In Our Prime (Open, party of two)

[Tristan Carter]

Tristan took a deep breath. The air was stagnant and oppressing, but he couldn't help it. His deep breathing was reflexive, a way to purge the Dark World's air from his lungs. Not that it worked, of course. He was dressed in normal clothes still, a dark red tee and some jeans, and he felt he really needed to find a way to stop getting his clothes damaged.

He looked around, waiting for someone else to show up. He figured that there would always be someone else exploring, and it was probably better to wait than to try to take on something on his own. Not to mention the fact that this almost seemed to follow game logic. And, if that were the case, who knew when the first boss appeared? What he needed was to get stronger and work on what his role in a fight might be. For that, he needed a team to work with

[Ariane Ivers]

With at least a few battles under her belt, Ariane was feeling much more confident.  Not to mention just the smallest bit stronger, and stronger was always a nice feeling.  Recently the Hind had a new trick up her sleeve that made Ariane feel so much more limber right from the get-go, and she was rearing to try it out.  What better way than to figure out this strange alternate reality of her town a little bit more?  If they could get lucky, maybe sometime soon another baddie would come out of the shadows to shed a little bit more light on the situation.  Hehe.  Light coming out of the shadows.

Shaking her head at her own bad joke, her lips curled upwards in amusement.  She was dressed just as she usually was, a boring tee-shirt and jeans with her heavy boots.  It didn't take long for her to realize wearing jackets here was not only pointless but a waste of good materials.  Glancing around as she tried not to giggle at her own stupidity, she noticed someone not far from where she was.  Slowly approaching them with her hands held in a passive 'I swear I'm not one of those creepy crawlies' gesture, she quietly called out when she was closer.  "Hey, need a hand fighting any of the creepers in the area?"  Hesitating for a moment she remembered her terrible manners the last few times she had encountered anyone here and continued, "I'm Ivers Ariane, by the way.  But Anne is just fine."

Just as she finished introducing herself, movement caught out of the corner of her eye.  Flexing her knuckles under their bright green handwraps she turned towards it.  "Hey, right on cue.  Imagine that."  With a swift movement she took the evoker from it's holster and pointed it to her forehead, squeezing the trigger.  As soon as the woman in the antlered mask materialized, Ariane felt her muscles limber as she readied for the incoming battle.

[Alice]

Hey! Yo! Let's go!

High Pixie
Null: Lightning
Resist: Wind
Weakness: Fire
Skills: Zionga, Mazio, Garu, Media

Elf
Null: Wind
Weak: Fire
Skills: Garu, Lullaby, Recarm

[Tristan Carter]

Tristan wasn't surprised so much by the fact that there was a person approaching him. No, he was more surprised by the fact that they were keeping themselves wide open to attack. When the woman (clearly older than him, but not by much) introduced herself, Tristan found himself realizing that there were going to be more people that treated the occurrences like a game rather than a matter of life and death. He made sure to keep these thoughts to himself, putting on a sheepish expression instead.

"It's, uh, nice. To meet you, I mean," the boy said, flustered, when the woman introduced herself. He may have thought she was a touch too open, but he still found himself facing difficulty in meeting people. "I'm Tristan. As for help, I wouldn't really mind, so long as you can handle yourself." As he said that, some of the monsters appeared, as if drawn to their presences.

"You know, it's almost really scary," Tristan started, getting into a battle stance as he willed Odysseus into existence. The Persona shot a ball of darkness at the one adorned in some sort of armor. "I mean, we, as a group of individuals, have been coming out here to hunt these things, right? Usually, though," he said as Odysseus again appeared, this time cutting down at the fairie-looking thing. "Usually, the prey avoids the predators. Right?" He finished asking his question, just in time to be zapped by electricity, bringing him to his knees. "So, since they come right for us, I'd say they aren't the prey in this circle of life. But we do the same thing in regards to them."

He summoned Odysseus one more time, shooting another ball of darkness and destroying the fairy. "I guess what I'm asking is, what do you think our role in all of this is? We aren't predator, we aren't prey. I'd say the closest thing we are would be a virus and these monsters the antibodies. But that still doesn't feel right to me. He turned to the woman, who he had been rambling to without even thinking that she may have not experienced similar thoughts. Suddenly, he felt extremely self conscious.

"So, uh, what do you think about that?"

[Ariane Ivers]

Ariane could tell at a glance he wasn't from around here, but when he introduced himself by his first name only she let out a small breath in relief.  It wasn't as though she hated the area or the language, but it was still nice to have something in common with someone else.  Well, other than the obvious 'both able to see and fight demons'.  "Nice to meet you too... Ah, are you from the US too?" she asked, and raised an eyebrow at his comment, "And, yes, I can handle myself just fine, thank you."  

Turning to their company, she holstered the Evoker and cracked her knuckles.  The Cerynitian Hind threw its dagger at the enemy her companion wasn't fighting as Ariane closed the distance between herself and it.  She may use the same trick a lot, but hey, it worked and it wasn't as though the ones she used it on managed to tell anyone about it.  The thing that looked like it jumped out of a J.R.R. Tolkien fantasy threw it's hands up and hurled blades of wind at her as she drew closer.  These buggers and their obsession with wind was borderline nauseating.  Her arms sprouted cuts all along them as they took the brunt of the attack, but she didn't back off.  A melee fighter like her out of range just wasn't any good at all.

As she brought her fist into the Elf's stomach, she tried to split her focus to what Tristan was saying.  It was hard to listen while trying to not get herself killed, so she just waited to respond for the time being.  He certainly had some valid, if a bit philosophical, points.  Just what was their relationships with the things they kept killing?  Then there was the fact that just one slip up was all it would take for them to be the ones on the end that was killed.  

Between her fancy ring and the Hind's neat new ability, her punch made quick work of the elf.  The only problem was it wasn't quick enough to stop the spell it cast right as it fell─bringing back the other armored creature that Tristan had just killed in it's stead.  Groaning, she turned to face it as it's fingertips began to crackle.  "Aw hell no." Her hair was still fried from the last lightning strike she took.  Taking advantage of the lingering effects of the Auto-Sukukaja, she twisted and lept out of the way from the incoming lightening strike, if just barely.  That was about all the spell had in it, and she could feel her muscles tense back up.  Still, the revive hadn't given the Fae all of it's health back, so it shouldn't take too much more work.  Getting in close to it as she had the other, she brought her arm back and straight forward in a solid punch.

With that it was dead again, and would hopefully stay that way.  Revive spells were only good when they were on her side, after all.  The nerve of the monsters to utilize it too.

Finally turning back to Tristan, she contemplated all he had said while they were fighting now that she could actually focus on it.  "That's... actually all really good points."  Her brow furrowed together as she rubbed the back of her neck, "If I had to choose, judging by the fact that we're the ones going into their territory maybe we're more like hunters.  Poachers, even, although that makes us sound like the bad guys."  She shrugged, frowning slightly.  In a way, maybe they were the bad guys.  Bad, good... that really just came down to a matter of perspective, after all.  Either way, she continued, "They may be predators too, but this dark area feels like it's encroaching on our... reality?  Is that the right word?  Whatever it is, we come in to figure out what it is and why it's here.  Even if we don't actively hunt them out, they attack us to drive us away.  I was talking with another user the other day about how the small fries don't really give us any answers, but when you start thinking about it the way you do I guess even they can give us some, huh?"