Beuce was already wearing a jacket, but it wasn't a terribly thick one. It was more for decorative purposes, as most suit jackets were. If they were to get up that mountain, they'd need more protective clothing. Beuce perused the selection of winter garments the shop had to offer until he found something he liked. Though a thought struck him as he was looking through them. It was really odd that this store was selling winter clothing. They were in the middle of summer right before this. I mean sure you'd need warm clothing to climb a mountain any time of year, but this mountain didn't seem to be that impossibly high as to reach incredible colds. It looked like you could climb it on foot in a matter of a few hours, tops. In the summer it was probably too warm to even snow. Plus, even if it were, there couldn't be that many people climbing the mountain as run a sustainable business off selling clothing for it, right? Beuce let go of the oddity of this store's wares and the sheer coincidence of it all once he was done. They had to focus more on the task at hand.
Beuce shook out the cold from the blizzard. He didn't exactly know who this new addition was, but he shook his hand. Beuce, slightly confused, took the handshake and returned it. Apparently his name was Faust. "Beuce." He replied. He shook his head at AJ when asked if he found anything. "Not much. The blizzard was too dense to get far. Though, from higher up I could see a lot of ice forming all at once. I couldn't make out what it was, and it was still forming, but I'd be that's where we'll find our princess." Before he had a chance to say much else, Ignis brought up the fact that Faust was going to follow them into dangerous territory. Faust, however, countered this point by revealing that he too was a keyblade wielder. This immediately raised a few red flags for him. There were a lot of vagrant keyblade wielders that weren't part of the order or their academy on central haven. Hell, their group was mostly comprised of them. But that didn't rule out the possibility of him being sent after them by No Heart. Beuce narrowed his eyes at Faust, almost wanting to ignore Anna's "Command" and refuse the help, but he sighed. "Alright. Lets go. We are going to need warmer clothes unless we all want to huddle around Ignis like a walking campfire."
Luther watched from the back as the black coats all ran forward to assault Charlie. Seeing as he was a member of the red society himself, he wondered if Nequa would honestly mind if he took down Charlie. He didn't want to without a Final Fantasy to gain his element, but now wasn't the best time, and waiting for the moment to take him out would be too greedy and likely cost him his life. He briefly thought about revealing his new element, but glanced over to the girl to the side of him. Two including Charlie huh...? Luther fiddled with the small disc in his pocket. That'd probably be able to get through his defense. He drew his sword and glanced over to Alex, the one who held the other. With blinding speed Luther lunged out toward Charlie, breaking away at the last second and opening distance while an illusion of him finished the lunge. While Luther was only out of sight for a moment as the image took his place, it gave him the appearance of doing something of a hit and run tactic. If he could get a chance to relay a message to Alex, he'd kill two birds with one stone.
Beuce's glider carried him pretty well over the now frozen lake. He shivered as the frigid wind hit against his face. That princess, though she was more like queen now, had some powerful ice magic. If she was able to plunge summer into winter this quickly, that was frighteningly powerful. Still though, they could deal with it if they needed to. As he saw the queen vanish into the mountains, her path was obscurro by a blizzard behind her. He could follow her, but not easily. And the others wouldn't be likely to be able to find him if he did. He decided the best course of action would be to regroup with the other wielders so that they could traverse the mountain after her. After a few minutes, he glided down and landed next to his friends, Anna, and someone he didn't recognize in a servant's attire.
HOL' UP FORGOT SOMETHIN' HERE Spending that there job ticket on the didn't sacrifice Guardian on white mage Buying Ray of Light 6,665 munny remaining White Mage obtained With that, my seventh job, i now qualify for Paupu Knight LET IT BE KNOWN TO ALL HERE AND NOW first.
As fast as he was, Luther quickly realized he could run until his lungs gave out and collapsed on themselves, but he'd never be able to catch this rabbit just by chasing it. However, it seemed to be content with simply outpacing him, knowing it had nothing to fear. Well, why not give it a little scare and see what happened. Luther used his illusion element to briefly hide himself from view and create a double of himself in front of the rabbit that reached out to grab the thing. It instantly turned on its heel and outran the would-be-captor. Doing the same thing, he chased to to the left. The result was the same. It began to pick up speed to flee all of these figures suddenly appearing out of thin air. "Come on then, we can corner it like this!" Luther called out to Mizu. His eyes darted around to find an Alley of some kind. Some sort of secluded dead end. When finally he found one, he broke out into full speed to do his best to keep up with the rabbit, all the while creating his illusions to chase it closer and closer to it.
Beuce watched the coronation along with the other attendants. The new queen, Elsa, seemed incredibly nervous about it and rushed through it as quickly as she could. It couldve been chalked up to a simple case of cold feet, but Beuce had the suspicion that there was more to it than that. However, he hadn't the faintest idea what it could be. Just a hunch that there was something more to it, so he decided to keep an eye on Elsa in particular. Later that night at the after party, he saw what it was she was afraid of. He'd been sticking close enough by her that he could keep an eye on her without drawing suspicion. When the sisters got into a heated argument, Elsa ordered the gates to be closed and the party to cease. Anna pressed her as to why, and Elsa responded by freezing a sheet of icicles along the floor. Judging from the Duke's response, magic wasn't looked well upon in this world. That was good to know, but push had come to shove and they couldn't really afford to play things on the safe side anymore. "Well discretion is more or less out the window." He summoned forth Lofty Grasp into his hands and activated his blade aura. A steel grey glow surrounded him as he rushed forward and in a flurry of cherry blossoms cut through the ice that else had created which barred the door. "AJ, Ignis! I'm going after Elsa before she gets too far! One of you stay with Anna, and the other come with me!" He called out across the room to his two companions.
As Valen's wave of sound pierced through the air, fragments of what appeared to be a translucent glassy substance flew forward and cut down all of the thugs. They cried out as they were torn to pieces. However, the man on the ground groaned in his uncoscious state, his body desperately trying to cling to life. His wounds had gotten far more severe, and he was now actually in imminent danger of death due to the shards.
Beuce munched down the food quicker than he would've liked, and took a sip of the wine that was available. Briefly, he took note of AJ getting a sandwich, among other things. Walking over, Beuce took a seat and looked onward in the direction of the princesses. They looked to be a little younger than he was. Probably the same age as Stratos or Kaida. His thoughts briefly drifted to them, and he wondered where they ended up and what it was like. Their boats had all gone off to various places beyond their control. Any of them could've ended up anywhere. He was confident they could handle themselves, however, so he decided to focus on the task at hand and scanned the crowd for any moves made toward the princesses for now.
You can escape me if you like, though.
Beuce looked to Ignis when she joked about them drawing straws. "Well, you two can go where you like, I'm going to grab something to eat while we wait for the princesses to start mingling." and so he did. The aroma of chocolate permeated throughout the room, and he soon found the source to be an assortment of small foods on a large white table, which he was pleased to help himself to, as he hadn't actually eaten anything in a few days. He'd been busy pouring over tomes on magic or getting ready for this party, but now the lack of food was beginning to catch up with him. He looked over to the head of the room, munching on the food. Ignis was right, there was a large throne just as she'd described. Well, of course there was. What kind of royalty didn't have a throne? From the looks of things, the two princesses were there already. One had solid snow white hair, and the other sported sandy brown hair with a single streak of white. That was interesting. At least his hair wouldn't make him stick out.
Oh? What could this be? Hm...It seems that a new world has shown itself, but it doesn't look like we can access it yet. We should see what we can do about finding a way to unlock it. Who know, maybe we'll even stumble across it by accident. Checking in every now and again to see if it's available to travel to could be worth our while. After all, there could be any number of prizes in an unexplored world like this one!
Beuce gave a whistle. The castle was certainly an impressive building, in stark contrast from the small shops and village like qualities of the rest of the city. Ignis commented about the extravagance of the whole thing. "Well, when you have a lot of money you need to spend it on something right? Why not a bigger house? Besides, this castle looks pretty old. I doubt it was the current generation that built it so much as they inherited it."
Beuce seemed content with their discussion for now. That seemed like all the planning they were going to get done. "So to refresh, One of us gets friendly with Anna, One with Elsa, and one of us keeps an eye on the Duke. AJ seems to think he's up to no good, so it can't hurt to be prepared in case of something. We shouldn't be too close together, but we should stay close enough we can keep in contact if something changes." With that, Beuce began to walk along the streets toward the castle.
Beuce nodded. Splitting up was likely the best option for them. "Yeah. There are also two princesses. That means one of us should be with each of the princesses separately, and another should be there for backup in case something goes wrong. It's a little hard to say who should be with which princess since we know nothing about their personalities. So, we'll decide on that once we get there."
Once they'd found a sufficiently secluded area, Beuce let out a breath. "We're not here to take them away, but more to make sure no one else does. Obviously we can't just whisk them away against their will. We just need to be close enough to keep an eye on them. Elsa and Anna were both names on the lists of princesses of heart. We need to protect them at all costs." Beuce said, giving a general summary of the situation. "Honestly it might not be a bad idea to just get friendly with them. That way we can be close without drawing too much attention to ourselves. I think our best bet to get close to them would be at the dance. We can't just walk in and march straight up to the princesses to shoot the breeze, but I imagine they'll be dancing." Beuce paused, giving thought to the situation "It's a coronation, right? So one of the two of them is becoming Queen.That hairdresser thought I was here to marry one of the princesses. If both of them were apparently an option, that means there isn't a king right now to take up their attention. So that means they'll probably be dancing among the masses with no one in particular, which means we're pretty likely to get some time to talk to them. Just have to make them like us enough to have us hang around afterwards. Easy."
Beuce stood up from his seat, getting the gist of what his companions were trying to say. They needed to discuss the plan for what they were going to do at the coronation in private so they could get to the heart of the matter. Beuce turned one last time to the hairdresser and gave her a smile. "Thanks for your help." The woman returned his expression and stood up to give him a pat on the shoulder. "Don't mention it. I hope things work out between you and the princess, and for anything you do in the future." The keyblade master nodded, before pulling out the munny he'd taken from his pouch earlier. "No no, The haircuts were on the house. I like you kids." Well, he wasn't going to force the munny at her, so he turned to leave the shop. "Good luck." She called out one last time before they left.
Beuce chuckled as AJ finally complied to learning to Dance. He stopped the movement with Ignis. He felt comfortable that he'd gotten the hang of it enough to not look horribly out of place. Walking out of the center of the room, he gestured for the blonde boy to take his place. "Your lady awaits." He joked. Afterwards, he took a seat and crossed one leg over the other. The hairdresser next to him smiled as she watched the group of friends. "I've gotta apologize." She said to Beuce, who looked at her puzzled. "I must've gotten something wrong. It looks to me like you already have a place you belong." Beuce was surprised at this, but understood her meaning. He was silent for a moment, and looked down at the silver ring on the finger of his right hand. "Yeah...Yeah I do." His expression darkened as he remembered the events they'd just escaped from. Who had given him the ring, and how they weren't around anymore. This didn't go unnoticed, as the woman tapped his arm to break him out of thought, making a muffled 'clink'. "I don't know what all y'all have been through. It seems like it was pretty dark. Especially from what you said, but you can't let it keep you down. Ya gotta keep your chin up and march forward, no matter what comes your way. You're a strong man, I can see it in your eyes. I know it don't mean much comin' from someone you just met...But I think you can pull through it. You've got friends like them to keep you goin'." Beuce was surprised at this sudden pep talk, but was glad for it.
Beuce did his best to keep up with Ignis. He was picking it up quickly, but still moved clumsily. The two were, however, growing in their synchronization. Less and less did he have to worry about stepping on the woman's foot. "Well AJ, this might be a good opportunity to learn something. You won't have to dance at the coronation, but it certainly wouldn't hurt to keep up appearances." The grey haired man commented to his companion. AJ: 13 Beuce: 12 Ignis: 13
The hairdresser shrugged and walked over to AJ, getting out her equipment. "What kinda style ya lookin' for?" She asked, ready to go to work on the boy's hair. Beuce, meanwhile, took Ignis' hand as she offered to assist in his learning to dance. "Well, I guess it is a good idea to see what level we're on with the whole dancing thing." The man took up the position that the hairdresser had showed him, and the dance began.
