Target Practice [Party of 2] [Mod]

[Kate Minola]

Kate was once again out in the streets at night to explore this 'dark' alternate world and hone her skills. She had decided, after a couple of scraps and speaking with a few people, that she ought to step up and take this fighting thing seriously. If nothing else, she did not turn into a coffin at night and was thus in danger of being attacked.

She paced the street calmly with her bow slung on her shoulder. She had managed to find a place to buy arrows and was considering moving up from simple target arrows to something of hunting-grade, maybe bodkins or barbed arrows. She wondered if these monsters were susceptible to poison and whether she could find something to dip arrows in. That was an interesting thought.

She went over what she had learned recently. This power that she seemed to be able to summon was called 'Persona'. Of course, that made her think of Jungian psychology and she thought that the theories of Jung and this power were related. In a way. Maybe.

But the drastic way that the city changed when this darkness took over really impressed her. Did no one notice these changes when it was over? Did no one notice time missing? Or perhaps time itself got messed up.

[Ariane Ivers]

It wasn’t unheard of these days for the redhead to be late running home and get herself stuck in that infuriating hour. Thankfully enough, by now she knew how to handle it. No matter where she went, her fistwraps and evoker were in her bag. Just in case. Now as she worked her way back home, her Evoker was in it’s holster and her knuckles wrapped in leather. If a normal passerby saw her they’d surely think she was some sort of hooligan, but thankfully she was far from normal and far from having to worry about a normal passerby seeing her.

Other than her shadow-fighting weapons, she was dressed mostly normal for coming back from work. A gray T-shirt with a fantasy dragon adorning it, jeans with boots, and her new snazzy leather jacket she had gotten from a strange duo running a shop in the dark hour. They had mentioned it had healing properties, and hey, she wasn’t going to complain about that. With how often she got herself in a bind, she could have some use for that.

Before she could make it back home, movement caught her eye. For a moment she flexed her knuckles, thinking it must’ve been a shadow. When she saw it wasn’t something trying to kill her for a change, she lifted an eyebrow. There was someone else walking around here this time of night? Not only that, they certainly looked prepared with that bow slung over their shoulder. Carefully approaching with her hands up momentarily so she didn’t have to test the jacket’s abilities early on, she waved once she was sure she wouldn’t get shot. “Hey there,” Anne whispered, keeping her voice low to avoid drawing more attention than needed, “You certainly look like you’re on a fun hunting trip. Any luck so far?”

Despite her lowered voice, it looked like their presence was in fact noticed.  Chances are it had nothing to do with her speaking, though.  Those creeps always had a tendency to seek them out in this hour.  Sighing, Anne rolled her shoulder as her emerald eyes caught sight of the much-less humany movement in the distance.  "Well, looks like we're about to find out."

[Satanick]

Mild-mannered Mother
Null: Light
Weak: Dark, Wind
Skills: Hamaon, Media, Life Drain

Family Fuzz
Resist: Pierce
Weak: Fire
Skills: Twin Shot, Bufula, Power Charge

[Kate Minola]

When Kate heard someone approaching, her first instinct was to reach for her bow but when she saw it was just a red-headed girl, she relaxed her stance and waved at her, still holding her bow to her side loosely with her free hand.

"Hello," she said to the girl. "My name's Kate. Yes, it's been a quiet night so far," she replied. "Ah, but we have company."

She grabbed an arrow from her quiver and nocked it, taking aim at the big, fat creature who looked like the caricature of a policeman. It would've been comical if it didn't give off an air of evil. She drew her bowstring back and fired an arrow shot at the fat thing but the arrow struck it with only a dull little ping and the creature was hardly fazed. Kate frowned. It appeared to be resisting arrow attacks. It raised it's arm - it actually had a handgun! Kate's eyes widened as it took aim at her and blasted away at her in a double shot.

She gasped and threw herself aside wildly, feeling two bolts whiz right past her. It was sheer dumb luck that she'd dodged that and she had a feeling she ought to be real thankful about that. She concentrated on the warmth in her chest and summoned Antiope. The amazon charged at the thing and pushed it back with a blast of fire. The creature stumbled backwards violently, as if it really loathed the flames. And that made Kate think: What if these things have set weaknesses? And what if they can be exploited?

Deciding to test this, Kate made Antiope execute another such fire attack which shoved it back further, but at the same time, she found out something new about this power: it actually had an effect on her too! It started as a low throbbing in the back of her head and Kate thought it'd develop into a headache as it went. But she had to get rid of this thing. It reeled back from the last fire attack and stood straight. It slammed its foot to the ground, hunched over and tensed, as if it was gathering its strength for its next attack. Kate determined it was best not to let that happen and ordered Antiope to attack.

The amazon sailed over to the creature and swung her spear in a wide slashing motion. The blow threw the creature backwards against a wall where it dissolved into bits of darkness.

"As good a workout as this is, I don't think we should hang around here too much," she told her new acquaintance. "Shall we move to safer ground and trade info? Or something like that."

[Ariane Ivers]

Giving a lazy salute, Anne smiled. “I’m Anne, nice to meet you. Although admittedly it could be under better circumstances, but what can you do.” She had a moment to acknowledge that the other girl seemed to be a foreigner as well, but before she could ask her about her whereabouts they were rudely interrupted. While Kate took the donut-eating oaf, Anne was left with the woman that looked to be reclining back in a sofa. At least one of them looked comfortable.

Pulling her evoker from it’s holster, she habitually spun it in her hand before holding it against her temple and pulling the trigger. The Cerynitian Hind materialized right away, holding her hands up as she increased Anne’s agility as had become the norm. As the automatic spell was cast, Ariane sped in and jumped up towards where the sofa floated. Was it a part of it’s body? Ew.

Trying to ignore that pleasant thought, she managed to punch it twice before landing, jumping back out of the way from it as it shot a blast of light her direction. Cery had definitely gotten stronger, and Anne could feel it in her punches. Even with the fact she had improved on those ratty old fist wraps, her attacks hit harder than they should. It may have been slow going to start, but Anne had a feeling it was all up from here.

Dashing back in, she landed a few more quick blows before the woman shot off a blast of light, this time it hitting it’s mark. While it certainly hurt, she was beginning to get used to hits like that by this point. Not to mention, soon after she felt the effect of her jacket that the salespeople told her about. Apparently it really did work. That was pretty keen. The woman, however, was certainly looking worse for the wear. Another run in and a few more swift punches later and the shadow was dispatched, leaving Anne with the definite knowledge that the baddies around here really were getting to be almost laughably weak.

Turning to see how her companion faired, she noticed that she seemed to be getting the hang of effective strikes, and ways to take advantage of them. Ariane had assumed that the woman had been fighting them for a while by the fact she seemed so well prepared, but was suddenly hit with the realization she seemed to be pretty new at this. While it was still impressive how quickly she started picking it up, Anne mused about how little time had actually passed since she had started really truly hunting these suckers down. It felt like months, but in reality was nowhere near. With any luck, the other girl would be catching up soon after.

Chuckling, Anne nodded. “Yea, I have to agree with you on that one. As fun as these guys may be to pummel, one can only put up with them for so long. I don’t live too far from here, so I know of a few areas the Shadows don’t usually like to hang around. I’m sure we can get to one of those spots with relative stealth, if you wanted to.”

_{(Ooc; If you wanted to start a social off of this, feel free to! Also, if you wanted for the group thread, don’t be afraid to assume Anne texted her about it. It’s totally something she would do and I can roll with P: )}