[hr][center][sub][color=cecece]DAY 1[/color] [color=ea3333]《》[/color] [color=cecece]STEELWATER [Landing Zone - A][/color] [color=ea3333]《》[/color] [color=cecece]Late Morning[/color] [color=ea3333]《》[/color] [@Exit][/sub][/center][hr][table][row][/row][row][cell][url=https://www.roleplayerguild.com/posts/5384460][img]https://i.imgur.com/mtl26ft.png[/img][/url][color=2e2c2c]▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇[/color][/cell][cell][quote]

[color=8d8e8f][center][sub][i][color=bca346]"What is it like?"[/color]

[color=white]"What is it like? Well... it's a lot like running. Like... like being free. Like grasping at the wind and letting it curl around your fingers and your hand. That's what it's like. What it feels like. Like a promise to take you somewhere... anywhere you want. Sometimes, if I run fast enough, it will."[/color][/i][/sub]

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Christina was out of breath. Her chest hurt, her muscles burned, her fingers were numb and her vision was blurred. She couldn't concentrate, not with the ever present noise in her head. A fog of colors and sounds evaporated from a pool of doubt. Of her refusal to understand or comprehend the thing she'd bore witness too that was now burned forever in her mind. A nightmare no one had expected but she was now desperately trying to survive.

It had been like this from the start. Her and her team had dropped into the middle of the chaos. Six souls plunged into the fires of a city drowning in creatures born from the stigma and those who rose to defend it. It was messy and dangerous and a miracle that they had managed to survive to their objective. A combined effort of luck and careful maneuvering saw them safely through Steelwater amidst constant shelling and ambushes. They had remained resourceful. But while they could handle the little threats and rely on eyes in the sky to keep out of the way of the larger one, no amount of training or practice had prepared them for what they were to discover at journey's end. What they had originally assumed was a mission to retrieve some rich, scared asshole looking for an escort out of the city was anything but. A different man found them. One who was not lesser but known by many around the world as a hero. A soldier. An Aeon. But here he was different and while at first they didn't know how, all of them were very quickly educated.

Christina had no intention of dying in Steelwater; Leaving the broken world before her path was realized and she'd found the answers she was looking for. She'd already decided in that moment that she was more useful to the fight alive than with her team, and so she ran. She wanted out and she was going to drop anything and anyone who got in her way. So when she came upon aggroed fiends blocking her path, she did not hesitate. A shouldered rifle barked once for each creature she could see, placing a single piece of metal inside each skull. They collapsed, clearing the way, but as she was about to resume her retreat, she was distracted by a brief flash of light. A bolt singing through the air and sinking into the chest of a remaining aggressor, killing it.

Christina immediately dropped to a knee and swung around to meet the stranger with the sight of her rifle. It was hard to tell, what with the way the individual was half concealed in a tree, but there was enough to identify the armed figure as human in what looked to be some form of military attire. There behind him was an outline of another body she couldn't quite make out and outside the tree, there were an additional two adult persons who were very clearly deceased. A strange scene for her to stumble upon that didn't seem to make a lot of sense at first, but Christina did know two things: The earlier light was no ordinary attack and whoever the stranger was, he [i]did[/i] just kill a stigma invested creature. They could have been an Aeon, although it was difficult to be sure with just the information she'd been given. If it was, she couldn't know if they would play nice. And if it wasn't, she'd seen weirder guns than fancy crossbows.

Not waiting to see if they would decide to use it on her, she spoke up. [color=bca346]"Who are you?"[/color] She asked in the brief silence. The silence was interrupted by the muted sound of a distant explosion. Her eyes snapped in that direction where she could briefly make out a figure falling out of the sky.

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[color=99945e][b]Summary[/b][/color][hr][color=99945e]Christina retreats from something or someone who has wiped out her entire team. Exhausted but determined to escape, she stumbles upon and quickly dispatches a number of stigma creatures. However, she's also alerted to the presence of Peter [@Aeolian], who has taken shelter in a nearby hollowed tree, and asks that he identify himself. In the distance, an explosion briefly distracts Christina who glances in the direction and catches a figure [@Prisk] falling out of the sky.

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