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((TRYING TO BREATHE LIFE YO))

It was a little odd really, when he received the note for a meetup. Apparently a potential client was seeking something in particular out and wanted to turn to him for it. This was fine of course, but Blade couldn't help but wonder why of all places they chose an alleyway in the evening to be the rendezvous point. It seemed a little cliche, but whatever. He'd check it out anyway.

So there he was, making his way to the meetup. Everything seemed to be going according to plan. But then again, he hadn't even arrived there yet.

Turning into the correct alley rather nonchalantly, he soon began looking around for signs of his contact. Initially he saw nothing, but heard a bloodcurdling scream which ended rather gargled. Eyes widening at his, he quickly moved further in while keeping a hand by his weapon in case trouble was around. At the end of the alley he only found a bloodied body on the ground with no signs of an attacker nearby.

Grimacing at the sight, he crouched down to check if the victim was still alive. They weren't.

Before long, Blade heard a patter of footsteps from behind. At first he thought it might have been the attacker of the person he found, causing him to grip onto the hilt of his sword. However, the words he heard proved him wrong. The voice itself was familiar, and he was quite thankful it wasn't an officer instead. The situation would be quite sticker for him if that were the case.

"I found him. That's what," he replied calmly as he looked over the body. He didn't answer her first question since he figured she'd realize who he was by now.

It was hard to see in the dim light, but it appeared that the victim had been slashed up pretty badly. The cut across his throat likely was the cause of the gargled scream he had heard earlier. As gruesome as it was, he'd hate to see how this looked in good lighting.

Nearby, the trash cans rattled slightly before a scruffy looking cat ran out of the alleyway.

Blade jumped when Poke suddenly shouted and quickly turned to see what was the problem, but it was just an alley cat. Shaking his head to himself, he got up and turned towards her.

"Did you see anyone around the alley before you got here?" he asked. He hadn't seen anyone else, but he supposed there was the slight chance that something had slipped past. The thief wasn't sure if this guy was supposed to be the one he was to meet, but either way it would seem this was one job opportunity gone bad.

"and.. I don't suppose you might have an idea of what caused those slashes do you?"

Well it was worth a shot at least. Shaking his head, Blade looked around, not completely certain what they should do about the body. There was always the option of calling the authorities but... he really didn't like that so much.

"I see..." he said with a frown while looking around to see if there were any other signs of what happened here exactly. The guy couldn't have done all that to himself, so there had to be some way of the killer getting away.

Gingerly, he crouched back down again while looking around to see if he could find anything on the body itself. There wasn't much and all he found really was a piece of paper that had some writing on it. It was a little too dark to read so holding one hand away, he generated a fireball to give them some more light.

With that, it became more apparent how bloody the scene was in general.

"Damn..."

The scene was not a pretty one for sure, and the scent of blood didn't help much with that. The paper looked to be of some sort of contract, judging the signature at the bottom, but the thing was stained with blood pretty badly, which made it still pretty illegible over all. Not to mention that it had a nice chunk of it sliced off or something along those lines.

"Not really..." he replied to Poke before glancing over to see the wallet. After carefully trading her the paper for the wallet, he took note of the name of the guy's ID and frowned, "Though it seems he's the one I'm supposed to meet here. He really shouldn't have picked a dark alley..."

Keeping the fireball in his left hand, he noticed a small bloody trail that lead to the trashcans that the cat had come out of.

"Yeah. He was a potential client," he responded before looking as Poke began to move towards the trashcans. Narrowing his eyes, he watched and listened for anything out of place.

The trashcans themselves didn't have anything else to them. But upon closer inspection, there seemed to be some marks of blood on the brick behind them that went upwards. Following this with his eyes, Blade soon spotted something up on the nearby fire escape. It looked like a stone statue of sorts. That was an odd place for a gargoyle...

Just as he thought that, the stone creature sprung down at him. The first reflex he had was to jump back and shoot it in the face with the fireball he had ready. It did little to knock it from its path, aside from char the face a little. The gargoyle landed onto the ground with a loud thud, before whipping around to try and knock Poke over with its tail.

"Poke!" he warned as he dropped the wallet to grab his sword. There wasn't going to be a great deal of room to manuever here, so he hoped this would turn out alright.

As the gargoyle finished its attack, it was about to follow up with another when Poke's fist kept it from getting too close. The area that was punched cracked a little, but it didn't seem to phase the creature too much. Hissing, it looked back and forth between the two before settling on Blade.

At that point the thief had drawn out his sword and engulfed it in flames. By itself the sword would do very little against stone, but perhaps he'd be able to do some more damage if the metal was heated greatly. The flames also re-lit the area, which had darkened when he hurled the fireball earlier.

The stone creature had splatters of blood around its body, especially at its feet where there appeared to be sickle-like claws.

"I think we have our culprit..." murmured Blade just as the thing jumped at him. He tried to knock it to the side with his sword, but it was too heavy for that. All he managed was chip away into the rock somewhat before falling back from its weight.

Grunting as he hit the ground, Blade tried to brace push the stone creature off of him. It wasn't working too well. The gargoyle reared up and was about to maim the guy when Poke had dragged him off, causing it to miss its target.

The eyes of the beast shimmered as it bat its wings backwards to try and smack the girl into letting it go.

Back onto his feet now, the thief made another swing at the creature's head, dealing little damage in the process. Most likely he'd need to heat up the metal even more if possible.