Adventure! Part One [Castle, Elrick]

[Oathkeeper Emi]

August 16, 2011
--

Things had been normal and calm, but somewhat boring. Emi had decided she deserved the rest and had been sleeping until Castle nearly had to drag her out of her bed. Melina had helped them get some food. Normally, Emi wouldn't accept that kind of help but she hadn't had a decent meal in weeks and neither had Castle.

For the first time in a long time, Emi was content. Stir crazy, but it was nice not to have something horrible happening every five seconds. It was nice to get some sleep in a real bed, get some real good and let the bruises heal.

It was morning time, and she had already tried playing the piano in the living room once that day. It was so horribly out of tune that it wasn't even worth it. So, she busied herself with trying to clean the house up a little bit. It looked like at least she was going to be staying here for a while. She couldn't speak for Castle, of course, but she knew she didn't want to stay here for too much longer if it was going to be all dusty and have holes in ceilings and piles of broken rocking chairs on the porch. She started in the kitchen, kicking through all of the broken wood and plaster from when that guy fell through the ceiling all those months ago...

[Castle]

Two days after the attack, Castle was feeling all right again. He was able to remove some of the bandages, but the newly closed scars were still very visible on his skin. None of them looked like they would be permanent, though. As for the ones that still had to be covered, he couldn't say. At least they didn't sting so much anymore.

He'd spent some of his time repairing his purple shirt, which took a while, as it was partially shredded and caked in dry blood. Once he was done with that, he retrieved his mostly destroyed fighting gloves from the gummi ship and worked on repairing them. That was a little harder, as some of the material had burned away.

What he ended up with was a set of gloves that looked like they belonged on a rag doll. He held them up and sighed. They were functional, but he really needed new ones. He set them aside on the bed he was sitting on and went out to find Emi.

Melina wasn't here, currently. She'd been around a lot, mostly to give them food and frown disapprovingly at the state of the house, but he could tell she was keeping her distance. She was probably trying to give them space. Or something.

He went downstairs and found Emi kicking through the rubble on the kitchen floor.

"Want some help?" he asked.

[Oathkeeper Emi]

Such a pessimist.
--

Emi shrugged. "Not much looks like it's salvageable. All we can do is get this stuff out of the house and when I have the munny, I can see about repairing the hole in the ceiling.[/color]"

She was very careful in her choice of words. Since his mom had been around, she was sure not to suggest she wanted Castle to stay with her and not go back to Traverse Town. That was childish, though, and selfish so she tried not to let it get to her. Eventually, though, she was going to have to deal with that fact. Lost in though, she frowned at herself. There was always something threatening to take away the people she cared about. Always something.

She picked up an armful of the debris and looked at Castle expectantly. "Well, come on. Let's get this stuff outside before it gets too hot.[/color]"

As they were making their way outside, Emi realized it was mid-August. It would be October soon, and the weather would be getting cooler. That would be a welcome change.

[Castle]

"All right," he said compliantly, walking past her and stretching his arms a bit. Doing something that required effort would be a nice change from sitting and sewing all day.

He followed her outside with some of the larger pieces of debris under one arm. It was mostly old wood, too broken to use again. Maybe he would run upstairs and put his gloves on to avoid getting splinters from it.

As he looked around for a good spot to toss the stuff, he couldn't help but chuckle. "Heh. Reminds me of when we worked in construction, way back when. Seems like forever ago."

Now that he thought about it, it really was a long time ago. Getting that job was practically the first thing he did here, after he wasted time just running around and missing his flight. He suddenly remembered the guy he met, the one in red. Vincent, was it? He hadn't seen him again since that day. Hm.

[Oathkeeper Emi]

I have gotten so lazy with my word count.
--

Together, they hauled the stuff outside. As they were bringing it around to the side of the house, Emi was drawn to a commotion across the street. She threw the debris down and turned around to look. It was some guy, standing on a crate, daring people to come over and try to beat him in some kind of competition. Emi couldn't hear the details because he was somewhat far away, but she was interested. She elbowed Castle in the... well, she was aiming for his ribs but got his shoulder.

"I wonder what that's all about. That looks like fun and he's promising a fabulous prize. Maybe it's munny. Want to check it out? It can't hurt right?[/color]"

[Castle]

A competition, eh? Castle wasn't one to turn down a challenge, even ones not specifically directed at him.

"Nope, not at all. Let's see what the big deal is," he said.

There wasn't exactly a crowd around the guy, but a few people had paused to listen to him. Once he and Emi were close enough, Castle noticed the cage on the ground by a crate. A large, mean looking cat was pacing back and forth and meowing irritably. For some reason, it had a scroll tied to it.

In a moment, they found out why. The guy on the crate announced that whoever could catch Bojangles (the cat, evidently) could keep what they found on him. Castle crossed his arms and looked at the cat again. It was currently gnawing on the cage bars, but the paper on its back looked intact.

"Think that thing's worth anything?" he asked Emi.

The guy overheard him.

"Only if you like gold. A lot of gold!" the guy said.

Castle glanced skeptically at Emi and awaited her assessment.

[Lagunamov]

Well, looks like he right after all.

It had been a boring week for the most part. Not much had happened after Elrick managed to put his foot further up his mouth back at the Land of Dragons, but everyone was familiar with that tendency of his in the first place, it wasn't that much of an issue. Wanting to stretch his legs, he left the carrier with his own ship and landed on this world a couple of hours ago.

And it took him only one hour away from his two partners to start hitting on passing girls. Which became ironically easy with them focused on his facial scars. His generally strange appearance for pretty much any world probably helped. He was so entertained talking to a pair of girls that he had barely noticed the ruckus not that far away from where they were sitting, with some guy apparently holding a competition of some sort.

"Don't you want to take part in that, Ellie?" he cringed. That nickname was starting to haunt him. He wasn't particularly in the mood for catching a cat, of all things. He just took a sip from his drink and shrugged the thought off.

[Oathkeeper Emi]

A game?
--

"Gold? I like gold,[/color]" Emi said, rubbing her hands together. "Besides, how hard can it be to catch a cat?[/color]"

She leaned down to whisper something to Castle. "Plus, I bet he's not expecting us to have special advantages, if you catch my drift.[/color]"

As the walked confidently up to the guy, she smirked. This would be fun. Good, old fashioned fun that would (hopefully) not almost get her or Castle killed.

"We'll take you up on this, if it's worth gold. Release the cat![/color]"

[Castle]

Castle smirked at the "special advantages" comment. Now, even if the paper on the cat was actually useless, he didn't much care. A challenge was a challenge.

"All right, then!" the guy laughed, kneeling down on the crate, "Let the games begin!"

Castle looked at the cat again while the guy began to undo the lock on the cage. He noticed, for the first time, that it only had one eye, and that the remaining socket had a large scar over it. For some reason, the sight gave him a small sense of foreboding.

As soon as the cage door opened, Bojangles, the deceptively named cat, rocketed to freedom. Castle had positioned himself to catch it right away, but all he saw was a flash of grey, accompanied by a tug on his arm, and then the cat was somewhere else.

"What the...?!" he muttered, looking at the new little scratches on his arm, which oozed droplets of blood.

The guy on the crate just laughed.

[Oathkeeper Emi]

The more the merrier~
--

Emi readied herself to tackle the cat. The guy didn't say it had to still be alive after all of this was over, right? But for all her thirty seconds of preparation, she failed. The cat was fast, a lot faster than she had expected from such a horrible looking little thing. It clawed Castle and took off down the street. Emi turned and started chasing after it, leaving Castle behind to cry about his arm if he wanted to.

She realized the cat was heading straight for a small group of people who didn't seem to be participating in the fun. She almost screamed at them to move out of the way, but that one guy looked pretty familiar to her so she didn't hesitate to say "Don't just stand there, grab that cat![/color]"

[Lagunamov]

[Cait, if the contest is meant to be longer, I'll edit]

Well, fuck.

It seemed whichever kind of competition was taking place only meters away from where Elrick was, it seemed more difficult for those participating in it than it appeared. The escaping cat had already cut someone's arm from what he could see, though most of his attention was still focused in the two ladies that were sitting at that small table outside with him. Theirs, however, had gone straight to the demonic feline.

As the cat ran towards them, he could hear a familiar voice yelling at him to catch the cat, which was luckily not drowned by the screams from the two girls at the table. The feline jumped on the table, only to use it as footing to jump above the wall behind Elrick... or would have, if he hadn't grabbed him midair by the back of its neck without batting an eye. He was even taking the last sip from his drink.

"You little bastard almost ruined my drink," he stood up, turning the cat around, holding it tightly as he looked at it in the face. The two girls were staring with their eyes wide open, almost as if frozen in place. Yes, he had certainly found a bright pair to chat up.

[Castle]

When Emi took off after the cat, Castle followed close behind. Unfortunately, they didn't have much time to build up speed, because the cat was headed straight for a group of people. It was a guy and two girls, and Castle thought for a second that the guy looked familiar, but he didn't remember him.

That turned out to be the guy who caught the cat, relatively easily, as it tried to jump over him. Castle jogged to a halt, somewhat annoyed. On the other hand, it certainly saved him and Emi a lot of trouble.

He approached the table. "Hey, if you're not going to use that, do you mind handing it over?" he asked.

The guy had the cat in a pretty good hold; it just hung there, growling, but not really struggling. Good to know.

Meanwhile, the contest leader hung back and watched to see what would happen.

[Oathkeeper Emi]

This post sucks.
--

Emi caught up and skidded to a halt in front of Elrick. She was a little bit disappointed the chase hadn't lasted longer but hey, they got the cat which meant they got the gold. "Yeah, hand it over. Just the map though, you can keep the cat,[/color]" she said, reaching over and picking the map off of the cat. The cat batted at her with one paw, and growled in a way Emi hadn't been aware cats could.

She turned around and waved the map at the contest leader. "Thank you! You can have your demon cat back now! We'll just take this and go...[/color]"

[Lagunamov]

I'm up for a round of drinks again, by the way.

Not long after he caught the cat, Elrick was approached by two familiar faces. The guy at least went the polite way and asked for the cat, while the girl was more... upfront, to say it nicely, and removed the map stuck on its back. From the animal's reaction, he either didn't like her doing that, or he simply didn't like her in the first place. Since whatever the contest was about was now in her hands, Elrick just left the cat on the table, sitting there and looking at him.

"Hey wait! Ellie caught thing, why do you get to keep the prize!? At least give him a cut bitch," Elrick slapped his forehead with the palm of his hand at the outburst of one of his two companions, quickly cutting into it before the dumb blonde decided to jump on her to grab the map back or something. "She can keep it, I don't particularly care," he addressed calmly, trying to avoid any sort of incident. "Though, I am slightly offended I didn't get at least a 'hey, long time no see.' I mean, really, I know all we did was get drunk, but you'd think you two would have better memory." Elrick smiled, lowering his shoulders. "Sure, I don't remember your names, but I do remember it was your birthday, lady."

[Oathkeeper Emi]

FINE, I'll do the right thing. Drinks are on you, though.
--

Emi shot a death glare at the bimbo who called her a bitch. She could feel her blood pressure rising, but then realized Elrick was addressing her so she slowly looked over at him.

She stared at him for a second, and then things clicked. "Ooooh, you,[/color]" she said, thoughtfully. "I thought you looked familiar, but honestly that whole night is a blur. I'm Emi, by the way. This is Castle. He was at the bar, too. I don't remember your name though. Sorry.[/color]"

She looked down at the map in her hand and pouted. One the one hand, it would be the polite thing to do to invite him along. The more the merrier and maybe it would be nice to travel with someone other than Castle for once. One the other hand, less gold for her. And she didn't know this guy very well, so who's to say he wasn't an axe murderer or something? A terrible decision, but she grudgingly decided to do the right thing.

"I guess... if you want, I mean... since you caught the cat... maybe you can come with us... maybe...[/color]" she mumbled, quietly, fiddling with the edge of the paper. "If Castle's okay with it, too.[/color]"