Seriously? He's Looting?

Ahead of the three Monster girls lay the main hall of the church. Several of the regularly spaced wooden pews with their individual cell markings had been knocked over by projected stones, and the sound of the crash still echoed slightly in the cavernous worship space. The place felt almost abandoned, with merely a couple men in black robes adorned with the symbol of the church scurrying rapidly out of sight as the women stepped gingerly through the wreckage. Right in the middle of the hall sat a small cart with a potted plant on it.

Sans nearly gasped in horror at the suffering on display. The plant had been twisted almost beyond recognition. While seeing the blight in the wild had been hideous, seeing the source, and the torture that the plant had been through brought a rage to her that she had never felt before. The plant had been violated, because there was no other word for it. Its pollen had been twisted from a subtle beckoning to a raging signal fire that proclaimed pleasure to all who partook. Its leaves and stems had been forced into shapes that were completely unnatural, and held patterns that reinforced the attraction. It was like the thing had been created solely to attract an insect. The plant equivalent of a lobotomized sex slave. And it was barely alive. It had been ripped from the ground, and placed into a pot with no thought, a second violation on top of the first.

"Where is he?" Sans snarled, scanning the room. Where was the bastard hiding? Where was...

The main doors at the far hall pushed open and soft footsteps entered. A small man confidently entered, speaking rapidly to two of his subordinates who followed rapidly. Their hands were filled with bags, and they looked nervous under their robes.

"Make certain when we get to the castle..." The Sallow face of a man in symbol of the Holy Brand, adorned with numerous stripes and swirls wide with shock for a second. Just one second, as his eyes took in the three angry Monster Girls, the distance between himself and the cart, and his proximity to the door.

"You hold them off, I'll go get help."

He spoke authoritatively, grabbing a bag from each of the men at his side and slamming the large door at the end of the hall loudly after he ran through it. The two men left standing in the room also took in the situation, albiet a bit slower. The first loose stone knocked out of the way by Ketsueki on her approach seemed to make the decision for one of them, who dropped his remaining bag and sprinted towards a side door. The other lasted until the first whip crack made by Sans before doing likewise.

"You want to go after him?" Xitlaly asked, moving quickly towards the cart. "Or do we deal with this..."

"I can't touch it, it's bound somehow..." Sans groaned, reaching out to try to coax the plant, to heal it. There was something blocking her.

"Huh?" Ketsueki paused her steps. She had begun to run after the fleeing men, eager to inflict some punishment, when the word bound came to her ears. Yeah, that binding, that was her mom's work, all right. "Crap, gotta clear that off or at least nullify it a bit." She spun on her toes and leapt over the pews, coming down next to Sans much lighter than either of the other women had expected.

"Uhm, can I borrow that whip of yours?" Ketsueki extended her hand to Sans, who didn't ask any questions, merely handing the item over to her friend.

"Okay... so..." The oni brought the whip down with an expert motion along one of the stems of the plant. It was a direct strike on a small piece of the pattern, Xitlaly noticed, and the strike marred what looked like a hook in the intricate weave of flower.

Sans felt the relief from the plant immediately as the binding flew apart. It had been held together by one tiny strand, and Ketsueki's strike had completely freed it. The plant felt sick now, and its leaves began to collapse. Sans wanted to try to coax more life into it, to try to repair what this group of fiends had done, but she could feel no will to continue. As the binding unraveled, so did the plant, and she realized that what had kept it bound had been all that kept it alive.

"It's dead," Sans whispered. She felt the poisonous smell leaving the air, a smell that she hadn't even realized was there. It had been fueling her anger, her rage, her desire... And it was gone now. It had been like walking into a stable. For a moment you notice the smell, but then you don't as it becomes more and more of a background odor. Only with it's absence did you again notice it. "But it wasn't really alive any more."

"Oh you have GOT to be kidding me," Xitlaly groaned, opening one of the two bags at her feet. "It's... it's money. Nothing but money."

"And he ran with two bags of it, rather than keep his scheme going," Ketsueki sighed. "Okay, so we give one of those to Mom to smooth things over, and then I take the other one to cover our expenses... Minus a fee to our lovely travel witch, I might add."

"What about the blight?" Xitlaly asked, holding up one of the shining coins. It didn't fix things, but there was a lot of fixing that it would pay for.

"It's over," Sans breathed easily. "I can feel it in the air, Can't you?" She inclined her head back, letting the air rush from her. Yes, totally over, just the sheen of filth that would be washed away with the next storm. The fire that had been started was out.