Multiverse Crisis MUSH - User contributions [en]

2969/Mad Forest

2015-09-23T02:10:07Z

Paladine: Created page with "{{Log Header |Date of Scene=2015/09/05 |Location=The Great Forest |Synopsis=Monsters are infesting part of the Great Forest. Heroes are required to clear them out! |Thanks= |C..."

{{Log Header
|Date of Scene=2015/09/05
|Location=The Great Forest
|Synopsis=Monsters are infesting part of the Great Forest. Heroes are required to clear them out!
|Thanks=
|Cast of Characters=236, 492, 726
|Tinyplot=
|Tinyplot2=
|pretty=yes
}}
{{Poses
|Poses=:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     The Great Forest is huge. Gigantically, tremendously, enormously huge. There are all types of forests found here, over incredible distances. But one particular part of the Great Forest is the site where help is needed today. Over the past few weeks, attacks by beasts not native to the area have been increasingly common. Locals want it dealt with. They're willing to pay to keep their lives, but if heroes want to do it out of the goodness of their hearts, so much the better.     The trees here are tall, dark, unwelcoming. It's the middle of the day beyond their canopies, but down here, it's the middle of the night instead. Strange noises can be heard in the distance occasionally. Rustling in the underbrush. Some of it is normal forest sounds amidst the otherwise quiet surroundings.     Some of it isn't.     No birds can be heard. None except the occasional loud hooting of owls. Chittering noises and the beating of leathery wings may also be heard sometimes.     The path is muddy, with unidentified THINGS crunching under foot (or under wheel). Honestly, this area is just creepy and unpleasant. But somewhere in here, an infestation of giant owls, and blood-sucking bats has been reported. And they'll need to be cleared out or at least reduced in numbers if the locals are going to have any degree of safety. 

:'''{{#var:492|Blurr (492)}} has posed:'''     Blurr -really- doesn't prefer these muddy, squishy, organic-y places. They're always so dirty and stuff. Especially forests, he's fairly well adapted to a wide range of environments, given his agile nature, but forests of the organic sort tend to always give someone like him trouble.     But, the call had gone out, and he'd happened to be stationed at an outpost in this particular sector of space, so he was sent to lend Autobot aid to the locals. Therefore, here he is, trudging down the path in search of the source of these people's problems, getting vines and branches caught in his servo cogs every once and a while. Every few seconds he does a quick scan, to see if any unusual lifesigns or energy sigatures pop up. 

:'''{{#var:236|Auron (236)}} has posed:'''     Auron is comfortable with the wages paid to him by the Union, thus he asks nothing in return for checking out this problem. Though it's not exactly 'out of the goodness of his heart'. He's just not greedy and doesn't see any need to ask for money when lives reasonably comfortably, or items that he could probably ask another member of the Union to attain for him some way.     Anyway. He's there in the Great Forest, searching for the source of the problem. Muddy paths don't bother him, though the first time something unidentified crunches unde rhis boot, sounding much like a very large, squishy insect, he does sneer a bit. No, he's not going to stop and see what it was.     His hearing is good, thanks to having have to learn to compensate for his missing eye. So he catches these odd sounds -- hooting and leathery snaps. Owls and bats, probably. Which makes sense, given that's what he's here to deal with.     Blurr's lifescanners detect Auron! He's immediately recognizable as a human to the scan. Pursuing it will very likely be able to match his lifesigns to records in the Union database. So not to worry! He hasn't gotten where he can see Blurr yet, though the reverse may not necessarily be true. 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     Indeed, giant owls and vampire bats are what the two are here to stop. And Blurr's scans may pick up on plenty of exactly that up in the branches, and high in the air. It's honestly not long at all before both Blurr AND Auron are attacked. A stream of bats comes spiralling down from the darkness above, lone individuals breaking off from swarm to dive bomb Auron, trying to take a bite out of him in passing! Normal vampire bats are parasites who feed primarily on sleeping prey. They don't attack people like this. They don't have the aggression. But these bats never got the memo, it seems because they are not only attacking head-on, but they have very sharp predator-teeth.     What's up with that!?     Blurr, meanwhile, faces a different type of attack. The owls perched up in the branches, looking down at him with big, blank white eyes. If he passes by underneath them, they definitely start dive-bombing him as well. Each owl is as big or bigger than an average human male. And with those sharp talons of theirs, and whatever weirdness made them that big, they might at least cause some nasty gouges! But they aren't the main threat, oddly enough.     No, that comes from the sudden appearance of a human skeleton dashing towards Blurr out of the darkness, and trying to lash him with a whip made of bone! What the heck!? No one said anything about the undead! 

:'''{{#var:492|Blurr (492)}} has posed:'''     Blurr picks up on Auron's lifesign and cross-references it with the Union's database, quickly IDing him as friendly. Well, good to know he won't be alone. << Auron, right? >> he asks over the comms as he starts to head over to his teammate. But before he can reach the other Union ally, the two of them are attacked by giant bats and owls! "The slag is -their- problem?!" the Autobot cries out as the birds start dive-bombing him. Okay, they aren't -that- giant compared to him. Their talons cause some nasty scratches in his outer armor, but otherwise don't do much harm. << Uhm are these birds usually this big? I thought they were usually smaller than humans on most versions of Earth. >> And then a human skeleton comes and attacks. Blurr actually doesn't try to dodge...after all it's not even a full human and lacks the things that make humans strong aka muscles, so it can't possibly do much damage to him, right? Plus that whip looks like it's just made out of organic bones. "Hey, that's not supposed to be moving!" No -duh-. 

:'''{{#var:236|Auron (236)}} has posed:'''     Auron pauses when the com comes alive and he hears his name. "<<That's right,>>" he confirms. His voice is quiet, because he doesn't have subvocal capabilities, so he has to rely on speaking to respond. "<<Blurr, if I recall?>>" He's heard the voice on the radio, and a name attached to it. Maybe he'll be able to hear the very large feet crunching, so he can head towards it.     Suddenly there's a swarm of bats dive-bombing Auron! They're likely to make a big enough racket that even if he doesn't see them, he'll hear them. Though that doesn't mean he's going to wait until they get close. His defensive options aren't that numerous as-is. He is made to take large amounts of damage. With airborne foes, hitting them with physical attacks is going to be incredibly hard.     That's all right though. While he defensive options are limited, he has a few more offensive options. So he turns his offense into a defense. As the swarm swoops down upon him, he raises his Katana, concentrating the ki into it. Aiming at the area just before him, he channels the spirit of the sword Ashura into his own blade. He swings the sword once...     And a flurry of purple-hued slashes splits the air in front of and slightly above him. If the bats aren't very quick, they'll fly right into a blender of magical slashes! That it's likely that this won't kill the whole swarm; bats are extremely fast and maneuverable. And he won't come through without damage; those that don't fly into the magical purple choppyblendy chaos are likely to be able to latch onto at least his left arm and take a bite. It's left bare, after all. 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     The skeleton is animated by magic, so it can still hurt anyone plenty. It may not be an Elite, but just standing still and letting it hit Blurr will probably not do him any favors. Magic skeletons are magic. The owls and skeleton continue to claw and whip him for as long he fails to defend himself or return fire. And even small damage can accumulate into major damage over time.     Auron's attack cleaves apart many vampire bats, and they actually die in bursts of flame and blood when slain. Combusting in mid-air and turning into a smoldering puddle by the time they hit the ground. Definitely not normal bats. And with undead in the area now too, it's clear this is not just some random mutation of organisms.     Case in point, a large red spider descends on a thread from somewhere above, out of reach of a normal sword's strike, and shoots a smaller spider at Auron before attempting to ascend back to its previous perch.     Owls, bats, skeletons, and spiders. Lovely. 

:'''{{#var:492|Blurr (492)}} has posed:'''     Lovely, indeed! First bats, then owls, and then magic skeletons, and now a giant spider too! Finally, Blurr decides to actually start defending himself, since there are quite a fair number of these things all assaulting him at once, so even if they are small, they might manage to do some significant damage--especially if they get -inside- of him. He attempts to grab one of owls with one hand and throw it at the big spider, while swatting at the other birds with the other. He eventually transforms and does what he can to maneuver around the trees and get to where Auron is. Meanwhile, he attempts to continue scanning to see if he can figure out why these things are attacking so relentlessly. Is there any kind of strange signal in the area, or perhaps they've been exposed to something that driving them mad? << Auron, any idea why these things are attacking like this? Anything weird about them? Did anyone tell you how long this has been going on? >> 

:'''{{#var:236|Auron (236)}} has posed:'''     Not normal bats -- that's good to know. Now Auron feels less hesitant about just murdering them. Of course, this presumes he won't end up as food! The bites from the bats have drawn blood, and that's sure to attract other things that want to eat him.     He's concerned with trying to field the bats, and the silence of the spider descending from above is not loud enough to pick up with his hearing. And so his first clue that something is wrong is a weird brushing against his neck before...     CHOMP!     Auron hisses, raising a hand to the bite and attempting to pull the spider off of him. Likely this will squish it in the process. He doesn't feel any immediate poisoning taking hold, but Fayth that hurt! thankfully he's not allergic to bugs. Though he's going to have to get it looked at afterwards... if he survives this. Infection sucks!     Blurr will most likely be able to find his way over to Auron easily, even if he can't see im immediately, thanks to his scanners. The question gets a shake of his head. He doesn't, however, have any way to sense magic. "If we had a mage with us, we might be able to tell more certainly," he remarks. Blurr's right there, no sense in using the comm now. "I can assume corrupted energy in the area. Possibly has mutated the creatures here, and brought the dead back." Bats don't burst into flames naturally, after all. 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     Blurr is able to grab and throw the owl! It hits the spider and knocks it off of its web line! His other giant mecha hand swats and destroys other owls, and all of these things are practically exploding into waves of blood when they die! Messy... But no corpses either. It almost makes one wonder if they were already dead, and someone just put them back together in congealed blood form or something. When they die a second time, the magic breaks down.     Though who the hell went through the trouble of liquefying and then reanimating all these owls, bats, and so on is another matter. Probably someone unpleasant.     Auron successfully kills the spider, and is skillful sword slashes successfully slaughter the various bats and beasts who come his way. The whipping skeleton is still chasing after Blurr, though the autobot moves much faster than it can. But being dead, and thus tireless, it can also chase him endlessly too. And it might chase him all the way back to Auron when they meet up!     Scans are picking up lots of weird life signs... Animals, mostly, even if not normal ones. But one particularly large one seems to be coming closer and closer. Heavy wing beats, unlike the far quieter ones of owls, can be heard, and soon, coming into view, is a humanoid figure, dark of skin, with a pair of large horns protruding from its head and sweeping backwards. Cloven hooves, clawed wings, and two grey, owl-like wings protruding from his back/shoulderblades.     The demon snarls at the sight of Auron and Blurr, and then starts laughing as he throws out a hand and more skeletons arise from the muck. Well, this is probably the one responsible. 

:'''{{#var:492|Blurr (492)}} has posed:'''     Blurr has noticed the weird way these things die. "Huh, yeah there's definitely something abnormal about these wildlife, they don't seem to have any internal organs! Well, magic is just a weird form of energy right? I should be able to detect it if we get--"     "--close enough..." He didn't get a chance to finish his sentence before the culprit finally showed up, causing more skeletons to appear in front of them. "Never mind!" Photon blasters emerge from arm compartments, and he immediately starts firing at the flying dude who just laughed at them. Hopefully he's within range of the Autobot's weaponry. 

:'''{{#var:236|Auron (236)}} has posed:'''     When Auron sees an undead show up in the direction Blurr came from, he can guess that the thing was chasing him. He is, however, nothing if not pragmatic. With the wingbeats and other unnatural sounds in the area, Auron has a bad feeling that whatever is making them, it's heading towards them. And it's probably something they need to face with all their strength and not be tangled up with other threats!     So when he sees the undead thing, he pulls out -- what else? -- a Phoenix Down! He activates it, and then lobs it in the general direction of the undead. Hopefully that works here too. Otherwise it's a waste of a Phoenix Down, but ultimately not too much beyond that.     Besides, there are suddenly lots more undead rising, with the appearance of that demon. Indeed, this must be the one reponsible. "...Hmf. Corrupted energy indeed," he adds to Blurr's comment. While Blurr aims for the Big Kahuna, Auron heads into the group of skeletons raised from the muddy earth, intending to keep them off of Blurr while he deals with the demon.     Ordinarily a sharp-edged blade like Auron's would be little use against fleshless skeletons. But his Katana is a large, heavy weapon, with weight on its side too. And he's using the flat of the blade as a bludgeoning weapon more than trying to strike with the sharp edge. 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     Blurr's laser weaponry seems to do plenty of damage to the Lesser Demon, causing him to let out deep, inhuman noises of pain and frustrations, even as he weaves his clawed hands through the air, and unleashes a large fireball upon the autobot. The skeletons seem to be vulnerable enough to a Phoenix Down to be defeated by it, and Auron's sword strikes likewise scatter their bones from his forceful strikes. The beasts in the trees and in the air continue to attack during all of this. Spiders being shot at them, owls swooping down to claw them, bats trying to bite them... The skeletons may not be getting reanimated anymore, but added on top of the one commanding them, it's still a pretty hectic battle.     The smoldering demon, angered by the damage he has taken, might be the key to ending all of this. With Blurr's and Auron's team work, they can probably finish this mini-boss and shut down the unnatural activity in the area! 

:'''{{#var:492|Blurr (492)}} has posed:'''     Blurr does what he can to focus on the big dude and ignore the little dudes, though they are certainly annoying. "Frag it, I'm gonna need a new paintjob after this!" he complains as all of the minions continue to attack him. And on top of that, a big fireball is being launched at him! Hmm...he could probably dodge it, but what if he just let it come at him? Maybe it'll drive away all the bats and owls and spiders. Or maybe if they're not smart enough for that, he can force this dude to hit his minions with his own fireball. Since they're a lot smaller than Blurr is, it's bound to do more damage to them than him. This is probably a Bad Idea. But the speedster has never really been the type to do much thinking before acting, and plus he usually thinks he's a lot tougher than he -actually- is.     Thus, instead of trying to jump out of the way, he stands right in the path of the fiery projectile and focuses on attempting to activate his holomatter avatar and project it -onto- the thing's back. Not that it can do much, but perhaps he can use it to distract and confuse. If successful, the apparently human teen will try to get the demon's attention. "Hey ugly, guess who's riding your tailpipes!" 

:'''{{#var:236|Auron (236)}} has posed:'''     Avoiding the spiders being fired at him as well as the bats and owls swooping down -- particularly those owls; they're literally as big as he is, so a clawing from them is a vicious wound that knocks him down -- proves to be too great a task. He's a tank, not a rogue! So he's quite battered and clawed by the time he gets enough breathing room in the mass of skeletons. But he is trained to take damage. He is DEFINITELY going to feel this later. But right now he can't afford to let it get the better of him.     And then Blurr's projection as he stands in the path of the fireball. That gives Auron both a reasonably safe haven AND (hopefully) a few moments to prepare. He darts behind the much larger Blurr and picks up the jug from where it hangs at his side. Then he uncorks it, takes a drink, and re-corks it. But he's not stopping in the middle of battle to booze it up, no. As he puts the recorked jug back where it was, he turns his face towards his sword, and sprays the liquid in a fine mist onto the blade.     Only then does he step out from behind Blurr, as energy begins to gatehr around the blade, first in runic circles in Old Yevon, then in an orange-black aura. Then as he swings the sword down, purposely hitting the ground and carving a furrow into it, four orange-black orbs come out of the ground. These orbs seek the demon summoner/necromancer, trying to impact with it forcefully.     And there's an extra little bit of problem here for the demon too. Should these four homing orbs hit the demon, not only will they hurt, but the demon might actually find its supernatural powers sealed, as the spiritual orbs attempt to inflict FULL BREAK! 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     Doesn't work out that way. The enemies swoop in to attack and then continue on their way to prepare for another attack. The fireball comes in when no one is attacking, and since Blurr lets it hit him, the magic flame may well do serious damage! But Blurr is also a giant robot, so he's not going to be incapacitated or anything. Still, probably not something to let happen over and over. The holo-projector does seem to the startle and confuse the enemy as he thrashes and turns, flapping his wings and trying to claw the clinging creep!     This leaves him too distracted to notice until it's too late, as Auron slams the demon with sealing magic, finishing him off and banishing him back to where he came from, seeming to just... Collapse horizontally and stretch vertically, while roaring, until he becomes so thin there's nothing visibly left of him.     The skeletons stopped rising, so the one or two remaining aren't going to gain any reinforcements. The beasts have stopped attacking, with only the ones already in the process of doing so continuing. After they've been defeated, nothing else comes for them. The madness that overtook this forest might take awhile to fully leave, but some results are already being observed. It seems the mission is completed!     ...Even if, hidden in the darkness, a pair of gleaming yellow eyes watch silently, observing who came to deal with the challenge presented for later research. 

:'''{{#var:492|Blurr (492)}} has posed:'''     "Damn it!" Blurr curses as he fails to get the timing right. He's supposed to be good at that! He always was in the races on Cybertron, but perhaps this time it's because he was partly distracted trying to use the holomatter to distract the demon.     Which, thankfully that part -is- successful, even though he does take the full brunt of the fireball. It knocks him back, sending him careening into a grove of trees with his paint on fire. The impact does knock out the holomatter emitter though, fortunately enough, so that he doesn't have to also deal with feedback from Auron's hit. 

:'''{{#var:236|Auron (236)}} has posed:'''     Auron breathes a sigh of relief when the demon folds in on itself. But there are still enemies around, and it seems Blurr is in a state. Nothing he can really do for healing; his Potions probably won't work on artificial lifeforms. And he doesn't want to lead the remaining enemies to Blurr.     So he reaches into his coat and pulls a shining jewel from it. It's not holy, but... there's no 'holy' element in Spira. This does, however, contain a large amount of energy. And as he activates and drops it, he runs, heading for where Blurr was last seen.     With luck, the gem should act as a bomb of sorts, catching the enemies that remain in a large, white explosion of energy. It's not fire, it's not holy. But it's 'spiritual' energy. 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     Auron's 'bomb' works! The two of them are free to make their escape as the remaining monsters burst into flame, fall apart, or liquefy into puddles of blood. The silent watcher retreats somewhat from the light, eyes squinting in pain, but no action is taken. Attacking these heroes NOW wasn't the point of infesting the forest, after all.     Once Auron and Blurr are gone, off to let the locals know it's safe once more and get patched up, a column of gray light and a huge cloud of bats flies up into the canopy on its way back to a different dark forest. A Forest of Eternal Night. 

:'''{{#var:492|Blurr (492)}} has posed:'''     "Ughhh." Blurr is in no state to take notice of the mysterious presence watching them. The flames finally go out, though they leave his chassis smoking. "Auron, you okay?" he asks as the man approaches. "I'm definitely gonna regret this next cycle...but at least we dealt with the guy, right?" 

:'''{{#var:236|Auron (236)}} has posed:'''     Auron is visibly injured from bat bites and the claws of the man-sized owls. And there's still a bit of blood trickling from the wound on the back of his neck. But he nods to the question. "I'll be fine once we get to medical. Are you able to move or should I call for evac?" he inquires. 

:'''{{#var:492|Blurr (492)}} has posed:'''     Blurr nods, getting up a bit slowly. Well slowly by his own standards, anyway. He examines Auron too, but it seems the man will recover soon enough with the appropiate medical attention. "Yeah, you need a ride?" he asks. "Guess we should go let the locals know took care of um...some flying ugly thing. What was it anyway?" 

:'''{{#var:236|Auron (236)}} has posed:'''     Auron nods. "Good idea. On both counts," he replies. "They'll be glad to know the fiend's gone." He'll wait for Blurr to transform and then get in the passenger's side if possible. He's not driving after all. 

:'''{{#var:492|Blurr (492)}} has posed:'''     Blurr transforms then, if a bit painfully, and his side doors open to let Auron inside. He finds it a little strange that humans seem to be adverse to sitting in the driver's seat if they aren't driving. It doesn't really bother him nor matter where they sit. "Thanks for coming out here by the way, these forests are always kind of frustrating." 

}}

2684/Bernhard Castle: First Challenger

2015-09-23T02:09:34Z

Paladine: Created page with "{{Log Header |Date of Scene=2015/07/26 |Location=Forest of Eternal Night <FEN> |Synopsis=The first Elite challenger to Bernhard Castle since unification! |Thanks= |Cast of Cha..."

{{Log Header
|Date of Scene=2015/07/26
|Location=Forest of Eternal Night <FEN>
|Synopsis=The first Elite challenger to Bernhard Castle since unification!
|Thanks=
|Cast of Characters=726, 829
|Tinyplot=
|Tinyplot2=
|pretty=yes
}}
{{Poses
|Poses=:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     The moment that Marisa flies into the skies over the Forest of Eternal Night, regardless of the hour beyond the pall of darkness that seems to shroud the area, it becomes full night time -- just as the name of the forest implies. The moon, tinged crimson, is the only source of illumination, with the forest below swollen with darkness so thick its more like a light-smothering vapor than anything. It's a forest from which sounds occasionally waft up into the airy reaches... Sounds of beastial monsters, of struggles, of thrashing in the underbrush, of unearthly moans, and at other times total silence like any native life is afraid to even breath.     Eventually, the magician's approach to the towering castle of Walter Bernhard, with its many towers and parapets, high walls, hundreds of stories, and so on, ends with a ravine gouged out of the terrain surrounding it, and the draw bridge pulled up to block the front gate on the other side. After a few moments, the draw bridge begins to lower seemingly all on its own, spanning the gap between the winding path up a hill from that dark, monster-infested forest, to the even more dangerous castle. She could fly over the waterless moat, of course, but now the front doors are actually available to open instead of sealed up behind thick layers of hardened, ebony wood.     It seems that she is being welcomed to enter. Though whether as a guest or not remains to be seen.     If she passes through the front doors, she finds herself in a broad entry area...     Prelude to the Dark Abyss     This area is mostly open ground, with a pair of stairs on the opposite side of the room from the front doors. These stairs wind up onto an elevated balcony-like area, with five unusual statues built into the wall the balcony rests atop of. A door in the wall behind the balcony has a glowing circle of powerful warding magic hovering almost imperceptibly in front of the portal, though it becomes brigter if someone approaches. To the left is a door leading into a hallway and various other rooms, though it appears to be locked behind some sort of bladed barrier. To the right is another door with another hallway, and more rooms, though it is not locked.     Torch stands are located around the main room, alongside doors or simply standing free in circles on the floor. 

:'''{{#var:829|Marisa Kirisame (829)}} has posed:'''     This isn't the first time Marisa Kirisame has had to approach a vampire's castle, nor is it the first time that she's had to deal with the ~ETERNAL DARKNESS~ that tends to surround these sorts of things. Marisa soars over the forest astride her trusty bamboo broom, a hooded, iron lantern clattering at the front end of its shaft. She's come significantly more ready than usual, having wrapped herself in a heavy cloak festooned with all manner of useful tools. As usual, her Hakkero stands ready.     As she arrives at the massive Castle Bernhard, however, she finds it slightly more... welcoming than she had anticipated. Not even a single gargoyle or fairy intercepts her on her way in, and they even let the front door down for her arrival! How hospitable. Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, Marisa sails right on over the drawbridge and through the main archway, before hopping off her broom to enter the castle's foyer.     What she finds is... Pretty interesting, actually. One door she definitely won't be going through, one door that's utterly defenseless, and a third that's been... warded somehow. "Huh," Marisa murmurs, making her way closer to the magic circle, to see about maybe deciphering its purpose before moving on. "What's this then?" 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     When Marisa examines the glowing circle up-close, a message is magically transmitted directly to her mind. It's not any sort of psychic assault or intrusion. More like how someone who understands how to read derives meaning from symbols and squiggles on paper that would be gibberish to someone illiterate. In this case, the meaning is being magically translated automati     chc">In order to procede, five Orbs must be obtained from five Gate Keepers.     Those statues down below seemed to have spheres on top of them, each of a different color... Perhaps they signify something about these Orbs. 

:'''{{#var:829|Marisa Kirisame (829)}} has posed:'''     "Huuuuh, so if I'm guessin' right," Marisa murmurs at the SUDDEN MIND-TALK. "This way's where the landowner's at." She takes a step back to look towards the statuary. If pattern recognition stands, then she probably needs to find one orb of each of those colors. But they're in the hands of these Gate Keeper things, so...     "No use sittin' around here then," she mutters, scratching at the nape of her neck. There's only one other way to go from here- down toward the unlocked door and the hallway beyond. 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     The hall beyond is dark except for candle stands along one of the walls. A bright-blue door is set in the southern wall, with some sort of symbols etched into it. An examination reveals a small chapel-like room, lit with a gentle blue glow, pouring through a stained glass window set in the wall above some sort of angellic-looking statue. Not the sort of thing one would expect to find in a vampire's castle. Or the shimmering orb of mercury-like substance floating in the air in front of the statue. Touching it renews any expended enregy and heals any wounds, and seems to take a sort of 'imprint' of Marisa's reflection somehow, before flying up into the air and vanishing. If not touched, that property likely will not be discovered.     At the end of the hall is another door, which leads into a large room with a circular platform at the center. An ephemeral light shines down from above, pale like the moon outside, through some sort of opening in the ceiling. Five circles lie atop the platform, each of which seems to tremble after several seconds of standing on it, and lift up into the air. If that doesn't freak her out too much, then once she steps onto one, she happens to find the one that sends her hurtling straight up through that opening in the ceiling, and wind up transported to one of the levels of the castle above.     Anti-Soul Mysteries Lab     This new area is darker than the areas below, despite the furnaces burning in the walls. Somehow it just feels noticeably more awful. Like very bad things have happened here. The walls smell like charred flesh. A door lies in both the western wall and the eastern. Neither seems to stand out more than the other. Both lead into L-shaped hallways that take a turn towards the south, and into more rooms. But the halls are populated by animated skeletons wielding large bones for clubs, and hound-like monsters with burned flesh that bleeds shadow onto the stone floor.     They attack as soon as any intruder is noticed. 

:'''{{#var:829|Marisa Kirisame (829)}} has posed:'''     If something does not want to be touched, it should try make itself look less interesting! Marisa does in fact poke the mercury-like orb, marvelling briefly at the fact that she's not only feeling FRESH AND ENERGIZED, but that it somehow seems to have... Preserved her image. Somehow. Weird. Wonder what that does?     But cool chapels and regenerative mercury baths aren't at all why she's come all this way. Her destination lies deeper within the castle, up an elevator shaft and into a place that, quite frankly, is more than just a little bit unnerving. The very air in this new place stinks of unholy experiments and the use of very questionable magical and scientific arts. Marisa blanches slightly as she enters the ominously named ANTI-SOUL MYSTERIES LAB. The aroma reminds her of some very uncomfortable encounters back home, and old fairy tales... But she can't let herself be distracted. Marisa has a goal in mind for this place.     The witch advances down the hallways, only to find some very unfriendly looking monsters waiting for her. "That's more like it," she grins in response, her broom drawing her up, closer to the hallway's celing, "Wouldn't be a vampire castle without monsters!"     She gestures with an empty hand. Magical circles etch themselves into the air in front of her, before disgorging scything rays of multicolored light into the monster swarm! Hopefully, keeping airborne will help dodge the worst of their counterattacks. 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     In the broad hall, there's plenty of room to maneuver aerially. Though the skeletons don't seem to have any ranged attacks, they can perform a jumping boneclub swing attack that might be tricky to deal with if left to their own devices. And the Hellhounds are apparently able to breathe out a flamethrower-like stream from their fanged maws. But with beams of light shooting out to pummel them, the skeletons are broken up fairly quickly, and the Hellhounds are eventually defeated after them. The skeletons scatter into bones fragments that vanish into motes of darkness while the Hellhounds dissolve into puddles of blood and shadow on the floor.     After entering the next room, at the end of the hall, a bladed barrier clanks shoots up behind Marisa to block her exit, leaving her in an ashen room with magic circles appearing on the floor, summoning monsters to attack her! Ghost Knights, the top half of a suit of armor + helmet, armed with a sword, levitating in the air, are among these monsters. But corpses somehow crawl out of solid stone flooring without damaging it. Dead bodies burning constantly, their features concealed by the flams that eternally lick at their charred flesh. They get to their feet and start staggering towards her, arms outstretched, even as the Ghost Knights hover around in arc and circles, looking for an opportunity to fly in and slash with their scimitars. 

:'''{{#var:829|Marisa Kirisame (829)}} has posed:'''     Compared to dodging Danmaku and dozens of overly-aggressive fairies and familiars, a few hopping skeletons and a couple streams of flame aren't too much trouble at all. Marisa whirls through through the air, weaving between their assault while reciprocating with YET MORE LASERS. The hellhounds almost seem to catch her with a set of converging fire-breaths, but it almost seems as though the witch were taunting them by getting as close to their breath as possible without setting herself alight. In any case, Marisa emerges from that little tussle without too much difficulty. ON TO THE NEXT CHALLENGE.     ...The next challenge is apparently flying suits of armor and a gaggle of burning corpses. "Tch. Zombies and puppets," Marisa mutters, gathering her magical energies into another spell. She continues to stay as far from the ground as she can possibly manage- it's not hard to guess what'd happen if those cadavers manage to swarm her. A quartet of crystalline orbs suddenly materialize in the air around her, just in time for one of the Armors to sweep in with a furious slash. The witch winces as a fresh wound blossoms over one arm- but it's still nothing worse than a grazing hit. But it could easily be much worse if she lets them overwhelm her. Instead, SHE intends to overwhelm THEM. WITH FIREPOWER.     "ORRERIES," Marisa growls, the orbs orbiting her blaze with cerulean light as she strafes across the periphery of the room. Columns of light blaze out from each of the spheres as they revolve around her, carving into the monstrous horde! She prioritizes the armors, however. Gotta eliminate those mobile ones first! 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     There aren't a huge number of monsters in the room. Maybe a half-dozen at a time. But the problem is that those summoning circles seem to call in MORE of them automatically as the previous ones are slain, ensuring a constant population of guardians. It's a rather clever system, and probably requires a great deal of skill and power, to say nothing of arcane knowledge. To be able to so effortlessly and repeatedly summon monsters from who-knows-where without even needing to personally do the deed, simply as part of a defense system set up centuries in advance, says that the vampire in charge here probably has a lot of experience with dark magic. Hopefully running into him won't happen any time soon.     However, it seems the summoning circles only trigger a fixed number of times before going dormant. At which point, the bladed gates on both exists from the room drop back down into the floor, leaving the door to the north, that Marisa came in through, and the door to the south that has yet to be tried. Also, when she zapped through the candles and torches scattered around the room with her lasers, some items popped out. Coins of various denominations, mostly.     The floor of this room has some sort of artwork on the stones. Of some unidentifiable... Something. Maybe a person, maybe a monster. It's unclear. There's a tapestry of some kind of demonic entity on the wall, a hanging brazier near the southern door, and a fireplace off to one side. To the south, is yet another hallway, this one having a door to the west at the corner of where it turns east and to another door at the end of it. More Flame Zombis slither out of the floor in this hall, upon Marisa's intrusion, though they're only encountered if she takes the eastern route at the corner.     If she heads through the western door instead, she enters into a VERY spacious room with a mix of marble and wooden flooring, and a large, stylized sun-like design on it. There's a second level to the room, though no visible way of getting up there. There are also bookshelves along the walls, both flat and curved, as well as more torch stands, another bladed gate that closes after entering... And a mix of both Flame Zombies and a new type of zombies. These once with ice hanging heavy from their forms, and a freezing mist trailing from them and their water-crystal-covered rags.     Creating new types of zombies by raising them from different types of deaths is probably at work here. Victims who died from being burned to death, and victims who froze to death. To have such a ready supply... A small example of what kind of experiments may have been performed here. Intentionally roasting people alive and then bringing them back... And freezing people to death and then reanimating their bodies. Rather vile. But up above, there's line shining down... And what appear to be many, many, many, many floors of balconies and book shelves. There might be hidden staircases somewhere, but Marisa can fly. That might be a more direct path to where she is trying to go, if she is seeking knowledge. 

:'''{{#var:829|Marisa Kirisame (829)}} has posed:'''     COINS. Marisa dashes over as the glimmering tokens clatter against the floor to scoop them up into a rather spacious knapsack. Loot is loot, after all! And she can use this to pay off her debt.     The witch takes a somewhat circuitous, meandering path through the Mysteries Lab, likely in search of A) Loot and B) KNOWLEDGE. Besides, she sort of wants to see more of those summoning circles in action. The more she can observe them, the better grasp she can get on how exactly they work, which can itself be a very rewarding exercise!     Eventually, after blasting a few dozen more zombies with even more lasers, Marisa comes upon a room with... Very odd new forms of undead. It's like someone took it upon themselves to infuse walking corpses with weird elemental magic. The witch purses her lips as she examines the newest, shambling swarm, and elects to... Go check out what's on that upper floor instead! Silly zombies, let's see you try to stumble at a witch in flight! It seems that this was, in fact, a very good decision indeed! Why?     Because BOOKS. BOOKS ALL THE WAY DOWN. Marisa squelches a high-pitched squeal of delight as she soars up into the stacks of books. It's time to put together a real nice haul! What kind of books do they even have up here, anyway? 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     An area only accessible to flyers... Is probably also going to have lots of enemies suited to dealing with such. For example, Skeleton Archers, who draw blue-flame tipped arrows, pull back, and let them fly at Marisa as she passes! It seems that every single one of these balconies and ledges is packed full of enemies, though there also seem to be dark passages beyond the balconies and ranks of foes.     There's a sound of crumbling stone from somewhere above, and then a gargoyle with a large, dragon-like head comes diving down at Marisa even as she has to deal with the skeletal attackers. There's no end in sight to the vertical passage of balconies above. Should she pick one of these floors and try to fight past the defenders to see what lies down one of those passages, or just go as high as she can to try to find an area that's less of a killbox for her? 

:'''{{#var:829|Marisa Kirisame (829)}} has posed:''' Marisa's answer? None of the above.     Also Marisa's Answer: LASERS. Lasers seem to be Marisa's answer to a lot of problems- but then, does a problem exist that can't be solved by the application of a sufficient amount of laser? No. There are no such problems in this world.     Marisa soars through the rain of burning, glowing arrows like she were some sort of projectile-dodging pro. The dragon-gargoyle-thing explodes out from one of the balconies even further up, adding tooth and claw to the veritable storm of arrows. Things are getting a little bit tight up in here. Which is about when Marisa breaks out the Superior Firepower.     A fifth sphere joins the other four in their orbit around her. Marisa's fingertips blaze with magic that leaps to each of the surrounding spheres. Each one begins glowing with bright, colorful light before blasting long, cutting columns of magical energy out across the balconies and ledges. The blasts seem to consume the arrows as they fly in, turning their shafts to ash and their heads to slag as she twists and turns around the Gargoyle's powerful limbs. A single lucky blow sends her spinning off into a nearby wall, but a blast of magic corrects her course- though her side is now sporting a rather considerable bruise-- and possibly a few broken ribs.     But she's not down yet. Her Orreries continue to spin, blasting the surrounding environment with her NON-DIRECTIONAL LASER. As she dives between the Gargoyle's strikes, some of those beams would rake across its great, stony form as well! 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     While the vertical passage is not quite infinite, there's still lots of enemies. Giant eyeballs with chains dangling from them coast out into the open air to return fire with lasers of their own. More gargolyes and more skeletons replace those destroyed by Marisa's projectiles. Ghost Knights are joined by Rune Spirits, animal skulls levitating via a magical circle around them that changes direction to propel them dynamically... Even swords with faces in them, seething with some evil energy, which fly through the air without wielders, trying to carve flesh and drink blood.     Marisa is doing an excellent job of wiping out monsters with her constant barrage of attacks, but this looks like a pretty hectic path to where she's trying to go. If she continues to ascend, she'll eventually reach a room with a definite ceiling -- a glass canopy with a steel framework, and the light of the moon shining down through it, along with a large room with very tall bookshelves along each and every wall, and hard-wood floors, with tables and chairs to sit on.     By the time she gets there, however, she may be somewhat tattered. Which will make the sight of another of those blue doors in one of the walls a likely welcome discovery. There's even a piece of treasure of some kind sitting before it. It almost looks like the stub of a train ticket or something. It floats in the air, glowing. And if it is picked up, knowledge of its function is mystically bestowed.     Memorial Ticket     If you use it, you will be able to return to the last Sanctuary you accessed.     Of course, if Marisa enters the sanctuary and touches the mercury blob thing, she'll also be fully healed. And if she decides to get out of here... She has a quick way to return in the future.     Though getting out of here might be complicated if there isn't one of these things for vacating the premises too. 

:'''{{#var:829|Marisa Kirisame (829)}} has posed:'''     Well, nothing can be literally infinite. Even Patchouli's library, with its weird folded-space nonsense, isn't something that goes on forever. Still, there are a lot of monsters up this way. Between Marisa's lasers, her magic missiles and her SWEET BROOM SKILLS, she somehow manages to make it to the top, but not without taking more than a few shots, herself. By the time she clears out the last of the flying eyeballs, her outfit's singed in a dozen places, and there's very clearly a few splotches of red blossoming on the whiter parts of her clothes.     She's pretty thankful overall that whatever achitect designed this place decided to put one of those sanctuary places right at the very top of this crazy gauntlet. The witch stumbles in, and tiredly pokes at the great, quicksilver sphere. Her energy returns almost immediately, causing her to shiver slightly at the sensation. It's not a bad feeling, though, and there's some VERY OBVIOUS LOOT right there, too. She snatches it up and... Huh. Teleportation paper. Nnnneat.     Between that and the glass ceiling, there's no reason why she can't call it a night here. She could very easily just hop away now and get the hell back to safety, maybe come again another day. ...Or she could steal a few dozen books first. Marisa has her priorities.     Assuming nobody actually bothers stopping her (or that whatever does try can be easily dispatched by judicious application of laser beam), Marisa takes a little while to scout the upper levels for fresh new literature! Books on alchemy and magic in general are of particular interest-- as are any books relating to how to deal with any of these crazy monsters in the future. Can't ever prepare too much, after all!     If she's allowed to claim her bounty unmolested, Marisa then goes about the task of vacating the castle before anyone can notice she's taken anything. She does this by shooting magic missiles at the window overhead like some kind of VANDAL. Once that's done, it's a little matter of taking off like a bolt once the glass has fallen away. SHE SHALL RETURN, HOWEVER. That library's way too good to just leave unread. 

}}

2536/The Dark Experiment

2015-09-23T02:09:05Z

Paladine: Created page with "{{Log Header |Date of Scene=2015/06/27 |Location=The Cavern of Death |Synopsis=A new form of undead is created. |Thanks= |Cast of Characters=290, 560, 598, 707, 726, 823 |Tiny..."

{{Log Header
|Date of Scene=2015/06/27
|Location=The Cavern of Death
|Synopsis=A new form of undead is created.
|Thanks=
|Cast of Characters=290, 560, 598, 707, 726, 823
|Tinyplot=
|Tinyplot2=
|pretty=yes
}}
{{Poses
|Poses=:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     There are a handful of villages, cities, fortifications, and so on within mundane travelling distance of the Cavern of Death's entrance. Most people try not to get too close due to the stench. Entire 'cities of the dead' lie between the realms ruled solely by the living, and those dominated by the dead. A field of headstones, crosses, angel statues, monuments, mausoleum entrances, abandoned chapels, and burial mounds, stretches as far as the eye can see outside of a certain town, creating a barrier of holy symbols and representing a huge number of the deceased, with a castle of evil lying on the other side.     And yet it is not the malignant dead, the horror of mortality, that another town high on a plateau, concerns itself with. Those on the grassy plateau, a mere ledge when compared to the massive cavern filled with the dead and undead that is visible as a gaping blackness in the distance, accept death. Celebrate the lives of the deceased when they have passed. And they make a long journey to intere their dead in a sprawling graveyard, where the remains will gradually migrate by some bizarre geographical function of proximity to the Cavern of Death, until said remains join the other dead there.     The purification rituals, the care taken to appease the dead, in turn makes those remains free of the burdens of life and thus untenable for becoming undead. Or at least that's the theory. A recent natural disaster has claimed many lives. A mud slide, as a result of heavy rains. Many dead are ready to be intered to the graveyard city. But cloaked and hooded figures, wearing masks like dry scarecrow heads exploded outwards to make ragged, monstrous mouths, lurk in the area during the funeral. The celebration has already occurred. Now all that remains is the purification.     Before the first drop of holy water can annoint the dead, the rains begin to pour heavily on the procession during a speech someone is giving. And in that rain, as dark, cloudy skies flash with lightning and boom with thunder, long-clawed monsters begin to writhe beneath the earth, and dark magics begin to make the dead to be buried rise from their slabs.     And then the screaming begins.     Someone on-site who posesses the means calls for aid. Hopefully said help can arrive in time. 

:'''{{#var:823|Xiao Li Yu (823)}} has posed:'''      Xiao Li Yu was not here for any virtuous cause. No, she was here solely for the sake of research. She'd heard tell on the wind of a stranger than usual happening that seemed to be gearing up to happen around these parts. Her usual scientific curiosity won out, pulling her away from her lab temporarily to do a bit of field research. Suppose it was nice to get out now and then. Stretch the legs, get some fresh air!      ...Or rather, stagnant air, in this case.      She'd passed through many a village and city on her way to the rumored location, and the closer she got, the more she heard. Especially about keeping away. There was only death further on. But no, she would go.      Eventually, her travels led her to the edge of a grassy plateau, laptop open in one arm and staring out at the ver visible cavern ahead. "So, this must be it..." The girl mused aloud. Indeed, that gaping void of darkness, teeming with the stench of the dead. There could be no other place. And despite the smell, which her reaction to was a simple and brief wrinkling of the nose, she proceeded onward. Undaunted by the heavy rains of the flashes of lightning above.      As if she had no fear of death itself, the researcher smiled in spite of the conditions and plodded ever forward. Soon, there are screams, anf then there are monsters, and then the dead rise again. Calls for help are ignored. She is not here to help. She is here to bear witness.      Bear witness and take notes. 

:'''{{#var:707|Xiaomu (707)}} has posed:''' After the last few days, Xiaomu would love nothing better than to immerse herself in gaming and/or anime and/or other entertainments. Then her radio picks up a distress call from a funeral procession in the Cavern of Death. The sage fox doesn't swear so much as she *curses*, praying down the wrath of the bodhisattvas and dharmapalas upon whoever's messing around with the rightfully dead. Then she gets up to respond to the distress call, because in the all-too-likely event that her prayers aren't going to be answered directly by the deities, divinities, and ascended ones she was calling upon, she's gonna have to do the heavy lifting on their behalf. And this time, SHE IS ABSOLUTELY GOING TO BRING GRENADES even if she has to detour all the way to Shinra HQ to collect them from the quartermaster on duty in Weapons Development and Production. It takes her a little while to get to the site as a result, but get there she does, making her way through the torrential rain with an increasingly foul mood. "Bad enough you interrupt a precious day off, worse that you're messing with death and undeath," she snarls at whomever is behind this, "but did you REALLY have to do it in a THUNDERSTORM?!?" Plus, undeath smells bad. Worse than rotting corpses do, literally. 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     Already nearby on patrol (and, of course, looking for any signs of his Japan), Emiya Shirou did not have to drive far. Just one warp gate and a few miles. His arrival is via MOTORCYCLE, albeit a beat-up, rusty one that looks to have been the subject of much tinkering and restoration. It sputters and coughs periodically but the engine's also roaring up a storm - though, not one big enough to drown out all this rain.     Shirou goes skidding - LITERALLY - into the waves of undead. The young man leaps OFF the bike just before mud clogs up the workings and ends up swooping dramatically down into a handful of zombies before they can descend on more victims.     "Down with you all!" Instead of Kanshou and Bakuya, a different shape forms from the prana streaming suddenly from his hands. A mighty shaft topped with a wickedly long, curved blade. A scythe... a great and ominous scythe used by one particular figure of myth...     The Grim Reaper. Death himself.     The touch of THANATOS, The Moments of Life Fall Like Scattered Grains, brings deep spiritual serenity and release from the world's troubles. A weapon meant to peacefully reap the dying that also brings peace to thd dead.     The boy hardly seems to have the stature to wield the thing but he twirls it about effectively nonetheless, rising after the impact covered in mud and probably unspeakable zombie gunk. 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     There's honestly not that many undead. Maybe a dozen or so. Rain-slicked bodies, wrapped in white linen. Almost mummy-looking, though they haven't endured the mummification process. They're scattered around the graveyard, where a statue of a man in a raven mask, bearing a staff in one hand and a book in the other, watches impassionately over the proceedings. Xiaomu's yelling does little to draw attention, given the funeral attendees are busy fleeing from their deceased loved ones they had come here to purify and bury. Some take shelter beneath brightly-colored tents on wooden poles, others keep running, intending to get back to their home town upon the plateau -- a not insignificant walk.     Shirou's appearance and destruction of the walking dead sends the bodies toppling to the muddy ground in pieces. Wails of horror, disgust, and despair arise from the funeral goers at the sight of what has been done to the dead. Several are crying or have to turn away rather than look at what Shirou has wrought. They should be grateful, right? They've been saved! But perhaps they don't see it that way. Or perhaps it is not themselves they are worried about.     Shortly after it began, it's already nearly over. This was no zombie legion. Just a freak reanimation of a dozen people, possibly due to proximity to the Cavern of Death. There's no immediate evidence for Shirou or Xiaomu that anyone in particular was 'responsible'. There's still a few linen-wrapped corpses staggering off among the headstones in a herky-jerky manner, like stop-animation monsters, as they unseeingly seek the living with their bandage-blinded senses (such as they are).     They actually seem to be seeking specific people, making their paths predictable and straightforward. And full of fear and soul-crushing sadness for the family and loved ones who are being targetted by the ones lost to them in more ways than one. Since Shirou is busy dicing the undead up, Xiaomu may either help him or take note of a couple of injured people.     A brawny man who has endured deep gouges and scratches in his flesh, his clothing torn in places, where his wife and son attacked him after their reanimation; and a girl no older than ten or twelve, lying half-buried in the mud where she fell and was nearly trampled by the dead in their hurry to feed upon the ones they left behind. She seems to be seriously injured, if the red all over her is anything to go by, but the exact extent of the injuries can't be determined without a closer investigation. Either or both of them might be saveable if they can get treatment in time... The man seems to be in shock, just standing around and staring, but the girl is twitching and jerking every few seconds. If she attends to them at all... Which one will she look at first?     Meanwhile, Xiao Li Yu is in an excellent spot to observe all that is transpiring. And since she hasn't drawn attention to herself, she alone might spot the robed and hooded figures lurking around the periphery of the cemetery, with torn straw masks over their faces. They seem to be observing what's happening closer to the burial site from afar, not taking further action to raise the dead, nor attacking, nor fleeing. Watching and waiting... Just like Xiao herself. If she attempts a headcount, she may determine there are eight in plain sight, and movement indicating up to six or seven more elsewhere that aren't as directly visible from Xiao's vantage point. What are they up to, hiding out while the undead attack, but making no attempt to act? 

:'''{{#var:707|Xiaomu (707)}} has posed:''' So things could basically be worse, not as many zombies as Xiaomu anticipated. Good. It still interrupted her precious gaming time, but if the zombies can be put down without blowing their heads off or cremating them where they shamble, the sage fox is going to stick with incantations and a few well-placed whacks of her staff. If Buddhist exorcism prayers will do the trick, fine; if it takes more than that, her priority is more on protecting the still-living than anything. Once the necessary violence has been applied, she'll turn her attention to helping some of the wounded. Even without trying to give first aid herself, she CAN call in medical support. 

:'''{{#var:823|Xiao Li Yu (823)}} has posed:'''      And of course, as all this excitement happened, Xiao indeed does not make any attempt to be a hero. She remained on the perimeter, watching with laptop opened and the screen displaying various readings. Don't worry, the thing is waterproof. Maybe not submerge proof, but it could stand a little rain. "And here come the virtuous souls..." She muttered to herself, keeping a careful eye on the proceedings. She didn't seem diappointed however. This was quite intriguing actually.      In her next sweep of the surroundings, she did happen to spot several robed figures keeping a good ways away from the chaos. About eight that she could spot. Movement further out indicated that perhaps there were more. Were they the orchestrators behind this little party? Their demeanor suggested it. But she felt no sudden urge to exact justice upon them. She also felt no need to approach them immediately      No, the results of this incident are what interested her. She began to walk, circling the perimeter with golden eyes keeping careful survey of the proceedings. Her path would eventually lead her towards those others watching silently, but her eyes were elsewhere.      "How will this turn out. I wonder..." 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     Weeping and wailing behind him startles Shirou out of his battle focus just briefly. "HURRY AND BACK AWAY! GET OUT OF HERE! You think these people want you joining them?!"     It doesn't matter if they hate them for going after these poor souls and releasing them. Even if he's hated, he will do everything he can to save people who can be saved.     Thankfully, mop-up isn't nearly as messy as breaking the initial mass up. He tracks down the few remaining shamblers and attempts to lightly cut them. Based on what he knows of this weapon's properties, it should bring enough spiritual peace that whatever dark magic chains them to unlife might break. if not though... THEN he'll have to clench his teeth and engage the fiercer butchery.     Once the last zombie falls, the copy of Thanatos disintegrates back into the prana it was forged from.     "Is anyone hurt?!" He calls out, being too far away to see exactly for sure - Xiaomu's likely closer. He went hunting down the stragglers after all. 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     Xiaomu chose attacking the undead over helping the injured, so she gets to whack a bandage-wrapped monster in the head with her staff, and better her bad mood, and as Shirou takes out the two remaining reanimated corpses, the injured continue to worsen. The man starts heading towards the tents where the others await after standing around looking forlonrly and confusedly at everything, unable to process what is happening. The little girl remains lying half-buried in the mud, and jerks a bit as she hacks up a gout of blood that falls right back down on her face. The extent of her injuries is still unclear since no one has looked at them, but she's probably in bad shape.     The undead were fairly easy to stop. No special injuries required, just damaging the bodies enough. Of course, Shirou's scythe has also ensured that the ones he slew aren't just faking it or something.     As the girl deteriorates, and the unexamined man comes closer and closer to the others, the hooded figures seem to be readying themselves for something. Unlit lanterns and handscythes are raised. They still seem unaware of Xiao circling around the cemetery and watching them... Taking notes on what is happening, and seeing what dark path this all leads down.     And what might be learned from the results. 

:'''{{#var:707|Xiaomu (707)}} has posed:''' Xiaomu is a sage fox of many skills, but medicine isn't one of them; she knows a smidgen of applicable first-aid, but the injured are probably well beyond her ability to help with, except perhaps to ease the passing of their souls. She doubts she can do much more than that for the girl in the mud; once the last of the zombies are disposed of, the sage fox moves to kneel by the girl, planting her staff nearby and bracing for the worst before checking the girl's injuries. She's coughing blood, she's covered in mud and dirt, it would take a LOT more than a first-aid kit to do any real good - but she checks anyway, trying to comfort the girl while she's still conscious. It may be all she can do. That, and pray for her soul. 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     Once, a boy wandered through a land of the dead and the dying. A field of bodies, haunted gazes pleading towards the only child somehow walking, begging for help.     And he ignored them, to save only himself.     Never again.     Be it fate or instinct he can just TELL tehre's someone alive and suffering. Maybe a cough reaches his ears despite the downpour. "... Someone is!" What do you do to treat ZOMBIE bites? Are they infectious?     He really isn't sure, but Shirou hurries over clumsily about when Xiaomu is. He spots the man but the man's still walking, unlike the girl. "Get the injured here!"     It's RAINING but he has an idea. Shirou does have some talent at projection beyond just swords... so long as it's simple shapes.     He extends a hand towrds some empty, muddied ground. "Trace... on!"     Prana flows out, forming into a very large table with a roof section held up by a central pillar. It's made of shiny, polished metal - won't be very comfortable in the cold and the rain, but it's better than muddy ground. "Xiaomu! I've got a first aid kit... you're a really accomplished fox, aren't you? Don't you have some kind of magic?!"     Of course if she did, she'd have used it, he'd figure... if he wasn't already in a panic... 

:'''{{#var:290|Rebecca Chambers (290)}} has posed:'''     There was a distress signal for medical aid. Rebecca happened to be listening and ready to go, so she quickly raced to the nearest MedEvac craft and raced to the scene. She'd heard there were zombies, so she brought her Beretta just in case. Hopefully, though, there won't be any combat happening, instead she'll just be doing field surgery and trying to save who she can. After all, that's what a field medic is for!     Once she arrives, Rebecca spies the two people in question. She first checks on the man and decides that he seems to be fairly stable, before turning her attention to the girl who's in the mud and coughing up blood. Running over to the girl, Rebecca starts to open her first aid kit, attempting to get a feel for what's causing her to be coughing blood, all the while hoping she can do something for her. 

:'''{{#var:823|Xiao Li Yu (823)}} has posed:'''      Look at those brave souls, helping the weak and the injured. So touching. So heroic.      She wasn't moved.      But it seemed like the zombies were cleared out. Such a shame. She wanted to see just what more these people would be doing with the undead. Eventually her circling of the perimeter led her close to the group of robed men.      She slowed to a stop. Close enough to be heard, but not so close to alarm them. Probably. "Tell me, was the aim of this incident to watch these people be saved? That certainly cannot be the case. There must be more...what is it?"      Whether any one of them answered or not, she would ask anyway. The girl had no weapons on her. Just a laptop displaying various points of data and notes. Nor did she seem intent to fight.      She really was just here to watch and take note. 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     Based on the brief examination of the injured man, it seems he is bleeding continuously from his wounds. The scratches and bites run dark in the rain that continues to pour down upon them all, but aside from his injuries not clotting (itself a serious problem) he doesn't seem to have been hit in any vital areas. Who knows what may have gotten into the wounds though, and coming from a world where undeath is infectious, Rebecca might be more prone than most (except for Shirou, apparently) to consider the possibility that scratches and bites could have doomed the man to become what attacked him... Though that isn't necessarily the case, it isn't known if it is or not. He's going to need more than just being casually glanced at if he's going to be treated either way though.     Either way, as Rebecca arrives, she'll see what Xiaomu has already discovered. The girl's throat has been torn out by a savage bite, it looks like. She's drowning in her own blood, unable to breathe without an air passage, and though she looks up frantically, terrified, in pain, barely conscious, as Xiaomu kneels over her, it's not long before the choking and twitching slow, and then cease. Her eyes remain wide open, though they dilate as well after a few moments as the last air gurgles out of her lungs in bubbles through the crimson trough that used to be her throat.     The people in the tents aren't leaving despite Shirou's insistence. To be fair, running off through the cemetery during a thunderstorm and getting attacked if there's any more creatures like this is probably not the best tactical decision. There's Elites here who can demonstratibly protect them, and a doctor as well. Seems much safer to stay where they are, local beliefs about the dead aside.     As Xiao approaches the masked and hooded men, they do not turn to face her. Though one of them speaks, in a deep, hollow, echoing voice.     "Out efforts are for His sake. The Dark Lord, Beloved by the Night, who dwells in the forest called Eternal Night, and rules over the dead and the damned. If you would have answers, seek Him there. It is our place only to serve." the creature responds. Then thirteen lanterns flare in-sequence, filling with a pale blue flame, and forming a circle as the location of these hooded figures are revealed, around the cemetery. The fourteenth, the one who spoke, does not light his lantern. He just keeps his arms up with the others, and waits.     Something's about to happen. 

:'''{{#var:290|Rebecca Chambers (290)}} has posed:'''     Rebecca can only watch with a look of sadness and sympathy as the poor girl stops breathing and dies in a gruesome manner. Blinking a few times to try to keep from shedding tears, Rebecca reaches over and gently closes the girl's eyes before taking advantage of the nearby table to lift the girl out of the mud and place her atop it while using a medical tarp she brought with her to cover the girl. "I'm sorry," She says softly. She knows she can't save everyone, but it still hurts all the same. 

:'''{{#var:707|Xiaomu (707)}} has posed:''' Xiaomu answers, "I have *some* magic but I'm not a healer! I do sealing, exorcisms, and kicking ass!" She's not even trying to hide her bad mood, except from the wounded little girl - and as Chambers arrives, Xiaomu beckons her over. Triage is good - for all Xiaomu knows, the little girl was too far gone from the start and the man is walking wounded but needs attention that he doesn't look like it, so she's not going to argue with the professional medic. As for that hopefully-clean table ... well, conjuring metal in the middle of a thunderstorm is risky, but it might do the survivor-for-now a decent favor. Xiaomu waves Chambers off at the girl's death rattle with a sharp murmur of, "Help the living," and a gesture at the man. She doesn't stop Becky from closing the girl's eyes, though, but she whispers a brief prayer to speed the soul on its way towards rebirth ... then rises slowly to her feet, grasping her staff and pulling it out of the ground again. She barely notices the lanterns flaring ... Or more accurately, she barely seems to care, except to turn towards the hooded figures. They were here. They were WATCHING. They might well be responsible. And so she starts towards them, the rings on her staff's headpiece jangling every time its butt strikes the muddy ground. The cultists, or whatever they are, will certainly hear her coming. She doesn't care if they do or not. Only how they react. 

:'''{{#var:823|Xiao Li Yu (823)}} has posed:'''      "Oh my."      She said nothing more, and stood by, video software primed to record. This would surely be interesting.      And her patience was rewarded when when thirteen lanterns flared up with a pale blue flame. The circle formation they lit up in was only further proof of the ritual that would soon take place. Xiao was giddy with excitement, and the huge smile on her face would not go anywhere.      But this wasn't the end. Something was going to happen. Very soon. What was it?      She stood by and waited, watching and almost holding her breath, as if the climax of a really engrossing movie was about to come. 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     No. Not that.     If nothing else, THAT FACE is the one face Shirou never wanted to see again. The crying, the desperate, the scared, the dying, the grieving.     The girl's gone before they can do anything.     Shirou doesn't cry, though. His heart rages coldly and fists clench tightly. Teeth grinding and eyes narrowing.     "... And all I have is one thing!" he's in the same boat as Xiaomu.     Swords cannot heal. They can't mend damage that was done. Only kill to prevent even more damage.     "That guy might be infected. Check him out, Xiaomu. If you've got sealing and exorcism, maybe you can tell." His tone's cold and determined...     As he steps out from under the cover he made, his amber eyes focus and stare defiantly at one of the lanterns in the distance.     Oh. He's pissed.     Has anyone ever seen him honestly pissed before? Nope, probably not. Pissed is a thing he just doesn't normally do. Even in the middle of a crisis. 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     Again, both Xiaomu and Shirou go after the enemy rather than the wounded. But can anyone blame them? They aren't equipped. And there IS a medic right here, so maybe Rebecca can still do something!     As Xiao watches, the flames in the lanterns go out, replaced with darkness where the flames should be. The flames aren't just gone, they've left behind black silhouettes that continue to writhe and burn, producing darkness instead of light.     And then the girl who is laid out on the table begins to move again. A hand twitches. She suddenly coughs, and then her back arches, her body twisting this way and that as though in incredible agony. Then the child sits up straight, opens her eyes, and turns to look at the backs of Shirou and Xiaomu, at Rebecca if she's still nearby. And black tears spill from her blankly staring eyes, as she opens her mouth, and a horrific wailing shriek like a jet engine running off the screams of children blasts out of the hole where her throat used to be.     The scared and mourning citizens of the town upon the plateau finally can take no more. In pain from the cry of the dead girl, they turn and flee in every which direction, in a panic. The robed figures who have used their lanterns start to withdraw, backing up slowly. They don't seem to actually be WALKING though... More like floating backwards. If charged, they could still be caught up with at their current 'less than a foot per second' pace. But that would leave the newly-created undead wouldn't it? At least thirteen (there's 14) robed figures, scattered in a circle, and one terrifying new undead. There's no doubt that some of the men can be eliminate before they escape. But is there a way to get them all AND the girl, without dividing up duties?     The fourteenth figure, the only one to speak to Xiao so far, remains right where he is, his lantern is still unlit. He speaks again. "A new undead arises. A new servant for the Lord of Shadow. Birthed from death at the hands of a risen loved one she was there to bury... It shall be called a Mourner." 

:'''{{#var:707|Xiaomu (707)}} has posed:''' Xiaomu comes to a halt when she hears the shrieking behind her, her pupils shrinking and narrowing. She spends the overwhelming majority of her time in the shape of a human, but she's still a fox spirit who's learned to love humanity and its treasures. But she's a fox spirit, not a human ... and in the course of her long life, she's only ever reverted to her natural shape when she's wounded too badly to waste energy on human guise. Besides being a fox, Xiaomu is also a spirit - what her comrades in Shinra term a 'youkai,' a supernatural apparition. While Xiaomu doesn't like thinking of herself that way, it's a truth about her that she can't deny; she usually refrains from doing more than correcting anyone who terms her a 'kitsune' or a Japanese fox spirit. But even a supernatural being still comes from nature. Undeath is as far from 'nature' as anything can possibly get. "Shirou," hisses Xiaomu. "Holy blades. Use whatever you can. Lay the undead to rest and keep them that way." She turns to look at the girl who *SHOULD* be dead and gone, her soul ferried to the afterlife, as the sage fox's ears flatten against her head to try and muffle the unholy howling. Then Xiaomu draws one of her handguns, cocking back the hammer, and shoots the undead little girl in the head with an enchanted anti-spirit bullet; she loaded them earlier with the knowledge that she'd be fighting undead. Then she's hurrying towards the tents, going after the OTHER undead that just got raised up, with a cold fury that could, fairly, be described as ... inhuman. 

:'''{{#var:598|Lezard Valeth (598)}} has posed:''' The birth of a new and terrible undead rings out through the air. It positively /stinks/ of dark, forbidden magic, the air heavy with the emotional turmoil of shattered minds and hearts, the screams of agony and the soul tainting the heavens, screaming out for justice to be done as this abomination rises. There is a clapping sound, as thunder crashes down, a sizzling magical circle forming near the new undead and the cultists. "Well well well, what do we have here?" A dark shape fades into view, the lightning gleaming off of spectacles, lighting in relief the smiling visage of a man. No, this place has not attracted the hands of the divine to cleanse this place. No, evil tonight has called to evil, and Lezard Valeth, the Necromancer of Midgard, has answered. "Very impressive, this work. One might even consider the effort to create such a being... artistic, in the realms of darkness." He throws a hand aside, his cape flourishing as he looks to the robed figures. "I would speak with beings who would perform such tasks. I have heard mention of a Lord of Shadow. Is it on His behalf that you act?" His gaze swivels to the side, as he observes Shirou and Xiaomu, however. "Ah, but it seems you have engendered the hostility of of others. Allow me to offer my assistance as a token of goodwill." There is a flare of blackflame, as a large, black gnarled staff takes shape in one of Lezard's hands. "Stand down, heroes, or face your destruction." With a flourish of the staff, black blades manifest, gnashing down between Xiaomu and the Mourner like jaws of shadow. "DARK SAVIOR!" He exclaims. 

:'''{{#var:290|Rebecca Chambers (290)}} has posed:'''     There's no use grieving at all. Especially when the person you tried to save just came back to life! Xiaomu took out the undead girl before Rebecca could do a thing about it. Shaking her head, Rebecca sighs. "This is too ironic," She says to herself, before going to check on the other person. He seemed stable last time she checked on him, but she goes to give him a more thorough going over just to be safe. 

:'''{{#var:823|Xiao Li Yu (823)}} has posed:'''      Oh.      That scream was not expected. She winced upon having to hear it, but that was all the indication she needed to perhaps clear the area. A bit. ...But of course she wouldn't. And miss this spectacle? No way!      She glanced aside at the only figure to remain, listening as he spoke. "...A Mourner." She repeated lightly, typing one handed into her laptop the details of this new, risen undead. Her eyes did not remain on the screen however. She needed to observe this with her own eyes. Record the happenings for later analyzing.      The appearance of a certain necromancer was not....expected. But it was not unwelcome. She smiled wide in amusement. "Oh boy, oh dear...It seems that you have a new arrival." The scientist commented in an amused manner. "A new variable to shake things up. I wonder how this will progress..." She brought a hand to her chin, ceasing her typing.      She hoped she wouldn't have to step in. She wasn't a fan of combat, even if she was perfectly capable.      For now, she would watch. Unless something attacked her, Xiao was not going to budge, most likely. 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     Hearing an awful clatter and coughing behind him, Shirou's attention is drawn to what he feared might happen...     "..." Eyes sad and regretful, practically hissing in horror, he once again prepares to project -b ut Xiaomu'x gun is much quicker.     Only flinching slightly, he then ROCKETS into motion. Putting all the power he can into his legs, Shirou breaks into a speeding charge, ducking low across the ground, that seems impossible for human legs to manage. Easily hitting fourty miles an hour and kicking up dirt in his wake.     "My body is made of swords," the boy mutters. "A shell of steel with fire for blood."     "I have created over a thousand blades, never once retreating, never knowing victory."     "I stand atop a hill of swords, forging weapons from my flesh. This lonely path--"     Just as he's gotten that out and gathered all of that prana though, BOOM. It's a LEZARD.     He skids to a halt.     "...Artistic?!" The girl who just bit it? That's artistry?     Judgemental eyes fixate on Lezard, though swivel towards the retreating 'cultists' just the same.     "I'm not letting them escape or regroup just because you want to show off!" The boy yells, waving an arm at Lezard.     More than waving an arm though. His arm shimmers with an outpouring crackle of prana that few have seen him manage yet. It spreads through the ground, forcing open cracks that glow with an almost hellish red light.     Even if he knows - and Lezard knows that he knows - that Shirou cannot possibly contend against him in a magic contest, he's doing something BIG.     Something very unusual.     "My whole life is... UNLIMITED BLADE WORKS!"     The power ERUPTS outwards. Half the cemetery - and likely a chunk of the fleeing cultists - is in range. So is where Lezard and Xiaomu stand with Rebecca. Xiao might or might not be engulfed too...     In a strange, lurching sensation. Everyone's vision goes white briefly as a heatless flame rushes outwards. A very powerful and tricky BOUNDARY FIELD is established, anyone with the simplest senses for that can figure it out easily. The world everyone knows has been pushed aside and flipped around, and the world inside the caster's mind and soul expanded.     What surrounds everyone now is an endless field of baked, rusty-red wasteland. Barren dirt, impaled with all manner of blades. Weapons sprout from the ground like ominous saplings. Ornate, mundane, large and small, western and eastern and stranger makes besides. The mightiest of Noble Phantasms stand proudly alongside lesser works.     No sun stands in the heavens, but the twilight sky is brilliant, and sparks of slag rise as if cast from the anvil of some smith's forge.     This world is the forge.     And Shirou's standing in the center, glaring daggers at Lezard Valeth.     "Necromancer. You're not getting involved in this. It's bad enough already!"     He's standing stalwart about a hundred feet away from Lezard, perhaps the same from HOPEFULLY some trapped cultists. Right in the center, dressed plainly and still covered in mud. 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     The girl-shaped monster takes a holy bullet to the head, and is hurled from the table. As her skull sizzles and burns from the inside, the Mourner gets back to her feet slowly, and then unleashes another sonic attack, this time on Rebecca, since she's closest. The inability for the injured man's wounds to heal seems like it would require some sort of coagulating agent to be introduced. Something to help cause clotting. Otherwise he's just going to bleed out from surface wounds no deeper than a half-inch. Though the blackening of tissue around the wounds is also worring, indicating rapid necrosis. Maybe it was infectious after all! ...Or maybe that's just mud. It's hard to tell with the ear-bleedingly-loud screams of the wailing Mourner as she staggers in the direction of Rebeccca and the injured man.     Of course, with everyone now locked away in that other dimension, except for some of the occultists on the other side of the cemetery, Lezard blocking access to the Mourner with bladed shadows means helping Rebecca may take more than just turning and shooting again. In response to Lezard's appearance and Xiao's words, the 14th figure responds in the same tone despite the drastic change in scenery, "It appears so. He does not turn away those with power nor who seek it. Many strive to serve at His side. Ability is recognized, and initiative rewarded." Then to Lezard himself, the figure calls out, "Those who would seek knowledge and power from Him, who would serve the ends of darkness and their own ambitions, find Him within the forest called Eternal Night. The Demon Castle awaits." It's not too different a message than Xiao was given. The man-thing could ALMOST just be reciting variations upon the same phrase over and over, as though programmed, except he clearly showed individuality in naming the new form of undead, didn't he?     The other occultists within the Reality Marble stop trying to float away, seemingly realizing they are trapped. Instead, their lanterns catch ablaze once more and they float forwards, flying at Shirou more quickly than they've been moving so far, trying to slash him one after the other with their hand-scythes. The way they move... It's like they're nearly weightless except for their garments and weapons. Levitation magic or something possibly? 

:'''{{#var:598|Lezard Valeth (598)}} has posed:''' Lezard smiles. "Yes, artistic. Do you even understand what had been wrought here? Any fool can simply bind a spirit into their service. But this? The insight into the psychology. The way the tragedy, anger, and horror is wrapped around them... It takes /effort/ to manufacture circumstances in such a way to prepare an /exceptional/ spirit, and even more to prepare an optimal... vessel." The cultist answers Lezard, and he nods. "Very well. Should you survive this event, let him know I shall be coming to call upon him. I would very much wish to meet such a man, a man who understands what it is to desire." When the Reality Marble snaps into place, Lezard Valeth grimaces, holding the gnarled staff before him in a defensive posture. "You... This alteration of space. You have delved into the forbidden arts, then... Just as I have." He smiles, and adjusts his glasses, gleaming in the forgelight of the wasteland. "You will find, magus, that you are not capable of /stopping/ me!" Lezard declares, an explosion of dark Power rising around him, spirling up around him and the Catalyst he wields like a terrible wind. "Are you prepared to match your sorcery against mine?!" And so it was that he stretched forth his hands, his voice reverbarting like a terrible bell within the Reality Marble. "I am he who hath entrusted his soul to the eternal vortex of time! Ye know me! And if ye do not, ye shall be MADE TO KNOW ME! It shall be /engraved upon thy very soul/, LEZARD VALETH! If ye shall accept the brand of Hel upon thee, thy sanctions shall in turn be lowered. I shall grant thee the deliverance of thy soul, and ye shall come now before me!" Through the vast field, swirling holes of purple open, and /hundreds/ of undead crawl from the blackness. Shambling zombies, vampires, spirits, clambering knights in black armor and burning red eyes, withered soldiers in rotten leather armor, and more arrive. To each side, hulking skeletal figures wreathed in flaming manes and topped with a draconic skull bear massive blades and heavy armor, flanking Lezard himself. "Tell me!" Lezard calles, his mouth splitting into a wide grin of anticipation. "DO YOU HAVE ENOUGH SWORDS, EMIYA SHIROU?" With a thrust of the great, dark staff, he points towards Shirou. "/TAKE HIM!/" He yells. The order ripples through the horde like a wave, and as one they begin charging Shirou upon his hill. Meanwhile, power begins to build around Lezard again, as he prepares his next act. 

:'''{{#var:823|Xiao Li Yu (823)}} has posed:'''      ".....?"      Fire crossed Xiao's vision, yet she didn't feel heat. Once that fire was cleared away, what she bore witness to was not the rain soaked graveyard from earlier, but rather... "Where...where exactly...?" She looked all around herself.      It was a barren field of swords. Swords as far as the eye could see. Swords from every era. Past, present, and future. A world of swords. A world of his own making. With the Mourner out of sight, and everyone locked into that boy's personal reality, Xiao brought a hand to her chin. "...A pocket reality? ....No, but..." She moved forward, closing her laptop and tucking it away into her sleeves. It vanished, oddly enough. Even though her sleeves clearly could not hold such a thing.      Must be a spell.      She approached a wayward sword, feeling it's surface. "It feels real...fascinating....and yet...this reality, borne from magic, yet 'not' reality at the same time..." The girl grinned towards Shirou, totally nonplussed as he and the necromancer were starting to have it out.      That wasn't a good grin. That was her 'I want to strap you to a table and study your innards' grin.      Unlimited Blades versus Unlimited Undead. Whichever won, she wasn't concerned. All she was concerned with now was getting her eager little hands on Shirou. Xiao knelt down, and then dashed forward. Her speed belied her aversion to combat. She crossed the distance in due time, and skid to a stop next to Lezard. "Excuse me, Mr. Sorcerer." She asided to the bi-spectacled man. "That boy you're about to face off with...I have a keen interest in him." Keen was being humble, judging from the manic grin on her face. "Would you mind if I captured and studied his brain? Perhaps perform vivisection and see just what his innards look like? Or maybe even study the very DNA contained in his blood?"      Her hands were enclosed within her sleeves, and she held no weapons. But still, she was totally spiking the danger senses right now.      Xiao looked towards Shirou meanwhile and smiled pleasantly. "You don't mind, do you? Of course you don't." 

:'''{{#var:707|Xiaomu (707)}} has posed:''' "You have absolutely GOT to be kidding me ..." snarls the sage fox, a downright bestial glare directed against the interceding necromancer. "Lezard Valeth, is it? We're gonna have a bone to pick with you, a BIG one -" Cue appearance of an entire freaking undead army. The only reason Xiaomu's temper doesn't snap at the sight of it ... Well. Not to put too fine a point on it? It already *DID*. Xiaomu does not charge at Lezard, nor at the undead army; she strides purposefully towards her enemies, her charge towards the tents forgotten the instant a wall was conjured between her and the little Mourner girl. The pistol which the sage fox already used once is holstered - not safetied, not recocked, not reloaded - and she instead withdraws a grenade. The pin is pulled, the spoon is released, and the grenade is flung at Lezard Valeth, hocked straight over that bladed wall if necessary (although it'll throw her aim off; still, he was ranting and chanting loudly enough to locate him by the sound of his voice). Then another grenade. This one takes a lot more of a wind-up before the fox flings it - because this one is aimed into the thick of the conjured undead army. Both grenades are enhanced with fire magic, courtesy of Shinra's weapons division. Big explosions, and considerably more literal fireballs than your standard frag or concussion grenade. 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     The skies of Unlimited Blade Works shudder and ripple throughout the performance of Lezard's spellwork, as though unstable, but the abnormality's cleared up once his undead minions appear.     Standing apart from the accomplished magus and horrors from the abyss, Shirou doesn't seem like much. "Forbidden arts? Heh. This world is the only real magic I have. It's a far cry from what you've gotten involved in."     But allies are here.     He doesn't stand alone.     AND.     His whole armory is already here!     Answering the taunt, Shirou rips a longsword from the ground and goes on a charge straight for Lezard! "More than you can count!"     His path WOULD take him for the Sorcerer, but is blockaded. Not just by minions, but by the incoming dark spirits. Shirou's forced to halt for a moment, but... for a good reason.     This world is HIS. It answers to his will and his alone.     Swords erupt from the ground and whip through the endless distances at unfathomable speeds. Crossing any distance takes instants, no more. Hundreds of blades rain from the heavens down upon the minions, all shapes and sizes. It's much like facing a volley of arrows from an entire legion of archers. There is nowhere to dodge, nowhere to hide.     The Dark Spirits, too, find their blades being parried before they've quite swung. Dozens of swords fly around Shirou every time he flicks a glance their ways, but he's forced to leap away from them all and reposition himself. Kanshou and Bakuya fly to his hands instantly... but NOW he's looking spooked and strained.     It was looking bad when it was just Lezard and RETREATING spirits. He hadn't counted on them figuring out they were trapped so fast. AND turning on him.     But this gets him a clear view of Xiao and well, WHEN DID SHE GET HERE?!     Shirou aims one hell of a distasteful face at her. "What's WRONG with you two?!"     The other, well, probably referring to Lezard.     Either way, relying on mooks and summoned creatures might not be smart here. The moment a portal appears where Shirou can see it, the portal becomes the target of a dozen converging swords. No matter how many shatter there are always more, though the exact same never appears twice.     Lezard Valeth has to take time to cast spells in here. But Emiya Shirou's swords are all here, and they're EVERYWHERE.     The hulking skeletons however, Shirou figures they'll be great trouble.     And probably won't go down from a sword rain like he hopes the summoned minions will. 

:'''{{#var:598|Lezard Valeth (598)}} has posed:''' Xiao Li Yu wasn't even on Lezard's radar until she popped up. Once she inquires of him, he looks like he is about to reply with a cutting remark, until she gets to the point. "Interesting." He replies. "Perhaps we can study him together, if you are interested. I have been wondering many things about the nature of this magus. Feel free to assist. If we can weaken him, we can move in to capture him for study." He doesn't care how she does it. She'll serve as another distraction at worst and at best she might actually help weaken Shirou enough. Meanwhile, chaos reigns across the battlefield. Undead meet countless blades, the tide of undead crashing immediately into the rain of steel and seething in destruction as the lesser undead begin to be immmediately annihilated. But Lezard's reach is wide, and some that answer his call are made of sterner stuff. The heavily armored Dragontooth Knights take a dozen swords each, some of the swords shattering off of the heavy armor, while others pierce but do not seem to slow the beasts down further. There is an explosion of flame, and am opening is made as one of Xiaomu's grenades lands, blasting through the undead with immolating force. Lezard is seen, wavering in the heat as he stares out at Xiaomu and Shirou, one hand burning with a lambent purple flame and the other holding out the gnarled staff. As the second grenade flies in for Lezard himself, he turns and whips the staff to one side. There is a loud crack, and the grenade flies up into the air above him, detonating with a massive explosion. "You will not defeat me with such tactics! I will attend to /you/ in a moment." There is a surge of energy, as Lezard emits a powerful surge from his staff. The air around him twists and burns as spheres of nonlight are created around him, each one sort of fuzzy along the edges and with tiny, staring points of light within. They give the impression of being... eyes. Shirou might find this phenomenon vry familiar. With a lunge, Lezard hurls himself out of the protective defenses of his Dragontooth Warriors, launching himself directly towards Shirou as he sweeps his staff around to... strike at him directly? The weapon's impact is heavy... but even heavier is the swarm of Pursuers, each of whom home in to strike at Shirou, impacting with a strangely heavy force that also sears at flesh. It feels like the Abyss. Even worse are the strikes from the staff, however, as each blow is accompanied with a blast of black flame that erupts from the staff, or a shotgun-like burst of tiny black spheres. "The line between you and I grows thinner by the day, magus. All that you are missing..." He doesn't complete his words as he brings the staff up and brings it down in a massive, brutal twohanded strike. 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     As Shirou's blades block the attacks coming from the flying cultists, and Xiao moves to support Lezard in fighting the young magus, alongside an entire army of the undead, and Xiaomu starts throwing fire grenades everywhere... The dead little girl with the flesh-tearing voice continues to wander around aimlessly on the other side of the barrier of shadow blades. The 14th of the cultists, the only one thus far to speak, drifts away from all the battle, taking no hostile action and doing nothing to draw attention to himself. Armies, crazy surgery enthusiasts, ghosts, good guys, bad guys, and explosions as far as the eye can see. Only one can survive, but who will it be!? (Spoiler: More than one can survive)     The 14th is not waiting to find out. He instead arrives near the Mourner, which does not perceive him as an enemy and so leaves him be. Instead, little mewls and sobs continue to trickle out of her thunderously, as surely as the black tears that leak from glassy, lifeless eyes to scald the barren soil of this place. There's no little girl in there anymore. Not really. But biological traces remain. Xiaomu's attempts to send the spirit on kept this new undead from gaining ALL the traits that might have been hoped for, but this is good enough as a prototype.     Any of the cultists slain by Shirou let out a deep, inhuman wailing noise, more like wind moving through a pipe or a tunnel than something a creature would make, before collapsing in on themselves and hurling their flaming lanterns as a last-ditch effort to cause pain in their attacker.     And the 14th simply holds up his own lit lantern, and extinguishes the flame in the same manner the others had to create the Mourner in the first place, leaving behind a silhouette of a flame that produces dark instead of light. Stored magical energy is used up, and the Mourner is UNRAVELLED, the too-small body of a young girl becoming only so much meat and viscera as it is sucked up into some other place to be rebuilt there.     And then the hooded figure turns his masked gaze back on the battle as his expended lantern is cast aside... 

:'''{{#var:823|Xiao Li Yu (823)}} has posed:'''      Xiao Li looked between Xiaomu, who she was only just noticing, and Shirou. She wanted to study Shirou's combat abilities so very much, but no, Lezard looked plenty capable of handling himself. Instead, she offered Shirou a creepy smile. "Nothing is wrong with me. Unless you count the desire to know all wrong." Her gaze then settled on Xiaomu.      "I suppose the least I can do is keep this fox off your back." Sure, double teaming Shirou would have been faster, but that left their backs exposed. So she'd settle for keeping Shirou's companion busy. At that, she called out for the Shinra Operative. "Helloooo! Sorry, but I'm afraid you're going to have to stay right where you are. No hard feelings." She removed her hands from her sleeves, revealing a pair of black metal gauntlets. They occasionally pulsed red with arcane energy.      And then she dashed across the barren field of swords, fists crackling with electricity. With one fist clenched and reared back, she quickly closed the distance and lashed out with a blow aimed for the midsection. On impact, hit or block, it would release a surge of lightning after. Branching out erratically and wildly with no form to it. "You are not human, are you?" She smirked. "This should be interesting. Studying you should prove to be quite fruitful as well. Be a dear and stay still for me, okay?"      In the midst of this battle within the pocket reality, Xiao was unable to notice the retreat of the 14th. The inhuman screams of the other cultists upon their defeat was impossible to miss, but... Just as well. Her eyes were on Shirou...and now Xiaomu as well. So much data to be collected, so little time. What's a girl to do? 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     Shirou does indeed recognize the gut-wrenching sensation of that magic. It brings a foul, disapproving and fierce look to his face even THROUGH the panic that's showing. He does NOT like this situation. Not one bit.     And yet SOMETHING in him simply would not tolerate Lezard Valeth treating a little girl he'd never met that way.     Under normal circumstances, he would have never challenged Lezard Valeth so boldly, pointlessly, and recklessly. ... Probably.     But now he's under assault and the ONLY thing keeping him from getting blown to smithereens is the way Kanshou and Bakuya move with a strange, twirling grace. The almost dance-like dual swords style has him backpedaling and some of his steps are clumsy but the twin swords move unerringly. Most of the Dark Beads are deflected, only a few striking Shirou in the legs and shoulders when his guard was at the limit. Something about those two blades REJECTS the Abyss and all of Lezard's magic.     It is not a very powerful rejection, but Yin and Yang countering magic together have a very UNRAVELING effect on spells.     And, for that matter, the monstrous emanations of humanity's dark core from the staff. That, too, is being rejected and cut apart on contact. The waves frazzle and lose around a third of their cohesion before slamming into Shirou, but slam into him they do nonetheless. Twin blades press back against the staff, but Shirou's taken heavy hits. The darkness hits like hammer blows, yet crackles through his body. Magic Circuits fizzle and sputter...     Reality flickers like a badly tuned television. Shirou's magic is not so mighty against its ilk, special and unique though it is.     Gasping and panting, and holding onto a pair of very cracked chinese short swords, Shirou cannot maintain the Reality Marble any longer.     BLINDING white light explodes from him-- but it's over in a flash. Everyone might feel as if they've just been dropped a few feet... but in reality, everyone's just back in the graveyard. And nobody fell at all.     But Shirou's down to one knee, with his Magic Circuits crying in protest.     The Reality Marble is a very impressive magic, but it would be far better if his spellcraft was perhaps two or three decades more polished!     Even so.     "Like hell am I letting you experiment on either of us. This battle doesn't even have a meaning anymore... BUT!" FORCING his muscles and Magic Circuits to obey, Shirou stands up tall again. Even with blood staining his torn shirt and little prana left he's glaring DAGGERS at Lezard.     "I've just seen a little girl torn apart by her family and neighbors' corpses. What wrong did she commit, what right did anyone have to damn her to undeath? There's something twisted and wrong in you where a soul should be. I'm not a magus like that, and never will be!" 

:'''{{#var:707|Xiaomu (707)}} has posed:''' Xiaomu does not stay right where she is at the time Xiao calls out to her; she's stalking towards what she thinks is Lezard's position, although it seems as though Shirou is going to be focusing on the particularly blatant necromancer wizard who wasn't wearing cultist robes or anything. The 'No hard feelings' bit prompts her lips to peel back in a snarl, and her eyes to change further towards the slitted pupils of a beast; her hair-tails are fluffed out by now, swaying with a mixture of feral fury and rising energy. Then Xiao Li Yu charges at the sage fox and tries to punch her; the sage fox simply catches the initial punch on her staff, gritting her teeth and growling as the lightning crackles out and singes her, further fraying her mood and unraveling her control. "You seriously," hisses the fox, "have *NO* fucking clue how little I care to be *STUDIED*." She grabs her staff's headpiece with her right hand, the left hand still holding the shaft - and draws out a concealed swordblade, Suiren's edge glinting in the twilight of Unlimited Blade Works. Then she lets go of the staff itself, her left hand lashing out to try and grab that lightning gauntlet on Xiao's right arm. If she gets electrocuted further, she'll deal with it ... Because her next move is to try to plunge Suiren straight into Xiao Li Yu's heart, and give it a firm twist, even BEFORE she unleashes the ice magic within the blade. On the plus side, if the stab goes through to impale the other woman, the ice magic might actually slow her down from dying. 

:'''{{#var:598|Lezard Valeth (598)}} has posed:''' Lezard draws back as the Reality Marble implodes. As the swords go, Lezard similarly dismisses his own horde of undead. What's left of it, anyway. The corpses did a good job of tying up swords, at least. Lezard himself, however, smiles again as Shirou staggers back to his feet, standing there with the air sizzling around him. Unlike Shirou, Lezard doesn't even look winded. But he doesn't continue attacking. "One day, magus... You will find something that is stronger than those weak words. Stronger than those naive ideas. Stronger than those blunt and brittle blades. Right and wrong... These are things we define for ourselves, things people with power define for others." He steps backwards, and the teleportation circle begins forming under him once more. "And on that day, you will know the truth... That this is the fate of all who desire the power to shake the pillars of heaven." For accepting Xiao's help, he doesn't seem to be doing a whole lot at the moment to get her out of that pointed retort from Xiaomu... 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     The Reality Marble collapses, and everyone is immediately hit with pouring rain again, howling winds, the *BOOM* of thunder caught mid-roar, and the flash of lightning striking a metal table that Shirou projected. Lezard may be retreating, or maybe he has something else up his sleeve. But the 14th cultists remains. And it seems, perhaps, that each time that Shirou uses his Reality Marble he might be instinctively retaining a bit of its power.     Because as the cloaked and hooded figure floats forward, two swords continue to hover in the air behind Shirou. Silver, gleaming, straight... Not especially ornate, but functional. And definitely magical. With Shirou down on one knee, though, exhausted, in pain... How is he controlling them?     Short answer: He's not.     Because those aren't his swords.     The 14th cultist flexes his own power, and the blades streak down towards Shirou's back from only a few feet away.     Can he notice them in time and react? Can someone else? Given his recuperative powers, it might not matter. But there's no good time to be impaled through the shoulders with swords that are trying to pin you to the muddy ground like an insect. 

:'''{{#var:823|Xiao Li Yu (823)}} has posed:'''      "Why, that's a shame." Xiao Lu Yu says with a tone of feigned disappointment. "Because you have no clue how much I want to study you!" And then her gauntlet is grabbed. As anticipated, it is still charged with plenty of electricity, far more than a taser. About as much much as a mid level lightning spell rather. The act of grabbing it introduced that current directly to Xiaomu. She should let go...like, now.      Of course, the researcher didn't stand idle. She was quite surprised to see a /sword/ come out of what she presumed was a staff. "Oh-?"      SHUNK      The sword pierced through her body...but not her heart. She shook off her surprise at the unorthodox weapon and moved at the last moment. Instead, it pierced through her shoulder, above the collarbone. Blood streamed out of the freshly inflicted wound, and more so at the twist. "Kuh! Argh!" She let out a brief cry of pain, but then...slowly a grin formed on her face. "Hee hee~ Someone is angry today, aren't they? How cute~" And then the ice magic took effect, causing large ice crystals to grow out of the wound and cover it.      That definitely did damage, but...rather than scream and cry, she looked...amused? Definitely in pain, but amused nonetheless. And in addition, the hand that had grabbed the gauntlet, she attempted to grab Xiaomu's wrist in turn, keeping the electrical current flowing into her body.      "Come on, stay a while~"      Creepy creepy creepy. 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     After all that exertion and all the effort it took to simply stand, Shirou has nowhere NEAR enough warning before the swords slam into his back. They bury into him, slamming THROUGH him... he's completely impaled. One... went throgh a lung. The other?     His heart?     Later, he'll be thanking Saber for her continued support of his efforts, and his ample opportunities to keep prana flowing into Avalon.     For now though, he makes a startled gurgly noise while Lezard's teleporting away, staggers a few steps forward, and stumbles into the mud.     Down. Mortally wounded by all possibly standards.     But somehow not dead. 

:'''{{#var:707|Xiaomu (707)}} has posed:''' Additional lightning does not help either Xiaomu's physical condition or her mental condition; if anything, it only drives her to release even *MORE* ice magic through Suiren's blade. If Xiao Li Yu doesn't get torn apart by growing ice crystals, she's going to be encased in a very large block of ice instead ... or both might happen. At least, up until the point where Xiaomu brings her legs up - both of them, basically letting Xiao support her weight with her grip and with the sword through her shoulder - and plant her feet on the growing block of ice ... and with an ear-piercing, blood-curdling shriek, Xiaomu *PUSHES* with all the strength in her body, with an eye to the combined purposes of ripping her sword back out of Xiao's shoulder, ripping HERSELF free of that electrified grip, and sending the ice block sliding backwards as fast as it'll glide over the muddy ground. That ice block might just possibly slide into the teleport circle. It might just happen to hit Lezard hard enough to knock him OUT of it. Or it might not go far enough to do either, leaving Xiao Li Yu frozen solid and stranded. The look in the fox spirit's eyes should make it dreadfully clear, though, that if Xiao remains any longer, the huli jing who shares part of her name is going to keep trying to kill her. The Union may be good guys, and most days, so is Xiaomu - but the huli jing is seriously out for blood and she's taking this fight VERY personally. Mercy ain't on the menu tonight. 

:'''{{#var:823|Xiao Li Yu (823)}} has posed:'''      Neither was going to give up. Even as ice crystals grew along her body, and inside of her wound, Xiao Li Yu did not let go, continuing to channel electricity into Xiaomu's body furiously. But the ice kept growing and growing and growing....      "Ah-"      Eventually she was indeed encased in ice, only able to watch as Xiaomu used her as leverage, and then RIPPED her sword right out of Xiao's shoulder, and sending her careening back. Thud, clunk, clatter.      ".........."      At first, there was nothing. Xiao Li Yu seemed to be quite defeated. Not much you can do while encased in ice!      But then curiously, a sort of sickly, purple miasma began to stream out from the cracks in the ice. The wispy streams became more numerous, and more forceful, creating cracks in the sculpture. And then all at once, the ice shattered in an explosion of dark energy, sending ice shrapnel every which way.      Emerging from it was Xiao Li Yu, still very much alive, though her shoulder was ruined at the moment. But the look on her face... She glared at Xiaomu with a ferocity that matched the sage fox's. The darkness emanated around her form, eroding the land on which she knelt, and surrounding her in a sickly aura. "The next time I see you...I'm going to tear you limb from limb...and and I'll see just what makes you tick...hehehe...hehe...he~"      Whoops, she's lost it. 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     The so-far mostly-quiet, emotionless-seeming, almost golem-like 14th Cultist, upon witnessing Shirou fall... Starts to chuckle darkly, before breaking into full, deep laughter. He withdraws the silver blades with his mind, and they fly back to his side. "How interesting..." A seemingly-dead or seemingly-dying Shirou is interesting? "Necromancer. Your power and skill have been noted. He will be made aware of your contributions. Researcher, you as well. Your thirst for knowledge no matter what must be done to obtain it is welcome in His court of the misty moon. Either of you may feel free to enter the Demon Castle as its guests. This one, however..."     The hooded figure floats closer to Shirou, even as the boy's blood drips from the blades. One of the silver swords floats horizontally in front of the masked figure's face. A dark, rattling sound can be heard as though attempting to inhale the blood's scent. Yet more creepy people here tonight, it seems. "As for you, dying-boy. If you are saved somehow... You too are welcome to come to His castle... Though as a challenger. Of course, if you die here, then all will have been for nothing, and no one will be saved. More incidents like this will keep happening, heroes will keep falling, until everyone lives in fear and pain forever. Because YOU did not stop it..."     The Cultist then drifts even closer, bending over Shirou's seemingly-mortally-wounded body, and hissing out, "...Emiya Shirou, defender of the forest, of the winter village, of the town of life and death, and challenger of the legendary monster, Medusa. Yesss... You've shown yourself to be quite capable so far. But if you fall here, you were never worth testing." 

:'''{{#var:707|Xiaomu (707)}} has posed:''' "Don't make promises ... you can't keep, you ..." The sage fox does not trail off, but once she catches her breath again, she utters a string of invective from something in between Cantonese, Mandarin, and Shanghai dialects of Chinese, sufficiently mish-mashed that not even the Multiverse can make too much sense of it. The most coherent part of the curse is 'may your ancestors rise up and mistake you for --' and the final words of that are untranslatable by anything. That might really be for the better, though. The scent of refreshingly human blood leads the sage fox towards Shirou ... and towards the cultist who's lurking over him like a shinigami who enjoys its work rather too much. The sage fox is too ticked off from her brawl with Xiao Li Yu to take much truck with subtlety - and she hasn't sheathed Suiren yet. Cue stabbing and ice, coupled with a scream that *IS* utterly bloody feral; if the cultist doesn't dodge, Xiaomu whips Suiren around with enough force to fling the resultant ice crystal back in Xiao Li Yu's direction. *THEN* Xiaomu sheathes her blade, and hauls Shirou up over one of her shoulders before starting to hobble away, leaning on her staff to support both herself and her passenger. She might realize later, when her brain is more capable of rational thought, if the robe seemed kind of ... empty. But at this point, she literally cannot care - and it's a small miracle that enough human habits remain in her train of thought to rescue an ally. 

:'''{{#var:823|Xiao Li Yu (823)}} has posed:'''      Watching all of this, Xiao Li Yu struggled to stand to her feet again, dark aura still billowing out from around her. "Heh heh...we'll see about that, you..." There was a pause, and a moment to catch her breath. "What /is/ your name anyway?" She demanded with a frown, soft pants escaping from her. While she asked this, she began to take steps backward, clearly not about to chase after them with this much damage.      Not like she wanted to stop them. Know your limits and all that. 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     Xiaomu tears apart the robed figure with her ice blade, and it collapses in on itself like the others, falling down into a pool of darkness. Hopefully Rebecca can help the injured man. Shirou was probably not in a condition to answer the robed figure, but hopefully he was at least aware of what was said to him while his body repaired itself, so that he knew where to go to find justice and stop more people from dying.     Xiao never gets the cloaked man's name, if she was asking him. Oh, well. Maybe his master will be welcome to greet Xiao and Lezard at the castle regardless. All in all, only one fatality, and a lot of traumatized people.     This still may have felt rather a pyrrhic victory, but how much worse would it have been if people like Xiao and Lezard had been allowed to do as they pleased here without anyone to oppose them? Now if only future incidents like this can be prevented at the source... 

}}

2195/Armster Estate Pt. 2

2015-09-23T02:08:33Z

Paladine: Created page with "{{Log Header |Date of Scene=2015/05/09 |Location=Bernhard Castle <BC> |Synopsis=Further investigation into the Armster Estate, somewhere in Europe. |Thanks= |Cast of Character..."

{{Log Header
|Date of Scene=2015/05/09
|Location=Bernhard Castle <BC>
|Synopsis=Further investigation into the Armster Estate, somewhere in Europe.
|Thanks=
|Cast of Characters=626, 633, 726, 766
|Tinyplot=
|Tinyplot2=
|pretty=yes
}}
{{Poses
|Poses=:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     The job was to obtain certain alchemical reagents from the old house and laboratory of Joachim Armster, and then bring them to him. Some of them were basic ingredients that could be gotten anywhere, and Joachim has since said that it is fine to get them elsewhere if that is more convenient, he just thought it would be easier to pick them up while those on the job were there, since they'd all be in the same house. What he had not originally mentioned, because he has apparently been away from the castle-like mansion on the outskirts of a dead and deserted village for decades or more, is that it is actually quite a big place and his main laboratory is hidden somewhere deeper than the room that Kyra and Soan originally made it to.     They had to deal with a trap and a puzzle, and a monstrous defender - some sort of homunculus grown from Joachim's own cells. They had been assured there would be more traps and defenses. Glyphs and symbols, especially circles, should be kept an eye out for, as they can serve as keys to secret passages or as triggers for traps. The fact that the homunculus was loose was apparently a surprise to Joachim, who had thought it preserved and quite possibly dead. That also indicated someone might have come before them, or some sort of structural damage might have freed the monster. And if one monster can be set free... Who knows what other experiments might be lurking down here?     Now that Soan and Kyra know the way into the first laboratory, which is apparently not the MAIN one, the lethal trap on the door should be easy to disable. Even so, it's no less unpleasant to have to walk by broken stone statues of people, petrified wheelbarrows, signs of looting, and signs of dead looters, in halls nearly black without outside light being brought along due to the sheer absence of windows.     The first laboratory itself is just a large, circular room, with many ingredients and reagents on shelves, chemistry equipment on tables, and decided 11th-century decor (to say nothing of the level of scientific advancement). This is not a high-tech operation. This is what people in the old days did to unravel the secrets of the universe.     The fact that Joachim is apparently skilled enough to do just that despite this set up says much for what a skilled alchemist can accomplish even with basic materials.     Two major differences from the first trip here: One, it's not almost sunset, so it's not quite as creepy outside. Two, Soan (and Kyra, when she makes her presence known), might not be here with just the two of them. Joachim DID say ALL who worked on this job would be paid the full amount, equally. He doesn't seem to care how many come. He is confident all will be rewarded.     That's good enticement. Especially considering that while outdoors may be less creepy, the formaldehyde-stinking laboratory, cold and damp, is decidedly unpleasant. Dark halls and stairways branch off from the circular room, illuminated primarily by blue flames that never seem to go out.     It casts a rather ghastly hue on everything. 

:'''{{#var:766|Ellard Asha (766)}} has posed:''' It's creepy. That's why Ellard brought light. It's a multicolored light that shifts colors, bright pastel blues and reds and greens, giving the area a festive look. He keeps it pointed towards the ground rather than upward, better safe than sorry. Ellard is the younger of the group, leanly but powefully built, silver haired with electric blue streaks. He wears a fashionable piece of armor that seems a mixture of leather jacket and breastplate. He holds his tower shield out ahead of him, giving him room on his back for a small pack of adventuring supplies and the ever present seven foot tall wooden bundle. Ellard moves over to an alembic, peering over it. "Jiga." 

:'''{{#var:633|Soan Sagittarius (633)}} has posed:'''      And thus they're back here. Soan Sagittarius is more equipped this time, having brought some more containers, a few more tools, with the guidance of the sun following them. Now, this is likely not going to help very much they they head underground, but at least whatever creatures made it's nest inside will likely be more lethargic. He hopes, anyway.      As being the youngest member of the group, he, of course, is holding the artificial lights. With last time, having an actual fighter will likely help in case they find something nasty inside.      "Yeah," Soan says, looking up and around at the laboratory. Even on the second time it's still creepy. There's just this something about abandoned alchemical laboratories that crawls into your skin. "Like you said." 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     Unlike the previous time, there's no sign of any half-dead homunculi. Nothing seems to have been disturbed by the lights that Ellard brings, or by conversing between him and Soan. Occasionally there's the noise of something drip-dropping somewhere down one of the passages leading from this room, but it's consistent in its pace and distance. It's water or something like it, not some indescribably awful rattle snake/tarantula hybrid drooling from the ceiling.     Probably.     The passage to the west is the one that the homunculus emerged from before. There's stairs leading down, presumably. But what lies down that passage or the one to the north, or the one to the east, remains unknown. 

:'''{{#var:633|Soan Sagittarius (633)}} has posed:'''      Soan Sagittarius figures that the stuff they need may be downstairs. He cannot, however, be absolutely certain of it. Ellard got the light source, the Thief draws out his Blacksteel sword, give it a testing spin in his hand as he look around, before sheathing it again. A last minute test. Forgetting his weapon would have been embarassing at this juncture. "Let's go west. That's where this weird thing came out from, maybe it was guarding something. I think it was more roaming, myself, but what have you."      Sagittarius leads the way toward the West, careful of looking around the walls, ceiling and ground for any potential traps, altought if he found any, he'd be geniunely surprised. Especially since the Homonculus didn't trigger them in the past. "You saw videos of that thing, right? Kyra took along some samples." 

:'''{{#var:766|Ellard Asha (766)}} has posed:''' Ellard brings a happy game, but he's studied about this stuff a lot. He takes copious pictures, in hopes of getting a better dungeon license. He holds the light in his off hand, the tower shield in front of him, looking around it like the portable wall it is. He peers carefully down each hallway. No big heartbeats telling him where a monster is or the smell of miasma and slime. When they start moving west, Ellard gets in close beside Soan. Soan has to detect traps, but Ellard is right there to soak up potential wall monsters as necessary. Emphasis on soak, since he isn't wearing a weapon. "Yea. But it's not like there's a whole ARMY of them, right?" 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     One NEVER KNOWS, Ellard! Maybe there IS an army of them down here! For now, however, there's no immediately sign of them. As the pair descend the stairs, taking the time to keep an eye out for traps, they eventually descend to a kind of moldy-looking tunnel. Oddly enough, there's weird pillars or columns in the middle of the hall every once in awhile. Sometimes they are off to one side, or the other. Sometimes right in the center. Some are even horizontal, reaching from one wall to the other instead of from floor to ceiling.     They can be walked around or climbed over/ducked under easily enough, but their placement doesn't seem to indicate either decoration or support structure. Maybe that homonculus set off some traps after all. 

:'''{{#var:633|Soan Sagittarius (633)}} has posed:'''      "I certainly hope not." Soan leads the march downstairs. He spots the strange pillars, manuvering Ellard around them carefully. He's not as agile as he is, which might means that they are taking it slow progress. They may have been triggered, it's still a good idea to not take chances in case they have not been. If they can, he'll have to see closer what the traps are. Maybe he can salvage a thing or two if he works at it.      "I still wonder where it came from. Was that an experiment of that guy that's hiring us? It's... kind of strange, honestly. This whole thing, I mean." 

:'''{{#var:766|Ellard Asha (766)}} has posed:''' Ellard moves carefully. Ducking under various pillars isn't easy when you are wearing armor and two ridiculously huge objects, but Ellard manages. He is careful not to touch the pillars either. If the person in charge of the traps was PARTICULARLY EVIL they might be covered in contact poison or something. "You don't know? Well, we should probably be careful. I mean, are you sure you aren't handing something awful over to the wrong person?" 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     Some of the traps have not yet been set off. While there's nothing obviously mechanical or extraction-capable in the pillars themselves, Soan may notice little emblems on certain blocks on the floor and walls, every once in awhile. It's possible that contacting them is what causes them to rise up. Likely forcefully. So magic rather than machinery.     Pointing them out to Ellard in passing might be a good idea. The passage continues for awhile, but eventually the trapped blocks seem to stop showing up. Instead there's a shorts set of steps down... Into murky, foul-smelling water. About knee-deep. This new hallways is half-submerged, and seems to go only one direction. That's good. The fact the floor can't be seen incase there's more of those block traps? Not so good. 

:'''{{#var:633|Soan Sagittarius (633)}} has posed:'''      Magically-triggered traps sounds about right. Not to mention it's something he'd really like to get his hands into. It does, however, follow the tip from their 'employer'.      "Kyra was the one that spoke to him, over a radio." Soan explain as he leads things through, reaching the end of the area to reach that submerged passage. "I admit I rather want to talk to the man directly if all possible, a lot of this is rather fishy."      He sighs, kneeling down to look at the half-sumbereged hallway. Good, at least, it's not COMPLETELY submerged. He looks back at Ellard. "Hey, how much you weight? I'd reckon I can go over the ceilling and the walls, but, well." 

:'''{{#var:766|Ellard Asha (766)}} has posed:''' Ellard considers. He isn't bouyant. And he weighs a lot. He's beefy. "Too much." He nods slowly as Soan talks, considering, "Well, I'm happy to help, but we should PROBABLY look into the whole thing just to be sure. You know?" He takes out a waterproof baggie and zips his mPad into it, then stuffs it into his pack. He tightens his pack up against his back and lifts his tower shield up over his head so it stays out of the water. "Wait here." "WARRIOR MODE!" He shouts out as he starts charging through the water, in a straight line, bringing his knees up high to keep them out of the water, and poudning them down, using his great strength to propel him at high speed down the hallway. 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     Thankfully, nothing happens to instantly kill Ellard when he goes charging down the hall. There appears to be a couple of rooms on the right, as he sloshes his way through the corridor. Both of them are dark, though the one further away may have a dim blue glow coming from it. It's hard to tell from the hall itself.     Soan may notice, if the splashing dies down, the sound of something disturbing the water. Like suction. Maybe there's a drain in the floor or something. It's a continuous noise that started at some point after Ellard started charging. 

:'''{{#var:633|Soan Sagittarius (633)}} has posed:'''      "I think you're absolutely right." Soan replies, taking out a few catclaws to affix them beneath his hands and over his soles. Technically, he don't need to do that at all. He could've probably just jumped accross no problem, even carrying the kid. However, Ellard is not quite yet into the 'secret' toward him. Besides, this is a great opportunityh to watch him go.      "Wha--" The Thief is geniunely stunned as he decides to just /charge through/. This is a very Fighter way of thinking, he'll admit. "Wait!" He shouts uselessly.      That's when he notices the water suction, noticing the levels going down. Nothing wrong so far, but what the heck could that mean? Is it flooding a lower level, making it difficult to deal with water later? "IT'S DRAINING WATER DOWN!" He shouts after the fighter, but he's waiting there. 

:'''{{#var:766|Ellard Asha (766)}} has posed:''' Ellard gets halfway down the hall, past a few doors, then stops. He looks around, back and forth, up and down. He slowly lowers the tower shield into the water. "Huh. That was anticlimatic." He shines the light back down the hallway. "No horrible traps!" He turns downward, frowning. He sets the tower shield down more carefully and puts it towards the source of the sound and starts backing towards a wall for safety. "Or some sort of horrible suction monster, you never know!" 

:'''{{#var:626|Kyra Hyral (626)}} has posed:'''     "Hey guys, how's it going?" Kyra speaks up suddenly right next to Soan. Since when did she learn how to move silently!? ...she didn't. She finally caught up just as Ellard screamed like a moron and went charging down the hall. That tends to mask an approach really well!     "Oh, a flooded hallway. Good thing it's not completely flooded, huh?" Much like last time, Kyra's brought empty bags so she has carrying capacity to deal with picking up reagents. 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     As the water level continues to lower, the glow from one of the rooms becomes more distinct. There IS a light source in there, it was just underwater. Since there's probably not water-proof light bulbs or power generators in an 11th-century manor, it would be plausible to think it might be magic of some kind. If it's investigated, it seems to be some kind of chunk of phosphorescent crystal. The rest of the room is full of large metal... 'Bowls', or 'bowl-shaped bath tubs'. They're big enough to fit a person or two in.     And a couple skeletons indicate that might be exactly what was done. The skeletons have crystal fragments encrusting them though. Not the same glowy stuff lying on the floor. This is dark-red, and has a certain... A HUE to it... Like it's... Well, if it were ice instead of crystal it could pass for frozen blood.     ...What kind of experiments was Joachim getting up to down here?     As if in answer to that, the hall finishes draining suddenly when a piece of the floor collapses down into a large empty space underneath them. The rocks and water fall, but it takes almost a whole minute before the faint sound of a splash echoes back up to them. 

:'''{{#var:633|Soan Sagittarius (633)}} has posed:'''      "You know," Soan Sagittarius says, stepping up through the room, looking around at the skeleton-laden bowls, furrowing his brows at the whole mess. He wrinkle his nose, trying to take in the spiritual scent of the whole scene. He's pretty sure a lot of this is not very good or nice. Or at least, very, very dodgy science, "I'm starting to have the distinct impression that our employer has been part of some very unethical research." He says, kneeling down to give a look to the dark-red crystal fragments the skeletons have, standing back up to follow the tube proper.      He jumps when part of the floor falls, sucking in a breath, flicking his glance at Kyra that showed up. "Hey. Ellard and I were talking about how we don't know crap about the employer, and he decided to charge through a trap-laden corridor. He impresses me already."      The Thief makes his way toward the hole, counting seconds for the stone to fall, looking donward. "Annnnnnnd this place is falling apart." 

:'''{{#var:626|Kyra Hyral (626)}} has posed:'''     Kyra staaaaares at the skeletons lying in the curiously bathtub-like basins. She cannot help but feel a chill. Being a scientist herself, she is no stranger to stories of Hume experimentation and the horrors that arose in the old days before the ethical standards of science were written into law. Every now and then she hears rumors of secret Black Labs where more dangerous experiments go on. "...I should get a sample. Soan, watch my back while I get a sample." she says, slipping on some plastic gloves. From one of her pouches she pulls a small rock hammer so she can chip some of the blood-crystals off.     "Huh? Oh, yeah, Ellard's pretty cool. And the employer's pretty shady. Oh, while I was catching up I decided to go ask some locals what year it was. People treat you like /such/ a weirdo when you ask that question, lemme tell you."     She moves to one of the basins with the skeletons inside and tries to collect some of the crystals. 

:'''{{#var:766|Ellard Asha (766)}} has posed:''' Ellard looks into each room, "Creepy." Next room. "Creepy." next. "Creepy." "Sparks, this place is creepy. Well, if we find any sort of... orphan powered generator or something, I really don't want to hand it over, okay?" He beams at the praise, then looks down at the hole. "I say downward is where the creepiest stuff always is, so if we are going to find some weird experiments, I suggest downward." Ellard sets his light onto a strap on his tower shield. "Let's see, I got something here from the Adventuring gear department." Slinging his bag to his side, Ellard fishes around until he comes up with a large rifle device. "Grapple gun!" He fires it into one of the rooms. It lands behind a basin, digging into the bottom and holding tight. Ellard goes down the hole, light and tower shield ahead of him. 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     The crystals are chipped away easily enough. They aren't crumbly and fragile, but they aren't diamond either. Even the bones beneath the crystal seem to be red, however. Maybe the crystal was infused into the bones? Or vice versa, maybe the crystals absorbed something FROM the bones? The glowing chunk of crystal on the ground seems to be made of a different substance.     Once again, just like with the homunculus, there's nothing necessarily EVIL about the skeletons or the crystals. Neutral. Maybe nothing evil happened here (which is hard to believe, but possible). After all the homunculus was just something grown from Joachim's cells, he said. A failed experiment that had somehow gotten loose. Something that was supposed to be dead already and was just preserved incase it wound up being useful in the future.     Maybe these skeletons are the same? Maybe they're grown from... Joachim's... Bones? ...Or something?     There's an odd noise as Ellard begins to lower himself down into the hole. It comes from far below them. But it's pretty distinctive. And possibly distressingly familiar to Kyra and Soan.     *ssssswiiiIIIP!*     Someone might want to warn Ellard. 

:'''{{#var:626|Kyra Hyral (626)}} has posed:'''     Kyra slips the sample into one of her pouches. She'll worry about analyzing its contents later to figure out just exactly what kind of experiment went down here. She's pretty glad that the skeletons do not animate or try to kill her like the previously encountered homonculi.     Speaking of those homonculi, Kyra knows that noise. She's quick to quietly warn him over the radio about what is going on.     Then she digs through the bag, pulling out a small speaker and another one of what looks like the time-release grenades she used the last time she was here. It looks a little different, though. More advanced. Motioning for Soan to be quiet, she wraps a rope around the grenade and speaker and starts lowering it down the hole. Ellard will see it pass him a few seconds later.     Her mPhone is pulled out and with a few fingerswipes, she activates a looping voice track that says things like 'Is anyone there?' and 'Can I help you?' quite clearly. Her other hand grasps a small device that's clearly a detonator for the liquid nitrogen-filled grenade. 

:'''{{#var:766|Ellard Asha (766)}} has posed:''' Ellard slidesdown the line, humming a little bit. Only to stop. Homunculus? He's seen them. They look like golems. But they aren't the nightmare golems. They aren't towering creatures of steel and hate, of spikes and destruction. They aren't the creatures that take your father and ruin your land. Ellard lets go of the trigger and snaps the grapple gun to a spot on his jacket, anchoring himself. He tilts slowly, rope creaking so loudly in this wait. He uses the light on the tower shield to shinedown, moving around slowly to find the mannequin. A grenade moves towards him. Ellard grabs it. EQUIP > CRYOGRENADE. 

:'''{{#var:633|Soan Sagittarius (633)}} has posed:'''      Soan, sadly, recognises that voice. He nods at Kyra's motion to be quiet -- and he becomes quiet. His feet hits the ground, yet they make no sounds, no resonance, stalking alongside the alchemist White Mage, peering down at the hole. He keeps a hand over the hilt of his sword, keeping watch above at their level /in case/ the monstrosity will be hitting a wise guy on them, and attack /them/ while they are watching the hole. Besides, warnings has been relayed.      He takes in the scents. No evil still. Not particularly tasteful, sure, but no inhertently evil experimentations here. Still... all very odd. 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     *ssssswiiiIIIP!*     The sound repeats only once more, from somewhere below.     Then Ellard is just left hanging there in the dark, trying to shine his light to see what might be beneath him, with a recording of Kyra's voice calling out into the emptiness. From the way it echoes, it seems the area below might be very large. And from the splash earlier, it might also be at least partially filled with water.     Then...     *ssssswiiiIIIP!* *ssssswiiiIIIP!* *ssssswiiiIIIP!* *ssssswiiiIIIP!* *ssssswiiiIIIP!* *ssssswiiiIIIP!* *ssssswiiiIIIP!*     The suctioning sounds come from all around... And a few feet ABOVE Ellard. On the UNDERSIDE of the floor - the 'ceiling' that he is dangling from. In the light he has, if he looks up, he'd see what look like hands and arms of pale clay, with featureless, vaguely humanoid heads, crawling and pulling their elongated bodies along the undersides of the stone blocks all around him.     Yeah, totally not nightmare golems. 

:'''{{#var:626|Kyra Hyral (626)}} has posed:'''     Kyra freezes once she hears a very, very large amount of those noises from the creatures coming up from the giant hole in the ground. Judging by the sound it seemed as if there were /many/.     Silently, Kyra removes the four other grenades she bought with her and quickly starts tying those to the rope as well. She slides the rope down even farther, the speaker (now without grenade) dropping down lower and the additional grenades sliding down into Ellard's view. 

:'''{{#var:766|Ellard Asha (766)}} has posed:''' Ellard's pupils contract to pinpricks as he stares upward. Around. He sits on a chocobo in the Iron Wastes, the scarred beast standing among the rust boulders, his practice titan blade at his side. Hartos Blackheart stands in the middle of three Nightmare Golems, bringing the family weapon, the Blackheart about, moving the dark blade with speed, grace, and power driven by the blade. He moves, twisting his body, and in one swing, cleaves all three in half, a huge ring of blood spraying out from his arm. The ground eruptions. A massive golem rolls up from the ground and pounds its spear hand into the middle of Hartos' chest. The devil helmet turns towards Ellard. "I l-" Then the world is nothingness. Darkness as the Blackheart roars with magic, consuming Hartos and the golem. Ellard starts at the mannequin, his hands trailing to the bundle on his back. Sound cracks in his ear, and he sees more grenades. He snatches the hand back quickly and starts scooping up the grenades. He holds them, waiting for Soan, sweating. 

:'''{{#var:633|Soan Sagittarius (633)}} has posed:'''      Things starts to go out of hand. Lots of the noises pours out of the walls, the floor, the ceilling. They will need a lot more than just a few cryogrenades that Kyra provides, or even his sword. He says a few things down their close-range radio. Seems like it's time to stop pulling punches. The Thief gives a last look at Kyra, nod at her.      Then he leaps into the hole. Ellard, from the corner of his vision, can clearly see the older student leaping off without any rope or a grappling hook attached to him, aiming himself straight for the wall he's close to. "Hang on, Ellard!" He shouts, missing the Odinari by /miles/, plummeting down to the ground below. Three feet of water and a strange experimentation room greets him.      In one movement, Soan crouches as he lands, taking the heavy hit of gravity and turning it into strength as he was taught. It's completely nonsense by regular MP Physics, but the Dragoons ain't obligated to explain themselves of how they work.      Soan soars up in the air again, shaking the ground from the powerful leap he just did, homing himself to the roof above him. He takes in a long, deep breath, crackling electricity forming at the tip of his lips, sucked inside. His leap ends him a few feet away from his destination -- then he exhales, shooting forth a torrent of electricity at the very water-like beings, almost hovering in mid-air as he does so with the occasional crackle of electricity escaping the focused wrath. 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     It seems no one warned Ellard about the fact that they navigate and hunt by orienting on sound - including that of movement. There's six of these things. One of them launches at Ellard the very second he continues taking the cryo grenades so that they can't be set off by Kyra's trigger without damaging him in the process. Two others launch at the machine doing a playback of Kyra's voice. They shoot out their hands, attempting to grab their targets, and then the bodies attached by stretched arms lose their shape as the rest of their mass is pulled after them. That sound, of their own flesh getting suctioned up after whatever appendage is launched, is what makes that distinctive '*ssssswiiiIIIP!*' sound.     Soan leaps down the hole, though, yelling the whole time and having a nice thousand-foot+ drop to the water below. Who the hell has a hole this deep in an 11-century mansion? Ellard might have gotten one of the pale monsters on him while Soan was falling. Thankfully, just touching it, if that occurs, is not innately harmful. Nothing happens just from contacting it. But it will try to slither and crawl its way towards his face.     Probably not with any good intentions.     The other three monsters all *ssssswiiiIIIP!* their way down after Soan as they stretch out their arms and then pull the rest of their bodies after them - and out into mid-air, where they have the same fall that Soan did, without the protection of having special magic to make it safe. But they also don't have any bones or organs that anyone knows of, so maybe they'd survive the fall too.     They're not very smart.     Thankfully, Soan leaps up and past them, and then shoots lightning at the ones going for the transmitter and for Ellard! They aren't... Water-like at all, really. But they are made of human cells, more or less, and they can still be electrocuted to death. The other three continuing falling down towards the water below, and the now-dead ones will be joining them shortly. 

:'''{{#var:766|Ellard Asha (766)}} has posed:''' "SPARKS!" Ellard brings his tower shield up. The mannequin lands on it, slithering hands for his face. It's really awesome to watch Soan, who knew he was a Dragoon, watching him is pretty awesome. The shockwave, the moving. But Ellard has more pressing matters. Like the MANNEQUIN STILL ON HIM. He sticks the grenade on the front of his shield with the monster, then, using his hand, shoves at its general head area. And letting go of his towershield. And the rest of the cryogrenades. Rather than turn the grapple gun back on, he starts shimmying up the rope at full speed, hand over hand, "When you hear the splash, detonate!" 

:'''{{#var:633|Soan Sagittarius (633)}} has posed:'''      Soan lets out a breath as he soars upward, landing heavily on the same floor as Kyra is on, a hand landed on the floor as he regains balance. The floor shakes from the impact. Sparks dies out around his mouth as he look downward at the hole Ellard is still down through, watching the events unfold for the moment.      Oh, sod it.      He takes another breath, breathing down a perfect line of electricity after the ones that are falling toward the waters. Ice will do good. Ice AND Lightning will make it even beter. 

:'''{{#var:626|Kyra Hyral (626)}} has posed:'''     Kyra's finger was hovering over the button to the detonator, ready to push it, actually only slightly aware that Ellard might have just started taking all of those grenades. "-wait what?" she calls out, hearing Ellard, then covering her mouth. She promptly lets go of the other rope she was holding, letting the speaker looping her voice to plunge down into the darkness, attracting the three homonculi it had 'hooked' down in its wake. She drops it just a little bit after Ellard has tossed the tower shield.     She won't detonate the grenades until she sees Soan back, which should be well after the splash. 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     Whenever the grenades land with splashes in the water, after the homunculi have done the same, and the cryo grenades are then detonated, it will freeze the artificial life forms in place. Their flesh doesn't respond well to being frozen. It loses its elasticity even after they've thawed. They don't seem to have much in the way of vital organs, but puncturing their outer layer appears to be enough to kill them, as does - apparently - electrocuting them. While Soan's lightning breath shocks them a bit on the way down, being frozen completely while submerged in the water is what finishes the job. Hopefully, anyway. They won't be able to move once they thaw, even if they survive, because their entire bodies lost that capability.     One interesting thing about these homunculi: They didn't smell like formaldehyde, like the first one that was encountered. Were they preserved differently? Or just not preserved at all?     When Soan was down below, he may have, for a brief time, noticed that there was glinting metal all around. The light was dim down there, so nothing TOO detailed could be made out... But there might have been egg-like copper pods or something like them. Maybe those were what the homunculi were kept in. Or grown in.     Unless the trio decides to go down there and investigate further, it might be best to write off this section of the laboratories. Nothing valuable was found... Except perhaps clues as to what Joachim got up to down here, and potentially knowledge of dark alchemical practices that some here might be tempted to at least EXAMINE even if they would never USE them. Probably.     After all, no evil was sensed. That must mean it's okay, right?     Yeaaaaahhh... At least the homunculi are all dead now. Probably. 

}}

2924/EoT: Tic-Toc

2015-09-07T23:29:43Z

Paladine: Created page with "{{Log Header |Date of Scene=2015/08/30 |Location=Midnight Shrine Tokyo <MST> |Synopsis=An Epoch Saint is discovered and confronted in the exciting finale to the Emperors of Ti..."

{{Log Header
|Date of Scene=2015/08/30
|Location=Midnight Shrine Tokyo <MST>
|Synopsis=An Epoch Saint is discovered and confronted in the exciting finale to the Emperors of Time TP! But more threats lurk in the shadows!?
|Thanks=
|Cast of Characters=560, 589, 714, 782, 821
|Tinyplot=
|Tinyplot2=
|pretty=yes
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{{Poses
|Poses=:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     The meeting with Kiko Kikumura's older brother, Shirou Kikumura, determined ONE thing: There's still a Life Gear at the Tokyo Metropolitan Government building. They'd gone there and defeated one, but it appears the one they should have defeated was still there. And more powerful than any other they have faced. Another problem has cropped up though. The reason why one of the Witching Hour girls didn't show up to the previous mission has now been explained. The young woman behind the magica girl 'Musica' is dying. Her body is nearly consumed by some disease. Miko, as Princess Paladin, MIGHT have the healing power to save her or at give her a few more years. But with the vampirism of 'time' that the Life Gears and their mysterious masters are engaging in, Shiho Nakamura might not survive long enough to be healed if they don't hurry up and defeat this crazy-powerful temporal monster.     So it's back to the TMG building, it seems. But there's a different feel this time. A sense of desperation. They aren't hunting a monster now, they're trying to stop the death of someone important to them. Maybe Shiho/Musica isn't very friendly with them, maybe no one outside of the Witching Hour even likes her, but the masked magical girl is still a life that has fought to protect others and is now in danger of simply being snuffed out as the 'time' available to her mere mortal form is being stolen from her.     On top of that, Miko has guessed that healing one of the Witching Hour girls in this manner, saving her from a death that would have come otherwise, may be the tipping point in whether she gains the group's trust and acceptance or not. If she succeeds, she may have the leverage for getting them into the Confederacy.     But now, as an emergency call for help is issued, that distant future that may never come has to be put aside in favor of the present. And the present is becoming increasingly twisted.     Tokyo looks like a war zone. People are lying in the streets, at the wheels of their cars, at the tables of restaurants, at the counters of their stores... Dogs being walked lie motionless beside their owners, traffic cops are flopped to the ground among the cars that have stopped in place with their 'time' was stolen from them. Machines, power, people, plants, animals, even natural sources of light... All stopped. Done. Over. Their 'time' is gone.     Miko is transformed into Princess Paladin, her pink-haired, pink-eyed, armored/school uniformed alternate persona. She was advised that it would protect her from the vampirism.     Likewise, Libra, the blue-haired, bespectacled, floppy-hatted, caped librarian magical girl is safe by virtue of her transformation.     Crucia Hex, the Pumpkin Witch, dressed like a Halloween witch with big floofy black-and-orange-and-purple dress, doesn't transform. She's a spell caster, she has no bottomless source of magic energy to protect her. But she is skilled at Time Magic, is shielding herself with a ward. It won't hold forever.     The magical familiars of the magical girls, White Rose the fairy, and Byblos the flying book, are pushing their own power out to shield anyone else who has come along. And it's best they receive that shielding quickly after arrival in Midnight Tokyo, since 'time' starts bleeding away immediately.     The sky is gray, clouds frozen in place, light itself stuck where it is, air only moving when disturbed by people trying to breathe it or move through it. If one stands in one place for too long, one might suffocate. It really feels as though all of time is grinding to a halt... Leaving this world in a permanent 'moment'.     The situation looks grim. But towards the TMG building is the only way to go now. It's kind of insane the level of power one Life Gear can have if allowed to keep stealing time without being stopped. Paladin looks up, the shards of extremely slowed light breaking against her skin. "We need to hurry. Musica's familiar is protecting her for now, but not being able to transform, I'm not sure how long she has." 

:'''{{#var:714|Sanary Rondel (714)}} has posed:'''      If not for knowing Miko as a fellow Confederate, Sanary probably wouldn't even be here today. Fighting a regular enemy by chopping at it until it dies is one thing, but something that can mess with time itself? That's far beyond the type of thing the Confederate healer's equipped to handle on her own. Still, she's got a job to do, and she's not about to let Princess Paladin handle it without at least one other Confederate at her side.      Unlike the other instances, however, Sanary's outfit today is a little less embarrassing for her and significantly more practical. For starters, it's actually armor! Mostly padding with the spirit of the Lagombi it was made from imbued into it, but still armor compared to the... She'd rather not think about what she wore the other times.      Still, her own magical energy isn't enough to completely offset the time stealing effects of the Life Gear, and her movements are a bit slower than usual as a result. "Then we better get this done quick, eh? Hit it hard and hit it fast." She punches a fist into her palm with a confident grin, apparently not even noticing the effect on her. "I'll keep all of you boosted up, so don't be afraid to go all out once you see the... What'sit. Life Gear?" 

:'''{{#var:782|Golden (782)}} has posed:'''     The golden MetalMamemon looks to Miko and Sanary. "So let's go then. We're burning daylight here."     He saw all the people suffering from the magical entity's time theft, and it bothers him immensely, reminding him more than a little bit of the killing fields of the end of the Digital World. It's unwarranted to cause this much destruction, and it makes him want to do something about it. The emotions are threatening to bring back the other form, the unstable one that he wore as a Guardian, and so the sunburst crest on him is glowing brightly, glowing cracks radiating outward from it across his tiny body. Golden is trying to hold back though, well aware that he has only a limited span of time that he can spend as a WarGreymon, knowing it may be necessary for a final confrontation if it comes to that. And, unknown to Golden, a thief of time would certainly be able to steal that from him. 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     Emiya Shirou's here in his jacket with the hood up as usual. Only tufts of his unusually red hair are visible from the side, rendering him a pretty unremarkable sight compared to the others who've gathered for this grim occasion. He gazes sternly, warily, and uncertainly at the TMG building.     Thankfully, he's come with Magic Circuits full to the brim with prana, charged up from a fresh stop in Iianor's painting.     A magus in jeans and a light windbreaker. Totally suited for hanging out with a bunch of magical girls. Riiiiight.     "Just lead the way and I'll help out however I can." he implores urgently. He's yet to arm himself, but everyone here knows how meaningless anything like transforming or carrying weapons is to him. Probably.     Just as meaningless as boundaries like Union and Confederacy. If there are lives to save, he'll be there to save them.     So he's here. 

:'''{{#var:821|Archer (821)}} has posed:''' Well... so far, the scene had not disappointed Archer in terms of what he expected. It was just like Rin had told him - the inhabitants of the Multiverse were indeed very diverse. Standing atop one of the many buildings looking across the scene, Archer gazes out at the now ruined landscape of what was once this world's Tokyo, Japan. A scene that, due to his heritage, hit him all too close to home.     At the same time though... the sights before him were all too familiar - death, destruction, callous loss of life, looking like an example of the Second Magic gone wrong. It is all too similar to events in his past - times when he had been summoned as a Counter Guardian to 'cleanse' a site that held a threat to humanity's existence. Even now, that aspect of his nature could almost /feel/ the will of this world and it's humanity objecting to the distortion this place was.     The first thing he saw was the what seemed to be a gold-armored spherical machine-creature with a large gun for an arm. Structural Analysis told him at just a glance though that the small creature had been through countless battles, though the exact details were unreadable from just a cursory examination.     The next is a pink-haired girl girl in armor that was a cross of sailor-uniform and knight's armor. He could sense the powerful amounts of prana that stemmed from her, knowing full well she had to be a mage of Rin's caliber at least, if not possibly a bit higher then that. There were others of the same nature, bit with different themes to them - one was themed more like a storybook witch, and the other looked more like a librarian, but both gave off high levels of magical energy.     There's also a girl with long unkempt hair and a eye-patch, dressed in armor with padded elements to it largely made from animal fur. Upon seeing her, he immediately feels her weapons - a modified gun-axe that could immune it's attacks with elemental effects, like loading a rifle with different kinds of ammo, and a weapon that could switch between a sword, axe and shield that released explosives. Their names record themselves into the Blade Works - 'Daora's Casca' and 'Gunaxe.' The first new additions to his collection-     Then... as he steps down to join the budding group... he sees it. Or rather, he sees /him/. And everything stands still for Archer when he does. 

:'''{{#var:821|Archer (821)}} has posed:'''     It had been a long time from Archer's point of view since he had seen that face... or at least like this. And the situation was different as well... because this time, it was closer to how he imagined seeing that face again - stubbornly rooted in that miserable inherited belief and following it to it's end, with Archer himself serving as their mutual salvation from that lie... whether the other accepted it or not.     The last time he'd seen that face, the two existences had parted on a more amicable note then Archer would have ever thought possible, with an ending he had long since given up on as being a possibility - an ending where the Hero of Justice not only never existed, but /willingly/ chose to turn away from that life.     However... the moment he sees the familiar sight of red hair, a blue-on-white coat and amber eyes, Archer knows all-too-soon that this is likely not going to be as amicable. The fact that he can't stand looking at this one - at that determined yet still somehow-hopeful expression in his eyes - is proof of that.     Sadly, he also knows for a fact that, since he most assuredly did not remember doing any of this before now, the person before him is not the Emiya Shirou of his own timeline - and, naturally, not his true younger self.     Of course, he knew that part already. Even though much is the same to the loathed memory of his old self, he can also clearly see this Shirou is different from what he expected to find - while clearly not as experienced as Archer himself, this Shirou carried himself differently then the green and untested Shirou of the Fifth Grail War. He'd seen combat - fought and survived strong enemies already. He'd already started down the doomed path of the Hero of Justice. That also meant that any plans he had for dealing with said younger self were potentially compromised or out-of-date depending on how much this Shirou had experienced or not.     However... at the same time, maybe that would make it easier for him to see the truth, if he'd been exposed to the bitterness of it first-hand as opposed to the naive and inexperienced self of the Grail War.     For a moment, he considered moving to confront the boy - to make some gesture towards him that would unsettle him... but that would run counter to the goal of this mission. So for now, just like in his Grail War, Archer knew he would have to stomach working with the younger magus. Not like he could afford to cause group conflict anyway.     Besides, he would do well to see exactly what tricks and weapons this Shirou had learned in the course of this new multiversal reality. Instead, he jumps down from the massive building and lands on the street, then approaches the group as a whole, face hardened yet more calm then it likely should be to the all-too-familiar scene of death. He moves slowly as to not surprise them all with the new face none of them should know.      "Well... seems someone has been busy lately. Also seems to be in the building from what I can tell. Do we just level it outright, or is it not that simple?" 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     "We don't know the Life Gear's form precisely. When we came here before, it was likely the mayor himself. But given the amount of time that has passed, he may have transformed fully into a monster. And we don't know what that form will look like." Paladin responds. She turns to look to Libra, who seems troubled for reasons beyond all the people locked in stasis around them. Not dead yet... But they may be if they don't get their lifespans returned to them. Still time to save them... But... "What's wrong, Libra?"     The librarian-girl lost in thought, looks up when addressed. "It's just that... You may recall that we captured a Life Gear before, and I have been analyzing it. Among other things, I have determined that they have a capacity limit for the amount of 'time' they can hold before they must return to their masters. It's most likely there as a safety precaution. So that no loss of a Life Gear is TOO much of a setback to the Epoch Saints. While we have seen that they can upgrade and alter Life Gears, I do not believe that the mayor, even if possessed by a Life Gear, had the magical capacity to both completely conceal his nature AND hold the 'time' of everyone and everything in Tokyo."     Crucia looks at Libra hard, feeling the tiny hairs on the back of her neck stand up. "So, what, you're saying that we're not dealing with a Life Gear? That it might be like my brother said? Some really strong Time Mage cooperating with the Epoch Saints? I hate to break it to you, but unlike you girls with Artifacts, most spellcasters don't have those kind of magical resources either. Having a few months to operate on might allow for a mass ritual, but running the whole thing on their own? The list of people I can think of who could pull that off without an entire Circle supporting them AND are masters of Time Magic would make running to confront them with only this group a very, very bad idea. Like, you have no idea. We'd be talking about people who have been accruing magical knowledge for thousands, or tens-of-thousands of years. Maybe longer. It's a lot harder to become a god-like wizard than a god-like monster, and it takes a lot longer too."     She chews her thumbnail a bit though as she thinks. A wizard that was a Master of Time Magic COULD afford to spend dozens of millennia developing their power. If they were good enough at Time Magic, they could slow their rate of aging or even suspend it entirely, then focus on accruing magical energy and knowledge in other fields to secure their position. But the original spells would need to be supported by a new influx of 'time', meaning that-- 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     She looks up, discovering that they've all come to a stop in front of TMG building. Golden and Shirou are fired up and ready to go. Libra still seems bothered by something else beyond the situation. Every building, every vehicle, every person, forever locked in pristine condition. No damage ever suffered, no death ever endured, no experience, no life. And when all of their 'time' is taken from them, this entire city will be a necropolis. Even if the magic fades eventually, no one and nothing here will ever wake up from their stasis-sleep. You have to be alive to awaken, and someone with no time left is someone who is dead.     White Rose flutters over to Sanary, the rose-dressed fairy sparkling and saying, "There, there, Sanary~! I'll protect ya'! Anyway, my range is more limited than Sakura's, but I--" Then she pauses and turns suddenly as someone lands in the street and approaches them. Byblos doesn't talk much, a big heavy tome with an eyeball in the cover surrounded by gold and silver tracery like veins, but he quickly performs an analytical scan of the man who has appeared before them, and amidst fluttering pages, passes along what he gathers to Libra.     The librarian magical girl notes what she ascertains... That this man is not human, but a spirit, and that he has a lot of magical energy that is being sent to him from somewhere else. She's not familiar enough with this sort of thing to determine more right now, but her flapping book familiar, Byblos, warns her that no identity can be ascertained based upon either their own world's history or previously encountered Multiversal beings.     "So... Someone from elsewhere. Or someone who doesn't exist in the Akashic Records." Libra mutters.     Crucia asks, "The Kakashi Whatnow?" Princess Paladin is also confused about that, but is more focused upon their new (presumed ally). Libra keeps her mouth shut. She has already said too much.     Paladin says, "Greetings. If you are here to help, we welcome your aid. There is a chance yet to undo all of this. But it seems we will need all the aid that can be rendered--"     She trails off. In this big silent city, quiet except for their own voices and movements, there is suddenly the sound of gears turning, of clocks ticking, of mechanical devices moving in very precise timing, in a symphony of cooperation and measured interaction. She feels a sensation she felt once before, during the first Life Gear hunt she did alongside other Elites. The one at the clock store, with the old man who had suddenly started making very popular wrist watches when before he had only crafted traditional time pieces. She'd felt soothed then, hearing all the clocks running together, in their own ways, but to the same pace. She feels it now as well. But the volume keeps increasing and increasing and increasing. 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     The light all over the city switches from gray to gold.     And then something absolutely massive tears through the cloud layer in the sky, dispersing the water vapor that is stuck in time. The sheer mass of it displaces everything else in the sky.     It's a gigantic gear, spinning through the air, and shining a brilliant gold.     Shining with all the 'time' that has been fed into it.     Libra, Byblos, Shirou, White Rose, Archer... ANYONE with magic senses will be able to feel not just that gigantic gear, but something more magical than temporal descending from the TMG building's top floor and racing towards them. Paladin, Sanary, and Golden may just hear the increasingly loud machinery instead. The main doors to the building burst open, and a man made of woven metal, gears, cogs, wheels, pistons, steam whistles, with steam gauges for eyes, comes speeding towards them while only making the movements of someone who is walking.     He comes out onto the front steps, stands at the top of them, and looks down at the assembled Elites.     "It took you long enough. I am on a schedule. My name is Tic-Toc, I am an Epoch Saint, and I imagine you wish to fight me." 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     'Do we just level it outright?' The question from nowhere sends shivers down the spine of Emiya Shirou, but more so is the tone and voice. Something about it is just Wrong, very Wrong, even before he turns his head to see the face and attire of the one speaking. The amber-eyed youth balks at the suggestion. "What are you saying, of course it's more complicated than that--"     Of course he falls silent once he DOES fully turn around to face the speaker.     Just like many of the unfortunate victims of this cruel magic, Shirou freezes in place, the breath stolen from his body by something deep and primal.     He can't deal with that guy. For some deep and unignorable reason he cannot and will never agree with him. That laid-back attitude towards the lives involved, cynical and grim... was that supposed to be a joke? Shirou's not sure.     But the boy finds himself swallowing hard whilst frozen in place. The gears in his head spin and churn trying to process the conundrum that's appeared here today.     Because the presence of Archer has made his blood run cold for a few brief seconds, colder than it's ever been since unification. Even learning Kiritsugu was actually a pretty ruthless assassin didn't affect him like this!     And he just cannot pin down WHY.     But after a few moments, perhaps out of sheer reflex and self-assertion Shirou's gaze hardens slightly. It's still full of naivete, still focused on the task at hand. But it takes him an act of will to somehow speak politely to the warrior in red. "You are here to help, right?" He sounds... just very, sliiiightly doubtful. But perhaps it's only he that senses the hostility of Archer.     The fact that he's dressed like Chloe von Einzbern, that's... very disturbing indeed.     After asking this very important question he once again faces the entrance and addresses the concerns brought up. "Unlikely or not, God-like Wizard or some monster, we can't just stay here and do nothing. Everyone will die!" ... yes, he's that brave. And/or stupid. As someone here well knows.     Then the atmosphere of EVERYTHING changes. Shirou brings both hands down to his sides. "Trace, on."     A flicker-flash of wavery prana flows from his hands, congealing into the weapons he's come to favor most in the Multiverse. A sword of black, a sword of white. Paired weapons of Chinese make with a Yin-Yang motif, Kanshou and Bakuya. His gaze turns upwards at the golden gear in the sky and the man upon it. The young man FROWNS heavily.     "Fight...? Only if it comes to that. Return all the time that's been stolen and there won't be any need for that." His tone is firm but not yet immediately hostile.     He's stand-offish with this Tic-Toc, but willing to give that chance to solve things. 

:'''{{#var:714|Sanary Rondel (714)}} has posed:'''      After muddling around in that time-stealing... Miasma? Air? Gunk? Whatever it is, Sanary quickly finds relief once White Rose approaches her. Things suddenly start moving normally again (relative to the area, of course), and she breathes a heavy sigh of relief. "Much better. Okay... Yeah, I'll be sticking with you, then. Thanks." She flashes the fairy a brief grin before removing the kite shield from her back, keeping it and the gunaxe ready in hand as she readies to follow the rest of the group. There's some familiar faces besides Princess Paladin: Golden, Shirou, and the Witching Hour girls. Archer goes unrecognized, but she does raise an eyebrow slightly as he's doing... Something or another. She can't really tell, but he's an ally here. No sense fretting over that while she's out here.      And then there's the gear man. Tic-Toc, he called himself? She furrows her brow at his question and glances towards Shirou, taking his cue to follow that path. The less fighting, the better!      "Uh. Hey there. Name's Sanary. Actually, if you could let us through to fix up all of this..." She gestures vaguely at the area around them. "... /This/, that'd be great. It'll just be easier on everyone involved if we don't fight, you know?" She even gives him a sweet smile as she says that. 

:'''{{#var:782|Golden (782)}} has posed:'''     Golden turns to regard Archer as the spirit makes his presence known, emerald green eyes peering out from the metal mask cracked with brilliant white light. He was about to say something after Princess Paladin greeted the newcomer, but is interrupted by the stunning descent of the sound of clockwork and machinery. The MetalMamemon turns slowly, eyes squinting with suspicion, as a piece of time manifests itself above the building and a crooked clockwork man emerges from the building. He lets the cooler-headed Shirou do the talking, restraining himself from simply launching himself and mauling the tic-toc man with energy bombs and metal claw swipes. In the mean time.     He points to the giant golden gear. "Is that the thing that's storing all the stolen time?" He asks the girls with a strained husky voice, pointing with his hand upwards even as he trembles from staying his immediate impulses. 

:'''{{#var:821|Archer (821)}} has posed:'''     Listening in on the radio he had been provided - a perk of being a retainer of the Union it seemed - Archer quickly learned all that was necessary; a construct or creature known as a 'Life Gear' was what he was sensing in the building, draining away the 'time' of all around it.     That made their job easy - destroy the 'Life Gear.' Simple enough task... or so it sounded.     When he gets close enough to the group, he gauges their expressions, pausing just a moment as he sees the blue-haired girl looking at him in confusion. Of course, what draws his attention the most is the inevitable and expected objection from Emiya Shirou. As does the look the boy gives him - a hard glare with palpable uncertainty of a sort. The boy rejects his existence, just like the last one originally did, and just like Archer himself quietly rejected the presence of Shirou. In response to the boy's question, he allows himself to crack a bemused smile. "Indeed. That's why I suggested we just topple the building and end this here and now. After all, if this spreads to the rest of the world, a lot more lives would be lost. That is what heroes are meant to do, right? Protect the world at all costs?"     When he hears the pink-haired girl address him, he turns to face her - but any reply is cut off as he suddenly winces, the feel of pins and needles running up his spine turning his expression into one of surprised amazement. He hadn't felt power like this since the Grail War - not since Illya's immense prana reserves and Heracles' brute strength... or since the Shadow emerged. This thing mixed it all together - strength and high power in magic, yet still slightly like a vacuum, drawing power to it.     He could already tell this wouldn't be good. 

:'''{{#var:821|Archer (821)}} has posed:'''     When 'Tic-Toc' reveals itself, he's slightly taken aback by it's appearance, but he doesn't show it. It looked to him more like some sort of slightly cartoonish steam-powered golem then an 'Epoch Saint', whatever that is - but in spite of that, his structural analysis could perceive very few faults. It also seemed to reject the present flow of time - it's own continuity that they couldn't break... but it's core was the heart. If they could break that, he ought to be finished.     However, the thing that firmly got Archer's attention, even prompting him to raise his brows slightly, was the sight of Shirou projecting Kanshou and Bakuya. Had this Shirou already endured the Grail War and met it's Archer? How else could he have gotten those weapons?     Like he feared, he'd have to compromise his plans - he couldn't fight without tracing, and Shirou's use of it meant he'd recognize it. Therefore, Archer opted to bite the bullet, sighing slightly. "Well... this is different from before. Ah, well."     The next moment, his face becomes serious as he speaks - he voices the words softly, though he knows Shirou can probably hear them all the same and accepts it.     "Trace; On."     Two objects materialize in a flash of prana that mirrors Shirou's prior actions, forming an ebony-black bow in one hand and a long drill-like spiral sword in the other. He doesn't hesitate to bring the bow up and ready the shot, not even bothering to speak after that as he focuses on the metal guardian, waiting to see if it becomes a fight or not. 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     Paladin readies herself for combat. But Libra and Crucia drop immediately into battle stances, and start prepping for battle, despite the conversation regarding talking it over and avoiding conflict. "Yes. As Shirou says, we should see if there's a way to resolv--" Paladin starts, but is interrupted.     "You want us to talk things over with this guy? One of the big bosses? After running around playing clean-up on their monsters for our entire career as magical girls so far?" Crucia demands, her long, ribboned, smoke-like hair waving back and forth as she shakes her head. "We've been fighting and fighting, trying to get to one of these guys. He has stolen the lives of every person in the city except us, and now he's RIGHT HERE, asking us to fight! I'm not going to play nice-nice fru fru with him!" She holds out her hand and a black wand with a star hanging from the tip by a chain appears in her grasp. "Besides... He probably just wants all this 'time' to continue being immortal. Do you think someone who would go to all this trouble to extend his own lifespan would just give up?"     Paladin turns to look at Archer, who seems intent on collapsing a building on the enemy, and Shirou who seems intent on preventing that, and then upon Sanary who likewise wishes to avoid combat. Golden... He's practically vibrating with restrained desire to tear the enemy to pieces. White Rose flutters nervously around, protecting people with her sparkling presence as much as possible. Libra, usually level-headed and logical, likewise seems ready to launch into combat, even as Paladin turns to ask her to show Crucia Hex reason.     Before Paladin can say anything, Libra says, "Please remember, that in addition to the lives of every person in this city, one of our best friends is dying in a hospital right now. You promised to save her with your healing. But if she dies before that happens, you probably can not do anything, correct?" It's said so calmly, coldly.     Paladin swallows her objection and just nods her head.     "Meaning we do not have time to waste here. Negotiation might be viable under other circumstances. But not with someone like this, and not now. All of the time we've spent together, as friends, as magical girls... Meeting you, Paladin, meeting you, Shirou, and Sanary, and Golden. Even our newest companion. Many others who have come to help us. School friends, family, the people of this city, the people of this world... All of them are depending upon us. If destroying one enemy will save them all, I am willing to make myself into a brute who relies upon force. It's against my nature. But some things are more important than one's own desires." the blue-haired girl says as she holds out her hand and Byblos flies to it, becoming her Artifact weapon. Both familiar and source of power. (Pt. 1) 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     Paladin looks around at everyone. They all have their own motivations and methods, but the threat here is real. She will makes this fast then. The mysterious-person-who-is-totally-not-Archer identifies for them a weak point on the radio. They will have to strike there. "Give me sixty seconds," she says quietly to the Witching Hour girls as she steps forward.     "Tic-Toc. I am Princess Paladin. We have a very short window within which to discuss this situation before discussion becomes impossible. So I will make this concise. If you wish to avoid a conflict, you will answer our questions and you will cooperate with our demands. First, answer Golden's question about that gear. Is it where the stolen 'time' is being kept? Second, as Shirou and Sanary say, regardless of where it's being kept, release it immediately and take no more of it. We do not need to fight you for this. Third, explain the reason behind the theft. Depending on your answer, we may be able to help find an alternate solution that doesn't endanger anyone. Crucia believes it is for immortality. Is that truly the reason? If you fail in any of these, we will destroy you. Finally..." Paladin's eyes glint. "Why are we the only ones coming to face you when this city is FULL of magical girls?"     Tic-Toc begins speaking the moment the final syllable leaves Paladin's lips, his head turning during the speech to evaluate each and every person present. Even the familiars. His words are precisely timed to maximize his efficiency. He speaks very, very quickly and clearly. "I know who nearly all of you are. I've been watching. That's how I upgraded one of my Life Gears to adapt to and counter your techniques. I am the creator of the Life Gears, and the one who deploys them. If you wish to ensure that no more ever appear, I am indeed the one you must defeat. Now, in order: Yes, what you perceive as a gear is the vessel that holds the 'time' of those affected. The 'time' has not yet been expended, nor shall it be in your futures. No, I will not release it, nor will I permit you to interfere. I do not wish to be destroyed. I am not a fighter. But I still can not allow you. No, I do not desire immortality. To be honest, I've had quite enough of it. The reason behind this plan doesn't need to be known by you. But I will explain some of it for you if it will cause you to accept it and surrender." (Pt. 2) 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     The clockwork man's steam gauge eyes have their dials twitchign back and forth as he looks upon Archer, and then Shirou, noting the similar abilities they possess. No doubt others have noticed as well, the analyzer of the group especially, and... Of course... Shirou himself. "Time is an Element here. So is Love, and Hope, and Books, and Holiness, and Law, and Pumpkins... And even Swords. Everything has a metaphysical and mystical presence tied to but separate from this universe. And the Artifacts two of you wield are physical embodiments of those Elements. Structures housing a portion of the god-like Elementals that ARE and RULE OVER their respective Element or Elements. But there is one Element that has no vessel, no Artifact. Though it influences all, none can claim to be its champion. Though there are those who are trying to change that."     Tic-Toc looks upon Sanary next. "This Element is counter to many of those present. It is an Element that allows the universe to function as it is, and has an influence upon other worlds and universes beyond our own. It is also an Element intrinsically tied to Time, which I and many of us here right now wield or are controlled by." He looks at Golden next as he says, "That Element is Entropy. The death of all things, the inexorable grinding down of the universe, the loss of energy in a form from which it can not be used. I have been a Time Mage for over thirty million years. And the knowledge that the very magic I wield will not function without Entropy has driven me into despair. But now there is hope. I, and the other Epoch Saints, are the strongest users of Time Magic alive -- at least for our universe. We have been banished to the Nether Realm for a long time, to better learn the methods to save THIS reality. And the method is quite simple."     He scans over the hostile faces of Libra and Crucia, the concerned expression of White Rose, and the stoic one of Princess Paladin. "We must gather enough 'time' to employ a 'Time Stop' on everything. We will freeze this entire world, giving us the time we need to discover a way to 'fix' Entropy. To make a universe where we do not need to age and wither and die, to keep losing energy, to keep suffering, to keep KILLING. We do not have that amount of magic ourselves. But with magical girls who bear Artifacts frozen in our Time-Stop, we can tap into them to save everyone."     Tic-Toc then concludes, "And in answer to your last question, the reason why no other Magical Girls are here, is because they do not have the protections that you do. They do not possess the Time Element or Time Magic. So once you have either joined our cause or been destroyed, there will literally be no one in this city who can stop us. I'd rather not fight, to be honest."     Gears appear all around him. Life Gears. The core that allowed each one to posses a person. And they attach to his body all over, bulking him up, and covering him in a layer of armor like a magical mecha.     "But I will." his echoing voice finishes. (pt. 3) 

:'''{{#var:782|Golden (782)}} has posed:'''     Golden sounds like he is holding back a lot of anger. "Who died and made you god?"     He gestures at the people who've gathered. "Them? I don't think so."     He waves a hand out at all the people who have been frozen in place. "Surely not them, huh?"     "Yeah, I know a little bit about hubris and arrogance, about people who think they know what's best for everybody. My world doesn't exist anymore because of them." Golden flexes his hand.     "Sure, the world's not perfect, but that's what makes it interesting. Letting people find their own way to deal is better than wiping it all away unasked." He points at Tic-Toc even as the light within consumes him and transmutes him in a whirl of pixels and echoing disturbance across electronic devices. "Are you sure you want to die?"     The pixels re-solidify into a larger being; tall, armored, and still sporting wounds from a long ago battle, dragon-like and ready to take on the ancient Time Mage, a sad expression on his face. 

:'''{{#var:714|Sanary Rondel (714)}} has posed:'''      They were in a rush, and Tic-Toc wasn't willing to listen to reason. Too far out of his mind to be of use to the Confederacy, even.      Well. That's all the reason Sanary really needs, isn't it? "A shame. If that's how you want to do it, then." Taking a quick breath, the healer readies herself to dash straight at the magical mech man, then... Stays right where she is. She needs to stay close to White Rose to not get frozen in time herself, after all, which limits her options in this fight quite a bit. She's still got that gunaxe, though, and she aims to use it as best as she can considering the circumstances.      Raising the handguard/barrel of the weapon at Tic-Toc, she fires off a quick volley of icy blasts at him, then starts refocusing her magical energy away from the weapon and into her allies. Without any recent injuries to work on healing, the green light flowing from Sanary towards the rest of the group can be focused almost entirely on boosting their natural stamina recovery and providing them with an extra rush of magic power! 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     "Don't spout that crap at me!" Shirou angrily barks back at Archer seemingly from nowhere. It's probably ALARMING to some here to hear him be so vindictive at anyone.     Emiya Shirou hasn't really had bad words to say to anyone. Even Princess Paladin, whom he's never been INSULTING towards even if he was ANGRY at them once.     "Like hell I'll support--...." That Archer then proceeds to do something that shouldn't be possible alongside all the other things is FAR too much at once to process. Shirou's left stunned again.     'Trace, on.'     Those are his words. There is practically zero chance anyone else should ever be speaking them to perform magic.     Let alone the same magic he seems to specialize in. "What-"     But there's no time to be too surprised. Although his eyes widen and mouth gapes open a bit he shuts it.     It's not the time. No matter how much his gut's screaming to deal with this NOW if he ever will, it's not the time.     Tic-Toc's right there explaining everything. So he continues to frown... teeth now clenching slightly as the explanation carries on.     Shirou's quiet through all of it. Even as the Tic-Toc arms himself with an array of Life Gears he doesn't lose his cool.     Instead he has an answer. "I see. ... Well... for what it matters, I'll say that goal's way better than something selfish like immortality or ruling the world. But as I was about to say to this guy--" His tone tightens irritably, He clearly means Archer... "I can't accept that. Sacrificing some to save others isn't noble at all. There's nothing right about it whatsoever!" He's PISSED off as hell, but he's keeping a cool head nonetheless.     With a leap showing somewhat magically enhanced strength he separates himself from the others by about twelve feet to give them room to do... whatever it is they're going to do.     Especially that Jerk in red. He's got a REALLY bad feeling from that sword. 

:'''{{#var:821|Archer (821)}} has posed:'''     After hearing the radio chatter, Archer feels somewhat more hopeful of his own chances - since he exists outside of time and space, he theoretically should be unaffected by the Epoch Saint's power. He also takes note of the golden creature evolving to a very robust combat form that, even at a distance, Archer can tell it's imposing and powerful enough to do some damage.     However, he does express concern with Shirous reaction to his tracing. If he and the boy had met before, he should not have been so shocked to see him use this power.     Unless... this Shirou /hadn't/ met a version of Archer before? That brought up many other worrying questions as to how different this Shirou was to his own timeline - where did he see Kanshou and Bakyua then? He hadn't obtained them that early on in his life.     But it was too late to undo the action. He'd just have to roll with it. At best, Archer could say that he learned his abilities from Shirou - and it wouldn't even be a lie, since, as he had once been Emiya Shirou, he had in fact learned much of his foundations from being Shirou in the Grail War.      Archer takes the time to listen to the clockwork mage's claims, feeling somewhat awed deep down at the idea that something could exist for so long.     And... in a way... he could almost sympathize with him. For longer then he could remember, Archer's existence had been defined by the despair of knowing that his infernal dream of being a Hero could not exist without sacrificing lives - that it was impossible to save everyone.     ... and yet at the same time, it was for that reason that Archer knew all too well that it was a pipe dream. It was for the reason that he was practically eternal that he knew how hideous a fate perpetual existence really was - to see horror after horror over and over and never solve it.      It was why Archer smiled and started chuckling.     He knew the others might have been staring at him like he was crazy, but he didn't care. It was too amusing hearing this little plan. "Fix entropy? Heh... you think that will stop death? You think that losing the fear of time passing will make people stop killing?" 

:'''{{#var:821|Archer (821)}} has posed:'''      After a short pause, Archer then shakes his head in what looks vaguely like disappointment. "As a keeper of time, you should realize that having limits, especially an end, is one of the things that breeds decency in humans. What you're suggesting would only perpetuate stagnation - it isn't hope at all. It's cowardice. It's ignoring the root of the problem."     At this, Archer's expression turns grim. "Namely... that the issue is humanity itself is rotten to the core. It'll never change no matter what you do to help it - they'll keep making and repeating their mistakes, and there will always be a mess to clean up. Other realities in the multiverse will take notice as well - and it will breed war all the same. Take it from me... it's simply impossible to win this fight."      "If you're so tired of seeing death in your line of work, then do us all a favor and just kill yourself here and now." He speaks plainly - almost dismissively. "If it's so tiring to clean up after them, just quit and let them either fix their own mistakes or suffer the consequences. Nobody's asking you to go this far for them... and nobody likes having choices forced on them. If they're not asking for you to save them, why bother?" Then Archer smiles - an almost bitter smile. "In fact... I'll gladly do you a favor, one Guardian to another... and end your misery here and now, so that you don't have to keep suffering." His words hold frightening honesty - he really does seem to think he's giving Tic-Tac a kindness through this.     With the effective unanimous rejection of Tic-Tic's demands and Sanary's attack, Archer makes his move, seeing that the course of action is decided.     He narrows his eyes, his smile fading into a frown of concentration as another set of words that he fears may be familiar to this version of Shirou slip out.      /"I am the bone of my sword."/     The air comes alive as prana pours into Archer's arrow, overcharging it to the breaking point as it is knocked back on the bow, twisting and lengthening to resemble a proper arrow. Then, in the next instant, he calls it's name-      "Caldbolg!"     -and lets it fly loose, distorting space and time around it as the arrow, made from a blade cursed with the power to pierce defenses, streaks toward Tic-Toc. 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     Off goes Caladbolg after an epic rant that... for some reason, Shirou can't completely disagree with.     That accusation makes sense at the core in some way. Yet he hates his own thoughts for accepting nearly as much of it as he does. "Heh... show off all you want." Grumbly and bitter are his words towards Archer, yet he extends a hand quickly. "My body is made of swords, A shell of steel with fire for blood. I have created over a thousand blades, Never retreating, never knowing victory."     His eyes had been closed for a few moments of concentration, but they flare open with full determination now. There's a pulse of magic from him. It's somewhat inelegant but it's FAR beyond his years of experience. Reality warps and trembles, power spreads through the ground around him. Red light from the forge-world erupts from the cracks-- "I stand atop a hill of swords, Forging weapons from my flesh. This painful path needs no reward. My whole life is..."     The world PULSES once as Shirou shouts,     "UUUUUNLIMITED BLAAAAADE WORKS!"     The wave of magic spreads everywhere, overtakes everything. Or maybe everything around is simply drawn into it. It's hard to tell, because the world turns topsy-turvy!     When the light fades... there's no city to be seen. Everyone stands amidst a barren battlefield impaled with fabled weapons, illuminated by a brilliant twilight sky. It's a deserted, lonely place, but there's some hope to it nonetheless.     And Emiya Shirou gasps once from the exertion. How long will he be able to support it with THESE many magical figures going at it? 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     "If me dying would fix everything," Tic-Toc begins, dials turning with every word he speaks, gears spinning, electricity sparking along their edges, as he witnesses Golden's impressive transformation. "I would have accepted that long ago. What I want doesn't matter. One live versus billions? Trillions? More? There is no contest. Because this world will eventually run out and die. ALL worlds will. Putting off fixing it for the future, saying, 'People will determine a solution some day.' is just trying to run away from responsibility. It is DOOMING every one and everything, because the solution that WORKS is unpalatable. Hope is a lie. It is a pleasant lie we tell ourselves so that we do not have to admit that we can not do anything. Once you place your trust in hope you are doomed to suffer despair. Just like I did."     The hunched-over old-looking clockwork man, now increased to about twice his original height, stands still as Sanary shoots at him. Her icy blasts impact his Life Gear armor. One of the gears heats up, spinning so fast it melts the harmful ice attack. Another Life Gear on his left forearm starts spitting out tiny cogs with spider legs which go dashing and darting and leaping towards Sanary as she acts to boost everyone else.     His retort to Shirou as he leaps back is perhaps not as piercing as the revelations of Archer's abilities and connection to Shirou, but noteworthy all the same. "If I sacrificed myself for everyone, would that be 'noble'? That is what a hero does, is it not? A hero is one who sacrifices for others. But sacrificing others is not heroic. Only if the hero himself suffers." Two Life Gears on Tic-Toc's shoulders spin in different directions, spinning atoms apart, splitting them, and containing the resulting energy in stasis, resulting in a large sphere of increasingly volatile energy swelling and forming above his head. 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     The golden glow of the gear in the sky is bleached out by the nuclear white that builds and builds. "I am not a hero. I will never be a hero. I have long ago given up on hope. I am not tryong to provide it. If I am a villain so that others may live, so be it. No one will ever even know my role in this." Is he really intending to set off a nuclear blast here in the middle of the city!? The world seems to be distorting around him, right as Archer's arrow pierces through him and right out the other side. Metal flies, hoses burst, two Life Gears shatter entirely. The sphere of unreleased power above the Epoch Saint's head consumes itself as time magic stops keeping it in place. An enormous beam of solid white light erupts upwards into the sky, straight through the giant gear there, without any apparent influence upon it.     The light produced by the beam remains in place even after the attack itself has finished. Light particles are now freezing when they leave the safety field. Time has truly almost completely stopped here. And that is why Tic-Toc despire the grievous damage he has just suffered... Is not yet defeated. Archer's arrow, when it passed the space between himself and Tic-Toc, slowed just marginally enough to not hit its exact target. But the damage is clear, and the churning clockwork heart is exposed for a moment, right before the damage is erased before their very eyes.     "'Humans'... Saving 'humans'... 'Humans' changing..." Tic-Toc looks upon the Guardian who offered to help him, and then put a hole in him. He's down two Life Gears now. He asks, "What makes you think I want humans to remain after we've fixed everything? I predate the very existence of that species. I predate hominadae by 10 million years! I have seen your rise, your fall, and all the permutations along the way! The problem with humanity is that they think that they are the most important thing in the universe! There are beings in the Nether Realm far better suited to living on this planet. Beings who have never had a home and would truly appreciate it. But neither they nor humans, no innate gratitude or potential for growth, will MATTER if the whole universe DIES. And so...!"     Then there is a flash and everyone is in the barren wasteland of Shirou's Reality Marble. Time is not slowed here. Attacks this time around will most likely not miss due to a minute movement out of the way of a super-fast arrow. Tic-Toc sighs. "Discussion... Truly is not an option."     He is bombarded by exploding jack-o-lanterns, and a barrage of pages from a book that cut like blades. Libra and Crucia are holding their book and wand respectively. Libra says, "Paladin asked for 60 seconds. I gave her more to see if there was another solution. You're right. When neither side is willing to compromise, conflict is inevitable." Her thoughts on Archer's rant against humanity she keeps to herself. But her trust towards him is in exceptionally small supply.     Paladin draws the Sacred Scepter, a rod tipped with a pink sphere, and says, "For the sake of everyone, you must be defeated. As Guardians, as Magical Girls, as Heroes, as Healers, as Digital Champions... Whatever we call ourselves, at this moment we are united in the task of defeating you for the sake of everyone." Then she unleashes a piercing beam of Holy energy, mimicking Archer's move. "Everyone aim for his center! PENANCE BEAM!" 

:'''{{#var:821|Archer (821)}} has posed:'''     Archer smirks as Caladbolg goes straight through Tic-Toc's body - then his eyes widen and his smile vanishes as the damage quickly repairs itself, cursing as he realizes that the clockwork-mage's body is rejecting the flow of time around him, effectively undoing anything done to him. He also can't help but frown at the mage's words, once again becoming bitter and cynical - "It's an impossible task either way - they won't be grateful. No race will. You said it yourself - if hope is a lie... why are you so arrogantly hoping your solution would change a thing? You yourself /called/ it hope a minute ago - that you'd create hope by stilling time until you find your solution."     He curses and shields his eyes with an arm as the explosion of blinding light pierces upwards, though he still looks at Tic-Toc with a somewhat judgmental expression. "If you're going to go through with this ridiculous notion, you can at least acknowledge the hypocrisy of your beliefs and let go of your own flawed hopes. Because no matter how much you try, you /cannot/ save everyone, be it human or anything else! You're so lost in trying that you don't even see the pointlessness of your desire - and I refuse to see another such insipid, twisted fate be carried out!" For the first time, Archer actually does sound legitimately frustrated - perhaps because, in a warped way... he is seeing himself - throwing away everything to try and be the nameless savior that nobody ever wanted nor ever thanked.     When Shioru summons his Reality Marble, Archer quickly visualizes a new weapon from his stock. "Trace; On."      Drawing the form out from his inner world, his hand flashes as prana consolidates into a long object that he would rather have never seen again... ironic as it was to have a grudge with the weapon that had nearly ended his existence when that very thing was all he wanted anymore.     Knocking it back, the object twists and shortens, compressing into a blood-red arrow that Archer aims straight for the clockwork mage, now knowing full well what the best way to end him is.      /"I am the bone of my sword."/     Prana flares to life, the bow is drawn back, and Archer pours as much prana as he can as the bastardized variant of C� Chulainn's cursed spear ignites with energy.     The spear that is cursed to always strike the heart when used... utilized as an arrow that when fired will carry the same effect. It will either pierce the heart or open a gap for another to do so.      /Gae Bolg!/     His hand releases the drawstring, the blood-red spear transforming into a magic bullet that arcs and twists sharply through the air, lancing straight for Tic-Toc's core. 

:'''{{#var:714|Sanary Rondel (714)}} has posed:'''      On one hand, having so many strong allies for this fight meant there was probably a good chance they'd all succeed here. On the other hand, everyone EXCEPT Sanary was pulling out all sorts of crazy... Everything. Golden with his transformation, Archer with that drill sword and bow out of nowhere, Shirou with his... Field of weapons? At least the Witching Hour and Princess Paladin's attacks are a bit more limited in size.      To say that her self-esteem is dropping rapidly would be an understatement. The fact that her shots didn't seem to do much doesn't help make her feel any better about that, either. Still, someone's got to make sure they don't run out of juice before finishing Tic-Toc off, and Sanary's just the person for the job!      "Sixty seconds, eh...? That'll be more than enough time for us to show him how stubborn we can really be!" Spotting those cogspiders coming straight for her, the healer digs her feet in with her shield braced in front of her, waiting until the last moment before thrusting it forward to try and stop them in their tracks. A few still manage to get by her block and dig into her legs, however, drawing a sharp cry as and a spray of blood from her as she drops to one knee with the miniature saws ripping right through the padding.      And yet, she's grinning at that. "Gotta say... You could've been useful if things were different. What a waste, you pompous ass." And then she's putting out even more of that magical energy, both to boost her own regeneration while still pumping more energy into the rest of the group. 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     Shirou would not seem to be as lethally inclined as his elder counterpart.     He's certainly not as jaded or cynical.     But there is no more time for reasoning! None at all. "Pointless desire?!"     Yet hearing the words being spewed around is enough to distract him fom the effort of maintaining the Reality Marble... if only for an instant.     Unlimited Blade Works' sky flickers like static for one tiny instant.     Then, with a boatload of magic flying everywhere. It'll only get WORSE as more and more attacks fly.     But as power fills him from Sanaray's efforts the Reality Marble stabilizes once more. Shirou rises from a defensive crouch he'd taken to focus on holding it up. Normally he'd be able to manuever but there's too much strain on him...     All until he gets a few moments to join up. Even as one part of him FREAKS at the trickery Archer just pulled - a feat he wasn't sure could ever be done - he resorts to a much cruder, yet kinder assault of his own.     Somewhere across the infinite expanse, a plain-looking but very important Scythe is uprooted and flies instantaneously across the expanse!     It swirls and twirls and should it strike, should it embed into any part of this 30-million year old being...     It doesn't really hurt.     It brings a sense of peace and ending, it melts away anxiety and dulls pain, pushes it away.     It's the scythe of the Grim Reaper, after all. 

:'''{{#var:782|Golden (782)}} has posed:'''     Golden looks at the large shield-like claws he is armed with and determines that if they have to destroy the heart, then these weapons are far too imprecise for such work. He casts the Dramon Killers aside in the field of weapons and grabs a massive zweihander in one hand and a bold looking claymore in the other and goes flying straight for the Epoch Saint, bellowing defiance. "You think you are the only one who saw his world die around him?! Saw it slip through your fingers like sand no matter what you did!? You chose despair! I chose hope! For that they called me /hero/. I am a Crestbearer and I stand for courage itself!"     With that, Golden lets loose a thunderous draconic roar and drives the swords at Tic Toc's heart with all the force his broken body can muster. He hopes that with the attacks his allies are making that this can end before he's drained and devolves back into his lesser form. 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     Tic-Toc has no more chance to talk, to retort. As the barrage is incoming, Sanary healing and bolstering everyone with her power, fighting off the cog spiders with her shield, healing herself even as they try to saw through her leg, allowing them all to push themselves to the maximum when they might not otherwise... The Epoch Saint does his best to counter-attack. To throw a Life Gear like a spinning blade -- a blade that has ghastly bio-mechanical arms reaching out of the hole at the center to try to grab and claw anyone who comes close. Crucia Hex, lacking any piercing spells, blasts it out of the air with her Pumpkin Bombs.     One Life Gear, the one that spun to keep Sanary's ice from creeping inside, is warped by the freezing cold and the moisture, and when it tries to spin again to produce friction and heat, it winds up spinning right off of Tic-Toc, sending sparks flying as it zooms off into the distance.     Paladin's drilling attack pierces the outer layer of Tic-Toc's armored body, Golden claws and tears the opening wider, Libra sends out more page-blades to cleave through metal flesh, and Archer's arrow destroys Tic-Toc's heart. All the Life Gears all over him crumble into dust, and he falls to his knees, still trying to aim a hand to unleash an attack. He really... ISN'T a fighter. His inventions were powerful, but he should have known better than to just stand there and try to tank all those hits.     Shirou slices into his arm, just as temporal energy swirls around his arm, preparing for release into the midst of his foes. His body warps out of existence. That probably wasn't what Shirou intended...!--Ah, no. It's clear now. His visible body was itself a Life Gear. Lying on the ground before them now is a pale, ugly, ancient, and yet pitiful creature. Some organism that may have arose in the wake of the dinosaurs going extinct, and then gone extinct themselves. But this is a survivor of a people powerful enough in magic to survive for 30 million years. Even if all the flesh being stripped off and replaced with wires and cables and cogs was necessary.     He seems fragile, weak.     But without his armor, this creature with tentacles and a big, scraggly-toothed mouth like a deep sea monster, and small, beady black eyes, struggles upright, heaving with the effort. And it says, "Come to me."     A hole tries to grind its way open in the sky of Shirou's reality marble. This is SHIROU'S world right now. HIS space. This intruding force, a giant golden gear not unlike those already visible in the distance, does not belong here and may well be rejected. But if Tic-Toc manages to siphon away all of that stored up 'time'...! The power of millions of people and magical girls with infinite mana Artifacts as he mentioned before...!     "ATTACK HIM AGAIN!" Paladin yells. "SANARY, KEEP US ENERGIZED! SHIROU, DON'T YOU DARE LET THIS WORLD COLLAPSE!" Then she raises her scepter over her head and prepares to unleash her strongest attack against this physically weak, and nearly-dead... THING. 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     Emiya Shirou has unleashed his Reality Marble a number of times one can count on two hands. Most of them have been in far tamer situations. He has never before been tested to this limit.     Reality cracks and bleeds, fizzles and strains. The sky is pierced, the Boundary Field is like a balloon pierced with a needle. It wildly warps and wavers slowly at first.     Shirou, struggling to breathe in gasps, drops to his knees.     It's an admirable effort to pour all of his extra effort and the energy Sanary's lending into the field...     But a Boundary Field is a fragile thing. When it snaps, you can't just tie it back together in the blink of an eye.     "Sorry, Princess..." It's not for lack of trying. His brow's furrowed with the strain. But he's not going to let it end so easily.     "HOLD ON, DAMMIT!" Screaming at the top of his lungs, Shirou reckless puts his Magic Circuits to full output with much of what he has left.     The breakup's slowed, but it'll probably collapse in under fifteen seconds! 

:'''{{#var:821|Archer (821)}} has posed:'''     As the fight rages, Archer's own Blade Works pulses slightly - like a small hammer against a forge - as he feels the design of the scythe etch itself into the barren waste of his soulscape. He also sees, or rather /feels/, Shirou's Unlimited Blade Works weakening as the fight goes on, the strain worsened by the golden gear grinding through the Reality Marble's barrier. The boy hadn't been kidding about how weak the boundary field was...     In fact, just thinking about it made Archer stare at Shirou for a short moment, his expressionless face hiding the deep sense of surprise that eats at his core and had been ever since the Reality Marble was summoned.      /Their/ Reality Marble. The boy had used /their/ Reality Marble. He had been so focused on finishing Tic Toc that his mind was only now letting him process the absurdity of it.     It should have been /impossible/ for the boy to use Unlimited Blade Works at this stage of his life - at least not without having seen it in use from another version of Archer. But if that wasn't the case... it shouldn't have been possible for Emiya Shirou to learn it himself without years more practice. Archer himself hadn't even been able to finish it until he got power from the World through his contract with Alaya.     How could Shirou have advanced this far already?     Moreover... if he had come this far - if he already had the determination and strength of will to summon Unlimited Blade Works even once... would Archer even be able to convince the boy of the flaws in his beliefs?     Either way though... the boy would be a tougher challenge then he expected... but at least now he had a measure of what the scope of Emiya Shirou's powers were. That alone was useful.     In spite of the chaos, Archer allows himself to give a bemused smirk at Shirou's tiring form."You seem to be wearing yourself out, boy. I'm not surprised though - reaching for things beyond your grasp tends to do that to you. Keep going at it like that and you'll surely break one day."     He keeps his words ambiguous, leaving it up for debate whether he's talking about Shirou's beliefs, his use of the Reality Marble, or all of the above, his apparent intent seeming to be annoying or frustrating Shirou.     In the end though, he shrugs off the inevitable denial of his words, facing the still-budding issue in front of them. 

:'''{{#var:821|Archer (821)}} has posed:'''     Stepping forward, Archer's expression once again becomes serious, his back turned to Shirou as he strides out several steps and then stops directly in front of his younger self. "Stand back, boy... and take whatever opening appears. You likely won't get more then one chance. In the meantime... allow me to take up your job... again. And in doing so... let me show you what a hero's 'reward' looks like."     With that, he steps forward, closing his eyes for a moment as the words issue forth, disturbingly familiar and disturbingly different from those that had already been issued.      /"I am the bone of my sword."/      He feels his inner world stir, the endless grinding gears whirring to life.      /"Steel is my body, and fire is my blood."/      /"I have created over a thousand blades."/ Streams of prana now become visible as it pools around him, flowing out from around him in a circle like blue flame.      /"Unknown to death, nor known to life."/      "/I have withstood pain to create many weapons/"      /"Yet these hands will never truly hold anything."/     The air pressure shifts - it becomes hot like the inside of a forge. Each line sounds like a recession of some sad, bitter history being laid bare. A hollow shell that has no other purpose in life then to march forward with sword in hand and cut the enemy down in the name of 'Justice.'      /"So as I pray... UNLIMITED BLADE WORKS!"/     Fire bursts to life at the bowman's feet and billows outward from the ring around Archer, consuming the flickering field of blades... and replacing it with a new one.     Other differences assert themselves quickly; The ground is harsher and more ashen then the field in Shirou's Reality - but most disturbingly, the sky is filled with endless rows of grinding gears suspended in the sky, smoke and ash blotting out any sun the world had. It looks less of a red plain full of collected blades and more like a desolate battlefield filled with fallen weapons, somehow feeling more hopeless and disparaging then the world Shirou had conjured earlier.     In the middle of this... the red knight stands alone atop the hill of swords, eyes closed as if in contemplation, lacking any sign of the strain Shirou displayed when summoning the world.     Then they slowly open... and they radiate more then determination - they radiate finality, born from a mind and heart made of steel as dozens of blades and weapons lift themselves out of the dirt and aim themselves at the creature.     "Rest in peace. Your burden ends here."      With that, his hand raises up, the invisible order given as the hoard of weapons launch forward in a seemingly-endless storm of steel. 

:'''{{#var:782|Golden (782)}} has posed:'''     Golden is fighting off the smaller time constructs that are swarming over him now, keeping him from doing more to Tic Toc for the moment. Things tearing into his damaged flesh. He catches a glimpse of the giant gear trying to force its way into this pocket reality.     This is not good, and he churns upwards, spinning in the air to fling the small creatures off as he hurtles towards the cap in the sky. This. May not work. The shield is not what it was. But he needs to buy time, because here his allies could fight without worrying about hurting non-combatants or damaging the city. He pulls the two shield halves from his back, even as his form flickers a moment to show a winged blue-and-white dragon intermingled and scrambled with the more familiar golden MetalMamemon.     "No. Not yet." He whispers over the din of Archer's Unlimited Blade Works. He struggles to lock the shield halves together and manages to do so just in time, the emblem on the crest glowing a warm orange as the Brave Shield slams into the emergent Life Gear and pushes upwards against the massive cog. 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     Shirou had formed his Reality Marble through accelerated training and resources that should never have been available to him, learned to fill his prana reserves with outside help... even if he had to return again and again to keep them topped off between crises.     But those words had been his own, albeit borrowed from impressions and flickers of something deep and powerful that had resonated within him that he'd felt when clashing against Chloe von Einzbern.     With a month or two of work and excellent tuturing from someone who knew exactly what he could do - but did not tell him - he had eventually catalyzed it.     Now...     All of it's blown away. As the failing Reality Marble is supplanted, replaced, overriden, Shirou throws an arm up. "That can't be po-...ssible..."     THUMP.     His brain, his heart, his soul, whatever it is, it throbs. Piercing, searing pain strikes him clean through like an arrow to the heart.     He shouldn't be seeing this world.     He can't accept this world, this reality, this truth.     The boy's soul rejects this, fundamentally rejets it. What it is he's trying to reject though... that isn't so clear. But it has him clenching his teeth, whole body reduced to a state of fight or flight panic.     Summoning up all his remaining will, Shirou vaults up to his feet again.     He's not allowed to give up, not allowed to give in, not allowed to accept Archer's opinion on this at all!     "Tic-Toc! If the universe is meant to end, then let it end. Don't take away everything that's good about being alive for everyone... being frozen forever is as good as never existing!"     He still has some power left, although not much. The very bow that Archer's been using appears in his hands, along with a jeweled, highly ornamented holy sword with a blade that gleams thousands of colors even in this soot-covered hellhole. Joyeuse is nocked and drawn back.     Shirou wants to save everyone.     He really does.     But sometimes, as Kiritsugu's stated, that's impossible. Are you supposed to save enemies too?     Shirou grits his teeth, furious at the contradiction, but there's no better option here... is there?     "Strike... JOYEUSE!"     Rainbow light gathers around the 'arrow' just before Shirou launches it. What follows is a gaudy, shining projectile trailing a flashy rainbow display. It's a thing that only an egotistical crusader would admire and not to Shirou's tastes...     But he doesn't really have enough power for much else left! 

:'''{{#var:714|Sanary Rondel (714)}} has posed:'''      A weaker person would have started screaming in pain ages ago from cogspiders sawing through their leg. A smarter person would have disabled them first, whether by destroying them or calling for assistance from someone better equipped to do so. A faster person would have probably even avoided them entirely.      Sanary is none of these things. Instead of giving into the pain and screaming or trying to bat them off even as her leg is barely attached below the shin, she's channelling everything into bolstering her allies. Shirou and Archer with their world chanting thing, Golden fighting off more of those creatures on his own, Princess Paladin and the Witching Hour barraging the creature that emerged from the Epoch Saint with all their might... Or was that creature Tic-Toc himself?      "Butt shit son of a ass dick... YOU GOT IT!" Belting out an almost deranged-sounding war cry, Sanary puts out absolutely every once of her magical energy into one more immense burst of rejuvenating magic. With all that energy she's pouring out, she can't even keep her eye functioning! With any luck, though, she won't have to aim anything else for a while. 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     The world starts to break, and a new one, similar to the previous, replaces it. Libra has Byblos open, and calls out, "THERE AND BACK AGAIN!" A huge golden ring appears in the air above her and goes rolling across the terrain, crushing the Epoch Saint underneath it, stopping after it passes over him, and then rolling backwards to crush him again. He manages to hold it off by freezing the time of the air around him, but in his state, his magic might not hold.     "SMASHING PUMPKIN!" Crucia calls out as she slams an energy pumpkin down on top of Tic-Toc, straining his temporal shield further.     Golden is forcing the enormous gear in the sky upwards, keeping it from intruding, even as the lives of thousands begin to unravel and flow downwards in a golden river, heading for the Epoch Saint...!     But not reaching him! As the tendrils of temporal energy reach for the one calling to them, they can not fully invade Archer's bounded field, because Golden is keeping something bigger than all of Tokyo, something that might not even be a physical object but merely the representation of a Concept, from crossing over at least three different realities to turn a Time Wizard into a god.     And Sanary is powering all of them up, healing injuries, restoring energy even as it's expended. Princess Paladin calls out, "HOLY NOVA!" And then she unleashes a sphere of concentrated Holy Magic like a miniature sun right at the weakened Epoch Saint and his shield.     It explodes, vaporizing the terrain around the impact point, and hurling the wounded creature for dozens of feet until he hits a big sword and stops moving. He looks up in despair, still trying to find some way to out of this.     Then Archer's swords bombard the mage, impaling and destroying his body, rendering him nothing but a mass of ruined flesh. Several seconds pass. Is it over?     The mushy mess that is Tic-Toc flickers and seems to reverse his own death. Some pre-cast spell so that if he ever TRULY met his end, he'd get another shot. He is put back together again, in a hideous conglomeration of his natural form and the metallic monster he was masquerading as. Shirou's attack slams into him before he can take any further action, and he falls to his knees, his flesh-and-metal legs shattering beneath him. Wires protruding from a half-human and half-anglerfish head, stitched together with wire, twitch and spasm in pain. He just remains on his hands and knees, breathing laboredly. Mechanical lungs the only thing keeping him going now. His heart is destroyed. All the careful precautions to keep himself going, the isolation of his own personal timeline within himself to avoid death.     But even with a Life Gear taking the deadly strike from Shirou, it's too late. The touch, even by proxy, was enough.     He's dying.     Libra turns to Sanary and sways the dying cogspiders off of her leg, stomping them underfoot. She is sorry she couldn't help quicker, but there were other priorities, and they have two very powerful healers here.     As everything seems to be settling down, Crucia Hex, the lively Pumpkin Witch, suddenly SNARLS like a beast as she spins around to face behind them, sensing something hidden there solely through familiarity. "What are YOU doing here?"     A long-haired man, with hair the same smokey color as Crucia, and red eyes of a likewise matching hue shimmers into existence. He's dressed in robes more befitting a mage than the business suit he wore when the group first met him on their first trip to the TMG building. "You wound me, little sister. I was in the building already when this clever little world was created. I've been standing nearby the whole time. I was just coming here to see how you were doing," Shirou Kikumura replies in mock-hurt. 

:'''{{#var:782|Golden (782)}} has posed:''' The crest on the shield begins to sputter and flicker.     The digimon is so very tired, and has not pushed himself this hard since... It's cracking. The shield. The armor. Even with Sanary's healing and boosting, the WarGreymon's ever-present battle injuries are catching up with the strain he's putting on himself. He can't see the scene unfolding below. Flecks of gold Chrome Digizoid fall away from the Guardian as he holds the line. ... the battle. Death and ruin everywhere. The screams of child digimon being devoured. The hollow and cruel laughter of a Royal Knight. The desperate final stands of comrades in arms. The unravelling of the world. A flash of light and then darkness...     There's a roar coming from the faltering Golden that descends into the loud screech of a modem. His form crawls with visual glitches as he sheds data in the form of pixels and pushes harder. '... to stand against the darkness or die trying.' he thinks, recalling an old oath. 'Well, if this is it...'     The digimon shatters into countless pixels, revealing the MetalMamemon beneath, who begins to plummet wildly to the ashen and gloomy ground below, short limbs whipping around limply. 

:'''{{#var:714|Sanary Rondel (714)}} has posed:'''      And then it's all over. Tic-Toc has been slain, the Life Gears destroyed, and who the hell is that guy!      ... Wait. Who the hell /is/ that guy? Whirling around to face the source of Crucia's ire, Sanary doesn't even manage to catch a glimpse (what with not having any magic power left to actually power her eye) of the long-haired Shirou before falling flat on her side.      Turns out having your leg nearly cut off is quite the detriment to standing up properly! Without rage and adrenaline keeping her going, the pain is also really starting to kick in for her. "Wh... Who's that guy? A-and. Uh. Can someone take care of this?" She still manages to get a few coherent sentences out, then takes her hat off and crams it into her mouth to muffle what would have undoubtedly been a very colorful string of curses and screams.      Good thing there's no kids around. 

:'''{{#var:821|Archer (821)}} has posed:'''     Deep down, Archer is able to admit to himself that he is impressed by many of the efforts put out in this battle. From the golden warrior pushing back the falling Life Gear to the one-eyed girl coming close to overloading her magic circuits - if she had any, seeing as he couldn't tell if magic always worked the same for all in Mutiverse - he had found the display interesting. Admirable even, in a sense of the word.     ... and yes - even Emiya Shirou had impressed him to a degree, if for nothing else besides how quickly the boy's abilities had grown. In a sink or swim situation, he'd effectively learned under desperation how to cope with situations he was outclassed in.     A shame he couldn't put that same effort into defining his own individuality.      As the chaos dies down, Archer looks back over his shoulder to stare at Shirou, his eyes seeming to almost look through the boy. "Take a close look at this-" he gestures to the dying form of Tic Toc - "and ask yourself something, Emiya Shirou."      "How would you feel about being a Hero of Justice... if you were frozen forever into that role, the same as he was for his?"     Letting that question linger, Archer then strides forward three paces, looking at the fallen form of Tic Toc. His stance and pace are unflinching, his facial expressions solid like cast-iron steel... and yet, behind his eyes, there seems to be a note of pity when he looks at the dying creature before him. As if seeing his own existence mirrored - a ruined soul who was so caught up in the beauty of their earnest wish... that it became warped before their very eyes. He does not agree with everything the ancient time mage said or planned... but he does feel a kinship. Enough to want to ensure at least one person is free of the curse that is an eternal, unchanging existence.     "Trace; On."     Archer's final weapons in this battle ironically end up being Shirou's first - the blades that have become their symbols in more ways then one, representing yin and yang. Lifting his arms, Archer brandishes the forms of Kanshou and Bakyua. 

:'''{{#var:821|Archer (821)}} has posed:'''     Before Archer can do anything though, he sees the falling form of the golden warrior as his body dissolves back to it's spherical form... and instinct takes over.     Almost in spite of himself, Archer's body moves - he throws Kanshou and Bakuya outward, bounding up the hill and vaulting into the sky as Reinforcement strengthens the muscles and bones in his body, leaping far higher then any human ever could. With a slight yet audible grunt, he catches the falling warrior, his muscles straining a bit from the impact as even with full Reinforcement, the weight of the impact is noteworthy.     As he falls, Archer traces a large nameless blade that becomes stuck vertically upward in the ground, with Kanshou and Bakuya finishing their flight and becoming embedded in the sides of the massive to form a pair of steps. He lands on the first one made from Bakuya, which splinters but holds, then bounces down to the step made from Kanshou and then hits the ground, landing on his feet in a deep crouch.     After a moment of making sure none of his bones broke from the fall, Archer sets Golden against the blade in the ground, as if propping him to rest against a tree, then pulls Kanshou and Bakuya back out of the large weapon's body.     His posture and expression are unchanged as they were before he moved... but for a split second... it seemed almost he was Emiya Shirou in how quickly he moved to save another without thinking, even as he turns away and marches back to the hill as if nothing had happened. 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     Shirou's escaped any serious injury so far purely by merit of being Very Back Row. It's not a role he typically takes, and perhaps it saved him from a vicious mauling.     He's suffered those before. Healing from them was never pleasant, and he knows he can't save anyone if he's dead.     The gruesome task seemingly dealt with, Shirou lowers his bow, then-- whirls about upon detecting Golden's fall! "Gh--"     He's not nearly fast enough to move that way, but a blur of red catches his eye. The same blur of red that he'd been staring at with a throbbing head a few moments prior, searing words slamming deep into his soul like a sword fresh from the forge.     Although he frowns, Shirou has better things to do than dwell on those words right now.     With Sanary cursing in misery, his immediate response is to dash - clumsily - right on over! "I'm here!" Although he's not really sure what he can do about the issue beides pull out a Union first aid kit (pocket sized) and try to do something about all of that bleeding. Sanary being a healer can probably do it better.     But in the middle of that his attention swerves to the OTHER Shirou who's recently... come out of hiding it seems.     "What do you want?" His tone is flat and not friendly, but not particularly hostile either.     He has a low opinion of a magically-inclined brother who wasn't out here aiding his sister, but isn't likely to outright say it. 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     Golden struggles, saves them, and then falls when even his great strength fails. As Tic-Toc prepares to accept a death he has wanted for ages, since before human civilization was even the inkling of an idea. But then Archer abandons that mercy to save a life. A blood-filled eye and one black as the abyss watch as Archer is rushes in defiance of his declaration that there was no hope and no point in saving anyone. That humans would keep doing the same foolish, selfish things no matter what.     Princess Paladin supports Shirou by using her healing magic to reattache Sanary's leg while Shirou works to patch the wound itself once the limb is reconnected. "Mendicant's Mercy," she chants as she waves the Sacred Scepter over the appendage, restoring it MOSTLY to how it would have been had it not been injured. But there's still damage there. All Paladin did was create a rule of Law that restricts the severity of the injury.     Tic-Toc watches this happen, and then watches the group of Shirou, Shirou, Crucia, Libra, and the thus-far-very-quiet White Rose. He says nothing, simply trying to breathe.     Crucia seems unconvinced by her brother's statement of intent. "Get out. You don't belong with us."     "Oh, don't worry," Other-Shirou says as he looks over everyone and then fixes his crimson gaze upwards on the falling Golden as he's rescued. "I'm not with YOU."     The fairy pipes up finally, her tiny voice calling out, half as address, half so that those not-in-the-know can find out what's up. "Shirou Kikumura, Time Mage, member of the First Circle. A prodigy whose known abilities include Time Magic, Space Magic, Mind Magic, Shadow Magic, and Wards. His specialty is Emotional Manipulation spells, especially via Wards and other barriers. I've looked up some things about you after yesterday. What are you ACTUALLY here for? Mages of your type are self-serving. They don't waste time and resources frivolously. You didn't come here to see your sister, just like that Fear Ward you placed at the TMG building wasn't to 'test her'. You use magic when you WANT something. So why are you here?"     Shirou Kikumura I'm actually here for THAT." He looks up at the gear in the sky that Golden was holding back. Surging with temporal power that a Time Mage like himself would greatly benefit from. "I said that I wasn't helping the Epoch Saints. I never said I wasn't stealing 'time'."     Then he lifts off into the air, seemingly prepared to go flying up after the gear! Crap! 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     "YOU BASTARD GET BACK HERE!" Crucia calls out, starting to shoot pumpkin bombs after her brother! Princess Paladin was about to start helping to heal Sanary so that her fellow healer can in turn help rejuvenate Shirou and everyone, but she has to switch her attention on the prize they've successfully defended!     As Kikumura starts to close in on the Time Gear, looking confident and pleased with himself as he dodges pumpkins that explode in the air behind him, he reaches out...     And finds himself back on the ground like he never left it. He frowns and tries it again, this time accelerating his own time to zip right up to the giant gear...!     And wind up back where he started. It looks like no one else has to stop him after all. Every time he flies up into the air, he is reversed back down to the ground. Other-Shirou frowns and then looks towards Tic-Toc. "Stop interfering. It's over for you, ancient one, and my people have more use for this now than yours do. They are dead, while mine still live."     Tic-Toc has one twisted arm extended and is halting the Time Mage. "You may have the protection of Time Magic yourself. But I have more experience and have more knowledge. The entire basis of your magic is scraps stolen from the relics and writings of my ancestors. I am not a fighter, but if you do not excuse yourself, I will alter your years so that you will never use magic again."     The voice is weak, labored, strained, and yet completely serious. A half-human and half-monster face, joined together by metal, stares determinedly at Other-Shirou.     The smoke-haired mage narrows his eyes. "When this world reverts to its prior state, I will depart. As a FAVOR to one of the progenitors of my craft." He bows elaborately and sarcastically, but he seems to be done trying to steal all those lives.     The Epoch Saint looks up at the beautiful gear in the sky. Everything he worked for. "I have... Some final... Words. The gear... Will return the stolen years... When I am gone. So please... Listen." 

:'''{{#var:714|Sanary Rondel (714)}} has posed:'''      Sanary's breathing starts returning to normal once Shirou and Princess Paladin tend to her leg, still shivering a bit even as the majority of the pain subsides. She stills mutters a few quiet curses to herself as she pushes herself up slowly, eventually bracing herself against Shirou to keep herself upright. "Shitting... Nnrgh. Thanks, you two. And sorry about the.. This." She chuckles lightly and goes quiet at the words from Red-Shirou to Tic-Toc, narrowing her eye slightly despite not being able to see what he's actually doing.      And then he's gone, too. Even without sight, however, she does turn her head to the Epoch Saint when he begins speaking again. There's a look of irritation on her face, although she doesn't quite act on it aside from just blindly glaring at him.      "Speak, then." 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     Even Shirou has to gasp when the Other-Shirou pulls this fast one on them all. He brings the bow back up but... blinks a few times, finally gazing at Tic-Toc.     The mangled, pitiful creature's state has him once again frowning. Pity and regret mix together. Did it need to end this way?     A being thirty million yers old, at the end of his rope. Whether they were in the right or not doesn't change that Shirou's gut is twisted up on the matter now that he sees the Time Mage becoming cooperative.     It's ALMOST UNFAIR. If he'd been bitter and spiteful Shirou could feel more justified, but...     "You picked a strange time to change tunes, old man." The red-haired swordmage proclaims gently. Now that Sanary's been seen to, he strolls over to listen, his gaze somber.     "In a way we're maybe not so different. I'd like to see a world without pain and loss and death and destruction." 

:'''{{#var:821|Archer (821)}} has posed:'''     When the other Shirou makes his move, Archer tenses...     ... but then he sees Tic Toc's movements. And once again, as Archer listens, taking the words in as they are spoken... he again feels the same sad, pitiful connection he felt to the being before.     Even now... neither of them could deny following their paths to the very end... even when they both saw the fruitlessness of it. Both of them were locked down on their paths to eternal damnation. Because in the end, be they human or alien... people continued to do stupid, pointless things for the very reason that their core natures were unchanging.     After all... whoever said Archer was any exception? Why would Tic Toc be either?     But at the very least, one of them would soon have the freedom that Archer had craved for so very long.     At the same time though, Archer gazes somewhat cynically at his younger self, tilting his head. "That is true - you and he are not so different." He continues walking up, Kanshou and Bakuya still in his hands, until he stands side-by-side with Shirou. Yet he doesn't look at the boy. "You and he... are actually rather similar... right down to the paths that were taken... the earnestness of the wish that spurned that desire... and the ugly contradiction that it was all marred in which was it's truth."     It's uncertain if Archer is speaking about Shirou or himself in this sense... but he seems to take Shirou's words as being something of a statement that, if they're not so different... then their paths will likely reach the same end. The same as Tic Toc. The same as Archer himself. 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     Tic-Toc heaves a shrill metallic breath. The closest he can manage to a laugh at both Shirou and Archer. "We all would like a happy ending... That's what we Saints began with." he replies. At Sanary's behest, and partially in response to Archer, he wastes no more time. He doubts Crucia or Libra would allow him to, with a friend dying in a hospital even as they speak. "Regardless of... How this ended up or... What I intended... If the ultimate result is the same... No matter what. Even if it is utterly... Futile. And there's... No reason to keep trying..." He lowers his arm, no longer able to support himself on just one. Other-Shirou seems to be behaving for now as he stands there, hands calmly folded. "...Then I guess it can't hurt... To let people keep making... The attempt. They won't change... Anyway... Right?"     Tic-Toc raises his head and says, "The Epoch Saints... Are made up from the four... Greatest Time Mages... Of THIS universe. We have... Different backgrounds... But we all wish to prevent entropy... And we agreed... To the time-stop. But I wished to extend it... Beyond just this world. To encompass the WHOLE Multiverse... So we could fix... EVERYTHING. The others have more extreme methods..." He coughs up blood and small screws for several seconds before continuing.     "...I promised them that my Life Gears would be all we needed, and that they would not require those other methods. With my failure, they will not hold back anymore. But just as I deviated from the Time-Stop plan... The others have their own visions of how it should be carried out. We are not all... In agreement." He coughs again this time vomitting out a huge glob of blood, flesh, and a dozen different kinds of machine parts, cogs, wheels, and gears. "Listen... I mentioned that Entropy was an Element that no one is the Champion of, and that there are those trying to change that. Entropy still must be fought against. Even if it will win eventually, it will win much sooner if the ones who worship it come to power."     His arms give out from underneath him and he falls to the ground on his face, leaking blood from his whole body. "...I am... Ticeon Toca... Beware... The TRAITOR among us... And stop..." He coughs one last time as he wheezes out... "The End." Then he lies still.     The gear that penetrates into this reality begins lift back up into the torn sky, bleeding its power out and back into those it originally belonged to. It's receding back into the reality it was previously part of.     Other Shirou looks up at it with disappointment but resignation. Paladin tries not to let emotion get in the way of hearing what Tic-Toc--No, Ticeon Toca is actually SAYING. He's warning them. Of something worse than him. Maybe worse than the Epoch Saints. But even she... Feels loss, sadness, and regret. That they had to be enemies like this.     If Libra or Crucia are conflicted, they do not reveal it. Crucia is staring angrily at her brother, while Libra is recording all that has happened and been said in Byblos for future study. But even her bespectacled eyes may be slightly damp.     White Rose sits upon Paladin's shoulder and watches it as mutely and calmly as a little doll. 

:'''{{#var:714|Sanary Rondel (714)}} has posed:'''      A world without pain, loss, death, destruction... Certainly not a bad ideal by any means, but Sanary doesn't seem so convinced. Although she can't quite see Archer nor Shirou, she does raise an eyebrow slightly while semi-glancing between the two. There's something odd about that exchange, but she can't quite put her finger on what...      Still, no sense dwelling on that now when their final objective hasn't been completed yet. She remains silent as the Epoch Saint reveals his true identity and the goals of his conspirators. It's all rather surreal just listening to it all, knowing that they're already dealing with such immense powers.      To that end, she remains silent and simply crosses her arms over her chest, favoring her uninjured leg while waiting for someone to make the next move. 

:'''{{#var:821|Archer (821)}} has posed:'''     Archer waits, hearing every word spoken... and when they are finished, steps forward once more, twin blades held aloft in front of him, then to the sides as Archer crosses his arms, drawing them back.     The next instant, the blades fly forward, spinning in twin arcs of black and white that shoot straight toward Tic Toc's prone, helpless body.     It is both a precaution and a final act of mercy - a guarantee that he does not still cling to a life that truly deserves to rest.     It won't be painless... nor will it be gentle... but it would ensure that, if he still lived, it would be quick, any lingering pain being the final price to pay for any sins, perceived or otherwise, in order to have a final atonement. A proper death for battle following a sense of twisted honor that even Archer himself finds surprising, born of a sympathetic respect for someone who lost all simply by following the path he thought was right.     Thus, as the blades fly to their target, even though Archer's eyes show only steel... it is impossible to deny the spark of pity somewhere deep behind them as the ancient creature's life ends.     Nor the flash of relief that he, in a way, may finally have helped to 'save' someone from a fate worse then death; his own.     With that, the red knight, after spending a short time staring at the body, turns and walks across the barren planes. As he does, the field of swords and the skyline of endless gears slowly dissolves, the scene of Tokyo returning around them.     He doesn't turn to face Shirou as he walks past the younger mage... but he does glance down at him, asking a final question as he leaves.      "Will you give yourself away until your own body is steel, Emiya Shirou? For if you do... how will it end?"     With that, the red knight of the bow vanishes along with his world, astralizing into thin air as he enters spirit form and leaves the recovering, half-desolated city behind him... and in spite of himself, does so feeling that, for perhaps the second time in his long existence and fleeting as it was, he might have actually accomplished something. 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     Pity might be the look Archer gives... only hesitantly. Shirou's is full of it. He doesn't have words to say. Once before he made a promise to a dying man. He isn't sure he can make two of them.     He DOESN'T look away at Archer's brutal mercy killing, but he does flinch. For a few moments it looks like he has something to say to the knight in red...     But as usual the Heroic Spirit hits him with a deep, penetrating bombshell where it hurts.     The boy's teeth clench so tightly it HURTS.     "You're wrong..." The objection comes out in a whisper.     "You're wrong about this dream." 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     When the world of the Unlimited Blade Works disappears, and they are all back on the street, the whole city is dark. But then, slowly, lights start to come back on. Power flows again. People are waking up on the street, in their stores, at the wheels of their cars. A baby starts crying in its carriage, and like a switch being flipped, the clamor of everyone else panicking and wondering what's happening starts up as well.     Shirou Kikumura turns to leave, but Crucia Hex calls out, "WAIT!"     The mage waits.     Crucia removes her witch's hat, and addresses her brother as Kiko Kikumura, not as the Pumpkin Witch. "If you ever pull something like this again..." Her fist clenches. She knows she can't beat him in a straight up fight. She doesn't want to kill him. What can she threaten him with? "...I won't consider you to be my brother anymore."     Whether that impacted the sarcastic Other Shirou or not is unclear as he gazes back over his shoulder at the sister who looks so much like him. But he has no final snappy retort to offer. He just vanishes as mysteriously as Archer did.     Paladin helps Sanary over to where Shirou is, and then turns to Libra, who is kneeling beside Golden and trying to analyze him to see what she can do for him. Princess Paladin says loudly enough so that everyone nearby can hear, but meant mainly for one or two specific people...     "Come on. We still have another life to save tonight."     Then, for anyone willing to come along, it's time to go to the hospital.     Emperors of Time TP: End 

}}

2944/EoT: Shirou's Answer

2015-09-07T23:28:25Z

Paladine: Created page with "{{Log Header |Date of Scene=2015/09/02 |Location=Midnight Shrine Tokyo <MST> |Synopsis=The heroes go to interrogate Crucia's brother about his involvement with the Epoch Saint..."

{{Log Header
|Date of Scene=2015/09/02
|Location=Midnight Shrine Tokyo <MST>
|Synopsis=The heroes go to interrogate Crucia's brother about his involvement with the Epoch Saints. Meanwhile, a sick and dying member of the Witching Hour is menaced by an undead monster... And a mysterious new hero steps in to stop it!
|Thanks=
|Cast of Characters=560, 589, 714, 821
|Tinyplot=
|Tinyplot2=
|pretty=yes
}}
{{Poses
|Poses=:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     Before the Final Confrontation     Princess Paladin, Crucia Hex, and Libra have spent months trying to track down Crucia's brother, Shirou Kikumura, following their first encounter at the Tokyo Metropolitan Government building. He'd abandoned the place quickly after meeting them, insisting he was not responsible for the then-ongoing theft of 'time'. But after they defeated the Life Gear that had been possessing the mayor's secretary and saved the mayor himself, not all of the 'time' being stolen had been returned... Infact... The 'time' theft had continues all over town, without an identifiable source. They had defeated more Life Gears, but none of them seemed to be solely responsible either.     Every one they defeated was just a drop in the bucket as the overall theft continued unabated. The only other magic user that had been at the building that day... And the one they couldn't find ever since... Was most likely the one responsible. So now the magical girls, and their allies, are looking to find the brother of Kiko Kikumura, aka Crucia Hex, and confirm his allegiances.     And today, they've finally located him. A quick meeting has been called to gather people to confront the wizard. He's supposed to be really strong with magic, and also skilled in using it in combat. Not all people who use spells are good at fighting. Even someone who wields a powerful Element like Destruction or Fire might be relatively easy to defeat in a direct battle.     Other Shirou isn't that kind of wizard. He's the kind who can not only fight, but can probably seriously hurt an opponent one-on-one. Everyone is in their civilian guises right now, because Other Shirou has been sighted in a coffee shop of all places, as blatantly showing himself as though he had no idea anyone had been looking for him and didn't care if they had. He even has a seat by the front window, his long, smoke-gray hair tied back, a business suit like the one he wore at his 'job' he hasn't shown up for in months, and glasses over his crimson eyes. Kiko stands with the others in casual clothes of orange and black coloration, with little jack-o-lanterns hair-ties and barrettes keeping her huge mass of body-length gray hair held up. Madeleine Beaumont, a French transfer student, stands alongside Kiko, her black hair, pale skin, and simple school uniform a complete contrast to the personalized outfit of her friend. Miko Fujimoto, a bit older than the other two girls, is wearing a simple white blouse with a light jacket, and a black skirt.     All three stand on the opposite side of the street from the coffee shop, ready to make a move as soon as everyone else is. 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     At the same time...     Elsewhere in Midnight Tokyo, as the time of people all over the city is gradually being sucked away, making the world around them seem to move in slow motion, for time-keeping devices to move at an incorrect pace or to simply stop entirely, for some people to even be on the verge of dying... There are some who seek to capitalize upon this state of affairs. And there are those who might choose to hunt them.     A length of shadow winds its way across the rooftops on this evening, seeking those about to die, and then beginning to siphon away their life force. Both life force and 'time' are needed for a person to live. To remove one or the other shortens life span considerably. For someone already suffering from a loss of time, to ALSO suffer life force drain... They are going to die in short order.     The shadow just keeps slithering down the side of a building, overlapping an entire room with its silhouette from the outside, and sucking dry everyone inside of the room, before moving to the next building.     With everyone too slowed to even react, there's no chance of self-defense, and little chance of even being noticed. All of these people are completely helpless to the predations of this monstrous... THING. 

:'''{{#var:714|Sanary Rondel (714)}} has posed:'''      Sanary's been in something of a lazier mood lately. Wanting to laze around, eat some junk food, pass out in a food-induced stupor. Upon hearing that request for assitance from Miko, however, she does at least manage to drag herself out of bed today. Hearing about the possibility of combat while also needing to not be completely obvious about it, it's something of a relief to know she can't wear her giant armor even if she wanted to. Which she doesn't. Still, she has to bring some sort of protection with her.      And so, she shows up in her fuzziest of armor: The padded sort made from the Lagombi! Between that, her axe, and the shield on her back, it might even make her look more like a cosplayer than an actual combatant. Showing up at the requested street, the healer waves lightly while shuffling towards the gathered three. "Am I late? Today feels... Long for some reason." 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     Tracking down a troublemaker of this sort hasn't been easy, but when the others have managed it... Shirou came to help. He's dressed casually as always. If he has any armor on it's under the clothing and blue and white outfit! So it's probably pretty simple stuff.     "So he's in there?" Shirou sounds doubtful now. It's going to bee hard to confront anyone seriously with important questions in such a public place, and if it goes sour... baaaaaaaad. 

:'''{{#var:821|Archer (821)}} has posed:'''     Well... this was disturbingly familiar.     Not even a days had passed since his summoning and already Rin was sending Archer out on missions.     Though in this case... the distraction was welcome in a way, unpleasantly similar to his contracted line of work that it was.     Now Rin wasn't the /worst/ Master he could have gotten. In fact she was probably one of the better ones. Though that in turn made it complicated in the fact that said compatibility meant little to nothing was likely to get by her.     And off course... he still had the issue of his identity to work through with her. After all, one of the first things Rin had done was question him about how his arm could be grafted to Shirou without the boy dying during the Grail War... and he really wasn't looking forward to explaining that bit.     Besides... Archer found it hard to imagine that Rin didn't already know, or at the very least suspect, who he was by now. She just wanted to hear it from Archer himself... possibly because she didn't want to reconcile his image with that stubborn, idealistic idiot.     Hence why even now, being sent to investigate the recently-detected distortion in this reality was both a welcoming distraction... and yet troubling.     "Damnit, Rin... you really know how to pick them, don't you?"     Looking across the city, Archer noted how the rest of this version of Tokyo seemed to be moving slowly, as if submerged in thick sludge. If Archer were to make a comparison, it was like an aspect of the Second or maybe even the Fifth Magic going out of control - a distortion in time and space. His status as a timeless Heroic Spirit removed from the cycle of death and rebirth what likely what let him resist it, and his holy shroud likely helped too... but he didn't know if that was permanent.     He didn't want to test it either. Especially not when he senses a presence that reminds him all too much of what he faced in the Grail War.     Narrowing his eyes as he focuses on the seeming absence of life in one of the buildings, moving for the area to investigate... and keeping his distance to not get caught. Even if he was immune to time getting stolen... he knew from experience that creatures that could drain life away were another matter entirely. 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     Coffee Shop     In answer to Shirou, Miko raises her hand and points at the man visible through the window. "Unless that's an illusion or imposter, it would appear that he is indeed inside."     Kiko huffs and says, "Aah, if only Shiho were here, she could see right through any illu--" but she cuts herself off. Shiho, aka Musica, aka the final member of the Witching Hour trio, is currently in a hospital, on the verge of death. She can't help them now. That's why they're in such a rush to STOP all this as well. Shiho might not last if they don't find the one responsible and defeat them. And if that person is Kiko's brother...     "Many people are so sluggish and slow it would be more unusual if they noticed what was happening than if they didn't," Madeleine offers, her slight accent showing in a way it doesn't when she's transformed into Libra. She focuses on Sanary somewhat worriedly, realizing that maybe being magical girls in civilian form doesn't protect them. If even someone like Sanary can be affected... Maybe all of them are susceptible. She has her own familiar inside of her backpack, serving as both advisor and Artifact, so she mutters over her shoulder, "Byblos... Can you shield us if we start to become affected by the 'time' loss?" There's a muffled, high-pitched male voice that responds energetically with, "YES, friend Madeleine! Your scholarlyship shall be MOST protected! Your Elements are Time and Books, and I wield both magics! The enemy Time Magic is too weak in its current form to influence you! But if it amps up I will protect EVERYONE nearby!"     A little white-haired fairy with red eyes pops up out of Miko's jacket pocket. "Puah!" she lets out as she gasps for air. "M-me too! I, the mighty White Rose, can also protect us! ...Probably! Time is an aspect of Law after all, right? It runs on rules. So it should be possible to regulate--"     Kiko just starts walking across the street, and right in front of an oncoming car that is moving at like 30 mph and is STILL going so slow that a normal teenaged girl can cross the street in front of it before it's moved more than a few feet.     "...I suppose we don't have time to waste here," Miko says apologetically to the others. "Cute outfit though, Sanary." Then she does the same feat as Kiko and starts heading for the coffee shop entrance.     White Rose says, "Hey. Hey, Shirou. Should we give you a codename so we don't mix you up with Kiko's brother? Like... Swords Shirou, or Teen Shirou, or Captain Shirou, or... Uh... Oh, I know! Shirou the Hero! Yeah, I like that one!"     Madeleine also follows after Miko, and does not comment on Shirou's new codename. 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     Rooftops     Archer's inspection of what's going on, if he looks through a window into that building that is suddenly so empty of life, reveals a lot of people slumped over or lying in weird places. A mother kneeling on the floor, with just her fingers clutching the edge of a crib, her face blank and her eyes unresponsive to the light. The child within the crib is just as silent and motionless. In another room, a man lies on the floor in front of an open mini-fridge, with an bottle of Sapporo beer glugging out onto the floor in his hand and creating a puddle around his head.     The chill of that deathly presence still in the area might be traced to the sight of a tail like a flattened rattlesnake slithering over another rooftop right nearby. It's already heading for its next victims!     It seems to be rather large too... Maybe even growing larger with every life it takes. And if it's not stopping after this many, then there's no guarantee it's EVER going to stop. Unless someone stops it. 

:'''{{#var:714|Sanary Rondel (714)}} has posed:'''      Sanary's eye goes straight to Libra's backpack at the sound of Byblos' voice coming from within, peering at it cautiously before jumping a bit when White Rose speaks up next. She stares at the fairy blankly before raising her hand in a slow, stiff wave. "Uh... Hey there. We'll be counting onyou two, I... Think."      Magic is so strnage.      Keeping one hand on the handle of her axe, the healer snickers lightly at the compliment from Miko before tapping two fingers to her forehead in a salute. "Is it? I just brought it 'cause it was armor and.. I'll let you feel it later." Laughing softly, her attention shifts to Shirou as she looks him over quickly before starting towards the coffee shop with the others. "Shirou the Hero's got a nice ring to it. So that makes the guy inside Brother Shirou, then?" 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     Shirou blinks a few times at this development, but his answer is a warm, "There's nothing wrong with just Emiya." He scratches his head a bit embarassedly. Being CALLED a hero is a biiiiit embarassing.     Even if it's what he's really trying to be.     "You've got a point there, I just hope nothing big comes of it." Although not able to transform or take on any kind of magical form, the boy's circulating a little bit of magic through his Circuits in hopes it will protect him - or at least him to invasive magics. It probably won't since he's a sucky magus, and it wouldn't have much bearing on concepts like time... but it's all he can do.     Sanary gets a smile in greeting... then a blink. A few MORE blinks. THAT OUTFIT.     Oh well. Across the street he goes! 

:'''{{#var:821|Archer (821)}} has posed:'''     In his mind, a firing hammer clicks back... then snaps forward - the mental trigger for his Magic Circuits./"Trace; On."/     Reinforcing his eyes, Archer peers through the window from the top of the opposite building into the window of the room... and as he observes the grim details, he eyes narrow in discontent - truthfully a form of thinly-veiled disgust. The only emotion that death seemed to pull from anymore, really - for endless amounts of blood, fire and steel seemed to have burned anything else out of his heart.     he'd been right. It /was/ similar. Almost disturbingly similar to the Shadow of Angra Mainyu - something had simply drained the life out of everyone and everything it touched. The only differences were that it didn't devour the bodies or seem to put it's victims in any pain.     But it still didn't make the sight less grizzly to see, knowing that it was just extinguishing lives.     Catching sight of the edge of the almost serpentine tail-like shadow slinking across the rooftops, Archer's bow appears in a flash of prana, but the creature is already moving at a rate that will make it impossible for him to get a shot in at this angle.     Exhaling as his reinforcement is applied to his legs, Archer enters his astral form and bounds across the rooftop to try and get a better angle on the creature.     He already is visualizing a weapon that should be able to hit it.... so long as he is in a position where he can keep his eyes on it. And if need be... it could be made destructive enough to simply wipe out enough of a target zone to kill it even if he couldn't get a direct hit.     After all... in all likelihood, the people in the building it was on were already dead or soon would be by this point - beyond his ability to help. And he wouldn't endanger an entire city, or possibly this whole world, just to selfishly try to save doomed lives. He'd learned the hard way what happened when you tried recklessly to save everyone.      It wasn't a mistake he would make here. 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     Coffee Shop     White Rose huffs a bit and says, "Fine, fine. Emiya it is." Though she DOES take the time to wave back cheerfully to Sanary despite the grim circumstances. It's not that the fairy doesn't understand. But some level of moderation is needed here when at least two of their members are desperate and thus likely to attempt desperate things. She's trying to be the influence that keeps things from going out of control. But can she? She's such a tiny thing after all, and Witching Hour girls aren't 'hers'. As much as she might want to control their actions to avoid unnecessary conflict, they are not beholden to the Law Element that flows through and created White Rose. She can't command them or manipulate them. All she can try to do is suggest and soothe.     Miko nods and smiles very faintly to Sanary, more focused on the task at hand. She does mutter to the offer to touch the armor, "Ah... Thank you." Then her brown eyes are focused back on the dangerous man who they've come to find after months of searching. She's honestly... Kind of angry at him for making them scramble around for so long only to then show up like their effort was meaningless. But she does her best to contain that emotion. She's used to suppressing her feelings in favor of a more pleasant demeanor.     Kiko enters the coffee shop, looking both determined and scared, and marches right up to her brother's table.     Brother Shirou looks up after a few moments, smile and says, "Good evening! Should you be out this late on a school night, Kiko?--Oh, that's right!" He taps a finger to his chin. "Our parents are gone so you don't have anyone to tell you to behave."     Kiko's jaw clenches and her eyes narrow, but she doesn't respond as Miko and Madeleine and everyone else pile in and gather around.     Other Shirou says off-handedly, "It seems I did you a favor after all when I killed them," and then raises his cup of coffee to sip at it while turning his gaze out on the street full of people moving in slow motion.     Kiko slaps the cup from her brother's hand so hard it hits the window and cracks it. Coffee splashes everywhere.     Other Shirou remains right where he is, hand still in position to hold the cup, the broken-off handle dangling from his forefinger. He calmly turns to Kiko, looks over everyone present, and then back to his sister. "Is there something I can do for you?"     Kiko is still standing there with her arm in the position of one who has just swung it, palm open, red eyes wide, breathing heavily in her anger and fear. She grits her teeth and then lowers her hand.     Before the situation can deteriorate further, Madeleine steps in to speak quietly and calmly. "We've been looking for you for months. You're the only other magic user who was present at the government building when we stopped that Life Gear. The time loss hasn't stopped. It has accelerated. We are here to ask what you know about this. And whether you have a connection to the Nether Realm agents known as the Epoch Saints."     Kiko takes the time to try to regain control of herself for now. But Miko understands some of that anger. Even if it appears there's... Some DEEPER cause for distress between them. She looks to Shirou and Sanary, trying to communicate to them with her eyes alone that if either Kiko or Other Shirou tries something, they need to stop whichever one it is. They can't risk a fight here in a crowded coffee shop. None of the other patrons could move fast enough to even flee the area. They'd be guaranteed victims. 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     Rooftops     Archer's actions bring him into a perfect position to see the shadow and also to see the nature of the building the shadow is crawling across. It's one of the worst discoveries he could have made in this instance.     It's a hospital.     This life-stealing monster intends to prey upon those already sick or injured or in-recovery. Those already on the verge of death. How low can this monster go!? Something else that might be noticed about the creature from Archer's position, aside from its large size and its new feeding grounds... Is that it's not just serpentine. Its 'front half' resembles an enormous spider of sorts. Ten long, spindly black 'legs' of shadow spread out to the sides from a central body, skittering the thing forward or in any other direction it chooses in a rhythmic pace that is both snake and arachnid at the same time.     Its outline is like if someone combined a rattlesnake with a tarantula and then made it big enough to chase down a chase bus and eat all the occupants. It is concentrated Death Magic, whatever it is. This is something whose sole purpose is causing, spreading, controlling, and benefitting from death.     And in one of those hospital rooms, there's a teenage girl lying on a bed, immobile, unable to do more than move her eyes, while a creature that looks like a cross between a piece of fruit, a rubber ball, and a dog rolls around in a panic on the floor.     "Did you know!?" Momo Mo MomoMo cries out in this hospital full of people who can't even notice him because their sense of time is so different from his. "You're the only magical girl in the Witching Hour who doesn't use Time Magic, so I can't directly protect you from this effect! All I can do is create a Mask to conceal you temporarily! I sure hope the others fix this fast, because did you know? There's something reallllly scary on the building and I don't think I can stop it by myself!"     Shiho Nakamura, aka Musica, has her eyes fixed on the window, and the menacing presence she can sense there. She can't reply outloud. She's paralyzed, unable to act except to watch her own death approaching.     Creeping across the window in her hospital room with ten shadowy legs, one appendage at a time. 

:'''{{#var:714|Sanary Rondel (714)}} has posed:'''      For the first few seconds, Brother Shirou actually seems pleasant enough. Then he starts talking about killing his and Kiko's parents, and... Yeah, that's not going to be pretty at all. Stepping inside with the others, Sanary wrinkles her nose slightly at that splattering of the coffee. Madeleine seems to have the right idea, and that pointed look from Miko draws a slow nod from the healer.      "Just a few questions, that's all. The sooner you tell us what we need to know, the sooner we'll be out of your hair, okay?" She puts on her best slightly-strained smile as she steps over to drape her arms over Kiko's shoulders. Worst case scenario, she can just try to brute force them away from each other, but she's hoping this will be enough to keep the girl (relatively) calm. That, or direct her anger elsewhere because of that blatant invasion of personal space.      "Nice hair, by the way." 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     Well that's a bombshell of a thing to say. Shirou gapes. This guy KILLED HIS PARENTS? Why?     "What--" WHAMPF!     And Kiko responds the way he expected. Emiya grimaces but his attention is now fully on the Other Shirou. What can he POSSIBLY say?     Mages. That's what he can say. Lots of them are rotten.     He's glad these girls aren't!     "And just as importantly, if you're any good at all, why you're not out there trying to stop this mess!" 

:'''{{#var:821|Archer (821)}} has posed:'''     When Archer sees the creature, he is automatically reminded of the Black Shadow - writing limbs piercing targets and trailing death. A creature tailored to kill living beings and feed on that absence of life.     And it's targeting those that are already on the verge of death - those who's lives hang in the balance.     Even Archer cannot deny the repugnant nature of such an act. His teeth grind slightly as he sees the creature crawl across the rooftop of the building, intending to devour those that are incapable of fighting back.      ... and yet, that does not stop Archer from holding to his prior conviction, bile filling his heart at the fact that once again he must be reminded of how nothing ever changes.      And with that in mind... the heart of steel draws his weapon out of the barren waste that is his soul, a flash of prana condensing in his free hand and shaping into a pitch-black sword, it's form a series of twisted edges coiling around a thin core.     The hound of the red plains, remade as a projectile that could hit Mach 10 if fired in a straight line, letting it cross a four-kilometer distance in roughly a second. A piercing black arrow that would never miss the target so long as Archer's bow remained trained on them.      /"I am the bone of my sword."/     The arrow's frame pulses as it is charged, the seconds ticking by slowly as Archer sees the black shape near a window on the building.     The arrow's strike has to be precise or he may tear out a portion of the building's side. Even now, the force of his arrow will likely rattle the hospital's structure - he wouldn't be surprised if at least a few walls cracked or some of the windows shattered from the force of the arrow's flight stirring the air around it.      Someone might be hurt from it. Archer is fully aware of that.      But in the end, if anyone is hurt... it is still better then letting this nightmare creature have free run of the city.     The charging of the first shot is finished - the arrow flushes red -     "Hrunting!"     And takes flight as it's name is called, the weapon's form enveloping itself in crimson and streaking toward the the creature's center-of-mass. 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     Coffeeshop     Brother Shirou arches an eyebrow at Madeleine, as he puts the pieces together. "Ah. Then you were one of the other two magical girls with my sister back then."     Madeleine nods. There's not much point in concealing her secret identity in a situation like this. If he's really working with the Epoch Saints, they aren't letting him escape to tell anyone else. Whatever it takes.     "I also recognize the not-my-brother-Shirou... Since the fairy is with YOU, I imagine that makes you the pink-haired magical girl, which means this foreigner is the blue-haired one... I don't recognize YOU though, miss." he says as, towards the end, he directs his gaze at Sanary who seems to be quite buddy-buddy with Kiko based on the arm-around-the-shoulders.     He has yet to answer Madeleine's question, and instead addresses Shirou's. "I'm sorry. I must have missed the part where the fate of this city became MY responsibility. Isn't it the job of magical girls to do this kind of thing?" Brother Shirou sighs, and releases a bit of his Time Magic. "Rewind." The coffee cup and window both reverse their individual flows of time, returning to the state they were in before they were broken. The coffee flows in reverse, back into the cup.     He looks up briefly, seemingly noticing something happening somewhere else... A flare of major magical energy. But he doesn't comment for anyone who can't sense it like he can. If their senses don't reach as far as his, that's their problem.     "Has my little sister ever told you WHY I killed our parents? I imagine not, it's not something she likes to talk about. You know how she and I use Time Magic? It runs in the family. The man and woman who raised us, who claimed to be our parents, were not out parents. They couldn't have been. Because they had no magic at all. And their reaction to the discovery that their supposed children had powers that couldn't be understood by limited minds was, shall we say, unpleasant. But no matter how much Kiko and I tried not to use our magic, our love of our birthright made it impossible not to. So we instead used it in secret." Brother Shirou still hasn't addressed what they actually came here for with this story of his. "And when they found out how much our power had grown after several yars, their violent response necessitated their removal from our lives. So, certainly, I killed our 'parents'. And we're better off for it. Now if only my foolish little sister would accept it, I wouldn't need to keep confronting her with the fact."     "They WERE our parents, Shirou!" Kiko interrupts. "They ARE. The magic just skipped a generation, that's all--!"     "They were ABUSIVE and SMALL-MINDED cretins who were IN OUR WAY," Brother Shirou interrupts, showing an emotion other than confident sarcasm or calmness for the first time to others. This apparently more sensitive a subject than he pretended it was. "I never recognized them as being such to begin with. Whoever our REAL parents were, they wouldn't have attempted to smother our birthright and tried to cage us like animals."     Miko steps in now too. Sanary is doing her part to control Kiko, the arm across the Pumpkin Witch's shoulders keeping her calm. Now the other half of this needs to calm down. "I apologize for interrupting this dispute, but we have a deadline for how long we can spend listening to you without an answer to our questions. The Epoch Saints are a Nether Realm group that steals the 'time' of others for an unknown end. There is no way you aren't aware of the temporal anomalies all over the city. We want to know if you are part of them. And regardless of if it's your responsibility to protect the city, you are consciously choosing not to. If you refuse to act, at least confirm for us what your role in all this is. And help us to find the one responsible if you are going to claim you're not part of it. That shouldn't require much of anything from a mage of your power, now should it?"     Brother Shirou goes silent. 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     Hospital     Momo bounces up onto the bed and then hops until he is placing his tiny, rubbr-ball-sized body inbetween the window and the girl he is meant to advise, teach, and protect. He's shivering as he spreads out his leaf-shaped dog ears like floppy arms, trying to mazimize the cover he can provide. He's shielding Shiho from the temporal magic, so he can't shield her from any other form of attack. If that monster does something... All he can do is guard her physically!     Shiho can't speak outloud. But via her magic, she can still speak with her mind over short distances. <<MoMo. Get out of here. Get the others.>>     "N-no! MoMo can't do that!"     <<You can and you will. You can make a new connection with a new girl. You can create a new Musica. I'm already lost. Don't get hurt for my sake.>>     "MoMo won't leave Shiho! She's the only Musica for him! D-did you know? M-MoMo can be brave t-too! J-just like... Master!" His glistening, bead-like eyes tremble as he watches the horror descend upon them...     And then there's a loud sound and an impact outside, and the monster goes flying from the building, and plummeting towards the ground far below. The window shatters, and a plaster and concrete dust fill the air as the wall is gouged simply by proximity to the arrow's path.     There's only a brief delay, and then Shiho sends to her familiar, <<MoMo. Go to the window. See if you can find out what did that. Don't expose yourself to danger.>>     MoMo wipes his eyes with his ears and then says, "Y-yes!" And bounces over to the window to see what's going on.     And what's going on is that some twitching shadowy abomination is sprawled in the parking lot, overlaying several cars. There's an arrow piercing its center. It begins to twitch, its legs working to no effect, its tail writhing, until it just... Peels itself off the ground, gaining form and substance, and raises itself up to look back at Archer. There's still shadow there, but not to the same extent.     It now looks like a giant spinal cord with two pairs of skeletal hands joined at the wrists protruding from the end of it. And at the center of those two palms, right where the heels meet... There's an empty eye socket. And inside of that eyesocket, the gaze of many may be felt by Archer. Too many to count. Too many eyeless sockets looking at him from within another empty hole.     And then a barrage of bone fragments comes shooting out of the hole from... Wherever the hell the other side of it leads to, at machinegun pace, trying to bombard Archer's position! He seems to have gotten its attention. 

:'''{{#var:714|Sanary Rondel (714)}} has posed:'''      "Sanary. Healer, skull-cracker. Good to meet ya, Brother Shirou." Sanary actually sounds rather relaxed as she speaks, although she is still careful not to take those arms off Kiko. No telling when or if she'll blow up at someone, after all! Her eye widens in surprise as B-Shirou quite literally reverses time for the coffee, her mouth opening and closing a few times.      She really needs to learn that one day.      Strangely enough, she can't find it in herself to fault him for what he did, assuming that explanation is true. She looks over at Miko and H-Shirou to gauge their reactions to B-Shirou's story, then presses the side of her fuzzy hood into Kiko's face. Might as well try and distract her a bit more with the incredibly comfortable carcass of a giant rabbit monster.      "Miko's got it. We need to focus on fixing all this Epoch Saint business first. If this shit doesn't get fixed, nobody'll be around to even deal with what's going on with you and your sister here. So... Throw us a bone, will you?" She gives him another one of those sweet smiles, even giving Kiko a light nudge to try and get her to go along with it. 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     Emiya flinches at this tale, but his mouth's still left slightly agape.     This guy... is just like Matou Shinji.     Except he has the power to do stuff, and isn't a coward.     That's pretty terrifying, come to think of it.     This subconscious realization (Shirou would have to be pretty hard pressed to think too bad of Shinji... at the moment...) causes Emiya Shirou's gaze to harden.     Yet with others keeping Kiko in check, he's free to show some of his astonishment at this guy's actions.     "Job? You're caring about who's role it is when lives are at risk?!" He can't follow this one. AT ALL. There's no logic at that.     "Don't you live in this city? If you have some kind of power, isn't trying to protect it the decent thing to do?! There won't be a city if this keeps up!" 

:'''{{#var:821|Archer (821)}} has posed:'''     He only has a minute to move before the building he's on is pelted by bone fragments, leaving Archer cursing inwardly at the thing's speed as he leaps to the next building... not to mention it's overall appearance and the unsettling presence it carries.     He can feel the creature's gaze, noting that it feels almost like a jointed intelligence - almost like a hive of insects has locked it's sights on him from a massive hive, freshly disturbed.     The next arrow is already traced - this time, the spiral-sword comes into form.     This one is the quickest to charge - now that it's off the building, he can be a little bit more free with the power he can throw... though the hospital will probably need a new coat of paint and a new sheet of plaster to the wall facing the parking lot.     The arrow is knocked back, the bowstring is drawn taunt-      "Caladbolg!"     And the arrow shoots forward for the skeletal construct, enveloping itself in light as it is hit by an attack powerful enough to send a small cloud of fire and smoke balloting upward in an all-too-obvious mushroom-cloud.     He doesn't have the time to be subtle or give concern to the destruction of the parking lot - not with this thing. After all... when one got right down to it, it was more insane to pull his punches if it meant this thing would get away from him or got back to the hospital. 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     Coffee Shop     Brother Shirou takes in a deep breath at the continued cajoling. "If it will make this conversation end faster, I suppose I'll do what I can to point you in the right direction. It was amusing at first, but there's nothing further to gain by playing around." He focuses on the Heroic Shirou and says, "I wasn't the only magic user outside of your group at the building that day. There was another. I can't imagine you didn't run into them given where you were headed."     Hospital Parking Lot     Archer's attack explodes against the deathly monster, shattering four or five of its ten limbs and damaging its tail as it then falls forward onto the remaining finger-legs and skitters towards Archer. It's boney appendages crush any cars that haven't been thrown through the air by the detonation along the way, seemingly trying to join the Servant on his perch. But then it whips its spinal cord tail towards him, and the length extends tremendously, arching up towards him to try to smash him! 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     Coffee Shop     "If I give you and my sister all the easy answers, you'll never be able to fend for yourselves. Can you figure it out? I am not affiliated with these 'Epoch Saints' as they so arrogantly call themselves. But somebody else there was. Another spellcaster. They should have been right before your eyes."     Madeleine's eyes widen. She realizes first. Then, in succession, Kiko and Miko.     An expression of anger appears on Miko's face. Anger at herself for not realizing sooner. But how could she? That person had been so skilled they had concealed all trace of having magic even from White Rose, and even Byblos: the latter being SPECIALIZED in analysis and detection and knowledge-gathering!     But it's Kiko who voices it, and she uses accented English to do it. "<<Son of a bitch!>>" She gives Sanary a one-armed hug. "I'm okay now. Thank you. But we have to get back to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government building right away."     Brother Shirou looks at an ornate wrist watch that seems to display color-coded dials and such instead of the time, like a true mage's invention. "And it's time for me to get back to work. I've done my part to save the city after all, just like the other Shirou wanted me to."     Then the space he's sitting in warps and he's just gone.     Miko scowls and turns to leave the coffee shop. Kiko likewise starts to move, "If my brother is telling the truth... The Epoch Saint collaborator was the mayor. The very man we 'rescued' from the Life Gear!"     Then anyone who can sense magic may feel like a wall just rushed towards them and rammed into them before passing clear through them. Suddenly, everyone drops. All those people out in the street fall in slow motion, plummetting towards the sidewalk, or the street. Cars come to a stop completely. A fire goes out very slowly as no air is moving to replace that being consumed fast enough to sustain it. The whole city just went under temporal lockdown.     White Rose and Byblos both yell simultaneously, "EVERYONE WHO CAN, TRANSFORM!" 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     Hospital Parking Lot     The wave hits Archer as well, but his nature and his Shroud protect him as they have been. But both he and his opponent seem to be free of the effect even as light itself seems to slow in the air until it's visible as a gold and crimson stream of dying sunlight.     Then everything turns gray, and Archer and his opponent are two of the only beings in the city right now who are still experiencing the flow of time. Why the monster too? Becaue its Element is Death, and much like Time, it is partially in alignment with the Element of Entropy. The passage of time, the inexorable decay of all things, is part of Death. And as a manifestation of pure Death Magic, it will continue to hunt as surely as all things will one day die. 

:'''{{#var:714|Sanary Rondel (714)}} has posed:'''      Sanary looks from B-Shirou to the other magical girls present, then lets out a low grunt before nodding slowly. Not because she's made any realizations, but she's not about to let herself be seen as the idiot dead weight here. "I see... It all makes sense now." The healer chuckles as she returns that one armed hug, ruffling Kiko's hair a bit before letting go of her. "Right, right.. Well, thanks for your t-"      And then B-Shirou's gone. "-ime... Uh." She sighs lightly and rubs her forehead, snickering after a moment. She's annoyed at first, but she has to admit that the timing really was good there. Perhaps she'll have to see that man again some time...      But she'll have to worry about that later. She runs after the rest of the group as things start slowing, then stopping. If Sanary wants to learn anything from that guy, she'll need to get through this ordeal first! 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     Shirou's close to scowling himself. But holding negativity towards isn't something he tends to do in public. If B-Shirou is an unhelpful jerk, he's not going to waste any more time on him. But he still yelps a bit when he simply VANISHES. "What the... where'd he go?!"     He's normally not very sensitive to magic, but for some reason or another, DISTORTIONS TO THE NATURAL WORLD do reach him. When what feels like a time-warping Boundary Field strikes his reaction is instantaneous. "/TRACE ON!/" His Magic Circuits flare to full power. Kanshou and Bakuya are called out from Unlimited Blade Works, the married swords flaring into existence in his hands.     "What's going on?!" 

:'''{{#var:821|Archer (821)}} has posed:'''     Archer feels the flow of time ebb away entirely now, his brow furrowing as even the light around him is suspended and held in place.     Of course, he can hardly spare a moment toward that line of thought as the skeletal creature, severely damaged, tries to make a lunge for him. However, Archer knows first-hand that it's best not to let creatures that drain away life make contact with you, and so he jumps ahead -      - and leaps /forward/, another flash of prana shimmering to life in his hands as he free-falls toward the beast... with the shape forming in his hands being much, much larger then any weapon he has used against it yet.     An immense blade he should not be able to wield, carved from stone and raggedly cut into a massive sword longer then he is tall. The handle is wrapped in simple cloth, the edge made up of manny jagged teeth.     This blade has no name. No real history. And yet, by association of the one who wielded it, it contains a powerful secret.     Transcending time, seeing through the history of it's wielder, the strength of another being from another age flows into him through reading the history of the black giant that uses it in the hight of the Grail War.     Time stops from Archer's viewpoint - the images of nine intersecting paths appear before him, crossing over and over to form a storm of destruction.      He cannot afford to waste any more time with it now that the city around him has been wholly consumed by this distortion. He will end it here and now.      Upper-left leg, spine, eye socket, right hand, left knuckles, central axis, brow-plate, right under-palm, left forefingers - nine targets all selected at once across it's body.     "Trigger; off."     Nine in his head.     If the boy could do it, he surely could as well.     Nine hammers click in his skull - and all snap at once as the strength and techniques of Berserker's blade are channeled through him like a conduit-      "Set - NINE LIVES BLADE WORKS!"      -and explode outward, nine near-simuntanious strikes being delivered with the force of a typhoon - the strength of Heracles, Zeus' strongest son and the man who used the sword to nearly slay the King of Knights. 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     Coffee Shop     Miko and Madeleine transform into their magical girl forms as fast as possible, becoming Princess Paladin and Libra. Kiko has to cast a spell to swap her clothing with witch's dress and appear as Crucia hex. Shirou's prana circulation grants him some protection, though not a lot as the effect continues to increase in severity... But the presence of White Rose and Byblos shields Sanary, Shirou, and anyone else nearby without Time Magic. Paladin doesn't have it herself, but as White Rose hypothesized: Because time functions upon a set of rules, it can be subjugated by Law... To a degree. It's not Paladin's or White Rose's specialty, so a skilled Time Magic user could still bypass this and defeat either of them.     But for now, at least, the small group is safe. Paladin looks around at all that has happened, unable to feel magic herself, but able to plainly see all is not right with the world. "I think we just ran out of time," she summarizes.     She's going to put out the call for help. Maybe Golden can get here to aid them on their way to the TMG building.     Hospital Parking Lot     Archer's attack is more than even a monster like this can handle. It is taken apart, broken into pieces from nine simultaneous strikes, utterly destroying its current form. The parking lot is in ruins, cars that were thrown through the air have either landed and been crushed, or are still flying the air, forever in the moment following the explosion of Archer's second attack.     And yet, as the monster lies there in pieces, dissolving into dust, that eye socket still watches him. And from within, he may hear the rush of whispers that carry a message from beyond this reality.     "We do not write your story. We do not determine how it will end. But when you have reached the conclusion, the final page of your tale, the final sentence, the final word, the final period, that emptiness that lies after is where we will be waiting for you." Then the emissary of The End is gone into dust that finally succumbs to the rule of time and is no more but a cloud suspended eternally in mid-air.     This is probably not the last time whatever sent that thing makes an attempt upon lives. But at least the flow of life energy that was stolen appears to be returning to those who it belongs to, even if in slow motion.     It may be around this time that Archer is contacted about his mission or decides to continue it on his own. Because somewhere up there in the sky, something is churning. A wheel of sorts, not presently visible, but winding the threads of time around it like a spool in the face of the universe.     And directly beneath it is the Tokyo Government Metropolitan building... 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     "No, we've still got time! There's still people to save...!" Shirou blurts, immediately bolting for the most obvious source. The building beneath that GIANT GEAR. 

:'''{{#var:821|Archer (821)}} has posed:'''     Archer winces as his muscles strain and one of his bones crack under the force of the axe-sword's strikes. Even as a spirit, his body cannot entirely capture the black giant's power to the point that it is harmless. Though thankfully, his Master's prana-reserves are supple enough to easily restore much of the immediate damage... or at least it will within the next few minutes.     All in all, it could have gone much worse, and when he lands on the ground level in front of the dying skeletal construct, he notes that the damage is actually rather acceptable if weighed against the lives of everyone in the city or the rest of the world.     However, when he watches the creature die, Archer cannot help but almost glare at it while it seems to whisper to him in a way he can't immediately perceive. But then at the end, though... he cannot help but let a bitter smile work it's way across his face, even while he glares at it.     "You're too late on that count. I've already reached the end of my story... and I already know all too well the emptiness that waits for anyone who shares in it's path."     Thus, he lets out a sigh as the creature vanishes... but then, almost against himself, he decides to look up at the hospital, catching sight of a small spherical creature looking down at him-      'Archer! What's going on? The city's state has gotten worse from what we can see - what the hell have you been doing all this time if you weren't stopping it?1'     But he doesn't get much chance to muse on it, his Master's impeccable timing being what it is. However, he knew Rin wouldn't waste the energy to contact him over their astral link unless it was important... and this was indeed more important then satisfying his curiosity on what it was that was staring at him from the hospital. Though, he didn't detect any threat from it.      "Don't worry - I'm on it. Like always."     Ignoring the rebuke from his Master, Archer instead opted to give an off-handed two-fingered wave to the rounded thing looking at him before bounding upward to the buildings, taking off across the rooftops toward the source of the disturbance.     And all the while, he wondered what could possibly be strong enough to cause something this immense in scale. 

}}

2802/WMAT AQ1 Celestine vs Doppelganger

2015-08-15T01:22:54Z

Paladine: Created page with "{{Log Header |Date of Scene=2015/08/14 |Location=WMAT Arena - Diablo Desert |Synopsis=Celestine faces off against Doppelganger in the desert! |Thanks= |Cast of Characters=726,..."

{{Log Header
|Date of Scene=2015/08/14
|Location=WMAT Arena - Diablo Desert
|Synopsis=Celestine faces off against Doppelganger in the desert!
|Thanks=
|Cast of Characters=726, 816
|Tinyplot=WMAT 2015
|Tinyplot2=
|pretty=yes
}}
{{Poses
|Poses=:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     Diablo Desert! Glaring sunlight, searing heat, dry as bone dust, etc. The stands are filled, the audience shaded and refreshed with drinks, and the fighters are... Presumably here? At least one of them doesn't seem to be here yet. Huh! There's a referee who appears to be some kind of small bear-person riding on a dinosaur. Considering who one of the participants of this match is, that might seem to be in poor taste, but this is probably one of the not-smart dinosaurs, so it's okay. Also the bear has really stubby legs, so it's not like he could keep up without assistance.     The match is due to start soon. So where's this 'Doppleganger' at? 

:'''{{#var:816|Celestine (816)}} has posed:''' The Raptor-dragon arrives in the arena, her scales are a dark brown, almost black, with a gray undertone going along her neck down her belly, even under her arms, around her hands and feet, and down the underside of her tail. Celestine's feathers are black with gold tips and her eyes red in color with those draconic pupils looking out. She has a black like a leotard over her body, designed to fit her frame and around the spikes along her backside, at one hip is her blaster, at the other side is a small metal container. She glares at the bear riding a Dinosaur before she hisses softly, "... Really?" Before she aughs in some minor disgust to the fact, "Mammals." Then makes her way to the waiting spot out in this hot, comfortable (to her) desert. Her arms are crossed over her chest as she waits with a flick of her own tail. 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     After Celestine arrives and prepares to wait, there is suddenly a large magic circle that appears on the ground, and a blob of shadow arises from it. A blob that seems to more and more be shaped like Celestine... When the Doppelganger arises, it--No, SHE, looks just like Celestine, down to the last detail... Except seemingly surrounded in a dark haze, like a purplish black mist, that obcures some of the finer points. The circle recedes from beneath the Doppelganger of Celestine, and the discomfitted bear rides his dinosaur closer to the two combatants...     "The Bracket A qualifier match for Celestine versus Doppelganger!" announces the dinosaur that was taken for a mount. The bear just scratches the side of his furry face and keeps an eye on the Doppelganger. M-maybe it's the bear who's the pet of the saurian in this case. "The match will now..." A clawed hand is raised... And then brought down! "Begin!"     The fighting starts very quickly as Doppelganger silently charges towards the real Celestine, spinning a familiar metal staff skillfully as she attempts to strike! 

:'''{{#var:816|Celestine (816)}} has posed:''' Celestine steps back as she watches the ooze rise up and her red eyes blink a few times, "What the--?" Her feathers bristle up a slightly in surprise as the ooze takes her form, "Wha... what?!" Then the announcer was the Dinosaur the whole time... GO FIGURE! However, she doesn't have time to process this hilarious fact of irony, as her 'clone' comes charging right at her with her own /staff/. Celestine lets out a screeching hiss of annoyance as she activates her own staff and goes to block the strike. The metal clacks loudly against one another and the force shoves Celestine down to her knee. "I will not... Be outmatched by a copy!" She sneers out with her fanged teeth gritted before she goes to shove up, pushing the other staff away and twirling her own body around to clip the mirror version with the edge of her large toe claw. 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     As Celestine attacks her duplicate in a similar manner, she likewise seems to force the Doppelganger down on one knee, as she blocks the attack partially just like Celestine did... And pushes it away in the same manner! She lowers herself into a half-crouch, turning sideways to reduce her profile, and then thrusts the end of the staff weapon towards Celestine's face! It seems that it's not just form and weapon that have been copied, but skill as well. This could be... Troublesome. At least the dinosaur and bear have retreated to a safe distance, right? 

:'''{{#var:816|Celestine (816)}} has posed:''' Celestine flips when she is shoved away, landing easily in on the ground on both of her feet, only to find the pole being slammed into her face. The force cracks a few of the scales along the edge of her ridges, before she looks at the clone with a slow rumble from her throat. "I don't know what you are," The female created soldier says as she flips back a few times, "But there is no way you're as good as I am!" She then goes to race for the mirror of herself, before she slams down her staff on the ground to pole-vault herself up over the other one to get greater distance. The sand kicked up from the staff kick flies into the air, catching the sun with glittering display, and as she lands down from behind, she swings the pole around with a strike, before seemingly twisting it in half and moving herself in closer for another strike with the newly created half in her other hand. "There is no way! No how!" Celestine, is in fact, having a hard time believing she is facing a true identical twin. 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     Caught off guard by the attack from behind with multiple strikes, Doppelganger staggers forwards a bit, suffering damage similar to what Celestine did. Cracked scales mark where the now-halved staff has struck. But then she spins in place, lashing out with her full-length staff, and leaving a red 'tail' of light behind the weapon that now seems to glow like molten blood, as she tries to hit the opponent behind her! For all its skill, the Doppelganger seems fairly unresponsive verbally. Skill? Intelligent? Physical ability? Or just an automaton that mimics its target and follows set patterns?     It's hard to tell. However, the staff, after its rotating spin attack, splits in two in a similar manner to how Celestine used it... And that other half, which should have gone flying off somewhere, instead returns to the hand of its owner as though drawn by an unseen force. And when it reaches that hand, it is then used for quick strike aimed at the side of Celestine's neck!     A cold echo of Celestine's voice, without emotion, emanates from the Doppelganger as her gleaming red eyes peer out of the misty haze at close range. "No way. No how." 

:'''{{#var:816|Celestine (816)}} has posed:''' Celestine attempts to block one strike which she is successful in doing with a clack of the metal impacts metal, but when the clone comes along and slams both sides of her neck, she coughs out from the vital impact being hit and almost goes down to her knee once more in a stagger motion. But, when the Clone mimics her voice with no emotion, that gets a look from the female Draco-Raptor. There is a low snarl, before she lets out a screech in dominance and perhaps frustration. The female warrior flips around using her clawed feet to try and catch the other as she flips around, followed by her tail as well, both which could be avoided if the copy moves quickly enough. Once the flip is over, Celestine shoves off with her foot to quickly close in the gap with sheer speed, before twirling the two halves with rapid speed, striking for different locations like to the side of the arm, neck, head, and if it becomes undefended the side of the body. Celestine is, sadly, all too aware that if this thing is a perfect copy the abdominal, chest area is all too well guarded by much thicker plates. 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     Celestine knows her own strengths and weaknesses. That's more than can be said for many other fighters, who push forward on the assumption that their prowess will carry them through, without thought. However, everyone has psychological blindspots. And a mimic of someone who fights with a knowledge of their own weakpoints means a mimic that can capitalize upon them just as well. So as Celestine launches her attack with foot and tail, intent to lead up to strike at vulnerable locations, Doppelganger, rather than trying to block or dodge... Seemingly just takes the hits!     Only for it to be revealed that she grabbed hold of Celestine's tail with both arms after letting it strike her, and uses this to continuously move out of the way of the further attacks by always remaining in a position where attacking can not be easily done.     Then, releasing the tail suddenly, Doppelganger surges forward attempting to strike Celestine in the back of the skull with one half of the staff, and then hop up on one foot, turn in the air, and come around with a back-handed strike at the same location with the other staff-half! 

:'''{{#var:816|Celestine (816)}} has posed:''' The Celestine copy comes in with equal speed she was expecting out of herself, but with her tail being used against her, she has no way to deal with the problem, allowing the clone to have her way with the original. The impact hits the back of her skull, following a screech in pain, before the staff slams in the same location which sends the Draco-Raptor down into the sand. She slides along the ground and with a groan, picks herself up before shaking her head, trying to get her eyes to refocus. "That was dirty..." She sneers out looking over at her copy, "Kind of like this dirty!" With a sudden spin of her body, she uses her hand to scoop up the dirt and fling it toward the face of the Doppelganger, hoping to blind them momentarily. Celestine then reconnects the staff as she leaps in, slamming the butt of the staff into the ground and with the momentum attempts to swing herself around to slam both feet into the other in order to knock them back, as she recovers around with a flip in the air. 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     Same physical abilities, same limitations. Seeing with eyes obscured is as impossible for Doppelganger as for Celestine. And when she is caught off-guard by the spinning double-kick while blinded, the enemy is hurled back and to the ground. She takes the time to scrape dirt and sand out of her eyes, speaking in that distant, echoing tone, "Dirty... Dirty..."     Then she combines the glowing-red staff back into a single weapon, and points it at Celestine. And the staff compacts down further, turning into something that resembles Celestine's blaster... Crimson electricity erupts from the magically conjured device, in an imperfect simulation of the Multi-Blaster's stun mode, attempting to temporarily paralyze Celestine...     Right as the blaster turns back into a staff, and is brought to bear in a two-handed over-head strike at the top of Celestine's head! 

:'''{{#var:816|Celestine (816)}} has posed:''' Celestine snarls lowly as she watches the staff turn into the blaster. "Oh no you don't!" When the blaster fires, the female soldier spins her lance and uses it to successful deflect the blast away from her. She catches the movement between the rotations of the staff as the clone starts to move and her tail flicks in anticipation. Celestine moves the staff directly up to take the load of the impact, staring down her own 'evil' reflection. She growls lowly, her tail lashing side to side as her red eyes meet the Doppelganger's. Her nostrils flare slightly as her eyes start to glow, causing her eyes to become brilliant white. This close and more focused on holding the attack in place to stare down her opponent, the Draco-Raptor snarls out, "You smell like rotten flesh and bone..." She then breaks the hold with a hard push up, before flipping back a few times with grace and agility. As she lands the final time the blaster comes into play. "... You should work on that." Then, with a pull of the trigger she fires off several shots for the clone. 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     Celestine deflects the stun blast, blocks the overhead strike, and then pushes her enemy back before performing an impressive acrobatic display... Then returns fire with a blaster of her own! ...Because it was her own blaster to start with. Doppelganger attempts a similar feat, and manages to catch most of the shots on her glowing red staff, though the spray of sparks seems to singe her in places. But then she charges forwards, converting the staff to blaster again, and then returning fire with crimson blasts! All while attempting to close the distance...     And along the way, those seething red eyes that Celestine's shining white ones had gazed into, reflect back nothing but unnatural life. Even as a fanged maw is opened, and a hush like whispers in a dusty tomb spills forth, alongside more repeated words.     "Rotten flesh... And bone..." Then Doppelganger begins laughing. A high-pitched, insane peal of laughter that keeps going on and on and on.     As if facing someone who has stolen one's form isn't creepy enough...! 

:'''{{#var:816|Celestine (816)}} has posed:''' "What the...!" Celestine yelps out as she hears the sudden crazed laugh and it's enough to throw her off her game as well. The blaster shots singe her scales and she screeches out in pain from the shots the impact her body. But when the Doopelganger gets in close, the other Draco-Raptor races to meet her with her claws extended, just ditching the blaster entirely. With a draconic raptor roar, Celestine goes to grab for the blaster arm, before using her other arm to shove under the jaw-line. If successful, her maw opens up and she goes to bite down on the shoulder area of the other one. Her razor sharp fangs trying to draw out blood; Which may not be a smart idea to perform on a magical construct! 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     Celestine chomps down on Doppelganger... And what gushes out into her mouth from the injured shoulder is... Exactly what it smells like. Powdered bones and rotten blood. It tastes awful. Still laughing despite her gruesome injury, Doppelganger turns its blaster back into halved staves, and tries to jam them into Celestines ribs on both sides simultaneously.     As the construct bleeds and attacks back as savagely as she was herself, the mimic-Celestine's voice shifts in tone, the laughter becoming distorted, deeper, slow, like someone applied a pitch shift to it. It may have seemed to just be a copy all this time, repeating select phrases... And perhaps it is. But ultimately it is a thing made with what is probably foul magic, and someone who would make such a thing might have include dark touches to unnerve and disrupt the original copy. Small differences that, when taken together, form a sort of 'Uncanny Valley' effect.     It's not just that Doppelganger looks mostly like Celestine, or fights similarly to her, or has similar weapons... It's all the small elements that are NOT her that makes it even more terrifying. Like looking in a mirror and seeing something awful in place of one's reflection, and yet close enough to know that it's SUPPOSED to be you... Just... NOT.     The laughter continues unabated. 

:'''{{#var:816|Celestine (816)}} has posed:''' The staves slam into Celestine ribs and the Draco-Raptor coughs out air, her body is strong, but so is her opponent. It was her own strength being used against her and she can feel the jabbing pain going up her body. Yet, the soldier would not surrender and Celestine refuses to even now. She does something even perhaps more horrible as she spits out the blood she got a taste of. Her hands reach up and her claws go to slam into the side of the other clone, before she goes to reach up with her foot against the chest and shove off with her foot if she gets a good hold, flipping with the kick to combine her tail in the mix like a bludgeon to smack her directly under the chin. 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     Doppelganger is subjected to a barrage of attacks that has her staggering and toppling, one blow being so strong she actually is moved out of the path of another, but her laughter isn't cut off until her lower jaw is slammed upwards into her upper, teeth going flying admist splashes of glowing red and wisps of shadowy mist. Whether this... THING can feel pain or not is unclear. But it can fight with the same savagery and ferocity as Celestine can!     as it recriprocates with a tail whip aimed at Celestine's side, followed by leaping up into the air with a kick aimed at her face, followed by another two swift kicks as the mimic attempts to push off with each blow to remain in the air, before landing and then leaping with her staff extended... Intending to impale the raptor-dragon hybrid... And then channel the blaster fire through the staff while only transforming the part of the staff being gripped into a blaster... Sending a searing blast down the weapon's length!     However, despite the methods being used, it intentionally avoids vital organs in its impaling attempt. Because this is a tournament, not a death battle.     How considerate. 

:'''{{#var:816|Celestine (816)}} has posed:''' Celestine attempts to break away as the Doppelganger retaliates and while able to block some of the attacks, she can not block them all and the worst part is? She does get knocked down on the ground and watches as her own weapon does something she can't /even/ do with hers! The staff slams down against her hardened scales getting past the hard layer and the blast shatters the top scales and burns the soft tissue under it. The created warrior screams in pain as the impact tears into her flesh layer and burns down just slightly, but in total defiance, she takes hold of the pole. Her hands gripping tightly and she goes to push up against it. "I won't be..." She hisses out, "... Defeated by a..." She keeps pushing upward on the staff, "CLONE!" Celestine then roars out as she goes to shove the Doppelganger off balance. Defying the pain, she flips up her feet and then spin her body around to slap the reflection with her tail to further set the creature off balance. Then, with a shove off of her foot, she comes down with her fist and goes to slam it brutally into the upper side of the clone. 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     Doppelganger staggers backwards from the tail strike after all the weight she was puting on the staff is displaced. Then she gets punched so hard she is knocked off her feet, hits the ground, and BOUNCES off, with cracks spreading across her chest and scales flying everywhere, to reveal softer tissue underneath that squirts forth more foul, coagulated blood. It takes a moment for the Doppelganger to get back up... Is that a sign it's being worn down, possibly? Is this mimic finally reaching her limit? No indication of feeling pain so far, but it's clear that Doppelganger can be injured. And now this slowness to get back on her feet... But back on her feet she eventually gets!     Injured just as extensively as Celestine, the magical clone still seems to have the energy to continue exerting itself in this final push to secure victory. She throws herself into battle, spinning her staff before her, and then lashes out under Celestine's jaw, before following this up by thrusting right backdownwards towards the original Celestine's throat, with enough force to crush the windpipe of a lesser creature!     But Celestine is not a lesser creature. She will likely fare significantly better... Even if being exposed to her own considerable strength! 

:'''{{#var:816|Celestine (816)}} has posed:''' The mirror image of Celestine takes time to get back up and that was fine by the already tired Raptor Dragon. She wasn't doing so well either, but she wasn't going to just fall down in pain... Not yet anyways. She'll wait till she is back in her room and then just collapse in pain. Her tail twitches as she watches the other get back up before she roars at her, "GET UP!" Those eyes continue to glow brightly, "COME ON! I Want to see you bleed more!" Perhaps it was her primal nature talking now or the fact she was trying to shake off her own exhaustion with taunting yells, but she does get what she wants-- just not the way she wants it! The clone silences Celestine with a hard 'crack' under the jaw line, before the lizard woman is impacts down and her throat /smashed/ in slightly. Celestine gags at this and actually coughs out blood, before it was not her end, just a very brutal impact that probably did some damage on the inside. Thankfully--- Celestine can go a long time without needing to take a breath of air and more thankfully, it wouldn't kill her. She does lay there for a moment, waiting for the Doppelganger to think it /could/ be over, before she rolls to her back and rears up her feet and then push kicks off. Her claws going to slam down on her shoulders, to slam the clone down on the ground where she pounces on her and with her hand claws goes to /shred/ at the face, while letting out a primal scream in defiance; Even if it sounds very stressed out thanks to the earlier impact to the throat. 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     In her state of primal rage, when Celestine hops up and brings her claws down aimed at shoulders, and starts clawing at a face that isn't there, she might not immediately realize that her claws came down on a staff held between two feet, and the appendage she is going after is Doppelganger's tail, which keeps swaying and moving aside as much as it can, even if it's getting pretty turned into a bloody mess by the brutal assault!     Yes, Celestine is a clever fighter, and also capable of powerful physical attacks... But as she gives in to anger and instinct... The mimic that does not share her personality, memories, or knowledge keeps her head and continues to fight with the cleverness that has been thrown aside in favor of devastating blows. And so Doppelganger went onto her hands, is holding her staff with her feat, and is sacrificing her tail in order to try to grab Celestine by the ankles in her upside-down position, and tries to yank them out from under the genuine article... And then do to Celestine what she just tried to do to Doppelganger. A furious clawing assault, filled with blood. 

:'''{{#var:816|Celestine (816)}} has posed:''' Celestine finds herself caught in an unexpected problem and realized too late that /she/ is the one who had been played. With a yelp of surprise and finding herself on the ground, all she can really do is try to protect herself the best she can as the claws shred away at her. By the time it is over, the scaled genetically created warrior lays on the ground, scratched up, clawed up, and battered from the brutal onslaught. She'll need time to recover, that is for sure! 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     Perhaps a bit bloodier and dirtier than one would expect in a tournament like this, but... At the end of the day, both competitors are alive and will suffer no permanent injury. That's... About the best one can ask for with fighters like these. The referee returns, with his pet bear koala-ing onto his neck and looking thoroughly spooked by that battle. Then the dinosaur snorts and raises a hand as he says, "Winner of this match... Doppelganger! Medics to the field, please!"     Doppelganger is already returning to a blob of shadow that is absorbed back into a magic circle on the ground by the time medical aid arrives. Where it's going, no one knows but its master. 

}}

2546/EoT: Upgrades Pt. 2

2015-08-13T07:41:48Z

Paladine: Created page with "{{Log Header |Date of Scene=2015/06/28 |Location=Midnight Shrine Tokyo <MST> |Synopsis=The adventure continues as magical girls, magical boys, and digimon try to save the mayo..."

{{Log Header
|Date of Scene=2015/06/28
|Location=Midnight Shrine Tokyo <MST>
|Synopsis=The adventure continues as magical girls, magical boys, and digimon try to save the mayor of Tokyo from the Epoch Saints!
|Thanks=
|Cast of Characters=560, 589, 782
|Tinyplot=
|Tinyplot2=
|pretty=yes
}}
{{Poses
|Poses=:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     Last time... Golden, Shirou, Princess Paladin, Crucia Hex, Libra, and White Rose, had just entered an office in the Tokyo Metropolitan Government building, where they discovered Crucia's older brother sitting behind a desk. He is radiating magical energy that at least some among them have detected, and the powerful fear ward on the doors leading into the tower was likely his handiwork as well. Or at least Crucia indicated she was familiar with the spell used.     Now the three magical girls, one digimon, one magus, and one fairy are all facing off against a man with hair the color of smoke, just like the Pumpkin Witch who came here alongside of the others.     It's kind of awkward after the dramatic, "Hello, sister." and "Hello, older brother." offered. Shirou's shocked yell of "B-BROTHER!?" seems to garner a look from the man behind the desk though.     "I'm not your brother," he says scoldingly. Then he pauses and adjusts his eye glasses as he seems to ponder that. "Or maybe I am? Kiko, did another member of the family get added without my knowledge?"     Crucia huffs and says, "Of course not! You know perfectly well that's impossible!"     "Yes, yes, of course. I did kill mother and father after all, and he looks nothing like us. Well..." He drums his fingers on the arm of his chair as he gazes upon all of those gathered.     Princess Paladin glances to Crucia, and then to her brother. She doesn't want to take her eyes off this guy, but... They still have a Life Gear to take care of, and Kiko isn't acting like this guy is their target. "Maybe we can save the family reunion for another day." she suggests.     Libra steps forward though, adjusting her own eyeglasses so they shine with reflected light. "Time is of the essence, but I want to know why this man was trying to stop us first, and who he actually is. He's clearly a mage. How do we know he's not involved with the enemy?"     Crucia's older brother tilts his head and gives an incredulous look like, 'Really?' Then he pushes his chair back and stands up. He's... Pretty tall for a Japanese man. Over 6 feet. Tall, dressed in a business suit, with his long smoke grey hair tied back in a low ponytail in back, and with several strands of his bangs hanging loose on either side of his face.     He's also pretty good looking, like wow.     Both Paladin and Libra, despite the seriousness of the situation, blush a bit without changing their expressions otherwise.     Then the mage says, "Indeed, I am a mage. I'm not involved with the enemy upstairs, but I did wish to test my little sister to see if she how much she had grown. It seems quite a bit, since this is the first time she has ever managed to defeat my emotion magic." He smiles a bit smugly, and then says, "Of course, the output was quite low. I didn't want to make Kiko's little heart burst in terror. We're family after all." Then he bows to those assembled and says, "Please forgive my lack of manners, ladies." Then he raises his head. "...And boy. And... Metal ball thing." As he straightens fully, he says, "My name is Shirou Kikumura."     Paladin and Libra both turn to look at the red-haired Shirou present. 

:'''{{#var:782|Golden (782)}} has posed:'''     "Oh, so you're the one who's throwing all the fear around?" Golden says, and then points to the glowing sunburst symbol on his forehead. "This is the Crest of Courage, kid. I earned this by staring down gods and demons and not flinching."     The arm cannon discharges a sphere of energy that explodes on contact with the desk. "Run home before I maul that face of yours as a reminder not to mess with me or my allies." 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     "Not my brother. Her brother." Shirou gets out in a hurry, frowning slightly. Not that it matters much because he's glaring so hard at the mention of parental murders his gaze might just burn a hole in the wall.     he remains staring there with that suspicious look, boring a hole in this self-proclaimed guy of the same name and regrettably doing so from a lower stature.     Yeah, he's about half a foot shorter. On the other hand, he's still holding his swords.     Shirou's disapproval does drain away after the introductions, but only to be replaced with a flicker of awkward shock. Blink!     "... Emiya Shirou... you were just being difficult on purpose, weren't you?" Well, at least the hostility's gone. Shirou's not one to easily hold a grudge, but his tone's still quite telling.     'What is this guy doing, putting on a big show in the middle of a crisis?! Sheesh.'     "I'm helping the girls because they need it."     His attempts at speaking somewhat cordially in the circumstances are cut short though, as Golden just starts SHOOTING. "What the--" He ends up whirling about and hopping away from Golden, weapons coming up.     And for that matter, he's begun muttering something only the sharpest ears can hear. 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     The pink-haired magical girl introduces herself. "Princess Paladin." And then the blue-haired one does the same, identifying herself as Libra.     Big Brother Shirou seems surprised by the revelation of Red-Head Shirou's name. "Are we sure he's not related?" he asks of Kiko.     The witch-dressed teenager just folds her arms and nods grumpily. She's still pale and sweating from that word, as are most of the people here, but at least their heart rates should be slowing down.     Big Shirou shrugs and says, "Well, I've no cause to hold you up any longer, though I'd be interested in hearing what's going on and how you came to meet your protective companions later--" But then Golden blows up the desk.     The rush of air and splinters and burning paper that flies everywhere blows back Big Shirou's hair a bit but he just stands there throughout with his palms up and open at his sides. He looks at the destroyed remains of the furniture and says, "You're a nasty little thing, aren't you? You do realize you just destroyed government property? What did that desk ever do to you? I certainly hope you intend to pay for it." The mage adjusts his glasses, causing the lenses to turn opaque with the light from the windows behind him.     Kiko waves frantically and goes, "A-aaaah! Wait, I'll fix it!" Then she gestures and speaks in that bizarre not-language of universal command as she attempts to fix the desk, its contents, and what was on top of it, by reversing its flow of time back to a prior state. It works, thankfully, though using magic right after an exertion like that hall outside seems to take a toll on her. Unlike Paladin, or Libra, who have effectively unlimited magical energy, their Artifacts acting as bottomless wells of personal power, Crucia Hex is a mage like her brother, and her resources are thus limited to what her own body can hold. And she appears to be reaching her limit. 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     Paladin starts to move towards her, but Libra steps forward in her place to support the Pumpkin Witch.     Big Shirou gazes upon this, and then tilts his head a bit, causing his eyes to become visible again as he heaves a burdened sigh. "I was going to offer to lend you aid, but after THIS sorry display, I think it would be better if I do as the desk-murdering marble over there says. My little sister is never going to become a respectable mage if her big brother is holding her hand and fighting her battles for her. And the same goes for all of you." The mage turns his gaze on Little Shirou, and says, "You may think they need your help, but if you're protecting them, then you're the only one who will grow strong. In the end, they'll be even more helpless, because they'll become dependent upon you. Fight for whatever you're here to accomplish, and let them do the same. Be their partner in this, not their body guard."     Big Shirou then walks around his now-reassembled desk (or technically the government's desk), and right towards everyone standing in the doorway. "And keep your pet under control. People work here when there aren't monsters on the loose. Coming back to a trashed building because that THING is too 'brave' to fear it might be doing wrong won't help anyone."     Paladin steps aside, and motions for the others to do the same. She already feels like she ran a marathon, between the stairs, and the corridor of fear. And they have a battle ahead of them too. They probably could have used Big Shirou's help, if he was serious about intending to offer it. But as long as they aren't having to fight him on top of a Life Gear, that will have to be enough.     "Wait." Libra says.     Big Shirou pauses while in the middle of passing by the magical librarian and smiles at her faintly. "Yes, young lady?"     Libra's face reddens a bit but she manages to get out in a slight stutter "D-Do you know anything about the enemy? A-a-anything we should l-look out for?"     Big Shirou squints his eyes slightly and says, "My apologies, but no. I try not to get involved..." Then, unless prevented, he steps out of the office and starts making his way at a casual pace towards the stairs. "...In that sort of thing."     Paladin and Libra watch Big Shirou go, looking a bit smitten with the jerk. Crucia just looks annoyed as she steps away from Libra and adjusts her witch hat.     "C'mon. We don't have all day. Golden? I REALLY appreciate you standing up for our honor and trying to protect us, but blowing up defenseless desks is NOT COOL!" She crosses her arms in an 'x' shape in front of herself. "If you're going to shoot at my older brother next time, shoot him in the face!" A pause. "He's really strong and a jerk. He can take it and deserves it." Crucia didn't seem to react at all to Big Shirou's mention of killing their parents. Unlike Little Shirou. What's up with that!? 

:'''{{#var:782|Golden (782)}} has posed:'''     Golden thbbpts at the departing big brother. "Yeah well, if you're the type that pulls stuff like this when lives are at stake, who needs you anyway?"     Golden then mutters. "He'd probably just put a knife in our backs anyway."     He looks at Emiya and says "Uh, sorry for startling you like that. I didn't think we had time to be polite, since there's a people-eating monster on the loose."     Then to Crucia. "Well, I didn't know that. Didn't want to accidentally kill him or something." He's kind of glad he didn't go with his first impulse which was to jump in and punch the guy in the face to try and stop the magic. That might have been a much messier situation.     He glances at the girls and Emiya. "Let's go take out a time-wasting monster?" 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     Suspicioun and confusion mix chaotically in the sideways look Emiya gives Crucia. What appears to be an incredibly complicated family mess is probably better left for later though. Probably.     But if the look on his face is any indication, overlooking this ain't easy. Not one bit.     "Man, what kind of brother lets his sister stroll into danger without helping SOMEHOW?" Emiya does NOT APPROVE. But there's not much he can do about it, huh?     Except for make up for the lost potential aid with hard work. Kanshou and Bakuya fade, only for him to slam both hands in his jean pockets and adopt a sour, ponderous look.     It's true. If he does ALL the work, others cannot grow. But he quickly ends up grinning a bit sheepishly. Yeah, like he could even come close to doing all the hard work in this situation... nooooope.     Finally he sighs, and the more positive tone's back. "Keep your cool next time," he asides to Golden. "Sir Bedivere keeps telling me being reckless and brash just gets people killed."     Not that he has any right to talk. He will probably end up doing similar WITHIN THE HOUR. Probably. He ends up nodding though. "Nn. Back to work! We've got a crisis to solve." 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     Paladin shakes off the demi-romantic haze and says, "I'm sure Crucia was joking. If her brother is strong enough to take a shot from you just fine, we probably don't want to anger him."     The Pumpkin Witch reluctantly says, "Yeah, you're right. It's just... Complicated." She sighs and, forcing herself on slightly wobbly legs that she tries to cover up by power-walking, she departs the office and says, "Come on! Let's get going! We know where the enemy is now!"     Libra looks concerned for her friend's well-being, casting a worried look over her shoulder at Shirou and Golden, but then following after Crucia Hex.     Princess Paladin follows after as well, though she hangs back enough to say, "Regardless of what Crucia's older brother said, I'm not sure she's in any condition to contribute meaningfully at this point. I think that spell she put on the stairs is draining her continuously. On top of all the other magic, she's probably running on empty. She can get stronger some time when we're not facing a life-or-death situation. If you need to step in, do so."     Then she faces forward and focuses on the task ahead.     The group eventually manages to make it up EVEN MORE STAIRS to an office where the emanations of temporal magic are coming from. A clock on the wall is spazzing hardcore, moving really fast, stopping, starting, going backwards, chiming random hours, etc. On the other side of this door must be the enemy responsible! 

:'''{{#var:782|Golden (782)}} has posed:'''     Golden peers at the clocks and listens to the noise. "Should we just surprise them or be more careful?" he says to Shirou and Paladin. 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     "For the record, I don't have a lot of energy to spare either. I've only enough to use my trump card once if I don't use up too much more first." One has to wonder then, just either how little energy he actually has, how rule-breakingly efficient his ability to project these swords is, and... wait, he even HAS a trump card?     Prana murkily emerges from his palms then solidifies again into Kanshou and Bakuya as the group finally reaches the door. Shirou's right up there on the front lines to open it a crack and peek in...     And if he can't see any evidence of a trap or dangerous thing preventing entry?!     He'll just thrust the door open and take up front line position to give the others a chance to filter in, blades at the ready! 

:'''{{#var:782|Golden (782)}} has posed:'''     Golden watches Shirou check the door, then when the young man decides to just push the door open, he assists as much as a small ball can, hopping in first to look for any hostiles and alert his allies to them if possible. 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     No obvious signs of a trap, though there is the mayor of Tokyo apparently being held hostage by a metal woman made out of pistons, shiny steel, clockwork, huge gears coming out of her back, cogs for eyes, etc. Based on the now-metallic outfit she wears, she may have once been the mayor's secretary. She turns when Shirou busts open the door, the grinding of gears setting Paladin's teeth on edge as she draws the Sacred Scepter and prepares to attack.     The mayor is an older man with a receding hairline, and when he sees magical girls and magical boys and golem-things bursting in, he seems quite surprised. Then he, frightenedly yells, "Help me! My secretary has turned into a monster and is going to eat me! Please help!"     The Life Gear turns back towards the mayor, snarling, and leaving her back to the good guys!     Crucia raises a hand to manifest a flaming pumpkin, but the construct vanishes in a puff of orange flame before she can fire it. "Damn it." she mutters.     Looks like it's up to the two already in the room, and the two magical girls who aren't fully exhausted, to take care of this one!     Libra's heavy book appears in her grasp, and the pages start flipping rapidly as she prepares an attack in advance. Paladin tries to slip into the office behind Golden and Shirou, since she doesn't want to start shooting lasers through them or anything. 

:'''{{#var:782|Golden (782)}} has posed:'''     Golden glances at Shirou and Princess Paladin. Divide and conquer's probably a good tactic here, creating openings for them to exploit. Okay then, the little metal ball is going to go right for the face and try to occupy the Life Gear that way.     The MetalMamemon runs with his short little legs and leaps for the Life Gear's head, trying to get a grip with his lone hand and obscure the Ex-Secretary's vision with the much longer tines of his claw while hooking the cannon arm around the neck. It's super awkward and probably not going to work too well, but it's worth a shot.     "Look! I'm a distraction!" He shouts loudly as he leaps for the monster of the day. 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     "Get away from him!" Shirou roughly demands, breaking quickly into a charge upon seeing the monster. Most people would run AWAY, he's running TOWARDS it. KAnshou and Bakuya are brought about and swung with enough speed and strength to whistle through the air. Strength an ordinary human shouldn't have. Yet one application of Reinforcement magic and the power of a Noble Phantasm blade!     But the one attack is a little sloppy, and for good reason. Shirou's chanting something out in a solemn but determined tone.     "My body is made of swords, a shell of steel with fire for blood. I have created over a thousand blades, never retreating, never knowing victory..."     Well, whatever it is, an impressive upwelling of magical energy's building. Large circuit-like patterns glow a faint blue-green across Shirou's exposed flesh...     "I stand atop a hill of swords, forging weapons from my flesh. This lonely path needs no reward!"     Whether the blows struck or were blocked, Shirou backflips away from his opponent and lands near a wall, hand outstretched. Power sizzles and crackles like lightning, and the arcs slam into the ground. Where they touch... the ground appears to crack and seethe with deep fires... "My whole life is... UNLIMITED BLADE WORKS!"     The 'cracked ground' effect erupts every which way into a wall of flame, engulfing EVERYONE AND EVERYTHING.. In a second or two though, when the light dies down...     The office building is gone. Instead, everyone stands on a barren wasteland of dry and cracked rusty-reddish ground, baked hard under a sunless yet brilliant twilight sky. The infinite horizon is a wall of flames.     Emiya Shirou stands tall upon one of the few hills present in the otherwise mostly flat plains, along with his allies.     And everywhere the eye can see, there's swords. They grow from the ground like gravestones, or the remains of some incalculably vast battlefield. Swords of all shapes and sizes. The simple and the legendary. There's Excalibur and Clarent. Souji's Murasame and Charlemagne's Joyeuse... dozens, hundreds...     No, looking at the horizon, the number may well be infinite.     "Give it everything you've got. Now we don't have to worry about wrecking the place." 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     When Golden leaps towards the Life Gear secretary she seems to blink out of existence. Moments later, Golden, Shirou, Paladin, Crucia, and Libra may all feel as though they've been struck repeatedly all over by seriously strong blows of some kind. Of course, Shirou is in the middle of an incantation, as Paladin and Libra both stagger from the sudden impacts, and Crucia cries out in pain, and the fact the Life Gear is now out in the hallway they just left is probably not going to save the monster as she and the mayor and everyone else here are temporarily engulfed in some sort of pocket reality.     The Life Gear scans over the grouo with cog-wheel eyes, her body continuing to churn and produce chattering mechanical noises as she analyzes the new battlefield. Then the Life Gear kneels and slams down her hand on the dusty terrain, barren of all but blades, and the image of a gear expands outwards, trying to corrupt the Reality Marble with a second Reality Marble where time for everyone else seems to be slowed.     Paladin decides not to wait and see if this can work and unleashes a blast from the Sacred Scepter as she calls out, "PENANCE BEAM!" A holy laser launches from the Artifact, attempting to drill through the monster, only for it to seemingly cease to exist inches away from the possessed secretary and reappear coming from a different angle, right at Libra, just as the other magical girl is calling out, "Stop Watch--Aaaagh!" when she gets interrupted by being blasted with Paladin's laser from her left side.     "W-What the crap!" Crucia Hex exclaims. "What's going on here!? None of the Life Gears have been anywhere NEAR this strong or competent so far!" She struggles to remain on her feet, both exhausted and now bruised from some unseen attack. "It's also REALLY WEIRD how it seems to have specific counters to each of our abilities... Really suspicious! Buy me some time to recover my magic energy, and I'll see if I can find us an answer!" 

:'''{{#var:782|Golden (782)}} has posed:'''     What? Golden gets slammed this way and that before he can even do anything, adding more dings, scratches, and bruises to the scruffy looking MetalMamemon. He picks himself up in time to see the girls unleash a round of magical attacks that get... redirected? "Oh, that's just /great/." He mutters as he gets to his feet.     And yet if the group scatters that means it would be easier for the Life Gear to pick them off, Golden muses as he witnesses the redirection of things. Ah, if only the glitches were more controllable, then he could really throw the Life Gear for a loop. Wait... Oh, that is so dangerous, but it might do something useful.     "Somebody shoot me with some kind of lightning when I jump at it!" He shouts to his allies, and then bounds towards the Life Gear, taking one last leap into the air towards it while letting loose a barrage of energy bombs /around/ it in the hopes of distracting it. This is going to hurt. 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     Shirou's first slammed by a mysterious force, interrupting his incantation for a moment... then faced with a strange issue indeed. The Life Gear is actively fighting the Reality Marble.     As it's already putting a constant drain on Shirou's minimal prana, this is not good at all. The ground around the Life Gear ripples and distorts, crackling and fizzling like a radio television in a storm. Several weapons shatter as the gear image extends, but Shirou quickly gestures. Obeying his mental command, dozens of weapons UPROOT before they're overtaken and instead take up residence in the sky.     "I'll say it's weird. This trick's the toughest magic I know how to work!" He too can barely believe what's happening down there.     And warping his Reality Marble is not that difficult, for his skill at constructing it is still crude and inefficient compared to the hero he might one day become.     It's only a miracle that he's able to use it AT ALL.     Having seen Paladin's efforts go nowhere, he's unsure what to do himself. Shirou gestures again... and the airborne Joyeuse plummets like heavenly judgement towards the Life Gear.     Then, answering Golden... "... WHAT? ... You're not joking..." Biting his feelings on the matter and HOPING Golden knows what they're doing he wills another weapon into action. A large, ornate, golden spear flies into view from the infinite horizon and sizzles with power. it fires a bolt of golden lightning straight for Golden. How ironic! 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     The Life Gear looks up at the swords and other weapons that lift into the air, ready to plunge down at her, and is momentarily not paying attention to the others. Paladin is trying to use healing magic on Libra, who has a nasty bleeding hole in her side where the laser nearly drilled through her rib cage, and Crucia is searching through a jack-o-lantern candy pail she got from... Somewhere or other, which seems to be full of magically-charged candy, for one specific treat. Probably something to replenish her energy.     Shirou's weapons dive-bomb the Life Gear and she acrobatically flips and twirls out of the way -- as long as they move in a straight line. Even with the monster's own abilities corrupting Shirou's Reality Marble, she can only do so much to evade super-fast weapons under Shirou's control. Which is why the weapons entering her own, much smaller 'territory' being slowed down in time relative to the monster is such a boon in evasion. Of course, if any of the weapons does NOT move in a straight line, the metallic monster will have to exercise more effort to evade the attacks.     Golden is probably successfully hit by the lightning bolt, but the Life Gear is a bit too busy to be concerned with that right now. Though the energy bombs exploding in slow-motion once they enter the warped temporal space certainly helps facilitate that distraction by adding something else for the monster to seemingly dodge at super-speed.     Meanwhile, the mayor is just standing in the background, keeping his cool to the best of his ability and trying not to get in the way or draw attention from anyone. That's probably for the best. These people are dangerous, after all! 

:'''{{#var:782|Golden (782)}} has posed:'''     Instead of the glitch being anything useful, Golden blinks out of existence in a flicker of pixels and digital glyphs.     He re-emerges in mid-air somewhere near the Life Gear in time to be smacked by a sword and spiked back the way he came with an accidental kick from the Life Gear. The MetalMamemon bounces and skids around the ground of this Reality Marble, metal plates glowing cherry red from the lightning strike and the air marred by heat mirages around him.     "Ow..." So he grimaces when he gets up this time and rethinks his strategy. 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     Emiya Shirou may be dense, naive, hypocritical, and a slew of other things, but 'stupid' is another matter. After a few different flying swords are so expertly dodged he decides it's time to rethink his strategy... before he runs out of prana.     The boy can onyl wince as the Digimon's plan utterl backfires. "What was he even asking for if that's the result?!" A pang of guilt strikes. He's just grateful Golden didn't get utterly skewered there.     So now it's just him, Princess Paladin, and a weakened Cruxia. Great.     The dozens of flying weapons all angle their tips at a point of near convergence, aiming around the nimble Life Gear.     His strategy is quite simple. If a single sword can be so easily dodged, eliminate all avenues of escape.     COUNTLESS BLADES of all shapes and sizes rain down at once on the Life Gear. Shirou's quarry is in fact right in the middle of a good twenty meter ZONE of falling swords, the moment they're far enough away from Golden! "Let's see you get out of this one!"     Of course, this is only the first volley. The other is a single weapon he summons to his hand. A strange crimson weapon barely recognizable as a 'sword.' Hrunting, Hound of the Red Plains. The black bow of his future self flies to his other hand, and he quickly gets to work combining the two. The blade is mounted and begins to gleam with an inner light as he pumps a small amount of Prana into it.     It's not much, but it's enough to activate this 'weak' but quite useful Noble Phantasm. "Sic 'em, Hrunting!"     The 'arrow' is let fly in the sake of the sword rain. Now a speeding missile, Hrunting does something QUITE ODD if it is dodged.     ... It will CHANGE COURSE and keep trying to strike, until it either succeeds, is destroyed, or runs out of prana. 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     What, indeed, was the point of that? Paladin finishes healing Libra, just in time to have to heal Golden. She furrows her brow a bit and sets her mouth in a determined line as she rushes towards the fried Digimon, and aims the Sacred Scepter. "Mendicant's Mercy!" she chants as she waves the Artifact over the digital entity and releases white sparkles to try to heal him gradually.     Libra adjusts her over-sized eyeglasses as she observes Shirou's strategy, and then looks to Crucia as the Pumpkin Witch continues to sort through a bunch of candy. "You might want to seek a more efficient method of locating--"     "I KNOW. NOT THE TIME." Crucia interrupts. Then she lets out an 'ah-hah!' as she holds up a black paper-wrapped nougat candy, which she unwraps and consumes.     Libra turns her attention back on the Life Gear, and says, "How much more time do you need," as her book flips pages rapidly, trying to figure out a spell that the enemy isn't going to predict or counter easily.     "Depends how hard it is to analyze this baldy!" Crucia Hex answers.     "She does not appear to be bald."     "WHATEVER I AM DOING SOMETHING MORE IMPORTANT RIGHT NOW GET OFF ME."     Libra sighs and decides to try something. A combo that might turn out a bit better than the lightning-to-the-face one that Golden suggested. She chants, "Accel Blade!" Ordinarily, Libra needs to find a specific story within her Artifact that speaks of a legendary blade in order to enhance it, as she does not carry any weapons herself, and neither do her two companions. But she is surrounded by them. So some of Shirou's weapons may suddenly find themselves moving several times faster than normal, counter-acting the slowing field of the Life Gear's territory.     All the while, Crucia begins to chant as she tries to hone her sensing abilities in order to discern the mechanism behind the mechanical monster's prediction powers.     Meanwhile, the Life Gear manages to try to flip and dodge and duck under and move aside from the blades and weapons that bombard her, mostly by virtue of slowing them down before they can hit, but there's something to be said about quantity, and the monster does not escape without injury, and that combined with Libra's Time Magic may cause a number of smaller gears and strips of metallic flesh to be torn from its frame.     When the homing arrow comes after it, the Life Gear seems to finally have met its match, unable to evade! The gear-patterned territory contracts and vanishes, and the Life Gear once more instantaneously vanishes from sight only to reappear. This time directly in front of Shirou, with a giant gear spinning like a sawblade in hand already being swung towards the magus's belly.     That can't just be speed! It was one place and another in the same moment! Teleportation? Something else!?     Of course, Hrunting may catch right back up to the Life Gear very shortly. But which attack will hit first!? 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     The dodge-dance juju routine Shirou's witness to has him boggling where he stands. Even though he's been trained quite hard to not freeze up like that he still does for a second or so. And that's all the Life Gear needs to get the drop on him.     Had there been at least a LITTLE more warning he'd have deployed Rho Aias, but there is NONE. Instead all Shirou can do is bring up his weapons in the last few split seconds. Kanshou and Bakuya are in his hands immediately, as if they were always there, and the crossed weapons catch the sawing strike. The noise from this weapon clash is AWFUL. Grinding blades on starmetal means a noise like a hundred panes of glass being crunched and crushed inside the maw of a growling, giant monster.     Shirou struggles to gain some balance and control, but it's a no-go. He merely ends up DEFLECTING the blades to his side where they cut a nasty gash half a foot long, ripping up flesh and clothing and things best undescribed.     It would be a serious wound to anyone else, and for him it's.. well, it's still pretty bad.     Because the sheer FORCE sends him toppling over, rolling in an uncontrolled somersault again and again until he slams back-first into one of the enormous blades of the Four Kings. Thankfully, onto the flat.     But Hrunting is STILL coming, and Shirou rises with Kanshou - heavily damaged and cracked in one hand - and his other over the wound, to keep certain things from... spilling out. "What kind of trick is this...?! Oi! You girls better figure something out. I can't keep this up much longer!" 

:'''{{#var:782|Golden (782)}} has posed:'''     Golden is not near enough to be have to deal with the sword rain, fortunately...     Golden seems to be easily healed by Paladin's magic, though he still looks fairly charred. "Thanks, I really needed that, miss!" He says to Princess Paladin, wobbling to his feet still, glancing around.     "Hey.. that looks useful." And he grabs a sword that is far too big for him, a two-handed blade by most people's standards, and charges towards the Life Gear with the sword in tow. He swings and instead of trying to complete the swing, he lets go when he feels the time slowing field take effect on the blade and throws himself around the side of the Life Gear using the sudden difference in momentum, unleashing more energy bombs around in a quarter circle at the monster. If all goes well he'll ricochet off of one of Shirou's blades for another pass by.     "Hey ugly, follow the bouncing ball!" he shouts at the Life Gear as he hops off the blades in the landscape and saturating the monster with his cannon fire. Hopefully that'll take some heat off of Shirou and the magical girls. 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     Geez, now ANOTHER ally is injured. With everyone here injured to one degree or another, and the Life Gear succeeding in doing more damage to them than any other Life Gear they've faced so far by a rather wide margin, once Golden is up and moving, Princess Paladin decides enough is enough. She raises the Sacred Scepter above her head, drawing from the bottomless well of magical energy that is an Artifact.     Meanwhile, Crucia finishes sensing the flow of the Life Gear's magic, just as the high-speed Hrunting slams into the Life Gear's back while it off-balance from its attack on Shirou being shunted to the side. She doesn't have the same analytical powers as Libra, but a spell is a spell. And the one she cast gave her plenty. Especially when Golden then keeps the monster distracted with a thrown zweihander, energy bombs, and continuous cannon fire. "It isn't just fast! It's stopping time and moving while the rest of us are frozen in place! But it can't stop time and slow time at the same, uh, time!" the Pumpkin Witch calls out. "It can produces counters to our abilities based on things it's seen from us before now, but new counters to new abilities cost more of its stolen 'time', and it has to momentarily stop or slow time to study what we do! It's already much lower on juice than it was when the fight started!"     The Life Gear has large chunks of its body stripped off, exposing a steel skeletal frame of pistols and wires and crank shafts and who-knows-what-else as it spins and lets go of the sawblade gear, sending it homing in on Golden in the same manner that Shirou's arrow homed in on it moments prior.     Libra gazes upon this and asks, "Any suggestions on what to do beyond wearing it down and hoping it doesn't kill us before that happens?"     Then Princess Paladin yells out, "HEAVENLY GLORY!" A wave of intense restoration magic, comprised of Holiness and Law, blasts outwards from the pink-haired magical gear, rewriting the terrain and everyone in it back to a more complete state... The state it was in before injuries and exhaustion were inflicted. Even the barren area around them where they've fought so far may have its prana refreshed, as might the one who created it. To say nothing of the collective injuries of Shirou, Golden, Paladin, Crucia, and Libra. This is the same restorative spell that Shirou saw Paladin use when they first met, back when she was a different person. A healing spell so powerful that it can 'heal' objects and even PLACES.     Everyone here should suddenly feel refreshed and fully intact.     Everyone except the Life Gear.     And the mayor who has skedaddled off behind something or another to avoid getting caught up in all this.     Crucia grins at her renewed magical energy supply, and then answers Libra. "Yeah, I've got a suggestion." Then she raises a hand above her head and says, "DON'T STOP SHOOTING UNTIL IT'S DEFEATED!" Then a giant orange pumpkin forms above Crucia's hand and she chants, "Smashing Pumpkin!" as she tries to bring it down like a telekinetically-controlled orange boulder on the Life Gear.     Libra chants, "Timeless Tail!" and a giant dragon's tail erupts from her Artifact attempting to whip the Life Gear towards Shirou and Golden to facilitate a combo attack. 

:'''{{#var:782|Golden (782)}} has posed:'''     Golden's injuries he has sustained during the journey up here and with the Life Gear melt away, though his permanent ones remain intact. The effect is noticeable though; he is shinier, invigorated, and slightly quicker on the uptake. He notes that the group is going with saturation fire and adjusts accordingly.     "Sounds great to me!" he shouts back to Crucia as he remains constantly on the move, unleashing the energy bombs at spots where his allies aren't covering, to herd the Life Gear with the explosions into the field of fire. 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     With Shirou's body restored and energy reserves swelling up again after a startling display of magic, he suddenly has a bit of inspiration. How to take this thing down without it having a chance of evasion.     His mind calls out for a weapon he hardly ever uses. A crimson spear that delivers death to anything it pierces, with no exception.     GAE BOLG flies to his hands and is gripped tightly, then twirled back. Now that he has prana... just as the Life Gear flies at him?     Gae Bolg ERUPTS with prana, and causality FLIPS OUT the instant Shirou thrusts. "GAE BOLG!"     Watching it, one's brain might simply glitch. It's harder to tell which happened first - the act of Shirou thrusting, or the spear seeming to be upon the Life Gear the moment it's in range. 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     The Life Gear is first crushed under a giant pumpkin, and then batted through the air by the tail of a fierce dragon that seems to just be squeezing itself out of a book far too small for it to be coming out of. Then, as the possessed secretary goes cartwheeling through the air, limbs bent or snapped, body twisted, Golden blasts the monster with explosions, dealing additional damage... And then Shirou's spear pierces its core, the magical gear at the center of all the other gears that contains all the 'time' that it has stolen.     As the Life Gear freezes in place, energy crackling over its form, Golden's barrage of energy bombs catches up with the stationary target, sending its body writhing and jerking in multiple directions violently as its caught in the midst of dozens of explosions at once. The shattered and charred body flies a hundred feet into the air before coming back down in a crumpled heap.     The magical body that has overlayed the secretary's dissolves, leaving a normal human woman behind -- thankfully bearing none of the injuries sustained by the Life Gear, and even more thankfully she is passed out, so there's less explaining to do.     Less thankfully, as a decent amount of stolen 'time' flies outwards from the monster, the mayor might be noticed. He saw the whole thing. Explaining this to him might get a bit tricky. But after he looks first at his secretary, and then around at the people who rescues him, he holds up his hands and says, "Thank you for saving me! Don't worry, I won't mention you to anyone! You all seem like the 'secret hero' types. You are from out THERE, yes? In the Multiverse? Unless you choose to reveal yourselves to the public, you have my word that none of this will pass to their ears or eyes. But your heroic actions will not be forgotten!"     Paladin nods after a few seconds of staring and says, "That is appreciated." Then she moves over to Shirou's side and gestures for everyone else to join her, as she asks, "Can you bring us back, Shirou?" The fight is over, but the magical girl still seems... Troubled. Libra takes notice, but she remains quiet, as usual. Crucia just seems to be glad it's all over. But White Rose pokes her fairy head up out of Paladin's purse for the first time in what may feel like hours, and starts, "Hey..."     Paladin hisses out, "Shh. Not until we're clear."     What's going on? The fight's over, right? 

:'''{{#var:782|Golden (782)}} has posed:'''     Golden looks around and decides to hop over to the witches and Paladin and kind of remain obscured by their legs.     "Hey, there's no more surprises right? No creepy uncles or cousins are going to jump out and yell surprise?" He says, waiting for the other shoe to drop. 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     The Life Gear fizzles, flies off... and explodes into a heap. Shirou's left gasping and panting. Restored or not, he's pushed himself to the limit physically and mentally, and it's only the brief restorative effects of Paladin's magic that he hasn't lost control of the Reality Marble.     But on request, he takes a deep breath, closes his eyes...     Everything turns white and fuzzy, then just *FLASHES*. Folliwing a faint lurching sensation, the light dims... and lo and behold, there's the office again. Completely untouched by all of the chaos.     "That was intense. How was it countering everything we did?" He's still bewildered by this, and otherwise does little except nod to the mayor. 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     There are things about this enemy, and the after-math, that concern Princess Paladin. But they are not things to discuss in front of a civilian, and DEFINITELY not in a building where a skilled mage spends a lot of his time. Who knows what's bugged in here? Paladin and Libra share a knowing glance after seeing the lack of damage associated with long-term possession the secretary seems to have, but Crucia just seems tired.     To Golden, Paladin says guardedly, "We can talk more somewhere else. Let's get out of the mayor's office. I'm sure his secretary will be just fine." And to Shirou she says, "That's part of what I want to talk about."     Once they've all evacuated the mayor's office and started rushing out of the building, Crucia says, "Like I said, it was building a defense, offense, and counter-action profile based off of information on all of us from past encounters. Meaning we've been being watched while we've fought. The things we haven't shown before? It was slowing down time or stopping it entirely to gain enough of a break to analyze our new abilities, and develop counters for them on-the-spot... But at a higher magic energy cost. I don't know if that's unique to this Life Gear, or if we're going to have to worry about THIS fight being used to benefit the bad guys in making an even nastier minion NEXT time, but I think we should be trying to take the fight to the enemy now. We need one of their leaders, or else they're just going to make tougher and tougher enemies for us to face."     Paladin nods and says, "Agreed. Our only trouble so far has been tracking them down... And if that Life Gear was made after we got here, as the lack of damage and relatively small amount of restored 'time' indicates... We may need to confront Crucia's brother about just who he's working with."     That should be fun. 

}}

2454/EoT: Upgrades

2015-06-28T20:55:30Z

Paladine: Created page with "{{Log Header |Date of Scene=2015/06/14 |Location=Midnight Shrine Tokyo <MST> |Synopsis=A Life Gear in the Tokyo Metropolitan Government! Shirou, Golden, Miko, Kiko, and Madele..."

{{Log Header
|Date of Scene=2015/06/14
|Location=Midnight Shrine Tokyo <MST>
|Synopsis=A Life Gear in the Tokyo Metropolitan Government! Shirou, Golden, Miko, Kiko, and Madeleine gather to confront the agent of the Epoch Saints!
|Thanks=
|Cast of Characters=560, 589, 782, 806
|Tinyplot=
|Tinyplot2=
|pretty=yes
}}
{{Poses
|Poses=:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     The nature of today's operation: To locate a Life Gear operating inside of Tokyo's Metropolitan Government. Time Magic has been detected all throughout the city, transferred just about everywhere in small amounts and messing with local time something awful. The trains in Japan are always on time. But lately, it's passengers who have been late, as they stay standing at the station long after the train has come and gone, unaware of the 'time' they are losing.     And that's just one example. Via analysis of the patterns and data, Libra, the quiet and studious leader of the Witching Hour, has determined the source of the disturbances is the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building. It's an impressive structure, like a combination of towers, skyscrapers, and a castle, all of modern materials. Somewhere inside is the Life Gear: a magical parasite granted to someone desperate to keep living that steals 'time' from everyone around them before transforming that person into a monster that steals even more 'time'. The longer the Life Gear is integrated, the harder it is to separate without damaging the host. But usually just defeating the Life Gear after it transforms is enough.     This time, however, all they know is that there's SOMEONE in the government building who is a host, using the government itself to distribute Time Magic items throughout the city. A vast amount of 'time' must have already been harvested.     And that means that some additional help is going to be needed. Miko Fujimoto is here in her civilian identity, not her Magical Girl form. The other Witching Hour girls will be meeting them here in their civilian forms as well, for the very first time. This is a huge step forward in their level of trust. They'll identify each other by a pin in the shape of a clock somewhere on their clothing.     'Nondescript civilian' is the order of the day in infiltrating the building. But someone is needed to stir things up as well and to get civilians out of the area so they don't get caught up in some big mystical battle. So, after the Witching Hour + Miko + Shirou and Golden, some hired help is going to make an appearance.     They're likely already nearby, ready to act at the radio signal.     Miko is dressed in simple summer wear, not trying to stand out. White Rose, a tiny white-haired and red-eyed fairy, is hidden in Miko's bag to provide magical sensing and advice, though that's Libra's specialty as well. She's just standing out in front of the building. In front of the government building is an odd place to find a teenager waiting to meet someone, but there's probably a perfectly valid explanation... 

:'''{{#var:782|Golden (782)}} has posed:'''     Golden is more or less just hanging out in plain sight on one of the concrete retaining walls on one side of the building's entryway, looking for all the world like somebody's robotic pet that was told to stay put. He lets people assume that, looking around more or less like he was waiting for someone (which is true) and occasionally shooing off a bird that decides to try and perch one him.     "Go away you flying rat! Find a convertable or something and harass them!" He mutters at his latest winged assailant. 

:'''{{#var:806|Jai-006 (806)}} has posed:''' Miko requested for aid in this mission and it was aid that the Gray team was willing to assist with. Adriana-111 was going to act as the female security officer in order to make sure people were to get outside. Mike-120 inside the armored van was going to hack the security system in order to make sure people did what they hope they would do and as for Jai-006? Jai-006 was the only one armored up in his Gen 2 Centurion suit and was on stand by nearby. Once the signal was given, they would all be on the move. 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     'Nondescript civilian' is what Emiya Shirou almost always looks like anyways, so this is not difficult in the slightest. He's in his usual casual clothing - blue jeans, a shirt, tennis shoes... anything at all unusual? Nope. Well, the concerned and anxious expression he's wearing isn't standard and nondescript, but oh well.     He meets up with Miko near the building, hands in his pockets, and meets her gaze with a face full of momentary warmth and friendship.     Hard to believe he flipped out at her at their first 'meeting,' huh? 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     Golden hasn't met Miko in her civilian form, but was likely told who to look for, just like the Witching Hour girls. So when she notices him, she casually approaches and crouches down next to him. "Thank you for coming, Golden-san. Your help is really appreciated!" The unseen fairy in Miko's purse just lets out a muffled, "'Sup!" in greeting. She can't even see who she's talking to.     When Shirou shows up, Miko rises from her crouch and bows to him with a smile. "Thank you for coming as well, Shirou-san. Now we just need--"     "Oh-hooooh~? So this is what you really look like, huh? Not as much pink as I expected~!" a school girl only a couple years younger than Miko calls out as she approaches. Her long, smoke-colored hair is bound up in a complicated collection of braids. Next to her is a 'foreign' teenager of similar age to the first, with shoulder-length blue-black hair. She's pale, with dark rings around her eyes. Both girls have silver clock pins on their outfits.     "Kiko Kikumura! Nice to meet you in person~!" the smoke-haired girl offers as she thrusts out her hand for Miko to take.     Miko steps forward and does so, shaking lightly and bowing her head. "Miko Fujimoto."     The second girl just inclines her head in a casual acknowledgment type of bow to Miko, and says, "Madeleine Beaumont."     Miko returns the same type of acknowledgement, and then says, "So we're all here... Except I think we're missing our final member...?"     Kiko waves off Miko's inquiry and shakes her head. "She couldn't make it. Sorry."     Miko accepts that and then looks around casually but cautiously. "We should head inside now. I have some help ready to make a distraction for us."     Unless anyone objects (Kiko and Madeleine won't), they all head into the building and should try to mix themselves in with the crowd, remaining unobtrusive and unproblematic. Right up until Miko's fingers blindly bring up an app on her sophisticated Japanese smartphone that lets her use its radio function to send a signal to those waiting just for that... 

:'''{{#var:782|Golden (782)}} has posed:'''     Golden looks around and thinks that monsters that eat people might embrace the full irony of the term 'human resources' and call themselves that. He nods to Miko and the Witching Hour crew with a smile. "It's no problem." He hops down from where he was sitting and follows the Witching Hour and Miko into the building, staying fairly obscured by their legs and feet.     "So, if all people do is save time, where do they find time to live?" He asks as they enter the twin-towered building. 

:'''{{#var:806|Jai-006 (806)}} has posed:''' Once the signal was given, Mike-120 cracks his knuckles and starts typing. "Looks like we are given the green." He says over the private comm to the other two. "Lets make it rain." Adriana-111 can only roll her eyes behind the shades from Mike's comment, but she was ready and just waits for it. She does spot their 'employer' and can only her the tap comm from Jai-006 in conformation that he too is ready. Mike-120 then hits the enter button and says with a big grin on his face, "And here we go!" Sure enough the alarm system went off for the fire alarm, followed by the water system. Adriana-111 inside trying her best to hide her Slavic accent spoke up over the security and PDA. "We need everyone to evacuate the building. We repeat. Please evacuate the building as we look into this." Adriana-111 quickly steps out from where she is and starts directing people. It was hard to miss her. She stood about six and half feet tall! Jai-006 though waited a bit before moving in, as he had plans to go the backway in and wanted to be sure it was clear before he did or at best, make sure no one tried to ever come in that way. 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     "Not a problem, Fujimoto." If anything stopped Shirou from coming to help people in need, he wouldn't be himself again.     This is quite a mess no matter how one goes about it. Magical mayhem in downtown? Not cool. "Hopefully there isn't any collateral. We don't need anyone getting hurt..." Mutter mumble...     With Jai setting off distractions, Shirou makes his way into the building despite the chaos and slips off towards the side of the crowds that may be forming, heading for, well, probaly the stairs! 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     Miko answers Golden's inquiry with, "If we don't return their 'time' to them, 'living' is exactly what they won't be doing. You need 'time' as much as you need 'life'. Take away 'time' and your body has less of what it needs to keep on working."     "I wouldn't worry about collateral damage!" Kiko offers to the red-haired teen. "It's not like we intend to blast holes in the place! Just stop the Life Gear! They tend to open up special dimensions where they have an advantage anyway, meaning whatever we toss out isn't going to impact normal space. What was your name again, by the way? I'm not sure I caught it."     White Rose answers for Shirou, finally poking her head up out of Miko's bag, "Dr. Swordopolis." She lets out a puff of air as she rests her arms on the edge of the bag and looks out. "Way too stuffy in there. Anyway, we should--"     White Rose cuts herself off as Jai's crew takes action. While everyone else is evacuated, the infiltration team slip away, heading deeper into the building. Miko grabs at Shirou's sleeve to try to stop him from heading up the stairs. "Wait. Do you have other magic besides making swords? Anything you're good with? It's impressive magic, but we need every advantage we can get. Also... Anything that's not one of us in here, who you can detect as magical..." She turns to look at the others. "Anything at all, that ANY of us sense, with magic, and is not one of us or made by one of us, should be treated as potentially hostile. There shouldn't be any magic here based on our information. If we run into something, there's a high-probability of it being an enemy or something belonging to one. Don't trust it."     As people come down the stairs from the higher floors, the clamour can be heard where they are. The staircases aren't going to be usable, it seems... But then Madeleine starts to reach for her own backpack, and the book inside. Kiko stops her though. "Nuh-uh. You need to transform for that. Let me." Then she whispers in a language that has no meaning except to make the universe Obey.     The stairway entrance ahead of them seems to take on two different colors. Blue and red. The blue one and red one shift in two different directions, like one of those images you need 3-D glasses to see, only drawn further and further apart. "Blue staircase, everyone! Go, go, go!"     Once everyone is through the blue door and into the blue staircase, the two staircases converge and meld together.     One is empty except for them, the other has people coming down it, oblivious to there being past, future, or alternate present version of the stairs sharing the same space.     Spellcasters in this world are kind of scary with what they can do, and Miko is secretly glad she isn't on Kiko's bad side. She doens't even know how she would defend against half the stuff she has seen the Pumpkin Witch do. 

:'''{{#var:782|Golden (782)}} has posed:'''     Golden glances around and bounds up the stairs. "Great, that means I can just cut loose with Energy Bombs and not worry about collapsing the building!" He thinks the stairs are odd, but not much Golden can say since he pretty much doesn't how to sense magic. Even though the crest is some form of focus for Golden's own capabilities, and keeps him held together despite the horrendous injuries and damage to his digicore that should have killed him. He sticks to the shady places where his smaller form can be of use. 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     ACK! Grabbed. Shirou's startled at first, but makes something of an unamused face at White Rose, then rubs the back of his head. The boy lets out a sheepish little snort and... "If I did I'd've used it by now. Sorry, this is about the only thing I'm good at. My magic's super-specialized. There's altering existing stuff. Not very useful right now. I felt the time distortions last time, it was a big boundary field, but small stuff? Either I feel it or not!"     One really has to wonder how this guy is even classified as a mage.     Or how he can do such ridiculous stuff as fake up legendary swords.     Although Kiko solves the problem at hand readily enough. BLUE STAIRCASE.     "And my name's Emiya Shirou!" Not Swordopolis. 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     Miko cautions Golden, with, "Wait until they actually open up their special pocket dimension though. Until we're inside of it, the building can still take damage."     Kiko nods in response to the introduction and says, "Nice to meet you, Emiya-san~!" Then she is running up the stairs with everyone else, stopping at each door on a new floor to stick her head out and try to sense any magic in the area. There are two towers, and the building is 48 floors tall, so this may take awhile. Hopefully everyone here is in good shape!     ...By the time they reach the 33rd floor, and the main building that links one tower to the other, they are actually probably pretty tired from running up flights of stairs. Or at least Kiko, Madeleine, and Miko all are. White Rose calls out encouragement the whole time. "Pick up the pace, slowpokes! That distraction isn't going to last forever!" Kiko and Miko both glare at the fairy, and White Rose holds up her hands in surrender and sinks slowly back into Miko's bag.     It would be easier for them physically if they just transformed, but that would be like making themselves into beacons for any monster with sensory abilities like theirs.     "Kiko... Have you sensed anything yet?" Miko asks between breaths as she's bent over with her hands on her knees. Madeleine is resting against a wall, breathing even harder.     Kiko replies between gasps, "Not in this tower, and not in the main building yet! If there's... Magic around here... I think it may be in the other... Tower! This is the last floor where we can... Switch towers... So let's just..."     Kiko opens the 33rd floor door, and immediately her eyes dialate as an intense wave of dark magic energy flows down the hall towards her, sweeping over her and those behind her. She shuts the door quickly and holds it closed with both hands, breathing even harder than before.     Miko and Madeleine and Golden all can't sense magic at all. Madeleine has to transform into Libra to do it. But they recognize something's wrong, and even Shirou might have picked it up.     "Kiko? Is this the place?" Miko asks.     White Rose pokes her head back up again, and says, "That wasn't Time Magic... I... Don't know WHAT kind of magic that was."     Kiko says quietly, "I know. And there WAS some Time Magic in there, but it was just carried on the magical current. I think the other two is where we need to be. But to get there... We're going to have to pass through an area of intense magic that's been set up as a barrier. If you have a 'powered-up' form or a transformation of some kind... Anything like that, use it."     Madeleine nods and lets out a 'hm!' "Are you going to be all right, Kiko?" she asks as blue light shimmers over her, transforming her into an older girl with blue hair and blue clothes, carrying a large book.     Miko shines with pink light before becoming a pink-haired and pink-eyed woman in knight's armor crossed with a schoolgirl uniform. Her Sacred Scepter is already in hand.     Kiko nods her head and says a simple chant, transforming her clothes into a frilly witch's dress and hat. Crucia Hex, the Pumpkin Witch, says, "It's just... Been a long time since I've felt this power. Alright... Let's go!" She opens the door again, and Princess Paladin looks to Golden and Shirou to see their reactions and if they're okay. Then the door opens once more, and it's time to head out into a hall with nearly visible black waves of power roiling down it, all emanating from the tower on the opposite side of this floor. 

:'''{{#var:782|Golden (782)}} has posed:'''     Golden looks surprised at the weird black waves that linger on the edge of his vision. "Huh... " He glances at the humans present, scratching his head, puzzled a bit. "Well, as long as it's not the X Virus." he mumbles with a shrug. He watches as the girls transform, slightly jealous that he can't do digivolve at will. Well, not without risking death anyway.     Once the humans are prepared for this, Golden hops forward through the hallway, not looking the least bit concerned. He's attempting to lead the way now that things look a lot more dangerous, it seems. 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     All of these henshins. Shirou's got nothing like that. But he sure as hell feels the need for SOMETHING when Kiko opens Pandora's Door there. he flinches back a few steps. "Whatever it was feels sickening. ... Trace on!"     Kanshou and Bakuya are summoned to hand swiftly, appearing in a flow of greenish light. Anyone sensitive can feel that he's circulating as much magic as possible through his circuits, and hoping that the twin swords' ceremonial properties might fend off the blunt of whatever's beyond the doors.     Both together do confer minor Magic Resistance, after all!     ONWARDS! 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     Not being able to sense the magic doesn't seem to fully protect against its effects. The closer they get to the other end of the hall, which is quite a distance away, given it's an entire floor, the less their bodies will seem to want to. The magic-sensitives will just know the reason WHY. To be able to experience the fear spell that is making all of their instincts demand they turn around and run. Those blind to it, are just forcing their bodies blindly, and may even be in danger of damaging them if they aren't careful. Can a Digimon feel fear? The crafter of the spell might not know. But Golden probably does.     If they all can manage to push through the wall of terror trying to make them turn back, the feeling as though they are advancing directly into the jaws of a beast, the walls and offices on either sides its massive, clawed hands, ready to close on them at ANY MOMENT, they see through the haze of blackness a door. Crucia falls to her knees at one point during the trek and needs to be helped up by Libra and Paladin. But unless one of them flees now, everyone will reach a door that seems to radiate pure menace. The threat of it is clear. The source of the fear, an entrance into hell. And yet it's Crucia, the one most sensitive to the magic in question, who reaches out a trembling hand, her skin pale, her eyes wide, unable to even breathe from the suffocating pressure bombarding them all, and grips the door handle.     The moment the handle *clicks*, the fear spell is gone. The release as the roar of their own blood (or any equivalent that Digimon may possess) that had sounded like the growl of a titantic monster becomes secondary to all the sounds of the city, of the fire alarm, to the organized panic down below.     Crucia is dripping with sweat, inhaling shallowly, looking like she's already fought the battle of her life just reaching the door.     The rest of them probably don't look much better, though it might be harder to tell with Golden.     Libra turns to her allies, still breathing hard, unable to even ask if they're okay as her heart jackhammers in her chest, just checking on their condition.     Paladin swallows, and then swallows again. Unable to get the lump in her throat to go away. Even with her magically-granted seeming maturity and grace, she still appears as ragged as everyone else probably feels.     Crucia pushes the handle down all the way and pushes the door open. Inside is just a collection of cubicles and offices. Hallways and doors. Computers and file cabinets. An office space. But the feeling of magic can be felt by Crucia to her left. The office right there. And the door is already open in invitation. She looks up after glancing at it, and says hoarsely, as though she'd been screaming recently, "The Time Magic's coming from up there. But there's another source of magic to our left. Which do we check out?" 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     One serious question arises here.     Has fear ever stopped Emiya Shirou?     Going by experience, no, if anything he seems to have the opposite reaction. Scary dangerous things that will get people hurt?!     His first instinct has proven to be 'keep it away from others.'     Instead of freaking out and running AWAY, he runs AT IT. Oh sure, he slashes at nothing here and there with beads of sweat gathering everywhere on his skin. But a few clumsy swipes or no, he CHARGES, hoping to be ready for WHATEVER IS COMING that might hurt the magical girls here.     But upon reaching the door, he's still in a cold sweat, shivering where he stands.     Until the spell's broken, then he just sort of wobbles, catches his breath, and heaves out, "No splitting up. Let's check the nearest thing first. That way if it's somebody they can't flank us."     He HAS been paying attention to Bedivere's tactics. 

:'''{{#var:782|Golden (782)}} has posed:'''     Golden is well acquainted with fear. He does feel fear, and is feeling it now. Except that it never stops him from acting, and it certainly doesn't show. After all, in his native world, one must earn a crest by embodying the virtues of that crest.     As the fear spell affects him, the Crest of Courage begins to glow brighter, beacon-like. There's also a change in Golden's demeanor as the crest acts up, more confidence, a more deliberate bearing in his mannerisms. The visual glitches seem to also become more prevalent and pronounced, like something is readying itself to emerge.     He turns to his allies and says "If you're afraid, just follow me. I'm going left to take out whomever is doing this." in a very even calm voice. 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     Libra nods approvingly at Shirou's tactical decision, but also agrees with Golden that they shouldn't leave the office unattended and risk being ambushed from behind. Crucia seems to be on her last legs, so Paladin picks her up in her arms to carry her.     "Golden," Princess Paladin starts. "You seem to be the one least effected by that spell. The rest of us have had a harder time physiologically. Could you please be the first one to enter? I don't necessarily want to use you as a shield, but honestly, you'd be more likely to be able to defend yourself than we would. We need a moment to recover, and not a lot of time to do it within. We will be RIGHT behind you."     And they will be. If Golden does as requested, with Shirou most likely guarding their backs, then they will all follow him into the office, where they find... A rather high-quality office, with a big oak desk, and shelves full of books, and a man of uncertain ethnicity seated behind it, wearing a pair of gold-rimmed glasses on a chain. He is wearing a business suit. His hair is slicked back, but with some loose strands at the front. He is the source of the not-Time Magic. And his hair is the same color as Crucia's... The same color as Kiko's.     Hair like smoke.     The man smiles at the robotic-looking Digimon, and then the magical girls and magus that follow after. When he catches sight of Crucia Hex, he smiles wider and squints his eyes.     "Hello, sister."     Crucia lets out a shuddering breath as she rests in Paladin's arms, and replies, "Hello, older brother." 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     Indeed, Shirou's one of the last to enter. "..?" Blink blink. The exchange between an exhausted Crucia and this unknown mage(?) does not go unnoticed, nor does the resemblance. "B.. BROTHER?!" He's standing up straight as an arrow now, still clasping his twin weapons and drenched in his own sweat. Darn that ward!     This just got a WHOLE lot more complicated. 

}}

2295/Legendary Fight: Evil Ocean

2015-06-08T09:24:10Z

Paladine: Created page with "{{Log Header |Date of Scene=2015/05/21 |Location=Mushroom War Earth <MWE> |Synopsis=Environmental correction experiments lead to the discovery of just how gunked up the ocean ..."

{{Log Header
|Date of Scene=2015/05/21
|Location=Mushroom War Earth <MWE>
|Synopsis=Environmental correction experiments lead to the discovery of just how gunked up the ocean is on Simon's planet.
|Thanks=
|Cast of Characters=6, 42, 279, 622, 768
|Tinyplot=
|Tinyplot2=
|pretty=yes
}}
{{Poses
|Poses=:'''{{#var:622|Simon Petrikov (622)}} has posed:'''     The Earth that Simon comes from is a not a very nice place. The skies are grey with clouds of ash, the temperature has been falling steadily since the nuclear war, the terrain has been ravaged by disasters man-made, natural, and supernatural, and there is not a single human to be seen anywhere. Un-altered wildlife exists, but is scarce, with mutations and nightmares-made-flesh being on the rise in population.     The whispering shadows that had hunted several Union members are an example of one such monster. But there are others. Magic is returning to Earth following what will become known in later centuries as the 'Mushroom War', and it is coming back with a vengeance. Once or twice, Simon himself has witnessed what he believed to be flying saucers and laser battles in the clouds at night, and rainbow-hued snakey-looking things.     Being back here, on this totally gunked up Earth, is not a pleasant experience for Simon Petrikov, but he figures just leaving it the way it is isn't good either. This IS his homeworld after all. And somewhere out there, his Princess might still be alive too.     The nature of the problem he has called others out to help with this time is that his attempts at using Science to detoxify various bodies of water has not been going great. He thinks there may be some kind of pollutant in the ocean that keeps re-contaniminating other water sources. So the solution is to try to clean up the whole ocean! Of course, before they can do that, they need to figure out what the source of the contamination is, and how to fix it.     Simon is still working on the first part, but he is running tests right now. And, being as dangerous as this world is, having some protection along seems prudent.     Bottles and beakers and bunson burners and other baboratory I mean laboratory things are all situated on a hill overlooking the ocean. The grass is grey and dead-looking, and there's the ruins of a coastal town visible in the distance. The ocean itself seems to likewise be grey-green and brackish. The limited light doesn't help at all.     Simon is wearing a sleeveless vest over a white button-up shirt, with beige slacks and dress shoes. His white hair is pulled up and back into a ponytail as he pours a single drop from a red bottle into a bottle of clear fluid in his other hand. "Theeerrre we go." The clear fluid turns a muddy orange.     "Right, just like thaaaat..." He mixes the orange fluid with a glass rod until it takes on a more pumpkin-like orange coloration, then he starts speed-walking his way towards the beach. "Alright! Time to see if this works!" He pauses long enough to wave to those who have come and gesture them to follow. "Uh, might want to watch my back. No telling what might happen!"     Cheerfully, he calls out, "Mind the skulls!" as he hops over a ridge and lands on the grey sand. Which apparently has skulls and bones sticking out of it. 

:'''{{#var:768|Cory (768)}} has posed:'''     While a few here might've been sciencing up a storm on this dismal place, Cory's been roaming around. By now there's no telling just how many laps around the region she's made - probably 4 or 5? - or how many weird mutant monsters she's been scoping out or derelect old buildings she's poked her head into, only to get freaked out by something weird and chased into the skies once again.     Yeah, she dropped in periodically, always keeping an eye on the Simon the Science Guy in case anything jumps out (and in fact, almost hoping it did for the sake of a decent workout or maybe a good meal...) but only NOW does she descend from the skies and land on the beach between some skulls.     "Finally I get to see what you've been up to, right?!" 

:'''{{#var:42|Staren (42)}} has posed:'''     The Earth that Simon comes from is like looking into the past.     Was this what his world was like after the Coming of the RIFTS? He's glad he's got advanced technology to protect him and allow him to fight this world's evils -- he supposes that puts him in the same position as the legendary Glitter Boys of old.     Staren isn't wearing his own armor at the moment /only/ because he has a proto-abstractum henshin that can /become/ armor at a moment's notice. In these environs he doesn't feel safe without protection. A squad of five of his metal unicorn golems stand watch around the perimeter of Simon's work area. Staren is following Simon's work, trying to keep up and helping with tasks when Simon can tell him what to do. He's not a chemist, but he knows some basic things about chemistry, and can pull up references in his HUD with a thought. During the more boring bits of waiting for things to heat up or precipitate or, heavens help us, /titrate/, he works on a nanoprogramming solution. Just in case this doesn't work, he may in time be able to program nanomachines to find and eliminate the toxin. Program other nanomachines to make /more/ of themselves and /those/ nanomachines, and maybe in time it can clean the ocean...     But right now, Simon is ready! Staren watches the final step, then follows quickly. When they reach the beach, he pulls on the goggles Ainsley gave him, just in case. Just in case what, he's not sure, but it's always good to be safe! 

:'''{{#var:279|Maxine Sandberg (279)}} has posed:''' Maxine sent out Maxi for this mission, she rather not expose herself to heavy amounts of radiation even with protection. Of course she's not a nuclear physicist so what she might be able to added to this is limited. Of course she's instantly concerned as she what's left from the nuclear war. Marceline lives in a place like this? Of course that leads to more questions about what's going on. She follows behind them keeping a bit distance just to be safe. 

:'''{{#var:6|Tomoe (6)}} has posed:''' Tomoe knew Simon's home was not a very nice place. There's a reason why she'd never set foot on it in the flesh. She was here as her Alf self looking perhap sin some way more fitting. She gets the idea to purge the water of toxins for whatever life remains was a good one. She also had her translucent wings out and she followed along after Simon hoping her skills at fighting would not be needed. "So let's see what happens and thanks." she's just going to hover a bit above the ground now her wings flapping a bit to keep her aloft. 

:'''{{#var:622|Simon Petrikov (622)}} has posed:'''     "Thanks again for coming out here, guys!" Simon offers as he picks his away across the beach. Aside from human bones, there's also a steel girder half-buried in the sand, and a statue of a man on a horse, a shattered rowboat and various other random bits and pieces of human civilization. "Even with Evergreen, I'm not really up to taking on any monsters here." Simon finally makes it down to a little bit away from the water's edge, where he has a machine that looks like it was based off of a coffee maker set up.     "And yeah, let's just hope it works, Cory!" The blue-skinned antiquarian-turned-scientist crouches down and pours a little bit of the orange solution from the bottle into the filter of the device! ...Or he starts to, but then the tide flows up the beach and Simon has to snatch up his machine and back up a few steps. Laughing nervously he says, "Haha! Whoopsie daisy! Was a little too close there!" He stops, and sets down the machine again. When he goes to pour again, he looks up at the sound of the ocean and has to once more pick up the device and back up to avoid the tide coming in. He isn't smiling anymore.     When he goes to put it back down again, he doesn't even get as far as the bottle this time before the water flows up the beach towards him. Simon frowns and backs up some more. He only gets as far as bending over this time before the tide threatens and forces up to back up until he trips over some skulls and lands on the slope of the hill he has all his equipment on.     "Oof! What the cabbage!?" he offers as he tries to keep both his filtering device and the bottle from getting broken or dumped.     Then the waves that have advanced all the way up the shore towards them retreat back into the ocean.     Anyone else who didn't back up when Simon did is likely to have some very wet feet now. Wet with icky, gross water, too.     Simon pauses. Glances right, glances left, blinks a bit. And then makes as though he's going to pour the bottle only to let out a, "NyaAAAHAH!" As he has to flip over, and scramble on his hands and knees up onto the hill proper to escape a five-foot wall of grey water that smashes into the place he was just resting.     "What's going on here!?" Simon calls out rhetorically, as the wave retreats back to the ocean and then swells with even more water, which forms into a giant hand.     "...Ooooookaaaaaaay." 

:'''{{#var:42|Staren (42)}} has posed:'''     Staren moves back when Simon does, the first time. The second time, he moves back again, but frowns. "Is the tide supposed to come in that fast?" he asks. When the water goes for Simon, Staren reaches into his bag, pulls out a rod which expands into his staff, and produces brief firehose-like spray of clean water to push the seawater(?) away from Simon. "Simon!" he shouts as the larger wave comes for him, while getting back -- he doesn't think Hydro Pump can deflect that much!     Staren turns towards the ocean. "You wanna /fight/, Ocean?!" The catboy shouts as he deploys his armor. He wonders what's in the water, and how much he could vaporize with the plasma missiles he /forgot to bring today/ goddammit.     The ocean forms a giant hand.     Staren stares. "Holy shit, it /does/ want to fight." Surprise doesn't distract him for long, though -- after a second of staring, the tip of his staff reconfigures from a nozzle to to a more magical-looking assembly and fires a tiny bead of condensed energy at the hand, hoping it will penetrate inside before it explodes in a massive fireball! 

:'''{{#var:279|Maxine Sandberg (279)}} has posed:''' Maxi gasps as she gets a better look at what happened here. She's a bit surprised anyone was able to survive what happened. She watches as the tide is drawn to the device "Is the water trying to destroy your filter?" It looks like that's what's going onto her. Good thing she kept some distance, Maxi can handle some water but getting pulled into the ocean would certainly cause trouble. Is the water alive itself, or is it possessed? She's here more to study what's going on Simon's world and to study any technology that might be left behind then fight. 

:'''{{#var:768|Cory (768)}} has posed:'''     "Scissors!"     With a hand of water rising out of the ocean, Cory's first impulse is to ROCK-PAPER-SCISSORS, just for the hell of it. So yeah, she just a hand out with the classic scissors gesture, but quickly retracts it... AND her tail, which wraps around her waist in a hurry.     Then the fact that it's a GIANT WATER hand really sinks in, and she doubletakes. "... Wait, what the sludge?"     She ends up landing in front of Simon, with one arm extended for the hand with a similar gesture to its own. The main difference is...     Her open palm glows and shimmers. The tiniest spark of light emerges from her skin and expands slowly, casting a blue-white light over the waves. In a few moments the tiny spark's become a baseball-sized sphere of Ki and it's continuing to balloon outward, if slowly.     "okay hold up, hold up! Words are supposed to come before fists! .. Am I talking to an ocean?! ... Does it even know how to talk?" 

:'''{{#var:6|Tomoe (6)}} has posed:''' Tomoe says "I'm happy to help Simon and ya this is a post nuclear nightmare. I'd not want to be out here alone either." She thinks for a moment as she looks over thing as SImon gets ready to work. She watches but she's got her sword at the ready and this is a good thing too. AS something happens but it's too fast for her to tract. She swears and moves in to try and guard Simon as best she can. 

:'''{{#var:622|Simon Petrikov (622)}} has posed:'''     Staren's energy ball explodes inside of the hand, leaving a hole in the palm where there used to be water. The hand wiggles its fingers a bit, reaches them down to inspect the hole by touch, then seems to be flexing or something until more water flows up to fill the empty space. It's a hand made of water in the ocean. Finding replacement water isn't difficult.     Simon turns to Maxi and says, "Looks like it. I'm actually... Kind of already over it." Being on this world and then the Multiverse, has already made him accept that this is what's happening right now. The bizarreness is not as bizarre as it would have been if he was still just a normal dude in a non-apocalyptic world. To both Maxi and Staren, Simon says, "I haven't seen this reaction before in my testing. I think whatever I have in the bottle must be the real deal if some kind of intelligent force is trying to prevent it! ...Though maybe we should figure out if it's actually dangerous or not. It could just be defending itself, right?"     Cory's attempt to communicate with the hand turns out in an unexpected manner. It moves as though in response to Cory's rock-paper-scissors, by forming a fist. Rock, right? But the fist is upside-down. And there's a middle finger extended.     How rude! When Cory starts gathering energy to attack, the rude gesture is replaced with the hand flowing and shifting its form into an open palm aimed at the group on the shore, in a mimicry of what Cory is doing. Huge waves start to roll in behind the hand, the surface of the ocean going from 'choppy' to 'the way the ocean looks in stormy weather, only without a storm'. The rumble of the ocean vibrates the beach as all the water flows into that hand, and enlarges it until it is as tall as a skyscraper.     Simon just looks up and up and up until he actually falls backwards because he can't tilt his head at that angle. Even with Tomoe and Cory in front of him, and Staren ready with his magical energy bullet, it kiiiiiiind of looks like they might be a LITTLE bit outmatched.     Water begins to build up into a giant ball in the palm of the watery hand, continuing to mimic Cory's maneuver. It's swirling with a gross black and green ooze.     "Hey, man! Hey! We don't want any trouble!" Simon insist, waving his hands frantically as he lies on his back.     The watery hand hesitates with its city-block-sized ball of water.     "We're just trying to clean up the ocean a bit-"     The hand twitches and then releases the giant globe right at the group! 

:'''{{#var:768|Cory (768)}} has posed:'''     "Good grief! What the hell's in that miracle mix of yours, science guy?!" Cory blurts, standing wide-eyed before an onrushing wave. her Ki blast falters from lack of concentration, but in comes that blast while it's petering out!     "You've GOT to be kidding!"     Filmy light extends from her outstretched hand moments later, forming a spherical barrier around her, Tomoe, and Simon. It's not much of one, but it survives the first few seconds of impact before collapsing. With a glubby shriek Cory's flung backwards and upwards, slammed against the beach and goes tumbling through all the waves, bashed against boulders and skulls and debris of all kinds... but then...     Rays of crimson light spear up through murk and rip some of it apart. A drenched, waterlogged, and rather soggy Cory erupts like a meteor in reverse, wreathed in an intense red aura. Her muscles ripple and hair's whipping about wildly... no doubt what this is, right?     "KAIOKEN TIMES NINE!"     And without any further ado... "Screw you too! HAAAAAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYYAYAYAY--"     The screaming continues seemingly ENDLESSLY, because each syllable punctuates Cory thrusting an arm forward and back like a piston, launching volley after volley of small Ki bolts, each with tremendous explosive power packed in them! 

:'''{{#var:279|Maxine Sandberg (279)}} has posed:''' Maxi watches as the watery hand flip off Cory, so much for trying to reason with it. It seems like the ocean's trying to kill them, which isn't quite what she was expecting. Neither was a massive globe of water. She tries to dodge it, but it's simply too large and the impact knocks the robot over. A shower of sparks go flying about as she pulls herself back onto her feet. "This is certainly an odd form of water pollution." She reaches around inside of her lab coat, trying to find something that might have an effect against water before producing a tear gas grenade and lobbing it in the water. 

:'''{{#var:6|Tomoe (6)}} has posed:''' Tomoe is getting hte idea they might be a bit in over hteir head she ownders about the nature of this stuff doe sit have a mind of it's own? She's nto sure but she's now got her blade out and seems ready for a fight yet it's becoming clear they may be indeed out matched. "Simon...I think w're a bit out classed!" She is already chanting now attemping to send a burst of fire into the thing as it comes after her and everyone else. 

:'''{{#var:42|Staren (42)}} has posed:'''     Staren doesn't think he's actually fighting the /ocean/. This is just a hostile water elemental or something.     Still, at the ocean is about the worst place to fight a water elemental. Well, at least they're on the shore and not a boat.     Hmm. The hand was slow to reform. Maybe they /can/ destroy it all at once, if only they knew where it was... but Staren can't keep doing that -- he's used up most of his PPE reserve powering his staff, and even his spare spirit battery probably won't let him throw enough fireballs. At least, he doesn't think he can count on it being enough to destroy this thing. The staff collapses, and Staren puts it into the bag, his hand coming out with the most stereotypical magic wand ever, a stick with a star-shape on the end and clear crystals built into it.     Cory and Simon point out that they should consider diplomacy. The ocean /flips her off/. And then the waves feed into it.     "How much of the ocean can this thing control at once?!" When the hand starts /growing/ over a storey tall, he starts rapidly swinging the wand this way and that, creating smaller fireballs with more concussive force. It's probably only slowing down its growth at best, though.     When the water ball is flung, Staren just turns and /tackles/ Simon to the ground, his personal forcefield extending around them. Cory's a saiyan, Maxine's a remote-controlled droid and Tomoe's an avatar, they'll have to deal. Thanks to Cory's barrier taking the brunt of the force, Staren's forcefield, which really isn't designed for this sort of thing at all, doesn't collapse until the worst has passed.     Staren puts an arm around Simon and tries to wade out of the water. He can only hope they don't get caught in some killer undertow... 

:'''{{#var:622|Simon Petrikov (622)}} has posed:'''     Tomoe's fireball is consumed in the water bomb, but doesn't seem to have done much except disrupt the surface. When it hits, it hits with the impact of several dozen olympic-sized pools being dumped on them, a roar of water that drowns out all other sounds.     Simon is tackled to the ground! "Oof!" With the combination of Staren's force field and Cory's barrier, he seems to be okay at least, but the entire beach is submerged now and the dead fields surrounding them have been flooded and turned into a filthy marsh.     Simon looks towards Maxi and calls out, "Hey, are you okay?" Maybe Maxi is a remote-controlled drone, but that isn't how Simon's brain works. He wants to make sure ALL of his allies are safe, no matter who or what they are.     Staren's fireballs didn't seem to do much except get extinguished and produce some steam. The tea gas grenade from Maxi lands in the water with a *plunk*. It might be releasing gas underwater, and some of it might be drifting up from the surface, but it doesn't seem to be harming the whatever-this-is.     Then Cory goes flying up into the air engulfed in a red aura and starts bombarding the watery hand with energy blasts, blowing it apart, and causing countless eruptions of salt water along with the half-domes of Ki that cover the ocean's surface near here.     When it's over, there's a pretty hefty crater that the water nearby is flowing into, rushing to fill. And no sign of the giant hand.     Then a rumble fills the air as the surface of the ocean for as far as the eye can see begins to rise up, giant hand after giant hand forming and turning to face them. And then an absolutely titanic wave rises up behind them all, blocking out the entire horizon and then some. In the wave is a shadowy face. A pair of dark 'eyes' and a jagged, murky 'mouth'.     "...I'm going to have to agree with Tomoe on this one." Simon looks around at his trashed equipment, the water-ruined filter device, and the spilled bottle of solution. "Let's get out of here!" he suggests as she scrambles to his feet. 

:'''{{#var:279|Maxine Sandberg (279)}} has posed:''' The force field barriers shield Maxi for the most part, but she's already substained some water damage from earlier. With that and the radiation she won't be using this body for much in the near-future. Still, she would like to salavage it if possible so she goes rushing away from the water. Sparks shoot out behind her as she does so, but she knows they need to get to higher ground before extracting. 

:'''{{#var:42|Staren (42)}} has posed:'''     Cory kills the water! At least, weakens it enough so that Staren and Simon aren't pulled into the ocean. As the water recedes, Staren looks around. Did they get it?     No, the answer appears to be a very emphatic NO. This thing... whatever it is, it stretches to the very horizon! That... that is so unfair, how do you fight something like that? Visions of nanomachines and nukes swim in Staren's head, but right now is not the time.     At least it doesn't look like it'll reach them in the next few seconds. "Cory! Tomoe!" Staren calls. "Fly out of here! Simon, Maxine, to me, I'll teleport us!" Staren puts away the wand (his armor allowed him to grip it with superhuman strength so the water wouldn't rip it away) and draws out his staff again, the pieces in the head reconfiguring into a tighter, closed configuration. Together with his personal teleporter, it will allow him to bring a couple more people.     Energy flows out over their bodies, glowing softly for several seconds, and then they teleport to the warpgate. 

:'''{{#var:768|Cory (768)}} has posed:'''     Well this has gone from weird and disturbing from just plain WRONG in no time flat, Cory wants to say.     But she doesn't, because she's staring way too hard at the face that emerged while she was busy catching her breath after the assault...     "This... is someone's wacky joke, I know it!" except it isn't. She can FEEL how much it isn't.     With everyone else pulling away, she does so as well. "Seeee ya, you big drip! Learn to talk next time!"     With power still crackling around her, she rockets off through the sky but loop-de-loops around the group. If anyone needs a quick rescue she'll snag 'em up! 

:'''{{#var:6|Tomoe (6)}} has posed:''' Tomoe is just going to have to deal, well she's thankful she's got no water in her body that this thing might be able to /turn/ on her. She's likely going to end up having a very bad day all things considered. Cory does dfo a hecl of a deal to cover them she watdhes th fireball do about nothing. Okay she should have tried light sperlls as the water's now coming for it and WHAM it hits the barrier. This is something in her mind they will need a full out raid to handle. "We're going to need help now lets get going!" She was going to grab Simon but Staren's got that handled she's not got to be told twice to fly. With everyone cared for? She's going to spread he wings and take off at toop speed. Leifa eat your heart out! 

:'''{{#var:622|Simon Petrikov (622)}} has posed:'''     Teleportation! The easy way to escape! The flyers seem to likewise be successful! ...Except when the rumbling of the ocean grows louder and louder, and - even if they are outflying the waves - they may become aware that the ocean is -chasing them-. The shore is being completely torn apart, the beach is gone, the fields are gone, and the hands keep crashing down behind them as they lunge up and into the air and then come back down in fists that leave craters of polluted water. That giant tidal wave with the face is the most terrifying though, because it doesn't stop or fall apart when it runs into something. Everything simply gets washed away and drawn into itself.     It reaches the abandoned coastal resort town during its chase, and entire multi-story buildings, houses, roads, and cars, some of them with skeletons still sitting inside of them, just get picked up and flung around inside of it like they are no more than toys. However, a saiyan and a digital avatar seem to move too fast for even the ocean to keep up with, and eventually, it seems to give up.     Its mouth is downturned, its eyes down at an angle, as it sinks back down to a more level surface. It doesn't retreat though. The coast of the continent they're on is going to need the maps redrawn on it, because the coast isn't where it used to be.     When they get to the Warp Gate, situated nearby a Union quarantine center where Simon and Marcy lived for awhile after their unification, Cory and Tomoe should find Simon, Maxi, and Staren to be okay! A bit shaken up, maybe, but totally fine! ...Except Maxi, who may need some repairs.     "So!" Simon begins as he claps his hands together. "I'm thinking... Maybe focus on fixing some other problems first before coming back to this one. Yeah? Sound good? I thought so!" He nods enthusiastically and then starts shakily making his way towards the Warp Gate and OFF this planet.     But some day... They might be able to go Round Two with The Ocean! 

}}

2398/Legendary Fight: Fight King

2015-06-08T09:20:41Z

Paladine: Created page with "{{Log Header |Date of Scene=2015/06/07 |Location=Mushroom War Earth <MWE> |Synopsis=While exploring the desolate wilderness of Ohio, various people come across a weird colisse..."

{{Log Header
|Date of Scene=2015/06/07
|Location=Mushroom War Earth <MWE>
|Synopsis=While exploring the desolate wilderness of Ohio, various people come across a weird colisseum...
|Thanks=
|Cast of Characters=6, 42, 622, 678, 756, 760, 768
|Tinyplot=
|Tinyplot2=
|pretty=yes
}}
{{Poses
|Poses=:'''{{#var:622|Simon Petrikov (622)}} has posed:'''     The last time people came to this Earth trying to fix things, they had to fight The Entire Ocean (Only Evil). It didn't go terribly well, but they did discover why attempts to fix it weren't working, which is definite progress! Now, they are nowhere near the ocean, just exploring this crazy messed up Earth and trying to figure out if there's anything slightly easier to fix. Because srsly, whole ocean. Totally evil. Not happening any time soon.     Where are Simon and crew now but the exotic and dangerous wilderness of... OHIO!     While passing by Lake Eerie, with Simon having to fight the habit of checking dirty tin cans found lying around or rooting through trash for anything useful, the antiquarian-turned scientist looks up from checking his map to see if they're getting close to Niagra Falls or not (because a functioning hydroelectric plant would be really useful for getting civilization up and running again), to find there's a huge coliseum sitting across a small land bridge out over Eerie's waters. He turns his head to look over his shoulder as if expecting to find an explanation of why the the coliseum is there behind him. When he finds nothing of the sort, he looks over to the coliseum and says, "Heh. I wonder what coliseum THAT is! It's like old as garlic balls!" Then, smiling, he starts ticking off on his fingers and muttering under his breath. "Richfield Coliseum... Taft Coliseum... .... ...." The smile slips away and his eyebrows come down as everything clicks into place.     "...Hey, that's no Ohio Expo Center! And it sure doesn't belong out in the middle of a lake even if it was! What gives!?" 

:'''{{#var:756|Shin Tokuyama (756)}} has posed:'''     Shin's here! There's no actual reason for Shin being here, beyond simple tourism and his desire to see strange new places. He rides along across the country-side on an asian-style motorcycle that moves pretty fast and pretty agile against the terrain despite its small size and the unusual world.     He does have a passenger with him, having kidnapped a wayward maiden from a life of boredom and scientists (at least for a day). He brings the bike to a stop at one of the hills and looks over the area, "Oh wow! That place looks pretty cool! We should try there!" Shin says, spotting the colosseum as he moves over the top of a hill.     He almost immediately guns the engine to head off that way. 

:'''{{#var:760|Allenby Beardsley (760)}} has posed:'''     If this is a kidnapping, Allenby's going to have to do it way more often.     Seated on the back of the motorcycle, gripped onto Shin from behind, Allenby seems enamored with watching the scenery go by, which reminds her of what might be two stages down the road on her Earth someday. She's not the type to take pictures, though, especially if they could be found later as evidence that Allenby vanished off somewhere with some guy. Probably for the best-her team has started getting a little wary of her meeting all these people, especially those that aren't allied with the Confederacy.     "Huh? Whoah, reminds me of an arena." she nudges him with an elbow, "Sure, let's go." 

:'''{{#var:678|Rock Lee (678)}} has posed:''' How Rock Lee figured out that various fighters from around the Multiverse were converging on one spot, that's a ninja secret! But he's here, jogging very quickly toward the colosseum. He has no idea what's in there, or if anyone else might know what's in there, or anything else. But jogging towards it seems like the best course of action for the moment. 

:'''{{#var:6|Tomoe (6)}} has posed:''' Tomoe had to yes fight an evil ocean and it didn't go well. So if the old wya of doing things isn't going to work she may end up being able to help elsewhere right? So that's what she's thinking and it should be easier helping Simon out here hpopefully she could aid with it. Sghe hears the namd nodding for a moment. "I know both of those and humm I have no idea simon I blame the clamity here myself to be honest." 

:'''{{#var:42|Staren (42)}} has posed:'''     'Garlic balls?' Staren echoes. He appears to be wearing heavy, metallic armor, painted red. In truth, he's still in his robotic body that he transferred into for yesterday's mission. Honestly, Simon's Earth is so dangerous... it seemed like he may as well stay in another day.     "That... okay, a building in a lake? That's pretty strange... And a coliseum in the middle of nowhere? How did... how did anyone get the resources to /build/ this?" Staren starts running after the others. It's not like this body gets tired... 

:'''{{#var:768|Cory (768)}} has posed:'''     And where's Chikorri in this mess? Why, flying overhead. She's been sticking with Simon for a few hours of wandering, just staying nearby in case anything happened. Normally she'd be far too bored for such an event, but the random freaky creature and shiny thing getting her attention's kept that at bay.     Were things normal she'd have dropped by Simon by now for another check-in to make sure nothing's molesting him out here, but since a few presences have appeared up nearby... "OOOOOOH!"     SWOOOOOOOOOOP! Sure, there's Shin and Allenby over there on a joyride, but looking at them gets her frowning twitchily. Instead she drops in on... ROCK LEE!     "Hyyaaaaaahoooooooooooooo!!" And by dropping in on, that means TACKLE FROM BEHIND in full horizontal flight. He might be carried a few hundred feet by the cheery Saiyan as a bit of a good-natured prank!...     Towards the way he was going, anyways. 

:'''{{#var:678|Rock Lee (678)}} has posed:''' "Waaaaaaaaaaah!" Lee yells as he's suddenly carried into the air, flailing around until he looks up to realize who's carrying him. "Oh, it is Miss Chikkori! Do you know what that thing is over there?" he asks as he points to the building on the lake. "I heard that strong multiversal fighters were gathering for reasons that they do not understand!" 

:'''{{#var:622|Simon Petrikov (622)}} has posed:'''     No one here really came here to fight, actually! Because no one even knew this was here, and regardless of what group they were part of, they were mainly just exploring this ravaged, and broken world! But that probably makes no sense to Rock Lee, international ninja of mystery. He fights where he wants! On the other hand, Simon is more focused on the coliseum and the inquiries Staren made about it. "Pretty sure it wasn't there before the world ended. It looks WAY old. Older than my grandmother, even. We should be careful about approaching it... Like Tomoe pointed out, brand new ancient ruins seems..." His eyes narrow to slits. "...-Suspicious.-"     The sound of a motorcycle in this creepily quiet wasteland can be heard for miles, and Simon turns to face it. But then there's some yelling Cory over in the distance, and that startles him into looking THAT way intead. Just in time to spot... Some... guy! Who Cory seems to know. Good, because he thought for a sec Cory was attacking a survivor of the apocalypse. As it is, he turns his attention back on the motorcycle-riding pair. Are THEY survivors!?     He waves a hand and calls out to them, ordinarily more prone to being cautious, but with this much back-up, he should be safe, right? "Hellloooo! Are you terribly mutated monsters or anything?" 

:'''{{#var:42|Staren (42)}} has posed:'''     "On my world," Staren replies, "There are ocasionally dimensional storms. Though rare, it's sometimes possible for an area of space to basically be swapped with an area from another world. So an ancient coliseum /could/ have been... well, unified, from an entirely different world." 

:'''{{#var:768|Cory (768)}} has posed:'''     In the air, but only a few dozen feet up! And Chikorri will let Rock Lee back down after the surprise is over with. She herself flips around in the air after doing so and lands near him and Simon and the others, still grinning like a fool. "I'd just head over and check it out. But hey Lee, how could you've heard anything? We only just got here... and they weren't invited!"     'They' meaning the fingerwaggle she does Shin and Alennby's way. It's a bit more accusational-looking than she actually means. 

:'''{{#var:678|Rock Lee (678)}} has posed:''' "That is a ninja secret! There are strong people here, so I am here!" Lee says as he seems to leave it at that, slowly walking toward the Colosseum. He doesn't seem intent on waiting for the others. "Let's go see what's in there!" 

:'''{{#var:756|Shin Tokuyama (756)}} has posed:'''     "Don't be jealous!" Shin shouts at Cory in a bland tone as he pulls the bike to a stop and lets it idle, adjusting the sunglasses he's wearing over his eyes as he looks towards the arena ahead of them, "I think she's jealous of you," He asides to Allenby as he looks back over his shoulder at her.     "I am not a terribly mutated monster! I'm a human! Though if I was a monster in this story, I'd tell you I was a human to get close enough, then reveal I was a monster dramatically. But I'm not a monster, that won't happen, and I'm just a human named Shin so hi!" 

:'''{{#var:6|Tomoe (6)}} has posed:''' Tomoe looks to Simon nodding for a moment and she ponders. "If it's looking this good it may very well be in use at the moment. She seems to be very curious about this place and then others are coming she notices Cory arrival with a bit of a grin and she looks to STaren nodding for a moment. "Lovely we'll find out once we stick our noses in here. Come on lets have a little adventure shall we?" She looks at Shin for a moment and smirks. "Don't mind me I'm just a fairy in half plate, Shin. I'm Tomoe." 

:'''{{#var:760|Allenby Beardsley (760)}} has posed:'''     "Jealous? What, because I'm grabbing you?" Allenby seems delightfully confused by this as she peers over her shoulder, "Oh hey, it's Lee! I wonder what he's doing here." She swings a leg over the bike as she hops off of it with Shin.     "I'm not a mutant either! All my doctors assure me that I am perfectly human!" Allenby shouts back. She's pretty good at shouting-all Gundam Fighters are. 

:'''{{#var:622|Simon Petrikov (622)}} has posed:'''     Simon nods his head and strokes his beard a bit. "Hmm... All very good points." Whether he's responding to Staren's theory of dimensional transplanting of places, or Shin's assertion of how a monster would act, or Tomoe's idea it might still be in-use despite its current condition, and everyone basically seeming to be behind the idea of checking the place out, is unclear. Maybe all of those. "Well, I'm Simon, and it's nice to meet you, Shin and Allenby! Let's be careful and definitely not just charge into that arena alone or anything! We can always look at the place up-close first without actually going inside!" He shrugs and holds his hands palms as he reminds them, "We don't want to get trapped in there or anything, and were aren't necessarily looking to fight if someone lives there!"     Then he looks over and Rock Lee is already half-way across the land bridge, running off alone. "Dag! What did I just say!?" He hurries after the ninja, sticking his map into a pocket of his backpack while he runs.     Simon may not look very human himself, what with his blue skin, long nose, and sharp teeth, but he's in the company of... A robot, some kind of self-identified fairy, and an alien. And also That Guy who is running off. So he's probably completely normal, right?     As Lee approaches the arena, he'll find it's pretty dilapidated. Kind of slumping over to one side in places. There's multiple arch-shaped entrances that lead into tunnel-like passages which in turn lead out onto an arena floor. While Simon is trying to catch up, if Lee goes into one of those tunnels before the others get there, he may find the arena floor is mostly a large, desolate bunch of dirt and dust, with swords and weapons scattered around, planted in the ground. Also rocks, some pillars, and a large, black stone throne in the center. 

:'''{{#var:768|Cory (768)}} has posed:'''     "Who are you calling jealous?!" Chikorri blurts, balling up both fists and glaring at Shin while floating a foot off the ground, both arms pointed straight at the ground. Her expression's pretty clear: NOW she's steamed!     "This is what you get up to while ignoring my challenge?!"     But by the time she's wasted on this, Rocck Lee's gone running off. She blinks a few times and-- "Heeeeeey, wait up!"     Rockets off after him, engulfed in flaring white Ki! 

:'''{{#var:678|Rock Lee (678)}} has posed:''' Lee does indeed enter. As a ninja, his eyes are constantly open for traps and people lurking in the shadows. But once he's in the arena he simply stands there with his arms crossed. He doesn't move, he waits. For what? Who knows! A long time ago, perhaps Might Guy taught him that if something strange doesn't seem strange, wait for it to be strange. 

:'''{{#var:756|Shin Tokuyama (756)}} has posed:'''     "I told you, I'll fight you when you learn restraint! We had a whole big long discussion about this one time," Shin says pretty calmly. He leaves his bike, but takes his backpack and keys with him as he goes.     He sets off into a jog as Simon gets going, giving Tomoe a nod before he goes, "Nice to meetcha." And then over his shoulder, "Come on, Allenby! We should probably get going. Can't let the other people have all the fun, yeah?"     And then it's a pretty casual jog as Shin keeps pace with Simon, asking, "So what's the haps here? Quest? Cartography? General Fight Vacation?" 

:'''{{#var:760|Allenby Beardsley (760)}} has posed:'''     "Oh, huh, she seems kind of mad at /you/ actually." Allenby says, surprised at the Saiyan's reaction. Seeing said Saiyan approach (but fortunately get waylaid by Lee a little), Allenby turns and runs after Shin, catching up easily and following with a liesurely pace.     "Tourism?" Allenby adds to Shin's question, "'cause that's why we're here." 

:'''{{#var:6|Tomoe (6)}} has posed:''' Tomoe wouldn't be shocked it's an mostly intact place in a nuked out world. The means to build large building are not exactly easy to come by right? So she keeps on guard for hte moment as she sizes the other totally not a mutants like allenby. She looks to Rock Lee as he's heading off ahead. She'll look to Shin for a moment smirk flare up her wings and fly along the brindge to catch up with the others. 

:'''{{#var:42|Staren (42)}} has posed:'''     After stopping to pose theories to Simon, Staren's run off too actually (this body is fast, actually, running at nearly a hundred miles an hour!), possibly to keep an eye on Rock. "Hey!" he calls, but Rock's already gone in. Staren follows -- but stops when he spies a mysterious green forcefield flickering over the entrance. Looking around for the source, he calls in, "Rock, get out here! We should wait for the others, and there's something funny about these doorways!" 

:'''{{#var:622|Simon Petrikov (622)}} has posed:'''     "Oh my gosh did he just run in!?" Simon yells as Rock Lee not only doesn't wait for the others to catch up but also goes inside the arena entirely. "WAIT FOR US, YOU -BUTT-!" the blue-skinned guy yells as he pants for breath, talking to the much less breathless Shin along the way. "Earth blew up! Trying to fix it! Exploring! Looking for... Power plant! See about... Getting it... Running! Restart..." he slows down his pace as he starts wheezing a bit. Dear lord how did he get this out of shape!? He used to run for his life regularly here! Must be all that easy living that comes with not struggling to survive every day! "...Civilization! *WHEEEZE*" He coughs and hacks a few times as he finally comes to a stop outside.     He looks up at the arena, and sees some freaky slimey energy stuff engulfing the place and rising up into the sky. There are faces in it.     Of course, probably no one else here has Wizard Eyes, so they are likely not seeing the spiritual gunk all over the place, but Simon sure as heck can! "I'm... Not going in there. This is obviously a dangerous place." he asserts, as he catches his breath. "I'll, uhh... Hang back and... Inspect the place from the outside. You know? Make sure everything's on the up-and-up."     There are Glowing Green Barriers at the exits of the tunnels leading into the arena. They keep flickering in and out of sight, but always in the same places. Rock Lee, in his rush, may have passed through one to go inside without noticing in that moment between flickers, but thankfully, Staren has stopped short to try to convince Lee to come back.     But there's still the problem of that throne, and who is on it. A decayed corpse or mummified body with pitch-black skin and only one eye sits upon the throne, with a crown floating over his head. He has an axe strapped to his back and a gigantic rune-inscribed sword glowing at his side. He lifts the sword and yells, "Fighters! FIGHTerrrss! Seek your glooRRRRY from the F-f-Fight KINGGG?" He bangs on an old iron bell nearby with the sword to emphasize his question. 

:'''{{#var:42|Staren (42)}} has posed:'''     Okay, so Simon sees ghost gunk and Staren doesn't, but that doesn't mean it's not there. Also... there's a 'Fight King' in there asking for challengers. Well, it's clear what Rock's gonna do... and to be fair, Rock is /good/ at it, so he'll probably be fine. In the meantime, Staren examines the exterior of the coliseum, around the archway. Simon's not the only one with special eyes -- Scanners for the presence and rough power level of magic, for lifesigns, dimensional distortions, and ki are built into this body, as well as more mundane things like electric and magnetic fields, radiation, and t-ray emitters. Maybe he'll be able to find something that sheds a little more light on the situation, before he and the others take further action. 

:'''{{#var:756|Shin Tokuyama (756)}} has posed:'''     "Well I guess she's mad at me for hanging out with you instead of fighting her. But I totally explained why to her. So I think she's using it as an excuse to be jealous of you after that conversation we had on the broadband," Shin theorizes to Allenby, speaking pretty frankly about the whole matter. He's in great shape, so he's hardly out of breath as they arrive at the crazy arena.     "Wow, sounds crazy about the wrecked civilization. You should take donations like on the television. Maybe people will help you set up NEW power plants so you don't have to come out here into Creepsville," He ponders, casually running along before they all reach the area.     "Wooooooah. Whaaaaaaat?" He asks in wonder, not sure what to make out of the full situation. 

:'''{{#var:6|Tomoe (6)}} has posed:''' Tomoe has watched Rock Lee run in like an infamous player of MMORPGs from her worldIt's too late not as she heads in after the others. She know it's dangeorus but she's well a bit on the wreckless side she's dispsable and in a way that was really liberating well until she ends up and the guy starts calling things out. "Okay so this is a fighting pit wait what?! Who are we suposed to fight?" 

:'''{{#var:760|Allenby Beardsley (760)}} has posed:'''     "Oh. Huh. That's it...?" Allenby, ruining things for EVERYONE. Especially other girls. "Well if she wants to fight me about it..." she trails off, easily keeping pace with Shin. She does notice the flickering green energy up ahead, blinking on and off at the entrance to the arena.     But alongside Shin, she passes through it as it blinks off, unimpeded and soon out facing the mummified FIGHT KING.     "...OH! So you want a fight, then, eh? Okay. We can fight!" 

:'''{{#var:768|Cory (768)}} has posed:'''     If anyone was expecting Chikorri to stop, well... they'd be wrong. Like heck is she going to let Lee do all the exploring before she can! She catches up to him in no time, probably even heading past the same barrier when it flickers off. The young saiyan tucks her feet down and under to go skidding across the ground and come to a halt about twenty feet from Rock Lee... only to gaze up at the self-proclaimed Fight King.     "Ooooooh! Wow, you picked one heck of a weird place to hold matches. But I'll take anyone on!" 

:'''{{#var:678|Rock Lee (678)}} has posed:''' Lee turns around in time to hear Staren call out to him. But then the other man begins speaking, about fighters. Lee looks around in confusion when other people are mentioned, other thant he ones he justt left. 

:'''{{#var:622|Simon Petrikov (622)}} has posed:'''     The donations/charity-raising thing is a good idea, actually! Despite the distraction of the arena, Simon files it away. The whole jealousy thing with Allenby and Cory goes a bit over his head right now, since he isn't focused on it. But as person after person steps right through the barrier, Simon just stares in total disbelief. "Well, uh... Be safe in there. I'm not a fighter. I'm going to investigate this place on the outside and see if there's some other way inside that isn't an obvious trap--"     The Fight King lifts his sword and the barriers solidify to a pure, opaque green. As far as Staren is able to determine, they're some kind of magical sealing barrier. Exactly what they look like. Probably powerful, but in what way is unclear. Unclear just like the force fields now, because they can't see inside anymore.     The Fight King then raises his sword and yells, "FoooOOOOls! You have stepped forth beyond the Moonlight... SEEEEal! All exits are closed!" The sealed entrances turn from pure energy into solid stone, so now there isn't even an exit anymore. "Now you must fight my G-g-gladiator GHOSTS!"     And just like that, there's a rumbling sound, and ghostly essence, visible even to people who are NOT Simon comes spiralling up out of the silt and soil, curling into a pair of solid phantasmal bodies. A pair of giant-sized gladiator-looking guys, one with a face-concealing helmet and one with a not-face-concealing one. They make noises of suffering and lamentation in mid-air, before dropping down to slam into the ground heavily.     One of them raises his huge spiked mace and swings it at the challengers.     The other is wielding a pair of ghostly daggers and yells out, "HYPERION! I'M SORRY!" mournfully before starting to slash at the fighters with his blades. 

:'''{{#var:678|Rock Lee (678)}} has posed:''' "Gladiator ghosts?!" Lee asks with an equal amount of drama in his tone, crouching down as he raises his arms in preparation for battle. He reaches behind him, then out of no where pulls out a pair of nunchaku. He slips out of the way of a mortal blow, though finds his shoulder slashed into, which causes him to yell in pain and look over at the blood dripping from his arm. It's not bad enough to disable his arm, but the blood certainly needs to be treated... "I do not understand!" he shouts, jumping at the one without the face concealing helmet to slam the nunchaku into his face after a ridiculous amount of swinging it for momentum. 

:'''{{#var:756|Shin Tokuyama (756)}} has posed:'''     "You're pretty tough. Try not to beat her up too badly if she winds up wanting to fight for my love or something like that. It might dishonor her, I dunno how her Saying Warrior Culture works," Shin notes as he looks around the arena and sighs a bit, taking in the wrekced area and finally the shouting Fight King.     "Oi, you wanna fight?" He asks incredulously, reaching up to take off his sunglasses and fold them shut, "Look like you'd break your hip just throwing a kick." He comments, placing the glasses into his breast pocket and then rolling his neck. Cory may actually get to see Shin fight after all.     Or not, because Shin then places his hands into his pockets and says, "Come get me, then, if you want a fight."     He dashes in with a surprising show of agility and instead of throwing a punch or a kick, he tries to bump his back and shoulders into the one with twin daggers, rolling around him and then hip-checking him while keeping his hands in his pockets, "If you're sorry, then don't fight, yo." 

:'''{{#var:6|Tomoe (6)}} has posed:''' Tomoe looks at fight king gor a moment in confusion a nd now she hears they ahve to fight his gladiator ghosts? That seems confusing is he nuts or is he ... true? She halts for a moment as it seems there are foes comming at them. Wait are these ghosts or something more like herself? She's not sure but it looks like they are going to have to fight. "Watch it!" She summons Dawn Breaker to her hand and the Mourning wall. She now moves in to intercept the attacker who is calling out about someone named Hyperion. "I'll keep thier attention! You want some of this?!" She's going to attempt to get in the fighter's grill as best as she's able. 

:'''{{#var:760|Allenby Beardsley (760)}} has posed:'''     "I've fought a few Saiyans before...most on Reptillon. They're pretty tough." Allenby admits, "I get this feeling we're going to fight each other eventually-"     The Fight King seals them all in! "Wait, I thought YOU were going to fight us! Personally!" Allenby puts her fists on her hips, pretty darned unconcerned when this mummy ghost guy decides to seal the exits on them. "Also if you think locking us in here is going to scare us-" she points a finger at the FIGHT KING, "You are /wrong/!"     She stomps her foot dramatically and slides it behind her. "C'mon!" she specifically baits the mace-wielding one, recognizing the overhand swing, hopping backwards just enough to avoid it, then leaping over to balance on the shaft of the lowered weapon. She runs up its length and leads with a flying knee at the helmeted head. 

:'''{{#var:768|Cory (768)}} has posed:'''     The colosseum is sealed and GHOSTS APPEAR.     As is typical, Chikorri's reaction to the undead is to FREAK OUT at first. Her gung-ho bravery evaporates faster than a pool in the sahara, leaving her staring at the strange giants a bit too long. She bends over backwards to duck under the mace just barely! The wind of its passage gets her clothes rippling. Then a berserker with a sword comes flying in swinging everywhere!     THIS strikes. Although she leaps sideways the blade grazes an arm, cutting through her super-tough gi. Blood drips down the arm... and at that point... the pain overrides her childish terror.     Saiyan instincts just brimming for a fight take over and she SLAMS both hands together, heedless of the drops of blood that fly from her arm onto the arena floor.     "Alright. Then bring it!" She only takes a few moments to stretch her arms and legs, then...     "Huuuuuuuuuuuuuahhhhh!" Whilst wrapping her tail around her waist, Cory adopts a deep stance for more balance and controlled breath. Ki swirls up in no time to engulf her. The ground cracks and splits, chunks of dirt and small stones being outright hurled skywards by the building aura. In a few seconds the entire display shifts     chr">"KAIOKEN TIMES EIGHT!"     The Saiyan lady's muscles briefly bulge oddly, but staring at them is bad. Faster than the eye can see she rushes straight towards the maceman, for a flying kick to the gut!     "THISGOTWEIRDFAST!" 

:'''{{#var:42|Staren (42)}} has posed:'''     Suddenly, the barrier closes, but Staren hears the 'fight king' yelling about being trapped and having to fight.     He's not /that/ worried. Rock and Cory should be fine, at least. "Hang on!" He runs out, hands Simon a couple of potions and a rocket pistol. "Just in case. I'm gonna go help 'em." Wings manifest, and he flies over the wall -- aww, darn, there's a field in the way! Staren places his hand against it to confirm that it's solid. "Damn. How you guys doin' down there?" he calls, PUNCHing the barrier hard to confirm it won't break easily. Scans confirm that... some kind of dimensional shenanigans are going on. Hmm... this /could/ be a problem. Breaking into a closed space... he can't count on any normal method of entry working. He is, basically, stuck.     So, he'll have to risk trying a normal way and hoping it works. First teleporting... then trying to smash the field or the wall. He glows as the teleporter charges...     And then he's inside. "So what the heck is going on here?!" He tries to grab the screaming daggerman's leg and stop him from stabbing people. "You don't just suddenly randomly fight people! What's all this about?" 

:'''{{#var:622|Simon Petrikov (622)}} has posed:'''     Potions and a pistol! Great! "Be careful in there!" Simon cautions before the robo-Staren flies up to check out the barrier, and decides to attempt teleporting in. Which suceeds!     Rock Lee knocks the helmeted ghost's head to the side with a mighty impact! No one knows what's confusing him about this situation, but he seems ready to fight despite his confusion! Though the condition of his arm is not great. Especially if there's more of these ghosts!     Allenby runs up the mace's haft, but the gladiator ghost lets go of the ghostly weapon. When she knee strikes him in the head, making his head whip backwards and him to stagger, he swings a huge fist with surprising quickness at her! Fortunately, he can't really aim that well when he's off-balance and it may miss her entirely!     Apparently the idea that the ghosts might not have a choice doesn't occur to Shin. But not getting stabbed sure does occur to him! Which is fortunate, because the motivations of the may be less immediately relevant than 'staying alive to figure it out later'! Living is definitely the higher priority.     Tomoe manages to block the dagger strikes and keep the ghost from capitalizing upon its agility to try to adjust to Shin's own evasiveness, and when Staren grabs onto the ghost's leg the gladiator trips! Already off-balance from Shin's maneuvers and attacks, as the ghost tries to turn to attack the person clinging to his leg, he falls backwards and onto one of the swords lying on the ground!     With Cory then kicking with super strength, the big mace-wielding ghost is hit hard enough to hurl him towards his companion. He is then stabbed in the back with both of his partner's daggers. The two collapse into swirls of shrieking ghostly energy again and then dive back into the ground until the time comes for them to be forced to fight once ore.     Everything seems to be going well so far. But there's more gladiator ghosts to come. Only... The Fight King squints at all the fighters in the arena. And starts doing math. He counts on his one remaining hand, with a crossbow strapped to it, ticking off the groups on his fingers. "One... Two..." He lowers one finger half-way. When he sees Staren, he lowers the finger all the way.     "...FoooooOOOOLS!" he suddenly declares as he waves his sword around. "Fighters in my arEEENA fight ONLY two at a t-t-timMMME! Only a lone p-p-PAIIIRR can experience my f-FIGHTING fuuuuRY! Be-GONE with youuu!" He waves his sword and it glows as the exits all open back up again. Then he vanishes in a swirl of smoke!     That was abrupt!     Then he pops back in with some twigs with leaves on them and throws them to the fighters. "Forr your VICtorRYYYY have these b-b-bRANCHES of PALM!" They are not branches from a palm tree, but he seems to be calling them that anyway.     "Now... beGOOOOnnne!" Then he's out again.     Simon is still standing outside when the immediate threat of being trapped in the arena is over. The gun is his pocket and the potions are in his other pocket. He can still see ghostly faces all over everything, and he doesn't know the others are free, so he's trying to use a ricketty, ancient wooden ladder to try to climb up to one of the boarded-up windows.     The ladder breaks, sending him tumbling to the ground and landing on his back hard. "MOTHER!" he yells angrily. 

:'''{{#var:42|Staren (42)}} has posed:'''     Staren grabs a ghost and it... falls on a sword. "Hey, wait! What did you mean you're sorry...?" Staren has so many questions! Like how a ghost can die, for instance. Or who the Fight King is and why the coliseum is here... but then the Fight King disappears.     Then comes back.     Then goes again.     "Uhhhh..." Staren looks around. "...I guess we're going then. Everyone alright? Rock... I gave Simon a healing potion you can use, might help with your arm." He heads outside when he hears Simon shout. "Simon! Are you alright?!" He hurries out to see... Simon fell off a ladder. "Oh." Well, that could still be a serious injury! 

:'''{{#var:760|Allenby Beardsley (760)}} has posed:'''     Acrobatically, Allenby pushes off with her knee, letting the momentum of the impact carry her backwards. She twists in the air like a gymnast, the fist passing under her arched back, and lands neatly on the ground. Smiling, she lifts a hand and makes 'come at me' motions with her hand.     "Come on! Is that all you've got?!"     Apparently that IS all the Fight King has got because they are apparently breaking the rules of Fight King Arena. "Wait what? Only two at a time....?" she looks around, counting up the fighters. Her, Shin, Cory, Lee, Tomoe, "Aww, damnit, our party is too odd numbered." She looks decidedly put out as the exits re-open and the king vanishes (twice).     "Maybe we should come back later, Shin." Allenby shrugs, picking up a tree branch. 

:'''{{#var:756|Shin Tokuyama (756)}} has posed:'''     "Yeah well! Nuts to you, guy! I'll make my own fighting arena. With way cooler rules," Shin says in a chastizing tone, hands still in his pockets. He's very good at not getting stabbed while still making it look like he's a giant slacker that isn't half as good at martial arts as he is. He brings a hand up and runs his fingers through his hair.     "I guess we probably should come back another time, yeah," He remarks to Allenby, moving to stand next to her as the fighting is all called off and angrily cancelled, "You'd think if he was going to call himself the Fight King, he'd know that in the mangas, you even up the last fight by having someone drama-fight a shadow clone of themself."     He taps his foot against the ground a bit and shrugs. 

:'''{{#var:678|Rock Lee (678)}} has posed:''' Lee stands there lookign incredibly confused at the man's actions, just sort of wrinkling his brow in complete confusion. "I do not know what is going on!" he finally decides to admit when the Fight King just seems to lose it. 

:'''{{#var:768|Cory (768)}} has posed:'''     The ghosts vamoose. So does the mysterious Fight King. And with it... so does Cory's furious crimson aura. She lands down next to Rock Lee, arms folded and an unhappy glare aimed at the so-called King's throne.     As if all the air was just loosed from her balloon she sags forward, heaving a sigh... THEN claps a hand on Rock Lee's shoulder. "Do YOU have any clue what just happened?" 

:'''{{#var:6|Tomoe (6)}} has posed:''' Tomoe is moving to deal with the attacker she's doing pretty good to keep the ghost at bay for the moment. How lkong she does not know but well there's some pretty heavy hitting power. When all is said and done they have won the fight it looks like. "Is eveyrone all right and humm two at once? So teams only curious. It may be just the nature of the combat like a PVP set up in a computer game." Wait the fairy lady is talking about computers. "It's certainly an experiance." 

:'''{{#var:622|Simon Petrikov (622)}} has posed:'''     Simon rubs his head as he struggles to get his old body up and onto his feet. "I'm fine, I'm fine... Just some bruises, probably. So, uhh... That was fast! Let's leave as quickly as possible, and put this on the list of 'problems to deal with someday but not right now or any time soon'." Then he picks up his backpack, offers the pistol back to Staren (but not the potions because he could use one right now), and starts hiking the heck out of there. Niagra Falls can wait!     Once everyone has left the vicinity of the Fight King's Arena, it gets sucked up into the sky in a column of light like it was never even there. 

}}

2354/EoT: Magical Girls, Interrupted

2015-06-03T01:12:55Z

Paladine: Created page with "{{Log Header |Date of Scene=2015/05/31 |Location=Midnight Shrine Tokyo <MST> |Synopsis=Confederate and Union Elites gather to support the Witching Hour members when they come ..."

{{Log Header
|Date of Scene=2015/05/31
|Location=Midnight Shrine Tokyo <MST>
|Synopsis=Confederate and Union Elites gather to support the Witching Hour members when they come across a clash of three monsters from three different Nether Realm groups.
|Thanks=
|Cast of Characters=172, 188, 385, 589, 714, 782
|Tinyplot=
|Tinyplot2=
|pretty=yes
}}
{{Poses
|Poses=:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     So far, the methods of three enemy groups of Nether Realm fiends have been like this:     * Epoch Saints: Unseen Time Magic-using enemies who promise immortality or the extension of life to those desperate for such, and then implant into them a 'Life Gear'. This magical device/monster steals 'Time' from those around it, usually through a medium (wrist-watches, or by entering a certain forest), until it has gathered enough 'Time' that it can evolve to its next stage, overtake its host, and begin stealing 'Time' directly from everyone it encounters. Humans and animals are both apparently acceptable hosts.     * Mysterious Death Mages: Harvest life force to accomplish ???. Heavy and costly magic usage employed seemingly without concern. Not much else known about them.     * Underland: Enemies themed upon the 'Alice in Wonderland' setting, who seem to approach people and drive them temporarily insane with Chaos Magic, compromising local reality, all seemingly just to cause chaos and confusion. Though the last encounter seemed to be an attempt to make Sakura reveal herself as being 'a candidate for Alice'. No one knows what that means yet, and Sakura did not, infact, reveal herself as being Alice.     That's why the current situation is so confusing. Four magical girls are watching from afar as, in an abandoned building standing derelict in a bad part of town, minions from all three of these groups face off for unknown reasons. The energies of Time, Death, and Chaos Magic are crackling through the air.     A blue-haired young woman wearing a floppy blue cap, and blue cloak, with large eyeglasses on her face and carrying a heavy-looking book under one arm is trying to analyze the energies and the enemies. She is called Libra.     A girl dressed in a very frilly dressy of blacks and oranges and purples in the style of a 'witch' with extremely long, smoke-colored hair beneath her witch's hat, is also with them. She is called Crucia Hex.     A young woman in an elegant ballgown, cut to permit movement during combat more easily, and wearing an opera mask on her face, stands off to the side. Her facial features are undetectable behind her mask, but the way her hands keeps fidgetting with another ceramic mask in her grasp, she wants to be inside. She is called Musica.     And among these three magical girls known as the Witching Hour, a woman seemingly in her early 20s, with pink hair, pink eyes, and a pink outfit that is like a cross between a knight's armor and a schoolgirl outfit, Princess Paladin, peers towards the building, trying to see what's going on within. She can not sense magic.     The quartet have requested that allies come as quickly as possible. The hour is late, night has already fallen, and the area is abandoned. There's no outwards indication of why the monsters are all HERE of all places. Just their energies, clashing and pressuring against each other, like they are trying to establish dominance without actually physically battling each other.     Crucia has cast a spell that lets her see through the walls, and she can sense magic just fine normally. Libra's specialty is knowledge and analysis, so the book she has her under her arm is providing her with information on the magic as the book itself is exposed to the energies... Writing new entries on blank pages as information is absorbed from the world.     Musica may not be able to sense magic, but she has a very keen sense for when she is in immediate danger. As long as that doesn't go off, they should be fine (or at least they should). All four magical girls are holding off on acting and remaining hidden across the street, in abandoned lot, behind an old stone wall. Just the four of them against three monsters is not good odds, after all. 

:'''{{#var:172|Sakura Kinomoto (172)}} has posed:'''     Sakura isn't taking any chances this time.     As the girl drops out of the air, borne aloft by pink feathered wings, she's accompanied by two others - the tall, white-haired 'angel' Yue, and the yellow-furred, winged lion that Miko may remember from the restaurant mission? It's Kero's 'true form' but she might not actually recognise it as such.     Sakura is dressed in a pink, frilly outfit that, despite its appearance, gives her excellent freedom of movement. It's composed of a dress with a wide skirt, and poofy pants underneathe that reach all the way down to the pink shoes (with hearts on them) she has on her feet.     Almost immediately, she ducks behind the wall to remain unseen. Yue and Kero seem to be... slightly less adept at hiding, but they're doing their best! 

:'''{{#var:385|Yuna Kagurazaka (385)}} has posed:''' Sakura's not the only magical girl to come with her own backup ... although Yuna occasionally wonders whether she really counts as a 'magical girl'. That doesn't stop her from offering her help where she can, though, particularly when Sakura passed along the call for support. Yuna initially arrives in her Flight Form, a winged thruster pack on her back working to control her descent near the local magical girls and their other arriving allies. The tiny form of the robo-faerie Elner descends more quietly and more gracefully, hovering near Yuna as she touches down; Jiina of the Earth and Marina of the Sea are more subtle still about their approach, the armored, feminine-shape androids silently dropping out of the sky and slowing to a hover. Finally, a brief light enshrouds Yuna, one form becoming two; Yuna is left in her basic Light Suit, with Erina of the Sky reassembling behind her, next to the first two androids. "Hi," Yuna greets the magical girls quietly, but with a wave and a friendly smile. "I'm Yuna, Sakura told me you could use some help dealing with whatever's in there ... anything we should know about what they're likely capable of?" 

:'''{{#var:714|Sanary Rondel (714)}} has posed:'''      Word had reached Sanary that Miko and those other mage girls from the lasting meeting needed assistance at some strange building off in Tokyo. Even though she had worn this weird-looking local getup involving an apron and something called a kim-ono last time, she's still not quite used to how exposed her legs feel in it.     Still, consistency is important, especially if she wanted to be recognized by those three mages that aren't Miko. Besides, the garment is surprisingly easy to move around in, and the t-shirt worn underneath the kimono does offer some minor semblance of protection. Finding the building is easy enough, at least, and she's brought her trusty gunaxe and buckler along just in case!      She's also not doing a terrible job hiding her own presence, opting to keep her voice down and not walking straight at the monsters. Instead, she strolls on up to the stone wall with a brief, awkward wave to the gathering. "I'm here. What's the plan tonight?" 

:'''{{#var:188|Lute (188)}} has posed:'''      Lute is one of those people who stick out like a sore thumb, even when he is trying to be discreet. Even his normal day to day clothes sticks out massively. And yet, he's still wearing his normal jeans and loosely buttoned labcoat with no shirt look anyways. His hands casually rest in pockets on his labcoat, as he heads to the abandoned warehouse.      As he walks inside, he smiles, nodding to Princess Paladin. He makes a glance towards the other magical girls as well. He's yet to meet any of them yet, but he knows Miko has been making efforts to form alliances with the other local magical girls.      He only gives Yuna and Sakura a look for a second, before looking away. No greeting.. Recently, he hasn't been trusting the Union at /all/. He doesn't like that he has to work with them at all. But, that's part of why he wanted to come along: He wants to keep an eye on the Union people getting involved here.      And as he is about to ask what is going on tonight? Well. He just ends up staring at Sanary. A kimono and an apron? Yeah, he's... a little bit surprised at that. It's not her usual sort of outfit.      "...Where did you get those clothes?" 

:'''{{#var:782|Golden (782)}} has posed:'''     Golden wakes up because of the light show going on nearby. Natives here don't really seem to respond to werid things like him, so he had been travelling at night to avoid people. That's not the sunrise. OR even how light is supposed to work. Huh. Strange.     He hops down from the fire escape he had been sleeping on to the sidewalk below and creeps forward, keeping an eye out for trouble. His coloration is really obvious, though his diminutive size and compact shape work to mitigate that somewhat. The strange digimon might be mistaken for a monster if he isn't careful. Green eyes peer around the edge of a doorway and into the scene unfolding. Those allies gathered in the lot can probably see the digital monster creeping up to the building hosting the light show.     When he sees the monsters and the light show, Golden very quietly says "Oh." That. Looks like trouble. 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     They were expecting others, and with at least two sensory-capable allies present, the arrival of Sakura and her companions, Yuna's magitech, then Sanary, are not hugely surprising. Paladin is glad to see her friend Sakura again. Her outfit is adorable as always. Yue with his fancy angel appearance is likewise a welcome sight, and so is... A... Lion? She thinks she has seen him before, and she can't imagine who else he could be, so it must be Kero!     Sanary's combat-maid outfit or whatever that is supposed to be is about as fitting as any other magical girl outfit around here, so is accepted without question. More Confederates being involved is always a plus for this operation. Paladin/Miko was also expecting Lute, so his presence is picked up on quickly enough as well. Further, it's a comfort to see him again.     Yuna and her companions have been met before, and have helped out, so they too are welcome. It's amazing how many allies Miko has formed since opening up interactions with the Union. On both sides, just knowing who she really is has helped so many to trust her enough to help save innocent people from being preyed upon by monsters.     Musica looks at the huge crowd they now have, and huffs a bit before looking away. Libra is absorbed in her examination of the energies and only offers a very quiet, "Hello." Crucia seems much more pleased as she remains crouched down and makes a 'come here' gesture to everyone with one hand and a 'shhhh' gesture with a finger on her lips with the other.     Paladin greets those she knows, and even those she doesn't, with a nod and an attempt at a smile. This is kind of a tense situation, but her transformation grants her seeming grace and maturity. Even if she's scared.     Quietly, Crucia answers the question asked. "I'm not sure how much you were told, but the minions of three different Nether Realm factions are over in that building. Time, Chaos, and Death. You can expect their powers to revolve around those things. Chaos is the most unpredictable, Death has the highest potential lethality, and Time is extremely tricky to beat normally... But that's our group's specialty, so we're better suited to it. We don't think they're friendly with each other, and there seems to be some kind of power struggle." Her eyes seem to be glowing a bit orange from the spell she cast to augment her sight.     "I've been peering through the walls, and they are clustered together near the center of the building, on the ground floor. The rooms are empty, some of the staircases have even been knocked down... I don't see anything special about the location itself that would have them all there. We could keep observing for now, or we could try to do something about it. But from what Libra has said, if they fight, we could be in a position to then go after whatever weakened monsters are left over. As long as they don't endanger innocent... people?"     Crucia trails off as she feels Libra grabbing hold of the back of her dress and pulling firmly and urgently. The witch turns to look towards the Witching Hour's shy leader, and sees that the blue-haired young woman looks even paler than normal.     Libra releases Crucia and then points to the golden digimon presently peering inside the building. "We may have a fourth monster."     Musica releases the mask in her hands, which begins to float alongside of her in the air, its empty eye holes gleaming with magical light. "This is getting most out of hand!" she hisses.     Crucia has a less eloquent but more succinct reply. "Shit."     Paladin, meanwhile, does is not so sure the monster is one from her world. Monsters can have a LOT of different appearances, but this one seems... Different. Either way, trouble could result if it goes inside, so someone has to do something. The pink-haired magical girl vaults over the wall at superhuman speed, as she only offers, "I'll investigate."     Crucia curses again, standing up from her hiding spot. Hasn't Paladin ever heard of team work!? 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     Meanwhile, what Golden sees when he looks into the building is... Kind of intense. There's something that looks like a clockwork man with a metallic dragon's head in one part of the main room, what appears to be a human-sized playing card, the Hearts suit, with a hooded human head, arms, and legs, carrying a poleaxe is standing in another side. The most terrifying of all is something skeletal in a black cloak with a wide-brim hat perched on its fleshless head. Its arms hang loosely at its sides. 

:'''{{#var:172|Sakura Kinomoto (172)}} has posed:'''     Sakura smiles brightly to everyone. Even Lute. However, she quickly puts on her Serious Face. "...Okay. So the Witching Hour should probably take care of the Time monster. Do we want to split into teams?" She pauses for a moment. "I can try to remove one from the fight with the Maze card so we don't have to fight all three at once..."     She looks up as Libra seems to detect a new monster! "Four...?" She peers over the wall, then frowns a bit. "...Its aura doesn't... feel quite the same as- Ah, Miko, where are you going?!" 

:'''{{#var:188|Lute (188)}} has posed:'''      Lute looks around at the group, pondering as he considers all of them. The Union and the magical girls might not like this idea. It's also a little bit dangerous. As he looks at the group, he crosses his arms, smiling.      "You know. I could maybe just walk in there and ask them what's going on? The chaos people seemed to like me, and though I really plan to help fight them just like the rest of you... We might actually be able to figure out what they're up to /without/ violence."      A pause.      "Or I could unleash Giratina and we could try leveling that building with all of them in there, from a distance, and try to get the monsters to pin the blame on eachother." 

:'''{{#var:714|Sanary Rondel (714)}} has posed:'''      ... Wait, was Lute here, too? Sanary freezes up as she turns slowly to face Lute, suddenly looking more flustered than she did mere seconds ago. "I-I wore this last time it's so the others wouldn't get confused it's not like I wore it because I like it or-oh. Uh. I got it from... Er. Long story."      She twitches slightly and slumps forward a bit, eventually managing an awkward grin. "Also, hey Lute. Does it fit, at least?" Thankfully, Miko and the other three witches from last time seem to be accepting her outfit without question, so that's some minor reassurance.      Sanary hums quietly at Sakura's suggestion of having the Witching Hour face the Time monster while letting themselves handle the rest. "That's... Probably the best plan we got for that now, yeah." She's still feeling and sounding somewhat skeptical, but... Well, it's not like the healer has any better ideas.      "Getting a better idea about their plans might not be too bad, either. Think it'll be safe enough to..." She trails off as Paladin runs off, fighting the urge to follow her right away while instead checking that her buckler's on straight and that the gunaxe is loaded with Ice shells.      "Do we follow her or do we stay put?" 

:'''{{#var:385|Yuna Kagurazaka (385)}} has posed:''' Yuna winces a bit, both at the hint of reinforcements and the way Princess Paladin goes charging off. "Elner, take a look," she asks the tiny robo-faerie, before trying to get a look over the wall for herself. She's fairly short, so she may have to go around one end or the other, or just get a boost from somebody. Elner doesn't need that kind of help, instead just flitting up higher to start scanning the warehouse and its occupants (and Golden) more thoroughly. "So if the Witching Hour team takes the Time monster, and if Lute thinks he can get answers out of a Chaos representative without resorting to a beatdown ... Sakura, do you think you could contain the Death one long enough to see how the conversation goes?" Yuna suggests, giving Elner time to finish scanning. Lute's suggestion gets a slightly askance look, but Yuna doesn't go so far as to shoot it down out loud. "I don't believe the new arrival is actually allied with the three known monsters," the robo-faerie says after a few seconds of scanning and analysis. "If the members of the Witching Hour can't tell one way or the other, I would suggest not engaging the fourth as though it were hostile." Elner flits down, looking at Libra and her sisters-in-arms, "Can you call her back before she opens hostilities?" Assuming there's still time to do so. 

:'''{{#var:782|Golden (782)}} has posed:'''     Golden ducks back to the side of the doorway, trying to stay out of sight of the monsters within the building. Man, if those guys are some kind of weird digimon (not that he's one to talk given he looks like some kind of battered mutant MetalMamemon himself...), three of them are probably going to do some serious damage to the neighborhood.     Golden quietly but frantically tries to motion for the approaching Princess Paladin to get away, since this is not good at all.     Assuming the magical girl doesn't stop and gets right up close to him, Golden hisses quietly. "This place is dangerous, you sh..." Then it hits him and his concerned/worried expression changes. "... You're an Elite, aren't you?" He says quietly and looking embarassed. THe holds up his only hand with three fingers extended. "There's three, and none of them look friendly." 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     Paladin does indeed come closer and stop near Golden. She hisses back, "I am, and we know. We're discussing what to do about them over -there-. Can you come with me on your own or must I carry you?" Depending on the answer, the appropriate course of action is taken. Obviously Paladin intends to get Golden back over behind the wall with everyone else, one way or another, but if he is uncooperative, they might wind up still being by the building. And a struggle with those monsters nearby is probably not good.     Musica responds, "We have not yet even decided whether we should act at all or not. We do not know why this place is valuable to them, whether they have a hostage they are fighting over, or anything of the sort. It is more practical to wait and only attack if their battle spills out onto the street." They may be interested in protecting people, but the Witching Hour girls seem have a much more strategic bent to their methods than just charging in and making a speech about love and justice. Actually, no one here has really encountered ANY magical girls from this world who do speeches about love and justice, have they? (They exist, they just haven't made themselves apparent.)     Crucia does not put forth her opinion on the matter. Whether they should act at all, and whether the plans discussed by the others for isolating the enemies should be enacted, are not up to the Pumpkin Witch to decide. Instead, as plans are discussed, and Paladin attempts to convince Golden to come back with her to a safer distance before they're noticed, Crucia turns to their quiet leader.     "Libra? What do you want to do?"     Libra flips open the book under her arm, propping it up against the wall. Her eyeglasses shine with bars of green line on the lenses, to augment her night vision, as she reads the information obtained so far. After several seconds, she turns to Lute and says, "If you think you can work with the Chaos creature to get answers, you can attempt it. But at the first sign of treachery, it has to be eliminated. Destroying the building wouldn't kill them, and would draw attention we don't need." She turns to look at Sakura and says, "The Life Gear can provide valuable information if we can capture it like we did before, but in this situation, the threat of the others is too great. It needs to be eliminated and its host freed."     Finally, she focuses on Yuna and says in that same whispering voice she's been using, "The Death-user is strong. Stronger than the other two combined. If we engage it, it will take more than just one magical girl to take out. Restraint or imprisonment is preferable, due to the level of force that would be needed to defeat it. We will likely have to destroy it if it is uncooperative regardless, but holding off until we see if we can get answers is best. It could also serve as a bargaining chip against the Chaos-wielder. As long as it is there, it's an additional threat aside from ourselves that could encourage compliance with our demands."     The bespectacled girl then closes her back again and tucks it under her arm. She considers Sanary's question, and then says, "She charged out there herself. We'll see if she can make it back on her own first before abandoning our cover." 

:'''{{#var:172|Sakura Kinomoto (172)}} has posed:'''     "Even if we're not going to go attack right away, we should still determine what we're going to be doing if it -does- come down to a fight. There's a lot of us here, you know! We can't just stumble about blindly or we'll trip over each other and stuff," Sakura counters Musica, with a slight frown.     "I... -should- be able to Maze the Death monster? It's strong, but the Maze is pretty strong too... We should probably have a backup to restrain it with if it fails, though, just in case?" 

:'''{{#var:385|Yuna Kagurazaka (385)}} has posed:''' "Fair enough," Yuna agrees with Musica, smiling, then she inclines her head to Golden in greeting. If his irregular form puts her off at all, she doesn't show any sign of it. "So if we need to take the Death creature out," Elner says, "rather than merely containing it ... Yuna, you'd better support Sakura on that - if the initial attempt to trap it with Maze fails, it's going to come after her. Sakura, are you amenable to that?" Yuna nods to Elner. "I don't really have 'containment' options," she says, "unless my partners can do something I haven't heard about yet, but I can certainly hold its attention while other people work on restraining it." She looks over her android allies. "Jiina, you're up - if I have to hold a monster's violent attention, I'd rather be in Powered Form." "Of course," the green-and-white Jiina replies with a nod; Yuna steps a bit away from the group to go through the combination process. A handful of seconds later, Yuna is mostly encased in a large powered exo-frame, her head still visible and her arms supplemented by larger manipulators. "Shugoseiheki," Yuna says quietly, and a kite shield appears on one of the frame's manipulator arms, so she can block attacks more effectively. She hunkers down to try and stay hidden from the monsters inside the warehouse after transforming. Elner looks to the Witching Hour, particularly to Libra. "Are these creatures corporeal enough to be subject to physical grappling attacks?" Yuna blanches slightly as she hears that question. 

:'''{{#var:188|Lute (188)}} has posed:'''      Lute smiles at Sanary, shaking his head, "Don't worry, it's not a bad outfit, it's just a bit unusual, and not really... modern? I'll buy you some modern outfits, and help you know which to use when, alright?"      And with that, he moves in to give Sanary a little kiss on the forehead. Awww, public display of affection.      Lute looks at the group. Smiling.      "Letting them talk too much in there is probably a terrible idea. Because let's face it. Princess Paladin was helping out fighting on behalf of a lot of magical girls. They might think the Magical Girls have allied together, which will force /them/ to ally together. So. We /really/ better figure this shit out now."      And with that, Lute leaps over the wall. And he starts strutting over to the warehouse. And for some reason, he even pulls out an iPod. Because he knows one thing above all else about villains like this: They like style.      He presses a button on the iPod to make it start playing loud music from his speakers, and moves to push the door open. And, he's going to dance into the room, moonwalking backwards into the group, before turning.      He had /intended/ to have the iPod playing smooth criminal as he entered.      Instead he had accidentally turned on 'It's Raining Men'.      To his credit, he doesn't lose his stride, as he turns to face towards where he assumes the group of enemies are gathered. He didn't even bother to spotcheck through the window where they are.      "HEY, everyone, I was just walking through the area, saw this little gathering, and well? I just /had/ to get in on whatever you all are planning or discussing." 

:'''{{#var:714|Sanary Rondel (714)}} has posed:'''      "Nothing wrong with taking a hands on approach." Sanary flashes Yuna a grin as she checks her gear one last time. Gunaxe? Ice shells ready and loaded. Buckler? Strapped on tight with a quick-release knot just in case. There's... Actually not much for the healer to prepare, is there? "Alright. I'm ready for whatever."      Turning to Lute, she blinks slowly at the forehead kiss and twitches slightly, her cheeks turning a slight shade of red. "H-hey. I'm trying to look professional here. It's hard to do that when..." She trails off with a flustered grunt, giving him a light clap on the back before watching him head over the wall.      "S.. So anyway. If things start going bad, I'll focus on healing or keeping the Chaos or Death users busy. Healing, death, order, chaos. Should cancel each other out, right?" She doesn't sound completely sure about that herself, but she won't know unless she tries! She gives Sakura and Yuna a quick nod before pressing her back against the wall, ready to vault over the thing at a moment's notice. 

:'''{{#var:782|Golden (782)}} has posed:'''     Golden approaches the group with Princess Paladin, cautiously. While Golden isn't exactly a stranger to the wide world of weirdness the Multiverse offers, seeing witches and monsters a night is just slightly odd to him. Possibly because he tended to skirt the edges of settled areas, where there are less people to run into. He has his reasons for being in the city recently though.     The little ball of metal listens to the conversation and watches Lute walk off towards the building, slapping his face with his gloved hand. Maybe Lute will be a useful distraction? "If we go in swinging, they'll have a good reason to team up. If we drive a wedge between them, they might do half our jobs for us. They got any reason to not trust each other? " 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     "If it can trap a monster at least for awhile, then your 'Maze' sounds fine!" Crucia assures. She gives Sakura a double thumbsup, encouragingly! As Miko gets back with Golden, and they make any necessary introductions, Lute is talking about the monsters teaming up and Crucia is looking at him with an expression of just 'what' as she tries to follow his reasoning. "What? No. They're all direct enemies of each other, they don't team up. They're like predators competing for the same--H-hey! Wait!" Crucia tries to explain to Lute but he is always leaping over the wall and walking up to the building. What is with these people and a lack of team work!?     When Lute crosses the street and then announces his presence, Musica spits out, "That idiot! There goes the element of surprise!"     Libra hops up and over the wall easily, as she calls out, "Time to move!" Her transformation augments her physical abilities like it does for Paladin and Musica, it seems. With Musica's body vanishing into her mask, and both her mask and the one she had floating next to her earlier following along, she zips towards the building. Crucia floats up into the air on a pumpkin she conjures from thin air, and heads to the same destination.     Princess Paladin looks around at the others and says, "I caught enough of the plan. I'll back you up with the Death user if it gets out of control, and provide healing otherwise. Let's go." Then HUP! Back over the wall again as she speeds towards the building.     The response to Lute's sudden appearance is probably not what he was expecting. The Card guy spins his poleaxe and cleaves open the wooden floor, causing starry silhouettes and smiling shadows to come spilling out of the ground, giggling and laughing in the voices of children as they fly towards not only Lute but the other two monsters present. The Life Gear seems to be too startled to reaact immediately, instead 'breathing' a barrage of small cogs and wheels at the creepy shadow-kids only AFTER the Underlander takes action.     The skeletal thing simply turns its head towards Lute. The skeletal head of a serpent. A serpent that lifts itself up to its full height, and easily looms over everyone and everything else present. The open space above the main room extends all the way up to the third floor. And that's where the undead snake skeleton finally stops, as its vertebrae-coils click-click-click-click with every motion of its long, long body. The out-of-place arms at its sides are adorned with claws, and those arms seem to be duplicated all along the monster's length.     The monster says nothing, but hush of pure death that spills from its empty maw, freezing the air and making it start SNOWING INDOORS, says something quite clearly.     'You've entered the wrong building.'     Paladin's answer to Golden along the way for why they don't trust each other is simple. "They eat people, and they don't like to share." Feeling sick to her stomach from proximity to the Card man, Paladin arrives at more or less the same time as the other magical girls, right alongside of Lute. Unlike Paladin, however, the Witching Hour girls are quick to focus on the Life Gear. A rain of pumpkins falls upon the clockwork dragon to distract it, and when it turns its cog-breath on them, the pumpkin guts that spill out turn out to be quite sticky. Like a big mass of magical, pumpkin-scented glue.     Libra opens her book, the pages flipping rapidly. Then she calls out, "Stop Watcher!" A magical eyeball in a metal sheathe comes out of the book, and floats towards the Life Gear, orbitting it. Every time the monster struggles against its bonds, the Watcher freezes it in time with a grey beam for several seconds.     Musica appears behind the creature, her body reforming around her mask, as the second mask accompanying her starts sending concentrated sonic vibrations into the back of the creature's dragon-like head to disorient it... And to slowly destroy it, and free the host. It will take time, though. 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     That just leaves the death monster and the Card man who is not responding very diplomatically. 

:'''{{#var:172|Sakura Kinomoto (172)}} has posed:'''     "Welp guess we're going now let's go Yue, Kero!" Sakura says as her pink, feathered wings flare, and she vaults over the wall. It's hard to tell if she used her wings for that or she's just THAT athletic. The wings do get used once she's over the wall, though, to dash through the air across the road and into the warehouse.     It's. Pretty easy to tell which one's the Death monster. "Okay! MAZE!" she calls out, pulling out one of her cards and bringing her wand up to meet it. Her magic circle appears under her feet - hovering in the air, as she's still flying - as the card vanishes in a flash of blue light. There's an odd distortion in space around the Death monster that sorta hurts to look at...     And, if successful, the Maze will pull the Death creature into that hazy green maze dimension. The walls of which immediately shoot up to block the creature's view. No cheating!     Yue and Kero, meanwhile, flank Sakura in defensive stances! In the air. 

:'''{{#var:385|Yuna Kagurazaka (385)}} has posed:''' As Sakura takes wing again, Yuna powers up her hover-thrusters, putting on enough of a vertical boost to clear the wall, then engaging forward thrust to follow Sakura. The Matrix Divider appears in Yuna's grasp as she charges behind the cardmistress - although she puts on the brakes almost immediately upon getting into view of the monsters, and comes to a halt again while waiting to see if the Maze does the trick for containing the deadly snake-skeleton monster. Just in case it can break out, though, she levels the Matrix Divider, light/holy power starting to shimmer around the weapon's blade/barrel in preparation for attack. "Sakura, if it breaks out, get behind me!" she advises, keeping her kite shield ready for blocking with. 

:'''{{#var:188|Lute (188)}} has posed:'''      Lute remains rather calm, despite the fact that several monsters are very mad at him. But, smiling, he just looks at the Card monster. IE, the one who isn't being dealt with by Maze or whatever the Magical Girls are doing that he doesn't /fully/ understand the workings of.      Lute gives a thumbs up to the card warrior, grinning. He speaks, rather nonchalantly, "Yo. I'm a buddy of the March Hare, and a representative of the Confederacy. Just wanna check in, see what you guys are up to. Don't mind the allies. Yeah, they're coming in pretty full force, but who cares, right? Chaos and all that junk, can't control it. But what brings you three all together today?"      And, just in case, Lute grabs for a Pokeball, releasing his Tentacruel. The tentacle beast just sits in front of him, ready to guard him just in case the Maze doesn't work, in case the clock guy isn't stopped, and in case the card guy decids he'd rather not talk. 

:'''{{#var:714|Sanary Rondel (714)}} has posed:'''      Time to move! The other two seem to be getting handled already, so that just leaves the one with the poleaxe to deal with. Breaking into a run to catch up with everyone else already at the building, Sanary makes a beeline for Lute and the Card Man.      Channeling energy into her hands while running, the eyepatched girl pre-emptively throws some of that healing magic Lute in a wave of green light. Sure, it might not be necessary if he flat out avoids or mitigates the attacking shadow things, but better safe than sorry!      She does skid a little as she comes to a stop, however, the snow making her movements a little less steady. She casts a quick glance at the Death creature above, but turns her attention back to the Card Man quickly while keeping her buckler raised and the gunaxe held to the side.      Sanary's still not attacking it yet, though. Instead, she just keeps on guard alongside the Tentacruel, keeping a close eye on the Chaos creature for the time being. 

:'''{{#var:782|Golden (782)}} has posed:'''     Golden sighs as everybody goes running off. "Oh great. Everybody's rushing to get into a fight." He grumbles before bounding along after them, quite nimble for his size. The MetalMamemon leaps through a window, crashing glass surrounding him as he lands. Seems like they mostly have it handled, and so the arm cannon that was warming up starts powering down. 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     The Maze seems to do the job. As one boney arm extends, making a sickening noise of dry, marrowless bone stretching and 'growing' without life being involved in the process, reaching for Lute, the ground beneath it changes and then the space it exists within changes as well, becoming a prison. Soon enough, the monster is gone from their sight, trapped in a magical maze. Whatever happens with the monster now is probably only known to Sakura and the monster.     The Heart Card pauses, its creepy silhouette minions seemingly melting back into darkness within the already-dark building. Only moon light coming through a window that ISN'T boarded up, on the second floor, provides them with illumination. The Chaos creature looks around at everyone and says, "Well, isn't this just a scrumdiddlyumptious situation to find my lonesome in. Who would have known so many people had so much interest in an old building what matters not?" He focuses on Lute, who is the one who addressed him, and leans on his poleaxe. "I know not a once and knot a nonce for your Confederation of Fools. But the Queen of Hearts, she misses her tarts, and she'd ruther that they not remain in the possession of the transgression of the transgressors."     Did that mean anything to anyone?     Paladin looks at the spot where the death monster was, trying to ignore the chill in the air. The snow has stopped with the heat-leeching source presently absent in Maze land, but she has to keep focused just incase something weird happens that's unexpected. Lute has this, she's sure of it.     Because he is pretty crazy.     The Heart Card says, "Seems I've no choice but to talk or rot. I'd sooner the former, though might lead to the latter. A tricky situation to be in, all-told, though told only by one." The eyes in the executioner-like hood glance this way and that. Taking in those prepared to attack the Death monster when it reappears, the trio who so easily disabled the Life Gear while it was defending itself from another monster... The one who trapped the skeleton in the first place...     And the unusual patchwork-magic of the golden metal-creature that just crashed through a window, providing more light on the building's interior. A magical girl's familiar? The angel-winged man, and the lion are also afforded an inquisitive look. All of these people are powerful and dangerous in their own right.     And yet somehow, despite claiming concern over his fate if he doesn't talk, he seems oddly at ease with the totally unexpected situation, and the weird assortment of enemies before him.     The eyes return to Lute, as he says, "'Twas an orphanage. A home for unwanted litters. A litter of litters, so to say. 'Twas also a place of madness. And, I would wager, of dying. Things were not good for the boyos and girlos, oh no! And it was so very, very long ago. The building was made and made again, but never could get the stains out. The curses the folks whispered 'round about that made business and pleasure alike unlikely. I would dare say, or even double-dare, that this is a place well-suited to all of us seeking a foothold in this world. We don't need to make our own madness, y'see. Or our own dying or our own years and decades ticking by, as the cases may bees. Buzz."     The Heart Card straightens up on his poleaxe and says, "Not to worry, girlos and boyos. There are others. You and they can mete out ownership of this one as you please. The March Hare's no friend o' the rightful Queen's, so I'm afraid I'll have to skip inviting you for tea. If you DO deign to stop by the Court of Hearts, I'd recommend watching your head. Tah-tah~!"     Then, the Card folds himself in half. And again, and again, and again, until the tiny square folds itself right out of existence.     Well, then! 

:'''{{#var:172|Sakura Kinomoto (172)}} has posed:'''     Well then.     Sakura sighs with relief when the Maze works. She wasn't entirely sure it would! That monster's aura felt... really, really -wrong- to her. But, luckily, it's currently caught in a magical maze that will make itself harder the more it tries to cheat. Better find the exit, Death Snake!     Sakura peers as the Heart Card folds itself up. "...So the Queen or Hearts and the March Hare are part of two different factions? Aw, man. This just keeps getting more complicated." 

:'''{{#var:188|Lute (188)}} has posed:'''      Lute stands tall. He just listens, trying to remember his Alice in Wonderland. He doesn't know a lot about the story. He really needs to actually read it sometime. But, yeah, that makes sense. The Queen of Hearts and the March Hare aren't really allies. He also tries to puzzle through the other talking. He gets bits of it at least. And he smiles at the group around.      He looks at all of the others, smiling. His hands are in his pocket. And he switches the song on his iPod. To some ambient music. Or more specifically, because he messes up again, another terrible song. Barbie Girl, by Aqua. Yes he fucked up again. He just shakes his head and sighs.      "Alright, so in English. Those three were arguing over who gets a particularly bloodstained orphanage. I don't know where that orphanage is, but we should figure it out. Also, at a guess, the Underland faction is really just a bunch of, pardon the pun, wild cards. Queen of Hearts, March Hare and the Tea Party. Cheshire Cat is probably his own thing too. So at the least, they weren't working together."      A pause.      "...So. Mission accomplished? ...Or will the Death thing get out of the maze eventually?" 

:'''{{#var:714|Sanary Rondel (714)}} has posed:'''      All the Card Man gets from Sanary is a long, confused stare. Just what the hell is he prattling on about? She's not about to say that to his face while he's still... Sorta friendly? Not hostile, at the very least. Thankfully, the confirmation from Sakura and the radio eases the healer's mind, allowing her to focus on the Life Gear and that skeletal snake creature.      "Okay... Uh. Good job, Lute. Now we just gotta deal with these other two. Anyone need a pick-me-up?" She furrows her brow slightly while glancing between the three handling the Life Gear and Sakura, then at Paladin in particular. "Still feeling anything after getting near that guy?"      Sanary wiggles her arms lightly, getting some energy collected in her hands while listening to the explanation of what that talk was all about. "And then when we're done with the Death user... We look for the orphanage. Er. Right? Just gotta find some leads or local news or something." 

:'''{{#var:782|Golden (782)}} has posed:'''     Golden looks around, wondering if the other shoe is going to drop. Like another monster, or maybe their bosses. When it becomes apparent that there is no immediate danger, he relaxes a little and listens to Lute's translation. "I'm not an expert, but the orphanage sounds like a weak spot they can come out of. Like the warp gates emerging in the old Digital World- places they can easily access the Multiverse." he says after listening and thinking about what the Card Shark and Lute said. 

:'''{{#var:385|Yuna Kagurazaka (385)}} has posed:''' The Maze card appears to do its job as planned and anticipated. Yuna would let out a slight sigh of relief, but she's keeping her guard up; if the skull serpent manages to escape the Maze, either by solving the path or simply by forcing its way out, there probably won't be much warning time before it's back in the battle and out for people's blood - particularly Sakura's. So Yuna stays ready. The speech rattled off by the Heart Card ... well, Yuna doesn't have enough attention to pay to deciphering it. Elner *does* have the chance to listen to it, but the level of illogic folded into it almost makes the robo-faerie go cross-optic'd trying ot pick out the valuable intel. Lute's translation seems adequate, though. And the Time monster seems to have been outmaneuvered, checkmated, and generally pwned by the Witching Hour team, plus the Chaos Card just folded itself out of existence like a one-time-use blanket, so ... that does seem to be it. "Would it be a good idea to let that snake back out so we can deal with it before we leave?" Yuna wonders. After the fact of the immediate confrontation, she's getting scared again - almost like she's remembering she ought to be - but she maintains her composure for the moment. 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     There is nothing more patient than death. Time grinds inexorably onwards, but death merely waits. It does not seek, it just obtains. It does not take, it simply receives. Everything ends at some point. The thirty-foot long skeletal snake navigates the maze unhurriedly. It takes note of any dead ends as soon as it encounters them, fluidly turns around and tries another way. It does not try to cheat. It does not rush to try to escape. But it also never stops moving. It doesn't tire, after all.     Patience, patience.     It's unknown how intelligent it is, but it seems smart enough to navigate a maze at least. And it's gradually working its way towards the exit, its click-click-clicking vertebrae tail chasing after it as it turns corners. Funeral-black cloak rustling. Hat still strapped to its serpentine head. Empty eye sockets feasting on the sight of nothing living anywhere nearby.     Meanwhile, back in the not-Maze, the Life Gear is spasming and writhing, struggling less and less as its metal body vibrates at a now-audible frequency. Pieces that were part of an intricate whole disconnecting from each other. Piston and pipe bones, and bolted skin clattering noisily as the monster is literally shaken apart. The Witching Hour girls have kept their focus solely on the monster, with the exception of Crucia, who doesn't need to maintain her spell. She cast it. She made the universe accept her will. Now it's real, unless she or a stronger spellcaster says otherwise. As the only actual Mage among the local magical girls present, she can do things the others just can't do with their reliance upon an Artifact.     So she can turn her attention on the others as the Chaos creature vanishes and asks, "Guys, are we sure the orphanage wasn't the building we're standing in right now?" 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     The noise level of the Life Gear's falling-apart body reaches a crescendo as Musica continues channeling vibrations of a sympathetic frequency to the unique wavelength of the monster until it finally 'dies'. A cog wheel connecting the dragon head to the host falls off and cracks when it hits the floor, releasing stolen 'Time' in every direction back to the victims of the theft. A man in a tattered business suit slumps in the pumpkin glue as he passes out from the strain. There are signs of scarring where the Life Gear was beginning to fuse to him with wires, but it wasn't connected quite long enough to cause serious damage with its removal.     Paladin looks around at the building, trying to see if she can feel anything weird from the place. She still feels off about the Heart Card and says so. "I feel nauseous about being that close to it, but not as bad as it's been in the past. Either it was weaker than the Cheshire Cat, or I'm getting used to it." She knows she can't feel magic on her own, but a place drenched in death, madness, and the passage of time? Shouldn't she pick up on that? Shouldn't any of them?     No. Why would they? There are probably loads of terrible things that happen in the world around them all the time, and they don't notice at all unless it's right in their face. "Thank you for acting as our 'diplomat', Lute. But for your safety, please don't follow my foolish example and run in alone next time." She smiles slightly at him.     Paladin answers Golden with, "That would make sense. The Death Magic-users extensively warped the space of a restaurant we were at months ago, just so to be able to try to gather life energy or something of that nature. But not all Nether Realm fiends have that kind of magic energy to throw around. Somewhere they can set up a permanent base of operations would be quite valuable." She clutches her hand tighter as she looks at the spot where the Maze opened up, and then to Sanary, with energy ready for usage. 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     As the human host is released from his pumpkin glue bindings and the time-freeze eyeball is recalled back to the book it emerged from (Musica has obviously stopped sonic-zapping him already), Libra says, "If there is a way to destroy it without freeing it, let us know. Otherwise, we will probably have to face it before we can depart. As well, depending on if this IS the site of the orphanage, destroying this building might be necessary after all. Otherwise it will just lure more monsters in the future."     Crucia has let her pumpkin glue spell fade back into unreality, and is busy chanting something in a language that is not meant for communication. It doesn't translate because it's not a language. It's the sound of the universe bending to the will of a single mortal, put into a format that a human mouth can utter. She casts out a hand, and an outline of a black pumpkin appears in the air as she completes her spell. "Harvests Past!" she calls out.     The outline expands to engulf everything, and then fades away. Nothing seems to change for everyone else here, but Crucia seems... Stricken by what she sees, and quickly dismisses her spell. "This is the place," she says hoarsely. "We need to burn it down." Only a few seconds passed. What could she have seen in that time? 

:'''{{#var:172|Sakura Kinomoto (172)}} has posed:'''     Sakura has her eyes closed. Can she somehow sense the Death creature in her Maze? Or perhaps she's communicating with the magical spirit that created the Maze. ... No one here beyond Sakura and her Familiars really has any idea how her magic works, do they?     "It's... pretty good at mazes. It might reach the exit soon, so we should get ready for it," she declares, quietly. She produces a bunch of cards!     By 'prepare' she mostly meant 'buff like hell'. "Shield! Power! Fight!" She calls. As the Shield activates, yellow translucent bubbles pop up around EVERYONE IN THE ROOM (yikes), while the other two cards simply create a pink and turquiose aura around Sakura. "Create!" is her final call, which creates a... book. Which she holds in her hand. Huh.     Libra-envy? 

:'''{{#var:188|Lute (188)}} has posed:'''      Lute pauses, just listening. He smiles at Miko, shrugging, "Hey, going in without knowing what I'm doing is honestly half of what I /do/. Really. I know how much risk to balance to reward."      A grin appears on his face though.      "...But if we have to destroy this building... Well. I can contact some of my Confederate contacts. I have a /shitload/ of explosives I found on a mission a while back. I can get them here in just a few minutes using my Gardevoir to warp to the warp gate, and having some Confederates load the explosives up and bring them to the warp gate."      A smile. "We pile up the explosives in here, dismiss the Maze, and then let the place blow sky high." 

:'''{{#var:714|Sanary Rondel (714)}} has posed:'''      Sanary snickers lightly at the half-chiding, half-complimenting that Paladin gives to Lute. "Well, it /is/ Lute. Someone's gotta do the dumb stuff that works somehow." She gives him a playful tap on the side before glancing at the rest of the gathered group, pausing to raise a hand towards Sakura. Even if she's not necessarily injured, transferring some of that healing energy to her could be useful in giving her some extra energy to throw around!      So... Sanary does exactly that. A slow wave of light green energy moves from her to the Cardcaptor, dissipating after lingering on her for a short while. "If we gotta burn this place down... Do we want to do it before or after we deal with the skeleton snake thing?" As she speaks, she opens up her gunaxe to swap the Ice shell out for a Lightning shell.      "I can blow stuff up pretty good with this or the Fire shells, but-yeah. Might be easier to take the thing down with a flaming building on it, but if it gets out and survives? There could be a lot of damage around here." 

:'''{{#var:385|Yuna Kagurazaka (385)}} has posed:''' Yuna grimaces quietly; she was just starting to wonder if this might have been the oprhanage in question too. But who would use a *warehouse* for an orphanage .... She quickly decides she's happier without knowing. That's probably directly related to why this place is a monster magnet. "So do we kill the giant death snake thing first, then work on demolitions, or try to time things so that the burning warehouse kills the third monster, or what?" she asks - still trying to maintain her composure. She'd actually be happy to let Lute's Pokemon do the hard work, but a piece of her doesn't want to leave it entirely to him, either. And if the skele-snake is getting out of the maze as quickly as it sounds like, they might not have time to arrange any nifty schemes to kill two birds with one stone. The sound of Sakura casting her support spells prompts Yuna to tighten her grip on the Matrix Divider, heft her shield into what might be a more comfortable position (for all that it's the exo-arm holding it, not HER arm) or at least more convenient, and power up the beam cannons mounted in her frame's shoulders - getting them ready for quick use, although the protective 'lenses' remain over them for now. "Thanks for the shield spell, Sakura," she adds with a smile, then looks at Lute. "If you think we've got the time, sounds good." 

:'''{{#var:782|Golden (782)}} has posed:'''     Golden uhs. "Really? That's pretty terrible that it'll escape. Good thing there's so many of us to take it down, right?"     The digimon's arm cannon starts warming up, a dull glow emanating from its wide barrel. "Gotta make sure it doesn't eat more people, right?" 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     Paladin considers the options proposed, then looks to the Witching Hour girls. Musica and Libra are looking right back at her. Crucia seems pale and is holding a hand to her stomach. Musica takes her unseen gaze off of the pink-haired magical girl as she moves to her team mate's side and puts a hand on her shoulder in a display of gentleness that Miko wouldn't have expected from the haughty magical girl. But she doesn't know any of them very well yet. She shouldn't be so quick to judge.     "That's right, our unidentified ally. It would be far less fortunate if we were fewer in number. But together, we are powerful enough to take on multiple monsters. I'm sure of it." She turns her pink eyes on Lute and says, "We don't have a lot of time for an elaborate plan, Lute. I am sorry. Thank you for the offer, though. Collapsing the building on top of it may not destroy it, as Libra said, but it may buy us some time. Let's get the human hostage out of here first, and then just focus everything we have on this place. We'll have to leave shortly after that. We don't want to be here when authorities come by." She knows Libra is still watching her, waiting to see what kind of call she makes. Just as she is learning about them, they're still learning about her. And that's... Not a bad thing.     Libra looks at the magic that has begun to engulf her, and enhance her. Bubbles? Then she looks to the book that Sakura summoned. Or created. Another user of the Magical Element known as 'Book', eh? Here she thought Sakura used the 'Card' Element! "I am certain we can find a way to destroy both together. Perhaps Crucia can use acid pumpkins--" Libra starts. 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     Suddenly, the air within the building -splinters-, as the outline of a skull bashes against it. The ghostly image of a skeletal snake can be seen on the 'other side' of reality.     It found its way out.     Paladin leaps back, summoning the Sacred Scepter into her hand. Crucia draws her wand, Libra her book, and Musica actually heads for the downed former-Life Gear host and scoops him up as she tries to carry him out of the building, and out of the line of fire.     Suddenly, freezing cold erupts everywhere, the air becoming painful to exposed skin, the skeletal serpent slithers out of the Maze, rising up and up and up, and then lets loose a horrifying shriek that sends a withering power outwards, rotting wood, corroding metal, crumbling plaster, and making the building start to collapse around them.     "EVERYONE OUT--!" Princess Paladin starts to yell, too late, seeing the speed at which the ground is vanishing beneath them. Even with Sakura's and Sanary's magic enhancing them, she doesn't like what that effect is likely to do to them if it touches them.     Then a large pumpkin goes flying by and gobbles up everyone present, like a Halloween-themed Pac-man. Gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp! Unless Yue and Kero are so fast to fly out of there that they avoid it, the pumpkin carries everyone it swallowed to safety at super high speed, in that lot across from the warehouse.     Just in time to see the building come crumbling down. Losing all color except for black, and thus decaying in fast-forward until there's nothing left but dust.     The skeletal monster looms there in the dust cloud, staring back at them with eyeless sockets. Then it drops its lower jaw, and a voice speaks to them.     "There are others."     And with that, a hole opens in reality behind it, with a sound like ten-thousand corpses suddenly inhaling, and the snake is sucked back to where it came from.     Paladin is a bit too startled by the sudden course events have taken to do much, except say, "...Let's... Make sure there is nothing at all for it to return for. As Crucia Hex suggested, burn it all." 

:'''{{#var:172|Sakura Kinomoto (172)}} has posed:'''     Sakura stares up at the skull-snake, wide eyed. "Uh...!" She clenches her fist around her wand, narrowing her eyes. She takes a dashing step forward - and then the monster starts to emenate a corruptive, decaying aura. So Yue just grabs her out of the air and drags her back, flailing.     And then everyone is eaten by the Pacpkin.     Once Sakura has managed to recover from the shock and confusion... she sighs, looking down at the book in her hand. "I didn't even get to use this..." Pout. 

:'''{{#var:188|Lute (188)}} has posed:'''      As the snake appears, Lute moves between it and Sanary. She's already close to him, so this should be fairly simple. His goal, of course, is to simply protect her from danger, even at risk to himself. Also, despite the fact that Sanary could take a hit better than him.      And then Lute is swallowed by a pumpkin and pulled to safety. As he arrives at the empty lot, he just stares around, baffled, "...Did that pumpkin just eat me and carry me over here?"      With the building destroyed, he sighs in relief. Yeah, definitely need to destroy this worse, but nice they have a head start on it. He looks towards Miko again, smiling, "Well. I suppose we can bring in the explosives /now/. That'll burn it pretty well. And leave a crater. ...I wonder if place is built on a graveyard too." 

:'''{{#var:385|Yuna Kagurazaka (385)}} has posed:''' Yuna expected the monster would re-appear from roughly the same place it disappeared into the Maze from. That doesn't seem to be QUITE what happens - she's shifting her aim and trying to unload on the monster ... And the aura of decay and sheer entropy which the monster lashes out with actually causes the Matrix Divider's beams to diminish, withering away like the light of a dying star. She's preparing to follow up with her beam cannons and their greater power wheGIANT PUMPKIN OUT OF NOWHERE When she's ejected from the rescue pumpkin again, Yuna just flops to the pavement, trusting Elner to see what she doesn't have the wherewithal to look at. Give her a moment, she's just completely and utterly terrified out of her wits. At least she's being quiet about it. Of course, it's too late to scream by this point anyway. 

:'''{{#var:782|Golden (782)}} has posed:'''     A barrage of dull orange spheres comes flying out of the digimon's arm cannon as the face batters its way into reality, exploding upon contact with... whatever the thing is. And the pumpkin whisks Golden away mid-leap as he prepares to go for the throat of the Death Snake, the weird sunburst symbol glowly dully as he did. "LIKE THAT'S SUPPOSED TO SCARE ME?!"     Golden is dumped out by the pumpkin, looking pretty tweaked out and angry. 

:'''{{#var:714|Sanary Rondel (714)}} has posed:'''      The sudden rush of cold air draws a pained cry from Sanary, the one-eyed healer hunching over instinctively to cover herself from the extreme cold. The strange outfit she's got on certainly isn't intended for early winter temperatures, never mind reality-warping induced freezing. There's really not much she can even do to warm herself up, and it's only with that shout from Paladin that keeps her awake long enough to notice that pumpkin coming for her.      And then they're out! Somehow. Still shivering at the coldness from earlier, she staggers forward slowly before grabbing onto Lute from behind to try and steal some of his heat. "Wh-what... What the hell just happened?" She glances around at the others for confirmation, pausing to stare at Golden and raising an eyebrow at the strange creature. Is that a Digimon? She opens her mouth before closing it, a short hum given instead as she reconsiders asking that so bluntly.      Perhaps later. For now, she starts channelling magical energy again before circulating it from person to person to try and boost their energy reserves back up. The restorative light lingers on the three members of the Witching Hour this time, the healer having noticed that fatigue setting in earlier. 

:'''{{#var:385|Yuna Kagurazaka (385)}} has posed:''' Yuna manages to get back on her feet thanks to some careful work with her hover-thrusters, and assists in reducing the ashes as best she can with judicious doses of light/holy power, channeled through her weapons. She's going to stand out pretty badly if the authorities happen to show up while we're doing this, so she's as efficient as she can be ... And when it's done, or at least done to the best of her and others' ability in a hurry, she powers up those hover-thrusters again and heads for the warpgate at speed. 

}}

2190/Emperors of Time: Introduction

2015-05-09T17:04:13Z

Paladine: Created page with "{{Log Header |Date of Scene=2015/05/08 |Location=Midnight Shrine Tokyo <MST> |Synopsis=There's a time distortion in Midnight Shrine Tokyo. A force of Union and Confederate Eli..."

{{Log Header
|Date of Scene=2015/05/08
|Location=Midnight Shrine Tokyo <MST>
|Synopsis=There's a time distortion in Midnight Shrine Tokyo. A force of Union and Confederate Elites go to deal with a suspected Life Gear and run into more than they bargained for.
|Thanks=
|Cast of Characters=11, 172, 560, 589, 714, 737
|Tinyplot=
|Tinyplot2=
|pretty=yes
}}
{{Poses
|Poses=:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     Midnight Shrine Tokyo is a city rife with monsters, evil wizards, aliens, and extra terrestrial, or even extra-dimensional invaders. Magic is returning to the world at a level unseen for hundreds or even thousands of years. Beings who have long desired a way to return to Earth, or to go there for the first time, or simply to obtain great magical resources without any real interest in the world itself, all are competing amongst themselves while at the same time warring with the defenders of humanity: Magical girls.     So far, the only magical girl that the outsiders who have been helping Miko have actually encountered was Miko herself, as Princess Paladin (and sometimes Midnight Shrine Maiden, but no one outside the Confederacy even knows Midnight and Miko are the same person. Largely because they can't kind of also aren't).     It's evening for this mission. An enemy group that the Union and Confederate joint forces have run into once before is the target. One of the people who is going to be joining them has already mentioned they may be late. That's okay. Sometimes late assistance can be valuable. Not that Miko intends to run into a trap and get captured just so that Sanary can show up a surprise rescuer, but honestly it's something that happens sometimes in this line of work. Magic is a fickle thing. As often as coincidence and probability are altered to work against those who wield it, it also works to benefit them. Monsters from the Nether Realms, being Enemies of Magic, tend to get more of the coincidental mishaps than successes.     Planning for coincidence, however, is REALLY not a good idea.     Right now, everyone should already be gathered at a bus stop that will take the group discretely via mass transit to a more country-ish province in the mountains. Forests, no roads other than the one the bus will be driving on, etc. There have been rumors of people wandering into the woods and coming back out aged by decades, or reappearing several days later and thinking they were only in there for a few minutes.     It's kind of hard to cover up or write off, and goes to a level of obvious supernatural activity that most Nether Realm monsters know not to engage in.     It's also probably the work of the mysterious Time Magic users known as the Epoch Saints. Miko is dressed in hiking clothes. Beige shorts, a dark-grey top over a white undershirt, boots, and socks. She even has a backpack. The cover story is that they're going on a night hike up into the mountains to see the stars from an observatory there.     It shouldn't be hard to slip away into the darkness, given that nobody is really expecting them to be anywhere.     White Rose is also here, but she's dressed in safari gear like she expects to be hacking her way through a jungle in South America instead of floating around in the woods in Japan. 

:'''{{#var:172|Sakura Kinomoto (172)}} has posed:'''     Sakura is also here! She's... wearing pink. Well, I mean, she almost always wears pink, so that shouldn't be too much of a surprise. Still, pink -hiking clothes-... that's a bit off. Even her hat is pink!     It may have been designed by Tomoyo.     Keroberos is currently in Sakura's backpack. Yukito is also here, wearing far more sensibly-coloured hiking clothes, with a... much larger backpack than Sakura's. It's probably filled with food. 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     Emiya Shirou's also here - as usual, he has no problems aiding a fellow magus in the Union. Well, even if Sakura was nothing more than another normal person he'd be heading out to help.     The teenager isn't terribly impressive, but what's new? Shirou's almost always wearing casual street clothing to these freakish events with only bits of armor hidden underneath over the vitals.     "So... what's the plan?" He's sounding far too positive and relaxed considering what they're about to do. Or perhaps just focused. "We'll need to capture some of them if they're going to undo damage like the rumors are talking about..."     He's not realyl sure what else could deal with 'and then the guy came wandering out 40 years older.' 

:'''{{#var:11|Metal Man (11)}} has posed:''' Metal Man had been helping out Miko with this where he could and again once more? Metal was in a world utterly alien to him. The world of magical girls and magic in general. HJE however is her and is not bothered at all by the terrain as he's follow after Miko in whatever form she's taking at this point. "So here we go again." Given the nature of the Enemy? Flash Man was keeping step with his fellow Wily Robot. However save for the slasher grin he normally gave people? He'd been otherwise quiet. "If we can't get them to undo it?" 

:'''{{#var:737|Vivio Takamachi (737)}} has posed:'''     Vivio Takamachi is also here! She even said as much when she arrived, raising her hand excitedly into the air and saying, "Vivio Takamachi is here!" She's wearing some simple clothes, a white shirt with purple edging, some purple pants with white stripes down the side, finishing the outfit with some boots. Of course, she too has a cute backpack, which she now has slung over her shoulder as she waits for the bus. In order to keep their cover intact, Vivio's Device, Chris, is currently playing plush, poking out of Vivio backpack to look like just a toy.     Vivio taps the tips of her boots on the ground one after the other impatiently while they wait. To pass the time she looks over at Miko, asking, "So these Saints people are bad, right?" 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     Miko bows to Vivio when she arrives, and says, "Thank you for coming. I'm Miko Fujimoto." A very respectful Confederate! Also, they're all here to save people! She's a pretty good person for an enemy! Miko had been admiring Sakura's pink outfit, because that's totally her favorite color and it's adorable. Maybe she should ask Tomoyo to make HER one too! But she breaks away from that when people start asking for details of the plan.     The black-haired young wman shakes her head to Shirou's question. "Mm-mm. We don't need to capture anyone. We just need to defeat the source of the magic. Stolen 'Time' will be returned to its rightful owners. If it's like last time, at the clockmaker's store, then it's a magic device called a Life Gear that possesses a person and turns them into a monster in order to steal 'Time' from others. All for the purposes of delivering it to villains we only know as the Epoch Saints."     To Vivio's question, Miko says, "Their true objectives and identities haven't been determined yet. I'm not the magical girl who normally faces the Epoch Saints, but White Rose and I have had a couple encounters with their minions, the Life Gears, before. We can safely assume the Epoch Saints are not good guys."     White Rose, a white-haired, red-eyed little fairy, is in Miko's pocket and pipes up to provide mechanics exposition to people new and old to these adventures. "You can consider 'Time' to be like life force, only temporal rather than spiritual. You need 'Time' to live just as much as you do the energy of your body. In some ways even more so. Life force can regenerate upon being expended, such as by sleeping, and eating... But that requires the passage of time. While a 'fated time of death' is beyond my personal knowledge to determine, as far as I know the 'Time' someone has available to them can be adjusted based upon not only their physical condition but also their choices, actions, and the choices and actions of others. So someone who crashes a motorcycle into a wall without a helmet and dies might have had lots of life force and 'Time', but their choices and actions cut their life short. Maybe that was fated, maybe not. But their body wasn't about to conk out tomorrow for no reason."     White Rose holds up a finger as she puts a pair of tiny eyeglasses on to emphasize her Professor Fairy mode. "If 'Time' is stolen, the choices and actions someone makes have less influence on their life span. Their body is weakened and aged, or else they simply lose 'experiences'. Almost like they cease to exist for the length of the 'Time' stolen. On top of that, someone who worked really hard or was always sick or injured, who needs awhile to rest, heal, or recover to get their life force back to normal won't have that opportunity. Even if they would have made a full recovery, by being denied the simple passage of time, they might wind up dying."     Miko looks down at her pocket and says, "You sure know a lot about Time Magic. I thought that the Sacred Scepter only wielded Holy and Law Magic?"     White Rose, in the process of removing her glasses, puts them back on as she explains, "That's because Time Magic functions according to rules, and has restrictions and structure to it! That's the purview of Law! I might not be able to USE Time Magic, but my knowledge of form and function as it pertains to systems of magic gives me insight into areas outside my specialty!"     Then White Rose makes gangster hand signs and tacks on. "Dawg!"     Miko just lets out an uncertain laugh. "Ha.. Haaa..." Then she looks up as the sound and headlights of the bus approach the bus stop they're at. Once it's come to a stop, Miko climbs aboard and pays for everyone who came. The bus driver makes some idle conversation with Miko, who provides their cover story while waiting for the others to be seated. 

:'''{{#var:172|Sakura Kinomoto (172)}} has posed:'''     Sakura and Yukito both turn to look at White Rose as she Exposits. Sakura's eyes just kinda... glaze over. Yukito seems to get it, though!     Vivio and Shirou are both given pleasant smiles, while Metal Man is... well. Also given a pleasant smile. Everyone gets a pleasant smile!     Who is she, Oprah?     And onto the bus they go. 

:'''{{#var:11|Metal Man (11)}} has posed:''' Metal Man is making note of the information and he thinks for a moment as the plain is laid out to them. "So they are basically loading it into a battery of some sort?" It makes sense they were taking time and logical? With how the universe this was from work the time would go back to it's rightful owners once it's been smashed." Metal Man contiunes to listn to White Rose going itnot more detial. Metal Man gives Sakura a polite nod. He's not one of the feds known for rampaging for laughs. He tended to be very focused on militarty like strikes. Also rumours abound of Wily Army ambushes aborted on occasion due to an innocent getting caught in the trap. But that's just rumors right? "Now one thing I been thinking on is who are these guys really working for? Their own gains or do they server some master in the shadows?" 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     "Y-... you're sure about that?" Such a convenient way of solving a problem is unheard of to Shirou! So of course he's doubtful.     He also makes a heck of a face at White Rose's surprise gangsta'ing, but is soon enouh back to his typical easygoing self, nodding. "Well here's hoping you're right. We definitely can't let them keep doing what they're doing..."     The only question is what to do?     He seats himself on the bus, consternating mentally over the issue of how to deal with people this nuts... and the risks. 

:'''{{#var:737|Vivio Takamachi (737)}} has posed:'''     Vivio probably understands as much about the lecture as Sakura does. While there are some spells in her world which could be considered to have an effect on time, they're nothing like what Vivio thinks the cute little fairy explained... Oh, right, fairy... "Ooooooh, she's so cute!" Vivio gets all starry-eyed at White Rose.     But then it comes time to board the bus. Vivio boards, briefly stopping to bow to the bus driver and offer thanks for driving them today, then heads down the aisle to find a seat. She takes off her backpack and slides in behind Emiya. Once comfortable, she muses... Possibly to the others, or just to herself, "Sooo it sounds kind of like a Lost Logia... Seal it and everything goes back to normal!" It's a shame Vivio doesn't know any sealing spells... 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     White Rose beamed happily at Vivio prior to the bus boarding. She is always glad to receive complments.     Once they're on the bus and all seated, White Rose returns to explaining briefly, to answer Shirou's concerns and Vivio's summary. "It could be! I'm not familiar with Lost Logia, but it sounds like a similar deal. Only less sealing and more 'blowing it the heck up'. A host to a Life Gear remains unharmed by its destruction. The possessing entity takes the damage. But only if it has transformed. And for your concern, Mister Shirou~... Pretty sure that's how it works, yeah. It's worked that way the last two times. Let me see if I can use an analogy that works for you..."     White Rose taps her chin, and then says, "If Magic is a river, then let's say that Time is the sandy beach and river bottom that give it structure. The water will deposit or take sand away. Bits and pieces of other things might wash up, or come from other places. Random events that can't be predicted from the perspective of someone living within the river or beach themselves. If someone comes along and starts scooping up sand and dirt and so on, it's going to deteriorate the sides of the river. It will alter its structure, and thus those living within the river that is Magic. But the sand is going to run through the thief's fingers. They might be able to carry some in their hands, but eventually they're going to need to put it somewhere if they intend to keep it. Like, say, a bucket."     The fairy waves a hand at Shirou and says quietly, her tiny high-pitched voice easy to miss over the sound of the bus up where the driver is, "What we're doing is trying to knock the sand out of the thief's hands before they can get it to the bucket. Or the 'Time' into the battery, rather, like Metal Man suggested. If we can stop them before they get too far, the Time will return to its rightful place automatically, right back on the beach. Lives will remain changed by the incident - ripples will continue to be caused by the interference, but the overall change to the river's structure is going to be reduced." 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     Miko turns to Metal Man, at that, and says, "The Life Gears ARE the minions, as far as we know. The Epoch Saints are the masters in the shadows, since the last Life Gear we fought said it was going to take the 'Time' it stole back to them, not keep it for itself. We don't know what they want it for yet. Maybe we'll find out more this time if the enemy is foolish enough to blurt it out again."     White Rose says, "Let's just be glad that we're dealing with Nether Realm monsters and not Time Mages. A spell doesn't end just because its caster or medium gets smashed. Often, it won't end until its effects expire, but some effects are permanent or can be refreshed by the original caster. If a wizard was doing this, we could knock them out, even kill them, and someone aged 40 years would be just as old. The stolen 'Time' would be with the dude we just killed, because we didn't get them to undo the enchantment first."     Miko ponders for several moments on that and then asks, "So why are Nether Realm monsters different?" She has not yet realized how glazed over half the people here are. Yukito might be getting it, but he's smart after all! ...No offense intended to Sakura or Vivio.     Thankfully, White Rose decides to keep this short. And even if her tone is dark, and her expression serious, she's still cute as she explains in Dramatic Voice, "Nether Realm monsters don't possess magic of their own, usually. They have to steal it or use a stand-in resource like life force. Magic is what they want above all else. Even a monster that wishes to rule the universe would need to Magic to do it. Because they don't 'Belong' outside of the Nether Realm in the first place."     Miko seems to be fine with letting that go for now. Unless other people ask questions, the rest of the bus trip into the mountains is quiet, and uneventful. By the time they get up there, it has almost completely dark. The bus driver seems worried about leaving them up there, but Miko assures him they'll be fine. So the bus leaves... And now they're all out in the middle of nowhere, alongside a road, with a dark forest below them, down a slope... And mountains rising up above the trees, and a sky full of stars above that. It's pretty. Sad they have to go fight monsters instead of admire the view. 

:'''{{#var:737|Vivio Takamachi (737)}} has posed:'''     Vivio looks up from playing a game on Chris, turning her head to look out the window as they arrive. She slides out of her seat, putting her backpack on again and then walking off the bus. She thanks the driver once more before moving to join the others.     Once the bus is gone, Vivio lets go of her grip on her plush bunny, Chris floating up into the air beside Vivio now that there's no one else around so they don't need to pretend they're normal people.     Vivio looks up in wonder at the stars in the night sky... Stars unfamiliar to her, but still wonderous to look at. The dark, forboding forest is a different matter... A part of Vivio is afraid of going into that place. That's the child part. The part of her that is a Mage and Strike Arts practicioner is excited at another opportunity to test her strength, improve it, and help others in the process! Vivio raises her hand and exclaims, "Time to go into the deep, dark forest and beat up some bad guys!" 

:'''{{#var:172|Sakura Kinomoto (172)}} has posed:'''     "I know a sealing spell! ... But we don't need to seal them. Last time we just had to blow up the Life Gear - why would it be different this time?" she says with a smile. And then she sits back and waits out the bus journey, playing on her phone and so forth!     Once the bus arrives, Sakura steps on out, retrieving her Key of Stars from around her neck. Once the bus has driven out of sight, she looks up at the night sky, raising her hand. She closes her eyes - then uneals her wand. "RELEASE!" She spins the wand around in one hand while retrieving a card from her pocket. "Light our path! GLOW!"     Several motes of light appear around the group, moving as they move and generally lighting up the area. Handy! 

:'''{{#var:11|Metal Man (11)}} has posed:''' Metal Man says "Understood, Miko." Metal's a very experianced Elite, he comes to understand there's often a puppet master but it seems they got that sorted out so he's got not much else ot sya for the moment as he's go his question answered. SO more inform is laid ou on the table and he looks ot the others before moving to get on the bus. He might do a bit of chattering with Flash Man, maybe a few stories about the time before the Union and Confederates to boot as well. 

:'''{{#var:714|Sanary Rondel (714)}} has posed:'''      Just on time. Maybe. Sanary was under orders to meet up with the group further along the path for some sort of daring rescue or to draw attention from the actual magical girls or... Something. Her mind was somewhat preoccupied, though, with the recommendation from someone to dress the part.      Which meant wearing a frilly ass kimono and an apron. Needless to say, she's still somewhat grumpy by the time she sees the bus coming. She's still keeping herself somewhat hidden, of course, but the healer is definitely itching for a fight from all the fidgeting she's doing. 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     "Trace, on!" As enthusiastic - if unhappily so - as usual, Emiya Shirou produces his twin weapons from a much more subdued flash of emerald prana than normal. KAnshou and Bakuya quickly rest in his palms, produced with more care than his usual mid-battle attempts.     "I just hope we can get the drop on them before they do anything. Then we won't have to get too vicious." 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     Shirou prepares his weapons. Metal Man and Flash Man are basically living weapons (at least ability-wise) and can attack whenever they want. Sakura has her wand out, and Vivio seems to have her laser rabbit well in hand as well. Miko knows she should probably transform now, but the restrictions upon her when she becomes Princess Paladin require that she have a clearly defined objective and not to deviate from it. Unless she finds a way to lift that restriction - and she has determined that trying to find loop holes can result in bad consequences - it's safer for her to wait until she has an immediate need to transform. Besides, with all these other cool and powerful people with her, and Sanary meeting them here soon, she shouldn't have to worry too much about her own safety!     The forest looks kind of creepy even to Miko. It's not that it looks unnatural or anything, just the normal sort of creepy that comes from a forest at night. But as the group approaches, with Sanary lurking around somewhere nearby, those with the ability are likely to pick up that there is magic energy coming from the forest. However, it is not unless someone actually passes beyond the edge and into the darkness that they would get hit with the sheer enormity of it. This is a space that has been warped heavily through not just Magic, but the Time stolen from those who entered the forest. Trees move and grow in winds that haven't blown in days or weeks, like a time lapse video, while birds flap through the air at a glacial pace. A deer goes blurring past, leaping backwards along the path it was taking before the effect began.     White Rose immediately says, "Geez. Yeah, this is totally Time Magic. Lots of it. I guess this is what happens when a Life Gear is allowed to mature. They get crazy strong from all the 'Time' they steal."     Miko backs up a bit out of the area of effect, and decides now is the time to transform. She may or may not have some slight protection thanks to the Sacred Scepter, but she'd rather have her magical girl powers available to shield her from temporal wackiness. A gohei, a prayer rod with paper streamers, appears in her hand as she twirls it into existence, and then she is engulfed in a flash of pink light that leaves in a sort of combination of knight's armor and school girl uniform. She is also taller, has a completely different face and build, and her eyes and hair are bright pink.     Princess Paladin says, "Though it is imperative we act, we should wait for Sanary to join us. She should be somewhere nearby... Unless something happened to her." What if she was ambushed while keeping an eye on the situation!? That would be terrible! Thankfully, whenever she pops out to reveal herself, they will all get to relax about that possibility and laugh at the costume the other Confederate is wearing. Ha ha. Hee hee. Ho ho. Because clearly Princess Paladin is dressed so much more sensibly. 

:'''{{#var:172|Sakura Kinomoto (172)}} has posed:'''     Sakura peers at the forest. "...There's a lot of magic there..." she murmurs. And then she recoils as they step past the treeline, bringing one hand up as if to protect her face. She winces, stepping back a few paces. "W...wow. This one's... a lot stronger than the last one..." She frowns a bit as she sees a deer run past them -in reverse- "...Protect us from the flow of Time! SHIELD!" she calls out, producing another card and activating it with her wand. Her magic circle appears at her feet - and suddenly the entire party is surrounded by personal translucent yellow bubbles. Even White Rose, Kero and Chris get teeny little ones.     SPeaking of Kero, he's now fluttering around near Sakura's head. 

:'''{{#var:714|Sanary Rondel (714)}} has posed:'''      Huffing quietly as she steps forward to meet up with the group properly, Sanary hefts her gunaxe onto her shoulder and gives Miko a pointed look. "Not my fault this was the only... Magic-looking thing I had."      More grumbling. Maybe she'd be taken more seriously if she chopped something's head off. Well, there'd be a chance for that eventually. There's a few familiar faces, at least, and the eyepatched healer does take a slightly closer position to the group in order to keep an eye on Miko, Sakura, and Emiya.      "So. You run into anything weird on the way here or still looking?" 

:'''{{#var:737|Vivio Takamachi (737)}} has posed:'''     This is pretty trippy.     Vivio just blinks as she watches the deer go backwards... She hops the creature will be alright. Must be strange going in reverse like that...     While Vivio has her defensive magics to protect her somewhat, some more specialized protection is of some great help! As the bubbles appear around her, Vivio smiles at Sakura and says, "Thanks!" Seeing Miko transform, Vivio realises it's probably a good idea if she does the same.     Vivio reaches up to grab Chris out of the air and then holds him up, "Sacred Heart. Set up!" Iridescent light engulfs Vivio, mostly hiding her from view. Her silhouette inside the light begins to grow, quickly becoming taller and filling out. Finally the light disappears with a flash and Vivio's Adult Form can be seen by all, complete with Barrier Jacket.     Vivio throws a few punches and launches a few kicks into the air, then nods approvingly at the transformation's completeness.     As Sanary shows up, the now older looking Vivio gives her a wave, "Hi! Nothing much weird except all the weird time stuff going on." 

:'''{{#var:11|Metal Man (11)}} has posed:''' Metal Man isn't looking to pick a fight with the Union people here. He does sometimes wonders if this madness of the war will stop for a moment but let's it pass. There'd be someone with enough power on either side to keep things going. HOWever he's pretty chill at the moment as they arrive at the forest. He just look the forest over as he joins the other and Flash Man's seemingly impassive to everything for the moment. "Sanary humm she's a up an coming medic." Metal's not met her but he has paid the heck attention to her existing however, it's always good to be good to the medic right? 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     Shirou shivers upon entering the borders, and ends up rubbing an arm. he does NOT like this place, it's simply too Strange for him.     not that this stops him whatsoever.     Entering the warped space gets him NAUSEATED and dizzied, and Shirou ends up toppling sideways and leaning on a tree with a muttery cry of alarm.     But he soon shakes his head, bearings having returned...     Returned just in time to witness Miko transforming... the redhead boggles. "THAT WAS YOU?!"     How did he NOT know this by now? Shirou may truly be one of the densest wackos on this mission. Although he's not frowning at her, just looking baffled. Then a bit grumbly.     Serioiusly how did he not know this by now? 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     Good thing Sakura is here! Just like always, she seems to have the right spell for every situation. Maybe some of them have individual defenses that could help blunt the effects, but given they're working with wacky magic that probably none of them here can actually USE. Also good is that Sanary has shown up without any sign of being mauled or killed. It would be truly unfortunate if she had been attacked alone while waiting to support them.     Paladin nods to Sanary and says, "We just arrived but-Yes, what Miss Takamachi said. Your wardrobe is fine, as long as it is provides protection and does not impair mobility. We do not all have choices in what we transform into, but it is always effective as a defense." But then suddenly Shirou is flipping out like a ninja.     Paladin seems somewhat startled despite her magically-granted maturity making her seem calm and in control and confident. "I am sorry. I thought you were aware. It has been known to the Union for quite some time. If this is a problem, you can stay here if you wish. But Sakura, myself, and both Confederate and Union forces have been working together without animosity or issue to protect this world for months now. You have nothing to fear from me."     Sakura's glowing lights are illuminating the forest ahead of them and the area around them, so once they venture forth, they should have a good view of everything going on. "More healers are always welcome. Support abilities can make a crucial difference in situations like this. Sakura is a very good example of that." Pink eyes are scanning the forest, magically-enhanced senses giving her better night vision even if Sakura wasn't providing light. With it, she can see quite a ways.     The group proceeds deeper and deeper into the woods, and ghostly images of people appear around them more and more as they walk. A child chasing a ball that he lost while playing. He probably came out of the forest an old man. A young couple having a nap after their picnic. They slept for a half hour and woke up three weeks later. A team of rescue workers repeating the same search for a lost child over and over and over, trapped in a loop that keeps them occupied and unconscious of the 'Time' they are losing in the world outside this space.     It's haunting and disturbing and weird. But while Miko, within Princess Paladin, is bothered by it, both Paladin and White Rose are keen to any trouble.     Suddenly, heightened senses pick up movement. Paladin's eyes turn towards it. Others might also pick up indications of presences around them. Not time-trapped souls, or backwards-moving deer, but beings moving with a purpose... To surround them.     Paladin brings up the pink scepter she wields, its jewels glinting with magic power, as she says for those unaware, "We have company."     White Rose had to evacuate Miko's pocket when she transformed, so she's now taking off to go flutter near Kero, perhaps hoping the big strong plush-looking lion bear will protect her. Or maybe she just feels tiny mascot characters are less of a target so they should stick together. 

:'''{{#var:172|Sakura Kinomoto (172)}} has posed:'''     Sakura rubs the back of her head. "...Shirou, seriously, it's not a secret..." she mumbles a bit, then shakes her head, before they continue on through the woods! She beams as her support magic is praised. She's been focusing on that a lot on these missions, so it's nice that it's been noticed~     As they pass the time-trapped people, she frowns, tightening her grip on her wand. "This is awful..." she breathes. "We... we will save them, right? After we find the Life Gear?"     Once Miko - that is, Princess Paladin - calls out that they have company, she stops in her tracks and narrows her eyes. "...Illusion." Card! And then she's -gone-. Time to put those Assassin skills to work. She attempts, invisibly, to sneak up on the sneakers~ 

:'''{{#var:737|Vivio Takamachi (737)}} has posed:'''     As they move deeper into the forest, Vivio grows sadder at the sight of all the people affected by whatever is happening here... It's hard to imagine what they must have gone through suddenly having their lives turned upside down and not know anything about what happened to them... Okay, maybe not that hard.     Vivio stops at the warning, though she had already caught sight of some of those that Paladin mentions. She softly shifts her footing as she prepares for what is probably going to be a fight. Already preparing a spell in her mind, Vivio waits patiently for their opponents to show themselves, and provide an opening for the close combat Mage to strike.     Meanwhile, Chris floats up to join the other tiny mascot characters, looking around and taking up a combat stance identical to his master's... Not that he'll be much use unless the bad guys also have tiny mascots who enter the fight too. 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     Shirou somehow manages to facepalm despite holding his sword. Yep. He really didn't know. "Come on, it's not like I hold a grudge..." But he still sound shocked, no way otherwise. He's helped Miko on several occasions and never once connected her with that crazy magical girl.     Just what kinda guy must he be to just drop it right then and there?     One day, someone might figure out how weird Shirou is...     Probably won't be today though. If you can cal it today when time itself around everyone's being bent over backwards. With every new figure he sees, Shirou's anger crows fiercer and his sword-grip clenches tighter.     All until-- "What--?!"     He whirls around, oddly going back to back with Princess Paladin with his two swords at the ready. "Who's out there..?!" 

:'''{{#var:11|Metal Man (11)}} has posed:''' Metal Man jhas no sense ofr magic, she's got an idea of how to fight it sure, what not to step in, what not to touch. He can't make use of it though or sense it unless it was putting out some kinda of energy and he's distracted by Shirou. "EMIYRA SHIROU! Pay attention to your surroundings!" Seriously no matter what happened the boy wasn't very good at noticing things. He keeps up with Palaing and Flash Man's left arm has transformed into a plasma scatter gun. Metal Man has also summoned one of his infamous blades in hand as he moves ahead. 

:'''{{#var:714|Sanary Rondel (714)}} has posed:'''      That was a relief, at least. Between having a walking light with them and plenty of fighters, Sanary does feel somewhat more secure not having real armor on her. She doesn't seem too startled by Miko's transformation, although she does raise an eyebrow slightly at the getup.      Her attention turns to the disturbance in the darkness, however, although there's a broad grin crossing the ... 'maid' 's face as she levels the barrel of her gunaxe at the oncoming whatever it is. "NOw this is what I was hoping for. Ready to fire!" 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     This is a very dangerous situation they're in. One Life Gear against multiple Elites - particularly Magical Girls - might not be much of a match, especially right after it has 'hatched', so to speak. But this one has been transformed and gathering additional power for days... Maybe a week or more. Further, there might be more than one of them. One Monster Of The Week at a time usually isn't a big deal. Two or three changes the combat dynamics drastically in a way that those who don't deal with these creeps regularly might not grasp. They might still win, or maybe not. But magical girls, while having fortune on their side, are not invincible. Being ganged up on by powerful enemies out to kill them, even if they appear to just be teenage girls, can and has resulted in dead girls turning up around town.     Thankfully, Sakura, by virtue of magical invisibility, manages to sneak up on one of the enemies... Who doesn't look much like a Life Gear. The last Life Gear they encountered looked to be some kind of steamwork/clockwork humanoid, a warped version of its host. This one is tall and pale, with long black hair, in a black ballroom gown. She has an opera mask on her face, and is balanced very precisely on a tree branch. In high-heeled shoes.     One of the others in the area shows herself as Vivio and Paladin and Shirou and Sanary and Metal Man and Flash Man and even White Rose, Kero, and Chris take up positions to defend themselves!     "Whoah, whoah!" she starts. She's dressed as a witch, it appears, as she steps out from behind a tree. The hall, the very frilly and fancy witch's dress, with a big orange bow on the front (and also on her hat)... She has extremely long and beautifully styled hair - and of a very unusual hue. It's visibly semi-transparent in places, making it hard to figure out what color it is. Especially out in the middle of the woods. She's waving her gloved hands back and forth and says, "Relax! We don't want any trouble. We thought you might have been the bad guys we're looking for, but you don't seem to have any Time Magic on you, and at least a couple Magical Girls. We're only out here to deal with the bad guys. So everyone just relaaaaax!"     There's still one other person who hasn't shown herself yet. Though honestly, there's two that haven't shown themselves yet. It's just that Sakura managed to find one of them.     Paladin decides to try diplomacy and says, "We seek the monster responsible for this phenomenon. We do not intend to encroach upon your mission or 'territory'. We only wish to stop the enemy and return the stolen 'Time' to its proper owners. I am Princess Paladin. The others can introduce themselves, but they are not from this world. Only me."     White Rose pipes up with, "And me! ...Kind of!"     The witch lady is smiling but her red eyes are also carefully gauging everyone here. Despite being vastly outnumbered, and having her hands in the air while she plays peacemaker, she doesn't seem like she's scared or concerned. Maybe she believes the story. Or maybe she has a plan. "Oh, yeah? I'm Crucia Hex, the Pumpkin Witch. This IS kind of our enemy to deal with, but maybe we can work something out..." 

:'''{{#var:172|Sakura Kinomoto (172)}} has posed:'''     Sakura looks up into the tree to see... a girl balancing on a tree branch in -high heels-. She stares for a moment... and then jumps up into the tree as well. Yes, literally -jumps- up - her athletic ability is pretty insane!     There she perches, on a branch close to the one taken up by the stealthy magical girl (but she's not as stealthy as Sakura~). She's gonna... let the others talk this out. 

:'''{{#var:737|Vivio Takamachi (737)}} has posed:'''     Vivio does indeed appear to relax as Crucia reveals herself and explains the situation. It's always nice to see other people out trying to help! Vivio nods along as she listens, more than willing to believe that the other magical girls don't wish to create any sort of trouble.     As introductions go out, Vivio grins and says, "I'm Vivio! I'm a Mage from Mid-Childa. I'm sure we can be friends!" She looks around as she continues, "After all, it's a pretty big forest! It'll make it easier if we work together to stop whatever is happening."     Vivio looks back and takes a few steps towards Crucia. She smiles and holds a hand out as an offer, "So, what do you think?" 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     Emiya Shirou gives Metal Man one heck of an unhappy glare, protesting, "What do you mean? I'm paying attention!"     It just might be that in some corner of his mind, he subconsiously rejects associating Princess Paladin with Miko? ... nah. That's probably a stretch.     With introductions goingg around though, he relaxes somewhat. still clinging to the intensely magical twin weapons, but... standing straighter and less on guard.     "Emiya Shirou--" He pauses right then and there, blinks once, and adds, "Sword magus." The boy exhales, shifts to a more kindly and friendly tone and offers a simple smile to the other Magical girls.     "This really isn't the time to be calling targets. The problem is all these people being taken advantage of." 

:'''{{#var:714|Sanary Rondel (714)}} has posed:'''      The newly appearing witch gets a long, confused stare from Sanary as she keeps her weapon aimed at her, although the healer does relent eventually and directs her aim to the surrounding area behind the witch instead. "Careful. Announce yourself before coming out next time."      She's chuckling lightly, at least, so it may at least be safer for the witch now than a few seconds ago. Sanary's not letting her guard down yet, though, her attention still darting around at the surrounding area to make sure nothing else is coming out towards them just yet. Glancing back at Vivio, she also takes a slightly more defensive position closer to her. Big sister mode go!      "Sanary. Healer from Plegia. What were you thinking?" 

:'''{{#var:11|Metal Man (11)}} has posed:''' Metal Man says "Unhuh, you keep telling your self that big guy." He doesn't comment further and now he looks to see they have some new arrivals. She looks to them for a moment and he seems to not be so trusting of this whole situation. He has to wonder about this and he's loking form one to another. He listens and tilts his head as he looks em over. "I'm not made of magic so moon dusting all over me won't work." He lowers his weapon and Flash man lowers his own arm canon. "Metal Mana dnt his is my fellow Wily Number, Flash Man." 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     Crucia seems happy enough to accept Vivio's offered hand in her gloved one, shaking it and bowing her head. She uses her other hand to tip her pointed hat down a bit as she says, "Pleased to meet you~. I've never heard o' those things, but I suppose help isn't out of the question. I should consult with the others though." She alows bows her head to Sanary and apologizes. "Sorry, sorry~! I'll keep that in mind in the future!"     Paladin is significantly more suspicious than the others here, it seems, with the possible exception of Sakura. Even Sanary, wary as she is, has trusted Crucia at her word, it seems. Shirou is a no-brainer. His default reaction to cute girls seems to be 'be nice to them'. As Crucia makes polite comments about the various introductions, showing interest and curiosity, and being very agreeable to everything said, Paladin is wondering why the others haven't shown themselves yet. If they're in such a hurry and if Crucia needs to ask the rest of her group if cooperation is okay, why is the Pumpkin Witch making small talk. She's even gushing over the tiny mascot characters! "Ooo, I wish I had a little friend like that!"     White Rose asks, "Why don't you? Aren't you a magical girl too?"     Crucia rubs the back of her head embarrasedly and says, "Haha! Yeah, but I guess not the same kind as your companion!" She lets out an inquisitive/thoughtful 'hmmmmmm?' at Shirou's insistence that they shouldn't be calling targets, and adds on, "You really aren't from around here, huh? It isn't always in a magical girl's best interests to let another group take on her rivals, you know!"     To Metal Man and Flash Man's introductions, Crucia gives a curious look and says, "Huh! That's some interesting get ups you have there! You're not magical, you say? And you're still out here fighting monsters? Brave!"     Paladin finally decides they've wasted enough time here as she interrupts the giggling witch to say, "So when were you going to check with your comrades? Who are they? And where are they?"     Crucia pauses, her smile never flickering for a moment, and then focuses on Paladin. "Hmmmmm? Who says I'm not talking to them right now. Maybe I have telepathy!"     Paladin steps forward and points the Sacred Scepter at Crucia. "You're a member of the Witching Hour. You're the ones who usually deal with the Epoch Saints. You're Time Magic specialists. While I can't rule out telepathy, the others haven't shown themselves yet despite you suggesting we might be able to work together. We are going to take out the Life Gear whether you come along or not." Then she turns as though to walk away.     Crucia calls out, "Wh-wait! I said wait!" and reaches after Paladin, suddenly showing urgency she hasn't so far.     The magical girl in the tree tenses and, if Sakura does not act fast like WHOAH FAST, she takes off in a streak of black, apparently intending to land directly in Paladin's path! 

:'''{{#var:172|Sakura Kinomoto (172)}} has posed:'''     Did you know that Sakura has pretty great reflexes?     Well, it helps that she was already suspicious, and when Crucia reached out to grab Miko's arm... well. Sakura lunges forward, arms swiftly attempting to wrap around the magical girl's neck - one hand to cover her mouth, while she attempts to gather her neck up in her arm and squuuueze at her carotid arteries. Assuming the magical girl doesn't struggle or has some other way to supply her brain with oxygen... this should knock her out in a few seconds.     After which, Sakura will leap down from the tree and gently lay her down on the ground. Assuming this worked, of course. 

:'''{{#var:737|Vivio Takamachi (737)}} has posed:'''     "Ooooh, you can use telepathy too?" Vivio doesn't consider the idea to be so joking as context might indicate. After all, telepathy is a common ability for Mages from her world! Though Vivio has yet to meet anyone not from her world with it... Or maybe she has and she just doesn't know? Or maybe Crucia is the first!     But things seem to get interesting as the identity of the new magic girls is revealed, "Time magic, huh? That seems pretty neat!" But things begin to happen and Vivio blinks a little in confusion, "Huh?" She doesn't know Sakura is attempting to subdue one of Crucia's group, instead just watching Paladin walk away from Crucia.     Vivio turns and calls to them both, "Look! It seems like there's some stuff going on here that we don't know about, but don't you both think it's better to put aside those things and focus on stopping whatever is doing this time stuff? Innocent people are getting caught up in it and we can't let that continue!" 

:'''{{#var:11|Metal Man (11)}} has posed:''' Metal Man says "My world is without magic." He's wrong it's just rare or might just be science so advanced it mighht as well be magic. EIther way the two brothers keep their cool and is looking to Crucia and Metal does pause to do a basic scan of her. Nothing hostile he's curious and he might pick up anything, like does her thermo profile fall in human normas? He's just being areful "I think the laser angel's right." Yes ye refered to Vivio as a Laser Angel. He moves ot back her up a bit should she need it. 

:'''{{#var:714|Sanary Rondel (714)}} has posed:'''      "Just don't let it happen again... Mm. Where are these others, anyway?" Paladin's words seem to have struck a chord in Sanary's brain, the latter narrowing her eye slightly as she keeps her weapon trained on the darkness behind the witch.      "She's got a point there. If you want us to trust you, then we're gonna need you to at least show us that we're not just doing your jobs for you." The healer taps the back of her gunaxe against a tree before aiming it into the trees once more, still glancing at Crucia every now and then just to make sure she doesn't try anything funny like...      ...How would she even stop a telepath from doing telepathy things, anyway? It's not like she'd be able to tell unless this Crucia had a specific chant or glow or something. The movement from Sakura going after something in the trees does draw the healer's suspicion, however, and Crucia's attempt to go after Paladin certainly doesn't go ignored as Sanary moves to try and intercept her by stepping in the way. All five feet and four inches of axe-wielding maid included!      "Hold up, Crucia. What's got you so worked up?" 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     Oh if Miko only knew. Shirou's default reaction to most people is 'be nice to them.'     He's just surrounded by girls.     And a couple of robots.     But he still ends up frowning, then gaping a bit. "Wh-what? ... Isn't a magical girl supposed to be all about protecting the city and all the people in it?!" Yeah Crucia's reply to him is utterly baffling the boy. He makes a rather displeased expression, soggy-kitten style.     He's still in the middle of trying to parse this when Crucia and Paladin get tizzied. "What are you up to?" He asks rather simply, faint suspicion staining his tone.     Well, yes, Shirou's not expecting any kind of crazy from them, but...     "Time magic specialists...?"     The significance of this is not lost on him. He blinks a few time, thinking hard while now looking every which way for any incoming trouble! 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     Sakura graps hold of the lurking magical girl, and starts strangling/sleep holding her. As she struggles against Sakura with magically-enhanced strength, she seems to be losing the 'staying conscious' battle. Which is when she seems to just vanish, leaving behind only her opera mask. That mask then floats through the air, and turns to face the newly-revealed Sakura, as a female voice that sounds very strained and woozy comes out of it. She definitely felt what Sakura did to her! "Treachery! I knew we couldn't trust you!"     The rest of the magical girl who wore the mask suddenly reappears, reattached to the mask, and lands on the ground. She raises her opera-gloved hands and points them up at the trees, seemingly preparing an attack as the sound of music and sonic vibrations begin to fill the distorted air of this place.     As Metal Man scans Crucia, he should quickly determine that there are no human life signs before him. Infact, seconds later, when Sanary moves in the witch's way and starts asking very pertinent questions, Crucia looks blank, flickers like bad TV reception and vanishes... Leaving behind a pumpkin in her place.     She then reappears, flying down from the night sky above, yelling, "Waaaaaaiiiiit! Musica, we're not going to fight them! They're legit! They know who we are, and are after the same enemy!" Crucia hovers down on her broom, with her star-tipped wand in-hand, and stops a couple feet above the ground.     Paladin, at least, seems to be holding back as requested by Vivio. She's not interested in fighting these girls. They have work to do, and she was trying to make a GOOD impression on other magical girls, not start up rivalries. "If there is something FROM the Life Gear that you want, aside from the stolen 'Time', you can have it when it is defeated. We can work together or not, to that end. Let us not place blame, as we were both demonstrating prudent caution..." She lowers her Scepter and says, "Now that our friends have revealed themselves, I say we should do away with deception. I do not hold any grudge if you don't."     White Rose pipes up anxiously to say, "Yeah, same here!"     But Musica announces, "I most certainly DO hold a grudge! That little pink witch up there tried to strangle me to death!"     Crucia stomps her foot in annoyance and says, "You totes can't be strangled even if that was what she wanted, and you know it! Also, what's wrong with witches!?"     White Rose just looks terribly nonplussed. Then something that appears to be a piece of fruit with pigtails and a cute face drawn on it comes rolling out of nowhere, going, "Fu-shushushushu!" until it comes to a stop. Then, in a high-pitched, child-like voice, it declares, "Did you know? The energy expended in in-fighting decreases the survival chances of all of us when our friend gets back with the enemy's location! Your grudges will make us all dead!" :3 :3 :3     Musica facepalms as the music and vibrations fade away and groans. "Not now, Momo!"     "Momo Mo MomoMo is sorry!"     Crucia turns to Shirou and bows as she says, "I'm sorry! I'll explain to you! To all of you! We've been fighting the Epoch Saints for months, but we're no closer to finding out who they really are or what they're up to! Instead of just destroying Life Gears, we're hoping to suspend one in time after defeating it, so we can try to get information out of it! We weren't sure if we could trust you to not try to destroy the Life Gear right away or try to take its power for yourselves or something. That's why we want to deal with the Epoch Saints. Just destroying Life Gears isn't enough, and our magic is the best suited to stopping them for good!" 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     Just then, a wave of grey energy comes sweeping over everyone present, giving everything a washed-out appearance. A clockwork monstrosity, blurring and fading in and out of existence, seems to be approaching them. Running ahead of it is a young woman in a blue cloak and a big floofy round hat with a tassle. She adjusts her large eye glasses, over her bright-blue eyes, as she skids to a stop among everyone else, and announces in deadpan, "I found the Life Gear." 

:'''{{#var:172|Sakura Kinomoto (172)}} has posed:'''     Sakura has another card in her hand immediately as 'Musica' begins her musical assault - the Silent. But then she seems to be calling off her attack, so Sakura stows the card again. "...That was a sleeper hold. If I wanted to kill you," snkt goes the Hidden Blade, "I would've used this." And another snkt as it's put away again.     But then there's a clockwork monster charging in. "...Welp. DASH!" Boom! Off she runs, at such a speed that it causes a little sonic boom and a rush of air. She races at the clockwork monstrocity... "POWER!" she cries again, while leaping into the air and trying to just yank it down to the ground. 

:'''{{#var:714|Sanary Rondel (714)}} has posed:'''      A pumpkin. Not entirely... Unsurprising, considering Crucia's title. Still, it does draw a sigh from Sanary before she scans to area to try and find the witch again, not taking very long once she starts yelling at Musica. She's got half a mind to just punch someone in the face, but the healer /is/ getting better at reining in her gut reactions these days, and she follows Paladin's lead in not doing anything to either of them.      "Yeah, come on. We can sort out this whole thing after we've dealt with this Life Gear thing. Let's just focus on find-"      And then everything turns gray, the woman with glasses (presumably one of Crucia's and Musica's allies?) shows up, and the Life Gear's discovery is announced!      "... Yeah, let's focus on that." Double-checking her gunaxe to make sure it's loaded with the Ice shells she's been favoring so much lately, the healer takes a deep breath before running at the clockwork monster at full speed. Rearing back the axe in her hand, she bellow out a roar much too loud for someone her size before swinging the ice-imbued axe horizontally to try and cleave right through the monster's legs on one side. She certainly not be the largest person here, but she's got the honor of pig farmers to uphold! 

:'''{{#var:737|Vivio Takamachi (737)}} has posed:'''     Things happen. People call betrayal. Others call for peace. A piece of fruit rolls in (What?) and brings facts to support what Vivio's been trying to get people to realise. Of course it all comes to a point as what Vivio assumes is another of the witch group comes running with something chasing...     Vivio tilts her head a little at the sight of the clockwork monster. Huh. Kind of old fashioned, but rather cool looking. But it seems that that is their target. And Crucia's plan to capture it to learn more is fine with Vivio!     Vivio taps the tips of her boots on the ground and bumps her fists together. With a grin she says, "Alright, let's rough this thing up so the witches can capture it!"     Vivio plants her feet in the ground again, lowers into an attack stance, and then pushes off! With a blast of wind, Vivio's Jet Step takes her up to the clockwork creature in the blink of an eye. Vivio unleashes a flurry of magic-enhanced blows with her fists before finishing up with a devestating roundhouse kick.     Vivio then jumps away to briefly observe the results of her assault. 

:'''{{#var:11|Metal Man (11)}} has posed:''' Metal Man does not say a thing to the humans here, no he send sa brief burst transmission to Flash Man, who starts getting ready. He watches as the pumpkin appears in girl's place. "Just like Shadow Man..." Metal Man muses and he's now starting to look about. Then he pause at thier words and just think things just get deeper and deeper and now comes the clockwork creature. It's the sort of thing he thinks Nox might enjoy from a design stand point he's got to admit. He now moves to spring into action and get into the fight he leaps with inhuman agility and the blades start flying at the clockwork thing. Flash Man almost seems to flicker out of existnace, the truth is he's just started to maniplature time for himself and is overclocking himself hardcore he's got a plan but even at his speed it's going to take a bit. 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     Lots of things happen at once, including Sakura launching a surprise attack that leaves Shirou utterly stupefied. WHAT just happened?!%R    The dumb look switches quickly to panic as things turn hostile. But he seems reluctant to bring his weapons about even for a proper defense, instead looking about hurriedly as if hoping this situation will sort itself out.     Miraculously it does just that. "Whew. That could've gotten ugly..." Whew indeed.     Still, he hjas his eyes on Crucia while she explains. "... If you hadn't told us we probably would've done just that. If you think there's something that can be learned to shut down the Saints from a quick study I'm all for it. Just so long as everyone here's released from the warped time. It's not healthy to leave them like this for too long! That I'm pretty sure about."     After getting that out though, he ends up just STARING at the creature apparently named Momo. Disbelieving.     Just before the life Gear drops in though he adopts a fighting stance. "Found?! It's coming right for us!" And the first thing he does is dive behind the nearest tree. If they're not going to destroy it he needs to figure out how to subdue it instead!     Kanshou and Bakuya vanish, replaced with a shining golden spear significantly longer than Shirou is tall. He has no trouble wielding it however. First twirling it, then aiming the business end for the Life Gear. It sizzles, crackles-- then fires bolts of golden electricity that'll probably knock the wind out of pretty much ANYTHING. 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     The Life Gear is swollen with the 'Time' it has stolen over the past three weeks. It's far more durable than the one they fought before. But there's also more of them here. Sakura POWER tackles the clockwork monster and tries to yank it to the ground, succeeding for the most part. Its rear half seems to be connected oddly to the front, so even as its double-heads and front half get yanked to the ground, its rear half and a tail made of pistons, that are working in overtime and shooting out steam everywhere, continue to remain a threat. Also those heads start spitting out razor-sharp cog wheels at the others.     Sanary chops one of its rear legs, with her MIGHTY BLOW, making it brittle with ice and then breaking it at one of its many joints. This makes it collapse and dump its rear half onto the ground now too. Its tail arches up and tries to shoot a stream of searing, magical steam at her though!     Vivio moves too quickly for the unwieldly beast to react, pummeling its bulky body and sending gears and broken support struts tumbling to the ground. The monster bellows in pain or perhaps anger.     Metal Man's deadly blades slash deep into the two-headed creature, actually chopping OFF its dragon-like head entirely. Flash Man better act quick, because with the beating that the Life Gear is taking, it isn't long for this world.     Musica removes her mask and throws it up into the air. Her body vanishes when she removes it. The ceramic covering flies towards the Life Gear, and then starts multiplying itself until it forms a circle around the thing. The eyes and mouth of each mask light up and they begin shooting purple energy beams into the monster, as a chorus of Musica's voice coming from each calls out, "STASIS TRAP!" 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     Shirou's spear blasts punch holes in its shell, exposing a hollow chamber inside of its bulky torso. There's a lot of energy radiating from within suddenly. The stolen 'Time'!     Crucia stands in front of Yukito, to make sure he remains safe. "Don't worry, handsome! I'll protect you!" Then she starts pointing her wand and going, "Boop!" With each 'boop', a pumpkin appears in the air and then falls to the ground. She repeats this until there's a wall of orange and green between the witch, the pale-haired man, and the sharpened cogs that were shot their way. Guess she's probably support/utility/defense-oriented.     The glasses-wearing girl jogs up to the monster and in a rather subdued attack cry, announces, "Book Attack." Then she produces a large dictionary and says, "Hah." as she clubs the dog-looking head right in the face. It looks dazed and confused now. Its body is pretty battered. While it probably could have been quite ferocious against a smaller group, a force this powerful was too much for it!     Paladin raises the Sacred Scepter and points it at the Life Gear, as she begins to announce, "Penance Beam-"     But Musica interrupts with, "WAIT!" Then the purple lasers shooting from the masks begun to engulf the Life Gear. And the ACTUAL Life Gear, not the monster, comes flying out of the shell of metal and clockwork. It looks gross. A pulsing mass of flesh in the shape of an oversized gear. Crucia hops up ontop of her wall of pumpkins and begins chanting in a weird magical speech that doesn't translate with the translation effect. It's not a language meant for communication. It's meant for changing how possibility works. 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     Crucia points her wand, and ORDERS the universe to shut up and sit down in a single word. "REVERSAL!" Magic is stripped out of the gear while allowing it to keep existing, even though it's MADE out of magic. It is frozen in space-time, has its essence as a living entity removed, and causing the forest all around to revert back to normal. The greying effect fades, there's no more ghostly images, and the distorted feeling of time is seemingly gone for good.     And yet the Life Gear continues to exist in parallel to conventional reality. It should be dead, but it remains stuck in the moment when it still existed.     Crucia may not be an offensive power house, but she's a Time Mage. And like White Rose indicated earlier, spellcraft can be kind of scary.     The book-wielding girl opens up her book and intones, "Temporal Analysis." Blue light starts scanning the cracked and broken Life Gear. Then she looks up and says, "I'm Libra." Then she focuses back on her examination. The masks fly back together, the stasis effect that Musica began now stuck in place possibly forever if Crucia doesn't cancel her spell. Musica folds her arms over her chest when she reappears from her mask, looks around at the others. She may seem to be the haught type but even she says, "...Yes, that went better than expected." Even if she's eyeing Sakura still (or seeming to. Who can tell through a mask?) she says, "Thank you, all."     Crucia, meanwhile, is already back with Yukito. "So, you seeing anyone?"     Paladin didn't even get to attack. 

:'''{{#var:714|Sanary Rondel (714)}} has posed:'''      The good news: The axe strike worked! Between the ice freezing the leg and the axe breaking it apart, unbalancing the mechanical monstrosity seemed to do the trick in helping bring the whole thing down!      The bad news: Burning hot steam everywhere. Even after remembering to circulate her own healing magic through her body, it doesn't quite stop the horrible, horrible pain shooting across Sanary's skin even through the kimono. It also doesn't stop her from belting out a creative series of obscenities that would be much too indecent for so many young magical girls to hear.      Such a terrible role model.      Thankfully, she does eventually stop swearing like a sailor in time to look over the rest of the group. "Freaking.. Nngh. E-everyone okay? No.. Uh. Not casualties?" She's putting on a brave face despite the semi-burnt redness and pinkess in her face, but it's pretty clear she's going to need some aloe or something to fix up the lingering burns. 

:'''{{#var:737|Vivio Takamachi (737)}} has posed:'''     Vivio watches with awe as everyone unleashes their attacks on the clockwork creature. The local witches in particular draw Vivio's interest... It's a form of magic she hasn't seen before and it looks pretty neat! Crucia's time magic in particular is quite the sight.     But finally the magic of the witches brings the clockwork creature to a halt, freeing up the time it had stole and releasing everyone under its effect. Vivio relaxes, letting out a deep breath as she notices the world around them returning to normal.     Vivio jumps into the air in excitement and exclaims, "Yey! We did it!" She grins in triumph, happy to beat the monster, free its victims, and also work alonside new allies! All in all, a successful mission! 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     Ah-hah! Something for Paladin to do! She didn't get to attack, but she is also a healer like Sanary! She can help support her! She twirls the Sacred Scepter between her fingers and points the artifact at the night sky, and yelling, "Heavenly Glory!" before unleashing a bright white flash of magical energy that heals everyone present of any injuries they may have. Even Musica's sore throat, and the unconscious dog!     Then she has a moment to go examine the former host to the Life Gear. It's a good thing she healed it. Even with her restoration magic, there's signs of where the Life Gear used to be attached. Flesh is scarred like wires were worked under it. If a Life Gear is left to possess a host for too long... It starts to integrate into its body on a more permanent basis?     Crucia hops up and down with Vivio, calling out, "Yay! Hurray! Hip hip, hoorah!"     Musica comes over to Paladin and with a look at the pink-haired magical girl's face, she determines what's being thought of. "This is the first time you've seen a long-term possession by a Life Gear then." It's not a question.     Paladin nods. There's no reason to lie. "We've faced them twice before. Or I have. We got to them right when they first transformed."     Musica hmmms. "You said your name was Princess Paladin. We've heard a bit about you. You've been going around intruding on a lot of other magical girls' territories... But mostly it's been one or two fights when monsters crop up, I've heard. You don't appear to be trying to hijack anything."     Paladin looks up at Musica and says, "That's right."     The two look at each other. Paladin's voice and expression are calm, confident, and convincing. Like she truly believes what she says. Musica's tone is conversational, matter-of-fact... But her line of questioning indicates uncertainty or suspicion. Her face betrays nothing, since it's a mask.     "But you DO want something." Musica accuses.     Paladin's expression doesn't change at all, as she says, "I want to earn the trust of other magical girls. So that we can hold a meeting to discuss the future of our world and our individual missions. I realize not all of them will be eager to attend. But they should at least be willing to come see what kind of person has been running around town fighting the Nether Realm for them."     Musica remains silent for quite awhile. 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     Crucia is still jumping around with Vivio, attempting to take her hands even if Vivio is not jumping anymore herself, so that she can hop and dance and jive better. "You're super strong! Is that your magic? Strength?" she asks.     Momo Mo MomoMo rolls up to Sanary. "Fu-shushushushu." It looks up at her with a puppy face drawn on its surface. Then it says, "Did you know? When tap water reaches 140 degrees Fahrenheit, it can cause a third degree burn in just five seconds!" Helpful.     Libra looks over her shoulder at Shirou, Metal Man, and Flash Man. She's used to working with girls, not boys. She didn't even realize that boys/men COULD fight monsters. But she returns her attention quickly enough to the Life Gear. Because she needs to find out its secrets.     Others may celebrate, but she needs to know everything. The fact it helps her team mates is just a bonus.     Musica finally says, "Keep messing with the territories of others and I can guarantee that you'll have other magical girls coming to meet you. But not for the reasons you think. If you want to arrange this meetin, I recommend aiding us first. Make progress against the Epoch Saints, and people may consider you more legitimate."     Princess Paladin considers this, then bows her head and says, "Thank you. I think I will do just that if the rest of your team is open to it."     Music hmphs! and says, "I'll speak to them!"     White Rose, still floating around with Chris, says, "Sooo... Magical girls, right?" 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     Under such a crazy assault, Shirou's startled to see the whole thing over THIS quickly.     The spear he made vanishes in a swirl of freed prana, though at the same time he stumbles again and leans against the tree holding his head. "The magic here is really something. It's making me sick..."     He rapidly shakes his head as though hoping to clear it, and the first thing he next does is look all about to see if anyone's hurt. Seeing no serious injuries though she instead walks out..     "That... thing... was a Life Gear?" It's the one poor dog that he beelines for. "... But it's a dog?"     This isn't making ANY sense. 

:'''{{#var:11|Metal Man (11)}} has posed:''' Metal Man says "Not that you could repair mw however thank you for asking. I don't think flash man needs Anything either, it seems his gambit to get up behind the monster and level it with a plasma shotgun pblast wasn't needed. Metal Meanwhile looks to Vivio Takamachi. for a momen then to Libra he seems like he's about ready to go. Even though Metal Man techinally has no Gender when you get down to it. "If we get into this Terriatorial stuff I seen it once before it gets ugly. Shouldn't you be working together with all that love justice nad friendship stuff?" Man is Vivio's lasers going to be needed on this world? 

:'''{{#var:737|Vivio Takamachi (737)}} has posed:'''     Vivio jumps with Crucia a little more before settling down and nodding, "Yup! I'm also pretty fast." Vivio throws a few quick punches into the air, dancing on her feet. But she then stops and grins, "And I have shooting spells too for ranged fights!"     Floating with White Rose, Chris watches Vivio and Crucia nearby and simply facearms. His other arm waves around a little, which roughly translates into 'Try living with a family of them.'     Back down amongst the magical girls, Vivio overhears Paladin's goals and heads over to them to say, "I think that's a really good idea! When people work together, they can do so much more! I'm sure everyone will be able to do better if they cooperate!" Vivio nods confidently. 

}}

Radio Frequencies

2015-05-08T23:01:20Z

Paladine:

This page aims to list all radio frequencies which are either public or semi-private, based on voluntary listing. You can add them yourself, or send Homura an @mail with the listing information if you don't feel comfortable editing this page yourself or hate Mediawiki code.

Please note that whether or not a frequency is marked as encrypted or public doesn't make it any less impolite to just jump onto a frequency your character has no immediate tie-in to. If you have the slightest doubt about it, make sure to ask the owner whether or not your character can get on it or if it's alright to observe.

'''Freq''': The frequency.

'''Owner''': The current moderator of the frequency.

'''Enc''': Whether or not the frequency is encrypted, and how to get its encryption key, i.e. "ask owner".

'''Purpose''': What the frequency is for.

==All-Purpose/TP Frequencies:==
{| class="wikitable sortable" cellpadding="10" cellspacing="0" width="100%"
! style="text-align:left" width="5%"| Freq
! style="text-align:left" width="10%"| Owner
! style="text-align:left" width="5%"| Enc
! style="text-align:left" width="75%"| Purpose
|-
|| 06.08 || [[Milla Maxwell]] || No || Tales of Xillia-1 stuff, doubles as local cross-factional during scenes.
|-
|| 16.03 || [[Homura Akemi]] || No || Anyone involved, wishing to be involved, or planning to get involved in Madoka-1 scenes, whether random ones or TP ones, is free to have this frequency on. It will not always be used, but expect it to replace Union-IC when Unaffiliated or Confederate parties are involved, or when we have to discuss things and X-U isn't an option. You should only actually ICly know about/use the frequency once you've been told about it, though. (Attend a scene/be told/etc.)
|-
|| 95.5 || [[Courier Six]] || No || Mojave Wasteland general frequencies, also Radio New Vegas
|-
|| 413.612 || [[Summer Powers]] || No || Pesterchum Chat. Open to public. Codenames are used. Two words together, first one lowercased, second capitalized. profoundBadness and crowravenWolfmoon are examples.
|-
|| 66.6 || [[Psyber]] || Ask || Heaven or Hell backup radio. Will be utilized for smaller scenes featuring group members as well as splitting conversations off the main band.
|-
|| 11.5 || [[Elise Leroy]] || Ask || XCOM-1 'public' radio frequency, for allies not directly involved in XCOM day-to-day activities. Used for field ops also.
|-
|| 13.33 || [[Wuyin Tsai]] || No || The Buzzing. Lore drops from the Bees of [[Agartha]]. Receive /only/ except under exceptional circumstances.
|-
|| 8.33 || [[Wuyin Tsai]] || No || General TSW cast/world radio frequency. Information is generally available to whoever wants it, no permission needed to join. Used for anything happening on The Secret World or for conversations involving its cast or concepts therein.
|-
|| 13.37 || [[Chris Rothschild]] || No || Hacknet, a public frequency for techies, hackers, etc.
|-
|| 305.19 || [[Elliana Fairchild]] || No || Frequency for all cross-factional communications related to Elliana's various scenes, plots and TPs when J-IC isn't an option.
|-
|| 42.0 || [[Theo Morrison]] || No || Radio Free Nerdery. Public channel for casual talk from nerds of all stripes.
|-
|| 3.853 || [[Kirito]] || No || Radio frequency for Kirito's Node scenes (Abstractum TP).
|-
|| 192.9 || [[Eliot Ness]] || No || Radio frequency for Assassin's Creed: The Untouchables scenes.
|-
|| 7746.54 || [[Fuki]] || No || Radio frequency for Confederate Shinki.
|-
|| 45.55 || [[Serori]] || Ask || Radio frequency reserved for Dragon Ball Z characters and scenes.
|-
|| 4.97 || [[Mizuki]] || No || A frequency to share dreams, both the ones you have when you sleep and the ones you have when you're awake. Casual philosophy talk is also permitted. All of this is IC, cross-factional, and anonymous unless a person intentionally reveals themselves. The owner of the channel is common knowledge, however. Completely public.
|-
|| 53.13 || [[Sakura Kinomoto]] || No || Frequency for discussion related to the Deck of Light node.
|-
|| 80.8 || [[Goffard Gaffgarion]] || No || Frequency for those wishing to solicit Gaffgarion's services as a sellsword. Note: It's usually going to be Ladd answering unless it's specifically requested that a caller wishes to speak to Gaffgarion.
|-
|| 140.5 || [[Sir Bedivere]] || No || Semi-public radio frequency for the Knights of the Round Table, and residents as well as visitors to Dún Reáltaí.
|-
|| 442.2 || [[Quote]] || No || Public radio frequency for the Flying Island, particularly during the [[Cave Story]] TP.
|-
|| 9.999 || [[Landon al Cid]] || No || Multiversal radio frequency for interaction with Galianda and the Final Fantasy Act: Class theme members.
|-
|| 407.3072 || [[Optimus Prime]] || Yes || Private channel for active Autobots. Ask for encryption key.
|-
|| 16.37 || [[Snow White]] || No || Public radio frequency for the world of the Fables.
|-
|| 1994.0 || [[Emiya Kiritsugu]] || No || Public radio frequency for Fate/Zero Earth.
|-
|| 996.5 || [[Simon Petrikov]] || No || Public radio frequency for Mushroom War Earth.
|-
|| 22.2 || [[Eryl Fairfax]] || No || Public radio frequency through which people may reach the ReGenesis Corporation to buy from or trade with them.
|-
|| 756.980 || [[Gaius Van Baelsar]] || Ask || XIV Legion Private Channel. Ask for permission to join.
|-
|| 290.591 || [[Gaius Van Baelsar]] || No || General Public Eorzea/Hydaelyn Radio. Open to everyone.
|-
|| 969.001 || [[Admiral Merlwyb]] || No || Eorzean Alliance & Union Radio Service. Open to all Union and allies of.
|-
|| 756.900 || [[Gaius Van Baelsar]] || No || Confederate Dungeon Exploration in Hydaelyn.
|-
|| 579.001 || [[Gaius Van Baelsar]] || No || Primal battle radio frequency.
|-
|| 101.010 || [[Rainbow Dash]] || No || Equestrian IC radio frequency. Open to everyone.
|-
|| 19.85 || [[D]] || No || Scene radio for D's world. Open to whoever is present.
|-
|| 20.40 || Busou Shinki Battle Rondo || No || BSBR broadcast radio for announcement of fights and fight commentary.
|-
|| 1022.13 || [[Miko Fujimoto]] || No || Midnight Shrine Tokyo local/TP frequency.
|}

==Personal Frequencies:==
{| class="wikitable sortable" cellpadding="10" cellspacing="0" width="100%"
! style="text-align:left" width="5%"| Freq
! style="text-align:left" width="10%"| Owner
! style="text-align:left" width="5%"| Enc
! style="text-align:left" width="75%"| Purpose
|-
|| 141.80 || [[Solid Snake]] || Ask || Snake's personal CODEC frequency.
|-
|| 9979.5 || [[Iria]] || Ask || Iria's communicator frequency.
|-
|| 723.98 || [[Rebecca Chambers]] || No || Rebecca's main communicator frequency. Can be used to request MedEvac if needed.
|-
|}

==WMAT Frequencies:==
{| class="wikitable sortable" cellpadding="10" cellspacing="0" width="100%"
! style="text-align:left" width="5%"| Freq
! style="text-align:left" width="15%"| Arena
! style="text-align:left" width="75%"| Purpose
|-
|| 900.1 || All || All-purpose WMAT IC chatter frequency.
|-
|| 900.2 || Devil's Hand || Frequency for listening to specific match commentary.
|-
|| 900.3 || Diablo Desert || Frequency for listening to specific match commentary.
|-
|| 900.4 || Gizard Wasteland || Frequency for listening to specific match commentary.
|-
|| 900.5 || Northern Mountains || Frequency for listening to specific match commentary.
|-
|| 900.6 || Spinach Wasteland || Frequency for listening to specific match commentary.
|-
|| 900.7 || Yunzabit Heights || Frequency for listening to specific match commentary.
|-
|| 900.8 || Tournament Stadium || Frequency for listening to specific match commentary.
|-
|}

==Out of Character Frequencies:==
{| class="wikitable sortable" cellpadding="10" cellspacing="0" width="100%"
! style="text-align:left" width="5%"| Freq
! style="text-align:left" width="10%"| Owner
! style="text-align:left" width="5%"| Enc
! style="text-align:left" width="75%"| Purpose
|-
|| 140.6 || [[Sir Bedivere]] || N/A || An OOC channel for the ''Fate/stay night'' cast, and those involved with the cast.
|-
|| 12.1787 || [[Landon al Cid]] || N/A || An OOC channel for the ''Final Fantasy Act: Class'' cast, generally used for app discussions so we don't swarm under E-Chardisc.
|-
|| 211.314 || [[Gaius Van Baelsar]] || N/A || An OOC channel for the ''Final Fantasy XIV'' cast, and those involved with the cast. Open to everyone and anyone.
|-
|| 1941.45 || [[Kongou]] || No || [[Kantai Collection-1|Kantai Collection]] OOC chatter.
|-
|| 30105.00 || [[Duke]] || N/A || [[Digimon:_Great_Demon_War-1|Digimon: Great Demon War]] - OOC Channel for chatter, character concept talk for the theme, plot discussion.
|-
|| 30105.00 || [[Revan]] || N/A || An OOC channel for the various casts of the ''Star Wars'' universe and those involved with the casts, and general discussion. Open to everyone.
|-
|| 4.28 || [[Demetrios Vasilikos]] || N/A || An OOC channel for City of Heroes/Villains/etc. discussion and cast chat. Open to everyone.
|}
[[Category:Index]]

2159/Curses and Clarity

2015-05-05T01:35:53Z

Paladine: Created page with "{{Log Header |Date of Scene=2015/05/04 |Location=Island of Aeaea <IA> |Synopsis=In which Lute tries to get curses off of himself by visiting a Servant who curses people. |Than..."

{{Log Header
|Date of Scene=2015/05/04
|Location=Island of Aeaea <IA>
|Synopsis=In which Lute tries to get curses off of himself by visiting a Servant who curses people.
|Thanks=
|Cast of Characters=181, 188, 701
|Tinyplot=
|Tinyplot2=
|pretty=yes
}}
{{Poses
|Poses=:'''{{#var:701|Circe (701)}} has posed:'''     Aeaea is a gorgeous tropical island. Also a Noble Phantasm, so it is basically an entire island made of ultra-concentrated magial energy. But everything here behaves and looks and feels like the genuine article. But good luck trying to burn down a tree or damage a building if you're not an incredibly superhuman being or wielding an equivalent weapon. The palace of Circe is a pristine building sitting on a hill in the jungle, beneath the volcano that looms high into the sky, above everything else. The path from the clear blue waters surrounding the island, up the well-kept beaches, through the steaming jungles, and finally up to the front step of the palace was, while not a very long journey, at least one that tends to give people time to enjoy the splendour of the island.     In Lute's case, he may be less focused on the tropical paradise he finds himself in and more on getting rid of the curses plaguing him, but that doesn't make his surroundings any less pleasant. Beautiful women, nymphs and nereids, can be found scattered around - on the beaches, maintaining the jungle path, putting out fresh fruit and clean water for visitors or anyone who happens to be going along one of the paths, so on and so forth. While they may acknowledge Lute in passing, they do not go out of their way to interact with him otherwise, and instead direct him to the palace and then show him inside once he gets there. The main room beyond the entrance is a banquet hall, with long tables heaped with food and drink, and the entire room lavishly decorated.     Lute will be shown in, seated, poured some wine and informed that the queen will be with him shortly.     A pleasant place to get decursed, really. 

:'''{{#var:188|Lute (188)}} has posed:'''      As Lute arrives, the beauty of this place is immediately contrasted by the entourage he brings with him. He rides in on the wings of Giratina, flanked by a horde of Unown keeping a look out. Following along at sea level is Lute's I-Class Destroyer, Imima. Even Mr. Crabs is stationed about ten miles away from the island or so. Even though Lute is coming for peaceful reasons, he's bringing most of his forces, as usual. Travelling the ocean is a bit more troublesome for him now. He doesn't want to be ambushed by Fleet Daughters.      He starts walking to the palace as the various attendants direct him. Normally, he'd be getting a bit flirty with them. But, sadly, he has other things bugging him right now. He's occasionally randomly yelling at cats invisible to all but himself. And, to make matters worse, a particularly large and ugly crocodile is now following him. It'll stop if anyone tries to stop it. But, it gives hungry eyes towards Lute. And this is part of why Lute is keeping Imima with him, even as he goes to the palace. He at least recalls his Giratina, and his Unown slip under his lab coat, merging with the back.      And, once seated inside? He tries to remain calm. He takes a sip of the wine, and grimmaces as he swallows. Because now the food tastes like blood to him. Yeah, the curses are beginning to get worse. Or perhaps others are just finally activating now? 

:'''{{#var:701|Circe (701)}} has posed:'''     Given that the entire ocean surrounding the island is part of the Noble Phantasm, and has a hefty bounded field around it to keep out intruders, there's not much cause for such defensive measures, but one never knows when one might get ambushed when one is Lute, and the curses probably also give cause for concern. A few lions and wolves and bears that were lounging around outside keep the crocodile from following Lute indoors, by attempting to play with it. Despite being such ferocious predators, they act more like domesticated animals.     Once Lute is seated and drinking his blood wine, motes of fiery red light begin to condense nearby as Caster's voice calls out to him, "Welcome. I am sorry to hear that the beverages are not to your liking. Perhaps that will change soon." The Servant manifests out of thin air, nearby. Her hands are full with a tray covered in mixing bowls, small bottles filled with fluids, jars with various powders, and pellets, and so on.     She takes one look at Lute, her red eyes bearing cat-like or reptile-like, slit-pupils, and says, "Hmph. I can untangle all of that, but there will be additional steps needed to make sure there is no revisitation by the ones who afflicted you. Starting with, 'do not keep antagonizing them'." A bottle of something blue and cool-looking is thrust towards Lute as Circe seats herself on a cushion next to him and sets down the tray. "Drink this."     If Lute drinks it, it will seem to scald the hell out of his throat, but it will also remove the speaking in ancient Egyptian curse. The persistent burning and inability to talk for several seconds afterwards will go away after a bit. 

:'''{{#var:188|Lute (188)}} has posed:'''      Lute lets out a sigh of relief as Caster appears. He moves the cup aside, and leans forward, supporting his head with his hands, elbows on the table. It is not the most polite method, but he's just rubbing at his face and eyes, trying to get his focus off of the constant yowling of cats that he is hearing. He opens his mouth, pausing a bit, until he finally speaks, still in Egyptian.      "...Sorry about not liking the drink. I'm sure it's the curse. I don't mean any offense. ...And yeah, I'm... really hoping it'll change. Cause it's just... Getting worse and worse."      And then, the comment about making sure the curses don't come /back/. He hadn't even thought of that as a possibility. He lets out a bit of a groan at that, but he relents, "Alright... I'll not antagonize them more. I'll... get rid of most of the stuff. Probably can at least sell it to a museum, or hand it out to people who will take good care of it."      He takes the bottle. While many would pause a bit before taking some strange liquid offered to them by someone they barely even know, Lute of course is taking it without worry. And, he starts chugging it. He's not caring for manners. He just wants the curses lifted as quickly as possible. But, as he begins to feel his throat burning, he /tries/ to scream. His mouth opens, but nothing comes out but a gasp of air. His eyes are watering, and becoming blood shot. He grabs at his throat on instinct.      Once the burning stops, and once he can actually scream again, he shouts in rage, "WHAT WAS THAT FOR?!" But, he pauses for a second. It takes him a moment, but then he realizes it worked. He looks down, muttering, "...Did it have to be so painful?" 

:'''{{#var:701|Circe (701)}} has posed:'''     Circe doesn't seem to have taken any pleasure in Lute's suffering or anything, but she doesn't seem terribly sympathetic either. "I am removing a curse placed by the ancient dead, possibly by a divine being, through what amounts to magical brute force. It was not expected that it would hurt you, but it makes sense. What other curses are you suffering from? Tasting blood? Being followed by a crocodile? Hearing cats? Possibly seeing them as well? I'll deal with the top layers before dealing with any beneath them." Some black powder is mixed with some green herbs in a mixing bowl and then ground together. Caster takes a moment to snatch up Lute's goblet and pour some of the wine into the bowl.     When this is mixed in as well, and after Lute has answered what kind of curses he is aware of having, she says, "Stick out your tongue. This should not hurt at all, but do not swallow." It tastes like mud when she brushes it onto Lute's tongue. Because it is mostly made out of mud. With wine and some kind of magical herb.     She already has a small container ready for him to spit into once he washes his mouth out with a stone cup of clear, clean, much-better-tasting water held in her other hand. Things should no long taste like blood.     "I know you do not want to hear this, but once all the curses are removed, you should go back to the site of the ruins and apologize to those who were stolen from. Out loud, preferably, though silent prayer might work too. It might not matter if you mean it, though even if your apology is out of exasperation rather than sincerity, you should at least truthfully regret what has happened. Whatever the reason for that regret might be." So Lute could regret that he got cursed, rather than that he stole, hypothetically. Regret the punishment, but not the crime. 

:'''{{#var:188|Lute (188)}} has posed:'''      Lute lays his head on the table, just for a second. He sighs again. His mind is wandering a bit, thinking back. As a Confederate Elite, he has dealt with a wide range of different healers of various kinds. At the moment, his mind wanders back to Dr. Xiang. And the fact that Xiang's healing methods were often unnecessarily torturous. He ponders for a moment. Is that going on here? But, he pushes this out of his head, for now. He hasn't met Circe. She has no reason to hate him, as far as he knows. And so, as he watches her mix the remedy, he listens as well as he can.      "...Forcing them off, then. Well. I guess if you don't know how it'll react, there is nothing that can be done. As for curses... Yeah. Tasting blood, followed by that crocodile who is apparently named Ammit. I'm hearing cats, but occasionally I'm beginning to see them as well. The last curse is apparently.... something to do with misfortune and persecution against me. Those are the only symptoms I've had. ...Hoping no more form, but seeing that nothing new has happened since that crocodile, I'm hoping that's it."      He straightens up again for the next remedy, but his hands brace himself against the table. He sticks his tongue out, and winces as the mud mixture is placed on it. He lets it sit on his tongue for a moment, but quickly spits it out into the receptacle for it. He breathes through his nose, using his fingers to try and wipe as much of it off of his tongue as possible. He then grabs the water, and uses that to rinse more. He wants as little of that remaining in his mouth as possible, hence both grabbing it out and washing it out. He pants heavily afterwards, but otherwise says nothing to complain. Instead, he just listens again.      "...I'm... A /bit/ worried to visit again, because there was a Sphinx guarding the place. But. I'll try to do this while the sphinx is sleeping or something. And... Yeah. I regret what's happening to me. So, yeah, I could make a real apology. ...I'm assuming the less BS, the more sincerely I speak about my regret, the better it works? I know magic is usually pretty skilled at catching lies." 

:'''{{#var:701|Circe (701)}} has posed:'''     The red-haired Servant shrugs. "Conditional magecraft may have certain components to ensure that its conditions are fulfilled, and those may include behaviors, such as truthfulness. My curses are more along the lines of 'split someone's head open' or 'turn them into a bird', but such things exist. It is up to you whether to risk attempting to make ammends without having learned your lesson or whether to hope it marks deed rather than intent." Caster considers Ammit. Ammit the Beast. While she is not an expert on Egypt or Egyptian mythology, the name sounds familiar.     "I can weave a cloak of invisibility for you if you would like to remain hidden when you visit. Weaving and tailoring is one of my specialties." Next potion to be administered is apparently... An empty bottle? Circe uncorks it, puts her dusky-skinned hand over the top and then brings it towards Lute's face as she encourages him to meet her half way. "I am just going to waft this under your eyes briefly and then stopper it again. The hearing the cats bit will have to wait." Unlike the other two so far, nothing unusual happens other than not seeing cats anymore once whatever vapor or invisible substane is in the bottle has done its work. It doesn't even have any odor to it.     "So people have been persecuting you more than is usual since the curses began? The preventative measure of apology might actually be the solution to that one as well. If people persist afterwards, then they may just be choosing to of their own will, in which case they are, as people say these days, 'jerks'." 

:'''{{#var:188|Lute (188)}} has posed:'''      Lute ponders a bit. He looks distant. This is, of course, incredibly unusual for him. Normally he'd be flirting with Caster almost immediately. He simply considers the words, as he just stares at the cats floating in front of him. They'd be a lot more pleasant if they weren't missing their skin.      "...A cloak of invisibility might be good for this. At the least, it'd give me a chance to apologize. I'd rather take the risk of going back there, because I imagine it can't hurt much more."      As the vapor flows into Lute's eyes, a massive sigh of relief. He closes his eyes for a second, before opening again. He looks at Circe, his eyes drooping due to exhaustion of seeing so many cats everywhere, "...Well. No more cats that I can see. So... That is a major, major relief. Just... God, why did their /skin/ have to be off. Why were they bleeding. Urgh." But, he pauses for a second. Now able to see a bit more clearly. It's worth noting that he isn't really looking at Circe's face all that much. "...Man. I wish I had met you earlier. Outside of this sort of situation. Because /damn/." Yeah, he doesn't explain more than that, he assumes it is obvious.      And Lute shrugs at the persecution bit, "Yeah, no one has noticed, but apparently the curse is supposed to make people hate me more. Which all of them seem to be doing constantly. ...Though yeah, if they're still jerks after it's cleared, no big deal. But hey, I want that curse cleared as soon as possible too, and if apologizing is the way to do it..." 

:'''{{#var:701|Circe (701)}} has posed:'''     Caster seems quite displeased suddenly! "Missing their skin? How ghastly! It is fortunate I did not have that curse. I can not stand to see beasts suffer." Oh, that's what she's upset about. If she is bothered by Lute's line of sight, she doesn't show it. Maybe she's used to it. "Now for hearing them... Hmm... I wish I had one of those 'eye droppers'..." She picks up a bottle of something pink and sweet smelling. "Well, we have met now, and all Confederates are welcome to visit my island. I am certain we will have much opportunity to speak in the future. I would offer to let you rest here for the night, as you seem to be quite exhausted, but as you have said, resolving these curses and any supernatural debt, as quickly as possible would be to your benefit."     She gently attempts to tilt Lute's head to one side through the application of her hand to the side of his face and then says, "This is going to be poured in your ear. Just a bit. Let me know when you stop hearing the cats." If Lute cooperates he gets another unpleasant feeling. At least it's not painful, but there's a sizzling sound inside his ear with each drop that is carefully poured in, and (though he can't see it) pink smoke coming out. But at least it doesn't HURT. It just feels like maybe it SHOULD hurt, even though it doesn't.     Once she has done one ear, she'll do the other. 

:'''{{#var:188|Lute (188)}} has posed:'''      Lute poners a bit, then shrugs again, "I don't think they were... actual cat ghosts, but its hard to tell. I got that curse from the mummified cats I found, though. They apparently mummified cats, finding them holy, and then put them in sarcophagii to keep them safe. But that... I think it was after the cat is dead? I don't know, they don't do this stuff on my own world."      And then, the offer to stay for the night. He pauses, pondering. Must not ask to share a bed with her. Must not ask to share a bed with her. Even if she is oblivious to his lecherousness, or okay with it, he knows that Caster is bound to Psalm. And he thinks back. Psalm hated him, right? Probably not the best idea. And so, he keeps repeating to himself mentally, don't ask if they can share a bed.      "...If I stayed, could we share a bed?"      DAMNIT.      "--nevermind, just thinking aloud. Uh. Yes. Likely part of the curse. Probably. Making me say things out loud when I shouldn't be, and wouldn't ask them otherwise."      Lute doesn't fight as his head is tilted to the side. He winces a bit as the fluid feels his ears. This isn't terrible, but is unpleasant. Reminds him, briefly, of one time where he got water caught in his inner ear, and used drops to dry it up. But, after a bit, he speaks again, "..Yeah, not hearing cats from that ear."      And then, the other ear. Despite the discomfort, he lets out a sigh of relief as the cacophany quiets.      "...Oh thank god, that and the visuals were probably the worst part of the curse." 

:'''{{#var:701|Circe (701)}} has posed:'''     Caster seems to take Lute's suggestion as a joke, as she just laughs lightly a little bit. Not uproarious laughter or mocking laughter, but she didn't really respond as though she thought he was serious. She does say, "There are many fine guest rooms available. We can discuss you staying in one of them when the curse is no longer making you do things that would give people cause to persecute you. Although..." She taps her chin as she looks at Lute slyly. "I thought that the curse was making people persecute you unjustly?"     She lets that sit for a moment, as she ponders the crocodile problem. "I will go speak to the crocodile." She rises from her seat, levitating up into the air, and starts heading out of the banquet hall. "You will be brought a fresh drink while you wait." As Circe travels outside, Lute is, indeed, brought a replacement drink for the one that was used to purge his tongue of the blood-tasting curse. The nymph bows after delivering it, and then heads back to stand near one of the walls and wait. 

:'''{{#var:188|Lute (188)}} has posed:'''      Lute pauses. Staring blankly. Much like someone who has something to hide. He speaks, rather monotone, trying to get him out of a situation where she might slowly realize he is serious.      "Yes the curse is making me persecuted unjustly and hence making me say things that I wouldn't say, which is unjust, but I do in fact think you are an attractive woman and I would rather not be on the bad side of someone lifting curses from me and as such I would not normally blatantly flirt with you that obviously especially considering your Master probably wouldn't like it and I'd be happy to stay another day when fully uncursed."      Blank stare. Yes. That should do it. Yeah, he totally won't get on Psalm's bad side for that.      More casually, "Yeah, go deal with the crocodile."      While Circe heads outside, Lute smiles and nods at the nymph delivering him the new drink. After taking a sip, and being super glad it no longer tastes like blood, he looks at her. Again, smiling. This should be a safer target, most likely.      "...Thanks for the drink. So, what's your name, miss?" 

:'''{{#var:701|Circe (701)}} has posed:'''     Explanation accepted, it seems!     The nymph answers promptly, once Circe has left and she is spoken to. She smiles as she introduces herself. "You are most welcome, though no thanks are necessary. My name is Ephyra." There is a sound outside like thunder and the brilliant sunlight shining in through the openings that serve as windows darkens. Ephyra turns her attention from Lute to the outdoors, raising up on her tiptoes as though that would give her a better view, before deciding that if her queen required her, she would be made aware of it. After several seconds, the light level resumes, and the growl of thunder in the heavens subsides. A while after that, the red-haired Servant drifts back inside. "I have bargained with the crocodile. As he or she was not truly a god, if the world of his origin even had an 'Ammit' as a divine entity, this crocodile has agreed, as a representative of whatever force he serves, to leave you be until the sunrises tomorrow morning, on the condition that you do as I suggested earlier."     Then, off-handedly, she adds on as she drifts back to seat herself at the table, "If you fail to do so, he will crush your skull in his jaws the next time you sleep or venture near water." That is probably not the news that Lute was hoping to hear, but at least he won't be followed back to the desert or anything. "I suppose I should begin working on that invisibility cloak as soon as possible, yes?" She is back up into the air again. "Ephyra, Nerea, Halie, Pherusa, fetch me my loom and fabrics." Four of the water nymphs around the room lower their heads in acknowledgement and then skip off to do just that.     "If all else fails, I can attempt to break Ammit's curse as well. Allowing an ally to be killed would be quite an error on my part. I just thought you might want to spare yourself further treatment, as it would involve me putting several crocodile teeth into your lips for the remainder of the day." The redhead holds out her hand to show she has several 'fresh' crocodile teeth in her palm. They're still bloody. 

:'''{{#var:181|Psalm (181)}} has posed:'''     There's a musical tone from behind Lute, and a yawwwwwning. Someone is dripping water.     It's Maggie's voice. "Bother, Solanda, I was having a nice swim and then all this terrible noise and..." Magatha Songsteel comes walking around from behind the trainer, wearing a heavy one-piece purple swimsuit. That is in fact showing off the heavy tattooing of her arms and legs.     She gets up on her tiptoes and kisses Caster on the cheek. "Do we really need to help him?" She looks over her shoulder at Lute and stats wringing out her hair. 

:'''{{#var:188|Lute (188)}} has posed:'''      Lute, for his part, seems rather unphased by the commotion outside. He assumes that if Caster needed help, he'd be called. But, sadly, the commotion keeps him from having a chance to hit on the nymph further, due to it being a bit distracting. But with Caster returning, he sighs in relief at what she has to say, "Well. At least I know the answer. Asking for forgiveness. ...Invisibility cloak or no, I'll be heading there ASAP. ...Granted the cloak would be safest, but still, teh sooner I can break it the better." A pause. "And it sounds easier than the whoel crocodile teeth thing."      And then Psalm walks in. And, Lute of course just stares at her. His eyes don't go off of either of the women for a moment. Especially as Caster is kissed on the cheek. He knows the two of them aren't really sisters, buuuut. Still, this raises a question, "...Are sisters /normally/ that close? ...Not that I'm complaining but."      And he shrugs, "Well, you guys don't /have/ to help me. But it's really useful, and will get me out and fighting for the Confederate cause again sooner. So hey, it's all for the better if I'm doing that, right?" 

:'''{{#var:701|Circe (701)}} has posed:'''     Circe smiles when she senses her Master approaching, even before she starts speaking, and turns her head to accept the cheek kiss when it's offered, and return one of her own as she gives Psalm a brief one-armed hug without concern for all the wetness. "Well, technically I do not NEED to help him, obligations as a Confederate ally aside. But I had no reason not to help him, and I was interested in seeing what sort of curses he had gotten himself mixed up in anyway. He also makes good points about serving our best interests to have him not impaired by curses if he should be needed to fight on our behalf - or that of our faction."     'Solanda' drifts behind Maggie and drapes her arms over her 'sister's shoulders. "I am as close with my sister as the nymphs and nereids of this island. I know not what is typical of sisterly love, only what my own experiences have taught me." She looks off to the side as the four nymphs return with a wooden loom and several porcelain jars filled with fabrics of various kinds and colors. "I am just glad you came to me when you did. I would not wish to see the level of severity if you had some two-bit charlatan remove them and then didn't take steps to prevent their resurgence. They would probably be worse the second time around. Less 'seeing dead cats' perhaps, and more 'having toes and fingers eaten off by them every night, only to have them regrow in time for it to repeat the next night'."     Greek mythology was doing terrible punishments long before the idea of Hell came around. And here's a woman who comes from a time when 'mythology' was REAL. She probably has some ideas about curses for her enemies that no one here really wants to hear about. "I should get to work. Not to worry. I am swifter now than I was in... The past." When she was alive, she probably means.     The Servant applies a small charge of prana to her Master's hair and makes it stick to her hands like static electricity and a balloon for several seconds before giggling to herself and hovering over to the loom as it's set down.     The dreaded floofy hair curse! Insidious! 

:'''{{#var:181|Psalm (181)}} has posed:'''     Maggie looks to Lute and smiles. "I will ignore the obvious question and say that... Solanda's life was fraught with people who did not appreciate what was in front of them. And that she is my Servant and I am her Master and she is free to act as she wishes within the boundaries of that arangement. Also we are not sleeping with each other you buffoon." Woah where did the smile go?     Oh wait there it is again, as Maggie's hair is assaulted and rendered poofy. "Baahaaff dammit, woman." She swats back at Solanda and sighs at Lute. "Also, am I not allowed to flirt with pretty ladies? You seem to do that quite a lot." 

:'''{{#var:188|Lute (188)}} has posed:'''      Lute, at first, has an excited look on his face as Caster starts talking about how she has a relationship with her sister that she shares with all of the other women on the island. And then, his hopes are /immediately/ crushed by Psalm. Lute shrugs a little, though, answering Psalm first, "Well. I, for one, have no problem with you flirting with all of the women you want. Especially if you aren't greedy and keeping them all for yourself. Though do either of you at least flirt with /men/ on occasion? --I mean, not that /I/ flirt with men, but." Aww, poor Lute. He thinks he actually has a chance.      Sadly, he has to focus on the Curse business a little bit. And he frowns as he has to talk about it. He shivers a bit, especially as Solanda talks, "...Well. I'm glad I went to someone really skilled at this, then. Seeing them was terrifying enough, having it escalate to actual physical torture would be... Bad. I mean I /did/ have a temporary solution that Serori was lending me, but. Making sure it didn't last is for the best."      A sigh. He does giggle at the poofy hair, though. But, as Caster moves to work on the loom, he just leans forward to watch. He's still ogling both Caster and Psalm, but honestly, the whole fabric work thing is fascinating to him. He actually has toyed with sewing a fair amount, and even made plush toys of Pokemon when he was younger. So, yeah, it's relevant to his interests to see how she works. 

:'''{{#var:701|Circe (701)}} has posed:'''     "My fortunes in romance have been decidedly tragic in their failure rate," Caster replies as she sits at the loom, weaves some thread into it with practiced ease, and then says, "And I am not inclined to risk my heart again with a man. I have the ones who appreciate me right here. I suppose if there WAS a man out there who intrigued me I do have an unfortunate habit of not learning my lesson, but..." She looks directly at Lute through half-lidded eyes as she takes in his attention to her form and skimpy attire, and says, "The last time there was a conflict of jealousy between myself and a man, I turned him into a bird and his lover into a pillar of salt and every single one of his friends who came asking after him were also turned into various beasts." She smiles sultrily as she says, "How many women are you seeing again?"     The message should be clear. She doesn't mind being admired, but she is the type who would wipe out every single person in a man's life and the man himself in the process out of sheer jealousy. And has done so before. "I should focus on weaving your cloak now~." she lilts as she sets to work.     The loom begins to spin as she pumps the pedal with her foot. And boy does it ever spin. It's spinning so fast that it's more like a car tire going at hundreds of miles per hour than a wooden wheel. Blue light fills the blurred gaps between the struts as reams of fabric come practically pouring out. The nymphs standing nearby collect the glowing material that seems to shift color and hue visibly as it's looked at, from one spectrum to another.     The Prana Burst-enhanced weaving only goes on for a couple dozen seconds before enough fabric to make three or four cloaks has been produced. Then the wheel slows to a stop very gradually. Solanda sighs happily. "I got a bit carried away, it appears." She laughs lightly and then rises from her seat and gestures for Lute to come closer. "Let me measure you." 

:'''{{#var:181|Psalm (181)}} has posed:'''     Psalm lets the words from her Servant ring out in the air, and then she smiles and leans forward on the chair Caster just vacated. Red hair dangles down in front of her, covering up the glimpse of the dragon tattoo at her neckline. "And that, dear boy, is why I am not engaging in such. I am more than comfortable being a Master and that is that."     A cheery grin. 

:'''{{#var:188|Lute (188)}} has posed:'''      "...I'm seeing more women than you would tolerate."      A single word comes into Lute's mind as he considers Circe's words. 'Yandere'. While there is a certain level of that he can tolerate, the whole 'cursing him, his lovers, and everyone who even asks about their location' is far more than he is willing to tolerate from a relationship. Yes, he will accept a certain level of crazy, but that pushes his limits.      He glances at Psalm, nodding, "...Yes. Not pursuing her as more than just a friend or sister is certainly something that I understand. ...Is that how you treat men, too, or...?"      He knows that Masters and Servants generally have /some/ similarities and he is really uncertain if this is true to this specific situation.      He still watches in awe as she does her work. He knows Servants are supernaturally gifted, but still, this is a bit more than he expected. He didn't expect them to have super-powered weaving to the point of breaking reality. But, when called over, he stands up. He casually walks over with his hands in his pockets, taking them out only once he arrives. He /assumes/ she'll need him to spread his arms to get proper measurements, so he holds them straight out to both sides, to try and make things easier.      "...I have to admit, sewing is a lot more practical of a talent than I usually see a Servant having. Most of them just usually have incredible combat skills." 

:'''{{#var:701|Circe (701)}} has posed:'''     Caster uses no measuring tape to take Lute's numbers, simply tracing him out with her fingertips quickly - almost as though they serve the same purpose. They go from arms to shoulders, across the shoulders themselves, down the sides, and from shoulders to knees. The whole time, she explains. "It was a hobby of mine. I lived on this island, grew up here. Almost all of my time was spent here. These days, it seems the attention span of children can not encompass a single activity. They must stop to 'text' every few minutes while they play a video game that itself has numerous features and activities all going on at once. They will 'tab out' to 'message' someone or 'gooble' something or change their 'playlist' on their 'youtube'."     The redhead straightens up as she then finger-walks up the back of Lute's neck and starts tracing his skull with her hands, and says, "In my time, the capacity for indulging or cultivating a short attention span like that was simply vastly reduced. Minds wandered, I'm sure. Not everyone could focus themselves wholly. But the ability to gratify oneself in such a manner at the press of a button was non-existent."     She seems to have the measure of Lute as she rests her hands on his shoulders and rubs away any remaining tension from having to deal with curses all day, as she says, "My point is that I had a lot of time to develop my skill at weaving and tailoring, and so I became very, very good at it. Meanwhile, fighting was never really my forte, so I am less proficient in that regard. Since it was something I was skilled at in life, my legend has made it more so." She lets go of Lute and pats him on the back as she wraps up by saying, "Flirtation is fine. I flirt occasionally myself. But to go beyond social play has always ended up with me miserable and other people suffering. Sooner or later, anyway. Only my dear Master really understands what I need and deserve." Circe beams a smile at the swimsuited Psalm.     Then she seats herself on a cushion, folds her bare legs over each other, and waits for the fabric to be deposited in her lap by her nymph family. 

:'''{{#var:181|Psalm (181)}} has posed:'''     And there goes Circe, and Psalm just watches her feel up Lute for a while to geet his measurements. "You are the worst, Solanda. Goodness." She shakes her head, humms, and then the outfit she's wearing is different.     Pretty much as different as you can get, as she's sitting there in front of Lute in rather comfortable looking blouse and skirt covering up most of her body. A little snort.     She waits for Caster to get done with her teasing, before crossing her arms in front of her chest. "I chose you because your Story was ended unfairly, dear heart. That your Story was yet to be finished. And also because you're a woman after my own heart."     She looks at Lute and smiles. "And so, here we are. Two old ladies with nothing to lose. Take us as we are, and believe that we shall do the same with you." 

:'''{{#var:188|Lute (188)}} has posed:'''      Lute remains still as the fingers trace him. Yeah, he's pretty good at remaining calm in situations like this. But, an eyebrow is raised at Psalm. Calling her the worst, and shaking her head? What's that about? He honestly has no clue. He just ignores it otherwise, though. This is just a normal tailor measuring, afterall. What's terrible about that?      He returns to his seat afterwards, and leans back in it rather casually. Yeah, with the curse mostly dispelled, he's pretty comfortable now. But, he ponders... the whole interactive world stopping productivity in the real world. And he laughs. "Well, as far as the technology taking away time to learn, that's... a mixed thing. As long as you don't obsess with, it can be a great tool. I can find information on anything almost instantly. So, say I wanna find a really rare Pokemon. I can find hints online. Buuut, I'm also not super obsessed with the technology. So, lets me focus on other things. Mostly work, but. Hey, I sew too, on occasion. And raise pets. And yes, I flirt constantly."      He ponders flirting more, but for now, he'll just keep oggling. He's a bit dissapointed that Psalm is no longer wearing her swimsuit, but still. He can at least stare a bit. But, he glances at Psalm's face, grinning, "Well. I think I'll take you as you are, yeah. In fact I'd--- nevermind." Lute stops himself. He is /so tempted/ to turn this into more of a pickup line, but dear god he doesn't want to be cursed. 

:'''{{#var:701|Circe (701)}} has posed:'''     Having memorized Lute's measurements, Circe makes quick work of her weaving at this point, as she listens to what Psalm and Lute say. The fabric is stitched together with a single needle, as a nymph stands on either side of her, unrolling it in front of the Servant and into ther lap. Right before Lute's and Psalm's eyes, a cloak creeps into existence, being woven together so fast it almost seems like the garment is a living thing crawling across the cushions and velvet-rugged floor. It's done within a matter of moments, it seems, before Caster goes in for a second pass, adding embroidery, and gold thread, and magic rune work, and other touches and decorations.     Then she leaps up, not even bothering to float and holds up the garment with an utterly pleased look on her face. The black cloak looks like something a rich and powerful Lord of some kind might wear. Something that says, 'I am important. Look at my cloak. It is the color of importance.' Speaking of its color... It doesn't seem to... Have a fixed colored. It keeps shifting color as it's looked at. It even has a hood.     "Once worn, pull up the hood over your head and you will be rendered unseen to the unaided eye. Or at least so close to such as to make no difference. Just keep in mind it does not conceal your actions and your presence may leave traces. Foot prints will be hidden, and your voice will be muffled and altered to sound not like your own. But if you open a door or knock something over or otherwise take a deliberate or obvious action to influence the environment, the cloak can not hide such. Only passive effects as a result of travel."     Circe leans to the side so that she can see Lute around the cloak she's holding up. "That means the sand of the desert should remain unmarred by your passage, but if you throw a rock, the sound of it will be noticed when it comes to rest. As much as it can be a limitation, you could also find ways to make it a useful tool."     Once Lute has accepted it, Circe then focuses on Psalm and says, "Perhaps we should start looking into that telling that story further sometime soon. As much as I have enjoyed my homecoming, the worlds will not rest on their haunches just because we are." She has nothing to say about modern technology being useful. She's still horrified by what modern magecraft has deteriorated into and how scarce it is. That the contraptions that have replaced it could serve a purpose other than marking how different the world has become is not a concept she wishes to peruse at this stage of denial. 

:'''{{#var:181|Psalm (181)}} has posed:'''     Maggie just smiles a bit, watching the creation of the robe and cloak, before she murmurs quietly. "Also, do not expect the trick to work more than once against an Elite. Invisibility is a grand trick, but many have easy ways to detect such, despite the best efforts that we offer."     "And Caster's story... we'll have to see how it unfolds once the War gets truely underway. I've not yet seen sign of the Others gathering just yet. But they will. And we will be ready." She grips her hand with the command seals on it, shoving a little thought down the connection to Caster.     A sly grin at Lute though. "...Complete the statement, dear lad." 

:'''{{#var:188|Lute (188)}} has posed:'''      Lute listens carefully to the instructions. Despite his impulsiveness, he knows that magical items usually have rules. And so, he commits the instructions to memory. He speaks, mostly for his own benefit of confirming the rules. "So, any active action will make the spell break. Passive actions will keep it steady. Alright, that makes sense." He pauses. He /really/ wants to note that it's just like an item in a video game. Like, when you cast an invisibility spell, and the moment you attack someone or open a door, it breaks. But he just can't bring himself to do so. It'd break Circe's heart, he feels.      He takes it, and put it on. It rests gently against his labcoat. He actually appreciates that both pieces of clothing actually work together fairly well. He speaks, with awe, "This is... truly a beautiful work of art. Thank you."      A grin, at both Circe and Psalm, "Well, if you need help finishing the story, I'd be willing to help. I have no idea what end you seek, though."      And, Lute shrugs. Yeaaah, flirting with these two is probably a bad idea, but he might as well finish the thought, since Psalm is suggesting it.      "...Well, I was thinking of a different means of taking you two, right now. I mean, honestly, I probably don't have to spell it out more than that, do I?" A wink.      And a constant repeated thought in his head: Please don't kill me for that. 

:'''{{#var:701|Circe (701)}} has posed:'''     Circe huffs at Psalm's seemingly indicating she could not create something that offers true undetectability. "Well, yes! Invisibility is only the start! I could put together one of those bikinis of yours enchanted in such a way to always cause anyone about to notice you to be distracted by something else out of seeming coincidence! A true 'garment of improbability'! There are many ways I could surpass the limitations of mere visibility obfuscation!" She folds her arms under her chest and huffs again for good measure.     Sniffing a bit, she says, "Yes, I suppose they will! I already sent our invitations to a meeting months ago to those who have identified themselves or are otherwise known to us! None responded! We will need to take action first if we are to make anything happen. They would rather shut themselves up in their little hidey holes and pretend the War is not happening. A pox on that, I say!"     When Lute starts talking, Caster tones down her haughtiness to feel pleased with his appreciation of her work. Which is more than her MASTER has demonstrated! HUFF! "You are most welcome. It was good to work the loom again, however briefly." At the offer of help, she tacks on, "There are goals I seek to accomplish. Godhood is one of them, so that I might protect and hold dominion over all that I cherish and claim as mine, without busy bodies coming to interfere. Though the path to the end point is unclear, I have certain ideas. The Grail might serve as a crucial stepping stone."     Circe pauses when Psalm suggests Lute complete his thought. And when he does, she just smiiiiiles at him without saying anything. What that smile means is up to interpretation. 

:'''{{#var:181|Psalm (181)}} has posed:'''     Psalm looks at Lute.     She looks at Caster.     She looks back at Lute. And -smiles-.     "Have a good night, Lute. Hope the cloak works out for you." A wink, and she stands. "Right, it's my night to make dinner, isn't it, dear heart?" A look to Caster, and she walks past Lute, patting him on the shoulder as she goes, heading for the kitchens. 

:'''{{#var:188|Lute (188)}} has posed:'''      Lute nods at Caster, "Well, I'll help you claim what you want. The Grail, Godhood, whatever. Just ask, okay?"      And then he smiles at Caster as she smiles. And he looks at Psalm. Oh man. OH MAN. He knew his luck was good, but.      And then Psalm utterly crushes his hope with a few words.      Lute makes a quiet, defeated sound. "...See you two later." His entire tone is dripping with despair. But, he turns, and starts making his way out. Glancing over his shoulder back at Psalm entering the kitchen, and at Circe, as he leaves. 

}}

2098/Hungry Fields

2015-04-28T19:53:48Z

Paladine: Created page with "{{Log Header |Date of Scene=2015/04/25 |Location=Spring |Synopsis=Meadow Hill is under attack. The fourth seasonal zone to suffer random monster attacks out in the middle of n..."

{{Log Header
|Date of Scene=2015/04/25
|Location=Spring
|Synopsis=Meadow Hill is under attack. The fourth seasonal zone to suffer random monster attacks out in the middle of nowhere. Will the responders find out the reason for it this time?
|Thanks=
|Cast of Characters=560, 670, 725, 726, 737
|Tinyplot=
|Tinyplot2=
|pretty=yes
}}
{{Poses
|Poses=:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     Dense vapor. Drifting, moving, shifting, concealing.     Strong perfume. Fragrant, floral, intoxicating, gagging.     Suspicious sounds. Foot falls, writhing, creeping, stalking.     Meadow Hill is under attack.     Meadow Hill is lost in the fog.     Meadow Hill is lost.     Lost.     Lost.     ----------------------------------------     Meadow Hill is a town inhabited by the race known as Halflings. They are basically what they sound like. A race of humanoids of smaller stature and proportion than is typical of humans, but otherwise not too different. Perhaps a bit more pointed of ear, and with nimble fingers and high stamina, but nothing exceptionally out of the ordinary. They live a peaceful existence, far removed from industrialized nations and other civilizations, and so on. A beautiful natural environment. A town, situated on a large hill, surrounded by millions of different species of flowers, stretching outwards in every direction as far as the eye can see.     Or that is ordinarily the case, at least. Presently, the entire area is cloaked in a dense layer of fog that reduces visibility to only about ten feet in front of one's face. While extreme weather is not unheard of, given this is the region known as Spring, meaning wild spring weather comes up fairly often, the fog generally isn't THIS thick...     ...And it generally isn't known for eating people, as a rider from Meadow Hill has reported after finally reaching a distant town with the capacity for long-range communication. A call for help has gone out - for just about anyone to come and save Meadow Hill, from devouring fog and giant, man-eating plants. What he didn't report, because it happened after he left, was that a fierce storm is approaching. Rage-black clouds, sweeping in through the sky, roaring their thunderous threats and flashing their fangs of lightning. Accompanying that storm is something even more terrible than the current threats.     Something sent to meet whatever heroes come calling.     The trip from the nearest Warp Gate is a significant one. It took the rider days. On something other than a pony, such as a car, or motorcycle, or hover craft, or winged flight, or some manner of magical travel, it could be far briefer. Perhaps hours. But that still takes time. And based upon the three previous encounters like this in the other three seasonal regions, every moment wasted travelling likely means more casualties at the destination.     At least directions were provided by the Halfling rider, and people should have a general idea what direction to go, even after entering the fog. 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     The Union's response involved dispatching several people... but Emiya Shirou presumably wasn't on the list. By most accounts he should probably be still recovering from his fight with Comrade Crush. The fight had left him thrashed inside and out, with severe damage to some internal organs and many crushed bones. Yet somehow with nothing more than two days of sleep he's out and about again looking no worse for the experience.     Just...     "Gh..." Just sore on the side where he took a blow. It's sore. Sometimes it tingles. But pain doesn't deter Shirou.     'If failure comes from an external source it can't be helped. But I'll never lose against a challenge from within!' is the spirit holding the boy together when he trudges through a hole in space and time opened by Union mages for an emergency dispatch to the remote location.     Even though every step in his jog brings with it a hot spike of pain from his side, he endures the throbbing in his head and body.     There was a time when he turned his back on people who desperately needed help. But he abandoned them all to save himself - and so, he lived.     He won't leave others to die ever again.     "Trace... on!" The amber-eyed youth's Magic Circuits come alive in response to the familiar chant and power cycles through them... as do illusions. Illusions of wondrous weapons!     Into the storming fog he goes, seeking out Meadow Hill... 

:'''{{#var:737|Vivio Takamachi (737)}} has posed:'''     A village in danger, a mysterious fog, man-eating plants! This calls for... A 10-year-old girl? Okay, Vivio probably isn't candidate in this situation. She's still fairly new to the elite scene, unseasoned, untested, green, however you want to say it. However, her spirit and desire to help surely makes up for it!     Plus magic. Magic helps too.     A streak of iridescent light pushes its way through the fog at a descent speed. It's path isn't very level, but so far it seems to have avoided crashing into anything on its journey here. Inside said streak is Vivio, or at least the older looking version of her. She squints, having trouble seeing anything through the thick fog... Turning her head to her left she asks, "Are you sure we're heading in the right direction?" The plush bunny flying through the air beside her waves its arms. Apparently it was a response as Vivio then asks, "And you're sure there's nothing ahead of me? Cause I can't see much..." The plush bunny waves its arms around again. Vivio looks skeptical, but says, "Okay... So how much farther?" The plush bunny points down and Vivio looks surprised, "W-wait, we're here!? Why didn't you tell me sooner, I have to slow down!"     The streak of light curves over as it heads down towards the ground, slowing down as it gets closer. As she descends, the light around Vvio begins to fade and she attempts to look for some signs of the village, or its trouble. 

:'''{{#var:670|Lyria Mason (670)}} has posed:''' Lyria Mason Was following after Shirou who was her senior in the multiverse in terms of experiance ans she wtched his alien magic for a moment, before she pulls one pistol in her off hand, and draws a cutlass of some sort in the other. With that she follows after him keeping quiet and is also here to make sure he doesn't die given he's left the medical bay, but she knows she won't talk him into coming back. "We should keep alert here." Non humans other than Dragons had taken some getting use to, but she had adapted to it, so long as they were not clearly confirmed spawn of the Enemy or any like power she had taken realtively well to theat concepts but the information about the fog and such had left her uneasy. "Mmm I may be able to try something with my Geomancy if this proves to be a accurate report." She's not denying something happened, nay. It's more she's not sure just what actually did. 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     The fog is clearly unnatural. Laced with magic energy. The way is muffles sound from outside, allowing only sounds from within the fog to be heard right after crossing its border, is not something that normal fog does. Further, the obfuscation of sight leads to a certain heightening of hearing, so just how QUIET it is, and how LOUD sounds made by the heroes in that quiet environment are is especially noticeable. The flowers that crunch under foot when they stray off the winding dirt roads, the noise of their own breaths, the spooky almost-sound of things real or imagined moving around in the fog unseen...     It's an extremely unnerving experience. Especially considering that there may be parts of the fog, or creatures within it, that can swallow them up - potentially without warning. It's like swimming in the ocean with creatures made of water waiting for a chance to pull you down into the depths, never being seen even as you breathe your last breath. Following the road is the best bet for making it to Meadow Hill, but moving slowly is somewhat necessary in order not to accidentally wander off the path.     All in all, there are probably better rescue missions out there.     Sometimes, the muffled noise of things moving around them is a bit sharper. Organic noises overlay the sound of flowers crunching and releasing their perfume, as a certain noise like shuffling or writhing comes closer. Its approach is slow, and if one moves at a normal speed, easily outpaced. It could be left behind in short order. But with the limited visibility, going too fast could make the situation worse, not better. And slowing movement means either letting the mysterious movement close the distance, or keeping a constant gap between them.     Not an endeavor one would want to pursue long term.     Of course, they could just turn around and face it. There's multiple of these things, whatever they are, going after each person or group. 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     "Can you do something with that to clear away storms and fog over a big area?" Shirou sounds hopeful, but also doubtful. Such large-scale magic is unthinkable by his perspective...     But on the other hand the way he's looking at Lyria with eyes full of expectant hope is inspiring in its own way.     "Weather like this doesn't do anything good for our chances of saving anyone."     But just then VIVIO comes swooping around in the fog too. "A TSAB mage...?" Shirou waves his arms - at the same time wincing a bit. "Oi, are you with us?! Let's join up and tackle this together. Otherwise we'll end up completely disorganized. I don't like this fog."     Well, well. Maybe Bedivere's lessons about tactics are sinking in.     But on the other hand, maybe not. This Fog has him jumpy. With a flick of his wrist Shirou brings his favored weapons into existence!     "Stop right there! Who's coming?! Speak up!"     His first move? Put himself between the shuffling noise and Lyria. Ever the hero! 

:'''{{#var:737|Vivio Takamachi (737)}} has posed:'''     Vivio glances around, noticing that it's awfully quiet... Except for some guy calling out to her, "Uhhh, huh? Oh... Umm, I guess so! I heard there was some bad things happening around here..."     Vivio walks a little closer to Emiya and Lyria, getting a better look at them. She smiles and waves, "Hey, I'm Vivio." Enough introductions, Vivio looks around some more... "So, uh, what's happening here?" She tries squinting her eyes to see if that will improve her vision... Nope, still foggy. She's not used to such limited vision...     "Chris, better go Contact Mode." The plush bunny nods in agreement, floating around in front of Vivio. It then floats backwards towards her chest, magic light briefly shining as it actually enters into her chest and then vanishes. Vivio stretches for a few moments, throws a few punches into the air, then nods in approval.     As Emiya calls out to some invisible foe(?) behind them, Vivio spins around and adopts a defensive stance as she waits to see what's out there... If anything's out there... It's hard to tell! 

:'''{{#var:670|Lyria Mason (670)}} has posed:''' Lyria Mason is clearly not liking the fog and is glad she pulled down her goggles eariler. She peers at it not making a hostile move towards it however she can hear that there's just nothing making noise really. It's unnerving to put it mildy to be honest. She did her best to keep up a brave face. She looks to Shirou for a moment. "Humm I can try to do something give me a moment to focus and see if I can try to maniplate it." She closes her eyes and takes an odd stance she can try to manilate the air to some degree she shifts mutters some sort of incation and attemps to clerar the path ahead of them and she does know someone else is there and thinks sticking together is a good idea. She's going to have something to say to Vivio but for the moment she need sto clear it up as best she can. 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     Shirou chooses the 'stand and fight' option. There's no response to his challenge, no indication of hesitation at the heroes taking up combat-ready stances. Just the sound coming closer, it becoming more clear. It's like the sound of a plant growing, amplified and sped up so that human ears can hear it. It's kind of a stretchy, ropey sort of noise. Fibers weaving and winding and extending and contracting. A silhouette gradually becomes visible as the shuffling thing comes closer and closer to the stationary targets. When it enters that ten foot visual range, it can be mostly made out.     It is something that resembles a cross between a venus fly trap and an artichoke, on a sort of platform of writhing vines. It's also about fifteen feet across, and fifteen feet tall. That is one big plant. It's gigantic, bulky, and moves very slowly. Easy to outrun. But running safely, let alone without losing sense of direction, would be difficult in this environment. As it contains its very slow approach, the petals sweep to contract for a moment, dipping inwards before suddenly sending out an eruption of pollen as they spread open... And releasing a rain of human and halfling skulls on those nearby in the process. Not the most damaging attack, though they could probably cause bruises from the impact, on top of being incredibly creepy.     The fog is a mix of magical and mundane, with the mundane being manipulated into place by the magic. Lyria does a good job of dispelling it around them either way, giving a clear look at not only the Man-Eating Plant approaching them, but also the fact that there are a couple others headed this way as well. The path ahead is cleared enough to follow, though after about a hundred feet, Lyria may need to pause to clear the fog again. At least running is an option now. And dodging those skulls is more viable as well, now that they can be seen more clearly. 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     "What the... WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?!" Shirou blurts - moments before he's promptly assaulted by pollen and FLYING SKULLS!     Freakish. But his traced weapons react before he even really thinks about it, dicing apart skulls and other bones and battering others away. "These are the monsters..." Kanshou and Bakuya are hurled furiously at the plant as the fog's cleared.     Then he introduces himself to Vivio. "Emiya Shirou! You didn't get the message? The region's under attack... by these monsters!"     For some reason, the sight of skulls has only made him tense, not nauseated.     Tense and ANGRY. "It's just like those other attacks! Where's the sense in this slaughter?! If we don't reach the village..." 

:'''{{#var:737|Vivio Takamachi (737)}} has posed:'''     Well, the message did say something about man-eating plants... Though Vivio wasn't quite expecting it to be so literal... And so many... Her eyes go wide at the sight of the skulls, a simple Protection spell going up instinctively, the skulls bouncing off the magic barrier.     As the fog clears, atleast part of the way, Vivio glances around to see that there is more than one plant monster... Vivio takes a few steps back, glancing at the others for a moment...     No. Vivio clenches her fists as she looks back at the plantster. This is her first real battle. And it's clear... "These things need to be stopped before they hurt anyone else!" Vivio takes a step forward...     And in the blink of an eye, jets right up next to one of the plansters, leg coming around in a magic and speed enhanced kick that'll hit with enough force to send even these large things flying.     Planting both feet on the ground again, Vivio turns her head to glance towards the others, "Maybe you guys should go ahead! I'll delay these and catch up when I can..." 

:'''{{#var:670|Lyria Mason (670)}} has posed:''' Lyria Mason is able to assess there is a sense that something is altering the fog, she's able to get a look at the man-eating plant. Okay that's not good, that's not good at all. It's also got friends it looks like. "It seems someone forgot to weed around here." Then comes the skulls she stares in horror for a second and grips her weapons harder. "What is there ever it's like a Shivan Warlord. Power, greed, pleasure even the mega corps at least build something hat will last or have a legacy." he now looks to the kid for a moment. There's no terrain here that would let her maniplate fire which would be the best way to deal with killer plants. Alas that will not be the case. "Splitting the party isn't the best idea lets fight our way through as a group!" She now starts taking shots at the plants with her pistol sending elementally charged fire rounds at them. Not as good as her geomancy but it will be a bit better than standard bullets or so she hopes, seriously this region is a charnel house from the looks of things. 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     The thrown blades slam into the plant and knock it back with several sounds of air escaping from the tight confines within its petals when struck. But it isn't clear whether it actually took damage or not. It takes a few moments for it to stop moving backwards and start moving forwards again, but it does not appear deterred by the attack.     Vivio's kick bounces the Man-Eating Plant off the ground and sends it skidding backwards for about thirty feet, where its petals then open up, exposing the teeth that line its petals, an a column of blood-red plant matter at the center, with its own petals... And a fang-rimmed mouth that is probably where its prey is eaten.     It remains stationary after opening up like this. Maybe that's a weak point? It seems that with Shirou's ability to strike repeatedly at range, he might be able to likewise trigger a Man-Eating Plant's stationary phase. It just might take a sufficient number of hits, or a single hit of great force.     When Lyria adds in her own fire to the one that Shirou was swording, their combined hits do exactly that, make it open up its petals and expose that core that has been turned red with the blood of its victims.     There only appear to be three of these Man-Eating Plants in the immediate area, but it's a big field. Hunting down all of them might be rough. Once these are dealt with, reaching Meadow Hill is probably a higher priority than rooting them all out!     Then a phase made of fog drifts down from above, detectable only the sound of inhalation it makes as it hovers right behind the group, before it breathes out a stream of toxic green mist of some kind for a short distance. Distracted as she is with the plant monster, Lyria might get immersed in the poison if she doesn't react in time! Thankfully, like the Man-Eating Plant, the Mist is also very slow. 

:'''{{#var:737|Vivio Takamachi (737)}} has posed:'''     Vivio was going to politely disagree with Lyria, but while waiting for a counterattack from the opening plant... It doesn't come. Huh. She notices another plantster has been opened and is also stationary...     "Okay, maybe running will work!" And so Vivio runs.     Of course she's not about to just run without a fight. As she makes her way back to the others, hopefully with the intent to make a dash for the village, Vivio summons several orbs of iridescent light around her and then points in the direction of one unopened planster, calling out, "Sonic Shooter Assault Shift!"     The orbs of magic shoot of beams of light which streak towards the targetted plant and explode on contact. 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     "OOOAH!" Shirou smashes the ground with a freshly-projected set of his weapons with enough force to kick up a fierce wind and smash a CRATER many times his size every which way. Those little weapons pack a punch!     Enough to clear the air of the pollen and maybe some of the toxic mist.     "If that's what it takes to put these things down we'll never reach Meadow Hill... and if these things follow us..."     Does he need to say what will happen?     "... Lyria! Clear us a path! We'll fight as go. use distance to our advantage!" Yup, he's definitely using some tactics here.     Gritting his teeth, Shirou clenches both hands and grips the air... HARD. Struggling to do something.     Power sizzles, flashes, and arcs wildly from his hands in the next few moments and quickly solidifies into the shape of a blue and silver longsword polished enough to dazzle the eye. It seems almost... divine, even though it's undeniably a forgery.     Your typical replica of a legendary weapon though would only LOOK the part.     THIS copy of Excalibur Galatine ignites with a ferocious sunfire shooting from guard to the tip. Radiant light and flame illuminates the ground and shines in the fog and Shirou simply swings the weapon at the remaining plants to send a warding wave of small flame their way.     But even doing this gets him wincing again and staggering!     With luck, they can ward the plants off and bolt for a path Lyria can make! 

:'''{{#var:670|Lyria Mason (670)}} has posed:''' Lyria Mason has just had it drummed into her at school thou shall not split thine party. Seriously Mr. Greene can be scary as heck like that. She however is keeping with the shots on the man eating plants. She wonders ho many there are, and this place might need to be scoured with fire to get all the seeds as well. She's not able to act on that as there may still be people about, who get cuaght up in it. The mist is coming agian and it's time to move. She attemps to clear the path as Shirou asked using her geomancy again but she's not fighting at this point, she's going to try to keep up with her allies so long as she doesn't break her spells so to speak. 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     As it turns out, the Man-Eating Plants are weak to fire. Lyria's bullets, Shirou's Noble Phantasm replica, and Vivio's explosions all do significant damage to the monstrous flora. The ones open close their petals after about ten seconds and start moving forward again, but if struck by flames they pause and open back up again. The ones that were closed likewise open. And when their cores are exposed to the flames, they release a sort of warped, not-quite screaming sound as light and shadow flow up around them, condensing and shrinking the plants at the same time, until they shrivel and vanish from sight.     The Mist was dispelled quickly after Shirou threw his summoned blades at it, seemingly weak to such. Which is good, because unlike the plants, Mists are strong against flames.     For now, and with Lyria clearing the fog from the road, their path is free of additional threats. It's a clear shot straight to Meadow Hill. After running for awhile, possibly with further fog-clearing from Lyria, the trio reach the Halfling town... And find their dome-shaped dwellings and small, brick buildings that are partially built into the ground all locked up tight. There are signs of the Man-Eating Plants having damaged some of the buildings but it seems that neither they nor the Mists could really break inside. Only those who left the safety of their homes and businesses were likely eaten.     It's a situation similar to the one in Winter, though the wolves in that case COULD get into the houses. Thunder rumbles loudly overhead, as a flash of light super-imposes itself over everything in an electrical discharge from the heavens. Strong winds suddenly start blowing through, and the fog begins to disperse all on its own.     In the suddenly-revealed entirety of Meadow Hill, the empty streets are visible, the enormity of the storm clouds swirling overhead... And a very large, dark shape that is floating towards them.     That shape appears to be a giant, severed head, with hair made of giant serpents, a twisted, monstrous face with snake-eyes, and sharp fangs in a grinning mouth.     "What'sss thiiiiisss?" the legendary monster asks, though she no doubt already knows exactly what their presence here means. Scattered around in the streets are stone statues of Halflings... Frozen in terror, or in the act of fleeing, by the petrifying powers of Medusa.     "Heroesss have come to play, have they? Hmm... You there with the red hair... I think you will look lovely as a ssstatue in my collection! The woman and the child, however... Mussst die!" 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     Thiiiiiis is not at all what Shirou was expecting. Seeing a mass of snakes is enough to get him instantly writhing in disgust and alarm. He looks away quckly, avoiding looking straight into the floating head's eyes as well he can. Which means occasionally he makes eye contact. "Are you... MEDUSA?! I'm not doing any such thing. Undo your curse on these people! Right now!"     It's not a question or even a request, it's a flat-out Demand. Angry and yelly and with blood pumping in part fury, part error.     "Why are you even here?!"     Clumsily he hoists Excalibur Galatine as if to ward her off...     Vivio and Lyria are both probably more used tot his kind of situation than he... 

:'''{{#var:737|Vivio Takamachi (737)}} has posed:'''     Vivio glances around as they enter the town. It's very quiet... No surprise, considering their are monsters in the area. Hopefully the people inside will be safe. Vivio notices the strange looking statues dotting the town in strange locations. She doesn't know a whole lot about art... But it's rather weird too her. But she's not about to judge another culture's... Well, culture.     Vivio is quickly alert though as... A giant head with snake hair descends from above!? Vivio inwardly shudders a little. Talk about ugly. However, as discussion about this new foe occurs over the radio, Vivio begins to look a little sad as she realises what those strange statues are...     And then she looks determined. Vivio stares Medusa down and says, "Sorry, I made a promise." She smiles as she clenches her fists, shifting into an attack stance, "I'm not allowed to die." 

:'''{{#var:670|Lyria Mason (670)}} has posed:''' The plants are held back and she's moving forward keeping the mist away for the moment. She's not sure how long this will last as there's clearly something controling it that is not her. The Levitani girl move ahed now trying to keep with the group. WIth the monsters gone, and the mist under control, it should be smooth sailing right? Wrong they have to deal with this medusa sort what ever this is she gets teh warning about not to look at it however. "...A statue?! I think not!" She's also trying to look away however she gets the idea they are going to hae to fight. She does think whe has a soultion to the stoned people but for now they have to deal with Medusa. "How about we Parlay like this? You leave and don't come back and no one else gets hurt." 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     There's a sound like slithering and hissing snakes in every breath Medusa takes, a distorted quality to her voice as though speaking from underwater. As her yellow eyes look between the heroes present, she chuckles darkly at Shirou's question and demand. "Clearly I am out for a stroll, in this lovely fresh air. Do I not have the right to stretch my legs?" She doesn't even have legs! She ceases her taunting to answer the demand. "Even if I could, I have no reason to reverse my magic! And I CAN NOT reverse it regardless!" As Vivio speaks, Medusa turns her gaze on the girl, and then hisses out, "How unfortunate. It appears you will be breaking your promise."     Then she flies towards the trio, slowing momentarily as she gets close enough, with one of the larger snakes on the side of her head pulling back and coiling, before lashing out in a combination of bite and physical ram, aimed right at Vivio! A giant snake punch! ...Not an attack most people would expect to get hit with in their life time!     "No more talk!" is Medusa's answer to Lyria attempting to find a peaceful solution, even as she attacks the youngest one present. "My purpose here will be fulfilled, one way or another!" 

:'''{{#var:737|Vivio Takamachi (737)}} has posed:'''     As the Medusa taunts them, magic begins to gather around Vivio's fist. She doesn't seem to like it... The iridescent light grows strong as Vivio responds matter-of-factly, "I don't break promises."     As a concept, the attack sent towards Vivio is surprising. Really, few would expect to be hit with a giant snake punch... Even fewer would think to punch it back!     Vivio twists her body, arm crackling with magic pulled back, "Accel..."     The snake comes streaking towards Vivio, who swings to meet it while crying out, "SMASH!" Her magic flares as fist meets snake. There is a brief flash of light, which is quickly followed by an explosion!     Vivio comes skidding out of the smoke of the blast. The Barrier Jacket of her arm has a large tear through it, red beginning to show. One of the snake's fangs had torn through, though the wound wasn't serious thanks to defensive magics.     Countering the monster's words, Vivio says, "You have no purpose! You're just a bully, hurting those who are weaker than you!" 

:'''{{#var:670|Lyria Mason (670)}} has posed:''' Okay there goes a chance at a peaceful soultion, and she's going to fight how ever she can. Givent his thing can turn them to stone, right? She shifts she moes with her cutlass and attemps to sever the head snale with it as it comes in to strike at Vivio. She's also trying to not look at Medusa as much as possible given the warning she was given by Shirou. 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     Shirou's not buying that. His expression turns very stone-faced, and not because of Medusa. That quickly shifts to frustration. "Can't expect reasoning after all... fine! Then we're taking you out before anyone else gets petrified or eaten!"     Simple, and straightforward. He's not in the mood for humor.     But well, he rarely is.     Instead of swinging the burning sword, Shirou projects a bow from his free hand and MOUNTS the sword like an arrow.     Then fires straight for Medusa.     THAT's probably the last thing she was expecting!     "Purpose?! You're working for someone to do this?!" 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     The explosive punch from Vivio tore several dozen armored scales off the snake-appendage, and there's lots of blood flying everywhere now. Lyria's slashing at the enormous serpent deals damage to its exposed flesh, causing more blood to pour forth, but doesn't quite seem to sever it. It's a durable monster, to be sure.     She doesn't appear to have anything further to say, conversation-wise. Whether Shirou misunderstood something or is correct or not, she is paying more attention to the battle. After his arrow-sword slams into her, piercing her body and causing even more blood to gush out onto the ground, she cries out in pain and floats around in a half-circle, possibly trying to move behind the group. Though with these three being as agile as they are, that might not be possible for the giant flying head.     As she floats along, however, tears of poisonous blood weep from her eyes, steaming when they hit the ground and leaving a trail of toxic mist that might be best avoided. 

:'''{{#var:670|Lyria Mason (670)}} has posed:''' Lyria Mason is going to watch her movmentrs and her strikes, she manage sto cut it but it's enough to make it bleed. She shifts a bit flicks something under the saber's guard and the blade starts to vibrate and now she's looking to see how to strike next against Medusa, she's also taking care to avoid any of her stoned victems. She's pretty sure there's a chance a white mage from her world can help them. Or even some of the items she might be carrying, might help. Now's she's got to worry about this monster. She shifts in moving to fire a few aimed pistol shots, it's single rounds and is only more intending to try and keep MEdusa on guard. She is forced out of her plan to get into melee again due to the trail of toxic mist she's go to avoid, however hse still thinks getting into their gril is the best action. "Some people just want to see the world burn or have nothing in mind more than their own desires, Shirou!" 

:'''{{#var:737|Vivio Takamachi (737)}} has posed:'''     Vivio winces a little as the pain from her arm begins to become more noticeable. She's used to some pain during a fight, but not after the first attack! Trying to push the pain from her mind like she was taught, Vivio returns her attention to Medusa.     The toxic mist will make movement to get closer hard, so for the moment Vivio switches to a ranged stance. Much like against the plansters, several orbs of iridescent light appear around Vivio, accompanied by a spell circle on the ground beneath her. The hum of energy grows as Vivio calls, "Sonic Shooter..." But she ends it differently as she swings her arm, "Phantom Shift!"     The orbs dart forward towards Medusa. As each closes in, they burst into multiple smaller bolts of magic that rain down on Medusa and her snakes. 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     Shirou doesn't avoid all of the mist in time. His skin sizzles on contact due to just not getting away in time. "Gah!!"     PAIN!     But it's just pain. And well, eroding flesh. That's uh... nott apparently going to stop him, even though it really should.     Shirou just draws the bow again after scrambling to his feet. "My body is made of swords."     JOYEUSE, the holy sword of Charlemagne, is his choice this time. A blade of rainbow colors is drawn back and launched, trailing a gaudy-as-hell rainbow and unleashing an eye-searing lightshow the moment it hits something! 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     Lyria's bullets pepper Medusa's mane of serpents and the side of her face, drawing more blood, and Vivio's explosive laser barrage accomplishes much the same. Between them, the damage already inflicted, and then Shirou's rainbow sword attack that impales her right in the forehead - without, apparently killing her - the legendary monster is starting to look pretty torn up. Also she has a heck of a lot of blood, if the mess all over the ground is anything to go by. It seems like a geyser of the stuff comes out of her from every hit! Or maybe the big globs of it are just larger due to the scale of the enemy. Giant monster biology is probably not the specialty of anyone present.     Medusa hisses at the pain of her injuries and then, yells out, "TURN TO STONE!" Her eyes blaze with a phantasmal light that erupts into a beam that starts on the ground in front of her and then raises upwards, travelling farther, as she adjusts the angle. It's a straight-line attack, so moving out of the way is the simplest way to defend against it.     But moving out of the way is also probably a REALLY GOOD IDEA given what the attack probably does. 

:'''{{#var:737|Vivio Takamachi (737)}} has posed:'''     Even in her adult form, Vivio is rather fast on her feet. She jumps away from the beam as it starts, then once more as the angle is adjusted. Judging by the statues of the poor townspeople, Vivio is fairly certain she doesn't want to get turned to stone.     As Medusa manages to get the beam close to Vivio, the Mage raises her hand. A Round Shield appears, repelling the petrification magic long enough for Vivio to get clear... She didn't want to test her defensive magics against such a dangerous attack.     The fact that the attack is emanating from Medusa's eyes doesn't escape Vivio's notice. This means the safest place to strike from is behind the creature! Vivio shifts her footing, Jet...     ... Step! Vivio's movement magic takes her around the floating head in flash. Magic is already gathering in her palm as she swings it around. The growing orb stops in front of her, a magic circle lighting up beneath her. The orb is growing large, much larger than any of Vivio's previous attacks. Pulling her arm back, Vivio closes her fist and says, "Divine-" Vivio swings, "-BUSTER!" Vivio's fist smashes the orb of iridescent light. The gathered magic bursts forth as a large, wide blast of energy that could easily strike all of Medusa at once. The blast doesn't go far though, quickly fading so as to not cause unnecessary damage to the village, or any of the petrified halflings. 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     "---CRAP!" how DOES one get out of it?! Shirou's not particularly dodgy. thankfully... He has a few breaths. That's all. "MONTAUBAUN!"     Power surges forth from his hands and takes shape - an enormous white marble wall, albeit filmy and translucent, erupts from the ground just in time. The mystic beam slams into it to utterly no effect whatsoever, although Shirou's hunkering clumsily behind the wall in a panic - HOPING this will hold.     "that's NOT Mystic Eyes!" he blurts like a dolt, He'd expeted the petrification thing to be a little more subtle than this! 

:'''{{#var:670|Lyria Mason (670)}} has posed:''' Lyria Mason gets a better hit than she expected, she's getitng cocky and then this legendary monster is now trying to trurn them all to stone. She sees the beam and that's when she starts running at this point trying to get clear, an actuall attack is going to be up to someone else for the moment, Vivio does her thing enough magical power to turn some heads of her techers back home. This is where she gets some brething spare, now clear and she gets a moment to shift her stance and she then makes several gesturs before the ground it self will spike up at the medusa. 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     Medusa's petrification beam seems to only affect people and other living things, not walls, because the light doesn't do anything to the barrier. Shirou is safe despite his inability to dodge!     Vivio's powerful attack slams into Medusa, tearing the skin from her face and searing one of of her eyes enough she has to shut it. The damage goes no deeper than that, but it's still pretty severe. And just look at all the BLOOD! Legendary monster or no, she's not invincible, and she is being torn apart, one powerful attack at a time, as she faces off against three Elites at once. With Lyria's earth spikes rising up and stabbing into Medusa from below, that seems to have been the last straw.     "DAMN YOU!" she yells. Huge chunks of stone rise up from the ground and are torn from the surrounding structures, and start to orbit her. Three of them fly around and around her, before she hurls them at her enemies - one each. But they seem to be aimed to distract or force a defense like Shirou's wall, rather than intended to be decisive blows, as she floats backwards.     As wind howls, and another lightning bolt streaks down from the sky, blood trails the monster as she... Attempts to flee!?     It seems she has taken enough of a beating and is preparing to pull out! 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     The huge rock slams into Shirou's barrier with much better results than the petrification spell! Montauban cracks and topples. It's not quite as tough as it looks - Shirou needs way more practice with it. But he's left gasping for breath and doubled over, holding his side briefly. The one that got torn to shreds a few days ago!     "Escaping? I'm sure all these people here you turned into statues tried that too!" He's pretty damned angry.     Angry enouigh that it's likely surprising to some that he doesn't go after her... 

:'''{{#var:737|Vivio Takamachi (737)}} has posed:'''     Uh oh! Giant rock! Vivio raises her arms up in front of her to protect herself. The large boulder smashes into her, breaking apart as it does and sending Vivio flying. She bounces across the ground a couple of times before recovering, planting a hand into the ground and reorienting her movement to bring her down on her feet. Skidding the last little distance, Vivio stops and stands.     Vivio watches as the Medusa monster begins to flee. She briefly considers chasing after the creature... But feels kind of bad for the harm they've caused to it, even after what it did to the village.     Vivio flexes her arms to make sure they still work well enough after blocking that rock. She then looks at the others to see what they want to do about the fleeing Medusa. 

:'''{{#var:670|Lyria Mason (670)}} has posed:''' Lyria Mason is just getting lucky at this point she watches as Medusa takes a pounding of some sort, and she ownders. What sort of monster is this to take a beating like she's getting and not just dying. She sees she's going to run, she's still alive? Seriously what kind of monster is she. She raises her pistol and attemps to take a shot but well then comes another thought the victems she halts her firing least things get even worse. She lowers her pistol and then holsters it sighing deeply. "I'm going try to do what I can ... but from the condtion of some of these people, I'm not holding out too much hope. Still if we can save anyone it's worth it." 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     It'll probably take some convincing to get the Halflings to come out of their homes after all this, and some work to clean up the mess left behind... And get the statues somewhere they can be tested to see if there's a way to reverse the process. But the fog seems to have cleared completely, and even the storm in the sky has become somehow... Gentler in Medusa's absence. A rain begins to fall, both fierce and soft. Natural spring weather, rather than the dry thunder and lightning displayed previously.     It seems yet another seasonal zone attack has been thwarted, despite casualties. What is all of this about exactly? All four zones have been attacked, and the reason behind it is no closer to being discovered. But at least people know now that there are some intelligent monsters involved as well - including one as notable as Medusa herself. Further, the odd assortment of monsters... Fleamen, undead wolves that can dissolve into shadow, zombies and demons, giant plants, and living mist, and now Medusa... That's a collection of enemies that one doesn't often find working together.     At least not outside of Castlevania.     It's possible that the Union might need to do some investigating into what the Field Marshal of the Confederacy, Count Dracula, has been up to lately... 

:'''{{#var:737|Vivio Takamachi (737)}} has posed:'''     Vivio sighs quietly in relief as she watches the Medusa disappear in the distance. They managed to keep the monsters from doing any further harm to the villagers here! It's just sad they couldn't get here fast enough.     Light briefly encompasses Vivio, the silhoutte of her body shrinking. It then fades away, leaving behind Vivio's actual form of a ten-year-old girl. The cut on her arm isn't as bad as it was, though it'll still take some time to heal. Vivio's Device floats out of her body and turns to face her, Vivio glancing around at the statues and saying quietly, "I hope they can be helped..." 

}}

2087/Raiding The Shelves

2015-04-25T05:02:03Z

Paladine: Created page with "{{Log Header |Date of Scene=2015/04/24 |Location=Armster Estate |Synopsis=Somewhere in Europe, the abandoned Armster Estate is the destination for a Syndicate mission to retri..."

{{Log Header
|Date of Scene=2015/04/24
|Location=Armster Estate
|Synopsis=Somewhere in Europe, the abandoned Armster Estate is the destination for a Syndicate mission to retrieve alchemical reagents for the mansion's owner. Traps and other dangers lie in store for Kyra and Soan!
|Thanks=
|Cast of Characters=626, 633, 726
|Tinyplot=
|Tinyplot2=
|pretty=yes
}}
{{Poses
|Poses=:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     Armster Estate lies in a rather bleak section of Europe somewhere. This is the last 11th century, and it shows in many ways, obvious and subtle. The native inhabitants are probably at least wary of people from the Multiverse, though some are likely to be more outright hostile than others. Armster Estate, however, is within walking distant of a dead and deserted village. The buildings show signs of being burned. The mansion itself is large, bearing the architecture of the age. Not quite a castle, it is still far larger than a peasant's home.     It is a fortified structure, and appears abandoned.     It is also where the employer for this Syndicate mission has asked people to discretely visit, in order to obtain alchemical reagents and materials from a laboratory in his old home. He has warned of traps already, and said he is not in a position to disarm them himself. He has also warned it has been long enough since he was able to return home he does not recall of the traps and defenses he has laid, but that those taking up the job should keep an eye out for emblems or markings. They may be the triggers for traps, or the keys to passages that allow them to bypass such defenses.     The hour is late, with the sun nearly fallen below the horizon. The sky is dark, with a dire-looking grey clouds passing by in a near-solid wall of vapor overhead. Like a river of souls in the sky.     The iron-wrought gates in the surrounding stone wall lie open, indicating others may have come before them. But the layers of dust and debris also indicate any such trespassers have long since departed.     ...If they managed to leave. 

:'''{{#var:626|Kyra Hyral (626)}} has posed:'''     Kyra's not all that interested in getting in contact with the locals here, especially after the first few unfriendly glares she gets for just showing up. It's enough to make her glad that she definitely hasn't come to this mission alone, recruiting her expert thief friend Soan for his help. She doesn't have the trap-disarming skills he does. Her trying could have disasterous consequences.     As requested, from beyond the abandoned village, her approach on foot is pretty discrete. She has tried to probe their employer for as much information about the traps as possible so Soan knows what to look for-emblems it seems. Kyra's happy to see no other trace of people here though, meaning they have first response on this job and probably will make the most money out of it. Score!     Kyra's come kitted with potions and some standard explosives today, plus other utility things like adhesive and acids. Anything that would help against inanimate objects. She also brought spare bags and a detailed list of what exactly Joachim wanted out of his alchemy lab. Odds are during putting that list together, she asked him if there was anything she could help herself to-being a budding chemist. She strolls through the dusty gates with an air of confidence about her. 

:'''{{#var:633|Soan Sagittarius (633)}} has posed:'''      A lot of this is absolutely odd to Soan's inquisitive mind. An alchemist that's buggered off, don't control the various traps in his home where alchemical reagents he needs still lie. Why can't he get others himself, then? Perhaps it's very specific things that he needs. Kyra has less paranoia than he does when jobs are involved -- and paranoia pretty much is a large part of being a Thief. You just need to know when to pay heed to it. Anybody can be suspicious of every little odd thing that comes their way, after all. That's not difficult.      Soan is not too impressed by the countrysides, altought the regular 'sun' in the sky is still something he need to get used to. The Thief comes along with his friend Kyra, holding a small bag over his shoulder as he lumbers along, his sharp eyes darts around at things in the night, as well as his nose trying to Smell the potential fetid aura of darkness, evil and corruption. He can't turn it off. Nor that he ever would.      "So," Soan begins, causally, almost relax, as he strolls alongside her. "Do you have any idea what sort of things this guy is working on, from that list?" 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     Based on the list, there are any number of things that could possibly be made, either with some of the ingredients or all of them. But the same could be said of a great many natural elements, such as iron, sulfur, hydrochloric acid, and so on. Not that all of those are on the list, but there's nothing inherently suspicious, and what they are used for probably depends in large part HOW they're being put together.     Some of the ingredients are mundane, such as those named previously. Others are more exotic, such as 'dryad clippings' and 'ghost vapor', whereas still others are mysterious or simply not named so much as described. 'Quick silver crystals', 'the jar full of black', and 'sealed box (do not open)', for example.     If the ingredients are all procured successfully, instructions on how to reach the employer are then to be provided, with payment provided upon delivery. When Kyra asked if she could keep anything, she was told she is not welcome to steal, but that if the alchemical project Joachim wishes to perform succeeds, he will have no further use for what lies in his old estate. And at THAT point, she and any companions can have the whole place if they wish, and divide it up among themselves.     Beyond the gates are a weed choked cobblestone pathway up to a set of stairs which in turn lead up to a stone porch, with an unlocked and broken wooden door beyond that. A wooden wagon missing its wheels lies to one side of the path, so bleached by the sun and covered in dust that it at first appears to be made of stone.     Actually, if it is examined more closely, actually inspected by touch, it appears it IS petrified. That indicates either this place is a lot older than it looks, or something happened here that can even turn wood to stone in short order. Some accident with an experiment maybe?     Whatever the case, nothing seems to be threatening out here. The windows high above are barred, with ragged curtains or simply darkness beyond them. No glass is anywhere in sight. Despite there being no indication of darkness or evil for Soan, he may at least feel a very mundane sense of being watched. It is by no means supernatural, meaning it is very likely imaginary. But that impenetrable darkness, and the way the air moves to ruffle the intact curtains, is more than enough for one already paranoid to imagine figures peering down upon them that just plain aren't there. Phantoms of cloth and shadow and the tricks that the mind can play upon itself.     If the front door is pulled open, it falls off its hinges, and reveals a long, dark corridor, with an aged, rodent-chewed carpet that may have once born intricate designs but now is simply garbage, spanning the center of the corridor and going on into the unlit depths of the mansion. 

:'''{{#var:626|Kyra Hyral (626)}} has posed:'''     Kyra's knowledge of mixtures had provided several different possibilities using the ingredients that were on the list. Though curious, there were just too many alternatives to figure out what this man with the job wanted to do. Kyra has communicated this to Soan, of course. Though given the list, Kyra knows that it's easy to pick up iron, sulfur, and hydrochloric acid anywhere (in fact she has some of the latter on her right now) so why those things needed to be taken from this guy's alchemy lab was a mystery.     So sad, though, any payoff in materials would come much later. Or not at all, if Joachim did not succeed.     The discarded cart catches Kyra's attention and she gives it a closer look, seeing that it is made completely out of stone and not rotted wood like one might suspect. This immediately makes her wary and she looks around for any out of place statues of people. "Hey Soan, check this out. Turned completely to stone...looks kind of old but I suspect a cockatrice or gorgon."     That noted, she moves on, tugging the door open only to have it fall off. "...er..you should probably take point from here, Soan." 

:'''{{#var:633|Soan Sagittarius (633)}} has posed:'''      'No Stealing' is just asking for something to be stolen, as far Soan is concerned. The lack of putrid smell of the spiritual sort does comfort him somewhat, while not precisely dulling his prudence on the subject here. Besides, he'll be happy quite enough by just nicking the traps. That's the best way to disarm them, after all. Just taking them.      The Thief makes quite an effort to not notice or look around, or otherwise betray the fact that he has a feeling he's being watched, instead moving on to peer inside when the door is open, taking a step back as it falls off. "My, my, this employer certainly has not come here in a /long/ time for iron to rust off like this." He comments, giving Kyra a look. He dusts his hands off. "Yeah, or something worse. Keep close to me."      He steps inside, his critical eye flying around the darkened area for sights of emblems that's been mentioned -- or other moving parts that he is very well privvy to know, pressure plates, strings that ties armored arms with weapons on as well as things dangling dangerously on the ceilling. Soan draws out his Blacksword, merly a dark-tinted blade that gives no light or reflexion. "Keep your eyes open, then get a light going if things get too dark." 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     The hall is long, and dusty, and sporadically littered with things. A broken cup here, a sword that looks like it was left to rust in sea water from the green coating of oxydization, a candle burned down to the melted stump, stone fragments from a crumbling ceiling... Nothing too ominous. Doors line the passage, and other halls branch off from the main one. Choosing what to investigate and what to pass by is part of this mission, it seems, but the directions were clear.     The laboratory lies DOWNWARDS.     Pressure plates have yet to be located, or any other obvious traps. Perhaps they, like the rest of this place, have worn out beyond the point of usefulness. Or perhaps they have already been triggered by previous interlopers.     Or perhaps they are just very, very cleverly hidden. 

:'''{{#var:633|Soan Sagittarius (633)}} has posed:'''      It is rather hard to explain, even to a fellow Thief, how they really search for traps. It is a mixture of knowing patterns, spotting things that are out of the ordinary or sticks out, as well as healthy dose of intuition. Everyone has their methode that works best for them. If there is trap in the main hallway, they are likely triggered by heading into it, or something in the middle of it. If there is any at all. He's never found the use of trapping a regularly-travelled area in a house, honestly. Secondary rooms will be the dangerous ones.      He leads Kyra ahead to the end of the main hallway. Best to clear that while he peers around for things that stick out, occassionally poking with his sword ahead at certain spots. "Did your employer, perchance," Soan begins, not prying his eyes away from his work. "Give you a map of this mansion?" 

:'''{{#var:626|Kyra Hyral (626)}} has posed:'''     Kyra follows after Soan at a respectable distance. She's pretty familiar with him in the process of performing a 'sweep' and knows that it's best not too get too close. Can never be sure exactly where a trap is going to trigger or what direction it will come from. As he does his work, Kyra takes a moment to get her camera on so he can at least tape this. Soan might even like looking at it later!     "No, unfortunately, we've only spoken over the radio and I don't think the guy has himself a smartphone because he never sent me anything. He did tell me that the alchemy lab is beneath the estate so any stairways going down would be a good start." She carefully peers down any hallways as they pass them, but not entering them, because she knows those might be trapped too. She's not going to step anywhere that Soan hasn't yet. 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     The hall is very dark at this point. Too dark to see if Kyra didn't have her own light source with her. If the front door were closed it would be pitch-black. And given how late it is, even the very minute amount of grey light coming in from behind them is going to be gone shortly. Why would anyone have a hall this long with no windows or anything? Obviously it was meant to have candle sticks and such, but the stands for them have probably been stolen. Even the candles themselves are gone for the most part, with only the most ruined left behind.     But upon reaching the very end of the main hall, they reach a door that doesn't look like anything else here. It's ornate, still vivid despite its layer of dust. Some red material with a mix of black and silver metal woven together on its surface. At the apex of the metalworking, is what appears to be some kind of bestial skull. Maybe a small dragon or large mundane reptile.     A pair of metal rings, unrusted, lie as handles upon the doors. But the doors, oddly enough, seem to be one solid chunk of material. Two doors fused together as one. How is it supposed to be opened?     In the glow of Kyra's flashlight, or perhaps simply due to his skill and ability, Soan may notice that the floor directly in front of these doors is of a slightly darker coloration in a wide area, and that some of the 'dust' has a very slightly different scent to it.     More like ashes.     That skull... Maybe it's part of some kind of flame trap.     11th century flamethrowers. Alchemy is pretty amazing.     For Kyra's part, a few of the hallways that were passed along the way seemed to be just as empty at the main one. But there may have been glimpses of stationary silhouettes. Statues, perhaps, or partial suits of armor. She WAS on the lookout for human statues, but without getting closer, determining whether they were once people or just normal decorations is difficult. 

:'''{{#var:633|Soan Sagittarius (633)}} has posed:'''      Soan approaches the end of the hallway, giving the ornate, fused door a look. He distinctly does not get too close as he notices the darker coloration before it. He wordlessly motion to Kyra to stop moving, kneeling down to the ashes to give it a closer look... and the skull is a rather simple tell of what happened here. The Thief takes a sniff of the area, furrowing his brows, before smiling appreciatively.      "Oh-ho, alchemical-based firetrap. A pretty solid one, if this turned a man to cinders, here." Soan comments, pushing himself back to his feets as he gives a circular glance around the area of the door. "Poor guy here sure didn't see it." He says, eyes following the darker scorches and trying to pin-poin from where precisely the flamethrowers may have been coming from. If they're that strong, they very well likely have an origin point rather visible, especially since this haven't been cleaned up. 

:'''{{#var:626|Kyra Hyral (626)}} has posed:'''     Anyone with any sort of experience with dungeon exploring from Kyra's world knows very well to always come equipped with a light source of some kind. The flashlight industry is pretty big on Galianda because not everyone can generate their own magical, floating ball of light. The one Kyra has on her has a powerful, but narrow, beam.     As she passes by the halls, she peers down them with her flashlight, seeing the statues (?) but not drawing any closer to investigate them. Never split up, never get ahead of the thief!     He warns her to top and she does.     "Hey Soan, it looked like there were some statues or suits of armor or something down some of those halls." She turns her attention to the door, shining the light on it directly. "Oooh."     Impressed with the design, Kyra pulls out her phone so she can take a picture of it. 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     Based on where the ashes and burns on the ground and the bottoms of the walls on either side, the angle that the flame came from is probably somewhere around the vicinity of that skull at the top of the door. And given it has clearly been triggered at least once in the past, and there's no remains - human or otherwise - in sight, it's safe to say that the flames are probably quite intense. Maybe even magical in nature, though there's some pretty nasty mundane chemicals that can do similar. For someone with an adequate knowledge of chemistry, some pretty terrifying concoctions can be produced. Rubidium, for instance, is a substance so nasty that it will explode into violet flames upon contact with water. It is so volatile it will even sometimes just spontaneous catch fire when exposed to AIR.     There are probably napalm like substances that would burn for quite some time, until there's nothing identifiable left. Whatever triggers this trap is something to avoid. Perhaps there is a clue to how to open the door however. Winding black and silver metalwork, starting at the base and overlapping at one point as they make their way up to where that skull is perched. Is that just a design? Or perhaps instructions? 

:'''{{#var:633|Soan Sagittarius (633)}} has posed:'''      Soan looks positively giddy as he sets down his back on the ground, taking back a serious good amount of distance away from the scorching marks on the ground as he rummages in. After a few moments, he pull out two large metal tubes with chains wrapped around them, ending out into a hook. The old and venerable grappling hook. Soan test two little buttons on the end of the tup, making the 'claws' of the hook flex once, twice. He nods approvingly.      "Take a small step back. We'll give that place a look, then we'll give a look around. Sounds good? I'd rather disarm a trap while it's there than forget about it, in case something happens." The Thief says, looking at Kyra, then back at the door as he starts spinning the chains. A perk of being secretly a Sacred Warrior of the Dragoons and being alone with friends is that you can start using that superhuman strength, spinning his instruments into an expert, blurring speed before he throws them at the rings, claws into them, steady himself then add before he pulls. "Stick to a wall, if something happens."      Then he pulls. 

:'''{{#var:626|Kyra Hyral (626)}} has posed:'''     Kyra eyes the door, carefully examining the metalwork, frowning. There was probably a way to open the door, known to anyone who would frequent this place. Maybe there was something to do with the long winding bits of metal?     Soan has other ideas though and Kyra's quick to step back. She steps back far enough that she's nearby one of the hallways, ready to dive down in case the fire manages to fill the length of the hallway. "Alright Soan! Let it rip!" she calls back once she's at what seems to be a safe enough distance. 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     There's a clicking sound as the two rings are grasped with grappling hooks, and then pulled. The jaw of the skull drops open and a searing, cone-shaped wave of flame comes pouring out, bathing the area before Soan in heat so intense that his hair might get a bit singed from proximity. Depending on how durable his grappling hooks and their chains are, they may wind up super-heated, or simply melt into molten ooze if left exposed to the flames for too long.     Either way, the flames continue until the rings stop being pulled. It seems pulling the rings at the same time wasn't quite the right answer. But maybe close. Soan might feel as though he's missing something... That design on the door... The curving lines cross OVER each other. Right becomes left, and left becomes right. The flames don't seem to have enough to burn to remain once the trap is left to deactivate, so at least the hall isn't covered in fire. But it's still plenty hot, and the stone seems more melted than before despite obviously being reinforced or made of heat-resistant material.     Should the two of them try something else or just leave it for now?     It's not like the door is going anywhere. 

:'''{{#var:633|Soan Sagittarius (633)}} has posed:''' % Soan can appreciate a good flamethrower trap when it goes off, particularly if it is in the shape of a skull that is breathing out the torrent. When you, too, can breath flames, it's just something to consider admiring. Several eyebrows hairs get seared, as well the front end of his Department of Rogues uniform get small bits of fire started. Soan chuckles with humour, tapping them out until he stops pulling. He jingles his hooks. They are burning white hot, super-heated by the onslaught from the skull.      "I guess that answers the question whenever this trap is still active or not." Soan comments, letting go of the grip on his chains to let them cool off for the moment. Now that the obvious wrong answer has been tested, he lets his chains cool off for a moment. They briefly talk in hushed tone, talking on their radio for efficiency's sake before testing Kyra's idea.      He takes a deep breath, then pull one of the rings, briefly, just to see what happens, wiggling it around on different directions. 

:'''{{#var:626|Kyra Hyral (626)}} has posed:'''     "I wonder how old that is." Kyra remarks. "I'll have to as Joachim later." She gets a little closer now that they've seen the range of the trap while it's activated, which fortunately is not the WHOLE hallway. In the hushed exchange, she tells Soan her idea, and keeps back as he goes back to test it.     "There has to be some way to make them cross." Kyra observes. 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     When just one ring is pulled... NOTHING happens. The trap doesn't activate, but the fused-together door doesn't move either. It seems that pulling just one ring doesn't set it off, but just one ring also isn't the answer to opening it. Both need to be pulled, but if both are pulled the trap goes off. Perhaps there's some way to pull them both without setting off the trap. 

:'''{{#var:633|Soan Sagittarius (633)}} has posed:'''      "Mm-mm, nothing." Soan muses, loudly, nodding at Kyra as he tries out what she suggested next. "Yeah, that's what I'm thinking here." The Thief says, trying to pull on the chains at the same time. In this case, however, after a brief stint of concentration, try to pull the right ring accross to where the left ring is, and the left ring accross to where the right ring is, following along the lines as they are on the door. 

:'''{{#var:626|Kyra Hyral (626)}} has posed:'''     Meanwhile, Kyra loads up a potion in her needlegun in case Soan gets the business end of the fire trap. "The lines seem to suggest that there is a crossing at one point, I noticed. If that's not it, I'm not sure how else you can get the handles to cross unless you pull the rings simultaneously towards each other. But I'm guessing since one line overlaps the other that you need to pull one first, then the other. Maybe. I don't know, this is just my interpretation of it all!" She beams, "But I have faith in you, Soan! Especially in your reflexes if that thing goes off again!" 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     There's another click, but this time more like a locking mechanism unlocking. As right ring approaches left and left ring approaches right, it definitely seems like SOMETHING is happening... Almost. The doors kind-of-almost lurch. They move in their frames. That's more movement than has been shown so far (with there being no movement shown so far). It does seem like the two rings need to be pulled closer together. They're very, very close. This IS the right answer. But perhaps something else needs to be moved from right to the left and left to the right besides the rings. Perhaps something ELSE needs to be crossed when the rings are pulled, in order to exert enough force to draw them together. 

:'''{{#var:633|Soan Sagittarius (633)}} has posed:'''      Progress! Soan thinks, smirking to himself. He keeps the chains taut upon the path they are at. They're missing something, now. He thinks on it, discussing it with Kyra. He unhooks away from the rings, braving the remains of the flames to go look closer at the door itself. He's not afraid of fire. Within him burns a flame hotter than any alchemical compounds could hope to defeat. Unfortunately, the rest of his body don't generally subscribes to that attitude. He kneels down, looking at the bits at the bottom, trying to move them -- and to make them cross. 

:'''{{#var:626|Kyra Hyral (626)}} has posed:'''     Kyra continues to brainstorm through ways these doors might open. "Or maybe you need to grab the right ring with your left hand and then the left ring with your right hand and pull that way...but that wouldn't make any sense, how would the door be able to detect that." She rubs her chin as she watches Soan mess with the bottom, un-crossed pieces of the door's metalwork. 

:'''{{#var:633|Soan Sagittarius (633)}} has posed:''' Soan thinks on that, straightening up. "That's a pretty good idea." The Thief says. Puzzles, he swears. Traps are one thing, puzzles are another that he aren't as good toward. He brute forces puzzles, generally. He does as the White Mage suggests, grabbing the right ring with his left hand, and the left ring with his right hand. "As for how it can detect... I don't know, pressure sensors under here that tells weight ratio when swinging with a different arm," He says, pulling down and repeating the movement of earlier in this awkward position. "I'd be interested to see. They ought to have some sort of maintenance access here." 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     It's the angle. How far the rings can be pulled. It doesn't become obvious until Soan is actually doing it - and perhaps that is itself a reason for the design. Most people wouldn't think of it right away, and wouldn't realize why it would be designed that way until they actually tried it. With right hand on right ring and left hand on left ring, if they're pulled towards each other, Soan's own hands would meet, or his wrists would not bend properly, before the rings in whatever mechanism they're part of could reach the appropriate position.     With right hand on left ring and left hand on right ring, he can pull both of them all the way towards each other - or at least enough in their mechanism to trigger a result.     Again, the locking mechanism sound can be heard, though this time more solidly. And then the 'doors' become so loose that Soan can easily make the whole thing turn in place even by accident. The 'doors' are a wall, not a real door. A wall that rotates on a central column at the center. As the wall turns, cool, damp air flows out into the blisteringly hot and dusty hallway. There's a brief, shadowed passage on the other side, leading to a long flight of stairs, which in turn descend into a much larger, circular room, with pale blue illumination coming from cerulean-flamed torches that seem to burn perpetually.     Within this new room, there are many shelves, tables, and counters. Some of these surfaces bear books, others jars and bottles and boxes, and still others chemistry equipment, braziers, bowls and pestles, and grinders, and so on.     There are yet more exits brancing off from this room, but they seem dubious in their safety. Given this appears to be the laboratory, there might not be much immediate cause to investigate them right now. 

:'''{{#var:633|Soan Sagittarius (633)}} has posed:'''      Soan's face brightens as things starts to click. Ahh, the satisfaction of a trap being sprung, a puzzle being solved by their own hands. That's a sensation that never gets old. He lets things happens, giving a look around to Kyra with a goofy grin on his face. "Nice one, nice one. Sounds like you were right." He says, unhooking his grappling hook, carefully replacing them where they are(after they cooled off enough) and taking the lead downward, as always, on the alert. He's not sure WHY someone would trap his OWN inward laboratory, but best be careful.      As he acts as the sentinel, he looks around, his sensitive nose on the look out for strange smells. "See what he's looking for?" He asks. 

:'''{{#var:626|Kyra Hyral (626)}} has posed:'''     "...ack! Hold up, don't go all the way in without me!" Kyra scoots up to Soan so she can move through the rotating door with him. It's not that she doesn't trust herself to manipulate the puzzle correctly after that, it's that she's worried about 'mischief' from the door. Such as it having her dumped in another room! She moves into the new, darker hallway with Soan, shivering at the damp air.     "Hmm..!" Oh poor Kyra's excited now once they're in the alchemy lab. She wants to touch everything and take everything. But...well, the client forbid her from helping herself to the other materials. "Well, let's see.." at that point, she pulls her list out of one of her pouches and starts looking around the lab for the items that Joachim was looking for. The extra exits go unexplored for now. They don't look safe. 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     Minutes pass in the large laboratory, as Kyra finds some of the items on the list. But only the most mundane. It IS a large lab, so there's the possibility many other items on the list are around in here SOMEWHERE... But there may be the creeping suspicion that this is not the 'main' laboratory as so many things on the list seem to go unfound. There might, infact, be a need to go even deeper. Meaning either further exploration, or multiple trips - possibly with more help. Joachim DID promise that everyone involved would be paid in full, that the reward would not be split between them. He seemed quite confident he could afford it no matter how many of them there were.     Soan's attempts to detect any unusual scents turns up fruit after awhile. There's... SOMETHING in the air. It's cooler and damper down here, but where's the moisture coming from? It doesn't quite smell like water. There's, infact, a pugent chemical odor to it. Irritating, even. If either Kyra or Soan are familiar with the smell, they might be able to identify it. And if they don't make the connection between the scent and its usage, they might receive another clue in a little while.     There's a strange noise like someone sucking something up a straw, only louder than any normal-sized straw could produce.     *ssssswiiiIIIP!*     Identifying where the sound came from initially may be difficult, but thankfully (or perhaps not so thankfully) the sound repeats, seemingly coming from an exit in the westernly direction.     *ssssswiiiIIIP!*     What the hell IS that? Another trap of some kind?     *ssssswiiiIIIP!*     Except what kind of trap is it if it's coming closer each time?     *ssssswiiiIIIP!*     *ssssswiiiIIIP!*     Oh, great. Now the pace is increasing AND it's approaching them. If Soan or Kyra or both of them keep an eye on the tunnel the sound is coming from, they might catch sight of something pale and awful like an emaciated hand atop a too-long, too-flexible arm reach up over some ledge or horizon - possibly more stairs, and come back down on the same level as they're on.     The hand gropes around blindly, as though trying to find purchase, before sticking its fingers to the floor. Then the sound comes again.     *ssssswiiiIIIP!*     The hand and attached arm thicken as it seemingly sucks something up from further down, absorbing it into itself, until some misshapen white mass suddenly rises into view, and the hand becomes a foot. The creature comes to a rest upon two hand-feet, with two more of the same at its sides. It looks very loosely humanoid, but it is stark-white, and completely featureless aside from having an approximation of a head, torso, two arms, and two legs. It has no eyes, no mouth, no ears, no nose... No markings, no apparent skeletal structure despite its thinness, no clothing or jewelry...     It's like someone started to make a human figure out of white clay, and then stopped part way through.     And it stands in the entrance, blind, deaf. Can it sense them? Or will it go away if they don't do anything? 

:'''{{#var:626|Kyra Hyral (626)}} has posed:'''     Having recently visited the home of Scarlett, who is also heavily into alchemy, Kyra is suspecting a similar setup as the heiress: very expensive or rare items are locked away in a vault somewhere. Probably with security measures. That'd explain why the only things she's finding in the lab are the lamest and most mundane of things. She's still not sure why the basic stuff needs to come from his lab. It'd be easier to just pay someone to get them from a normal supplier.     "Ugh-" Kyra definitely recognizes the smell of the preservative chemical. She works with dead specimens all the time. Searching around, she hopes to find secret compartments (or rather, she hopes Soan will find them because theives are REALLY GOOD at that), only to grow distracted by the noises.     She watches the tunnel, reaching for one of her explosives in case one is needed. As the creature comes into view, she pulls it from her belt, but does not throw it, looking towards Soan.     He didn't detect it as evil so there wasn't any need to attack it. Instead: "Um...hello!?" she calls out to it. 

:'''{{#var:633|Soan Sagittarius (633)}} has posed:''' Soan can smell things coming. The sounds was tell enough, but theunfamiliar smell, striking at his very sensitive senses. Soan wrinkles his nose from the various chemicals inside of the lab, a place that Kyra is far more at home than he is. It's amazing that she has such a complexing, considering how much of a chemist she happens to be. Or whole. Explosions happens quite a lot in thoses labs, after all.      He turns around, reaching for Kyra's shoulder as he draw his blade again, watching the creature pull itself out of the ground like it is. He Smell nothing corrupted, it clearly seems... strange, unnatural, for certain. Perhaps it's a guardian of some sort? Perhaps it knows where things are, if it don't attack them directly?      "Try asking it where the things are." Soan hisses to her, keeping his eyes on the creature. This thing may be a problem if it goes hostile. "If it can hear us." 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     In response to Kyra's voice, and then Soan's fainter whisper, the Pale Creature's body ripples as though the sound waves they're producing are reaching it even from across the large room. One of its hands shoots out on a suddenly-extending arm towards Kyra. It absolutely reeks of formaldehyde, and this become more pronounced as its stretchy appendage reaches for Kyra's face, the palm and fingers expanding outwards as though it intended to engulf her entire head. Which might, infact, be its intent.     It doesn't have to be evil to be hostile.     It might be a mindless automaton, or some manner of alchemical predator. It's doing what it was meant to do, without malice, without cruelty.     Unfortunately, what it's meant to do appears to involve attacking people.     The attack is swift, but very slightly off-center. Not enough to matter if it hits her, but enough to give her small room to duck or shift or twist out of the way, or for Soan to act to do something about it instead. 

:'''{{#var:626|Kyra Hyral (626)}} has posed:'''     As Soan suggests that she asks it where things are, Kyra is suddenly enamored with the idea that this weird thing might be some kind of assistant monster, waiting here fore years for its master's return. But then it flickers and it /moves/, morphing its body to reach out for Kyra.     A shriek escapes the white mage as she tips sideways, moving forward and away as the stretchy hand-like appendage reaches for her face. It just misses, going pat her right shoulder, and at that point she can get a good whiff of the creature. Now doubly happy that it didn't smother her face since she knows very well just how toxic formaldehyde can be. "Don't let it touch you!" Kyra warns, scrambling for a silver canister in her pouches. She finds one, twists the top, then hurls it at the pale creature.     The object is a time-release container on a bit of liquid nitrogen. It's time release mechanism goes off in a few seconds-hopefully when the ceature has picked the object up. 

:'''{{#var:633|Soan Sagittarius (633)}} has posed:'''      Evil or not, hostile it is, which is all Soan needed to know to spring into action. The potential that this could have been a lab assistant was a possibility. "Kyra!" He shouts, about to shove himself in the way. Fortunately, Kyra proves that she actually /has/ physical power, dodging out of the way. It must be the labs explosions. After a while, you just start to learn to duck.      Soan leaps on top of one of the tables with a backflip, springing forth from that one to land somewhere behind the lunging creature. The main reason is not to be in the way of whatever Kyra just threw. The other, is to bring down his Blacksword donward in an arc from another leap at the creature's head, then keep cleaving as far as he can downward. 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     Its hand goes past Kyra when she avoids it, and the stretched surface of its palm continues on until it arcs downwards towards the ground, at which point it performs that self-absorption maneuver, along with the strange sucking noise, as it draws the rest of its body to its appendage's location.     *ssssswiiiIIIP!*     The cannister was a clever move on Kyra's part, but it now clinks harmlessly at the spot where the Pale Creature USED to be... Leaving Soan slashing through empty space with the cryogenic cannister about to go off right in front of him.     Meanwhile, the Pale Creature orients on where Kyra was when she yelled. Though the sound of the cannister on the stone floor back where it just was, combined with Soan's shout, also causes ripples in its surface that result in several smaller protrusions extending from its flesh as though it's trying to form new appendages. This time when it lunges at Kyra, it is with both hands... And while it seems like it just stretched to move into her path and cut her off, demonstrating some level of intelligence... The angle of its lunge is directly between where the cannister was thrown and where Kyra is.     It definitely seems to be navigating by vibrations or sound waves, but multiple sources of sound might confuse it. Another observation might be that when it stretched out the palm of its hand, the hand didn't become larger, just broader - and thinner. It has consistent mass. It just can manipulate it.     All things difficult to really put together in the heat of the moment when being chased by a toxic-scented monster and facing potential accidental friendly-fire, but it's still there to be observed. 

:'''{{#var:633|Soan Sagittarius (633)}} has posed:'''      Anybody can prepare up for a hit as a thief. It's one thing to prepare for a movement, have the nerve gathered then execute it. It's another to be able to act on complete reflexes. Soan finishes his sword movement, his eys widening in horror and surprise as the thing ... does what it's just done before right before their eyes, oozing it's way away. Oh, you clever girl. His eyes watches the alchemical canister plummet through empty space, his sword clanging against the floor. He comes to a decision.      Soan's free, buckler-wearing arm shoots out toward the canister, grabbing it deftly. Snatching things out of the air is very similar to pickpocketing, with the exception there's no clothing that's gets in the way.      Soan does not land on the ground, himself contorting his entire body to leap off the air itself, charging at the chemical monster to ram the canister straight into it's body from behind, unheeding to it's chemical harm he might suffer later. Besides, gloves are there for that. 

:'''{{#var:626|Kyra Hyral (626)}} has posed:'''     Even in the midsts of being attacked by a very dangerous monster, Kyra can pick up on the fact that it is attracted by sounds. It lunged at her after she spoke at it and reacted at the other noises in the room, such as the canister, which clattered loudly when it hit the floor. This could clearly be exploited by Kyra suddenly too harried to make that connection at the moment.     Especially when the rest of the creature comes to her. She moves to run again, but then it extends out both hands, not hitting her, but moving directly into her attempted path of escape, cutting her off from Soan. She slides to a stop, flailing and struggling to not crash /into/ the monster (and thus submerge herself in whatever formaldehyde-substance it was made out of. She sees movement behind it, Soan's manuver to fast for her to really parse at the moment.     But as she stands there, she takes a step backwards, and falls silent, hoping that if she makes no noise that it wouldn't attack her right away. 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     The Pale Creature is still in the process of landing and then gathering itself, with that distinctive *ssssswiiiIIIP!* when Soan charges towards it and thrusts the cannister against its - surprisingly SOLID - body, before the relatively brief timer can go off. It doesn't have time to orient on any new sounds or take action. When the cannister goes off, the Pale Creature's flesh freezes wherever the liquid nitrogen splashes or sprays. And possibly on Soan too, but he has gloves, so hopefully they - and the rest of his clothing - cover enough and are moisture-resistant enough to keep the freezing effect off of him. Assuming he doesn't just dodge back out of range after delivering the payload.     The creature staggers forward either way, its limbs bending, but not quite all the way, unable to move or function when a large chunk of its body has been rendered rigid and unmoving. Whether it actually feels PAIN or not is unclear, but it also doesn't appear to be dead or dying. Instead it keeps trying to pull itself along on its only limb to remain fully unfrozen, its squirming fingers stretching and turning, this way and that, in search of more vibrations.     Even like this, it continues serving its purpose. It's a terrible, gross, and yet somehow pitiful thing. Does it even understand what has just happened to it? Will it be able to fulfill its purpose now with its body the way it is? If it thaws, will its body ever work properly again?     Even if pity is put aside, just for practical purposes, of preventing it from being a threat in the future, it might be worth it to end its life. Or whatever passes for one. Or maybe they can simply leave it for now and come back another time. It seems like this is probably by far not the full extent of the dangers that Armster Estate has. It might take quite awhile to find the main laboratory. 

:'''{{#var:633|Soan Sagittarius (633)}} has posed:'''      There is not much thought in Soan for his next action. The thing proven to be dangerous, attacked them on contact and after forgoing direct talk. He's not even sure if the poor thing can really understand anything, of it's intelligent. Soan don't particularly enjoy killing things, but for this case, the Thief brings his sword down after the explosion of the cannister.      And pulling out his hand from the exploded alchemical weapon, his hand and upper arm covered in frost, as well a large part of his chest and a bit of his face. Kyra sometimes heard him do this, his eyes tightly closed as a rumble goes through his throat, almost inhuman as he pushes through the coldness burn. "Arrchn... Damn, got a bit silly, there." He mutters, taking in a deep breath, ballooning his cheeks out for a brief second. For that moment, light, flickering alive beneath his skin, dances as it fights the cold outside his skin, before he breaths out a wisp of smoke.      He wriggle his frozen arm, testing each fingers carefully. "I'm fine, I'm fine." 

:'''{{#var:626|Kyra Hyral (626)}} has posed:'''     At last, Kyra sees the result of what Soan had done. She would have yelled at him for picking up the canister if she'd known about it since the time to detonation on that thing was set REALLY low and should not have been handled after it was activated! Yet what he did wound up crippling the monster. After a bit of back and forth, Kyra urges Soan to kill it.     "That was...no, you're not fine, Soan, don't move. Don't move a muscle." Kyra orders, walking around the fallen creature for a second so she can handle Soan. She reaches out and taps him gently, her fingers glowing with White Magic as she casts a cure spell on him to remove the damage done by the liquid nitrogen backsplash. The chemical freeze/burn starts to fade away.     "There, you crazy, crazy thief." she teases him playfully before turning to the creature. From her belts and pouches come empty glass vials, which Kyra starts ushering samples into of the creature. Technically, it wasn't stealing alchemical materials if she took from this thing, after all. It wasn't against Joachim's rules to loot monsters. 

:'''{{#var:633|Soan Sagittarius (633)}} has posed:'''      Soan was not, in fact, fine, as Kyra says, despite his almost boy-ish attempts of warming himself up by... breathing some small amount of flames inside of his cheeks. He'd regenerate, he'd recover anyway. The Thief does not budge a muscle, watching the White Mage tapping him briefly as she cast a cure spell. Already, he can feel the warmth coursing through him. It did, in fact, feel much better.      He breaths out. The last wisps of smoke pours out of his lips, smiling down. "I'll take that as a compliment. Thanks, Kyra." He says, wiping his sword off a table cloth, then sheathing his blade then dust off the remains of the melting ice off his uniform, watching her take samples out of the creature. "Taking some samples?" He asks 

}}

2041/Elimination: Pond Scum

2015-04-22T20:33:03Z

Paladine: Created page with "{{Log Header |Date of Scene=2015/04/17 |Location=The Marshlands |Synopsis=A Syndicate mission to hunt monsters is arranged - a lake in the woods is infested with them! But who..."

{{Log Header
|Date of Scene=2015/04/17
|Location=The Marshlands
|Synopsis=A Syndicate mission to hunt monsters is arranged - a lake in the woods is infested with them! But who is the contractor for the mission, and what is its true purpose?
|Thanks=
|Cast of Characters=571, 619, 626, 642, 666, 726, 742
|Tinyplot=
|Tinyplot2=
|pretty=yes
}}
{{Poses
|Poses=:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     Hissing, bubbling, swishing, steaming.     Green woods, dark water, foul presence creeping.     Green boughs turned dripping and dank.     Web-toed foot prints deep in muddy bank.     -------------------     A pristine lake and verdant forest have been twisted and turned into a swamp somehow. The humidity has become very elevated, sticky mud sucks at feet almost like a living thing, and sunlight is sparse where it can be found - filtered green by the treetops and coming down in thin shafts that dapple upon rotting foliage and lengths of long green vines twisting among scraggly-looking weeds. It never quite gets dark enough that one can't see - at least during the day - but the low light level does no favors for sight-dependent organisms. Noxious clouds hover over the green, algae-covered pools and waterways that have resulted from the lake at the center of the forest flooding and creating a sort of marshland. The sound of toads and insects and birds and strange animal cries is a constant chorus in the background.     Sometimes this dark swamp is so hot and humid that one can barely breathe, only to suddenly enter shocking 'cold spots' that almost seem to roam about on their own as the air circulates in bizarre ways. There are signs of the area being inhabited by certain beings - likely non-human. And that is why Elites have been tasked with coming her to begin with. The creatures need to be eliminated or at least have their numbers sharply reduced. How do those taking the job know these thins need to be killed? That they can't just be reasoned with? That they're even a threat? Well, technically they don't. It being morally right wasn't part of the job description.     But the bloodied spears and stakes planted in the ground every once in awhile, along soggy paths (which are paths in name only), each with mostly-skinned human skulls impaled upon them, festering with flies, are probably not an indicator of friendliness, if that lends any confidence in the righteousness of this mission for those concerned about their alignment. 

:'''{{#var:619|Sanae Kochiya (619)}} has posed:'''     Being a priestess, and often mistaken for a shrine maiden, this was never going to be a situation where moral objections were tantamount to most's. It was their job to go on 'monster hunts' like this every so often, to keep the countryside safe, and to make certain the beasts that lurk in the dark remember their place. Of course, where she's from, the monsters also don't often leave evidence of their habitation in the form of pikes festooned with bloody skulls. Aside from that and the oppressive humidity, however, the marshy glade is actually a bit scenic to Sanae Kochiya. Cheating a bit by hovering just over the murk, but still wearing waders over her normal footwear as a safety net, her passage occassionally rustles a vine or a swamp plant owing to the bluster of wind wrapped around her, as she makes her way deeper in to the rendezvous point and the mission marker.     It's easy to get lost in a place like this. Every so often, she pauses in her flight to pull out a smart phone and look at it, before frequently re-pocketing it in sighing resignation. "The GPS is useless here, too. I guess I should have known better." But from how ubiquitous the macabre decorations are, she and any fellow respondents should have to do is keep looking, and whatever's here is certain to show itself eventually. 

:'''{{#var:626|Kyra Hyral (626)}} has posed:'''     Word of this particular request had come through the Syndicate board. Of note to Kyra, not only did it pay well, but it involved an area of expertise that she knew she and her friends would excell at: killing monsters. At least that's what Kyra assumes, based on the description of the job, is going to happen on this particular mission.     Certain social pressures have also been mounting on her end in the wake of Monday's disaster with Lute. Her followers were hungry for additional extraversal shenanigans and in a classic case of 'letting the internets fame go to your head', Kyra seemed all too eager to supply this once she had finished recovering. Fortunately, the spectacular care of the Union's medical facilities had come through, enabling her to be here today.     Once again, she has her special camera on her, which manifests as a tightly-fitting headband across her forehead. The aparature is situated in the dead center and possesses a faintly glowing red ring around the edge to indicate that it is currently on. As is the case with all Galiandan tech, it feeds off a slow trickle of magic particles.     Kyra arrives with the rest of her classmates, unwilling to come alone or arrive ahead of any of them. Always move with a group now, safety in numbers, position for support and so on. Knowing she will be supporting many today, she's certainly brought the CURE-ALL, which looks like a grenade launcher but is actually an alchemized healing gun. The rest of her remains weighed down with additional potions and pre-made mixtures, ready to be thrown in self defense. Rather than the skirted uniform of Alexander Academy, she's gone with the set of black jeans that Tomoyo had made for her outfit months ago.     "So basically..." Kyra says to her colleagues, eyeing one of those staked skulls out of the corner of her eye, "If it's a monster, it's gotta go." 

:'''{{#var:742|Dorotea Grahn (742)}} has posed:''' This is not a good place. Dorotea volunteered to go monster hunting because she takes those jobs sometimes (for practice, for spending money, as extra credit when she figures out some other aspect of monster life and/or magic - whatever). She heard that she was going to a lake, which was fine. She didn't expect it to be so /hot/. And humid. And ugh. Swamps are /not/ for her. Dorotea is already wearing her armoured boots and gauntlets because you can never be too careful. She has been picking her way along what are hopefully stable paths toward the rendezvous point. She doesn't seem to much care if she gets a little muddy but she doesn't want to fall in, and so she moves with a fairly careful tread. She is already sweating. Though technically not Kyra's classmate, she's at least a student of about the same age and she's sticking with her; maybe she wants a healer around. "Huh," she says, pausing to look at skulls on a stick. The kind of warning-post /she/ knows how to make uses animal skulls, not human, but she's familiar with the concept at least. "Don't worry! We can beat it down." Dorotea grins, punching her gauntleted fists together (lightly). 

:'''{{#var:571|Alexis Maaka (571)}} has posed:'''     Lousy places are something Alexis aren't at all unaccustomed to. She's used to fighting in some shitty places, swampy, humid, and hot places that are a hellhole to anybody but a trained soldier (of fortune). Really, she's in this for the pay, and it might end up being something interesting given what the client said about this world.     Her EM-GASH coilgun is at the ready, the rifle braced against her shoulder as she trudges through the swamp. Her STALKER suit is thankfully filtering the stench here, not to mention keeping her body temperature regulated as she practically ignores the mosquitoes that otherwise would be sucking out blood and precious mechfluid.     "Keep to a three-meter spread, folks. We don't know what's gonna jump out at us." She says through a filtered vocoder.     She's banking on either monsters, or guerrilas. Or monsterous guerrillas. 

:'''{{#var:642|Landon al Cid (642)}} has posed:'''      Sanae isn't the only martially-inclined royal along in the middle of a god-awful swamp.      The Prince of Ramuh moves carefully through the awful ooze. He's clad in his full Judge Armor, including the horned helmet, and it's not doing him many favors under the heat. The metal isn't particularly conducive to anything (any alloy that conducted lightning and heat on Ramuh would be tantamount to a death sentence), but it's still not super-pleasant to be inside plate mail in a swamp.      Landon brushes aside a tree as he walks a bit ahead of Kyra and Dorotea. Landon's role in party dynamics is always tanking, after all - his Job, his heavy armor, and his general durability made him the natural choice to be out front in any such situation. The glowing, crystalline-looking Judge Blade is already manifest, shining its light a bit ahead of them to make it easier to see during pockets of shadow, where the trees criss-cross just a touch too much.      "Mmm." Landon isn't a Syndicate operative. He's only here because Kyra told him about it, and he thought he needed more experience out in the field. Several Law Cards are tight between his fingers, ready to be charged with Magic Particles in the event of an emergency. 

:'''{{#var:666|Mirielle Edelweiss (666)}} has posed:'''     Independent Study Physical Education through Adventuring and Monster Study is something that Mirielle Edelweiss has been...     Neglecting.     Incapable of flight, frail of form, and generally determined to get through this and damn the consequences - because she needs to not fail out of PE to graduate - she finds herself red-faced and panting, drawing up the rear of the party, with a light backpack and a pair of galoshes rounding out her outfit. Squelching through the joke of a path and reshouldering her pack, she forces a smile as she glances between the spikes darkly.     "Hmm. Septic skulls. How welcoming." She grumbles, before taking another few steps in the muck, peeling a water bottle out of her pack and taking a swig. "I should have taken the Shiva mountain climbing expedition. At last you can bundle up to deal with cold. There's not much you can do about /heat/, especially when it can't decide how miserable it wants to be." She sighs, before looking around once more and swatting at an insect near her face slowly.     She is perhaps uncharacteristically grump and talkative. This is a survival instinct. If she was all quiet and not-present, socially, people may forget about her. In a swamp. That would be bad. 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     It really doesn't take long. There is a bizarre cry from somewhere within audible range but that may be difficult to identify the exact origin of. Somewhere in the area. Over 'there' somewhere. For those familiar with animal behavior, it may seem like the kind of 'alarm cry' that communal creatures give to notify others in the area. It kind of sounds like, 'KUH-REEEEEE! ...KUH-REEEEEE!' It's pretty piercing, honestly. Something else that's piercing? A spear with a skull on it as it thrusts out of the foliage at the well-armored Landon without warning. Whereas those cries may have been in the general area around the party, this attack comes from RIGHT THERE.     The reason for why the attacker may not have stood out much is made clear when a hard-scaled form that loosely resembles a man but is far too reptillian - especially in the bestial head, and inhuman legs, though the skin texture and the blue eyeball in its chest - follows after the gruesome weapon. The wielder is mottled in a color that blends well with the plants and environment. And from the sound of two-toed feet slapping on mud growing louder, it seems as though more of these... Lizard Men are incoming.     At least they won't have to hunt through this unpleasant swamp for very long to find one of the threats they need to deal with.     It seems Alexis's warning to the group was pretty accurate. 'Jumping out at them' is exactly what these monsters did. Fortunately, they're going after the big shiny man in the front with all that armor, but a spear can still get into some awfully inconvenient places in a suit of armor in the right hands. Those bringing up the rear or in the middle of the group are free to support or retaliate as they see fit, as they don't seem to be under attack themselves quite yet. But if Sanae lets them, the Lizard Men will probably gladly knock her out of the air. Ranged fire from Alexis, or similar aid from Kyra to keep the tank able to tank would be ideal. Maybe Dorotea could even clobber the enemies if they try to get past Landon! Team work is great after all.     Off to the side of Mirielle, some of the scummy-looking water begins to froth and bubble energetically for a period of several seconds while all this is going on, only to then calm to a stream of smaller bubbles. In the chaos of an ambush, it might or might not be noticed. 

:'''{{#var:619|Sanae Kochiya (619)}} has posed:'''     "Three meter spread," Sanae echoes? Now that she's wandered close enough that she's able to join the main group, that is. Thank goodness the shapes moving through the shade are apparently others coming to work the job, or whatever is living in the swamp can make really convincing illusions. "Hmm--that's a good idea, though. Close enough to respond to if somebody gets grabbed, but not close enough to offer a lot of targets. Okay, got it!" While others might appear to be on guard, with her floating around, she almost looks guardedly..excited?     She particularly has her eyes fixed on Landon for a few moments, since it's not every day that an ex(*)-RPG junkie gets to see someone marching around in full plate regalia, even in the multiverse. She drifts a little bit closer, and holds up her weapon, that looks like a trapezoidal piece of card stock on the end of a stick, to just under her nose, like one might a fan when feigning demureness. Then she wonders, in a good-natured way, "So, what's your class, sir? Knight? Paladin?" Despite having met Kyra and Artyom before, she's actually still not aware, in some ways, that this is a 'real' question to some folk.     While she is distracted, the breeze that keeps her aloft, her temperature somewhat regulated, and also keeps her priestess robes billowing also sets one of the skulls rattling and shifting. It's not quite enough to startle her out of her wits, but she does jump lightly, snapping back to focusing on the presumed monsters they're pursuing. Taking a breath, she smiles, hopefully visible through the few dapples of subdued light that filter through the canopy, "I'm Sanae Kochiya, by the way. Good to have some other people around on one of these jobs, for once." She might be relatively new to the Syndicate, but she's..well-versed on sealing and purifying monster lairs.     Suddenly, there are..alarm calls? She's no expert in animal psychology, but there's a certain universal intent to it. She suddenly wheels around in the air, trying to pin point it, when there's a rustling from nearby their armored champion. "..look out!" Whether her shouted warning comes quickly enough to make a difference, she has her weapon at the ready, eyes darting around for any other previously undetected bubblings or disturbances. The wind around her also noticably picks up as she begins to ready what might be a spell of some kind, but it doesn't seem she has it readied yet.     Real life lizard men! Wow! She'll keep her gawking for when they aren't possibly surrounded by unfriendly reptile people, though. 

:'''{{#var:571|Alexis Maaka (571)}} has posed:'''     "Contact."     That shriek is all the warning the cyborg needs as she gets ready to rock. Alexis' response is as calm as it would be if she'd found gunk on her shoe. She's quick to take aim at the monsters, the lizardmen finding themselves sighted down by the coilgun. "Landon, I got your back!" She tells the Judge-Prince, before she fires in single-shots to accurately blast away at the lizardmen. Their thick hides can't last under a few high-velocity slugs, aiming to drop them with shots to the chest. 

:'''{{#var:742|Dorotea Grahn (742)}} has posed:''' "Eh, you'd never finish the climb," Dorotea says, after looking at Mirielle thoughtfully for a moment or two. "I'm Dorotea," Dorotea says, jabbing a thumb at herself when Sanae introduces herself. "Of course! You don't go monster-hunting by yourself, that's a good way to get in trouble. At least, not something like this." Dorotea has hunted individual monsters down before. That's not the same thing as going into their... nest, or whatever, and dealing with them. Dorotea doesn't recognize the sound. She doesn't need to recognize it to know that it is a bad thing, and she whirls, trying to locate it. She does when they shamble out of the bushes, but she still doesn't know what they are. Who has an eyeball in their chest? That seems like a really useless place for one. She'd never be able to use it for anything if she had one; her shirt would be in the way. She supposes they can get along without one. Stupid lizards. Either way, Dorotea takes a step forward, then another. She adopts an open stance, rather than trying to punch one - she goes for a grab, literally trying to pick up a Lizardman when it tries to get past her, heft it up with a grunt and pitch it back the way it came. She aims at a tree. Dorotea clearly did not see the bubbling - she's facing entirely the wrong way. "Got you!" 

:'''{{#var:626|Kyra Hyral (626)}} has posed:'''     Kyra at least seems to know enough about Dorotea that she can recognize her. Not only that, a quick look at her quickly tells Kyra: Shivan, probably beserker. She'll gladly direct her up to the front with Landon because 'DPS'.     Seeing Mirelle here is actually a bit of a shock to Kyra. "Oh hey." she says, genuinely surprised, "Glad you could join us, Mirelle. Is this your first time outside of Galianda?" Outside of Galianda was debatable, though.     Kyra can just hear the comments now. 'That's not an extraversal world that looks like some Leviathan swamp. FAAAAAAAAAAKE' Bah. Whatever.     "Heya Sanae! I didn't know you were on the questing circuit-" Kyra starts to make small talk only for it to be rudely interrupted by the (accurately Alexis-predicted) incoming monsters. They sure look like incoming monsters to her and that's all she needs to see to spring into support mode.     Step one is make the tanks even more tanky. Landon immediately gets a Protect spell cast upon him, a blue crystaline shield appearing around him for a few seconds before flickering away. He can 'feel' that the spell is still there, though. Dorotea receives one next, being obviously a melee fighter that could benefit from the extra protection.     Kyra keeps herself at the back of the group, wary of her flanks and rear. 

:'''{{#var:666|Mirielle Edelweiss (666)}} has posed:'''     Dorotea gets an inclination of the head, at her doubt in Mirielle's physical ability. And a thin smile. "Probably. But at least I could dress appropriately." She admits, adjusting the straps on her backpack and replacing her water bottle. She settles in for a stressful-if-boring rest of the trip.     Kyra's query gets a tired sigh. "Yes. This is my first time. I was informed, in no uncertain terms, that I was to actually go out and 'experience the world', by the PE director." She explains, before looking around.     "Though, I'm really not sure this is that much different than Gal-"     The 'contacts' begin springing forth, and the Calculator starts fumbling for her staff, squelching around in the back line as she brings her own magic to bear. Tactically, they wanted to accellerate their amount of outgoing supporting magic. And, since Kyra was the supporting mage...     Mirielle would support the support-er.     "Kyra!" She calls, a swell of red-tinted magic-partcles burning a light aura around her, before they swell around Kyra, forming little clocks that spin, ticking softly faster and faster, before dissipating.     Mirielle does not notice the bubbling muck near her over her tactical concern. She's not THAT situationally aware. 

:'''{{#var:642|Landon al Cid (642)}} has posed:'''      "I am Landon al Cid, Prince of Ramuh," Landon introduces himself graciously to Sanae, "My Job is Judge. Forgive me for not introducing myself prop-"      Landon is cut off by the sound of a loud CLANG.      The spear very nearly catches Landon in the chest. It's only thanks to the flexibility and durability of the Judge Armor that he manages to avoid being skewered. The armor is, after all, made to take hits from very heavy and very dangerous things. And it's plate mail, so, you know. Naturally resistant.      Landon does not waste time. He regains his footing with expert speed, moving as though the armor was a second skin. The Law Cards in his hand blaze with brilliant blue light, sigils traced in Magic Particles as he empowers them.      In front of Landon, three massive blue crystalline barriers unfold. They're massive and rectangular, and they move into the path of attacks targetting Kyra, Mirielle, Sanae, or Dorotea according to the motion of Landon's hands.      Meanwhile, the Judge Blade frees itself from his grasp and flies into the air, hovering in front of him like a shield to soak damage. Then it goes spinning outwards, smacking the enemy with its heavy side.      Kyra's Protect spell gets a nod from Landon. Then, because Landon is that kind of person, he calls out:      "Stand down!" at the monsters, "Surrender, if you are able to speak, and you will be judged fairly and leniently!" 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     Landon's attacker is smacked aside with the Judge Blade, and into the incredibly murky water that lies off to the group's right. The declaration of surrender is either ignored or not understood. They don't seem to be waiting for him to finish, eevn.     The Lizardman who tries to get past Landon initially is taken down with a shot through the eye in his chest from Alexis, hurling him back. He practically explodes into a veritable cyclone of blood that splatters everwhere before the body even hits the ground. Another two who try the same tactic manage to lose one of their number, while the other uses the death of his comrade to lunge towards those hanging back. Thankfully, Dorotea seizes him and hurls him at a tree, not only practically snapping the tree in half, but also snapping the body - which in turn becomes yet another spray of bright-red blood upon the ground.     With the protective spells in place thanks to Kyra, Mirielle enhancing the enhancer, and Landon's own protective powers, even if the Lizardmen had managed to attack, it is quite possible they wouldn't have accomplished much - just as they failed to against Landon.     The one thrown into the water is righting himself and making his way back to shore in a half-run/half-wade that his reptilian legs seem perfectly suited to, but he passes through an area of bubbling water like the one that had previously shown such activity near Mirielle. The water begins to froth just as he almost makes it out of the mysterious pool, and suddenly a number of pale, thin, grey-fleshed hands, with sharp, spindly fingers coming surging up out of the water and seize the creature. He cries out in a manner very like the sound of alarm heard earlier, but as hands find their way to sharp-toothed jaw, and pull the Lizard Man's head below the water with fearsome strength despite the burly monster's struggles, the cry is silenced.     The Lizard Man does not surface again, and after several seconds, the frothing bubbles subside to a steady trickle once more.     As soon as the attack came, it's over.     Sanae's attempts to identify how many attackers there are, however, lend her insight into the fact that there are more creatures - likely Lizard Men - creeping around the area. Possibly watching them even now, though perhaps from concealment. The sound of their feet as they move through the brush, the fetid smell of a predator's breath on the mostly-stagnant air - stirred up by Sanae's winds - indicate their numbers are greater than the four who attacked just now. 

:'''{{#var:571|Alexis Maaka (571)}} has posed:'''     FATALITY, MAAKA WINS.     Satisfied as the lizard warriors have fallen in battle, Maaka glances among the group. "I'm taking point, hopefully next time my sensor tech will pick up any surprises up ahead." She says, before she begins to trudge and wade through the water. She's not as suited for navigating the swamp as these reptillian warriors were, but she manages to go onwards with a decent pace.     She won't turn away anybody if they want to tag along, but she will insist on being tip of the spear, for the moment anyways. She is the one with the big gun, after all, and she trains her weapon alertly as she paces further down the marsh. 

:'''{{#var:619|Sanae Kochiya (619)}} has posed:'''     After a few more moments of charging up, while she's being reminded of the RPGs she used to play, she finally remembers something vague from those long ago days. These are lizards, right? And lizards were usually weak to lightning, for some reason. She gestures purposefully with her wand-like object, creating a glowing magic circle in the air immediately in front of her, runes and everything. Something serpentine in form, itself, begins to appear behind her as the air around her sizzles with ozone, a scent that does the swamp no further favors. However, the down side to preparing and using this kind of flashy magic, what she calls 'miracles'..is that it leaves you a little bit vulnerable, something the spell card rules usually handle.     Strange lizard men are beholden to no such rules, and she soon finds herself being buffetted by a few errant swipes as they go by to 'easier' and more obvious targets. They must think she's some kind of fancy pinata. "Ah..! You're supposed to give me time to finish!" The form of the coiled serpent - was that a summon? - flickers out of existence from behind her, ruining her concentration. This prompts prompts her to roll up a detached sleeve, before it just slips right back down again, "Well, if you're going to be *that* way about it." Still in the air, she slips backwards to try and get some separation, before brandishing her wand again. This time it doesn't trace an enchanted shape in the air, instead forming 'blades' of powerful air, to try and knock the one still standing back off its feet.     ..that is, it turns out, mostly ineffectual, as it is - devoured, by SOMETHING, that is frankly even scarier than the lizard men. She catches her breath, while sweeping back a lock of hair and finding a way to smile in the tense situation, "Good to see you again, Miss Kyra! And to make your acquaintance, Sir Landon. You'll excuse me if I defer more until later." She'd not let Dorotea's observations go unnoticed either, giving her an affirmative 'mm!', though again it's probably left until later to discuss things like civilized people. Being with other hunters..it's true that there's strength and relative safety in numbers, but it definitely presents a different dynamic. She'll just have to adapt to this new era of teamwork.     While it seems the others have the tactical side of things handled, she still has something to offer, it turns out. Her connection with the winds does grant her a little bit of an extra-sensory notion beyond the restricted sight lines of this place. The immediate threat ended, she extends her arms to 'feel out' the area, "..there's more of them gathering, it seems like. Or, *something* is." After that thing came out of the swamp, she won't make that assumption. 

:'''{{#var:742|Dorotea Grahn (742)}} has posed:''' Dorotea Grahn throws pretty hard, as it turns out. She dusts her gauntlets off on her shorts afterwards, though they don't really need it. "Ha! If it's just things like that I don't think we'll have a problem," she says, though she is eyeing the water where the hands came out of a little suspiciously. Part of her wants to see what that is. Another, wiser part tells her it would be a bad plan, even with everyone dumping defensive spells in her general direction (which she isn't objecting to, certainly...) She looks at Sanae. "Of course there's more. They stink," Dorotea says, though how she smells it over the swamp is a good question. Probably has to do with her breeze. She picks her way forward, stepping on a particularly stable rock before hopping further ahead, taking a position ahead of the mages and closer to Alexis. Even if she's not armoured like Landon (or in fact at all), Dorotea is tough; she can take it. She's used to working in a group, apparently, and hunting in natural environments by the way she moves - though swamps are an unpleasant change. 

:'''{{#var:626|Kyra Hyral (626)}} has posed:'''     A supporter being...supported? Usually Kyra has to apply her own buffs so to get one from Mirielle, especially one she can't even cast herself, is pretty noteworthy to Kyra. "Whoah-thanks!" Kyra replies, her voice a shade faster and squeakier. Though her heightened senses in turn allow her to notice the frothing water, which she yelps at to Mirielle. She is completely sure that a monster will spring out of there-     Though perhaps more surprising is when a lizardman is flung into the water and whatever is in there is dragged down into the depths quite forcefully. Kyra watches this with some alarm, the sight being caught by the camera she wears. "Whoah. Anybody get the feeling we might have walked into a turf war? Hold up you guys. Why don't we deal with these lake things before we get any farther, I think they could be a problem."     How does Kyra plan to do that? Well, she reaches into one of her pouches around her waist and pulls out red block of slightly chalky material. "Get ready, guys, this'll probably draw some aggro."     Kyra casually chucks the block into the nearby water. A few seconds pass and Kyra activates the magically-sensitive block of C4, initiating an explosion beneath the water. 

:'''{{#var:642|Landon al Cid (642)}} has posed:'''      Landon has nothing to say at this point. The Prince falls back a bit as Alexis takes the lead - his armor is not conducive to *stealth* in a *swamp* by any means, and spotting is better done by others who aren't wearing heavy, horned helmets. Instead, he busies himself checking his armor and preparing to establish a perimeter in what little clear, safe land he can find for the rest of the team to fall back on.      That is, until Kyra blows the water out of the swamp. 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     The explosion makes a lot of noise and sends a lot of scummy water splashing everywhere and on everyone. If the Lizard Men didn't know where the group was before, they do now. Given how disrupted and churned up the smelly, gross swamp water is now, it's pretty much impossible to tell whether the whatever-those-were are still there or not. But there at least don't appear to be any remains floating to the surface or anything. Not even the Lizard Man from earlier.     There are many more Lizard Men coming now, the sound of them rushing through the trees and brush loud in every direction (except the direction of the water, because anyone in their right mind would say, 'to hell with going through that'). When the Lizard Men attack again, it's in far greater numbers. At least a dozen come charging out of the woods, some coming straight at the group, others circling around and looking for an opening to attack from behind. There's even a Lizard Man with an unusual, bright-patterned coloration. He is carrying some sort of crystal that is radiating strong magic, and seems to be hanging back slightly, even though he is moving amongst the others.     If he finds a moment when the heroes are dealing with the Lizard Man onslaught, with even more on the way, he attempts to breathe out a cloud of poisonous mist at the party - with his compatriots seemingly immune to its effects and thus not minding if they get caught in it.     Good thing all those protective magics are in place! ...If they work against poison too. If not, maybe those capable of curing toxins can deal with it. The fact that there's just this one unusual Lizard Man among all the others, however, indicates he is special in some way. A leader perhaps? Either way, the crystal he carries is probably significant, even if the Poison Lizard isn't. 

:'''{{#var:619|Sanae Kochiya (619)}} has posed:'''     With her winds bringing a literal breath of fresh air to the swamp, even as it helps waft even worse up, Sanae continues drifting along behind. No way is she willingly getting pulled down into that gunk when she could be flying, especially with grasping claws coming out. After a few more moments, she allows the winds to die down somewhat, since they've done their job and maintaining that level of concentration isn't easy for a newbie goddess. "Oh, what's that," she wonders, as Kyra produces something she promises will attract a lot of attention, even if she gets the general idea. Suspicions confirmed, some kind of explosive! "Ah," she yelps, holding her hands up to her ears and getting her nice robes splashed by some of the murk, after all. Even prepared, it was still a bit surprising how powerful it was. "The swamp is beautiful in its own way, Miss Kyra. Let's leave some of it for others to discover!"     It seems to have done the job of attracting and stirring the remaining hordes, though. She can't deny the effectiveness, and she'll have to remember that little trick. "Hmm, here they come!" No time to sulk over getting mud on her, her expression once again seems to grow serious. Wand at the ready, she deftly traces a five-pointed star in the air in front of her, which soon solidifies into glowing energy, before splitting into five smaller ones at the corners. "This is for wasting my precious call to Miss Kanako!" She'll return their emerging numbers with numbers of her own, each of the smaller stars firing a beam of piercing, holy light at the approaching lizardman army. Their 'leader', she will presume, does not escape her notice, either. Nor does his mist. Her winds keep the air around herself mostly clear, a protection she tries to extend to Kyra whom is closeby, but she can only multitask miracles so much!     "That one seems to be ordering them," comes her obvious observation! "Maybe if somebody takes him out, the rest of them will leave!" That's how it always worked in games, isn't it? 

:'''{{#var:571|Alexis Maaka (571)}} has posed:'''     Good thing Alexis's suit is sealed, otherwise she'd be in trouble with the poison guy. She raises her rifle, the weapon kicking against her stock firmly as she begins to drop lizard after lizard while she can. The lizardman with the magic crystal gets Alexis' attention as she whirls to face it, her rifle foucsed as she takes a deep breath.     All she can focus on right now is that crystal, and her weapons and neural implants go to work calculating the specifics before she finally lets off a single shot, the rifle letting off a muted crack of ozone. 

:'''{{#var:666|Mirielle Edelweiss (666)}} has posed:'''     Mirielle seems to nominally help out with Kyra's haste, smiling despite herself at the energeticness and enhanced 'speed' of Kyra as she helps dispatch any threat to the group. It is potentially a 'new' feeling for her, but Mirielle understands the tactics of the situation.     Even if she isn't aware of the lurking, bubbling death in the muck. Which drags a lizardman down, much to her horror, and then...     Then Kyra uses some strange 'alchemical' mixture to blow half the swamp into a crater, showering fetid water all over the party, which Mirielle brings up her staff for, a dark half-crescent barrier burning to life over and before her and shielding her from the worse of the swamp muck rain.     It dissipates quickly, as it burns away or simply deflects most of the goo, only a little sullying her clothes.     The lizardman problem only grows exponentially. There is an easy solution for that. "The next step in absolute victory... After shoring up your weaknesses, expand upon your strengths." She intones, beginning to gather up another wave of magic. Certainly different than the first, the burning aura from this lingers about her, swirling around her staff once like a serpent of fire, before she casts it off towards Dorotea.     The energetic arc of particles falls upon the Shivan, and this one is no simple haste. An upswell of magic that focuses in the arms and legs, that burns along the weapon. This one is quite an esoteric effect!     "Lay waste to all before you!" She calls, though she cannot really place the name of this other girl.     Her garb and armaments made her a prime choice for this effect, anyway. 

:'''{{#var:626|Kyra Hyral (626)}} has posed:'''     In retrospect, maybe exploding the water wasn't the best of ideas, Kyra thinks, as she stands there dripping with nasty, disgusting swamp water. Fortunately for her, the particular outfit she's wearing, designed by Tomoyo, was made /specifically/ to be liquid and stain-resistant. The water rolls off of her clothing as if she was wearing a raincoat. Everyone else, however, is on their own!     "Eh, the water will drain back in here eventually! It wouldn't be a swamp if it' didn't." Kyra says in response to Sanae, grinning, "I think it took care of our water creatures problem, though!"     ...at the cost of attracting all of the Lizardmen, though.     "Keep up the DPS! I'll keep everyone topped off!" Kyra calls out as the Lizardmen mass on their location. She reaches over her shoulder and pulls out the GLEAMING GRENADIER'S CURE-ALL, the alchemized weapon functioning as both an area of effect heal dispenser AND an area remedy. Alerted to the presence of poisonous fumes by Alexis, Kyra is completely ready to dispell the sickness as it starts to take effect on the various fighters. 

:'''{{#var:742|Dorotea Grahn (742)}} has posed:''' "Eh," Dorotea says to Kyra's suggestion that they might have walked into a trap. Then again, Dorotea once completed a dungeon run by literally running through several mechanical trap zones without stopping, so she probably has a little less worry on the matter than some people. The straightforward, incredibly direct approach isn't /always/ the best tactic, but it does work sometimes. Of course, then Kyra drops a bomb in. That's /one/ way to get attention, she supposes. But it splatters muddy water everywhere, including on her. "Agh!" she yelps, not because she's hurt (she's not) but because she has just been splattered. There is a gob of mud hanging off one of the tails of her hair, and several more spattering her front. It is not a good look. "Tell me to duck next time!" she informs Kyra, head tilting at the sudden change in tenor. There's a whole lot of them coming out of nowhere, and it's breathing poison. Protect doesn't really help against that, but Dorotea hunkers down, as if trying to remain unpoisoned by sheer endurance. She still looks a little green around the edges. That might be the glow, though. Dorotea doesn't have any weapons beyond her armoured gauntlets and boots, but they shimmer and glow, leaving trails when she moves. "Thanks!" she yells, before drawing a fist back and, oddly, holding it. It's like she's waiting for something... or charging something, as the aura shimmers along her gauntlet's plates. Dorotea suddenly emits blue light, several globes of energy that drift away from her before fading. She charges toward the closest Lizardman, fist trailing more light as she drives it forward, yelling out, "GOBLIN PUUUUUNCH!" as she goes. She doesn't stop there, continuing to run under the influence of Aura, slamming her fist into several others as she uses her momentum as an additional weapon. Well at least everyone is clear on what Blue Magic that was. 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     Sanae's lasers destroy several Lizard Men, causing them to turn into those odd whirlpools of blood that splatter everywhere before seeping into the ground and vanishing. Her wind powers do a good job of keeping herself and Kyra free of poisons, and her warning cry probably helps those who, unlike Alexis, may not have protection against such. Speaking of Alexis, when she destroys that magic crystal, it releases all its power in a blinding flash.     The ground seems to burn away from the Poison Lizard, and continue expanding outwards in a crematory wave that is surely going to engulf the good guys as well! Oh, no! Was this the wrong move!? But nothing is really burning, and though the terrain is changing... It is changing from swamp to forest. Even that swamp water seems to be evaporating and turning into jets of steam that fly away back to the lake they originated from.     Whatever magic that crystal wielded, it seems that this entire swamp was supernaturally maintained by altering the ecosystem and terrain, and that's not its natural state. With the Lizard Men lasered by Sanae, the ones shot into bloody sprays by Alexis, the Poison Lizard caught in the explosion of his own artifact, the poison mist being nullified by Kyra's cure grenade, and Mirielle enhancing everyone to make their respective abilities even more awesome, it's only a matter of time before the current attacks cease. It seems like there's plenty more Lizard Men where they came from, but with Dorotea plowing through the reptillian humanoids and leaving a wave of blood sprays in her wake, the survivors seem to decide now is not the time to try to rush and overpower these intruders.     The eyes on their chests seem to be glowing as they retreat into the darkness of the now very not-swamp-like surroundings. Lizard Men no longer have the environmental advantage, their enemies are too numerous, AND too powerful. But though it seems that part of the threat has been dealt with, there will be plenty more monsters to be dealt with in the future. This was still a good first step in ridding the area of them.     Because now this place is back to how it should be.     The sounds of swamp creatures vanished to be replaced with the sounds of other forest creatures when the crystal was shattered. In the aftermath of battle, natural noises are returning. Until something happens that didn't even in the middle of combat or with Kyra's magical C-4 going off.     The entire area goes completely dead-silent except for any noise this group of heroes might make. That isn't something that normally happens. Not unless there's a very large predator around, or some other reason for all the animals in the area to be afraid.     For a moment, a glimpse of a cloaked figure might be seen between the trees by the observant. But it's gone almost as soon as it's spotted. And the ground nearby the group becomes displaced, almost as though something were digging its way out of the ground. Soil and grass fall away from a large, ornate, wooden chest.     Once the noises of the forest return, someone might choose to investigate. And if they do, they'll find payment for each person who came on this job, in the form of pure gold coins.     The job offer DID say payment would be provided on-site, upon completion...     ...Though it didn't mention something creeply would be making the payment. 

:'''{{#var:619|Sanae Kochiya (619)}} has posed:'''     With the lizard men in retreat, Sanae finally takes a moment to catch her breath. And with the swamp somehow being burned away as a result of the crystal's shattering, it leaves solid ground for her to finally set her feet upon, even if it turns out it didn't help keep her clean, after all. The breeze also dies out around her, as she busies herself fussing with her robes, tsking at her own carelessness rather than blaming Kyra for her situation. "The robes that were blessed by Miss Kanako and Miss Suwako, what a mess!" After a few moments she consciously glances around as she becomes more distinctly aware of the terrain's changes. She looks somehow..disappointed? "..aww, the swamp was kind of exciting. Now it's just a forest. I guess that's kind of pretty, too, though."     If she were about to think the forest was boring, the sudden deathly still soon washes away any thoughts of that. All of her miko senses begin to blare the klaxons at this, though whatever passing wickedness doesn't really give much time to contemplate its nature. She holds a hand to her forehead, "..mm..something weird just happened. Oh!" She's soon distracted from it, though, as an honest-to-goodness *treasure chest* has appeared. She clasps her hands, "The multiverse really is where dreams become reality. Let's see what's inside, everybody!" MONEY. 

:'''{{#var:626|Kyra Hyral (626)}} has posed:'''     "...whoah!" Kyra exclaims at the very dramatic effect that Alexis's crystal shattering seems to have had on the very environment around them. She doesn't spend much time gawking, though, alternating between firing a poison-clearing remedy and a damage-clearing cure grenade spell.     The sudden silence is just as striking.     Now she was definitely expecting payment, this being a Syndicate job, but so...immediate? "Um...okay, that was suspicious but I can't say I'm complaining. Nice job everyone!" 

}}

1967/Deadly Maid Cafe

2015-04-07T12:01:02Z

Paladine: Created page with "{{Log Header |Date of Scene=2015/04/06 |Location=Midnight Shrine Tokyo <MST> |Synopsis=Miko invites some friends to a cafe to try to see if she can have one non-weird day in T..."

{{Log Header
|Date of Scene=2015/04/06
|Location=Midnight Shrine Tokyo <MST>
|Synopsis=Miko invites some friends to a cafe to try to see if she can have one non-weird day in Tokyo. Non-weird days happen, right?
|Thanks=
|Cast of Characters=172, 589, 714
|Tinyplot=
|Tinyplot2=
|pretty=yes
}}
{{Poses
|Poses=:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     The Peko Peko Cafe is one of Japan's many 'maid cafes'. Essentially, cute girls dress up as western-style maids (often French), and serve customers as though they were their 'masters'. They are polite, well-trained, and it's more of a soothing semi-roleplay activity than what many might expect based off of maid representation in anime and it being Japan. At this particular cafe, customers are encouraged to also wear their own themed outfits - suits, gothic dresses, or even maid outfits of their own in the case of some girlfriends accompanying their boyfriends (though dresses are also fine). It's not REQUIRED by any means.     But Miko is certainly wearing such a maid outfit that she was given as a gift, and has invited various friends, co-workers, and acquaintances to come hang out with her here and have some fun, just relaxing in her home town! Nothing weird today in Midnight Shrine Tokyo!     ...Really!     She's already seated at a table, waiting for anyone who has yet to arrive or getting situated with anyone who is already there. She seems a mix of embarrassed and happy about being dressed up like this. Sure, it's weird for her, but she's having fun already! 

:'''{{#var:172|Sakura Kinomoto (172)}} has posed:'''     Sakura is here! She's wearing a... blue dress, long sleeved, with a frilly white apron, white knee socks and black buckled shoes. ... What? Yukito is with her, wearing a green waistcoat and pants, black shoes so well polished they gleam, and a green top hat with... a card with a price (in yen) in the hat band. Are they... going for a theme here, or... 

:'''{{#var:714|Sanary Rondel (714)}} has posed:'''     The healer had heard varied whispers about this... Japan place many times at school: a Mecca for food and culture, a haven for degenerates, and everything in between. Despite her initial misgivings, however, she does find her way there to assist with whatever it was in the report.      Sanary arrives dressed in a well-pressed three piece suit. It fits her a little too well and, as with most of her clothes, looks somewhat cheap. Between the suit, vest, and the shirt, she looks somewhat androgynous to a less discerning eye, and would even fit in rather well with some of the more handsome male clientele.     And so, she comes up to the entrance of the cafe, glancing about slowly as if she wasn't entirely sure what to be on the lookout for in the first place. 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     When Sakura and Yukito enter, they are greeted with, 'Okaerinasaimase, goshujin-sama!' which is roughly, 'Welcome home, Master (Mistress)!' It works for both guys and gals! Sanary receives the same once she shows up, though by that point Sakura and Yukito may have already been offered wipe towels and menus. Once Miko spots the first two, she perks up and waves them over. She hasn't met Sanary before, she doesn't think, but she probably would have informed those she invited what she'd be dressed like, so Sanary should also be able to join the table fairly promptly.     "I'm glad you could make it!" Miko offers brightly. She looks between the trio and smiles, "You're all dressed so nicely!" Sakura's outfit is cute! And Sanary is... Uhh... Female, she -thinks-, but still very nice-looking! Yukito is as Yukito as ever, and his outfit makes him even more so! 

:'''{{#var:172|Sakura Kinomoto (172)}} has posed:'''     As they reach the table Miko is sitting at, Yukito doffs his hat and ducks into a sweeping bow, while Sakura curtseys politely with a little giggle. They take seats at opposite sides of the table. Menus are perused! Sakura smiles politely to Sanary, and Yukito gives her a tip of the hat. It doesn't take long for Yukito to decide what to have, apparently.     Sakura giggles a little bit. "It was Yukito's idea. He wanted to go for an 'Alice in Wonderland' motif.." 

:'''{{#var:714|Sanary Rondel (714)}} has posed:'''     Sanary recoils visibly at the sudden greeting at the door, stepping back for a moment to process what had just happened before returning the greeting with a light bow of her head. Glancing between Miko, Sakura, and Yukito, it doesn't take her long to realize that they were her contacts for this meeting, and she offers the three a quick salute.     "Hey, there. Haven't seen anything too weird yet aside from..." She trails off as she scans the cafe, looking at all the maids and the patrons with the same awkward suspicion. It's rather telling when her three co-workers for this job are the /least/ startling ones around.     "... S-so. I'm Sanary. I recognize Miko from the radio, and..." She peers at Sakura. "Think I heard you a few times before. What's the job, anyway?" 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     Miko nods and goes, 'Hm hm!' understandingly. "I see, I see!" Given their last Nether Realm encounter, she can understand how that story might have been on Yukito's mind. Though something about that makes something tickle in the back of her mind. Like there's something here she should be considering but isn't quite coming to her. Oh, well. She's here to relax, not to worry about vague things. Miko recognizes Sanary's voice as well, and smiles at finally getting to meet one of her comrades in-person. Though it seems Sanary has an unusual idea of what's going on.     "A-ah, actually, this is just a social outing. I thought a chance to relax might be nice after all the monsters we've been fighting recently, so invited people to come chat and eat some nice meals and be catered to, and so on." Miko scratches the back of her head a little bit in embarrassment. "I'm sorry if I was unclear about that."     Just then, a tiny female figure pokes her head up over the edge of the table curiously. Her white-haired head is adorned with a mouse hear headband and she's wearing a cute mouse bodysuit as well. With fairy wings. The wings are actually part of her though, because she's a fairy. The 6-inch tall figure flutters up onto the table and says, "Heeeey! We had the same idea!" White Rose points at herself and then to Sakura and Yukito, and then back to herself.     Miko seems lost as to what White Rose is supposed to be, but suddenly grabs her and stuffs her under the table as one of the maids/waitresses approaches to offer beverages. White Rose makes a muffled noise but can't really do much about it, because she has all the strength of a tiny fairy. 

:'''{{#var:172|Sakura Kinomoto (172)}} has posed:'''     Sakura can't help but giggle a little bit as White Rose makes her appearance. "...You're the Dormouse? That's so cute~" she says in a sing-song voice. She gives Sanary an odd look for a moment, then goes back to reading the menu!     "Oh, yeah. You've probably heard me on the radio," she says, while still looking at the menu. "Sakura Kinomoto, Mage of Tomoeda and Union Ally. Pleased to make your acquaintance~" She gestures to her friend. "THat's Yukito Tsukishiro. He's my brothers... classmate."     As thw aitress comes over, Yukito is the first to order. To drink, he orders a pot of tea to share - and to eat? One of everything. Seriously.     Sakura does not seem surprised and simply orders a seafood sandwich~ 

:'''{{#var:714|Sanary Rondel (714)}} has posed:'''     So this wasn't a job after all? Sanary visibly relaxes at hearing that, her serious demeanor replaced by a considerably more relaxed one. Not so much that she wouldn't look out of place with the eyepatch and suit, but enough that she doesn't look like she's ready to tackle someone any more. "Ah, don't worry about it. Actually needed a break, anyway. Classes ended late, the cafeteria ran out of the good stuff today, quiz was... Nnrgh."     Looking over at the sound from the table, the eyepatched girl blinks slowly before lifting her hand in a stiff wave just before she's crammed back under the table. She snickers and turns back to the three. "Thanks for rounding us up, then. It's good to meet you both finally. Although... Kinda feeling like I'm dressed the wrong way here." She gestures at her own outfit, then at Sakura's and Miko's in turn while looking just a little more awkward in her stance.      She turns her attention to the menu in Sakura's hand after not too long, laughing as Yukito orders everything. "Good man. Really knows the way to girls' hearts, eh?" 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     Miko orders some omelette rice for herself. She is kind of startled by Yukito's appetite. Or she's ASSUMING he's just ordering for himself. "A-actually, Sanary... I think maybe he's just really hungry. Though if he's ordering for all of us, that's fine too!" Come on, it's not like Yukito doesn't LOOK like he could use several dozen good meals. They guy is pretty lanky! Once their orders have been placed, she finally remembers she has a fairy held in her hand and lets go of her. "Ahhh! Sorry, White Rose!"     The mouse-fairy flutters back up onto the table, looking ruffled, and goes, "Hmph!" She then turns her attention on Sanary and says, "Oh, to introduce myself, I'm White Rose. We haven't spoken before, I don't think! Maybe I was -stuffed under a table- last time you were around though." White Rose glares at Miko, who pretends not to notice and just says, "I apologized already!"     Meanwhile, in a dark place, there is a voice talking to itself. "How interesting. How very peculiar and strange. Curioser and curioser, I might say. It appears a candidate for 'Alice' has appeared again. And with the Hatter no less - though he may be an imposter, the latter. Maybe I'll test the girl, to see just how mad she is..."     Then a broad smile, visible in the pitch black when nothing else is, stretches outwards unnaturally wide.     One of the cooks in the kitchen has a moment of quiet amongst the clatter as people scramble to prepare all the food that was just ordered. The chef thinks he hears a plaintive cat's meow and pauses to look around. The unhappy cat noise comes again, muffled. The cook pauses and bends down, a horrifying thought occurring to him. When the meow comes again it's from... Inside of a running oven!? He frantically opens the door, hoping it hasn't gotten hot enough to hurt the animal!     Inside is just food. No sign of a cat. He checks thoroughly, scans around the kitchen, closes the oven back up, and... No cat. He decides he must have imagined it. He turns around to return to his work, since everyone is in a rush, but where there used to be a pot he was stirring, there is now a cat.     No... Not a cat.     Something that looks LIKE a cat? No, not even that.     Gleaming teeth are displayed, and the chef finally understands, in some strange lucid state, what he's looking at.     It's a smile with a cat-like creature attached to it. Well, it all makes nonsense now.     With a vessel for its power, someone who has gone mad from the influence of Underland, the Cheshire Cat unleashes its Chaos Magic upon the cafe. The sign on the cafe changes from 'Peko Peko Cafe' to 'Neko Neko Cafe'. The maids that roam around the cafe suddenly are wearing cat ear headbands - or are they headbands? They look awfully realistic. As do their suddenly cat-like eyes, and their cat-like tails, as she dart around, behaving quite cat-like with the customers, the food, and each other. One of the maids is playing with someone's meatballs like it's a ball of yarn, right on his plate.     White Rose seems very tense suddenly, and even Miko is noticing the odd behavior and displays all around. "This is..." she begins, narrowing her eyes. White Rose, in the middle of sipping tea from a tea cup that nearly comes up to her waist, puts a hand on her mouse-costumed belly and says, "I feel... Sick. There's..." Then her eyes widen as she makes the connection. "...Chaos Magic!" 

:'''{{#var:172|Sakura Kinomoto (172)}} has posed:'''     Yukito smiles a bit sheepishly. He really did just order it all for himself~ Sakura can't help but giggle, sipping at her own tea...     And then that wave of Chaos Magic washes over them. Sakura and Yukito's heads both snap up. "...I knew it," Yukito announces, before leaping to his feet and sprinting for the kitchen. Sakura pulls her Key from around her neck, and gives a cry of "Release! SHIELD!" Her wand appears in her hand - and a card soon joins it. With a flash of blue magic, White Rose finds herself surrounded by a translucent yellow sphere that... blocks out the Chaos Magic flowing towards her. Handy! 

:'''{{#var:714|Sanary Rondel (714)}} has posed:'''     "Hmm... Well, just in case, then." It doesn't take long for Sanary to pick out a few extra items from the menu: Takoyaki, fried chicken pieces, and macaroons! Hearing White Rose again, the butler-ish healer muffles some snickering into her hand before nodding towards the fairy. "Sanary. Yeah, I don't think I've heard you before. Good to meet you, too."     Clapping her heands together, Sanary glances around again before slouching back in her seat just as things start to... Change. "So is this kind of place normal around here? Looks like..."     She narrows her eye as the changes become more apparent, a look of mixed confusion and defensiveness appearing on her face. "... Guess that's-Nope, not normal." She lurches momentarily at the unnatural feeling going through her, steadying herself and stepping over towards Miko and Sakura to take a defensive stance near the girls.     She's also grinning. "Interesting. Anyone got an ID on whatever's doing this?" 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     Miko looks worriedly at White Rose. "Go ahead and retreat for now. You're more susceptible to Chaos Magic than the rest of us." Not that Miko, Sakura, or Yukito are necessarily pleased with it either. Last time, Miko couldn't even do ANYTHING when she transformed into Princess Paladin. But then Sakura engulfs the fairy in a protective shield and White Rose sighs in relief, though she also keeps a determined expression on her tiny face. Miko looks surprised but pleased by Sakura's protection. "Thank you!"     "Yeah, I'm fine now. Let's just find the source and get rid of it." At Sanary's question, as the group rush towards the kitchen, White Rose just shakes her head. "'Normal' is relative. Monster attacks happen pretty commonly, but this isn't a natural phenomenon for this location any more than some crazy shooting bullets into someone's house in a war zone would be. Based on the level of Chaos Magic and the alterations to local reality, I'd guess it's tied to the enemy we faced last, Underland, but I don't know enough about the stories to guess at who is responsible specifically." It's pretty obvious to those who know Alice in Wonderland, but clearly White Rose and Miko don't.     Three maid-waitresses perk up with, "Nya?" "Nyan?" "Nyoh-hoho?" When they notice the group heading for the kitchen. A girl with green hair, one with red, and one with light-brown hair abandon their catly pursuits, and slide into place almost like they're animated instead of real people, to block the path to the kitchen.     "What seems to be the problem, nya?" The green-haired cat-maid asks.     The red-head looks sad and holds up a paw-like hand alongside her face as she asks, "Does our service displease you, nyan?"     Then the brunette gets a gleam in her yellow eyes as she asks slyly, "Or are you just in a rush to return home..." A dramatic pause, and then the maid finishes, "...-Alice-?"     Oh, shi-Is this a case of mistaken identity? Is that what this is?     Miko has decided not to transform this time, so she deals with the maids in a very impulsive manner, relying on intuition instead of a plan. She grabs a plate of salmon, and waves it around. "Here, kitty, kitty, kitty!" she calls out. The cat-maids are momentarily distracted. "Nya!?" "Nyan!?" "Nyohhhhhhh!?"     White Rose seems somehow... Displeased with this tactic, even if it's working. 

:'''{{#var:172|Sakura Kinomoto (172)}} has posed:'''     Yukito stops in his tracks as the Cat Maids get in his way. He takes a half-step back, wincing a bit - he'd almost forgot about the Chaos Magic. Sakura quickly points two fingers at the shield surrounding White Rose, then 'drags' her fingers around to point at Yukito. Yukito gains a similar shield around him, although obviously much bigger!     "A-Alice...?" Sakura stammers, looking down at herself. Well, she had to admit she was cosplaying as Alice, but. "N-no, my name is..."     Yukito doesn't wait any longer. He leaps -over- the cat maids - dear lord he can jump six feet into the air?! - and barges into the kitchen. "Show yourself, Cheshire Cat!" he shouts, angrily. Yeah it really is pretty obvious who's to blame for this. 

:'''{{#var:714|Sanary Rondel (714)}} has posed:'''     Chaos Magic. That explains the discomfort rather succinctly. Sanary nods at Miko's general plan, running with the group and keeping her eye open for incoming threats. "So that's how it is, eh? Okay... So we just gotta find this 'Underland' thing and take it out, right?" Clearly, she has no clue who the culprit could possibly be.     Skidding to a stop at the sudden appearance of the maids, a blank stare comes over the butler-lite's face at their odd-looking slide, and she only looks more confused at their manner of speaking. "N.. Nya? What's that even...?" She glances between her companions with uncertainty, furrowing her brow at the mention of 'Alice' and Sakura's response.     "I thought you were... Oh, hell with it!" Scoffing in irritation, Sanary watches Yukito vault over the maids before leaning forward slowly and staring straight at the maids. "... I could've done that. Meh. If you don't want to get hurt, get out of our way!" And with that, the butler-healer lets out a hot-blooded shout before simply charging straight at them, fully intending to barrel straight into and through them without any regard for their personal safety or the Chaos Magic. 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     Yukito leaps over the cat-maids, and arrives in the kitchen, where all the cooks and chefs now have very wide smiles on their faces. And they all turn to face Yukito, looking unhinged, and raising various cooking utensils threateningly. Knives. Spatulas. A wire whisk. How ominous! Behind them all is a man stirring a large pot of tea with an over-sized spoon, with a frantic energy. And alongside him, something... Disturbing-looking. It quite literally looks like a giant smile with the twitching, spastic shadow of something cat-like merely -attached- to it.     The Cheshir Cat's grin only widens beyond its already considerably dimensions at the sight of Yukito. "After all, not the Hatter. But what is the matter? Why for the clatter? You'll be leaving in tatters!" Then the chefs charge at Yukito with mad laughter echoing from them. One of them cranks a manual-operation blender at Yukito's head as he lunges from a corner of the room nearby. ...What exactly he thinks he's going to accomplish with a blender is unclear. Maybe it'll get caught in Yukito's hair?     Meanwhile, the cat-maids have visible surprise lines in response to being vaulted over. "N-nya!?" When Sanary charges them, the green-haired girl holds up her 'paws' to stop the intruder!     "Hold it, nya!"     Sanary smashes into her and sins her spinning rapidly through the air, seemingly frozen in place for several seconds. The sound of bowling pins being struck accompanies this. "Nyaaaaaa!"     She crashes off somewhere.     Next up is red-head girl, who lunges at Sanary in a desperate attempt to stop her, with claws extended. "Nyanta Fisssssst-!" She also gets smashed aside like a bowling pin, spinning through the air. "Nyaaaaaaan~!" she lets out with tears flying from her eyes the entire time until she lands somewhere else.     Finally is brunette girl, who declares, "It's all up to me, nyao!" She holds up one of her paw fists, and the emblem of a popular cat mascot appears on the back of her hand. "Take this! My yarnball, my scratching post, and all of my mouse toys!" As each is named, they appear behind her cartoonishly. "FICKLE FELINE GENEROSITY... FINGERRRRRR-!" As she raises her hand to strike, Sanary slams into her and sends her spinning into the air as well, eyes wide, staring up at the ceiling, making the onomatopoeia for an explosion. "DOKANNNNNN!" She lands on top of the other two cat-maids, who are presently strewn across one of the customers. "Nyo-hohoho?" she asks in confusion at her soft landing.     In the end, Sanary manages to break through in a matter of seconds, but the whole ordeal seems to take much longer.     Chaos Magic: It does nothing good for reality or sanity.     Miko puts the salmon back down after staring at this display, and then skips after Sanary, checking only long enough to exchange a confused look with Sakura, and for White Rose to rub her head like she's getting a headache from all this wackiness. 

:'''{{#var:172|Sakura Kinomoto (172)}} has posed:'''     Yukito darts to the side as one chef charges at him, before giving the one with the hand-cranked blender a good elbow to the stomach. Another recieves a rather unpleasant knee to the chin as the pretty-boy makes his way further into the kitchen! However... he is stronger and more athletic than he looks, but fighting this many people... may not really be a good idea.     Sakura just stares as everything starts to turn into a cartoon. "I... uh... wh..." is all she can manage to sputter out, while following along.     As they enter the kitchen, Yukito is looking a little worse for wear! But now that allies are arriving, he darts back. A soft silver light starts to glow at his feet...     "...Oh! Miko. Allow me to, um, introduce you to someone," Sakura says, as a magic circle appears under Yukito's feet. This one is different to Sakura's, and also picked out in glowing silver lines, rather than the star-yellow of Sakura or the sun-gold of Kero. White, feathered wings erupt from Yukito's back, as his eyes close, the boy floating half an inch off the ground. A symbol appears on his forehead, although it can't be made out from where the girls are standing!     The wings wrap around him like a caccoon, before bursting outwards again, revealing... someone else standing in his place! "You've met my first familiar, Keroberos? Then allow me to introduce my second familiar: Yue." 

:'''{{#var:714|Sanary Rondel (714)}} has posed:'''     Sanary slows to a stop once she breaks through the three maids, glancing back at Miko and Sakura briefly. "Yeah, I don't really get any of this, either. Gonna need one of you to explain all of that 'nya' stuff later if you know what that's all about, though. But first..." She starts clenching and unclenching her fists slowly at the sight of more opposition from inside the kitchen, moving into another defensive stance by Yukito.     "Easy, guy. We can blow through 'em easier if we-um." She backs off quickly as the wings appear around him, her attention shifting rapidly between the transforming boy and the girls.     "So... Am I the only one that can't do that here?" She sounds almost annoyed about that, even slumping slightly in her stance at the growing feeling of inferiority. She's still glaring daggers at the kitchen staff, of course, trying to figure out which ones to prioritize based on the tools they're carrying. 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     No reason to feel inferior, Sanary! Miko is even weaker than you unless she transforms! Speaking of which, as Yukito takes out several of the madness-possessed cooks, before leaping back once they're all inside, White Rose is pestering her. "You should transform, Miko!"     "Oh, um, last time I did I couldn't do anything because of the Chaos Magic in the environment." Then Sakura introduced Yukito to her by a different name as the latter transforms into Angel Mode Dude. "...Besides, it seems like he has it under control." Between Sakura's Shield and Yue's... Wings? Well, Miko is pretty sure they can handle this without her standing around uselessly.     White Rose seems unhappy with that. "You'll adjust to the disorientation as Princess Paladin! You have to learn to deal with it eventually!" Why is she so insistent? Well, the advice is sound, at least.     But Miko just doesn't see cause for it right now. "I'll adjust another time," she whispers to White Rose.     The remaining chefs - including the ones already attacked - seem to be holding off on attacking further, as the Cheshire Cat's jagged tail moves like a disjointed puppet, different segments going in different directions at the same time. "We've no use for birds here. Just the candidate for 'Alice', so don't interfere!" The huge smile then lets out a hissing laughter like 'sss sss sss' between its teeth.     Miko is confused by that. Those cat-maids ALSO called Sakura 'Alice'. Is just the outfit she has on? Or is there something the Cat knows that they don't? 

:'''{{#var:172|Sakura Kinomoto (172)}} has posed:'''     "It's just cosplay!" Sakura insists with a huff. She seems to also not really want to get involved right now, just standing beside Miko - wand at the ready in case they're attacked, but hanging back for now! "My name is Sakura!"     "Be quiet," Yue says - his voice is different to Yukito's, slightly deeper - as he conjures up a bow of energy. He pulls back on the 'string', then lets loose an arrow energy bolt right at the Cheshire Cat! Wasting no time, apparently. 

:'''{{#var:714|Sanary Rondel (714)}} has posed:'''     "You gotta get used to it sooner or later. If you just keep putting it off, you'll never get stronger." Sanary has a scolding tone in her voice as she reaches into her suit, rustling around inside the garment to retrieve a worn tomahawk with a small MP3 player dangling from the handle. Although the shoddy thing appears to be on its last legs, it's still more than strong enough to break through a shield, never mind someone's skull if need be.     "Besides. We just gotta take out that freaky rhyming thing." She casts another glance towards Sakura or 'Alice' or... Was Yue the bird? She shakes her head quickly to get that distraction out of her mind, her single-eyed glare moving towards each of the chefs in turn.     "Stay out of the way if you don't want die." She has an almost sing-songy tone as she says that while starting to channel more energy into her eye. She grins slightly as Yue takes the first shot, letting out a quick grunt before firing a narrow heat laser towards the Cheshire Cat to follow up on Yue's bolt. On contact with anything, the laser would create a small, yet powerful explosion! 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     Miko knows all that! Kind of! But this isn't a good time! Transforming right in front of the enemy? Not wise. Yue shoots an arrow at the Chesire Cat, and the smile detaches from the shadowy cat shape. The arrow then obliterates its body, only for the smile to 'flap' around like a pair of disembodied wings, and start giggling crazily. Right as Sanary's laser hits it in the teeth, making them also fly apart from the explosion. The teeth, though... Scatter to the floor... And pop out little arms and legs. They then run around chaotically on the floor, squeaking and high-pitched fast-talking unintelligibly until they all just fall over 'dead'.     "What a pity. What a disappointment," the Cat's voice comes forth. "Your allies are strong, but they can not be 'Alice'. It does not matter if your name is Sakura. You are still a candidate for being 'her'." Even as the teeth evaporate, it seems the situation is still under the influence of chaos. Miko looks at the tea pot, and the ONE guy who has been working feverishly at it the entire time, never even TRYING to fight back. Unless someone else notices and deals with it, Miko dashes for it, remembering how Lute targetted the magical sheet music back at Orchard Elementary, and tries to simply... Dump out the tea pot on the floor.     No matter WHO gets to it, the result of disposing of the kettle is that the warped reality around them collapses - as do everyone except the group of Elites, as they are released from the magic.     Though that one customer with three maids piled on him isn't complaining. 

:'''{{#var:172|Sakura Kinomoto (172)}} has posed:'''     Yue promptly makes a violent gesture with his right arm, sending a cascade of needle-like crystals at the animated teeth! It... probably won't achieve much, but. You know.     Sakura crosses her arms. "Okay, what is this about becoming Alice? I've met Alice! She's, like, five years older than me by now!" Wait, shouldn't she be much older than that? Alice in Wonderland is a pretty old book... 

:'''{{#var:714|Sanary Rondel (714)}} has posed:'''     Talking cat. Okay. That's one thing. Flying head. Creepy, but still within the realm of multiversal weirdness. Running /teeth/, though? That's what draws an uncertain groan from Sanary as she actually recoils from the sight. She mutters incoherently as she tries to form a sentence, never taking her eye off the teeth even as the Cheshire Cat's voice rings out.     "I... What. Any of you know what's going on here?" It's not until Miko rushes past her that the axe fighter actually looks up from where the teeth are, still bewildered by the bizarreness of the whole situation.     Or at least the teeth thing. Freaky teeth thing.      Thankfully, the warping effect of the Chaos Magic appears to dissipate, and Sanary just keeps staring while slipping the tomahawk back into her suit. "M... Mission accomplished, then? I... What." 

}}

1908/Marching Band

2015-04-05T03:19:28Z

Paladine: Created page with "{{Log Header |Date of Scene=2015/03/29 |Location=Midnight Shrine Tokyo <MST> |Synopsis=Filling in for the elementary school magical girl protectors known as the Orchard Knight..."

{{Log Header
|Date of Scene=2015/03/29
|Location=Midnight Shrine Tokyo <MST>
|Synopsis=Filling in for the elementary school magical girl protectors known as the Orchard Knights, Miko, Sakura, and Lute wind up encountering an agent of the Nether Realm group known as Underland.
|Thanks=
|Cast of Characters=172, 188, 589
|Tinyplot=
|Tinyplot2=
|pretty=yes
}}
{{Poses
|Poses=:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     Orchard Elementary School is not what one would generally expect to be a hotbed of supernatural activity. Yet it is home to at least one magical girl team, and the students and teachers seem to regularly come under attack or become involved in the plots of the Nether Realm group known as 'Underland'. While many of the schemes concocted by the chaotic enemy group are kind of lacking in the 'true ultimate evil' department, they are still not a good idea to allow to keep running around unchecked. Ordinarily, the Orchard Champions handle it. But Miko has intelligence suggesting that the girls are out of town this weekend, dealing with another threat. So she has moved in to 'help out' the magical girl group, and earn bonus points with them by protecting their turf while they're away.     Miko isn't necessarily expecting anything to happen, because there's funny coincidences regarding how magic works here. How it's just so convenient that the villains keep their attention focused on Tokyo, and don't, say, go attack somewhere WITHOUT a massive magical girl population and rival Nether fiends to compete with. When they DO stage something out of town, it's somewhere magical girls can generally reach without too much hassle. That sort of thing. Just as the fiends of the Nether Realm are the (super)natural predators of humanity, magical girls seem to be the supernatural enemies of monsters. And because magical girls are themselves generally human, that duality means that monsters both seek them (often unknowingly) and are defeated by them (at least most of the time).     But while the 'laws of magic' can be described in a general sense, they are not ironclad. Magic is, by its very nature, based upon altering probability and fundamental building blocks of reality. And that means sometimes exceptions occur. But those exceptions, themselves, are bound up in the same laws of coincidence and improbability. So if Nether Realm forces show up at Orchard Elementary today... There will be at least a couple magical girls to deal with them, even if they wouldn't ordinarily be expected to be here.     Taking lessons from White Rose about Law Magic is really improving Miko's understanding of the mechanics of her world.     It's a pleasant day, as is typical of spring in Japan. Warm without being too warm, sunny without being painfully so. The skies are clear and blue, the air as clean as can be expected near a major metropolis, and Miko is wearing an outfit appropriate to the weather. A sleeveless white button-up blouse with a ruffled collar, a red necktie, a short pleated white skirt, some white socks, and brown shoes. Miko has a pair of red ribbons in her black hair, giving her 'puppy ears'. It may be the sort of hair style a younger girl would wear, but she doesn't care. Today is a good day. She feels good. She especially feels good about the people who are coming with her on this mission.     Orchard Elementary is quiet on a Sunday, except for the sound of the school's aspiring band members. These are the younger crew, and their playing is pretty terrible. There's a reason why they only practice when almost no one else is around, though it's not like Japanese students don't sometimes go to school on Sundays too. Though that's usually for extracurriculars.     Miko is trying not to be bothered by the dischordant sounds, and just enjoy the weather and the company while keeping an eye out for anything that might ruin the day. Right now she is hanging around outside the fence in front of the school, but she intends to make a full circuit as the day progresses. There are certain time windows when monster activity tends to occur at this school, so if nothing happens during those periods then at some point she and the others can probably safely depart. White Rose is present, but hanging out on Miko's shoulder. Her magic sensitivty is much shorter range than Sakura's, but she can identify magic type when she's close enough. If the two of them work together, they should be able to detect and then analyze the enemy's powers. 

:'''{{#var:172|Sakura Kinomoto (172)}} has posed:'''     Sakura is starting to realise she's starting to essentially become Miko's 'cheat code' when it comes to magical activity in Midnight Shrine Tokyo. Her magic is, after all, far broader than that of most denizens of this world - and runs on somewhat different rules, making things that should be difficult for natives easy for Sakura (although also vice-versa in some cases).     Sakura doesn't really mind, though. She likes to be helpful!     She's currently sat on the ground, her Cards laid out in front of her. She seems to be... doing some sort of tarot reading, although the way she's going about it might mean she's just practicing. Kero is here, too, sitting across from Sakura and chastising her any time she goes about the ritual incorrectly - such as shuffling the cards with her right hand, or forgetting to cut the deck before the third drawing.     She's dressed in a soft pink dress, with a wide-brimmed pink hat atop her head. Her footwear consists of sandals, to boot. Yukito is also here, wearing casual clothes and leaning against a handy wall with his eyes closed. 

:'''{{#var:188|Lute (188)}} has posed:'''      Lute arrives after both Miko and Sakura. Walking through the streets, he honestly looks quite a bit out of place. One, because he's from a portion of the Pokemon World that is more of a parralel to an American state than Japan. Two, because his outfit is really out of place. Sure, part of it is jeans and a shirt, but he also has a jacket that is much like a labcoat. And the Pokeballs on his belt. It also doesn't help that he is quite a pretty boy, and in fact has some braids in his hair at the moment.      It also doesn't help that he is being trailed by an I-Class Destroyer.      That is being hid inside a cardboard box. A fake cat tail is sticking out of the back of the box.      Yes he's trying to pass off his floating ghost ship as a cat. But he told some of his allies he'd keep it close to him, in case the Fleet Girls attack again!      But, he waves to Miko. And then Sakura. He isn't sure what to think of Sakura. Sure, she's nice to everyone. But that makes her untrustworthy. She must have an angle. Just like Elliana.      He also gives a bit of a glare at Yukito. Because Yukito might be a rival for being prettier than he is.      But, he turns the glare into a smile, as he looks at the group. And, he just speaks, happily, "So. How are all of you? Anything going on yet?" 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     Miko would be watching Sakura's work with the cards, but has to keep an eye out for anything unusual. Sure, Sakura can sense magic. But sometimes magic isn't obvious until it starts being used. A lot of monsters operate like that here. They keep it subtle, on the down-low, and you have to piece together the seemingly-unrelated evidence, a little at a time. White Rose, however, cares not for that, and is very interestedly observing the card divination. The fact there are rules to it seems to sit well with her. Magic is magic, and has a degree of mystery to it, but there also have to be rules or else it might as well just be Chaos Magic!     As a Sacred Fairy of Holiness and Law, the little white-haired and red-eyed pixie has her own particular views on things.     When Lute approaches, Miko looks up at him and smiles broadly. She gives the box with cat tail under it an inquisitive look, but heads towards Lute regardless to give him a hug. "Aah... Nothing much yet. Just the second-grader band practicing. I'm not sure if they're always this bad or not, but we haven't picked up anything magical yet. ...Are you aware you're being followed?"     White Rose has departed Miko's shoulder to flutter down and sit near Kero. She has questions! "This divination method... It has a formula to it. Was it designed by someone or somethin'? It doesn't seem like this kind of magic would be naturally occurring, but you seem to use different magic than we do, so..." Aah, magical girl familiar bonding. Adorables.     Meanwhile, elsewhere, the band teacher, a Miss Kikumura, is struggling to comprehend how ANY group of kids can demonstrate such a complete lack of talent. Though she has repeatedly told them what she truly believes, that their spirit is what matters, and how much effort they put into it, what she was -hoping- was that their spirit and effort would go into... Like... -Actually practicing and becoming better-. After all, if they pour their passion into what they do, how can they NOT get better?     Miss Kikumura is an optimist like that. Still, she wonders if maybe she's just not doing a good enough job as a teacher. She's a fairly young teacher, only in her 20s, and has only been teaching here for a couple years. She has been here with these second-graders since they were first-graders, and is well-known and well-liked by them as a result. But the woman in the red pony-tail is starting to feel the strain (and not just on her ears) from the same lack of improve over and over. Celebrating each and every minute improvement hasn't resulted in more improvements.     There has to be something she's doing wrong.     So when she calls for a break, and all the kids excitedly go to chattering and having snacks, having so much fun they don't care if they're actually making anything close to music, she has to duck out for some fresh air and to think.     And that's where Miss Kikumura meets a rabbit.     A stuffed rabbit, it seems at first, just sitting there, wearing a coat and pants, and drinking tea. "They'll never improve that way," the rabbit says. Maybe more of a hare than a rabbit, come to think of it.     "Yes," Miss Kikumura agrees.     "They need to work together, march to the same beat, play to the same tune, drink to the same queen!" the hare continues.     "Oh, absolutely," Miss Kikumura agrees, not really sure either why she's agreeing or why she's so calm about this situation.     "Try this sheet music." the hare suggests as he pulls out several sheafs of paper from inside his coat and waves them around wildly in one paw, causing some to go flying around.     "I don't think they can read sheet music." Miss Kikumura responds doubtfully.     The March Hare leans in conspiratorily, turns his head from side to side, and then winks. "As long as they don't know that, it won't matter."     Somehow, that nonsensical statement made perfect sense to the band teacher. 

:'''{{#var:172|Sakura Kinomoto (172)}} has posed:'''     Sakura turns over the fifth and final card of her current divination attempt, laying it next to the Song card. "...The Jump? What does jumping have to do with... Ugh, am I still doing this wrong?" And then, Lute is arriving. She looks up, and smiles. It's a warm, friendly smile! "Hello, mister Trieste," she greets him softly.     Yukito opens his eyes and regards Lute cooly for a few moments, before closing his eyes again. He's usually as warm and friendly as Sakura! Miko may note his reaction to Lute as somewhat odd. Maybe he just doesn't like Lute.     Kero looks up from studying Sakura's divination, grinning at White Rose. "Oh, well. It's based on Cartomancy, right? See, the man who made these cards - Clow Reed - he was the best fortuneteller in the world. So he created the cards with mystical connections and symbolism, so they could be used in Cartomancy! It's... different from reading the Tarot, or reading a deck of playing cards, but fundamentally it's similar." 

:'''{{#var:188|Lute (188)}} has posed:'''      Lute, of course, hugs Miko back. And, even though they have a bit of an audience, and he knows Miko gets embarrased /quite/ easily? He leans in to give her a soft kiss on the lips. Nothing too improper! Sakura is just a kid, after all. She can't see anything too terrible.      And, he motions back to the box, pointing with his thumb over his shoulder, "Oh, that's just Imima. My I-Cla--" Lute pauses. He was about to say I-Class Destroyer. And then he realizes no one in the Union has /seen/ an I-Class Destroyer. He sighs a little bit, pretending he stumbled on his words.      "I mean, it's my cat. It followed me in the box. Yes."      He's not fooling anyone. But, still, he's trying not to panic. He's been keeping the I-Class with him to protect him against the Fleet Daughters, if they pull another surprise attack. But, still... They were going to find out eventually /anyways/. Just, hopefully he can find some way to keep it secret today.      "...Well," Lute continues, "We should check out inside. Because, seriously. This is Japan. /No/ band, even at the elementary school level, has a music program this bad, in Japan." He's stereotyping a bit, yes. But hey, it's better than sitting around and doing nothing!      And, a glance at Sakura, "Look, if you pulled Jump, that means one thing. We jump!"      And as such, he starts climbing the chainlink fence. Sadly, he can't jump over it in one bound.      Imima, on the other hand, enters ramming speed, and justs bursts through the fence, likely making a nice hole in it. Large enough for the others to crawl through. The I-Class Destroyer hidden under the box is about the size of a /large dog/, so it's quite obviously not a cat. 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     "I see... I see... So it's like... A tradition formed based off of a branch of the divination school of magic, rather than a principle... And it utilizes specific magic tools to do so... But Petals is able to use them in other ways, can't she? They even seem to have identities of some kind. I wonder if all the cards together would hold enough sapience and magic to be classified as an Artifact, or whether it would just be a collection of magic tools..." The dream pixie is pacing up and down the sidewalk, rubbing her chin thoughtfully, acting all magic-professor-ish, but the fact she is a tiny fairy in a dress that looks like an upside-down rose kind of detracts from her professional magic expert demeanor.     Miko accepts Lute's explanation, but arches an eyebrow at the box. She doesn't seem to be any more clued into what it is than anyone else here, so maybe it's not so much a Confederate secret as a Lute secret. Or maybe Miko just hasn't made the connection. Miko kisses back, though, yes, she is still a bit shy about public displays of affection. So, with slightly reddened cheeks, she turns back to Sakura and Yukito, noticing the unenthused reaction from the latter (but it seems a lot of people are unenthused by Lute's presence) and says, "S-so... Jump card... Does that have any special connotations? From what White Rose has told me, if you get a weird result when checking for magic, it's generally best not to assume it's an error but to consider it to be accurate... Just needing more information to determine in what way-L-Logan!?" Miko cuts herself off when Lute just starts climbing the fence.     When the box cat punches right through, Miko slaps a hand to her forehead. She's going to have to repair that before anyone sees it now. Good thing Paladin's restoration magic can restore objects and place as easily as people. Then, suddenly, Sakura may sense magic in the distance. The band has fallen silent for awhile now, but they start up again, and there is a marked, drastic improvement in their skill and coordination. And yet the symphony being played is... Unnerving somehow. Dark, and powerful, and thrumming through the walls. They sound like a professional band now, but there's a certain frantic intensity to the notes, weaving together in a song that just so slightly makes the mind of listeners slip towards madness.     White Rose's sensing range is more limited than Sakura's, but she can hear the music just as well as everyone else, and she can feel the impact on her psyche. When the magic is being carried right to her ears, she doesn't NEED to be close. However, as she flutters up into the air while Miko is still debating whether to follow Lute over the fence in a short skirt or just go around like a normal person, White Rose seems to determine she can't help here. "Sorry, guys. I can't stick around. That's definitely Chaos Magic, and as weak as I still am, if I keep getting hit with it even as this range, I'm going to go poof. Any closer and I might die. If Miko needs me, I'll be in her dreams."     Then White Rose is gone in a series of glowing white sparkles. Miko seems concerned, but decides there's little time. She needs to get somewhere less public and transform as soon as possible. The way the 'psycho strings' keep going up and up, faster and faster, is making her REALLY uneasy. Why would second-graders even HAVE violins!?     "Come on, everyone! Let's get in there!-Ah, Mister Yukito, can you give me a boost over the fence?" What? He's tall and he's on this side of the fence. No awkward climbing required. 

:'''{{#var:172|Sakura Kinomoto (172)}} has posed:'''     "Well, the whole divination aspect is really a secondary function of the Cards. Y'know? Their primary purpose is to... well. Do whatever it is that they... do." Pause. He rubs the back of his head. "Wow that was not the best explanation..."     "Uh. Well, I guess the Jump means... athleticism, and going higher? Maybe?" She doesn't really understand all of the symbolism and mystical connections of her cards. "And... maybe something about plush toys, considering..." She sorta trails off.     Sakura does not seem particularly traumatised by Miko and Lute's kiss! She's from a romance series, after all.     Then the music starts up. Sakura winces a little bit - and Kero retreats backwards. "Aaaah... Chaos Magic? Oh man I hate that stuff," Kero grumbles a bit. But he doesn't seem to be as weak to it as White Rose, at least. Yukito hooks his hands together, stooping down a bit so that Miko can use his hands as a foot hold and he can help lift her up over the fence! And, once that's done, he'll follow her up - actually managing to easily leap all the way to the top, and the down the other side.     "Um. There's... a... hole..." Sakura says, peering at Miko and Yukito for a few moments before entering via that hole.     She has a card in her hand - The Silent. 

:'''{{#var:188|Lute (188)}} has posed:'''      Lute normally is not the kind to get jealous of other men. But, something about Yukito is rubbing him just exactly the /wrong/ way. Probably the fact that he is likely Union aligned as well. Still, though, as he is already on the other side? He'll look up at Miko as she comes down. About half of the reason is so that he can catch her, and set her down.      But, he grabs Miko's hand, and then looks at Sakura. Frowning.      "...I was hoping this situation wouldn't get bad. I'm here because I love Miko, and I want to help her here. So. If you're a friend of Miko's, do me a favor: Don't tell the Union about the pet I'm about to bring out. ...Especially not to the Fleet Daughters."      And he'd run forward, pulling Miko along with him. The creature in the box follows too. But, as he approaches the window to the school? He lets go of Miko's hand, and gives the I-Class Destroyer a command.      "IMIMA! Make me a hole!"      And, the box flies off of the creature. It is an elongated shape made of metal, with massive teeth on it. It is about the size of a large dog. It opens its jaws, and a cannon can be seen. It fires it, upwards. Aiming /very carefully/ to the window, at an angle where the shell will hopefully break the window, and explode just above the ceiling of the school.      He's assuming they can just rule this all off as being a 'gas leak'.      Lute, of course, leaps through the hole dramatically. And, his I-Class Destroyer follows. 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     Miko leaps over with Yukito's help, and is caught safely by Lute. She turns to make sure that Sakura and Kero and Yukito are getting through okay, but fully intends to warn Lute not to cause more property damage when she turns around. But then Lute is running off and blowing open windows and leaping through them and Miko is making a high-pitched noise in the back of her throat as she can't immediately follow. Instead she dashes for the building, ducks around a corner, checks to make sure no one is looking, and then performs her pink-and-shiny split-second transformation sequence. It's nearly instantaneous. Most of them are. In anime they're just slowed down and dramatized for the viewers.     Princess Paladin barges through the doors, and what she sees is what Lute would have seen when he entered more unconventionally. A bunch of second-graders in a room much larger than the confines of the music room itself, with music notes on disjointed lines swirling all around the platform-in-the-middle-of-empty-space they find themselves in. The music teacher is grinning wildly, her eyes glowing red, her hair flying this way and that as she conducts the band frantically.     She has sheet music flying around her, and it seems the notes on the paper are what are being represented in super-sized form all around. The children seem to be in the same sort of trance. As the intensity of the music builds and builds, the pace increasing and increasing, the white walls of warped space all around them are starting to show signs of cracking. If the walls break, and all this crazy reality-warping music spills out in full, instead of just leaking through windows and doors... What kind of havoc will it bring?     Paladin doesn't intend to wait and find out, but she isn't sure where the 'enemy' is. Is it the music teacher? Are the instruments cursed? Is it the sheet music? Is there a monstrous observer somewhere they need to identify and defeat to end all this? Paladin has less information on Underland than some other groups. She just knows their usual hunting grounds and habits, not their leaders, motivations, magic focus (knowing they used Chaos Magic would have been really helpful, for instance), or anything much else!     The music seems to be physically flowing around the Sacred Scepter, given its Law Magic, but there are definitely crackles of magical electricity as the conflicting magic types interact poorly. If only White Rose could advise her! Maybe she can make contact with her mentally while the others do something about all this... 

:'''{{#var:172|Sakura Kinomoto (172)}} has posed:'''     Sakura peers at Lute - and then starts in surprise as that... -thing- pops out of its box and destroys another chunk of property! "Wh-what the-!"     She dashes off, following Lute - hoping to make sure he doesn't do something dumb that might actually -injure- someone. "O Key that hides the power of the Stars..!" she begins to incant.     Yukito, meanwhile, follows after Miko, entering the music room at the same moment Princess Paladin does. He grits his teeth a little bit as the Chaos Magic washes over him.     Sakura's magic does, after all, have quite a lot in common with Law Magic. The magic that binds together Yukito's very being is based on rules and sigils, and Chaos Magic has a tendency to... try to subvert those things. Kero is hanging back, not really wanting to risk flying headlong inside in his lesser-powered form!     "SILENT!" Sakura cries out, tossing the card in her hand into the air. Her magic circle erupts at her feet - although it seems oddly distorted for some reason. Still, the magic seems to work just fine, as a bubble of distorted space starts to coalesce around the band! 

:'''{{#var:188|Lute (188)}} has posed:'''      The look on Lute's face at the moment is, quite likely, a bit odd and unexpected. While he is chill and relaxed person normally, and even often smiles and acts happy in the middle of battle? Right now, he's taking it way more casually than he normally would, period. But. A number of factors in this room are exciting him. The chaotic and unpredictable music. The laws of reality breaking down and warping space. The actual vissible notes. All of the imagery in front of him? It, quite simply, is exciting him. He is, after all, a chaotic being at heart. Perhaps that is part of what drew him to Miko, a desire for something opposite to him. But, as he looks around the room? He simply just /laughs/.      He starts dancing to the music. His motions are graceful, and wide. It's like a bizarre form of ballet, in time with the music. He spins on one foot for a second, arms stretched out. And, he just speaks aloud.      "AAAHH! This music is /wonderful/. If only we didn't have to stop it. If only it weren't likely to hurt all of these kids!"      His heart starts beating in time to the music. He dances around the tranced conductor. But. A glance at Miko. A look of surprise on his face. And then he realizes something, even more so if Silent /does/ quiet the music.      Miko isn't comfortable with this place.      He keeps dancing, though. Even if the music is silenced. But, he's moving in to the teacher from behind. What he is doing is hard to tell, but as he keeps moving, he pulls his arm back. It simply looks like part of his dance. But, he punches straight at the back of the Teacher's head.      "IMIMA! FIRE AT THE NOTES IN THE AIR! And, GO, ARCANINE! Burn the sheet music!"      He no longer dances. Instead, he reaches with his left hand to his belt, and pulls off a Pokeball. From it, his Arcanine is released. And, using its Agility attack, it speeds up, to try and rush around the room. With its mouth, it attempts to bite at the sheet music, trying to burn it all with his natural flames.      And, Lute just stands there. It's one of those strange moments. The music moved him. Very few things match with his chaotic nature. And yet, this did. He's a bit sad he has to destroy such beautiful music. 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     Paladin is... Having a really hard time focusing in this environment. Like Lute, the music and magic is having an influence on her. Even when Sakura mutes the music, the warping of what 'Is' continues to influence her mind, and her magic, sending increasingly painful jolts through her body. She is trying to contact White Rose, which should be EASY, since White Rose is in her HEAD, but because 'in her head' is a place lacking in concentration, the process is harder.     Maybe more so than White Rose expected when she said she could be contacted.     Lute punching the teacher in the back of the head sends her falling to the floor, unconscious. The music notes are stifled in their wild movements thanks to Sakura's magic, but seem to be clustering around the dome of warped space surrounding the band, opening little cracks in themselves in the shape of jaws and claws, and then trying to eat their way inside. The cannon shots seem to do little to dissuade them except split them up into even smaller notes that then flock back to their original positions.     It's not until Arcanine torches and destroys the sheet music that a noticeable impact on the magic seems to appear though. While the music is absent, the magic was still flowing strong as ever. But that sheet music seems to have been the focal point of sorts, or simply a nexus of havoc, emanating chaos without any real pattern or focus.     The magic - and the distorted space pocket - begin to collapse now, though, and soon enough a bunch of dazed second-graders fall or slump over, much like the teacher.     When all wavers and changes and reverts to being a music room, Paladin has been standing there, unable to take action of any kind, the entire time. The Chaos messed with her so much she was practically stuck in place. 

:'''{{#var:172|Sakura Kinomoto (172)}} has posed:'''     As Sakura notices Princess Paladin isn't DOING anything, a worried look flashes across her face. She then frowns, and reaches into her pocket to retrieve more cards. If White Rose were here, she'd probably note a distinct increase in the power emenating from Sakura's magical aura...     But then Lute's plan to burn the sheet music seems to be working! So Sakura relaxes a bit again. Once she's sure it's safe, she snaps her fingers, recalling the power of the Silent card. "...Phew. That was... intense. I don't think I like Chaos Magic either."     Yukito slumps against the closest wall, holding his head. Oww. 

:'''{{#var:188|Lute (188)}} has posed:'''      Lute smiles at Sakura. The smile is, probably, a bit unnerving considering that Lute just kept dancing for a long time.      "Chaos is freedom, imagination, and creativity. But, anything taken to an extreme is a problem, right? Just like Law. Hell, most of the most dangerous Confederates would fall more towards Law. I mean. Look at fricking /Loros/. Too much Chaos means a world with no sense. A world with too much Law is a world of perfect order, with no freedom. Hell, too much Law, and the world is probably just a flat uniform unending plane with no differences no matter how far you go."      But, even as he is talking, he starts walking to Miko. Or, should we say, Princess Paladin. And, his arms reach out to embrace her. He's not even trying to kiss her this time. Instead, he's simply trying to comfort her, putting her head against his chest. Trying to help her get her mind back together.      "The Chaos Magic is gone, and things are back to order. You've finished your task here, Princess Paladin."      He looks down at Princess Paladin, and then turns his head to Sakura. Frowning a bit at her, and Yukito. He doesn't say it, but he's actually a bit dissapointed in the two of them. He saw exactly what to do, immediately. Music problems? Get rid of the conductor. Get rid of the music. Had that not worked, he would have immediately gone for the instruments. And then, the kids themselves, if need be. Sure, he wouldn't kill them, but. He realizes that Sakura wouldn't even lay a finger on them, would she?      He lets go of Princess Paladin for a second, though. Basically, to give her a chance to transform back. And then, he walks over to the chalkboard in the classroom. All music classes have one. And he writes something in chalk.      LUTE WAS HERE      PSYBER IS A LOSER.      Why Psyber's name?      Because he heard Psyber is friends with the Abyssal Fleet, and if he wrote Ash's name, he'd just be /completely/ ripping off Gary's style. 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     What Lute says is accurate, in regard to Chaos and Law. But as Paladin's mind returns to full functionality - or enough to take action - she responds to Lute's attempts to comfort her, to tell her that her duty is done, with a simple statement.     "It is not over."     "Indeed it is not!" a new voice calls out, high-pitched in the way that someone with a deep voice who has inhaled helium is high-pitched. Or a giant who has been shrunk down to a smaller scale.     Paladin raises the Sacred Scepter, and pink energy gathers on the large jeweled orb on the end. "I don't suppose you would be polite enough to show yourself and be destroyed?" she inquires calmly, despite the headache she has now.     "I am already on display! Open your peepholes and read!" the voice continues, seemingly coming from... A chair in one of the corners. Where a hare in a coat, vest, and pants is seated, dipping a playing card into a cup of tea. "That really was no fun! No fair! The Orchard Champions did not respond? 'Twas you who thwart and thwomped the March Hare!"     Paladin aims her Artifact and intones, "Penance Beam!" before unleashing a drilling beam of pink energy at a low output level.     The March Hare flips into the air to avoid the attack. Literally, into the air. He does a flip and then vanishes into the air like there's an invisible hole there. It's quite possible, given Chaos Magic that he may have just hidden himself in his own coat pocket somehow. While wearing it.     Ow. Headache.     Paladin keeps her cool as her attack drills a hole in the wall instead of in the rabbit, and scans the room with her pink eyes.     When the March Hare's voice comes again, it is from everywhere around. "Obtruded and obstructed, in my way you've got! But you obtuse bumpkins are an awful foolish lot! The dancing fool I might invite to cajort in my lair! But the rest of you - one, three, or two - would be madder than I to dare!"     The voice echoes for several seconds, before the 'presence' of the mad hare seems to be completely gone. Seems he rather liked Lute, or at least enough to imply he might invite him over for tea. But Sakura, Paladin, and Yukito seemingly didn't strike his fancy. And Kero didn't even rate!     Paladin lets out a small sigh, a sign of exasperation she usually doesn't show with her magically-enforced behavior. But she decides to perform some quick repairs and healing before hr transformation lapses. It's part of the Rule of 'Standing in for the Orchard Champions'.     And the Rules are -important-.     A bright white light washes over everything, healing the injures and restoring the wall and window. The fence will have to go on being mysteriously damaged for now, because Paladin can't quite make it there to fix it at the moment. Her healing magic is partially Holy, but also partially Law. It is taking the the laws that dictate that something is broken and rolling them back to a previous state. And with Chaos lingering everywhere... Law is not quite as effective as it would ordinarily be. The 'Record' of the damage is slightly corrupted. So maybe the wall has a bit of a blemish on it - an off-color hue. And maybe the glass in the window is running as though it were much older than it actually is, despite being fairly new. But at least they aren't completely destroyed.     "Now it's over," Paladin lets out as a pink glow radiates from her and she reverts back to normal. Only for Miko to hold a hand to her head and rub a bit. She'll need some ibuprofen when she gets home. 

:'''{{#var:172|Sakura Kinomoto (172)}} has posed:'''     "...Oooh. So that's why I drew the Jump card. Huh."     Sakura just kinda peers at the March Hare as it performs its speech and then vanishes. "...Is this... is this some sort of Alice in Wonderland reference? I've done that before. It was weird. Yukito was the Hatter."     Sakura pulls out her phone to take a picture of Lute's note on the blackboard. And also of the I-Class Destroyer, when she's sure no one is watching. 

:'''{{#var:188|Lute (188)}} has posed:'''      Lute, of course, is not stopped from writing his quick grafitti due to the simple presence of the March Hare. Instead, he simply keeps writing. And listening. His face shows no sign of even considering the Hare. At least, not until after the March Hare has departed.      The March Hare /does/ distract him from the photo taking, though. He just stares at the blackboard for a moment. His thoughts flowing. He's obviously waiting until he is certain the March Hare is gone. At that point, he turns around, slides his hands into his pockets, and just smiles.      "I might take his invitation for a visit, sometime. At the least, it'd give us more info on what they're /doing/. So, worht a shot. Unless you think it's too dangerous, Miko."      But, he spots the obvious headache Miko is having. And he moves to her again. Not to hug her, this time. Instead, he puts his back to her, and gets down a little.      "...You don't look so hot. Here. Get on my back. I'll take you home."      He also takes a moment to recall Arcanine. And, Imima goes through the door, finding its box, and nudges it back onto herself again.      And then, Lute looks at Sakura. He speaks reluctantly, "...Thanks for the help." Obvious dislike in his voice, despite Sakrua quite literally having done nothing wrong, that he knows of. But, as he looks away, he smiles, speaking to Sakura again. "...And, thanks for keeping my pet a secret from the Union. It's an I-Class Destroyer. Something with me to help protect me. A token of my friendship with some others. ...Sakura, like. Just. Please. Stay a good friend for Miko, please? Alright? She might need more trustworthy people like you in the future."      He's honest on this part. He doesn't think Sakura will take Miko away from him, or the Confederacy. But, Sakura is a lot more open and outgoing than Miko. He wants that to rub off on her. 

:'''{{#var:172|Sakura Kinomoto (172)}} has posed:'''     "I'll always be a friend to Miko," Sakura responds, hands behind her back, a smile on her face. She looks downright innocent in that pose - and it's probably not a calculated adoption, either. "I hope she realises that." 

}}

1952/Ashfall

2015-04-05T01:42:27Z

Paladine:

{{Log Header
|Date of Scene=2015/04/04
|Location=Fall
|Synopsis=Hollowsvile is under attack! It's out of the way, making it hard to get to quickly, but the ghosts of the town's ancestors have gone out seeking help from Multiversal denizens!
|Thanks=
|Cast of Characters=20, 560, 626, 726
|Tinyplot=
|Tinyplot2=
|pretty=yes
}}
{{Poses
|Poses=:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     Orange leaves on black trees stand, casting shadows, clutching hands. Knot hole eyes, and feet in the land.     Town of haunting splendour waits. Well-filled cemtery, open gates. Dead with the living, mingled fates.     Peace for all, no matter what side they might fall on the living or dead divide.     Dry forest burning, orange leaves become fire. The grinning jack-o-lanterns did not conspire, to make this scene real, this horror unfold.     ------------------------------------------     This town is an anomaly, though there are surely others like it. The living and the dead existing side-by-side, peacefully. As well-preserved corpses, distinguishable from the living only by their pallor, stitched skin, and possibly some missing hair or eyes, the ancestors of the town of Hollowsville stick around for as long as they're needed, before passing on fully. They are intelligent undead who are FRIENDLY with the living, and who the living are friendly with in-turn. Even the spectral ancestors make appearances once a year, on Halloween.     Hollowsville is a town that looks like it was modelled after a graveyard. Its ACTUAL graveyard is even more expansive than the town itself, and has so many elaborate structures it actually comprises and is considered Hollowsville's 'east district'. Crosses are everywhere on the buildings - roofs, windows, iron fences and gates - but there are other symbols, religious, arcane, or simply associated with death. Pentagrams, angels, merry skeletons, so on and so forth. Jack-o-lanterns are commonly used in places of torches.     Hollowsville is very Halloween-like all year 'round, to outside visitors, though it becomes even more so on that day.     But Hollowsville doesn't get much in the way of visitors, because not everyone is comfortable with the undead or how the people here are so close with them. There are many communities hostile towards the undead, even! That's why Hollowsville is so out of the way, in the middle of a forest of black trees with orange leaves, and vast fields of pumpkins, and dense fog, and blood-red rivers (that are actually just water). No one wants to come all the way out here just to mess with a town where over half the population is dead.     No one except apparently winged goat-man demons, with flesh that is partially shadow and flame, who have emerged from the cloudy skies overhead to begin throwing fireballs down at the citizens of Hollowsville. The assault has been ongoing since last night, and lumbering, non-intelligent zombies, so very different from the bright-eyed and emotional Stitchskins of Hollowsville, have also staggered their way out of the forest, already engulfed in ever-burning flames.     And these zombies have wandered around, attacking people if they come across them, but otherwise just... Touching things, and setting them on fire. In a dry place like Fall, a lot of things burn really good.     The spectral ancestors, normally asleep until October 31st, have awoken and gone scattering across the Multiverse, in search of those who can help their living (and corporeal undead) descendants. Anyone who would respond to a ghost showing up and pleading for aid would have been led here, by whatever means they use to travel, even if it takes them hours to get here from the local Warp Gate - which is rather distant. 

:'''{{#var:20|Toph Beifong (20)}} has posed:'''     Grounded as she is, Toph Beifong has never been one for spiritual mumbo jumbo. Still, when a ghost shows and asks you for help, it's a bit tough to say no.     The blind earthbender follows after the spiritual ancestor, a bit annoyed at how difficult and bothersome it is to have to follow something that she can only track by hearing. But she does manage to follow the ghost, rushing through the forest as quickly as she can. Upon reaching the outskirts of Hollowsville it's easier to pick up the area and what's going on. Including the shuffling zombies. "Sheesh... I can smell them even from here," Toph mutters before she rushes ahead. And as she does so she does slow down briefly to launch earthen spikes towards any approaching zombies that might have the silly idea that she would make a decent meal or potential wandering torch. 

:'''{{#var:626|Kyra Hyral (626)}} has posed:'''     Friendly undead are not a completely alien concept to Kyra. Seeing them living alongside the regular living, however, was and it certainly weirds her out when she finds herself lead here by the ghost. All too happy to respond to the call for help. Friendly undead or not, Kyra knew that all undead burned pretty well. Most at least.     Zombies already on fire are also an anomaly to her. "Yep." Kyra agrees with Toph as she pulls out the Luna's Resolve from the ornate holster on her hip. "Definitely smells like burning flesh. I'll keep what I can at range!"     Cheerful, she seems quite at home fighting malevolent undead. Without hesitation, as soon as she spots one of the burning corpses, she'll shoot it in the head. 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     Getting asked by a ghost to help a town of half dead and half living inhabitants wasn't even remotely close to anything Shirou thought would happen today. But he does his hero thing as always - what did anyone expect?     "So there's good dead and bad ones in this place? They better be easy to tell apart..." he can hope. He can really hope.     But for now, he just GUNS IT.     The engine, that is. He's roaring through a forest path on a small motor bike - it's old and rusty, but the engine's running well enough despite the hellacious noise from a rusted-out muffler.     He really needs to fix that when he finds more parts.     Magic Circuits already active, he's going over a handful of designs in idle moments between turns... and this eventually leads him to Kyra at the town's edge. He putters to a stop, dismounts after killing the engine, and just BOGGLES upon surveyin the town.     "What the hell's happening here?! It's just like the ghost said..." Teeth grit and blood boiling to full alertness, he quickly scans about to find the nearest person in peril where he can go help... 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     Earthen spikes slam into the Flame Zombies, tearing through them. Unlike typical zombies, it seems that when they take enough damage they just kind of dissolve into flaming ichor and sink back into the ground. Though in bursts of fire and smoke and audible darkness-made-mist, new Flame Zombies come forth to replace the slain ones. Horned demons with skin a mix of red and black, charred leather, are flapping around in the sky as well. They have wolf-like heads with goat-hooved feet, with sharp claws on the hands they are using to conjure fireballs and hurl them from above.     Kyra's shot seems to have heavily damaged one of the Flame Zombies, but it dissolves no more quickly than when Toph tore through the earths with earth spikes. It's not necessarily the LOCATION so much as doing enough damage, it seems. Fortunately, holy bullets blowing a zombie's head off seems to be 'enough damage'. And it to cause two of the Flame Zombie's companions to both orient on Kyra and start staggering forward. At least, as an upside, these Flame Zombies are nice and slow, meaning she should be able to stay at range and give them what for. And heck, the more of them coming after HER, the fewer of them that are going after buildings and the people in them.     Given the heat radiating from the Flame Zombies grows more uncomfortable the closer they get, there's plenty of reasons to keep one's distance. But the flames don't seem to be damaging their surroundings unless the zombies specifically reach out and touch something. It's fully possible that Shirou could fight them in melee range and just move quickly enough to avoid being hit, or rush in to scoop someone up without getting burned from mere proximity.     The ghosts that led these people here were all obviously telling the truth and really are peaceful and NOT part of the attack group. They can't do anything to help on their own, because they lack bodies, but the looks of distress and pain on their half-transparent faces as the trio of indistinct figures float around, watching, shows they are suffering from seeing the violence towards their descendants. One of them says, "Come. We must lead the lost and trapped ones to safety!" Then the three phantoms go swirling of in spiralling mist corkscrews as they try to find anyone trapped in burning buildings or otherwise in trouble and show them a way out.     That just leaves the demons in the skies and the zombies coming out of the ground to deal with!     Distinguishing friendly undead from hostile is pretty straightforward, also. The friendly ones look like people with lots of stitches. The hostile ones are all oil-covered, charred bodies, constantly engulfed in flames but never seeming to burn through all the way. The Stitchskins even ACT human, showing emotion, trying to shield the families they left behind when they died, or being shielded by said families in turn. A mother with one living daughter and one undead one are trapped against the side of a candy store, surrounded by a gradually tightening half-circle of zombies. That stitched-up little girl looks just as terrified as slightly-older, living twin. 

:'''{{#var:20|Toph Beifong (20)}} has posed:'''     The arrival of Kyra does catch Toph's attention, and the girl nods her head. "I'll try to keep it clear behind you," Toph offers. As the motor bike roars through the trees and towards them Toph can imagine that the zombies are not that advanced, so Toph doesn't hinder it. When Emiya speaks up she doesn't turn to face him, only letting out a snort. "You're the one with working eyes, buddy! But it seems like the dead are not quite so dead anymore!"     It seems like there's something up in the air though. "What's flying around up there?" When she feels the fireballs crash into the earth she can't help but feel a little uneasy. But as Kyra says on the radio frequency, there's somebody there who needs help. So Toph kicks into the ground, concentrating on the area around the family.     Earthen spikes shoot out around them, aiming at the zombies to knock them away and to also prevent anybody from getting to them. 

:'''{{#var:626|Kyra Hyral (626)}} has posed:'''     Kyra grins brightly as the Luna's Resolve proves to be just as effective as she had dreamed, this marking the first time she's actually managed to /damage/ something with it. In fact, it might have even been overkill since the bullets she has to that gun are limited and the fire zombies seem to be pretty plentiful. Toph's earthbending was just as effective so she's happy to let the blind girl take the lead with that.     Knowing that Toph can't sense things through her abilities if they're in the air, she switches her focus to the demons above, moving in closer, keeping well ahead of the slow-moving zombies easily as she hunts down the airborne demons. "Hey Shirou! The undead setting things on fire are bad! The other ones are good and are just trying to get away!" Kyra warns as she fires off a shot from the Luna's Resolve at a demon. She seems to be most focused on the demons that go near Toph, covering the Earthbender as she works. 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     Sizzle. Crackle. FSSSSH-CLANK!     With one hell of a lightshow, Kanshou and Bakuya are forged into existence between Shirou's clenched fingers. "yeah. I'm on the same page! These zombies have to GO! TAKE THIS!!"     With a rowdy, hotblooded yell the redhead HURLS Kanshou and Bakuya into a mass of the flaming zombies. they travel in opposing arcs, slicing and dicing EVERYTHING in their way. Then with another flash of prana new copies of the weapons are in Shirou's hands again. The ones in flight alter their path to head for the BACKS of more zombies even as he throws the new set forward... 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     Toph's earth spikes knock the Flame Zombies away, even taking an arm off of one of them. The family are trying to figure out now whether it's safe to run from there or to remain behind the stone spikes that now act like a barrier around them, keeping the Flame Zombies from moving forward again. They aren't even really sure what happened exactly! But they do appear to be safe for now.     Kyra's bullet shoots into a THROUGH one of the Flame Demons, leaving a smoking hole in its torso... But not quite killing it. It does seem pretty damn injured though, as it flaps its wings and starts coming after her. Actually... At this point... All the Flame Zombies and Flame Demons visible in the area are converging on the location of these three. It's not unlike two previous occasions, one at Winter, and one at Summer... The monsters were attacking helpless civilians up until rescuers arrived, and then they suddenly lost all interest in easier 'prey' and went after the good guys en masse.     Shirou's blade-throwing is especially good in a situation like this, as the ranks of Flame Zombies tighten every time their numbers are replenished, since they're all appearing nearby the trio now. As fire balls slam down nearby, Kyra is the only thing keeping the bombs from hitting Toph - though she also needs to make sure to avoid them herself as well, even as she takes down the first demon she shot, and a couple others. One of the Flame Demons swoops in from behind the group, coming closer to their level, and then unleashing a flamethrower-like breath attack on them! The heat alone should be a warning to get out of the way, but thankfully the range seems rather limited, so dodging or blocking with stone walls or white magic barriers or whatever else are all options.     At least, unlike the Flame Zombies, the Flame Zombies seem to stay gone when their numbers are depleted.     But there's still a ring of walking dead people coming closer and closer, their deep, gurgling moans, almost MORE of a psychological weapon than their appearances or the flames that constantly threaten from all sides.     Two things that might be noticed, however: Though their ranks are still several lines thick, and a few of the zombies are getting close enough to attempt to vomit flaming oil on Shirou, the ranks furthest back are no longer being replenished. The other thing that might be noticed is that the civilians seem to be getting evacuated into the largely stone-construction east side of Hollowsville, where the fire should have a harder time spreading. The ghosts are leading the way. Not only are these three making progress against the terrible monsters, but they are buying precious time for the living and the Stitchskins both to get to safety.     Now if they can just take down the rest of the enemies before their reaching, smoke-and-burning-meat hands can get to them... 

:'''{{#var:626|Kyra Hyral (626)}} has posed:'''     "WE GOT AGGRO!" Kyra shouts, actually slightly surprised that the demons have switched from easier prey to harder prey. The warning is for both her companions as she herself takes evasive manuvers, leaping aside and hitting the ground rolling as a blast of fire strikes the spot where she was just standing. This is repeated for a few more moments before Kyra returns fire, first with the gun, but as the flame demons start to mob the three of them, she switches to a heavier ordinance.     That heavier ordinance is a Holy spell, aimed into the air, far from the friendly undead of the town so they do not get caught in the crossfire. She centers the middle on the thickest knot of demons and it quickly expands in mid-air to engulf a twenty foot radius in a harsh blast of holy light. 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     "GAH!" FLaming oil! Shirou's fast but he's not THAT fast. And all he has to work with is another hastily projected pair of his favored weapons. These he crosses to increase the surface coverage ane uses them as an improvised shield while rolling to the side. It does SOME help. He gets splattered along the extremities and some bare skin, but thankfully not engulfed. All he ends up doing is hissing while his skin bubbles and crackles with SEARING pain.     The pain doesn't STOP him, it merely staggers him for a moment. "HUUUUUAAAAAAH!!!"     With another yell he hurls himself straight into the fray at more of the zombies. Slash slash slash!     Then he spins around and hurls the weapons for the Flame Demon before hitting the ground shoulder-first and skidding a while... 

:'''{{#var:20|Toph Beifong (20)}} has posed:'''     Good, the family will be safe for now. Which means that she can focus on the zombies around them at this rate. Because they do seem to be focused on them now, don't they? It's kinda weird, aren't these things braindead or something? They are in most of the movies and tv shows she has been listening to at least!     Toph hears the shout, and the blind girl kicks the ground, bending up earthen plates to cover herself and her two allies. It still might get a little hot, but it ought to offer some protection at least! "Thanks, Kyra!" she calls back before she focuses on the zombies as they draw closer.     Toph spreads her arms before she lashes out, sending the very earth rumbling underneath their feet as the ground flips over in several plates, something that will hopefully knock all the zombies approaching them over and make them vulnerable for Emiya and Kyra to dispatch! 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     The Holy spell from Kyra wipes out most of the demons. They may be tougher than zombies, but not tough enough to deal with THAT. They are eradicated, their flesh blasting off their skeletons, which quickly follow after the rest of them as their physical forms are banished back to whatever foul pit they were summoned from originally. The few who remain are weakened enough that Shirou's blades cut right through them as easily as they are the zombies around them. Speaking of those zombies, their numbers are noticeably reduced now, though anyone watching from the outside would still see a veritable wall of hollering, groaning, crooked forms, burning like those sentenced to the stake, but with far more determination and ability to get revenge.     As Toph's earthbending smashes and knocks down a number of the zombies, that wall eventually becomes more like a knee-high layer of bodies, like a mass grave set to the torch in some town in the distant past where the burning plague victims was thought to be the only way to prevent further exposure. But whatever sickness, whatever magic, is directing these zombies... It is far more insidious and far more -intelligent- than a mere disease.     The zombies themselves may not be too bright, mostly responding to prey within their limited sensory range and taking a good long time to actually orient on it, but they don't need to be smart when something or someone else can take direct control and make them all focus on a single target.     Or three targets, in this case.     They try to roll onto their bellies or to otherwise get in a position to crawl towards the heroes now, even as their numbers continue to be reduced by a Shirou's slashes and throws. Thirty level. Twenty-five. Eighteen. A dozen.     Sizzling ichor seeps into the ground all around, but still there are twelve of them left - even if no more are coming. It should be a simple enough process to finish them off now, though. At least as long as no one gets caught by one of them or stays still long enough for several dead bodies to crawl up onto them and pull them down on the ground to suffer the terrible fate of being both eaten alive AND burned alive at the same time.     Even if the surroundings are still on fire, and Hollowsville's fire department are struggling to save as much as they can, the worst of it seems to have been forced through. With a mix of bullets/holy magic, swords, and crushing boulders, the rest should be as straightforward as 'don't get killed'. 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     "How many places will--" SLASH HACK HISS - "Get attacked before there--" SLICE THRUST BEHEAD! "--aren't any more left?!" He's had ENOUGH of all the zombies and other things causing problems out in the booies... "It's like someone has a problem with anyone who lives in the middle of nowhere!"     Well parts of him are still ON FIRE, he finds out after that. With a yell he dives tfor the dirt and rolls, trying to extinguiish the flames - oil or not- through COPIOUS DIRTY SMOTHERING!     ... Away from the ichor, that is.     Gasping and panting, he's up again but almost snarling with his gaze frantically swiveling about for more enemies and anyone in need of help. 

:'''{{#var:20|Toph Beifong (20)}} has posed:'''     This is a whole messy business all right. And Emiya's comment is a valid one too! "Seems they don't like people having peace and quiet, huh?" Toph replies, and as he dives for the dirt she does what she can to help by bending it into sand that might help exstinguish the flames a bit easier. Who needs a water bender? Sand might also soak up the oil a bit better too.     Steadfast and determined, Toph bends as effectively as she can in order to create openings for the two others and also impale as many of the zombies as she can. And when they are finally done she lets out a 'whew' and brushes her hands off. "I can't sense more of them coming towards us... seems we got them all." 

:'''{{#var:626|Kyra Hyral (626)}} has posed:'''     "Banish, banish, banish, holy-" Kyra singsongs, blowing demons out of the sky before they can sight Toph or Shirou as they work through the zombies. She doesn't stop until there is nothing but finely misted demon gibs left.     "I think we did get them all. Nothing else more in the air..." she checks her gun and frowns, seeing that she's out of ammo for the Luna's Resolve, "I'll have to give Lloyd a visit soon. Anyway, let's make sure everyone else is okay and that they got the fires put out. I didn't bring the CURE-ALL so if any of the local undead were hurt, I can't really, um, heal them." 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     The last of the Flame Zombies are eliminated. There's still the stench of burning rot everywhere, mixing with the choking, cough-inducing smoke, but even the puddles of liquefied decay seem to have vanished. Aside from the damage to the town and the people in it (and possibly some of the heroes present, like poor Shirou), there's no sign the monsters were ever here.     So they get to leave behind death and destruction and a huge mess to clean up, and there's not even anyone or anything left to hold responsible.     Wonderful.     And if this was part of a pattern, as it seems to be, just eliminating these monsters THIS time isn't the end of it.     Victory has been had, and most of the town's residents - whether living or dead - have been saved. But it still might feel like this isn't quite the end of things.     Seeing (or hearing, in Toph's case) the family of three happy to be safe now that the monsters are all gone, a little stitched-up girl with the mother and twin sister who both continue to outlive her instead of joining her in undeath, might lighten that burden a little though.     It wasn't all for nothing. 
}}

1952/Ashfall

2015-04-05T01:41:48Z

Paladine: Created page with "{{Log Header |Date of Scene=2015/04/04 |Location=Fall |Synopsis=Hollowsvile is under attack! It's out of the way, making it hard to get to quickly, but the ghosts of the town'..."

{{Log Header
|Date of Scene=2015/04/04
|Location=Fall
|Synopsis=Hollowsvile is under attack! It's out of the way, making it hard to get to quickly, but the ghosts of the town's ancestors have gone out seeking help from Multiversal denizens!
|Thanks=
|Cast of Characters=20, 560, 626, 726
|Tinyplot=
|Tinyplot2=
|pretty=yes
}}
{{Poses
|Poses=:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     Orange leaves on black trees stand, casting shadows, clutching hands. Knot hole eyes, and feet in the land.     Town of haunting splendour waits. Well-filled cemtery, open gates. Dead with the living, mingled fates.     Peace for all, no matter what side they might fall on the living or dead divide.     Dry forest burning, orange leaves become fire. The grinning jack-o-lanterns did not conspire, to make this scene real, this horror unfold.     The demons from the darkness did unfold.     ------------------------------------------     This town is an anomaly, though there are surely others like it. The living and the dead existing side-by-side, peacefully. As well-preserved corpses, distinguishable from the living only by their pallor, stitched skin, and possibly some missing hair or eyes, the ancestors of the town of Hollowsville stick around for as long as they're needed, before passing on fully. They are intelligent undead who are FRIENDLY with the living, and who the living are friendly with in-turn. Even the spectral ancestors make appearances once a year, on Halloween.     Hollowsville is a town that looks like it was modelled after a graveyard. Its ACTUAL graveyard is even more expansive than the town itself, and has so many elaborate structures it actually comprises and is considered Hollowsville's 'east district'. Crosses are everywhere on the buildings - roofs, windows, iron fences and gates - but there are other symbols, religious, arcane, or simply associated with death. Pentagrams, angels, merry skeletons, so on and so forth. Jack-o-lanterns are commonly used in places of torches.     Hollowsville is very Halloween-like all year 'round, to outside visitors, though it becomes even more so on that day.     But Hollowsville doesn't get much in the way of visitors, because not everyone is comfortable with the undead or how the people here are so close with them. There are many communities hostile towards the undead, even! That's why Hollowsville is so out of the way, in the middle of a forest of black trees with orange leaves, and vast fields of pumpkins, and dense fog, and blood-red rivers (that are actually just water). No one wants to come all the way out here just to mess with a town where over half the population is dead.     No one except apparently winged goat-man demons, with flesh that is partially shadow and flame, who have emerged from the cloudy skies overhead to begin throwing fireballs down at the citizens of Hollowsville. The assault has been ongoing since last night, and lumbering, non-intelligent zombies, so very different from the bright-eyed and emotional Stitchskins of Hollowsville, have also staggered their way out of the forest, already engulfed in ever-burning flames.     And these zombies have wandered around, attacking people if they come across them, but otherwise just... Touching things, and setting them on fire. In a dry place like Fall, a lot of things burn really good.     The spectral ancestors, normally asleep until October 31st, have awoken and gone scattering across the Multiverse, in search of those who can help their living (and corporeal undead) descendants. Anyone who would respond to a ghost showing up and pleading for aid would have been led here, by whatever means they use to travel, even if it takes them hours to get here from the local Warp Gate - which is rather distant. 

:'''{{#var:20|Toph Beifong (20)}} has posed:'''     Grounded as she is, Toph Beifong has never been one for spiritual mumbo jumbo. Still, when a ghost shows and asks you for help, it's a bit tough to say no.     The blind earthbender follows after the spiritual ancestor, a bit annoyed at how difficult and bothersome it is to have to follow something that she can only track by hearing. But she does manage to follow the ghost, rushing through the forest as quickly as she can. Upon reaching the outskirts of Hollowsville it's easier to pick up the area and what's going on. Including the shuffling zombies. "Sheesh... I can smell them even from here," Toph mutters before she rushes ahead. And as she does so she does slow down briefly to launch earthen spikes towards any approaching zombies that might have the silly idea that she would make a decent meal or potential wandering torch. 

:'''{{#var:626|Kyra Hyral (626)}} has posed:'''     Friendly undead are not a completely alien concept to Kyra. Seeing them living alongside the regular living, however, was and it certainly weirds her out when she finds herself lead here by the ghost. All too happy to respond to the call for help. Friendly undead or not, Kyra knew that all undead burned pretty well. Most at least.     Zombies already on fire are also an anomaly to her. "Yep." Kyra agrees with Toph as she pulls out the Luna's Resolve from the ornate holster on her hip. "Definitely smells like burning flesh. I'll keep what I can at range!"     Cheerful, she seems quite at home fighting malevolent undead. Without hesitation, as soon as she spots one of the burning corpses, she'll shoot it in the head. 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     Getting asked by a ghost to help a town of half dead and half living inhabitants wasn't even remotely close to anything Shirou thought would happen today. But he does his hero thing as always - what did anyone expect?     "So there's good dead and bad ones in this place? They better be easy to tell apart..." he can hope. He can really hope.     But for now, he just GUNS IT.     The engine, that is. He's roaring through a forest path on a small motor bike - it's old and rusty, but the engine's running well enough despite the hellacious noise from a rusted-out muffler.     He really needs to fix that when he finds more parts.     Magic Circuits already active, he's going over a handful of designs in idle moments between turns... and this eventually leads him to Kyra at the town's edge. He putters to a stop, dismounts after killing the engine, and just BOGGLES upon surveyin the town.     "What the hell's happening here?! It's just like the ghost said..." Teeth grit and blood boiling to full alertness, he quickly scans about to find the nearest person in peril where he can go help... 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     Earthen spikes slam into the Flame Zombies, tearing through them. Unlike typical zombies, it seems that when they take enough damage they just kind of dissolve into flaming ichor and sink back into the ground. Though in bursts of fire and smoke and audible darkness-made-mist, new Flame Zombies come forth to replace the slain ones. Horned demons with skin a mix of red and black, charred leather, are flapping around in the sky as well. They have wolf-like heads with goat-hooved feet, with sharp claws on the hands they are using to conjure fireballs and hurl them from above.     Kyra's shot seems to have heavily damaged one of the Flame Zombies, but it dissolves no more quickly than when Toph tore through the earths with earth spikes. It's not necessarily the LOCATION so much as doing enough damage, it seems. Fortunately, holy bullets blowing a zombie's head off seems to be 'enough damage'. And it to cause two of the Flame Zombie's companions to both orient on Kyra and start staggering forward. At least, as an upside, these Flame Zombies are nice and slow, meaning she should be able to stay at range and give them what for. And heck, the more of them coming after HER, the fewer of them that are going after buildings and the people in them.     Given the heat radiating from the Flame Zombies grows more uncomfortable the closer they get, there's plenty of reasons to keep one's distance. But the flames don't seem to be damaging their surroundings unless the zombies specifically reach out and touch something. It's fully possible that Shirou could fight them in melee range and just move quickly enough to avoid being hit, or rush in to scoop someone up without getting burned from mere proximity.     The ghosts that led these people here were all obviously telling the truth and really are peaceful and NOT part of the attack group. They can't do anything to help on their own, because they lack bodies, but the looks of distress and pain on their half-transparent faces as the trio of indistinct figures float around, watching, shows they are suffering from seeing the violence towards their descendants. One of them says, "Come. We must lead the lost and trapped ones to safety!" Then the three phantoms go swirling of in spiralling mist corkscrews as they try to find anyone trapped in burning buildings or otherwise in trouble and show them a way out.     That just leaves the demons in the skies and the zombies coming out of the ground to deal with!     Distinguishing friendly undead from hostile is pretty straightforward, also. The friendly ones look like people with lots of stitches. The hostile ones are all oil-covered, charred bodies, constantly engulfed in flames but never seeming to burn through all the way. The Stitchskins even ACT human, showing emotion, trying to shield the families they left behind when they died, or being shielded by said families in turn. A mother with one living daughter and one undead one are trapped against the side of a candy store, surrounded by a gradually tightening half-circle of zombies. That stitched-up little girl looks just as terrified as slightly-older, living twin. 

:'''{{#var:20|Toph Beifong (20)}} has posed:'''     The arrival of Kyra does catch Toph's attention, and the girl nods her head. "I'll try to keep it clear behind you," Toph offers. As the motor bike roars through the trees and towards them Toph can imagine that the zombies are not that advanced, so Toph doesn't hinder it. When Emiya speaks up she doesn't turn to face him, only letting out a snort. "You're the one with working eyes, buddy! But it seems like the dead are not quite so dead anymore!"     It seems like there's something up in the air though. "What's flying around up there?" When she feels the fireballs crash into the earth she can't help but feel a little uneasy. But as Kyra says on the radio frequency, there's somebody there who needs help. So Toph kicks into the ground, concentrating on the area around the family.     Earthen spikes shoot out around them, aiming at the zombies to knock them away and to also prevent anybody from getting to them. 

:'''{{#var:626|Kyra Hyral (626)}} has posed:'''     Kyra grins brightly as the Luna's Resolve proves to be just as effective as she had dreamed, this marking the first time she's actually managed to /damage/ something with it. In fact, it might have even been overkill since the bullets she has to that gun are limited and the fire zombies seem to be pretty plentiful. Toph's earthbending was just as effective so she's happy to let the blind girl take the lead with that.     Knowing that Toph can't sense things through her abilities if they're in the air, she switches her focus to the demons above, moving in closer, keeping well ahead of the slow-moving zombies easily as she hunts down the airborne demons. "Hey Shirou! The undead setting things on fire are bad! The other ones are good and are just trying to get away!" Kyra warns as she fires off a shot from the Luna's Resolve at a demon. She seems to be most focused on the demons that go near Toph, covering the Earthbender as she works. 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     Sizzle. Crackle. FSSSSH-CLANK!     With one hell of a lightshow, Kanshou and Bakuya are forged into existence between Shirou's clenched fingers. "yeah. I'm on the same page! These zombies have to GO! TAKE THIS!!"     With a rowdy, hotblooded yell the redhead HURLS Kanshou and Bakuya into a mass of the flaming zombies. they travel in opposing arcs, slicing and dicing EVERYTHING in their way. Then with another flash of prana new copies of the weapons are in Shirou's hands again. The ones in flight alter their path to head for the BACKS of more zombies even as he throws the new set forward... 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     Toph's earth spikes knock the Flame Zombies away, even taking an arm off of one of them. The family are trying to figure out now whether it's safe to run from there or to remain behind the stone spikes that now act like a barrier around them, keeping the Flame Zombies from moving forward again. They aren't even really sure what happened exactly! But they do appear to be safe for now.     Kyra's bullet shoots into a THROUGH one of the Flame Demons, leaving a smoking hole in its torso... But not quite killing it. It does seem pretty damn injured though, as it flaps its wings and starts coming after her. Actually... At this point... All the Flame Zombies and Flame Demons visible in the area are converging on the location of these three. It's not unlike two previous occasions, one at Winter, and one at Summer... The monsters were attacking helpless civilians up until rescuers arrived, and then they suddenly lost all interest in easier 'prey' and went after the good guys en masse.     Shirou's blade-throwing is especially good in a situation like this, as the ranks of Flame Zombies tighten every time their numbers are replenished, since they're all appearing nearby the trio now. As fire balls slam down nearby, Kyra is the only thing keeping the bombs from hitting Toph - though she also needs to make sure to avoid them herself as well, even as she takes down the first demon she shot, and a couple others. One of the Flame Demons swoops in from behind the group, coming closer to their level, and then unleashing a flamethrower-like breath attack on them! The heat alone should be a warning to get out of the way, but thankfully the range seems rather limited, so dodging or blocking with stone walls or white magic barriers or whatever else are all options.     At least, unlike the Flame Zombies, the Flame Zombies seem to stay gone when their numbers are depleted.     But there's still a ring of walking dead people coming closer and closer, their deep, gurgling moans, almost MORE of a psychological weapon than their appearances or the flames that constantly threaten from all sides.     Two things that might be noticed, however: Though their ranks are still several lines thick, and a few of the zombies are getting close enough to attempt to vomit flaming oil on Shirou, the ranks furthest back are no longer being replenished. The other thing that might be noticed is that the civilians seem to be getting evacuated into the largely stone-construction east side of Hollowsville, where the fire should have a harder time spreading. The ghosts are leading the way. Not only are these three making progress against the terrible monsters, but they are buying precious time for the living and the Stitchskins both to get to safety.     Now if they can just take down the rest of the enemies before their reaching, smoke-and-burning-meat hands can get to them... 

:'''{{#var:626|Kyra Hyral (626)}} has posed:'''     "WE GOT AGGRO!" Kyra shouts, actually slightly surprised that the demons have switched from easier prey to harder prey. The warning is for both her companions as she herself takes evasive manuvers, leaping aside and hitting the ground rolling as a blast of fire strikes the spot where she was just standing. This is repeated for a few more moments before Kyra returns fire, first with the gun, but as the flame demons start to mob the three of them, she switches to a heavier ordinance.     That heavier ordinance is a Holy spell, aimed into the air, far from the friendly undead of the town so they do not get caught in the crossfire. She centers the middle on the thickest knot of demons and it quickly expands in mid-air to engulf a twenty foot radius in a harsh blast of holy light. 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     "GAH!" FLaming oil! Shirou's fast but he's not THAT fast. And all he has to work with is another hastily projected pair of his favored weapons. These he crosses to increase the surface coverage ane uses them as an improvised shield while rolling to the side. It does SOME help. He gets splattered along the extremities and some bare skin, but thankfully not engulfed. All he ends up doing is hissing while his skin bubbles and crackles with SEARING pain.     The pain doesn't STOP him, it merely staggers him for a moment. "HUUUUUAAAAAAH!!!"     With another yell he hurls himself straight into the fray at more of the zombies. Slash slash slash!     Then he spins around and hurls the weapons for the Flame Demon before hitting the ground shoulder-first and skidding a while... 

:'''{{#var:20|Toph Beifong (20)}} has posed:'''     Good, the family will be safe for now. Which means that she can focus on the zombies around them at this rate. Because they do seem to be focused on them now, don't they? It's kinda weird, aren't these things braindead or something? They are in most of the movies and tv shows she has been listening to at least!     Toph hears the shout, and the blind girl kicks the ground, bending up earthen plates to cover herself and her two allies. It still might get a little hot, but it ought to offer some protection at least! "Thanks, Kyra!" she calls back before she focuses on the zombies as they draw closer.     Toph spreads her arms before she lashes out, sending the very earth rumbling underneath their feet as the ground flips over in several plates, something that will hopefully knock all the zombies approaching them over and make them vulnerable for Emiya and Kyra to dispatch! 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     The Holy spell from Kyra wipes out most of the demons. They may be tougher than zombies, but not tough enough to deal with THAT. They are eradicated, their flesh blasting off their skeletons, which quickly follow after the rest of them as their physical forms are banished back to whatever foul pit they were summoned from originally. The few who remain are weakened enough that Shirou's blades cut right through them as easily as they are the zombies around them. Speaking of those zombies, their numbers are noticeably reduced now, though anyone watching from the outside would still see a veritable wall of hollering, groaning, crooked forms, burning like those sentenced to the stake, but with far more determination and ability to get revenge.     As Toph's earthbending smashes and knocks down a number of the zombies, that wall eventually becomes more like a knee-high layer of bodies, like a mass grave set to the torch in some town in the distant past where the burning plague victims was thought to be the only way to prevent further exposure. But whatever sickness, whatever magic, is directing these zombies... It is far more insidious and far more -intelligent- than a mere disease.     The zombies themselves may not be too bright, mostly responding to prey within their limited sensory range and taking a good long time to actually orient on it, but they don't need to be smart when something or someone else can take direct control and make them all focus on a single target.     Or three targets, in this case.     They try to roll onto their bellies or to otherwise get in a position to crawl towards the heroes now, even as their numbers continue to be reduced by a Shirou's slashes and throws. Thirty level. Twenty-five. Eighteen. A dozen.     Sizzling ichor seeps into the ground all around, but still there are twelve of them left - even if no more are coming. It should be a simple enough process to finish them off now, though. At least as long as no one gets caught by one of them or stays still long enough for several dead bodies to crawl up onto them and pull them down on the ground to suffer the terrible fate of being both eaten alive AND burned alive at the same time.     Even if the surroundings are still on fire, and Hollowsville's fire department are struggling to save as much as they can, the worst of it seems to have been forced through. With a mix of bullets/holy magic, swords, and crushing boulders, the rest should be as straightforward as 'don't get killed'. 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     "How many places will--" SLASH HACK HISS - "Get attacked before there--" SLICE THRUST BEHEAD! "--aren't any more left?!" He's had ENOUGH of all the zombies and other things causing problems out in the booies... "It's like someone has a problem with anyone who lives in the middle of nowhere!"     Well parts of him are still ON FIRE, he finds out after that. With a yell he dives tfor the dirt and rolls, trying to extinguiish the flames - oil or not- through COPIOUS DIRTY SMOTHERING!     ... Away from the ichor, that is.     Gasping and panting, he's up again but almost snarling with his gaze frantically swiveling about for more enemies and anyone in need of help. 

:'''{{#var:20|Toph Beifong (20)}} has posed:'''     This is a whole messy business all right. And Emiya's comment is a valid one too! "Seems they don't like people having peace and quiet, huh?" Toph replies, and as he dives for the dirt she does what she can to help by bending it into sand that might help exstinguish the flames a bit easier. Who needs a water bender? Sand might also soak up the oil a bit better too.     Steadfast and determined, Toph bends as effectively as she can in order to create openings for the two others and also impale as many of the zombies as she can. And when they are finally done she lets out a 'whew' and brushes her hands off. "I can't sense more of them coming towards us... seems we got them all." 

:'''{{#var:626|Kyra Hyral (626)}} has posed:'''     "Banish, banish, banish, holy-" Kyra singsongs, blowing demons out of the sky before they can sight Toph or Shirou as they work through the zombies. She doesn't stop until there is nothing but finely misted demon gibs left.     "I think we did get them all. Nothing else more in the air..." she checks her gun and frowns, seeing that she's out of ammo for the Luna's Resolve, "I'll have to give Lloyd a visit soon. Anyway, let's make sure everyone else is okay and that they got the fires put out. I didn't bring the CURE-ALL so if any of the local undead were hurt, I can't really, um, heal them." 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     The last of the Flame Zombies are eliminated. There's still the stench of burning rot everywhere, mixing with the choking, cough-inducing smoke, but even the puddles of liquefied decay seem to have vanished. Aside from the damage to the town and the people in it (and possibly some of the heroes present, like poor Shirou), there's no sign the monsters were ever here.     So they get to leave behind death and destruction and a huge mess to clean up, and there's not even anyone or anything left to hold responsible.     Wonderful.     And if this was part of a pattern, as it seems to be, just eliminating these monsters THIS time isn't the end of it.     Victory has been had, and most of the town's residents - whether living or dead - have been saved. But it still might feel like this isn't quite the end of things.     Seeing (or hearing, in Toph's case) the family of three happy to be safe now that the monsters are all gone, a little stitched-up girl with the mother and twin sister who both continue to outlive her instead of joining her in undeath, might lighten that burden a little though.     It wasn't all for nothing. 

}}

1883/Shark Tooth Handshakes

2015-03-27T18:46:38Z

Paladine: Created page with "{{Log Header |Date of Scene=2015/03/26 |Location=Boston-666 |Synopsis=Ri, Wo, and Darwin go to Boston-666 to have a social outing. Psyber, Reiji, Kuma, and Shigure greet them ..."

{{Log Header
|Date of Scene=2015/03/26
|Location=Boston-666
|Synopsis=Ri, Wo, and Darwin go to Boston-666 to have a social outing. Psyber, Reiji, Kuma, and Shigure greet them at the docks. It's a bit overwhelming for one of the Abyssals.
|Thanks=
|Cast of Characters=253, 494, 582, 685, 705, 710
|Tinyplot=
|Tinyplot2=
|pretty=yes
}}
{{Poses
|Poses=:'''{{#var:253|Psyber (253)}} has posed:'''     Wo knows the deal by now, so it's not too hard to set up a bother-free entrance into the city. Assuming the epicly-hatted girl phoned (telegraphed) ahead, there is no resistance and the Abyssal visitors are directed through with an easy path to the harbor docks.     And the docks have a waiting party at them, of course! Well, a greeting party. Psyber's here, along with whoever else wanted to come along to welcome the latest envoy of Abyssal visitors to the city. After Wo had signed off on everything being in order with her first visit, things were pretty smooth to process.     And that leads us to where we are now! A group of people hanging out near the docks to greet another group of people.     The weather is moderate, fifty degrees out with a very light drizzle that comes and goes as it sees fit. Because of this, the city has a lower-than-usual amount of foot traffic, and boats are getting secured by their owners around the harbor and docks to prepare for a weekend of storms. 

:'''{{#var:582|Wo (582)}} has posed:'''     There had indeed been a call ahead, in that same unencrypted burst traffic as before. Knowing what to expect, it would be easy to intercept. This time, in addition to the usual pieces of red tape sign-off, there had actually been included a brief description of some additional visitors: a Ri-class Heavy Cruiser, and a rare treat (except at barbecues) -- a hime-class presence of unspecified designation, due to a misfortunate unrecoverable error in that part of the transmission. Chances are that it won't be one causing trouble with impromptu food contests, probably.     Right on schedule, contact is made by the local Coast Guard's deep sensors. One profile they would know well by now, proving itself out as the Wo-class aircraft carrier that has been making this a habit, lately. Sonar gives way to visual, as she emerges bulbous hat-first, leaving it with the brief impression that just the hat were powering itself through the water, before her full frame comes into view. They're speedy demons, these abyssal ships - and she's not bothering with hanging around with the local green-water navy vessels, making full steam towards the docks, as far as the tolerances of not seeming threatening about it allow for. ..as much as someone that looks a bit like a corpse wearing a monster on their head can.     With this visit, her fleet of adorable Destroyer escorts have been left behind, perhaps even for real this time. With the firepower afforded by the ones she'll have following her, and Psyber's arrangements, there is no need for any additional security, this time. This leaves her alone, at the head and acting as the envoy, to emerge onto the pier first, doing her by now - to some - familiar, hovering disembark, before setting her heeled booted feet down, as well as resting her gloved hands on the shank of metal she seems to use as a baton. She glances between those gathered, but this time, makes no undue effort to appear friendly. A repeating of her designator is given, then she introduces herself and her sisters, for any 'new faces', as Kongou might say: "The special en-voy.. Wo-class. Dar-win, and..Ri-class, also arriving." Sea water noticably pools around her, as a piece of errant sea weed also rolls off the slick-looking material that forms her cape.     "Thank you - for your..hos-pitality." 

:'''{{#var:494|Samar (494)}} has posed:'''     This time, rather than the overly energetic Savo, Boston and Psyber are visited once more by perhaps the single calmest Abyssal among the fleet. Of course, looking at her, one probably wouldn't think that at first. Especially not since she enters the dock by suddenly slamming one massive claw of razor-sharp metal out of the water and digging it into the docks to pull herself out.     At least Darwin is at a normal size right now, but normal for her is still just shy of eight feet tall. The massive woman's egress from the water isn't terribly graceful, either, as she scrambles over the dock's edge with a few huffs and strains until she's finally found her footing and looms up to her full height beside Wo. A worried glance is cast down to her clothing, which she takes a moment to straighten out with strangely precise tugs and pushes of her huge claws, and then she's folding her hands in front of her and turning her attention back to her companions.     "...Psyber," Darwin greets, a low but polite murmur. "Good to see you again. Sorry for...Savo's disruption the other day. I hope she didn't cause too much trouble." 

:'''{{#var:685|Kuma (685)}} has posed:'''     Kuma and Shigure are here too. Resting over from a patrol that swung close to the city. The pair stand off to one side, their fitouts still on though the guns sporting covers and gripping locks so they can't traverse or fire. Kuma's arms are folded over her chest, as she watches the Abyssals emerge. Shigure, however, steps forwards and offers a salute. "Welcome to Boston Harbour. Shiratsuyu-class Destroyer, Shigure of the Fleet Daughters... it is nice to meet you without cannonfire." she offers, before swallowing and seeming to faulter a little as a blush spreads across her cheeks.     Kuma nods. "Yeah, it's nice to not have to fight all the time, kuma." to Darwin she turns her brown gaze. "You're a lot nicer than that other Princess, kuma. She was loud and rude, kuma~." 

:'''{{#var:710|Ri (710)}} has posed:'''     Ri seeks answers. Answers she isn't finding by hanging around in the crushing, frigid depths of the ocean, lost in her own thoughts and the same repetitions of memory that don't quite seem complete. Thinking isn't encouraged among Abyssals anyway. It's better to simply be told what to do. Thus, the Ri-class heavy cruiser has been reluctant to act without orders - even if it seemed like she was supposed to seek out answers for herself. But, ultimately, she made the decision on her own. Maybe being more than a near-mindless bio-mechanical monstrosity also involves taking charge sometimes, rather than simply being a more intelligent version of her former self.     Once Wo and Darwin have arrived on the docks, Ri comes shortly thereafter. She usually reverts to Leviathan mode when pressured, because she feels safer. Even when it's less effective against her enemies, it doesn't matter. Being that size somehow feels 'right', or 'normal'. More so than being what she is now. But while she is definitely somewhat tense about this meeting, she has exerted self-control and kept herself to the same scale as the others.     Short black hair, slicked down by sea water, begins to rise up out of the ocean, with a pair of glowing blue eyes visible like the twin lamps of some awful drowned phantom visible below the surface before their owner even shows her face. When that face finally emerges, the corpse-hued flesh and emotionless face are no less indicative of undeath, but at least the ghostly glow is diminished in the somewhat brighter lighting above-water.     As the rest of Ri emerges, it seems she is equipped with her typical bio-mechanical shark gauntlets. Not that she plans to use them, but having the CAPACITY to fight is far more comforting for her than showing up here unarmed.     When one of the first people she sees upon stepping off of the churning sea water beneath her feet, and onto the docks, is Psyber... She has to consciously halt the motion to raise one of her arms and start shooting. He's the one who took away one of their sisters, after all! ...Or that's what she's been told. And why would she ever disbelieve anything Samar told her? Her arm lurched upwards minutely, but stopped. It could have easily just been part of her getting her balance as she switches from ocean to land. It's not like she's on land that often after all.     "Thank you... For having... Us." Ri says in a very dead voice. When she sees two Fleet Daughters, including the specific one she wanted to see, she stares fixedly at Kuma. The last encounter they had was less than friendly. Kuma almost sank due to Ri. Just like Ri almost sank due to Psyber. There's plenty of room for animosity here. Ri came here not necessarily to make amends, but to learn and interact peacefully. To understand some of the things she so clearly doesn't.     But how can she set aside her grudge when she's faced with the evidence of the 'crime'?     Her arm raises again, once she stands alongside her sisters, and has taken her gaze off of Kuma. Ri will try. She wanted to come with others for a reason. To help her focus and keep her calm. Maybe tolerating situations like this when it calls for it is also part of being a loyal Abyssal.     Ri extends her steel-encased appendage towards their 'host' as though to shake hands. "Surface-dweller... Custom... Yes?" Ri asks of Psyber.     Salt water sluices off the gleaming teeth around the gauntlet's mouth. 

:'''{{#var:253|Psyber (253)}} has posed:'''     "Wo, nice of you to drop by. Thank you for phoning ahead, it makes these easier to coordinate. I hope the waters were smooth as you came in and there wasn't too much chop. We have some weather coming in off the ocean that will make for a wet couple weeks," Psyber greets to the envoy, nodding his head as his hands bury themselves inside his coat.     Psyber pauses, letting Kuma and the other girls get their introductions done. The half-angel takes this time to light a cigarette and hold it in his left hand, idly smoking as the younger girls all make their greetings. Then Psyber resumes talking, exhaling a plume of smoke a moment later.     "Darwin. It was no problem. She and Kongou seemed to reach an impasse at an eating contest, so I expect them to renew their confrontation at some future endeavor. I, therefore, apologize for any food Savo brings home that might be overly spicy as a form of training," He informs to Darwin, basically giving her warning that Savo may start coming up with jalapenos and other nasty peppers.     And finally Ri. Psyber looks relatively indifferent towards her. It's less an act of rudeness and more a defining characteristic of him as a literal punchclock hero. Fierce on the battlefield, pretty laid back in his downtime, "Greetings, Ri-Class. I hope the city will prove fruitful for your visit."     He looks at the gauntlet she extends to him and pauses a few moments before reaching out to kind of grab the side jawline of it and make a handshake happen that way. It just seemed simplest. And then he repeats the original greeting he gave Wo when she first visited:     "Nearby, in drydock, is the USS Constitution. Boston is also an hour north of Fall River, Massachusetts, resting port of the USS Massachusetts, better known as 'Big Mamie', as well as Battleship Cove's other museum ships.." 

:'''{{#var:705|Reiji Arisu (705)}} has posed:'''     Though ostensibly uninvolved (read: terrible) with direct combat at sea, Reiji Arisu seems to be around a lot whenever the Fleet Daughters or their Abyssal counterparts are up to something. Today, he actually has pretty good reason to be around: professional interest. It's not everyday you get to meet vengeful ship-spirits outside of a life-or-death situation, after all. The exorcist leans on a lamp-post a few feet behind Psyber and the others. The warm glow of a half-gone cigarette flickers near his lips as he waits, and watches. It's not that he's being unfriendly, or anything- he's just never actually seen an Abyssal in person before.     It seems that being around wrathful sea spirits takes some getting used to when you're a trained exorcist. Sort of like how you need to sit around in a cold pool until your body gets to a comfortable temperature. Except this acclimatization is less about heat and more about compartmentalizing and suppressing any overt signs of suspicion. Signs such as bullets.     Fortunately, it seems like things are getting off to a pretty decent start. The ship-girls aren't shooting at each other (just yet), anyway. Still, Reiji waits until Psyber reacts before pushing off the docklamp and making his approach. He flicks his cigarette to the ground, and casually treads over its dwindling cinders. "Hey," he lifts a hand in greeting. It seems he's left most of his gear... elsewhere, today. He's certainly not covered in body-armor and carting around a briefcase full of weapons today. "Welcome to Boston," Reiji says with... sufficient good cheer, he supposes. It still kind of comes off as deadpan. Reiji is just... Kind of like that, it seems.     He pauses as Psyber goes on, then nods. "Besides the ships, I'm told that Boston is home to some pretty impressive clam chowder," he gives a bit of a shrug, "Never had it, myself. But I hear things." 

:'''{{#var:582|Wo (582)}} has posed:'''     Things aren't forgiven in a day, and chances are, understanding won't come that simply, either. Part of why Wo was scanning the ones that had come to greet them was to see if that number included Kongou and her merry band. To an odd relief that would not make itself obvious to most of the surface folk, but can be felt instinctively by both Darwin and Ri, the Wo-class carrier is actually..a bit glad, she won't have to face them today. She doesn't need the distraction of the stunt they had pulled on Lute keeping her from her duties. With that, while she can't as easily disarm as can Kuma and Shigure, she does at least lift off her hat and tuck it under her arm, in an attempt to appear more relaxed and at ease. Psyber is given her first bout of full attention, mutedly glowing eyes blue-green for the moment. "It was..no-thing, to worry about. Thank you..Psyber." That a lot of their cruising is done below the surface helps mitigate weather, somewhat. She again looks just behind him, however, almost as if expecting someone or something back there, but once more finding nothing.     Kuma and Shigure, on the other hand, will prove a bit easier to tolerate for today. To their suggestion that it is nice to be able to meet without exchanging gunfire, or even worse given their classes apparent, torpedoes, Wo seems to mull it over with a slight tilt of her head, before repeating her designation in an apparently affirmative tone. She's not shy at all about stepping on up to the two of them, though will stop short of patting them on the head, even if Kuma's hair spring is as tempting as always. Shigure gets an extra slice of scrutiny, as she's one she hasn't seen in action, just yet..but despite the cold stare, it doesn't feel like there's any malice in it. For the time being. "Yes.. ..let's enjoy, this neutral-ity.."     A glance is given to Ri, then, to give a quick judgement of how she's faring in what must be a thoroughly unfamiliar environment and set of circumstances. The presence of Darwin should be enough to help, but she'll still keep an eye on the situation, as she takes her duties here very seriously, despite it often seeming to be in good fun. Something else distracts her, though, and she offers, "..Sa-vo..very competitive, spirit. I..also, apolo-gize. Surface manners, not her - strong suit." A slight understatement, perhaps.     Reiji gets her final once over. Something about him makes some corner of her mind uneasy, but nothing that shows through to the surface, especially since she and her kind should have little to fear here in Boston. While he's a surface dweller, Psyber had demonstrated his trustworthiness, to not bring someone that would spring a sudden trap on them, presumably. "The ships," she echoes.. She once again gives a glance to Ri, and then manages a more purposeful look to Psyber, "..yes, we'll visit - them. Sometime.. May-be, they will..answer us." 

:'''{{#var:582|Wo (582)}} has posed:'''     Though being another world's ships, maybe they'll just tell them to fahk off like some of the other locals. 

:'''{{#var:494|Samar (494)}} has posed:'''     Darwin looks down - pretty far down - when Kuma speaks, keeping the cruiser in her crimson gaze for a few moments before she responds. "...Savo is energetic. But she serves our Admiral well in planning, and knows when to be more...forceful." Ri is given a cautious glance; the Abyssal isn't looking aggressive just yet, but Darwin is always the careful one.     Psyber, meanwhile, gets a slightly wary nod. Seems she's taking /that/ danger a little seriously. "...I hope not," she sighs, shoulders slumping slightly as she lifts her hands to her chest. "I'm not sure if our home could handle her training like that. I'll be sure to warn Samar in case we need to fortify everything. It's...good to hear she didn't cause too much trouble, though. At least she can compete now without violence."     Reiji's presence draws Darwin's wary stare next. She hasn't seen /this/ one before, and she's not quite sure what to make of him. At least he's not making a problem just yet, so the Seaport Princess offers a short nod before she introduces herself. "...Darwin. Seaport Princess of the Abyssal Fleet, Vice-Admiral under Samar. Thank you for welcoming us here."     Darwin shuffles back a little, shifting away from the front of the Abyssal congregation. She's still not terribly comfortable with this kind of situation, especially not when their numbers are so uneven. At least Psyber's and Wo's conversation serves as a brief distraction. "...maybe, yes. They might be interesting to see sometime. Somewhere nice to take everyone for a little while..." A pause, then a slight frown. "...or maybe not /everyone/..." 

:'''{{#var:685|Kuma (685)}} has posed:'''     Shigure faulters back, and scoots back from the Abyssals, especially the huge frame of Darwin. Wo's approach gets her to squeak softly and she darts back to hide behind Kuma.     Kuma herself remains where she is, looking up at the taller Wo-class. She just nods, then turns her attention to the Ri-class, that same Ri-class that tried to sink her. Eyes narrow slightly, but she surppresses the fire building and moves over to offer a handshake as well. "We've had our differences... but I hope we can come to understand each other, kuma." 

:'''{{#var:710|Ri (710)}} has posed:'''     No unfortunate hand-teeth accidents occur. The handshake is completely successfully. Though Ri seems confused by her hand actually being shaken. Is that how it works? She thought they were supposed to hit their hands together or something. That's what she gets for observing land-dwellers instead of asking Wo or Darwin or Samar, the ultimate experts on the humans. She keeps her 'hand' extended even after it has been abandoned, until Kuma has come forward and shaken it as well. Ri just responds with a simple, if somewhat quiet, "...Yes... Understand..."     Then Psyber starts describing the ships in the area like a tour guide.     ?     !?     !!!     Is she supposed to be writing these things down!? She doesn't have anything to write on or with, and she can't write using shark hands! "Aah...!" Ri lets out in surprise when Reiji chimes in too. Clam chowder now!? Is this going to be on a test!?     Who knew that socializing with the enemy was so much more complicated than just shooting at them! Truly, the intricacies of diplomacy are a challenge not to be underestimated!     She doesn't recognize Shigure or Reiji, giving them a brief inspection, before turning her gaze fully on Kuma. Why does she keep looking at that one specific Fleet Daughter? It's like she's expecting something to happen. Or expecting Kuma to do something. But what? 

:'''{{#var:705|Reiji Arisu (705)}} has posed:'''     The suspicion is... perhaps not as palpable as he expected. Reiji inclines his head slightly at the Abyssals' greeting. At least everyone seems to be starting out on even footing today. Speaking of which. "Sorry," he coughs into a fist. "I forgot to introduce myself. I am Reiji Arisu," Reiji explains, "One of Psyber's associates." He doesn't introduce himself as an exorcist, monster hunter or otherwise. The reason should be pretty obvious.     "I've been hearing quite a bit about you ladies from the radio," among other places. But the radio especially, as of late. "It's good to see that there can be an exception from the usual animosity," however brief any exception might be. He glances to Psyber, then. "So. Where were you planning on taking them first, anyway?" 

:'''{{#var:685|Kuma (685)}} has posed:'''     And there it is! A big, beaming smile, and a happy exclamation of her name. "Ku~Ma~!" her eyes forming a little n.n face at the Abyssal Heavy Cruiser. "You're not so bad when you're not shooting at me!, kuma!" she says jovially. She's really hard to get mad, really, and is unlikely to hold a grudge... look at how she saved Wo from sinking that one time against the downed spaceship.     Shigure eeps a little when Kuma leaves her to socialize with Ri, rubbing her upper arms with her hands and looking around nervously... she might come off a little like Darwin, insecure in a new situation and kinda shy. 

:'''{{#var:494|Samar (494)}} has posed:'''     Darwin's attention shifts to Shigure when the other ship seems so...skittish. Her red-eyed stare remains fixed on the girl for a few lingering moments, moments which would be extremely unsettling if her gaze weren't so strangely gentle, and finally she steps forward to loom a few feet away from Shigure. She crouches down on the balls of her feet and brings her claws down to rest on her knees with a creaking rattle of metal joints, but even then she's a little above eye level with the other ship.     Darwin's probably not smiling behind that metal collar, but she tries to make her voice as gentle as she can as she watches Shigure. "...you don't need to be afraid, you know. We're...not here to attack you right now. It's just...some talking, and being friends for a little while. Like Kuma there," she adds, gesturing with her horn toward the cruiser. 

:'''{{#var:253|Psyber (253)}} has posed:'''     "Ah. I dunno, I was thinking of doing a walk along the docks and boardwalks," Psyber admits to Reiji, adding, "Maybe get some funnel cake or hot dogs or something, let them see the coastline of the city when it's not Ice Dragon'd to hell and back."     To Darwin, Psyber shrugs a bit, "She and Kongou seem to have a bit of a rivalry going. This may extend into all things they do." He admits, hand falling into his pocket while the other smokes. He looks up at the talk Abyssal Princess, "I'm really sorry if it causes her to be troublesome in your area. Either of them. But maybe non-violent competition can be a good outlet for those two. They have so much energy."     He yawns slightly and winces his eyes shut, "Anyway, we can hang out here, or take a walk. Whatever works best for people." He adds, mostly content to stay passive and let the ships interact with eachother. His natural inclination is to hang out near Darwin, mostly to chit-chat with her about Savo and Kongou.     He does notice that Ri is silent, though. He tilts his head at her, "You okay, Ri? Anything you want to do in particular?" 

:'''{{#var:582|Wo (582)}} has posed:'''     It likely doesn't help that also staring down Shigure, from its sideways point of view, is Wo's hat, and its eyeless sockets. The carrier herself turns to give the destroyer a slightly quizzical look, if well buried beneath her typically blank expression. She might have tried to reach out to her, herself, but it seems that Darwin has the situation handled. Instead, she'll only add, "..yes. We will..all pro-tect, Boston." It's one of the few surface places, non-Confederate-aligned, that their kind can really go to look for the pieces of the puzzle they all seem to be missing. Certainly, their all-knowing leader Samar also knows this, and in her benevolence and wisdom, has agreed to allow them to come here to seek them on their own terms, free of expectations. Or so Wo thinks. Watching the interactions between Kuma and Ri, and Darwin and Shigure, somehow makes something inside herself feel..strange. Is this what the surface people could call happiness?     Before the briefest trace of an actual smile could cross her face, she refocuses on her place here, which is somewhat to help manage their itinerary. Psyber, in particular, helps with this, by giving a reasonable suggestion of what this unlikely gang can even do. "Yes..a walk.. By the sea. Might be, nice. ..every-one, can get..used, to each other's. Com-pany." Which is especially important for Ri, which with those purposeful looks to Kuma, finds it hard to read even with it being done by an Abyssal sister. Hopefully she isn't sizing her up for a snack, after all. To Reiji, she manages a hint of a frown, "Don't..get it wrong. We are - not friends. But.. Some-times, fighting achieves..nothing." She doesn't go into what her kind are really looking for in this arrangement, like she did relatively comfortably with Psyber. She'll have to come to trust this new associate of his, first. 

:'''{{#var:494|Samar (494)}} has posed:'''     Darwin looks to Reiji with another wary stare, but offers a slight nod as if to reinforce Wo's statement. "It's...a change, but not permanent. I don't think it will be. But...now and then, as the Admiral knows, you need to approach things...differently." A pause, then, "...Psyber has interesting associates."     Psyber's got her attention again as Kongou and Savo are brought up. She simply shakes her head in response to those apologies, though. "No...it's not your fault. If it weren't Kongou, Savo would be teasing Leyte, or prodding Wake. Rossel is the only one who really keeps up with her. Samar just...pushes her off to everyone else when she gets out of hand, mostly." Another soft sigh, then, as her hands fold over her chest. "It won't be a problem, though...I think. She can be tied down if it gets out of hand. And Ko-Cl...ah, Kongou...well, no one knows where we live yet, so she shouldn't be making trouble soon. I'm not sure...how you handle her, though. Especailly with everyone else..." 

:'''{{#var:710|Ri (710)}} has posed:'''     Ri is unable to respond to Shigure's shyness, for the simple fact that, upon seeing Kuma smile at her, the heavy cruiser feels stabbing pain in her head, and a sense of dizziness. She actually staggers as something overlays her perceptions. Not a city, not docks, but a blue ocean, with clear skies, and a different coast. And always the heat from behind, the smell of smoke, the sound of screams. And the source if she just turns around and -looks-.     Psyber's voice snaps her out of it, though, and she blinks in confusion for several seconds. She glances from him, to Kuma, to Reiji, to Shigure, and then back to Psyber. Eventually, she asks, "...Do...?" She doesn't understand. Why did she come here again? To see someone. To find answers. To understand. But she is terribly lost, and an uneasy feeling is filling her. She looks to Wo for guidance, then to Darwin, somewhat more panickedly.     What is this feeling inside!?     "Do..." She mutters holding her shark gauntlets to the sides of her head, either in an attempt to help her think or to shield herself from all the input going on around her. She barely processed the visit to the beach with Lute, and Samar, and Wo. That was supposedly 'fun'. Lute was an ally, even if not an Abyssal. She could treat him neutrally or cooperate with him. Samar made sure to train her to recognize the Confederacy as allies.     But these people? This Chi-class who is now calling herself Kuma? Admiral Psyber? They're enemies. Even the sisters who need to be rescued. Once they're safe again, they can once more experience familial love. But right now, they are targets to be destroyed. And here she is, standing here, talking. Being smiled at. Not fighting at all. She doesn't understand it. It feels wrong, but also feels like something else.     Ri is so overwhelmed that she suddenly just...     Barfs sea water, oil, and rusted scrap metal out on the docks at her feet.     Seems she couldn't quite handle this level of pressure for a first meeting. 

:'''{{#var:685|Kuma (685)}} has posed:'''     Shigure eeps again as Darwin walks over and crouches down, the little Destroyer taking a nervous step back from the looming figure. Blue eyes look back into those glowing red, and she swallows thickly. "I-I... um. I know... I'm just... not good with people..." she says looking away again.     Kuma, meanwhile, blinks at the reaction from the Ri-class, tilting her head curiously. "Hey, are you oka---" then suddenly resource dump right at her feet. The light cruiser hops back, casting a worried gaze at Ri. "I-I didn't do it, kuma!" 

:'''{{#var:705|Reiji Arisu (705)}} has posed:''' "Of course," Reiji says with a slight shrug. It can't ever be that easy, can it? "I'm not naive enough to think you all could drop this feud just like that. These kinds of things tend to be more complex," no matter how convenient it might be. "Still, a temporary lull is better than none." A cryptic smile curls at the corners of his lips, then. "Interesting, huh? Yeah," Reiji nods, "Maybe so."     He nods at Psyber, then. "Something easy to start with, eh? I can see the wisdom in that." These kinds of things demand a subtle touch- and a lot of patience. "Sounds like a good enough plan as a--" Ri. Ri, vomiting all over the docks. It smells vaguely like a bay-dredger, Reiji muses.     "Shit," he murmurs, shrugging his jacket from his shoulders, folding it over one arm. He begins to approach the beleaguered ship-girl- vomiting is never good. A vomiting spirit is even worse. "Come on," he says, reaching out a hand to nudge her toward a bench, "Let's get you sat down, huh?" 'Reaching out a hand' may be a bad plan. She does kind of have shark-gauntlets. 

:'''{{#var:253|Psyber (253)}} has posed:'''     "Yeah, the first day Wo visited, we just took her to a diner and hung out. I figure it's best to do natural, slice-of-life-y stuff instead of grandiose events. Fits the purpose of the neutral ground better," He explains with a bit of a shrug.     "I'm sure come summer, there'll be festivals and clam bakes for the girls to all visi-"     He cuts off. He doesn't even have the awareness to respond to poor Darwin as Ri horks up oil and wreckage. He follows after Reiji and says, "Yeah, woah. Sit down and just take a deep breath." Was she nervous? Was this a long-standing plan by Samar to destroy Psyber via tickets for littering and improper waste disposal? It's not clear.     "Uuuuuh," Oh right, Darwin. Psyber turns and then immediately looks upwards to make eye contact instead of staring in an untoward eye plane, "Kongou mostly does her own thing. I don't discipline her, that seems a more Nagato thing to do. I just let Kongou do her own thing and she mostly behaves." 

:'''{{#var:582|Wo (582)}} has posed:'''     Even without looking in her direction, Wo can feel something wrong with the Ri-class. The unease, or maybe more appropriately, sensory overload of the situation. Of being among this group, ostensibly the enemy, and being expected to not do what has come naturally for most of her existence. A visible wince goes through Wo, as well, as it's almost as though she can feel it building up, before its..very unceremonious release. Stepping over unhurriedly to Ri, she gives her a somewhat analytical look, as though judging her willingness, or even ability, to continue. Even if well-intentioned, she won't put one of her sisters at risk, if she thinks she isn't able, though Reiji's careful management is silently chalked in the positive column of her mental chalkboard. "Ri-class," she calls, though her words are deeper than what's merely voiced, "Do you, need..to re-treat?" It's said in an understanding way, despite the monotone. She won't think any less of her - she doubts she could have done this when she was freshly 'sane', either.     Regardless of the heavy cruiser's answer, she flatly expresses gratitude to Reiji for his understanding. "Yes.. Our kinds, it is--difficult, to even..co-exist, to this level. As you, can see." Her eyes pivot to the raw materials, to be kind with the terminology, that Ri had expelled in her troubled state, as if to wordlessly prove her point. A gloved hand moves to pat Ri lightly on the shoulder, while she gives a dismissive headshake at Kuma's light panic. "Not - your fault. Ri-class.. She is, tough, in battle. But.. Surface world, still new."     To give Ri even less to worry about, and since it's his city in her mind, Wo turns to Psyber next, "Can..pay for, the mess. If it helps. Or, send sisters..to clean." Whether or not having an abyssal cleaning crew, whatever that entails - maybe some kind of demonic-looking scrubbing bubbles(tm)? - is worse than having this gunk on the docks, is left to his decision. She also thinks back, when he describes their first experience to Reiji, "..it is - more suit-able. Hard to get, to know some-one..when too formal." 

:'''{{#var:582|Wo (582)}} has posed:'''     Apparently with Wo unaware of it, the hat tucked under her arm somehow wiggles to turn towards the mess she'd just been talking about. The oil slick, scrap metal elephant in the room. Perhaps to the horror of everyone else that isn't of their kind, it snakes out a misleadingly long tentacle, and grasps a large dose of the metal scraps in its sinewy grip, before withdrawing it and placing it into its cavernous mouth. 

:'''{{#var:494|Samar (494)}} has posed:'''     Darwin's head tilts a little to one side at Shigure's response. It's hard to tell exactly what she feels about it until she offers another soft nod of understanding, and a low, private murmur. "...that's okay. Neither am I."     Before she can say anything else, though, Ri experiences a loss of cargo. Darwin's attention immediately shifts to the heavy cruiser, and she rises to her full height again to walk over and bring a massive hand gently to Ri's back. Strange how careful she can be with those things when they look like they could tear through a tank as if it were made of tissue paper. "...it's okay, Ri. You're just...nervous, right? You can sit down for a little while, or..." Darwin pauses, then points up to her shoulders with her free hand. "...I can help, if you need it."     She doesn't even take a second look at Wo's hat devouring the discarded materials; it's only natural to make use of wasted materials, after all. The Seaport Princess does shift her attention back to Psyber, though, giving a light nod again. "I see. Yes, Nagato...seems to have everyone in hand, fortunately. At least she knows how to organize people, even if..." Darwin trails off a little there, vaguely shrugging her shoulder as if that finishes her sentence enough. Another sigh falls from her, too. "...I'm...sorry about Ri, also. She hasn't experienced these things much yet. It might take a little time...or she just might not be the kind of person for it." Darwin could name a couple of people like that off the top of her head. 

:'''{{#var:710|Ri (710)}} has posed:'''     If not for Wo and Darwin being there, being approached while she's in such a disoriented state by Reiji and Psyber could have ended poorly - feeling like they're closing in on her. But she can feel Wo through the semi-telepathic link, and the combination of being patted on the shoulder and patted on the back has her retaining some level of self control. She also pays no mind to Wo's hat eating Ri's leftovers. Resources are important not to squander.     "...N-nervous...?" Ri asks in confusion as she wipes her mouth with the back of one shark glove while eyeing the two strangers trying to get her to sit down. Maybe it would be better if she retreated. But she came here for a reason. And if she leaves now, she feels like it will be even harder the next time. And she might not have the support she needs.     Right now... These aren't people to fight with. They don't need to be allies, but they could be considered... ...Neutral suppliers. Yes, they're neutral. That works. They are providing a service, providing supplies in the form of clam chowder and tours, whatever those are. Further, they are providing vital intelligence, in the form of... Answers. Answers that can help her understand, and maybe cope with this kind of situation in the future.     Yes, she can't retreat now!     ...But she will accept a piggy-back ride until she feels less disoriented and nervous. She holds her arms up to the considerably taller Abyssal, like a little girl expecting to be picked up by a parent. A brutal combatant. A loving member of the Abyssal family. And still practically a newborn when it comes to the world and everything in it - learning or relearning all that she has yet to encounter.     "Apologies... For... Mess." Ri offers, and then looks towards Kuma once more, before this time being the one to turn her gaze away and focus elsewhere. Ri can't find answers when she can't even look at her. Maybe she'll take a moment to let her head clear and try communicating again. 

:'''{{#var:705|Reiji Arisu (705)}} has posed:'''     "Spirits born in war-" Reiji replies to Wo, gently helping the Ri-class to the bench. He comes away with hands in-tact! "-Can often find it difficult to adapt to peace." he shakes his head, breathing a long sigh. This is a little less adapted than he had hoped, but at least it's not the worst possible scenario, he supposes. They can at least consider the possibility of such things- even if it may result in some rather spectacularly poor reactions. "But you're trying. That's still better than most of cases."     He decides not to bring up the many murderous swords, knives and other weapons that have cropped up over the course of Japanese history. Probably a touchy subject, and rude to make the comparison, besides.     Then, there's the sound of crunching metal. Reiji peers over his shoulder at the hat-thing devouring the oil and the rusted scrap. He sort of narrows his eyes a little bit. That hat just ain't right.     At least Darwin is proving to be rather surprisingly motherly- to more than just the Abyssals, in fact. He wonders, idly, what she would be like if she were a Daughter rather than an Abyssal, but quietly dismisses the thought. It's unimportant for now. "She worries a lot," he says with regards to Nagato, "But she means well."     Only after Ri is safely docked with seaport does Reiji extract himself from the bench. He slids his arms back through the sleeves of his jacket, and straightens it around his shoulders. "Well, for now," he says, eyes flickering toward Psyber before turning back towards the Abyssals, "I think if you're all feeling up to it, a walk down the harbor would do her good." "Don't worry about it," he notes to Ri, as Wo's Hat recycles yet another chunk of metal. "Looks like the mess is half-gone already, anyway." 

}}

1808/Like Clockwork

2015-03-15T07:05:29Z

Paladine: Created page with "{{Log Header |Date of Scene=2015/03/14 |Location=Midnight Shrine Tokyo <MST> |Synopsis=A clockmaker is identified as the host to a monster known as a Life Gear. Both the Confe..."

{{Log Header
|Date of Scene=2015/03/14
|Location=Midnight Shrine Tokyo <MST>
|Synopsis=A clockmaker is identified as the host to a monster known as a Life Gear. Both the Confederacy and Union take action to stop him!
|Thanks=
|Cast of Characters=11, 127, 172, 589
|Tinyplot=
|Tinyplot2=
|pretty=yes
}}
{{Poses
|Poses=:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     The last of these monster hunts that Miko went on as a magical girl also was a joint Union/Confederate operation. But maybe it was less 'Union/Confederate' and more 'Miko + A Friend + Confederate'. While she definitely has Confederate interests in mind here, she's not thinking of it in those terms. It's easier to not bring the war into the subject and just work with Sakura for a common goal.     Though they should probably hang out in a way that DOESN'T involve hunting down monsters at some point.     For this operation, they've identified not only a type of magic that shouldn't be around at a certain watchmaker's shop, but White Rose has also possibly identified who is behind it. That means they're going into this forewarned as to what they're dealing with - a stark difference from the previous mission.     Miko is dressed in her standard outfit: white, long-sleeved shirt; brown sleeveless vest over-top; knee-length brown pleated skirt; socks; shoes. No reason for anything fancy this time around. White Rose won't be going into the unassuming shop with them, but while the group is gathered at a nearby cafe, she's giving them a run-down on the situation. While munching on a chunk of a chocolate chip cookie.     "So, people have been confused lately about how much time has passed, thinking it's earlier than it is, or a day before the present, and stuff like that. We tracked these victims to this old watchmaker's shop that has suddenly seen an influx of business. A quick inspection got me close enough to determine there's Time Magic on the owner's time pieces. This type of operation is pretty standard for a group of Nether Realm enemies known as the 'Epoch Saints'. We've faced them before, but we don't really know much more than that, or what their agenda really is." the fairy explains. She is small, with curly white hair, red eyes, and standard fairy wings. She pauses to fly up and glug glug glug some milk. Smacking her lips and letting out a satisfied, 'Aaaah~!' she flies back down to wipe her mouth on a napkin, and then suddenly returns to serious explanation mode.     "They implant something called a 'Life Gear' inside of someone, and then that person starts stealing 'time' from those around them, usually by some kind of physical object, though occasionally an action like shaking hands or smooching, or even just gathering people in one place via some kind of event and stealing their time all at once. Seconds, minutes, hours, or even entire days can be stolen. When enough 'time' has been taken, the Life Gear awakens and transforms the host into a monster. It may also transform earlier if confronted by magical girls, and is weaker due to not having time to develop fully. Defeating the monsters frees the host and returns the stolen time to the victims." White Rose flutters up into the air, and Miko shifts in her seat to try to block any other customers from seeing the careless dream pixie. "Ideally, we want to force it to transform early. It will be easier to beat. But we don't know how much 'time' it has stolen or how much it needs to transform, so don't assume anything about its strength! Overwhelming violence is the order of the day!"     White Rose nods her head several times, hands on her hips, and asks, "Any questions?" 

:'''{{#var:172|Sakura Kinomoto (172)}} has posed:'''     Sakura is here! Alone with... a boy. A high schooler, maybe - or possibly university student? It can be hard to tell. He's very pretty, anyway, which makes him look a little younger than he actually is. He introduced himself as Yukito Tsukishiro, a friend of Sakura's brother. He seems to be 'in' on this whole business, at least. Maybe he's keeping an eye on Sakura for her brother? He's dressed in casual clothes - t-shirt, jeans and sneakers. He's kinda thin, which is odd, because he's eating even more than White Rose.     Also with Sakura is Kero, of course, who is -also- eating rather gluttonously. Sheesh.     Sakura herself is dressed in pale pink and blue - a pink tank top and blue jeans, along with pink sneakers, and a blue, long-sleeved jacket. "Time magic... mmh. ... I hope we find Time soon, Kero," she murmurs. 

:'''{{#var:127|Kirikou (127)}} has posed:'''     While Kirikou can be down with hanging out with someone, even a Union someone, for reasons not related to monster hunting... well, hanging out and hunting monsters together is a pretty awesome thing too. It honestly didn't take much persuasion to get Kilik to sign up for this. Killing monsters is pretty much his all-time favourite type of mission... particularly considering how unlikely it is for him to be assigned a mission to join a band or eat a lot of food. He's no stranger to having to destroy humans who have turned into monsters either... though in most cases, those he hunts are those who chose to become monsters.     The Twins are here, of course. Sucking noisily on straws embedded deep into milkshakes. Kirikou's enjoying a pastry. He puts it down though, raising a somewhat sticky-fingered hand. "Overwhelming violence is my specialty." he grins. "But... this guy. These guys. They didn't choose to become monsters right? Any chance we'll get to meet the Epoch Saints on this? Or be able to stop the monster before it gets going?" he asks. Not because he has much hope, but ... well, because it has to be asked. Besides, they have a Union rep joining them. Petals isn't as insufferable as most of them, but ... well, she's probably not very murderous. 

:'''{{#var:11|Metal Man (11)}} has posed:''' Metal man was good to help with monster hunts, after all monsters preyed upon the tax base of the Confeds, also he saw no need to incite an uprising y neglecting their jobs. After all these were not the humans of his world and thus he didn't consider them the same until they proved otherwise. "Temporal humm?" Metal Man thankfully isn't alone as Flash Man is her,e though that slasher grin he tends to have, may be possibly creepy to some? He's got a very good understanding of Time and could be a boone here. "So something that is altering time more or less? Maybe they are stealing time from people?" Metla Man pauses "You mean say to take a day of someone's life and adde it to their own?" 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     Miko says, "We're not sure of the details of how they come to be possessed, I don't think. But there has definitely been a pattern. People who don't have long to live, really old people, people who are scared of death... Basically, people who might benefit from adding on more 'time' to the end of their lives. That's as close as we can figure it, anyway. There's a magical girl group known as the Witching Hour who are the normal bunch to face the Epoch Saints, so they might know more." And hopefully helping them against the Epoch Saints will give the Witching Hour a favorable opinion of Princess Paladin, and perhaps the Confederacy by extension. "The only reason we even know the name 'Epoch Saints' is because one of the monsters blabbed a bit too much when I was killing it."     White Rose nods to Metal Man. "Pretty much. Stealing 'time' to augment their own. Where the Life Gears are coming from, and why someone is distributing them is a big fat question mark." She scratches her cheek as she looks at Yukito curiously. Presumably introductions have already been made. "If we're hoping to save the host, the best thing we can do is confront him and force him to transform. I don't know if he'd retain a monster's resilience if attacked in human form or not, but it's already been stealing 'time' for a bit now, so delaying isn't in anyone's best interests. Some kind of covert mission to sabotage plans or whatever is just unnecessary. We know where the host is, we know WHO it is, the only complication is getting him alone and not getting any bystanders involved. When they're cornered, they'll transform for sure!" The fairy clenches her fists.     Miko nods and says, "Defeating the monster will free the host. Any damage taken as a monster is reversed when they go back to normal. I don't know if we have any likelihood of actually running into the Epoch Saints. We don't even know who they are or what they look like. But they're the ones calling the shots, presumably, and enough interference in their plans might draw them out. Most of these types tend to be powerful, though, so it might not be a good idea to fight them if we do run into them." 

:'''{{#var:172|Sakura Kinomoto (172)}} has posed:'''     "We need to get the target alone? Mmmh..." Sakura considers for a moment. "...Well. If they're not immune to magic or something... then that migth not be hard." She flicks her wrist - and produces one of those wonderful Cards of hers. This one depicts... a maze. And is named The Maze. Well then.     Yukito peers down at White Rose when she looks at him... then gives a little finger wave and a smile. 

:'''{{#var:127|Kirikou (127)}} has posed:'''     Kilik grins down at Petals. "I'll leave the magic to you. I can't think of any good way to get some old guy alone, and I don't really want to!" he claims.     Slightly more seriously, Kirikou turns to Fire and Thunder. "No holding back then." he says, though the words are as much to everyone as to them. "Just a regular monster hunt then. Destroy it, and the human host is saved." he says, shrugging. No different than hunting Kishin eggs then. Except there's not going to be a soul for Fire or Thunder afterwards. Oh, and it's not actual killing too. That's fine. He no more gets off on killing than Fire and Thunder would enjoy eating an innocent soul.     He glances down at the card Petals is carrying. "That's amazing!" he puns cheerfully. "I bet he won't know what hit him!" he adds. Figuring, inwardly, it's likely to be Fire. Or Thunder. And probably various weapons from his companions. 

:'''{{#var:11|Metal Man (11)}} has posed:''' Metal Man humms and seems about pleased as Flash Man is, so they take a little time but on a large scale? If you took a min of life say from everyone in New york you'd add 15 years of life to your own. A clever trick relaly and this makes him him wonder about if Flash Man and He are really well suited for hunting this thing. Given they are not alive in the biological sense. He moves in and get the idea they are to save the host and looks to Flash who grimaces but nods in agreement. 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     It seems like they have a plan! Sakura's Maze should help them isolate the enemy, and then it's just down to pummeling him until he turns good again. Easy peasy! Soon enough, the group is on their way to the watchmaker's shop. It's not necessarily small, but it's crowded with all manner of clocks. Grandfather clocks, cat and owl and other-animal locks, clocks with music boxes, alarm clocks, and countless others. Some that look like people, some that look like fictional characters, some that look like household objects such as telephones, on and on and on. Big, small, medium, and - of course - there are wristwatches in abundance beneath several glass display cases.     It makes the place feel much smaller than it actually is to be hemmed in on all sides like this. There's also the sound of all the clocks tic-tocking all at once, each with their own tone and pace, but all keeping track of the same time in the same rhythmn. Miko glances around, trying to spot the owner, but the shop that has been so busy of late seems to be empty of customers for the moment.     She glances at the others to see how they're faring and if they've noticed anything. Despite all the noise of clocks, it also seem kind of quiet somehow. Empty, with just machinery working and no people around. It's peaceful in its own way. Miko actually... Regrets she has to have the owner of the store as her enemy. She thinks she'd like to just sit here sometime and listen to the clocks. Explore and examine the wide-variety. It's a really cool place. And something about it just resonates with her.     For a moment, she worries maybe there's some kind of magical influence, but probably Sakura would alert them if there was anything like that. 

:'''{{#var:172|Sakura Kinomoto (172)}} has posed:'''     And so off they go! With Sakura walking along without a care in the world, apparently - hands behind her head, kinda humming idly to herself. She at least is not at all concerned. Yukito seems to be fairly cheerful himself, too, although come to think of it he's been pretty cheery this entire time. Must be from hanging out with the mega-cheerful Sakura so often.     Kero, meanwhile, ducks into Sakura's pocket.     As they enter the clock shop, Sakura can't help but gaze around in awe. "Woooow... there's so many... um... clocks." Pause. "Huuuh. I guess that's... to be expected in a clock store..." 

:'''{{#var:127|Kirikou (127)}} has posed:'''     Kirikou peers around, fascinated almost in spite of himself. He can't wear a watch of course. It'd be ludicrously silly to wear one when it'd interfere with his chosen weapons. Still he's enough into bling to appreciate the style of a nice watch. Or, as it were, a tastelessly-ostentatious one. The twins can have watches though. Of course they're not restricted as their clothes and ornamentations don't matter when they're transformed. Their chosen style is more Mickey Mouse than Rolex however, and they seem just fascinated by the ticking mayhem of the entire collection of everything.     "This kind of job will drive you crazy, you know." he confides to Miko. "All the ticking. You'll soon tock to yourself." he adds. Other than that though, he just waits. He doesn't have the first clue about this sort of magic, and will wait for others to provide the clues for now. 

:'''{{#var:11|Metal Man (11)}} has posed:''' Metal Man is more than willing to cover things as he goes in, Flash Man meanwhils primes his plasma shotgun making ready for whatever might be going on here. The two Wily robots get they might be for in a bit of a time delaing with magic after all. However Metal's been around so long he's just used to it really there's no other way to say more than that. "Keep alert." 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     While Miko and Sakura and Yukito and Kirikou and the twins could all pass for customers readily enough, even if it's unusual for such a mix to come in at the same time, the two suspiciously-garbed people coming in with them is a bit much to miss. An elderly Japanese man in very old-fashioned clothes emerges from the back room behind the counter to greet them. Miko doesn't get to respond to Kirikou's bewildering pun, because she is focused on this stranger.     "Welcome, everyone." the elderly man offers, his eyes squinted, and a smile on his face. He seems kindly, like someone's grandfather, but he is also definitely the host to a Life Gear, according to Miko and White Rose. "Let me know if there's anything I can help you with, or anything in particular you're looking for."     Miko bows respectfully. This may be wasting precious seconds, but rather than rushing into things, it's better if she gives those with her the chance to prepare and act while she distracts the host. "Thank you. I heard you've gained a lot of popularity recently with your newest time pieces. I was wondering if you could show me one of them?" she asks with a polite smile.     The man laughs lightly and says, "Hoooh? I'm popular now? I guess I HAVE had more customers lately..." Then he gestures at the display case in front of himself. "You are free to look at any of these. Perhaps you will find one that suits you." One squinted eye cracks open a bit to peer at the rest of the 'customers'. "And perhaps your companions too." 

:'''{{#var:172|Sakura Kinomoto (172)}} has posed:'''     Yukito steps in front of Sakura, ostensibly to take a look at one of the animal clocks. He glances down at one of the twins - Fire or Thunder? He has no idea, they're practically identical - and smiles a bit. "What do you think of this one?" he asks.     Meanwhile, Sakura is using the distraction to mutter out an incantation. "O Key that hides the power of the Stars..." it begins! 

:'''{{#var:11|Metal Man (11)}} has posed:''' Metal And Flash Man need to get some better way to hide htier nature but the two hooded and cloaked wily robots? Are just casually checking out the store. Wily did need a new clock and they are actually considerng legitly buying one if nothing actually goes down while they look. However both are watching thier own HUDs as well for any energy signatures... 

:'''{{#var:127|Kirikou (127)}} has posed:'''     Kirikou gives a winning grin to the old man. "She dragged us in for watches." he claims, not bothering to have to act interested in the merchandise. He IS interested, even if he's got no intentions of being a customer. "Newest pieces huh? You got anything really spectacular?" he asks.     Thunder looks up at Yukito, but doesn't reply. She's just wearing a small smile, the same as she habitually wears. Either she doesn't understand him, or she doesn't understand... or she just doesn't talk. She just stares at him with that little smile, being admittedly just a wee bit creepy in that way small children have. And no, Kirikou doesn't explain. That would detract from their mission... or he's just amused at Yukito probably getting flustered. One or the other, or possibly both. 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     It seems the old man isn't actually able to sense magic, so he's unaware of what Sakura is doing. Maybe he really is just normal. Maybe Miko was wrong. As she advances towards him, making sure to keep her eyes on him and not on the merchandise, she hopes everyone else is ready to act as soon as Sakura does. She doesn't want to risk having to pick up one of the watches because she was prompted to or something and get afflicted with its curse.     "Certainly. Come, come. They're over here, young man." the shop owner replies to Kirikou. "You can both even try some on, if you like," the elderly man says, almost as if reading Miko's mind.     She smiles a bit wider and says, "Oh, how generous. I'll see if there's any I would like to try on first." She looks in Kirikou's direction, trying to warn him silently. 'Don't touch anything.'     She's coming closer and closer to someone who may be the host to a Life Gear. A monster who could easily tear her apart in her squishy civilian identity. Her heartbeat is a bit faster than usual as her nervousness increases, but she tries not to let it show as she bends forward to look at what lies under the display cases.     They'll have to act fast when the moment arrives. 

:'''{{#var:172|Sakura Kinomoto (172)}} has posed:'''     Yukito blinks at Lightning in mild confusion for a few moments at her reaction... but then just smiles. It's a pretty gregarious smile! Sheesh. Is everyone from Sakura's world like this?     "Release..!" the incantation finishes. It's... hard to miss that -something- is going on, now, as a bit of wind picks up, blowing dust around Sakura. Not to mention the glow from ehr magic circle!     Sakura then steps out into view, a card already being produced from her pocket. "Maze..!" she calls out, card flung into the air, wand broguht up. Her magic circle appears at her feet again...     There's a disorienting -twisting- of space around them, and then...     Green. They're surrounded by -green-. After a few moments it becomes clear that they're in a green corridor, a few yards wide, with a green sky above them and a green floor below them. But. Seriously. -Greeeeeen-. 

:'''{{#var:127|Kirikou (127)}} has posed:'''     Kirikou has no issues with taking point here. Unlike Miko, he can transform into battlemode in an instant. And even without his weapons on his fists, he's still got speed and toughness on his side. Nothing's going to catch him unawares while his guard's up... or so he hopes.     He catches Miko's look at mention of trying something on. By her concern, he supposes that might be a bad move. He might not get all her meaning, but some of it's clear enough. He'll keep the old man focussed on him, at least until things start to happen.     Thunder does respond to the big smile, her mouth opening into a wide grin. A REALLY wide grin, as if the child's mouth could open up like a snake's. No unnecessarily-pointed fangs though, just normal children teeth in that too-wide mouth.     When the Maze spell slams around them, once Kirikou's oriented himself within the green, he blinks. Then he raises his fists. "Fire. Thunder." he says, calmly, presenting himself before their 'victim'. The twins obediently take the cue, turning into streaks of reddish-orange and yellow-blue that flash to his upraised fists, forming around them and coalescing into massive gauntlets. Gauntlets that are somehow... grinning malevolently. And Kirikou himself is smirking to match them. He doesn't attack though. No point in attacking the human before the monster's revealed. 

:'''{{#var:11|Metal Man (11)}} has posed:''' Metal Man is just keeping to himself however the offer to try it on does get his attention he's a bit guarded now given they are likely in the den of the beast at the moment. He's got the feeling it's about time to act and they start moving towards Miko he know what he's got to do and Flash Man is already prepping his time stopper should it be needed, yet he's cautious when two different temporal powers meet it can get messy. Their scanner go off but it's too late and soon they are pulled into the mze with everyone else, as they arrive the cloaks come off and their nature is clear. 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     The store owner lets out a surprised noise when wind starts blowing around inside the store, and is even more surprised when he finds himself in some kind of green corridor or something. "I-I knew it! Magical girls! Intruders!" the man cries out, revealing he is indeed not what he seems. He doesn't know what Kirikou is exactly. Perhaps some sort of Magical Boy. The two armored figures are also unrecognized, but might be familiars or mentors or something. There's lots of weird magic out there.     "I've gathered almost all the 'time' I need to become immortal! You won't stop me at this stage!" Then his old-fashioned clothes seem to swell and smooth out, becoming thicker and gaining a metallic sheen. His flesh turned to bronze, and his eyes gain a glass coating, under which the eyeballs themselves seem to roll and move wildly. His nearly-bald head is smooth metal, his white moustache is copper wire, and a large cog wheel rotates out of a 'slot' that has formed in his back. That must be the Life Gear, almost wholly integrated into his body!     Miko is disoriented by the shift in space but her gohei has already appeared in her hand, and with a quick twirl, a wave of pink light passes over her, transforming her into a shining pink silhouette. Her body visible grows taller, but also slims down as well. Her hair style shifts, as well. When the light splinters away from her, it leaves behind a new outfit like a cross between a school uniform and knight's armor, and a woman in her 20s who looks nothing like Miko at all. In her hand, her prayer rod has become a long metal rod with a pink crystal sphere on the end.     She doesn't waste time with speeches like most magical girls would. She simply yells, "SHOOT HIM!" And then aims the Sacred Scepter at the Monster. "PENANCE BEAM!" A spiralling pink beam of energy shoots from the staff, trying to drill through the enemy! But his transformed body is sturdy, especially if he was close to transforming originally anyway, and it might take more than one attack to get through his defenses! 

:'''{{#var:172|Sakura Kinomoto (172)}} has posed:'''     "SHOT!" Sakura calls out, as she flicks yet another of her cards into the air and brings her wand up to meet it. A psycadelic cloud of light forms from the card, floating up into the air... and resolves itself into a girl. Why are most of the Card spirits female?     The girl has awesome punk rock hair, as a note. Bright pink, with a bright yellow streak down the middle. She raises both hands in a 'gun' gesture... and fires a beam of light at the monster!     Yukito, meanwhile, takes a few steps back. 

:'''{{#var:127|Kirikou (127)}} has posed:'''     "Magical GIRLS?" Kilik protests, more annoyed by the silent laughter of the twins in his head than by the words of the old man. "You may be almost immortal but you're senile, old man!" he insists. He hunches low, standing his ground, letting himself become the natural melee target and letting his weapons stand ready as a shield that covers most of his body without the need to move more than a few inches to block any incoming attack.     "What do you mean, shoot him?!" Kirikou demands. "I left my guns at home! They get a bit obvious." he adds, grumbling somewhat. Though mostly this is clowning around... guns are practically useless in a fight like this for him, especially compared to the twins. "Besides, never bring guns to a FIST FIGHT!" he cries out, launching himself into a metal barrage into the clock-like body of the target. Not overcommitting, not seeking to do serious damage, just ringing out blows to establish some threat and make sure he's not ignored. 

:'''{{#var:11|Metal Man (11)}} has posed:''' Metal Man folds his arms across his chest. "I'm not magical nor I am Female. Immortal? Sorry nothing lives for ever. Everyone goes for the long walk with the Grim Reaper someday." Metal thinks he got what that cop ment a long time ago fionally. He wasn't bad for a Union but for now he's got ot deal with this he looks at the trnasformed man He thinks for a moment and Flash Man brings his arm up as he goes "Tic tock, don't think your the only master of the clock." He seems to become fast inhumanly fast as he mvoes in trying to get in to get in close to the monster. 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     The pink beam strikes the transformed man in the chest, but he throws his arms out to the sides, causing small cog wheels and gears to propel themselves from his metallic sleeves and go flying crazily on erratic arcs towards Princess Paladin like clockwork shuriken or something. Paladin's body has been enhanced her transformation so she gracefully leaps back out of range, dodging and darting to avoid the attack.     Thankfully, Sakura's card, Shot, managed to keep the pink-haired magical girl from being pinned down, pelting the monster and driving him to shield his face with his arms.     When Kirikou lunges in and begins to pummel him, the Life Gear doesn't see it coming. He is knocked back several steps, over and over, as the fist-fighter leaves dents and caved-in areas of the metal shell with every strike. When his arms finally stop shielding his face, a pair of blades appear in the Life Gear's hands, one in the shape of an hour hand, one in the shape of a minute hand. Then he begins to counterattack, lashing out rapidly even if there's some strange energy leaking from his body in places where he has taken the worst damage.     Flash Man's accelerated approach should keep him from being struck when the Life Gear tries to take on both Kirikou and the Robot Master at the same time, allowing him to get in close enough to attack as well. Paladin is free to attack again, but with her allies in the same area as the enemy, she can't get a clear shot.     But she transformed in order to take out the enemy. That was the 'rule' established. And sparing her allies isn't part of that. So though she wants to resist, she raises the Sacred Scepter above her head and calls out, "DESTROY THE GEAR ON HIS BACK OR TURN IT TOWARDS ME SO I CAN DO IT!" Not a good idea to telegraph strategies, but whether it's her that destroys the enemy or someone else, it's all the same according to the Law Magic that rules her in this form. And it's better to yell out than to just unleash the Holy Nuke she is preparing to use without warning anyone to get out of the way.     "You won't stop the Epoch Saints! They rule all eras!" the monster yells defiantly. "This fool's 'time' will be brought to them no matter what!"     He is basically doomed at this point, so maybe he's just trying to convince himself or something. 

:'''{{#var:172|Sakura Kinomoto (172)}} has posed:'''     "The thing about the Shot," Sakura says, to no one in particular. "Is that the more it attacks, the more accurate its attacks get. Once it starts you really can't -stop- it..." Which is why she doesn't use it very often!     The Shot, meanwhile, keeps on firing at the Life Gear. Given a direction on -where- to attack, she follows it instantly, swooping around behind the monster to take aim at the gear! ... Wait, she takes orders from people who aren't Sakura? That's weird. 

:'''{{#var:127|Kirikou (127)}} has posed:'''     The reason Kirikou's one of the top fighters in Shibusen, the reason he beats people with larger weapons all the time, is precisely because his own weapons have such a short reach. There's only two people who can reliably beat him. Black*Star, who uses his bare hands, and Death the Kid who uses guns. Swords, polearms, flails... all reach-based weapons take time to swing. Typically much longer to swing than it takes him to move his fists to interpose.     Clock hands are no exception. Sure, the monster has reach on him. So what? Almost everything has reach on Kirikou in a fight. He has speed, he has armour, and he has soul. Metal rings on metal as he blocks blow after blow from the presumably deadly hands of time. He can't really counterattack, and the blows are pushing him around mercilessly, but they can't get through his guard either.     When Princess Paladin gives her order, Kirikou catches on immediately. Freed up somewhat by the arrival of Metal Man, given a bit of a respite to move as he will, he begins to circle the monster. The creature can turn to face him, exposing its back to others, or it can remain facing Paladin and others and allow anyone moving to get behind it. When your lone vulnerable spot is on your back, it REALLY sucks to be surrounded by dangerously mobile powerhouses. 

:'''{{#var:11|Metal Man (11)}} has posed:''' Things are not easy right now but the magical girlls seem to be doing prety well he knows he was hear as mis support and he knows it. Flash Man laughs. "Your think that?! Your out of time!" Metal Man sighs inwardly the time puns. He's used to hsi brother doing this he hears ths bit about the gear however. He shifts about leaps flipin and launches a single blade for the gear if he's lucky he will score a hit. "Let's keep this together!" 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     Shot bombards the Life Gear's vulnerable location, and Kirikou keeps its attention on him. When Metal Man comes flying in and hurls a Metal Blade into the gear, the monster can't figure out which foes to face or what to do. The gear cracks and shatters, and a ripple of grey energy radiates outwards as the monster screams out in a sound like crashing industrial-sized rolls of sheet metal. The time of others' lives is returned to them, and they'll never remember why they were confused by entire days going missing to begin with. New memories form to replace the old ones, and the whole matter is forgotten.     But for now, they are still in Sakura's maze with an elderly man who is lying unconscious on the floor - and no longer made out of metal and clockwork. Paladin lowers the Sacred Scepter and releases her breath slowly. She'll hold off on reverting to her true form until they're somewhere safer. "Good work, everyone. That was significantly easier than facing a Life Gear alone. Sakura, if you can return us to the store, it would be appreciated."     There's more she'd like to say. Things she's thinking. But none of it would contribute meaningfully. Still, she needs to report to White Rose later. So it's 'immortality' that people are being promised? Or was it just this one man who wanted that? Life extension seems to be the key theme with these hosts, but if they're gathering 'time' under the delusion it will help them, but the true purpose of the Life Gears is to harvest and bring that time to the Epoch Saints... Part of the mystery of the motivations of this villainous group may have just been revealed. Turning normal civilians, desperate to live, into a proxies for the theft of 'time' from other people's lives.     To what end exactly still remains a mystery... But it's progress. 

:'''{{#var:172|Sakura Kinomoto (172)}} has posed:'''     Sakura snaps her fingers. The Shot Card returns to being a... card, and Sakura kisses it gently before stowing it away. "Exit, please!" she says cheerfully. The wall to her left suddenly slides down to create a doorway, more walls sliding up into place and down out of the way to form a corridor leading to a white, shining beacon. Sakura happily begins to walk towards it!     Followed by Yukito, of course. 

:'''{{#var:127|Kirikou (127)}} has posed:'''     "We cleaned his clock." Kirikou states with evident satisfaction, straightening from his combat crouch. "Seriously though, what is it with idiots and immortality? Like they think it makes them unbeatable? I don't care HOW old you are. You're still going down if you're stupid." 

:'''{{#var:11|Metal Man (11)}} has posed:''' Metal Man hold shis fire as he's hit the gear, Flash Man seems sad and powers his weapon down. He's just glad this mess is solved, well Metal Man is. He now looks about to the others and moves to go recover his cloak. "This never fails to amaze me these things tend to be as varied as robots." It's kinda strange that but he's long eince got used ot it. "You never yell you are unstoppable or can not be harmed. It never ends well." 

}}

1797/Shift

2015-03-14T05:20:10Z

Paladine: Created page with "{{Log Header |Date of Scene=2015/03/13 |Location=Winter |Synopsis=Wolves are attacking a Russian village in the middle of nowhere. A mystical call for aid has gone out, and th..."

{{Log Header
|Date of Scene=2015/03/13
|Location=Winter
|Synopsis=Wolves are attacking a Russian village in the middle of nowhere. A mystical call for aid has gone out, and those receptive to the call have answered.
|Thanks=
|Cast of Characters=307, 513, 722, 725, 726
|Tinyplot=
|Tinyplot2=
|pretty=yes
}}
{{Poses
|Poses=:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     Snowfall. White landscape. Dark pines.     Dwellings. Wood and stone. High walls.     Howling. Creeping shadows. Hungry beasts.     Blood. Open gates. Waiting victims.     The wolves are at the doors.     The wolves are at the doors.     --------------------------     A village in a rustic, non-modern era of Russia - or a country like it - is having problems with wolves. A mystic message has been sent out, nature itself conveying the call for aid, to those who are receptive. The village is small, a dozen or so homes of stone and wood, with deep cellars for food storage, and chimneys designed to allow smoke to flow without heavy snow blocking the openings. The people live a simple life.     But in winter, people do not travel if they can help it. It's too dangerous. Too cold. Frosbite can set in within minutes. It requires a lot of energy to make one's way through the deep snow. And then there's the threat of wolves, who might attack a helpless, stranded traveler. The wolves who attack now, however, are different. Unnatural.     It's unclear how they even get into the village, but they come at night and depart before morning. Those who have tried to venture out for help haven't made it far, being taken out shortly after reaching the nearby forest. These beasts are bashing down the sturdy doors, clawing away thick wood, and murdering the village one house at a time. Everyone has heard the screams, and they have been unable to do anything except cower, and wait for their turn.     Those who respond to the call find the village in the middle of a vast field of white, untouched for the most part, with an expansive, dark forest all around. The road here went through the forest, but there are other ways of reaching the village, and at least for now no further attacks upon travelers have taken place.     The walls around the village are tall, mostly of stone, held together with some sort of bonding agent, but currently not doing their job very well, on account of the heavy iron-and-wood front gates are lying open.     The air is crisp and cold, the sky clear, but light is already nearly faded to night thanks to the season and this part of the world. 

:'''{{#var:722|Alvira (722)}} has posed:'''     Given the nature of the problem, Alvira had hoped to arrive at the village far earlier than she is now. However, a busy schedule would hardly allow for such an arrangement, much to her dismay.     A small, sleek aircraft roughly the size of a TIE fighter with a more jet-like shape to it flies overhead, leaving a trail of blue in its wake. The craft turns at just over the horizon, banking, then slowing to a spiral over the village, speed dropping as it descends. The landing it makes is a graceful settling upon the ground, revealing its VTOL design, the snow crunching beneath its wake. From a side door on the craft, Alvira emerges, cloaked and clothed in garb fitting for dealing with much colder climates. Behind her, the door slides closed and locks.     With little preamble and no indication that she's waiting for someone to join her, the woman strides into the open gates, a gloved hand reaching behind her rest on the hilt of her weapon. Silently, she examines the tracks within the village, seeking out the ones clearly meant to belong to beasts. 

:'''{{#var:307|Allyn (307)}} has posed:''' Cold isn't really all that bad when you're a wolf and have lots of warm, thick fur...wait, wolf? Yep, there's a rather large wolf wandering about the snowy field and heading towards the village. Probably not the best form to be in for doing this, but its his preferred one and besides, it may even trick whatever other kind of wolves there are here into thinking that he is one of them. Besides, not all wolves are bloodthirsty monsters. He wanders about, sniffing at the snow for any signs of whatever may be the problem around here, best to get to know what things might smell like at least and then tilts his head to listen. Once he's done with exploring a little bit, the large wolf wanders towards the village and through the gate and glances around then sits down, waiting to see who else might come along, his tail swishing along the snowy ground, wondering what would happen if he went up to someone and said Boo,, no, probably not a good idea to do here right now. 

:'''{{#var:725|Ysuran (725)}} has posed:'''     Wolves are not that vicious. Not naturally, anyway. They can always be whipped into a frenzy and attack villagers. But they seem to be TARGETING villagers, even through houses. And to Ysuran that's just not natural. Almost anytime he personally had been attacked by wolves in Faer�n had been when they were hungry, thought he was attacking their young, were being ridden by kobolds, or weren't natural wolves.     ...Bloody winter wolves.     Ysuran thus comes to aid the village as best he can. He expects these wolves to be either not natural wolves ('natural' as he knows them, mind) or to be being directed by something. The tearing down of the village's doors and gates seems to indicate something unnatural at work. His magical senses are active here, as as he rides closer to the village on horseback, he scans his surroundings, hoping to see if there was anything amiss here magically that could shed light on the situation.     Thankfully Ysuran has the cold temperatures to use as an excuse to hide his pointed ears with a thick hood. He's bundled up warmly to protect against the cold, with thick clothes and a hooded cloak with warm fur on the inside to hold in the heat. All these articles of thick clothing are mostly in black and dark blue. Though the only thing that might seem out of place at first glance is the very large, black tome he carries cradled in one arm. 

:'''{{#var:513|Finna (513)}} has posed:'''     Most of the Multiverse is not to Finna's tastes. Except all of the food in various cities. That she likes. But the all the smelly smoke and concrete jungles are no place for a creature of the wilderness.     Above all, the Chosen of Luna are guardians... Of man and nature alike.     Nature is very good at calling for Lunar help!     Whether the origin intended to attract a Lunar or not... they managed to do so.     The little creature's steps are unusually light and quick, not even enough to break the surface of the snow. Still, the white-furred vulpine's nose is to the ground as it dashes around, sniffing up evidence about just what in the world's happening here...     This eventually leads her back to the gates. And then to Alvira, who smells PRETTY STRANGE given hwo she just arrived.     The fox barks once at her way. It's a shrill noise not at all like what one'd hear from a dog, but it's merely a warning. 'I'm watching you,' the little creature seems to be saying, as it takes a HUGE LEAP up atop one of the walls to trot around them and look out into the wilderness.     Once that's done... Finna finally notices Allyn seated down by the gates.     And decides to LEAP from the gates down onto his head. Strangely the landing's no heaveir than if a bird simply decided to swoop in and perch, never mind how high she fell. 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     Flying craft are really not common here, but no one is really in a position to complain, or marvel, or anything else. Once it has landed, and Alvira has disembarked, it is left where it is. No sudden attacks or anything. Upon entering the village, Alvira discovers at least five house holds with their doors hanging open or broken down, and redness in the snow in various amounts. The older blood spills are more like an off-shade mud, while the kills from the night prior have still stained the snow mostly-crimson. The tracks that can be identified are odd. They'll be clustered around certain areas, and then be completely absent in the stretches of snow and mud and displaced gravel surrounding those areas. It's almost like the wolves are just appearing out of thin air and then vanishing when their grisly work is done.     The scent of death hangs heavy in the air for both Allyn's and Finna's investigations. True, wolf is really not a good form to be in, especially since others in the area may be on the look-out for wolves that people need to be rescued from. But the smell in the air is like old carrion. Sure, there's the recent kills, and some of those are likely rotting, but the smell that is most pervasive is that of old meat - old death - and that death lurks in the woods surrounding the village, as well as being present in the village itself.     Ysuran's approach goes uninterrupted, though his horse may be skittish about approaching the village itself - far less than passing through the forest, if Ysuran went that way - but still indicatory that there's something amiss that is either being heard or smelled or otherwise sensed by animal instincts. Perhaps it is the smell of wolf And to magical senses, the there seems to be a constant 'pressure' emanating from it, though it is the same sensation that called these people here to begin with. It's not a hostile sensation at all, more like an urgent 'calling' or 'pleading'.     Somewhere within the village, whoever called for aid is still calling. It's not completely dead after all.     Finna's investigations turn up something further. Not only are humans still alive in the village, though stinking with the scent of fear, but there is something beneath the snow. Possibly underground, or just under the surface. The sound of it is possibly unnerving. It sounds like liquid moving this way and that, but not in any fixed 'flow'. It's not like an underground stream. More like some squelching, sloshing something going from one location to another, and then back, and then somewhere else. It's distant, but still centered underneath the village. 

:'''{{#var:722|Alvira (722)}} has posed:'''     Alas. Alvira would have enjoyed it if there were at least /some/ people out to see her craft, regardless of the lower preceived technology level of this area. Advertisement is advertisement even if that isn't her true purpose for being here. As she starts to examine the tracks and the previous scenes of kills, she gradually gains the sense of being watched by someone. At first it is not really heeded, assuming that the still-alive villagers cowering in their homes may have found a way to watch her.     But then the white fox yips at her and the woman stiffens, watching the creature. It was far too small to be what was causing the deaths here-but beyond that, she sees the much larger wolf now lingering by the gates moments before Finna hops onto it.     ".../heel/." Alvira states clearly, reaching back into her cloak and withdrawing her sword...for what value of sword it can really be call. The Spine is a heavily serrated weapon that does indeed look like the bones of a human spine, ending with a pelvic bone as the hilt. "You're a big wolf but you don't seem big or aggressive enough to be causing this."     Though she takes note of the unusual quality of the tracks, mysterious disappearances of them and all, she also knows that there are multiple ones. If Allyn the wolf was part of those then there would be more large wolves to follow. Rather than focusing on the lone one, whom she assumes is a decoy, Alvira watches her flanks for further signs of an assumed pack. 

:'''{{#var:725|Ysuran (725)}} has posed:'''     Ysuran closes his eyes as he approaches, opening his mind to that magic more, so he can sense it better. The skittishness of the horse thus startles him and he pulls the horse to a stop nearby the village. No need for it to go further now. He'll make the rest of the trip on foot. It's not too far.     As he enters, he notices... a wolf. With a white fox on its head? And an elegant-looking human female with dark brown hair. IT's an odd collection of creatures and people, that's for certain. However, he also notices that the wolf and fox aren't attacking-- neither each other, nor the human female, nor the townspeople. Very odd.     Perhaps it will later be forgiven that Ysuran doesn't realize at first that Finna the arctic fox Lunar and Allyn the shapeshifting man-turned-wolf can speak. He is unaware of their true natures here. And so he turns his attention to Alvira. "...Pardon me," he offers politely, bowing as he presents himself. "I am here to assist with the wolf problem." A pointed look to Allyn-- again, Ysuran is unaware of his true nature, or Finna's. 

:'''{{#var:307|Allyn (307)}} has posed:''' Allyn blinks as he feels something land on his head, it's not heavy, but stillehe feels it. Ah, he knows that scent though and that yip. His tail thumps on the ground once he can tell that it is Finna, he hadn't seen her in quite a while and is glad to see her now. He doesn't like the smell coming from the village or the forest and is sure that she doesn't either. He blinks and then peers at the woman that tells him to heel and his ears perk, "Heel? I'm not a dog, I'm a wolf and wolves don't heel on command you know?" His eyes glint with a brief moment of amusement, "No, I'm not one of the wolves that has caused this, don't worry, I'm a good wolf." well, ok maybe not completely good, but he's a force of nature, is anything like that really good, or evil? Well, it can be both sometimes He nods to Ysuran, trying not to dislodge the fox on his head, "I think we're all here to deal with a wolf problem, or whatever it is. I don't smell anything good, whatever it is, it smells spoiled." his ears flick a little since he can't see Finna, "You smell that?" he asks her. 

:'''{{#var:513|Finna (513)}} has posed:'''     "How could I NOT smell it?" After affectionally bopping Allyn on the sout with one paw, Finna vaults forward, executes a few stunning midair flips--     And lands in human form, having shifted remarkably quickly. SOMEHOW she's still managing to not break through the snow's crust, no matter how implausible that is. Steps all light as a feather and nimbler than her totem animal should ever be.     The young woman, dressed in huntress leathers of a style telling of the northern regions, grins at Ysuran and Alvira.     "... rot. Foul, deep rot. And something... something STRANGE is moving around underground. If you two are here to help... step one's finding whoever called. The village shaman, most likely!"     ...Shaman?     Just who could rattle that off as if it was second nature, anyways?     "Whatever's down there is moving around. A creature. River wouldn't be moving around all herky jerky, so I'm thinking something slimy or maybe a water elemental... won't know 'til we see though." 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     That sensation of calling suddenly wanes and fades, even as the source of it comes out into the open. It is indeed a shaman or someone like it. Seemingly an old man with a long board, in Russian civilian garb of an era several centuries ago. Along with him his a young, pretty woman who may be his daughter or grand daughter. She is dressed similarly, and seems to also have some degree of mystical presence, though less developed. The old man begins speaking, saying, "Welcome to our village. We thank you for coming. We can offer little reward for your generous aid, but what food and wealth we have is yours. We ask only that you leave us enough to get through the rest of the winter season."     The woman seems displeased by having to pay people to save them from monsters, but doesn't protest. Instead she says, "We have been under assault by vicious wolf-like creatures for the past several days. I would welcome you inside, but the hour already approaches when the beasts will attack, and once our door closes, we will not open it again until the threat has passed." There are manners, and then there are MANNERS. They are willing to offer cordiality, compensation, and so on, but they are not willing to possibly die just for politness's sake. That is pretty reasonable.     The pair don't seem particularly weirded out by talking wolves or foxes turning into people or hooded figures or people who come in on VTOL jets. They have probably exhausted their ability to become emotionally invested in such comparatively trivial things after being exposed to the horror of their friends, family, and neighbors being gradually murdered night after night.     "We know not from where they came or why, but they have persisted in breaking into our homes, one at a time." the older shaman says. "And I believe that they may be remaining underground somehow during the day. They only come out at night." 

:'''{{#var:722|Alvira (722)}} has posed:'''     There is a brief flash of relief in Alvira's eyes as she sees Ysuran's approach. Clearly he was not a villager, being bold enough to be outside of the barricaded houses. Her tenseness lessens just slightly though she does remain alert in case of an ambush. Still, politeness receives more in kind from the woman and she inclines her head, lifting her free hand to her chest. "That is good, then. I too am here to investigate the wolves."     Much to Alvira's surprise, the wolf talks. "There was a time..." Alvira says with a hint of wistfulness, "...when the wolves would obey a command from me." Then, to her surprise, the fox is also talking. "...but those were ordinary wolves and such, not shapeshifters like yourselves." Smoothly, Alvira brushes back her cloak and slides the Spine into the sheath held at the small of her back.     No sooner than Finna speaks of meeting the Shaman does the 'Shaman' reveal himself. His offer receives a dismissive wave, "I have no use for your wealth or food, unless it is land you offer. Keep your meager possessions. Tell us, are they striking the houses in a pattern? Is there a particular house you suspect will be next? Being underground would explain the unusual tracks." 

:'''{{#var:725|Ysuran (725)}} has posed:'''     And then suddenly the wolf SPEAKS?! Ysuran is visibly taken aback, and takes a step back from Allyn. He seems to compose himself a moment later, though, and offers, "M-my apologies, I had no idea ... " He trails off, because it seems rather obvious now that he'd had no idea Allyn could speak. Allyn speaks of a scent, and Ysuran tilts his head up. He obviously doesn't smell it, though... his sense of scent isn't THAT good!     Suddenly Finna is no longer a fox but a young woman! Again Ysuran seems visibly surprised by this. But again he composes himself, and hears her words. He doesn't seem too surprised when Finna mentions a shaman-- perhaps he's used to the concept himself. Finna's words he confirms with a nod.     Oh yes. For those with a keen nose, Ysuran smells a lot like death too. The scent of corpse-dust, bone fragments, and coffin-wood. And of dusty tomes and strange chemicals.     He nods as well to Alvira's words. "There was indeed a call..." He is pre-empted, however when there is suddenly an old man and a young woman there! Ysuran turns to them, bowing politely. He immediately assures the villagers kindly, "I did not come here for recompense, only to render aid where it is needed." He nods once, offering to the group at large, "I am Ysuran." 

:'''{{#var:307|Allyn (307)}} has posed:''' The large dire wolf sighs and then stands as Finna leaps off him and he stands and trots over to her and gives her hand a nuzzle and a lick, "Well, I suppose just so I don't get confused with these other wolves, I should do the same, hmmm?," he hates his human form, but well, it wouldn't be good to get attacked in the heat of battle. He shifts to his human form then and grins to Finna and bows to the others, "Well, I'm not your opdinary wolf, no matter how much I say otherwise and just ask Finna here, I usually don't follow commands." he winks at Alvira. He nods to Ysuran and then watches the shamen for a few moments and nods, "We'll take care of it I am sure, if it's not something natural it needs to be stopped." 

:'''{{#var:513|Finna (513)}} has posed:'''     Oh hey, Shaman! Finna whips around with a hand planted on her hip. The other is scratching Allyn behind the ears affectionately! "Keep the food, you two. The wilds provide everything I need save for friends."     From mischief to business in a hurry. The mark of the moon appears on her forehead - a glittering silver crescent emblem that shimmers in the fading light. At the same time... even the two shaman will be able to see her foxy features, the ears and tail that stand out even in human form. They too glitter and shimmer seemingly of their own moonlight.     "You called for aid and this Child of Luna heard it. And she's also hearing the rustling SOMETHINGS under the village... how exactly would they be coming OUT? Are there caves around here? Tunnels? Perhaps they aren't even proper beasts, but some kind of spirit..." 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     Both of the spiritualists nod in thanks to the generous heroes who would help them without reward. When it comes time to answer how the wolves come out from underground, however, there is little they can offer. "We haven't been able to observe them, and there's no caverns or tunnels that we know of. Our houses have deep cellars, but they shouldn't be deep enough to allow this," the woman says.     The elder offers, "The land recoils at their presence, and I can feel that, but I don't have the expertise to do more. The old ways are barely even known to us in this era, and all I can do is work with nature and ask it to work with me." Just in the time between when the four arrived and now, light has already faded to the point that it could be considered night. Dark falls fast here, apparently. The younger spiritualist starts pulling the elder towards their home. The elder resists for now, saying, "I haven't noticed any pattern, but I imagine that they intend to get to all of our homes eventually. It may be as simple as which one seems to have the most 'prey' out of the homes remaining."     "Come, grandfather. We have to go inside," the young woman insists urgently.     Grandpa Shaman sighs and says, "I regret having to leave you to face this threat alone, but we would only be in the way. Please forgive us." Then the two retreat into their house and lock up the door tight behind them. Not that locked doors seem to be much of an obstacle.     In short order, a matter of minutes, during which the quartet can converse, investigate the area and the ravaged homes that lie open to the cold night air, or simply wait, the wolves make their presence known.     And they are like no wolves that have been seen before. From the snow, some sort of black ooze with a smell like rotten blood seeps up to the surface, flowing across the ground swiftly like a number of living puddles - or like liquid shadows. From these shadows, wolf-like creatures, more carcass than beast, with much of their flesh missing, rise up and begin to growl as they surround the outsiders.     That explains that. 

:'''{{#var:513|Finna (513)}} has posed:'''     "....Shadows. Rotten shadows. Are these demons?!" Well, whatever they are... FRIENDLY, they are not. She wastes no time taking a fighting stance. "Beasts like these give the night a bad name... well little beasties, let me educate you a little about the Moon's Champions."     And with that her flesh ripples, bulging and rippling as though something were trying to escape it. But nothing bursts out except for fur and muscle! With a wet, splorching noise her bones and flesh all reshape into a slightly bigger form - sleek, but bred for war, the cross between a fox and human, clad in nothing but thick white fur. She swipes at the air once with claws that not only gleam silver light... but leave glowing trails of it in the air.     "Luna's Children are the monsters who protect life from the LESSER monsters."     Again the moon mark shines on her forehead and then Finna is OFF, scampering across the ground with tremendous speed. And the faster she goes, the more she casts off wavering moonlight and shadow of her own!     Upon reaching one of those shadow wolves, things are gonna get messy, QUICKLY! 

:'''{{#var:307|Allyn (307)}} has posed:''' Allyn chuckles as he watches Finna change and run off after the shadow wolf things. "Hey, try to leave some for the rest of us too." he tells her once she's run off and shrugs some. He then takes off too, sliding his long knife out of its sheath and heads after one of those shadow wolf things. He's not changed into anything else yet, but ah well, Finna is a good slice and dicer anyway when she wants to be. Though he does watch the shadow wolves a moment to see if they are going after a house or something and which one and moves to go to protect it. 

:'''{{#var:725|Ysuran (725)}} has posed:'''     And another shape-shifter! Ysuran blinks as Allyn transforms into a man-shape. Curious. Could he be a werewolf? But he has a point-- now it's less likely that he'll be confused for one of the other wolves. And Finna suddenly sprouts fox features! Ysuran's eyes widen at this, and he's glad for the hood that conceals his face now. But for the time being he remains silent.     It's not until the shaman and his granddaughter(?) begin to retrat from the quickly falling darkness that Ysuran speaks up again. "Take care, good Shaman," he says, to both of them. And then he assures them, "We will do what we can to rid your village of this menace."     Once that black 'ooze' starts to appear and Ysuran frowns sharply. Wait. That does not feel like normal magic. But it does feel familiar. And just before the wolves form into their rotting corpse-shapes, Ysuran can sense it. Undead. They are undead.     However, Finna's transformation surprises him yet again, and he backpedals from her, fearing that she might have somehow been infected by the magic that spawned these beasts. Though when he realizes she's going after THEM and not HIM, he relaxes and concentrates on the shadowy, evil forms.     He opens the book under his arm, and flips quickly through the pages. If they are undead, perhaps he can turn at least one of them to his and his allies' side. Temporarily, at least. He begins to chant the words to the spell, the words a dark, horrible hiss, as he tries to reach out to the nearest undead wolf to try to turn it on its brothers. 

:'''{{#var:722|Alvira (722)}} has posed:'''     "Your consideration is appreciated." Alvira offers in a dry tone to Allyn as he elects to take a human form. She eyes him critically, then adds with a small smirk, "Oh, I bet you'll follow someone's commands." With a shrug, she turns away just slightly, "I am Alvira, by the way, forgive me for not offering that sooner."     Turning back to the village shaman she adds: "I've observed the attack sites. They are coming through the front doors and not through the cellars so it appears they prefer being above ground to attack." The idea is presented that the houses with the most 'prey' in them are more likely to be attacked. Then again... "Simply being outside and available may present us as easy targets. On the virtue that all of you responded to this job, I'm going to assume that we are anything but." Alvira withdraws her weapon once more to ready herself.     The smell, right away, tells her that something is wrong. Not availed of animal senses, the rot stench is highly unusual and reminiscent of the undead, which she has encountered previously. "Tch." Ice magic ripples through her hand and directly into the Spine, the mythril of the blade taking on a slight blue sheen. With a graceful slash of the Spine, she turns the magic to one of the flanks of surrounding wolves, a splash of ice magic striking the ground and spreading upwards into a wall of outward-facing giant ice spikes directed into the wolves.     She seems pretty startled at Finna's newest transformation which is a good deal more dramatic than the fox form. Yet she remains without panic, calmly directing her magic into the shadow wolves. 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     Compared to normal people, all four of these rescuers are far more powerful. But even when they take hits, it seems that these wolves are fairly sturdier. They may get sent flying, they may suffer serious injuries, but they don't die too easily. At least a couple do, but they clearly have a level of supernatural resilience from their undead, shadow-flesh state, that normal wolves wouldn't have.     Some of the Shadow Wolves even dissolve back into their puddle form to evade attacks and flow across the ground, the low-light environment making them difficult to track in the chaos of battle. One of them is in the middle of blazing with sinister blood-red flames in preparation for a powerful attack, right as Ysuran seizes control of it. It winds up slamming into one of the other wolves instead of Allyn, its original target. The Shadow Wolf lets out a yelp from the impact, goes tumbling across the snow and then dissipates into motes of shadow that flow upwards into the air and vanish.     It shakes off the control after a few moments, but its magical unlife has been tampered with and whatever power Ysuran used, it causes its corrupt energies to erupt in an explosion that damages and hurls away a couple other Shadow Wolves in the process of its own destruction.     The monsters don't seem to be going after houses. They are distinctly focusing on these people who are outdoors. After all, why bother breaking down a door if there's prey already free for killing? They don't seem to demonstrate fear, and the only kind of self-preserving actions they take, such as running quickly to circle around Alvira after her wall of ice impales and sends a number of the pack flying, is done in the pursuit of their intent to kill. There is no long-term plan to survive.     They're BATTLING, not just 'hunting'.     Another of the wolves glows with those flames again and lunges into a magic-powered tackle aimed at Finna's back, while a few of the others charge at Alvira and Ysuran, trying to bite or slam into them. Allyn, thus far spared any hostility after stabbing one of the wolves in the skull, is nonetheless in a precarious situation, where the remaining wolves circle, running or pacing, looking for an opening. There doesn't seem to be an endless number of them or anything, but they're still a troublesome and clever opponent. 

:'''{{#var:722|Alvira (722)}} has posed:'''     Immediately, Alvira notices that these creatures have the ability to set themselves on fire...which could be problematic for her but the others don't need to know about that. It made it all the more important to keep them at distance for now-something that Alvira is pretty well equipped to do here, the cold weather and surrounding snow giving her an advantage.     As the wolf comes at her, Alvira slams the point of the Spine into the ground before her, ice magic swirling all around her in a mass of blue light and snow. The magic quickly takes form in a snarling, beastial head that counter-lunges right into the leaping wolf with shredding force. "Icewolf bite!"     Just as that one is addressed, Alvira spins to handle a second one that leaps on her. She twists the Spine horizontally, catching the shadow wolf's gaping jaws on the blade. She allows herself to fall backwards, rolling onto her back and striking a foot upwards at the underbelly of the monster.     Using the creature's momentum against it, she launches it in the air behind her, then backwards rolls over a shoulder into a crouch. 

:'''{{#var:725|Ysuran (725)}} has posed:'''     Ysuran's smirk can be seen under his hood as he views the shadow-wolves that do die from their first push. It's not a smirk that would probably be on the face of a truly good creature. But at least he's not attacking them, so it's probably okay.     As the wolves dart in to attack, Ysuran tries to dodge, but isn't quite able to dodge everything. But even as one bites into his leg, he snarls and swings at it with his staff. The strike is quite a bit stronger than might be expected for a mage.     But he IS a mage. And so as he gets the wolf off of him, he chants again, this time a shorter spell. A small purple shield-shape begins to orbit him and any who happen to be close enough, trailing a black smoke. It doesn't interfere with targetting, however. But any who happen to have acquired it may find themselves taking less damage. This may be especially useful to Alvira, if these wolves are indeed using fire magic, or something like it. 

:'''{{#var:307|Allyn (307)}} has posed:''' Allyn eyes the wolves that are surrounding him and circling him, "Well now, looks like I am in trouble doesn't it?" he chuckles and then shakes his head and puts his long-knife back in its sheath. "Well, lets see if you corrupt things can bite through this. Now don't blame me if I don't go easy on you, just because you're wolves, alright?" He raises an eyebrow at the shadow wolves and then shifts forms again, becoming a large Megalocrab, one of the shapes he learned to take on from his time in Ezorea. The large crab doesn't wait for the shadow wolves to come for him, he scuttles right towards the group of them, snapping his claws at any that get too close to him and then blasting them with a stream of corrosive bubbles. "Try to get through my shell!" 

:'''{{#var:513|Finna (513)}} has posed:'''     Finna has become the hunter of hunters! With several of the wolves going down, shredded to pieces by the Claws of the Silver Moon, she goes snarling and snowballing across the ground before she somehow manages to slam all four hands to the ground and spring back up to a standing position.... just in time for the shadowy smoke to wreathe around her. She glances left and right worriedly at it, but upon seeing the source gives it the benefit of the doubt.     It's just in time too because Finna's rather quickly the subject to a strange pounce from behind. Her ears are the first sign that she knows it's coming however!     And strangely... she DOESN'T dodge. Instead she simply stands in the way?!     The Shadow Wolf plows into her. Plows THROUGH HER?!     Yes, that's right. Anyone watching her will see the weirdest thing happen. Her flesh ripples like the water on a lake's surface, or perhaps moonlight flickering across the ripples on a mostly still lake... splashing and folding out of the way in a simultaneously mesmerizing and maddening display. She doesn't come out away unscathed - a few globs of flesh and splashes of blood follow the Shadow Wolf. But...     In the next instant the rest of Finna follows. She's quick to pounce the thing as her body reforms and DIVES down for its neck from above with both claws in a pincer slash! 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     The flames seem to be some kind of dark magical energy rather than true fire, and it seems to mainly provide temporary speed and damage enhancement for that lunging attack of theirs. The energy dissipates after their attacks are completed. Nonetheless, Alvira's ice magic and sword play are effective in dismantling the monsters. When they 'die', they yelp and vanish into motes of darkness, leaving no physical trace of their presence aside from the print of their bodies and paws upon the snow.     The staff strike from Ysuran knocks his attacker away, and the shields he produces help mitigate any damage taken. The number of the monsters is greatly reduced. They may not be cannon fodder, but they clearly aren't Elites. This is made especially clear when Allyn's crab form is used, practically snapping the Shadow Wolves in half, and melting their faces with bubbles. They don't actually fall apart into pieces, and their flesh seems to be more shadow than skin, but either way they are suffering enough damage to make them vanish.     The claws and fangs of Finna crunch and tear into the foul, rotten, shadow-flesh of her target, and it gives a strangled yelp before vanishing like the others.     That seems to be all of them, as none were willing to retreat. They fought to the last, doggedly trying to eliminate the enemy no matter what. And now they are the ones who were defeated. The village is safe! 

:'''{{#var:722|Alvira (722)}} has posed:'''     Quick to her feet, Alvira searches all around, ready to take on any that remain, now newly buffed by the spell of the elf. However, it seems that the four of them have eliminated all the monsters. "Well! That was efficient. Well done." The last bit seems to have been directed at the rest of the group with slight grudging respect.     The woman eyes the large crab form of Alynn, sheathing her weapon as she does so. She seems to be restraining herself at that very moment from approaching the shapeshifter further. What if it too can simply flow its body around like Finna? She's not sure she'd enjoy that happening to her, especially if it results in gibs getting on her. 

:'''{{#var:307|Allyn (307)}} has posed:''' Allyn glances around checking to see if there are anymore enemies around. The crab's eyes going from one person to the next, before he shifts back to his wolf form, more comfortable in that one at least. "I think they are gone for now at least.?" he eyes A;vira for a moment and gives her a wag of his tail. He's not like Finna at all, well, other than being able to shapeshift too, but other than that he's just normal. "Hopefully they wont come back." 

:'''{{#var:513|Finna (513)}} has posed:'''     With the wolf going down.... Finna sags. No more enemies! Phew. She ends up shrinking back down to normal human form, although the glowing claws remain - as does the brightly glowing aura. Her fox features are also quite visible to pretty much everyone! But she skip-dashes over to the otehrs... and regards Allyn with a quirky sideways gaze, lips pressed together thinly.... until he changes back.     "That form is not at ALL appealing. Fur beats a carapace any day of the week! ... Phew. Did we get 'em all? I don't hear any more..." 

:'''{{#var:725|Ysuran (725)}} has posed:'''     Hopefully the village is safe.     Creatures like that don't just pop up out of nowhere. However, he doesn't speak up yet. Once it seems the coast is clear, he looks to Alvira with her words of respect. "Thank you. Yourself as well," he offers kindly. He takes a step, and is reminded that a wolf did take a bite from him-- he hisses, and wobbles, putting his staff down onto the ground to support himself before he falls.     He looks to his injured leg. Good thing he has a horse. Unless the thing ran off or something. Or maybe got killed. Then again if it died, he can just raise it from the dead again to serve its purpose ...     Allyn's words, as well as Finna's get a nod, but Ysuran cautions, "It is unlikely that such beasts would come about naturally. Perhaps it was merely an accident. But I suspect a more direct influence." 

:'''{{#var:513|Finna (513)}} has posed:'''     Finna purses her lips. "Yeah, no doubt about that. But why? There's not much here anyone'd want, is there? So either someone just wants the place gone or the locals have something they want... but these things smelled foul. NOt quite undead. I'm thinking.... dark magics, maybe used to power up dead wolves. Or something foul from the Underworld or whatever the locals have for one - since they only come out at night they're probably vulnerable to sunlight." 

:'''{{#var:307|Allyn (307)}} has posed:''' Allyn trots over to Finna and leans against her, "Of course fur beats carapace any day, but what'd you want me to do? change into a serpent? I'd have to go into hibernation in this cold if I had gone scaley!" his tail wags and he grabs one of Finna's wrists in his jaws and shakes it playfully. "But I know I look better in fur anyway." he sits back down and nods, "Not sure what was going on, but maybe we should look into it and see what we can find sometime, it's definately not natural." 

:'''{{#var:722|Alvira (722)}} has posed:'''     "I would have to agree on the dark magics...but you're right." Alvira rubs her chin, "Their behavior was unusual. Directed. Not the typical markings of a..." she pauses, looking down at Allyn, "...wild animal. Something was directing them, maybe to make a point. Maybe this was the hometown of someone famous and this was meant as a message to that person." If so, well, that's one ruined plan. 

:'''{{#var:725|Ysuran (725)}} has posed:'''     "That I do not know," Ysuran replies to Finna's question. "They could have been made completely accidentally. Or someone could indeed have wished these people dead. Perhaps it was done for a simple test. There are many reasons why. But which it is... that I do not know. There is not enough evidence for one over the other, and we do not know who-- or what-- was responsible."     He nods to Allyn's statement. "Perhaps we will be able to discover more ..." He pauses at Alvira's words, listens carefully. "I had thought as much as well," he replies. "I have very rarely been attacked by a normal wolf, and only when it felt threatened, or was directed by someone else." 

:'''{{#var:307|Allyn (307)}} has posed:''' Allyn ponders for a few moments and seems to shrug, well at least the lowering of his ears suggest that. "I could have tried to talk to them, though I didn't think of that until now. Well, when I first heard of the troubles, I thought I would, but then there was that rotting smell." he shakes his head, "I don't think they would have understood me, or even would have talked to me.. I know I've seen things since I found my way to these worlds, but I still don't understand it all." The large wolf sighs and then shakes his head at Ysuran, "No, wolves don't usually just attack for no reason, other than maybe hunger sometimes when there is not much prey to be found for a pack." he peers up at Finna at few moments. 

:'''{{#var:513|Finna (513)}} has posed:'''     "Predators USUALLY only attack if they're hungry or feel threatened. OR feel like they need to defend their territory. Wolves can be very loving and friendly creatures even when they're not actually humans here. These weren't wolves, they just looked like them." She ends up shaking her head, then folding her arms-- or is about to but then Allyn snags one. So she kneels down and wraps her other arm around Allyn for a squeeeeeze-hug!     "You! Pft..." 

:'''{{#var:722|Alvira (722)}} has posed:'''     "Then it is agreed by all of us. These attacks were not a natural thing." Not that Alvira was actually aware that there were shadow wolves naturally in this part of the world or not. "It would be worth circling back with the village shaman to see what sorts of people have come from this town. Or perhaps some kind of declaration of the culprit is to happen in a few days. Hard to say but there may not be more avenues to investigate with this." 

:'''{{#var:725|Ysuran (725)}} has posed:'''     "It is not likely," Ysuran replies, reasoning, "I do not know if it is similar here, but in my world undead are generally raised as mindless, unfeeling drones. Automatons, you could say. And here... these showed no real survival instinct, did they? Only the desire to kill."     He does pause, however, as Finna bearhugs Allyn, and chuckles quietly. Though he offers no comment. Alvira's words draw a quiet sound of agreement. "A good idea. Shall we?" 

}}

1767/A Royal Kidnapping

2015-03-14T00:06:06Z

Paladine: Created page with "{{Log Header |Date of Scene=2015/03/09 |Location=Bernhard Castle <BC> |Synopsis=Princess Sarracenia is kidnapped to the Forest of Eternal Night! The hero is Lute!? |Thanks= |C..."

{{Log Header
|Date of Scene=2015/03/09
|Location=Bernhard Castle <BC>
|Synopsis=Princess Sarracenia is kidnapped to the Forest of Eternal Night! The hero is Lute!?
|Thanks=
|Cast of Characters=188, 446, 726
|Tinyplot=
|Tinyplot2=
|pretty=yes
}}
{{Poses
|Poses=:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     Whisked away on wings of midnight, carried forth to parts unknown.     The princess is placed in the care of a black knight, in a dark forest.     No light, no warmth, but also no cruelties.     There is no need to cage her or bind her, because all around her, in the pitch-black forest, there is movement.     The step heard, and the following ones not.     The rustle of brush, sudden, violent, and yet betraying nothing of what caused the commotion.     The squelching and dripping of something with a coppery scent, warring with the damp and decay.     The distant sound of a rabbit's scream, going on and on, until it is suddenly cut short.     This is not a place to be alone, because even when there are no people around, one is definitely NOT alone.     ----------------------     If Sarracenia has any light-providing abilities or tools of her own, they might reveal some of her surroundings. But the only things to see are tall, grasping-branched trees with utter blackness beyond them, and a knight in dark armor standing at attention with a heavy axe held in both hands. He does not answer any questions, respond to any taunts, or similar. He might be a statue if not for the way that he turns, shifting his weight, if there is any indication that his captive is trying to move from her spot.     No eyes are visible within the dark visor, but still, the knight sees.     The one who kidnapped Sarracenia, who left her here, was not this knight. It was an elegant figure, dashing and graceful, bearing bat wings and a smoke-obscured countenance. The kidnapper might have made a good rescuer under other circumstances. But flying in, and then flying out - with Sarracenia in arms - the abductor had told her that she would come to no harm if she cooperated, and that there was sure to be a hero who would come for her eventually.     It was that rescuer whom this villain wished to fight, in 'noble and honorable battle', to 'prove himself' to the 'fair princess'.     All that sounds lovely, but even so, this forest is unpleasant and full of Bad Things. At the very least, she has been kept fed and hydrated, but her stay in the Forest of Eternal Night is not expected to be a long one, so no other accomodations have been made.     For that 'rescuer' who is due to come, he would have received a letter at the site of the kidnapping instructing him on where to go to save the princess. And if he follows those directions, he would find himself in the Great Mountains, in the same zone of the Multiverse as Dracula's own castle, though geographically far removed, approaching a forest that seems to practically throb with darkness. 

:'''{{#var:446|Sarracenia (446)}} has posed:'''      Cooperate?! As if! But then...if she -did- cooperate...some hero might come to save her! Still, being a proud princess, she couldn't just let herself be captured!      So, after waking from her poison induced sleep, the princess finds herself in...decidedly unfriendly surroundings. No walls, but she can tell that there are many unnatural creatures nearby, and that her guard is doubling as her protector for the time being.      With him answering no questions and practically ignoring her, Sarracenia has been pacing around. So, this is what it is like to be actually kidnapped! It is so frightening! And thrilling! She wonders for just a moment if thinking such a thing is strange, then decides that no, it is not. But...she looks a bit worried and more than a bit sad as she realizes that there is probably no hero who will come for her. If anyone even knows she is gone. 

:'''{{#var:188|Lute (188)}} has posed:'''      Lute, of course, was ready to recieve the note. And, upon finding it, he heads out immediately. This, though, this? He feels it must be the absolutely /best/ idea he has ever had. Sarracenia is unsure about him as her hero, due to the whole 'he is polyamorous' thing. But, if he can convince her he is a total hero, he might be able to convince her to go for him /anyways/.      Now, he walks through the forest. He's at least trying to take on the knightly look a bit. As in, he actually has a sword on him at the moment. He's still wearing his normal, casual clothes though. Because he isn't sure if a kidnapping rescue is something you should dress dramatically for.      He walks through the forest, not scared of what may lie in wait. Because he made sure to pay the person in advance, and offered a bonus after. If Lute gets killed in the forest, it'd be a /real/ shame. But, it still doesn't take him too long to travel through it, and arrives at the clearing. He lifts his sword, with a florish.      "Are you the foul one who kidnapped Sarracenia?! Because I'm here to save her! Let her go now, or you shall taste my blade!"      He looks at Sarracenia, smiling, "Don't worry! I'm here to help you! I'll save you!"      Lute looks ridiculously calm. But, really, there are few situations that cause him to look stressed out, so this shouldn't look out of place at all. 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     The journey through the blackness is somewhat aided by Lute's light source he brought with him. The letter itself serves as a charm that guides the way as well, producing an odd resonating energy that also keeps the beasts and more vicious creatures at bay. Because Lute didn't hire the things with gleaming eyes, the things with rending claws, the things with rotting flesh, nor the things with maws dripping from recent kills. And while they obey their Master, their Master has no interest in keeping them from killing fools who wander into the Forest without the intent to challenge the Castle itself.     This is an exception however, as it serves a greater plan.     The Vampire Lord has no need of money, so the minion he is operating through accepted the job on orders for another reason. And when Lute arrives and challenges the knight, the armored figure does not pay any attention to him. Sarracenia surmised correctly. He is both guarding her and protecting her.     A voice calls down from above, in response to Lute, however. "No. It was I." That same elegant figure in a mix of rich fabrics and ornate metal decorations, with large, black bat wings protruding from his back, descends from the darkness overhead. An ivory mask adorns his face, but he clearly has very pale skin, and long black hair. He alights upon the the forest floor like he weighs almost nothing, with Sarracenia and the knight behind him, and Lute before him. He raises his hand, and the forest itself seems to reach out to him, weaving into a blade of thorns in his grasp.     "If you wish to save her, you must fight for her. After you came all this way, it would be truly unfortunate to not have a proper conclusion to this drama." Then the midnight-haired man springs forward on his feet without further warning, trying to stab Lute with the thorny blade. It's the kind of blade where just a glancing blow will tear someone's skin off, but it's also not super sharp or super lethal otherwise. It is a weapon that would be hard to actually kill with, even if a direct hit occurred. 

:'''{{#var:446|Sarracenia (446)}} has posed:'''      Sarracenia can hardly believe it when she sees just who her potential rescuer is. She cannot believe it for two reasons. One, that someone came to rescue her. And two, that the rescuer is Lute. When Lute appears and announces that he shall rescue her, Sarracenia just...stares, deadpan. "...Lute..." she mutters to herself. "...he's the only hero who would come rescue me..."      She sighs heavily and leans against a tree, gently banging her forehead against it.      Then, the dark creature that kidnapped her descends and proclaims that they shall fight for her. And, being the princess that she is, it actually excites her a little despite herself. She can't help the slight smile that appears on her face. And they are two not bad looking men! 

:'''{{#var:188|Lute (188)}} has posed:'''      As the blade comes in, Lute lifts his own to parry. But, he doesn't do a great job of it. Instead, it scrapes off of his blade, and hits him along his right arm a bit. His flesh is torn, but he looks fine, for now.      He is surprised by the man he is fighting, and his poise and figure. He realy wasn't sure /who/ would take this job, and he barely knows anything about the person involved. But, at the least, this masked man is certainly a fitting person for the kidnapping job. Yeah, this is the sort of heroic rescue Lute was hoping for.      But, as he looks over and sees Sarracenia's reaction, of her hitting her head against a tree in dissapointment and embarrasement? This is the first time the thought corssed his head: Maybe this wasn't the best idea.      He moves on from this thought quickly.      He speaks to Sarracenia, trying to remain happy and carefree, "Don't worry, Sarracenia! I don't know who this guy is, but I'll beat him for you! Then I'll get you out of this dark forest safely, alright?" He's trying to reassure her. He'd start calling himself 'heroic' and stuff like this, and point out he is being a knight in shining armor figure, but he doesn't want to make it /too/ obvious. Or she might realize.      With his own counter attack with his sword? He steps back, and then spins, holding the blade in one hand. It's a very flashy and inefficient technique, but at the least, the spinning adds power to it. He tries to do another good heroic smile, as he shouts out, "HAVE AT THEE!"      Worst come to worst, he has tools he can use that aren't swords. Because, as is becoming increasingly obvious? Lute is not an actual sword fighter. He uses /Pokemon/, after all. 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     Lute is a TERRIBLE sword fighter who looks like he's mimicking something he saw in a movie. But then the masked swordsman doesn't usually fight with swords either, so he's not much better. His style is also one meant for theatrics rather than real combat. It just has a certain killer's edge to it that only comes with people who make a habit of killing other people in real battles. Fortunately, the thorn sword is magic and made of plant-matter, and thus it bends in its wielder's grasp to move into the path of Lute's strike, so that it looks like Lute MEANT to strike there. The swordsman even allows himself to stagger dramatically to the side from the blow (there was significant force to it, so acting isn't needed too much in that department. Say what one will of Lute, he is physically stronger than his opponent).     "You are not unskilled," the masked man offers as he paces around Lute in a half-circle, changing his position, blade ready. "But you shall have to demonstrate more cunning to succeed against me!" Then he lashes out twice, two quick blows aimed at the sides of Lute's neck, but telegraphed enough that even an amateur should be able to block them. But that's still a pretty unhealthy place to be aiming. Those thorns are sharp, and the sides of the neck are not good places to have slashed.     ...Maybe they should have written a script or something for this fight, because it seems like, even though this rogue is doing his job and making Lute look convincingly heroic, he is still aiming to cause pain and injury.     For the swordsman's part, his wrist is kind of sore from blocking that spinning blow, but that's relatively minor as pain and injuries go. "Fear not, princess!" the swordsman calls out. "Whether he or I am the victor, you shall be returned to your home by the one who proved himself the TRUE hero!"     Neither of these people are anywhere near heroes. 

:'''{{#var:446|Sarracenia (446)}} has posed:'''      Sarracenia is curious about her kidnapper. Why did he kidnap her? As far as she knows, he is not an enemy of the Sundew Kingdom. She is just starting to scrutonize her kidnapper when Lute speaks up again. She listens to Lute's reassurances and her disappointment fades a bit.      Lute isn't a -complete- screw-up after all. He is a capable fighter. Just...not a sword fighter. "Then get serious and get rid of that sword! I bet you've never picked up a sword in your life and just got that one because you heard I was kidnapped and wanted to look all heroic!"      She watches the two fight a bit more, then blinks at the kidnapper's words. Wait...he wants to be her hero, too? But he kidnapped her! "You kidnapped me...just so you could prove you are more heroic than Lute?" she asks, seeming a bit confused. 

:'''{{#var:188|Lute (188)}} has posed:'''      As the quick blows come in, Lute lifts his sword to block them. And, he does so rather convincingly! Yeah, though he isn't a sword user, he at least knows how to parry a bit. But, then, Sarracenia speaks up. Lute holds back a sigh of dissapointment. He's basically trying to act out a fantasy for her. But, still, he shrugs, and tosses the sword aside.      "...Alright. I figured if I was going to be the one rescuing you, I should make it impressive for you. But. Alright, here I go."      He reaches into a pocket, pulling out a Pokeball. Opening it, a Pokemon appears. He, at least, picked one of his more regal looking Pokemon: Arcanine. Upon release, it opens its mouth. A burst of flamethrower flies out, towards the swordsman.      And Lute starts moving to position himself between Sarracenia, and the swordsman. He's trying to look like he is ready to protect her. But, he speaks a bit, offering an idea for an explanation for what the swordsman is after.      "...Obviously he kidnapped you to take you as a bride or something. But, I'm here to save you. Don't worry! Just stay behind me, I won't let him marry you." 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     OH SHI-FIRE. The masked swordsman can not answer either to confirm or deny Lute's theory (he did have a complicated narrative to provide, but that's out the window now), as he is engulfed in unexpected flames from the summoned dog monster. He yells out in pain, and it's not just theatrics. Fire is, infact, one of his weaknesses. He flies up into the air to escape further burning, but he's covered in smoke now, and has some burns. He hisses out in pain between his teeth, "Your noble flame has shown me that I can not best you in battle when you fight to protect another, and that a true hero does not resort to kidnapping to achieve his ends. Perhaps one day we shall battle again on different terms. And perhaps when I have learned more of what it is to be a hero, I shall seek the hand of the princess through fair, honorable, and romantic means rather than a show of strength. For now, I yield to you!"     The masked man flaps his wings and throws his blade at the armored knight that is about to bring its axe down on Lute from behind - because Lute did try to get inbetween the swordsman and Sarracenia, and that dude was still standing there. The blade of thorns hits the knight, splits into numerous thorny vines, and wraps around him, before constricting with such force and steady pressure that the plants actually CUT THROUGH the steel. The knight falls to the ground in pieces, apparently just an animated suit of armor, and dissolves into motes of darkness.     "Take your leave of this place with my blessing for now! But if you ever return, you will have more challenges to face than myself!" Then the bat-winged swordsman takes off into the darkness. Whether he's REALLY gone or not is unknown, since it's so dark here. But at least the fight seems to be over. 

:'''{{#var:446|Sarracenia (446)}} has posed:'''      Wait..it's over? Lute won? And...that guy was just armor?! Sarracenia runs to Lute after the bat-winged swordsman takes to the air and darkness. "Lute! You actually did it! I was kidnapped, and that guy was going to force me to marry him, and you saved me!" She seems so excited!      If she ever finds out this was a trick, Lute will probably die.      But, right now, Sarracenia is completely convinced. That guy was actually engulfed in flames, and everyone knows creatures like that are vulnerable to flames. So, it is completely believable that Lute won, and did so intelligently! "Using a fire pokemon! What quick thinking! I'm pleasantly surprised!" the elated princess exclaims happily, quickly wrapping her arms around one of Lute's and squeezing it against her. "How did you know where to find me?" 

:'''{{#var:188|Lute (188)}} has posed:'''      Lute smiles. He mouths 'thank you' to the swordsman as he flies off. He does not say this aloud, because really, Lute owes this guy one. Lute is glad for his own quick thinking as well, and the pure luck that the guy was weak to flames. Or was that just part of the act? But, it doesn't matter, for as the man flies into the darkness, Lute just turns to Sarracenia. "Well, I am a Pokemon Trainer. Knowing weaknesses and being clever in battle is part of what we do! ...And I was heading over to your place to pay a surprise visit, and there was this note."      He pulls out the note, showing it to Sarracenia. It's fairly simple, just the whole 'challenge for a hero to come save this princess' thing going on. Looks pretty realistic for a kidnapping letter a villain would put out.      But, Lute puts forward his hand, smiling, "Well... Sarracenia, we're not out of the woods yet. We need to get going. Come on, take my hand. I'll grab the lantern again, and we'll have my Arcanine around, just in case. I'll get you back home."      A pause. "...It's a long walk, though. Would you like it if I carried you?"      Yes, this is going surprisingly well. Might as well try and go for the 'hero valiantly carries the princess off' thing.      A pause, though.      "...Also, doesn't the hero get a kiss in these situations usually?"      He might be trying to push his luck /too/ far. 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     And hanging out in the darkness overhead, at a safe distance, the masked swordsman scowls at his injuries. It was nice to get to perform, but the ending left a sour taste in his mouth. Not nearly enough blood and suffering on the part of the other two. If not for orders, he would have liked to break Lute's body, tear him apart slowly, to instill despair into the princess, and then kill her in front of Lute when he couldn't move anymore, before doing the same to him. The masked swordsman is not a nice person.     He also not a swordsman, or, indeed, even a man.     The disguise vanishes from 'his' body, revealing a blonde demoness in rather less clothing than her illusion wore. The burns remain, but they'll heal. Succubus sighs, watching the two for as long as they remain in the Forest, and then flapping off to report to her Master.     Hopefully she's get to seek vengeance some day though. She can't stand being burned and not getting to soothe her wounds in the blood of her transgressor. 

:'''{{#var:446|Sarracenia (446)}} has posed:'''      Princess Sarracenia reads over the note, then seems even more happy. It seems so real! She got kidnapped, and saved! It is still Lute that saved her, but...that is still something! She continues hugging Lute's arm as he turns toward her. "Carry me? Can't we ride your valiant steed? ...you do have a valiant steed, don't you?" she asks during the pause. Then, Lute asks that question.      Sarracenia blinks. A...a kiss? A real one? She hesitates, then smirks lightly. "Well...I suppose it -is- only fair." she says. She leans in slowly, and it looks like she is really going to kiss Lute!      Until he gets a peck on the cheek. "There." the princess says. 

:'''{{#var:188|Lute (188)}} has posed:'''      Lute ponders. Damnit, he forgot the valiant steed! HOW COULD HE FORGET THE VALIANT STEED? He doesn't even /have/ a ponyta or a rapidash. But, he's trying to remain cool. He is also trying to hide the dissapointment that he only got a kiss on the cheek. ...Maybe he'll need to have her kidnapped again?      He smiles, pretending not to be worried, "Well, I don't have a steed... We could ride Arcanine back. Or, well. I could take you on a ride on Giratina. He's more of a giant flying dragon, but."      Oh, and he forgot to mention. he pauses a bit, realizing, "--Oh! And thank you for the kiss. I'm honored to have it. ...I know I'm not your ideal hero, but. I'm still glad I can help you, anyways."      And with that, he actually leans in a bit himself, to kiss her, also on the cheek. He would try to kiss her on the lips, but... Last time? That went poorly. 

:'''{{#var:446|Sarracenia (446)}} has posed:'''      Sarracenia hmms. "Riding Arcanine would be acceptable." she says, then smiles as he thanks her for the kiss. "You were very heroic today." she says, then giggles a bit as she is kissed on the cheek as well. "If you weren't married, it would be perfect." she says as she waits for Lute to either hoist her onto Arcanine, or mount the beast himself and pull her up.      Once up on Arcanine's back, Sarracenia giggles again before wrapping her arms around Lute's waist. She has almost a contented look on her face as she snuggles in against Lute's back. Even if he is not the hero she really wants, he has been heroic and has shown her care that none others have. So, it is nice to let herself sink into the fantasy. For now, at least. 

:'''{{#var:188|Lute (188)}} has posed:'''      Lute, of course, lifts Sarracenia up onto Arcanine, before climbing on himself. As he feels her against him, he smiles. But, still, a thought is in his head: This won't work. She still doesn't want him, because he is married. Even this scheme didn't add to her love for him enough, that she could be with him even while he is already married.      But, as Arcanine starts walking along, and eventually running along, through the forest? Lute speaks. Rather calmly and happily. He's hiding some of the feelings of sadness he is having right now. For, he feels his happiness crumbling all around him. None of the girls he is courting will stay wtih him for long, he is beginning to feel.      "...Sarracenia, I know we've been through this before. But... I still think you should give me more of a chance. Give a relationship with me a chance." 

:'''{{#var:446|Sarracenia (446)}} has posed:'''      Sarracenia's smile fades as Lute speaks up, and her grip on him loosens a bit. "I gave you my terms. If you wish me to entertain the idea of you as a suitor, you must accept me as more important than Harp. I will not accept being second or equal to another in my own marriage. There can be only one queen of Sundew." She squeezes around Lute's middle again for just a moment. "And, you have made it clear that I would not be first in your life. I would be one among many, and you would always be attempting to increase your 'harem' as I have heard it called. I am a princess. A proud princess of noble birth and proper upbringing. I cannot accept such a life." she says, though it sounds more rehearsed this time than before. Like she is saying it as much because she is expected to as because she adheres to it.      "Not to mention, everytime I -do- give you a chance, you screw it up." she adds as Arcanine runs along. 

:'''{{#var:188|Lute (188)}} has posed:'''      Lute frowns. At least, she still is hugging him from behind a bit. He was /certain/ this would do it. But, alas, the reasons for not being wiht him remain the same. He tries to smile and remain calm. But, later, he is going to take some of Samar's advice. Channel his feelings into rage, and use it against the Union.      "...Well. I still think we could make it work. Somehow. But.... Well. I guess there isn't much else to say."      He's trying to ponder. Is there a way he could marry her, but convince her it is more than marriage? ...Like just call it 'Super Marriage', and convince her its a different thing when it's really the same?      ...He pushes this idea out of his head for now.      "...Also I don't screw up /every/ time. I mean, seriously. I did fine tonight, right?" 

:'''{{#var:446|Sarracenia (446)}} has posed:'''      Sarracenia smiles softly again when Lute asks that. "Yes. You did fine tonight." she agrees, snugging in against him again and resting her head against his back. "But, I didn't give you a chance today. You just took it." she adds, not really thinking much of it.      Her smile fades again when she ponder's Lute's other statement. "Yes, we could -make- it work. But, I see no reason to demean myself in such a relationship." she says.      The princess sighs despite herself. "Lute...you are a good man, from what I can tell. Why do you insist on trying to make it work between us, and even worse insist on trying to claim every beautiful woman for your own? It is not really your being married or your womanizing. It is knowing that I would not be more important than any other beautiful woman to you. My status, my kingdom, all of that means nothing to you except when it comes to how you treat me. Whoever I marry, I must know that he regards me above all others. If we did engage in courtship, I would surely eliminate any other woman you showed interest in beyond your usual flirtatious exchanges..." 

:'''{{#var:188|Lute (188)}} has posed:'''      Lute ponders. She at least is willing to talk this out a bit. And yes, he /did/ take the chance today, he wasn't given it. Oh boy did he take the chance, more than she even knows.      "...It's... It's complicated, why I keep insisting. It's not that I want every beautiful women out there. It's... Well. How to put this."      He sighs. It really is a lot more complicated than he thinks he can adequately put into words, but he'll try anyways.      "...I feel for you. I really, really, do. I feel for a lot of women. But, I can't really compare you to, say, my wife. Every single one of you I feel for in different ways. A unique place in my heart, for each of you."      And, a pause. It takes him some time to speak again.      "...And... and, as the women keep leaving my life, despite their feelings for me... ...It feels like it's cutting into my soul. Deeply."      He doesn't give any specifics. But, obviously, /something/ is happening. 

:'''{{#var:446|Sarracenia (446)}} has posed:'''      Sarracenia listens to all of this, then sighs again. It makes sense, sort of. Very few women are exactly the same, so feeling the same way for different women would be strange, she supposes. "I have not left your life, Lute." she says, then squeezes him. "But...it is truly touching that you feel so deeply for me. If you really want to be my hero...I suppose it is alright. I would not mind putting my life in your hands. You have proven yourself, as surely as that stupid plumber who Princess Peach fell for."      The princess is quiet for a long moment after that. "...I don't know what else to say. I like you, Lute. But, I cannot marry someone who is so infamous for his womanizing and his lecherous ways..."      She can't. She just can't...no matter how wonderful he is, or how caring he is toward her, or how sensitive he seems to be, or how nice his wife seems to be. She really should meet Harp at some point...      Sarracenia blinks at her thoughts, then shakes her head quickly to try and clear it before she huffs. "It really pains you that much that I will not marry you?" 

:'''{{#var:188|Lute (188)}} has posed:'''      Lute smiles. What's more, it's an honest smile. She at least is understanding. She's at least trying to be easy on him. And, she likes him as a hero.      He speaks, considering his words carefully still, "...Well. I'm not even sure we know eachother well enough to marry, yet. But. Whenever someone I love feels they can't be with me... Of course it hurts. I'm not even seeing marriage as something immediate that I'd want, but as something for the future."      A pause. And a bit of a smile. He needs to stay calm, and, well. It's nice to hear, at least, that she views him as a hero.      "...But yes, it hurts a bit, knowing if you find a man who you fall for, who isn't attached, you'd go for him instead of me, simply because of his lack of bonds to others."      He smiles a bit. This is probably too soon after something else just happened for him to think clearly. But, at the least, if the two can't be together, he'll just take his anger out on the Union. ...But, he somewhat is afraid right now, as well. Miko is likely to have this conversation with him eventually, too. A desire for someone else, simply because he is not bound.      But, Lute lets out a chuckle, "...Sorry for making things so depressing. Let's get you home, okay? And if I'm not fit for you because of my marriage, well... Maybe I can at least make sure you stay happy." 

:'''{{#var:446|Sarracenia (446)}} has posed:'''      Sarracenia's smile is gone as Lute speaks. Stupid marriage and rules about lineage and pride as a princess, she thinks to herself. Her rational mind is starting to try and think of ways around it. Then, her irrational mind offers up a bit of insight. She already defies her parents wishes and does things they consider unbefitting a princess, such as leaving the kingdom to seek her own hero, fighting people, and dressing up in costumes.      Would it really be that much of a stretch to marry a married man who has proven very well that he is both willing and able to care for her? To protect her and attend to her?      It is really her pride that keeps her from just accepting Lute as a suitor. "...how...how can you be so certain that you can show equal devotion to more than one woman?" 

:'''{{#var:188|Lute (188)}} has posed:'''      Lute ponders. How can he be certain? This thought lingers in his head a bit. But, finally, a thought comes to his head. "...I don't think there is any way to prove that I can, but. ...Well. I just know I can. ...Not a lot of women have ever felt for me on a serious level, aside my wife. Recently, more women have begun to feel for me in... that way, let's say? And so far, it feels as if I've been able to keep up with it all, able to tend to all of their needs."      And, he speaks again, a determined look on his face.      "...Plus. I can feel it within me. The special place in my heart for each women I've loved. Even if they leave me, the place is still there for them. ...Trust me. I can do this." 

:'''{{#var:446|Sarracenia (446)}} has posed:'''      Sarracenia is quiet again for a while. They are probably nearing her home castle thanks to warp gates. "...alright, I will give you a chance. But, before I can even accept you as a possible suitor, I must know your heritage. And, I should meet Harp. Because if we cannot get along, there is no way I would accept a three-sided marriage." 

:'''{{#var:188|Lute (188)}} has posed:'''      Lute's face is overcome with a look of joy. He smiles, quite widely, his teeth even showing. This? This went a lot better than he expected. He is beyond thrilled that, at the least, she will give him a chance.      "That's... Yes! You can totally meet my wife. And I'll talk to you about my heritage. I'll have to look things up, but. I know at least, that my family is one that comes from money. Somewhat old money, as well. ...And you'll get along /great/ with Harp, I'm sure."      He's actually serious on that. Harp is very similar to Sarracenia, at least in the whole 'snooty upper class' thing. Not that Lute even thinks that is a downside in either of them, he finds it charming.      And yes, soon, they'll be reaching Sarracenia's castle. Lute is going to be cheered up, even despite some other sadness he had to deal with. 

:'''{{#var:446|Sarracenia (446)}} has posed:'''      They reach Sarracenia's castle finally, and she hops down from the Arcanine. She smiles to Lute. "Harp did seem like she and I would get along famously, but without meeting I cannot be certain." she says, then blinks. "Oh! My purse and hammer! Did you find them while you were looking for me?" she asks. She almost forgot about them, what with being saved and talking about complicated stuff. 

:'''{{#var:188|Lute (188)}} has posed:'''      Lute smiles, reaching forward. The purse was put around Arcanine's neck when she wasn't looking, and the hammer was being carried in its mouth (luckily, with minimal doggy germs due to the heat of Arcanine's mouth, if anything the hammer is sterilized from its time sitting in the dirt.)      Mostly because Lute wouldn't of forgotten to grab that, even if the player himself did.      Still, though, Lute hands the purse to her, smiling, "I made sure to find this, it was laying just outside the clearing, near my path in. I would have gotten it to you earlier, but, he would of attacked me while I was handing it to you, I expected."      But, Lute doesn't leave. Not quite yet. Instead, he thinks he has a better idea. So, he hops off of his Arcanine, and walks up to Sarracenia.      "...Sarracenia? ...I... I just have to say... Thanks for giving me the chance."      And then he moves to embrace her in a mouth to mouth kiss. He really never learns. He was even dumb enough to give her back her purse, and hammer, before doing this. 

:'''{{#var:446|Sarracenia (446)}} has posed:'''      Sarracenia is quite happy to get her things back. She felt almost naked without them! "It is alright. I would not ask my...my hero..." She blushes quite brightly at actually saying it. "...to risk himself in the midst of battle only to return my belongings." she says.      Then, Lute thanks her, and she smiles. "Just don't make m-" She blinks as she is embraced, and her eyes widen as she is kissed. She starts to swing her hammer, but...instead lets the kiss last a few moments. Only a second or two, though. Then, she pulls back firmly and huffs, though she doesn't seem -that- angry. "Idiot." she says, almost affectionately.      Just before she swings her hammer like a golf club and sends Lute flying away. She trusts a pokemon can keep him from crashing horribly. She giggles, then rests her hammer over her shoulder and walks into her castle, smiling happily. 

:'''{{#var:188|Lute (188)}} has posed:'''      Lute was about to say something, in response to the idiot line.      And then he is sent flying into the sky. He is but a twinkle in the sky, now. Yes, it seems that even though he is not a real member of Team Rocket now (even though his wife is), he still somehow has that twinkle in the sky as he is sent blasting off again.      Of course he uses his Pokemon to land safely. The Arcanine finds its way home on its own, though. 

}}

1716/Hatchets

2015-03-14T00:05:31Z

Paladine: Created page with "{{Log Header |Date of Scene=2015/03/03 |Location=Summer |Synopsis=A distress call is sent out! Lumber workers are being attacked in Summer! |Thanks= |Cast of Characters=10, 56..."

{{Log Header
|Date of Scene=2015/03/03
|Location=Summer
|Synopsis=A distress call is sent out! Lumber workers are being attacked in Summer!
|Thanks=
|Cast of Characters=10, 560, 617, 726
|Tinyplot=
|Tinyplot2=
|pretty=yes
}}
{{Poses
|Poses=:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     Peaceful forest. Summer trees swaying. Cheerful workers, cheerfully working.     Cut, cut, cut the lumber.     On a warm summer's day.     Quiet forest. Small shadows moving. Frightened workers, frightfully working.     Cut, cut, cut the lumber.     On a warm summer's eve.     Silent forest. Dark shapes leaping. Silent workers, lying still.     Cut, cut, cut the workers.     On a warm summer's night.     Cut, cut, cut.     Cut, cut, cut.     ----------     The call for aid went out awhile ago. A messenger on horseback. It took time for him to reach the nearest town with a radio.     Help has been asked for.     Whiteriver Logging Camp might be in danger!     The messenger has no idea what happened after he left, but he knows he was chased.     Chased by small, hunched people (or maybe creatures), with gleaming knives, who dashed and leapt and tried to cut him.     They eventually stopped chasing.     But the messenger is not going back into those dark woods this night.     It is up to others to investigate. 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     Based on the message, Shirou doesn't have high hopes for the people of this logging camp. Strange, knife-bearing monsters that dwell in night and shadow? What loggers would stand a chance?     For that matter, what chance should he stand?     He SHOULD be thinking about that latter part but like always, he's not. NO, instead he's riding a noisy motorcycle down the forest path! He's not the best rider around and it's an old motorcycle he might've been tinkering with in spare time, but it works right?     It's also pretty noisy and smelly, and the ride's a little bumpy, but just imagine RUNNING this kind of distance!     "There just might be people stuck there who need rescue...!" 

:'''{{#var:10|Crys Gattz (10)}} has posed:''' Crys Gattz did get the call for help, and the help was on the way, Crys would not hold it against the man who escaped he was tempting fate with that. So here she was heading in right after Shirou and she nods to him as she's riding her own hover cycle alogn side his. "Yes given what the lumberjack said it's going to be pretty messy so keep alert kid." 

:'''{{#var:617|Chloe von Einzbern (617)}} has posed:''' "Hey big brother, whatcha doin'?" From like out of completely nowhere, as usual, Chloe von Einzbern just APPEARS. And as usual, a little way too close to Shirou's side for comfort. She still hasn't explained the precise thaumaturgy behind this apparent complete teleportation. And she doesn't seem likely to, just to mess with Shirou's head. If anything, she probably didn't pay a lick of attention to anything about the danger, the call for help, or the locals and their knife-wielding problems. The small, dark-skinned girl, is clearly following for the sake of harassing Shirou. As usual. 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     The logging road is made of dirt, and thus not exactly smooth and even for motorcycling. But it is at least mostly clear of obstacles. No surprise boulders or spike-traps, or similar.     This logging road is meant for wagons and horses, not vehicles. It's not a modern-tech operation. So it is good that hovercycles and motorcycles are being used, since that means they have room to maneuver.     But as the dark trees zoom by on either side, anyone who is paying attention might, just for a moment think they catch a hint of a silhouette with gleaming eyes starting at them from the side of the road. It's passed by in a flash, thanks the speed being travelled at. And maybe it was nothing.     Whiteriver Logging Camp is supposed to be up ahead. There's no street lights out here, no torches, so only the light these three bring with them is available.     And only that will let them see something on the road ahead of them as it seems to loom up out of the darkness. It is small, colorful, and immobile. Too small to be a person. Shaped wrong to be an animal. If they don't stop for it, they may just run over it or by it. 

:'''{{#var:10|Crys Gattz (10)}} has posed:''' Crys Gattz is keeping pace with the others but she pauses at Chole, where the heck did that kid just come from. Crys while hse has been trained by a certain smut loving masked Ninja long ago still doesn't always expect ninja antics like this . She does look at the dark skin girl for a moment but she keeos moving thankfully her hover bike is able to navidate the road as they near the logging camp she does star tot slow down, just what was that thing she spotted with her one eye. "Hey there's something there!" 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     "U-uoah!" Shirou's bike hits a few bumps and swerves wildly as Chloe nearly scares the pants off of him. But he somehow maintains control nd shouts, "Don't scare me like that, Chloe!" they could've hit a tree!     Maybe.     But the freakout immedaitely shifts to worry as he drives up nearer the camp. But he hits the brakes without warning and comes to a grinding halt with the bike's lone headlight shining down at the... whatever it is... the moment he sees it.     "And this place is dangerous. We're investigating a monster report!" 

:'''{{#var:617|Chloe von Einzbern (617)}} has posed:''' "Eheh hehhh~." Chloe's mission is complete, as she gets good and settled on the back of Shirou's bike, arms around his waist, she rides in style. With NO helmet. Despite her blatant disregard for safety, when Shirou comes to a halt, she looks pretty pleased, after hitching that sudden and impromptu ride, hopping off and planting her hands on her hips. "A monster report, huh?" Mused thoughtfully before her lips tug into a teasy leer, "Ooohoooo I get it." She's already looking between Shirou and Crys. "Big brother riding off into the dark and woods alone to meet a mysterious elf-looking chick with an eye patch... I'm interrupting your daaaate aren't I big brother?" She croons, already kneeling down to inspect the thing on the ground. "Hey did either of you lose this?" Chloe asks, holding the arm by the severed end and waggling it at Shirou. She's already dicking around and using it to wave at him and Crys. "Hiiiiii~." 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     There's movement in the branches overhead. A chittering, chattering rush of voices, like a mix of human and insect. There's a few moments to realize they are not alone, and then several short green people-monsters leap down at the trio from above. They are almost goblin-like, but they have strange antennae growing from their foreheads, hunched backs, and each carries an axe or knife.     They also seem hostile based upon how they bound towards the heroes, trying to stab or slash them with each downwards plunge.     Chances are that these are the things that attacked the lumberjacks, and the reason for the severed arm. 

:'''{{#var:10|Crys Gattz (10)}} has posed:''' Crys Gattz does take notice of the thing being an arm she pauses for a moment and isn't sure what to make of it other than it's likely one of the lumber jacks. She's forced to get off her biek to manouver as she hits the ground she launches several fire balls while yelling. "FOIE!" Oh look fire, a good deal of fire hopefully that will do something, on the other hand, however her bike goes spinning off at this point, for a moment before the auto pilot cuts it out and it crashes into the ground. 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     "Don't be silly. I don't have a girlf--" Shirou was just in the mood to humor Chloe's teasing but that quickly drains away when she starts waving around a severed arm. He stares. Glances over at Crys.     And then ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE! "What the heck is this?!" The redheaded teen hits the deck, rolling away from the Flea Man who comes swooping down at him with surprisingly good coordination. All that training with Bedivere's paying off!     And he delivers a quick KICK to knock the creature back before flipping up onto his feet again a bit clumsily.     A movement style Chloe might be familiar with, seeing as it's a hundred times less polished than the one she's been drawing on... using but still the fundamentals are getting there...     "...Trace, on!"     His eyes close only briefly. In the span of no time at all he produces the twin swords with a flash of crackling prana.     "The report was right...!" 

:'''{{#var:617|Chloe von Einzbern (617)}} has posed:''' Chloe is STILL waving that severed arm a moment longer, even going so far as to set the cold dead hand on Shirou's shoulder. At least up until there's a rustle. In an instant, the dark-skinned child's demeanor shifts entirely. "Hoh..." No sooner than the odd green little men come bounding out of the brush, the dead arm drops back to the dust and mud, and something silver flicks from Chloe's hands. And again, and again, and again. It's a simple combat knife, sturdily made, sharp, keen-edged, and probably familiar to Shirou, as Chloe starts machine-gun throwing Emiya Kiritsugu's favorite knife. "They got pretty close huh. I guess you're getting sloppy, big brother." Yes she's teasing him. 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     The fire seems to be effective as destroying the Flea Men, but they are also in the middle of the woods, so a forest fire is a real possibility. Shirou's kick catches the Flea Man attacking him in mid-leap, cracking its fragile ribcage with such force that it goes flying backwards, in a spray of blood! Actually...     As Chloe's knives punch through each Flea Man, producing a similar result, it seems they may just physically dissolve into a mass of blood when they take damage. They make short leaps along the ground, mixing them in with high, arcing jumps, and or simply dashing to and fro. They can even seemingly change direction in mid-air to a degree, if they haven't committed to an attack. Whether they are going to do a short jump or a high one isn't evident until they actually do it too.     All in all, they are really hard to pin down. But between three Elites, and there only being seven attackers or so, the ambush is ended shortly. And there are a number of dark puddles all over the ground where the attackers used to be.     The logging camp is still ahead. Maybe these things were easy to kill, but a bunch of civilian non-combatants getting swarmed by a couple dozen of the agile little things could result in a total slaughter. They might be able to kill a few of the little beasts, but predicting their movement would be hard for most fighters in general! What lies ahead? There appears to be a cabin-like building to act as a central office, with places to tie off horses, but if any horses are still alive, they aren't here anymore.     Bodies are scattered here and there, logs and partially-processed trees lie on wagons or waiting to be sawed apart. There's a river nearby, quietly flowing through the area.     A couple of torches are still lit, but others appear to have been knocked over and extinguished. 

:'''{{#var:10|Crys Gattz (10)}} has posed:''' Crys Gattz sees that both Shirou and Chole are going at it too, she listens to the two siblings banter but she's got other things to focus on namely the hjorrible Flea men. She notices there's a lot of them. Still she's got other methods to take them out and the fire ball was cast on reflex. She changes step now as she rises up and calls out something else. "BARTA!" She's now trying to freeze the thigns solid from the looks of it but once they managed to get up. She now pulls a weapon from her photon trap, it seems to be a pistol of some sort and in her other hand a hilt of a sword takes shape, a moment later a blue blade snap hisses to live from the primary part, and an smaller onr from the guard. "...these things would have been able to chew civilians keep alert but be ready to find no one left." 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     "... what's with these things? Yuck..." Apparently they're very weak, because Shirou's not that strong unless using his NOble Phantasms. A single kick? That was all?     "These things move weirdly..." He mutters, only to shoot Chloe a huffy stubborn gaze. He's trying his best, sheesh!     Finally he remembers the dark-skinned girl's name. "Crys... Crys, right? This is Chloe, I'm Shirou. Not sure if we've met!"     But he tries to team up with her by the time they reach the logging camp... and finds bodies everywhere.     By now he's brought out a flashlight but it doesn't feel like enough.     "Use ice or something that won't cause a fire if more of 'em come out." He advises Crys... but his words are quiet and grim.     There's bodies everywhere.     Too late to save anyone, prboably... probably. 

:'''{{#var:617|Chloe von Einzbern (617)}} has posed:''' "Hiiiii~." All things considered as the horrible little abominations of men and insect leap and bounce and even shift and jink in the air as Chloe seems to turn a slew of knifes into a veritable anti-air defense, she's pretty chipper when Shirou introduces her to his NOT GIRLFRIEND. "Nice to meet you, Shirou's NOT GIRLFRIEND." See? But once the attack dies down and the flea men are reduced to grody stains, Chloe changes clothes. It's an instantaneous action; a snap of her fingers replacing her school uniform with red cloaks and black segmented armor. "Well they were pretty nasty. There's probably more out there." She points out more seriously. As serious as Chloe von Einzbern can get anyway as she taps a corpse with her toe-- then kneels to prod and see how cold it is and how recently they died. 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     Ice seems about as effective as fire, or kicking, or knives. The knives seemed to practically go right through them, but whether that was because of Chloe's strength or some innate weakness is unclear. The body seems to have been cold for at least a couple hours. Probably since shortly after the messenger left the camp in search of help. He got out just in time. The cabin's door seems to be closed tight, and while the windows are broken, they have metal cross-bars that might have kept the creatures from crawling inside.     While anyone outside is probably dead, it's possible there might still be someone inside. 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     A quick look around the camp - combined with occasionally hurling his weapons at Flea Men and producing new ones - reveals what Shirou ws expecting. he's surprisingly calm around all of the dead bodies, showing only grimaces of disgust, anger, and regret. If he'd gotten here quicker... but that would be just plain impossible.     No, all he can do is clean up the bad things so they don't kill anyone else. That's not his idea of being a hero...     But it's got to be done.     "I'm too late for too many..." But then he spots the windows... and rushes over to the Cabin to knock on the door. "Is anyone alive in there?!" 

:'''{{#var:617|Chloe von Einzbern (617)}} has posed:''' Chloe is still poking at the body when Shirou decides a more direct route to check on survivors. "They'de have to be locked in pretty tight if they're still alive in there." She points out dryly. "Guess we can only hope, huh?" Well at least Shirou has the decency to knock. 

:'''{{#var:10|Crys Gattz (10)}} has posed:''' There are more of the monster and the ice seems to work better now she doesn't want to let htem get in close if she can help it. She'll fire off the odd shot from her photon pistol if it's warrented. She keeps with her comrades and she pauses at the buildings. "There migth be surivours inside." She looks about with her one eye and she stares as new ones form. She seems cold to the corpses and it's true. You can't do anything for the dead, worry about the living, was a lesson she learned on Ragol long ago. 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     There does indeed appear to be someone in there, as evidence by a voice from the other side of the door warning Shirou, "G-go away! You gotta' get out of here! Those things are still running around out there! I'm not opening this door while there's still monsters on the loose!"     Sinews produce a sound like high-tension wires straining almost as though to emphasize the danger. Right above, on top of the cabin, is something that looks like a more demonic version of the Flea Men, with sharp, cork-screw horns protruding back from the sides of its heads, a pair of hand-axes, and a black-scaled, sharp-toothed, clearly-inhuman appearance. It screeches, and then leaps, lunging at Chloe first. It is faster than the Flea Men from before, and (to make matters even worse) the sound of the Flea Men leaping and bounding can be heard from all directions as twelve... Twenty... Uhh...     A lot of them are coming this way, at the call of the Death Reaper that leads them. They aren't here yet, but they move swiftly and cover a lot of ground. They'll be here soon. 

:'''{{#var:617|Chloe von Einzbern (617)}} has posed:''' It's the new sound that gets Chloe glancing up. Though color her surprised that there's a survivor in the cottage, she has little time to try talking with them when something leaps down at her. "Awah!" She does make for a good looking target doesn't she? The smallest of the group-- a little sinewy and probably not much meat on her, but an easy kill, right? "--Trace On." Wrong. Very wrong as she's tackled down, grunting in pain as an axe bites deep into her shoulder. In her other hand however a red light of framework forms, immediately flaring to reality in the shape of a white-bladed sword, gleaming with a soft, but angry, holy light, which she swipes at the thing's gut in a lightning snap. She'd worry about the Flea Men but she has bigger problems right now. 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     Well that's simple enough. Shirou grits his teeth, then answers, "Okay. Hold on, we'll deal with--"     Then the unusual noise catches his attention. He looks up... and immediately leaps back to get back to back with Chloe, hurling Kanshou and Bakuya and immediately replacing them while the first set go spinning and whirling through the air for some of the Reapers!     "Where are these bastards coming from?!" 

:'''{{#var:10|Crys Gattz (10)}} has posed:''' She does see there's some people there. "We''ll clear them out. You keep your self safe." She doesn't force the door she moves to look about pondering for a moment she sees something and she looks up she raises her pistol and opens fire at one of the reapers whne she can get a clear shot, then she keeps on shooting knowing she needs to clear them out before they can get to close range, also this is going to call for some heavier melee weaponry at this rate. 

:'''{{#var:726|Walter Bernhard (726)}} has posed:'''     Chloe's strike deals significant damage to the Death Reaper, almost sawing it in half, though it seems to not be as fragile as the Flea Men. Even so, blood flies from its deep injury, and smoke trails it as it hops around in a blur, trying to keep itself mobile while looking for a second opportunity.     Shirou's whirling blades take out some of the Flea Men who have just started to arrive, mowing through the ones who don't get out of the way in time, while others go scampering around trying to keep too low to the ground to get chopped in half or beheaded.     Thankfully, because the Death Reaper is focused on Chloe, when Crys fires it catches it off-guard, right in the head. Then, much like its lesser brethren, it blasts apart into a wave of blood and splatters all over.     With that, the Flea Men mostly seem to scatter, fleeing back into the woods. While parting shots on their retreating backs are possible, they appear to be retreating. The lumberjacks still inside the cabin may take some convincing in regard to the monsters being gone, but will eventually emerge and allow themselves to be gotten to safety.     Was this just a random monster attack? Or was there a purpose behind it? Also, where did the monsters come from? Maybe referencing Union databases will given some answers as to what kind of monsters they were, and what might have caused them to attack people out in the middle of the woods. 

:'''{{#var:617|Chloe von Einzbern (617)}} has posed:''' It's over then? Chloe sits up with a grunt of pain and adrenaline when the Reaper isn't pinning her anymore. In a soft flare of red light her sword vanishes so she can clutch the wound and pout MASSIVELY at Shirou. "Geeze, sneaky bastard." She huffs as the Reaper is reduced to a bloody paste and the Flea Men decide to book it. "Shirouuuuu... Carry me home~." 

:'''{{#var:10|Crys Gattz (10)}} has posed:''' Crys Gattz sees that the creatures and she oes to take more of them out as she ca, she watche as they flee, she keeps shooting at them, she's aiming to take down as many as she can to prevent them being a problem so soon again she'll even chase them a bit, but eventually she'll pull back, there are surivors to help and dead to burry. 

}}

1784/Restless Natives

2015-03-12T08:22:44Z

Paladine: Created page with "{{Log Header |Date of Scene=2015/03/11 |Location=Midnight Shrine Tokyo <MST> |Synopsis=Miko, Zod, and Sakura head to Miko's hometown to deal with the possibility of a Monster ..."

{{Log Header
|Date of Scene=2015/03/11
|Location=Midnight Shrine Tokyo <MST>
|Synopsis=Miko, Zod, and Sakura head to Miko's hometown to deal with the possibility of a Monster threat at a popular restaurant.
|Thanks=
|Cast of Characters=172, 524, 589
|Tinyplot=
|Tinyplot2=
|pretty=yes
}}
{{Poses
|Poses=:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     Le Chef Pierre is a French cuisine restaurant in Tokyo. Due to it being exotic foreign food, of course the Japanese have flocked to it, because popular things become ULTRA-POPULAR in short order here. How they became popular to begin with, however, is often unclear. In this case, the answer may be less about Japanese cultural phenomena, and more about something insidious. Midnight Shrine Tokyo is infested with new openings of businesses, suddenly-popular people, places, accessories, food, and who knows what else, as well as many other methods that monsters use to gain whatever they're after from normal folk. The principle appears to be 'draw attention from the public with something mundane, and use it as cover for supernatural maleficence of some kind'.     However, this also tends to draw magical girls, usually by seeming coincidence - such as their civilian identities actually FALLING for the advertisements and popularity. Veteran magical girls tend to be a bit more clever, to be able to recognize the signs or at least be on the look-out for subtle indicators, but even they can have some rather embarrassing blindspots. Princess Paladin is not quite a veteran magical girl, and is actually rather knew, but she has a certain degree of insight into how these things work due to her magic being Law based, and a knowledgeable advisor who offers her further information regarding the 'rules' of magic.     So, a French cuisine restaurant that recently opened and is drawing patrons like whoah, as well as the fact that researching the supposedly famous chef who runs the place has turned up a suspicious lack of information, has Miko Fujimoto and a certain fairy venturing to Le Chef Pierre to sample the menu - and hopefully to find out if this is actually a plot by the various monsters that have Tokyo under siege.     Invited along are two people. General Zod, who Miko has worked with on occasion before - though in the guise of Princess Paladin, is one of those two people. She is trying to get the Confederacy more involved in her world to help show the local magical girls it's a good idea to join them. She has also invited Sakura Kinomoto, because what better way for two new friends to bond than fighting evil monsters that might be hurting people, right?     The restaurant itself looks pretty fancy from the outside, well-lit, and looks a bit like a giant chandelier. At night in particular it's especially impressive. The parking lot is filled to capacity and then some, and the reservation list is probably booked about three months in advance. The line to get in is very long. Miko shows up in a white dress with pleated skirts, and a red corsage on the chest, along with white heeled shoes. Some red lipstick and some eyeshadow completes her attire for the night. White Rose is dressed similarly, in an ankle-length white dress, but she is six inches tall and trying to remain out of sight, so appreciating the white-haired, red-eyed pixie's effort to pretty up is unlikely for bystanders.     Miko has a plan to get herself, Zod, and Sakura in without a reservation, and without violence, so for now is just waiting for her companions to arrive before getting in line. 

:'''{{#var:172|Sakura Kinomoto (172)}} has posed:'''     Sakura actually arrived in the area over an hour ago - she's been hanging out in the Castle of Stars since then, getting ready and prettied up. Having a 'portable' castle is pretty convenient for this sort of stuff!     A pink door materialises in a back alley near the restaurant, and out steps Sakura - wearing a pink dress with a cherry blossom motif, and... wedge sneakers? Well, she's still a teenager, so she can get away with those. They give the same 'make taller' effect as high heels, without being nearly as uncomfortable!     She heads towards the line, with Kero perched on her shoulder. Her Familiar is currently pretending to be a stuffed toy. 

:'''{{#var:524|General Zod (524)}} has posed:'''     Zod is wearing... not his armor. Instead the man is wearing a charcoal gray business suit, which Faora insisted on having tailored because it wouldn't do well for the General to look /shabby/ while visiting an upscale establishment. He fidgets with the navy blue tie, hating the thing for feeling constricting around his neck. This is the second time he's left the Black Zero without his armor or undersuit. He suspects he will have to get used to the naked feeling of being out of uniform at this rate.     Zod says to Miko. "So this is the restaraunt that you've talked so much about. I hope it lives up to its reputation." He says, straightening his suit jacket. 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     Miko smiles at Zod a bit bashfully and says, "Yes. I hope so too." She is kind of out of her element here as well. She has been taught to be an elegant and proper Japanese lady, of course, because her mother was really strict about that sort of thing, but that doesn't mean she has been to a place like THIS before! Even though she suspects it's some kind of trap for gathering life force or heart gems or dream prisms or destiny mirrors or soul gears or WHATEVER, she's still kind of excited despite that. Hey, she's only eighteen. She's allowed to be a bit innocent still.     Once Miko spots Sakura, she smiles more brightly and waves to the other girl. "I'm glad you could make it, Miss Kinomoto!" she offers in greeting. They may be friends, but she doesn't know if it's cool to address Sakura by her first name yet. She generally rules in favor of the culture of the person she's speaking to, when known, but even if it's just a cover to conceal their true connection, it's best to be polite! "That's a very cute dress!"     Miko looks at the stuffed animal on Sakura's shoulder briefly, and the little fairy sitting on Miko's shoulder looks at Kero as well.     White Rose realizes how much more noticeable she is relative to a stuffed animal, and says, "Oh, snap. I guess I should go immaterial for now, huh? Or, like, hide out somewhere. Uhhh..." She looks around, glances down at Miko's dress, then at Sakura's hair, then at Zod's tie.     "We need you to remain physically present for your role in getting us in, remember?" Miko reminds quietly, as she moves to get into line. She only just stepped into place, and already the line is moving rather faster than one would expect.     White Rose eventually decides to just fly down and hang out underneath the knee-length skirts of Miko's dress. That way when she comes out, she'll be near floor-level in a crowd of people, and unlikely to be spotted in the forest of legs.     "We don't know for certain that this place is unusual yet, but there are indicators," she says quietly to the others. "Non-violence is best here, until we get confirmation of Nether Realm activity. Thankfully, -everyone- wants to get in here, so we don't need to worry about explaining our presence."     Really, the line is moving pretty darn fast. They're already to the doors! It's less of a line and more of a procession. Once the trio (or quintet, counting Kero and White Rose) enter those doors, they find a man waiting by a very French-waiter-looking man standing by a desk, with a reservation book open in front of him, smiling and waiting for customers. All the people ahead of them seem to have been shown to their tables already, because there's no one else in the entry way.     "Welcome!" the man says in French-accented Japanese, and asks, "By what name is your party registered, sir, and madams?"     "Ah... Fujimoto, party of three?" Miko offers, before turning to Sakura and asking, "Or was it registered under your name?" She is trying to stall for time, while White Rose flies out from her concealment and tries to sneak quietly up on the book to use her Law Magic to rewrite the reservations to display their names. Language is based upon rules and laws, after all, and writing is the ultimate expression of language. Adding or changing words and letters should be easy peasy if she can just get the chance! 

:'''{{#var:172|Sakura Kinomoto (172)}} has posed:'''     "I wouldn't miss it for anything, Miss Fujimoto~" Sakura responds, before giggling. "Just call me Sakura. Or Petals! Actually Petals is probably best, there's a bunch of Sakuras around... For some reason." She smiles up at general Zod brightly - with that characteristic smile of ehrs. The one that seems almost enough to light up a room all by itself.     Kero peers at White Rose a little bit.     As the line quickly moves forward, Sakura attempts to clear her mind and reach out with her magical senses - to see if there's anything of note around them. As they enter the building, though, she snaps out of it. "Oh! Um. It -might- be under Kinomoto..." 

:'''{{#var:524|General Zod (524)}} has posed:'''     Zod looks distracted, mostly because he is watching the interior of the restaraunt with his enhanced visual senses. Looking for people who might cause trouble, like people who are armed, people who aren't what they appear to be, etc. He also looks for odd or out of place things, though that particular task is a bit more difficult as he is not terribly familiar with Earth's customs and culture. He catches Sakura's infectious smile and smiles slightly to the young sorceress. 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     White Rose is hovering above the pages of the book, ready to touch it and change it, but then she narrows her eyes, her little white eyebrows coming down, and darts away as quickly and unobtrusively as she can. The doorman says, "Yes, yes! I have it right here!" Barely glancing at the book as he flips some pages, he announces, "Fujimoto, party of three. You will be shown to your table right away!"     According to Sakura's magic sense, depending on how finely-tuned it is, this entire restaurant is covered in a layer of it, and the book on the desk is itself magical. Miko says, trying to conceal her surprise, "Thank you very much." Then there's a waiter stepping forth from around the corner, who leads the way into the restaurant proper. The magic intensifies here, as does the impressiveness of the place. The interior has seemingly countless tables and booths, and many of them are near windows. This place must be larger than it looks from the outside! Or, based upon the huge number of people seated around the restaurant, easily dozens of waiters darting this way and that to serve them, it might be that this place has far more room inside than the building is actually able to hold. The ring shaped room reaches all the way around a vast central pillar of some kind, covered in swinging doors, where the waiters vanish into and emerge from with various dishes seemingly constantly.     Everyone seems quite pleased with the experience, quite pleased with the decor, quite pleased with the food, and just generally to be having a good time. All the dishes seem to be getting delivered at exactly the right time, no orders are gotten wrong... And the shining white-and-gold designs of everything makes the whole place rather dazzling.     To Zod's gaze, he may be able to determine that aside from the customers, everyone - including the doorman at the entry way - was non-human. Not just non-human, but so wildly non-human they make Kryptonians look like Earth natives by comparison. It's likely to be difficult to distinguish any defining traits of their physiology. There may or may not be some skeletal structure, but it's incomplete, scattered around, and doesn't seem to be connected to or supporting anything. Identifiable organs are basically absent, and there isn't even any indication of a circulatory system or... Or ANYTHING. They're like someone took something disturbingly Wrong and overlayed the appearance of a human without changing anything under the surface.     Those swift, sure, precise, smiling and polite waiters, who seem to cross distances quickly, to come and go almost instantly, whenever one isn't directly observing them... Are something Other.     Miko can't sense magic, but has noticed the spatial distortions going on, and taken note of them. Soon enough, the 'party of three' are shown to a table, seated, and provided with menus, with the promise that their server will be with them as soon as they are ready.     And that's when Miko asks quietly, out of the corner of her mouth, "You didn't change the reservation book, did you?"     White Rose pops up over Miko's shoulder, keeping herself concealed as much as possible by her partner's hair, and confirms, "There was Chaos Magic all over that thing. If I so much as touched it, you'd have seen a lot more fireworks." 

:'''{{#var:172|Sakura Kinomoto (172)}} has posed:'''     Sakura winces a little bit, putting one hand to her head as she's momentarily overwhelmed by the magic of the place. She shakes her head a little bit to clear it, and keeps on smiling warmly - while glancing around at the decor. "Woooow. This place is so... so..."     As they're seated, she finishes her thought. "Completely -wrong-. There's no way there should be this much magic in a -restaurant-," she whispers to her current companions. She takes Kero off her shoulder, and sets him on the table in front of her.     Her Key of Stars drops down from her right sleeve, dangling from her hand by its chain. 

:'''{{#var:524|General Zod (524)}} has posed:'''     Zod's fists clench reflexively, sensing that this is a most disturbing pocket universe. He takes a seat, glances at the menu even though he's really trying to make sure he is aware of the nearest exit. Which is probably a window. At the mention of magic, the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Relax, relax, keep cool. No need to start making a big show... yet.     Zod smiles politely. "Have you two noticed that ugly things hide under pleasant faces?" He says, sounding as casual as he can. "For example, cats. Cats are, by all accounts, cute and fuzzy and loved by many people." He makes his point by holding up a hand. "But at a moment's notice, the cat can unsheathe its claws and turn into a blur of claws, fur, and fangs." His way of letting the girls know that this place is extremely dangerous in his estimation. 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     White Rose tsks. "I'm not at full strength yet, so I can only sense certain kinds of magic and only at close range. It's a good thing you're here, Sakura!-Oh, I'm White Rose by the way."     Miko shakes her head at White Rose, though she agrees with her assessment. Sakura identifying that there's a large amount of magic here will greatly abbreviated the steps needed to confirm they need to take action - even if all the other factors didn't contribute as well. "We can introduce ourselves later. I'm not sure this is just some small-time operation. And if this is 'small-time' for the force behind it, they have enough raw power to throw around that I don't want to meet them." Miko glances around, trying to take a head count of the customers - or at least the ones she can see from here, given the warped nature of space and the fact the curve of that central structure blocks her from seeing what's on the other side of it at any given time. "Just from the number of people I can see, there are hundreds of customers, and depending on how much space is warped on the other side, we could be looking at upwards of a thousand people in this building who are quite probably in a lot of danger."     It's not that Miko generally cares about protecting innocent civilians, but in this case she doesn't see a reason not to either. But it would be easy to assume the worry behind her concerned expression and tone is for the sake of others. In truth, she's more concerned by what kind of power or fuel might be gained by the enemy by draining all these people regularly, or whatever the Nether forces are up to. The restaurant has been open for a week or so now, and if it's been this packed every night...     Miko picks up the menu to seem less suspicious and looks through it while thinking about if she knows any of the Nether-based groups that could be behind this. All around her, people are laughing, or talking quietly, or enjoying their meals. There are quite a few couples, and even a same-sex couple or two. Though she should be focusing on the matter at hand, especially when Zod reveals that the waiters are someThing other than what they appear to be, she can't help thinking that all these normal and mundane things she keeps searching for - happiness, love, friendship - the things she could have had in a magicless life, possibly, would have made her just another one of these ignorant victims, having the time of their lives - while those same lives are being stolen from them.     Her face reddens slightly as she looks up and glances between Sakura and Zod, realizing she's allowing herself to worry about dumb NORMAL PEOPLE stuff instead of staying on-task and being the professional magical girl she's supposed to be. She actually sees some stuff that looks good, and considers an appetizer - not so much to eat it but to see if there's anything in it they can identify. "I suppose we had better watch our step around such tricksters then," she replies to Zod. Her own Artifact is stored in Otherspace and she can draw it as soon as she needs it. "But do we wish to obtain a -sample- of the cuisine here, or take a look around? The easiest way to do the latter is to just say we need to use the restroom, but-" 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     A waiter is suddenlt standing right behind Miko, smiling and saying, "Do you require an escort to the lady's room?"     Miko jumps in her seat, and White Rose looks very nonplussed as she does her best to stay out of sight. Miko turns slightly and feigns a smile as she says, "A-ah, I think I can find it if you just point the way?"     The waiter keeps smiling right back, bows, and gestures towards one of the doors. If they heard her say 'need to use the restroom', what else might they hear in this place? Do they already know what their group is up to? Is this a trap to separate them!?     "Actually, perhaps we ALL need to use the rest room," Miko says suddenly as she turns to give a big smile to the other two and REALLY MEANINGFUL LOOKS. "So there are no interruptions when we get to the eating, you know?"     The waiter does not protest or offer anything further, just turns his squinty-eyed smile on the other two to see what they have to say. 

:'''{{#var:172|Sakura Kinomoto (172)}} has posed:'''     Sakura smiles briefly at White Rose, then reaches over to her left arm, adjusting... something strapped to it, under her sleeve. It's slightly visible when she compacts her sleeve against it, but otherwise the sleeve is loose enough that it doesn't show...     Sakura herself is definitely focused on saving innocent civilians. She's tempted to just... start the confrontation right now, on her own terms, but she's not sure what would happen to any innocents in the building in the process. So instead... play it cool, Sakura.     "Ah... yeah, that's probably a good idea. I hate it when I have to go to the bathroom during a meal and miss, like, half the conversation by the time I get back!" 

:'''{{#var:524|General Zod (524)}} has posed:'''     The Kryptonian says, politely, because he wants to watch what the weird not-people are going to do when the girls go to the bathroom, "I went before I came, but thank you. Waiter, please bring us three glasses of water for when my young friends return." Zod is very very suspicious right now. And if he has to, he'll flip the table and make a scene to provide a distraction. 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     Well, Zod is super strong and stuff. He can probably handle himself just fine in a magical restaurant full of magic! Maybe he can just punch the magic away! He totally knows what he's doing, or else he wouldn't be a general, right? Right! So Miko nods to him, and rises from her seat, "We'll be back shortly then." Then she begins heading in the direction indicated by the waiter, feeling like his eyes are on her and Sakura the entire time, even if he's actually focused on Zod now.     "Do you know what you wish to order now, sir?" the waiter asks in that same polite, pleasant, and perfectly calm manner. "It will be brought to you promptly once the order has been placed." It probably will be. But who knows what's actually IN it!?     Meanwhile, Miko - likely accompanied by Sakura - make it to the restroom, only for Miko to duck off to the side and enter a different set of doors marked 'Staff Only'.     Beyond the doors is a bustling kitchen, with lots of dishes being put onto plates, and the dishes being carried out of the kitchen on the hands of waiters. Of note, however, is that there is not a single cook anywhere to be seen. Somehow, the plates of food are just there, ready to be delivered. The SOUND of cooking is everywhere. The SMELL of meat sizzling, of rich chocolatey desserts being baked, of countless other delicious foods, is everywhere. But the ovens are cold and unused, the pans and pots empty, the knives and spoons and spatulas and ladels all lying clean and neat in their storage spaces.     Before their very eyes, the food just seems to manifest out of thin air. Every time they aren't looking, a new plate with steaming food appears where there was once empty space. This is not to say that they are alone in here. The waiters keep coming in and out, and Miko has to duck down behind a counter to remain unseen, gesturing for Sakura to do the same. But this food is apparently being magicked into existence... Or something.     But who is behind it? Who is actually RUNNING this operation. 

:'''{{#var:172|Sakura Kinomoto (172)}} has posed:'''     Sakura follows after Miko, ducking into the Staff Only door with her - darting a look back to make sure no one's looking before slipping inside and slowly, silently closing the door behind them. She moves with startling grace and precision, her footsteps not even audible to iko - who's right in front of her! She's practised this sort of thing a lot.     As she ducks down beside Miko, she removes her shoes. After all, wedge sneakers are not the best for fighting in. She concentrates for a moment, then hisses out a command word - "Release!" - that transforms the Key into her wand.     "I feel magic coming from further back," she whispers to Miko. "I can probably sneak through there no problem, but I don't want us to get separated. Maybe if I use Illusion..." 

:'''{{#var:524|General Zod (524)}} has posed:'''     Zod handwaves. "I will wait for my friends to return, it is rude to order before others at the table." Rest assured, he is watching where Sakura and Miko go in case of trouble. This suit, he is certain, is going to be ruined by the end of the night. 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     Miko thinks about it. So far they've gotten away with not being noticed, but it's possible the waiters are dumb minions of some kind. Using magic outright might alert other forces, though given that Miko was willing to have White Rose use magic on a reservations book, she isn't above taking that risk. She thinks and then nods to Sakura. "I'll be right behind you." Whatever is back there has to be the source of all this!     And however it is that they make it to the back room, the feeling that they are advancing into a very bad place to be grows exponentially almost immediately. There's a long dark corridor, with cement walls, and a partially-open, rusted door at the end of it. That's where the magic is coming from. There's a certain... Earthy smell, and a sickly-sweet scent that taints the delicious food smells coming from the kitchen. More and more, if they proceed, the food smells stop smelling so great. Like a delicious sandwich with just enough mold on the bread that you can tell it doesn't taste right, even if you didn't see the mold there originally. You just know it's not what it's supposed to be like.     Whatever they're about to discover is probably bad.     But it's also probably important to stopping all this.     White Rose trying to identify the magic she can feel, but she's still not quite at a close enough range. If only the Sacred Scepter were a bit more awake, she'd be stronger...     Meanwhile, with Zod, the waiter says, "Of course, sir." and then heads away from the table. If he isn't watched the entire time, he just vanishes the moment he's out of sight - even if it's just due to blinking. Many more waiters come and go, and all around Zod, people who have eaten are seemingly becoming sluggish and tired. Yawning, stretching, slumping in their chairs slowly, leaning on each other. The cuddling of some couples might be cute or sweet if not for the fact that basically everyone is starting to lose energy. Some are already asleep, though the newer customers seem to still be full of vigor - even if oblivious to what's going on around them.     No new customers have entered the building following their group. The windows, Zod may notice, given that he was looking for an exit earlier, seem to display silhouettes similar to what the outside looked like. But they're just silhouettes. If he looks more closely, the cars in the parking lot, the bushes, the trees, adjacent buildings, are more like card board cut outs, or just shadows without any matter attached to them. Theres's no changes in lighting, nothing and nobody moving out there... It's completely lifeless. And with his hearing, he may detect a metal clicking in the area of the front door, as the doorman locks the restaurant entrance.     Something is going down soon. And soon. 

:'''{{#var:172|Sakura Kinomoto (172)}} has posed:'''     Sakura taps her wand against the card in her hand. "Illusion!" she hisses. The two are surrounded by an eye-searing pattern of stars and stripes in all the colours of the rainbow, for just a moment, before... well. Nothing seems to happen from their point of view.     But Sakura just steps out from their hiding place. They're invisible to everyone -other- than themselves!     Sakura cringes a little bit as they sneak further into the bowels of the restaurant. "Ugh, what is that -smell-..." she complains under her breath. "It smells like something's rotting back here, or..."     And then, of course, Sakura sees it. As she walks into a room that looks like it should be a walk-in freezer of some sort - although it's not currently powered - she stops dead in her tracks. -Coffins-. She's almost scared to approach them at first, but then peers into one of them, before jumping back. "Th-there are... bodies in here!" she gasps out, then chokes, coughing and covering her mouth. She's looking rather queezy.     "B..Bubbles..!" she gasps out, summoning one of her Card spirits - a small mermaid! - which swoops in the air around Sakura and Miko, cleansing the air into a more breathable state for the moment. "Haa... There's... magic flowing from this room... I think... I think something very bad is being put into the food here..." 

:'''{{#var:524|General Zod (524)}} has posed:'''     Zod squints about, on edge. He's checking to see if the slumping people are still people, or if they're those put together caricatures of people. And apparently they are. Hmm... Time for a shot of adrenaline, he thinks. Zod stands up suddenly, flipping the table over with a crash of silverware and glasses and condiments spilling upon the floor. "What on earth have you put in the food? All these people are falling asleep! Do you intend to rob us while we sleep? I demand to see management!" He roars. 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     Miko finds the illusion magic very interesting, since it's not something she can use herself. She isn't sure how protected they are, but tries to minimize the sounds she makes at least as she follows after Sakura. After her experience at the Caverns of Death, Miko can not say she hasn't been exposed to some truly putrid odors. But that was only one time, and she had a breath filter. The cloying stench in this room makes her gag and heave until Sakura takes steps to get them some breathable air. White Rose doesn't seem bothered by the smell, so much as the magic. Now that she's close enough, she can identify it.     "Death Magic," the fairy states. "I don't know the enemy responsible, but unless we eliminate whoever is controlling this, the spell isn't going to stop."     Then the light from the kitchen behind them is blocked out as a dark shape fills the hall. Miko whips around to find the first and only chef they've seen so far. A man dressed as a French chef, with the hat, and everything, as well as wiry black hair, a long moustache that is bent at the tips, corpse-blue skin, and glowing red eyes.     "Little girls," he hisses. "You don't belong here." Then he raises a bloody cleaver and starts to advance until he is fully blocking the only exit out of the room.     Miko already has her gohei in hand, and in a flash of pink light, the terrified young woman who is Miko Fujimoto is physically transformed and altered into holy magical girl, Princess Paladin. Her prayer rod becomes a long scepter with a jeweled ball on the end, and her demeanor becomes confident, collected, and combat-ready. "You don't belong in this world at all, monster," Paladin responds to the undead chef.     He just bares his dripping teeth into a wider, mirthless, slasher-smile, lets out something like a cross between a growl and a zombie's moan in the back of his throat and readies himself for battle.     Meanwhile, as Zod flips the table, in that moment where the table obscured his sight of part of the dining area on the other side of it, dozens of waiters have appeared, all throughout the ring-shaped room - on the sides and behind him as well.     "Sir," one of them says calmly, and professionally. "Please settle down." But the other customers are being pulled from their oblivious state by the commotion - though not responding quite as one might expect. They seem confused, unsure of what's going on, but not to be acting to do anything in particular. Some of them rub their eyes and yawn. Even those who haven't eaten yet.     What if the food itself isn't responsible for the weakness and tiredness? What if it's just BEING here?     Surrounded as he is, Zod has plenty of enemies to deal with if combat begins-     One just leaps towards his back, never changing his calm, pleasant, polite expression, and attempts to hang onto the taller man with his arms around the Kryptonian's neck from behind. Of course, he lacks the strength that Zod has, so good luck with that. But at least it seems the time has come to act! 

:'''{{#var:172|Sakura Kinomoto (172)}} has posed:'''     Kero is flung off the table as Zod flips it. "Hey, watch it!" He shouts in annoyance as he rights himself in the air. Then he sweatdrops. "...Well. Guess my cover's blown." A magic circle appears on the floor beneath him - a sun and crescent moon made of yellow energy, surrounded by a ring, with eight of the twelve zodiac symbols spaced around the rim. It's not the same as Sakura's magic circle...     His wings grow large, and then wrap around him into a human-sized caccoon. Soon, then fold back - revealing his true form. A yellow winged lion.     Keroberos roars, and pounces at the waiter hanging off Zod's back.     Meanwhile, Sakura produces another card. She's good at slight of hand! "DASH!" And, with a blur of speed... she attempts to get behind the chef. Her arm raises, there's a 'snickt' sound... and a blade just slightly longer than her palm shoots out from her left sleeve, her hand motion bringing it up to stab into his neck. 

:'''{{#var:524|General Zod (524)}} has posed:'''     Zod grabs the flipped table even as Kero takes care of the waiter on his back, and swats the waiters with it before hurling the now battered wooden furniture at the doorman in an attempt to bisect the UnPerson and knock the doors open. He suspects, however, that the doors will not exactly be useful in this case, if the trick with the windows and the interior of this place is any indication.     He assumes that Kero is an ally, given Kero ripped one of the UnPersons off his back. "Make towards the kitchen!" He roars as he decks a waiter with a punch meant to take its head off. 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     Sakura succeeds in moving so fast that she slips right over the undead chef's head, takes his back, and stabs him in the neck. Out of the wound spills dirt, and then little gross insects that crawl across his blue skin, and possibly Sakura as well. He doesn't seem to experience pain, though the injury is plainly still there, and still damaging him. His skin even seems to crumble around the injury, indicating his physical integrity may be somewhat less than it appears to be. But even so, he doesn't make any sound of anger, or agony, or of distress. He just turns his thick neck, even if it means causing more damage from the knife tearing through him as he turns, and his head rotates with a series of sickening cracks and snaps until it faces Sakura.     Then the chef growls and starts reaching over his shoulders to try to grab her. Paladin lunges forward and strikes him in the back of the head with the Sacred Scepter, the holy artifact making a smoking hole in his skull that spills even more dirt and gross bugs. Unable to face two opponents at once, especially one he can't see because he broke his own neck, he just slashes blindly with the cleaver in his right hand, while continuing to try to grab Sakura with the other, and possibly even try to bite her if she doesn't stay out of range of his red-drenched maw.     White Rose flutters this way and that, trying to see an opening, or a weakness, or SOMETHING she can point out to the other two. Then she spots it. A throbbing red crystal buried inside all the dirt and bugs inside the dead man's skull. "Ah! Petals, go for his head! Paladin, try to take out his legs!"     Princess Paladin doesn't waste time acknowledging, and just yells out, "CRUSADER'S CRESCENT!" As she slashes with her Scepter and unleashes a spinning buzzsaw of magical girl death in the form of a crescent-moon-shaped holy blade, aimed at the chef's legs. It cuts him off at the knees, reducing his mobility and sending him lurching off-balance to the floor. A perfect position to drive a knife down into his head! 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     Meanwhile, Keroberos has little trouble eliminating the waiter. He scatters underneath the powerful blows of the guardian, just like the ones that Zod strikes do likewise. They just fly apart. As the disguise is no longer aiding them, the illusion fades away, and all color leeches from the restaurant. The very appearance of the place shifts, with gold and white becoming black and grey, plaster and tile becoming cold marble, and dirty gravel. The table that struck the monsters to pieces is thrown at the doors, and it shatters against them as though the wooden barriers were steel.     The table fragments change into shattered stone, and other tables all throughout the dining area take on the same - though intact - form.     Caskets.     This restaurant... Isn't a restaurant at all. Iron-handled drawers large enough to hold a human body line the walls all around the ring-shaped corridor, in long rows and high columns.     This place is a mausoleum or some sort of catacombs - and possibly existing in some kind of pocket dimension or alternate space. Those windows that once looked out onto a simulation of scenery now look out onto a pitch black emptiness, with hooded figures standing on the other side, all with masks made out of the skulls of large birds on their faces to conceal their features. Rank after rank after rank of these mysterious watchers, stretching back into infinity.     The people scattered around are flopping around, trying to get their bodies to react, or else already asleep. Some glowing force seems to be draining from them, and some people have begun to vomit up dust and dirt.     The kitchens are easy to find. They're the ones behind the rusted, red-dripping metal doors that lie part-way open, with the light of some kind of moon blade shining forth from the otherside for a moment.     The waiters are now masses of dirt, with pieces of bone scattered throughout them. Hunched over, bending to the side, walking on all fours, there is no mistaking them for people anymore. They are constructs, or perhaps mere fragments of people who used to exist, brought back in a mockery of their original selves. A long tongue of toxic-green slime oozes forth from one of those with a more intact skull, as it begins loping after Zod at a dead run on hands and feet. With that, the dozens of other monsters follow as well. 

:'''{{#var:172|Sakura Kinomoto (172)}} has posed:'''     "Don't tell me what to do!" shouts Keroberos... as he makes a run for the kitchen anyway, swiping at or breathing fire at any 'waiters' that try to get in his way. "Damnit I shouldn't have let her out of my sight... Sakura, I'm coming!"     Meanwhile, in the back rooms, Sakura darts back as the monstrous chef tries to grab at her, wincing at his breaks his own neck. Her body is surrounded by a soft turquoise aura as she moves superhumanly quickly out of range. As White Rose instruct her, she flips a card out of her... pocket? Where is she keeping these anyway? Wherever it came from, she taps her wand against it. "POWER!"     A pink aura envelops her, ebfore condensing down to just surrounding her left arm. She darts in, and thrusts her hand out, palm open, blade extended, right for that glowing red gem... 

:'''{{#var:524|General Zod (524)}} has posed:'''     Zod growls, "I was telling you where she is!"     The Kryptonian kicks a coffin hard through his pursuers to scatter the dirt and bones about. If that doesn't work, he burns the animated bits and bobs with twin beams of white-hot fire from his eyes. Then he makes a dash for the bloody rusted door, throwing his shoulder into it to force it open (he suspects it may be difficult to open or locked...). It would not do to be separated, no. Especially since magical effects have, in the past, not done him any good. 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     Zod and Kero succeed in making it to the kitchen, heat vision and any other attacks levelled having a significant effect on the bad guys - but those bad guys seemingly reforming from their own remains gradually. The kitchen has also transformed from its former appearance into its true nature. A circular room of stone blocks, inscribed everywhere in glowing symbols. There is a pit in the floor, from which an unearthly blue light radiates. It's a crystallized sphere of pure magical energy about 20 feet across, with what appear to be... People... Or things... Crawling or flowing underneath the crystal's surface. Some kind of energy field surrounds it, but in a few moments, that shield shatters, leaving the crystal open to attack!     What made the field vanish? Sakura stabbing through the chef's head with her sword, and into the crystal heart that was animating him. The throbbing red stone starts beating rapidly when it is pierced, before suddenly cracking open and releasing a blood-red mist that briefly takes on the form of a bird skull, before vanishing. The chef's remains crumble away into dust and dirt. But the spell hasn't ended. They're still trapped in this place.     So what will fix it? Probably blasting that crystallized energy! White Rose even says as much as she flies into the 'kitchen' and starts to yell, "Hey, that crystal is holding this space together, better smash i-AAAAHHH! CAT MONSTER!" She 'skids to a halt' in the air as she sees Kero's new form, and then yells, "AAAAAAAAAHHHH!" again, with more emphasis, when she sees the doors that Zod smashed down are doing a really bad job of keeping out the wall of dirt-and-bones monsters that are surging towards them RIGHT NOW.     Paladin is blocked from getting into the kitchen by the dusty remains + the narrow hallway + Sakura + everyone else in the kitchen, so she just takes shots at the monsters heading towards them and leaves the core to her companions. "HEADS DOWN! PENANCE BEAM!" she calls out before pointing the Sacred Scepter and unleashing a pink beam that drills right through the dirt monsters, and those behind them, buying some time. The ones struck by holy magic don't seem to be reforming, but there's still a lot of them out there, and people in danger from life-force draining! 

:'''{{#var:172|Sakura Kinomoto (172)}} has posed:'''     "Ew ew ew bugs ew," Sakura frets once the undead monster is actually delt with, shuddering and brushing any of those insects that got onto her... off of her!     And then... back to the kitchen! She frowns a ltitle bit as she sees the crystal, hand going up to her head. Her Hidden Blade is still visible for a moment before she retracts it - Zod may recognise it as a weapon used by the Assassin Brotherhood, if he's run into any of them. How odd.     "..Hold on." She pulls out a card, closing her eyes and holding it in front of her face. Her magic circle appears, as she exhales slowly.     "Shrink the crystal's magic...! LITTLE!" she cries out. A tiny little mote of light appears from the card, rockets up to the ceiling, then darts right down into the pit. Zod will be able to tell it's a VERY TINY girl - about the size of a flea!     The Little reaches out, coming to a stop just in front of the crystal. She pokes it. The magic within dims...     "Okay, blast it!" 

:'''{{#var:524|General Zod (524)}} has posed:'''     Zod expects this is going to hurt. Explosions usually do. Well, the suit was ruined anyway. He opens up with the heat vision into the crystal thing, doing his best to simply slag it. He supposes that it is a good thing that he was never one for physical vanity. 

:'''{{#var:589|Miko Fujimoto (589)}} has posed:'''     The magic diminishes - or shrinks at least - retreating from the surface and leaving the crystal much darker. Zod blasting it is far less explosive than expected. The surface shatters, and a flood of energy pours forth in a column, outlines of people - in whole and in part - flying back towards the 'dining area', and returning to the original owners of the energies. The crystal fragments float upwards, spinning in the air slowly before splitting apart into even smaller fragments, over and over, until the pit is empty.     The whole time, the surroundings are changing, the gravedirt monsters are falling apart, and space is contracting in a very disorienting manner. All those masked figures in the windows keep watching, right up to the end, when the glass becomes caked in dirt and then shatters, leaving Paladin, Zod, Sakura, Kero, and White Rose in an abandoned diner, with nearly a thousand other people lying around, in various states of consciousness, all weakened and disoriented.     There's no sign of the fabulous restaurant that used to be here, and it's only now that the magic has worn off that Paladin makes the realization. "There was never a restaurant built here. The illusion magic on this place was so strong that it even made people forget this building burned down months ago and that no reconstruction occurred." Even Miko was influenced.     Paladin looks around, and then says, "We should depart this place and make a call to emergency services when we are distant."     White Rose says, "Yeah, and then Petals needs to introduce me to her friend. That's the first girl I've seen smaller than me! Finally, someone to bond with!" Apparently Kero doesn't count.     Paladin sighs. At least the job is done. Though it was a rather disturbing one. Who are these powerful Death Magic-users? What do they need all that life force for? What is the mechanism being used for their plans? Crystals, yes, but what is the true nature of these crystals, and how are these fiends able to come up with so much magic energy that they can drag nearly a thousand people into a pocket dimension every single day for more than a week?     Many questions. Hopefully there will be more answers. And hopefully they can all go home and take baths to get any remaining bugs or corpse-dust off of themselves.     Ugh! 

:'''{{#var:172|Sakura Kinomoto (172)}} has posed:'''     Sakura covers her face, expecting an explosion as well... but, well, none comes! She peers around herself, blinking once, stunned. "So... wow, that was some space distortion if all this happened in a tiny diner like this..."     Keroberos returns to his tiny form again, and alights on Sakura's shoulder. "...Yeah, let's.. Let's get out of here. I need to change. And take a bath. And possibly scrub all my skin off." 

:'''{{#var:524|General Zod (524)}} has posed:'''     Zod mutters under his breath about magic being a very strange and bewildering thing. 

}}

Confed Crisis Report

2015-03-07T19:28:11Z

Paladine:

==Introduction==
This is a way for players to keep the crisis report up to date themselves at a static location. Don't add stuff that isn't an actual on-going plot you intend to run stuff for, whether it's a TP or not. If you were in a TP which doesn't have an entry yet you can ask the TP runner if you can add it for them if they haven't done so themselves (especially if you're in charge of the reports, since that puts you in a good position to do this). If you aren't sure whether something fits on this page or not, you can typically ask your respective fachead.

'''This method of doing things requires YOUR participation to keep up to date! If a new TP starts or if you are involved in a TP (especially as the report writer) you are encouraged to help keep this page up to date!'''
===Example Entry===
'''Main Contacts''': Player1, Player2, Player3 (please note if a main contact is not part of the faction) 
'''Themelist/World''': A Good Theme-1, Earth-12345 
'''TP Page''': If relevant, otherwise you can ignore this section. 
'''Summary''': There is a thing happening and things need to be done. This section should contain key elements without being overly big. Include if possible factional information (is the other faction involved? is there a truce in place? do people have free agency to do whatever they want?) and if there is one the common goal that should be worked towards. Include links to other wiki pages if needed, like the TP page or character pages. Etc.

==Current Crises==
A list of things currently going on that need player involvement.

===Lute's Unown===
'''Main Contacts''': [[Lute]] 
'''Themelist/World''': [[Pokemon-2]] 
'''Summary''': Lute's illness due to his link with the Shadow Registeel reached a critical level until a swarm of Unowns claiming to be his' appeared and seemingly healed him, giving him what seems to be the knowledge and experience of an alternate version of himself in the process. They slowly lead him towards an unknown goal, and Confederate Elites are asked to assist and prevent Union Elites from interfering and stopping Lute, while keeping an eye on him for suspicious behavior or side-effects.

===Serori's Dragon Ball Hunt===
'''Main Contacts''': [[Serori]] 
'''Themelist/World''': [[Dragon Ball Z-3]] 
'''TP Page''': [[A Wish for the Future (Part One)]] 
'''Summary''': Serori is attempting to collect the seven Dragon Balls hidden across Earth-4555. Conflict has been heavy, as the world is Union-affiliated, meaning we've got a whole bunch of nosy do-gooders getting in Serori's way. So far, only one Dragon Ball's been taken by the Confederacy, with the second found Dragon Ball now in Ryuko Matoi's hands.

===Dragon's Bane===
'''Main Contacts''': [[Gaius Van Baelsar]] 
'''Themelist/World''': [[Final Fantasy XIV-1]] 
'''TP Page''': [[Dragon's Bane]] 
'''Summary''': An old enemy of Eorzea and former Garlean Legatus, Nael Dues Darnus, has reappeared, wielding powers on-par with a Primal. At the same time, a horde of Dravanian dragons has appeared, suspected to be under his command. Union and Confederate members alike are asked to help destroy him and this army of dragons before they can do anything that cannot be undone.

===Priscilla's Hunt===
'''Main Contacts''': [[Priscilla]] (UNION) 
'''Themelist/World''': [[Dark Souls-1]] 
'''Summary''': PLEASE INSERT.

===Terra Majora===
'''Main Contacts''': [[Elliana Fairchild]] 
'''Themelist/World''': [[Immaculate Visions-1]] 
'''TP Page''': [[New Blood]] 
'''Summary''': Elliana Fairchild seeks a way to contain or eliminate the dark beings known as Shajem that occupy her world. In the process, she has uncovered a massive amount of conspiracy and danger from the humans of her world. The current state is in the final stage: track down these Shajem and contain them, or find a way to safely eliminate them. This is a joint operation with the Union... mostly.

===The Shivan Confederacy===
'''Main Contacts''': [[Souji Murasame]] 
'''Themelist/World''': [[Final Fantasy: Act: Class-1]] 
'''Summary''': Souji is using multiversal mercenaries through proxies in order to cause a political upheaval in his world to undermine the ruling party. The plot is intended to focus around the creation and progress of the newly-formed Shivan Confederacy, based on nationalist, self-defense, and anti-multiversal platforms, and their conflicts with more moderate and pro-multiverse factions in Galianda. Confederates will be able to intervene in various points as well as to help deal with the coverup. The plot is somewhat political but there will be plenty of room for those not interested in politics to get involved.

===The Homeworld/Abstractum===
'''Main Contacts''': [[Abstractum.Net]] 
'''Themelist/World''': The Homeworld 
'''TP Page''': [[When They Return]] 
'''Summary''': Abstractum, sapient objects, part of the Abstractum Network, are waging a war against Them, an unknown, conceptual force attempting to end all of reality. Keep an eye out for Pures (their champions and vanguards) such as [[Samael]] surfacing, volunteer to obtain an Abstractum and help it grow powerful by using it, create a Node in the Homeworld wherein you can complete a story to strike a blow to Them, or find your own ways to assist in this matter. There is a truce between the Union and Confederacy in order to fight Them, but the truce does not prevent either side from targeting Abstractums and their Users.

==Former Crises==
A list of crises that were resolved or faded away. Don't start adding stuff from years ago, only use this to move things from the current crises list to this one, it's better than complete deletion.

===Caster's Cores===
'''Main Contacts''': [[Caster]], [[Psalm]] 
'''Themelist/World''': [[Fate/Stay Night-4]], Various locations 
'''TP Page''': N/A 
'''Summary''': Caster is seeking the reagents she needs to employ one of her Noble Phantasms. It takes a month of preparations in addition to the reagents themselves, and obtaining those reagents isn't easy. Other Confederates willing to help out in acquiring the reagents or warding off Union and other menaces are desired. A reward has been promised to anyone who assists, and all of the Confederate Elite Forces are welcome to partake of the results of this project once it has been successfully completed. One reagent has already been obtained, and the Union is likely to interfere in the rest of the acquisitions as they attempted for the first one. There are planned to be four primary reagent scenes, and at least one optional objective (with the possibility of two) that can be sabotaged or interfered with by outside parties. Decide how easy or hard it is to succeed by helping out!

1569/Core of Frost

2015-02-15T00:40:09Z

Paladine: Created page with "{{Log Header |Date of Scene=2015/02/14 |Location=The Cavern of Ice |Synopsis=The Confederacy is after something in the Cavern of Ice! Two Cavern-based missions, one week apart..."

{{Log Header
|Date of Scene=2015/02/14
|Location=The Cavern of Ice
|Synopsis=The Confederacy is after something in the Cavern of Ice! Two Cavern-based missions, one week apart. What are they up to? The Union responds, but the Confederacy has their own problems...
|Thanks=
|Cast of Characters=11, 391, 560, 701, 705, 707, 715
|Tinyplot=
|Tinyplot2=
|pretty=yes
}}
{{Poses
|Poses=:'''{{#var:701|Caster (701)}} has posed:''' The Caverns of Ice are, rather predictably, made primarily of ice. Ice in numerous shapes and with numerous properties and arranged in numerous ways, but still, at the end of the day, mostly just ice. And the Confederates are here, after the excursion to the Deeper Regions a week ago. Unlike last week, the work here has been considerably more covert. No sudden outpouring of Confederate regular infantry. While scouts may have identified Confederate activity, it's been harder to pin-point either a central location for it or a central objective. There has been drilling occurring, but it hasn't been large-scale industrial-type stuff. More like small teams taking samples or tunneling a hundred feet or so, and then withdrawing. It's been scattered over a wide area over the course of the past few days. But finally, some concrete intel surfaces... In the form of ice giants that have begun to rampage in the surrounding area. Whether they are truly giants or just elementals who have taken on the form of such is unknown. But they seem to be raging around a certain area, and that area seems to also be where a small force of Confederates, led by Metal Man, are located. In addition to the ice giants, and the Confederates, there are also environmental hazards to be aware of for anyone who wishes to intervene, and traps are not exactly unheard of. There are three primary routes to the Confederate location. There is the NORTH TUNNEL, the WEST TUNNEL, and the SOUTH TUNNEL. There is no telling which will most quickly lead to the CENTRAL CAVERN, so the Union may choose to split up. Or not. But each path presents a different danger as well. 

:'''{{#var:701|Caster (701)}} has posed:''' //NORTH TUNNEL// The North Tunnel is a vast passage with Ice Giants roaming about. The walls are tall, and mostly sheer, though there are signs of damage as though from massive blows. In some places it looks as thought he walls themselves have simply come to life, leaving humanoid-shaped outlines in the ice. The giants seem to be trying to make their way up towards the surface, where they might cause great destruction, but they are confused and angry and their current rate of ascent is slow. There might be a way to stop them before they can make it out, however. This is the straightest tunnel, with no side-corridors or alcoves or places to get lost. There is a passage to the South-East leading to the CENTRAL CAVERN. There are ICE GIANTS here. 

:'''{{#var:701|Caster (701)}} has posed:''' //WEST TUNNEL// The West Tunnel is an ancient passage partially carved from ice, and partially bearing signs of some ancient stone structure buried beneath incalculable tons of frozen water. It may be some kind of temple. While not all of it is accessible and thus not all of it would need to be gotten through, parts of it are exposed, including several chambers and passages likely rife with traps. It is, technically, the most direct passage, if one avoids any of the detours and doesn't mistake the side-passages as part of the main route. But it has the most stuff in the way as well, and may require puzzle-solving skills to advance. There is a passage to the East leading to the CENTRAL CAVERN. There are TRAPS here. 

:'''{{#var:701|Caster (701)}} has posed:''' //SOUTH TUNNEL// The South Tunnel, in terms of scale, is somewhere inbetween the cramped confines of the West Tunnel, and giant-sized dimensions of the North Tunnel. It is also the most beautiful, with glowing lights trapped in icy pillars, walls that seem to have spheres of ghostly illumination floating behind them like the viewing-window of an aquarium with a frosty curtain over them, and very artistic ice sculptures of people and monsters and animals. Only those aren't sculptures. They're actual people, monsters, and animals, frozen by the denizens of this tunnel. Cruel spirits of snow and ice make this place their dwelling, and they do not respond kindly to intruders, though they can seem all too welcoming at first. There are countless places to hide from the residents, if one is fast, clever, and quiet, but it only takes being spotted by one of the spirits for the alarm to be raised. There is a passage to the North-East leading to the CENTRAL CAVERN. There are YUKI-ONNA here. 

:'''{{#var:701|Caster (701)}} has posed:''' //CENTRAL CAVERN// The Central Cavern is the focus of Confederate forces in the area. While there is no army or anything, there are at least a couple dozen troops, and many more engineers, all working to tunnel a huge passage through the ice. The cavern itself is gigantic, and shows evidence of craftsmanship being put into the ice. A pyramid of frozen water floats in the air, whether due to local physics or some kind of magic. It kind of looks, from the silhouette within the pyramid, as though something awful and possibly organic was sealed inside a long, long time ago. There is a passage to the North-West leading to the NORTH TUNNEL, a passage to the west leading to the WEST TUNNEL, a passage to the south-west leading to the SOUTH TUNNEL, and a passage to east leading to a GIANT TUNNEL. There are Confederate troops here. Metal Man is here. A freaky flying ICE PYRAMID is here. 

:'''{{#var:705|Reiji Arisu (705)}} has posed:'''     It hasn't been long since The City of Quakes unified with the Multiverse at large. Since then, its protectors- Shinra and its agents- have began expanding out into a brave new world. This means new duties, new responsibilities, new friends and new foes. For Reiji Arisu, all of it means that he's working overtime- at least until Shinra's situation stabilizes.     When the call went out to investigate 'Confederate' activity in a particularly inauspicious location, Reiji was called into action. This, naturally, means that Xiaomu was coming along, but Shinra's resources aren't limited to just two agents. They have at /least/ three that they can spare.     "Alright people," Reiji says into his radio, "Fall in." Plumes of warm breath slip escape him as he speaks, before vanishing into the chill- though perhaps not frigid- air of this place. His weapon rack sways soundlessly as he moves forward into the southern tunnel.     Light catches his eye, and he glances briefly up at the nearby pillars of glowing ice before staring down the length of the tunnel. "Stay sharp. I'm feeling some bad vibes down this way," Reiji murmurs, a hand reaching back to check the magazine in his golden holdout pistol, "Let's do this as clean as we can make it." 

:'''{{#var:11|Metal Man (11)}} has posed:''' Metal Man is leading a small force, he's brought drones with him, and Crash Man is curious about where Caster is going with things, so he's here again as well. Sides they might have need of his demo work skills. Metal has had time to set up a few fun little things here, but what oculd be laying in wait the Wily Number seems ot be all business today. Caster and her master had impressed him so far, so here he was in for the whole duration so to speak. Metal has briefed the people under his command withw hat they neede dto do and he's got drones set for the pickup he knows don't let the regular touch the price so to speak as the drilling machines go to work. 

:'''{{#var:715|Kenji Kawasaki (715)}} has posed:'''      Shinra has a lot of work on their hands. The Multiverse is a big, weird place, full of big, weird things, big, weird monsters, and big, weird places, and it's Shinra's job to explore and investigate all of them. And that means Reiji Arisu and his partner Xiaomu aren't the only ones working overtime.      Kenji Kawasaki hasn't been with Shinra long enough to be a real Agent, but in a time of crisis, even junior agents get a pass - especially junior agents with the kind of power Kenji's packing. Along with Kenji, after all, comes Sambo-Kojin, God of the Hearth, the god of fire. The two are an inseparable duo - quite literally inseperable, in fact. That makes them ideal agents in the current situation.      Doubly so because this mission is in a god damned ice cave.      Kenji walks along behind Reji, rubbing his arms to keep himself warm. His black jacket isn't doing much to keep him warm in this place - he can literally see his own breath, little tufts of steam curling upwards as he walks behind Reiji. "Y-yeah," Kenji replies over his chattering teeth.      "D-don't know how you c-can follow any vibes that aren't s-s-somebody shaking, M-Mr. Reiji."      He is notably not armed.      His parter is nowhere to be seen. 

:'''{{#var:391|Reina Kinney (391)}} has posed:'''     A small light appears at the western cave entrance, and then Reina Kinney forms, red ponytailed hair and all. As soon as she fully materializes, she begins to shiver as she finds out first-hand just how truly cold it is. "Great Gurhal," She mutters to herself, "Laia wasn't kidding about this being like the arctic!" Her uniform is designed to protect her in cold weather, but it can only do so much. She shivers a little then begins to jog in place a little to get her blood flowing, before she looks around and attempts to get her bearings. Once she's fully aware of where she is and what her heading is, she snaps her right fingers and her pistol materializes in her hand.     With a final deep breath, her exhalation causing mist to form around her mouth, Reina looks around one last time to make sure she's not being followed or there's something trying to ambush her, before she slowly makes her way into the cave. She's not aware of the traps that are planted, but odds are she will be soon enough. The question is, will her reflexes be enough to save her? 

:'''{{#var:707|Xiaomu (707)}} has posed:''' By contrast to Reiji's almost soundless advance, the rings atop Xiaomu's staff jingle quietly as she walks, the staff's lower end tapping the ground every few steps. The sage fox's shoulders are huddled a bit against the chill, but that's about as much of a concession as she's going to make to the environment in the Caverns of Ice. Certainly it's not forcing her to put on pants or anything, despite her qipao leaving her legs almost totally uncovered. When Reiji glances around, though, Xiaomu pauses between strides, her nose twitching faintly as she half-closes her eyes and lifts her head. "Mmm. That icy smell ... Reiji, be ready with Karin. Although if we're lucky, we won't have to fight our way through." She pauses, grinning at Kenji. "It's something you learn with experience." 

:'''{{#var:701|Caster (701)}} has posed:''' //CENTRAL CAVERN// The Central Cavern is the focus of Confederate forces in the area. While there is no army or anything, there are at least a couple dozen troops, and many more engineers, all working to tunnel a huge passage through the ice. The cavern itself is gigantic, and shows evidence of craftsmanship being put into the ice. A pyramid of frozen water floats in the air, whether due to local physics or some kind of magic. It kind of looks, from the silhouette within the pyramid, as though something awful and possibly organic was sealed inside a long, long time ago. There is a passage to the North-West leading to the NORTH TUNNEL, a passage to the west leading to the WEST TUNNEL, a passage to the south-west leading to the SOUTH TUNNEL, and a passage to east leading to a GIANT TUNNEL. There are CONFEDERATE TROOPS here. METAL MAN is here. CRASH MAN is here. DRONES are here. DRILLS are here. A freaky flying ICE PYRAMID is here. The powerful Confederate drills are not giant-sized or anything, but they are perfectly designed for what they are doing. They are perhaps the size of a pick-up truck each, and they are equipped with hover systems that let them float up and drill away higher up as well. By spreading out the burden they can make the tunnel more precisely formed, and thus avoid any unfortunate collapses. All seems to be going well. But some of the workers seem to be a bit on-edge, taking glances up at the weird floating pyramid thing. What... IS that in there? It looks like a ball or an oval... With... Tentacles or something? It's just plain creepy. Thankfully it seems quite immobile. But those with organic brains are finding a strange tickling at the back of their mind. Almost like there's something they can't quite make out being whispered to them... 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     EMIYA SHIROU has chosen to stick with the South-entrance Shinra group. Running off on his own would be just utterly stupid and he's not THAT dumb. Bundled up and ready for anything... if anything meant nothing. The boy seems completely unarmed, however odd that may be to some of the people here.     "TThis is the place... but what could they be doing all the way out here? It's just snow and ice."     Trace amounts of prana flicker through Shirou's eyes, combating the gloomy cavern and letting him see...     The rather macabre decorations up ahead. "What's up with this place...?" 

:'''{{#var:701|Caster (701)}} has posed:''' //SOUTH TUNNEL// The South Tunnel, in terms of scale, is somewhere inbetween the cramped confines of the West Tunnel, and giant-sized dimensions of the North Tunnel. It is also the most beautiful, with glowing lights trapped in icy pillars, walls that seem to have spheres of ghostly illumination floating behind them like the viewing-window of an aquarium with a frosty curtain over them, and very artistic ice sculptures of people and monsters and animals. Only those aren't sculptures. They're actual people, monsters, and animals, frozen by the denizens of this tunnel. Cruel spirits of snow and ice make this place their dwelling, and they do not respond kindly to intruders, though they can seem all too welcoming at first. There are countless places to hide from the residents, if one is fast, clever, and quiet, but it only takes being spotted by one of the spirits for the alarm to be raised. There is a passage to the North-East leading to the CENTRAL CAVERN. There are YUKI-ONNA here. REIJI ARISU is here. XIAOMU is here. KENJI KAWASAKI is here. EMIYA SHIROU is here. As the quartet arrive in the tunnels, they are, for the most part, eerily silent. However, sometimes a chill wind sweeps through - almost more like a light breath than wind - and carries with it a floral scent and hints of a feminine voice from farther down the tunnel. Thus far, they seem to have gone unnoticed. But for how long that remains the case has yet to be seen. 

:'''{{#var:701|Caster (701)}} has posed:''' //WEST TUNNEL// The West Tunnel is an ancient passage partially carved from ice, and partially bearing signs of some ancient stone structure buried beneath incalculable tons of frozen water. It may be some kind of temple. While not all of it is accessible and thus not all of it would need to be gotten through, parts of it are exposed, including several chambers and passages likely rife with traps. It is, technically, the most direct passage, if one avoids any of the detours and doesn't mistake the side-passages as part of the main route. But it has the most stuff in the way as well, and may require puzzle-solving skills to advance. There is a passage to the East leading to the CENTRAL CAVERN. There are TRAPS here. REINA KINNEY is here. As Reina advances through the tunnel, she comes across what appears to be a set of stone doors blocking her path. There is an imprint of a hand on both the right door and left door. It seems clear what must be done to proceed. There's no sign of any other people around, or any monsters, and the temperature is actually nowhere near arctic levels! A bit chilly, but thanks to the proximity to the Caverns of Fire, it is not as cold as one might expect. At least frost-bite shouldn't be a concern if she is unable to resolve her obstacles quickly. 

:'''{{#var:707|Xiaomu (707)}} has posed:''' SOUTH TUNNEL: As the group approaches the 'lair' of the Yuki-onna, Xiaomu stops using her staff as a walking-stick, grasping the shaft with her left hand and wrapping her right hand around the staff's headpiece, to muffle any more noise the rings might make just from moving around. Then she 'skulks' towards one of those icy pillars, using it for cover as she tries to get a quick look at the snow maidens. She doesn't have to work nearly as hard to size up the environment ... and more specifically, the decor. It's not the temperature that makes Xiaomu shiver at this point. She thought it might be possible to talk a way past the Yuki-onna, but given the number of victims who're encased in the ice hereabouts, she's far less certain that a talking approach will work. (She's also kicking herself for having been so focused on an RPG that she let Western elemental interactions confuse her hands-on knowledge of the Eastern elemental cycle ... but, you'll never hear her admit THAT out loud.) 

:'''{{#var:11|Metal Man (11)}} has posed:''' Metal Man is looking over the Cavern as they drig he's on edge, this is dealing with magic. Magic is not somehing you can fight with a sword or a gun all the time. This leaves him cautious after all. He has some experiance with the scale of magic's ability in this world. He's seen some stuff that might be also found in Creation so he's on his guard after all. "All right keep focused on your tasks if you start hearing things sound in. Given what we're dealing with I'd rather know." He's also had his joes armed with stunnerss incase something goes bad and there's even a Nurse Jane lurking about too. 

:'''{{#var:705|Reiji Arisu (705)}} has posed:''' SOUTHERN TUNNEL     Suspiciously life-like statues greet the Union agents as they begin their ingress. The fragrance on the icy wind and the sound of distant, musical voices are subtle clues that the four of them aren't nearly as alone as Reiji would prefer. "Tch, this seems familiar," he mutters quietly, empty hand falling to the smaller of his two swords, "Stay sharp. If you see a pale girl, don't follow her and don't let her touch you." He glances ahead-- then double-takes, staring at Kenji. Reiji's brow knits, his eyes squint, "...Kojin. I hope you'll show yourself when you're needed." Otherwise, this might become... complicated.     The agent of Shinra gives Shirou a quick nod, before bending his legs at the knee and shifting silently behind a pillar opposite to Xiaomu's own. His back is pressed to the chill surface, but he can tolerate the cold long enough to get a good look at what they might be up against. 

:'''{{#var:391|Reina Kinney (391)}} has posed:''' WEST TUNNEL:     Reina advances slowly through the tunnel, her handgun at the ready at all times. A few times she stops and spins around, thinking that she's about to be ambushed from behind, only to discover it's just her imagination. She brushes this off and keeps advancing until she reaches the stone doors, and frowns. "What the heck? Am I supposed to knock on the door and hope they let me in?" Reina wonders aloud.     Then Reina notices the hand shapes by the door. She starts towards them, raising her hands to insert them, then she stops, wondering if she's likely to trigger some kind of a booby trap or something. For a moment, Reina ponders, noticing how warm the air is in comparison to how she initially thought it was.     After a moment, Reina shakes her head. "I ain't getting anywhere if I don't take any risks. After all, I am a member of GUARDIANS!" Reina says to herself as she steps towards the doors and hesitantly inserts her hands into the imprints. "Now what?" 

:'''{{#var:715|Kenji Kawasaki (715)}} has posed:'''      Kenji shudders a bit more as he follows behind Reiji and Xiaomu. Despite the chill of his breath and the shiver of his body, he's on high-alert; his eyes dart from place to place as they walk, carefully watching for anything in particular. 

:'''{{#var:701|Caster (701)}} has posed:''' //CENTRAL CAVERN// The Central Cavern is the focus of Confederate forces in the area. While there is no army or anything, there are at least a couple dozen troops, and many more engineers, all working to tunnel a huge passage through the ice. The cavern itself is gigantic, and shows evidence of craftsmanship being put into the ice. A pyramid of frozen water floats in the air, whether due to local physics or some kind of magic. It kind of looks, from the silhouette within the pyramid, as though something awful and possibly organic was sealed inside a long, long time ago. There is a passage to the North-West leading to the NORTH TUNNEL, a passage to the west leading to the WEST TUNNEL, a passage to the south-west leading to the SOUTH TUNNEL, and a passage to east leading to a GIANT TUNNEL. There are CONFEDERATE TROOPS here. METAL MAN is here. A freaky flying ICE PYRAMID is here. A number of workers actually speak up after exchanging looks. "We, uh, might be hearing some whispers, sir." one of the engineers says to Metal Man. One of the soldiers seems to be rather tensely looking at one of their own men as well. Watching him everywhere he goes. Why is unclear, but he hasn't said anything about voices so maybe he's just being cautious. ...Maybe. The drilling continues, progress being made through the huge sheet of solid ice, bit by bit, foot by foot. But the longer they stay here, the more it feels like they shouldn't. 

:'''{{#var:701|Caster (701)}} has posed:''' //WEST TUNNEL// The West Tunnel is an ancient passage partially carved from ice, and partially bearing signs of some ancient stone structure buried beneath incalculable tons of frozen water. It may be some kind of temple. While not all of it is accessible and thus not all of it would need to be gotten through, parts of it are exposed, including several chambers and passages likely rife with traps. It is, technically, the most direct passage, if one avoids any of the detours and doesn't mistake the side-passages as part of the main route. But it has the most stuff in the way as well, and may require puzzle-solving skills to advance. There is a passage to the East leading to the CENTRAL CAVERN. There are TRAPS here. REINA KINNEY is here. When Reina places her hands on the imprints there is a grinding noise and the chilly stone doors begin to push inwards. As long as she keeps her hands on them and moves forward along with them, they make progress into the icy tunnel, until they suddenly stop and slide apart, revealing a dark chamber of some kind. The floor is made up of a mix of light and dark blue tiles, and another door across the chamber lies closed. A stone tablet lies directly to the right, bearing letters that... Glow and rearrange themselves to match Reina's native language. Some kind of message? 

:'''{{#var:11|Metal Man (11)}} has posed:''' The ones willing to report mean they are likely less effectted. "Keep your focus, keep on the task at hand, the drones will be handling the objective so you don't need to fear that." Metal Man meanwhile tight beam Crash man to keep an eye on the one who isn't talking it could be he's just on high alert or it's getting to him more. Some of the drones shift accordingly, he knows this isn't the main objective after all and he's not going to try and get men killed for an energy field he knows the socore there and has to admit they lucked out with Psalm's summoning of Castor. 

:'''{{#var:391|Reina Kinney (391)}} has posed:''' WEST TUNNEL:     Reina gasps as she finds herself going forwards suddenly. "Whoa, what's this?!" She cries out, but goes along all the same, until the doors finally open. Retrieving her pistol, Reina advances towards the doors, stopping and peering inside to make sure there are no threats on the other side, before stepping inside. Once she's inside, she stops and stares in awe. She can't believe what she's seeing. Especially those tiles that are of different shades, and then that tablet that's written... in Gurhalian?     "It can't be!" Reina says, rubbing her eyes to make sure she's not hallucinating. "Is it real?" Reina steps closer to the tablet, attempting to examine it and see if she can make out what is being said on that tablet. 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:''' SOUTHERN TUNNEL     With Xiaomu scouting ahead and finding the same thing, Shirou decides to mimic Reiji's choice and hide behind a pillar. Yuki-onna, huh?     The snow women who seduce travelers and drain their warmth and life... well the answer is to just not be fooled, right?     Assuming things are like the legend...     For now though he's just glancing around carefully. And listening. Movement?     What's Xiaomu gonna do? 

:'''{{#var:701|Caster (701)}} has posed:''' //SOUTH TUNNEL// The South Tunnel, in terms of scale, is somewhere inbetween the cramped confines of the West Tunnel, and giant-sized dimensions of the North Tunnel. It is also the most beautiful, with glowing lights trapped in icy pillars, walls that seem to have spheres of ghostly illumination floating behind them like the viewing-window of an aquarium with a frosty curtain over them, and very artistic ice sculptures of people and monsters and animals. Only those aren't sculptures. They're actual people, monsters, and animals, frozen by the denizens of this tunnel. Cruel spirits of snow and ice make this place their dwelling, and they do not respond kindly to intruders, though they can seem all too welcoming at first. There are countless places to hide from the residents, if one is fast, clever, and quiet, but it only takes being spotted by one of the spirits for the alarm to be raised. There is a passage to the North-East leading to the CENTRAL CAVERN. There are YUKI-ONNA here. REIJI ARISU is here. XIAOMU is here. KENJI KAWASAKI is here. EMIYA SHIROU is here. Xiaomu would be able to make out that one of the ice statues seems to encase a brave-looking warrior in the middle of charging with sword drawn. Another is of a young man apparently badly injured based on the dark ice surrounding his belly, lying on his back. He is reaching up in a barely-aware stupor, as though to touch the face of someone leaning over him. Something that might horrifyingly seem to be a child at first but upon closer inspection if simply someone from a race of little people who look child-like has her eyes open wide in wonder, as she is bent over with hand extended to retrieve something. There's an entire pack of lost wolves frozen in mid-run, some kind of robot, even something that seems to be an ice-based life form... An ice person, frozen in a block of ice. Bizarre. There's no sign of the yuki-onna yet, based on what Reiji can see. But a snow drift seems to begin being wittled down by a sudden breeze, swirling through the air in icy loops before coming to a halt. The fact the local spirits HAVEN'T shown themselves yet may be more tension-inducing than if they had just appeared and gotten it over with. As Kenji looks around for anything out of the ordinary, he may notice there is, infact, something out of the ordinary even a place like this. A metal sphere lies unfrozen and lying in the middle of the floor, recently uncovered by that mild breeze that passed through. It doesn't look like it belongs here. And it's near to that little Tarutaru-esque person. Could it have belonged to her? The passage ahead is clear, aside from more pillars of ice and frozen trespassers. But not all of them seem to have been frozen in battle or with fear on their faces. Some seem amazed, or sleepy, or happy, or simply unprepared for what wound up happening to them. A woman breathes right in Shirou's ear suddenly. Just blowing into it. It's cold, but not any more than a normal person's breath. If he turns around to see who is blowing, there is no one. Just air currents blowing around the snow along the walls. Was it really a person? Or just his imagination. There was no 'presence', just the thought 'it's a woman'. Musical laughter ringing like bells can be faintly heard further down the tunnel. Brrrr. 

:'''{{#var:701|Caster (701)}} has posed:''' //WEST TUNNEL// The West Tunnel is an ancient passage partially carved from ice, and partially bearing signs of some ancient stone structure buried beneath incalculable tons of frozen water. It may be some kind of temple. While not all of it is accessible and thus not all of it would need to be gotten through, parts of it are exposed, including several chambers and passages likely rife with traps. It is, technically, the most direct passage, if one avoids any of the detours and doesn't mistake the side-passages as part of the main route. But it has the most stuff in the way as well, and may require puzzle-solving skills to advance. There is a passage to the East leading to the CENTRAL CAVERN. There are TRAPS here. REINA KINNEY is here. The tablet reads as follows. Beginning upon the path between sunbirth and sundeath Advance as the night, favoring the dawn Retreat a pace in respect to the fates Then charge forth as the raven To the underworld gate. Once Reina has read it, the right-hand wall lights up with a glowing blue half-circle, the left-hand wall illuminated all around except in the vicinity of a half-circle that is left dark, and then the doors on the far rside of the chamber from the entrance trace light in the shape of a pair of gates held closed by skeletons. The pattern of light-blue and dark-blue tiles on the floor seem to match a chessboard... 

:'''{{#var:701|Caster (701)}} has posed:''' //CENTRAL CAVERN// The Central Cavern is the focus of Confederate forces in the area. While there is no army or anything, there are at least a couple dozen troops, and many more engineers, all working to tunnel a huge passage through the ice. The cavern itself is gigantic, and shows evidence of craftsmanship being put into the ice. A pyramid of frozen water floats in the air, whether due to local physics or some kind of magic. It kind of looks, from the silhouette within the pyramid, as though something awful and possibly organic was sealed inside a long, long time ago. There is a passage to the North-West leading to the NORTH TUNNEL, a passage to the west leading to the WEST TUNNEL, a passage to the south-west leading to the SOUTH TUNNEL, and a passage to the east leading to a GIANT TUNNEL. There are CONFEDERATE TROOPS here. METAL MAN is here. CRASH MAN is here. DRONES are here. DRILLS are here. A freaky flying ICE PYRAMID is here. It's good that Metal Man notices that one soldier and orders him to be watched. Because he suddenly unslings his rifle from his shoulder, and takes aim on one of the others, with clear intent to fire! If he's not stopped, he's going to blow a fellow Confederate soldier's head off for no apparent reason! 

:'''{{#var:391|Reina Kinney (391)}} has posed:''' WEST TUNNEL:     Reina stares at the tablet, seeming unsurprised as the Gurhalian words come to her. She frowns as she looks over the riddle, biting her lower lip and tapping her chin a little as she goes over the riddle in her head. Then she figures the solution out, and proceeds to navigate the room according to the riddle. "First, between sunbirth and sundeath, advance as the night... of course, THAT knight!" She says as she walks through the central part of the board, moving forwards two tiles, then to the right, remembering all the times she's played chess.     "Next, I retreat a pace..." She looks behind her and steps back one tile, her boots clicking on the ground as she does so. "And then charge forth..." She looks ahead and sees the doors. "...To the underworld gate!" She dashes towards the door, her boots clicking again as she runs forwards, stopping at the door. "Looks like all those chess games paid off!" She says with a smirk. 

:'''{{#var:707|Xiaomu (707)}} has posed:''' SOUTHERN TUNNEL: There's a bit of discussion and strategizing on the radio before Xiaomu stands up straight, letting go of her staff's headpiece, and steps out into view of the Yuki-onna - if they care to look in the sage fox's direction, at least. Rather than advancing, though, Xiaomu stands her ground, bowing her head briefly. "I greet you, daughters of the snow and the winter; if you will pardon the intrusion, there is a question I would ask of you all before seeking passage through your territory." 

:'''{{#var:11|Metal Man (11)}} has posed:''' Crash man has his hands reployed thankfuylly at this point and Metal was smart to get him over here. He's able to act. He reches out one and snaps the rifl's barrel and moves to try and restrain the man as one of the joes moves in arming an police grade stun baton to stun the guy. Thankfully it sould be enough to stop him but they know with freaky magic like this things could go bad! SO the drone is making sure the guy is out. 

:'''{{#var:705|Reiji Arisu (705)}} has posed:''' SOUTHERN TUNNEL     No sign of the snow spirits, save for that sense of dread creeping slowly up the back of his neck. Subtle spirits are always the most dangerous kind. Presumably, the apparitions are just waiting for the right moment to reveal themselves. Or maybe they're waiting for the group to freeze to death, first? Reiji mutters, his grip on Chirai tightening.     His eyes dart to wisps of snow being stirred up by the wind. That terrible, chill wind. These spirits are insidious creatures. The classical examples of their kin tend to bury mountain travelers in ice and snow, letting the cold sap their strength before moving in for the kill, themselves. He sees no reason to believe these are any different. Capricious things.     Shirou's sudden yelp makes Reiji jump. He spares a glance back, Chirai just barely sliding out of its scabbard. "What-- What's wrong?" he hisses. Shirou's reply twists his expression into a tense frown, "Tch, they're toying with us. Stay close, back to back. If you see something, give me word." His gaze shifts downrange as Xiaomu begins communing with the spirits, "...If things go bad, we move. Stay calm." 

:'''{{#var:715|Kenji Kawasaki (715)}} has posed:'''      The little metal orb attracts Kenji's attention. He does not, however, grab it, being as he's a trained Shinra agent and not a complete idiot. Silvery orbs sitting next to people are weird, dangerous, and bad if you don't know what they are. He nudges Reiji and points at the orb.      "M-M-M-M-M," he starts, then falls silent. He can't say jack crap through his chattering teeth.      God damned Kojin.      "M-Mr. Reiji," he finally manages. 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     "U-uwoarh?!" Shirou's reaction to breath in his ear is to react like most high schoola ge boys would to cold wind in their ear. Pull away and nearly jump two feet in the air. he slinks around the column several moments before realizing there isn't anyone there, leaving him peering perplexedly around at where the breath came from...     What was THAT?     Nodding quickly to Reiji, the hot-blooded youth dashes over... but is drawn to "Hrm?" at Kenji out of curiosity. Looking at things here doesn't sound like a good idea! 

:'''{{#var:705|Reiji Arisu (705)}} has posed:'''     Reiji totally does not jump out of his skin. He's a decade too experienced for that. Instead he gives Kenji a concerned look. "Kenji. What's wrong?" He asks, keeping Xiaomu in his peripheral vision at all times. "You see some--" He sees the orb. His frown deepens. "...Don't touch it," he instructs, "Until we know what it does, keep your distance." 

:'''{{#var:701|Caster (701)}} has posed:''' //WEST TUNNEL// The West Tunnel is an ancient passage partially carved from ice, and partially bearing signs of some ancient stone structure buried beneath incalculable tons of frozen water. It may be some kind of temple. While not all of it is accessible and thus not all of it would need to be gotten through, parts of it are exposed, including several chambers and passages likely rife with traps. It is, technically, the most direct passage, if one avoids any of the detours and doesn't mistake the side-passages as part of the main route. But it has the most stuff in the way as well, and may require puzzle-solving skills to advance. There is a passage to the East leading to the CENTRAL CAVERN. There are TRAPS here. REINA KINNEY is here. Every step Reina took across the tiles produces a clicking or creaking sound, as though hidden mechanisms were working in response. There is little doubt that if she had moved incorrectly something bad might have happened. There was even a sound in the ceiling and a glint of metal when she took one step back. If she hadn't... A guillotine or something similarly terrible might have swung down at her! As she reaches the doors on the other side of the chamber, the boney arms holding them closed on the surface of the gates fade from visibility, and the doors themselves grind open slowly, revealing an icy tunnel with several chambers on either side. Some have open doors - just a crack. Not enough to see what lies within, but enough to tempt someone to come see. Hidden treasure? Ancient secrets? Prisoners waiting to be rescued? Adventure? Answers? 'Come see! A clever girl like you is in no danger here. Come see what lies behind this door, or this one, or this one! Come find out what lies in wait for you!' But the tunnel proceeds straight ahead. And there is no guarantee any of these side-passages will benefit Reina in any way. Does she risk it? Or keep the objective in mind, and keep going without letting curiosity get the better of her? 

:'''{{#var:701|Caster (701)}} has posed:''' //CENTRAL CAVERN// The Central Cavern is the focus of Confederate forces in the area. While there is no army or anything, there are at least a couple dozen troops, and many more engineers, all working to tunnel a huge passage through the ice. The cavern itself is gigantic, and shows evidence of craftsmanship being put into the ice. A pyramid of frozen water floats in the air, whether due to local physics or some kind of magic. It kind of looks, from the silhouette within the pyramid, as though something awful and possibly organic was sealed inside a long, long time ago. There is a passage to the North-West leading to the NORTH TUNNEL, a passage to the west leading to the WEST TUNNEL, a passage to the south-west leading to the SOUTH TUNNEL, and a passage to the east leading to a GIANT TUNNEL. There are CONFEDERATE TROOPS here. METAL MAN is here. CRASH MAN is here. DRONES are here. DRILLS are here. A freaky flying ICE PYRAMID is here. The soldier is subdued, his weapon broken, and he thrashes before he can be stunned and disabled, yelling, "NO, YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND! IT'S NOT HIM! IT'S A BUG! A BUG WEARING HIS SKIN-" then bzzzzzzzt and he's out. For the corruption of sanity to come this quickly... Especially to a well-trained soldier... Yeah, this is definitely bad news. The tunnel is about 1/4th of the estimated length it needs to be. The other soldiers and workers all seem edgy, have almost completely stopped working upon witnessing this display. They're scared. It's one thing to fight monsters. It's quite another thing to fight your own mind being twisted by some invisible whispering abomination. 

:'''{{#var:701|Caster (701)}} has posed:''' //SOUTH TUNNEL// The South Tunnel, in terms of scale, is somewhere inbetween the cramped confines of the West Tunnel, and giant-sized dimensions of the North Tunnel. It is also the most beautiful, with glowing lights trapped in icy pillars, walls that seem to have spheres of ghostly illumination floating behind them like the viewing-window of an aquarium with a frosty curtain over them, and very artistic ice sculptures of people and monsters and animals. Only those aren't sculptures. They're actual people, monsters, and animals, frozen by the denizens of this tunnel. Cruel spirits of snow and ice make this place their dwelling, and they do not respond kindly to intruders, though they can seem all too welcoming at first. There are countless places to hide from the residents, if one is fast, clever, and quiet, but it only takes being spotted by one of the spirits for the alarm to be raised. There is a passage to the North-East leading to the CENTRAL CAVERN. There are YUKI-ONNA here. REIJI ARISU is here. XIAOMU is here. KENJI KAWASAKI is here. EMIYA SHIROU is here. Xiaomu's voice echoes off the walls. There's a sound like a sharp intake of breath and then movement is finally visible coming from further down the tunnel. It is a frozen maze, illuminated with countless children's night lights down here - at least based on the myriad colors available. But as pale shapes begin to fly towards the group from the far end of the tunnel, moving in loop-de-loops as they respond to a stranger's voice, the surreal and pretty environment may be the last thing on anyone's mind. Some of the approaching shapes are garbed in white kimono, some in dresses of white fur. Some have blak hair, some white. Some have glowing red eyes, others have fairly human-seeming eyes. Some appear as little girls or teenagers, others as adults. All are beautiful in their own way. They quickly float around in a circle, surrounding the Union members, cutting off escape. But aside from that, they don't seem to be attacking or acting with hostility. Though they seem to constantly be moving in a dizzying circle, rotating around those at the center, as flurries of snow sometimes blow through, or mounds of it erupt as though struck. It could be rather disorienting if they are watched for too long. "You seek passage?" one of the black-haired ones says. One of the ones who seems to be about twelve years old giggles, her red lips in a cute little smile as she says, "Why should we let you pass when we could just keep you here?" A white-haired woman breaks the circle to dash across the open space, slowing down as she passes Keiji to blow a mocking kiss at him, and unleash a blast of cold air at Xiaomu's back, before reaching the other side of the circle. Nothing harmful so far, but... One who seems to be just a severed torso with claw-tipped hands, her face gorgeous, but the rest of her monstrous, sing-songs, "What would you give us in exchange for safe passage?" Then the little girl asks again, "Will you leave one of your group with us so that the others may continue?" Then all the snow spirits begin calling out at once, chanting, "Who will stay? Who will stay? Who will stay?" The metal sphere seems to be technological in origin, to have a single black button on one side, and to otherwise be seamless and smooth. It might be some manner of explosive, or it might be for sending out a distress signal. It's really hard to say. 

:'''{{#var:391|Reina Kinney (391)}} has posed:''' WEST CAVERN:     Reina enters with her hand gun drawn, aimed at the ready. She stares in awe at the long hallway in front of her, with all those doors beckoning to her. They could lead to treasure or something valuable. Or there could be someone waiting to be released. Or it could be another trap. For a moment, Reina stops and ponders.     Then she shakes her head. "Laia always told me the mission comes first." She seems a bit emotionless in her comment to herself as she raises her handgun and advances forwards carefully, watching to make sure nothing tries to ambush her. 

:'''{{#var:707|Xiaomu (707)}} has posed:''' SOUTHERN TUNNEL Xiaomu's eyes widen slightly at the sheer number of Yuki-onna. Fighting their way through seems a lot less practical all of a sudden; even one Yuki-onna is a noteworthy threat on her own ... especially to an unwary wanderer, which the Shinra agents are pointedly *not*. And the blowing against Xiaomu's back sends a noticeable shiver through the sage fox's body, but she stands her ground, her staff's butt thumping against the ground so that the rings on its headpiece jingle, a clear chime ringing through the icy tunnel. "There are outsiders in the cavern that lies past here," she says as clearly as she can without simply yelling. "My question is this: do you consider *them* to be intruders in your territory? If so, then I am pleased to tell you that our purpose here is to drive them out; we can even offer to chase a couple of them into your territory to do with as you please." She passes the staff to her left hand, the rings chiming again when she grounds the staff. "If you will not grant us passage to do this ... I will still offer some of our enemies to do with as you like, but I cannot leave any of my family behind, even to pay your rightfully-claimed toll." ... family? Well, that IS what she said. 

:'''{{#var:701|Caster (701)}} has posed:''' //WEST TUNNEL// The West Tunnel is an ancient passage partially carved from ice, and partially bearing signs of some ancient stone structure buried beneath incalculable tons of frozen water. It may be some kind of temple. While not all of it is accessible and thus not all of it would need to be gotten through, parts of it are exposed, including several chambers and passages likely rife with traps. It is, technically, the most direct passage, if one avoids any of the detours and doesn't mistake the side-passages as part of the main route. But it has the most stuff in the way as well, and may require puzzle-solving skills to advance. There is a passage to the East leading to the CENTRAL CAVERN. There are TRAPS here. REINA KINNEY is here. Reina continues down the tunnel, fighting temptation, resisting curiosity, focusing on the matter at hand. And then she reaches the end of the tunnel, and another set of doors. Apparently she made the right choice. The challenge in this case was simply to not be distracted by all the things along the way to her destination. A shining blue light slices up from the bottom of the door to the top, and then the two slabs grind open, revealing a long flight of stairs leading down. Down to a large broad platform, with two icy mirrors standing side by side, facing Reina. If she descends the stairs, another stone tablet rises up out of he floor, with the same native text upon it. Another riddle. Side by side, two selves Two sides, that are you Neither real nor fake Choose the form That is true. In one mirror, Reina is reflected as a brave, powerful, beautiful, and noble woman. She wears fine clothing, but she distributes generously to those around her. She fights with great skill and courage, but she does not seek to hurt or to kill. The left-hand mirror shows a bedraggled, dirty, confused, and weak-looking version of Reina. She wears scraps and rags, sits in the middle of a deserted street, and looks up in fear and weariness... Completely alone. On the far side of the platform is another set of stairs, leading up to a door larger than all the others. 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:''' SOUTHERN PATH     "It's probably some kind of weapon, but--" Whatever Shirou was going to say is interrupted by the arrival of countless Yuki-onna of all shapes and sizes.     He's stunned. Simply awed. But for every bit of him that's impressed and stirred, his heart's sinking.     They'll have to fight. He really doesn't want to.     He especially doesn't want to get all gung-ho with pretty girls no matter how twisted if he can avoid it. But even so...     "Trace... on..."     All he can do is make the weapons that will defeat opponents. His mind's eye settles on the image of the sword of the sun, Excalibur Galatine. And the more he focuses the clearer it gets, the more he can prepare it, visualize all the steps of its Creation...     A little bit of magic's flowing through him for anyone sensitive, but nothing OVERT's happening... 

:'''{{#var:11|Metal Man (11)}} has posed:''' MEtal Man knows there may be other problems he's geting concerned but so far the troops are not going nuts. Metal listens and doens't discount themans rambling as the nurse jane scans both him and the target. He also issues an order to get the guy taken away and out of the range of this thing's effect. He's strtiong to debat the issue here this is bad news. However CRash man's got an ide to get his over with quickly and he's moving in. Metal speaks up. "Crash man you take point, everyone else return to the exit point for the moment Crash Man will hopefully speed things up, this operation is not the primary objective and is not worth a butcher bill for." Maybe Caster might be unhappy but he knows keeping a good relationship with the regulars /is/ a good thing. It may save your ass in times off poltical power plays. Crah Mean manwhile is moving in to start setting explosions he knows what he's doing and is setting up shaped charges. 

:'''{{#var:391|Reina Kinney (391)}} has posed:''' WEST TUNNEL:     Reina's decision to not give into temptation proves to be the right choice. Now she's found herself with another riddle. "Great, here we go again," Reina says as she reads it over, then looks at the two mirrors. The right one shows Reina looking brave and noble, looking almost like the true hero that a lot of people envision the Union elites to be like. At first, Reina is about to step towards that one, when she looks in the other mirror, and then she stops and stares in awe for a moment. For a moment, all she can do is stare in disbelief and shock. A lonely Reina, in rags and living a miserable life. All alone. And then she has the memories flow into her mind, and she drops to one knee, clamping her hands over her head.     "No! Stay back!" Reina shouts, as the memories of that fateful day come through to her mind. The day that Mr. Tanaka set her up to be taken out by her so-called colleagues. The day that her boss arranged for her to be attacked and left for dead. She'd been reduced to a miserable shadow of her former self, barely alive and wearing only remains of her uniform. She was all alone, and she was most likely going to die.     As Reina remembers this fateful day, tears ooze through her squeezed shut eyes. She tries to block it out, but the memory is too strong, and the tears continue to come out. She remembers how she almost died, but Laia Martinez found her. She'd administered a healing technic on her, bringing her back from the verge of death. The memory of that fateful day where she learned she'd made the wrong choice is now almost like a clear vision to her.     For a moment, all Reina can do is sob uncontrollably, until she remembers what's going on, and she forces herself to look up again. "Up until Laia found me, I was just a miserable young woman, all alone and doing things recklessly. I have made my attempts to make amends for my past, but still, I cannot hide from my past!" Reina grits her teeth and runs towards the left, ignoring the mirror of nobility and strength in favor of acknowledging her dark past. 

:'''{{#var:701|Caster (701)}} has posed:''' //SOUTH TUNNEL// The South Tunnel, in terms of scale, is somewhere inbetween the cramped confines of the West Tunnel, and giant-sized dimensions of the North Tunnel. It is also the most beautiful, with glowing lights trapped in icy pillars, walls that seem to have spheres of ghostly illumination floating behind them like the viewing-window of an aquarium with a frosty curtain over them, and very artistic ice sculptures of people and monsters and animals. Only those aren't sculptures. They're actual people, monsters, and animals, frozen by the denizens of this tunnel. Cruel spirits of snow and ice make this place their dwelling, and they do not respond kindly to intruders, though they can seem all too welcoming at first. There are countless places to hide from the residents, if one is fast, clever, and quiet, but it only takes being spotted by one of the spirits for the alarm to be raised. There is a passage to the North-East leading to the CENTRAL CAVERN. There are YUKI-ONNA here. REIJI ARISU is here. XIAOMU is here. KENJI KAWASAKI is here. EMIYA SHIROU is here. The yuki-onna actually slow their rotation as Xiaomu begins to offer a deal. The little girl speaks again, as all the others fall silent. She seems to be the most talktative of the lot. "You offer a deal? But who shall remain to be certain you do not renege on your agreement?" A sleepy-looking Yuki Onna in a festival kimono adorned with white dragons asks, "We can not simply trust you to return can we?" A spectral-seeming woman, partially transparent, with long white hair, seems to be sniffing the air, as though scenting something delicious. Her hair seems to be forming into over-sized hands as the rotation of the circle carries her closer to Reiji. But then Xiaomu speaks those final words, and the circle comes to a complete stop. The air is frigid. Far colder than it has been. "Family?" the young girl spirit asks. "What family? These you are with? All of them are your family?" The feel of magic coming from Shirou seems to cause a stir among the yuki-onna, but it's oddly still just the little one doing most of the talking. She's even the one who glances at Shirou suspiciously. "We are a family as well, you know." A shiver passes through the crowd. Whispers. 

:'''{{#var:701|Caster (701)}} has posed:''' //CENTRAL CAVERN// The Central Cavern is the focus of Confederate forces in the area. While there is no army or anything, there are at least a couple dozen troops, and many more engineers, all working to tunnel a huge passage through the ice. The cavern itself is gigantic, and shows evidence of craftsmanship being put into the ice. A pyramid of frozen water floats in the air, whether due to local physics or some kind of magic. It kind of looks, from the silhouette within the pyramid, as though something awful and possibly organic was sealed inside a long, long time ago. There is a passage to the North-West leading to the NORTH TUNNEL, a passage to the west leading to the WEST TUNNEL, a passage to the south-west leading to the SOUTH TUNNEL, and a passage to the east leading to a GIANT TUNNEL. There are CONFEDERATE TROOPS here. METAL MAN is here. CRASH MAN is here. DRONES are here. DRILLS are here. A freaky flying ICE PYRAMID is here. The soldier being accused of being a bug is just a normal soldier. He seems as shaken as the rest. When the order goes for all the organics to get out, they do so, retreating to the artificial warp gate they hauled down here which, in the process, stirred up all those ice giants. Hopefully the further away from the gross pyramid thing they get, the safer they'll be. Crash Man blows up the tunnel good, making great headway, and eventually exposing a shining blue glow behind the icy barrier up ahead. With a few more precision detonations, the last layer will come down, and a really bright blue diamond-shaped crystal will fall into the grasp of the two Robot Masters. The pyramid then shudders, and the dark form frozen within... Moves. 

:'''{{#var:707|Xiaomu (707)}} has posed:''' SOUTH TUNNEL Xiaomu nods, "Reiji is family to me in the truest sense: not by blood kinship, but I raised him from childhood, and I count him as family because of that. So too do I consider Kenji family, a younger brother under our tutelage, and Shirou a cousin in our company. I ask you, if our places were reversed, could you leave one of your sisters or one of your daughters in our care? Particularly if you had reason to fear for her life in our keeping" Family *is* a key point for the Yuki-onna, Xiaomu knew that coming in. That's why she's claiming the three guys as 'family' - even if the definition has to stretch a bit for Kenji, and admittedly a lot further for Shirou. "Sadly, time is of the essence," Xiaomu adds, bowing her head in sincere apology. "If you will not let any of us pass without one remaining as a toll ..." She takes a breath, and draws Suiren, the ice-magicked blade sliding free of the staff which is its sheath. And she thrusts the blade's tip into the ground in front of her, "... then I shall remain, while Reiji, Kenji, and Shirou proceed onward without me. If you will trust us to pay our toll afterwards, then I'll do what I can to --" That explosion in the central cavern is PROBABLY audible back up the tunnels, isn't it? 

:'''{{#var:701|Caster (701)}} has posed:''' //WEST TUNNEL// The West Tunnel is an ancient passage partially carved from ice, and partially bearing signs of some ancient stone structure buried beneath incalculable tons of frozen water. It may be some kind of temple. While not all of it is accessible and thus not all of it would need to be gotten through, parts of it are exposed, including several chambers and passages likely rife with traps. It is, technically, the most direct passage, if one avoids any of the detours and doesn't mistake the side-passages as part of the main route. But it has the most stuff in the way as well, and may require puzzle-solving skills to advance. There is a passage to the East leading to the CENTRAL CAVERN. There are TRAPS here. REINA KINNEY is here. The left hand mirror cracks and shatters before Reina. Did she somehow make the wrong choice? It seems not, as the frozen glass is melting down into... 'liquid light', and flowing along a previously invisible circuit throughout the platform. The platform begins to float across the dark gap and comes to a stop at the foot of the stairs on the other side of the room. The light then flows up the stairs and to the large pair of doors. The doors light up all over and then begin to grind open. If Reina can pull herself together after her emotional ordeal, and get up those stairs, she'd reach the top in time to see the large CENTRAL CAVERN, the ice pyramid floating in the air, the Confederate troops fleeing towards the Warp Gate, and the smoking hole in the cavern wall where Crash Man has just bombed it in order to reveal a shining blue crystal. 

:'''{{#var:391|Reina Kinney (391)}} has posed:''' WEST TUNNEL to CENTRAL CAVERN:     Reina has pulled herself together, letting her emotions be put aside. After all, she's a member of GUARDIANS and she has to keep her emotions in check. When the mirror changes its form, Reina realizes she truly made the right choice, and she starts to feel a bit of satisfaction within her, almost like she's starting to come to grips with her past. But that's aside from the point.     As Reina makes her way forwards, she begins to hear voices and stops, readying her hand gun just in case. Then she advances forwards again, and when she spies the Confederate elites heading for the warp gate, as well as that strange pyramid and the fact there's a weird crystal showing, she can only pause for a moment to attempt to form a strategy in her mind.     She starts to draw her gun, but then realizes it's pointless, since they're fleeing and odds are they aren't going to stop to fight right now. Instead, she focuses on the crystal and the ice pyramid, attempting to make sense of them. 

:'''{{#var:705|Reiji Arisu (705)}} has posed:''' SOUTHERN TUNNEL     "Family is not only a matter of blood," Reiji says, stepping from behind his pillar. There's no point in hiding now. The spirits know they're here- the /blown kiss/ is as much of indicator of that as anything. But there's something about this situation- something that's not quite right. Only one of the spirits is speaking, and... Freezing up, when the topic moves towards family. "That which we call 'family' are bond forged by the events that make up one's life," there's a crackle of electricity as the wakizashi slides halfway from its saya, arcs of lightning creeping through the cold, dry air. Suddenly an explosion shakes the tunnel. Reiji hisses a low curse under his breath.     "We've delayed long enough," he mutters. "Spirit of winter! Maiden of snow!" The Wakizashi slides back into its sheath with a crackle of electricity, the hand that had gripped its hilt gestures down the corridor- towards the distant explosion. Reiji continues to approach, his shadow drawing long against a half-dozen walls as his body catches the warm glow deep within the ice, "Did you hear that? THAT is the threat you must be concerned with. That is the threat WE are here to deal with. A threat to this home you've made. Let us pass, let us do what we have come to do, and we will leave you in peace. And..." His gaze flickers towards Xiaomu, "Despite her generous offer, you'll not be keeping that woman here any longer."     "Either you trust us to keep our word," Reiji says, the deep well of spiritual power within his soul flaring brightly in the pits of his eyes, "Or you don't. But know that I value that woman and her well-being, and I will not let her- or anyone else among us- remain here while greater danger still awaits ahead."     His gaze sweeps across the many statues and frozen warriors, the artifacts of animals and people who happened upon this place by accident or by design. Frozen forever. Frozen just as they had arrived. "...I don't know why you did all this, and I won't presume any reasons. Though I have my suspicions," he turns, staring at that lone snow-spirit. "But Shinra's duty isn't just the defense of humanity, but the protection of those spirits who choose to live alongside it as well. Let us pass, and let us do what we need to do." 

:'''{{#var:11|Metal Man (11)}} has posed:''' Crash Man looks at his work and back off to get out of harms way as they go off the last layer comes down and he looks at the crystal. Metal Man looks to Crash Man and then barks an order as things shake. "All non combat personel out! All combat personel hold the exit point and get ready to pull out." He barks his orders s the others are comming in and Metal Man moves to get the crystal, he orders the drones to form up and get their weapons ready. Metal man pulls a blade iwth his off hand as Crash Man arms his heavier weapons.. 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     What more is Shirou supposed to do? The young man's standing tghtly and trying not to show how nervous he's getting around all of the ladies...     Any moment they might flip out. Youkai that can't co-exist with people are TROUBLE, almost always.     But in this case, the rumbling wham rattles him into quickly adopting a stance in panic. He doesn't project the prepared weapon though! "What was THAT?!" 

:'''{{#var:701|Caster (701)}} has posed:''' //SOUTH TUNNEL// The South Tunnel, in terms of scale, is somewhere inbetween the cramped confines of the West Tunnel, and giant-sized dimensions of the North Tunnel. It is also the most beautiful, with glowing lights trapped in icy pillars, walls that seem to have spheres of ghostly illumination floating behind them like the viewing-window of an aquarium with a frosty curtain over them, and very artistic ice sculptures of people and monsters and animals. Only those aren't sculptures. They're actual people, monsters, and animals, frozen by the denizens of this tunnel. Cruel spirits of snow and ice make this place their dwelling, and they do not respond kindly to intruders, though they can seem all too welcoming at first. There are countless places to hide from the residents, if one is fast, clever, and quiet, but it only takes being spotted by one of the spirits for the alarm to be raised. There is a passage to the North-East leading to the CENTRAL CAVERN. There is JUST ONE LITTLE YUKI-ONNA here. REIJI ARISU is here. XIAOMU is here. KENJI KAWASAKI is here. EMIYA SHIROU is here. The words spoken by Xiaomu and Reiji clearly shake the little snow spirit. Family is dreadfully important to her, and their speeches and offers hold clear weight for her. And the explosions shake the entire tunnel. The snow girl turns to look over her shoulder, before refocusing on those before her. "We used to be a family once." One by one, the other yuki-onna lose all semblance of detail and of appearance, and fall apart into piles of snow. "I froze these people to save them." Poof. Poof. "To preserve them." Poof. Poof. Poof. Poof. "To protect myself." Poof poof poof poof poof poof. "And so that I would not be alone anymore." All the ones remaining fall apart. The little snow spirit waves her long-sleeve-covered hands, and a powerful magical wind gathers up the Shinra operatives and Shirou too. "My family went to stop a monster a long, long time ago. They said they would seal it away, to be a good girl and wait for them, and to stay here until they got back." Though her story is sad, there is no sadness in her voice. No tears from her bright-blue eyes. "They did not return. I do not think that they ever will. I will not ask any of you to stay." The wind then blasts the entire group down the tunnel (safely) at high speeds, with only the little spirit's voice calling after them, "...But make sure you come back to visit sometime." The group is suddenly thrust forth into a huge cavern, with a giant ice pyramid floating in the air, some blob of darkness writhing more and more within its confines, and a couple Robot Masters carrying a crystal that shines with great magical power... And a brilliance not unlike the concentrated essence of two dozen yuki-onna. The magic winds set the group down gently, and then vanish like the recreation of the little spirit's departed family. 

:'''{{#var:701|Caster (701)}} has posed:''' //CENTRAL CAVERN// The Central Cavern is the focus of Confederate forces in the area. While there is no army or anything, there are at least a couple dozen troops, and many more engineers, all working to tunnel a huge passage through the ice. The cavern itself is gigantic, and shows evidence of craftsmanship being put into the ice. A pyramid of frozen water floats in the air, whether due to local physics or some kind of magic. It kind of looks, from the silhouette within the pyramid, as though something awful and possibly organic was sealed inside a long, long time ago. There is a passage to the North-West leading to the NORTH TUNNEL, a passage to the west leading to the WEST TUNNEL, a passage to the south-west leading to the SOUTH TUNNEL, and a passage to the east leading to a GIANT TUNNEL. CONFEDERATE TROOPS are GONE. METAL MAN is here. CRASH MAN is here. DRONES are here. DRILLS are here. A freaky flying ICE PYRAMID is here. REINA KINNEY is here. REIJI ARISU is here. XIAOMU is here. KENJI KAWASAKI is here. EMIYA SHIROU is here. The soldiers evacuate through the Warp Gate and are GONE, leaving the excavation equipment and everything else where it lies. As Reina arrives, along with Xiaomu, Reiji, Kenji, and Shirou, they are witness to tendrils of black that should be frozen solid worming their way around within the giant flying ice pyramid with increasing liveliness. It's like that... Whatever it is just so coincidentally happens to be responding to exposure to the blue crystal's light. The pyramid isn't melting or anything, but an awful thing like that waking up is probably still not good. Whatever is done with that crystal... It needs to be done fast, and probabl should result in it either not being here anymore or not existing anymore. It's the key to the prison, not the lock. It shouldn't be kept so close to the thing it's meant to keep sealed. Being Elites, they are likely far more resilient than even trained soldiers. But they may already be subjected to the sound of whispers, of something like a mass of black centipedes crawling its way towards their 'self' from all around the cavern. 

:'''{{#var:705|Reiji Arisu (705)}} has posed:'''     And... His suspicions are validated. Reiji has heard these stories before- children left behind for their own safety. Parents sacrificing themselves to save the ones they love the most. Reiji has heard these stories. Reiji has lived these stories.     He's silent as the spirit speaks. His expression has settled into a neutral mask- the emotions that try to fight their way to the surface never make it there. There's business. He can't afford to be distracted now. But... It's impossible to deny that it hasn't affected him. "...Of course," he says in a softer tone; one filled with notes of sympathy that only Xiaomu would be able to recognize. Those kinds of feelings hardly ever make their way into his voice, but... "The next time, we'll return when we're not in such a rush," Reiji continues, turning toward their destination as the winds begin to whip all around him. His hand grips tight around his long-blade's hilt, "Just be safe until then." Frozen cave walls race by in an instant as he's hurled bodily through the air. At the last moment, just as the winds vanish, Reiji kicks off the ground. His blade is drawn in the same motion, spewing clouds of twisting flame as he hurls himself another step forward. In that instant, his eyes flicker up to the pyramid- and the creature and its tendrils. For that brief second, the walls seem to crawl as if they were alive, and his ears are filled with otherworldly words.     And then, with a narrowing of his eyes and a sharp KIAI, he focuses his will and turns the alien will away. "You there," he yells at the two Robot Masters, "Surrender that crystal and you'll be allowed to go peacefully!" 

:'''{{#var:707|Xiaomu (707)}} has posed:''' Xiaomu nods to the young yuki-onna, silently confirming Reiji's promise; she's just as familiar with the splitting of a family for the child's sake as Reiji is, if not QUITE as closely personal. Then the windborne thrill ride into the main cavern, and Xiaomu stumbles a little as she's deposited. "Whoooooo - !!" Xiaomu shakes her head to clear it after that wild rush down the tunnel. "Yeah, definitely need to stop by for tea or hot chocolate with her sometime ..." Then she spots the space-warping horror that's starting to wriggle into existence from 'inside' the pyramid. "... yeek," she comments, almost blase about it. "Gonna take more than a Shinra Banshou to shut THAT thing down .... and if it took ice to keep it sealed -" Oh wait, they're already surrounded by something? Shoot. ... Literally. "Kojin, turn up the heat but don't cook *us* while you're frying the creepy-crawlies!" she calls out to Kenji and his partner; she's already planted her staff in the ground next to her and is drawing her paired handguns from inside her vest. "Got a bit more immediate of a problem to worry about than the Feddies just yet, Reiji! JUU NO KATA!!" And with that, she opens fire on the 'centipedes,' trusting Reiji and Kenji to cover the directions that she isn't - probably roughly dividing the area around the Shinra group into thirds. It'd be quarters if she knew what Shirou's ranged ability was like. And if her companions are pulling their weight as far as thinning out the swarm, she is indeed letting Reiji focus on the Robot Masters, if he's not going to elemental-bug-spray the eldritch centipede-thingies. 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     Who guessed that a little girl would become a Yuki-Onna... Shirou casts a long and regretful glance at the many frozen here. He's just about to speak up when -- "H-huooah!" They're all blown into the central chamber and subjected to emotional torture of a very different sort.     That was more people he couldn't save. All he can do is make sure none more ever have to come here somehow and fall to the same fate.     Hard, though, given what he's suddenly forced to lay eyes upon now. "... This is a seal?!" He's not so sure about this at all. A giant floating Ice Pyramid. what the HECK?!     The trouble is that looking up on it is making his brain itchy and spreading paranoia. He jumps around and slaps at his arms briefly... a milder reaction than Xiaomu's, but still...     "Whatever's sealed wasn't sealed well enough!" 

:'''{{#var:11|Metal Man (11)}} has posed:''' Metal Man has ordered the regulars out hardware can be replaced right and the really important stuff can be snagged by drones however he's got to wonder now as the thing is getting lose. "You know sometimes I wonder about this like of work, Crash Man." "...SO this was the seal wasn't it?" "Yes, this better be of use." Then the Union comes piling in. "Of all the nerped up..." Metal Man looks at Reiji. SO often does the Union say this and so often they expects it leads to a fight. "Yes it looks like our old one pal's waking up." HE looks to Reiji and set the crystal down, he's got full scans of it and it can be recovered later he doesn't feel like being in a three way fight, he does know this wasn't the operation's main object as he sets the crystal down and starts backing away, the Joes form up Roman Legion style using their shields to cover he doesn't know Reiji after all he might expect something out f the union. There are certain operations they pulled off that he'll not forgive them for. "We're leaving and do say hello to our friend there it likes to get in your head." With that they are making for the gate. Crash Man isn't happy but well this could serve to distract the union right? 

:'''{{#var:705|Reiji Arisu (705)}} has posed:'''     Reiji lands and Xiaomu... starts going all guns akimbo on the cavern walls and everything. He takes a moment to just look in her direction before breathing a long- but wholly internal- sigh. He heard about foxes being easily distracted, but... But he can make that joke later.     Metal Man backs away from the crystal, and Reiji... Well, Reiji is admittedly not used to people just /backing off/ from the mystical artifact of doom when he gives the order to. He pauses a moment to draw Gold and holds it level with the Masters as he approaches, never keeping his eye off them until he had the opportunity to holster his firearm again and throw his crimson coat around the brilliant crystal.     "Don't worry," Reiji says levelly to both Metal Man and Shirou as he begins scooting the crystal back toward the Yuki-Onna cave, "I don't intend to let that thing out of its cell. We know a thing or two about keeping ancient evils under tight lock and key." He shoves the crystal the rest of the way- towards Emiya and the others. "Take that thing back into the caves. I'll cover you. We're bringing it back home for analysis." 

:'''{{#var:701|Caster (701)}} has posed:''' Shots are fired at the hallucinations of crawling black bugs, only for them to vanish moments later when Xiaomu's attention is pulled away by Reiji. Yeah, whatever's up there is no good. Metal Man has surrendered the crystal, and he, Crash Man, and his robot pals, are getting the heck out. They exit through the Warp Gate and are GONE. Within the ice pyramid, the ball of shadow and writhing shapes seems to be moving more and more fluidly. Two slits appear and then open more fully. A pale essence that seems to erase light and darkness alike emanates from the 'eyes'. A jagged maw splits open and begins to 'breathe', sucking in color and life from the surroundings. The blue energy that is the spirits of all those snow spirits is being drawn from the crystal and towards the monster that they died to lock up. They must not have been able to escape after the job was done. Right now, the only purpose it seems to serve is as food for the prisoner. Whether the crystal is gotten out of here or blown up, it can't be allowed to stay in this place. And maybe sending those spirits along their way would be a mercy. For a moment, the icy caverns seems to be made of blood, with countless giant spider legs thrusting out of the walls in the flickering of light and darkness dying together. Thankfully, Reiji is already hauling it out when that happens, and the hallucination of the surroundings reverts back to normal quickly. The further they move away from the sealed prisoner, the less their minds may feel under attack. The more normal things become. And even the little snow girl's tunnel may seem less haunting, as - even if only for the time it takes for the Union to pass through - the rest of her family returns home. .... Back in the cavern, the Prisoner loses his mobility quickly, his writhing slowing and stopping, and then empty eye holes and bottomless mouth both closing together, back into shapeless darkness. 

:'''{{#var:707|Xiaomu (707)}} has posed:''' Fortunately for Xiaomu, she doesn't have much opportunity to waste ammo before Reiji gets her attention on the radio, and she re-rolls her 'resist illusion' check. *BOY* is she steamed when she realizes the abomination managed to wriggle its way into her head and make her start seeing things that weren't there. "Reiji, are you sure just taking the crystal from here is a good idea?" she asks, gradually salvaging her composure and shoring up her mental defenses. Either way, *getting out of here* is probably a higher priority than deciphering just how yonder abomination WAS sealed up - although the ice pyramid, combined with the young Yuki-onna's story, does make a reasonably sound explanation ... It's a puzzle that'll have to be solved later. Xiaomu keeps her handguns ready just in case anything that's NOT an illusion comes after them, and covers the others' withdrawal from the cavern. 

:'''{{#var:705|Reiji Arisu (705)}} has posed:'''     Another illusion... Or is it? Light and darkness melt and become one in a fine blend of oblivion as whatever that... THING is begins reaching a state of wakefulness. The walls turn to blood. Great, spidery limbs creep out of the shadows behind his eyelids. He growls as he tries to force it BACK only for it to... retreat, as they pull the crystal from the monster within the seal. Reiji recognizes the essence bleeding away from the massive crystal-- which can only mean...     ...Well, at least he'll be able to give them a passing reunion. But he can't exactly let the crystal- or the girl- remain in this place for long. 

}}

1519/Core of Stone

2015-02-13T21:09:55Z

Paladine: Created page with "{{Log Header |Date of Scene=2015/02/07 |Location=The Deeper Regions |Synopsis=Deep below the Earth, a huge Confederate force is on the move. The Union responds, while the Conf..."

{{Log Header
|Date of Scene=2015/02/07
|Location=The Deeper Regions
|Synopsis=Deep below the Earth, a huge Confederate force is on the move. The Union responds, while the Confederates engage a beast of legend in a battle for its magical heart.
|Thanks=
|Cast of Characters=11, 181, 560, 626, 662, 701
|Tinyplot=
|Tinyplot2=
|pretty=yes
}}
{{Poses
|Poses=:'''{{#var:701|Caster (701)}} has posed:''' There are Warp Gates, even underground. These have been utilized by the Confederacy to get down into a certain part of the Deeper Regions, where a network have caverns have been identified by a certain red-haired Caster as the residence of one who holds a reagent she requires. As a Servant, she has certain abilities unique to her that are part of her Legend, known as Noble Phantasms. One of these can not be employed without the appropriate physical materials. Being that the Caster class is not really great as direct combat, enlisting the aid of others seems prudent. And of course, Caster's Master not being one of those who must hide and skulk in the shadows, it is possible that Magatha Songsteel is here as well. But what is certain is that Confederate troops have been spotted moving into the area en masse, and native denizens in the form of earthen golems or rock monsters are becoming quite agitated by this fact. Even if observers hadn't detected the Confederate forces, the rampaging elementals would have been a tip-off to something going on too! Here's the kicker. All those troops aren't staying behind to act as cannon fodder for any people coming to interrupt things, or to gradually slow them down to keep them from getting closer. No, no. The angered elementals might serve that purpose, but ultimately the people acting as road blocks while all those standard soldiers venture deeper and deeper into the mine shafts, barely (or not at all) lit tunnels, and vast ancient caverns, are the Elites. The Confederate Elites who have come to make sure this succeeds. That means stopping any opposition before it gets the chance to get close. Where is the flame-haired Servant in all this? Dematerialized, but appearing now and then to lead the way by marking the paths with balls of glowing, flame-like prana, or setting up Bounded Fields to keep as many tunnel critters as possible from ambushing the troops. Why are normal soldiers being entrusted to handle the target instead of Elites, if it's so important? More cannon fodder? Throw them into the meat grinder to wear the enemy down? No. Not quite. But the reason why probably won't become evident for awhile yet, as the cat-irised, glowing-red eyes of Caster look over those conscripted for this task, appraising, examining... All while reaching out her senses for some indication of the inevitable interruption. 

:'''{{#var:11|Metal Man (11)}} has posed:''' Metal Man is not alone as he steps out of the warp gate the red, blacka nd yellow armored robot maste ris joined by one clad in white an orange who has a slight 70s feel to his armour deisgn ther'es abig blast visor up over Metal's Companion's face. "So this is it, Metal Man?" "Looks like it Crash Man." Metal Man falls in, he's not sure about this op but here he is. "I'm direxting some Sniper Joes to help th regular forces." Several yers ago Metal used to command a fed regulat unit so he's got a certain fondess for helping the regular forces out when he can. The joes exit the gateway and fan out moving to join up with the regular forces on the hunt, they also give both Wily robots direct feeds of everything they are doing so Metal and Crash man are basically everywhere the drones are. 

:'''{{#var:181|Psalm (181)}} has posed:'''     "DO NOT FALTER YOU SCURRILOUS PEASANTS. FIRST ONE TO THE TREASURE BELOW AND TO ENGAGE THE BEAST GETS ALL THE GOLD THEY CAN CARRY BACK. WE ARE HERE WITH YOU. ONWARD!"     If you're looking for Magatha Songsteel, she is right smack in the front goddamn row charging in with her men, her troops, her guard. Along with the confederate soldiers comes a cadre of Warforged, the no-quite-robots smoothly moving as a unit, a formidable band of hoplites backed by several spellcasting ones in the back.     She is here, she is loud, she is not backing down and she is glorious, her Charisma on full display tonight, making the Bard look Resplendent as hell. 

:'''{{#var:626|Kyra Hyral (626)}} has posed:'''     Union entry into the Deeper Regions is fortunately staged elsewhere in the tunnels. This does not, however, mean the sudden increase in Confederate activity has gone unnoticed. Obviously, recon was ongoing and the sudden dramatic increase in feet in the mine was cause for a lot of concern. Enough concern, in fact, that some Elites had been sent in.     The original idea may have been to do further surviellance and, if needed, outmanuver the questing intruders and cut them off. It would be a mission requiring a delicate touch and a good deal of subtlety. Unfortunately, those involved decided to take an entirely different approach-an approach that will be noticed immediately.     "WHEEEEEEEEEEE!!!" The cry echoes throughout the tunnels from the rear, an old set of rail tracks set into the floor of the tunnel vibrating slightly at the sound of an approaching cart of medium size. Usually they are meant to transport ore. Today they are transporting Elites, though only two.     Kyra Hyral leans against the back of the cart, one hand hanging over the side. Occasionally she casts Aeroaga behind, keeping the cart propelled forward at its considerable speed. 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     "Whoooooaaaaaaaaaahhhhh!" In front of Kyra, EMIYA SHIROU's doing his darnedest to not get clobbered by a stalactite.     Subtlety isn't really his thing either, but he's worried - just who are they going to run into down here?     Particularly without a lot of light to work with. He's brought a flashlight and has some miniaturized infrared goggles in a pocket that haven't been needed yet, but this is not his favorite place to be.     Of course the only reason the cart's holding together at this speed is because Shirou's running Prana through the wheels and frame, reinforcing its durability so it doesn't shake itself apart at every turn!     ...yeah, the Union's not being very subtle today. 

:'''{{#var:662|Fake Avenger (662)}} has posed:'''      Silence.      Absolute silence is a rare thing. It is, perhaps, impossible under the rules of the worlds - never are there moments of absolute stillness, of nothing at all. Such an oblivion of sound is an unnatural thing, something that cannot ordinarily exist. The subtle shiftings, creakings, crackings, and tappings of the world, as a billion billion rules interact to keep the atoms of reality moving, are a part of life. It cannot be helped that there is no silence.      But it makes the moments of that unnatural void all the more bizarre. It makes them stand out all the more.      Such a moment of absolute silence descends upon the underground now. It is a moment that lasts no time at all, a fragile slice of nothingness that stands out all the more for its beauty. It exists for less than a fraction of a second, between the drills of the digging solders, Metal Man's clanking robots, Psalm's furious singing and Warforged soldiers, the madness of the mine cart, and the natural creaks and splashes of any tunnel and cavern. A void between them all, a single, perfect moment where nothing at all happens. An absence of noise.      It sings out its glorious, silent song in that instant.      Then it vanishes. The creaking, clanking, clanging - it resumes in full glory and full force.      With it emerges Avenger.      He simply appears as the moment of absolute and perfect crystalline silence disappears. Where the samurai clad in purple came from is impossible to tell; why he's here, only he can possibly know. The twitching black scars/tattoos along his body seem to shift and writhe into new configurations as he emerges from the moment of perfect stillness. He walks with that same apathetic peace he seems to regard all things with, moving carelessly through the mine, a distant, meaningless smile etched upon his face. The minecart, the soldiers, Caster, Psalm - if he even notices it at all, it's impossible to say.      Kojirou stops by one of the rocks and brushes his fingers across it. It's as if, for him, at that moment, there isn't anything but himself and the rock - the madness of the soon-to-be-battlefield is subsumed by the simplicity of nature. Long after the battle is over, the rocks will still be here. Long after the conflict ends...      Hah. He'd gotten philosophical in his old age.      Kojirou turns away from the rocks, his purple eyes sweeping out over the soon-to-be-battlefield.      What would hold his attention today, if, indeed, anything...? 

:'''{{#var:701|Caster (701)}} has posed:''' Caster smiles with pride and joy at seeing her Master prepared to lead the troops. No wishy-washy sit-on-her-hands Master is Psalm! She continues to float through the air whenever she's materialized, the act apparently requiring so little prana that it's preferable to walking. As some weird caveman-like creatures with clubs come pouring out of a side-tunnel, and start trying to attack the troops, they find themselves bashing their weapons against a barrier that doubles the force applied to it and then reflects it back on the attackers. Nothing is going to get in the way. Whether armed with swords, guns, laser cannon arms, or whatever Warforged wield (possibly multiple types of things), it seems the one making the path that Psalm leads them down safe and easy to navigate is intent on ensuring that not a single soldier is lost before they reach their destination. Tunnels twist and turn, walls and sharp rocks surge forward, only to fall away as the massed troops follow the guidance of Magatha and the glowing orbs set to mark the way. If anyone falls, they are picked up by those around them. Caster may not be used to directing troops or massed combat formations, but that is a deficiency more than made up for by her Master's expertise and leadership ability. Metal Man and Crash Man are ones whom Caster has not worked alongside yet, but she may have spoken to the former on the radio. Metal Man was generous enough to not only come to help, but to bring along another ally, AND send some of his robotic allies to join the mix of assorted Confederate regular forces. He is a worthy enough ally in her book, at least for now. She will have to see how effective he is. But the willingness to help without asking for anything in return is a positive mark. Much better than all those people who kept coming around her home in her own time, begging for things. Geez, what a pleasant comparison this lot is! Except for Avenger who is here but not really, it seems. But surely he will do something! ...Eventually! 

:'''{{#var:701|Caster (701)}} has posed:''' Caster is still not quite sure what kind of class 'Avenger' is anyway. She has had difficulty 'reading' Kojirou Sasaki. But she isn't necessarily some kind of super-manipulator who can brain-read people at a glance, let alone over the radio, so that isn't a surprise. But as she and the troops head deeper and deeper, and a rickety mine car comes tearing down the tracks in the distance, right towards the two Robot Masters guarding the more open, cavernous area before the passage the soldiers took, even if Caster were watching what was happening behind, she wouldn't be able to gauge what exactly the other Servant's intentions are. He is a mystery, to be sure. But hiding something from Caster only makes her want to discover it even more. Some day, Kojirou. Some day. For now, anyone with senses for magic would probably be able to pick up the pulse of significant prana from deeper within the tunnels - though Caster is out of sight, so its source may not be evident to the Union. But whether Avenger can be sensed or not... Who knows? Maybe he just seems like some guy who likes touching rocks in dark caverns. MAYBE HE JUST SEEMS LIKE A WEIRDO. Or maybe people are like, 'damn son i'm not going to eff with that. I'm going after the guy with a lethal-looking sawblade on his head and the one who looks like he is probably going to punch explosions into my face if he gets the chance.' 

:'''{{#var:181|Psalm (181)}} has posed:'''     Despite Caster's help, the Warforged get stuck in several times, stabbing and curtting and beating down anything foolish enough to get in the way of House Deneith and their goal here tonight. Deeper and deeper they delve, pressing onward with the regular Feds, and each time one of the grunts falls, there is a Warforged there to either scream at them to get up and KEEP FIGHTING, or Maggie's there doing it herself.     And it's not long at all before the group reaches the goal deep below, a massive cavern that yawns open widely. Something deep within the dark cavern rumbles a warning, that stops most of the advancing Fed troopers in their tracks... up until the point that Maggie and her Guard get there. "DIDN'T YOU PEOPLE HEAR ME? GET IN THERE AND FIGHT. WE ARE HERE TO DOWN THE BEAST." She lets out a glorious, contralto clarion call of battle, and like some fearsom valkyr, draws her greatsword, and CHARGES into the rocky, ruined cavern. 

:'''{{#var:11|Metal Man (11)}} has posed:''' AS there are others sneaking about it's uncertain if they are aware or not there are things however oign on Avenger shows up and that gets a bit of an eyebrow raise as he looks at the feed from one of his drones. Ah it takes him a moment to put the data togehter it seems they got some company on their side of things at least. The joes do all right given the shields which are dam touch and only two go down out of the whooe lot moving to cover the liviung personel. They are hunting a beast but metal doesn't uite like this he's not sure what' up however Metal Man and Crash man are here to make sure no one crashes the party. They are moveing to make sure the Union doesn't get in, they very likely to run into the dark green humanoid Sniper Joes who are acting as the outermost edges and hte two robot master hower he does spot them. "Contacts spotted move!" the joes move to intercepot Kyra nad the other union however. There might be some plasma blasts and oh look whirling saw blades from metal! Crash Man is so far silent with his weapons, but why? 

:'''{{#var:626|Kyra Hyral (626)}} has posed:'''     As she propelled the cart along, Kyra couldn't help but sense a distant source of what felt like, to her, was magical particles. A LOT of magical particles, in fact. Naturally, her first assumption is that it's a powerful person since giant non-people magical resevoirs are not quite things on her world.     "I think I sense them up ahead, Shirou!" Kyra declares, straightening to get a good look, ahead. Though with Shirou's lighting, it's more likely that he'd get a good look at the Robot Masters and Sniper Joes in their path before she does. It doesn't go unnoticed that they're under attack, however, and Kyra seems inclined to stay the course. That is-"Shirou, duck down and reinforce the cart! We're breaking through!" Reinforced enough, the cart should ward off the blasts and the blades aimed their way. Kyra herself casts another aeroga off the back of the cart and then ducks down for some cover. 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     Some odd things happen that set Shirou's mood off. A nagging, strange moment of silence as they round a bend that his brain doesn't properly register is the first of those. Next is... R     "Analyze... composition materials... strengthen structure....!"     Responding to Kyra's declaration, Shirou takes proactive measures. With a hand against the minecart's base, he floods it with prana. it weaves through the wood and metal in circuit-liek patterns, filling in gaps and 'hardening' it.     Well, that won't be very good against energy blasts and Metal Blades. But the mine cart that would've been shredded instantly instead tanks several shots, might very well knock over a Sniper Joe if they aren't quick enough to dodge, and soaks a few of the Metal Blades. Those are the worst - Shirou's reinforcements barely hold, and the end result is that one of the blades manages to slam into the minecart's side and halfway dig in. It's lodged in hard enough that when it rounds a bend...     *SCHKREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESHHH!*     "Uooooahhhh! Not good!"     Well, there's the world's worst lightshow from spraying sparks of rock and grinding metal and rupturing sides...     It'll hold, but not for much longer...     Shirou peeks over the edge through, spotting the Robot Masters.... "...Robots?!" 

:'''{{#var:701|Caster (701)}} has posed:''' Caster frowns now when the soldiers are ordered to attack, when they haven't even seen the target yet. That's fine for the Warforged, because they are badass and have a badass leader! But the regulars aren't ready yet. They have a different role to play here. The Warforged are Psalm's to command, and the Joes are Metal Man's, if he has some sort of remote link to them. So it's up to Caster to handle her end while te brave ones move forward to draw out the target. She floats down and gestures for the regular troops to halt (which they do), while at the same time turning her attention on the vast empty space around them. Stone outcroppings lie snapped or smashed as though something massive struck them. There are towering stone columns throughout, many of them heavily damaged, though some still bear imagery carved into them untold ages ago. Images of humanoid figures... And less humanoid figures... Doors, gates, and chains. There's something big in here with them. Something lurking in the shadows. A golden staff forms in the floating woman's hand. It - much like the rest of her body - is basically pure prana. Not that she doesn't have blood and flesh, but that blood and flesh is highly-concentrated magical energy. The staff? Even more so. There is no enemy to attack yet. But it's clear that it's coming, thanks to all the racket made as soon as everyone got here. The vast shadow that could have been taken for just another part of the darkness that fills this place moves, and the ground trembles under the mere shifting of weight. The sound of something once-sharp grating on solid stone is painful to the ears. Then a breath that sounds like a geyser spewing dust and gravel instead of water and steam is released. And a dense cloud of dust, and huge chunks of gravel actually DO spill across the cavern floor. Two eyes open in the darkness, but they are absent of sight. Two more eyes open, and then another two. None of them can see anything anymore. But the monster can still breathe, and thus can still smell. It can still hear with its whole body, sensing the vibrations through the ground. And it doesn't like what it smells and hears. 

:'''{{#var:701|Caster (701)}} has posed:''' A gigantic beast suddenly smashes through one of the vaguely Greek-looking columns that still had some of its artistry. A beast with three canine heads, and a body made of pure stone, with gem deposits hardened on all over it. Cerberus. Or a very old version of such. Possibly even a member of a monster race named after such instead of the genuine article. But the vision of a gigantic three-headed dog is still a startling one, particularly for those who know their mythology. Caster, as a Servant, possesses the strength of ten strong men in her lithe frame. She grabs one of the Confederate soldiers (not the Warborn or Joes, but those who she received permission to utilize), having prepped them all for this mission in advance, and hurls him at the Ancient Cerberus (aka Kerberos, if you're proper). The beast seems to think it's being fed a snack as it opens one of its sets of jaws, dust pouring from its maw in place of saliva. It's articulated stone snake-tail lashes back and forth, taking out another two columns with a deafening cacophonious shattering of stone. And then suddenly there isn't a soldier flying at the giant dog, but the largest whale species on a typical version of Earth. A Blue Whale. The 100 ft.-long whale smashes into the Cerberus's face. The titanic beast is quite startled, especially since it can't see what hit it. The whale-soldier falls quickly, but the monster is stunned and confused. And for those who can sense prana, there was just a HUGE surge right when soldier became whale. "Now you may smite it, Master~!" Caster lilts impishly. The Warforged, knowing the plan and their leader's will, might even already be in a position to strike at their target - the gem-encrusted belly of the beast... Right at the heart they need to carve out of it. But the monster still has two other heads. And that is why Caster, the Sniper Joes, and the other regulars, are supposed to hang back and pelt the eff out of the tri-dog with everything they have to keep its attention. 

:'''{{#var:11|Metal Man (11)}} has posed:''' Metal Man is moving in now and his balance is inhuman he bounding off the walls as he close and it he keeos going for then again metal blades were made to be stupidy shapr the alloyt in them would be alien to Shirtou's warol so who knows one Joe does go down. Another however make use to leap out of the way, firing at the apex of it's leap. Crash Man mean while is moving in and his shoulder opens as fire with a pair of mini missiles. The battle goes on but he gets a feed. Okay holy shit he had known the plan before hand but damn to see something like that. "That's going to be a whale of a tale to tell later." He says over the comm to Crash Man. 

:'''{{#var:181|Psalm (181)}} has posed:'''     WHALE. IT'S A WHALE. THAT'S AWESOME. Though she can sense the pull on her own prana to pull that little trick off. A little mental nudge at her Servant. <Careful, dear, not too hard at first.>     But that is indeed the signal for her 'Forged to move in, an inhumannly perfect massed battle cry from the constructs as they move in to set up a perimeter for the mages to do their work. The skinner Forged step up and start hurling balls of sound at the creature, sonic blasts aimed to cripple or stun the old stone monster.     That's being backed up by Maggie herself, who simply stands at the front of he guard, plants the tip of her great sword into the ground, rolls her neck...     And /sings/. It's a roiling, twisting noise, the words untranslatable even to the Multiverse, pure arcane music coming forth in a glorious noise from Magatha, shuddering the entire chamber as one huge concert hall... and directing the music right at the Cerberus. 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     Kyra and Shirou are in luck! The minecart leads down deep to where they need to be and into the main chamber. But to get there... they have to pass by Metal Man's Wilycorps. A not too simple endeavor! because the Minecart's already rattling almost off the tracks from the one scraping blade. Shirou decides enough is enough as the main chamber's in sight. He jams on the brakes with everything he's got, and manages to close them enought that the cart starts slowing. But...     Then he sees the incoming missiles and blades and other shots from a really bad angle.     "TRACE ON!! MONTAUBAN!"     Prana sizzles and flares to mark the arising and activation of a Noble Phantasm Shirou is VERY bad at Tracing. "Gaaawghkk--" Seen well enough as he drops to his knees clutching his arm through the effort, energy flaring everywhere.     Still... A filmy white wall of solid marble with a very obvious battlement erupts from the ground in a storm of energy! The wall's translucent and fleeting, but it's also thick and enduring in its own way.     The blades and bombs slam hard into it,shattering it - demolitions work is one of Crash's specialties after all, isn't it?     But they bring down a wall that was merely an illusion made real, instead of utterly eviscerating Shirou and Kyra.     At this point, with the cart coming to a halt overlooking the great chamber and Caster's strange ceremony... Shirou faces the distant Metal Man and his robot partners.... glances at Kyra...     Already he's breathing hard. But the young man grunts, groans... and summons up a pair of weapons. KANSHOU AND BAKUYA appear in his hands and he readies them defensively. "What are all of you here to do?!" 

:'''{{#var:626|Kyra Hyral (626)}} has posed:'''     Kyra doesn't pop her head over the side of the cart, trusting in Shirou's abilities as he shields their chariot against the frequent attacks of the Robot Master and his Sniper Joes. She watches Shirou carefully, seeing that he's struggling through the effort and reaches forward, placing a hand on his shoulder to-to heal? No, it just seems to be for comfort or support. There's really nothing she can do to stabilize in-use magic circuits.     "Nice." she says quietly when the cart makes it down in tact. She peeks up over the side of the mine cart, pulling free one of her firearms as she does so. "Yeah! What the hell are all you guys doing down here?!" 

:'''{{#var:662|Fake Avenger (662)}} has posed:'''      The arrival of Kyra and Shirou is evidently enough to draw Kojirou out of whatever bizarre reverie he's found himself in. The swordsman looks up as their minecart passes through the illusion, smashing against the ground. He considers them for a long moment, as if he's not sure what he wants to do.      Then he turns away and heads down the corridor.      He passes downwards, away from Shirou and Kyra, only the barest trail of his existence present as he heads down towards Cerberus. His strange and passive smile remains as he enters the chamber of the great beast. It's like he doesn't even care about the danger he's in. He stops, taking the vast thing in with a curious sort of apathy.      He hasn't drawn his sword yet. His hands disappear into his kimono, watching the thing.      Kojirou had no interest in Caster's Holy Grail War. Kojirou did not particularly care about great deeds and great weapons, about legendary battles and legendary monsters. He's here because he wants to be here.      Kojirou's left hand emerges from his sleeve. Caster, and Shirou, get a glimpse of the bizarre etchings carved into it - etchings that stand out even against his normal tattoos. Red and strange, the carvings are clear to both of them with only a glance. It's something no Servant should have, and no Servant should be able to sustain...but there it is.      A Magic Crest.      Kojirou holds up his left hand and curls it into a single finger. His eyes flash, though his smile doesn't waver, as he points his finger at one of Cerberus's extra heads.      Perhaps it was nostalgia. Maybe it was just a way of showing dominance over one who was so closely related to his one and only former Master. Maybe it was just a whim. Kojirou himself likely couldn't say.      Caster, Shirou, and Kyra suddenly get a sense of deep and impending power - a source of prana so vast and so limitless as to be like the ocean itself being forced through a tiny little space.      The Magic Crest explodes with light.      Then a single Gandr shot explodes out of Kojirou's finger. Shirou has probably seen Gandr before; Caster most certainly has seen some variant or another. The weak ones hurt the spirit. The strong ones are like bullets.      Kojirou fires his Gandr like a missile. It's all power, no finesse, no technique - but who needs finesse and technique when you have *that* much prana available? Besides, Shirou at the least knows Kojirou's technique doesn't lie in magic.      Kojirou lowers his finger after the first shot. He wasn't here to do Caster's job for her. His reasons were his own.      Well...usually. 

:'''{{#var:701|Caster (701)}} has posed:''' Of course, Caster would never endanger her Master by using too much prana! Which is why she totally wants to make sure this petrified guardian of the entrance to the Underworld is defeated before she has to throw another soldier and turn them into a tyrannosaurus rex! Even if she REALLY WANTS TO TURN SOMEONE INTO A T-REX at some point. She isn't sure if she can, technically, since she mostly turns people into mundane beasts. Even that whale was stretching the limits of her power. But ever since she found out they existed, she has been itching to try them out. Still: priorities. "Of course, my Master~!" Caster responds out loud to the telepathic message. Useful for a Master giving orders, that ability. Not so much for the Servant responding. The soldiers staying back near the entrance are shooting up a storm, keeping those heads distracted, while the sound balls from the skinner Warforged mess with one of the Cerberus's only two remaining senses something terrible. Vibrating throughout its entire body, petrified flesh cracking and crumbling, it can't even tell where to bite. It's... Actually kind of pitiful and sad. Such a fierce and ferocious guardian, reduced to this state. Caster feels bad. It's like they're tormenting an old dog. And she is quite the animal lover. Best to put it out of its misery. Which is exactly what Psalm does. Her song is powerful. Beautiful. Everywhere. Reflecting and building, assaulting the great beast from every direction. Crystal formations crack. Blasts of sonic waves shatter its chest, bit by bit, and the monster staggers, bleeds dust and bits of its own fossilized skeleton... And then Kojirou blows off one of its heads. The monster collapses. Its two remaining jaws striking the ground thunderously. Thankfully, Soldier Whale got turned back to a human, and Caster swooped into to snatch him up before that happened, but even the shockwaves throw her mystical flight into momentary chaos. She manages to land at set the soldier down... But what is this about exactly? Caster has been intentionally trying to keep any of their troops from dying - even a single one - this entire time. She's a Confederate. Why does she care about regular infantry? Psalm probably knows. For all this Servant's flaws, being callous about the deaths of others was never part of her legend. But when it comes to legends, she is truly at a loss regarding this Avenger. As someone deeply invested in magical knowledge and study, she definitely takes notice of all that is displayed by Kojirou - intentionally or not. But what to make of it? She doesn't know yet. For now, she is grateful for the assistance, even if greatly intrigued by the huge power she just witnessed. 

:'''{{#var:701|Caster (701)}} has posed:''' When some guy and girl arrive in a mine cart, Caster pauses, taking her attention off Avenger and the Cerberus alike. Then she offers simply, "I apologize, but I am under no obligation to answer that." There's a giant three-headed-correction: two-headed, dog with a snake tail, all made of stone, with its chest cavity split wide-open and a throbbing mass of semi-organic rock struggling to pump the last vestiges of life through its calcified arteries on display. "If we retrieve that, we can depart," Caster calls out over her shoulder. Then she focuses back on Shirou and Kyra. "Which leaves preventing your interference to me." She raises her gold staff, and for the two Unionites, everything goes dark, except for the intense blazing flames that suddenly spring up all around them. Nothing is visible, only fire. Fire, and MONSTERS. 18 ft. centipedes of black steel, crawling their way towards the two intruders. Clattering, clinking. Squiggling, squeaking. Making those disgusting chitinous noises that bugs do. One arches up off the ground, raising to its full height, and its belly is covered in a series of faces. Shirou's and Kyra's, repeated one after the other, all along its length. The faces open their eyes and begin to scream, just as the centipede lunges with its steel-plated mandibles. It's an illusion. But not any illusion these two have likely encountered before. Because most illusions aren't SOLID. Most illusions don't come with PHYSICAL SENSATION. And most illusions can't HURT YOU. These ones are, do, and can. For Caster, it's a distraction for these do-gooders. Something to keep them busy while they get out of here. Fire and giant monster centipedes are kind of a big deal after all. But she can't really do much about the Cerberus's remains. The Union - she is assuming they are Union anyway, but you never know - will be able to examine what's left and start asking questions and drawing conclusions. Unfortunate, but priority #1 right now is get the Core and get out. Assuming they can! 

:'''{{#var:181|Psalm (181)}} has posed:'''     Magatha is more than happy with this outcome, though she looks over her shoulder at the carnage going on around the place... mostly caused by her music and her Servant.     Lovely.     She nearly skips her way over towards the fallen creature, and bodily jams herself into the crevasse that was that massive crystal in the beast's chest. "It's in here somewhe-AH! Here we go."     She comes back out covered in monster-dust-miasma, carrying a dully glowing hunk of compressed energy, matter and prana. "Solanda, dearie, we have it~" 

:'''{{#var:626|Kyra Hyral (626)}} has posed:'''     "...huh, looks like a pretty high level kill there." Kyra remarks as she gets a glimpse of the big ol' cerberus corpse. Since killing monsters and stealing their stuff for alchemy is actually a pretty daily ritual of Kyra's life, she starts to wonder about the remains herlf, if only briefly out of habit. She lifts her gun-turns out it's her needlegun-and prepares to fire just when the strange illusion hits.     She doesn't realize it's an illusion at first. There was something about being in the dark surrounded by hideous bug monsters that evoked some sort of primal fear within Kyra. She lets out a girly little scream and ducks back down into the mine cart to shield herself.     It's only a temporary action. A moment later she pops back up, arms filled with flasks sporting liquid napalm, which she furiously hurls at the illusionary insects. "KILL IT WITH FIRE!!! KILL IT ALL WITH FIIIIIIRE!!!" 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     Just as SHirou thinks he's about to take action, he spots That Swordsman once more, doing something he wouldn't 've guessed a swordsman can do. "Magecraft?!" He doesn't recognize the Magic Crest. He's never seen one before. But he can guess, and that's NOT something he'd expect from a swordsman at all.     But for that matter, hnor would he expect any of the other fantastic things that're to be found in this great chamber when he scans about it. Is running down in there fll throttle a good idea? No, definitely not.     He's just about to do that though, when suddenly... "Not yet--" he gets stuck in an illusion and halts his begun charge when these horrific flames erupt all over the place. he leaps back, tumbles to his feet... and just like that? His breathing quickens considerably.     Fire. Incredibly, unbelievable, unreal fires. Fires that burn without a source, fires with an incalculable heat. Choking, awful, impossible fires.     Shirou has a REALLY bad history around strange, magical fires.     The boy enters a full-out trance-panic, hurling Kanshou and Bakuya at the giant insect and tracing another pair with a loud, freaked-out yell.     He does the first thing he can POSSIBLY think to do.     Throw himself in front of Kyra and take up a defensive position with another copy of the twin weapons! "What kind of crazy magic did she use?!" 

:'''{{#var:11|Metal Man (11)}} has posed:''' While thing are getting nuts on the other hedn of Things Metal Man has to deal with Shirou. "Emiya the forgery!" Metal notes to Crash Man and he nods a bit but things seem to be meeting thier end here he issues a recall orders to the Joes but they will be the last ones out even after the Regulars are out. He and Crash Man are now starting to depart as well they got htier objective it's time to get the heck out of here. 

:'''{{#var:662|Fake Avenger (662)}} has posed:'''      Kojirou watches Cerberus die with the same dispassionate gaze a man might give a photograph of some distant place. He doesn't really care about its fall. He doesn't particularly care about its destruction. Kojirou disappears his hand into his sleeve once more, his gaze sliding over at Shirou. The young man was everywhere, apparently. The faker. The forgery.      Kojirou casts his eyes back at Caster. The woman was too much like old Caster, he decides finally. He looks up at the rock-strewn ceiling.      Then again, had he ever known any humble Heroic Spirits, besides himself? Heroes tended to be the kind of people who were larger-than-life, full of arrogance and swagger. He, who wasn't even a hero, merely a man who wore another's name...well, it made sense that he was unusual, he supposed.      Kojirou turns away from Kyra and Shirou. He turns his back to them. He acknowledges nothing in the world around him as he fades out of existence, vanishing from the world. For a brief moment, the only thing left of him are his scars, hanging in the air in the shape of his body - and then they, too, vanish into nothingness. 

:'''{{#var:701|Caster (701)}} has posed:''' Core of Stone retrieved. Troops fleeing up the tunnel. Metal Man and Crash Man securing the Warp Gate out of here, and making sure everyone gets through (themselves included)! Kojirou vanishing all awesome and creepy and totally not making friends with Caster probably! Kyra is flinging flasks everywhere, Shirou is attacking and slicing and dizzicing, and the giant centipedes are torn apart - by magic potion or blade - only to vanish into streams of flame when destroyed. That flame itself eventually vanishes. And when it does, the cavern is empty. Empty except for Shirou, Kyra, and the 1/3rd decapitated corpse of a mythological beast so old that his flesh began to mimic his earthen environment. With its heart carved out. There's probably more evidence to be gathered here, information to examine, things to consider (like magecraft-using swordsmen, and Servant-level presences from flying redheads, and Psalm, and Sniper Joes, and Warforged, and Confederate regulars who aren't appreciably injured or killed, and TWO Robot Masters guarding the way here)... But at least those flames and bugs were just an extremely convincing and extremely real and even painful illusion, right? At least all those bounded fields put up in the tunnel by Caster on the way here are still intact, so the Unionites don't get attacked by cave trolls or whatever on the way out, right? And their hearts will stop beating so fast at SOME point, right? ...Right? 

}}

Confed Crisis Report

2015-02-11T21:10:28Z

Paladine:

==Introduction==
This is a way for players to keep the crisis report up to date themselves at a static location. Don't add stuff that isn't an actual on-going plot you intend to run stuff for, whether it's a TP or not. If you were in a TP which doesn't have an entry yet you can ask the TP runner if you can add it for them if they haven't done so themselves (especially if you're in charge of the reports, since that puts you in a good position to do this). If you aren't sure whether something fits on this page or not, you can typically ask your respective fachead.

'''This method of doing things requires YOUR participation to keep up to date! If a new TP starts or if you are involved in a TP (especially as the report writer) you are encouraged to help keep this page up to date!'''
===Example Entry===
'''Main Contacts''': Player1, Player2, Player3 (please note if a main contact is not part of the faction) 
'''Themelist/World''': A Good Theme-1, Earth-12345 
'''TP Page''': If relevant, otherwise you can ignore this section. 
'''Summary''': There is a thing happening and things need to be done. This section should contain key elements without being overly big. Include if possible factional information (is the other faction involved? is there a truce in place? do people have free agency to do whatever they want?) and if there is one the common goal that should be worked towards. Include links to other wiki pages if needed, like the TP page or character pages. Etc.

==Current Crises==
A list of things currently going on that need player involvement.

===Lute's Unown===
'''Main Contacts''': [[Lute]] 
'''Themelist/World''': [[Pokemon-2]] 
'''Summary''': Lute's illness due to his link with the Shadow Registeel reached a critical level until a swarm of Unowns claiming to be his' appeared and seemingly healed him, giving him what seems to be the knowledge and experience of an alternate version of himself in the process. They slowly lead him towards an unknown goal, and Confederate Elites are asked to assist and prevent Union Elites from interfering and stopping Lute, while keeping an eye on him for suspicious behavior or side-effects.

===Serori's Dragon Ball Hunt===
'''Main Contacts''': [[Serori]] 
'''Themelist/World''': [[Dragon Ball Z-3]] 
'''TP Page''': [[A Wish for the Future (Part One)]] 
'''Summary''': Serori is attempting to collect the seven Dragon Balls hidden across Earth-4555. Conflict has been heavy, as the world is Union-affiliated, meaning we've got a whole bunch of nosy do-gooders getting in Serori's way. So far, only one Dragon Ball's been taken by the Confederacy, with the second found Dragon Ball now in Ryuko Matoi's hands.

===Dragon's Bane===
'''Main Contacts''': [[Gaius Van Baelsar]] 
'''Themelist/World''': [[Final Fantasy XIV-1]] 
'''TP Page''': [[Dragon's Bane]] 
'''Summary''': An old enemy of Eorzea and former Garlean Legatus, Nael Dues Darnus, has reappeared, wielding powers on-par with a Primal. At the same time, a horde of Dravanian dragons has appeared, suspected to be under his command. Union and Confederate members alike are asked to help destroy him and this army of dragons before they can do anything that cannot be undone.

===Priscilla's Hunt===
'''Main Contacts''': [[Priscilla]] (UNION) 
'''Themelist/World''': [[Dark Souls-1]] 
'''Summary''': PLEASE INSERT.

===Terra Majora===
'''Main Contacts''': [[Elliana Fairchild]] 
'''Themelist/World''': [[Immaculate Visions-1]] 
'''TP Page''': [[New Blood]] 
'''Summary''': PLEASE INSERT.

===The Shivan Confederacy===
'''Main Contacts''': [[Souji Murasame]] 
'''Themelist/World''': [[Final Fantasy: Act: Class-1]] 
'''Summary''': Souji is using multiversal mercenaries through proxies in order to cause a political upheaval in his world to undermine the ruling party. The plot is intended to focus around the creation and progress of the newly-formed Shivan Confederacy, based on nationalist, self-defense, and anti-multiversal platforms, and their conflicts with more moderate and pro-multiverse factions in Galianda. Confederates will be able to intervene in various points as well as to help deal with the coverup. The plot is somewhat political but there will be plenty of room for those not interested in politics to get involved.

===The Homeworld/Abstractum===
'''Main Contacts''': [[Abstractum.Net]] 
'''Themelist/World''': The Homeworld 
'''TP Page''': [[When They Return]] 
'''Summary''': Abstractum, sapient objects, part of the Abstractum Network, are waging a war against Them, an unknown, conceptual force attempting to end all of reality. Keep an eye out for Pures (their champions and vanguards) such as [[Samael]] surfacing, volunteer to obtain an Abstractum and help it grow powerful by using it, create a Node in the Homeworld wherein you can complete a story to strike a blow to Them, or find your own ways to assist in this matter. There is a truce between the Union and Confederacy in order to fight Them, but the truce does not prevent either side from targeting Abstractums and their Users.

===Caster's Cores===
'''Main Contacts''': [[Caster]], [[Psalm]] 
'''Themelist/World''': [[Fate/Stay Night-4]], Various locations 
'''TP Page''': N/A 
'''Summary''': Caster is seeking the reagents she needs to employ one of her Noble Phantasms. It takes a month of preparations in addition to the reagents themselves, and obtaining those reagents isn't easy. Other Confederates willing to help out in acquiring the reagents or warding off Union and other menaces are desired. A reward has been promised to anyone who assists, and all of the Confederate Elite Forces are welcome to partake of the results of this project once it has been successfully completed. One reagent has already been obtained, and the Union is likely to interfere in the rest of the acquisitions as they attempted for the first one. There are planned to be four primary reagent scenes, and at least one optional objective (with the possibility of two) that can be sabotaged or interfered with by outside parties. Decide how easy or hard it is to succeed by helping out!

==Former Crises==
A list of crises that were resolved or faded away. Don't start adding stuff from years ago, only use this to move things from the current crises list to this one, it's better than complete deletion.

Confed Crisis Report

2015-02-11T16:00:32Z

Paladine:

==Introduction==
This is a way for players to keep the crisis report up to date themselves at a static location. Don't add stuff that isn't an actual on-going plot you intend to run stuff for, whether it's a TP or not. If you were in a TP which doesn't have an entry yet you can ask the TP runner if you can add it for them if they haven't done so themselves (especially if you're in charge of the reports, since that puts you in a good position to do this). If you aren't sure whether something fits on this page or not, you can typically ask your respective fachead.

'''This method of doing things requires YOUR participation to keep up to date! If a new TP starts or if you are involved in a TP (especially as the report writer) you are encouraged to help keep this page up to date!'''
===Example Entry===
'''Main Contacts''': Player1, Player2, Player3 (please note if a main contact is not part of the faction) 
'''Themelist/World''': A Good Theme-1, Earth-12345 
'''TP Page''': If relevant, otherwise you can ignore this section. 
'''Summary''': There is a thing happening and things need to be done. This section should contain key elements without being overly big. Include if possible factional information (is the other faction involved? is there a truce in place? do people have free agency to do whatever they want?) and if there is one the common goal that should be worked towards. Include links to other wiki pages if needed, like the TP page or character pages. Etc.

==Current Crises==
A list of things currently going on that need player involvement.

===Lute's Unown===
'''Main Contacts''': [[Lute]] 
'''Themelist/World''': [[Pokemon-2]] 
'''Summary''': Lute's illness due to his link with the Shadow Registeel reached a critical level until a swarm of Unowns claiming to be his' appeared and seemingly healed him, giving him what seems to be the knowledge and experience of an alternate version of himself in the process. They slowly lead him towards an unknown goal, and Confederate Elites are asked to assist and prevent Union Elites from interfering and stopping Lute, while keeping an eye on him for suspicious behavior or side-effects.

===Serori's Dragon Ball Hunt===
'''Main Contacts''': [[Serori]] 
'''Themelist/World''': [[Dragon Ball Z-3]] 
'''TP Page''': [[A Wish for the Future (Part One)]] 
'''Summary''': Serori is attempting to collect the seven Dragon Balls hidden across Earth-4555. Conflict has been heavy, as the world is Union-affiliated, meaning we've got a whole bunch of nosy do-gooders getting in Serori's way. So far, only one Dragon Ball's been taken by the Confederacy, with the second found Dragon Ball now in Ryuko Matoi's hands.

===Dragon's Bane===
'''Main Contacts''': [[Gaius Van Baelsar]] 
'''Themelist/World''': [[Final Fantasy XIV-1]] 
'''TP Page''': [[Dragon's Bane]] 
'''Summary''': An old enemy of Eorzea and former Garlean Legatus, Nael Dues Darnus, has reappeared, wielding powers on-par with a Primal. At the same time, a horde of Dravanian dragons has appeared, suspected to be under his command. Union and Confederate members alike are asked to help destroy him and this army of dragons before they can do anything that cannot be undone.

===Priscilla's Hunt===
'''Main Contacts''': [[Priscilla]] (UNION) 
'''Themelist/World''': [[Dark Souls-1]] 
'''Summary''': PLEASE INSERT.

===Terra Majora===
'''Main Contacts''': [[Elliana Fairchild]] 
'''Themelist/World''': [[Immaculate Visions-1]] 
'''TP Page''': [[New Blood]] 
'''Summary''': PLEASE INSERT.

===The Shivan Confederacy===
'''Main Contacts''': [[Souji Murasame]] 
'''Themelist/World''': [[Final Fantasy: Act: Class-1]] 
'''Summary''': Souji is using multiversal mercenaries through proxies in order to cause a political upheaval in his world to undermine the ruling party. The plot is intended to focus around the creation and progress of the newly-formed Shivan Confederacy, based on nationalist, self-defense, and anti-multiversal platforms, and their conflicts with more moderate and pro-multiverse factions in Galianda. Confederates will be able to intervene in various points as well as to help deal with the coverup. The plot is somewhat political but there will be plenty of room for those not interested in politics to get involved.

===The Homeworld/Abstractum===
'''Main Contacts''': [[Abstractum.Net]] 
'''Themelist/World''': The Homeworld 
'''TP Page''': [[When They Return]] 
'''Summary''': Abstractum, sapient objects, part of the Abstractum Network, are waging a war against Them, an unknown, conceptual force attempting to end all of reality. Keep an eye out for Pures (their champions and vanguards) such as [[Samael]] surfacing, volunteer to obtain an Abstractum and help it grow powerful by using it, create a Node in the Homeworld wherein you can complete a story to strike a blow to Them, or find your own ways to assist in this matter. There is a truce between the Union and Confederacy in order to fight Them, but the truce does not prevent either side from targeting Abstractums and their Users.

===Caster's Cores===
'''Main Contacts''': [[Caster]], [[Psalm]] 
'''Themelist/World''': [[Fate/Stay Night-4]], Various locations 
'''TP Page''': N/A 
'''Summary''': Caster is seeking the reagents she needs to employ one of her Noble Phantasms. It takes a month of preparations in addition to the reagents themselves, and obtaining those reagents isn't easy. Other Confederates willing to help out in acquiring the reagents or warding off Union and other menaces are desired. A reward has been promised to anyone who assists, and all of the Confederate Elite Forces are welcome to partake of the results of this project once it has been successfully completed. One reagent has already been obtained, and the Union is likely to interfere in the rest of the acquisitions as they attempted for the first one. There are four "must succeed" reagent scenes, and at least two optional objectives that can be sabotaged or interfered with by outside parties. Decide how easy or hard it is to succeed by helping out!

==Former Crises==
A list of crises that were resolved or faded away. Don't start adding stuff from years ago, only use this to move things from the current crises list to this one, it's better than complete deletion.

1472/Shadows With Teeth

2015-02-02T10:26:22Z

Paladine: Created page with "{{Log Header |Date of Scene=2015/02/01 |Location=Slum Urbania |Synopsis=Human bones are found in Slum Urbania. Clearly Simon, Kirito, Tomoe, Kyra Hyral, Nurse Joy, and Ryu sho..."

{{Log Header
|Date of Scene=2015/02/01
|Location=Slum Urbania
|Synopsis=Human bones are found in Slum Urbania. Clearly Simon, Kirito, Tomoe, Kyra Hyral, Nurse Joy, and Ryu should split up and search for clues! There's NO WAY THIS CAN GO WRONG.
|Thanks=
|Cast of Characters=1, 6, 553, 622, 626, 636
|Tinyplot=
|Tinyplot2=
|pretty=yes
}}
{{Poses
|Poses=:'''{{#var:622|Simon Petrikov (622)}} has posed:''' Slum Urbania is not necessarily a SAFE place to live, but honestly, without hyperbole, it's still safer than the world Simon and Marceline come from. That's kind of scary to think about. At least in Slum Urbania the majority of other life forms aren't ACTIVELY trying to kill and/or eat you. Still, despite the cheap housing, it's not the ideal place to move. Simon has been giving the place a look regardless, however. Before he settles on any one place, he has to consider his options and collect data. At least knowing what one of the least safe places to raise a little girl is should give him a better grasp on the best, right? Right now, however, the blue-skinned man has been caught up in matters unrelated to housing. Human remains have been found in an abandoned lot between two equally awful apartment buildings. Simon Petrikov was just passing by, but thanks to his knowledge of archaeology, anthropology, and biology, he has been able to identify the sticky (and gross) heap of bones found near a pile of junk by playing children as belonging to human beings. It has caught quite a commotion in the neighborhood despite his best attempts to warn people to keep quiet about it, and call the police. The police have been called, but it's Slum Urbania. Any response is likely to be slow in coming. So he has called for Union support. Because based on the utterly disgusting slimey moisture coating them, these remains are very, very fresh. That means that more people might be in danger. If Simon is going to start becoming a hero, he can't always just run from danger. Sometimes he has to face it - especially when it will protect others. When others arrive, it's on the dingy, dirty, but at least (mostly) well-lit streets. So certain dangers may be there, but at least not THOSE certain dangers that are troubling certain members of the Union lately. Dangers that have followed them across worlds somehow. It's really creepy to think about. That shadowy somethings have been stalking you, hunting you, trailing you for some unknown purpose... So persistently than even the barrier of geography and all the many hazards of numerous worlds don't mean anything. Simon, for his part, has yet to hear those whispering voices, for whatever reason. So everything should be cool here, right? Right. He's just crouched down and examining the remains without touching them any further to avoid disrupting the 'crime scene' whenever people come over. 

:'''{{#var:636|Ryu (636)}} has posed:'''     It's as simple as presenting a problem that involves people getting hurt or killed, especially in ways that would traumatize the locals, to get Ryan Bateson to step up to help deal with it.     A white dragon steps through a warp gate, and leaps from the ground up on top of a lamp post, and then up on a building, using this method of transportation to reach where Simon indicated. When he finds the right spot, he lands somewhat near Simon with a loud THUD of his scaly feet slapping against pavement. He straightens from his crouch, then glances at the slimy bones, and toward Simon himself. This dragon Simon has never seen before speaks up:     "Looks like a predator's stalking around this place." His observation is calm, though there's an underlying fury to it. Like if he found that predator, he'd kill it. "Let me know what I can do to help." 

:'''{{#var:626|Kyra Hyral (626)}} has posed:'''     Word may have reached Simon eventually that Kyra was among those hearing the whispers, having herself discovered that Ryu had been afflicted with the same 'plague.' She was curious at first, assuming that they were some kind of developing seer powers only to be terrified and disappointed that the whispers were telling her things like 'Run' and 'Die'.     Though she's even heard them today, she doesn't let them slow her down. She does, however, act much more cautiously, avoiding being alone in dark places were the unpleasant creatures were likely to strike. Which is why she waits to meet up with Ryu first before going down the alleyway to the site of apparent murder that Simon was guarding.     When she arrives, Kyra seems to be sporting the same outfit that was featured in Tomoyo's commercial. There aren't too many differences from her other outfit-she still has a hoodie with the hood stylized to look like a moogle head. But now she sports pants and a different set of boots entirely. It's an outfit much more practical for field work such as this. She keeps to the ground, now beneath Ryu as he hops onto the light post, then scrambles to a building to get where he needs to go. "Shame I'm not a necromancer." she says as she finally joins Simon. "But I'll try to figure out what I can from the remains." 

:'''{{#var:6|Tomoe (6)}} has posed:''' Tomoe had been on edge with seeing things after all these things were comming for her? They were likely also aware of where her body was while she was in her avatar state, even with her Abstranium partner she'd not be that confident about suriving some sort of supernatural horror while she was jacked in. She was here today as her Salamander slef was here todya and she's been flying in and was now comming in for a landing near Kyra and she pauses for a moment. "Hey...ya I want these things off me, they could tear through me real self like I was a rag." There's a stressed edge to her voice after all she's being hunted. 

:'''{{#var:553|Nurse Joy (553)}} has posed:'''      Nurse Joy is currently running into the area, also taking a local warp gate. She looks... Incredibly annoyed. Today was /supposed/ to be her day off. And instead, this stuff happened. Bones found. And so she has to head out onto the scene. She runs in a rather ungirly manner, unlike basically all of the other Nurse Joys would run. Also, this Nurse Joy isn't even carrying a medical kit. Because she is, in fact, not a field medic at all.      Instead she's mostly there as support for finding the killer.      Following alongside her are two Pokemon. A Wigglytuff, and an Espurr. The Espuur decides to leap onto Nurse Joy's shoulder, though. And it speaks, rather calmly.      "Espuuurrrr." <Death is in the air.>      Of course there is death in the air, though. Someone /died/, so yes. As such, Joy just sighs at him. 

:'''{{#var:1|Kirito (1)}} has posed:'''     Heeding the call, Kirito has come.     He said he'd come.     Except... the tall'ish blackclad Spriggan is nowhere to be found. Instead... a young... man? Woman? In similar attire... with different colored eyes, similarly black hair... and MUCH shorter than Kirito's thougt to be... is approaching.     Yes. Similar outfit. Black pants and shirt, a black...buttcape for lack of anything better to call it, held up by a black belt. A metal breastplate for protection, secured with leather straps. The youth's belt has a holster with a pistol in it on one side, and on the other... a strange metal cylinder's just clipped, hanging there.     With long, black, silky hair, an overall androgynous build, and an extremely soft-featured face....     Yeah, this just can't be Kirito.     Except...     "Simon?" He sounds a bit jumpy and distracted, and glances at alleys several times...     Then down at the remains. Grimace time. 

:'''{{#var:622|Simon Petrikov (622)}} has posed:''' Simon is startled when a dragon suddenly lands nearby, and a number of the locals who were gawking and gathered around scatter, but the old man heard this same voice on the radio just a little while ago, so when Ryan speaks, Simon calms down, nods, and says, "That was my thought too. Ideally we can track the responsible party somehow, or at least determine what it is so we can better help people defend themselves." Kyra's arrival and mention she might be able to glean something from the remains shines a faintly hopeful light on all this. Simon smiles and says, "Great! All I've been able to determine so far is that they're adults, male and female, and that they have bite marks. But I haven't wanted to touch them too much to avoid disrupting the crime scene and because... You know." He holds up a femur delictately with some tweezers, and a transparent grey gelatinous substance verrrrrrrrry slowly drips from the bone... And then actually slurps itself back up in order to drip again. The arrival of Nurse Joy merits a wave from Simon - unfortunately with the tweezers and bone still in his grasp, though he quickly realizes his error and sets them back down again. He doesn't realize that this is a different Joy than the one who first met him and Marcy. He does kind of stare right on back at the Espurr. "Yep," he answers simply. Stare. Stare stare stare. Staaaaaaare. For all his mutations and changes, unblinkingness is not Simon's super power. Still, he can see stuff the people around him possibly can't. Things he'd rather not bring up right now. Because most people don't like being told you can see dead people. All the time. Having Wizard Eyes kind of sucks. Simon pauses to peer in Tomoe's direction, and says, "Are you talking about those whatever-they-were that have been following you around, Tomoe? I'm sure we'll figure something out. And we're okay for now. It may be night time, but this isn't some cave somewhere. We're in the middle of a populated super-mega-ultra-big city or whatever this area is!" Kirito's arrival prompts a double-take from Simon, but he has read the reports, so figures it out quickly enough. "Oh, hey, Kirito! I was just talking about-" Then Simon notices something. A figure who is somehow... Distinct from the crowd milling around (or what's left of them after many scattering upon dragon-arrival). A young woman. A teenager maybe. She has long black hair and seems to be wobbling a bit on her feet. She is also beckoning Simon over. The scholar gets up and says, "You go ahead and see what you can find, Kyra. I think I see someone who wants to talk." Then he stands and starts to head in the stranger's direction. And he honestly can't tell if she's alive or dead. 

:'''{{#var:553|Nurse Joy (553)}} has posed:'''      Espurr just keeps staring at Simon as he stares at it. This will last until the stare breaks. He ends up blinking, though, before the stare breaks. And thinks to himself.      You win this round, Simon.      Joy, for her part, seems unphased by the skeletal part in Simon's hand as he waves. Instead, she just nods at him.      She moves, though, to look at the skeletons. She speaks, rather casually.      "...This is likely unneeded, but I'm declaring this Dead On Arrival. Though here is hoping this isn't an undead."      She gets down, to look at the skeleton a bit herself. Though her focus is 'living things', she can probably help a /bit/ with some of the identification stuff. 

:'''{{#var:626|Kyra Hyral (626)}} has posed:'''     Kyra doesn't seem to surprised with Ryan's appearance. She's seen him in his dragon form before by now and also realizes that he seems to be more comfortable as one instead of a human.     "I'll see what I can do." Kyra gives Simon a thumbs up and crouches by the remains, carefully looking them over. She notices the strange goop and immediately pulls a set of rubber disposable laboratory gloves out of her pockets. An empty vial follows, used to scrape up some of the goop from the bones. As the others arrive, she seems to be running a number of small tests on the substance with a variety of other liquids and papers. They're mostly a few basic things that would help determine the nature of the slime-organic or inorganic, poisonous, acidic, magical particle saturation. Kyra herself is suspecting digestive enzymes but doesn't say anything until her theory is confirmed.     She looks up briefly, noting a few things: Nurse Joy and her fluffy battle critters. One of them's pretty cute. The other...well, Kyra doesn't want to look at Esper too long. The other thing that catches her eye is Kirito, who now has a /vastly changed appearance/. "...what the. What happened to you? I thought you were a tank, now you kind of look like a backliner."     She almost sounds disappointed. 

:'''{{#var:636|Ryu (636)}} has posed:'''     Ryan lets out a sad sigh when people scatter in all directions following his arrival. He watches one of the more frightened ones nearly trip over himself. His gold eyes turn, instead, to the rest of the party as they gather around the crime scene. Kirito gets a squint of recognition, and nods when it's revealed to be the same person. Rumbling, he turns around to face the strange figure that Simon had noticed.     Suspicious of anyone who would want to talk, he follows the scholarly half-wizard, keeping his eyes focused on the long-haired girl. He spent a very long time being muscle for a gang, so he is very good at the silent, menacing but ultimately protective stare. He doesn't bother talking to the girl, though, because he knows Simon would be better at that than any dragon like him. 

:'''{{#var:6|Tomoe (6)}} has posed:''' Tomoe looks to Simon for a moment abnd nods slightly she was more worried about her physical form but there's no need to concern everyone else right? She kept her weapons away for the moment she looks to Ryan and give him a nod then starts giggling at Kyra for a moment. "Tank?! The tanks were Me, Klien and the late Heathcliff." She smirks for a moment longer. Kirito's always been the top DPS of the raid as it were." She follows up with everyone else and she does not say a thing about Kirito's apperance /at/ all! She's being good, right? 

:'''{{#var:1|Kirito (1)}} has posed:'''     "Urk--" Kirito's attention is first on the bone that Simon has on display. The boy's expression is twitchy. Awkward. Somewhat grossed out. But ultimately he overcomes the gut reaction and steps forward... STARING at the weird goo and... shivering.     Yeah, something's gnawing at him too. Gnawing at him a LOT.     "That... doesn't look like anything normal. Not only that, it was stripped down to the bone in a place like this without anyone noticing. What eats THAT fast?!" Urp. He doesn't want to talk about it, but he can instantly spot there are things that just don't add up. "Is there any evidence to suggest they were here to begin with and not just moved here? Bloodstains?" He Frantically looks around for them, but by now... would there be any? Were there any to begin with?     IN the middle of that, Kyra's words reach him and his shoulders sag. Kirito spends several moments in consternated silence, only to whirl around and....     Grin. Mischeviously. "Looks can be deceiving."     Yeah. He'll just bullshit through this instead of whining.     He's not any happier about this avatar.     "Besides. Tomoe's got it. I'm top DPS. Sometimes parry tank in a pinch." He did do a HECK of a lot of that, being the only person with the insane reflexes needed to Sword Skill counter bosses who often had unique Sword Skills... 

:'''{{#var:622|Simon Petrikov (622)}} has posed:''' Yeah, kind of unneeded, but always good to be thorough, right? And undeath is definitely a concern in the Multiverse. Heck, it was a concern back on Simon's Earth too. He still has nightmares about that... Lich. With the combination of Nurse Joy's medical know-how, and Kyra's tests, the two are able to confirm Simon's original findings, determine the bones don't SEEM to be reanimating, and that the substance coating them is definitely organic, probably a digestive enzyme approximate to saliva, and it holds traces of toxic pollutants and traces of magical energy. Not magic itself, since there's no evidence of a spell being cast, just the actual stuff that goes into magic. Mana, MP, whatever you want to call it. There's bits of it in there, and possibly just a side-effect rather than by intention. To Kirito's observant questions, Nurse Joy and her pokemon (if they are able) may determine that while there are minute amounts of blood spatter around the area, the victims were probably eaten here, but might not necessarily have been killed here. There's something unusual about the choice in location though. It's not as though this site is especially well-hidden. So why here? There's a lot of junk lying around in this empty lot. Old tires, cardboard boxes, bags of trash, so on and so forth. The kind of stuff that Simon saw all the time before Unification. It takes actually being here in Slum Urbania after being in actual CLEAN and TIDY living spaces to realize that it's supposed to be unusual for stuff like that to lie around untended to. Hypothetically it could have provided cover. From view, from the environment... But not TOO much. The trash heap was clearly abandoned by whatever creature or creatures were using it. When Simon approaches the odd woman, with a white dragon at his side, the woman turns around starts tottering away. Simon pauses in confusion. Is it someone else scared of Ryan? When Simon doesn't keep following after she has crossed the street, she stops, turns around, and beckons towards him again. Then she calls out in a whisper that somehow carries over all the surrounding noises. "Over here," she says. That settles it! She must be a ghost! Maybe one of the victims? Simon puts on his determined face, and informs the others over the radio that once they've finished up, to follow him and Ryan. They might have a lead on the killer(s)! He strides after the woman and nearly gets hit by a car because he didn't look both ways before crossing the street. The car blares its horn but doesn't even stop. Simon waves after the vehicle apologetically, and then proceeds more cautiously. The glassy-eyed woman turns and resumes plodding along, heading down an alleyway towards a nearby industrial park. 

:'''{{#var:553|Nurse Joy (553)}} has posed:'''      Joy just looks at the skeleton, a bit confused. Yeah, this /is/ an odd spot to die. And rather surprisingly public. She sighs.      "This is probably supernatural, or some type of weird creature. There might be some tracks or traces of it around, though..."      She heads over to the various debries, the tires and miscellaneous garbage laying around. She starts to, carefully, move some of it around, trying to find tracks or something. Who knows. They might find /something/. 

:'''{{#var:626|Kyra Hyral (626)}} has posed:'''     Kyra waves a dismissive hand, "DPS, tank, whichever. I pegged you as a fighter-type that's supposed to be protecting the backliners." It might be a case of being lost in translation here. The white mage herself doesn't seem too concerned over her potential faux pas. Kirito was a big boy and could just deal.     Kyra runs through the gamut of chemical tests pretty quickly, photographing each result with her phone for record. Although there was an app running that was capable of interpreting the colors each liquid or paper test returned, she was experienced enough to already know what each color meant.     "So let's see, organic digestive enzyme close to saliva. Toxic. Residual magical particles though no associated pattern. Seems like the work of some kind of poisonous creature, maybe magically created, that primarily digests its prey in its mouth and spits out the bones. Sounds nasty."     Kyra caps the sample vial and stows it in one of the pockets on the inside of her hoodie. "So-um. Hey-" The rest of group departs to follow the ghost across the street (and nearly get hit by traffic) while Nurse Joy seems to remain behind. Kyra grows extremely nervous and moves to stand, following after Nurse Joy, "Um. We should probably catch up with the others." 

:'''{{#var:636|Ryu (636)}} has posed:'''     Ryan does not trust a supernatural creature that is beckoning anyone to follow it, by the grumpy rumbling he makes when it whispers at them. From his experience, these kinds of things invariably try to kill or eat the people that try to follow them. When Simon rushes off into traffic, though, he snaps out of his grumpiness and it's replaced with a heartstopping panic. He nearly rushes to help Simon, only hesitating when he knows the vehicle isn't going to hit the overexcited scholar.     He chases after the scientist, and gives him a hissing, "Watch where you're /going/!!" at him, fretting at him with a gesture of his hands at the scientist. The amount of worry and tension in the dragon completely dissolves any pretense of menace he once had.     He follows Simon dutifully, now equally wary of Simon /and/ the 'ghost' girl. 

:'''{{#var:6|Tomoe (6)}} has posed:''' Tomoe smirks back at Kirito for a moment and she would be a bit more cherrty given she did enjoy chatting with her long time friend. However there are things to worry about more imporantly. Such as the things here, she just kinda gives Kyra a look of you did not just say that about Kirito. She says nothing else because now isn't the time to fight. She's moved on at this point leaving styding this stuff to those who have an idea, she just hits things till they fall down, or takes things tht would make other people fall down and she is wary as well about this but she's a bit more disposable after all, right? Wiuth that she follows after Simon. 

:'''{{#var:1|Kirito (1)}} has posed:'''     Indeed, maybe Kyra didn't just say that about Kirito! The youth in black makes a disbelieving, disgruntled face her way for a moment - he's way more willing to show how he feels about some things in this avatar, oddly enough! And exasperation's one of them. Oh well.     With Simon wandering off... "And digest it fast..." There's that eerie, unsettling feeling again. "...Tomoe, have you--" No, he's not gonna bring it up. He clamps shut. "never mind."     Those dreams have GOT o be just his mind playing tricks on him. Right.     So with Simon running off... "I'll check back in a bit!" He tells Nurse Joy, then dashes off to keep up with Simon and the woman... 

:'''{{#var:622|Simon Petrikov (622)}} has posed:''' "You're right, you're right! I'm sorry!" Simon responds. Now he is watchful of this stranger who is trying to get them to follow her. He should have been sooner, but with his head the way it is, and all the weird stuff he sees just... All the time, 24/7, he had acted without thinking. He usually AVOIDs the spirits he sees. They are generally creepy, and he can't even touch them to get them off if they try to crawl on him or whatever. Best to keep his distance as a result, right? But this one seems rather normal looking. The problem is she might not be a spirit after all. Simon holds up at the alley entrance once her and Ryan are across the street, waiting for others to catch up. The strange woman doesn't stop this time however. Instead she just keeps going, and the idea of losing their lead on this 'case' makes Simon more and more nervous. "Like, what are the actual chances that she's trying to hurt us instead of help us? Like, on a scale of one to a hundred. How much? 30? 25?" Pause. "Out of a hundred, you know?" Tomoe joins them on the side of the street across from that empty lot, and Simon feels a bit safer already. But... Should they keep waiting and risk losing their lead? If she's a ghost, is that really relevant if they don't follow her? He is wracking his brain for any lore concerning ghosts, and hauntings, but his head is full of fog like usual. That figure is distant now, nearly to the industrial park. Simon makes a decision and starts following after. It may not be the smartest decision, and if he was on his own, he'd probably not be doing this at all. But with even Kirito joining them, that means he the scientist is mostly safe now, right? Three friends and allies who are way better at fighting than he is. If something bad happens, they'll be able to take care of it together! ...Together except for Kyra and Joy, who are digging through the trash heap for any more clues. Around the time that Simon and the others finish passing through the alleyway (though depending on Ryan's size, he may need to go over the nearby roofs instead), the street lights in the neighborhood flicker a bit. Not too weird, given the minimal priority given to maintaining services in this region, but it's... Still worrying a little. 

:'''{{#var:622|Simon Petrikov (622)}} has posed:''' An abandoned industrial park. It's definitely a good place for an ambush. It's also a good place for a predatory monster to kill its victims. And that, more than anything else, has Simon pausing at the edge of the area ahead. Lonesome, derelict buildings. Partially-torn-down wire fences, warehouses, construction equipment, smoke stacks... It's eerie, and lonely, and sad, and frightening. Especially at night. And he really... Really doesn't want to go down there. As Joy shifts a tire out of the way she suddenly may become aware that there's something like a patch of darkness under all the garbage. An empty space. A hole? Then there's a rush of whispers that she and Kyra can likely hear far too well thanks to being so close. 'Run, everyone.' 'I don't want to die.' 'The ground is falling.' 'Why is this happening to me.' The lights all across the block suddenly go out. All of them, as power is cut. And as bone-white teeth appear in the darkness, a spindly black arm with sharp, narrow fingers, attempts to lash out and grasp hold of Kyra's ankle. And among all the whispers, one might stand out to her and Nurse Joy both. A whisper that may make the tiny hairs on the backs of their necks stand up. 'Mommy, help me.' These aren't just monsters. They're the victims of the apocalypse. And as a flood of shadows and teeth rises up out of the trash, slithering out, filling the air with their whispers, rising up into a huge column of limbs and jawless mouths, it becomes clear that all they do now is make others their victims in turn. The monsters begin to pour out of every nook and crevice. And that woman that Simon and Ryan and Tomoe and Kirito have been following is standing just ahead of the group when all this happens. And she begins to twitch and spasm in a horrible way, before her black hair falls to the ground, revealing an empty hollow inside her skull. And the shadows emerge from there too, clawing their way across the dirt and gravel. Far too many to fit in such a small space. Far too many to have fit under all that garbage too. Far too many victims for anything. Simon doesn't even bother with one of his extremely mild epithets this time. He just backs up and lets those more capable stand between him and the monsters. Because, honestly, he'd just be in the way. His eyes are pretty big right now though, and he is definitely terrified. Little does he know how terrified the three protectors he has might be as well. 

:'''{{#var:636|Ryu (636)}} has posed:'''     Ryan is not stupid. He can seem like it sometimes, but when it comes to fighting, he knows when they're being lured into a trap. He's seen plenty of traps and been a part of either side. The industrial park FEELS like a trap, and that already puts him on-edge. So when things start to go bad, all he has to do is switch gears to a fighting mentality.     It doesn't make this less terrifying. As the gnashing shadows ooze out of every possible or impossible place around them, his mind races, trying to think of how they fought these things before. He comes up with something after a tense second, and holds up one of his claws into the air. He begins to build magical power up through his body, creating a swirl of light that collects at a point above him, until the ball of light is casting a huge perimeter of light around the party. He's trying to cut these things off before they can get too close!     The tension in his eyes paints a picture of uncertainty. He just doesn't know if the spell will be effective at all.     When he completes the sphere, more power flows into it, smaller orbs of light floating out of it like little faeries to fly around the party, shining in the air and even going so far as to nearly completely smother out any shadows they're casting. Just raw white light.     "Keep the group tight," he tells the others, "Don't let yourself get overwhelmed. Swarms rely on picking off singular targets, they can't deal with a group as easily." 

:'''{{#var:553|Nurse Joy (553)}} has posed:'''      As the lights go out, and the dark creatures appear /all/ around, Joy immediately goes on the defensive. She is, in fact, not just a normal Nurse Joy. Her skills are not as a combat medic. Instead, she is probably one of the Joys who is most into actual combat.      "ESPURR! USE FLASH! And... GO, HONEDGE!"      The Espurr just stares at the creatures around it. And, suddenly, its body emits a massive burst of light. The light remains, as well, most likely. Though a battle move to blind the opponent, it's also just as good for keeping an area well lit up for a while.      Joy throws out a Pokeball, and out appears Honedge. She grabs it by the hilt, and faces the beast. Wigglytuff stands to her back, to guard it.      The creature /is/ frightening. But, Joy is one of those who will stay /strong/, even in the worst situations.      "METAL SOUND!"      Joy holds Honedge forward, and it begins to vibrate. A burst of destructive metallic sounds fly forward, towards the creature.      A glance at Kyra.      "We're away from the others, but stick with me. We'll make it through this." 

:'''{{#var:626|Kyra Hyral (626)}} has posed:'''     "I'm still not sure this is a good idea." Kyra mutters, pushing aside a trash can. "I'm also thinking, if this creature dissolves its prey trough a saliva-based enzyme, it likely doesn't have a full digestive tract. We might be looking at a jelly or flan of some kind at fault. If that's the case, I think we would be looking for more slime, maybe a trail of some kind." Kyra turns back to the bones and looks around it, digging into her hoodie to produce a flashlight to shine at the ground. Any slime trails would be illuminated by the light, right? "Even better, depending on its particular species, I might have the appropriate chemical counter on hand. Just one small spray and it'll melt like a slug on salt."     As soon as Joy uncovers that dark patch, Kyra immediately feels that something is wrong, especially as the whispers start up again. Only this time she can hear them even more clearly than before. "That's-"     The arm reaches out and grabs her ankle. Kyra responds as any reasonable teenaged girl would in this moment and shrieks in alarm. Reflexively, she pulls panicking until she manages to force herself to act appropriately and swing her flashlight down to point directly at the arm grabbing her.     Her free hand reaches into the depths of her hoodie to snatch up one of her explosive, napalm-filled flasks. Setting the alley on fire seemed like an acceptable alternative to being devoured. "Incoming!" she warns Joy and her small crew, hurling the flask directly into the initial shadowy spot that Joy uncovered. 

:'''{{#var:1|Kirito (1)}} has posed:'''     Kirito doesn't actually go all that far from Kyra and Joy. He meant what he said. If Simon's group goes too far away he'll remain to stick with them. He doesn't like the idea of leaving two girls alone - sure, they're tough girls, but still...     Some things are just heroic instinct?     Whatever the case he freezes whilst turning around to head back when all of the hell breaks loose. With creatures emerging EVERYWHERE... he clenches up, then... "Huap!"     Springs up for the nearby wall. SOMEHOW he utterly defies physics and manages to run at a diagonal up the building for quite a distance. He's back around the corner in a hurry, and once he reaches it he swings around a fire escape and into the abandoned lot. Kirito goes skidding through the unlit lands of the murder-filled lot...     And once he gets a good view of the things courtesy of Flash - he now laments lacking Spriggan Nightvision! - Kirito shudders. "Those things...!"     Those things. Those Whispers and awful dreams and weird feelings at night. Many nights spent dashing to windows with Double Fault in hand and panicking, losing sleep... it's THOSE THINGS.     "U-uah!!" A hint of panic sets in, but then...     the boy unclips the strange cylinder from his belt, thumbs a switch--     *SIZZA-VWHOOOOOOOOMHSSSSSSSSSS!!*     Magenta light illuminates the darkness, cast from a glowing blade of plasma that just ERUPTS from that cylinder. It's a LIGHTSABER?     Well, Photon Saber, technically, but it sure SOUNDS like a Jedi's weapon.     Using his tremendous speed, Kirito rushes into view of the medical ladies and leaps in low for an imitation 'sonic leap' Sword Skill, thrusting his weapon at high speed for one of the Shadows!     "This is too weird. What are they doing outside that city?!" 

:'''{{#var:6|Tomoe (6)}} has posed:''' Tomoe has no idea on the odds she's just started to get some things from stories had applications in real life due to the multiverse. She's on edge however she doesn't have her blade out but she's moving ahead and at least in this body she's disposable and she knows it. However it seems the monsters have found thme and sh emoves to draw her sword then stops in abject horror ast the woman and what happens. How long as she been dead, just how many of these things are there. She starts chanting now gold runs flying about her at this point the runes dance about her, and she calls out in norse. Painfully mangled but does work that's when a burst of fire is directed into the horrible monster's ranks. Anyone sensing her abilities like say Kyra would sense something, there is no magic in what Tomoe does at all, not a single bit even if it looks for all the world to be such. "BURN! BURN YOU GOD FORSAKEN MONSTERS BURN!" 

:'''{{#var:622|Simon Petrikov (622)}} has posed:''' The arm dissolves under the exposure to the flashlight. As Espurr uses Flash, the shadowy monsters rising up like a tower of hunger and nightmares actually flinches away. It steams and hisses as long as it remains in the light. When flames are lit underneath it, at its base, some limbs are blasted off into a purple-black goop, and there are HOLES in its gestalt body now. Bright red holes that start to leak the blood of the monsters' recent meals. The tower wobbles at its now 35 foot height, bending under its own weight - if it even has any real 'weight' to it - and then its bottom half sloughs away into polluted muck. The structure seems to be at least somewhat organic. Not just shadows with substance, but some kind of poisonous, congealed, necrotizing flesh-like substance. Which makes sense given WHO they're made out of. The metal sound seems to be less visibly effective, but it unsteadies the tower further. And the pained inhuman squeals in complete contrast to the hushed whispers are only repeated when the tower topples into the side of one of the apartment buildings. Its severely injured by Flash and its continued illumination, but then its arms start reaching out and grasping hold of the building, and it... Splits up. A huge chunk of it goes crawling upwards and backwards, towards the roof, like a gigantic black centipede covered in mouths. Smaller parts slip into the windows of the building, slithering through the smallest openings. Windows leading into apartments. With people in them. Screams can be heard. Kirito has managed to eliminate one of the smaller monsters which 'only' had three mouths, the creature practically exploding upon being stabbed with a sword made out of light, but there's people in danger who could be saved if he can use that speed of his to get to the fragments before they can fully get inside the apartments! Ryan's light does its job, making the nearby monsters squeal and writhe away if they do not simply fly away in foul chunks from the light as though it were a physical force upon their amalgamated bodies. The ones clawing around on the edges of the light, trying to find a way to get to their prey without suffering further exposure to the light get a nasty surprise when Tomoe's fire blasts into them. The fire then produces MORE light, which kills even MORE of the creatures. If they're even 'alive' to begin with. Undead? Mutants? It's unclear. But they die all the same before the brilliance being thrown around. Simon can't do much in a situation like this. But he can at least put two and two together. These things will find ANYWHERE to hide, and if they can follow people across worlds, and are ALREADY eating innocent civilians, then they aren't going to stop if they simply chase them off. Not only are people in danger right now, but if they don't get rid of ALL of the monsters now, then they'll probably just keep coming back. And next time they might not be so lucky as to be attacked when they have allies to help them. "We need to see why the power's out!" Simon advises. "If we can get to like... A transformer or something, maybe I can get the lights back on! We can't let ANY of these things escape, or they'll just keep eating people!" He's staying well within the light, but moving towards that dark-green transformer nearby is a priority. 

:'''{{#var:636|Ryu (636)}} has posed:'''     Ryan's spell completes, and successfully drives the creatures away, burning and searing at them. So he maintains the orbs of light around the party, turning his golden gaze around to look for some kind of advantage to grah ahold of. Alas he can't really find anything out there in the swarm of gnashing teeth. He takes great care to examine how close they can get to the light before they start dissolving, turning his head to observe them.     Simon's words get a nod of understanding from him. "Follow me, then." He turns to face the nearest transformer that he spotted, and breeeathes in, his back arching in a dramatic way as his chest puffs out and light sparkles through the outline of his chest scales.     He sends a huge wave of white dragon fire, sweeping it from side to side to clear up the area around the transformer. He steps toward the transformer, hoping the others use the cover of his dragon fire move along as a group to the transformers.     Dragonfire from a light dragon is VERY BRIGHT so these things are going to have a hell of a time getting anywhere near Ryan while he's doing that. In fact, people from miles away would be able to see that! It's very fortuitous that he's elementally aligned to Light, huh? 

:'''{{#var:626|Kyra Hyral (626)}} has posed:'''     Running on adrenaline now, Kyra starts to reach for another flask, ready to continue blowing the creature away into oblivion. She's somewhat heartened that the monsters can actually be hurt and not just 'repelled by light' as it seemed from the initial Flash. The Metal Sound, though...     It demonstrates that it can break apart, a tactic Kyra is very familiar with when fighting the jelly-like creatures of her world. Only the aggressiveness of the lub glubs put the people in the now-darkened apartments in danger. Unable to chase them like Kirito, Kyra resorts to trying to tag the smaller chunks with her flashlight.     But an idea strikes her-the tests showed that the saliva-enzyme had magic particles in it. Did the rest of the creature have them too? Was it part of it's biology? COULD IT BE DISRUPTED? Kyra had to know.     Kyra swings her free hand to one of the remaining chunks and casts Dispell. 

:'''{{#var:6|Tomoe (6)}} has posed:''' Tomoe is doing what she can to deal with these things the horrible black things without any real name are comming for them, and she's only able fight them like this. She knows this painfully well she finishes the fire spell she does not know what they are she does not care she wants them to die, every last one of them to die. She starts moving and wonders about the fire she's doing what she can at this point as they are moving to eat them but she's going ot move in and go after the thick of the attack where she can protect the most people that's what she's good for and that's what she's going to do then as she power balls into the monster she readies anothe spell and this time there's a powerful burst of light comming this time bright dazzling light hwich also acts like homing laser hoping trying to /save/ some of the people who are under attack. "Figure out how to stop them I'll keep these things at bay!" 

:'''{{#var:553|Nurse Joy (553)}} has posed:'''      Joy gives out orders. Yeah, she doesn't /really/ have rank, but she still feels as if she has the best grasp of how to handle this situation. Because, she has noticed something about Kirito, today.      Kirito is a bit of a 'white knight' type. His desire to protect these two is clouding his judgement a bit. And Joy knows that she and Kyra can handle themselves. The civilians, though? They can't.      "ESPURR! KEEP UP THE LIGHT! And... Wigglytuff... DAZZLING GLEAM!"      Espurr keeps using Flash. Over and over again, trying to light up the whole area as much as possible. It's not really even normally a /damaging/ move. But it seems to be having this effect now. So, it simply keeps it up.      With Wigglytuff, though? Wigglytuff is normally not a Pokemon that uses special attacks. Or at least, this specific one isn't. It is a physical fighter. But, as a Fairy Type Pokemon, it still learns /some/ ranged attacks. It somewhat has to, if it wants to use anything Fairy Type.      Which is why it knows Dazzling Gleam.      It moves close to the beast. And, it begins to glow pure white. Its entire body becomes engulfed in the light. And then, the light bursts out. This, in fact, is a damaging move. It completely outclasses 'Flash' on that aspect, while also being a bright and light move.      Hopefully it will have quite an effect.      Joy, in the meantime? She doesn't have a lot of bright attacks with Honedge. And so, she focuses on simply boosting it. She is doing a strange dance, with Honedge of the focus of it. Sword Dance, to increase Honedge's strength.      They... Really need to destroy these things as /fast/ as possible. 

:'''{{#var:1|Kirito (1)}} has posed:'''     Seeing that his opponent has somehow split into fragments, and more creatures are heading for the apartments. A sickening sense of dread and panic sets in and - "no... NO!"     This is no longer just investigating a murder. This has transformed quickly into protect the locals from true death.     Lives are on the line.     As if a switch were flicked in Kirito's very soul, he speeds up rather noticeably in a mad dash and flying leap for the apartment walls. He is indeed RUNNING UP THE WALL after the centipede-thing only to slash at it and flip around to land on a rusty and creaky fire escape.     He flicks off his photon saber only to go digging around in his inventory... and equips a set of Flare sticks. He ignites them quickly and hurls them all over the place ringing the apartment in hopes it'll repel the creatures! They sizzle and spark, shooting off some smoke and brilliant orange-red light - noisily, for they're burning powerfully.     But then the blade's back on and Kirito goes for another leaping slash at more of the creatures!     In his own mind's eye, everything's slowed down a bit...     "if I don't stop them all... more will die...!!" 

:'''{{#var:622|Simon Petrikov (622)}} has posed:''' Ryan burninates the lub glubs in their terrible rotting bodies-es with his laser breath. All of the ones in the immediate area, even the ones STILL pouring out of that poor woman's skull seem to be slain by the attack. Her corpse, her head now completely empty, falls limply to the ground in that artless, boneless manner that only the newly dead can accomplish. Meaning that not only were the monsters able to manipulate a dead body by invading someone and hollowing them out, but they were able to plan well enough to procure such a victim on short notice, all in order to lure prey into an ambush. Prey they have somehow tracked across millions upon millions of miles by unknown means. Scent? Some magical detection ability? These things are terrible predatory monsters. But they're LEARNING too. Which makes eliminating every last one of them, as Tomoe desires, a very very very good idea. Who knows what they'd learn from THIS conflict, after all? It's unclear how smart they really are, but they are capable of becoming more deadly hunters with every encounter. So as people flee through the darkness, trying to get out of the area, Tomoe's homing heat-lasers serve two purposes: One, they save people. Two, they kill the monsters. The Union needs to kill the monsters, and the monsters need to die. That is what one might call a 'win/win situation'. Now even the lub glubs out on the streets are being picked off by shining lights. Simon gets close to the transformer, tries to pry it open, and only manages because it's an awful neighborhood and people have vandalized it enough that he can get the case open without tools by putting all the strength in his body into it. CLANG! The case opens! "There, I've got i-" Simon starts, only to find himself facing a whole new batch of hungry shadows, clustered inside the transformer. So they can even sabotage the ability of others to employ the monsters' weakness. The transformer is out because they took it out. Simon throws himself to the side on pure instinct with a cry of dismay, just as a nest of hands swarms out and tries to grab him. Of course, once his shadow is no longer concealing them, they are exposed to the light all around and gross fluids and gelatinous paste bubbles and sizzles amidst monstrous, high-pitched noises of pain. Eventually, Simon tries that again, getting inside the transformer case and taking a look. 

:'''{{#var:622|Simon Petrikov (622)}} has posed:''' The repeated uses of Flash and Kyra's flames are driving the 'upper body' of the column up onto the roof where it should be out of direct exposure to the light. It's clearly melting the whole way. Kyra's dispel doesn't seem to do much initially, but the monsters hesitate for a moment as though scenting something. And one of the larger sets of jaws, with great big white teeth, almost peels away from the main mass to head back towards the White Mage, even with the fact it will never reach her without being destroyed by the light. Can they... Smell magic or something? That could be important to know for future dealings, though that hesitation buys time for Kirito to not only get up there and chop the monster up right-quick, but to then scatter flares everywhere to make sure neither the main mass or it smaller fragments can go anywhere. They sizzle, lose their ability to adhere to the building's exterior, and fall a few stories to splatter on the dirt. The laser from Wigglytuff fills the inside of those apartments with light as well, making even the smaller ones who managed to get partially inside the building die and fall apart. There may be some of them still lurking around, but they aren't obviously visible. And that's a problem, because if even ONE escapes... 

:'''{{#var:622|Simon Petrikov (622)}} has posed:''' Meanwhile back with the transformer, Simon stares. And stares. And staaaaaares. "...Oh, uh, by the way, I'm not an electrician. So I have no idea what I'm doing. Just thought I'd mention." Then he reaches towards a button inside... Pauses. Shift his hand towards a lever. Pauses... "No, like I really don't know." Then he just scratches his head, shrugs, steps back, and lifts his foot to kick it. He winds up staggering off-balance, hopping and trying to stop himself, when suddenly the transformer comes back on with a mechanical hum. In short order, the lights are coming back on all over the neighborhood. And from the screams and squeals, it seems those last ones trying to find hiding places have also been destroyed. 

:'''{{#var:553|Nurse Joy (553)}} has posed:'''      With the lights back on, Joy makes a bit of sigh of relief. She turns to Espurr, speaking a bit calmly again.      "Okay, so. Can you scan around to see if any of them might still be around?"      The Espurr replies in its usual tone of voice. IE, 'ridiculously creepy'.           He... really /can't/ see into their souls, but he can try to detect enemies around psychically. They should all feel 'similar' after all. 

:'''{{#var:626|Kyra Hyral (626)}} has posed:'''     No, Kyra notes with some disappointment. The magic particles, or whatever it was within the creatures, could not be dispelled. That didn't seem to help at-"Gah! What is it-" she notices right away the piece that seems to be trying to come at her now, even possibly risking exposure to light to come at her. The attempts at magic quickly end.     Though she now had further suspicions. "...it might favor magic as a food source." Kyra mentions with disgust in her voice. She reluctantly lifts a hand again, preparing dispell though with no particular target, testing this theory too. Of course, if no more creatures were in the area she wouldn't be able to tell if it was working at all. 

:'''{{#var:6|Tomoe (6)}} has posed:''' Tomoe is doing what she can to protect the people hopefully the others and figure out how bes to stop it she's chanting agian this time to one make a light well to give them a strong source of light and then to cast a barrier on those people who are still alive. However tihs won't be needed for long as the last of the monsters have fallen, she takes her weapon and returns it to it's scabbard and she's still looking haunted. "Had those things hit me at home..." She pauses seeing the fires and is getting to work she looks for a fire extiunusher and gets to it! 

:'''{{#var:1|Kirito (1)}} has posed:'''     LET THERE BE LIGHT! With the power coming back on and the creatures being obliterated through the group's efforts, Kirito shudders where he stands.. then drops back down to ground level after looking around to make sure he couldn't see any more of those hiding in nooks or crannies. "That was too close." he is unharmed physically, but emotionally this just ave him a sense of the jiters. These things... MIGHT HAVE BEEN LURKING AROUND HIS HOUSE.     If so, then his family and Sheena are all in danger.     Not. Cool. At. All. 

:'''{{#var:636|Ryu (636)}} has posed:'''     Light bathes the dark and terrible beasts, and destroys them wherever they try to hide, protecting the locals from further death and despair. And Ryan straightens up his posture, looking around for any stragglers so that he can hunt them down and destroy them. He rumbles with anger at the idea that these things even exist... but when the battle comes to an end, he turns his focus, instead, to cleaning up after the battle.     He finds a great big discarded blanket, and drapes it over a burning spot, smothering it completely. Here and there, he pokes around, lifting objects and examining corners, looking for any that hid during the fight itself.     And he thinks about these things getting into Ravnica. He couldn't look more tense if he were a statue. 

:'''{{#var:622|Simon Petrikov (622)}} has posed:''' As near as the psychic scan can determine, the only minds in the area are those belonging to not-terrible-monsters. There's no further reaction to the Dispel. It's really over. Though there's clean-up to do, law enforcement work with, the bodies of the victims to deal with, and the fires to put out (though Tomoe and Ryan seem to be helping out with that already), it appears they're done here. Though the memories are likely to linger for quite a while yet. Especially in their dreams. Simon may be patting everyone on the back verbally but he knows he's going to have nightmares to add to those of the towering Lich. Joy. There's still one last concern though... Staren was also with the group when they went to Simon's library before. He needs to be warned, and consulted on how to make sure no more of these monsters can go hunting across other worlds. Simon, for his part, is already fearing what would happen if these monsters had followed Marcy instead of him. He knows she's over at Annie's, and he trusts that an Elite like Annie could take care of things... And her mom too! ...But the fact that they can sabotage their own weakness means even a well-lit house isn't necessarily safe. And that's something to be concerned about. 

}}

Princess Paladin

2015-01-28T10:31:48Z

Paladine: Paladine moved page Princess Paladin to Miko Fujimoto: Character rename.

#REDIRECT [[Miko Fujimoto]]

1427/Mediterranean Magic

2015-01-27T22:25:22Z

Paladine: Created page with "{{Log Header |Date of Scene=2015/01/27 |Location=Somewhere In The Mediterranean |Synopsis=A piece of rock in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea is the key to Psalm entering t..."

{{Log Header
|Date of Scene=2015/01/27
|Location=Somewhere In The Mediterranean
|Synopsis=A piece of rock in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea is the key to Psalm entering the Grail War. Another Master and his Servant come along to make sure all is well. And also to sight-see.
|Thanks=
|Cast of Characters=181, 687, 701
|Tinyplot=
|Tinyplot2=
|pretty=yes
}}
{{Poses
|Poses=:'''{{#var:701|Caster (701)}} has posed:''' The middle of the Mediterranean Sea. Many have placed a certain island as one place or another, but the reason that no one has been able to find it before is for the simple reason that it has been nearly wiped from existence. But Psalm has located it, with perserverence, research, and good luck. Or what's left of the island. A rocky outcropping in the middle of nowhere. If it wasn't so far away from land, it wouldn't even be noticeable if one wasn't looking for it. Might damage a ship if they ran into it, but that's about it. Only Maggie IS looking for it. And so she found it. Something else she may have found along the way, or perhaps only just now, during her approach - three red sigils burned painfully into her flesh, somewhere on her body. Three inter-connected swirls, like miniature whirlpools. The weather is poor, and gets poorer the closer that Psalm comes to the once-island. Clouds in the sky overhead are dark and growling with thunder. Winds turn the choppy waters into waves that can capsize smaller boats. But this is her destination. The place where she can find what she's looking for. And it's unlikely she'll be deterred by poor weather. 

:'''{{#var:181|Psalm (181)}} has posed:'''     Maggie has indeed been searchign for the island, of courese, or what's left of it. Circe's demise was... explosive, if nothing else, and it was more than silly for people to be looking for long dead remains of a volcano in the sea. This was of course, the much more viable choice.     The 'island', though was little larger than the infield of a baseball diamond, the remains of the lava core that once made up the great firey mountain. The start of the inscription of those Command Seals was only a further sign that... not only was she close, this was likely going to work.     The Bard pulls her little magical boat up and alongisde the rocky bits and looks over at her companion. "I think this is the place."     If she's bothered by the rain, she certainly isn't showing it. A light burns behind those green eyes, despite the fact she's starting to look like a soaked redhead. 

:'''{{#var:687|Ark Line (687)}} has posed:''' Ark spent most of the trip marvelling at the scenery, stormy weather and all. The violet-haired young man is all grins and astounded exclamations, a strange combination of things to find in a Confederate ally. His grey poncho is helping some against the rain, but it doesn't look like it's actually waterproof. He doesn't seem to care. He's revelling in the damp. "Looks kind of... plain," Ark remarks, glancing at the island and the Bard. "If you're sure..." Caster -- /his/ Caster -- is a tall, thin man with a porkpie hat, a tweed jacket, and a cigarette right up until the rain gets so bad he can't keep one lit. He tugs on his hat, murmuring, "This place... there is potential here. I don't know quite how to describe it." He seems a bit bothered. Ark claps him on the shoulder. "Not your department. Relax; it'll be fine." Ark grins again, not quite reassuringly. 

:'''{{#var:701|Caster (701)}} has posed:''' Volcanic rock lies all around, beneath the waves. There's evidence of a significantly larger land mass once being here, but now most of it being... Gone. However, the slopes that lead down, down, down, into a cone shape until the reach the sea floor tell that there is still something here. There's still a mountain under the water, and as Maggie, Ark Line, and Caster are pulled up alongside of it, they are able to stand on the spot where the Island of Aeaea once floated - the domain of a powerful sorceress from ancient times. There's a hint as to why just this one piece of land has remained intact when all the rest was wiped out. There's a glinting silver something just barely visible on the surface of the stone. Muted and partially buried by rock, puddles of water, and the dim lighting availabile, it's difficult to make out what exactly it is. But it seems to stretch all the way around the circumference of the miniature 'island'. And there is indeed a sense of... Something. Something is here. Something ancient, steeped in mystery, and resonating with echoes of power so intense that even over the passage of thousands of years one can still almost hear the explosion. But what is that shining material exactly? 

:'''{{#var:181|Psalm (181)}} has posed:'''     Maggie's boots hit the island, as she looks over her shoulder in a fetching manner, and grins. "It's plain because that's how it's stayed hidden for so long. If it was still Grand and majestic... I doubt I'd be able to do what I'm about to do."     The redhead hikes her way across the expanse of rock, and then kneels down next to one of the tide pools, murmuring. "We've only got a little amount of time before the tide comes back in. We'll have even less space then. Come on."     Hnads slip down into the water, and Magatha Songsteel starts to hum as she rests her palms easily against the silver. 

:'''{{#var:687|Ark Line (687)}} has posed:''' Maggie's grin is contagious. It helps that Ark is already finding the expression easy on this trip, even if the purpose of it is as serious as they come. "True enough, I guess." Ark gets out of the boat, stepping up onto the spit of volcanic rock and turning three-hundred-and-sixty degrees in a slow loop. He whistles. "I don't know anything about 'weather,'" he says the word like it was foreign to him, "but it looks like it's getting worse. We might not have that much time." "If a storm was not brewing already," Caster says severely, "then it will once our friend here does her ritual." He follows Ark out, leaning over to look at the shining metal in the water. "Curious... what is that material?" Ark ignores him. He's caught up in the wind and the rain. 

:'''{{#var:701|Caster (701)}} has posed:''' The silver foundation, layed out thousands of years ago, shines more brightly as Psalm touches it and begins to hum. A blue-white light even begins to not only emanate from it, but to spread all the way around the island's remnants, a bit at a time, but gradually increasing in pace. Prana crackles through the air, and the dark waters already become even darker in contrast to the radiance shining up from the ritual circle. It may not have always been meant for this purpose. But it has become such. Little jets of magical fire streak out from where Psalm is touching, tracing intricate patterns within and without the circle. The edges are defined and then redefined. Swirls, ancient symbols, lines, boundaries, all appearing right before their eyes. Lightning cracks in the sky overhead, and the boom of nearby thunder follows shortly after. As far as is able to be determined, the material itself is either pure silver or something closely related to it. Possibly even a material crafted through alchemy, given its conductive properties for prana. That would be something wouldn't it? An entirely new substance that doesn't belong on the periodic table, left here back when there was still an island, waiting for the day when it might be used again. Almost like it was destined. 

:'''{{#var:181|Psalm (181)}} has posed:'''     Magatha Songsteel smiles and does not answer Ark or his Caster or do much more of anything except hum now. Her music is her magic is her prana is her identity, and it is being focused right now. All of it. Every piece of her magic coming forward, calling out to the Grail, seeking that Hero that she knows is waiting in the wings now.     The fires and the symbols confirm that more than ever as she rolls her neck, letting her long red hair fall forward.     And then the Humming stops.     In its place, there comes a terrible, lovely, desperate noise in Maggie's throat, a raw cry of loss and anguish and pain and despair. Raw Emotion pours out of her frame, as she shakes and shudders and starts to sing. The words... are not translating. It's not translating but it is Greek, the magic in her song twisting the anguished, terrible lament and dirge into a proper magical calling now. The song is a gasping, weeping thing, possibly by design, and if Ark is even able to understand Greek, it is a calling for those long dead, those lost to war, those soldiers who never came home... And to a guide who tried to lead them back. 

:'''{{#var:687|Ark Line (687)}} has posed:''' Ark doesn't understand Greek any more than anyone in the Multiverse would by merely /being/ in the Multiverse, but so much would be lost in translation even if it did work that he couldn't really understand what's going on anyway. He /does/ understand that it's music, and that much speaks to him; music is one of the few things he can still enjoy in a world devoid of life that is not derived from humanity in some way. He listens, but he does not understand. Caster /does/ understand. Languages come easy to him; they always have. He's given lectures in a language he's had little experience with, and adapted when he's had to. Greek is strange to hear, not precisely his forte... but he understands. He thinks to the classics, to his long education, and watches the magic build and the storm intensify. Caster has a bad feeling about who this other Servant might be. Ark hasn't a care in the world. 

:'''{{#var:701|Caster (701)}} has posed:''' As the humming stops and the singing begins, the intensity of the light increases even more. The design of the circle is complete, the blue-white flames having cut right through volcanic rock. The sea all around is starting to shine a brilliant, cobalt blue, spreading outwards and outwards. The light spreads and spreads. And then the shining starts to come up from underwater too. It's not visible except from a bird's eye view, but... This circle that Psalm and Ark Line and his Caster are at the center of, is in-turn at the center of an even larger circle. A circle spanning at least a mile radius in every direction, surrounding the drowned mountain that they stand atop. When the chant reaches the appropriate place, the proper pitch, the right intensity, a column of light erupts upwards into the sky. The light is no longer blue, but red. And the clouds above turn the hue of blood and fire, right before everything is blanked out by overwhelming waves of power that obliterate all detail, all definition, all sign of reality still existing. Eventually, the light fades, and smoke and steam rise up all around the trio. The very ocean around them within the dimensions of the larger circle is gone. The waters are rushing to fill the empty space, but for the moment, they are standing on a mountain once more, with walls of waterfalls surrounding them in every direction. There's no sign of a Servant. Not visually, at least. But there's still a fiery red glow coming from above. And the source seems to be a person. She is a tan-skinned woman in a short purple tunic, with flame-red hair up in a fountain-like ponytail, and a golden veil over the top half of her face to conceal her intensely red, cat-irised eyes. Held in one hand is a golden staff, both curled and jagged. She descends to ground level, but she does not deign to actually touch the soil. The voice that speaks is not in Greek, but in Khorvairian Common, the native tongue of Psalm. It can be understood by everyone anyway, because translation effect, but that's what she's using. "I have heard the call and come. Tell me..." Slit-irised eyes look between the trio, before settling upon the other red-headed woman present. She smirks. "...Are you my Master?" 

:'''{{#var:181|Psalm (181)}} has posed:'''     And as the explosion of magic comes forth from the remnants of the mountain the ocean, Maggie remains, head bowed, neck limp, energy drained fron her for the moment. But that only lasts as long as it takes for to suck in a very deep breath..     And the Casters present will feel her regaining her prana from the environment with a deep sigh.     And as she stands again, she is damp, wet, bedraggled... but abosolutlely radiant. All of her Charisma is on focus now, and she looks like a red headed sea nymph, a vision of beauty alongside the Servant.     "I am. Are you My Servant?"     The words are just as defiant in return to the Summoned Caster. 

:'''{{#var:687|Ark Line (687)}} has posed:''' The display of light, smoke and flame is astounding to someone who is not so used to magic as all that. Neither of the Ark and Caster pair are. They stop and stare, shielding their eyes from the glare. An object comes to Ark's hand in the midst of it, an amber glow outlining whatever it is. It stands out, even amidst the all-consuming light and power. Eventually, it fades. The now-manifest Caster hovers, looking down upon them. Caster and Ark look back up, struck into momentary silence, if not by awe then by caution. Ark holds a bone tessen in one hand, the glow along the war fan's edges dim but steady. "That was way more impressive than when you got summoned," Ark says to 'Fake' Caster. Caster mutters, "Shut up, Ark." "I'm just saying, if you'd had that kinda show --" "Shut /up/, Ark." 

:'''{{#var:701|Caster (701)}} has posed:''' "Mm-hmmmmm~." the Servant replies before drifting around to put herself between Psalm and the other two. Her own hair is beginning to become wet from the rain, but the droplets remain like beads of liquid diamond among the strands of red. She looks at Ark, and his own Servant, and then reaches out a hand to rub her drenched Master's shoulder gently. Then she looks back to Psalm and says, "The contract is formed then. I accept you as my Master. However, finalizing the details may need to wait..." She turns to look at Ark again, as she asks, "Are these two are with you, then?" Well, it's fair to be suspicious. Someone who is probably a Master with someone who is almost certainly a Servant, just hanging around during a summoning? Alliances are not unheard of. But still, she will not offer her name to her new Master and finalize the contract until she is certain that it's safe to do so. Though her Master probably already knows her identity. The waters are starting to fill the temporarily empty area below them, and Caster looks down, and around at the gloomy, wet environment. On top of that is the fact it's a reminder that her home is gone. Wiped off the map. "This place does not please me, Master. Shall we and your companions depart?" She raises her golden staff, and a magic circle immediately forms of shining light above the quartet in the air. Unless there are objections, they are all teleported instantaneously about a dozen miles, appearing briefly, and then vanishing again. It's a somewhat disorienting experience to go from one set of sensory input - visual, auditory, tacticle, even olfactory - to another. Jarring, really. Far more so for those with enhanced senses, but even for normal people it is odd. Each reappearance would also have the four of them floating in the air, well above the waters. And they would eventually arrive back on land, and hopefully somewhere DRY. Because this Caster does not care for being uncomfortable. While she has nothing against water, it must be in the proper amount in the proper environment at the proper time. 

:'''{{#var:181|Psalm (181)}} has posed:'''     Maggie is certainly about to explain the presence of the other two before the group is suddenly...     back on dry land, out of the wet, and stumbling a little bit at the suddenness of it all, probably. Maggie's eyes water at the change, but she does grin. "Goodness, they did used to do those spells a little more... primally back in your day, didn't they?"     The Bard starts to wring out her clothes a bit, a hint of tattoos showing through the red fabric along her arms, though nothing obscene about it. Is that a dragon, maybe?     She does straighten up though and smiles at the other redhead, lifting up the hand with the Command Seals to rest on Caster's shoulder. "It is so very nice to meet you, dear lady." 

:'''{{#var:687|Ark Line (687)}} has posed:''' Ark doesn't have any particular thoughts of immediately backstabbing Maggie or her new Caster. He's not sure if this 'alliance' thing in a Holy Grail War is normal or what, either. He doesn't really know much of anything about it. Caster hasn't been terribly forthcoming, considering the state of their Grail. And then *ZORT*. They land. Caster adjusts how he stands, but Ark looks like he's stumbling for a moment, totally thrown by the abrupt change in position. He looks up and around. "Woah. Not much of a question, huh?" 

:'''{{#var:701|Caster (701)}} has posed:''' The boat is left behind, but it's conjured, so oh well. Caster could use more magecraft to dry everyone off (or at least her and her Master), but there's still DETAILS to work out. For now, she falls back on manners. Because conduct is important to her. "You as well!" she responds to her Master, with a lilting laugh. "Whatever your wish for the Grail, I am certain that we will achieve it. And with these individuals I take to be allies, I am sure there are many options available." Caster has an encyclopedic knowledge of this era she has been summoned into... But that applies mainly to her own world. The concept of the multiverse is likely going to have to be explained to her, so that she understands this other Servant is not part of her Grail War and thus not potential competition. After all, as far as she knows, even working together can only end one way: One of these pairs is going to have to die. One hand comes up to rest over Psalm's as it is placed upon her shoulder. Seems she's comfortable with being touchy-feely, and seems Maggie is too. "But first, we should get out of these wet clothes, and discuss matters in more detail. Specifically, the acquisition of certain materials..." Her home may be gone. Wiped from the map. But she has the means to bring it back. 

}}

1413/Worlds Apart

2015-01-25T10:25:10Z

Paladine: Created page with "{{Log Header |Date of Scene=2015/01/25 |Location=Bar and Grill at the Edge of the Multiverse |Synopsis=Eighteen asks to meet with Gohan to discuss the differences between thei..."

{{Log Header
|Date of Scene=2015/01/25
|Location=Bar and Grill at the Edge of the Multiverse
|Synopsis=Eighteen asks to meet with Gohan to discuss the differences between their worlds. Taylita wants to hang with them. Some serious stuff is discussed, and friendships are forged. Also Vegeta gets a new nickname.
|Thanks=
|Cast of Characters=180, 334, 674
|Tinyplot=
|Tinyplot2=
|pretty=yes
}}
{{Poses
|Poses=:'''{{#var:334|Gohan (334)}} has posed:'''     Gohan reaches the Bar and Grill at the Edge of the Multiverse, a tavern set up as a neutral meeting ground for Union and Confederates. He arrives dressed traditionally, in his purple Namekian gi with the blue belt. Outwardly, he'd seem familiar enough. But a more careful look would show the differences between this Gohan and most others. His gaze is harder, muscles more tense, and he seems controlled, less carefree and more businesslike. And the aura of power makes him unmistakable. He settles in a chair, ordering a drink while watching the door.     "No doubt this is a new Eighteen. There's no reason for Vegeta's to call me out on public channels. Wonder what her deal is," he muses aloud. And Taylita would be here too. He crosses his arms, starting a bar tab. Could be a long night. 

:'''{{#var:674|Eighteen (674)}} has posed:''' It has been a while since Eighteen has seen Gohan. The last time she saw him, he had flown by to let her know about the World Martial Arts Tournament coming up, and the prize. That's what had gotten her motivated to start training and make sure Krillin was up to speed too. The Eighteen that walks into the bar and grill is from roughly the same time period as Gohan - or at least she hasn't aged at all. But just like Gohan is different in demeanor, Eighteen probably seems very different to him as well. For one thing, her expression is more bored than anything. No anger, but also no happiness. Vegeta's Eighteen is also, as THIS Eighteen noted on the broadband, a total psychopath. It's hard to tell at just a glance, before words have even been exchanged, but this Eighteen isn't boasting about her strength or looking for people to hurt the moment she enters the building. She doesn't excude any sense of bloodlust, and while her body language and expression are muted, they are also more like those of a person than a cyborg with something to prove. If not for the fact that she has no detectable energy radiating from her at all, someone who didn't know her identity might think her just a normal human. Those cold blue eyes scan until they find Gohan, and then she approaches the seated saiyan. For her part, Eighteen takes in the differences, recognizing the outfit as what Gohan was wearing when he fought Cell. Though she wasn't exactly conscious for the fight, Gohan was still wearing it even when she awoke on Kami's Lookout. It's weird to think that there's a Gohan out there who would work with the bad guys. But then it'll probably be just as weird for Gohan to find out there's an Eighteen who wouldn't. She's dressed in a black tanktop and some jeans, with a leather belt bearing the 'CC' logo of Capsule Corp. Some soft leather boots on her feet complete her attire. The Capsule Corp buckle was a conscious decision on her part to provide potential obfuscation of origins or allegiance, however slight, if she had to. But she came here fully intending to be open (or as open as the cyborg ever is). Deception is only for if she's given reason for it. 

:'''{{#var:180|Taylita (180)}} has posed:'''      Taylita came here...well, she's not exactly sure why she came here. She walks in a moment or two after Eighteen, then pauses, pondering just why she came here. To talk to Gohan? Maybe. What about Eighteen? She is curious about this Eighteen, sure. But the real reason, she realizes, is because she is curious about others from her universe. She watches Eighteen approaching Gohan, waiting for her to get settled before she approaches the pair.      She is dressed in her usual outfit today, rather than the battle suit she often wears. An outfit that makes it obvious she spends her time tinkering with machines while still showing quite a bit of skin. One would think she has an aversion to modesty. "Heya Gohan. And I guess you are Eighteen?" the red-haired saiyan says before taking a seat beside Gohan. 

:'''{{#var:334|Gohan (334)}} has posed:'''     Gohan sizes up Eighteen as she enters, noticing the changes. She had a point; she wasn't psycho. He could tell that just by the way she carried herself. She seemed uninterested in anything around her, though, which takes him by surprise. However, once he's done sizing her up, he rolls his shoulders, then kicks a chair out to offer her a seat. Taylita strolls in after and sits next to him, and he glances sidelong at her. "Do you always dress like you don't give a damn who stares at you?" he asks calmly, before returning his attention to the cyborg. "So," he says, "I'm sure there's a ton of difference between the worlds we know, huh? Nice buckle." He shrugs.     "I'll answer any questions you've got," he offers, "If you'll reciprocate, of course." 

:'''{{#var:674|Eighteen (674)}} has posed:''' Eighteen seats herself, nods to Gohan in greeting, and then slides her gaze in Taylita's direction when she joins them. "Taylita, I'm assuming. And yes, that's me." She doesn't bother commenting on the female saiyan's wardrobe any more than she does Gohan. While Eighteen herself likes to dress stylishly, she doesn't judge other people's clothes one way or the other. ...Though she has been reading an awful lot of multiversal fashion magazines since her unification, but nobody else needs to know that. Shhh. She can have hobbies and guilty pleasures too. "Probably, if the Vegeta with you is anything to go by. Unless he's not from your world." She is not going to say 'Vegeta's world', because she doesn't acknowledge it as belonging to him. She'd sooner call it Gohan's, even if the young man IS Confederate. "I'll answer questions within reason," she responds calmly, without hesitation. "And I'm sure you'll do the same. Otherwise I could ask you where Serori's stolen Dragon gizmo is, and you'd have to tell me just because I agreed to answer your questions. Right?" She actually offers a small smirk now as she sits back in her chair, one leg over the other. So she's not completely emotionless, she's just... Way, way calm and in control. Gohan, meanwhile, has an edge to him that Eighteen doesn't recall seeing before. She can't sense power levels, but she fully expects that he is a strong combatant. Crossing her arms over her chest, Eighteen says, "One question, one answer. We can take turns. Sound good?" The blonde cyborg looks in Taylita's direction and says, "And I guess I'll answer any questions you have too, if you like, though we don't need to make a game of it." 

:'''{{#var:180|Taylita (180)}} has posed:'''      Taylita blinks at Gohan's comment to her, then smirks. "Yes." she answers, then hees. "Why? Do you want to stare?" she teases as she stretches backward over the back of her chair. She sits up properly again once Eighteen starts talking. She listens to the proposed game, then smirks lightly at Gohan. "Hey, Gohan isn't that bad of a guy. He might just tell you if you ask him." she says, then looks at the menu. "If I think up any questions I'll let you know. For now...I'll just listen to this game of yours." 

:'''{{#var:334|Gohan (334)}} has posed:'''     Gohan smirks. "Maybe I do, and maybe I will," he replies coolly, before turning his attention back to the cyborg. He leans back in his seat, one arm resting on the table and the other dangling at his side. His drink arrives, scotch on the rocks, and he takes a sip. "Good stuff," he notes, then listens to Eighteen's proposal. "He is from my iteration of things, yes," he offers to start, before relaxing a bit further. Talking. Talking is nice. He allows the warlord's edge to slip away from him, and for a moment, he seems like the Gohan she might know from her universe. He nods in response to her idea, finger winding along the rim of his glass.     "Sure," he says, "Sounds like a plan. First question. What happened after Namek in your iteration? I mean, Vegeta found and activated you and Seventeen in ours, but given you're not threatening to rip my throat out right now, I'm guessing things played out differently. Got any insight?" 

:'''{{#var:674|Eighteen (674)}} has posed:''' Eighteen has no comment on the flirtations going on. Compared to these two, her courtship with Krillin was considerably more awkward and yet heartfelt. If they want to tease each other openly, who is she to complain? But she still feels it's good that Taylita is here. The three of them are just... Talking. And she can tell just by looking that this isn't some weird psycho-version of 'her' Gohan. Gohan is still in there. Maybe even totally him, but forced to be someone else by circumstances. And boy does she know how that is. Taylita seems to be right. This Gohan isn't a bad guy... But they're still on opposing sides. Even so, she doesn't think she's going to have too much trouble interacting with him. Not like the 'other' Eighteen, who she is pretty sure she is going to kill some day. "This is all second-hand, since I obviously was't there for it," she begins, choosing to be as honest as she can be. "After Namek, everyone went back to Earth. People thought Goku was dead for awhile, since the planet exploded with him on it, but he managed to escape on a 'Ginyu Force' battlepod. By the time he got back to Earth, a 'rebuilt' Frieza and his father had shown up, and been defeated by this kid from the future named Trunks. He warned Goku about a heart disease that would kill him in a few years, preventing him from facing 'the androids' - who would then proceed to kill everyone. So Goku was given medicine for the disease, everyone trained for three years so they'd be ready. Only, when the androids showed up, they weren't me and my brother, nor any that Trunks had seen before." Eighteen's expression gains a bit of a scowl and some dark sarcasm enters her tone as she says, "Gero transplanted his brain into an android body, and called himself Android 20. Some other chump android with energy-absorption was Android 19. Even when Goku was incapacitated by his disease, Piccolo and Vegeta alone were strong enough to destroy Nineteen and force Twenty to flee back to his laboratory. That's where he activated me and Seventeen to try to save him. Only his uncontrollable super-cyborgs killed him instead, activated a third android named Sixteen, and left to do our own thing." She doesn't get into what happened after that yet. She has already given a pretty hefty amount of information. When her gaze returns to Gohan from where it had drifted to the ceiling while recounting events, her thoughts no longer on Gero or what he had done to her, nor upon her brother, she gauges the half-saiyan's reactions. She's just like that. She's analytical. A bit like Piccolo, though the two don't interact much. Observe and consider. Even if it amounts to nothing, you never know what's really important until you wind up needing it. Even among those you consider friends can be vital sources of information. "I'm assuming Son Goku isn't around, or he'd probably have stopped Vegeta by now." Then a tone enters Eighteen's words that likely no one is ever going to hear from the Confederacy's version of her, as she puts her foot back down on the ground, leans forward slightly, and asks almost... Gently. "Do you want to talk about it?" She's not asking what happened to Goku. She's asking if Gohan wants to tell her what happened. That's an important, if subtle distinction. 

:'''{{#var:180|Taylita (180)}} has posed:'''      Taylita seems to be just teasing, not really enticing Gohan. She just seems to be having fun! As Eighteen talks about history with Gohan, Taylita is busy ordering food and drinks. But, that doesn't mean she is not listening. When Eighteen asks Gohan about Goku, Taylita winces lightly but says nothing. She knows very little about it herself, just that Gohan holds a grudge against Raditz for some reason that concerns Goku.      "Hey, do you guys want anything?" she asks, the waiter still there and waiting for orders. 

:'''{{#var:334|Gohan (334)}} has posed:'''     Gohan shrugs a bit. As he listens to her explanation, he tries to wonder what his life would've been like along that path. He probably would've been studying and training to fight the Androids. Instead...     "Yeah, things didn't go quite that way. Vegeta got immortality on Namek. Frieza killed Dad, then Vegeta ripped his head off and keeps it in a jar on my flagship. He went back to Earth, took over, kidnapped me and made me his second in command. Pretty shit gig, honestly," he says, before he picks up his scotch and drains it. "Vegeta got Super Saiyan because Frieza killed Dad, by the way. Couldn't handle it that someone got to him before he could. Broke me, made me his worst enemy, because I left him tacked to a rock on a backwater planet. Took over the PTO in his place. He came back, and the rest is still happening."     He rolls his shoulders again. "So I'm guessing you weren't fighting the good fight when you woke up. Please go on, though. My story kinda ends at that divergence, but I think you've got more, huh?" He taps his glass, and the bartender serves him another.     "You're wrong in one regard, though," he says, looking at his glass. "Dad couldn't stop Vegeta now. He'd probably still be dead either way. I couldn't finish him off either, and I think I'm stronger than Dad was by this point." 

:'''{{#var:334|Gohan (334)}} has posed:'''     Gohan totally didn't forget to respond to Taylita, though! "Maybe a steak or twelve," he says, smirking slightly. 

:'''{{#var:674|Eighteen (674)}} has posed:''' She may not have any great love for the man, given the programming to kill him was still in her head when he was still alive, and they never really interacted, but... Eighteen realizes Goku's important. That he's important to at least her own Gohan. And from what this one is saying, as casual as he is about it, she thinks Goku must still be important to him too. "I'm sorry to hear that," she says. There's still softness in her voice, but it's not pity she's expressing. Before she resumes, she hears Taylita's question, looks towards the waiter, and says, "Just a glass of water for me, thanks." Which she might not even drink. She doesn't need food or water, in most circumstances. When she was pregnant was about the only time she needed additional nutrition. Guess Gero's modifications are good for ONE thing at least. But she didn't ask for them either way. "At least one thing is consistent between worlds. Saiyans always eat a disgusting amount of food without gaining a pound," she remarks exasperatedly. Then she changes her focus, and starts recounting the rest. "Seventeen and I were really disinterested in Gero's wishes. He had tried to program us to kill Goku. But it didn't take. Our brains kept gradually overwriting the instructions. See, when Trunks came back from the future, I guess it tipped off Gero that he would need to adjust his calculations for our expected power output. But he made us so much stronger than the Seventeen and Eighteen from Trunks's time that the programming that drove them insane when they couldn't fulfill didn't really matter to us." She sighs, remembering her brother, and how annoyed she was wasting time driving around different places. The life she has now is far better than it would have been had she remained as she was then... But she can't help wishing she'd enjoyed her time with her twin brother a bit more while she had the chance. "Which also meant that when Vegeta, as a super saiyan, challenged me, I pretty much completely wrecked him. Broke his arm, used him as an improvised bludgeon against super saiyan Trunks, etcetera." A bit of a smile has leaked out at the memory, unconsciously, but she quickly wipes it away. Maybe there's some of those more sadistic tendencies in there after all. Or maybe she just -really- doesn't like Vegeta. "There was no one who could stop us. Sixteen was even stronger than my brother, but he was also a pacifist. We didn't get to see him fight until..." Here's the tricky part. All hint of humor is gone from Eighteen's expression as she near-mechanically recites this next part. "...Gero had not failed to notice our rebellious natures. He planned for the possibility of betrayal with a new android. A fully organic one, grown in a vat, and using cells taken from numerous powerful fighters. Goku, you, Piccolo, Vegeta, even Raditz, Nappa, Frieza, and his father, Cold. Who knows who else. Further, he designed this 'Bio-Android' to become complete by absorbing my brother and I. He would use our higher power output to make his 'ultimate creation' more powerful too. Android 21. 'Cell'." Question time for Eighteen now. She looks in Taylita's direction as this next question, even if she's asking Gohan. "Have you found the motivation you need yet to achieve the second level of Super Saiyan?" 

:'''{{#var:180|Taylita (180)}} has posed:'''      "All on your tab, right Gohan?" Taylita says before putting in the order for about a dozen steaks, two dozen orders of fries and the same amount of beans, and a few other assorted things, mostly healthy. She listens to the stories, then blinks in surprise as Eighteen looks at her when asking that question. "Uh...me? I haven't reached Super Saiyan at all. Of course, I don't think I need to. I've been able to keep up with the others so far without it. Althought...I haven't actually faced them in Super Saiyan form. So, I can't say for sure that I can match them. I am pretty eager to find out one day, though!" she says, smiling. 

:'''{{#var:334|Gohan (334)}} has posed:'''     Gohan shrugs again. "Things happen. Raditz killed Dad, then Frieza did it. He was too damn stubborn and big-hearted to save himself. Always had to fight to the end," he says, then allows the conversation to turn. The mention of time-travelling Trunks peaks his interest for a moment. A different variant of Trunks, too? That would be wild. He listens quietly, sipping his drink thoughtfully as he does. The mention of Cell draws a nod from him. "He was a Confederate Elite at one point, Cell. I think he might still be around somewhere. Weird bug-looking guy, right?" he asks, "He seemed surprised that I was on his side. I'm guessing that I probably fought him at some point, but that's later into the story, right?"     At the question of Super Saiyan 2, he snarls slightly. "Even that bastard Raditz has that form. It's kind of pissing me off, but no, I can't access that form yet. Super Saiyan has served me well so far, though. Maybe I'm just so strong I don't need to ascend." He chuckles a bit at that, then swills his drink. "Wrecked Vegeta, huh? Wish you'd been around when I finally succeeded in my coup." 

:'''{{#var:674|Eighteen (674)}} has posed:''' "-Ah," Eighteen says as Taylita misunderstands. But knowing that about her is still important information. As always, even friends and allies can reveal things that need to be examined and considered. Especially when it comes to 'increasing the number of people who could take out Vegeta'. Learning Vegeta can go Super Saiyan 2 is not good news. "That you've kept up with the other saiyans without turning super saiyan is an impressive feat. Good for you. I don't have any transformation powers myself, but my situation's a bit different, so it's not quite the same. I just don't run out of energy." Not that anyone here can sense that energy. Eighteen fights not to shiver as she leans back in her chair again, and looks off to the side at Gohan's admission. "So there was a Cell here after all. Great. Yeah, he showed up while Seventeen and Piccolo were fighting. Piccolo had become a 'Super Namek' or something. Sixteen fought Cell, and he was... Actually stronger than me AND my brother. He didn't have our unlimited power supply, and was an actual android instead of a cyborg like us. But he fought to protect us, when before he had simply refused violence. Probably why Gero had him in storage." Eighteen turns her gaze on Gohan again. "Cell succeeded in absorbing my brother. He became strong enough to defeat Sixteen, and basically anyone around at the time. What followed was a long game of cat-and-mouse, trying to keep me away from Cell to prevent him obtaining his 'perfect' form. By the time someone showed up strong enough to fight him, it was Vegeta and Trunks. They'd used the Room of Spirit and Time to gain a year's training in only a day. Both of them were stronger than Cell in his 'semi-perfect' form." There was other stuff going on in the background at this point, and she's not sure whether to address it or not. For now, she avoids it, since mentioning Krillin not using the shut-down device on her would reveal that such a device or feature existed. And if the Feds don't already know, why change that? Even if Gohan is actually not a bad guy, she can't risk that info getting back to others who are. "I have a feeling I'd have enjoyed beating him up another time," she adds on for Gohan's benefit. "I have personal reasons for disliking him, as I'm about to explain. But he honestly just seems like the type to need to get kicked in the head." 

:'''{{#var:674|Eighteen (674)}} has posed:''' "Vegeta wanted a challenge. He actually LISTENED to Cell when the damn monster was insisting he would be so much stronger in his Perfect form, pleading to just get to absorb me. So that stupid prince of assclowns let him. Trunks tried to stop Vegeta, but failed. In the end, Cell was allowed to absorb me, and obtain his Perfect form. And that's where my memory of events ends." She sighs and closes her eyes for a moment, trying to clear the memories of that experience out of her head. "Stuff happened after that. Too much to get into the minutiae. You were kind. Compassionate. Didn't even really want to fight, even if you were strong enough to face Cell on even levels - even when Goku himself had to step out of these stupid 'Cell Games' because he realized he couldn't beat Cell. You - or he, or whatever - valued life too much to casually take it. But you didn't want friends getting hurt either. But Goku apparently told Cell that our Gohan had an untapped hidden potential that would make him far stronger than Cell. And Cell resorted to torturing everyone to try to drive our Gohan to the next level. Sixteen was a pacifist too. He also only fought to protect his friends, and cherished life. He died - sacrificed himself - to give you the motivation to transform. It was that compassion, that kindness, that regard for others, that made you become stronger than Cell, and able to save everyone. You were able to kick Cell so hard he spat me up and went back to his semi-perfect form. I'm alive today because that Gohan still possessed what others saw as 'weakness', and that softness became strength to protect everyone." Whether she's trying to convey a point here, or just be philosophical, she is completely serious about what she's saying. She even looks to Taylita again, to add on, "Despite what a lot of saiyans seem to think, strength in combat isn't the most important kind of strength. I'm actually glad to see that there's others who realize that." Now time for Eighteen to ask a question again. "This question is for both of you. I have a proposal to make. You can accept, refuse, or just think about it. But even if nothing comes of it, I don't want word of it spreading back to our respective factions. This is between the three of us. So my question is this. Will the two of you, even if you don't accept the proposal, at least keep quiet about it?" 

:'''{{#var:180|Taylita (180)}} has posed:'''      Ah-hah. So that's what Raditz did to Goku to make Gohan hate him so much. Taylita doesn't have much to add to the conversation until that last part. "Yeah, I've been trying to convince the other saiyans that physical strength only gets you so far. And now, Gohan's Vegeta wants us to come together as saiyans to reform the saiyan empire. I told him if any elements of the old empire remain, I won't be a part of it." She smirks confidently after that. "And...it seems to be working out. He actually came by and said he wanted to get to know me! Not sure if it means he really wants to change, or just wants to know more about me, but either way, I'm somehow affecting his decisions. He acknowledged that my ways might benefit saiyans, so..." She scratches at her head. "Buuuut...he is still Vegeta, so I'm not holding my breath for him actually changing. I'm just giving him a chance. Him and Serori, and Gohan here."      At the mention of the proposal and the question that follows, Taylita blinks, then smirks. "Sure. I'm already keeping so many secrets, one more won't hurt anything." 

:'''{{#var:334|Gohan (334)}} has posed:'''     Gohan listens, trying to place himself in the shoes of the other Gohan. Never getting taken by Vegeta, never trained to be a killer or a warlord. Peaceful. Only deadly when forced to fight, and that... "I have that same potential," he says quietly. "I broke Raditz' armor when I was a kid, in a single headbutt. I was able to knock Nappa away when no one but Krillin could even scratch him, and he only did it with the Destructo Disk. I... I just can't stoke the fire enough to transform. But one of me did, huh? And by the sound of it, I may have been the first in that timeline. Interesting... Sorry, though, that Assclown got you eaten. He can be an enormous prick sometimes... all the time..."     He smiles a bit. It's good to know that he had better paths. In fact, he was probably the extreme outlier of Gohans. That was an odd thought.     As Eighteen wraps up, though, he ponders. What sort of proposal? It seemed he'd have to agree to get that detail. That made him nervous, but hey, he could always refuse and forget about it. "Alright. I'm listening. What sort of proposal? I won't say a word outside this trio." 

:'''{{#var:674|Eighteen (674)}} has posed:''' She knew Vegeta had killed Goku - or at least been the cause of his death. It was actually Piccolo who killed him AND Raditz. Krillin was full of stories about the old days. Half of them she actually wasn't sure really happened. But Raditz had already confirmed that much at least. She's... Not pleased that Vegeta is making attempts at forming a new empire. He's going to have to do some major charity work before Eighteen will consider trusting this version of him. She doesn't even trust HER version of him. She smirks a bit as Gohan uses the same term she had, and then seriouses herself up for the next portion of this conversation. There's no more smiles. "I'd like to either steal the Dragon Balls that Serori has been collecting or to hijack her wish if she obtains all of them. In either case, the objective covers two things." She holds up two fingers, as she explains, "The Dragon Balls on my Earth, at least, are able to grant TWO wishes, not just one. I'm not sure if yours are the same or not. But there are two wishes I'd like to make, and we probably will have to choose only one in either case if we all three agree to go through with this plan." She tics down one finger. "Wish #1: The loss of Vegeta's immortality. If the Dragon Balls can grant it, they can probably take it away. The main problem with that, beyond it constituing a betrayal of the Confederacy for you most likely, is that it sounds like the wish was made with the Namekian Dragon Balls. I'm not sure if Shenron can undo Porunga's wishes. One is supposed to be stronger than the other. Wish #2..." She tics down her other finger. "...We wish Gohan's version of Goku back to life." That's quite a bombshell to drop, but she keeps going. "He may not be strong enough to fight Vegeta right away, but honestly, the Goku of MY world kept on training in the after life after he died, apparently. He might well come out strong enough to take Vegeta. It's that immortality that's the problem in that case. On top of that, if your Dragon Balls haven't been enhanced by Dende, then they might not be able to revive someone who died that long ago. But I'm not sure about that." Eighteen then just sits back and says, "Even if your Dragon Balls DID have two wishes, the plan of hijacking the wish would likely only work for one of them. It's a surprise tactic, and once surprise has worn off, we'd be in trouble. A decision about which is more important has to be made. Trying to take out Vegeta's immortality so he can die for good - likely by your hand - or bringing Goku back and fighting beside him for a solution?" There's actually more than one question being asked here. There's the question of, 'Gohan, are you willing to betray the Confederacy to take out Vegeta?' There's the question of, 'Can Taylita, Gohan, and Eighteen together muster enough power to wipe Vegeta out if they DO remove his immortality?' theres also the question of, 'Which is more important to you, Gohan: Saving everyone and avenging your father, or having your father alive again?' 

:'''{{#var:674|Eighteen (674)}} has posed:''' "If you have that same potential, Gohan, you could possibly take Vegeta with or without Super Saiyan 2. And if you're good enough to fight these powerful saiyans even without ANY super saiyan ability, Taylita, then you could possibly keep Serori and everyone else busy. Especially if you're able to turn into that giant ape thing I hear you can become if you still have your tail." Eighteen closes her eyes. "And since my energy can't be detected, I'm best suited to dashing in and trying to hijack the wish or grab the dragon balls while everyone else is busy. We'd be a small team, up against gigantic odds and powers. But as corny as it feels to say this, if we work together, I think we have a shot." Her eyes open part way as she looks back and forth between the two. "Obviously there'd be fall-out as a result. From what I've seen of Serori, she's honorable, and doesn't endanger innocent bystanders. She's a far sight better than Vegeta. I have no idea what she intends to wish for, or even if she intends to wish for anything at all. Maybe she just wants to gather them and sit on them to make sure no one else uses them. But I somehow don't think she'd keep quiet if this idea was proposed to her. ...Maybe for bringing Goku back, but not the other." She shrugs. "It's a lot to take in, and I'm not expecting an answer right now. But that's the proposal." 

:'''{{#var:180|Taylita (180)}} has posed:'''      Taylita listens to the proposed plan. It is a good plan, but to her, it has one flaw. It means betraying one of her few friends in this Multiverse, even if they are not actually friends at this moment. "I would be all for wishing away Vegeta's immortality, but..." She looks at Eighteen, a soft, sad smile on her face. "...I want to bring a new sense of honor to the saiyan people. I cannot participate in such an opp against someone I once called friend, or against Vegeta until he has either proven or disproven that he can change. I promised I would give him a chance, and I intend to do so. He has done terrible things, but I gave him a condition for if I am to even consider joining his plan for the saiyans. And that condition is that he must do as much good as he has done harm. Save as many people as he has destroyed. And...Serori..."      Taylita smirks. "She is only the way she is now because of me." She seems rather confident in that assertion. "She was at one time pretty heartless, but she hit the brink of the blackness and came back with my urging. She has promised me that she will not take life if it can be avoided. So, if you two want to go through with this plan, I won't stop you, but...I'm sorry, I can't help." 

:'''{{#var:334|Gohan (334)}} has posed:'''     Gohan listens to Eighteen's plan. It's a solid plan, but...     "I was already planning on using the Dragon Balls to undo Vegeta's immortality if given the chance. But I can't go against Serori's wishes. She's headstrong, and I respect that about her. She's my subordinate and also my superior officer. Going against her means insubordination and betrayal." He shakes his head. "Now, I'm not against conducting another Dragon Ball hunt if you want to do that, but there's a lot at stake with the set Serori is hunting. I will aid her in getting her wish, no matter the cost."     He smiles slightly. "I like the way you think, though. Only one problem otherwise. I don't want my dad back." 

:'''{{#var:674|Eighteen (674)}} has posed:''' Eighteen hears the responses. She listens and takes them seriously. Both replies make sense. Taylita's reasoning is based upon principles and a simple lack of desire to betray someone important to her. The cyborg can totally understand that. She'd no more betray Krillin or Seventeen. Which is going to make facing off against this Other-Seventeen especially difficult, if it ever gets to that point. And she doesn't see how it wouldn't if she intends to go after Other-Eighteen. Gohan's answer as well makes sense. And his open-ness to a different dragon ball hunt is a pleasant surprise. Taylita not interfering if they were to through with it... Gohan also having similar principles and a desire to protect those important to him, not to betray them... These are actually two of the best people Eighteen could have made this proposal to, she thinks. It could have gone a lot worse if they'd been someone else. People she didn't trust. While she didn't know how they would react ahead of time, or anything, she has to admit that she is glad her trust in them was not misplaced. Even if they won't go through with the plan, they're good people. And there's always another opportunity in the future, based off of what Gohan has said. An opportunity to work together. She doesn't know Gohan's reasons for not wanting Goku back, though she could theorize (and possibly be quite wrong). But she lets out a breath when she has considered both answers and smiles. "That's fine then. Thanks for at least thinking about it. For what it's worth, the Goku from my world didn't want to be wished back after he sacrificed himself against Cell either. He entrusted the future, and the guardianship of the world, to you, Gohan. He believed in you, and your potential for greatness." Eighteen looks up at Gohan. She's not normally so mushy. It must be Krillin's influence. Hanging around him so long has made her soft. Him and Marron. "Whatever you reason for not wanting him back, I'm sure your Goku - wherever he is - still believes you'll succeed. We may not be on the same side in this war, but I think you're someone I can trust." She turns her gaze on Taylita and says, "You too. I trust you now with your refusal than I might have if you'd accepted. Both of you. If there comes a time for a seperate Dragon Ball hunt, I can't think of many other people I'd want along with me." Eighteen sips at her water whenever it arrives. Then she says, "I've talked your ears off, I'll bet. Do either of you have any more questions for me now?" 

:'''{{#var:180|Taylita (180)}} has posed:'''      Taylita seems happy when Eighteen understands her refusal. She actually smiles! A genuine smile, not a teasing smirk or a confident grin. It might not make any difference to Eighteen, but Gohan can probably appreciate the rarity of the event. "I have questions, but nothing all that important right now. Especially since..." She looks around, then reaches into her utility belt and pulls out a pocket watch. "...yeah, I need to get going. My cleaner droid has been a bit wonky lately, so I don't like to leave her alone too long." she says. The food is just arriving, too. This place really needs to work on its turnout time. So, Taylita packs her food up to go. "It was nice to meet you in person, Eighteen. I'm glad you aren't as psycho as your alternate self. Though, I think you have juuust a bit of what I like to call 'likes to explode things' syndrome. Not a bad thing! I suffer from it myself." She snickers and grins, then stands and pats Gohan on the shoulder. "See you later, you crazy...whatever you are." she says, then starts toward the door. 

:'''{{#var:334|Gohan (334)}} has posed:'''     Gohan knocks back the rest of his scotch, then sets his glass down and nods at Eighteen. "You seem pretty level-headed. Collected. I can appreciate that. We're on separate sides, but I like having an open rapport with someone on the other side. It's refreshing." As the food arrives, Gohan glares at the waiter, who goes to tally up Gohan's tab. In the time it takes for him to come back, one of the steaks is gone. Just... gone. Gohan pats his stomach a bit, then readies his food to go as well.     He stands up. "I have nothing else right now," he says, smiling. "Don't be a stranger. Your radio should be able to connect to mine if you need me for something." He picks up his boxes, then stretches a bit. "See you around, Eighteen. Nice meeting a sane version of you." 

}}

1189/Krampus Kapers

2015-01-24T16:15:01Z

Paladine: Created page with "{{Log Header |Date of Scene=2014/12/21 |Location=Winter |Synopsis=Raven gets hired to stop the Krampus! She winds up needing to recruit some help. |Thanks= |Cast of Characters..."

{{Log Header
|Date of Scene=2014/12/21
|Location=Winter
|Synopsis=Raven gets hired to stop the Krampus! She winds up needing to recruit some help.
|Thanks=
|Cast of Characters=41, 42, 119, 454, 513, 622, 647
|Tinyplot=
|Tinyplot2=
|pretty=yes
}}
{{Poses
|Poses=:'''{{#var:41|Raven DeVanos (41)}} has posed:'''     The coordinates given over the frequencies leads people to a large stone well just outside a village in Winter; a quaint village, midievil in time-frame. It's evening, and the stars are overhead. A seasonable inter storm is already brewing, with snow flying in the air and the temperature dipping low. In the village, the sounds of screams can be heard; at the outskirt at least one building is on fire, and more smoke is rising from deeper in the village itself.     IN the well, of course is Raven DeVanos, trying to climb her way up using the rope from the well bucket. It really does not look like she's very happy. Possibly because she's -SOAKING WET-, has several bruises on her face already, and seems to have lost one of her boots in the water below. Not to mention she's also somewhat, well, singed. And from the look of blood on her face her nose has at least suffered another break.     Amused, her Pokemon sort of stand around the well; Aries is peering in over the edge, while a large Pangoro in a really ugly Christmas Sweater leans on a candy-cane colored crook. 

:'''{{#var:119|Jinxel (119)}} has posed:'''      The wind howls and swirls as a dark figure appears from the raging snowstorm, already caked in snow during the brief trek through the storm. The figure is quadrupedal in nature, with great, wicked looking horns on it's head, and as it moves it jingles! Is this some sort of hellish, demonic reindeer, emerging from the cold grasp of winter to devour the innocent?      No, it's just Jinxel, wearing what amounts to a reindeer costume (complete with a jingling sleigh harness), come to help Raven with this Krampus thingy. 

:'''{{#var:42|Staren (42)}} has posed:'''     Staren teleports in from the warpgate, suited up in his usual armor. He looks around, arm raised with particle cannons ready -- but when he doesn't see the Krampus and he /does/ see the well, he manifests his energy wings and flies down it to give Raven a lift up.     His next stop is by the building with the fire. He reaches into his bag, pulls out what looks like an alien handgun of some sort, which reconfigures into a staff, and then the head reconfigures into a nozzle. He points it dramatically at the fire and casts what Raven would probably recognize as Hydro Pump. 

:'''{{#var:513|Finna (513)}} has posed:'''     Having already worked overtime to save Christmas, Finna's now certain this time of the year is more cursed than blessed by any kinds of gods, be they bearded and jolly or not. So much trouble over this silly idea of naughty or nice is like a nightmare scenario of what SHE learned as a kid - that kids who wander away or throw tantrums anger the Winter Folk, and nobody wants to be taken away by them, do they?     Even those tales were mostly in jest, for the Winter Folk are quite real and ARE fearsome and fickle. Hearing of a man-eating monster who hunts down misbehaving children?     BLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEGGGGGHCH.     And so she scampers into the humble village as a white-furred fox with strange silvery tattoos shining through its fur, the mark of the crescent moon aglow on its forehead. The cold weather does not bother it, but the screams and the distant fire are easily getting her unsettled. Spotting the Pokemon and EASILY hearing and smelling the singed woman coming up the well...     A glance left, a glimpse right as others are also arriving... and scampers down the well. yes.     She walks STRAIGHT DOWN the cold, half-frozen, and otherwise wet walls as if she were walking on solid ground and not a 90 degree angle... and SPEAKS once she's down to get a good look at Raven's situation.     "Hooooold onto that rope, you'll be out in a few!"     And just as she arrived she's gone, zipping back up the wall and... shapeshifting into a HORSE upon hitting enough space.     A horse with more than enough strength to grab the rope in its teeth and - assuming Raven is amenable to the plan - HAUL her straight up out with pure... well, horsepower. 

:'''{{#var:454|Mortimer Balman (454)}} has posed:'''      Padding calmly, quietly, but nonetheless visibly seething beneath that veneer of cool-headedness is Falstaff, as opposed to Mortimer himself. Perhaps Mort was unable to show up himself and instead told the hulking brute to follow after Jinxel. Given how little the Absol approves of people who abuse children, he is an appropriate choice out of all of Mortimer's collection of mentally unstable violence-for-pleasure-seeking monsters. Granted he can't talk too much so all he does is keep a steady pace with Jinxel- as much to make sure the cold doesn't overwhelm her as anything else- until he catches Raven's scent, then he starts padding up to the well and sits on his haunches, waiting for Finna and Staren to fish the nice short lady who sends giant yummy bones out of the well.      And then he start breathing markedly warm air on said nice short lady. like a living blow-dryer without all the noise, carefully controlling the heat of his breath (don't worry, he's recently had one of those chewy bones to make sure it doesn't stink like week old carrion) so that he can help dry her off without burning her. 

:'''{{#var:622|Simon Petrikov (622)}} has posed:''' Simon seems to be doing a lot of marching through the snow. Though this time he at least managed to get ahold of some transportation for part of the way. Some kind of terrifying carnivorous horse, who Simon was under the impression were extinct, and which approached him and Marcy on the way to the village. Initially seeming hostile, one growl from Marcy had the horse BACKING THE BREADBALLS UP. Possibly out of respect for her similar terrifying teeth, and those of her companion (the white-haired, blue-skinned guy who is supposed to be in charge), the horse accepted the pair as one of its own kind and gave them a ride. They were let off just outside the village's border, such as it is. Marcy and Simon waved as the horse departed. Marcy called out, "Thanks horse!" and the horse responded with an ultra-menacing 'neigh' that belongs only to horses who eat people's faces, and then trotted off into the distance. Now, here they are, gazing upon burning buildings, hearing screams, and observing a bunch of people gathering around a well. "Hmmm..." Simon 'hmms' as he strokes his beard and then starts that march mentioned earlier. Marcy, the little half-demon girl, strokes her chin in mimickry of Simon, goes, "Hmmmm!" and then follows after him. She is not wearing her usual clothes. Simon managed to get her a cute red and white sweater, with a white skirt, and some warm black pants. He really doesn't have much in the way of money, and what he manages to get goes towards taking care of Marcy. Hopefully things will change soon, and he'll have enough money to care for them both. Last thing he needs is child-services coming after him. When the two of them finally arrive where everyone else is, Simon raises a hand and waves. "Hey, guys, what's going on? I mean, you know." He holds his hands out helplessly as he nervously chuckles, "Aside from this whole KRAMPUS thing! Right?" He lowers his hands. "Heh heh... Hehhh..." Marcy is focused on something else. She points at Jinxel, and says, "Look, Simon! A weird deer!" Simon looks over and says, "A what now?" He sees Jinxel. The wheels in his head turn. And then he just smiles and says, "Oh, yeah! So it is!" Marcy asks excitedly, "Are we going to eat this one too?" Simon pats her on the head, and without losing his smile, answers, "Probably not, no. We don't want you getting sick again." Then he focuses on the matter at hand. He thinks he recognizes Staren over there, doing his fire-fighting, but the rest of these people have unknown faced - even if he will recognize their voices, likely, once they speak. Of note, the Crown is not at Simon's side. 

:'''{{#var:647|Noiela (647)}} has posed:''' Eschewing all holiday spirit like the Grinch, minus the furry coat, materialises a coated figure in from the raging blizzard; sagging heavily under the sodden patches where the snowflakes have begun to melt. One can assume the person known as Noiela aka the least powered Elite has dropped in from the warpgate, outfitted with her usual tome and sword to swashbuckle and fling mystic energy when required. Sighting the rescue of the battered Raven by several others simultaneously, the tactician opts to surge full steam ahead and leap with only a slight wobble onto the stone lip of the well itself, bending down to rest on her haunches. Alertly dark eyes like two tarnished coins, glaring hard into the depths. Hand creeping down to grip her tome tight. Quietly "Is she thawed out?" Addressed over her shoulder to the rather large and imposing beast, deliberately not looking in his direction for the time being as she quells a tremour at what is to arrive. Any minute now. 

:'''{{#var:41|Raven DeVanos (41)}} has posed:'''     Between Staren and Finna, Raven's trip back to the 'surface world' is really short and fast. Honestly, Raven looks like a wet cat once she's hauled up and out of the well; standing there with dripping plastered hair and clothes sticking to her like glue. Thankfully Falstaff has that in order! Raven grumbles as she works on wringing out her hair, and watches Staren pull a Squirtle, and Hydro Pump the water out of the largely burning building. Raven wrinkles a lip over her metal fangs, then huffs. Sitrep time? Bluh.     "Long story short. This town called me this morning after this fucker went rampent the next town over. We're talking about a monster about, yae high," she elbows the Pangoro ner her, and the seven foot tall bear raises one of his paw-arms high over his head to just about ten foot mark, "Built with more bloody muscle than Bubbles here," Another jerk-nod toward the bear who huffs a bit and snorts, and then Raven grumbles, and turns to look down in the well, before she squints, and gives a sharp loud whistle. Her shadow whips away from her, and dashes down into the darkness, before it comes bouncing its way up carrying a sopping soaking boot with it-- and then reforms into a black shuck at Raven's feet, smugly holding the boot in it's jaws. Aww, good undead puppy. Raven yanks the boot away in annoyance, and flops down to begin trying to pull the soaking thing back onto her foot.     Aries (The Umbreon) takes over: <The Krampus is a German demon. It's supposed to punish children. This one has apparently gone rogue of Hell and is enjoying an all you can eat buffet of bad children, their siblings, their parents.. you get the idea. It's somewhere in the middle of town. As far as we know, it's impervious to silver, doesn't seem to give a hoot about holy water, and fire doesn't do a darn thing, buuut, it SHOULD be killable if you can stake it through the heart with a branch from a holy fir tree. We were TRYING to chase it toward the church, but GUESS WHAT.> Raven snaps sharply, "SOMEONE sold all the fudgers in this town -fake christmas trees- this year. FAKE CHRISTMAS TREES. We get it to the Church and what do we find? MOTHER FUDGING PINK SHINY PLASTIC ABOMINATION." She SHUNKS the boot onto her foot with a squelch of water. "That's when it threw me through the stone walls, and while I was stunned, the fucker stomped my ass out here and dropped me in the well." She gesture to the large cloven foottracks in the snow leading back into the village. Both of thm eye Marceline warily, but Raven finally passes judgement: "Kiddo, you refrain from eating anything but the Krampus, and when we're done I got a bag of chocolates in my kit sack, and a couple of home jars of chocobo noodle soup for both of ya." She nods to Simon before she slowly stands, and grumbles. Then looks about those around her. "So there's the scoop. I'll pay ya each a five hun'red bag of credits out of what the mayor was offering me, although I should warn ya I offered ta do this pro-bono. 

:'''{{#var:119|Jinxel (119)}} has posed:'''      After taking a moment to shake all the snow out of her fur, the bad luck pony feel a chill go up her spine as she overhears talk about eating the 'strange deer' and turns her head, shaking her hooves wildly, "No no no! I'm not a deer! I'm a pony! I'm just wearing this outfit because I was gonna help out with Christmas stuff and I didn't have time to change out of this outfit before I got here!"      Just to be on the safe side, she edges toward Falstaff, hoping that the big scary Absol will keep the other people from eating her!      "So, um... if we don't have any firs on hand, how do we go about stopping this Krimple thingy?" 

:'''{{#var:513|Finna (513)}} has posed:'''     "ehhhh... money. I'm more interested in keeping kids out of this thing's maw. About twice the height of a full-grown man?! Yeeeesh... well it looks like some of us should try to run damage control and distract this demon, but we also need a branch... I know the difference between a fir and the other evergreens, but can't be in two places at once..."     She answers Jinxel, "Well... MOST things, if you don't have their wekness, enough brute force'll do. But I can buy time. We just need to get it away from here or too busy to bite heads off."     Finna shifts from horse form to human, though her fox features are on full display amidst this strange group... as are her tattoos, where her rather coverin huntress attire doesn't keep it from sight, anyways. "Better pick fast!" 

:'''{{#var:42|Staren (42)}} has posed:'''     "No eating talking ponies!" Staren calls back at Marceline's question.     Staren turns to listen after he finishes putting out the building. He nods slightly here and there, expression hardening slightly at the fake christmas tree problem. He can't bless things without more info on what he's blessing them /against/, anyway. At Jinxel's question, the staff collapses back into its compact form and he stuffs it back in the bag, immediately pulling out an oversized revolver. "We put a holy bullet through its brain. We tear it apart until it can no longer function." He nods to Finna. "We have plenty of brute force..." He turns to Raven. "Obviously, finding a fir branch won't be hard. But how long will it take to get it blessed here?" 

:'''{{#var:454|Mortimer Balman (454)}} has posed:'''      Once Raven has been dried off, Falstaff will sniff and look over the others- if anyone else is shaking too much he'll give them a quick blow-drying too. Peering down curiously at Marceline for a moment he snuffles at her with a low, deep "whurf" sort of sound and then turns his attention back to Raven and her.. Bear. Huh. The prey is big. That doesn't matter- or if it does matter, Falstaff's decrepit face demonstrates no care nor fear of an opponent that can throw people through walls and into wells. Then again this may be because he himself has been thrown through at least half as many walls, buildings, and other ostensibly solid immobile structures as Mortimer has been. You just kinda get used to that after a while. Huffing a bit, neither apparently accepting or rejecting Raven's terms- he gives Jinxel a comforting nuzzle and then begins padding in the direction of the broken church wall. Nose twitching furiously as he tries to pick up a scent.      The prey will not get away. 

:'''{{#var:622|Simon Petrikov (622)}} has posed:''' Simon quickly moves to cover Marcy's ears when Raven starts dropping f-bombs. Angrily he protests, "Hey! Do you mind watching the language, lady? We've got kids here! The kind that don't need to be repeating -certain words-!" Marcy just puts her hands overtop of Simon's and looks apalled. Once it seems like Raven is done being a potty-mouth, he takes his hands off those pointy little ears just in time for Marcy to hear she shouldn't eat anything the Krampus gives her. "Don't take candy from strangers. Got it," Marcy affirms with a super-serious expression and a nod. Then her attention strays to the pangoro, and the shadow dog, and the other strange people around, distracted by the sheer variety. Most of the people she has seen so far since leaving her own world have been human or human-ish at least. She just wasn't expecting to run into so many different kinds of people on her first outing. Well, she did meet a talking dog already, so it's not TOO much of a shock. Simon sighs and rubs his forehead. "Is there a way to get rid of it without killing it? Like, I don't know... Open a portal to-" he pauses and glances at Marcy. "-its plane of origin? I've been reading this book that's given me some insight, but I'm not sure if I could pull any of it off." Marcy is leaning over the edge of the well, peering down into it, her feet kicking in the air behind her. Simon picks her up and puts her back down on the ground. "Ooo! A pony!" Marcy replies when Jinxel clarifies her true nature. She looks in Staren's distraction as he calls out warnings, but then she sticks a finger to her mouth in thought, furrowing her brow. Simon says, "This sounds like it's going to be dangerous. Uh, maybe one of you should stay here with Marcy." Marcy protests, "No, Simon! I can fight too!" Then she holds up a noodly little-girl arm and pats her bicep to illustrate. Simon remembers what happened the last time he didn't let her try. And he remembers he didn't bring the Crown with him this time. Neither he nor Marceline are suited for combat. They should try to think this through. "Hey!" Marcy calls out. "It's a demon right?" She waits for confirmation or at least for everyone's attention, and then says, "My dad's kind of a big deal demon himself, I think. Maybe this Crumpet will listen to me!" Simon pauses. He didn't realize Marcy's father was a demon. It makes sense, though, now that he thinks of it. "I'm not sure if any sort of... Infernal heirarchy from our world would apply here, but... It might be worth a shot. You know, at least as a distraction? Maybe?" he turns his attention on the others, as Marceline is distracted by the fox-lady who was once a horse. The attention span of small children. For his part, at least, Simon is just trying not to be distracted by all the glaring magical symbols he can see all over Finna with his Wizard Eyes. 

:'''{{#var:42|Staren (42)}} has posed:'''     Staren blinks at Simon. "While I am all for redeeming foes instead of killing them when practical, we're talking about a demon that is so evil it's abandoned its job so it can /eat more children/. I highly doubt there's anything worth saving, and even if there is, the lives to be saved by killing it swiftly are worth more."     Staren: Totally A Heroic Good Guy, right?     Then he reaches into that magic bag of his and pulls out a potion, holding it out to Marcy. "Drink this, and a magical forcefield will protect you from attacks for awhile." It tastes yucky, but is indeed magical. 

:'''{{#var:647|Noiela (647)}} has posed:''' Shaking her head as if to refute the alarming shadow show, the coated mystery person pivots round sharply on a heel to listen intently to the rather colourful discourse and subsequent appearance of the carrot on a stick in form of payment. Altruism never paid bills, but the girl knows even as she shivers in the rather frosty weather. Eventually, her cue comes up to provide input, courtesy of Jinxel. A talking animal. "Miss...Finna, was it? I suggest we keep the search party light on members. Less chance of attracting notice. Certainly, we can...rip it apart, last ditch choice." A wry smile and hop off the well, landing gracelessly onto her feet. "I guess...it remains to delegate? We may have to adjust on the fly." Addressing Simon and his charge, the woman is despite the unusual eye colour and hair is possibly from what can be seen a wholly human person. Chapped, little ungainly and almost decidedly out her depth in the situation with so many exhuberant personalities vying for attention. "What might you require for such a casting? I...have a little training myself in the eldritch arts." Demurring at the last minute with open gratitude from offering herself up as the babysitter for tonight. 

:'''{{#var:454|Mortimer Balman (454)}} has posed:'''      With an irritated grumbling HUFF, Falstaff pauses long enough to tiresomely pad back to the ground and stand before Simon. Bipeds talk too freakin' much. Putting his head down low to the ground, the brutish Absol shoves his head between Simon's legs and, demonstrating that he is hella strong despite his age, very simply tosses Simon up onto his back. There. Now the nervous biped has a war steed to provide him some degree of mobility and protection for the inevitable battle, and hopefully that means they can get back to work. Grunt. "Whuff." He does not seem to mind Simon's natural cold. Probably that coat of fur and thick layer of tissue. 

:'''{{#var:41|Raven DeVanos (41)}} has posed:'''     "Half of you should go into the woods with fox-face here," Raven gestures at Finna, "And find a fir. There's bound to be one somewhere out there," Raven says, gesturing to the woods around the village. "Blessing it should just be a matter of getting the coward of a bishop out of the basement of the church wher ehe ran as soon as he saw me leading that thing toward it. That's up to you blokes," she says, before turning to eye Simon, "And I'm sorry about usin' coarse language around th' kidlet, but I just got flung through two houses, one stone and mortar church wall, and dumped in a well, so I'm a little worked th'... heck, up," She heistates a moment, then adds: "And language filterin' ain't in my normal retinue." She watches Falstaff take off, and calls, "Oi, Falstaff old man, you be careful an' see if you can rouse that blighter out of where th' heather he's hiding," she calls, after the Absol, before she turns to consider Simon's other ideas.     She rubs her hand on her chin. "Lil' Lady, iffen y'all can get that thing's attention, we MIGHT have a chance I don't know if it'll listen to you as far as you tellin' it to STOP, but it might catch yer scent and figure you're prey, which gives us an advantage if y'all can run fast." She looks to Simon "I won't let nothin' happen to her I can assure ya. IN fact," She turns, and points at the Pangoro. "Sparklebear. You watch th' kiddo, an' if that thing gets too close to her, you give it a good punch in the jaw to reassert your tastyness to it." The Pangoro arches a brow, looking from Raven to Marceline and back before it shrugs and turns, cracking it's pawknuckles a moment, and then bows to Marceline. "Goro," he says, simply, translating to: <At your service, squirt.>     Raven then considers. "Can't say as I know where th' hoot n' hollar this thing hails from, so I don't know about sending it back. I CAN say though that I figure I could find it a new home if we can subdue it. Honestly though I have to admit I think might be safer ta just stake it, for the fact that it -eats people-," she shrugs. Then says, "Th' resta ya come with me an' we'll go wrassle this blighter into some form of 'subdued', be it dead an' turned t' ash, or chained up in a net," she hns. "Who'll go where?" 

:'''{{#var:119|Jinxel (119)}} has posed:'''      Hmmm, to go back out into the woods in search of a fir tree, try and drag a priest out of his hidey hole, or go stare down a giant monster.      "Um, I think I'll go help find that tree, if it's all the same to you guys. How big and thick of a stake would you need miss Raven?" Jinxel asks as she takes a seat on the snowy ground, "Would something as thick and log as my foreleg do, or are you gonna need something bigger and thicker for this crumple thingy?" 

:'''{{#var:622|Simon Petrikov (622)}} has posed:''' Simon squints at Staren somewhat annoyedly. "I'm not talking about saving or redeeming it, Staren. Where'd you get that from anything I said? I'm talking about avoiding the fight entirely. If it's so dangerous, just banishing it seems less likely to get US or INNOCENT BYSTANDERS hurt! Those able to do so might need to employ force, but that should be a back-up, not the first response." He taps his head. "Fight smarter, not harder!" Then he turns to Noiela and says, "Uhh... Bug milk, I think. I'm not sure how easy it would be to find it our here, but the Enchiridion mentioned it as an ingredient for accessing the Nightosphere. Which is, uh..." He shrugs awkwardly. "Roughly equivalent to you-know-where." Suddenly, Simon is being forced to mount some kind of creature!?-Oh, it's that cat-looking thing with the head-sword. Glad THAT part didn't make contact. "Err... ...Thanks?" Simon asks hesitantly of Falstaff. Then he focuses on Raven and her explanation as Action Team Leader. "Totally," he acknowledges. "We should do what causes the least amount of danger to us and the people of this village. If... Staking it is that, then we should do what we have to. I just wanted to consider other options as well." If only he had the Crown, he could try to just bury the damn thing in snow. He can almost hear it in his head even now, showing him all the ways he could be protecting everyone - how IT could be protecting HIM. But he shakes his head to clear it. "I'll head into the woods, assuming this... This... Guy here-" he pats Falstaff. "-is open to that. Otherwise, I guess I'll try to find this Bishop. I'm trusting Marceline with you and your panda friend either way!" Marceline giggles a bit and then curtsies when she is bowed to by Sparklebear. "I'll tooootally distract him! Maybe we can set up an elaborate pulley system that dumps buckets of tar and NAILS on him when he triggers them!" Someone has been watching old Christmas movies on Netflix. 

:'''{{#var:454|Mortimer Balman (454)}} has posed:'''      Falstaff chuffs at being patted- a pleasant noise, not one of irritation. Seeing as how others are already volunteering to go back into the woods to hunt for trees- bipeds have strange ideas but the beast does not begrudge them this, it's not their fault, it's just a quirk of being a biped, or so he supposes- the idea of finding the 'bishop' human seems like a better idea. Perhaps the human cleric will be trying to cast out the demon, bipedal holymen and women often try to do things like that, bless their hearts. The trouble of course will be finding the right scent. The air is still- at least to his nose- thick with fear. It is difficult to discern the individual smells from that. But.. Ah, the stink should stick to the monster that harms the young. That should make it easier to follow.      Falstaff puts his nose to the snow and begins meandering off, following the trail of fear and demon. If he can get a good trail he should be able to find either bishop or demon quickly enough, hopefully. 

:'''{{#var:513|Finna (513)}} has posed:'''     "Uhhhhh.... look, nothing elaborate. I'll head with the heroic pony here out into the forests... and if you can't move quickly and tank the cold, don't follow. I've got no time to haul people where it's warm. Now, we're looking for a nice branch that can pierce a good hide if sharpened a bit... the branch will have green needles that look like they're stuck to the branches by little round nubs. I don't care if we have to rip a tree out of the ground - which I'll do in a pinch - we need this wood!"     Seems in a pinch, Finna has gotten this part under control. She glances at Raven. "Hope you folk know what you're doing for keeping it busy..."     She honestly doesn't really have much care to wait for people. If they can't keep up? Oh well. She's off across the snow - immediately back into her fox form and stepping lightly enough she doesn't even sink into the snow.... 

:'''{{#var:42|Staren (42)}} has posed:'''     Staren tilts his head a bit at Simon. "If you can cast a banishing spell faster than we can fight it or find a fir tree, please do. You made it sound like you weren't prepared though, and right now," he points at the smoking village, "Any time where we're /not/ fighting it is more time for it to find and eat... children."     Staren considers which way to to go... Finding the tree and bishop /will/ help put an end to this, but... the fact is, he has protections up the wazoo. It's true that his armor has limits, but rare is the foe that can completely breach it before a fight is over. So, he will have to try and tank it until they can find the fir. He nods to himself, states "I'm going after it," and then flies off towards the smoking parts of the village.     Every moment they wait is more time for it to eat children. He should distract it as soon as possible. 

:'''{{#var:647|Noiela (647)}} has posed:''' "Bug milk?" Noiela smothers a bout of laughter at the usual mount portrayal performed in reverse, the blue skinned fellow magnus tipped up easily. Wizards are not exactly known for their sturdy, immovable physiques of hewn granite. Neither is she, so Raven's suggestion of waking the vicar from his terror bound state by hounding the poor man seems about up her alley next to such wildly varied people. "Hm...cannot say I am versed in...your cant, but the principle-bloodless expulsion of the monster into a dark, dimensional hole does seem like a sound plan." A pause ensures, mouth quirking upwards into a rather humourless smile. "If we could attempt it. Either way, we..." Forcing herself not to get sidetracked by the child and her intricate plans to rain down rusty pain upon the...was it a Krumple? She quietly and discreetly muses what it would be like to enjoy childhood romping about as this skinny little waif does, cutting herself short when it appears she is beginning to mumble about birds again. "I'll help coax the bishop out his box. Since I possess not speedy means of travel and do not desire to hinder anyone. Is our meeting point to be the well if we locate the fir and priest before the Kr...Krampus?" 

:'''{{#var:41|Raven DeVanos (41)}} has posed:'''     FOREST GROUP>>>>     In the forest, the winter storm is not as bad; in fact it seems centralized aroud the village from within the trees. The woods are lovely, dark and deep, but oh, they have promises to keep! The trees are heavy with snow, so knocking the snow off branches will probably help in finding a Fir. Most of the evergreen are spruce or pine. Something, also, seems to have come this way, through the woods, big, and large. They're also in luck though! Because the tracks lead straight to what should be a FIR TREE!     .. Except it's already been uprooted, and by the tracks, dragged away. The same goes for the next what should be Fir tree several steps away.. Looks like Jinxel and Finna will have to follow the trail... 

:'''{{#var:41|Raven DeVanos (41)}} has posed:'''     KRAMPUS HUNT>>>>     In the village, the frightened village, the Krampus stalks tonight! In fact, another building is on fire, and an elderly woman is standing outside the home screaming. Crashing noises are coming from inside, and then the door is KICKED open as a giant BEAST with cloven hooves, shaggy red and brown fur, LONG, CURLING HORNS OF BLACK ON IT'S HEAD, and FANGS to beat a SNAGGLETOOTHED TROLL, comes stomping out, carrying a sack slung over it's back that's stained with blood, and is wiggling and writhing. The creature SNARLS at the approach of STAREN, RAVEN, and MARCELINE, but it's eyes rake to the little demon girl with a lusty growling hunger. It roats, and starts to lumber toward them. 

:'''{{#var:41|Raven DeVanos (41)}} has posed:''' FIND THE PREIST>>>>     Falstaff, Simon, and Noiela would be able to follow Falstaff's nose back to the somewhat damaged stone, motor, and wood church near the back of the town, and through that toward the basement, through a staircase just behind the pew and the organ. Down at the bottom though, what SHOULD be a basement has the door slammed shut and possibly boarded up too. Behind the door the sounds of a man hastily saying every prayer he can can be made out. 

:'''{{#var:119|Jinxel (119)}} has posed:'''      Jinxel takes off in pursuit of Finna, and while she is not nearly as fast as the much smaller, nimbler fox, her natural Earth Pony strength and endurance allows her to keep pace even through the snow as she plows on through!      Only to find that someone has already beaten them both to the punch and hauled away the fir tree before they could get to it.      Typical luck for Jinx actually.      Witha bit of a puff of her cheeks and a scrunchyface, Jinxel looks vaguely vexed as she looks down the trail leading away, "Who could be out getting a christmas tree at this hour with a monster attack just across the way?" 

:'''{{#var:513|Finna (513)}} has posed:'''     Finna spots the strange uprooting and has to come to a halt just as Jinxel starts pondering. She sniffs at a few broken twigs and branches, peers... "More importantly they grabbed the only fir around. Fresh enough trail, if we move now we can make it... but better question, who UPROOTED a whole tree? They didn't just CHOP it down, they UPROOTED it..."     Which is kind of scary.     Oh well. With a nod towards Jinxel, Finna's following the trail. Kind of hard to miss this one, give the big drag marks... 

:'''{{#var:647|Noiela (647)}} has posed:''' Pinching her nose at the overpowering smell of damp that issues from the smashed wood left to rot in the water, Noiela gingerly approaches the door to give a smart rap with her gloved knuckles. That it feels spongy and yields slightly beneath even her brushing glance causes her to squirm, an action hidden by the coats bulky layers. It also seems to elevate the diminutive mage several inches above her actual height; one perplexing illusion. Turnin round, her index finger begins to tap lightly against her rather pointy chin. "Hm. Does anyone know what prayers he chants? I think we could distract and placate him by following along; alternaitvely jolt him into responding with his mind and not panic." A downward flick of the eyes darkened by thought, to stare assiduously at the ground and the nearby walls. "Hm...the door definitely would not stand a chance against a solid few thumps." Adding, "Any magic to hand?" 

:'''{{#var:454|Mortimer Balman (454)}} has posed:'''      Falstaff is a creature of simple thoughts most of the time, he prefers things that way. There is a door between his group and the bishop. Unless that door is made of solid adamantium or something it should be virtually zero trouble for him to simply create several invisible blades- though I guess Simon might see them- with his mind and raw psychic energy and simply cut the damn door to shreds, allowing the other, more talkative people to go down there and help the poor sodding dope out of his stupor. If this is sufficient enough to take the door out, Falstaff will- almost nonchalantly- turn around and begin padding back out to find Krampus. If Simon wants to get off and go be diplomatic, he will grant the odd blue-skinned human time to do that. But he'd best be quick about it lest he end up getting carried off into what will inevitably be a fierce fight. 

:'''{{#var:622|Simon Petrikov (622)}} has posed:''' KRAMPUS Marcy is running along with Raven and Sparklebear. She has no idea where Staren is, but presumably he'll be with them very shortly since he was already on the look-out, and had an aerial view. Maybe he's even already there ahead of them! The fire, the screams, the ruined buildings... Though Marcy was acting brave around Simon, this is all too much a reminder of what things were like before he found her. She saw the results of the War. She was there, in the burning, abandoned cities. With Simon around, she could handle the eerieness, and focus on just him. She's a tough little girl, and her home being a place of chaos and horror means she's a bit desensitized. But she mostly relies upon others to keep her safe. She looks up at Raven, and reaches out to grab hold of the older girl's hand along the way. Once they finally encounter the Krampus, and he looks at her with such an awful gaze, she takes a step back... Before frowning and causing her eyebrows to come down in a >:o expression. Then she points at the monster and calls out, "Hey, you! I'm the daughter of the Lord of the Nightosphere! That's almost the same as your boss! Cut out all this stuff you're doing and get back home, before my servants take care of you!" She then triple-snaps in a z-formation while bobbing her head from side-to-side. Operation: Marceline Distraction is go. PRIEST Staren just TAKES OFF suddenly. Simon understands. Really he does. Not wanting kids to get eaten is a noble goal. But recklessness isn't going to help anyone. Oh, well. He's not experienced at this sort of thing. Maybe Staren is completely right. Time is of the essence and all. He just hopes the armored-youth doesn't get himself hurt in his eagerness. The old man sighs and looks down for a bit, before steeling himself for what lies ahead. Convincing some shakey priest to help them out. And then Simon is being taken away on Absol-back! And he doesn't have much time to do anything else! When they eventually make their way down to the basement, Simon pauses and shakes his head to Noiela. "Not much of a focus on that kind of thing in my studies. Sorry." Then he looks around, and then down at Falstaff. "Think you could just sword the door open with your head-blade? We might not have time for-" then Falstaff tears the door apart at point-blank range with mind bullets. Simon winces. "Eeesh." He slides off Falstaff's back and attempts to enter the Priest's sanctuary. "Hey, uh, Mister Bishop? We're here to help with the Krampus. We'll protect you, we just need you to bless a stake." Then he hangs out awkwardly as he peers past the remains of the door, and waits to see if the priest is even going to come out or answer, or just keep hiding and praying. 

:'''{{#var:42|Staren (42)}} has posed:'''     Staren sees the elderly woman and starts to pull out his staff again -- when THE KRAMPUS appears! Staren frowns slightly... then sees an opportunity: That monster may be supernaturally tough, but he bets that sack isn't! He dives in, focusing on trying to grab the sack and cut it free at the neck with his beam saber -- he might not be able to carry the children, but at least they could run for it! Or, he can work out a solution to that problem next! 

:'''{{#var:41|Raven DeVanos (41)}} has posed:'''     FOREST GROUP>>>>     Follow the broken tree road! Follow the Broken tree... Uh. Hm. Well, following the snow and the occasional scrap of fir branch, as well as the other uprooted spots, would bring Finna and Jinxel to a large clearing in the middle of the woods.      A clearing where a bunch of fir trees lay in a large clumpy pile, on which curls and rests, of all things, a large snow dragon, who's snoring away peacefully but seems to be using a cluster of fir trees as his bed. Or hers, rather, for she lays curled around a festive-looking red and green and white colored egg. 

:'''{{#var:41|Raven DeVanos (41)}} has posed:'''     KRAMPUS HUNT>>>>     The Krampus snarls at Marcy; then gives pause as she snaps off her orders. He looks between her and Raven (who had taken Marcy's hand when the little girl seemed afraid, but who was now standing back, left-hand sword at ready, and giving the Krampus a grouchy look!) before he starts a deep rumbling growl of a laugh, and points: "You're not the boss of me, you're barely the boss of yourself! I fear no Nightsphere! And you certainly do not scare me! Though you are quite delicious looking!"     The Krampus starts to lash out with a hand- but is distracted when Staren goes for the sack slung over his back, cutting through it with his beam sword. The Krampus snarls and whirls around to try and grab Staren by the neck, allowing the sack to fall and a pair of really scare-looking twin boys to limb out and run to th old woman nearby-- who quickly ushers them AWAY and down the street toward someone else's home. 

:'''{{#var:41|Raven DeVanos (41)}} has posed:'''     FIND THE PREIST>>>>     Simon and Noiela, now without a door between them and the priest thanks to Falstaff, are met with a slightly balding man who's staring at them from behind a couple of large wine barrels stored in the basement for the sacrement days, holding a rosary in one hand, and a shoddy looking book of prayer in the other. Te stares, goggleyed, at them, and then squeaks, "MORE MONSTERS! I swear! If I'd known drinking all of the wine before the sabbath was going to come back and haunt me I wouldn't have, honest!" he gulps.     Hearing their words though, he nods warily, "How do I know you two aren't going to eat me too?" he asks warily, "That thing already ate the bellfry boy!" 

:'''{{#var:119|Jinxel (119)}} has posed:'''      ... Aaaaaaaaaw horse apples.      Stopping at the edge of the clearing, Jinxel just staaaaaares up at the dragon nesting atop the pile of trees and sweatdrops a little bit. Juuuuust her luck.      And wouldn't you know it, no Fluttershy anywhere to be found. She could reeeeaaaaaally use that Stare right about now.      "Um... well, I suppose now we know why everyone is using fake trees instead of real ones..." 

:'''{{#var:513|Finna (513)}} has posed:'''     And Finna halts next to Jinxel, jaw gaping open wide at this discovery. "Awww... shit. if they wake up with us nearby they'll go ape on us thinking we're after the young. Mother animals, never piss them off. Uhh... I could try talking with them if they wake up but..."     Yeah this isn't good.     Finna's back ripples weirdly as she finally comes up with an idea. Flesh-covered bone erupts from her back into the vivid, shimmery emerald of hummingird wings... scaled up to her current size. They thrum up to speed and carry the little fox over towards the nest towards any sizable exposed branches. Finna hopes to find one, snap it off with Essence-empowered jaws and PRAY the dragon doesn't wake up...     "If they wake up, I'll buy you time. Get a branch and hoof it back..." 

:'''{{#var:647|Noiela (647)}} has posed:''' Quick, applying logic. Stepping forward and more than slightly abashed her rather lengthy plan was in the conclusion rather more than useless, Noiela takes charge at once to point out in rather brusque tones her companion. "Do we look capable of chowing down upon you, sir?" An emphatic flap of her overlong sleeves at the priest and she explains shortly their mission all whilst she inches carefully closer towards the priest, aiming to strain up and execute a rather limp pat if he becomes more agitated. "We need your blessing for the one weapon that may permanently silence the beast. A holy..." Pause, to let it sink in. "Fir branch." Her pointed silence on how it sounds aloud says it all. Miles ahead in eloquence. "We can keep watch over you during any ritual you have to perform." Back into place, expelling air loudly in relief. Assuming Simon did not manage ahead of her to play diplomat or the priest break down into wine soaked tears, her last remark would be directed at him, accompanied by a lopsided smile. "Sorry. I uh...you ready? I'm not much in battle directly, Sir...but we can rely on the others. Most likely." 

:'''{{#var:622|Simon Petrikov (622)}} has posed:''' KRAMPUS Marcy is just dismissed like that! Well, she may not be educated in the ways of Chaotic Evil quite yet, but she has an inkling of how to get another demon to serve you. And it doesn't have to do with words. It has to do with force! The Krampus is talking about eating her. To dissuade him, Marcy has to show that it's not him who is in danger of being eaten. So, she rushes forward unexpectedly, and - unless stopped by Raven or Sparklebear - attempts to latch onto the Krampus's leg while he is distracted, bear her mouth full of REALLY SHARP TEETH, and bite into HIM! And then shake her and tear like a heckhound worrying a condemned soul's bones! She even growls! Simon probably didn't teach her that. PRIEST Simon's gaze goes from Noiela, to Falstaff, to the Priest, to Noiela again, as she speaks. He keeps his mouth closed when she asks the priest if they look like they are capable of chowing down on him. Marcy is not the only one with sharp teeth. Eventually, he says, "Look, man, I feel you. I've got a little girl out there in that village too. I don't want her to get eaten either!" Simon runs a hand through his white hair, and says, "I shouldn't have brought her here. I hope the others are protecting her." KRAMPUS "OBEEYYYYY!" Marceline yells before trying to bite the Krampus deep again. PRIEST "Poor defenseless Marceline," Simon continues obliviously. Then he focuses on the priest and says, "It's like Miss... Noiela, was it? It's like she said, we're here to help! Now let's get going so you can bless some trees!" 

:'''{{#var:42|Staren (42)}} has posed:'''     Staren was too focused on rescuing the kids to pay attention to Marcy! A bunch of things happen at once:     He flies over the krampus, grabs the sack by the neck and cuts it -- it starts to slip out of his hand -- he grabs for it, pulling him down by the kids' weight and distracting him -- and the Krampus grabs him while he's distracted, the bag falling open. "RUN, KIDS!" Staren shouts -- he starts to grab for the demon's arm, then thinks better of it and just FIRES EVERYTHING.     His right arm tries to stab it with the beamsaber and fires both beam cannons mounted on the forearm. His left arm thrusts out to the side -- four magic marker-sized missiles fire out, fly in a big loop to gather speed, then come down at the Krampus from above, trying to ram into its flesh at supersonic speed and explode inside!     Yeah, Staren's not trying diplomacy. This thing needs to die. 

:'''{{#var:41|Raven DeVanos (41)}} has posed:'''     FOREST GROUP>>>>     Finna isn'treally much of a problem. She's tiny, and not making too much noise, so she doesn't really wake the dragon up by transforming. Jinxel, too, is quiet pony, so.     There are branches where Jinxel COULD grab them! And many are sizeable, though they really could use a nice, THICK branch. Thankfully there are some smaller trees that could be strpped of branches and the trunk itself could be used! They'remostly under the Dragon's tail, though. Hmm! 

:'''{{#var:454|Mortimer Balman (454)}} has posed:'''      Falstaff is long gone from the priest's scene, he's passing through the village at a steady pace.. Why is he moving so slowly? Because the blizzard around the village is getting worse at an incremental pace. The Absol is calling upon his own natural magical powers to worsen the storm to both put out the fires and isolate the demon, whose scent he has most definitely caught by now. Hopping atop one of the buildings, the beast looks down and scans the area.. Until he sees the prey. And there is Staren, already opening fire on it with everything he has. Why couldn't bipeds be this smart all the time? No matter. The prey is caught now.      Time for the kill.      With a terrible, hellish baying- the sort that would set most reasonable creatures to fleeing for their lives (which is intentional, best the helpless bipeds and their young get out of the way) Falstaff descends from a rooftop with acidic saliva dripping from his gaping maw, bearing down on the Krampus in the hopes of tearing off a good section of its face. Or at least hanging onto its head and gnawing with those big, sharp teeth. 

:'''{{#var:119|Jinxel (119)}} has posed:'''      Jinxel swallows hard as she looks at the massive dragon, then slowly creeps up towards it's nest, particularly around the tail region where some promising looking branches are located.      Then as quickly as possible, she summons up her Nightmare Armor and the huge serrated warfan gifted to her by the Mare in the Moon, then ever so slowly starts to saw away at one of the larger branches, all while cringing at the sound the fan makes as it saws through wood. 

:'''{{#var:41|Raven DeVanos (41)}} has posed:'''     PREIST GROUP>>>>     Noiela and Simon, now minus Falstaff (for their better, trust me) are once again looked upon. The Priest's features soften a little when Simon mentions Marcy, and he frowns, then says softly, "I uhm. I guess, I could do some blessings, yes. But I don't know what GOOD it will do. We couldn't find any fir trees in the forest this year! It was quite adventagious though that a travelling merchant brought us the other trees which look quite festive!" He frowns. "I suppose though we should have thought that odd. Anyway. If you can find a tree, I'll bless it. Just, keep that THING away from me!" He gulps, and he stands up, shaking in his knickers. 

:'''{{#var:513|Finna (513)}} has posed:'''     Seeing that Jinxel's made her choice, Finna zips over to grip the branch and hold it steady using her rapidly flapping wings to provide counter-force. "Careful. Don't want mommy waking up!"     foxes really should not have hummingbird wings.     And if those were on a normal fox, Finna'd be rapidly losing manueverability from the CHILL. Hummingbird wings don't operate well at these temperatures, not for long... but somehow, she's ignoring the cold. 

:'''{{#var:41|Raven DeVanos (41)}} has posed:'''     KRAMPUS HBUNT>>>>     Diplomacy. Diplomacy went WAY OUT THE FRIGGING WINDOW the moment Marceline decided to be Demon Princess. That is to say.     OMNOMNOMNOMDEMONLEG.     The Krampus HOWLS indignantly at the MANY SHARP TEETH crunching into his skin but hardly making much of a dent; he's built to withstand ANGRY CHILDREN BITING after all, as most demons are, though wow, Marcy's got a good hold on his leg and the Krampus starts to stagger about, flailing the limb, trying to shake her free.     And then the CATBOY he was holding onto starts trying to STAB HIM IN THE ARM and there are BEAM CANNONS GOING OFF EVERYWHERE and MISSILES AND EXPLOSIONS. The Krampus is looking much less HAPPY and much more PISSED OFF about being bitten and stabbed and fired upon. He starts to swing Staren up to use him as a bludgeon against Marcy-     -When Falstaff lunges from above and latches onto the opposite shoulder. The Krampus bellows! "@#&*(^#3338" ... Wow, "(**&)&(@#)(&#!" ... Just WOW. And then begins trying to swing Staren for Marcy AND Falstaff.     Raven stands back, watching, sort of surprised at all of this, before she sort of facepalms, and then yells, "COME ON, YOU YUTZES, WE GOTTA GET HIM TO THE WELL!" Before she points back the way they came, "AT LEAST GET SOME OF THIS FIREPOWER -OUT- OF THE MIDDLE OF BLOOMIN' TOWN!" 

:'''{{#var:647|Noiela (647)}} has posed:''' Noiela rubs the tip of her nose roughly with a sleeve, contemplative frown as she quickly adds up the odds of another third party having been the deliberate catalyst. Quite high, as it transpires. "I...don't suppose after we kill the demon, you might be able to provide a description of this merchant?" Noticing him cower, the girls mouth turns up into a pinched smile, diverted from their own imminent predicament. "Courage! A priest must lead his flock? Uh...the children must be saved...would you suggest he stay in the basement, or join us? Either way, let us not tarry." Though her ears are resolutely ordinary in shape, size and pointyness, even a humdrum ear probably catches the uproar outside. A muffled version, but enough to prompt the slight hastening of her steps back upstairs. Unless Simon wants to linger some more or the priest impedes them. Diplomats always get a pass on the fun factor. 

:'''{{#var:622|Simon Petrikov (622)}} has posed:''' KRAMPUS Marcy maintains her lockjaw-like bite on the Krampus even when shaken, and even when heat radiates from the beam weapons, and the explosions make her ears ring. But it's when the beast attempts to slam Staren into her and Falstaff that she lets go and backs off a little bit (whether the demon is successful with his attempt or not)... Just to call out, "Nightmaaaaare KICK!" And attempting to kick the Krampus in the shin right where she has been biting. Her toenails are even sharper than her teeth. Then she turns and runs, heeding Raven's advice, as she attempts to lure the fearsome monster towards the well, away from all the houses and the people in them! She takes the time to eye the potion she was given as she pulls it out of her pocket. Simon seemed to know Staren. That means he's not a stranger right? So gulps it down. It was supposed to protect her. She might need that. PRIEST Simon looks upwards upon hearing all the ruckus above. "Let's hurry," he says shortly, and then moves to head up the stairs. "We'll do everything we can to protect you, and we have friends who are way better at fighting than we are keeping that thing busy as we speak. The sooner you do your part, the sooner they can do theirs!" he calls back to the priest. That strange merchant certainly seems like someone to investigate later, and he definitely shared a knowing look with Noiela, but for the moment they have to focus on the current crisis. 

:'''{{#var:42|Staren (42)}} has posed:'''     @#&* indeed... more like @#&*ing SUPERNATURAL CREATURES. Staren doesn't see a SCRATCH on this guy! He drops the beam saber since it's useless -- he'll pick it up later.     He's raised up, flung about, and is oh so glad for the hard armor protecting his neck -- Otherwise he'd likely have died in an instant.     When Falstaff distracts the Krampus, Staren has a moment to draw a new weapon -- boy is he glad he had the foresign to fasten his bag to the side of his armor or he'd /never/ be able to reach it now -- It's time for the big guns: out comes an oversized Colt Peacemaker with a triple-M monogram engraved on the barrel.     He inwardly rolls his eyes at Raven's request. How is he supposed to LEAD it anywhere? And besides, that's why he used the little missiles in the arms instead of firing the big missiles from the shoulder packs.     And then he's used as a bludgeon against Marcy and Falstaff. Various grunts and oofs come out of him -- that's uncomfortable and painful, yes, but thanks to the armor his bones don't break every time he hits something. He attempts to aim his new weapon at his wielder and pulls the trigger. POW, POW, POW! Whenever he gets something remotely resembling a clear shot, the divinely-crafted Annihilator fires two bullets from the same barrel, each empowered by mad science that designed and built this weapon for the express purpose of killing supernatural creatures such as this!     "GO BACK TO HELL, BEAST!" 

:'''{{#var:41|Raven DeVanos (41)}} has posed:''' FOREST GROUP>>>>     The branches are stripped away, and then branch Jinxel had been cutting at comes away cleanly! ... Well, so they think, because a moment or so later there's a low growl, as a single icy eye has opened and is leveling on Jinxel and Finna, watching them warily. Slowly, the wyrm raises her head off her large clawed forelimbs, and then appraises them.     ~Just what do you think you're doing?~ The Wyrm asks, slightly bemused but obviously in that dangerous 'I am mom, give me a good explaination or else' tone. 

:'''{{#var:119|Jinxel (119)}} has posed:'''      ... eep.      Staring into that big, icy eye pretty much paralyzes Jinxel in fear for several lingering moments as she contemplates her death.      Then like a coward, she spills her guts.      "OhgodI'msosorrybutthere'sthisKrampusthinginatownnearbywhoeatschildrenandtheonolywaywecankillitiswithastakemadeoutofafirtreeandtheonlyfirtreeswecouldfindaretheonesyouusedforyournestsowewerehopingwecouldtakeabranchtouseasastakesowecansavethekidsandOHGODPLEASEDON'TEATME!"      And yes, she did blurt that out in one long, rambling breath. 

:'''{{#var:454|Mortimer Balman (454)}} has posed:'''      Falstaff does not like being hit with Staren. Staren is heavily armored, and thus makes a really good truncheon. Ow. Dammit, why do you squishy humans have to put yourselves in thick shells? It hurts when you hit him in those. Ow. Ow ow ow. Stop that. Stop that /now/. Okay. New plan. The beast releases the Krampus and falls to the ground, snatching Marceline up by the shirt in his teeth and rolling away from the demon back up onto his feet. Marcy might be fast and small but best if the little girl is safe with a proper meatshield. And then he's... Gone? No wait he's not gone.      No, there's two of him in different places. No wait, now there's three. Four. What?      The quartet of Falstaffs (holding angry little Marcelines in their teeth still, at least until they flip the kid up onto their backs). The circling is at a slightly ovular elipses- despite being half mad he is not yet in a proper /rage/, and thus hears Raven, and understands what she is trying to do. He's trying to goad the beast back toward the well using mirror images and threatening illusions. 

:'''{{#var:513|Finna (513)}} has posed:'''     Finna's brave! ... but not quite THAT brave. Much of her courage is an act, coupled with the knowledge that very few things could EVER hope to catch her if she really wanted to bail from any given situation.     But there is a rather deer in headlightsy expression in the fox's eyes before she sprouts a strange, not-quite-possibly cheshire grin and comes to rest on the ground a few hops away from the nearest tree branches. She's silent all through Jinxel's explanation but cannot help but grin MORE at how amusingly terrified Jinxel sounds!     "Mhm! Monster in the human town, eating all the kids. Fir branches ccan kill it! You have a lovely nest, I hope you can spare a branch, mother dragon? We're in a hurry!"     A hurry and Finna's not quite resisting the urge to bolt. That tone. THAT TONE. It's making her take half-steps back away...     She knows that tone. It is terrifying to someone who's not quite out of their teens. 

:'''{{#var:41|Raven DeVanos (41)}} has posed:'''     KRAMPUS HUNT>>>>     Raven facepalms further at Staren, "WHAT BLOODY PART O' SEEMED IMPERVIOUS TA FIRE DID YOU NOT GET, CAT-MAN-DERP?" She bellows, but luckly, Marcy seems to be better at following orders than Staren, because the little demon girl lays off the Krampus, leaving bleeding teeth wounds behind. But that KICK, Oh my LAWDIE. Raven stares, shakes her head, and mutters something about 'gotta get that girl some proper trainin'', before she pushes her Pangoro to follow after Marcy, and charges in to try and rescue Staren.     The Krampus seems to have a different idea from this 'Go Back To Hell' thing, because when Staren begins firing at it, one of said bullets rips through it's arm and it ROOOARS. It's bleeding now but more than certainly not going to be dead any time soon. It snarls, and then reports by.. flinging Staren for the nearest house angrilly. Well, there's probably a reason why it was throwing Raven around instead of just eating her, too. Likely the use of Materia. The beast snarls, takes a great breath, and then ROARS loudly, unleashing a gout of flaming breath after Staren toward the building.     Panting and snorting it turns then-- and is distracted by sight of Falstaff and Marceline running. It snarls, and charges after them.     Leaving Raven to try and follow after Staren. "Gord-dangit, you bloody -git-," she's cussing as she goes. 

:'''{{#var:41|Raven DeVanos (41)}} has posed:'''     PRIEST GROUP>>>>     The Priest gulps, and nods, then follows Noiela and Simon upwards to the snow outside; the blizzard has gotten worse with Falstaff's helf, and as well with the anger of the Krampus, which seems to cover its tracks with the horrible weather. Since Staren, Marceline, Falstaff, and Raven seem to have it distracted, their path back to the well is somewhat free and open! Yay! 

:'''{{#var:41|Raven DeVanos (41)}} has posed:'''     FOREST GROUP>>>> The dragon eyes Finna and Jinxel thoughtfully, before she hoooms softly, and nods, then reaches one great claw out, sizes up the branch in Jinxel's hooves, and then rifles through the branches she lays upon, before pulling out a sizeable bbay fir, breaking the larger branches off, and then uses her claws to sharpen the denuded thing into a sizeable stake of wood. This she then offers to Jinxel and Finna:     ~Here, take this. I would be protecting the village as is my duty, but this year is the first I have had chance to lay a clutch that didn't turn up completely rotten, and I am not going to pass up a chance to groom and train an heir to replace me.~ With that she curls tighter about her egg, leaving them to have off. 

:'''{{#var:119|Jinxel (119)}} has posed:'''      Beat.      "Really?" Jinxel replies, suddenly not longer in 'oh god hyperventilate' mode that she was previously, "Thank you!" She accepts the stake and hugs it against her chest, before taking a moment to stuff it into the jingling sleight bell harness she's still wearing for safekeeping, "I really appreciate this miss dragon, but I need to get going. My friends are already probably fighting the Krampus, and I need to get this stake back to them as fast as possible!"      She starts back towards the town, but not before stopping at the edge of the clearing and waving back, "Good luck with your egg!" 

:'''{{#var:622|Simon Petrikov (622)}} has posed:''' PRIEST AND KRAMPUS Simon, Noiela, and the Priest are all on their way to the well. At the same time, a quartet of Falstaffs and Marcelines are headed towards the same place. Marceline shrieks a little at first when she is snagged in the teeth of some big creature, but realizes what's going on when she is flipped up onto Falstaff's back. Then she just watches behind them as the monster comes after her. Despite her heritage, her teeth, and her toenails, she is not a fighter and was probably in a lot of danger being all close like that. It took courage to try. But there's a time for courage, and there's a time for running away. Simon taught her that. And right now is the time to run away. Hopefully with Staren's magic potion, she can handle a hit or two, but she isn't sure what the potion did exactly. She has tasted worse, following what amounted to the end of the world, but it still wasn't very tasty. And the worse something tastes the better it is for you, right? Except pine needles and deer guts. 

:'''{{#var:513|Finna (513)}} has posed:'''     "Would've woken you up to ask," Finna begins in a bemused - and somewhat intimidated voice as the dragon does far more than she expected while revealing things she hadn't considered, "But I didn't know you were no simple beast of the woods! Hooray for the mother dragon! Many children will be happy! May yours grow strong!" GRATITUDE! That's what she's full of now.     Landing in the snow near Jinxel, Finna banishes her wings. They simply melt back into her back just as quickly as they appeared. "Go go go! Next stop is the priest... shaman... whatever the wise man or woman of the parts is called!" DETAILS! 

:'''{{#var:41|Raven DeVanos (41)}} has posed:''' FOREST GROUP>>>>     The dragon waves as nicely after them as she can, then recoils about her egg with a soft siiigh of noise. Hey, oddly enough, Finna and Jinxel would also find their way back far less entrenched in snow and trees; as said trees seem to leap rght out of their way! .. Of course as soon as they leave the trees, the forest SHOOMPFS back in on itself, obscuring the way they had come. Hmm. 

:'''{{#var:119|Jinxel (119)}} has posed:'''      Wow, the way back was a lot easier and a lot faster than going into the woods! It's almost like the trees themselves kindly moved out of the way!      Wait...      Pausing just outside of the forest, Jinxel looks back at the tree line, then gives a shrug of her shoulders before galloping into town! Probably just her mind playing tricks on her. After all, trees don't really move on their own!      "Guuuuuuuys! We got the staaaaake!" Jinxy calls ahead as she arrives with the stake still wedged in her reindeer harness. 

:'''{{#var:647|Noiela (647)}} has posed:''' Unhooking the tome from her belt, Noiela wiggles her fingers experimentally, spare hand cupping the spine of the leatherbound book as it falls open of its own accord. A blue spark playfully jumps from her fingertips and across her knuckles, the barest rustling of pages drowned out by the dark fury of schlurping horror they are set to meet probably in a few minutes. "Snapping her fingers, she conjures up a small orb of bright, white energy in a crackled pop and sharp tang of spent ozone. "Krumplesnack incoming?" She ventures, increasing her pace as a sudden, omnious sensation prickles the sensitive skin on the back of her left hand. Known as 'leaving a girl out there to brave a monster who targets young children'. "I...I'm going to travel on a few paces ahead. Bring up the rear?" 

:'''{{#var:41|Raven DeVanos (41)}} has posed:''' PRIEST GROUP>>>>     Simon and Noiela arrive at the well just about the same time as Jinxel and Finna; thus leaving both groups a chance to commence with BLESSING A STAKE OF FIR WOOD. Yay? Yay. The Priest is confused by seeing Jinxel, and what looks like a Fox, but after having seen that GIANTARSE MONSTER THING IN THE VILLAGE earlier today? Yeah, no, this is definetly not th weirdest thing he's seen lately. Ruffled and unnerves by the whole mess, he gulps, and looks among them, laughing nervously: "Anyone have uh, have a drink of rum I could splash down my throat before we get going?" he asks, smiling weakly. 

:'''{{#var:42|Staren (42)}} has posed:'''     Staren smiles. IT CAN BLEED!     And then he's flung into a house. The forcefield flickers on and takes the impact as he crashes through the wall and tumbles to a stop inside. "Ugh..." He gets to his feet. "Out the back door, out the back door!" He motions for any occupants to leave, then reloads the Annihilator. Hooray for convenient moon clips! He looks over at Raven as she arrives. "Hey, I didn't USE fire, and I helped keep it busy and MADE it BLEED, right?" He flicks his hand to close the cylinder. "And hey, /now/ I can lead it to the well! I know how to make it mad!"     He heads out the back door himself, then flies up to see the Krampus chasing Falstaff and Marcy. Well, that works. He flies back down. "They're leading it to the well. I'll shoot it more once it gets there." And then he starts running off after it. 

:'''{{#var:119|Jinxel (119)}} has posed:'''      Jinxel pauses as she reaches the group, then pulls the stake out of her harness and hands it over, before rubbing the back of her head, "Um... nope, sorry. The strongest drink I've ever had was some non-alcoholic apple cider..." 

:'''{{#var:513|Finna (513)}} has posed:'''     "... Suuuuurely that can wait unti you've time to enjoy it, priest?" Finna jubles out hopefully and hurriedly. Then... shapeshifts again back to her humnan form. "The dragon of the woods is to thank for this weapon! Now bless it! Hurry!" Just as a sign of her impatience, she clenches up her fists and waves her arms around low near her waist! 

:'''{{#var:454|Mortimer Balman (454)}} has posed:'''      Yes, Staren, the damn demon can bleed. There is something WRONG with that boy. But it is not Falstaff's place- or even ability really- to question the oddities of bipeds, much less /humans/ of all things. The hairless primapes have always been odd. No matter. Follow the bouncing Absols, mutton-head. C'mon. What's the matter? Are you too slow to catch one old Absol and a tiny child? Are you so weak? Stupid stupid stupid. Flail and rage and gnash your teeth without thought. Your only threat is in your bluster. Against a real killer you're nothing. Once in front of the well the group of Falstaff's fade away until there's just the old 'mon, who calmly stands up straight and tall and issues out a low, long, gutteral howl- a challenge to Krampus.      Come, fool. Come and learn the cold embrace of the Dusknoir's grasp. Falstaff can teach you. 

:'''{{#var:647|Noiela (647)}} has posed:''' Now to execute hastily dreamt up plans, that is mostly to frazzle the beast with one, precisely aimed cannonball that squirms and arcs between her splayed fingertips. Noiela throws it far and high, swinging it like a shot putter might do, albeit with far less flexing of muscle. It looked spongy. Gooey. Perfect conduction material. "T...Thunder!" She yells out, watching the illuminated letters flow and encircle her wrists, converging and becoming another, second blast to follow on the first. 

:'''{{#var:41|Raven DeVanos (41)}} has posed:'''     The family in the house waste no time evacuating at Staren's insistance, but also seem more afraid of the catboy than the Krampus.     "Of COURSE it can BLEED ya ruddy moron, but the MORE PISSED OFF YA MAKE IT the more LIKELY it is to-" And Raven is cut off mid-yell by another BLAST OF FLAMES issuing from the Krampus' mouth in retort to the howl from Falstaff. She winces, then points. "TO DO THAT. IN THE MIDDLE OF THE BLOODY VILLAGE. YA AINT'T GOT TH' SENSE MORG'S BLOODY -DEMON- HAD." She snaps at Staren, before taking off after the Krampus.     Who makes for a good target, sure. But does Staren REALLY want that thing roaring when it's breathing flames?     The preist gulps when he's told he can hold off, then catches up the staff-stake of fir as it's offered to him, and looks at Finna with stark fear for a moment, before nodding. Then he takes out his rosary again, and begins to make motions and gestures over the staff of fir while mumbling at it.     Falstaff and Marceline, meanwhile, decidedly have the Krampus' attention. It charges right for them. 

:'''{{#var:622|Simon Petrikov (622)}} has posed:''' PRIEST AND KRAMPUS Simon nods to Noiela's instructions and falls back a bit to make sure the priest has someone there incase he falls or something. It's cold and snowy. You never know! He thinks he hears a pony yelling that she has the stake, however, and turns his attention on the incoming reindeerpony. And then they are all convened at the well. At the priest's question, Simon just squints at him. Eventually he says, completely deadpand, "No, sorry. Do you want me to go loot those houses for you in search of some?" He jerks a thumb over his shoulder. "I'm sure the Krampus will wait for you to be ready before eating anyone else. Take your time." Thankfully he seems to get the message from the more diplomatically-offered words of Finna, and gets to work. Marceline, meanwhile, is also now at the well, and still on Falstaff's back. She is considering getting off though, in order to A) Not get caught in the fight that's coming, and B) To stick close to Simon, who she still expects to protect her. She doesn't now where Mister Staren is, or Miss Raven is, but-Oh, there they are! Running up behind the monster! Still a ways off, but coming closer! Cool, maybe they will do a secret maneuver and tackle the Krampus into the well or something! ...That's the plan, right? She didn't really understand what steaks have to do with hearts. Maybe they're going to feed it lots of steaks after it falls in the well, and it will become so fat it can't come back out again. How should she know!? She ducks down as flames are breathed out at them, and decides to avoid getting off of the Absol for now. Instead she lies flat on the pokemon's back and tries to get demonic goat wolf man thing fur out from between her teeth, as she asks, "Is this gonna' work?" Let's just hope the priest doesn't look at Marcy right now. 

:'''{{#var:42|Staren (42)}} has posed:'''     Raven said FLUFFY was more sensible than him?! OUCH. Staren glares at her. "It was already DOING that, if you didn't notice!" But he chases the Krampus with her. "It's been killing children, I'm not gonna LET it keep doing that while I WAIT for our MAGIC BULLET! Also, if you didn't NOTICE, I saved those KIDS first, then it GRABBED me and FORCED my HAND! You want me to just let it BEAT on me?" 

:'''{{#var:41|Raven DeVanos (41)}} has posed:'''     Raven growls. "No, but I asked ya here ta -help- me on -MY- mission which kind of implys I'm -SORT OF IN CHARGE- so instead of saying 'HUR HUR I'MMO BLOW IT UP, WHO THE FECK NEEDS TO LEAD IT TO A WELL' why don't ya go, "OKAY, WE HAVE A PLAN WORKED OUT, I'LL TRY TO FOLLOW IT AND NOT MAKE IT ANGRIER". Ya coulda SAVED TH' KIDS an' then GOT THE FECK AWAY FROM THERE." Raven snaps, as she keeps running. Not to mention: "AN THIS AIN'T THE TIME OR PLACE TO BE ARGUIN' THIS SHITE OUT NONE!" She sneers as she suddenly surges ahead, to pass the Krampus, and dash toward the well. "GET THE STAKE READY!"     The Priest keeps mumbling and chanting and for some reason the stave of fir starts to glow, and then a flash of light occurs; before the stave rests humming in his hand, cold and icy like a giant-ass icecicle, and even looks quite frosted over. He movesto hand the stake to Finna. "here!" he yelps! Before he grabs his robes and -dashes- away to the other side of the well, to hide behind a large rock, peering out at the mess.     The Krampus roooooars again, and lunges, trying to grab for Falstaff and Marceline in the same swing of both great hairy hands and arms. 

:'''{{#var:454|Mortimer Balman (454)}} has posed:'''      Falstaff, perhaps surprisingly, does not move. His hackles rise up but the fur becomes.. Solid, somehow, instead of soft. It's like he's making a shield of sorts for Marceline, using own body to do so. But that is just happy side benefit. The Absol is focusing on other things, though, because he already knows that even if this does not work, Marcy will be protected by his bulk. No, what he is actually focusing on is his magic. Absols command terrible powers, and even the Damned are not safe from those. The beast's mouth opens and he begins howling a terrible song, waving his head from side to side. His voice is joined by many others.. The wailing of the Dead.      Wraithly hands stretch out from the snow and grasp at Krampus's body. They are of course, not physical, but the demon can still feel them. They do not seek to harm his body but rather sap at his essence, at his vital energies that keep him going, to weaken and tire him. If he were to look closely perhaps he would see the faces of those he had wrong, crying up at him, demanding retribution and respite. Or perhaps he would see- and feel- the icy grip of those who come to the Reaper's domain, trying to drag him down with them. 

:'''{{#var:42|Staren (42)}} has posed:'''     Staren glares at Raven, but yeah, this isn't the time. He pours on the speed and flies ahead.     So he sees the Krampus swiping at Marceline, and that Finna has the stake ready. He flies over it and readies the Annihilator, but... it looks like Falstaff has the distracting handled, so he waits. For now. 

:'''{{#var:622|Simon Petrikov (622)}} has posed:''' Simon sees Marceline being attacked and tries to lunge forward, instinctively, calling out, "MARCY!" Marceline, for her part, shrieks and hugs Falstaff's back as tightly as she can, eyes closed. Simon's eyes see the forces being called upon, and they merely make him panic more. He turns to Finna, with her blessed christmas tree stake, and says, "If you're gonna' do something, do it fast!" He feels so helpless. He's a survivor, but he's also a scholar. And he is not a warrior. He has lived by avoiding conflict... By thinking things through... And by using the Crown. He has been doing a lot of stuff he probably shouldn't be since being found by these people from the Multiverse. And he left the Crown behind to avoid adding on to that list. And now he is able to do almost nothing as a result. Nothing to protect the little girl he is in charge of protecting. He grits his sharp teeth and watches, silently cursing his weakness. 

:'''{{#var:513|Finna (513)}} has posed:'''     "O-ooooooh! This god responds promptly! I'm impressed!" Although er commentary is likely of no help to the priest, Finna's smile is mischevious enough to frighten even a monster. Because a feral ferocity gleams behind those icy-blue eyes and the impish smile.     Then, her nose BALLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONS outward into a brown, furry trunk. Which wraps around the stake easily. "Thank you! Prepare for one Kramp-kabob!"     Someone needs to ge this Lunar to get her references straight, pronto.     That transformation? It's not limited to her nose. The brown hair spreads across the rest of her body, rolling out in shaggy waves. She gains mass at a trendous rate as she bounds into a charge down the street. Finding the Krampus? That is... not really so hard.     What might the Krampus make of an ANGRY WOOLY MAMMOTH charging down the middle of the street with a sharpened tree trunk, blessed for maximum power clutched in its trunk, BUGLING violently into the skies?!     WHUMPF WHUMPF WHUMPF--     Oh yes. it's also like four times faster in its charge than your typical mammoth might be and a hundred times nimbler. It's a Mammoth on the WARPATH! 

:'''{{#var:647|Noiela (647)}} has posed:''' Noiela sends a bright flare of lightning down upon the Krampus, teeth gritted and eyes waxing a feral yellow as she throws herself quite literally at the monster, running jump and twist to bring the hard sole of her boot and lightning encased hand into contact with any substantial bit of exposed flesh the others concentrated aggression can purchase as she sharply drops down, fingers reaching out in vain to grasp the suppurating mass of whatever it is Krampuses are composed from, it feels sticky and highly unpleasant. To think, all it took was a helpless fury of one blue skinned, funny looking old man and his adopted daughter to wind her up. Not that it will not help their cause. Possibly. 

:'''{{#var:41|Raven DeVanos (41)}} has posed:'''     First comes Noiela, slamming the Krampus hard in the bleeding shoulder with her LIGHTENING FIST, causing it to roar. Then there's Falstaff, who seems almost like he's doing the ANGRY CAT THING by trying to look bigger, except, oh dear god, the noises and the voices. The Krampus looks briefly confused and beleagered by this, but this is choked off by suddenl ELLALUNT ANGER ROAR and he's suddenly IMPALED THROUGH on a HOLY BRANCH OF FIR TREE. They didn't QUITE get his heart, but yeah, no, combined HOLY POWER and DRAINY POWERS and Staren's BEAT THE SHIT OUT OF IT and Noiela's PUNCH and whatever Raven had been doing before? Yeah. It suddenly rears back and HOWLS A LOUD, NOISY, PAINFUL ROAR! And then explodes! IN a smokey ball of ashes and dust, which litters the ground.     ... The Storm around them starts to fade, and subside, leaving the band of heroes in piles of snow. All is calm, all is bright. 

:'''{{#var:454|Mortimer Balman (454)}} has posed:'''      Falstaff looks up, his fur ceases to be solid, and he gently slides Marceline off of his back and onto the ground, plopping down himself and putting a paw around her so he can snuffle at her face and hair and make sure she's okay. As if trying to help calm her- since she's probably scared- he starts licking at her face with a big, somewhat rough tongue. Being pulled in against the beast also has the additional benefit of making sure she is nice and warm, because even with all the snow Falstaff is as warm as a good hearth-flame- which is probably part of how their species survives in its native enviroment, thinking about it. The monstrous 'mon seems to be ignoring everyone else at the moment, focusing on the small demon child first.      Everything is okay now small one. See? 

:'''{{#var:647|Noiela (647)}} has posed:''' Noiela gets blown back in the sheer force mere chaff in its violent, ashy explosion that leaves a grey patina of itself over everyone, the girl no exception as she hits the stony mouth of the well shoulderblade first, acid sharp pain lancing through her frame and out for the count for the moment, crumpled in an undignified heap at its base. Woozily, her thumb and fingers reach up to rub at the clumped, sticky mass of dusty gunge welding her eyes shut, enduring the faint sting that comes with smearing a mass of dirt into your tear ducts during the process. Staggering up, the girl looks a raggedy mess. A raggedy, greyed out mess where her pale colouration blends in all too neatly. "Nugh. We all survived?" She questions the air blearily. 

:'''{{#var:42|Staren (42)}} has posed:'''     KA-POOF! Demonsplosion.     After Staren's realized what happens, he relaxes slightly. "Huh. Not what I expected." After a moment, he turns to Raven. "The PLAN was that we fight it to keep it busy and /maybe/ see if we could kill it, while THEY sought out a holy tree branch! I FREED the kids, it GRABBED me, and by the time you said to LEAD IT AWAY, it was hitting people with me and I couldn't lead /shit/!" He turns and stomps his feet, then turns his hands palms-up towards her. "How could you not SEE that!?" 

:'''{{#var:513|Finna (513)}} has posed:'''     The Krampus goes KABOOM! And the Mammoth bugles triumphantly, victoriously, and pretty loudly... only to shift back, moments later. The grand curved tusks and other features all melt away, leaving Finna with her hair waving in the wind. "A year and a day! Maybe more if we're lucky in these parts. No more Krumpus! For now."     She's suspecting he is like some kind of demon or spirit, so killing him that easily doesn't seem too plausible. "Whew..."     ANd she drops the heavy tree trunk which, outside the mammoth shape or Warform, she simply cannot really hold onto. "Whew...." 

:'''{{#var:622|Simon Petrikov (622)}} has posed:''' Marcy is being comforted by Falstaff after the Krampus literally goes up in smoke. That was a pretty gruesome death! But she is already grinning and giggling by the time that Falstaff is licking her face, and Simon is crouched down next to her, making sure she's okay. He looks up with a frown, however, at Staren's angry words. He opens his mouth, but Marceline stands up with a frown of her own, one hand on her hip and points at Staren. "Hey! Watch your language! There could be kids present!" Then she folds her arms across her chest. Simon heaves a weary sigh, and just says, "Good work, everyone. We did what we came here for. Let's just be satisfied with that." Then Marcy's eyebrows go back up and she lowers her hands to her sides as she looks at Noiela, with her lightning magic, Finna with her foxy magic, Staren with his... Shooting magic, Raven with her BEAST MASTER magic, Falstaff with his ghost magic, Jinxel with her pony magic (because ponies need to be magic to talk, of course!), and then brightly calls out, "Hey, let's do this again tomorrow!" Then the carnivorous horse from the woods sticks its head into frame and neighs loudly and terrifyingly right above Simon's head in agreement. Simon ducks and yells, "WHAA-!?" 

:'''{{#var:41|Raven DeVanos (41)}} has posed:'''     "... You're a -cat-," Raven says, giving him a LOOK like he's grown two heads or something. "What's more, you're a -robot cat boy thing-. Aren't you supposed to, I don't bloody know, have SCIENTIFIC TELEPORTER THINGS ON YOU?" she waves her hands about a little, "Or had some sort of ROCKET SHOES or some shit?" She shakes her head. "No teleport ANYTHING? not even for EMERGENCIES? Man, Morg really left you -underprepared-." She shakes her head, and grunts, before she rubs her chin and sighs, looking to Finna, Simon Marcy, and Noiela, as well as Falstaff. She siiiiiighs.     Then she pulls around her jacket and pulls out a roll of credit slips, which she un-rubber bands, and begins to sort through, handing out five bills each (of 100c denomination of course) to Noiela, Finna, Staren, Jinxel.. and then Marcy AND Simon both get 500c, but she pauses to say, to Marcy, "You keep an eye on that and only spend about a hun'red of it on candy, cutie." With a wink, before she turns to Falstaff and sighs. Slipping the Cs back into her pocket, she goes to another one (She has a CRAPTON OF POCKETS man,) and pulls out... a baggy of Poketreats, which she offers to him. 

:'''{{#var:454|Mortimer Balman (454)}} has posed:'''      Once Marceline is back in Simon's care- and giving Simon some calming face-licks too- Falstaff would stand up and look between Raven and Staren as they both yelled at each other. Chuffing in an annoyed fashion the beast is about to DO something about it when Raven, FINALLY, breaks off the annoying yelling. He just grunts at them instead, and then.. Ooh, poketreats. Falstaff /loves/ macaroons! Nomnomnom. 

:'''{{#var:42|Staren (42)}} has posed:'''     Staren just sort of stares, confused and a bit embarassed, at Marceline. "Ah... sorry..." but Raven's ready with more arguments. "I have boosters and wings but IT GRABBED ME and swung me around! The teleporter ISN'T INSTANT and doesn't work with disruptions like that! I'm kinda weak against grappling, but I risked it to get those kids away from him!" He crosses his arms and looks away, muttering, "...Yeah... I do need to be more prepared."     He takes the money and starts walking off. "You're one of the first to get that. Sorry for yelling at you..." he stops and looks back. "I'll try to be more prepared, but in the future, we gotta... communicate better, or be more aware of eachother's capabilities, or not /assume/ stuff, or something. Alright?" 

}}

1366/The Ultimate In Hot-Blooded Battles

2015-01-20T06:16:02Z

Paladine: Created page with "{{Log Header |Date of Scene=2015/01/19 |Location=The Magma Zone |Synopsis=Madara Uchiha and Rock Lee fight while volcanoes explode. |Thanks= |Cast of Characters=513, 596, 651,..."

{{Log Header
|Date of Scene=2015/01/19
|Location=The Magma Zone
|Synopsis=Madara Uchiha and Rock Lee fight while volcanoes explode.
|Thanks=
|Cast of Characters=513, 596, 651, 678
|Tinyplot=
|Tinyplot2=
|pretty=yes
}}
{{Poses
|Poses=:'''{{#var:651|Madara Uchiha (651)}} has posed:''' The Magma Zone, in general, does not appear to be very hospitable for most human-like lifeforms. It would be easy for normal people to simply die here. Really, remarkably, distressingly easy. Of course, Rock Lee is not a normal person. And neither is the man he has come here hoping to meet! The voice on the radio sounded just like Might Guy's! ...If not perhaps just slightly, barely-imperceptibly different. But that could be chalked up to radio interference, or the sound of ERUPTIONS in the background when he spoke. Yes, that must be it. Because who could fake such HOT-BLOOD and DETERMINATION, right? The ground regularly explodes into geyers of lava, or simply crumbles away. Jets of toxic volcanic gasses spray out of crevices. The heat is well beyond even a trainer human's tolerance for extended periods of time. Human bodies SHUT DOWN just with relatively minor fluctuations in temperature. 98.6 degrees Farenheit is normal. Go up a couple degrees, and you start feeling crappy. Go up a bit more and you start to lose your balance, become nauseous, and hallucinate. Seas of molten rock glow on the horizon, and almost inconceivably tall, scorched mountains and actively-erupting volcanos reach up like a mythological titans towards a toxic-choked sky of black and red clouds. Heat lightning keeps crackling through the air, adding thunder to the boom of planetary forces exhibiting one of the most violent of natural disasters. There are strange natural lifeforms around here, but none of them seem to be people, at least in Lee's vicinity. Where around here is his teacher? 

:'''{{#var:678|Rock Lee (678)}} has posed:''' The Magma Zone is not the best place to be when one wears shoes with exposed toes. But it is the perfect place for hot blooded ninjas to reunite! So when Lee exits the highly secure area that houses the gate to this place, he's running across the Magma Zone, dodging jets of lava. Of course, as a properly prepared ninja, he's taking regular drinks from a canteen housed in the mysterious ninja pockets of his vest. Then slides it right back in. Once he's actually at the location, though, he's crossed his arms, looking around, scratching his head. "Guy Sensei!" he calls out, holding his hands up to his mouth. 

:'''{{#var:651|Madara Uchiha (651)}} has posed:''' There is a sudden GLARE of red illumination as a solid-looking obsidian plate perhaps a hundred yards away EXPLODES into a towering geyser of angry red, nearly-gelatinous stone. It's loud and distracting. But when the geyser finally dumping its payload onto the surrounding stone, there's a voice behind Rock Lee. "Hello, Lee!" That's Might Guy! When Lee turns around, that's even Guy standing there! But his facial features aren't quite right. He looks slightly younger than he should be. And that might also be what was different about his voice too. It sounded younger. Or maybe like someone had tried to recreate it by extrapolating from what they knew of his appearance and voice when he was younger. To guess how he would look and sound when he was older. 'Guy' starts to smolder, and then catches fire. Even as he continues to grin, his hands propped on his hips heroically, his back straight with confidence, his eyebrows as bushy as ever, his skin blackened and peels. When next he speaks, flames can be seen visibly jetting up out of his throat from inside of himself with every word. Like he's burning to death from the inside out! "What's wrong, Lee? You look like you were expecting-" and the voice changes at that point, becoming deeper, and of a completely different tone. "-someone else." The voice that finishes those words isn't coming from Guy. Guy is now completely ablaze, and staggers towards Lee, his eyes bleaching white as the moisture within his eyeballs boils. He reaches out a hand, and he is no longer smiling. He looks blank, emotionless. And though he mouths words 'help me', no sound emerges. And then the wooden constuct topples to the ground and begins the process of burning to ash. Out of the ground, a spikey-haired head emerges, and then a face with skin bearing cracks and seams. And then a single visible Sharingan floating in an eye that is otherwise pure black. The other is covered up by a mass of hair hanging over the right side of his face. The rest of Madara Uchiha rises up out of the volatile earth until he stands before Lee, after being him witness the horrific 'death' of his teacher, role-model, and father figure. Even if he was just a Wood Clone, it looked real enough up to the end. "I'd apologize for the deception, but it was intentional," Madara offers coldly. "I doubt you'd have come to meet me otherwise, and you certainly wouldn't have done so alone." 

:'''{{#var:678|Rock Lee (678)}} has posed:''' "Guy Sensei!" Lee looks excited at first, turning around to face him. He notices that something is off, but before he can really put his finger on it, 'Guy' begins to smolder. Lee's eyes widen, and he reaches out as if to try and help, even as the form of his sensei blackens and burns. But then that face makes its presence known. He may not have known Madara's voice, but any ninja from Konoha would recognize the face of Madara, one solidified in their minds since childhood by the massive statue. "Madara!" There's a horrified look as he backflips a bit to make some distance, about ten feet of distance. "I cannot escape this proximity... I know how powerful you are. But if I cannot escape, then I will have no choice..." He suddenly stands, one hand behind his back, one held out in front of him as he straightens. "Whatever you want, I cannot allow you to live, even if it costs me my life!" 

:'''{{#var:651|Madara Uchiha (651)}} has posed:''' Madara looks non-entirely impressed with Lee's declaration. "I was hoping you'd make this interesting, though I didn't expect you to make it easy in either case." He lowers his arms to his sides, and says, "All I want from you is to know all that you know about the current state of Konohgakure no Sato. I haven't been able to locate it yet, you see. I'm not even sure how many years this is after I was last in touch with the world. Of course..." He takes a step forward, planting sandle on sizzling terrain. "Knowing the leadership, the organization of your forces, the quality of your shinobi, the location of the Nine-Tails, and all the rest..." He takes another step, and then starts walking towards Lee. "...All of that would be nice to know as well." He switches from a walk to a jog. "And you will tell me, one way or another." His arms hang loose at his sides as they do for most ninja, leaving them available for use for attack or defense as-needed. His jog becomes a run, as he dashes straight for the Prodigy of Hard Work. When he attacks with a simple palm strike, if it hits Lee or not, it's going to be forceful enough to shatter the landscape around them and send dust and fire everywhere. 

:'''{{#var:678|Rock Lee (678)}} has posed:''' "I will not tell you anything, I do not care what you do or say! I will die before I allow you to find the world again simply so you can perform your genjutsu on it!" Lee declares, his eyes widening at the sudden speed. Then before he can quite move, the palm impacts with his chest and sends him tumbling clear across the ground like a skipping rock. He very quickly pushes himself up when he realizes how hot the ground is with his face against it, then holds his chest and pounds against it a few times, almost like he's trying to get his heart to beat regularly again. "I may not have any jutsu, but I do not care who you are... I will show you that the spirit of Konoha cannot be wiped from the Earth that easily. They might not be here, but within these fists..." He stands up straight, balling a single, solid fist. "The spirit of my friends are strengthening the force of my punches!" He darts forward at an incredible speed, then suddenly jumps into a spinning flip, and tries to slam his fist down into the -top- of Madara's head. 

:'''{{#var:651|Madara Uchiha (651)}} has posed:''' Lee is skilled. Fast. Strong. He even gets into proper position to strike. He even delivers the blow. But there's that Sharingan of Madara's, watching and seeing everything, predicting movement before it even occurs, and he raises an arm over his head to catch the fist on his forearm guard. The armor cracks from the impact. And then Madara extends two knuckles on his other hand, and tries to drive them into Lee's throat. "You don't need to speak to tell me what I wish to know," Madara says. Madara's ability with Genjutsu is great enough that people automatically assumed upon the capture of Yamato in Lee's time that if he was subjected to Madara's Genjutsu, there would be no chance whatsoever of resistance. Of course, it wasn't Madara who captured him. But that assumption and belief holds some truth to it. Lee probably can not afford to be defeated here, not just because of his determination to save the world, but becaue if he falls... He might be forced to reveal all he knows even if he doesn't want to. 

:'''{{#var:678|Rock Lee (678)}} has posed:''' Lee suddenly holds his throat and slams with his back into the ground, trying to breathe. When he forces his throat open again, his outclassed he is becomes incredibly apparent. "I will not allow you to break into my mind!" First Gate. A gate so subtle that it is not readily apparent that he's even opened it. But with the Sharingan one can easily see the increase in speed when he thrusts his legs up, using the force to send himself into the air from the ground. His body spins, and he thrusts his hands out, trying an alternate variation on his usual technique. "I will remove your ability to do so!" The bandages extend from his arms, attempting to wrap them both around Madara's head. Then he tries to -tug- and pull both of his feet down into Madara's head at full force, about a hundred times worse than a curb stomp. 

:'''{{#var:651|Madara Uchiha (651)}} has posed:''' The bandages come from just below his field of vision, but Madara definitely saw Chakra starting to work its way through Lee's Chakra Network, starting in his left eye. He paused, not recognizing what he was seeing, and that's when his head wrapped up and Lee quickly makes use of this momentary vulnerability to stomp into Madara's head with both feet. There are signs of cracks spreading outwards across his flesh from underneath the bandages, but his hands quickly come up and try to grab Lee's legs. If he succeeds, he then tries to whip him around at high speed before slamming him into the scorching terrain enough to shatter it and leave the other shinobi AND Madara on a small 'island' of jagged obsidian, floating in the middle of a small lake of lava. The environment seems to be having little to no impact on Madara, but to be extremely ill-suited to Lee's physiology. The benefits of being dead, apparently? Probably why this place was selected. To give Madara the advantage. "Your level of skill for your age is interesting, at least. But you need a few more years to hone your technique." Madara offers, whether the bandages came undone or not. "You should probably surrender before you take lethal damage. You might yet make it out of here able to fight another day if you do." Then he chuckles briefly. "Though I expect you'll refuse." 

:'''{{#var:678|Rock Lee (678)}} has posed:''' Lee's eyes are wide, the bandages quickly unwrapping once his legs are grabbed. He holds his mouth when he's spun around, easily feeling a severe amount of nausea from the sheer force. He shouts in pain when he slams into the jagged obsidian of the blazing hot ground, laying there in intense pain. "I have never felt this kind of power before... but I will never surrender to you. I will never allow you to have what you want. I will sacrifice everything. My body, my soul, I will give it all to keep you from gaining what you want..." He stares up at Madara, suddenly taking a deep, calm breath, momentarily closing his eyes. Then, just, BOOM. A shockwave of the sheer force of -something- extends out from him as mutliple gates are blown open all at once. He skips directly to the sixth gate, surrounded by a wild green aura of what can only be identified, by the trained eye, as sweat rapidly evaporating from his body. His skin is a completely dark red, veins bulging, hair blowing upward, eyes completely white. "I will punch you nine-hundred-ninety-nine times, and once my technique is honed enough, I will punch you a thousandth time, and you will die!" He declares while speaking in multiple tones. He suddenly bursts from the ground, dragging obsidian up with him, stopping ten feet away again, waiting for Madara to face him. 

:'''{{#var:651|Madara Uchiha (651)}} has posed:''' Madara only as an instant to react. Thanks not just to his Sharingan but also due to an intuition honed over decades of continuous life-or-death combat, he does. When that shockwave erupts from Lee, sending a wave of lava flying outwards in every direction, it would appear to an observer as though Madara had been at point-blank range. But even as Lee puts distance between himself and his opponent, and prepares himself for the next clash between himself and Madara, Madara is falling from high above and landing on both feet a considerable distance away himself. He leapt away. He's looking at Lee intently, reading the flow of Chakra, and eventually says, "So... Is this the vaunted 'Eight Gates' technique? I've heard of it, but never before have I seen it." He actually smiles eagerly, manically, as he lowers himself down into a fighting stance, and says, "This may yet prove to be entertaining after all. My only regret is I lack a living body to experience this battle with. Come, Rock Lee, of the Hidden Leaf! Show me how much greater your Taijutsu has become with this technique of yours! Show me how well you can dance!" Madara doesn't attack first this time. He leaves that honor to his opponent. 

:'''{{#var:678|Rock Lee (678)}} has posed:''' Lee's fists are clenched tightly, whirlpools of lava swirling around the island from the sheer energy of the opened gates. "Lack of a..." His brows furrow, taking a closer look. "Of course... I see now! Fine, I will punch your body until there is nothing left!" He bursts forward, digging up and dragging obsidian behind him again. But when it seems as if he's going to make a direct attack, he vanishes, and while one would generally expect someone to appear behind, he just re-appears in front of the Uchiha, trying to slam a fist into Madara's face with such force that a nearby volcano can't help but erupt as if not wanting to be shown up by a mere mortal. 

:'''{{#var:651|Madara Uchiha (651)}} has posed:''' There is a crunching sound as Lee's fist impacts Madara's face, sending cracks radiating outwards, and revealing quite clearly his skin is more like pottery or some caked-on grime than true flesh. His head whips backwards and he flies for several feet before coming to a stop. His right eye is missing, leaving only a gaping, ugly, empty hole. "Fantastic!" he offers in joy, oddly enough. "You're fast enough that even though I could predict your movement, I couldn't react in time. Truly amazing!" Then he stomps on the volcanic soil with one foot, breaking it, and kicks a chunk of lava-dripping stone at Lee forcefully. Then he uses some of his own speed to chase after the improvised projectile and actually outpace it by the barest of margins so that he can come along the side and try to strike the shinobi in the side with a kick. The hellish glare of the erupting volcano paints the scene in hues of violent red and black, both for Lee's strike, and Madara's. Each time they clash, it seems, the eruption becomes more violent. This IS pretty unstable terrain is all the force they're releasing doing something to the environment beyond just their local area? 

:'''{{#var:678|Rock Lee (678)}} has posed:''' Blood flies from Lee's mouth when the boiling hot rock collides with his face, then when the kick slams into his gut he doubles over. His body is both more solid than normal, but also made more fragile by just how much it pushes well beyond the natural limits of even a ninja's body. "This... this is what one of the most powerful ninjas of all time is like... but now you see what we are like, here, in this generation, even without ninjutsu or genjutsu! What I am, who I am... none of it would be possible if we were all stuck in a mindless illusion! There is no true passion in an illusion!" "I was saving this for Lute, but I have no choice!" He starts front flipping forward at an incredible speed, then stops, reaching forward to try and wrap his arms around Madara's waist. "The Suplex of the Dancing Leaf!" He suddenly tries to lift the legendary ninja, with the intent of lifting him into the air, spinning with a mindbendingly disorienting speed, then tries to slam the ninja into the ground with body-breaking force. 

:'''{{#var:651|Madara Uchiha (651)}} has posed:''' Madara is seized before he can act to defend himself or move out of Lee's reach, and then slammed into the ground after being carried into the air. There are lava flows everywhere, but some of the terrain is more solid than otherwise. Some of it has been hardened and re-hardened, layered over and over in the same process by which the very continents were formed, as well as islands. Lee manages to avoid a grisly fate slamming Madara into a sea of lava and getting caught in as well, by instead making a huge crater in that densely-layered terrain. A dust cloud still erupts upwards, then erupts from that eruption upwards, and then up a THIRD time, leaving a pillar of ash, dirt, and rock reaching up towards the sky. Madara comes out of the top of that pillar, dust trailing from his body - and not all of his volcanic. He is missing significant portions of his body. He's even missing an arm. But as he arcs up and backwards through the air, his long mane flying out before him, there are bits of ash and dust flowing towards his body from the air around him to try to repair the damage that was just inflicted. Even so, however, he isn't looking to be in good shape. That self-reconstruction may be a problem, however, if it doesn't have some kind of limit to it... Madara begins his descent towards the ground eventually, keeping his still-working Sharingan on that dust cloud where his enemy may yet be lurking, but also sensing around for some indication of if he may be planning to attack from another angle. Lee doesn't seem to have much in the way of Chakra... That steam was his sweat evaporating, for instance. But there's still a great deal of Chakra flowing THROUGH the Taijutsu-specialist. Madara finally lands on both feet, and waits for his opponent to come at him. Hopefully he can buy some time for his body to repair itself a bit more. He is definitely enjoying this. He hasn't faced off against a Taijutsu user of this skill in a long time. Not on the level of Hashirama, of course, but then only Madara was. It's not a fair comparison to make. Rock Lee is pretty darn good. He holds up the one arm he has remaining, ready to use it to defend, and waits. 

:'''{{#var:678|Rock Lee (678)}} has posed:''' Lee starts to breath heavily, then takes one long, deep breath, regaining his composure after he rolls back and up to his feet again, standing across from Madara. "This is it! No matter how much you regenerate, I will not leave even a piece of you left behind!" He jumps slightly, then kicks the air behind him, actually pushing off of it with enough force to launch him at Madara like a bullet. He angles his body upside down and tries to slam a kick directly into Madara's chin, something that would be a killing blow to a normal ninja, but for Madara, it's just supposed to knock him high into the air. "I will show you what it means to dishonor Guy Sensei. I will show you the height of what he has taught me. I will spread the feathers of my youth, and the final sight that you see will be the Morning Peacock. This ends here, Madara!" He jumps into the air right after him, his leg muscles beginning to tear from sustaining this for so long. "I will use it to hone my technique!" he shouts, then begins trying to launch a rapid series of punches, punches so fast that his fists actually ignite into flames, sending fire flying everywhere, bright just like the feathers of a peacock. He punches, and punches, with superhuman force and speed. "Nine-hundred-ninety-nine!!!" he shouts. "IS THIS ENOUGH TRAINING FOR YOU?!" he asks, pure white eyes blazing with a fiery passion. "ONE THOUSAND!!!" he shouts, with one last flaming punch aimed for Madara's chest. 

:'''{{#var:651|Madara Uchiha (651)}} has posed:''' Lee attacks. And Madara's right eye has just finished regenerating. He is struck in the chin with a crack in his face at the impact point from the strike. It sends him up into the air, where he is then pummeled repeatedly, struck over and over and over. All attempts to block just result in more damage being put into him as fists blazing from air friction scour and tear away at the Reanimated body the Uchiha has been granted. Then that final blow lands, and-blows a hole clear through Madara's torso and out the other side. He goes flying, and lands in a sea of lava somewhere in the distance with enough force to create the biggest geyser of molten rock yet. He doesn't skip across it quite as well, since it's not the same consistentency as water, but where he strikes isn't where he stops moving. His left hand, missing two fingers, remains above the layer of rock for a short time, before catching fire and sinking below the surface, consumed in flaming, near-liquid rock. Is that the end? Has Lee won? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJfNz8csSTk There is a sudden shattering sound, as Madara tears out of the ground right behind Lee. He steps up out of the lava, sparks blazing up all around him illuminating his features. His body appears to be fully intact. And instead of Sharingan in his face... There are Rinnegan. "Excellent work. You utterly destroyed that Wood Clone. I had quite a bit of my power invested into it. Enough to give it the full breadth of my strength. Its elimination has left my original body weakened." He tilts his head to the side, causing his hair to fall away from his right eye. "Ah, well. It will recover eventually." Then he charges Lee in his weakened state, attempting to grab him with his left hand, and then cause his right hand to produce an odd, sharp, black metal rod from his palm. Which he then attempts to impale into Lee's body. Any contact with the rod causes a terrible, invasive sensation like someone else's presence crawling through Lee's own body, as Madara's cold, dark, awful Chakra attempts to flood into the Uchiha's victim through the bizarre weapon. He's smiling regardless of his attack's success, as he says, "You are the closest thing to a capable opponent in Taijutsu since Hashirama Senu, the First Hokage. Perhaps if you could achieve the full Eight Gates Released Formation you could match him. But you need... More... Training." Then he attempts to slam Lee into the ground, kick him in the face while he's down, and start planting more of those Chakra Receiver Rods into hands, feet, shoulders, knees, and back to attempt to pin his opponent down on the scalding soil like a bug. Given Lee's strength and speed, he might be able to avoid some or all of these attacks. But the state of his body... 

:'''{{#var:678|Rock Lee (678)}} has posed:''' Rock Lee is suffering. He's breathing heavily, his skin no longer red. His arms are incredibly limp, one of his eyes half-closed. All of the damage, both done by Madara and his body to itself, it's all coming back to him. Muscles are torn, and he barely has any stamina left. He has to save that last bit, there is still a way out... But then Madara grabs him by the hand. "I... will still not give you what you want... no matter what..." he closes his eyes shut, yelling out in horrible pain each time one of those rods enters his body. Then, once the last enters him and he's pinned to the ground, his eyes widen and he yells enough for the lifeforms to hear for miles. "AAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!" 

:'''{{#var:651|Madara Uchiha (651)}} has posed:''' Madara snaps off the last of those black metal rod from his own body, leaving it in place. Then he walks all the way around, in a slow half-circle, until he arrives in front of Lee. Then he crouches down and looks him in the face. One hand even goes down to cup the young shinobi's chin and lift it so he can't turn his head away. Then he says, "Yours is a skill developed through tireless dedication. But that dedication came from something, didn't it? It came from suffering. Emptiness. Loss. Pain is what gives us a reason to seek strength. But in seeking strength, we trample upon others along the way. Trying to become strong, so that you can fight... People seek peace, but they accomplish it through war. What is wrong with not needing to suffer or hate or destroy? What's wrong with ending war and just having peace? For those within the Infinite Tsukuyomi, there is no difference between this world and theirs, except that the World of Dreams doesn't produce death or pain... They don't have to fight to protect or struggle for the strength to do so. You can be whatever you want to be." Madara looks at where a huge chunk of his hypothetically infinite Chakra is still dissolving and melting away in lava, tied to wood that is turning to ash. Until it finishes being destroyed, that Chakra isn't returning to him. And the Chakra infused into it, is actually making it tough enough to not burn away as quickly as wood would otherwise. "You think you know the difference between reality and dream. That you can say, 'what I am experiencing now is more valid or desirable than what I would experience some other time'." Madara looks down at Lee, and his eyes bear the Eternal Mangekyou Sharingan. "But who told you any of THIS was real?" It's at about that time that Lee may 'wake up', with his body free of any of those metal rods, though the wounds remain, and a perfunctory effort at binding them with vines appears to have been made. Madara appears to already be gone. Long gone. Some of his foul Chakra still clings to the place, but the source doesn't appear to be anywhere nearby. How much of that was real? How much was illusion? ...Is even this real, or is this more illusion? ...Is there ever, truly... Any way to know for certain that he's awake and not asleep? And if not... What is it, exactly, that seperates the World of Dreams that Madara spoke of from Lee's every day life, outside of an absence of all the worst things of life? As well... ...How much did Madara find out from Lee? 

:'''{{#var:678|Rock Lee (678)}} has posed:''' Lee lays there, his eyes glazed over a bit, body worn out and sore. The heat of the ground is nothing to the burning of his muscles. All he can do right now is wait to be picked up, and hope this little island of obsidian holds out. He heard and remembers all of that, but he's still reeling from, well... everything. 

:'''{{#var:513|Finna (513)}} has posed:'''     As soon as Madara has left Lee's vicinity... a little winged lizard that's been zipping all over the place acting scared and spastic suddenly ceases acting on FLEE INSTINCTS.... or the seeming of them... and instead changes. It becomes a young woman with fox features, who's crouched down low and frowning intensely. "Well, THAt guy's the real deal." Was she watching the whole time?     Finna flips over the lava and down onto outcropping, grabs Lee... and VAULTS with all her strength and speed back onto more solid ground. Where there isn't a lot of lava to worry about.     "Sheesh... sorry, warrior. I'm no medic, you're gonna be hurting for a while. But I'll get you to a healer. You have my word!" And she doesn't give that lightly. 

:'''{{#var:596|Zwei (596)}} has posed:'''     As personally requested in private, Zwei has been watching the whole thing. Through the camera, microphone, and rudimentary scanner built into the ear/eyepiece it had given Lee not that long ago, it has recorded, analyzed and documented everything that had transpired between the two ninja; condensing it down to a form that would be useful for Rock Lee's allies should he die and Zwei be required to pass the information along. Of course, that doesn't mean it's been sitting 'at home' the entire time. Lee is a valuable research subject, and still owes Zwei a favour, and so it wouldn't do to actually let the young shinobi drop dead.     Shortly after Finna has extricted him, the reverberating roar of thrusters reaches the ground an instant before the black hulk of Asche does; slamming into the volcanic rock hard enough to kick up a geyser of shattered stone and dust. Placed on sight, Zwei teleports Weiss in with Asche's beacon; the human-sized Armiger simply popping into existence a short distance away from the Lunar Exalted. "Hi there! I think I can take care of that, if you don't mind. I have a transport ship not that far from here, and I can provide some limited first aid on the way there." 

:'''{{#var:678|Rock Lee (678)}} has posed:''' "Ah... Miss Fox..." Lee struggles as she lifts him up. He's a weak mess right now. He's quiet for a bit, then his head slowly rises with the sound of the ship. There's a slight smile when he sees Weiss, nodding his head. "I... I hope you liked my taijutsu... I need to lay down..." 

:'''{{#var:513|Finna (513)}} has posed:'''     "Liked? For a show like that, I oughtta give you a reward or something." Finna declares after gently laying Lee down, nodding her head rapidly and making an impish sort of grin, arms folded. But she whirls about at the sight of Weiss. And SOMEHOW Finna manages to actually make the air whistle when she draws a knife from nowhere.... just long enough to identify Weiss. She twirls the knife and tucks it away behind.. her back? Well, wherever it went it's gone.     "Definitely called for! I could fly him away but all the ups and downs would probably hurt." 

:'''{{#var:596|Zwei (596)}} has posed:'''     "It was very impressive!" Weiss intones, kneeling down to Lee with a pre-prepared auto-injector of painkillers, sedatives, and medical nanomachines to contain internal bleeding and help restore some muscle function, pressing it to the side of his neck with a sharp hiss and a sudden, cold prick. "I've met Madara before, though I didn't know his name at the time. I was mostly able to follow what was going on, aside from your frankly impossible proficiency at unarmed combat." She hands him off to Asche, who warms up his boosters to lift Lee up into the air where the ship is. "What does Konohagakure mean though? And why did he ask where he could find yours?"     Weiss makes the effort to politely wave to Finna, easily able to hide any trace of surprise at seeing her pull the knife. "And hello to you too, 'miss fox'~" 

:'''{{#var:513|Finna (513)}} has posed:'''     "Heeeeello!~" Finna awkwardly rubs the back of her head, now a bit sheepish about pulling the weapon out. But hey, startled people do startling things!     "... That guy'll be trouble later... but I think a team could take him down if he does. I didn't pop out because I didn't feel any real murderous intent from him... didn't smell it either." that's a thing you can smell? Well, maybe if you're a Lunar.     Or maybe she's speaking figuratively. But either way, Finna gives Lee an apologetic glance. "... that technique of yours did more harm to you than your opponent did, didn't it?" 

:'''{{#var:678|Rock Lee (678)}} has posed:''' Lee allows himself to be lifted, relaxing a bit with the injection of painkillers and nanomachines. "That was just hard work and effort. But Madara... defeating him will be very difficult if we cannot figure out how to break the summoning jutsu." He sounds tired, but he still answers their questions and such. "Konohagakure, Konoha, it is the Hidden Village of the Leaf, my home. I do not believe Madara knew the location of our world, but... if he has been in my mind, it means he does not, and who knows what else. But I will need to have my mind checked by experts, to make sure that it has not been altered. I cannot risk being a danger, or an unwitting spy..." He looks to Finna, slowly nodding. "I opened six of the eight gates, it was my only choice, the only chance I would have against a ninja like that. I opened the natural limiters of the human body, the things that keep the body from destroying itself..." 

:'''{{#var:513|Finna (513)}} has posed:'''     "Magic... Chakra... Essence.. whatever you wanna call it, I'm not too good at how that stuff works past my natural powers. We'll need someone else's help if we need to break a spell or something. ... But you pushed him pretty hard, I think...." she winks down at Rock Lee, and procceeds to quietly singsong, "Hard enough that he won't see me coming next time."     The playful attitude is quickl dropped in favor of a serious staring. "...That's a thing he can do? Long-term mind-twisting? I saw the trickery... oh, I know a few tricks like that myself. But long-term? He can do that? Plant a deep compulsion...?"     She now looks at Zwei for a moment, then back down to Lee. "Ugh, that explains the big anima-like lightshow. Hope you won't be doing THAT again any time soon..." 

}}

Fate/Zero Tolerance

2015-01-18T09:24:09Z

Paladine: Created page with "{{TPPage |Summary=Kiritsugu has learned too much about the possible future, and possible alternate futures, to simply proceed blindly along with the Fourth Grail War under the..."

{{TPPage
|Summary=Kiritsugu has learned too much about the possible future, and possible alternate futures, to simply proceed blindly along with the Fourth Grail War under the assumption that it will go differently for him. Likewise, the potential fate of Illyasviel hangs heavy on his mind. Part of making sure his future is different is taking precautions: Like getting his family to safety, so they can not be kept from him by the Einzbern Mage Family. To that end, Kiritsugu is enlisting the aid of the Union in rescuing Irisviel and Illyasviel von Einzbern - but Kiritsugu has greater plans than what he has divulged to the others, and the Einzberns may have a few tricks up their sleeve as well.
|Scale=Major
|Plot_id=17
|Runner=603
|Contacts=
|Theme=Fate/Zero-1
|Audience=Union/Union-friendly Unaffiliated
|Genre=Grimdark
|Events=A mage association outpost was raided for records on secret communications, and evidence that the Einzberns are up to no good.

A meeting was held to discuss what to do about the results of the investigation.

Those involved travel north, to Germany, to confront the Einzberns.

Escape! Attempt to rescue Irisviel and Illyasviel von Einzbern!
|Info=
|State=Finished
}}

1338/The Castle In The North

2015-01-18T07:46:48Z

Paladine:

{{Log Header
|Date of Scene=2015/01/15
|Location=Fuyuki Zero <FZ>
|Synopsis=Kiritsugu, Saber, Sir Bedivere, Psyber, Emiya Shirou, and Maya all venture north, to the Einzbern castle in Germany, to find out just how far they'll have to go to stop Jubstacheit von Einzbern. Some familiar faces are encountered.
|Thanks=
|Cast of Characters=19, 253, 346, 482, 560, 603
|Tinyplot=Fate/Zero Tolerance
|Tinyplot2=
|pretty=yes
}}
{{Poses
|Poses=:'''{{#var:603|Emiya Kiritsugu (603)}} has posed:''' The Einzbern Castle is located in Germany, in a mountain district near a certain river. Approaching on foot is difficult, due to the uneven, uphill terrain. Other hinderances include the freezing cold, hostile wild life, evil spirits, and Bounded Fields of various kinds. All in all, most 'normal' people can't find the place at all unless led there, due to the suggestion magic that dissuades people from approaching. Those who do make it through somehow tend to suffer very unpleasant fates. Thankfully, there is also a road through the dense forest that surrounds the castle (with its own defenses), so trekking on foot isn't necessary in this instance. There is presently a snow storm ongoing, cloaking the surroundings with walls of swirling white, and painting the landscape an indistinct monocrhome. Occasional glimpses might be caught of trees or things that might be road markers, but all in all, there's not much to see right now outside of the series of limousines that make their way up the road. Kiritsugu is in the back of one such limousine, in the same suit and coat he always seems to wear. There's room for all of those going to the castle to be seated along with him, but for those who may object for whatever reason, there's two other limousines available. All three limousines are specially reinforced to be able to endure quite a savage beating, and have at least some attempt made at concealing the nature of their occupants by magecraft (though any skilled magus truly determined to find out who or what is in there would be able to pierce the concealment in short order). It's been months since Kiritsugu has been back here. He seems to be lost in thought as he gazes blankly into the screen of the cellphone that Saber got him for Christmas. What's on it isn't visible unless someone is sitting right next to him. Maiya Hisau has her phone on her as well, though she is focused on actually driving through this blizzard. The drivers of the other two cars are not as identifiable. Infact, they aren't even people. The multiverse has some amazing technology available, and Kiritsugu was quick to try to adapt it for his purposes. Those two limousines back there? They're being 'driven' by computer. They are, infact, mimicking the driving of Maiya, on a slight delay, so that they are not turning at the EXACT same time, but rather, turning when they reach the place that she began her turn. Neat stuff. You know what else is neat? When the limousines break through the forest line, bounded fields passing over each vehicle in a way that those with magic circuits may be able to detect, and the snow storm clears just enough to see the HUGE CASTLE looming up over the treetops, snow flying every which way. It's at least as big as the one that the Einzberns had transported to Fuyuki City. This is where Irisviel and Illyasviel von Einzbern were born. http://tinyurl.com/nf26gpf 

:'''{{#var:253|Psyber (253)}} has posed:'''     Psyber hates letting other people drive, but it's an imposition he will endure for the sake of not creating waves for what is supposed to be a diplomatic meeting and an alliance-forging trip. Endurance, however, does not mean enjoyment and that shows on his face pretty clearly.     So he's actually not doing much. He's lounging in the back of one of the limosines with his hands folded behind his head and his eyes shut. He's got a pair of earbuds in his ears and is almost certainly just listening to an audio book quietly. It's pretty low-key. 

:'''{{#var:346|Saber (346)}} has posed:'''      The leonine roar of a finely-tuned Yamaha V-Max permeated the blanket of silence brought on by the heavy snowfall, but for the lower, more subtle rumble of the limousines already idling. It wasn't a terribly stealthy way to travel, generally...but for the purposes of its owner, it served well enough. Though subtle, that rider could not help but stand out by her very nature. And it was that very nature which had, in part, led her to this isolated castle in the German mountains.      But even if her magical nature had somehow failed her, memory would not. This was certainly not the first time the Servant Saber, formerly of the Fourth Holy Grail War now being waged, had been to Einzbern Castle. Not only was it the place where the white-haired homunculi were born, but it was the very place she had first been summoned to the modern era, inside the cathedral which lay beyond its outer walls.      The motorbike pulled forward even through the heavy snows -- a feat only possibly for someone with Riding skill or something similar -- bearing the two riders on it beside the waiting limousines. She only paused briefly to gaze up towards the castle with an expression only readable to her current Master, a fellow knight so in tune with her personality that they had no need of verbal communication at all. He would, no doubt, be able to see past the calm mien and sense her conflicted emotions. And he would sense through that bond that she had been here before.      While the tall, pale-haired man at her side hardly trusted him, Saber had no particular objections to riding with her former Master. Or rather, the "magus killer" who would /become/ her Master, if events in this War played out as they had in her version if it.      She entered the car silently, folding her gloved hands in her lap and regarding the occupants neutrally. The little blonde was dressed in the customary three-piece black suit, vest, and tie with a grey dress shirt she wore for business occasions, but with a new addition; a trenchcoat which would have been necessary for a normal human being in this sort of weather. Her hair was pulled back into the ponytail she wore with it, further obfuscating her true gender. As was her custom dealing with the events of her native reality -- or a different version of it -- she wore her neutral expression like a piece of armour, even as she wondered what Kiritsugu's plan was. 

:'''{{#var:482|Sir Bedivere (482)}} has posed:''' Snow is not a foreign concept to some of the convoy. The hills of Camelot would have been mantled in white, although the hills of Dun Realtai certainly are, and several dozen degrees colder than even the fiercest winter in Camelot. Yet for all that, the winter there seems gentle, beyond the deep freeze; it seems rare that the winds are howling, and snow drifts down gently, almost peacefully. It's a place of rest... and it's a place its lord is reluctant to leave. Chivalry is not an easy path, though, and so it is that Sir Bedivere of Dun Realtai -- or perhaps another, older name, now forgotten by the legends, depending on whom one asks -- rides along with the convoy, on the back of the Yamaha V-Max driven by the Servant Saber. He is not fond of modern machinery, and prefers nothing more complicated than a horse to ride when he needs to cover a great deal of ground. Something as complicated as a motorcycle is slightly terrifying to him. That might explain why, leaning forward, he has his arms wrapped around the king's waist in a grip that might be uncomfortably tight if she were mortal. Thanks to the nature of the meeting, he's worn modern clothing; a well-tailored black suit much like Saber's own, and a long coat over that, with gloves and boots suitable for snowy weather. Perhaps out of place amongst it is a blue-grey scarf, obviously hand-knitted, and slightly clumsily at that -- but he doesn't seem to mind. He's a little shaky when he lets himself slide off the side of the motorcycle, staggering slightly in the snow. But he stands tall when he glances back to the Servant, as she looks to the looming shape of Einzbern Castle. He slides into the car beside her, and if not for his height, gender, and pale complexion, he might serve as the king's double -- stone-faced, calm and logical. His hair, however, is much longer; pale as the snow outside, only touched faintly with blonde. It's drawn back into four braids, two at each side of his head, and halfway down the braids are bound by bronze cuffs; left unbound after that point, while the longer hair hangs at the sides of his face, and slightly uneven bangs over his forehead. His eyes are an odd shade, almost blue-grey, but just a bit too violet to be taken as straight blue. They're about as welcoming as the snows outside, and they flick briefly to Saber before settling on Kiritsugu, so bland that Saber herself wouldn't mistake his wariness. 

:'''{{#var:19|Maya (19)}} has posed:''' It is best to not let Maya drive, her world doesn't really have the same concept of road laws that Earth based realities do. Seriously most places go by air even over land most days. So here Maya is here wearing something different than normal. Today Maya's wearing something quite different than she normally does shes wearing a red sleeveless shirt which leaves small part of her belly expose and her upper forearms. Also she swears a long pair of red gloves made out of the same somewhat shimmery material which go up to her elbow. Farther down she's wearing a black leather belt with some metal studs on it on a slight angle about the short black skirt she's wearing. Finally she's wearing a long pair of black stockings and a pair black low heeled mini boots to finish off the look. Also of note here and there such as on her exposed portions of her body one can spot some of the tattoos she's noted she have what little can be seen? They seem to hint at a tribal design. She seems fairly she's even got her hair lose today rather than held back as she looks over to Kerry. "So anything we need to know last moment?" Maya seems to have no visbale wepaons but she likely has her fate cards on her /somewhere/ and there's that small hair clip which seems slightly out of place with her outfit though. 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     Shirou's used to the cold.     Or so he thought.     Nothing would've prepared him for cold like this, so it's good there'd been a memo for 'dress warmly.' He's bundled up somewhat in a thick jacket with gloves and other amenities stuffed in his pockets in case they're needed, but he's basically riding with his eyes glued to the window. "People live this far out in the middle of nowhere? ... there's that other castle in the forest too..." Magi do WEIRD THINGS, no doubt about that. Shirou's amazd, appalled, and frustrated at once. Raising someone so far away from the world... doesn't sound like much fun for a kid...     "And we're headed right into a Magus' stronghold. Better be ready for anything." 

:'''{{#var:603|Emiya Kiritsugu (603)}} has posed:''' Kiritsugu looks up from the phone at Maya's question. He flips it closed, and says, "We do absolutely nothing to draw suspicion upon us. If questioned, the Kiritsugu who went to the Mage Association outpost was a different iteration of me. The fact he had two homunculi masquerading as Illyasviel, and there are no such homunculi with us now, is evidence in support of that - as is the existence of a 'second' Saber. There is no chance you will not be noticed as a Servant." This last bit is aimed at Saber, not Maya. "You are under no obligation to share or conceal any information you do not wish to." That statement has many implications. He wouldn't expect Saber to lie to Jubstacheit von Einzbern or anyone else, and wouldn't ask her to. He is leaving it up to her judgement, however, whether to explain the whole story or only what she feels is relevant. The 'don't draw suspicion' part, however, indicates Kiritsugu probably expects people to be honest about everything except the 'other Kiritsugu'. Since Saber and Bedivere were not present for that mission, they can honestly answer that they were not aware of it when it occurred and did not see 'this' Kiritsugu at the site. But he isn't Saber's Master. And between her and Sir Bedivere, the two knights can determine for themselves what truth is too much truth. They're smart kids. Speaking of kids, Kiritsugu turns his attention on Shirou. He just looks at him with those empty eyes of his for a little while, watching as Shirou himself watches what passes them by outside. Then a hand comes up and sets itself on Shirou's head, rubbing around and messing up his perpetually-messed-up hair even further. "You're learning after all," Kiritsugu says, not unkindly. Soon enough his hand is back to his side, however, the brief display of fatherliness forgotten amidst the looming concerns of what they're doing here. As the vehicles continue their approach, they gradually slow down. A large gate lies ahead, which remains closed for at least a minute while the limousines remain idling. Possibly someone inside the castle is verifying the identities of those in the cars, though with the bounded fields recognizing them and granting them access to begin with, that might not be the case. It could, instead, be a form of posturing. Showing that heretical machinery that no self-respecting magus would employ is not free to come and go as it pleases, and that entrance is granted only when the owner of the castle decrees it so. Kiritsugu and Maiya seem unperturbed. Eventually, the gates open, slowly, and the cavalcade resumes its forward progress instead of idling in the snow. The approach takes them on a circular path around a courtyard. A Mercedes-Benz 300SL is parked near the castle, with a snow cover heaped with powdery whiteness not-quite-fully-covering it. Eventually, the limousines all come to a stop, one after another and the engines go quiet. A long walkway leads to the front doors, with stairs before them, thankfully shielded somewhat by an overhang, though there is still likely to be some snow and ice along the way. Statues of angels - rather DISTINCTIVE angels, with facial features not unlike a certain homunculus's - line the walkway on either side, seemingly praying. Kiritsugu takes his time getting out of the car, waiting for others to do so first as he checks something on his phone one last time. What is he looking at, exactly? 

:'''{{#var:253|Psyber (253)}} has posed:'''     Psyber opens an eye when Kiritsugu starts to go over the plan, tilting his head to the side slightly and asking, "Am I going to have to relinquish weapons at the door? I need to know this, in advance. Being American and all, I have them for very important reasons. Like... what if the King of England shows up and starts trying to quarter soldiers? Or impose serious tariffs on my tea and stamp imports and exports. My guns are very inherently important to me for this fact."     That one open eye looks to Saber and narrows a bit, "See, we have a King of England and part of the court right there. At any time she might decide to taxate me without representation or close off Boston ports until the Dutch East India Company received proper compensation for tea losses in acts of protest!" Psyber waves a hand at Saber vaguely.     The general theme of his catty response full of sarcasm and fake protests is that he has nothing further to add to the plan, no objection to the plan, and generally was just making his joke as a way to greet Saber and Bedivere. Mostly, he just gets out of the car when they arrive and looks around, letting out a faint whistle as he draws his coat up around himself. "Bit ostenatious, but, you know, that's castles for you." 

:'''{{#var:346|Saber (346)}} has posed:'''      It simply would not be possible for the Einzberns /not/ to notice she was a Servant...that was common enough knowledge. "There are wards around the castle, and they have doubtless sensed my presence even from this distance."      However, that was not to say the group did not have at least one advantage, in that regard; they would not know of Saber's true identity. She intended to keep it that way. "All they would know, however, is that I am a Servant. Perhaps my class will not remain unknown to them for long. But they need not know that I am the Servant they intend to summon." That is, if Kiritsugu's own astonished reaction after summoning her had been anything to go by.      She merely nodded in agreement with Shirou's assessment before her eyes flicked to Bedivere. It wasn't difficult for her to pick up on his uneasiness, and her hand touched the top of his just briefly in reassurance. Though the gesture was subtle, it was far more than she ever would have dared in their previous lives.      After the limousine pulled into the courtyard, sea-green eyes flicked to the familiar Mercedes-Benz 300SL. Strangely, the Servant's complexion appeared to pale briefly -- perhaps from some memory which disturbed her even now -- before an expression of some feeling between sorrow and regret flickered across her features. But that, too, was quickly replaced by her stoic mask as she slipped out of the car with a deliberate, continuously-practised grace which might have betrayed something of her noble status. Yet, it was not something she could simply hide; for too many years, she had constantly projected the image of the perfect king. But then again, she could very well be one of any number of Heroic Spirits. Hiding identities behind aliases was just as much to protect them from other Masters as well as Servants.      Saber straightened her gloves, extending her senses outward to feel the delicate winds of prana. She had no need to order Bedivere to do the same; most likely, he was already doing so, perhaps even studying the castle's physical defences at the same time. More than ever, she was thankful that she had the foresight to have appointed him as her marshal...and even more grateful that he was her Master, now. There would certainly be more than a few surprises, but they would be less likely to be caught completely off their guard. 

:'''{{#var:482|Sir Bedivere (482)}} has posed:''' The pale-haired knight seems content to watch the scenery go by in silence, the world cloaked in a silencing veil of white. Such weather is strangely comforting, although he might prefer conditions with slightly more visibility. There's no telling what it is they'll walk into. "I am unfamiliar with the Einzbern fil--magi," Bedivere corrects himself, glancing to Kiritsugu. "Is it possible they may recognise a Master, as well, perhaps through proximity? I am unfamiliar with the techniques of modern magi. While it may be a safe assumption that a Servant would be recognised by a skilled practitioner, I would sooner know what to expect." His eyes flick back to Psyber, as though he were trying to figure exactly what the half-angel's up to with his antics. In fact, most of what he's talking about earns a blank look. What? So he clears his throat, awkwardly. "Greetings, Master Psyber." His eyes turn to the castle itself, and he frowns. "Aye. And large, for so few people. A stronghold this size should comfortably house hundreds, perhaps even a thousand... yet it seems empty." He reaches up, absently tugging at the red stone stud in his left ear -- a gesture of unease, to those that know him. "I would presume that House Einzbern has other means of defense. Hm." His eyes drop to the hand over his, and is that just a touch of colour across those high cheekbones as he looks back out the window? Surely just a trick of the light. Following Saber out of the limousine, he immediately sets to studying the courtyard -- not from a supernatural perspective, but simply a visual check; memorising their surroundings if they should need a quick exit. His eyes drift then to the castle, looking over its fortifications for what seems a very long moment, thoughtful; he straightens his own gloves, and then adjusts the lay of the hand-knit scarf over his neck, hand lingering on it a moment as though fondly. After a moment more of studying the castle, his voice drops. "These walls were never intended for physical defense, and they are not designed appropriately for a stronghold expecting siege." His voice carries a slight, unfamiliar lilt to it; a mark of his native Gaelic, instead of the courtly Welsh. He must certainly be feeling uneasy, walking so knowingly into what must surely feel like a trap to his instincts. "We can safely expect that they will rely on other means of defense, although I suppose that much is obvious. I will be on my guard." His voice drops. "Sir Psyber, may I expect that you will withhold some manner of weapon from their inspections? Something concealed? I would feel more comfortable, in that case, for I have not carried any myself." 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     Buah! Shirou wasn't expected to be treated like a kid all of a sudden. He ends up acting out of some childish reflex moments after the fact to push away Kiritsugu's arm with a snort. "What's that 'after all' part for, old man?" DENSE AS EVER, this kid. Oh he's learned.     Mostly because he's been stabbed a lot by now.     "If something bad happens and we need weapons, I can Project people some blades. As long as they're not Noble Phantasms they should last a while." He offers, hoping that will reassure Sir Bedivere.     "I'm just hoping Kiritsugu's plan works and we don't have to worry about that." 

:'''{{#var:19|Maya (19)}} has posed:''' Maya notds to Kerry as he give sher the information. "I understand and hopefully now I don't look to be from a wasteland I won't be noticed either and I do have confirmed alternates that are a matter of public record." She's even friends with one oddly enough. Either way she's here ready to go as they head up towards the castle she ttakes s good look and will pull on a winter jacket as he moves to follow along with Shirou's Father seemingly lost in thought. 

:'''{{#var:603|Emiya Kiritsugu (603)}} has posed:''' Kiritsugu nods in agreement with Saber, offering a 'hm' of affirmation. To Bedivere, Kiritsugu offers, "The Einzbern magi have focused all their efforts into alchemy. The study and manipulation of the flow of matter. It's not suited to direct combat, but that does not make them weak. They have many methods of fighting or dealing with attackers if they have to. I taught Irisviel how to protect herself, but she is an exception when it comes to fighting. The full scope of what the Einzberns can do is unknown. But given that they can create life itself, they shouldn't be underestimated." Kiritsugu does not respond to Shirou's protest, even after they're out. The boy knows quite well what Kiritsugu meant by 'after all', given how much he had to be stabbed to start thinking instead of just ACTING. Once everyone is out of their vehicles, Kiritsugu and Maiya also exit. Maiya scans the area, and Kiritsugu - though seemingly disinterested in his environment - is doing the same. Trained eyes take in the partially-obscured surroundings, even with snow blowing in their faces... Checking the places that would make obvious sniping locations, trying to detect familiars or other magical surveillance, etcetera. Much like Bedivere, and Saber, they are keenly aware of their surroundings. These two aren't fooled for a moment. Even if Kiritsugu is supposedly allied with the Einzberns, this is the stronghold of a magus, and not being aware of the danger they could be in at any moment would be foolish. Kiritsugu sidles up next to Psyber and offers, "I can't promise you'll be allowed to keep your weapons. But modern technology is considered an offense to most magi. I had to fight quite a bit with Jubstacheit just to get a phone line and power generator installed. Strangers, even those supposedly here seeking an alliance - or perhaps ESPECIALLY such - are unlikely to be permitted anywhere near Jubstacheit von Einzbern while armed." Maybe Psyber was joking, but it's an actual important concern that needs addressing either way. After taking his own time looking around, now keeping those within the castle waiting, Kiritsugu looks towards Saber and Bedivere briefly, particular the latter, taking in his appraisal and offering a small inclination of his head - either in acknowledgement or agreement - before starting the walk up the long pathway to the front door. It's cold to the point of the wind and snow biting the flesh painfully. Maya is probably going to be quite uncomfortable, even with a coat, until they get inside. But at least it will be warm when they get inside probably. 

:'''{{#var:603|Emiya Kiritsugu (603)}} has posed:''' Upon reaching the front doors, they start creaking open before the group even reaches them. Opened by magic or mechanism, the result is the same. The entry hall beyond the doors is empty aside from marble columns set into the walls, reaching up, up, into the vaulted ceiling. It's designed to impress upon visitors the sense of sheer SCALE. To make them feel small, or at least to awe them. Even Kiritsugu acknowledges the design, though he is as much paying attention to the columns on either side as the decor. Pedestals with pottery or statuary line the hall, off to the sides where they won't get in the way, but only a few. This is an entrance, not an art museum. Once everyone is inside, the doors close behind them. And the room ahead, beyond the long hall, could easily serve as a ballroom. It's huge, with a sweeping staircase leading up from the velvet floor to a balcony that then has more stairs sweeping out to the east and west, and the floors on each side. A crystal chandelier lies above, glowing within inner light. A window on the wall behind the balcony shines with the reflected line of the snow storm outside. And in front of that window, a human silhouette becomes outlined. The silhouette slows to a stop in her movement, pausing as she catches sight of the visitors. She is a woman in a white and gold gown, with pale skin, long white-blonde hair, and red eyes. She is looking at all the visitors in surprise. Irisviel von Einzbern. Once she sees Kiritsugu, though, she smiles brightly. "Kiritsugu!" she greets simply before grasping her long skirts in one hand and starting to descend the stairs rapidly - using the carved handrail with her other hand. There is a short time before Irisviel reaches the group. And during that time, Kiritsugu turns his attention on Saber. He has picked up bits of behavior before. He has heard at least enough of Saber's story to know terrible things happened in her timeline. And, if his conclusions are correct, then Iri meant something to Arturia Pendragon. Something important. And so, he says quietly, "I told you your present would be late." And then, "Merry Christmas, Saber." Then Irisviel is upon them, and hugging her husband happily, while still paying attention to the ecclectic assortment of others with him. "I'm Irisviel von Einzbern. It's a pleasure to meet you all. Are you friends of Kiritsugu's?" she asks without any sign of guile or suspicion. 

:'''{{#var:19|Maya (19)}} has posed:''' Maya does find it remarkably cold until they get inside and it should be warm inside she's somewhat used to the tempatures and understood part of the cover would involve this as she comes on in she. Thakes moment to try and warm up a bit before she follows along with everyone else she bows slighly for a moment she smiles at Irisviel and bows slightly and says. "Thank you it the same and Yes we are friends of Kiritsugu. You can call me Maya Artisan." 

:'''{{#var:346|Saber (346)}} has posed:'''      Saber suspected that, in his own way, Psyber was doing the same. Or preparing, at least. The antics scored a slight shrug from the Servant...at least, her equivalent: a slight sideways tilt of her head. It was the Einzbern's funeral if they wanted to separate loving owner from his guns.      On the other hand, Bedivere's suggestion was probably right. Perhaps it might be pushing the envelope on what was considered "honourable", but the half-angel said it himself; he was no knight. He was under no obligation to follow their strictures any more than the Hashshashins were.      Her glance at Shirou contained a flicker of uncertainty; the red-haired magus had been training hard, but Projection was a severely taxing form of magecraft. More than likely, if talks broke down, the violet-eyed knight would be better off snatching a display sword from one of the various suits of armour in the hallways. While meant for display, one of them should hold up in a fight. Hopefully, it wouldn't come to that.      Unfortunately, the nonverbal communication between knight and king had its limits, such as when Saber had to explain something for which Bedivere had no frame of reference for. "Irisviel was...is skilled in the use of silver threads to form alchemical constructs capable of attacks," she explained. "Doubtless, the other members of the family have even stronger forms of magecraft."      The Servant remained as cautious as ever, not daring to drop her guard even a fraction. But what finally threw her off was something that she would scold herself later for. She really should have been better prepared, having experienced this strange phenomenon in the multiverse before. She knew what to expect....and yet, nothing can truly prepare someone for this sort of surprise.      Even those who did not share Bedivere's special insight into her character could see the naked surprise on Saber's face at the sight of the red-eyed homunculus. Kiritsugu's instincts had indeed been correct. She could only tangentally acknowledge the magus, her eyes flicking sideways at him, trying to speak before before returning to Irisviel. Fortunately, she had regained her composure by then...at least, for the most part. Her fellow knight would easily pick up that it took significant effort to control her emotions.      "Well-met, my lady. I am called Saber," she replied evenly, bowing European-style at the waist with her arm folded over, reverting to gallant knight. "It is an honour to meet you."      /To see you alive again/ was her unspoken thought. 

:'''{{#var:482|Sir Bedivere (482)}} has posed:''' "Would that it were something suited to direct combat. We would know, then, what to expect." Bedivere sighs and shakes his head, but there's no use dwelling on that now. The best he can do is to remain observant. Thankfully, he can't just turn that ability off. "Very well. And that would be appreciated, Master Shirou, if it should come to that, but it is my hope it does not." The knight's violet eyes flick back to Kiritsugu just in time for that appraising nod, and though Bedivere's expression never changes, there's somehow a hint of disapproval. Perhaps their methodology may be similar in certain respects, with a focus on tactical thinking, but he can never fully approve of such a dishonourable man. He looks up and around as they file into the castle, noting the chandelier and the cold, almost sterile look of the castle. It isn't decoration he himself would be familiar with, and so he ignores much of it, choosing instead to focus on what is real to him -- physical spaces, and the arrangement of the rooms. Of the Union party, one can almost see the wheels in his head turning, playing out scenarios of possible defensible places. When Irisviel addresses them, he takes no step forward, his expression stony. Harmless and polite as she seems, there's still a wariness in his eyes, like an animal that knows it's been trapped in a cage. "No," he says simply, turning violet eyes to Irisviel at her question. He does not bow, perhaps thinking it better to obfuscate the era from which he hails, but he does incline his head. "At least, not I. I am but an acquaintance. Nonetheless, I have heard of you, and I am honoured to make your acquaintance, my lady." His words are subdued, and the accent he carries is a rich lilt, quite blatant, somewhere between an Irish lilt and a Scottish brogue -- not something many of those gathered would have heard before, save perhaps Arturia. A purposeful attempt to hide his identity? Still, he has to give a name, since Irisviel introduced herself; honour compels him. "I am Fionnlagh." He doesn't look at Saber directly, but he studies her from the corner of an eye. With a single subtle motion, he takes her hand in his; offering what comfort he can -- he can sense this is an emotional meeting, for her; although he never knew the full story behind Irisviel von Einzbern. And, sensing that, his first instinct is to comfort her in whatever small and subtle way he can. "We are honoured to make your acquaintance," he murmurs, then, to Irisviel. 

:'''{{#var:253|Psyber (253)}} has posed:'''     "If they try to take my weapons, I'll probably attempt to conceal one or two things, yeah. I'm remarkably hard to disarm fully, because I can produce weapons in unorthodox manners," Psyber reassures to Bedivere, smiling widely and adding, "Though I hope it will not be necessary, as this was supposed to be a peaceful negotiation. Really, you'll probably be of greater use than someone like me. I'm just the muscle to make sure no one tries anything."     Finishing up that thought, Psyber lets out heavy yawn that he stifles with a sleeve of his jacket and rubs at his eyes a bit. Rummaging around in the depths of his coat, he produces a silver can and opens it with a 'fsst' noise, starting to sip from the energy drink as he walks along.     "I'm more of what you can call a repairman," Psyber answers in a vague sense to Irisviel. The half-angel reaches into his jacket to pull out his latest cover ID: He has a badge and ID that identify him as a member of the United States Central Intelligence Agency, "Agent McGroyn, US Intelligence. You can just call me Holden if you like." Psyber says with a serious look on his face, "Nice to meet you, maam." 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     As always, Emiya Shirou's in way over his head. But anyone would be stunned speechless at seeing Irisviel the first time, wouldn't they? He stares. She is very much like Illya and Chloe indeed.     And seeing Kiritsugu go from such a sullen, business-like guy to a huggy husband in the blink of an eye? ALSO worth going wide-eyed.     Shirou ends up smiling. A rare thing for him. A real, happy smile!     "E-... er.. Shirou. Kiritsugu and I met in the Multiverse! Nice to meet you." he quickly gets introductions over, showing some sudden cases of the nerves when it's time to say his name. Don't want to make anything too weird... who knows what anyone else overhearing might make of that? 

:'''{{#var:603|Emiya Kiritsugu (603)}} has posed:''' For his part, Kiritsugu demonstrates he is not entirely heartless and cold after all, as some here might sometimes imagine, and returns the embrace that Irisviel delivers to him. "It's been too long," he mutters into her ear. Iri closes her eyes blissfully, only to open them when Kiritsugu finally withdraws somewhat, maintaining a hold on one of Kiritsugu's hands even after they seperate. Kiritsugu allows everyone to introduce themselves, and Irisviel to take all this new information in. Irisviel's attention is focused on Saber in particular, it seems, though she takes everyone into account. Half is due to politeness, the other half due to curiosity. She has never seen this many new faces all at once in her entire life. Maya, as well, seems to get an interested look when she introduces herself. "Miss Artisan," she acknowledges. Maya and Saber are the two most magically powerful people in the room, (at least as far as Irisviel can tell), so that may play a part, but Maya's unusual wardrobe may also be a matter of scrutiny. She pauses when Saber introduces herself, tilting her head to the side and saying hesitantly, "Sa... ber?" as though trying to pronounce it right. Then she smiles and giggles a bit, her eyes squinting as she says, "That's an unusual name, isn't it? I like it though!" She is fully aware of the Class system of the Grail War, and probably realizes Saber is a Servant. But Irisviel is not treating her differently because of it. If Saber's name is Saber, then that's who she is. If there's something more to know, she's sure Kiritsugu will tell her - or Saber herself, if she chooses to. "It's an honor to meet you as well, Lady Saber" she says as she curtsies before Saber. Bedivere's admission he is no friend of Kiritusgu's initially draws a curious look from Iri, but she 'ahh's when he explains. "An honor to meet you then, Mister Fionnlagh. Acquaintance or not, you are welcome as a guest of the Einzberns." The accent is not one she is familiar with. She is speaking perfect Japanese, presently, but her accent is slightly German. She was prepared to speak English as well, if needed, but it seems that's not needed. Though... She is a bit puzzled by being able to understand Saber and Bedivere (or rather, 'Fionnlagh'), it seems, despite not seeming put-off at all. She doesn't speak or understand old Gaelic dialects. Except apparently she can understand it just fine!? What's going on here? 

:'''{{#var:603|Emiya Kiritsugu (603)}} has posed:''' Psyber's introduction has her hesitating in a similar manner to when Saber introduced herself. "'Holden McGroyn'...?" she asks. Before turning away and covering her mouth with one hand to contain her laughter. Naive? Ignorant of what it's like outside of the castle aside from what Kiritsugu has told and shown her? Perhaps slightly too trusting? Sure, sure, sure. But she isn't dumb, and apparently she has a dirty enough mind to find something amusing in that name. Kiritsugu actually sighs in exasperation. And Irisviel apologizes while wiping tears from her eyes with the back of her pale, slender hand, "Sorry, sorry. That's also a very interesting name, Agent Holden. Repair men for the U.S. government are also welcome as guests." Shirou's introduction gets a somewhat unusual response from Irisviel. She seems just as pleased to meet him as the others, of course. "Hoooh~. The Multiverse, was it, Mister Shirou?" She's all smiles, but there's... A slight impression that maybe she doesn't really get what that means. Time for Kiritsugu to step in here. He gestures around, and says, "These are representatives of a group known as the Union. I have, on occasion, worked with some of them." Kiritsugu's empty gaze seeks Bedivere's, disapproving or not, as he says, "I consider them trustworthy. The Union as a whole is not involved in our War, but some representatives have accompanied me, as I intend to discuss with your great grandfather the possibility of a conditional alliance." Irisviel seems a bit surprised. She hasn't known Kiritsugu to be the type to casually form alliances - and he hasn't taught her to enter such alliances casually either. She knows when to be suspicious and when to be trusting. For instance, when dealing with rival mage families. To whoever these people are... Either they actually are trusted, or there's something else going on. Oh, also about the question of detecting Masters, Kiritsugu would have shaken his head. Either the answer is no, or he doesn't have the answer. "Well, I'll go let great grandfather know you're here," she offers with a hesitant smile. Kiritsugu is reluctant to let go of her hand when she moves to pull away, but allows her to slip from his fingers. "And when I get back, you can tell me what the the Multivese is," she calls over her shoulder as she heads back towards the stairs. "I'll return shortly, everyone~!" 

:'''{{#var:19|Maya (19)}} has posed:''' Maya does notice sthe look but she's well dressed to get a bit of attention for once and she is being polite she can't hide her self magically and will not deny she's some sort of magic user. She looks at them for a moment and she smiles poloitely she does like what she sees of Kerry's wife she's also taking a moment to take in the inside of the castle the old bulding was impressive. She nods as their host heads off for a moment. "Very well then." 

:'''{{#var:253|Psyber (253)}} has posed:'''     At her amusement to his cover ID, Psyber merely responds to her with a bright smile and a nod of his head, red eyes flashing a bit as he says, "Thank you. It's a name I've become very fond of," He states politely, rocking a bit on his feet. He doesn't have too much else to say to her at the exact moment, though. So he kind of falls silent and lets Kiritsugu explain some things.     He gives her a faint wave as she heads off to go let the head of the household know that they've arrived. He shifts his footing a bit, sipping from the can of energy drink in his hand and yawning again. Reflexively, his hand tightens on the can and he yawns once more, "She seems like a nice lady," He remarks as she leaves. 

:'''{{#var:346|Saber (346)}} has posed:'''      Once she had recovered from her initial shock at seeing Irisviel alive again, the Servant's expression returned to a relatively neutral one. Yet, it was not entirely neutral as it had been before, not with the slight smile on her face. It was the same one she had worn while escorting Iri through Fuyuki City, even if the white-haired alchemist would not have remembered it. Such a thing might exist in her future...but it was in Saber's past, over five years ago.      No, this was the same Irisviel she had known, the one who had treated her as a human being, even a cherished friend. Her smile might have been slightly wistful, even indulgent.      She remained silent as Bedivere gently took her hand, though her fingers tightened slightly in response. It was what he would understand as a gesture of thanks and gratitude. And to others, it might give a slight feeling similar to that of Kiritsugu and Irisviel.      /I shall explain in detail later,/ she reassured him silently.      White the Servant didn't distrust Kiritsugu in quite the same way as Bedivere did, she knew that his loyalties were not quite set in proverbial stone. He had no reason that she could see to betray them at this point in time, but neither did she pretend that he wouldn't throw them to the metaphorical wolves if there was a chance to save the world, in spite of having seen his warmer side well before this moment, not only with Irisviel, but with their daughter. Not that he could afford to rely on the honourable side of others all the time -- she certainly never had -- but he should have more faith in his allies to come through, at least. Certainly, he should have had more faith in her, his own Servant.      But that was all in the past, and she need not concern herself with it and could afford to let go of that trace of bitterness. She could ally with the assassin once more, but she no longer needed to place any blind faith in him, not the way she had given her absolute trust to Bedivere.      As surprised as she had been over Irisviel's appearance, the Servant did not so much as bat an eye when the otherwise sheltered homunculus got Psyber's little joke. After all, she'd certainly read one of her own into something completely innocent remark Saber had once made. Was that a tiny vestige of a smirk on the blonde knight's face? It might well be.      Once Irisviel departed, however, the smile seemed to fade from her face, becoming carefully neutral again. "Indeed. She is an honest soul, innocent. Yet, it would be a mistake to underestimate her. Not only in battle but in negotiation," Saber remarked quietly, recalling the truce the homunculus had negotiated with Tohsaka Tokiomi. In the end, it might have come to nothing,...but then, even his own mentor had not anticipated Kotomine Kirei's betrayal. 

:'''{{#var:482|Sir Bedivere (482)}} has posed:''' "Just 'Fionnlagh' is fine," Bedivere murmurs, gaze briefly sweeping past Irisviel before seeking out the corners and the top of the hallway. Although he doesn't outwardly act anxious, his eyes never quite settle on one place for very long. The tactician in him can't shake the feeling that they've walked directly into a trap. He glances back, and something stirs in those violet eyes when he's formally welcomed as a guest. Perhaps they may have invoked Brehon Law with that statement, the Laws of Hospitality, but he doesn't trust them to follow those ancient and time-honoured laws. The modern world is a very different beast than the era originally hails from. Many don't even seem to honour such arrangements at all, or even know what they mean. The knight's gaze flicks briefly to his companions, before eventually settling back on Irisviel again. For a moment he just watches her. There's no mistaking the discrepancy in speech, and he seems to pick up on her fleeting instant of confusion. Perhaps he should have tried to speak English, but he isn't comfortable enough with it yet to handle it outside of a written medium. It's too foreign to his tastes; more restrictive than the natural flow of the Gaelic he was born and raised on, or the courtly Welsh he had forced himself to learn. His lips thin, momentarily indecisive, though it falls away in an instant when Kiritsugu's empty eyes turn his way. His own gaze meets Kiritsugu's, somewhere between that bland neutrality and a faint hint of disapproval. He simply cannot bring himself to accept that man, nor trust him. Indeed, he's only here for Arturia's sake, and his other Union allies. Eventually he looks to Irisviel, watching her reactions when she expresses her surprise. His own expression is bland, purposefully so, presenting as non-threatening an exterior as he can -- a somewhat startling change from the stern, unsmiling Left Hand of the King of Camelot. Indeed, he looks almost meek, unassuming and soft-spoken, with a voice so gentle it could never be strong enough to bellow orders across a battlefield. "Then we will see what may come," he says in response to Saber. His fingers lace with hers, a simple gesture of reassurance, though his eyes still roam the foyer, always on alert for the slightest thing out of the ordinary. If, indeed, anything in this situation could be called 'ordinary.' "I trust her to remain honest, but I cannot say the same for the Einzbern patron." His voice drops, so quiet that only Saber would hear it, or anyone standing immediately beside them. He dips his head over her, addressing as close to her ear as he can without actually slouching; brow furrowing for a moment. "I do not like this, my lady," he murmurs. "I cannot dismiss the feeling that we have walked directly into a trap. I will remain alert." His eyes lift to Psyber, as though silently prompting the half-angel to keep an eye out, too. He trusts Psyber's acumen when it comes to the supernatural. If anything's out of sorts, he'd know. Bedivere himself can't even rely on those fledgling senses of his is too risky. While he can still plausibly deny being Saber's Master right now, revealing that he's some kind of magus -- albeit one very bizarre by modern standards -- would be the nail in the coffin-lid. 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     Whatever funny thing Irisviel's found in Psyber's false identity is lost on Shirou, who's utterly terrible at english.     The still smiling redhead takes some time to look around at the sterile, old, faaaar too empty castle and frowns. It's too empty here. Too lonely. Too cold in spirit.     Enough to wipe his smile away in a hurry....     He strolls over to Saber and Sir Bedivere, whom he knows best out of this group. "Have you noticed how empty this place is?" Who COULDN'T notice that, really? 

:'''{{#var:603|Emiya Kiritsugu (603)}} has posed:''' Kerry doesn't even bother to acknowledge the words of the others at this point. That bried time in his wife's presence has made him feel even more hollow and pained. That reunion only served as a reminder that she isn't going to be around much longer. Even if he doesn't fight the Grail War, even if he does as Chloe and Illya's Kiritsugu did and 'dismantles the Einzbern family', he will have started the process too late to save her. Too many years have passed, and a homunculus's life span - even without having to serve as the Grail's vessel - is limited. He pushes this out of his mind. If he starts dwelling on it now, it will interfere with the mission. He just allows the pain to stay there and fester, and focuses on the task at hand. That seems to involve going west, towards a pair of large wooden doors, and then pushing one of them open. "It would be best if we waited here," Kiritsugu announces to everyone. Sure, the place is really empty. Like, so empty that if it weren't kept so clean, it would appear uninhabited. What warmth and humanity that Irisviel brought to the place seemed to leave with her. The new room that Kiritsugu is trying to lead everyone into is definitely the kind of room one would entertain guests in. It's big, with a fireplace crackling with flames that appear to be burning without fuel in one wall. A series of at least fifteen tall, sectioned windows line the other wall, facing out on the snow storm that seems to continue on without respite. There's a variety of furniture, decorations, paintings on the walls, including one of a woman who looks a lot like Irisviel without actually being her. Her wardrobe is quite different as well. More formal, or ceremonial... Kiritsugu just moves to stand near a marble coffee table balanced upon delicately curled silver 'legs'. He's looking at the screen of that phone again. What IS so important that he's spending all this time examining it? It is at this point that people may realize that Maiya isn't with them. Did she even enter the house or did she stay outside? People have time to mill about, be seated, discuss matters among themselves, and so on, before any concern over the phone or Maiya's presence may be washed away on the tide of yet another new arrival. Illya and Chloe are small for their age. But as the sand of foot falls thumping across the floor outside the room come closer and closer, it should become evident that they are still quite a bit bigger than the tiny micro-Illya who bursts through the doors with excitement all over her face. Dressed in a manner similar to her mother, Illyasviel von Einzbern pauses, breathlessly, in the door way after pushing one of the doors open with both hands. She's so tiny. So young. Then a smile stretches across her face as she charges for her father, and tackles one of his legs. She barely even budges him with her light frame. Kiritsugu smiles down at her, and Illyasviel smiles up at him. Then she says, "Welcome home, Kiritsugu!" 

:'''{{#var:346|Saber (346)}} has posed:'''      The petite knight shook her head at Shirou. "It has...perhaps been that way for a long time." It might seem she was vague on purpose, obfuscating for any primitive familiars listening in. But she needed no special senses to affirm that; someone with a critical eye would have made such an observation. Still, the kid was learning.      Her eyes flicked to the magus killer; at least he had found her Christmas gift useful, though she did wonder what he was hoping to find on it. Her first guess was a text of some sort; perhaps Maiya was somewhere outside -- either guarding or actively searching for something -- and her partner was waiting for some sort of signal from her. That was how they had operated throughout the war, and Saber had little reason to doubt that teamwork would have changed.      She didn't entirely trust speaking freely as long as they remained within the castle walls. Had the been elsewhere, she would have appraised the other members of their group of what she knew....from her perspective, that is. In truth, Kiritsugu had a far better idea of what was going on, at least in the present. Saber's usefulness existed only in that she already knew how this war would end.      Once more, the Servant did not seem surprised in the least by Ilyasviel bounding into the room with a laser-like focus on her father, not his indulgent smile. She had witnessed a familiar scene before at the window of one of the upper floors where she and Irisviel had tea, as the two played in the snow outside. It had surprised her then, and she had remarked to the homunculus that his personality then had been so completely at odds with the cold demeanour he otherwise projected the rest of the time.      Now, she said nothing, seating herself quietly in one of two adjacent chairs, leaving the other for Bedivere to take up his usual station at her side. 

:'''{{#var:482|Sir Bedivere (482)}} has posed:''' The pale-haired knight glances back to Shirou, regarding the youth thoughtfully for a moment or two. He doesn't speak right away, instead considering that statement. True, Einzbern Castle has seemed unusually empty. Not just because of the empty halls. The very coldness of it, even on a spiritual level, chills the bones. "Too empty," Bedivere murmurs, even as he follows Kiritsugu into the sitting room. He regards the room with the same neutrality that he had studied the rest of the castle, violet eyes hooded. His countenance might even seem sleepy, but those who know him likely know better. "The stars are warmer than this place." Saber might realise he's not talking about the stars, poetically or literally. He means Dun Realtai... the Fortress of the Stars. That place has more warmth than this, and it's still coming back to life. This place just feels like a husk, an empty shell. If anything it seems to actively reject such things, as though Irisviel's warmth and life were a fundamental insult to its very nature. His eyes linger for a moment on Kiritsugu's smartphone, and there's the slight hint of a frown crossing his face. What could possibly be so important on that device? Is he contacting his assistant? Surely she must have established some kind of perimeter, or she's making herself useful in some other way. He can't imagine either of those two sitting idle. Footfalls. He turns, narrowing his eyes at the door. Too light and too fast to be an adult. Children? This place doesn't seem the type of place to-- Definitely children. Bedivere raises his brows when Illya bursts through the door, eyes widening a little in subtle, but clear, surprise. Kiritsugu hadn't seemed the type of man he would have figured for a father, and indeed, he looks almost confused at that fatherly display when he smiles that warm smile. It's almost a disturbing change from what he's seen. There's something heartwarming about it, at the same time. Despite his own cold mask in Camelot, he'd had a soft spot for children. Sometimes he would watch them play in the fields, or he would help those villages that had been hit hard by the Saxons -- with his own clumsy sewing, he had once left a poorly-sewn doll for a little girl whose entire village had been destroyed. She hadn't found it until after he'd led her people to a new location, of course, for he had 'accidentally' left it behind for her. Yet he had always harboured a soft spot for them. Seeing the little girl so affectionate with a man he had resigned to a cold-hearted, dishonourable murderer is an odd dichotomy. A brief look is flicked toward Saber when she seats herself, but it seems she has no input for him, spoken or unspoken. He lets go of her hand reluctantly and takes a seat beside her, setting aside his coat and straightening the hem of his suit jacket; raising his hands to adjust his scarf. It dangles down to his lap, and while he sits, he idly wraps his hand into the soft and slightly haphazardly-woven wool. But he doesn't interrupt that fatherly moment of Kiritsugu's. Even Bedivere isn't so cold as that. 

:'''{{#var:19|Maya (19)}} has posed:''' Maya looks to Shirou for a moment and nods to him. "It's less lively than some ruins I have explored to be sure it doesn't ... feel like a home or a place people live really to me." She wonders about that she'd almost ponders sensing this place with a spell but it would be rude at best and hostile at worst. So she behaves and waits for their host to return. At this point she wonders what he's looking at but choses not to well say much for a moment longas until their host greets them and she looks at Kerry's daughter. While she does shis, Maya has the look of someone whose a mother or has raised childten when she watches the young girls. 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     "Growing up here can't be very fun for anyone... how do they even get food and water out here?" To say nothing of the other needs of life. But well, magic. Shirou knows little of it.     Then... ADORABLE LITTLE GIRL. Shirou ends up smiling again! Especially since this Illya's even cuter. This just redoubles his feelings about the place... it's nowhere to raise a kid. What kind of person would?     "Good evening, Illya!" Shirou greets her with plenty of wamth and friendliness in his voice to spare! Although on second thought, that might've been a bit too familiar.     Darn Multiversal different iterations making everything weird. 

:'''{{#var:603|Emiya Kiritsugu (603)}} has posed:''' Illyasviel doesn't appear to notice the others present right away even if she ran right past them. Or maybe they just didn't register. But shortly she is turning her red-eyed gaze on all the new faces. "Haaah!" she lets out in dismay as she releases Kiritsugu's leg, props one hand on her hip, and points with the other. "Who are all of you!?" she demands. Kiritsugu puts a hand on Illyasviel's head and ruffles her hair in a similar manner to how he did with Shirou, while his other hand puts away his phone. Illyasviel's so light that her head actually moves around in a circle from the gentle pressure. She folds her arms over her chest and puffs her cheeks out in annoyance. Kiritsugu explains, "These are some guests who will be staying here for a little while. They're helping me out with something." He indicates each person in turn, as he identifies them - or at least by the name they have chosen to go by. "Saber, Fionnlagh, Agent, Maya, and Shirou." Yes, he just introduced Psyber as 'Agent'. That's his first name, right? Right. Illyasviel goes, "Hoooh?" and gets a devious little smile. "If they're going to be staying here then they have to do what I say! I'm basically in charge around here after all!" Kiritsugu humors her and just says, "Of course, of course." Illyasviel then holds up her hands as though expecting a present, smiles, and says, "Great grandfather asked me to get all your weapons. I'll keep them safe for now!" She says it so sweetly. But basically, Jubstacheit von Einzbern just used Illyasviel to make sure he hands over all the weapons on his person. If he does as requested, he'll be disarmed. If he doesn't, or conceals any weaponry, he'll be guilty of deceiving his own daughter. Kiritsugu's smile doesn't falter, and he just removes the hand guns he has from his coat, making sure to unload them first, and then hands them over. Illyasviel carries one in each hand, as she then goes up to Saber and Bedivere next, and asks just as sweetly, displaying a certain cleverness one wouldn't expect from such a small child, "May I have any weapons you have too? I wouldn't want to treat guests any differently than Kiritsugu. That would be rude." Saber and Bedivere probably aren't carrying anything, but she makes the rounds, going to Maya, and Psyber, and Shirou (who receives an odd look due to his familiarity. Does she know him? She returns the greeting easily enough, even if she seems a bit curious now), and making sure to guilt each and every one of them with her bright eyes and innocent smile, until she is confident everyone has done as requested. Even if she may wind up leaving the room with her arms full, and not a lot of strength to carry them all with. 

:'''{{#var:603|Emiya Kiritsugu (603)}} has posed:''' On her way out of the room, she spins around the call out, "I'll be back after I put these somewhere safe! I want to tell you all about how I was able to help great grandfather!" Yeah. Kiritsugu isn't supposed to know about that yet, according to the story he's going to be going with. But he found out all too much about it already. Kiritsugu just smiles and nods to her. Jubstacheit is the sort of man who will use children as hostages if it will achieve his goal. Speaking of whom... Just as Illyasviel is resuming her exodus from the room, Irisviel is coming in and has to sidestep her daughter in surprise. She is carrying a silver tray with a teapot, tea cups, sugar, and so on. She smiles after Illyasviel when she gets over her initial surprise, and then continues on into the room. And right behind her is a man. A man who is old and yet seems rather fit and graceful for his age. His white beard almost appears as a frozen waterfall. His presence is imposing, and there is a pressure felt in his gaze if anyone meets it. This is no senile old fool. According to Kiritsugu, Jubstacheit von Einzbern is over 200 years old, and yet he appears to be quite sharp of mind. His gaze travels around the room, taking the measure of each person in turn, though some appear to accrue more scrutiny than others. Namely, Saber. Eventually, the 'old magus king' of the Einzbern castle focuses solely on Kiritsugu. Kiritsugu meets that gaze head-on, and there is no more smile to be had on his features. "I hear that you have been asking some interesting questions," Jubstacheit says. He is not asking if the 'rumor' is true. "You and your companions will, of course, stay the night." The magus's eyes narrow. "We have much to discuss." 
}}

1250/The Assassin's Council

2015-01-18T07:46:35Z

Paladine:

{{Log Header
|Date of Scene=2015/01/03
|Location=Fuyuki Zero <FZ>
|Synopsis=In a castle owned by the Einzberns, just outside Fuyuki City, various people assemble to discuss how to save Irisviel and Illyasviel von Einzbern from the machinations of a magus family.
|Thanks=
|Cast of Characters=19, 42, 206, 253, 560, 591, 603, 617, 641, 664
|Tinyplot=Fate/Zero Tolerance
|Tinyplot2=
|pretty=yes
}}
{{Poses
|Poses=:'''{{#var:603|Emiya Kiritsugu (603)}} has posed:''' A mansion/castle owned by the Einzberns, just outside of Fuyuki City, in the middle of a forest, is the meeting place selected. While Kiritsugu prefers to keep people away from this Fuyuki to avoid making them targets and to avoid causing the other Masters to take the presence of these outsiders as provocation of some kind and disobey the Church in order to start the Grail War early, for now this seems a secure enough location. There are Bounded Fields throughout the forest, but Kiritsugu is not proficient enough at magecraft to use them. The castle itself is rigged with traps, but he is meeting everyone in the garden outside, so that shouldn't be a problem. Psyber has been here before, as has Chloe - even if her stay may have been brief, since she was just recovering from all her prana expenditure after attacking Kiritsugu. It is late-afternoon / early evening, and the air is a bit chilly. However, the sky is relatively clear. Kiritsugu is seated on a stone bench, with his arms resting on his knees, his gaze down at the ground. Maiya Hisau is seated next to him, and going over information on a laptop. She has a similarly emotionless expression on her face as Kiritsugu's does. 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     It takes Emiya Shirou quite an effort to get out here. There is no warp gate anywhere nearby, and the forest is a treacherous path indeed. If he didn't have specific instructions he might get lost for hours. It might indeed be luck that leads him into the meeting place...     And the Einzbern castle, way out in the middle of nowhere, is a sight grandiose and utterly strange enough to get him gaping bewilderedly, disbelief momentarily setting in. "There's a whole castle out here?!"     How RIDICULOUS is that? 

:'''{{#var:617|Chloe von Einzbern (617)}} has posed:''' "Oh, what you didn't know?" That would be Chloe. As usual the dark-skinned girl just sort of appears from out of the blue at shirou's side. Hands folded behind her head, she's in some casual clothes at the moment; no need for her Archer outfit. "The mansion is kind of old news, big brother. Yep she's been here before, after that little 'Tried to attack her father' debacle. 

:'''{{#var:253|Psyber (253)}} has posed:'''     Psyber is hanging out and doing his best impression of a chimney, smoking up a storm because he arrives on the scene with a casual sort of gait and a wave. The cigarette that dangles out of his mouth allows him to exhale casual amounts of smoke persistently as he approaches the Magus whom is currently staring at the ground. "How now, brown cow?" He asks to Kiritsugu, hands coming up to fold behind his head in a casual gesture as he watches the two expressionless magi. 

:'''{{#var:206|Harry Dresden (206)}} has posed:'''     How about we add some more Magi?     Harry Dresden rubs at his face. This place makes his head hurt. Wayyyy too much magic in one place for anyone's good. And that's coming from a guy who's got death-traps on his front door 'just in case'.     That said he's travelling light tonight, just his staff and possibly his rod under that duster of his. The Detective grumps and waves at the other similarly dressed men and snorts. "I'd get a new look but I'm not sure who had it first, honestly."     He also smiles over at Chloe. "Hey kiddo." 

:'''{{#var:42|Staren (42)}} has posed:'''     Staren has yet to /meet/ Kiritsugu. However, from hearing the man on the radio, he seemed to have a... practicalness to him that Staren appreciated, so he looked forward to meeting Shirou's alternate-universe father.     His standard procedure is to come through the warpgate, then repeatedly use his personal teleporter until he reaches the target site. For getting anywhere on an Earth-size planet, this is usually good enough, though it might take a minute or so of repeated teleporting. On the Multiversal surface... well, hopefully it's close enough to a warpgate.     The people he's seen before get nods. "Shirou. Psyber. Harry." He looks between Chloe, Kiritzugu, and Maiya, and decides to start with approaching the man who called them here. "Staren. Researcher of problems for the Union." He extends a hand to shake, and smiles slightly. "Pleased to finally meet you." 

:'''{{#var:591|Aoko Aozaki (591)}} has posed:'''     There is an Aoko in a corner.     Do not mind her.     Red hair, white t-shirt, jeans, perfect soccer mom look.     She is currently tossing a tiny ball of blue light up and down, twirling it between her fingers, and occasionally keeping it in mid-air over one finger, although she never directly touches it. It is surprisingly bright and annoying.     At least she's not tweeting with her cat? 

:'''{{#var:19|Maya (19)}} has posed:''' SO Maya is here leather and all at the castle she's not sure what to think about it and damn how did something like this get built in Japan? Either way she's here and she's being polite really. She keeps quiet she's not come visably armed and has found her way with the others. "This is ... what you can do when you have enough coin and connections, really." She looks to See Chloe Psyber, Aoko, And Harray as well. "Psyber, Harry, Aoko." She also turns to notice Staren as well. "Staren." 

:'''{{#var:664|Archer of Brown (664)}} has posed:'''      An Archer materializes in the garden. Much to the benefit of literally everyone here, it's not the Fourth Grail's Archer. No, this fellow is a legend of the Old West, a man dressed mostly in black save for the bright red sash holding his sixguns to his waist. They rest against him, handles forward to facilitate a twist draw. Archer tips his hat to Kerry. "Mr. Emiya." Then, he turns his attention to Shirou. "And son."      How does he know the redhead? "Archer," he says. "Archer of Brown, if there gets to be too many of us." The man flips an errant lock of hair from his shoulder, then crosses his arms. "My boss ought to be here in a few." He makes a taste as if he's just eaten something bitter. "He insisted."      The Servant backs away from everyone, not turning his back on any of them, then leans against the nearest wall. He quietly retrieves a hand-rolled cigarette from his coat pocket and lights it up. 

:'''{{#var:603|Emiya Kiritsugu (603)}} has posed:''' Psyber receives acknowledgement when he arrives, Kiritsugu lifting his empty gaze to take in his fellow smoker. Not a great habit to have. Especially for those who do not have superhuman constitutions or regeneration and can suffer legitimate health issues as a result. But honestly, on a good day he is dealing with stuff considerably more lethal than cigarettes. He is going to die some day. It's not a huge concern. "Well enough," he answers. He may not be a cow, but he is fairly tan, so apparently he will reply to that form of address. Shirou and Chloe arrive moments later after taking the time to advance to the castle and then locate the garden. Then Harry, who Kiritsugu is only meeting for the first time. Staren's introduction has Kiritsugu nodding briefly and making an affirmative noise in the back of his throat. He may not be very personable, but he at least gets to his feet and accepts Staren's hand to shake it. Aoko, even with her bright and annoying ball of light, is not minded. She is not tweeting with her cat, so her behavior is totally acceptable. But if that phone came out and the cat tweets started, then there would be much crossness maybe. As Maya arrives, Kiritsugu is just about to start speaking when he becomes aware of the haze of a Servant manifesting. Oh, good. It's just Archer of Brown. He - and his Master/Boss - were invited. Their loose affiliation is still just as loose, but if the Senator wants help with his Grail War, in exchange for help with Kiritsugu's, a show of trust on both their parts is needed. The Magus Slayer is letting Mason in on something very important to him, and Mason is expected to treat the matter with due care. Whether or not the Senator will actually become involved in offering aid or not is another matter. But Kiritsugu at least expects confidentiality. He nods to Archer, and then addresses all of those assembled. "Thank you all for coming," Kiritsugu says, as he puts his hands in his coat pockets. "The results of an infiltration mission at the Mage Association office have been analyzed. Likely, the Mage Association itself is going to figure out what happened sooner rather than later. I am definitely not trusted, so people already had cause to be suspicious. When Illyasviel von Einzbern of my time shows up to receive her great grandfather's message, and looks considerably younger than the one who received it previously, there's going to be questions asked." The fact that there were two 'Illyas' there as well was kind of a tip-off. People were probably already getting in contact with Jubstacheit before the Union even left the area. Maiya closes the latop and stands up next to Kiritsugu. Kiritsugu and Maiya have definitely updated their arsenal with that of more advanced worlds. That laptop looks pretty compact. "To summarize the situation for those who are not aware, the summary is that Jubstacheit von Einzbern is using my daughter, Illyasviel, in his preparations for the Fifth Holy Grail War, and has physically modified her in some way. I don't believe her mother is aware of it, or if she is, I don't believe she has been permitted to contact me about it. My family is being used and is in danger, and Jubstacheit has essentially ensured an eight-years old girl will begin training to become the vessel of the Grail itself if I don't retrieve it for the Einzberns in this war." Kiritsugu turns to look at Archer, then at Aoko, then at Psyber, and then to Harry, Maya, and Staren, before finishing with his gaze on Shirou and Chloe. "Whatever is done needs to be done quickly. There is a limited time frame before the Einzberns find out what I've been up to and take action themselves. What is the analysis of the situation and the options, from each of your perspectives?" 

:'''{{#var:42|Staren (42)}} has posed:'''     "Hey Maya! Good to see you." He smiles, then turns back to Kiritsugu.     Staren listens, and frowns. At Kiritsugu's question, he replies: "They've kidnapped your daughter to use her to get a wish they should know better than to trust anyway? You're making me want to kill them all before such idiocy can hurt anyone else /or/ your daughter." He sighs. "I don't suppose they have some sort of good reason for all this and they're just /really/ misguided but could be talked into a better method? As for tactical options..." he shrugs. "I'm afraid that's far too little information to go on. I barely know anything about the Mage Association or what it means for someone to be a 'vessel', or what special powers your wife... wives? And daughter can bring to bear on all this." 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     "Chloe?!" Less startled this time and more just making sure, Shirou turns about to face the not-quite-Servant, showing both a faint smile and relaxing once it's affired. "Old news. It's old alright. The Einzbern family couldn't just use a hotel or a little shack, they built a whole castle way out here?!" Shirou's not sure whether to be amazed or simply disgusted at the wasteful extravagance. Oh well. There are more important things to worry about.     Like Aoko and her little bouncy ball. No starting up old sing-a-longs, Blue!     No wait the real important things are Archer and Kiritsugu. Shirou spots the Servant, guesses... "The Senator's Servant?" Because just making sure.     Though the important thing is really Kiritsugu's request.     "The situation and options? ... If he's starting training her already... does he not have any faith in you, old man?" THAT kinda bothers Shirou. Shirou knows Kiritsugu's awesome, of course he'll go far.     The boy folds his arms. "No kid should have a burden like that thrust on them. I'd take her somewhere far away from the Grail War!" 

:'''{{#var:206|Harry Dresden (206)}} has posed:''' Harry grumbles at Shirou's last statement. "That isn't going to work. Not for an outfit like this. If they're going to those lengths to try and summon a Grail, they're not about to let a mere kidnapping or costodial rearrangement stop them." He's got a notepad and pencil out and is taking notes.     "Kiritsugu, what's the situation with your War, has the Grail appeared yet, or is... is Illyasviel going to be the choice for the creation?" 

:'''{{#var:591|Aoko Aozaki (591)}} has posed:'''     "Well yeah," Aoko idly says towards Kiritsugu. "That's magi for you. Plan ahead! Prepare your lineage. Never assume your lifetime is going to be enough to reach your goal, so do whatever you can to ensure those who follow do it for you. Kind of a dirty trick, huh? But that's their M.O., most of them anyway. Can't throw a rock in the Clock Tower without hitting a magus with contingencies against their deaths."     Hop. Up goes the ball.     She'd do sing-along karaoke with the little ball but she's pretty sure if she tries to make it bounce on a flat plane it's going to blow up. I MEAN THIS IS COMPLETELY SAFE AND SHE KNOWS WHAT SHE'S DOING. Yes. That's what I posed.     "Did you find out anything about the vampire cat? I mean, the one we chased off, not mine. You should absolutely not research my vampire cat and pretend nobody ever said I had one." 

:'''{{#var:253|Psyber (253)}} has posed:'''     "My current vote is a Smash and Grab. If they're relying on the girl to become the Grail, we just bust in and circumvent that," Psyber notes with a cigarette in his mouth. He doesn't receive any poor health effects from smoking and instead just gets the smooth flavor of nictotine.     "The concept is simple," Psyber posits, taking the cigarette out of his mouth for once, "We pose as the bad guys, you pose as the good guy. We all feign a kidnapping attempt on the girl and her mother, you show up to stop us, fuck up one or two of us real bad, but we get away in the end."     He waves his hand, "Grand theatrical act, you look like you did all you could and the entire thing looks FUBAR." 

:'''{{#var:42|Staren (42)}} has posed:'''     Staren looks at Aoko. Vampire cat? 'Hmph.' He grumbles. 'Some mage they are, if they're planning on /dying/...' His ears perk up as Psyber talks and he turns towards the half-angel. "I like that plan. It's straightforward." 

:'''{{#var:19|Maya (19)}} has posed:''' Maya @emit Maya is welcomed at this point in some fashion and she nods she listens for a moment and she seems to be just listening for a moment and she owners how things played out. She thinks for a moment before she opens her mouth to reply on the situation. "Right given the things that could be done the sooner we're able to get them out of it the better.." She nods to STaren but she's also in business mode there's a lot going on here after. She looks to Psyber nodding he's got perhaps even more experiance in these things thtn she does. "I can get into that I ... have a cover I can use for that actually if we need to for what it's worth. So my vote's with Pysber on this." 

:'''{{#var:664|Archer of Brown (664)}} has posed:'''      Click. Click. Click. The sound of a metal tipped cane against stone is quite distinctive, and it only becomes more noticeable the closer it gets. An old man rounds the corner. He gives Archer a meaningful look, perhaps one long enough to have communication behind it. "Thank you," he says to the Servant. He comes to a halt once he's within speaking range of everyone else, then introduces himself.      "I'm Archer's employer. Senator Albert Mason, at your service." He makes the rounds quietly, shaking hands and patting shoulders, making sure not to speak over anyone voicing their opinions. "The gentleman in the duster has the right of it," he says, pointing with the diamond handle of his cane towards Dresden. "The Einzbern family doesn't have the brute strength of the other families. Homonculi are a convenient solution to that, in their eyes. Designer mages, if you will. Even if you could get Ilyasviel to safety, they'd just make another. Alchemists are nothing if not patient."      Archer grunts. "You suggesting we just off the old bastard?"      "No. He's already planning for the Fifth War despite having hired Mr. Emiya. Either he doesn't trust Kiritsugu, or he's simply making a backup plan. Either way, that only makes attacking him directly even more of a bad idea than it already is. Our feline friend has the right idea. I vote for a diplomatic approach. If you want to catch ants, use honey before vinnegar. Offer Jubstacheit something of equal or greater value." 

:'''{{#var:641|Illya von Einzbern (641)}} has posed:''' The von Einzbern forest is strangely familiar to Illya. However, she is... also very, very late. Like, late enough that once she managed to bail on her Fuyuki City, and thus Sella and Leysritt, she glances at Magical Ruby, and the Kaleidostick nods. One magical girl transformation later, and ten minutes later, skirting the fields, Illya sips with intent determination, her pink magical girl outfit flutteirng in the wind of her abrupt spot as she realizes who all is here. "Uh." "Hi." 

:'''{{#var:603|Emiya Kiritsugu (603)}} has posed:''' Oh, good. Staren broached the subject, so Kiritsugu doesn't have to. He was actually hoping this would happen. Shirou, of course, delivers the answer Kerry was expecting. It's also one he was hoping for. The others all have valid points and interesting plans. Some more complex than others. None of them quite what Kiritsugu wants. But what he desires and what needs to be done may be very different things. Once everyone has said their piece, Kiritsugu having acknowledged and greeted Mason in the process, he finally prepares to answer some of the questions being asked. Just as Illya drops in, looking fluffy and feathery and like a pink-and-white ball of floof. This is the first time Kiritsugu has seen her like this. For a moment, he is actually speechless. Then he smiles faintly and says, "I'm glad you could make it, Illya." Then the smile dies quickly, as he explains. "The Einzbern mage family is an influential and powerful opponent, though as the Senator pointed out, they do not possess the raw combat strength of some other mage families. I was adopted into the Einzbern family because they had no one suitable to be a Master in this war. They are proud of their lineage and the purity of their blood, and yet they took in me, a heretical magus. That does not mean, however, that eliminating them would not have consequences. While the Einzberns themselves would be dangerous, they have many allies or even rivals who would make it their business to come after whoever was responsible. Many of them for their own selfish reasons, rather than a sense of 'justice'." Not that Kiritsugu cares much about justice. Killing is killing no matter what flowery words are attached to it. "That is what magi are, as Aoko mentioned. As for the vampire cat, my investigation indicates she is a Dead Apostle by the name of Meteora Abbey. She apparently has a 'special ability' to take on the form of a black cat, and is sought by the Church's 'Burial Agency'. Beyond that, and that she is elusive, not much else is known. " Kiritsugu considers for a moment before shifting topics back. 

:'''{{#var:603|Emiya Kiritsugu (603)}} has posed:''' "Jubstacheit's objective is to use the Grail to complete - or regain, to be more precise - the Third Magic, 'Heaven's Feel'. It essentially grants true immortality, by manifesting the soul without a body after the body has died, and gaining a source of unlimited magical energy. That is my understanding, at least, based upon what Jubstacheit himself has revealed. Relocating Illyasviel to somewhere out of the Einzberns' reach is definitely something I intend to do. Making another of her may be more difficult than we imagine, as she is not just a homunculus, but also half human with a magus's blood, and likely more sophisticated alchemically than her mother. But if he is able to modify her already, then I wouldn't put it past the Einzberns to find a way to manufacture another 'Illya'." Kiritsugu's empty gaze travels around again. "If the Union - or other parties - were to act against the Einzberns, they would become targets. That needs to be acknowledged and agreed to by anyone intending to take part in such an operation. Stealing Illya away after she has been retrieved might or might not be attempted. The same is true for Irisviel. But Jubstacheit is so driven to obtain the Grail that I suspect all other passions have been nearly burnt out of him. He has extended his life repeatedly with alchemy, and is now 200 years old. Getting his wish is all he cares about anymore. I respect him despite that, but I don't trust him. So that needs to be taken into consideration when thinking about some sort of 'deal'." 

:'''{{#var:603|Emiya Kiritsugu (603)}} has posed:''' Kiritsugu focuses on Harry's question. "The Grail has not yet appeared, as far as I know. However, except for two remaining Servants, all seven Masters have been chosen - myself among them. Illyasviel was not meant to be the vessel of the Grail in this War." Adding on clarification for those who do not know what some of this stuff means, the tan-skinned man says, "The vessel is the Grail's host, within which it will mature as Servants are slain and absorbed into the Grail. Eventually it will take the life of its host in order to become the Grail itself." Kiritsugu's gaze drifts downwards, but his tone doesn't change as he says, "The vessel for the Fourth Holy Grail War is Irisviel von Einzbern: Illyasviel's mother." Kiritsugu looks at Shirou, Chloe, and Illya specifically as he says this next part. "When I first met Iri, she was a hollow husk. A mindless homunculus who was meant only to function as a vessel for the Grail and nothing more. I objected to Jubstacheit, because I would have preferred a more compact animal form, for practicality's sake. Irisviel's great grandfather threw her naked into the Einzbern's Homunculus Disposal Yard, to see if she could survive for days in the freezing cold with hungry wolves and evil spirits. He told me that, if she died, he would concede that this form was not ideal and make me the new vessel I requested." Kiritsugu turns his gaze on the others. He's intentionally trying to stir emotions in those present by sharing this story. It's very manipulative, to get what he really wants out of this meeting, without tipping off what that is. But he's also telling the whole truth, without deception. "I rescued her, but Jubstacheit was willing to throw her life away without a second thought. As Aoko pointed out, homunculi are tools to them. Disposable ones. It doesn't matter if they have hopes or dreams or even just the capacity for them. Further, giving the Einzberns what they want isn't necessarily going to save anyone. Is facilitating him gaining the Third Magic and becoming a true immortal the preferred course of action here?" Kiritsugu pulls his hands out of his pockets and folds them in front of himself. "I can not call what Jubstacheit is doing a 'betrayal', because, from the start, Iri and I have planned to betray Jubstacheit, and use the Grail not to achieve the Third Magic, but to save the world." Kiritsugu looks to Maiya, and says, "Pull up the information." Maiya nods and opens up her laptop, holding it up with one hand while scrolling through something with the other. "Offering the Einzberns something in exchange for Irisviel and Illyasviel is definitely an option. But I believe it should be a stalling tactic at best, while preparations are made to end their threat on a more long-term basis. However, we've learned of something recently that may make the ideal bait for such an arrangement." Maiya turns the computer around, showing what's on the screen to everyone in turn. An orange crystal sphere with a red star on it. "It's called a Dragon Ball." 

:'''{{#var:206|Harry Dresden (206)}} has posed:'''     Okay, Harry Dresden was nodding and following along for most of that, scribbling onhis notepad... until that last message there. That picture of a Dragon Ball.     And then he blinks a bit, looking up at Kiritsugu. "You're going to offer a Mage family who's already after a Wish that requires the death of people to create a wish that already has major multiversal factions involved."     "You know I've heard you're crazy but... I'm not sure how you'd even sell that one. I'm intrigued though, it's ballzy." 

:'''{{#var:42|Staren (42)}} has posed:'''     Staren listens. Great, so killing them all will only cause more problems. He nods slightly at the explanation that they're searching for immortality. "...I'm not sure I'm comfortable becoming a target. These sound like the 'go after your loved ones' sort of people." Beat. "...Maybe we should kill them all /and/ their allies and rivals, just to make a point."     When Kiritsugu explains that Irisveil was thrown into the wolf pit, he repeats: "...Maybe we should kill them all /and/ their allies and rivals, just to make a point."     Staren looks at the Dragon Ball. "That's one option. We could also offer him immortality that he can have /now/, without having to go through all this trouble. As bait, I mean. Or, if we know that it'll actually work, we can make him immortal, trap him in a box, and do whatever we want with it." 

:'''{{#var:591|Aoko Aozaki (591)}} has posed:'''     "Everything ends. The stars, planets, the people on them, even the dust they become. A smart magus plans for the inevitable. He doesn't plan to die, but he plans for his works to continue even after he dies. Those that try to defy mortality ironically don't tend to live long enough to pursue their work afterwards. You could say immortality robs you of your humanity! And then, well."     Aoko shrugs towards Staren. She lobs the ball of blue of light far behind her, probably right out of a window, and it quietly detonates into a nova, illuminating the area. Mostly it casts a dramatic shadow on Aoko for a bit since it was directly behind her.     "Meteora Abbey uh. Got it." She commits the name to memory and then stretches her arms, placing them behind her head to relax. She looks at the plan-- and then shakes her head. "The Magic is more important than immortality. If a magus wants immortality so badly he'll paint the biggest target of all time on his face he'll just go the vampire route. What you're suggesting, Kiritsugu, is to bring the big War to this world just to bait someone out with a shiny object. That's just a bad plan."     A glance towards Psyber and Staren. "It sucks but the most direct way to deal with this without ruining everything forever is to just off the family, and then skeedadle out of this world with your family where the Clock Tower can't reach you." 

:'''{{#var:253|Psyber (253)}} has posed:'''     Psyber keeps a neutral look on his face. While he thought his idea was sound, and a couple people seemed to agree, he wasn't going to press it when the Archer and his Master came out against it. When the plan gets turned down, the half-angel simply gives a quiet nod to people and then resumes listening to the alternatives.     Whether he's moved or not by Kiritsugu's story does not show on his face. Psyber has, over his many years, learned to play a mean game of emotional poker. He calmly taps his cigarette and lets the ash fall to the ground, "I see. So this is your plan." He blinks several times.     "I cannot aid in that plan," He says a beat later, "If your desire is to simply neutralize the Einzberns, I am with Staren and willing to simply handle that in an alternate means. But I will not be implicit in involving a world in the factional war and bringing pan-Factional retribution upon it."     Aoko voices largely the same thoughts as him and Psyber nods his head at the woman, "Right." He calmly drops the cigarette to the ground and snuffs it under foot. 

:'''{{#var:42|Staren (42)}} has posed:'''     'Well, yeah, you plan both ways...' Staren mumbles in response to Ayako. "Hmm. Great magical power. There's gotta be a way we could fake it..."     Staren blinks at Psyber. "/I'm/ cool with the superfactions eliminating these jerks. I mean, we've cooperated on stuff before." He hmms. "Otherwise... hmm, how /could/ we eliminate them... Maybe find out when they're having some important meeting... you know, the type where higher-ups will be without 'unimportant' innocents like servants and stuff around, then blow it up! Maybe with a small nuke, just to be sure. Ooh! Or we could /make/ the meeting, bait them into forming it where we want, and /then/ blow it up! I mean... these are just ideas off the top of my head. I'm sure we can do better if we think about it." 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     "I can't be in favor of killing a bunch of people we've never even met to save two people!" Shirou blurts out after Staren's made his point, hints of anger and utter defiance flickering on his face. It's a shakey defiance and betrays his own wavering feelings on the matter. He does not like this. He doesn't like it at all. That cannot be the best option!     He gives both Staren and Aoko rather difficult looks.     But it does take him some time to fully parse the story given by Kiritsugu, let a few things sink in... "...Homonculus... disposal yard?!" But Homunculi are PEOPLE. He looks Illya's way, an image of Sieg appears in his mind's eye... Shirou grits his teeth, angry now for other reasons.     "Everything about this war is rotten from the ground up. Calling it 'holy' must be some sick joke..." He mutters. There is NOTHING sacred, righteous or desirable about this.     But then, SHirou doesn't care about a wish... Kiritsugu however, does.     "A wish to save the world... at that cost!?" Shirou rapidly shakes his head, struggling to clear his thoughts. He's not against Kiritsugu! But this is an info overload. Hugely so. 

:'''{{#var:42|Staren (42)}} has posed:'''     Staren blinks at Shirou. "We're not killing them all /just to save two people/. We're killing them to save /all the people they'll ever hurt or kill/ in the future." 

:'''{{#var:253|Psyber (253)}} has posed:'''     Psyber clarifies to Staren in an even tone, "The issue is that this would not be a cross-factional alliance for the Dragon Ball. This is an item sought by both factions, turning it into a competition. A battle. I cannot, ethically, involve an entire city or world into the war, simply in order to eliminate a small faction that I feel could be handled through alternate means. I do not object to the use of factional resources, I object to bringing the Dragon Ball in because it risks bringing the war here as a whole." 

:'''{{#var:641|Illya von Einzbern (641)}} has posed:''' Illya blinks. "I uh..." "I don't know what that is." She says this, pointing at the Dragon Ball. Well at least Illya's honest. She then pauses, her skin crawling as she thinks of her momma, or Sella, of Leysritt. "A - homunculus-- .. disposal...?" Illya's voice wavers, wibbles, and the magical girls' face just sorts of goes pale white. Oh no, bad mental image. 

:'''{{#var:19|Maya (19)}} has posed:''' Maya looks to Harry for a moment and pauses. "I think I see where he's going with this, he's going to bring the people hunting the balls down on their heads after he's well away with his family. However the amount of collertal that A lone Sayain can cause let alone the calibur of people that Serori has with her? I'm afraid it would bring the wall full out here. As for other means to go after them. I'd be more than happy to help with that still just this plan would bring the war here and make things even worse." 

:'''{{#var:664|Archer of Brown (664)}} has posed:'''      Archer eyes the computer screen from afar. "So that's what's got the Multiverse all stirred up these past few weeks." Hmm. "Don't seem like much."      Senator Mason is quiet for a moment. He rests both of his hands on his cane. "Do /all/ of the Einzberns want to restore the Heaven's Feel? How does the next oldest heir view the Grail?" He continues. "If we absolutely have to eliminate Jubstacheit, I suggest making it look like an internal power struggle and replacing him with someone more manageable. Someone easily cowed, and who makes poor decisions. An imbecile, through and through. Someone who will be unilaterally reviled by his peers, who we can frame for Jubstacheit's death. Is there a family member among them who can be our patsy? If so, we simply let feudalism take its course. It's distasteful and bloody, but it leaves the Union the option of plausible deniability."      "Sounds a bit too complex for me, Al. I think you're trying to burn the forest to get some lumber. I can handle a few greenhorn mages coming out of the woodwork every so often. What do you think a Grail War is, anyhow?" The Servant drops his cigarette and rubs it out beneath his boot. "We ought to just go along with his plan." Archer nods towards Psyber. "Simple, fast, and it gives Emiya that... what did you say? Plausible deniability." 

:'''{{#var:206|Harry Dresden (206)}} has posed:'''     Harry likewise nods over at Psyber. "Thing is, I know for a fact we've got more han enough underhanded and sneaky types around this damn place that would bite at a chance to do something underhanded and sneaky and possibly act their butts off to sell something like that."     He points over at the Dragon Ball. "Chasing that is going to get a handful of murderhappy killmonkeys and every space asshole that tools around Goku's end of things to come plop themselves down here and wreck half the place digging around for it after they nuke the place."     The wizard bites his lip, and scribbles some more on his notebook. 

:'''{{#var:603|Emiya Kiritsugu (603)}} has posed:''' Kiritsugu listens to the plans of others, and their objections, and considers all of them. He puts a hand to his chin as he thinks. He may be willing to use a Dragon Ball to call an army of saiyans down on the Einzberns heads, but others here are not. And he specifically gave Psyber something as a Christmas present to remind him to ensure Kiritsugu kept his promise about not endangering innocents. Psyber and Aoko both made the same point, and it's a valid one. Bringing the war with the Confederates to a world that Kiritsugu is trying to save from war very well MAY be a bad idea. But only if he doesn't get his wish. If he gets it, this world at least will be free of ALL war. But that is still a huge gamble, and involving the Confederates could cause the already-volatile Grail War to spiral out of control. "Jubstacheit von Einzbern, at least, will not give up and will employ any means to achieve his ends. His death is almost a necessity to protect others. To my knowledge, he has no successor presently. If there was one... At least on a technical basis, it might very well be Irisviel herself." For however long she might have. But he does not say that part. "But whether she would be recognized by others is another matter. Taking her and Illyasviel somewhere safe afterwards and planning for reprisals is a solid plan and should be followed no matter what." Kiritsugu looks up, taking in Shirou's anger at all of this discussion, and says, "Saving someone means not saving someone else. But even if it means facing enemies for the rest of my life, I'll take only the bare minimum lives necessary to protect people. To end all war, I am willing to bathe my hands in blood to ensure it is the last blood that humanity ever has to spill. But I can no longer be certain that what I am fighting for will achieve that end." Kiritsugu sighs. "It is possible the Einzbern family may not be entirely hostile to the replacement of the current family head. But I want collateral of some kind to persuade them not to take action." The Magus Slayer sighs as he looks towards Senator Mason, and Archer. Archer and Staren seem to be into the same idea that Kiritsugu had. The Senator's idea may have merit if simplified - replace Jubstacheit with Irisviel herself. But the critical problem is time. They don't have time to play politics before Jubstacheit figures out what's going on. Harry, Maya, Psyber, and Aoko have all had the same objection. Shirou more or less the same, though for different reasons. That's a majority of those present. Maiya looks to Kiritsugu, and Kiritsugu looks to her. She closes the laptop and holds it at her side. That plan needs to be abandoned it seems. 

:'''{{#var:603|Emiya Kiritsugu (603)}} has posed:''' Then Kiritsugu catches sight of Illya's pale face - or paler than usual, at least. He can see how horrified she is. Inside, he hurts badly. He hates himself for subjecting her to that information about her mother. But hating himself is nothing new. "Don't worry, Illya. I won't let such terrible things continue." He takes in a breath and lets it out. "There is another option." Kiritsugu admits finally. "We go to the Einzberns directly. We approach Jubstacheit von Einzbern, and inform him that the Union wishes to discuss terms of assistance in the Grail War, to minimize casualties. We will also inform him that we intend to initiate the Grail War with or without the Church's consent. With the Union's support, the Clock Tower and the Church and even the other Masters should not be able to strike directly. He may very well agree to it. His own desperation and fanatical determination to obtain the Grail will make such an alliance desirable." Kiritsugu says, "And I will promise to summon my Servant. And then we'll aim to eliminate Jubstacheit himself - by whatever method we can all agree on, violent or otherwise - and take anyone willing to follow Irisviel as the new Einzbern head somewhere safe... With the catalyst for the summoning of the strongest Servant in our possession, just incase." 

:'''{{#var:42|Staren (42)}} has posed:'''     Staren looks at Kiritsugu. "You can't end all war without changing the psychology of every person in the Multiverse and beyond. If you'd go /that/ far... I suspect the people here are far from the only ones who'd try to stop you."     But he'll listen to the rest of the plan. "Why would the Union ally with someone like that? I'm not sure we should set a precedent of the Union pretending to offer alliances only to backstab someone. Once again... the basic plan sounds good, but the specific bait you want to use is a problem." He looks to Psyber for confirmation. "Right?" 

:'''{{#var:253|Psyber (253)}} has posed:'''     Psyber carefully listens to the plan that Emiya Kiritsugu proposes in alternative. Of course, as he does this, he takes a flask out of his jacket and swigs from it. He offers it to the Western Servant a moment later, "Whiskey. Scotch. Single Malt. Want some?"     If yes, the flask is tossed to the man without a second thought. He can have his fill. Psyber then mulls over the new plan and thinks about it, "Kiritsugu is not affiliated with the Union," Psyber says in an even tone, "He is an unaffiliated party with no factional obligation, meaning that helping him is not a Union-reliant action. Therefore, it would not be a Union alliance he is proposing, so much as an alliance which featured the Einzberns, himself, and anyone willing to help him in this cause." His answer it to Staren in this particular statement.     "There is no deal for the Union faction to participate in, so much as independant outsiders which happen to be factionally affiliated or not as the case may be." He mulls that over, looking to Aoko for her opinion on the matter.     "I find this arrangement acceptable." 

:'''{{#var:42|Staren (42)}} has posed:'''     Staren listens to Psyber's reply. "That sounds good to me." His ears and tail twitch, and he looks back to Kiritsugu. 

:'''{{#var:664|Archer of Brown (664)}} has posed:'''      Of course Archer accepts. In a fluid motion, he catches the bottle, pops it open, and takes a hearty swig. "Thank you kindly, stranger." The way he tips the bottle, one might get the impression it was water. "What do you say, Al?" He peers over at the senator.      "Tabling the greater of the two issues until we get more information? Yes, I think that's wise." The senator nods his approbal towards Kerry. He should consider a career as an elected official, when this is all over. 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     "Sounds like we agree on some of the basics. I'll take what I can get with a circumstance like this. Just want to make sure it doesn't go any further than it needs to." Shirou points out in a strained voice, TRYING to keep his emotional focus. Save Illyasviel. Save his sister and... adopted dad's wife. That's clear enough. Take them far away.     Or render the entire thing so moot that the old guy doesn't care anymore. "I like that idea. It's definitely the thing to try first." 
}}

1232/A Surprise To No One

2015-01-18T07:46:22Z

Paladine:

{{Log Header
|Date of Scene=2014/12/30
|Location=Fuyuki Zero <FZ>
|Synopsis=A group go to find out what the Einzberns are up to, only to discover that magi are awful. This is a surprise to no one.
|Thanks=
|Cast of Characters=19, 253, 560, 591, 603, 606, 617, 641
|Tinyplot=Fate/Zero Tolerance
|Tinyplot2=
|pretty=yes
}}
{{Poses
|Poses=:'''{{#var:603|Emiya Kiritsugu (603)}} has posed:''' LONDON, ENGLAND A Mage Association office that handles matters of records and communication is the destination for a trip to discover if there is any evidence to support the idea that Jubstacheit von Einzbern might be up to something - specifically, something related to Illyasviel von Einzbern and the Grail War. Kiritsugu has already determined what the likely result of his failure in the Fourth Grail War would be through extrapolating from the possible futures of other worlds, and his own knowledge of Jubstacheit himself. But that is not the same thing as fact, and proceeding on the basis that other worlds are assumed to be accurate parallels to Kiritsugu's own is not the sort of thing he does. He needs verification, he needs details, and he needs a plan. While not generally one to work in a group, for this endeavor, aid has been requested. The office is disguised as a non-descript building of some kind. Bounded Fields keep non-magi away through suggestion-based magic (though this is not quite as useful against Elites - particularly those magically sensitive themselves). As Kiritsugu approaches the office's 'business entrance', he thinks over what he's here for, and how he attempted to get assistance in doing so... BEFORE "Information indicates that the Einzbern magus family may be planning something." Kiritsugu had said when speaking to the others. "While I am supposedly working on their behalf in this Grail War, Jubstacheit von Einzbern is determined to obtain the Grail no matter what. If he doesn't get it, or suspects he might not get it, I wouldn't put it past him to take action. Finding out what he has been up to is critical before WE can take action however." As his dead-eyed gaze had travelled around the room, examining reactions, Kiritsugu had said, "No matter what, I do not intend to leave my family under his care. It's just a matter of finding out whether accomplishing that involves moving Irisviel and Illyasviel... Or rescuing them." NOW At Kiritsugu's side is Illya von Einzbern. Technically older and older-looking than Illyasviel, she still has approximately the same physical characteristics as other Einzbern homunculi - and those are very recognizable among knowledgeable magi. Daughter-cred should be useful in persuading whoever is handling things that Kiritsugu is here on official business... But he is the infamous Magus Killer. And blind trust is not something that many magi are prone to. That is why Kiritsugu does not intend to rely upon convincing someone at a desk that he is legit. People who may be able to apply pressure of their own, distractions of their own, and to get in and obtain what they are after even if the rest are turned away, are instrinsic elements of this mission. 

:'''{{#var:253|Psyber (253)}} has posed:'''     Psyber is not good at infiltration. Psyber is acceptable at it, when necessary, but his individual skillset makes him more suited towards a different kind of helping out for this mission. He won't come along to help infiltrate or to negotiate. He'll hang out mostly to be a distraction. And thusly: PARKED A BLOCK AWAY     Psyber is currently singing to himself as he roots around in the back of a jet-black 1973 Plymouth Satellite Seabring, the trunk wide open.     o/~ "Wo~oah. We're halfway there. Wo~oah. Something about bears." o/     False ID? The half-angel opens a tacklebox and fishes through. He finds a good one he made a few years back. Agent Lennon McCartney, MI:6. That'll, at least, give him an alibi for the massive trunk full of guns he's digging around in.     And speaking of that, he takes out a couple pistols, which he checks for ammo and then conceals under his jacket as he keeps singing:      o/"Watch out for sand, it gets in your hair. Wo~oah, I like my steaks rare." o/     Absolutely not the right lyrics, but as he shoves a couple clay-looking bricks into his jacket pocket, he actually doesn't mind much. He slams down the trunk of his car and shuts it, he twirls the keys and drops em in his pocket.     Distraction Psyber is on the move and waiting for a signal. 

:'''{{#var:617|Chloe von Einzbern (617)}} has posed:''' Illyasviel von Einzbern is right here. She was here the whole time. It's not like she just showed up while no one was looking, wearing a warm purple coat and fuzzy purple hat. Thing is now there's... Two of her. Indeed, Chloe von Einzbern has powdered up a bit. Or a lot. Enough to make her normally dark tan skin that eerie pale shade of colorless white that is prevalent among Einzbern Homunculi. And she is flashing Illya the smarmiest grin on the face of the earth. It's like some kind of time paradox as she leers at Illya. 

:'''{{#var:19|Maya (19)}} has posed:''' Maya had known enough Kiritsugu, wanted to get his family the heck out of harms way of the grail war. Given Maya's own experiance iwht a war that went bad in the worst possible way she agreed to help. She was not so good at stealthing vese these sorts of people, she'd have other uses and she darn well know it. She isn't sure which way its going to go down at this point, they may just need to move them, or it could turn out to be a full out rescue operation like she was warned about. So she was ready, she had no real visable weapons on her, no she knew that would cause issues on this world, she might get the attention before it was time. She was decent at infiltration but given how they were dealing with magic people? She'd be better follin the same route as Pysber. So she's hear near by about a block or so away and is just a distraction for being there, she's basically like a sun to someone with magic sense and she may have some other things pllaned but for now she's just trying to look as innocent as a lost fallout or mad max cosplayer could be... 

:'''{{#var:641|Illya von Einzbern (641)}} has posed:''' Illyasviel von Einzbern is one of the two best daughters in the universe. The other one is Chloe von Einzbern. Illya is dressed in a... comparitively normal outfit right at the moment, dressed in something that is similiar to what Kiritsugu's Illya would wear - royal purple shirt, skirt, matching fluffy boots and warm white jacket for the winter chill. She is every inch the Illyasviel von Einzbern of this world; except for those that know she should be elsewhere. She is imperious and arrogant and also /glaring at herself/. Weirdly enough, the pair continue the color scheme of being opposite, Illya in main white with dark accents and Chloe-Illya in black with white accents. However, she quickly regains her attention, stoically moving towards the front desk. The Illya twins... they're good, way, way too good at this. Blame Irisviel; their mother is nuts and they've inherited such thinking. "Hello!" She says, not quite politely, but mostly to get peoples' attentions. She's down here. It's also so people in this group can slip away if they want. 

:'''{{#var:606|Jimmy Wen (606)}} has posed:'''      Jimmy Wen pulls up outside the building. Wizards of his world have always been hindered by their dual natures; they are magical creatures, able to make their wills manifest, but they are also human beings, blessed with free will. This clash of natures arises in the hexing effect, which, for more modern wizards, tends to make complex technology backfire and misbehave. So it is that the young wizard arrives in a car older than he is, painstakingly cared for and micromanaged to counteract his 'mojo,' as he and his contemporaries call it.      An alligator-skin shoe hits the asphalt, and out of the '57 Cadillac Eldorado Brougham steps Jimmy Wen, dressed to the nines in a way that's uniquely his; a way that speaks to his less than sterling proclivities. Black slacks and a matching blazer, no tie, gold chain necklace revealed past his slightly unbuttoned white dress shirt. The door closes with a neat whump, and Wen adjusts his sunglasses. The wizard greets his fellow Elites politely. "I like your style," he says to Psyber.      The two of them are evidently night and day, for while Jimmy dresses like a mob lieutenant in a John Woo movie, he's actually quite fond of the soft touch. The wizard makes a little checklist. Potion? Check. Lockpicks? Check. Gun? Check. It's an M1911, nickel-plated, the staple of the modern film noir wannabe. Tucked into his waistband 'tastefully,' of course. He approaches the building, enters through the 'business entrance,' and waits at the front desk for some service with his best charming smile on. 

:'''{{#var:591|Aoko Aozaki (591)}} has posed:'''     Aoko arrives at an unspecified time and through unspecified means. TAKE THAT DETAIL. The red-headed magus is leaning against a well, checking her email on her phone. It's all extremely nonchalant and boring, you wouldn't like it.     Occasionally her glance inspects the light and dark twins, mostly because that's amazing and she still thinks homunculi are cool. And rare! And special. It's kind of a tricky style of magecraft and alchemy so you don't see it too often.     What she is here to do, well, she leaves it to Kiritsugu. He has a rough idea of her capabilities, he can figure out what he wants her to be doing. Bound to be a lot a magus can do around Einzbern property, considering. 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     And to think that a certain magus-killer once told Shirou, 'keep your distance from the Mage's Association. Avoid the Church two. They're both bloody crazy people.' Maybe not in those words, but...     Either way, now it's that same person Shirou's following... right towards the people he was told to avoid.     What's new?     Emiya Shirou's trailing behind Kiritsugu, clad in a stylish deep sea blue jacket with the hood down. Nothing special here, right?     Well, when it seems there's two Illyas the boy does pause and rub his eyes. A glance at one's expression, then the other... ah, there's Chloe. Walking behind both now, he puts a hand on either girl's shoulder briefly, a reassuring pat and friendly 'let's go' all at one. Hidden in that might be 'no arguing now!' but besides a somewhat serious both look for both it's hard to say. Shirou's taking this as straightforwardly as possible: alert and asuming Kiritsugu knows what he's doing!     Which means his expression is even and unbothered - a bit too grim for someone his age, but it's not like that's unusual HERE... 

:'''{{#var:603|Emiya Kiritsugu (603)}} has posed:''' Modern technology - things like phone lines and computers - are seen as almost heretical by most magi. So though this building has the appearance of a modern business office, the large room that is entered into, with its checker-board patterned floor, and an unusual five-pointed front desk, is relatively absent of obvious machinery. The lights in the ceiling are actually glowing gemstones that dangle from intricately woven silver and gold. What appears at first to be a phonograph seems to lack some of the components that would allow it to work as such - and probably serves as a magus's equivalent of a telephone despite there being no obvious way for the sounds it records to be transmitted elsewhere. A man in a coat, vest, and dress pants, and a woman in similar attire, are both behind the desk, attending to their work. The lobby seems practically empty, but then there are some very distracting individuals in the area outside who might be causing a lot of local scrutiny to be directed towards them. As Psyber works on a trunk full of guns, he is being observed. Whether he can sense the presence of the observers or not, the observers themselves at least seem to be keeping an eye on him without making hostile movement or trying to get close. Given that the Magus Slayer just walked into the office, some guy with a lot of guns is possible cause for suspicion. Aoko being nearby, checking her e-mail on a phone, probably has any magi who were planning to stop by this office twitching for a number of reasons and deciding to come back another time. This office has records in abundance, many of them stored in the archaic medium known as 'books', but the objective might be information too sensitive to entrust to writing. Aoko might need to accidentally on purpose check her email and wind up checking secret communications that have already been received and disposed of or something. The Einzberns are rather prestigious and thus might have that kind of pull. But there's other information that would be more likely to be written down that is also physically obtainable - even if there are Bounded Fields and wards and thaumaturgical defenses against people stealing it. Good thing there's a teleporting homunculus with Servant-level abilities along, skilled at breaking into and out of places, and presently disguised as the same person that Illya is disguised as (though, paradoxically, both of them actually ARE that person). Kiritsugu pauses just inside the door, allowing Illya to advance towards the desk while he blatantly pulls out a phone and makes a call. All these freaking phones in this freaking magus association! 

:'''{{#var:603|Emiya Kiritsugu (603)}} has posed:''' At the same time this is going on, Jimmy is also getting dealt with. The man behind the desk approaches him and just stands there, staring and waiting for the man to say what his business is. The woman seems to have a bit more emotion, even if there is that sort of coldness in her eyes that many magi seem to have. "What do you require?" she asks of the girl in the fuzzy hat upon the call of 'Hello!', her gaze having already taken in these twins. Whether she had deduced their possibly identities or not is unclear, but she is at least smiling and offering to help - even if one of these two is radiating concentrated prana that likely has most of the people in the building twitchy. With Maya, she is receiving scrutiny similar to Psyber's, though of a more direct sort. A brass-plated, clockwork eye is rolling along a ledge of a building a couple floors up, before coming to a stop. It irises open, revealing an actual crystalline eye inside that begins transmitting images of Maya. Psyber is probably under similar observation, and probably Aoko as well. Actually, probably everyone who showed up is getting eyed. And at a security room somewhere inside the building, there are people trying to figure out what's going on, and suspecting the worst. Everything is calm right now, but it might not remain so for very long. Shirou is unrecognized, but if he is travelling with Kiritsugu and two Einzbern homunculi, he probably is also bad news. 

:'''{{#var:253|Psyber (253)}} has posed:'''     Being eyed is fine for Psyber. Observation on him meets split attention, and that means that people trying more subterfuge-related activities can slip by with an easier time. He doesn't say much to them, though, not wanting to make it seem like he's associated with the Magus Killer and his friends. He might just be a random government agent-slash-pedestrian with heavy munitions.     Jimmy Wen gets a response, though. Psyber grins and nods to him, "Thanks. Love the 1911, classic gun choice," He counter-compliments before he takes a cigarette out of his pocket and goes to head around a corner and away from the group.     His goal is simple and two-fold: He wants to make himself as much of a pain to keep an eye on as possible. So he walks past Aoko and heads down an alley. And then just starts making back-alley turns and weaves, trying to either draw his observer out or distract him too much to notice the plans of other people. 

:'''{{#var:606|Jimmy Wen (606)}} has posed:'''      "Hi there, Jimmy Wen." The wizard foregoes a handshake, but he does continue to smile. Now, in the few moments he's bought himself, he needs to think. He's /very/ good at thinking. Obviously, he can't just say, 'Hi there, I need all the information you have on the patriarch of one of the most powerful families in the Association.' It's best to use a smokescreen, so he comes up with one. "So, I represent an independent family several generations strong who's looking to join the Association, but I need some information before I do that. See, my clients are very interested in the work of the Einzberns in particular, as they themselves are practitioners of Chinese Alchemy--the same alchemy that reputedly grants immortality by sublimating the soul. Interested? Of course you are. Now, I understand no mage worth his salt is going to just provide something without getting something in return, so I'm prepared to facilitate an exchange of information. What's the best way that we can come to an understanding?" 

:'''{{#var:19|Maya (19)}} has posed:''' Maya knew she would be getting attention sooner or later at this point. Maya's world and thier views on both technology and magic? Would make the magi here likely flip out. Maya for now is just reching into a her pocke tnat pulling out what appears to be a Tarrot Deck which she idly shuffles and looks at while she's wiating nothing too much to see here. She does get the idea she is being watched but not sure just where, or she assumes she does. She's got a load of magic that much is clear,but she doesn't seem to be oding much with it really she's not yet making any moves she's not got live personel or anything akind ot that on her just yet. She takes a moment to look up at the building and smiles at it before getting up and staring to move about the region. She now is just moving about the region keeping in the open for the moment but it's clear she's lurking for something, but /what/. 

:'''{{#var:641|Illya von Einzbern (641)}} has posed:''' Illya smiles. It is a bit off putting, probably, as she tends to be somewhat cool around people she's not familiar with for being a rather lonely girl. "I am waiting on a message from my mother, Irisviel von Einzbern, or my great grandfather, Jubstacheit von Einzbern. I have not been contacted about either message coming in, and would like you to receive them for me so I may read them." Illya has the commanding tones of being a von Einzbern down, at least. Some things never change. She also seems to plant herself on the floor, flicking only the barest of glances over her shoulders, mostly at Shirou and Kerry, before her gaze goes to Chloe, then back around to the woman assisting her. Illya isn't going anywhere. She's a desk distraction! 

:'''{{#var:617|Chloe von Einzbern (617)}} has posed:''' So a Magus Killer, twin homunculi, and a HERO OF JUSTICE walk into Clock Tower... It sounds like it would make for a great joke, but it's not. When Illya- the one that people actually call Illya greets the desk clerk, Chloe-Illya gives her a pat on the back. Once she detaches from Shirou's brotherly shoulder grasp, she simply flashes that cheeky little smile again. "Aaaa... I'm bored already, I'll go wait in the car~." Whelp looks like that's the end of that as she turns on her heel and heads back out the door. And right for Psyber's car. Unlocking the door with a simple application of magecraft is pretty easy for her, and anyone watching one of the Einzbern 'twins' will see her crawl into the backseat and... Curl up for a nap. Problem solved. One less person to watch. At least until she's gone. The hat and coat are left behind though, pretty convincing to a cursory glance, as she re-appears an instant later, boots barely making a sound as she lands lightly on a fire-escape, sticking to the shadows of a higher floor window, before trying to pry it open. 

:'''{{#var:591|Aoko Aozaki (591)}} has posed:'''     Well, Aoko has no intention of going in there, actually, when things get serious. It would probably leave bad aftershocks for the her of this world. Not that she'd mind! The train of thought would probably be 'there's another me causing trouble? jackpot!' and it would turn into this excuse to go 'it wasn't me, it was the other me' and the Association wouldn't be able to argue or prove otherwise.     Good omens all around, really.     Psyber heads into the alley, so Aoko just casually settles against the wall just outside. If anyone goes in after him, she'll get first look. Or if things get loud she won't have a delay going in to help, either inside the building or the alley itself.     Nightmare Cat @whitelen - 5m ago     @notamagician This is boring. Why do I always have to stay behind?     Blue @notamagician - 4m ago     @whitelen it's because people think you're a monster!     Nightmare Cat @whitelen - 3m ago     @notamagician YOU'RE a bigger monster than I am!     Blue @notamagician - 2m ago     @whitelen hey I already had this conversation with @moonpuncher, I don't have fangs, also you manifest nightmares     Nightmare Cat @whitelen - 1m ago     @notamagician That is not the only qualifier!!!     Aoko frowns. Extremely important email checking and all. 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     Shirou, apparently some apprentice to worry about, is not doing anything terribly interesting. Okay, he seems a bit weirded out by the place. No gadgetry, not even a telephone? Not quite what he was expecting. Crystals for lights in the ceiling too, that's unusual. He's looking just a BIT overwhelmed at all the weird stuff in this ancient magekeep. But he does pay attention when Illya starts talking. "Don't forget to open a window!" He advises Chloe out of reflex - not even really thinking about what she has in mind. He's just being brotherly! Or trying to!     cars can get stuffy!     With Kiritsugu making a call though Shirou makes a weird face. He's not sure what his 'master' is up to here! 

:'''{{#var:603|Emiya Kiritsugu (603)}} has posed:''' Psyber's round-about attempt to lose pursuit as he navigates around the building and possibly away from it, seems to either be working or not working. The brass eyeball thing is still rolling along on the ledges above, using a miniature skyway of steel pipes and copper channels to navigate overhead. However, Psyber is moving a bit fast for it, and it can not keep up. There are also people on-foot, however, who are walking after the half-angel with a calm, measured pace. Their heart rates are perfectly in control, and their movements almost more robotic than the construct that is now following THEM instead of its original target. Two men in black mantles and hoods... With small white crosses embroidered into their garments. Thankfully Aoko, parked outside the alley Psyber went into, is in a position to spot the men when they came out of a side-alley originally and started following him. And she can probably recognize members of the Church when she sees them. The man Jimmy is speaking to has a somewhat pinched face, with nasty, narrow, suspicious eyes. Jimmy divulging all that sensitive information about himself has not inspired any degree of trust in the clerk. Randomly spilling secrets and personal business to some person behind a desk marks either a liar or a fool. And yet, he replies reasonably. "Petitions to join the Association are not the business conducted in this office. If you wish to transmit a message to the Clocktower, you may do so." He gestures a hand towards the not-a-phone contraption, apparently expecting Jimmy to know how to work it. This plan might be falling apart fairly quickly if it is not salvaged soon. Maya starts doing like Psyber is doing, but unlike him, she does not get a pair of hooded guys following her. Just those metal eyeball things. A black tabby cat looks up as Maya comes by and starts meowing at her plaintively as though it has known her for years. If she passes it by, it moves to follow her, constantly speeding up its pace to move ahead or her or walk alongside of her. The female clerk, despite her friendly tone, seems to be just as business-like as the other clerk next to her. "I see. And you would be a representative of the Einzberns?" She makes no move to retrieve any communications. Not until Kiritsugu comes forward, at least, to back up any claim of identity. Along the way, he hands over the phone he had open to Chloe as she is leaving, disguising it as patting her on the back. It's a more modern phone, so it has a map displayed on the screen. The layout of the entire building. 

:'''{{#var:603|Emiya Kiritsugu (603)}} has posed:''' When Kiritsugu approaches, he says, "I am Kiritsugu Emiya. I have been adopted into the Einzbern family, and this is Illyasviel von Einzbern, my daughter." He reaches into his coat and withdraws a letter in a white envelope, with a red wax seal. He bends down to hold it out to Illya. "The official documentation that names you as a representative." Shirou's attention being paid to Chloe as she departs speaks for more than just a casual connection. Those watching from the eaves are attempting to match his face to any records they may have, as quickly as possible. They already have identification on three of those present, though the mystery of Illyasviel being two people is trying to be resolved. Then a hit comes up. While his identity is unknown, Shirou was involved in an incident in New York City a few weeks back that the Association had to clean up. The interest level in him has just been ratchetted up a few notches. There are Bounded Fields to prevent forced entry, and surveillance methods of all kinds inside and outside, but this is an outpost, not the Clocktower itself, and Chloe von Einzbern has a knack for getting into and out of places she shouldn't be. Maybe she inherited a little bit of Kiritsugu's talent at penetrating Bounded Fields, maybe it's a trait unique to her. Whatever the case, at least for now, she remains unnoticed, even when she pries open a window. Defenses fail to go off for some reason, even though she is a considerable magical presence and people should be aware of her right away. Maybe it's because there are so many other massive magical presences in the area that calibration is off? WHO KNOWS. The hall on the other side of the window, however, is long and lined with many doors. Good thing that phone may be showing her exactly where to go to find the records they are after. 

:'''{{#var:641|Illya von Einzbern (641)}} has posed:''' "I am Illyasviel von Einzbern, yes." Illya glances up and over her shoulder at footsteps, a smile crossing her face as she takes the letter, carefully cradling it in her hands. "One would hope, of course, that a message directly addressed to me would be passed along nonetheless without the representative paperwork, lest you be considered, um, obstructing my ability to speak with my family and such. After all, I am sure that my great grandfather would be displeased if his messages were not passed along." She gives a very polite smile at the clerk as she says this. There is a hint of teeth behind it. She does present her paperwork, however, as appropriate. 

:'''{{#var:606|Jimmy Wen (606)}} has posed:'''      It's much more advantageous to be considered a fool than a liar. Lying requires tact and intellect, which makes liars somewhat dangerous if not properly handled. Fools, on the other hand, make excellent pawns and even better amusement. So, when it becomes clear that this little attempt isn't going to get any play, Jimmy cranks up the self-importance. He leans on the counter, then takes a look at the contraption. He doesn't look impressed. "Listen, buddy. The sneering imperialist thing is getting a bit old, don't you think? Granted, you're European, and that's what you guys are good at, but we've been doing the magic thing for 4000 years. Lao Tzu? That was us. Zhuge Liang? Also us. Just saying, on finding Akasha, we've got you guys beat, so if I were you, I'd be looking for all the help I could get. But you know what? Fine, I'll play your game. I hope you packed some warm clothes, because when I get finished talking to the Association, you'll be lucky if you're working in Siberia after this."      With that, Jimmy approaches the not-a-phone and turns on his Sight. He's got no idea how to operate it, but if it's magic, he can /find out./ 

:'''{{#var:19|Maya (19)}} has posed:''' Maya does not have people following her that's fine with her she does notices the cat however looking at it wondeirng about it. She does passes by it and it's following her. She gets she's being tailed by a cat, she wishes she could have brought runner but that would get attention from people and she knows she's being followed. She idly shuffles her card and a faint blue fire leaks into one out of her palm but one might miss it. She does nothing else at this point but hopefully this is going to get their attention as he moves along with the cat tailing her. 

:'''{{#var:617|Chloe von Einzbern (617)}} has posed:''' Chloe would probably be pretty amused if she were still in the lobby. Illya faking being herself. It's kind of rich. Nevertheless, as soon as she's on the balcony, cell-phone twirling in her fingers she pauses. It takes her a second or two of thought on how to bypass the bounded field. It's nothing as grnadiose as an inherited trick or a secret technique up her sleeve, no no. It's just plain cheating. Though her existence is a fluke- a miracle by some accounts, she is still an Einzbern. Simply ignoring the processes and theories behind magecraft utterly bypassed, all she has to do is Want to get inside the bounded field without being detected and... Well assuming it works, that should happen. At the very least it'll get her inside. Whether or not she's undetected is up to interpretation as she slides into a shadow, toning the phone's brightness to absolute minimum so she can sneak a peek at the map. 

:'''{{#var:253|Psyber (253)}} has posed:'''     Psyber is fairly content with how much of a pain he's making it to follow him around. And that doesn't even come close to mentioning the fact that now people are being forced to do it in person! He even whistles a tune as he goes.     That tune, for reference, is 'My Girl', the Seminal 1965 Classic by The Temptations. But that's only half relevant.     Abruptly, Psyber vanishes from being followable. But not actually. There's no paranormal stealth or magic behind it, he just ducked around a corner and waited. This might be a doozy for those crazy Church people following him, though.     Because he's gonna wait for them to try to catch up for him. And then, as they round a corner, the half-angel is gonna pop out with a discarded two-by-four he found laying in the alley and swing it right towards the temple of one of the men hard enough to shatter the wood to splinters.     o/ "We~ell I guess. You'd say. What can make me feel this way~?" o/     He switches from whistling to a casual sort of in appropriate song-singing as he drops the plank right after swinging it, hit or miss.     He'd normally feel terrible hitting a human that hard, but he knows that a lot of people in this world reinforce themselves and he wants to get a one-hit knockout. This does leave him open for a counterattack, though. 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     Perhaps it helps that Shirou's entirely unaware of the ploy that Kiritsugu's pulling - the boy shows everything he feels on his face. And right now that's 'why are we here? This place is pretty boring.' While not olblivious to all the attention they're getting, he doesn't seem too worried. He restlessly fidgets in place only to still himself a moment later. Don't want to be immature!     Not that he goes long without something to be amazed at. That being Illya's sudden change of demeanor ! He turns to watch her, considerably interested in the way she's conducting herself. Quite a different thing from the bit of time they've spent together indeed.     If he ever meets the Illyasviel of his world, will she be like that? 

:'''{{#var:591|Aoko Aozaki (591)}} has posed:'''     Blue @notamagician - 1m ago     @whitelen can this wait I have to stalk     Nightmare Cat @whitelen - 1m ago     @notamagician Whose tale are you making difficult?     Blue @notamagician - now     @whitelen no one new just the church     Click, pocket. Aoko stuffs the phone out of view and then casually, hands in her pockets, stalks after the Church. Officials? Puppets? Executors? Just paperwork boys? Yeah, she doesn't care. She has tremendous experience making the life of the Church (and the Association) an incredible pain by just being around. Though, she's probably not well known here yet. Definitely doesn't have the weight and implications she normally would.     It is odd, perhaps, that the magus' footsteps make not a single sound, her form does not cast a shadow, and she's kind of hard to see from the corner of one's vision, but she is very good at reinforcement, and decent at state-alteration. Sneaking about is something you can reinforce, and it's a state of being! Well, 'being silent' is, anyway. Kind of a trivial trick, easy to see through if you're expecting it though.     Let's see where those Churchies are going and how unhappy they'll be if they end up cornered. Might be worth a picture to send her HER Church. 'in ur timelines, stalking ur past doods' or something like that, she recalls reading. 

:'''{{#var:603|Emiya Kiritsugu (603)}} has posed:''' The pleasant-but-cold woman never stops smiling as she says, "Of course. But anyone can claim to be somebody famous. Proof is important when handing over correspondence." Upon accepting the letter, and opening it, the woman examines it with senses beyond mere sight, making sure this is the genuine article. As far as she can tell, it is. But then the letter itself is not quite normal. There's something about it that sways her subtlely. The clerk bows her head slightly to Illya, before saying, "I will check for any messages, Miss Einzbern." The fact that Jimmy was asking about Einzbern alchemy like ten feet away from two Einzberns (well, three, but one left to 'sleep in the car') is kind of convenient, because now that Illya has been identified, maybe things can be confused/stalled further if Jimmy needs to, by inquiring with her. The clerk, in response to Jimmy's lambasting, just responds with, "As you say." They really don't handle petitions to join the Mage Association here. At least Jimmy obtains the information he needs on how to work the magi-phone. If he does call someone up on this weird contraption, he'll be able to get someone at the Clocktower who will want to know what his business is. For Kiritsugu's part, he knows Illya is probably not going to have any messages here. But it should buy time searching for them. His attention, however, is on the people in suits down the stairwells on either side of the lobby. He imagines that even if he hadn't announced his identity, he would have received this attention. But it looks like now some trouble may be coming his way AND Shirou's. Ironically, it may well be Illya's presence that is keeping the both of them safe, instead of the other way around. Chloe's methods succeed, and as her examination of the phone reveals, she is close to the place where certain historical records are kept - along with a record of who has been accessing them, and when. It's a door just down the hall... She better hurry though, because at the far end of the hall, it seems a door has just opened, and someone is standing in the doorway talking to someone in the room they are in the process of leaving! 

:'''{{#var:603|Emiya Kiritsugu (603)}} has posed:''' When one of the Church guys comes around the corner, he reacts just in time to bring one arm up and get it slammed with a two-by-four with considerable force. He is knocked backwards, and his forearm bends in a way it really shouldn't. It may be broken, or not, but it's not usable anymore. He's gritting his teeth though and glaring at Psyber from beneath his hood. The other guy comes around the corner with Black Keys in each hand and takes a few swipes at Psyber with them. Executors, it appears. Great. Fortunately Aoko is sneaking up from behind, and appears to have gone unnoticed for now. The guy hanging back seems to be flexing and relaxing his damaged arm over and over to regain its use, even through the pain, but his other hand is in the process of retrieving a Bible from inside his cloak. He probably is not intending to start reading from it. Maya keeps being harassed by the cat, right up until it suddenly just abandons her and takes off down an alleyway. It pauses half-way down, looking behind it, back at Maya, before then continuing to run away. Weird. Was it actually following Maya or not? Is it trying to lead her somewhere? 

:'''{{#var:617|Chloe von Einzbern (617)}} has posed:''' Chloe spends a few seconds taking in the map, committing it to memory before flicking the phone screen off and stuffing it away. As soon as that door opens, though... Well she's gone. Suddenly just re-appearing by the door she NEEDs to get into, cracking it open for a quick peek inside while whoever's exiting the other way is caught in conversation. Assuming there's nothing obviously trap-ish on the other side she'll just slink right in and hope she remains undetected. 

:'''{{#var:591|Aoko Aozaki (591)}} has posed:'''     And snap.     That photo is going to the Church of her time.     She'll add a caption later.     Aoko stuffs the phone back into her jeans, stepping up behind the Executor preparing his Bible. "Tsk tsk. Don't you know it's rude to preach your religion at someone who doesn't care~?"     Half a step. That's about all that Aoko takes, as her body accelerates to god knows how fast that is. Her elbow is going for the Executor's spine, and in the same spinning motion, her other hand attempts to grab him by the back of the skull. It's all carefully calculated not to completely shatter the spine, but rather inflict crippling paralysis-- which speaks a lot on how precise her Reinforcement can get, and how fast she's able to react.     If the Bible man can't get out of that, he's just going to be a ragdoll, held above the ground by the back of his head and unable to use any of his four limbs. How long that'll stick, that depends on how much the Church cares to fix this guy up when they get him back. 

:'''{{#var:253|Psyber (253)}} has posed:'''     o/ "My gi-"     Psyebr cuts off the song as he smashes the piece of wood against one of the men, splintering it apart in his hands and spraying about in a giant cascade of splinters. The man gets knocked backwards and his arm bends pretty nastily, but he's still on his feet and he's glaring at Psyber.     "You were supposed to fall down, dude. Be a team player."     Psyber scowls a bit and clenches his hands, clearing out wood debris and then curling them into tight fists. His footing switches to a simple boxer's stance. He hops up and down a little and then waits. Mostly so Aoko can get the drop on that guy.     "Damn. You continue to surprise me, moocher. Nice moves."     He'd shower his favorite moocher with more compliments, but he has a new friend he just made and that friend's current status is 'Stabby-Slashy'. He steps back a bit, weaving and ducking his way around Black Key slashes in practiced motion. A few manage to get solid digs in on him, cutting along his shoulder, forearm and his cheek to draw thin lines of blood. Psyber hops away to get some distance.     And then, an instant later, he's darting back in towards the other one with a lightning fast combo of two jabs to the chin and a hook to the side of the head. He wants to drop him fast and hard before he can put out a call for reinforcements. These hits use more of Psyber's strength than the plank of wood, but still not all of it since he's not out to kill yet. 

:'''{{#var:606|Jimmy Wen (606)}} has posed:'''      First of all, WHOA. This thing is actually pretty damned clever, and there's a whole, whole lot of stuff going on behind the scenes of this place. Jimmy reels a bit from the sensory overload, placing a hand on his temple and rubbing it gently as the burning afterimages in his vision and the strong smell of ozone gradually dissipate.      Once he gets his bearings, he does some /thinking./ The receptionist is a lost cause. This guy's the kind of peon for which there is absolutely no hope. He has no drive, no ambition, no /nothing/, outside of the Association. That means trying to bribe him is going to fall flat.      Well, whatever. The wizard pauses. The girls are both Einzberns, so he'll mark them as plan C, 'Inquire with the Einzberns directly to continue the charade and keep attention on myself.' Sorry, girls, it's time for plan B. Jimmy rubs his hands together. and hunches over, then places them both firmly on the apparatus and begins channeling Will through it. His thoughts focus only on the Clocktower and contacting it.      As soon as he gets a response, he puts on his very /best/ customer service voice. Aoko said to suck up, so that's what he's gonna do. Okay, come up with a name. One of the old aliases should work... "Hi! This is Chen Jiangmu, of the Chen family. We're looking to become a part of the Association, and would like to know what we'd need to provide in order to get the ball rolling. I also have a special request for some information from our patriarch--could you tell us a bit about the Einzbern family?" 

:'''{{#var:641|Illya von Einzbern (641)}} has posed:''' Illya nods at the clerk. She gives her a large smile nonetheless. It is still a little bit of teeth. Illya subtly slides her glances towards the two staircases, glancing over her shoulder at Kiritsugu afterwards, her red eyes sparkling with something close to... cool amusement? She gently takes a few steps, firmly arranging herself inbetween Kerry, Shirou, and the staircase as much as she can. It has a very clear fact to it: She knows what is going on, or has a inkling of it, and from that frown that briefly crosses her face, Illyasviel von Einzbern Does Not Approve. She may also be fighting the urge to laugh. 

:'''{{#var:19|Maya (19)}} has posed:''' Maya notices the cat just heads off it's looking at her before it runs away, she's not sure but she's a bit on the curious side she's ware and knows there may be magic ahead and she need sto make a disturbance right? Keep them busy she palms a card before follo2wing there's a faint glow as she checks the alley way for any spell work or other beings that might be waiting. She's being cautious and it just looked like a bit of card palmin 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     The tension in the lobby is rising to the point where even Shirou feels it. He turns about, finding dudes on the stairs peering at him and Kiritsugu who weren't there before and they don't look friendly.     Well, they just get stared at right back by the boy, whose expression clear is clearly readable as 'what do you WANT?'     Yeah they'd be better speaking of they want something. ONLY reason HE's not speaking?     This place's atmosphere is just too cold and intimidating.     He glances to Kiritsugu though ponderous how he's taking this. Maybe just slightly edgy now... 

:'''{{#var:603|Emiya Kiritsugu (603)}} has posed:''' Chloe slips into the room without difficulty, bypassing its locks - both mechanical and magical. It seems there are no traps. The room is dark, unless she turns on a light, but in what little illumination there is, there appears to be many shelves of books and scrolls, as well as boxes containing various things, like... Human hair. Weird scales. Stone tablets. HISTORY STUFF. Finding the list that chronicles who has used this place recnetly, and for what, should be relatively easy for her... And what she finds when she does may be quite unusual, and possibly disturbing. It's what she was sent to find, however, so mission accomplished in that regard. Surprisingly, just as Illya is stepping away to stand inbetween Shirou, Kiritsugu, and the stairs full of Association Dudes on either side of the lobby, Lady Clerk comes back with a rolled up length of parchment addressed to Illyasviel von Einzbern. That was not expected or part of the plan. Does that mean that Illyasviel was actually expected to be here? Was she already here? What's going on? Lady Clerk holds the rolled up parchment out for Illya to take. "Here you are, Miss Einzbern," she says pleasantly. Kiritsugu is not reaching for any weapons as the Association goon squad hang out, watching them. At least a couple of them appear to be armed - though with rather unconventional weapons that don't look like weapons. A cane with a red gem in the top. A device like a series of cogs and wheels held within a bronze frame with a handle. A woman in back appears to be dressed similarly to Kiritsugu, with black trenchcoat, and her hands in her pockets. That last one is looking at Shirou, not Kiritsugu. There's something that Shirou might find almost familiar about her... Oddly, not the similar clothing to Kiritsugu's. Her facial features? Something else? ...Her outline? 

:'''{{#var:603|Emiya Kiritsugu (603)}} has posed:''' Executors are first-rate killers, but some things are beyond them. Aoko Aozaki is one. A bible slips through lifeless fingers as the Executor is paralyzed, neutralizing him as a threat. The other continues to face off against Psyber. Before he can show anything else he may be able to do beyond employing multiple rapier-like blades, he is struck forcefully with three blows to the head (even if not all in the same place), and downed. What were Executors even doing here? As Maya follows the cat, she detects no sign of traps or magic aside from the defenses in place around the Association office where the others are located. What she does find is that the cat is not exactly normal. And it has led Maya right to where Psyber and Aoko are. In a matter of moments, the cat's body splits open along its back, arching its body, legs extending and twisting. A horrific transformation ensues as its too-small head swells like a furry black balloon about to pop, but never truly completing the explosion. Body twists and snaps, and stretches and contorts before the eyes of all three, until out pops... A black-haired woman. With fangs. Some freaky Dead Apostle? Something else? "So, hey, I just wanted to thank you guys for taking care of those Church assholes who were looking for me!" the human-looking creature announces cheerfully. She is not wearing a great deal, just a long, black, furry coat that reaches to her bare knees. But she does not appear to be bothered by cold concrete beneath her feet. Just as she is not bothered overly when she waves while announcing, "Hopefully the three of you will take care of the rest for me as well. Have a good evening!" Then she leaps up towards a wall, and from there to a rooftop, hoping to escape, just as more guys in hoods and cloaks start approaching the location of the trio. They haven't spotted Aoko, Psyber, or Maya yet. Staying and fighting them, going after the cat-lady... Or maybe just getting the heck out of there. What will they do? 

:'''{{#var:603|Emiya Kiritsugu (603)}} has posed:''' In answer to 'Chen Jiangmu' whoever is on the other end says, "If yours is a mage family of good standing, seeking membership in the Association should come before asking questions of one of the esteemed mage families such as the Einzberns. However, it is not so simple a process that is can be completed without meeting in person. If you wish, I can find time for you to visit my offices to discuss your questions. I will expect documentation of your lineage and proof of inheritance of your family's magic crest howevever..." Various other words are spoken, but keeping up the act may appear to be becoming increasingly less relevant than being ready to act if something bad happens. But hey, at least he'll know the proper procedure for petitioning to join the Mage Association if Jimmy wants to pursue it! And at least he is not actually being actively peered at like he is in the wrong neighborhood. 

:'''{{#var:617|Chloe von Einzbern (617)}} has posed:'''     Chloe does in fact rummage around for the important records. And when she finds them her eyes kind of widen. And for good reason as she peruses papers and files and scrolls, after shutting the door behind her. After a beat, she sucks on her teeth. 

:'''{{#var:606|Jimmy Wen (606)}} has posed:'''      Well, there goes that idea. Magic runs in some families where he's from, but Jimmy is a happy accident--there's no way he's going to be able to be Kerry's man in Havana if proof of lineage is what these guys are after. This act is wearing thin, so it's time to call it quits. "That sounds lovely! We'll begin collecting the relevant information, and we'll get back to you when we're ready to schedule a meeting. Ours is a meticulous family, but we do appreciate your patience at this time. Have an excellent day."      With that, he hangs up and surveys the situation in the room. The wizard bumps into Kerry. "Wow, excuse you." There is now a potion in the Mage Killer's coat pocket. Wen leaves with a huff. 

:'''{{#var:253|Psyber (253)}} has posed:'''     "What is it with you and the damn cats?" Psyber says to Aoko in a serious tone, "If it's not a succubus nightmare cat that eats my ferns, it's a half-naked cat chased by Terminator Robot Mages."     He's waving his hand a little bit, sore from the impact against another man's face in repetition. Still, he looks down at the men on the ground and says, "Yeah see, like that. Good job. You really put the I in cooperation there, guys." Psyber gives a thumbs up to the two probably-unconscious men on the ground.     Of course, she's running off and more church guys are coming. So Psyber decides to just go whole hog into making a getaway for the moment. Which is why he tosses both those bricks of Semtex he was carrying earlier into a nearby dumpster and takes out a remote.     "JUSTICE FOR SIGMUNG WITOLD OLIWIER! YOU CAN'T KEEP MAGIC FROM THE PEOPLE YOU FASCIST PIGS!"     Oh wait, that was Aoko's world, not this one. Whooooooooooops! Oh well, hopefully it'll pre-empt that mage who is totally innocent right now. Not Psyber's problem.     He kicks the dumpster down the alley and then detonates it in an explosion which is equal parts metal dumpster and concussive force.     "CHEESE IT! COPS ARE HERE!" 

:'''{{#var:591|Aoko Aozaki (591)}} has posed:'''     "Psht, this? It's just something I picked up in high school," Aoko answers Psyber, still holding the man by the back of the head. Then there's a cat-lady, and then cay-lady runs away. The red-headed magus puts the man down against the wall gently, patting him on the head. "There there, you'll be fine! Man I hope we didn't just beat up two guys who were chasing a baddy down." That sure would be her luck.     "Hey! Show off your wings, they'll double-take. I'm gonna go cat-wrangling because I'm pretty good at it!"     No you don't actually get to answer, Aoko just kind of hops out of the alley and onto the closest roof in a short but fairly obviously powered jump, landing with her hands in her pockets and all. Glance left, glance right. Where did the kitty go?     "Kitty kitty! I have catnip!"     Aoko brings her phone out, and a squeaky mouse toy full of catnip. Pays to be a cat owner. Speaking of that phone, though...     Blue @notamagician - 32s ago     @whitelen found vampire cat, might bring home     Nightmare Cat @whitelen - now     @notamagician WHAT?! NO! ABSOLUTELY NOT! 

:'''{{#var:641|Illya von Einzbern (641)}} has posed:''' Illya doesn't even blink more than once, and it seems so normal for her as she takes the scroll. "If you'll excuse me." She says, stepping away from the group at large as she reads the scroll, using it to block her face from all views by examining it closely - checking the seal, the signature, and everything else inbetween, almost as painstakingly slow as the clerk was at verifying it. Finally she rolls it back up, turning to face the group at large. "I have a mildly unusual request - will you please hold onto this? I have other duties to attend too today and I believe this will be held safer here for pick up again at a later date." Illya improvises. She's a smart ten year old, even if she is a ten year old. She turns to face her brother and father. "Kiritsugu. Are we ready to depart?" 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     Shirou finds this strange woman staring at him... and grows increasingly uneasy. He's pretty dense overall, but in a room full of growing hostility and strange weapon-like things being touted around, Shirou's nerves get a bit jumpy. But he finds himself just staring at that woman... and the urge to shudder welling up within. "H--" He tenses - for a moment looking like he's gonna step forward!     But he never does.     Instead... "... What is it?" He mutters just loud enough for her to hear him. So, not really muttering, but he just sounds a little annoyed right now. All this staring! 

:'''{{#var:19|Maya (19)}} has posed:''' Maya is just about gets her heckles up, Maya does not have much love for the undead. She can accept there are good ones but this one? She doubts it she does keep herself under control and she palms some cards. She keeps quiet at this point for a moment and she wonders for a moment as she looks at Paysber and she now nods they need to make nois she can make noise as this point she now is going to look at the kitty vamp then to Aoko wondering as she now is channling magic blue fire is leeching out of her body, she's building up to something. She shifts gears getting what's happening and moves to cast a differen spell she melts into the shadows almost and is going to use that spell as cover to get out of here as realy she hopes they bene able to give the distraction that was needed, yet she wonders about the cat, vampire thing. What /is/ it?! 

:'''{{#var:603|Emiya Kiritsugu (603)}} has posed:''' Kiritsugu is slipped the potion, but aside from emotionlessly allowing himself to be bumped into and then glancing after Jimmy like most people would if someone randomly bumped into them, he does not react. At least not in a way that those on the radio would hear. Instead he turns his attention back on Illya, a smile actually gracing his features - however slight - as he responds. "We can. Let's go, Illya." The Lady Clerk accepts the parchment back and puts it back where it was before. She's still not sure why the letter she read seemed so convincing, and probably won't unless she looks at it again later... When its revealed there's a strange ink swirl pattern on the paper, and no words at all. Someone passes by in the hallway outside while Chloe remains in the records room.-No, wait. They aren't passing by at all. Because the door handle turns, and the door itself starts to open. For a moment it seems like it's going to open all the way, but then someone else starts talking to whoever is holding onto the door handle, door-grabbed responds, and the door is closed again after several seconds. A conversation ensues that has whoever was going to come in here getting pulled away - possibly due to the loud explosion that goes off outside. Chloe has a free avenue to escape! 

:'''{{#var:603|Emiya Kiritsugu (603)}} has posed:''' Speaking of that explosion, right as Kiritsugu, Illya, and Shirou are about to get out of there, Shirou speaks up. The woman with pale-blue hair pushes her way past the others around her, who give her room once it becomes clear she is trying to advance into the lobby. She answers Shirou by walking to within a dozen feet of him, and then coming to a stop. Then she looks at him as though trying to peer into his very soul or read his mind by looking him in the face. Then she answers, "My twin sister and my niece were staying at a hotel in New York City about two weeks ago. You were there. I wanted to see for myself whether you were the one responsible." She looks Shirou over, from head to toe, taking his measure. She seems to find something about him that displeases her, because she frowns and turns right back around as she walks away, only saying quietly. "It wasn't you after all, I suppose." She stops then, when she's almost back to the stairwell she descended from. And she says without turning around, "Though the company you keep is questionable." Then she resumes leaving. Only to stop again when that EXPLOSION goes off outside. She whirls around, and the other magi look show their own muted surprise. The Seal Designation Enforcer lady snaps out orders. "You and you, come with me. The rest of you stay here." Then she takes off outside with a couple of the magi to investigate the exploding dumpster. Jimmy makes it out before all that, so doesn't have to deal with it. 

:'''{{#var:603|Emiya Kiritsugu (603)}} has posed:''' MEANWHILE, the exploding dumpster causes a lot of chaos and confusion, as well as drawing a lot of attention. The Executors are investigating that while Aoko goes chasing after Catula (with Psyber in tow apparently). Maya shadow melds to slip away unnoticed, and the Executors and magi are left trying to figure out what just happened. And probably will eventually. Some worrying information has been discovered. After examining it in more detail, it may be all the evidence that Kiritsugu needs to justify betraying the Einzberns, and taking action to get his family away from them. Given the immediate hostility to Kiritsugu's presence, it likely wouldn't have worked without everyone doing their part... And a Dead Apostle probably would have been stabbed to death by the Church, but hey, maybe she's not so bad, and maybe she'll wind up hanging out with Aoko Aozaki. Whether that counts as being rescued or punished, nobody knows. 

:'''{{#var:617|Chloe von Einzbern (617)}} has posed:''' For an instant. Chloe peers over her shoulder, a red-flicker of light summoning Kanshou to her hand as she holds the files in her other one. But when the door doesn't open, she starts grabbing whatever papers she can and stuffs them into her cloak. Who knows what gems she could be yanking right now. When the coast seems clear though if she's not stopped, she... Busts out the door and pops out the nearest window like some kind of action hero. She proceeds teleporting the hell away for some distance across rooftops. The others can pick her up at somewhere pre-determined. 

:'''{{#var:560|Emiya Shirou (560)}} has posed:'''     "What the--" SOMETHING EXPLODES, rattling Shirou's focus. He glances about wildly, but doesn't know what's UP yet. Still... his face pales upon making the connection. "... Sorry, I wasn't fast enough to save her." He gets out grimly, gritting his teeth. "All we could do was stop the magus who did it." A fact he is not happy with. he doesn't want to kill bad guys, he wants to save people who need saving!     So he can't really meet the woman's gaze aupon figuring that out.     there are more important things to focus on right now, in any case.     Seems things are wrapping up though. If Kiritsugu's heading out, so is he. 
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