Welcome to Gaia! ::

((Anybody's welcome to join in. Feel free to take this and run with it however you want!)

Joe the janitor was sitting in a fold-out chair, rubbing a couple of sticks together.

"Time to welcome the freshies. I THINK I got the word out. Ah well, they'll probably see the fire."

Joe finally managed to spark a fire, then tossed the lit sticks into the pile of drywood he'd collected inside of a stonepit. Soon he had a roaring fire going, and the flames could be seen from miles around the school.

Joe had thrown together a night party for the freshmen. Bags of chips, couple bowls of dip and cups of punch had been set on top of a futon pushed up against one wall. He usually got a couple of visitors to hang out with on the first night of the school year, so it only made sense to grab some eats.

The full moon was rising, and as it did Joe felt something rustling in his pocket. He jumped, and dug out the egg he'd found in the forest earlier in the day. It was still glowing like a rainbow lava lamp, only it was an egg. And the egg was rattling from side to side in his hand.

"Whoa, it's alive!" Joe grinned as he watched the egg crack down the middle. Wisps of black smoke escaped from the crack, forming a warped face in the air. The face wore a wicked grin made of sharp teeth. The egg cracked wide open and a light shot from the middle into the smoke cloud, turning into a single shiny white eye.

Joe waved at the smoke thing. "Like, hey! You're just in time for the party, dude!" The smoke thing's eyes smiled back at Joe, and it laughed quietly.

"Simple-minded fool. You'll be my first meal!"

The smoke thing began to chant, and a bright light started to glow from its center, showering Joe in light.

"Aww, what? Not cooooooolllllllll..." Joe said as a ghostly image of himself flew out of his body, and curled up into a tiny white ball. This ball floated up to the smoke thing's face, turning into a second eye.

Joe's body, now completely colorless and stiff as a board, fell backwards with his eyes open. He sighed in a flat voice on the floor, "How unfortunate."

"Oh." the colorless Joe looked up to see Makoto and groaned tonelessly. "Welcome to the celebration. I apologize for the mess." He said all this with his face pressed into the floor, like getting up to speak would be too much of a hassle.

The black cloud looked at the werewolf and smiled as it started to take on a humanish form, growing arms, legs and dreadlocks like Joe's. It looked at Makoto with great interest.

"Ooh, seconds! I'll take your soul, too!" it laughed as it shot a beam of light at the werewolf.

((Heh, monsters are just a good place to start with any fantasy setting.))

The rooftop was clearly the janitor's hanging pad. Girly posters were spread across the brick walls, a futon sat against the chimney stack, its only source of cover a beach umbrella propped to the wall with duct tape.

Joe couldn't see who just jumped onto the rooftop, but it wasn't like it mattered. He couldn't care less. He laid his head on the ground apathetically, and Shadow Joe stepped on it as it approached the werewolf.

It heard the noise and turned its head, and its eyes gleamed at the sight of more victims. Its beam cut out before it could reach the werewolf.

"Delightful! Everyone's here to treat me to dinner for my birthday." It said with a toothy grin.

heh me? dinner? as if!!" Makoto said "so tell me what are you anyways? Master never told me about anything like you." Makoto asked curious because she hadnt seen anything like it before. (when Makoto says "master" she referring to the human boy she used to live with.)

Riley stood confused for a second, then looked at Ryu and nodded.
She moved her hand forward, and Ryu ran toward the thing, pushing it away from Makoto.

(Pahaha, that's funny.)

Shadow Joe rolled over, nursing its kick-in-the-face wound. "I, uh... that was harder than I thought it'd be."

Then its left eye began to glow. It did a jumping flip into a pile of rags, under which it lifted up a mop. The mop became consumed by the same black smoky substance that Shadow Joe seemed to be made of. Shadow Joe whipped it around his body a couple of times, twirling like a bo master before pointing the mop at Riley.

"Forget those appetizers. YOU'RE the real meal!"

The black mop threads all stretched out at once, grabbing at Riley like octopus tentacles.

The mop cut into two, and the darkness disappeared from the separated end, turning back into a regular mop. The mop strands were still stuck to Riley's head though.

Shadow Joe flailed, but couldn't fight off the werewolf girl. Makoto's teeth bit into the shadow's arm, and he flailed around trying to shake her off. "AAAAARRRRRRGHHHHH!"

With its remaining arm it reached up and ripped out its left eye, tossing the shiny white stone to the ground. Immediately, Makoto's teeth bit through the arm as though through a gas, and the shadow's humanoid features started to vanish into wisps.

The monster flipped through the air, now just a gaseous shadow, flying until it reached the edge of the rooftop.

"Too many rich meals here... I have to find something smaller to chew on first..." it said before disappearing off of the rooftop.

"Oh greeeat now its going to go "eat" other people!" Makoto said rolling her eyes.