The Gate of Lords

Megan too accompanied those preparing to fight the demon... but like Vann she kept her distance from the front lines. She would rather observe the situation before committing to a course of action... and given her powers, it might be bad for her to fight alongside others in a confined space.

"Miscommunication and misfires are all part of the fun. But I can understand if you don't wanna join me." Billie replied cheerily, still jogging on the spot. Upon hearing the request could wait she nodded at him and headed for the door, blatantly ignoring Maelt's instruction to stay.

Lionel paused, hesitating. He wondered if he should go at all... He might be more of a liability than an asset...

No.

The power of plastic was easy to undereastimate... But He knew, in his heart, it would be useful. Plastic was a versatile element. It could be hard and unyielding, or soft and pliable. It could be a bludgeon, a shield, a mask... All he needed was enough of it, and enough time to work it into the shape he needed.

And in this modern world, plastic was in no short supply. Time, sadly, slipped away all too fast.

Grabbing his orb, he quickly transformed, and made his way beside Megan.

An idle thought passed through his mind.

"If it's intelligent enough to be looking for something, and the instructors know..."

He paused, as if he suddenly realized how dire the implications were.

"It must have already tried to make someone give it what it's looking for."

He didn't have a visible mouth in his transformed state, but it wouldn't be hard to guess that he was frowning on the inside.

"It's probably hurt someone already. Someone in that room could need our help..."

He stepped towards the front.

"We need eyes in there... And I think I know how to do it."

He opened up a compartment in his plastic body where one of his pockets was before he transformed, and pulled out a pair of small toys from it. One was a small yellow car, with seams that indicated that it transformed into a robot of some sort. The other was one of his green army men, this one with binoculars.

"I think I can sneak these in and get a peek around..."

He paused, realizing the implications of this little trick.

"And I swear, if this works, I will never ever misuse the ability!"

He set the Transformer down, and the army man on top of it.

Making them move on their own would be the easy part. Seeing through the eyes of the toys... That would be harder.

Still, he was ready to give it a shot.

edited 14th Jun '12 6:53:18 PM by Scrounge

When the toy arrived at the area, it was a wreck. Amongst the overturned tables and pieces of rubble there paced a tall, birdlike beast with black feathers, four horns behind its ears, a gaping mouth with sharp teeth, and branches that split into five parts at the end for arms. It was moving its mouth rapidly, probably making a form some form of sound, but the noise could not be identified.

As the plastic figure turned, he (or it, whichever was accurate) caught sight of a closed safe lying overturned on the ground next to a young humanoid figure with a large piece of rubble pinning them down. They were bleeding, and it was impossible to say whether they were alive or not.

The demon raised its hand and thin strands of red light flew from the ground below a table and lifted it into the air. For a few seconds, this seemed to be just another part of the search. Then the table crashed into the figure, sending it rolling away, somewhat damaged.

Without waiting for an answer from Master Gregory, when he saw one of the students moving toward the door, he charged his orb and stopped the student from going further by increasing the weight of her shoes. (Out of Character, if you don't get what the powers he's using are, look at the signup sheet.)

"What did I tell you to do?" questioned an annoyed Maelt.

edited 14th Jun '12 8:35:45 PM by Rockonman

"You told us to stay here," Billie said, tugging at her heavy shoes bemusedly. "I thought that'd be boring so I ignored you and now you are abusing your power to hold me against my will." Her tone was more accusatory than she actually felt.

Greg stepped towards Maelt. "With all due respect, sir," he said carefully, "wouldn't it be best if we all went in there now? We need to destroy the demon before it seriously hurts anyone."

edited 13th Nov '12 3:02:00 PM by Collen

"The man is right!" Phoebus said to Maelt, his spear in his hand. "We must kill the demon before it causes any more undue destruction. Please, let us face it."

"Good one, Lionel. So, tell me. What can you see?" asks Megan as she sees the little guy concentrating hard on the toy he just sent to investigate.

Master Gregory walked towards the crowd. "Students, please. This demon is just shy of a class seven, more than powerful enough to kill expert Orbkeepers. If you go to the meeting, we will allow you to fight, but we need a strategy. If we just send in everyone to kill it, the death toll will be astounding, but if we all work together to form a plan, we may even be able to stop it without a single one of us dying."

"Plans are well and good but this requires rapid response not elongated tactics" Andel said. "I have no qualm with coming up with a basic stratagem here, but this demon needs to be eliminated fast, as many before me have said. I mean no disrespect Master but the more time we waste the more people will die or be injured. And as for us dying, I may only speak for myself, but death does not scare me if I die defending my allies."

After speaking Andel reached out to sense life forces in the direction of that they had been informed the demon was in, if there was something living there he would sense it so long as he focused intently enough.

edited 15th Jun '12 3:10:58 PM by AuraofMildChaos

Master Gregory looked annoyed. "Everyone is being informed. Students are being informed as we speak, and the knowledge of the demon should be enough to keep them safe for a bit."

Still, he looked uncertain as he finished his argument. It was clear he was not entirely convinced himself.

When Andel searched for life, he sensed not just the demon, but two other creatures. One had lifeforce that felt twisted, unnatural, and the other was weak and fading. Then, after a few seconds, the strange life energy vanished mysteriously.

"What an impatient bunch..." Vann said, idly leaning upon the wall, still dressed in his shirt, jacket and long pants. He had swiftly fetched his equipment and returned to the area. His 'equipment' wasn't all that much, a sizable water pouch, and a custom-made belt designed to held some small cylindrical objects (like a bullet) They were empty at the moment, however.

He decided to return here, not to fight, but to spectate, as cowardly as that sounded. The hardships he went through in his life dictated him to avoid unnecessary combat whenever possible; and he have faith on the orbkeepers who were willing to fight that demon. "They can do it, wihtout me." he told himself, closing his eyes to calm himself.

It was subtle, but a voice whispered in his heart; no, it wasn't even a voice, but an abstract thought: "Isn't this your much-needed sabotage chance? Isn't friendly fire can be dismissed as 'misfire'?"

His eyes snapped open, looking at all the orbkeepers in front of him. It was a momentary thought, but also a horrible one. "I'm imagining things." He let out a deep breath.

edited 16th Jun '12 3:25:47 AM by LimitRemoval

Lionel winced, and let go of his grip on his toys, pulling back to reality.

"There's a guy in there, lots of blood... He's pinned down. And there's... I don't know how to describe it, but it's totally wrecking the place. And It's not stupid, it hit my toy with a table. I think it knew something was off... We need to distract it so we can save that guy... I don't think the demon cares about killing him, or else he'd be in more parts, right? If we distract him, we might be able to save a life."

He paused.

"I'm scared... But I'll go in there and distract it."

Andel, hearing Lionel's admission that there was a bleeding man in the room, matched the the image of the man to the waning life force. "There was not just the demon and the man in there moments ago, I sensed a third unnatural presence that felt as if it was twisted. Either way I can keep the man alive from here but it will be difficult, I cannot hold his life force up forever" Andel said loudly. He returned his full focus to keeping the dying man's life force up thereby keeping him alive if close to death.

Khaine had been ready to simply wait in the meeting room, but the proctor had told them to stay. Since their proctor was technically a figure of authority (for now, anyway. When the trials were over, Khaine could go back to comfortably ignoring his existence), so he stayed put. He wasn't happy about it, however, and had grown less pleased the more the arguing continued.

After hearing about the injured person, Khaine had had enough. He transformed, his body being covered in blood red plate armor and his head replaced with a horned skull. He walked over to Lionel, looking at him with the red glowing orbs of light that had replaced his eyes, put his hand on Lionel's shoulder, and said "Not alone, you're not." He then put his hand down and turned to the rest of the group, saying "Master Gregory, I appreciate the need for tactics, but we're out of time. That person needs help, and I for one cannot simply abandon them. At the very least, we need people to go in there and extract the injured."

Greg whirled around to face the Masters. "Please," he begged, gritting his teeth. "Just let us get in there. I can create a diversion, or blind the demon, or something. Then, the rest of us could finish the job. We need to go in now. We can't stall any longer."

Who talks this much about whether they want to fight or not? Billie thought, still tugging at her feet. I'm just a simple girl, with simple wants, who simply wants to kill- eh? Wait a minute. It wasn't her feet that were abnormally heavy, it were her shoes. And if she weren't wearing them...

She clenched her orb and lets its power wash over her, her shoes disappearing so that they weren't ripped up by her new set of claws. With everyone else distracted by their arguing she tried again to open the door and slip out of it.

Gregory looked uncertain, but eventually nodded. "I suppose I could go to the other masters and tell them that some of you slipped away, and that they need to go in, plan or no plan, to give backup."

Rash actions of a certain girl has broke Vann out from his small reverie. He did not expect Billie to be that careless, after all the time he spent with her.

"Give me a break!" Vann exclaimed, "It's too dangerous to charge in alone, Billie!" He ran after her, "For once, listen to the masters, damnit!" However, the girl had disappeared behind the doors.

Vann gritted his teeth, what would he do? He looked at the other three orbkeepers. "They aren't reaching a conclusion in another year." He thought.

Thus, he gave chase.

"And when has danger ever deterred me from doing anything, Vann?" Billie called back, her pace not slowing down. "All I know is that while they're doing nothing but bickering there's a demon loose that's wrecking this place and I want to take a shot at it before those guys finally get their act together."

The knowledge of another man in danger was enough to spur Phoebus into action. Activating his Orb, Phoebus transformed into his fearsome pseudo-angelie appearance, his spear seeming to be alight with fire.

"There is a man in danger and a demon in the same room. We must act now!" With that the Orbkeeper charged after Vann and Billie, hoping to destroy the demon before any more damage was done.

edited 17th Jun '12 6:00:48 PM by Insano

Lionel raised his plastic palm to his plastic face as his fellow orb-keepers charged he demon, before entering the room himself. He wasn't sure what their priorities were, but he knew what was really important.

Finding a few pens to use as projectiles, he fired a few volleys into the fray, aiming for the monster's eyes...

But his real objective was on the other side of the room. The demon was secondary in his mind...

It was the man he was worried about.

Quickly, he hurried over, trying to move the piece of rubble that had pinned him down. He managed to move it, but barely... He could only hope that the sound of stone falling from the floor didn't attract the demon's attention. The last thing the wounded man needed was more violence.

As the students charged in, the mouth of the demon turned to what might have been a smile or a frown, though which was difficult to tell.

When the pens flew at it, the creature raised one of its arm-like branches to block them. Still, they had done their job and given Lionel time to run to the unconscious figure.

After gazing at him for a few seconds, it charged, aiming a blow at him.

Greg burst into the room and held out his palm, concentrating hard on the area in front of the demon. In a split second, a rectangle of solid light formed between Lionel and the demon. It glowed bright yellow, emitting light and heat, and was probably hot to the touch.

edited 17th Jun '12 7:12:50 PM by Collen