LetterA

Titanomakhia! {Invitation Only}

S A F F R O N . S T I R P E S

Nope.

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”Alright, boys. You’re about to walk the path of a demon, so don’t blame me when you can’t turn back.” Rhein stated, only to be met with the chants of the men around the hotspring.
Thus, the Delion Hot Spring Demon Gesellschaft had been formed.

Saffron, who had been peacefully taking a bath, got up and headed out. Nope. Not today, you shits.

He made his way out of there, getting redressed and deciding to loiter in the lobby, where there was only one other person waiting on standby. A small dark goat beastgirl, with petite pitch black horns and bobbed black hair. Her attire was, in a sense formal, lace and silk intertwined, a ribbon with dark jewelry wrapped around her neck. At her feet lied dark cloth, also with lace, light glinting to show that it was embroidered with black.

Black on black, what the fuck, thought Saffron, sitting across her. On the young beastgirl's lap rested a carton of six clear bottles filled with white liquid. The blood mage stared at them for a bit before his gaze started up to look at the girl, her eyes fluttering from shit to open and she stared right back. A jarring and startling yellow in contrast to all the black made Saff instantly like her. She was cool, despite the whole goth thing. Saff started to tie his staff back to his wrist, the two still maintaining a stare down, ignoring the shouting happening on the other side of the bath house. From the looks of the old toad lady reading a paper didn't seem to give two shits either.

As the blood mage finished leashing his staff, the goat girl finally made a move, resting a hand on one of the bottles. To him, she addressed, "Would you like some warm milk?"

Some more shouting in the bathhouse.

"Yeah thanks, cool."

Tropical Tyrant Times - Hillan and LetterA

CHRISTIAN ALEXANDER

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The teen had met up with his friends, students of varying images from slackers to four eyed bookworms. Gathered under the safety of a tree, the group watched the man who'd been lying on the ground for an hour now, a blonde teen to Christian's left holding a stopwatch. Nibbling on a palm tree shaped popsicle, the blue haired President, glanced from his phone to the stopwatch to the body now and again, the others beside him talking about a hot new phone app as they showed one another their hefty collection now and again.

Just as Chris was starting to feel bored and finishing up his ice cream, the roar of a motor paired with the distressed shouts of surprised strangers caught his attention. There, in all his glory, was the resident douchebag driving quite possibly the lamest moped in town. At first, Chris barely bat a lash, but as he noticed the direction the man was making his way to, a playful grin tugged on his lips. Before he knew it, the crowd parted to make way for the moped man the same way they parted for the corpse on the street, and the two made contact, the man bumping over the body.

"He probably wouldn't care," noted Chris as he grabbed another kid's modified longboard, crashing it to the ground and hopping on to it, the motors of the board revving as he started his way towards the man on the moped, occasionally giving the thing a kickstart as it slowed down. He made sure to dodge past any civilian, though at one point jabbing his thumb into a passerby's throat, glancing back to laugh as the woman fell forward with no one so much as batting a lash in her direction.

As he took the time to laugh, however, he crashed right into moped man's body, an arm reaching up for the longboard as it started out of control, his other arm grabbing himself onto the man. Hooking his legs around the moped and straddling the back, he held the longboard under his right arm, his left arm resting on the dark haired man's shoulder.
"Alex," he greeted, his Polite Student Council President Smile planted on his face despite being behind the man and not being seen. "You just ran over a dead body, where's the rush?"

Tropical Tyrant Times - Hillan and LetterA

C H R I S T I A N . A L E X A N D E R

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The summer afternoon heat baked the students making their way home from summer classes, uniforms melting with bright, disgustingly designed t-shirts that sported the hideous Tropical City logo. One such student was a blue haired teen, though rather than dressed in his uniform, he was dressed down in typical teen garb. He was, after all, the school's student council president, and thus couldn't possibly have landed himself in summer school. The epitome of normality, Chris walked amongst the tourists without so much as a glance up his phone.

The only thing strange about the teen was his right hand, hidden in the pocket of his jeans and covered in a latex glove. As his left hand continued to text away, his right shoulder accidentally collided with a man walking past him, the man immediately falling forward, the crowd of strangers merely making like a river meeting stone and passing around him. It'll probably take a few hours give or take, for anyone to even notice the man was bleeding himself to death with a knife to his chest, deduced Chris as he peeled the glove off and shoved it in some woman's bag.

"Hey, yeah, I just finished a game in South Street," he said into his phone after it rung, inconspicuously stopping by a bench as he tied up his shoes, smiling at the people nearby, an explosion happening behind him. Probably some supers duking it out. Not his problem. He was just a high school honor roll student spending a summer out in the tourist trap of the world. As he stood from tying his shoe, a flyer made its way against his leg, Chris picking it up. "Hm? Yeah the Festival tomorrow? Sure, see ya there."

Tropical Tyrant Times - Hillan and LetterA

Izawa Yuuki

Rogue Bear

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Christian Alexander

Student Council President

Titanomakhia! {Invitation Only}

S A F F R O N . S T I R P E S

Class Participation is for the Birds, Says the Bird

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It's not as though Saff didn't hear Grim calling for him to get off his ass, in the contrary, Saffron heard him loud and clear. He just decided to plainly ignore it. Not that it mattered, anyways, he thought as he eventually got up, pocketing the knife he'd been playing with, making his way towards the front of the Prowler, jumping in through the side windows. Given his history of Not Doing A Goddamn Thing, he often got scolded to drive homebase back to the others when they were done doing their thing. And though he was no Grímhilðr, he knew the basics. By the time he was behind the wheel and handling it manually, the fight was pretty much over and all that was left was for Saffron to pick up the rest of the guys.

As he neared the defeated Giga, Saffron parked the ride at the edge of the circle of slime, not really sure how Grim would handle her beloved ride bein covered in slime. She was probably gonna be pissed enough that he even drove it that much, so the elder Dragnan decided not to push it, instead hopping out to see why everyone for the most part was just standing around. Probably a squabble over the prize, deduced the Blood Mage, taking note of strangers gathered around the core, Rhein and the others of the Shabu Shabu Crew not included within the circle. Speaking of which-- Saffron turned his head slightly, not really looking for the rest of his party but sniffing them out, his feet making an easy pace of following the path, pausing just before Rhein and Estelle as he called for Grim.

"I'll do it," Saffron offered, his eyes barely glancing at the healing burns on the gunner's arms as he squatted down, brown eyes focused on the cut on Rhein's cheek. The funny thing about humans were that they were everywhere. So, while human blood wasn't exactly rare, it wasn't exactly endorsed either. Sure, a copious amount sold for a price at your resident shady market, but so did other sorts of blood. In a sense, they were forgettable, spare for the occasional rare sweet blood that just adds the perfect spark to magic. Rhein had... extraordinarily normal blood. It was nothing special, really, but the fact that Saffron didn't have any human blood in his collection just made it intriguing. Especially considering it belonged to a very capable and very mysterious leader of a very shitty crew.

Pulling off his cloak and wrapping it over Estelle-- she was covered in slime and really gross-- Saffron wrapped his arms around her, lifting her with slight trouble. She didn't weigh as much as Rhein's fucking Fragarach, but the fact that she was all sorts'a soft and heavy and slimy and unconscious didn't help alleviate her weight. Not only was he carrying Estelle, but also the burden of the implications placed under their appearance. As he started making his way back to the Prowler, he paused, realizing he totally did this out of his own volition and cursed under his breath, each step reminding him that he made a Terrible Mistake and even forgot to ask Rhein to have a little blood sample. He didn't even care that he didn't apologize to the guys he literally bombed a few minutes ago that were standing a few ways away. "Stupid," he muttered under his breath as he made it to the Prowler, suddenly less motivated about anything and not being careful about getting Estelle into the Prowler.

Pulling his cloak off of her, he made his way back out and started airing it out, making sure to get as much of the slime off as possible. Leaving it to hang by the side of the Prowler, he waited on the others to return or for Estelle to awake, scrambling back up on the top of the ride and sitting on it's side, starting to transfer what little pig's blood he had left into one of his little collector vials around his belt, resuming his earlier state of Not Doing a Goddamn Thing.

Titanomakhia! {Invitation Only}

S A F F R O N . S T I R P E S

Class Participation is for the Birds

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Hearing someone call for him, Saffron replied only with an offensive finger, along with sticking his tongue out, his priorities focused on much more important things. "Uh, yeah," he replied, turning back to Rhein who questioned his intent, though obviously rhetoric as the eyepatched leader continued to take the pig off of his hands. Saffron took a moment to watch as Squeaky made his way over towards the Giga, folding his hands momentarily in a late and inappropriately timed prayer for the dead. Not that he had much time to spare, shit getting quite deep as Estelle came over to tell the two least motivated people in the group that they had to do stuff.

Rhein was easy enough to convince, and though he walked too far ahead for Saffron to hear what he demanded in return, it probably had something to do with Estelle's god given gifts. Meanwhile, the Blood Mage himself found no reason to participate, seeing as three out of four people attacking was a majority if he'd ever heard one, and he'd already done quite a bit more than usual, if he had a say into it. Wiping slime off of himself, he decided to calmly collect the leftover blood after Rhein's blow, the rest being left behind in the Prowler's wake before seating himself on the edge.

If anything, all Saff really wanted to do was kill the other team's mage, he mused to himself, swinging his feet against the side of the Prowler as it continued to drive unmanned, already slightly starting to slow down as it got closer to the Giga. But, he paused, stopping himself just as he started to grab his throwing knife, Rhein might get mad if he killed someone all willy nilly, and besides, Blood Mages already had a lot of stigma on their hands what with the whole blood thing. He grabbed a stab dagger instead, twirling it aimlessly as he enjoyed the feel of the wind over his messy curls, the sound fighting shouts and destruction and commands and explosions a calming backdrop to his current state of Not Doing A Goddamn Thing.

Titanomakhia! {Invitation Only}

S A F F R O N . S T I R P E S

Gets Up His Ass For Once

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The older Dragnan honestly expected Grim to put the ride on auto, but when she only shouted back, Saff replied with sticking out his tongue. The appearance of the other rival party seemed to create an unspoken truce between the two, however, Rhein's added permission only getting him a little more motivated. Honestly, the best thing to do was just go with the motions and pretend to be helping out, but overall outputting the least amount of energy as possible. Pulling out his throwing dagger, he pet Squeaky gently, the hubbub of the situation seeming not to affect the ugly boar even in the slightest. Almost as if he'd been drugged which, ha ha, totally didn't happen, because as stated many times before, he and Saff were Tight Bros.

The crystal embedded throwing dagger was a glitchy magic imbued blade that Saffron got for a great deal in the Southern Deserts. It was supposed to be a transporter blade that could cut through the time-space fabric and teleport people, but whoever did work on it did a piss poor job. It ended up not being able to do any of that cool shit, and instead it had only like, two handy uses. The first was-- Saffron took hold of the stab dagger in Squeaky's side, both blades in his hands vibrating as they flickered and switched out. If you held another blade of the same brand-- even accidentally, it would switch out. It was handy for cases such as so, when he meant to stab the boar with the throwing knife instead of the stabby one. Most of the time it was a headache to deal with though, just like Saffron as a person.

Pocketing the stab dagger, Saffron reached once more for the throwing blade, ripping it out of the boar, an excess of blood coating it to the hilt, the stave handcuffed to his wrist warming hot. Leaning out the window and muttering a quick spell he aimed as far away from the rival group as possible, hoping that is poor aim would luck out and he'd somehow hit th- “Better hold on to something guys!”

Just as the dagger left the tips of his fingers, Grímhilðr did her fucking thing, Saffron grabbing the sides as he hissed a, "Little Shit!" to express his chagrin. Squeaky slid down, leaving a trail of blood, which released another curse from the tall Dragnan. The dagger seemed to have taken Saffron's piss poor aim along with Grímhilðr's wild driving as two negatives that equaled to a positive, hitting true towards one of the rides and exploding with blood on impact. Not damaging, but blinding and gross as fuck. As soon as the Prowler landed back on all eight wheels with a grunt, the hand that last held the throwing knife was suddenly full of it again. That was it's second decent ability-- returning to it's official owner after being away for too long. See, that didn't come with the receipt though, Saff had a solid month of leaving his knives in their containers only to have a fist full of knife while trying to have a decent conversation.

Everything went to shit pretty quickly, and Saffron straightened himself, pocketing his knife as he made his way to Squeaky, the blood trail it'd left behind latching onto his stave-- truly, a handy housekeeper in cases of murder. He should do that instead of Hunting-- probably a way less stressful job. Digging the end of his stave inside the boar's open wound, the stave turned a dark crimson and continued to get warm, the pig itself shriveling dry. It was gross and graphic, but it came with the title. Picking up the carcass with ease, Saffron headed out the Prowler as well, a thin layer of blood left over laced with explosive spell, blood already starting to boil.

Glancing to his side, he caught sight of some Horvin's casting device, brow furrowing instantly. Casting Devices tended to mean mages that went to school, and Saffron didn't really have a good history with the guys. Okay, at least he had a reason to outdo these guys now. Pig bomb on his shoulder, he alerted Rhein, "Uh, this one's hot-- mind drop kicking it towards Jumbo."
It was a more reasonable option than wasting a big explosion the other guys, and Rhein had a much more solid control of Ki and general physical strength than he did. It was necessary given the thing was threatening to blow in two turns-- which was probably in world slang for any fucking second. Just as the second wave started to sweep over, Saffron's stave went back to it's wooden state, blood gushing from below in hazy squiggle shapes that arched over a side of the Prowler, not stopping the attack but enough to redirect the attack but at least getting away with just tipping them a little over, whole thing coming down in a crash, Saffron stumbling as he realized he probably didn't think that through whoops. That's what he gets for trying, unbelievable.

✄ d r a g o n . H U N T !!

Lily "Rain Maker" Li

In the neatly packaged offer Lily made, the gorilla seemed to have latched onto the key words-- strength and friendship, apparently. The shorter of the two kept this information in the back of her head as Gorilla Girl stumbled over her words. Apparently she was a sucker for a pretty face as well, Lily mused, unable to help but find her a bit... cute. There was something about such a strong person stumbling over their words that made them seem so much more human and therefore so much more vulnerable-- and Lily liked vulnerability. It was her whole image, after all.

"No worries," responded Rain Maker, her eyes lighting up at Gorilla Girl's hesitant response-- "I sometimes talk too much, so we can balance it out." A small smile crept up over her lips as she took two steps forward, pushing herself past the bubble of comfort people tended to have, putting her at an even step away from the taller girl. She wasn't as tall as some of the other kids in Seiryuu, and she wasn't ripped to shreds, but she had to have something, because she took on a group of students with no problem, with an added hint of morality enough to let one of them live. She was going to be Lily's new best friend. And, as her phone vibrated by her hips, her new betting champion.

Switching her sledhammer to her other hand so that she both held her blanket and the weapon in one, leaving the right free, she started to introduce herself. "My name's Lily Li," she started, reaching her free hand over for a Western handshake. "Around these parts they know me by Rain Maker cuz of my money. Though, I'd rather have something akin to Gorilla Girl"-- lie-- "There's nothing more annoying than being known for your dad's money than your strengths"-- that was one parts true. Realizing she'd somehow started rambling all on her own and her face had started to fall a little slack, she offered her small smile once more, tilting her head.

"You can call me Lily, no surnames necessary. What's your name?"

Titanomakhia! {Invitation Only}

S A F F R O N . S T I R P E S

Resident Cool Kid Too Cool for Your Party Redux

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The self proclaimed leader of the crew's comment regarding Estelle's handiness earned him a face and a finger from Saffron, though obviously only when his back had been turned, because the fun in making faces was in part doing it behind someone's back. A lot of things happened, mainly involving Estelle's secret weapons, Grímhilðr being a bitch, and Rhein being Rhein-- basically, one's standard day with the Shabu² Party. Saffron made mocking gagging noises as the party leader complimented himself in a way probably no one else in the group would bother to, albeit following behind the crew as they made their way to lunch. It was a miracle, honestly, how the foursome managed to still be alive and still be together despite nearing almost a year, though perhaps it was in their own rather, uh... intolerable traits that kept them together.

He took to waking up the ugly boar with a knock on it's head, the thing stunned momentarily by confusion, Saffron taking the time to undo the rope wrapped around the pin, instead taking hold of it. He and his ex-ex-new best friend were now reunited, and their rekindled friendship showed in the elongated eye contact they shared during the walk to the old lady-- though, halfway, Saffron started getting a bit creepy and his hand started twitching for his knife. Thankfully, to the boar's luck, he wasn't for lunch nor was he for blood letting, in fact surviving until afterwards, sitting under Saffron's legs, who was chillaxing on the Prowler as Rhein did his thing.

"Hey, Saffron. Make yourself useful and bring that over here."
The Dragnan glanced up from ignoring Rhein, then to the combo sword and shield, before his gaze wandered back, a solid 'Are You Fucking With Me' stare bleeding from his deadpan eyes. They both knew that thing weighted a ton, and, in case Rhein hadn't noticed, Saffron was busy saving his energy for a healthy death in a century's time. Not like he'd get anything in return, anyways. He instead retorted the best way he knew how-- pushing the problem to someone else.

"Aw c'mon, you know I can't," he started, sighing as he shrugged, "It's way too heavy. No one could pick it up-- not even Grímhilðr." The last part was said a little bit loudly, to catch the prideful child's attention, his simple baits and her brutish taunts often putting the two at a clash. Not like she was anything important anyway, her horns weren't even that big. Then, just to egg her on a little more he added, "Then again, she's not that strong, so. She definitely wouldn't be able to pick it up and hand it to you."

By then Rhein had already lifted himself back out the Prowler-- not that it mattered, this bit was meant for someone else's ears anyways. Hearing sounds outside, Saffron glanced out the window briefly, noting the well-equipped Other Guys and the-- "Haha, uh, holy shit," he interrupted his thoughts, glancing out the window to the large muscular gelatin man. Oddly enough, the accompanying doodle from one of the earlier Wanted posters was a pretty good match, which made Saffron one part impressed with the artist's rendering, and two parts confused as to the detail put into it. The whole thing sort of didn't matter though, considering it was crunch time and Saffron's motivation was at an All Time Low-- the Giga Slime was obviously gelatinous, and there was no blood there for the blood mage to find any interest in.

But he had to at least look the part he decided, in which his hands unsheathed one of his stab daggers and attacked his new best friend-- as of now dubbed Squeaky given the noise it made upon infliction-- the swiftness of it out of pure habit and less of motivation though understandably a surprise to those who saw Saff as an uninterested freeloading leech (both literally and metaphorically). No blood leaked out, because Saffron was a pro at stabbing despite everything else, and the boar seemed to barely notice it had a knife in it's side. Only thing left to do was get closer to the Slime, or let the rest of his team handle it while he pretended to back em up-- like Estelle. Estelle had her shit together.
"Rhein," he called up as he leaned out the stripped window of the Prowler, the Other Guys roaring up beside them, the urgency in his usually monotone voice both a warning and an unspoken ask for permission to attack the Other Guys.

Titanomakhia! {Invitation Only}

S A F F R O N . S T I R P E S

A One Hit Wonder

Just as Saffron and the boar were doing some Hardcore Major Brotherly Bonding, the Dragnan spied out the corner of his eye two of his party mates ambling over. Estelle said some pretty damning things about his new best friend, Saffron wrapping a defensive arm over the boar as he hushed it assuringly. "Uh, don't be vulgar," he scolded her in his monotone voice, rising from his squat and reaching into the back of his cloak, about to grab a dagger, already making a firm decision to cut the rope. Clearly his party was assembling, and clearly no one was stepping forward to claim the boar, and clearly the town had a monster problem, so if the thing disappeared they could just pin the blame on the monst-

"Ay! Watcha want with me boar!"

Fuck.

"I want his blood."
Shit, he didn't mean to say that out loud. Before he could make up an excuse, the final piece of the Shabu Shabu Puzzle literally fell into place, disappearing in a blink with his ex-new-Best Friend. "Grímhilðr!" he shouted after the runt, watching as she headed straight for the market. The number of funds and town hate immediately calculated in the Dragnan's mind, and he turned to Rhein- oh, the scribbles were poorly taken care of- his brows in a slight frown. "Is it too late to officially quit this group yet."

Having recovered from the shock, the butcher suddenly shouted in frustration, Saffron, jumping and turning, an automatic, "_{Okay damn, I won't quit,}" leaving his lips at a barely audible level, overpowered by the butcher's louder scolding. "YOU TOOK ME DAMN BOAR!! ONE OF YA'S BETTER PAY UP O-" CRACK. Handy for magic tricks as it was, Saffron's stave also served as a handy club, serving a solid whack on the butcher man's head and knocking him out. Thankfully the crowd was too busy screaming "Boar!" and scrabbling about to notice Saffron's lucky strike, the Dragnan squatting and offering a peace sign, as though posing for a picture, next to the body.

Directing his attention to Rhein, and waiting a beat to let the background screaming and clattering really settle, he finally said, "Uh, as leader, you should probably take care of that."