Lost Tome

crimsontoazure @ 2009-11-09T21:11:00

2009-11-10T04:12:11Z

“Do you even remember how to be the man you were?”

The haunting whisper drifted into Zent’s mind much like smoke into the nose. Subtly at first, as though he doubted it was even there, but suddenly pungent and with a burst of disgust that almost made him wretch. The dream, whatever it was, had been dispelled immediately by those words and replaced by nightmare. Flashes of a woman, simple in her beauty, blinked in his mind’s eye. Violently he sat from his prone position into a place of sitting. Heavy breaths escaped him and he growled slowly to himself. The camp fire had extinguished, perhaps hours ago. The beginning rays of dawn crept slowly from underneath the edge of the universe, cutting into the infinity and promising to cast it away into a beautiful blue sky.

Yet the stars still glittered ignorant of the cycle of destruction, twinkling even as the sun rose from below them. Some persisted well into the morning, as orange and red colors swept into the sky to chauffeur them away. Zent watched the whole event, and in his eyes it seemed chaotic. He wondered how some found the crashing of color and light cutting into the serenity of darkness a beauty. After a full hour the last of the stars flittered out of the sight for the last time until darkness once again overtook the war for the sky.

Xib rubbed one eye with the tips of her three longest fingers, groaning loudly as she did. Her least favorite part of the day was the part where she started it. Zent learned not to nag her into waking before she was ready. It usually ended in an argument about the first thing that came into her mind. Even waking at her preferred pace was an obnoxious endeavor. By the time she had grumbled out a greeting, Zent had finished making breakfast over a reignited campfire and set her portion of the breakfast directly onto her blanketed lap.

The eggs looked fine enough, except that the edges were black and the yoke hard. She wondered where he had even gotten them, considering how long they’d been away from town. The mass of slop next to the eggs concerned her, however; a greasy pile that bubbled of its own volition and smelled a bit like burning fat and gristle. It was mostly gray in color, with the exception of the burned bits.

“Ick. What is this?” Xib griped, not really thinking of what she was saying.

“Roc meat.” Zent said, heaving a forkful into his mouth and chewing quickly.

“It looks awful.”

“Tastes awful.”

“Then why are we eating it?”

“Keep the strength up. Look I wouldn’t take too long with that, the momma is likely to come looking for its kids and husband before too long.”

“… Barbaric.”

“Well conjure yourself a meal if you’re so picky. We don’t got a lot of options. I saw the nest this morning, and we might as well save what provisions we have when we can.” Zent stated, pointing a forkful of the stuff at her before turning it around and shoving the whole heap into his mouth and chewing the mass for a lot longer than he looked like he wanted to.

“It would turn to ink in my stomach. Wouldn’t be much good then, would it?” She snorted defiantly, and half expected he knew that. She looked over the plate again, and sighed before cutting a corner of the burned egg off and awkwardly balancing it on the crude fork to scoop into her mouth. It wasn’t horrible, though it had been burned by the camp fire. She finished the egg and looked none too pleasantly at the mass of mean on the other half of her plate. Before she could stab it with her fork however, Zent had scooped two more of the eggs onto her plate, and swapped the mass of gray matter onto his own.

“There. Wouldn’t kill you for some variety y’know?” he snorted, sitting down with his newly attainted second portion. Xib thanked Zent before setting into the two eggs, which she gladly devoured over the sick that had been sitting on her plate moments before.

When the two finished breakfast they rolled their blankets up and tied them to the backpacks they carried with them. Zent seemed uncharacteristically cautious as he packed his bags. He worked slowly, and looked around him constantly. It was true the woods they had camped in were often inhabited by bandits who robbed campers and traders on their way to and from the major cities.

It wasn’t bandits that alerted Zent. A rustling in the bushes called his attention away from his pack. He tied the last bit of twine together without looking at it. A dark form became the focus of Zent’s attention and before he could call out to Xib, the form became a shadow and the shadow became the thrashing of a massive feathered beast crashing through the limbs of the trees in the trees. It ran along the ground, dodging trees with its massive frame, twice their height and easily four times their girth. The chest of the creature was not unlike a typical bird of prey, broad and thick with long feathers that covered its body until it reached the top of the slender legs. The wings of the creature were tucked into its sides, but were clearly sizable as the tips of these feathers reached beyond the tail end of the Roc.

It was the beak of this creature that really set it apart from other raptors. A thick, sharp beak curled down into a ninety-degree hook at the tip, violently serrated along the upper portion. It then curled upward into the face of the bird, creating the effect of a demented smile stretched across the face of the Roc. The crown of the bird was adorned with long fluffy feathers that fluttered and took up leaves and dirt as it crashed through the woods.

Xib had the benefit of already slinging her pack on her back before the creature decided to attack. Zent’s feet dug into the dirt below as he accelerated in the direction opposite the massive creature was coming from, towing his pack in one hand. Xib stumbled only once before taking off in a full run ahead of Zent.

“It found us!” he shouted, as the thrashing behind them we joined with a ear-piercing keer from the lungs of the Roc.

“Y’think?!” Xib shouted in frustration, groping at various pockets around her clothes. Zent watched her only briefly before looking back to check on their progress.

“It’s getting closer! Run faster!”

“I can’t!” Xib said, not caring to hide a growl. At last her fingers gripped around the familiar smooth wooden handle of her paintbrush. She slid it from beneath her jacket, slamming the soft bristles into an ink-well at her waist. She stopped, spinning around to face the oncoming beast. Quickly she drew thick black lines into the air in front of her. They suspended in the void, without paper as Zent ran beyond her, skid on one leg, spinning around to face the same direction.

“Xib what’re you doing? Run!” he shouted, sliding his pair of daggers out of their sheaths.

The black-haired girl ignored him. The Roc didn’t slow as it approached, bellowing another ear-piercing keer before diving at Xib with its jagged beak open wide. Xib’s arm reached upward into the oncoming beak, flicked her brush deftly, and a thick black line appeared in the air connected to the others drifting weightless beside her. The Roc’s beak enveloped the black line on its path to its pray. Xib yanked the paintbrush downward hard, and the entirety of the line grew taut. The Roc’s head slammed into the magic ink hanging in the sky, blood seeping from the corner of its beak where the line cut into the skin, but it did not slow. Xib grabbed the remaining line in her free hand, and dashed beneath the head of the Roc. With a whip of her hand the once ephemeral lines of ink now wrapped around the oncoming legs of the Roc, lassoed them, and tripped the creature so fully that it crashed forward, onto its head and neck and rolled onto its back kicking up a cloud of dirt and knocking a nearby tree from its roots.

Xib stood panting, ink dripping from the end of her brush.

crimsontoazure @ 2009-10-31T01:06:00

2009-10-31T07:06:26Z

Baubles of light circled the room. Long white drapes fluttered from the ceiling of the circular room. They poured over top small shelves and tables that were placed around the room. Zent sat on a bed in the middle of this room. The bed was also covered in the same soft white material which blew gently in a windowless breeze in this room. Around Zent’s head the lights glowed warmly, and passed through objects around the room ephemerally. Zent tried to clear his head, shaking it violently and opening his eyes again hoping to rid himself of the stars in his head. When they didn’t disappear he considered briefly trying to shake out his head again, but a presence entering the white room diverted his attention quite thoroughly.

The Priestess adorned a white gown matching the rest of her bed chamber. The fluttering cloth was lifted from the ground as she passed across the room toward Zent. She did little to hide her luscious features, with but the single layer of white cloth covering her breast and hips. This suited Zent just fine, and he didn’t try to hide his gaze into her buxom chest.

“Hey, Toots. Been a while.” Zent said, propping up onto his elbows as the Priestess Illicia sat with her legs tucked underneath her on the edge of the round bed. She smiled pleasantly down at Zent, despite his vulgarity.

“Zen’Teil… still hiding I see.” She said, her voice almost cooing with compassion for the hardened criminal.

“Yeah well, s’what I’m good at.”

“It wasn’t the only thing, was it?”

Zent grunted, reluctant to relive the past.

“Hmph, thanks for… y’know, saving my ass again.”

“I do nothing but pray to the gods, Zen’Teil. They chose to return your soul here. It is how I know, despite your act, you are pure.”

Zent groaned loudly, and finally lifted his gaze from her chest into the blonde’s glowing violet eyes. The game was boring if she didn’t play along. Perhaps she knew that, which is why Zent never could get her to act offended.

“Is… is the girl safe?” Zent asked, trying his best not to sound too concerned but ended up sounding overly so.

“She is. You’ve both been smiled on today. Although I must say she was in much better shape, despite the knife in her side, and the spell cast upon her.”

“So it was magic.” Zent said, ignoring the comment about his own blade- trying to subdue the inward rage.

“The Gem was cursed to cast a deep slumber onto those who channeled its magic.” Illicia explained.

“A curse? So… you can’t remove it then.”

“You better than anyone know I cannot.”

Immediately Zent recalled a short, purple haired gnome with stubby fingers and a high pitched laugh. “The mage-”

“Would you start this adventure over again?” Illicia interrupted him.

Zent’s shoulders sank slightly, and he shook his head.

“No, you’re right. I can still fetch a good price for the stone, regardless of curse. Thanks Illicia. There is… just one more thing.”

A mischievous grin spread widely across Zent’s lips and he scrambled closer to her, planting his lips on the exposed skin of her neck. The Priestess sighed, mostly out of exasperation than irritation. She pushed him away and stood gracefully from her seat citing the same words Zent felt she always left with.

“That is not permitted.”

Xib’s eyes fluttered open in an infirmary. The last thing she remembered was the sound of her screams. Slowly recollections of three days past came floating into her mind. She was holding the gem, Zent was fencing at the end of the alley, still in Senator Buali’s disguise. She remembered the feeling of warmth coming from the gem, inviting her to try and cast spells she didn’t even know. Then the visage of a demon- his mouth cracked and spewing molten rock or steel invaded her mind. It demanded her allegiance. When she wouldn’t give it…

The pain. She remembered how much pain there had been. How it devoured every part of her, from her toes, to her breast, to individual hairs. The pain felt as if it had lasted years. She felt so violated by pain she must have thrown up, but she couldn’t remember it. Even recollecting in passing how much pain she had endured made her grab her stomach in reflex. Sobs escaped her as she sat on the cot, and with one hand on her stomach, and one on her mouth, she curled into a ball and cried. Something touched her shoulder, and Xib squealed before whipping around on the bed to see what it was.

Zent was peering down at her like she was some kind of retarded step-child. Despite this, Xib clung to the bottom hem of his twill shirt and pulled him close, clenching the cloth to his eyes. Both to hide her face, and dry her tears.

When she had finished her fit, Zent was still looking down with the same astounded look of questioning. Xib smiled a little, and sat up.

“Feel better?” Zent said.

Xib nodded, rubbing the heel of her palms into the socket of her eyes. She sniffled only once more before looking up to him.

“So- what happened? Where are we?”

“Borea.”

“What?! H-when?”

“What, what? I told you I’d get you to Borea, didn’t I?”

“Well, yeah but I don’t remem-“

“You were hexed.”

“What?”

“You were hexed by the gem. I talked to the Priestess that tended to you. It is cursed, and by strong magic too. You’re lucky it didn’t curse you too.”

“But it did, you just said...”

Zent sighed heavily and shook his head, “No, you were hexed. Not cursed. Like I said, lucky too. A hex can be counter hexed. But not forever- it’s a good thing we got you here as soon as we did, I’m guessing even a day later and you’d never have woken up.”

Xib blinked blankly at Zent for a moment. Up until this very moment, Zent had shown absolutely no sign of being magically inclined. He didn’t know anything about Inkmages, and had seemed to show little interest in her ‘hocus pocus’ he’d called it. Xib’s head reeled, partially from the grogginess of sleeping for days, partially from this reveal. Had he lied to her this whole time? She knew he was an excellent deception artist- a rogue by trade he had to be, but she didn’t think for a second that she was the one being deceived.

“Damn you’re good.” She muttered under her breath, not completely meaning to.

Zent looked down at her, catching a glimps of intrigue in her eyes.

“Tch, just repeating what I heard, whatever. Don’t make a bit of difference to me. Curses, hexes, charms or banana peels. No difference. Whatever.”

Xib watched as he turned away, and noticed as he passed beneath an oil lamp just how bloodied his cloths were. Much more than when she remembered last seeing him. She was about to say something, but bit her lip. Maybe it was better not to ask a rogue his secrets. She shuffled out of the cot and on both feet. It took her a minute to find her shoes beneath the cot, and as soon as they were fastened she chased Zent from the infirmary.

crimsontoazure @ 2009-10-27T16:29:00

2009-10-27T22:29:44Z

Xib sat outside of the Senate on the short stone wall of a fountain. Water poured into the basin from BLAH BLAH BORING

The fire crackled lightly in the darkness of night. Zent’s head bobbed in a lulling rhythm as he tried to fight off sleep. It was still early, but he was exhausted from carrying Xib on his back across the plains. She lay unconscious still, just within reach of the illuminating flames. Zent could feel his mind push into a haze, and ghosts of his past met him there. A woman dressed in elegant red, hair a brilliant gold cast an evil gaze down at him. Zent felt a ghostly hand grip his pant leg, and the rogue looked down to see a child’s face, half-decayed. Its mouth opened and scorpions flew from it. Zent tried to scream, but only heard the cackling of goblins. The woman, too, opened her mouth to speak but was drowned out by the cackling of goblins. Goblins?

Zent’s mind flickered from the sins of the past to the horrors of the present. Xib, still unconscious, was being peeled away from the sanctity of the fire into the darkness just beyond.

“Like Hell.” Zent growled and in one movement slid onto a leg kicking away the small fire pit he’d built, then rose onto both feet. The light disappeared almost immediately. In the moonlight, which took a moment for Zent’s eyes to adapt, he could see the crest of bumpy goblin heads, and the long triangular goblin ears bouncing. Zent charged into the dark, after the closest of the bumpy heads.

A weird barking giggle came from behind him, and Zent turned around. The darkness finally was becoming familiar and standing two feet his superior, Zent saw a massive Trogg wielding a club trying to crush him. Zent rolled out of the way, and produced the first of his two blades. The silver blade glinted in the moonlight. The trogg turned to face Zent, but was met with the stippling of his blade.

“Woodpecker Strike!” he shouted, assaulting the stomach, legs, and lower chest of the trogg with two dozen inaccurate, but sonic speed stabs. With the final strike, Zent darted away from underneath the trogg and continued to pursue the goblins. The trogg stood silently for a moment, then blue black blood gushed from the multiple wounds endured in such a short time, pouring even as the final howl of the trogg pierced the night. It stumbled, fell to one knee in a pool of its own blood, then fell onto its face into the sticky black substance.

The goblins were fast, much faster than Zent had expected while carrying a body.

But not as fast as he was.

Leaning into his run, Zent’s heels barely touched the ground, feet in the air almost as soon as they hit the dirt. The tall grass rustled loudly as he cut a path through it with his torso. The goblins cackled even now. He wondered if they were simply over confidant, or if they really were as brainless as some people said they were. As soon as he could make out the head of the closest goblin he pulled a throwing knife from a pouch on his belt.

With a keen eye, he thrust the knife forward into the night. It soared into the darkness, but Zent couldn’t tell where. The goblin didn’t falter, so he assumed he had missed. Zent’s teeth ground together, angry at himself. He could feel himself running out of stamina, his breath growing heavy with every step.

The rogue shook his mind out, and pushed as hard as he could to advance on the closest goblin. When he was within range, he leaped into the air gripping his dagger with both fists tightly, and slammed the blade through the skull of the goblin. It crumpled, and Zent straddled the body as it slid into the dirt. He successfully scraped both knees, tearing open his pants cleanly. Zent looked up to see that his blade had snapped from the handle with the impact. He threw the useless hilt aside and slid his second dagger out of its sheath. Not good. If they ran across anything worse than this before reaching Borea, Zent may not be able to deal with the problem. At first he tried to palm the off-hand weapon in his left hand, but it felt awkward as his main blade. The weight was wrong. He thought it might be better to improvise, and returned the weapon to his right hand, and picked up a stick for his “main” weapon.

Zent saw the goblins ahead had slowed considerably with the removal of this one from their pack, and now understood why. Each of the four goblins had taken a limb. Now Xib’s left leg drug recklessly against the ground. Zent didn’t have to rush before he caught up. The goblins made clicking gargling sounds, and dropped Xib entirely. She didn’t protest, and Zent was genuinely worried about somebody other than himself for the first time in a long time. He cursed under his breath.

The goblins advanced as a three man pack, each wielding a stone axe, lashed to a stick with leather strands. Zent’s shoulders sulked a bit as he saw the sight. In a few deft strikes, he had disarmed two of the three goblins, literally. Their weapon arms fell onto the ground with a splurt of the same blue-black blood the trogg had left. The hands still gripped tightly to the axes they had been equipped with only moments before. Their screams of pain fell upon deaf ears. The final goblin tried to escape, leaving his weapon behind. Zent appeared in front of him, without the slightest of movement from the brush to either side. In his head, Zent painted this one as their leader, though he had no evidence of this being the case… it just felt cooler this way.

Zent kicked the goblin square in the face, and it fell backwards, screaming and clutching its broken, ugly long nose. Zent kicked the ribs of the goblin ‘leader’ for good measure, before picking up Xib and beginning their campsite. When he finally carried her to the fire place, relit the flame, and inspected her more thoroughly, he came across a disturbing revelation.

A silver throwing knife was sticking out from just above her waist. It was bleeding badly. Zent cursed himself again. This time his anger intensified, and he screamed with rage into the blackness of the plains. She saved his life; it wasn’t fair that he should take hers. He wouldn’t get another child killed.

When morning came, the gates of Borea were greeted with a man covered in dirt and blood, with a girl wrapped in many many blankets on piggyback. His eyes, red but for his pupils, were wet with rage and determination. The guards of the Borea gate ordered the man to stand down- but he could not. Zent took another step forward, and pikes were produced at his neck. Veins popped from the skin around Zent’s forehead and neck, down into his shoulders and legs.

“I…” he growled through a husky, rash voice, “ … for… Illicia! Bring… Illicia…”

Zent coughed loudly, and blood spat from somewhere in his lungs onto the pikes before him. The guards leapt back slightly staring at the stain on their finely polished weapons- as if they thought somehow the weapons would never be bloodied. Zent tried his best not to die falling backwards, and shifted all his weight to one side, away from Xib’s wound. The girl rolled from beneath the bundle of blankets in which she was hid, blood staining three layers of the wrapping around her wound.

“Captain, he cited Lady Illicia.” Said one of the guards.

A helmed man replied, somewhat metallically, “Restrain him, and bring the Priestess. Even if she does not know the man, she may be of some use resurrecting them. “

“Yes Sir!”

crimsontoazure @ 2009-10-25T14:09:00

2009-10-25T20:10:08Z

The guards posted outside of the Senate seemed a little too relaxed as Zent approached them. Although he had seen for himself the effects of the Inkmage’s spell, he was slightly uneasy as he sauntered between the two posted guards outside the large marble pillars framing the maple wooden doors. The door on the right swung inward as he pressed his hand upon it. He made a mental note. Zent’s eyes briefly flickered over every corner of the room that stood before him. A long blue carpet was spread down the middle of the massive marble corridor. Every ten paces or so, two marble columns rose out of the ground, but did not reach the full length of the ceiling. Instead they stopped just short of the second floor, on which Zent could see other Senators gathering around one door on the floor just above him and to his right. The room to avoid, then. Zent walked up next to one of the pillars, and planted both feet next to each other. He gauged the distance between this pillar and the next, then, swinging both arms at his sides he leapt forward as far as he could. His flight was long, but not long enough, landing a good three feet from the next pillar. Escape route #2 was out of the question then. The noble’s robes had ridden up onto Zent’s legs, exposing his darker toned legs. Zent looked up at two passing scholars who were giving him a queer eye. Zent coughed to himself, and pulled the robe down back to his ankles.

The scholars carried on their business, seemingly unaware, and Zent proceeding down the hall and toward the half-circle staircase at the end of this hall. The stairs were large and on either side of the hallway, doubling back on themselves to allow access to the second floor. Zent took the stairway to the left, avoiding the Conference Room for as long as possible. His pay came first. If things went sour, at least he could walk away with something. Zent slipped into the first doorway on the second floor on this side of the building.

Inside of this room a shimming light surrounded a small stone table. The rim of light rose and fell in a sort of breathing pattern around the table, but never faded completely. As Zent grew closer, the light changed from a mellow blue to a more erratic red. The flux in color came with the added effect of agitating the light, the ridge of the light growing sharp with multiple peaks. Zent stopped for a moment, hoping that the light would calm down. When it simply kept shuddering to itself, Zent crossed his arms and pondered the situation. He had no idea what kind of spell this was, but he assumed it wouldn’t let him reach into drawer of the table and retrieve the gem that lay within.

Zent stood there for a moment when the door opened behind him. Instinct took hold for a moment, and Zent almost leapt for the window before remembering his disguise. Quickly he regained his composure. With one hand he stroked the hairless chin of the Senator he was impersonating. A young man entered, no older than Xib was. His eyes were a brilliant blue, and gazed over to the Senator who stood wordlessly in the corner, stroking his chin and staring at the table.

“Oh! Senator Buali… I’m sorry Sir, I thought you would be in the Senate meeting… I think they’re waiting for you…” he said, rubbing a hand through short sun blonde hair.

“Uh, aherm, er yes… well… I needed something from the drawer, and forgotten the Dispell.” Zent said, trying his best to imitate having a cold, coughing after his statement.

“In there, sir? Are you sure… I mean there’s really only the Dragon Stone.” The young boy said, straightening his posture, but looking down toward the ground ashamedly.

Zent peered through disguised eyes at the boy. He knew this stature well.

“You know the Dispell, don’t you Squire?” Zent coughed, covering his mouth.

“No! Oh no sir, I am not permi-“

“Knock it off. I will not inform the others. If you would child, I am in QUITE a hurry. Already late and all.”

This was perfect for Zent. He could use the boy as his witness to the crime. At this thought, he added, “- You can say I did it.”

The boy nodded, walking over to the field of light. It jittered just as ferociously as when Zent had approached, and for this he was glad. It meant Zent hadn’t set off a silent alarm. Despite needing to be captured, he certainly hated the idea of it.

“Referendum!” the boy explained, and at once the field fell. Zent approached the boy, and reached down to open the drawer. Inside lay a number of magical items- many Zent didn’t recognize, a few he didn’t care about, and one he was very very interested in.

Zent lifted the dark green stone into his hand gingerly, marveling at the perfection of the cut and thrilling over the empowering effect that even touching the stone provided. The boy watched as Zent quickly shuffled the stone into a pocket of his robe.

“Sir, what are you using the stone for? I know I’m not supposed to ask but I-“

“That’s right you’re not.” Zent said in his most scornfilled, undisguised voice he could muster. The boy visibly winced. Zent turned and left the way they had left the room. He charged down the stairway, then back up the opposite side and head toward the front of the Senate Hall, to the room he had seen the Senators gathering previously.

crimsontoazure @ 2009-10-24T00:57:00

2009-10-24T06:58:26Z

“Excuse me! Sir!”

The young woman hurriedly approached a damper noble, dressed in his best robes and walking just as quickly in the opposite direction. She was insistent, her brow hair bouncing slightly in front of eyes as she jogged toward the middle-aged man. Her small brown eyes pleaded with him, even as he barely made eye contact.

“Please, Sir!” the girl insisted, pulling from beneath one arm a notebook, “I would like to draw a picture of you! Three Denar is all I ask!”

The noble sighed heavily, and struck his nose high into the air, “I’ve important matters to attend and have little time for your busking, child.”

“But, not no time, right? Little is fine! I can go REAL fast, I promise. It’ll be worth it.” She said, literally jumping into the man’s path, instantly analyzing the features of his face. With a flick of her well-pen, she began to scribble into the notebook. The noble almost pushed her out of the way, until he saw how very quickly she was drawing lines into the book she carried with her. It was hypnotizing. The pen strokes almost marked the page before her pen reached it. From the angle he was at he could make out the face she was drawing was quite similar to his own, as well. In a matter of a few minutes, she was done. She twirled the pen in one hand and holstered it into a pouch with other drawing utensils.

She flipped the book around, and held it open toward him, exclaiming, “Dun-Tah! Five Denar please!”

He inspected the art with a scrutinizing eye. Every wrinkle and definition in his face was captured with perfection- expert stippling and crosshatching littered the page to mirror the lighting in the courtyard in which they sat. If he hadn’t witnessed her draw the picture, he would have accused her of lying, producing the picture beforehand. He was, after all, an important figure in the Senate. Of which he was going to be late for if he mingled any longer.

“Wait a moment, you said three denar before! And even then, that is quite a steep price. Ridiculous, I’ll not pay it. I’m late for Senate, if you’d be so kind-” Said the noble, pushing the girl aside as he walked passed her.

She teared-up, heaving a tiny little sigh. “I’m sorry, sir!” she sniffed, then, after a brief pause began to hurry after him again, “Sir! Wait!”

The noble began to grind his teeth, ducking his head down in avoidance. The girl, however, was quick on the feet, and made good time.

“Sir, please, if you go through the ally behind Leinham’s Inn, you can make it to the Senate without having to pass around the North Court!” she said, sincere concern in her eyes.

“Erm… thank you, but if you’d just stay out of my way-“

“No, please! I caused you trouble, I didn’t mean to. Please, it’ll be much faster, sir!” said the girl, holding the notebook to her breast, while biting her bottom lip. Apology was seated deep in her gaze.

“Very well. Thank you for the advice.” Said the noble, turning eastward, toward Leinham’s Inn.

The woman tucked the book under her arm again, and let a smug grin cross her thin lips. She walked toward the ally she’d mentioned, almost skipping with the bounces in her step. Her baggy gray pants, patched in two places, tucked over a dirty white dress shirt two sizes too big allowed her the perfect peasant disguise. As she grew nearer to the Inn, and into more familiar territory she stripped these cloths off, leaving them on the cobblestone. Beneath her disguise, a well-fitting tan sweater vest squeezed over a gray tunic, both untucked from a pair of khaki corduroy pants. She pulled a twill cap out from the back of her pants and fit it snugly onto her head.

A long, exasperated yawn escaped the scruffy middle-aged man waiting for the noble in the alleyway. He picked at a bit of dirt beneath his fingernails with the tip of his knife. It was a measly two inches long, but enough to do this job anyway. The man’s gray eyes contrast noticeably against his tanned skin. Even his hair was no exception to this, black strands stood messily in any direction they wished toward the front, but were pulled into a tight ponytail in the back.

He heard scuffling from beyond the mouth of the alley. Instantly he leapt up from the barrel he sat on, and slipped behind it, crouching low to the ground. He peeked out down the length of the alley, away from the direction that the noble was coming from, toward the Senate building. Silently he flicked the knife closed, and pulled a metal cudgel from his belt loop. As soon as he could see the noble, the man leaped from his hiding place, and thrust the cudgel down onto the back of the older man’s neck. He toppled instantly, not even letting out the slightest moan before he was unconscious.

A few moments later, and the twill-capped girl entered the alley, just as the rogue pulled the last of the noble’s robes around his ankles.

“Cripes, do they gotta wear dresses like this?” he groaned, sitting down on the barrel.

“Yes, Zent, they do. Did you clean your fingernails like I said?”

He groaned again, “Yeah, I did. Look toots, is this all really ness-“

“Yes!” she exclaimed, and shoved the man. He flailed, nearly toppling from the barrel. She shoved a finger in his nose, and gave him an angry look, “Look, you’re not exactly the cheapest hire on the block, okay? I expect my money to carry a bit more weight as far as instructions go!”

“But, I am the best.” Zent said, grinning widely, coyly kissing the tip of her finger which quivered, but didn’t recede. He pushed it out of his face, “Whatcha gonna pick my nose? Look, like I said Yin, it’ll get done.”

“Hmph.” Yin grumped, pulling her hand away and opening the book she’d sketched in earlier. With one hand she turned the pages until she came to the sketch of the naked man who now lay unconscious on the ground behind them. With her fingertips she caressed the page, releasing a tiny sigh of pleasure as her skin crossed the page. She closed her eyes, focusing on the ink in the page. She traced the lines with her fingers until the lines began to lift from the page itself. They stretched and deformed in the air, ink dripping onto the cobblestone between Yin and Zent. It stretched, much like putty, keeping its shape for the most part, but not completely. With her hand she ‘pushed’ the sketch toward Zent’s face. When the ink connected with his skin, blotches of color splashed onto his body. The ink cut into his jaw, elongating it, and wrinkled his skin. It even cut and colored his hair. His eyes, too, were splashed with the magical ink- in much protest as the process was painful. He shouted a curse and rubbed at this, but was unsuccessful in relieving the pain of ink in the eyes.

“I hate this a lot, I want you to know.” Zent said through clenched teeth.

Yin was miles away, biting her bottom lip in the same place and breathing heavily. She climbed almost completely into Zent’s lap before she came to, the ritual completed. She blinked a few times at the much older man that she now straddled, and cleared her throat as she climbed down.

“Damn, you really like your job don’t you?” Zent grinned.

“I’ve got a lot riding on this, Zent. The more… ‘involved’ I become, the more convincing the disguise. Take a look.” Yin said, producing a scrap of polished metal, and turning the shiny surface toward him.

Zent peered at the man who stared at him for only a few seconds before feeling quite queasy. He pushed the metal down, and slipped off of the barrel. With both hands he dusted off his butt and lap.

“Time to work. Sneak into the Senate, get the gem for myself, then the documents for you… that’s it? I could have probably done that without all the hocus pocus you know.”

“Maybe- but you forgot the most important part, Zent…”

Zent frowned. He knew what she was going to say, and he really hated this part of the plan.

“Yeah, I know… the senator has to get caught. I have to get caught.”

crimsontoazure @ 2009-10-08T23:21:00

2009-10-09T06:21:20Z

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF-

HAWK EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES!

crimsontoazure @ 2009-09-22T12:38:00

2009-09-22T19:46:40Z

Today, a friend of mine wished that she could keep her foot. She didn't mind losing a few toes. Didn't mind losing all of them, as long as she got to keep her foot. I've never heard a person wish for something like that before. How can I fulfill that dream? This is a selfish wish but still, how can a person be denied something so simple with such sacrifice?

She was hiking in Deception Pass, when a boulder fell on her foot. It crushed it completely, breaking every bone. She's at the Harborview hospital... the same hospital my grandpa stayed at. And all she wants is her foot. She doesn't think she can handle the whole thing being amputated.

I'm not sure what to think.

crimsontoazure @ 2009-09-14T22:25:00

2009-09-15T07:53:53Z

Flames errupted from the fist of the massive beast, clawing at the sky and tearing the very horizon asunder. It shook the earth as it reared back in a mighty roar. Plumes of smoke and pillars of magma shot into the sky. His legs hidden in the canyon-like crevase he had created, Ifrit's torso towered over them and spread a smokey shadow over the landscape.

As his rage began to settle, he leaned forward over the group which had summoned him, his massive head blotting out the sun- yet there was still plenty of light bursting from his mane of fire. From the corners of his mouth, lava dripped onto the earth in massive pools. When they hit the ground they torched trees and set fire to brush, and spreading from the place they landed. A dull, low, angry rumbling consistantly blanketed the plane, permitting no silence. Still, the rumble seemed like sweet serenity when compared to the explosion of Ifrit's voice.

"What." he bellowed, the world rocked around them, and blistering heat washed over the group from the mouth of the demon lord, despite a mountain's hight between them. Even the clouds in the sky were dramatically altered by this wave of heat, and their color turned dark and forboding.

"Great Ifrit! We have come to seek your power." Yuna said. Her hands trembled around the hilt of her staff. Tidus smiled, placing a hand on her bare shoulder.

Terra's eyes finally opened, her hands tightly cusped together. A distant smile stretched across her lips. The green haired girl looked across from her to her mirror, like Yuna, and Terra, Rydia held her hands together- but more relaxed, behind her back and rocking back and forth on her heels. The massive flaming demon, destruction ongoing around him, balls of fire and meteors crashing into the earth, only look perplexed before addressing them again.

"Ignorant mortals. I service you on your bidding in your world, and my power is an inth of it's true potential. IN ESPERIA, YOU CANNOT POSSIBLY COMPREHEND THE MASSIVE PUISSANCE YOU TRY TO HARNESS?"

At the intensity of his words, the sky flashed red and the clouds a deep purple. Thunder cracked somewher in the distance, and the ground shook again. More of the scorching heat blasted them.

Terra stepped forward, holding her hands close to her chest and shying to look directly at the mighty beast, in itself a futile task. She shivered as she spoke, despite the sudden increase in tempeture.

"Please!" she begged, her voice soft and unimpressive, "Our world is in such great danger. O-our friends, they need us! Please... I know the pains of War. What suffering your great race was put through... your blood runs in me as well! Please fight with us!"

Far and away from them, the great demon's back burned with a mighty mane. He considered the group of girls, each with a male companion, for almost ten minutes, not saying a word. The roar of fire, cracking of the earth, and growl of the fissure from which he only partly protrude covered their thoughts completely. The group had no words in which they could think more to say. Finally, Ifrit began to shrink away from them, crawling slowly back into the gaping hole in the ground it had created.

Rydia ran forward in protess, as the other two summoners began to sulk where they stood. "WAIT! What are you DOING!?"

"Be calm, young summoner. I will appear for your war. Realize that I will not be nearly enough. Rally also my brothers and sisters. There is much you all will learn before this ends."

Yuna gasped and held a hand to her mouth, smiling brightly as she bowed deeply, her hair drifting below her knees. The sky's color began to return to normal, and when Ifrit finally disappeared beneath the maw of the massive canyon, the world seemed as though he had never been. There was a loud crackling noise, followed by the shuddering of the earth one final time, as the gaping maw before them came together and the seam in the earth was nothing more than a dusty trail.

Locke, Cecil, and Tidus looked among themselves, as the girls smiled warmly at one another.

"One down!" Rydia said, "If we can unite the Espers, maybe we can actually beat... them." Rydia trailed off at the last word, a frown composing her otherwise gleeful face.

"We don't got time to dwell, Rydia! We just got to move forward." Tidus said, making a fist in front of himself, and smiling encouragingly.
Yuna nodded in agreement. The group looked over the landscape before them, accepting that a long journy was in their future.

~~~~~~

Locke deftly slipped his hand into the pocket of the guard slumped in his chair, snoring loudly. The key was easy enough to locate, and remove, but the guard gave him a fright when he suddenly jerked, then rolled onto one side in the chair. Locke's rich brown eyes absorbed his surroundings as he pulled away, darting from dark corner to dark corner of the guardhouse. He folded himself into the shadows, slipping around a corner. He wandered down the hall toward the prison, covered mostly under the blanket of darkness.

The final corridor to the prison was well illuminated, though. Locke could clearly see the wood door leading down into the dungeon. Candles lined the wall of which he was currently peeking around. The sound of heavy footsteps coming around the opposite side of the hall alerted him. He had to act quickly. He puled out his dagger, jabbed the stone wall, picking at a few loose stones. Gathering a handful, Locke smiled, and sheathed his dagger. He could hear voices joining the footsteps. They were maybe a moment away. With great speed he thrust the pebbles at the flames of the candles. One by one, they were extinguished by the sudden burst of rock and air. Locke slipped around the corner, his footsteps no more audible than a cat's pawstep on the stone floor.

"Huh? Ah cripes, is Biggs sleeping again? He always lets the candles go out on shift." said the guard. The bottom of his feet visible from his torch- but Locke didn't wait around to see any more of the officer, as he closed the wooden door silently behind him. In the fresh shadows, Locke descended the stairs three at a time. He was very nearly flying, his blue vest flapping behind him and the extra length of his bandana trailing the movement of his head. Locke hit the basement floor at a run, burst around opening into another stone hallway, saw the back of a guard, slid down to one knee, changed directions and charged toward the guard. It only barely heard him approach before Locke was upon him, slamming the hilt of his dagger across the back of the guard's neck.

Locke picked up the guard's torch, and began to search each of the holding cells. He didn't see them before Terra called out to him.

"Locke! Thank goodness you're here." she said, her eyes brimming with tears.
"Terra... are you okay? How is Cecil? Still sick?"
"Yes- yes he hasn't woken since we split up.... Locke, I was worried. Don't be so reckless!"
The white-haired man laughed a little, rubbing the back of his head, before returning to the matter at hand, "Come on. We have to join up with Rydia, Tidus, and Yuna. I bet they've gotten the airship by now."

To this, Terra only nodded. She turned back to look at Cecil, who silently lay with a wet towel across his brow. His hair was unkempt. It looked as though he hadn't been awake in days, and indeed he hadn't.

"I'll carry him..." Locke said when he had opened the door with the keys he 'misappropriated' from the guard. With Terra's help, they managed to get Cecil to wrap his arms around Locke's shoulders and lay against the smaller male's back.

"UUmph... he's heavy. Thank goodness he didn't pass out while in his armor." Locke said. They three of them left the cell with the keys still hanging in the door. Locke moved slower with the added weight of Cecil, but still kept pace with Terra just fine, who ran with both arms at her side, but one hand on a long sabre, ready for battle should they meet it.

And meet it they did. Three sets of guards fell quickly to blasts of fire, ice, and lightning magics. When they finally left the guard's keep, the three could see the hull of a massive wooden ship in the sky, hovering in the air while massive propellers kept it aloft. The tiny figure of Tidus could be seen waving exstatically over the side of the ship. It slowly began to drop toward a clearing not far ahead of them. Behind the group of three, however, shouts and horns were raised in alarum. Terra, who had nothing to weight her down, pulled out ahead of Locke as they retreat. The green haired magic user soon spun around to face their pursuers. Locke looked only onward as soldiers closed the gap between them.

"Flare."

Terra lifted her arms from her side, and closed her eyes. An invisible wind lifted her and flipped her hair wildly around her head. Golden light spew from the ground below, and as her hands grew closer together above her, the light intensified. As Locke passed Terra with Cecil, her hands touched above her hands. A bead of brilliant red light formed between her two pointer fingers. She brought the two hands down in front of her, fingers interlaced except the two pointers, making a Magikgun with her hand. The bead of red light swirled with a cloudy blackness, and as a group of twelve or so soldiers began to approach her she fired the gun. The bead of red light expanded instantly into a huge swirling orb, as tall as she was all the way around. The group of Soldiers hesitated as the orb flew toward them, but couldn't stop before it hit the first soldier full frontal, then exploaded into a swirling all-consuming fireball. Multiple smaller explosions scattered among their numbers, scorching the earth and throwing many of the soldiers into the air. Before they were thrown too far however, the impact of the explosion reversed, turning inward, and the entire fleet of soldiers were suddenly drawn together into a massive orb of fire.

~~~~

crimsontoazure @ 2009-09-10T23:16:00

2009-09-11T06:17:22Z

My uncle was a big part of my life when I was a child. He and I would wrestle, and he protected me. He was my guardian. He led me on a straight path- and when his sisters were in trouble, he was always there to help them, and they were ALWAYS in trouble.

I don’t remember too much about my uncle. But what I do know is he loved sports- football and soccer. I know that he had a gang of friends, who went around wearing specially made jersey’s (my Grandma made them all), and would police playgrounds to stop punks and bullies from teasing kids when he was young. My uncle didn’t stand for injustice.

He was killed in a car accident. A drunk driver was involved, but I don’t know if it was the driver of the other car, or the driver of theirs. It makes no difference, really- but he was the only one not wearing a seatbelt. It killed him. I’ve always worn a seatbelt in the car, and thought I would never ever drink alcohol. The second didn’t prove actually true, unfortunately.

I remember visiting him in the hospital. I only remember his face. He was raised up on pillows. My grandma was with me. There were tubes in his nose, giving him air. I hate those tubes. I can’t stand looking at them on people. Elderly people in oxygen masks freak me out too.

I had no idea what was going on there. Not even the slightest clue. I didn’t realize I was saying good bye forever. Didn’t know he was even hurt. I remember just waiting in the hallway while the family was inside for a while. I don’t know how long. It was lonely.

All growing up my family compared me to him. Even though I could barely remember. He seemed like the perfect person. He was athletic, and smart, and always listened to his parents, and always took care of his siblings, and got his home work done, and still played sports. And I desperately wanted to be as good as him. They would say how alike I was. Always mention in passing. What was I supposed to become? I still don’t know.

My cousin was kidnapped by her father. Kidnapped. She was my closest friend for years, because she was the ONLY person who managed to move around with me. We were more like brother and sister than any other relationship I’ve had. (Except my REAL brother, of course.) So hearing that she wouldn’t be coming back from Michigan again really took me for a loop. Then next summer the same thing. And again and again until finally I heard my grandma talking about it. Her father had just… NOT flew her back home one year. And she was kept there, year after year- while our families fought and fought to get her back. Police wouldn’t help, PI’s couldn’t get close, and the step mother was an awful wretched woman. She would scan Stephanie’s emails and delete any from us- she wouldn’t let Steph answer the phone. Those battles went on for years, and as a kid it felt like centuries. I wanted to talk about it with my friends, wanted to share my experiences, but never did. I always felt weird bringing it up, and never could. This was the first time I had an uncontrollable rage toward something I could do nothing about. It was the first time I felt real injustice. Sure I’d been picked on by bullies who got away scot-free, but this was criminal. Despicable and vile.

Through all of this, though, there is my dad. The man who should have been my hero. I’d met him a few times, we often went fishing and did manly things. I went on a road trip with him to California once, when I was about 16, or 17. He made me drive him home. I was going probably 25 on a freeway. It was terrifying. Because of Nathan’s death, I didn’t get my license until I was 20- when I actually felt comfortable behind the wheel.

He was a good man. A pervert- hilarious though, and a hard worker. I always worried he would be disappointed in me because of my weight, though. So I was quiet. Tried real hard not to offend or anger him. I never realized I couldn’t possibly. That he probably wanted to know the real me. I worry now, that because I was so timid, he may have thought I was disappointed in HIM. I hope he just figured I was a shy boy. I didn’t know how to act. I hate myself for that. I couldn’t just be natural.

Then he had an aneurysm. And I was called only to confirm that I couldn’t do anything about his coma. They pulled the plug without my input. I wasn’t invited to the funeral- and when it was over, I was sent a hand written letter with pictures, and in it I was told “it was a shame you couldn’t make it.” I’ve never been to his grave. Never gotten to say good bye. People say I can say good bye from where-ever, but it’s not the same. I wasn’t even given the CHANCE. My own father. I was the bastard child, literally- forgotten about and cast aside. I talked about it immediately with Jeremy and Courtney…

And then didn’t mention it again for a long long time. A year or so I think. Pushed it all away. I talk about it sometimes but, still, it hurts. I just… I don’t know if he wanted me to have anything, or what.

So that’s it. Those are the things I wanted to talk about. I had to get 1000 words down, and lately those words haven’t been inspirational, or creative in nature. The pressure of work has really been getting me down. I am running the whole store, and I just don’t feel like I’ve got anyone on my side anymore. So I’ll make everyone my enemy I guess is my only logic.

1020.

crimsontoazure @ 2009-06-27T00:42:00

2009-06-27T07:45:11Z

What a miserable birthday. They always are. I just wanted to see some friends- hang out, and maybe see a movie. I did get to goto dinner with a co-worker, but it was mostly bitching about work. Which just isn't fun in general. I miss Erika, and Courtney, and Ami. And was alone -again- this year. I did dishes as my excitement, and picked a sliver out of my toe. I suppose I made it miserable for myself, but whatever- I'd rather mope and then be mature about it later.

erq2redf343434 banana

crimsontoazure @ 2009-03-22T21:21:00

2009-03-23T04:22:44Z

Holmes puffed a few times at the mouth of his finely crafted pipe, then blew a long thin stream of smoke from between pursed lips into the air a few feet in front of him. The man, taller and lankier than most adults they’ve met, sat with one leg crossed over the knee of his other. One arm tucked behind the elbow of its partner, which held the pipe to his mouth. The great detective mulled over the things he’d just been told. It had been a long while since such a mystery as this had ever been thrown his way. An entire society, which lived in secret from the normal world existed, humans who could manipulate their bodies into steel and fire. Tobacco embers glew a brilliant orange as he took in another breath of the smoke.

Now, this group of four children, with remarkable fighting talent, mental dexterity, and a brash cunning to rival his own were looking for friends of theirs. Friends who were captured by his rival- arch nemesis, a vile scoundrel, a cunning rat, and disgusting example of a man, Professor James Moriarty. The very thought of the man simultaneously enraged and enthralled Holmes. Every treacherous act preformed by Moriarty infuriated him, and yet opened a new path to finally catching him. This most recent, however, was a despicable low for Moriarty. Kidnapping.

The children sat around Holmes, who seated himself in the dark auburn chair, awaiting something from the detective.

“And that’s why we’re here, Mr. Holmes.” Sarah finished, nodding to herself mostly, “I’ve heard so much about you as a girl growing up in London. When we found out our friends-“

“Black Star and Tsubaki.” Holmes reiterated, affirming their names in his mind.

“-yes, when we found out they were captured by Moriarty, I knew you would be the man who could help us find them.”

Holmes untucked his arm from beneath the other. He looked at the paper folded between his hands. The detective had already examined it thoroughly.

“Doctor Watson!” he declared suddenly, “A match, if you please.”

His rounder, warmer counterpart nodded, unflinchingly at the command. After a few failed attempts at coat pockets, he found a box of the tiny sulfur coated sticks in slacks pocket. He retrieved a match for the detective who snatched it eagerly, standing tall above them. With a single stroke he struck the match against the closest wall, spun to face the students of Shibusen, and set the paper alight. Watson held his hands out to stop the protests of the children who lunged for their only clue to their friends.

The paper burned slowly at first, as Holmes held a corner delicately. The flames licked the paper, burning a yellow-orange and crawling slowly up the page toward the ink. The closer it got to the black swirling lines, leaving their cryptic message, the darker it became in color. At the border of the ink the fire flashed from a dark crimson to a teal, then into a dark green color. As the ink burned, it sparked slightly, spitting small green embers from the page.

The children sunk back from the display, confused and enamored.

“Copper ink, drawn across old English papyrus. When burned, the copper in the ink turns the flame green. There is only one place in London which still uses copper in its ink- Watson! Prepare the car, we ride to the Evening Standard building. There is perhaps a new headline waiting for us there.”

The tall man lifted a long brown coat from the antique coat rack, and a matching deerstalker hat. As the detective undid the many latches of his front door, the good doctor helped the children from their seats, ushering them toward the door. Sarah bubbled with excitement, watching Holmes in action. Soul and Maka stood close to one another, not sure if they were impressed, or afraid of the man whom Sarah had placed so much faith. More than once they had passed each other glances of confusion and worry. Quinn was only minorly irritated by the way in which they were progressing, but approved of it over no progression at all.

A black car, polished to perfection despite the frequent drizzles of London weather, was parked on the roadway outside the front door of the home. As Watson prepared the car, Sherlock climbed into the passenger seat, and waved the group of four into the back seat- which was one seat too small for all of them. Quinn squished up against one side, with Soul taking seat in the middle, and Sarah on the far side. Maka, who was last in line to get into the car, twitched slightly as she regarded her options. After a second, Soul shook his head, throwing his hands up, then patting a knee with a mischievous grin. Maka turned up her nose, but obliged, climing into the car and upon Soul’s lap. The engine roared to life as Watson closed the driver door and began to pull onto the London street.

The drive was long, and bumpy. The car had no suspension to speak of, and Maka bumped her head on the cloth roof more than once. Though it was fabric, it made an irritating mess of her hair, and after enough blows, began to rub on her mind as well. After nearly half an hour of driving in the dark, led only by the headlights of the car, Watson pulled to one side and turned off the engine.

“We’re three blocks out,” Sherlock explained, “We’ll walk the rest to avoid detection.”

The group unloaded one by one. Soul was markedly redder in the face than when they had set off, and his mischievous grin had melted into something more like a dreamy one. The boy stumbled out of the car with a slight drool on his lip. Maka, also red in the face, lifted a book above her head up high, slamming it down on her companion’s head with such ferocity that he struck the ground, arms twitching behind him.

The group, led by Holmes, marched toward a long grey rectangular building. His step was twice the length of any of the children’s, and kept twice the pace of any of them. Watson kept up with the man with one hand on his bowler hat, and the other against his chest. He was not an overweight man, merely portly in nature and his shorter legs worked in a hurry to keep up. But because he was used to such travel with Holmes, he hardly missed a breath, walking in this fashion without wheezing or panting for air.

The children, however, very nearly ran to keep up with the two. Maka with her gloved hands clenched into fists, leaned into her every stride with determination. As they grew closer to the building, she could feel something welling in her chest. Something like anxiety, but with a pulse. It thumped, and grew with every step closing in toward it. With only a block left to go, she skid to a halt on the cobble path, and closed her eyes tightly. The children around her stopped, only Quinn pressed onward with Holmes and Watson, until many yards later, they too noticed the lack of companionship.

Maka felt the presence of the souls around her. In her mind’s eye, they were illustraited for her- illuminated orbs of those around her. The more prominent the soul, the larger and more potent the image was. She felt a familiar soul wavelength closest to her- it was Soul’s, his haircut stylized in the orb. Even like this she could feel him looking at her, concern and intrigue on his face. Behind him, much like her personality, was a timid looking orb- no smaller than Soul’s own, but less domineering. Tied to the tail end of the orb were two bells and a head wrap tied around the uppermost portion of the soul. Maka turned her head, looking down the street toward the building they had just been running toward.

Standing closest to her was a solid soul, unwavering with determinism. It’s appearance was stoic, but kind. The face of a silent guardian. The soul’s tail was forked, and folded down into itself, resembling the beak and frock of a phoenix.

Just behind that, however, a soul towered. Holmes’ soul wavelength was no less immense than its physical counterpart. Many times the size of any of theirs, it shook unsteadily, looking eager and inquisitive. A long wooden handle came from out one side of it, and the soul was rimmed with a sort of metallic frame- making up the appearance of a magnifying glass. Holmes stood boldly inside of it, and even with her eyes closed she could clearly see him in the burning intensity of his own soul. It had an almost fox-like quality to it.

Although impressive, it was not the focus of Maka’s search. Indeed the detective’s soul stalled her, but beyond even she could feel the faint warmth of another soul. One that relented to fail, even now, as it faded in and out of life. It was pulsing so lightly that at first she wasn’t sure it was even his, usually the blue-haired demon-boy had such a strong personality, that his wavelength almost search for.

“Black*Star!” Maka shouted, charging forward suddenly at full speed.

As she ran away from him, Soul gave chase, “Maka! Wait!”

She charged passed Holmes, who tried to grab at her collar, missed and swung for another try with his other hand. Both attempts failed, and he too shouted for her to stop. When it became clear she wouldn’t, the rest of the group followed her.

“We don’t know who is in there! It could be a trap, Miss Alburn!” Watson shouted after her, also giving chase.

The front door of the building was ajar when Maka got to it. Even so, she could feel BlackStar’s soul slipping out again. She shook away her fear, pushing open the door and charging into the building bullheadedly.

Blackness filled the newspaper building. When it became too dark to safely keep running, she slowed to a walk, then finally to a stop. Looking around the building, she cringed as she waited for her eyes to adjust. The front door squeaked, then slammed shut, leaving her in complete darkness.

“Soul?” Maka asked wearily. She took a step toward where the door was, then stopped. Her heart beat fiercely. She tried to concentrate on her partner’s soul wavelength- still outside. Her heart skipped a beat, and she could feel herself panic. Something else was in the building, but before she could no longer concentrate.

Something clattered in a corner, Maka turned and yelped with fear. One hand held up to her mouth, and the other at her side. Slowly she tried to walk toward the door, eyes still unfamiliar to the blackness surrounding her. From above there was a loud clatter, something tore and shattered, the sounds of fluttering descended upon her. Maka’s mind formed the image of a thousand bats, flapping toward her and attacking her, getting in her hair and under her clothes. The idea of it sent a ripple of shivers up and down her spine, spreading like a pebble dropped into a pond at the nape of her neck. One of the winged beasts touched her face, and she grabbed at it, clenching down hard on it with a scream. It crumpled, but did not protest. Wearily she opened one eye, finally growing somewhat accustomed to the lightless building, she could make out a shape in the darkness. Lines of black ontop of blocks of white.

It was a newspaper. Someone had dumped a crate of them from above, and now they descended toward the ground below in flocks. Maka dropped the newspaper from her face, just in time to see the dark shape closing in on her. She threw up her arms with a yell, and a sharp pain sprung forth across her forearms. The force of it pushed her back, and she skid before tumbling onto one side. She let out an exasperated groan. She knew better than to yell pointlessly for help. All at once she realized how stupid she’d been for charging in alone. She worried again that Soul was alright, and then worried if she would be. The fleet footed steps of her assailant grew close, but not loudly. Maka swung a leg up wildly toward the attacker. She felt something connect, a slight groan and he tumbled to the side somewhere. His darkened shape landed upright, however. She gathered to her feet in time to see a glint of light come from behind the shape.

Maka prepped a stance, one hand forward, legs wide, her free hand behind her- where Soul should be. Remorse filled her for a moment. Then was gone. No time for emotion in battle. The figure advanced quickly toward her, the glint of metal held out in front. A weapon no doubt, she had no indication as to what type though.

As the attacker approached there came a crashing and the sound of glass.

“Maka~!” Soul’s voice rang out, with a thin metallic ring to it. She snapped her head to the side to see a twirling scythe rip through the air with shards of glass and windowpane. With one eye on her foe she stretched an arm out, grabbing toward the air. Soul’s long cool shaft slid gracefully into her hand, and as she tightened her grip on the scythe, her weapon slid comfortably to a halt, the length of his black-red blade curving gently away from her. She twirled the weapon around gracefully, and with the force of a hurricane. The blade clanged against the metal of the weapon that their attacker was wielding.

It sang a deep melodic song. The vibrato of the sound shivered down the shaft between her fingers. Light from the street lights outside peered in through the broken window. Their attacker retreated from it, back toward the black. Maka started to proceed, but Soul shifted, grabbed her by the shoulders, and tugged her close to him. The girl struggled at first, then heaved a heavy sigh, and leaned into him. The white-haired boy held her for just a moment, squeezed, then let her go.

“Let’s find BlackStar now.” He said, nodding to himself, “We can get them later.”

Maka nodded in agreement, as Holmes, Sarah, Quinn and Watson all joined them. Watson held up an oil lantern, illuminating the mess the two had created. A desk had been knocked over- many pages of newspaper scattered on the floor, glass from the broken window shimmered in the low lamplight. More importantly, there was no sign of their attacker. Maka closed her eyes, eased her heartbeat, and concentrated on their friend.

The wavelength was even weaker than before, and she could feel the ebb of it growing weaker with every passing second. Maka turned her head to face him, and pointed in that direction.

“That way!” she said. At once the group moved toward the other end of the long building. They moved from the forward offices, filled with desks, to a more industrial section of the building, where row upon row of printing presses reside. Along one tract, the lamp illuminated paper which was slightly stained a dark red. As they proceeded toward BlackStar’s soul, the stains became more frequent, until the line of paper became almost dyed with red.

BlackStar was caught with an arm crushed between two rollers of the printing press, and his body beaten and bloodied. He’d been trapped there for two days. His eyes twitched and rolled as he tried to stay awake. Maka shouted his name, but he could only barely hear it. It seemed unreal. A fog obscured reality and the memories of his mind.

Code 1: Dissolve into darkness, and erase your very breath. Watch, and discover the weaknesses of your target.

Code 2: Know the target. Predict their moves and thoughts.

Code 3: Eliminate the target before being seen.

Black*Star furrowed his brow intently. Moriarty sat in the back seat of a car. The professor’s driver quickly got out of the car and opened the door for the man. A heavy mantaeu covered his physical appearance, a high collar obscured his face from the world, and a weathered top-hat fitted nicely atop his slicked back hair. The dark-clad man ventured away from BlackStar and Tsubaki, in ninja blade mode, into the large grey building. BlackStar gripped his partner tightly with one hand. Normally the boy would charge in, shout at the top of his lungs, declare his victory over his opponent before the battle had even started, and strike fear into the heart of God Himself.

But Tsubaki insisted. She wanted to do it right, this time, for once. Besides, their mission had been to “Observe and report” Tsubaki reminded him, over and over. Even now the blue-haired boy slumped and pouted.

“Can’t we go in now and take him out? He’s obviously shady!” BlackStar whined under his breath to Tsubaki.

“No~, you promised.” She pouted in response. The meiser sighed and nodded.

Four tough looking guards followed Moriarty into the building behind him. BlackStar leaped from his hiding place behind a dumpster across the street, scaled a fire escape ladder, up an outside stairwell and in moments was on the roof across the street. Telephone wire hung limply across the roadway, and over to the grey building from where they stood. Black*Star took a few steps back, tucked Tsubaki against his forearm and against his chest, then ran toward the phone line.

With a leap off the building he propelled himself toward the thin line, stepping on it with one foot and running across its length with the agility of a cat and dexterity of a squirrel. In under a dozen steps he was across, and leaped from the chord to the rooftop of the building which now held Moriarty. Black*Star crawled across the rooftop quietly, and to the edge of the back of the building. He peered over the roof into an ally, which lay abandoned. As he’d hoped, a window was left open on this side. With one hand he rolled over the side of the building, gripped the top ledge, and swung himself into the open window below. The boy landed softly, raising little more than a cloud of dust from the ground. He strafed, weapon ready in a reversed one handed grip, toward the end of this hallway, where he could hear the sound of voices.

“Print it.” Came a cold voice. The icy chill in his heart and soul could be felt in even just those two words.

“B-but Mr. Moriarty, our jobs-” returned a nervous, shrill voice.

“Can be replaced.” Moriarty stated, each syllable spoken with pointed distinction and impatience, “Your life, something much less valuable to me, cannot. Should you refuse, I expect it would be more pertinent for me to end it, and perhaps find another in your employ whose rational is more… malleable.”

For a second there was nothing as the employee in question digested what he’d just been told.

BlackStar’s grip on Tsubaki tightened as he edged to the corner of the hall, and looked out into the wide open room with printing presses in three rows before him. Between the second and third row, four men surrounded Moriarty, and two others who were not with the convey that entered the building.

“I won’t do it.” Said a balding man, wearing a visor-cap. The younger man he was with stared in awe at the defiance.

“If that is what you wish. You’ve been a pox too long. I think I will remedy that.” Moriarty said, his hand waving dismissively. One of the larger brutes pulled a heavy looking chain from behind his back. Anger burned within BlackStar. His heart wrenched at the presence of injustice. It pulled him to move closer toward them, still shadowed by darkness, but no longer hidden by the wall.

“BlackStar…” Tsubaki warned quietly, her disapproving frown easily heard in her voice. But she understood.

The man in the visor silently accepted his fate, as the younger man backed away from him right into the arms of another goon. A throaty chuckle came from the first as he lifted the heavy chain upward, and circled it over his head. BlackStar jumped into action before the beast had the chance to bring it down.

“Speed Star!” he shouted, as silence was no longer a necessity. The world slowed down for him- he could see everything, the arm coming down, the revolution of the chain, the turning of their heads to investigate the sound. In a few long strides he was among them, and he jumped upward, kicking out with his leg and breaking the arm of the attack in one smooth motion. As time sped up around him, the howling scream of the large man echoed in the quieted hall. The man in the visor looked confused, as did everyone except Moriarty, who leaned against a print machine with intrigue hidden in the shadow of his hat and coat collar.

The two guards left free descended upon BlackStar, each with some crude weapon of some type. One wore a pair of brass knuckles; the other brandished a jagged knife. BlackStar easily evaded both, belting out a YuhHOO! As he did so. The one with the knife thrust downward hard at the smaller boy. He saw his opening, with a strong kick off the ground BlackStar back-flipped and planted both feet into the back of his head. He drove the skull of his assailant into the cement floors of the building.

“Two down! C’mon! I’m BlackStar, and I will surpass God! Woohoo!” he shouted.

Just as the third guard was going to attack, Moriarty raised a hand and stepped forward. The balding man with the visor stood defiantly in front of BlackStar, who lifted an eyebrow and tried to push the man out of the way.

“Move! Move, I’ll take him!”

Raindrops prattled against the roof of the building. In London, sudden storms are not uncommon, but one like this bred only the promise of chaos. Moriarty lifted a single arm from beneath his black mantaue. In it he held a straight, black cane. It was a few inches thick- thicker than conventional canes, but still very much a cane.

“You will print the article, Thomas.” Moriarty stated factually. Before the man could reply, Moriarty was upon him, striking him with the back of his elbow. The older man slumped to the floor. BlackStar glared upward at his new opponent with fury and enthusiasm. The boy made an upward slash with Tsubaki in his hand.

Moriarty evaded effortlessly, pushing the blade away with the tip of his staff. BlackStar charged again, shouting as he did. The darkened face of the wicked genius smiled from the shadows. With each attack, the boy drew closer to his own demise.

“Tsubaki!” he shouted suddenly, “Kasuri-Gama mode!”

A light billowed forth from his weapon, and Moriarty was taken aback. This had not been part of the calculation. What was once a knife turned now into something far more exotic. Not only did its form and shape change, but it’s mass completely! The boy threw a what looked to be a farmer’s sickle connected by a chain at him. It made no difference, as the trap was almost sprung. This only benefit his cause, really. When the two were close enough to the printing press line, Moriarty slammed the tip of his cane into a lever, which released, and started the machine. Almost instantly large tumblers pressed page after page of paper into stamps coated in ink. As the sickle grew close, Moriarty snapped the cane back toward his front, ejecting the lethal edge out of trajectory, then sprung toward BlackStar with inhuman speed. The boy yanked the chain hard downward, but not in time. Moriarty struck with the head of his cane to BlackStar’s solar plexus. He breathed inward sharply- stunned long enough for Moriarty to reveal a twine loop from his other hand, and toss it around BlackStar’s free arm.

Almost immediately the loop synched around his shoulder, yanking the boy into the machine. Tsubaki clattered against the ground as BlackStar was pulled slowly toward the tumblers. He fought best he could, but the rope bit into his shoulder and arm, drawing blood.

Tsubaki glew again, shifting, and turned back into her human self.

“BlackStar!” She cried, running toward him and almost climbing onto the conveyer herself.

Moriarty had not calculated this, either. But it was a most fascinating detail. Lightning struck, and before the bolt had faded from the darkened sky, she was caught. Moriarty smiled wickedly, his face still not revealed.

“What an amazing… …” he searched for the word for a moment, the first time in ages unsure of something, “thing. You defy the very laws of mathematics and physics- throw away the years of knowledge we have of machinery and biology, combine of God’s greatest inventions… women, and weapon. What… are you?”

Tsubaki whined, and strained to get away. The man held her only by her shoulder, but with such force that she could feel his fingertips against her bone.

“Let me go! Let him go! BlackStar!” she protested, watching in horror as the Blue-Haired boy tried his best to get from the machine, or a spare blade from his boot, failing and both.

Moriarty traded the girl’s shoulder for her long ponytail, yanking hard as he drew her closer to the machine. He grabbed a shoulder, forced her to her knees and then held her face as BlackStar’s hand desperately tried to avoid the large metal cylinders. Paper bunched behind him as it could no longer go through the conveyer.

BlackStar held out for a whole forth of his arm being crushed before he finally screamed. The metal crushed him, micro fracturing bone. His breath became ragged, and eyes bloodshot. All while Tsubaki was forced to watch.

“Tell me what I need to know, and I’ll turn it off.” Moriarty promised.

Tsubaki, guiltily, told everything. About Shibusen, weapons, witches and meiser. BlackStar screamed at her to stop- told her he’d surpass God. That pain like this was nothing, all while screaming uncontrollably as ink and metal was mixed with blood and bone. When she was done, she begged for Moriarty to keep his promise, to let him go.

“I was very clear, girl. I said I would stop the machine, and stop it I shall.” He stated, as cold as when he’d started. A guard took over holding the girl back while Moriarty lifted the lever which activated the machine. The tumblers stopped pulling him in, and merely ground to a halt against his lower shoulder blade and pressed up against BlackStar’s face.

The last thing BlackStar remembered was Moriarty’s instructions.

“That was meant for you, Thomas. Understand? Print the article!” he shouted for the first time in the encounter.

“B-b-but the press!” he stammered, fear once against controlling his noble urges.

“You have two more! Print as many as you can by morning, then leave. You two! Take the girl, and you, make sure Thomas does as he’s told. When the paper is done, take them both to the office in Whales. And you” he pointed to the remaining guard, who surely had a broken nose from BlackStar’s counterattack on his head, “watch the boy. If he tries to move- beat him. Don’t kill him though- I want him to suffer for as long as possible.”

BlackStar moaned Tsubaki’s name, over and over in his sleep.

“You’ve very steady hands, Sarah. Did you ever consider becoming a doctor?” Watson asked, tossing away his bloodied gloves. The purple haired girl blushed slightly at such a compliment.

“Oh, when I was little, maybe.” She said timidly, “But I could never do that, Dr. Watson! It was amazing. I didn’t know you were a surgeon.”

“Yes yes, ten years in our Lady’s employ. I wish I had more of it.” He smiled, even in the dreariest of circumstances he felt warm and optimistic.

Sherlock now paced out of his mind back and forth between the printer presses.

“Escaped again! Curses Watson, we were this close.” Holmes sighed, exasperatedly.

crimsontoazure @ 2009-03-21T19:55:00

2009-03-22T04:34:25Z

The group of four walked down a cobblestone path, Sarah and Maka walked side by side in the cool autumn afternoon of London, while their two male counterparts defended the rear. People walked along with them on this busy street, their lives busy and full of much adventure. Maka smiled to herself contently while they toured the city. Sarah was good about pointing out interesting sights, local shops and markets she and her brother used to visit as children, and local lore.

Every once in a while Soul would see something totally cool, and Quinn would share in the excitement. It took a while for them to actually get around to the mission at hand. When they had, it was already starting to get dark. Maka was, of course, terribly worried about her friends- but Sarah and even Quinn seemed to have a peace about them which disappated the stress of the situation.

"We should get started looking..." Maka said finally, her smile dimming into something between a grin and a frown.
Soul stretched his arms behind his back, and nodded solumly, "Yeah. They're not going to wait forever. If at all."

Sarah looked at her brother and nodded to him knowingly, "Then- well, maybe... um... well we think we might know where to start."

Maka tilted her head slightly, peering with her green orbs at Sarah. The purple haired meiser suddenly looked embarrassed, and turned away slightly. Soul just looked confused.

"What my sister is trying to say-" Quinn interupted, becoming the new object of their gazes, "- is that we know where to find somebody who knows where Moriarty is."

The younger Moore nodded, holding two hands up to her face, and poking her index fingers together.

"Eh?" Soul made an intrigued noise, "Why're you guys so bent out of shape about it?"

"He's just..." Quinn started, only this time his sister ended the sentance for him.
"Eccentric. Enthusiastic even. And... well incredibly busy. We might have trouble getting in to see him."
"But this is for Tsubaki! And Black*Star! They could be in trouble- we've got to find a way..." Maka protested.

The boys nodded, and Soul placed a hand on Maka's shoulder. She looked at him, eyes burning with determanism. The white-haired boy gave his most charming boy-hood grin, and a thumbs up with his other hand.
"We'll save them, Maka!" He stated flatly, and for a moment, all fear that they had vanished. If only for just a moment.

"So where is this guy?" Soul asked after the brief pause in their conversation.

"221B Baker Street." Sarah recited, one finger in the air pointedly.

~~~~~

The team arrived at the house. It was a warm, victorian style building. Bleached white but for the ring of soot which circled the chiminey, which to this very moment was getting it's autumn's use. Smoke billowed from the brick protrusion and coiled into the sky, blown to a tilt by the currents of air above them. Sarah swallowed hard. Nervousness lumped in her throat. She'd never forgotten it- the address of this man, which took her nearly 4 months of solid investigating to find. Ironic, really, how much detective work was required to find a detective. But now he lay within feet of her, and as she went to strike the door, her heart gave up. The tiny hand thumped pathetically against the grain of the wood as she wobbled, writhed, and almost slumped to the ground. Quinn grabbed her by the underarms before she managed to get her skirt dirty.

Maka, who had never been starstruck before, saw this display as bewildering. Still, she strode up to the door in Sarah's place, landing three solid blows to the plank between the frame. Muffled voices could be heard within, and after a few moments of waiting, footsteps. They grew increasingly closer to the front door, until the sound of sliding locks could be heard. A number of them. Quinn counted upwards of fourteen before giving up, but not many more followed.

As the door swung inward, the group was greeted by a pleasantly round face. Caressed by smoothly kept sideburns and a beard and moustache of a splendedly warm orange-brown color. Although his hair was thinning ontop, the fullness of his mane was enough to deter any notion that the man was at all 'bald'.

"Oh. Visitors! Do come in, please sit down sit down. To what do we owe the pleasure?" the warm man asked, bowing graciously out of the way and beckoning the children inside.

"Oh... uhm, thank you, Sir." Maka said, stepping inside and habitually sliding off her shoes. Soul followed suit, and in the presence of inside warmth, shed his large coat, placing it upon an antique looking circle coatrack just inside the well of the door. When the group was settled and inside, the man relatched the doors while speaking again.

"So what of it tonight, children? Come to hear a story? Let me put on some tea- or would you rather have cocoa?" he asked his questions without waiting for answers, stepping out toward the kitchen presumably to make tea. Or cocoa.

"We've guests, Sir!" the man shouted as he put a kettle on a the mantle of a roaring fire.
"Down shortly, Watson!" a voice boomed in return, somewhere deep in one of the many crevices of the house.

Sarah waltzed dreamily into the living room of the house, admiring fabulous paintings and artifacts which adorned the room. Quinn made his way to a sofa chair in a corner, perfering the home-owner's taste in comfortable living. Maka and Soul looked... unsurprisingly out of place. The boy's attire especially modern for the feel of antiquity within the wooden halls. They sat together on a couch facing the fire, which crackled with intensity, and bathed them in warmth. Sarah admired among the antiques in a glass case for a moment, before seating herself on the couch where Maka and Soul sat.

When all four finally made their way into the sitting chamber, the man called Watson returned with four cups and two tins. One labled "Tea" and the other "Cocoa."

Before he could begin to distribute their drinks, however, there came a thundering of feet on hollow wood. The sound came abarreling, as if the person making the noise was running down steps. Largely because it was the sound of a man running down steps. As the sound increased in intensity, Watson took a seat in a large leather chair, which sat across from a similar one of a deep auburn color. Just as the sound became so loud that it felt as though he was walking among them as a ghost, a book case parallel to the fireplace spun ferociously, producing a tall black-haired man and dispensing him into the living area.

As soon as the man passed into the threshold of the room, the bookcase slammed shut again, his entrance made. From beneath a long trench coat the man pulled a pistol, and pointed it directly at Sarah. Fear struck like lightning. In the infinium of a split second, hundreds of things happened at once.

Sarah's eyes widened, the sight of an idol of hers pointing a weapon at her sending a desperate shock directly into her heart, wrenching it desperately. She was stunned stiff.

Maka, who sat closest to Sarah, pushed her body toward her new friend's. Her eyes burned with intense fear, and it only drove her more. The pig-tailed girl shouted, but the world moved slowly, words formed nothing coheirant, her chest slammed against Sarah's shoulder as she tried to push the girl out of the way.

Soul, sitting at Maka's side, but who was far more relaxed about the entire situation, had suddenly snapped into battle mode, thrusting his body desperatly upward away from the sinking effects of the sofa. His right arm burst into light as he tried to get to his feet, shimmering from a five-fingered limb into a three-foot blade.

Dr. Watson sipped from his teacup.

Quinn, who was the closest of the group to the trick door, vaulted from his seat with a upward kick. The flat of his foot caught the bottom of the tall man's wrist, throwing the weapon upward into the air. All at once time set into normal motion again. Maka and Sarah landed together on the floor, shortly followed by Soul, who overguessed the amount of energy needed to leave the sofa and ended up on his face in the ground. The dark-haired man spun away from his attacker, and swung up two arms in defense. Quinn shouted as he threw a jab from his left arm, which was pushed aside buy his elder. Undeterred Quinn loosed another block, trying to knee their host in the solar plexus. The much more experienced gentleman slid backward, hooked an arm under Quinn's knee, pulled the boy off his feet and grabbed his pistol as it started to descend toward the ground. The man then pointed the gun directly at Quinn, and pulled the trigger. The boy's eyes burned red for just a moment, until he realized that the weapon was but a prop- a stick bearing a white flag with the word "Bang!" written on it flopping in his face.

The tall, dark-haired man brushed off his coat, helping the purple haired male to his feet.

From the floor, Sarah peeped, "Are you...?"

"Sherlock Holmes." the man said, "and you, are no ordinary children, looking for a thrill and a story, are you?"

crimsontoazure @ 2009-03-20T22:23:00

2009-03-21T07:25:35Z

A sound soul resides
in a sound body
and a sound mind.

Maka squirmed in her seat. Professor Stein, her home-room teacher was supposed to be giving a lecture about the effects of a wavelength strike to the Soul. She had actually been genuinely interested in the topic, and was looking forward to the class day, until Stein had thrown everything out the window and decided to change the lecture, instead, into one about anatomy.

Again.

A snake, a frog, and a mouse scurried around in seperate containers on the professor's desk. Layed out before him were three long metal trays, with various pins, clamps and cutting instruments on them. Maka was not looking forward to demonstration, and it showed in her body language. She tucked her hands into her lap, playing with the bottom hem of her plaid skirt. She gnawed ever-slightly on her lower lip, and tried to simultaniously pay attention and look away all at once. It was an infuriating practice, which made her squirm in her seat.

Soul, who at first was enthralled by how cool it would be to see a live dissection, was now more or less uninterested by the endeavor. He made a few side comments about how uncool it would be if he had to deal with guts and brains, and resorted instead to drawing on his desk with a finger. Before long he realized he was tracing the shape of a star. It didn't take much for his brain to make the push to Black*Star, who hadn't been in class today.

Soul looked up from his dust-drawing, to see that Tsubaki had also been absent for class. While BlackStar's absence was just short of expected, Tsubaki was incredibly diligent to her studies. Almost as much as Ox, or Maka had been- only much less agressive about them.

It implied, quite simply, that the two were together, perhaps on a mission. Soul looked back down at Stein, who had somehow managed to let loose all three animals, and chased them seperately while the classroom filled with laughter. The professor was about to make a lunge at the frog, when his head suddenly jerked upward, alerted by some otherwordly sense, perhaps the wavelength of a soul, to the classroom door. It slammed open, and stumbling through it's shaken frame came Deathscythe, Maka's father.

"MAKA~!" he called, alerting the entire classroom to his presence. The red-haired weapon lost his balance, stumbled forward, rolled head-over-heels, and skirted to a halt on his face, inches from the snake, poised to attack him.

The snake lunged, fanged reared and dripping with venom. It's eyes seemed to burn with desperate ferocity, only to be replaced with confusion as it's attack was stopped dead by a hand grabbing at it's neck, and flinging it back into it's glass container.

Death the Kidd placed the lid tightly atop the container, and grimaced at Stein as their Professor pat him on the back.

"Ahh, thank you Kidd.... What brings you to my classroom today, Spirit? Did you hear about..." his glasses flashed as the professor leaned forward, turning opaque with the glare of the light, "my dissections~?"

"Aah~hahaha, noooo. Shinigami-Sensei has a very important errand for Maka and Soul. You'll have... ehh-heh...have to excuse her from claaaAAAAA~!" Spirit screamed, as Stein had already managed to pin the girl's father to the table and removed the man's shirt. He was now drawing dotted lines up and down his body, while turning the rather large bolt in his head.

Maka, needing only to hear enough that Shinigami needed her, had already packed her books and was walking out the door when Stein was lifting a scaple. Ignoring her father's pleas to save him, and not leave him alone.

Soul followed wordlessly, until they entered Shinigami-Sensei's guillotine hallway.

"Oi, Maka- what do you think this mission is about?" he said, his usual grin spread wide across his face.
"Hmmm..." she touched her chin with the tips of her gloved fingers. Thinking over the mission board, she couldn't remember anything that really stuck out. Things had been slowly, lately, and nothing on the board really seemed like it could escalate into a mission that needed to be called out of class for.
"I don't know," she shrugged, "With him, it could be anything."

Soul nodded to himself, and thought back to the classroom. BlackStar and Tsubaki had been pulled out of class for a mission too- and not one on the board as far as he could tell. Soul's gut told him that this wasn't going to be an easy mission at all. But his heart had hopes that Shinigami-Sensei was just desperate for a cup of coffee.

"Nyyyyan~!! " Shinigami greeted the pair as they walked between the last guillotine. Maka jumped, bumping into Soul, who grabbed her shoulder and a hand breifly. The robed figure seemed to float on air, moving to a small table with three cusions sitting around three cups of tea. He squat- or at least they could only presume he squat, on his cusion and began to sip through his mask, defying not only logic, but physics as well.

Following suit, Maka and Soul sat on their knees across from the headmaster of the school, next to one another. Shinigami sat drinking for an incredible length of time, without seeming to tip his cup forward at all. In fact, it hadly sounded like he was drinking anything. After another minute of this, and much eye-twitching from Maka, he sprung like a spring wound too tightly-

"YA~! Just kidding! It's empty." pointing the cup toward the two of them. Soul's face hit the table, his hand twitching in the air.

"Shinigami-Sama, why did you call us?" Maka asked, in her most polite please-get-to-the-point-voice as she could.

"Aaaahhhh. Yes, I suppose time is not on our side in this matter." he nodded, "Black*Star and Tsubaki were sent on a mission to investigate the movement of a criminal professor named Professor Moriarty-"

"So that's where they were today-" Soul interjected, mostly to himself.

"-Saturday." Shinigami finishef his sentance.

Maka's eyes widened.

"Shinigami! Today is Monday- that was two days ago." Maka shouted, leaning up over the table.

The distress in his eyes shone through, even though he wore a mask, as he nodded. "Mmm. We expected that this mission might take a while, however. So on Sunday when we heard nothing, I wasn't worried."

The maked man looked intensely into his empty tea-cup. As though he should have somehow known that there would be unforseen danger. Maka slowly sat back down into her seat. Soul clenched a fist with determination.

"So we're going to find them, right Shinigami-Sensei?" Soul said, beaming suddenly with pride, "You can count on us."

"Aaaah~! Tsuo-Tsuo! Of course I can. Only..." he said, bouncing to an erect, presumably standing position, "... I won't make this mistake twice. These will be your partners." A massive white hand gestured behind him to a girl with light-purple hair, wearing a darker purple bandana in her hair. The trim of which was gold, and had two tiny bells sewen into the hem. They dangled cheerfully as she stepped up, and bowed from her hips, hands placed formally on her dark purple skirt.

"Very nice to meet you." the majestic eyes girl said, a slight british accent following up her words "My name is Sarah Moore."

As she stood bowed, the profile of a similarly colored boy stood behind her. When she stood straight again, she stepped to the side and the stoic boy stepped forward. His hair, mostly a dark purple to match Sarah's dress, were inexplicably parted in the front by strands of gold hair. His coat was a light shade of the same, eye matching the girl's perfectly. When he said nothing, Sarah swat the boy's shoulder. He turned and looked at her briefly, then sighed and bowed slightly- only more from his back than she had, and kept his eyes on Maka the whole time.

"Oi, my name is Quinn Moore. Nice tameetcha." he said, adding a slight wink and a smirk to the girl in pigtails as he lifted himself up again.

Maka blushed, and unconsciously moved closer to Soul, who grinned widely, "Hey, hey! You're pretty cool, eeeh?"

"Tsou tsou! " Shinigami started again, "These two are coming along with you on your mission. They are only just enrolled, so keep an eye out for them! Hoo hoo hoo! They'll be your guides in London."

"Ehh?! London? Shinigami-Sensei, if Black*Star and Tsubaki are in London, maybe it is just taking them a while to report back to us- it has only been two days..." Maka said, desperately hoping her friends were alright.

"Ahh... yes, we thought that too. Which is why you're only now being called on... but you see, things became more urgent when this was delivered todaaaa~y."

The cloaked man pulled something out of the mysterious time-space altering folds in his robes, and handed a large envelope to Maka. She opened it, pulling out a piece of fabric and a letter.

Maka knew instantly what the fabric was. The cloth was cream colored, soft to the touch, and emblazoned with a large yellow star. It was a piece from Tsubaki's clothes. A piece that matched Black*Star's tattoo. Her tiny hands trembled, anger welling inside her, as well as fear, sickness, and worry. Soul took the note from her, and unfolded it. In stylized letters, very cleanly written, but plainly written with pen, with long cursive strokes were the following words, almost painted on the page:

"I now know who you are. I now know where you are. I now know what you are. And I want your power.

-Professor James Moriarty."

~End Part 1~

crimsontoazure @ 2009-02-04T19:17:00

2009-02-05T03:48:07Z

Monitor lifted his body from the ground. Dirt and thick, black grease covered his face and bare upper torso. His legs, though protected with heavy denim jeans, tied tight around his waist with a bit of leather cord, still managed to get filthy as well. Large black spots formed all down his pants. The mexican boy raised an arm and wiped his brow of sweat and dirt.

"Alright! Try it now, Mi Amor." he said, stretching as he stood, and positioning himself next to the large rolling doors near the front of his workshop.

"Here it goes!" Circuit cheered, turning a key as she did. For a brief moment her heart fluttered into her chest. She, too, was covered in oil, grease, and dirt. No less industrious than her beloved counterpart. Today she wore a burgundy colored bandanna in her hair. She hoped that the color would bring them luck, all things considered.

There was a thunderous roar, which echoed throughout the workshop, quickly through the door, and down the long corridor that lead toward Frequency's recharging station. The Beast lifted his head for just a moment, turned to consider checking the source of the noise, realized -where- it had come from, and dismissed it. All too frequently there were explosions in that workshop, and often were only complicated by his overbearingly large presence.

Monitor was bathed in light, his shadow born behind him on the wall, mirroring the shock and joy of the thing he had just revived.

He cheered in every language he knew how. Circuit dashed to him from her place, throwing her arms around him and kissing his messy cheek tenderly.
"It worked!" she cried, and they danced in place for a moment, as the booming roar of the machine slowly subdued into a gentle, pleasant growl.

The source of the growl was an engine, caged inside a solid steel body.

crimsontoazure @ 2008-11-19T08:51:00

2008-11-19T16:52:47Z

Blatantly stolen from Diana. ;D

1. What was the last compliment you received? "You're so funny"
2. Would you run from the police? Probably not.
3. Do you have any piercings? Nope.
4. What's your favorite movie? Heart and Souls :3
5. Have you ever been beat up? Yeah but not really by a bully. *ponder*
6. Have you ever been on a motorcycle? Yep.
7. Do you think you're attractive? Most gorgeous being to grace God's green and blue planet.
8. Your crush's first name: no D:
9. Do you personally know any bums? Nope.
10. Your first crush: Breanna Lilly
11. Would you die for your family? I think so. Definitely for my nakama.
12. What is your hair color? Brownish blackish.
13. Can you write with both hands? Not really well D:
14. Hot or beautiful? Beauhotiful.
15. Have you ever moshed? I lovah to mosh a potatoes!
16. Favorite athlete? Michael Jordon?
17. Do you believe in spontaneous combustion? Walnuts spontaneously combust. Fact.
18. Have you ever been on a plane? NO WAY SNAKES ARE ON PLANES.
19. One rumor that's been spread about you: That I smile like I mean it.
20. Last time you saw your dad? Too long.
21. Who is the fattest person you know? Me.
22. What is your favorite name? There are lots. Nathan. Erika. Patrick. Courtney. Shawn. Jessica. Too many. D:
23. Jeans or skirt? Skirt. I think. Jeans are just not comfy.
24. Your best friend: Erika!!!! <3 <3 <3 <3 <3
25. Who is the smartest person you know? Justin FB.
26. Abercrombie or Hollister? Same people.
27. Last time you cried? Not too long ago. @_@
28. What is your body type? O I think. Maybe. I'm O-most Positive. HA. HA. HA!
29. Are you good at impersonations? No, but that never stops me. :3
30. Are you good at dancing? I always thought so until I moved to a college town where everybody thinks "dancing" has to be some stupidly sexual thing and can't be a good time.
31. Have you ever beat someone up? Yes.
32. Explain your political beliefs. They are my business and not yours.
33. How many times a day do you go on myspace? More like 3 times a week. When I remember.
34. Do you get annoyed easily? Annoyed? Yes. Angry? Not really.
35. Would you do drugs? My friends are my drug.
36. What is your most missed memory? I'd rather not talk about it.
37. Do you find dead people interesting? Not... really? I know a dead person I once found interesting?
38. Tofu or bacon? Bacon.
39. Six pack or sweet? Sweet six pack! *flexes abs*
40. Are you a vegetarian? Are you a robot?
41. TV or movie? Movie, unless it's Top Gear.
42. Do you wear deoderant? Everyday.
43. What is your screen name? Priviledged Information.
44. Who of your friends can tell anything to you? Erika, I hope. Or Courtney. @_@.... Or ALL of them CAN anyway.
45. Have you ever been on TV? Yes.
46. Collar popped or normal? Normal.
47. Happy or depressing music? HAPPAY~
48. Are you color blind? Nope.
49. What does your name mean? Tony: "Worthy Of Praise" and I damn well know it! >O
50. Do you believe that animals have souls? Interesting question. I wouldn't say that they are without souls, but I've never considered them to be with one either. At this time I will say yes, and worry about where that leaves me in the religious standing another time.
51. Do you have a boyfriend? Erm... no. Starting to think this survey is for women.
52. Bagels or chicken? Chicken.
53. Would you eat human flesh for money? No. Damnit Ami, No.
54. Have you ever thrown up on a dentist? Nope.
55. Have you ever been on a snowmobile? Yess'm.
56. Do you like sports? I like... watching people get hurt in sports?
57. What is your favorite musical instrument? Theramin, I think. Or Keyboard.
58. Name one person you love, and why: Erika, because she is truly the strongest, bravest, most determined person I know, and I'll fight the world to protect her dream.
59. What would be the best way to die? Saving somebody you love. The end.
60. Would you go to college if you had a chance? Well I have the chance, just not the funding. Yeah, I might I think.
61. Do you have any tattoos? Nope.
62. Would you give money to a hobo? Yeah, if I had any. D:
63. Shorts or pants? Pants.
64. How much cash do you have right now? 20 dollars exactly.
65. Do you like arcades? Yep! Marvel VS Capcom 2 ftw!
66. Have you ever been drunk? Yep yep. Veeeeery drunk.
67. Who is your favorite person? I have lots of favorite people, but because she hasn't been mentioned yet: Mashi~!
68. How much do you weigh? 235 I think?
69. What store would you choose to max out a credit card? Why? Pawn X Change. Because it means I'll be coming out with more junk than anyone who said a normal retail store.
70. Cars or boats? Oh man, before watching Top Gear all the time, I'd have said boats, but now I know better.
71. Tastes great, or less filling? Tastes great...? How is there even a choice here?
72. Are you artistic? Yes. I would say that I am.
73. Favorite food? Mac and Cheese. Or Lasagna. Or Burgers. Or something else.
74. Do you have any collections? Yeah. Porno! (I actually have a TONNE of those old old McDonalds cars that used to come in Happy Meals before they got sponsored by garbage movies.(
75. Are you afraid of the dark? Yes. :(
76. Do you hate someone? No.
77. Do you love someone? Yes, of course. I just said I did.
78. Favorite type of shoe? Dress... shoes?
79. Have you ever skipped school? I think I may have?
80. How are you feeling right now? Full. And nostalgic. >D
81. Pizza or pasta? Pastaaaaa!
82. What is your biggest weakness? Pastaaaaa! (and soda D:)
83. You are about to die. What do you do with your worldly possesions? Give them all to my little brother. Except my One Piece Flag, and like... I dunno, something for Erika I guess.
84. Have you ever asked someone out? Yes of course.
85. Have you ever cut off a limb? NO D:
86. Do animals go to Heaven? Maybe not like... our Heaven, but a dog heaven? I dunno.
87. Do you celebrate Christmas? Yes.
88. Do you stop to smell the roses? Not usualy.
89. How many ex boyfriends/girlfriends do you have? 1... :(
90. Who do you talk to most on IM? Mashi, Diana, and Erika in that order.
91. What is one bet you've won? I can't honestly remember? D:
92. What was the last movie you saw in a theater? Max Payne!! It was pretty good. Not worth seeing in theatre, honestly, but pretty good.
93. Have you ever driven a Ferrari? I might have? I don't remember.
94. Have you ever had a crush on the same sex? Kinda? I have man crushes on a lot of actors. Jeremy Clarkson, Simon Pegg, Harrison Ford, Bruce Willis. Y'know, the basics.
95. One best friend or many good friends? One Best. I think. D:
96. What is your favorite number? 720
97. How do you usually dress? Business.
98. Cell phone, land line, or talking with a mic on the computer? Cell Phone. :3
99. Lipton Ice Tea or Nestea? lipton if I have to choose?
100. Would you drop out of school or quit your job? I did drop out of school D:
101. Do you drink alcohol? Yep, ocassionally.
102. Name one person you hate, and why: I don't hate!
103. What's your favorite color? Azure.
104. Do you own a car? Not anymore. T______T
105. For a guy: short or long hair? short.
106. Do you want a boyfriend or girlfriend? Boyfriend.
107. You're having a bad day. Who do you want to talk to? T_____________T Erikaaaaa.Or my mom. Or Courtney.
108. What's the best concert you've seen? Uhhh..... I can't remember, but it was totally the sweetest thing ever.
109. Explain your religious beliefs. Also none of your business.
110. Would you try to take over the world? No.
111. Worst April Fool's joke ever? "Tony! I accidentally beat the game last night while you were sleeping. I'm sooo sorry!" This was my grandma, talking about Final Fantasy 4.
112. Would you live on another planet if it were possible? Only if all my friends did.
113. Family or friends? Nakama.
114. Who is your favorite celebrity? Jeremy Clarkson.
115. Have you ever eaten sushi? Yes.
116. Who is the most controversial person you know? Uhhhhhh... Obama I guess?
117. What's the longest car ride/road trip you've been on? Washington to North Dakota, to Colorado, back to Washington again.
118. Would you live in a different country? Maybe for a few months.
119. Who did you last talk to? Megan!!
120. What is your favorite sport to watch? Star Craft.
121. Have you ever tackled someone? Yep.
122. Have you ever been to Six Flags or Cedar Point? Yes, Six Flags once a long time ago.
123. Do you pray? All the time.
124. When is the last time you went to a gym? D: Like 3 years ago.
125. Do you believe in hell? I do.
126. What were you doing at midnight last night? Sleeping.
127. What was your New Year's resolution? Dumb.
128. What does the world need more of? Understanding. If people would just realize what the hell is going on... sigh.
129. Do you have a job? What is it? I am the Back Room Supervisor of a large collateral loan finacing corperation based in Washington state.
130. Would you sell your soul to the Devil? -Never-.
131. Do you know any foreign languages? I'm slowly learning ASL.
132. Love or like? Love?
133. Do you like depressing music? Yes, I do. :3
134. Have you ever been late to work because of myspace? Nope.
135. Have you ever been hit on by the same sex? Yep!
136. French or Italian? Italian. Mmmmmm.
137. What is your favorite IM acronym (lol, omg, ttyl, etc)? I use a lot, so I'm not sure. Maybe IMO. Or kklz
138. Have you met anyone in real life after meeting them online? Yes, I have. We even dated for a while.
139. 'Digged' or 'dug'? I can digged it.
140. Have you ever seen Nine Inch Nails in concert? Nope.
141. Do you smoke? Nada. Never since my parents all do.
142. Have you ever gone a week without showering? Yes. Definitely. I was very small though.
143. Math or science? Science I suppose.
144. Have you ever gone to a public school? For 12 years ;D
145. Do you know how to drive a car? Yes, I do.
146. Do you believe in God? Yes, I do.
147. Do you study the Bible? No, I don't.
148. Have you ever made a blood oath? Nope.
149. Orange juice or apple juice? Apple! Yuuuum.
150. Would you date someone older than you? No.
151. Favorite country? Japan. It has the most going for it. It's not my #1 place to go and live forever omg kawaii desu desu, but it is on the Place to Visit list.
152. Have you gone on a date? Yes.
153. Have you ever been on a road trip? Yeeees.
154. Do you brush and floss? No D: I don't floss.
155. Grandma or grandpa? Grandma.
156. Have you ever left the house naked? Nope.
157. If you had to get married now, who would you want to marry? D: Ummmmm.... Not really sure.
158. Do you like meeting friends' parents? Yeah. They're often really cool!
159. How do you align yourself politically? Conservative Independant.
160. Ocean or pool? Pool. :3
161. For a girl: short or long hair? Short to medium length. Sometimes really long.
162. Where do you live? Near the Western university.
163. Would you lie to your best friend? Never.
164. Have you ever been on a boat? Yep I have!
165. Do you like travelling? Yep I do!
166. Have you ever been to a beach? Yes yes. Really nice sandy ones and crapy pebble ones.
167. Have you ever prank called someone? Yeah, but in the the way that they knew it was me.
168. Where did you go to school? Snohomish! :3
169. Have you ever gone to a mall? Of course. Lots of times.
170. Would you go skinny dipping? I -would-, if I was sexy and somebody else sexy was there.
171. What sports do you play? Professional Sitting On My Ass.
172. Have you ever committed suicide? ... This is the stupidest question ever. Yeah, I have. See how dead I am?
173. Who is the skinniest person you know? Val D: Or Ami....
174. Who do you trust? Erika and Courtney. And Ami and Megan. And Diana!
175. Do you drink soda? Not anymore. :3
176. Would you be my friend? SORETA YOU WANNA BE MY FRIEEEEND?! WE ARE, WE ARE ON THE CRUUUUUISE!
177. What is something you wish you were better at? Not being so pushy. Letting things go. Eating habits. Letting people love me D:
178. Who is your enemy? Evil.
179. Have you ever been in love? Yeah. I think I was.
180. Soup or salad? Soup :3
181. Have you ever licked a battery? (and if you haven't WHY NOT, it's fun!) NO! It IS NOT. (But I have)
182. Hot or cold? Cold. I think.
183. Do you believe in love at first sight? I believe it's possible, but unlikely.
184. Rock or rap? Either, really. Some really good rock out there, some really good rap.
185. What is/was your favorite subject in school? Creative Writing, I think.
186. Explain what you think about dating. I... think it's how two people get to know each other?
187. Do you want to have kids? Eventually.
188. Do you want to talk to anyone right now? Always! D:
189. Have you ever fallen in love with a best friend? I'd hope that my best friend will always be the person I fall in love with.
190. Are you rude? I can be.
191. Is there happiness in slavery? Uh. No? Maybe there is/was. I don't really know. I'm not, and do not know any slaves.
192. Do you like to learn? Yes!!
193. What does the world need less of? Trans fatty acids.
194. Have you ever snuck anyone into your house? Ryan snuck into my back yard once.
195. Would you kill someone? If it was to protect someone else.
196. How do you vent anger? Cry. Write. Pop my neck. Wring my hands or crack my knuckles. bottle it.
197. Do you get along with other people's parents? Oh yeah. I love adults.
198. Who is the most boring person you know? I don't know boring people. I just don't stay friends with them.
199. Explain what you think about abortion. Wow this survey likes to get a rise outta people don't it?
200. Have you ever written a poem? Yes. Lots and lots of times.

crimsontoazure @ 2008-10-06T19:25:00

2008-10-07T05:29:47Z

A rain droplet fell from the sky, heralding the oncoming death that was soon to take place. The demons crashed in toward them. Bone hatchets and swords flailing above them as they descended in droves around Rift and Saiko. The two lovers, face to face, held each others hands, then slid into an embrace. Saiko's face was pale, exhausted. Spent. Rift held back a single tear, knowing full well that he had no capability to defeat so many in such a frenzy. Lightning flashed. Virus ran as fast as he could down the stone stairs, toward the basin full of Hell's citizens. His motions felt slow, as though his joints were filled with sap. His cry in agony echoed by the sound of thunder cracking in the distance. Each second took minutes to pass.

In the few seconds it took for the front lines to decend upon Rift and Saiko's coupled bodies, the raindrops had become a deluge. Thick skinned, calloused red feet splashed through puddles in the hundreds, casting just as much water upward as was coming down. Rift squeezed Saiko tightly in his arms, and she clenched her hands as tightly as her tired body would let her. As the first of the many hundreds of axes came down, another bolt of lightning struck. This time directly among the demons, encasing Saiko and Rift in the purest form of energy. Their eyes illuminated, body's superheated, for a moment, the two became truely one, united by electricity and love for each other.

The roaring thunder sustained for much longer than seemed natural. Virus tripped and rolled down a set of five stairs. Then the roar became less like a roar, and more like the howling of wind, or the continuous thrashing of a waterfall. The momentary blindness of the lightning clearing, the demons saw before them the couple, still encased in light, suspended twenty feet in the air. For a slit second beams of light shot out in every direction, until they stopped visibly, and began to slowly recede toward the two. Their inner glow faded, replaced by a more menacing, black hazy aura. Their bodies lifted from the ground. Rift's muscles spasmed and tenses, his temples dimpled with thick veins. Saiko's hair flew like a mess in every direction, legs crossed at the knees, but hardly impeding the view of any of the demons directly below her.

Against their will, demon after demon were no longer governed by the law of gravity. Some of them snorted, squeeled, or screamed, others just watched with mild curiosity as the ground left them. The first few show up passed the couple, orbiting around them beforing swining back toward the ground at a slow pace. As more and more joined this solar system, orbiting a black sun, the speed picked up greatly. Until many were flung around with such great force that their bodies were slammed into the hard century old cement floor of the theater. Blood splattered against the ground, then it too slowly began to raise upward, along with dismembered body parts when a demon or two hit with such force their limbs were torn from them.

The dark haze grew ever outward from the lovers. Demons of every size were now being sucked toward it, even from distances outside the large open-air stage. With every demon that got sucked into the black, it only grew larger, until the orb of darkness nearly touched the ground in radius. Green lightning cracked outward from it's core. More and more demons were sucked into the unforgiving black hole. From deep within, two voices, booming and soft at once. Caring and creepy. The howls of those inside escaped with the voice, cries of pain that rivaled Hell's own. The voice said only two words- or perhaps they were vows of a love eternal, unseperable, fated. Like gravity had pulled them to be with one another. Now it pulled everything into their...

crimsontoazure @ 2008-09-23T19:28:00

2008-09-24T02:52:53Z

Long trip is loooooooooooooooooong.

That said, here are some things I wrote up along the way. Enjoy.

"You're blind though, aren't you?" Monitor questioned.
"I didn't start this way... I was one of Zald's whores. His favorite, actually. Well, for a while. He cut at me-" she lifted a sleeve, arm criss-crossed with deep scars. She ran her fingertips over them, feeling the raised skin.
"-Like he always does. One day, he tells me he was sick of me. In my ignorance, I thanked him for finally killing me. For letting me free. But that only made him angry. Zald doesn't like to be predictable."
"We all know about that." Virus interjected.
"So, blind with anger, he pined me down. Clamped his hands down on either side of my face. With his fingers he pried open my eyelids- the bastard! He didn't have to... he could have finished it in a second. Before I could blink of he wanted to. But he made it burn. It felt like it took hours. Hours of staring into the sun. I remember his laughter. How pleased he was to have taken me by surprise.

Baubles of darkness formed and orbited around Saiko, like bubbles of black energy. Her head sank, black hair pooling on the floor over her feet. When she lifted her head again, her face was contorted with a silent scream. Thin lines of silver blood streamed up her face, her eyes a deep purple suddenly. One by one the baubles popped and their dark substance fell to the ground. More bubbled up from the tar pit of hair, and darkness. Tendrils coiled upward, reaching, but inevitably fell sank back into the pit, before deciding to reach outward in every direction.

"You would be wise to not disappoint me again, Boo." Virus said, while the mechanical crow lifted her back to her feet with a metallic talon.
"Yes, my First. What have you summoned me for, this time?"
"Another Lost Child has... appeared on our information networks. Or, rather, we believe it is a child."
"Why the doubt, oh-so-knowledgable one!"
Virus hissed at the sarcasm in her tone, "Because, al we found was a trail of glass through the Desert wastes."
"...Glass?"
"Yes. Perfectly 12 feet wide. The trail itself follows no set path, changing direction constantly. As if they themselves have no idea where they're going. It could be a fire user. Find them, and recruit them to our cause, so that they will no longer be Lost."

crimsontoazure @ 2008-09-20T23:23:00

2008-09-21T07:12:07Z

Band Choice: David Bowie

Are you male or female?
"Dead Man Walking"

Describe yourself!
"I am Divine"

What do people feel when they're around you?
"Let's Dance"

How would you describe your previous relationship?
"Nothing to be Desired"

Where would you like to be now?
"Planet of Dreams"

How do you feel about love?
"It ain't Easy"

What's your life like?
"Under Pressure"

Say something wise:
"I, I will be king
And you, you will be queen
Though nothing will drive them away
We can beat them, just for one day
We can be Heroes, just for one day"

crimsontoazure @ 2008-09-20T20:36:00

2008-09-21T05:39:59Z

The leader of the Superiors took a long hard look at the boys, sizing them up. Each had their own physical perks and flaws. Their bodies tensed under the gaze of such a scrutinous eye. Finally deciding, the Dictator lifted one thing, well manicured finger, and summoned a tall, wiry male. Pushing away from the dark oak desk, the Dictator waved the other boys out of the room, the door closing tightly behind them.

"Well then, boy," she said, in a harsh, deep throated whisper, "let's make you a -man-."

****

The psycho woke in the rain. Dripping wet. Darkness everywhere. No trees, no ruins. Just mud and rain and yuck. Drip drip drip. Into the eyes, into the hair, onto the neck, into the soul. Soul is wet. Wet soul. Two delicate hands touched the temples, gentle touches. Palms on the cheek, pinkies falling into the eyes. Where? What? Who... who?

"It's dark. It's dark. It's dark. It's dark. IT'S DARK. IT'S DARK! IT'S DARK!" he echoed, his voice increasing in volume, then becoming shrill, panicked cries.

There was a pulse. A ripple in the air. For a split second, the rain seemed to freeze, then in the very next second, it evaporated.

****

"God, YES! You bitch!"

The Dictator thrust her hips against the backside of the male, who lay bent over the oak table. She slammed his head into the desk with one hand, groping his crotch in the other. She pulled, massaged and squeezed with this hand through two layers of cloth, meanwhile burying her nails into the scalp beneath his dark brown hair. Thin lines bled, but blood was soaked instantly by the strands. He moaned again, and had his head lifted, and slammed once more as punishment. She had yet to strip, but had no problem grinding herself into his rear, as he would have to her were the tables turned.

The older teen suppressed his moans of pleasure, but was not punished for cried of pain. He was overjoyed when the door broke open suddenly to reveal the Superior's Second. The Dictator was not at all amused by this, her eyes turning to ice. Long black strands of hair lifted off of the sides of her hips and back, falling in front of one eye. The wiry male found it much more difficult to breathe.

"What." she demanded.
"The First wishes to speak with you." a mechanical voice responded.
".... rrraaaaaHHHHHHHH!!!" she screamed, digging her nails into crotch and skull of the boy. Neither of these doing nearly as much damage to him as the sudden and complete removal of his intestines, spine, stomach, bladder, half of a lung, and kidneys through the side of his body did. She let go of the mess left over, and seemed to glide toward the door.

****

Two short breathes out for every one sharp breath in. His eyes darted madly toward every corner. Every shadow. Above him heavy drops of rain dissapated and turned to steam. A dome of the same ocurrance surrounded him. Twelve feet in every direction. His footsteps were unsure, staggering whichever way his feet took him. Tears welled up in his eyes, lifted from his cheeks, then evaporated as well. Strawberry blonde hair was a tangled mess, matted down with dried mud. As he stumbled forward, the darkness skirted around him- constantly twelve feet away. It trailed behind him, coming up no closer than allowed. Light poured from the boy, illuminating the immediate area. Still he was terrified. Still he was on the brink of self-destruction. A rodent- maybe a squirrel, had the in misfortune of scurrying into the arc of light. The boy screamed, terrified by the intruder, and instantly it was incinerated. All that remained was ash, and the boy holding both hands in front of him, fingers splayed, hands trembling, arms rocking with his heavy breaths.

His lips trembled as he sobbed, his tears drying before they had the chance to wet the earth below.

****

"Saiko." The bandaged man said, hair falling down over his face.
"What do you want, Virus. You were -inturrupting- something." Said the long haired Dictator.
"Stay your tongue, wench. You merely run this organization- but we both know who -owns- you."
His eye flamed with rage, and without moving a hand from it's place, the ground around him began to decay, spoil, rot, and crack severely. The crawling death inched over the back of his chair, over his desk, and suddenly leaped for her. Saiko leaped back away from it, but was caught off guard by the massive body guard behind her, metal talons and dark feathers covered her, then slammed her into the ground. Viens of the decay coiled up her cheek. The woman screamed in pain, when suddenly it all went away.

Virus sat in an unharmed chair at an unharmed desk in front of a trembling, but completely unharmed Dictator. She growled as she stood, then bowed at the hip ungracefully.

"You called, First?" she said through clenched teeth.
"That's much, much better."

****

What if...?

What if the one with the shattered mind....

What if the one with the shattered mind was Alexander Zald?

What if the one who was power hungry was Saiko?

Zald's eyes suddenly were ablaze with realization.

"Who am... I?"

crimsontoazure @ 2008-08-20T21:19:00

2008-08-21T05:33:39Z

Working on it slowly D:

The world was hazy. Then just the edges. Like the worn down sides of an old film movie. It felt like a movie. The setting was too bizarre for anywhere on earth. When the last few frames finally came into focus, they felt more movie like than reality. For several minutes Virus watched this blurry video until it finally stilled into a solid, real scene. A bright, golden colored metal framed the outside of the thick glass tube. Bubbles passed by the window in groups of three. Virus held the side of his head as he rose from his prone state to a sitting position. His eyes widened as he gazed down the length of the glass hallway. Just ten feet, on the outside of the tube, a massive squid latched keenly to the glass. Hundreds of circles formed on the outside of the glass as suction cups held tightly against the underwater currents.

Virus stood. His face pressed tight against the glass, followed by each hand slowly. Beams of light illuminated the sea green waters, revealing a massive submerged city. Many glass tubes, like the one he was in, criss-crossed the many buildings. They were like sky bridges, only underwater. Virus stepped away, and rubbed a temple with one hand. It was then he noticed that his bandages were gone from his eye. The scarred skin lay exposed to the open, stale air. The eyeless socket irritated by the exposure. This was motivation enough to get Virus to move. He wasn't sure how he got here- didn't remember why or when it had happened, only that he was here now, alone, and above all else, in new attire.

It's true that Virus wouldn't have thought to wear a slightly ragged white button up dress shirt underneath a tan vest, tied together with thin strands of leather. Nor was he partial to baggy plain brown and light brown pinstriped slacks, held up by matching elastic suspenders. He did, however, felt a certain appeal to the ensamble together. A thin golden chain drooped from between the slip of his vest's breast pocket. He fingered the chain, then pulled a equally small pocket watch from it. It was dead. It's final ticks at the fourth hour and thirty seventh minute of the 16th of some random month in who knows what year. Virus examined the watch as he walked forward down the hall. The distraction was a pleasant one, for it eased the nagging of the complete silence the glass hall had otherwise acquired.

When Virus did suddenly hear a sound, it was not a welcome one. It sounded heavy. Like the footsteps of a massive Beast. Maybe even a Dog. Virus clung to the glass wall, and slowly moved toward a large dark opening at the end of the hall. It was framed with thick iron. Shadows edging into the tube, with dark pulsing red light behind them. Virus heard a voice- and had he not been so used to hearing one as equally unsettling, he would have ran the other direction. He almost did anyway.

"Another one! Lets see what it has for us."

crimsontoazure @ 2008-06-09T19:52:00

2008-06-10T01:53:07Z

lol character limits

    Elle, Vincent, Jerry, Quinn and the Wolf surrounded the bald boy. He sat on his ankles, both knees against the cement, getting his pant legs dirty. He tried to wrap his head around what he saw. Apart from the people involved, only Virus knew about what had happened between Rift and Saiko before they became the people they were. These kids, who were dressed up as two people from his world, had somehow imagined up their lives exactly. Rift's fist pounded the ground, but before he could bring another blow to the impervious pavement Jerry and Quinn had hooked an arm around either of his and drug him up to his feet. Rift struggled, wrestling with them until Elle grabbed his face with both hands.
    "Rift! RIFT! Listen to me!" she said, trying to straighten his face into her own.
    Dejectedly he suddenly slumped, letting Jerry and Quinn work as his feet. His head no longer resisted. She looked into his eyes, and they were distant. After a minute she smiled.
    "Rift, I've seen dozens of worlds. There's an infinite number of them out there. Eventually there would be one where your life was written down by somebody who wasn't you. Think about it, will you? Think of how truly fantastic your story is- who wouldn't want to write that, somewhere, someway?"
    Rift's eyes watered slightly. Not completely satisfied, but feeling slightly better, he got to his feet and tightened his sunglasses against his face.
    "Here." Vincent said calmly, holding out a pair of fingerless leather gloves. "Spares."
    Rift took them, and looked up, "What for?"
    "If you're going to punch something, might as well not hurt yourself." the tall pale man said.
    Rift tugged the gloved over his hands. They were slightly bigger than he would have worn, but not by much.
    "Now then, lets take a look arou-" Rift had started, before a shrill scream broke his concentration.

    At first, neither Lady, Lance nor Arthur noticed the people running passed them. They had figured it was all part of the unusual behavior of the humans on this planet. Until the screaming started, they had paid it no mind. Lance turned, facing back the way they had come. Droves of people began running passed, away from the convention and meadow they had just left behind. Lance looked at Arthur, and Arthur's eyes stared straight ahead with intent.
    "Arthur?" Lance asked.
    "Yeah." he said.
    "You're sure?" Lance asked, this time with slightly more worry in his voice.
    Arthur only answered by removing the crystalline cross from his belt. Lance lifted the lance from his back, and ignited it with a flick of a switch beneath the hand guard. Lady smiled warmly.
    "It's about time." She said, pulling the long rifle from her back and into both hands in front of her.
    "This way!" Arthur shouted, charging back through the droves toward the meadow once more.

    Chopper and Yin stood across the street from the convention center.
    "What's the matter, Doctor Chopper?" Yin asked, her hand still holding onto his hoof.
    "W-what if they yell at me? What if they think I'm a monster?" Chopper asked, his eyes watering slightly just at the memory of years being called Monster.
    "A tough pirate like you? I'm sure they'd never dare." her thin smile was intoxicating. He blushed a bright red, and wriggled to himself.
    "Even though you say that it doesn't make me feel better~~" he sang, dancing in place while holding her hand, his true emotions transparent.
    Somebody screamed- shrill, and loud. At once Chopper became serious and let go of her hand. This time he held onto the straps of his backpack firmly.
    "Doctor?" Yin wondered aloud.
    "Some one might be hurt. Let's go!" the fuzzy brown reindeer man stated with a full determination that hadn't been there only moments before. Yin smiled, and nodded as she followed him right behind. Just as she was going to slow down, for fear of running faster than him, he changed! His body morphed nearly instantly and without warning into that of a lean, strong, fast reindeer.
    "Woah! Doctor!" Yin said.
    "Get on!" he shouted, eyes sharp and full of purpose. She obeyed instantly, lifting a leg over and squeezing into his ribs with her knees, sitting just behind his blue backpack, which had managed to fit on his back even as he changed. Once secure, Chopper's speed changed drastically. They bound across the street, passed Rift and his gang, into the crowd, out of it again, and toward the source of the screaming in just under forty seconds.
    When he arrived, he realized they didn't need a doctor at all.
    Maybe they needed a pirate instead.

    Note struck a sour cord. His hands froze in the air, poised above the next set of keys. Virus turned and looked at him. Note didn't play poorly, ever. He even knew how to perfectly tune an instrument without strumming it. The event was so jostling that Virus left his book on famous leaders and came to see what the matter was. Saiko followed shortly after, carrying a vibrant and colorful children's book about a caterpillar.
    "What is it, Note?" their leader had asked.
    "Virus... no one is home." Saiko said, looking around and toward the upper stories of the book store. Virus also investigated, and surely enough everyone had evacuated some point during the song. Note was looking out the window, and when Saiko and Virus followed his gaze, they also would have struck a sour cord.
    "Are... are those..." Virus started, his one good eye twitching. Of all the things he'd seen, this was one thing that would always creep him out. Even in movies as a child.
    "He looks hurt." Saiko said, touching a finger to her lip, and rubbing it as though she could empathetically feel his pain.
    "Don't.... move." Note whispered just above his breath.
    On the other side of the window pane was a tall placid looking man, whose hair was thinning quite a bit on account that he'd been dead for almost a month. His lower jaw had been torn completely from him, and a monstrous hole gaped in one side of his head, congealed with blood. Very likely it was the latter that was the cause of his death.
    "Z-zombies." Virus said, as the sound of shattering glass echoed in the empty bookstore.

    Rift watched as a girl he'd seen with them before flew passed on the back of a large reindeer that he'd -not- seen before. The event was so alarming that it almost completely took his mind off of the scream that had broken his concentration in the first place. Instead of finishing his sentence, he revised it.
    "Let's take a look around where that scream was." he'd said. The others nodded. Vincent lead the way, swiftly ducking between people as he did. While others ran the opposite way, he spotted one person wearing his cloak. Without a word he weaved between the crowd, lifted the shorter impersonator from his feet, and pulled the cloak off of him. The boy screamed in horror and delight but ran away anyhow. Vincent pulled the cloak over top of his suit and rubbed his neck. It was shorter than his own, and upon second glance the tatters in the back looked artificial. At any rate it was better than no cloak at all, so he kept it.
    Finding new balance he was faster than before, ducking under jumping over weaving around others as they tried to get away from the scene. When he'd gotten there, the reindeer and the Elle-look-alike were already there. In a courtyard, hordes of undead began to mobilize toward the street behind them. Vincent wasn't sure how many there were, but if he had to count, more than he had bullets in his guns. The convention of faux-super heroes suddenly filled with the real ones.
    "You know, it was getting sort of hot." Jerry said, and he began to unwrap the tattered rags that had served as warmth in the subfreezing temperatures of their planet.
    "I know whatcha mean, Jerry." Quinn answered, pulling off his thick ice leopard vest. The two men stripped down until Jerry wore a pair of ragged woolly pants, removing an ice pick strapped to his skin beneath the clothes. Quinn slipped his hands into the pockets of his vest on the ground, and fetched a pair of Ice Cutter Gloves, with a sharp serrated blade strapped to each hand. He used the blade to cut the tough leather on his pants, making shorts out of them.
    Quinn crouched low, ready for the attack. Jerry stood straight backed with the pick axe hanging off of his shoulder. Their bodies were toned, and fit. Their days of excersize to keep warm were not fruitless. Layers of clothing had made them seem heavier set than they were.
    Behind them, with arms thick and long, legs heavy and strong, body tense and poised, towered a mammoth of a man. The Wolf howled furiously, and invigorated their side with his call. Jerry, Quinn, Vincent, Rift, Elle- even Chopper and Yin felt their blood bubble beneath their skin. They could handle it! Even the horde that grew ever steadily in front of them.
    "Should we goto heaven-" Jerry started to say
    "Or even frozen hell!" Quinn finished. The two men charged with a roar of their own to echo across the courtyard.

    "What's going on, anyway, Lance?" Lady had asked. Arthur's eyes were ever forward, completely filled with determination.
    "Arthur has a... "good" sense of Right and Wrong, you could say. So good, he knows when wrong is about." Lance explained. Arthur marched forward, his grip on the X-Calibur increasing with every step.
    "That'd be a handy ability to have." Lady admitted, a cocky grin forming between her lips.
    "Here." Arthur finally spoke, turning suddenly to an alleyway not far from the convention center. A massive, twisting void curled in and over itself in space hanging twenty feet in the air above the alley. From it, corpses fell suddenly, and then after a moment would struggle to its feet and move toward the others in front of it. The first wave of these had already packed tightly into half of the alleyway, coming toward the three weapon wielding future time travelers.
    "You ready, Arthur?" Lance asked. The boy said nothing, just nodding his head and holding the hilt of his weapon in both hands. Lady stood with her weight shifted to one side, one hand holding her gun against her shoulder the other holding her hip.
    "Will you boys need my help?" she asked smugly.
    "I think we've got this one, Lady." Arthur replied.
    "Good. When you're all done, lets get back to the meadow. I'm getting bored of this game."
    "Got it."

    Glass shards rained down everywhere in the front of the store. Note leaped up from the piano bench and quickly dove over the velvet rope. At the sound, a new batch of the undead turned and began to shuffle their way toward the bookstore. The one who had broken the glass had already made its way in among the shelves toward them. Saiko wasn't sure what Virus's problem was. She'd never seen him hesitate like this before.
    "Virus?" she asked, her frail whispers just barely heard over the moans and crackling of trodden glass.
    "Uh-uh, Sai! Saiko, kill them!" Virus said, trying his best not to panic.
    "No! We don't know what's coming." Note said, looking around the room desperately, "There's more coming, and if she tires herself out on them, we're screwed if Guth'Maur comes around too."
    "Right... right." Virus said, unsure and curious about what Note was looking for.
    "There!" he cried, pointing up to the top level. Out a window was a fire escape. Virus nodded, then turned around to face a bookshelf. He placed one hand on the wood and closed his eye. Quickly the wood began to rot, then decay, then turned to dust. One by one shelves of books fell onto the floor as they lost the ability to hold them. With the shelf gone, access to the stairwell was easy, either side of them becoming surrounded by zombies.
    Note and Virus ran, while Saiko sauntered only slightly faster than the zombies themselves. After they'd made it upstairs, Note opened the window and stepped out onto the fire escape.
    "Oh shit!" he swore, then began to ascend the stairwell, and not descend. Virus poked his head out next and his shoulders slumped before he followed suit. Saiko at this point was only still half-way up the flight of stairs to the second floor. Zombies creeping up behind her and beginning to scale the stairs in their own step, tumble, crawl, tumble manner. When she herself made it to the window, Note and Virus were already on the roof trying to think of a plan. Below them was an army of undead. All crapped tightly into the alleyway. Saiko paid them little mind and climbed up the emergency stairs to the roof. The other two boys sat cross legged, thinking to themselves. Saiko joined them, holding her sweater against her ankles.
    All around the building this separate legion crawls and claws against the brick and wood, climbing over top one another in monstrous piles, until the first of them began to hook undead fingers over top the rooftop of the book store. Virus got to his feet, peering around each corner in paranoia.
    "Shit! What're we going to do? Note, can't you play them away or something?" Virus panicked
    "If I could they wouldn't have come here at all! They're under a lot stronger control than my influence."
    Saiko remained quiet. Conserved her energy. She decided that if anything was about to physically touch them, she would act. But until then, she knew Note was right. Virus may have been stronger than her, but something was wrong. She knew that much that. Of course she did, she was smart.
    The orgy of undead bodies, crawling among themselves continued until they began making their way onto the roof itself. Three piles were high enough to admit them in this way. As they crawled up the bodies of those beneath them they spilled out onto the roof and then stumbled to their feet. They were not fast, perhaps not clever, but they were persistent. Ten or so of them on the roof. Twenty feet away. Twenty of them only fifteen feet away. Forty at ten feet. Sixty, the closest only five feet away. The three were touching each other at their backs. Saiko's hair began to lift from around her shoulders and eyes.
    A flash in the sunlight. Great cleaves of light, afterimages burned into the retina by the pure reflection of sunlight off of polished steel. A green and white blur. Saiko turned her head as her hair began to fall back against her shoulders. A demon- no, a man- no, a boy stood behind the horde of seventy zombies on the roof, only inches from the group of three children. A dark green, almost black bandanna was tied tightly to his head. One... two... three swords, one white one clenched tightly in his teeth. The advancing mob had halted completely. Unexpectedly, the zombie closest to Virus lost his head. It tipped, then rolled off his shoulders with a soft thud. Two more did the same, then ten, then all of their heads rolled from their shoulders until they were simply a layer of decaying corpses.
    The boy, who wore a green waistband, sheathed his katana and then tipped his head and placed his hands together in prayer. It was clearly a short one because almost immediately he turned and started to walk over the corpses toward the other three.
    "Are you alright?" he offered, holding his hand out in a peace offering. A wicked grin spread across the side of his face. Virus shook the hand, and nodded.
    "We're fine. I'm not good with... uhm... Zombies." Virus admitted with a blush. He wasn't sure now how he could be so weak when things weren't that bad.
    "Hm. Contracted 'cannot-fight-dead-things-that-aren't-dead disease' did you?"
    "Pardon?" Virus asked, blinking slightly.
    "Nevermind. Roronoa Zoro." Zoro introduced himself.
    "I'm Virus, this is Saiko," he nodded to the long-haired sweater wearing girl, "And this is Note."
    Note tipped his head, and pushed aside his manteau to shake Zoro's hand. With introductions completed, the new horde of their enemy quickly began to replace the last. Zoro grinned wickedly, sliding the katana from their scabbards with a harmonic singing. Saiko liked him. She liked him a lot.
    "Come on!" he shouted, running toward the front of the building, where they had first entered and the zombie had shattered the front of the building's glass display windows.
    "Bu-" Virus began
    "COME!" he shouted. It was so rare that someone took charge over Virus that he was almost shocked into stasis that it had happened. Note gave him a reliable shove, and soon the three were running after the three-styled swordsman.
    The first of the zombies to replace those fallen was now climbing up onto the rooftop. Zoro slashed quickly decapitating it. He leaped over the body and began to surf down the backs of those it had used to climb over. As he slid his blades thrashes in a flurry of blows. They made no noise once they were decapitated. Virus swallowed hard, but Note grabbed his leader around the waist and tucked into a roll with him. The two boys rolled over one another beneath the manteau on top of the bodies of the recently redeceased. Saiko, slightly more graceful, float down on a cushion of psychic energy to follow. She figured with the stronger teen among them, she would be allowed to use her powers a little- especially to get away.
    Three boys, one girl, raced down the street toward the convention center. They passed gang after gang of zombies. After they'd gone a considerable way Saiko noticed they'd stopped paying complete attention to the group of children. She had been looking away when suddenly she was stopped by Zoro's muscular arm. Reflexively she lifted her hands up to cover her face, but wrapped her hands around his arm on accident. A slight blush crossed the front of her face. Saiko stepped back toward Virus and Note, who had stopped a few feet behind away.
    Standing in front of Zoro was a massive humanoid creature, thick with muscle over every part of his body. This beast was clad from toe to horn in thick metal armor, decorated with spikes of every size coming from almost every imaginable place on the armor. Any exposed skin not covered in armor or spikes was tinted an unnatural blue color. Beneath a blood stained red mask smoke and flame billowed as the demon breathed. Thick crimson wings spread wide from the side of the creature's abdomen, beneath his thick arms. Thick steel bracers were bolted directly into the meaty part of the demon's forearm, and welded to these bracers were long black strips of metal, sharpened to a shine on the inside, outside, and tips. Three on each arm.
    "Kuh-huh-huh-huh! You face your doom, humans. Guth'Maur will obliterate this planet, and make it the first step of his almighty plan to conquer all worlds." the demon chuckled. As it did, black plumes billowed from beneath the mask, licked with flame.
    "Hmph! A demon, eh? And even a sword user." Zoro said, a wide grin spreading over his thin lips. He clenched the white sword in his mouth firmly, tightening his grip on the other two. Standing with his back straight, he crossed both arm-swords behind that of the one in his mouth.
    "Oni-" he began. The demon cackled. Suddenly Zoro moved, rushing forward with great speed.

    Blood boiled beneath the largest group of fighters, against the largest group of zombies, in the largest complex on the street. Jerry and Quinn charged first with roars of passion in their throats. A mighty cleave came down upon one of the undead from Jerry's pickax. It pierced effortlessly through the shoulder, and deep into the torso before coming out with a chunk of zombie-flesh. The zombie, however, seemed completely undeterred by this, and though it lost function of half of its body, the other half clawed at his face. Jerry leaped back.
    "The hell!?" he snarled, teeth bared and glistening with spit of rage.
    "KEEP GOING!" Quinn yelled, dashing by Jerry's selected target and slamming the length of his blade into another one. Then out, sawing as he did, then in with the other hand.
     "Icepecker Mourning!" Quinn shouted. Wham-wham-wham-wham-wham! An onslaught of blows, blurred arms pounding into the zombie's chest. The zombie's torso was littered with deep gouges. In seconds it had lost two limbs. The limbs, quite unexpectedly crawled on the floor.
Quinn jumped away and found that, even with one leg, the creature would crawl closer to him.

    "Their heads!" Ami yelled.
    "YEAH! Cut off their heads! Bash them! Break them! Blow them away!" Tony cheered, cupping his hands to his mouth, shouting at the others.
    Elle turned to look at their cheerleaders, "What the hell are you doing? You'll get killed if you stay here!"
    Tony's fist clenched, "I'll die before I die here!"
    "Yeah, real smooth." Ami said, rolling her eyes.
    "Shut up! At least I'm trying."
    "Dee colon." Ami pouted.
    "I -cannot- believe you just said that."
    The two burst into laughter among themselves. Elle stared in complete bafflement.

    "Their heads, huh?!" Jerry shouted, hooking the pickax around the backside of the neck of his zombie. With a strong kick off the ground he lifted his body up and pressed his booted foot against the front neck and chin of the zombie. Jerry began to fall forward, the zombie backwards.
    "Frostdriver!"
    As the back of the pickax struck pavement it sparked. Jerry's foot drove the neck of the zombie between his boot and the ax head. It separated instantly with a snapping sound, then instantly all motion stopped from it.

   "Told you!" Tony shouted.
    "No I told you!" Ami pushed the bigger boy.

    To experiment, Quinn drug the serrated part of his blade across the neck of the crawling zombie. It's body stopped moving at once, including it's extremities. Suddenly the Wolf barreled into the fray, with both hands clenched together in a mighty swing of his massive arms, half a dozen were thrown into the air and into a group of another half a dozen. Bloodshot eyes showed the craze of the animalistic shaman. One hefty fist punched a zombie squarely in the face, and with so much force that the front of its skull blew out the back of its head. It slumped instantly. The Wolf, on all fours, bound into the middle of the horde, throwing large groups in every direction, thinning their numbers.
    "Holy shit." Elle said. Vincent himself had even hesitated to attack in fear of getting in the path of the Wolf's fury. When the howl came again, and Vincent's blood began to boil he knew he must act this time. A large semi-circle was forming in the middle of the square, beginning to surround the two other men. In a flutter of red cloak he began his attack. Smoothly he slipped between the spaces between even the most tightly packed of the zombie soldiers. One arm extended his sharpened claw raked over face, chest and up the back of zombies. He shoved his boot into the back of one of the fleshy monsters, using it as a stepping stone as he somersaulted over one zombie, keeping his claw on it from the back of his calf up over his shoulder, down his chest and into his groin before shooting it in the face with his pistol in the other hand.
    This violent dance left eight dead in its wake, and the one he'd actually shot was eviscerated, sectioned, and had his head blown apart at point blank. It was then that he'd caught Quinn's eye, who had been working on the other side of the semi circle. The rogue-like man grinned a wicked grin, and Vincent did the same. Vincent wasn't terribly fond of naming his attacks, but the unspoken chemistry between the two, in addition to the Wolf's inspired rage, made him feel it was only right. Together they cried, from opposite ends of the semi-circle:

"Sinner's Revenge!"

    Quinn extended the arm closer to the zombies, bracing it with his free hand before he broke into a mad dash. The blade drug ruthlessly against the necks of those in the closest row to him. Vincent's eyes darkened, and he too raked his clawed hand against the necks of the zombies in the first row closest to him, choosing to keep his right hand equipped with his pistol. As they charged toward one another zombies fell one at a time, ripped apart from the throat. When the two men met in the middle, their murderous hands slapped each in a high five, gripped tight, used one another's momentum to spin around. Vincent stepped up onto Quinn's knee, then shoulder, then forearm as the other man thrust him into the air, using the momentum of Vincent's kick to thrust himself into the throng of zombies ahead of him. From above, as pray of bullets rained down expertly into the skulls of those that would oppose them. From below, Quinn's arms flashed with deadly precision over throat and neck of countless zombies. When they had finished, Quinn panted heavily, back where they'd met in the middle of the semi-circle, Vincent landing with a soft *thump*. A huge mass of their enemies numbers suddenly slumped, and fell to their knees, from overhead the word SIN could be seen carved out of the horde, underlined by the first row of the semicircle they had started their attack with.

    "Lance!" Arthur shouted, and his uncle nodded. He braced his huge weapon against his shoulder, and poised with his off hand right against the hand guard of the futuristic medieval weapon. With a deep warshout, the older blond charged toward the zombie's tightly packed numbers. The void above spinning, churning, and puking out evermore. At first contact with the sharpened tip, the zombies simply slid over the weapon, until Lance flicked it on. Arcs of bright orange energy broke over the length of the shaft, crackling loudly and snapping over the flesh of the zombies for only a second before they became as dust, vaporized by the bursting wave of orange light and energy.
     Like this Lance cleared a path through the thick wall of moving dead bodies. Dust flew up into the air, thick as a cloud of smoke. Arthur charged, his voice cracking with puberty as he screamed aloud. The hilt in his hand shimmered, and as he swung in a hard horizontal arc, a yellow beam of light exploded from it. The torsos of the front line of zombies burned as the blade passed through them, quickly setting light to those behind it and those behind them until the horde had figured out to move away from the burning bodies in front of them. Arthur held the hilt in one hand, his heart beginning to thunder in his chest. As it did, his determination swelled. As his determination swelled, so did his faith. When faith grew in him, a light poured from the X-Calibur. It sparkled in the air slightly before thickening. He had no time to wait however, he had to keep fighting.
    Zombies, some on fire, turned to converge on Lance, whose back faced them now. Arthur charged again, this time thrusting his weapon forward, then upward. Three zombies found holes in their stomachs, then their heads split open vertically. Their actions stopped completely. The shimmering light became thicker, solid light. With every kill his faith grew larger. His strength more intense. Lance swung the length of his weapon around, blowing a solid arc of the monsters into dust. The old man laughed merrily, going so far as to kick one Zombie square in the chest, just to watch it stumble.
    "These are hardly worth our time, Arthur." Lance said. The blond hadn't watched his position, and suddenly a zombie had fallen ontop of him from the dark portal overhead.
    "LANCE!" Arthur cried. Lady looked up, slightly worried. She readied her weapon, just in case.
    There was no need. With anger grew confidence, and with that more Faith. Arthur spun his weapon in wide circles around his side, in front of his chest, behind his back and then up into a ready position. A shimmering blue blade of light emerged, perfectly straight and pulsing with an unsteady energy. The brightness expelled from this blade illuminated the entire alley with an azure hue. Arthur's footsteps echoed as he slammed them into the ground heavily. Before the blade even made contact, any zombie he swung at burst into flame, then almost immediately after that vaporized, not even dust being left of it. The swings were wild, and wide, imprecise. The building framing the right hand wall of the alley was carved deep, the bricks turned to molten. In Arthur's rage the blade grew five times in size. With his newfound length, he looked up at the portal. Another cry of rage escaped him as he leaped up, high as he could, crashing the X-Calibur into the depth of blackness that was the churning void. Upon contact, there was a hissing crackle, and a whirring, and suddenly an explosion as the void collapsed inside of itself. Arthur was thrown back, along with his weapon, tossed directly into Lady's bosom. She clutched the crystalline hilt with fear at first, but realized it had lost it's power as soon as it had left the boy's hand.
    With one hand, and while still looking at the weapon in her other hand, Lady shot the only remaining zombie, which crawled desperately over top of Lance, trying to eat him. The pulse weapon left a loud *kush-voom!* and then a hiss after the round had obliterated whatever had been left in the monster's skull.
    "Watch it will you?! You could have taken off my hand. Women, I swear." Lance said, shaking his head sullenly as he got to his feet, dusted himself off, and scooped the boy over his shoulder that wasn't occupied with his weapon.

    "GIRI!" Zoro shouted between clenched teeth. He moved so fast even Saiko had trouble tracking him- but the demon did not. Before Zoro had even gotten to the monster, he'd grabbed Zoro's head in one massive hand. One twisted, sharpened piece of blackened steel piercing Zoro's lower left-hand abdomen. He shouted in pain, blood flung in a thick mist in the yell.
    "Demon slash? KUH HUH HUH HUH HUH!" the infernal creature laughed. "Let me show you the power of a real demon, HUMAN!"
    The monster let go of Zoro's head. For a second he hung in the air by only the twisted metal alone. Zoro's eyes intensified with the pain, but he didn't shout out again. With insane speed, the demon ripped his arm away, pulling the blade with it. As Zoro hung in the air, its other fist crashed full speed into Zoro's body. Two of the twisting blades on this arm cut him on the upper part of the left shoulder and skewered the lower part of his right leg. Zoro spun wildly as he flew into a building four car-lanes away. The outer wall collapsed instantly on impact. Underneath the deafening guffaw of the demon, Zoro's swords fell to the ground.
    Virus's eye lit up in anger. He had no problem with demons. Note stepped back, knowing how completely useless he was in this fight. Just as Virus had started to walk forward, already planning on being stabbed in order to get close enough to Dust the monster, Saiko was in front of him, holding her arm out to stop him just as Zoro had done to her. Virus blinked with his one good eye.
    "Saiko?"
    "Got it." she said simply. The girl walked forward fearlessly, just as she'd seen Zoro do.

   "KUH HUH HUH HUH! A LITTLE GIRL!? You do not understand, human. I am but a soldier in Guth'Maur's army- but I am far stronger than you comprehend. KUH HUH HUH HUH!" the unnamed demon, a mere soldier gloated, "Do not expect me to look away because you're a female."

    Her delicate, fragile fingers coiled ever so gracefully around the first of the three katana. As she lifted it from the ground, bits of dirt and rubble fell from the blade. It still shimmered, just as it had when she'd seen it flash in front of her eyes to slay seventy zombies in one go. This weapon was strong. Extremely strong. But it wasn't the strongest, she could tell. She scooped up the second of the blades. It's edge was just as sharp, but the tempering from the forge had left wicked licks of flame-like designs along the length of the blade. This, too, was an extremely strong weapon. It thirst to spill blood. She could tell. She begged with it to help her, for she knew only respect for this weapon would allow its wielder to use it. It shook in her hand violently- ready for blood. Demon blood. But it was not the strongest.

    Her eyes closed. Dark strands of hair fluttered around her and off her shoulders. The back of her hair fluttered away from her hindquarters, and arched slightly away from her back as well. Her lips were pursed, intent, concentrating.
    "That's all the more mercy you'll get from me!" the demon howled, his massive speared arm coming down at full speed toward her. The speed and strength that had launched Zoro through a building a hundred feet away before he had a chance to even fall slightly in the air.
    And it was stopped instantly by the edge of the strongest one. Wado Ichimonji floated five feet above her, pressed tightly against the twisted black metal of the demon soldier. With little effort the blade twisted with an unseen hand, and the full force of the demon's attack crashed into the cement, tearing a crater into it, completely deflected by the girl.
    Wado spun wildly in the air, then hovered around Saiko in a state of continual motion, the blade spinning and orbiting at the same time. Her eyes opened- pupils tiny, intense with passion, completely alive with the fire of a demon in her. They were Zoro's eyes. They were Kuina's eyes. They were eyes that crushed the will of the demon, and made him hesitate. His second hand came down far too late. She had already moved by then. When the second massive crater had been made, Saiko gently stepped onto the twisted metal of the blade with her bare feet, holding both swords across her breast. When the demon lifted his hand out of the cement she ran across the length of the blade, then up the length of the arm. Her arms extended, she spun herself as she rose up the demons arm, not actually swinging with the blades as much as allowing her psychic abilities to force the blades into him. Deep lacerations trailed behind her, spilling luminescent yellow-green sulfuric blood onto the cement. Her body lifted head over toe, Wado following her even still, as she landed on the demons meaty shoulder.
    "They stop moving..." she whispered into his ear. The demon, shuddered at the sound of her eeriely soft and breathy voice. He lunged at her with his hand, hoping to crush her in it. Before he could she let herself fall backwards, once more becoming a spinning top of blades as the katana tore into the flesh of the demon's back. With a powerful push of psychic energy she drug the swords around the left side of his hip, then up his torso and landed on his opposite shoulder all before his hand had plunged deep into the shoulder she'd previously been standing on. The three prongs of twisted black metal all gouged deep into his flesh. In his haste he'd forgotten about the 'enhancements' to his power. With the power of her mind she coiled the tips of the metal inward, locking his arm into his shoulder.
    "...when they loose their head." she finished. The demon's eyes lit up with rage and fear. Loosing all control over himself he plunged his other fist upward at her, hoping that maybe this time she wouldn't be as quick. She was. Her hair exploded in a flurry of directions as the other hand tore toward her at full bore. She let go of the other two weapons, and they spun furiously in the air with Wado ahead of her. The katana became like saw blades, whistling in their very own pitches as they cut through the air without cutting the air. The fist advanced ever closer. Split seconds before it would have otherwise crushed her, she disappeared, appearing at the first shoulder at an insane speed- rivaling that of Zoro's own. She did this with her eyes closed, hair finally settling against her body once more, the spinning blades ripped through the air at her at a terrifying speed through his neck, throwing the green-yellow blood in every direction, but being thrown clean of the swords. Her arms extended and hands opened up, grasping each hilt with a loud *CRACK* as it made contact with her hand. The cursed blade apparently was not filled, and had cut her thumb, but only slightly. Silently she thanked it for being so generous with her. Wado Ichimonji spun wildly, then slowed to a more controlled spin before finally coming to a stop, vertically in front of Saiko.
    The demon's eyes slowly stopped burning behind it's mask. The dark clouds of smoke stopped completely, along with the fire. Slowly the head rolled forward over the chest of the demon, arms folded across its chest as though it were prepared for the coffin. A massive spray of blood volcanoed from the neck of the demon. The heavy sulfuric smell aiding in the feeling of being in the midst of an eruption. The luminescent blood covered everything, but did not burn the skin, as Saiko had initially worried it might. More than that she worried it would hurt the swords. Just as she stuck out her tongue to try and lick the blood, curiosity overcoming her, Virus grabbed her by the collar of her shirt and tugged her.
    "I SWEAR!" he yelled, with a hint of scolding in his voice, "If you EVER do that again I'll... I'll!!!.... piss myself! Saiko, I was terrified. You couldn't have done that without getting so close to him?!"
    "... More fun." she said smiling, and hugging her leader. "Time to give them back." she added, walking back toward Zoro.

    "SHIT! Knocked out?" Zoro said, sighing and rubbing his head. His wounds were bleeding profusely. Suddenly a glop of yellow-green liquid dripped onto his leg. He stared at it for a moment before Saiko approached him with the three of his katana, already in their scabbards, and bowed her head as she returned them. Zoro quirked a brow, looked over the scene of the battle, and then dropped his jaw. Saiko smiled, pushed it back up into his face properly with one hand, then leaned the swords against his shoulder.

    "Shouldn't you see a doctor?" Note asked the swordsman as he got to his feet.
    "That's why I'm here." he said sternly, "Our doctor got lost. We're here to find him."
    "We?" Virus asked. A wicked grin spread across Zoro's face and his eyes lit up with pleasure.

    "ZOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOROOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!" a extremely loud voice cried.

crimsontoazure @ 2008-06-07T05:04:00

2008-06-07T11:09:51Z

Here's what I don't understand.

OTP.

I mean. I know what it means. One True Pairing. Okay, fine. I get that.

But what? It simply cannot exist. At least not in the context that it is being used. It seems like every anime can have an infinite number of OTPs, and it doesn't make a difference who they are, because every group of people has a different opinion on what that OTP is.

For example, to me, the Naruto OTP is Naruto and Hinata. Because damnit it should be. But go search for Naruto OTP. Go ahead. I'll wait.

See how everything from Obscure 2-episode characters to the two least likely to ever possibly have any sort of sexual contact are OTP? So what the hell man, stop using words that mean one thing and using it to mean another thing. Apparently sometimes OTP can be more than a pair. YEAH. MORE THAN TWO PEOPLE. Sigh. An OTP should be- I dunno, ONE. TRUE. PAIRING. for a series. Like people that are already together or are clearly in love with one another. LC OTP = Rift x Saiko. End of story. Not Rift x Virus. Not Saiko x Circuit. Not Frequency x Zald x Volt. No. NO. ONE true Pairing. GAH!

crimsontoazure @ 2008-06-05T21:54:00

2008-06-06T05:39:10Z

(_/~ Chapter One ~\_)

A young man in his early twenties, dressed in white with a purple undershirt, stood by the side of a young woman only a few years younger. She wore an extra long sweater which covered her arms with a pair leg warmers pulled over bare feet. The boy smiled at the girl, excited, and stood side by side. She smiled back, then pulled long black strands of hair in front of her face.

"Let's go, Saiko." he said.
"You first, Zald." she responded.

    Rift's eyes snapped open with alarm. Sweat pooled around him. The nightmare, though brief, had left him a virtual faucet. The cleanly shaved head glistened with sweat in the moonlight his bedroom window allowed.

    "What was that dream about?" he whispered to himself. Saiko and Zald, together, on some sort of mission. They certainly looked close enough to them, but something had been off. In the dream-state they seemed almost distorted. It was them, but not them at all. His heart beat wildly, and quickly Rift leaped from his bed and into a pair of jeans. In addition to the nightmare, the summer heat had cooked the cavernous halls of the Error's HQ for days, and even night held little in the way of respite from the warmth. It was a combination of these that made Rift glisten the way he did as he passed through his front door without the help of his special power. He knocked, gently on Saiko's door across the hall. She'd asked to sleep alone that night. She did so infrequently, but the nights she did Rift did not bother trying to get her to explain, but simply understood and respected her wishes.

    It had been three years since they started dating. In that time, they looked no older than they had the day they first met. The simultaneous curse and blessing of the Savant infection that had been spread to them. No adults lived, at least not in human bodies, to tell the children how to live, or govern or survive. None told them how to deal with their unique abilities, so of course every child had a different idea. Rift's ideas related closely with Virus's, the leader of the Errors gang, and that is why Rift allied with him. That, and Saiko. In those three years, their best friends Monitor and Circuit had a child, who was now two years old, and starting to talk more and more frequently. They had named her Byte- but like most children born into this world, her powers would ultimately name her. The parents did hope that her powers could somehow be related to Byte, however, because they'd grown quite fond of the name.

    When Saiko hadn't answered, Rift gently pushed his finger against the wood of the door. For a second it sat on the surface, as if he were pointing at it. Then he pushed very slowly, and the wood around the tip of his finger rippled, and molded around his skin. As though the door had the viscosity of water. With this one finger he pulled down and as he did a ring appeared in a perfect circle from his finger upward in the door, until a hole about an inch wide was made. With one eye he peered into the hole, just to make sure Saiko was sleeping. Her pale, fragile frame could be seen sleeping beneath the covers, waves of black hair pouring over the side of her bed and onto the floor. Her breathes were slow and deep. The sight of her filled him with ease. He pulled his finger out of the door and it silently sprang back together as though it were a rubber band just waiting to retract.

    Content, Rift returned to his room the way he had came, crossing the hall, using the door like it was meant to, and then dropping his pants before dropping into bed. Sleep came easy, knowing for sure she hadn't gone anywhere, but Rift couldn't help but wonder what he'd seen. It felt so incredibly real. He'd only experienced something that intense once before. But that hadn't been a dream. As he slept, the halls were stalked by a massive black crow-raven beast. His massive beak was serrated along the top edge. Long black feathers sometimes fell from his wings and were used now in the summer's heat as hand-fans. In the dark of Night, nothing was unseen by Fredrick Quincy, admiringly named Frequency as both a play on his name and for the constant pulsing of his glowing red eyes. This bird creature was a man, trapped inside the body of a Beast, whose soul wanted atonement for his sins. That is why he stalked the halls at night, single-handedly protecting the Lost Children from any danger.

(_/~'~\_)

    "Play it again."
    "Sir. Yes, Sir."
    "...sck.... ... -ander Lance! Pl... s... require .... stance! Strange wor... some ki... of portal!" the PA boomed over the cockpit, muffled hissing and electrostatic fuzz interfering with the entire message.
    "That's it, Sir." the subordinate said.
    The rugged captain of the White Knight rubbed the blond patches at his chin quizzically. Portal?
    "Where did the message come from?" asked the captain, getting up from his revolving chair and flatting a tuft of blond hair on his head with one hand.
    "The Lake, sir."
    "Lady's ship?!" Arthur barked, turning to look at Lance, "We've got to go! Please, Uncle!"
    The captain nodded sullenly. "Arthur is right. Lets disembark. Navigator, set coordinates for the Lake's last position. Arthur, get back to your duties on deck, and pray that your friend is in no danger."
    "Aye, Captain!"

(_/~'~\_)

   Something was wrong. Elle had been gone for too long. Vincent sighed, and pulled the apron from around his waist. It was Elle's
apron, but Vincent wore it when he was cooking, which he did rarely. He didn't sigh because she was late. On the contrary, it was nice to have a little something to do after living peacefully for so long. She had been so much trouble when they first met, and completely worth it in the end. The reason he sighed was because he cooked so rarely, and now his curry was going to get cold before he found her. It was his birthday. He knew she'd remember, and would be out to get him something, but he was going to surprise her with a nice meal. Now, almost an hour after she said she'd be home, he pulled on the steel tipped gloves and boots. From a closet he removed his gun and slipped it into a holster on his belt. He wasn't sure where his leather battle-outfit was, but hoped she wouldn't be in so much trouble that he'd need it. He went out dressed in his old Turk uniform, which he only wore on special occasions to look nice. Like, say, a birthday dinner with the woman he loved.

    Vincent grinned. Sans the classic red manteau one could actually see the width of his devilishly handsome grin. As he left the house he grabbed a dress coat and threw it over one shoulder, unsure if he'd need to actually wear it, but wanting it just in case. He closed and locked the door behind him after he left, then turned and bowed respectfully to the building across the street. It was a tall church, with patched walls in a different shade of white than the original painting. The entire building had been restored except the roof, which had only been altered to make a finished edge around the broken boards that originally became destroyed by a man who had fallen off a bridge above. Now the hole was a skylight, allowing sun and rain to bathe the beautiful garden two stories below. Vincent always bowed to the building, knowing that a certain amount of respect should be held for such a profound place. Vincent had built the house across from this church for this very significance.

    Vincent smiled before walking down the street toward New Midgar. He smiled much more lately. That was all due to Elle. He looked down to the silver band around his finger. She was the smile on his face, and the Light in his heart. Much like some one else he'd known had been. Vincent didn't worry about life without her, because life wouldn't last without her. His sins were too great to imagine a life better than the one he had. His smile faded slowly, and he sighed.

    He'd worked really hard on that curry.

(_/~'~\_)

    In the frozen wastes of Tundra, Quinn and Jerry lay back against the ice chair they'd made for their living room. The living room was also fashioned out of ice. Everything was fashioned out of ice, because everything in Tundra was Ice. The cold winds above their fox hole howled an unhealthy howl, blowing snow and ice against their hatch. It would hold, but they wanted a new one.
    "The goblins have been really quiet lately." Quinn noted, speaking about the hordes of goblins which lived underneath them in the ice caves they'd dug for centuries.
    "Yeah... yeah you're right." Jerry agreed. He chewed on a piece of tough meat, washing it down with ice water.
    The rapping against the hatch became more fierce. Jerry looked up from his meal and toward it. It sounded more and more persistent. As if it were being knocked upon. Slowly the brown haired man got from his seat, and made his way toward the ladder that lead to the hatch. When Jerry unlatched the hatch from the ice wall, it instantly was torn open and the hulking, furry body towered above him. His grip loosened and Jerry fell the five feet onto the hard ice floor below.
    "Shit!" Jerry said, scrambling as the Wolf lunged down the entrance of the burrow and pinned down Jerry. Quinn got to his feet, grabbing the only weapon he had- the rest of Jerry's meal, and tossed it at the Wolf before charging the mighty beast. As Quinn got closer, the Wolf lifted onto it's back legs, and quite shockingly, grabbed Quinn's arms then threw Quinn behind himself and into the wall. The Wolf's head fell back, revealing the grizzly face of a unshaven man. Fur, which had been confused for his own, was actually a massive wolf pelt tied to his body with thick leather cord. The man was massive, nearly half over the size of either Jerry or Quinn. At the sight of him, both stared in awe.
    "Come." was all he said, in a husky, deep growl.

(_/~'~\_)

    Light pulsed in Virus's office. The leader had fallen asleep at his desk. Now, he was stirred away by a constant pulsing light. It was much too fast to be the eye of his hall monitor, Frequency. Finally, begrudgingly, Virus opened one curious eye. The light came from a bright, shimmering circle. It hovered in the air, no less than ten feet away from his desk. In the circle of light there was a place he'd never seen before. It was a majestic forest, beautifully lush and dazzling with bright forest light. The only forest Virus had every been to was always dark, and danger lurked within. Virus could see people within the forest. Sleeping people. He wasn't sure he understood exactly, and when Virus didn't understand exactly he pondered. The boy was hardly rash. Despite the beauty, Zald had laid many traps for him in the past disguised as something wonderful. Zald himself was disguised as something wonderful. Carefull Virus walked around the glowing circle of light, to his office door, and locked it behind him.

    "Rift. Wake up, Rift." the leader called to him.
    "Ugmgnerm..." the bald boy responded. He was incredibly articulate when he was awoken from sleep.
    "Knock it off. There's something you need to see. Come on."
    "Grrrrmmm...." Rift moaned, before sitting up in his bed, "Virus?"
    "Get dressed. I need you in my office in ten minutes."
    Rift yawned, but nodded. When the leader left he pulled off his covers and put on his jeans for a second time that night.

    "Boo... it's time to get up."
    "..."
    "Oh come on now, Boo. Don't be like that. I need you, come on." Virus said, shaking her lightly.
    "..."
    "Alright... Rift and I will be waiting at my office. I need to show you something. I expect you in ten minutes, my little soldier." he said, smiling as he did. He was endlessly proud of her, and never afraid of showing it. He left the room with a soft click of the door and returned to his office where he sat in his chair staring at the bright ring, just waiting for the other four to arrive.

(_/~'~\_)

    "Captain, we've spotted the Lake!"
    "Good. Bring us up her starboard side."
    "Aye, Sir."

    Lance sat back with a heavy sigh. He didn't see anything physically wrong with the Lake. Something had happened, though, or Lady wouldn't have sent a half-garbled message. As the White Knight drifted along the starboard side of the Lady, the nose of his ship stuck out ahead of hers and he could see through the front panes of the cockpit exactly what Lady had been talking about. Loud clanking could be heard as the White Knight prepared to dock with the Lake. Lance got to his feet, and walked toward the front panes of thick plastic that protected him from the space outside.

   "The hell is that...? Fetch my weapon. Summon Arthur. Tell him to bring his toy, as well. We're boarding the Lake."

(_/~'~\_)

    Vincent's eyes looked about from one direction to another, gazing over the heads of people as he passed by them. None looked like Elle. Some nodded to him in respect for having saved their city time and time again. Others weren't sure what to say. Most didn't recognized him. The city square was always busy, and often crowded to the point of locked up. This was no hindrance to Vincent, however. Instead of trying to clamor through the people and pick out Elle, he leaped onto a balcony of a building that overlooked the square. There, on the steel railing he perched, crouched legged and staring down over the crowd. He stood staring over the crowd of people for nearly ten minutes but saw no sign of her. With another strong kick of his legs, he left the railing into a backwards flip. His feet soared above him and light shone brightly off of the metal toe of his boots. Both feet and one knee landed on the roof of the building he'd just used as a lookout post.

    Vincent sensed urgency. His feet clattered against the shillings of the rooftop. He'd mostly hoped she was just late, but now could feel her fear. In his chest he knew she was afraid. As he ran he glanced at the silver band around his finger, engraved with her love for him. No time to think about it. Shillings occasionally popped up from the roofs as he ran and leaped across them. Mostly when he landed or jumped from a building. Vincent wasn't sure where he was going, but he let his magnetism toward her do the guiding. From building to building until he jumped down from them and into thick gray dirt. He rolled forward and kept moving. Urgent. Urgent. Go go go. Something is wrong with your wife, damnit. Move!

    Then it was gone. The urgency, the tugging. Both gone. Completely void in him. His heart sank, his eyes grew wide. The lack of urgency was more terrifying than the intensity of it. He bolted straight ahead.

(_/~'~\_)

    Jerry pulled his coat tightly around his chest. The Wolf walked ahead of the two men on all fours. His arms were so massive and so long that it was no wonder people mistook him for a wolf at all. The Wolf had given no other name for himself, so that is what they both referred to him as. Even though he gave no answers. So far, he'd only grunted the single "Come."

    Quinn and Jerry talked amongst themselves. Both wondering where they were going, both too afraid to leave the path they'd been following. They didn't know the Tundra plains. Not like the Wolf did. They could easily get lost, but he had a straight path. He lead them far, almost 5 hours worth of walking, to a massive ruin in the middle of the snow and ice. Giant pillars stood erect in each of the four corners of the ruin. Old brick and stone, now frosted white, were solidly built between these pillars. some of the upper bricks had been blown away by the harsh winds, but for the most part the walls stood ever mighty. The doors on the other hand, had not survived. And an arch of stone wide enough for ten men to walk side-by-side into stood open, allowing the snow and winds to enter unhindered. The three of them walked into this building, two unsure of why they had been brought here.

    "There. They go in there." the Wolf said.
    Quinn and Jerry looked stumped, before following the long massive arm to an altar on the far side of the building. It pulsed wickedly, throbbing with dark black energy, it's outer edges aglow with veins of crimson and bright pink light. Jerry stared with eyes opened wide. Why the hell would -anything- go in there?
    "Wait, who went in there?" Quinn asked, turning his head to meet the massive jowls of the Wolf.
    "Goblins. All of them. They go in there."
    The two men's shock rang out in unison, "...ALL of them?!"

(_/~'~\_)

    Note, Rift, Saiko, Virus, and Frequency all stared at the portal in wonder. With the exception of the massive bird-man, they were joined around it in a semi-circle. Frequency looked on from the hallway, not completely unable to make it into the small office, but unwilling. His eyes bathed the room in red light, and he stared with his head tilted to one side.
    "Who do you think they are?" the semi-mechanical tone rung out from a speaker system somewhere within him.
    "Not sure. There's quite a few of them though." Virus observed.
    "Seven." Saiko said factually. Nobody doubted her.
    "Do they need our help?" Rift asked.
    "Could be a trap." Note added, strumming his fingers across the delicate cords of a harp.
    "Could be a trap." Rift agreed.
    Frequency let out a grunt of consideration that vibrated into a hum from within him, "Don't think so."
    "Don't think so." Saiko repeated.
    "Two for trap, two against. What's the verdict, Top?" Rift asked.

    "Note, wake up Monitor. Tell him to look over the place until we get back." Virus said, "Rift get our weapons. Frequency, I'll need your batteries as charged as they can be. Saiko, will you go get us, and them, something to eat? We could be gone for a while. We'll meet back in thirty minutes with our supplies. That should give Monitor enough time to wake up at any rate."

(_/~'~\_)

    "Lady?! Lady!" Arthur shouted as they boarded the Lake. A ship of good size, it was unlikely she could hear him shouting unless she had been in the docking bay.
    "Calm down, lad! Don't be so rash." Lance said, holding to his side a long metallic pole which fanned out at the holding end in a sort of hand guard, "Get your weapon ready. We may not know when danger will strike."
    Arthur nodded, and pulled from his belt a crystalline shaft, two fist lengths long, with a simple cross guard on one end and an teardrop shaped pommel on the other. The entire piece was made of a luminescent, semi-transparent crystal like material. It had no blade to speak of. Not yet, anyway.
    "LADY!" Arthur shouted again, before being struck on the top of the head by one of Lance's meaty fists.
    "Do you ever learn, boy? The enemy could be on this ship."
    "There is no enemy here, Captain Lance." came a stranger's voice.
    Instantly Lance's weapon snapped, crackled, and then hummed as he braced it against his side with both hand. Flickering orange arcs of energy pulsed from tip to hand guard, "Who is there?"
    "Senior deck office Marcus, of Lady's employ, and caretaker of this ship, the Lake." Marcus said, stepping from around a corner far ahead of them. He had no weapon on his person, and was dressed in well-fitted red uniform. It was safe to assume he was who he'd said he was.
    "We're looking for Lady, Marcus." Arthur said.
    "Yes, we were expecting you two. Lady delivered her invitation before exploring the portal."
    "Invitation? It wasn't a distress call?" Lance asked, with one eye peering with scrutiny.
    "Oh my, no. She was only anxious to go on another adventure. You know Captain Lady. She simply wished for your company... however now that you're here, I've become increasingly worried, Captain."
    "Pardon?" Lance said, as he disengaged his weapon and began to move forward toward the Officer. Arthur followed in his steps. As they approached, Marcus turned his back and began to lead them to the bridge.
    " Captain Lady had said she was only going into the portal for a moment. That she would return after she had seen inside of it. We begged her to reconsider, but she is quite stubborn. After leaving the invitation she had departed to see inside, promising to come back after ten minutes. As you can see, that was quite some time ago."
    "We got here as fast as we could. The transmission was completely distorted. It sounded like there was trouble." Lance explained.
    "I am most grateful for your hasty arrival. Because now there could very well be serious danger. The portal is still open, but we have no idea how long it will stay that way. For sure it hasn't wavered, or sagged, or shown any sign of closing, but-"
    "If it were to, Lady could be lost forever." Arthur finished.
    "Precisely, young sir." Marcus nodded.
    "We'll depart immediately." Lance said, stopping his advance toward the bridge.
    "There is one more thing, Captain Lance." Marcus said, as he continued forward, "She'd forgotten her weapon. I should like you to bring it to her, just in case."
    "Arthur, go get our Space Walkers, I'll meet with you at our Bridge, and then we're going." Lance said as he began to follow Marcus once more.
     "Aye, Uncle!" Arthur spouted, then turned heel and ran back the way they'd come.

(_/~'~\_)

    Through the ruins of Old Midgar, overtop giant slabs of metal that had once been the upper rings. Through a tunnel that had once lead to a Mako reactor. Until he could run no more, his legs tired and his chest pounding. His eyes were blurry but he could see, just ahead, something strange. He breathed heavily, treading across gray dirt toward the sight of it, slowly, catching his breath. Atop a massive dome-like slide, in the midst of an old worn out playground, was a shimmering circle of light.

    Vincent approached it in at a walking pace. His eyesight began to clear. In the dirt was an art bag. Elle's. She was quite the talented artist. Vincent picked up the bag and looked inside. Nothing was missing. None of her gil, even. She hadn't gone shopping yet. More importantly, it wasn't a robbery. It was a kidnapping. There was no reason at all for Elle to be out this far in the ruins. His eyes grew dark, his expression brooding. Vincent glared upward at the bright circle of light. In a solid jump he made it from the place the bag had fallen to the top of the slide. He pulled the long strap of her bag around his shoulder to rest on the hip opposite of his gun.

    As he peered inside, he could see people sleeping in a forest as lush as those near the Ancient's Temple. His eyes widened, his heart leapt.

    "Elle!" he exlaimed before jumping in.

(_/~'~\_)

    "Go." the Wolf said gruffly. Pointing still at the menacing portal on the altar.
    "The frost?! No way, you go!" Jerry exclaimed.
    "Maybe you shouldn't yell at the big scary wolf man, Jerry." Quinn said, taking a step back.
    "We all go. Goblin not act themself. May be in big trouble." the Wolf said, not seeming to be very disturbed by the tone in which he was spoken to.
    Jerry blinked. Quinn blinked. They both looked at each other then up at him. At first glance, they wouldn't have assumed that the Wolf had a soft spot for anything, much less the Goblins. Thinking back, though, the men did remember the goblins threatening them when they first moved into their foxhole about sicking the Wolf on them if they misbehaved.
    "But... the goblins are tough as ice. How could they be in trouble?" Jerry asked.
    The Wolf looked down sullenly and sighed, "I am they watcher, Shaman of Goblin. They hurt. Long for old time. Find it in darkness. Darkness in they heart take them here. I watch they leave. I not stop them."
    "They're your friends." Quinn stated. The Wolf nodded to the words.
    "You too! Goblins tell many story of Quinn and Jerry- they fleshy goblin brothers."
    The men had been called Pink-Skinned-Goblins by the tribe that lived below them for bringing them gold in large quantities so that the two could live in peace. They hadn't realized just how much goblins loved gold, because apparently the stories had spread as far as their Shaman, the Wolf.
    "Alright, Wolf. Lets go." Quinn smiled. Jerry nodded, gripping his fists together tight.

    Together the three of them stepped up and into the dark portal. As they touched it, it shimmered, and changed, and broke into a thousand tiny pieces to make way for the portal that emerged from their hearts of light. They suddenly fell, shouting, into the treetops of a lush green forest.

(_/~'~\_)

     Rift and Saiko were the first back. Frequency returned only a few minutes later, and crouched in the hallway as best he could. Ten minutes after the randevouz time, Note finally showed up with a messy haired Monitor, who still looked mostly asleep. And wet.
    "He required extra persuasion." Note said teasingly as they entered the office. Virus smiled a little.
    "You're just lucky Circuit had me on the floor tonight or you wouldn't have gotten away with that!" Monitor grunted to Note, then turned to Virus, "Sorry we're late. I had to change shirts and dry off."
    "It's fine. Monitor, I'm sure Note explained, but I'd like you to keep watch here while we're gone. We don't know what's going on in there, but there is a good chance if we can get to them, they can get to us. We just want to assess that there isn't a trap."
    "Thats why you five are going." Monitor nodded. Their A-Team was in that group. The four of them were the most powerful members of the gang. Monitor assumed Note was going because, even if he wasn't the strongest, he certainly was the most bullheaded. Asking him to stay would only lead in an argument he would eventually win anyway.
   Virus smiled, detecting the disappointment in his voice, "Monitor, you're just as strong as any of us. That's why you've got to stay here and protect the children. If this isn't an attack from Zald, there is the chance he could attack while we're away. You're the best at keeping watch anyway."
    "Heeyy, I guess I am." Monitor nodded with a smile, "Thanks Top. Now get outta here so I can start ordering people around!"
    "Right. Lets go then." Virus said. One by one they stepped into the portal, Virus first, followed by Note, then Saiko and Rift, then Frequency inched his way into the room and had to put one side of his body in the portal first before he could fit the other half in at all. Rift, passing through the shimmering light, felt a sense of familiarity. The emotion passed as they fell nearly twenty feet to the earth below, landing in a pile of leaves, foliage and each other. As they groaned among themselves, they saw a massive black wing emerge from the portal above them.
    "SHIT! MOVE!" Virus yelled, and the group of them scrambled out of the way as the massive raven-crowbot crashed into the earth, throwing up a mess of leaves and feathers in every direction, shaking the ground beneath him.
    In a metallic groan, Frequency got up from the imprint of his form in the ground. He then stretched, high as he could, ten feet while stretching, then stood properly, not crouching, at a still impressive eight. His wings were tucked in at his sides and his legs bent only slightly. Dark feathers covering the foot-thick stalks until just above where his knee bent backwards.
    "Sorry." his voice clanged, in it's metallic tone.
    "It's alright. Anybody hurt?" Virus asked.

    "Sleep." a soothing voice said. Rift's head snapped around just barely catching the sight of a tall, charming looking man with short spiky brown hair. His cocky grin and dark brown eyes was accented by the golden-brown vest and matching pants that he wore. A massive gun was tipped up against his shoulder, but his other hand was held out, extended with the palm facing the group of them. This wrist was decorated with colorful bracelets and equally colorful tape wrapped around two of his fingers.
    Rift managed to absorb the entire image of him until his mind began to wander. His legs felt weak, and his eyes heavy. Saiko, Virus, and Note were overcome the same way and before long, the group of them fell quickly to sleep in a pile near each other.
    "Shit... a... trap." Virus groaned as he began to slip into slumber.
    Frequency, completely unaffected, turned and looked at the brazen young man who seemed a bit miffed that the bird hadn't fallen under as well.
    "Immune?!" the man questioned with shock in his voice.
    Frequency's eyes glowed brightly, and with anger. As another pulse of them grew near, they burned with intense red light, that seemed to haze over the sockets they were set in.
    "... STOP!" the man yelled, as Frequency charged. Fredrick had no intention of doing so, but was compelled to anyway. Though not completely of his own volition. His legs thrust hard against the ground, again and again and again and... again... and... a...gai...n. Until there was no motion left in them. His beak opened wide, inches from the face of the man. His eyes stopped pulsing, but were still alive with light. His head stopped thinking. He was frozen without ice.
    "Whew... that was a close one." Balthier said, touching his chest with his casting hand, "I was almost a goner. Well, back to waiting."
    One by one, the heroes gathered. As soon as they fell from their portals, they were put asleep. Until finally the portal, glowing bright as the sun overhead, vanished. Balthier gathered up his things, and sat atop a large stone, waiting for the spell to wear off.
    "How did I do?" Balthier asked, as a monk, dressed in dark brown robes and adorning an amulet with a special symbol on it approached him from behind.
    "Very well, Balthier. It's possible that we can save the universe yet." the monk said. His face hidden in the darkness of the hood of the cloak. His hands pressed together, as though in prayer.
    "They'll be quite cross when they awaken."
    "That is to be expected. Just allow me to explain, and everything should be fine."
    "Alright then." Balthier said, yawning expansively before laying back on his stone, legs still crossed upon it.


(_/~'~\_)

   The hooded man stood carefully, leaning on a tall, magnificently carved staff. Many symbols and runes were drawn upon it. The staff was tapered, thicker at the top where his hands rested on one another than at the bottom, where it pressed against the ground just hard enough to leave a dimple.
    "Not long now." Balthier said, finally sitting up, "Should wear off any minute, old man."
    The cloaked figure smiled beneath his hood, invisible to Balthier's eye.
     "To be young again. Ha!" he said, just as the first of the stirrers began to rise.

    Short haired Elle groaned, holding her head as she got up to her knees, sitting back on her ankles.
    "Uhhhgn... Vincent?" she said, eyes opening groggily. All around her were bodies. Her eyes widened, and drew in a sharp breath. At first she was going to scream, then held the breath as she saw the girl next to her breathing steadily. Asleep? She pushed on the shoulder of the girl, who was likewise face-down in the leaves. Asian, just as she was. Her hair was slightly longer than Elle's, but the same black color. Their faces were similar, but not the same. She was wearing glasses, and wore an professional looking nurses outfit- not the kind Elle was used to seeing in the New Slums of Midgar. But the kind she had seen on TV before she'd commit to living with Vincent forever. She'd almost forgot about those days.
    "The... hell?" Where am I?" she asked outloud.
    "Welcome. Please wait there, I'll explain everything when the rest of you have woken." said the brown-robed man .
    Elle looked up, saw the two men sitting at the front of the group of them. So many people! All surrounding her. At least a dozen, probably more. Slowly they started getting to their feet. The girl she had inspected next to her was the next one to wake. She groaned and rolled onto her backside, sitting cross legged in the dirt and leaves. She too held her head groggily, then yawned. She blinked through clear lenses at Elle, who in turn blinked back.
    "Wow." they said at the same time, then grabbed at their own mouths. Even their voices were slightly similar. Not perfectly, but slightly.
    "Sorry... I'm Elle. Who... who are you?" Elle asked.
    The girl blushed and held out a hand, sort of embarrassed she hadn't thought to introduce herself first, "Yin. I'm a nurse from Evanescence. Pleasure to meet you." They shook hands and smiled at each other warmly.
    A tiny, furry presence stood exposed, holding his tiny hooves against the bark of a thick oak tree. His eyes open wide, staring over the field of humans and grass. A small twitch formed underneath his eye as he looked over the group that slowly began to get to their feet and form into groups.
    "VINCENT!" Elle cheered, ecstatically, throwing her arms around him and standing on her tiptoes to press her lips into his. They embraced, even though Vincent was still recovering from the effects of Sleep.
    "Mmmm~... Elle, are you alright?" he asked as they pulled away.
    "Yeah... what the hell happened?" she said, grabbing a bicep with her opposite hand in determination.
    "M-" Balthier began, but was cut off by Vincent, who finished,
    "Magic." the taller, paler, better dressed man said. He pulled the ponytail behind his head tighter against his head and cracked his neck. "It won't work twice."
    Balthier held up both hands and shook them exaggeratedly, "No no, don't misunderstand. I'm not here to attack anyone. We just needed you all to stay in one place long enough to wait for the others. There wasn't really another way."
    The 'others' were slowly coming to their senses, and growing restless. They pulled tight into their groups. A tall woman, blond, well endowed and clad in tight leather stood with one hand on her hip and the other drumming against her thigh. A sixteen year old boy, with messy white hair got up from the dirt next to her, dusting off bits of leaves and dust from his uniform.
    "Lady!" he cheered, bouncing slightly as he smiled at her with warmth.
    " 'ey Wart. You're looking healthy. Guess that wimpy uncle of your has been feeding you alright since you left my ship." the blond said, patting Arthur on the head before returning the hand to his hip.
    "Where are the Space Walkers..." Lance wondered outloud, one arm wrapped around a knee that was lifted. The other hand held a cigar to his lips and the leg of the same side slid in the leaves and dirt, pushing them to the side.
    "You will not need them, so you did not bring them." the monk said, shadows hiding his face.
    "We didn't bring them?" Arthur asked, curiously. He was completely certain that if he had the choice he would have brought the space suit with him.
    "All will be explained. Please allow the others to gather their bearings."

    The groups clustered together in their own groups of those who had been brought here. All except Yin, and the furry creature who hid backwards in the woods. Virus, Note, Rift, Saiko and Frequency. Elle and Vincent. Jerry, Quinn, and the Wolf. Arthur, Lance and Lady. Balthier and the robed man stood before all fifteen beings patiently.
    "Please join them, Balthier. It's about time you got your answers, as well."
    "Thanks, old man." the suave man said, before walking to the front line and sitting next to a massive wolf of a man, who wore a pelt of the same.

    The group looked up with curiosity as the man removed his hood from his head. Long strands of hair poured from beneath the hood in layers of reddish-brown. One of his two eyes burned with an azure mist, frothing over and down his cheek. Not bright, like Frequency's eye, but as though it produced a fog of light-blue mist. Despite this, a certain warmth radiated from him. His other eye was normal, brown, and filled with knowledge far beyond any of theirs. He held fast onto the staff of which he'd been holding with one hand, using the other to pull down the hood.

    "Allow me to explain, as best I can, what is going on. My friends, you are not from this world- but it is in need of you. My name is Erik. I am a walker. I've walked for a long time, and I assure you I am not done yet. I walk within a realm between all realms. Along a path between all paths. My lines are straight, but the worlds are broken around them. I've seen many things, and many things have been show to me. But allow me to show something to you.
    A dark lord of evil, who has seen my lines, my paths, tries desperately to conquer them. He's done so for millennia. Those that have walked before me have kept him at bay countless times. Fighting with him between worlds. Now I seek all of you for a front to end the war of all wars. His name is Chaos Lord Guth'Maur. He is a terrible beast. If it were just him, my allies and I would have no trouble in stopping him. However... he has employed darkness. A darkness that was trapped in a world all its own. A darkness that seeped out in the form of a curse of one family line. A darkness which has its roots set in many worlds. Including each of yours. There is, indeed, a villain or creep that exists in this world now that once lived in yours.
    If you think carefully, I'm sure you can imagine a certain evil that has gone missing."

    All around the assembly hushed whispers were raised.
    "Zald hasn't been making any public appearances now that I think of it."
    "The goblins! Just like you said, Wolf!"
    "Shit. Can't think of anyone who fits "darkness" and "missing" than the Black Knight."
    "... Sephiroth. Why do I always have to clean up after that shitty Soldier."

    The girl called Yin sat quietly, trying to think to herself. Nobody particularly evil had really disappeared. Just Garrick. That's why Yin had stepped into the portal in the first place- because his room was empty and the light was there.
    "But... he was so..."

   "The exception is yours, Yin. Garrick was kidnapped. Used as an amplifier of darkness." the hooded man said. When the whispers began to die down, Erik started again.

   "Guth'Maur recruited allies, so I've taken the strong from his allies world to pit against him. Each one of you has faced these beings before in some shape or form. But do not be fooled- Guth'Maur is a powerful leader, and can embody power into those that serve him. It would be foolish to assume your victory is guaranteed."
    "So where do we start?" Quinn asked with a quizzical brow.
    "By introducing yourselves to each other, and getting to know this world. Unlike your own, there are no beings of great power. No special abilities, no great technologies, no magic and no frozen wasteland evolution. Only people. Billions of souls to be harvested by Guth'Maur. If anything, it is their unique form of conflict resolution, and their massive world population that sets them apart from the rest of you. This is just a farming ground to Guth'Maur, but if he gains control of the souls here, he will certainly be unstoppable. Wander around. Try not to look conspicuous. Although for some of you that will be quite impossible. I will stay here to keep the portals open."
    The predefined groups looked cautiously among themselves, then at one another. Yin felt very self-conscious about being alone. She missed Garrick. Worried about what the old man had meant about "amplifier". Was he okay? Were they plugging guitars into him or what? Her worry showed, and she made only the slight attempt to hide it by moving to the back of the group, near a large thicket of trees rest. Among them a brown-furred, blue-nosed pink-hat-and-blue-backpack-wearing reindeer-child poked his body out from behind a tree and stared at her through his arms, which were firmly gripping the bark on a tree.
    She rubbed her eyes with the back of her hands, not yet crying, but not sure what was keeping her, until the reindeer boy walked up to her on his two back legs. She blinked at him, and smiled.
    "You're adorable!" she said.
    A horrified look crossed his face, and suddenly he began dancing. His cheeks turned red with color and his body wriggled in excitement. Despite this, he said,
    "I am not! Complimenting won't make me like you! Asshole~ asshole~!"
    Yin covered her mouth and began to laugh despite the words. She felt better, and that helped.
    "We should look around then." Virus said, addressing the group as a whole for the first time since Erik had.
    They looked at him. The adults saw only a child. The children knew better. Rift was the first to respond,
    "Where should we go?"
    "I dunno, anywhere." Virus responded, pointing behind Erik and beginning to walk, "Why not this way."
    At first, only the Lost Children followed. One by one, they filled themselves with faith in the bandaged-eye boy. Following until even Yin was making her away at the back of the group. Suddenly, from behind him, there came a great yell,
    "STOP!" Chopper cried, "Wait!"
    The group halted, turned, and noticed the reindeer for the first time.
    "Err- that is... you'll need a doctor." Chopper said, shouldering his backpack and starting to walk forward. The group pressed on. Some smiled warmly. None seemed to mind that a reindeer had just -talked- to them. Between everything else, there was no surprises left for the group anymore.
    As he got closer, Yin offered her hand to him. He did not take it, at first. Holding the straps of his backpack between split hooves. Her hand stayed by her side though, until he finally reached up and took it.
    "You're a doctor?" she asked with a warm smile.
    "Mm. And a pirate!" he exclaimed. A smile formed with the word.
    "Great! I'm a nurse, you know. We can be friends, right? I'm awfully lonely. We'd make a great team!"
    "F-friend? ..." Chopper thought for a minute, and decided it wouldn't be a betrayal to Luffy to make new friends. Luffy was all about making new friends, "Mm! We can be friends. I'm Tony Tony Chopper."
    "Well then, Doctor Chopper, I'm Nurse Yin. I'm glad to be working for you- hee!"

    They broke from the forest wall onto a busy street. Across the street was a massive building, flooded with people wearing extravagant clothing. Many they'd never seen before. Some they recognized all too well.
    "Alright, we're splitting up here. Look around the city- get to know the sights. Don't get lost. We'll meet back at this clearly in two hours." Virus said, looking up and over the buildings. It was amazing. He'd missed the sight of real functional buildings so much. He couldn't repress the tears.
    "Right." he said, sniffing slightly, "Break."

    "Rift, Sai will be fine." Saiko said, pressing her head against Rift's chest.
    "You're sure?" He asked for the fourth or fifth time.
    "Yes. No more. Sai go with Note and Virus. Rift go with others. Meet here, two hours." she repeated Virus's orders with a warm smile. The bald boy kissed her forehead and nodded. Just as he turned to leave, she grabbed his neck and pulled him into a sweet kiss. When they parted, she looked at his scornfully, "No looking at big boob bimbo." Sai said with a scowl.
    Rift laughed and nodded in agreement, "No looking. Got it."
    "You know I'll know."
    "I know you'll know."
    "Good."
    "I love you."
    Saiko smiled, and hugged him one last time before walking down the street with Virus, "I love you, too."

    Luckily for Rift, his girlfriend's wishes would come to be without him needing to use any additional effort. The 'big boobed bimbo', white haired boy, and cigar smoking blond had all wandered in the opposite direction down the street that Saiko Note and Virus had. Rift, however, was more interested in what was going on across the street. So he investigated by wandering over toward the massive, multistory building with both hands in his pocket and shades on his face. With him came the two younger men and wolf-like monster of a man, the girl and the reindeer, and the similar looking girl and a tall man wearing a uniform.
    Similar looking girl ran up to him, with the uniformed man in tow.
    "Hey Rift!" she said, with a warm smile, "Sorry we didn't say hi before- I was just so glad to see Vincent."
    The bald boy blinked, and looked around himself in a confused manner. "How do you know my name?"
    Vincent and Elle looked at each other, and puzzled him with what they said next, "Wrong dimension. My name is Elle Valentine, this is my husband Vincent Valentine." she had the sound of a woman who had married a dream. He knew how she felt- though he'd never worked up the nerve to marry his.
    "Nice to meet you, I suppose. I'm... well you know who I am, but how?" he asked.
    "You saved us. Sort of. You helped save us. It wasn't exactly you, though... uhh... Vincent?" she smiled up at him.
    "Alternate universes, connected to our own. At one point we had to travel through one of yours, and you through one of ours, to get everything the way it should be."
    "That sounds like we're doing now." Rift said. Elle shook her head, "It's not the same. This is completely new to us. There were never portals- and the dimensions we traveled to were all like ours in one way or another... or at least tied. I can feel it- we're... disconnected from this world. It shouldn't be tainted."
    The short-haired girl sighed, and rest her head against Vincent's arm as they walked across the street. Many people stared at Vincent, particularly at his gun, claws, and boots. As though admiring them. That's when Rift broke out in a dead run.

   Saiko. Saiko was right there with Zald. His hand was grabbing her face, and her frail arms were gripped around his wrist in desperation. Rift shoved hordes of people aside, anger deep in his eyes. He was sure he'd seen Saiko go the other way! She must have gotten separated already. Rift broke through the final wave of the crowd, sunglasses fell to the side, people were insulting him as he did . Just as he was about to tackle Zald, he was stunted by a flash of light. Rift skid to a halt, and grabbed his eyes. He blinked two or three times before he heard a high-pitched squeal.
    "Omigod! A Rift cosplayer! Look, Tony! He looks just like him. Hey- hey! We didn't think anybody would be cosplaying LC this year. Did you read the previews on the site? Wow, you did so good! How'd you get the scar like that? Man it looks so real."
    "Damn, man. That's sweet. It's like you're just like I imagined him." the male voice said. Not Zald's. Not Zald's voice at all! Neither Saiko's. Too blunt to be Saiko's. Too loud.
    Rift opened his eyes to discover that the flash was from a camera. He hadn't seen one in years. He winced slightly as the sunlight began to beat into his eyes. 'Saiko' bent down to pick up his glasses, and put them on his face, giggling slightly. She kissed him on the cheek as she did, and Rift jumped back. 'Zald' guffawed and shook his head.
    "So much for roleplaying, huh?" he said.
    "I no, rite?" she responded.
    "What the hell is this?!" Rift yelled, baring his teeth angrily. The two jumped back, blinking to one another.
    "Easy man, it was just a joke." the girl said.
    "Yeah... Come on Ami, we've got more pamphlets to hand out anyway."
    Tony bent down and got a stack of papers from the floor where he'd set them for during the picture. Rift remembered his dream. Was this it? Was it these two that he'd seen? What was going on.
    "Sorry to bother you." Tony said as they walked away. A single pamphlet had stuck to the ground. Before a sea of bodies could march over it, Rift bent down and picked it up. The top said "Lost Children". It was a manga brochure, promoting-
    His life. Saiko's life. Virus and Zald's. He looked over it. Character drawings of himself were there. Of everyone. It had lists of their special abilities inside. A description of their home. Their secret headquarters was written down in great detail on this eight by eleven piece of tri-folded paper. The back showed a sample page of the manga. Rift's eye twitched. It was Volt. When he'd snatched the panda. The first panel was Volt getting up from the floor, and the two next to it to the left were him approaching and stealing the panda from her. There was a middle divider of Saiko's eyes, looking incredibly intense, then a half-page mural of Volt's head being vaporized and stomach blowing his intestines out.

    Rift reeled back, and clenched the paper in one hand. He slowly fell to his knees just as Elle made it through the crowed with Vincent.
    "Rift? What's wrong..." she said, and took the paper from his hand when he offered it.
    "It's... all here. Everything I've known.

                     Imagination?"

    (_/~ Chapter Two ~\_)

    Arthur scratched the back of his head as he walked down the sidewalk. Lance was behind, just finishing the last puffs of his cigar. Lady walked in front, hips tilting from side to side as she did. Strapped to her back was a massive white gun. Its sleek design was feminine in nature, but the hardware was deadly. It took up the length of her back, slipping down just below her hips, with the butt of the gun bouncing merrily against her own. More than once Lance became distracted by this display, but often looked upward to the sky when he realized he'd been hypnotized.
    "So where are we going, Lady?" Arthur asked as he shoved his hands into the pockets of his black and red uniform.
    "How'd I know, Wart?" she responded.
    "Well you're leading, so I just figured..."
    "Ha! You're too damn cute, kid." she smiled and punched his arm. About that time, her looks started to attract extra attention. The city, with huge buildings that towered above, was strangely familiar to Arthur. As though he'd been there before. This portion of it at least. As they carried on, the buildings got progressively shorter to the ground, and seemed less clean. More and more men leered at Lady as she passed. A few times there were whistles and catcalls. Lady became increasingly irritated.
    A tall man stepped out from behind a dark van, and grabbed Lady around the waist. His coat was dirty and looked well beyond worn. One of his dirt covered hands reached up and groped a breast, and a toothless grin crossed his ugly unshaven maw. Arthur stepped forward to attack, hand gripped tightly around the crystal hilt of X-Calibur. The dirty old man lifted his other hand with a weapon. Some sort of pistol. It looked like an ancient model, only new. Or mostly new. It too, had bits of dirt and wear on it.
    "Dun move! The pretty lady is comin' wiff me." the hobo slobbered as he talked, pulling Lady tight against him. For the first time he noticed the massive weapon that separated his body from hers. He took a step back, examining it, "Jesus just come from a sci-fi convention didja?"
    Mistake. Lady heaved a well-shaped leg into his crotch. The hobo doubled over, clutching his gun in his hand and bringing it to his groin. She turned, leg lifted in the air and wrapped it around him, pinching his neck between her thigh and calf. Then she turned forcibly the other direction, lifting the man's neck with the strength of her one leg alone. His back arched and she jerked one last time to throw him backwards into the ground. Arthur slipped his weapon back in his belt. Lance hadn't looked down from the sky. All three walked over him instead of walking around.
    The hobo, left with not even his pride, thought he should give some back by shouting something at them, even if it were just, "WELCOME TO SEATTLE, BITCH!" Ha! That'd teach them.
    Arthur stopped. Lance stopped. Lady slowed before stopping, then turned around. Her look was not one of anger, but confusion. The other two boys were looking at each other.
    "What is it?" she asked.
    "Seattle? We are in Seattle." Lance stated.
    "I thought it looked familiar." Arthur admitted.
    "Back in time. I'll be." Lance sighed, shaking his head.
    "What? What do you mean?"
    "I think this is our planet. Earth, that is. Before we had to move on." Lance said. Arthur nodded in agreement.
    "What makes you think that?" Lady asked, crossing her arms over her chest.
    "My Starship was named after an old Earth city, called Seattle." Arthur said.
    "Could be coincidence."
    "Don't think so... I recognize some of these buildings. Well, not -these- ones, but the big ones back there. They were on the ship. Like they'd been modeled after the city itself." Arthur said, enforcing his opinion.
    "Well, nothing we can do about it, right? I'm getting tired of walking. Lets go find somewhere to sit." Lady whined, pouting only slightly.
    Lance rolled his eyes, "Fine. Lets find a park or something."
    "Aye Uncle!"

    Frequency sat silently with Erik in the Meadow of Portals. He was something of a romantic, giving it such a mystical name. Still they sat peacefully. Not awkwardly. The way adults sat among one another when they knew there was nothing to say. Frequency enjoyed it. It had been so long since he'd had any interaction with anyone roughly his age- though he imagined Erik was quite a bit older than he was, even. Even most the children were as mature as an adult, but it wasn't the same.
    "You are something of their protector, aren't you?" Erik asked, looking up from the bit of dirt he'd previously been staring.
    "Yes. One could say that. I've watched over them ever since they saved me from Zald." Frequency said.
    "Then why not watch over them?"
    "It would not be wise to venture into public where they would not understand the being that I am."
    "Well, then... I'm sure we can do something about that. Come with me, Fredrick Quincy."
    Frequency would have blinked if he'd been allowed. Instead he furrowed the brow above his beak. With a metallic creaking he pulled up and forward toward the robed man. When he was close enough, Erik pressed his staff to Frequency's chest. Bright blue light enveloped them, hiding the two from public view.
    "Wha- what the hell?!"

    Note strummed his harp idly. The golden notes enchanted any of the people he passed. For a fair way, they had actually attracted stalkers, following them just to hear the sound of his purely inspired melody. Virus walked just behind the boy, holding Saiko's hand. She smiled around at the tall buildings surrounding them. Many times, Virus would suddenly tug at her arm, and the two of them would jump into a building, look around like curious school children, then run out giggling as though they were going to get in trouble. Refreshed, Virus let his head sway from side to side in beat with Note's song. If the average passerby was enchanted by Note's music, the boy leader and girl second were enchanted by the average building.
    At the end of one block, Virus suddenly stopped in his tracks and looked in the display window of one two story building. Rows of books were inside, nearly three times as many as he'd had in his private collection, just in the front display. Behind them he could see endless rows of books on shelves inside.
    "Note! Stop, we're going in here."
    "Hmm?" Note asked, turning to follow Virus's gaze. He laughed slightly, then nodded. He clipped the harp to a loop of his belt, beneath his majestic purple manteau. Broken from their spell, some of the followers shook their heads in disbelief, and seemed to wonder how they'd gotten to this part of town. Some stood in a confused stupor, believe they'd suddenly contracted a memory altering disease. Others simply shook it off and went on their way.
    Saiko gasped in awe as well, her mouth agape even as they entered the store. She liked stories. She liked when Virus told her stories, or Rift. With a childlike wonder, and innocence, she slipped away from Virus's hands and walked toward the prettiest of covered books.
    Note in his complete understanding of music and musical instruments found almost immediately a grand piano. It was corded off with thick velvet ropes. Clearly they had an employed pianist to play during certain times of the day to accommodate a peaceful atmosphere. Right now, it was left unattended. And this made Note very, very sad. With a not-so-sad look on his face, he stepped under the velvet roping, stood between stool and keys, threw back his manteau, and sat down. A tenant saw this display, and had turned to go ask the boy to get out from there, when his fingers began to play. Down they danced over the heavy white keys. They had a beautiful weight to them. Note's eyes closed and he inhaled deeply as music filled him. The notes were familiar, but played at a pace much unlike any of the patrons had ever heard before. It was classical in nature, but still an alternative song.

    Oh, what's come between you and,
     Me
    Look right through me.

    Virus smiled. He'd liked this song a lot. Note had played it many times, on different instruments. Virus felt almost connected to it, somehow, beyond his explanation. Through the many many isles of books, Virus found himself teetering on the verge of pure ecstasy. This store along was enough to save the planet from Guth'Maur. Even if he didn't get to bring any of the books back with him.

crimsontoazure @ 2008-06-02T22:57:00

2008-06-03T05:56:22Z

    A droplet of water, poised dangerously on the tip of a tree leaf. The breeze blows gently, and dislodges the droplet. It falls into other that had fallen before it, becoming part of a puddle. The puddle sways, blown by the incoming wind. Rolling down the gray rock the puddle joins a creek. The creek flows, merging into the the swifter moving stream. The droplet follows. The stream glides, pouring over more jagged rocks, breaking into a tiny waterfall as it crashes into the brook below. The brook spills across the soil of the earth, collecting it as it gushes into the river. The river rages, crashing over rock and down canals and through caves and over the land until it leaks into the sea. The sea spreads, vast as the eye can encompass. It spreads until it becomes one with the mighty ocean. The ocean fills. It's every current and wave splashing against every shore and lapping at the coast of the Red Line.
    Even the shimmer of the swords' edges is sharp. Bright light cresting over the tempered Meitou's blade. Another droplet fell, creating the start of a new puddle. Zoro's eyes focused intently. Completely surrounded. Swarms of pirates snickered inwardly. Some had breaths heavy with liquor. Others climbed in and around trees. Zoro's eyes closed slowly. He felt the wind on his skin, against his arms and his chest. Through his pants and on his legs. Against his face, just gentle brushing. Pixies in the wind pushing tiny fingers through his hair. Hundreds grew closer, maybe thousands. He could feel their mass growing as every passing droplet of the recent rain slowly made it's way toward the ground. Their feet pressed into the mud. Their hands tore down branches and pushed away brush. Snapped saplings and crushed bugs in the foliage below. Their blades chopped tree trunks idly, their gunpowder burned thick in the air. Zoro's breath stilled. His hands gripped tightly at the sword's hilt but did not shake. Wado Ichimonji - the Straight Path to Harmony.
    In the sunlight beating down from between the canopy the sword glistened. Zoro's eyes opened, looking deep into the blade's reflection. The surroundings caught in the blade's image was seen clearly, but was not what Zoro was looking for. He looked deeper into the blade, further back, crossing time in a flood of memories. His brow grew bolder, coming together to a point above the bridge of his nose. With his left arm he held the sword up high, and without taking his eyes from it, used his right arm to retrieve the bandanna that was tied around his left bicep. Memories flowed through him until he was forced to close his eyes again. Her mocking grin, those spirit-filled eyes, the long and powerful form of his one true goal.
    The power of his promise to her thumped hard against his heart. In one fluid motion he placed the hilt of her sword in his mouth, and clenched down firm and gentle. His hands tied the bandanna behind his head, and a shadow cast over his eyes. The thud of passion burned within him, growing larger. His eyes stayed tight, pushing out the pain, but secretly he fed off of it. The pirates began to press their attack, starting with an outrageous shouting that scared every form of life away from the forest that wasn't human. Zoro's hands clutched the hilts of his other swords, drawing them both from their scabbards with only the slightest sing. The song hung in the air for a moment but was drowned out by the incoming yells. The pummel of both hilts struck against each other, as Zoro held the swords diagonally in front of him. Even though his ears were open, no sound came in. Even though his eyes were closed, no images ceased.
    "Santo-Ryuu Ougi" he said, his words sharp and precise, though he had not meant to say them.
    The blades in Zoro's hands begun to spin rapidly. A flurry of motion, they were an invisible whir of metal and flesh. The blades so sharp they made nearly no sound as they cut the air. Even if they had, it would not be heard above the war cries of thousands of men coming down upon Zoro. The twigs snapped, puddles trodden, branches cleaved, bushes crushed, all things rustled in anguish as the other pirates trod over them. Over forty lunged through the thicket and into the small clearing where Zoro stood with his blades poised and spinning. Her eyes. Her skin. Her hair. Her smell and her shitty grin! All of it made his heart beat stronger, pulsing blood into every corner of his being.
    "Sansen Sekai!"
    The words were everywhere at once. His body leaned forward then was nowhere at all.

    A droplet fell.

    Zoro's steel found every pirate's flesh. Their cries of war turned instantly, simultaneously to cries of pain. Behind him towered the shadow of a devil. Wings spread wide and mouth agape looking to devour him as his own demon-like eyes finally opened. Tiny and intense with passion, fury, and power. Several pirates stood by will alone. Their cuts deep and many, but would not fall over. Most came to their knees, drawing in their last sweet breath before falling into the dirt to release it again. Their blades had gouged the trees, their feet had imprinted the earth. Their noise had scared the life from the forest. The droplet hit the gray stone, beginning a new puddle. Zoro left no footprint. Had cut no tree. No leaf was scratched, or bark defiled. His blades were sheathed, except for one. Wado. He held the sword in front of him, looking deep into the blade.

    "Kuina. I'm almost there. On a straight path to harmony."

crimsontoazure @ 2008-05-27T22:54:00

2008-05-28T05:46:43Z

Sometimes there are combinations of words that really inspire me. If for no reason other than the composition of it. Sometimes however, it sparks my imagination in a way that is untranscribable. One of these is an attack used by Zoro, only twice -ever- in the One Piece manga. Watching the series over again, I realize I had paid no attention to it due to the fact that it proved ineffective against Hawkeyes Mihawk. Seeing it for a second time, with a renewed respect for Zoro, changed everything. The attack is translated as Three Sword Secret Technique: Three Thousand Realms.

Three Thousand Realms. How fucking cool is that?! A sword technique called THREE, THOUSAND, REALMS. Maybe you don't understand. We live in one realm. That's us. One. One boring realm. Now pretend every person on earth lived in a parallel dimension where we were all were the opposite gender. Okay, that's two realms now. Pretend, now, that robots took over the earth in a different dimension and we all lived as souls inside these metal shells for a different realm. Thats 3. The possibilities are endless, but to be honest, it gets hard to think of variations after, say, 50 or so. Now imagine, all the sudden, your ass just got cut to hell and back IN THREE THOUSAND DIFFERENT REALMS.

Thats right, bitches. You got cut so bad, your parallel self felt it. Three THOUSAND OF THEM did. THAT is a fucking amazing technique.

Or maybe it doesn't mean that at all. Maybe it means something far less sci-fi. A realm is also an expanse of land under one type of leadership . The king owns the realm of Camelot. Liu Bei owns the Wei realm. Things of that nature. So instead of your ass being cut in THREE THOUSAND DIMENSIONS, it's being cut instead by the power of THREE THOUSAND KINGDOMS. The force of three thousand entire armies marching over your ass with their blades tied to the bottom of their shoes. Now that's gotta be some type of hurt I don't even want to think about.

But I could be wrong again, and maybe it means an even MORE obscure definition of realm. A realm can be a domain, or an aspect. The realm of nature, or the realm of fire. Not three thousand dimensions, not three thousand kingdoms, but three thousand forms of life itself has just dug its claws, teeth, roots, burning, acid, gnawing, erosion, drowning, freezing, despair, ambition, passion, and more, into you. THREE THOUSAND ASPECTS OF LIFE, DEATH, EVIL, GOOD, ALL THINGS, CROSSING ALL DIMENSIONS, JUST fucked you up. Zoro accomplishes this at a speed we can't even witness. With a might that even if we -had- seen it, we could not comprehend just how much power had been released from him. From those blades.

I was going to write a short story. Something about Zoro, and how his breath was wet with blood and spit. But after that line... I couldn't think. How does one describe the indescribable? Something that only my imagination sees- and doesn't even see well. Just light. Beautiful light, surrounded by darkness, with Zoro standing among the hundreds of fallen to a single attack. The flashing of blades, thousands of them, yet only three. One thousand for every sword. An attack whose name inspires me so much. One so powerful he's only used it twice in the manga. Three times in the anime during some filler. So few words, and yet, so much passion has filled me. I wish there was some better way to explain, but my skills as a writer just aren't good enough yet. Maybe they never will be.

I was wrong lol