"We opened the door to the shadows...

[nightbeyondfire]

The man sat alone, back slumped against a wall as he stared down at the pistol in his hand, unloading and reloading it in silence. Over and over again. How long had he been here, ignoring the sounds of life around him and the chatter and racket from the communication device on the ground along with the discarded necklace? Days? Weeks? Months?

It didn't really matter. None of it did anymore.

Load. Unload. Reload.

"You look like crap."

The man looked up, staring upwards at his only companion for what felt like an eternity. Himself... only different, like seeing a photo negative version. The colors were all wrong and there were a few things off.

It had no eyes. He'd found that strange once before the feeling had been bled out of him.

Load. Unload.

It was this thing that had shown him the truth. It had started with whispers in his mind when he was alone and had grown from there, appearing in shadows, taking the place of his reflection and finally standing right there beside him exposing the plain, hopeless reality of where he'd found himself.

An ugly grin split the negative version's face.

"So, what's the hold up, jackass? You know what you have to do now."

Load.

Yeah, he did.

-------------------


In the early morning, it happened without warning. A shudder ran through the entire city and for just a moment it was almost as if reality itself... bent for a moment, warping out of shape before snapping out of place and one of the buildings of Genessia's skyline vanished into a rising cloud of smoke and dust.

The thing rose up out of the cloud, standing over the buildings around it. Misshapen, grotesque, it could only be called humanoid in the most generous of terms. Its body was colored in splotches of red and black, its limbs twisted with the right arm many times larger than the spindly left and it stood on legs that should have been bent and twisted too awkwardly to support it at all.

The head swiveled from side to side on a too-long twiglike neck, wide, blanket white eyes that seemed painted on searched the city and a toothless mouth opened wide in a low, groaning howl that rumbled over the city.

The creature’s body convulsed and with a chorus of sickening splits and cracks its body bristled with weapons, and they all fired as one, shearing the top floors off of the next several blocks and covering the rest of the town in burning debris.




Through the city, every communicator screamed out a deafening alert, which was followed by the voice of the AI.

“CORRUPTED ELEMENTS DETECTED. PLEASE ASSIST IN PURGING IN ORDER TO ENSURE THE CONTINUED SURVIVAL OF THE CITY AND ITS INHABITANTS”


[OOC: Subthreads are up. Post in them for combat, or go nuts with planning/reactions through the rest of the comments.]

Comments

[broken_trifecta]

[Cherise may or may not be in a state of shock, because holy stars and moons, she just got snatched up by a giant monster And it's protecting her. And the monster is also now a vampire and]

.............

[Her breath is coming in short, shallow gasps as she looks between Zeref and Marceline. At least a vampire is a little easier for her poor brain to cope with than a towering tentacle beast. She closes her eyes, urging herself to get it together. She's a Spellcatcher. She's supposed to have nerves of steel. Get it together!]

[She wets her lips, and straightens the hem of her jacket with a sharp tug. Gotta be stately. Gotta be British.]

Perhaps we should spread out along the street, then. Your magic has a range, does it not?

[Cherise doesn't fail to note that the spread of inky blackness didn't pass through the buildings or dumpsters, and there are still creatures slinking forward.]

If I take one of the street, and you [she nods at Marceline] take the other, perhaps we can form a sort of vanguard as we move.

[smelltheredinside]

[She snickers, apparently more relaxed now she's not so cornered anymore. Don't mistake that as not being ready for Battle though, she's super hyped and ready.]

It'll take more than a little Wizardy Mumbo Jumbo to take me down.

[But that doesn't mean she's not on board. She doesn't wast time speeding over, flying onto her side of the street right overhead and just avoiding the top of the black sphere of magic (If it was any other time, she might have recklessly poked it to prove a point), touching down and morphing into a wolf form - more like a werewolf seeing as she's still on two legs. She grabs two or three monsters making an advance before snarling and throwing it just short of Zeref himself into the sphere of magic. She had noticed how effective you actually were against them.]

[deathsought]

This isn't ordinary magic.

[ Zeref isn't one for bragging, but it was the truth. It was some of the most dangerous magic in existence. ]

Fine. I'll take care of this alleyway.

[ Zeref held out his hand, a large, black orb appearing in his palm, which was facing upwards. It continued growing until it was about the size of a beach ball, and then he hurled it in a straight line down the alleyway. Two monsters were hit, a large, gaping, symmetrical 'circle' cut out of their bodies before they vanished into a puff of smoke. ]