Legacy of the Pantheruos

Searching...

3rd POV

The snow crunched under his feet as he trekked through the wilderness. Each settlement he went to always gave him a small bit of evidence that would allow him to paint a bigger picture. From what he's gathered so far in the last week; the child had been abducted in the middle of the night while the parents and older sibling slept, locals had stated that a shady looking man would pass by, every time he passed by there was also a body left behind shortly after. It wasn't much to go on and a minuscule amount of irritation crept up in his body but he quickly suppressed it.

Focus. Irritation and anger led to mistakes and clouded focus.

He continued to go around each settlement and after looking at his map, he realized how far he was from the settlement the parents were at. It was a couple of months away on foot and a few weeks on any other transport except Bullhead. The clues started to slowly come together and by his third month into the search, he had found out where the girl would be. Time passed by and winter had finally started to end as the air got warmer. It was beginning to turn into spring and the girl was getting closer with each passing day.

The settlement he had entered immediately made him go on alert. Some of the inhabitants bore into him with their eyes and his own caught sight of countless weapons on their bodies. Some had rifles, pistols, knives, swords, and even hammers. Everything went quiet as he trekked through the streets silently and only stopped to look at his surroundings and the inhabitants before continuing forward. They all watched as he walked around the settlement before entering what seemed like a bar.

The moment the doors opened and he entered, everything went silent. All the inhabitants looked at him as he went to the counter and waited silently. While they sized him up and down, he was doing the same. He recognized their type, a bunch of cutthroats and mercenaries that probably had years of experience on them. Picking a fight with as close as he was to finding the child would prove to be futile. There was a chance that one of these people knew where she was and he wasn't about to squander this small opportunity because he wanted to pick a fight.

"What do you want?" The bartender asked rudely.

"I'm looking for a girl. She went missing around six months ago in a settlement far from here." Raptor answered stoically. His eyes would flicker at everything, from the smallest amount of movement from the corner of his eye to the look on the bartender's face and even in the reflection in his eyes.

"Need to be more specific than that. Lots of girls come and go around these parts. You want information, buy something." The bartender said in the same tone. Raptor reached around into his bag and took out a few lien cards before placing them on the counter. The bartender didn't even care what he wanted and placed a beer bottle on the counter.

"She's an infant, blue hair and gold eyes. Would be around eight months at this point." Raptor said briefly.

"Hmm... she's in a location but where exactly will cost you more. More than lien." The bartender said. Raptor watched as his eyes flickered towards someone in the back and heard the sound of a door locking before footsteps went behind him. Seven hostiles behind him. Two were to his right side, one to his left side. The final one was in hovering over his shoulder.

"Where is the girl?" Raptor asked calmly.

"Like I said, it'll cost ya. I've heard about you. Heard some stories about a man who wears a dirty ass cloak and goes around the settlements thinking he's a hero. Also heard some stories that you got a pretty nifty set of armor underneath that cloth of yours. Wonder how much it'll go for." The bartender grinned.

The blips behind him got closer and the air suddenly went tense for a minute. Nothing was said as the men got closer and closer to him before he breathed deeply and felt time seem to slow down a bit. When he exhaled the final time and opened his eyes, he swiftly moved to the left just as a punch rocketed past his head and sailed right into the bartender. The man was thrown into the shelf full of liquor and fell down into unconsciousness. Raptor then quickly wrapped his right arm around the first attacker then used his left to grip the back of his neck and slammed his face against the counter violently. The sound of his neck breaking met his ears and he quickly backed up when the others tried to converge on him. Nine hostiles remained.