[/url]The Summers had ended up going outside of their car only to see that the fabled author himself, the fabled Lucius Nero himself had walked towards them to greet their presence here. They were being welcomed quite easily into the author's home and couldn't quite contain themselves. August was bouncing with glee as the unbelievable was happening, and April's heart was simply a flutter. As the man kissed her hand, April's face had flushed and she could start to see spots as if she were to pass out at any given moment. June, however, had not left the car and was still busy watching her movies. She picked her head up as the white haired man had mentioned something about the month of June and the word angels. Something felt pretty off about those words, granted they were just words, and common ones at that, so she quickly let the thought perish from her head as she returned back to her activities. "Ar-are you quite sure that we can go in Mr. Nero," the clearly nervous August Summer had been quite shocked by the offer to simply march into the esteemed author's mansion. "Ye-yes. Af-after all, we haven't set anything up at all and we wouldn't want to intrude on your humble abode quite like this Mr. Nero." April Summer was about as nervous and the two were in complete and utter awe. They were obviously going to take the offer, seeing as it was just there and it was their favorite author or something along those lines. But they weren't expecting anything quite like this to happen.
Stratos didn't actually know what had just happened here. There was Ana and her just continually telling them to be cautious, and then they got to the town to see a four armed man and a armored masked woman just trying to do whatever it was they were going to to that sword lodged in the stone. The four armed man seemed to be struggling mightily, and then Beuce said that the rest of them should take care of them. He then proceeded to hit on the woman in the mask...while Ana just decided to hit on the four armed man. As it would turn out, the four armed man seemed to be more in love with the weapon than any kind of person, but Beuce produced spectacular results. He had managed to have the armored woman disappear for the time being. That man certainly had a way of dealing with situations. Now that she was gone, both Goofy and Wart were really confused. Well that was okay, but Stratos actually had no idea what was going on anyway. It was then that Ana mentioned that the armored chick was actually like them. He assumed that meant she was a keyblade wielder, and probably not a good one based on how she talked about her. "Sorry big guy, but I don't think that sword is budging for you." Stratos then pulled out his Unbound Keyblade and despite it magically switching forms from Oathkeeper to this which Stratos payed no attention to at all, he got in a defensive stance ready to take on this fellow.
Stratos equipping Unbound +4, Magic Lock On, and and Exp Writer 1.
As Stratos and the gang were simply walking about to the town, they were then stopped by Ana. She seemed to be rather antsy about something and he wasn't entirely sure what to make of it. Apparently she had this feeling that there was some kind of impending threat at the town near the sword, something unnatural to be more specific and wanted the group to proceed with caution. She then said that she had to do...something? She didn't actually say what and seemed like she wanted to talk to Beuce about something before they continued there journey, but no one seemed to be reacting at all. "Now now Ana, if you have something you'd like to share just share it with all of us. We aren't the judging type," not like he actually knew anyone in the group that well to make that call, "plus, if something is at the town then we should probably move faster to get there to help solve it faster."
[/url]As Sal listened to the man before him speak, he suddenly had some sort of odd feeling come over himself. Every time he went to someone to tell them they're an angel, he felt as though he would be seen as the crazy one. For the first time since Jun Tae told him about himself, Sal felt like he was actually listening to a crazy person speak before him. He started going on about how the protagonists for his grand journey had finally arrived and how he had to now chronicle. This angel was a rather interesting fellow. Nevertheless, the gang had successfully recruited another angel and it was an easy one at that. "Well then, pleased to make your acquaintance. My name is Salvatore, though like most you may call me Sal. I'm sure we can get all of your questions answered to the best of our ability as we go on." With not much left to do, the gang decided to leave the mansion. As they were leaving, though, towards the gate there a car parked near it that was not there own. ---MEANWHILE IN THE SAME ALASKAN TOWN!--- June was not pleased at all with the trip. Yesterday they had not done much at all in the town of Fairbanks. Their flight had been delayed due to some freak snow storm and so they ended up getting to the town later then they were expecting to the point where they had just gone to the hotel and fell asleep. Still, June had managed to entertain herself with a portable DVD player and a load of movies that her parents owned. Even now as she was being forced out of the hotel room she was still watching said movies. She had no real idea as to why she was being forced into this trip to the author's whatever. She didn't exactly care about it that much, but both August and April Summer were fans of this Lucius Nero and figured that this trip would somehow raise June's affinity for reading or whatever. As her protests had failed, she continued to put her headphones into the DVD player and simply watched it in amazement and wonder. As her expression had turned to one of bliss, she completely ignored the outside world and the car ride seemed to basically be non-existent. Her parents decided to see if they could meet with the author themselves and decided to see if they could actually find someway to schedule some sort of appointment or whatever with him. With that said, they had ended driving to where they had found Mr. Nero's house- er, mansion and stood there gaping for a bit. There beyond the large gate was the esteemed author and a rather odd looking group of people. Sal looked down at the compass and noticed that it was reacting just as crazily towards this car as it was towards the angel they had just recruited. Well, wasn't this convenient for them. Turning to the group he said, "well, I think we have another angel in that vehicle over there." With that, the group then went to go check the car out.
[/url] Sal and the gang had ended up going through the mansion to end up to who he supposed the owner of this luxurious palace was. There sat a white haired man reading a book and greeting them rather cheerfully. It was good to know that despite being a rich man he was still rather polite to everyone else. Sal felt the burning of the compass reacting and Zachariel merely confirmed his suspicion. This man was Kiraman Katibin, the Noble Recorder. Well that certainly made their little hunt all the easier. Sal ended up being the one to respond to the man first and simply said, "I'm fine without the tea, though the offer is appreciated. As for what brings us here, the answer is simply that we are here for you. You see, as insane as this might sound, my colleagues and I, are actually fallen angels who are tasked with helping prevent the destruction of the Earth. As you've probably seen on the news, major natural disasters have been happening without warning, and something that has been mistaken as a zombie uprising has transpired as well. These are all due to the forces of hell coming forth, wanting to destroy the world on their conquest towards Heaven. You yourself are a fallen angel and we've simply come here to recruit you to our cause." Sal had basically told him everything that they normally told everyone and hoped that this would be enough so that they could be on there way.
[/url]Sal had awoken on the plane and had realized the compass had ended up pointing them to a north western part of the North American continent. As their surroundings would indicate, and the plane driver himself, they were now located in Alaska. More specifically they were in the fair town of Fairbanks. With compass in tow, the group had exited the private jet and got ready to complete their recruitment operation as usual. Hopefully they would continue to get these rather easy cases to recruit people and then go about their merry business as things were. Getting an automobile, as was per there standard procedure, the group piled into the transportation and made their way to wherever the compass may guide them. After a good deal of driving, the group had eventually reached the destination that the compass was pointing to. It was to...a mansion. Well that was wonderful. There was a rather large gate that would impede their process...if not for the fact that they could just sort of buzz in, tell the gatekeeper that they were here to see the owner, and the entire thing just sort of opened for them. Well that was easy. Imagine if they had to jump over or break it down. After getting past the gate the group buzzed at the front door and awaited someone to answer it.
Richard had decided that they would probably leave tomorrow to meet back up with the church duo to help keep it all the more defended. Leon was right, the more guarded it was the more secure it would be. He had felt that after overseeing the training of the new recruits for the past two days that he was rather fine with the progress that they had made. There weren't any extreme outliers, but they all at the very least had a basic handle on using their swords and using their powers. With nothing more to do, Richard simply went back to sleep and waited for the next day. In a surprising really weird and inexpiable turn of events, Brandon and Heinry had managed to drive back the Nephy, Malo. Well that was pretty awesome on their part. Granted she didn't really throw much at them, figuratively of course, but Brandon was sure this was not the last they would see of her. Oh well, Guardsman's job well done, Brandon had decided to go to bed right where he was so that he would remain ever vigilant for the oncoming threats that would try to break in tomorrow.
Brandon was kind of just trying to be relentlessly positive to try and avoid this very situation. As it turns out, Malo really had no sign of backing down whatsoever. That was a bit of a let down. Brandon didn't really want to fight this girl, but hey, dems da breaks. She started the fight by sending the pews in the sanctuary area just flying at Brandon and Heinry and it was kind of a not so big of deal for the both of them. Heinry seemed to dodge the pews thrown at him, but Brandon didn't know if he had that kind of dodging capabilities quite like Heinry seemed to. So instead, Brandon simply drew Vis Vis and slashed at the pews being thrown at him. Each time a pew was thrown at him he simply cleaved it in half, following it up with an electrical pulse that sent the two halves flying in opposite direction towards the wall. It was then that Heinry had trapped her in a rock cage and Brandon thought that the man was basically just trying to detain her at the moment. Seeing as most of his powers were simply offense related, Brandon decided that he wouldn't do so well at trapping the girl and waited to see how she reacted to being fit in a cage of stone.
randon wasn't entirely sure what was going on at this point. Apparently the blonde haired girl before him was a Nephilim, which Brandon remembered as being massive super enemies based on how they were referred to. But apparently Heinry had two little Nephys of his own, them being Sora and Belle, and they were apparently locked up in hell or something. The girl, who's name was Malo seemed to then have something to do within these walls, probably something to do with Rivaille or something. Then Heinry went on this speech about she didn't have to work for Hell and that she was just a tool to the dark angels and that he was sorry for her and all this other platitude-esque stuff. Once he was done, Malo then kind of just laughed off Heinry's speech and continued to say how Sora and Belle would totally love to hear Heinry's wise words or something to that effect. Brandon then decided to chime in. "Well, if she has her heart set on helping Hell and decided that on her own, then that's her own decision. If you wanted to like, not fight or help us, the fallen angel badasses an all, then more power to you. But your heart has chosen your path and we should totally just be cool with that." Brandon had said this rather positively and wholeheartedly. "Granted, if you're going to be going against us, then yeah we gotta stop you...So what're you here for miss?" "How nice," she replied sarcastically, "for all of you, obviously." Seeing as she was here for the the angels that were here, he decided that introductions were a bit in order. "Oh, well. I'm Brandon, you've already met my guarding buddy over here. Pleasure to meet you." "I don't really care what your name is." As rude as she might've been, that wasn't going to put a damper on this boy's spirits. No sirree. He'd just have to be even more relentlessly positive. "Oh. But it's always nice to know as many people as you can, don't you know? Anyway, I'm sure my pal over here still has much to be asking you, but I can't really let you beyond this point." Malo then looked down at the knife in her hand and back up to Brandon. "Well unfortunately for you, that doesn't really matter to me." She rolled it back and forth between her palms and shrugged. "I'm going to go wherever I want."
Having noticed that the rest of the enemies had been dealt with rather handily, Lucia figured it was high time to end all of the suffering caused be these stupid bandits. Getting herself ready she hoisted her ax up and propped it on her shoulder. Getting ready to go in and help her Disciple comrades, Lucia then began charging full speed towards the final bandit. The boss enemy. Sure, she was getting low on health, she could actually feel a good deal of pain radiating through her body, but seeing as there was no cleric yet, and she had no healing items of her own, Lucia simply did all that she could do in this situation. Hopping towards the boss she came in with her ax and wanted to get a might cleave in. Seeing as he was already not looking the best from having dealt with both Smoch's sword strike and Sasha's lance strike, she was fairly confident in her own ax strike from bringing down the finishing pain on this boss man. Unfortunately, he ended up blocking the strike with his ax, but it was clear that pain was transferred. The shock generating from the ax collision caused his arm to fall down and himself to stumble back in pain, but he quickly recovered and decided to try and end Lucia's life right where she stood by bringing his own ax down to try and cleave her in two. Lucia was able to block such a strike, but she was starting to feel greatly fatigued herself. Hopefully one of her allies would be able to finish this man off.
Sal was rather pleased with the outcome of this entire endeavor. In the end, Milo had decided to join their party and all was well within the group. Even if it did take about 2 days to hear a one sentence response, it was still worth it in the end. Sal and the others then had left the building and decided to get on there way with this recruitment mission. Now that there were no more angels in the American mainland, they could simply continue their journey via long ass jet ride to the next destination. How did Sal know that there were no more angels here? He didn't. But one can always assume things. In the end they all piled into their gifted private jet and took off towards the compass's next destination. With that done, Sal had fallen asleep.
Richard had woken up that morning wondering if he had made the correct decision. Sure, no one else was doing anything as it stood, and Richard kind of was wondering why he proposed it in the first place, but nevertheless, he started to feel that he had taken too many of the veterans with him and had too many go on a recruitment mission. Nevertheless, they needed people who could actually talk to the other angels and convince them, and Richard wasn't positive in his own ability to create such a grand scale inter continental portal to help the new recruits train. Though, if they didn't train, then they would most likely just end up being severely underpowered when the tough actually got going. Richard picked himself up and sighed at the situation that was going on. Richard then looked around and saw that both Leon and Sam were already awake and discussing things. As he brought himself closer towards them, he saw that the both of them were actually quite in some sort of gloomy mood. Sam was smoking and Leon more apathetic than Richard did...and that was quite the feet. Richard walked over to both, sat behind them both and said in his monotone voice, "well, the both of you seem to be in a cheery mood today."
The fighter got himself up muttering something about Lucia being some sort of dastard, Lucia got ready to end it all against this man. This one on one fight was gonna end with one of these people as the victor, and her devilish smirk made her a clear contender for killing this man on the spot. As he stood up, the fighter started to think about how he could fight this girl without getting totally killed. As such, he charged at her, and Lucia simply went in to kill him as easily as she could. Bringing her ax blade out, Lucia began to strike at the ax fighter, only for him to block the strike once more. The two then started to engage in another exchange of ax blows. Lucia had felt the blow that she had previously received, but it wasn't anything she couldn't deal with at all. The man seemed to be a bit worse for wear as well, and Lucia simply decided to be opportunistic about this. She started hammering down on him once more until his arm gave out and his ax blade was sent hurtling out of his hands. He started to look in a panic, and simply backed away from the ax wielding girl. She came down upon him and continued to go at him with a flurry of ax slashes. The man was basically helpless at this point, and each slash kept cutting him until he finally couldn't run any longer. Falling down, body bleeding all over the place, he looked towards his opponent, face filled with horror. Lucia maintained a smile on her face as she took her ax and completely decapitated the fallen bandit fighter. With that done, Lucia simply looked around to see that the rest of the party was basically cleaning house as well. Save for that one mage guy who kind of didn't even exist yet. He had somehow magically started being damaged, but other than that, the rest of the party seemed to be doing fine. As such, Lucia looked forward to the boss, thinking that he was going to be their next clear target to totally get rid of. Due to turn limitations, though, she was unable to do anything more than that.
[/url]It wasn't too shortly after that he had knocked on the door that Milo had shown up at the door to the greet them. As he suspected, the man was suspicious as to if this was the entire party. As such, Sal simply decided to explain the situation to him. "As things are right now, this is the only members of our group who are helping with the recruitment of others. As for the others, they were left back to gain more strength. As such, more than half of our group isn't actually in this country at the moment. I hope this won't be a problem for you."
Edited in Aux in the Great Forest. Edited in Nequa for Nottingham. Edited in Nequa, Aux, and Vanitas for the Dwarf Woodlands. Edited in Nequa, Aux, and Vanitas for Chapter 7. Created a No Heart Page and put in info from Chapter 7. Edited in Vanitas for Castle of Dreams. Edited in Nequa, Aux, Vanitas, and No Heart for Chapter 12. Edited in Nequa for Land of Dragons. Edited in Nequa, Aux, Vanitas, and No Heart for Chapter 17.
Here it was time. Time to get going. After having shaken the hands of her new comrade and speaking a bit to the knight gal, their jobs as escorts had begun. Here it was, the group of Disciples, as they were referred to, had begun moving out, and as such, they were to protect her majesty, Lady Christine at all costs. Even it meant throwing her life as cannon fodder for others...she just really hoped it never came down to that. As the group of body guards made their way through the country they eventually had heard news from a scout patrol that there were brigands abound. Lady Christine, the elegant woman she was, apologized to them and this body guard now had to go to work in protecting the village that was being attacked. She was none too fond of bandits. Having grown up on a farm, her family was subject to being attacked by brigands often. Thankfully she never needed some lord unit to walk over to it and close it off from being totally burned down, since her Pa basically was able to easily take down these bandits himself. Now it was her turn. Her turn to prove herself as worthy of the Yli family name. As such, she decided to go out and preform her role as a fighter. Front line physical bruiser. Sure, she wasn't built as tanky as a knight was, but she was still pretty hearty herself. And she knew a thing or two about fighting with her ax. However, she wasn't going to be stupid about which opponent she picked. Her class was built around health and strength, some defense. As such, her resistance to magic wasn't the greatest and so that eliminated the mage from the attack choice. Next up was melee fighters. There two myrmidons and three fighters in total. She decided to steer clear of the myrmidons as they had a clear weapon triangle advantage, and she didn't want to risk getting over taken by their superior speed and overall skill in being able to hit her. That just left the three fighters. However, one of the fighters seemed to be way burlier than the others, and if at all possible she wanted to steer clear from him until they had to absolutely take him down. The knight of the party, Sasha, seemed to understand these things as well. As such, she started charging one of the fighters who seemed to be enjoying himself, ransacking the town as he wished. "Hey there boyo, don't you think you should stop this." Lucia had decided to see if she could talk this man out of it first. "Ah, how adorable," the bandit started speaking to her in a mocking tone. "Are you worried for little old me? Now now, there there little girly. Why don't you just take that scary little weapon of yours and skedaddle before I think of hurtin' ya." Lucia was not amused by this man at all. "I reckon I'm going to have to teach you a little something then." The bandit started to burst out laughing at the little act of toughness that Lucia had displayed before him. Getting annoyed by this Lucia started to smile and said, "alright then. I guess it's time for your lesson on manner then." Lucia jumped at the dude and started to bring her ax down to cleave at him. He was taken aback by her actual ability to use the ax and jumped back to avoid the attack. He then retaliated with his own strike, to which Lucia had blocked with her ax. He then proceeded to continue and try to absolutely steamroll her by simply overpowering her. However, Lucia kept blocking the ax swings and eventually went in for one of her own. The man used his ax to block the strike and went back from this attack a bit. She then leaped forward again to strike at him, to which he simply dodged to the side, and then brought his ax back down. To avoid this, Lucia let go of her ax and hopped back, only to immediately go forward to pick up her ax again. The two then proceeded to engage in a clash again of ax blades, only to realize that they were equal in strength. In order to circumvent this, Lucia dropped her ax to give herself mobility once more. The fighter had pushed through, but with no resistance, he stumbled forward, and Lucia then kicked the man in the shin, causing him to topple backwards. To follow this up, Lucia grabbed her ax and then came in with the blunt end to hit the man in the gut and send the fighter backwards once more. Continuing to smile sinisterly, Lucia said, "now, are you ready for your next lesson?"
After being promptly kicked out of the tower due to the old crazy man, Merlin that is, the group had now decided to simply travel back through the forest to go to where they had come from. Whilst they were now walking through the forest, it was as good a time as any to learn about things about this world from its locals. "So Wart, was it, I'm curious about that sword. Would you mind telling me about the history behind that Sword in the Stone and as to how it became such renowned blade?"
Brandon had been doing his rounds...whatever the heck they were actually supposed to be. He actually had no idea what he was supposed to do in order to guard against any intruder that may try to enter this place. He was also pretty unsure of what he'd be even guarding against. Maybe there'd be a mass of demons trying to pile drive their way into the church. Also, if they did come...where were they going? Brandon knew that Rivaille was hidden here...but he had literally no idea as to how to get to him. Thinking back he couldn't remember if he was actually given any specific instructions. Ah, whatever. It was then that his attention was turned over to a voice belonging to a girl, who was roughly just slightly younger than him. Probably a few years at most. He hadn't seen her in these past few days, though he was positive he hadn't seen all the nuns yet...Hmm, was she from here. When he actually continued to look at her he noticed something really weird. The normally white rose petals that floated around people who were usually angels were simply landing on her and immediately withering away. That definitely sent a bad vibe down Brandon's spine. Nevertheless, he waved to her and said, "hello there Miss. Sorry, but could you please leave here." Polite approach first. That always worked...well excluding the times it didn't...which was always...Brandon then got ready to fire off lighting at a moments notice.
Edited in Aux, Nequa and Vanitas's story section for Deep Jungle.
