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CRUNCH!! BANG!

The oven made a hell of a noise, drawing focus back to the salamander, who had most of his upper torso within the great old fashioned thing. Ash and a few cinders escaped out of the top violently, leaving Sun black stained and coughing up a storm.

He pulled himself out and dusted himself off, ignoring all the shouting, before reaching over and patting the oven, which suddenly seemed to gain a life all it's own. The door twisted around, as if inspecting the crowds, till Sun snapped a few times, gaining it's focus, and ripping the door open again. An inferno had started blazing within the depths, though, what fuelled it was a mystery, since he'd not put any obvious source within to get it started.

He inspected it's contents, squinting, before nodding to himself and closing the door. Sunstrike patted it again, and it chugged away, apparently doing something that sometimes sounded like an elephant being dragged through a mine field of giant mousetraps.

Then he'd check a watch that didn't exist, reached down and unclipped the flask that was tied to the pocket of his jeans.

"I'll do my best when everyone gets here, there's no point in letting them open you up like a tin can and scooping out the contents. Suffice to say, things haven't been going exactly right."

He swirled the contents, and sighed melodramatically at how little was left.

"Not right at all."

DUNN-DUNN-DUNNNNNNNNNNN~!

((Just to keep things even in the time scale, assume all of this happens after Rain, Rage and/or Kael respond to Kon's inquiry, if they do. Well, I at least know Rain did.))

"It's okay...I think I can stand..."

Ichigo would get himself down from Yusuke's back, knowing that he had done enough bleeding on him for a while. Ichigo's blood from his shinigami body would only be visible to those who could actually see Ichigo anyway. As such, Ichigo's blood wouldn't really cause much problems with regards to some of the patrons of the bar.

Meanwhile, Kon had been listening to the explanations so far, about who this person was and how she got captured. As it stood, there seemed to be a bit of in-fighting amongst the heroes here. But Kon was used to that. Suffice to say, blame games would get them nowhere.

"Huh?"

That was when Kon turned around, hearing the sound of the door flying open and seeing the two familiar faces.

"Hey! Ichigo! You're alright!"

Kon sprung from his chair and ran past the patrons over to the two of them, jabbering away.

"Mind telling me what the hell's going on here? These guys are talking about some lady getting kidnapped, and I don't under--"

In the time Kon took to babble, Ichigo had walked over to him, eyes half lidded and body half dead. As if he was just tuning out Kon completely, he reached into Kon's pocket and pulled out his Substitute Badge. Of course Ichigo would know where it was...it was on his body anyway. He thrust it into Kon, and, in a flash of light, the green jawbreaker once again popped out of his body. Ichigo's body spun for a loop, and went limp.

Ichigo caught his body, phasing into it as if it was melding together. Then, as soon as life had left the body, Ichigo's body had life in it once again. He quickly regained his balance and...

"AAAAGGHH!!!"

...hurt like bloody hell.

"What the--this is nuts! It's like I feel even more like crap than before, except I'm not half dead anymore...." Ichigo winced, as he held his own body in pain, not understanding what he had just done. After all the damage he had taken as a shinigami, he didn't take the time to recover before going back into his living body. Combined with all that Kon had put his body through with running after Lazenca, Ichigo definately wasn't having a good day.

"I feel like a ran a goddamn marathon!"

He quickly picked up the green jawbreaker, took Kon's stuffed animal body out of his jacket. He shoved the jawbreaker down its throat and, oddly enough, it came to life.

"Hey! Let me fin--"

FACE.

The stuffed animal's head was squished abruptly by Ichigo's fist.

"I really...really don't wanna hear it right now."

"Mmmphhggh!"

With his anger abated, Ichigo directed his attention over to where Kon was sitting while inside of his body. He recognized a few of the faces. Surely this was where everyone was meeting now. Even thought he hated how he had to go about doing it, he had to thank Kon for keeping up with them.

For a moment, he stood there, wondering if Ichigo and Yusuke's sudden entrance had caught the attention of Rage, Sun, or Rain, who Kon had addressed earlier about explaining what happened.

Rage had a heroic speech- he always seemed to, only now he had sense too. Plenty of it, where Kael might usually have been the pragmatic one.

And as he spoke, Kael's jaw tightened and tightened until it looked like he was set to grind his teeth to dust, his hands closed into trembling fists, and his eyes got sharper- they still couldn't seem to focus quite right, and there wasn't a great deal more intense the fire behind them could get. By the time Rage stopped pushing, and began to wind down, it seemed a wonder that Kael hadn't hit him judging by the expression on his face. That he hadn't blown a vessel or anything else. The fact that Rage was right or making sense had very little to do with that at this point- sense was good for people who weren't thinking straight, but throwing it in their face to make them feel stupid generally only made things worse. The fact of it was that Kael already knew everything Rage was saying, knew what the logical course was here. While Rage was managing to move right on the other swordsman was stuck, he was upset and afraid, and any number of things for any number of reasons- and being an extremely hands on person, lacking for something productive to do to get it all out, he was quivering with readiness to do anything, including smashing sorta-friendly mugs like this one.

It was strong, deep set emotion, and he just wasn't built able to let go of it that easily.

You're... upset because you screwed up!?

Something about that only struck him in an even more offensive way. Not that he wasn't frustrated at his failure, at his inability to do anything more or anything better, to change it or fix it. For not living up to his word on it, if by no fault of his own. No, it was just something that he could irrationally interpret in an entirely selfish light, giving him one more thing to be pissed at Rage about- to be pissed at himself about- to just generally be pissed off about.

But that's okay, isn't it? Because this ******** bar is safe, and 'slong as it is, everything you care about is fine and you can forget about one little mistake.

Unfair, and almost certainly incorrect. Lucky thing was that Kael wasn't snapping something at him about reasons his furious mind was creating to patronize Rage, or something about how he couldn't calm down or worry about doing the logical, practical thing when his family might well be offed to fuel some doom machine now just because. He figured the Firebrand to be more or less immune to that sort of random, offhand destructions thanks to the magical, heroic, or whatever adjective one wanted crowd in it so frequently. Two older folks running and antiques shop had little in way of protection against anything, and there wasn't much he could do to protect them from something like this if he went back there and body guarded them himself, either.

By the time Rage turned and left, Kael had only managed progress at far as slackening his jaw somewhat, resulting in it hanging slightly open, looking like he was ready to either snap something. Or maybe bite. He still looked about that homicidal.

Several moments after Rage had turned and gone, he let out a stiff snort, one fit to make a large buck proud, and spun sharply on his toe. A dangerous prowl if one was ever to be seen.

Inevitably, it ended leading to Sunstrike.

Maybe Kael was stressed out about his family, about people in general, about Teira's well being, about failure and promises and the other people he'd been meaning to help out, about his own ultimate uselessness next to the resistance at least Rage and the others had been able to offer. Maybe he had passed the point that generally inspired him to drink heavily a couple blocks ago and only expected it to get worse. Maybe with it all stacked up and in the light cast by it everything looked shitty and only apt to get worse right then, with action to change it far from in his control. But there was no excusing that he could be a real a** when he wanted.

"So, Sunny..."



One, large armored boot would plant itself on top of an edge of the stove from the side not in danger of being clipped by the door, never mind that the oven was roaring like a dragon now. Resting his arms across it, Kael leaned way forward, looking down on Sunstrike. It was probably a point over done by now, but to say Kael looked irate would have been a severe understatement.

"You seem to be in the know, so tell me why don'cha," it was a dangerous, sarcastic tone. Kael usually didn't sport much a mean side, and right now quite a number of people, some of whom he would have greatly preferred not to, were witnessing him directing it all right at a friend. Well, sort of a friend. Maybe.

"What the ******** hasn't gone 'not right at all' this fine day?"

He was looking for several answers, but not articulating particularly well.

((Thought I should also include a little apology to Sun, and a note that I won't be posting for around a week or so. So should be safe to assume Kael doesn't articulate that too much better, or burst into violence, while I'm gone.))

.....As of yet, no one had approached the foreigner. He contemplated selecting a target at random and proceeding to introduce himself to said individual.

.....Jerrard swung his legs about to face the bar and, in turn, the voice which came from behind him. His eyes swiveled just over the head of the dwarf, stopped two inches to the right of said figure, and then backtracked along a diagonal path toward the heavily-bearded face. 'Paul!?' Chuckling to himself, Jerrard fought back the urge to ask why such a person had been given such a name.
.....Replying with an easy tone, like that of a carefree child, Jerrard asked, "Could ya' get me a pitcher of whiskey with a complimentary glass of water?" He would then proceed to await the dwarf's return with his desired drink before inquiring upon what exactly was occuring within this tavern; it was impossible for anyone, whether newcomer or longtime patron, to miss the friction between individuals heating up the place much like the fire that had roared to life somewhere about the place earlier.
.....Jerrard was in no position to make out the origin of the flames, but he was aware of it; the ruby-encrusted amulet wrapped about his left forearm was causing his skin there to tingle in a familiar manner.