Welcome to Gaia! ::

Sammy continued to stand there, the FEAR in the air was thick. Heavy, but she didn't drink, just a slight touch of it. It confused her for a moment. "...Their producing Fear? That never did that before.... it's the weapons being gone... right?" She shook her head suddenly, "S-sorry just a lot of things to think about right now..."

She looked up at Red again, something soft in her face as she looked at the werewolf-weapon. "It's good to have you back."

Oh no.

No, no. That wasn't what he'd expected to happen. Thackery wasn't sure now what he had expected, but...not this. His hands were tightly clasped over his mouth in shock, and didn't move to brace his fall as he dizzied, stumbled, and hit the ground hard. A tiny yelp barely escaped between the cracks of his trembling fingers.

Red's actions were probably right. He never showed an ounce of goodness in his human heart. He tricked them and killed them and was cruel to his own. But he couldn't know for sure, and what if, and the sound of that human's flesh being ripped apart wouldn't stop playing through his head, and--

His typically tanned skin looked incredibly pale and sticky as he hunched forward, struggling to keep himself from getting sick. We won, he tried to tell himself, we won and everyone will be safe. They'll be safe, won't they?

And she'd let the remaining hunters go, so...so they'd be safe too. Maybe this would all work out. Maybe everything would really be okay.

He sat back and wiped at his face, shuddering at the feeling of pins and needles jittering across his skin, relief warring with conflict. He watched quietly as the hunters retreated and the students regrouped, some finding their way to Red, the world full of nothing but deafening silence, his own heartbeat in his ears, and...

...the sound of crunching bones, tendons separating....

His stomach lurched and spilled anxiety onto the ground beside him.

There was a faint clanking as Moira dismounted her Trashbot, absently patting at the rusting and crumbling metal; the poor thing had seen better days by this point. Much better days.

The headcrab zombie shambled tentatively over towards Red, her eyes fixed on that red cloak - that cloak she would have followed to her grave, in her youth. She almost had. "Red," she rasped, her headcrabs crowding onto her shoulders so they could all see the werewolf reborn. "It's you? You're back? They told us - they wouldn't tell us - so many lies, Red." Her head snapped to the side to glare at the remaining Bogeymen.

Marushii

Then it was over. And she was left, not with the comforting grip of her glaive, but with nothing but a stone tablet in her hand. In her head, there was nothing but silence. Unsettling, lonely, silence.

Sherry didn't hesitate to jump through that portal.

It was the only she could do, in that moment. Escape was just about the only thing her brain would process.


((EXIT))

Sharra really didn't know what to think. "Who knows..." It was quiet, the blond boil shrugged helplessly in response to Aksaja's query. "But we survived, most of us anyway...and..." His expression tightened, noting again those who did not fall under 'most'. Friends, people he'd known even if they'd not spoken in months. They had been vibrant, with lives and loves. Now it was all taken away. None of this was fair. None of it was. "...that means we have things still to look forward to."

He released a long, shaky sigh, his heart's tempo finally beginning to slow as he leaned into the dragon's touch for a moment, finding comfort in his friend. "Life's still waiting for us, Insanity or no. I hope that they'll let us go back now...I don't think we'll be chasing the Hunters just yet." Not after they'd been so thoroughly decimated.

Had they...won...?

Xiu wasn't sure how to feel, struggling to get a grasp on her emotions. Was she...happy? Relieved? Maybe a little relieved--after all, the Hunter who had been responsible for so much suffering and death was finally gone. It was technically, in many ways, a victory for Halloween, but she didn't feel like celebrating for some reason.

She took this chance to scan the field, searching for and ensuring the safety of her friends. When her gaze fell on Red, there was a pause, and then the baku's lips tilted upwards in a small, almost hesitant smile. The werewolf had been incredible--how she had managed to defeat Caelius, Xiu didn't know, but she had somehow done it.

As she continued her headcount, she noticed with a pang of concern that Alex was nowhere to be seen. Just where had the zomboil gone?

(( Stats: ))

[[ entering ]]

A rare figure among the students approached. He had been quiet for the better part of a year, and was quiet now as he moved among the mist, unaffected.

He breathed easy, and he breathed free. The walls of his mind were wiped clean, as though they had been dusty for the last eight months.

His helm was abandoned, somewhere before he had been summoned by the urges that called him home. His face was pale as ever, and the patches of grey that had crept over his skin like a plague, blemishing his skin, had vanished. They had faded, the only reminders of them being the scars he had given to himself, the actions of a boil gone mad.

They were gone. All the physical remnants of insanity, of the disease that had ruled him with an iron fist for eight long months-- It was all gone.

The voices, the paranoia, the shambling urges to protect something so silly as the notion of Home.

The disease may have evacuated his mind and body, but the memories of his actions still tainted Ashford's mind. There was much work to be done: apologies to make, amends to strive for.

There was a time, for that, and it was not now.

Green eyes gleamed with an inscrutable emotion, and the Reaper's subtle grin revealing slivers of white fangs. The Pyramid Head's mind possessed a clarity he had thought lost forever.

It was time to pay a portion of his dues. He made his way towards a familiar figure in the distance.