pray for the wicked

[pointedlook]

WHO? Ashitaka lonelywar & Arthur pointedlook
WHAT? HRHR; in which Ashitaka and Arthur save the Queen.
WHEN? Day of the eclipse.
ANYTHING ELSE? Violence, probably not anything gratuitous...but they did score over 75% margin of success.

[ Grothia, in all of her commander wisdom, had doled out their specific missions during the week of the eclipse. She'd cited that the general populous would be busy with preparations, which gave them a certain bit of leeway to move around. Arthur had agreed with her assessment; holidays simultaneously left people on high alert and also drowned them all in a chaotic frenzy.

In his opinion, it would be the best time for the Regency to make a move on the Queen. What better victory than to cut her down at the peak of the empire's indulgence? What better way to have a captive audience?

With the holiday around the corner and the Queen being relatively pro-COST, it's easy to get set up as extra protection detail. Arthur gets in touch with Ashitaka, feeling like their skill sets will balance out– close range for him, long range for the other. Thus far, most of their movements have been shadowing the Queen's errands, following her out to dress fittings, caterers, every little nitpicky thing under the sun. It doesn't bother him, just winds him up further and further.

Right now it's mid-morning and the Queen is heading back to the throne room, attaché dutifully in tow. Arthur gets that stomach swooping feeling that something is going to go wrong. Maybe he'll be wrong, but he doesn't want to test it.

Carefully and quietly, he contacts Ashitaka via BCE. While he isn't really that far off, he isn't about to break form and possibly tip someone off. ]

Call me paranoid, but I feel like something's about to go down. Can you break off for a good angle?

Comments

[lonelywar]

[The Regency and their allies have surely gotten desperate; Ashitaka thinks that this approach is very blunt for them, without the usual layers of duplicity and subterfuge. But the Commander had explained several times the importance of gaining an alliance with the Araneans, and with their maneuvering to support the Queen versus how the Regency had aligned with the Princess, it seemed natural that it would eventually come to something like this.

It was a struggle of lethal force. There was little other way to think about it, and Ashitaka doesn't do very much of that at all as he knocks another arrow and draws it back, hand tracking several of the forms that seemed to move a little too erratically for his taste - though he ultimately waits for Arthur's instruction, rather than relying on instinct that could lead him to putting an arrow through the heart of one of their current allies.

For a moment he keeps an eye on Arthur, in the throes of his own fight, but the operative he had been grappling with ends up dropping to the ground in a gush of crimson blood as the COST agent stands up once again.

As soon as he hears the command, Ashitaka tracks the point of his arrow to where Arthur specified, takes a breath, and releases it as a hiss through his teeth as he looses the arrow through the air.

Felling an Aranean with arrows was far more difficult than dropping a human being. Whether in their natural form or shrouded in their human skins, they hid their most vulnerable parts with layers of flesh and cloth, or chitinous plates. Ashitaka had realized how difficult it was when he had failed in the stadium, but as soon as he recovered his strength, he had practiced. He knows how to take one of these creatures down now, and that training shines through now. Arrows pierce the Shaiy assailant in the back at multiple points: between plates in the shoulder, the neck, each impacting with the force of a powerful blow as Ashitaka puts all of his inhuman strength behind them. Purple-blue tendrils writhe like maggots at the feathered hafts of the arrows for a moment before dissipating, causing nearby Araneans to recoil at the strong source of magic.

The attack slowed and confounded the attacker, making it far easier for Ashitaka to send an arrow through her head. She slowly slumps to the floor not ten yards away from the queen.]

Can you discern who is commanding them? [Ashitaka draws another arrow, ready to continue to continue to reap the chaff, but severing the head would mark the end of them sooner rather than later.]

[pointedlook]

[ What feels like a lifetime ago, he'd watched Ashitaka's fight in the stadium. It'd been a bloody affair, as were most of the fights, but even moreso with someone who specialized in long range. Getting a good angle was hard, even without the added stress of going head to head with an Aranean. An Aranean who outpaced and outmatched nearly everyone in COST, just by virtue of their genetics.

Suffice to say, it seems like Ashitaka's had some practice since then, a dying and reviving experience giving him the knowledge to take a spider down without so much as a hiccup. Arthur's engaged in another fight, but when he flicks his gaze to the Aranean on the stairs, he sees the arrows poking out between plates, in the soft tissue and piercing through muscle, sinew, tendons. Nearly getting slashed for his moment of distraction, he re-focuses, knife flashing in the dim light.

It takes a few minutes but eventually, he manages to hamstring the agent, careful to dodge just out of their reach and then darting in. They go down in a crumpled heap and he uses their own sword, driving it through their chest.

The Aranean has slumped to the ground in the meantime, but he isn't looking at the body for more than a second, instead searching for the answer to Ashitaka's question. ]

Regency agent, on the stairs. [ It looked like they were in the middle of things, essentially at the front, fighting off two guards with practiced ease. There were a couple other servants blocking the eyeline. ]

Distract that other Aranean, would you? I'm gonna clear you a path to their lead.