Easy Money [Warning: Violence] - Printable Version +- Hydaelyn Role-Players (https://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/mybb18) +-- Forum: Role-Play (https://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/mybb18/forumdisplay.php?fid=27) +--- Forum: Town Square (IC) (https://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/mybb18/forumdisplay.php?fid=21) +--- Thread: Easy Money [Warning: Violence] (/showthread.php?tid=6589)

Easy Money [Warning: Violence] - Ignacius - 03-08-2014 "TWO MINUTES!" The wind was harsh and cold, kicking into his face and causing him to squint his eyes.  He could hear the pinging beneath his feet, see slivers of wood passing by the doorway. "THIRTY SECONDS!  IT'S GONNA BE HOT!" Dust was starting to infiltrate the doorway as the world swung wildly around him.  A whip of air flashes by his face before the pinging resumes.  He slaps his chest, suddenly coming apart from his chair. "BAIL! BAIL! BAIL!" Fire burns in his chest as he feels the solid earth beneath his feet.  They are all around him, closing on him from below.  He can hear the chattering from behind, see flames flying from all directions, hear the whining of his metal-shod compatriots. He focus on one incoming man, raising a spear, screaming at him with Hell in his eyes.  He raises his own lance, screams back, and charges out across the field to meet him.... _____________________________________________________ ~... And when they've tortured and scared you for twenty-odd years, Then they expect you to pick a career, When you can't really function, you're so full of fear....~ The sun peaks through Orleans Ignacius's eyelids as he slowly opens them, shaking his head.  Water laps languidly at the dock's piers as he looks around.  His radio is playing not far from his head.  Had it been fifteen minutes?  An hour?  More this time?  He re-seats the black stetson on his forehead and takes a deep sigh.  He could feel the sweat on his body, generally what happens when he's been in the sun too long, but he can't find it in himself to stand up and walk back to the hotel right now. All he knew was that he was starting to run out of money again. ~... If you wanna be a hero, then just follow me....~ The sultry voice of the radio DJ breaks the music and a slow instrumental number backs her.  "Mmm, if you wanna be a hero, baby, just follow him.  And make sure you don't touch that dial, follow us for the rest of the day here on 99.7 The Grove.  We've got a request from you listeners out there.  Looks like we've got us a foreman with no bricks, looking for a supplier.  Well here's a song for him, coming at you, on 99.7.... the Grove...." ~We are scanning the scene in the city tonight, We are looking for you to start up a fight....~ Well, he was running out of money again... Ignacius reaches up and touches the back of his ear, flipping a subtle switch on the listening device.  The music begins to fade into the background, muting it, as if it were coming through him from underwater.  Taking another look around, then shrugging, he says,  "I hear someone's looking for bricks." "Ah, Silverfox, I was hoping you might be on the line," the voice that comes back is intentionally kindly and yet unintentionally venomous, like an unlicensed chocobo salesman.  It buzzes slightly, a sound he associates with using a subvocal microphone, such as the one he is wearing in his gorget but has decided not to bother with.  It is a voice he knows belongs to the faceless face-man he only knows as Ambrose.  "Are you looking for work?" "Might be," answers Ignacius, resettling back on the dock again.  "What are we talking?" "Oh, nothing terribly difficult," says Ambrose,  "A simple zero-zero.  I've given Cannonball, you remember him, the specifics.  He could simply use some support and I'm finding myself short of competent and reliable people." "Sounds like you booked yourself a brick.  What kind of fee are we talking here?" "How does three keys up front and three in the back sound?" Ignacius nods slowly to himself.  "Sounds good." "Glad to hear it!  Meet Cannonball tonight at the Cork at half past ten.  He'll be expecting you.  I think he knows your make." Ignacius nods, grinning.  "He ought to..."  He walks over to the small case he lives out of, opens it and begins to change on the empty dock into his chain mail.  It feels good to put on armor again, and he feels once more like standing up to his full seven feet in height.  Dark skin stretched taut over thick muscle is now shod in steel, and Ignacius welcomes the cool caress of his gambeson beneath.  Setting the gear box back in its hiding place, Ignacius retrieves his weapons and slings his spear over his shoulder. "Showtime..." _____________________________________________________ Easy money. Ignacius, Cannonball, some Scholar named Sugarpuff, and another giant statue of muscle called Hammer creep up to the small house in the Black Shroud.  You would have thought it was a shack, not a place to hide a presumptive heir.  It was dark all around, far from the road, and Ignacius looks around one last time for a sign of double-cross. It never hurt to check, anyway.  He'd had his own fixer, a man he knew as Bossman, put his ear to the ground.  Whoever was inside had apparently had his uncle killed, making him the new heir to the family fortune.  Before the ink had even dried on the legal documentation, his cousin was already wanting to replicate the feat. All above board, all from people he knew.  What could go wrong? Cannonball doesn't turn around, simply pointing to the small guard post in the back.  His voice buzzes in his earpiece, as the subvocal microphone makes sure they can hear him without him speaking.  "Fox, get those two and come meet us.  The rest of you, follow me around the side." Ignacius sets his gear down and, making sure to stay below the horizon, he slips quietly around the side.  Right... there were two of them, both standing out in the open and watching the road.  In fact, as Ignacius creeps ever closer around and then behind them, he can hear them chatting.  About one's girlfriend maybe being pregnant, but maybe using it as an excuse to keep him around.  About how detestable the other found women for that idea.  About how they needed to both show their contempt at a bar later. Amateurs.  Ignacius waits for the time to be right, then springs forward. Within a second, he has shoved the spear directly through the first guard's neck and, just as quickly, he pulls it back.  The ripping sound, as well as a gurgled gasp, is all that can be heard as his compatriot stumbles back in shock.  He recovers, drawing his sword just in time to meet Orleans' thrust, but simply doesn't think to shout out for help.  Ignacius wastes no time, pressing his advantage and thrusting at his remaining target's shoulder.  It seems off, and the remaining guard almost grins as he sidesteps to deliver a quick slice at Ignacius's exposed arm. However, that is precisely what he was supposed to do.  He trips over an exposed root and falls off balance.  He doesn't fall over, but he falls back just enough.  Shock and fear grip his face as Ignacius whips the spear around underneath the now wild sword swing and disembowels his opponent.  As his intestines slide out of his body, eliciting a whine of surprise from the shocked guard, Ignacius surges forward, stepping on his sword blade to remove it from his hand, and body-pressing the guard into the tree trunk.  His spear shaft is held crosswise and presses onto the guard's throat, cutting off his air.  He struggles, but he cannot remove the giant Elezen nor call for help as the life is strangled out of him.  Ignacius holds him there, dangling, until he is sure he is gone.  He releases him and stands back, still mindful of his surroundings. "Oh, Godsdamnit..." buzzes Cannonball.  Ignacius looks over in time to hear glass shatter, to hear a yell, and to see someone disappearing into a window.  "DO IT NOW!"  Hammer brings his massive axe into the door and knocks it off its hinges.  Ignacius rolls down the embankment to his gear, keeping an eye on the house, seeing flashes of magic and breaking lamps inside. "Mark is going out the back!" exclaims Hammer, breathlessly. Ignacius looks around the embankment, standing next to his gear, in time to see someone crawl out of a window and run to the nearby stables.  He purses his lips.  A kid, probably no more than fifteen.  He couldn't have called for a hit... or at least doesn't seem old enough.  Probably a pawn in someone else's game, probably like his cousin.  People with money getting jerked around by people who want money.  Ignacius really, honestly was considering simply letting him ride by before Sugarpuff speaks. "Damnit, I think he made me..." Ignacius closes his eyes for a moment and sighs.  That settles that.  The kid might tell the law, the law might go looking for Sugarpuff, she might give them up.  The whole thing might tumble down like a house of cards, the Grove ripped up at the roots. That couldn't happen. Stabbing his spear into the ground, Ignacius takes up his bow and retrieves three arrows from his quiver.  Selecting the best of the bunch at a quick glance and holding the other two in his bow hand, he quietly climbs the embankment.  He can hear the chocobo going around him, running along the riverbed.  The door behind breaks open, and the other three of his compatriots come running out, looking after the racing chocobo.  As they do so, they stop, and the boy turns around to look at them.  He isn't watching where he's going anymore. Ignacius stands up on the embankment, draws his arrow, tracks the chocobo for a moment, then lets the arrow fly. "HNF-!"  The bowstring twang is immediately followed by the sound of impact and the grunt of the boy, who immediately twists and becomes unbalanced in the saddle.  He falls with a thud on the rocky riverbank.  The chocobo, even without its master, continues to run, and Ignacius watches it for a moment before he climbs down the embankment.  Cannonball's voice buzzes through the communicator. "Holy shi-... was that you, Fox?" "Yeah," responds Ignacius, in his gravelly bass.  He sets the bow down, retrieves his spear, and walks over towards the last place he saw the target.  There he is, laying over not five feet from the river.  Ignacius holds the spear slow with the point aimed towards him, then chokes it up halfway to something he can use at closer range.  When he arrives, he kneels beside the body and turns the quivering boy over. Maybe thirteen, at best.  Ignacius looks him over, the boy shuddering and clutching the arrow buried deep in his chest.  Ignacius can tell by looking at him, by how pale he is going before his eyes, by how he struggles to breathe in, that his aim was perfect.  The boy is crying, staring up at Ignacius, face twisted in a grisly visage of pain and sadness.  He stares up at him wordlessly, helplessly... "Did you get him?" Ignacius sighs, then brings his foot forward and steps on the boy's chest.  The boy is wont to gasp, but can't with the massive Elezen's weight bearing down on him.  Only a muted groan comes out as Ignacius grabs the haft of the arrow and rips it out of the boy.  A small geyser of blood erupts from him, and continues to hemorrhage.  He struggles weakly against Ignacius's leg, trying only to get the massive weight off of him, but he is already gone, already losing too much blood, shoving at what must only look like a shadow in the blackness. As Ignacius watches the light in his eyes go out and hears his compatriots approaching from behind, Ignacius cannot even reach deep down far enough to find disgust or sadness.  It simply is what it is... and it could have been him so long ago. "Yeah," he says, audibly, "I got him." _____________________________________________________ The sun peaks through Orleans Ignacius's eyelids as he slowly opens them, shaking his head.  Water laps languidly at the dock's piers as he looks around.  His radio is playing not far from his head. "Howdy there, listeners, sounds like one of our guys from yesterday managed to get things sorted out, and his hero might be listening.  Heard one of you boys got himself a nice bonus for going above and beyond and saving the day.  Earned yourself a nice little vacation while the mess gets all cleaned up.  You know who you are, we know who you are, and this song, baby... this song is for you... on 99.7... The Grove..." ~I was listening to the music on the radio, I had a feeling that something's not right. The music was loud, we could still hear the crowd, From the gig that we played that night...~ Ignacius leans back again, closing his eyes.  He can't do anything else.  It is what it is. So he slips the stetson down over his eyes, drums his fingers and nods his head in tune to the music.