12.22.08 - I Wanted To Be Like You (Jakk's Capture - Part II)

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Location: Dirt Road

Characters Involved: Darklett, Jakk, Koto, verminspoofs

For all the talking that was going on before, it's noticeably quiet once they hit the road. Darklett and Jakk have been walking in relative silence, footpaws crunching in the snow. "...Consider it testing my luck, but I'm kind of surprised you're doing this, Jakk." The major grins over at his eldest, hopefully not scaring him off.

Grinning, hopeful daddiness scares Jakk obviously. Or that is what the major must be used to, so the crunch of snow beneath their footpaws might as well be eggshells. Pun! Pun-pun-pun-pun! The teenager has been just as quiet as his father up to this point, his hands tucked away into his pockets and once more bundled enough to keep out the majority of the cold chill in the air. His breath is fogging in front of his muzzle though even as he glances towards Darklett with both ears flicking into a splayed position. "Hm. .. what? Walking you to the 67th?" There is uncertainty in his expression, eyes narrowing somewhat.

"...Considering it locks you in to spending time with me, yeah, that's it." Darklett's paws are also pocketed, and he looks straight ahead at the darkening road. "But... Uh, enough of that." Darklett, you're floundering. "...One of Caleb's friends at the abbey gave him a flute as a present. I thought it was nice at the time, but I can't see myself not breaking that thing in half over the next week or two."

At least the awkward, floundering statement doesn't have time to sink into Jakk's thoughts and bother him too much due to the one that follows this. The teenager blinks as he glances sideways to his father before smirking. That caused a good deal of amusement, actually and the private huffs out a laugh as he grins. ".. well.. he's a kid. Gotta be patient." Now the buck looks away without saying anything else, even if he is still smiling to himself.

"...Yeah, you do have to be patient." Darklett nods. Quiet, for a good twenty paces. There's no other sound besides some wind rustling leaves and the footfalls beneath him in the snow. He bites at the inside of his lip, paws clenched inside his pockets. "...It's where I failed with you."

The younger buck's brows furrow as he looks around to Darklett, nearly halting in his footsteps in response to this last statement. His pace slows instead of cutting off altogether though while he shakes his head. ".. You didn't." Jakk states with an airy tone, whiskers bristling against the tension and the cold. He's not one for many words still.

"Jakk..." Darklett almost halts, too. "...You really don't have to reassure me of anything. I'd... I'd love it if you loved me as your father, but I tried to force it and... I shouldn't have." The major shakes his head at himself. "But I've always been here. And I'm really glad that we can at least have this time together, because I want you to know that things don't have to be the way they have been between us." It seems like he wants to say more, but he doesn't for now.

The buck seems thoughtful as he watches the other's expression, running his tongue out over his front teeth before grunting. ".. look. It's not your fault. Every parent wants their kid to love them. The good ones, that is.." Jakk shakes his head again. ".. anyway." The hare huffs as he ducks his chin downward, staring at the ground and drumming his fingers against his thighs through the fabric of his pockets, still trekking along as he does so. ".. I always loved you." The teenager rolls his shoulders, then sighs. ".. I wanted to be like you."

The private blinks at the major. "Whoever said I wanted to be in your patrol?" Though the older buck is obviously joking with his last statement, Jakk's sense of humor is dry enough for this to either be taken seriously or not. He says it completely straight-faced anyway, before going to continue ahead at more of a steady pace now, instead of trudging slowly side-by-side.

"That.. that's so /sweet/." The sharp voice of a feline suddenly cuts through the frigid nighttime. The source is a tall, pure-white feline in a long coat, sword in hand, who emerges not ten paces in front of the hares. He gives them a vicious smile, teeth flashing, as from either side of the road a handful of vermin emerge; and just as many materialize behind the pair. "Really," Koto chuckles, eyes flicking from one to the other. "Stunning. Brilliant. What a /moment/." He lifts one hand to make a gesture of wiping a tear.

"Well, it's a lot easier on my heart if you're not anyway, so..." And that's all interrupted. Darklett flashes his eyes forward, paws going to his sides, gripping two knives. /Really?/ "...What do you want, cat?"

It's a lot easier on Darklett's heart if his son isn't in the same patrol fighting along side him - and yet here they are, out on the road with potential death smiling fangily at them. When the white tom moves out of seemingly nowhere, the younger of the bucks stops with a more tense expression crossing his features and his jaw tightening. Now his attention turns to the vermin that begin to circle them and he goes rather still upon returning it to Koto finally. It is the major who speaks and goes for weaponry.

"Just a little something to ease my boredom," Koto responds in a drawl, and makes an absent gesture forward. Vermin go forward - not all of them, actually about half from the group in front, half from the group behind. That's a good six or seven assorted predators - mustelids, mostly - aimed at the pair with weapons drawn. The biggest, a fox, swings forward with an axe at Darklett, and a ferret slides up from behind with a dirk aimed between his ribs. The older buck is their target.

Gritting his teeth, Darklett slides his paws forward to his melee daggers, unsheathing them and swiping with both in one smooth motion as the major ducks to the side, towards Jakk, trying to keep close to him where the enemy won't get behind him as easily, the same for his son. One dagger goes to at least partially deflect the axe strike, while the other one tries to slash at the wrist of the dirk wielder to try and disarm him.

Really that could have been the death of his father at that moment, yet Jakk has only backed up from the fray when the vermin go for the officer, shoulders tensing as he shoves his hands further into his pockets. It is as the major skids towards him protectively, however, that the teenager takes a deeper breath as if something just stabbed him in the chest. His ears sink and he watches Darklett take on the two that have attacked, before finally lurching forward while yanking out his saber. This is swung much like one would wield a larger sword, aiming at the throat of the ferret as if to take his head off.

The ferret's wrist is slashed; he drops his weapon, gripping the injury and ducking backward, making room for another ferret. As he comes in the axe-wielder reverses the direction of his swing, growling out as he does so. The ferret's sword lashes in a downward arc and then fast angle across Darklett's chest, and a stoat more over on Jakk's side grabs ahold of the younger hare to pull him away and open up space behind the Major. Koto's expression is absolutely /gleeful/ as he watches. These vermin may be more or less disposable, but they're for the most part worth their mettle. The cat has his teeth bared, eyes lit up excitedly, until the moment that Jakk suddenly decapitates one of his posse. He snarls and gestures more forward against the pair: twelve against two, with three more hanging back should they be needed. The axe swings at Darklett again, and a sword meets with Jakk's blade, hard, on a downward stroke as that rat's weight is thrown against the teenage buck. The others aren't so much waiting their turn, but finding any little opening they can do aim attacks, the mass of them trying to overwhelm the two Long Patrollers.

"Jakk!" Darklett shouts, as if asking what's taking so /long./ He's too busy to get distracted now, though-- He's in constant motion, dodging strikes rather than blocking them now. The sword barely misses him, and Darklett has to get down on a knee in order to duck under the axe swing. Trying to capitalize on axes being heavy weapons, he gets inside the axe swing range, trying to bury a dagger deep inside the gut of the axebeast and turn, trying to use him as a sort of temporary shield. He's lost track of his son already.

Though he may not be as experienced as his father, Jakk has still had his share of fights - far too many in his short seasons actually - and a mass of beasts attacking at once is not exactly new to him either. He knows that defending Darklett will probably be the death of him, but the private digs his feet in when the rat meets metal with his own before using that propulsion backward to send all his weight upward, to throw the vermin off-kilter enough before yanking a dagger out to stab the rodent between the ribs with his left hand. He knows the procedure. Get in, kill as quickly as possible, move onto the next opponent and get out when there is an opening.

The axe-fox gives a gutteral sound and tips over sideways. Not much of a shield, that one, and a moment later another ferret takes advantage of this opening, coming at Darklett with a small shield in one hand and a sword in the other, agilely using the combination of these two to block any blocks from Darklett and keep him preoccupied with attacks from the front. A rat goes after Jakk with a club and Koto snaps at the rodent, "Don't /kill/ him..!" His eyes go back and forth, keeping track of the two hares as they're separated. A few of his posse die; oh well. He gestures all but the last in; this one, a weasel archer, stands nearby him at the ready, bow drawn back partway, an arrow notched. Waiting. "So help me, if you don't /kill/ /the/ /officer/, I will gut you each one by one!" Koto threatens the others.

Rrr. Darklett's gonna have to go old school on this one. The major sees the beast with the sword and shield, and... Decides he can't deal with a shield right now. So he does a very temporary retreat, temporary in that he only has to take two steps in order to get to his next target, trying to just get to something and kill it. Metal is all around him, and he tries to keep tabs on it all in his head, trying to drive a dagger deep into one of the vermin's chest and put distance between himself and the beast with the shield. He spots the archer, and keeps that in the back of his mind.

Jakk can't even keep track of if he is being separated from the major or not, just knowing that two down on his part means at least ten more to go - from what he noted earlier anyway. He very nearly gets a club to the head, too, as he very literally disarms another weasel before having to duck quickly to avoid a crushed skull. That rat is too busy being yelled at by Koto to really notice his own death, either. But, hey, most of the posse aren't trying to kill him anymore. Stupid for them, good for the teenager, who now has a better vantage point when metal is not flying at his face. It /does/ mean that there are soon fists though. Ah, good ole fists.

"Shoot him, please," Koto says, tone carrying a razor edge. The archer hesitates. "I don't /care/ you bloody imbecile, /shoot/. Him." The bowstring is pulled taut, and the weasel waits for an opening. There. Zzzwip goes the arrow, aimed for Darklett's side. The others continue fighting; someone tries to grab at Jakk's arm, twist it behind him if possible - an attempt to somehow control the hare they're not supposed to kill. Two stoats with curves blades come at Darklett at the same time, in unison, from different directions. Zwip, goes another arrow, when the space opens up to aim at Darklett's shoulder. And a third, aimed between the shoulders, when a motion from Darklett to deflect a blow puts his back to Koto and the weasel.

Where's that shield and sword beast? Darklett lost track of him. He'll get to him later, he figures. Suddenly he feels a sharp pain in his side, crying out in pain and forcing himself to back off whatever he was supposed to do. The stoats are thus right in front of him, and he starts fending the dual strikes off, finding openings and trying to strike into one of the stoats's ribs which does indeed put his back to the archer. Somewhere in there there was another arrow fired which hit his shoulderblade at an awkward angle, basically cutting into him and falling to the ground.

Any chance that the vermin had of holding Jakk back is lost when he sees the archer's arrow fly and hit his father in the side. This was the point right? Then why does he feel like screaming? The detachment of his captor goes by in a blur before the teenager is forcing his way through the melee, stabbing where he must, but just going to get to Darklett. At least he has located him again. The buck is at his side quickly enough to protect him from that third arrow - but only as a living shield. It buries into his upper back and he stumbles into the major accidentally because of this, cheek bumping to his shoulder for a split second before he loses his footing altogether. The private goes down hard into the remnants of the snow, scattering this across the roadway. He has ended up nearly at his father's feet.

Seven left, including Koto and the archer; the cat's group has been cut in half. He hisses and paces a few steps in one direction, then turns. "Someone. Just. /Bash/ his skull!" he snaps at the group, and .. oh. There's the one with the shield, suddenly behind Darklett, bringing it down hard toward the back of his head. This just conveniently goes with the moment that Jakk topples.

Darklett locks up two daggers with whatever weapon the remaining stoat had, pushing back and sending the vermin sprawling. He is about to turn when he's fallen against by somebeast who then falls at his feet. "Jakk?!" The major hesitates for just a second too long. He feels something, but before he can even register /what,/ he's out cold.

They're both passed out; the fighting stops almost immediately. Koto stalks forward, sheathing his sword and going right to Jakk, who receives a single, vicious kick in the ribs. "You. Stupid. Little. .. /auughh/!!" Pissed off, he reaches to snatch the arrow and just. /Yank/ it out of Jakk. Then points at one of the remaining vermin, the biggest guy left. "Bind him, get him out of here. I'll deal with him later." Then he turns to Darklett.

Really Jakk is less completely unconscious and more dazed than anything, actually wavering on the point of passing out right before the kick meets with his ribs. He makes a sound like a thrashed puppy as the agony rips through him and soon he is slumping into darkness.. oh but did I mention that's after the arrow has been torn roughly from his back. Blood splatters the mostly white ground then runs freely from him so that it actually gets on the large vermin's hands as he hefts the hare.

Koto's attention is on the older buck, now. He crouches, smoothes his hand back through Darklett's hair, between the ears. "You, my sweet little boy... will have quite the headache." His fingers drum there. A glance goes to those of them who are left standing. Once Jakk is carried off the others are relieved of their weapons and anything else valuable - a sick pretence at camaraderie, this is. The others go and Koto is the last left, considering the fallen, beaten and bloodied hare. "... you'll remember me, I think. But just in case, darling." Darklett's limp hand is lifted, and deftly, he drags his claws across the back of it. Four parallel lines split open, deep enough that they're definitely scar. They leak red out onto the snow as Koto drops the limb, stands up, and moves to go as well. Darklett is left there - middle of the road, middle of the night, with a half-dozen or so dead vermin. His son? Gone.

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