Swift eyed him for a moment, her expression unchanging.  Then she shrugged and turned away.
"Suit yourself" she replied quietly before heading back to where she had been sitting before.


OOC: Well, she tried :)

As Swift Fox moved back to her own place, Ferret glanced at her and said, tone neutral:

"See what I mean, about his being completely insufferable?"

"Doesn't mean we have to kill him" replied Swift with another shrug.

"Was tempted to when he called me Snake's minion though" she added, with a wry grin in Lobster's direction.


OOC: I'll leave it up to the others to decide whether she actually meant that, or if her morbid sense of humour has resurfaced ;)

Water Hornet appeared at Frost Ferret's side. He was clearly shaken by the previous assault on their eardrums; what was more important, though, was the fact that he was holding his dagger in his right hand. Clearly a reaction to Fall Lobster becoming free.

He slowly tucked the dagger back to his belt, his movements ostentatiously slow, leaving the hand on the hilt.

"Are you physically hurt?" he asked Fall Lobster simply.

Lobster shrugged, now that he no longer needed his hands to stay up managing to put incredibly dismissiveness into it, and then answered:

"Do I look physically hurt to you?"

He turned slowly to show himself in full, and he didn't seemed to have any big wound on him - although there were a number of scratches resulting from his break through the tree branches - before eventually saying, glaring at Hornet as he tapped a finger to his skull:

"But I do believe that if anything was broken, it would be here. Why, are you planning to crack it open and check for yourself?"

Nice to have you back, Hornet! Did you miss interacting with Lobster? ;P

OOC: And it's nice to be back! :)
Regarding talking with Fall Lobster, 'missed' isn't the word I would use :-D

Hornet exhaled audibly, but responded curtly: "No."

He turned to Rain Feather, his facial expression unreadable: "Are you hurt?"

"Go sit over there, stretch your legs and arms, and enjoy the comforts you did not have previously" Fox said pointing to a corner "And move from the corner at your own peril. That's the good behaviour I'm seeking" He said with a snarl

He would look to Hornet and smile

"Physically I think Rain is fine, but mentally after that exertion....." He said trailing off and looking to her. "You need to rest" He said to her softly

Hornet seemed surprised by the lightness with which Sabre dismissed Fall Lobster's release from his previous bonds. But his main focused was drawn to Rain Feather, for the moment.

"Well, yes, I assume it must've been...very demanding, indeed," he agreed hesitantly, watching the Magnakai Lady carefully, as if she was hidden behind some kind of fictitious curtain, which Hornet was trying to penetrate with his gaze alone.

"It's useless for you to keep fishing, she's not gonna answer your questions. It's better to leave you doubting an ambiguous situation than to provide you with extra information, don't you know? That way, it's you who'll come across as the madman spouting baseless accusation. I would know."

The tone Lobster adressed Hornet with was dismissive and condescending, but he also had a smug smirk on his lips - clearly enjoying this chance to put down the other Kai.

"Your doing more talking, and not enough getting into that corner as I just told you" Fox said, shooting Lobster a look. "Now get over there right now and then bleat all you want"

"Or else, what? Are you going to cut me open and thus break your word?"

He scoffed, then turned his back to Sabre Fox and added, even as he headed toward a corner of the hold as he'd been said to do:

"You know, by acting this way, you just prove I hit a nerve - if I was wrong, you wouldn't need to defend your little girlfriend, she'd say something herself to prove her righteousness."

Say, is anybody willing to guess why Lobster got the "Fall" moniker? What do you all think it represents?

"I'm fine... really.  Besides... we don't have time for me to rest.  There'll be time for a Kai to rest after they've done what they need to... just let me get up and get some air.  I don't think there's much more I can do at the moment- the sword wants to kill him, and well... I have to keep it under control.

Though if he does decide to try anything, well... I can always let it happen."

Bracing the butt of Breakwater against the ground, she boosts herself to a standing position, waiting a second to regain her balance.

"Besides, it's not like he can say anything.  He just wants to try and play mind games and the like, is all.  It's just an artifact of the darkness inside him."

Sun Fox turned toward Rain Feather, surprise clearly etched on her face.

"Wait a moment. Are you saying that he's being such a pain just because of the dark power corrupting him? That's all the reason he has for being this self-destructingly antagonistic?"

Water Hornet ostentatiously overlooked Lobster's previous jab at him, but those Kai who knew him better could guess it took some effort on his part not to act defensively.

"If I may," he interjected, addressing Sun Fox, while his gaze was still on the fallen Kai, "it seems to me, that whatever Nadziranim did to Fall Lobster, the final effect was planting darkness into his soul that - perhaps as a side effect, or perhaps intentionally - multiplied all negative aspects of his personality." He narrowed his eyes and continued, this time clearly addressing Lobster as much as Sun Fox. "And for some reason, he believes the dark sorcerers'...gift...should be accepted, as if they cared about his well-being..."

"It's emphasizing his emotions- especially his darker ones- generally playing up his rivalry with Sun Snake, his joy at taunting us, pretty much all of it.  I mean... these might be some of his true feelings, but I don't think he was this bad before all this happened.  He's still there... but it's like this is an exaggerated version of him.  He's out of balance... hmmm..."

She started to think again, closing those glowing eyes.

"...maybe that's the approach we ought to be taking.  You might be onto something, you know..."

“And your being a good boy now doing as your told” Fox said with a wry grin before looking to Rain

“What are we into?” Fox asked “What’s your idea?”

Sun Snake briefly put his head through the door, looking at everyone but Fall Lobster. "We have five minutes - if that - until Shining Peacock comes aboard. I'm going to warn him to prepare for a shock, I'll leave it you you all whether it's Rain Feather or Fall Lobster that you put front and centre in the room to take his attention first. Let's not have him feel emotionally ambushed, especially if you are planning on emotionally ambushing him."

With that, Sun Snake disappeared again.

And on that note, everyone feel free to tell me if there's anything else you have left to do/discuss (if the answer is "no, nothing else", still make a post with it, either here or in the OOC thread), and once we've confirmed the team is ready to move forward, I'll close this thred and open a new one for the Endgame... we'll see if it's for real this time, or not.

"There may be another way" remarked Swift suddenly, "although it does depend on getting hold of an item Valador has, I'll have to wait and see if the Guildmaster can catch up to him."

She paused for a moment, looking as though she was going to add something else, but then shrugged and stood up.
"Well, we'll see what happens I suppose" she added, glancing at Silver Raven with a smile and turning to leave.


OOC: Nothing else to add, unless someone wants to talk to Swift for some reason.

Fox took a breath as he looked to Rain

"I guess its time. Are you ready?"

Pretty much ready to go

Water Hornet was looking at Rain Feather, clearly also intrigued by what was her idea regarding Fall Lobster, when Sun Snake made his announcement.

A shadow passed over young Magnakai's face briefly; he then prepared to leave the room, as he wanted to be on the deck when Shining Peacock would arrive. He gave Swift Fox a thoughtful look at her remark, but said nothing.

OOC: Ready to go. If possible, Hornet'd like to be among the welcoming committee when Peacock reaches the flying ship. :)

Swift will go along too, although will mostly just lurk in the background looking decidedly not-too-welcoming.

*gets popcorn in case Peacock calls Hornet a bug again and he just snaps...* ;)
This message was last edited by the player at 13:30, Fri 09 Nov 2018.

"...I'll keep the sword, with me.  If he senses me and the sword, and one of you has it, then he's going to know something is up.   So I'll keep it and when I'm needed, well... just let me know.  But be ready for anything- I don't know how off-balance this is all going to make him."

Rain draws a deep breath, before nodding.

"And if he starts lashing out, well... maybe it'll be the time for the student to finally knock the teacher on his rump.  I can promise you this, though... he'll have no control over me, and I'll try not to hurt him too much if I have to. Who knows?  Maybe we'll finally get some answers."

Sun Fox seemed worried at Rain Feather's declaration, but in the end she just nodded and said, sounding serious:

"Let's just hope no drastic measures will be necessary. As long as we're ready for anything, we should not have any trouble, right?"

So, with that, I think everybody is accounted for, right? I'll leave this thread open for now in case anybody has anything to add, but I'll be opening the new thread Saturday morning (that is, about 30 hours from now - it's Thursday night here where I am) no matter what, so everybody please be ready for that.

We're nearly at the finishing line! ^_^

"As you wish" Fox said simply, handing her the Korlinium Scabbard "If something drastic does happen though, I wont hesitate to stand before you"