Follow Your Nose <Earth Kingdom>

[iikagen]

Iikagen had just finished breaking in his cell's chamber pot and was tying the drawstring of his pants when he heard a familiar voice through his window. The first few words were lost on him, but after finishing the knot and hoisting himself up to look out through the bars, he could see June down in the street on her shirshu.

"-judging by how long you're gonna be there, "buddy" might not be a good term to use after awhile. Have fun, suckers!" she called, cracking her whip and spurring her mount down the road and out of the city.

The Igni dropped from the window the moment she started away, his expression one of minor amusement. Iikagen huffed slightly in laughter, and began untying his sarong from the bars. From what he'd heard, June had left more than just him behind. And considering the last few days, she could only be referring to Sun.

She had betrayed him AND that unreliable Earth Kingdom traveler! How deliciously evil. It at that moment exactly that Iikagen decided he would have to marry this woman. However, while his mind was off pondering their wedding night, he had replaced his sarong around his waist and had settled down into a seat against the wall.

First things first... He had to get out of this cell. Luckily, he'd had a feeling that something like this might happen and had spent the last three days contemplating possible methods of escape. All that remained was whittling down what was possible given the current circumstances. The cell was just a little too wide for him to pull off the method that got him out last time. It seemed like he would have to trick the guards into opening the door....

[sun]

As if by divine fate, or more likely a convenient plot hole, there was the sound sound of something clumsily making it‘s way up the stairs. The shambling rythem was punctuated by a sound reminiscent of that made by a gourd bouncing on the floor.

Moments after the sounds slowed to a stop there was a jingle of keys and the door swung open. Appearing stomach first was stooped over figure of a man who had eaten more than his fill for the last decade. Behind him he dragged the still limp figure of Sun by the ankle. A series of lumps and bruises revealed that the melon sound was likely Suns head being dribbled against the steps.

The large man passed Iiky’s cage an wrinkled his nose as if smelling a latrine though his own smell seemed bad enough to make a rock cry. “Damned disease ridden Igni,” he muttered under his breath as he tossed Sun into the cage with gentalness afforded to a stained rug.

[iikagen]

Iikagen's musings were interrupted by the sound of an approaching guard. As the footsteps neared, he managed to pick out the sound of a body being dragged along behind him, and out of curiosity he crawled up to the door to have a look. The Igni was laying flat on the ground with his face near the hinged slot that guards used to deliver food. He lifted it up so he could see out, and managed to glimpse a pair of boots and the motionless form of Sun. He watched as long as he could, angling his view until they were beyond sight, and then retreated back to his sitting position against the wall. From there he could here Sun being squared away in the cell next door.

After a few moments of hearing hinges creak and locks click into pace, he heard the guard pass by his cell once more. "You got company," the portly man announced, pounding the door with a fist as he passed.

"Earth Kingdom guy?" Iikagen asked, quickly and loud enough for the guard to hear. "Scruffy beard? Bad fashion sense?" he went on. For a moment he strained his ears and couldn't hear anything. Then the sound of footsteps resumed and the upper slot on his door suddenly swung open.

"Yeah," the guard said, obviously suspicious, "Friend of yours?" Iikagen did well to hide a smirk.

"I was counting on him to bust me out," he replied, shrugging his head to the side. The guard raised an eyebrow slightly, but was still quite septical of this strange islander.

"Oh?" the man remarked, "So where does that leave you now?"

"Screwed, I guess," Iikagen answered. He reclined against the wall and blew out a sigh. "But I'm still not letting joo turn me over to de army."

"Gonna do the honorable thing and take your own life?" the guard asked sarcastically, snorting somewhat in amusement. Iikagen looked at him, his expression one of resignation. "Bah... Then why don't you just do it now while you have an audience?"

A smile kept across his face as he looked at the guard. "I'm waiting for a good meal first... I want joo to have plenty to clean out of my pants when my guts go lax." Immediately after saying that with a straight face, a sputtering laugh managed to sneak out of his mouth and the guard groaned in disgust.

"Filthy creature," he heard the man mutter as he slammed the slot closed and marched on down the hall.

[sun]

When Sun’s brain was in the final process of descrambling itself after counting the number of stairs with his forehead his first thought was ‘why is everything at a funny angle.’ This of course was do to the fact that ‘The Fat Guy’, as Sun had dubbed him had squared him away without bothering to put him right side up.

With his head at a 90 degree angle and only one of his legs on the bench he began testing how well he could move. The results were amazingly crappy as he could only wiggle his left foot and his fingers, he might have been able to move his head were his entire body not on it.

“Yo, you still alive?” he muttered as a fly landed on the tip of his nose. “Ah hell,” he said as the fly made it’s way between his eyes. After several moments of trying to violently destroy the winged monster with only his eye lashes he gave up and swore vengeance against it. “Hey bird nose! You out yet?”

[iikagen]

Sitting against the wall of his cell, Iikagen could hear Sun's voice reverberating through the steel wall their rooms shared. It sounded a bit muffled, and there was a slight echo to it, but his words were discernable.

"No... no t'anks to joo," Iikagen said back, sounding sarcastic but not bitterly so. He did have a decent plan of escape in mind and he still found the entire situation wonderfully ironic, even if it was a joke at his expense. The Igni had a marvelous ability to find humor in anything. He almost had to, or else the prejudice he faced anywhere in the Fire Nation might have gotten to him.

Honestly... He might have considered shedding a tear.

Regardless, Iikagen merely spent the next few hours keeping himself preoccuppied by ignoring Sun's frequent attempts at commentary on their situation. He was given a minute-to-minute update on what limbs Sun's mobility was returning to as well as multiple pitches for escape plans. Somewhere along the line, Sun was trying to convince him that after several days, a piece of straw could whittle down the iron bars on the window.

Now Iikagen had the mental strength of a seasoned warrior, but even he was beginning to grow annoyed. For a brief moment he found sympathy with what June had done to him after the hell he'd put her through during their captivity. But that thought was shaken after several moments and he went back to considering her a traitorous wench. It was easier to hold a grudge when you didn't think about your enemy's feelings.

In any case, despite the long periods of inactivity, Iikagen was still making strides toward his own escape. Whenever he heard the sounds of the guard passing by, he quickly assumed a crossed-legged sitting position in the corner of the room and began chanting a nonsensical mantra that sounded like some arcane spiritual chant. He kept that up for several minutes at a time until the guard had left. More than once, he heard the eye slot of his door open as the guard peered in to see what he was doing. However, he did not acknowledge the guard, and merely sat with his hands still apparently bound by the ropes and his eyes closed.

Night was falling outside his window, and he decided that the time would be upon him soon to make his move.

[sun]

The fat guy waddled into the room with two bowls of what was either food or a descendant of what was once food. Approaching Sun’s cell first he noticed what appeared to be a snare of some sort had been spread out in front of the food slot with the end of it leading into the slot. Considering this was a trap that even a 3 year old could avoid the guard just shrugged and kicked the bowl through the slot. He flipped open the peep slot so he could make sure that the prisoner was alive, “I‘m not that damned stupid you damned ma… GAH!!”

The interruption of the guards response was caused by Sun jabbing him in the eyes the moment he peeked inside.
“Oops!” came Sun’s voice from in the cell, “sorry bout that.” The guard cursed and kicked the door.
“Your going to be roasted if you try that again!”

[iikagen]

Cursing bitterly, the guard vigorously rubbed his eye as he stepped up to Iikagen's cell. He bent down, intending to place the bowl of food on the ground and kick it through the slot. However, distracted by pain he fumbled with the bowl and spilled the stale rice over the floor. "Uh-oh," he said, more amused than troubled, "Looks like your food is going to have a little extra floor spice." He laughed and brushed the loose grains through the small flap along the bottom of the door.

However, just as he was about to walk on when he realized something amiss. For the last several hours, the Igni prisoner had always been making some form of noise in his cell. At first is was always just some snappy comment, but then it turned into some kind of strange chanting. Had the bastard finally lost his voice?

Just a little curious, and perhaps needing to see the Igni suffer after being jabbed in the eye, the guard opened the peeping slot and glanced into the room (keeping his eyes a safe distance away). "Hey! Igni!" he called in there, "Not gonna complain about your dinner, or is that a step up from..... What's that?" The guard narrowed his eyes as he peered into the room and witness Iikagen kneeling in its center and looking up at him. His hands were still wrapped in rope, but visible in his grip with the blade of a tiny knife. "Where did you get-?" the guard started to ask, but his words were cut off suddenly as the prisoner suddenly brought the blade to his throat and dragged the edge straight across.

"Mother of Agni!" the guard gasped, seeing a red line appear across Iikagen's neck and a sudden flood of crimson blood from his mouth. Iikagen gurgled and feel forward, slumping onto the ground like a ragdoll as he coughed and wheezed. Shocked, and uttering a stream of curses, the guard back up against the wall and then started running down the hall. He was at a loss for what to do.

Inside the cell however, Iikagen was listening carefully between his gurgling noises as the guard's footsteps faded. At that point he stopped putting on a show and spit several times to clear the blood from his mouth. His tongue was sore from the gash he'd punched through it with the knife, and for the last 20 minutes he'd been fighting the urge to swallow the blood that had been pooling in his mouth. A little blood applied to the dull back edge of the knife had created the allusion of the cut, and acting had sold the rest.

To be honest, Iikagen considered himself lucky it was dark out when he tried this. In full light the ruse might not have worked, but it seemed like the sight of so much blood had been enough to send this particular guard running for help. He almost laughed, but knew it was crucial to be patient. The Igni rolled to his side, allowing his muscles to go lax in order to continue selling his death. While he waited, he also loosened the rope on his hands so that he could slip right out and continued to spit out mouthfuls of blood to pool around his face.

Just moments later, the rushed footsteps of the guard and some other prison worker were approaching down the hall. "I don't know how he snuck it it, but I'm telling you he just slashed his own throat!" the guard told the new person. There was silence as the other person glanced through the slot at the collapsed and blood-stained form of the Igni.

"This is the one that's worth double if he's alive?" the new guard asked.

"That's what his poster said, I think."

The onewcomer cursed. "Open it up," he told the guard, "Let's see if there's any saving him." There was a sound of fumbling keys as the guard moved to unlock the latch on the door.

"I should have known to search him," the guard mumbled to himself as he searched frantically for the right key and put it into the lock. "He's been saying he'd do it all this afternoon. That and all the chanting and wierdness..." The lock clicked and the guard pulled it free.

"Wait," the other man said, "What did you say?"

Iikagen heard the suspicion in the man's tone and immediately knew it was now or never. Kicking straight off from the ground, he threw himself at the door and slammed into it with his shoulder. The lock was allready off and it swung open hard, knocking the chunky hard aside and colliding full-on with the other man. The heavy metal-plated door swung back from the impact and Iikagen continued pushing forward until it was open. The new man had been knocked back against the opposite side of the hallway and by his uniform Iikagen identified him as a firebender. That immediately became his first priority, and before the bender recover he charged at him.

Kicking off his back foot, the Igni slammed a flying knee hard into his exposed abdomen, just under his chest plate. The man gasped out a painful grunt and doubled over, where Iikagen quickly drove a downward elbow on the back of his head. The impact knocked the man senseless and he collapsed to the ground. Iikagen took a step back, his blood pumping rapidly. The pudgy guard was staring at him, horrified at the sight of the Igni. Blood covered his face and chest, making him look like he'd just feasted on a live victim (as some stories of Ignis actually claimed!) and the look in his eye promised a painful death. The man seemed to try and stammer out some kind of sentence, but no words came out and he simply turned to run.

Iikagen gave chase and quickly overtook the man with his longer strides. As he approached, the guard seemed to find his voice and finally yelled out, "HELP! Prisoner escaping!" The next instant, Iikagen caught up with him and kicked a hard horizontal sweep at his trailing foot. The force of the kicked sent the man's legs into a twist and he came crashing down hard on the floor. Iikagen was on him in an instant, holding the small knife dangerously close to his face.

The sight of the bloody blade seemed to drain the color from his pudgy face, and Iikagen was assured that he had his full attention. "Listen, fat-ass," Iikagen said, his voice deep and his eyes wide with a terrifying intensity, "Get up now and unlock dat Eart' peasant's door." The man managed to nod, and Iikagen took a step back. With surprising strength he aided in hoisting the man quickly to his feet. With a rough shove, and a threat of feeding the guard his own kidneys, the Igni managed to force his captive over to Sun's door.

"Hey, Useless," Iikagen called out to him while the guard fumbled for the the right key. "Get up... We're getting out of here." In truth, Iikagen would have loved nothing more than to leave Sun behind. Ever since his chance meeting with the man, he had grown more and more on his nerves. The only reason for busting him out as well was his potential use as fodder for the guards. There was no point in him being the first one in line if he came across a group of firebenders...

[sun]

"Get up... We're getting out of here."

Sun looked up as guard fumbled with his keys while simultaneously trying not to soil him self. He was just finishing retying his arm wrapping. Despite the violence that had just ensued, the door opened to reveal Sun calmly sitting cross legged and tugging on a knot with his teeth. By the look on his face you wouldn’t think he had been the cell for more than an hour.

“Yo, didya have fun?” he said leaning back for a moment before rolling forward between them and using the momentum to reach his feet with as little effort as possible. Stepping on and over the still gasping guard he looked at the small puddle of blood than at the blood on Iiky, “didya have to make sucha mess?” He reached down and pulled a small knife from the fire benders belt, he didn’t like using blades but even if he had his staff it wouldn’t be effective till they were inside.

“Alrighty how bout we get outa here,” he announced, punctuating it with an almost discrete kick to the fire benders temple

[iikagen]

Iikagen's left eyebrow twitched up eer so slightly at the sudden burst of motion that left the guard thudding against the wll. That was something he was hoping to do, though admittedly it was funny. Regardless, in the following moments he could hear more footsteps approaching the stairs, this time from both ends of the hall.

"Joo take that side," Iikagen said without missing a beat. "I'll take dis." He assumed Sun wouldn't notice, but he'd appointed himself the side of the hallway that led directly to the exit. He wasn't sure where the other side of the hall would take them, but part of him hoped that was where all the meanest firebenders liked to hang around when they weren't roasting prisoners alive.

Without waiting for Sun's approval, he moved him aside with a none-too-gentle shove and darted towards the end of the hall to atch the guards by surprise as they rounded the stairs. Unfortunately, they managed to reach the top before he got there, and a man with a skull-faced bender helmet spotted him. Iikagen immediately skidded to a hault, realizing he was within the benders optimum kill range, and decided it would be better to retreat for the moment. Hot yellow flames lit up the hall behind him as he pushed off the wall to get out of the line of fire.

The Igni darted right back toward his cell and took cover behind the open door. Another fire blast collided with the back of the door, but the steel plating dispersed it easily. Thinking quickly, he glanced arund the edge and saw the bender and a man with a sword approaching. The bender was top priority. But those flames did present a problem. He needed something that could stop a fireball. Something that would give the bender a moment of hesitation. Something wet....

Iikagen's eyes shifted into his cell and the chamber pot in its corner. A wicked grin spread across his features from ear to ear, and he was suddenly grateful he'd had to go earlier.

[sun]

Sun began down the hallway at a half jog. A soldier rounded the corner at the end of his side of the hall way and Sun instantly dropped, instead of stopping thought he continued running at the guard with a strange bouncing gait on his hands and knees. The guard unsure of what was happening slowed and pulled out a club as Sun closed in. When the guard began to swing down at Sun he was surprised to find Sun was already in a sideways somersault over the club. When the guard instinctively covered his head Sun rolled down his back and landed on the floor.

When the guard turned Sun was on one knee and scratching his head while looking around confused. He leaned back and looked at the guard with a frightened look. The slightly flustered guard reached down and grabbed the collar of Suns shirt. With a sound resembling that of a pissed hog monkey Sun placed a hand behind him and pushed off the floor with his left foot. Before the guard knew what hit him Sun was upside-down on one hand and using the momentum to drive his knee into the top of the mans skull.

“Oook?” said Sun balancing on one hand as the guard crumpled to the floor.

[iikagen]

The firebender cotinued his steady approach of the door, unleashing a burst of flame with each stepping punch or kick. The Igni would have nowhere to go but back in his cell. A few more steps and the bender was almost even with the door. The sword-wilding guard behind him kept a respectful distance from the flames being thrown at the door, but still he was close enough to jump in should his blade be needed.

Within just a yard or two from the door the bender had just thrown a frontkick that had blasted a powerful flame at the door, but this time it swung almost closed on the impact. Thinking that the Igni must have taken cover into the room, the bender quickly hopped forward to try and pin the door shut. However, the steel portal rapidly swung out on its hinges as the Igni charged forward. In mid-step, the bender only managed to shove out his hands and unleash a hurried burst of fire.

The flames surged to life at his fingertips, but something hit the glowing plasma before they took full form and they sizzled into whisps of smoke. The liquid that had stalled his flames suddenly splashed over his face. Wiping a quick hand over his face, the firebender prepared to throw a flaming kick in retaliation, but he suddenly realized that the pot the Igni was holding -the one whose contents were now splashed over his face- looked suspiciously like one of the prison's chamber pots.

Iikagen could see that clearly being doused in human waste had its intended effect on the bender. After hurling the contents of the jar, Iikagen wasted no time in charging in at the man. His face was contorted into an expression of shock and pure outrage, but he barely managed to squeeze out a single obscenity before the Igni slammed the fired clay pot over his head. Any sludge that remained oozed over the man's helmet, running down into his face. The force pot, coupled with the smell, drove the man to his knees where Iikagen delivered a final kick straight to the bender's groin.

Meanwhile, the man who'd been waiting to provide his fellow guard with melee back-up had taken note of the Igni's tactic and was just a little too shocked to react immediately. However, in the second or two it took for Iikagen to put the bender out of comission, the guard with the sword seemed to have lost a bit of his will to fight. The man held his sword out far forward and took a step back, assuming a very defensive posture.

Iikagen stood up straight after rolling the bender aside with his foot. He truly must have looked gruesome with blood staining from his chin to his waist, and still dripping more from the unsealed wound in his tongue. "Come on," he beckoned the guard, waving him on before spitting out a mouthful of blood that splattered the wall. The man visibly gulped, and it became apparent that he wasn't about to make the first move any time soon.

Iikagen sighed and reached for the knot of his sarong on his left hip. "I see," he said, nodding slightly while he tugged the knot loose. "Joo don't wanna fight an unarmed man... Very noble of joo." He pulled the sarong free, then rapidly folded it a few times until he had a long strip of layered fabric. "Okay," he declared, settling into a fighting stance with the sarong pulled taut in front of him, "Now I'm ready!"

The guard still didn't seem convinced, but as Iikagen took a few steps forward, the man seemed to strengthen his resolve. He still stepped back once for every two Iikagen took forward, and he'd occasionally make a slight stabbing motion forward with his sword. Iikagen kept just out of his range, and after one of the man's feints he quickly snapped the sarong forward and whipped the man across the face. He angrily slashed back with his sword, but Iikagen hopped out of range and then snapped at him again. He was doing no damage, but the guard was clearly getting flustered. His face was red, and after recieving a third slap across the face he charged forward with a diagonal cut and then a thrust.

Iikagen leaned under the cut and deftly threw his hips out of line of the thrust. However, he left his arms out, still holding the sarong, and quickly crossed his hands on the opposite side of the man's sword. The sarong looped around the man's wrist and was pulled tight by Iikagen's crossing arms. The guard tried to pull his arm back, but the Igni was already stepping forward and pulling the man's arm high with the sarong.

Iikagen placed his forward-stepping right leg past the guard's feet and then swept the sarong over and down in an arcing path. Coupled with a shrap twist of the hips, this bent the guard backwards over his extended leg. With his arm trapped, he attempted to swivel his wrist in order to cut the Igni with the sword, but Iikagen released the sarong with one hand and punched the pommel of the sword with the other. The jian was wrenched fromt he man's grip, and then Iikagen quickly pulled back up on his wrist.

Then, in a move reminiscent of a ballroom dance, Iikagen guided the man's hand up high over his head while he stepped under the arch it made. With another sharp tug downward once he'd started to turn around, the guard was forced into a sharp forward flip. The man hit the ground painfully, but that was not the end.

With the momentum he had from the spin of that throw, Iikagen decided to finish with some flare. Still on his pivoting foot, he swung his free leg out and then tucked it up as he pushed off into a tight backflip. As he came around, he opened up slightly and dropped a knee straight into the guard's chest. Iikagen could practically feel the man's ribs crack under the force of the blow, and just for show he held his hands up to his sides as he looked down the hall at Sun.

[sun]

Iiky had turned to look just in time to see Sun plant his foot into the groin of his newest opponent. As the guard groaned in a voice several pitches higher than normal he slowly tipped forward and fell to his knees revealing another guard coming down the hall with a spear. More intent on the prestige of capturing an escapee than the welfare of his now falsetto counterpart he lunged at Sun with the spear missing his comrade by inches. Unfortunately by the time the guards lunge had reached it furthest Sun was in the air with his knees brought up to his chest.

Seemingly in the same motion Sun planted his feet into the downed guards shoulder blades sending his face into the floor while propelling Sun into the air. Before the spearman could react Sun drove both his feet into his face. In dramatic fashion Sun somersaulted backwards onto his hands and feet.

Making a motion of scratching himself, Sun looked down the hallway. There weren’t any more guards that he could see but he could hear stomping around the corner. Using his foot to kick the guards spear into his hands he looked down to Iiky’s side. “This ain‘t the right way”

[iikagen]

Iikagen disentangled himself from groaning guard on the floor. The man seemed conscious, but with some broken ribs it probably hurt too much to breathe, let alone call for help. The Igni left the man to wallow on his pain as he stepped back and managed to catch a glimpse of Sun's hog-monkey-like behavior.

"Pick de bugs out of jour hair later," he called to him down the hallway. "It's time to go." The Igni scooped up his sarong and quickly tied it back around his waist as he approached the stairs. Iikagen stayed pressed flat against the wall and carefully peaked around the corner. The coast seemed to be clear and he couldn't hear any more incoming footsteps.

Without waiting for his fellow escapee, Iikagen rounded the corner and made his way down the stairs quickly and quietly. In a heartbeat he was down in the common holding room and could see a handful of the prisoners awake and at their bars. Upon seeing the bloodsoaked igni coming down the stairs, a few burst into cheers while others pleaded to be set free. It was slightly unexpected, but Iikagen managed to laugh at it. If they thought he was going to lift a finger for them, they were sadly mistaken.

He made his way to the end of the room, and the cheers turned into threats and demands for assistance. However, Iikagen was ignoring them entirely. His eyes settled on a rack of weapons against the wall. A row of half a dozen spears lined the wall and had a pair of wooden bars locking them all in place. Without a key, they wouldn't be able to be removed... At least not in one piece.

Iikagen looked over the weapons for a moment before grabbingt wo of them, one in each hand, and planting his foot against the bar that locked them in place. Pulling on each spear below the blade and pushing with his foot, Iikagen managed to snap off a 2-foot long section of each spear, including the blade. He stumbled back a step from the break, but beheld his new weapons with satisfaction. They weren't much different than the small fighting spears native to him home island. Just for good measure, he went back to the rack and snapped off a third section of spear.

[sun]

Sun was going to pass the weapons rack without bothering but some thing caught his eye. Third from the left was an eye height iron staff the exact length of his bamboo one. “Eh Holy monkey! that’s perfect, I must have it!” he said practically knocking Iiky out of the way. He grabbed hold of the bar securing the weapons and pulled as hard as he could. After having the effect of a fly moving a house and practically standing on the wall for leverage he dropped to the floor and rolled backwards. Seeming to forget their situation he sat cross legged for a few seconds in deep thought, or at least as deep as his sidetracked thought processes went.

Grabbing the spear he had taken he jammed the point into the locks ring as deep as it would go. With a short ‘hup’ sound he hopped onto the shaft of the spear as if to climb it. With a foot against the wall he began to pull back on the shaft. After a moment of nothing happening the latch bent and snapped suddenly enough to send sun face first into the floor. “Victory!” Undaunted by this this sun tore off the bar and grabbed the staff (which had been used as a punishment devise) and held it like a present.

[iikagen]

Stepping up to the door that led out of the prison, Iikagen pressed his ear against the iron-braced portal. He could hear the muffled sounds of feet and voices. Apparently there were still a few men left in their way. The Igni turned back to regard Sun, who seemed enamored with one of the weapons on the rack.

Iikagen left him to do what he pleased and headed back up the stairs with leaping strides. The guards in the hallway were still incapacitated for the most part. A few were groaning in pain, but they were no threats for the time being. Still Iikagen took the liberty of delivering a few choice kicks to the benders as he came up on Sun's old cell whose door still had the keys in the lock. The Igni pulled the keys free of the lock and then swiftly darted back down to the first floor.

He reached the holding cell area in time to see the strange Earth Kingdom man sitting on the ground with some metal staff, cradling it like a newborn. "Get jour ass up," he barked at Sun, "We're all getting out of here." A cheer went up among the men behind the bars, and they seemed to clamor toward the cell gate as Iikagen flipped through the keys for one that fit the lock.

Within a minute, over a dozen prisoners had been freed from their confines and were milling about in the holding room. Iikagen had meanwhile managed to unlock the front door leading to the entrance room, but realized that it was barred from the other side.

"Listen up!" he called out to the convicts. "We need to bust this door down! Grab the benches and start ramming!" The gni then shrank back from the spotlight as the mob seemed to take on a life of its own. They pulled the long wooden bench free of the cell and lined it up with the door. Together, half of them started heaving and battering the door. Meanwhile, Iikagen quitely motioned to Sun to stand off to the side near him. The bastard may have been annoying, but he showed himself to have some decent fighting skills.

He couldn't lose a pawn like that in the first few seconds of this breakout.