The Kings of Beasts - Zenshin and Marick (Mission)

"Nice job Marick! Let's step it up a bit more!" he said, adrenaline beginning to make its way through his veins.

The lionesses didn't take too kindly to Zenshin who was literally gliding across the battlefield, chopping them to bits as he did so, a smile on his face the whole time. This probably baffled the fem fatales, as they were probably used to be the predator in these parts, if they could even feel that emotion. In a fit of rage, one of the groups attacked him, roaring all the while. He, calmly, took a deeper stance and jabbed the end of his scythe down the lion's throat and swung it to the side in time to recover from the attack and block a flurry of claws coming from the four other injured monsters.

He broke out into a sprint and dodged a few more, who were pouncing at him with such ferocity that if they'd actually hit, he'd definitely get a deep wound. Another shadow appeared over him, and again, he hurried out of the path of the paw before it slammed into the sand and knocked up sand in all directions. The final wave of lionesses attacked him once the sand settled back down, and in the rain of sand grains, he was able to spin his way through all the different jumping attacks they tried, stopping, and charging one of the groups. All of them learned their lesson and dodged all of his swing, and the same thing applies for the other two groups of enemies. How disappointing... Looks like I just have to try a bit harder he thought as he jumped at the leg of the Grand Lion, swinging his scythe as hard as he could at the front left leg of the beast.

In a massive swing of his weapon, he left a deep gash in the leg, causing the massive lion to collapse on the front of its body. I hope Legacy assumes to follow that up with everything he has

Lion attack
Zenshin's block
Zenshin's attack
Lion's block

"It's exciting, that's for sure, but I don't think it's too challenging. If I did, they wouldn't give me the title I have. Oh! You're in luck, you're the the first to see the my final scythe!" he said, excited as ever.

With a burst of energy, he scythe transformed one last time into something that appeared to look more like a fancy cleaver. It was massive and as heavy as about a ton, well, to anyone who tried picking it up other than him. To Zenshin, he could move it at the same speed as somebody else using a regular scythe, because even though it was literally tons lighter, it was still a massive weapon. He dashed forward at a group of lionesses and dug the blade of his weapon into the sand. Jerking his right arm up, he cut one of them in half before grabbing it normally and spinning like a top, slicing the four lionesses left in the group.

All of the other monsters were simply stunned as he swung a massive overhead strike at the next group, some of the lionesses rolling desperately in an attempt not to get touched by the blade of this "new scythe". Finally, his eyes were set on the final group of monsters that were already running because of what he had just done to an entire pack of them. He smirked, and he also doubted that they would bring back friends, as they seemed to be the strongest hunters this desert had to offer, aside from the Grand Lion behind him, who was still collapsed on its damaged leg. Zenshin burst into another sprint ans jumped, swinging his "Chance" scythe as he did with "Hope", right at the front right leg of the massive lion, cutting all the way to the bone before having to pull out and run back around to its front.

It collapsed on this leg too, causing the entire body to fall and cause a wave of sand to be sent everywhere. Unfortunately for Zenshin, this Grand Lion still had some fighting spirit left in him, unlike the lionesses who now fled. In a single pounce forward, the lion opened its mouth and swallowed him whole, not risking chewing him in case he broke any of its teeth or something equally as devastating. Though, he had dug the blade of his weapon into the inside of the throat of the beast, keeping himself from falling into the pits of its stomach. All he had left was this to prevent him from going down, the violent shaking of the Grand Lion as it tried to get him down didn't help either... Dammit, I guess I can just take it out from the inside... but what about Marick?

Zenshin's attacks
Lion cub's blocks
Lion cubs attacks
Zenshin's blocks

Hm... I wonder how Marick will handle this beast while I'm stuck here. Can he ven do it? I'm sure he can, but I shouldn't really waste time in here. Smells like sand and blood in here... he thought before feeling more violent shaking.

I've got to decide on a couse of action soon.. If I continue to wait, I'll be dislodged and the choice will made for me. Risk getting burned alive by the stomach acid to kill it from the inside... Or, attack its uvula abd be regurgitated back out. Looks like I get to see the fiet of a Grand Lion Zen finally concluded as he dropped all his weight quickly, causing the weapon to tear through the soft flesh of the creature's throat as it went down with him.

Eventually, the scythe got dislodged and he fell with it tightly grasped in his hands, free falling through darkness. He felt a rock hard surface greet his feet when he landed, even hearing a splash of the stomach juices and a crack that came from what he landed on.

That's unexpected. I always imagined a stomach would be a lot more wet and stinginly painful he thought, honestly surprised he didn't splash down. He couldn't have landed on a piece of stone large enough to support him, could he? Recreating a torch in front of him to solve this mystery, he soon realized tgat his hands were busy with the massive, glowing weapon.

Come to think of it, he had a massive glowing scythe to illuminate the creature's food sack, why did he even recreate a torch in the first place? He sighed at his action and paid a bit more attention as he put the blade closer to the floor, it was definitely stone covered in grains of sand, strange carvings too. This beast had actually eaten a piece of some ruins it seemed.

Quite the diet...

Just as he had finished surveying his surroundings, a torrent of water splashed down on him and moved the floating piece of stone that kept him up quite a bit, causing him to nearly lose his balance and fall over. Well, normally it would cause him to fall, but thanks to one his of his handier passive spells, as he called them, he was standing up straight and tall. Enough of this, Marick is going to blow this thing up with me in it. Looks like the only solution is to cut my way out before he can do that he thought as the entire stomach churned. It seemed like that lion was really trying to shake around enough to toss him, but unfortunately for it, no one could match the kind of poise he possessed.

With a leap and a swing, he lodged the blade deep into the wall of the lion's stomach, causing a roar to echo through the bowels of the beast. He didn't let that faze him though, so he ripped through the lining with a downwards cleave on a y-axis followed by a nearly perfect horizontal slice while he was still suspended in air. How what he suspended? It was through the use of solidified leylines he created using a nifty spell that allowed him to manipulate the tricky things that he referred to as the 'strings of reality'. Two more cuts, and the shaking was getting much more violent as the blood pooled in the stomach of the monster, all this internal bleeding would definitely take it out if it wasn't already dead by the time he was out. These two cuts were in an 'X' formation, creating a sort of 'star' shaped cut in the stomach pouch.

After the fourth cut, it fell, creating a hole for him to jump through and cut his way through the actual dermis of this Grand Lion. With a final swing of his blade, he cast the most powerful ability among his scythes, Guilty. What was the lion guilty of? Destroying multiple caravans and crippling the economy of the Hunting Village as well as slaughtering some of their best hunters, and its sentence, was death. With one final swing of his now glowing scythe, it was able to cut a clean, large line in the underbelly of the beast, from which he escaped from, smelly disgusting and covered in blood as well as other bodily fluids he couldn't quite describe, but alive.

He looked back and the lion was collapsing on its side, dead as a door nail.

"Oops... I think I overdid it. Oh well, no harm done. To us, anyways. Sorry about the smell by the way, let's go back and claim what's ours" he said to the card mage with his smile fading a bit now that the fight was over. One last thing, he walked over to the Grand Lion's corpse and cut off a claw with "The Chance" before dispelling it. The claw itself was massive and thick, a souvenir. He'd been collecting these for a bit now, but he had no idea why. Maybe it was some kind of self fulfillment, at least, that's what he told himself.

OOC: You can't block something inside you >_>

MP: 85%
HP: 90%

"I'll offer you the same thing I offered to you at the start of the day. You seem like a mage with great potential and instead of 'playing by the Magic Council's rules', think of it as getting away with things they wouldn't expect of you because of being classified as a 'legal' mage. I wouldn't lie to you, I have no reason to, and it really would be fantastic to have you in Sabertooth. If you *still* want to create your own guild after seeing all the unsettling amounts of paperwork that big brother makes you fill out every month, I won't stop you, but I feel as though it would do you good to be *part* of a guild before you even think of *running* one." he said, pulling out all the stops he had to be as persuasive as he possibly could, a skill he learned from being a bartender at Eclipse Soul.

Though he was trying to be persuasive, everything he said was true, or at least he thought so. He would love to have Marick in his guild, especially after seeing how he handled such a difficult job, holding his own against the waves of beasts, it actually impressed him to a degree. Now, he was even more excited to try and get the card master to join his guild, a welcome addition to the Sabertooth family, should he choose to come. Marick was now shuffling his cards as Zenshin began walking back in the direction of the village.

He wondered how this man would respond to his impromptu invitation to Sabertooth, hopefully he thought good things, as it wouldn't particularly be in his favor should Marick dislike him. But, Zenshin was confident that he showed part of his true self on this job, and Marick seemed to like how he ran things judging from the comment he had made about leading by example, something that filled Zen with joy to hear. Now to hear his conclusion

Zenshin smiled at Marick, whom he had actually convinced to join his guild on just their first meeting.

"Thank you, I appreciate that. And if you knew the irony of that comment, you'd be laughing with me, haha. And about your time, sure, I wouldn't rush you to do anything, just so long as you eventually make your way into the glorious halls of Sabertooth."

There was a point where he told the previous guildmaster, Aegis, that he was batshit insane every chance he got, not letting forget Zen's own stance on his sanity. But even knowing how crazy Aegis was with his "turn everything into a game" and "no holding back" attitude, he still followed him, because he was a dam good leader. He twisted Sabertooth's overall moral into something that could be respected, revered by the mages in the shadows, something honorable that gave people a common cause to fight for. Zenshin's description of each guild was his honest opinion about them, Fairy Tail was much too disorganized, Lamia was too... eccentric..., he didn't even know what went on inside the halls of Blue Pegasus, but it's definitely safe to assume that their guildmaster was 'chasing skirt' as the the card master called it. Everyone else was guildless because of their own reasons, but he felt that those reasons were mostly because they didn't really fit in with the current guilds.

So, Sabertooth. A guild that anyone with a pure heart can join, regardless of skill or strength, and fight to make the future of Fiore a slightly better one that it would've been without their contribution. He was proud to lead a guild with such noble goals and organization, although it was quite a hassle to pick up the pieces when Aegis left. But now, he was back on his horse and doing jobs, with other people, a feeling he hadn't felt since he began dating the woman who now bore his child. With this warm up finally complete, he felt as though he could tackle on anything. And then reality, he snapped back from his thoughts and realized they had reached the front of the village, the old chief hunched over a cane and smiling as he smelled the blood and sand that radiated from them.

"Oh! Excellent! I had no doubts that the rising star Marick and Saint Zenshin could get this job done! Yes! Very good... very very good. Please! Join us in celebration of your accomplishment. We are holding a banquet tonight in honor of the two men who slew the greatest beast our desert had to offer!" he said happily, completely ignoring the living cat monster on Marick's shoulder.

"Of course, of course. Please, it wasn't anything really. Just doing our duty, a celebration really isn't necessary" he told the chieftain as he took his share of the reward from his hand.

"Nonsense! Let us repay you in more than just currency and telling stories of you two." The chief really wanted to hole this banquet for everyone, maybe to repay him and Marick, and maybe to raise Moral. Maybe both. But with a defeated sigh, Zenshin nodded.

"Haha! Wonderful! I shall begin preparations!" he exclaimed, visibly quite excited that Zen had agreed to coming to the banquet with Marick.

"I don't know what you plan on doing with that cub, but try to make sure that it won't wake up, we really don't need that kind of attention after what we just did. I also hope you don't mind me accepting the invitation to the feast. Free food seems like a no brainer when you're done with something like this" he warned, and although the unconscious cub looked peaceful and cute, it could wake up any minute and tear a few people to shreds before going down.

Another cameraman appeared before their eyes and took a picture of them, Zenshin smiling after catching exactly what he was doing. Marick probably couldn't register the speed of which the man came, snapped the picture, and teleported away. "Good publicity is good every so often, but those people really have to mind their own dammed business instead of keeping up with the lives of other people" he said aloud as he entered the village, being greeted by multiple buckets of water from all directions. Spitting out a torrent of water, he made another thought, well that fixes that problem... but now I'm all wet