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This place is just hilarious. Seriously, I can tell. Barrel of laughs a minute from here on out.

[Phantom Girl has swapped out her black and white costume for a dusty old tan jumpsuit and a whole lot of weird electronic equipment. Actually, she vaguely resembles......]

Apparently, 'helping the city' translates into 'ghost-hunting' today, which is just about the worst use of my superpowers I've ever heard. ...Maybe I need a new costume insignia. Anyway, I'm not egotistical enough to think I can handle everything on my own - I've only been here like, two weeks, and yeah, there's stuff in this crazy place I've never gone up against before.

So! ...Who wants to help me out? I can make it worth your while. Never hurts to have a bona fide superhero in your debt, right?

I've been hearing about this weird castle that turns all spooky at night. In the, uh... Leo district, I think it was? It's pretty recognizable. Lots of gold filigree and that kind of thing. If you think you're game, feel free to meet me there a few minutes before midnight.

I'll totally bring snacks.

((Edit! The action/log portion will be taking place here instead.))

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As the 13th hour strikes, there's the sound of something large and metal approaching and a thud as a large black robot lands near the group, seconds later a goggled lunatic hopping down from the pilot area.

As he lands he nods to the others.

"I'm not late, am I?"

"O...kay. Wow. So, uh, leave that outside, I think and in order - No. Yes. And kind of?"

This is addressed at Kairi, Nikolai, and 'Ratsel' in turn. Phantom Girl is about to open her mouth to speak again when she is interrupted by the sudden toll of the bell...

The witching hour has arrived.

As always, a sudden crimson stain seeps immediately across the sky; clocks stop ticking, the air grows stale, and a strange feeling of oppression runs through the assorted company. All of this is likely familiar enough, but perhaps slightly more disconcertingly... Before their eyes, the innocuous medical center immediately and violently collapses into a heap of rubble with a sharp crack. For a few moments following, Phantom Girl merely stares at their intended destination with a furrowed brow, biting on the side of her lip. Strains of some cacophonous dirge have begun to fill the air...

"Kind of melodramatic, don't you think?" Well. There were enough of them for a small army so she wasn't really too concerned. "Alright, let's... head inside. Buddy up or something and keep an eye on each other. ...Grab something if you think you can use it."

With that, she takes her pick from the equipment, lifts off the ground a few steps and begins to glide slowly towards the rubble.

((I think I'm going to split the group since there's a large number of people now! Thanks for all being interested =D Morgan, Kotoha, and Kairi will be one and Nikolai, Ratsel, and Phantom Girl will be the other. Phantom Girl won't be doing too much since I'll be mostly NPCing. Does that work for everyone?))

Kairi quirks a brow as the building collapses, hands coming to rest on her hips. A building that collapses during the 13th hour only to rebuild itself during the day... weiirrdd. Definitely exciting though, that much was for sure.

"Alrighty!"

The redhead pokes at the pile of ghost hunting equipment, eventually grabbing an EVP recorder out of the pile. She kind of remembered seeing something like this in movies and shows; you had to talk into it and you'd record ghosts talking back or something like that. That'd be a good asset, right? Kairi fiddles with the buttons until it turns on, popping in one of the earphones attached to it and turning to the rest of the group with a smile.

"Ready?"

(ooc: sounds great to me!)

Kotoha just sort of stares at the equipment pile before grabbing something at random and throwing the cute redhead a wave.

"Arthur and I are good to go!"

[[group 2, continued from here,, keeping it one thread for now]]

Nikolai nodded at Ratsel and Phantom Girl. "Out of curiosity, has there been any evidence here of ghosts, or just rumors?"

"Isn't that what we're here for? I don't think 'ghost activity' is ever really something you can get evidence for, honestly. I mean, I'm sure we'll be attacked by something, but..."

She pauses right before the entrance into the rubble and glances around at everyone with a small shrug.

"OK. Thanks guys, and... stay safe, OK? Here we go."

Phantom Girl slips into the gap and takes the lead with what she hopes is confidence. With her abilities, it wasn't a tight squeeze, but the men might have some difficulty.

Once inside, they are met with an eerie sight. There were bloodstains, of course, as any good haunted locale must boast, and there was certainly wreckage and rubble -- what looked to be the remains of surgery wards and operating rooms. ...All was standard fare for 'haunted hospital'.

Phantom Girl gives a small gulp.

"What kind of place was this, anyway...?"

"Most of the places that the 13th hour creates are nightmare places from other worlds. I haven't explored them much myself as I haven't had the needs but still, best to be on your toes I suspect."

He nods, checks his pistols then pushes a button on his watch which generates a small flashlight like light.

"Perhaps doing this the traditional way will entice them to come out."

"But in this town, you never know when any evidence might turn up. Stranger things have happened. But, I'm prepared for us to be attacked by anything."

Nikolai managed to bring along a flashlight as well, and shines it out ahead of them, eying the wreckage.

"Well, I suppose it was a hospital once. I wonder how long ago."

"Long enough for everything to crumble, and yet not enough for the bloodstains to fade." She drifts into a wall for a few moments, sticking her head back out after making some cursory examinations. "The structure's still sound, though. We're not in danger of being killed by the whole thing dropping on top of us, if that's any help."

Being messily eviscerated was always much more entertaining, anyway.

As Nikolai and Ratsel shine their flashlights, they may catch brief glimpses of something. Nik's light will briefly illuminate the shadow of a child - humanoid and small - down a corridor to the right before it vanishes, accompanied by the sound of soft footsteps. Ratsel's light catches something more bizarre - a flickering light that hangs in the air down the corridor straight ahead. A will o' the wisp. ...This does not vanish.

There remains one more exit, though this one is nothing more than a small hole in the rubble between two collapsed walls.

Kairi makes her way over to Kotoha and summons a small ball of light in her hand with her magic, choosing that in favor of a flashlight as it moves to float above her shoulder like a little fairy. If ghost movies told her anything, it was that a flashlight would go out at the most inopportune of moments, and they certainly couldn't have that when there were demons afoot.

"So I guess we should just go in kind of the opposite direction of the other group?"

"I see something. Light down the hall. I suggest that we stay as a group though instead of splitting up to chase these down."

His other hand moves to his pistol for a second but then he smirks and pushes another button on his watch taking a quick photo of the light he's tracking.

Kotoha doesn't have a flashlight, sadly.

"Arthur, you know what to do."

She does have a four-foot tall jackal that glows in the dark, however.

"Ahh, that's so cool!"

Kairi stares at Arthur admiringly; she'd never really seen anything like him, but he didn't look like he was a persona... maybe she was a demon tamer like Daichi and his friends? He was a bit cuter than most demons she'd seen, but who knows?

"Wanna get moving? I gotta admit, I don't really know much about hunting ghosts, though. But I guess if we work together we can bumble our way through somehow!"

She giggles a little.

((Aaaand because it's getting a little confusing, let's split up now!))

Unfortunately, the moment Arthur fully illuminates the hallway where the will o' the wisp hangs in the air, the ethereal creature - if it was a creature at all - flickers and vanishes.

Even more unfortunately, the disappearance of the wisp is followed immediately by the sudden ringing of alarm bells and the flashing of red lights, though no light source can be seen. In the space of time between bells, the room is suddenly filled with... creatures dressed in disjointed yellow scrubs and face-masks. They swarm in quickly, appearing even where there are no entrances to appear from.

A voice sounds over a PA system.

Unwinds, exit from your dormitories after curfew is forbidden. Return to your assigned rooms immediately. Disobedience will result in the hastened execution of your summary division operation.

The 'nurses' dart forward with surprising speed to grab Kotoha, Kairi, Morgan, and Phantom Girl. Ratsel and Nikolai are ignored.

Though they certainly will fight valiantly, the adolescents will be unable to prevent themselves from being separated from the two adults. Phantom Girl phases out of existence during the struggle and vanishes from sight as well. A door slams shut behind them - when opened again, Ratsel and Nikolai will be nowhere to be seen.

((And split into two threads from here! The nurses are still attacking the kid-group.))

[Well that escalated quickly. Nikolai is used to operating fast, but not when things get so strange. Although his gun is drawn in an instant, flashlight quickly tucked into a pocket, there's nothing he can do. He turns to the only other person with him.]

They've taken them. We need to find them now.

[The rubble-strewn room, filled with demons just a few moments ago, has become eerily quiet in the space of a few seconds. The phantom lights have died, as have the alarms - Nik and Ratsel remain unharmed as nothing sought to attack them in the skirmish.

The three paths still lie before them - the way forward marked by the will o' the wisp, the path Nik had illuminated, and the hidden hole in the rubble.

From the forward path comes the sound of sudden coughing and a vague shimmer in the air; this is followed shortly by Phantom Girl's reappearance as she re-enters the visible spectrum.]

What was that?! What happened? There's nothing down this hall anymore; I tried to go through...!

--!?

[As soon as the bells and whistles start up Kairi has her keyblade ready in her hand, holding it lengthwise and taking a defensive stance in order to push back the nurses charging around her. Giving a quick look around of the situation, Kairi falls back towards the other two stuck in the room with her, eyes narrowed as she observes their attackers. If only she still had a Persona with a scanning ability--!]

Are you all right?

[This certainly wasn't an ideal situation, as they seemed to have lost about three of their acquaintances, but surely they had enough power between them to chop these monsters down to size.]

"Could be worse!"

Kotoha still doesn't have a weapon of any kind, but that's okay - she has her Persona and Arthur.

"Arthur! Dark Pulse!"

The Lucario nods and releases a shockwave of shadowy energy at the ghosts, while Kotoha backs that up with a Mahama.

The masked creatures are like something out of a nightmare. Though they are clearly meant to be nurses, their visible skin is grey, and their hands end in claws or tentacles or other things clearly meant to elicit fear. Those capable of dexterity pause and remove syringes and scalpels from their pockets; the others move in to merely hold down the teenagers in place.

Lucario's Dark Pulse does nothing against the creatures. Kotoha, however, finds more success as the power of Expel strikes a good number of the ghastly creatures. Oddly, though, they vanish without the fanfare that usually accompanies the banishing spell, simply fading from sight when the light falls onto them.

Mahama's accuracy is low, though - For as many as are dismissed, more surge forward to take their place. Syringes filled with some unidentifiable greenish liquid are flicked at Kotoha and Arthur from a distance; Kairi will find herself being pressed on all sides by the creatures, slashing at her hands and face.

If it was of much comfort, the idea seems to be to subdue rather than to kill, as syringes and scalpels aren't exactly the most lethal of weaponry.

Edited 2013-06-30 03:36 (UTC)

Kairi holds out a hand to activate a Barrier around herself, a 360 degree bubble that protected her from harm. Any of the monsters that struck the Barrier would activate Counter Blast, effectively shattering the Barrier into sharp splintering pieces to embed into them. As soon as she finds a chance, the redhead jumps into the air, much higher than that of a normal human, and makes her way even higher into the air with a small push of magic mid step due to her Doubleflight.

Hopefully she'll be able to successfully clear the group, and if so, as soon as she hits the ground again she summons forth her Persona Necho Cat and casts Fire Dance on one of the near by attackers; the firey red music notes inflicted large amounts of Fire damage up to three times on an enemy. Kairi herself throws her keyblade towards one of the farther enemies to activate Strike Raid, an attack that would boomerang through all enemies towards its target, and then once again on the way back to her hand.

Okay so these aren't like the ghosts from back home that are weak to Dark. Good to know. Kotoha will continue to chunk out Mahamas like they're on sale, while Arthur will just switch over to beating the tar out of them with kung-fu, taking special care to shatter the syringes with Steel-hard fists.

Once Kotoha has enough time to do so, she'll release Tesla the Magnezone and command it to start pumping out Flash Cannons and Thunder Waves.

The Barrier Kairi throws up... Incredibly, bizarrely, doesn't appear to do much of anything. If it's a Barrier that protects her from being harmed, why would it allow these obviously unfriendly creatures through? This may be a question to ponder on for the few moments before she jumps into the air; Kairi clears the entire group quite easily. When she lands, she may notice that from a distance, the monsters seem almost a little bit... blurry.

Fire Dance is successful; Strike Raid significantly less so, but just as with the Mahama, the masked nurses melt away into nothingness when illuminated by the light of the flames. There comes a small cry as they vanish - not from the creatures, though, but from something behind her.

On Kotoha's end, the Mahamas continue to dispel the creatures in significant numbers; Arthur's physical Steel attacks, on the other hand, go straight through them. Rather than being destroyed, they merely come out the other end and continue to slash at Lucario some more.

Tesla's electric attacks also appear to work well, and the crowd of monsters is definitely thinning now... Kotoha may wish to bail Arthur out of his predicament, though, as his attacks appear to be almost entirely useless.

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((fine by me))

Ratsel nods and fiddles with something, his robot's eyes glowing at that but nothing else.

"Are we covering you while you gather data or is this a data gathering endeavor for everyone?"

"...Well. It would be nice if you could all help out, but that's a little unfair since it's not like you're being rewarded for this."

She pauses for a moment.

"Tell you what. If it's something that can go around, I'll split it evenly. Otherwise, I'll treat you all to dinner in a few days."

((Gonna ask you to move up here after this so we can keep it in one thread for now! I'll split the threads when the group splits up.))

[[here!]]

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