A day on the town (open)

[Ryan Green]

Ahh festavels, gotta love them. A time for the masses and government alike to lose themselves in the festivities and forget that things like "economic turmoil" and "war looming on the horizon" even existed. Not that he could blame them really, everyone needed a distraction every now and again. The only problem with escapism is if one indulged it too much than was helpful.

Walking down the streets, Ryan looked at all the shining lights and vendors trying to sell their wears. Buying a back of sweet rolls and promptly devouring one, he had to admit that he was having a good time here. He wondered if he would run in to anyone interesting enough to make the evening even more exciting? Going by his luck, he probably would.

[ruma]

The end of the world was at hand, the apocalypse was upon them, and reality itself was being shattered.

Ruma had gone outside.

She had heard something about a festival, and how her brother and sister were participating in single combat in a tournament of sorts. As such, it seemed appropriate that she show up.

However, the Gerudo princess had managed to very easily get herself lost.

Wandering through the crowds, looking for her destination, the short one with the helmet glanced over some of the stalls, trying to find her way. She didn't really have time to admire the many vendors and their wonderful wares. Or rather, she did have time and just didn't think she did. She just wanted to find her brother and sister and wish them well.

[Caramon Zero]

As I wander the streets, I try to remember the description that one of the Gerudo women had given me of their princess that was not participating in the tournament who wanted to find her way there to cheer on her siblings.

From what I can remember, she's short and wears a helmet almost all the time, so she should be pretty easy to spot, right?
Wrong.
With all of these people walking to and fro, I have trouble even keeping my bearing, let alone keeping an eye out for a short girl in a helmet.

After resting near a stall, I see a short girl wearing a helmet walk up to the vendor and look around as if she were lost.

There's no way it could be this easy to find her, could it?
Oh well, you never know unless you try...

I stand and turn to the girl looking her in the eyes despite our difference in height, and with a bow I introduce myself.

I take it that you are Lady Ruma?
One of your subordinates sent me to escort you to the tournament grounds.
If you wish, I can take you there by either land or air, the method of travel being your choice milady.

[Ryan Green]

Continuing his merry walk, Ryan made his way in between the stalls and vendor's booths before coming upon a familiar sight. Caramon. Upon seeing the man Ryan stopped abruptly, unsure of how to handle the situation. On the one hand the man was a confessed criminal, on the other hand he was enjoying himself and didn't want to be bothered with chasing him down. He pondered the issue for a few moments before coming to a realization: He was the Human Champion, A Leader of an entire race people. It would be expected of him to delegate SOME responsibility, right?

With that in mind, he walked up to a local guard and informed them of who he was and what the situation was. In no time at all there were a small squad of Guards in the area, one of whom walked up to Caramon and tapped him on the shoulder, saying



With the guards on the case, Ryan moved to get the young Gerudo lady out of the way, lest any violence break loose. "Miss, for your own safety please come with me, this man is a known criminal and he might resist arrest."

[ruma]

Ruma looked over her shoulder to find a Caramon Zero hovering around her, offering to escort her to the tournament grounds. Fortunately there was still time to get there. However, before the lady even had a chance to respond, a squad of guards were apprehending an apparent fugitive. Wait a sec...Caramon was a criminal? The man couldn't harm someone if a sword was to his neck.

As she was being pulled away, she threw off her assailant, or at least she thought he was, before turning to face Ryan. "I assure you, the man is harmless. In fact, I'm pretty sure he is actually incapable of harming people." She put a hand on her chin, beginning to ponder. "I wonder if it's possible to break him. No, I'm pretty sure it's impossible. Though nothing is impossible, though I don't think I can actually alter his thinking with a gadget. Unless I planted a pirate's stone in his head somehow, then I could send him subliminal messages. That might require some heavy conditioning though." She had completely forgotten about the situation at hand and began to ponder the possibility of breaking Zero and making him violent. There just had to be a way, right?

[Caramon Zero]

I jump a bit as the guard sets his hand on my shoulder and bellows at me.
As I turn around, I notice a multitude of guards around me, then I spot someone I'd not seen in some time.

Ryan, I knew that had to be you!
How're you doing old friend?[/b][/size][/color]

I try to reach out my hand to shake his, only to be stopped by the guard in front of me pointing his spear at me.

I turn back to the girl with a twinkle in my eye and a smile on my face as she says those words, then my eyes dull and my shoulders sag after hearing her ideas on how to turn me into some kind of killing machine.

Lady Ruma, please don't talk about me like I'm some kind of new toy...[/b][/size][/color]

Moving my attention to the guards, I find a small opening between a few of them, and decide it best to not try to run for it, and instead go ahead and see what I can do to try and convince Ryan to let me escort the lady to the tournament grounds without having to hurt anyone.
Looking him in the eyes with a confident gleam in my own, I speak to him once more.

Ryan, I it's the festival, can this please wait until some other time?
This is supposed to be a time of merriment and joy, not of work and political problems.
I hope you don't mind, but I intend to have a good time at the festival, whether you like it or not.
So please allow me to escort the lady to see her relatives in the competition, and we can settle this thing later, alright?
Come on Ryan, just this once, please?[/b][/size][/color]

[Nightmare Darklight]

"Now hoooooold it right there, Champion." A suave, handsome voice called out to the three of them. It turned out that yet another interloper had decided to interfere. But who would it be? Why, none other than the Emperor of the world the Ainur himself, Nightmare Darklight. So what in the world could he be doing here, in the middle of a small crowd, interfering with their problems? "I'm afraid you cannot arrest this man. The long term consequences far outweigh the short term relief." Why, it seemed that he was here to bail Caramon and little miss Ruma out of their mess.

Of course, he needed a reason, and he had one. One that dated all the way back to that fun little day at the lake. "You see, this man is the right hand man of one Merik Dragmire. You were there, Champion, now that I think about it. You saw this man outright call Merik his brother." Or had Ryan shown up after he had said those words? Well, he might have heard them off in the distance, or something. Then again, he might have been there when he said it or even before he said it. It didn't matter, as Nightmare casually sauntered on over to Caramon, moving behind him, and with his hands, gently tugged at both of his wings. "Now, it's obviously not biological, but you don't call someone you don't know your brother."

Though he wasn't quite done, he was actually still going. He still had a few more things to point out to the champion, things that would probably pique Ryan's curiosity. Nightmare moved away from Caramon, over to the guards. Not really caring about what they thought of all this. "My point is, Champion, you cannot arrest him because of Merik, as that would cause a war to break out." He took on an arrogant smirk. "Don't say he wouldn't do it. You know who he's descended from, and you know he'd jump on an excuse like this." With this, he glared at both Caramon and Ruma, his gaze clearly telling them two words; shut up.

He had one more point to make though. One that he figured could cause just a little bit of havoc. Oh sure, it would probably get Caramon off the hook, but it likely would be done in a way that Caramon, or Merik wouldn't be happy for. As he had been thinking. Why would a man so loyal to Merik so proudly proclaim himself a pirate? "But, he has proclaimed himself a pirate. But he serves Merik. Which leads me to question; who does he serve? Merik Dragmire? Or the Pirate King?" He kept his gaze on Caramon. "Or..." He moved back over, staring the hybrid in the eyes, Nightmare's gaze holding a look of sadistic enjoyment.

"Would the correct answer be both?"

[/justify]

[Ryan Green]

As much as Ryan hated to admit it (and boy did he ever) Night had a point. Caramon was a criminal, and should be arrested for his wrongdoings. Even if Ryan could empathize with wanting to stick it to the more corrupt members in the government, the law was the law, and there were consequences for breaking it. Unfortunately, there were also consequences for enforcing it, apparently. "Bloody political bullshit. . ." He muttered under his breath in frustration.

Note to self: Train personal assassination squad. All the good Leaders had one, right?

Still, he did find it interesting that a confessed criminal would openly associate with the King of the Gerudo. "First, lets get something straight kid. I don't know you, nor do I care to know you as a friend. You broke the law, and if I had things my way I would toss you in jail for it, festival be damned." He shook his head once more, wishing, not for the first time, that he could just murder someone in public and not have to worry about the fallout. "Secondly, since I can't arrest or kill you. . ." Oops, did he say that out loud? ". . .Without suffering a headache, I think you had best answer the question to try and get in my good graces, at least temporarily."

[ruma]

Oh dear, the appearance of Nightmare had made this terribly awkward. Not only did he start to reveal Merik's best kept secrets, but he asked her to shut up. That was one of the things she just couldn't do. She wanted to lie, try and expose Nightmare as a monster, and try to get Merik the Pirate King separated from Merik the Gerudo King. Truth be told though, she was a terrible liar, and would fail anyway.

Suddenly Ruma had an idea. If only she had the time to be able to carry it out. No it would take far too long, and by then everything would have died down. Ruma needed to be intuitive, and fast. Though it was already too late. All the attention was on the arrests or lack thereof, as well as her lack of preparation.

Wait a minute, she had one little trick up her sleeve. In all the commotion she stopped paying attention and went around the next corner before muttering into her helmet. For the moment, she had disappeared.

[Caramon Zero]

I look Nightmare straight in the eyes and return a smile.

I may call myself a Pirate, and even have a ship, but I just get too into character sometimes, and end up having trouble remembering which is my real job and which is the cover, so in order to not blow it, I tend to lie and tell people that I'm really a Pirate.

No one's supposed to know about this, but I got that ship from Merik for use only as a cover for my operations in service to the Gerudo King.
My real job is to collect documents from suspicious ships in the guise of a Pirate Captain so that I can help put them behind bars for any illegal activities they may be involved in.

I was instructed to act as much like a Pirate as I thought would be fitting, so after I look through the documents, trade schedules, and the like, if something's amiss in the records, I take a large portion of what money is aboard and take it to the nearest town to be distributed to the poor as a gesture of goodwill from the "Robbin Hood Pirates", since I can't just keep what I "stole" to make the act seem real.

Truthfully, I was on my way to see Merik and deliver some newly acquired documents, which I have right here, by the way,[/b][/i][/size]

I say as I pull a large envelope out of my armor, show it to them, and then replace it.

but I was asked to find this young lady and escort her to the tournament to see her siblings fight before I could find him, so I decided to go ahead and do so, since it's killing two birds with one stone, as she gets to see the fights, and I get to watch a good show before I deliver the documents.[/b][/i][/size]

After explaining myself, I turn to Ryan and offer my hand.

Just as long as no one besides us and Merik know about this, I can go about my act as if I was truly a Pirate, while also giving you the information on the most recent suspicious persons I find when you "arrest" me, that way you can catch the more slippery ones more easily.

Only you, me, and Merik will see these documents, so you don't have to worry about anything other than me delivering to you what Merik's already seen.
But if you'd like, you can "arrest" me when you see me and be the second person, after myself, to see any new documents I get a hold of before I deliver them to Merik.

Does that sound like a deal Ryan?
Or should I just let Merik have these documents to himself so he can bring these criminals to Justice on his own?[/b][/i][/size]

[Nightmare Darklight]

(OOC: Got the ok from JT)

As Caramon continued to drone on and on, Nightmare's grin continued to slowly grow. This guy was doing nothing but trapping himself, even when he had pulled out the document, all he was really doing was just making things worse. Nightmare did however, take note of the girl Caramon was with, Ruma, he believed, had seemingly wandered off during the whole situation, which likely meant that the hybrid had probably failed in his mission to keep her safe and now she was out and about wandering in the festival. Honestly, this whole thing was just coming together very well for him, and likely falling apart for Caramon at the same time.

When Caramon finished, he didn't even give the guards time to react to his words. Rather, he just cleared his throat, and pointed his finger at Caramon, letting out a shout of only one word.

He crossed his arms. This was going to be so much fun. "Where to begin, where to begin~ Oh, I got it~" Right, so what would his first point be? "First off, if you were going to do something like this, bringing it to Zelda's attention would be the absolute first thing you would do. As doing so would've kept this from happening, and it would've kept Merik out of hot water as well." This was true. If Zelda at least had a heads up, then none of this would have happened, and he wouldn't be in this situation. She was an understanding woman, she'd probably agree if she knew the whole situation.

Then... "Next up, you admit you get a little too in character sometimes. That means you enjoy being a pirate, robbing people. Ergo, you are a dangerous criminal and you need to be thrown away." If he seriously was going to admit to something like that, then there had to be consequences for doing so. "Plus, if you're supposed to go under cover, giving back to the poor is the absolute worst way to keep up the act. You'd be slaughtered by other pirates unless you had some sort of connection to the Pirate King to keep that from happening." Nightmare explained. "I don't think I need to explain that such a connection would exist if Merik and the Pirate King were one and the same." He made another accusation of Merik being the pirate king. He agreed that he wouldn't directly attack him. He never said anything about letting others get him into hot water, which was exactly what Caramon was doing.

But, there was one little thing that further gave Merik a connection. Remember, he had showed up just as Ryan was about to make a big arrest. He had heard the bickering of the whole thing. And there was one thing that Nightmare had managed to pick up on. Well, more than one thing really. "In fact, when I arrived, this Lady Ruma was going on about planting a pirate's stone in this jackass's head." Nightmare pointed at Caramon. This was followed by another explanation. "Plus, Caramon had specifically stated that Ruma had relatives in this tournament. The fact he said relatives with an S indicates that Ruma has more than one relative in this tournament." Nightmare was onto something here. He was going to put them all in hot water, and he was loving every moment of this.

"There are only two people participating in this tournament that are related to each other, guess what their last names are." He bluntly pointed out. That would only mean one thing to the guards. "This means that this Lady Ruma is in fact, Lady Ruma Dragmire. She's a Dragmire, she has a pirate's stone if her own words are anything to go by." Granted, Caramon was pretending to be a pirate could've given his to her, or something, but that would be unbelievably stupid and would further break away from his act. However, he felt all he needed to make the big accusation. "You, Caramon, have been working for Merik Dragmire, the Pirate King this entire time!" He broke into laughter at this. But there was still more.

He looked around, noticing that Ruma was nowhere to be seen. "... And Ruma's gone, apparently. Bravo Caramon, you have failed completely. You failed to get yourself out of hot water with the guards, failing Merik. You have failed in your act as a pirate, failing Merik. You have failed to keep track of Ruma, failing Merik. You have failed to keep Merik's alter ego a secret, failing Merik. Bravo, Caramon! Perfect Game!" Nightmare grinned as he gave a slow, sarcastic clap towards the hybrid roundly mocking him with pure amusement. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go find Ruma and get her to the tournament. Poor girl got wrapped up in this, it's the least I can do for her. As for you Caramon, you are on your own." He remarked as he started to wander off to look for the girl but not before he turned back to face Caramon, walking backwards, he wasn't done yet.

"Breakin' rocks in the, hot sun! I fought the law and, the law won! I fought the law and, the law won!" Nightmare let out another fit of laughter after the brief bit of singing, before turning his back to the rest and continuing his search for the little Dragmire.

[/justify]

[Ryan Green]

Ryan watched with a degree of detached amusement as Nightmare went through Caramon's story, blasting it apart bit by bit until there was nothing left but rubble and a smoking corpse. He had to hand it to Nightmare, never let it be said that the man didn't know how to make a fool out of someone's flawed reasoning. Ryan could respect that level of common sense, even if Nightmare did like making a show out of it for his own entertainment.

Still, all bravado aside, the point was made. Merik was committing crimes against the people of Hyrule by basically running a major criminal empire alongside his normal responsibilities as the Leader of the Gerudo. They had effectively committed an act of war against the people of Hyrule and the other races united under that banner. It could even be considered treason under some contexts.

Ultimately, the point was moot if it was an Act of War or Treason. The point was that a crime had been committed by a major political power, and his right hand man had more or less confessed the deed through his blundering attempts to lie about it. It was time for Justice to be Dealt with Swift and Brutal Efficiency (yes, Ryan was aware that he was assigning Capitol Letters to his words mentally)

Unsheathing his sword, Ryan gave a small sigh. Was it really so hard for people to be cooperative and work with each other instead of for their own personal power? He could see and understand the motive behind it, but it still confounded him. "Caramon Zero. You stand accused of committing the crime of piracy against the people of Hyrule. You will surrender your weapons and come peacefully to be jailed. Failure to comply with this command will result in your immediate execution." The die was cast, let it land where it may.

[ruma]

Ruma wasn't entirely sure how bad this was going to be for Merik. She was not privy to the finer workings of his small empire, nor did she wish to. She had her scrap metal, and plenty to do her projects, and that was what mattered. A quick few words back into her helmet and it would appear nothing had changed, it didn't make any difference. Some seemed it better to just turn their heads.

Nightmare seemed to have gone off to look for her, doing the job Caramon was a bit too preoccupied to do. He passed her little corner, singing about the law. She grinned, having recognized the song from some of the Gerudo in the fortress.

Emerging from her corner, she waltzed up behind Nightmare and continued his song. "I needed money cuz...I had none. I fought the law and the law won. So what exactly just happened? I don't...uhhh...keep up with these sorts of things, but you seem to be in a good mood." In all honesty, she knew the face of Nightmare Darklight, but she knew little about his stance in the world. Perhaps he reveled in seeing Merik's downfall, she just wasn't sure.

"Let's just head over to the tournament. I don't want to miss it." She walked away from the scene with the monster emperor, in the midst of turmoil things would become interesting.

EXIT[/u][/i]

[Caramon Zero]

I unsheathe my sword and plunge it into the ground before unclipping my gauntlet from my belt and setting it on the swords handle.

I don't want to cause any more trouble for you, so I don't intend to run, but I do intend to make sure that all this is resolved in a peaceful manner despite what the other guy said.
I'll give myself up, but I won't let you give blame to others that is due to myself.
I may fail my friends, my people, and myself, but I will never fail to do what I believe is right.
I swear this upon my sword.[/b][/color]

I set my hand on my blade after saying this, pull it our of the ground, and hold it in my hands, extending it to Ryan.

I entrust myself into your care.[/b][/color]

I hold out my hands to be shackled so that this whole matter may be resolved.

EXIT

[Ryan Green]

Ryan blinked. That was it? Total surrender? No muss, no fuss, just complete compliance?

How very disappointing.

He had expected to have to deal with Caramon proclaiming himself a Champion of Justice! One who fought for the people or some other kind of speech that the hero-types liked to give when their bubble was burst and they came face to face with a cold harsh dash of reality. Although from what he could tell Caramon didn't seem too aware of just how much trouble he was in. It didn't matter what your intentions were, no one was above the law. If you commit an act of war against the nation of Hyrule there will be consequences of epic proportions.

"You can do whats right as much as you want, so long as its in accordance with the law." He said, gesturing to the guard to put the manacles on Caramon's wrists. "This wasn't, so you have to deal with the consequences of your actions." Having secured the cuffs, the guard looked uneasily at Ryan, who gave the man a reassuring look. "Go, I'll take care of the fallout from this."


OOC
And since there is really nothing left to do, and Caramon has already started his jail thread: EXIT