2017-07-23: Black and White

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<Pose Tracker> Seis Thurule has posed.

Yesterday the Lacour Coliseum had witnessed the most significant disruption to its typical atmosphere of shouted festivities and high-spirited competition thus far, when the Metal Demon 'Quarter Knight' known as Lady Harken had appeared suddenly to interrupt an exhibition battle, pulling its participants and several armed members of the audience into an impromptu battle that sent others scrambling for safety.

The arena still bore the scars of that conflict as a new series of exhibition and official battles began, the destroyed floors and damaged walls potent reminders that the reality of violence sat but a hair removed from the rules-bound, 'safe' sporting combat all were here to witness. Some of the citizenry no doubt decided to stay home today, but just as many attend to fill the stands, as undeterred by the threat of further 'interruptions' as the organizers of the tournament must be themselves.

Seis supposed there was an admirable quality in that, were it not undercut by mutual amounts of ignorance and stubbornness.

He had been about to leave the waiting lobby and enter the arena when a long shadow cast itself between the fighter and his destination. Seis's bottom lip quirked imperceptibly; the arrival was not unexpected.

"I'm going out there with you. He has to pay."

"He will. But not by your hands, not today." Seis said, removing the thick visor that hid a pair of stern, cerulean eyes. He had already explained that Fei was could be neither killed nor apprehended by them in this environment, and his tone made clear he was not about to repeat himself.

"But I can fight too! I won't be a burden, I swe-"

Seis silenced the outburst with a look. "You will stay here and observe. Watch your enemy. Learn how he moves, how he reacts, and how he does not react. Learn to destroy him."

With none left to say, he brusquely moved on, visor back in place. I said all that... He reflected, But frankly, I don't know if i'll be able to hold myself back, either.

He had been waiting too long for this.

--

Moments later, the announcers for the day call the next exhibition fight. Perhaps owing to the prior day's events, no special stage has been erected using the enchantments weaves into the tourney grounds: The fighters would face one another on plain, flat earth.

Seis emerges from his end when his name is called, standing at a formal parade rest with his shaded eyes forward, noting the lingering signs of cracks and rubble in his peripheral damage. There was an opportunity here, if he could but gain the moment for it. 

<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Fei has not been waiting too long for this. What he knows is that he made a depressed comment about Xantia being killed by Fargo a while back because she had left herself dangerously open and that this guy was a total jerk about it. He accepted a challenge he likely would not have otherwise as a result. He is ignorant of what's going on behind the scenes, completely, and without reservation.

Which lets be fair here--That is Fei's usual situation.

He has just learned that a friend, Ida, has been hurt recently by the Metal Demons, slipping between his watches and vanishing before he could show up to help fight them. What was the purpose of that? What was being taken with their strength that time? Besides blood?

He's not in the best mindset.

In the waiting room he does his stretches and keeps himself warmed up. He actually wants to win this one.

But that might not change anything. Fei Fong Wong walks out into the arena when his name is called: THE DRAGON SLAYING SLACKER. Yes, they're still using his alias. No Fei is not actually disguised in any way except from using that as an alias and when he talks to people he still refers to himself as Fei.

He is not a secret agent man.

Fei says, "If you just wanted to spar you could have just asked. Making me angry isn't a good idea. Most folks don't like me when I'm angry."

Now he's the one quoting movies!

"Do you still want to do this?" He asks. 

<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.

Lunata looks just a wee bit embarrassed to be sitting where she is: At a special seating booth reserved for people who are still in the tournament, which at -this- point is actually astonishingly little. She's also doubly embarrassed at the impromptu plaque that the Counterpunch has deigned to grant her:

'FILGAIA'S LAST (BUT NOT GREAT) HOPE, DEATH WAITRESS LULULU WAIT'

Still, there's worse things she could be complaining about than a comfy seat and a cup of her own coffee (single origin Gounon country roast, with hints of fragrant apple throughout with a robust, nutty finish).

"G-good luck, Mister Fei!" she calls in from above, the cube kind of just floating casually around her. 

<Pose Tracker> Ambrosius has posed.

Ambrosius had heard about the previous day's commotion. He found it rather curious - why would the Quarter Knight care to interrupt the proceedings? He had received no word of this from any of his allies, and thus, he found it rather baffling. He had missed the festivites last time, but this time he wanted to be prepared. There was another exhibition match prepared for today. A part of him was surprised they were still holding it...while yet another part believed it to be the result of human stubbornness.

Still, he was curious...it had been recommended to him by his allies that he watch at least one of the fights, and this seemed as good as any. If any other madness happened, he wanted to be there to witness it.

He's not sitting in a seat. This is largely because he's seen the floors here and does not trust them to be at all hygienic. No, he's chosen a fine place to stand and watch the fight. Surely a tall figure in a brightly-colored poncho isn't going to attract any attention, right? 

<Pose Tracker> Neriah Parringer has posed.

For the most part, Neriah has avoided the tournament - she doesn't really have many friends to root for, outside of Lunata, whom she admires for her bravery but whom she also fears for. But in this case, it's different. She came to like Fei Fong Wong after following him to the ruins of Lahan and helping him to bury the dead.

The exhibition match drew her attention for just that reason. She'd gravitated to the eliminated competitors' seating - don't ask how she got the tickets, or why her character sheet includes points invested in Rogue, or where Fastred Furlong is right now.

The girl hadn't watched enough of the tournament to be familiar with who Seis Thurule is, save that he was one of the fighters who didn't get to the Final Sixteen. As the man strides out into the arena, Neriah watches him, puffing on the cigarette dangling from her lips. "Looks like he only learned what sunshine was two weeks ago," she mutters to herself.

As Fei emerges, Neriah opens her mouth and takes her cigarette out - then pumps a fist in the air. "Come on, Fei, kick his ass!" she cheers loudly, her newsboy had slipping off her head a little. "You've got this!" 

<Pose Tracker> Shalune Amira has posed.

Shalune isn't sharing in Lunata's embarrassment this time around - well, it's not like the pink-haired mechanic ever seem to get embarrassed in general, but then she's not the one sat in the private box. She is sat near to it, however, vertically as well as horizontally, because her seat in the arena has suddenly and abruptly been taken up by an oddly-stiff twelve-foot figure in a ridiculously matching-sized trenchcoat and hat.

Perched on top of the odd man's-- scaffolding?-- the view across the arena is pretty great, she has to admit, and she's lazing on the figure's shoulder as she extracts a number of spicy-looking skewers from a paper bag to start chewing thoughtfully on one. "So--" she adds after the first, her voice a little muffled. "This's a special match, right? You're not goin' up against these guys?"

Fortunately for Big Shal, currently in Metal Gear Sneaking Mode, Harken's wild attacks on the arena cleared out enough seats that it gives the golem a much more comfortable space in which to rest. 

<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

Needless to say, yesterday's 'commotion' hadn't gone unnoticed by certain powers that be. Between that event, the possibility of further disruption, and the very fact of who is engaging in a match today...

'Thomas Blackwell', medical student from Bledavik (except not really, but that's a cover identity for you) is here just to observe. Certain things are more obvious from the perspective of a spectator than a participant.

Besides which if things go badly (for whatever reason, for whatever degree of 'badly') he'll probably be needed. This is not a particular factor Loren is very happy about, but he's rarely very happy about anything.

Just when you think you're done, you end up having to go back in...

Notebook and pen in hand, he has up until now been paying attention primarily to the very overtly destroyed section of the arena... and taking notes. In fact, he's only stopped taking notes now, as the challengers make their way in. 

<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

In the not-quite-cheap seats is...

A woman with red hair, with ice cream.

Elly is not really tasting the white minty ice cream on a fried-dough cone, though it is not melting too fast, thanks to a wide-brimmed straw hat on her head. She's in an inexpensive sundress, though this one is a dusty pink with a loose cloth wrap around the shoulders. She has a leather bag at her feet.

In the bag are some odds and ends, some of which would be quite interesting, but the thing that Elly's mind is on is an object that resembles a key fob. There's a button there. If she pushes the button, something will happen exactly 2 minutes, 13 seconds later.

(It's a long flight.)

But for now Elly's just watching. 

<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.

There were many people using aliases in this tournament, each for their own reasons. Gwen is not one of them, because she's not even enrolled. Instead, she's been absent for many of the matches, her attention split between deliveries in Lacour and managing the inventories of the refugee camps at Adlehyde, secretly ferreting in donations from people who wanted to remain anonymous, such as, and mostly limited to, Riesenlied.

And it was Riesenlied who she came across recently, with indepth news of what exactly happened in the town of Old Petra, on that terrible day. How a person with red hair named 'Id' came in with a similarly red gear, and how they proceeded to take all the Tainted on. Drifters and Metal Demons alike battled the gear and its user. Gwen couldn't imagine what sort of person this Id could be, to be such a threat that two 'sides' would put down their fresh, raw grievances with one another, and join forces against one being.

Red hair. Just like... Elly, over there, who *did* certainly come to mind at the mention of this Id, even if, by Gwen's reckoning, the only thing that made that happen was her long red hair. By that logic, Gwen'd be equally suspect.

Instead, Gwen just focuses on the pretty sundress and just how cute it looks. "Hey!" Gwen just proceeds to invite herself to a seat next to Elly, drink in hand and a box of baked sweets in the other. "Looks like I got here just in time. Been too busy to really watch the others." 

<Pose Tracker> Seis Thurule has posed.


Although Seis wears a heavy visor to somewhat obscure his face, it may as well not be there for all that his unseen eyes seem to stare an intense, burning hole right through the martial artist when he arrives. There was much had learned to expect from the man who's uncontrolled power wiped Lahan off the map: The lack of resolve, the uncertainty, the lethal ignorance that characterized each and every actions.

Knowing it didn't fail to silence the rage baying his blood the moment Fei opened his mouth.

Seis hid it with a sigh and poised arm. "You really don't know anything, do you?" He asked, every hint of practiced tension in the man's body evoked to answer Fei's question: Yes, he still wanted to fight.

"I entered this tournament to learn more about the people of this land." He said, gesturing widely with his hand the crowd that surrounded, "To learn what they were capable of. And I have heard of you in my journeys, of the man they call Fei."

At this, his expression darkens. The air around Seis crackles with ionization at his mental evocation, coalescing into a wrathful bolt of lightning that lashes at his opponent not unlike the motion of a cracked whip.

"I have heard you are a murderer." He said. 

GS: Seis Thurule has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Anemo Whip!
GS: Seis Thurule has completed his action.
GS: Fei Fong Wong guards a hit from Seis Thurule's Anemo Whip for 59 hit points!

<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

Elly stiffens when Gwen plops down next to her.

INTERIOR PERSPECTIVE: 'oh no she's here, she remembers me, I can't hide myself or my connection at this range with any kind of success. is the entire operation compromised now?! why didn't i just shave my head or something!? hair will grow back, and i can put on a wig! now she's going to see if I pull everything out that i need!'

EXTERIOR PERSPECTIVE: "Oh! I didn't see you coming up," Elly says to Gwen. She then licks her ice cream cone for a few moments, to hand Gwen the conversational initative. 

<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Fei's attention is readily drawn by Lunata who has a plaque and a special seating booth. His eyes slant towards that particular plaque. "...They put a lot of work into that plaque." It's a lot harder to pick out others from the crowd since it's so large, but there's some familiar faces. He picks up Elly easily and he looks briefly shocked before he shakes his head. "I thought... she didn't like to watch these things." He murmurs to himself under his breath. He turns away because Seis is speaking to him though he might appear rattled to the other man.

If she's here, is this a Gebler operation? Did they see through my disguise? WHAT DISGUISE FEI??

He raises his guard. Seis is hiding his anger but Fei's been hiding his emotions for years. He isn't wholly tricked.

"I have amnesia. I didn't know anything except my village." Fei says. "I can't go back there, so I have no other direction I can go but forward."

His eyes narrow as Seis brings up Lahan. He doesn't have to SAY it's Lahan for him to know it's Lahan.

FEI PSYCHO 25

You can only lose so much SAN from the same cause.

The electricity slams into Fei's arms. Ether, he thinks. That seals it doesn't it? He grits his teeth through the pain and steps backwards.

Fei Fong Wong prefers to fight with his fists. He runs towards Seis and leaps into the air, slamming his feet downward for his skull rather than actually use those fists. Okay, so he prefers to fight with his fists AND feet.

"I know what I did." Fei says. "It sounds like you do too. So why are you chasing after me? Don't tell me you're after righteous punishment." He is keeping his cool so far. 

GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Seis Thurule with Headstomp!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action.

<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.

Lunata pauses as she watches the exchange between the two -- she can't really hear what they're saying, but there's a certain... animosity (no relation to the anemo whip) that seems palpable. Was this what Jean was talking about -- in seeing two people fight? It's different between the way, say, Hiro and Lemina fight. There's an edge, a deliberation to their movements that carries through their emotions.

"N-nope," she says, gesturing up to Shalune to try to sneak her into the booth. And reach for one of those suuuuper spicy skewers... "Don't think so, anyway."

Someone might be peckish. 

<Pose Tracker> Neriah Parringer has posed.

Part of Neriah wishes she could hear what Seis and Fei were saying to one another.

Settling back into her seat, the dark-haired girl puffs on her cigarette anxiously, crossing a leg over the other and leaning forward in a slightly crunched posture, one elbow planted against her thigh. Pale blue eyes dance between the two fighters; as the shocking whip is unveiled, she gasps softly, eyebrows coming up as she tries to place what kind of magic that is. The guy must have Symbols hiding under his clothes, she ultimately decides.

Neriah has only the most vague idea of what Solaris is, and she's only heard the name of Gebler in passing, She can't make the connection, Watching Fei move, tenses up a little. She can tell he's not happy, at least.

"C'mon, Fei, don't let him push you around," she murmurs intently. "You can beat him...." 

GS: Seis Thurule takes a solid hit from Fei Fong Wong's Headstomp for 97 hit points!

<Pose Tracker> Ambrosius has posed.

Ambrosius scans the stadium, his eyes eventually landing on a rather large figure in a trenchcoat and a hat. There was no possible way that was a human.

...Was anyone else seeing that right now? No one seemed to be complaining, but then again yesterday's event meant there were fewer people here than might've been otherwise. He makes a mental note to investigate it later, but right now his attention turns back to the fight.

He only partially understands what they're talking about, being unfamiliar with both of the fighters, but they're important things to keep in mind. 

<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

Loren's within eyeshot of van Houten -- close enough to see that when that girl sits down next to her that they're familiar with each other, but not close enough to make out what she's saying, particularly against the roar of the crowd. It's not a fact that concerns him for long -- not when the match is already underway.

Pushing his glasses up his nose, 'Thomas' squints as Seis opens, as if straining to see something.

...So the Captain's goading him. Risky, if he doesn't take the bait--

--And also potentially dangerous if he does. 

<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.

It's okay, Elly. Fei pretty much revealed everything! All it took was a mistimed comment implying that a certain redhead, who mostly just seemed to have a soft spot for helping people who were down on their luck (even if they were fugitives), was Fei's friend. And it went downhill from there.

And Gwen promised that secret wouldn't leave the Dig. She knew enough, even if it was mostly lies, to know that Elly was in a difficult position, one Gwen herself couldn't envy. It was easy for Gwen to move in and out of different people's lives, regardless of the bounty on those same people's heads. For someone like Elly?

"Sorry, just saw the hat and realized that I honestly should get one of those myself, sometime," Gwen says, touching a tip of one finger to the brim of her own. "Mine's nice, but it doesn't always protect the back of my neck."

Turning her gaze to the battle, Gwen tilts her head. "Seems they're talking about somethin', but it's too noisy for me t'hear. That Thurule guy's glasses make it hard to gauge what he's saying." Nothing special, most likely. Probably just the usual sort of tournament talk, aimed straight at each other's morale.

.... Which it is, in a way. "Looks like it'll be a good fight for both." 

<Pose Tracker> Shalune Amira has posed.

Shalune is a little nepped out, her eyes blank circles as she watches the fight get underway. She's no zwee fighter or seasoned martial artist, but she's intuitive enough to be able to realize just from their postures: "... wah, is this a grudge match? That doesn't really seem like a good idea, does it? I thought it was all supposed to be friendly," she adds, tilting her head as she basically edges towards the private box to sneak her way into it.

The figure she's standing on-- creaks its gears as it helps her up higher via a big goofy hand; it's clearly a golem, after all, but one that seems to be almost expressive, its blank and lit-up eyes apparently watching the match as it helps Shalune up into the box proper.

Given it's Shalune, the skewers are covered with a smoky and hot sort of sauce, comfortably warm; given it's Shalune, she passes a couple over to Lunata without the slightest noise of complaint. "I mean, Mr. Fei doesn't really need to be in a grudge match, y'know? He's upset enough at himself that he counts as one all on his own." 

<Pose Tracker> Seis Thurule has posed.

"Say..." One of the announcers chimes in as the fight begins, "Doesn't Seis seem a little more talkative than usual?"

"You're right." Answers his second, "In his tournament fights he was definitely more of a stoic, silent type. Now he's look positively chatty." Pause, "In fact, he seems to have it out for our dragon-tailed youth!"

"Maybe this exhibition fight was nothing more than a cover for a grudge match!" The other announcer speculates, already working the angle for the crowd.

Down on the ground, Seis keeps his guard up as Fei charges towards him, content to let his opponent come to him.

This turns out to be something of an error when Fei takes the unexpected action of leaping high above his guard-and his head. Though the visored fighter does try to correct, he can't avoid a solid, two-heeled strike to the crown of his head that sent him stumbling a step forward or two punctuated by bright, swelling pain.

He recovers quickly, and there's a flash of anger in his brow, quickly subdued. So, perhaps he had learned something, after all.

"I want to know the answer to a question." He offers, closing the distance between them with surprising speed, intending to bring his own fists to bear against Fei.

Again, this is an unusual move when Seis has generally with a combination of blade and spells, but perhaps it makes sense for the close range he finds himself in. Amidst a flurry of precisely aimed fist blow strike at Fei's collarbone, sternum, and solar plexus, the unknown fighter speaks again.

"I want to know why someone like you is allowed to exist in this world." 

GS: Seis Thurule has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Close Quarters Combat!
GS: Seis Thurule has completed his action.
GS: Fei Fong Wong critically Guards a hit from Seis Thurule's Close Quarters Combat for 20 hit points!

<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

Elly is caught out silently in hypocrisy. She looks towards the Fei side of the arena, though at this range you can't say her eyes 'meet' Fei's. She seems faintly sad, at least from her body posture.

But then, that's something that's always kind of lingered around her.

"Oh - yes, they're very... nice," Elly says, glancing to Gwen and smiling a little wanly, her attention staying mostly on the arena after. "I don't think I could survive without something like that, not for long. My skin would peel off like a boiled crab."

The moment of mirth fades when Seis moves into action. Anxiously, Elly just raises the ice cream cone to her mouth and - bites a chunk out of the gently melted scoop, which she will no doubt regret shortly when it reaches the nerves under her tongue. 

<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Fei says, "Is that so?" to Seis, already turning, lifting up one foot into the air, blocking his fist strikes with kicks of his own. He doesn't have to block with his arms. His foot snaps back before Seis has the chance to change from a strike into a grab which is generally a danger when throwing your foot at an opponent's face. Fei has to hop back a few times to avoid getting struck further by the flurry of blows which is indicative of significant abdominal strength and balance.

He lets his foot drop as Seis goes for the solar plexus. Fei lashes out with his hands and catches the strike in his hands. He still slides back from the force of Seis's strike.

"Nggh...."

He remembers that single word in his heart. That word he feels whenever he feels like he's going to die, whenever he truly wants to die. It's a simple word: Live. He's called it a curse before but Leon said maybe it was something different.

"Maybe...." He murmurs, half to himself. "It's to have an opportunity to become a better man."

He grabs ahold of Seis's arm and swings up with a leg and slams it down for his arm. He is intending to strike right at elbow joint if Seis doesn't come up with something.

Despite his calm exterior, he's pretty damn mad himself. He's resisting the call of his anger. Words are just words after all. 

GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Seis Thurule with Joint Strike!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action.

<Pose Tracker> Neriah Parringer has posed.

There's really no special relationship where Neriah's concerned - but then, Neriah really has few to no friends. It is probably a sad reflection that Fei's one of the closest she has based on one quiet chat in the middle of a makeshift graveyard she helped him dig, but it's more than reason enough in her mind - at least, enough for her to worry as the visored man with the lightning whip begins to unload on Fei with his fists. Wincing, she pulls her shoulders in a little. "C'mon, Fei, hang in there," she hisses, her voice nearly lost in the crowd noise.

She uncrosses her legs. Rising slowly in her seat, she folds her arms on the back of the seat in front of her and follows Fei with her eyes, as if trying to divine his mood based on his body language. She can't quite do it; he's too far away and she doesn't know his quirks well enough. 

<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.

Lunata doesn't take long to kinda just yank Shalune next to her because it's a bit chilly up here and blobbing next to a pile of sweaters is a great idea for keeping warm, nibbling on a hot and smoky skewer without much complaint about how spicy it might end up being. Lunies can hold their spice. "Hmmm... that's kinda harsh, but... I guess I can't really deny it either... I hope that we can do something for him, though! Should we bake him a cake, do you think?"

Maybe Lunata should bake cakes for all her opponents too. 

GS: Seis Thurule critically Guards a hit from Fei Fong Wong's Joint Strike for 19 hit points!

<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.

Gwen nods with an empathic wince. "It's the worst. Once you find that one bit of skin, you know no amount of heal berry cream's gonna stop what's coming down next."

"Sorry," she eventually says, below her breath. "I don't know what's all goin' on. Just was afraid that if I didn't sit by you, someone else would. It'd make sense if you were by me- you've hired or helped me a few times on digs and the like."

Elly is an acquaintance- a businesswoman from Aquvy who was studying geology or something at one place, who helped her nephew run his investigation business. Maybe she fell in love with Fei, or maybe she feels a bond of friendship, or pity. If it was a thrilling cheap novel, that's the way it'd go. A successful woman leaves for a life of adventure, gets involved with a fugitive, and has to decide between the love(friend? pity?) of her life and her successful career! Something to that effect.

But novels usually ended with happy endings, unless they were cautionary tales. Bittersweet, at the most, or if not that, vague.

' Doesn't Seis seem a little more talkative than usual?' 'In fact, he seems to have it out for our dragon-tailed youth!' Wait.

Could it be that it was something personal? Someone who had family or friends there, maybe? Gwen's face creases. "Ngh... He should've declined the match. What does he think he's doin'?" 

<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

Elly, even as she feels the lingering ache of ice cream, answers Gwen. "... Maybe he doesn't want to feel like a coward."

"It's fine," she continues on, adjusting her hat slightly. "But I hope you didn't feel like you had to rescue me..." 

<Pose Tracker> Seis Thurule has posed.


Seis is far too focused on the fight to notice anything odd in the stands, including Ambrosius's odd appearance. He has, however, noticed a preponderance of strange events and bystanders throughout the ordeal of the tournament, of which Harken's appearance was only the latest. Clearly, theirs was not the only group interested in events here.

Fei's guard is good, and his reactions are better. Seis was no slouch in hand to hand combat himself but, loath as he was to admit it, continuing to fight the martial artist in his home field was not to his advantage. He's quick to pull his punches back when the other meets them with kicks, but the sting in his knuckles remained potent reminders of the power behind each blow.

Seis's last blow manages to stagger Fei, and attempts to press his advantage only to find his arm caught in fighter's grip. Seeing Fei's intent, he reaches up with his free hand and catches the man's leg by the ankle as it descends, bringing them into a mutual standstill.

"A better man.." He mused, the words swilling in his mouth like sour wine, "At what cost, and whose?"

He threw Fei's leg to the side and, in flash of white ire, invoke a roiling coil of lightning in his hand. In the next second, it burst outwards in all directions, blasting the two men apart and hurling debris and smoke up for good measure.

Seis stands with his sword drawn once the smoke has cleared, the blade's edge humming with unseen power. "For the sake of argument." He said, falling into a low stance, "I'll have you show me what those words mean to you." 

GS: Seis Thurule has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Anemo Storm!
GS: Seis Thurule has completed his action.
GS: Fei Fong Wong critically Guards a hit from Seis Thurule's Anemo Storm for 21 hit points!

<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.

Gwen's fog blue eyes glance to the side towards Elly, her gaze flicking downwards. "I... didn't think about it that way, I guess." Facing your problems would probably be about going to a battle where someone may very well hate you, wouldn't it? "Maybe he's stronger than I was givin' him credit for..."

'But I hope you didn't feel like you had to rescue me.' Gwen does a sheepish wince, and grins. "Well, it was also the sundress!" Patting her right arm discreetly, she adds, with a chuckle, "If I could get away with it, I'd be wearin' one too today."

Shifting in her seat to look towards the fight, the courier purses her lips. "You didn't look like you needed anything, really. If I didn't know anything, I wouldn't have suspected a thing." 

<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

They're both skilled, Loren muses to himself, leaning forward in his seat, silent still among the roars of the crowd -- and in Fei's case, this is a disconcerting thing to note. His reflexes are well-honed, which would be typical for a student of martial arts -- but most practitioners only practice. Fei seems more like he's used to fighting other people.

...And the Captain seems to be more invested than the medical officer had thought he would be, shown in the force behind that ether display just now.

Slowly, Loren inhales a long breath, straightening a touch as he does so.

Just one normal assignment. That's all he asks. 

<Pose Tracker> Shalune Amira has posed.

"Um, does he remember when his birthday is? ... maybe he'd be mad about his birthday," Shalune wonders aloud from where she's acting as Lunata's hot water bottle, looking a little worried as the fight in the arena slowly escalates. "I think he just kinda needs-- reminding of other stuff, y'know? It's like he needs a distraction or somethin' to take his mind off things. I can get it, I guess," adds the physical embodiment of distraction in its purest form, especially because a moment later she's got another skewer in her hand.

Thankfully, she and Lunata have the metabolism of hummingbirds, as is only appropriate.

"I dunno, though, it just seems--... it seems weird, right? Normally the arena's all 'bambabaa~' and upbeat, but--..." She pauses, not really sure how to word it as she glances to the golem; Big Shal shrugs slowly, not exactly about to be any help here. "Kinda feels like it's just taking it out on each other." 

<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.

Lunata grumps, "Not a birthday cake, just like a-- here, I hope you have a nice day! Kinda cake. Or what's his favorite food?" She flinches just a little bit as magic's now thrushed into the mix, a part at the back of her mind kinda wondering what Mister Seis' magic is... it seems a bit different, and she doesn't see Symbolic incantations or Crests being used.

She chomps on more skewers in the middle of ruminating about cake.

"Yeah, and that really noisy Mister would be shouting at the top of his lungs! Uugh, this doesn't feel good..."

A pause as she realises she'd holding her stomach.

"I think it might be the spicy sauce, Lunieee..." 

<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Fei Fong Wong is also fairly stuck in the fight to really give the stands much more attention than he already has. It's why he gazed about early on. All the eyes on them are a unique kind of pressure. Regardless, Seis sees what he's planning and they're now in a fairly convoluted mess of locks. Does a leg beat a hand? Perhaps, but Fei might be able to force himself through a foot injury by shifting his weight onto the other leg.

Seis makes the move first. He blasts out electrically in all directions, breaking Fei's grip and sending him flying to the rear of the arena.

Fei recovers midflight and slams his hand into the arena wall rather than slamming into it face fist.

His hand smashes through the wall, still weakened as it is by Harken's attack.

Seis asks him what it means to be a better man. He looks towards the gates. They're closed now but he could easily blast one off and just leave if he wanted. That's where his instinct tells him to go, but he's been chastized again and again to not run away, to not be a coward.

Maybe Elly's read on him is correct.

But just hitting Seis in the face isn't in of itself an answer. He thinks about what Leon Albus would do. He thinks about what Lily Keil would do. These are people he looks up to right now.

Would they just walk right out the door? No, Fei thinks, they wouldn't. They'd stand up for their comrades.

Instead he says, "It's something I'm working on every day. I let myself be arrested. It didn't take. I tried to die. It didn't take. That's the only path for me, but if there's one thing I know for sure...at this point in my life."

He runs back at Seis, throwing a quick flurry of palm strikes and elbow strikes before hopping up and trying to play tapdance on his skull one more time!

"It's that I'm sick of people hiding behind masks telling me to be STRONG or BETTER! To be a better man even as they're hurting others! If you're so strong, why don't you show who you really are?!"

People? Behind masks? This isn't the first person who has decided to judge him, or even the second, if you allow for maskless people. 

GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Seis Thurule with Hoten!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action.

<Pose Tracker> Neriah Parringer has posed.

The good news is, Neriah's not all that odd compared to some of the others. She's just a girl in a nice vest, a newsboy hat and a pair of elbow-length gloves. She started wearing a matching one on her left hand because she finally got the idea that the asymmetry looked suspicious.

Someone behind her shouts at her to sit down. Neriah ignores them, clutching the back of the seat just ahead of her and biting down to her lower lip as she waits to see how Fei will defend himself - and he does, enduring that stormy assault admirably. She still can't hear what Fei's saying but she's getting a better look at his expression now that she can see over the couple of rows in front of her a little better.

"Why would this guy even have challenged Fei, anyway," she murmurs, wishing she'd learned more about Seis during the actual tournament matches. 

<Pose Tracker> Ambrosius has posed.

A grudge match, was it...? Interesting. Perhaps it was just babble by the announcers, or perhaps there was something more to it than that. What drove these two men here to fight today? Had they met before the tournament, or was this carried over from something that had happened in the past?

Ambrosius finds himself wishing he had a listening device of some kind to better hone in on the conversation going down way below...but he hadn't had the opportunity to plant one.

Oh well.

This was still useful information.

His eyes are drawn once more to the large...figure in the trenchcoat.

That was also useful, if baffling, information. He had an idea about what it could be...but its action were not like what he would expect. 

GS: Seis Thurule guards a hit from Fei Fong Wong's Hoten for 71 hit points!

<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

"... I think that's very true," Elly says, before she goes into the serious business of crunching up her ice cream cone. She does it very neatly.

"That must be hard for you, having to hide it so much," Elly then says, during a momentary lull. Then she leans forwards a little - straining a bit to try and catch what Fei is saying. She heard 'strong' and 'better' clearly, that's for sure. 

<Pose Tracker> Seis Thurule has posed.

Something about it crawls under Seis's skin, that this man is as strong as he is. That all the -lambs- in this tournament seemed to be possessed of something different, more potent than any of them had been lead to expect. It was symptomatic something wrong, something deeply wrong, at the very heart of Filgaia.

'That's right.' He thought, as Fei extracted himself from a crumbling wall. This man was nothing more than a symptom of a disease. There was nothing special about that.

"How convenient, the number of excuses you seem to have ready." Seis offered, but then Fei was on him in an instant, fists and feet flying with a hitherto unseen power. His guard was up against that, and there seemed to be something else-it's like the air itself was thicker around Seis where Fei swung his blows, like something he had to punch through in order to get to him. I took something of the edge off his hits, but they still made a significant impact on the visored fighter's elbows and sides as he juked from right to left to deflect the blows.

And yet it was nothing compared to the rage he felt at the surface dweller's words-that he would dare to lecture him about anything at all.

"Know your place." The man whispers harshly a second before Fei leaps into the air, which is where here times his counterattack, matching each kick from his feet with clash of his blade blow-for-blow. As he strike, the air shimmers and distorts with traces of the sword's path, vague shapes lined by electricity that become more coherent with each strike, creating a dense field around him that seemed impervious-where the true blade hid among the fakes seemed difficult to discern.

"You are the last one I need to justify anything to." Seis said, slashing at Fei's flank from the aura of ghostly blades that surrounded him, "This is your trial, not mine." 

GS: Seis Thurule has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Blade Wall!
GS: Seis Thurule has completed his action.
GS: Fei Fong Wong critically Guards a hit from Seis Thurule's Blade Wall for 24 hit points!
GS: Seis Thurule takes Cover! He gains 50 temporary hit points!

<Pose Tracker> Shalune Amira has posed.

Sadly, Shalune's impressive ability to intuitively understand linkages and connections and patterns only really extends to the mechanical world. The concepts of sorcery and the different styles involved are pretty alien to her, outside of a very general sense that a Guardian's power might look nature-y and a Symbologist's power is probably a localized explosion.

She has simply needs, okay, that's just how she works.

"Umm... maybe the Captain would know, right?" she guesses to Lunata, fussing over the tray in her hands. "I mean, they seem like they're good friends. Oh, but maybe it shouldn't even be a surprise? If he's got somethin' to look forward to, that'd help too, right? So maybe we just ask him."

She pauses, and then shoots her eyebrows up as she pats her pockets down. "O-oh no, Lunie! Aw, did I get it too hot? Hold on, I've got some of those chalky things Jay makes somewhere," she rattles off at a clip, fussing before handing over a little medicine bag towards Lunata.

In the stands, the strange, overly tall figure stares across the way, catching Ambrosius' gaze - it seems to consider things for a long while, then raises a notably spherical hand, rotates it, and with a grinding of metal, produces the slowest possible thumbs up. 

<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

"You aren't from Lahan!" Fei shouts back. Does Fei notice that Seis has made the air thicker around himself? Probably not conciously, but Fei's unconcious power is greater than his concious power. Seis must know that by now, right? In fact, Seis seems to know more about Fei than Fei does. But is it knowledge, or just smack talk.

The 'know your place' definitely confirms it if the ether didn't. This isn't the first time he was told by agents from the sky to know his place.

Yes, Fei doesn't know. He seems intent on just plowing through the extra resistance with his fists. At least, that's the plan until Seis draws his blade.

Fei sumersaults away from Seis's slashes and slides across the ground, breathing heavily. He bounces back away from the electric blasts, taking some singe damage from the electricity, but though that seems to have temporarily disrupted his breathing, it hasn't stopped Fei's focus.

"You're not from Lahan," Fei says. "What do you know about it?"

He straightens and speaks, calmly, "I didn't know what had happened or what I had done. I remembered absolutely nothing. The only thing I knew was that my hands could still feel what they had done. The only things that penetrated the Gear's barrier were screams... accompanied by the stench of blood, the sound of crushing bones, and my own curses."

He shakes his head. "I know it's my fault, but there's nothing I can do to make peace with that. I will never make peace with it and neither should anybody else. I can only atone...but guilty or not, what makes you my judge?"

He brings his hands back and starts charging something up. Well. This probably isn't good.

He keeps charging. This really isn't very good.

He then fans his hands forward, unleashing a wave of blue energy that threatens to slam through Seis's shielding and into him! 

GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Seis Thurule with Guided Shot!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action.

<Pose Tracker> Neriah Parringer has posed.

Clutching the back of her chair, Neriah gasps as Seis begins to draw on a power she's never seen before.

The shimmering, electric shadows of the man's weapon dance in her vision; her right hand aches a little as though in some subtle resonance with it, though it's not enough to distract Neriah all that much. "That must be some crazy symbology he's got," she murmurs. Surely it must be that, right? "Here's hoping Fei can--"

Fei surprises her with energy of his own. The dark-haired woman in the distinctive hat gasps. Her cigarette drops from her lips and hits the ground at her feet, forgotten. "Wow, I thought-" she begins, before pressing her lips tightly together. He did that during the adventure to Lahan, too, she realizes.

"Maybe all martial artists do it," she murmurs, wishing she weren't so completely ignorant of how fei-fu works. 

GS: Seis Thurule guards a hit from Fei Fong Wong's Guided Shot for 87 hit points!

<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.

"Guess I could stand to learn or thing or to from 'im besides how he manages to fight like that," Gwen states, as Elly efficiently crunches down her ice cream cone.

It really doesn't matter how Elly or Fei feel about each other. The way Gwen sees it, Fei's a lucky guy.

Taking a bite from a beignet, Gwen pauses to speak and begins to cough instead, the powdered sugar having flown into her throat. After taking a sip of her drink, she laughs, her words intermittently spaced with weak coughs. "Not really. I have to keep covered anyway, so it's not like it's a big deal. The things it's helped me with... well. It's not like I could wear im' before anyway."

And, looking at the battle, at the man with the slicked back hair and the dark glasses blocking the upper half of his face, Gwen is hardly the only one hiding some aspect of herself. Fei is saying something between exchanges of electricity and blade, something like-

"...Something about Lahan." 'You're not'? "This is getting pretty intense." The amount of electricity down there makes Gwen's right ARM feel like it's prickling- a sensation that the courier realizes is more her imagination than anything else. They're too far away. "A symbologist? Maybe one of those people from that other place," she supposes aloud in the quiet present between the bits of dialogue between the two fighters. "He's good with a sword, too." 

<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.

"Yeah... maybe," Lunata says, perhaps not particularly excited about asking Bart, of all people, about what Fei might like. He'd be just as inclined to go 'getting in the robot and being a murderer!', but at the same time she's got a tum-tum-ache to worry about.

She looks down towards the fight and frowns just for a moment. This didn't feel like a good mental space for Fei to head towards, but... really, it's not about the destination, she feels. It's about the journey, and one needn't take that journey alone, no matter how cold and hard it is.

The cube knows.

She nips a little bit of the antacids after she finds it, looking towards the crowd again. "Aren't you worried that Big Shal will draw attention, by the way...?" 

<Pose Tracker> Ambrosius has posed.

Ambrosius stares. The figure that shares a descriptor that could also be applied to him - strange and overly tall - just...

It just gave him a thumbs-up.

It noticed him.

Wait, were they normally programmed to do that?

They couldn't possibly be? Unless the programmer just had a serious sense of humor, he guessed. Which wasn't impossible, but...

Well, he'd been caught staring. Maybe it was code? Slowly, and with a hint of nervousness, he returns the gesture with a thumbs-up of his own.

...This was strange territory for Ambrosius. He usually wasn't disarmed like this, but here he was.

Big Shal had already drawn attention - but the person who's attention had been drawn wasn't quite sure what to do about it yet. 

<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

"Are you alright?" Elly murmurs to Gwen as she starts coughing. She glances then towards the distance - Where Loren, in his disguised state, sits - but she won't have to engineer a coincidence, will they? They won't. She's recovering herself.

Elly doesn't answer Gwen, but it has the air of deliberately held silence. Her lips thin. She takes a deep sudden breath at that burst of energy from Fei, though. 

<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

In the stands, Loren narrows his eyes, once again touching a hand to his glasses as if to just fix to some minute degree how they rest on his face.

Naturally, what he's really doing is something else entirely, getting a better, more detailed glimpse at the fight as he leans in. Rearranging his notebook on his lap, he jots down a few things in shorthand with his other hand without glancing down at the page.

And then he pauses for a moment, pencil paused mid-note-taking, staring at the man who destroyed Lahan.

He's definitely not paying attention to anything else at the moment. 

<Pose Tracker> Shalune Amira has posed.

Shalune's got kind of a blind spot about this sort of thing, after all. She doesn't want to see Fei fight, of course - but at the same time, there's a pretty blinkered trust in Bart that's been built up by the way he helped Mrs. Croze and Lunata, and it's likely to take her a while to actually build up the same amount of nuance that the other Lunie can manage.

She can at least pick up on the tension in the match below, because it doesn't seem like she's particularly on board with the fight either, biting her lip as she watches; she finally settles down a little, as if the seriousness of Fei's yell has sobered her up somewhat. "Maybe that other man's from Lahan?" she guesses under her breath.

On the other hand, Big Shal is always a welcome topic, and she blinks at Lunata before glancing across at the golem. "Ah... not really? Isn't it better if Big Shal stands out? I mean, she's gonna be advertising for us, right, so maybe I should've put a CaraKin sign on her or something like that?" It's kind of a fair point, at least the way Shalune sees it, so she breaks into a sunny smile. "Besides, she seemed like she wanted to come along and say hi to you. She followed me over here, y'know?"

Ambrosius, across the way, gets a solemn nod from the golem, whose motions seem to indicate a deep satisfaction at the response. 

<Pose Tracker> Seis Thurule has posed.

Seis has no apparent reaction as Fei relates his trauma, apparently non-plussed by the man's experiences and most heartfelt accusation. "You could save I've learned a few things about it." Seis offers cryptically, adjusting his tilted visor, "But you and I are having two completely different conversations, it would seem."

It was odd, how Seis seemed to ebb and wane so frequently between those cool responses and a raging, quietly murderous intent that the martial artist likely would have felt any time they'd exchanged blows.

Under the threat of that energy, however, the man's only instincts were for self-preservation, bringing both hands up to 'catch' the wave of power and cancel it with his own counterforce.

The results are something a mixed bag. Some of the attack expends itself piercing through his barrier, while the rest made impact with Seis's bare hands, burning bright and pushing him back on his heels at least twenty paces before he was finally able to dispel it. His joints rung painfully with the force of the impact, his shaded eyes drawing a line up the gouges his heels had dug into the earth as he was pushed back, gloved hands still smoking from the ambient heat.

Seis exhaled slowly, and began to walk back towards his opponent...only to be outpaced by the quicker, nimbler pitter-patter of a smaller figure that raced around him.

"He's not from Lahan."

Kahm could barely raised an objection before the other voice's owner acted.

"But I am!" Shouted Dan, bringing a flurry of pint-sized fists and kicks to bear against Fei's thighs and shins. The boy seemed to have exchanged his simple villager's clothes for the bespoke tailorings of the Black Ties gang, but the rage and hatred on his face where no different than what Fei had seen all those months ago.

"You bastard!!" He shouted through his attacks, furious but ineffective, "I heard every stinking word you said! You think feeling bad is going to be good enough after you did?!" 

GS: Seis Thurule has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Half-Pint Flurry!
GS: Seis Thurule has completed his action.
GS: Fei Fong Wong takes a solid hit from Seis Thurule's Half-Pint Flurry for 33 hit points!

<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

"I don't even know what you're trying to--" Fei begins.

And that's when it happens.

DAN PSYCHO 100

Fei is surprised. He turns around to see what the deal is and Dan slips right through his guard and smashes him over. He doesn't have to strike his thighs and chins, he can clobber him right in the face. "Wh--" Fei begins. "What--!" He raises up his arms several punches in, blocking the remainder but he's actually bleeding from those strikes even though if it was someone like Seis smashing his face in like that he probably wouldn't HAVE a face after.

Fei spits out blood and says, "Wh--what are you doing here? Aren't you supposed to be with the others? Doc said you were with Yui!" He looks towards Seis. He is... a member of the Black Ties?! That is totally not what he thought he was from! He thought he was from Solaris! Yikes!

Fei hops back up to his feet, backpedaling like Dan has the strength of ten thousand Solaran agents and he might as well have.

"Wait--wait--wait!" Fei says. "I hear what you're saying but--"

He pauses for a moment.

"You joined a gang?" Fei doesn't attack Dan. He probably could smash him into next week. He doesn't. 

<Pose Tracker> Neriah Parringer has posed.

Things suddenly take a turn. Neriah blinks a couple of times as a child comes running out to whack at Fei. Her lower lip hangs by half an inch or so before she closes it, pressing her lips together in a tight purse. Some of the shouting, she can hear.

A quiet corner of her mind suggests some terrible solutions. She gasps and pushes them aside, cramming her hat down more firmly. "What a... dirty trick," she murmurs, her voice pinched. "How's this even supposed to be allowed...?"

Her eyes snap towards Seis. Something hot is beginning to churn at the back of her throat and somewhere behind her sinuses. It's a surge of anger, and she fights to swallow it - or at least to temper it with bitterness.

Part of her wonders if she'd get a similar reception if she waltzed back into her home village. But then, this isn't that village, and to shove this at Fei now is simply dirty pool. "That asshole," she hisses, scowling a hole through Seis from her spot in the audience. 

<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.

Lunata looks no less baffled by the sudden interjection of the little boy -- she doesn't know who that is, but she knows that boy is tiny and has quite the grudge against Fei...! "This-- this is really... what's that mister Seis thinking, doing something like this?!"

Even if there are valid grievances to be aired between the boy and Fei, an arena with hundreds of spectators wasn't the place for it...

"... this isn't a match anymore, this is just bullying!" Lunata exclaims, somewhere up to the announcers, though she kind of expects to not be heard. "On all fronts!" 

<Pose Tracker> Janus Cascade has posed.

"Yeah but it's great!" barks a blue-haired man in a red coat in apparent reply to Lunata, popcorn in a paper bucket next to him. Janus Cascade has his feet kicked up on the (occupied) seat in front of him, laughing at the display.

Dario and Romero flank him, because of course they do. Romero's bandana never moves, but occasionally one of the takoyaki he acquired from a booth outside just sort of disappears. Dario has a beer mug, which he is waving around like a dick.

Janus laughs, "Go on, man, he's like a third your size, just deck 'im! Brats need a good whackin' sometimes!" 

<Pose Tracker> Shalune Amira has posed.

Shalune jumps up in her seat as the little figure enters the match, her eyes wide. "W-wah-- hey, that's not fair! That's two against one!" That's the first thing you think of, Shalune? But then her eyes focus on the new figure, and she stares in surprise. "Wah, it's just a kid! What? How's that fair?!" she blurts up right after Lunata, pumping her fists. "C'mo~on!"

She nearly breaks for Big Shal's hand, intending the Golem to boost her up towards the announcer's box - but thinks better of it, biting at her lip instead. At least Mr. Fei seems to have the right idea here, she decides instead, watching thankfully as Fei doesn't just haul off and punch the kid right in the ginormous head.

Meanwhile, the pink-haired girl just stares at the man with wide and horrified eyes. "--that's terrible!" 

<Pose Tracker> Seis Thurule has posed.

"And it appears a child or a small man of some sort has joined the fight!" Reads one of the announcers, "Is this acceptable?!"

"Well, exhibition fights are governed more by guidelines than rules." Answers his other half, "And, you know, considering what happened yesterday I'm ready to just give this one a pass."

On the ground, Seis's hands clenched into fists. He'd told the boy the stay behind, and now the entire operation was potentially threatened. "I told you to 'wait'." He emphasized, to no apparent effect.

"I joined with the strong." Dan asserted, having nothing in his eyes for Fei but a simmering mixture of anger, scorn, and resentment, "And you think you can just stand there and take punches like that will make things better, too!"

The child clearly hadn't through well through what he was going to do now that he was here. Tears welled up in his eyes, but so did something else, something....abnormal.

"What the..." Seis murmured, pausing in his tracks.

"You killed my 'sister', Fei!" Dan shouted, grief mixed with rage and the swelling of a terrible force that crackled visibly up and down his diminutive form, "She's dead because of YOU!"

He cupped his hands behind him in a pattern and form not unlike what Fei had just used for his last attack on Seis, but the power seemed to shine even brighter. Raw, unshaped, and uncontrolled.

"And this....is for HER!" Dan shouted, throwing his arms forward and hurling a ferocious wave of power larger than he was at the martial artist. It was aimed at a man, but even a gear wouldn't be able to shrug something like that off. 

GS: Seis Thurule has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Terminus Est!
GS: Seis Thurule has completed his action.
GS: Fei Fong Wong guards a hit from Seis Thurule's Terminus Est for 114 hit points!

<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.

"Nah, nah, just the sugar!" Gwen coughs some more between sips of her drink. "It's like fine dust. If y'breathe in before you take a bite, it goes right in the wrong tube." Something like that.

Light-hearted remarks of the perils of powdered sugar aside, when Elly goes silent, Gwen does the same, holding back from her instinct to lapse into cheerful chatter as a guard against the more sobering situation unfolding beyond.

Besides, maybe it's beginning to settle. Both fighters are beginning to get worn down, after all. The match will end, and the two will go their separate ways, with Gwen realizing that she just sat and ate pastries as two people unleashed their demons while fighting one another.

Settling into another bite of her beignet, Gwen begins to cough again as another challenger arrives.

A child.

A survivor.

Desperately sucking on the lip of her drink, Gwen watches the arena in silent horror. "T-this is insane..." 

<Pose Tracker> Lynnai Albrek has posed.

Did you wonder whose chair Janus had his feet on?

It is Lynnai, and she has been getting progressively more annoyed because of it. As a result, when Janus starts requesting the battering of small children - even small children who, in a sense, might deserve it - Lynnai starts to draw in her power.

It's actually not terribly easy to tell, because Lynnai has a number of small Symbols to go with a big one. She's a specialist, and that means she has a good deal of flexibility as long as she sticks within her specialty. But she does something with the small motions of her left hand, twisting her fingers through a pattern as she mouths words.

Nothing happens to Janus, really; the sorcery affects the air around him, out a couple feet in each direction. He starts hearing the crowd a little less well; it's muffled, hard to hear clearly. Also, it's mutual; Janus' words are baffled and flattened, hard to make out over crowd noises unless he really starts bellowing and somewhat indistinct even if he does.

Lynnai can be a petty jerk, too, and shutting Janus up is practically a public service. 


<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

"Oh, I see," Elly says, as she takes the last bite of her ice cream cone and

there

is

Someone accusing Fei of... A child?! No, Elly thinks, seeing the receding hairline and the fully developed coordination of Dan, if nothing else, at this distance. "Oh no, he came out... Is this what his goal was all along...?!" That may be telling to Gwen, but Elly does seem abruptly anxious.

"I think I need to go. Gwen, are you going to be alright?" Elly says, leaning over to pick up her bag without taking her eyes away from the fight, her lips thinning in anxiety when Dan erupts in sheer force. 

<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.

'Is this what his goal was all along?' The short-haired redhead's expressing briefly lapses into surprise as she listens to Elly.

What exactly is going on here?

Yet, even then, Elly asks if she'll be fine. "Yeah, I'll be fine." Gwen smiles. "I appreciate the concern. Go do what'ca gotta do. As a warnin', if things get even worse I might c'mon down too."

She'll see what happens first. This isn't her fight, just yet.

There's a sound of someone shouting something rude. Hey. Doesn't that sound kinda... familiar? Like... Nah, whatever that was, Gwen doesn't hear that person anymore. 

<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Does Dan really deserve to be smacked for being pissed at someone who killed his entire family and destroyed his village? Uhh... probably not! At least not according to Fei. If someone blew up his village and killed everybody he loved, he'd be pissed at them too. You can tell because of how much Fei hates himself.

"I can't strike you, Dan." Fei says. He has no right to judge Dan, really, even if the rest of the world might. His guard is up. Fei doesn't want to get murdered by a small child, but he starts walking backwards to try and open up some distance. "I don't think it'd make anything better but I--I can't."

He senses the energy build up. Fei taught him how to do this, so that's not the surprise. the fact that it's grown this much IS however. Fei raises his arms up to protect his face but the blast still hits him full on. He vanishes from vision as the brightness of the chi blast erupts around him. It's not nearly as controlled as Fei's guided shot, but that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt more.

Fei is thrown back to the far end of the arena. This time he does smash his head against the wall. That's THROUGH his guard.

Fei drops to a knee afterwards, raising his arms up one more time.

"I..." He begins. this isn't the same thing. Something is trying to push its way up and follow Janus Cascade's advice. Fei is stronger--SOMETHING is stronger--and he just keeps still. His body is charred and coverd in suit and dust and rubble from the wounds piled onto him both from electricity and from Dan's own chi blast.

"Just stop... please, stop..." He grips at his head, curling up. Whether he'll kick the bucket or 'flatten' Dan first? It's hard to say but it's leaning on kick the bucket. 

<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

The tension doesn't depart even after the attack hits home and the 'medical student' remains frozen as Seis is knocked back. It even takes Loren a moment or two to remember what he's supposed to be doing and return to taking notes, finally breathing out as his gaze shifts between the competitors on the field.

Then there's a blur of motion as a new challenger enters the field. Once again Loren freezes, but this time it's for entirely different reasons.

...Isn't that the kid that was retrieved from Lahan? He's not supposed to be out here.

As Dan lays out his accusations at Fei, Loren, resignedly, leans back in his seat.

In all honesty, he should have realized something like this would happen.

And with that -- and a hurried packing away of his notebook and pencil -- Loren rises to his feet and move to leave the area. Just another person who is shocked by this turn of events and doesn't want to watch someone hit a literal child?

Well, no, not really. He needs to get downstairs to attempt to manage Dan once they get him off the field. He's pretty much certain that this will end badly. 

<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.

Lunata frowns deeply at Janus, who she recalls from that debacle from when she ventured to the Haunted Manor and a few times when he visited the Saloon. "That's a horrible thing to say! Lunie, I'm going!"

Her eyes kind of -- widen as Dan suddenly lets loose with an enormous beam of energy that all but engulfs Fei, however. She has no idea how he managed to do that, but it doesn't deter her. She's not exactly going away because she's sick of it and won't look anymore. The tiny waitress instead extends her hand to the cube, which... kinda just... transforms into its weapon-form, a black and white katana of frankly absurd length for the small-size waitress, and she uses it as the equivalent of a flotation device to kinda amble on down at a cozy pace by Fei's side.

It's not the dramatic leap from the stands that the scene demands, but Lunata's still learning, okay.

Seis might've seen her from the Saloon if he's visited before, in Adlehyde. Or, you know, one of Solaris' reports. Like the one written by a certain not-medical student currently sitting in the stands, even.

"Stop this!" Lunata exclaims empathically, looking at Dan. "I know you feel deeply hurt, but... you're not going to make fix anything just throwing blame around, you're just trying to make yourself feel better! And you're not going to make your life better joining those folks either...! Aren't you just abandoning your village?!" 

<Pose Tracker> Janus Cascade has posed.

Janus Cascade, person of great wisdom and subtlety, gets Muffled. Maybe that's for the best, though, as he suddenly jerks up, feet leaving Lynnai's seat as he slams them into the ground, not to get up and start a fight but to lean in, fascinated, by the awesome powers Dan brings to bear. "Now what's this action," Janus murmurs.

"Boss, I can't hear so good," Romero mutters. "Ears're all stuffed!" Dario barks.

Janus doesn't even listen, trying to focus on what's going on in the ring, a new, more dangerous glint in his eyes. "Interesting," he breathes. Though, his face slowly grows frustrated at the noise. "Eghk," he spits. "Shitty hologram system fucks with the audio."

He stands up. "Keep the seat, boys," he says to Dario and Romero. ("What!?" they yell back, less in shock and more because they can barely hear him) "I think I wanna see this from a little further up."

And so saying, Janus goes to shoulder his way down to the front, so he can lean against the foremost railings and observe with keen eyes. 

<Pose Tracker> Neriah Parringer has posed.

Clenching her teeth, Neriah leans forward in her seat as the tournament staff simply let the child pound on Fei as if this isn't totally wrong. Those more grim solutions begin to bubble up again. Neriah rises in her seat, clenching her right hand and unconsciously beginning to gather power as a corner of her mind suggests that she simply murder the child and Seis along with him. The girl in the newsboy hat starts forward.

She shakes her head. "No, we can't do it this way," she hisses, blushing as a surge of shame rolls through her. She continues forward, though, vaulting over the occupied seat in front of her, then leaning deeply over the barricade between the seats and the arena, thrusting her upper body into the field of combat.

"FEI!" she shouts. "They're just trying to bully you! Walk away from it! Just walk away! You don't have to prove anything to them!"

She's never seen Seis before, but another 'certain medical student' may have flagged her and her distinctive hat and glove in a report. She might stand out to any who've read it. 

<Pose Tracker> Shalune Amira has posed.

Shalune straight up balks in amazement as the little kid suddenly lets loose with a wave of power that she would never have expected. "Wah-- he's an actual competitor?!" she blurts, her eyes wide as if she hadn't even considered the idea before - but then it's a fair bet that no-one present would have, so she can hardly be blamed for that much.

Instead, she firms up her expression and pumps her fists as Lunata calls her up to action. "Right! Big Shal and I've got your back! You go tell them what for!" she insists, her voice full of confidence at the end as her volume rises.

That confidence is borne from a lot of things. It's borne from her trust in Lunata to do the right thing, in how far the waitress has gotten through the tournament up until now - and in this moment, it's also borne in the help that only Shalune knows how to provide.

Which is to say, piggybacking off of Big Shal, who has lifted up from the stands to accept the pink-haired mechanic's first hop onto its hand and then her second up to the scaffolding on its back. With a rumble, the golem stands up to its full height of about twelve feet, the totally sweet trenchcoat disguise falling away as it starts to walk slowly down out of the stands towards the arena.

Fortunately, it seems that an arena that can stand up to Lady Harken can also stand up to a golem's heavy footsteps. 

<Pose Tracker> Seis Thurule has posed.

Seis observed Dan's destructive attack with no small sense of surprise. He'd known the child was capable of some ability as instructed by Fei, but that he could invoke this much power warranted further study.

...but not today.

Fei hits the wall, and the fight is clearly out of him. Seis had no interest in kicking a man while he was down-even this man-and he'd been able to read the crowd a bit ever since Dan had taken to the field. It wasn't a good look.

Meanwhile, Dan runs up to where Fei lies, seeming to have little and less sympathy even as things are. "You....you didn't even try to fight back?" He asked, his eyes confused and lost before they were steeled by the memory of the tragedy that would connect them forevermore, "Why?! What are you trying to do? How can you kill everyone and still....act like this?"

It's about this time that Lunata descends into the field and delivers what must seem like good and common sense, but Dan just sees another adult talking down to him. "Don't act like you know what you're talking about! They're the ones who took me in after I lost everything! No one else did that." He stepped forward then, as if ready to continue his argument with more than words.

"That's enough." Seis stepped in at this point, one arm between Dan and the other pair, "There's no point in continuing any of this. You need to return to the lobby."

"But I-" Dan started, only to be cut off with a look.

"Have done enough." Seis finished that sentence, watching as individuals began to crowd the front stands. Some he recognized, either from reports or direct interaction, others less so. He supposed this was as good a time as any.

"He acted on his own, but i'll take responsibility for it." Seis answers to Lunata, "If you're able, I could use some assistance to clear the air." By this, he means maybe giving him a lift up to answer the crowd a bit better. 

<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

Elly turns her head and sees -- something. (Loren.) As a result she doesn't dash. She doesn't run away. In fact she stays surprisingly near to Gwen, although she is now fully alert and tense. Fei is speaking to Dan and -

He guards that blast. He doesn't send one back or strike or kick or -

- "Why isn't he fighting back... Ah!" Elly says when Fei's thrown back, when he sinks to a knee afterwards. She squeezes the handle of her bag tighter.

"Is he not taking him seriously...?! Come on, you have to fight back...!"

Elly raises her hand to bite into the flesh of her thumb to suppress an atavistic desire to -- to -- it passes when Kahm (Seis) emerges and takes Dan in hand, more or less. When the tension breaks before it can escalate further. Elly's shoulders slump and she looks down at the bench ahead of her.

THEN she whirls and heads towards the stairs, and from there, perhaps, the washrooms. 

<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Fei hears it.

He hears Elly shouting that he has to fight. He realizes, in this moment, it's not really true that he could never hit Dan. He could. He just needs proper motivation. Understanding that fact shocks Fei to his very core. He looks down at his hands. If all it takes is proper motivation. Was that masked man correct? He's waffled on his feelings here but the part that always feels true is--

It was you

Fei's a bit dizzy right now from being chi blasted like that but he can distinctly hear Neriah shouting at him. Walk away! Good idea in a sense. Fei stands himself up and looks towards Dan. Before Fei can do much else, but that's when Lunata hops onto the field and starts lecturing Dan. Then Seis joins in. He says, "I'm not trying to do anything," simply. Elly has whirled off. Should he have fought back? Does Seis have kids? He sounds like someone who has kids. He feels guilty for trying to punch his face in just over taunts.

"Sorry." He adds. "I can't make it better. I can't take it back. That's what makes it awful." 

<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.

Fei gets blasted back as the child delivers a surprising attack of his own. Elly, despite Gwen's answer, stays close, looking into the crowds to see what could be the reason for Elly's hesitation. That's when she sees-

Nothing, actually, because it'd be impossible to know just where Elly is looking. But what Gwen *does* see is something that makes her anxious: the slicked back blue hair of Janus Cascade, as he shoulders his way down to the railing. "Oh Guardians, please, that's not a good thing at all..."

Which, without context, may sound like disagreement to Elly's statements.

Then Elly leaves. Probably to maybe go intervene, or flee. It's hard to tell.

Gwen's just trying to keep her eyes on the tiny Janus in the distance leaving a trail of shifting spectators behind him.

So she begins doing the same, and since she isn't Janus, her descent is... much less relaxed. "Uh, sorry, pardon me, excuse me, coming through- oops, really sorry about steppin' on your foot there, yeah this is really rude of me, sorry-"

She gets there, eventually, wilting against the railing. ... maybe he'll just stay there. 

<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.

Fei gets blasted back as the child delivers a surprising attack of his own. Elly, despite Gwen's answer, stays close, looking into the crowds to see what could be the reason for Elly's hesitation. That's when she sees-

Nothing, actually, because it'd be impossible to know just where Elly is looking. But what Gwen *does* see is something that makes her anxious: the slicked back blue hair of Janus Cascade, as he shoulders his way down to the railing. "Oh Guardians, please, that's not a good thing at all..."

Which, without context, may sound like disagreement to Elly's statements.

Then Elly leaves. Probably to maybe go intervene, or flee. It's hard to tell.

Gwen's just trying to keep her eyes on the tiny Janus in the distance leaving a trail of shifting spectators behind him.

So she begins doing the same, making her way straight down to the railing, where she'd have an easier time intervening if... something happens. And, since she isn't Janus, her descent is... much less relaxed. "Uh, sorry, pardon me, excuse me, coming through- oops, really sorry about steppin' on your foot there, yeah this is really rude of me, sorry-"

She gets there, eventually, wilting against the railing. ... maybe he'll just stay there. 

<Pose Tracker> Neriah Parringer has posed.

Gripping the barricade between audience and arena, Neriah leans over it a little more deeply, only to swat away a few audience members trying to pull her back.

With Fei seemingly paralyzed from Neriah's perspective, the girl tilts forward and tumbles over the barricade. She lands on one knee with a wince before starting forward and boosting herself up onto the tournament ground. "So what's clearing the air to you, huh?" she calls across the tournament floor, her voice carrying a chord of indignation to it. "You're not gonna stand there and talk bad about him anymore! All you're doing is trying to shame this guy. You think he hasn't beaten himself up enough, huh? If you paid even the smallest amount of attention you'd see he's not the person you're making him out to be!"

Unlike Lunata, Neriah's not a competitor in the tournament. In fact, even her jaunt through the exhibition match was embarrassing and was practically missed by history considering she was overshadowed by White Knight Leo at the time. There are probably a couple of guards hustling through the audience to try and catch her, though there seems to be some confusion given that she did come out of the seats reserved for the competitors.

Eventually someone in authority seems to decide that she is, based on where she was sitting, Fastred Furlong who has suddenly changed into a 17-year-old girl. 

<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.

Lunata's gut wrenches a little, even as she's supported by others dropping down next to Fei to come to his aid. Neriah, and Shalune, and Big Shal as well.

There's a faint, trembling sigh from her as she -- actually does sympathise with Dan; she feels like she could've been there, if something just turned around the corner ever which way when Adlehyde hit. And he's too angry right now to talk reason to. But... at the same time, she's certain the Black Ties won't be a good influence on him.

She frowns at Seis, masked as he is at present, and says, "... I can't agree with what you've done, but--"

She looks up towards the announcers and exclaims, with surprising boldness, "Call it off already! Is this the kind of thing Lacour wants to sponsor?! You should be ashamed of yourselves!"

There's a look of pity towards the boy as she turns to assist Fei, deciding that caution is the better part of valour -- it's best to just get Fei somewhere where he won't be berated by what he must perceive to be hundreds of people. Get him to a safe space.

Get him back to the Yggdrasil.

She thinks about summoning Ge Ramda, but... it wouldn't be a good move right now. A spectral claw isn't comfortable. "Shalune, Neriah, can you help me get Mister Fei up to Big Shal? Let's-- get him out of here..." she nods towards Neriah and begins helping the wounded martial artist up by one shoulder. 

<Pose Tracker> Shalune Amira has posed.

Shalune might look a little bizarre, here. She is a short pink-haired girl in comfortably thick clothing and a bobble hat, but she is also perched on some scaffolding welded to the back of a twelve foot golem that looks battered and beaten up but moves quite smoothly as it jumps down from the stands with what appears to be rather sure footing. Fortunately, it doesn't smush anyone, instead landing close by to Fei and Lunata in what would be a neutral position for something that wasn't twice the size of most people.

At least it doesn't really look threatening - if anything it looks quite the opposite, all rounded corners and a simple face; rather than move any further it just sort of sits there as Shalune huffs from on top of it, leant over the golem's shoulder. "Even if you're mad at Fei, isn't that too much?" she whines down at Seis and Dan both, pumping her hands. "I mean, you've probably got every right to be mad at Fei, but he's plenty mad at himself and then some! I mean, he's really sad about it!"

shalune maybe this is not helping per se

She relents, though, when Seis both looks unruffled and indeed offers to take responsibility; not quite sure how to deal with that response, she bites at her lip uncertainly and shrinks back, glancing towards the waitress for a moment to gauge her reaction. "S-sure..." she mumbles after a moment, scratching at her cheek uncertainly as she looks between Seis and Lunata. Immediately afterwards, she begins to hop quickly down from the set of steps on the back of the golem, as the thing itself turns to lay both its palms out to accept Fei. "--if you want to say somethin' to them, you can use Big Shal," she offers towards the quiet man as she takes Fei's other arm, shouldering some of his weight without complaint. "Just-- quickly, yeah?" 

<Pose Tracker> Seis Thurule has posed.


Seis quirks his head at Neriah's outburst, "There is far more to this than the shaming of one man, as you shall learn."

With Shalune's offer, Seis climbs up the top of golem, addressing the audience with enough forcefulness to apparently be heard (which was interesting in it's own right). His voice is raised, and he gestures widely to guide the crowd as he speaks, "In truth, this child is my ward. I came here to settle the grievance he has with this man, but in deference the spirit of the tournament, it shall be pursued no further within these walls." Seis said. This in and of it self would seem to be enough.

"However..." He adds, "Before you condemn our actions, I ask you to consider: Why was this allowed to take place at all? Why was this man.." He gestures at Fei, "Who freely admits to his crime, intentional or not, welcomed and accepted into Lacour's sporting graces. Why is it that the members of Althena's Guard, who brought the plague of malevolence to this continent, who weakened Adlehyde and now control it under claims of beneficence, enjoy seats of honor and celebration at a tournament held to benefit the country they helped bring down?"

He lets these questions hang in the air for a thematically appropriate period of time.

"'Shame' is the right word. Shame upon the Kingdom of Lacour."

While Seis provides this impromptu speech, Dan fixes Fei with his gaze and frown. He can't fight anymore, but that doesn't mean he can't still hurt him. "Here, take it." He says, throwing a gossamer slip of fabric over the fallen fighter, slight but beautiful in it's workmanship. Alice's wedding dress, which she never got to wear.

"Hold on to that forever, Fei." Dan says, giving him one last, hateful look before he finally obeys Seis's commander, "Don't you ever forget."

Just in time, Seis steps down from his platform. Fei warrants a glance and a moment of hesitation for words unsaid, but the visored man decides to let it be.

He had said enough for one day.

The announcers apparently have gotten the hint, and begin sending staff out to clean things up, and otherwise...do damage control. 

<Pose Tracker> Seis Thurule has posed.

"Oh, and thank you for the lift." Seis offers to Shalune, by way of leaving. 

<Pose Tracker> Shalune Amira has posed.

Shalune immediately stiffens in shame, swallowing fiercely. When Seis said 'take responsibility', that wasn't exactly the speech she was expecting compared to, you know, an apology - and she jolts forward halfway through it as if to try to yell past it. "Ah-- ah-- wait, what--" she blurts afterwards, eyes wide and a little horrified and a little speechless. 

<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Why the fuck are people taking his side, Fei wonders, he murdered this guy's sister on her wedding day. Maybe he should have punched Dan so they would have liked him more? He didn't really think about that until just now and now it's too late to punch Dan. Is that what he should have done? Trying to be a better man is harder than it sounds if it means punching children. On the one hand he's grateful Seis seems to have a perspective he understands more, but on the other hand--it's become apparent that this was his plan--to use him to shame Lacour. All the taunts, everything--it was all for that. He was just a pawn--his feelings were just a pawn--for him to use to strike at Lacour, to strike at Althena's Guard. He isn't exactly a fan of the latter, but he doesn't think the Guard would have played him like that at the very least. They were very up front about their cruelty. This strike slid between the ribs.

FEI PSYCHO 50

Fei grips his fist tightly. There's a faint flicker of red--

FWUMP. A wedding dress is thrown into his face. The energy fades as quickly as it appeared.

Fei holds the dress out in front of him. He stares at it. On her wedding day, Fei. On her wedding day. Alice was one of his closest friends six months ago. But now? Now he has only a general idea of what her face is. Timothy's face is getting fuzzy.

"I don't have anything to say." Fei says. He's being supported by Neriah and Shalune but he doesn't want to leave by giant robot. The last thing he wants to see right now is giant robot.

"Thanks," He says. "But I better walk." He looks towards Lunata in particular. This might be in your future, Lunata, but he has already said he'd trust her resolve. so he doesn't say anything. He trusts Lunata understands. No, it's for the best that Dan's not a killer. He should be grateful they stopped him for his sake.

He starts walking out, carefully wrapping the wedding dress as he goes. If that's his punishment, he'll take it. The guards don't seem particularly inclined to stop him in spite of Seis's speech. It's not because they neccessarily disagree, it's far more primal than that.

It's fear. 

<Pose Tracker> Janus Cascade has posed.

Janus....cracks up laughing at Seis' speech, standing up and shoving his hands in his pockets. "What a crock of shit," he laughs, shaking his head as he turns on his heels...

But he still glances over his shoulder one last time, burning the image of Lunata, Shalune, and the fallen Fei; Dan, childlike and petty but looming triumphant over a man battered into defeat by pure emotional stress, into his memory. "That, though..." he mutters, and his lip curls up a hair. He reaches into his pocket and produces a golden pocketwatch on a beautiful chain, clicking it open to examine the time. Whatever he gets out of the process, he doesn't look for long, tucking it away again soon with that grin firm on his face; sweeping away from Gwen as he sidles toward the stairs. 

<Pose Tracker> Ambrosius has posed.

Ambrosius has seen everything he needed to see. The movement of that large thing in the trench coat confirmed his suspicions in that matter, and as for the fight...

Well, that had taken some interesting turns, as well.

Very interesting.

He would stow it away, for now.

Quietly, he disappears from the stands. The question that remained to him now...

Which end to follow up on first? 

<Pose Tracker> Neriah Parringer has posed.

For a moment, more dark thoughts of ending the situation float through Neriah's mind. She buries them and fixes Seis with a bleak scowl, but she nevertheless stands back, curling her right hand near her hip - but she doesn't do anything with it. There's an incredible temptation to begin to draw power but she resists it for now.

Seis gives a speech that goes into a different place than she expected - at least, it's left the topic of Just Plain Fei.

World politics is a little above Neriah's pay grade, so concerned is she with her own struggles and the fate of those few who seem to think of her as a friend. She frowns. "Mr. Leo wouldn't do that," she begins to protest, but it's more quietly, and her next sentence trails off before it starts.

The boy throws the wedding dress and Neriah clenches her right hand, setting her jaw and scowling a bleak, angry scowl. "Little brat," she mutters to herself, but she forces herself to let it lie. Instead she circles towards Fei, moving to stand by him and help Lunata keep him on his feet. As Fei chooses to leave under his own power, she nods, moving along with him. Anger gives way to a simple, quiet sympathy as she looks up at him.

"Hey," she says, her voice quiet. "You're a good guy and don't let anyone tell you otherwise, okay...?" 

<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.

Lunata bites her lip, and doesn't let that go -- she responds with firmness, "Mister Fei is only here because of me! He's only here because I entered the tournament myself, to look after me and make sure I'm okay! And that much -- that much you shouldn't blame him for. If anyone, you should blame me."

There's no point in having a prolonged squabble any more, though -- the wedding dress getting thrown in Fei's direction makes her wince just a little. Such grudges... are deeply unhealthy.

She turns her head painedly to Fei as he stands and walks away. Her future... it might be her future too. Contracted onto a power she scarce understands. She'd be lucky if it just burns her life out and just hers, without anyone else's.

She shakes her head with another huff, sounding frustrated in her own way. "L-Lunie, let's just-- go. Let's go." 

<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

In the washroom, Elly feels gray and drained, hearing noises outside. She could hear the thin distant timbre of the Captain's voice. Machinery moving. But it doesn't sound like a panic. There's not a riot. There are calls and cries but the crowd isn't all whipped into a single froth.

I guess I failed, Elly thinks. She leans against the wooden plank whose purpose is opaque to her. She stares downwards.

But why do I feel happy about it? Elly thinks.

She washes her mouth out in the pump and basin, and her hands, and ends up splashing water all over her face and cooling off her neck and wetting much of her hair before someone else comes in, startling Elly and sending her back out. 

<Pose Tracker> Shalune Amira has posed.

Shalune is looking somewhere between chastened and upset; she's obviously feeling like her kindness has been rebuked in some fashion by the unexpected and impromptu speech, and it's compounded b the way in which Fei stalks out of the arena on his own. She doesn't know what to do with this sort of emotion, and it shows in the way she's fidgeting in fits and starts, trying to let the energy out but not even vaguely sure in what direction to send it.

"R-Right..." she mutters across at Lunata, her head bowed a little as she bites at her lip; the way in which she clambers back up onto the golem is certainly subdued--

--but softened slightly when the golem takes the opportunity to nudge the back of Lunata's knees, sending her offbalance and back into its grasp in what might - if you were charitable enough to attribute gestures of kindness to an unfeeling machine that used to hammer in nuts and bolts, which is obviously ridiculous - be an attempt to distract her away from her worries. 

<Pose Tracker> Kahm Yugh has posed.

LATER

The visor, the ridiculous vest, and the pants that had been worn by Seis Thurule were all unceremoniously discarded in a nearby wastebin.

That was one alias Kahm E. Yugh would not miss. Dressed in a different set of plainclothes, the Captain rounds a corner and sends Elly a missive through the usual means of incredibly sophisticated Solaris pager.

'No need to stay in Lacour. Reconvene at HQ. Much to discuss.' 

<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

But that wasn't quite right, Fei thinks. Part of me just wanted to hit people. He will feel bad about the treatment Lunata and Shalune took later but right now--

--Right now he's heading straight for the bar. This is a 'get wasted' day if it ever was one.

"I'm an idiot," Fei says. "I fell right into this trap. I was used. Lahan was used for this."

He is quiet for a moment before adding, "I'm going to get wasted."

He's bringing the wedding dress with him.

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