Vivere Militare Est

[Lagunamov]

Well, that certainly isn't my favorite way of waking up.
July 30th
Prelude

A splash of freezing cold water greeted Elrick, waking him up from his slumber. His hands remained locked together, his arms stretched upwards towards the ceiling of that dark and filthy room. Looking down, he saw that he was hanging in the air, the handcuffs in his hands tied firmly to a hook that hung from the ceiling. His right eye couldn’t open, not from the injury sustained the previous night, but from the bandage applied on top of the right side of his face. In fact, as he became more aware of his surroundings – and that he was missing his clothes - he noticed that the wound from the arrow and sword had also been parched up. Sloppily, but still, parched up.

Naturally, he wasn’t alone in the room. Hammond was there, standing behind a guard who held an empty bucket in his hand. The man had his left arm in a sling, evidently more hurt in the shoulder than Elrick previously thought. A sadistic smile grew on his face, slowly, and at the same time as a translucent creature floating behind him started to become more obvious. The prisoner’s eye widened, the memory of the previous night returning to him in a shock.

“Taming Gods, are we?” he snarked at him, prompting laughter in the room from the man. “I’ll let you believe that. No use wasting time explaining to a soon to be dead man,” Hammon shrugged off Wieland’s question, giving a hand sign to someone behind Elrick. He heard the sound of something being picked up from the wall, hitting the ground, and then being tested for its elasticity.

“Nothing to bite on?” he commented annoyed. Apparently, Orpheus had lost their manners. “No. We’d rather hear your screams. Particularly his Excellency, who is watching from behind the glass,” Hammond pointed with his good arm at a black glass to their right. Standard equipment for interrogation or torture rooms. They could have quite the party back there without the victim ever knowing if there was anyone even watching. “He has been expecting to see your punishment for the longest time.”

"I'm flattered. So the old geezer likes to watch. I never thought him to be a voyeur kind of person." With that, Elrick felt the air rip in two behind him and the flesh on his back burn in agony. He bit the inside of his cheek to keep himself from screaming as the whipping continued, slowly tearing the flesh from his back. He wasn't about to give them the satisfaction of hearing screams or seeing tears from the pain.

[Fate]

The Reluctant Warrior
--

Far away from where Elrick was, in the Industrial District, Lillian was already awake and pacing. Both her and Raen had ran the hell out of the Residential District and wound up here, an abandoned warehouse, by pure luck. By the time they got there, she about collapsed on the floor from running so much. She almost did, deciding to only doing so after triple-checking that they hadn't been followed and that they would be okay, at least for now.

She couldn't stop pacing, stop moving period. Her left hand and wrist was wrapped in leather from her jacket, which she had cut off with the dagger to make the bleeding stop and make it hurt less. It wasn't that bad to begin with, not broken at the very least, but she had to be somewhat careful shooting now. She figured that she was going to be doing that activity a lot while she was here.

They weren't leaving without Elrick. Well, they couldn't really. He had gotten them here through that Corridor thing, which made leaving pretty much impossible. But aside from that, leaving a comrade behind wasn't something she could do. So for now, she'd wait for Raen and they could start looking for Elrick.

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[Nothingness]

What a...humble abode

If anyone tried to ask Raen how he and Lillian wound up in this dump of a warehouse, he wouldn't know what to tell them. From the moment they ran away to the moment they entered the warehouse, everything was a blur to him. Not only that, but the gash on his shoulder had managed to bleed through his jacket, and he could barely move his left arm anymore. Luckily, it stopped bleeding completely a short while ago, but that still left the chance for infection.

As soon as they had got inside the warehouse, Raen tossed the spear he had stolen behind a bunch of crates, and immediately collapsed next to one, leaning against it. Finally getting a breather, he let his mind go blank and watched Lillian pace. Unfortunately, there was something about Lillian's pacing that was slowly trying his patience. Eventually, he couldn't take anymore and snapped at her, more harshly than he should have. "Could you just stand still for five seconds!?"

Raen ran a hand down his face, muttering, "Sorry." He knew that she was just as worried about Elrick as he was, but just pacing in circles wasn't going to help anymore than sitting on their asses. "We need a plan." "No crap, genius." that small voice in the back of his head said.

[Fate]

Yeah, real humble.
--

She stopped pacing as soon as she heard Raen's voice, almost jumping. She gave him a bit of a startled look, though honestly she couldn't blame him much-- both of them had their nerves shot from this whole experience. Though, she couldn't hold back the "No shit Sherlock," remark when he told her that they needed a plan. Right now, the plan of "Find Elrick" wasn't specific enough. They needed the how and the where and all of that crap. They didn't even know where Elrick was, which was the problem.

"Probably should start by trying to find where they've got him, see if we can find any clues or something" she said, "They're probably going to make a big deal out of this and wait to kill him until the right time." Or at least she really, really hoped so. If they could at least find out where he was being held, then they could plan from there. Lillian wasn't exactly the greatest at coming up with longterm plans, used to improvising on the spot. But with Eurydice, they had to.

"Either way, if we step out there, we're probably gonna get recognized on the spot. We should probably find a way to get disguises... somehow. Then we could go from there." Yeah, and just how the hell were they going to do that Lillian? Steal and hope they didn't get caught or something. And if they got caught and/or into a fight, how was that going to work? Last time she checked, Raen hadn't brought his sword with him and had been improvising. Ugh.

She thought for a second before grabbing the gun she usually held in her left hand, tossing it to Raen. "Use that for now. I know it's not a sword or anything, but it's something." And if he could use his ice abilities to shoot ice out of it, she might just be a tad jealous.

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[Nothingness]

Just nod your head; I'm not paying attention

If she tried to make torture followed by death sound like the better option to him, then Lillian failed at that. Still, as terrible as it was, they did need more time to figure out what exactly they were supposed to do, not to mention learn where Elrick was.

Raen scratched his chin and thought about the idea of disguises for a few seconds. In fact, it didn't take long for him to suddenly start devising a plan around that. He spoke slowly and thoughtfully at first, but became much more frantic and excited. "Blending in would be a pretty good idea. I mean, hell, we could just sneak around the back alleys of the residential district, probably buy some clothes there--not like we're completely broke." He shot up and started pacing himself, muttering more than anything. "In fact, that's not a half bad idea. We'd need to get ourselves cleaned up a bit, too--going in bloodied and battered would set the guards on us in no time. Yeah..."

He was so lost in his thoughts that when Lillian tossed the gun at it him it practically nailed him in the fact before he noticed it. Catching it a few inches from his nose, he turned it over in his hands and looked at it. "Thanks. Y'know, a friend of mine back in the Shield uses guns. I doubt I can use my power through this as well as he can, but, I'll see what I can do." With that said he flicked his wrist, took the safety off and fired a shot into a crate above Lillian. The shot itself was a pellet of darkness--not enough to kill, but enough to stun. "Eh, it'll do."

[Lagunamov]

Can I get the number of the interior's designer?

The blood on his back had long dried up, wounds starting to close on their own now that the torture was over. Left alone hanging in that room, Elrick barely managed to keep himself conscious through the unpleasant event. Orpheus was evidently infuriated at his desertion years back, going so far instead of simply imprisoning him. It was fishy how unnecessarily important they had made his departure.

The door to the room opened, two soldiers finally coming in after being left alone for an hour with just his thoughts. “Oh look, company. I missed you guys,” Elrick joked, barely even looking at the armored guards. The pair approached him, removing him from the hook and holding him by the arms, him hanging backwards in the middle as he began to be dragged away from the room.

“You are getting parched up again. His Excellency doesn’t want your spark gone before your public execution later today. The heralds are probably being informed of it right now to pass the news along,” the man on Elrick’s left said, making his widened in shock. ”Public execution!? What the hell is going through that old man’s head?” Elrick thought to himself, and would have started to count his minutes left had he not become distracted by his surroundings.

The hall through which he was being dragged was most unfamiliar. It wasn’t dark and grim like Orpheus’ HQ, but rather warm instead. Columns decorating the walls every couple of minutes, a golden tint to the lighting in there and other decorations painted on the walls. It most certainly wasn’t headquarters where he was being kept. No. It resembled more… the general architecture of the central island.

[Fate]

Oh yeah, covered in blood. Forgot about that.
--

Clothing had been the last thing on Lillian's mind, but as soon as Raen mentioned it, she couldn't help but look down. There was blood and dirt and holes everywhere-- they'd recognize her on the spot, same with Raen. His idea was good then. They'd get new clothes, clean themselves up, and then see if they could find any information about where Elrick was. Then they'd find him and get the hell out of here so they could never come back. That was the plan, a very, very loose plan.

The gun seemed to work just fine for him, for now at least. They'd have to find something else for him to use so he could go back to being lethal, but it'd work. She dropped her leather jacket on the floor, choosing to leave it here since it had the most obvious damage to it. "Let's get out of here then and hope to whatever deity that we're not found." She started leading the way out of the warehouse, starting toward the residential district.

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[Nothingness]

I'll keep my jacket on

They had at least semblance of a plan. Whether that meant much or would even work was something they could figure out later, but for now it was better than nothing. Of course, unlike Lillian, who could very easily take her jacket off and blend in, it was a little bit harder for Raen. "Yeah, I'm gonna keep mine on. Kinda gonna stand out anyway." He showed her the tear in his jacket and bloodstained part of his shirt beneath it.

Following her out of the warehouse, he stuck close to the walls, trying to keep himself in shadow as much as possible. No need to have people freaking out because of the blood on his clothes.

[Fate]

Let's see how long we can keep going like this.
--

Honestly, it felt really weird to be traveling around a world like this. It was probably because she got so used to traveling with Elrick and she barely knew Raen. The fact that this world was a ticking time bomb had absolutely nothing to do with it. She was heading east, figuring that was the best way to go. Elrick had said to go clockwise to get back to the district they had started in, but she was barely even sure where that district was anymore. She didn't even remember how they had gotten to the warehouse, only that it was a lot of running.

Like hell she was going to remember which way they came from right now. She kept walking, trying to keep a casual stride so she wouldn't draw attention to herself. Or Raen. She thought she could see some houses though, or something like them at least. "Does any of this look familiar?" she asked.

[/font]

[Nothingness]

I'm just as lost as you are

Raen stayed close to Lillian, and made sure to keep his guard up. Just because they couldn't see soldiers looking for them didn't mean that there weren't any. If they got caught by surprise by a bunch of armed guards, then they were sure to get killed without much of a fight. And if they died, then so would Elrick. Definitely not an outcome they wanted anytime soon.

At first, Raen thought it was strange that they weren't coming across a lot of people, but given the nature of their location--surrounded by warehouses and factories--that wasn't surprising. He could see houses in the distance, but there was no telling just how far away they were. "Not really." He replied.

They had been walking in silence for a few minutes more before Raen spoke his thoughts. "Before we change our appearance, we should probably clean ourselves up. Find some cheap hotel or something. We can get a room, wash up, get some new clothes, and head back. Plan our next move from there." He figured that would be their best move for the moment. If anyone was looking for them, they wouldn't expect them to head straight into enemy territory: a highly populated area. Not only that, but they'd be even harder to find with the crowds.

[Lagunamov]

… Can I have your number once this is over?

Thrown onto a bed in the medical ward, Elrick got his arms tied to the posts on the side, facing down. The pain from his back had been gone for a while now, most likely his mind having decided to block that out in order to keep him conscious. He couldn’t go about fainting every five minutes from the pain if he wanted to escape the execution. He looked to his side and saw the attending physician, a relatively young woman with blonde hair and glasses, probably only a couple of years older than himself.

“If it was up to me, I would just let you rot there for what you’ve done to this world. But people need to see the demon publicly punished, so…” she commented as he walked towards him, a bottle of disinfectant in her hand and a look of contempt towards her patient. She soaked a piece of cloth in it and started to pass it through the wounds on Elrick’s back, the liquid causing the open cuts to burn up worse than before. He tried his best to keep that out of his head, looking at things around him to distract himself, going so far so as to read the labels on the bottles on the table next the bed.

That is, before noticing the doctor’s cleavage, which he could see clear as day from where he was. “Ok, that works wonders,” he thought to himself, as he looked out of the corner of his eye, even noticing a long necklace hanging between the pair of things that were keeping him distracted. And it worked, since he almost didn’t notice she was done with that and had ordered the guard to sit him up so that she could wrap new bandages on him. Ironically, giving Elrick a better view.

“Ok, you are all set,” she told him, having finished changing the bandages and putting an old white shirt on him so that Elrick wouldn’t have to remain shirtless until his death. “Thanks for that. Particularly for the view, it helped make the process a lot more bearable,” he said as he started getting dragged by the guards again, smirking at the female physician. ”The view?” a confused look overtook her face, checking around the room, accidentally catching herself in a mirror and noticing what he meant. ”Oh crap, the button fell off again,” she blushed annoyed and closed her white robe quickly to cover for her broken shirt.

[Fate]

Why do they have to make these things PUBLIC?
--

Lillian nodded her head to this. "Sounds like a good idea to me," she replied, keeping an eye out. Orpheus could be anywhere at any time and could possibly find them and kill them. It didn't seem like they were out and about though, which struck her as sort of weird. Did something else have their attention? Well, now that they had captured Elrick, why did they need to look for anyone else? She supposed that could be part of their logic... but that didn't mean they could let their guard down.

They got into the residential district just fine, trying to keep to the shadows as much as possible so they could avoid the stares of the passersby. They seemed to be talking amongst themselves about something though, too preoccupied with their conversation. Lillian ignored them, just trying to find a cheap hotel. If they could just find that, then they'd figure out what the hell everyone was talking about. There was something going on today and everyone was talking about it.

It took longer than either of them wanted, but they found one. She stopped herself from running straight toward it, instead calmly walking inside and getting the two of them a room. The man in charge nodded accordingly, smiling for some reason. "Staying after the execution?" he asked. She immediately tensed. "Wieland was finally caught and is publicly being executed today. The entire city is abuzz with the news. After all of the trouble he's caused, he's finally being put to justice."

Fuck. Shit fuck why didn't she figure that out earlier? Now she had to say something so it didn't look like she was surprised and nervous as hell. "Yes, we'll be staying after. Don't want to miss this momentous occasion after all." The man nodded and led them to their room, closing the door behind them. Lillian chose to just sit down, her head in her hands for a second before looking back up at Raen.

"You go wash up first," she said quietly. She took the hair clip out of her hair, letting it fall past her shoulders. It took a good amount of willpower and common sense not to violently throw it at the wall in frustration. Elrick was already scheduled for execution. They were going to publicly execute him. The only comfort this brought was that they at least knew what was going on now. And like hell she and Raen were about to let this slide.

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[Nothingness]

Well, isn't that just peachy.

It was surprisingly easy for them to find a hotel to stay at--everyone, even the few guards he spotted, seemed to be distracted. He could even sense a sort of perverse excitement in the air. There was something about that that worried him, and he was hoping that it didn't have to do with Elrick. Hell, maybe they just came here during some holiday? That was a possibility, right?

Raen let Lillian do the talking at the hotel, trying to stay out of the receptionist's view. He was doing a good job of staying calm, but the moment he heard 'execution', he stiffened up, and his head felt like it was on fire."Wait, wait wait. Public execution. He's still alive, then. That's good. We have time to get him out. Hopefully." Thinking about it that way didn't do much help calm his anxiety, and he couldn't get it out of his mind until the receptionist let them into their room.

Once the receptionist's footsteps faded away, he dug his hand into his scalp and ran his hand back through his hair. Letting out a deep breath, he closed his eyes and calmed himself down for a moment. No need getting cold feet now; they were in way too deep.

Opening his eyes, he was surprised at how different Lillian looked with her hair down. She looked really nice in fact. "Focus, dammit! Her partner's about to be executed, for god's sake. Get your mind off of this shit." For whatever reason, he remembered the time he and Zack caught Lanying swimming in her underwear back in the Deep Jungle. "Ugh, should've just stayed in Traverse Town." A part of him truly meant that, but he knew that if he didn't leave things could've been a lot different for everyone else. And not always in a good way.

Grunting in reply to Lillian's offer, he quickly entered the bathroom and shut the door behind him. Starting off with washing the blood and dirt off his his hands and jacket-sleeves, he also splashed some onto his face, getting the dirt and sweat off. It was easy taking his jacket off, but more difficult unbuttoning his shirt with one hand. Once he succeeded, he turned around in the mirror and looked at where the spearman had stuck him. "Shit." He muttered, looking at the gash just a few centimeters from his shoulder-blade. It was a few inches long, but not particularly deep--the blood had already dried, too. There wasn't much he could do at the moment besides grab the bar of soap, turn the hot water on full blast, and try to clean it up.

After many hissing intakes of breath, and quiet cursing, the cut was mostly cleaned. Tearing off the sleeves of his shirt, he used them as a makeshift bandage for the wound. His jacket, well, he'd just have to deal with the tear in it for now. As he walked out of the bathroom, he nodded his head towards it. "Alright--you're turn." He said calmly, walking over to the window of the room and looking out of it, letting his thoughts drift.

[Fate]

Really trying not to freak out. A for effort?
--

Once Raen had left her alone, Lillian just found herself staring at the floor and focusing on a single spot. It was an attempt to calm down, a sorry excuse for one anyway. She then tried to count the spots on the floor, see if she could count them all. It was the only thing she found she could do-- maybe if she just kept counting and trying to find all the spots, it would lessen the blow and keep her distracted. Unfortunately, it wasn't helping at all. Her partner in crime was set up for execution and she was sitting in a hotel room without a fucking clue where he was.

The clip made a small sound as it dropped to the floor next to her. She ran her fingers through her hair, then just let them fall to her sides. What the hell were they supposed to do now?! Finding him wasn't going to be the hard part after this since they made the execution public-- sick bastards. No, the hard parts were getting there in time to stop it and then figuring out how the flying fuck they were going to get him out of there alive. There had to be a way, one that wasn't coming to her head at the moment.

She didn't even hear Raen come out of the bathroom until he said something, to which she just nodded in reply. "Wonder what he's thinking... better not ask," she thought to herself. She shut the door behind her, not even sure where to start. Everything had holes in it, both her shirt and her jeans. There wasn't anything she could do about that, but she could do something about the fact she was covered in dirt, grime, and whoever knew what else.

Taking off both and the leather around her wrist, she took a cloth and wet it with hot water. Using the soap and that, she scrubbed herself down as fast and as much as possible. There wasn't time to do more. She ran her wrist under hot water, muttering "Dammit" at least four or five times while she did, and washed the leather to get all the dirt off it before putting it back on as a bandage. She put everything else back on, leaving her hair down as it was and walked back out.

Raen was looking out the window, probably thinking. She wasn't sure how to break the silence, or even if she should. Did either of them have plans. She kept trying and just couldn't come up with anything. But she had to. "You okay?" she asked Raen, obviously not asking for the mental since they were both fucked there. "Anytime you're ready, we can go." And not know what to do. Dammit why wasn't anything coming to mind?

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[Nothingness]

Don't these people have better things to do?

Raen didn't bother turning around, but just walked towards the door. "Yeah. We should hurry." He could feel her anxiety, but it wasn't doing much more than adding to his own. Blocking all of the other emotions around him, the two left the hotel, looking for any sort of place where they could find clothes to better blend in. Who knows, there may even be a discount for the upcoming 'event.'

"Just down the street, and take a left." A passer-by said to him. "Thanks." Raen had asked a few people where the nearest shop was, but everyone else up until this one ignored him. They were all too busy getting theirs plans set for the hanging. "The hell is wrong with these people? How can they get any sort of enjoyment out of that?" Certainly, different cultures had different ways of seeing things, but still. Celebrating the murder of someone? That just seemed sick.

Putting the thought out of his mind, they arrived at the shop a couple minutes later. It was a small building situated a few buildings down from the corner, and the top floor was probably an apartment for the owner. A strip of bells jingled as they walked inside, and Lillian and Raen found it completely empty outside of the cashier, a middle-aged man with graying hair. "Oh, hello! I'm sorry, but I'm about to close up soon. If it's not too much of an inconvenience, could you do your business quickly?" The cashier's voice was apologetic, clearly conflicted between wanting business, but also wanting to close shop as soon as possible. "We won't be long, thank you." Raen said politely, nodding his head. He couldn't help but find this a little bit ridiculous--clothes shopping--given their situation, but they needed every bit of help they could get.