[center][img]http://i.imgur.com/0JQHlYZ.png[/img][/center] [b][sub][code]Tokyo, Japan.[/code][/sub][/b][hr][hr] Inanna’s head tilted to the side when the man stopped in the middle of his explanation to go find someone else. Did he have some sort of business he forgot he needed to attend to? How strange! [color=darkred][i]How rude,[/i][/color] the voice corrected. [color=darkred][i]If he were dealing with me he would have lost a couple of his fingers for such insolence.[/i][/color] That felt pretty extreme to Inanna, though. He refocused his attention to the upcoming fight, occasionally recoiling and clinging closer to his staff whenever the fight got a bit too brutal for him. With this, it was quite a surprise when the arena pretty much exploded with oni. He immediately shot up to a rigid posture before remembering his training, becoming more slouched and lithe as he circled around the oni closest to him with an agile, catlike tread, using his eyes and ears to let the situation make itself known to him rather than try to impose himself on the battlefield. One swung at him and he quickly spun around behind it, using the momentum to deliver a strike behind its knee that quickly crippled it. “I ummm,” Inanna stammered apologetically. “I’ll be right back!” he opened up a portal under himself and dropped into an area that he had noticed to be relatively calm earlier. He surveyed the area, frowning at the carnage. [color=darkred][i]Inferior stone constructs...[/i][/color] the voice mused inside of him. [color=darkred][i]What could they possibly be after?[/i][/color] Inanna shook his head. There were people who looked like they couldn’t fight their way out, and he could help them, and that was really all that mattered to him at the moment. What followed was perhaps a rather surreal experience. For every civilian that was cornered, injured, or otherwise unable to make it to the exits, Inanna would portal over to them and quickly send them to a safe area outside of the arena by way of another portal before anyone could object. He did this over and over again, until he couldn’t see anyone else to rescue, and returned to the original oni he crippled previously. “Excuse me,” Inanna implored. “Could you maybe tell me why you’re here?” he repeated the question, once in Japanese and again in his native Persian and the many other languages he learned in Iran, until he eventually ran out. [hr] [center][img]http://i.imgur.com/7UxgEHd.png[/img][/center] [b][sub][code]Tokyo, Japan.[/code][/sub][/b][hr][hr] Jill shrugged when the skeleton pointed out how strange the sudden weather was. “It is pretty crazy,” she agreed. “But it’s not like we can just go up there and punch the clouds or somethin’.” Probably would’ve been fun if she could. She swung her gaze back to the floor. The announcement for another fight stirred it back upwards, and Skeletor suggested she try to enjoy the match. And try she did. Her eyebrows raised at the occasional sudden turnabout or quick blast of ki, but she wasn’t really into it. She just felt pretty burned out, in general, and it was tough to get going again after that. She was startled to action again by the rumbling noises, tremors, and eventual full-on invasion in the arena. Her hand shot straight for her keys, almost reflexively, but Pit Stop beeped a shrill warning, and she leaned to the left as a stone club sailed through the air next to her, smacking the keys right out of her hand. “Oi,” Jill grumbled as she turned to face the stone oni. “Care to try that again?” Surprisingly, it did just that, swinging at her in the exact fashion it did moments earlier. She was more than ready this time, though, shifting away from the blow and stopping to shake out her injured hand. The two stared at each other for a moment before Jill unleashed a sudden roundhouse kick straight into the statue’s waist, sending cracks across its body. She smirked as she felt her boot make contact. “Ya ain’t even listening, are ya?” Jill asked. It just swung at her again. She focused ki into her left forearm and took a tenser stance, and the blow just glanced off her guard. She shrugged. Guess she had some much-needed stress relief to play around with. She leaned back, waited for the stone oni to ready another strike… And shot forwards, striking her head straight into the monster’s gut. It promptly crumbled to pieces around her. Pit Stop beeped once more. Her head felt a bit funny. “Yeah,” Jill said. “Probably shoulda worn a helmet… speaking of which-” she leaned over and picked her keys up off the ground. She struck a pose as she held the keys out in front of her. [b]“HENSHIN!”[/b] In a flash of light, she became Beautiful Blaze, sporting the iconic blues, helmet, and scarf. She slipped one of the keys off the ring and stuck it into the device on her belt with a flamboyant spin, causing the belt to light up in light blues. She threw the rest of the keys back to Pit Stop as she surveyed the rest of the stadium, the ring of keys landing on an extended metal claw. Yeah, she couldn’t burn any more time playing around with these losers. “Take the bike and scan all the wounded,” she told the drone. “Wire the data over to any emergency response that might need it. If one of those rockheads gives you or them any trouble, just run ‘em over.” The robot made a few beeps of affirmation before hooking into the blue bike. It shot one of the handlebars into Jill’s hand and zoomed off, weaving around seats, debris, stone oni, and various people with astounding agility, coating the occasional individual in a bright blue light. Something occurred to her before she stopped watching the carnage, though. “So just who’s trying to fool us, here,” Jill asked the skeleton, figuring he was smart enough to be thinking about this, too. “These things aren’t actually oni, are they? And it doesn’t sound like their style to send out a bunch of rocks and stay out of sight…” She took the dismembered handlebar and swung it in place, producing a glowing blue whip. Well, at least she was starting to feel in gear again... [hr] [center][img]http://i.imgur.com/ZohkpEb.png[/img][/center] [b][sub][code]Otaru, Japan.[/code][/sub][/b][hr][hr] Rosie sighed. Everything just felt so [i]beautiful[/i] right now… He still wondered just how exactly they did it. Even when he worked downstairs, the spas lacked a certain [i]je ne sais quois[/i] that they had here in these onsen. And downstairs they had hellfire to work with. It was a fleeting thought. Something that rose out of him and floated away like all the tension he’d been accumulating over the past several weeks. He didn't even know he had this much stress, how did he go so long without this? He sighed again, leaning his head backwards. He wasn’t sure how long it was before he sat back up again. Maybe he dozed off again? He wasn’t entirely sure. It was certainly long enough that he should be on his way again. He slowly stood and rose out of the water, a hand reflexively extended back in search of a lover’s that he hadn’t seen in decades. He winced as he pulled his hand back, and used it to fix his hair. Why were old memories getting to him like this? Was this the same spring he took him to? It couldn’t be… He huffed as he grabbed a couple towels. After some time, he was properly dried, dressed, and groomed once more. All those trite earthly concerns started coming back to him. Mainly that he wouldn’t be able to get any actual work done with all these soldiers and robots running about. It would pass, of course, as all mortal conflicts did, but it was still something he would simply have to bear in the meantime. And who knew how long that would take. He supposed he could get involved and get it finished himself, sooner, if he really had to. A matter of swallowing his pride and tolerating whatever boorish mercenaries that happened to share his goals. Either way, it was time to go. Heels clacked against the floor as Rosie walked into the lobby. He stopped, however, when he saw someone else. Fur, white suit, gold jewelry, cane… talk about flashy! He didn’t look all that happy, though, in an amusing bit of contrast. And also slightly wet? It probably started raining since he got here. The latter two details were both somewhat enticing. “Well you look absolutely ecstatic,” Rosie said, a coy smile undercutting his sarcasm. “Were you hoping to melt some of that stress away?” He leaned in just ever so slightly closer, the dim aura of negativity drawing him closer. Directly feeding off of him probably wasn’t going to happen, but for now he was fine with absorbing what fraction of that darkness he was exuding at the moment.