The Honor Circle Returns! (IC)

[Sunblink]

...Piix:

Under Stygian's glowering gaze, Piix withered and whimpered, looking thoroughly intimidated as a stark juxtaposition to her previously boisterous behavior. For a moment, she contemplated using the alcohol bottle on the floor as a blunt weapon, or at least something to threaten Stygian. This was probably the most reasonable thought that passed through her mind since her inebriation.

Just then, Stygian started acting peculiarly. The corruption encroaching on his features was thickening, starting to seep into the syllables of his voice. She saw things crawling underneath his skin. Looking highly disturbed, Piix tried to back away, unnerved by Stygian's virtual one-eighty. Almost the instant she budged, she felt something ensnare her ankle and fling her toward Stygian, who apparently grabbed her. Given her dazed and panicked state, Piix couldn't really comprehend what was occurring. It felt like she was still flying.

Right through the door and into Stygian's room, apparently. Piix's pupils pinpricked as she realized this, and let out a cry of protest which was immediately silenced by the slamming of the door.

[Angel]

During the first half of Sahlena's explanation, Sylvie stared blankly. The android was talking about technology and physiological discoveries centuries away from Sylvie's time. The latter part consisted of layman's terms, mercifully, so the elf understood. Her eyes widened just a bit, and she looked into nowhere for a moment.

"Wow," was all she really had to say. It wasn't magic, and saying so would be stupid, but that people could develop such powers through no learning or magical affinity was astounding. "So why did she do it? She wanted to make Dani and me hate him, but she didn't really explain why. It can't just be that she knows him; what does she have against him?" There were a lot of people here who knew Stygian, but no-one quite hated him that much. Not even Dani, who usually kept her first suspicions about people, had been able to completely hold her grudge against him once she'd gotten used to him.

[Boog]

Marya tore down the hallway, grinning. She broke down doors and particularly thin walls, doing everything to insure that this jackass lost track of-

-Bracing himself, the Mechangel fired a heavymetal slug at a velocity in excess of that of sound from his railcannon.-

There was a building-shaking "THUD," followed by a slow creak like the belly of some huge, starving creature. Or at least that's how it sounded to someone who could hear it all around them, and knew what that meant for the structural integrity of the building. She glanced out the window and caught a glimpse of the angel as he disengaged from the wall and cursed at length. Cowardly sonnova BITCH! Choking back the instinctive battlecry of "RkTKTKTKTKTK!" rising at the back of her throat Marya quickly threw together a new plan. And a sofa. That is to say, in addition to throwing together the plan, she threw a sofa that she found in a room of the building.
The furious whine of the whirling components of her gauntlets rose like a thing in pain seconds before the sofa smashed out of the building toward the passing angel, immediately followed by a furious mongoose. Marya lunged, arms outstretched and grasping for her opponent.
"RKTKTKTKTKTKTKTKTKTKTK!"

[techmaster-glitch]

Mechangel

   The Mechangel's electronic eye was scanning around, the electronic half of his brain calculating the best angle for the next shot. Thus, his eye was not shifted into the proper spectrum to see what Marya was doing inside the building.
   Ah, that's a good spot... The Mechangel thought, adjusting his flight to take him-
   [Incoming.]
   WHAT the-
   The Mechangel's feathery, fleshy wing was clipped by the thrown sofa, hurting the wing and completely throwing his flight off. In the next moment, he beheld a chittering, thrashing conglomeration of flying fur shooting straight at him. Her grasping hands did not fail to latch onto him, but for the moment, she was on his mechanical side.
   With the extra weight, and the confusion that made it utterly impossible for the Mechangel to fly in a controlled manner, the two combatants began a tumbling freefall.

[Stygian]

The machine seemed to smile at Sylvie for a moment before shaking her head very briefly, amused by the girl's naïvité.
   ':you've only seen his by far most positive side. and mind that's even after taking into account his charm factor', she said. ':and also the fact that he clearly has it in for you now. always goes for the sweetest around because he knows he can.' She very nearly looked about to give Sylvie a little nudge with her elbow, but realized that would not only be a little too familiar at the moment but also a little too boyish. She looked down for a moment instead, drumming her fingers on the countertop. She emptied her glass.
   ':actually, the way he is right now is very, very tightly controlled and stable, compared to what he used to be like. he's had a good long time to ease down and find himself', she said, a little bitterly. ':his "condition" used to be a lot more... volatile.'

[Angel]

Sylvie couldn't help feeling the teeniest bit exasperated at Sahlena's initial, rather patronizing reaction. She took it with a wry smirk, as she did the android's good-natured jab about her and Stygian (with an added eye-roll and blush about the latter). At the back of her mind, though a few other thoughts were present: Assume that by "most positive," she isn't referring to what happened during the fight and upstairs... or is she?

Sal grew more intense now, and the elf's smirk faded away. She wasn't so sure about what Sal meant by a "good long time," but that was a matter for later. "That explains a little, I guess, but I still don't understand what happened between him and Andrea, specifically. It must have happened while he was less under control, right? And how long ago did his ... problems ... start?"

[Paladin Sheppard]

Not long after Piix left, a very happy, sober and fully dressed and armored Paladin exited the room they had shared.

Whistling a random tune he made his way past Stygian's door and down the stairs to the bar area. Pal found Rex still in the jug of Guinness. "Ye going to end up pickled again Rex." He said chuckling, turning to the barman. "I'll grab another Red Bull and Vodka if I can."

He'd forgotten that both set of his wings were out and had been since he left the room.

[Stygian]

The machine hummed a little before answering, sitting back and crossing her arms beneath artificial breasts, absolutely structurally superfluous save for decorative purposes and some coolant storage, tugging a little on her jacket.
   ':about a decade and a half ago. i was with him from just after he got a grip of himself again, but even then he had... difficulties', she said with a bit of a sad tone. ':the thing is that his condition is infectious. or, at least, it is if he doesn't hold it back. i don't think it's really something he does. rather, it's like a disease he's carrying. or like radiation poisoning.' She glanced toward Sylvie, a little concerned that the elf's idea of what 'radiation' was might be insufficient, but it seemed she had gotten the idea.
   ':thing is', she went on, 'he's unaffected by it because he's so inured and adapted to that kind of corruption that it might as well not exist to him. that's actually the way of nature almost everywhere; everything's contaminated somehow by something, like a disease or a virus. and it might not even be harmful to a creature that's used to it; even the most normal human lives in symbiosis with the bacteria in their mouths and stomachs that helps them digest their food, and many creatures have survived carrying lethal diseases for millions of years. but that doesn't mean that it can't infect something or someone else. someone who's not at all used to it. and when it does...' She gave Sylvie a meaningful look.

[Boog]

"Adapted my ass." The Boogeyman peered out from under his hat and snickered, "Physically maybe. Psychologically... I doubt it. And I know what I'm talking about on that one." He poured himself a glass of something amber colored and took a swig, "Know what you mean about the infection though. Once saw it happen to a house..." He pondered the memories for a second, "It didn't like my sense of humor either. Mebbe that's a symptom."

------

Marya snarled as she clung to the metal half of the angel, one hand and both legs keeping her in place while the remaining limb rained blows on her target. Planting one last blow in what looked like the shoulder joint with a grunt she pushed off from The Mechangel and smashed through the window of another building, raising her gauntlets against the hail of glass.
Well that went better than expected.

[Angel]

Sal was right in guessing that Sylvie understood what radiation was, but that wasn't what was on her mind right now. Infectious. She willed her hand not to move up to her mouth, but she did tuck a strand of hair behind a pointed ear. She tried to convince herself she was being silly; there was no way anything severe could have happened to her in the span of a few hours, right? The Boogeyman's comment almost refreshed the worry, but she was able to overcome it, not by deluding herself into a false sense of security, but by the feeling that something ... wasn't quite right here. As distressing as Sal's explanation and Boog's agreement were, even with what she'd seen upstairs that confirmed it a million times over, something tugged at the back of her mind. There was something missing from all this...

Ah. Of course. Sylvie relaxed herself the slightest bit, not too much just yet.

"Well, I'm not sure what to think of that. But you still haven't answered the question I asked first. That's twice you've ignored it, actually," she added, relaxing a bit more and keeping her tone curious and polite. "I'm sure there's a reason why, because I did ask other questions besides that. But this'll make three times I've asked the same question, so I think it'd spare both our voices if you just answered now." She looked Sahlena right in the eye now. "What happened between Andrea and Stygian?"

[Stygian]

The machine seemed a little confused at the Boogeyman's statement, giving him a quizzical glance, then watched him down his glass. After all, to her the bartender was more of a dance of erratic and erroneous phenomena than anything apparently comprehensible. She didn't even see or hear him as directly as she appeared to be, but she could work out the 'traces' well enough to bridge that little kink.
   ':i'm not sure we're talking the same thing here', she said. 'but at least you got the part about his sense of humor right...'. She made a snorting sound.
   The elf's demand seemed to come more as a surprise to her. Her large red oculum blinked once, and the machine looked right back at the elf for a second, considering before she answered, turning her gaze just a little to the side.
   ':he killed her husband', she said, after a pause. This led to another moment of silence, which she promptly broke. ':i don't know the exact details, but... he was one of the people investigating some of the things they found in Styg's tracks, and he decided to try a more direct approach to get hold of samples... well, i think you can understand.' She looked at the elf again for a moment, then turned forward. ':the guy got out of their first meeting alive, but it was pretty much just a matter of time from there and on. as i said, infectious. and it does not produce pretty results.'

[Angel]

Sylvie said nothing for a few long moments, only stared wide-eyed at Sahlena, then looked away and down a little. Her eyes calmed down, but as had happened when Giles had shown off earlier, her mouth was a thin line, and she was breathing a little deeper than she needed to. Her feelings had just started to calm down before, and now they were just slightly more conflicted than when she'd left Stygian's room. Her confusion from when she'd first entered the bar was petty compared to this. Now there were a few more questions on her tongue, but she had no idea whether she wanted to ask them or not.

The Green glanced at the infirmary door, then up the stairs, then down to her own hands, and shook her head gently. She took a long drink of her grape juice, finishing off the glass, then reached into her bag and set a coin down on the bar.

"...Can I get a glass of the mildest wine you have? Elven wine, if you have it?" she asked quietly. Then, almost as an afterthought, she glanced back at the android. "Thanks for telling me."

[techmaster-glitch]

The Mechangel

   Well...
   The Mechangel desperately tried to disengage from Marya's clutches to no avail as she pummeled every inch of him she could reach.
   I suppose I have no cause for complaint...
   Marya then landed an extra hard blow on his metal shoulder.
   My plan worked perfectly. She's out of the building.
   The viscious mongoose finally shoved off, crashing through the window of another building. I will not underestimate her unpredictability again.
   [Impediment absent. Reengaging flight. Beginning damage assessment diagnostic.]
   The Mechangel beat his large wings with several powerful strokes, regaining stability. Let us see how you deal with this... On his next wing stroke, a few hidden launch tubes opened up on his metal wing. The air was suddenly filled with a very loud, high-pitched whistling sound as two micromissiles streaked from the wing. Guided by The Mechangel, they shot right into the window that Marya went through, and exploded.

[Sunblink]

...Piix:

Around half an hour later, a single doorknob in the tavern turned. Following this revolution, the door started to open - the moment it had inched open, it swung to the side, and the occupant of the room tumbled. Piix clutched desperately to the doorknob, wearing arguably less clothing than she had been after her escapade with Paladin. Her hair was disheveled and matted, hanging about her head, and she looked both distraught and slightly delirious; like she was uncontrollably drunk. Considering her face was very flushed, this wasn't a very inaccurate description. Piix staggered forward, her footsteps clumsy, and nearly tripped over her feet once or twice as she limped away from the door at a very decelerated pace.

[Stygian]

Even as she stumbled forth, the darkness from within the room seemed to trail after the Orin, as if the shadows had somehow manifested themselves as some smoky substance and the drag from her movements were pulling them out. Before Piix managed to take more than a few steps though, before a voice from behind her stopped her in her tracks. A smoky shape began emerging from the door as the shadows cleared up.
   'You have my thanks, short stuff', Stygian literally purred, his outline sharpening as he stepped into the light of the corridor, the glowing, venom-green light in his eyes fixed unerringly on the little alien as it flared and flickered. His features were a haze of crawling black veins still, but he seemed to have regained at least a little composure...
   'I needed that. Dear Hell did I need that...!' he said, grinning wildly and stretching as he stepped away from the door, which smacked shut behind him without a touch. Still leering like that, he chuckled, the sound more akin to a stifled maniacal laugh, and looked down at the Orin in her immodesty, not the least mindful. He petted her on the head.
   'We must do this again some time', he said, knife-like fangs gleaming. 'Must. You hear that?' Laughing, he then gave Piix a firm squeeze to a buttock, turned promptly, and walked off downstairs, steps slightly rolling and drunken and that grin still affixed to his face. Practically skipping off the last step, he snerked a bit as he wallowed over to the counter and leaned on it, smelling of smoke and something perfumed yet toxic.
   'Heeeheheheheheeheeheeheheee...!' he offered the Boogeyman.

[Sunblink]

...Piix:

Piix let out a distressed squeal as Stygian pinched her backside, but did very little to resist him. Instead, she shuffled somewhat blindly down the stairs, staggering and swaying, her mind spinning in her head. Any other reaction seemed somewhat delayed by her incoherent demeanor, and she was a little too drowsy to even consider where she was going. Her first instinct was to trail down to the bar and limply retrieve the beverage she left the room to grab, as though her memory of the previous events had been desperately erased. She happened to breeze by Paladin.

[Paladin Sheppard]

As Piix passed the part of the bar Paladin was sitting, Pal first cringed from the thoughts he was picking up then looked alarmed once he recognized the emitter. Spinning round Pal picked her up and sat her on the seat he had been occupying.

Looking over at the Boogeyman he waved him over. "Look after her will ye, I need to go talk to someone." Pal said as he looked around for the monster that put Piix in her current state.

Spotting him the armored wolf stomped his way over to Stygian, a slight whine indicated that the pistol that was normally holstered on his chest and now in his hand was powered up, and pointed at the blond human's eye.

"You sick son of a bitch. You, me, circle NOW" Pal said not in a shout but in a far more level tone than his rage should normally allow.

[Stygian]

Paladin approached the man, and while Stygian should have noticed at once, it wasn't until he was about four feet from him that he spun suddenly and dramatically, eyebrows shooting, to face the oncoming Cubi. Pal's weapon thrust into his face, he stood frozen in an expression of shock for a moment, before, with a rippling motion from the black veins under his skin, he grinned broadly and sharply again.
   'Heeheheeheheeeheheeeheheeeee!'
   The man's eyes flared, and the shadows immediately around him stretched for just a second. He flicked his gaze over toward the door for a moment, that hideous leer still locked on his face.

[Paladin Sheppard]

Paladin's grey/brown eyes turned into small balls of flames. "Either you pick a circle you bastard, or I drill you right here and now" He growled as his grip tightened on the pistol.

[Boog]

Boog looked from Stygian, to Piix, to Paladin, and then shot Stygian a look that by all rights should have left him a charcoal outline and a comically smoking pair of boots. It was a look that implied that it would be followed by Words, when there was time. Setting out Sylvie's drink with an absent minded "'scuse me, ladies," he slipped out from behind the bar and crouched down to get a look at Piix's eyes. A tendril of thought reached out to assess the damage.
What'd he do NOW?

--

Alright, so I gotta just keep getting him between buildings and hope I bring him down before he takes apart the whole city. Piece of- what's that whistling noise?
The last thought fragment was mostly a courtasy. Oftentimes Marya's body was far cleverer than the brain that it housed, and her advanced reflexes had already sent her streaking for the door of the room. OfukOfukOfukOfukOfukOfukOfuk! She punched the door off its hinges and out of her way, made to lunge around the frame-
BOOM is a much overused sound effect. There are reasons for this.
The blast slammed Marya against the opposite wall in the hallway, and she slumped to her knees.
PAIN.
PAIN.
PAIN.
PAIN.
Pain.
Pain.
Pain.
Pain...
...
Anger.
She sucked air between her teeth, willing what was left of the feeling to recede. Felt along her back gingerly to assess the damage.
Anger.
Mostly superficial damages. The back of her shirt was a mess, but she hadn't caught the brunt of it. She slowly stood back up, testing how far she could go as the pain receded.
Anger!
Marya whirled and was off down the hallway. She had Shit To Do.
ANGER!
"RktktktktktktktktktktTKTKTKTKTKTKTKTKTKAAA!"

[Stygian]

His own eyes narrowing right back, Stygian kept his gaze locked on Pal's for a few more seconds, before with a sudden, mercurially fast and snake-like movement, he slid around the Incubus and over across the floor, toward the front door. Little wisps and smoky streamers of shadow trailed across the floor after him. His grin looked so hard that one could imagine his sharp teeth creaking.
   Swinging out the door into the seemingly perpetual dullness and mellow weather outside, the man stepped out onto the paving and paced straight into one of the free circles, which seemed to react, a tension filling the air and its outline glowing slightly somehow. It was the same as for the other challenges, and yet not. There was something just the slightest bit out of place...

- -

The Orin's mind was about as intact as her physique, that much was clear. But it was so rattled that she was stunned into a state of complete shock, or something nearing disembodiment. As if someone had plucked her mind right out of her head, toyed around with it and put it back in, or jostled her so much that she'd simply lost orientation, and now she was in the state where she was shielding herself with detachment while trying to find the controls again. Dark images flickered and swam past Piix's inner vision, mostly just blurry things though some were quite intimidating in their own right. She didn't seem to have seen so much. The feelings though, the sheer emotions and twisted sensory intake remembered, the intertwined sensations of pleasure and pain, of despair and abandonment and of presence and shivering, creeping, crawling, squirming touches, every possible intrusion whether psychological or physical, were just too much. Too much for her to process at once.
   It was a state of disorientation that the Boogeyman recognized, the sort of condition that took place after some horrible or overwhelming revelation was made to a mind too conventional or just not flexible or tolerant enough to deal with it. Some jokingly called it 'Lovecraftian Shock', though there was little humorous about it. If made too painful or traumatic, it could cause permanent insanity. In Piix's case though, it just seemed to be a state of utter confusion and overwhelmedness. She didn't even seem to have any perception or underlying emotion as to what she thought about the whole thing in hindsight.

[Paladin Sheppard]

Holstering his pistol, Paladin clamped down on his anger and his eyes returned to normal. Staring at the back of the human's head hard enough to bore holes in it, Pal followed him out to the circles.

Casting a spell on himself Paladin stepped inside.

[Stygian]

The air curled and waved as if suddenly heated for a moment, and then the jarring, merciless and twisting rush as the space within the circle distorted to correspond to the new arena. The transition seemed even more violent than it had been though, and a chilling feeling intruded upon Paladin even before an acrid, ashen scent entered his nose. The air darkened and fogged, and smog and distant fire filled the sky, as the blurred reality finally fixed with a shuddering, eye-stinging movement, like the image on a half-burned out TV-screen.
   It was easy to see what had made the circle's transition so 'painful'. The whole of the surroundings seemed tortured, for lack of a better way of putting it. The landscape was a blasted, desolate wasteland of industrial remnants and the skeletal remains of great towers and buildings against a backdrop of massive and wicked cliffs in the distance, sprawling and spindly from across an empty, cracked bed of land that looked as if it had once been a bay, now with merely a glitter of sea on the horizon. A scar of blackish, veiny green and crimson growth cracked the center of it, running up a long canal and under half-crumbled bridges, and elsewhere flecks of more tainted, unliving growth stained the landscape intermittently. Grays and browns blurred together in the heavy air, thick with pollution and an ashen, noxious stench. The landscape was locked in an agonized twilight, painted by a poisonous green sun, yellowing at the edges, and every so often acid lightning ionized and crackled in shades ranging from viridian to orange in the burning sky among shifting black clouds. At times, right at the edge of hearing, the wind howled faintly among empty spires and steel structures. Or, at least one could hope that it was the wind. Whatever creatures that might live in such a place were best left unthought of as long as one could.
   It was a world in its dying throes. No, worse, it was a poisoned world, on the verge of death but still alive with the most twisted and horrid kinds of animation. Tainted. Hellish and undead. And from the rocky, heightened outcrop of a cliff that shot out into the empty bay, in the shadow of the crumbled base of a cathedral-like tower whose smooth structure might once have stretched a mile into the sky, gleaming and pristine, but now looked like a broken, blackened fang in the dead jaw of the earth, Stygian and Paladin had a perfect view of it all.
   'It's the kind of sight that can make one cry,' Stygian rasped up ahead. Standing some twenty meters in front of Paladin, nearing the edge of the cliff and with his back turned to the Incubus, his voice was filled with dark reverie. His eyes cast a vile, green gleam that complemented the landscape perfectly, as he turned to Pal and grinned.
   'Isn't it beautiful?'

[Paladin Sheppard]

Looking around at the environment for a half second,  Paladin replied "Not particularly" as he plucked the M1x Lancer railgun off his thigh, and triggered a burst at the blond human.

[Stygian]

There was the flash of the gun, the electrical, smattering rapport of the powerful rifle lighting up the dusty ground and reflecting off scrap metal and glass far away, as the hypersonic bullets ripped through the air, leaving sizzling streams and distorting the air and light around them for the flicker of a moment their effect could be seen. That flash and the flick of distortion and the shadows around left a silhouette on the Cubi's vision, and for a moment he almost though that his attack had struck home. Then the outline of the human form up ahead, pierced through the right side by the strike of the bullets, simply faded. A leaping, liquid movement of black to his left alerted him just in time before Stygian landed next to him, half-crouched and with his coat billowing.
   'That... wasn't very sportsmanlike of you!' the man laughed. 'Mind the rules! What are they?!'

[Paladin Sheppard]

"One of us leaves as a breathing bloody pulp" Paladin uttered through clenched teeth as he pivoted on one foot, bringing the other up to smash the smug bastard in the chest.

[Stygian]

'My kind of game!' was the man's sharp retort, and his face froze into a grin, a hint of that glow in his eyes as he rolled his fingers. Then, Pal swung around for a retaliation attack. In a flicker, Stygian shifted his balance back on the balls of his heels, left foot lifting and his other arm swinging out and forward in an almost ballet-like move. High roundhouses were strong moves that only left one exposed from the underside. If you weren't even sure how much power your opponent was putting into it, you could only play it safe and flow with the movement, hoping to trip the other up. Catching the movement was an option, especially if one was so strong as to be able to throw the other off, but Pal was armed and armored and Stygian was not. Not to mention coming at him so bold and strong so early was bound to be some sort of lead-in. But, when one had monstrous powers...
   In a blurry movement, thick and full darkness sweeping along with his arm, the black coat became like a great sweeping wing of black, a rush that met the Incubus' blow head-on, a ripple of distortion in the air blinking outward, barely visible. A shadow slid from the exploding blackness, flickering back toward the darkness under the ruined structure next to them in one solid movement, so fast that it could barely be seen. The shadowy outline in front though kept going in its movement.

[techmaster-glitch]

(Sorry for taking so long on a reply. I fail )

The Mechangel

   The Mechangel had managed to restabilize his flight quickly after [Marya] was no longer burdening him. The diagnostic of the damage on his shoulder was completed as well. The damage wasn't too severe, but it certainly wasn't negligible. It's range and speed of movement was now inhibited, which limited the usefulness of his pulse-blasters and plasma beam. His shield was right out, even from the beginning of the fight. He may have no choice soon but to try to directly hit her with one of his railcannon slugs. And that would be messy.
   As he was contemplating his next move, he had also been watching her with his scanning eye, and saw her start moving again before he heard her now-unmistakable chittering. With a few powerful strokes of his wings, he had risen several floors in a span of a five seconds, heading back for the roofline. Her fighting style relies on overwhelming offense, momentum, and inertia. Disrupt her attack waves, cause her to lose momentum, and her effectiveness drops dramatically. And due to her limitation of close-quarters-combat only, and my favoring of flight and ranged combat, she is put at an utter inability to attack effectively if I remain out of her reach.
   The left side of The Mechangel's face dipped into a slight frown as he continued to rise. But that's not a gentlemanly way to fight, not at all... While he would continue regaining altitude, he resolved to see what [Marya] would do next before making another move.

[Tipod]

Ahh. So round, so firm, so fully packed... Wait, that's not it.
The gruff, solid human figure stopped just short of opening the front door, smoldered remains of a cigarillo in one hand and the door's knob in the other. That's Lucky Strike. What're these? ...Screw it, he thought, flicking the cigar butt aside, figuring the gardener wouldn't mind picking up another piece of tobacco-related litter. Let's just see what this madhouse's all about.

As he stepped inside, it became evident the man had little more to him than a human figure: bald head, chinstrap beard, gray shirt, size-thirteen kicks, old and slightly ratty cargo pants paired with an even rattier-looking camoflague jacket... at least it didn't have something stupid sewn on the back like "rage against the machine" or "born to kill." No, this was an outfit worn by a typical, non-affiliated thug with a sense of refinement slightly above your average stoner's. Given the fairly ritzy interior of the club, however, he found himself with a sudden, uncomfortable feeling of self-awareness. Oh, Goddamn it. A fightin' joint with class? This better get real down and dirty in the rings. Despite a lack of more appropos duds, he strode calmly towards the bar, picking out a nice seat. Not some loner seat at the end, but a nice spot just left of center. After all, nobody liked an antisocial barfly.

"Barman!" he spoke loudly, "where's the suds? It's like the Sahara over here." A Groucho Marx expression would've followed, had he any cigars left. Though shortly after the remark, he'd noticed the tweedy twerp examining some short, animal-like biped nearby. "Hey, Mac, you know where the bartender is? My thirst needs slakin'."

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

A short, dumpy hedgehog shouldered his way in the door, looked around at the clientèle, and muttered something inaudible - and better for it, being probably unprintable - about the number, before stumping up to the bar and parking himself on a stool at one end.

He removed his hat - a german war helmet, with spike - and rapped it against the side of the bar to shake the dust loose, then dumped it in front of him with a quiet clang, before producing a coin from somewhere and rolling it across his knuckles, back and forth, while waiting for the bartender to, well, appear.

In the mean time, he surveyed the smoky human figure (heh. Figures. You can always smell when a smoker shows up.), the green spiky creature on the floor (not bad, but a bit lurid. And unconscious, which in Witt's experience was a bad sign.), and the vague collection of sticks (Ah. One of those bars.) that appeared to be tending to her. Having exhausted the immediate possibilities of people who might try to talk at him, he glanced out over the circles outside. There seemed to be some fighting going on in at least one of them. Might even be something worth looking into, but not before a drink.

Definitely not before a drink.