Akira's Story

The beast swooped down in a flurry of wings. Though it resembled a kangaroo rat, it was bigger than a bulldog, and teal fur bordered a scale-covered stomach. It whipped its tail at Glis. She yelped, leaping and clutching her skirts, and her lavender eyes narrowed. Raising her hand, she launched a fireball toward the rat. The fireball connected, and the rat screeched and thrashed.

But more rats descended, and they weren’t just after Glis. Squealing and slashing, they picked their targets. The market square surged with the clatter of feet – parents snatched their children, merchants gathered their wares, and those who could scattered.

“Leave – me – alone!” yelled Glis. Each time she thrust her hands, blue fire streaked the air. It leapt onto the rats, and the air filled with the scent of singed fur. Her eyes shifted – did anybody else stand a chance? She could see the "flock" crowding around others. She couldn't keep her eyes off her enemy for long, though. Its powerful tail ripped into her dress. Glis screamed and lobbed another fireball. She was too busy to notice, but the gem around her neck began to glow.

Akira couldn't believe it. All of a sudden strabge creatures and monsters had shown up and started attacking people. What was stranger was that they didn't just go after anyone. The seamed careful to go after cirtain people and not waist time with others. Unluckily she ran into an alley with a dead end and she was soon surrounded. She knew she was going to have to fight the strange creatures so she looked around and saw that there were crates and dieing plants all around her. Usually she would feel bad for the plants and take no notice of the crates but right now all she could think of is "burn it!" so she did and then after it burned for a second or two she blasted water on it and a ton of smoke rose up just as she had wanted it to. She made the wind blow the smoke into the monsters' faces and while they were trying to catch there breath she ran through them blasting fire at them ocasionaly and making plants rap around there feet. She was glad at how well that had gone but it didn't last that long because soon they were after her again. She knew she couldn't fight them all off by herself.

Raven hissed as she probed her wound lightly. The wound wasn’t too deep luckily but her arm was going to hurt like hell for the next few days but no major damage had been done. Next time genius; use a larger dose for larger people. Raven thudded her head on the barn wall as punishment for her stupidity. The guy just head to wake up didn’t he, still the day wasn’t a total loss Raven thought twirling the purse between her fingers. 5 gold coins, not bad for a nights work.

Yawning, Raven stood up from the rafter of the barn leaping down lightly onto the floor, slinging her pack over her shoulders as she walked out the barn. An actual bed tonight yay laughing lightly Raven continued down the small track leading away from the abandoned barn, whistling softly. Her rare moment of peace was interrupted by a scream to her left. Raven froze; both fear and curiosity battling for dominance finally giving into the later raven ran towards the direction of the noise, knives drawn.

Raven ran swiftly using the undergrowth as coverage until she stopped on the edge of a small back alley leading into Mara's Ridge. Pausing behind a tree raven observed the alley. Raven’s breath caught in her throat, she has never seen such monsters. Sorry lass you’re on your own. Raven turned to leave the poor girl behind. “Argh” Raven yelled her neck burning where her pendent lay over her chest. However Raven had no time to worry about that as the beasts turned and threw it’s self at her.

Running on pure adrenaline Raven stabbed the creature in its underbelly releasing a disgusting torrent of black blood in its wake covering Raven arms.

What the hell is going on?

Akira didn't understand. Someone had been yelling that those who had weird glowing gems were who the beasts were after. Why would these monsters want gems? Wait. Akira looked down at her neckless. The red gem. It was... glowing. How? What was going on? Someone had some explaining to do. She started running in the direction of the person that had been yelling. "I have one!" She started yelling at the stranger. "I have one of the gems!"

The other three women approached, and each wore a gem like Glis's. She breathed a sigh but inhaled just as sharply when she spotted the blood streaming from Mew's injuries. "They really don't like you!" she said. By now, Glis too was bleeding through several rips in her dress. It was still in one piece, but it was strewn with dirt, as was the rest of her.

"Okay, okay." Glis ran her hands through her disheveled hair. Now that the four stood in one tight group, the remaining rats rushed them from the corners of the market. The guards cut down a few, but eight remained: three sprinted on the ground, and the rest whizzed through the air. "I, uh, didn't think this far," she said. "Make this count, ladies!"

Drawing on the rest of her strength, Glis flung an arc of blue fire at the ground. It burned in place, extending several feet into the air. Two of the charging rats skidded to a stop just beyond it, but one was unfortunate enough to tumble right into the spray. It flew backward, shrieking and lashing is tail. Sparks from the tail jumped onto one of the rats beside it, causing it to yowl and roll.

The third hissed at the wall of fire and tried to shoot upward, but one wing hung broken. Instead, it sought a way around the arc. Meanwhile, the five airborne rodents never stopped. The flames could not reach them.

OOC: ((HadoukenLSD, apologies if Mew's invisibility spell hadn't worn off yet. I wasn't sure if you meant "fading" as in "becoming visible over time" or "fading" as in "still invisible but won't be much longer." If she is still invisible, just lemme know and ignore the part about Glis seeing her. I'll edit it out in that case. :,D))

Mew nodded her head in answer to the blue-haired woman. "I know! I don't know why these guys wanna hurt me!" she squealed, watching as the woman's fire took out a couple more of the rats, leaving a scant few of the nasty animals to deal with. Well, she was sure that the blue-haired woman, herself and the brunette that had approached could deal with these last few easily.

She turned hurriedly to the other voice that had spoken, the one who knew her real name. Great. Just great. Of all the people in the world to be right here among the chaos, to be carrying a gem as well it had to be Raven. She graced the other thief's question with nothing more then a scoff, turning her attention back to the rats. She would deal with that later.

Hurling her body upward, her talons caught in the flesh of one of the remaining rats which flew overhead, bringing it to the ground shrieking. She tore it's throat out with her teeth, the thought occurring to her that she had killed more creatures today than she would in the average week. Aside from the occasional hunt, Mew was a fairly peaceful catling and rarely found herself in situations where violence was necessary. In her thieving, she was always the type to favor sneaking above direct combat, like most thieves. The blood which soaked her form disturbed her slightly, but she didn't have time for feeling unnerved, not in the heat of all of this.

Withdrawing her dagger, she impaled another of the rodents as it swooped at her, blood pouring from it's body as it twitched and died. Mew checked out the amount of damage she had done, only to meow hysterically as several more of the creatures remained, furious as ever with the four unfortunate women who held these bizarre gems.

Raven smirked when Mew scoffed at her answer, somethings never change. Before Raven could reply the rats attacked the group again well she’ll have to wait then. Twilling her blades in invitation Raven sliced deep into the Rats chest. Not the smartest bunch, are they?

Ripping the blade free Raven prepared for the next attack which came in quick succession with two other rats falling. Raven's wound felt like it was on fire, her muscles aching, she was unused to this type of fighting she was a theif not a warrior after all.

One of the rats let out a shriek turning raven saw Mew ripping her talons out of one of the rats. Raven’s back ached with an old pain, she too had felt those talons and she had the scares to prove it. She almost pitied the rat, almost.

Well at least we got even Raven smirked flourishing her blades.

Raven cursed when she saw the reinforcement, they couldn’t take on that many. Knowing she would regret this later but what choice did she have? “All of you with a gem follow me, I know somewhere we can hide”

Raven turned and ran east into one of the cities backstreets not checking if anyone followed her assuming they would. She could hear the shrieks of the monsters taking another left Raven reached a dead end.

Not pausing raven rushed to the back wall searching frantically ah here we are. Raven slid out one of the bricks in the wall pulling the lever inside, the wall shook slightly then half of it opened. Not pausing for breath Raven ran inside.

They'd better be grateful…

Akira was using all that she knew against the beasts. She was amazed at how out of these four people there were only girls. A strange thought to think in a time like this right? By the looks of it it appeared that some of these people knew each other. She took this news as a good thing. She was shocked though that out of the four she was probably the least injured. The others had great big scratches and deep cuts. She actually felt a little bad. She, the one who probably, or at least felt, was the least prepared for something like battling great monsters was the least injured. "Stop it Akira! You should be thinking of how to stay alive not what the others with the glowing gems look like!" She thought to herself as she dodged a beast. Then she heard one of them saying,"All of you with a gem follow me, I know somewhere we can hide" You know how your told not to do stuff like follow a stranger somewhere? Well right now that saying was complete bullshit. If there was any better plan than following that stranger somewhere then Akira couldn't think of it. She had plants grow up out of the ground and rap around the creature that she was fighting. It wouldn't hold the thing long but it would give her enough time to run. So while the thing struggled she ran as fast as she could after the person who had told them to follow her. Who cares where that opening in the wall led to, it couldn't possibly be worse than fighting monsters.

Raven rolled her eyes. “Well if you want to run back to her be my guest but good luck getting past those monsters.” Sighing, Raven walked further into the room, it was rather small and musky but it would do.

Rave carefully lit the four small lamps around the room filling the small space with a warm glow. Home. It was a single room; an old bed covered with blankets lay in the far corner shoved against the wall. A rickety shelf lay to the right of the room filled with various (stolen) trinkets tossed carelessly on to it. Raven looked around again eyes flickering nervously to the newcomers. Too late to change my mind now.

Ignoring the women Raven walked over to an old oak chest at the foot of the bed pulling out various garments throwing them at the women. “These should fit, better you were these than them” Raven nodded towards the torn clothes they currently wore “and…if any of you are injured sit on the bed, I can heal the minor wounds or ease any major ones but I’m not a miracle worker”.

Waiting for a response Raven pulled her own bloody clothes of, hissing. She sat carefully on the bed fully aware of the mistrusting looks sent her way. Pulling a deep breath Raven held her right hand over the cuts in her forearm whispering softly. A warm blue glow spread from her hand trickling down her arms healing the smaller cuts and lessening the deeper ones.
A wave of nausea swept over Raven then but she pushed it down looking up at the women she said.

"You should also bare in mind that the amount of magic it will take to heal all of you will cause me to lose consciousness for at least 2 hours. So I must ask why should I heal you and leave myself vulnerable”

I’d really like that drink now.