Mall
Imuka eventually manages to recompose her self, and sends a brief message to Lucas using the mental connection with her scroll, before rejoining the others her tail literally between her legs.
"U-Ummm? I-Is any one injured?" she nervously asks among the dwindling chaos, as six of her floating medical tools fan out behind her, demonstrating intent.
"Not physically. Thanks for your concern Imuka." she said. Her left wing twitched a bit however.
The Crystal Caverns A bird's gotta sing."I think everyone needs a break after this..." Silvia said.
Heading to bed. See you tommorrow.
The Crystal Caverns A bird's gotta sing.Guys and Gal
Ieria's scroll vibrated in her hood pocket as she clung to Medus, stirring her from the brief nap she was taking. She pulled an arm free to pick her scroll from her pocket. A single message from her father, she read it quickly, wondering if it was something important.
While it was important, it was not what she had expected. "Turn on the news." Was all it said.
"Medus...can we swap to the news channel for a second?"
"I am nature's weapon. You are unfit to carry on your species, and I shall ensure that you do not do so!" - Charles Darwin, XCOM SniperGal and Guys
The news report showed the damage that had been dealt to the Mall along with several images of the Beacon Students and Arcana members, albeit incredibly blurry ones. The headline read "Terrorist Attack at Mall'''
"Oh...dust."
"I am nature's weapon. You are unfit to carry on your species, and I shall ensure that you do not do so!" - Charles Darwin, XCOM SniperTartarus
...waitwaitwait, fucking what?! Oh great, World appeared and just like that robbed him off his fun... then he realized who exactly did he mention.
...you are not taking this kill away from me, old man. No one will take that kill from me. Royalty is fucking mine and you fucking know that. "Sir" He chose to pick his tone carefully. "May I still assist the rest of the main team as a back-up?" He didn't mention exactly what kind of back-up, but if World wanted the princess dead, he would deliver her to him in nice, compact pieces. He must have omitted her somehow during the mall brawl, assuming she was there, but this time he would not make that mistake.
Hope
"...bullshit we're fine." The tears gradually stopped coming out, replaced with a clear-cut exhaustion. Hope shook a little, clearing the last of the bad memories in her head, then just sighed, completely drained. Wiping the remaining tears away she simply sighed, putting on the mask of indifference again. She liked it, even if everybody by now knew it's nothing but a facade. "...yeah. We need to rest. A longer while, if possible."
Tartarus
The World nods at Judgement. "I do not doubt you, daughter. I am sure that you will perform...admirably."
Then Star spoke, and Magician actually facepalmed.
The World looked at Star, a cruel smirk on his face. "Samuel, you are letting your passion control you again. Child, do you think you know better than Judgement? I think not. But I am gracious. I give you a chance to prove yourself. Fight my daughter. See if you can defeat here. Then, and only then will I allow you your revenge."
"...You stupid fuck." was all Mike could say.
Beacon Academy: Glynda's Office
Alexia was terrified. She couldn't even speak. And the cause of that fear?
The fierce eyes of Glynda Goodwitch, glaring at those students who were at the mall.
Two words.
"Explain. Yourselves."
(Ai) Aftermath
She raised her hand up. "Charisse over here needs medical attention," she said. She looked away, hiding her face.
"I see how it is. I don't understand. I'll never understand."
Tears rolled off her cheek and fell on Charisse's clothes. She grabbed Charisse's hand. "So help me understand."
(Ai) Facing the Music
Ai looked back and forth across the row of people standing in Glynda's office, then stepped forward.
"It was Arcana. In public. We couldn't just let them go when there was a chance we could stop them," she said.
She clenched her fist tightly to her chest.
"We weren't good enough."
Charisse - Mall, Aftermath
Charisse gritted her teeth as she attempted to roll over. "Lando damnit Ai..." she managed to say, as tears began welling up in her own eyes. "I don't have to teach you to be like me baby, or to think like I do... I think you're perfect just how you are... I'm sorry.."
She cried then, not from the pain but from the eventual realization that she had forgotten something very important: she did have something to care about and protect now. She had Ai.
Charisse - Afterwards
She was not present for the chewing out. Granted, it would happen eventually, but hers was delayed due to a pressing need for significant amounts of healing. Thankfully enough, her arms weren't in a bad enough state that she'd need prostheses, but they did need surgery.
Chariot - Tartarus
The Chariot was not present for the meeting. It was not very hard to guess where she was; she was at some junkyard relatively nearby. That was where she would construct the haphazard things she'd call her "vehicles". The only real things that kept them together was copious amounts of duct tape and her semblance (mostly her semblance, in all honesty).
"Gimme your pants.. and now your other pants"At Beacon: The Aftermath
Naima watched the news report, mouth agape. An attack?! At the mall?! Those Arcana members were truly treacherous! She felt a fire in a her belly — the kind that wouldn't be easily extinguished until she and Shear Edge tasted retribution.
Pounding a fist on the table she growled aloud, "Those bastards!" Woah. Naima rarely got this heated!
"We wuz worried, so I went to the mall to help out." Ayers said flatly. "My fault I dint warn the rest of my team, who wuz all there, to back out'n call the cops, 'r maybe just more experienced Hunters." He took his hat off and held it to his chest. "Ma'am, I'd take any punishment y'all're planning if'n it means it's on my head, and not theirs. Be so sweet of you it'd make a rabbit hug a hound dog, I tell you hwut."
Mall Aftermath
"A lot of people are injured where the airship broke through the ceiling." Pius replied as he rummaged through more debris. "Broken bones, concussions, but no fatalities so far."
Probably the only good news we've had all night.
Glynda's Office
About an hour later, Pius had shed both his longcoat and his armor as he sat with the others who had fought at the mall.
"We will also take responsibility for this, ma'am." Pius added to Ayers' offer. "It was our fault we couldn't coordinate with the others, and we should be punished for our failure."
A Silent Light
The Sun of Arcana was not present at this meeting. Indeed, the Sun had not been seen by any of the others in several years, and World still refused to replace his lieutenant with anyone else. Even after so long, the visionary insurgent was confident that the Sun would rise again one day.
edited 5th Dec '14 9:50:04 AM by Insano
Allurand and surrounding world loading, 28%..."We did what you trained us to do," Rufus growled a little more growly than usual. He stepped forward, out of the line up. He didn't look at Glynda but that wasn't unusual, his eyes always seeming to glide over blank space.
"You give us a partner, seemingly at random," He drew a particular word out sarcastically, "You tell us, this is the person you will be working closely with, who you must trust. You give us a team, two more, and tell us to protect each other. Some of us you set to lead those teams. You tell them, 'You are responsible for them.'
"And you train us to fight. To kill. Monsters, yes. Black furred, white masked beasties amongst them. Those that stray close to civilization easily picked off mongrels, so you bring us the more exotic ones from deep in the wilderness or you bring us to them.
"But their are more monsters than that, monsters in men's skin. The sparring we continue to do, the tournaments you hold every year. Bluebeard will extol you on those virtues of this craft. We are meant to fight people. And kill them. And those monsters were attacking our people, the people we are supposed to trust, to protect, that we're responsible for."
He stepped back then, back into the line-up, looking at the floor, "True, we made a tactical error. That was panic. Fear. The son and daughter of fear are fight or flight, and we chose fight. We went rushing off to our friends' rescue, we went charging in blindly. If we thought more efficiently, more clearly, I suspect... I suspect some of us, perhaps even myself, would have still done what we'd done, we would have just done it with back-up."
He looked up again, right at Glynda, "But we did what we were trained to do."
Rufus grimaced, "Oh dear, did I just monologue?"
edited 5th Dec '14 10:29:18 AM by God_of_Awesome
(Ai) Facing the Music
"He's right!" said Ai. I think.
She threw her hand out in Pius and Ayers's general direction.
"You guys didn't do anything wrong!" she said heatedly, "You were just protecting your team. And how can we ever call ourselves Huntsmen if we just let people like that walk around under our noses? Or stand back and let someone else do it? Especially not the normal police, they can't handle it, they'd just get killed and we'd have their blood on our hands ... "
Somewhere, Ai realized she was already speaking way out of line, but she pressed on regardless.
"And I started this whole mess anyway! I saw them first and made everyone panic. If there's anyone to be punished, it should be me!"
Her passionate defense was cut short when her face flushed red. She crouched down on the ground and covered her head. Ah, crap. I said too much.
edited 5th Dec '14 10:43:43 AM by opnerf
Mall aftermath
The pins her ears, before nodding and sitting down on the floor. Her drones break formation from around her, and scan the immediate area most of them begin working on the most injured civilians first, 3 of them however stay with Charisse, hovering around her injury sites and one by one providing first aid, working on healing any major injuries.
Once any of them is done with the task its single medical tool can provide, it breaks away t allow the next one to work, after healing any large injuries they scatter some healing dust over her to accelerate regeneration, before breaking away to join the others helping he civilians.
Office
Imuka provides no response at the moment, just sitting there staring at her feet, she had no words for what happened, and did not feel like attempting to take a high route and explain that she had little involvement in the fight or chaos. Every one else was there, and she had no right in her head to speak up, not to mention she was still kind of shaken by the fact that all of that happened at a mall.
Tartarus
For a moment the mad bomber was completely silent. Someone that wasn't familiar with him would think he's quaking in his boots at the thought of duking this out with an opponent clearly more powerful than him. A fight he simply couldn't win, so to speak.
But then he laughed. It was a dry, humorless laugh of someone who doesn't find the situation neither amusing nor appaling.
"Man, I recall when you guys recruited me. Hey, Samuel, heard you wanna blow up some royalty. We promise you just that, just be a pal and follow our orders. And then you fuck it up and deprive me of just that." He spoke, flashing a tired smile at Judgment. "Sure, let's go. That said, if I happen to win somehow, go ahead and do your well-intentioned greater good thingy. Vengeance isn't the kind of thing one should receive on a silver platter."
Beacon
"Put simply, we have chosen to act rashly rather than call for support or retreat without a fight. I suppose the whole conflict would have been avoided had I not rushed in blindly, head first. The others followed suit and they aren't to blame, Miss Goodwitch." Hope spoke, her usual monotone voice a bit more bleak than in most cases. She wasn't looking at anyone nor at anything, just staring down the fearsome right-hand of Professor Ozpin. "I have nothing in defense to say for myself. I expect nothing less than expulsion, but my fellow Hunters are not to blame."
Tartarus
Julian shook his head and sighed loudly. "Samuel, would you kindly shut up? All your whining is going to give me a headache." The soldier sighed again. "Kds these days, so damn entitled. Back in my day when things didn't go our way we simply got over it and went on with our jobs instead of bitching about it."
-dramatic music ensues-Tartarus
Judgement turned her head slowly to Star. So, he responded as she thought he would. More reverb could be heard as her distorted voice came out from the mask again, an echo lagging a second behind her words.
"If you land even a single blow, I will concede defeat."
Was it arrogance that drove her to speak those words? Whatever the reason was, the woman's hands disappeared into the long sleeves of her robes for a second before she pulled out what appeared to be a simple short handled hoe. The mirrored mask reflected only Star's face as Judgement began walking forward casually.
"Time to prove your worth, Samuel."
Tartarus
Temperance facepalmed himself as Star challenged Judgement to a foolish battle. He wanted to go on that mission as badly as Star, but he understood why Judgement made that call with him. Him at Olympos, with Azrael in action, would probably end up with a lot more casualties than needed for the plan.
That being said, what they were going to do about Olympos still was a question in his mind. A question that could be asked once the fight was done, though...

In Tartarus
Temperance had snuck in while the others were talking. He had mainly been curious about how six of his fellow members managed to nearly get beat by a couple of kids. Sure, he kept quiet as he saw everything folded out, but in his mind, he was picking out every detail — who was doing what, what each person could do — so he could be ready for whatever task he'd be assigned to.
In Beacon
A few minutes after it started, the thought-interrupting pain in Lucas's head finally died down. What the hell was that? First, odd halucinations, now this? What happened to his brain?
Trying to get his mind off the headache, Lucas opened up his scroll one last time to check the news. Probably, nothing new happened involving—
Arcana Attack at Local Mall?!?
A quick read through showed that six members of Arcana had caused a fight with a bunch of Beacon students (it didn't flat-out say it was the girls from the dorm, but he hadn't exactly heard of any attacks to the second-year students) which had ended with the former group leaving.
Just what exactly happened back there? he thought to himself as he pulled up Sophie's number on his scroll and called her...