[HH] Wrong Turn (Anna & Robert)

[Sosiqui]

Anna had heard about the Haunted House, but she'd always assumed it was just a rumor. Amityville had plenty of those, and she tried to ignore them unless she had proof that there was some kind of reality behind the words whispered from student to student in the halls and classrooms. People said so many weird things, from Roch being adamant that Hunters (psssh) were real, to rumors of a grey plague that turned you into a statue.

All stupid. Anna was above all that. Smarter than that.

And then she turned around a corner in the Reaper dorm and found herself somewhere she didn't know. It took her a moment to notice, given that she was nose-deep in a book at the time, but she knew the path to her room so well that she could get there while reading... or so she thought, until she smacked into a wall.

"OW!"

... Wait.

The witchling took a step back, the sound of her patent-leather shoes echoing with the movement. Where... where was she? She turned around in a slow circle, but saw nothing she recognized. "H-Hello?" she called out, and the room ate her words.

Jack-

"Help! Hello?! Help! Can anybody hear me?!" she shrieked into the silence of the Haunted House.  

[Nio Love]

The latest mission had reminded Robert that being a hunter wasn't only about learning how to protect, and saved, the people you loved. He supposed he was getting rusty, after slacking with spars and fights and pretty much any activity other than his exhausting work at the Infirmary. He needed a break from the bed pans and needles. He needed to stretch his muscles out.

He needed to beat something up.

The sound of a girl's voice was enough for him. He grinned, a snarled and feral expression, and summoned Jezebel in his arms as he snuck quietly towards the continuing sounds of the voice.

Noisy little thing, wasn't she?

He heard her last shriek, and stopped just before entering the door, taking a deep breath. In his mind, he counted to three. On three, he bum rushed the room, with Jezebel's pointy end aimed straight for the girl. It stopped just under her chin, right at the base of her neck.

"I hear you." Robert's cocky, casual answer was at odds with the fact he was poised to decapitate her.  

[Sosiqui]

And then, suddenly, help arrived - or at least, a person arrived, along with his very pointy weapon. She was dimly aware of the book falling out of her hands; the rest of her was focused on the sudden cold sharpness hovering a bare inch from her pale skin.

And then she scowled. "Hey! What do you think you're doing?" she said, shoving the weapon to one side. "I don't go around shooting you with my bow, do I?! What floor is this?" Because clearly this was a Reaper, and clearly she had just taken a wrong turn and was still in the Reaper dorms. Sheesh. And here she'd been afraid!  

[Nio Love]

For a minute, Anna actually sounded just enough like a normal little girl to make Robert second guess his judgement. Maybe he was wrong. She looked like one of the cuter little witch monsters, and he knew better than to mistake a pretty face for something innocent, but then again, she could be in a golem..

So he pulled away his weapon, and stared at her quietly.

"Uhh." What floor? He didn't even know. "First, I guess...? Who the hell are you, anyway?"

Sosiqui

 

[Sosiqui]

"First? Are you sure?" Anna turned around, perplexed. It didn't look like anywhere on the first floor. "I thought I went up the stairs... and I'm Anna. Anna Walpurgis. Who're you? You're gonna get in trouble if you have that out in here, y'know." She gave the weapon a skeptical look.

Nio Love

 

[Nio Love]

"Anna." That sounded like a normal name, but he was still becoming more and more suspicious the more she talked. "I'm Robert. I never heard of you, Anna. What division are you from?"

He actually considered de-summoning his weapon, at the mention of trouble. But that made no sense.. they were always supposed to have their weapons out. "I think you got that the other way around, little miss. We gotta stay ready for battle, in a place like this."

Sosiqui

 

[Sosiqui]

"I've never heard of you, either," she said, vaguely annoyed. "It's a big school... division? I'm a Knob, if that's what you mean. A-and I'm not little miss." She drew herself up to her full five-foot-three height. Scary.

But her hands were trembling. She didn't want to be here. And she had a funny feeling about this. It still didn't look like the dorms at all. Not even a little bit...

Nio Love

 

[Nio Love]

A big school. Anna almost had him fooled, until that moment.

The batleth's tip returned to her chin, and his face twisted in fury. "I knew it. You're a monster. And I'm gonna slit you in half right here and now, Anna."

He felt betrayed. It couldn't register in his brain that he'd simply gotten it wrong, or that any of this was his fault. She'd tricked him into thinking she might have been a hunter - it must have been her fault. It made him hate her even more; and the pointed edge of his batleth just kept pushing into her chin, desperate to draw blood - or whatever it is those damn creatures bled.

Sosiqui

 

[Sosiqui]

"I am not a monster!" Those shaking hands balled into fists at her side. "I'm a Reaper, stupi-"

The words died as the blade advanced, and she swallowed, the trembling sweeping over her as her skin rasped against metal, the first warning twinges of pain scraping the surface...

... and then, in its wake, came anger. No, not anger: pure, visceral fury that snapped through her, gloriously liberating. "Leave me alone!" she shrieked, and the darkness that usually lay quiescent over her skin flared to life, creeping over her flesh as her curse-power awoke. She stumbled back, and the curse detonated.

A soundless dark wave washed away from her, and in its wake it left the world trailing color and light, a mad fever-dream of shifting shapes and shadows that seemed to swallow the girl up.

Nio Love

HP: 40/40
Damage: 0 (FEAR attack - The Mind)
Effect: Robert's accuracy decreased by 1 for 3 turns / RP flavor wise, Robert's vision shifts giving the world a mad fever-dream look. Like the inside of a witch's barrier in Puella Magi Madoka Magica, kind of thing.

 

[Nio Love]

This was a simple job. Cut and dry. Bring the little monster down, get back to base, report on success. Simple. Easy. A no-brainer, really.

And then his brain took a shift seven degrees to the left and dropped him in a world of ******** that he was not mentally, or even physically prepared for. So he just screamed. He screamed, and slashed, and flailed with every ounce of strength within him. Because he truly believed he'd just been transported somewhere, and it was also easy for him to believe that this time, it was permanent.

HP: 50
Damage: 8

Sosiqui

...hello fight I apparently didn't post for like I thought

 

[Sosiqui]

Anna let out another shriek as the boil's weapon hit her, and she felt dizzy - he'd struck her! He'd really hit her, he'd... really... "GO AWAY!" she screamed, and she felt her power lash out wildly again, utterly out of her control. The air behind the boil cracked and released a lashing streak of curse-magic, which struck at him before fizzing into nothingness.

Nio Love

HP: 32/40
Damage: 1
Lateness of Post: 7 million

 

[Nio Love]

"What the hell was - " Something had stung him. He rubbed his arms, his mind still reeling from the scene around him. Nothing looked real. Nothing looked right. And even when he swung Jezebel, and clearly felt something connect with the wild, loose swing, he couldn't see what he'd hit.

"LET ME THE ******** OUT OF HERE OR I SWEAR TO GOD - " What? What would he do? He could do nothing but continue to blindly fight.

HP: 49
Damage: 11
Charge: 2/3

Sosiqui

 

[Sosiqui]

Anna fell to her knees as he hit her again - she felt dizzy, she felt sick. She didn't understand what was happening to him, why his movements were so erratic. Had she... she'd felt her power do something, she'd felt it... had she done that to him?

She had to fight back, or she was going to...

Die?

She held out one trembling hand and called up her own weapon, the blackthorn bow sprouting and unfolding into her grasp. She drew back the string and felt the curse-bolt manifest, crackling as she took aim. "G-go away," she whispered, a tear streaking down her cheek.

Then she fired.

Nio Love

HP: 21/40
Damage: 7

 

[Nio Love]

"The hell?" He swiveled around when he heard that little whisper, begging him to go away. "HOW? HOW THE HELL CAN I - " His weapon swung again blindly, in the direction of the voice. " - GO AWAY WHEN I CAN'T EVEN SEE WHERE I AM!"

He felt the sink of an arrow press into him, and he dropped his head to look at it, black and corrosive against the shield on his chest.

"Oh you little b***h." His swings turned into hacks, cutting away at the wild, colorful scenery around him.

HP: 42
Damage: 7
Charge: 3/3

Sosiqui

 

[Sosiqui]

The wildly swung blade bit into her side, and Anna staggered, screaming again in pain and fear. "Stop it! STOP IT!"

Blackness crawled across her skin, like coruscating lightning only dark as pitch - and then the air opened up all around the boil, making way for strangling vines of the same dark power, all of which latched onto him and squeezed. Anna stumbled back, but this time she saw. This time she understood.

This was what she could do. What she had done.

Nio Love

HP: 14/40
Damage: 10 (Battle Cry Y1 - hit!)