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A Guidepost to Certain Death; In which Kyo finds a thing. You know. That thing. [Kyo, Kakeru, Naoya - Closed]
Topic Started: Oct 28 2013, 08:36 PM (1,243 Views)
Czernobog
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Best Influence.
Naoya flapped his left arm, testing the repaired joint. Finding that it only produced a slight "click" noise when he raised it above the level of his shoulder, he decided that it was functional and then gave a "thumbs up" signal to show that he was in fighting form.

"I take it y' want t' find something else t' test 'gainst? Prob'ly something t' get up close 'n' personal with?" he asked Kyo.

The lightning bug returned to its resting position near Naoya, and settled into a lazy orbit around his head. He waved it away from the front of his face, and it moved higher up. The small automaton danced for a second in an irritated fashion, and returned to orbiting a point just above his head.

Naoya then put his hand inside his shield and applied the agilao he had saved up, popping the dented metal back into shape.
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The One True Nobody
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"...does this clockwork hand follow you... or guide you?"
"Well, help it," Kyo snapped, turning toward Kakeru with a scowl as she took her mask off and sent it vanishing to... wherever, with a flick of her wrist. "I appreciate ya havin' my back, Kakeru, and I know I owe ya for the times ya've saved me before, but I can hold my own, y'know! I ain't done all that trainin' with Ayane or all the fightin' I've done up t' this point so I can be treated like some damsel in distress, y'know? I don't want anyone gettin' hurt over me!"

She sighed, and folded her arms over her stomach, turning away.

"...Alright, that's a little unfair. Thanks, and all, but--trust me t' take care o' myself at least, yeah?" she said. She then nodded to Naoya. "Yeah, let's go find somethin' else--"

She blinked, and her eyes narrowed. At first it might have looked like she was glaring at Naoya, but she was in fact looking at a point over his shoulder.

...Where a mask, a blue mask with cracks and chips all along its edges, peeked around the corner. Kyo caught a glimpse of the Roman numeral "I" on the mask just before the hand that held it jerked it back behind the wall, and squishy footprints could be heard, retreating down the corridor it'd vanished into.

Wait.

Stop. Hold on.

The mask had been peeking around the corner... but it was being held there by a hand?

What kind of stupid joke was that?!

---

Battle Results
 
Kyo Charinko's Persona, Nevan the Lightning Witch, has leveled up!
- Magic has increased by 2!
- Agility has increased by 1!
Nevan the Lightning Witch has learned Spirit Drain!
Spirit Drain has replaced Charm Boost.
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Prince Arjuna
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-insert something witty here-

"...Sorry," Kakeru responded to Kyo snapping at him. Well, he seriously couldn't help it. Then, he saw it, the mask. "A Shadow?" he said.

So, he looked at others before he stepped forward. "Let's go and take a look..." he said.
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Czernobog
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Tempers were running high, he noticed. Sighing, he tried to think of something to say to defuse the situation, but Kyo beat him to it. He tugged on his earlobe...that had been a quick turn-around. Had the head injury affected her mood? Or was she simply tired of people acting chivalrous?

When Kyo looked his direction, he took a step back. He raised his right hand, and lowered his gaze: he didn't think that he had done anything to upset her, but perhaps she had been upset that he had attempted to roast the shadows right off the bat instead of letting her get her legs beneath her? That was a possibility, but it wasn't like the amount of shadows in the ruins ever seemed finite.

Maybe --

Kakeru commented on a shadow, and Naoya turned. He didn't see anything, but that didn't mean nothing was there.

"Eh?" he vocalized.

Best be on high alert, he decided. Naoya dropped into a half-crouch, walking forward on the balls of his feet, and unfurled his urumi from around his waist, winding it into a tight loop in his right hand. He whistled, snapped his fingers and pointed down the hallway, sending the lightning bug zipping down it, an arc of lightning down its stinger producing a glow.
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The One True Nobody
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"...does this clockwork hand follow you... or guide you?"
At the words let's go take a look, Kyo took at off at a sprint--observant as she usually was, she still failed to notice Naoya's discomfort completely. Around the corner, however, she stopped, skidded to a halt, the glimpse she caught of that monster before it shoved its way through a half-open set of glass doors (producing a rather irksome shattering sound when the door on the left slammed open and several large pieces of broken glass fell free) wasn't an encouraging one. There was a hand holding a mask, yes--there were also six hands holding long, wicked-looking knives, and another six hands on which it skittered along the ground. Its body was simply an inhuman mass comprised of the same black gunk that Kyo was accustomed to seeing Mayas made of, but it was nothing but arms: a twisting, senseless mass of black arms with no structure, rhyme, or reason to it.

Kyo clicked her tongue, making no move to pursue. At first it seemed like whatever it was, it was running from them...

...but then it peeked around the corner again, the mask in its hand held out around the edge of the door, and Kyo felt like it was looking straight at her.

"...Baitin' us?" Kyo mumbled dully. "Challenge accepted, ya fuckin' asshat..."

And Kyo took off again, drawing her kodachi as she she ran. Before she reached the doors, a single Cowardly Maya slurped out into the hallway to see what all the commotion was; Kyo blew it away with a Zionga spell before it even had a chance to turn around and see her bearing down on it, and took a running leap over its melting corpse.
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Prince Arjuna
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-insert something witty here-

Now that got Kakeru worried. If an enemy was baiting them, they had to approach it with caution instead of rushing headlong into it. After Kyo rushed towards its direction, Kakeru had no choice but to follow. He sheathed Hanamatsuri and unsheathed Rekka. When the blade of the magical katana was exposed to the air, flame could be seen dancing around the blade.

"Let's go, Naoya..." Kakeru told the other boy as he ran to follow Kyo. Whatever she was going to face after this, it would better if she wouldn't have to face it alone.
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Czernobog
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Naoya blinked and looked at the shadow. "Uh...what?"

This was a new one. Naoya wasn't too keen on approaching an unknown shadow without a scanner present: there was always that period of trial-and-error where you tried to figure out whether your attacks would hurt it or make it stronger, and it wasted precious time. Of course, at the moment they hardly had a choice.

He summoned Krishna and lobbed an agilao at it. Hopefully it wasn't fireproof. A distressing number of things down here were, but what were the chances that this particular shadow was? No, it most certainly wasn't. That would be silly, it didn't even have any sort of fire-based theme.
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The One True Nobody
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"...does this clockwork hand follow you... or guide you?"
Whether or not the Brutal Magician was fireproof (spoilers: it totally was), he wasn't going to find out this time. The moment Krishna launched its spell, the Shadow yoinked its mask back around cover. The spell was wasted, blazing straight on through the door to scorch the wall on the other side.

Kyo shouldered open the un-shattered righthand door on her way through, figuring this would give the other two more room to follow. She felt a dull pulse of pain in her head with the impact, but paid it no mind--her eyes snapped to the left, and she caught sight of the arm-monster skittering away, ready to turn another corner. Not as much distance between her and it now, though... either it was deliberately moving slower than it could or it just wouldn't have been fast enough to get away in the first place, but which was it? If it was baiting them, what was it baiting them toward? From here, Kyo could see its inhuman body more clearly and as it passed under a non-flickering ceiling light...

...She saw that it wasn't actually a singular body to begin with, it was just a... spaghetti mass of floating arms. Each arm had a hand on each end, and they hovered about each other, so close-knit that it looked almost like one mass with twelve arms instead of six two-handed arm-things. It wasn't the most horrifying thing Kyo had seen down here, but as she took off after it, somehow, she thought it might have been one of the most unnerving. At least with those body-horror things or the stupid "fanservice" monsters or the animated statues or the mythical creatures, her brain could make sense of what she was seeing and connect it to something. This Shadow was just disconnected from anything, including itself.

She skidded around the corner and found herself at the end of a long corridor, and the Shadow still squish-squishing its way to the end of it, a clear shot--

She thrust out a hand and a bolt of purple lightning shot out. It struck... and the monster kept going as if nothing had happened.

"Shit," Kyo hissed, taking off after the monster again. She called out quickly over her shoulder: "ELECTRIC DOESN'T WORK!"

And as she held out her hand again, preparing to try Mudoon this time, she saw it. At the end of the hall, further down, the path widened. There was another set of doors there, at the end, or at least... there was a doorway that looked like it should have had double-doors inside it, but there was some kind of multicolored mass filling the space where the wall opened up. It didn't look like a creature, but somehow it looked less senseless than the Magician. Movement surrounding this thing drew her eyes away before she could identify it, and Kyo saw three floating objects...

...Masks, she realized. Masks hovering within different-colored... mist-hazes? Indeed, one of them, an upside-down mask, seems to be solidifying from nothing even as she watched, the mist around it leeking forth from the mass in the doorway, which was red, blue, some kind of growth.

Sponge was the word her brain produced, and she slowed up. The Magician was slowing down, slowing to a walk... stopping... turning.

Ah.

So it was luring them to these things. Great.
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Prince Arjuna
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-insert something witty here-

Kakeru followed the others as they attacked the strange Shadow. He didn't release any spell towards it to conserve his energy while observing what it actually was. And when they found out that it was actually luring them to another set of Shadows, the only thing he could say was, "Called it..."

Kakeru never encountered these Shadows before, despite his experience. This place never seemed to run out any ideas for new Shadows, didn't it? He sheathed back Rekka and unsheathed Hanamatsuri before he adjusted his mask.

"Mind Charge," he muttered. His body glowed as he cast the enhancement spell so that he could unleash a more powerful spell after this. For now, he needed to approach these Shadows with extra caution.
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Czernobog
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The beginning of a battle was a good time to test out elemental weaknesses -- as soon as you found one that worked, it was best to stick with it, and try to make it work. Sponges were sea creatures, though shadows followed completely different logic...

"Let me, uh...y'know...try something," he said.

Naoya decided to repeat the approach he had taken with the prior battle, and open up with a wide-angle blast of fire. He called up Krishna again, the androgynous, four-armed figure of Krishna looming up behind him and raising the lotus flower he held in one hand. A wave of fire rolled down the hallway, and toward the shadows.

Given the fact that these were unknown shadows, Naoya decided to step back to the second rank of the group and prepared to go on healing and buffing duty.
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