Spoiler (click to show/hide):
Alex and Charlotte are caught by surprise as Iona leaps of the shadows and grabs the prostitute from behind. However, any chance of negotiation are dashed as Magz charges forward and jabs Charlotte in the gut. She lets out a guttural scream as Alex turns to the paladin. "Oh you are dead half-pint!" He yells readying his axe
Back in the forest Morgaine stares dumbfoundead. "What have Lei and Emma been teaching these kids?” She asked herself before joining the fray. In the confusion of the initial attack, Morgaine attempts to tackle their main target and take him down before he can pick up his weapon. But it’s for naught as Alex steps back, axe in hand.
Meanwhile, with a rush of adrenaline Charlotte manages to slip out of the monk’s grasp and put some distance between the two of them. "Fucking Bitch!" Charlotte shouts as she reaches for ... a flute? Putting it to her lips, he begins to play a ballad to lift the spirits of herself and Alex. Like an eagle their focus sharpens as they spy their prey.
Iona sighs as Magz, once again, charges straight in and stabs the prostitute. Well, there goes diplomacy for the most part. Alex looks about one wrong move from just blowing his top thanks to the paladin's stunt. "Smooth move, genius. For someone who claims justice, you sure do enjoy the stabbing part of it more than delivering actual justice." She's not sure if it's the adrenaline from being stabbed or what that allows Charlotte to get out of her grasp, but now that barging tool is out of her hands.
Magz gave Iona a dead-eyed glare briefly as she complained at her for having stabbed the prostitute "These monsters are being served justice and deserve no mercy. You know nothing of what you speak, wayward girl." she said, completely monotone. When the two refused to surrender, she gave no reaction, as she wouldn't have allowed Alex to live regardless.
Despite Magz’s objections, decided to give diplomacy one last chance. "Look, all I wanna do is bring you into the authorities. You can come in quietly or we can do this the hard way and your pretty little girl over here can wind up dead since that's where Miss Paladin here is going with this. You get to choose, Alex."
Despite getting Alex's ear, Charlotte immediately gets his attention. "Don't listen to her. The knights at the fort will have both are heads. Besides if you turn yourself in, we'll never see the world." She said giving him a dewy eyed look
She's not expecting this to work and if negotiations break down... well, Alex doesn't need the help. She moves in to Double Strike the already injured prostitute, hoping to put an end to her song. It almost does as her well trained fist connects first with her shoulder, then her side just around her kidney.
While Iona is on the offensive, a powerful aura envelops Magz. With her sword coated in the prostitute's blood, she gave it a brief flick, slinging the blood onto Alex, then turned to the Prostitute as she prepared her Aura of Protection "You've brought this upon yourself, I hope you realize. The world is a cruel place, but committing acts of evil only makes it more cruel. You deserve no sympathy or mercy." she then turned to Alex as she casted her Aura "You are beyond words. Your soul is doomed." and with that, her aura radiated outward, affecting herself and her allies with its power.
Watching his latest piece of arm candy get roughed up only seemed to make the hulking man more enraged. He doesn't flinch when Charlotte's blood is flung at him. " Big words coming from a dead girl!" He says running towards Magz and lifting his Axe to strike her down. However Magz keeps a neutral expression as she evades Alex's horribly telegraphed axe swing and doesn't bother saying anything further, words are wasted on these two.
Bloodied, beaten and almost incapacitated, a fierce animosity radiates from Charlotte. Playing her flute, she produces a sound unlike anything you've heard before. It’s discordant, even unhinged but Iona, Magz and Morgaine can feel the power behind the music. And its effects become readily apparent.
When Iona turns to offer a rebuttal to Magz's rather extreme view of justice, but finds herself unable to make a sound after that strange note. She'd sigh if she was able to. This is why you always rush down the supporting cast before turning to the big guy: In all stories you read, it turns out that someone you ignored or didn't take out fast enough is the reason things turn to shit. So now she can't talk. Meaning that the sharpness of breath needed for her techniques are out of her hands as well. Hopefully that doesn't matter. Her target is weak and on her last legs. All she needs to do it HIT! But even in her battered state, she deftly avoids Iona’s attack.
On Magz’s end of things, she can feel her muscle strain as if struggling to move. But she overcomes this temporary paralysis for the moment. The lying prostitute is still attempting to fight against them instead of surrendering. Fine, she brought the first attack upon herself, and she's bringing this upon herself as well. She wordlessly attempts to strike her again with her cold metal blade, with a cross-wise swing. The brutal attack connects as Charlotte lets out a last gasp before falling to the ground.
Watching Charlotte fall to the ground Alex goes quiet for a moment. Then ... he erupts into laughter. "Heee...HAHAHAHA, Now this is a fight!" He yells letting out a roar. "Alright, I'm not just going to kill ya, I'm gonna rape your pussy with the broadside of my axe." Flexing, the axe wielding criminal begins to whirl his axe around in a chaotic fashion. Charging Morgaine’s party, it’s hard to tell who will get his by the wild swings. In the end, one swing grazes Iona’s arm, when two swings hit Magz, one across the chest almost crushing her breastplate while the other connects with her thigh.
But before Alex can celebrate, he steps one of Morgaine’s Caltrops. “Hey, look over here” Morgaine said as she tried to get his attention.
Despite what she may think of Magz, worry courses through her as the Paladin takes an absolutely brutal couple of hits. She's not even sure how Magz is still standing with how bad those blows looked! Unfortunately, all of her skills are focused around the self, even if she could use them right now so she can't really help out. And seeing the man's strength, she's not sure if she can pin him in place to give the other combatants a break.
Still, it's worth a try. At worse, well, maybe she can advert his attention onto her. With her plan in place, she moves to grab Alex's arms to hold him in place. It seems to work as the monk holds the wanton criminal in place. Magz sees the world split, as if there was multiple of everything overlapping with each other, and felt the place from which a searing pain had erupted, bringing her hand back in front of her face afterwards. There seemed to be three hands in front of her, but she was still able to see that there was indeed a very large quantity of blood there. "W-wow, th-that's not good..." she said to herself out loud. She, however, could still move, and such a problem would not stop the Justice Train. First, however, in this state, she can barely move...
Magz attempts to get her body back into working order by using Lay on Hands.
With a smirk, Alex begins to put pressure on Iona’s hold. “You think you can hold me!” He yells as he bursts out of Iona’s grab with pure strength. The force of it pushes Iona back somewhat. But again, Morgaine uses the distraction to attempt to flank the large man. While she doesn’t manage it, she’s at least able to cut his side.
Iona isn't really surprised when Alex breaks out of her hold, but at the very least he changed targets and gave Magz a chance to put herself back together a little. She supposes now she should try putting on the pressure to keep his attention wandering. She moves to flank the man and then hit him from behind. Her voice is getting better now. Hopefully she'll be able to use her techniques soon. But Alex proves to be quicker then he looks and evades her.
While Magz continues to hal herself, Alex plans his axe into the ground for a moment. Stretching his arms he seems to be preparing for something, But before anyone can do a thing, he grabs his axe and jumps and lifts off. He jumps high then you would imagine for a man of his size. Coming down, he aims his axe directly at his target. When the axe hits Morgaine, you hear a sickening crack. The mere force of it almost destroys most of her armor, but you can see the adventurer struggling to breath.
Iona is beginning to become concerned. With two or three blows, he's battered both Morgaine, who she thought was never going to be hit, and Magz to the edge of their endurance while they've barely hit him. Or so it seemed to her. They need to finish this as quickly as possible or she thinks this man will start taking them out.
But first she needs to calm down. She's getting too worked up over this. She decides to Meditate to center herself and come back into this fight as best she can. Magz decides now is the time to strike, she probably isn't going to feel much better even if she continues healing herself.
Magz moves to strike Alex with her sword, swinging crosswise at him wordlessly. In turn, Alex evades her attack wordlessly.
Instead, he moves to finished what he starts with Morgaine. Thrusting through her defences, he impales the adventurer’s chest and forces her into the air. Morgaine lets out a blood curdling gurgle before being tossed back to the ground. “You two are next” He says marching towards Iona and Magz.
Well, the calm she got is ruptured a bit when Morgaine goes down. But she can't allow that to stop her. If only because she doesn't want to lose. Nothing more, nothing less. So with her center found, she launches into another Double Strike, hoping to pump as much damage into him as quickly as possible. The first attack hits right where it needs to to set the second attack aimed right at the sternum. It connects, but the strike is shallow.
Magz almost loses faith when Morgaine goes down, blaming herself. She feels as though she should have healed her instead of believing she could continue dodging. With nothing she can do about it now, she continues doing her best to try to take down the murderer.
Magz takes a step forward and swings her sword at him, this time diagonally to try to cover a wider area and prevent him from dodging again. That tactic seems to work as Magz leave a long slash across Alex’s chest. She tries not to look worried so that Iona won't lose confidence.
Just as Alex is preparing to make his next move, you all hear a rustle from the forest. Alex just narrowly dodges as a crimson beast attempts to attack him. "What the hell!" Alex cries in confusion. Looking up, Iona and Magz see the familiar red fur of the Red Dire Wolf they saved when they first began their mission!
"I don't care what you sic at me, I'm a kill it either way!" Alex shouts as he pulls back for another attack. But as if carried by the wind, she leaps over his weapon. Landing gracefully, Standing tall, your wolf companion lets out a might howl to reinvigorate you.
Iona doesn't think her eyes can get bigger when a wolf invades the battlefield, but they do when she recognizes said wolf. "Oh shit! Hey, girl! Returning the favor are you?" she says with a smile, remembering how they met. "Well then, we've gotta make sure this fight ends the same way the first one did, right?" She's never been more glad to have done a good deed.
Meanwhile Magz was trying her best to hide her worry as the situation remained dire, but felt herself feeling slightly better when the wolf from before arrives to help them. She tries, and fails, to hide her shock "Thank the Goddess, I'm so glad to see you again." she said.
But fully celebrating the joyous reunion will have to way until Alex goes down. Given that it hasn't let her down yet, she launches another Double Strike to take him down. This time the first attack misses, but that does detour Iona as she buries her fist right into the wound Magz created.
Attempting to retaliate, Alex merely falls to his knees. He coughs blood, largely due to the large amount of damage Iona had inflicted. By the time he notices it’s too late. Magz, with renewed vigor, moved in for another strike, this time striking vertically, attempting to split this man's skull. The claymore connects with his skull in a deafening crack. Blood splatters the blade and Magz and he lets go of his axe. Freeing her blade, Alex’s body falls with a thud. Magz watches Alex fall, dead, leering at the body, and gives it a hard kick for good measure. “Trash”.
Iona lets out a sigh of relief as Alex falls to the floor dead. She turns to the Red Wolf that assisted them when hope was dwindling and kneels to her eye level. "Thank you so, so much! You brought us back from the brink of despair." She doesn't know enough about whether it's safe to pet a wild wolf so she doesn't, but she really wants to.
As if sensing her hesitation, the Red wolf slowly walks towards Iona and brushes against her leg, encouraging Iona to pet her fur.
With a wide, wide smile, Iona reaches out and strokes the Wolf's fur from her head to her tailbone. There's something soothing in the action
After kicking the murderer's body twice more for good measure, Magz makes her way to the wolf and gently rubs its head "Thank you for your assistance, we weren't sure we could have defeated that evildoer." she said, trying to keep her tone encouraging for the wolf.
With a playful howl, the two of you are brought back to the situation at hand. You have your target and his mistress. Morgaine is breathing, but badly hurt. Right now, it’s just Iona, Magz and their wolf companion.
