Chapter 3: Main Street Rumble

As Talon has returned to his normal self the two mercenaries find themselves getting into trouble on Main Street in Pelmridge. Afterward the ordeal, the mercenaries come across a potential employer.

Talon and Willard spent three uneventful days at Pelmridge, unable to find profitable work.  The blue armored former knight spent of his days in and out the town’s tavern, enjoying the brew and meeting many girls.  Talon also spent most of his time in the taverns, but beating men in dart contests, and taking a lot of money through various forms of gambling.  Within three days, the blue haired archer was well known throughout Pelmridge for his impeccable accuracy, and his horribly rude disposition.  Talon did his best never to sleep.  Lately, anytime he’d fall asleep, he’d encounter his nightmare again.  Each time he awoke, the nightmare felt as if it was becoming closer and closer to reality.  The archer could never explain this feeling in words, but deep down inside of himself, Talon felt as if something was awakening.  His lack of sleep also negatively impacted his already harsh disposition.

On this one particular afternoon, Talon and Willard left the Wild Warrior’s Pub and stepped onto Pelmridge’s main street.  The boredom of this town was settling in, and the two warriors knew it was high time to move on, and find another area with more adventure, and hopefully, more profit.  As the two adventurers were walking down main street, a young homeless boy caught Talon’s attention.  He was dressed in the worst rags, and was playing with a beautifully ornate gold cup, that he must have found at one of the vendors nearby.  The child’s face was what struck archer.  He had short green hair, very messy and unkempt, and his eyes were blue as the sea.  Looking at this boy, Talon was reminded of a boy he used to know, Tyler.

He thought back to his Valor Mercenary days.  Apart from the late Commander Vale, who Talon greatly respected for her phenomenal battle skill, and Willard, Tyler was the only Valor mercenary that Talon got along with.  The green haired boy would be turning fifteen this year, and it was about four years ago when Tyler and Talon started to spend a lot of time together. 

It started when Talon was sitting outside on a tree trying to stay away from Lucian and the rest of the annoying Valor mercenaries, and their merry banter.  Willard had passed out from drinking too much booze, so the archer had nowhere else better to be.  The eleven year old caught Talon’s eye as he was trying to shoot an arrow at a target, and failing miserably.  At first, Talon just closed his eyes and tried to ignore the little brat, but that became harder to do as Tyler became more and more frustrated with his archery, and began to cry more and more.  Finally, Talon had enough, leaped down from the tree, and with three simple instructions, advised Rolf into shooting a bull’s-eye into the target.  The skilled marksman was walking away, Tyler ran around him with a look of excitement and desperation only a child can perfect.

“You HAVE to show me how to be an archer, just like you!” Tyler declared, as Talon rolled his eyes and tried to walk away “I know I can do it…and I’ll try really hard…I promise!  You can be my teacher, what do you say Talon?”

At first Talon was repulsed by the idea.  Him, the Sapphire Archer, teaching a child?  Please, this great warrior had a million better things to do with his time then to babysit.  But then he thought about how both of Tyler’s older brothers were skilled with weapons, and how funny it would be if this little twirp became with a bow then either of them with any of their chosen weapons?  Talon smiled at the idea of one day listening to everyone in the background say “Yeah, that kid is good…but it’s because of his teacher!  Tyler would be nothing without Talon.”  Then the selfish mercenary was repulsed by the idea of the group knowing that Tyler was currently being trained by the sniper.  Talon made a pact with the eleven year old at that moment that he would teach the kid how to shoot arrows, but Tyler must swear never to tell anyone of their agreement until Talon told him otherwise.  During their training, Talon grew to like Tyler a lot.  He was a good kid, sweet and innocent.  Talon saw the childhood in Tyler that he never was able to receive as an orphan who ran away from an assassin training camp who turned into a mercenary, and in a strange way, respected him for his childhood.

As Talon was watching this child, for a brief second, he missed his life with the Valor Mercenaries.  Within that second, about ten battle torn ruffians exited a nearby tavern, and it was obvious that they were enjoying the aftermath of having way too much to drink.  One of the brawny men saw the golden cup the boy was playing with, and ran up and snatched it from the child, who looked up at the gang with tears filling his eyes.  This pitiful sight of seeing the boy crying broke Talon’s brief day dream to the old days with Tyler, and the sniper was agitated at the big man for stealing the cup.  Ordinarily the sniper  wouldn’t have cared.  By Talon’s standards, it was the dumb kid’s fault for having the cup out where everyone can see, instead of selling it and making a small profit.  The problem was, the kid looked too much like Tyler that Talon could not stand by and let this boy get bothered by these grunts.  He watched as the men laughed at the kid who began to cry.  The large man was now wearing the cup as a hat and dancing around the green haired boy meanly, making fun of him for being homeless and worthless.  His drunk friends were laughing wildly at this scene.

“Look at me!” The drunk man said, as he wore the cup, “I’m a wee little lad who doesn’t have a home or parents who love me very much…My daddy never showed me how to use a sword, I don’t even know him…”

As the man carried on, suddenly an arrow whizzed by and knocked the cup off his head.  The rough looking gang all whirled around to see Talon, holding his bow and glaring at the drunkard with the cup.  Willard gave his friend a questioned look as he was also was a little surprised by the fact that Talon got involved in this seemingly meaningless affair.  Typically, if it didn’t involve money or a good fight, the archer was nowhere near the situation.  Willard started to get excited because since there was no good money present, he was hoping for a good fight.

“What do you think you’re doing?” the drunk warrior said as his anger became evident in his face.

“I’m only going to say this once.” Talon ordered coolly, as he lowered his bow.  “Give the cup back to that kid, and get out of here.” 

Willard cracked his knuckles within his large metal gauntlets and glared at the group, showing that he was ready to throw down if necessary.  The man looked at the two mercenaries, and then back at his gang of nine other warriors.  The ten battle torn brawlers started to laugh loudly, so loud in fact that people who were walking by decided to turn the other way and find another street to walk down.

“Hey boss,” They drunkard said, “Get a load of these two tough guys, who think they can take all ten of us on?  And for what?  To prove your chivalry to a stupid street runt?”

Out of the nine warriors came one who looked slightly tougher than the others.  He had short well trimmed dirty blonde hair and navy blue eyes.  When Talon looked into the eyes he felt as if he was looking into the eyes of a lion.  The man wore pants made from the hides of multiple boars, and shoulder pieces made from their tusks.  He had no shirt on, showing his scarred chest, proving he has been in many sword battles.  Strapped to his body was a massive sword made of sharp grey steel.  One strike from this large six foot sword would break even Willard’s mighty blue armor.

“You fellas must be new around here.” The man said, in a very gruff voice.  “So I’m only going to say this once.  My name is Lyon, and me and my boys here own this town.  That means that if my slightly intoxicated buddy, Rush, here, wants to push around some kid on this street…he will!  So, unless you really want to get roughed up bad, I suggest you guys turn the other way and get out of my town.”

Talon cracked a mischievous smile to his large pal as he spoke.  “Willard, apparently Lyon here has been in this little Podunk town to long because he hasn’t heard of us.  Otherwise he would realize what a stupid idea it is to threaten us.”

“You do realize that you’re looking at a fight where it would be ten against you two right?” Another one of Lyon’s “boys” said.

“That's true...” Willard mocked with a look of competition.  "Do you think you could go find about five more guys?  Then this may be a fair fight...for you."

“I can’t wait that long.” Talon said as he dropped his bow on the ground.  “Who knows how long it will take them to make that many friends…Willard, we’ll just take these buffoons without any weapons, got it?”

“Your arrogance will be your downfall!” Lyon said as his gang surrounded Talon.  “Don’t let their stupidity rub off on you, boys.  Use all the weapons you want!"

The nine drunk ruffians ran towards Talon and Willard all at once.  The skill level of these cutthroats did not come close to comparing to the skill level of the two talented and skilled mercenaries.  Their weapons were poorly crafted and made from cheap metal.  Willard chuckled as a couple men ran at him with their short iron daggers and tried to stab him.  The daggers dented as they hit the armor, and the blue knight took the skulls of the men and smashed them together, knocking the fighters out.

Three brawlers ran towards Talon, throwing punches and kicks trying to hit him.  The swift warrior dodged multiple blows and at times timed his dodges so perfectly that the drunk fighters ended up hitting themselves.  Finally Talon tripped two of the fighters and as they fell on the hard stone street, punched the other man in the face.  As he was fighting the archer felt slightly different, so slight in fact he hardly noticed it until it was over.  He typically enjoyed playing with his opponents, making them feel stupid and worthless in battle.  Today, however, the longer Talon fought these drunk ruffians the more he enjoyed giving them pain.  He found himself pulling up the men he tripped by their long pony tails and punching them hard in the face, breaking their noses, and pushing them back on the ground.

The remaining four fighters tried to take on the blue giant, but were unable to match his strength and might.  Talon found himself in a match with Lyon himself.  The blond lion-like warrior swung his massive steel sword towards the marksman with the intention of cutting him in half.  Talon leaped over the sword and gave Lyon a very hard kick to the face with his left foot.  Lyon backed up slightly, showing his bloody face and the rage of battle flaring up in his eyes.

After Willard quickly finished beating the four drunkards who tried to take him down at once, he watched the battle between Talon and Lyon.  The two friends had a code of honor that forbade them to get involved in the other's one on one matches.  He was especially surprised at the dark look that Talon had in his eyes.  Willard had known the Sapphire Archer for years, and never saw such a blood thirsty look in his friend.

Lyon dropped his massive sword as he realized that his swings were to slow to come close to touching Talon.  Lyon growled in anger as he ran towards his opponent with the attempt to tackle him.  Talon side-stepped, dodging Lyon and pushed him down onto the ground.  Also, in a quick follow-up motion, Talon twirled Lyon around on the ground and jumped on him, trying to strangle the fighter.  The two rolled around the ground, as Lyon tried to overpower the swift archer.  Finally, Lyon was on top of Talon and had him by the neck.

Talon tried hard to break free of Lyon’s grasp, but the warrior was simply too strong.  He started to feel weak, but then that unidentifiable feeling within the archer became much stronger.  Talon yelled loudly as his insides felt like they were on fire.

From Lyon’s perspective it looked like he had bested the sniper.  He had him by the neck in a hold that Talon could not escape, and then Lyon's opponent's  body became incredibly hot.  So hot in fact, that Lyon had to quickly remove his hands, as they felt as if they had just been burned.  Lyon quickly looked at his hands and noticed that they had burns on them.  Incredibly puzzled, the warrior looked back at Talon, amazed to see the archer looking back with him with yellow, almost demonic, eyes.

Talon, possessed by this new strength, head butted Lyon, and then kicked the warrior off of his own body.  The kick was so powerful that to Lyon it felt as if he had just been kicked by a horse.  Lyon flew off of Talon and into a big wooden crate at a nearby merchant stand.  The crate busted open as Lyon’s body hit it.  The blue haired warrior, unable to control himself anymore, quickly jumped up and rushed toward Lyon with murderous intentions.  His rage, instantly subsided when he heard his own name from a familiar voice.

“Talon!” Willard yelled out as he ran over to his friend and stood between him and the unconscious Lyon.  “Don’t you think you’re overdoing a bit?  I think he’s beat!”

Willard watched as Talon’s eyes turned from that demonic yellow back to their normal pale blue.  From his friend’s expression, it seemed that he was just confused about what just happened as Willard was.  Talon looked at the man he was about to kill, as he laid on the ground unconscious.

“What just happened?” Willard asked.

“I…” Talon answered, doing to best to mask his horrified heart with a confused look “I have no idea.”

Suddenly another voice was heard from behind Talon and Willard.  When they turned around, they saw that this little rumble had attracted quite the crowd, all of which were staring at the mercenaries, amazed that two men had taken down ten.

“What did you do to my men!” A very well-dressed, and obviously rich man said as he pushed through the crowd and looked at all the warriors lying on the floor.  Some were unconscious and some were moaning from the beating they just received.

Talon and Willard looked the man over from head to toe.  He was chunky, had long brown hair tied in a pony-tail, thin glasses on balancing on his pointy nose, and wore a red elegant suit with very nice black pants.

“I would think you would have the money to pay for some better service.” Willard sneered, as he eyeballed the man condescendingly.

The man stood in the center of the street looking at his fallen paid warriors, and then he quickly came to his senses.  He turned around to Talon and Willard with a big fake smile.

“Why yes I do believe you’re right.” He said, in a deceptively pleasant tone.  “Which is why I want to take a moment of your time, and talk to you about a business arrangement that perhaps can be made between the three of us.”

Willard and Talon looked at each other for a second.  They already could tell this was a man that neither of them would get along with, but there is only one thing mercenaries can do when very obviously wealthy people offer business propositions.

“We’ll give you ten minutes.” Talon spoke as he looked back at the man. “And we’ll need two hundred gold pieces, just to keep focused for those ten minutes.”

“Why of course!” The man said, masking his frustration at the high wage just to talk to these sellswords.  “My name is Mr. Geoffrey Whitsworth, please follow me up this hill to my mansion where we can talk business in a more comfortable…and less dirty…setting!”

Talon and Willard joined Mr. Whitsworth in a horse and carriage, and were taken to his mansion up the hill on the outskirts of the town.