Okie doke peoples, carrying on from The Never Ending Game, this is the first little obstacle for us to get past. Namely Chimera's DEITY unit. However, I will need 2 or 3 volunteers to go on ahead and head towards Yokoham so this thread doesn't get congested. They can have their own collab as they go.
Having been running non-stop for what seemed like an age (though it was only about twenty minutes), Ewan had started to wonder if they were indeed going the right way.
I hope I didn’t do anything wrong. Maybe I should have listened to that Layfield guy. Oh well, it’s too late now. Slowing down slightly, he allowed the others to all pass him and looked up at the sky. It was then he noticed it had gone quiet. The explosions had all stopped. It must have happened while they were all talking and no one had registered it yet.
"When did that happen?” he muttered to nothing in particular, "they were going like no one’s business a while ago.” Blinking a few times, he returned his gaze to the area around, not that there was much to see. They’d been going this way for a while, so they had to be close to where those guys had gone. The Welshman rubbed his chin and sighed.
"I guess we just have to-” he stopped. Something was coming closer. And not just one of them either. Three, maybe four, people were coming closer. Ewan picked up the pace and resumed running, hoping they’d be able to pass these people by.
Note: This is all taking place POST the current all Q collab which happened immediately after vincent's death. UNFORTUNATELY, things got a bit wonky what with objectives and necessitated that other All Q thing. Let us proceed. The out come will be the same in the end.
Nathaniel ran along side Ewan in a silent blur, riding the currents of reishi that he had thought never to be able to do again. It was a wonderful feeling, to glide and slip-slide along those esoteric currents...for the first time in maybe his whole life he felt like a Quincy. It was wonderful.
But the lack of explosions was well and truly ominous. They had stopped, when? Nathaniel didn't know, he had been absorbed in keeping up with the rest of the pack, quick though he was. These kids really had something in them...perhaps it would be he who would end up needing help at the end of the day. He hoped that wouldn't be the case...it would be too embarrassing, but if it happened, it couldn't be helped. As he ran, he opened himself to the spiritual fabric around him, looking idly for anything coming their way--he didn't want to be taken off guard again. Last time that had happened...he'd been captured and bundled away to be remade. Nathaniel wasn't anxious to repeat that in any capacity.
Akiko turned toward Mikhail to answer his question as she ran, long black pigtails streaming behind her. "I have a magic rainbow ribbon! I call it Inju no Nijiro.” She leapt impossibly high over a parked car in her way. "I can make it tie people up- well, not really tie, it kind of wraps around them- or I can make the edges sharp so it’s a weapon.” The petite schoolgirl frowned. "I’ve used it that way on mask demons lots of times. But I don’t really want to use it on people, so I’d rather sneak-"
She paused. "Hey, I feel chi nearby. Wonder if it’s bad guys or good guys?” It would be really, really nice if the chi belonged to good guys. But this was a rescue mission, and they were sure to run into bad guys sooner or later.
Rad had been zipping along with the rest of the team, casually hopping on wrecked automobiles and dodging through various obstacles in his usually flashy manner. Wisps of flame-like crimson energy danced playfully off of his form, trailing behind him as though he were a racecar speeding down the track. As the momentum began to falter, the redhead frowned and skid to a rather ungraceful halt that required some arm-waving to prevent a complete wipeout.
"Get the lead out you guys!" he yelled behind him, before blasting off in another flash of crimson energy and superhuman speed. They were probably talking about that big rush of energy that was coming towards them. Funny thing was, Rad was pretty good at sensing the auras of Baddies and other supers (though no one really knew because he was too busy running towards the fight). They felt pretty tough and he was itching to do some serious blasting.
Surprise surprise~ Be vewy vewy quiet, they is hunting Aranos.
Pick your poison mates, it's time to get down to business. Anyone sent ahead will be running into their own brand of interference in the form of deployed experiments and scientists. Get through them, and you'll be meeting up with Thread and Turst at Yokoham to deal with another threat.
The question would remain unanswered by any.
An apartment complex near them exploded outwards in a flurry of concrete dust and shrapnel. Through the din and the smoke, a single figure could be traced as it was thrown bodily into another building, collapsing it. Another trio of figures leapt after it, And the unseen brawl quickly sent more remains of the building flying.
The concrete dust choked out the streets, obscuring any hope of seeing the combatants until once more a figure was thrown from it, this time towards the young students. Said figure, revealed to be a young teen similar to them, rolled a fair distance before laying still for a moment. Finally, he groaned audibly, craning his neck to loosen it and propping himself onto his elbows to look at the surrounding crowd.
Arano, resisting the impulse to bash his own skull into the pavement for want of less...civilian company, leapt to his feet in time to catch a blow aimed at his face, courtesy of one Project: HADES. Shoving the experiment past him, he weaved out of the attacks of Project: LOKI and Aki, otherwise known as Project: HARMONY charging him.
Instantly, two chords of marrow had roped around the building behind them and he had yanked it down. He wouldn’t attack them directly, but like hell he’d just stand there and take the punishment. He heaved in air for a few moments, before zipping back to the newly found group. "What are you idiots waiting for? Get out of...here...” his words were lost as he noted the familiar boy amongst them. Light...what the hell was that kid doing in this warzone?
He shook his head to clear it, glancing back at the collapsed building and the rising thanatoresonance signatures coming from it. "I don’t know what you’re all planning, but I guarantee you it’s not safe here! You need to get out of here!”
Any further advice for staying alive was cut off as a sizable chunk of building was sent hurling in their direction, followed by two blurs of movement.
Ricardo was following the rest of the group more than leading or imposing his presence more than needed. His sense of hearing was overwhelmed with the series of noises and sound he was able to capture from the surroundings, as well as a buzzing hum he was finding extremely annoying. The guitarist had learnt more in the past couple of hour than in his whole life, and he was beginning to understand what the flickering noise could be. Each aura had a different taste, a different rhythm to it: Ewan was a profound D, while Glitter Girl was a B flat. The amount of energy their spirit gave off where also expressed by the amplitude of the peak of the vibration. Far away threats were represented by proportionally further deformations in his perception, each one with his personal characteristics.
The various ones the Hispanic teen was barely able to perceive, quite far from their current position, were extremely odd. Cacophonous and chaotic, their existence in any musical spectrum was just a forced human perversity, yet a rather larger one was a definite G sharp. Ricardo wondered if they were real threats fro them, or just avoidable distractions: even if he had gathered enough courage to fight and stand for his new friends, the Hispanic did not want to risk just to show off. When all is said and done, the guitarist knew that it would all boil down to a physical battle, yet he also hoped that it happened as later as possible. At the moment being, his principal focus was to avoid any delay in order to get to the kidnapped students before the night was over.
Jumping back to avoid the chaos that was ahead of them, Ewan bit his lip in annoyance.
Great, figures they’d send people to hinder any followers. Although… they already seem to be busy with that guy. The boy was hopeful that they could take advantage of the face-off to go around them and carry on moving. The guy on his own landed beside them and shouted something, instantly lost in the shock of an oncoming chunk of building.
“Oh fuck,” Ewan muttered, quickly bringing up Esistenza. Before anyone could move, Ewan stepped forward, right arm raised.
I hope this works. He slammed his fist into the oncoming brickwork, which crumbled into a dozen or so pieces all falling to the ground. Ewan blinked a couple of times.
“Man, am I glad that worked,” he muttered, turning to face Arano, “I’m sorry, you were saying?”
Nathaniel's bow flared to life in an instant as he prepared to blast the hurled piece of building out of existence. Before he could shoot, he was left watching, astonished, as the leader of the kids jumped forward and simply punched the thing to smithereens. Though he had been around powerful Advent Humans for a while, he shouldn't have been surprised, but, seeing a teenager do something like that was enough to give him pause.
Is everyone able to do the impossible these days? He wondered silently to himself. This is getting ridiculous.
In a flash, he vanished, appearing instantly next to Ewan, facing the new comer, he leaned toward the teen.
"I'm going to go on ahead," he said quietly, "...best if we have some foreknowledge of what's up ahead."
[137/333]
The moment there was an explosion Rad was on his toes and ready to rush straight towards in. In the midst of the smoke came one figure - some kid not much older than himself - followed by a group of much badder looking guys hurling chunks of concrete in their direction. Despite the warning to run (at least that's what Rad had thought he heard, there would be none of that; the Rad Red Rocket did not run from the bad guys! No, he blasted them into a ba-jillion little pieces. With one mighty leap, accented with his signature crimson fire, he appeared just in from of Ewan and the Air guy with the shiny bow. He stood heroically, right shoulder slightly forward and fists up and ablaze with energy.
"I'm the Rad Red Rocket, and I'm going to blast you."
He had only the time to shout another word as the blurs set upon them. “Idiots!” He shoved them backwards, taking the first blow to the stomach yet holding fast to the responsible fist. He dragged the offender, HADES, into Aki as she attempted to make her own attack. Kicking both away, he took another moment to test his bruised stomach, hissing slightly in pain.
Not turning his back to the quickly recovering opponents, he shouted back to the still-not-leaving group of kids. “What the fuck are you all on? Stop standing around trying to look cool and get your asses moving! You! Light! You should know better than to involve these kids!”
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Once more his tirade was cut off, Aki’s form immediately moving into action as she stopped only momentarily for her programming to recognize the new threats. The protocol had been initiated, it would not be stopped.
Her form was flung at the man who had so dramatically posed himself. Similarly, HADES dashed at their target, aiming a flurry of kicks at the cat-eyed teen and forcing him back.
LOKI was nowhere in sight, which was right where he should be. Any who attempted to escape would meet a sad fate indeed…The Genno was already in place, all that was left was for one to hit its boundaries and unleash its visions…
[225/570]
Little Note
People moving ahead: You will have to break LOKI's concentration in order to disrupt the Genno (Illusion Field). Until you do this, you won't have the opportunity to leave. You only have to do this once, but you gotta do it.
People staying behind and fighting: LOKI will pursue the people moving ahead if they break the Genno. If you wish to try and stop him then you can feel free to do so. In the meantime, you have two opponents to contend with: Project HARMONY and Project HADES.
I'm telling you this now to avoid springing anything on you guys last second.
Ricardo dashed onwards and jumped away from the newcomers who apparently had been sent their way specifically to hinder their rescue mission. For as much as that seemed unnatural to the young student, he had also to accept that they were facing some serious enemies there, not just an angry bully. Considering the reactions of his other companions, the Hispanic realized that he was not the only one shocked, even if most of the others were much more able to hide that and react timely. Eyeing the man that had given a simple, yet obvious advice, the guitarist swiftly climbed a wall on the side of the street and moved away from the combat area.
Ricardo had not taken twenty steps that he found himself running again towards the fight instead of away from it. What is fucking happening? he said to himself, turning in his heels and darting away from the three monsters once more. The second time he was able to reach a T-junction and take one of the turns, before reappearing from the other one back at the junction, after a mere blink of the eyes. The Hispanic could not believe what his mind was suggesting. Illusions? he asked himself, not believing to his own reasoning, is that even possible?
Beginning to gather his energies and taking his diapason out of his pocket, the guitarist shouted to Rad that had appeared beside him, “What the fuck is this all? Illusions?” Trying to pinpoint the location of anyone trying to hide, Ricardo produced a screaming skull from the vibrations the tuning fork had emitted, which shoot in a casual direction with a high-pitched screech. It collided with an electricity pole and exploded, breaking the post and ending the noise. Another one, thought, appeared above the diapason.
“I don’t know where you are,” Ricardo shouted again, in an unexpected demonstration of courage even to himself, “but I’ll hunt you out!”
[607]
PoWa
Attack -- Screaming Skull
By spending 5% Reiatsu after a suitable vibration has been created, Ricardo can compress the vibrations which assume the form of a screaming skull. The almost spherical energy can be hurled at mid distance and explode on contact, while emitting an high-pitched sound that pierce the ears until that moment.
"Oh my god!” Akiko stared at the attackers in horror. She had faced down more mask demons than she could count, but this was something else altogether. These people had obviously been human... once. What had been done to them? Or even worse, what had they done to themselves?
Well, it looked like Metal-san, Rad-san, and Bone-san were ready to fight the bad guys. The kidnapped students still needed rescuing, and minutes might count there. "I’m going with you, Ayers-san!”
The black-clad dancer concentrated for a moment. Even though she planned to leave, the bad guys might try to stop her. A long ribbon appeared in her hand, an ethereal construct that shifted through all the colors of the rainbow- plus pink. The ribbon seemed unaffected by the breeze, circling restlessly between its wielder and her enemies.
Akiko took a deep breath, energized by Inju no Nijiro’s presence. Now she was ready to fight. She raced toward the one adult man in the group, her footsteps silent in her soft black dance shoes. "Let’s go!”
As the words left her mouth, the boy who had made the loud noise back at the school (and hadn’t introduced himself) climbed a wall to move on ahead... and turned around to run back. "Hey! What are you doing?” The boy looked confused, but kept running, this time toward an intersection. Akiko blinked, and he was coming back from the other side!
That couldn’t be deliberate. There hadn’t been enough time for the dark-skinned boy (whom Akiko decided to call Loud-san) to get to the other side of the intersection, and he looked pissed. Something weird was going on here- and it wouldn’t let them leave! Inju no Nijiro rippled furiously, as if it was caught in a high wind, as Akiko struggled to master the fear that gripped her.
Calm down. Calm down. This is probably like that demon that made illusions of stuff, and you killed that one, right? A lightbulb went off in Akiko’s head. She had killed that demon by closing her eyes and listening for its steps!
Before she could put her plan into action, an ear-piercing screech filled the air, reverberating in the girl’s skull. "Aaaaahhh!” She clapped her hands over her ears, wincing. How was she supposed to hear where the bad guys were now?
388/531
OOC
Raph, since you haven't described any of the DEITY people, I'm assuming that they look kind of freaky.
Barely having time to say a word to Nathaniel, Ewan opted instead to plant a kick into Rad’s side, sending the posing moron sprawling to the ground and slammed his elbow into the face of the oncoming… girl? So taken aback was he that he paid little attention to anything else for a moment. It was only a shout from the kid who’d so far been quietly following at the back, followed in its own by a loud screech. That brought him back to reality.
“Ugh, forget it. Ayers! Take Layfield, Sparkles and the kid and go on ahead. Maybe him too,” he yelled, pointing at Rad, “I’ll see if these guys know anything about what’s going on. All four of them.” The last part was muttered, he was still suspicious about the guy being ganged up on. Adding a subtle shrug, he turned his back on his companions and focused once more on what was going on. The girl was getting up after Ewan put her down, one man was taking on the other guy and the third was nowhere to be seen.
“Ugh,” he muttered, taking a few steps forward, “I am not liking this day.”
Kicking away his opponent and leaping out of melee distance, Arano blurred his way next to the boy, shouting over the screeching apparition that grated on his eardrums. “You know what? Fine, I don’t have time to argue with reckless kids! Try not to die, and avoid killing them, or at least her!”
Leaping forward, a pair of short swords jettisoned from his wrists as he leapt towards Aki.
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Said girl rolled backwards, the swords stabbing into concrete instead of pinning her. Neon green stitches ran across her entire body and up and down her clothing. Clashing quickly, her reinforced bracers easily took the brunt of the swords’ impact. Putting her own powers to work, the target found himself without weapons as his blades became sewn to the sides of her bracers. Launching them back at him, they began their fight in earnest.
HADES himself took over the fight with the metallic one, isolating the two strongest of the group. His katana flashed as he began a rapid assault. Meanwhile, the hellish sound of the skull did little to bring down the Genno, instead its physical manifestation flared into existence – a twisting dome of energy adorned with all manner of macabre images only capable of being spawned by an equally twisted mind. LOKI’s form remained unmoving, hidden amongst the wreckage of the Tokyo neighbourhood.
Akiko stared at the dome of twisted imagery for an endless second, then forced herself to look away. Her stomach heaved as she tried to keep her lunch where it belonged. These people were way, way worse than demons! She had never even imagined some of the stuff on that dome before.
But she had a job to do; namely, to get past those horrors. It would be nice if Layfield-san would do his psychothingy and maybe give them a clue. The petite girl snapped her sparkly purple fingers in front of the boy’s face. "Hey! Layfield-san! Stop looking at the nasty stuff and help out here!”
Okay. First things first. Find whatever was making the Dome of Horror and make it stop. Hmm... that name didn’t sound quite bad enough... Dome of Infinite Horror! Yeah, that was it! Akiko huddled behind a fallen chunk of concrete and tried to think.
Whatever was making the Dome of Infinite Horror was probably inside it. (She hoped.) And there weren’t many people here. So if Akiko made ribbons like Rad-san had done, whichever one was inside the Dome and didn’t connect to someone she could see might lead them to the villain responsible! If it was a device and not a person... well, hopefully someone else would have an idea.
The schoolgirl closed her eyes and concentrated, gathering chi from all around her. Wow, there was a lot more of it than usual! The spiritual ribbons writhed and tried to break free, but if there was one person who knew how to handle ribbons, it was Nishimura Akiko. Once she felt that she had all of them, she opened her eyes and began to sort through the strands.
Most of them she discarded; they obviously came from too far away. Some of them were the strange red ones Akiko had seen every now and then, but she had never seen more than one and there were a lot here. She discarded those too- no time to worry about odd colors now- until she had narrowed them down to a bare handful. All of the spiritual ribbons in her hand connected to one of the people or person-shaped monsters present, except for one.
"Hey guys, I think I know where one of the bad guys is, we just have to follow the chi ribbon! Come on, I need your help!”
The invisible wall was something of much more terrible. An entire dome of nightmares and gruesome images appeared in front of the Hispanic teen, enveloping his mind into spirals of dread and desperation. His spirit sagged as much as his knees bent, his determination broken with the same ease as one would crack an ear of wheat. Leaning against the much more physical wall that surrounded the street, Ricardo needed all his willpower and coolness to refrain from dropping on the ground and turn into a shivering amass of cowardice. Steadying his trembling legs, the teen realized that he was not the only one fighting that enemy and gathered strength by that fact.
Even if he felt slightly sexist in thinking like that, the fact that the more active one was a girl gave an even bigger boost to his ego, calling pride into the field of play and inflaming his wavering spirit. Looking at Glitter Girl’s efforts, while his new skull was trying to brake free from his grasp, in order to wreck havoc around as if it had a consciousness of its own, Ricardo reflected that he should learn this sensing and probing thing all the other students were doing every now and then. Keeping the manifestation of his power at bay, the guitarist darted towards Akiko and then moved in the direction pointed by her hand.
Completely ignoring the other fighters still clashing together in a growing brawl, the Hispanic pinpointed a shadow and fired his skull, which screamed and screeched until it touched solid matter and exploded. Unfortunately for him, Ricardo had shot too early and the projectile had just scared a stray cat away from the area.
“I’m sorry,” he shouted to the rest of the students at large, “this is getting on my nerves...”
This is really short, but i'm short on time, sorry:
Nathaniel saw the threads that the young woman had conjured from thin air, he was impressed by her skill but couldn't afford to waste time marveling at the accomplishments of these kids. Instead, he brought his bow around and drew onto it a gleaming arrow of crackling blue energy. To it, he added as much of his own power that he could muster and let loose.
The arrow flew straight and true, down the vector that the thread was indicating and towards their hidden enemy. Knowing that his arrow would be easily traced back to where he had been, the scientist vanished into hirenkayku, appearing right next to Glitter Girl.
"Let's get him and then get out," he said.
Arrow: 556 shuuhaku + 473 reiatsu(nintai protected) = 1029
There will be an explosion when it makes contact.
Taking a step back every time the katana homed in on his face, Ewan grimaced and tried to think of a counter, each of which was interrupted by the next thrust. The latest, a stab aimed at his left eye was quickly dodged with the Welshman turning his head to watch the blade pass his face.
Crap, I’m getting nowhere like this, he thought, avoiding another thrust, I’m gonna have to take some kind of initiative. As HADES went to take yet another stab, Ewan leapt aside and quickly scanned the area for anything he could use. Nothing sprang to mind. A grunt behind him told him he had no more time to think. He spun around and raised his hands, unwittingly grabbing the blade. His eyes lit up in realisation.
Moron, the sword has a metal blade. The blade instantly began changing shape in his hand. The free hand meanwhile, began changing too. Ripping the blade away his one hand, he made to run the man through with his other.
The arrow’s conflagration lit up the darkened sky, illuminating smoke all around as raw energy struck dismantled concrete. Yet the dome had not faltered, nor had it changed in the least. Its hellish visage still taunted those who tried to leave. Now, however, LOKI’s form stirred near the wreckage he had cloaked himself in. The shot hadn’t been terribly close, but the power behind it was enough to warrant caution.
HADES twisted around the blade, the loss of his own weapon not fazing him in the least. Allowing the keen edge to slice open his palm, he grasped the blade firmly and yanked it forward while bringing a haymaker to the boy’s throat-area. Aki fared much less better. Her combat abilities were centered in bare-handed fighting, never weapons combat. It was only the combined durability of the bracers she wore and the target’s unwillingness to harm her that spared her injury. However, the explosion had warranted a distraction. Brief though it was, it was all the time that was needed.
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Arano wasted no time, planting a kick square into the girl’s stomach, sending her into a wall of wreckage. He was on her in but an instant, a new pair of short swords driving through the wreckage and pinning her clothes to it. Not about to leave it at that, a pair of sais now spawned from his wrists as he quickly pinned her hands between its spokes. Her struggling efforts remained in vain, and Arano turned his sights to the experiment heckling the metal-encapsulated teen.
Though Nathaniel was angered that his first attempt had had no effect on the barrier, he was not daunted. He knew that he'd be able to find whoever was creating the barrier and preventing them from leaving and getting to their destination. But from where could he see everything?
The sky. Of course.
Annoyed that he hadn't thought of it sooner, the young scientist jumped as high into the air as he could, calling spiritons to his feet to support him as he stood in mid air, looking down. At first he saw nothing but smoke and ash, but that wasn't enough to stop him. With a snarl, threads burst from the air all about him one leading almost directly down. He grabbed at it, isolating it and passing his power over his eyes.
There! Lurking in the shadow of an ruined building, the young man saw what he was after. The person casting the barrier. Silver-blue ropes of power streamed to his bow as he went beyond his limits to call reishi to his body. The pain of using his own power was so strong that it nearly blinded him, but he rose above it. With a scream of pain and anger he released his arrow, sending it blazing through hirenkayku to appear instantly at his target's side.
Important.
Tech:
[ Karyuudo no Kantoku ] "Hunter’s Perception"
Through generations and generations of dispatching Hollows, Quincy have gained a reputation for being skilled sensors due to their relentless training with it. By noting ambient spiritron flow and feeling for echoes within the flows, a Quincy can start to harness the world to sense things for him. Eventually, with enough practice, a Quincy subsconsciously stirs up spiritrons and uses that to observe his surroundings.
The user of Karyuudo no Kantoku sees a very vivid picture of the world around them, much akin to using eyesight - objects are easily distinguished and their textures as well as color differences can be noted. Practitioners can expect to see through some illusions, but be more vulnerable to others. Illusions without substance would be shown to be fake, but illusions with some sort of reiatsu signature would not. Karyuu no Kantoku modifies the base tech "Spiritual Pressure Perception" and the sensory range is 10% that of his range for that tech. Using this tech costs 1% of the Quincy's Reiatsu per turn it is in use.
Ability: Due to his skill with Hirenkyaku, Nathaniel has developed the ability to apply that same motion technique to an arrow, meaning that he is able to speed one arrow valued at 50% his shuuhaku towards a target at a speed equal to his Douryuu. The ability costs the remaining 50% shuuhaku to use. Only one arrow may be fired in this manner per turn and may not have additional techniques applied to it.
