Lugubrious

Phoenix Wing (A Fairy Tail RP-Always Open, Open)

<Snipped quote by Lugubrious>

To be fair, I do not think anyone expected Frenzy Plant to do that.

@hatakekuro

Then I'm doing my job.

<Snipped quote by Kal-El>

i think i is safe for one dragon slayer since our poisn one has dissappered ask zarkun and caits andyou ca be part of any of my harries backstory

@Roseletta

Nice new signature!

Phoenix Wing (A Fairy Tail RP-Always Open, Open)

Or short if Frenzy Plant's would-be assailants forget something vitally important to their plan.

Phoenix Wing (A Fairy Tail RP-Always Open, Open)

Frenzy Plant's Elite

When the signal came, it took the form of an asinine shout rather than the toll of a mighty bell or the explosion of a cannon, but it was all the impetus Frenzy Plant needed to begin. No sooner had the announcement of the game's commencement been given then the sky above turned cloudy. In the palms of her hands, clasped together, a blinding bright light formed like a star being born. It grew, forming a basketball-sized orb that to all onlookers seemed terribly familiar. Air streamed toward her from all directions, rushing at the sorceress as if in a vacuum. It whipped at the hair and clothing of all in its path. To stare into the sphere clutched in the Librarian's hands was to stare into a raging, tumultuous manifestation of the primal power that surrounded the planet—a fearsome tempest, coagulated atmosphere, a world's worth of extreme weather in miniature. Every breath in the arena was held, if not stolen, as Indigo's Whitesky Eye came to be. A roar of effort escaped her lips as she rose into the air, buoyed up by power while her Eye vibrated violently, and with all her strength she bent down and brought her arms up so that her head and the Eye would meet.

Instantly, a wave of the accumulated wind burst outward. At the beginning, it wasn't strong enough to throw her allies to the ground, but as the gale spread it picked up speed and force. Only a second later it reached its limit and began to turn, creating a column of whirling air in the colosseum with Frenzy Plant's elite as its center. With the image of an apocalyptic storm fresh on the minds of those who'd witnessed the Whitesky Eye yesterday, this more tame turn of events constituted both a relief and an oddity. Above the noisy torrent of air the voice of Indigo came, somehow amplified. ”The true power of the Whitesky Eye! I can sense everything in a fifty foot radius. This is my domain!” Floating in the air and with eyes as brilliantly white as the clouds of a snowstorm, the sorceress punctuated her proclamation by performing a dramatic sweeping gesture with her hand. Abruptly the twister 'closed up', its vicious rotation increasing in speed and density so much so that nobody within could be seen.

Inside, closed off from the rest of the guilds by Indigo's tornado barrier and sheltered in the eye of the storm, the other soldiers went to work. Dmitri, not eager to be outdone, called, “Asura!” to summon forth four extra magma arms from runes on his back. His brutal magic power burned to be unleashed, but in accordance with the plan the flaming brawler reined in his lust for battle. Concentrating deeply, he channeled his power into his summoned arms. Intentionally he separated their runes from their convenient locations on his body to float in the air as the arms became larger. When Dmitri willed them to, the great arms beat the earth, scooping chunks from the ground to fuse in the heat and pressure of their clenched fists into igneous rock. These, Dmitri guided his arms to carefully place beneath where Indigo floated, ghostlike. Zander, using his ruby sword as a conduit, mortared the blocks together with his signature magic substance.

To hasten the labor and turn at least ten minutes' work into one minute's, Indigo uttered another incantation. ”Tailwind!” At her call, silvery gusts of wind blew in to surround her guildmates, drastically increasing their speed. With the aid of Hyun and Owen pitching in where they could, Zander and Dmitri piled the stones together into the shape upon which the soldiers had agreed only moments earlier. The biting cold of Indigo's cyclone helped cool the heat-infused stone, tempering it, and as precious seconds ticked by, Frenzy Plant's objective took shape. From outside, all that anyone could see was the imposing shadow of a large, cylindrical mass taking shape.

Before long, the twister began to grow thinner. With surprising speed it shrunk, becoming only about a fourth of its original diameter, but something else became apparent as it did. Sitting on the top of the cyclone was a tower, the stones of its walls burned black and sealed together by dazzling red ruby. Rough-hewn, it nevertheless looked remarkably like the guard tower of some medieval castle, complete with a doorless entryway near the bottom and holes in the walls to be uses as windows. Atop the tower stood Zander, Hyun, Owen, and Dmitri, looking down at the competition from on high. A white glow from within, closer to its base and the whirling cyclone that stretched from its underside all the way to the ground, confirmed the presence of Indigo keeping it aloft.

A very small smile graced Hyun's face. ”We must be silly fools to make such a grand spectacle of ourselves. Still, it is quite amazing what we can do.” She took a deep breath of the sky's clear, free air before moving toward a hole in one side of the roof. Through it she could drop from platform to platform until she was at the bottom, but before she did, she glanced at her teammates. ”I'll do my duty, then. Give them hell.” With that, she disappeared.

For a few seconds, Dmitri's hand had hung in the air, waiting for a high-five. Zander took his time returning the gesture, though it was not begrudgingly. Creating the Howling Djinn's Keep from nothing in such a short span of time had been nothing short of a titanic effort for them, but the battle hadn't even started. ”Here we go,” Zander declared. ”You two know, I'm sure, that there are a few mages down there who can fly. I expect them to come for us any moment now that the barrier storm has been converted into our propulsion system. Fortunately, they will be our only challenge. From here, we three may rain spells on our enemies unhindered. We can also simply chase them down; the tornado keeping us up can also ruin the day of anyone it happens to bulldoze over. No matter where they may flee into the city, we can chase them down. They may attempt to fight us, but we have every strategic advantage we could ask for, and there is no way to split us up.”

Owen grunted in approval. Rapier in hand, he remarked, “A fortress's got only one weakness, in that it don't move, an' it looks like we conquered it. All's left is t'conquer these guilds.” His comrades did not nod, knowing that despite this advantage, each would have to put all of their strength and their wits into the coming fight to beat monsters like Nolan Waltz, Ammy Silver, and Damian Gerard. Here, more than a hundred feet up, the soldiers of Frenzy Plant would wait for their foes to come to them.

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

How can I help, do you think? I'm open to whatever reasonable suggestions you might have to improve the experience.

The Three Realms War [A DMC, Bayonetta and Darksiders RP]

Mad World

@zarkun@lazo@kapuchu

Though at any moment Souta absolutely felt as though the lambent swarm of yellow-green could sweep him away like a riptide and drown him in the depths, he counted his lucky stars that it appeared to be acting more deliberately. He'd already swung a Trawler as the first portion of the swarm descended to condense itself into the shape a biped armed with melee weapons, and his attack dispersed it before it fully formed. This meant, unfortunately, that the majority of the glowflies were knocked around rather than crushed to death. ”Annoying,” he remarked as the body began to reform and at least four more started to take shape. ”Can't get a preemptive strike in. Brute force only works when they're packed in real tight.” No sooner was the observation made than the first enemy construct attacked. It raised its axelike weapons, which pretty much amounted to extensions of its body, above its head as it ran forward. This time, Souta's flailing fishhook carved the construct's torso from its waist, but he realized that physical force alone would not behoove him. He sent out his second Trawler imbued with water in an overhead swing. It sliced straight down the reforming swarm's body, and when it hit the rocky ground, it exploded in a miniature geyser. Waterlogged, the glowflies lost formation and collapsed into a feebly struggling bug puddle. The sight might have been amusing if only Souta could spare the time to focus on it. ”Couple hundred down,” he murmured wryly. ”Couple trillion to go, maybe.”

A sideways sweep stalled the next wave of enemies, but rather than continue his defense, Souta was forced to shift his attention as several lance-shaped swarms shot his way. What they had in spades for speed they lacked in turning, though, so only the first one landed a hit—ripping away a small strip from his pants as he attempted to dodge. By then the humanoids were closing in again, so the smith resumed his momentum to spin around and rake both Trawlers into them. Yet again, he found himself distracted. This time, the shape of a bird swooped toward him, diving like a falcon, with the apparent intent to pierce through him. Water manifested from his hood into a makeshift barrier sprayed out in a trail behind his moving arm, countering the avian threat with just enough force to rob it of its lethality and soaking the bugs thereafter. With that problem dealt with, Souta resumed his fight with the humanoids, during which he discovered that a few more bestial foes were headed his way as well. The various missiles headed his way didn't stop, either. There would be no rest, it seemed, for the wicked.

Meanwhile, a certain intrepid hellhound engaged in a campaign of island hopping. Staying one just ahead of his many, many pursuers, he navigated the vast, three-dimensional array of floating stone slabs with a singular goal in mind. The eye of the sky titan Ourakekem soon shifted slightly, moving from the battle unfolding to the beast approaching. One could not imagine the wheels turning inside the head of this bizarre, alien being, but it certainly looked as though it watched with critical consideration. A brief, low whistle echoed through the air, and the swarm ceased its haphazard pursuit of Fenn to reconvene elsewhere while he was obliged to take a longer route according to what stepping stones were available. Very soon after, a great amount of them converged on the final platform, newly rotated by Ourakekem's psychic power to be face-up. They clumped together to form the shape of a vile monster, replete with eyes, tendrils, and spikes, to stand in its way. Only one vigorous leap behind this facsimile Levimalis lay the sky titan's eyes, a vast green moon silhouetting the hivemind nightmare that, for Fenn, might or might not be a worthy foe.

Pokemon: New World

The afternoon wore on as Olivie and her two Pokemon traversed the sprawling, murky forest, and as time went on she became more and more convinced that she was utterly, irredeemably lost. Odd lights glittered among the underbrush, combining with the steady swish of leaves blowing in the gentle breeze and the play of sunlight through the thick canopy to create a dreamlike effect. As she wandered, feeling oddly weary, Olivie recalled tales of fairy Pokemon that evoked less of the sunshiney, cheery, playful image typically bestowed upon them and more of the unnerving images conjured up by fairy tales. As best she could remember, mischievousness and mystery were by far more indicative of fairies—the dancing lights that lulled people into trances and guided them into the darkest parts of the woods to never be seen again, the eerie fascination with people that became uncanny, and a delight in deception and malice under a veneer of innocence and purity. The story of a rebellious young girl who ran away from her home into the forest, where she met a fairy that showered her with kisses and candy before luring her back to its home to eat her, sat at the forefront of her mind.

Yet, she encountered no fairies, despite the increasing weirdness of her forest. Following right behind her Cacnea, she skirted around a tree to find that the path abruptly ended. ”Crap! This place is impossible. Knew I shoulda come in from the north insteada north-east.” Olivie gave an exasperated sigh and turned around to retrace her steps only to freeze in her tracks. Some ways back on the path she came, a large, square, dark shape sat, motionless. Very distinctly, she knew that she hadn't come across any such obstacle so far. Her Pokemon, sensing her distress, followed her gaze and immediately tensed up on spotting the thing. Their presence emboldened Olivie, and after steeling her fighter's resolve she not only started toward it but strutted, head held high, in its direction.

When she got close, she could see that the shape appeared to be a square rock of significant size, with slashes of color across its surface that made it look as it had been carved from a badlands mesa. Patches of dirt and grass lay on its top, with a few mushrooms interspersed among the blades. Olivie stopped and crossed her arms, watching intently. ”Some kinda spook, are ya? Let's see how you like this.” After a few moments, she crouched and grabbed a pebble from the path, stood, and then lobbed it at the boulder. The instant the projectile hit, the entire stone began to vibrate violently. The brunette could not help but take an apprehensive step back. Her Pokemon released cries of alarm as legs burst from small holes in the bottom the boulder, their pointed ends spearing the ground and lifting the entire mass up. From an aperture on the rock's front an ugly head emerged, its surface a mottled, bumpy red and its eyes on stalks. A hideous noise escaped from the beast's clattering mandibles as it shook. Fists clenched, Olivie watched as it rammed its claws together, causing a shockwave to shoot out in all directions.

From everywhere at once, stones and dust flew toward the Pokemon, coalescing into a single mass held in its great pincers. Barely did the girl realize that this elaborate display was an attack in time, and she threw herself to the side as the Crustle slammed its head into its created boulder, launching it directly at her. ”The hell!?” It sailed through the air and crashed into a tree a little ways beyond the path, noisily leveling it on one blow. Chips of wood and shredded leaves filled the air, but Buck was already on the attack. The Bidoof threw himself at the enemy, fangs bared. Olivie bared her teeth as well, her face twisted into anger. ”Knock his block off!” With surprising speed, however, the Crustle swiped at her partner with a big claw. Buck took the strike head-on, and the weight of the shelled limb knocked him senseless. Before he'd even slumped over, his Cacnea comrade charged forward, swinging its needled arms like propellers. When it entered the Crustle's range, it lashed out with the points of its pincer twice in quick succession, making an 'X' with their trails. The onslaught sliced a chunk of plant matter loose from the Cacnea and hurled him, shrieking,into the underbrush. Ignorant to the failure of her friends, or perhaps dead set on avenging them, Olivie charged straight at the creature and planted her fist into the boulder shell before it could react.

For a moment, she stood still, but she could not contain her gasp of pain any longer than that. ”Ahh!” she snarled. The thing was, quite appropriately, rock-hard. Pulling, back, she attempted to escape, but the huge bug had already clamped down on her ankles. A violent tug caused her to fall hard on her butt, though her rage dulled the hurt. Spittle flew as she faced the Crustle down and yelled, ”You want some?! Huh?! I'll give it to ya!” It released her with one claw and held it up, in which stones began to coalesce into another boulder. Adrenaline surged through Olivie's body, galvanizing her to kick the giant bug in the head. While it withdrew its stalk eyes to prevent harm to them, it did not seem deterred. Fear brought from her a wordless bellow as she attempted to wrench free, but her enemy would not let go.

Her voice died down as the projectile swelled up, but another voice suddenly replaced it. ”Painkiller!”

From behind the Crustle, another form rose up, and from its upheld arm protruded a brilliantly shining blade. Olivie watched, stunned, as the gleaming razor sliced through the Stone Home Pokemon's shell vertically. Like butter the solid rock parted, and the guillotine did not pause when it reached the Crustle's body. Yellow goo splattered the shocked girl as the blade bit into the bug, instantly killing it. Its boulder fell apart into harmless chunks. Olivie's eyes lay fixed on the being that launched the one-hit death blow: a tall, dark warrior, black and red with curved metal edges all over. As she looked on, it delivered a stiff bow to her and stepped back, allowing its trainer to approach.

”Ugh. I'm so sorry. I was sure we'd meet again, but in such an unpleasant situation...you must feel awful.” Before her stood a slender guy with wavy blonde hair, primarily green clothing, glasses, and a beanie. Disbelief crept over her face as she not only recognized him but also realized that the terrifying warrior was his Pokemon.

”...Barnie?” she finally managed. Her instincts told her to get the bug gunk off her face, but she stopped herself from moving at the last moment. She wasn't some sissy girl who couldn't stand getting down and dirty in battle, after all. ”You better not think this is some kinda favor I need to repay! I was...just about to kick its ass when you came along!” Of course, this was blustering, but she quickly squirmed out of the dead bug's claw and stood up, hands on her hips. The boy gave a short laugh. His Pokemon, meanwhile, folded its arms behind its head in a relaxed manner totally at odds with its fearsome appearance. Bernard made to speak, but Olivie cut him off. Looking over the ex-Crustle, she whistled. ”Your Pokemon sure killed it, huh? Damn monster deserved it, though. I thought all Pokemon battles were nonlethal?”

Bernard shook his head gravely. ”All battles between trainers, and most battles in the wild, end with fainting. But sometimes, really nasty customers won't quit. That's a matter of survival. This Crustle was a real piece of work to begin with, but according to the townsfolk it became really vicious after the recent Nincada awakening deprived it of its food. All of a sudden, people's Pokemon were on the menu. Two Glameow and a Herdier disappeared. That's why they put up a mission for someone like me to do. I've been hunting for it all day.” He glanced at the corpse. ”In all the wrong places, looks like. I never imagined it would be so close to town after the attack last night.”

Olivie, who'd returned her unconscious Bidoof to his Pokeball and was checking the condition of her irritable Cacnea -who'd only just tottered woozily out of the underbrush- froze. ”We're near Feyhollow Town? I've been wandering around the woods for ages!”

Scratching the back of his head, Bernard replied, “Uh, heh, well, the edge of the town's only about a minute that way.” He pointed down the right path in the the nearby junction. “By...by any chance, what do you do when you come to forks in the trail?”

A shrug greeted his question. ”Same thing I do for mazes: always follow the left wall.”

The two began to walk, with the Cacnea grumpily plodding along right behind Olivie. Bernard's Bisharp, affectionately called 'Painkiller' brought up the rear, its lackadaisical manner masking its sharp eye for danger. Immediately after the foursome embarked upon the right path, the trees began to clear. Judging by the orange light of a setting sun, the day was just about done. Bernard was clearly happy that Olivie wasn't being as callous to him as last time. ”You can get your Pokemon healed up in town, and i-if you don't mind, we can tell the mayor about the Crustle. Well, in that case, you...you might have been walking in circles.”

”...What!?!”

Capes of Denver: A Worm RP

Oh, cool. We'll get to work on that.

Capes of Denver: A Worm RP

Assault Team B Collaborative Post

The knife cut pretty deep for something haphazardly whipped round a heat field. Just a flesh wound, perhaps barely more than a scrape, but it still hurt. She'd need to get somebody to fix that... she wasn't so good at sewing, unfortunately. Still, once Eyeblight was immobilised by heatspots, Messiah melted the knife down to metal slag as she had with the gun, ensuring it couldn't be used against them again. Which only left Eyeblight himself, and his claims about the detonator, and oh, dear, that sure was a way in which it worked. Move the thing too far from the bombs, or let him detonate it himself... That... that horrible, creepy, evil... she shook her head with a disgusted groan, beginning to reason with herself about the possibilities, and looking away from him for a moment whilst maintaining the heatspots. Can't let him psyche me out, or let him actually use the detonator. He'd surely do it anyway even if he was freed, he's exactly that sort of person. If the bombs explode by getting too far away from the detonator, chances are they'll do the same if the detonator's destroyed, since the dead man's switch is a thing... wait, CRAP.

'Margrave, Tulpa, come to me. Neither of you go near him,' she stated bluntly, ordering both Margrave and, just to be safe, the more reasonable Tulpa. Margrave's power involved turning objects into toys, and she imagined turning the detonator into a plastic object would trigger a possible DMS just as easily as incinerating it would. She couldn't afford to let the impulse-driven teen have his way about that.

"Think yourselves my superiors, do you? A scarecrow and a seer, commanding intellects far beyond my own, ordering me about like some nameless peon...? I cannot help but smile." The Margrave stood, his weight on his back foot, his body facing nearly sideways, looking out of the corner of his eyes at Messiah and Eyeblight with a slightly tilted head. "When feeble imaginations fail to rise to the challenge, I alone am willing to do my duty." He swept his hand aside dismissively to condemn both his teammate and his enemy for their crime of underestimation. No doubt baffled, his allies looked upon him some varying degrees of incredulousness or apprehension. Ignoring this, the Margrave stepped forward, his determination plain on his face. With crossed arms he looked down at Eyeblight, the corners of his mouth downturned in a bitter frown. Then, he turned back partially to look at Messiah. "Watch, you doubter, as I transform the detonator into a mere toy, incapable of sending any signals to any bombs. With my power I will defuse this situation! I have calculated this plan so that it is completely foolproof!"

Surprised, and quite pleased, as to how things turned out, Evelyn let out a sigh of relief as the knife only grazed Messiah. She'd definitely have to ask if she was okay at some point, but it appeared that Eyeblight had other things for them to deal with. Pinned in his entirety, he did what many villains did, he monologued, and it made her smile beneath her mask, an expression she was glad no one but her was aware of. She'd been counting as he spoke, even keeping it up through the revelation of there being bombs involved. While the capture of Eyeblight hadn't taken that long, his explanation and Margrave's subsequent proclamation had bought more than enough time for her power to reset.

She felt things click into place, exhaling normally despite the feeling of pleasure that went through her as her power opened itself back up to her en full. She looked to Margrave and held up a hand dramatically, "Margrave, you've proven yourself aplenty. I was wrong," she said, her mask hiding her expression, but not her tone of honesty. "Still, the detonator and the bombs are set so that if they lose signal, as Eyeblight has so kindly explained to us, they will detonate." She glanced at Eyeblight, and then Messiah, complying and walking over to her to listen to her words.

"I just...don't think your power can help us here," she said, voice sympathetic.

In an instant, something changed. Elliot's shoulders slumped and he hung his head, while a dereaved sigh escaped his lips. "In impossible situations like this, it's the duty of someone with a thorough grasp of the situation to admit defeat. I shall allow you, Messiah, to sort this out."

Almost incredulous, Messiah watched in barely-constrained horror as Margrave announced his intent to do exactly what she'd just said not to do, only being swayed from that by Tulpa's own statement, then proceeding to... give up, apparently. Was that it? Would he just do nothing if she stopped being able to prevent Eyeblight from escaping? Granted, she was keeping the scarecrow in check just fine for the moment, but what if she ran out of juice? Insofar as her current output would allow, anyway, which was likely enough to maintain the pattern for a good time, but again, it was an utterly mad change of heart, enough to make her slap a palm to her face (and she was glad the heat spots were being maintained relatively remotely, otherwise that movement might have allowed Eyeblight a gap to slip free through).

Though the hand, in combination with the light emanating from her eyes, was good for covering her expression as she determined something from what Tulpa had said. His power couldn't help here, but if he could make his way to the hostages... alright, how could she work that to her advantage? Simple: play to her own need to minimise the death toll. In other words, distract Eyeblight, and stall for time. As her hand left her face, she put on a thoroughly defeated expression (though whether or not he'd see this through the light was again questionable), and slowly trudged toward Eyeblight, stopping a reasonable distance away, and dear Lord the effects of his terror field did not get better as she drew closer. She made sure to keep him in her peripheral vision only, and just to be safe, a field of heat emanated from her person - enough to set straw alight on contact with her person, but no more, just to prevent him dragging her into his clutches without it being too visible. And now she was in that position? Distraction time.

'Fine. Okay, fine, Eyeblight, you...' she stuttered quietly, only to swallow and proceed a bit more loudly, 'You win. I'll... if you promise not to, you know, blow up the hostages? Promise you'll let them live, maybe go free even, and I'll let you go. It'll be like we never met here, yeah? You can go back to the Community, scott free. And, well, I guess since you have us in a... ahem, a bind and all... if- mmh...' Even if she was faking it, she'd still rather not say this next bit. '...if there's anything else you want from us, just... just ask for it. I guess we'll try to handle it... y-y'know, if it's reasonably possible, and all... does that sound like a good compromise?' Silently, she prayed his own ego would win out over any suspicions of his, and that he'd start to rant about his demands instead of... the alternative. And that Margrave would take the opportunity, of course.

As Margrave spoke his piece her heart sunk in her chest and she reached out towards him as he turned away from them before bringing her hand back to her side in a fist. After a moment she took in a strained breath and sighed, frowning before Messiah spoke. As she did so, Evelyn caught on, a look of surprise briefly forming, the expression hidden by her mask. Heh...using a bit of misdirection, clever. Hopefully it works, she thought silently as she added to the act, taking a step or two towards where Messiah now stood near Eyeblight, changing her posture to best match that of someone who was angry...and defeated. All the while she used her projection to scan the villain's power and to find the detonator amidst his form. If he was lying about controlling individual strands of straw, then he was hardly as much a threat as he wanted them to think. It gave them a possible alternative to playing along, though she hoped they wouldn't need the alternative.

Hands jammed in his pockets, Elliot dejectedly waited for the scarecrow's attention to shift away from him.

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

<Snipped quote by Lugubrious>

ARRRRGGGHHHH, was literally in the middle of a post.

@Prince of Seraphs

Sorry. If you like, you can post what you have and I'll retroactively edit Abel's response in.

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

Abel Fulgurate – Cafeteria

A lack of further conversation dominated the breakfast scene between Sapphire and Abel, but he didn't stress it too much, and he felt that the silence suited his teammate just fine, as well. After finishing his food and drink, he inclined his head at Sapphire with a simple, “Have a good day,” and left. His tray and plate, clean except for a few spatters of pear juice, whizzed off down the conveyer into the kitchen, and will visibly more excitement than usual he departed the cafeteria for the locker room. Only pausing there long enough to grab the Ampere before moving on, he made tracks through the hallways, his size and breezy manner causing others to wonder what business the quiet guardian might be up to as they moved out of his path. In a stunning feat of multitasking, he attended to his scroll when its tone informed him of a newly-received message and read it in the go. So, it would be just him and Krystanthe, after all? He felt as though a small weight had been lifted from his shoulders. With groups, he always felt obliged to act differently, but he knew that in one-on-one situations he could be himself. And hopefully, that would be someone that Krysanthe would think well of.

In no time at all, he emerged from a side door into the cheery morning sun and brisk autumn breeze. He stopped for a moment to breath in the air and let the wind ruffle his 'do, reflecting on how much Beacon looked like a castle from the outside. The school truly was, Abel felt, a magical place, and no matter how tough math got or what freaks of nature he faced during missions, he was glad he came. To have met so many people and experienced such an environment filled him with a sort of pride, though he hadn't really done all that much. Sadly -or perhaps, fortunately- this moment of introspection could not last forever, and Abel made a beeline for the Survival classroom. Once past the overgrown, derelict building, it was an almost straight shot through a grove of trees to the cliff that overlooked the Emerald Forest. The guardian did not expect that Krysanthe might be there first, instead fretting that it might be weird to show up to a meeting place so early, but he could not quash the spring in his step as he approached, spear in hand.