Tenacinde Modareno

[JFought]

"Señor Twig??" hissed Esperanza, her brows high. "Should you not be with your comrades, 'uh?"

As inappropriate as it was, Esperanza's confusion elicited a small smile from his lips. "Yet here I am," he responded simply.

He glanced at the door just as she did, and understanding the urgency of the situation accepted her rough prompting towards a hiding spot. He dove under the writing desk and curled up so that his cloak would blend him with the shade.

From his place, he licked his paw and focused on his energies. By now, it was obviously certain that his abilities had fundamentally changed, he could feel it now in the absence of anything familiar where his soul should have been. Which posed something of an issue, as it meant he no longer understood what he was capable of. He took his casting paw and flexed its claws into the shadows, hoping to discover something that had carried over.

 

[Jackie Cat]

He had new and unfamiliar powers indeed – the energies of this world abided by different rules to their counterparts in his own. However, there was similarity, too... At the edge of his proprioception, Phantom would feel a sense of his potential, quantified by the 'network' that bound him to the other Wayfarers. An invisible web of glittering psychic strands, traced through with light and darkness.

More mundane than that, however, was the ethereal chill that sprang readily to his meet his extended paw. The shadows responded. His soul bent willingly towards intangibility, spectral energies, the magic of Ghosts.

As he experimented with the properties of his soul, the master bedroom's door burst open, and the bulk of a large serpent pushed inward.

"You," rasped Rodrigo. He didn't sound shocked to see Esperanza. More...

"Disappointed, baron?" purred the outlaw. "I'm hurt! I thought you'd be pleased you could handle me yourself, uh?"

 

[JFought]

He remained silent, kneading the shadows and testing their limits. For as much as he couldn't account for, there was at least something familiar in there he could grasp. I can work with this, he thought.

If Esperanza could resolve her generational feud with the baron on her own, that would arguably be preferable to his meddling. But that would not have made for a very interesting story and regardless he wanted very much for a challenge to test this power against. The Phantom Star watched the situation closely and plotted for the right moment to make an entrance...

 

[Jackie Cat]

Rodrigo scoffed, drawing his body higher. He was an intimidating 'mon, several times larger than the diminutive cat in front of him.

"In person or otherwise, I have no preference; I just want you handled. This is less personal than you'd like it to be, señorita. It is you who bears the greatest grudge between us."

Esperanza snorted. "Grudge? This isn't a vendetta for myself, I do this for everyone in this town, and the surrounding country, my home."

"A charming lie, but I cannot believe it."

"Believe what you like."

Even from his hiding-place, it would be easy for Phantom to imagine their expressions – hateful and unblinking, the glares of nemeses.

"What now, then?" demanded the baron. "Are you going to fight me? Cut me down?"

A curt laugh. "I am no assassin. Honour compels me to stay my paw. First, I must ask you to give yourself up. Come clean about your misdeeds, abdicate your rule, make such payment as the courts decide is just."

A long pause. Was he actually considering it...?

"It sickens me that you would think to ask. Worse, I think you do not even jest. Modareno is mine, girl. It will remain mine."

A deep sigh. "A duel we shall have, then—"

Before Esperanza could finish her challenge, a rush of leaves poured from Rodrigo's body, drowning out any further words and blasting the Floragato across the room. The emerald energy dissipated quickly, only its sharply spearmint scent lingering.

"Bastard," hissed Esperanza. Her sword scraped and swished as she drew it and extended it before her.

"Think of me what you will. You never could understand the full vista of this country's fate."

A low growl. "Then paint such a picture for me, as I can see, blaggard."

The thump of paws as she leapt forward, the clash of hardened tail against rapier blade, the crack and crash of splintering wood as the Serperior threw his bulk around the room...

"—If I don't keep order, if I fail to maintain the economic partnership that the Commonwealth expects, what do you think will happen? You haven't the first idea! The old order of things is passing from this world. Industry, commerce, finance, governance – the Protectorate as you know it will not exist three generations from now, and I intend that it should survive changed and triumphant, not ground beneath the heel of northern modernisation. Compared to that, your petty feuding is nothing. You think Verizion will protect the town from what is to come, from exploitation or annexation? Verizion cares only for her garden wilderness. Verizion cares nothing for this town and its future. And Verizion is but a single emerald warrior."

"In years to come, baron, I shall be Verizion, and I would give my life for this place, and gladly!"

"And achieve nothing in your martyrdom, I am sure. Your life shall be spent like spare coin," spat Rodrigo, "that is, if it is not first ill-spent in this very place—!"

A wet and scraping sound, that Phantom would surely feel like a file grinding on his bones. What blow had the baron struck—?

"...damn it...."

"Saintly gifts or no, El Espino, you came ill-prepared for this battle. Throw down your sword, and I shall spare you a slow agony as you die."