occasional small act of kindness.

Now, though, Krausse was calm, collected. Carolyn was drunk and human, far slower than Krausse, even when he was injured as he was. His bones ached and his side felt as if the stitches were ripping all over again, but as soon as Carolyn thumbed the safety off of her rifle, Krausse's hand grasped Brian's pistol and swung it in Carolyn's direction. The feel of the gun in his hand, the cold metal against his palm, the smell of the gunpowder - it made him feel alive, made his blood sing, made the aches and hurts as if they were never there. He was Saint Peter and Carolyn stood at the Gates of Judgement, and the hollow point bullet that Krausse fired into Carolyn's hand, the bullet that would render the appendage completely useless, was him denying her Passage as she stumbled back drunkenly to give her room to aim.

"You do not backtalk me, you insignificant worm <********>!" Krausse shouted at the top of his lungs, his voice carrying all the weight of a judge.

(you didn't respond to Carolyn getting shot, so i hope you don't mind if i take some creative liberty)

The screaming was louder than the gunshot, which itself had echoed through the suddenly silent bar like the crack of thunder. It was the kind of screaming you heard when someone was truly in pain and mixed with anger and hatred and betrayal - the kind of scream you hear when someone gets shot, and is too drunk to care about their dignity. Some of the bar patrons began to look at little nauseous at the sight of Carolyn writhing on the floor, clutching her ruined gun hand, the Dragunov lying next to her. Brian was frozen in his spot, thinking about how Krausse's arm was there one moment, then shooting his wife the next. Terror kept him frozen, for he knew that the look he saw in Krausse's eye was that of a man who had taken more life than him and his wife had ever seen and would not hesitate to take two more. Kill first, pity later.

Krausse kicked the rifle away from Carolyn, now standing over her like the shadow of death. He kept the gun trained steadily on her, able to pull the trigger fast enough to unload the entire weapon into her before she could even move from her spot.

Those violet eyes that had so coldly judged Carolyn now bored into Brian as Krausse swung his head around to face the man. For the briefest moment, he wished he had another gun to point at Brian, but even with the large assault rifle Krausse knew that the former contender was no threat to anyone except what Krausse surmised as his two blood relatives.

"You were watching me fight Vrael," Krausse said simply, his tone carefully neutral. "You were his opponent the first round."

After a second, Krausse laughed, realizing that was a stupid thing to say aloud. What the hell did that have to do with anything?

"Are you gonna take care of these two?" Krausse asked, noting the bartender had come out of the back with a phone in hand. From the looks of it, the man hadn't called the GPD. Yet.

"What the ******** are you talking about?" Krausse looked confused. "Are you ******** high? You know what, I don't ******** care. I don't have time to deal with this."

Krausse threw Brian's into Carolyn's head to stun her as she tried to reach for her rifle. He walked away while Thurgood went into a drug-induced haze.

(bad mood. i don't wanna freeze your storyline.)

Tap, tap, tap.

As a receptionist at such a posh hotel where the strongest and quirkiest denizens of the land gathered to fight it out, Jilian May figured that her job would be more interesting. In the process of filling out her application, Jilian had mentally inserted "explosions, ninjas, really hot guys that want to sleep with you" under her job description. While hot guys she had met aplenty - including the one that had scarred her young, somewhat innocent college kid mind by puking up blood on her desk and then yelling at her - none of them had offered to sleep with her or even looked remotely interested. Then a realization hit her.

Oh, dear god, what if they were all gay?

That's it!

Every single hot guy in the GTB was gay.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Jilian screamed and slammed her fists down on her desk.

A pause.

"But I didn't even say anything yet," Krausse said, his voice smooth and melodic, hypnotic in the way of a catchy song with a sensual hook. A look of wry amusement crossed his eerily handsome face, a welcome replacement to the intensity and desperation that had been there the first time the receptionist met him.

She did not immediately swoon like most women, though. Jilian's eyes instead dropped to where the blood had been only hours ago, coating her desk in a metallic, sickening stench that would haunt her nightmares for years. That would only be second to the look in Krausse's eyes, though. The pure animal intentions that were pure natural survival instinct, like a primordial human, had been so vivid in the bottomless violet of Krausse's eyes. It had run Jilian's blood as cold as the Arctic, for she knew that look in Krausse's eyes said I will kill you if you get in my way.

"Ah-uhm," Jilian said. She wasn't as terrified, but she wasn't stupid enough to think that a wolf in a sheep's skin was a sheep. "Can... can I help you, Mr. Kreugar?"

Krausse leaned over the desk and pushed up Jilian's head by her chin, forcing her green eyes into his violet. The bottomless quality remained, but everyone who looked into Krausse's eyes say what he wanted them to see, and what Jilian saw was this: the warmth of a fireplace, comforting like the hug of someone dear, and innocent like the old times always were played out to be. For a second, she felt limp in Krausse's hand, which she wanted to grab and rub along her face like a lover's, but then Krausse let go.

Jilian gasped for air for a second, her heart racing like an intense orgasm had shuddered her body.

"Can you do me a favor and make a copy of Hoshiko's room key?" Krausse said, his grin like that of an incubus. Playing with the hearts of young girls was different from killing, and he never felt disgusted with himself for it; after all, heartbreak by a man who was too pretty for his own good taught the women that were smart enough to learn that the uglier guys would always treat them better.

Jilian complied without speaking, and Krausse took the keycard from her hand, although she ran it across the top of his own and smirked in a way that was sexually playful. Instead of rejection, Krausse winked and walked away.

When Hoshiko returned to her room, she would find a surprise.

Meanwhile on the roof...

There was scraping and occasional muttered curse, but eventually the door leading to the roof clicked open. Lucas opened it, glad that his lock picking skills hadn't gone completely to crap. He put away his lock picking tools and then continued out onto the roof, hauling what remained of the things he had brought with him.

He was dressed far more casually then he had during combat, wearing a light linen shirt, and some cotton breeches. He still kept his boots though. On his belt, there were still two pouches attached to them. He walked further on the roof of the hotel, until he came close to the edge. He then unfolded the folding chair he had carried with him. He sat down and then uncorked the bottle of dark rum, he had stolen from the bar in the ensuing chaos downstairs and took a swig as he looked out into the night and enjoyed the scenery as his thoughts drifted.

He had so far had, possibly and easier time than most,however he was not cocky enough to ever keep far from his mind that soon an actual opponent would come and his abilities would finally be tested.

Until then however...

He opened one of the pouches and pulled out a wood crafted pipe, and then filled it with a dried green leafy substance. The elves he had gotten his supply from had called it buckweed, but around some cultures he had found that it went by a different name, marijuana.

Eh well.... to each there own.

He lit his pipe and inhaled, holding it in for awhile, before blowing a few smoke rings and then blowing out the rest in a billow of aracid and tangy smoke.

He laughed softly and stretched his legs on the roofs edge, it felt good to relax for a bit. He took another swig of the rum.

Mike Tyson knocked on Dietric's door.

"I want my ******** lion back!" Mike Tyson yelled angrily, his words drunkenly slurred as the man had slammed down too many drinks of Vodka-Ear Slushie.

Rhoslyn had watched all of this go down with a cheerful grin on his face. He had not so much as lifted a finger to help, but he was watching the two armed drunks. Perhaps... he could have a use for those two. He grin stretched across his face, the shadow of some multidimensional thing falling across the bar for a second before fading away with Rhoslyn's grin.

Krausse, however... now, he was the man for the job. One of them. Maybe. Getting to his feet, the fey gave a slight wave to the bartender and followed the man, casually observing from a distance with his glamour making him not invisible, just not easy to see. After the man had done his... thing, Rhoslyn proceeded up to the desk and looked at the woman.

"Haaii."

SHINY.

***

" -and his eyes said it all. I-"

"May I give you a suggestion?"

"...sure, Mr. Vernal."

Rhoslyn extended his hand towards her as he took a deep breath, and as she reached out to take it, he blew hard, sending a bunch of silvery dust to land on her face. She stared at him blankly as she waited for his command. She had given consent, after all.

"Mr. Kreugar was flirting with you, and asked for Miz Hoshiko's room number. Go home, take the day off and have a night with the girls."

"...I can go home early?"

She seemed back to normal now, if not a little excited.

"Yes, yes you can."

She booked, and Rhoslyn started making copies of the fighter's room keys, doing them one by one as if he had every right to do so. He'd just love to see their faces when they came back from their third round to find their entire room upside down, with everything reversed, down to the peep-hole.

For a start.

The fey giggled and went back to his malicious work.