Nine Lives

[Gildarts]

Cal smirked to himself and didn't offer the old man a staticky blue hand up. Gildarts instead staggered himself to a stand before sweeping the area with his steadying gaze and tested his balance on two legs. A long and thoughtful expression held on his sincerely scrunched brow. No one had outright told him the rules of the chaos he had been thrown into, but the experienced man now felt he got the just of it.

"How do we tell who is playing and who is fighting for themselves?" The question was directed toward Cal, however the it was layered with undertones of suspicion. How did he know they weren't playing? Even if it didn't make a difference, their responses would tell all.

Cal scoffed, "Don't you get it? You were in the Abyss. It's simple, we don't." The reality was put to blunt words, "Listen pal if you aren't going to fight for your life here, your as good as dead. And worth less to us alive. Ya get? Don't start getting cold feet now."

A turn of his body was all it took for the veteran fighter to face the shorter kid, and tower over him with an intimidating feat. "Do I look like this is my first battle, kid?" The man brandished the two steel limbs, the organics which he had lost to a dragon that nearly destroyed his home and the bandages that never left his sculpted chest were evidence enough of is eternal visit to war.

Cal stared and lined his words with sarcasm, "What... Is that rhetorical? Dude, your like forty."

"That's right." Gildarts didn't feed in to the kid's mostly 'misguided' aggression. Meanwhile Cindy sized up the mage like he had broken both his legs. Well, it wasn't a completely inaccurate assumption.

Cal's eyebrow raised as he turned away, to face the battle that waged around them, and spoke sounding rather disappointed and met his abrasive predictable honor with a few taunting words, "Oh sweet morality. See how far it's gotten you?" The assassin held his arms open wide do motion that they stood as prisoners – no, worse – like rats in a cage, hunted for their lives, "The answer is this Hell." The arrogant kid seemed to have all the answers. "Something you should be familiar with, old man. You play to win."

"And escape?"

"Any of them look like they are trying to break out to you?"

"Did I?"

"Humph, you're no fun..." Before suddenly vanishing to find a new toy to break.

Cindy played with the uncomfortable bow in her hands while her gaze hardened on him as her silver hair was ruffled by the wind, "What's the matter, your feelings get hurt? And well.. Him? He's wrong about one thing, there is one way to tell." Gildarts' eyes rose to hers as they exchanged a glance, "I didn't save your ass just so you could owe me one.. And this is only the prelims."

Bait.

The man read her expression, cold amusement written on the faded lines of where her smile should have been. "It's not even the whole waking up here after DA that gets me the most. See that son of a bitch over there?" The girl lifted her battle-armored arm to point across the war zone, "The fucker stole my hammer."