TheHangedMan

Hogwarts; A new story

@Draconequis @Always @josephb

Mentioning you here because I forgot to do so on the IC. Whoopsie-daisy :D

Hogwarts; A new story

~Karen Antonius~

^{@Draconequis @Always @josephb}

Karen took a look at the new comer and gave a her casual smile. "Karen, nice to meet you Aly," she said with a nod.

Her greetings done, she leaned back to relax, taking a deep breath and closing her eyes. She didn't really do much during these train rides. She'd rather relax and prepare for her return to the castle. Still, she'd participate in conversations as much as she could.

"I wish you the best of luck," said Karen with an light tone, "I won't promise you that you can make captain, but I'll cheer you on, Elliot."

Her eyes still closed, Karen poked one eye open as Emira brought out a bag of candies, asking them if anyone wanted to test it out for her. She debated on accepting the offer, but Elliot beat her to it. He was a Griffyndor indeed, it seemed. Lying back down, Karen paid close attention to the outcome of whatever it was that Emira concoted.

Unfortunately, she didn't get the chance.

All of a sudden, the train halted in its tracks and nearly through her to the floor. Owing to her reflexes, Karen planted her feet on seats on the other side, preventing her from jerking downwards. Then, the lights went off and the screeches of other students reached her ears.

Immediately, Karen got on her feet, and snatched the letter outside their door and read it, before nodding and exiting the compartment. She didn't have time to think about this, she had more important things to do.

"I'm going to check the other compartments to see if their okay," she said. Her next words came in a whisper, with the same calm and measured tone that she had used to speak with them, but there lay an undercurrent of rage, a hate that was so in contrast with her usual airy attitude that for a moment Karen, who was shadowed in the darkness, looked downright demonic: "How dare they. There are children here. This is their first day going to Hogwarts for some. It was supposed to be a happy event. How dare they try to ruin this for them with their childish antics."

Karen walked outside the compartment, wand out and eyes blazing.

"Lumos Maxima Tria," whispered Karen, swishing her wand in a wide arc.

Immediately, three extremely bright balls of erupted from the tip of her wand. One stayed where she was, illuminating the area where her compartment was, while the remaining two flew from one end of the train to the other, providing light for a wide length of the train.

"Locomotor Autos."

In response to her words, the three balls of light began moving back and forth, as if patrolling the length of the train.

With that, Karen shot off to the nearest compartment to make sure the one's inside were okay. For any children she encountered, she assured them that it was all part of the experience, and that sometimes the higher years liked to play pranks like these. Hopefully, they would believe her and take things in stride. She'd hate to think that their first time to Hogwarts was ruined by something as stupid as a recruitment scheme.

In her mind, she made sure to make note of this. She would attend that meeting, and she would force them to kneel down and apologize for this.

Dead Roads

Nicodemus kept his eyes forward, focusing on the things in front of him. "You'll have to sit tight then, Nikki, because this is where most of the fun happens," he said, slightly serious, but still relaxed enough to come off as joking. "It's not enough to simply trap them in here. That would be too easy, not to mention wasteful."

He stopped at a turning point in the hallway. Hugging the wall, Nic gave a quick peek to the turn. Clear so far, though he didn't like how many intersections where ahead, not to mention the amount of open doors.

"Before we lock the walkers in, there's a large cache of guns, ammo, and food on the first floor. Dropped from when the outbreak first started. I saw in on my first run of the place. We can take those and then lock them up afterwards, the problem is, the first floor is the most heavily infested, and some of the zombies were riot police -- meaning, they have helmets and body armor."

Nic could imagine it. Hundreds of desperate convicts pushing against riot police trying to contain them, and slowly but surely the infection spread amidst the chaos. In the end, there was probably not a single person who made it out alive. Consequently, any supplies they might have taken with them were dropped and fresh for the taking.

"If you're going to watch my back, promise me one thing: no guns. The less noise, the better," he said, turning to Nikki with a raised brow. "You think you can work with that?"

@Wick

Montagne Academy for Aspiring Mages!

I would like to take this time to point out, that through no fault of her own, Meruin has somehow caught the interest of not one, but TWO actual Princes. This is going to be fun.

Seriously, I don't think I can ask for a better outcome than this! xD

Dead Roads

@Wick: UTC+08:00, so yeah, pretty different from most of the cats on this site xD

Dead Roads

Nicodemus watched as the girl hacked her way towards him, and sighed. Well, she was here now. He spared a glance at Nikki as she took her place to his side, before returning to smashing heads.

"Easier that way," he grunted, another swing, another kill. "Hard to keep track of other people while running around for your life. Not that I don't mind the company-"

Swing. Crack. Thud.

"-but I'd appreciate being told before you join up. Kinda throws my original plan in the loop you know?"

The numbers were steadily dwindling, which meant that he could proceed with phase two. Most of the zombies were concentrated here, but there was still a fairly large number at the back.

"Come on, we're done here. We're going into the building next. Hope your ready," he said with a grin. The inside was crawling with zombies -- convicts that couldn't escape in time -- right now, they were all stuffed inside. What they had to do was shut the door on them, to make sure they couldn't get out into the streets.

@Wick

Montagne Academy for Aspiring Mages!

~Meruin Hazy~

^@RabidAnubis

"Ummm..."

Silence descended as Heather and Meruin waited for the boys response. The former with confusion, the latter, with high expectations. Heather could see the boy grow increasingly flustered as he struggled for the right words to say. She giggled, thoughts drifting to her previous experiences with fresh, hopeful boys like him.

Suddenly the boy dropped to one knee while simultaneously dropping a bomb:

"I share an interest in that field, and am wondering if we could study it together after I take you to the introductory ball in a few days time!"

. . .

Ehem.

SQUEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAA~!

Meruin's eye twitched as she resisted the urge to flinch as Heather gave a passionate squeal of joy(?). This was turning out to be sooooo much better than expected!

Not only was this boy good looking, he was adorably awkward! Heather could tell that he was new to the whole "flirting" thing, but that made him so much more adorable! Oh, Meruin may not see the true value of this boy, but Heather practically had hearts in her eyes. More than that, however, is that he had essentially just asked her little Merry out on a date! He even got down to one knee! Yes Yes Yes Yes YES!

"Oh. My. God. Merry, you have to say yes. You cannot do anything but to say yes, you hear me? This is a once in a lifetime opportunity that you cannot pass out! YOU HEAR ME?"

Meruin took note of this. Apparently, this was a rare chance for her, but what that chance entailed exactly was lost to her. She had to admit, this was the first time she had encountered something like this, and in times where there were social events that she had no idea how to react to, following Heather's advice was her first course of action. Most of the time they went well, though the times when they didn't ended catastrophically badly. Also, this was the first time Heather was so insistent on following her suggestion.

It was an strange proposal, one that intrigued her. She had never studied with anyone, and neither had she been to anything like the introductory ball. Both would be new experiences and there was no harm in trying for them. Meruin went over the benefits in her head rapidly. The worst that could happen was wasting her time, but even then she could gain from the experience, said gains being to avoid similar events from then on. At best, this could be a chance at a future partnership, someone that could help advance her research in the future. He looked wealthy, so that probably meant he could gain access to supplies that were beyond the reach of her own funds.

Still, it seemed that both Heather and this intriguing boy were forgetting something vital . . .

Meruin knelt down as well, her emerald orbs meeting the boys own amber eyes.

"I don't see a problem, though could I at least have your name first?" she said, a confused look on her face. Normally, wouldn't you introduce yourself before asking for a favor? "I'm Meruin Hazy, and you?"

Dead Roads

"Oh you have got to be kidding me," muttered Nic, slightly annoyed. The source of his annoyance came from a very familiar, very loud, and above all, very near roar of a V8 engine. There was only one person he knew that had a car to make a sound like that.

"I am going to have words with Nikki when I get back," he grumbled. Honestly, if she wanted to join in, then she should've said so first. Now he had to remake his plans on the fly to account for her sudden presence, which he didn't at all like doing.

"Let's deal with you guys first."

Currently Nicodemus was inside the penitentiary open yard. He was surrounded on all sides by zombies he had attracted via foghorn magic, however, they couldn't get close to him due to the thick wired fence that enclosed the yard. There was only one opening, a hole made from a broken spot in the fence, and behind it is where Nic stood.

It was the ideal choke point. With only one way in, he could kite all the zombies and force them to come in one-by-one, and with each zombie that stepped through, another one fell.

"Come on then, who's lucky number twenty-eight?" he yelled. Another zombie stepped through the fence, and he swung a crowbar to its face. Number twenty-nine came soon after.

Now, what to do about Nikki . . .

@Wick

Montagne Academy for Aspiring Mages!

Workin' on a pooooost~

And @RabidAnubis that's a maybe to a perhaps yes? :D Soon as I get photoshop updated and running -- which won't happen until internet returns -- I'll post the pix :D

Montagne Academy for Aspiring Mages!

~Meruin Hazy~

^@RabidAnubis

"-nd furthermore, I'll have you know that pornstars in Japan have really good commission fees. There's this one pool tha-"

Heather continued blabbering about the previous details of her occupation, but she knew that she was pretty much talking to herself at this point. Meruin's mind had already wandered into the realm of possibilities and hypothesis. When the girl got like this, she was absolutely impenetrable and it took something drastic for her to snap out of it entirely.

Unfortunately for the boy hitting on Meruin, talking wasn't - wait, what?

Heather metaphysically blinked and did a rapid double-take. This kid, was he really hitting on her? On Meruin? Maybe he wasn't hitting on her and was just being friendly but . . . Heather had really good instincts for situations like these, and there was no way that opening line was not a textbook opener for further flirting. She'd stake her life -- er, unlife -- on it!

But still, this kid had weird tastes. Not to say that Meruin wasn't cute, but she was cute in a very peculiar way, and was something of an acquired taste.

But none of that mattered! What mattered was that he was hitting on Meruin! HITTING! ON! MERUIN! SQUEEEEEEE~!

There was no way that Heather was going to pass up what was probably a once in a lifetime chance.

Heather waited for a few seconds, for a time when Meruin was within an arms length of the boy before shouting and mentally pointing in a direction to the side. "Meruin, the research papers you're looking for are over there!" Heather called as loudly as possible. Of course, this would get Meruin's interest, and the small mage turned her head in the direction Heather pointed out for her, without stopping her walk.

All according to Keikaku*,she thought, as things unfolded exactly as she hoped it would.
^{translators note: Keikaku means plan}

Meruin bumped into the boy. Normally, this should incur nothing but the both of them stopping short and a small stumble, but Meruin was not only an incredibly tiny and light, but her attention was completely devoted elsewhere. The resulting reaction then, was that Meruin stumbled back a few steps only for her legs to get tangled and fall hit the ground.

There, that would get her attention, thought a smug Heather.

"Apologies," muttered Meruin, getting to her feet. She regarded the boy with analytical eyes, and Heather groaned. She was still in research mode. On the bright side, she was at least looking at him. Maybe this could still work.

"Meruin, I think he was asking what you were doing here," said Heather.

"I see," thought Meruin. Why would he ask though? Was there anything strange with what she was doing here? Was he just curious or was it something else.

He was about the same age as her. Judging from the way he carried himself, he was probably someone of high-standing, probably someone from the upper echelons of society, maybe even actual blue-blooded nobility. Even if that were the case, did she have to answer him? What good would do to reply? Then again, when it came to socializing with people, Meruin found that thinking in purely cost-benefit terms was useless given the unpredictable nature of some people. So if there was no harm in answering, then should she answer? But then, would she have to apply that to every situation like this? It seemed tiring. Furthermore-

"Just answer him Meruin for gods' sake!" yelled Heather, frustrated with having to deal with Meruin's inner monologue and ridiculous tangents.

There was a reason Meruin commissioned her as a spirit, even if she wasn't a particularly impressive spirit. She commissioned Heather on the sole reason that she needed someone to help her with social interactions. If Heather wanted her to respond in a situation like this, then Meruin would.

". . . I was looking for research material," said Meruin after some thought. "Specifically, books on blood rituals and homonculus."