Questionable Entrance

[Albert Wesker]

As he landed from his leap out of the pit, Kuzan's expression was difficult to read. Flat and seemingly disinterested, but the set of his jaw and the sharp knit of his eyebrows over his sunglasses told a different story. It was a lingering expression from some of his missions in his military days. Put his own morals aside to follow orders when he had to. The strange, hard-to-read look had become his default for when he was "serious" about something, particularly when criminals like these highwaymen were involved.

He was loath to admit it, but he was beginning to appreciate just how much this place had changed him even in his short time here. So much of his power was lost, stripped from him. Any other day, he could have handled this situation in the blink of an eye, leaving the three would-be thieves frozen solid and Ornstein and himself on their way once again with barely an interruption.

This would have barely been a speedbump.

But now, even against people who seemed to be only mediocre combatants at best, it was going to require a full-blown effort to deal with them. He could hazard a guess that it wouldn't take too long, based on the sheer, overwhelming professionalism that the two cohorts of the cloaked man lacked. They were just hired muscle; strong, sturdy, and intimidating to look at, but probably not too bright or capable on their own. Their leader looked like he could have been trouble...but also seemed to have his own issues. A short temper and being a coward did not a stable combatant make.

And it seemed that, in short order, Ornstein had dumped the man into his own trap. The knight had taken a shot in the process, reeling back from the impact. It looked like he was caught completely off-guard more than anything. Almost as if the man had never seen a gun before. Disregarding that thought, the ice-man simply kneeled down slowly, grabbing hold of a few small pebbles and bits of grass and straw, likely from a cart that had been by in the past. He seemed completely unconcerned with the two muscled thugs closing in on him from both sides.

Rising back to stand to his feet, he lifted the hand containing the assortment of dust overhead, and let it all fall through his fingers. A sharp breath caught the falling mass, freezing it over in a flash, forming into one long jagged hunk of ice. "Ice Saber..."

Just as the two goons reached him, the former Admiral snatched the ice blade with his opposite hand, spinning about to intercept the slightly quicker of the two thugs. A ring of steel clanging against the ice split the air, and though the strike from the bandit's blade was knocked wide, Kuzan had underestimated the strength of the man relative to his own reduced might. Knocked staggering backward, his expression momentarily faltered, his eyes opening wide. A sharp exclamation of surprise went up from him, but he simply let himself stagger back, falling flat upon his back. A swipe of his empty hand brought the pants leg of the second thug into his grasp, and a swift tug sent the poor sap stumbling, right over the prone ice-man and right into his compatriot.

With a swift hop, Kuzan clambered back to his feet, he jabbed the blade of ice into the ground beside him. And as he did, the air around him took another sharp drop in temperature. A thick cloud of cold mist hissed out from between his teeth, frost growing over his fingertips, spreading quickly across his hands and up his arms. It looked all the world as he had suddenly, and very, very quickly contracted an alarmingly severe case of frostbite.

He remained standing still as the two thugs got to their feet, but as they both tried to shake the dumb from their heads and turned around to charge at him again in proper goon fashion, the ice-man lunged forward. One frosted-over hand closed on each of their throats, and with the momentum of his lunge he carried them forward a pair of steps, bearing them both to the ground with an audible WHUD, raising a cloud of dust and icy mist. "Ice...Time...."

The call of his technique was met with a momentariy bout of struggling and a pair of wheezes of effort, which quickly died off. The thrashing of the bandits kicked up even more dust, and the cold of Kuzan's attack stirred up just enough flaks of frost and mist to create, in concert with the dust, a partially-obscuring shroud. After just under half a minute, the struggling abruptly ceased, and the dust and mist blew away on the wind.

Kuzan knelt there, on one knee, between a pair of vaguely human-shaped hunks of ice, gleaming with a cold glare in the light of the sun.

Their ringleader picked just then to clamp a hand down on the edge of the pit and haul himself up. And the sight drained what little color and courage he still had left in his expression.