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With Friends Like These; [Shane, Masumi, Kakeru, Shiki, Kuzuki, Naoya - Ask First]
Topic Started: Oct 13 2013, 03:27 AM (623 Views)
The One True Nobody
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"...does this clockwork hand follow you... or guide you?"
This thread is connected to Unbound, The Tell-Tale Heart, and the relevant Bedlam thread.

---

It was well past midnight--the wee hours of the morning, even. Shane Spencer unzipped his guitar case, extracted his sword, and slung its harness over his shoulder. He didn't bother bringing a spare katana this time, as this would hopefully be a short trip--and any victims of Fluttering Phil who happened to cross his path on this occasion would have to be extremely unlucky. He didn't bring his vanilla-designed bastard sword along this time, either... no, considering what they were up against, Shane thought, pulling his punches was a bad idea.

This time, he had brought Force Edge, the enhanced blade with the skull motif that had been his trademark as a Kyoto vigilante. Shane dropped the now-empty guitar case and slung the sword's harness onto his back, buckling it on and then brushing his trench coat's tail back to straighten it out. He took a tired breath, picked up the guitar case, and shoved it into the cramped tree-hollow he usually used to hide his things during ruins expeditions. He would pick up the guitar case on his way out, put the sword back in, and that would be that.

Shane had been hoping for a good night's sleep tonight, and in all honesty he didn't give a rat's ass about beating up some fake Nana. The bravado had been his way of skating around irritation: he'd wanted to get some sleep, but now there were two high-tier Shadows wandering about the outer area of the ruins where pretty much every newbie ever awakened. Shane had promised to make sure other people didn't meet the same fate as that sad sack they'd used to manufacture a false death for his vigilante self, and he damn well intended to deliver. He wasn't about to let some other user's fuck-up get in the way of that, even if one of the users who'd fucked up was the very police detective he'd made this promise to.

These things had to die.

The blue-haired boy hiked back through the woods, skirting bushes, stones, and trees to work his way back to the main path, and once he was there... he pushed his irritated look off his face and hiked up the path. When he reached the ruins entrance, he was back to his cocky old devil-may-care self, hands in his pockets. Someone was already at the designated entrance, as it happened, so as he approached, before he was quite close enough to tell who it was, he pulled his right hand out of his pocket and gave a casual wave of greeting.

"Yo... looks like you're a bit early," he said.
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Prince Arjuna
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-insert something witty here-

The one who showed up after Shane was a black-haired teenager clad in black jacket, carrying three swords, two on his back and one was on his waist. The teenager, Kakeru Kagami noticed Shane and his casual wave of greeting before he did the same.

"Are you the first one to come?" Kakeru asked Shane as he walked towards him. Tonight, they would go to hunt the doppelgangers that were lurking in the ruins and they needed to be killed as soon as possible or the ones who were lured by the golden butterfly might get themselves facing these doppelgangers and their lives would be in grave danger.

And there's no way he could allow that.

"..." without saying any word, Kakeru stood beside Shane, waiting the others to show up.
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Icarael
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Robespierre Did Nothing Wrong
It had been a month since the last time Kuzuki had dared to venture out this late. The night wind was out in full force tonight, rustling through the grass and spindly trees that surrounded the Ruins. In the autumn cold, his every breath came out as wisps of smoke, and his cheeks and nose glowed a bright pink.

He stopped for a moment to kneel by the bole of a dead tree and rummage into its hollow bulk. From inside it, he pulled out the sword he carried for Ruins trips, unwinding the cloth binding and dropping it into the trunk. The sharpened blade glinted as he unsheathed it, and he nodded in satisfaction before continuing on his way.

Kuzuki knew he should have been in bed and asleep by now, like the good, normal boy he was supposed to be. For a second, he thought how wonderful it would be to be able to close his eyes and doze off in a warm bed and then wake up and go to school without having to worry about the horrors stirring in the darkness.

It was a hopeless fantasy, of course. Better to not want things that one could not have.

By the time he'd hiked up the path to the Ruins, he was feeling much more awake, and his skin was warmer. Two people had apparently arrived ahead of him, one being Kakeru.

"Hello," he said as he came in view. "How many more are we waiting for?"
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Czernobog
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Best Influence.
Naoya clomped up the path to the ruins, the nearly-full acetylene tank on his back rocking on the springs he used to mount it in his flamethrower rig -- including the one that could be used to launch the empty tank as a projectile when he had emptied it out -- and he had his head bowed as he moved. It was a heavy burden, but he was all sinew and corded muscle these days. And scar tissue. There was plenty of scar tissue in there, too.

He wore, instead of armor, a painter's smock he had treated with boric acid to make it flame-retardant. It might also protect somewhat against entropic attacks, but he wasn't entirely sure. He wasn't going to test it unless he needed to, anyway. For additional protection, he had his larger shield strapped to his arm, large enough that he could crouch behind, and with a notch at the top he could rest the barrel of the flamethrower in.

Under the smock he had brought his urumi and the hammer he had used in his fight against Toru: heavy enough that it would break bones easily, and light enough to swing. Hopefully he wouldn't need all of this armament, but he didn't intend to explore or hunt or train. He was going to kill.

He walked past the others, and settled against the wall, leaning the heavy tank against it for additional support.

"Uh...hey, there," he said, spotting the three people who had already arrived. "'S three 'f us. There's what...six, total?"
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The One True Nobody
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"...does this clockwork hand follow you... or guide you?"
Shane looked over his shoulder as they approached, and blinked. Seemed like a bunch of them had just sprouted out of the ground on the path behind him. Shrugging his shoulders, he pointed ahead to the entrance, where another person stood, or rather sat in the grass, yawning widely.

She opened her eyes, wiped away a yawn-tear, looked toward the other three... and smiled.

"I sensed you coming! ...But we're still missing someone," said the woman with the blue butterfly hairclip, Masumi Suzuki. As she stood up, and her head turned, Shane could see the hairclip sparkling... the hairclip that Etsuko Sadako had recently attempted to steal from atop her head. Much like her less charming older sister, it seemed Etsuko had a penchant for committing stupid crimes.

Shane shrugged, and turned toward Naoya. "Good to see you again," he said lazily. To Kakeru he added: "And you, Ellipses." Then, to Kuzuki: "And I don't think we've met, name's Shane Spencer. Refresh my idiot memory, ah--who's going after which copy, again?"

Masumi smiled brightly and said, "Well, we have time to confer and figure that out. The 'Carter Grace' copy seems a bit much. Although, if we have the time, we might consider quickly nipping in, finding one copy, finishing it off... running like the Dickens back to the exit, waiting a bit for the Reaper to I don't know, drift off somewhere and play target practice with bottles or whatever it does when it isn't trying to kill people, and then go back in to finish the other off. If they went off in different directions, we might not have time to find both in one go."

She held up a hand, and a single index finger.

"Of course, what we could do is have a bunch of us go in completely the wrong direction as a kind of Reaper-lure! Then the smaller group with more oomph could probably just operate without worry for a while! Except the other group would have to run like the Dickens instead, at some point," she said. "Of course, that's just a silly idea and it might be a little hard finding people willing to see if the Reaper's actually that gullible..."

Shane, who by this point had stuffed his hands back in his pockets, quirked an eyebrow and said, "Huh. Well, I'd hate to be on the decoy team."
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Prince Arjuna
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-insert something witty here-

"Heh..." Kakeru just showed a bored look when Shane called him Ellipse. And so, others were starting to show up, but he noticed that they were still missing one person. And then, Masumi started explaining about what they were going to do after this, and Kakeru had no problem with that. As long as he could fight a strong opponent, he didn't really mind.

And then, after Masumi was done with her explanation, the last person showed up. Shiki, clad in her usual dress raised her hand as she spotted the others. "Sorry I'm late~!" she apologized to the others. "Got something to do a while ago, and I was running out of time, ehehe... sorry," she said before she looked at Masumi. "So... what did I miss?" she asked.
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Icarael
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Robespierre Did Nothing Wrong
Kuzuki gawped as someone came up the mountain, lugging a steel tank on his back. It took him a while to realize that this was Naoya: the scrawny, awkward young man from the Student Council had apparently been replaced by a muscular, scarred stranger. Kakeru, on the other hand, didn't seem to have changed much at all: he still wore the same old black jacket and carried a couple of spare swords. The other two were strangers, but they probably wouldn't stay strangers for long.

The one in red and black introduced himself as Shane Spencer, asking who his target was. "Nana Samurakami," Kuzuki answered. "The name is rather familiar, though I cannot quite put my finger on why." He extended a hand. "Kuzuki Harada. Good to see new faces here." This last was followed with a nod and a smile at Naoya and Kakeru.

The other stranger, the one clad in a purple shawl, was going on about battle plans and decoys for the Reaper. While self-sacrifice appealed to Kuzuki, the thought of being in the darkness with the rustle of chains following behind gave him second thoughts. "If I have to, I will," he said, "but on the whole I think I would rather fight the doppelgangers."
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Czernobog
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Best Influence.
Naoya nodded back to Kuzuki, and responded to his question: "Y'know...th', uh, th' lady gangster, with th' construction business 'n' th' intimations 'f gruesome beheadings 'n' whatnot. So we got two copies 'f mobsters t' deal with."

He then swallowed at the mention of luring the Reaper away. While he had proven that he could do it, the thought of volunteering for the job made his stomach pull a triple backflip.

"I call 'not it' on th' lurin' job. Already had m' own time with th' ol' chains 'n' pain show, 'n' I got no desire t' do that 'gain...'n' it ain't a single bit 'f fun. Best t' just hit th' doppelgangers 's hard 's we can 'n' bug th' fuck out, I'd say."
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The One True Nobody
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"...does this clockwork hand follow you... or guide you?"
"We don't really have enough people on our side to split our forces that heavily," Shane put in. "I say: whoever thinks they're strong enough for Carter Grace, goes after Carter Grace... whoever doesn't, goes after Greenhair Junior. Easy."

Masumi sighed, and nodded in acceptance. "It was just a thought I had on the way here..." she said in a disappointed voice. "Maybe it could be handy later."

The longcoat-wearing boy turned toward the entrance, and stepped up to it, peeking in. Stairs heading down, and passages to the left, right, and straight ahead. North and East in this case was simply forward and to the right; this entrance was almost compass-perfect in that regard. Shane pointed the northbound "ahead" path. "I'll take Student Council guy and whoever else doesn't want to risk Carter that way. The rest of you, the heavy-hitters, you go--" He pointed to the East path. "--that way, and take down the big fish. Since you'll probably need more time to actually fight, Carter team should probably take Lighthouse with 'em..."

Shane glanced over his shoulder at Masumi, who blinked, looking surprise.

"Oh," she said, in a slightly hesitant voice. "Well, I'm--sort of--weak against Earth attacks, so I'll have to stay back from the fight. Then again, I'm also weak to electricity, so either way..."

"You a good enough fighter to get around weaknesses?" Shane asked with a bland sort of curiosity.

"Nope."

"Then yeah, stay back. And go with Carter team anyway. Don't pitch in unless you can do it without getting injured, okay? Your main job here is tracking the target, not being the hero."

Masumi's expression soured. It was kind of galling to be told she wasn't supposed to be the hero by a kid who dressed and acted like that.
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Prince Arjuna
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-insert something witty here-

Kakeru looked at others before he spoke. "I'll go after Carter Grace. I don't have any weaknesses, so I believe I am suitable to fight him..." he said in unchanging, bored tone before he looked at Masumi. "And Mouthy Kid is right," he pointed at Shane while still looking at Masumi. "You need to come so you can scan that Carter person. Just stay back so you won't be hurt..." he told Masumi.

"Then, I'm joining Kakeru-kun too~!" Shiki announced happily.

"Alright..." Kakeru nodded.
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