Welcome to Gaia! ::

Duncan strummed his guitar a little. He had been put on beach duty and the beach was... well it was surprisingly empty. Of course it seemed that a new area for swimming had opened up and people were much more willing to swim in there than the lake. Only a few people had come by, but most of them had only been there to go to the various docks and use their boats or jet skis. Eventually though, it had all died down and now he was here, by himself, strumming his guitar as he hummed to himself, keeping an eye out in case there was anyone actually wanting to use the lake.

He didn't blame them for staying away, what with all of those bacteria cases that seemed to be popping up. Still, if one didn't have any open sores, it should be okay to swim in, right?

He shook his head. He couldn't think of it like that. The water was still relatively clean, it wasn't as though it were a swamp or dirty pond. The water hadn't betrayed him yet. He would still put his trust in it. At least it was worth more trustworthy than other people.

He gave his mini guitar a hard strum.

He needed to stop thinking so negatively. He should just enjoy the solitude and the sun and the nice weather. At least before it all became cold again. And then he would be stuck inside. Not fun.

While he was musing though, he didn't notice the sand moving about 20 feet away from him...

Duncan had only stopped strumming the guitar for a moment only to reach for his water bottle, when he heard what sounded like the sand moving to this side. He was only able to turn his head to see the crab, or what looked like a crab since it was HUGE, right before it thrust it's larger claw out and snapped the lifeguard station in half! It wobbled for a bit, giving Duncan's brain just enough time to understand what was going on and that if he didn't get off, he would mostly likely be seriously hurt or die after having a giant mutant crab attack him. Not a good way to go.

Duncan was able to jump, but not land, and fell onto the sand hard, his guitar falling a few feet away from him, somehow unharmed. He groaned as he felt the pain go through him. It wasn't too bad. He was lucky it was one of the sandier parts of the beach and could absorb some of the impact, but it still hurt!

He managed to turn onto his back and realized that the crab-thing was coming straight towards him!

Duncan braced himself, unable to move, but then he heard a noise and... the shadow from the crab's claw moved away. He opened his eyes and realized there was a woman there in a weird outfit. He liked the theme of the outfit, it looked a lot like coral, but it was still a weird outfit.

It seemed that she had stopped the crab and was now insulting it and saying that she was most likely going to eat it. Duncan wasn't sure how anyone could have an appetite for crab after looking at that thing but whatever, if this woman seemed like she could take it on, who was he to interrupt her? Though he would stay. But he would be far enough away to just look at what was going on.

He wasn't strong enough to face that monster, not without some sort of weapon of some sort, like a gun. Though he doubted it would penetrate the shell. But what could he do? At least she had stopped the attack, which was more than he could do at least.

He wobbly got up and looked around for his mini guitar. It was a family heirloom and he was not leaving it to get crushed by some giant monster crab. He spotted it a few feet away and ran towards it. Within moments he was able to reach it, but as soon as he grabbed the handle, a light seemed to appear and consume the area around him, and he felt something changing...

After whatever had caused the light to happen, Duncan, no... Sumner felt different. He felt more powerful, though he wasn't sure how he could tell, and his clothes, they were definitely different. Instead of the sandals and swim trunks that he had been in, he was now in some sort of... one piece suit of some sort? What the f-!? It was then that the woman was knocked towards him and spoke to him.

She would explain everything, what? What was going on?! Though she seemed to have confidence that he could now help her. Whatever it was, he would help her. If she felt confident that he could do something, then he felt obligated. If others needed protection, then he wouldn't hesitate. At least he felt like he could actually damage the "crab" compared to well... when he wasn't whatever he was right now.

"Right..." Was his reply as he strapped the mini guitar onto his back so his hands were free. He could only hope he wouldn't land on his back now. With that though, he ran to the side of the "crab" and sent out a kick towards one of it's legs, making it bend at the wrong angle and the "crab" screeching in pain.

Unlike the woman, Sumner had no stick to bash the mutant crab with, however what he could do was pull at one of the legs, hopefully pulling it off the ground and causing the creature to lose its' balance.

What he didn't expect was to accidentally rip the leg off and hear the crab-creature scream. "S***!" Sumner cursed as he then hit the crab thing with its' own leg. Even if the crab was trying to attack and kill him, he still felt a bit sorry for it. Why couldn't it's death be quick and painless?

Still, he had to jump back as one of the claws came to bash him away and only just missed him. Then it seemed to turn it's attention back to the woman since she was closer to it now.

The woman managed to grab it's attention again and hit the crab with a stick, causing it to collapse and then explode into dust. It was both amusing, pathetic, and disgusting all at the same time. Sumner could feel his legs give a little and he decided that sitting on the sand would be a good idea right now, even if it was full of dusty mutant-crab bits.

He looked over at the woman who was approaching him now and shook his head. "I would like to say yes but... what the hell was that?!" He yelled the end of it, the whole situation finally catching up in his brain and realizing that yes, he had gotten this weird outfit, that there was this weird mutant-crab thing, and that some woman was dressed as though she had just come from an underwater fashion show.

He groaned, moving his head forward so that it was a bit obscured as he rested one of his arms on the leg that was bent at the knee and letting the other feel the sand. "Sorry. Just, I have no idea what's going on, why I'm in this outfit, and I'm probably going to go into shock in a little bit so if you do know what's going on, you might want to say it quickly." He wasn't sure if he would go into shock, but he wouldn't be surprised if he did!

Sumner wordlessly grabbed the float though he didn't sit on it. The sand was fine, but he did find some weird comfort in keeping a hand on the float. Perhaps it was because he was a lifeguard and had gotten to know the float quite well for his job. It was something that was grounding him since his mini guitar had "betrayed" him.

He shook the offered hand. "Uh right, Hypatia." Weird. was all he could think though he didn't dare to say it out loud. She had just made a monster poof/squish in front of his eyes, so he didn't want to make her angry now. "Yeah that is weird. Powered form? And what do you mean handle crazy stuff? You mean like that weird crab that you just poofed into dust." He could swear he still saw a leg twitching. "Why do I look like this though and not like you? Is it because whatever gives us these "uniforms" is too afraid to put a guy into a skirt?" He asked, smirking at her. Though he didn't meant it in a mean way, he was joking, mostly to mask his pounding heart that was telling him this should all just be a bad dream!

"Honestly, thought those were just conspiracy-theorist rumors. Didn't believe they were actually real." And the fact that they were real was honestly, terrifying. He may have courage when it came to rescuing someone who was drowning in the water, but fighting against a monster? And one that looked like it could easily take a hit or a dozen? Was it something like Dark Souls?

Need to set that aside and freak out privately later. He thought to himself as he continued to listen to the woman err... "senshi". "No idea what a "senshi" is but a knight? I don't exactly look like one." He replied, sending a skeptical look to the woman. "I mean, this isn't exactly armor that I'm wearing. I'm pretty sure if this was a role-playing game, I would look more like a uh, squishy magic caster or something." Was that what it was? He didn't know, he didn't play games that much. Too much of his time was taken up working and staying as close to a beach as possible.

He chuckled. "Well, maybe you can see sometime later. Not sure if I would want to be wearing one into... "battle"? Or whatever it is that we do. Which is... do we just fight these "youma" things or whatever? And why was I turned into this "knight" anyway?" He realized though that there were quite a few of these questions, and each answer just created another one. "Look, if you can't answer all of these questions it's fine. But I would like some help in getting in touch with someone who could?" At least, he hoped he could.