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.
Post by Anna Myers on May 25, 2014 20:59:47 GMT -5
The slime had some final words to say, but they were nothing Anna cared about. She didn't have much of anything interesting to say anyway. More importantly, they were done. The core had escaped, but it was useless on its own. The worst that could happen was that a new slime would form around it after some time, and they'd repeat the whole process over again. But when that time came, Anna would just have to be sure to destroy it for real.
For the moment, though, everyone was beat up, but still alive. And the battle was over, so that meant a chance to rest, and possibly celebrate. After all, for some of the people here, this was their first battle on such a scale. And they'd survived it. Speaking of which...
"Hey, you," Anna said, gesturing to the wooden sword-wielding girl she'd shielded when the slime core blasted them. She turned and beckoned the more obvious newbie as well, the one with the deer skull Persona. "You too, over here a second." She gave them a moment to come over to her. In the meantime, she checked her shotgun to be sure it hadn't gotten slimed or anything of the sort, then folded the umbrella canopy back over it. Once she was done, she spoke. "Well, I think congratulations are in order, for surviving a mess like that. How're you holding up?"
Post by Ariane Ivers on May 26, 2014 16:57:34 GMT -5
Now that the fight was finally over and the adrenaline was wearing off, Anne felt lightheaded. She saw the strange little trinket roll over to her feet and picked it up, shoving it in her bag without much of a second thought. Whatever it was could wait for later to be inspected, right now she needed to focus on not curling up to take a nap right here on the beach.
It took her a moment to realize their 'coordinator' was talking to her, and she blinked in surprise before walking over, unwinding the sand covered fist-wraps from her hands and shoving them unceremoniously into her bag. Something told her they were due for an upgrade, especially after seeing some of the weapons the others had. The girl talking to her, for example; that gun looked really snazzy.
She didn't really know what she was expecting. To be chewed out for being here, maybe? Whatever she thought, a congratulations wasn't one of them. Taking a moment for it to sink in she smiled weakly, shrugging. "Thanks. I think I'm alright, though, for the most part. Quite a bit battered and I think I'll be cleaning sand off of me for the next decade, but okay. Sorry if I made things more difficult for you guys as it is. I guess I had no real idea what I was getting into. If it wasn't for Isolde, though, I'm sure I would have kicked it." Speaking of... Anne looked around, spotting the other redhead and giving a weak wave. She was glad to see that despite getting hit for her she was okay. If she wasn't, she didn't know what she would do.
Looking back to the girl, Anne raised an eyebrow. "My name is Ariane, by the way. I'm guessing this sort of thing happens often?"
Post by Ayakura Alisa on May 26, 2014 20:52:37 GMT -5
Finally. It was over. Though, I thought I could hear some words. I couldn't tell what they were really meaning, as it seemed cryptic enough. Perhaps it was a link to the folly of man. Well, it was up to us to deal with that. I wasn't going to let some demon take the lion's share of that. Human affairs are to be dealt with by humans, not by otherworldly forces. Anna looked to coral up the fresh fighters, which managed to survive. Though, I was fairly sure if some did not rush in to defend them, they would probably croak or be knocked out by now. Even as I thought I could handle it, I found myself feeling rather sick. My head wound opened up and rubbing my face, I could estimate that half of my face was stained in blood. My shirt and pants were all dirty, and I was also soaking wet. Note to self, don't abuse the ion cannon.
I sighed and made my way to Anna as well, though she didn't call me over. "Looks like everyone's alive. That's good," I said, ignoring the fact I looked like abject trash. By all accounts, I looked basically dead. And I was certainly feeling it. Forcing the Haja no Ken repeatedly was probably the worst idea I have ever had in a long time, but it was my only hard-hitting technique that kept me relevant in the battle. I'd have to do something about that. Fortunately I could still walk and do lighter activities, though I probably couldn't manage my more acrobatic stunts without further injuring myself.
This certainly wasn't something a healing spell could fix right off the bat. This was mostly mental energy being expended after all, so my inner circuitry was crumbling. "If that demon was what showed up this month, I dread to think what will show up next month..."
Post by Setsuna Hanamori on May 27, 2014 2:14:40 GMT -5
Setsuna let out a heavy sigh of relief once the whole thing seemed to be over. Thanks to the constant healing provided by Holly, she wasn't in fairly good condition in spite of the beating she took from those few ridiculously powerful attacks. Soon, everything returned to normal, and Setsuna was finally able to calm down...at least, a little bit, anyway. She still had a lot of questions, and there was no way she was going to be able to go home without getting some answers. Just as she was debating this, Anna called Setsuna and another girl, who was apparently just as new to this as she was over to them. She was anticipating a lecture, but was pleasantly surprised when she congratulated them instead.
"I'm...mostly okay. I just..." And finally, in spite of her efforts to remain calm, Setsuna pretty much completely lost her cool "W-what the hell was that?! I mean...first the sky goes all weird and everyone is in a coffin, then suddenly there are ridiculously powerful Shadows within the city...I..." Then, she made a sudden realization "...oh crap my parents are going to kill me!" She quickly looked at her watch, fully expecting it to be well past 1 AM...only to find it was just a couple minutes past midnight. "...w-wait...what?" Needless to say, she was hopelessly confused as to what was happening, and it was becoming more obvious that her even being here was pretty much a spur-of-the-moment thing. Had she not been out when the Dark Hour began, she'd be back home and asleep by now.
Post by Ringo Shiro on May 27, 2014 2:46:36 GMT -5
Not only have they succeeded in freeing Holly from the Slime, the additional barrage of attacks hit the slime woman. She was no longer able to maintain her form. She started to melt away. Ringo readied his persona to slash it should it provide any resistance but at the rate its going it most likely won't be solid enough to hurt anyone. However, he could hear it speak one last time.
”May the ruin you've crafted with your own hands be your undoing.” It finally died. Ringo then finally allowed himself to collapse a little. Ringo sent his persona out a lot this time around didn't he? He slowly recomposed himself. His body was feeling better due to Holly's healing from earlier but it isn't going to be an instant fix for all the times he used his powers. He looked around to check on the condition of the others. It was then something stood out to him.
"I'll be right back..." Ringo started to walk over to her after doing a quick scan of Holly seeing as how she got out of getting dragged around out of the slime demon. He looked over at Alisa's head wound and the condition of her clothing. Ringo himself shouldn't be one to talk but at least he doesn't have a head wound. "Um...here..." Ringo dug through his pocket and presented a medical powder. "I'm not sure this helps much but you got to get that looked at." Ringo is being...a bit hypocritical here.
"W-what the hell was that?! I mean...first the sky goes all weird and everyone is in a coffin, then suddenly there are ridiculously powerful Shadows within the city...I..." Ringo looked over at the long brown haired girl. Looks like this was a first for her. "...oh crap my parents are going to kill me!" The girl looked at her watch. "...w-wait...what?"
"Time doesn't truly move during the dark hour. To the rest of the world, it was only a second."
That...was about what Anna had expected. Physically okay, for the most part, but they had no idea what was going on. One of them was taking it reasonably well, while the one Anna had shielded...was in something of a panic. "Calm down, calm down," Anna said. "I will explain everything I can. Just take it easy." She gave them, or rather, panic girl, a moment to catch her breath, then took a deep breath herself and started.
"First, off, what just happened. We call it the Dark Hour. I take it I don't have to go into too much detail about what it looks like, since you've just seen it. Right down to the frozen time." She gave a knowing look at panic girl. "We're not entirely sure what causes it, other than that it's tied to particularly strong enemies. Since it goes away once they're defeated. Seems here it's been happening during the full moon." She chose her words carefully, since the only shadow that had shown up didn't seem to be their 'main' enemy. That was...actually quite rare, to see the Dark Hour happen but a shadow not be the root cause. But, it was also solid proof that there was definitely demon activity here as well as shadows.
So they needed to know about that as well.
"Second, the only actual shadow here was the bird. Not mine, the other one. The slime was actually a demon." Again, she held up a hand, trying to stave off another freakout before it could start. "Yeah, I know that's probably gonna be hard to take in. But we still won, so that's a start. You fight demons the same way you do shadows, they just tend to be stronger and harder to kill." That...probably wasn't going to cut it. But Anna was trying to keep things short. It was late, and as panic girl alluded, people had parents wondering where they were at the moment.
"Don't worry too much about causing us trouble by not knowing what was going on or not being ready for this, though. There isn't much way you could have known beforehand," she continued. "Although now that you do know, you should probably make a decision on if you want to brave anything like this again. If you do...I can help you with getting stronger."
Post by Tristan Carter on May 27, 2014 9:03:38 GMT -5
Tristan sat up. He quickly summoned Ifreet to fire off another attack, but he looked around first. Not only was the slime thing dead and/or gone, but it seems that he had missed the entire battle for all intents and purposes. What the fuck is going on? First last month, now this?
The boy struggled to his feet. He hadn't been rendered unconscious by the creatures attacks; it was more like he passed out due to other reasons. The migraine that he had did nothing but confirm this. Something was going on with him, and this shadow bullshit- now coupled with other things, whatever they were- obviously wasn't helping.
"Who..." Tristan said groggily. "Who all's still here?"
Post by Amane Mana on May 29, 2014 20:26:45 GMT -5
Amane watched as the attacks rained down on the slime. The avian shadow was flying away but none were in any condition to chase it. Not to mention sentient shadows have already been proven difficult to take down. The onslaught eventually made it so the demon had trouble keeping her form. She was melting away.
“May the ruin you've crafted with your own hands be your undoing.” Amane watched as the creature finally melted away. She walked over and noticed something where it died. She reached at a handle that was sticking out and pulled out…a shinai. She arched an eyebrow for a moment but decided not to question it. She might as well look into it.
”whoa…Alisa…” Amane was rude for a moment but that was because of how wrecked Alisa looked.
Post by Ayakura Alisa on May 29, 2014 23:33:01 GMT -5
Ringo presented medical powder to me and I tilted my head as I shook my head. "Medical powder won't solve the problem. It's okay. Worry about yourself for the meantime." Meanwhile, Anna was explaining to the two relatively newer folks about the situation. So I didn't need to say anything, this was good. Anna also offered to help familiarize them with proper fighting. Tristan who I had completely forgotten existed for the duration of the battle suddenly showed up and asked who was still there. They could answer for themselves. Eventually, I also saw Amane show up and she looked at me in utter disbelief.
I turned to face her, half my face a dirty reddish-brown from the blood that by now had dried up. "Good evening, Amane. Are you okay? Do I have something on my face?" I giggled and joked, my legs shivering a little. Though, fortunately, I could probably still get home on my own without much trouble.
Post by Ariane Ivers on May 31, 2014 18:00:39 GMT -5
Anne blanched as one of their teammates joined them, sporting a terrible head wound. Just as she started to dig around in her bag to find something to try and help, a boy beat her too it. It was probably for the best, since it looked stronger than anything she had on hand. Before she had too much time to dwell or worry over the girl's wounds her thoughts were quickly interrupted by the other newcomer. She turned to the younger user, concern on her face. As everyone took their turns talking, the redhead could feel her stomach twisting into knots more and more. The other newbie had every right to break down. The only reason Ariane wasn't, was a strange mixture of exhaustion and more focus on her need for answers. She didn't like being left in the dark, and letting herself become hysteric would not help the situation.
Regardless, as the 'organizer' explained what had happened, Anne felt like she was going to be sick. A demon? Just as she had eventually come to accept the spooks she had become accustomed to something even worse gets thrown into the mix. Beautiful. Taking slow breaths to try and calm herself down, she nodded absently in thanks for her assurance there wasn't much she could have done to mentally prepare herself. Now, however, there was. Arms crossed in front of her she sighed deeply, giving a weak smile. "This... dark hour? Doesn't end if the thing isn't killed, right? Then yea. I do want to help again. I'd rather do what I can then sit in the background and make everyone else do it for me. Your help would be appreciated, too. You've obviously been at this a lot longer than I have."
Just as she was about to make another comment, or ask a few more questions, another boy joined the conversation. It was one of the others that joined early like she did, but now that she thought of it she realized he had stopped attacking suddenly. He looked generally unhurt, which was a good thing, but definitely seemed out of sorts. "I think we all managed okay, thanks to..." she frowned, looking over to the blonde who kept them alive the whole time, "Er, I'm afraid I don't know her name... but it's thanks to her."
Post by Setsuna Hanamori on Jun 2, 2014 15:21:43 GMT -5
Aside possibly being the youngest there, Setsuna was also probably the least experience when it came to this sort of thing. At least, that's what she was assuming. As it turned out, Ariene was simply much better at not freaking out in the aftermath of this thing. As Anna went on to give the best explanation of everything that she could, Setsuna, thankfully, started to calm down a little. She was still freaking out, but she had enough control over her emotions to not completely lose it again, like she had just a moment ago. All in all, Setsuna had no clue what to make of what she was being told. But, for what it was worth, it did ease her mind a bit.
Then, came a rather obvious choice. Honestly speaking, she would love nothing more than to just forget everything happened and go back to living a normal life. However, now that she was so heavily involved, that was probably going to be impossible. As such, when she heard what Ariene said, she nodded in agreement "...m-me too. I...I'f be lying if I said I was looking forward to facing another opponent like that...honestly, I'm really not. But, with everything I've seen, and especially after what I saw tonight, there's no way I can just sit at home and pretend nothing's going on. So...if I can, I want to help...even if it only ends up being a little bit."