Stuck in the rain

Relius paid the frightened kaka little mind as it continued its' flight from Arakune. In the grand scheme of things he was meaningless. That was not to say Arakune was crucial, but he did possess certain benefits. Even as the blob expanded in the air, Relius was already backpeddeling with graceful steps to avoid the creature. Once he was well out of harms way, he gave his cape a stylish flip to reveal his left arm. Bringing his fingertips up to his face, he adjusted his mask and ran his fingers through his hair once before finally addressing his former captive. "Your escape was certainly unexpected Arakune. However, it is easily remedied." Smirking arrogantly, he snapped his fingers and a telporal rift appeared over his right shoulder. From within the depths of that swirling vortex emerged Relius' own personal puppet, Ignis. The crimson cyborg stood alongside its' master silently staring at the amorphous monstrosity. "As an indulgence, I will allow you the oppurtunity to come quietly. Should you refuse, I will take you by force."

The black waterfall struck the rooftop and soon spiralled back into its original size and shape, a bladed whip of bone extending from Arakune's shoulder almost immediately and writhing experimentally around.
No.
With this, Arakune launcded three shards of bone - accompanied by a swarm of bees - directly at Relius and his puppet. Meanwhile, a myriad of large beetles scattered from Arakune's base and began to cover the rooftop.
Last time I was caught by surprise. That won't happen againNoNoNoNo!

The stance that was taken was flight, primary to what Professor Kokonoe had told him clearly, it wasn't that his life was terribly important to her, but of course he was another prospect of evolution; an obsolete relic of sorts that had been put into a modern form. He was the sole survivor of an attempt to make one's body strong enough to face the Black Beast. He had potential for growth and with his modifications was much stronger than his previous incarnation. But still, as all senses and his own experience in the field taught him: No targets with powers above moderate were for him to face.

He took the time to retreat and leapt from the windowsill, using the Artifice Core Defense Mode to flee; all efforts towards remaining in one piece. He had no serious damage and was lucky to escape with a few glancing scrapes, with this in mind he fled clear to the area; he could tell that this creature and this strange man and his doll/partner/puppet...whatever it had been, it smelled of a weapon greater than what he had. It was something like Iron Tager's scent..? No...not at all, it was just a smell of something that he'd caught wind of. More approximately the 'smell' wasn't actually a smell as much as it as something that set off a sense in him, a knowing animal instinct.

His mind drifted slightly as he took off well down the street, around the first block, just making some distance first before he'd rush back to base.

Relius raised an eyebrow at the creature's assault. He was obviously wary of the Alchemist after their brief confrontation in teh sewers. That was a good thing, fear was easy to manipulate, especially in the midst of combat. When the bone sharps flew towards Relius, Ignis stepped forward to shield her former husband, her metalic forearms easily deflecting the sharps away from the Alchemist without leaving a scratch. Next, her large hands seemed to flatten into two large plate-like forms akin to flyswatters. As the swarm of bees approached, Ignis spread her arms wide before smacking them together, cruching the insects between her wide palms. All that was left to deal with was the encoming swarm of beetles and Arakune himself. For that, Relius himself would need to take action. Ignis hopped backward at his mental command and Relius dropped to one knee, placing his artificial right hand on the rooftop. The transmutation circle on the back of his hand glowed a bright blue as he summed his vast knowledge of alchemy and caused half the rooftop to transform into brittle sand. Left with no structural integrity, the ground beneath Arakune and his beetles gave way and left them to the merciless forces of gravity.

Once they were in free fall, Relius would transmute once again, this time altering the floor below the roof. He would shape it into a sphere of pure stone to entrap the blob once more. With this Clover revealed the source of his monkier as The Alchemist. While many studied the art of alchemy and transmutation, none could match his utter mastery of the art in combat, much less his theoretical knowledge of it.

Arakune chuckled, then shrieked in amusement, his form thinning out and passing between the very dust molecules, soon clearing the area above the stone sphere and landing safely away from it, a few living beetles landing beside him while the others were absorbed into the sphere and began to chew at it with their powerful mandibles.

Scientist! Ars Magus is this? He asked in his broken-up but still understandable voice. With hunger, he glanced at Ignis and bubbled a little, remembering having tasted the Nox Nyctores Nirvana at one point and becoming curious as to the taste of this new...thing.
He imagined it would be stringy, but empowering.
Hornets next, spread out in a thin, infested cloud. An individual bite could inject a large amount of pheremones into Relius, attracting other, larger insects to attack.
They swarmed at him.

His sphere of stone completed it's formation and slowly contracted itself, crushing the insects trapped within before crumbling to sand. With the horde of flying bugs approaching, Relius swirled his cape about himself and transmuted once again, this time forming a pyramid of stone around himself as a barrier against the puny pests. Cut off from Arakune, Relius was far from out of the fight. Often compared to his son as a combatant, Relius was in fact far more experienced and skilled in the use of his puppet. Tied to Ignis, he could control her without words, without eye contact. It may be a bit of a stretch to say their were two parts of a whole in combat, but only just. With Clover safe and sound from the insectoid onslaught, Ignis rushed in towards Arakune without reason to fear his little pets. Her right arm was pulled back briefly before extending outward in a blindingly fast jab at Arakune's center of mass. True, the blob had no real skeletal system to break but the laws of physics still applied to him. Kinetic energy was transferred more easily in a liquid or amorphous substance such as Arakune meaning that he would definitiely feel the power behind Ignis' blow. Furthermore, insanity or not, Arakune was the same as everything else in that he could tolerate only so much punishment before buckling. That much had been proven during their first encounter.

"Better to flee than to make myself bait...alright, I'm outta here, Nyuu." even though it wasn't necessary to speak this to oneself, kageo did, the kaka felt better stating his thoughts aloud as if for some extra sort of clarity. He noticed that the combat zone would only grow heavier, as neither of these two were small handed, the efforts of either side seemed almost tame by comparison.

But finally turning tail from the site of combat, Kageo headed flush away from the port, as the zone of battle became a distant memory for him. He wasn't sure if he should head for the lab just yet, but any place was better than here...that was what he considered. With Kagennotsuki awakened, it would not allow itself to go back to its sealed state as long as his Core Defense was active, so he just kept it out...using the energies it fed into his body to aid his dash. Finally now he pulled away enough to escape.

(Exit.)

OOC: I apologize but waiting around this long for a post is a bit much. Consider this my departure from the topic. I'll simply chalk it up to Relius losing interest in re-capturing Arakune when other options are viable.