Job; Scare Away Those Thugs [Rayden - Akeya]

The Job:

Cracking his knuckles Rayden stretched his body out. As his first official job since joining the guild, it was better time than any to display his skills. As well, he had partnered up with another member; a woman named Akeya. Admittedly, he knew nothing but her name, but as a member of Blue Pegasus, he was sure she was an astounding figure. Jogging down the street, he stood out like a sore thumb; his bright tones and lavish dress an oddity amongst the basic clothing of the townsfolk. He radiated an infectious energy as he moved, smiling and greeting all he passed. This was the role of a hero after all. He had to be a symbol of peace and warmth, uplifting everyone around himself. Of course, some were offput by his nature, shying away or showing outright distaste. For those, he had to push even harder.

Turning the corner, he spotted his target. Nestled in a small alleyway, it was no surprise the restaurant was struggling for money. Without looking for it specifically, he doubted anyone could find it. Faded wood and stained windows, as well as a tattered banner above the door, it looked as if it was abandoned years ago. To make the situation worse, the immediate area had no real attractions. The street, if it could even be called that, was small and short, with a series of tall, attached buildings creating a narrow slit into the sky. Several of the shops were empty, and those that weren't clearly struggled for life. It put a pit in his stomach to see, his sympathy for his fellow man tugging at him.

Yet, he could not be deterred here. He had to maintain focus. With a deep breath, he pushed it all aside, focusing on examining the area. The alleyway was small, allowing at most 5 men to walk down it at once. As well, the buildings were at least 3 stories tall, blocking out a lot of light and leaving the area in a shade, despite the glowing midday sun. However, he felt this was to his advantage. The restaurant was in the exact middle of the street, and since he had to fight from there, it made it difficult to truly surround him. He waited outside the restaurant for now, since it made sense to wait somewhere she could see him. It's not like she knew what he looked like, after all.

WC: 406

Akeya didn't know who was behind the idea that she had to break in one of the newcomers to the guild, but she wasn't sure if she agreed with their train of thought. Of course since she took all her jobs seriously she could teach the new guy something about not fooling around, not taking things for granted, and sticking to the job until the job was finished instead of being distracted by the first interesting thing that showed itself. So in that aspect she could be helpful because she could ensure that his working ethic was acceptable. However beyond that pretty much literally anybody else would have been a better choice. Somebody who actually liked interacting with people, for example. Somebody who didn't see humans as food at worst and allowable nuisances at best. Somebody who still followed the etiquette and morals of humans instead of the rather draconic take on life Akeya had. Almost literally anybody else, preferably somebody who was actually a human. So far as she knew this new guy was one hundred percent human, so he'd have an easier time getting along with another human. Especially since this particular half dragon was a misanthrope.

However it had been an order, and while Akeya thought it was a dumb order it was not one that was so likely to cause trouble that she could refuse to obey it. If she could claim that following the order would increase the chances of failure to the extent that it was no longer tolerable she could have made an issue of it, but unfortunately she was pretty sure that even if she was the worst guide ever they would still be able to fulfil the mission. Mostly because the mission wasn't a very difficult one, but still. Apparently there was a group of human thugs who were terrorizing companies in the area to pay them money or otherwise watch their business get thrashed. Their job was to get rid of those nuisances so the hardworking humans could return to their usual business without having to worry about some random guy with a weapon smashing their stuff while demanding to be paid not to do that. Didn't sound like too difficult a job to Akeya, especially because she had not been told by anybody that the thugs had to survive. The job description said to scare them away from the town, but nowhere did it say that if some or all of the thugs died they wouldn't get paid. Probably because most legal mages wouldn't kill anyway. Akeya wondered how long it would take before she encountered a legal mage as willing to get rid of humans in a rather terminal way as herself.

For now she flew over the town, looking down below as she searched for the spot where she was supposed to meet up with this new guy. She knew absolutely nothing about him other than that he was male, human, and apparently enthusiastic about being a hero. Akeya had snorted at the last one when she had heard about it, since to her it sounded rather ridiculous. Heroes could be impressive and intimidating, but most of the time to be a hero meant you had to be stupid, at least so far as this half dragon was concerned, Heroes had to set the right example, they had to be the good guys. And being the good guy meant you weren't allowed to make use of a wide variety of tactics which were very efficient because they were considered unfair, cheap, or dirty. Translation: as a hero you were forced to use the difficult methods because apparently being a good guy meant you actually had to give your opponent the chance to fight back and win, even if as the hero you were supposed to fight the bad guys, who were supposed to lose. Somehow that would make you a shining example of what everybody should be like, because you made things unnecessarily difficult for yourself. This just made Akeya wonder how humanity managed to survive for so long.

Well, she would just have to make sure that this one understood that heroism was not something to chase after. It was better to just get the job done, and Akeya would be much more likely to praise somebody for finding a weakness and exploiting it than watching somebody charge the enemy head on and managing to beat them all down. Of course, being strong enough to win against many opponents was in itself not bad, but that same amount of power could kill so many more people if you just applied it properly. If you had the ability to use poison you could use it to just poison the warriors standing in front of you. Or you could use that same amount of poison on their water supplies, and watch them drop like flies without ever having to risk your hide.

After some flying around Akeya managed to find her target in some rather small alley, which from up here was barely visible. The buildings were tall and leaned towards each other, creating only a small gap for her to look into. But in there the newcomer to Blue Pegasus was standing in front of some downtrodden restaurant, so that must be it. Akeya wondered if those thugs were really that much of a problem and if it wasn't just that the owner had chosen a truly terrible site to set up his business. Sighing she began to dive, once close to the buildings changing into a shadow and sliding down the walls, once she reached the ground reforming into her physical form and standing up. She gave Rayden a criticizing glare, looking him over before walking towards him. Whether she approved of him or not was something that he would either have to guess at or ask her about, with no guarantee that she was going to answer him. Once she was standing in front of him the half dragon folded her arms.

"Greetings. I am Akeya Kuusai, and you must be the new member to our guild looking to prove himself. The job today is very simple: we have to find these thugs who have been forcing the shops and restaurants to pay them in fear of watching their businesses get thrashed otherwise. Once we find them we'll have to either kill them or inflict so much damage that they are either unable or unwilling to try and terrorize the other people living here any longer. Any questions?"

In this shadowy street Akeya's form was somewhat difficult to discern, as her body was constantly trying to merge with the shadows. Beyond that her gaze was like a dagger, ice cold, focused, and without any real mercy or compassion to be found. Combined with her straightforward approach to the job and the way she was standing and it was clear that Akeya didn't care for looking like the good guy or anything else. She was just a mage sent to do a job, and she would focus everything on accomplishing that job, no matter the costs. After all, she did mention the idea of killing the thugs as casually as if mentioning the colour of the sky.

Rayden had smelled something strange approaching. Granted, his senses weren't as strong outside of takeover, but in a city like this, the smell of a beast was sticking out. Carried along the wind, he smelled something like a reptile? It was an unfamiliar scent and something he couldn't place at all. And it was approaching. Looking to the sky, he saw the descent of the woman, and knew instantly she was the source. A long, powerful tail, as well as two wings, and a layer of scales instead of skin. 'Is she... a dragon?' The question already felt wrong to him. Dragons were basically extinct, and the chances of any that remained showing up here of all places was definitely off. Still, she had the scent and appearance. Chances were it was a takeover like his own.

He hadn't even noticed, but as she drew close he had adopted a stronger stance. Unsure of who or what she was, he was prepared to defend himself. But she introduced herself as Akeya. So she was his partner today. At least that explained why a mage like this would be appearing before him. So this was a mage of Blue Pegasus. There was a power emanating from her, a physical presence that displayed strength. He just wondered what the rest of the guild was like. Then he heard her speak. She was blunt and to the point, he respected that. What he had a problem with however, was what she said. She wanted to kill the thugs? Why? Why was that necessary at all? "Yes, I'm Rayden. Give me a second here; why do you wanna kill those guys? Don't get me wrong, they did some awful things, and they need to be stopped. But we should just capture them and hand them over to the Rune Knights, or scare them away. There's no need to kill them."

He confused, to say the least. She was a member of a legal guild, even she should know that outright murder is illegal. Maybe she was testing him, making sure he was on the right tracks? That made sense. They had to make sure that he wasn't going to kill anyone after all. Playing a part, making sure he'd do the right thing. Happy with his own answer, he looked down the alleyway. "According to the info we have, their base is somewhere down near the port. Do you wanna go try and find them out, or wait here until they show up?" He felt confident that he find the criminals if he tried. After all, he was a hero.

WC: 436

Once she had landed on the ground Akeya began to inspect the newcomer to the guild critically, giving no sign of whether she was approving of what she saw or not. He looked like a healthy young human male, without any real scars or other wounds that might get in the way. No signs of illness, disease, or anything else that could weaken him or hinder him once the trouble started (although of course if Akeya had her way no trouble would be allowed to start). Just a healthy lad who had decided that he wanted to join a guild to become a hero (once again she snorted at the very notion, although she kept it inside because she was pretty sure if she voiced her opinion he'd be offended and maybe even start a tantrum. She didn't really care if she hurt his feelings or not, but tantrums and offended people were annoying). He also looked physically fit. Of course the only people who could afford not to be were the ones who either were very rich or made their money doing something which didn't require physical effort at all. Like librarians or shopkeepers. And even those still required a minimum of fitness, so honestly the only people who could end up being dangerously overweight were the rich ones. Another reason to not approve of the greediness that would make a man gather so much money and then do nothing with it.

Aside from his physical build, health and lack of scars or other injuries he looked rather eager. And fresh. Those eyes of his were that of somebody who hadn't seen the less pleasant side of life before, which was in accordance with the idea that he wanted to be a hero. She'd probably end up wiping that hopeful expression off his face once she got to the point of teaching him about how a mage really worked. She knew that Shuhei and Zack liked to be heroes, but any newcomer who was assigned as her subordinate would first get the lesson drilled into their head that first came survival, then success, then flawless execution, and heroism was somewhere in the pile of other objectives. Optional at best. If one died the game of life ended as well, so survival was the most important objective at all times. There were no second chances (usually). If one didn't succeed they wouldn't get paid, they would lose respect, it just meant that the only thing they could get from the experience was an attempt to learn how not to lose again. And the flawless execution was third because if you were efficient, thorough, thoughtful, prepared, skilled, and effective, it all increased the odds of both survival, success, and sustaining as little damage so you could keep doing it, becoming better and better each time as you kept sharpening both your mind, your magic, and your body.

As for the boy's magic, the raw power was quite clearly below her own, which was expected of a newcomer and a fresh mage like him. He had more magic power than somebody who just started out on the path of magic, so either he had extraordinary talent or her had actually practised before and was only now actually putting it to use by joining a guild and doing missions. The exact magic type was a bit more curious, since Akeya hadn't seen it before. It had a somewhat wild feeling to it, but that was about the extent of what she could say about it.

Her overall observation was that he was fresh but had talent. He showed promise because he didn't seem to have any real flaws or weaknesses other than inexperience and naivety, both of which could be gotten rid off through training, working, and experiencing the harder parts of life. The half dragon nodded in satisfaction, only for her eyes to narrow when he began to question her about saying that they might have to kill the thugs. She had never said that she wanted to kill them. Honestly she didn't care if they lived or died. What she found important was that they would complete this job without issue, and that might include killing the thugs if incapacitating them or scaring them off wasn't an option. Killing was quite often the easiest solution, at least if you didn't suffer from the psychological trauma most people felt when they killed others. Leaning forwards Akeya interrupted Rayden as he asked her whether she wanted to wait here or seek the thugs out. Time to set things straight.

"I'll get this out of the way before we get started so you don't end up faltering during the job. I don't want to kill them. I don't care about the lives of these thugs. What I want is for us to complete this job successfully, without any problems or mistakes. We are mages who have been given the job to get rid of those thugs. That is the only thing our client expects from us. That means that doing that is our main and possibly only objective, right after surviving and not sustaining too much damage from the job. If you want to be a good mage you have to consider all the possibilities, weigh them against each other, and take the plan which is the most likely to lead you to success. These thugs have a comfortable life bullying the shopkeepers around here. They won't like it. They'll try to resist. There are four ways for us to deal with them, at least temporarily."

Akeya held up one hand, extending one finger for every possibility she had in mind.

"One, we beat them up so they can't beat others up. Simple and straightforward. Two, we intimidate them to the extent that they'll leave this town and seek their luck elsewhere. Least violent option. Third, we subdue them and deliver them to the Rune Knights. This is the option that the magic council would tell us to take. Four, we kill them. Makes sure that they'll be no problem any longer.

Now, as you can imagine each of these approaches have their own issues. The first approach is only a temporary fix. The thugs would heal over time, and then just begin anew. Unless we inflicted lasting injuries, which is both messy and thanks to healing magic is rather tricky. The second approach means that they'll try to bully shopkeepers and merchants in another place, so we'd just change the location of the crime instead of getting rid of the crime. The third option is the most difficult to achieve, since we'd have to beat them all up and still deliver them whole to the Rune Knights. They wouldn't be happy if we delivered the thugs half-dead. Beyond that they haven't actually killed anybody yet, so their sentence most likely wouldn't be very long. The fourth has the problem that, as you have already demonstrated, most people don't like the concept of killing others. We could get in trouble if the client decided to report us for it.

However the fourth is also the easiest to pull off and ensures that the problem will be gone for good. There is a reason that experienced criminals kill. It's not because they're psychopaths, but because a dead person can't resist, get in the way, hinder you, call for help, get back at you, or otherwise become a problem or a liability. If we can take them down without needing to rely on killing them, we'll go with it because it'd reduce our chances of getting into trouble with the magic council. However if they are too tough to easily beat down, if they refuse to be scared away, if capturing them proves too difficult and it's too likely that the Rune Knights wouldn't be able to detain them, we'll have to resort to killing them. It isn't nice, it isn't pretty, and it might cause trouble down the line, but completing the job is the highest priority, not respecting the value of a human life. I hope you understand this, because if you don't and I see you hesitating when push comes to shove I'll make sure you learn, one way or another. If you can capture them without killing them, good. But if you end up letting them get away, or worse defeat you, because you weren't willing to inflict lethal wounds or aim for their most vulnerable areas, you aren't being a hero or anything else you'd be respected for. You're just neglecting your duty to complete the job."

Akeya took a more passive stance after that, watching Rayden to see how he would react to her speech. She really hoped that would get some of that naivety out of his head already. The sooner he got used to the fact that life wasn't always fair or nice, the better it would be in the long run.

"I've heard you want to be a hero. If it was easy being a hero wouldn't be special, and personally I would respect you more for being able to finish the job even if it means getting your hands dirty than if you made things hard for yourself because you were trying to be fair and honourable. Now, we'll wait for them to arrive here, since this street is a good one to lay an ambush in. We know that they'll come today to try and beat up our client for not being able to pay, so we can focus on preparing for when they arrive.

I am the Shadow Dragon Slayer, which as you should know means that I use the shadows to my advantage and am best at taking down my target without letting them notice me until they're already down. I'm a stealth and assassination expert. Tell me what your magic is and explain the details. What it's good at, but also what it's bad at and what it can't do, so I can think of the best way to make use of you."