Hard Work & Guts [Sola, Solo]

"Take care of the bad men, eh?"

He put his chin in his hand to think about it. This fire thing was pretty frustrating but he'd probably freeze to death over the next few days before figuring it out at this rate, plus she had given him a pretty sweet offer. He'd dealt with a couple of the bandits already, not too hard or anything but he had a feeling she wanted him to solve the problem outright.

Kill 'em? Nah, he'd prefer not to kill them because then they can turn that loss into wanting to kick his ass and come back for round two but Sola wasn't too dumb to not consider that he could never come back to these parts. Then the thugs are straight back to tormenting the locals.

"Meh. Sure, I'll go kick those guys' asses and when I get back you teach me how to make fire, I'd tell you to do something if I lost but there's no chance of that. I've got the spirit of Kizuna with me so those guys are screwed. See?"

Great! They had a deal but Irina wasn't prepared for what he did next. As he explained and showed off what he was talking about the little girl just stared at him like he was an idiot. Maybe she shouldn't have made this deal with the strange man but before she could open her mouth to protest he'd disappeared and a strong wind had blown past her.

"Um. What just happened?"

Irina said to herself as she wandered in the cave to begin setting up to make fire. It'd be bad if she froze to death waiting for him plus it let her put the sight she had just beheld out of her mind.

Little girl out of sight and out of mind. He had taken off with sonido to pause in the middle of the icy landscape, as cold as it was out here Sola's mind was elsewhere. Eyes closed and mind focusing outwards, a small burst of reiatsu and sending it outwards as a wave away from him to travel over the nearby environment to give it a few seconds before returning his attention back to himself and contemplating the information he'd grabbed from the pesquisa.

There were a couple of spiritual signatures a kilometre away. Maybe that was them and so with the group of individuals in mind he took off towards their location to try and check it out. How hard could a couple of thugs be to deal with?

So after ten minutes of awkwardly dashing with sonido he finally arrived a bit off and tried to look out for the signatures in the cold, dark landscape. At least there were some torches that made it easy to pinpoint what he had seen with his mind's eye.

"Kekeke. Whadda haul, lads!"

The scrawny one with an annoying voice squealed in delight to his comrades. The vagrant marauders under the light of their torch - they knew how to make fire by the way - were preoccupied with analysing what they'd got. A couple of sacks - probably food and valauble tools that they'd looted - among themselves and making their way towards somewhere in the distance.

"Aagh, shuddup."

The big boy with the horns boomed with a slap to his compatriot's skull with a thud. The little guy looked like he wanted to retort and stab him over it before deciding otherwise, muttering his frustrations to himself with the third one silently groaning.

"It's so damn freezin' out here. Let's get back al'ready, tha boss will wanna see our haul and ye two won't shut up."

He complained all the while tossing one of the sacks over his shoulder and looking at the direction that he had indicated. Of all three he seemed to be silently begrudging the need to work with these oafs and none of them were quiet about it. They owned the place after all in this wild landscape.

From afar he looked at the group, what a bother. Were these guys really so much trouble? Sola pondered. His mind was on the boss, if he beat that guy then surely it'd be the hardest to defeat and therefore the most satisfying challenge but the others would all scatter like rats in the wake of his defeat.

"Ugh. Well, let's get down to it. If I stand still any longer I might freeze to death or die of boredom."

He pulled his hood up while making his way to the three men. Coming up behind the group with a cheery attitude as he waved his hand casually.

"Yo freaks. Anyone wanna point me in the direction of your boss? I got a bone to pick with him if I'm going to uphold my end of a deal with a kid so if you're feeling generous and tell me I'll be on my merry way and I won't even kick your asses over it. Cool?"

Smooth and as slick as ice you could skate on. He thought it was cool.

"Eeek! Whodda heck is this guy?"

The flighty scrawny one said. Always the first to his word in before someone else would speak over him. The thug already going for his knife as the others looked at the arrancar dumbstruck. What kind of idiot just walked up to three bandits with that kind of swagger? It was absurd to the common marauders that enjoyed their comfy gig of being able to terrorise those weaker than them and make off with the reward.

"I dunno who ya think you are punk but just fer that we're gonna kill ya. Ya not really a pretty little thang the boss'll like so take ya business and stick it up yer ass."

The smarter one in the back seemed a little wary though. The others hadn't really given it much consideration but their new arrival's skin tone, his attire was all off for someone who lived in these parts. A smart guy he was and knew he'd be the last one to try and fight the newcommer. The other two had different plans though by leaping at the lanky pretty boy with weapons drawn and eager to bludgeon him.

"Tch."

What a pain in the ass and while Sola would love to get this over and done with fast, he was also trying to have some fun as well. A quick cero might do some work but that big guy really got on his nerves by talking about killing him and so when the two thugs got a bit closer, he took a quick sidestep and punched the big one square in his face with a satisfying cracking sound.

Something was broken. Sola hoped it was his jaw so he put a sock in it. Much to his benefit the blow was enough to throw the big guy off balance and directly hit the scrawny one which let out a bewildered and frustrated shrieking noise at his partner falling on top of him.

"If I keep walking that way will I find your boss? Why the heck do you have horns anyway, big guy? No no, you know what I don't care. I'm freezing my ass off and I would really like to have some fire right about now so I'll kick your ass until you tell me what I wanna know."

Talk about annoying. His moment to trash talk did not favour him though when he felt a knife fly past his face and graze his cheek.

"Geddoff me, geddooffff me!"

It kept filling the air until the dizzy giant rolled off and fell to the side, nursing his head and face. The scrawny man was back on his feet with a twisted grin. A tongue licking at his prized blade while eyeing off the mysterious figure.

"Yer a fool, kid. I lace me knives with a poisonous sedative from the fauna, knock ya out soon and then yer'll freeze and die out here. Ain't no fire where yer goin 'cept in Hell."

The rotund thug said in the back while his friend capitalised on the opportunity to lunge wildly with his knife at the throat of the arrancar.

Sola did want to retort but this dizziness was not something he appreciated. The fogginess of the sedative was not immediate but the knowledge did distract him enough to slow his reactions and have the little scrawny guy slash across his chest with a triumphant high-pitched cackling like some kind of hyena.

Getting in close did serve him well though as his retreat turned into an advance to latch onto the little man's arm after he'd struck. The arrancar's free hand beating him repeatedly until it was bloody and the annoying squealing died down to an pathetic whimpering. With the most fragile of them out of the picture Sola took the knife from his hand and winced.

"Not fair but life's not fair so I'll just have to tough it out until you're all dead. Damn.. shame, didn't wanna kill you all."

He grinned which served to make them all a little put off. This was going to be harder than he initially thought now that there was this involved. If he was lucky and beat them then maybe his regeneration could counteract the poison by the time he got to this 'boss' figure.

Lining it up Sola kicked the most annoying one in the chin with enough force that the broken neck was audible to the other two. One piece of trash down, two more to go.

There was a silent pause between the two having seen their comrade be killed in front of them. The big fella with the horns was stumbling back up with a hand on his broken jaw while looking to the knife thrower. His own eyes were locked onto their attacker's like he was trying to think about how to deal with the guy.

"Hmmph. Rush 'im. He can't take us both with the poison in his system--"

Staring down at his stomach he looked at the missing part of his abdomen which was charred black around the edges. Eyes were wide at the irritated looking pretty boy with his outstretched finger. At first he'd thought it was just him going to try and say something smart but instead a beam of red had spilled out and torn through his body.

He fell down with white eyes, the snow kissing the rotund corpse that it'd been gifted with the last one standing as still as a statue after having just witnessed it.