Questionable Entrance

[Albert Wesker]

Rather than spend the trip to the gate in silence, Kuzan opted to speak up about a few questions that had been in his mind. Voicing his questions with slight difficulty over the roar of the three-wheeled vehicle's engine, the ice man queried his armored travelling companion about a handful of things. The name that he had spoken before, Gwyn, was among the first things that he asked about, getting an answer that he only partially understood. The Lord of Sunlight.... Well, he supposed it was an entirely different world, so he couldn't judge such a title. Though given both the title itself and the almost reverent, respectful way Ornstein spoke of the man, it seemed the title wasn't just one of arrogance, which only made the former admiral curious.

About the sorry state of the knight's armor and weapon he also put forth a question, only to receive a minimal response, one tinged heavily with what Kuzan guessed as regret and....shame? It seemed that before his arrival here in the Nexus thanks to Omni, his armaments had been well-cared for and brilliant to look at. But death and whatever method had brought him here had dulled them.

Feeling somewhat awkward at the almost depressing turn the situation had taken, Kuzan lapsed into silence, the few more questions he had dying before he could ask them. But it would seem his companion had a few of his own.

The voluminous smoke his bike produced was brought up, and with a laugh Kuzan explained that the thing had been inspired by his former suboordinate, who powered his own with his Smoke powers. The confusion in the halting "I.....see." from Ornstein brought another laugh from the former Admiral. But the next question killed his amusement instantly.

Grudgingly, he explained that there was indeed a very good reason he was a "retired" Navy Admiral. Sparing many of the unnecessarily personal details, he glossed over the disagreement with his former companion over the position of Fleet Admiral, and his subsequent early retirement and departure. Almost sheepishly, he added that the mention of him being an Admiral simply brought up unpleasant memories.

He failed to mention it also made his missing leg ache.

As they finally reached the gate to Camelot, Kuzan brought the smoke-billowing bike to a halt, squealing tires and finally stopping amidst a thick cloud of white smoke, the rumble of the engine dying with a strangled growl. Taking a brief moment to extract the vehicle back to its component Omnilium, and explaining the process as he understood it to Ornstein, he awaited the knight's own action before making his way through the gateway.

The sudden transition turned his stomach upside-down once again, but he mostly kept his balance, slowly beginning to get accustomed to the unnerving transition, but still dreading it. Cracking his neck with a lazy roll of his head, he stared out across the grassy expanse, strolling lazily over to lean against one of the stones standing nearby. "And here we are...." he said, stating the obvious.

[Ornstein]

It had become painfully apparent to Ornstein that Kuzan's past and the circumstances of his departure from his land's navy were painful memories for him. Better to know that now, the knight reasoned, and know not to bring it up out of turn in future, than to make that mistake later and affront his companion. While the wheeled machine growled in action, Ornstein's steed rode alongside it, the knight trading his attention between looking at Kuzan and the approaching gateway.

When they finally reached it, he reined his horse in to a halt beside Kuzan's smoking carriage. He watched with unrestrained fascination as Kuzan dismounted the vehicle and proceeded to... well, break it back down to the Omnilium he'd used to construct it. With a similar explanation offered as the one he'd been given about how to create with Omnilium, the knight dismounted his horse and turned to place a hand against it. He closed his eyes and concentrated... Soon enough, he felt a sudden influx of energy, the power of the enigmatic substance filtering back into his body. When he opened his eyes again, the horse was gone, and hadn't made a sound in its departure. Mercifully, the act of extracting the Omnilium that had birthed it appeared to be painless for the beast.

Taking up his spear, he turned to follow Kuzan as he disappeared beyond the invisible threshold. The moment Ornstein stepped through the arched gate, his entire field of vision melted into blinding white, and a sudden, acute wave of nausea coursed through his body, as if he was being flipped and upended in non-existent mid-air. With a groan to voice his displeasure at the sensation, he continued to stride forward the way he'd been going, until the flat white was pulled away to reveal a whole different world.

He and his companion had stepped into a verdant green clearing, rolling fields of grass more or less as far as he could see. He stepped forward slowly, looking around in no small measure of awe. This Omniverse just got stranger and stranger...
"It's much more pleasant to look at than the Nexus, for sure," he remarked in answer to Kuzan. "Now then, where to go next..." He trailed off as a distant break in the natural skyline caught his eye. Some distance beyond the field he'd stepped into, he could see a tall, white triangular structure set against the wall of a mountainous plateau. This structure jutted out from the face of the cliff that flanked it, and its surface was broken by concentric rings of stone. "That there," Ornstein continued, raising his hand to point it out to Kuzan. "Is that... a city built into the cliff?"

[Albert Wesker]

In hindsight, he probably should have mentioned something about the disorienting effects traversing the gates could have on you. He had briefly wondered if it was just him being overly sensitive to sudden changes in the world around him that made him so uneasy going through them, but as he saw the armored knight's reaction, he concluded that, no, it probably wasn't just him.

Good to know, he guessed.

Taking a look around as Ornstein spoke up, Kuzan couldn't help but agree. He hadn't really taken much of a look around before, beyond seeing the obvious, but the place really did look nice. Rolling, grassy fields, marred only by the strange stones near the gate itself, dotted here and there by forests...

The dragonslayer's question of where to go next drew his attention back, and he gave it a moment of thought. That really was a good question, honestly. If there was some sort of city or something nearby, then maybe they could...

His train of thought derailed rather sharply as Ornstein raised his arm, pointing out something in the distance. Lifting a hand to his glasses, Kuzan adjusted the tinted spectacles slightly, before shading his eyes with the same hand. After a moment, he let out a faint chuckle. Now how had he missed that? "It does look that way." He shook his head at the idea of it, dropping both arms back to his sides.

"Well, if nothing else, there should be more answers to be had there." With a roll of his shoulders, the former Admiral set about summoning a means of transportation, not fancying making the journey on foot. Not that he was in a hurry, but the distance didn't exactly look small by any means. And so he took a leaf out of Ornstein's book, choosing to summon something more appropriate to the feel that the scenery of the locale gave off, and set his mind upon a horse of his own.

When, after several minutes, he had completed the summoning process, the beast that emerged was....well, "remarkable" might have been one word. A pale, white hide, with a mane of unnatural blue and white hue. It snorted once, stamping hooves that looked more like ice than part of an animal, and turned to regard Kuzan critically.

The ice man was struck dumb. He just couldn't get away from icy colors when it came to animals, could he?

[Ornstein]

It appeared the two were quick to reach an accord about their next move. Neither had any brighter ideas at the moment, Ornstein figured; there were no other settlements in sight, and that distant city was surely quite enormous, possibly a capital in this realm. He could think of no better place to begin looking for answers, and possible shelter. Surely they would have to prove themselves to the powers that be there and pay their dues if they were to remain as guests and be owed any information.

To that end, he and Kuzan found themselves once more summoning transportation using their Omnilium reserves. Ornstein recalled the horse he had conjured earlier, and recreated it in the same way; he noted with interest that the process was slightly faster than the first time around, as if his increased familiarity with the beast he intended to create had expedited the summoning process. Kuzan, this time, also summoned a horse. Ornstein imagined he wished to blend in, and not risk drawing undue attention with the frightful noise of his previous wheeled carriage.

"What do you look so surprised for?" Ornstein laughed at the sight of Kuzan's bemused expression. His horse certainly didn't look normal, all shades of pale blue with seemingly frozen hooves. "He's quite a beautiful beast, suits you well." With a chuckle that died away in the echoes within his helm, he mounted up and waited for Kuzan to do the same before spurring his horse into a canter forwards. First step: find a road leading in the direction of that city.

[Albert Wesker]

The expression on Kuzan's face didn't grow any cheerier at Ornstein's reaction, and he merely let out a disgruntled sigh, shaking his head in mock irritation. He'd just have to work more on getting this summoning under control. Focus more on details, make sure things came out the way he was intending from the beginning. Otherwise he'd soon enough be unintentionally making a name for himself as someone who couldn't control exactly what they summoned.

The thought of it made him cringe, for some reason.

As he turned his thoughts to actually mounting up to hit the road, his expression turned neutral again, his eyebrows furrowed. Suddenly this didn't seem like the wisest course of action he could have taken... The sudden realization that he had never ridden a horse leapt into his mind, followed shortly by his less-than-perfect balance due to his relatively lax activity lately. The prospct was less than pleasing.

He took a moment to quickly think of a solution, and with a soft murmur of [f]"Better than nothing..."[/b] He slowly, and rather awkwardly, climbed his way into the saddle. And as soon as he was seated, there came the curious, very faint sound of hissing, and two trails of mist rose faintly through the air from the stirrups. The ice man had frozen his legs firmly in place so as not to fall.

Still looking unsteady, he watched as Ornstein started off, and made an effort to spur his own horse on in his wake, mimicing the knight's movements with a....marginal degree of success. With a minor flail and loss of his balance mercifully lasting only a second or two, thanks in large part to his "ingenious" idea to freeze himself in place, he righted himself and managed to remain steady, though he firmly doubted if he would ever voluntarily choose a horse as a means of conveyance again.

Though it seemed much longer to the former navyman, it took only the passing of several minutes before he first caught sight of a good sign. Flanked here and there by trees on either side, and more often by shrubbery and ditches, a clear road or pathway winding along the grassy field and through small hills. Lifting one arm, he indicated as much. "Looks to be a road or something over there," he said plainly. He was eager to get to the city in the distance and back on his own two feet, and a road meant swifter, and hopefully easier, travelling.

[Ornstein]

As Ornstein observed Kuzan mounting up, it became quite apparent to him that the man was quite the novice at horseback riding. His whole movement stepping up into the saddle and stirrups looked... unsteady, like he feared he'd lose his balance or the saddle wasn't properly secured. The knight watched, and within his helm squinted curiously, as two faint wisps of mist rose from the stirrups... Was that frost he saw? Had Kuzan just frozen his feet in place?

Ornstein barely disguised another laugh, and decided to dignify Kuzan as he rode away by not looking back to watch him struggle to stay astride his icy horse. They ended up alongside each other, and rode in silence, scanning their surroundings for any sign of what they sought. Before long, it presented itself to Kuzan and he pointed it out. Ornstein turned to peer in the direction his companion indicated, and soon spied the road just beyond the treeline.

"In the city's direction, too," he remarked. "Across such a distance, there will surely be smaller settlements along the way. We should be able to ask for more specific directions in that case." With another nudge of his feet to spur his horse, he trotted on through the trees to gain the road.

[Albert Wesker]

For a moment, Kuzan hung back, reigning in his horse to a halt, staring first one way along the road, and then the other. He was half-expecting to see someone on the road somewhere, especially given where it was headed and the size of it. When he didn't, his mind irrationally jumped to foul play, such as when he'd first been roped into the mess on his first arrival here. But just as quickly it was replaced with the more sensible thought that maybe it really was as simple as no one was out travelling at the moment.

None that he could see, at any rate.

Shaking his head, he spurred his steed forward, a little too overzealously in his distraction. The creature snorted in annoyance, jerking its head around in an effort to stare judgementally at him, but the motion nearly unbalanced Kuzan despite his securements. With a second, more careful urging, the horse started forward, through the line of trees. He came upon something that put his earlier theory to immediate discredit.

"...and there's been some rumors of some strange things going on lately. Poor folk got ripped apart and everything, new arrivals getting into a fight right off the bat... all manner of things, really." The speaker, a strange-looking man mostly covered in the purple travelling cloak he was wearing, paused to turn and point down the road, toward the capital. "There's a town up that way, not too much further if memory serves...might be able to tell you more." He turned back, and tilted his head with an audible pop. "As for me, well...I don't buy much into rumors, most of the time..."

Drawing to a halt beside Ornstein, the ice man assumed his brief halt had caused him to miss the beginning of whatever conversation had been going on here.

"Oh! And one more thing, gentlemen..." His tone, previously lighthearted and jovial, took on a slightly more serious edge. "There is one rumor I do buy into around here. Thieves and bandits have been about lately, looking to take anything and everything they can from travellers in the area. Even on this road, knowing full well where it leads and who travels it from time to time." His expression looking as if he'd smelled something unpleasant, he simply shook his head in disappointment. "I'd advise being careful, if I were you...no telling what could happen around here lately."

Well...that sounded vaguely ominous. But it also gave at least some reason why there might not be any people about. Rumors or not, even the risk of highwaymen could put some people ill enough at ease about travelling to simply stay home. Especially if that travel was merely for the fun of it, as far as such things went.

"Thanks for the warning," the former Admiral said offhandedly, earning a nod and a "don't mention it" gesture from the stranger.

[Ornstein]

Ornstein didn't appear to have noticed his companion lagging behind on the road. After riding forward for mere seconds around a corner, one rendered blind by the proximity of the dense treeline on the inside, he had come across a figure shrouded in a purple cloak sitting by the wayside and approached, the spear lowered passively at his right. Kuzan came across this as the man was in the midst of answering Ornstein's inquiry for directions.

"Oh! And one more thing, gentlemen..."

"Hmm?" Ornstein leaned forward a little in his saddle.

"There is one rumor I do buy into around here. Thieves and bandits have been about lately, looking to take anything and everything they can from travellers in the area. Even on this road, knowing full well where it leads and who travels it from time to time." This, the knight might've expected. It would be too easy to travel such a long distance to that far city without any sort of highwaymen to be on the lookout for. "I'd advise being careful, if I were you... no telling what could happen around here lately."

"Duly noted, sir." If the prospect of banditry concerned Ornstein in the least, it didn't show in his cordial tone. "Thank you for your help. I pray your travels will be safe." He straightened up, spurred his horse, and he and Kuzan continued on their way. The cloaked figure disappeared behind them soon after, lost to the impenetrable foliage around that blind turn.

They gained a dozen or so yards down the road before Kuzan, who'd been maintaining a subtle frown all the while, spoke up.

"...Got a bad feeling about that man in the cloak. Think we can trust him?"

"Not in the slightest." Ornstein's answer was hushed and deadpan. "I know exactly what you mean. A shady character if ever I've seen one waiting at the roadside." And he'd dealt with a fair few. It was a common highwayman's tactic; lurk near a predetermined area, trawl for passing marks, pick a target who looked to be carrying things of value and strike. So either that cloaked fellow had friends nearby, bearing down on him and Kuzan, or...

CRASH!

Quite without warning, the ground gave way beneath them. With a unison of panicked whinnies, their horses toppled forward into a pit maybe ten feet deep, throwing their riders out of their saddles. The whole group hit the floor of the hole with a mess of nasty crunches. Kuzan's decision to freeze himself to his stirrups came back to bite him; while he floundered for a few moments, pinned beneath his horse and trying to pull his feet free, Ornstein coaxed his mount to limp up off its side just long enough for him to crawl free. Cursing their misfortune, he took hold of his spear and groggily straightened up.

"I did warn you, gentlemen," came a familiar, airy voice. Ornstein looked up to find that cloaked man standing at the edge of the pit, peering down at him and Kuzan. "Couldn't see the wood for the trees, eh? The forest is a bit dense 'round here, to be fair..." He looked around, as if scanning the road and the treelines. "You gents just stay there, get comfortable.You won't be needing those fancy garments or armour where you're going."

[Albert Wesker]

When the ground gave way, Kuzan didn't even have time to get out a "whoa" before his horse went plummeting through the concealed pit. The landing was rough, and painful, for both the riders and their mounts, but speaking luckily, it seemed that the riders, at least, were relatively unharmed. Kuzan suspected at least one of the nasty-sounding crunches had been from his icy prosthesis, and as he floundered in his efforts to get out from under his mount, he felt as well as heard a slight grinding and crunching of ice that confirmed just that.

Looked like his ice wasn't exactly bulletproof anymore. Fantastic to know.

As Ornstein managed to find his feet, Kuzan set both hands on his mount, and with an effort on his part, managed to assist the animal in getting its weight off of him long enough to drag his legs -- well, leg and the stump of the other -- free from their confines. He made a valiant effort to regain his footing and stand, but with only one leg and the sudden return of the purple-clad stranger, he failed, dropping to a knee.

With a scowl on his face, he looked up at the man as he stood on the edge of the pit. Lowering himself, he crouched at the edge of the pit, a pleasant grin on his features. "Places just aren't safe anymore lately. No matter where you go, really... Pirates at sea, bandits on the roads, thieves in the city. It's a dangerous world we live in, gentlemen." As he spoke, a pair of much less friendly looking types strode up behind him, their heavy boot treads announcing their presence before their ugly mugs came into sight over the lip of the pitfall.

"Isn't that right, boys?" A simultaneous chuckle came from the pair of thugs, both nodding in agreement. "We're just here to pass on some hard-earned lessons to the ill-prepared, really. Of course, we do accept payment from our grateful students, and we gratefully appreciate your contributions."

"What sort of instructor need so callously force lessons upon others?" Ornstein said, his voice rising in anger. Well-suppressed it might have been, but it still colored his tone just enough to be noticed. "You are nothing more than a common thug!"

The statement might as well have been a slap across the man's face. He stood bolt upright, staggering back from the edge of the pit, looking a mixture of mortified, outraged and completely and utterly confused all at once. He opened his mouth, let out a sputtering "Y-You...!" and snapped his jaw shut, staring down at them with a look of cold anger in his eyes, but his face quickly flicking back to the mask of friendliness and harmlessness of before. "That was uncalled for, my good sir... I may be a forgiving man, but even I can't let such a slight go unpunished."

In all the commotion, Kuzan had managed to repair his prosthesis, regaining his ability to stand. "Arara..." He looked first down at their mounts, who had been injured beyond the point of riding them any further by the fall, shaking his head slowly. In disappointment, a touch of sadness, and no small amount of disgust and anger. The comment about pirates had set off a spark in his brain. He'd dealt with his fair share of pirates -- more than his fair share, if he was honest -- and had no love for them, with a few very special exceptions. And a highwayman was little more than a pirate that stuck to land routes as opposed to sea routes.

"That's a shame, you know...you can't let that go unpunished." For a moment, his lazy demeanor broke and it was replaced with the cold, militaristic attitude when he had been under orders as an Admiral. "I can't let thugs and thieves go unpunished, either." An icy mist blew from his lips with the words, and subtle hints of frost started to grow over his body, chiefly at his hands. The temperature around him slightly dropped as he lifted his gaze back to the thugs. A dangerous glint flashed across his sunglasses as he remarked, "So I suppose....we have a problem here."

[Ornstein]

He watched the two new thugs carefully, listened to the tense exchange, felt through his armour the sudden chill that took the air around Kuzan, and the Dragonslayer's grip upon his spear tightened all the while. It would be just his luck that the first test fate had arranged for him after his fall would be to be set upon by common thieves with an unusually charismatic frontman. He had no intention of letting himself be played for a fool.

"Unprepared? Do I look unprepared to run you and your henchmen through where you stand for this insolence?" With an ugly scowl that mimicked the expression upon his helm, the knight took a low crouch, his spear clutched in both hands. For a split second, deep yellow sparks of lightning danced across his charred armour - then he jumped. Clear out of the pit, to somersault over the three robbers and land in a predatory crouch behind them. The two burly thugs flanking the cloaked man turned quickly, drawing short swords. Ornstein towered to his feet, spinning the great spear around his body in a deft flourish that kept the robbers firmly out of reach, and withdrew into a low stance with the weapon pointed straight at the cloaked man, braced beneath the pit of the knight's arm like a cavalier's lance. "On the contrary, I think it's the three of you who are unprepared."

[Albert Wesker]

This just wasn't going as planned. It had been a simple plan, one that couldn't possibly fall apart. Grab some muscle to help him out, the type of goons with way more brawn than brain, and then prepare his trap. The pitfall had been easy to make, with his powers and the aid of his new "friends". But he had bitten off more than he bargained for, it was starting to look like. These two...he hadn't counted on things going the way they were. For both of them to have some real backbone, to be made of stuff as stern as they were.

Though it was mostly concealed by the scarf around his throat and the band around his forehead, he had broken out in a cold sweat. Not only his courage and chances of pulling this off successfully both taken huge blows, but his pride had been severely attacked. Being called a common thug had bitten right to his core, and dealt him a severe blow. It had been all he could do to restrain himself from putting a bullet or several through the armored man where he stood. But he couldn't risk anything going wrong at this point. He still had on his cool facade of confidence and cool thought. Just like things were going as planned.

But that entire facade and his mask of cool collectedness shattered as the armored man simply leaped up out of the pit, sailing over his head and landing behind him and his compatriots. Without even turning his head, his expression went pale. Damn... Things are falling apart here...

Forcing the fear from his face and setting it into an expression of fake courage, outrage and steel. He spun on his heel, and in a flourish of both wrists, he had drawn both a knife and a pistol. He held the knife ready at his side, in a defensive ready position, and brought the gun to bear, lifting it, sighting down and taking aim at the spear-wielding knight. His finger squeezed on the trigger, slowly...

From behind him, he heard a distinct WHOOSH and a shadow passed over him. Th-The other one! Damn! His panic was really messing with him. And before he even had the chance to turn and see it coming, he heard it.

"Ice Block...Partizan!"

He heard a series of sharp impacts, spearing into the ground, leaving gleaming shafts of ice sticking out of the ground, mist rising from them in the warm air. Many of them had missed him entirely, but one had pierced his cloak, pinning him in place, and another had landed directly before him, straight in his path. His expression went even more pale. A....a warning shot...?

He heard the soft whud as the other man landed, probably on the opposite side of the pit. Out of range for any physical action, but that didn't seem to be an issue for him. Nervously, the purple-clad man swallowed, trying not to let just how disturbed he was. After all, this should have been an easy snatch and grab. Shock and awe, stealing some loot from poor suckers stuck in a pit. He hadn't bargained on two fierce and combat-ready characters being the ones to fall into his trap.

He was about ready to cut his losses and run away, tail between his legs. But he couldn't let his pride be completely ruined. Knowing full well it was likely a futile gesture, he swiped the knife behind him, toward Kuzan. "You two! Go get that ice-man! I'll handle this one!" And with a snarl, he re-leveled his gun and fired at the armored knight.

[Ornstein]

Kuzan was a military man. Surely he'd know an opening to make his move when he saw one, and he wouldn't get a clearer one than to have their three attackers turn dumbstruck to face Ornstein after he leapt clear out of the pit to brandish his mighty spear. The knight was left pondering the nature of one of the hooded man's mysterious weapons for a few moments - what was that, some kind of magical catalyst? - before the crook's attention was snatched away by Kuzan's own escape and summary counterattack. Ornstein watched within his helm with no small measure of awe as his companion flung a volley of spear-like icicles to bite the ground around the hooded man's feet. A warning, no doubt, for he surely couldn't have missed at this point-blank range if he had intended to strike true.

The knight kept his tense, ready stance, his spear perfectly still in its vigil to hold these three thugs firmly at bay. The muscle turned around, their grim faces brought upon Kuzan at the other side of the pit, and they circled towards him on both sides with their shortswords raised ready. That left Ornstein with the ringleader, and he was ready to make his move before the cloaked man affixed his attention once again and raised the odd weapon in his left hand.

BANG!

The explosion was as loud as it was totally sudden, and Ornstein reeled backwards beneath a hammer-like blow to his breastplate. His armour held, but a screaming pain spread through his chest like he’d just been battered off his feet by Smough’s enormous mallet. By the Sun, what was that?! Some foul new pyromancy?

Whatever it was, he couldn’t let it happen again or blows like that would lay him low. Before the next shot came, he snarled and rushed forward to close in on the hooded man. He raised his spear, still braced beneath his arm, and stepped into a violent thrust of the weapon – aimed past the man’s head. Instead, he levelled the crossguard beneath the point’s smooth ricasso at the man’s throat, looking to topple him winded into his own pit and take him out of the picture in order to open the way to aiding Kuzan.

The thief had other ideas. Emboldened by how his shot had struck painfully true, he nimbly ducked beneath the massive spear, letting it whistle overhead. He lashed out, apparently mostly in reflex, to smack the weapon aside with a sweep of his own sword. Ornstein relaxed his grip to roll with this parry, letting his spear be turned aside off to his right. Deftly did the knight move with it instead, stepping to the right to pull the weapon with him into a neat spin. The thief got to his feet – just in time to have the flat of the spear’s point crash into the side of his head. With a short, flat cry of shocked pain, he toppled off his feet and into the pit to fall atop Kuzan’s stricken, icy horse.

[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.

[Ornstein]

As it turned out, mercifully, Kuzan didn't appear to need any help even in spite of being outnumbered. Ornstein couldn't help but wonder, however, at the necessity of Kuzan having to verbally call his magical attacks. Was it an incantation, a requisite of his spellcraft, or just an arrogant force of habit as if to challenge his opponents to stop him? Ornstein hoped for the former.

His companion appeared to have the situation in hand, so on second thought, Ornstein decided against intervening. He might just get in the way and give their enemies an unnecessary opening. He committed himself instead to pacing back and forth on the other side of the pit, occasionally sparing a downward glance for the horses and cloaked robber trapped inside. They'd remember to deconstruct and rebuild their mounts when it was time to move on, he figured, probably with the ringleader of this little bandit's trap in tow as a prisoner. Ornstein would sooner see the man handed over to proper authorities, to be punished according to the law of the land, than to simply cut him down in cold blood now that his criminal efforts had been so soundly defeated.

He paced, and watched, and when the icy mist had cleared gave a low whistle of admiration to find Kuzan still in one piece, clutching two great blocks of ice. The poor thugs had been frozen solid beneath the man's grip, and their hooded ringleader clawed his way up from the pit just in time to bear witness. Ornstein could almost hear the resolve seep out of him.

"Ready to give up yet, thief?" Ornstein scoffed. The hooded man shot a look over his shoulder and gave a deathly scowl, trying his best to salvage his confident facade. Ornstein didn't buy it for a moment. Standing tall, giving no visible sign of how the pain of that fierce impact still stung his chest, he hefted his spear onto his shoulder. "On your feet. You'll be escorted to the nearest local authority to answer for this attempted robbery. Don't bother trying to run."

[Albert Wesker]

Kuzan remained kneeling by the two frozen bandits. For far longer than he should have. There was a cold look on his face, and behind his glasses, his eyes were empty and staring intently at the incapacitated crooks. His hands, clamped down on what had once been their throats, clenched tighter for a handful of heartbeats, and a few tiny cracks spidered out through the ice. For a few tense seconds, he looked ready and willing to crush the ice in his grasp and permanently end the threat of these two particular bandits.

Several seconds passed, and his fingers trembled, before slowly loosening their grip. A tense breath hissed out of him, and his expression lost its hard edges and his body visibly relaxed. It wasn't his job to dole out judgement anymore. He didn't even really have any personal obligations to take these criminals in. Or to even leave them alive. But he pulled his hands away from the frozen mooks, rising up to stand and dusting off his coat as he did so. Leaving their fate up to whatever the proper authorities around here were would be the right thing to do.

Besides, maybe after being so thoroughly and soundly trounced and dealt with, they would learn their lesson.

.......it could happen.

He simply slipped his hands in the pockets of his coat and turned to regard the former ringleader of the failed highway robbery. He didn't say anything, just let the faint traces of cold mist from his powers still streaming off of him get the message across: try anything funny and wind up a thiefsicle.

And for a moment, the cloaked man looked defiant, his lip curling in a snarl. He managed to hold his bravado for roughly half a second before it broke completely, and he looked down, utterly defeated. ".....remember this..."

He mumbled something, only a few words audible in the faint breeze. But Kuzan had heard it enough times to have a general idea of the message. Looked like there was a grudge to be held here, for all the intimidation that would bring with it. "Arara...guess we'll have to be careful, then."

The cloaked man's face went sour at the mocking comment, pulling himself the rest of the way out of the pit. And as soon as he did, a sudden grin split his features. He made a movement as if he had stumbled. One hand slapped down against the ground, and he let out a cry of "DUST BOMB!"

And immediately the ground reacted as if a metric ton of dust had been ripped up into the air to whirl around and swirl in a blinding, almost choking cloud. There was the sound of arrogant laughing, and rapid footsteps retreating off the road. "Next time....I won't be caught off guard! You'd best watch your backs!"

By the time the dust cleared enough to allow sight again, the man was completely lost from sight. If nothing else, at least he was fast.

"Well....he's good at running away, at least."

[Albert Wesker]

Kuzan lazily waved a hand before his eyes, batting uselessly at the dust that had settled lightly on his eyebrows, and swept his eyes over the immediate area. He had a faint, nagging feeling that he was missing something about that poor sap that had run off, but after several more seconds without incident, he let it pass. He turned his attention back to the hole in the midst of the path. A fine layer of dust had settled over the poor horses still stuck at its bottom, even though most of it had blown away.

As he plucked his glasses from his face, wiping off the dust and frost accumulated on them on his coat, he pursed his lips, tilting his head to one side as a sudden thought struck him. He took another look around, replacing his glasses as he turned back to the pit, taking a short, hopping step out over it to drop down beside his horse. "I have a feeling I know where all the dirt that was in this pit went."

Still waving dust out of the air before him, and giving the occasional sputter as dust that had worked its way into his helmet found its way into his mouth, Ornstein made his own way down into the pit. "Oh?" He gave a short sneeze, finally seeming to get his helm dust-free. "And where would that be?"

By way of answer, Kuzan simply brushed off a bit of dust from his injured steed, and tossed it lazily into the air. It spread out into a faint cloud, and dissipated in the faint breeze. A tilt of the head, and several moments of silence later, the Dragonslayer caught on. "Ah. Quite the odd trick." He settled himself down near his horse, and set about the process of returning his steed to the Omnilium which it had been summoned from.

Kuzan simply gave a shrug. "Not as odd as some things I've seen." Even during his relatively short time here, he had already seen more oddities. But he said nothing to that effect, simply extracting his injured horse back to its component Omnilium.

Within a handful of minutes, the process was complete. And the former Admiral and the Dragonslayer leapt lightly out of the pit.

[Ornstein]

In a reverent silence - or as close to it as he could muster between the occasional irritating coughs needed to clear the thin dust from his helm - Ornstein joined Kuzan in deconstructing his wounded steed. It comforted him now, far more so than the first time, to see that the process placed the beast in no visible pain. How the two must have suffered in the aftermath of their collapse into the pit; to extract them again and end that pain was a service, transient though the creatures were. When the process was done, he turned and jumped from the pit alongside his companion and they set straight to summoning their horses all over again, once more in perfect health.

"Let's be off," Ornstein muttered as he spurred his mount forward at a purposeful trot. "We still have a long way to go, and perhaps more unpleasant surprises to weather from here to that city." His spear once more hung by his side, though his grip upon the shaft was a tad firmer than before. His eyes roved to and fro within his helm, a hint of wary tension filling his body as his horse ambled along.

"Agreed." Kuzan had settled back into his usual level, lazy tone now that the danger had fully passed, though Ornstein could read the same measured caution in the former Admiral's posture. It mattered not that they'd swept their attackers aside like little more than low-hanging branches on the road; being waylaid in such a calculated fashion had set both travellers subtly on edge. Ornstein could not deny that the idea of fellow Primes resorting to such base thievery, with the aid of whatever skills they possessed that had interested Omni, disturbed him.

While he and his companion picked up the pace to regain the time they had lost fending off the robbers, the knight mouthed a silent prayer. In this alien place, he did not expect to be heard - indeed, even if he was, he did not expect to be heeded after his failure in the cathedral. But if there was any chance that the Lord of Sunlight continued to watch him, supplication would be offered, in hopes of an eventless journey to the distant city ahead.

[Albert Wesker]

They were gone. They were leaving. And he was still free.

Try as he might to hide it, an arrogant grin slowly crept across his face. And he let out a muted, coughing cackle. Fools. Once they were so certain he was caught, they'd let their guards down. And it gave him every opportunity to make a break for it. And now he was free and clear to make another go at his game.

Though hopefully with less feisty prey next time around.

The thought of how near his brush with the law had been sent a shiver down his spine. He'd had enough run ins with the law before even arriving in this blasted place; he didn't need ANY more now that he was here!

Slowly, and very, very carefully so as to make as little noise as physically possible, he crept out of the bushes he had stumbled into in his blind rush to escape under cover of his dust cloud.

"Heh. Hah. Hahaha! Once again, the great Janning escapes to fight another day!"

Almost as soon as the triumphant words had left his mouth, he clapped a hand over it. Just because he couldn't see those two interlopers anymore didn't mean sound couldn't carry to them.

"Bah. Time to get out of here."

He set about brushing the dust from his cape, a scowl on his face. It had been his favorite cape, now covered in dust and all manner of grit. The nerve...

He was so lost in his attempt to clean himself, he failed to notice another arrival on the scene. A very large, angry arrival who had seen the entire encounter. Feathers and claws flashed as the gryphon reared up behind the unsuspecting villain.

----------

Though his posture was relaxed and at ease, only holding the reins of his horse with one hand, Kuzan's eyes constantly kept on the move behind his shades, keeping a careful watch for any more trouble, or "helpful" travellers.

As such, it was only fitting he snapped his head up and about at a sudden screech that split the air.

"GYAAAAAAGH!"

The scream that followed it, one of pure terror and no small amount of pain, caused him to furrow his eyebrows. That had not sounded like it was pleasant for the highwayman. It didn't sound like he'd been injured too terribly if he was still capable of screaming like that, but if nothing else it should keep him from messing with anyone else on the road for a while.

And that was enough for the barest hint of a smile to linger on Kuzan's features as he turned back about to face front. "Guess he was right. You really should be careful on the road."

[Albert Wesker]

It had been several uneventful days since his rather strange travelling with Ornstein. They had parted ways after finally reaching the city, and since that day the former Admiral had seen neither hide nore hair of the dragonslayer, and had settled in to take stock of his situation as best he could now that he had some relative peace.

And during such introspection and information-gathering, he finally had time to properly consider something that had simply never occurred to him properly since his arrival here. A great deal of his power was...well, the best way he could put it was that it was missing, or at the least somehow inaccessible to him. He'd managed to maintain a few of his tricks and skills, in a thankful turn of events, but so much more of the strength he had grown so used to having was just...gone. It was enough to give him a headache trying to ponder the significance of it, but it did answer at least a few questions.

While his choices had seemed natural to him at the time, some of the actions he had taken in the couple of very brief fights he had been in thus far were...awkward, to say the least; not at all the best way to go about handling the situations he had been dumped into. It was as if, in the spur of the moment, he had failed to notice that he was missing some of his preferred methods of utilizing his Hie Hie no Mi powers.

Perhaps the most grievous occurrence was his failure to notice his inability to turn into his Logia state -- something which eventually became nearly reflexive for most of those who had eaten a Logia Devil Fruit. But the more he pondered that, the more his brain started to feel like it was going to leak out of his head, and so he finally, reluctantly, gave up on that train of thought, and turned to a new one: Just what was he going to do, now that he was here?

While a long-term goal of any sort eluded him over his pondering, he received something to do in the short-term rather unexpectedly, when he ran into a familiar face. Or rather, a familiar face ran into him.

The highwayman clad in purple literally fell out of the air, plummeting from a rooftop above, and nearly bowled over the Ice-man. He paused to snarl out a demand that he get out of the way, before seeing who it was. The poor man -- Janning, was his name -- immediately went pale, dropped what he was carrying, and bolted in a surprising display of speed. It looked as if he had a cast on one arm. Guess he'd been injured in that scuffle a while back.

Stooping down, Kuzan retrieved the dropped items, finding nothing of any real interest to him, personally. A moderately-sized bag full of valuables of many types, and what looked to be some type of flyer or advertisement. He turned over the presumably-stolen items to a pair of guards who came by shortly in pursuit of the thief, but held onto the flyer, so that he could look at it himself when he had a moment.

And what he read when he finally did caught his attention in more ways than one.

If someone like that thief was going to show up at an event like this, well...that was just a recipe for plain old trouble and chaos. It was highly doubtful he'd be able to do any real damage on his own in such a crowded area, but who was to know what other tricks or nasty surprises the thief had up his sleeve?

Kuzan's headache started to come back as he considered his options.