Between a wall and two thug's(eridanus)

[Danck]

74th of Fall 511th Danck was skulking through the back alley’s of sunberth, looking for any poor sod that looked like he was an easy catch, he didn't dare to pull attention to him with a botched attempt at pickpocketing. That woman was still out there and if she was wealthy enough to buy a slave she probably had enough money or influence with some people to let them keep an eye out for her former slave. He silently crept closer to the end of his current alley and looked around the corner. Quickly pulling back when he saw two big brutes walking down the alley and hoping that he wasn't seen he began to sneak away, really hoping that they either hadn't seen him, or that they would ignore him. No such luck though, at least one of the men had seen him and took him for an easy target to rob, or at least thought he would be good for some fun. As he heard one of the men loudly say something to the other one before he heard both of them break out into a run. Completely forgetting about stealth he just began to run as hard as he could, ignoring the burning sensation in his half healed burns as good as he could. “I told ya, I heard saw a little mousy scurry around.” One of the thug's said. Almost ecstatic at the prospect of whatever he was thinking of doing to him. Which caused Danck only to run even harder, drawing on reserves he didn't even know he had as he randomly ran through alley's and streets trying to shake his pursuers. To no avail as slowly but surely the duo gained on him.Danck quickly took another turn. Just to see that it was a dead end. “Ah petch!” He gave a quick glance over his shoulder. Seeing the duo hot on his heels, he just grit his teet and gave himself one last push as he ran straight at the fence that was blocking his way and jumped, smacking hard against the fence with his entire body, but he managed to grab the top of the fence at least. Unfortunately, as he was trying to pull himself up one of the thug's easily grabbed the back of his shirt and pulled him off the fence, throwing him hard on the ground. Knocking the air out of his lungs. The other thug quickly capitalized on the burned kids momentarly weakness and kicked him in the stomach, turning him on his back and pinned him to the ground with his foot. “Well well well, looks like you aren't the best runner either eh little rat.” The thug who wasn't pinning him to the ground said, a sadistic smile on his face.

[Eridanus]

Eri slammed a man into the wall behind him, releasing his choke-hold on the guy's neck after he saw the eyes roll up and the man losing consciousness. He allowed the unconscious man to slump down the wall, and he dusted his hands. It was just Sunberth as usual, and he was honestly not surprised to be accosted by a random small-timer hoping to make a quick buck when he cut into one of the alleys to make a short cut. The mugger had offered to sell him some goods which was obviously overpriced to a magnitude of several hundreds, and Eri snarkily mentioned that it was "daylight robbery." The robber decided to give up his pretence and attempt to rob the Vantha, which resulted in Eri pummelling the crook into oblivion.

Perhaps it was Sunberth getting to him, but he bent down and began pilfering the man's pockets for whatever he had. After all, stealing from a thief was not really considered stealing, the Vantha rationalized to himself. Criminals were fair game to the Vantha as far as he was concerned, and his variable morality and ability to twist ethics and codes to fit his desires helped to prevent him feeling any guilt. He took whatever coins he could find in the man's pockets, and took the trinketcopper necklace that the man was 'selling' to him, whispering, "Thanks for your stuff, buddy," standing up while pocketing his loot.

He heard a thudding sound, and he turned around to see a flash of movement as someone ran past his alley. Several moments later there was more flashes of movements as more figures passed by. So someone was chasing someone. That was not particularly rare in this place, for there was always someone wanting to rob or kill someone else. He was feeling quite vigilante-ish that day though, after been the target of an attempted robbery, and he followed the thugs, stopping further back when he saw that their target was a bandaged lad.

Preying on vulnerable and injured people? Now this was something that Eri could not stand. If they wanted to fight, they should pick people their own size, and Eri began to stride forward as the thug began beating the kid and pinning him to the ground.

"Well well well, people. Surely there must be more interesting targets instead of little boys? Unless you happen to well, swing that way," Eri taunted the thugs, his last line hinting at their supposed homo-paedophilia and he knew that it was huge insult especially to the straight macho types which the thugs looked like.

He saw that they were not holding any weapons, and so he did not draw his blades. He would deal with them as his fists unless they escalated the battle, for he did want to kill people unless it was necessary.

[Danck]

Danck gritted his teeth, trying to act like the though little scoundrel as the man who was pinning him to the ground pressed his foot on one of the half healed burns on his stomach, without to much success as he let out a pathetic whimper at the pain, cursing kelwyn for either forsaking his luck or playing one heck of a nasty joke on him and threw a few foul curses ivak's way just for good messure. He was the god of fire, so it was his petching fault if he got burned, Danck's young mind reasonend. “Ey, shut it little brat.” The thug who had thrown him to the ground said in a gruf voice as he walked towardes his victim, some light falling on the scruffy red mane of hair falling down his shoulders and on the unkept beard that looked like it hadn't been cut in ages. “Dun want some bigger fish come down on our prey now do we?” The man kneeled down next to him and quickly began riffling through his pockets. His foul smell assaulting Danck's nose as he was at it, causing him to face away from the big smelly man. Both of the thugs and danck looked up as a stranger called out to them. An amused smile coming on the scruffy redhead's face as he stood up straight. Grabbing the other man's shoulder. “Calm down, that little piece of shyke is just trying to make you angry. Probably try to give the other little shyke under your sole the time to escape or something.” He let out an annoyed sigh. “What do you think you are? The protector of all orphans?” He said, his mate bursting out in mocking laughter as soon as he finished his sentence. At the same time the thug's attention was on the newcomer, danck tried to evaluate the situation he was in as good as he could as he was lying on his back, with the man's weight pressing on one of his burns and he was guessing the man was popping a few of his blisters open again and inched his hand towards the dagger akwardly shoved behind his belt, really hoping that the thug's would keep their attention on the newcomer long enough for him to drive it in the man who was standing on top of him.

[Eridanus]

One of the thugs tried to mock him, and Eri merely chuckled. Two could play at the trash talking game, and honestly the thugs had an appearance that the vantha could not stand. There was something in him that begged to be unleashed on them, and it was only his rational mind that prevented him from devolving this simple verbal confrontation into a blood bath.

"No, but I am the protector of my own fancy, and now that my fancy's being tickled I'll have to protect it," He remarked with a snarky tone, "And that involves removing the danger to that, y'see?"

He was met with a blank stare from the thugs who apparently did not catch his obvious wit and he sighed, lacing his next words with sarcasm, "Well yes I am the almighty protector of orphans. People call me Captain Sunberth, and I am a journalist by day and superhero by night. I can also climb walls and shoot webs out of my palms, so fear me you villainous evil-doers. Of course, don't tell anyone what I told you, since it's supposed to be a secret."

All the while, he slowly approached the thugs, his nerves firing and his body half tensed, ready to immediately spring into a combat pose the moment any of the thugs showed any signs of aggression towards him. He did not know why he had to waste time with all this nonsense, but it might just be Bob's influence on him especially with the midget's face-palm inducing comments at completely inappropriate timings that caused him to behave like that.

[Danck]

When the would be protector spoke up danck's pathetic whimpering changed to an annoyed grumble, protector of his fancy his arse. He probably was just to lazy to find and catch a target himself. He finanally manged to pull out the dagger and glanced back up at the two thugs. Letting a small grin grace his face as he saw that their attention was still focused on. That fatarse standing his stomach was about to get a lesson in the virtues of disarming your opponents before getting careless around them. Just as the redhaired man was about to give a reply to the dumb, at least in dancks opinion, remark from the other stranger, danck lashed out with a sloppy strike to the thug's foot on his chest. Thanks to the element of suprise and a little bit of luck the dagger cut through the thug's patchwork boots and was drivin deep into the man's heel. The thug let out a howl of pain and anger as he stumbled off danck. Who used the moment of confusion to scramble back on his feet and brandished the dagger in what he hoped was a intimidating way. Trying to not to show that his stomach still felt as if he was being stomped in it. “Looks like you and your pall aren't some of the smartest thug's on the block.” Danck sneered as he stepped back, keeping his distance from the surprised redhaired thug, the writing pice of syke on the ground and the stranger wo called himself the protector of fancy. “Yer supposed to disarm your target first you brainles pieces of shyke.” He glanced towards the one person who looked as if he posed the most threat to him at the moment. “Especially if you can't even outwit somebody who talks like a complete nutcase.”

[Eridanus]

Eri snickered as the bandaged lad stabbed the crook's boot, the bullies having been distracted with the vantha's appearance. What the boy said was quite true, and if the thugs had not heard him Eri snickered again just to mock them. The boy called him a nut-case, and although he was not particularly offended by that term - mortal insults having lost the ability to coax any emotions from him, except well maybe Bob, since that man had some kind of innate ability to bring out the worse in him - Eri put his hand on his heart dramatically, and theatrically sighed, "Oh the boy has wounded me. Here I am doing my part for the community, and he slights me so."

Eri motioned towards the thugs, telling them in an aside conspiratorially (though loud enough for Danck to hear), while furiously wiggling his eyebrows, "Can you imagine how ungrateful that boy is? It looks like Captain Sunberth must teach the kid some manners. Say, want to teach him some manners together?"

He did it all in such a dramatic way that it would take an extremely dense person to not feel the sarcasm simply dripping out of every word that came out from the vantha's mouth. It would be highly amusing if the thugs actually took him on the offer, and he briefly considered scaring the kid a little just for a bit of playful revenge. Failing which the situation would probably degenerate into the conflict he was preparing for anyway, and Eri could not be faulted for wanting something to spice up his boring day.

[Danck]

Danck's face settled into a grim expression as the newcomer began to chuckle at the situation at hand like it was some kind of joke to him. Danck unconsciously tightening his grip on his dagger and grinding his teeth at the man's flippant attitude. “Why don't you cut the weak and pathetic jokes and we cut to what in the name of Rak'keli your trying to pull here. I don't even those two meat heads would fall for something like that.” He gave a quick glance towards the thug. Trying to see how much of a distraction they could be so he could escape without trouble. And seeing how the red haired man was almost freaking out over the rather small wound on the other thug's ankle he doubted they could distract a kid with a short attention span.  “Why don't you just grow a pair and stop trying to stall whatever clever play you are trying to pull off.” Danck said in a mocking voice, using the man's own tenency to use sarcasm against him. “You said you where going to get those two arseholes off my back. Still haven't seen you do a petching thing about that. So why don't you work on that first and I'll see if I can find some petching manners for you!” Danck growled out making a gesture towards the thug's. The redheaded thug, not really liking the way the supposedly easy robbery was going, especially the fact that the other guy was armed with two swords, quickly turned back towards the newcomer. “Look, fine. You get our target, just let us get away we don't like picking fights we don't have a good chance of winning.” He quickly helped his partner back to his feet and began helping him towards the exit of the alley. Keeping a strict eye on both of them. It might look cowardly but he was rather a coward then dead. Danck didn't relax at all at the fact that his two would be muggers where trying to leave, he still had the problem of the armed madman standing on the way towards the exit. Still he lowered his dagger for a few inches, at least trying to give the impression he wasn't going to try and gut him the second he got to close. He doubted he could do anything reasonable with the damn dagger against somebody with a sword anyway.

[Eridanus]

The lad was apparently not very happy at the vantha, and he began to use his own sarcasm against him. Eri wagged his finger at the boy, saying, "Now now, since when did I say I was going to get these two... arseholes ("Sorry buds, but kids these days don't get the education they should receive," he would tell the thugs in a theatrical aside) off your back?"

The thug did not like to take chances and he let his intentions be known to the vantha, bringing his comrade away to escape the scene. Eri raised a brow and stepped back to allow them to pass unharmed, for these were smart criminals indeed. For that intelligence he would allow them to escape judgement... just for this time.

Eri did not leave, and he leaned against the wall, his elbow propped against the alley-side casually as he stood on one leg, crossing the other one while tapping it on the floor. "Kid need to learn some manners, y'know. That foul mouth isn't going to earn you any favours from anyone. Not in this dirt city."

[Danck]

Danck felt himself unwind a little bit as the man in front of him let the two thug's go without any fuss. It seemed the guy wasn't one of those run of the mill thug's that always resorted to violence when the opportunity presented itself. Or at least he thought the man was like that. Since normal run of the mill thug's would have killed those two bastards right there just because they could. At the man's comment about his manners he just laughed at him. “And having pretty manners gets you just as much as no manners at all. So why bother with the effort for it. Now if you wheren't here to get those bastards of my back then why did you bother at all for coming here.” He said taking a step back towards the fence. Hoping that he didn't have to take his chance and try to climb over the thing to get away from the man. He was still hurting all over from being thrown to the ground a few moments ago. “And don't give me any of that shyke you where spouting a few moments earlier, I'm not a moron and I know sarcasm when I hear it.” Danck continued, hoping the man got the message and kept his sarcasm to himself. He really didn't have the patience nor nerves for jokes like that at the moment.

[Eridanus]

Eri chuckled good-naturedly at the boy's continued use of foul words and he shrugged, turning around to leave the alley. He was quite careful of course to be attentive if the boy attempted to sneak up on him, for living in Sunberth for a while would help one to develop a healthy paranoia to survive in this crime-ridden city.

He had lost interest and the boy could continue with whatever it was that he was doing before being chased for the thugs. The vantha might go to the Castle Commons and peruse some wares to see if they were any good discount or good merchandise worth purchasing.