Mosaic City, located along China's coast, is quite large city sometimes called the Crossroads Between Nations due to its diverse population. While it was once a large tourist spot, the city was placed under a blockade as the military appeared claiming there was a radiation leak. The true hazard, however, is much more sinister.
And then it exploded. Honestly, why people can't chill out for a moment and use a different method of exerting violence and in a more subtle manner was beyond him. There were a ton of different ways to go about it and most of them didn't quite fit in with their current situation, that being a rather precarious revelation about the capabilities of shadows. It wasn't exactly the most relieving of things but it did open up quite a few different doors if one could look at it at a different angle. Making his presence known again, nodding at Alisa beforehand to acknowledge her acknowledging him, Vice walked up to one of the few remaining open spaces where he could see everyone being gathered around and pulled up a chair for himself.
The appearance of a new person, who had slipped in a card towards the investigator and some more information for the present people to digest, did not deter the red eyed chinese male from what he doing. Placing his hand on the table, fingers heavily drumming on the material and creating a rhythmic beat to it, Vice continued: "It bears little merit to reiterate but it'd be best for everyone to calm down and take a seat. If any of you have any lingering 'sentiments' please take them outside. Otherwise, let's just wait for our orders, enjoy the food, and deal with this stuff once everyone can think straight." And just in time, a few of the waiters who had taken their orders prior to the should be declining mess finally arrived and began to set down the food into a rather impressive spread for all those around. This was good. Food keeps everyone busy after all.
Post by Phoebe Minola on Mar 29, 2014 13:24:55 GMT -5
((Once everyone's placed at least one order, the noms and booze shall arrive.)) Phoebe blushed at all the fur flying from her story. Yeah... she expected this. Fortunately, between them, CJ, Alisa and Vice were restoring some order. Kyle... his heart's in the right place, as usual, but he's ever the hot-headed dork. But she was glad he simmered down. He cared.
She smiled at everyone. "Thank you, guys. I know I've caused more trouble than I'm worth. I'm gonna work to fix this, I promise," she said and nodded resolutely. "Like I said Tristan, it's my problem and I'll sort it out. If I can keep one Shadow from fighting against any number of us, that's already a tiny victory."
She smiled at the dark-skinned, pretty girl that came in late. She'd seen her at the fight but never caught her name. "Hello. Why don't you take a seat, there's still plenty of room. The food's great here. I'm Phoebe, by the way."
Then she turned to Alisa. "Anyway, I'm available at the bookstore all evenings if you want to have a more private talk. And if you're planning on infiltrating the school... I can help you there. Doctor some papers to get you enrolled, if you want. When I said they pass off a lot of paperwork off to me, I wasn't kidding."
"Better to write for yourself and have no public than to write for the public and have no self."
Cyrril Connolly
Post by Ayakura Alisa on Mar 30, 2014 9:27:56 GMT -5
I saw Layla appear; she came late? Well, it looks like she has her reasons to be here too. Probably to talk about everything that happened. I can't say I blame her, or anybody else that's currently present in the dicussion. She took out a business card and placed it in front of me. I looked at it as she described the person the business card came from. Some guy named Isaac Strazos. Well I'm sure that name will come up in the future. I'll keep this for now and hope I don't lose it. I left the card in front of me for now though since I didn't have any pockets handy. Meanwhile, as everybody ordered, and nobody answered my question, I decided to ask for some fish and chips and fortunately they did serve that kind of dish here. And naturally they had it with some delicious tartar sauce. As for the drink, I asked for the strongest gin they had.
Phoebe mentioned she could help me out in terms of getting into the school, as well as telling me she was available at the bookstore all evenings. "Alright, I'll come to you for assistance on that front, then, when the time comes," I simply said to Phoebe softly. "I don't want to disturb you too much, but this is important. I'm sure you understand."
Post by Layla Amare on Mar 30, 2014 21:13:15 GMT -5
"Oh, sure, I don't mind," Layla said, accepting the older woman's invitation. Really, she hadn't been planning to stay, but if the offer was open, she didn't mind it. Besides, a hot meal and a couple of drinks wouldn't hurt her. She nodded and took a seat, nodding to the others present and smiling pleasantly. There had clearly been a bit of tension at the table before she showed up and the man who had been directing their side during the earlier fight insisted they calm down, but Layla paid no mind to any of it.
"I'm Layla," she said to the woman who had extended the invitation. "Nice to meet you. And same to the rest of you." Soon after, the waiter came back by and asked her, as the new arrival, what she wanted. "I'll take the chicken fingers," she said. "And a rum and coke, with a bit of lime. Oh, do you have any Old Monk?" she added the last part, remembering the only brand of rum she had actually had back home. The waitress confirmed that yes, they did have it. "Okay, get me that."
She turned back to the group. "Okay, I managed to catch part of what you all were talking about when I got here, but can someone catch me up on the rest?"
Post by Kyle Shibata on Mar 31, 2014 4:27:13 GMT -5
Kyle, managing to look a bit red from embarrassment from his earlier outburst, just nodded to the new arrival, a girl. While she was pretty, he still caught himself stealing glances at Alisa. He heard pieces of what Phoebe and she talked about - undercover work at school, interviewing Phoebe at the bookstore. Well, whether they liked it or not he'd be there for the latter, if only to back up the butterball. But maybe he didn't have to worry.
"Hey, s'up," he said to the girl a bit stiffly. "I'm Kyle, nice to meet you."
His stiffness came from being around so many people. He hadn't been around crowds in a long while. Kyle didn't have an awful lot of friends in Mosaic as it were and he never expected there were so many Users as he had seen back in the fight. That was kind of great, meant they had a fair fighting force. But on the other hand it exposed the inherent problem in Kyle: He was kind of crap at dealing with people.
"Well the gist of it is, we've got sentient Shadows loafing around," Kyle offered to explain as he had understood it. "We had a couple of them at the big fight, as you no doubt noticed. We're a bit puzzled as to why they'd do that - though we think some of 'em might feel... gratitude, as it were. And uh... some of us aren't too happy about contact."
He wasn't sure whether he ought to repeat that this was due to Phoebe's decision. He didn't want to add to her baggage for now.
"We are so accustomed to disguise ourselves to others that in the end we become disguised to ourselves."
François de la Rochefoucauld
Post by Ringo Shiro on Mar 31, 2014 11:08:13 GMT -5
"I understand you all jumping to her defense. Trust me, I do." The boy with the hat said. "I even understand what happened. However, here's what you guys don't understand: Phoebe knows exactly why I freaked out; none of you do. Kicker is, I don't plan on letting you know." Ringo looked back at Tristan. He was partially with Kyle on re-arranging his face but then he remembered what his teacher said...not to mention he kind of doesn't want to sink back to his middle school days. "Just don't do something this stupid ever again, okay? At least not on something where I may end up having to help in cleaning up the mess." Ringo tried his best to contain his anger but his eyes was glowing. His eyes stopped glowing when he saw Layla enter. He took a deep breathe as the glow in his eyes went away and waved hello to her.
"Thank you, guys. I know I've caused more trouble than I'm worth. I'm gonna work to fix this, I promise," Ringo looked over at Phoebe. "Like I said Tristan, it's my problem and I'll sort it out. If I can keep one Shadow from fighting against any number of us, that's already a tiny victory." Phoebe then took notice of Layla. "Hello. Why don't you take a seat, there's still plenty of room. The food's great here. I'm Phoebe, by the way."
"Oh, sure, I don't mind," Layla went over and sat down with them. "I'm Layla, nice to meet you. And same to the rest of you." Ringo realized he hasn't introduced himself to a few of those here. He cleared his throat and tried his best to look calm.
"I neglected to introduce myself when I came in. I'm Ringo Shiro." Ringo looked down at his current outfit and scratched the back of his head. He had a slash across his chest, part of it cutting into his jacket so he can't exactly zip it up and a huge hole in the stomach area where he was stabbed. Suffice to say he wasn't exactly presentable. "Sorry I couldn't look more...eh...less wrecked?"
Last Edit: Mar 31, 2014 11:08:50 GMT -5 by Ringo Shiro
Post by Phoebe Minola on Apr 1, 2014 16:37:25 GMT -5
Phoebe beamed at Shiro. "Aw I thought you looked familiar! I remember where I met you now, you were the waiter at the cafe!" she said to him. "I'm glad you made it outta the fight alright. You look fine everything considered."
Soon enough the waitress came, carrying everyone's orders. It took several trips for her to get everyone's orders and there was a moment of confusion while everyone got their appropriate dishes and drinks before them but by the end of it, the table was groaning under the weight of the food.
"Well everyone... dig in. We survived. And we'll probably do it again next month," Phoebe said sheepisly, then raised her glass. "Toast to... er, surviving and winning. Either that or the collective badass around this table."
She almost threw back her Cuba Libre in one go but stopped herself just short. She didn't need to get absolutely bombed tonight. She eyeballed Alisa and Vice, whom she was certain were there for last month's, but then looked at everyone.
"Was last month's this bad?" she asked.
"Better to write for yourself and have no public than to write for the public and have no self."
Cyrril Connolly
Post by Tristan Carter on Apr 1, 2014 17:29:29 GMT -5
Tristan looked on as everyone continued with the conversation. When the food came, he quietly ordered some chicken fingers and a cola. He then heard the conversation turn to last month. He smiled at Phoebe.
"Last month was nowhere near this bad. For one, there was only one major shadow to deal with, not two. For another, it didn't try to hit everyone at once. Lastly, the only time I remember a single attack come near me, Vice stepped in and saved my ass." He grinned on for a moment, but the smile dropped. "Of course, that was when killing shadows was clear-cut. I'm not saying you made the wrong choice, Feebs, it's just... Agh, this is so confusing!" He looked around the table. "Anyone here willing to disagree on any of that?"
Vice answered, his voice deep and monotonous in the clinking of silverware due to the deliverance of the food. His arms crossed, back against the rest of the seat, and the seat itself idly balancing on the hind legs. It was the biker trying to remember the details of what had occurred a month ago, and how bad things had been. "We may have fought a tougher battle now, having quite a few extras as compared to the usual, but we did manage to procure vital information. Other than that, some of the Users we've fought a lot with in the past haven't been appearing as of late…and I'd rather not think about what had happened to them now. Personally though, this was a harsher fight." The biker's hand reached forward and grabbed onto his drink before taking a few tentative sips of it. He'll devour the burger soon enough, as soon as he finishes this answer.
"The enemies have become tougher, and more of the weaknesses of the group in its entirety is being capitalized on. The amount of room we have for mistakes have been declining at an astonishing rate, and if we don't fix our problems soon, we may not all be here come the next full moon." Turning to Tristan, who seemed to be having quite a vocalised dilemma with the new found information about sentient shadows, Vice shrugged his way to get the younger male's attention. "Here's some advice. Think about the situation and describe to yourself the threat level. If the threat can be contained, then good. If it isn't find ways to make sure it never gets out of hand. Relate that to the current situation, then assess the danger levels of these shadows and if they aren't something you can deal with, get stronger until you can. So long as you can assert superiority over the threat, then you can marginalise the damage it can cause."
Shaking his head this time, his hunger finally reaching a point where he could just leave everything else to the others, Vice then proceeded to pick up his own meal and tore a chunk out of it with his mouth. You just can't eat a burger without getting messy, so go all out is what he'd say.
Post by Ayakura Alisa on Apr 2, 2014 3:03:00 GMT -5
I smirked and laughed softly. "You obviously weren't there for the first one," I quietly muttered under my breath. My food arrived and I slowly started chowing down, though I would only speak when my mouth wasn't full. Vice offered a fairly academic and scholastic approach to the dilemma posed by the kid. It was a fair question to ask as well. I'm sure if I didn't know any damn better I would be asking the same questions. "Innocent until proven guilty is one way I'd look at it," I shrugged. "Definitely, Shadows are going to be a threat if we look at it from a general perspective. However, if we try to pinpoint the isolated cases, then things will get more complicated. Especially since not all of these Shadows may necessarily be malicious. I'm not saying none of them are and that it was a bad idea to spare them when the opportunity to get rid of them was there, but what I am saying is that we should be careful that our efforts in solving this crisis or whatever you'd like to call it do not become misguided..."
Post by Ringo Shiro on Apr 2, 2014 11:08:07 GMT -5
"Aw I thought you looked familiar! I remember where I met you now, you were the waiter at the cafe!" Phoebe said. "I'm glad you made it outta the fight alright. You look fine everything considered." Ringo looked at himself once more and laughed nervously. His wounds are closed but cloths don't exactly heal themselves. Even with wounds closed, he still looks like he has been through a rough spot.
"Well everyone... dig in. We survived. And we'll probably do it again next month," Phoebe said as food began to arrive. Ringo looked at the lemonade on his left...and whatever drink Phoebe ordered on his right. "Toast to... er, surviving and winning. Either that or the collective badass around this table." Ringo decided to be safe and get his lemonade and raised it to toast before taking a sip of it. Ringo expressed surprised when he see her chug the drink. He was about to try it and see if it was that good but Phoebe began to ask a question. "Was last month's this bad?"
Everyone began to give out their own accounts on the incident. Vice did point out a concern of Ringo's. The fact that some persona users were not present for that full moon battle. Ringo mentally took particular note of the fact that the red haired girl with twin tails and the short long black haired girl were not present for that battle. Did something happen to them? No...maybe they were just resting from a scuffle in the outer circle and is other wise perfectly fine...he hoped.
"The first of the fullmoon shadows resembled a reaper." Ringo started to eat the fries of his fish and chips and reached for a fork for his salad. "The second was a weird demonic school girl with tentacles and a gigantic cleaver." He took a bite out of his salad and looked at his other drink before taking a curious sip. This shouldn't end too badly right?
There was a lot to take in at once. Not surprising with so many people. Layla tried to sort through it all before saying anything on her own. The sentient shadows, it seemed, was all that had been discussed before she showed up. She had a bit more to say on that, but waited until Alisa's comment about 'innocent until proven guilty' before actually speaking up. "Well, I'm hesitant to say any of them are innocent, but that is a good way to approach them," she said, thinking back to her fight at the airport. Isaac had attacked her on sight, so she fought back. He then tried to paint her as being in the wrong, but no matter how Layla looked at it, he was the aggressor. The fact that she was unaffected by his opening attack didn't matter. It was clearly meant to kill her so that he wouldn't have to deal with a witness to his experiment. But, then there had been the other one who had showed up, and somehow caused him to retreat. She hadn't tried to attack Layla at all. If anything, it was the opposite. "The other humanoid shadow that showed up. The snake girl. I met her before, as well. I didn't catch her name, but...she said something about not attacking women or girls unless provoked. And...I don't think it was gratitude that brought her there tonight. Probably something else." She then recalled the girl the shadow had run up to after the wall went down.
Somewhere while that discussion continued, their food arrived. She accepted the toast of the woman who had extended the invitation (Phoebe, from the sounds of it), then started in on her food. As the discussion continued, it turned to the events of the other full moons. "The shadows we encounter have been getting stronger, but so have we," she said. "Objectively, no, last months or the month before's weren't that bad. But I can almost guarantee you that after the fight two months ago, nobody who had been there had fought anything that strong before. I even seem to recall there was someone who accidentally healed it...but we ended up having a lot of that this time around, so I guess I shouldn't talk."
Post by Phoebe Minola on Apr 3, 2014 7:28:26 GMT -5
Phoebe winced briefly at Layla's observation about the girl with the snake-lady Shadow. She blurted out her thoughts before she could really stop herself. "I know that girl. She's a student at my school. I've... actually been kind of worried about her for a while, but she's... very difficult. To be perfectly honest, she rather scares me. Now that I've seen her and the Shadow... I think I was kinda justified. I want to talk to her about this but honestly? I doubt she'll give me the time of day. I...have other fish to fry now," she muttered, picking at her food. "And I have enough sentient Shadow problems already," she groaned.
She mulled over what they told her about past full moons. From the looks of things, it seemed to be getting worse every time. How much stronger would these things get? Would they ever reach a plateau of some kind? And how stronger could they, the Users, get before they grew unable to fight these things?
"Wow," she said. "It sounds like in the coming months we'll have our work cut out for us," she huffed. "Do we have any idea why they show up in the city during the full moon? Like, what they're trying to achieve. Kyle and me discussed a theory about it some days ago. We thought they might be trying to establish another dead-zone in the middle of the city, but now that I know they're related to this... thing where people turn into coffins for an hour, I'm not too sure."
"Better to write for yourself and have no public than to write for the public and have no self."
Cyrril Connolly
Post by Tristan Carter on Apr 4, 2014 3:09:43 GMT -5
Tristan looked at everyone. It dawned on him on how odd it was to be having a conversation that was getting so depressing. After all, they had just survived the third full moon battle! They should be celebrating and instead? Everyone wanted to talk about how it was just going to be worse the following month.
He understood that he had helped to establish the current mood, but he was unused to having an actual effect. Most people ignored him or did something else to that extent. He considered a moment, then he decided to attempt to rectify things. He wanted to lighten the mood somehow, and he felt that one thing would work. He doubted he was right, but it was worth a shot.
"Don't worry, Feebs," he said. "By next month, maybe we'll be some of the few who seem to be able to take it in stride. Like the girl that we got into a shouting match with." He paused for a moment, thinking deeply before continuing. "Hey, everyone on our side during the fight: Did it seem like she knew the tiger shadow to you? I wonder... How long have these guys been around?"
Post by Kyle Shibata on Apr 4, 2014 6:31:25 GMT -5
Kyle had dug into his food with gusto. He fell silent for a while because he was too busy eating and trying not to be noisy about it. But he listened. It bothered him that Phoebe seemed to be nervous about these sentient Shadows. Kyle understood it was an issue but there was really nothing they could all do about it until they knew more. Tristan though raised a good point. How long had these things been around?
He then realized he'd been scarfing his food when his gaze stopped on Alisa again. Dang it, his manners had gone on holiday again. He swallowed the big bite he'd been chewing and put his burger down to thoroughly wipe his hands and mouth. Damn good burgers but while juicy was delicious, it also tended to leave sauce on your hands.
"Dude, next month we're going to kick ass and take names," he chuckled and looked at CJ. "In the meantime, Phoebe and Vice'll put us through our paces to get us New Bloods up to snuff," he said with a smirk. "I dunno who's the worst Drill Sergeant, Vice or Captain Butterball."
"We are so accustomed to disguise ourselves to others that in the end we become disguised to ourselves."
François de la Rochefoucauld