[Flooberoid]

A little dismayed that everyone ignored her, Patchouli shrugged and consoled herself that the five who ran off were probably afraid of her.

As Sona was taken to the ground, Patchouli moved to help her. "Hey! Cool off, psycho!" She swiftly crossed to the man and jammed a paralyzing needle into his right shoulder. With that firmly in place, she took a fistful of needles in her left hand and clawed at the bandit's other side as she elegantly twirled backwards, gaining some distance in the process.

[CptSteel]

Staying out of the fight, Lynae decided to pass the time talking to the unconscious goon that lay on the floor. After asking about his day, she laughed; realising that his friends are being heavily injured as she queried. It's not like it was particularly funny, just sort of ironic.

[MissyMidna]

Seeing her opponent go defensive she pouted. "Don't be boring! Fight back!"

Vidalia swings her blade again then follows to actually cut the man's hands and legs. Looks like she'd have to make him fight back.

[willow_lark]

Sona glares at the man pinning her down. Figuring once he throws a few more punches she'll have a chance to slip out of his grip, she steels herself for attacks that never come. The man's arm goes limp and as he goes to reach for it with his other arm, he yowls in pain. He rises from his knees to a kneel, arcing his back from the damage. Sona takes the chance to thrust her knee up into the man's crotch. His cries of pain redouble in intensity, and Sona pulls herself out from under him. The surly man falls to his knees, his one good arm clutching his nether regions. Sona pats dirt off the hem of her skirt and kicks him across the face.

Seeing it was Patchouli's needlework that gave Sona her freedom, Sona smiles softly at the normally shy girl, but only for a moment. "Thank you Patchouli." She says with a small nod.


The remaining bandits have disappeared from sight down the hallway.

The surly man no longer whimpers from his injuries, and can be assumed to be unconscious.

Vidalia's opponent deflects her first swing from his guard stance with little difficulty. He blocks the second slash aimed low for his legs as well, but the man is forced to take a step back as he adjusts the blade to deflect Vidalia's katana. Taking advantage of Vidalia's sword being low from the swing, he swings his sword over his head and slashes Vidalia's shoulder with a two handed downward slash.

[Flooberoid]

"No problem, Sona. Now let's help Vidi out, shall we?

"Think you can take all three of us, buddy?" Patchouli laughed as she turned to face Vidalia's attacker. She flung the fan of needles that she had been holding in her left hand in a vertical arc and drew a new handful with her right. These she held in front of her face with a playful smile, convinced the bandit would now look at her.

[MissyMidna]

Right after her shoulder had been cut Vidalia hissed and stumbled back. Damn bastard hurt her dominate arm and he was not going to get away with it. When Patchy stepped in to help she was a little disappointed but dropped it medially remembering that they were a team and had it been the other way around Vidalia would have stepped in to help too.

"Thanks Patchy," Vidalia tells her happily.

[willow_lark]

Sona turns to the average looking man. While he is preoccupied attacking her teammate, Sona comes up behind him and cuts at the back of his legs with a full twirl, giving her three swipes against him.

"Hurry up Lynae, they'll get away!" She yells up the trapdoor.



Pachouli's needles pierce the average man's head, neck and torso. With a cry he pulls his left hand from the hilt of his sword to clutch the needle in his neck.

"You bitch..." he growls. He takes a single step towards Patchouli with a frosty glare, closing half the distance of the small tunnel with that step. He collapses onto his knees as Sona cuts at his legs, leaving gashes across the back of the man's legs. They'd heal, but they would hurt for a long time.

Clutching at the hilt of his sword with his right hand, the man glares up at the girls surrounding him, the hate in his eyes clear from across the room.

[Flooberoid]

Before he could swing that sword, Patchouli pushed the poacher onto his back with her foot. She grinned widely and a hint of sadism could be heard in her voice as she said, "Thank you! I've always wanted one of these!" as she sharply thrust a paralyzing needle into the man's sword arm at the elbow and relieved him of his weapon.

She turned to Sona. "I don't really care what we do with him now, so I'll leave it up to you. Highly doubt this guy knows much, though." Knowing she had directly insulted the injured man, Patchouli punctuated her statement with a carefree smirk in his direction.

[CptSteel]

Lynae shrugged, but quickly made her way down the trapdoor with a smile on her face. "What'd I miss?" She giggled, though she was feeling rather claustrophobic. Even after figuring out Patchy's weird impersonation thing, she still looked blankly toward the girl, especially after hearing the tone of her voice as she needlised that guy's arm.

Looking toward the man, Lynae couldn't help but smirk, despite having mentally scorned her teammate for her tone. With a sigh, Lynae quickly grabbed the man's neck, clutching it tightly. She realised she shouldn't be messing around. "Got any friends?" She said, in a calm tone. She wasn't being particularly rough, but she wasn't letting go any time soon.

[MissyMidna]

Vidalia pointed her sword at the man. "Patchy is probably right and he is of no value. So whether he lives or dies is our call. I personally think we should just leave him here tied up."

Even though this man was guilty Vidalia didn't feel it was right to kill him- even if he did hurt her, still she felt that he shouldn't get away that easily.

[willow_lark]

"The other five went down the hall! Why do we need to waste our time with this fool?" Sona says with a glare at the fool in question. "knock him out and let's go!"



The defeated man scowls defiantly in Lynae's face. "You kiddies don't intimidate me. Barely out of diapers aren't you? Who would be afraid of babies out of Shade?" He looks over Lynae, his eyes flicking down towards her feet and then back to her face.

"Then again, a baby wouldn't have such a fine body. With that chest, maybe I should be calling you a Babe." he says with a smirk.

[Flooberoid]

"Alright, that's enough out of you, mister!" Patchouli scowled and punched the bandit as hard as she could in the face, with intent to knock him out. After that, her body flashed purple and she took a step back, silent for a brief moment.

"Ah! Um... my bad. We weren't using him for anything, were we?"

[CptSteel]

Silently, Lynae's finger's dug into the man's neck, before she slammed him into the wall beside her, letting him drop to the floor, though she needn't have slammed him after Patchy's punch. "Let's go, then." Lynae spoke with a pissed off tone. She walked past up to Sona. Lynae picked up the pace past the girl onward down the hall.

[MissyMidna]

"This is taken longer than I expected," Vidalia mumbles to herself as she followed her leader farther down into the hall where the rest of the men ran into.

Her shoulder still stung and her aura was taking far too much time to recover thanks to that asshole back there, either way, she could put up with it until they got back to Shade.

[willow_lark]

"The lull in combat isn't a bad thing." Sona says with a shrug. She turns on her heel and jogs after her partner and leader. "Gives a chance to recover a bit."



The four girls jog down the hallway, and seconds become tens of seconds. It is obvious this tunnel continues beyond the entrance to the above cave. Just when the athletic huntresses to be start to feel their hearts pound in exertion, the cave slopes upward sharply. They can tell this is actually a ramp upwards, leading to another floor above it. There is a large wooden pallet over the opening for the ramp, which prevents anyone from going up the slope to the area above.

Natural light shines through the boards of the pallet trapdoor. Whatever is above them leads to the outside.