genessia | "We opened the door to the shadows...

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.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Well Natsu was never one for such superficial things. Hell he found the demon tribe on Galuna to be the coolest guys he'd ever come across.

Kefka. That guy had caused so much trouble. Natsu still regretted not kicking his ass harder. Speeding up the monsters, putting Lucy in danger. That guy had made himself an irredeemable enemy to Natsu and everyone he knew.

"Where the hell did that nutjob come from?"

Well... okay, there was that. Though Lucy still found them strange. And if Virgo had been unable to change her appearance, she would have accepted her just as she was before. She just liked her better with the change in form.

Lucy shook her head slightly, "I don't know - he was the first person I ran into when I arrived here, looking for everyone. He wasn't so unhinged then -- or no, I should actually say he didn't seem to be quite as unhinged. Not until we started talking about the magic from our worlds. It makes me a little glad that there isn't a Gateway open to Fiore."

Outside didn't matter to Natsu. It's who the person was. And those were good people. As was Virgo really. She had just been employed to a bad man.

"I'll say. The last thing we need is another nutjob who thinks he's a god or something like that running around. Tartaros is bad enough." Natsu growled.

"Well I have his scent now. I'll see him coming if he tries anything else any time soon."

And now she was employed by someone who could appreciate her more. "It's not just him," Lucy said slowly, thoughtful. "One of the girls I met, Ruby - she mentioned some other people that have cause trouble around here. But Kefka wasn't one of them, oddly enough ...maybe he's new here too."

Well that was neither here nor there. "He'd better not even so much as think of trying anything." Picking a fight with a fairy was a really bad idea. Especially when one of those fairies was a dragon.

"Other people? Great. Who else should I look out for then?" After all she had more answers and the sooner he knew names the better. Then he could get scents and know what to expect and who to keep as far away as possible.

"He didn't look all that bright to me. Seen his type before. Reminded me of Zancrow really. Head too big for his own shoulders."

Lucy watched Natsu thoughtfully for a moment, "She said there was a skeleton guy named Skeletor.. a muscly guy named Bison, and some jerk that texts people, who goes by the alias 'M'. There's also a mad scientist, apparently, but she didn't say what his name was. just that she hadn't seen him around. That 'M' guy did contact me when I arrived, now that I think about it, but he was pretty evasive." It bugged her.

He raised an eyebrow hearing about those other guys.

"Skeleton by the name of Skeletor. I guess that fits." He would crack a joke if this wasn't a dangerous guy apparently. However he frowned hearing she'd spoken to this mysterious M.

"You did? And what did that guy say?"

Lucy flashes a brief, wry grin at that. Yeah it was a pretty fitting name. MOre importantly she thought back on the conversation with the man. "Not much. He saw my request for someone to let me know if they saw anyone else from the guild. He said I should beware of strangers," which is obvious enough. "And he tried asking about who else might show up - that he liked to 'plan ahead'. I asked what he meant, but..I never found out, since we lost connection."

Natsu listened to what she knew about this M fellow and a very unpleasant feeling settled in his gut when Lucy mentioned that part about who would show up and planning ahead.

"Shady bastards all around huh. Dammit and this guy's scent I don't have." Natsu all but growled to himself thinking on how to deal with this new information.

"Yeah." Lucy sighed faintly. "Ruby said that he was probably the most dangerous of all the people she mention, that 'M' guy."

A shake of her head followed, "Don't worry. If that guy tries something, we'll deal with him, same as we deal with anyone else."

Natsu nodded, his own determination strong to keep everyone safe from whatever weirdoes this place could throw at them.

"Yeah you're right. We always come out on top in the end."

"We opened the door to the shadows...

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