Mcmolly

Where It Always Rains

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April 8th, yesterday’s future.

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Still alive, not bad.

Akari was not the easiest person to have a conversation with. She wasn’t quite as prickly as Shiori could be, but Akari had a certain…vertical presence that inspired doubt in those who approached her. Kanna had been a fearful sort herself once, too intimidated to risk the ire of people much bigger and stronger than she was. Now, though the prospect that Akari might at any moment become tired of her presence and hurl her headlong across the classroom was still there, it didn’t scare her.

Besides, what had started out as a means to cover her little informational dead drop seemed to be blossoming into something worth sticking around for.

“Vengeance? Spicy.” She held her sandwich in her mouth and pulled the notebook from her pocket. “I didn’t know you and Kenzo were so close. Is it an honor thing? Or is it, like, about respect?”

The beatdown article had been a good one-off to start the year, get people’s blood pumping. Kanna had planned to do one or two follow-up pieces to cover Kenzo’s recouperation and whatever punishments got dolled out, enough keep people’s interests for a few more issues until the buzz wore off, and she’d had enough time to find a new hit.

But if Akari was planning to make some kind of crusade out of this, Kanna was more than happy to keep tapping the vein. Chances were high that Totsuka would just body the girl and it’d be over in another day, but that was another solid article itself. And hey, maybe there’d be an upset. Maybe Akari would hold her own—hell, maybe this campaign dragged on for days, or weeks. With the right coverage, this little spat could turn into a thrilling serial.

“You ever been in a fight with someone bigger than you?”

Where It Always Rains

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April 8th, yesterday’s future.

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The air in the school was charged by lunch, Kanna could feel the hairs on the back of her neck standing up. God damn was this good.

She sat at her desk grinning like an idiot, too absorbed in the paper to touch her sandwich. It was beautiful, absolutely pristine—she’d owe Umeko and Shoichi sweets for the killer formatting. There’d been some brief tentativeness over publishing a story like this in their first issue of the year; one editor had called it a hit-piece, but Kanna was firm that it wasn’t gossip and in the end, she liked to think her article and the evidence were compelling enough to put it to print.

And wow, the effect had been incredible, and that made sense. Intrigue! Peril! Blood! Highschool kids loved blood and they ate up danger like they’d been starved for months. And in a way they had been starved—of entertainment. Utsubyo wasn’t nearly as boring as it led people to believe, but all of its interesting bits were buried and convoluted and, frankly, it was much harder to sell her peers on scandals in a local orchard than it was to get them buzzing over a bully, even if the Pic-Land was up to some actual shit. Totsuka might be middle-sized fish, but Utsubyo was a small pond, even if it was deeper than other, bigger ponds.

Her mood was dampened a bit though, when she saw Ms. Touga enter the room looking like she’d just been left out in the rain. Immediately she snatched up Shiori and the Ogre, and Kanna felt a little pang of guilt. Well, half a pang. She didn’t care much about Totsuka, but Shiori wasn’t a bad person—depending on who you asked, and right now Kanna was asking herself. Sure she was a little rough, more than a little rude, and occasionally she would beat people up, but the story hadn’t been about her doing any of that. The whole point of blurring her in the pictures had been to avoid getting her in trouble, which wouldn’t count for shit if she just up and confessed to a teacher.

Damn, should have cropped the stupid picture instead, she thought, but didn’t really mean it. Cutting Shiori out would have ruined the balance. God, why’d she have to have red hair? No, that looked good too. Really, it was just an unwinnable situation and her hands were tied.

Sort of.

Kanna tore a chunk of paper from her notebook and scribbled onto it: NO EVIDENCE, PLAY DUMB. This was true; Kanna had blurred and barred the photos herself. The originals were still on her own, personal flashdrive, and she didn’t see any reason they needed to be anywhere else. It felt a bit wrong, but she could square herself with that. She had a strict rule—she didn’t lie about her work, but omitting things wasn’t the same as lying about them.

She took up her sandwich and got up from her seat, making her way to Shiori’s. In her mind, just dropping off her note would have been a bit too obvious, so she decided she needed a cover. And, wouldn’t you know it, there behind Shiori’s desk was just such a cover.

Kanna briefly set her sandwich down on Shiori’s desk, and as she did, she subtly slid her note onto the clutter of books and other delinquent miscellanea—cigs, switchblades, a leather jacket or something, Kanna didn’t know, she didn’t look closely. Then she took the seat, spun it around, and sat down facing the desk behind her.

“Heeeeey, Sakaguchi~!” she chimed, taking up her sandwich again. Akari ate like a tiger mauling some idiot who had fallen into her enclosure, but Kanna was already committed. This was dangerous work after all, sometimes you dealt with tigers, sometimes you got eaten. The French had a saying for it, but she didn’t speak French.

“How’re you doin’? How’s things? Been a minute, just figured we could chat, y’know? Heard about your brother—awful shit. How’s he holding up?”

To Become a Knight! ~ A Chivalric (Mis)Adventure

Dot

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Sitting in the common room, surrounded by the growing number of people as her other squad mates rose from their sleep and prepared for breakfast, Dot found herself smiling. Despite the awkward friction with Elon, and Rossweine’s presence—was he damp?—she couldn’t help it. This was the most company she’d ever kept, not simply all at once, but maybe even at all. And yet she didn’t feel nervous, she felt…warm. It was almost intoxicating, was it supposed to be?

The goodwill emanating from Signar and Zenshin, the energy—and impressive acrobatics—from Kai, the odd yet undeniable solidarity in Julian’s greeting. Even Elon’s sourness suddenly seemed less abrasive and more like another flavor in the mix.

As two of their number bolted out the door, Dot found herself rising as well, and turning to her roommate. It would have been easy to just say nothing and go ahead, and hope they spent the next weeks or months or however long never speaking to each other or interacting or acknowledging each other’s existences. Days ago, maybe even just minutes ago, she might have wanted that, but now she didn’t.

If she meant to close herself off from everyone she would have done better staying in Alexandria.

“Sounds good to me,” she said, smiling to Zenshin and heading for the door. “Better be quick, too. Wouldn’t want to start our first day on an empty stomach, right?”

On her way out she saluted Nathaniel, as that seemed to be good form, and bowed her head to the Prince in lieu of risking a meeting of eyes. Start small, right? Start small.

You Can Become a Hero!

_______________________________________________ // INFO D A T A Full Name - Akawara Saika Hometown - Sado, Niigata Prefecture, Japan Quirk Type - Emitter Gender - Female - // PERSONALITY P E R S O N A L I T Y Energetic Saika is a kinetic person; she likes to be doing things, and hates to be not doing things. If it weren’t for the oppressive demands of evolution she spend her nights out having fun instead of sleeping—which, sometimes she does anyway. If there’s fun to be had, or at least excitement she’s often the first to volunteer. Impulsive Unsurprisingly, given her active nature, Saika isn’t the most patient person. She’s quick on her feet and is pretty good at thinking in the moment, it’s just that there’s rarely much thinking in the moments prior. She doesn’t do so well with “plans” and “strategies”, and prefers to rely on her instincts and reflexes to get a job done. "Rebellious" Saika might have a delinquent reputation and a bit of a penchant for mischief, but the reality is that most of her rebelliousness comes from outward expectations. People have treated her like a problem her entire life, and though deep down she doesn’t want to, sometimes it’s hard not to just give them what they’re waiting for. As the few people who know her well can attest, Saika rarely acts with the intent to cause harm, but even her mistakes are often attributed to malice.

Physical Description Despite being of average height and weight, Saika still manages to strike a distinctive figure. Between the thick pigtails and horns, as well as the fiery eyes and frequent smirks, the first thing that comes to most people’s minds when they see her is some variation of the word “devilish”. Fittingly then, she looks like she’s spent a fair amount of time in literal hell. She’s utterly rife with burn scars, ranging wildly in size and shape. Her face has been spared, but wrapped around her neck are a seared pair of handprints, which can also be found around one of her biceps, a wrist, and both of her own hands. Though her outfits tend to be made from mismatched thrift-store pickups that are either ill-fitting or worn and patchy, she has a soft spot for weirdly-specific, targeted t-shirts, and makes an effort to include them in her wardrobe whenever allowed—and sometimes when expressly forbidden. Personal History Once the treasured Fire of Hokkaido, and a shining alum of Ishin Academy, Hiroto Akawara’s career came crashing down when a child with his quirk revealed that the Pro Hero and loving husband was having an affair. His wife left him, his company dropped him, but the people never truly gave up on him. So, in an effort to save face, he humbly retired, adopted the girl, and left Hokkaido for the island of Sado. There, he planned to quietly rebuild his reputation and one day return to his adoring public and life of fame. Being a good father was not part of this plan. People didn’t like Saika from the get-go. Adults saw her as the reason Hiroto was forced out of his job, and the other kids just saw her as a sad candle that made their parents’ favorite hero disappear. Whenever a villain Hiroto had fought resurfaced to cause trouble, people made it very clear who they thought was really to blame. No one was surprised when she started lashing out; she was a problem child, sullying a hero’s good name with her sour attitude and bad behavior. The tides of her school life ebbed and flowed between bullying and isolation. She found occasional comfort in the company of other outcasts, truants and delinquents with no real bonds to each other besides their shared desire to be the nuisance everyone else already assumed they were. Perhaps that was why her acquaintance with Izuna eventually flourished into proper friendship. Izuna was largely disliked by their peers, but she wasn’t out to cause trouble because of it. Though she was too young to know it yet, the fishy girl showed Saika her first true inklings of morality, and gave credence to the little light inside of her that felt good when she did the right thing, and bad when she did wrong. In her later school years, it was her friendship with Izuna that kept her from straying into darker roads. At home things were no better. All of the sentiments whispered around her at school were said bluntly at the dinner table. Hiroto never shied away from reminding her that she was a mistake, and that their relationship was born of obligation. Now and then, other pro heroes would come to visit, and though they wouldn’t partake in the ridicule, they never intervened, or snitched, and their relationship with Hiroto never wilted because of it. When her quirk developed further, his simmering anger boiled over. He saw it as her angling to replace him before he got his chance to return. The discouragements became louder, more frequent. They became violent. When his friends came by, they still said nothing. This went on for years, and all the while, Hiroto’s reputation steadily regrew as he implanted himself into the local community. Charities, fundraisers, school events, he (ghost)wrote books on overcoming inner adversity to become a better man, once he even stopped a purse-snatcher without his Quirk. News crews would come by to interview him, small at first, and then larger and more wide-reaching, until eventually the question came: “If they would take you back, would you return to being a hero?” Within weeks the negotiations began. Hiroto’s company was preparing to rehire him, rebrand him as the “human” hero who made mistakes just like everyone else, and who could overcome them, just like everyone else. He was even talking to his ex-wife again; they planned on renewing their vows. The last matter was Saika. On her tenth birthday, Saika finally met her mother. Her name was Koyuki; she was a surly woman who looked incapable of joy, or restful sleep. The first thing she did was put out her cigarette on the doorframe, the second was take beer from their fridge. Hiroto got straight to the point: he would go back to his life as a hero, and Koyuki would deal with Saika until she was eighteen. It only took a few moments for them to start screaming. Saika sat outside. Koyuki eventually joined her, having evidently lost the argument. She lit another cigarette and asked Saika a few begrudging questions about herself, which she answered with equal enthusiasm. Eventually she noticed the burns, and though Saika prepared the same old excuse that she’d done them to herself with her Quirk, it became evident to her that Koyuki was somehow aware she couldn’t. Without a word she stood up and went back inside. Through the open door, Saika watched Koyuki put her hand on Hiroto’s face, and blow his head away in a beam of white-hot light. Saika froze. She knew the beam, she’d seen it a dozen times before whenever her father reminisced with old videos from his hero days. That was the quirk of his nemesis. A hero-killer. Chilblain. Her mom was a villain. The rest of the night was a blur. Koyuki practically leveled the house, and then buried herself and Saika in the rubble. When rescue and authorities arrived, she told them Chilblain had come, hearing Hiroto was planning to take up the mantle again, and killed him. Saika didn’t hesitate, she said it was true. Hiroto’s death made national news. His friends held a vigil. Saika remained in Sado, but went with Koyuki and never said a word about who she really was. Her mother didn’t do much villainy after that, but she didn’t stop either. If the mood struck her, if she didn’t like someone, if something was wrong, she handled it how she wanted. She taught Saika how to defend herself, but didn’t teach her much about her quirk. It wasn’t a particularly joyful relationship, but she felt closer to Koyuki after one week than she had in ten years with her father. When Saika was eventually accepted into Ishin Academy, Koyuki wasn’t upset. She didn’t yell at her, insult her, or hurt her. It was what Saika wanted, even if she didn’t know yet why she wanted it, and so in her own sardonic way, Koyuki gave her support. That was all Saika needed. Character Arc Saika’s arc revolves around the morality of being a hero, and the gray area she believes many heroes and villains live in. Titles and licenses don’t make someone a good person, and if people as horrible as her father can not only be adored by the public, but have their darker sides hidden by other heroes, then how trustworthy is the institution really? Saika knows good people exist, she even believes some of those people are heroes, or want to be, but when she needed help, it was a villain that saved her. Saika came to Ishin because as much as she distrusts heroes, she also recognizes the darkness in her mother. She loves Koyuki, but in her heart she knows she doesn’t want to be her, and she thinks Koyuki doesn’t want that either. There’s a drive in her to do good, even if it’s buried in cynicism and youthful rebellion. If she can get through this, and become a hero—a real hero—then maybe, just maybe, there’s hope for people like her mother, too. Or maybe they’re both doomed. Quirk Description Saika’s quirk, Hemoignition, is a mutated version of her father’s quirk. It is split into two parts: “Passive” and “Active”. Passive: Saika generates blood at an exceptionally high rate, to the point that she will regularly need to utilize the active portion of her quirk to avoid excessive—though harmless—hemorrhages, most commonly nosebleeds, but also bleeding from the eyes, ears, and occasionally in the form of sweat. As well, ingesting another person’s blood allows Saika to change her blood type to match theirs. With training, Saika will also be able to assimilate foreign blood to her own type, but only when it is removed from its host. Lastly, though Saika is immune to burns from her own quirk, she is not fireproof nor is she naturally more resistant to cold or hot weather. Active: Saika is able to burn her own blood as fuel to conjure flames. The more blood is burned, the hotter and more intense the flames are. Burning different blood types alters Hemoignition’s effects. Note that Saika is currently only practiced in burning type A blood, and is unaware of what the other types can do. Type A: Conjures a standard flame, which can be maintained as a stream or thrown as a bolt. Low-medium burn-cost. Type B: Conjures an explosive burst at a targeted area. Medium-high cost, which increases with range, size, and intensity of explosion. Type O: Generates an aura of heat. Cost raises with intensity, and time. Type AB: Draws heat from the air to fire a beam of concentrated energy, identical to her mother’s quirk. Extremely high cost which can border on exsanguination. Usage will often induce a brief loss of consciousness until enough blood is recovered to function.

Where It Always Rains

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April 7th, Year Negotiable.

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Kanna sat back against the dumpster, flipping through the photos she’d taken with barely-suppressed glee. Between the skateboard javelining, Sakaguchi’s glamour shot, and the candids of Shiori and Totsuka blowing smoke beside the sports shed, the front page was going to be spoiled for choice.

What a way to start the year. Maybe this didn’t lead anywhere—assault was hard to ignore, but Sakaguchi wasn’t exactly a local hero, and sad as it was she doubted school officials were chomping at the bit to defend him. But hey, if it did, she’d be plastering the takedown of the Utsubyo Ogre all over her college applications. This was way bigger than the Familymart Weasels, and almost as big as the Pic-Land apple seed scandal. A few more like this, and Kanna was sure she’d have internships clawing each other’s throats out just to get ahold of her.

"Whatever the fuck you think you're doing: don't. This ain't a request."

Kanna yelped, but thankfully this time she slapped her uncasted hand over her mouth. Shiori and Totsuka had passed—she hadn’t even heard them coming, oops—but the big fellow had stopped to mad dog her, and give some less-than-subtle advice before stomping off.

She sat there for a few more moments, quiet, before peering out to find that she was alone. A smirk wormed its way onto her face.

“Well boy howdy buckaroo, you betcha,” she mumbled in her best—or worst—kansai accent. He’d said it himself, it wasn’t a request. If he wasn’t asking, then she didn’t have to answer.

Lunch was all but over, and Kanna headed back into the classroom still unbothered by her lost sandwich. What was there to mourn, really? She had a full plate now, and she’d be chewing on this story all night.

Steal Away The Light

Location: Uhladein, Eastern Marches

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The pain must have been fucking with her vision, because as Rain crawled to a knee, body knitting itself back together, ember flaring back to heat, she could have sworn she saw the Ogre’s head split open. The shieldmaiden had blown out its shin before being thrown away, but whatever the state of its bones it stood up anyway.

It didn’t look like an Ogre anymore. It didn’t look like anything. In the lightning its silhouette was singular and otherworldly. Rain had been right, what she felt was fear. How could anyone look at this and not feel it too?

But Rain didn’t process fear well. At home, fear was chum in ravenous, hungry waters. If the other kids saw your fear, they knew they could eat your food and take your teeth and that you wouldn’t do anything about it but cry. Rain didn’t cry. She handled fear in the same way she handled everything else she didn’t understand.

She got mad.

The thing let out a sound with no mortal origin, the mirth and fury of the unknowable that made thunder shrink and made her insides curl. She met it with a roar of her own, not nearly so loud, but the anger sent molten soulfire spilling from her still-sealing wounds. Rain forgot she was going to die just long enough that, if the Ogre was any faster, it would kill her before she got the chance to remember.

And it was fast—but not fast enough. Its horrific clawed arm lurched down, and met the marriage of steel and flesh that was the swordswoman. Rain’s sense caught up with her and her she fell quiet, watching in awe as the Huntress matched the Ogre’s horrible strength and pulled the blow aside. Before she could say anything else though, she felt something wrap around her, and briefly considering getting angry again instead of panicking. She realized though that the something was in fact someone. The swordswoman—kind of. A tail had burst from her, sizzling against Rain’s body, and then just as quickly she found herself tossed wholly away like a steaming tumbleweed.

Now that was worth getting angry over. Rain wasn’t exactly substantial, but dammit, you did not pick her up and you most definitely did not throw her. She had ripped out molars for slights a fraction as heinous; this Huntress was going to owe her a whole jawbone’s worth of teeth. She—

She was dead.

The Ogre’s other arm came down, and…it was like blinking. The woman was there, and then she just wasn’t. Bits of her were there. And there. And waaaaay over there. Rain’s eyes followed the sword as it tumbled through the air, embedding itself into the nearby tower wall. She stared, dumbfounded.

She saved me.

She’s dead.

“But...” she babbled like an idiot, like the first time papa had ever shown her a magic trick. People died at these things, that’s the way it was. Obviously that meant Hunters too, didn’t it? Rain had never seen it happen before, it always sounded like it was nearly impossible to do. But she was gone, just as fast and easily as the guards.

You didn’t move. Now she’s dead.

Something bubbled up within her. Something new, and strange, and its pangs felt like pain, but she was already hurting and she could still tell it apart. She didn’t understand it.

So she got mad instead. Real mad, real fast. Her ember practically exploded with heat, and it filled her up like she was a sponge dropped into a lake of fire. Her bones melted back together, her blown-put eye formed anew in its socket. As fast as her skin could boil and blacken, it healed again. Beneath her the dirt and mud and stone hardened like bedrock as she pushed herself to her feet. She stared at the sword.

The Ogre’s eldritch wail shamed the thunder again, but Rain hardly heard it this time. She felt it though, felt the wind tearing like skin as the back of its other, unmutated arm came swinging at her, but she couldn’t take her eyes off that stupid fucking sword.

With a slicing, searing sound, the Ogre’s arm connected with her—and as if it had tried to swat the edge of a blade, its hand was severed by the heat, and Rain remained standing, unmoved. She looked down at herself, at her claws, they’d never gotten so bright before.

Wow, fuck. This hurts.

Rain spun on her heel, crouched low, and took aim of herself as the Ogre reeled back away from her.

“Eyes open big girl!” she shouted to the shieldmaiden.

A blast of fire sent Rain hurtling into the Ogre, and just as it got steady, she slammed into its chest, almost exactly where she had before. This time however, she wasn’t going aerial, and she wasn’t trying to bore into it. She’d tried being a drill, and it hadn’t worked. So now she was done with the precision shit.

Dynamite made holes, too.

She channeled her heat into her claws, dug them as deep into the Ogre’s flesh as she could, and then released it all at once. A violent, massive explosion almost rivaling the ones from the cannoneer enveloped the Ogre’s chest, and sent a torrent of flesh, blood, bone and void into the sky.

Rain flew in a streak of smoke and hit the ground, cooled, burnt, but in her wits enough to see that she’d blasted the monster’s chest wide open. Ribs, too many ribs and too big, were snapped and blackened and busted open like a cage. And there within it was the twisted songbird—the heart.

The Shattering of Aegis

_{@Obscene Symphony@Scribe of Thoth}

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The walk had been uneventful, but certainly not quiet.

Lilann had no hand in that, she’d been silent just about the whole time. There was time for talk, and that time was often, but then, just as crucial were the times for listening. For letting other people talk. Sometimes, if she was lucky, or they were drunk, or both, people would say all sorts of things all on their own that she would never be able to pry out of them. Or there would be hints of things, and she would have to do a little work to uncover them—that was more interesting.

Kyreth answered their strange new acquaintance with what she could only assume was a lie. She could commend the speed and squareness of his delivery, if not the believability. Whatever inns there were inside Soft Haven might very well have been full, but that would have had nothing to do with him being unable to find a room. There were few places Lilann could think of off the top of her head less hospitable to their kind than the towns of Finnagund, and she had a hard time believing the hedgeman didn’t know that too. But, then again, even for a man well-armed he seemed eerily calm in their presence.

That, combined with his talk of aetheric entities told her he was likely more than he appeared to be; he was confident to what would have been a fault in someone who wasn’t. His nonchalance at the idea that a monster might have been trying its claws at him was noteworthy as well, but not for any reason she could discern yet. Ultimately, there wasn’t much time to ponder it. The trip wasn’t that long, and the whole way she found herself distracted by the unmistakable sound of a harp, which seemed to follow them and yet, she couldn’t for the life of her pin down where it was coming from.

Then, of course, there came a woman’s voice as they grew closer to the main road.

"...little ‘uns wandering… left at the crooked oak… here path is the House… starving wolf eats a horse!”

Lilann halted in her tracks, hunching just a bit lower to try and peak through the brushy tree line. She saw green, and lots of it. Gods, the woman could have been twice her size, and broad as any soldier in Dranir she’d ever seen. There were others there as well, with much less imposing figures that were harder to discern.

She snatched the mask from her belt and slipped it over her face. Her hat had done a good job keeping the sun out, and she found that her eyes didn’t appear to be glowing within. Good, less conspicuous that way, though she couldn’t say there was much to be done for her companions, at least not Kyreth. Hopefully they could pass onto the main road without incident anyway.

“Apologies,” she said, and practice saw her voice unmuffled in the slightest. “Shouldn’t be much farther now.”

Steeling herself, Lilann continued on, breaking through the tree line to emerge not too far from Orc and what she now saw to be a dreary human boy, and an elf. She gave the trio a nod as she waited for Kyreth and the hedgeman, and had to fight the urge to do anything more. Just one look at the mountainous woman told Lilann that there would be no shortage of interesting stories to plunder from their conversations, but as they were on a schedule, and with her company being what it was, she guessed it might be best not to push her luck.

Steal Away The Light

Location: Uhladein, Eastern Marches

---

Keep moving, Rain thought, dashing and flailing through the swarm of voidlings. What her claws touched they destroyed, cleaving apart with fiery ease, but the goblins still found purchase when they dug into her flesh. She tried to push her ember further, make herself molten, but it was too much. She knew pain, she could ignore it, embrace it, but sometimes she forgot that even if she was a Hunter, her body was still a body. Even with so much experience her vision still blurred and her knees still buckled under the heat and strain and god it felt like her heart was melting out of her chest. By the time she had drawn closer to the Ogre, she was hunched practically to a crawl, half swiping at the seemingly endless mass of voidlings surrounding her, and half dragging herself across the liquifying stone.

Keep moving. You’re going to die. You can’t die. You cannot die. Fucking move, dammit.

Move—

Another explosion, just as beautiful as the others, only those she’d seen from afar. This one struck close, so close that the blast threw Rain many feet onto her back. Her focus was rocked and she cooled near-instantly, sitting up on her elbows as the storm pelted her once again. She saw the Hunter responsible then, a woman with a long braid, a gleaming eye, and an absolutely massive fuckoff cannon on her shoulder.

_“What?” Rain squeaked, blinking, still in something of a daze herself.

Thankfully, the Ogre was there to snap her out of it. Roaring with fury, it reeled through the fire and smoke, still intent on her, as were the voidlings recovering from the explosion. Rain scrambled to her knees, igniting herself and her claws in time to cut down a few of the more eager bastards before the rest poured in. The Ogre drew closer, arms raised above its head, poised to smash down, but Rain could hardly crawl an inch without having to shove and rip and bite through a dozen goblins. No! the thought tore through her head, made her whole self shake. No no nonono.

To her credit, she didn’t shut her eyes, or look away.

And yet despite that she still hardly the pink-haired hunter coming. How could someone so big move so quickly? And while carrying what looked like a giant fucking door on fire.

“Watch it!” the woman yelled. Her voice was loud even over the storm, and startled Rain just as much as the explosion had. In a blur of steps she was standing before her, shield raised like an idiot. You couldn’t block something like that.

She blocked it.

“What?

The voidlings’ attentions split now between the two of them, and the shieldmaiden, as if it were nothing, used one hand to swing a sickle that looked like it had been forged from blood and hellfire. Rain found her bearings easily, finally getting back up to her feet and returning her focus to the Ogre. The Ogre, however, was thoroughly distracted.

By the granny?

It had been hard to make out much of the white-haired woman through the storm in the outskirts, and on the wall Rain had gotten a sense that something wasn’t quite…right about her. Now, so close, it was impossible to miss. Yes, there was something wrong with her. There was something very wrong with her. Arms didn’t look like that, swords didn’t move like that, flesh especially didn’t move like that. If not for the barest baseline silhouette of a woman Rain might not have thought she was human at all—or, as human as Hunters could be, anyway.

She tried in vain to make sense of what she saw, and failed just in time to see that grotesque arm pop like a zit and splash the Ogre with a generous amount of hideous bile. The woman hardly seemed to notice, like she’d been born with on arm pre-exploded. Steady as stone, she raised her sword again.

“WHAT?”

Oh god, Rain thought, volcanic heart pounding as she looked around between the swordswoman, the shieldmaiden, and then up at the flashes of blue flames and awesome explosions. Oh no. They’re all cool. Oh they’re really cool.

Rain hunched with the effort that came from stoking her ember. White-hot pain rushed through her veins, and in the work of moments the rain turned to steam on her skin and she was dry once more. Her claws grew bright, her teeth glinted in the haze, her feet melted into the stone to brace.

But not cooler than me!

In a blast of heat and fire, Rain rocketed up at the Ogre as its focus settled onto the swordswoman. Stupid monster never should have taken its eyes off her, now it was gonna pay for making her look like some fucking damsel.

She impacted on its chest, but wasn’t there long enough to give it the chance to swipe her off. Another blast took her up, digging hot claw-marks all the way up to its wounded shoulder, where she let go and flew high over its head. Torquing her body around, burning herself into a bright bolt of fury, she plunged down for its head in a violent corkscrew. It roared, more annoyed than pained, and when it found her it reached up to snatch her out of the sky like a gnat.

It succeeded—sort of. It did reach her, but it would have had better luck grasping lightning. Rain pierced through its hand, taint and flesh and bone and all like a bullet through wax paper, and continued tearing down its arm in a bloody spiral. The hand had slowed her though, not enough to stop, but enough that when she reached the gaping wound in its shoulder she didn’t quite have the momentum to breach it. She did get deep, and her claws scorched its collarbone clean in two, but reach as she did, and short as she was, she couldn’t quite get to its giant, ugly heart.

So she remained there for a few moments, a burning tick jammed into the flesh and bone of the Ogre’s neck. For a brief moment she thought she might not be able to get out, but then to assuage her worries, the agonized creature gripped her by the leg and yanked her free with the hand that now bore a tiny, hunter-sized hole in it.

Hanging there, upside down, she stared into the Ogre’s void-touched eyes and found herself cooling again. She’d pushed herself hard, her skin was severely blackened all over, as was her hair, and though her tongue was burned beyond tasting, she knew the familiar texture of melting bone in her mouth. But it was a different pang shooting through her, different from heat, and pain, and even panic. It was fear.

The Ogre reeled its arm back and spiked her into the earth, and even wounded as it was, there was more force behind it than anything Rain had ever encountered before. Dust and dirt and mud and melted stone showered the air. Rain’s whole world went blindingly white, then horrifically dark.

I’m dead. She thought, momentarily unaware that dead people did not think, and could not feel that their bones were broken. She wasn’t dead, not yet at least. She lay in a small crater, utterly ruined, as her ember worked ferociously to repair her, and stared up at the massive creature through the blur of smoke and blood and one busted eye.

Body quaking in protest, she tried to crawl out, tried to get back to her feet. The healing process was slow, but it was working. Her skin was coloring again, her splintered bones mending. What remained of her teeth clattered from her gums onto the ground as new ones grew in their place.

“Stupid…fuckin’…Ogre…”

Stupid fucking Ogre, indeed.

Where It Always Rains

---

April 7th, allegedly.

---

Holy shit.

Had she said that out loud? No?

“Holy shit,” Kanna mumbled. Her shock was blessedly short-lived though, and before the ballistic skateboard even made landfall she retrieved the tiny, weathered digital camera from her pocket. Quick as a flick she managed to snap a picture of the poor moron—was that the Sakaguchi brother? Figures—while he was still reeling from the blow.

She checked the little display screen and bit back a grin. Action shot. Minimal blur. Good stuff. When she heard Shiori and the Olympian Ogre mutter about things getting “crowded,” she waited patiently until she heard footsteps and took another picture of them walking away from their miserly victim.

Oh, shit, right. Ken.

Once the coast was only just clear, she scrambled out from her corner without even a second thought for her mutilated sandwich. Lunch was temporary, violence made headlines. She ran over to Ken, still laid out in a daze, and snapped her fingers in his face.

“Hey, whoa, Sakaguchi—you good? Hey, how many fingers—hold on,” she said. The board had hit him square, and already an ugly bruise was forming around the split skin around his nose and beneath his eye. She took him by the chin and gently turned his head to one side, leaned back and snapped a picture, then patted him gently on the cheek. “How many fingers am I holding up?” she asked, but with one hand in a cast and the other full of camera, she wasn’t holding up any. She took another picture. His nose was running with enough blood to stain both his shirt and the pavement. “Man, lookit all this. Wow. Thank god for capillaries, huh? You’ll be fine, probably. Just don’t tilt your head back.”

Satisfied with her glamour shots, Kanna sprang back up to her feet and searched after the departed delinquents. She’d seen the direction they’d gone, and there were only so many places for them to go that weren’t back inside. An alley between the buildings, the alcove of dumpsters, maybe the old sports shed.

“Yun!” she called back to the corner, nudging Ken’s leg with her foot. “Hey, Yun! Get a teacher or somethin’, poor guy’s bleedin’ out here!”

Conscience clear, Kanna hastily scurried off. Time was of the essence, and there was no telling what those two would get up to next. Where did you go from assault? Arson? Murder? Truancy? She’d get her answers sooner than she thought, because no sooner had she passed the dumpsters did she catch sight of them amidst the trees around the sports shed.

Oh, jackpot. From Blowing Smoke to Blowing Off Steam? Puff Puff Smash? Some pun about skateboards and cigarettes that she'd figure out later? The articles practically wrote themselves.

Kanna hunched, using the trees for cover, and snapped one or two more of them lingering near the shed. Dark, murky, but still good enough quality for the page. She’d blur Shiori thoroughly first, of course, but Totsuka would be lucky to get a black bar over his eyes. If they went inside, she could try and get a few pictures through the window. The photos would be blurry, but guerilla shots like that could really bring a piece together.

She waited, watching, camera ready. Her rabbit heart kept thumping wildly, but her hands were still as stone.

To Become a Knight! ~ A Chivalric (Mis)Adventure

Dot

---

Dot blinked. Winging it had apparently been the wrong choice. It would have been hard to say that Elon’s response was ‘angry’; the boy seemed utterly bereft of any and all emotion, and anyway, Dot wasn’t exactly an expert on social cues. But she wasn’t so removed that she couldn’t pick up on the fact that she’d just been called a coward. Or well, actually she’d been called the other thing, but as far as Elon knew, he’d called her a coward.

Rude.

It was deflating, honestly. She took a moment to examine him more closely, and felt safe in assuming he was nobility of some kind—plenty of their squad was in one way or another. Her experiences with them so far had been mixed—some hadn’t been so bad, others had been exactly what she’d expected. She worried Elon would be falling into the latter category.

“Right…uh…sorry. I didn’t mean to—yeah.” Dot cleared her throat, and as Elon approached, evidently ready to leave himself, she got out of his way, and followed him into the common room.

It seemed they were early, but not quite the earliest, as the Baker boy, Julian, was already seated and waiting there, and the mountainous Signar as well. Dot gave them both a small nod and a wave, and took a seat herself.

“Can't complain," she answered to Signar. “Just a bit...excited for today, I guess."