Rabidporcupine

《 H. E. R. O. 》

Joseph

@canaryrose@DarkRecon

Joseph ran. Even though he'd managed to deal with Wireman, with some fairly unintended and honestly kind of upsetting results, he couldn't quite manage to get his scooter working again. He had briefly considered trying to figure out how to jumpstart it, but he quickly realised that would take too much time. He had to move now.

And that led him to his current situation, running towards the Target Jamie had mentioned in the text and hoping she was ok. Of course, Joseph knew that at least in terms of raw power, Jamie was probably the member of their group who could handle an attack the easiest. However, so did the Win-... EAGLES. If they were smart, they would've sent a good chunk of their forces after her, and while Seraph had many, many flaws, Joseph at least had to admit that intelligence wasn't really one of them.

How far was it now? It must've been a little over five minutes that he'd been running... Maybe around ten minutes? If he sprinted, that would probably be possible. If he did though, he might end up too tired to actually help out in the battle. But if he didn't, he might end up getting there too late, which he refused to let happen. Maybe... maybe he'd just have to apply some runes directly to his own body if he really didn't have any energy left by the time he arrived. He would just have to try and ignore the backlash until later, when they were all safe. With that in mind, he pushed himself to run just that little bit harder and faster. He had to be faste-

And then he heard the sound of screeching tires, as a familiar car skidded over to the side of the road.

"Jamie!" Joseph shouted, all but sprinting over to her. "You're... You're completely fine!"

His shoulders sagged in relief as he let out a breath he had only vaguely been aware he'd been holding.

"Thank god..." He sighed, before blinking in confusion as she explained the situation she'd been through. "They only sent two people after you? That's... really stupid..."

Almost too stupid... Joseph thought to himself, beginning to wonder just how much more there was to Seraph's plans. However, he was snapped out of his thoughts when Jamie made the probably wise suggestion to leave.

"Right." Joseph said with a nod. "The Hag said we could hide out there if we need to, and she could probably help us find the others too."

However, just before he could actually get in the car, he heard an annoyed voice call out to them, or at least, calling out to Jamie. Turning to look at the speaker, he had to hide his surprise at the vision of... whatever he was looking at. A pink woman? Probably? Not quite human, clearly, but he supposed that wasn't entirely unusual because, you know, superpowers. Still, considering the situation, this could still be a less than stellar situation.

"Heeeyyy... Person. Probably." He said slowly, almost unconsciously shifting to prepare for another fight. "Just to check, you aren't planning to try and turn us in to the Wi-... EAGLEs, are you?"

《 H. E. R. O. 》

Joseph

Joseph was an idiot. In his panic, he'd started asking his questions without even listening to what was coming out. It wasn't until he finished his barrage of questions that he caught the end of the automated voice, telling him to leave a message, and remembered she'd been going to some electrician expo or something.

Gritting his teeth in frustration, he stifled a string of curse words and pulled over to check his phone properly. He wasn't particularly good at it, but it didn't end up taking too long for him to find what he was looking for, the gangs group chat. Surprisingly, it turned out that his timing had been perfect, as Jamie had just sent a text through to the group asking what waas going on and telling them where she was.

"Target on 12th. That's not far from here." He said, nodding as he got ready to move again.

However, before he could even put his phone away, it practically erupted in static, something he was pretty sure wasn't meant to happen. No sooner had he finished that line of thought before a thin figure jumped out of the alley just a little ways ahead of him, using their whip-like appendages to drain the energy out of his scooter just as it was getting back into the middle of the road.

"Well, I was hoping I would be able to avoid something dumb like this, but I guess if you really want to fight, I can humor you for a few seco-"

And then Wireman slapped him.

Or, maybe it would've been more accurate to say he whipped him, considering the fact that he was still a decent distance away and made of electrical wires. Thankfully, it would probably take a while before the guy actually did any real damage to him, considering he was still wearing his helmet. Actually, if he thought about it, that might actually be the point, dragging his death out for a while instead of just jabbing a few wires into him and electrocuting him right then and there. If he'd been considered just a little more dangerous, it's possible Wireman wouldn't have taken the risk and just killed him properly.

And the others said it was silly to intentionally stay in D-tier...

"Uh, hey! Cord Kid!" Joseph shouted out, hoping to antagonize Wireman a little and focus his attention on Joseph's loveably targettable face, rather than the series of rune tags he had just 'accidentally dropped' from one particularly hard whip. "Seriously, can you stop with the whipping stuff? I've never even held hands with someone I like, so I don't really think I'm ready for anything like whips and stuff! From what I hear that's like, fifteenth date stuff, and even then odds are pretty low!"

His definitely hilarious joke was cut off by a particularly particularly strong smack from Wireman, sending him stumbling off to the side or a bit.

"Jesus, ok, not one for humour, right?" He grumbled loudly, before his eyes widened at the sight of the next slap flying towards him. However, when the whippy hand was just forty centimeters or so from his face, he let that expression be replace a toothy, almost feral grin, and activated the runes he had 'dropped.' Within seconds, the tags lifted from the ground, engulfing Wireman's arm and scattering to various spots around both it and Wiremans body as a whole. Coincidentally, these were essentially an updated version of the tags he'd used to fight against the woman in the power armour months back by short-circuiting parts of her armour.

Part of him was almost worried about how these tags could effect him, hoping that they wouldn't do anything too dangerous to him.

The other, much larger part, was more worried over the fact that Jamie was probably also in trouble, not to mention fairly close to where they both were right not. He was wasting time letting this go on as long as he was, so in the end he had no problem using these runes, shortcircuiting as many wires as they could without killing the poor bastard.

"Sorry man, but I really can't afford to keep wasting time here.".

The Sisters of the Dying Branch

Jeremy Lindall

@Danvers@KaijuBaragon

Well... That had gone poorly.

He had to admit, he'd already picked Summer out as being a fairly abrasive person to put it lightly, but he'd honestly hoped at least the other one, Dakota, would be able to keep her cool. Naturally, this trust was betrayed immediately, and from there the whole scene erupted into chaos. By the end, Summer had wound up running off into the woods, but not before temporarily blinding Dakota. Luckily, her sight seemed to return very quickly, but more concerning was the fact that Summer had run into the forest alone. Even though they were on coven property, there was still no guarantee that dangerous predatory animals weren't on the prowl in there.

Or murderous, potentially undead witches.

"Hamlyn." He said, looking over to the person who seemed to have been the friendliest with Summer. "You know Abernathy better than I do. I'll probably need your help to find her, and to calm her down when we do."

And then he was off into the woods, hoping that Charlie really had decided to follow him.

As it turned out, he didn't really need him to figure out where Summer had gone. By reinforcing his eyes, he found it rather easy to follow the tracks she'd left behind her as she ran. Then again, it wasn't like she'd put in any effort to keep her tracks light. In fact, he probably could've followed the path of destruction with just a cheap flashlight. Still, she'd run pretty far into the woods, and it was almost ten full minutes before he and Charlie finally found her. He hesitated for a moment, wondering how he should handle this, but eventually he decided that she would probably have a decidedly low opinion of him no matter what he said, so he might as well just speak up.

"Abernathy." He said, just loudly enough to let her know he was there. "It's not safe to go out into the woods alone at night, so we came to make sure nothing happened. You might not want to talk, which is understandable, but if you decide you want to vent, we're both here."

《 H. E. R. O. 》

Joseph

"Hey idiot, living room! Now!"

Joseph groaned as he stood up. He'd been busy experimenting with the runes he'd need for his latest creation at his workbench, when he'd been interrupted by the grating sound of his landlady summoning him. He had half a mind to just ignore her and get back to work, but it seemed like there was something a little more urgent in her tone than usual... or she just had a sore throat from cursing out some poor idiot who had come to see her after ignoring her previous advice, which wasn't exactly uncommon. Still, in order to avoid becoming one of said poor idiots, he decided to bite the bullet and see what she needed him for.

He was glad he did. When he got to the living room, she was just staring at the TV, and more specifically a particularly misery-inducing face that he'd been pretty sure he'd be seeing again, but he'd really wished he wouldn't have to. As he continued to listen to Seraphs speech, what had started as mere frustration turned in to anger, which quickly turned into full on rage. How many people had he killed, just to justify his stupid little grudge to the rest of the world? And now he was going to try and finish it. And not just with Pattie, but all of them. Even little Eliza, who he didn't think had ever even done anything to them.

And Jamie...

"Hey Hag, I think I'm gonna head out for a bit." He said, his tone as casual and lazy as ever.

"Sure, sure, probably out searching for more strays like that rat." She said, waving a dismissive hand at him as she started to leave the room. "Then again, I suppose this is one of the more welcoming places for strays to live. If you find anymore, I could probably make room for them..."

With the Hag's show of support, Joseph ran back to his shed to stock up. Runic tags, weapons, extra ink, and a new jacket with more powerful protective runes than usual. It had been a while since he'd been able to go into a fight he was prepared for, and by god, he was not going to let the opportunity pass him by. Once he was prepared, he began to head out, only to be stopped by a familiar face... snout... thing snuffling at his feet.

"Sorry Amadan, we can play again later." He said, giving the vermite a quick scratch before heading out.

Barely a couple of minutes later, he was already on the road, driving far faster than he usually preferred. Road safety was important, yes, but friend's safety was somewhat moreso. This was how he justified ringing Brie as he drove.

"Did you see the news?" He asked, not even bothering to tell her who it was. She probably already knew, after all. "We all need to meet up as soon as possible. Is Jamie with you? Are you guys alright?"

@Danvers

The Sisters of the Dying Branch

Jeremy Lindall

@Danvers@Melissa@canaryrose@Hitman

In retrospect, Jeremy may have been a little more nervous about the initiation than ended up actually being necessary. Honestly, in a surprising twist of fate, it actually felt like he as quite well suited for it. Unfortunately, much like one of the other initiates he'd tried to talk to, Miss Abernathy, he had barely eaten, otherwise he'd have managed the whole thing with ease. However, his reason for not eating had been firmly rooted in his panic over the rumours he'd heard. Some might have said his readiness to believe Hannah on something she clearly shouldn't know anything about was sort of stupid. These people had never had their darkest, most embarrassing secrets listed one by one to their face by that idiot faker. Trying to call her bluff was a gamble he'd learnt he'd rather avoid.

Thankfully though, she really had been wrong this time. The wellspring had ended up being a lake, leaving Jeremy struggling not to turn around and not so calmly trek back to the house. Or Oregon. But it quickly became clear that there would be no swimming involved, and from that point on he found that he was able to calm himself back down rather quickly. The blood part wasn't an especially big issue, as it was quite possibly the most important component of the ink he used for his runes, especially when he wasn't connected to a wellspring. Cutting his wrist to obtain it was a bit out of his experience, generally preferring the palm of his hand or fingertips, but it wasn't too much of an issue. He doubted the elders present would let any of them die, after all. He also thought he'd managed to hide his panic fairly well when he had to take the water from the lake, keeping a straight face even as the image of a hand shooting out to grab him and drag him under repeated in his mind.

And then he drank the mixture, and realised he had never truly been until that moment.

It was as if all his life, he had been frail and unhealthy. Now though, he felt sturdy. Incredibly sturdy, as if he could stand in the path of an avalanche and never lose his footing. His senses, which he had believed to be adequate before, were now so focused and fine-tuned that it made their previous state seem as if he had been all but completely blind, deaf and numb. Part of him knew that this was not a permanent state, that he must have unconsciously reinforced himself while under the wellsprings influence, but that just meant that the wellspring had improved the scale of his reinforcement magic by a ridiculous amount. His enchantments must have had a similar boost to their output, although there was no real way to test that until he got a chance to experiment with them properly. He was excited, more excited than he might have ever felt. Right now, he felt like he could take on the whole world. And yet, somewhere deep down, he thought he felt a minuscule drop of what could only be described as pure fear. Where did this power come from? What was this wellspring? And if it was able to provide such incredible power to every witch in this coven, just how powerful could it be should it's opinion of him change? Of course, there was still a good chance that the source of the lakes power wasn't even sentient, and he was being paranoid, but he just couldn't shake the feeling that he may have just sold his soul to an entity whose motives were entirely unknown.

And then it was over.

He staggered back for a moment, almost dropping, but thankfully managed to reinforce himself enough to remain on his feet. Idly he watched the others, not really trusting himself to speak until he could be sure it wouldn't come out as a hoarse mess. He wished he had made better efforts to ensure he'd remain in good condition, as it seemed that more than a few of his peers were having issues of their own that he might normally have been able to help with. Thankfully though, it looked like there were enough of them who were ok to help the elders and keep things going smoothly. Eventually, he felt confident enough to walk back with the others, no longer needing to reinforce himself just to avoid falling on his face. He had stood by politely while the other members of the coven, of his coven, congratulated him and the others. Sadly, his mother had needed to leave very soon after dropping him off to ensure she could make the long drive back home safely, so she wasn't there to congratulate him herself.

Not too long after this, he noticed one of the elders, Lark if he was remembering correctly, had started to gather the rest of the initiates again, and moved to join them. Despite the fairly chaotic emotional state, he found himself grinning as she explained the plan. He was actually quite a big fan of camping. Not that they were going to be living off the land or anything, but at least for the night, he felt like he'd be able to put his paranoia out of his mind and enjoy himself.

This sentiment was crushed immediately, when some of his fellow initiates decided it would be fun to tell ghost stories. This was was of course wrong, as ghosts were awful. Still, he forced himself to sit in his sleeping bag and listen along, because with enough exposure to his fears, maybe he'd be able to overcome them!

He couldn't. It was horrifying.

The second story was nicer, being a distinctly non-ghost story, but he was beginning to realise that he had to either find a way to distract himself or pass out before someone else decided they had something scary to say. Thankfully, he found that distraction when Abernathy started cursing out some of the other initiates for apparently stealing her bracelet. He briefly questioned over whether or not he should actually be thankful for something like that, but came to the conclusion that it wasn't ghost stories, and was therefore preferable.

"Excuse me. I couldn't help overhearing, and I thought it might be best to step in before anyone does anything... unwise, I guess." He said, walking up to the group. He nodded to the others, one of whom he realised was the girl whose seat he'd accidentally sat at earlier. "Personally, I do feel that you should return the bracelet if it is indeed Abernathy's, but at the same time, I don't think threatening our peers familiars is a good way to settle anything. Perhaps a calm explanation of the situation and discussion would be a better way to settle it. Preferably without taking hostages."

《 H. E. R. O. 》

Joseph

@canaryrose@DClassified@KaijuBaragon@Scarifar@Hitman

"Sorry, sorry..." Joseph groaned out an apology to Jamie, all the while shuffling himself into a position where he could comfortably work on standing back up again. "In my defense though, it wasn't really intentional. Or sneaking, actually."

He tried to keep his usual lazy grin on his face when she asked if he was ok. He wasn't, his left shoulder hurt like a bitch, he was pretty sure he was bleeding from some point on the back of his head, and his knee did this weird clicky thing when he tried to bend his leg to walk. But if there was one thing Joseph was good at, it was forcing his pain down and hiding it behind a content, if generally disappointing facade.

"Oh yeah nah, don't worry about me. I'm still good to go whenever I'm needed."

And then the ogres started beating their chests and howling at them, eliciting a small sigh from the man. And he'd just furled the whip back up too.

"Which... is now I guess. Christ..." He grumbled, before unfurling his whip once more. He resisted the urge to crack it as he did so, considering Jamie's visible discomfort from the loud noises of the ogres. Still, despite not being hungover himself, he had to admit that they were being very inconsiderate about it. "Alright, if you really wan keep fighting, you'd better be ready. I might be down an arm, but I only need one to use a whip, and I'm stone cold sober."

Thankfully though, he never had the chance to make what would probably be an exceedingly disappointing last stand. While he was considering exactly what his next move should be, he felt the area heat up considerably, not even beginning to turn before he watched an enormous bird-shaped wall of fire engulf the ogres.

"Well, I guess that's one way to move the arc along." He said, before turning to face the Blake, who he faintly heard mumble something about Angie before collapsing. For a second, Joseph shared Jamie's concerns, although he was pretty sure he probably actually going to be dead. However, he paused when he noticed something hiding behind him, and looked back to see a... ew.

It was a vermite. Not exactly the most widely beloved leftovers out there, but not particularly dangerous either, at least when they were alone. However, he did notice something about this specific one that was a little less unpleasant. Maybe even weirdly endearing. Maybe it was the way it looked a little bit cleaner than the average trash-weasel. Maybe it was the way it seemed to be depending on him to keep it safe. Or maybe it was the way that it was staring at Blake from behind his leg, indicating that it was what bit him and caused him to collapse, because while that wasn't exactly great, that meant that he probably wasn't bitten by anything that would actually kill him. The fact that it was hiding behind him also meant that it was probably alone, so the flame wielder probably wasn't even bitten by more than this one vermite.

"You know what? You might be alright." He said, leaning down and holding out his hand to the vermite, which actually ran up his arm to his shoulder rather than just biting his hand like most other vermites he'd met. "Huh, well alright. Guess we're a team, at least for now."

After his unexpected encounter wrapped up, he returned to the others, watching as Sam lifted Blake over his shoulders.

"Ok, I'm not sure if any of you guys have a plan for what to do now, but we'd better be careful." He whispered to the others, trying to stay quiet enough that Nero hopefully wouldn't be able to hear. "Now that we're not about to be killed by his ogres, Nero's probably going to assume we're coming for him. That means Grace and Eliza could very well have been promoted from just being a way to torment us to bargaining chips, and his only means of negotiating his way out of here. If we make the wrong move, he might panic, which rarely ends well for hostages, and I'd really prefer if nobody died today, so try to act with that in mind as much as possible."

《 H. E. R. O. 》

Joseph

It wasn't long before Joseph had too much on his plate to think about anything beyond the here and now. He had still been close enough to here Sam revising the plan, where he and Pattie would track Eliza down using the traces of her scent that lingered on the girl. An interesting development, definitely, but any interrogations or teasing would have to wait until later. There was also the fact that the Wings of Law were behind their kidnapping, but he really couldn't say it was that surprising. He would probably be kicking himself for not realising it on his own at this point if he wasn't already busy.

With that in mind, he rolled away just as a pair of fists larger than his own head slammed into the ground where he'd just been standing, returning the sentiment with a pair of vicious swings from his whip, although he was finding it easier to use as something closer to a meteor hammer at this point. Each hit caused a small blast of flame to erupt from the stone tied into the end, disorienting it to the point where he could move in closer, grabbing a larger, sharp-looking piece of the rubble littering the area and jamming it into the creatures eye.

The ogre roared in pain as he continued to push the shard further in, but he was unable to reach the brain before it regained it's composure enough to launch him away with a backhand. It wasn't exactly a soft landing when he hit the ground, but he managed to roll in a way that allowed him to end up back on his feet. He had to dodge away again almost immediately however, as a second ogre lunged at him from his left. By the time he was back on his feet, the first ogre had made it to their location, leaving him standing between the two.

"Well, I don't suppose you two would be willing to come at me one at a time like gentlemen, would you?"

He winced at the roar he got from the one-eyed one in response.

"Yeah, I didn't think so..." He groaned, before once again rolling under a swing of it's massive fist and spinning his whip at it, angling his body as he did so to follow up with a number of strikes. Although each hit continued to emit small explosions of flame, they weren't enough to do anything more than superficial damage, only really being effective at scaring or disorienting the ogres, and even then only when it was in their field of vision. "Bloody hell, I really wish I could've used Blake's blood for this!"

Right now, his plan was simple. Try to remain in one-eye's blind spot and strike it from there, while also trying to keep it between him and the other ogre. The execution proved to be somewhat more difficult, but he managed to keep it going for a good half a minute thanks to the ogres natural stupidity. However, eventually the other ogre decided it was done playing, deciding to just run straight through one-eye to grab at him. Cursing, Joseph jumped to the side, repelling the hand that grabbed at him with an explosive swing. This unfortunately left him open to a punch from one-eye, who had gotten back to it's knees far faster than Joseph had expected. Unlike before, this punch was weaker, only sending him a few metres away. This may actually have been worse though, as he was now not only on the ground, but on the ground well within reach of two-eyes. The ogre proceeded to try and crush him with a slam of it's fists, and if he had to guess he'd say his head was maybe around half an inch away from them when they hit the ground.

However, much like the ogre, Joseph was also not the sort of person who would pass up an opportunity when he saw it. Rolling onto his feet once more, he ran up two-eye's arm before it could lift it, leapfrogging over it's shoulder to kick one-eye in the face. More specifically, he kicked it in the rubble sticking out of it's eye, causing it to roar in pain as it fell backwards. One last stomp while it was on the ground was enough to put it down for good. Wasting no time, he vaulted over the body to put space between him and the now turning two-eyes. With the ogre unable to quickly reach him due to their lumbering speed, he used the opportunity to change his grip and use his whip like an actual whip, releasing a vicious flurry of lashes that kept it too stunned to continue it's approach. If he kept this up, he could probably take it down through a death of a thousand cuts.

And then there was a resounding crash, and both man and ogre turned to see one of the buildings on the set collapse not far from them. As the dust cleared, he was fairly certain he saw Jamie wandering into the rubble, and found himself grinning despite the situation. Looks like she'd figured out how to put her knack for property destruction to good use.

Unfortunately, he was snapped out of his musings by the enraged roar that emerged from beside him, right before a giant, foul-smelling hand wrapped around his face.

"Hffhng." He tried to curse. He was stupid, getting distracted and letting his guard down in the middle of a fight. If only he wasn't still sort of drunk, he would hav-... Wait, that was it! Ignoring the pressure that was rapidly beginning to press down on his head, he reached into his jacket and pulled out something he'd almost forgotten he'd had.

His flask.

Flipping it open, he proceeded to splash the liquid contained within over two-eyes, making sure to focus as much on it's face as he could from what he could see between the monsters fingers. It roared as the liquid got in it's eyes, likely because any alcohol that could get Joseph drunk was not something you'd want in them, and hurled him away. As he flew through the air, he lashed out one final time with the whip, igniting the alcohol on two-eye's face and turning it into a giant, ugly bonfire.

For a mere second, Joseph managed a smirk at the sight. Then he hit the ground, bouncing a couple of times before rolling into a piece of rubble. He simply sat in place for a moment, slumped against the chunk of column, before looking to the side and sighing with relief.

"JJ, good to see you're still ok. Nice job with... this." He gestured to the rubble around them. "It was a pretty big building to take down though. Your arms ok?"

@canaryrose

《 H. E. R. O. 》

Joseph

As the others spoke, Joseph had been quietly making his own preparations for the battles that were sure to come. His runes were gone, most likely removed when they were taken to the set along with his knives, meaning he was going to have to improvise. Unfortunately, this involved ruining what had been one of his nicer jackets, ripping the sleeves off and tearing them them into a pair of long ribbons. From there, he took a small piece of sharp looking rubble from the ground nearby and cut his chin, using the blood to write a series of runes on both sides of the fabric. After checking to make sure they were all properly written and unlikely to erase themselves and part of their surrounding, likely including his own arm, from the fabric of space and time, he began looping them around each other, the runes fusing into a tight cord and reinforcing them to an unnatural level of durability. Finally, he tied the end of the cord around the piece of rubble, which had been similarly enchanted to provide his makeshift whip with a little extra pizazz. Almost every enhancement he'd written pushed the limits of what twofold arrays were capable of. He truly hoped they'd be enough.

Unfortunately, it sounded like he wasn't going to get the time to make any extra enhancements to his clothes, as the ogres had already begun their approach. He listened to Will's hasty plan, and while the water wielder ended up having to go back and make a few rapid revisions, the end result seemed decent enough. He did have to bite back a retort at the implication that he wasn't using his powers often enough or something.

"Well, I'll admit, I was actually sort of excited to take on an ogre horde or two, but I suppose I'll leave that to you if you really insist..." He said, his voice sounding as if it was taking actual effort just to speak. "I'll admit though, I haven't had the chance to prepare any communication or medical tags, so we'll have to find some other way of contacting each other, and my medic abilities will be limited."

He then proceeded make a sound that might have been a hiccup, stumbling slightly.

"I may also still be a little drunk... or a lot drunk. However, I assure you, I'm perfectly capable of fighting. Perhaps even moreso."

And then he shrugged.

"Either way, I have too many plans over the next couple of weeks to die today. I'm gonna guess you guys do too, so let's just try to avoid letting down the people who'll be waiting for us, yeah?"

With these last ramblings out of the way, he turned and started making stumble-running in the direction he was pretty sure the colosseum was in, hoping his group was with him and not just watching him run to what would almost definitely be certain death if he were on his own.

@Infinite Cosmos@DClassified@canaryrose@Amethyst

《 H. E. R. O. 》

Joseph

@KaijuBaragon

As the night wore on, Joseph found himself content to sit in the living room, taking a few swigs from his flask as he watched the chaos that raged around him. When he'd first been invited, a small part of him actually wondered if having another party here was such a good idea. After all, every other time he'd been to a gathering at the Von Brandt household, it had ended in disaster. Or... well, ok, maybe disaster was a little bit much, but the last few times had left him unsure of whether they even could do something there without part of the property getting destroyed.

Chuckling to himself, he took another drink, grinning at his latest creation. After almost a year of barely even getting buzzed, he'd finally done it, he'd cracked the code.

Joseph Moore was drunk. ish. Drunkish.

He wasn't quite at the level of Blake or Brie yet, but he was definitely on his way. They'd just gotten so bad so quickly because they were lightweights. On that note, he was shaken from his thoughts as he heard Blake loudly screaming about how much he loved Angie.

"D'aw, that's c-, cute..." Joseph managed to get out, trying to keep his brain from messing up his words too much. From there he looked over to see Brie and Will flirting over a can of beer, also very cute, and Tom being brutally shot down as Grace leaned against Rumi, and again, it was cu- wait no.

Examining the situation more closely, Joseph realised that what he had seen was not only not cute, it was actually kind of horrific to witness. He took a moment to consider if he should just pretend he hadn't seen, before realising that just thinking that left a gross feeling deep down in his gut. Whether that was from guilt or just from him actually getting drunk for the first time in a year, he couldn't really say, but that along with the fact that Tom would probably do something stupid if left to his own devices soon had him on his feet. After only stumbling a couple of times, he eventually reached the gravity manipulator, slapping a hand down on his shoulder in what was meant to be a friendly gesture.

"Hwelp, that... went poorly." Joseph said, slowly but surely wrangling his brain into saying the right words. "But! But... I still do-, I don't think you've lost yet. After all, how many times has Ru-, Rou-... Room Temperature gone to the movies with her, or run away from villains with her, or... um... c'mon man I can't come up with all the examples myself, don't you have anything to add?"

He sighed.

"Anyway, now that I'm here, you don't have to worry... With our clear, compledely collehkted and calm brainminds, let's come up with a good, nice, good plan that won't just make her madder at you. Also, you're welcome in advance."

The Sisters of the Dying Branch

Jeremy Lindall

Jeremy would've been lying if he said he wasn't at least somewhat put off by the reaction he got from the young woman he'd tried to talk to. He'd had a few thoughts of how it might go in his head, but he hadn't expected the first initiate he introduced himself to to outright pretend they didn't hear him. However, the slight irritation was pushed down, as he tried to think about it more reasonably. Perhaps something he'd said or done during his introduction had been considered rude amongst witches? God knows the two witches he'd spent the majority of his time with would never have pointed them out if they were.

Of course, simply thinking of those same two witches reminded him that he couldn't discount the idea that she was just messing with him.

He started leaning towards that second option when another initiate responded to his greeting. This one was thankfully far friendlier, although he did ask if he knew they weren't the elders. Naturally, he definitely did know this, having ensured that this was the initiates table before approa-

"Ah. I was too formal." He said quietly, more to himself than anyone else. Hannah had told him he had a tendency for that. He'd ignored her of course, as she was an embodiment of chaos whose idea of 'too formal' was anything less than complete anarchy. Perhaps he should have followed her advice a little more often after al-No. He couldn't let himself be lured away from the path of common sense just because she'd shown one example of sound judgement. Instead, he pushed the thoughts down and turned back to the young man, nodding as he offered to introduce him to some of their fellow initiates.

"Oh, thank you. That would be very helpf-"

And then he was cut off, as the initiate he'd first tried to speak to suddenly decided he was interesting enough to bother responding to, introducing herself as Summer. Thankfully, despite how it had seemed like she was ignoring him before, she was actually rather friendly now. Maybe she really hadn't realised he was talking to her... If so, then he actually felt a little bit bad about his earlier assessment of her. Perhaps it would be better to set aside any first impressions, wait until he'd had a little more time to figure out what kind of people they were. He did begin to wonder just how much of what she was saying was genuine when she forgot the nationality of one of the other initiates she 'knew everything about', a young man named Charlie, but it was possible she just didn't have the best memory...

After Summer, another initiate introduced themselves as Kate, claiming to be a potioneer, which was interesting. He had been interested in learning more about alchemy, but he'd never really had the chance, most of the other witches he dealt with focusing more on other areas of magic. He'd have to speak to her about that at some point.

"Thank you. It's nice to meet you all as well." He said, before turning to Summer. "Yes, I am completly new to this coven.. I did speak to a few of your senior witches during my transfer, but today is the first time I've actually been here."

He would have continued, but then the Head of the coven, Sister Deborah if he recalled correctly, began her speech. All in all, he agreed that it was rather good, and while not particularly formal, it was still a great deal better than the 'meetings' he'd grown accustomed too back in Oregon. He was a little concerned that he only had ten minutes until the initiation though. That wasn't enough time to really eat much of anything, so it might just be better to wait until after it was over.

He was brought back from his thoughts however, as he felt a tap on his shoulder, and turned to see another of the initiates, introducing herself as Calypso Barnes. He was confused when she brought up the name tag for each seat, as his had definitely been at this seat, but found himself struck by sudden confusion when he looked where she was pointing and saw that, just as she'd said, the nametag now had her name on it.

"That is... very strange. I could have sworn it said my name just before..." He said slowly, before getting up from the seat. "Either way, I'm sorry for taking your seat. My name is Jeremy Lindall, and I can only assume that this was part of some kind of prank..."

He sighed at that last realisation. He had hoped that moving to this new coven would, if nothing else, help him escape the constant pranks he had been subjected to at the hands of Hannah and her father... Perhaps, even if he didn't focus his entire opinion of each person around them, it might be wise to at least keep those first impressions of everyone in mind after all...

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