World Tree MUSH

    Travel makes for interesting places, but sometimes the places are boring. The tech here is pretty cool, being a couple decades ahead of 'modern Earth' and getting flashy screens and scrolling text on walls. But things are still familiar-looking. The phones look odd but are clearly phones, the cars different designs but clearly cars. It's pretty familiar and tame, and the 'cool tech' is pretty peaceful.

    It's also a bright and sunny day... so the sudden shadow over the sun is notable, like a cloud in the previously-cloudless sky rolling past. Then come the sirens, and screech of cars swerving away from the giggling, tiny green-skinned creeature riding a graffiti-strewn hoverbike zooming down the street the wrong way!

    Between lacking a driver's lisence and being an interdimensional nomad, Sieger doesn't really get to take advantage of any of the cool vehicles littering this particular world. Hell, he doesn't even get to take a hovercab or anything, on account of his only method of acquiring the local currency being... er... Well, let's just say he's not exactly qualified for a legitimate job around these parts.

    But, he does get to walk along the sidewalk besides the road reserved for the futuristic vehicles. Hands stuck into the pockets of his leather jacket, he strolls all-too-casually along there-- up until he hears the telltale sirens and the roar of a hoverbike's engine coming down the way on the road that it really shouldn't be. Having not really paid before, his head twitches up to peer down over to the general direction of the approaching rumble. "...Eh?"

    This place is fairly cosmopolitan, so offworlders are treated well. Nobody bats an eye at the dated outfit that Sieger is wearing! Though it appears offworlders aren't incredibly common, either, huh?

    A few screams, a lot of screeching and turning away to get out of the way, that's happening! But worse is the GROUP of battered hoverbikes zooming after the first, and the rapidly-growing clusters of little three foot goblins that are popping up everywhere, coming in on large and rusty-looking transports. From the sound of it this is happening all over town. Most are dirty green goblins, but a few have darker or lighter tint, and some are more orange or fleshy pink even! One particularly large one climbs up on a car, firing a blast of light into the air from his odd-looking pistol. "Yo! My boys are gonna have a little party tonight and the next few days! 'Till we get bored, this is our town now, got it?"

    Of course something like this ended up coming along. Sieger never seems to manage to get *anywhere* without him running into some manner of nonsense.

    This does come with the downside of Sieger likely treating this much less casually than he should be. While others are running off to directions in the general vein of 'not here', Sieger... pads his way right to the direction of that larger goblin climbed onto a car, with his hands still in his pockets.

    "...Oi," he calls out, eventually, peering up at the creature on the vehicle's roof with narrowed eyes. "Isn't this kinda cliche? Haven't you seen how this usually turns out in all the movies?"

    Squint. Glower. "Huh? Yeah! We gobbos ride off into the sunset with bags of food and our next adventure! Seen a lot of those movies!" Of course these are goblins on hoverbikes, they probably watch goblin-centric movies.

    A loud slurping sound from a soda straw comes from nearby, and the short-shorts-wearing Saber, hair up in a ponytail right now, strolls over to lean against a lamp post. "You got this one, then?" Yeah, Saber isn't about to mess with this stuff when she doesn't have a reason.

    Sieger blinks slowly. DUbiously. "... I guess we watch different movies..." He mutters. "See... usually it's just like this... a gang of hooligans comes terrorizing a town and it's citizens, right?" He gets to explaining, and sloooowly drawing his hands out from his pockets. "But just so happens a wanderin' hero's just stepped in town, and--"

    The slurping a few paces behind him draws his thoughts to wandering mid-sentence, however, and he promptly is drawn to turning his head like clockwork to peering over his shoulder towards the familiar-looking blonde. "...E-...eeeeh? You-- you're just gonna stand there and watch?"

    Sluuuuuuurp. "Huh? Well... yeah, if you have it all handled, why shouldn't I?" Probably Saber would step in if she felt the need, just because she /kind of/ likes Sieger's chutzpah. But she wouldn't admit it. "I mean, you had a pretty good thing going with telling him how it is! Keep going!" She gives a thumbs up.

    The goblin leader jumps up and down, crushing the top of the flimsy car and setting off the squealing alarm! "YOU! Bring me one of those things that she drinks!" He points to Sieger. From nearby, a handful of other goblins shout, 'Yeah!' 'Me too!' 'Me four!'

    "Eeeeehhh?!" Sieger kind of just gives a mild jaw-drop at Saber first. "I'm not just some kind of entertainment show, you know!!" He protests out, complete with an accusatory finger.

    Cue the pointing demand from the goblin, though, and Sieger slowly turns to give an outright *annoyed* look at him. "...And I'm not--" The goblin's pointing hand is grabbed by the wrist. "A WAITER EITHER!!!" With that grab, there follows a fierce pull and hoist, swinging the goblin over the young man's head in an arc that ends with a violent slam down onto the curb on the other side.

    Saber can't help snickering at the reaction, then lifts an eyebrow as Sieger grabs the surprisingly heavy goblin! Heavy, but there's still plenty of leverage to haul him over and slam the surprised creature into the ground. "NNGH!"

    That knocked a bit of wind out of the goblin, and several of the others stop demanding. "BOSS!" "BOSS!" "BOSS!"

    But... uh oh. Hauling himself up, the goblin cracks his knuckles. "Oh, we got a spunky one here all right. So, 'hero' you gonna give me a little fun then?" A fanged grin. Yeah he's not going to be a pushover.

    Saber tosses her drink away. "You gonna let him laugh that off, Sieger? I mean, I can step in if you want, but you'll owe me." She says that, but when one of the smaller ones begins creeping around behind, she's stepping to the side and punting it away. At least the fight will be fair, eh? "Just say the word, but you seemed ready to fight him alone before I showed up. What changed?"

    Oh. Oh, the goblin's getting right back up. The look on Sieger's face while his eyes follow the biker leader's rise up to his feet again does suggest he didn't precisely *expect* that.

    "Who said anything changed!" He continues his protests to Saber regardless, even while he's shifting his weight and his feet to assume a boxer's fighting stance. "Besides, you seem like the kinda person who'd pull that kind of favor to make you attend to you like a slave for a day or something like that, so I'm good thank you very much!"

    For now, he's content to just keep a reasonable distance to the goblin while circling about it, keeping watch for the first movement on it's part.

    Well there's good news and bad news here. The good news being, the leader grunts and raises his fists, instead of drawing the pistol he has tucked at his sside. The bad news is that his toothy grin says he's going to enjoy this, and he also has much more mass than his appearance suggests. "Heh, all right, human..." Actually a police cruiser has stopped nearby, but seeing the situation, they're hesitant to just shoot him, given that there are so many civilians in the way.

    Sieger probably has the right idea though. The leader is impatient, so after a few seconds of footwork, he just charges in. "GRUH!" Swinging a low fist toward Sieger! He's strong and tough, and while he can throw a punch, the upside is he doesn't seem to rely on any fancy moves or tricks. Just... don't get hit.

    "Yeah, yeah, heard it all before," Sieger mutters iwth a grunt at the goblin, with a brief brush of his thumb made over his cheek.

    His footwork continues to carry him on, sweeping himself quickly to the side and out of hte way of the charging goblin. No counterattack yet. "What I'm wondering about though is that you seemed like you'd have *fun* with this kind of thing!" He calls out to Saber in the meantime. When the goblin leader comes up for another attack, though? This time, SIeger suddenly spins himself around, and in that motion sweeps his jacket off of himself and tosses it at the goblin, with the pure intention of getting it draped over the thing's face. And only then moving on to swoop in close and guide a fierce hook into the (hopefully!) blinded hoverbiker's face.

    Saber shrugs, and shoves a goblin into a mailbox. The little ones seem way weaker. "Me? Yeah I probably would, but I'm not going to take your hero time away, I'm not that big of a jackass. Besides, you got this, right?" She grins, a wry smirk curling her lips. "I mean, so long as you don't get hit. You really gonna take him on with just your fists?"

    "GRAA-MMF!" For all the screaming, the goblin leader doesn't actually seem angry. He's just pumping himself up, but when the jacket furls around his face he stumbles, instead smashing a car door in. Those punches really DO hit hard! Sieger's counter smacks the jaw, getting him to stumble a little, but the head seems pretty hard. Unnaturally so. He flails out a backhand in response, then yanks the jacket off. Superhuman strength or not, he can't actually tear leather, at least.

    "I'm fi--" SIeger starts to protest to Saber again, but... he takes count of things. Namely Exhibit A: The smashed up car door and Exhibit B: The aching in his knuckles. Okay, so maybe fighting goblins in fisticuffs isn't quite like fighting humans in fisticuffs. "...I'm fine." Is he, though? Is he?

    At least the realization of his situation does mean that when that backhand comes, he doesn't go with his first instinct of blocking it, and instead ducks down underneath it with a little yelp before backing himself down to gain some distnace all over again. Clearly he needs to re-evaluate, but he clearly doesn't have too much time for that!

    It's a bad situation, yeah. Now with the jacket off, the goblin is approaching more slowly this time. He doesn't have a heavily polished technique, but he also has obviously been in more than a few fistfights. He isn't clumsy and flailing(unless blind, obviously), but while he isn't stupid, he also doesn't seem all that complicated.

    Then he grunts and starts moving forward slowly. Good thing it's slow though, because maybe Sieger can think of something!

    Saber finishes up with the riff-raff and sits on two of the dazed goblins. "Come on, all that talk and you're just going to punch him? Show me what you got, kid!" Even though Sieger is likely older than Saber, at least physically.

    Sieger's a street-fighter. That comes with equal measures of brute force and trickery. Unfortunately for Sieger, regular brute force isn't something that works with this kind of opponent, and there's not much to go for trickery here; his first instinct is to look for an improvised weapon, or work with the environment, but neither of those options gives him much to work with here either.

    He really didn't want to have to do this on a streetfight.

    "'Just punch'? Really?!" He complains back to Saber, though. "Not all of us can pull out a sword out of thin air, woman! Some of onl yhave our heart to work with! And me--" A few steps taken back during that spiel to maintain distance to the goblin, and of all things, he slams his hands together in fists, in time with a flash of ethereal light forming around them, bringing into being... two thick gauntlets of some otherwordly material, covering his hands and forearms all the way up to the elbows, with lion-head ornaments just over the wrists. "My heart..." Another step, this one taking him forward instead of away from the large goblin, with one gauntlet-clad fist held back, as a collection of glowing-red runes swirls around it. "--IS IN MY FISTS!"

    THis punch isn't like the last one. It carries power beyond just that of Sieger's own physical one, and that carries it with explosive force right into the midsection of the goblin. So forcefully, indeed, that bystanders might swear that the air itself around the two fistfighters rippled upon the impact.

    "Huh?" The goblin doesn't consider the gauntlets cheating... they're still FISTS after all. But they ARE a surprise to the lumbering creature lunging for Sieger, getting an inkling of danger in the grunt and widening of eyes that say 'uh oh' for an instant before the resounding THOOM of impact!

    The goblin... is not knocked out, but when he flies back and smashes into the car he'd punched before, he makes a large dent in it. Head shaking, the dazed little ogreling grunts again, then wheezes as he gets to his feet. Wobbling, his hands raise...

    Then Saber claps Sieger on the back. "See? Now that's more like it! A real punch! Guess you've got some kind of talent." She glances at the goblin who decides two on one, after that, is maybe not a good idea.

    "OY! Boys! Round up!" Looks like they're leaving.

    Sieger doesn't go for a follow-up strike after that. But when he does straighten up in his posture, he does keep his gauntlet-covered fists clenched tight still, and watch the goblin ahead of him carefully for a good moment, even ignoring the clap on his back from Saber for now.

    With taht announcement from his opponent, though, he ends up just crossing his arms for a moment, and watching them scramble. "See, that's how the movies I watched ended!" He calls out to them in a bit of a taunt. "'Till next time!"

    And only then does he turn to regard Saber, with a narrowing of his eyes. "...So, what, that whole act was just to get me to realize my talent?" He asks of her, with a long, suspicious staaaaaaaaaaaaaaare!

    ...And then, out of the blue, that squint lessens, and he flashes a wry smile. "I knew it," he proclaims, unfolding his arms and letting the gauntlets dissipate into mana-dust so he can reach up and tap his finger against the very tip of Saber's nose. BOOP! "You *do* like me."

    The stare gets a rakish grin... and the noseboop crosseyes. "Hey now, let's not go overboard to LIKE or anything!" Saber huffs, turning around. "But you're close. I wanted to see what you could do if you were pushed a little. And it was pretty funny to watch!"

    She grins, "But yeah, got no interest in seeing you turn to paste. I mighta let him knock you around a little more than he did, but I know humans are fragile, I'd have stepped in if it looked real bad. C'mon, I'll get you a burger for winning the fight."

    Sieger's eyes sparkle with pure amusement at Saber's reaction to his accusation. "Mmmhmm, whatever you say~," he chimes, sticking his tongue out in a teasing little gesture briefly. Only to end up giving a bit more of an indignant bump of his elbow against her side. "Who's funny? I told you already I ain't no entertainment show!"

    He goes on over to pick up the jacket he threw off earlier, and slips his arms into it's sleeves with a peek back to Saber. "Yeah? You payin'?"

    Saber laughs, almost barking it. "Yeah sure, it's nothing compared to my food budget. Master gets kind of annoyed even though- uh, anyway." She waves a hand. "C'mon, the cops can clean up the mess." So carefree. But it looks like it's a meal and one more night safe.