know, I know. I've got enough stories in the middle, or that i need to work on, but you know what?
In the words of LittleKuriboh's Seto Kaiba, but altered to my own means.. screw the rules, i have plot bunnies.
not that there are any rules.
I am going through this story and slowly re-reading and slightly shinying it up again. Just so I can get it running again!
in anycase. this is Capua Nor. You know, wandering in the first time... and Yuri helps someone by tripping them, then wanders off to kill people. YAY. thats where this starts, right before Flynn shows up for those of you who remember that bit. Yes yes.
well, things are gunna be fun.
For the sake of me making sense of things, because i have yet to beat the game, and am currently waiting for a new power cord to hopefully fix the General Hardware Failure Red-Ring, cause the light on teh cord is orange, orange, orange...
my brain just died. In anycase. there are spoilers. because i have read them, despite only entering Myorzo or whatever it is before getting Red Ring...
And! Some things that I've decided.
Great War ended 10 years ago, roughly. Not on date, but yeah. it was a 10-year war.
I own nothing. Vesperia and all its characters, and Symphonia and all its characters belong to Namco-Bandai. I'm a lazy ass, so this is the only time you'll see this. I do however, ... did create the little quirks you'll be seeing, and the slight changes to plot. :D
"There are a lot of ya, aren't there?" Yuri hisses, twisting away from a Red Eye's thrust and quickly swallowing an apple gel. Sure, he'd been expecting someone to kill when he walked this way, but not the mob of assassins he found. Yuri twisted again to avoid another assassin, swinging his blade for the head of the newcomer only to find that this was not a Red Eye, nor wearing anything like one. With ease the young man – he didn't look too much older than Yuri – ducked under Yuri's blade, flashing him a wide grin, and jumped the nearest Red Eyes with a wordless yell of challenge. Yuri blinked at the stranger's style – he was wielding two swords of the mismatched variety with ease and precision, rain hissing off one blade and cracking on the other. A near miss of a Red Eyes attack had him stop thinking and start attacking again.
Unfortunately, for every Red Eyes his blade found its mark on, another would drop into the melee.
"So." The stranger had a cheery voice, in spite of the current situation that pressed him back to back with Yuri. "What didja do to get these guys on your back?"
"Nothing that I'm aware of." Yuri grimaced, shifting his weight and heard the man at his back match his movement with a different position of his own.
"Might sting, still learning. First Aid." Yuri felt cold run through him, kicking up a few prickles and the pain from cuts and bruises faded more than he expected for a First Aid. There hadn't been a casting chant either. "Ahh... overloaded it, but not as bad. You didn't yelp!" as the stranger snapped the last word, his blue glowing right hand blade flicked and sliced through the neck of one of the Red Eyes. Yuri ignored the sound of cracking and popping as the blade moved back to the man's stance. It didn't sound like bones, so it wasn't worth worrying about.
"You got any more spells?" Yuri slashed at a Red Eye that moved too close, drawing blood, and swung for another, gaining sore knuckles.
"... Unless you want me to damage houses... no." the stranger says cheerfully. "My control isn't worth rotted food to a noble." Yuri grimaced at that analogy and what it would mean.
"Well, let's just see how long it takes for my friends to notice we're over here then." It actually didn't take long – although it wasn't the Rita, Karol, Repede, or Estelle Yuri would have thought to notice he was gone and suspicious noises of death were coming from the dark alley mouth, but the blond haired knight was welcome just the same.
"Ahh, good. Back up." The stranger muttered, swiping blood from a lucky cut across his cheek off with the heel of his hand while keeping the red left blade locked with a Red Eyes' punching dagger.
"Yuri, are you all right?" the blonde knight knocked two of the Red Eyes away.
"Flynn!" Yuri blinks, straightening. "What are you...? Hey! That's my line!"
"I've been looking all over for you." Flynn says.
"That one was mine, too." Yuri says dryly, Azure Edge'ing a new Red Eyes. The stranger watched with quiet study and entertainment as Yuri and the knight immediately moved as one, striking down the Red Eyes together. "Good, eh? Wonder if that's how me and Dad looked." he asked the Red Eyes he had pinned before killing the assassin.
"...Heh, that was about to get ugly." Yuri says, gingerly moving his right hand.
"All right.." Yuri paused in turning about as Flynn suddenly took a swipe at his head, the stranger smirking suddenly at the sight.
"Whoa, hold on!" Yuri catches the second strike on his blade. "What are you doing?!"
"Yuri, I'm happy to see you're finally seeing the world outside the barrier." Flynn says with deceptive cheerfulness as he keeps his blade down on Yuri's. Yuri shoves at the knight, then dodges and dodges again as Flynn tries taking chunks out of him.
"So, be a little more happy then." Yuri says, keeping his blade in a good guard position as Flynn's blade strikes and strikes again to clang off. "and stop pointing that thing at me."
"Well I got a little less happy when I saw this!" Flynn indicated something on the wall with his blade. Yuri reached over and plucked the paper from the wall, absently noting that the stranger was still watching, amused like while he absently cleaned his blades.
"Hey!" Yuri exclaimed cheerfully. "It's up to Ten thousand Gald. Nice."
"I didn't think when you quit the Knights that you'd take up a life of crime." Flynn sheathed the sword.
"Nice. Look, the art's just like you." The stranger looked at picture, grinning widely. Now that they were nearer the mouth of the alley, Yuri could see he had brown hair lightly highlighted with red that dropped half over his face due to the water, his eyes were bright and a terracotta sort of shade – a warm muddy red-brown mix. He wore a dark red coat to a little past his ribs, gloves of the same color, a black-stained shirt armor, if not a suit, and loose black pants tucked into dark red boots, as well as twin dark brown belts about his waist for his mismatched blades. He was also taller than him, likely by two or three inches if they were on level ground and without shoes. He frowned playfully at Yuri. "I was supposed to help you, right?"
"Who's your friend?" Flynn asks, eyeing the stranger.
"That's a good question." Yuri turns to the stranger, only to find the man absorbed in his own little world, which seemed to be fishing through his pockets to find something while holding a rent in his clothes. "... He's not paying any attention..."
"Yuri, a crime is a crime." Flynn had sheathed his blade, but he seemed intent on taking Yuri in.
"And you're as stubborn as always, I- Uh-oh." clicking noises drew Yuri's attention to the street, and Yuri finds his attention taken again, but this time by Estelle.
"Yuri, I heard something happened." He felt the cold shiver through him again, and from Flynn's hiss, the stranger had healed him too. Now he only had rain water and mud to mark something amiss. "Are you all..." Estelle caught sight of his Knightly companion.
"Perfect timing." Yuri smirks at Estelle.
"..Flynn!" Estelle darts past Yuri to hug the blond knight, completely ignoring the red clad stranger as he stitched a hole on his pants back up while standing. "Oh, Flynn. Are you all right? Have you been hurt?" While Flynn stood flustered as Estelle basically felt him down for injuries, Yuri returned to street level.
"I-I'm fine now. Um, Lady Estellise..." Flynn managed to get her to stop as Yuri paused by the stranger, watching the man balance and keep his stitch work neat and tiny.
"Oh!" Estelle jumps a little back. "I'm sorry. I was just so happy to see you, I..." Flynn looked thoughtful for a moment, glancing at Yuri's back and the stranger.
"Please, this way." He grabbed onto Estelle's hand hurried past the other two men.
"What? Ah, but..." Estelle stumbled a little, then turned so she could run normally with the knight. "Flynn, there's something I need to tell you...!"
"I better go find Karol and Rita.." Yuri reached over and snagged the sleeve of the stranger as the man shifted from the shadows behind him and made to move off in the other direction. "And you're coming too. There's no place else to stay in the city." Yuri keeps his grip on the sleeve as the man grins a bit sheepishly at him.
"I'd be fine taking the top off one of those boxes and sleeping." The stranger points out. "I don't mind a bit of rain."
"You'll drown." Yuri points out dryly. The man looks like he was going to protest again, then grimaces and shuts his mouth. "There, that wasn't too hard, was it?"
"Whatever, girly-locks." The man twists his sleeve out of Yuri's hold. "I can walk without a leash."
"If you're sure about that." Yuri smirked at him, only to get one back.
"Yes mother, you don't need to hold my hand anymore." The man imitates a child's voice, sidling up against Yuri, before breaking out in muted laughter and moving back to half a pace away – far enough that the sheath at his closest side didn't come close to whacking Yuri or the one he carried on cords. The man's mirth faded visibly as they walked the short ways back to the inn, his eyes losing their cheer as he took in the state of the citizens, and his fists clenching, more the brown fading into more red.
"There's nothing you can do right now. Even if you give them Gald, the Magistrate will take it via taxes, and they'll be back in this state." Yuri points out as if he wasn't really pointing anything out.
"Tch..." the man makes an angry noise, then mutters to himself in a foreign language. If it wasn't for the snarling, angry quality to the stranger's voice, the language would have been quite pretty. Yuri had the feeling that the man was swearing like a sailor in it. Yuri nudged the man with his sheath, and they made the left corner together.
"So you step in against the Red Eyes, but not when a Knight tries to take off my head?" Yuri asks, glancing at him.
"He wasn't really trying." The stranger shrugs. "They would have been injuring, yes, but not fatal. He wasn't putting his all into the first one – he wanted you to catch it. So there wasn't any reason."
"Uh-huh." The stranger stood back and to one side, watching Repede curiously while Yuri talked with Karol and Rita about Estelle and Flynn. When Yuri turned, intending to give the healer and knight some time to talk, he found the brunette man squatting next to Repede, one glove off and palm up for the blue and white dog to inspect his light tan hand.
"You're a smart guy, ain'tcha. Using our metal claws and fangs as well as your natural ones, hm?" Surprisingly, the dog allowed the man to scratch behind his ears, and just as interesting, the brunette spoke as if he completely expected the dog to reply and for him to be able to understand, not in that baby-talk nonsense some people spouted to dogs. "Not that I can blame ya, I'd do the same. Man, I wish Noishe'd fight when we traveled. Dad told me he helped out, but no, by the time I was interested in fighting, he'd gone coward." Repede watched the man as he talked more or less to himself. "Not that I can really blame him." The man shrugged. Yuri wandered off to go talk to townsfolk.
"So, who're you?" Karol asks, keeping under the awning and watching the brunette man ignore the rain.
"No one, really. Just met your friend just now, and he told me I don't get to sleep in a box 'cause I'd drown." The man continues scratching Repede, ignoring the wet-dog-smell.
"You met Yuri in an alley." Rita figured out where. "Do you know how shady that is?"
"No, I'm remarkably not shady. See? Red. Not grey, or dark blue, like those guys who were attacking him." The man flashed her a grin.
"What guys?" Karol asks, startled.
"Some guys in dark blue coats with these lenses over their eyes so they glowed red." Karol and Rita looked at each other, but the stranger continued. "Mind you, the effect isn't quite as good as naturally having red eyes. The lenses make them look a bit bulbous."
"Red Eyes? Yuri was being chased by Red Eyes?" Karol muses. "What did he do this time?"
"The same thing that raised his bounty?" the man asked, then sighed. "I wished they'd have put a bounty on me. That would have been so cool. But nooo.. I was only Wanted Criminal #0074... Then again, they weren't even a government group, more like terrorists..." he didn't seem aware that the others were there, or Yuri was returning. "... Does that mean they'd only had 74 wanted criminals in the entire time they'd been around?" his head tilted slightly as Yuri stopped on the doorstep, watching him. His eyes darted over to the right as if watching someone from the corner of his eye. "Yes, I'm aware that insanity must run in the family." Yuri coughs. "Hullo." The stranger grins.
"Should we go inside?" Karol asks, looking a little warily at the man.
"Sure." Yuri shrugs, opening the door. "You too, babbles."
"Whatever, Girly-locks." The man retorts, standing. Karol mouthed what the man had said, before following Yuri in. Rita eyed the man again, but followed after Repede, and the stranger shut the door after them. He pulled out a slightly stained, but clean, towel from his pack and dried his hair on the spot, before shedding his coat and the dark stained shirt of armor. He was wearing a full length black shirt under the armor. After they'd gone in, Yuri reserved beds for the three of them, Estelle and the stranger, before heading to the other room with his friends in tow.
"All finished?" Yuri asks, walking into the room, watching the knight and healer. Flynn glanced back as Estelle tilted her head. "And are we done whispering secrets?" Yuri continues a bit sarcastically.
"I've heard your story up until this point, Yuri." Flynn says, still sitting with his back to the nearly black haired swordsman. "And also the reason for the bounty on your head." Flynn stands, facing Yuri, Rita and Karol, the stranger having already moved past Yuri to lean on the wall. "First off, I owe you my thanks for protecting her." The knight inclined his head.
"Oh, I've been meaning to express my gratitude as well, Yuri." The pinkette healer stood quickly, and bowed slightly.
"It's nothing." Yuri denies the need for thanks, watching as Flynn strode past the stranger toward the bed in that corner. "I was already out searching for that Blastia thief."
"And that's where we have a problem." Flynn faced Yuri again, his eyes catching on the stranger for a second, then returning to the target of his conversation.
"Hmm?" Yuri tilts his head.
"Regardless of the circumstances, the imperial law cannot allow the obstruction of officers, jail breaking, and trespassing." Flynn says firmly. The stranger's eyebrows went up in his hair as he grinned again, running ungloved hands through his hair in an effort to get the last of the water out. It was now sticking up messily.
"I'm sorry, I'm afraid I told him everything." Estelle says, clasping her hands before her as Yuri glances her way.
"Don't be sorry." Yuri shrugs. "I mean, I did all that stuff." He seemed to pay no further mind to it.
"Then I assume you are prepared to receive the punishment your actions deserve." Flynn didn't really ask it.
"Flynn?!" Estelle moved forward, but paused as Yuri cut in.
"Do whatever you like, but just listen a minute, will you?" Flynn cuts him off.
"So you can tell me how it was all done in order to get back the lower quarter's Blastia core?" Flynn asks. "That's what you wanted to say, right?" before Yuri can respond to that, the door opens again, and an orange haired female knight and a small green haired boy walk in.
"Sir Flynn, I have news..." the smallest of the lot in the room blinked and double took at the mage he'd just passed. "Wh-what is Rita doing here?!" he turns and points at the taller mage. "I heard you refused an imperial request for assistance. Do you think it's all right for a mage employed by the empire to simply abandon her obligations?" Yuri watched the small green haired male, then glanced at Rita.
"Who's that?"
"Got me." Rita says, bringing a hand up to her face to think.
"... Humph, whatever." The green haired one turned around. "It's not like I care a whit about you either." He shifted light blue frames.
"I'll make the introductions." Flynn says. "This is my second-in-command, Sodia." The orange haired woman with a single right braid and violet eyes nodded to them. "This is Witcher, a mage who offered his assistance to us in the laboratory in Aspio." The mage shifted his glasses again. "This is my..."
"You...!" Sodia abruptly recognized the man she was standing across from. "Sir, it's the criminal from the wanted poster!"
"Hey, good for you, Yuri! She says you're good looking!" For some unknown reason, this seems to crack the stranger up, and he holds his sides as he proceeds to slide down the wall laughing.
"Wh-what? I did no such thing-!" Sodia draws her blade, pointing it at Yuri, who just looks down the edge as if wondering what it's doing there.
"At ease, Sodia...!" Flynn throws a hand out, despite that he was nowhere near enough to touch the blade. "He is a friend of mine."
"What?!" Sodia looks startled, but her blade doesn't waver. "But Sir, he's a wanted man!" she glares the stranger at the base of the wall, who looked like he might burst into laughing again.
"I've just heard his story." Flynn indicates Yuri. "While he is guilty of minor crimes, the warrant for his arrest contains false accusations. Later, I will return him to the capital and explain the situation." Yuri looks at Flynn as the knight drops his hand. "And he will receive his due punishment." Sodia stares at Yuri, then at the laughing brunette man, and puts her blade away.
"My...my mistake, Sir." She glances over to the mage. "Witcher, let's have your report."
"So, we're done here, right?" Rita asks as the small mage walks over to Flynn, the brunette stranger sitting up again.
"I believe the ongoing rain and wind are being caused by a Blastia. The weather in this season is unpredictable, but it does not explain why it worsens whenever boats leave port." The stranger abruptly grew serious, his red tinted brown eyes intent on Witcher as he gave his report.
"We also have testimony that something like a Blastia was carried into Magistrate Ragou's residence." Sodia adds.
"I've never heard anything about a Blastia that controlled the weather." Rita says, thinking aloud. The stranger's eyes flick over to her as he stays perfectly still. "Nothing like that has ever been excavated... Wait, the aque Blastia, the ruins... it couldn't be..."
"So his lordship, the magistrate, is using a Blastia to control the weather." Yuri puts it together and voices it.
"... It appears that way, though we can't yet say for certain." Sodia says, although she looks like she'd rather not be agreeing with Yuri. "The harbor has been closed due to weather. Any ship that leaves is fired on for disobeying the ordinance." The brunette man's expression twisted in anger, and he made fists in the fabric of his pants.
"So much for crossing over to Torim..." Yuri says.
"Those aren't the only rumors surrounding the magistrate." Flynn's voice was soft. "He's released a monster known as Rhybgaro into the wild and amuses himself by forcing those who can't pay their taxes to hunt it. He claims he'll pardon their taxes if they can manage to capture the beast." Yuri could have sworn that every hair on the back of his neck jumped straight up as some instinct told him to run from a predator as the stranger makes a choked, angry noise from the floor next to him, but after he did so, it vanished. Repede whipped his tail once or twice, before sitting back down, and Flynn also looked uneasy as Karol peeks about from behind Rita.
"How cruel..." Estelle murmurs.
"Cruel doesn't begin to cover it." The stranger's voice was small, but because it was crushed so that it held no emotion.
"That injured couple we met near the entrance must be two of his victims." Rita says.
"And their child..." Karol says.
"What?" Flynn blinked at Karol as the stranger began muttering sourly to himself in that pretty language. "What happened to their child?"
"Forget about it." Yuri stepped into Flynn's line of sight. "Well, it's been a hell of a day for us, and we're tired." He grabs onto the stranger's arm. "Let's just stay at this inn for the night." Yuri pulls the man out after him, Karol, Rita and Repede on his heels. Estelle overheard the start of a conversation about a missing person before she shut the door on the knights. She found Yuri staring down the slightly taller brunette man.
"Let me go." All amusement was gone from the brunette man's face. "I need to do something, anything."
"Flynn will get you arrested if you attack anyone." Yuri points out.
"I don't give half a ratwiggle's ass." The stranger snaps. "I can't just sit around while there's someone... doing shit like that to the people he's supposed to be caring for!" his hand flicks to indicate the town, the less-than-well kept state of the room they stood in at an Inn that should have been well kept. "Protecting!"
"Sleep." Yuri insists, but his grey eyes say the same sort of thing that the stranger's red-brown do. "You used some magic, right? You need sleep first."
"..." the man turned, pulling his sleeve from Yuri's grip. "You're right. I might do something I might regret later right now. Might accidently set fire to something other than that bastard." He dropped himself on the bed closest to the door, kicking off his boots and then ignored the lot of them as he started mending again.
"So, how'd you meet Mr. Anger Issues?" Rita asks, taking up a bed as well.
"Red eyes." Yuri shrugged. "He jumped in, Flynn jumped in, they won't get up again."