Visiting the Shrine (Open, Party of 2)

[Marina Mikami]

Marina carefully approached the shrine. She didn't normally visit any shrines in the day, let alone at night. However, she felt like she needed to start expanding her search of the areas that shadows were drawn to. After all, the supermarket enemies in this area were starting to not be as much of a challenge anymore. Not that she was really hoping to encounter shadows now. No, she felt like this could possibly be a better place to explore for clues about what was happening. At least better than the supermarket. 

She stopped and stared at the shrine for a moment. It didn't really look that different from any other shrine. Maybe, there wasn't anything special about it. Well, standing here staring at it wasn't going to do much to change her mind or suddenly allow her to figure things out. She took a small breath and let it out as she approached the entrance. She hoped she at least found something useful, if anything. And if shadows showed up...she'd take care of them.

[Ariane Ivers]

Anne was on her way home moderately late, as had become the norm, from prowling about in one of the portals and finding nothing of substance.  Dressed as had become the norm for her hunting, Anne was wearing a gray tank top underneath her leather jacket, with dark jeans tucked into her heavy boots.  Her knuckles were wrapped in their usual leather straps, and the Evoker that normally found it's home in her bad during the day was now strapped to her thigh.

It seemed that lately it had been getting harder and harder to find anything.  Granted, it wasn't as though finding clues was particularly easy before, but at least it had seemed like they were making some progress.  Now it just seemed like all they were doing was taking their frustrations out on the small fry waiting for something big to show up again.  Hopefully, if it happened (which Anne felt was highly likely), they would get more answers than questions than they did against Cerby.  

Stifling a yawn, she was about to pass by the shrine when she saw blue out of the corner of her eye.  Scrunching her eyebrows together, she blinked.  She had only caught a glimpse of them, but whoever it was definitely looked familiar.  It wasn't often one was dressed in a full coat like that, but... that just didn't make sense.

Changing direction, she followed in after, hand hovering by the Evoker just in case it was a trap.  She wouldn't be surprised considering the things she fought every day, anyway.  Once she was inside the shrine grounds, her eyes widened in surprise as she saw who it was.  So she wasn't imagining things, and she couldn't contain the surprise in her voice as she called out without thinking, "Rini?"

While a part of her wondered if she had just accidentally stumbled into the dark hour and needed help, the other woman's demeanor said otherwise.  She certainly didn't look like someone who hadn't been in the dark hour yet─Anne knew from experience.  Still, it was startling to see the woman from her shop the other day standing here comfortably in the Dark Hour.

[Satanick]

Enduring Seeker
Resist: Ice
Weak: Slash
Skills: Bufula, Mudoon, Mediarama

Crusader Sigil
Resist: Dark
Weak: Light
Skills: Mahamaon, Infuriate, Agilao

[Marina Mikami]

Marina had begun looking around the shrine, not even really sure what to be looking for. She wasn't even entirely convinced that there would be anything here. However, that didn't stop her from looking. She held her parasol tighter, prepared for shadows if they showed up. She had gotten lucky so far, but that luck usually ran out. Suddenly, she thought she heard a noise. It sounded like it came from the entrance. Marina slowly started approaching it, ready to attack if needed.

It was then she saw a familiar face come through and say her name. It was the florist she had met not too long ago. It was surprising to say the least. "Anne?" she responded back just about as confused as the other woman seemed. This was definitely not what she expected to run into when she had gone out today. However, there was not time for small talk. Soon two shadows appeared. One was a head looming thing with extra eyeballs coming out of its forehead. Creepy and gross. The other looked like some kind of spell caster, with assorted pages from something surrounding it.

Time for a decision. From the way Anne appeared, she seemed like she could probably handle herself. Just to be safe though, Apsaras was summoned and both started to wave their arms around. First, she aimed at Anne, making her stronger for a little bit. She then started up again to allow herself to be stronger as well. Just as she finished, she felt...something hit her. It didn't seem to do anything, but for some reason she felt...slightly angrier than normal?

She turned to face the spell caster. She rushed over and hit it with her parasol, trying to hit and not the floating pieces of paper protecting it. She didn't get it the first time, but quickly followed up with another hit that managed to land on the shadow itself. It retaliated with a fire ball, larger than one she had seen before. She tried to hold up the parasol to block it, but it was too fast and she could feel sudden intense heat. Her body burned, but she endured the attack. Marina slowly raised her hand and aimed it at the caster, snapping her fingers at the same time her Persona did. A ball of ice formed above the shadow and fell, landing right on its head.

The attack seemed to affect it, since the pieces of paper surrounding it started to fall to the floor. She raised her arm up again and summoned another ball of ice, crushing the shadow as it finally shot another fireball in her direction. It managed to hit her arm. She was feeling tired now, but she had a spell to fix that. Hopefully Anne was doing okay against the other creature, Marina needed a minute to catch her breath.

[Ariane Ivers]

Before they had any time to do much more than stare dumbly at one another, they had company.  Groaning in annoyance, Anne narrowed her eyes at the creepy as heck head and cracked her knuckles.  The spell Rini cast on her made her feel a heck of a lot stronger than usual, and coupled with her already limber muscles she was pretty sure her look alone could kill the small fry in front of her.  Sadly, it didn't work that way.  Sprinting in towards it, she pulled her arm back and gave the creep a straight punch right in it's center eye, followed by another quick jab with her other arm, and it fizzled in a puff of smoke.  She had to admit, between her ring and Cery's spell, she almost didn't need luck.  Almost.  There was that one big fight when she hadn't been able to land a good hit for the life of her...

Shrugging, she turned hurriedly to make sure the other woman was okay, but other than looking pretty pissed off it looked like she was handling herself pretty well.  Once it was over, Anne walked over, shaking her head in disbelief.  "Well, I have to admit when you came into my shop I never expected you to be in on all of this too."  As the other woman caught her breath, Anne noted that while she had seen Marina's persona, she hadn't seen Anne's.  Feeling a little guilty, the redhead smoothly drew the Evoker from it's holster and spun it before holding it to her temple and pulling the trigger.  It had become such a habit during this time that she hadn't even thought of the fact that the other woman obviously didn't know what it was and may have been unnerved by it.

With the sound of shattered glass, the Cerynitian Hind stood over her for a moment, red eyes peering out from under her mask before softly fading away.  "There, now we're on more equal footing.  It almost felt rude seeing yours without showing you mine, y'know?"  She laughed a little, shrugging.  The laugh faded though, and Anne rubbed the back of her neck, "Howabout we get together tomorrow, to actually talk all this out?  It may not be the fun get together we planned on, but once we're done talking about all this nonsense we can actually talk fun.  Sound good?"