Save the Chocobos

[mindofathief]

Who: Everyone that signed up for the UFO stakeout
Where: Aqures Ixen, Chocobo Ranch area
When: February 19th-20th, nighttime
Summary: The Heroes of Light hide out at the ranch and wait for the mysterious animal kidnappers to appear.
Warnings: Three comment starters. Final thread will be locked until the end of the stakeout.

[The excitement of Valentoine's Day has passed, and with more news about the UFOs, Duster brings his focus back to the planned stakeout. The night was chillier than any midnight stroll he experienced in Tazmily, and he wears a thick coat that only covered his body above the waist. He pulls his brown hat's earflaps down to better keep the warmth in.

The inside of the stable is warmer, but not by much. It's not much of a savior to Duster, who remains outside, keeping watch as long as he's awake. Staying up late is easy; all it took was fixing his sleep schedule the past few days to his old night owl tendencies.

He takes a seat on a pile of hay by the tables and waits.]

((OOC: Welcome to the final UFO Stakeout log! You can still talk with NPCs during the mingle thread, and you are welcome to put up your own starters under the main event thread. The final phase of this event, however, will be a single thread))

Comments

[zodiac_brave]

The thief K'pandolu had tackled seemed well in hand, so Ramza weaved around the mass of Heroes to keep pursuing the other one. The especially fast one. Ramza intensely disliked him.

Even if he could not catch the man, the continued pursuit would not afford him time to launch a counterattack.

[red_planet_blues]

That thief might be fast, but he's probably not rocket fast. There's also a lassoing being thrown his way by an experienced cowboy, who's confident that if he can manage to lasso an entire flood, he can catch one supposed absconding alien.

[deadlyvu]

Since no one else was attacking her, Lydia took the opportunity to change once more into a Bat. It allowed her better maneuverability, and better senses in the dark. That whistling signal had her wondering too--were there more besides the two they'd found?

Time to start flitting between trees, keeping the one thief and other heroes in earshot and sight, but looking for any other bandits.

[OOC: Are there others besides the two being persued?]

[neverfirstclass]

Zack was swift enough to duck his head out of the way of the flying arrow, but it left Cloud in the open. He winced as the arrow impacted his shoulder, shattering as it struck. His armor kept him protected from the attack, but it was still a high velocity piece of metal and wood hitting him. The blonde grunted in pain and Zack slowed down to keep him from losing his balance. They were still in the chase but it'd be up to Sparks for now.

[mindofathief]

"We got one of them!" came a voice from the trees. A small, very human figure slid down from the leafy ceiling, grabbed an overhanging branch, and hung for a second before letting go and rushing at Cloud and Zack with a knife. Without even a yell, he jumped at the Chocobo, preparing a fatal strike.

Unfortunately for the other thief, he did not expect an actual cowboy to be running after him, much less a rope thrown at him that would tighten almost immediately. "What is this...?" Lassoes were an uncommon sight in Crystallis, and he wished he had known that Sparks Nevada had this kind of trick up his sleeve. "Boy! Out! Now!"

Lydia would have heard multiple, possibly ten men up in the trees, and the trees furthest from her shook as the thieves ran across the branches to a safer location.

[unyieldingspirit]

K'pandolu jerked back, the knife still making its mark across her cheek. She snarled, making to knock the knife out of the man's hand and pin his arms, teeth flashing. "Who are you?" she demanded. "Where did you come from?"

[zodiac_brave]

More in the trees? Of course there were more in the trees. In the trees, running all around in these wee hours when honest folk were a-bed. Ramza lobbed another rock at the shaking branches above. He didn't care that gravity would bring the rock back down. He was awake, running around, in the forest in the dark. That might as well happen too.

"Surrender now!" he barked out, though he could not see who he was addressing.

[mindofathief]

Despite Ramza's orders, the thieves knew better than to listen and scampered away. This mission was a failure, and the only thing left to do was to run like cowards.

The thief on the ground spat in K'Pandolu's eyes. "None of your business!" After that, he jerked his knee upward in an attempt to knock her off of him.

[red_planet_blues]

Sparks could only hold onto one guy, which was disappointing. So many of them were getting away. Still, he reeled in his catch, ready to read him his rights.

"Yeah, so, yer totally under arrest. So's anyone else we manage to grab."

He turned to the Heroes to bark orders and pass off the lasso.

"Up in the trees! Someone hold onta this varmint and I can go after 'em."

[deadlyvu]

Lydia is already trailing at least some of them in the trees, via bat-form. Not that she's able to keep track of all of them... But she's trying to get an idea of where they're going, do they have a base?

Small bat at night? NOT a hard thing to see.

[neverfirstclass]

Cloud had warned other Heroes about this before. It was something he'd even discussed recently. There were two things to keep in mind about chocobos, perhaps even over all else.

First off was that they were intelligent creatures. They understood the world around them and some even had a good handle on human speech, or at least comprehension of the speaker's intent and mood. Just because Cloud was reeling from the recent attack didn't mean that he was undefended.

And that's when the brigand who thought to take the chance and strike at Zack met the bird's foot halfway. Powerful muscles flexed in Zack's leg as he kicked the man in the chest, sending him flying a few feet and out of consciousness.

Cloud, coming out of his daze, looked up at the trees and followed all of the scurrying movement. There was something wrong here. At his urging Zack trotted to Spark's side where the blonde took hold of the offered lasso. "I don't think these are the same people. There's no flying machine. These are just thieves." Or something at least. The knives and sneak attacks and hiding in trees didn't make them seem like much else.

[mindofathief]

Sparks Nevada got a dead eyed stare in return.

As for the escaping thieves, they were quickly getting away to safety, keeping to the trees. However, there was one who thought it would be faster to take a shortcut through one of the grazing fields into another area of the forest, and Lydia would be able to see a sole figure running int he distance. At this rate, it would be impossible for any of the Heroes to catch up to him.

Unless something else got to him first.