Rooftop

"We were at the same school together; she's in the year above me."

An out-of-the-way bench.

Around the corner from a biking King of England, a young man sat with a silver trinket in one hand, and a strange black and gold figurine◊ in one hand. John Shirkwood, slightly confused at the workings, thought about it.

"Okay, so she said touch this thing to the tip of the foot..."

The back of his hand beginning to glow, John's eyes widened as the silver device emitted a hexagonal mark, absorbing the figure.

ULTRALIVE! VALKYRIAN!

After a flash of light, the man on the bench was gone, replaced by the black figure, looking down at his hands before hopping up on the bench and throwing his arms up in the air with a victorious laugh.

"Inouï! This is so friggin' cool! Do I have freaky powers?"

Streets

A black motorcycle, and it's black suited rider raced through the streets of Dayton. The Rider had had one goal in mind after seeing the footage as she'd passed an electronics shop. She'd actually just passed the golden suited figure, before her mind caught up with what she'd seen.

Stopping, she'd swung the bike around before pulling up a few feet from the figure with it's hands up in the air. Her cat eared helmet staring at the oddity before her.

On the Deck of the Galleon

Marvelous leaned against the railing of her ship, staring down at the city below her with her one good eye. Something that wasn't quite a grin or a smirk on her face.

It was almost funny. Despite the apparent battle, the strange forces arrayed against each other in these peoples city, it seemed so...peaceful. So very different from anything she could remember.

Since 'they' had come.

Since they had began their campaign of conquest and destruction. Though now, they were a universe away. Now. Now it seemed it was just her and him.

"I'll find you," She mused quietly to herself staring down, "And I'll feed you your heart."

Saber, Motorcycles are still the bes-wait a second

Passing the others still in the area, Saber roared down the alleyway, leaning forward to increase her speed on the motorcycle. She had time, but she wanted to make it to work as soon as possible. After all, that would be part of maintaining her convincing disguise, wouldn't it? She rounded the corner, a cloud of dust kicked up under the wheels as she turned...

... Wait...

The motorcycle slowed and came to a halt, as Saber turned. There, standing on a bench, was a figure in black and gold... declaring how cool this was and wondering if he had powers. The motorcycle rumbled beneath Saber as she eyed the figure for a few moments. She was somewhat cautious, but for now optimistic. Judging by the situation, it seemed likely that the figure was gifted power by Cosmos... or Chaos... but with his location, Chaos seemed unlikely. Swinging her leg down, Saber turned the key in her motorcycle and rose to her feet.

"Hello?"

Alleyway

"You're right... maybe I did used to be bigger..." The girl floated out of the pile, took one look at herself, blushed profusely and dived back into it with a embarrassed squeak.

The Benchtop Dance Party

John continued his prancing- or rather that of the Valkyrian- before Saber spoke up when he suddenly froze and turned around, slowly.

"...Merde."

However, he quickly put his hands on his hips and nodded.

"You know what? Yeah, I'll take it. Embarassing myself in front of people is better than getting bitten by a radioactive spider in terms of tradeoff for superpowers." At this, John dropped seamlessly to sit on the bench, putting one leg over the other and waving to the new arrivals.

"Bonjour! Um... Yeah, kinda got some fancy silver thing and some dolls from some lady. Said I could keep them if I'd fight evil or something like that."

edited 13th Aug '13 5:27:31 PM by Krautman

Leaving the alleyway

Rachel hadn't been expecting the kind of reaction her transformation got. She blushed slightly and let out an embarrassed laugh. Adjusting her recently regained glasses, the brunette looked around the alley, trying to decide which way to go. Moments later, she headed out with August in tow, in search of allies.

After scanning the area, she settled on approaching a pair of girls. As they got closer, she waved sheepishly.

Streets (Near the former site of the bench top dance party)

Celty helmet turned from her gawking at the.......let's call it the 'Joyful' golden figure practically dancing on the bench when another motorcycle shot out of the alley facing the opposite side of the bench she was parked a little over a dozen feet away from. The bike and it's rider hung a quick turn before it slowed and finally stopped as the other Biker's eyes seemed to turn and rivet on Mr. Joyful.

As the other rider dismounted while calling out to Mr. Joyful, Celty followed suit with prior, being slightly incapable of managing the latter.

Her phone slipped into her hand when Mr. Bench Dancer started to respond, quickly typing out a few quick texts before sending them. Satisfied, she typed out another message before slowly approaching the other pair her phone held out screen forward, one short sentence on it.

Was her name perhaps Cosmos?

Saber, Assessing the Situation

Saber nodded. So, he was another person Cosmos had chosen to fight the forces of Chaos? Saber was somewhat worried that Cosmos was growing overzealous in selecting recruits. After all, this individual didn't seem to entirely know what was going on. While Saber believed recruiting allies to help defend the people, she did not believe that leaving them somewhat uninformed was the best option. That said, he seemed to know the jist of things. However, she felt that perhaps Cosmos should make sure she had time to inform her recruits more thoroughly.

"Then we are allies," Saber began. Unveiling her identity here was no threat, there did not seem to be many other people around... aside from the helmeted woman, who had also been astride the bike. She paused. She didn't recall seeing her previously, either. Was she another new recruit of Cosmos?

"I am a servant under the class of Saber, recruited by Cosmos," she began, introducing herself to both the helmet-clad woman and the gold-suited figure, "I did not see either of you at the previous meeting."

King, Possibly About to Explode

"AWESOME!" cried King, punching the air. This was the best news ever! Not only would she be having fun, and beating up bad guys, but she'd be on TV like sentai too?! This was amazing! It was awesome and just the best thing ever! When she noticed another person approaching, she quickly turned to them as they waved.

"Did you hear?! We're going to be like sentai or Kamen Rider!"

edited 14th Aug '13 9:21:16 AM by AnnoR

As they approached the two girls, the first thing August heard was that they were apparently going to get to be Sentai or Kamen Riders now! He was finally thinking that today couldn't get any better and then it actually did!

"AWESOME! This is Rachel! She has superpowers that turn her body into rockets and other awesome stuff! I'm August and I-" August suddenly slumped over and caught himself from falling by propping himself against his cane. Having used an extraordinary amount of Nen in his previous fights, he had pretty much exhausted all his reserves of energy.

"guh...why'm I so tired? Anyways I'm...I'm...tired."

edited 15th Aug '13 4:27:52 PM by Dblade26

Dayton Streets

Unbeknownst to most of the populace of the city, while they were preoccupied with the immediate aftermath of the attack by the giant flaming dog from hell, another warrior had joined the forces of Cosmos.

Said warrior had pigtails, was wearing a skirt, and was rather disappointed at being told "in this world you cannot openly carry firearms". Despite this, her grin had only been reduced slightly.

Pandora's Mechromancer wandered the streets, a prosthetic arm strong enough to crush concrete (but weak enough to not survive the crushing) made of plastic clearly visible on her right arm, looking for somewhere where she could stay the night, and thanking Cosmos her credits were converted into currency here.

And if any creeps decided to take advantage of the lone, defenseless girl walking the streets, they'd soon learn exactly how screwed they were.

The Bench of Justice

"Well, yeah, I kind of had to drive here from Georgia. And... yeah, Cosmos sounds about right."

After a moment, John smacked his head.

"Ah, Pardon! This is incredibly rude of me."

The form of the Valkyrian vanished, leaving a blonde man with tired eyes and a red sweatshirt in its place, standing up and offering a handshake.

"Pleased to meet you. My name's John Shirkwood."

Bench

Celty was a little taken aback as the figure revealed when Mr. Joyfuls golden appearance faded away leaving behind a figure that bore some slight resemblance to Shizuo. Shaking her helmet slightly at that random thought, she listened to the formerly golden figures introduction, before typing a response.

Hello John, Celty Sturluson, at your service.

Turning slightly to face Saber, Celty typed out another response to the woman's earlier question.

I got pulled over for my headlight, wasn't able to make it before everyone but Cosmos had left.

edited 19th Aug '13 1:21:58 PM by Marvelous

Saber, Introductions Part II: The Reckoning

Saber nodded, before looking at John's hand for a moment. Slowly, she reached up and took it. Her handshake was slow and awkward, it simply wasn't the method of greeting she was at all used to. Even after working with her current(totally fullproof) disguise. Soon after, she released the man's hand.

"I am certain we shall defeat the forces of Chaos," she said, with a firm nod. His ability appeared to deal with the manifestation of different forms or armor. Saber, however, had little knowledge of the form he had displayed and was unsure of how to ask. Her attention once again shifted to the helmeted woman.

"I see," she replied, "You were not the only one who was unable to make it to the meeting, I believe others may have been absent."

She hesitated for a moment, then continued.

"I may have to leave very quickly, I have work."

...I'm late, aren't I.

Moerin wondered whether this was a sign that she really should get around to getting a driver's license at some point. It was kind of hard to be a hero of justice when you arrived at the scene late. There was already quite a bit of rubble everywhere, but whatever had caused it seemed to be gone. Oh well...

"...Maybe I should just cut my losses and had to that bar..." she sighed, idly fiddling with the rather large electric blue ring she was wearing. "I think that Saber cosplayer is working today, eheh~"

At least it would cheer her up. And so she started to leave the scene, but she was so lost in thought about the wonderful sight she would see soon that she wasn't paying attention to where she was going, and...

"...W-w-wah! Sorry, um, uh, I wasn't looking, um, uh, um..." Panicking from the very moment she walked straight into Arisu, she began unleashing a veritable barrage of apologies at the shorter blonde.

Arisu, about to be compensated for disappointment

It really did kind of suck that she'd miss the fight, Arisu decided. Maybe her urges weren't hitting her too hard, but still! Getting to fight and kill bad guys always helped out, and was pretty fun anyway. Oh well. She supposed she'd have to wait until next time. She turned away with a shrug. Hmm... where could she go now? Some place with a lot of cute girls, she hoped. Or maybe make up for the lack of fighting by tracking down some random gang thugs. She wouldn't actually kill them without being sure they'd done anything to go that far, but beating them up was pretty okay as far as she was concerned.

And then someone bumped into her from behind. She stumbled forward, tripped, and hit the ground with an "Oof!" What the hell just happened? She wasn't exactly unnoticeable... Rolling over, Arisu took in the sight of the person who had bumped into her.

... A taller blonde girl...? And pretty cute, too... And apologizing like crazy. Well, time to let her know she didn't need to.

Arisu waved her hand, smiling. "You don't need to apologize. I don't mind getting bumped into if it's a cute girl like you.

Ruftop

"Huh... Interesting. So... Your name is..." Perry asked, trying to get an answer out of the girl.

City

"A pleasure to meet you people." Mami said.

Channel 13, Eyewitness News

TVs were lit all over town. Most of them tuned to one channel. Channel 13, where the news was playing. Usually, people would ignore the news, but this one got their eyes glued to the screen.

"News reports say that a giant monster was quelled off by several people... Officials are confused with what is going on, but we have been informed by the Aspect Energy Group of Individual Studies that this may not be a bad thing. Youtube has been previously raving about what looked to be a Witch hovering around the city, with rumors of pirate ships just cropping up. One thing is for sure though: there are Heroes among us..."

As the news reporter said that, any member of Cosmos who were in the area could see a golden glowing light coming from cracks formed from years and years of aging. If they were to feel the glow, they'd feel a sense of enlightenment, a sense of accomplishment.

Dayton City's hope had increased.

John, Still Near A Clothespile

John looked around as the city began glowing a golden light. He didn't at all know what was going on, or why the city was glowing as such - and he knew better than to question it.

His back had stopped aching, though. Was always a good sign.

Gaige, In The Streets

The city began glowing, and for two seconds Gaige almost summoned Deathtrap and grabbed her shotgun, before she realized that maybe the glow was nice. That it signified victory against an evil force.

"...nice to know that we mighta won, but it kinda feels like I didn't earn it."

With a shrug, Gaige continued on her walk.

Rooftop

"It's Sayaka. Sayaka Miki."

Then the golden glow emerged from between the slabs on the roof, and she sighed as it drained the admittedly small amount of darkness out of her Soul Gem.

Alleyway

Slowly, the girl floated out of the pile of what until recently had been her clothes as the glow came out of the bricks. In a blue-white flash, a costume appeared◊, so at least she wasn't completely naked any more.

The Bench

I understand, I've actually just finished with my own work for the day so if you need to go...

Celty held the phone out towards Saber, offer implied but unwritten, though her attention was quickly grabbed by an odd golden glow began to emit from the cracks in the pavement of the sidewalk where they all stood.

The Dullahan could do nothing but gape as an odd sense of wonder seemed to fill her.

Deck of the Gokai Galleon

Still staring at the city below her, Marvelous gave a small snort of amusement as the city below seemed to light up for a moment. Almost like a odd jigsaw puzzle from where she stood. Curious, but, likely mostly irrelevant. It didn't seem to signal an attack at least, though whether or not that was a positive point she hadn't quite decided yet.

Alleyway

John stared as the girl levitated out of the large pile of clothes he'd tripped over. As if that weren't bad enough, in a flash of light she had given herself a costume.

The sheer strangeness of the event managed to offset the sense of accomplishment that had come from a confusing firefight and snapping off a few Ray Gun shots at the giant Hellhound, leaving him... feeling rather regular.

"...how did you do that?" He got the feeling he was seriously going to regret ever having asked.

Somewhere In Dayton City

As Gaige walked, she slowly realized she was starting to get bored. And this wasn't Pandora, where boredom was solved by exchanging slurs and bullets with local bandits. She closed her eyes and sighed to herself. She was here to save a world, but come on, couldn't the world get into danger a bit faster?

Around then was when she ended up walking directly into somebody. Not exactly being ready for this sort of contact, the Mechromancer went sprawling onto the ground. Letting out naught but a grunt of acknowledgement that yes, her leg had hit the pavement, she opened her eyes and attempted to take a look at what had gotten into her path.

Alleyway

"I... I'm not sure..." the girl paused. "I think it might be something to do with the key I found..."

Modern communication is not Saber's strongsuit

For a few moments, Saber found herself staring at the cell phone. Oh, certainly, she was aware of its nature as a facet of modern communication. She was imparted with knowledge of the modern world when summoned, so she would be able to operate in it. However, that did not mean she was familiar with the explicit workings of such devices. As such, while she knew they were used to communicate... she did not know how to use them.

"... I am sorry, but I am unaware of how to use a cellular phone," Saber began. She did, in fact, possess one. However, it was left quite unused. Saber was about to continue her explanation, but she paused, interrupted.

That... was odd. There was a light, and suddenly Saber felt... quite pleasant. She wasn't entirely sure how to describe it, it was a... warm sensation inside her. As if sunlight had somehow... filled her from within.

"... How... strange..."

She remained quiet for a moment, before recovering herself. "... In... in any case, I must be departing shortly..."

King is a bit Loud

"I know, it's awesome!" declared King excitedly. "We'll kick bad guy butt and have tons and tons of awesome fights and-whoa, are you okay?"

Very briefly, King frowned as the new guy who had come from somewhere nearly fell over and had to support himself on his cane. However, her smile quickly returned. "You just need a nice rest and then some time to recover and then you'll be able to kick even more butt!"

King's disposition was so sunny, in fact, that the light didn't even effect her. She was just that cheerful.

The Bench

As the light faded, Celty's helmet nodded at Saber's re-statement of her need to leave, typing quickly, she held up the phone again for the other woman to read.

Alright, go ahead. I'll see if I can find Cosmos to give John a better explanation, if not, I'll find a place for John to stay tonight, and see about getting his questions answered in the morning.