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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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"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.

Light and fire seemed to be the most successful moves here at the moment... Kairi figured she had just the ticket for this predicament, but she'd need a little back up.

"Kotoha, do you think you could watch my back? I think I can hit all of these, but I need to concentrate for it to work, and I can't really protect myself during it!"

Her aim was to use a shotlock, Lightbloom more specifically; it'd send a total of 20 volleys of light based magic at any of the monsters she could lock on to while she spun around wildly in place, but first she'd actually have to lock on; one strike from an enemy, and she'd have to start all over again.

"Got it! Arthur, Tesla, cover her!"

As Kotoha and her pokemon form a defensive perimeter around Kairi, she activates one more pokeball, releasing...what appears to be a doppleganger of some sort. Kotoha addresses her duplicate in a rushed tone of voice.

"Distract them, Zoroark!"

The shapeshifted pokemon grins in a manner that is frankly unnatural before dashing away, zig-zagging between the phantom nurses in an effort to draw their attention as Kotoha, Arthur, and Tesla form into a loose triangle as they take their positions.

Kairi grins at her before holding out her keyblade in front of her with both hands, eyes narrowing in concentration. In her mind she could see targets locking on to the monsters she pointed towards, working her way up to the maximum locks possible before she could release the volleys.

If this didn't wipe them out, it would at least be pretty devastating.

Wiping them out is exactly what happens. Like an eraser obliterating all traces of an etching from existence, the light-based attack shines over the group of monstrous nurses. Without so much as a reaction, they simply melt away into nothingness. But once more, soft cries sound from somewhere behind the two, and were they to turn around at this point, they would spot what appeared to be the figures of children vanishing around the corner - identical to the figure that Nik had briefly illuminated in the main room.

But for now, it appears that the group of teenagers is safe. The instruments they carried, which, had they had the opportunity to pay any attention to whatsoever, had been going berserk, die down as well. There is time for a momentary respite to regroup after the unexpected attack and separation.

Kotoha looks at Kairi with an expression of respect as Zoroark saunters over, dropping his illusion and leaning casually on Arthur. The Lucario huffs softly at this but doesn't move.

"That was awesome! What was it?"

Kairi lets out a deep breath she hadn't known she'd been holding, giving Kotoha a slightly embarrassed grin and pushing her hair back out of her face.

"It's called a shotlock! It takes a lot of work, but it's pretty worth it, huh? My Master taught it to me back at the world I was at before this one."

She holds her keyblade in the air and casts a Group Curaga, hopefully renewing some energy and taking the edge off after that fight. The redhead lets her keyblade dissipate for now, stretching her arms behind her back before turning to look at Kotoha again.

"Time to find our way back!"

Kotoha pauses briefly for thought, one hand resting on her belt of pokeballs.

"...we probably shouldn't rile up the ghosts too much until we're out, huh."

There's a slight pause as she signals to her team.

"But, uh...it's not just me that thought evil nurses trying to subdue us was kind of creepy, right?"

Totally way creepy.

They're not out of the woods yet, though. In the absence of the nurses, the corridor has grown quite dark... Natural enough, given that it was past midnight.

Eventually, as they speak, something will appear in the darkness behind them - the same wisp that had sounded the alarm earlier. This time, though, it bobs in place and sedately follows a path around the corner.

Should they follow it, they'll be met with a split path, and the wisp bobbing down the hall to the left.

"That'd probably be a good idea."

Kairi replies, dimming the sphere of light that hovered over her shoulder just in case it spawned on any more unwanted visitors. She purses her lips a little at the second question, nodding her head.

"Completely. And what did they call us, Unwinds...? Ah, look!"

She switches her attention as the wisp appears, taking a step forward experimentally and looking back at Kotoha as it begins to bob its way down the hall.

"Better plan than no plan, right?"

Kotoha signals to her pokemon.

"Mm, yeah. Okay guys, form up."

As Kotoha falls into line behind Kairi, the three pokemon form a perimeter around them.

Whether or not following the wisp that had put them in danger in the first place is a good idea is a question that is likely to be answered soon. The bobbing flame leads the way silently, illuminating the hallway as it goes - Kairi and Kotoha may soon notice that within the perimeter of its eerie light, the building around them appears... different.

Though the structure is ruined, the will o' the wisp reveals that the building they stand in was something once resembling a dormitory. Rooms are set to either side, and at one point, a bulletin board with messages and notes printed on assorted, colored sheets of paper. If read, they will be found to consist of the single word 'unwind' over and over. ...Deep digging will reveal that one sheet of paper remains intact.

It reads as follows.

"Unwind, by the signing of this order, your parents and/or legal guardians have retroactively terminated your tenure, backdated to six days postconception. Any rights previously granted to you by the county, state, or federal government as a citizen thereof are now officially and permanently revoked."

The will o' the wisp continues on and now, it seems, ghostly faces can be glimpsed for the briefest of moments. Girls and boys, Kotoha and Kairi's age, bodies passing through the hallway, occasional unintelligible whispers floating past their ears.

It will stop, finally in front of one of the doors before bobbing inside. The hallway continues to stretch in front of them - and behind them, of course. The dormitory room has a faded, almost illegible name on a placard: 'L_ss__er'.

They are free to enter or to explore elsewhere.

Kotoha just sort of stares at the sole intelligible message on the paper.

"...this cannot mean what it's saying."

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