Library, Second Floor
Twilight couldn't see what was going on from her shelter, but she could hear it. So she heard the sounds of battle and knew she had to do something.
She lifted up part of her bookshelf with magic and saw a large insect-like creature as causing the problem. In her shock, she nearly dropped her shelter back down.
She quickly moved out and used her magic to try and pull another nearby bookshelf on top of the creature.
What is this "signature" of which people speak?Cole visibly winced at the sudden explosions of pain from the two people who were slashed near him, but he was quick to take hold of Sophie's hand and put Sadness's in it, calling out. "Walk towards the side of the street and try to get into a building! I'll try to hold them off until you can hide!" He put the blue emotion down, also pulling off his hat to abruptly plop it...and a particular gerbil passenger...on Sophie's head, before drawing his daggers, turning towards the bizarre sounds of the monster advancing.
"Your fight is with me! Come and get me!" He coughed hard as the act had sent more sand into his mouth, but didn't try to hold it back, moving off to a side away from the girls as quickly as he could through the winds, making sure to make as much noise as possible to try and lure the creatures after him. "Come on, then! If you want a fight then I will give you one!"
Karkat - What's The Name of That Forgetful Trope
Karkat stuck to the inside of the shield with Caro. He felt bad about it, but he couldn't go fight right now. Those alien zombie things were way too fast for him. Lucky for him, everybody else seemed pretty okay fighting it, and eventually, they actually managed to defeat it. He promised himself, next time, he would help, but it's not like he was already busy feeding pe—
SHIT HE LEFT THE FOOD UPSTAIRS
He dashed out of the shield and up the stairs, frantically searching for the plastic bags containing the food. Oh, God, there were monsters up here too. He got on the ground and started crawling, hoping no one would notice him.
(holds pool noodle threateningly) Do you want to know what we do to artists?Yoshika was extremely confused at that moment. Whatever it was that was doing this to her was pretty damn strong, it was raising her up in the air as she flailed like she was just a normal human. She felt the two daggers dig into her neck, and she flopped down on the ground. Now, even more concerning, was the fact that her body had stopped flailing on its own willpower. No matter how much she willed it now, not a single part of her body seemed to want to move as she wished. As her head stopped rolling, the friction moved the blindfold up slightly, and she could just make out that either her neck had grown a few inches, or it had been just about severed. Neither was good. She could barely see the tip of a long claw as it raised up into the air, poised to strike...
"YOSHIKA!" Seiga tossed a nearby book, some hefty tome on marine biology, at the head of the thing with all of her might, right before it could try and impale her servant a third time. The hermit realized the grave mistake of ordering her very literal jiangshi to not move, but from this angle it looked like she wasn't in much capacity to move in the first place. She raised her table leg like a sword as she lifted into the air, hoping to grab its attention.
Somewhere along an unfamiliar road.
Sophie winced as the creature's claw struck her, but she did not collapse in pain. Barely visible within the sandstorm, the gash on her chest was not bleeding; instead, it was glowing with faint white light - the eleth within her body attempting to close the wound, much like human blood. She then heard... somebody land near them, but other than maybe Cole's hand on her shoulder or the top of Sadness' head, she couldn't see who it was. "I can fight," she tried replying to the spirit of compassion, the makeshift scarf around her neck keeping sand from entering her mouth. "I just need to - "
And then her hand was placed in Sadness'.
"......Asbel?......Asbel!......"
In a dark, musty cavern, Sophie tiredly knelt over the prone form of a younger boy in green,
her face the picture of concern. Thankfully, the boy began to open his eyes, and the purple-haired girl's expression changed to one of relief. "...Thank goodness," she muttered, one gauntlet-covered hand gripping her arm tightly. "I'm so grateful... Thank goodness you're awake......"
The boy turned his head to look behind Sophie for a moment. "...This is all my fault," he spoke, very clearly filled with guilt. "It was a mistake - I shouldn't have brought you here..." He glanced back upward, biting his lip. "I'm... so very sorry..."
"Asbel..."
The boy looked back at her; he could now notice that she was trembling - from pain... or maybe from fear. "I think I understand," she continued. "Back when we fell off the cliff..." It was her turn to look at him, a soft smile forming on her lips. "I understand - the reason why you were happy..."
The boy kept still for a moment. He soon managed to smile himself - a tired smile, but a smile nonetheless. Sophie moved to help him up -
- and pain suddenly tore through her body. Face contorted in shock, the purple-haired girl could barely move as she was hoisted into the air, a stretched, blood-red claw stabbed right through her abdomen. It slipped back out, and she collapsed to the stone floor; all the while, the boy called out her name in anguish.
She could hear him... and hear the growling of the one behind them who had struck her. No. She struggled to get up, her hands instinctively trying - and failing - to keep in the eleth pouring out of her body from the massive wound. No. She pushed - pushed - pushed herself up, managing to stand on her feet.
NO!
With a battle cry filled with sorrow, distress, and anger, Sophie turned around and ran, as hard as she could, towards the creature
that had struck her... the creature that now threatened her friends. I will protect them! She raised a fist, leaping towards it with all her might. I will protect them!! Her entire body began to glow, brighter than ever.
I WILL PROTECT THEM!!!
The light of divine, searing eleth filled the cavern. It washed over the boy. It tore through the creature. It tore through her.
Sophie froze. Under her makeshift scarf, her face was knotted into a look of shock at the memory that had just resurfaced. She let go of Sadness and stood where she was, facing the direction she had knocked one of the creatures away.
The combined attacks were more than enough to decimate the bug before it could do much else, however there were clearly more of those upstairs and at the same time more of those could end up getting inside too.
"there are more of those things upstairs, we should deal with them but we also need to make sure that more of those won't come in, so, any suggestions?" he asked the group on the first floor
There was a lot of noise coming from the upper floors, those bugs must be causing more trouble for the people up there than they did for the lobby group, it was no surprise, most of the strong fighters were in the lobby after all. Sans figured Caro would want to go upstairs and deal with those things and well, he probably would be more effective at squashing those bugs than reinforcing the library's defenses.
He waited to hear what everyone had to say before taking action. He wanted to see how many people would go upstairs and how many would remain where they were because if all the fighters went up, then the weaker ones would be vulnerable in the lobby and well, that would be no good at all.
Lune tried her hardest to stay close to Plague Knight, Garrett, and Specter Knight as they were exploring the grocery store. Four heads are better than one, right?
She covered her eyes when Garrett told the group to cover their eyes. Hopefully, his plan, whatever it may be, would work on the zombies. If it didn’t, they’re screwed faster than a mouse inside a house filled with cats.
Library - Holding the fort
Caro sighed in relief when she saw that everyone's efforts had managed to defeat the insectoid creature before it could cause much damage to anyone.
Still, from the sound of it, there are appeared to be more of them uptairs. She wanted to go out and deal with those, but there as also the other matter that Sans had raised: They also need to prevent any more of them from invading the library.
"Well, I would offer to seal off the entrance, but I'm worried about also keeping survivors out along with those things and all the other enemies," Caro replied.
edited 21st Jun '16 12:04:22 PM by JamesShields
The Grocery Store- A few Hand Waves
Specter Knight teleported away from the zombies surrounding him just before the bomb Plague Knight threw went off and followed the others into the building. When he saw the mindless thralls, he decided to let the others take care of them.
edited 21st Jun '16 1:46:58 PM by astrokitty
Somebody once told me the world was macaroni, I took a bite out of a treeSadness yanked her hand away, but the deed had been done. All she could do was spit sand and hover anxiously around Sophie. The girl would be fine, she was sure, a bit of sadness never really really hurt anyone—but incapacitating one of their numbers during a monster attack was terrible.
She looked down at her hands and suddenly realized that they were flickering with blue light. Her powers, very little-used, were activating again. Whether they had been jump-started from contact with Sophie or not, Sadness had no idea, but she blindly aimed towards the sounds of the nearest monsters and shot a blue orb towards it. She was no fighter, but she had to try something.
"Cole's leading them away!" she called to Sophie over the wind, holding her hands tense and in front of her body in case one of the monsters jumped at her. "It's—it's going to be okay! It was just a memory!" Not that that wasn't blind comfort; she had no clue over how intense of a memory the girl had experienced.
Currently writing something. Currently procrastinating.Rex continued looking for for Sadness and anyone that needed a lift and/or protection from the storm but he wasn't having any luck.
"Can anyone hear me?" he could only hear the sound of the wind though there a few grunts and clicks in the distance "Aside from the zombies?"
He couldn't make out what he was saying but it was definitely not a zombie. The sudden blue dim light just a few meters away made it clear that something was going on there.
Rex tried to follow the sound of Cole's voice but got distracted by and even brighter light that made him crash into a wall near where Sophie, Cole, Negi, and Sadness where.
"Ugh, I really need to put headlights on my bike"
Rex got up with some difficulty, crashing was one thing but doing so in a storm that ignored the laws of physics was another thing entirely.
Thanks to said storm, he could only vaguely see a guy with a giant hat, which he instantly recognized as Cole, trying to threaten something; and the light that had made him lost control of his bike.
"Hey, what's going on here?"
edited 21st Jun '16 5:56:31 PM by DeisTheAlcano
The flash bomb got a few of the zombies to start stumbling blindly but didn't affect all of them, as not all the types of zombie there relied on their eyes. The noisemaker arrow didn't get an entirely consistent effect on all the zombie types either, but affected more than the flash bomb did; almost every zombie in the store started to go towards it, save for those that were immediately close to the group and already locked on target, so to speak, along with the few that were deaf. Even the crying paused when the noisemaker went off, Garrett hearing a short gasp come from whoever it was. He could barely see down the aisle as he entered it, some thin woman who had been kneeling on the floor had lifted onto her feet slightly and was looking off towards where the noisemaker had gone.
As Garrett started to get closer though, she turned to face glowing red eyes towards him and started to growl inhumanly and angrily. He could also see that her fingers were very elongated and looked like sharp claws.
With Jack losing his concentration on the ice around the windows, the sandstorm started to blow into the library more completely; it still wasn't too bad in the inner parts of the upper floors where the sand had to go over a maze of bookshelves, but in the first floor where there was only the one layer of bookshelves the blowing sand was starting to make a bigger difference. A few of the militia members glanced at Gon slightly confused and uncertain, until Lieutenant Wells' voice came out over the din.
"BELAY THAT ORDER! DO NOT SPLIT UP AND DO NOT ABANDON THE CIVILIANS! LET THE HEROES DEAL WITH THE OFFENSIVE!" Lieutenant Wells yelled, moving around the perimeter they'd set up outside Caro's shield to get to Gon. "Apparently you and I need to have a chat about our chain of command. Once we have a moment" the soldier told Gon, his tone making it clear he was not happy, then he went back to keeping his rifle at the ready in case anything else came at them.
Meanwhile, inside Caro's shield, Miss Tairee raised an eyebrow at Caro's remark. "Given that the creature came from upstairs, that means it jumped up through the broken windows. Which means you'd have to block off the entire perimeter of the library at once to seal it completely" Miss Tairee said to Caro, looking out at the lobby through the shield. "It's got a one hundred meter diameter, so that would be rather impressive" she added in idle thought.
Upstairs, the creature that had been attacking Jack Frost had its escape from under the bookshelf halted as Jack froze up its legs. It shrieked and squealed, still pushing up against the bookshelf that Juri had knocked onto it, until Four Arms ran over, grabbed it by one of its arms, and smashed it around a couple times, breaking chunks of ice onto the floor with each smash. On the third smash, the creature's arm ripped from its socket as Four Arms swung, and it along with the remaining ice on it went hurtling out the window and out of view into the raging sand storm.
The other creature, elsewhere in the maze of bookshelves, flinched just enough as Seiga threw a book at its head that neither of its front legs came down on Yoshika's head; though one did go right through her chest, putting even more internal damage there for her to fix later. It shook its head and then started to charge at Seiga with great speed, only for one of the bookshelves to be tipped over onto it by Twilight Sparkle's magic. Much like the other one had earlier, it braced against the bookshelf and started to scratch some grooves into the floor as it struggled to get out from underneath it, still swiping its clawed hands at Seiga just in front of it.
((OOC: Not taking control of Sophie; had a PM with Demovere about what she intends to do.))
The chryssalid still standing kept advancing towards Negi until Sadness' blue orb flew over and bounced off its carapace. This didn't really do much to the chryssalid, failing to damage it, knock it over, or even make it sad. But it did draw its attention, and it ran towards Sadness taking it right in front of Sophie; abruptly Sophie dashed forward to right on the other side of it, her hand hitting it while glowing with energy and sending the chryssalid upward, though not at exactly the angle Sophie had intended. With the sandstorm raging this made it pretty much immediately vanished from their view into the sand, making only Cole aware of where exactly it was landing and if it was even still alive. (It was, and it was landing on top of a roof a bit down the street.) This also made Cole's hat which he had put on Sophie, (which had also made Rex mistake her for Cole in all the obscuring sand) zip right off Sophie's head and tumble down the street with the terrified gerbil still inside it.
Unfortunately Cole was in no position to be locating the missing chryssalid or the gerbil with his powers because the second chryssalid had gotten up from the ground and taken his bait, charging at him and bringing its claws down towards him. Sophie, Rex, Sadness, and Negi could only barely hear the scuffle going on, despite it being maybe twenty feet from them, and couldn't see Cole or the chryssalid at all through the blowing sand.
edited 21st Jun '16 5:53:11 PM by FirockFinion
You are reading this.Library
As much as Zelda would have liked it otherwise, the soldier from earlier had other ideas and simply pushed her in closer to Caro before he and presumably the people he was leading opted to stay outside of it. Fortunately for her conscience, it didn't look like anyone else needed the spot more, leaving her protected along with everyone else within Caro's shield when the sandstorm finally hit.
Unfortunately, along with the storm came some of the monsters, and they were unlike anything Zelda had expected. From Ben's statements earlier, she had been expecting walking, half-rotted corpses. The monstrosity that appeared before the group now looked much more like some kind of giant insect. However, she didn't get the chance to get a good look at it before it was promptly slain, which said wonders for the sort of firepower they had here. She could still hear some horrific noises coming from upstairs, and from what everyone else was saying it looked like more of the things got in.
Well, there wasn't much she could do. She remained silent as the others chatted, occasionally looking around nervously as the sandstorm got worse.
Icon by Civvi the Civilian!He'd managed to draw off one of the monsters. That was easy enough to figure out as it charged at him, all awash in fury and violence. This wasn't something he could sense, but it didn't take psychic powers to detect that from something like this.
He didn't know what was happening with the other monster, he knew there were two...and he was too distracted to be able to do more than keep a cursory attention on the others to know if they were okay.
He did sense Rex though, having come, and he kept a thought in his head. Rex will protect them. Rex will protect them.
Another thought intruded through that mantra. I don't want to die again.
No time for that.
"You can't hurt me! Come and try!" he yelled again through the winds, lashing his daggers up at the claws in an attempt to at least knock them away from hitting him, still backpedaling as fast as he could manage, trying to get the beast as far away as possible before it could hurt anyone else.
For a moment, it seemed as if the world around Sophie didn't exist to her. The sandstorm, the creatures, Cole and Sadness' pleas - all of them went ignored.
Then a blue orb appeared from behind the purple-haired girl and disappeared into the veritable wall of sand... followed by a screech, then thundering steps heading towards her.
I will protect them.
As the creature's claw came crashing down, Sophie brought an arm up, perfectly blocking its forearm with her own, its claw hovering inches away from her face. She flattened her other hand, and that hand began to glow; instead of dashing forward, however, she thrust it right into the creature's stomach once more, focusing what would've been the force behind her forward dash into her hand while staying where she was. The result blasted it into the air, where it immediately disappeared into the sandstorm.
I will protect them.
Unable to see where the second creature was, Sophie stepped in front of Sadness, fists at the ready, awareness momentarily heightened. Her expression was steeled, though if the others could see her, they may notice a twinge of fear... though they wouldn't know that that fear was not because of the creatures before them.
edited 21st Jun '16 6:31:05 PM by Demovere
Sans was a little surprised to hear the militia leader call him and the others "heroes", well, Ben would be happy with that at least. The skeleton himself? He didn't consider himself much of a hero, he was more just a silly ally than a hero. Either way, he didn't really have the time to question stuff like that.
Miss Tairee soon told them that the insect things were most likely coming from the windows and that it would be really difficult for Caro to make a barrier around the whole building. It would likely be very demanding for the girl too, he couldn't imagine she would be able to keep it up for very long before getting exhausted. It looked like one way or the other they would have to go upstairs to deal with the current problem. The sandstorm was raging on and it didn't really bother the skeleton all that much but the others might start having problems with it soon.
"if they're coming through the windows, then maybe we should try blocking the windows with bookshelves. i'm no good for heavy lifting though, so i'll be sitting this one out," said Sans, shrugging, then hearing the sounds of something being slammed on the ground a couple of times, "i could help squish the remaining bugs, but it looks like the people up there have gotten it covered already" he added, pointing to the upper floors
Library -.Change of plans
Caro could only smile sheepishly at Miss Tairee as she pointed out the glaring hole in her proposed plan. "Yeah, I forgot about that, sorry. Then I think our best guess would dealing with the current threats for now and get all together to deal with preventing any more attacks later, unless there's someone that could make such a feat. I really feel like I should go help out up there."
After listening to Sans' idea, she said, "Well, with enough chains, I think I could help with that and it wouldn't hurt to reinforce the blockade with some either, so I guess I will really going there, in a moment." Then looking around and calling out in general, "Is there anyone else around here that could help with that!?"
edited 21st Jun '16 7:35:19 PM by JamesShields
Four Arms smirked as he tossed the monstrous insectoid creature out of the library. He then winced at the sand, then attempted to listen for the sounds of strife. He ran towards the noises he was hearing on the second floor, moving bookshelves with his sheer strength and hoping to reach whatever was making that noise (hopefully just one other monster) before it hurt someone.
I can still hail the Horde even though the company has shamed us. Strength and Honor even if Blizzard has neither."W-what the hell was that?" asked Morty over the noise of the howling sand, staring down at the sporadically twitching purple corpse.
"Alien *urp* alien. Probably got some kind of.. oh, you know, a,a, zombie-making bite- ya and you, uh, go zombie too,,, to complete their reproductive cycle or something. Man, these things are the worst. They're like rats with the ability to, to, poop out more rats. Gross."
"Huh, so, uh..." Whatever Morty was about to say was interrupted by the noise of Lieutenant Wells shouting, then the screeching of another Chrysalid running around on the second floor. Morty went white, which was no mean feat considering the baking heat. "Oh... oh man."
"Stay here. Grandpa's gotta do some pest control."
"-But-"
"Stay here or I'll shoot you in the legs. I'll lame ya, *urp* Morty, d-don't try me. I'll lame ya.."
"Rick, that's, uh, that's a little violent, huh?"
Rick had already bounded up the stairs behind Four Arms, cocking his improvised weapon and mumbling curses all the way up.
edited 21st Jun '16 8:52:03 PM by Locoman
Juri, Library Second Floor
Juri looked disappointed that both Jack Frost and Four Arms had taken care of the creature before she could crush them from underneath their bookcase, and was now trying to keep sand from entering her eyes and mouth.
"Hey, Ice Boy!" Juri yelled out to Jack Frost. "Get the ice barriers back up!"
Juri then began tailing Four Arms since it sounds like another one of these creatures were still on this floor, at least from the scream she heard. It should hopefully be a good fight, especially after being denied her fight with the first creature she attacked.
edited 22nd Jun '16 12:12:47 AM by GameGuruGG
Wizard Needs Food BadlyOf course, this hesitation only lasted about three seconds.
She carefully judged the distance between her legs and the thing's hands as she positioned herself hopefully just out of reach. She then tried to crack its braincase open with a flurry of repeated blows to the head, bringing down the table leg hard and constantly. "TRY! TO! TOUCH! MY! YOSHIKA! AGAIN! YOU! DAMN! INSECT!" she bellowed to it in between strikes. Then, spotting a group of people heading up the staircase, she shouted at them, "Hey! All of you, come here! We're going to..." She brought the leg down one more time, putting her back into it as she finished with, "KILL IT!"
Even as Sadness stumbled behind the rejuvenated Sophie - at least she thought it was Sophie, what with all this sand - she couldn't feel safe. Her attack was useless, she was terrified of tripping over somebody and causing another breakdown, and Cole had disappeared somewhere into the storm. She wasn't even sure whether they were still being stalked by the monsters or not.
Sadness backpedaled, trying to minimize the chances of her coming into contact with her new friend(?). She jumped when a familiar voice cut through the wind. Rex had come back!
"Rex?" she shouted, trying to decipher his words. "There's, um, a monster—and we're trying to get to the library—"
As she stepped backwards, her foot brushed against the edge of something metallic, and she snatched her foot back immediately. She could vaguely make out Rex through the sand. "Sorry, sorry!" she cried.
Currently writing something. Currently procrastinating.Library: hopefully taking out the bug
As the creature started clawing at another person, who charged in to attack, Twilight kept up her telekinetic magic on the bookshelf she used, trying to force it down, the intention being to keep pressure on the insect and make it more difficult for it to escape.
What is this "signature" of which people speak?Jack let out a sigh of relief when the red-skinned alien absolutely beat the crap out of the creature and hurled it out the window. He really wasn't cut out for this. The only time he'd ever really fought was against Pitch, and his Nightmares had gone down with one blast of magic. These things didn't.
His grip tightened on his staff, knuckles going whiter than they already were. At this rate... how well would he actually be able to protect people, if just one of these things gave him trouble. Thankfully, the risquely dressed woman's yelling snapped him out of it, and brought him back to his usual snarky self. "As you command." He added in an elaborate bow towards her. "I was definitely not about to do that anyway, half-naked woman. Not at all."
Having wasted enough time, Jack focused back on repairing the damaged and already melting ice, before moving on to covering the rest of the windows.

Gon, going to muster the help he can do...
"Dammit..."
The assassin was forced to lower the weapon. The sights didn't give him much of a choice.
"Yo!" Gon called on any free militiaman for his/her attention. "If anyone's not doing anything important, I need a man or two to help clear the second floor! Case the Lieutenant's asking, I'll take full responsibility!"