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 Holly Mason on Feb 7, 2014 22:48:36 GMT -5
Holly never spent much time at the hospital, the whole place kind of creeped her out. She wasn't exactly afraid of hospitals, but there was something eerie about abandoned ones, especially when they were infested with demons. It was the second worst place to explore in her opinion, only being beaten out by the sewers. Yet, here she was. She figured she should stop putting off checking this place out. It wasn't quite as bad as she expected, and it's not like she was going to get covered in shit by exploring it like she would the sewers. Those could just be explored by someone else.
However, this place was interesting. The second she entered the front door (because trying to sneak through shadows was for wusses) she sensed something strange. There was a strong shadow here. Was this one of the shadows that created the barrier that the others mentioned? She had to go check it out.
Again, here he was in the hospital. Creepy and not quite sterile as it was, Vice still found it rather unnerving. Ignore the blood splattering the walls, the broken shards of glass that could be around the stray emergency beds on the hall way and the rusted bloody scalpels that were sticking out of places that should be there. Really, it was exactly the same goddamn setting it had been for every time that Vice had seen ever since he found this place and marked it on his map.
The only thing that was really different now was, well, him he mused.
The world felt different still, but he guessed it was still a feeling he had to get used to. Scouring the place around, his feet dragging him across some of the bloodier messes in the place, a thrum in his chest alerted him into something. He didn't really understand what was happening but it felt oddly familiar. Still, he might as well find the thing first that's causing this sensation, a sharper one than most of what he'd felt ever since, and see what the hell is wrong with the place.
Who knows, maybe he'll be able to get some use for the whole thing.
Post by Ayakura Alisa on Feb 8, 2014 2:02:09 GMT -5
I had been sitting at the lobby of the Hospital for a while now, on my own this time, I hadn't really intended to come here again but still, things changed. Honestly, I wanted to ruminate on some things. Think about my direction in the current situation. I stood up and made my way through down the halls, and though I heard the front doors open I had not really particularly noticed, I didn't particularly feel a chill or anything, so I had presumed it was just another stranger making their rounds through. So, thinking that, I walked down the hallways, wondering why it was bloodier than usual considering I had already come here with Chidori, and I've also been here on my own, so it wouldn't be easy for me to get lost, I had become somewhat familiar with this particular stratum of the hospital. However, I could smell something was certainly off, but it was probably the blood and goop.
I had been thinking to myself while I was walking, maybe I should be risking my life for something more tangible, if I really had to go out and do this thing. Maybe I should drop everything I did, and stick to supporting Chidori-san. I think, maybe, I should forget this thing about my parents for now, until I become capable of fighting. Right now, I can't do too much. At least I'm alone now, so I can freely use my knife if I need to. The bow seems a lot stronger right now, though.
I muttered audibly out loud, "Is what I'm doing really right?" before covering my mouth when I realized my voice reverberated through the walls of the hallway.
You hear skittering coming from across the hospital hall. It's certainly not a noise you usually hear from a shadow. Yet, you can definitely sense whatever it is. It seems to be a lot stronger than a normal shadow from what you can tell.
All of a sudden though, the skittering that seems to slowly be getting closer, stops. Then, from out of the ceiling a spider-like nurse entity drops down holding what looks like a giant syringe. The thing literally phased through the ceiling from the floor above it seems. And now, it's looking the three of you over. The shadow itself has a spider-like bottom half, but a feminine upper half. The upper half also seemed to be dressed up in some sort of nurse garb. It's only looking you three over right now, so it looks like you have the first move.
She heard footsteps, it seemed like she wasn't alone. That wasn't a bad thing given how strong this shadow felt. Holly glanced at the two people in the area. A newly awakened persona user and a person that was normal as far as she knew. Well, this was going to be a difficult battle. She moved towards them, trying to pinpoint the shadow's location. It was above them, but something felt strange. It was like, it was up a level but also right above them? She got her answer when the shadow suddenly dropped from the ceiling right behind her. Was it trying to land on top of her? Well, it was a good thing she moved then!
"Stay behind us," positioned herself between Alisa and the shadow. "You can still hit it from there right?"
Regardless of her answer, Holly knew what she had to do. It was time to make everyone stronger. She summoned her card to her hand and sliced it with one of her knives. A brown haired woman in a yellow dress appeared before her and snapped her fingers. All three of them were enveloped in an orange light and the figure disappeared shortly afterwards. There was a sudden surge of power in her body, and she was sure the other two felt it as well.
"Focus on hitting it, leave any healing and support to me."
Sharper, the feeling of dread that began to pile up inside him the closer he had walked towards the source of…this feeling was beginning to pump the adrenaline in his body. Christ, searching out for the shadows was so much easier this way. It was like comparing the resolution of a video, where as a Civilian that highest you could go was 360p and suddenly everything was in High Definition. Vice was totally thankful for getting something as awesome as a legitimate imaginary friend. For now though, he was going to need to keep his head in the game a bit longer instead of prancing around in joy to the discovery of his own powers.
Calloused fingers curled around the handle of his revolver as he came upon some kind of open space in the Hospital's area where another signature seemed to flare up. His eyes narrowed at the presence of another person but, easily enough, softened when the familiar face made itself known. Either or, another person seemed to have arrived to the scene and more familiar faces came to mind. Not exactly the people he were expecting, but Vice mused that it could have been worse. Much, much worse.
Then his newly gifted senses began to blare around and some freak fell off from the goddamn ceiling.
Was…was that a spider? A massive ass spider with a head that was wearing a nurse outfit.Shocking brevity aside, Vice took a good look between Holly, himself, and Alisa. Ragtag team of adventurers is a go, it seemed. Placing the gun back to its holster, Vice had replaced his firearm in favour of his melee weapons that were pretty capable of getting in some good damage.
"See if you can get a bearing on what it's weak to."
Vice suggested as the power within him begun to thrum and the familiar feeling of energy began to flow into his veins. A small knowing, and almost imperceptible, smirk made its way to his face before taking on the role of the tank this time around. Charging forward, his body crossing the distance with a fast pace, the young man deftly slid to the giant spider's right side before lashing out with an empowered Slash attack. Maybe it'd be able to stop the thing from moving.
Post by Ayakura Alisa on Feb 9, 2014 2:01:47 GMT -5
The sound of skittering soon reverberated as if responding to my utterance, giving me a bit of the chills. I started walking a bit more briskly as soon I realize that, a strange form had literally phased into existence from the ceiling, and that it looked like some goddamn Arachne reject in a nurse outfit. Man, sometimes I wonder if I'm on drugs, until I realized the only crap I would ever take would be performance-enhancing boosters. For all that is holy! the damnable thing even held a giant syringe! "Hello, nurse!" would be the last thing on my mind, I wouldn't want THAT thing up my ass. Christ. I stepped away from the spider thing as the tall blonde from way-back-when came up and stayed in front of me and some ways away from the spider, and as if I had mentally predicted, told me to stay back. I sighed, resigning to the fact I was probably the weak link, until I realized that Vice was present, but then again, something about him seemed off, I guess it was almost like he... ...Huh. That's depressing. I won't mention it. I groaned, rubbing my forehead before pulling out my Mongol Bow in silence, staying back.
I hated to admit it, but it looks like I would be the deadweight this time around. Sucks to be me, I guess. I wasn't going to question it now, but something I knew would eat at me, wondering if there was anything wrong with me. For making this choice. I'd have to live with it now... I pointed my bow at the Shadow creature, and shot arrows at its humanoid body, seeing how much I could do. I said nothing. There was nothing that needed to be said. Actions speak louder than words.
Despite the Spider's increased agility, both attacks managed to hit directly. The slash attack landed a decent blow to the enemy, causing one of its legs to stumble back. But the arrows seemed to have no effect. The spider was more than ready to attack now, having given the users the first blow. It wouldn't be going easy on them.
[Stun Needles]
The large spider nurse started off by firing a large array of needles at the users from it's large needle like a machine gun. The needles were laced with a strange liquid that seemed to exhaust the target. It made sure to fire off at every target.
All enemies hit with moderate pierce damage! Vice and Alisa are exhausted!
Post by Holly Mason on Feb 9, 2014 23:34:39 GMT -5
"I'll leave finding weaknesses to the two of you, I have other things I need to do."
Holly expected the needle the shadow was carrying to be a weapon, but she didn't quite expect it to be used like that. So it was a gun, not an actual syringe, a gun that shot needles no less. It figured that the strong shadow in a place like this would use drugs and needles. Shadows were oddly connected to humans, this shadow really was just a collection of thoughts humans generally had about hospitals. It was strange. Regardless, now wasn't the time to think about this, she could worry about it later.
Rather than try to dodge the attack at all, Holly braced herself and stood her ground trying to stop as many of the needles from hitting the normal as possible. There were just too many for her to be even a little effective at doing so unfortunately. Being a meatshield probably wouldn't be that effective, and the normal's long ranged weapon didn't do anything against this shadow. Sighing, she stepped out of the way so the normal could attack it in melee if she chose. Holly would prefer if she just ran away, but she knew it was a futile effort and she was sick of trying at this point. Both her allies looked pretty tired. That was strange, the battle just started and she felt fine. Either they had the worst endurance ever, or the shadow did something weird to them.
"Can't help you with your exhaustion, I'll heal after this hold out just a little longer."
It was a risky choice, but Holly decided that taking this thing down quickly would be more effective than turtling. As she called the card to her hand she took a few steps forward. It was a reflexive move to make herself seem more prominent to the shadow, she wanted it to attack her instead of them. Even if the normal would in all likelihood be up in its face soon she figured it was worth a shot. With a small grin, she called her persona once again and increased the attack power of her side.
It was a blessing really, the ability to be able to summon a persona. It had taken away many of his weaknesses and every thing he had done felt so much easier than before. From taking hits to dealing hits, Vice’s body didn’t feel like it would be broken from the weakest hit had he not been wearing protecting vestments on him. Regardless of this however, there were still things that can go through his improved constitution and that just so happened to be pierce type attacks. Attacks that this freak of a nurse had in abundance.
The needles had gotten through his defenses and in such close proximity, the young man had no time to get the hell out of dodge. The machine gun fire had littered his limbs, pain flaring up but not to the extent that it would incapacitate him, far from it. He’d been training harder and with the addition of not only his armour but a persona as well, it would take more than that to keep him down.
What did bother him was how his energy seemed to be leaking away at a much faster rate. His body felt fine still but every movement seemed to be sapping away at his energy and that concerned him. Still, he couldn’t just hang back and do nothing. Seeing as Slash type attacks was a plausible avenue of attack, the young man decided to explore his other options with the idea of maybe finding its weakness.
The sounds of glass shattering echoed around again as a bestial roar from a Knight shrouded in darkness appeared behind Vice. The cloak of darkness formed into a compressed ball in the gauntlet fist of the persona. There was no verbal command required—and Vice simply urged the power to flow out. A Mudo, coalesced into a ball of dark energy, flew towards the shadow in an attempt to blow the damnable arachnid nurse off its feet.
Post by Ayakura Alisa on Feb 10, 2014 3:37:36 GMT -5
I stared in annoyed bemusement as I realized that my arrows didn't do anything to it. "God-fucking-damnit!" I cursed, in a strange fit of uncharacteristic anger as I realized that, once again, I was the weak link. Growling, I realized that the spider had soon released some sort of needles at us, striing us for some degree of damage, naturally the two with me seemed to handle it better than I did, causing me to shake a little. Yet, I had weathered far worse in the past, the only damn thing that seemed to catch me off-guard though was the sudden bout of exhaustion that seemed to enter me. It wasn't so much physical exhaustion as it was mental lethargy of sorts, I seemed to feel... almost lazy. I had half a mind just to leave them to it, but... No, that would just be... Would that really be smart? Probably. But you know, I was sick and tired of this charade.
Even as the tall girl casted a spell to bolster our offenses, I felt somewhat guilty I could do virtually nothing of real significance. I pulled out Izayoi once more. "It doesn't matter if you call me a fool for this. I don't care if you tell me to flee to safety like a sane person. I'm sick of being dead-weight." And just like that, as the bitterness dripped from my voice, I ran forward, powering through my moments of laziness and exhaustion, striking directly at the legs of the spider freak with my knife.
After the spider let off a steady stream of needles, exhausting two of the enemy team, it swayed from side to side a bit. It wasn't wasting its time. No. It was getting ready to dodge anything that was thrown at it. So when the spider noticed the dark-based attack come at it, the shadow narrowly slid to the side, completely avoiding the attack thanks to its increased agility. However, the knife managed to slice into another one of the spider's legs, causing it to stumble slightly.
[Mabufula]
Rather than doing something special, the spider began to go from a dark black color to a light blue one. And then, the spider released a fog of ice into the area, chilling everyone for moderate ice damage!
Post by Holly Mason on Feb 10, 2014 21:29:29 GMT -5
The spider was surprisingly agile for something so huge. She supposed it made sense, spiders were pretty fast. Holly frowned and folded her arms. If it was going to keep dodging their attacks like this then this would be a long fight. Its speed was almost unnatural, much like those shadows she fought on that recent mission. Could she stop it? If the ability came from a similar source as her attack empowering abilities than she definitely could. It might be worth the risk at some point, but right now, everyone was hurt. The ice attack didn't phase her much because of her armor, but Vice looked more injured than she expected from two attacks of this level, and she was pretty sure that another would just outright kill pretty much any normal.
"I might be able to stop it from dodging. If all goes well, I'll do it after this!"
Holly called forth Anaisa Pye to cast Media and everyone was covered in a soothing blue light healing some of their wounds. It probably wouldn't heal them completely, but it should do for now.
The fact that his attack had missed didn't deter him so much as others would have thought. It would've been better had he not chosen to use the attack but who knew that it'd miss, right? He already had a steady route for dealing damage anyway so he'd most likely just stick with that. The pierce method wouldn't work unfortunately which meant that the young man would have to come in close again.
Goddamnit he hated that nurse outfit being wasted on a freaking spider bitch. Specially ones that could create giant ass ice shards that hurt like a bitch.
Bringing out his swords to the forefront again, and coping with the increasing feeling of exhaustion that seemed to cling unto him, the newly minted user once again charged forward. His feet moved as deftly as they could despite the damage he had sustained and after sliding into a feint, lashed forward with both of his swords to try and mutilate the arachnid's legs to hopefully restrain its movement.
The chances of missing would hopefully lessen the less mobility this thing had, and every hit counts when dealing with these kinds of shadows.
Last Edit: Feb 11, 2014 0:14:09 GMT -5 by Vice Ysal
Post by Ayakura Alisa on Feb 11, 2014 2:26:57 GMT -5
Yes, the spider creature, it was very dangerous. My knife struck at its leg true, causing it to stumble, despite its increased agility and its capacity to evade a strike of dark energy as if it were nothing. I had half a mind to take a jab at Vice for that but I think that wouldn't run very well with him, especially considering that he must have obtained the Power for himself. The power... Hmph. Soon enough, the giant spider, though it stumbled and flinched a little, attempted to try and retaliate, and strike back it did, releasing a chilling gaseous fog of ice that seemed to slice at me and almost burn me up, I could barely move during the attack; all I really could do was to shiver and weather the attack. Once it dissipated and exhausted itself, I was kneeling and still shivering a little. I coughed. I looked to my side and realized the tall girl seemingly shrugged it off; it was possible she was naturally resistant to cold or was wearing something that protected her from it. Vice didn't fare that much better than me but he could probably weather another attack.
I, on the other hand... I still shivered, but as we were healed thanks to the other girl's magicks, our strength was sustained just a little. Hopefully, it would be enough. I sighed and panted as I could feel the mental exhaustion getting to me. Despite that, I powered forward and quickly did a straight slice again to the leg of the spider, hoping it would fall and be more vulnerable to stronger attacks by the other two people present.