Princess: The Hopeful - Garden of Despair

Encounter

The flames had hit the treewraith, thankfully. That's done. Wasting no time, she looked around the battlefield. Quinn was on the ground with two duskhounds in very close proximity, Liz had a duskhound biting her arm. Alissandra frowned. Immediately, she used her charm to transform her blade into whip and lashed out at the one behind Quinn, trying to pry it off its back. Unlike Loke, she hadn't noticed Amelie poised to take care of the two duskhounds. Alissandra grimaced. Had she known, she would've gone to help Liz instead.

Encounter

Quinn let out a cry of pain as the duskhound bit into him. "Look, i know you're looking for a light snack but this... This is ridiculous." He commented before grunting a bit more in pain, too distracted to remember his airborne weapon. As he began to shift a bit in an attempt to gain a more favorable position, his baton blade came down and impaled itself in his leg.

"Sonofabiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiitch!"

"On it!" yelled Liz, firing one more arrow at the Duskhound.

Sorry for the short post, gotta keep the ball rolling

Tsubaki meanwhile was trying to slash at another of the Duskhounds with her Stylus Blade, and while she wanted to help protect Quinn, it seemed like there was no need at the moment.

"Take this! And that! And some of this!", she yelled out.

Encounter

Elise snarled in concern as she glanced behind her and saw Quinn go down.

Thankfully, Liz fired her next arrow...right into the Duskhound's eye and the thing disintegrated into nothing.

Elise nodded and charged towards Quinn....only for first, Amèlie's shot to strike the first Duskhound, the one that wasn't biting Quinn, striking it in the leg and blowing the limb clear off and sending it flying.

And then Blanc appeared and shoved the other off Quinn, the thing not seeing the shikigami coming and getting smashed into the building.

Elise reached Quinn, and in one swift motion, removed the blade impaled in his leg. She then gently carried him, bridal style.

"Mon petit, hang in there....Mender! Mender! We need a Mender!"

Meanwhile, the last Duskhound's head was chopped off by Tsubaki's blade.

There were no more enemies...but they were still in the strange, twisted dimension.

Encounter's Over

Grimacing in pain, Quinn looked up at Elise and clasped his hands daintily. "Oh thank you my sweet, Knight." He began before groaning in pain at his shoulder and leg. "Th-this... Hurts quite a bit. Ow."

He remained silent for a few seconds before saying again in a quiet tone. "Thank you again..."

NIGHTMARE WORLD

Loke walked over, her warclub sticking to her back despite no real connection. She picked up Quinn's weapon, dragging the tip across her hand-it was a shallow cut and would overall be fine. "He's got good weapons." She said walking over before whistling. "Slap a pair of tits on him and you'd have a real winner." She commented to Elise.

Loke was aware of their strange circumstances, but that mattered not. If anything, the idea that the cataphract might attack at any second was a load off her shoulders.

edited 17th Sep '17 10:21:20 PM by TroyandHawk

Warren slowly stretches as a uneasy calm settles in. He slowly scans the surrounding but immediately charges over when he hears Elise shouting. 'What happened?' He motions to Elise to put Quinn down. 'I need to stop the bleeding now. Lie him here. Or just inside the apartment, that should be fine.'

He mutters a soft incantation as he activates a charm, soft blue light surrounding his hands. He pats Quinn on the head, and Quinn should begin to feel a calming sensation flow through him. 'You're going to fine.'

He rummages through the left side of his coat, and pulls out a small first aid kit. Before Elise even drops him, he begins to clean the wound on his leg.

Still in the Twisted Dimension

Alissandra saw the last few enemies quickly taken care of. She felt a wave of relief hit her. They had held off the Cataphract for now. She then slowly walked toward the gathering magical girls. ''Weird, we should be out by now if the Cataphract has given up',' she thought. She glanced nervously behind her, looking at the dark woods. There was no sign of the enemy or at least there seemed to be no sign. She fidgeted in her unease, eyes wildy searching.

"I don't have a good feeling about this," Liz muttered to herself as she noted that the garden hadn't vanished yet and figured there was more to come. "Execute Charm Code: Keen Observation."

Trapped in a different Dimension

Now that the immediate danger was over Vanessa was able to move on to her true specialty. Her tentacles all shifted except for the one that housed the USB connector and began gathering data from her surroundings and feeding the information to her phone. The only other exception to this was the PH meter as she had to look around for a suitable body of water to test.

"Well, I'm going to gather data, see if it can tell me anything about where we are currently. I'll let you know as soon as I have any results." She explained to the others, still looking for water to test.

edited 20th Sep '17 10:04:12 PM by guyshane

Encounter Ends

"I didn't do anything..." Elise said to Quinn, still holding him steady as Warren healed him.

Giving a quick glare at Loke for her comment, her mind raced as she tried to figure out what was going on.

There were no more enemies, as far as she could tell, but they were still whereever the hell this was. She didn't know how to escape.

Sacre bleu. She hoped the Seekers would find something.

Meanwhile, the Seekers would in fact find something. Namely, that for qll intents and purposes, they were still in Domremy. Everything was where it should be, and the materials were consistent for a Domremy ravaged by the ages.

However, it seemed like there was a...layer, or a...sheet of Darkness that enveloped the air, like a filter over a photo.

And they could sense....someone?! A person was wandering, just beyond the street in what should be a bus stop.

Strangest of all, it felt like one of the Hopeful. They could feel whoever it was had a connection to the Light.

And then-

The sky cracked apart. With a sound like thunder, the filter seemed to shatter and in seconds they were back in normal Domremy.

"Back! Back into the building! Hold your transformations!"

The Apartment

A few minutes later, they once again sat in Elise's makeshift HQ, Quinn lying down on a matress as Elise insisted.

She sighed and looked at everyone.

"So. What the hell was that?"

Apartment

Vanessa pulled up the data she gathered from her phone. "Well, let's see, from what I can tell everything there was...normal there, for lack of a better term. No signs of odd radiation or contaminates or seismic activity. My best guess given the wear on the buildings and the prevalence of the Darkness is that we were moved forward in time. But that's just a hypothetical assessment."

edited 21st Sep '17 6:54:44 PM by guyshane

Nightmare World

Warren calmly shakes his head, and continues wrapping a bandage around Quinns leg. 'Don't worry, he'll be all-' Then the world fell away. Warren looked around, an expression of dull surprise on his face, the calming charm stopping him from freaking out mid-healing session. 'Yep. Inside.'

The Apartment.

Warren finishes hooking a bandage into place around Quinn's leg and nodded to him, a small smile on his face.

'Ok, don't put too much pressure on it. I cleaned it and healed it as best I could, but it might open up if you get into another fight. I'd suggest hanging around another Sword for the time being.'

He stands up, and turns to Elise. 'I'd suggest we get someone to support Quinn for a bit, any suggestions?'

The Apartment

"Not to seem argumentative," Liz interjected, "But it's also possible that we went backwards in time. Domremy got hit pretty bad by Hurricane Katrina, for all we know what we saw was the aftermath."

She began tinkering with her charm bracelet. "I'm frankly more concerned about that thing we saw near the end. I mean, it was obviously connected to the Light, but... did anyone recognize who or what that was?"

edited 21st Sep '17 9:10:27 PM by Aquatica1000

Apartment

"I have no clue what that light was, but I'm pretty sure we weren't sent back in time.", Tsubaki commented on Liz's theory, "I don't ever recall the sky being green during Katrina, even if my family evacuated before it hit. This has to be something different, and given how we saw Darkspawn in there, I'm thinking it's linked to The Darkness somehow."

Apartment

Quinn grunted upwards, before using his power to lounge in the air. "Honestly, i'll just need to hang back. Let's see... I think I know how to do this..."

Holding up his baton, he twirled the tip around his body, guns spawning around him. He then swiped it out, and the guns flew out the window. Those who would have been able to see outside, would see the guns twirling slowly around the building, high in the sky in a circle.

"I set up a boundary. Anything that crosses through, I'll know."

After a few seconds, he started giggling happily.

"Eeeeeeeeeeee this is so cooooooool~"

edited 21st Sep '17 9:44:46 PM by SolusLupus

The Apartment

"Went forward in time?" Alissandra choked. Does the Cataphract they're facing have that strong a power? Maybe it was all just an illusion? Nonetheless, it seemed like a pretty grim future if that were the case. Thoughts raced into her head. "Could it be just an alternate dimension? What if, somehow, the Darkspawn have managed to find a way to subtly disrupt this reality by destroying another one? Seems like a far-fetched idea, I'm sure," she sighed, "Or, yeah, the time thing seems more believable."

NIGHTMARE WORLD

Loke ran towards the figure, ignoring any shouts before she skidded to a stop...The world was back to normal. She didn't feel moss on the road. She sucked in a taste of breath, running a hand through her hair as she heard Elise's orders. She didn't run, slowly backing up as she dragged her warclub behind her, allowing everyone to go in before her before she walked back into the apartment. She shifted into her human form.

"I could feel the moss on the street." She said quietly, reaching down and washing the soles of her feet with a rag. "That wasn't any sort of illusion. But what does mean is that the cataphract is near! We need to kill it as soon as possible! My uncle needs to go to the hospital in two days!"

"Or, it means that we weren't being careful enough," Wiz leaned against the wall and looked out to his fellow Hopeful. For most of the battle he had stayed out of sight and simply observed movements and came to the decision that joining the fight would have been pointless. The few times he had fought it was always on his terms, with an exact plan, and with multiple backups. He could tank a few hits but in truth he was a Seeker not a Sword, and he knew his limits in battle.

"There are a number of reasons we could have been attacked, after all we have been throwing around unnecessary energy into the air, joining together and transforming before the fight. If our main target knew what we had in store he would have come with that small army and ripped us to shreds." they had held their own against the enemy forces, but facts being facts if they had been surprised by one of the big guns then they would be finished. "With that being said I really can't begin to guess at the nature of the place where we were pulled. An alternate dimension acting as a counterpart to our world, a pocket dimension held together by the rabble. We have to many questions without enough solid evidence."

Apartment

Vanessa lightly rubbed her temples as more theories and yelling from Loke broke out. "Okay, so in order. It's not unheard of for skies to turn green before a serious storm, though it is not typically associated with hurricanes. The alternate dimension is only slightly less likely than time-travel in my mind due to the radiation readings I was picking up. There's not currently any evidence that the Cataphract is the one responsible for our little jaunt, in fact there's arguably evidence to the contrary, consider: If that was an attack by the creature, why hold back from pursuit while we were still disoriented from the experience? For that matter, why not attack with the duskhounds? It is possible however that we were pinpointed due to the excess of Light, even if we were un-transformed at the time. And Loke, while I understand your concern, your uncle is actually quite safe at the moment." Vanessa paused and let out a sigh.

"I don't like to even consider the reasoning why that is, but it is sound to my mind. The Cataphract cannot generate maximum despair by quick kills. By extending suffering it causes greater despair both to victims and those surrounding them. The only people it'd want to kill quickly is us since that removes its greatest opposition. That's how I see it anyway." She finished with a shrug, flopped down on some nearby furniture and began flicking through her phone sullenly.

Blanc returned to Amélie just in time to carry her back to her chair as the sky fell and Domremy returned to normal. He wheeled Amélie's chair back into the apartment building.

Apartment

It was a strange look; a woman in a short dress entering the room, her wheelchair pushed by a man with the head of a rabbit plushy. The rifle by her side pointed straight up at the ceiling.

"We are overlooking a straightforward explanation," Amélie said. "—That it very well may be the place where Darkness lives when it isn't here. Where Taint seeps into this world."

She gave the others a dark look as she pulled back the bolt of her rifle into safety position.

"A place we are certainly not welcome," she said. "And yet we were let go rather easily. If this is a power move, I would like to know whether it is the Cataphract's doing or some other entity's."

edited 23rd Sep '17 10:24:20 AM by opnerf

Apartment

Quinn looked a bit disgruntled at all the discussion, and adjusted his position in the air, leaning forward on his elbows. "Well at least something came out of this. Though i would rather it have been a less painful experience..." He said looking at his leg.

"Are there any cleaning supplies around here? The dirtiness around here is a bit concerning."

The Apartment

"Calmez-vous, calmez-vous, Elise..." the veteran princess muttered to herself, rubbing her forehead as she tried to think things through.

"So, we were either shunted forward into a ruined future or into another dimension...and that's something a Cataphract cannot do. Strong in the Dark it might be, but manipulating reality itself is beyond that...And the fact that it faded almost immediately after we took down those Darkspawn...it might not even be a conscious flexing of power. Maybe an echo?"

Elise sighed and shook her head. "We need rest, it has been a long day and we still need to prepare to hunt the Cataphract. We don't know whatever caused that...reality hole or whatever, but I intend to find out."

"....Everyone go home, try to rest easy before we reconvene to train. If anything happens..."

She stood up and grabbed her backpack. She rummaged around for a second until finally, she pulled out a small wooden box. A glowing insignia, a burning sword, shone on the lid.

"These are Bequests, from ma Reine herself."

Elise opened the box, revealing ruby drop earrings.

"Simply think on any or all of us and channel your Light into these and we will be able to communicate. It works even in the Dreamlands or Tainted Places."

She glanced at her Seekers. "Lastly, Liz said she felt another Princess in there, or at least something connected to the Light. We need to find them, if only for a possible source of information. Seekers, can I count on you?"

APARTMENT

"I have three days before I take my uncle in for a check-up...Please, can someone come with me?" Loke asked again. She refused to keep him from help. It was sad enough to see him die, but to not do anything to help him?

That was evil.