AWAKENING

[cordibus]

Who: Everyone
When: Midnight, June 6th
Where: Green Valley Orchids
What: It is time.

THE FINAL COUNTDOWN

The subway stop near the orchards was not the type of place that most people liked to be when darkness fell. The orchards near the school were set up almost like a public park, which wasn’t so bad in and of itself, but it’s also the area where over half of the murders happened before the curfew was first put in place. It was a place people didn't go unless absolutely necessary and most had started taking alternate routes to avoid the stop. As one of the first subway stations built in the city, its architecture didn't really mesh with those that came after it. It had jagged corners where the smell of wet earth lingered, making it unpleasant even for those brave enough to continue to use it, and there had even been talk of closing it permanently once routes and nearby stations had been revamped to be better able to take care of the traffic.

Due to this, it only has the bare-bones of a shelter, fallen into disrepair as the curfew was enforced city-wide, and a couple of night guards, (probably already asleep due to the lack of activity they’re expecting), so characters arriving there will be mostly unnoticed. For a place that had such a bad history, most people rightfully avoid it.

For most of them it will be their first meeting with each other. There will be a bit of time to talk before their phones display a zero. Plenty of time to talk about what they suspect and what might just happen...and that horrible vision they had shared. Then there’s that countdown on their phones...ticking away the last few minutes.

ZERO UNTIL MIDNIGHT

The lights go out when the countdown ends. The lack of sound is, for lack of better word, worrying. Very soon, only the light of the phones serves as makeshift flashlights for the small group. But soon, even as words get displayed, a deep male voice echoes, which could be much more worrying.

FINALLY! Ahahahahah! Ahhh, damn does it feel nice to be able to speak and not
just write. Hey lambs, are you all ready?

Considering the choice of words, that might be Luci.

It's time. Can you feel your heartbeats increasing? Your mind about to explode? Questions swirling in your mind? Just make sure you don't go alone. Groups are
best, go all together and you'll never find the answers.

The voice laughs again.

Not that you have much of a choice at this point! Have fun, give them hell, and tell
them I sent you! I'll be taking care of that pesky guard problem for you.
...Let's go for a night stroll."

Communication ends just as abruptly as it started. No time to back down now, as the door where the guards are staying is quickly locked on its own before the subway system itself appears to be taken over by a virus that flashes on every available screen. With a click, the locked doors to the outside are swung open.

A voice in your mind warns you this might be the biggest mistake you'll be making in your entire life...and yet your heart feels like it's going to burst from your body from the joy you feel...

AWAKENING

It begins with a scream nearby. The same noise that they heard during the vision. The trees begin to turn grey as the sounds of hundred of creatures moving can be heard from all sides. The application opens, displaying them all in real time.

The group is surrounded.

By all logic, they should be running, but their legs feel bolted to the ground. They can't move.

The creatures begin to get closer. The trees start to rot nearby.

Breathing begins to increase. The sound of voices and memories quickly flashing before their eyes that might cause some to clutch at their head...exactly the same thing that the man had been doing back in the vision. If they look down at their hands, they will see them fading, see-through.

Yet for them, something is different. Just as the creatures are about to attack, they stop. A vision of the Velvet Room flashes before the eyes of those gathered as the two attendants silently nod. Then a return to reality as a light of color pierces the night from their hearts. A single voice can be heard, drowning out anything they might be hearing.

The time is now. I am thou, thou art I! Your mind is trapped, but I can set your soul free! My other self, will you die, or fight back?

Accept me for who I am! Forge this contract by letting go of your fears! Revolt against this world, and TEAR OUT YOUR HEART!

It laughs and fades, as time quickly returns to this world. There's only a few seconds to react before it all goes to hell. A faded hand to reach into your chest.

The choice is yours. Death...or Awakening.

THE BATTLE IN APPLE GROVE

It’s a feeling unlike they have ever felt. Never have their bodies been so alive. Their minds fill with lost memories, their bodies adapting into tools to defeat the creatures before them.

Defeat...destroy...unlock the skills of your heart and show them what it means
to cross you."

The voice is encouraging, almost. To those with navigator skills, the voice speaks up once more as well.

Lead them into battle. Hone their skills into true annihilation!"

It’s time to reclaim the night.

[OOC: For the purpose of this battle, the shadows all have 1HP and are strong against nothing. That means any attack will be able to kill them, weapons and guns included. For this log only, CHARACTERS WILL NOT BE ABLE TO COMBINE SPELLS, as knowledge of this will be unlocked later on. There are about a HUNDRED shadows to be defeated, so there are as many needed for your characters to enjoy killing off. You are free to NPC them and to create situations and close calls.

An OOC PLANNING POST can be used to ask questions or to form teams.]

Comments

Christopher Noro (Koujirou Genda) l OTA

[beastfang]

Walk the Tracks (A)

Christopher wasn't exactly certain how he managed to make it with time to spare considering the circular route and ducking particularly spiteful cops patrolling near and after curfew. This reason and the fact that this particular line was normally avoided by most, even during the day, has him blinking up from his phone and at the other occupying the very barren subway car.

"Well at least I know now I'm not the only one that went against common sense."


In the Underground (B)
The decay and overly damp dirt was the first sign this was the last stop as he walked into the station. There's only a slight grimace at the smell before he hops off the platform and heads over to whoever may be standing around. The gray hiking backpack he had borrowed from his father gently placed down on the floor by his feet as he attempts a small smile that's likely more grimace then anything considering where they are at.

"Do you think the ones meeting up outside the station have all gathered?"

Because he was not certain if the few people he knew from the app would be there or here if plans had changed.


Marching Orders (C)[Awakening]

There's a steady mantra in the back of his mind telling him to turn back and leave, even if it meant walking on the tracks out of the station. Anything but following the others outside with nothing but cellphones and the occasional flashlight to light the way into the trees. Yet something feels like anticipation before a match skittering across his nerves as the scream is first heard and everything starts to gray out and rot as what seems like liquid darkness rushes out.

So they were going to die.

Then that voice and something is guiding his hand and there's just pain as blunt finger nails of his own hand dig into his chest as if trying to claw something out and there's blood now even as he can't focus.

He was ready for anything to be shot at him, his stance was solid and he would endure because that was what a goalkeeper did.

And everything seemed to stop for one moment as the weight and warmth in his head registered and that was his heart and it was somehow still beating in the palm of his hand. All before there's just memories and the discordant feeling as two lives try to mesh and meld. Christopher Noro who seemed to let things float by him, Koujirou Genda who was Teikoku's Goalkeeper driven to keep going and through this all his shadow grows in the flash of light that happened the moment his hand had ripped his heart out. Elongating and shaping into something not human and not fully any one creature either.

Black as the shadows and compact with red eyes, for a moment he thinks of Beast Fang until he sees the six wings that had once adorned the back of Zeus' Aphrodi and the clearly serpent like tail thrashing in green and red scales. The sight of this being that seemed to darkly chuckle in his mind had distracted him from the gauntlets in his school colors now on his hands and the black, blood red, and bronze uniform that is so familiar but with an odd blood red symbol on the left side of his chest.

Defeat...destroy...

The words echo in his mind along side a new/old memory that suddenly gains new meaning in this situation as he slides away from a lunging shadow and catches it in armored covered hands before the pointed ends puncture it enough that it suddenly fades away.

"Victory at all costs. Losing is unsightly."

In this moment losing was not allowed and it should have worried Genda how easily it was to slip back into such to not think about what he was doing and what all of this meant.


A Helping Fist (D)

Despite not being at all trained or even mentally prepared to do so. Genda has endured and attempted to adopt from blocking soccer balls to punching and slapping away creatures. His form is far more defensive then aggressive but that doesn't stop him from doing so, even moving in to take the brunt of a surprise attack for someone. On rare occasions the inky black creature taking the role of his physical shadow would solidify for a brief moment as an enemy in Genda's line of sight suddenly goes up in flames or ends up being slashed apart by the creature's claws.

Those moments seem to cause Genda to frown, though considering he default expression seems to be frown few likely notice the difference.


Medicine for the Soul (E)

Despite trying his best to help decrease the number of things attacking all of them, something instinctively makes Genda remain back from the thicker knots of creatures. Eyes scanning the others and trying to pinpoint any injuries before someone with said injury takes a small moment to breathe or step back from the fight. Only to have an odd sensation as their injuries knit together as if they hadn't happened. Genda doesn't stay long after it happens and instead moves on to the next injured or follows directions from whatever navigator manages to catch his attention to direct him.

Someone may also notice that during his little quest to keep people healed the kid is not really watching his own self as much and may end up in a bind or two that someone would have to get him out of.


WILDCARD

((Will match prose or brackets. Hit me with anything that strikes your fancy.))

Medicine for the Soul

[catchthishand]

[ The more Okuyasu fights, the less he has to think about if he's really Okuyasu or if he's Romulus.

It's easier to move through the trees, from patch of shadowy stands to patch of shadowy stands. For every one he takes down, two more seem to take it's place- no matter whether they were taken down by his own fists or by the claws or fangs or teeth of his oddly changed Stand.

He can feel his own wounds occasionally patch themselves up, usually with a glimpse of someone else's Stand out of the corner of his eye- but this is the first time he'd seen someone go and heal him when they were about to get jumped themselves ]

Hey! Move!

[ He's bolting forward, and, between one footstep and the next, his shadow flickers and changes into a wolf, bright wings splayed wide as a beam of light flies from the wolf to the healer, and then it vanishes, fading back into the shadows.

When the light hits Genda, it would make him feel more agile, like he can duck out from oncoming blows better ]

[beastfang]

[Situational awareness had given a warning of the creature that had taken the opportunity to jump when he had been focusing on the other, but Genda had prioritized it to not be worth completely dodging and thus possibly mess up his spell. Trial and error had taught him how much he could take before it become too much.

It's why suddenly being yelled at to move and there being a bright light coming towards him causes him to slide farther left then he had planned.

There's a moment where he tilts his head in question at the other, even as he notes the wolf fading away. A Marchosias then? A proper one as well considering Genda's creature is far less wolf like then what the name it was given implies.]

Are you alright?

[catchthishand]

[ The wolf is less wolf than a chimera, ragged stitches showing where parts had been sewn into place, and it's wings drag on the ground as it lunches and leaps from Okuyasu's shadow, to the stands, flickering in and out of existence. ]

Yeah, you? Keep an eye out for these things, don't know what the hell they can do, yet!

[ It's said with authority, like if nothing else, Okuyasu knew what he was doing with this battle ]

[beastfang]

[There doesn't seem to be any actual acknowledgement of what Okuyasu says, because Genda barely gives any facial cues to give away what he's thinking. Only a slight shift in where he's looking as his own Marchosias solidifies for a brief moment to call a brief burst of fire to burn and scatter a nearby mass of shadows that had been inching towards them.]

Nothing in need of immediate attention. Is there any idea of how many more may be out there?

[Because numbers would help figure out how much longer he can use these abilities before something in him gets wrung completely out. As well as how long he can ignore his own wounds to keep fighting and healing others before the incessant whisper in the back of his mind finally tells him he needs to heal himself.]

[catchthishand]

No clue- haven't even seen the user, yet.

There's gotta be some kinda limit, but they're mindless!

[ Like his brother's Bad Company, or the Harvest- the more there are, the dumber they were- and the further they could go. ]

Might not even be here, for all we know!

[beastfang]

You believe they have someone controlling them?

[Like the being currently curled in the back of his mind and weighing in his shadow that it almost felt like it was holding him at times.]

Is there possibly a way to trace such to their originator?

help with that fist!

[draculabackwards]

Alucard has been quickly running through the thick of the battle, slashing at the Shadows with his broadsword. His dress is like that of a European lord from a long ago age. It does not seem out of place at all on him.

His own Marchosias is a large beast, a dire wolf with large leathery bat wings. "Agi!" he yells in command, setting a few Shadows alight that had been creeping a little too close to Genda.

[beastfang]

It was the feel of the heat from said spell that had Genda turning towards the other and noticing how many had crept up on him as he had been moving around some tangled roots. The creature behind the man gets more attention then what Alucard is wearing. Considering some of the things he's seen other people wearing out here he's learned to just not overthink such things in this environment at the moment.

Instead, there's just a slight tilting of his head as Genda scans the other both for signs of aggression as well as injury. Some of the people he's come across have not exactly made the choice on who was the bigger danger easy regarding them or these shadows. Yet that instinct that had been more subdue before these beings in their own shadows came about, is not going to be ignored as his own Marchosias forms to help clear a path towards the other.

Both beings as different as can be but somehow he knows they're the same as well.

"Are you injured?"

[draculabackwards]

"Not thus far. Just trying to get through all these masses," he said. "If you also have a Marchosias, then I must have spoken to you at some point on the application." Who would have thought that having a demon for a username also marked you for your own Persona?

[beastfang]

That is a thing Genda hadn't really thought about since everything had happened, especially when he knows Sakuma and Kidou are out there. He still hesitates over admitting anything regarding affirming the man's observation. It's likely visible to Alucard over such before Genda gives a brief nod before sliding over just enough to be able to keep watch for any new attacks while still keeping the other in his line of sight.

"That's correct."

A moment as fire flashes from the more feline looking demon Genda has at a small group of shadows that had been converging together.

"Have you seen any of the Eligors? One in particular that used ten on the app, while moving through the field? Or the Dantalion that used eleven as a call sign?"