[hr][center][img]https://i.postimg.cc/Ghn4HjHH/150150.png[/img]     [img]https://i.postimg.cc/3JJpycx6/c1f9aa79b4a342d06f8ac66f3ff341c9.png[/img] [/center]
[right]Interactions: Lynn, Ella, Nori, Kari, Tyler, Vicky, Poor Corey, And a certain cheeky apparition
[code]Warehouse[/code][/right][hr]

Inexperience can make it difficult to discern what is abnormal in a scenario that’s already foreign. The delineation between expected and unexpected blurs as you try not to look out of place and go with the flow. So, when the party began to unravel like a dropped ball of yarn, Daniel Mars initially didn’t react.

Until the screaming began.

Lynn had appeared to zone out after Daniel finished speaking - with the easily-worried boy assuming he’d bored or offended her in some way. Even when her eyes returned to him, filled with sudden, primal terror, and her hand gripped his and began to yank him out of the party with expletive-laden haste, Daniel elected to simply follow her lead. 

He should have continued to do so but instead he spared a glance that would sear into his mind forever. Unnatural angles, reality melting down and suffocating every unfortunate soul in the dregs. The sounds. God, the sounds. Skin separating like torn paper as bones bent and burst out of the flesh, screams of a pitch and intensity that Daniel had never thought possible. All of this in the first seconds, before he and Lynn passed through the door and into the evening woods, her foresight or quick reaction speed had given them only a taste of the nightmare that was unfolding inside that warehouse.

This girl had saved his life, even in hysteria the rational part of his mind knew this. He was one of the lucky ones. These truths did not comfort him as the weight of all that had happened in the span of seconds threatened to crack Daniel's mind and made his legs buckle under him.

Panting, sweat dripping from his face and pooling onto the floor. The only victory he achieved was that his stomach was so thoroughly knotted that he couldn't vomit up the contents of that afternoon's lunch, even though he desperately wished to.

[colour=SkyBlue]“I knew these parties were against the rules!”[/colour] Daniel despaired into the void.

With magnetic force and precision, Daniel suddenly clasped his hands together. Burying his face against them as his eyes began to drip. This girl, Lynn, had saved him. Saved his foolish, worthless, sinful life. All he could do was weep on the grass as the sounds of horror intensified in the building behind them. He recognised many of the screams, the panicked yells, the pleas that fell on unsympathetic ears as whatever demonic forces that had arisen played with their food.

[colour=SkyBlue]“F-father who art in heaven, Hallowed be… thy name…”[/colour] Daniel began to murmur shakily. There would be little salvation for him, he knew that. Knew that even if his love for God hadn't wavered, his sense of right and wrong had. He had questioned the word of his father, flaunted his disobedience and for that he'd face whatever consequences awaited him.

[colour=SkyBlue]“Thy kingdom come; thy will- will be done on earth. As it is in Heaven.”[/colour] But his peers, these children - whatever their individual morality may be - did not deserve this fate. They'd made no such pledges of virtue, had not dishonoured their superiors in the same way.

[colour=SkyBlue]“I pledge myself to Your mercy. I give You honour. I leave room for You to do what Your wisdom knows is… is…”[/colour] wavering, Daniel’s warbling plea faltered into hopeless despair. What was happening inside this remote slaughterhouse was not right. Was not fair. Was not…

[colour=SteelBlue]“[b]JUSTICE.[/b]”[/colour] Daniel Mars cut-off the prayer with a voice that was not his own.

Eyes drying, heart slowing into a steady, ominous rhythm. A presence had emerged onto this plane of existence, birthed by a desire for impartiality and fairness, or perhaps having always existed in some nascent form. The call of the guilty and repentant Daniel Mars had lured it into the world, providing a conduit to deliver a verdict.

Daniel's eyes deepened to an unnaturally dark blue. His spirit judged the righteousness of the slaughter within the warehouse.

And found it wanting.

Standing, changing. Daniel Mars looked into the eyes of Evelynn Serenelight, his face placid.

[colour=SkyBlue]“I-”[/colour] he began - an aborted attempt of gratitude, sympathy or perhaps confusion. He would never know, as his head jerked forward like a child roughly correcting the posture of a toy.

It undid Lynn's selfless work, marching back into the warehouse with heavy stomps. Skin thickening and growing into jagged, black stone. Daniel Mars’ face was swallowed beneath a cocoon of the cracked obsidian shell, shaping itself into a perverse facsimile of a knight's helm. 

The screams muffled and the roulette of light inside the warehouse swallowed the black knight as it left Lynn behind. Valor cared not, there was much work to be done.

[hr][right][code]The Warehouse Massacre[/code][/right][hr]

What awaited inside was a circus of violence. Those that fled with reckless abandon - throwing themselves through glass and cracks in the rusted walls in the process - had survived, those that had lingered a half-second too long were largely smeared across the walls and floor, the rest were clawing at each other like rabid animals to shove themselves out the doors. Warriors had emerged as well, shown now to Daniel through Valor’s eyes.

Nora, Ella, Kari, these names meant little to the apparition but it knew them all the same. Knew some of their habits and mannerisms, if not on an intimately personal level. All these new, superfluous, details flooded its mind. They were kind, likeable, and currently being batted away with the indifference only a truly powerful being could muster. Kari, the apparent strategist of this duo, tended to the wounded. Valor knew their problem even without the personal details, they were focused on the wrong thing. The act of saving lives or defending honour is, in and of itself, a selfish endeavor. There is only one motive that matters. 

There were others of more immediate interest. The discordant wails of Victoria Prescott, the callow mutterings of Tyler Fox and, in a surprising instant, the confused and trembling body of Corey Aquino. The loose voice inside Valor’s mind was notably less complimentary of these three, yet weakly insisted they were misunderstood in some manner. Valor did not care, they would face judgement in some future time.

A splat. Perhaps some would face judgement sooner than others.

The boy, Corey, went from dazed fear to no expression at all. The pure concussive power of the beast jerked down onto his chest like a collapsing tree, caving in his torso and rupturing his limbs in a shower of gore - Valor noted an unfamiliar simile in its mind, comparing it visually to a water balloon falling from a roof and bursting against the sidewalk. It had no time to interject regardless, yet Valor felt nothing all the same. Whether or not this boy could’ve been saved was irrelevant, Valor’s purpose was singular.

[colour=SteelBlue]“[b]ABOMINATION.[/b]”[/colour] Valor spoke, reverberating and bombastic but no discernable emotion. [colour=SteelBlue]“[b]YOU HAVE COMMITTED UNRIGHTEOUS SLAUGHTER WITHOUT PROPER JUDGEMENT.[/b]”[/colour]

Arm outstretching, white fire exploded around Valor’s hand and instantaneously formed into the shape of a burning spear. The black crusader stood rigid, addressing the monster with calm certainty.

[colour=SteelBlue]“[b]THE SENTENCE IS DEATH.[/b]”[/colour]

Then, with sudden and frightening speed, Valor hurled itself forth with the spear’s bladed tip aimed at the beast.