Alexander scowled angrily, and stood up. Crossing the room, he walked over to who he assumed the leader of the bandits were, and said forcefully, "I am Alexander of the Imperial guard. I'm going to give you this one chance. Lay your weapons down, and surrender." His right hand slowly inched towards Bloodthirster in it's sheath, while he waited for a reply.

Piper watched him go over to the men and took another bite of her food. She wondered if she should do something but he looked like he had everything handled. One of the guys smirked and pointed a gun towards his head, "if you think we are going to back down just because of you your wrong. Guards like you can either be killed or paid off easily. So which is it? you want blood or money?" he askd as hw watched him.

Alexander's face became a stony mask. He tapped the inside of his silver bracelet, and Aegis quickly appeared on his arm. Swiftly, he continued the motion, grabbed Bloodthirster, and rammed it through the gut of the guy with the gun, saying, "Blood will be just fine, thanks." He could feel power flowing through him, as his sword drank the blood of the bandit. After a moment had passed, he pulled the blade out. If anybody had been paying close attention, they may have wondered why, even though it had just gone straight through a man, the blade was still black as night, and not a speck of blood could be seen.

Piper continued to eat her food and just watched him fight. When he rammed the guy with the sword, her eyes narrowed as she watched him more. To anyone else it wouldn't look suspicious, but to a taigu user liker herself it was. He was one was well. "well this is going to be interesting." she said to herself as she took another bite out of her food and smiled happily. Out of everyone in the restaurant she was still the only one eating. The rest of the bandits looked at him and cursed. They then charged at him, all pulling out either a sword or a gun, ready to avenge their leader.

Alexander's face continued to be emotionless, as all rational thought faded. His life became a blur of action and reaction. One bandit aimed a gun at him, so Alexander lunged forward and smashed the man's face in. Without pausing, he turned that lunge into a spin, and decapitated another bandit. Bloodthirster drank even more blood, and so Alexander's movement's became even more powerful and swift. Curbing his spin, he block an overhead slash from the next bandit, and retaliated with a slice that cut up through the bandit's abdomen. Meanwhile, the first bandit had recovered, and aimed. Alexander barely had enough time to get his shield in front of the guys gun, before the bandit fired. Rounds bounced off Aegis with distinct pinging noises, as Alexander advanced.

Piper's eyes narrowed as she watched him work. When he sliced into the one guy blood dint' splatter when he fell to the floor. Looking at his blade, she saw the last bit of blood seem to dissappear into the blade. Alexander seemed to grow stronger after that and she smiled a little bit. "so that is it's power, it likes blood." she said before turned back to her food and smiling as she continued ot eat, the only one out of the few people who were still here.

Alexander lunged forward, and stabbed the last bandit through. After a moment like that, he looked into the man's eyes, and said, "And thus the price has been paid in blood.". Before yanking his sword out and decapitating the bandit. Returning his sword to his sheath, and AEgis to it's silver band form. He sat down again. Rubbing the back of his head, he gave a sheepish laugh. "sorry about that. I didn't mean to make such a mess. Hope I didn't ruing your meal young lady.

Piper sighed as she watched him fight and then realized something. She was out of food. Frowning to herself, she started to look around and noticed that other people had left their food open for the taking. Smiling, she quickly gathered all the food that was close to her and was about to eat when she heard him. Smiling up at him, she shook her head, "you made it better, it means I get free food since everyone left in such a hurry to get away from the bandits." she said before taking a bite out of someones food. Humming happily, she licked her lips, "nothing tastes better then food that isn't your own." she said as she continued to eat more.

Alexander frowned, and wanted to tell her off, but he realized that she'd only taken food from the people who'd already run, so he couldn't ask her to pay them back. Instead, he said, "So.... yeah." He cast about for something new to talk about, before remembering what she'd said earlier. "You mentioned that you do odd jobs before. Do you have any interesting stories?"

Piper smiled as she ate more and hummed happily. "hey, they aren't going to be coming back and it would be a waist to let it just sit there. So I might as well eat it." she said as she looked at him. She then sighed and nodded. "you could say that my stories aren't exactly what most people want to hear." she said softly as she thought about her past. She then looked at him, "I bet your stories are far more interesting then mine." she said and found she was actually kind of interested.

Alexander laughed as he took a bite of his ramen. "Interesting? Never. I'm just a soldier. Nothing more, nothing less. Hell, the most interesting stories are about people...." He trailed off as his eyes seemed to gaze off into the distance. Memories flooded him of his friends back when he was just a soldier. Morgan. Lucas. Casey. Ian. With a frown he took another bite saying to nobody in particular. "It's the people that makes a soldier who he is......"

Piper looked down at her food, "hearing other peoples stories are better then telling others about your own. That way you dont have to relive the pain of something in the past, expecialy if your past only contains pain." she said softly as she felt the trob of each and every scar on her body and for once she lost all of her appetite. Standing up, she sighed, "i think it is time that I head out, I am sure that my family would like me to be home soon." she said softly.

Snapping out of it, Alexander stood, and said, "Here. Let me at least escort you home? I have to leave anyway... I should report this...." He waved his hand to the bodies near the door, "To my superiors."

Piper shook her head, "sorry, but that would take you out of your way. I dont live in the capital anymore not after everything." she said and you could hear the build up of emotion in her voice. She then shook her head, clearing it and smiled up at him, "I live outside the capital so I dont want to be a bother, so why dont you just head off." she said and then headed out of there and down the road.

With a slight shrug, Alexander turned to finish his ramen. No sooner had he taken a bite though, than Wave came running in. Out of breath, Wave grabbed Alexander by the shoulder, and started dragging him out of the restaurant, saying, "Come on man, we have to hurry. Something's going on, and Esdesse needs us back.... now. I think we're planning on hitting night raid."

Piper soon got back to the base but everyone seemed to be busy. Something big was either going on or everyone had there own mission to complete. Shrugging, she headed out to the training grounds after grabbing Charon and started to practice on some of the dummies that they had.

((OOC: How're we going to do this? wanna just skip to the fight, or around the fight? or keep going?))

((yeah we can skip to the fight))

Alexander fidgeted nervously in his saddle, as light brown dust blew around his small group. The plan was simple. The Jagers had split up in order to be certain of catching Night Raid, which had apparently broken up into two groups. Everything about this mission was supposed to be simple. instead, everything felt wrong. It was hard to tell, but something about the coming fight felt..... off. He glanced over at his group, making sure they were all there. Wave and Akame were bickering again, while bors simply stared at the dusty road. With a slight grin, Alexander slowed his horse slightly, until he was along side Bors, saying, "Why the long face?"

After a brief pause, Bors replied, It's nothing. I'm just thinking about my family again."

Alexander nodded, and focused his attention forward again. While he was glad that Bors was his normal self, the big man's comment disturbed him on a level that he couldn't quite identify. Then it hit him. He was disturbed because there was nobody for him. Alexander had realized this before, but for some reason it was particularly difficult to thing about now. Mentally shrugging, he forced himself to focus on the task at hand. Finally ending this Night Raid's rebellion.

Piper sighed as she stood under a tree with Mein at her side. "oh stop your sighing and stay sharp, they should be here soon and the moment I spot them your suppose to go down." she said as she watched with her gun ready. "but I am bored and so far there is nothing fun to do." Piper said as she started to pace back and forth, the wind blowing her cloak around everywhere. Twirling her scythe around, she started to hop about to keep herself entertained when she heard Mein, "they are coming, get into position." she hissed at me. Taking a better grip on my scythe, I stepped onto the edge of the cliff the tree was at and looked down, waiting for them to come into sight to jump into action.

As the group of four entered the canyon, Alexander looked around. between the canyon, and the forest, this place stank of an ambush. Turning to his compatriots, he said, "Be on guard. And watch those trees." Before leading the way into the canyon. For a while, it was empty, and silent. But Alexander did not trust it. Drawing his sword, he glanced around again, saying "I have a bad feeling about this."

Mein turned to Piper and nodded, "go, distract them." she said as she started to take aim of her first victim. Piper smiled as she pulled down a mask and nodded before seeming to disappear and then reappear in a puff of dust in front of the little group. "glad to see you came, I was starting to wonder if I was going to be bored all day." she said as she looked at the group. THe wind blew slightly, revealing her face slightly from under her hood but all you saw was a skull mask. "now lets get started." she said as she charged them, not using her speed yet to give Mein time to work her gun.

Alexander activated Aegis, the silver shield appearing on his wrist, and leaped from his horse, towards the skull masked figure, shouting to his comrades, "Be on guard, there are probably more!" Adrenaline coursed throughout Alexanders body as his leap brought him closer to his foe. When he was close enough, he aimed a stab at the figure, using both the strength of his arms, and the force and momentum generated from the leap, he hoped to run the cloaked figure through.

Piper charged faster towards the man in front of her. yet right as she saw the sword come out along with the shield she knew who she was fighting and she wasn't happy about it. Turning on a extra amount of speed, she got to him in a flash but ducked his attack, kicking him in the stomach instead and pushing him back. Standing now, she looked at him, "you know, It sucks that I have to kill you. YOu actually seemed like the nicest out of the bunch, kind too." she said as she got ready for his next attack. Mein was aiming for the others now, the ones that were looking around trying to pinpoint her and that was when you heard the first sound of a shot go off.

Alexander growled as the girls kick sent him flying backwards. Dimly, he was aware that his other allies were under attack from that ranged target, but he shut them out of his mind. He had a feeling, that devoting anything except his absolute attention to this opponent, would just get him killed. Fast. Focusing on the girl, he replied, "And what makes you think that you'll be able to kill me?" About halfway through his sentence, he charged and aimed a pair of vicious slashes at her, then quickly followed it up with a kick aimed at her gut.