"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

[dramaticals]

[...heh, adam can't help but smile at that either.

it doesn't take much for adam to understand blake's moves, he's been with her as a partner for a while. when another enemy lunges at blake it's adam that's already there to cut it up. he fires off a gunshot that goes behind her, hitting another creature and he's doing it all with ease. this is where he feels most comfortable, fitting back to back with blake.

they don't even have to talk, they just know what to do.]

[descendsfromshadow]

[It's like second nature. As easy as breathing. They don't need to talk, barely need to look at each other or exchange a look. They've fought side by side for so long, since the very beginning. She simply knows what he's going to do next.

When he goes right, she goes left. When he shoots down a monster behind her she sends Gambol Shroud slicing through the air to take off a limb that went for his back. Then she reels the weapon back in in time to switch places with him, finishing the monster off with a flurry of swipes from her two blades.]

[There are no openings to be found. Whenever a creature creeps into one of their blind spots, the other is there to meet fangs and claws with steel and gunfire. If it weren't for the severed limbs and purplish blood covering the street around them, one couldn't be blamed for mistaking the flurry of movement for a dance.]

[dramaticals]

[a dance was the best way to describe all this, honestly. the fluidity to their movements was unparallelled, it was like they shared one mind and knew exactly where to go.

a group of enemies tried to move all at once, attempting to outnumber them with one swoop. adam knew how to handle this though, and he had a feeling blake was ready to assist him. the man slashed at them all when they jumped, each slash quick and calculated. it was like he was juggling them with how he cut, and with them all in the air adam was waiting for the final blow from blake-]

[descendsfromshadow]

[Despite everything, this much hadn't changed. They still move as one, moving from step to step with perfect timing.

She knows what to do almost immediately when the monsters take to the air and she leaps backward, spinning through the air to land in a crouch with Gambol Shroud combined at her side. Closing her eyes, she focuses her Aura, channeling it into the weapon until the metal seemed to hum with the energy. Then, when she's ready, she blurs forward and jumps straight through the enemy.]

HAH!

[There isn't much to see, really, just a brilliant flash from her blades at the very center of the creatures while they dangle in midair, but a quick enough eye would have seen the dozens of cuts that tore through her enemy. It's over in the blink of an eye and Blake lands in a crouch on the other side of the beings, sheathing her weapon in a quick, fluid motion a heartbeat before the things tumble to the ground behind her, unmoving.]

[dramaticals]

[just as he figured, blake finished them off with ease.

he smiled at that, but then turned around to glance around at the rest of the enemies. this was seemingly pointless, truthfully, with just how many there were. adam backed up so he was closer to blake now, his hand still on his sword.]

There's no end in sight.

[yet another dramatic phrase leaving him, but he really thinks that way. there has got to be a way to stop them.]

[descendsfromshadow]

[Blake backs up as well until she's back to back with Adam once again with a frown. Even with as many of the creatures as they'd brought down they were still filling the streets and creeping across the buildings. For once, Adam wasn't being overdramatic. There really was no end in sight.

Except....]

That big one is spawning them somehow.

[She glances upwards, catching sight of that jet flying overhead once again, narrowing her eyes.]

Ruby's up there... all we can do is hold these things up until she can destroy it.

[And Ruby would destroy it. She was sure of that.]

[dramaticals]

[alright, he understands now. they're on distraction duty, and he was fine with that. he would have assisted with the main group, but with blake here it was better for them to clear out the lesser enemies. they could do it quickly after all, even though there was a lot of them.]

Right. I trust that she'll defeat it soon.

[this was more annoying than it was troublesome. but after he mentioned that, a new wave of enemies started to approach them.]