Hibiki felt like the fighting was coming from the left, but... it could have also been the right, too... was it coming from both sides? Something bad was going on... which meant she had to hurry up and help out as soon as possible! She was just one moment from running in a direction and hoping when... she heard a voice. Calling her name. And there was no way she'd ever forget the sound of that voice.

"Miku?!"

Hibiki turned on her heel and... there she was. The green-eyed, dark-haired girl was running right towards her. So, naturally, the straight and direct path, the sort of path that Hibiki always took, was to run right towards Miku, leap for her, and throw her arms around the other girl without a moment's hesitation. After all, how else could Hibiki react after seeing Miku again so soon, after thinking it would be a while before she got to see her again?

-------
13th Hierarchial City of Kagutsuchi
-------

After a few moments, Alex heard a familiar voice and gazed upwards. It was the energetic girl with the orange-y hair. She was among the first to introduce themselves. It seems she was going to be Alex's teammate for this world. He was not very sure about having a young teenager for a wingman but since she was among the summoned, it was likely that she was more than meets the eye.

One thing did bug Alex, how come she appeared in the building's roof when he appeared on the alleyway? The virus shrugged at this minor prospect and decided to rendezvous with the schoolgirl. Alex lowered himself to gather strength before leaping upwards, the gathered strength propelling him further and letting him reach the roof in a single bound.

Landing upon the rooftop, he saw the orange-y-haired girl hugging a similarly-aged girl sporting blue hair. It appeared that Alex was in the middle of a reunion and figured he should let these two have their time.

The boy quietly went through one of the three portals along with a couple others, glancing about with an amazed expression at the rather aesthetically pleasing buildings. Though there seemed to be a rather busy energy to the place considering oden was all but flung and the sounds of clashing were occurring in the distance. Seeing that the dish was taken care of by the energetic girl (who now had her girlfriend show up and was melting the surroundings with an aura of dawwwwww), Souji turned on his heels and dashed towards the din with a determined (and somewhat flustered) expression on his young face.

Artorias remained seated whilst the Recordkeeper explained the difficulties facing the world. Could it be that this 'Akashic Record' was the source of the First Flame? If that was the case, not only would his activities here mirror his work against the Abyss, then the decay that had set in across Lordran could be reversed and the sun could rise once more above Anor Londo. No matter what happened, every delay that this project caused from travelling to Oolacile was worth it.

It wasn't like the knight would have been able to refuse even if it made his task harder for no gain.

After the initial introductions were made and the portals unveiled, Artorias surveyed how the group was splitting off. The mass seemed to consist mostly of sorcerers or other armour-less fighters, which suggested that his abilities would be ill-served--and consequently, he took the third exit, joining Guts and Goldibanne in a city with materials beyond his recognition, but the unmistakeable sound of fighting.

Already, a path was beginning to clear, with the other enormous sword hacking through zombies like paper. Guts' efforts were aided when the Abysswalker leapt to the cleared space, darkened blade slashing around to carve a wide semi-circle expanding their beachhead before the blade pointed northwards, towards the combat--with the enormous wolf leaping onto another zombie and ripping its throat out. Trusting in his current associates to help, Artorias thrust forwards, impaling another three on his blade before flinging them off. With the lunge, his right was covered by the shield, but the left was open to the mass of undead.

---

Hibiki's sudden embrace, though as warm and welcoming as ever, was hardly something that Miku was prepared for whilst running forwards and, with the collision, she ended up on the floor. Returning the hug, of course, but in no way contributing to solving the issue at hand. "H-Hibiki, the fight."

“That would be correct,” Philip answered the youkai, “New York is a city in America, a large country made up of several different states. Until today, neither I nor Shotaro have ever visited it. It costs a lot to travel to America from Japan, let alone as a vacation.” he remarked.

Shotaro, on the other hand, was too busy taking in the sights, the smell, the… hard-boiled air… to respond to Satori immediately. He probably knew better than to fantasize about his dream New York on the job, but he he had a feeling he wasn’t going to be getting the chance to do this again any time soon. To everyone else, though, he looked… odd. He was just facing away from everyone and stared off into the distance, watching the rising sun with his hands in his pockets. You could practically see a tumbleweed make its way through until he finally spoke up. “Alright,” he said cooly, “The first thing we should do to learn about what’s going on,” he turned his head back to the others and snapped with his left hand, “Is get a newspaper. Let’s see if the public’s noticed anything weird going on and had it reported.”

The idea seemed smart enough for Shotaro, but Philip immediately countered it with the obvious. “Surely you don’t expect us to buy a newspaper, right? Who knows if the yen of our world can exchange cleanly into the dollar of this?” Shotaro had not considered that, actually.

“…W-Well, I didn’t say buy, I said get,” he retorted, “C’mon, let’s just ask someone who’s already reading one what’s up.” And with that, Shotaro scanned the area for anybody that had a newspaper on them, intending to make a beeline straight for them if he could spot anyone.

Even though they'd fallen over, that didn't stop Hibiki. She wrapped her arms tightly around Miku, as the other girl did the same to her. She'd already been worrying about how long it would take for her to get back, but now Miku was by her side and she didn't have to worry about that any longer! Hibiki only stopped hugging Miku when the other girl reminded her about the fighting nearby. That's right! She had to go see, she had to help out...!

Hibiki got to her feet, taking Miku's hand to pull her up to her feet as well.

"That's right..." she said, a look of determination growing on her face as she turned, eyes following the boy who had rushed off. He'd probably be going right for the fighting as well... The girl nodded firmly.

"Stay safe, Miku! I'll be right back!" she said, leaning in and hugging the other girl one last time before turning to sprint off.

The street Shirabe found herself deposited in was a mess. Flames covered a large amount of the area she could see, and gunfire echoed in the distance.

What was clearly a problem was the large number of shambling monsters that infested the area. And the people attacking them with large swords who she'd seen before stepping into the portal. Evidently there was only one option.

She started to sing.



Two joined round dances start your punishment

Dropping her skates out, she shot forwards, unfolding a pair of sawblades from their holders hanging from the side of her head.

I'll even turn you into pieces

Spinning around, the blades swung out on their arms in a wide dismembering circle.

By initializing my justice

"Oh~? An excessively large knight in shining armor and his wolf have joined the fray~?" Goldibanne giggled, even as she forced a ribbon of molten gold up between one Animate Dead's legs, slicing upwards with a sizzling sound to divide it completely in half up the middle. The corpse collapsed to both sides, smoking, as Goldibanne realized further zombies approached her from behind, more still coming from the front as well. Grinning, she piroutted and leaned back on one leg, projecting one hand forward and one hand back, and sending each of her whips of gold slicing through flesh, causing Animate Dead to collapse in dismembered heaps of body parts.

"Fufufu~ Such a collection of unique people~ Goldibanne is impressed~"

She danced back as another corpse grabbed for her, shifting from one foot to another as a flash of gold took the upper half of its head cleanly off. Ah, they were just like garbage, weren't the?

... Oh, and that new girl... such a unique fighting style! Using saws in such a way, and singing? How elegant and wonderful, certainly, Goldibanne would have to speak to her.

As the sounds of fighting grow closer to those who approach, a pair of characters-- a man with what seems to be a human-sized puppet and something more akin to a mass of coagulated oil with a masked tacked onto it(albeit with some weird appendages sticking out of it)--appear, blocking off the pathway to the fighting. Glancing at those arriving, the man shakes his head in disapproval.

"This is no place for children right now; something is amiss, and I can't have anyone interfering with my observations. Truly, this phenomenon is a strange one, and I refuse to lose even a moment's time with my research."

With a flick of his wrist, the puppet springs to life, seemingly ready for combat if necessary.

"Since I'm in a good mood today, I'll ask you politely: turn back now and head indoors; if you refuse, then I am fully prepared to force you to do so myself."

The blob, on the other hand, turns its masked face towards the same people the man is addressing, just as ready to fight as the puppet seems to be.



The combined efforts of the group make quick work of the horde of zombies, leaving a giant pile of infected bodies lying in the middle of the road. The sounds of gunfire draw closer from the north, but before long, the source made itself clear: a large, camo-painted truck plowing through the streets, a large machine gun mounted on the top. The one manning it, a Caucasian man about six feet tall in what seemed to be a military outfit, seemed to be thoroughly focused on the enemies on their tail.

Namely, a group of mutated beasts, numbering about thirty or so, making a beeline for them.

"Shit!" the driver, an African American man wearing a similar outfit, shouted, attempting to swerve out of the way from the group that had just entered the location. "Who the--?! Chris! How's the rear coming along?"

"Not good, not good at all! They're too mobile and moving too erratically for me to get a lock on them!"

"Well, you'd better start trying, or else these people in front of us aren't gonna be alive for much longer!"

"People? Alive? What are you--"

"I don't know either, but we don't have TIME to ask right now! Just SHOOT!"

--------------

--------------

Alex followed closely as the group of teenagers headed to where the fighting was at. The sounds of combat grew closer but suddenly, two figures stood in their way, stopping the group dead in their tracks.

One was a fair-skinned male sporting blonde hair and wearing an equally-colored mask (the masquerade kind). His clothes resembled those found in the Renaissance, its primary colors being purple and white. With him was a tall, female of milky white skin and short, blonde hair wearing a pink dress, a large pink... hat that appeared to have two metal protrusions, also pink in color, that was as long as her. Alex spotted that her hands were larger than her head and her robotic activation told him that this woman was more metal than man.

The other figure was something Alex was more familiar with. It was a shapeless mass, pitch black in color. It had a circular, white mask with only three holes for a 'face'. Strange appendages stuck out of it. Alex thought was a pile of biomass if he ever saw one. It was something he had seen before but never actually fought against one. Still, a fight was coming on.

Alex cracked his knuckles as spoke to his comrades. "Looks like we're not talking our way out of this." He remarked before continuing. "Mind if I take on the robot?"

STAR NINGER SHURIKEN!

THE CHANGE!

Standing on a roof, having done the stereotypical ninja run to arrive, Kinji placed a golden shuriken on his phone. With the steely gaze of a veteran monster hunter, he glared at the masked puddle and puppeteer.

"Usually, when ya got some spook and some varmint with a puppet tryin' to keep you away, that's exactly where you need to go, so... Shuriken Change!"

Guitar music straight out of a hoedown played as Kinji spun the shuriken. The spinning image of a sheriff's badge appeared around Kinji's feet, rising up and encasing him in golden light as he held his guitar-sword-gun once again. The mask of a cowboy hat, star-shaped faceplate, and golden armor encased his head as he leapt into the air, playing a riff on the guitar as he landed, golden spandex appearing around his body.

"HIDING DOESN'T STOP PARTY NIGHT! THE SHINING STAR- STARNINGER!"

The sound effects were quick to punctuate this statement: STARNINGER- WOW!

As Hibiki came to a halt, faced with the figures who seemed intent on a fight, her first inclination was not even to activate her Symphogear. She didn't even slip into a combat-ready stance. Even though two of them didn't seem human, one of them was, and that meant one of them could be talked to, right? And since that... blobby thing and the puppet thing only seemed to be responding to the fact that he was ready to fight... Hibiki took a deep breath as she stepped forward, ahead of the man who had just transformed and landed(into a Sentai hero?!) and the other man who was getting ready to fight too.

"We can speak to one another, so that means we don't have to fight, doesn't it?" she began. Oh, she knew that before... before she'd had to fight with those she could talk to. When she could no longer get the message across with her voice... she had to get it across with her fists. But there was never any reason not to try!

"I can't say I know exactly what's going on here," she continued, "But I know it's something bad! If you need to observe something, that doesn't mean we have to fight! There's people in trouble, so please, let us go ahead and help them!"

Sometimes, Hibiki was an idiot. This was one of those times: forgetting that Miku could fight now was one thing, but telling her to stay safe by standing in a random place in a strange city that they knew nothing about was a new level of 'forgetting to think'. How would she even find her way back here? All of this was why, rather than standing and waiting for Hibiki, she kept pace with her friend, right up to the point of reaching a man playing with dolls and something that looked even more horrifying than the Noise.

The... cowboy... guitar-playing spandex ninja and the American seemed all too ready to get into a fight straight away, but maybe the apparently violent researcher would listen to Hibiki. Something about the way he was speaking reminded her... uncomfortably of Ver, so he probably wouldn't listen. Miku had no idea if Arakune could even understand them. Given how likely it was that Hibiki would be ignored again, she reached a hand into her shirt and pulled out the relic.

This time, she wasn't going to wait and watch Hibiki be in danger.

---

With the initial horde of bodies cut down to size, Artorias turned to the others that had chosen this path. The girl in a dress appeared to have the ability to shoot liquid gold for some unfathomable reason, yet the ability could hardly be said to be of no use here. The other one seemed to have some strange sorcery activated by song--yet after encountering some of Oolaciles' own unusual spells, it wasn't terribly surprising. Not after having been out of the world for this task. Meanwhile, the swordsman was, fortunately, strong enough to swing the lump of iron that was his blade--and hopefully the humans were just that, and not branded with the Darksign.

Questioning where they should search for the source of this world's troubles was simplified by the arrival of yet more humans in some strange contraption, who he expected to have the ability to explain what was happening. Or give directions. First, their pursuers had to be dealt with and so, ignoring the idea of going around, Artorias took a short running start before leaping clean over, smashing his blade into the ground... and through several of the creatures. A swift slash later, and Sif landed in the small circle of 'clear' space.

Hefting his shield, Artorias prepared to draw their attacks to give everyone else a clear shot.

Taking her attention away from the fountain, "Jack" tilted her head towards the blonde knight. The other Servant seemed... Confused? That was confusion, right? "Jack" wasn't exactly unfamiliar with the look a woman made when she was confused, although she hoped the knight wasn't about to start screaming. She never liked that part.

"They... Those men said this was "New York"," she said, just barely louder than a whisper. She wasn't really sure what else to say. "Jack" had known very little of New York, and even then the way it was now was so different than anything she would've heard of that it seemed like a completely different place entirely. Turning her head towards the others, she saw various people passing by, some not even human... And after staring blankly for a while at the crowds, she overheard the two men mentioning newspapers. From what she remembered, those were big sheets of paper people read to tell them what was going on, although despite how often she had appeared in such things she'd never read one in her life. Mostly because she'd never read anything in her life, but...

"We... Um..." Awkwardly, she approached the two. As much as she didn't want to talk to anyone aside from Mother (wherever she was), it seemed like she was stuck with these people for now. Maybe if she helped speed things up a bit she could get back to looking for Mother. "We should just... Just kill someone and take their newspaper."

The boy quietly slowed his pace down in just the right way so that the others sped past him before meeting the two beings blocking their path. One looked human, though he came with what appeared to be a giant puppet. The other looked like an amorphous black blob with a facemask sewn on it. Both were in the way of the fight and though they didn't seem overly hostile, they most were certainly suspicious in both word and action as they sought to keep the group from preventing the fight for whatever reason. Glancing at a nearby alleyway, the redhead then dashed into it while everyone's attention was preoccupied before assuming a pose for the inevitable transformation. One brief burst of crimson light later and there appeared to be a rather petite twintailed girl two heads shorter than Souji that was standing where he had been. With a burst of augmented strength, the henshin hero jumped straight up to a rooftop to peer down on the surroundings- ready to leep into action should things go wrong.

Saber swallowed her confusion. They had a task to undertake, something to focus on regardless of what strange setting they were deposited into. Therefore, she would best be served by speaking with the others in order to create some form of strategy. Noting that the little girl was now approaching the others, Saber followed, stepping closer to the two men, the smaller pink-haired girl, and the taller girl, behind the child. Naturally, their discussion of strategy was a sound one, and obtaining information was the logical choice of action in this matter. They had nothing about this situation at all, for one.

... And then the little girl suggested simply killing someone for their newspaper.

"... No, that is not an acceptable solution," said Saber, firmly. The blonde girl's eyes swiftly focused on the little girl. "Killing an innocent person is not the kind of act any of us should undertake. As a Knight, I cannot accept such things."

Her focus turned to the men.

"I believe your suggestion of speaking to the locals is the wisest one thus far."

The man glanced at Hibiki, shaking his head in disapproval at her attempt at trying to talk him and his partner down. Truly, a naive little girl she was; that was exactly the phenomenon he wished to observe, after all. The fact that his son was wrapped up in all this made little difference to him, but if these people were to interfere, then every bit of information he could have gleaned would be lost, possibly forever.

And he couldn't have that, could he?

"I'm sorry to say that I must reject that proposition. And seeing as how your... Friends... Seem as if they're about to fight anyhow, it seems like the time for talk is over. The sooner I finish here, the sooner I can return to my studies."

With a flourish, the man spread his arms, causing the puppet behind him to seemingly disappear into thin air.

"Oh, how boorish of me, I almost forgot to introduce myself. My name... Is Relius Clover. I shall be your opponent; I sincerely hope you are worth pulling my attention away from my research."

As he concluded his introduction, Relius quickly leaped forward towards the man in green, a large mechanical arm appearing from what seemed to be under his cape launching its fist in an uppercut.

"Arakune! Incapacitate the girls! You may injure, but do NOT kill! I shall handle these two!"

The blob seemed to heed Relius' commands and, after a momentary shiver, leaped into the air before disappearing into the ground.

It only took a second, however, for the thing to appear from right under the two and attempt to engulf them within its mass.

As had been expected, the man ignored the opportunity to back down from a fight and launched an attack--first on someone else, but then ordering the strange blob monster to attack them. Her tentative hold on the relic gave enough of a window to act before the second command could be carried out and, naturally, there was only one response: sing.

"Rei shen shou jing rei zizzl."

The nigh-instantaneous transformation replaced the uniform with a rather more revealing, and yet undeniably more militant get-up and left the inexperienced girl happily floating scant inches above the surface. Now equipped for the inevitable fight, Miku... grabbed Hibiki and slid backwards, out of the obvious danger zone, and put her back down. One of the armour's vambraces folded out and forwards into a mirrored club/closed fan.

"You know, I want to protect you as well, Hibiki."

He wasn't stepping aside... instead, he was getting ready to fight! Hibiki's expression hardened. If she couldn't get it across with words... Hibiki's hand reached to her necklace, and her fist wrapped around her relic. Just as she heard... that. That was...!

The blonde-haired girl swiftly looked to her side, in time to see the light engulf Miku. That's... that's right! Even if it brought memories back of... of that, of what happened to Miku back then... but this time is different! Before she could speak, Miku's arm grabbed her own and pulled her back, just as the black blob creature shot up under their feet, seconds before it would have engulfed them. For a few moments, she was in Miku's arms... it was a reverse of a situation she'd carried out several times before... And then her feet were back on the ground. Miku really, truly did want to protect her, just as much as she wanted to protect Miku.

"... That's right," Hibiki responded, turning to face Miku, smiling weakly. "I... I forgot all about this. I was just thinking of keeping you safe and I didn't even think about it."

She turned back towards the masked blob, her expression hardening once more. They had a job to do. There were people who needed their help!

"Now, we'll fight to protect one another, together!"

Her hand clutched her relic fragment.

"Balwisyall nescell Gungnir tron."

The light flashed, and Hibiki could hear the music picking up, playing right from herself, seemingly, as she felt her clothing disappear, to be replaced by a bodysuit, armor... that familiar feeling, of her body being cloaked in the power to help others. The light dissipated, leaving Hibiki clad in her Symphogear.

She shifted her feet immediately, taking a combat-ready stance and raising her fists.

"If I can't get it across to you with words," she cried, "Then I'll get it across with my fists!"

----------

----------

The blonde man rejected the orange-y-haired girl's offer of peaceful diplomacy. Something not unusual.

"Oh, how boorish of me, I almost forgot to introduce myself. My name... Is Relius Clover. I shall be your opponent; I sincerely hope you are worth pulling my attention away from my research."

With a spread of his arms, Relius' robotic companion disappeared into thin air. Alex was now sure this guy was no pushover as he prepared himself for any tricks the blonde man had in his sleeve. It was also time for Alex to find out if he's still got it.

Relius ordered his blob ally to engage the girls as he himself went to deal with Alex and the guy next to him. Relius leapt forward for Alex's ally and from, seemingly, his cape came forth a large mechanical fist to deliver a vicious uppercut against him.

Alex was quick to react. Whatever happened to his ally, the Blacklight virus immediately grabbed hold of Relius.

Should Alex be lucky (i.e. successful), he would, almost effortlessly, hurl Relius some distance away. He would then follow up with an attack from the air, his curled up fists ready to smash Relius into paste.