The group, lead by Guy, was heading towards Luke's room at the inn to wake him from oversleeping yet again. They were no more than three yards away when they heard the shouting.
"…up to here with your bullshit! I'm sick and tired of being the mature one in this relationship!" Luke's voice ranted from inside the room.
The sounds of assorted banging and snarling were heard before the door flung wildly open and Luke stormed out in a nasty temper. He appeared to calm a little when he saw them. Appeared being the key word there, since none of the anger left his words or bearing.
"Oh, hi. You all should probably know that Asch and I have apparently been 'just fuckbuddies' for the past several months," he snapped with calm viciousness not really directed at any of them, "But that's over now. Tell him that if he comes looking for me, I'll give him a headache the likes of which he's never imagined before making him jump into the Fubras River in full armor."
And then Luke was gone, walking as fast as he could without running out of the inn and quickly losing himself into the near-noontime crowd of Chesidonia's markets.
There were a few seconds of stunned silence before any of them gathered their wits enough to act. Guy was glad he had learned to keep his little fontech camera on him at all times, because the picture he got of Asch standing dumbfounded in the middle of Luke's room, wearing nothing but his underwear, could probably be bartered to Anise later for several months, at the very least, of no feminine torture.
He then waved over Natalia, who he figured would want to get in a few good shots before he started beating Asch up in earnest for hurting Luke. She didn't disappoint, striking him squarely across the face with a slap more heavily heel than palm. It didn't make quite as satisfying a sound, but it would sure do more than sting in the morning. He was kind of proud of her for making this an exception to her usual and going with practicality over show this time. Another click of the camera guaranteed that Asch would never get a chance to forget his mortification at that moment.
When satisfied, she backed off just enough for Tear to get in a good shot of Mieu fire at him. Guy commenced the thrashing with a good punch to Asch's gut while he was too busy trying to put out the flames to notice the blow coming or even attempt to block it. The rest was simple enough after the first shot knocked the wind clean out of him. Luke seemed to have already taken the fight out of him before they had even got there, which was a strange reversal from usual, but Asch deserved every bit of what was now coming to him, at least in Guy's opinion. Hurting Luke is not a thing to be tolerated, and it seemed that Asch's typical thickheadedness meant he would have to learn that the hard way. The extremely hard, painful way.
Jade hung a bit back. He was rather disappointed in both himself and Asch. Himself for letting this 'relationship' go on so long, believing that even Asch couldn't be so monumentally stupid as to screw up this badly, and Asch for actually managing to screw up this badly. Oh well, he'd just have to handle the humiliation part of their revenge as his punishment. And boy, did he have some good ideas, especially after seeing the camera Guy had held.
"Tear, first fonic hymn, if you would please." Jade said, once it looked like Guy was finished with the beating to his satisfaction. All of Jade's plans would be much easier to set up if Asch wasn't struggling.
She sang gladly, and Asch passed out, but not before slipping in a few creative curses on all of them and a good number of their forebearers. If only Yulia were alive today to hear such language…
He held his hand out to Guy, and wasn't sure if it was a credit to Guy's people reading skills or his own expressiveness in silence and commanding presence that it only took Guy moments to figure out what he wanted and hand over a camera. It did not slip Jade's attention that this was a different camera than earlier, but he didn't feel the need to point it out. He'd get negatives from the previous pictures from Anise later. There would be more material to work with on a camera with no used film anyway.
"Now, if you," he waved at Tear, Guy, and Natalia, "Wouldn't mind finding and tending to our lost charge, I believe Anise and I have some business to take care of here."
Anise smiled cheerily and waved them off with sinister enthusiasm as they left to find Luke in the midday crowd, a daunting task at the very least. They would not be back anytime soon.
"How quickly can you lay your hands on a razor, permanent dye in multiple colors and a fine paintbrush, a dress with more frills than would make even Tear gag, and a live squid?" Jade asked her casually.
"If I'm not back in ten minutes, tops, I renounce my right to court any rich men that come along!" Anise shouted, already racing back to her room.
Despite the abysmal mess this had turned into, Jade couldn't help a small smile at her enthusiasm, and at the thought of their soon to come activities. He hadn't had a chance to extract full revenge on anyone in a very long time, and never to have fun while doing so.
Luke's complete obliviousness to his silent ring of protectors was probably for the best. He'd never accept their help if he knew about it, and the boy certainly needed it. Somehow he just kept gathering these people around him, completely unawares of it himself. But they'd keep watching over him, letting him stumble into his own mistakes, but being there to make sure those who hurt him never walked away unscathed.
Luke just engendered that kind of trust and protective instinct in almost everyone who got to know him. And they would just have to forcibly remind the people who forgot about it.
But he could already see Anise weaving her way back through the people in the inn while trying not to drop the load in her arms. He approved the extra items she had taken the initiative to bring along. The carrots and handcuffs in particular could prove to be quite appropriately useful, not to mention amusing.
It would be a day nobody was going to forget, they'd make quite certain of it. As would the camera.
Jade briefly contemplated attempting to quantify Luke's ability to unwittingly take almost everyone who spent any amount of time around him and leave them with the irrational need to protect him, help him, no matter what their original intentions towards him were. But he shook it off, because it was merely unexplainable, incomprehendable, unreproduceable and unimitatable. And those were terms Jade did not use lightly.
So he just gave in to the instinct to protect, to wreak proper vengeance, and let it run its course.