Young Writers Society

Cait

She shuddered, glancing at the boys. She swallowed, hard. Now what...? A distraction, perhaps? Something to stall until they can figure out what to do to counter these wicked people? She looked at the ceiling. Windows lined the entire structure along the ceiling, panel after panel of dusty, stained glass. She guessed there was enough of it in total to build her entire apartment out of it, bedroom, bath, kitchen, and living room all made up into a giant cube...

She sighed. "Oh, bloody Hell..." Lips barely moving, she shifted a little closer to Ren and whispered, just soft enough for him alone to hear. "Get ready for glass." Hopefully he would pass it along to Takeo...

Their attackers paced closer, weapons brandished. Cait closed her eyes, inhaling deeply and slowly letting it out, calming her nerves. A little, at least. Her hands still trembled... She opened her eyes as she inhaled a second time, mouth falling open, Vocalise escaping from her mouth in C-, D-, E-, F-, and G-5's. Two at a time, the windows began to creak inward and shatter into the warehouse, sending glass fragments flying.

(Hey Kitty, Undertaker, you two ready to start posting again?)

Takeo

His eyes intent on the swordswoman, Takeo barely registered the word 'glass' that pressed its way between Ren's lips, before the sharp, deafening notes came pouring out of Cait's mouth. Taki pressed his hands against his ears and instinctively threw his power out around himself. He didn't have any rational plan but that word, glass, was hanging in his throat and his mind was screaming defend, protect! It was also tumbling through some anger issues directed at the girl who thought it a clever idea to bring all the glass windows and roof down on their heads.

Then he got a better grip of himself. He realised he'd closed his eyes and now he opened them warily and slowly uncurled his body from its protective stance. Looking up, Taki was startled to see himself reflected in hundreds of fragments of glass that were hovering above their heads. Fortunately, even though he hadn't thought of them at the time, Ren and Cait were in a close enough proximity that they'd been protected as well. Takeo started to feel the strain of pushing the glass back and with one final effort, he pushed it all away from them, across the room, in the general direction of their foes. Hah! Take that!

Alright so maybe dropping the ceiling hadn't been such a bad idea, but Taki would have liked more warning. Then again, he wasn't so sure how he'd have acted if he'd been expecting it. Whatever he did there had been purely instinctive and he could already feel the drain on his power. He lifted his eyes slowly, hardly daring to let himself hope that those horrid people had been sliced and diced like raw vegetables.

"Can we get a little more planning next time, huh?" Takeo grumbled, not even wanting to think about what might have happened if his body hadn't reacted to the threat. Had Cait been relying on that? Or did they think he was some sort of genius who could think of a plan to protect them in like... milli-seconds! Pffffft. That was sort of flattering though and Takeo was loathe to spoil the image so if asked, he was so taking credit for the cool shield thing. He could probably do it again, well, when he wasn't so tired. It made sense really that by throwing his power out there, he could stop objects from hitting him. And others. It really was a good thing they were standing so close. Takeo felt a little bad at discovering that his natural state was to be selfish and just protect himself. That wasn't so good... not so good for others anyway.[user][/user]

Their enemies managed to dodge most of the shards of glass. The fire guy's robe tore in a few places as he moved and the swordswoman managed to deflect a few with her sword before rolling out of the way. Ren wasted no time in retaliating. He conjured the biggest ball of fire he could muster in his hand and threw it at the fire guy.

The man got to his feet just in time to see the attack hurtling toward him. Oddly enough, he didn't look too worried about it. All he did was hold out his hand and the ball of fire stopped in mid-air before disapating into streams and reforming in his hand. "You're going to have to do better than that, kid," he said as he closed his hand into a fist, causing the ball of fire to disappear.

"Just how strong of an esper are you?" Ren asked. He speculated the man would be at least level 4 to be able to control fire that easily, even if it belongs to his opponent.

"What makes you think I'm an esper?" the man asked as he took the cigarette from his mouth and tossed it at the ground.

"Stiyl, we don't have time for this," the woman said.

"I suppose you're right, Kanzaki," the man replied. He reached into his pocket and pulled out what looked like a deck of cards. He tossed the entire deck into the air. The cards seemed to float in mid-air for a moment, as though some invisible force was holding them in place, before they all shot across the warehouse and stuck to all the walls.

Takeo saw the image on all the cards and remembered the first time he had seen them. It was when the fire dude first showed up at his apartment, the cards were stuck to all of the walls. However, they had fled from the building before he found out what purpose they served.

The man raised his arms toward the center of the room and said, "Rise, Innocentius." The entire building began to shake as a small flame errupted from seemingly nowhere in the middle of the room. THe flame began to grow and grow until it reached the ceiling, at which point it turned into the beast Takeo had seen during his first encounter that night he found the orb.

(Fight him for a bit, then I'll bring in the cavalry. )

Lena

After Jordan pointed out that that kid seemed to know where he was going, we all took off down the stairs after him.

I have to say, this kid was pretty fast. He always manage to get so far ahead of us, then he would slow down as if waiting for us, then speed up again. By the time we had caught up he was standing in front of a huge factory type looking thing. It was dark inside and the windows looked like they had been shattered.

“Do you think that they are in there?” Akaya questioned.

“I'm not sure,” Jordan started, “but we have to check.”

I nodded in agreement with Jordan. We just had to make sure, even if they were not there. It was not hard to find a door in to the factory. We opened and stepped inside. As soon as we stepped inside, the whole buliding erupted in to shakes and tremors. They have to be here, was my final thought before we all ran in to try and find them.

Everyone stopped in their tracks when they saw the giant fire creature looming over Ren and the others. Sure, they should have been prepared for this after hearing Takeo's story about his first encounter with this guy. But seeing the creature with their own eyes was a whole different story. All of them were at a loss for words. How in the hell had Takeo managed to escape from this thing in the first place?

The swordswoman had heard the four of them enter the building. "Sounds like we have more company," she said as she turned to face them. But the moment she saw Ren's friend her eyes widened. "Toma? What are you doing here?"

"That's what I should be asking," Toma said. "What do you and Stiyl think you're doing to my friends?"

"Wait, wait, wait," Lena said, shaking her head. "Are you telling me you know these people?"

"I'll explain later, right now we need to help Ren and the others!"

The red headed man, whose name was apparently Stiyl, glanced over his shoulder at Lena's group. "Kamijo, we're under orders from the head of our organization. Even though you've helped us in the past, if you interfere now we'll have to dispose of you along with these brats." He nodded toward his partner and said, "Deal with them."

Lena's eyes went back toward the fiery creature. If only there was some source of water around, she could use her power to manipulate it and maybe douse it. She looked around for something she could use when she found a nearby water pipe. She lifted her arm toward it and used her ability to stop the water inside at a single point. She held it, letting the pressure grow and grow until the pipe finally burst. She folded the water into a stream and sent it on a direct path toward the monster.

Kanzaki swung her sword, creating a huge gust of wind that not only dispersed the water, but knocked everyone but Toma of their feet. "You're going to have to get past me before you can even think about helping your friends," she said.

Lena gritted her teeth as she got back to her feet. How were they going to get past her and help the others? The first time they had fought this woman they bearly survived, if not for the timely arrival of Railgun they wouldn't even be here right now. But now, the swordswoman and the fire guy was here. The situation seemed to get worse every time they ran into these wackos.

"Lena," Toma whispered. "If you and Jordan can make an opening for me, I can save your friends."

She gave him an odd look. "How? Aren't you supposed to be a level 0?"

"Just trust me."

Jordan

What a puzzling situation. What a display from these warriors too. But ironic...he, too, was after the orb... He only smiled. All the more fun, I suppose.

He vanished into the shadows, flying around the room as part of the darkness. Kanzaki blinked, looking at where he had disappeared from. "What the hell...?"

Jordan roared as he suddenly reappeared right under her feet, fist flying for her chin.


***Sorry, all I can think of...I'm utterly exhausted...***

(Shoryuken much? Sorry, I couldn't resist.)

(I don't want to end up having to write every other post just to keep the story moving along, so for the person who posts next, the enemy dodges Jordan's attack. You're going to need teamwork in order to give Toma an opening.)

Sorry guys, I'll try to get a post in later this week but I'm rather drained from my assignments right now...

(Come on guys, it's been more than a week since any one of use has posted something.)

(Still waiting...)

Takeo

Takeo could feel himself losing the will to fight as he stared into the hollow eyes of the fiery creature. This was a right mess he'd gotten everyone into and there wasn't any chance of escaping it. They'd tried that. So, so many times and now the feeling of despair would have been enough to make him cry if he wasn't such a proud boy. He was out of witty come backs though.

So there was not taunting and no demanding of the orb, just plain old fighting. The fiery creature advanced and Taki, Ren and Caait backed away as much as they could. They were well aware that their friends weren't going to be able to help them and heard Jordan's scream of frusttration as he failed to get by, to attack, to do anything.

"I think this is the end of the line," Taki said sadly as he stared at the orb in his hand. Had it been worth it? Even now the smallest voice screameed, yes! But the rest of him wasn't so sure. And what was going to be his last act on this Earth? Screaming and wetting himself? Well, probably.

"What do you guys want with the orb anyway?" Taki asked.

"We aren't the ones who want it," Stiyl answered. "We're simply following orders to retrieve it from the ones who stole it from its previous keepers and bring it back to our masters. You've inpeded our mission too many times, now we have to get rid of you completely."

"Wait a minute, you mean you're not the ones who stole it in the first place?" Ren asked, if only to stall for time.

Now that Ren mentioned it, Takeo remembered that the man he had recieved the orb from in the first place dressed nothing like these guys. If Index's suspicions had been correct, and these guys weren't the ones who stole Virgo from the Russians, then did that mean there was a third organization somehow involved in all of this?

Takeo didn't have much more time to ponder. The fiery beast lurched forward and flung its arm out at them. Ren grabbed Cait's arm and pulled her out of the way while Taki jumped in the other direction. They managed to move out of the way before the flames hit them, but they were even more split up than before with the monster now between them.

Lena and the others could only watch helpessly as their friends tried despirately to remain out of the reach of the creature's flames. As long as this swordswoman stood in their way there was nothing they could do to help.

"Lena, I have an idea," Jordan whispered, trying to make sure their opponent wouldn't hear him.

"What is it?" Lena asked. At this point, she was willing to try anything.

"If you can somehow distract her with your attacks, I can use my power to ensare her with her own shadow. Once that's done, that Kamijo kid can get past her and do whatever it is he's going to do."

(I hope that's enough for you to go one, Undertaker.)

(Yep, that works. ^^)

Lena

I nodded at Jordan and then turned to face the sword lady. She glared at me as if trying to figure out what I was going to do next. I then stuck my hand out at the nearest fire hydrant and forced the water to bulid up, then it exploded out of the top of the fire hydrant. Her eyes widened for a fraction of a second, but then she smirk. She lashed her out with her sword. I felt tons of little cuts appear all over me.

Ignoring the pain, I lashed out with a stream of water. She dogde the frist one, right as she tried to attack again, I shot an other one at her. I countiued like this till I took a small stream and entangled it around her head. She was trying to shake it off, to no advale. Jordan knew it was time to make his move now. I watched stlightly surprized as shadows came out of the ground and wrapped around her legs and arms. I dropped the water as soon as I was sure that she was sercured down. She glared at both of us.

Now that she was tied down, I could try to put out the fire monster. I gathered all the water I could and made a thick stream out of it. I then aimed it toward the thing. And hoped that it worked, somewhat anyway.