14 Zi'da 721
"Keep them on, you won't be here long." A low, gruff voice said from the shadows.
"Oh shit!" The formerly cloaked man exclaimed in shock as he rose from the chair and put his back to the wall. He unsheathed a dagger hidden at the back of his belt and held it up in a defensive position, his eyes darting around the dark of the room in search of the one who'd spoken to him. "Who's there?" The man demanded as his back hit the wall and startled him. He pushed forward into the middle of the room and held the blade out in front of him, eager to slash at whoever had come to his domain.
"Simon, John, whatever, put the knife down." The darkness said, "or I will make you."
At the sound of a threat, the fear seemed to retreat from Simon a little. The man in the darkness could see the expression shift from fear to determination. Simon wanted to find him. Simon wanted to kill him. Simon could not see him. Maybe it was time to let Simon try? Maybe, just maybe, that was the justice this man deserved. The man in the dark could take the blade and plunge it back into the serial killer before his allies could breach the door as planned. It would all look like the situation had just gotten out of hand and the streets would be safer forever... but that was not what Vri had taught him.
Pulling the cloth mask off of his mouth, Balthazar revealed himself to Simon. As his sparks began to awaken from being soothed, the etheric cracks over his hands and eyes burst forth with light. For a moment, the visual of two glowing blue eyes appearing in the corner of the room startled Simon again but only for a moment. Simon leveled his dagger at Balthazar as the made stepped forward from his spot in the shadows. "How did you get in here?" Simon asked in a small rage. He recognized the mage from the docks and Balthazar recognized him. The killer who'd almost got away. The killer who would have gotten away if not for Balthazar's decision to attune to him.
"I walked through the wall." Balthazar said before waving a hand to dismiss it, "You were smart, you almost made me look dumb." Balthazar said as he tossed the poster for the tournament in Rharne onto the ground in front of Simon. "You left a false trail and I followed it. I wasted so much time in Rharne looking for you and you were never there." Simon said nothing in response to the accusations. While Balthazar felt a swell of pride that the case was finally coming to an end, Simon felt the draw of his raging fight or flight response. He was an animal who'd been backed into a corner. He'd been caught and that was the one thing he swore he never would be.
"How did you find out I was still here?" Simon asked as his eyes shifted quickly towards the door and then back to Balthazar. He was thinking of running but it was always his second impulse. He had a different plan first.
"You don't get to know that." Balthazar said. The answer, the real answer, was attunement. He had projected his senses to Simon several times and he'd watched the man moving about but he didn't know exactly where he was. He could only learn about the surroundings through omnivision so it was when Simon returned to the Four in Hand that Balthazar deduced he was still in Scalvoris. Simon had made a mistake doing that because Balthazar was familiar with the voices of the servers and had been able to make the connection when he heard them around Simon. As for finding Simon's current hideout, also attunement. "I didn't come here to explain how we caught you. Just to bring you in."
Simon exhaled with a small smirk on his face and he nodded his head. "Well... good luck with that." Simon bolted for the door expecting Balthazar to chase after him but the mage made no moves to pursue the killer. Simon reached the door, grabbed the handle, and in a moment of panic seemed to forget that he had locked it.
"You didn't think that through, did you?" Balthazar asked as he began walking towards Simon. The killer turned quickly and charged with his knife. It was not a wild charge. Simon knew how to use a blade to kill someone. He'd done it many times. The problem was, the ironic problem, was that Balthazar had probably killed more people than Simon throughout his already shorter life. He was not going to fear one man with a knife, especially one who'd just tried to flee.
Simon reached him quickly with a wide swipe that Balthazar stepped out of range of- forcing Simon to press forward even more. Failing the swipe, Simon went for a thrust into Balthazar's stomach and Balthazar caught Simon by the wrist. Before he could wrench the wrist back and knock the blade out of his hand though, Simon dropped the dagger in his left hand and caught it in his right. It was an impressive move and for that alone it surprised Balthazar long enough that Simon's next swipe actually cut into the mage. Balthazar recoiled back a little, his mutation already working to burn shut the area he'd been cut. Simon, confident now that he'd drawn blood, pushed forward with a downwards swipe and this time Balthazar exercised his superior speed. Before the blade could even complete the path it was meant for, Balthazar delivered a fast punch to Simon's face.
His head snapped back and blood began pouring down his nose. He dropped his blade and both hands quickly covered where Balthazar had just broken his nose. He groan in pain and Balthazar delivered a hard kick to his side in order to knock him onto the ground. "You didn't think that through either, did you?" Balthazar said a little more aggressively than he'd intended before walking over to and kicking open the door. "Trooper Bean! Trooper Blanc! I have him." Balthazar called out to the other Flame Troopers who had been positioned outside. They really thought Simon would make it out of his house and run but he hadn't.
He shouldn't have locked the door.
