Rachel had grown very very fearful all of a sudden. Whenever Shendu got smarmy (or tried to), it usually meant bad things for someone. And since there weren't idiots in sight to blame, his anger was likely going to be redirected towards her.
She tensed up in anticipation and instinctively started to look for escape routes. But say what you will, she was not prepared for Shendu's big scaly supersonic ass to land on the roof she was standing on, nearly knocking her off her feet.
"So, to whose imbecility is this result owed?" The demonic sorceror snarled.
Rachel was also definitely not prepared to face Shendu's shadow rising out of the dust to loom over her and his utterly unamused tone echoing in her ears.
"Heey now, I can't be blamed for anything I didn't do," she said, dragging out the words as though handling a volatile matter. "Nor for anything I did do, really, not my fault super martial arts dude popped out of nowere and completely ruined-"
Rachel saw Shendu's expression to go the dark place. And by the dark place, she meant red eyes shining with suddenly increasing displeasure and smoke escaping from his mouth because fire was probably starting to well up his throat, like some majorly hazardous puke rolling out from one's stomach.
Rachel immediately took a step back and raised her hands disarmingly, backtracking with all the speed she could articulate words at without sounding like a giant buffon. "And what I didn't do was shoot something at the cup that was literally overflowing with malice likely because its holder was doing something, causing it to explode and release whatever the hell was inside, that stood there looking menacing for a few seconds before ripping open the sky and just leaving!"
Rachel genuinely feared for her life for a second, because that didn't seem to pacify the demon sorceror.
On his side, Shendu resisted the urge to smack his hand onto his face. That and letting loose the roar ringing in his mind, heeding the little voice telling him to burn everything to the ground, then proclaim himself the apocalypse and the ruler of all, demand rightly tribute payed to him before he assured the safety of the citizens as tyrant-protector, and go home and call it a day.
The almighty demon sorceror of fire instead limited himself to groaning deeply, his shoulders slumping.
Rachel didn't have the time to internally sigh in relief (she didn't think showing that kind of reaction would help any, and better not to stoke the fire now that it was coming down) before Shendu turned his frowning head towards her.
"Find the responsible then," he ordered simply.
Rachel winced again, the most recent time that day. She looked at her boss, who had proceed to look away in some vague direction up.
Shendu thought he had seen something cross his peripheral vision above them. His sharp eyes caught the shape of a giant crow, flying away from the epicenter of the mess he oh so wished to know the reasons for at the time. To make things more interesting, it appeared to be carrying people.
And if he wasn't mistaken (and of course he wasn't, he was among the greatest of chi sorcerors) there was the distinct trace of magic about it.
Shendu rose from the cracked roof, floating up a few centimeters, then zoomed away in a yellow blur. The air whistled with his sudden departure, the wind physically unbalancing Rachel once more.
The mercenary's eyebrow twitched as she contemplated recent events. She decided not to think too hard about it and made an exasperated gesture with her arms before heading back down.
Shendu cut the air like a golden meteor, overtaking the bird in flight as it dashed past, and with a sharp turn came to a frozen halt directly in its path.
