Lugubrious

SAGA [An Original Dragon Ball Universe RP] - Always Open! [CAS/ADV]

Type 0011 “Severa”

PL 910 Human Cyborg
Location: VR Training World “Gehenna” / Secret Facility in Central Capital

In seconds Severa's grisly handiwork faded from both sight and mind, the whole encounter a predictable and forgettable interlude. Lacking in subtlety, it left no impression, but nevertheless accomplished its function of adding another layer of reinforcement to the untold thousands that defined the girl's fighting ability. When the last trace of torchlight was minutes away, Severa allowed herself to slow down. Her face, mired though it was in the near-total darkness, bore the hollow sort of indifference that this world trained upon it; not an ounce of fear polluted her being, not necessarily due to her conditioning, but instead a product of the simple fact that nothing in this place was scary. Boring but lethal was not so much as a hell but a grindstone, a nightmare that rendered its occupants dead even if its repetitive horrors did not kill them. No courage could be gleaned from Severa's stride as she made her way up an incline that led out of the twisted forest—just drilled-in efficiency. When the hill gave way to a sudden drop high above a basin, she sat upon the black grass at the edge, her legs dangling off the precipice. Beneath the starless black sky, she held her head in her hands.

The tingling took a little longer to fade. For as long as she could remember, every time that something died by her hand, an undeniable sensation of pleasure had blossomed in her brain. There had been a time that she reveled in it, riding the high of slaughter for days on end, but something had changed. Severa could not remember what, or why, for in this place all memories grew hazy save for those forged in the rush of combat, but she learned that this jolt of euphoria did not come from inside herself. She knew it to be a manipulation, though she could say nothing else about it with certainty. From the day of that revelation, Severa learned to keep those impulses under control. In doing so, she found in time that she saved herself from the only truly frightening thing in her reality: the killers.

A light in the distance seized her attention, forcing her to displace all other thoughts as she hastened to process the unknown stimulus and assess the threat. Across the empty space of the water-filled gorge, something metal reflected the stark glare of the moon. It appeared to be attached to a dark shape, and as Severa, watched, it made a slight movement, and the sound of a bell filtered across the gap. One of us, she understood, and in reply she lifted her hand. Around her palm, the air began to spin, forming a bright blade that revolved for a second before she let it dissipate. Her signal given, she continued to observe as the stranger seated itself on the opposing cliff.

While the possibility of a threat remained, the person across the way shared much with her. Whoever it was, it wasn't a killer, though defining what a killer was in the first place led to much trickiness. Every individual like Severa, every survivor, needed to kill and kill and kill again just to make it to the next day. As far as her scattered encounters informed her, Severa felt sure that each one received the same stimulus as she for the act of murder. Then there were non-survivors who fit the mold of murderer with extreme precision, but they were allied, so to speak, with the monstrous things in this plane; their status as enemies could not be questioned. The difference, then, had to be in awareness; some of the survivors, during their wanderings, knew that something was wrong, that a true mystery and a true danger dwelt beneath the surface. Then, there were those who did not care about what might be going on beneath, those for whom the carnage was everything. Their quest for gratification, for the rush of blood, consumed them completely. Severa knew from experience that it wasn't intelligence or cunning they lacked; the only difference between she and they was that she could bury the drive to maim and slay, and they could not. But why did she bother? Why did any of the abstainers? Really, she had no idea. The bell-ringer, across the way, probably didn't either. Still, here they were, a couple hundred feet apart yet altogether close in spirit.

Soon, this little rendezvous would have to end. It wasn't her first, and with any degree of luck it wouldn't be her last. Another constant, observable by the abstainers: if several lingered too long in any one place, whether or not they engaged one another in combat, monsters would appear from the woodwork. This, Severa felt, happened too predictably to be mere coincidence. It served to further her ideas about the existence of some manipulator, who contrived to keep the abstainers apart. This did not dissuade her from trying when the opportunity arose; meetings like this, where the most eventful communication might be a distant wave from each party, kindled inside her a strange sensation like the fiery joy that ignited in her when she killed, but much, much weaker, and smoother. It felt like a more natural good, rather than the good that struck her like lightning to incentivize further bloodshed, and Severa assigned to it value for that reason.

Rallying her weary muscles, she forced herself to her feet. “Live on,” she whispered, her voice a croak from lack of practice, though her words lost in the warm breeze. Severa gave a stiff wave to the unknown stranger, and the bell rang out once again. Then, she started to move in the direction the water flowed far below. A horde could appear at any moment, and in an effort to establish her own self with what little power she had, she wished to avoid further combat if at all possible.

The Crucible - Winner Take All

Once again, my apologies. I'm more or less free from attention-compromising concerns at the time being, and I will endeavor to reply on an individual or two-person basis for those who put out responses quickly, so that the pace of the smaller fights can increase.

If you have questions about foes I'm throwing your way, do not hesitate to ask.

The Crucible - Winner Take All

Knight Sylvestre

Location: Oldtown

Cyril's capture galvanized the remaining fighters into action. Whether or not they knew or liked him, they knew that as soon as they started getting picked off, this arduous struggle would be over. As the darkness began to close in on the pinned vanguard, Souta became surrounded by a fiery glow, and before the eyes of those still able to see a powerful blaze consumed him from nowhere. Juniper stood agape, wondering if her last standing ally had been somehow immolated by this unknown force, until a surge of water followed the flames to give off a burst of steam. When the breeze carried it away, the smith looked nothing like himself. A strange stone armor, haphazard in its forming enough to make him resemble a demon, now covered Souta.

With the ample weight and protection the power of his unique, unknown power, the enigmatic metalworker stepped forward into the cascade once more. Yet, as easily as before, he was carried off his feet and thrown back. The voice echoing from the jagged, asymmetrical helmet afterward managed to convey its immense disappointment and frustration despite the strange headwear's distortion. “Are you kidding me? This water can't be physical. Nothing like that should be able to move me when I'm in Trigger. Must operate on different rules...” The invisible foot of Howell's vengeful entity crashed upon him again as he stood, but this time he practically shrugged it off. All that defense would not save Cyril, however, who appeared to have blacked out.

Juniper clenched her fists, mind racing. Hotheaded as though she might appear, she had been paying attention. These two appeared to be using some sort of magic that completely disregarded conventions, but she got the nagging feeling that the trick for the vortex specifically was actually quite simple. There wasn't time enough to puzzle it out, but as much as she wanted to, she couldn't let Cyril be crushed to death. The pettiness of revenge aside, he did have her soul, after all. Concerning the problem at hand, she could rattle off a few things about it. First: the torrent was not insurmountable, for somehow some progress had been made. It had only been when she got back into the fight that Souta and Cyril suffered a reset of their progress. Second: the torrent cared not about the weight of objects introduced to it, nor the effort with which they strove to conquer it. Third: when the flow didn't repel an assailant, it was only when two of her trio were fording it together. Maybe it has a set amount of force it can bring to bear at once, and when confronted by several enemies, it has to split the force into multiple, weaker ones. There were holes in her theory, but it was better than nothing, and time was -of course- of the essence.

“Souta! Let's jump in at the same time!”

Even without his face visible to show his feelings, Souta appeared desperate enough to try anything. “'Kay!”

“Now!”

One of Juniper's new metal legs went down into the water, and though the push was there, it felt terribly weak. What. It's that simple!? She took another step, then another. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Souta doing the same, and as their confidence waxed, their speed picked up.

In the eye of the storm, Raleigh and Howell shifted from one-hundred-percent self-sure to surprised and fearful in a second flat. Their foes were employing some sort of strategy that seemed to be working; no countermeasure had come up during the afternoon of testing. “How could you have figured out a weakness when we couldn't find a single one!?” The sunken man demanded. Still floating overhead in the grip of Howell's entity, Cyril was suddenly cast down to tumble along the ground. At one, two forces descended upon the assailants, but the moment they hit the water, they were repelled. Souta's stony facade and Juniper's outstretched hand breached the eye of the tempest at that moment, and in a splash of ethereal water the cascade dissipated.

Raleigh's scream was cut off by Souta's fist which, alongside bloodying her nose and teeth, knocked her out instantly. In a flash, Juniper delivered a snap kick to Howell's jaw, flooring him. He hit the cobblestones first, and Raleigh's limp body fell on top of him, but his eyes remained open. Pressure closed in on Juniper from all sides, and before she knew what was going on, the invisible hand yanked her toward the sky. All became a blur as she shot upward at impossible speeds. Blue became black in a matter of seconds, and she could focus on only one thing: a star in the far-flung reaches of space, just a twinkling speck to someone on Earth. When it started getting visibly larger, she began to brace herself, and the next second slammed into something blinding and yellow.

When her head stopped spinning, Juniper opened her eyes. She was laying on a hard, flat, brilliant surface that expanded infinitely in every direction. Dumbfounded, she could only look around. The incredibly brightness of the ground met the pitch-black void of space at the horizons, and as she scanned the sky, she could see a single star glowing brighter than the rest. In silence she considered what might have happened, pondering the ludicrousness of the idea of being snatched and taken to a star untold googols of miles away, until she became aware of two shapes on the ground nearby that looked just a touch darker than the rest. Their outlines gave the impression that they were feet, and as Juniper stared, something began to move. Only detectable by the shimmer it gave off its ghostly body as it moved, it was gargantuan, on par with the titans of myth, yet strangely emaciated. Though humanoid, its head could only be described as some sort of grotesque, immense flower, and from its back there extended a huge, curved protrusion that resembled a crescent moon. It raised its hand to crush her, but before the shimmering mass could descend, everything dissolved into a blur once again. Juniper's last fleeting look of the thing was as she zoomed by it, in the direction of the bright star. Still shocked, she glanced over her shoulder, but all that remained of the bizarre plain upon which she lay for but an instant was a sparkling dot in the unnamable distance.

In a few seconds the blur faded away once again. The martial artist could see the cloudy sky of late afternoon, and feel the cobblestones at her back. An outstretched hand appeared, the last chunks of sorcerous stone turning to dust, and she reached out to take it. Nearby, Cyril was making a laborious effort to stand up himself, and while he worked at it Juniper glanced at the bodies of the College employees. The woman still breathed, albeit through a destroyed mouth and nose, but the man sported a skull that had evidently met the wrong end of Souta's hammer while Juniper had been...'away'. “He cast some sort of illusion...a hallucination. It must have been.” Juniper told him.

Tired and confused, the smith shrugged before turning to walk in the direction of a restaurant. “C'mon,” he told both Cyril and Juniper, “We could use a few drinks after whatever the hell that was.”

The Fungal Knight

Location: the Big Top
@Banana

BoBonesword's revelation -that the egg timer affected the gravity of the user- proved exactly correct as he began to fall upward. The hammer that he clutched, however, remained decidedly in the purview of its wielder, affixed instead to conventional gravity. Thus, when the skeleton-turned-clown's grip failed, he found himself on the ceiling of the Big Top's capture chamber in a matter of seconds. A handful of meters below, sporting a quizzical expression, the ogreish clown stared up at him. No clear avenue of attack remained for the freak now that his enemy lay out of his reach. A few moments passed before an idea popped into the carnie's head, and with the hammer in hand he shuffled to one of the wacky-colored doors. Its motion sensor activated as he drew near to let him pass, and the clown made a beeline for the nearest wall-mounted weapons catch. Several goofy-looking ray guns and one flamboyant bazooka hung there, but given his build the clown could not be said to be making good time.

Inari

Location: What Lies Beneath
@Kapuchu

Lily's caution earned her another half-hour of waiting a short way off from the mushroom garden, but in time she did become aware of the low whine of a second drone, eking from between the between the dimly luminescent stalks. It grew steadily louder as it came closer, but no other noise could be picked up even in the oppressive silence of this massive cavern.

The kitsune's foe did, however, appear.

He walked out from a bundle of spindly mushrooms, his steps slow and halting. Unmasked by a helmet, Teller's features were plain to see, and his glazed, languid countenance told of a decided lack of wellness. Black goop coated his futuristic armor, especially thick around his hands and forearms, where it besmirched the rifle he held in his grasp. In front of him floated the drone, but he did not glance at it when it reangled itself to face in Lily's direction. Instead, he reached out and grabbed it, his fingers working quickly to shut it down and attach it to his belt, before he turned his dull eyes from side to side. Their gaze looked over the scenery beyond the pseudo-forest's age.

“I knooow where you aaare...”

Of all things, his voice sounded wet. Before he turned to face Lily, somehow fixating in her direction despite the lack of guidance, a few more strange things could be glimpsed. From his lower back sprouted a gooey black tail, its tip a spade, and his shoulderblades gave rise to winglike extensions that lacked membranes.

“Your souuul...I need it. Give it, sooo tasty. Won't ask nicelyyy...I must feeeeeed.”

The soldier's face began to bubble and boil, the sky turning to jelly. His mouth grew to take up his whole face, the teeth yellow-green pillars that gnashed together again and again before opening wide. Two additional arms sprouted from his ribs and reached into his maw to retrieve a pair of curved swords from within his gullet. When the mouth closed, it shrank back to its normal size, Teller's liquidated human features reappearing. Black slime flowed from his lips to cover the top of his head, where it altered into a horned military helmet with a microphone. Music, energetic but distorted in parts into a hideous-sounding remix, began to echo through the underground.

“Coming for you, tasty!” came the garbled ultimatum, through the noise.

Sunspot

Location: the Park
@FloodTalon

While the tree Pieter inhabited harbored no more leaves on its boughs, the remnants of Weird Autumn swirled like a stormcloud of oranges and browns above and around their controller; after all, in a world where a single mature oak could have two hundred thousand leaves, a single twister made no difference to the whole. Jin's dash toward Pieter proved to be a shortsighted maneuver as a portion of the original tree's magicked leaves swooped down on him from the front, and those of his former cover closed in from behind him. The two waves hastened to crash together with the assassin in the middle.

Malveil

Location: Main Street
@RoughDragon1

Blood-curdling shriek after uncanny shriek sounded out from the alley as Malveil grew closer, intensifying until the very moment he rounded the building's corner to peer down it at the abhorrent things within. When he turned his gaze upon the horrible noises' source, however, only trash looked back at him.

The next second, blasts of blackness appeared above him, in every direction. Murky dust expanded into a nebulous cloud that blocked out the sun, and from the sudden dark descended a squadron of shapes blacker still. Misshapen, abominable, and with no two quite alike, the nightmarish things cackled at the surrounded fool that had fallen for their ambush. Wasting little time, the ghouls mounted their bloodthirsty assault, the first lashing out with its twisted limbs to gouge Malveil's flesh from his body.

Overlord : Advent of the Gods

Overwhelming strength and conviction--is it all one needs to defeat insurmountable odds?

Woodstop

@Lord Zee's Revenmar, @13org's Yasha

Singlemindedly ferocious as they were, the foxmen of the Vulpuryun Tribe boasted their fair share of wits. Even those among them that couldn't boast a dozen battles under their belt could recognize the two abnormalities that had taken the field. No regular soldier could, after all, rack up such a body count at such a blistering pace. From the moment that foxes started dropping like flies, their still-standing comrades took notice of the lethal knight's shining armor and the crested swordsman's flying razors of wind. After finishing off the last man challenging him atop a nearby boulder, a burly foxman with a huge greatsword began barking orders. The beastmen not directly engaged with Woodstop's soldiery, or entranced by the silver warrior's taunt, began to rotate their positions. More druids and hexfoxes appeared near Revenmar, and archers took up positions close to where Emile was fighting to nock and loose their arrows.

Giving Revenmar a respectable distance, foxes wielding hexing wands began to channel energetic purple magics. They moved his way in waves, and their lapping touch seemed to increase the weight of his already-heavy armor. His powerful muscles were forced to contend with the debilitating might of Gravity, strong enough to lay out flat any ordinary soldier, and to bring even the most prodigious strongman to his knees. At the same time, the druids flourished their lightening rods to shower him with bolts of electricity from afar, aiming to cook him in his heavy plate. A rarity on the battlefield, such armor nevertheless sported its fair share of weaknesses.

For his part, fortune favored Emile; the allies he fought beside spotted the bowfoxes taking up advantageous positions to fire upon them. When the call went out, Randy looked to confirm for himself, and ended up smiling despite the dire circumstances. “The subhumans display more military practice than I would have anticipated. Look over yonder, Emile! Our foe has pegged you for a magician and seeks to penetrate your arcane artistry with a quarrel or two.” He paused to concentrate, dodging backward as a spearfox grew too close for comfort. His movement left a comrade's flank open, and the spearfox altered her weapon's course to bury itself in the soldier's thigh. While the man let out a startling scream of agony, he lunged forward toward the fox and bashed her shield with his own. Stunned, she couldn't react in time to avoid a vertical air slash from Emile that parted her arm at the shoulder. Her howl was cut off by the soldier's axe, which he slammed down into her collarbone from above to get around her still-raised shield. As she toppled, he fell back too due to his brutalized leg, and the next moment he was being left behind. Randy fell back, his palm aglow with a green luster, to start healing the injury as he dragged the soldier back. “Tarry not, mercenary! Those arrows will rain down upon us in seconds, now that there's an opening.”

Emile nodded, and as he stepped onto a small rock sticking out of the grassy hill, he swung his sword to throw another air slash at one of the archers. The relatively slow-moving air razor left the bowfox plenty of time to duck out of the way, however, and the next moment an arrow shot Emile's way. For a second, he couldn't process how fast it was moving; sharp though his vision was, they did not make possible the impossible feat of speeding up perception, and to him the arrow looked scarcely slower than a bullet. He felt the impact before he saw it. ”Huh!?” Panicked, he looked down, but the arrow was already twirling away to fall, harmless, in the grass Just before piercing his belly, it had been stopped by a thin barrier surrounding him. It hit him the next moment, just before the second arrow did: aether body. The swirling orbs floating in the air around him were proof—the Comet Chaser's blessing had prevented harm. Randy, still watching, looked dumbfounded as the arrows smacked into Emile one by one and magic spilled into the air instead of blood. The other soldiers had taken cover behind knolls, trees, or shields, and they appeared just as surprised. Not one to rest on his laurels, Emile ducked behind a large stump. Thud, thud, thud went the arrows into the stump, and then they stopped.

The woman in armor beside him, whose dirty-blonde hair, pale purple eyes, and short sword gave her away as the very same soldier who'd helped Emile moments before, stared at him dubiously. “That's some useful magic. Got any to spare, mate? Ya might be able to head back out, but we're pinned down here.” Her face became a scowl of anger. “How many bleedin' bowfoxes they keep in reserve? Gonna take the hill, we were. Now we're sittin' ducks 'til their duffers come 'round and clear us out. Unless ya fancy chargin' 'em one by one.”

Silent, Emile took a peek around the edge of the stump. His visor allowed him a clear look at the well-built beastman commander on his rock at the hilltop. “Better to take care of the real problem.”

Lips curled in a proud smile, Hargrihn the Highlander stood with his enormous claymore atop his shoulders. More a long chunk of sharpened iron than a real sword, his 'weapon' could have put an entire team of lesser foxes to shame, but this Vulp's physique made it clear he was no ordinary beastman. For a moment it had seemed like the human force, bolstered by its steady stream of reinforcements from the village as well as the two forces of nature that fought for them, would take the hill and force the warband out of the valley. No matter how strong it might be, however, anything on the battlefield was subject to military strategy. There was no move the humans could make that the Vulpuryuns lacked an answer to. Though a veteran of many battles, Hargrihn did not typically issue commands like this, but he felt sure that the effectiveness of his calls would earn a newfound respect from the warlord once he became aware. Still, the Highlander's true passion was the fight, and he almost wanted to let the humans advance so that he could leap down and join the brawl himself. It was with a shimmer in his dark eyes, then, that Hargrihn watched the shape of the special swordsman rocket up from behind his stump on wings of aether. For a moment, in fact, a great many eyes were on Emile's spectacle as he hung in the air, his magic wings a steam of effulgent teal and pitch-black trail, before he drove straight toward Hargrihn.

At the last conceivable moment, the Highlander moved his sword to intercept Emile's double overhead slash. The resulting clang rang across the battlefield, and the fox's grip held against the Comet Chaser's push. As Emile's feet touched stone, Hargrihn pushed the locked weapons down, and bared his teeth in his enemy's face. “A beautiful light show. Very impressive! But not for the Highlander!” He adjusted his grip as he spoke, his grin widening. “Magic, dexterity...tools of the coward! There is just one path for the true warrior, stranger!” Mustering his strength, Hargrihn gave a mighty shove. Emile's loose footing on the edge of he bolder gave way, and he tumbled backward to land in the grass. Above him, a great black shadow blocked out the sunlight dappling through the treetops. “Muscle power!”

Emile rolled out of the way, and Harghrin's sword split the earth where he lay a split second before. In a flash the Comet Chaser regained his feet, and the fight was on.

-=-=-

The thickness of the woods meant that the sounds of battle faded away with haste as Yasha made her beleaguered retreat. In the hollow of a deformed pair of trees, whose trunks had grown together into a warped curve, she found a place to hide and rest. In the shadows beneath the leaves the pale sharpshooter did not stand out so much as one might think, and as her breath eased she could feel the stillness of the air. No errant breeze filtered through this forest, and only the drone of insects, the swish of leaves, and the song of distant birds interrupted the silence.

That lull remained until an odd noise disturbed the atmosphere. At first it could be mistaken for footsteps, but rather than the fall of shoes on leaves and roots, it sounded far more like slapping. Even stranger was its frequency; the soft, meaty noise could be heard several times per second, unassuming in volume but detectable thanks to the woods' general quiet and growing louder as whatever it was grew closer. After a few moments, the noises' perpetrator passed within Yasha's view. For about a second she could make out the unusual but familiar shape of Lenore, who she'd seen but perhaps not assigned a particular significance to last night after the enigmatic transition. Not far behind Lenore followed two more conventional-looking flesh golems, their freakish forms all the stranger for their silent attendance to their mistress. Lenore did not notice Yasha in any way, but instead headed in the general direction of the illusory boulder the markswoman spotted a short time ago—though in fact, Lenore's current course could take her right past it, if there weren't any foxmen to clue her in on where to go.

The Crucible - Winner Take All

Sorry, folks. I have been busy, but I'll have a post up in the next couple of days. Hang tight until then!

The only person who needs to post in the near future is @Lazo. It's been quite a while, but I haven't been sharp about monitoring as of late.

Overlord : Advent of the Gods

@13org, @Lord Zee, I have been busy, but I'll have a post up in the next couple of days. Hang tight!

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

A room packed full of powerful presences, including a fair few unfamiliar to Souta and several all the more potentially problematic for their familiarity, bid him keep his tongue. He did not, of course, put blind trust in the angels, but what were Lily and Fenn going to do? Though the agents' consensus had been but a short time ago, he already felt unsure as to what they intended. It would appear, based on the demons' obstinate refusal to part with their orb, that there was no plan to enter the Jungle Tabernacle and secure the seal. How then, one might ask, could the seal be placed under the Charred Council's protection? The smith had no idea, but he did know that his voice mattered not at all among this lot. Anything he might say could easily strengthen the tension filling the air, which was already fit to burst.

No small part of this escalation rested on the shoulders of the one other human-looking being present aside from him and Akoni: a white-haired guy who in the span of moments had managed to establish himself as a prick of preternatural proportions. As any Japanese man with a shred of propriety might be, Souta was affronted by his utter rudeness on a personal level. He felt as though this man shamed his race before the angels; though all parties present might not agree, common courtesy demanded at least a little respect and self-composure.

Any second now this powderkeg could erupt into bloody conflict, which -it occurred to Souta- might be what Henry and his demon allies wanted. Wrath, at least, was trying to mitigate the situation, but Souta felt sure that angelic pride and demonic rebelliousness could not coexist for long. Wearing a nervous expression, Souta flicked his eyes between all the major players present. We can't start fighting now. We have a real problem on our hands, and Sevrin could appear any moment. If a brawl starts, it'll play right into that bastard's hands.

Project Crossover [SMASH ARENA - Only PXO members allowed]

@Lugubrious Dude, I love your post. Who knew such a gentlemanly character could be that funny? Much better than my post for Steve.

@Rockin Strings

Thank you very much, but don't put yourself down! This isn't a competition.

SAGA [An Original Dragon Ball Universe RP] - Always Open! [CAS/ADV]

Type 0011 “Severa”

PL 910 Human Cyborg
Location: VR Training World “Gehenna” / Secret Facility in Central Capital

From the moment she started to become aware of her surroundings, Severa could tell that nothing made sense. Golden light filtered through spindly dark objects, far enough away that the haze obscured their forms, leaving only four things in focus. To her left stood some sort of edifice, lacking detail but awash in a strange feeling. Home. Try as she might, Severa couldn't quite control herself; she felt as though she were strapped into someone else's head, watching from a first-person perspective but unable to direct her body's movements. Yet, despite the confusion and restriction she felt no fear. In fact, something unfamiliar and strange warmed her heart...a sensation that long since drifted away. Her eyes drifted between the faces of the people nearby one by one, but a sort of jitteriness blanketed their features, leaving them essentially faceless. The only thing Severa knew for sure was that she cared for them, and they for her. In this bizarrely vague but carefree place, she felt the handshakes of old strangers: affection and security, which so long ago had ceased to darken her door. Within the back of her mind, however, a lingering unease told her that this comforting scene was not hers, and never was. Though joy surrounded her, Severa was overcome by a longing sorrow, a sadness that spawned from the troubling assurance that none of this was real. Shaking, she looked back at those around her, seeking reassurance, but already they were moving away. The cheery sunshine receded, and as Severa reached out to take the hand of the closest person, she could feel it slide away like water between her fingers. Around her, the colors began to move faster and faster, the landscape melting away, until there remained only darkness and a pining for the touch of home.

Severa gasped, her head swimming painfully. A quick look around made it apparent that the world was upside-down, but she could grasp from the ropes around her feet that it was she who was misaligned. Further examination revealed that she hung, upside-down, from a gnarled tree. Below her yawned a pit lined by torches and filled with stakes, their blood-encrusted points rammed in some cases through stinking corpses. Around her, other bodies hung, but their stillness and her silence told her all she needed to know. As always, Severa was alone, and tonight the scent of death threatened to choke her before she could even impale herself. In every direction, more trees stood like looming spectators, watching those suspended in their midst in quiet anticipation. Her face, however, bore neither fear nor irritation, but instead a grimace of resignation. Fraught with danger as it was, this current predicament interested her far less than the odd hollowness somewhere deep within her mind. She knew that, moments ago, she'd been dreaming, but she could not recall her dream's subject. It left her bitter, as though she'd been denied a small convenience.

No matter. Inexplicable feelings troubled her daily, and as blasé as this situation was, she might as well get it over with. Tightening her stomach muscles, Severa curled upward, then straightened out. In such a manner she began to swing back and forth. For several passes she performed this same motion, a living pendulum, until she deemed her arc satisfactorily large. This time, when she curled, she reached out a hand toward the ropes that trapped her. In front of her fingers, the air began to spin, coalescing into a bladed disc that sawed straight through her bindings with a sound more like a ringing bell than a machine. Immediately she began to drop, but her swing brought her close enough to one of the other hanging bodies that she could plant her feet against it and push off. The impact of her shoes against the rotting flesh caused the skin to slough off, but Severa paid it no mind as she springboarded herself to safety. A midair flip brought her into the ideal position to land on the edge of the spike-pit with a roll, and after getting to her feet the girl dusted herself off and walked to the nearest tree. Two larger sawblades formed, one for each hand, and in a matter of moments Severa had stripped the tree of a sheet of bark. From there, it took only a short time to carve a suitable hole into the wood, which she entered before stretching the bark back over the opening. Then, with a slit in the bark to peek through, it was time to wait.

A quarter-hour passed before she spotted the shadows moving among the foliage on the other side of the spike-pit. Severa observed with nonchalance as a man entered the torchlight. His clothes marked him as a farmer, but the swelling of his left shoulder, and the spiny-toothed orifice nestled there, cast doubt on the notion of him ever being human. He walked toward the pit, a notched sword in hand and a yellow-green glare in his eyes. Behind him three similar creatures followed, and they spread out around the gruesome hole. One placed her back near Severa's hiding spot, and after making sure that no other monsters were coming, she went to work.

She burst from her cavity without much in the way of aplomb, leaping toward the nearest creature with two sawblades summoned. The first strike, a backhand slash, plowed through her target's midsection. Severa executed a full twirl, bringing her reverse hand in for a messy cut through the shock creature's torso, and the final slice after the spin put the miserable thing out of its misery by shearing its head into halves. The creature to her right turned toward her, scythe upraised, and Severa slung her right hand's sawblade into his chest vertically, where it dug itself in for a full second before losing its spin. Without time to admire her handiwork, Severa executed a corkscrew dive across the spike pit, forming another sawblade so that she could execute an x-slash to reduce the hapless monster to four quarters. Not counting the one struggling with the blade lodged in its ribcage, that left only the original. A tongue lashed out from his shoulder-mouth, seeking to bury its tip in Severa's face, but lopping it off with a blade was the very definition of easy. Her target swung his sword, which Severa intercepted with both blades at once. Its force threatened to break through, or push her backward into the pit, but the spin of the girl's saws sent incessant vibrations down the metal weapon into the creature's hand, numbing the nerves. A moment later, Severa shoved the sword to the side and dashed the opposite way, allowing the orbiting blades to strike once each before disappearing as she passed behind the monster. Before the thing could turn around, she dealt a swift kick to its back, causing the monster to tumble toward its own pit.

It did not reach the spikes. Severa's first sawblade, reacting to her summon, flew from its dying victim's chest to hang just above the pit, over the spikes. The monsters she kicked fell upon it, held on the bloodstrained edge by gravity, screeching until its halves fell into the pit on either side of the blade, which vanished back into the air. Just like that, the forest was quiet once again. Her face unchanged, Severa scooped up the fallen sword and turned to jog away into the foliage.

Project Crossover [SMASH ARENA - Only PXO members allowed]

Slayer
Level 4
Day 2
Location: In-house Smash Arena
Experience: |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| (0/40)

Dashing, domineering, deadly—Slayer cut quite the figure as he sauntered Gnasty's way, plans of attack running through his mind. His concentration on the idea of using Dandy Step to punish any move the repulsive brute made, however, availed him little when his allies took advantage of his distraction to move in from the sides and strike from afar with powerful ranged attacks. Void, ice, laser, and energy bombarded the great Gnorc, ripping into him before Slayer even got the chance to lash out with one of his newly-recalled techniques. Realizing with only a trace of distress that his presence in this fight would soon be obsolete, he picked up the pace to a powerwalk, intent on planting a Crosswise Heel in the damaged region of Gnasty's head. He never got chance; Fox and Naija struck once again, their formidable speed driving their finishing blows home and sending a him, battered, to the ground.

Naija set to teasing the fallen freak without delay, prompting an admonishing smile from the vampire. ”Now now, dearie. Our foe still draws breath. We must finish him now before he makes good his--!”

His words became reality with startling speed. Having regenerated enough to take action, Gnasty picked himself off and sprinted away from the heroes at a pace that would have traumatized any doctor of physics. With a final ejection of mutated green blood, the overgrown ogre disappeared into the hole through which he'd come.

”...Escape.” Placing his hand against his brow, the gentleman shook his head in mild disappointment. ”Ah, no matter. 'He can run, but he cannot hide'...isn't that the saying? Where he goes, we will follow, for the virus must be eradicated.”

Scarcely had he taken a few steps in pursuit before the familiar sounds of a train reached his ears. Slayer did not pause in his stride, but took note of the strange howl that accompanied the vehicle's whistle. How odd. He waved over his fellow warriors as he marched on, privy to the sight of lights down the tunnel. A moment after he reached the breach and began toward the tracks, he heard a sudden and meaty thwack that resounded off the walls, and his mind was filled with curiosity. Quickening his pace, Slayer arrived at the platform and beheld at once two incredible things: the inert remains of Gnasty Gnorc, and the phantasmagorical locomotive that had eviscerated him.

The sight bid him raised his eyebrows and almost displace his monocle. ”Goodness! What a sight.” Fascinated, he looked up and down the waiting train's length. ”Its haunting exterior reminds me...'tis the Halloween season, is it not? Perhaps this devilish contraption has arrived neither in malice nor benevolence, but as a harbinger of an even greater thrill.” He chuckled, realizing his overindulgence in wordplay. The battle concluded, he removed from his pockets a fresh pipe, which he proceeded to light with a flame-igniting snap of his fingers. As interesting as this development was, he was also eager to see what the others thought of this apparition.