The mercenaries shared uneasy looks as the catgirl warrior turned to face them fully. The one standing closest to the wall took a step back towards where their weapons sat propped up.
The scarred man lifted a finger at him and made an aggressive gesture as he clenched his fist. "Don't you fucking dare. You settle this square. No weapons." He then looked at him pointedly. "Or I'll kill you myself."
The nervous mercenary immediately shuffled back to the table empty-handed, but he opted to stand behind one of his fellows.
Kent regained his bearings first and gave Kirie a sly grin. "That's a nice look you got there. You got the sexy badass vibe going real well."
Kirie didn't answer. She stood in the same spot with arms straight at her side.
"Think about it, demi. Your leader is an outworlder and he had to resort to your kind. That makes him," Kent paused dramatically as he took a step towards her, "Pretty-fucking-pathetic."
The impish grin on Kent's face vanished when the catgirl took a step forward to match him. He was throwing a fist on reflex when Kirie covered the distance between them with long, calculated strides. When she didn't raise her hands right away, he must have subconsciously knew that he had mocked the wrong person. His eyes widened when his fist passed through nothing but air. Kirie's hand was raised and brushed aside Kent's strike further to increase his forward movement. She punched him in the stomach and had him keeling over her bent arm. A spray of vomit erupted from his mouth and splashed the wood floor as Kirie's arm held him suspended so that he raised up on his toes.
The other three reacted instantly as their combat instincts kicked in. They rushed her from the front and both sides. Only the scarred man remained at the table, assuming the same calm posture.
Kirie gave them calculated looks as she observed their stances and positions.
"Three against one, huh. And you call my leader pathetic," she muttered.
She removed her hand from Kent's gut and let him collapse face-first to the floor. He wheezed and sputtered as more bile built in his throat. Kirie planted a foot in his side as he attempted to rise and sent him rolling towards one of his comrades.
The other man was forced to side-step, which gave Kirie a precious second to close in on the other two. She blocked a wide swing from the mercenary to her left and lowered underneath it to avoid a sloppy strike from the one to the right. Her fist dug into the first attacker's ribs that left him staggering as more weight applied to his opposite foot. She then used him as a meat shield against the man who managed to maneuver around Kent's seizing body.
She moved in on the mercenary who was now solo and drove her fist straight into his nose. She heard the satisfying crack as the delicate bone broke and the warm blood slicked her glove and crawled to her exposed wrist. The man made another wild, instinctive swing that Kirie easily avoided. She grabbed the man's wrist, turned it over and drove her shoulder into him to disrupt any semblance of a stance he once had. The weight of her shoulder and straightening of his arm forced him to lean forward. Kirie stepped towards him and flung him over her hip and he hit the ground on his tailbone. He let out a noise somewhere between a shriek and gasp as the pain flared up his spine.
Kirie didn't have time to completely incapacitate him. She knew the others would have recovered by now. Unfortunately, she didn't anticipate just how fast they would collect themselves. She sidestepped and turned to face them but only saw the knuckles of her attacker's hand consume all of her vision. The fist connected with her cheek as she shifted her head at the last second. Kirie planted her rear foot to keep herself from lurching back too much as her upper body was forced to bend slightly at the hips.
As a result, the catgirl warrior barely moved, even after receiving the full force of the punch.
The mercenary's eyes widened as Kirie glared in his direction over the fist still pressed against her face.
"Weak," she said.
She grabbed his wrist and pulled it down and across to open up his stance. She brought her fist up and drove it into the same spot he'd dealt on her and the mercenary collapsed to to his knees. He wobbled and fell back on his heels as he attempted to stand. Kirie still held the wrist that angled him awkwardly from the floor. In this position, she could break his arm with a quick motion if she chose to do so.
Kirie looked up and saw that Kent had managed to shift his trembling legs underneath him to stand up somewhat. The other mercenary had his intoxicated confidence bolstered, even if Kirie felt it was terribly misguided. Alcohol really did do strange things to the brain.
The catgirl pulled her victim up by the still-held wrist and drove her knee into his face. The man collapsed with a loud thud and lay there unmoving.
Kent and his companion didn't wait. They charged her and let out angry shouts.
Kirie gave them a mocking smirk as she dodged the first attack with a sliding step back. The strike from the other man she half-blocked and felt a slight impact on her shoulder. The glancing blow also threw the man off balance, and he was unable to stop his momentum as a result. Kirie let him pass by and planted her hand on the back of his head. She combined her own push forward with the momentum and slammed his face into the countertop near the window. His head bounced back awkwardly from the impact and he crumpled to the floor.
Kirie stumbled as she took a heavy hit to her side from Kent, who had propped himself up on one knee. Apparently, the blow to his stomach from earlier had him reeling again. There was barely any force behind the punch, but it did take Kirie slightly off guard. She massaged the area where he struck and spit a glob of blood towards him from the gash she received earlier.
Kent winced and fell back on his rear as the catgirl took a menacing step towards him.
"Weak," she said again. She lowered herself into a crouch to meet Kent at his eye level. She gave him a wide grin with a bit of red marring her teeth. "Pathetic. Four of you, and I barely worked up a sweat." The smile vanished as she thought back on what he had said. "Now, what did you say about my leader?"
The man fell back on his hands and pushed his feet to get some distance from her. A terrified whimper escaped his bloodied lips as the catgirl took another step.
"N-nothing!" he finally sputtered. "I said nothing. Y-you fucking monster. You have no idea what'll happen."
Kirie rolled her eyes. "Ah, right. Something about the council. That's really all you have?"
She grabbed him by the collar of his shirt to prop him up and punched him in the face with a quick jab. His head lolled a bit and he looked up at the ceiling with glassy eyes. He collapsed to the side as his upper body pulled his legs out from under him.
Kirie heard the floorboards creak behind her and turned to face the scarred mercenary. He had removed most of his armor, settling for just his undershirt and trousers. He never took his eyes off her as he pulled on a worn leather glove.
Kirie waited patiently as he covered the other hand and flexed his fingers.
"I'm the one who started the bit about your leader," he said. The side of his mouth twitched a bit when he saw the catgirl take up a more serious, staggered posture against him.
He raised his fists and bent his knees to mirror her. "Now that's a real fighter's stance. Yeah, you ain't just some 'lil miss.'"
He charged forward and made a light jab with his leading hand to get a feel for Kirie's reaction. The catgirl warrior noticed the frown on his face when she anticipated the feint and sidestepped. She swung with a right hook that barely grazed the man's chin as he reared back out of reach. He reversed his stance and blocked another strike from Kirie and followed up with a straight punch.
The exchange went back and forth similarly for another five seconds before Kirie found an opening and drove her fist into the big man's ribs. He stumbled a bit from the blow, but he grit his teeth against the pain and managed a strike to the catgirl's shoulder. The attack deadened Kirie's arm with numbness and opened up her entire right side. Instead of retreating, the catgirl pushed forward and heard the satisfying thump of her knuckles hitting the soft flesh of his cheek. The mercenary's head whipped to the side, and he carried his weight over onto his rear foot to avoid another devastating strike from the catgirl.
He raised both arms to block another expected strike, but he lurched a bit in his stance and fell back on his heels when the punch never came. Instead, he felt his left thigh go numb and his knee bend inward to break his stance. He saw a split-second too late that Kirie had opted to deliver a swift kick rather than go into a full assault against his block.
Kirie hadn't delivered a kick during the entire scuffle, so she suspected that he would never anticipate the attack. Kirie knew she didn't have the calculated planning of Alphonse or the calm collectedness of her sister, but in a fight, she knew how to stay a couple steps ahead of her opponent. Her mind games involved a mixture of brutal force and unpredictability on all parts of the body -- things that few humans had the terrible privilege to experience.
The big mercenary hopped away out of reach, but it was plain from his limp that the kick had served its purpose. His stance would be riddled with holes on one side for the rest of the fight.
Kirie frowned when the mercenary lowered his hands and stood straight. He winced as he attempted to breathe life back into his deadened leg.
"I concede," he said.
Kirie took a few steps back in case the surrender was a ruse. "Seriously?"
He smiled for the first time that night. One of the scars on his face curled up along with it to make it seem wider. "Aye. I've fought other demihumans. Most of them resort to clawing, biting and thrashing at this point. The animal instinct takes over, and they lose themselves. Not you though."
Kirie wiped some blood off her mouth with the sleeve of her undershirt. "No idea what you're talking about. Maybe you pick fights with the wrong demihumans."
The mercenary ignored the comment. His next words caught more of Kirie's attention, "I take back what I said about your leader. He ain't pathetic. He must've seen something special if he chose to team up with you."
"Your personality change is really confusing me," Kirie said. "But whatever."
She looked at the man who lay unconscious under the counter. Behind her she heard a few groans as the other two mercenaries regained awareness of their surroundings. The big man rolled over on his side and looked at her stupidly, as if the blow to his head caused a bout of amnesia.
She would be lying if she said she wasn't a little disappointed. They'd spouted all that garbage about Alphonse and they didn't put up much of a fight to back it up. But at least the one standing in front of her had some bite to back up the bark. If they had kept going, she was sure that he had some tactics up his sleeve to get a few more blows in.
Once Kirie cleared her head, it was apparent that the scarred mercenary had been silent up until that point to see how she reacted. His insults towards Alphonse were calm and purposeful to get a rise out of her. And he'd succeeded, much to her growing dismay. The bastard had been looking for an excuse to fight, but there seemed to be some other underlying purpose.
Her eyes widened when the adrenaline died down.
'Oh no,' she thought.
She stared around the room. Fortunately, most of the damage consisted of blood, vomit and saliva.
She looked towards the kitchen and saw that Bruce was already standing behind the counter with a wooden crate wrapped in some cloth set on top. His lips parted a bit with admiration as he took in the aftermath of the brawl.
He cleared his throat to compose himself and gave her that typical wide grin. "Well shit! Yah seemed pretty tough, but I didn't expect it to be so one-sided." He then looked to the side and spoke to the middle-aged bald man in the corner. "I spoke to yer boys next door. They'll be over in a sec."
The older man chuckled and rose from his chair. He pressed a fist into his lower back as he stretched lazily. "I appreciate it. Looks like these guys need to cool their heads off in a cell for a bit."
Kirie noticed him pull a set of manacles off his waist that had been hidden from sight while he was sitting down. On his sleeve she saw an insignia depicting two crossed swords over an anvil that indicated he was a soldier of the city guard. Not only that, the two cerulean bars underneath indicated he was a captain.
'Oh no,' she thought desperately. 'Oh no, oh no no no.'
This was the last thing she needed. She'd stepped up in defense of Alphonse's name and reputation, but it might've only served to exacerbate matters for their guild. She cursed herself over and over for giving in to her anger. It was exactly what she had wanted to avoid. But the mention of Alphonse in such a way...
'Just one errand! Why couldn't I just...'
The older man frowned as Kirie started to raise her hands a bit. He stared at her for a moment before his mouth curled up on one side. "I ain't taking you in, lil' miss." The emphasis on what was turning into a common nickname for her almost sounded mocking. "It looked like self-defense from where I was sitting." He turned to Bruce. "What do you think?"
The butcher gave an enthusiastic thumbs-up. "That's what I saw."
"It was self-defense."
Everyone turned to the voice and saw that it was the scarred mercenary who spoke. He smiled with some amusement at their reactions. He dangled his wrists as he raised his arms straight in front of him. "I wouldn't mind sleeping in a cell. It's a long walk back to the lower district."
The captain walked past a stunned Kirie and slapped the manacles around the mercenary's wrists. "You're lucky I don't have to write reports for this, Saizo." He nodded towards the other men that still attempted to rouse themselves. "What about them?"
The scarred mercenary named Saizo shrugged dismissively. "Only did one job with them. They stuck with their fists, so I guess they aren't so bad."
Kirie's shoulders slumped when she finally realized that the captain had referred to the mercenary by name. She wondered if fights in this area were a commonality.
Her suspicions were mostly confirmed when the door to the shop opened to reveal a group of about a half dozen armored men. The guards arrived with a bit of mirth and went about their orders to rally the remaining mercenaries. Some of them lowered their visors and gave Kirie an encouraging wink as they passed by. She could hear the muffled voice from a guard's helmet as he expressed his thanks to her for keeping the fight mostly clean.
The captain of the guard asked Bruce if there would be any charges filed, and the butcher waved him off good-naturedly and said it wasn't necessary.
Kirie stared in absolute wonderment as the guards shoved the beaten mercenaries out of the butcher shop. Everything was carried out straightforward and informal. Their reactions towards her went beyond her wildest expectations. She wondered how they could possibly be so calm about everything. There was no questioning, disapproving looks or any sort of attempts to place her in an unfavorable position. Saizo and the guard captain even gave her matching two-fingered salutes as they exited the shop. The other mercenaries stumbled out in a partial daze and stared around mouths agape as they tried to comprehend what had transpired. It was as if the other mercenaries had been used as tools for everyone else's amusement.
Kirie turned to Bruce after she stared at the closed door for an extra few seconds when they left, as if she expected them to suddenly change their minds and double back.
The butcher slapped his hand on top of the crate. "Alright, lil' miss, that'll be six silver."