Vertigo — Roleplayer Guild

T A N A K A    A M É L I E 

Aomori Gakuen - Gym

Amélie loved cultural festivals. They had almost everything one could ask for; good food, lots of people, fun activities and an excuse to make the school look less like a borin' old institution for nerds, and more like an exciting new institution for--- for not-nerds! Now if only her suggestion to build a roller coaster outside the gymnasium had gone through... 

Next year, she swore. 

Now, fun as the festival itself was, the clean up afterwards? Mind-numbingly boring.

At least, if you were a stick in the mud with no imagination.

"Heeere iiiit.... comes!" Amélie thrust her hand forward, releasing the makeshift projectile she'd been holding onto. It whizzed through the air in an impressive arc to join its brethren, straight in the middle of a trash bin. "And she scooores! That makes it, mm, what, the hundredth in a row?"

Or was it tenth? Details.

"C'mon Saki, gimme the next one. Records aren't made by slowpokes!"

Many goals, a few misses and one accidental assault by trash later (she didn't mean to hit Orochi square in the face, she swore!), Amélie ran out of ammo. At long last, the gym was clean.

Amélie straightened, admiring her handiwork. Not that... her hands had contributed all that much, in honest truth. She bet she did more than that Katsu bastard, though! He was here with a bunch of other members from the Kendo Club - including Ayane, which gave Amélie all the more reason to make it known that she was the best blonde exchange student out there. She would not be replaced by some jerk with a sword and an attitude problem. Nuh uh. In fact, she was ready to fight him right now, to settle it once and for all. Where was he?!

Amélie squinted, getting on her tippytoes in an attempt to find her target.

But then someone mentioned food, and Amélie's priorities shifted.

"Skewers! I want skewers! Bring a bunch, I'm starving. Seriously! Listen, you can hear the rumble..."

No sooner had those words left her than the entire gymnasium shook with a violent rumble. Amélie blinked, slowly turning her gaze downwards. "... Oh my god." 

She stared at her belly now, brows furrowed in concern. "It's worse than I thought." Wasting not a single moment, she threw her arms around Saki theatrically, lamenting as if dying. "Hold me, I don't know how long I have left-! If only... I had... skewers..."

Hungry as she was, though, it's not like she didn't understand what the rumble had actually been. She'd lived most of her life in Japan. Earthquakes were no longer foreign to her. Sometimes the ground shook a little; it usually passed, and she'd always lived. Besides, the best thing to do in a possibly panic-inducing situation was to stay calm - and the best way to do that, was to laugh. 

A few seconds later, even she stopped laughing. 

In the blink of an eye, the floor was gone - and then it was back, except it was the wall. Everyone was swept off their feet from the sudden shift of gravity, and Amélie and Saki were no exception. Thankfully, they did manage to avoid crashing into each other. After all, if Amélie could claim expertise in something, it was being quick on her feet. She picked herself up fast, rolling back upright and looking around frantically as if trying to find some sort of an explanation for what happened.

No such luck. All she saw were startled faces, and a looming threat above; boxes, furniture, equipment, everything they'd so painstakingly stacked away for the past hour was now heading straight down at them. Fast.

All she had to do was be faster.

Amélie jumped away just in time to avoid being smacked in the face by a chair. Her heart beat vehemently enough to be audible, and she could practically feel adrenaline coursing through her. She was in danger. And against all reason, she loved it.

Her grin didn't last for long.

As if to remind her that this was no game and real lives were at stake, gravity shifted again - and this time, not everyone was fortunate enough to escape unscathed. Four of the students were forced out of the room's door by a speaker, and though Amélie wasn't close enough to see what awaited beyond the supposedly locked door, she could tell it was no hallway.

"Saki, we gotta help!" she gasped, dashing to help the janitor who, against all odds, had managed to catch Hideaki's hand before he could fall too far. Hideaki was clinging onto Mei, but Orochi and Azume were---

~~~

... Huh?

Blue. For a moment, all she saw was blue.

Amélie squinted her eyes, then blinked once, twice, thrice, until her surroundings finally begun to take proper form. She realized she was lying on her side, staring at a broken display window. Behind it, she could spot mannequins and torn clothes. The ground was littered with shards of broken glass - some of it only inches from where her head lay.

Someone offered her a hand. She wasn't alone.

Amélie snapped out of her daze, quickly turning to see who the hand belonged to. It was--- 

... Some guy. Really, he probably had a name, and she had probably heard it, but evidently he hadn't been interesting enough for her to bother remembering it. He looked like the stiff and formal type who didn't really know how to loosen up, and since he wasn't a cute girl, he'd never had priority on her help list. So... some guy it was. 

He was nice enough, though.

"Merci!" Amélie chirped as she took his hand and practically jumped to stand. He'd found her bag, too, and Amélie was happy to see it had survived the--- whatever the heck that was, unscathed. Not that she had anything particularly fragile in that thing, anyway.

She flung the bag over one shoulder and looked around.

The more she saw of the place, the more familiar it got. She'd been here before, many a time. Though looking at the shape of it now, this version of Mazonix might've as well come out of some dystopian future. It looked ravaged - and still inexplicably blue.

She glanced to the left. Hideaki was there, sitting on the ground, alive if not well - which meant that he'd survived! But... Mai was nowhere to be seen, so maybe that meant that she... hadn't.

Amélie shook her head so fast it nearly made her dizzy.

No, it just meant that she was somewhere else. Duh. They'd find her eventually. Just like they'd find Saki, and Ayane. They were probably just somewhere further in the mall; it was big enough to hide the whole class of them.

She shifted her weight nervously, then looked the other way. She found Natsumi, adorable and scared as usual, and--- oh. Oh, god, no. Not her. Amélie groaned at the sight of Yokoi. Just like Chikako, she seemed cute, nice-- and absolutely nuts. Seriously, occult club? Who joined something like that? There was no such thing as supernat--

... ural....

... things.

It was then, as Amélie turned her head away from the two other girls, that she realized the small, floating specs were not just dust, or floaters in her eyes. One was passing by her cheek, so close that Amélie could practically feel its warmth against her skin. She took a step back - and then another step forth, her curiosity guiding her hand to reach out and grasp at one of the specs. 

It went right through her hand.

"Oookay, so!" Amélie declared hastily, clapping her hands together as hard as she could to get everyone's attention. "Maze or no, I say we get a move on. Nothing like a good walk to clear the head, you know? And it's not like standing around's gonna get us anywhere. C'mon, the faster we get outta here and find an explanation, the better."

Because, as weird as all this was, there was an explanation, and she was going to find it.

WTL: 25
SAN: 88

@Seirei No Hai, @Duthguy, @heroic2019

The kobold didn't wait for Caw to gather his wits. As soon as the arrow whizzed by its head, it started to scurry away. Like a rat. Or a kenku. Or... any other living creature, fearful for its life. 

Vaal spoke to it, but though Caw could've perfectly replicated every word he heard, he understood none of it. And yet, as if to test the new, foreign language on his tongue, he repeated a word at random. The last word, because he remembered it the clearest.

"Live." 

Whatever it meant, he liked the sound of it.

No one else moved to give chase to the fleeing kobold or indicate a will to see him do it, and so Caw did not draw another arrow. 

Unsure what else was expected of him, Caw walked to retrieve the two arrows he'd shot; one from the ground, one from the chest of a now-limp kobold. As he pulled out the latter, he caught Vaal at a curious time. Caw was by no means an expert on emotion, be it displaying it or recognizing it, but the kobold seemed... different, somehow. Confused too, maybe. He was staring at a claw for a long time.

Caw walked up to him. Standing next to a creature so small was... new. Caw was used to feeling small and useless, always the one to be protected or helped - or used as a disposable fodder, as it were. But now, he felt like he was the big, strong one. He rather liked it.

"Reasons..." Caw pondered in the kobold's signature drawl as he regarded the bodies. 

Then, head tilting, he turned to the sorcerer himself, trying to discern how the other was feeling over the death of his own. "Kin," he gestured at the deceased, then switched to the gentle voice of a lady. "I'm sorry."

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