Welcome to Gaia! ::

Raven's blood went cold as she saw the spider.

God, she hated spiders, so much...

The cheerleader swallowed, then glanced around, hesitating a moment, before dropping Darwin's hand.

She watched Fritz grab a piece of marble, then figured, why not, and grabbed one herself, clutching it. She moved over to Jett now, standing beside him. "Well, I'm totally ready to fight this thing, Jett. How about you. No more running, right? Time to...to put 'em up and smush this bug."

Good. A pep talk. Maybe it would help her knees to stop shaking.

But, she wasn't going to stand there and let this monster attack her...wasn't going to be a coward anymore. Nope. Nuh-uh.

Youma.

Jett had heard that word, once before, though was positively stunned that Virgo intended to go fight it. ‘It,’ whatever it was, couldn’t be the same youma he was thinking of. Working in an antique shop meant that Jett tended to see a lot of odd things—sometimes people just wanted to clean out their houses and, hoping to have a valuable find, would bring whatever oddities they happened upon to the shop for appraisal.

Odd and old did not an antique make.

As Jett’s hand moved to rest on a shard of marble, running over the smooth edges thoughtfully, he considered the first time he’d heard the phrase.

An odd old couple had come in with a tiny shrunken form, and Jett had mistakenly assumed it was some grotesque, badly crafted attempt at a wooden carving of a child and tried to shoo the customers away. He’d been scolded for that; his lack of attention provoked a rather unwanted conversation later in the day. ‘For educational purposes,’ his boss—a pudgy, well groomed old man with gray hair, glasses, and a meticulously styled handlebar moustache—had purchased it and told Jett to ‘take care of it until closing.’

Jett took fine care of it. It made a great substitute ball; he tossed it around during his break and to pass the time between cleaning and helping customers. When closing came around, what should have been an appraisal lesson in determining artistic mediums turned into a particularly vile biology lesson, where Jett had learned that the item he’d been tossing in the air was not, in fact, a poorly carved infant, but an aborted fetus that had been extracted and preserved for medical purposes.

Which was seriously ******** gross, because he’d had his hands all over it all day and maybe hadn’t even bothered to wash his hands before lunch after tossing it around. Once an medical professor, his boss had used an array of medical words Jett had feigned to understand about this poor, deformed little creature with the abnormal anatomy and the weird bone growths. But only one word stuck out: youma.

…That thing upstairs did not sound like a fetus. It, in fact, sounded very large and threatening. So why were they calling it a youma? Was it code for something, or had Jett just missed the mark? Had his memory faded? Youma, yema, yuma…admittedly, maybe he wasn’t paying as much attention to the lecture about the preserved, deformed little fetus as he should have been (and how could he? He was caught on the fact that he’d been playing with it all day) and it was highly possible that he’d misheard. But—youma or not, what was ‘it’? Because, 'Giant ******** spider' would have sufficed just as well.

He glanced to Raven and lifted the marble shard; it wasn’t very long, but it was sharp and jagged. He clutched the makeshift little dagger in his hand and nodded, “Good approach to life, Raven. Sounds like a good plan to me. Come on then,” he insisted, gesturing towards where the youma was with a nod before he started walking up the stairs. “I want to see them fight it. I want to find out what it is.”

"I'm support magic," replied Babylon, uneasily glancing at Valhalla. "I mean, I could whack it, but - What the ******** is a youma doing all the way out here?" Wrong monster in the wrong place. "What, and I mean what."

He didn't like this at all, but that didn't mean he wasn't going to fight. Babylon summoned his lantern to hand and took a firm grip on the handle. Fighting a Youma in this tight a space would be trouble under the best circumstances, but with far too many civilians gathered around Babylon didn't like their prospects at all. The squire glanced around, catching sight of Veer and Cameron cowering behind a column.

He bit back a moment of spite. It wasn't their fault they were here, he reminded himself. Still... "If you're not going to fight, you should go back downstairs!" Babylon yelled, gesturing at the two boys. "That goes the same for all of you! If you're not going to help us, then you should get out of the way!"

Gritting his teeth, he turned his attention back to the monster. "I can give someone better chances of landing a hit," he called to the assembled senshi and knights, hoisting the lantern in his hands, "But you guys have to tell me where to aim."

Keren was, for a moment, sorely tempted to take the blonde squire's advice and haul a** down the stairs. But no one else had fled yet and she'd feel foolish to do so. The bluenette stuck her courage to the sticking place, turning to face the youma - or whatever it was. It looked like a spider to her, and she wasn't afraid of it, no sir.

She was Keren Della-Blue, she reminded herself. She liked slasher movies and Saw and Franken Fran. She dissected frogs for fun. She was going to get out of here and grow up and be a famous trauma surgeon. Because Keren Della-Blue wasn't afraid of no stinkin' spider, even if it was giant.

From her vantage point at the front of the crowd - early bird getting the worm, and all that - Keren not only had a good shot at the youma but excellent access to some of the rocks it had been so kind to shower down on them when it burst through the blockade. She seized one, hearing her coach's voice in her head - 'Good hustle!' - and hurled it at the youma.

"GET BENT," shrieked Keren Della-Blue. She'd fought a hand-crab on the rainbow road. Surely, she could fight this as well.

Eliza nodded at Holly when the girl responded to her, but didn't respond elsewise. Then it seemed Virgo was calling for civilians to be behind her, but Eliza couldn't help but to curiously edge to the side to see what was going on, only to be startled by a hand on her shoulder.

It was Fritz which made her relax slightly, though she was thinking along the same lines as he was wondering just what a youma was. It was a new term she hadnt heard in any of the senshi explanations.

She followed Fritz when he went after Virgo wanting to stay with her friend from Leo. She stopped her jaw dropping at the sight of a giant spider, her eyes nearly bulging out of her skull. That was not at all okay, just as bad if not worse than the bats. It looked like they were going to have to fight, but at least it was one against a whole group.

Eliza hadn't worn regular clothes pretty much since early on in the little adventure, preferring clothes she found around Leo, but she did wear her belt which stood out against the old, but extravagant knickers and shirt. She pulled it off decided much like in the battle with the bats to use it as a whip.

"Alright, time to go to work," she spouted running forward after Fritz.

"Ah. Don't you know that chivalry was never one of my strong points?" Zephyr asked jokingly to Chronos and Flora, seemingly undeterred by all comments. Including the white knight's. Turning back to him with a grin but he wasn't particular amicable as he said, "But by all means, feel free to rush in if that floats your particular boat." Zephyr wasn't exactly here to save anyone and everyone. Not like Prince Snow White if you understood his situation.

He looked over at the sound from another outpost, but was brought back to their current situation by the continuous strange sounds.

When their eyes finally laid upon the spider-like youma, he turned to Chronos and Flora with a comically blank look. A significant pause. Pointing back at the youma, he clearly stated, "..... I think you have an infestation problem."

Zephyr didn't exacly dislike spiders but this situation wasn't helping their cause in the senshi's eyes. Ah.. His gloved hands raked through his hair. Were these the situations Chronos was speaking of? Although Zephyr recalled her mentioning space monsters rather than youma. And Chronos wouldn't give him false information. Zephyr didn't know where this was leading to but he had a feeling that he wouldn't like it.

“Man up, Wonder Boy,” Ganymede spared a small smirk at Valhalla and gave him a pat on one of his fur-lined shoulders. “Spiders are easy enough to smush. One this big, though, and with all these people…”

The fact that civilians were now charging in and throwing themselves into harm’s way when he doubted very many of them understood what was going on didn’t sit well with him, but he was in no position to do anything about it except make sure none of them got hurt. He didn't expect any of them would listen to him if he tried anything else anyway. He supposed there was a chance this could be over quickly, given that so many of them had already gathered to fight, but then he remembered the large scale battles he’d experienced before that had seemed to last an eternity, and he decided that he was deluding himself.

At least some these civilians were mildly inspiring in their displays of bravery – or was it foolishness? – and Babylon was looking a bit more impressive than the last time Ganymede had had the pleasure of seeing him in battle.

Either way, there was quite a bit of debris around. He wouldn’t fast be running out of stray objects with which to throw and whack at it with. It was merely a matter of deciding which to utilize first, and if he wanted to draw closer to strike or stay back and chuck large pieces of stone at it. For the time being, he chose a sliver of stone just slightly shorter than the length of his arm and prepared himself to wield it.

It had to be another monster didn't it? Goddamn if space fade wasn't ******** up enough already let;s just throw in some monsters in the safe zones! ******** this noise. Hawke's mental irritation was multiplied when those freaky deaky people in miniskirts and even wierder get up's than her's started going after the monster. Really, they were just going to...

Mental tables were being flipped as she watched in amazement as people just started having their balls drop and fight the monster youma thing. Whatever the ******** it was. It was big. It looked like a spider. It was probably going to try and kill them all. Awesome. Watching as the few people she knew, she was both slightly disappointed, and slightly pleased. Veer hid. That was totally p***y move. Dude should have been balling and showing this spider b***h how it was done.

Fritz on the other hand was being total boss. Pimp'n like pro leading the lady around while showing off his future mad manly skills in the art of beating s**t up. So pro.

But the actions Hawke took were ******** style="font-size: 14px">"THIS"
s**t."
After her bold declaration she picked up a rather good chunk of marble "This for Anders you ******** Fade Spider!" Chucking the marble at the eyes she screamed out 'MAGIC MISSLE'. She might have not been a mage but it was for Anders.

After she chucked her marble chunk she stood and just held her arms out, expression going into hardcore serious fighter mode.
"Come at me bro!"

(man ******** my spelling)