Welcome, reader, to the latest Character Development Thread! These shared story exercises help budding writers develop their characters alongside the characters of other budding writers.
No formal sign-up is necessary; one can simply jump right in. Just make sure to review the OP and the last few pages first. If you still have questions or need a recap, feel free to join in the discussion thread
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On a point of land where two rivers came together sat the center of a large city. As could be expected, a good number of skyscrapers and other such large buildings dotted the landscape. Bridges spanned the rivers, linking the center with the other parts of the city that sat on the other side.
The city's architecture appeared to be all over the place. The buildings on the outskirts looked modern, but as one approached the heart of the city the structures started looking older and older. Even stranger, the oldest building in the city was also the tallest – a massive skyscraper that truly lived up to the title of “skyscraper,” but looked like it was built in the 19th century.
The people of this city came from all walks of life. Some were natives; others were just visiting. There was no denying that the population was quite a varied one. The question was just how varied....
- Current time: Night (Between sunset and midnight)
- Current weather: Cloudy
edited 23rd Oct '13 8:05:54 AM by Yomegami
Hotel (Room 210)
"Because it's a monster," Rachel answered, sounding more and more like she was ready to start crying, "It's a danger to near-nearly everyone around me, if not to myself, and I feared it'd drive everyone away once they found out. And then I go and lay it bare for all to see, and...."
Joseph's hug was well-timed, for it was about the only thing that kept Rachel from bursting into tears right at that moment. She really didn't care that he was all wet; she really needed that. She spent several moments in silence, before smiling weakly.
"...But you're willing to accept all that?" she asked. Some part of her knew she didn't have to ask, but she did all the same.
Residential District (Outside Supermarket) -> Supermarket
"Thank you kindly," Selena said to Nick in the same joking tone of voice she had addressed him with earlier before entering the store. She then stepped off to the side before taking a moment or two to take in her surroundings. It seemed ordinary enough, even if it was still open at this point in the day.
"So, what should we go for first?" she asked, "I know that Rachel and I are going to need meat products of some sort, but some part of me doubts there's a stove or something to cook a truly healthy dinner back at our rooms. We might have a microwave though, so there's a potential option...." She trailed off again, looking somewhat thoughtful. Come to think of it, this was the first "normal" shopping trip she had been on for a while.
Icon by Civvi the Civilian![Restaurant]
Mika was quite confused by Vince and Raphael leaving through some kind of strange portal. She wanted to say something, but found the words caught in her throat. John soon mentioned that that it was now just them at the table, though the hostess then came out from the back room, seeming equally confused. Mika had seen some strange things, living in this city, but today was getting to be a little much. "Maybe... Maybe I should go." She said, nervously. She held her furry companion close to her, not at all sure of what she should actually do, but feeling very anxious. "Maybe... My friends... They're probably all in a shelter. I should have gone to one too." She started to feel a little sick as worries overwhelmed her.
[Street]
With Valerion handling defence, Tanis could focus on a counter-offensive. It was clear that cars just weren't cutting it today, which was disappointing, but manageable. Instead of flinging cars from afar, she decided to use the ones that were being used as cover. Directing concentrated bursts of kinetic energy at cars that had people hiding behind them, she made the vehicles roll along the ground at high speed, crushing them - and with any luck, crushing the people that were hiding behind them. Either way, several such cars slammed into near-by buildings, preventing them from being used as cover.
Meanwhile, Valerion took a different approach to the incoming bullets. Projecting a rapidly oscillating barrier in front of himself and Tanis, projectiles were not stopped, but instead were knocked off course, flying into buildings to the left and right of them. And having heard and seen the weapons being used against him, Valerion was able to confidently guess at their calibre, and thus, knew approximately just how much power he had to devote to the barrier, saving him from over-investing in it. The wobbling air around them also made them just slightly more difficult to aim at for those who relied on eyesight alone.
The lasers, of course, would not be stopped by this barrier, as it was only made to defend against physical projectiles, not energy-based weapons. But that was fine, because, as Valerion had shown not long ago, he knew how to manipulate photons. He had managed to bend light around his whole body before the first car of the day had been thrown, so focused beams of light were a workable obstacle. Able to react just a few key instants before Michael fired, due to some limited precognitive ability both he and Tanis shared combined with finely honed reflexes, his defence was ready just in time. The lasers bent over and around him, the heat singeing his hair and the brightness stinging his eyes, but otherwise leaving him unharmed.
After blasting another car away, Ralph caught Tanis' attention, and she telekinetically ripped the gun out of his hands, with the intent of crushing it. She didn't quite get to do that, however, as she then noticed the grenade. It wasn't quite as close as Taggart had thought it was, but it was close enough. Valerion noticed it at the last minute as well, redirecting his efforts to containing the inevitable blast. When it did explode, he managed to stop the shrapnel from spreading more than a foot, but the ensuing blastwave was only partially dampened. Both of them were sent careening several feet through the air, bruised and stunned, though Tanis managed to recover and land on her feet with about as much grace as was possible, given the situation. Valerion's landing was rougher, rolling on impact to avoid breaking any bones, and ultimate ending up face-down on the sidewalk. They were both quick to move, however, ducking into a near-by alleyway and putting most of a building between themselves and the enemy as they regrouped and assessed their wounds.
Ralph's now somewhat-crushed gun had also been hit by the blastwave, sending it through a window on the third floor of the skyscraper.
Not entirely dead.[Street]
Amu spotted Linna and dashed to meet her, glaive at the ready. Imbued with Amu's power, it could and would tear through even Linna's modern armor like tissue paper. He recognized that the nanocutters would probably tear him to shreds, but no matter. He'd survived worse than being shredded.
Alice grimaced, fully aware what Amu was doing. Linna would probably expect her armor to snap Amu's glaive, which appeared to be an ivory head and wooden shaft. She quickly yelled, "blade's eldritch, watch it!"
Note that Amu will not bleed — as mentioned earlier, the shreds will instead form into non-physical but visible "smoke" of the same material the Eyes and Teeth's avatar is made of; when his body is completely shredded beyond conventional repair, he'll rebuild it and recover somewhere safe.
Ksenya's squadmates, having heard her radio warning, made to roll out of the way or vault over the cars they were using for cover when they saw Tanis make to cast a spell. The cars totaled themselves against various storefronts and other urban features, too far away to use as effective cover. Fortunately, their targets seemed to have retreated.
The operators moved to what cover remained. Another radio order from Ksenya had them reorient to support Linna and the melee she had thrown herself into the middle of. Ksenya and her second were still engaged with the green matter of the Balance Deity, burning it away in large swaths with each pass of their lightning weapons.
Bullets cut into Amu's flesh, releasing the same eerie black smoke that had spilled from his wounds before. They were focusing their fire on Amu's arms, seeking to disable his ability to strike with his weapon.
yey[Hallway]
She almost laughed "Trust me, it doesn't matter how good the reception is, we wouldn't be able to call her. I'm surprised you didn't figure it out in a place like this, heck if this is Washington, I could probably get to my place pretty easy, if we were talking physically and if I had a car."
[[Street]]
"BIANCA!" Jonathan seized Wilhelm by his coat collar and pulled his body away as quickly as possible, almost tossing him to the side. Good thing he was so skinny. But Jonathan couldn't do anything for Bianca. He gritted his teeth and tried to drag Wilhelm away. Maybe he could hide the poor guy in a building.
The bullet shield shrank to only protect the most critical areas—head, neck, abdomen—of all three of their bodies as Bianca raised her metal arm. Overlapping plates of metal shot out like a deck of cards spilling sideways, forming a shield. She crouched and angled it upward. The shield would take two seconds to completely expand and cover most of her body. She knew she wouldn't be able to fully protect herself because she had taken time to process Jonathan's warning, see what he was warning her about, and decide what to do about it. But the fact that she had time to react at all was a blessing.
Bullet shield going down in thirty seconds, Marianne said. A great deal of the process of opening the metal shield was mechanical, but expanding the extra metal from the shrunken form stored in her arm took magic, and it would take magic to put all of it away. Bianca would have been using the metal shield earlier, but the extra weight was simply too inconvenient, and even though the alloy was one of the strongest known to Vespers, it couldn't take an infinite number of bullets. Now, she was afraid she had no choice but to leave it open for a while.
edited 18th Sep '13 6:36:42 PM by SnowyFoxes
The last battle's curtains will open on stage![Street, Renegade Interrupt interrupted by Renegade Interrupt]
Linna didn't actually hear Alice. It was somewhat irrelevant though; she'd never been the sort of person to meet a charge. A brief burst from the suit's upper back jets and a tuck-and-roll under the blade, spin to the left, up to her feet as she played out one of the cutters towards Amu, trying to hamstring him. Well, that wasn't an entirely accurate description; the cutters would probably take him off at the foot if he was anything like a normal human. Funny, she'd never used them on something that squishy before...
The entire maneuver looked far too naturalistic and smooth for someone in an armored suit, worthy of an Olympic gymnastic routine instead and demonstrating exactly why Linna had been chosen to wear the hardsuit instead of anyone else. Her other arm shot out towards Bianca, snapping off a couple of poorly aimed laser shots, directed more by memory of where the target had been than actually looking at where she was shooting. "Two, backshot."
She was almost prancing as she moved a bit further away, before she heard the result. Or before actually making contact with Amu; the cutters weren't quite long enough after that bit with boost from the jets.
[Street - The Part Where All The Really Explosive Stuff Happens]
Nara made a frustrated noise as her target vanished and the two thermobarics instead hit the green stuff, whatever it was, and made a pretty big bang. Ten-meter lethal radius between the flames and the shockwave. She popped the other side's rocket tubes open and aimed these two at Tanis, rather than salvoing them together firing them a second apart, before she vaulted to a building top to avoid the green mess.
Micheal grimaced. "Two." The HEAT was going off short of the target, which probably still wasn't pleasant for them as the temperature had to be rising rapidly from all the molten copper being sprayed in their direction even if the jets weren't coherent. He switched to frag; that'd still go off against any significant obstacle, but the wounding radius in the open was significantly higher, and fired another ten rounds before he turned. Bianca didn't look particularly threatening, though at this moment she'd be an amazingly easy kill. Amu was waving a blade around, which also didn't look hugely threatening to his eyes, but it was more than Bianca did. Amu earned himself a snapfire from both lasers before Micheal turned back towards Tanis.
edited 18th Sep '13 7:20:56 PM by Night
Nous restons ici.[street]
Vince slung his bag over his shoulder, clipped Lise's leash to her collar and scooped up his dog, not completely convinced that she could sprint quietly enough to keep up with him. At least she actually liked being held that way. Sticking by the perimeter, he moved quickly from spot to spot, noting that Amu seemed to be a bit too preoccupied with the mess he was entangled in to care much about an unimposing middle-aged man with a dog.
Meanwhile, Raphael sank down to the ground against a nearby wall with Alice, rubbing his temple. "According to my father, the two of us most likely have Samyaza to thank for our situation." He heard Lise's tags jingling from behind as his father set her down in relative safety, catching his breath. The Samoyed sat on her haunches next to Raphael, looking around at the landscape curiously and thankfully quietly.
[restaurant]
"...Oh. I always knew my boss was weird, but..." Helen shrugged.
Then, Mika started to worry, but Regina stepped in before Helen could.
"I'm sure everything's fine, love," she said as she got out a glass for John's iced tea. "Do they have phones? Can you call them?" She knew by now that in a place like this, it was easy for most to avoid trouble. But in reality, what happened today within the restaurant was practically boring compared to many other days; she didn't even get anybody asking for extraterrestrial alcohols or the like. Just wait until the dinner rush.
She stepped out from behind the bar and headed to John's table. "Tea's to your right."
"Jack, you have debauched my sloth."[Hotel ~ Room 210]
Joseph, his head hung over one of Rachel's shoulders, closed his eyes and said, "If I let that sort bother me, would I still be here? Like this?" Gently, and as smoothly as he could, he went ahead and sat himself down directly on the bed. It was already going to get wet anyways, and it was worth it to avoid ruining the moment. He had little idea of how he'd managed to make the moment happen in the first place. It was as though he had a strangers intuition that he had no right to possess himself. Or maybe he was just the right-enough lizard person at the right-enough time, acting just the right-enough way.
Joe tightened his embrace just a bit, his tail lightly gripping the edge of the bed, then he spoke, "Rachel, I'm sitting here, dripping wet, giving you a hug, and one step away from being a nudie. You wanna know why?" He paused, then added, "It's the same reason I carried you through the bank's underground, and into Jackson's car. And I sat next to you, I tried to watch over you. I tried... telling you what was going on, you know, reassuring you that everything was going to be fine, that we were headed to safety. I wanted to make sure that even in your remote, out of mind state, you weren't scared. Because... I know it sounds sappy but, I— I... I realize that you've become someone who is very, very dear to me. You sure bet I can accept all of that."
He loosened up a little, pulling his head back and giving Rachel a toothy smile.
They'll turn your world around[Hotel-Hallway]
Adam frowned. "Oh. I-I'm sorry. I wish I could find a way to help." He rubbed the back of his head, "Well, the only thing I can say now is that maybe you should stay here for a little while until you get an update."
He really sucked at giving advice. He usually left that to Jackson or his brother. But neither one of them were here at the moment. And he was going to check on Joseph an Rachel in a few minutes.
[Residential District-Supermarket]
Jackson looked around the store. "Hmm..." He turned back to Selena, "Nick, Adam and I aren't too worried about eating, but since you mentioned not having anything earlier, let's start with getting meat." he turned, hoping he was heading in the right direction. "I think it's this way."
Nick walked in after him. "I'll try getting food for the rest of us."
[Restaurant]
John took his tea. "Thank you." He looked down at Mika, frowning. "With the God's flying around? No, I really think we should stay here. At least for sure I know this is a safe area for the time being."
Of course he could be tempting fate at this point, but he wanted to reassure the small girl that everything would be fine.
[Hotel-hallway]
"Its okay. Don't worry, I'm old enough to take care of myself. I don't think sitting around and waiting would help much, I'm not even sure if she betrayed me, or it was an honest mistake on her part. But her coming back would be fine, unless you know a way to travel between dimensions. Still this hotel seems a good place to stay, and I'll try not to bail on you this time."
The boy seemed so concerned about her, it was in between cute and worrying. He was a teenager (she wasn't sure his exact age), and so was she if you were being technical, but she could vote, and drink (well not in the States but where she was from) so it wasn't really the same thing. Anyways he was just a kid, best not to burden him to much.
[[Street]]
Bianca gritted her teeth and hoped like hell the metal shield would do its job. She wasn't hurt, but the screech of metal on metal as the wires scored into the shield couldn't mean anything good. She didn't like the looks of the hazy red light that was barely visible in the smoke coming off of Amu, either. Taggart's group was now a secondary concern. They were squishy and could be filled with bullets. The armored suits were the biggest problem right now.
The rune circle she composed was a hasty enchantment, but it would work. It hovered in front of her eyes—a single line of dully glowing red light. She peered over her shield just long enough to aim it at the nearest armored suit. The runes would hopefully be engraved into the metal and begin their work. If it got deactivated the way Wilhelm's had been, Bianca could easily make another one. And some damage was better than none.
No material was perfect. Magic would attack the suit, looking for weaknesses, seeping into the tiniest of cracks and imperfections and attempt to break it apart. It was more or less the same thing that happened to Taggart's rifle, but because Bianca knew nothing about the suit, she was forced to compose a more general spell to begin her work.
Once that was done, the shield began to fold back into her arm and she made a few shots with her revolver at the heads of Taggart's group, keeping an eye on the suit she had just attempted to sabotage and remaining aware of the rest of her surroundings. Bullets had made it into her arms and legs, but she could make Marianne dull the pain if need be—a dangerous technique, but she could herself well enough to escape death if she could get some distance between her and the fight. For now, she was fine.
edited 19th Sep '13 6:03:20 PM by SnowyFoxes
The last battle's curtains will open on stage!Hotel (Room 210)
Rachel took quite a while to respond to Joseph. So many conflicting emotions went through her head right then; she still was distressed about how her other side exposed itself to everyone else, yet relieved that he at least could put up with her own instability. However, what really set her emotions aflutter was hearing him admit that he did indeed have real feelings for her. She remembered the long inner monologue she did shortly after he hugged her back at that university, and how she ultimately concluded that it didn't mean anything in terms of her relationship with him. Yet, here she was now, finding out that it meant something after all. He actually had real affection for her. She, the girl that nearly everyone tended to forget existed. She, the oddball with some peculiar tastes. She, the zombie with two conflicting minds. Yes, Joseph was a lizard, but given her own mannerisms she wasn't bothered by that in the slightest, and not just because he too was a normal human at one point. There were worse people who could harbor feelings for her.
After her long moment of silence, her weak smile grew a little stronger. Another couple moment pause, and she returned his hug, squeezing unusually tight for someone as thin as she was. "Thank you," she said, "Thank you so much."
Supermarket
Selena shrugged and followed the two of them before looking up at the signs over the aisles. They didn't seem to be heading directly towards the meat section by the looks of things, but if this store was like the others than this was definitely a good start.
In the meantime, they were passing through the produce section, which was close to the front of the store as grocery stores were wont to do. While she nor Rachel could make much use of the goods here, Selena couldn't help but glance at all of them regardless.
"You know," she commented, "With the life I lead nowadays, doing something this ordinary is weird." She turned back towards the others. "It's nice to not have zombies breathing down your neck constantly, but it really does make me wonder how my hometown's going to adjust if the P-virus is ever dealt with."
edited 20th Sep '13 3:49:29 PM by Yomegami
Icon by Civvi the Civilian![Stadium -=> Commericial City Garage —> Vacant Plot]
Cain frowned at Jonathan. "The fuck—no, never mind that. I presume you're coming with us?"
Jonathan frowned, then said, "Shouldn't we be dealing with this demon and the Hellking first?"
"Change of plans," Cain answered crisply, but in his mind, he intended to deal with the Hellking once Amu had been dispatched. "Let's go."
He led Jonathan and Anah back to the Garage, where he and Jonathan quickly strapped on some kneepads and Jonathan donning body armor and an assault rifle for himself. Cain augmented his own vest with a kevlar neck wrap and helmet, and slung a large rifle onto his back: a .50 caliber sniper rifle.
"Jonathan, go towards the Skyscraper, I want to do something, Anah...you can go with him if you'd like"
"Alright," Armored and armed, he marched his way towards the skyscraper.
Cain grabbed a clean plate and went off on his own to a vacant plot, where he set the plate on a fencepost. He took a knife and cut the palm of his hand, letting the blood pool a bit then drip into the plate ten times, muttering something under his breath.
What he was actually doing was inserting just a tiny spark of energy into the blood.
"Okay," he told Anah, then he dug into a pocket and pulled out a wallet. Time to get rid of distractions and unnecessary questions. He gave Anah 20 dollars. "Do you know how money works? Get me something to eat while I do this. I'm starving. There's got to be some stand or fast food place around. Come back quickly, and give me back the change."
[Historical District Street: Offensive Theatre -==> Skyscraper]
"Shit!" Ralph cursed as he saw his pistol warp and fly out of his hands, while he and the others scrabbled out and into alternative pieces of cover as more magic bullshit pushed the cars in However, Taggart let out a breath in relief. This was the chance now. He pulled out his radio. <<Poolboys, move in!>>
The five of them carefully skirted around the battlefield and then quickly dashed into the tower.
"Life is eternal; and love is immortal; and death is only a horizon; and a horizon is nothing save the limit of our sight." - R. W. Raymond[Hotel-Hallway]
"Oh, ok..." Adam said, turning back, "Well, if you need anything, you can just come and tell me! I...I'll try my best to be helpful." After all, I didn't help anyone today...
Before he walked back to his room, he suddenly realized something. "Oh! I never got to introduce myself! I'm Adam. What's your name?"
[Supermarket]
Nick shrugged. "I say just hope for the best. Like my dad says, No matter how grim things may seem, there will always be a ray of hope along the way." He smiled, "I stick by that quote everyday."
Jackson nodded in agreement. "I'm sure things will look up soon. In the meantime, now that we're away from the main part of the city, you can have the chance to relax and take a break." He looked at each of the shelves, "Ok...so I know you can only eat meat. Can you guys still have something to drink?"
Last post for tonight.
[Hotel ~ Room 210]
Joe was having a difficult time comprehending his emotional state. There was a flood of something, and it made him feel good. It made him feel overwhelmingly good; uncontrollably good— perhaps even unmanageably good. His mouth seemed unsure of what it wanted to do, caught between keeping it's big dumb grin, saying something, or just putting on a tight, happy smile. In the end, Joseph acted with his arms, pulling even closer to Rachel and letting his large lizardly head rest again upon her shoulder, and her head upon his, holding her wordlessly in a tight embrace.
A few moments passed, and he felt that he ought to say something. As soon as the first words came to his head, the rest followed naturally. He opened his mouth and told her, "Just remember, you never have to be afraid of what I might think. Because no matter what happens, I know you." he took a deep breath, only very partially because of the tightness of the embrace. "And this is how I feel."
They'll turn your world around{Street]
Linna saw the rune, and tried to dodge it, but it didn't work. Ironically, Bianca would have been better served targeting one of the K-12Zs rather than her hardsuit; she didn't have the fighting qualities they did, but her suit had cost several times one of those for good reasons. Masterwork didn't quite do it justice, but close enough. Still, it wasn't absolutely perfect...simply far harder and far slower to degrade than a gun made by the lowest bidder.
Joint responsiveness slowly moving down. She glanced at her arm where the rune had landed, pointed her other laser at it with the power down to a level it'd only char her armor, and fired a shot in an attempt to deface the rune. She lit her jets again, dipping near Amu and slicing at him with one nanocutter before lighting the jets once more to clear him by a meter or so.
Nous restons ici.[Street]
Between the gunfire and the nanocutter, Amu was not doing well. The torture he'd suffered in the experiments of the Red King those centuries ago, when he was still a mortal, had made him virtually immune to pain. But his body did have its limits. The gunfire forced him to let go of the glaive, where it clattered to thr ground. (Woe unto any who tried to steal it, though.) Then the nanocutter took off his hand, releasing a jet of black smoke from his arm. The had disappeared in a puff of black smoke, and returned to the end of his arm, taking on a vaguely hand-like shape.
In Uel, healing this damage would be trivial, but here? He made a quick withdrawl to the same alleyway Tanis and Valerion had vanished into. <Samyaza, keep the three alive.>
Samyaza scanned a few memories. No mere illusion for this; she reshaped her flesh, rewove her clothes, and...
al-Faddil stepped out of the skyscraper and, speaking to Linna, demanded to know what the hell was going on and why she and her crew were aiding a genocidal AI and a band of wanted criminals. Exact dialogue intentionally not written — assume Samyaza is clever enough to mimic al-Faddil's speech patterns from stolen memories. He then sharply ordered Bianca, Jonathon, and Wilhelm to cease their attack... along with a transmission to them alone. <Samyaza here. Work with me...>
Samyaza wasn't sure this bluff would work. For some reason, it couldn't access the memories of the others — especially Nara, who was strangely as empty as Alice — as easily as it could those of her own world. So it pretty much expected the bluff would fail sooner or later; al-Faddil's mannerisms, speech patterns, appearance, and even biometrics it could copy, but personality was so much more complicated.
For their part, John, Alice, and Mary watched warily. It seemed they'd been forgotten in the noise, so Alice glanced at the Skyscraper. Alice couldn't sense any magic coming off of Samyaza (a specialty of its), so she shrugged and refocused on the Balance Deity, probing its very being.
edited 20th Sep '13 1:59:13 PM by KillerClowns
Hotel (Room 210)
Rachel kept up the embrace for yet another couple moments. She remained silent, having nothing to say to Joseph right now, but nevertheless she felt really good. Admittedly, she also felt a little awkward, but those sorts of feelings were drowned out by the positive emotions. The difference between her mood now and her mood just a short while ago was quite profound.
Eventually, she loosened her grip on Joesph and let her arms fall back into her lap. "I-I feel much better now," she said, "I think I can handle myself from here. Since Adam's due to come back soon, now would probably be a good time to finish your shower and give me some time to get my thoughts together so that I don't feel horribly awkward around Adam." She looked down briefly at the water spots on the bed and at this point her own arms, then back at Joseph. "Though, I guess it's not that important."
Supermarket
"Your dad's awfully optimistic," Selena responded to Nick, "Not that being optimistic is inherently bad or anything, but I've found too much optimism is just as bad as too much pessimism. Living with zombies tends to do that to a person." She sighed. "On the other hand, a break is the whole reason Rachel and I even left our hometown, and odd as it feels right now it is nice to get some downtime."
She shrugged and left it at that. "Moving on. We've pretty much been subsisting on water this whole time. I imagine we'd be able to keep soda or something down, at least, though we haven't had the chance to try."
Entertainment District (Outside Stadium) -> Historical District
The Hellking briefly turned around when its supposed allies went off in a completely different direction than its own. It was mildly annoyed by this sort of behavior, but it didn't stick around to wait for their return. It had caught the entity's scent and it wasn't about to cease following it.
So it continued heading in the scent's direction, picking up a myraid of other, just as interesting scents in the process. All of them seemed congregated in one spot in the Historical District, which was certainly intriguing.
edited 20th Sep '13 4:33:13 PM by Yomegami
Icon by Civvi the Civilian![Hotel ~ Room 210]
"Oh, uh- right." Joseph loosened his own hold, sighing. He wasn't unhappy, though he'd lost his smile, he had simply come back down to earth after an incredible feeling of elation. Back down to his nervous mind and his uncertainty, and suddenly rearranged priorities. Still, he wasn't unhappy. He'd caught a glimpse, and more than just a fleeting moment, of something new, and Joseph felt contented.
He followed her eyes to the suddenly-waterlogged bed and offered, "I... I'm sure we can figure out something to dry it off. If nothing else, I guess I could sleep here tonight." he gave a small smile and a shrug, then, after a pause, continued, "Anyway, you're right, I should probably go finish washing off. I think I've still got some confetti behind my ear, and it sounds like I've been in there for a while."
Funnily enough, even though he'd left the water running and the bathroom door wide open in his rush, Joe hadn't heard any of it until just then.
With a half smile, he pushed himself back off the bed, readjusted his towel, and walked back to the bathroom door. He glanced back at Rachel and said, "See you in a bit." stepping partway into the bathroom before pulling back and adding, "Hey, Rachel? If something is bothering Adam... could you tell me?"
They'll turn your world around[Hotel-Hallway-Room 210]
Adam shook Emily's hand. "Nice to meet you." He then turned around and started walking back to his door, "I have to go now, but if you need anything, I promise I'll be right over!"
He waved, then opened the door, noticing Joseph halfway in the bathroom and Rachel sitting on the bed. "O-Oh! Did I interrupt anything?"
[Supermarket]
"Yeah." Nick said, shrugging, "That's how my dad is...but we need a little optimism in our lives. It's what helps us move on."
Jackson nodded, before refocusing on the list. "Ok, meat, water, possibly soda. Got it."
He started to notice the sudden change in temperature, realizing that he was closer to the "freezer" aisle. He sighed. He always hated coming in this section so much.
"I think this is it." he finally said, "Take your pick."
Hotel (Room 210)
Rachel nodded in response to Joseph. "I'll let you know if anything comes up."
Right on cue, Adam walked back into the room. She shook her head. "No no; in fact, we just got done talking." She looked back down at the bed. "The bed's a little wet, just as a warning." She shrugged and then looked back at Adam. "Anyway, I believe you wanted to ask me something?"
Supermarket
Selena took a look around to make sure that they were indeed in the meat section, before studying the goods. Unfortunately, by the looks of things, there wasn't anything that didn't require a stove or an oven. Unless there was such an appliance back at the room, there wasn't much for either herself or Rachel here. She certainly wasn't going to make them eat the meat raw.
"No luck here," she said after some moments of silence, "Though I guess we could still get something, if you guys think it's likely we'll have a oven or something."
Icon by Civvi the Civilian!

Ksenya's squad heard her command and complied. They hunkered down, loading rifle grenades into the launcher attachments mounted under their weapon's barrels. At the same time, Ksenya and her second-in-command redirected their lightning weapons to strike at the rapidly expanding green mass of the Balance Deity. This time their weapons projected a wide, roiling arc instead of a single focused bolt, with a shorter range but wider catchment area. The weapons projected a wide fan of writhing, skittering tendrils, the ionized matter scorching the green cells before them with intense heat. They popped in their multitudes, the sheer transfer of energy causing the water within them to become super-heated and burst the cell walls.
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