Crispin quickly followed Leo, wanting to reach the others as soon as possible.
With how easily they had dispatched the rest of the guards, Kaito didn't think twice about how calm the last one was and decided to attack, despite the katana. With a quick glance at the others, he rushed towards the man, dagger at the ready.
"Wait!" Tess exclaimed when she saw his glance, but Kaito was already moving. Without thinking, she darted forward in an attempt to stop him from getting himself killed.
The man (I can't wait till he's introduced and I can just use his name XD) waited for Kaito to get closer, and then suddenly stabbed forward with his katana, intent on impaling him.
Kaito's eyes widened as he was suddenly shoved out of the way of the blade. Hearing a pained gasp, he looked up to see Tess staring in shock at the katana protruding from her midsection, having practically thrown herself on the sword as a result of her momentum. A twist of the blade elicited another cry of pain from the girl, a red blossom rapidly forming around the wound.
"No!" Kaito exclaimed in dismay, rushing to catch her as the katana was retracted and she crumpled to her knees.
Before the man could attack again, Tess grabbed her necklace and hastily created a wall between them to buy some time. "We need to get out of here," she stressed through gritted teeth, doing her best to ignore the pain and slow the bleeding with hurried alkahestry.
Nodding shakily, Kaito quickly picked her up as she finished the alkahestry and he anxiously retreated. He didn't bother to look back to see if the man or Raph were following, just trying to put as much distance as possible between Tess and the man to get her to help and safety.
OOC: I don't know how many times I've rewritten this part. XD And I may end up rewriting it more until you guys reply.
"Tess!" Raph shouted when she got stabbed. He turned to glare furiously at the man. Shouting, Raph charged at him, sai ready.
OOC: Let's have Raph fight Saburo for a little bit, probably get himself injured(not nearly as bad as Tess). Then the others will come. Meili will save Raph's butt, then stall Saburo long enough for the others to get away then escape herself.
The man had started cautiously rounding the alchemy made wall when Raph charged toward him. Sensing and hearing his approach, he quickly turned to deflect his attack, and then counterattacked. As they fought, he couldn't help but notice how angry the teen seemed.
OOC: XD I really can't take the word alchemy seriously anymore.
Eh, my reply is lame. Distractions are annoying...
As he reached the nearest wall, Kaito realized escape would be more difficult than he had thought. They had been planning to either climb out or have someone use alchemy or something to get out, but that was when they were expecting to win easily. Climbing wasn't much of an option while he was carrying Tess, and she wasn't in any condition to use alchemy or alkahestry now. With so much blood loss so quickly, she was barely conscious at this point.
Frantically pacing along the wall, Kaito desperately tried to figure out what to do. He was mad at himself for being such an idiot and causing Tess to be so seriously injured. Now he was determined to find a way to save her, he just wasn't sure how.
Fueled by anger, Raph stayed primarily on the offensive. He ignored the many cuts he was receiving, some significantly deep. All he could focus on was beating this man to a pulp. He didn't even pause to think about the fact that the man blocked and deflected everything Raph threw at him and seemed to be toying with him.
Just when it seemed like there was no hope for Tess, a space on the wall flashed with blue light and opened like a door. Donnie peeked his head out before being shoved aside by Meili, who ran straight toward where Raph was fighting the older man. She kept her chi disguised differently than before, and hoped the man wouldn't realize they had fought before. If he relied on sensing chi and didn't suspect her to be a ninja, he'd probably dismiss it as an uncanny resemblance or the uniform of a group of assassins(or something like that).
The ex-assassin ran behind the man and attempted to slice his back open, but fully expected to fail. She wasn't sure how her skills compared to his, but she was willing to bet that he was an experienced fighter and assumed he was better than her. However, he was far beyond his prime years and her endurance would be better than his. All she needed to do was hold him off long enough for the others to get away. If she got lucky and managed to strike the man down, she could finish Ruan off as well.
"Get out of here!" She ordered Raph.
"No way!" He resisted. "I'm not letting this guy escape alive."
Meili snapped, "I said get out of here!"
The gruff ninja clearly wanted to protest, but relented. After training together for three years, he could recognize when it was best not to argue with Meili. (Which is all the time. XD But there are some moments that are worse than others.) He turned and ran toward the wall.
OOC: I was gonna say Joan and Joseph are probably near the walls and able to create an opening themselves (and just didn't before cuz they didn't know they needed to). But the crowd probably ran away and they needed to escape with them to avoid suspicion. So they just aren't there.
OOC: That works. Maybe they can meet up with Clarissa, and Jian and Shay eventually.
IC: []'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''aqwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww ~ Tigger as well. She won't stop!
Sensing Meili just in time to save himself from her attack, the man turned to his new opponent. Though he seemed focused on her, he paid attention to Raph as well, making sure he left as she had ordered. He quickly realized she was a better fighter than his previous opponent, and actually had to put in some effort into this fight to keep up.
Relieved, Kaito rushed through the doorway after Meili ran through, spotting Crispin on the other side after a moment. Hari and the others who had been with her were also there, waiting nervously.
"Tess!" Crispin exclaimed, going straight to his sister's side, instructing Kaito to carefully put her down.
Kaito complied uncertainly, then watched nervously as Crispin went to work. He knew the blonde was a doctor, but wasn't sure why they weren't taking her to the hospital when she clearly needed emergency medical treatment.
"Can you help her?" Kaito wondered anxiously.
Nodding, Crispin pulled out the philosopher's stone as he examined the wound. The crowd had disappeared after the walls went up, so he didn't worry about anyone finding out about the stone. Kaito watched, wide-eyed, as in a red flash of light Tess' wound was healed, after which she visibly relaxed.
"How did you do that?" Kaito asked, astonished.
"I'm a doctor," Crispin replied, sighing in relief as Tess regained some color.
After a moment, Tess carefully sat up, still a bit light-headed. Not satisfied with the explanation, Kaito sighed and let it go, relieved to see that Tess seemed to be recovering.
"Okay, now we need to get out of here," Leo instructed.
"What? We need to beat that stupid guard and kill Ruan!" Raph protested.
Leo shook his head. "No, he managed to run Meili through earlier. We don't stand a chance."
"We can attack him all together! He can't hold up against all of us!"
"No, Raph," Leo replied sternly. "It's too late. The police are already coming and we can't let them see us if we can avoid it."
Raph growled and punched the wall in frustration. He knew Leo was right, but they were just too close to give up now. They could overpower the man and finish what they needed to do right then. However, this man must be good to overcome Meili. It would take too much time. Finally, he grumbled, "Fine. But they'll both pay for this later."
"We're not just going to give up," Leo assured him. "We'll come up with a new plan."
Donnie cut in, "Enough of the chatting, we've got to leave now."
"Let's get going then," Tess commented, cautiously standing up.
"You're in no condition to run with how much blood you lost," Kaito stated, picking her up before she could respond.
"This seems to be becoming a common occurrence," Tess muttered, shaking her head but allowing herself to be carried again.
"No way!" Raph argued, "It's your fault she got hurt. There's no way I'm trusting you with her safety now!" Stalking over to Kaito, the ninja picked Tess up out of the other's arms and began carrying her himself.
"Look at yourself!" Kaito snapped back, trying to take Tess back. "Instead of helping her you attacked that man and got yourself hurt! Did you even manage to injure him at all?"
Raph pulled Tess back and retorted, "Hurt? This is nothing! At least I was trying to finish our job! The three of us could have taken him together if you had waited a second before charging at him! Instead, Tess had to save you! Now, not only did Tess nearly die, but we failed!"
OOC: "...if you had waited a second before charging at him..." Raph is one to talk... he's usually the first to charge.
Kaito growled, but had to admit that Raph had a point. All Tess could do was sigh and shake her head at how they were acting, glancing around to see how everyone else was reacting to the situation.
"Stop it you two," Crispin interrupted, glaring at both of them. "Let's get out of here before we get in more trouble." After a second's pause, he took Tess and added, "I'm taking her." Before they could argue, he turned and walked quickly away, heading toward where they were meeting up with the alchemists.
Sighing, Kaito shot Raph a glare and followed Crispin's lead. Hari hurried to catch up to her brother, examining him curiously.
"What?" he snapped.
"You two are ridiculous," she replied matter of factly.
Kaito opened his mouth to respond, but closed it again when he couldn't come up with a comeback.
Donnie sighed and muttered sarcastically, "Today went well."
"We can hide in the crowd," Leo suggested, pointing forward to where they could see the mass of confused people. "There's too many people for anyone to be able to sense us. Tess will have to walk on her own though. Carrying her will stand out too much."
"Don't we have to meet back up with Jian and Shay?" Mikey asked.
"We didn't set up a rendezvous point," Donnie reminded, "We didn't think we'd have to worry about it. The plan was supposed to work."
"I think I'll be fine walking," Tess stated, stumbling a bit as Crispin put her down. "I'm gonna hold on to you, Crispin."
Nodding in acknowledgement, Crispin held out his arm for his sister to take. She willingly took the offered arm, leaning on Crispin for support.
"We could head back to the cars," Hari suggested after a moment. "Maybe the others will have the same idea."
Glancing at herself and around at the others, a thought occurred to Tess. "Blending in might be kind of hard when we're covered in blood," she observed. "We might want to find somewhere to get cleaned up."
"We can use alchemy to clean you guys up," Donnie pointed out. "I can call Joan so she can do it with her clapping technique. Or I could draw a circle, but that could take awhile."
"Either way, it'll take awhile," Leo said, "We really need to get out of here soon, Meili can't hold that guy off forever." Leo risked a glance back and saw Meili primarily on the defensive.
"Let's get going," Tess suggested. "We can call Joan on the way." She glanced back at the fight, too, hoping that Meili could keep it up long enough for everyone to escape.
OOC: Okay, so we're basically cutting out the last three posts. We're gonna combine what we want to keep in this post.
IC:
"We need to get away from here. Meili can't hold that guy off forever," Leo said as he risked a glance back and saw Meili primarily on the defensive.
"Let's get going," Tess suggested. She glanced back at the fight too, hoping that Meili could keep it up long enough for everyone to escape.
Leo began pushing through the curious crowd, who slowly crept closer to see what was going on. There was lots of muttering among the people, who couldn't help but notice how beat up the group looked. Ignoring the stares, they headed back to the cars to find Joan and Samuel (Joseph with a slight name change) waiting there.
"How'd it go?" Joan asked, oblivious to their failure.
"What happened? You're injured," Samuel observed.
Leo opened his mouth to reply, but Raph spoke first, "It's all Kaito's fault! Why's he even with us? He has no business screwing up everything we do!" He didn't realize he was speaking in Xingese and Samuel couldn't understand.
OOC: You think Kaito would get upset and almost leave cuz he doesn't feel wanted? Then Tess stops him?