Natural Selection

[Chrishton Radu]

The spirits around Chrishton became frantic once he'd dispatched the thug. At first he thought they were excited because of the action and the way he'd handled the thug without making enough noise to alert others, but no. That wasn't it.

"That's not it you fat idiot. Hurry."

Useless' voice piped up over the other spirits' bumbling. It could only mean that Cervantes was in immediate danger. Leave it to fate to have everything done in the last minute.

For all his not-entirely-false bravado, Chrishton's heart kicked up a notch. Adrenaline began coursing through his system, preparing his muscles for more frantic activity and spreading a tingling sensation through his chest. It was something he felt less and less often in recent years. Attack a random opponent in a building owned by one of the continent's most dangerous men? No problem. The asshole had it coming and Chrishton could take on a dozen more. Tell him that his son was waiting to meet him in the next room? That made him nervous.

What was he like? What did he look like? Would he recognize Chrishton when they met? What should he say? What were they doing to him?

Muffled footsteps thumped faster across the carpeted hallway as Chrishton began to run. Delaying was only making the anxiety worse. This was one task he would not forgive himself for if he failed.

Around another corner he saw a man standing guard in front of a closed door. Past the man and a few more meters of hallway was another door which, based on what he figured about the layout of the place, led straight to the tavern where Dorcas was waiting.

The man guarding the door was only slightly smaller than Chrishton, which meant that he was still sufficiently large to look imposing. Five long strides took Chrishton up beside the man who was, like the one before him, not expecting anyone to come barging in from the rear of the building. He got his hands up and started to throw a punch, but he was inexperienced. The punch was slow and predictable.

With only the slightest shift of his body weight, Chrishton twisted and caught the man's fully extended arm. A twist and a wrench pulled him off balance so that he was staggering forward. Chrishton's foot caught the front of his shin when he tried to step forward to keep from falling on his face, and as he came tumbling down another jerking motion pulled the arm out of its socket.

He yelled in pain before Chrishton could stomp on his side to prevent it. Barely loud enough to penetrate the door and the ambient noise coming from the tavern, it was sure to be heard by those in the room where Cervantes was presumably being held. Not that it mattered. Nor did it matter if they had the door locked.

It flew open to reveal an older man who had to be important based on the expression of startled offense he wore along with his impeccable suit, another of his bishan-a-dozen thugs who was armed with a pipe, and the dazed and bloodied form of a boy who looked almost nothing like his father, tied to a chair, squinting to see what was happening.

"Who do-" Sallinari's words jammed back into his throat, forced down by Chrishton's open palm. The old man hit the wall like a sack of grapes. It had been too long since his days on the front lines.

Salliniari's hired hand came at Chrishton with the pipe raised, full of bluster at the sight of his boss being beaten in front of him. He swung in a largely ineffectual manner and connected with Chrishton's arms, which were poised defensively and ready for the attack. This man, like the two before him, was finished before he could put up any more of a fight. Chrishton got in close, put an elbow to his exposed jaw, bent the arm that had been holding the pipe the wrong way with a distinct crunching sound and visible effort to make sure it was thoroughly broken, and threw him face first into the closest wall.

When it was over, Chrishton's only injury was a pair of nasty bruises on his forearms. Salliniari was still conscious and using the wall behind himself to get back to his feet. Outside someone shouted something in a that Eastern Eyropan dialect. Chrishton didn't care about any of it.

Father looked at son, searching his bloodied features for a hint of recognition both of himself in Cervantes, and for Cervantes to know who he was. There was neither. The boy was tall and thin. His skin was dark, just like his mother's. In his eyes Chrishton saw anger more than anything else. Anger and the glare of a hunter that promised ruthless vengeance for anyone who upset him. It was the kind of look that could only come with youth, but Chrishton knew very well how much a young man with something to prove could do. Something in those eyes unsettled him. They were not the eyes he expected to see.

For his own part, Chrishton was too enamored to look like anything but a buffoon who had somehow managed to beat the shit out of everyone around. His chest was rising and falling with heavy breaths, his hair was all over, and Cervantes didn't understand why this oaf was staring at him. Was he beaten so badly that his brain was exposed or something? What was he looking at?

He wanted to get out of his chair so he could rip Salliniari's throat out with his bare hands, but Salliniari was already on his feet and slipping out of the room while the big man just stood there. Cervantes finally spoke up, looking as though he would lash out at Chrishton for the delay. "Fucking untie me!"

The order was followed by another second of hesitation before Chrishton overcame his emotions enough to think of what to do next. He had to get them both out of there alive. That surely meant fighting their way out the closest exit, and keeping Cervantes from doing something stupid. Unfortunately Cervantes' edgyness suggested that he was going to do something other than run. He kept his eyes on Sallinari like the old man was a fox and he was the hound. Twisting his wrists behind his back in his chair while pulling his weight forward, the second Chrishton let him go he was going to lunge for it. Perhaps the only thing about the boy that Chrishton recognized from his own childhood was his hell-bent determination to get revenge.

Chrishton placed his large frame in Cervantes' line of sight, blocking the hunched figure that was crawling out the doorway, and reached out to hold Cervantes' jaw with one hand, fingers and thumb pressing in on his sweaty cheeks.

"Ferget 'im, okay? Make straight fer th'fuckin exit."

The order, and the way he was being held down, seemed to get through to Cervantes. He didn't snap back, and stopped his incessant struggling. There was something in the big guy's voice that was not just commanding, but scolding, that was foreign to him. It carried a lot of emotional weight behind it. Furthermore, now that he had a clearer view of his savior, he got the distinct impression that Chrishton could and would kick his ass. At least if he remained in his human form he would...

Chrishton grabbed the ropes with his hand and yanked. A plume of smoke that carried the smell of burning hemp with it rose from around his hand, and the rope gave way. Without it, Cervantes was up and on his feet immediately. Suddenly he didn't need or even want the big guy's help anymore. That meant he was free to do what he wanted to do, and that was to kill Salliniari outright.

He ran for the exit, leaving Chrishton to follow, and looked up and down the hallway for his target.

* * *

"The boy will probably live, but-" the doctor replied before being interrupted by a door across the tavern that flew open and bounced off the wall followed by an uncharacteristically desperate looking Salliniari. His nose was smeared with blood and his first move was to look for the nearest men he could see. They stumbled over eachother to get to him immediately.

"The boy!" He stammered. "There's another man in there!"

The two men rushed past him into the hallway. Salliniari's distress was quickly turning into an unbridled rage. That someone could have come into his place and done this was unthinkable. Unthinkable! Heads were going to roll.

"Oh dear..." Said the doctor to Jasmina in a quieter voice. "Now might be a good time to leave." Unfortunately there wasn't very much time to act on the suggestion.

Guido ran to Salliniari's aid, and began silently directing the men left in the tavern, pointing this way and that at them. Salliniari overruled him by yelling. "Get the Xianian! Do it now! And get in there!"

A scream came from the hallway, followed by a gray shape that moved too fast to see clearly. Traveling horizontally through the air, it hit the first man heading for the doorway, covering his chest and face for an instant before bouncing off at Salliniari. Streamers of blood arced through the air after it while the man fell backwards, his neck torn open.

Salliniari yelled and covered his face with his arms before Cervantes reached him. Furious and desperate to find a lethal opening, the fox started clawing and biting down on those arms. The two fell to the floor in a heap. Guido stepped back, drew something from his shirt pocket, but was hesitant to use it.

Chrishton came next, chasing after the bloody mess into the tavern. He saw Cervantes on top of someone, and Dorcas at her table. "Go!" He yelled at her over the ruckus, wafting air in the direction of the front door. Half the people in the place were already starting to do just that. The other half were rushing to Salliniari's aid.

[Dorcas Tansy]

A ruckus arose somewhere past the opposite side of the stage. The pretty dwarf ladies stopped their dancing, and the banjo band plinked to a halt shortly after. The performers squealed fretfully and scrambled about on stage as they tried to decide whether to grab their belongings and beat it or else simply form a huddle while the action passed.

On Dorcas's side of the stage, customers glanced about for the source of the disruption. The instinctive action was to place ones hands on the table and half-stand from ones chair in an ineffectual stance of readiness. These middle- and upper-society types were far enough removed from their instincts that unwise choices were bound to be made. In the space of a few quick moments, the mild confusion crescendoed into chaos, and people were running in two different directions.

Dorcas shuffled away from her table, searching the crowd for some sign of the origin of this happening. Her head was cloudy, and sensory information seemed to come less fluidly, and more as if in intense flashes of input. She saw what looked like blood and the waving of one of the dwarf ladies' orange scarves. She saw Chris's face.

The expression she gave him in return was pathetic, a sort of slow-motion registering of surprise. She flipped her head in the direction of the door urged her towards--of course she knew where it was to begin with, but she felt herself taking odd, dim-witted actions.

She couldn't look back at Chris before she was shunted along with the rest of the crowd that pushed their way outside. While Dorcas was aware the sight of a bloodied man was serious, she had no idea like the rest of the crowd just how serious the bloodying of this particular man was.

Outside, the sky had darkened to a deep blue. People shouted and shuffled around to reunite with their companions after the impromptu evacuation. Dorcas pressed her back up against the outside wall of the establishment and was surprised to find herself standing next to Wragham. He grinned, grabbed her upper arm and shook it to emphasize the exciting nature of the events unfolding. He kept his fingers there for a moment and glanced at her sleeved bicep before moving his hand away. His smile faded slightly.

"I--" Wragham was cut off by Dorcas's brief reunion with her cat, who had prowled along the front of the building since dusk, waiting patiently for his master. She exclaimed something in joyful baby-talk and stooped down to scoop up the cat, but the cat had different plans.

The adoring purr in his throat caught as abruptly as the scratch of a needle pulled from a phonograph. His cattish expression froze solemnly, his ears flicked and stiffened, and he looked into the doorway, out of which people were still streaming. He emitted a strangely high pitched, burbling siren's wail of a miaow and darted past the traffic of feet back into the building.

Dorcas recognized a feeling of panic, and then before she realized exactly what she was doing or how she did it, she was back inside, and the small stampede was largely behind her. Her hands were outstretched towards her cat, who was trotting calmly towards the scuffle on the far end of the tavern, his eyes fixed on the very top of Chrishton's head. She stopped in her tracks about 20 feet from the scene.

The band had left the stage, and one dwarf man was helping a roadie of sorts lift the instruments off the stage. From their vantage point on the stage, the two lady dancers clucked with spirit in a bubbly Northern tongue and waved their scarves menacingly at the violent scene.

[Jasmina Apsara]

Now might be a good time to leave.

Quite the understatement.

Jasmina was inclined to take his advice. She pushed back her chair, stood abruptly, jerked her chin in an instantaneous nod of thanks, and looked around for the nearest exit.

Then she stopped. Was she doing the right thing? Jasmina was not inclined to form deep or quick attachments to others, but she was not entirely disloyal, nor was she heartless. She could see that Salliniari was in a bad position. Perhaps she should stay and try to help?

Help how, exactly? the more practical part of her brain asked her. Dance for them? Foolish! There are many people here more capable than you are, and they are already seeing to this. Get out while you can.

There was nothing she could do here. She had no part in this quarrel, no real ability to influence it for good or ill... not to mention that she still wasn't quite sure, from an ethical standpoint, if she should be on Salliniari's side or not. He was her employer, but coin only bought so much of her. If he was a common murderer, it was not something she could condone, no matter how kind he was, or how much he appreciated her dancing. And if he wasn't a cold-blooded killer... well, then surely he wouldn't want her and her unborn baby in harm's way for his sake.

Jasmina dashed to the exit, her strong limbs propelling her to catch up with the crowd quickly in spite of her moment of hesitation. Once outside, she leaned against the outer wall to catch her breath. She was winded-- but from tension; the brief run to leave the building was hardly exertion for her. Odd that she was so concerned, really. This wasn't her problem, and she had no desire to make it so. But she was involved, and that meant she couldn't remain entirely indifferent.

I hope this works out for the best, she thought, the only type of expression close to praying that she ever bothered with. Whatever that 'best' may entail.

[Chrishton Radu]

The doctor remained relatively calm for someone surrounded in a sea of frantic people. Even after both Jasmina and Dorcas had exited the place, he remained seated in order to observe what was happening. Someone rushing past his table knocked over his drink, though he had already withdrawn his hand from the place where liquid splashed out onto the table.

It was not entirely out of place for the doctor to remain. He was, after all, a doctor in Salliniari's employ. They would call for him the minute things were over so he might as well stay. And not only did the fight draw him in out of a morbid mixture of curiosity and concern, but the man who had had his neck torn open by the fox shifter had his full attention.

To an observer - though none were paying much attention to the quiet doctor - he seemed not to care much. His eyebrows pushed together mournfully for the man's suffering but he didn't move to help. There was nothing he could do for him and he knew it. That kind of blood loss would end his life in minutes. It was still unsettling to see him writhing and gurgling on the floor, no matter how many times the doctor had seen the same.

Men soon surrounded the place of confrontation. One crouched beside the bleeding man and tried to offer some form of support. The best he could do was get covered in blood while trying to keep the writhing down. Swearing aloud in Eyropan, he too knew it was hopeless and that his friend was a goner.

Spotting an opening as Salliniari and Cervantes struggled, Guido utilized the small magical device he held in his hand. A ball of white light flew in a straight line from his hand, through the werefox's back, through the floor, and continued well into the foundation of the building. In its wake it left smoldering holes, one of which cut inches into Cervantes' back. His flesh instantly cauterized around it, and the pain distracted him enough for Salliniari to throw him off. The air around the two of the smoked and reeked of burning fur and wood.

It was an imperfect shot. Had Guido been more practiced with the device, Cervantes would have been dead.

Meanwhile Chrishton went largely ignored. Salliniari was the only person in the room who knew he was the "other man" who had attacked him moments earlier. This gave him precious seconds to gauge the situation and see who was the biggest threat in the room. He checked out the men rushing to Salliniari's aid. The only one who could really pose a threat to a kitsune had just shown his hand when he fired the thing at Cervantes, and that had largely missed its mark.

Where were the mages? Chrishton wondered. Where were the exotic fighters and the other races? A room full of hulking, white men looked great as far as keeping a snobbish, puradynic image was concerned, but they could not be the real security. Most weren't even armed. Was Keltaris really so xenophobic that they would only hire humans, and so decadent that all they needed was a dozen bouncers?

Salliniari was a fool not to keep non-humans around at all times. What Chrishton didn't know was that things had changed over the years for the Eastern Eyropan criminal elite, and how far the cultural influence of puradynic beliefs had gotten. Guido's mind reading was Salliniari's chosen line of defense. Weird creatures with superhuman abilities weren't allowed in his tavern. It was a place of business and luxury. Back West, where the Tarsis were in control, things were rougher; money was too tight to buy peace. Not so in the trade hub of Keltaris. Salliniari's requirements for the men in his tavern were that they look confident in a suit.

The Tarsis had underestimated the danger a young man with nothing to lose and Cervantes' abilities really posed to Salliniari. It was enough to make Chrishton proud. His boy was a real fucker.

Instinct and emotion told him to jump in and help his son, but experience told him to wait. Wait and use surprise to his advantage.

Cervantes yelled and writhed on the floor, clutching the sizzling wound in his back and letting Salliniari crawl several feet to safety, leaving bloody handprints and dragging the entrails of his shredded suit along with him. There was other yelling, too. The man with no throat tried his best to yell, with the one holding him swearing repeatedly. Others in the room barked something about a Xianian they were waiting for, asked questions about how the kitsune got into the building, and demanded that Salliniari be moved to safety.

With Cervantes on the floor snarling, nobody jumped on him at first. It was like having a rabid dog in the corner. Getting within clawing or biting range was suicide. Instead they began to form a barrier around him, and particularly between him and Salliniari. A few had swords in hand, and unbeknownst to Chrishton, some did have magic. Finally one attacked, followed by the rest, and the fray began again. There was a lot more yelling. The floorboards crashed, shooting up splinters of wood, and the kitsune cleared the fray, jumping off of one man's shoulders and freeing himself of their entrapment.

If he wanted to leave the tavern then, he could have. But he didn't. He ran back in to fight, blinded by rage.

Strategically positioning himself so that there was always someone blocking Salliniari's line of sight with him, Chrishton kept his wits about him. Who was the Xianian? What was that cat doing...

"Fuck." He exclaimed when he saw Dorcas' cat, followed shortly by her self.

Salliniari heard that, and noticed Chrishton then. He had a pair of men helping him to the opposite end of the tavern, with Guido in tow. Some instructions to his men and threats followed, but Chrishton paid no heed. Guido stopped and affixed a wide eyed stare on Chrishton.

As if things weren't bad enough, a Xianian emerged from the door where they were taking Salliniari. Tall for one of his people, with coffee colored skin and silky black hair tied over his head in a loop, he was adjusting his clothes like he'd just gotten dressed. A pair of barely dressed women were behind him, but vanished when they saw that a fight was going on.

Chrishton's attention switched between the Xianian, Dorcas, and her cat. What the fuck was she doing? She had to get out of there. He ran toward her, and reached down in an attempt to snag her cat off the floor on his way.

The doctor, knowing his duty, kept a low profile and went to assist Salliniari once he was a safe distance away.

[Dorcas Tansy]

The cat had been momentarily distracted by the engaging sight of a fast-moving ball of light. He'd cocked his head, then wriggled his haunches as he watched its progress, but then was interrupted to find Chris looming above him. He practically grinned up at him, and he allowed himself to be scooped up, only to squirm his way to Chrishton's shoulder and stare at the scene the were fleeing.

Dorcas came forward in a short series of stumbles. Confusion and panic were in her eyes as she processed--with slightly impaired reaction time--the sights, sounds, and unsettling smells of the fray. She drew closer to Chrishton as if he were a beacon of security. She reached her hand out to gently grasp her cat at the base of his tail.

After a few heavy moments of brow-furrowed silence, Dorcas shook her head and looked past him. " . . . Why?" she tried to say, but merely mouthed the words instead as a hoarse creak was the only sound she could muster.

She started to back away, her hand still squeezed around her cat's tail, as if she could coax Chrishton out of the site on a furry leash.

An Asiatic man of some sort insinuated himself into the room so casually as to practically go unnoticed by Dorcas. She spotted him when her periphery caught the maddening sight of scantily clad women. Her gaze shot immediately back to Chrishton's face; her eyes pleaded with him to just back away, as she was doing. This scene was too bizarre.

Suddenly, her cat apparently settled on other plans and, not one to be contained if he didn't care to be, wiggled and took a flying leap off the back of Chrishton's shoulder. He bounded over to a singed hole in the floorboards mere paces from the fray of men fighting the wounded canine-thing.

The cat, as if oblivious to the rest of the happenings, pawed with determination at the interesting hole. He had wanted to play with that ball of light so much.

Dorcas allowed herself to keep Chrishton between her person and the fight. Her face knotted with worry and angst, and she conceded to make some futile grasping motions in the direction of her pet's escape, but she still didn't dare go after him.

[Chrishton Radu]

Cat on his shoulder, poised in its customary fashion as it always did with Dorcas, Chrishton stopped briefly to size up the Xianian. He put one hand on Dorcas' upper arm and pressured her toward the exit, but didn't force her to go. She wasn't listening to him, and he was not the type to keep insisting. The light physical insistence that she at the very least not go further into the tavern was the last he would do about stopping her.

The Xianian looked confident in himself, as did everyone else around him. Salliniari entrusted the hard security of his establishment to this one man. That kind of a reputation meant less to Chrishton than it would to most others. He'd seen bigger men than that go down.

By the look of him he wasn't just a mage, though he surely had some magic in him or he would not be so heavily relied upon. His physique suggested that he would be trained in the martial arts of the East, relying on speed and fast strikes. When he met eyes with Chrishton from across the tavern, his smug expression told Chrishton everything he needed to know. The guy thought Chrish was another strong, slow, oafish Westerner who could not keep up with him.

Good.

More yells and crashing sounds came from Cervantes' corner of the tavern, drawing the attention of both Chrishton and the mysterious Xianian. Three of the men were now seriously injured and backing away. Another two were keeping their distance, their shortswords held like protective wards to keep the kitsune at bay. Cervantes was injured, either from the earlier wound or from the following combat. He was sitting on his rear, back leaning against the wall, with one hand draped across his midriff. There was blood on his face, just under his eye, and more around his side and on his hand. A big, toothy snarl that looked disturbingly like a grin parted his lips.

Once again, his father was impressed.

Salliniari pointed at Chrishton, too furious about how he had been affronted to care about the kitsune anymore. He wanted Chrishton dead for what he'd done, and he made himself very clear on this matter between sputtered Eyropan expletives. It was clear the two of them were going to fight it out, likely to the death.

Once the cat jumped away, Chrishton decided he hated that animal after all. Either there was something supernatural about the animal, or it was just bad luck to have around, pure and simple. Dorcas would want to rescue it for sure, adding yet another variable to the situation. There was no longer any way for Chrishton to reasonably keep tabs on everyone. Cripple or kill the Xianian was his best option. If he was the best they had, defeating him would buy them the time they needed.

An orange swirl caught his attention. One of the fox spirits was flying circles around Guido, who was holding that device in his hand again, this time pointing it at Chrishton and Dorcas. Chrishton grabbed the girl's wrist and yanked her down, also bending his knees to keep his body around the height of the tables in the room just as another pinpoint of light shot out from Guido's weapon. Missing them both, it cut a line over their heads, through the wall and outside, leaving a grape sized hole through which a few rays of light found their way.

Once that was over, he peeked around and slowly stood up to face his opponent.

Still holding Dorcas by her wrist, he leaned sideways to her and spoke while watching the room. "When I'm kickin' this shitbag's slanty eye'd arse, y'elp Cerv get outta 'ere. Just get out, I'll find y'later. Okay? Ok." He didn't care to wait for an answer. There was a lot of doubt in his mind that she was going to be able to do much for Cerv, if she even managed to escape herself with that damned cat distracting her.

Straightening up once more, he took a step toward the Xianian, who had paced his way around the tables that separated them and was standing in the open, about 10 yards from Chrishton. He locked his eyes on Chrishton and placed his palms together in front of himself in a prayer position.

"Right, sleepy. Lesse what y'got." The larger man blurted with casual confidence. He pulled the sleeves of his shirt up, exposing hairy, well formed arms that had their share of scars criss-crossing them. Backing up his boisterous words, he took the offensive and started walking directly at the Xianian like he meant business in an old fashioned brawl type of way. A ridiculous move, assuming the Xianian had magic.

And he did. Air swirled around him and everything around him started toppling over and getting pushed away. Glasses, chairs, tables, everything. As the air swirled, it began to grow thicker. White mist started to condense, giving form to a variety of shapes that encircled the Xianian. His eyes remained steadily locked onto Chrishton, indicating some internal concentration.

None of this, of course, bothered Chrish very much. He only stopped his approach when an arc of lightning traveled with the mist and nearly caught him in the face. His response was to reel back and yell. "Woooah, okay!"

From his spot on the floor, Cervantes watched the big guy who had rescued him challenge the mage head on. What a fool. What a stupid oaf. What was he thinking? Was he not afraid of the magic swirling around the room, arcing lighting and flashing spiritual visages around the room? With everyone else in the room also watching the exchange, he had time to sit and really wonder. He wondered who the hell the buffoon was and what interest he had in saving his life.

[Dorcas Tansy]

Chris may have had his opinions about the cat, but for Dorcas's sake, the creature was a creator of good luck, or at least good turns. His actions seemed perhaps chaotic and made a nuisance of him, but at any rate, he gave the moody girl something to focus on and take responsibility for. That, for Dorcas, was a good turn.

Even as Chrishton was dragging her down to the ground, she had already slacked her knees, for she was preparing to kneel. She went down easily, and into a steady crouch, rather than sprawling under his insistent pull. Her arms went out in a reach towards her distracted cat. He glanced up when the beam of light from Guido's device shot out overhead. His gaze stopped on Dorcas's face, and he trotted over, placing himself between Dorcas and the knot of people around Cervantes.

Dorcas grabbed greedily at her cat's scruff and lugged him into her lap. Her chin bowed over his crown and she squeezed her eyes shut so as to savor the moment of reunion. She murmured over his tufted ears, and if one wanted to guess what kind of things she might be saying, it would likely be something akin to what a young girl whispers into the unhearing ears of her dolly.

As she hunched over her pet, the Asiatic man was causing a strange sort of ruckus, but Dorcas didn't seem to notice the swirling of powers or the rustling of things--first little items, then bigger--occurring in a radius around the Xianian, near herself, but nearer Chris.

Dorcas smiled into her cat's fur and seemed rather at peace for a several seconds. She was calm and oblivious to what the Xianian had given rise to. In fact, the very space around Dorcas could have been impervious to whatever it is that was up--none of the suspicious mist was swirling from her particular vicinity; and when a salt shaker, toppled off an upturned table, rolled towards her spot with velocity, it veered off sharply and rolled in a different direction so that it didn't collide with her. Her cat made a funny sound of awareness: "RooOOOoo!" he seemed to exclaim.

Dorcas opened her eyes and scowled thoughtfully down at the floor. She was processing Chrishton's directive. She lifted her head very slightly and furrowed her brow as if to shield her eyes with her own eyebrows from what might be overhead. She hesitated. "Who is Cerv?" she then called out, and with the rising intonation at the end, raised her head further in Chris's direction.

The she saw the spectacle. She stared with wide eyes and shivered once. An apple that had rolled out of a broken bowl wobbled over and hit her toe with a tap. "Oh!" she cried. She glanced over at the other area of interest--where the men were fighting the fox.

She could be reasonable about this. Maybe Chris was looking to protect the fox. Maybe--she hated the thought--it was one of his friends.

A happy growl burbled up form her cat's throat, and though he didn't flee again, he wriggled impatiently. Dorcas tightened her grip around him in her arm and staggered halfway up to her feet. She ran in a stoop, approaching the distracted group of men around the fox. They seemed to be watching the Asian. She tilted her head quizzically at the fox and mouthed a syllable: "Cerv?"

The whisper of breath from her question brushed past the wispy hairs of her cat's ears. He perked up and stared with new found intensity at the fox. Maybe it was a particular twitch of the fox's grin, but something seemed to rile the cat up, and he squirmed his body lithely out of his master's arms and began a swift saunter straight towards the fox. He was as if acting on Dorcas's inertia, for she herself stopped in shock as she managed to lose her cat again.

[Chrishton Radu]

Cervantes was busy watching the spectacle of the Xianian mage, along with everyone else. For him, it was an after-dinner show to be enjoyed while he regained his strength. While his hopes lay with the big doofus, for his victory would mean that they might both get out of there with their lives, there was a cruel desire to see him get what was coming to him as well. It was like watching a man approach a cliff from which he was going to jump. Cervantes just had to see it for himself.

Nobody else in the room, the mage included, noticed the field that was projected around Dorcas. Their attentions were not on her, and a few distorted curvatures of cloud, or the odd travel of a fallen salt shaker, drew no attention at all.

Indeed, not only did her affect on the magic go unnoticed, but her entire person did. The brawny girl was nobody important; just another teenager who wasn't attractive enough to keep the eyes of men on her.

Even when she got closer to Cervantes and whispered his name, he was slow to acknowledge her presence. He shot her a fleeting glance and, disinterested, went back to Chrishton and the Xianian. Whoever she was, what did he care? He just laid there, with one arm draped over his front, back to the wall, vaguely aware that his fate was sealed once the fight was over.

That's when her cat came over. Worried that it was going to bother him and make him miss something important between Chrishton and the Xianian, Cervantes took a swat at the little animal with the back of his hand and exhaled sharply through his teeth.

Meanwhile Chrishton's blind frontal assault on the Xianian had been restrained by the arc of lightning that nearly struck him. He was not, as many of the people watching him suspected, a complete fool. Although he was still grinning in a bemused fashion after almost being injured or killed by the lighting, he was not taking matters as lightly as he appeared. He had to fight the mage without any offensive magic of his own. It was the best he could do to see what the mage was capable of while looking for an opening.

There was more going on in Chrishton's head than they gave him credit for. He knew a thing or two about Xianians, and he recognized the look he saw in the Xianian's eyes. Fat, slow, arrogant white man dares stand up to the disciplined warrior? Never.

Stepping back to remain outside of what he gauged to be the Xianian's area of influence, Chrishton did something that infuriated the Xianian. He laughed, and he did so in a manner that was so smug, so insulting, that it would frustrate even a stone warrior. After all, everyone was watching. Honor was on the line. Even with the wind circling around the room, it was quiet enough to hear casual speech, which was a blessing.

"Theo's backside!" he exclaimed, citing a common Western colloquialism, "That whirly shit's pretty impressive there, Gimbo. Shit if I knew eatin' rice did that I'd be fuckin' set."

The Xianian was mature enough not to answer verbally, although the mockery was a defiant insult that begged to be dealt with swiftly. He took a step forward, immediately confirming Chrishton's suspicions. His powers only worked out to a distance of a dozen feet.

Chrishton's response was to pretend not to know. Instead of backing away, he looked over at Salliniari, Guido, and the Doctor, and laughed while throwing a thumb in the Xianian's direction. With his other hand he grasped a mug sitting on the table between himself and the trio.

"Yer scared o' this toothpick?"

In range then, the Xianian suddenly tensed his chest and hands, willing the swirling air around him to follow suit. A clump of the white misty shapes congealed and swung in Chrishton's direction like a giant misty fist thrown in a right hook. Jagged snakes of electricity crackled inside it.

The air swept past where he was standing and smashed through a table. More electricity arced, clouds of white smoke blew around like angry clouds to obscure the place he had been standing. Guido, Salliniari, and the doctor all flinched and turned away to protect themselves from the debris sprayed toward them from the impact. Cervantes leaned to one side and lifted his chin, struggling to see for himself.

The Xianian had trouble seeing the results of his own actions. Through all the smoky air it was hard to see what happened, though he knew immediately that he had missed because Chrishton had not been thrown across the room. Quickly he made some tense circling, clawing motions in the air in front of himself which immediately created a clearing in the stormy mess.

The big man was there, barely a foot out of the reach of his spells. He must have twirled out of the way, because his back was now facing the Xianian. All he could see was his filthy shirt topped by a head of long, messy, dark hair. Why didn't he turn around again? It looked as though Chrishton was hiding something. Keeping his back turned was disrespectful, but more than that it was confusing. What game was this man playing at?

Determined to know, and to strike another blow, the Xianian stepped forward again. He lifted his hands up, readying to strike, when Chrishton spun around. He had something in his hand. Something he pitched at the Xianian as he turned. The object hurtled at the Xianian's head. It was brown, the size of a hand. The mage was on his toes, as quick as his race was renowned for being. Before it could hit his face, he leaned back and caught it. It was only a mug.

It was also only a distraction. With his hand busy he would be unprepared to make the gestures he required to use his magic, and although he realized this and threw the mug away as soon as he did, it was too late. Chrishton was charging him like a bull, head lowered, shoulders poised to tackle, yelling like an animal. They collided and it was no contest. For all his skill in martial arts, Chrishton matched him, and as physically fit as he was, Chrishton doubled his body weight. He did what he could, throwing his weight out of the way and swinging a cloudy, stormy mess of magic that barely grazed Chrishton's back, but a muscular arm caught him by the waist and pulled him down violently. When he struck the ground, the whiplash alone stunned him into a daze. Chrishton was quick to take advantage, and put him in a hold that heard his arm snap like a tree branch. The Xianian wailed.

[Dorcas Tansy]

While distraction was playing in Chrishton's favor, Dorcas herself was driven to distraction by her ever-willful pet. He was trotting straight at Cervantes when the beast swung at him. With hardly a pause in his motion, the cat reared up and twisted his ribs to the left to whirl himself around in a sort of pirouette, but not without making a meaningful swipe of fanned claws in the direction of Cervantes's face.

However, when the cat's front paws hit the floor after his about-face, he took off running, so as to separate himself at once from the suddenly less intriguing fox. He rocketed straight for the fray between Chris and the Eastern man.

Dorcas's expression first followed her cat's unexpected path, her eyes swift but unfocused as if she were watching a rapid volley in table tennis. When she jerked her gaze up to the object of his destination--the entangled forms of the two men--her face blanched.

She was standing with her boot-shod feet planted firmly at shoulder width. Her clothing, which had seemed artsy in the previously festive atmosphere, now hung drab and noticeably unkempt on her anxious, slouching frame. Where cracklings of electric mist still stirred in the air all around, Dorcas's hair hung as lank as ever. She made a frantic lunging motion with her hand in the direction of her cat's departure.

Just at that moment, several seemingly unrelated things occurred: the cat skidded short in his tracks and whipped his gaze back to stare at Dorcas, or rather at her hand; a fizzing sound in the ambient air was followed abruptly by the whoof of still air rushing into the field of Dorcas's desperate stare. An old, worm-eaten structural beam stretching overhead between herself and Chrishton groaned suddenly as the seemingly magical putty holding its timeworn splinters together dissolved on the spot.

Dorcas inhaled deeply and allowed her hand to retreat ever so slightly, but as she made out what was happening between them, she took a staggering step forward and renewed her gesture, hand outstretched as if to command the boys to stop. She had no power to actually break up the fight, but she was bolstered by outrage at the Xianian's impossible actions.

"Stop it! Now!" she shouted. She had no time to feel self conscious about the pathetic screech of her own voice.

[Chrishton Radu]

Once his arm was broken, the Xianian was no longer a serious threat. The pain and realization that it was bent the wrong way put him into shock. In such a state he could no longer coordinate his defenses against Chrishton, who repositioned himself so that he could deliver a solid elbow to the Xianian's right temple. The blow knocked him out cold.

"Fucker."

Cervantes was glad to have the pesky feline leave him in peace, and much to his surprise the big ogre of a man won the fight without a scratch on him. From his vantage point, he saw the whole ordeal quite clearly, including Chrishton's ruse, which was done with a craftiness Cervantes did not expect to see from someone who looked so simple.

There was something about the blithe carelessness and total confidence with which the man carried himself that drew Cervantes in. He'd never seen anyone like that before. Back on the streets of Trelham everyone was a showoff with something to prove, most were cowards, and few had any real talent. Even the leaders of the Tarsis who had sent him on this suicide mission had never shown this kind of direct muscle. The result was that the young Cervantes unwittingly began to both respect and envy Chrishton.

Stop it! Now!

Dorcas' voice, screechy as it was, was noticeable over the general silence of the tavern. Nearly everyone else was quietly staring in disbelief as their Xianian champion was being finished off by a man with no magical talents. Salliniari's face was beet red, and he was shaking visibly, but he said nothing. The doctor was one of the only people not surprised at what happened. He was searching through his medicine bag for something and did not look up.

Chrishton stood up and straightened his shirt while turning to face Dorcas. His shoulders and chest were heaving with heavy breathing and his hair was somehow even messier than it had been before. The bemused grin he normally wore was barely there, only noticeable if one knew to look for the minute upturn of his cheeks and the shape of his eyes. At any rate he looked much more serious than usual. He was upset enough that she didn't listen to him earlier.

"Get 'im!" He ordered Dorcas while pointing a finger at Cervantes. He then pointed at Salliniari and his entourage. "We're done 'ere. Y'want revenge, take it t'the Tarsis."

Salliniari wouldn't have it. His anger had the better of him, and he could not understand how two people could cause so much trouble not only in his city, but in his tavern. "You fairy licking ether spawn!"

Guido grabbed his arm then. Guido had had enough time to read Chrishton's mind and he understood, finally, what was going on. He also understood that Chrishton was capable of much more than he had done so far.

Cervantes was already standing up on his own. He didn't need some girl to help him, even if one of the muscles in his back had been nearly severed by Guido's magical weapon. Or so he thought. As soon as he tried to straighten up he lost balance and nearly fell over, it hurt so bad.

The beam above him let out another groan and began to splinter and snap.

[Dorcas Tansy]

Far away, in the comparatively small city of Marn, Dorcas's birthday celebrations were proceeding rather more quietly.

The jocular young bartender at the tiny alleyside tavern had been less animated these past several days, even behind the bandage over his broken nose and the purple bruises languishing beneath his eyes. A week or so of apathetic attention to grooming had resulted in the appearance of a sparse, uneven juvenile beard. He had taken to closing the watering hole earlier than usual, and this particular evening he wasn't serving at all, and only looked up from his reading to wave customers upstairs who were interested.

He was engaged in his book. His eyes crept down the pages with intensity. This was the first item scavenged from Dorcas's erstwhile untouched and abandoned room: Essential Physics: A Primer. Periodically, Mydjeken would glance up from his book and squint at the empty air; he ran his fingers along the lines of text and sometimes when lost in thoughtful reveries, scratched the letters with his fingernails. He traced the narrow lines of diagrams and sighed with quiet emotion as he turned each page.

Presently, the wispy thing of a girl, Otter, flitted out from behind the curtain that guarded the staircase, pulling along behind her a well-groomed middle-aged man who was adjusting his cravat with his free hand. She hurriedly guided him to the door and only tipped her face up half-heartedly to allow him to kiss her cheek. After the man had disappeared into the night, she shut the door firmly behind him and turned her attention to Mydjeken.

"Laik . . . it's a book of Dar's, rait?" she said as she tentatively approached him. She didn't bother trying to peer at the cover of the book; she couldn't read.

Mydjeken lifted his eyes from the pages and stared at his cousin for a few long moments before he had to hastily lift a hand to rub at his eyes. "It's her birthday today," he mumbled thickly. The boy inhaled with a rather wet sound and looked up and away from Otter. Shiny saltwater clung to the bags beneath his eyes.

"She's run off, if you hadn't noticed," came a voice from across the room: lovely Udorl was sitting on the edge of a small tavern table, her cool gaze unwavering from her embroidery work, "with him."

Otter gave a squeak of surprise and protest and winced pointedly at the sight of Mydjeken's bruises. Without another word to either of the women, the boy slammed his book shut, pushed himself up from his seat, and stalked away, down the stairs and into the basement room that was not too long ago occupied by Dorcas.

* * *

Dorcas had no time to occupy her mind with thoughts of people no longer present in her life. At the moment, she had also forgotten the boy who was buying her drinks just a half hour prior, and was even sweeping from her mind the Asiatic man, who was now apparently unconscious and didn't require any more attention. Dorcas's priorities in terms of attention to others were pretty clear at the moment: first, her cat; second, her companion Chrishton; third, that fox--"Cerv?"--who had spooked her cat, and whom Chris was hollering about.

The girl scowled at Chris's instructions and balled her fists, but her expression quickly altered when the sound of splintering wood overhead signaled the pressing need to evacuate without any emotional interludes.

She ducked her head as she ran towards her cat, as if to remove herself from the attention of the panicking others or the possibility of falling debris. She clucked something firmly at her pet, and he leaped into her arms yet again. Next, she glanced over at the fox Chris was so intent on having her grab. Exactly how he expected her to accomplish this, she couldn't fathom. Dorcas frowned angrily and puzzled this for only a moment before the ceiling gave a trembling groan, and the sense of urgency alone forced her to take several halting steps forward.

Several paces from the nearly incapacitated fox, she bought time by shifting the bulk of her cat to be contained under her left arm. The feline took the manhandling as complacently as a rag doll. Dorcas reached her right hand forward and reluctantly made a beckoning motion to Cervantes that felt quite futile.

Suddenly, the stalled situation was broken by two bright shrieks newly piercing the floor: the duo of dwarf dancers who had been trying to exit through a locked stage door had abandoned that plan and were streaking directly through the confused crowd of henchmen, towards the front entrance. While a flurry of orange and pink scarves and the jangling of charms added to the overall distraction of the scene, Dorcas took her moment.

Stoked by the dwarves' direct method of escape, Dorcas too made a decisive move. She lurched forward under a fluttering of gauzy scarves and looped her right arm over the fox's mangled back and under his ribcage. "Now don't you fight my kitty!" she hissed in warning as she hefted him by his underside to take him along in the armload opposite her cat.

After a quick, scowling survey of the room, she found her path to the door and took off at a stooping run for the front door, outside of which the crowd had dispersed even further to avoid the trouble within.

[Chrishton Radu]

Guido stumbled away when Salliari gave him a shove to remove the hand he'd placed on his arm to quiet him. While his injuries and the events he had witnessed gave Salliniari and understandable reluctance to confront Chrishton physically, his anger and frustration needed a target. Chrishton was doing far more than killing his men and tearing up his tavern; he was ruining his reputation. The older man wanted desperately to save face.

"You and the fox and the girl! You gutter slime are all dead! I'll hang you up by your thumbs until you're begging me to kill you! I'll check up the asshole of every glitterwinged fairy until I find you and your families!"

Without any direct orders, the remainder of his men were looking out for themselves. The closest ones to Dorcas thought about doing something to her, but hesitated due to the proximity of the kitsune. They simply did not want to risk being within reach of his claws.

Nobody even considered getting close to Chrishton. He was the only one of the three who looked ready, even eager, to fight more.

He glared at Salliniari, making prolonged eye contact for the first time. There was something he wanted to say, but an orange spirit poised itself directly in between the two of them so that Chrishton could only barely see Salliniari's scowl, tinted orange through the wavering figure.

Hey! It yelled at him. He recognized the voice as belonging to Useless. Look up.

Chrishton did so. The crossbeam above his head was sagging so dangerously low that he thought he could see it move. A spiderweb of cracks was spreading its way across the ceiling at an alarming rate, sprinkling a fine dust of glittery mortar into the room as it did so. A larger piece of mortar dust caught Chrishton right in the eye and he slapped his palm over it reflexively.

"Agh fuckin' Useless!"

With his hand covering his eye, he ran for the exit after Dorcas, leaving his position just in time to avoid the snapping crossbeam. Wood, followed by mortar, stone, tiles, and eventually furniture and at least one female occupant of the room above came crashing down into the center of the tavern in a waterfall of browns, grays, and peaches. The mess landed directly on top of the unconscious Xianian, leaving only a single exposed leg that twitched once, and then began leaking blood.

Cervantes meanwhile had taken Dorcas' help in his ungracious manner by grabbing her shoulder and hobbling along with her as quickly as he could. He barely looked at her, still not caring at all about who she was or why she was helping him. He did at least have the courtesy not to tell her to shut up when she warned him not to fight her cat, although he was tempted.

Chrishton caught up with them as they were leaving the perimeter of the building. He was busy fluttering his eyelashes and staring down at the street with one hand raised beside his head, cursing up a storm about something stuck in his eye.

Back inside, Salliniari, Guido, and the doctor were well clear of the ceiling's collapse. Seated several meters away near a wall and a doorway, there was no risk of harm to them. Sallinari's voice could be heard from outside as an infuriated, prolonged yell.

[Jasmina Apsara]

Jasmina had moved from her place beside the building. She'd first leaned against the wall to catch her breath, but once structural damage to the tavern was clearly imminent, she had shied away from the potential danger zone and drifted a short way down the street.

She wasn't quite sure what to do. The inn appeared wrecked-- meaning her place of employment was probably going to be closed for the foreseeable future for renovations at the very least, and might be entirely gone if things continued as they were. Entirely gone, with all of her things inside.

Lovely. Just lovely. I take this job as an easy couple of weeks to enjoy a few luxuries before I get on my way again, and here I've come out worse than I started. At least in the poor villages or flea-bitten dirty taverns all you have to worry about is a few cutthroat vagabonds or pickpockets. Here in this upscale inn in Keltaris, I've almost been murdered, gotten dragged into organized crime, seen the worst bar fight of my life, and possibly lost all of my possessions aside from what I'm wearing.

What she was wearing was hardly suitable for travel. Long black skirt, with pantaloons beneath. Scarf decked with hundreds of small, shiny, monetarily worthless coins tied around her hips. Small top that showed her tight, sculpted abdomen. A shawl wrapped around her on the top, so she didn't look quite so absurd-- or feel quite so cold-- strolling around when she wasn't on stage. Not the ideal wardrobe for anywhere but the tavern; she hadn't planned to be outside.

Surely Salliniari would offer compensation for any possessions she'd lost, if not for lost wages. Lost wages would be nice, too. Surely...

Jasmina saw the young woman the doctor had pointed out, and nearly went to speak to her, not because she felt any particular need to further understand the situation but just because she wasn't sure what to do and didn't really know anyone here. But she had some sort of strange creature with her, so Jasmina didn't approach. Instead, she gave a nod from afar that the young woman would see only if she looked in the right direction.

[Dorcas Tansy]

Once outside the tavern, Dorcas led Cervantes along several paces from the door so that they may tuck themselves behind the arc of bystanders creating a wide radius from the point of exit. With each new fanfare of noise heralding some additional disaster--the creak of the ceiling, Salliniari's growing yells, the boisterous evacuation of the dwarf performers--the crowd bowed in slightly to better observe, and then recoiled further, a ripple of collective psychology and physics.

Dragging herself, her cat, and Chris's boy out of harm's way was the last act of adrenaline Dorcas had within her for the moment, and as she paused, her dismay caught up to her. A series of unpleasant events had stacked up on top of Dorcas's erstwhile sort of pleasant evening; she was having trouble keeping track of which events specifically were causing her to feel agitated in exactly what ways. There was the carnage, to start--that was upsetting, to say the least. She was also considerably perturbed to find herself in the immediate company of a monstrously furry-faced biped not unlike the phantasm Chrishton made when he sought to distress her. Somehow much worse than these, though, was the overpowering feeling that the caving of the ceiling was . . . right.

It wasn't as if Dorcas had had a hand in the cracking of that beam; she had merely witnessed as it started to buckle and groan. Still, the sensation of relief and correctness that flared up inside at the sight of it--what in the world was wrong with her?

Dorcas realized she was panting, and her knees almost gave out as she eased Cervantes down off her shoulder to sit on the ground as she gathered her bearings. She herself knelt, suddenly, for she also found she hadn't the strength to continue standing. As she looked up at the backs of the gawkers around the tavern door, she saw the figure of Chrishton break out of the mass and approach her.

At the same time, she noticed the flapping black figure of another distraught stage performer peel off from the crowd and make a hasty retreat. Dorcas hadn't seen that girl perform, but she looked familiar. She seemed to look right at them, and seemed to recognize them, and that was when she changed her path and ran off in the opposite direction.

Dorcas stared for a moment at the jingling dancer's retreat before she looked back up at Chris. Her lips wobbled with unformed words as he approached. Without a glance at the kitsune, she patted in the direction of Cervantes's shoulder to prove visually to Chrishton that she had procured the boy.

"I," she attempted breathlessly as he came into earshot, "I . . . don't know . . . I didn't . . . but who's this?"

[Chrishton Radu]

"Ne'er mind, Dor."

Chrishton gave her question rank dismissal in lieu of more imperative concerns. She was tired, confused, and probably frightened. It was his job to take over and ensure that the three of them made it out safely. Although he was tired, he remained miraculously uninjured.

"Get up. We gotta go. C'mon. Yer fine."

He removed the injured kitsune from her care by ducking down so that Cervantes could loop an arm behind his neck. Cervantes was not eager to be carried around by anyone, no matter how much it hurt. It made him feel uncomfortable, even vulnerable, to rely on others for assistance. Survival trumped all else, however, and he did what he had to do to get out of there alive.

Chrishton was a tree of a man. Built like a heavy fighter, he radiated heat and smelled like sweat. Despite not being in the best shape of his life, his traps alone were big enough for Cervantes to hang on to. Once he'd taken his weight off of Dorcas, Chrishton hoisted him up, slung an arm beneath one of his shoulders, and proceeded to carry the majority of his 155 lb weight with ease. The young kitsune was more and more grateful that this man was on his side.

They began moving away from the tavern again, the gray furred man fox clinging to Chrishton and limping every other step. People on the street noticed them, the kitsune in particular, but were more interested in the hubbub about Salliniari's tavern than whatever weirdos were leaving the place. It was Cervantes who first noticed Jasmina standing alone, across the street, nodding to them. He gave her a sneer of pointed teeth, and made a promise to himself to finish the job he'd started.

"In 'ere. Go. 'urry." Chrishton pushed them into the next alley, out of line of sight of Salliniari's place. Once there, he slowed down to a more comfortable place. He spoke to Dorcas while pointing ahead with one hand. "Dor. Scout up ahead fer us. Check them corners up there, see which way's clear."