[u][b]Al[/b][/u]

[b]"Apologies, I expected most here to be speaking the local tongue, you know."[/b]

"I just got here." He retorted with annoyance as he caught a statue man's weapon and crushed it's head with a back-elbow strike. Taking the weapon out of it's hand he used it to stop a crude blade before kicking a statue square in it's stone chest, sending it tumbling back into a heap of it's friends.

[b]"Okay okay, listen to me, everyone! I am...uh...Klara! Klara Grimmolfdottir! And I am here to help!"[/b]

He really didn't care about what she was going on about.

[b]"These are no mere Oni statues! These are statues possessed by the souls and disembodied ki of dead Oni warriors. We are not sure who or what is responsible, but we do know that these souls can keep possessing new stone bodies and coming back indefinitely until the culprit behind this resurrection is put down!"[/b]

Al halted briefly, considering her words with a brow furrowed in thought.

[i]Oni... Is that the Japanese word for statue dude?[/i] He wondered, briefly stirred from thought by a light bo-staff strike to the head. He spun around and crushed the Oni's leg with a sweeping cut kick. As for the rest of what she said it was pretty much nothing that wasn't readily obvious already.

[b]"Help is on the way, but we need to hold firm and defend! As long as we are still fighting, the Oni will come for us and not the civilians! We stand our ground, and maybe whoever is behind this will show their face!"[/b]

"Fight more, got it." He replied tersely. His head turned as he heard some kid yelling in Japanese real close by. Well crap, he couldn't just leave these guys to rot now. After all, the center was rather light with activity by comparison to the rest of the arena. It was about time he got back into the thick of things.

_
With a great leap with his powerful legs he jumped high and smashed down into an oni with a diving kick, crushing it's shoulder and sending it careening into the other one beside it. With the last oni standing unable to disengage with the kid with the big red sword he grabbed it by it's right arm and swung it over his head, letting go at the end of his arc and sending it flying into the two oni pileup he started. With a crash of stone upon stone the middle oni was smashed between the two. Bringing his foot up he stomped down, finishing the last two off by driving his foot through them.

He looked over at the battle-weary young guy and the girl he stood over. The guy was a pretty standard looking japanese fellow clad in the typical nomad chic. The girl was a pretty cute white girl dressed up in fairly basic street clothes, a sensible choice of apparel. She certainly stood out in the crowd of weirdos in various combat costumes.

"Hey!" He gave a short shout to get the guy's attention although it was likely he had it already. He pointed to the prone girl and then up to the cluster of Maverik soldiers shooting at onis. He sure hoped that brief motion indicated [i]Take her up to those guys so she's safe[/i] because there was no way he was going to be able to convey something like that in Japanese.

With that he stepped in, catching an oni's club before it could reach the Japanese guy's face. Grabbing the oni by it's arm he turned and with a mild grunt he flung the statue right at the base of the small mountain of oni bodies piled up in the center of the arena. He was going to see to it these two made it safely while grabbing anyone who was still alive along the way so he could bring them back to the Maverik line of defense. it was the least he could do in a situation like this.