Session 99 - Café Bataille

Inside the cafe, Ramoc hovers, locked in chains, the shadowy form of the Reaper taking over. Strela pings from target to target, dealing out conceptual death and hopeful dismemberment. Yves chokes through poisonous mist while delivering lectures in lightning. Bast battles shadows from his past before he gets weighed down by the sins of a false father and also a knife in his back. Linnet tries to keep everyone together as well as she ever keeps herself together.
Outside, Isa is having a great time.
There's a strangled yell from the inside: "Isa! Stop covering me!"
In a single move, Isa spins to buffet away her opponent's attack, sweep his legs out from under him with the butt of her spear, and then skewer him through the shoulder until the blade grinds on bone and cobblestone. "You're done," she informs him. "Owen!" she calls, "get the old man somewhere safe." The outside work done, she stalks back into the café, a golden light flaring around her and Bast and then dissipating.
Bast winces at the stiffness in his limbs, flexing his fingers to see if he still can. "Linnet! Get away from the bar!"
Linnet blinks rapidly at Bast in a panic as she sees his fur go, well, grayer than usual? and his movements start to slow. "Um." Racking her brains for anything Natron told her about stone damage, she gives up and throws down her usual two-handed battle plan.
While her right hand spell knits Yves' lung tissues back together and brushes rock dust out of Bast's fur, her left hand spell drills more ice spikes into Ramoc's ears and freezes some of Strela's fingers.
Ramoc, looking considerably worse than he did just a few minutes ago -- a fact easily confirmed by simple analysis, on account of he's not moving -- glowers at Bast, a glower so full of hate that the hate manifests into a shadowy scythed form that tears itself through Bast's rapidly-hardening body.
Strela stumbles in her attempt to accelerate the murder.
Bast stumbles over to the bar, fumbling at his belt with hardening fingers. He looks up at the hovering Ramoc with a fey grin, and mumbles a "Fuck. You." through numb lips as he drops the flash grenade at his own feet.
Yves coughs away some lingering fog, and tries to figure out what in the world is going on inside this cafe. Because he's pretty sure that the captain is turning to stone and just grenaded himself, which seems...atypical? But, hey, if that's what the situation calls for... sometimes that's what the situation calls for. He picks up the plate that once held a cookie (now lost in the poison gas, like tears in the rain), and with great determination, uses it to smack Bast across the back of the head.
Creis Thalin, inexplicably still alive, runs away.
Bast staggers, not expecting a hit from Yves of all people, and the stone tint covering his fur puffs outward in a cloud of dust. He looks over at the viera with a mix of confusion and approval, and coughs out another puff of dust to follow the rest.
Isa stalks into the café, spear held slanted behind her back. Her right hand is out, palm-forward in a warding gesture. "Hostage is clear," she announces. "Who's first?"
"...sorry, captain?" Yves says tentatively.
Bast, still coughing, points at Strela.
Isa nods, and turns the full force of her focus on the sylph.
Staying the hell out of Isa's way and Ramoc's sight line, Linnet quietly boosts Bast with a blast of bracing air.
As Ramoc's eyes go cloudy, Strela's narrow in on Bast, and the sylph springs forward, knife angling for the trachea.
"Nice trick!" Bast spits the last of the dust out as he hops back to avoid Strela's attack. "But I've met bigger bastards than you, now. Picked up some new tricks myself."
The coin he tosses over her head catches the light from the broken window briefly as it spins before - what else - exploding.
One half of it zooms over to Ramoc, imprinting deep, pressing the wires binding him into his flesh. The other fragments into glinting shards that circle Strela ever tighter, finally settling on her clothes and skin.
Ramoc bites back a swear, but then his eyes flash wide, stricken with terror, as his body no longer allows him to move at all, and he lets out a stream of blistering curses.
Strela shares the look of terror, half of her mind closed off from her, the knives heavy and unfamiliar in her hands.
"Want to try that again?" The mockery is practically dripping from Bast's words as he slides a new bolt into place.
"You will wish you had died! I will flense the fucking skin off your face! You think losing your wings was bad? When I'm done with you -- when I'm done with your whole fucking crew you sack of spiteful shit--"
Ramoc has his words, but only his words.
"Weirdest first date I've ever been on," Yves mutters to himself, pocketing the remaining fragment of that cookie plate. "Hey, Cinnabar, I think under the circumstances we could maybe use a little bit of a refresher, if it's not too much trouble?" Light glitters blue around him, and around his colleagues as well. "...marvelous, thank you."
"Captain? Need them alive?" Isa asks.
"Fuck no." Bast's almost ready with his crossbow.
Isa swings her spear around in front of her. When she grabs the butt with her armored hand, there is a surge of silver light along the blade, right before she drives it into Strela's side.
The fire in Strela's eyes goes out, along with the light.
Linnet turns tired eyes on Ramoc and fires a ball of ice straight into his open mouth. "Stuff it, asshole."
"I mean, that sort of commentary doesn't really convince people to do less extrajudicial obstacle removal where you're the obstacle," Yves muses to himself. "How do people get to these management positions with no people skills? I mean, I know I'm not a great manager, but that's why I stuck to the lab, right?"
With a final furious glare at Bast, Ramoc dies, shock plain on his face, body still suspended in stasis.
"The cream rises to the top; so does the scum. So sayeth my mother, early and often." Linnet turns away from Ramoc and begins evaluating everyone else for lingering damage.
Crossbow at the ready, Bast pauses to look over the broken cafe, breathing heavily. His lips slowly curl up in a smile.  "Damn fine work. Everyone."
"You have some nasty enemies, Bast," Yves says. He considers the two bodies. "...had."
Seeing that everyone inside has their blood still inside, Linnet gives Bast a short nod and heads outside to see to the hostage. Whoever he is.
Isa pulls her spear free from Strela's body, and wipes it off on her before collapsing and stowing it. She gives Linnet a nod before turning back to Bast. "Owen's seeing to the hostage. Whoever he is."
(In that case, Linnet will also be seeing to Owen.)
"Had. Yeah. Nice arm you've got, Yves." He closes his eyes briefly, smile still lingering, then makes his way outside.
Owen is with the old moogle six blocks away. The old man sits on a bench, listening attentively as Owen tells a story about chocobo herding that is not interesting in the slightest, but Owen found a lot to love working at the stables in Platzhalter, and one can learn a great many lessons from chocobos.
Linnet can't help but smile upon approach. "All right, Owen, give your audience a rest. Hello, sir, glad to see you're all right. Would you like to come back to the cafe with us? Everyone who was pointing sharp things is done."
"They're gone?" he asks, his voice quavering. "They're... dead?"
Bast nods, crossbow resting on his shoulder.
He carefully rises from the bench, wincing as his arm shifts with the motion. "I can't believe it..."
(Yves has gone to hunt down one last cookie, on principle, before following other people outside. But no eating of it until he's actually outside again, because eating cookies right next to corpses you personally assisted in reaching their current state is just weird.)
"The three you came with are dead, yes. Everyone else is alive and well and should be putting the cafe back to rights. I'd like to take a look at that arm, but I suspect you have more urgent business with this gentleman." Linnet steps back to allow Bast the spotlight.
"How badly are you hurt?" Bast gives the arm an appraising look.
He carefully steps closer to Bast, scrutinizing the captain. "Well, I certainly don't think the resemblance is all that close," he grumbles. "I'm not sure how well this will heal, at my age you don't pop back from a scrap like you once did when you were a little younger and a lot dumber."
Yves, having arrived at last, cookie in hand, looks around for signs of the actors who were playing cafe customers. Not seeing them is probably a good sign too, though.
"They didn't exactly get where they were on brains." Bast shrugs, then remembers the crossbow he's still holding and puts it away. "Sorry about the arm, and the whole...adventure. You got a place to lay low for a while?"
Linnet, who seems to be hanging back slightly starry-eyed, gets a sideways glance. "Think you've got enough juice left to help him?"
"Hmm? Oh, yes, yes, I can. No need to trouble yourselves any more than you already have." He gingerly cradles his arm. "Wonderful stories, young man," he says to Owen. "Wonderful stories."
Linnet has plenty of power to set and accelerate the healing of the older gentleman's arm, of course.
The old moogle responds to the Cure spell by driving a knife into Linnet's stomach.
Linnet doubles over, but remains standing, and manages to cough out "...rude."
"At least one of you goes down with us," he says, malice bitter on his tongue. He pulls the knife out, then readies it for another vicious stab, stepping in closer. "At least one of you burns with the rest of us."
Isa's spear is out before he can withdraw the knife.  And then it's in again, but this time the "in" is "his throat."
"...the fuck," says Yves, and, far more confused than at any earlier point in all this, reacts by flinging his cookie at the old moogle.
"Oh what the fuck-" Bast hits his forearm, and a polished nozzle extends from his sleeve - not nearly as quickly as Isa's spear.
Owen bodies the moogle fifteen feet off the end of Isa's spear, then immediately lifts Linnet up off the ground and over to the bench like a delicate throw pillow.
Linnet is honestly more baffled than injured, but she thanks Owen anyway and watches as the scene unfolds. Very quickly and definitively.
Isa mumbles something that sounds like "how did she do it..." and holds out a hand, letting a soft glow fill the area and close up any lingering stab wounds.
Yves still looks stunned, in the manner of a man who has just remembered that his fake blind date can also lift heavy artillery under one arm.
"Bast, this can't have been your dad; your dad has to have been smarter than this." (Linnet whispers a joyful, thankful compliment to Isa. She's clearly been practicing!)
"...should just have just gone in to burn them all out from the start." Bast shakes his head in disgust. "You okay?"
"...why," Yves finally manages, "would someone do that over... over those two? Because I can't think he just had it in for Linnet personally."
"Pick the weakest-looking target in melee. Yes, I'm fine."  Linnet straightens up. "Are we setting more fires now, or calling it good for now and going home? Who's got the box? And should I call back the crew?"
"My vote is for 'get the fuck out of here and don't come back'," Isa says.
"They would never tolerate this sort of behavior in Cardia," Owen says confidently.
Bast looks vaguely stricken. "Ah shit. The box. Did anyone grab the box?" He looks back towards the cafe.
Linnet lets out her best piercing two-fingered Jasper Samson Stage Manager's Summon Whistle.  "Yves, book it and grab the thing, please. We might have a problem if someone else does."
"Stars, but you are loud," Apocynthion says as he walks up. To Bast, he says, "Two stragglers found, two stragglers in the water. Crew's safe and scattered." To Yves, he gives a slight bow and a lopsided grin. "I believe you forgot something," he says, and hands Yves the box containing the Frost Fair Blade.
"Is there anyone in this city who is not a backstabbing or front-stabbing--oh, Apoc!" Yves brightens at the arrival of one of his favorite people, and accepts the box. "Thank you very much."
"Loud is the point." Linnet inspects him for frost-related damage. "Huh, guess that worked."
"I believe I am on the list, thanks to our eloquent Speaker," Apoc says.
Isa grunts. "We need to get scarce."
For once, Bast looks to be unambiguously happy to see Apoc. "Good work! And good thinking."
"Maybe before the various corpses start to concern people," Yves says, "yes, maybe we should." He favors Apocynthion with a sideways smile. "However many we're up to now."
"So long as none of ours join their number," Apoc says. "Follow me, path is already secure."