~ A sandstorm picked up on the outskirts of the oasis town as a hooded shadowy figure concealed in a cloak peeked through the sands coming forward. Upon entering the street that sprang forth, the hooded figure tore off his cloak and threw it into the air, the the cloak then quickly disintegrated into fine grains, almost like it was made from the very sands itself. Underneath revealed a fennec looking fox boy with what appeared to be one arm made form tarnished steel, a mechanical limb of sorts that were common with some warrior or Hunter amputees, his head still hooded as he kept his eyes down while looking over his surroundings, another figure cloaked in black caught his eye for a moment as a small smirk ran across the fennec boy's face. Very subtilty, the fennec boy angled out his shoulder just a bit as when the two passed it knocked into the other boy causing them to stumble for a second before he kept moving, looking slightly over his shoulder the cloaked boy looked over to the one who knocked him but the fennec boy seamed to pay no attention as he kept on going forward, "well... what do you have to report?" the fennec boy said in his mind as he was waiting for an answer but nothing came, "still giving me the silent treatment? How long are you going to hold this grudge, it is very childish." The fennec boy kept walking on until he came across a small pub and walked in, taking a seat at the back corner before taking out some small tools he had on is person and starting to fiddle around with a device attached to his bracer opposite the hand that was mechanical. Seeing the boy come in, one of the waiters made a smile and casually walked over to the the table the fennec boy was sitting at, at first he didn't seam to notice she was there but after making some motions to get his attention, the fennec boy turned his head towards her, "so how are you liking the place?" the waiter said in a cheery tone as the fennec boy looked at her with confusion, "well it is your third straight day coming into our pub here, I am guessing you like our little place, I assume you are newcomer to the town? If so I can show you..." "No, I am not, well not really..." the Fennec boy cut in as the waiter looked a bit stunned, "I am only here for a short time, until my business in this area concluded then I will be going back home" the fennec boy continued as he got back to work on his device which made the waiter look a bit disappointed.
"But it is as you say, I do like this little place as it is nice and quaint, for as long as I am here in town I will keep coming back" the fennec boy mentioned as he continued tinkering which made the waiter smile a bit, "so what sort of business are you here for?" the waiter asked, "nothing to concern yourself with" the fennec boy quickly answered not taking away his attention from his tinkering which stunned the waiter once more. "Not a talkative one aren't ya" the waiting said in a bit of an annoyed tone as the fennec boy made a sigh as he stopped his work on his device and looked back over to her, "I am a Hunter with the Hunter's Conglomerate, for your safety it is best you don't get concerned with my work here" the fennec boy said before once again going back to his tinkering. "Ooh a Hunter, we don't get many of you around here, are you one of the famous ones? Do you mind me asking your name at least?" the Waiter asked as the fennec boy continued working on his device, "Florian" the fennec boy said after a long pause of silence, not taking his eyes off his work, "Florian? Sounds very fancy, is that a code name or such?" the waiter asked, "no, it was the one I was born with, the one I always been to most people at least" Florian answered. "Wait I know I heard this name before and seeing what you are doing now make a lot of sense, are you that artificer from Eios? The one they call the Puppeteer Fox? Who commands those foxy constructs?" the waiter asked which made Florian flinch a bit. "They are called Scrapfox, an ability born from my alchemy" Florian said placing his tools down, "so it is you, isn't it?" the waiter asked once more as Florian made a sigh and gave a small nod, "yes I am that Florian of the Talon's Fang en Claw Workshop in Eios, though I am surprised you know about me, most outside the valley don't" Florian replied. "Well you see some of the machines that we use here at the pub came from your workshop, the owner has spoken highly of the devices he was able to buy from you" the waiter responded "So this was the place where they ended up" Florian said, "I am happy they were able to be used for what I intended for." "These things have made us one of the most popular places in town, the owner said they were all setup and usable when you sold them to him but you never did, why is that? I am sure your place could of done wonders with them and you could of probably fine tuned them too to get even more success" the waiter mentioned. "There was a time I wanted to open up a pub myself with two others I was close with, as a way to help fund our activities but now with them gone and not physically by my side, that idea kind of fell apart" Florian answered which made the waiter frown a bit, "sorry if I opened up some old wounds" she said. "It's ok, but I have my own personal passion of creating things and selling some of them off as a way to fund my activities, it is the easier thing to do now it is only me and I am at peace with that" Florian replied making a small smile that seamed a bit hollow.
Some commotion started outside as town guards started running by the pub's window, with one of them coming inside seeing there was a group of them in the pub sitting down for what would be their lunch, "all right, break's over! We have a situation in the square, what looks to be a cloaked fox with white, grey and orange fur has started attacking our comrades over there, it is all hands on deck to get him suppressed!" the guard said as the other guards quickly got up from their chairs and headed out the door, Florian made a grunt after hearing the news though, "dam that puppet has gone haywire again" Florian thought aloud in his head getting up from his seat as well, "if I don't act fast, those guys are walking into their deaths." "Where are you going?" the waiter asked grabbing Florian's arm, "didn't you hear it is dangerous out there..." she started to say but was cut off, "I am a Hunter, I have expertise in these sort of situations" Florian interrupted as he shook of her hand, "but it is the guard's duty to attend to the matters like this of our town, you don't have to get involved" the waiter replied, "as I said I am a Hunter, it is sort of my duty to handle situations like this" Florian replied with a little bit of a lie, though he couldn't really tell her the truth that one of his constructs was causing the trouble, or else there could be more trouble. "Ok, but just be careful, I don't want to loose such a valued customer" she said with a smile as Florian nodded and dashed out of the pub, running into some alleyways, he he scaled the side of a few building to get to the rooftops to continue down to the village square. "I hope I am not too late to prevent some of the chaos, I got to really figure out why that puppet keep going haywire once 'his' soul gets unbonded from it" Florian continued thinking aloud in his head, "though 'his' soul has yet to return to me, so what the hell is going wrong?" Florian continued on until he got to the rooftops surround the town square, from there he could see his construct fighting and taking down the guards that approached, though something came to quite a surprise to him, "that is odd, he is only knocking them out?" Florian thought as he continued to observe, "well at least he is not killing them but I still need to subdue and stealthy retrieve my creation without causing too much suspicion" Florian continued thinking as the fight was down to only a few guards left. Florian removed his sword from his back, holding his hand near the guard, he slid his hand up causing the blade to collapse on it self a bit while the handle extended creating a sword spear, he then got into position to make a jumping attack and as soon as the last guard fell and his puppet started to sheave it's sword, Florian went in for the strike.
The puppet at the last second noticed Florian darting down from the sky and quickly unsheathed it's sword to deflect Florian's attack, knocking him back which made Florian do a midair backflip before planting his feet on the ground, once recovered, Florian pulled back down on the spot near his sword's guard, reconstructing it back to it's curved sword form and dashed to angle around the puppet as it recovered from deflecting the oncoming attack, "that is weird, that attack always worked before, my puppet is not that adept when it is haywire" Florian started thinking as he circled around the puppet, "then again 'his' souls still has not returned to mine, so something is really wrong here." Florian launched another attack which the puppet as easily able to counter as Florian continued his volley, though the puppet continued matching blow for blow as Florian was pressed back, "dam, did he somehow upgrade his latent abilities? The gears and springs shouldn't be able to match this output normally, not without my added touch" Florian thought as he fidgeted his fingers in his left hand for a moment, "maybe I can use that to overload it's components since it is acting so out of character, it should make them all seize" Florian continued as he extended the fingers of his right had fully out, a quiver looking canister on the back of his waist started to glow as these small rings around his left hand fingers started making blue coloured sparks. Then with a motion of his hand, he extended out what looked like strings of lightning from his hand that dug into the puppet as it turned towards Florian, only for the strings of lighting to quickly break as the puppet's body seamed to fully absorb the lightning that came it's way. "What the fuck? It shouldn't be able to absorb the lightning like that, he is not made to withstand that sort of burst, no construct material is!" Florian though in shock of his failed attack, as he grinned and tried to refocus himself. "I have no choice, I have to use my Gaia to bring it down, I didn't have to want to do this as it will break the sub-skeleton and molded porcelain I spent months perfecting to 'his' features" Florian thought as he started gathering golden yellow aura around him, "if I can lessen the damage a bit, it will be less to have to reforge but I still need to make the perfect strike..." Florian continued thinking though he was interrupted as suddenly the puppet dashed directly in close to his position which took Florian by surprise, the puppet made a swing with it's dagger that Florian just barley managed to dodge as the blade caught the side of his hood, tearing it a bit and pulling it down to fully reveal his head. This caused the puppet to suddenly stop it's attack as with the opening Florian gathered his aura into his fist and when in for the hit while the puppet dropped it's guard. "Wait, Flint?..." Florian heard the puppet say as his fist connected to it's cheek, causing Florian's eyes to widen in surprise as his puppet under no circumstances speak words aloud, the force of his punch caused the 'puppet' to go flying on it's back hard to the ground, blood seamed to stain the side of it's mask as it's movements stilled as Florian looked at his fist his shock.
"That... that was not... not porcelain and steel sub-skeleton... but actual flesh and fur?" Florian thought as he stumbled over to the knocked out fox, knelt down and pulled down it's mask to reveal a slightly bloody cheek of white fur, he then pulled down the hood over it's head which made Florian stumble back in shock, "Ion? No... that's not... how's that possible?..." Flint said in a under tone as more of the town's guards came rushing in and surrounded the two foxes, more so on the knocked out one as a guard lowered their hand to Florian to help him back up to his feet. "Thanks for your help traveler, though we could of handled this on our own but we do appreciate the help" the guard started saying as Florian was stilled stunned, looking over to the knocked out fox as guards grabbed a hold of his arms and started dragging him off, "does our traveler here have a name?" the guard asked as Florian snapped back to reality noticing someone was talking to him but didn't catch the context of what the guard was saying, 'that Florian! Florian the Puppeteer Fox of the Hunter's Conglomerate" a voice in the crowd said as Florian looked over to see the waiter from the pub before, calling out with a smile on her face. "A Hunter? Well it really is our lucky day as we don't too much professional help out here" the guard said as he gave Florian a little punching tap, "still though, much thanks with helping us out with that one" the guard continued, pointing over to the direction guards were dragging away the knocked out fox, "that scoundrel picked pocked a few of our guards, though he could get away with it, but didn't realize he would have to come face to face with a Hunter, feel swing by the keep latter it you want to watch us do our interrogation on him and if you want to help yourself, just don't go too overboard like I know you Hunters like to do until we had our fun as well" the guard finished as he walked off back towards the others who were attending with the knocked out fox. Florian then looked in deep thought as he tried to process what had transpired before he heard some small noises of gears and springs coming from above, looking up he saw a cloaked figure that somewhat resembled the fox he had knocked out though now upon further inspection, there were subtle differences. "So you didn't go haywire after all, though I assume you were the one who picked pocketed those guards?" Flint said in his mind like the figure above could hear those words, Florian then smiled like he got an answer back from that figure above as it disappeared from the rooftops, jumping down into the alleyway, as Florian went in to approach. The fox figure then knelt before the desert fox as Florian placed a had on it's head, golden yellow aura then flowed from the figure back into Florian, as the glow from it's eyes faded before the fox figure collapsed onto the ground, with a motion of Florian's hand, more golden yellow aura appeared around the fox figure, melding it through the ground as it disappeared from sight, "your right, maybe he does have some answers for me, I should take that guard's invitation....." ~
