Do You Speak Chopnese? [Kyle]

[Vice Ysal]

"Ahah. Little fuckers think you're worth my time now?"

The cold smile that spread through the User's face could have chilled the shadows around him. The following reactions weren't quite different either from what could have been expected from the difference in apparent prowess. Surrounded by a couple of low level shadows, probably the ones that had crawled a bit farther than they should have from their respective nests. Mayas, most of them, and the occasional creepy ass hand that just waved from time to time at the red eyed biker.

"Arondight?"

Vice called out, his voice in such a genuine happy tone that had people not known who he was he would've mistaken as some kind of freak. Then again, for all he was worth, Vice had a few screws loose from all the concussions to the head from all the fighting he's been through. The appearance of the hulking knight, towering over everyone within the vicinity, had been enough to send the Mayas running. It wasn't quite satisfying to kill weak and worthless opponents but there was still something insanely fun from curbstomping everything within sight.

"Blade of Fury."

The sound of glasses shattering everywhere, the whistling of an invisible sword through the air, and finally the cries of the Maya as they were annihilated. The splatter of ichor all around, black life blood pooling along Vice's feet, and the manic laughter of a young man within it. It was boasting, it was showing off, there was really no need to waste his time on these things. Worst of all, it was a moment of weakness. Even in a place where no one should've been able to see him, there was no telling with how his luck was at the moment.

"Guess we should check out the Descent again, right?"

[Kyle Shibata]

This has to be it...

Kyle surveyed the scenery. The fog choked out everything. He remembered what was supposed to be here but now there was nothing left. Just devastation, rubble and this stinking fog. Kyle spat suddenly, feeling like the fog was getting past his lips and leaving a horrid, bitter taste in his mouth.

Phoebe had warned him about coming here. He wrinkled his nose and frowned. Why should he take advice from the butterball just because she was the one who filled him to the situation? She hadn't even agreed to go on a little exploration trip with her so he'd see her Persona. She didn't even want to talk about it.

Whatever, it's probably some weaksauce, girly thing.

Still, he couldn't ignore her suggestion he look up a certain someone. Go look him up, she said. He seems like your kind of guy. Go be crazy with him.

Insolence, Sitri snarled.

Kyle was intrigued. He certainly needed to work some issues off his system and beating around some Shadows seemed like a very good idea. Leaving his axe resting on his shoulder, Kyle wandered through the ruined street, stopping only to trash some stupid little Shadow too dumb to realize it was a bad idea to mess with him or to examine something interesting. He was looking for any sign of other people in this little wasteland and surely enough, he found something.

The loud sounds of a fight attracted his attention and he headed that way, just to come upon a seedy-looking dude laughing his head off in the midst of a fight with several Shadows. Unimpressed, Kyle stood there and watched him go.

Huh. He's pretty good. Come to think of it, that might just be the dude the butterball told me about.

When the brunt of the fight subsided, Kyle approached, axe resting on shoulder and his hand gripping it securely in case he needed to defend himself.

"Yo," he said dryly. "Happy-Man. Are you Vice, by any chance? A butterball named Phoebe said I might find you here."

[Vice Ysal]

Vice's hands gripped against the handles of his swords in a relaxed way but not so much that he'd be dragging them along the way and all that. The afterglow of the fight didn't last long unfortunately, which probably proved his idea that the stronger the opponent was the more enjoyable a fight would be. Curbstomping could only do so much after all.

He was also just about to head to the Descent, having given the puddles of dead things one last look to check if they dropped anything worth of value, when some guy decided calling out to him during his little moment was a fine thing. Twitching fingers and a tentative whirl of his sword, had the stranger known, was pretty much the only sign that he had been surprised and more or less on the verge of lunging at the newcomer.

Thankfully the biker had more sense than that.

And apparently the guy knew his name too.

"How does everyone know where to find me nowadays?" Vice muttered under his breath. "Used to be less known and I liked it that way." Shaking his head and thumping the flat side of his swords on his shoulders, Vice slowly rotated to face the male that was standing on a slightly more elevated area than him.

"That's my name unfortunately. Anything you need?"

[Kyle Shibata]

Kyle was less that impressed by the man before him. Even the expert sword-twirl didn't really phase him.

You arrogant sod.

Zip it.

He came down from the elevated ground casually, one hand in his pocket, the other still holding the axe resting on his shoulder.

"Maybe," he said coolly. "You know Phoebe right? Chubby girl with glasses. She told me to look for you if I wanted a couple of good fights. I figure you're a Persona user too. I need to toughen up, I've got some time to kill and I heard you may know where to point me."

Then he smirked a little. "Unless you're it."

You do realize you are not as experienced or strong as him, right?

Don't care. I'm just looking for some fights. Don't care who it is.

You're a fool.

"Also word on the street is, you may get me into a little fight club of sorts."

[Vice Ysal]

"You could say that. I'm guessing you're that…thing, what do you call that? Fuck it, I'm calling you Mr. Starbucks from now on." Vice shrugged. If a guy thought he could just walk up to him like some kind of hot shot and expect him to point him to the nearest shadow nest, well, had he been feeling a bit less apathetic at the moment he could have just done that.

"Don't…don't do that, that smirking and that line. I've got nothing against homosexuals but if you are, then I'm not interested." The biker didn't have to make a face, hell, a step back was enough to pretty much imply everything else. He didn't have anything against them, honest, but this was just too good of a chance to pass up to rile up the guy.

"I can probably point you to somewhere if I know how tough you are though since I just killed all the test dummies, I doubt I'll be finding that out any time soon. Not that I'm expecting much these days." Again with the rolling shoulder slash shrug. "And goddamnit, who told you that? Everyone knows the first rule for that, hell it was based from a movie for christ' shit."

[Kyle Shibata]

Mr. Starbucks. Kyle could roll with that, Hisako-san always made up even weirder nicknames for all her employees. That one didn't actually sound so bad.

"WHAT?!" Kyle barked when Vice insinuated he was 'interested'. "The fuck you going on about?! What the fuck is wrong with you!? That's not what I meant, you asshole! Fights! I'm talking about fights!"

You're being baited.

Shut up!

Kyle glared. It was a very impressive scowl too, if looks could kill, Vice might've ended up as a stain on the ground. This asshole was playing him around. He was really tempted to swing the axe around and dig it into his skull.

But then he shrugged and forced himself to calm down. "Whatever. He didn't want to say, but after a few fists to the face, he got a little chattier."

[Vice Ysal]

It was very difficult not to keep the laughter from bursting out of the seams. There wasn't a lot of things that was really holding vice back from doubling over on the floor, laughing his heart out at the over the top reaction that had just been shown to him but unfortunately, much as he wanted to do so, appearances still mattered. So instead of doing that, he just gave a small snort of amusement at the other male's antics.

"Well, guess his license just got revoked."

Pulling out a small set of papers that were neatly bundled together from the inside of his jacket's inner pockets, Vice show cased a small laminated Identification Code of sorts and tossed it like a shuriken at the other male.

"Kicking the guy's ass earns you this little Exam Pass for the Club. Come in at the designated day and we'll see if we can hook you up a few matches. Do well and you'll be given the same problems. That's only reserved for the Fight Club though, so no axes and shit. Even if we aren't held responsible for injuries, I'd rather not have the janitors clean up the blood."

Crossing his arms and tapping his foot this time, after sheathing both of his weapons because damn that would hurt, Vice continued: "That's only for the fight club though which means that I'll only know you're good enough for fighting other people. In terms of shadows and eldritch abominations? We'll need to test you with something else. Got any ideas on how to show me how good you are?"

[Kyle Shibata]

Still fuming from that insult, Kyle snatched the laminated card out of the air and inspected it. There was a specific date and time written on. He pocketed the card with a satisfied smirk. It looked like this Fight Club was a little more organized than just dudes getting together and beating the shit out of each other. He would probably have quite a bit of fun.

"I see... thanks," he said, a bit calmer now. "I don't need an axe do some damage. This puppy's just for the Shadows. I'm looking for a good old fist-fight."

On the question of proving himself to Vice, Kyle smiled a bit. He sounded just like his uncle Kaito. Always challenged to prove himself in small or bigger ways. He liked that. It made him feel more comfortable with this strange situation.

"Well. I guess we'll have to find a couple of shmuck Shadows so you can see in person, eh? There oughta be a couple around here. We're in a hornet's nest."

He walked past Vice and scanned the area, looking for a suitable spot where Shadows might be creeping around.

"With any luck, my shouting should've drawn a couple towards us."

I would be surprised if it hadn't.

[Vice Ysal]

Looking around the place after that particular mention of drawing shadows to them, Vice grunted when nothing appeared over the edges of his visions even after allowing some time to pass. Unholstering his revolver, the young man decided to walk with the other user present and on towards the crest of the hill to over look their surroundings.

"I'm going to guess that you're still pretty new to the outside." The red eyed asian commented as he began scaling the path down the hill they were to reach some kind of even ground or something. "The outskirts aren't much in terms of activity. The shadows usually nest in areas like buildings and mines, tight areas. I don't exactly know why but those places are just teeming with their presence."

Double checking the amount of bullets he had with him, it was considerably much less than what he used to bring when he didn't have a lot of control over Arondight, the young man noted that he had enough on him to spare a couple to get some shadows running to them. "With that said, Shadows are still affected by pretty much the same stimuli we humans are affected with. Cover your ears." The brief warning passed and the biker aimed his firearm to the sky before firing several bullets. Flashes of light and loud booms covered the area they were in.

"That should get us somewhere. Try not to trip, Mr. Starbucks."

[Kyle Shibata]

Kyle paced on with the axe propped on his shoulder. "Yeah. Been trying to orient myself around the outer zone since I... uh, awakened. That's the term, right? Awaken to a Persona."

He mulled over the new information. "Feh, the little blighters probably the dark, crummy spaces. It's like real hornet nests. We're the pesticide," he scoffed.

He eyeballed the gun and stepped back, put the axe on the ground, propping it against his leg and did plug his ears-- because he knew better. His uncle owned a similar gun.

With that done, Kyle picked up his axe again. "Hmph. Let's see what we get."

The first Shadow to approach was a pitiful-looking slime-like thing. It surged towards them and Kyle stepped forward to meet it unflinchingly. The Shadow lunged, a crackle of lightning erupting from the sky and a bolt of lightning struck Kyle. He grunted, stopped his advance for a moment but then resumed it calmly.

"Sitri!" he cried and sliced in two the floating card he willed into existence.

The winged leopard rushed forth and roared, spreading its wings. A swirl of darkness surrounded it and an ominous, glowing dark mark burned up under the Shadow. It quivered in place and writhed in pain as the rings of darkness around it grew tight like a throttling noose. Before it could recover, Kyle charged in and swung the axe overhead, bringing it down with a powerful stroke and cleaved straight through the Shadow.

Then he wheeled around suddenly to meet a bizarre Shadow that looked like a floating ball with a hideous, arrogant grin and an engorged, wiggling tongue. It rushed him, the tongue flailing along and looked like it was about to lick him, but Kyle jumped back, easily dodging the clumsy attack. The Shadow's momentum made it crash into a piece of rubble behind him and by then he'd already ordered Sitri to attack.

"Zio!" Kyle snarled and Sitri roared again, a bolt of lightning descending from the sky and striking the awful creature. The hit staggered the Shadow and it flopped to the floor, dazed, just to be finished off by another strike of the axe.

[Vice Ysal]

Watching from the distance, Vice made sure to not do anything unless he needed to. So far, the amount of shadows was something easily manageable even by someone who had been newly awakened into their persona which meant that if Mr. Starbucks over here couldn't go around without being able to beat them, then Vice wasn't going to be wasting anymore time with the kid and just hand him over to someone else who'd be more willing to get him up to speed. He was fine with teaching theoretical stuff to others, that usually took longer to remember because it was like you were studying for an exam. Fighting and all that though, that was another field entirely and the biker was too busy with his own schedule to go around baby sitting people. Fortunately for him though, Kyle had no qualms with summoning his imaginary friend into the fray.

Watching with an observant gleam in his eyes, the asian made several notes in his head about the potential this particular persona had. It seemed to at least know both the Mudo and Zio branch of spells at least, and the more mythic appearance could either lead to an increase in strength or magical capability. Support skills needed more information though since aside from that, Vice had no idea on how to figure out what a Persna could do.

"Three more incoming! Get your head in the game!"

Vice called out when back up had begun to find their way into the little area they found for themselves. Looks like the sounds of battle had been enough to rouse up some of the more reluctant shadows and have them investigate what was happening. Either way, the next batch of opponents this time had consisted with a Table, a Hand, and some bird holding a small lamp with it. They looked a bit tougher than the last batch but it should be something a person like Kyle should be able to deal with. Not quite unscathed, but his chances of winning was still pretty good.

[Kyle Shibata]

Kyle whirled around to face the reinforcements, grinning nonchalantly all the while. He was more than ready to take on all comers. He shook himself down a little and twirled the axe in his hands once for fun before going in.

The first one to get it was the bird-like Shadow; it cawed and fluttered its wings, looking like it cast something. Orange light swirled around the other two Shadows and Kyle wondered what it'd done. Some kind of support, perhaps. When he got to the bird he swung his axe while Sitri spread its wings.

"Evil Touch! C'mon, let's see if you've got stones, ya little shits," Kyle growled.

While he was facing down the bird, a brace of darkness swirled round the Hand Shadow and stayed there. The Shadow reacted by stopped mid-stride as it made its way towards him, intending to attack. It shivered from top to bottom and just stayed where it stood, hesitant to attack. Kyle's first swing at the bird had missed and it swooped at him, just to get a face full of the blade of an axe. Kyle slammed it to the ground and the Shadow dissolved in bits of darkness.

Then he was suddenly staggered by a blast of wind that swirled around him and knocked him on his back.

"Argh! Son of a bitch!"

That had hurt a lot more than he expected; huh that was probably the 'elemental weakness' that Phoebe had mentioned a while back. Apparently his Persona (and he) couldn't handle a little bit of wind. Wincing from the pain, he still sprang up and ordered Sitri to attack. The leopard pounced the Table and brought its paw down harshly. Arm Chopper! The Table flopped to the ground from the impact but got up again-- albeit, a little drunkenly, just for Kyle to rush it with an angry snarl and bring down his axe. He stood over it, planting a foot on its back and brought the axe down several more times, chopping the Shadow to bits.

Meanwhile, the Hand still stood where it'd stopped, shivering and wiggling like it was between running away and attacking. Kyle turned his attention to it with an angry smirk and waved Sitri at it.

"Zio!"

Another bolt of lightning; the Hand actually bounced up from the strength of the lightning strike and flopped to the ground. It got up painfully and finally managed to bound up to Kyle for an attack. Just as it bounced off the ground to strike him, Kyle swung the axe hard and actually pinned the thing against what was left of a building's wall nearby him, chopping the Shadow in two at the process.

[Vice Ysal]

The biker continued to hang back from the fight. He wasn't so much concerned with what the shadows could do, they weren't anything he hasn't faced a variation of from the numerous times he'd gonna out to explore. No, his focus was once again on the black haired coffee maker and how he was handling the situation. So far, so good, and the fancy use of the status skills was something to add to the little list that was steadily growing in his head. Not much really, just a list comprising of what the other male could do for the time being along with a few side notes on what could potentially grow from it. The red eyed male didn't so much as react when he noted that compared to the other attacks the axe wielder had been receiving during the course of the battle, the basic wind spell, Garu, had done quite a bit more damage. A probable weakness for future situations. If Vice outgrew the leather jacket he was wearing right now, something that had been fixed to make sure that it was capable of resisting one of his two weaknesses, then he could probably sell the thing to his fellow user.

He'd probably need it more than Vice for the time being.

And continued the fight, the chopper was having quite a blast of fending off and smashing things with his weapon and imaginary friend; a sentiment that the biker could easily emphatize with. It's something that he too showed in the heat of battle. Not long after the display of lightning coursing from his persona's finger tips, Kyle had pretty much mutilated the shadow with a bisecting hybrid of a smash and a slash attack. With how heavy that axe was, well, Vice actually felt somewhat almost sorry for the abomination. Along the edges, more and more of the shadows were beginning to show up. Again, they weren't exactly the most powerful but the numbers were going to prove troublesome for the newer User. Given that Vice had yet to see the coffee chopper man actually use a multi target skill, there was reason to believe that the cat user didn't have one.

"Oi, Starbucks! Get your ass over here!"

Vice called out and hoped that the other actually listened. Sure, the guy could try his luck and try to fight them off but at his current state? The biker doubted he could handle more than two shadows at a time. Moving forward to catch his companion for the time being, and telling him to stay behind, Vice moved up to try and stall the upcoming shadows. These ones weren't even going to take so much as a single attack if his basis of power was correct but just to make sure, the leather wearing User called Arondight to the forefront of his mind. When the shadows had reached the distance of 10 feet away from the biker, the User of the Black Knight would ask, a small smile on his face:

"You wanna see something fun?"

[Kyle Shibata]

The last of the first wave of Shadows went down when the axe cleaved it in two and Kyle laughed rather sharply. That had felt real good. He shouldered the axe and kicked aside the remaining mask of a Shadow before it dissolved. These abominations disgusted him and he felt good taking them out one piece at a time. He rather liked the axe now; it suited him as a weapon and it felt right in his hands. He'd have to make the grip a little more ergonomic later, with some wrappings because if his hands got sweaty, the damn thing might get slick. And he had to think about splinters that might distract him. Gloves were gonna be necessary. But that wind strike had hurt. Maybe there was a way to defend against that, but he'd think about it later.

Kyle panted from the exertions but he wasn't really that tired. A short breather would leave him ready for more. He eyeballed the perimeter. That was quite a lot of Shadows and even he had to admit, maybe he'd bitten off more than he could chew now.

"Oi, Starbucks! Get your ass over here!"

Kyle looked over his shoulder. Vice was joining the fray at last. He conceded to backing up closer to him in order to catch his breath and get ready for another round of whomping if he had to. Vice was doing something. He felt it and he knew what was coming.

"You wanna see something fun?"

About time! I was hopin' to see what this guy can do.

He mirrored Vice's smile with a wicked little smirk of his own. Things were about to get really interesting.

"Do I ever."

[Vice Ysal]

"Good answer."

The more experienced of the two replied, the small smile on his face slowly but surely stretching further and further until it became a full blown grin. Again, these enemies weren't really worth his time and much as he would admit that curb stomping can lose its novelty pretty fast if done too much…this wasn't even getting close to it. Standing there, surrounded by five shadows that carried with them different resistances, weaknesses, and abilities, Vice couldn't really be assed to be more joyous about this little occasion.

"Now pay attention."

It started loud, there was no soft start up or any kind of warming up for it. No, the sounds of glass shattering exploded into the battle field as the guttural roar of the Black Knight surrounded them. The persona appearing overhead, black energy seeping into its blade, Vice called out with a mental trigger to destroy everything within sight. The crunching of metal plates against each other produced a grinding sound as the Dark Knight moved into position. The shadows themselves, watching it in either awe or fear, couldn't tell if the beast was simply laughing at their written demise or if it was still growling with unbridled anger.

Not that it mattered.

Before most of the shadows even registered it, shocked from the events, a horizontal slash had more or less bisected majority of them. Howls and echoes of pain flooded the area as ichor spewed from the wounds. Four of the five shadows dead just like that, with one of them somehow being lucky to have had a resistance to slash type attacks. The young man had half a mind to call out Arondight again to have him use a Megido this time but decided against it. Craning is head to look at Kyle, the devilish grin on his lips visible, he'd ask:

"You wanna do the honours?"