Not-with-a-whimper

"Wait, who's that guy in the middle of the street over there with the scythe, and what kind of animal is that beside him?" asked Gwen to Fang. Escavalier interrupted, however, and decided to answer for himself. "The name of the person is of no significance. That is a Strider next to him, and they seem intent on facing some opponent," Escavalier retorted before turning to look out into the distance where the two in the middle of the street were facing. "That fool! He'll get them both killed facing an army like that!" Escavalier called out. "Then what are we standing around here for?" asked Gwen. "Come on, let's go help!" (OOC: Okay, I know that no one's fighting anyone else's character just yet, but I figured I'd let you all know how I kind of pictured it going down. Since there is constantly a team of human and companion, a lot of emphasis will be placed on teamwork. That includes not only combination moves, but also entire attack plans, where one action is followed by another and so on. It would be helpful, when a person is writing their character's actions, if they would write the character's intended plan of attack, and then the person being targeted decided how much of the attack hit, if any, or what was blocked, etc.)

Kusarigama cursed under his breath, an incredibly unusual thing for him, then slammed on the breaks as hard as he could. "Well, ladies and gentlemen, looks like we'll have to go on foot from here. Avoid the swords, shield, and the man undoubtedly behind them both at all costs. We've got some fires to put out!" At that, all of the students currently in the bus headed out, while Kusarigama flew out and around on the broom, using it's wind based powers to snuff out the flames in vacumes.

"Buildings, huh?" said Joseph. He considered for a moment before replying. "Well, they have a rather peculiar architecture. They seem to have borrowed heavily from China in their influences (if France exists, then why can't they?), or maybe it was the other way around. Both civilizations are so old it's hard to tell which came first."

Blitz stepped up to talk to Takeshi. "I'm glad that you did so, however reckless it may have been. I believe it to have been worth the risk. Since you're the one who called us all in together, it's obviously your call on what we do here. I would, however, suggest that we form battle teams of people and striders that could work really well together to take down other striders. Believe it or not, Sonic says that the guys we've seen up to this point are child's play compared to some of the monstrosities ahead. Even worse than that are the human/strider teams that Vallen has on his side." Escavalier looked indignant at Fang's request. "Fool! It will be you who is joining us, for Escavalier and his trusty human sidekick will never follow another." With that, Gwen took her lance and his Escavalier incredibly hard upside the head with it. Turning to face Fang with a warm smile taking the place of the near murderous look she had held towards Escavalier before, she said "Sure! We'd love to travel with you two." Walking down the street with his human partner, Absol saw a hanging poster. "Look, Zero, it's a gathering for those who oppose Vallen," spoke Absol, calling Zero's attention to it. Zero cursed under his breath. "How could they think that broadcasting a gathering of Vallen's enemies would be a safe plan? They might as well have sent an invitation for him to launch an all out assault." Sure enough, out at a distance Zero could see a swarm of Striders headed towards the town. "We might as well give the others a fighting chance, right Absol?" Zero asked. "Right. Who else is going to slow these things down until their meeting is out?"

(OOC: That'd be fine by me, though I guess I don't have much say so now that I'm leaving, lol.)

Blitz turned to the others in agreement. "It's great that someone set up this meeting to take Vallen down, but honestly I can't say that it was the best of ideas. What if Vallen were to have found out about this?" Blitz pointed out. "Aw, you've got to learn to let go and enjoy living in the moment!" stated Sonic, his companion. Necro sighed. "I see people walk into the hospital everyday, wounded and at death's door, all because of Vallen and his Striders. If there's anything I can do to help, anything at all, I'll do it gladly." Chop Chop was proud of his human partner, but also worried that his selfless nature would end up costing him his life. Gwen smilled at Fang and Growlith. "Well I'm Gwen, and the rude one's Escavalier. I know we may have looked a little foolish earlier, but I was training. I've been doing my best to fight off Striders when I can, but honestly I'm not quite as powerful as I need to be right now, especially if I'm going to take on Vallen. Escavalier told me that there were others like us, but you're the first person/strider team I've seen so far. Do you know anything about any others?"

Kusarigama put his bus in gear as well, heading straight for the area with the fire as fast as he could. (OOC: AnsemTheWise, if you're gonna stop people, now would be the time. Otherwise, the wheels on the bus will keep a goin' round and round.)

(OOC: I'm not going to leave the rp, I'll still keep up with it, but I feel like some of the heroes need to die here, and since I doubt many other people will be okay with letting theirs die, I'll offer up August to the slaughter. Poor August. Damion, the next time you get an opportunity, I'd appreciate it if you'd write in a dynamic action sequence between Cain and August. He doesn't have to do any real damage to Cain, he's just got to fight him decently before dying. Since my character will be dead, I probably won't post again, but I'll keep up with the story. Thanks for making this one of the most entertaining rps I've ever had the pleasure to be a part of!)

Gwen paused her training for a moment when she saw the adorable puppy. "Awe! How cute are you?" she asked him as the smiled brightly and began petting him. "Fool!" called Escavalier in a short, pretentious tone. "That is no simple puppy. Do you not feel the heat from within? He is a Strider, a being from the Other Realm who'd traveled to this plain like I, though surely with less grace than the mighty Escavalier had. He is very unlike Vallen's forces however, so we should expect no competition from him, not that it would be anything I wouldn't scoff at, however." Gwen quickly apologized for her Strider's rudeness, then asked Growlith's partner was anywhere around. After Necro had healed everyone he could manage for the day at the hospital, he invited Blitz and Sonic to his house, to which they happily agreed. On the way there, however, they noticed the fliers hanging about. "These guys want us to meet at the pub if we want to fight against Vallen? Dang, either these guys are ballsy as all get out, or this thing is a trap," said Blitz, to which Sonic agreed. "Ya know, I could blur in and out of there in a snap," offered Sonic. "I think that you and me should definitely pay them a visit," replied Blitz. "Even if it is a trap, we should be able to take out a few of Vallen's forces. If not, then it'd be a great way to gather strength in numbers for the fights ahead. Necro, you and Chop Chop can come with us, but wait a little bit away. I don't know how this is going to go down, so I'd rather not have the one guy I know who can fix me up in no time flat lying injured on the ground beside me." Necro agreed, so the two pairs of human and Striders headed to the pub. Sonic, finding nothing really wrong in his quick, and I mean quick, sweep of the place, told the others to come in, where he saw a person and Strider waiting. (OOC: All enemy striders are basically monsters, so just treat them as such. Feel free to invent special striders to fight or base some off of videogame enemies. They can be much larger than five foot, unlike the companions, but they still can't be human like in appearance.)

(OOC: Noel can't talk to monsters. We let that slide last time, but it's so noncanon it hurts. You can pull off what Damion suggested just fine, but only Lightning, Serah, and Caius can make monsters into allies within the confines of the Final Fantasy XIII universe.)

(OOC: Sorry about not starting it up yesterday! It was... busy. Anyway, on to the rp! If you don't know what to do or where to start, I suggest working with others on the thread. Also, if a character of yours has a secret past, ability, or item that may prove to be a game changer later on, please specify it within one of your first few posts so that we can avoid people pulling random mess out at the last second without president.) Gwen was exhausted, her knees hitting the ground and her breath coming in ragged gasps as sweat covered every inch of her body and made her deep red hair frizz up, but she kept on pushing forward, training ever harder with Escavalier, her companion. "Fool! You'll never best Vallen at this rate. His power is far superior to yours, even with such a gifted knight as I on your side," called Escavalier, trying to rile her up to continue the sparing match between the two of them. He always seemed like he felt that he was better than everyone else and that people should be honored by his presence, but deep down, he had a good heart and a steel will, intent on justice for the death of Vallen's sister, Justine, with whom he had been very close. Gwen stood back up, using her own lance, a weapon gifted to her through her connection to Escavalier and thus the Other Realm, as a cane to prop herself up on before charging at her Strider. She may not like it, but she knew that if she had the power to do something about the atrocities being committed by Vallen, she had to do everything in her power to stop him. Blitz lay in the hospital bed, Sonic impatiently pacing back and forth while Blitz was being bandaged. Maybe it hadn't been the best of ideas to rush in and attack those other Striders after running ten miles straight as fast as Blitz could go, which was considerably faster than most humans ever since he'd met Sonic, but considerably slower than Sonic's blazing speed. Blitz's shoulder still hurt like hell, but he considered it his own fault for being reckless and over estimating his skill in relation to that of the Striders. The nurse who had been bandaging up his shoulder seemed more okay with Sonic being there than most people seemed to be, something both of them were thankful for. Another lady came up and tapped the nurse on the shoulder, getting her attention and whispering into her ear. The nurse beamed, smiling brightly as if she were seeing a sunrise for the first time. Turning to Sonic and addressing him, something few people ever did unless they were shouting, she said, "Don't worry, we'll have your friend out of here in no time. Better yet, he'll be good as new!" With that, the nurse headed off to the front of the hospital. Necro had just gotten out of school for the day, having gotten the usual stares of either disgust or awe the entire day. In any case, people avoided him and only stared when they thought he wasn't looking. Necro was fine with it, though. He enjoyed the company of others, but was just as happy watching them from a distance. He met up with his companion, Chop Chop, right outside of school grounds. "My lord," began Chop Chop, bowing, "was your day at 'the school' pleasing to you?" Necro smiled slightly, the fullest extent of a smile anyone ever got from him. "Oh yes Champion, I believe that people may be warming up to the idea of me. I got only twelve death glares today, while yesterday I had gotten twenty." Chop Chop was disheartened. How could the rest of the world look down upon Necro when all he ever did was help others? The boy had the mysterious power to remove injuries, even illnesses, granted to him upon joining souls with Chop Chop, but still people viewed him as a freak. Some called him "Skeleton Boy" while others thought of him as a "Miracle Child". At any rate, the boy's normal life was over. Chop Chop felt rather responcible, as Necro had been a perfectly normal boy before meeting him, and because admittedly, Chop Chop's appearance was a bit off putting. Necro had handled the burden incredibly well, though, viewing it as a gift that not only did he get this ability with which to help others, but he also gained the best friend he'd ever had. "To the Hospital to see your mother and remove afflictions, then?" Chop Chop asked. Necro smiled slightly and nodded his head and the two of them headed that way. Blitz saw the nurse come back into the room, but this time she had a boy, no older than fourteen and no younger than twelve, following behind her. The kid seemed nice, but really reserved. It was then that Blitz noticed something else of far more significance. "Whoa, you've got a Strider too?" he asked. The boy seemed similarly shocked. "Necro, son, I'd like you to meet Blitz, one of our patients. When I saw that he had an Other Realm companion like you, I immediately offered to look after him. He was injured while trying to save some people from some of that tyrant Vallen's Striders. I was wondering if you might not like to use your gift to heal him up?" Blitz looked confused for a moment while Necro placed his hand over Blitz's wound, a white light seeming to pull the injury from the shoulder to Necro's hand, healing the shoulder as the injury left. Necro smiled and Blitz mumbled out a thanks, they then struck up a conversation as Necro went around healing people, Chop Chop and Sonic talking to one another as well. The nurse looked on as they walked down the hallway, contented that her son now had someone who could relate to him and even be his friend. Meanwhile, a masked figure with a scythe and a companion by his side gets increasingly closer to his goal, a final confrontation with Vallen to avenge his father, killed in the massacre that started Vallen's reign of terror.

Joseph caught the jovial humor as they were told that they could leave the cabins if they wished. "Yeah," he followed up, "and in more than just appearance. Next thing we know he'll actually use utensils instead of just shoving everything down his gullet." Joseph then turned to step out into the fresh breeze of the open air, the sunlight reflecting beautifully off of the waves before him.

(OOC: I'm going to be honest, I got the impression that Archer was a d-bag earlier, so the last few posts with him kind of confused me.) Kusarigama generally liked to keep a low profile around school and act like a normal guy, but it was true that he was the SGA President, and it was his responsibility to take the lead in situations such as this. "Alright, you heard them, the Neutral district's in trouble! Some of them probably had it coming to them, sure, but there were a lot of innocents there, too. All water and air users follow me, we'll try to get this fire under wraps!" Kusarigama headed out towards the bus and waited on the others, while Koneko and Jykell followed after Anthony. (OOC: I figure that only Azure Flame's new character and Sora's Baby's character will follow after him, unless I'm missing someone. I'll message Sora's Baby, but if she doesn't choose to hop on here then we'll just continue the story.)

August, having luckily never hit anyone during the incident but unluckily having been hit by Cain's blastwaves, decided to change tactics. He knew it might not deal much damage, but it should be disorienting enough and block his vision. August used the concurrence "Windburst" to create a small tornado around the powerful enemy, hoping that when it detonated as it inevitably would, it would launch Cain into the air where the charging Chuck could hit him with one of his limits for massive damage.

Kusarigama, Koneko, and Jykell all left their individual classes after there was a large amount of fuss to go to the cafeteria, the largest section of the school where apparently everyone was gathering for an announcement. Kusarigama was confused when he saw what looked like two of the guy he'd met before both at the same place, but wrote it off for the time being, waiting for a message from the principal of the school, Ichigo. Something terrible must have gone down, because everyone looked as serious as Death. Well, looked as serious as Death the Kid, Kusarigama corrected himself. Lord Death was much less serious.

"Wave my staff around? Really? Have you not been paying attention at all while we were fighting? Unlike most mages, I prefer to get up close in combat, using the rod as a magically enhanced weapon. People rarely realize just how potent of a weapon it can be, and better yet, people are totally taken aback by my style of fighting. Ahh, the looks on their faces. Priceless." Joseph then realized that he'd been daydreaming, or at the very least drifting off, so he pulled himself back to the conversation. "It isn't without risk for me to be up front, as I'm not nearly so well protected as Brutus or good at dodging as you are, but I manage. I unfortunately don't know the highest levels of magic yet, but I think outside the box. Surely that's worth something. For you, I'd suggest continuing to take advantage of that secretiveness and infuse it with magic. That'd be a scary sight to see, and a scarier one not to." The three of them were getting on the boat at this point and the crew ushered them into the the compartments until they could get everything all set up. Joseph then turned to Brutus, realizing that he had accidentally left him out of the conversation thus far. It was difficult to think about other people when Gen was around. "So how about you, oh great knight? Got any special abilities hidden up your sleeves we should know about, aside from the monstrous suit of armor, or do you just hit things really hard and shrug off direct blows from Giants?"

(OOC: Oops, my bad.) August was unfortunately hit with the spray of bullets, the searing pain clouding his judgement. He leaped towards Cain and cast an Inferno sigil, bursting through it in flames, hoping to hit Cain in midair.

(Accepted! Alright, since that's everyone I know of, I'll go ahead and start tomorrow. The rp isn't closed, so if you feel like creating a character and joining up, feel free! I also encourage joining up with rpers that way you don't get left out or confused about what happens! If anyone has a suggestion, feel free to pm me. I hope everyone can have a great time with this and I'm very excited that so many people decided to join.)

(OOC: You accidentally forgot August charging with the longsword.)

"You didn't use the bathroom near your room, did you? You used one somewhere else. Well okay then, I guess we'd better let the King know we're set to go and we can all talk more once we get on the ship," inserted Joseph, eager to get out of the trouble Brutus may have just caused.

August was shocked and thankful that Calder was still alive, but he didn't know how much longer that would last for any of them. He summoned a longsword and flew through the air towards Cain, hoping to at least make an opening for the others.

(OOC: Well, Cain is in the next floor down, so I figured that through an open hatch would be good. Besides, if one wall went down due to the defeat of a behemoth, why not another, right?)

"The ones who've made pacts are the least of our worries," Joseph began, staring down at the floor in great concentration, his mind somewhere else. "If the information the King and his men got out of the captive and the ancient texts is to be believed, then the attack on Balandor was done on the same night as attacks in many other countries as well, probably with more devastating results, in hopes that it would allow this "True King" of theirs to open the Gigas Gate, effectively allowing Gigas to run free without the need for a pactmaker. Hopefully their plan wasn't successful, but we shouldn't rule it out. You're right though, on needing a plan for taking out Gigas with just the two of us. Brutus's Knight is powerful enough to handle one on it's own. Heck, I bet Brutus is powerful enough to take one out on his own if he gets the jump on it. The two of us, however, need to develop a strategy. Tell me, what skills do you have aside from your quick speed, combat prowess, great instincts, and excellent aim with your daggers?" he asked, barely refraining himself from adding "allure" to the list. It was uncalled for after all. One simply doesn't say those sorts of things to teammates. Especially teammates which could drop one in an instant.

(OOC: Nah, it's fine. Character accepted.)