The Enforcers

[Zack Smith]

Good thing he drank that coffee earlier, or else he would have fallen asleep at the spot. Apparently that summoning took a lot of energy away from him, something he regained after oversleeping until it was around 6:30 in the morning. At least the sight of Assassin meditating in overly large clothes was hilarious, yet a tad attractive to see, what with that almost bare shoulder and that collarbone showing. For the fraction of a second he forgot that this girl was his Servant, and that she was, unfortunately, too young-looking for his taste.

And so, after a few minutes of him having an internal battle between his body and his mind on the subject of staying in bed, Zack got out from under the covers, dressed up in one of his many casual outfits, tied up his hair, dragged his feet out of his bedroom along with a still-calm Ahwang Kongju, gave said girl a pair of shorts and one of his smaller shirts because she looked like she was floating inside the other ones, prepared breakfast for two, ate said breakfast, brushed his teeth after shaving his facial hair and finally headed out to give his Servant a tour of Lucca; such was the usual routine along with a few bonuses. Or were they bonuses? We may never know, as obviously finding an answer would be troublesome as hell.

Nonetheless, that tour had gone well; a bike was so much better than walking around the place. Thanks to the vehicle, the redhead and the shaman made a brief, but quite long trip, which ended in clothes shopping. The question one who was aware of Servants could ask would sound like: “Why the hell are you buying clothes for your Servant?”

His or her answer probably would be: “Because I wanted to see what my Servant looked like in a suit or in casual clothes. Now stop asking such troublesome questions.”

He had the results he wanted, and he pretty much confirmed that Ahwang was not one who was made to wear a suit. He still bought it; the temptation was too high for him not to skip that occasion. Along with that suit he bought a bunch of other outfits such as shirts or pants using the money he won yesterday at the casino, not that it was expensive. Tuesday was such a wonderful day, indeed. That money was put into good use, and he still had a bunch of the stuff.

After a while, the duo took a break and ended up eating something light to satisfy their hunger. Of course, as Ahwang was a Servant, she didn’t need to eat; it was because of Zack’s good nature that he paid her a meal along with the fact that he would feel like a cheap jerk if he ate food in front of someone who would have kept staring at him.

It was now around ten in the morning. The streets and sideways were supposed to be crowded by now, yet they were not as full as he expected. Here I thought it would be completely filled... Oh well. What did he know about crowds anyway? It just happened that some people got sick or something of the sort. But now that he thought of it, he remembered watching the news this morning before going out. There was an explosion somewhere in Torre Alta. More precisely, at a warehouse which is now in ruins due to said explosion. Maybe they were just scared, that’s all. But that explosion still sounds troublesome in my book... Sigh. I’ll take a look at it later.

The redheaded enforcer lifted his face toward the clouds for a few moments, thinking about how they should spend the rest of the day. Maybe they should do like Zack always did every since that war started, meaning that it was monster hunting time or whatsoever. There was also a new building under construction around where the duo was, and according to most fictitious stories where evil monsters attacked random civilians, that place was a pretty good one to begin the hunt. Reading those fiction and horror stories sure were useful when the time called for it.

His musings were also completely true; there was, indeed, something happening inside that building. He also knew what caused the lack of construction workers in the place. Not that it was confirmed, but he had the feeling that it was them. He merely waved Ahwang over as he told her to be ready for an attack. Zack removed his trusty electric baton and extended it to full length, discarding the cigarette in his mouth at the same time.

He heard the growls; he heard the sounds of bones crunching under what seems to be a powerful set of teeth. It was still morning, therefore light all but revealed the gruesome shapes of a group of hideous creatures. He saw their claws, their dissolving flesh as they groaned into the pleasure of human flesh and their protruding bones as he silently prowled toward the small group. The redhead stopped at once as he noticed that they were not alone.

There was suddenly the putrid smell of death that filled his senses, sending him a nauseating feeling. That stench was horrible. Zack groaned in annoyance, and he realized his mistake.

He could feel their eyes staring at him; he felt those dark pits in his mind. He didn’t know how much of them there was, but it was enough to outnumber him and his Servant. Of course, Ahwang would have no problems against those horrible, disgusting beasts because she was stronger than they were even if she was of the Assassin class.Thank God I summoned a Servant, or else I would be in deep shit.

From what it looked like they would be able to handle a normal person. It didn’t help that he himself was outnumbered. “Assassin, cover me.”

For a moment he wondered if he should use one of his reinforcement techniques to help himself a little. Maybe later. He gripped his electro-magnetic baton harder and pressed the button to activate it.

He couldn’t help but relish in the wonderful noise that was a taser in action. A smirk appeared on his face as he prepared himself in his usual fighting stance. With his right hand he made a gesture at the group in front of him.

“It looks like someone deserves a good shocking.” His cocky smirk only grew on his face. “Bring it on!”

With these words he charged into the fray, engaging the beasts in combat as his Servant took care of most of them. Dodge. Kick away. Zap. Hit. Dodge again. Jump. Drop-kick. Zap again. Let’s just say that his whole fight was mainly about him dodging repeatedly and hitting beasts with a baton, which was easy enough.

Though they were still outnumbered, and from what he sees there are still more of them coming after them.

“This is really troublesome; really, really troublesome.”

Yet he still continued fighting along with his Servant.

[Genessa Satellizer]

Torre Alta. According to the brochure she had read this place is home to most skyscrapers and fairly large building. You can also find the HQ of Associazione San Vito and La Corporazione Agata. Oh wow....that's really a mouthful for a non-Italian ain't it? It makes her tongue rolled just thinking about it. Nevertheless that's where the teacher of proud Instituto Privato di Nostra Signora Flora right about now. Said teacher is also walking down the streets instead of joining the mass of transports on the roads.

She had grabbed a newspaper on her way back on a whim and much to her shock (and also embarassment), which earned some curious look from the bystanders due to the amount of soda she spat after reading a certain colourful headlines on the front page.There had been an explosion nearby, perhaps the very one that became quite the talk among the teachers and several students. Apparently, the news mentioned that the reason for the explosion was a gas leak. As much as she wanted to dismiss the news as irrelevant, experience taught her not to make light of it and so she had sent Assassin to find out as much as he can from the crime scene, sending him away on intel gathering mission. The air around her had certainly light up a bit but she does not feel insecure even without Servant Assassin. She had managed to gain allies this early in the war and that actually soothes her mind just a little bit.

Or not. There's something that does not feel right with this scene. Its barely past ten but the crowds in this part of town, she's pretty sure the number is way off. Unless there's some kind of festivities or a pandemic spreading around without her knowledge, there should be a lot more people around. There's a tingling feeling within her, forcing her to raise her guard. She tried to calm down her nerves, rationalizing her thought. This feeling of uneasiness that washes over her....made her consider the possibility of calling her servant to her side before putting it off as she does not want to be berated by her own servant for being afraid of her own shadow. Its broad daylight and she's pretty sure no one would be foolish enough to attack in public anyway.

Correction. There's one now. The source of uneasiness she felt earlier seem to come from the unfinished building construction, reachable if she would just turn a bit from the street she's walking in. She looked around but there's no construction worker in sight but the sound she heard definitely came from the deserted building. Sighing, she carefully make her way in before picking up a dusty but bright yellow safety helmet sitting around there for the use of the construction worker. Safety first, she thought and smirked a little before looking in front of her.

The sight in front of her would probably petrify a lesser man. Its like she had walked into a low budget horror film. For a few moments, she even amuses herself thinking that a director of the film will come out and yell "CUT!" and ask her what she's doing here. No such thing happened however but that's not a suprise. For one, dead corpses shouldn't be this realistic. And she knows there's no way this doglike creature that had been chewing the meat are your normal everyday hound. Taking a step back, she had unsheathed her knife(a Kampfmesser2000) from her coat, the beast baring it's fangs towards her. Holding the knife with reverse grip technique, she step backward and formed her stance, slow but natural. She wasn't sure herself that engaging this beast in a CQC is a good idea but neither does turning her back and running away from it. If she were to face death then she would rather see it coming.

The beast lunges forward without any warning just as she turn to her side. Sidestepping it, her blade sings through the air and slice through the flesh of the body of the canine. It did not do much damage but the satisfying smack sound it made as it crash head-on to the pillar behind her makes up for it more than enough. Not wasting one second to revel in her successful plan, she pounced on the canine's neck and drove the blade directly inside it's head, twisting the head around to snap it's neck for good measure. She pause for a few second to make sure it's vital sign is null before drawing the blade.

"One down."she said.

Before she turn around to face her spectators. Looks like her little scuffle caught their attention.

"The rest of you to go."

[Mia Hedera]

She twitched. It felt like eyes were watching her every move, waiting for some unseen opportunity to strike. There was dread as well, a heavy presence that seemed to saturate the very air.

But she had known that would come. A ‘gas leak’ she had heard a few people talking about. An entire warehouse burnt out in an instant, perhaps an ‘accidental’ explosion. Ridiculous. There is no such thing as an accident.

Even if it was, she could find out easily what and who had caused it. Caster still amazed her. He… knew, that was best way she could put it, even the objects he looked at. With that knowledge, she could easily follow any trail left behind by whatever had caused this… devastation. She had seen a picture of it in one of the street shops she had passed while walking.

His demonstration at the library had been particularly interesting. He barely glanced at the books… if what he did could be called glancing.

Although it was still kind of weird to lead him by his hand down the street, like a woman with her aged grandfather. At least now he was wearing far more appropriate clothing. A suit. And a hat. They were rather flattering for his age, she had always liked suits though from her time with the enforcers, so she probably wasn’t the best of judges.

While he could go spirit form, he could not really track like that, so she had to get him some clothes other than hers. While the mental image of the grumpy old man wearing a suit tailored for her was quite a funny picture, she had managed to refrain from laughing. Barely.

The whole area was apparently under investigation. At least that’s what they thought, if Mia’s guess was correct. The church or perhaps some other task force of enforcers that she was not privy to, were probably managing the finds. It was almost too easy, really. An entire city had vanished from one day to the next, and yet still no one suspected a thing. According to what she had heard, it had been quite a thing to cover up. Cities don’t become craters every day after all.

She didn’t even remember how they had explained that one, but it was probably something as ridiculous as that warehouse. Perhaps a meteor… with a gas leak.

“You probably didn’t have to deal with that kind of thing, did you? No need to hide your magic in that day and age.” The temptation to check her mirror, despite it not being currently linked to any active shards, was enormous. To just reach inside the inner pocket of the tighter than it needed to be suit, and flip it open… but that was pointless.

Four silver shards were embedded carefully in each sleeve, and with a flick of a wrist she could pull one out from the inside, and plant it on anyone, in anywhere suspicious. And it was almost completely undetectable.

Not far now.

“See anything yet, Caster?”

Of course not. She was just being antsy. The likelihood they had come this way was very small as this had been a rather active plaza, at least before the building collapsed. Now, there was barely even a single person, even though they were still quite a distance from the cordoned off zone.

And that presence was just getting worse and worse. It felt like something constantly hammering at her soul, quickening her heartbeat. Twice, with just scurryings of a small animal, or a gust of wind she had almost pulled out one of the eight knives belted under her outer jacket and thrown it.

She would have killed a cat!

Then, a third noise, this one far louder than before. This time, there was no hesitation to bring the knife to her hand, and grab the tip of the blade between forefinger and thumb.

“Try not to blow it apart with magic or something, if it isn’t silent. Or…” Well he was blind. “…you can’t hit it. I’d rather not alert half the city to our presence.”

Almost as if on cue a grotesquely mutated… thing burst around the corner. It loped, slobbering towards her, and she almost nonchalantly stepped back and flipped the knife at it, retreating to the corner, attempting to drag Tiresias with her as the knife cut into its skull, or what had passed for it, and the slobbering creature slid with its continued motion down to within touching distance of her.

“What is this... thing? Is it a familiar? Caster? Can you see it?” She managed to continue to remain a little calm, but if it was a familiar, it had seen them. Then again, it was not like any familiar she had seen.

Could he tell anything about this? What would he see now? And most of all, why were these things wandering around here? Had they caused the explosion?

[Tiresias]

The new suit was nice. Much better than the old rags. Between that and the library, the day had started out quite nicely. Then she wanted to check out that warehouse that had been destroyed, and apparently he was along to break the mystery. Perfectly sensible, but the idea of having to traipse around the city to look at a broken building and pronounce that, yes, it was quite exploded, seriously did not appeal to Tiresias. He missed being dead.

And she would not stop asking questions. Not even important questions, but nervous questions, pointless words just to fill the air! Tiresias had made a game of "answering" her by grunting. A masterful grunter, he could make a wide variety of grunts for every shade of "I-don't-give-a-damn", "Whatever", "I'm-not-even-listening", with variations for emphasis, attitude, and annoyance. He could put a depth of feelings into the simplest of grunts. Too bad she wasn't much of a grunt-reader, because apparently didn't get the message. The questions continued, and she kept half glancing at her mirror, another nervous habit.

"See anything yet, Caster?" More nervous noise.

"Mrphle." A fabulous grunt, just the kind of thing you'd expect out of an irritated senior. Wooden, but with a touch of annoyance and simmering impatience. Really, what response was she expecting? The long, completely boring history of this particular plaza? How they shut it down yesterday for something that happened some distance away? Why not just wait until they're actually where things happened to ask questions?

Stupid questions. He just kept up the grunts and focused on not tripping over anything. Tiresias was quite focused on that chore, until a beast charged around the corner. That got his attention, the information of it pouring into his mind.

"Try not to blow it apart with magic or something, if it isn’t silent. Or... you can’t hit it. I’d rather not alert half the city to our presence." No danger in that, the prophet was stunned by what he'd just found out. She seemed to be far less effected by this thing... but of course. She didn't know.

Gods. We're all damned, we just don't know it. Tiresias couldn't help but know, now that the evidence was attacking. This... gods. He only had the part of the Truth that the Beast represented, but it was enough to demonstrate how wrong this all had to have gone. Who had done this thing?

The creature was from the Grail. The creature was born of corruption. The vision of Tiresias couldn't tell him for sure if the Grail itself was a corrupt thing without seeing it himself, but he knew damn well that good, proper things don't vomit out corrupted beasts, hungry for flesh and destruction. This was wrong. Something had to be done... except who the hell would believe it? The girl might, but what would she be able to do about it? And certainly none of the other participants would believe him if he started spouting nonsense about how things are broken.

Even if you have Truth, you need to be able to prove that it is indeed the Truth. The ancient prophet knew through hard-won experience that people would not react well to bad news like this. Oedipus certainly hadn't.

"What is this... thing? Is it a familiar? Caster? Can you see it?" She wanted to know what it was. Crap. Crapping crap. What was he going to do? He couldn't just lie. That was so much against what he stood for. But he didn't have to tell her everything he knew, either.

"That... was a very bad sign. How bad isn't entirely certain yet. We'll probably find out more as the war continues." Tiresias was considering his words carefully. He didn't lie, but he didn't need to explain either. "We'll have to deal with what it is at another time. It's not a familiar, though. Nobody new knows where we are. Nor could it have caused a building to explode. These... beasts, they're not very strong." No need to explain what they actually were if she was satisfied with what they were not. Hopefully it would be enough for her.

[Ahwang Kongju]

Torre Alta. Such an extraordinary place the Shaman has ever been.

This was the day that her Master will give her the tour around this city. Good thing he’s given some of his clothing that fits for her (and that she changed her hair (white to purple) and eye (red to purple) color when they’re out in public).

The tour went really well today. So many different buildings, people, and ‘transportation’ that she has never experienced from her era, even enjoys the ride of her Master’s ‘vehicle’ (a ‘bike’ maybe, that’s what he called it). Another good thing is that both of them finally bought some new clothes (such as shirts and pants, and even a suit) for her, even picked out few dresses that she find interesting to her (and one of them is a kimono), and also bought a beautiful hair clip with the design almost similar to a pinwheel with red ribbons.

After shopping, they stop by this place where they could eat. Even though a servant like Ahwang doesn’t need to eat, but her Master already bought a meal for her and decided to take his offer. At least the meal was delicious. After their break, they continue venturing through the city. She wonders what else they should go. Now, she’s wondering if there’s a book store around. Until, she realized something suspicious around here.

She thought that there would be more people around, but now there's hardly any people around … something doesn’t feel right … and that’s when they were around the site that was under construction ...

She sense that there’s something hidden there, so they went to investigate … and that’s when she heard a growl.

She saw her Master waved over to her, as if he told her to be ready for any attack. On her guard, she nodded as she materialized her ceremonial garb (including her cloak and mask) and her scythe as they come closer to the source of that sound. They finally found it … a grotesque inhuman creature, devouring its meal, with such rotten stench.

But, she had a feeling that they’re not alone … and she's right.

She remained calm and on guard as her eyes scans around the place, where more of these creatures are hidden.

Pathetic... Those things have no idea who they are up against. She has banished evil spirits before, and now it’s time for them to meet her blade.

“Assassin, cover me.” her Master ordered.

She nodded. “Understood.” She then lunged toward the enemies by slashing them multiple times with her scythe.

Even though she manages to defeat most of them, more of them came. It would’ve been nice if she could use her Noble Phantasm to summon spirits to aid her and her Master. But, since it’s still daytime, she cannot activate it. So, she continues slaying the creatures.

She noticed that one of the creatures was about lunged forward to her Master from behind that she appeared behind him just in time and raised her scythe, spinning it vertically at high-speed, striking over and over as the creature rises until it was shredded into pieces.

She turned to see her if Master is doing alright, who is still fighting against them.

Impressive... she said to herself as she saw her Master’s fighting skills before she continues.

Then, she saw two beasts charging to her, one from the left, and the other from the right. She smirks behind her mask as she stands there, waiting for them to come closer. Finally, she leapt high in the air and looked down as the two charging beast accidentally collided with each other. As she came back down, she sliced both their heads off before they had a chance.

Then one creature comes down to her as the shaman turns around. As the creature was about to pounced on to her, she vanished into thin air. Leaving the creature confused, looking at the empty spot where she should be standing, wondering where she has gone to.

It didn’t even have time to notice or be surprised when Assassin appeared behind it and sliced that beast in half.

She then leapt back to return to her Master’s side, back-to-back. No matter how many they defeated, more of them are coming after them.

“This is really troublesome; really, really troublesome.”

“It is indeed …” she replied.

So, they continued on.

[Zack Smith]

He did not remember how many times he had thought that during these past minutes, but he sure was glad that Ahwang was here to watch his back or else the chances that he would have finished as monster food would be a little above fifty percent. Of course, these were just random statistics he thought of on a whim. At least they were weak enough so he could take them head on without any major trouble.

The redhead sidestepped another beast that decided to lunge forward and promptly struck its cheek with all his weapon's might and reinforced structure, sending the monster rolling about two to four meters away. A kick to the next incoming creature was sent after a successful finisher from the shocking end of the baton. He didn't waste a fraction of second; he was always in movement, which was quite unlike his usual self and more like the enforcer side of him taking over. He finished off fallen beasts and sent some of them at Ahwang.

After a while he noticed that some of those beasts were looking somewhere else, like they had caught attention of something else other than the Master-Servant duo. It seems there are survivors... Survivors that can actually fight. If that was the truth, then maybe he could join up with him, her, or them, right? On the plus side, joining up with those persons, or that person, means that there was less chance of them dying.

Zack eyed a creature with annoyance; the rest were either meeting Ahwang's scythe or still moving out to meet the other people. "...So Gnarl, should I join them?" He asked the newly-named creature while holding his chin, not even wondering why he was talking to such a disgusting thing.

His response, of course, was said disgusting thing launching itself toward the redhead so it could grapple him.

"Don't you correct me."

With his mighty right hand he backhanded the Gnarl and immediately finished it with a couple of strikes from his weapon. For some reason, he liked that smacking noise said backhand made upon contacting the creature's cheek, and might even do it again.

"Join me when you're finished with the rest. I'm going to investigate something up ahead; survivors or something."

After saying these words in the direction of his Servant, Zack ran toward where another fighting scene was happening. There were, of course, a couple of Gnarls standing in his way who soon ended up like the others from before. He didn't even bother finishing them as he knew that Ahwang would finish them and quick, preferring to knock them all down like armored people would during their free time instead of wasting his time going out of his way to kill a few Gnarls.

It was after a few moments that would have lasted an eternity if not for Zack's realism kicking in and noting that there was but a minute that passed since he last talked to Assassin that the redhead finally caught sight of another human being, this time in a suit. Said human was fighting alone against the incoming beasts, and also appeared a little bit familiar; he couldn't put his finger on it, though.

Might as well help with crowd control.

With this thought in mind he started bashing the Gnarls around at his own satisfaction with a smirk on his face. He also felt the need to announce his presence to that woman in suit on the other side of the place.

"Reinforcement has arrived."

[Genessa Satellizer]

Three....four....five.

Genessa gave up counting and instead doubled the grip on her combat knife, her other hand reaches inside her coat for her other blades. Without body reinforcement, she can only fight about ten minutes at most before her body needed to rest. Better treat them like an army dog. Reevaluation of the target, risk assessment. Tactics, suppression from the distance before closing in for the kill. Neutralize all tally in sight and call for back-up.

"Reinforcement has arrived."

And that was the cue. As if broken from their trance, the hound-like beasts made a mad dash towards them like bats from hell. Individually, they do no pose much threat but as collective, even she will end up as a bloody mass on the ground.These hounds will either tear her apart like a school of pirannhas or crush her down like rhinoceros stampede. Her heart beats even faster at the thought, the exhilaration on how close she'll brush with death. No time to judge the distance, no time to count the rotation, the tallies already moving for the kill.

3 FS knife flew through the air and after that she already blitz to the right flank. She doesn't need to ascertain visually whether the knives connect with their target, the sickening sound they made when they connect confirmed so. A small smirk shown briefly on her face, as she watch they're forced to break their ranks.

A non-rotating knife style are usually employed in such a way that they fly straight into the target with little or no rotation, in the manner of a javelin. This is usually accomplished by a throw that resembles a shot put, accompanied by a slight downward flick of the wrist as the knife is released, in order to cancel out momentum accumulated in accelerating the knife. They are more difficult than the rotating type and perhaps less accurate but when the targets is closing on you instead of running away, the chances that it will hit increases.

One of the hound flew straight for her throat but she manage to grab it's muzzle first, smashing it's head against the wall before stabbing him, twice in the head before letting go. The one aiming for her ankle got gutted with her shoe blade and flew away like a football and she barely duck from the last one, it's paws knocking off the safety helmet. Had she not wore it, her forehead would probably be bleeding by now. She scrambled back up and spin around to face the hound which had changed it's target towards her wrist. Pivoting sideways, she yanked it's tail just in time, before smashing it down to the floor. Not wasting time, her feet stomped downward towards it's head before kicking it away from her.


An eerie silence filled the ground floor, magnifying the sound of heavy breathing by a tenfold. Her heart won't stop pumping like crazy, her body still feel the rush of adrenaline. Pulling her coat slightly to straighten it up she turned to face the newcomer.

"You sure know how to throw a party, Zack Smith."

[Mia Hedera]

…

Did he really think he could get away with not telling her what it was? She could not stand being left out of the loop. At all. If he was even truly hiding something. Perhaps … that’s the way he is?

Was he hiding anything? And why would he have a reason to lie to her anyways? I’ll have to ask him later. Paranoia crept into her heart. If he was lying, why would he?

Then again no matter how he had responded, she would have been worried about him lying to her. It was just in her nature to second guess information she had not procured herself.

If the slobbering creature had not destroyed the warehouse, had not been capable of destroying it, it must have been a Servant. This was a Grail War. Accidents did not happen. Especially gas leaks. It was a point of hers to never trust ‘official’ stories. She had helped rewrite enough of them to know never to believe anything that she had not seen herself.

Eyes like the prophet she had as a Servant would have been incredible for that. Of course if she had to be blind in exchange for them… She was about to wrench the throwing knife free from the beast’s skull, but just as she reached down to grab it, the creature faded into dust and the knife clacked harmlessly onto the pavement.

She shot a glance back at her Servant, and he only grunted as she opened her mouth. Of course he knew exactly what she was about to ask. He probably even knew that she doubted him. And from what she remembered about him from her bare knowledge of Greek Myth, that had happened a few times.

He really did not look like someone who would respond well to doubt. So she dropped the matter, at least for now.

Still, the beast was interesting. While it was not proof of anything, it was proof of something. It gave her suspicions a base.

They moved as silent as possible, for a blind Servant and his Master that had to lead him by hand. Progressing slowly towards a large mass of these… things, at least so her Servant said. If she could kill one so easily, there wasn’t much to worry about though. If all else failed, Tiresias could likely drink tea, sit down, and wave his hand as the creatures exploded.

There was very little distance remaining between them and the building now, in fact she just needed to find a door.

“Hey, Caster,” She had reverted to that, just in case someone was nearby, “Can your eyes tell me whe-“

Skittering.

She heard tens, perhaps hundreds of nails, bony scrapings, as if someone was tapping pieces of chalk on a blackboard. Over and over again, and with great haste.

They were just around the corner now!

“Caster! Can y-“ No, that was an obvious and useless question. Even if a great magus of his magnitude couldn’t sense them, he could certainly hear them too.

Either way, her question would have been halted at the sight of what came loping around the corner. Lions.

No, only their shape resembled a lion. They oozed dark blood, dripping, splashing. Spikes, cruel spikes ripped through what may have been flesh at one time. White spikes, bone crunching, grating, rubbing together. What had once been the sound of chalk was now tearing, popping and grinding of two things that would never fit.

And their eyes… that was the worst. They were burning, white holes in its head. Glaring sources of light. Even if she could not tell where they were looking, she knew they saw her.

She felt rooted to the spot; in too much fear to move. Magecraft? Her circuits instantly flooded, purging the bindings from her body. These creatures could use magecraft!

There were not merely a few of them either. There were at least six of them, accompanied by a few slobbering beasts from earlier, that had been working their way to the building she was after. Something was definitely in there.

But now their course was changed. She was the target. Her and her Servant. While fear gripped at her heart, at this point it would be useless. Rationally she didn’t even have enough weapons to even consider fighting them all.

Well that means the time for stealth is over.

“Caster! Anything you can do at this point would be greatly appreciated!” A knife flew out towards the lead bone…thing, and was completely ineffective against the gnashing bone skin. The knife itself bounced off and skidded along the ground to the left of it.

Hopefully he could do something that wouldn’t involve levelling the entire alley. Burnt things tended to provide very little information.

She would much rather he do that then let her die though. At this point, her life was far more important than secrets.

[Tiresias]

ASTEM.

The word flooded his mind as several of them walked into view, clicking and skittering as their bones moved irregularly over each other, sometimes breaking, sometimes catching on each other. The monsters apparently didn't feel pain from it. Unnatural beasts! The blind seer obviously did not see how horrible they looked, but all that clicking and scraping told him exactly how monstrous they were; no natural, living thing breaks and clicks from the most basic of movements.

His master apparently was going to a hard time with them. She didn't have anything readied that could fight the beasts, and it was clear as day to Tiresias that she was no more appropriate for combat than he was. What a joke, a master-servant pair and neither of them specializing in combat. If only she knew how to fight. Or if only he wasn't a blind old man!

"Caster! Anything you can do at this point would be greatly appreciated!" Apparently she was throwing knives; one of them made a dull thunk bouncing off the beast's skin. Embarrassingly silly, the idea of them fighting these beasts as-is. She can't outmatch them, and he certainly can't hit them. Though his old slave/servant boys had always been able to handle being temporarily 'improved' to do a particular task. So why wouldn't she?

"Exactly what am I supposed to do, Master? Use my pinpoint aim to pick them off?" Ugh, what a stupid idea."Here, you kill the unnatural spawn."

With that, the Blind Prophet muttered something ancient and incomprehensible. His raised hand glowed slightly, and his master's body began to glow with it, the spell taking effect. Reinforcement ran through all of his master's limbs, increasing her strength, speed, and durability. She could probably punch them hard enough to cave their heads in now, and certainly could move faster than them. More powerful than a locomotive, as one of those library books had described that storybook hero, but not quite faster than a speeding bullet (Though certainly fast enough for a car). He muttered a second time, and this time a few of her knives had the same effect, strengthening and sharpening through high-level reinforcement. Childs-play to Tiresias, and the sort of magecraft that wouldn't even dent his reserves.

"There, you're a lean-mean, killing machine. You can probably manhandle the rotten bastards, and your knives won't have any more problems with their... whatever the hell you want to call that. Flesh, bone, something. Kill them. Float like a butterfly, sting like a platypus, all that rubbish."

Tiresias himself simply stood where he was, and concentrated. The beasts were damned noisy, with all the clicks and sounds of snapping bones. He could almost tell where they were... almost. He didn't want to risk casting something and risk hitting something that decidedly wasn't one of the beasts, like a wall. Or his master. Killing her with a badly aimed lightning bolt would be an embarassing way to leave the War, that was certain.

And while that would get him back to his rest, these beasts represented something very wrong with the system, and he wanted to be sure he knew precisely what it was... and so the Blind Prophet, Tiresias of Thebes, no longer wished to be removed from the war.

[Ahwang Kongju]

She lost track of times of how long they’ve been fighting. However, she realized something. She notices some of these creatures went off somewhere as if there are other preys out there.

“Join me when you're finished with the rest. I'm going to investigate something up ahead; survivors or something."

She nodded, “Be careful.” she said to him as he left. Then she turned her attention to the remaining number of these monsters and lunged forward. While dodging and reaping them, the number of them slowly decreased.

Seeing two of these beasts charging forward her, she swings her scythe at them, sending most of them flying in mid-air, and she leapt up to them and brought her scythe down before they hit the ground.

As she landed, she looked around at the last eight creatures surrounding her. She waited. Foolishly, they all pounce at her.

Right on cue, she spins herself at such speed and grace with her scythe in a circle-style slash, cutting every beast in two. As she finished, she looked around. Many have fallen, and many disappeared. She’s done here.

Now she must return to her Master. She dashed toward the direction where her Master headed.

[Zack Smith]

That woman was quite the fighter, really. The way she twirled that knife around, the way she threw it in a straight line for the kill, the way she moved her body as the obvious feeling of adrenaline invaded her. She was fast and deadly; it was such a wonderful sight to see between kills. The man was having that same feeling of adrenaline, having chosen not to activate his precious body reinforcement spell just so he could preserve prana. His hands were shaking, his heart was beating but he was still fighting; he still was getting the kills.

The redhead allowed the place to hear his adrenaline-induced taunts and laughter as he fought. Now, unlike the other person, he was strictly but a close-range fighter when not firing spells like a madman. Because of that he was more at risk when outnumbered, especially considering that those hounds were perfectly capable of ripping apart a normal human being with ease.

Sharp pain travelled his nerves from his left arm, feeling a set of teeth sinking through the flesh. The enforcer’s face contorted in pain; he had to stop that thing from going further. His once-cocky face transformed itself into a mask of anger, scowling at the beast that had bitten his arm.

With his freed arm he swiftly guided his baton into the opened gap the hound’s maw was exposing. Activating the shocking feature once again, Zack pushed down on his weapon, having the effect of both electrocuting the monster as well as freeing his now bloody arm from the massive set of teeth.

“Damn it!” His arm was in pain. “Kkh...”

He decided to let it rest a little, making it hang around like a useless toy as he fought one-armed. He could taste the sweat in his mouth, which left quite the odd taste. It was nearly over; the number of remaining beasts was getting lower and lower, suffering from a man and a woman’s attacks.

The next moments were starting to tire him out. It didn’t help that he was fighting one-armed against one or two beasts at a time, the rest of them apparently deciding to adopt a strategy that involved attacking one by one. Kind of like an idiotic cavalry who apparently can’t decide to attack all at once. A hound launched itself toward his throat, aiming for the kill. A kill that was promptly denied as it suffered from a shock baton to its side, propelling it toward another of its brethren. The last one was there, and was quickly dispatched by a fatal hit via stomping.

He suddenly heard his name coming from the woman after a moment of silence. So she knew him? ...No wonder she seemed so familiar. Heavy breathing came from the two of them, both staring at each other. Deciding not to show the woman that he was in pain, Zack formed a smirk as he turned off his rod and pressed the tip of it on his jaw, pushing it toward. This had the effect of making it shrink until it went back to its default form.

“You know me too well,” He said on a more relaxed tone. “Fancy meeting you here, Genessa Satellizer; hope it was not too troublesome for you to team up with me.”

[Ishikawa Goemon]

Goemon was most pleased by his masters show. These....things. These disgusting, unnatural, horrible creatures that would send grown men screaming were being fought off by his silver-haired owner. Wonderful. Originally he had sensed his masters danger; some kind of connection he inhereited from their contract, an ability that would set off alarms in his head whenever he felt in her in need of his protection. No, wait, a better way of describing it would be whenever she felt she was in danger. Whether or not she needed him to save her was an entirely different matter.

She was doing well, having already slain a few and still pressing on. The numbers were waring her down however, her breathing increasing and her movements slowing. Goemon was having a quiet dilema within himself: Help his master now and spare her the exhaustion? or let her continue and test the limits of her capabilities? He was already here, concealed in the shadows and ignored by both beast and man. She would be safe with her persudo guardian angel keeping watch; if these beasts were all they had to worry about that is. Sadly that was not the case. He could hear the sounds of battle taking place throughout the building. While his master might have missed the shrieks and howls of agony in her battle fury Goemon was in a perfectly calm state of mind. He knew they weren't the only ones fighting off these horrors given form.

And he was correct, a red haired man having made his way over to Goemon's master. They were familiar with one another, dressed the same way, he could fight off the beasts himself....yep, this man was an "Enforcer". Goemon let himself tense, slightly. This man could be a potential master, and friendships had this nasty habit of being shattered in wartimes. Or over anything, for that matter. They were fragile things really. So what's to say this man wouldn't strike down his master given the chance?

But he would watch, and wait, and strike the man down if need be. Goemon was not having his chance at freedom cut down so soon. Not like this.

[Genessa Satellizer]

“You know me too well,” He said on a more relaxed tone. “Fancy meeting you here, Genessa Satellizer; hope it was not too troublesome for you to team up with me.”

She takes a few more seconds to recompose herself, studying him now with more interest. A red head, with long pony tail swishing to and fro, carrying his trademark of taser baton on one of his hand. It seems that he had suffered an injury on his arm during his last exchange with the beasts, but still able to use it to some extent. What is more suprising is that the enforcer, was breathing as hard as she was. He should be able to make short work of the beasts but instead rely on his baton of his and his unenhanced physical ability of his.

Honestly....did he play around too much?

Letting out a sigh inwardly, she gave him the tiniest of nod. Her plan was to called out her subordinates and helped her out but if Zack is here then they should be fine. However, she now begin to wonder just how many Turks Enforcers assigned to this place. The Holy Church would surely gets uneasy as more and more of them shows up.

Her train of thoughts stopped rather abruptly as she heard another odd sound. Clicking, scratching noises that definitely don't belong to the building under construction any more than they do. They sounded very close and yet not within their immediate point of view which means whatever things that makes those unearthly noise were just nearby. Enemy reinforcement? A muffled yell confirmed her suspicion and immediately she grabs the throwing knives, flicking them harshly to get rid of the mess.

"Looks like they let the whole circus out. Let's give them a warm welcome for their effort eh?"

[Mia Hedera]

"Exactly what am I supposed to do, Master? Use my pinpoint aim to pick them off? Here, you kill the unnatural spawn.” There was a moment of focus, and a single impossible word. And then… it felt… incredible. Her body even her heart was beating stronger. Every muscle improved, her nerves fired faster, everything.

What he just did was impossible! She had just been reinforced, strengthened by magecraft. Someone else’s magecraft. Something she had never learned, only managing to ever strengthen her eyes. Even learning that… had had drawbacks.

Another word and power incomprehensible to her washed over the knives belted under her clothes. She was still in shock at what he had done to her and barely had time to throw one, which tore through an entire beast of bleeding bone, and left a long gouge in the cement past the creature.

Then the remaining five and a few creatures were upon her without hesitation, not even noticing one of their comrades being down.

She was not the most adept knife fighter, she knew that, rather she relied on throwing them, but she could still be qualified as average with them. One was pulled from the crossed vest underneath her clothes, the first one that came to hand, and plunged deep into the first creature’s brain.

At least that was the goal. However the force of the thrust, as well as the easiness of the knife slipping through the drooling creature’s skull was highly unexpected. Her hand followed through, finding what could be classified as no resistance, dragging the creature’s head down until her hand slammed it against the ground, completely destroying the head of it.

Something… splattered all over her, and disappeared almost as fast. It wasn’t blood, but… something.

“What!?” She was completely taken aback by the power that now ran through her. There was no control in her movements, even her bare left hand could crush a bone creature, and did in a flailing attempt to push it away.

She snapped one of its legs off.

The splinters of bone ripped into her hand, leaving a long gash along her palm as the thing… departed. It had a moment of flight, before going to pieces on contact with the ground.

The sounds were terrible.

While there was no real need to use knives, she still did mainly to keep her hands from getting injured again. These beasts knew no retreat and so she would deal with them. Harshly.

It was still awkward, as she was not sure of her full limits of strength, pushing everything into each blow. A kick that moved through the air faster than she ever could before snapped the spine of another bone beast. A desperate backing swing of a knife sliced a creature’s head in half, leaving it gibbering on the ground madly for a second.

One attempted to tear into the back of her thigh with a savage growl and she brought the knife back blindly, puncturing the hound’s eyes, ramming through one side of the skull and out the other.. She drew another.

It was desperation, and looked incredibly weird, even to her, as she tried to carefully test the limits without over extending herself. A knee that was supposed to be lighter than before completely destroyed one of the beast’s necks, leaving it flopping on barely a flap.

Disgusting.

Finally she was down to the last few creatures, and she was fairly sure of the measure of her strength now… well the best that one could be.

The final bone lion, not disconcerted at all by the loss of its comrades, lunged at her and she felt the thing deserved something special. In confidence she dropped the knife in her hand, pivoting on the heel of her not-destroyed boot and grabbed the lunging lion with both hands along the throat.

Not only was she stronger, she was faster too.

Momentarily considering crushing the snarling thing’s neck and deciding against it, she planted her feet and took aim. And threw the bone beast.

Straight at a wall, surely the thing could take it. She wanted to see the beast break into pieces, shatter underneath the force and collision with a building. Every bit of force she could muster was behind that toss.

Well it did break apart.

It smashed into the wall with more force than as if it were a sledgehammer. The result of that was… predictable. The wall was no hindrance to its traveling form, instead only breaking off the creature’s limbs as it smashed through the layer of drywall, and a stud, before thudding on the ground inside and breaking into glowing mist.

Inside… there were others. Two of them, to be exact. Both were looking at the hole, looking at her. Judging by the damage on them and their clothes they had been fighting.

Magi… they have to be. The only other Magi in the war were likely to be Masters. If it were not daylight her likely first reaction would have been to tell Caster to destroy the building. If they were not fighting beasts either.

For now it seemed likely that the enemy of her enemy would be her friend for a while. However she did not want to miss an opportunity to gather information. Her cuffs still had the pieces of mirror threaded in them, but more important was getting Caster to see them.

So she communicated with him by thought. It was awkward, and hard to do, but necessary. ”Caster, please come here and see these two... and thanks.” He had saved her life after all... even if he made her do it.

Meanwhile she would call out to them. She would soon know who they were, there was only need to stall them for a second.

Maybe even her appearance would distract them. Earlier she had been in perfect condition, groomed and excellent. Now she was bleeding from at least three places, and her careful suit had numerous tears in it.

Her hair was also a complete mess, the wind from her movement leaving it frizzed and messed up completely. She wasn;t sure quite how it looked, so idly ran her right hand through it, trying to give it some sense of decency.

“Ummm, any chance you two need a bit of help in there?” What a dumb thing to say, of course they would need help. Strangely, the more she looked at the two of them, the more familiar they seemed, but she could place neither of them. Not that she would need to remember soon.

She would know.

[Tiresias]

"Master" Mia had certainly done well against the monstrosities. Very good, since actually hitting them would be a problem for someone that can't see, and Tiresias was very much not a proponent of large-scale destruction as a method of disposing of gnats. The Astem were not at all that powerful.

And putting one through a wall was a pretty clear demonstration of how much of a threat the spawned beasts were to one such as he and his master. A human would have problems. In fact, the number of Astem in the general area seemed to indicate there was a lot of them. It would not be good for the secrecy of the war if they managed to spread. "Gas leak" doesn't quite cut it when brass-and-bone lion monsters start attacking people in public.

”Caster, please come here and see these two... and thanks.”

Oh gods dammit, the telepathy link. It made the ancient prophet's mind itch. Being thanked was nice, but having your thinking meats caressed awkwardly by someone clearly not used to the link made the short hairs of his neck bristle.

The loudness of the monstrance smashing through the wall was a pretty clear indicator of where the hole was at, and his Master introducing herself gave the blind man a clear idea of where he needed to "look". Tiresias quietly moved a short distance to give himself a good angle, hoping he wouldn't be spotted but very aware that it's hard to sneak when you don't even know where the shadows are exactly at.

Looking in, he let his Eyes of Truth tell him all that must be known.

Masters, both. Masters of Assassins. Dammit. Both of them were also combat oriented magi, with power over lightning. He laughed a little inside at that; their sparks had nothing on the glory of Zeus. The lightning Tiresias could call made their power seem pale in comparison... except they could aim, and his master was standing over there, and goddamn assassins are not likely to wander into his "view" unless they were aware he was blind and unaware that mattered very little to his Vision.

Gods. This was a terrible position to be in. At least they weren't fighting each other. They may not leap at our throats. They didn't seem aware of each other as Masters yet, mostly focused on the fact that they recognized each other as Enforcers. The lazy one didn't seem to be the sort to start a fight, and the maid was shrewd enough to see that fighting wasn't a great idea here, but was that something to count on?

The prophet answered his master's request through their link, though Tiresias was better at it than Mia's attempt. "They're both Enforcers, and Masters commanding Assassins. I don't expect them to want to fight, but keep in mind that all Masters are enemies." At least until he'd confirmed his suspicions about the War. In which case they were all victims waiting to happen.

"I will attempt to locate and identify the assassins. They can't hide from my eyes, but that requires them to be in my view. I could cast something to attempt to locate them, but that would make it quite obvious to your associates what I am and could be seen as a sort of hostility, so I'll only do that if ordered." Any sort of detection spells would not only reveal his Class (Not that it's hard to guess), but that he somehow knew Assassins were about despite not having seen them. Best not to use such active measures. Instead, the prophet simply stepped to back until he was against the wall of the alley, and still watching the hole. Any approach would have to come from in front or above, giving him at least a chance of "seeing" the culprit before they were upon him.

He would have to rely on his own Master's ability to keep things cordial. If he was lucky, they might even let their Servant partners into view. If not, at least they could avoid hostility.

[Ahwang Kongju]

Ahwang ran as quickly as possible to reach to her destination where Zack would be. While dashing, she somehow sense something… a Servant or two maybe … but she’s not sure… She’ll deal with that later; all she’s concentrating on is the join up with her Master.

As she finally arrived, her eyes widen behind her mask when she saw Master’s current state as her heart sank.

His arm is bleeding, and it looks like he’s in pain, exhausted. Zack…

She almost had a flashback of her past, how there was a incident when she saw her villagers in pain from the increasing number of evil spirits and the curse, nearly all of them died instantly in front of her before she could save them. Because of this, she had to sacrifice herself to bring peace to the village.

She snaps back to reality when she saw more of those wicked beings coming. With such speed, she blocked the entrance and swipes them away with her scythe.

She failed to save half of her village in the past, so she’s not going to let this happen again to her Master.

“Stay away from him!” she growled, red glowing orbs behind her mask filled with rage. Most of them growled back at her and charged at her, she then lunged forward to the enemies, preventing them from entering the site where her Master and his allies are.

[Zack Smith]

(Sorry for being late. Studies and all kept me away for a while. In this post, I decided to place Mia's appearance before the clicking sounds due to the obvious reason that talking is not a free action xD Anyway. Enjoy the lame post.)

Unconsciously guiding his hand toward the inside pocket of his jacket due to habit, Zack took out that same carton of cigarettes and immediately stuck one of the many cancer sticks inside to his lips. As much as this action was unfitting for a situation such as this, it did help him think a little. What was one of Lorelei Barthomeloi's lap dogs doing here in Lucca? As he recalled, he never heard that there would be other Enforcers in this place except himself. Just how many were there?

Hearing the familiar clicking noise of his lighter, he brought the fire to the tip of his cigarette, lighting it as he thought about the situation.

Until he heard a wall crumble nearby along with one of those beasts thudding on the ground. The bone lion vanished in the exact same fashion as the others did.

This event was clearly a sign that there was a third party in this battle, and the chances that he or she would be an ally were still high, considering that one of those wretches got murdered via being thrown through a wall. Zack took this cue to look at the hole formed by the “sledgehammer” and saw who caused this.

”Just my luck... another powerhouse of a woman...” Staring at him through the hole was a short-haired blonde woman in a suit as clean as the one he wore. That is, tattered and bloody from the fighting. Much like Genessa earlier, this person seemed eerily familiar to him as if he already saw or met her somewhere at the Association. She had to be a Magus, considering that she just kicked the ass of one of those beasts. ”...Why do women always appear when I'm somewhere? First it was that blonde with her bodyguard, then my Servant... then those two...” It certainly didn't help that said women were powerhouses... Troublesome.

A new person decided to show himself through the opening of the hole as he thought. Instead of yet another lady, this one was an old man in a suit. ”Everyone is wearing a suit today, I see.” Deciding not to think too much, Zack disregarded the staring old man and thought it was a good idea to respond to the newcomer's question.

“What do you think?” His tone of voice was tense as heard odd sounds that shouldn't belong in this place. More clicking; more unnatural scratching noises could be heard in the nearest proximity. Audibly sighing, the redhead believed that reinforcements were coming toward them to avenge their fallen comrades. Do they even have the mind to think about fallen comrades? Apparently, yes; those monsters had the very same mindset of the common wolf without their alpha male shtick.

“Now you're talking.”

He slowly prepared himself for yet another battle. Here I thought that accepting this job would be much easier to me... What a drag. Clearly engaging monsters every day was not in the contract, you see. Zack Smith was an Enforcer and not a Monster Hunter. The Magus sighed as he prepared his baton once again, ready for action.

[Ishikawa Goemon]

[] I get to post as Goemon for a change *squee*...too bad it's rushed. And sorry for the lateness. []


Goemon moved, from shadow to shadow he silently relocated to a more preferable position. The other combatants within the battle worn building had finally converged on this location and having another servant so close to his master was giving him a creeping feeling. Kneeling in the shadows, Goemon observed the new arrival.

She was a tiny girl, at least compared to that master of hers, and was dressed in what appeared to be ceremonial cloth. The coloring and style gave off an Asian vibe; as did the giant scythe she was using to carve the monsters a new one. While her choice of weapon amused Goemon he still kept in mind that this was a servant and that she could kill his master barehanded if she wished. Everyone was a threat until proven otherwise. At least Goemon confirmed the red heads participation in the war, along with his servant.

While keeping an eye on the two in front of him, Goemon lent an ear to the other occupants of this building. After smashing through the wall and sending a few more of the beasts flying in, a woman called out to his master and her "friend". Goemon, for the sake of paranoia and the gut wrenching feeling he was getting, would assume the woman had her own servant that had bashed its way into the next room. Or maybe she herself was a servant? Annoying. And her call, while acknowledged, was disregarded in favor of fending off the seemingly infinite waves of relentless bone creatures.

Goemon, acknowledging the potential of two servants in his immediate area, kept to the shadows and watch over his master. He wanted to keep the element of surprise should the -maybe- servant on the other side of the makeshift hole choose to strike. Besides, the nin was practically breathing down his masters neck; he could pull her out of the way should the need arise.