Lugubrious

The Crucible - Winner Take All

Knight Sylvestre

Location: Oldtown

If the three attackers bearing down on the College personnel whatsoever, they did not show it. Behind the torrent of water, Howell and Raleigh appeared utterly confident, not even flinching as Souta swung his warhammer at nothing. From the weapon, ghostly green skeletons burst forth to fly, chattering, into the typhoon, but they were dashed to pieces in an instant. Before he could do anything else the invisible weight fell upon him from above, and the smith was forced to his knees. By that time Juniper reached the water from her side, and having evidently grown accustomed to her new legs in a time nothing short of remarkable, she flung herself toward the two intruders. A blast of water slapped her from the side before she even got close, slinging her back only to land on her feet. She stepped into the surging water just as Cyril arrived opposite her, and they entered the outermost section at the same time. For a split second their footing held, and it seemed as though they might be able to ford the maelstrom, but neither could even process that they were making progress before the flow's strength increased and sent both tumbling to their feet. The impact with the ground drove the breath from Cyril's lungs, but that sudden jolt of pain paled in comparison to the crushing sensation that followed. The unknown force pressed against him with cruel power, threatening to squash him between it and the cobblestone. He could only give a ragged gasp as he felt the bones injured during his fight with Juniper threatening to give again.

He hoped that whatever his enemy was hurting him with would go after one of his temporary allies next, but this desperate plea went unheard; understanding his critical condition, the force struck him again. Meanwhile, Souta and Juniper had pulled themselves up, and the former shouted something to the latter. Though too far away for it to possibly hit, Juniper aimed a kick with her more technological leg, and a compartment opened just above the foot to produce a glowing blue bomb. Like a professional athlete she sent the bomb flying, and the cascade at it up. The brilliant blue light became a blur, spinning around the typhoon, until it exploded a split second later. While the blast itself did not blow through the watery barrier, the noise and shockwave startled the College employees inside, shifting their focus from the fallen knight to the martial artist. Her new technique complete, Juniper spun away in time to avoid a crush. The next moment, a second bomb went the way of the first, keeping her enemies' eyes on her.

Souta suddenly loomed over Cyril, and the smith reached down to help the vanguard up. “Nothing's getting through!” he yelled through the noise. “Whatever that woman's doing with the water is crazy strong, but I don't think either really know what they're doing! They're high on their own power! We just need to figure out a weakness in the magic!” His warhammer dissipated in a rush of water from his hoodie, and a strange-looking shotgun appeared in its place. He fired off what looking like a spike made of blue fire into the maelstrom, but it was tossed away like a flicked matchstick. Through the torrent Cyril could see the devious-looking man turn his attention to the two of them, and on reflex he raised his shield above his head.

CLANG!

The vanguard could barely keep standing, his knees shaking and alight with muscle pain, as the invisible force descended upon him again. Having knelt, Souta shot another fire spike, this one aimed lower. Predictably, it was blown back, but this time by the current. With an inward grown Cyril slumped sideways in a weak attempt at a dodge, his Sheen carrying him out of the way. Souta sprinted the other way, and down again came the crush. Its attack exploded the spike, which detonated in a burst of blue fire. However, the flame spread as though something were blocking it, and as it raced sideways it curled up around the outline of its obstacle. For an instant, the azure blaze highlighted the shape of a giant foot, bizarre and alien, but a foot nonetheless.

This did not escape anyone's notice. “Whatever it is reacted with Deluge's spirit fire!” Souta observed, his remark lost upon Cyril, whose skin crawled as he imagined some kind of enormous, intangible, spectral entity attacking him. Demons he could fight, but ghosts were the domain of warlocks and necromancers. Great. There was a chance he and the others could put their heads together and figure out an exploitable flaw, but under an assault like this?

Juniper, in the middle of another bomb kick, took a hit from the entity for the first time. Without much in the way of defense, but a lot in the way of injury, she crumpled under the blow. “Gaaah!” Both of the College personnel were looking her way, leaving an opportunity. Smart or not, it was a decision that Cyril had to make in a fraction of a second.

“Go, go, go!”

He barreled forward, fast as his weary legs to carry him. Souta ran ahead, his hammer materializing in his off hand. Both men entered the current, and to their surprise the stayed standing. Without any time to be surprised, however, they moved forward. It was tough going, but Cyril felt elated that he was somehow doing it. “Brace yourself!” he bellowed, knowing another crush was imminent. Instead of ducking down, Souta lifted his weapons up as a makeshift shield, and together with Cyril did his best to block the attack. Around them, the raging water weakened, and Cyril took another step. One more and he would be able to thrust his glaive into the man's midsection.

“Keep it up!” Juniper's voice came from behind as she got to her feet, and she moved toward the trio's enemies. The moment she did, the current returned to its full power, carrying both Cyril and Souta off their feet. Caught in the typhoon, they flew back out of range, their progress lost. Juniper's face was one of anger. “What!? How did you mess that...!?” A wall of water cut her off, washing her away as well. When Cyril looked back at his foes, he found the maelstrom even angrier than before. From behind him and to his right, Juniper shrieked in pain beneath the weight of another attack from the entity.

He staggered to his feet, using his polearm as a third leg. “It's...because of us,” he gasped. “The water's responding to something about us. Emotion...?” That didn't make sense. They'd all been confused, fearful, aggressive, and so forth this whole time. The flow had been weakest right after he and the smith had worked together to survive the entity's attack, but only so long as Juniper was down. He couldn't figure out the connection for the life of him, which would soon be a very literal problem at this rate.

From the middle of the swirling shell of water, the two College people had regained their confidence. The brief moment they'd been close to danger came completely by surprise, but with Souta, Juniper, and Cyril worn down and at a loss for a solution, that moment seemed far off. “Finish them!” The man called, but not to his colleague. The vanguard couldn't react before a pressure closed in on him from all directions. His arms and legs were pinned against him, and he was lifted into the air. No amount of wriggling would set him free. If whatever he'd seen before was a foot, this could only be the entity's hand. About the ins and outs of his invisible assailant, however, Cyril wasn't really thinking. The only thing he knew was that he was trapped—trapped by something he didn't understand, and going to die.

The Fungal Knight

Location: the Big Top
@Banana

Contrary to what its colorful, inflatable exterior might imply, the blow-up hammer wielded by the clown struck like a miniature freight train. Its concussive force would have fractured every bone in the basilisk's body had it any bones to break. If the clown had been fast enough to strike at Bonesword during his brief flight to a nearby table, it could have spelled the end for the skeleton's trusty Shroomblade as well. As it was, the jeering jester trudged after him, hammer in hand.

More than used to bright and sudden lights, the flash surrounding Bonesword gave the clown no pause, but the sight of what his adversary became shocked the clown for one fleeting moment. After the initial jolt wore off, however, the funny man's freakish features grew into a snide smile. He understood very well that the being of bone before him had become a bozo like he, and moreover, he knew just where hit own species hurt. Holding his hammer in both hand like a pike, the clown charged forward with his considerable mass. The head of his weapon zoomed toward Bobonesword's big red nose.

The Cereal Killer and The Book Keeper

Location: Historical District
@Propro@BCTheEntity

The siblings Davian and Aralynn watched their opponents from across the water with crossed arms and calm faces. Of the two, Aralynn felt greater elation, though better concealed, at having power enough to threaten these competitors, who'd proven their monstrous strengths in their fights against one another. From the moment she'd started watching Oren's recordings she had felt jealous indeed of all the myriad abilities the strangers from afar seemed to have. Now that she commanded a supernatural talent of her own, however, she felt positively delighted. In particular she enjoyed the theatricality of this encounter—she had, after all, prevented her initial few missiles from hitting their marks so as to not end the fight too quickly. These people needed to know the faces of those who would put them down, and save the world from the calamity of a terrible wish. This fight wouldn't be over with a few missiles, but she had plenty to spare.

Around Motley, the shadow figures continued to evade him, even turning into blurs to get out of the way of his own stand's attacks. He fired off his repartee, a bloody fingernail laced with Heavy Fuel's miasma, in the direction of the biggest missile seeking him out. When the two projectiles made contact, the missile itself passed through Motley's organic matter, but the corrosion of Heavy Fuel set in without delay. For a moment the missile blackened before exploding midair. Out of the smoke cloud it left behind, the smaller missiles appeared, still on course. Aralynn watched as Motley extruded the remainder of his fingernails to make into a revolting lasso, which he spun above the heads of his allies to make a shield. Narrowing her eyes, the twin raised her hand, and the smaller missiles angled upward. They continued to rise as long as she kept her hand aloft, and the moment she dropped it, they turned in midair to fly back toward their original target. Now they were coming from above in spread formation. At this point, Aralynn ignored them, and instead raised her elbows to either side of her head to open up four compartments, one in each upper and lower arm. A quartet of medium-size missiles sailed forth, far faster and more direct than the smaller ones.

When he opened up his journal, Runch found two additional pages filled out.

Davian Thule
Student of language
Intelligent, caring, and resourceful

Stand Name: Boys of Summer
Humanoid in form, Boys of Summer is a collective stand best described as innumerable, nondescript shadow people.  They are vaguely visible to non-users through technological displays like security cameras and television monitors.  To other Stand users, they are more solid, but still lack identifying features
Stand Power: Silent Protectorate
Boys of Summer appear en masse around the user independently, and can blink into existence around anyone whom the user’s emotion focuses around for a short period.  They surround the target as best they can, standing very close by but moving in quick, short bursts so that the target doesn’t touch them.  They stand silently, watching everything in the vicinity, and moving along with the target whenever the target relocates.  They make an effort to avoid touching the target, up to the point of adopting supernatural speed. More appear, walking in from the distance to join the crowd, whenever the target vocalizes any sort of request for help.  Boys of Summer can ‘activate’ whenever something bad happens in their vicinity, and a single one can spend its existence to avert that happening. Most notable, they serve as meatshields against Stand attacks, completely negating one attack at a time. A Far Distance Autopilot-type stand, Boys of Summer operates via its own guiding intelligence, and is empathetic in nature

Aralyyn Thule
Student of Archaeology
Intelligent, ambitious, and forceful

Stand Name; Heatseeker
Heatseeker has no body of its own
Stand Power: Missile Generation
Heatseeker responds to the will of its user to convert parts of the user's body into mechanical compartments that can open to reveal missile launchers inside. Having a body part converted into a compartment has no adverse affects on the user whatsoever, and after the compartment closes, the area is completely normal once again. It can also effect clothes. The missile launchers can take virtually any shape, from individual launchers to entire missile arrays, but the missiles themselves have several constant attributes. The larger a missile is, the greater its destructive power, durability, and speed; the more missiles there are in a single compartment, the smaller they will be. All missiles can be set to seek a certain target dictated by the user. Targets can include both specific things, like a person in the user's vision, or something more abstract, like a lost object. Automatic seeking worsens the farther a missile gets from the user, and larger missiles have worse seeking irregardless compared to smaller missiles. However, the user can temporarily override the seeking of small enough missiles as long as she can see them, spurring them in a specific direction

Sunspot

Location: the Park
@FloodTalon

Jin's comments evoked a dark smile from Pieter. “As insufferable as you are doomed. Enjoy your last laugh.” His whirlwind of leaves homed in on its target, but the assassin made good on his reputation and sped behind cover. The movement of his hands toward his waist before he disappeared clued Pieter in to what he was up to. From the footage he reviewed, he knew where 'Sunspot' kept his guns. At a more leisurely pace, Pieter crouched down and slid back, taking refuge in the thick branches of his tree's crown. Sure enough, two gunshots rang out through the still air. One hit the wood a few feet from his position, and the other punched through the leaf tornado. That shot split apart the leaves it hit, but the tiny gap the bullet made was closed immediately by the countless leaves that remained.

By then, the twister smacked into the tree. It hit with very little force, barely enough to strip some bark from the trunk of Jin's cover, and dissipated. The leaves themselves, however, were not done. They embedded themselves into the tree, digging in as though the wood was eating them. Above the assassin, his tree's leaves began to change color. They took on the same colors of fall as those commanded by Pieter, then -all at once- shot downward from their branches. Like a rain of blades they fell toward Jin, flying edge-first at him in a steady barrage.

The Crucible - Winner Take All

Looks like that's the end of the Silverlocke tale, then.

That leaves us with me, Lazo, Banana, Kapuchu, Propro, BC, and Floodtalon. The stalwart seven, perhaps.

I plan to post in the near future, whether the remaining three of you update this round or not.

Overlord : Advent of the Gods

@TheFake, mind posting in the near future? With the introduction of a new character to the Woodstop area, I'm inclined to kick off my plans.

SAGA [An Original Dragon Ball Universe RP] - Recruitment Thread!

I think I'd be down for this.

Capes of Denver: A Worm RP

For a moment Elliot felt positive that he didn't need to bother getting in any practice with his new equipment, but after Decoy made his suggestions he thought better of it. Gear and gadgets were what he, the five-man team's Sixth Ranger, had up his sleeve. Screwing up a vital deployment in the heat of the moment could very well cost him his life, and being able to adopt only a single pose for the remainder of eternity would not appeal to him at all for at least forty more years. So too was mission control correct about his needs—which was, in a way, disconcerting. Behaving in a way as to make plain one's reactive rejection of one being rejected by others was the natural and logical way of things, so any chance at being obliged -or dare he say it, cared about- could pose a threat to the established order. ”Indeed,” Elliot murmured, looking as erudite as a troubled teen possibly could. ”I have much to gather in preparation for this mission.”

It would appear that a trip back to the Protectorate HQ was in order. In an act of generosity, Elliot elected to not obey his urge to head there immediately while leaving his allies behind, so that they might benefit from proximity to his nebulous coolness. Truth be told, however, he doubted any save Lillian had yet to erect in their minds a defensive barrier to ward off feelings of inferiority, and neither he knew if Lillian might deign to gaze unflinchingly upon his brilliance. Crossing his legs and perching his chin upon the back of his hand, he awaited the super friends' departure.

The Crucible - Winner Take All

FYI, I was waiting for BC to post. Now that he has, I'm looking to get something out in the next 1-2 days, barring some unforeseen events. Just so you're aware, @Lugubrious, I have some personal issues I'm dealing with right now that may directly affect my health, so it's taking a lot of the time I normally use for writing. So if it takes longer, you know why.

@ProPro

No worries. In the meantime, I'll get a Capes of Denver post up for you tomorrow.

The Crucible - Winner Take All

@RoughDragon1, I've been lax in my evaluation, but it's been two weeks since you even said you'd post next. Your grace period begins now.

Overlord : Advent of the Gods

To say that no mind is purged of fear is to lie; it is what one does when terror weighs on them that determines one's fate

Woodstop

@TheFake @Lord Zee

Revenmar's request garnered a nod from Effin, who crossed his arms in anticipation of watching the silver knight at work. He strode over toward the butcher duo, each heavy, armored step creating a sound intimidating in itself, and before he'd even reached them the pair had abandoned their current tasks to stand facing Revenmar as attentively as they could. When he stopped, there was a moment of absolute silence. The change in Revenmar's bearing told everyone present that he was on the hunt for someone, and not a soul in the kitchen dared display any kind of disrespect, lest they be targeted. This feeling only deepened for the two old men the ominous and immaculate newcomer approached when he spoke, not to them, but to the cookmaster he'd left behind. Morderik, feeling the pressure himself, hurried to answer, but before he could say a thing Revenmar interrupted him to address the butchers himself. Of course, this left Morderik worried. People of his caliber, lowborn but used to the haughty and even tyrannical ways of most lords, knew too well some of the ways smallfolk could be taken advantage of in even mundane social interactions. If this knight asked a question but did not permit him to answer, he could accuse him of all manner of things, no matter how unfair.

At this point, however, the tensions and concerns in the background had fallen out of relevance for Markris and Setheo. Their hearts, wizened over the years like their owners, pounded for the first time in decades to hear the edge in Revenmar's voice and to see the hand upon the hilt of his sword. They hadn't the slightest idea why this person, obviously a man of authority, had appeared and singled them out for hard words and threats. Setheo, distinguishable from his friend by the bandanna on his head and his longer whiskers, tried to respond but found himself paralyzed. Instead, he almost gagged on his own saliva. Meanwhile, Markris tried to control his breathing. His nerves were going haywire, and it felt as though his lungs were wrapped in chains. It was he who managed to construe a reply to Revenmar's inquiry.

“M-milord, I wasn't p-payin' much attention, but ch-chances are, Angenny took it when she went to d-deliver Count Niklas 'n Count Ingvar their lunch.” He looked around the room, trying to find support, but everyone else turned their eyes away when his drew too close. If Markris was implicated in something, none of them were interesting in being dragged along beside him. The old man knew he needed to deflect suspicion somehow, and luckily a truthful redirection lay right in front of him. “Uh, t'answer your other question, s-sir, 'Genny was here a minute ago, jus' left in fact.” His voice had grown a touch steadier, but the throb of his heart made his fear all too apparent.

-=-=-

Fleet-footed as they were, the beastmen archers stood no chance to evade the deathly blast aimed at them. Their stolen life, however, flew not toward its taker, but toward Lenore; noxious red and yellow fumes eked from her skin as her passive skill Blood-starved sucked it up. If the clones Kallahar destroyed harbored and life energy to give, as doubles made of force magic seldom did, the meat maiden would have unwittingly devoured those too. In any case, she did not appear aware of what she'd done. Her focus lay on the ground, shame and guilt visible in her slouch and on her face as the foxmen who had rallied their courage to challenge her fled, shrieking and scattered, into the underbrush. The horrific sight of two of their kin mutated into fleshy abominations broke what resolve they'd drummed up, but it left the one who'd committed that act shaken too.

What I just did was twisted, she thought, clutching her staff with whitened knuckles. I can't do that, even to enemies. Whether this whole crazy thing is real or not, it's not just a game anymore. It's just like Batman: it's not what's inside that really matters, but what I do with it. If I'm gonna be a good person, I have to find other ways to beat enemies.

'Enemies' did not quite describe the situation that faced the death knight and the flesh smith now, however. The only foe that remained was Rorryln—three of her, to be precise. Though her muzzle and face proved difficult to read in terms of human emotion, particularly as she dashed around to attack, there could be little doubt about the grimness of her bearing. Even a handful of second of fighting told her that this skirmish would be her end. All that stood between the vixen and a painful demise or worse were two force fakes and her agility, but neither would hold out for long. Her natural cunning, so powerful a tool under normal circumstances, was of no avail when her head was spinning in barely-concealed despair. The only possible advantage she could perceive was that the second of the two unholy beings before her seemed somewhat reluctant for reasons Rorryln couldn't begin to fathom, but when the first demonstrated the power not just to slaughter her fellow foxmen but to do so with offhanded ease, the fleshy one's hesitation mattered naught.

There was a shadow of a chance that the vixen could escape, since her double were spread out enough that the death knight might not catch all three if they turned and ran, but Rorryln retained very little in the way of hope. If she was going to die, it might as well be with some honor. “Thou art powerful beyond my reckoning,” the three gasped as one, before gritting their teeth and steeling themselves. “...But I will not die a coward. Phantom attack!” At the incantation, the three shot straight toward Kallahar at the same time. A bright blue magic aura surrounded them, and they turned intangible for a split second to perform slashes that carried them through their target. In midair, each summoned a rune beneath her feet and used it as a springboard to leap back toward the center. A meter above the death knight, the trio crashed together and recombined into a single fox whose kukri burned with great force. “My all is thine!” she cried, and with all the resolve she had left she dove with her weapon held horizontally. Its empowered blade cleaved the air, and like a flying guillotine it fell toward Kallahar's head. “Kyaaaaaah!”

The Crucible - Winner Take All

@Lugubrious Good post from you. Sorry I haven't posted in ages. Worth noting: Erina should be able to at least see the Stands, since it's been established that she can see supernatural entities, and in particular the Stand Heavy Fuel provides the appropriate precedence.

@BCTheEntity

I must have forgotten that, because it is a little shaky in my opinion. The rule insofar as I can remember it is 'only Stand users can see Stands', not necessarily that whoever has spiritual abilities can see them. But then again, the JJBA rules are broken with surprising regularity by its own canon, and since I didn't catch it the first time (or permitted it the first time) it's not an issue. I'll go ahead and edit.

The Crucible - Winner Take All

Knight Sylvestre

Location: Oldtown

With the resonant [i]clangs]/i] of metal against metal as his guide, Cyril strode toward the workshop of the man who Doctor Bill had assured could replace what the knight's morose passenger had lost. The sound led him to an inn of antiquated construction, the second of its two floors half against as long as the first and supported by reinforced logs. It was beneath this protuberance that the vanguard and the martial artist found the smith. With a countenance almost as dour as Cyril and Junipers', he had been working out the shape of a bit of steel that might, Cyril judged, become the elaborate crossguard of a winged spear. At first it seemed as though the metalworker might be too intent on his labor to notice the newcomers, but after using a pair of tongs to return his current project to the furnace, he rounded on them and crossed his arms. He wore curious garb, including a jacket of teal cloth with a zipper, a hood, and shimmering wave designs all across its surface. His guarded eyes betrayed a hint of curiosity as he surveyed the strange pair before him. “What do you want?”

His standoffishness took Cyril aback for a moment, but he reined himself in swiftly. “We were told that you can make magical equipment—specifically, replacement limbs. My...uh, friend here needs new legs. Can you do it?”

Feeling awkward, he turned to the side so that the smith could see for himself his former opponent's lack of lower legs. All the while, Juniper's face remained as stony as a gorgon's collection.

The man shook his head. “I've got some miracles and some metal, but nothing that complicated is coming out of this shop without souls.”

“We have some.”

“Oh, really?” Eyebrows up, the smith allowed his eyes to linger on the phylactery around Cyril's neck. “...Monster souls? I don't do people.”

Cyril hesitated, but only for a split second. He hadn't really thought about the morality of turning a person's soul into a piece of equipment, but there was no alternative if he was going to make up for the wrong he'd done to Juniper. “Yes.”

Still frowning, their new acquaintance took the phylactery when offered. “If you say so. I'll be able to tell when I try to transpose them.”

Panic seized Cyril's heart, but instead of doing anything without thinking, he froze up. He and Juniper could only watch, wide-eyed, as the smith took two jarlike objects, put them on top of a table, and inserted the phylactery into the top of one after the other. Two motes of energy -one crimson and one pale blue- eked through the rubber heart's needle, leaving the phylactery with only the bright and dark green lights remaining. “Huh, works with the soul shells.” Next, the smith sauntered over to a plain, clearly unfinished suit of armor sitting on another table and removed the greaves. “You're crazy lucky that I happened to make a suit of armor one of my works. I was gonna try to enchant it with air to get across the chasm, but it looks like that's gonna have to wait.”

With practiced hands he introduced the two filled soul shells to the greaves, one for each, and before the competitors' eyes the colored energy from each one surged from the shells to wash over the armor. The glow grew stronger and stronger only to die down just before it became blinding. Fascinated, Cyril stared at the results of the transposition: a knee-high greave of silver with circuit lines of pale blue, and a second, far more fantastical, of burgundy with spiky black ornamentation and inlaid rubies.

A few words were exchanged, and Juniper was laid on the ground. One by one each grave was put on, the stubs of her legs plugging in like shafts into spearheads, and when the martial artist moved she found them responsive. It was with no small amount of shock that she held onto Cyril's offered arm and stood, shakily, to her feet. “Its...” she murmured, breathless. “Like they're still there. I can feel my feet! And something else...some kind of energy.”

The smith nodded, a pleased smile on his face. “Yep, that'll be the magic. I expect each one has some sort of power based on the monster the soul came from. Souls plus weapons equals a lot of crazy stuff. There was a guy named Rodin who could conjure up all sorts of ridiculous weapons from a demon soul and a handle shell alone. My personal inspiration...” He held out his hand. “I'm Hyobanshi Souta, by the way. Now that business's over, we can afford to act like normal people, right?”

“Cyril Boniface,” the vanguard replied, taking the hand. He wrangled a smile out of his tired features, but what he thought was, My first opponent's soul was person. Why didn't this guy notice?

His former enemy, still getting used to the bizarre feeling in her lower legs, took a moment to realize and shake as well. “Juniper.” She gave the vanguard a look as he clapped a celebratory hand on her shoulder, which he immediately withdrew before shifting his attention and speaking.

“So, Hyobanshi...”

The smith held up his hand, interjecting. “'Souta' is my first name.”

“Ah, forgive me,” Cyril said, a little confused. “Souta, is there any chance you could repair my armor as well?” Something else clicked in his mind. “Er, also...what do I owe you?”

Souta shrugged. “Sure, but it'll take time, unless you're willing to part with anymore souls. As for payment, I don't know if money's any use around here, and I got all the food I need in the frozen section of the store across the plaza. I guess I'm looking for answers as to why we're here in this place, or if there's any way to go back to my world.”

After a moment of thought, Cyril had pieced together a reply, but he could barely open his mouth before a new and unfamiliar voice assailed him from behind. “Hey!”

He and Juniper whirled around to face the source, the latter a little unsteady. About two hundred feet away, there stood a cynical, sunken-looking man with a graying beard alongside an ordinary-looking woman with auburn hair. Their normalcy set off alarm bells in Cyril's mind.

The man called out again, his voice cool as ice. “The Crucible is over. Hand over your phylacteries and nobody gets hurt.”

Without a second's delay, both Juniper and Cyril answered as one. “No.”

The corners of the old man's mouth twisted upward into a dark smile. “I thought you might say that.” He raised his voice. “Journey!”

For a moment, there was nothing. Then, out of nowhere, a weight came crashing down on the competitors from above. “Guhh!” As he was crushed, the vanguard craned his neck to look upward, but he saw nothing. Whatever was bearing down upon him with such brutal force was invisible to him, and when he tried to push upward on it with his hands, they went straight through where it should have been. Beside him, Juniper had also been struck. The next moment it relented, but Cyril, gritting his teeth through the pain, dove to the side. His unwilling ally did the same, and the next instant, the force came down again in the same spot, crunching the stone beneath it.

Scrambling to his feet, Cyril hastily looked back to try and see what attacked him, but only saw an imprint in the ground of a giant, bizarrely-shaped foot. Juniper, meanwhile, had raised her arm to project a magic javelin at the man. He flinched, but the woman beside him called out, “Humbling River!” and around her a torrent of water erupted from nothing. It swirled around the two in a protective vortex, and the Javelin was tossed aside like a toothpick.

“What in God's name...?”

Cyril forced himself to run, narrowly avoiding another impact. Juniper ran the other way, her face sharing the same bafflement. Meanwhile, Souta had elected to leap over the counter. “I'll back you up!” The wave designs on his hoodie lit up in aquamarine, and from a spurt of rushing water he summoned a black warhammer. He charged down the center, straight for the two intruders, while the others ran around the side.

The Lady in White

Location: Governance Hub – Echoed Tower
@Lazo

Ten minutes passed by, but at that period's end, no drone appeared to Pithy in order to guide her to her next opponent. Not even a spark stirred the mangled carcass of the flying machine the Lady in White had, hours ago, trashed on the doorstep to Nero's tower. Evidently, the Crucible's announcer was out of drones.

In the intervening hours between his confrontation with the icy sorceress and now, when shadows were growing longer and the sun drooping toward the horizon, Nero had slipped away and not returned. Between the two of them, Dew and Pithy kept up a good guard, but after an entire afternoon of numbingly boring inactivity their stakeout had grown less keen and, in combination with Nero's tracking of Pithy, permitted him to hightail it through the front door and down the block. His announcement, left behind as an automated message to precede the switching-over of his drone system to guidance mode, suggested that he did not intend to return either.

The Fungal Knight

Location: the Big Top
@Banana

The speed of Bonesword's jump out of the holding tank dislodged the egg timer -which he'd looted from Saria's corpse earlier that day- from his arsenal and sent it flying to clatter against the wall, but by the time he might have noticed the skeleton had already landed and issued his ultimatum to the clown.

For his part, the freaky creature did appear comically surprised that Bonesword managed to escape, but his ridiculous features did not convey undue distress. While the skeleton stood before him, the clown reached into a polka-dotted pocket and pulled out something bright red and rubbery. In fact, he continued to pull it out—he drew it like a sword, revealing it to be much longer than could have possibly fit into the pocket. After a moment, the head of the clown's giant squeaky mallet popped out, and he grasped the handle in both hands for a brutal overhead swing.

Inari

Location: what lies beneath
@Kapuchu

Ten minutes passed, uneventful and even peaceful in the soft dark and wide-open space of the yawning cavern, before one of Oren's drones descended through the hole to keep Lily and Brucie company. Once locked in around the two competitors, it reoriented itself so that its back faced toward the forest of stone and fungi that carpeted the cave's floor. Its position confirmed that the pair need not alter their planned path; their opponent awaited them somewhere in that luminescent tangle. As though the Crucible's circumstances couldn't get more bizarre, the fox and the shark now found themselves having to contend with this practically alien landscape.

The pair's trek hadn't extended past the first oversized mushroom, though, before they found something interesting. One landmark stood out in the otherwise bare and stony road toward the strange garden: the decimated subway train in which Captain Teller and the demon Smiley had allegedly entered this place. Before getting there Lily could guess by the drone's orientation that her next opponent was there no longer. A search of the wreckage would turn up nothing, save a black, sticky trail leading away from the mangle of steel and broken glass in the direction of the mushroom forest.

In the course of following the trail, other tidbits turned up. Intermittently lying in the goop, the pair could discover teeth, scraps of skin, pieces of fabric, and even a bit of the soldier's gear. Scraps of Teller's highly advanced armor dotted the landscape, some clearly tossed around rather than just dropped. If Lily and her semiaquatic ally reached the edge of the garden, however, they could stumble on something decisive: one mushroom's cap sported a messy black handprint, hinting that it had served for a moment as support for a weary or desperate hand.

The Cereal Killer and The Book Keeper

Location: Historical District
@Propro@BCTheEntity

Though the courageous Captain made for quite the spectacle as he posed, ready for battle, it wasn't until a few minutes later that a whirring noise announced the return of Oren's drone. It took up a cinematic angle, looking down toward the trio, before sidling seventy a hundred and twenty degrees to the right. There, in the direction that Crue would remember indicating Oldtown Plaza, it came to a steady hover. Between Runch's makeshift crew and there new destination lay a sizable tract of flooded terrain, including areas in which Crue and Erina had faced off against an unknown, tentacled threat.

When the trio approached the water, its resident vampire began to become aware of something entirely different. In the distance, and in multiple directions, he could spot a split-second disturbance akin to static in a television. They occurred too far away to make out anything definitive, but before long the disturbances started happening closer. Each one occupied a singular spot in the air, roughly the shape of a person, for so brief a fraction of a second that it was easy to believe he simply imagined it. When several happened in quick succession less than fifty feet away, however, Motley couldn't ignore the vague, shadowy figure of a person each static blip left behind. At that point, the spiritually-inclined non-user Erina also began to get a hint of what was going on.

The entities didn't move, instead standing wherever they appeared, but their silhouettes made it clear that they were looking at Motley, Erina, and Runch. Those that appeared in the water did not disrupt its surface whatsoever, instead existing in the same space as the liquid as though the entities were incorporeal. More continued to appear, dozens and dozens, until they populated the entire area. Their spectral forms remained indistinct, but they began to move once enough were around, walking with a slow stride toward the trio. They came to a stop at an uncomfortably close distance, just far enough to make sure that they weren't touched.

All of this Motley could witness clear as day, and Erina could get a good grasp of, yet Runch could see or feel a single thing. As the three moved, the shadow people skirted out of the way to let them pass without any obstruction. So too was the pirate oblivious to the strange objects flying up from across the floodwaters until they hit the pavement and exploded perilously close by, so near as to send shards of cement and clods of dirt flying in every direction. After the ringing died down, two voices rang out from a good distance away, completing eachother's sentences.

“Bartholomew K. Runch and Motley Crue!”

“Under the authority of the Inquisitional College, we deem you threats to the safety of this world!”

“And do sentence you to death!”

Across the water, two people could now be seen by everyone present, having just emerged from the interior of an old-fashioned inn's second floor to stand on the balcony. At first glance, Davian and Aralynn Thule looked almost identical, but to Motley's eyes alone something intriguingly distinct surrounded them. Davian's body gave off a fiery shine, like the ignited jets of a gas stove, but in an odd gray-black hue. His sister bore the same corona, but in yellow. Most tellingly, a few of the shadow figures stood around the pair like a president's bodyguards, staring in silence at the competitors.

To Runch nothing about Aralynn changed, but Motley could watch the top of her outstretched arm open up like a panel in a machine and a missile launcher pop out to fire off another rocket toward his comrades. Her arm then closed up, nothing wrong with it at all; next, the front of her shoulders became panels and opened up to reveal twin missile pods that fired three miniature payloads each.

All seven rockets sped toward their targets, the first far faster than the other half-dozen, and all of them invisible and silent for the brave Cereal Killer.

Sunspot

Location: the Park
@FloodTalon

For Jin, his accompanying drone's new subroutine meant even more walking. It pointed him across the lake toward the destroyed amphitheater, though thankfully the ruin was not straight across the way, but at about a forty-degree angle from his current position near the waterfall.

A few minutes later, the assassin was well on his way down the slope from the waterfall cliff toward the plain on which the amphitheater sat. The sky was just beginning to take on shades of peach and orange. Around him, the green trees of summer stood in silent reverence for the amazing view this vantage point afforded them. From here, Jin could see across the entire Grassy Expanse, and into the Residential District. Further still were the myriad roofs of the Historical District, split between squat buildings from antiquity and various places of worship from all cultures. Beyond them both he could glimpse the skyscrapers of Downtown, though the giant black bird that he'd seen soar that direction was nowhere to be found.

The sight of a tree taking on the oranges, yellows, and reds of fall in less than ten seconds brought his attention back to his immediate surroundings. As he watched, the leaves changed color en masse, then start to shake as though gripped by a sudden and particular wind. A moment later every single leaf plummeted from the branches, falling across their progenitor's roots like a colorful carpet. In the tree's crown sat a man, six and a half feet tall and highly fashionable but sporting no nose.

“Jin Sunrise...you're fast and you can take a lot of punishment. You're also an unrepentant asshole, so full of yourself it's a wonder you don't burst, just because you've been lucky enough to not run into anyone who can put you in your place.”

The leaves began to rise, swirling as they did in a cyclone around the tree. A sharp eye could see that their veins were pulsing with bright orange fluid, which also ran along their razor-sharp edges. In the middle of the storm, the man got to his feet.

“I've reviewed every second of footage I can find,” he continued. “The others are moving in groups of two, but I am confident that the only help I need to take out the trash is my Weird Autumn. You've had a good run, Jin, but this party's over.”

Fifty thousand leaves shot forward, swirling into a seeking tornado of a thousand venomous blades that bore down on Jin like a natural disaster.