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 Posted: Fri Aug 25, 2023 1:09 pm
... What am I doing here? Creaky floorboards, stuffy air filled with who knows how ancient dust. Pillars that looked like they would crumble if one sneezed. How Jiho managed to find himself here, he honestly didn't know. There was a vague memory floating about in his head, along with a splitting headache and confusion about where he had ended up.
The sounds of a tune that had a name that sat right on the tip of his tongue had pushed passed the headphones he had been wearing while walking home that night. A familiar melody that lured him in... And honestly, he was an absolute dumbass for listening to it. He was a grown a** man, after all. Everyone KNEW you weren't supposed to follow whatever strange sounds you hear. That's how you get killed. Or worse, kidnapped and then turned into one of those crazy creatures everyone kept talking about.
"... Hello?" .. It was stupid to quietly call out like that, and inwardly he scolded himself again for it. Who was going to hear him when he was that quiet? Especially if the room around him was anything to go by.. And were those.. Shoes hung up on thread nearby? ... Yup, he was in a serial killers house, and he knew it.
Even if standing up meant he was probably going to puke, he rose to his feet, a little wobbly, but enough to make it to the window. ... Great, the 3rd floor. Facing away from the road too. No one would be going about this side of town, not with all the fights and clashes and all that other nonsense going on. Maybe this was it. Maybe this was where his already crappy luck finally ended...
Rather die falling out the window than on some creepy person's dinner plate... The window gave a loud groan as he forced it up as high as it could go. Panic was setting in fast, knowing that whatever creature was there most definitely heard that, and his heart began to punch him in the chest. Was he afraid? 1000% yes. But he still needed to jump... And maybe just have a few moments more to prepare himself for his inevitable demise.
Indigo_Plateau And here's a setup. Nothing better than starting out in an abandoned house. Just pretending that whatever youma shows up soon enough has the power to like, lure people in like a siren
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Posted: Sun Aug 27, 2023 7:49 pm
Whenever Indra felt that particular static in the air that signaled a nearby youma, he immediately suspected that it was coming for him. It didn’t matter what else was going on or who was with him. If Indra got that sense, the one he could practically taste like copper on his tongue, he knew to be ready to run at minimum. Or fight at worst. They came at all times of day and night, they hunted him at his home and work, they were there whether he was awake or asleep. Youma found him. Most frequently they were the beastly kind. Easy enough to outsmart and escape or dust. Sometimes they were smarter. Sometimes they were an actual threat.
Though the Trace was certainly some kind of irremovable curse that he didn’t know how to be rid of, Indra felt incredibly blessed to have the ability to sense them when powered down, thanks to the Code. It meant he could be ready. If he felt so inclined, he could hunt as much as any monster.
Indra let the power of his wonder wrap around him. Whether it was to fight or flee was irrelevant. Antisana was better equipped for either.
His home was out in the forested reaches near the reservoir, chosen specifically because there weren’t a great many people nearby who’d find themselves in danger if something was after them. It was as much courtesy as he could offer random strangers. And he appreciated the seclusion. He knew the wooded lands well enough- he’d thought. When Antisana peered through the trees and saw a large, dense, shadowy mass, he suspected the whole of it was the monster. Huge for a youma, but he’d seen bigger.
Except, it wasn’t. The crackle of something was there in the air, but this was just a tall wood cabin. Maybe something tourists had used during the first year after the reservoir’s introduction. But this was Destiny City. So something had probably happened, and it looked like the cabin had fallen out of use and been left to the forest for the past several years.
Very odd. Very suspicious. He wouldn’t trust it on a bright, clear, sunshiny day. Never mind a shadow-shrouded evening in the woods.
But he didn’t want to be the one caught unawares. If he could sense the youma, it could likely sense him too. They’d be face-to-face in a matter of moments, Antisana felt confident of that. He slunk nearer, body low, staff in hand, slate eyes skimming the treeline expectantly. A shadow emerged in one of the top stories windows- this was it, surely. Something was there.
…A boy. Just a boy. Very tame-looking. It could be a trick. Antisana had grown exceedingly paranoid and wary, and literally anything could be a trick or a trap, even if he didn’t taste that static like he expected if a monster was right in front of him. He stared up at the young man, head canted, lips pursed. Was Antisana… supposed to go up and get him? That was not going to happen in any reality. In any lifetime. Something was amiss here, he wasn’t going to walk into it.
It was difficult to make much out from where he stood on the ground, but… the boy might have looked… drugged, scared? He could just be a normal civilian, trying to escape the monster. It was around somewhere, why need in there, stealing this boy’s energy?
Antisana moved to stand just beneath the window, perhaps only a foot away from the cabin’s outer wall. He looked up, stared the boy in the face, and demanded in a low, quiet tone, ”Jump.”
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Posted: Mon Aug 28, 2023 1:31 pm
Teetering on the line between 'jumping to his death' or 'being skinned alive' made Jiho hesitate much longer than he had initially planned. This most certainly wasn't like his normal 'it has to be done' attitude. Then again, it wasn't every day someone was dragged off the road and woke up in what truly felt like the mid-point of every horror movie. Thinking on that bit, it was a terrible lead up to it all in the first place.
His hesitation seemed to have been enough time for someone to near sneak up on him, startling him and causing him to lean dangerously towards the outside of the window. A hand snatched the side of the window, a hiss of pain being the first response to the demand as flesh got snagged on jagged broken glass. Whether it was the person below's words, or the sound of his own pain, something had stirred the beast within, and a loud snarl echoed out behind him, with rapid movement clearly charging towards the door that had been closed behind him.
Words weren't needed, nor any more convincing. Whether or not he went splat wasn't on his mind when he finally let himself jump out the window, hopefully onto the person standing below. Just as he fell, a giant, sharp, spiderlike leg stroke out from that window, webs shoot and falling all over where he once stood.
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Posted: Tue Sep 05, 2023 2:08 pm
The man fell into Antisana’s waiting arms with a soft ’hmph’ as the weight hit him. And as much as it would have been useful to have the questions answered, ’How did you get here? What chases you? Are there others? How long have you been here?’ -There was no time for any of them. Spindly legs had erupted from the broken window, webbing painted the outside of the ledge, and a form peeled its way through the opening to stare down at them.
“Stay where I can hear you,” Antisana ordered as he slung the other man out of his arms, back on his feet, and with Antisana between him and the youma.
That seemed more sound advice than ‘Run-‘ run to where? Toward what? There could easily be other youma in the woods, and as far as Antisana was aware, there was no safe haven to flee to. At least if they were in near enough proximity to each other, the squire could hopefully be there in time to keep anything exceptionally treacherous from happening, provided he could hear it if this guy screamed for help.
His staff was already in his hand, and he upended it to knock his boot against the very tip of the glass terrarium, shattering the top off and leaving a jagged edge of glass shards and thin iron rods to jab at whatever it could reach. It would repair itself before he powered up again. It was of no concern.
The legs clawed their way through the window, and Antisana watched with a critical eye. He could not immediately feel more nearby youma, but that said nothing for whether or not they would appear. The guy behind him had made it out, but what if anyone else? If this youma was confident enough to abduct and confine people, why wouldn’t it have a pantry of victims it could drain from whenever it wanted? He didn’t want to explain much, but he murmured a quick, “I have to make sure you were the only one…” to the other man, before Antisana ascended the side of the building in a few leaps, bracing once on the top ledge of a window on the first floor, and then kicking off to catch the ledge of spider youma’s window. He lashed out with his makeshift weapon, avoiding the spider’s legs and trying to stab the main body. He just needed space to pull himself up, and then he’d put up more of a fight. He’d get rid of this thing before any worse could happen.
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Posted: Fri Sep 08, 2023 12:29 pm
Jiho had no desire to disobey the orders of his semi-rescue-er. Had he been in the same situation, he would have behaved exactly the same, words not really being needed to express what sort of extraordinarily odd and dangerous situation they were in. Rumors had always circulated about the strange things in the city, so much so that even his pilot that brought him here mentioned it in passing when arriving in the city. To think he'd come face to face with it so damned soon... Color him impressed. Terrified, but Impressed.
Feeling a little bit safer due to the company of someone who clearly knew how to use a weapon gave Jiho the opportunity to realize something was missing. A calm moment turned into a frantic pat down of himself, and a quick ransacking of his pocket.
Gone, it was gone.
And so was the man who had been by his side just moments before. It made sense, yes, but he wasn't about to just 'stay' out here on his own, especially not when who knows what was out there in the woods! And besides, he needed to find it, no matter what.
While he couldn't exactly follow the man up the walls, he could make his way around to the front door, tackling it over and over until it finally burst open with a cloud of dust behind him.
-
The spider youma found itself face to face with a Squire, much to it's disgust. And the very beginning of it's little den of feasting was disturbed! It couldn't let this happen! Splattered, sticky globs of web were shot out at Antisana, wanting to get him all wrapped up and trapped to be drained dry just like that morsel it had once had in its clutches. It was so very close to having what was to be the glorious start to a proper draining facility, but now it was at risk of being dusted!
A crash came from the front door, and the youma snarled, skittering away from the Squire in favor of fleeing, and grabbing what it could sense to be a regular human. It was far more important to keep himself out and about and not recovering out in the rift than to simply defeat some little knight in training
-
Once inside the dusty, dilapidated house, Jiho began to scramble around for whatever remnant of his belongings he could find. A shredded bag, a broken laptop, shattered phone and destroyed notebooks. All things he could readily live without. But what he did finally find was a strange, far too techy-looking old book, tethered with what he had been actually looking for, a small beaded charm with a music note on the end.
There was no moment to celebrate or to feel relief in that moment, for the frantic scrambling of that spider was soon on him, crashing into him, hissing and snarling at the weak, pathetic human below him.
And he screamed.
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Posted: Sat Sep 09, 2023 5:32 pm
As Antisana tried to haul himself up through the window, something thudded against the walls beneath him. It was easy to disregard initially: there was an actual monster immediately in front of him taking precedence and spitting out an array of white, sticky webbing directly over his arms and face, preventing him from making much headway, despite his attempts to stab forward with the broken edges of his weapon. He made a scoff of disgusted sound, jerked his arm to try and rip some of the webbing. There was no way he was going to be caught here, dangling out of a window and waiting to be a youma’s snack.
The thudding from downstairs turned into crashing as the door was broken open. The youma seemed more alert to this at the same time as Antisana. Alert, interested. It fled. Of course it did. While the youma was quick to skitter away, Antisana spared a sharp look back down toward the ground where he’d left the other man. He couldn’t have- wouldn’t have run back into the house he’d just escaped from? That would be foolish.
But Antisana didn’t see him and couldn’t think of anything else that would be breaking into the house.
Annoyingly, he had to relent to the thought that the guy wasn’t technically disobeying the one order Antisana had given him: he was in screaming distance. The squire had just expected that a victim wouldn’t run back into the den where they’d been held prisoner. Unfortunate.
He jerked backward, pushing himself off the windowsill and using the sharp edges of his shattered terrarium to cut away the spools of web that would’ve held him in place. Sticky strands still clung to him in wisps, but he could move, and he had to get to that boy before the youma did. His feet hit the ground again, and he rushed around the side of the building, looking for the front entryway. Even from outside, he could hear the clacking of the youma’s legs as it scuttled against the wood floors, seeking out its prey. Why was it so interested in one human? Antisana didn’t know, but he barreled through the door in time to see the youma lunging again.
His body threw itself forward before his kind could reason him out of it, and he jabbed toward the thing’s myriad of eyes with his staff.
He shouldn’t have. Antisana didn’t want to get involved with anyone else’s issues, especially when they so readily brought them upon themselves. But it was a youma, and an inherent fear made him not want to turn his back and leave it be.
“Why did you come back in here?” Antisana demanded, holding himself between the monster and the boy.
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Posted: Fri Sep 22, 2023 11:33 am
Jiho sincerely believed that this moment was to be his end. Life flashing before his eyes, acceptance of fate, even if it was scary. All of it happened all at once, yet the pain of being slaughtered never came.
Peeking an eye opened, he saw who stood between them, his savior, but also could hear something said in a scolding tone. Not that any of that mattered when he struggled to find the will to rise to his feet once more. All he could do was scramble backwards.
His hand came in contact with something warm, no, almost burning, and he hissed as he drew it away. Yet it stuck to his hand like gum, forcing him to pick it up without any given choice.
In an instant, there was a moment where all seemed to freeze around him; Time slowed down to a crawl, and all that made its way through the eerie quiet was a comforting tic, tic, tic from the book he had brushed against.
It wasn't the time to be distracted, he knew that! But he was drawn in by this strange little thing, covered in gears and glistening even in the dusty, dim light of the house. The echo of a name resounded in his head, over and over and over until he too added to the voices whispering all around that little void that surrounded him.
"Scărișoara." Civilian clothes almost seemed to fade from existence, melting into what seemed like robes from a time long past. And that book in his hands... It was his, it was his weapon, which called his name to flip open the pages.
But there was no time to question what was happening when that monster was still there and there was still a very clear struggle going on.
Up to his feet, along the wall where broke bits and bobbles lay around randomly, Scărișoara raced away to grab what he could, chucking it at the beast who once threatened his own life. His thought process? If he could distract the creature, then the one with combat knowledge could get a proper strike in. Or that's what he would like to say if it wasn't for how his body moved on it's own and started throwing book after old flowerpot, after broken chair at the beast.
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Posted: Sat Mar 09, 2024 11:22 am
Antisana was ready to be upset. He was prepared to berate this boy for not listening, for letting some inane object endanger them both; whatever he'd come back to retrieve wasn't worth either of their lives, and it was 'both,' since Antisana couldn't, in good conscious, abandon this guy here to a youma.
But...
Those thoughts were derailed when the other man caught hold of a book and changed right in front of him. The sensation of an aura swept up his spine, and it was all in the matter of a blink that a new Page stood before him. A new Pluto Page. Antisana's instances of meeting other knights in general were scattered, but his instances of meeting other Pluto knights specifically were so, so few. Once. Ever. Realistically, it should hold no sway over how he felt toward this boy; they were still complete strangers. But there still swelled a bizarre sense of pride that he definitely thought he had no business having.
For a fleeting moment, the youma felt secondary while he stared at Scărișoara, something he did not expect to see out of this encounter. "You are a Knight." Tone quiet and flat, but gaze intent. "Like me."
It wasn't what he should be focused on. There was an enemy standing right in front of them, and they really had no time to stand here and discuss the sheer coincidence of existing here together, in the same place, at the same time. A youma wasn't going to offer them that courtesy, and even with another Knight present, Antisana was still, theoretically, the more likely of the two of them to be able to handle this. Scărișoara seemed to understand.
He put a few places of distance between himself and the youma and started weaponizing whatever the ******** he could find around the room (a useful skill: it wasn't like they'd ever have anything proper to fight with...). They could improvise. And the shards of a broken flower pot had to be as good as anything else.
Antisana slid to grab one from around the debris rapidly piling up around the youma. And in the same movement he knocked a splintered chair leg back toward the other with his foot. "Take that. We have to deal enough of a blow to dust it. I will use my magic to keep it distracted."
Using his magic against youma always seemed a bit precarious. Being little more than Chaos-fueled amalgamations of evil, they were hard to predict. They could whither under his spell. Or rampage. There was no way to tell before he did it. But regardless of outcome, it would make it more difficult for the monster to locate and attack either of them for a few seconds. And as long as its focus wasn't on them, they could stab it down with their various makeshift weapons. They just had to hope this worked out for them.
With a steadying breath, he lifted his staff and plucked at the threads of power the Code had gifted to him. Though neither he nor the other Knight could see it, a world of bleak darkness swept up to engulf the youma.
Kapoodles Antisana can trap one target within his line of sight in a vision of his homeworld: a deep, dark, empty, and impossibly large cavern. While trapped in this illusion, time feels as if it passes more slowly, sometimes excruciatingly slowly. The hallucination can be broken by breaking Antisana’s line of sight. He can cast for up to thirty-five seconds.
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