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(wait a minute, Akari hit one with a throwing knife, and Sissmuth immobilized the other... are there two more bandits?)

(( ...

I'm so stupid I can't even read the posts right. I'll go re-do mine. Sorry :<

))

As Anayu was pulled away by Sissmuth and her two guards were immobilized, the mare called out another command for the wind.

"Aman'Arath Nem!"
And her spell ceased as she unstrapped her battlemace - a large, normally two-handed mace that she dual-wielded alongside her blade. She spoke again, her voice still booming through Cyrus' wind.
"You have guts standing up to a Windwalker, boy," she began, "but do you really believe that you stand a change against me? Hah! The heads of you and your comrades shall earn me a nice sum of drops."
Even though Sissmuth and Anayu both were some paces away, the dhole heard the words of this "Windwalker" very clearly - and she understood that a bounty had been put on their group. An unexpected movement by her wounded leg had her yelping in painful surprise.

Back in the heat of battle, the mare stood still for a moment, observing the young wolf.
"Shall we begin, then?" she asked mockingly. "I trust you are a gentleman, so... ladies first, eh?"
With that, she charged. And it was quite the charge - and why she called herself a Windwalker became quite clear as she practically flew toward the wolf, bringing the mace down toward him.

Meanwhile, Anayu had to take a rest so that she could examine her wound. It bled, but it didn't seem serious.
"I'll stay here, Sissmuth. Thank you..." she began, gasping as she began unwrapping the bandages around her chest. As they were coming off, black marks on the side of her chest revealed were revealed. They seemed to be forming a pattern, but they disappeared under further bandages.
She tied the remaining ones tightly - revealing more fur would have to be a worry of hers later. She just hoped she wouldn't find herself half-naked in the middle of Desdon.
Tying the bandaids she took off around the wound, she spoke.
"Nngh... go help the others - I'll be fine on my own."

(It's fine, Lux. We all make mistakes. ^^)

Akari wondered momentarily just what a Windwalker was, but hearing something about a price on his head gave him the general idea. He couldn't dwell on it once the Windwalker sprinted with astounding speed towards him and swung a massive mace at him. He managed to jump to the left and out of the way just in time for the mace to hit the ground where he was standing a moment ago. The mace seemed to have been lodged into the ground. Seeing that, Akari immediately doubted that his swords would be very useful in blocking it. Trying his best to recover from the shock of how suddenly this happened, he swung both his swords at her back, hoping that dislodging a heavy mace from the ground with one hand would take more effort than swinging one, therefore giving him an ample chance to land a decent blow.

The mare roared vigorously as she was unlodging the mace from the ground and Akari's sword hit her back, cutting through fur and skin. Blood was seeping out of the wounds, but the weapons didn't go in deep.
"Aran'Thul Hex Maxima!" she called out, her ring's gemstone flashing brightly green as a powerful gust of wind engulfed her before it condensed, releasing itself as a powerful shockwave around her. The force of it bent some of the closest trees dangerously close to destruction. The gemstone's energy had been lowered quite a bit by this technique; its sapphire colour seemed to be dying for every spell used, turning more and more gray.

The Windwalker dislodged the mace and turned toward Akari.
"I see I underestimated your abilities," she began. As she spoke, a click was heard from one of the trees in the proximity that hadn't been affected by the mare's spell.
"But I will not do so again."

She thrusted her sword deep into the ground and took her mace into both hands. Her wounds were still bleeding, but apart from the mare's teeth occasionally gritting in pain, she seemed to be handling it quite well.

But suddenly she found herself dodging a huge sword that came flying from behind Akari on his right side. The blade glanced her arm before lodging itself into a tree.
"Oi, sorreh I'd run off. Bessnes, y'see?" a familiar voice spoke behind Akari.

Sissmuth had deposited Anayu on the edge of the fight. Turning around, he saw that the sandstorm had subsided and had been reduced to a violent windstorm. He nodded solemnly down at her, then returned back to the fight. His eyes fluttered open, and he hurried his pace towards the mare, but didn't get far before a condensed wall of wind exploded out from her, throwing Sissmuth back and slamming him painfully into a tree. Slightly dazed, he shook his head and growled deeply. When he tried to move, he was pulled back, however, and saw that his crest was embedded deep into the wood. Feeling a little deflated, he slumped over, still suspended in the tree, and crossed his arms. "Ssslovak ignaeuss ssivion," he muttered disdainfully.

Finally up in the branches after almost being thrown off by a massive wave of wind, Rusty got into a primal position to keep his balance against the large branch he had found and the trunk of the tree. He gazed around at the surrounding canopy hoping to see the sniper's whereabouts but he cursed a little to himself when he noticed that the leaves and branches didn't do much to limit the amount of dust that was flying up here. Still, he persisted, waiting for something to happen that would give this guy away.

Sure enough, the wind gave him a chance. The arguing winds where pulsing between going for each other's necks and being calmer than so where the dust and winds thinned a bit, before being fueled by magic and resuming their argument. The timing couldn't have been more perfect because Rusty saw a small shower of sparkling objects fall from a tree not too far from his tree. Rusty assumed those objects he saw were bullet casings, so it was likely his target would be there too.

Rusty figured that, if done correctly, his safest route was through the canopy of the trees. Luckily for him, the trees grew big enough and close enough to each other to make such a maneuver possible. He needed nothing else to convince him; Rusty took the path.

Carefully he made his way through the canopy, inching to the ends of each branch so that he could grab the next one and pull himself onto it, using his dagger whenever he needed as an extra handhold to keep his balance.

He hugged onto the latest trunk and peered around its side for the next branch that would be worthy enough to hold his build. As he looked farther around, he spotted the sniper, a scruffy coyote in jeans and a shirt to match. He was perched on a small metal platform just slightly lower on the next tree from where Rusty was.

Rusty reared back behind the trunk and took a sigh. The he readied his dagger in his right hand and, after timing with the wind, quickly stepped onto the branches around the trunk of the tree to the other side, and then he leaped, sending a flame dart towards the sniper.

The dart hit the rifle scope near the eyepiece and sparked into embers. The coyote shied away growl and began to rub his eyes to clear them. But then his platform sank a bit with the front branch as extra weight was placed on it. Fumbling with his rifle, the coyote grabbed the branch underneath him to keep from falling. Then a large blunt object struck him in the chest, knocking him onto his back but still on the branch.

Rusty regained his balance and recovered after sending a kick. He grinned as his eyes met the coyote’s. Keeping the gaze, Rusty brought his dagger close to him and touched the flat side of it with his left hand, and it glowed a bit with an orange hue. Suddenly, the oil coating on the dagger ignited and the whole blade was engulfed in flames.
Rusty flicked it to the side then pointed the tip of it at the sniper. He charged forward as best he could on the branches, letting out a yell.

Still fumbling for his belongings, the coyote grasped his rifle but it was ripped out of his hands by another kick before he could reload it and it fell to the forest floor. He reared up to try and fight back but he kept wincing as the dagger blade crossed in front of him.

A gust of wind suddenly flew by from the other battle and both branch combatants were losing their balance. In a last attempt to keep his balance, or not too… Rusty grabbed the coyote’s shirt and pushed himself onto him, and both of them fell out of the canopy, the coyote under Rusty. They disappeared onto the thick brush at the base of the trees.

(Hey Lux, I've been thinking that the one post for the entire fight might throw off the whole fung-shuei of the RP. But, for now, we can go off what we'd planned so far. Plus, we can give room for Sirus, Rusty, and/or Sissmuth to potentially intervene.)

Akari was knocked back, but not completely off-balance from the burst of wind. He kept eye contact with the mare, hoping his piercing, blue eyes could intimidate her at least a little bit as he got his swords in a different ready-position. He bared his teeth at her comment at how she underestimated him, and bent his knees to the point where it looked as if he were to pounce on her.

Suddenly, a large sword wooshed by him, grazing the arm of the mare just before it became stuck in a tree. He looked behind him for a moment, just long enough to see the waller, Tob, behind him, saying some relatively non-sequitor remark about having business he needed to do.

"Thanks, Tob," Akari managed to say, turning his head back around to get ready for the mare's second attack.

(before/during Rusty’s post)
The sandstorm was wearing off, thanks to the disorienting mess of a windstorm created by the mace-weilding mare. Their cover was disappearing, and fast. Hearing the crack of a gunshot, Cyrus ducked behind the rock he was passing. As he quickly poked his head around the rock he caught sight of the culprit, knelt in a treetop, shaking his head in frustration and cocking his rifle for another shot toward where Rusty had been. Cyrus’s chest dropped- Akari was in the open! In a matter of seconds the dust would no longer be a problem for the sniper, and the courageous, if not stupid, swordsman would be as good as dead.

The reality of this possibility echoed in Cyrus’s brain. Dead, no more, an empty, bloody, cold thing.
As if he had become a different person, Cyrus suddenly gained the ability to push his fears completely aside, like when he was training back in Asper. He accessed his crystal.

Due to his training, his mind reacted to the situation immediately and appropriately: Singular distant threat? Disarm him. Standing, he placed his palms together and conjured a concentrated wind orb, focusing a strong amount of energy into it: it would be traveling far through the air, and through conflicting winds. However, just as he was about to hurl his gust-bomb toward the sniper's tree, he saw an orange flash of light crack between its leaves. But there was no boom of a gun, just some sort of battle cry from an invisible Rusty. The treetop rustled as Cyrus saw the sneaky fox leap onto the sniper, his dagger aflame. Nice... Well, he has that handled!

Cyrus let the blast-orb dissipate, absorbing as much of the magical energy back into his crystal. He turned to face Akari in the field nearby.

(after Rusty's post)
The mare wailed at Akari with her mace, and Cyrus witnessed Sissmuth being shoved away by a wall of air. Cyrus couldn’t help but be impressed, but he knew the mare’s fault in her technique. Her magical energy had to be low by this point, unless she had spent her whole life practicing and conditioning herself strictly for magic. Apparantly this was not the case, given the fact she was wielding a mace proficiently and wasn’t relying on her spells to take out Akari. No truly deadly mage would waste their energy swinging around a heavy, unwieldy weapon when they didn’t have to, and while a magic-proficient fighter presents a versatile force to be reckoned with, they can’t use their magic for very long.

The mare’s face looked tired, she was breathing heavily. She had to be, summoning huge windstorms and microbursts left and right. Cyrus decided to amplify this…
Would she fall for it? She looked pretty distracted, so she probably would. Cyrus knew he couldn’t take her in hand to hand combat, but decided his idea was worth a shot.

Cyrus sprinted out of the foliage, his white robe fluttering in the wind as he charged down the road toward the mare. He drew his swords, yelling at the top of his lungs as he raised his blades to an attacking height, “Bring it on bucktooth!”

The mare jumped back from Akari and the waller, unaffected by the petty insult. Running back out of range of Akari’s swords, she conjured another blast… “Arak-thraughst!” she bellowed as she quickly shot an orb of air from her mace, flying right toward Cyrus, hitting him square in… his trap.

The swords were up for a reason: Cyrus had generated a redirecting, circling current between them, having no intention of using the swords themselves. When he enemy’s orb was in range, he shot a surge of energy into the wind shield, causing the orb to reflect right back toward the mare.
Shocked, she dodged her own shot as it flew by her ducking head. She was quick, but it was still all the time Akari needed to gain the advantage. The wolf swung his swords at her, getting closer to contact with each of the mare’s now clumsy parries.

Cyrus didn’t relent, immediately dropping his swords and dissipating the air-shield with them. He began hurling small bursts of air from his palms, draining a great deal of energy from his crystal. However, as the mare deflected each ball with her own little gusts, her crystal grew dimmer and dimmer.

After about 6 shots, Cyrus now conjured a stronger gust between his hands and sent it toward the foe. She struggled to push it away, apparently drawing from a great deal of her own energy now in exchange for not being knocked down. But it was exactly what Cyrus wanted. He backed up a few paces, leaving Akari to his business with the exhausted bandit as he picked up his swords.

(( I came to the same conclusion, Swords! ^^ ))


After Cyrus joined the battle, things went downhill for the mare. At first, she had conserved her energy with the intention of fighting the wolf only, but she had indeed forgotten about the other Wind-user.
After expending so much energy in her knockbacks and wasting unnecessary energy against the raccoon, she found herself on her left knee, supporting herself with the mace. The wounds from her back were still bleeding, weakening her even further.

Tob decided it was somewhat safe to approach the scene a bit more. "'S a good job ye'd did." he said, clearly impressed by Cyrus' performance. He then looked toward the lizard who were lodged in a tree and made his way to him.

The mare lowered her head slightly as she tried to catch her breath. She felt she still had enough energy to Windwalk - after all, it was her one technique that required little enough energy for her to safely use with a drained gemstone. Then again, even though the Raccoon did seem to have expended a great deal of his own power, he could probably intervene if she fled.
"Nggh... Very well...." she began, letting out a cough. "I concede defeat."
Her voice was hoarse now - perhaps Cyrus' plan had worked a bit too well.

Anayu appeared from behind a (rather worn) tree, limping and supporting herself with her staff. Her injured leg was bandaged fairly crudely and they were clearly the same bandages she wore around her chest, because there was now few left of those. Different from her otherwise mixture of red and white fur colour, there were some black lines forming patterns that had been covered before.

She kept a good distance from the kneeling mare.

Akari stepped up directly in front of the mare, still holding his swords. Upon hearing her proclaim defeat, he nodded. "Then so be it. You fought well," he said simply, tapping his sword to her shoulder a couple times, and then got out a cloth to clean off the blades.

He surveyed the area. The bandit he threw his knife at was clearly dead, and the other was still standing, but appeared unable to move. Sissmuth was stuck in a tree, probably due to one of the wind blasts the mare had created, Cyrus was panting a little, probably from the energy that he used up to basically save him with his air abilities, but seemed otherwise all right, and Anayu appeared all right, despite her injury, and was using her staff as a crutch. Rusty, however, was nowhere to be seen.

"Where's Rusty?" he asked, wiping the blood off his blades.

[Insert this in right before the end of sword's post]

With a snide roar, Sissmuth pulled himself of the tree, plates of bark still attached to his crest. Though a bit disappointed he didn't get his fair share in the fight as the others, he was glad he didn't have to squander any of his magic in a mere fight with someone who just happen to be in the way. Huffing loudly as he swooped down to pick up his staff again, he joined the others, slitted eyes narrowed down at the defeated mare. "Why do you attack us?" he growled. "We may not be of the same species, but we're still of like races."

"I'm a bounty hunter," she replied simply. "My allegiance lies with those who pay me more."

Dishonorable welch, thought Sissmuth. "And who might that be?"

The mare grunted at him, nostril flaring. "I don't have to tell you anything."

Sissmuth uttered a word and right then, a stalagmite needled up from the ground, angling itself directly at the mare. It shot out with alarming speed, stopping just short of her throat. "Need I remind you who's on their knees at the moment? As you said, you're a bounty hunter and obviously hold no value to honor and pity, so thus you aren't entitled to be spared by it." The stalagmite rose higher from the ground, its sharp tip now just brushing against the mare's throat. Sissmuth repeated his question.

"T-The group of humans who passed by," the mare quickly replied, instantly loosing her battle-hardened character. "My band was ready to jump them... instead, they struck a deal with us. To get rid of the group of anthros that were following them. Q-Quite a hefty sum, they paid."

"Where did they go?"

The hesitated in her response and another stalagmite jutted up from the ground, also pointing directly at her throat. "They wouldn't say!" she shrieked. "What does it matter to me anyway? Just so long as I get paid!"

"Where were they headed?"

"To Desdon! This road doesn't lead anywhere else. They mentioned something about having difficulties in that town and that they couldn't have any more delays with their project. I swear, that's all I know!"

Sissmuth glared down at the mare. Upon making the decision that she was telling the truth, the two stalagmites slowly receded back into the earth. Sissmuth then stooped over and took a handful of dirt in his hands. "We can't afford any delays either."

And with that, the dirt balled around his fist, solidifying them into a hard ball of rock, which he swung across the mare's face. Her head snapped to the side before she slumped to the ground, unconscious.

Sissmuth turned Akari as his Rock Fist melted back to dirt and fell away. "Ssaman ssigier damass, ssa kilisser." [Fought well, my tailhole.] He studied their stunned expressions before grunting and returning to the back of the group, throwing his cloak behind him on the way.

Anayu's jaw dropped as she watched Sissmuth - the otherwise seemingly passive (borderline docile, in her opinion) - knock the mare unconscious, even after she had yielded to them and spilled the plans of her employers to the group.
She couldn't help but feel a bit bad about it, even though she knew she really shouldn't. After all, they were the ones to attack the group - not vice verse. And a small feeling of resentment toward that lizard had begun to build up in her as well; truly, she was grateful for his help earlier, but she began to find his presence to be more disturbing by the hour.

She took a few steps closer to the others - one individual in particular, notably - but did not make it far. A sharp pain shot through her injured leg, causing her to yelp, stumble and eventually losing her balance, falling over.
Without the proper equipment there was no way she could have the bullet removed safely.

"This is no good, guys... We got to reach Desdon." she said through gritted teeth.
"Should be a two-hour walk from here..."

Tob interrupted before she had the opportunity to speak more.
"An' I'll be 'andlin' dis on' sah ye can jes' get goin'." he said, almost proudly, starting to tie the mare's arms and legs together. "Me mates will pick 'er up latar."
Anayu couldn't help but wanting to bury the thing alive; he couldn't possibly be thinking he had any credit to claim! It was Akari and Cyrus' combined effort! At least - that was what she could gather of the few seconds of fighting she did get to witness.

She began rising up again, brushing grass off her face as she did. Clumsy as it looked, at least she had an improvised crutch to support her.

Rusty was on the lying on a bed of broken branches, leaves, and dirt next to the sniper. He was bleeding from cuts, gifts from the bushes when he and the coyote fell through. They weren't bad, but they stung. The coyote faced worst being the first one to go through under Rusty, but the landing wasn't too hard. It definitely could have been much harder, at least, from Rusty's point of view. There was no telling how it was for the coyote, but considering that the coyote still wanted to fight once he realized where he was, it wasn't hard enough.

The coyote wildly started flinging his hands at Rusty. The poor position he was in didn't allow for too much strength, so Rusty took the beating, swiftly rolled on top of the sniper. As he did, he could see where his faintly lit dagger landed. Lucky for him, it was within arms reach, so he locked the coyote's left arm with him own, reached across with to the left with his right arm, and backhanded the coyote when he grasped the dagger. He held the dagger point above him at the coyote, ready to retaliate if he had tried something but the coyote wasn't moving being knocked-out from the blow.

Seeing that it was safe, Rusty slowly rose to his feet, turned around, and started making his way out of the tall bushes.
He came upon the group but didn't take notice of anyone person in particular. As he walked, his vision clouded. He leaned onto a nearby tree, feeling slightly ill. The realization of what had just happened had finally got to Rusty.