@VertigoJoshua was having a pretty interesting day.
He had really just come here for a few days to visit his family, and was using the hotel because his parents didn’t have enough room in their house to accommodate him. In truth, he didn’t like to move around very much, and would have preferred to stay home. But he did genuinely care about his parents well being, even if it was kind of a hassle to hire a ‘figurine sitter’ to protect his collection when he was away for an extended period of time. Not only that, but Pax Septimus had some pretty high crime rates and was experiencing all kinds of weird weather phenomena. Though that was also why he was here. He planned to help them a bit and return home. It was just a shame there weren’t any stores around that catered to his very specific tastes.
Then some totally hot oni cosplayer jumped through his window, along with someone in a bigfoot costume. She flashed him a pretty disgusted look, which just made him more curious. Her outfit looked well made, and the beauty wearing it was very in character. He couldn’t tell if she was a tsundere, dominatrix, or something else. The situation was a little strange, and he figured it was best to not give chase. The guy in the bigfoot suit was probably her boyfriend, and if she was single, she might have just been a very well dressed thug. He sighed, thankful for the chance encounter, and prepared to boot his favorite website for looking at scantily clad anime girls.
Then someone fired a shotgun.
This was very confusing. The oni girl didn’t look like she could conceal a sawed off. It seemed inconceivable that a fight had broken out on his floor, but then again, how often do really cute cosplayers run through your room? Maybe something happened to her, and he could be the one who saved her. Only when he rushed to the door to open it again, his punk oni princess dove on top of him, just in time to avoid the buck shot.
Was this real, or fantasy?
He’d be lying if he said he didn’t enjoy how assertive she was. This was the closest a woman had ever been to him, and he could feel the warmth from her finger as she shoved it into his nose. She smelled nice too. But more importantly, she needed his help. So as soon as she got up, Joshua screamed. It was shrill, unmanly, and drained his dignity faster than it did his lungs. His eyes darted between the empty doorway and the Oni gir- Hey, where did she go?
Thensomeone in pillaged military gear stepped in the doorway and aimed their gun inside the room. It was at this point that Josua wondered why he was asked to scream like that. Surely, if this soldier person was hunting them, wouldn’t they have naturally come into the room anyway, him screaming or not? Well, he wasn’t going to stop screaming anyway. His eyes darted to where the cute oni girl was last seen, and then back at the soldier. He must have been pissing them off, because it looked like they were going to shoot him.
Then a bolt of darkness slammed into the side of the soldier’s head. It looked powerful. He fully expected the soldier’s head to explode. It certainly looked like it might with the helmet fragments flying everywhere, but there was no blood. Only lots and lots of cyan hair swirling in the air. It eventually came to rest on the soldiers' back. Though their face didn’t look like it belonged to a soldier. Aside from their aqua colored hair, they were wearing a gas mask that had glowing yellow rods sticking out of it and… Holy shit, was this a girl too?! It was hard to tell with the mask, but the face shape did look kind of feminine.
The soldier/gasmask girl pointed her shotgun down the hall, only for a shadow creature to barrel into her back and shove her out of the way. There were a few more shotgun blasts, some sounds that he couldn’t comprehend, and then…
Joshua looked out the window. It looked like the three of them had left the hotel and were running through the street. Well, the soldier girl and the shadow thing was running, but the oni was sitting on the shadow creature’s shoulder.
This was the best day of his life.
@Ponn@Majoraa@ERode Just the Shadow Wizard Money Gang and Dante now.
The wizard “holding Estelle at gunpoint” didn’t exactly look relieved. While still holding the gun at Estelle, he looked to the pile of dead bodies by the door, the window that Ashley “opened” to let plenty of fresh air in, and the flames that were being fed by all that fresh air. It wasn’t clear if Estelle was mistaken or just making a threat, but the wizard pulled his gun off of Estelle and started to walk around the Diner. The flames around him faded and went out, as if there was some oxygen deprivation bubble around him that was suffocating the flames.
The one holding onto the school girl drew his gun as soon as Ashley’s magic flared up, but he didn’t point his gun at anyone. It took a moment for the words to sink in. He looked back at his homies. Two of them were out cold, with the third pacing around like some fire sweeping roomba. With a nod, he gave the school girl a push. With a groan, she stumbled into Ashley’s arms.
”A’ight.” He pointed at the window with his finger.
”I ain’t goin out there with no pink nutjob though.” Which left Dante, Finn, and his hallucinations.
Their arena was no longer the entire Diner, just the small space behind the counter. At one side was the world’s second largest man holding a hammer, and at the other was a small child with a chainsaw that barely had an effect, and magic that had no observable effect. A wall of sand against a firefly, and that was without considering the impossibly large demon lunging for Finn.
Finn looked for something to use, anything at all.
He found something.
Maybe he found something.
He just needed time.
And that was when Estelle swung her Dai-Katana. While she could feel the presence of the massive demon, it was a creature that only existed in Finn’s imagination. And a child’s imagination is a very powerful thing. The demon’s body split, not because Estelle cut it, but because it wished to avoid the incoming attack. As soon as her blade was free, the demon slammed back together and surged forth. Dante on the other hand was struck by the sword. The swirling barrier around the sword did more to disperse his body than the chainsword could. In fact, Dante was half spun by the attack, and was turned to face Estelle in the process. While he spun, one of his hands flew up and tossed a handful of sand at Estelle. After being burned, the sand hardly bothered her at all. But now she could see a second demon, one that more closely captured something she was afraid of. What did Estelle see?
Finn was not going to waste the opportunity afforded to him. He became quick, and immediately rushed to fling as many burning drinks at Dante as he could. The first one soared over Dante’s head, but the second one hit him square in the chest. He roared, as the flames hit his gut into glass, which fell to the ground and shattered. If these were normal flames, Dante might not have been affected by them. But they were arcane and devastating in nature. Momentary exposure was enough to do serious damage to him. Dante could not reassemble his body due to the curse Finn’s sword inflicted on him. Neither demon could protect him, as Finn and Estelle’s imaginations were incapable of affecting the real world. The next bottle turned his shoulder to glass, then he stumbled backwards into the flames and his leg turned to glass. Each new molotov he was struck with, his body would harden and shatter. His hammer fell out of his hands. Before long, he was just a torso and a head.
”Amanda! Ruuuu-The last molotov struck Dante’s head, turning what remained of him into a glass sculpture. Half of his mustache cracked and fell off.
The demons disappeared instantly. There were no more hostiles, the battle was over.
Right?
What remained of Dante was parked directly in front of the doorway to out back, where he had been trying to keep the school girls and Finn out of. But now someone was emerging from the confines of the darkened room. It appeared to be a
teenage girl, who couldn’t have been much older than Finn. She was wearing a few unusual accessories. She had a bluetooth headset on. It looked very space age, and had to be something designed for gamers if the boom mic was anything to go by. She had a long white shirt that came down to her knees, and it had a picture of a controller on it. She was also wearing a wrist computer, and a choker that had lights to show how strong the area’s wi-fi signal was.
Her gaze was fixed on the glass sculpture in front of her. Wide eyed, mouth agape, she sank to her knees beside the glass bust and wrapped her arms around its neck.
”Dad!”She called to the glass sculpture several times, her voice cracking more and more every time. Finally she was sobbing too hard for her words to be understood.
Estelle could sense one more chaotic entity in the vicinity, and it was that girl grieving over her father.
@Vertigo!?!?!?
Viper dove out the window, and Ciri followed her on the back of her friend. There was a point where it looked like Viper might have been chasing the gold dragon, but she ducked into one of the side streets and disappeared mid chase. The dragon was running into Maverick territory, and Viper wisely chose to keep her head down.
That shadow bolt should have knocked her head clean off. It certainly should have done more than just shatter her helmet. But it wasn’t uncommon for some espers to have special forms of defense against possibly life-ending attacks. It was difficult to determine the exact nature of Viper’s defenses with just one attack. For good or for ill, it didn’t seem like Ciri would get the chance to experiment further.
But the dragon was in view now, at least. They just needed to make sure he didn’t take to the sky. While there were wider streets that might be better suited to the dragon, it didn’t seem like it was pursuing them. Instead, it stuck to the backstreets. Maybe it felt it would have a better chance losing them in the narrow passages of the city. Or…
The trio had arrived at what looked to be a run down diner. Standing just outside was a girl in a pretty pink dress, a knight in pink, and now the dragon man. He had stopped running, and cast his eyes inside the smoldering building.
@The World@Nakushita@TaintedMushroom@FamishedPantsExpensive melodies were always a gamble. Sometimes they did what you wanted, sometimes they didn’t, and sometimes the results were greater than what you anticipated. Regardless of the outcome, it was always unexpected.
Lenore was already upon Marrie, hacking away at her. It almost felt like she was being played with. Several times, Lenore’s blade would make a shallow cut in her cheek, or swing through her ethereal skirt. Having your back to anything put you in a pretty bad spot. IT was fortunate that a melody only need a second or so to prepare.
Marrie could hold her weapon however she wanted, but anyone with experience with the paranormal, especially an esper, was going to know when a spell or melody was being prepared. Even something as swift as a projectile had tells that someone like Lenore could pick up on. What Lenore couldn’t pick up on was the nature of the melody, which would prove to be critical.
She had hopped backwards in preparation for what was coming, and raised her blade. But a sword was ill suited for protecting against a flurry of ice shards. Briefly, her eyes went wide and she attempted to roll out of the way. Her blade managed to cut through a few of them, but one of the shards found its mark in her ankle and severed her foot. With a groan, she rolled to her knee, just in time to raise her blade and meet Marrie’s Apexer.
After deflecting Marrie’s follow up attack, she fished a cigar out of a pocket and chomped down on it. The cigar immediately burned into ash, and a cloud of smoke connected her ankle to her foot. In no time at all, her foot and leg were one again. She stood back up with a grin.
”Not too shabby! Think you can do that again?” Her body surged with blacklight, her sword poised to strike, and then she disappeared in a spray of black particles. As the darklight faded, Angelie’s head fell out of the light and landed where Lenore had been standing.
Further down, Himiko rolled out of the way of incoming napalm and stood back up. The stabilizing cat that plugged her wounds did enable her to move like normal, but a single shot was all it would take to undo the melody. Not that Himiko had any sense of self preservation. It was her mana supply that she was primarily concerned with.
What is the definition of insanity? Himiko fired at her unseen adversaries, and it was unclear if she hit any of them. She couldn’t see it, but they turned their guns on her and were prepared to fire. However, not all of the variables were the same this time. Much like the rest of the freelancers, the construction workers had been ignoring the little duel between Marrie and Lenore. As such, they were woefully unaware of the guided ice shards flying in their direction. They were both struck down, as one lost his head while another was punched straight threw the chest. They both sunk to the ground without firing a single shot. Some of them even entered the fog where Nova was hiding. It was inconclusive if any of them hit, but everyone could hear her mumble an
”Aw shiiiiiiit!” from inside the smoke.
"If I had a nickel for every time I was disappointed…"— Mika FangJustin had already exhausted enough burning wordplay on Bobo that Mika didn’t feel the need to mentally add any more. Yes, “flame off” had to be the lamest thing she had heard all fight. She wanted to be done with these nuns.
The air sparked in front of Bobo. Of
course she was just going to notice it and jump over it, what was Justin expecting to accomplish with-
Suddenly, outta nowhere, Asher just up and
teleported onto the burning bunny nun and tackled her out the open window. Normally grabbing onto anything that was on fire was a bad idea, but would that have been cool? Could Asher look at himself in the mirror if he let some scalding napalm get between him and a cool stunt? Was he going to totally wuss out and try to shield himself?
No.
Fuckin’.
Way!
”You imbecile!” Was all Bobo got out before the two of them tumbled out the window. Though part way through their decent, Bobo’s body started to fall slower. Asher was dangling from Bobo’s mace swinging arm, all while the napalm on her uniform tried to eat through his fingers.
”Let go of me, jackass!” It was a bit of a stalemate. Asher couldn’t get a hold of Bobo’s other arm, and Bobo couldn’t aim straight with Asher trying to wrench her mace out of her hand. Blobs of napalm flew past Asher and scorched the earth beneath them. Eventually, she channeled a force into her mace that shoved Asher away. By that point he was close enough to the ground to make a graceful landing. Bobo pointed her flamethrower at Asher, but a beckoning cat sprouted up between them.
”I hate you!”Behind her, Nova and Lenore ran out of the smoke barrier that blocked the front door.
”Come on, Bobo. Let’s get out of here.” Lenore waved her hand.
”One out of two ain’t bad, and we’re fresh out of support. We’ll have Lexi with us next time.” Bobo seethed, staring directly at Asher through the transparent spirit cat. A wall of smoke erupted behind her courtesy of Nova. She pointed into her eyes, then pointed at Asher, before vanishing behind the smokey veil.
Mika was leaning against the edge of the window frame, observing Asher from above. He was kind of annoying, loud, and everything Fritzi had cautioned her about freelancers.But when the chips were down, he had taken the operation seriously.
"I… Didn’t think that was going to work." She raised an eyebrow.
"Did you need any help putting out your fingers?" 
