Welcome Guest [Log In] [Register]
Add Reply
  • Pages:
  • 1
  • 6
Her Darkness; [Open - Closed to Nonsequitur, CDYoung, and Czernobog]
Topic Started: Jan 2 2014, 07:47 PM (703 Views)
The One True Nobody
Member Avatar
"...does this clockwork hand follow you... or guide you?"
It was a pain, but Noburu Nakano just couldn't risk asking for someone on the forum to accompany him: he would have to go it alone. This in itself didn't bother him so much as circumstance railroading him into it. He just didn't like not having the option to get a more experienced Persona-user's help. But, he figured, even the old hands with their third-tier magic and ascended Personae had to have done it like this back when it had all begun--if they could do it, he sure as shit could do it, too.

The real problem was June. She had been insistent that she accompany him into the ruins if and when he went, and she also happened to have an account on Bedlam. If he posted a request for someone to come with him, she would know...

The red-haired boy had an advantage over June, though: she had high school. He didn't. For once he was glad of this--it guaranteed him a time of day when he was free to explore the ruins and she wasn't. So, if he came here without leaving notice on the forum, during school hours, then...

"Oh, No-bu-ro-kuuuuuun~"

Halfway up the forest trail leading to that most commonly-used of ruins entrances, Noburu stopped dead, eyes wide at the sound of her voice. Then, he closed his eyes, and pressed his teeth together, counting up from one, at a rate of exactly one number every two seconds, to stave off his irritation. He could hear her walking up behind him, stomping footfalls that sounded like those old biker boots she sometimes wore.

After reaching ten, Noburu turned around.

There she stood, decked out in her cheapest clothes, arms folded over her chest, glaring at him from beneath her rather sizable mohawk, a heavy metal baseball bat held over her right shoulder. Noburu, who himself was only clad in faded jeans, a shirt, and a jacket inside of which he'd stashed a token complement of first aid stuff (mostly bandages and gauze), stared back flatly and said, "You should be in school."

"I knew you'd try something like this," June said in a chilly voice. "Running off to explore by yourself. You're not leaving me behind that easy, asshole."

Noburu turned around and started walking up the path.

"Watch me."

June, following, picked that moment to snipe, "If you don't take me with you, you can forget any notion of getting any this week."

"Your loss, not mine."

An indignant splutter: "W-what's that supposed to mean?! Hey, I'm talking to you--!"

And it more or less continued in that vein all the way up the path, with June becoming more and more irate as they went, until finally, they were there: the ruins entrance. Noburu stopped, staring at the entrance, thinking. He knew that June wouldn't be able to enter without him, but could she follow him in, or did she have to be in contact with him? Would she be blocked, or, or what?

"Why the hell are we stopping here? Don't tell me you forgot where the door is."

The red-haired boy looked to June incredulously, but paused when he realized her eyes were sweeping the rock wall, sliding right on past the entrance in both directions, not seeing it. So she couldn't see the entrance. And if she couldn't see it, she couldn't follow...

Noburu made up his mind, then. He turned to the left, and began to walk along the side of the stone as if he intended to follow it until he came to some sort of entryway. "Looks like it," he sighed. "I know it's around here somewhere, though. Come on..."

June looked to Noburu in surprise, and then said, "You mean I can come with you inside the ruins, right?" she asked quickly, hurrying to Noburu's side. "You're done being stubborn? Fuck yes, now let's get in there and kick some Shadow ass!"

"Yeah, yeah," Noburu grunted. "Keep it down, though, there might be hikers nearby--!"

And then, abruptly, mid-sentence, Noburu whipped around and dashed for the entrance. If he could get in before June saw where he disappeared, then she would never find it, he was sure. She wouldn't be able to follow. She would be stuck out here, where it was safe, and he, he could--

He heard her swear, as expected; her her snarl, as expected... what he didn't expect was for her to latch onto his arm just before he reached the opening in the rock wall. Her aim was to pull him to a halt, but he was heavier and stronger than she was...

...and of course, it didn't help that just inside the entrance there was a downward staircase. Noburu lost his footing, yelled in alarm, and toppled forward, and June, holding on for dear life, was pulled along for the ride.

The world spun around him, his shoulders hit the stairs, and hit them again, and at some point he found himself pulling June in close, wrapping his arms around her and leading with his own back. And then? The wind was knocked out of him as his back hit the stairs and he slid roughly down until friction halted him just three feet before he would have smacked his head on the bottom. June, tense and still, was on top of him, hunched up, and clutching his arms. The bat she'd been carrying had clattered to the floor at the bottom of the stairs and rolled off.

"What the--" she spluttered. "What?! Where the--what?"

Noburu was a bit too dazed to immediately answer, but June, spared from the worse of the fall, scrambled out of Noburu's arms until she was crawling up the stairs on her hands and knees. She stopped halfway up, stood, and turned around, looking down at the lobby below. Delapidated, dark, grim, with old florescent ceiling lights like a school or office building. This had to be...

"Oh my God, the monster-infested dungeon place looks... really boring," she remarked dully, before looking down at Noburu. "Hey, are you--"

"I'm... fine," groaned Noburu, turning himself over and pushing himself into a sitting position on the bottom steps. "...Dammit."

June, the traces of concern on her face flickering out like a lightbulb the moment she was sure her boyfriend was fine, clenched her fists, stomped down the stairs, and in one rough motion took Noburu by the left ear, yanking him violently up. He yelped and stumbled up, but she didn't give him time to protest. "You were trying to shake me off, weren't you?!" she growled. "You thought I couldn't see the way in, right?! Well, tough shit, 'cause now I know where it is! I--"

She paused, blinking a bit, and then shook her head, looking distracted. Then she was a bundle of anger again.

"--I'll break your nose if you do that again, you hear me?! You aren't shaking me off that easy, now, let's go and kill some things. That's how this works, right?"

"Get off--" Noburu snapped, reaching over to tug the girl's fingers from his ear. Once he was free, he stepped tenderly down the steps, testing his arms, legs, torso, paying attention for any particularly painful places, just in case he'd broken something. But no, it just felt like he was going to be badly bruised. Wonderful, first defeat of the day... Noburu Nakano: 0 - Staircase: 1.

"Alright," he said stiffly. "You're here, so you might as well... help. But if I tell you to back off and let me handle it, back off and fucking let me handle it, okay?"

As June moved away from the stairs and bent to retrieve her fallen bat, she nodded and brought the weapon up onto her shoulder. "Yeah, yeah, I know, I..." she began, but as she straightened she trailed off, looking a bit dazed. It lasted only a second, before she lightly shook her head and said, "I know, so let's get moving. There's a really big one that'll come for us if we take too long, right?"

"Yeah," Noburu confirmed, stepping up next to his girlfriend and summoning his mask to his hand. June's eyes followed it warily on the way up to his face, and then he'd put it on, and lowered his hand. It seemed to just... sit there. What was holding it on? ...It looked cool on him, though. Badass, even.

Kinda sexy...
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Prince Arjuna
Member Avatar
-insert something witty here-

Sio thought about going into the ruins alone this time. While she knew that it could be dangerous, most Persona-users went alone into the ruins at some point after awakening to their powers. And she knew that at some point, either, she would stumble upon a Persona-user as well. Because it always happened, no exception. Yay for genre-savviness.

Carrying her heavy wooden bo stick, Sio arrived at the entrance. She thought that she might heard some voices inside, but perhaps it was just her imagination. After preparing herself, she took a deep breath before she stepped into the entrance. Like usual, as soon as she entered the ruins, electricity danced around her head. Due to some reason, whenever she went into this mysterious labyrinth of monsters, electricity would flicker around her head.

Actually, ever since she got her Persona, she had a little problem with power incontinence. Electrical appliances would start being affected by her power whenever she's nearby them. Well, it's still not a problem because she still could sit in front of her computer without affecting the computer much. But, due to the electricity, animals seemed to avoid her and sometimes, she might accidentally shock other people nearby. She was glad that it didn't harm them, though.

Thinking that there's nothing she could do about it, Sio continued to walk deeper into the ruins. Once again, she heard the voices. Curious, she went towards the direction of the voices before she saw two people. Thinking that they might be Persona-users, she would like to make her own presence known as she approached them.

"Hello?" she said to both of them. "You two going to fight Shadows?" she asked.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
The One True Nobody
Member Avatar
"...does this clockwork hand follow you... or guide you?"
The two of them had actually been walking for a short distance before Sio came upon them--there was, as it happened, a second entrance not far from the one Noburu had elected to use. When someone approached them--from a passage to the left of the one they had been about to take--June jumped rather badly and swung out her bat to point it like a sword in the direction of the voice. She was, of course, far too far away for this to be of any concern to Sio. Noburu, who had been walking a few paces ahead of June, still wore his mask. Perhaps Sio would even recognize it from a certain webseries, if she was indeed so genre-savvy.

The boy and his green-mohawk girlfriend, who together looked quite out of place in an abandoned laboratory (they looked more like they belonged in a slum setting or in some arcade beat-em-up), both stared at Sio, taking in her appearance. The bo stick gave Noburu pause, but on closer inspection, she seemed to be just a really tired-looking girl whose only real remarkable aspect was an eye color that Noburu might have associated with Mary Sue characters if he were as genre-savvy as Sio her violet eye color, which looked a bit surreal in this gloom. June, on the other hand, wasn't impressed by the stick or the eyes.

"Tch. The butterfly takes all kinds," she said waspishly. "No, we've got a tea date with Miss Yellow. Yes, we're here to kill Shadows, damn, what did you think? Let's go, Noburu."

June made to walk past her boyfriend and carry on with things, because they were on a timer after all, but Noburu put a hand on her shoulder, halting her. Noburu's eyes had locked with the stranger's, considering her in silence for a few more moments, before he said, "We're new. We could use some back-up, if you're alright fighting with us..."
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Prince Arjuna
Member Avatar
-insert something witty here-

Sio frowned when the mohawk girl spoke to her. Well, it wasn't that she was offended by what she said, it's just that she didn't expect that. She should've expected that beforehand. She was about to go on her own before Noburu spoke to her, wanting to team up.

"Don't mind," Sio said, turning back to look at the two. "Am new myself..." she added. Electricity once again flickered around her head before it died out. "Let's go," she said.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
The One True Nobody
Member Avatar
"...does this clockwork hand follow you... or guide you?"
Electricity, Noburu noted. His Persona let out a low, quiet growl in his mind, an unworried noise. Electricity... he didn't have to worry about electricity. Kohryu repelled it, Huang Long reflected electricity. Even if this girl were to turn on them, she wouldn't be able to hurt him with that magic--which he doubted she would try, but no matter how frail-looking, putting phenomenal cosmic power in the hands of teenagers like this...

...Well, it was no wonder this city had been so chaotic lately. Were any of these superpowered children trustworthy in the slightest? Noburu very much doubted it. Even so, as long as they could be trusted not to stab him in the back, they could be trusted to help him learn about this place...

And, maybe even to help him put a stop to all of this, once and for all.

"Alright, then," Noburu said, turning back toward the passage he'd been going to take. June trailed after him, casting a distrustful look in Sio's direction. But before she could say anything scathing about the girl or question her boyfriend's judgement in asking her along, a sharp, high-pitched shriek of agony sounded from down the hall--in the very direction Noburu was going.

The red-haired boy stopped, throwing and arm out in front of June to bar her path. It wasn't necessary, because she had already frozen in place. "What was that? Who was that?!" June asked. "Someone's in trouble over there--?"

There was fear and concern in her voice, but neither of them moved to find out what the noise was. In the backstreets of Nagashima, the sounds of trouble, whatever the form, were a common thing, and it was usually smarter to pretend you hadn't heard... Noburu stood stock-still, staring narrow-eyed into the gloom. If it had been just him, he would have run to that person's aid in a heartbeat, but June was here... he needed to make sure whatever it was didn't hurt her, too...
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Prince Arjuna
Member Avatar
-insert something witty here-

Sio's ignored the mohawk girl's distrustful look as she walked onward before she heard that suspicious sound. She tightened her grip on her wooden stick before she looked at Noburu, as if asking him what to do.

"Do we need to look?" the young author asked. Despite keeping her poker face, she was a little anxious. Perhaps it was a person who was in trouble. Or maybe an enemy trying to lure its victim into its deathtrap. Or perhaps it was both?

She looked at the mohawk girl. She had a feeling that she just kept that tough look, even though she was really afraid inside. Well, as long as she didn't do anything particularly stupid, Sio was fine with her being here. Now, the only concern here was to find out what that sound was. She looked at Noburu, waiting for his response for her question.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
The One True Nobody
Member Avatar
"...does this clockwork hand follow you... or guide you?"
Noburu didn't immediately respond to Sio's question, simply stared intently into the dark with the intense look of a man who was doing some very quick thinking. He had read enough about Shadows on the forum to know that not everything in this place was as it seemed. The creatures infesting the labyrinth could be as deceptive as they were deadly. The source of that scream might well have been a Shadow--there was no way to know without looking. But by looking, there was a chance he could be taking June along with him right into some demon's trap...

"...Stay behind me. Both of you," he said in a low voice, before striding forward, fists clenched before him. His mind's fingertips were at the brink of drawing out the power of Kohryu--if anything made any sudden moves, he would react instantly, with fire or earth or a super-charged punch if he had to.

June followed in tense silence, looking back toward Sio once along the way. Her look was considerably less distrustful now, with the imminent threat of a Shadow so close, she suddenly saw the value in having a second Persona-user along. Her hands began to sweat as they clutched the handle of her baseball bat. It worked so well on people. But if Persona-users could take hits like that Jiro boy, could Shadows, too...?

A skittering, pattering sound could be heard as they rounded the corner, along with a disgusting, fleshy cracking and popping sound. It was muffled, coming from inside one of the doors to the left. The door was broken of its frame, and lay across the hallway floor. From inside, it emerged... and June let out a cry of revulsion at the sight.

Noburu, on the other hand, hurled a fireball at the creature before even registering what it was, and it recoiled into the doorway, its body igniting on contact with the spell. As it writhed and screamed--the Shadow was the source of the scream they'd heard, it sounded like--Noburu took a step back, a look of horror and revulsion twisting his face at last. It was unmistakably inhuman, the body was that of a spider, but the legs were all battered and broken human limbs; human flesh had been grafted on, stitched onto the body in a macabre, random fashion, and though the head and eyes were that of a spider, the gaping mouth was human as well...

...and it was screaming, writhing in pain, burning, its spider and human flesh alike burning with the flames, a faint pork-like smell wafting off of it as it frantically flailed to extinguish itself...
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Prince Arjuna
Member Avatar
-insert something witty here-

Upon seeing such a... hideous abomination of a Shadow, Sio took a few steps aback, eyes widened in disbelief and horror. She knew that this place was a nest of a lot of bizarre and horrifying monsters, but it was her first time seeing something so... repulsive. She decided to mentally say goodbye to a few nights of good sleep after seeing such monstrosity.

Tightening her grip on her wooden stick, Sio braced herself. Electricity flickered around her head as she ordered Mnemosyne to be prepared. She glanced at the mohawk girl. She didn't show any sign of summoning a Persona at all, unlike Noburu. Perhaps she wasn't a Persona-user.

Thinking that it wasn't the right time to deal with that thing, she looked at the monster before them. She put on her mask, summoning Mnemosyne. The Persona held out her hands, firing a Zio towards the abomination.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
The One True Nobody
Member Avatar
"...does this clockwork hand follow you... or guide you?"
A lightning bolt struck out from Sio's hand and June visibly twitched, a strangled sound like an aborted shout dying in her throat. The Broken Crawler stumbled sideways into the doorframe, and then forward out into the hall. Noburu turned his hand palm up, and June staired in wonder as streams of dirt and dust flew toward his palm from cracks in the ceiling and floor, converging and compressing into a stone spike above his hand.

The Broken Crawler flashed with warm blue light: flames extinguished as the Shadow's Dia magic undid most of the damage inflicted on it by the two spellcasters. Noburu clicked his tongue and flicked his hand toward the Shadow, hurling his Magna spell at monster. It was not nearly as effective as Agi, though: the stone spike glanced off its fleshy spider-body and skipped across the floor behind it, leaving only a shallow gash in its wake, and the Crawler began to run toward them.

June took a step back, holding up her bat in defense. "What the fuck, what the fuck," she growled, eyes glued to the spider face and its disturbingly human mouth. "What. The fuck."

"Keep back, June," Noburu said, moving forward. "Fire works, electricity works, earth not so much--"

But telling her to keep back was exactly the wrong thing to do. June seemed to snap out of her panic the moment her boyfriend said that. A look of shame and anger passed over her face, to be replaced after a moment by just plain anger.

"FUCK THAT!"

Noburu had been raising his hand to cast another Agi spell, but he snatched the hand back as June sprinted past him. "Wait, don't--!" he yelled, but June closed distance before he could finish, swinging her bat at the monster's legs. The bat hit with a sharp crack, and the Crawler didn't so much as twitch.

June's eyes widened, and she froze again, just for a moment, but a moment was enough. One of the monster's legs, actually a muscular human arm whose elbow was bent completely the wrong way at a perfect ninety-degree angle, swung out and struck June in the stomach with Bash. She stumbled backward, choking and coughing, weakly swinging her bat as she doubled over, a vain attempt to ward the monster off, but it was clear from that one swing alone that the Broken Crawler was completely impervious to physical attacks...
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Prince Arjuna
Member Avatar
-insert something witty here-

Sio flinched when she saw the mohawk girl being effortlessly swatted away by the Shadow, but from that, she learned that the monster was immune against physical attacks. So, attacking it using her weapon would be out of question.

Once again, she summoned her Persona to launch another Zio at the Broken Crawler, hoping that they could take it down after landing a few hits on it.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous)
ZetaBoards - Free Forum Hosting
ZetaBoards gives you all the tools to create a successful discussion community.
Go to Next Page
« Previous Topic · Mysterious Ruins · Next Topic »
Add Reply
  • Pages:
  • 1
  • 6