Welcome to Gaia! ::

Tybalt just about squeaked when LW threw her arms around him. He had been so absorbed in looking at Red's remains, that he hadn't even noticed her approach. Much less that she was alive.

"L-LW!?" He managed to get out, turning to look at the she-wolf.

She really was alive! Then that meant-- "I-is everyone else okay?" He asked, his words coming out so quick that they almost sounded like a jumbled mess. But to see his canine friend alive and well filled the black dog with great relief. So relieved in fact that he didn't even bother trying to free himself from her embrace. If she was alive, then surely Mei, Ren, Jove, and the others were as well! They must be!

But...

"But Red..." He looked back at the skull, shoulders sagging slightly. Red wasn't coming back. Unlike the others who had dissipated somewhere else, they had watched Red die... Watch her body petrify, only to be shattered by the cruel man with the scythe.

Red was gone.

It felt surreal to be back here- when it was so empty and quiet.

Maybe.. not quite empty and quiet, but now that the hunters had gone, and the battle had ended... there was a distinct eeriness, almost. Would she have preferred to come back to a fight? To watch people getting hurt? Possibly. At least in the chaos of battle, you didn't think so much.

Standing here, looking over the battlefield, Vieve felt tiny and helpless, when she hadn't before. The professor had forced the hunters to retreat, losing her own life in the process. Shouldn't they have been able to smash the other faction completely? There had been.. so many of them. That meant Edel had been wrong, too, when she said that numbers mattered.

They didn't. You just needed people who were strong enough. A billion ants couldn't possibly have taken them down- and they had been treated enough like ants. Captured, mocked, insulted. Despite her previous bravado the salamander was almost seriously considering the possibility now that they were inferior.

But that just meant they had to get stronger. So much so that if they met the next time, they could walk over the hunters, completely destroy them. Hadn't.. Red wanted that, too?

Slowly, shakily, she made her way over to the professor's remains. There were people around, trying to grab pieces of it; in her current state, though, collecting bits of Red-bone and trying to sell it off.. didn't occur to her.

Shun stared at Mitsu with a sense of apprehension until he felt a different hand at his shoulder. He looked over in that direction but he couldn't really tell who it was. It looked like someone around Mitsu's size.. which didn't help him all that much. This.. affliction he was under was getting rather tiresome to deal with and he hoped this would not last for long. For a moment, he froze at the thought of being stuck this way forever. If.. that were to be the case, he would rather end himself than be forced to live in such a pathetic state for all of eternity.

He was already pretty worthless without these handicaps.

Feeling the wolfgirl pull away, he took an unsteady step forward, unsure why she moved away. Before too long she had returned to his side. The Reaper placed a hand onto her shoulder for the reassurance that she was there.

There were students trickling in now, but...from where? Eyes widening, she realized that the students who were appearing were the ones who had died on this very battlefield, as well as others who had been missing from this field from the beginning. Turning to look at Vaith, she swallowed a lump in her throat, her voice coming out as a whisper. "These are...the students who died in Red's attack."

Vaith was right--Xiu did want to go with them--but she wasn't going to leave him alone either. Taking his hand again, she promptly began leading him towards the first person who she had seen: Levi.

Once they were close enough, the baku practically launched herself at the tatzel, her face crumpling as she wrapped her good arm around the ghoul in a tight hug. Her friends were alive. They were alive! They hadn't ended up like...like Red, nor had they been captured by the Hunters--they were all here, safe and sound.

Xiu whimpered as she buried her face against her big sister. Her voice was filled with so much relief as she spoke, though by the sudden switch in language and the speed at which she was talking, it was clear that she was panicked. "Jiejie, ni hai hao ma?! Huo xi ji yi hou, wo mei you kan jian ni, dang ni...dang ni si le!"

Phone post ignore shitness

Nothing could explain the massive switch in emotion that Bul experienced when the familiar call of Willow came from a ways away. His heart kept almost out of his mouth andhe turned about swiftly. There they were!! His teammates he'd seen dissapate right before his eyes were alive, alive and not torn apart. Well physically maybe.

"WILLOW BEA!! " He cried out with swelling in his eyes once more. Open arms engulfed whomever he could reach and the half beast nearly fell down with them. "You... you guys made it you're alive!!"Bul furrowed his brows. "Team Venture lives!"

Like the last trip the students that 'passed' had returned somehow and even with the tragedy of Ren Bul could feel a glimmer of hope. The growing numbers on the field blossomed to a point where he felt almst sheltered for the time being.

"Have you guys seen Mei? Oh Jack please I need to see her.." he sighed anxiously.

Where Nukpana had been for the entire ordeal, no one but he could say. Unfortunately, he was nowhere to be found -- the skinwalker had completely disappeared after he had carried Shehk through the door, not appearing with Shehk or Sammy in the canyon nor even with Toby in the Gauntlet. At least, not at the same time. He'd appeared in the middle of the fight, immediately and gladly swept up into it, eagerly fighting tooth and nail an enemy he didn't understand, but didn't need to. And when the time had come to rejoin the others at the Canyon, he had gone equally as eagerly, every so often searching for any sign of his team.

After that, there had been no sight of him.

Until now.

On the outskirts of the canyon, right beside the wall where the doors had been, there was a series of low, husky coughs, from behind a large, overhanging rock, the sound of gravel shifting a little and a low groan soon following.

~~

While the students approached Red's skull to pay their respects, Eris stood a good distance away, unmoved and completely still where she had watched the hunters vanish at the edge of the cliff on a smooth grey stone. She'd let them go, watched as they'd disappeared again like that god-forsaken mist on their hellish island, and hadn't lifted a hand to stop them. Caelius had been wounded, almost mortally so, but he too she had merely stared at, her normally heated brown eyes cold and hollow.

It was over.

It felt over.

The wind picked up a bit, catching some of the ash that was Red an swirling it like a half-hearted dust-devil around the horseman's feet, staining her already tattered red silk dress further black. It tugged at the folds, whipping them against her legs, a few black feathers getting caught as well, fluttering off the edge and down into the darkness of the canyon. Her left wing was broken, hanging completely limp at her side, one of the hunters having snapped it as she'd fought with Caelius, but she didn't seem to feel it -- her eyes were on nothing, not even glancing at the skull the other students hacked away at.

Lifting one blackened hand, War's heir turned it over, sliding her eyes down as she gently unclosed her fingers, revealing a blood-red pin. It too was charred, soot staining the surface to dull the colors, greying them out. It was fitting, in a way. The color was dulled, but it was still red.



Turning to face the monument, Eris' steps were slow as she approached it, waiting until she was a mere two feet away before she stopped, staring equally as blankly at the skull, her voice hollow.

"I didn't like you. But I didn't even get the chance to know you."

Extending her arm, the backs of her fingers almost brushing the stone, she turned her hand over, the pin dropping to the gravel, one of her own black feathers drifting lazily to land next to Aisa's flower.

Only the horsemen would be able to read the dead expression on her face.

She mourned.

'Hey Lev, how was the BBQ?"

It was impossible to lie about it, Demi was happier knowing Levi was alive and safe. That little drawl was probably the only thing that made him loosen his hold on the ghoul before Xiu launched herself at the ghoul too, and he let go giving them all the space in the world, or three steps back at the very least.

Natalia forced a giggle, quieting rather quickly despite how silly the boil was. Reaching down to collect his limbs, she crossed her own arms around them and held on tight, peeking out from in between them with a smile. The reassurance would keep her smiling and laughing, so long as her friends were safe...so long as her ghoulfriend was safe!

So, as the boil called toward a large figure in the distance...she turned and gazed outward as well. Toby? She had never met the ghoul before...but she looked to be leaving for whatever reason, separating herself from the rest. Hey, what better a time than now to make introductions? To get cozy with strangers and thank all that is Halloween that they all made it through.

Most of them...anyway.

She forced herself to keep focused on the ghoul, not wanting to turn her attention to the stone still being hammered away at. "Toby!" the monster repeated, swinging her chest back and forth...flopping Mort's arms around instead of using her own.