Ash stood straight glancing around as the other bandits dropped around Vivian and himself. In total there appeared to be ten bandits now, five on him and the other five on Vivian. A small smirk toyed with the corner of his mouth; while he was supposed to protect Vivian, he hadn't been in an outnumbering fight in a while. Ash placed his sword in front of him ready to block the attacks.

As the leader commenced the attack on him Ash watched as the five men rushed him with their daggers drawn. Quite obviously outnumbered Ash knew he would have to pay close attention or pay a devastating price. His booted foot suddenly made contact with one of the bandit’s stomach, as he threw a hard kick in one direction sending that bandit to the ground clutching his gut. Ash then brought his free hand up causing it to collide with another bandit’s face as he tried to take advantage of the position Ash stood in. It ended badly for the bandit as he was knocked to the ground as well.

Ash turned his attention to the remaining three bandits but he didn’t have much time to react to their next attack. The leader of the group lunged at him his dagger arching sideways through the air as he tried to slice the knight. Ash shifted his footing to the right trying to avoid a deep slice into his side, knowing that he would have to take a little bit of a hit in order to bounce back. The blade of the dagger bit slightly into him, causing a small slice on his left side just below his ribcage. While he had been expecting the blow and had dodged the worst of it, it was the sharp stabbing and stinging sensation around the wound that caused him to worry. [i]”His blade is laced with poison! If he stabs one of us… it’s all over.”[/i] Ash realized as he looked to Vivian now as the men tried to approach her, she stood in a position like she was going to defend herself, but she had no weapon that he could see. He couldn’t focus on her fight for too long however as one of the other bandit lackeys lunged at him. This one Ash easily stepped back from and brought his long sword upwards, catching the blade of the dagger and knocking it from the bandit’s hand as he lost his balance from the force of the swords blow. Ash took the chance to kick the man in the face and send him back near the other bandits he had knocked out.

Then there were two. The two remaining bandits circled Ash, the leader of the group smirking widely knowing that he had manage to injure the knight a little bit, and the longer the fight kept on the weaker he would become. Suddenly the ear piercing scream that came from the bandit that had tried to approach Vivian drew both Ash’s and the leader’s attention over. Ash watched the man withering in pain on the ground trying to process what the woman had done to him. Deciding taking action was better than asking questions at that point Ash slashed his sword horizontally at the leader’s stomach, hoping his blade would catch the man and leave a somewhat deep slice across his stomach to render the man immobile. As Ash tried to fight back the situation turned worse, as a loud feline like howl echoed through the woods. It was the sound of a Hystop, a feline like creature, similar in appearance to a bobcat, with a spotted coat similar to that of a jaguar. They were quite territorial with other animals but tended to avoid humans, except for lately. Much like the other creatures that suddenly turned violent that Hystop that lived in these woods had as well, and it sounded like the bandit’s scream had alerted it to the human presents in the woods.