A Modern Day Mugging

[Guest]

John Keyman was in dire need of a score. It happened every few weeks that he would find himself running low on cash to pay rent and buy food, which always put him in a bad mood... or a worse mood at any rate. And sitting in a back alley waiting for some unsuspecting idiot with a full wallet to come around the bend and step into the shadows, if only for a moment, really began to bore him after the third hour. He was itching for a fight, just waiting for the right moment to go into his alligator mode and rip some faces off. Yes, John Keyman waited with anticipation for the kill, if nothing else.

Wild hares are chased by mountain cats, wilderness mice are culled by eagles, and bistandards are hunted by John Keyman. First as foremost, John had always seen himself as a predator. Ever since he was a kid, he would bait people into fights, just to feel the rush of battle and the superiority of victory. By the time he was a man, he had grown into a full blown menace. He would start fights for no reason, attacking just to attack, with money being the necessary biproduct of his tendencies. Being turned into a chimerae had been a blessing, further honing his skills as the predator of the urban environment.

He was crouched in the brown snow behind a dumpster, occasionally sniffing the air and looking around. At those moments he was truly ready for anything. In the cold night air he could hear footsteps for what seemed like miles in every direction, though even he knew that wasn't possible. Still, it would have taken someone truly schooled in the art of stealth to get by without being noticed.

[Valdís Raghild]

"SCREW YOU! The vase was hurled across the table, shattering as the poor target ducked. "SCREW YOUR MOTHER!" This time the table was flipped to the side, legs splintering and shattering as they hit the ground, from the primal rage of the petite pink-ette. "SCREW YOUR DOG..." Now, with astounding strength given her size, she lifted the poor man into the air, easily clearing the 206 pound man. "AND SCREW. YOUR. FAT. UGLY. WIFE!" Fwoosh! The man was hurled with rib-smashing force into a wall. "GODS! Can't ANYONE in this Hel-foresaken place get ANYTHING done when I need it done!?"

Valdís was, of course, at her Amestrian head of operations, located in North City, where she had just beaten the manager within inches of his good health. Why was she in such a rage? Simple. This bozo had managed to pull in exactly 7% less income this month than the last month. Unacceptable.

Valdís flung open the door, as some low-level pencil pusher flung himself into the wall, terrified of her very presence. Slamming the door hard, she turned again and kicked a hole in it in her rage, as the door's hinge had cracked. Now there were two sources of damage to pay for. "YOU FRIGGIN' IDIOT! THIS IS COMING OUT OF YOUR PAYCHECK, YOU WORTHLESS PIECE OF CRAP!" Ah, that felt good.

She left the building and walked along the sidewalk, utterly ticked that her Walrus was at the vet's, back in Gelemort, and she was without her preferred mount. So she stormed angrily through the streets, waiting, JUUUUUST waiting for someone to make her day. And then she spotted it.

A coin. Two Cenz, by the looks of it, all shiny. Her eyes immediately flew to it, bright orbs catching the coin. But... What if someone else reached it first? I mean, it was TWO. CENZ. That's like, two hundreths of a Gelemortian dollar, almost! She lunged at it, with a glint in her eyes, and snatched the tiny coin RIGHT out of the edge of a precarious dark alley. Withdrawing her fat wallet, she opened it and slipped the coin in between a pair of Gelemortian 5,000 dollar notes, around 400,000 Cenz each, in terms of Amestrian money, and either surrounded by similar bills.

As she smiled about her new piece of funding, however, she noticed a man, large, standing a bit aways, deeper into the alley. Considering she barely understood, let alone SPOKE Amestrian, and Drachma was closest to North City, she figured a fair amount of North Amestrians spoke the language, and as such, so did she. Glaring daggers through him, she shouted over at the guy, "And just WHAT are YOU looking at? I called dibs on that coin, punk!"

[Guest]

The pink haired woman had made a huge mistake by the end of her second sentence. Mouthing off to John was a terrible idea, a horrible idea, because it made him think, and when he thought, people tended to get hurt in mind bogglingly deranged ways. This little girl had insulted him, while he was knee deep in shit brown snow, taken money that he hadn't seen, and then had the audacity to call him out. Oh yes, John was going to enjoy this a lot.

But John was thinking now, and he knew something was off. Maybe it was the way she carried herself, or how she called out a 200 pound man sitting in a dark alley, but he was feeling cautious. As he got up, reaching the full 6'1" of his stature, he decided to play this one safe... at least at first. There was always time in a fight to show the ace up your sleeve, and boy did John have one. He was a strong and fast chimera who could best most normal people in a foot race and a weight lifting contest. Usually, if it came down to a hunt, John would win, simply because he has the biological handicap.

He drew his six inch knife and began to walk towards the woman at a slow pace, trying to get a reaction out of her. He spoke in Drachman, "[Now ma'am, I don't think its very fair that you take that money. Shouldn't you give it to me? I might need it more..." Keyman was playing up his deep and soothing voice, only adding a touch of sarcasm to it. Mentally, he was preparing for a fast transformation. If he needed to, he could probably best this girl in alligator form, but the locals weren't to kind to chimerae, and being seen as one could start a witch hunt if there were any witnesses. He stopped moving when he was about six feet away from the woman.

[Valdís Raghild]

Aaahhh... And the man began to walk nearer. Rather ticked off again now, Valdís pocketed her wallet and drew her mace, carelessly making it obvious she was packing such a powerful weapon of melee combat. Looking the large man dead in the eyes, she watched, cold and calculating, as he stepped forward. He'd probably seen the cash in her wallet, a fat total of 400,000,000 Cenz, in total, or five million Gelemortian dollars, pocket change in her eyes. Should he attempt to even JUST take that coin, though? He'd be ASKING for pain. But despite his motion towards her or the glint of a knife's blade she caught from in his hand, she had to cackle wildly at his words.

"BYAAAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!! HAHAHAAAA.... Oh... Hehe... You were, heh, you were serious? YOU need this more than I do? Honey, you got another thing coming if you think that, hahaha~ I didn't make my seventeen billion dollar fortune out of thin air, you know, every little bit counts. Maybe if you'd get your lazy bum out the alley and set up shop somewhere, YOU'D make a decent bit of cash too. But no, you can't get a single Cen from me."

And she smiled prettily at him, swinging her mace rather casually, not affected in the slightest by his intimidation. Speaking of that factor... "Oh, and don't think for a minute you're scaring ME, sugar~ I've tousled with bigger and badder than you before, so if you were planning to take my money from me, well... It'd have to get a bit bloodier than scaring my wallet away, wouldn't it?" And this ended, a devilish grin on her face, as SHE did the intimidating, smacking her mace into her palm like in a cheeesy action movie about the Falzone Family.

[Guest]

Damnit... this girl was just not taking the bait. He wanted to get her to attack him, giving him the advantage when it turned out the thing she was attacking was an alligator. She seemed to smart for that. John's attention span had him becoming less and less interested in ideas on how to win this fight and focusing more and more on how this little back talking bitch is going to feel going down, so he didn't surprise himself when he started saying, "I tried. Oh yeah, I tried," and found himself inching closer to his target.

As it stood right then, she had him on reach and maneuverability. John was willing to bet that it was hard to fight someone who was two feet shorter than you and had a weapon that was a few inches longer. His inner thighs twitched at the thought of taking a blow from that thing in the wrong spot. That would hurt. John shifted himself so that he was sideways to the woman, in a stance that looked like an odd mockery of a fencing position. John chuckled quietly at the real advantage it gave him.

Finally, he decided to give baiting her one more shot, just for the hell of it. Most short people hate being called short, right? But that pink hair... that seemed like a better bet to insult her. He chuckled as he began to say, "Now look here pinky, I know you think you're tough, but you got no idea what you're playing with. Why don't ya give me the wallet and I only give you a little maiming, eh?" He readied his muscles for any quick motions that he would have to make in retaliation.

[Csilla Angelis]

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