Champions War : Dead End

[CallmePrismatic]

Jude woke up expecting his head to be ringing or some other sign he was hung over, because that was the only explanation he could think of for winding up on the cold hard ground with no idea what the hell was going on, but found an odd sense of clarity as he took the surroundings in.

The environment was unfamiliar but only in tone. He had lived in the city his whole life and it was never this quiet, the only sound to be heard a lone truck in the distance. It was also never this bleak, but perhaps that was just the lack of, well, anything. All he could see to tell himself he wasn't alone was a guy sitting on a bus-stop bench, slumped over his newspaper.

"Hey, buddy, is something going on?" This sort of harmless small talk was a big no-no with normal citydwellers but the guy didn't budge, or even seem to notice Jude. Approaching the bus stop Jude didn't see the guy taking notice of anything, even the paper he clutched in his hand, with it's emblazoned headline that caught Jude's eye. It was one of those snappy bits that caught the eye's attention, a good triple digit font that commanded notice.

"The World Ends?" Jude's lips mumbled as he peered at the front page. "Mind if I borrow that?" As soon as the question escaped his lips, as if responding to some narratively exciting stimulus, the bench-sitter's hat flew off, revealing the grim visage of a face that wouldn't mind much anymore. It's jaw hung limply in the air, fighting against the tendons surrounding it to dislodge once-and-for-all from the scarred and poxed face. The entire body seemed to give up stature all at once, sending the body slumping face first into the ground, the newspaper tumbling away.

Jude backed away, mind trying to piece some history together to explain this. There had been those breaking news reports, but weren't they isolated? Anything you heard in the news was pointless these days wasn't it. Except when he'd heard from some friends, and then the power went shitty and he'd blacked out himself.

And when had he gotten the outfit he now wore? In the confusion he hadn't paid much attention to his attire but now he noticed that he was wearing some sort of...armor, or something. He sought out a mirror but could only find broken glass, which still revealed an odd ensemble, nothing like what he usually had stocked in his wardrobe. And he felt different too, like during his blackout he'd been cramming in years of bodybuilding.

The shadows on the wall drew his attention away from his new physique, shifting themselves into letters and sentences. Jude read them aloud when they stopped. "You were saved by us..?" He looked towards the sky but saw no letters capable of causing the shadows, merely the sad remains of skyscrapers and office building remnants (The news had mentioned possible missle attacks, but it couldn't have happened here, could it?). When he turned back the letters were gone, the shadows twisting themselves into new forms. "Go forth and defeat the enemy."

The message apparently relayed with sufficiency, the sentence faded, coalescing into a singular black hole. From the hole a shape stuck out, and Jude was rather suprised to discover that his hand had grasped the object before he was aware, pulling from the wall a long lance of sorts. The shadow faded, leaving Jude alone again. He felt comforted by the weight of the weapon, like he was with an old friend even though he never had actually seen a lance outside of a musuem exhibit.

"Enemy? Like what?" He didn't know what shadows were afraid of, but the sound of the truck in the distance began to worry him. Trucks might crunch the pavement, but they didn't slurp, or growl in what sounded like enjoyment.

Jude decided that whatever questions he might have could be answered away from the source of the noise. He set off into the dead city, hoping things would get better before worse.

[lazy man]

Exen awoke with a start, quickly getting up and stretching his limbs quickly. He didn't quite know what had just happened, but he felt... disoriented, to say the least. The last he knew, he was in a college class. And now, he was in this place.

Taking his hands up to his head so he could rub his eyes, the young man found something was in the way that felt sort of like a helmet. In fact, he was wearing gloves, too. Maybe it was just his imagination, but it felt quite real.

Looking around a bit and trying to see his surroundings, Exen only noticed snow and ice. It seemed like it was everywhere, but it was obvious he was in a city considering he could make out the concrete, glass, and steel on and in the structures beneath the layers of ice and snow.

"What in the hell happened here?" he asked no one in particular, a steamy cloud puffing out with every word.

Despite the amount of snow and ice, the stuff wasn't that hard to walk through. It just felt like he was slogging through some ankle-deep water.

And then something hit him. With all of his surroundings frozen solid, shouldn't Exen himself have been cold? had he just gone numb already? Feeling very confused, the man walked over to one of the frozen buildings and looked into the ice like a mirror.

What Exen saw confused him very much. Someone standing covered head to toe in dark blue armor, decorated ornately with gold strips and forming several dragon-like patterns. He hadn't been imagining earlier when he felt that helmet on his head, and he hadn't been imagining when he saw the metallic gloves on his hands. He hadn't noticed before because it all felt so comfortable. It all seemed like something out of a book.

Backing away slowly, Exen found himself on his back not long after. Getting up with surprising speed, he looked at what he had tripped over. What the young man saw did not please him.

A face, frozen like everything else, looked at the sky like it was choking on something. It looked like the person had suffered a huge amount of pain before finally succumbing to death. And Exen could tell all this by just looking at the face.

Deciding that he should get moving to get rid of the shock of seeing himself in armor, not being frozen stiff, and just now uncovering a dead body, Exen decided to walk toward what seemed like some sort of bigger structure.

After about a minute of going through the snow and trying his best to avoid anything that seemed to stick out of the road, the armored man made his way to what he had seen. When he got there, he kind of inhaled a little. What he was looking at could NOT have been real.

"We saved you from the deaths millions faced. Now go, fight the enemy," was what the message said. A message that was made up of large blocks of ice shaped into letters.

"There's no way this isn't a dream..." Exen muttered, unable to move while looking at the message that he felt was for him.

Before he could do anything else, the blocks crumbled and fell apart rather easily, even though they looked quite sturdy. In the middle of the rubble pile was something metallic. Going up to it, Exen realized it was a huge axe that reminded Exen of the armor he was wearing, one of the two blades embedded in the pile of ice. The haft looked like a dragon's tail, with thepart between the blades looking like the dragon's body, the top end of the haft looking like the dragon's head, and the blades looking like spread wings. It was a beatiful thing to look at.

Awestruck, Exen stood still looking at the amazing work of craftsmanship in front of him. At least, he thought he was doing that. Really, he had already reached out and grabbed the axe, picking it up with ease and moving it around with one hand over to his back, where he let go as the axe seemed to fall into place in a carrier on his back.

Very confused, Exen blinked for about a minute before he realized he had just moved that thing around with one hand like it was nothing. He was apparently stronger than he'd been before. In fact, the weight on his back felt like the backpack he'd carried around between classes. It was so... light.

"Let's see, I'm not frozen stiff in some sort of cold wasteland of a city, complete with dead bodies, in armor, carrying a giant axe, and standing on top of the remains of a giant message written for me in ice..." Exen mumbled, checking off the things he'd seen in about fifteen minutes. Then there was a lound rumbling somewhere in the distance. For some reason, it almost seemed like it was coming from something that wasn't exactly friendly. "...and now I'm hearing things."

Walking on a bit more, the "frozen city" turned out to just be the part of the street he'd woken up on. He probably hadn't noticed it being normal anywhere else because he was so disoriented when he woke up. Turning around to look back at the frozen street, he felt like he was in some sort of Twilight Zone because it seemed to be gone.

"What the HELL is going ON here?!" Exen yelled at the rather desolate city.


OOC: Uh, sorry about the really long post. Guess I got carried away.

[IHateMakingNames]

Shannan woke up uncomfortably. He would tell that what he was lying on was not his comfortable bed, but instead a hard floor. Surprised, Shannan sat up quickly so he could look around. He was in a destroyed bathroom, with a giant hole behind the stalls, so the area was flooded.

Soon after realizing where he was, Shannan noticed something else. He wasn't very high up while sitting, and there was black hair in his eyes. Which was odd, since Shannan was a rather large man with short blond hair. Shannan stood up and headed towards the sinks. The mirror had cracks in it and fragments of the wall, but was still usable.

"What the hell?" Shannan asked out loud. Instead of seeing his reflection, there was a short, pale, black haired girl in the mirror. To make sure the mirror wasn't playing tricks on him, Shannan brought up his hands to confirm that they were his. However, he saw that his hands were small, pale, and he had unfamiliar wristbands. Looking down even more, Shannan found that he had the body of a prepubescent girl in strange clothing. For a final confirmation, Shannan grabbed his new belt. He paused for a moment, because he was afraid of what he would fine. Then he took a deep breath, and pulled his pants forward. He starred at his crotch for a while, because he was shocked. There were some rather important body parts missing.

"I'm a little girl..." Shannan said as she slid down onto the floor. She was devastated, confused, and scared. She was there for a while, leaning against some broken sinks in a flooded, destroyed bathroom, thinking. Shannan kept trying to figure out what was going on. What had happened? Where was she? Why was he now a girl?

Eventually Shannan realized that sitting in toilet water confused wasn't going to solve anything. So she got up and walked over the rubble near the stalls, and steped out of the hole. She had now only noticed the destroyed city with bodies lying around. However, after waking up in a destroyed bathroom as a girl, it would take more then that to surprise Shannan again.

Then more happened. On a side of a ruined building, blood was flowing on the wall. The surprising part of that was that the blood was flowing up the wall. It swirled around and formed into words, which Shannan felt compelled to read.

WE SAVED YOU. NOW GO AND DEFEAT YOUR ENEMIES

Shannan was confused what that meant, but before she could think about it, the blood words started flowing down the wall. Unsure of what to do, Shannan ran towards that ruin building to find the blood. It was her only clue as to what was going on. When she cleared the rubble, there was no blood on the wall or at the base of the building. Instead, there was an odd sword with a glowing crystal above the hilt leaning against the wall, with two handguns beneath it.

Unsure of what to do, Shannan decided to take the weapons. Whoever destroyed the city may still be around, so she could at least defend herself with the weapons. First she went for the handguns. Shannan wasn't sure where to keep them, but her hands naturally went for the back of the belt. She just discovered that there were holsters on the back of her belt, which was convenient. The sword was as long as Shannan was, and there was no sheath on her, so it would he harder to carry around. So she slung the blunt part over her shoulder and held it with one hand.

After getting her weapons, Shannan finally noticed the strange noise. Deciding that the noise would lead her to answers, Shannan headed towards it. For safety reasons, Shannan held a pistol with her free hand, the right one, incase she had to shoot something.

[Mesden]

Somewhere on the sidewalk in the desolate city, Eliana rested. With a throbbing headache she pulled her palm over her face while her other hand explored the ground beneath her. Cold and hard, concrete no doubt.

She rubbed her face for a moment, eyes still closed , and tried to lift herself up. Light and easy, with one arm she easily lifted herself, a feeling of weightlessness under her hand. Her hand ran from her forehead to her hair, gliding through the silver locks. She tilted her head back and opened her eyes.

She was not met with the view of a cold, dead city, but of a burning light that she couldn’t see through, but couldn’t stare away from. Strong and powerful, the light would have driven any others eyes away, but she felt compelled to gaze into the shine.

A voice came, a surrounding voice that echoed through her mind, but one that also gave solace and a deep warmth.

We saved you. Now go fight for us…

She was confused, far more so than she was from just waking up on a street.

There is no way some light just talked to me…

Then the sound of three things dropping around, simultaneously clanking on the ground. She pulled her eyes away from the sky to find three different swords, lain across her sides and one in front.

Her hand reached out for the one to the left, but before she grabbed it a shock set in her mind. Her hand was purely snow white. She ran her other hand up her arm and it too held the alabaster quality. And her clothes were different, yet right somehow. A long, flowing, white dress that fell right below her knees.

After getting over her new apparel and skin she went back to examining the three blades. The one that sat on her left was a long sword. She wrapped her hand around that handle and slowly removed it from its sheathe. The blade glistened as the light reflected off of its silver luster. She quickly pushed it back in and set it down beside her.

She looked to her left and found a smaller blade, a katana. When pulled, it held the same silver shine, but the color itself was lighter and slightly easier on the eyes. She set it down before finally reaching the final sword.

It rested at her feet, laying horizontal to her. She motioned over to her knee and lifted the heavy blade, or what should have been heavy. By no means was it light as a feather, but holding it seemed right and easier than it should have been. She pushed herself up to her feet by way of the sword and heaved a strong sigh.

And with her sigh also came a noise off in the distance. A noise that alerted her to her immediate surroundings. There wasn’t any motion. The entire block she found herself on seemed dead, like an ancient ruin eroded by time and war.

She reached over and strapped the sword on their respective sides. The long sword held on her left, katana on her right and the claymore strapped on her back.

Without any more hesitation, she strutted off to the source of the noise, eyes still tracing the barren city before her.

[Raiden]

Thomas awoke, but he did not open his eyes. Sometimes, a person could just sense that something was wrong before they even looked. He began to mumble to himself before his eyelids opened.

"There is nothing wrong. My body does not feel heavy for some strange reason. My hair isn't being pulled at a length it has no business being at. I'll open my eyes...and everything will be as it should."

He took a deep breathe, and opened his eyes.

".....fuck you, reality."

He wasn't home. He wasn't in his bed. He wasn't in his normal body. And this sure as hell wasn't a spot he'd stop to take a nap in. He got up slowly. Normally his older injuries made getting up in the morning a bit of a pain, but this body was nice and limber. Plus so powerful. THIS was a fighter's body.

When he actually stopped to look around, he noticed something strange. He was in a shit hole. The place was a wasteland. It looked like part of the city, but more like a city you'd see in a picture of an apocolyptic sci-fi story. The buildings were rundown and crumbling, the streets broken.

He wandered around a bit, and walked up to a broken show window. There was enough reflective glass left for him to look at what he had become. His entire body was garbed in a heavy dark green armor that simply screamed intimidation. His hair, normally shorter and blonde, was now much longer and white. His eyes had a slight glowing to it.On his hips were two empty sheaths, and his back had a spare strap. They weren't in use yet, but he figured he'd see what they were intended for later on.

It was then he noticed a crackling sound, and a strange light from behind him. When he turned, he saw a collection of broken wires strewn about. Running out from the open wires were streams of electricity. The sparks formed words in the air.

WE SAVED YOU.

Thomas raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah, I bet you did. Pardon me while I go find the white rabbit. I've got a hole to fall through."

Thomas turned and intended to head down the side of the road, when the message appeared again in electricity before him.

WE SAVED YOU.

Thomas rubbed his temples, which wasn't the smartest thing to do with gauntlets.

"Look, this is just a dream. A very vivid dream. In a few hours I'll wake up, and write this down somewhere as part of a cool story plot at some point."

He turned around, and was about to head down the opposite direction when the message appeared AGAIN.

WE SAVED YOUR ASS!

Thomas was about fed up with this crap.

"Look! I'm in no mood to hande the bullshit of my inner child, or whatever the hell you're a representation of in my psyche! I've got shit to do, so leave me alo-*BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT*!"

It was at that point of the conversation that, in anger, Thomas had poked at the message in an attempt to show authority. Instead, it sent a powerful zap of electricity flowing through him. His body spazmed for a few moments, then relaxed as the charge stopped. He looked up and saw a new message.

YOU BELIEVE US NOW, FUCKER?!

Thomas waved them back.

"Yeah, I believe you, I believe you."

When he looked back at the message, it had changed again.

GO, AND DEFEAT THE ENEMY.

"Really? Look at me. I've got nothing to do that with. Could you hook me up with a gun, or something?"

From high above in the sky, three bolts of lightning struck down at the ground beside him. He jumped back in surprise.

"Son of a bitch! A little more warning next...."

The electric words were gone. All that was left were three blades of different sizes. The first was a short sword. It fit in the lowest sheathe on his hip. The next was a longsword, which matched perfectly with the highest sheath on his heip. The third was a bastard sword, which could be easily strapped to his back. Each weapon, though of a foreign make to him, rested easily in his hands. While not light, they were far from heavy.

He looked about as he heard another sound. It was like the starting of a truck. He was going to head in that direction...until he saw a girl. She seemed to glow a bit, and had three swords as well.

"Mysterious noise....or hot chick with swords........."

His choice was obvious, folks. He headed in a sprint toward the girl.

[Mesden]

The tapping of the man running towards her drew her attention. In a place so gloomy as this city, he stood out heavily. The emerald armor was the first thing to catch the eye, but more out of place was his white hair and the glimmer coming from his eyes.

She stopped to let him catch up, maybe he had some idea of what was going on. Once he reached her, she locked onto his spark filled eyes with a shimmering pair of her own.

"Who're you and do you have ANY idea what's going on?"

[Raiden]

When asked the question, he stopped to think. He was going to scratch at his head...but realized at the last minute the sharp things on his gauntlets and decided against it.

"I have no damn clue. I just know I woke up a bit ago, some electric thing with an attitude says I have to go defeat some enemy..."

His eyes couldn't help but to look her up and down. In a place so dark and filled with shadow, her entire being seemed white. Plus...she had the three swords thing going. Which was always a plus.

"As for who I am...I don't think that matters anymore."

[GARUD]

Peter noticed that he was not in his house. He stood up and gazed around. There was no way this was possible. I can't work this out... The boy stood, stood a man. Peter looked at his hand, and there was a glove on it... a wierd glove.

His costume was all different. One minute, he was wearing baggy pants and a T-shirt, the next, he is wearing something you only find in a fantasy book.

"What on earth? This... what..."

The place was strange too. It was a video arcade, but eerily silent. There was no-one else in the room. Peter stepped on something strange... it was a corpse. He jumped up in surprise and landed on a machine. Not only that, he landed on the start button. Suddenly, words appeared on the screen.

We saved you from death...

Now go defeat the enemy!

Peter was very confused. He knew not what it meant, or why he had survived, but he knew...

"I hate my life."

[Mesden]

"Ditto. Anyways, I heard something off that way," her finger shot out and pointed towards the area that the noise came from.

"Come with if you want. I could use the company."

With her final word spoken, she regained her trot towards the sound.

[Raiden]

He jogged after the woman, easily keeping pace with her. This new body seemed made to move quickly, even with this three weapons and the heavy armor on. As they jogged, Thomas talked.

"I'm going to take a wild guess and say some strange message gave you those weapons?"

[Mesden]

"You'd be right. My name's Eliana. Nice to meet you." she didn't really give him a look, keeping her eyes on her path.

"Look, I don't even know quite what's going on. I was somehow on the ground asleep or something and then when I opened my eyes there was this really bright light. Only, it didn't hurt to look at it. And yeah, it gave the whole message thing. Something about fighting for it. Then I found these," Her hands rested on the longsword and katana, pulling them up slightly to show an inch of each brightly shining blade, "and heard something off over there. That's about it."

During her whole speech, it didn't seem like she believed a word she said, no matter how true she was.

[Raiden]

"Well, you can call me Thomas, and we seem to have the same basic story. Except for the fact that my message was an ass. The damn thing zapped me."

He slowed himself down a bit. He seemed to be outrunning the girl beside him, though he wasn't intending to at all.

[Cloud Strife]

"Oh my head..."

Athellan groaned as he sat up, putting a hand to his head, and brushed his hair behind his ears.

Wait... what the? He checked again, to make sure. No denying it, his ears were long and pointed, and his hair was longer than James Hetfield's had ever been. He opened his eyes to see where he was.

"... Oh shit..." This had to be some sort of dream. He was in the largest park in the city, but most of the trees were ashen, as if they'd been burned almost instantly. There were broken, bloody bodies everywhere... yet there wasn't a scratch on him as he looked down at his tan and toned body.

Wait a minute. He stood up, standing much higher than he should be. Looking down, he saw clothes of earthly tones, and a strange vest of chain, tinted green to match his new clothes. What the hell has happened to me? Walking over to the pond nearby, he looked down and saw his reflection. Dude... I look elvish. His eye color had changed, too, from the old blue hue to a new green. But how had this happened? There wasn't a chemical or biological agent in the world that could do this...

That's when he recalled the reports of international turmoil. Tensions rising to the breaking point, threats of missle attacks... had that actually occured? Had earth actually undergone a nuclear halocaust?

As he thought about it, he realized just how quiet the city was. The only sound he could really hear was what sounded like a big truck off in the distance. As he debated on what to do and where to go, he heard the trees and bushes start to rustle. Looking towards the source of the noise, he was downright shocked to see a message spelled out for him in the twisted branches of a perfectly healthy tree.

We have saved you from them.

He rubbed his eyes and looked again to make sure he wasn't seeing things. And sure enough, before his very eyes, the branches began twisting again, forming an arrow that pointed down. When he looked down, he saw a patch of healthy green grass, with bits missing to present a message.

Now go and fight them.

"Fight them? With what? I don't have any weapons on me."

As soon as he said that, the tree to his right, an old Yew tree, dropped a branch. Or at least, it seemed like a branch. He looked up and caught it in one hand. It was light... and strung? It was a recurve longbow. An old oak behind him suddenly dropped many small branches, each landing on a stone, which cracked and attached itself to the small, straight branches. Arrows... By the time he realized what he was doing, he had already put all of them into a quiver on his back. "Well, that's fine and dandy, but what if they get too close?" he asked to no one in particular.

As a reply, the patch of fresh grass split open, and up from the ground came a longsword and a metal shield. The sword had an unusual green tint to its metal as well, and the shield had an ornate design of vines weaving back and forth from the bottom to the top. Without hesitation, he picked them both up, shield on his right arm, and sword in his left hand. Something had changed him, all right... something way beyond his control or understanding, and something that he knew he should be grateful to for saving him the fate of the other people in the park. Putting the beautifully crafted weapons away in the places that had been made for them - the sword into the hardened leather sheath on his right hip,, the bow remained strung and hung across his chest and back, and the shield on a strap on his back - he decided to head for the noise, far outside of the park. Perhaps it would give him a clue as to what happened here... and a clue as to exactly what he was devoting his life to.

Once he reached the edge of the park, he heard voices. Looking to his right, he saw two people approaching. Both of them looked completely out of place here in the city, but the man in the armor and the woman in a white dress with three swords of her own. Falling on the old axiom 'safety in numbers', he walked towards them. "Hello there!" he called to the two, waving.

[Mesden]

Eliana saw the elf like man, another completely out of place with the surroundings.

"Lemmee guess. You woke up in a different body, some mysterious voice talked to you, gave you those weapons and said you have to fight something, right?"

Without even waiting for a reply she continued again.

"Join the club. Me and him," She patted Thomas on the arm, his armor making a clanking sound with the push, "had the same thing. We're going out to that noise, I'm sure you heard it. I'll tell you what I told him, come with if you want. In a place like this, company seems pretty scarce."

[Cloud Strife]

Athellan smirked. "So I guess I'm not going crazy after all. Sure, I'll join you two. I assume you're heading towards that sound like I was planning to."

Falling in line with the two, he said, "My name is Athellan. What about you two?"

[Raiden]

Thomas had to slow down even more. Neither of them had the speed he had, it seemed.

"My name is Thomas. All you really need to know."

"I'm Eliana." she said with a bit of a wave of her hand to bring notice.

[Cloud Strife]

"Nice to meet you both, though it would've been nice if the circumstances were less... bleak." Thomas seemed to be quite fast, and was having trouble keeping his pace the same as Elaina and himself. Elaina seemed to have a radiance about her... and Athellan himself? Well, earthy tones and green tinted weapons seemed to denote his own element. Elements... that was it, they each looked like a veritible avatar for different elements. But what could it mean? Athellan decided not to worry about it for now.

"I wonder... do you think there are any others that this happened to?" he asked them, trying to avoid the silence.

[Mesden]

"I wouldn't doubt it. I haven't been been awake for more than half an hour and here you two are. So, I'd expect something along the line to just show up. Maybe someone else like us, maybe not." Her tone was overly solemn as she kept up her stride, not even caring about Thomas's random ontervals of going ahead.

Her right hand naturally rested on her katana, grasping it at certain points in her words. Her head remained a bit low the whole time, not looking too far ahead for anything.

[GARUD]

Peter walked through a room full of dead bodies and video games. However, apart from the machine he fell on, the rest were all off. They would not turn on either. A slight breeze was felt in the air, and it seemed to move with him, as he walked. Air, indoors? Thats proposterous.

Peter walked out of the arcade into the desolate street. It was empty, almost. There were 3 people, all walking together. Survivors? Thats just as proposterous as air indoors... then again, I survived. I guess nothing is impossible. Peter waved over to them and shouted,

"Do you guys know what is going on here?"

[Phobic]

Cigany awoke sitting in a chair and stretched, thinking "I hate to sleep sitting up, I always wake up so stiff." At this point he realized that he doesn't remember falling asleep in a chair, and looks around the strange room he is in.
Two of the walls had been knocked down, and part of the cieling had collapsed, and at this he wondered aloud, "Who did this". As he looked around, he noticed the strange clothes he was wearing, and took off his hat to examine it. "Whoever did this, they've certainly got style," he put the bowler back on and walked out.

Walking over the rubble and into the street Cigany looked around at all the other dilapidated buildings, hoping to see other people, but none were around. He yelled, "Hello! Anybody out there!" The only response was the low rumble of engines in the distance. "Well, where there's noise, there's people to make it. Maybe they can tell me what's up."

Before he could take two steps toward the noise he noticed a stick floating over by the rubble. As he looked at it, trying to figure out how it was staying up, it began to move. It appeared to be writing in the dust and debris from the building. Cigany approached and read as it wrote We Have Saved You, Now Fight Our Enemies. When it was done, the stick dropped to the ground, as inanimate as it should have been in the first place. He pondered this for a moment, and said, "Alright, not going in that direction anymore." With that he turned around and began to walk in the opposite direction.

After a few steps Cigany was struck in the back of the head by something, and he turned to find the stick from earlier laying right behind him. He knelt and picked the cane up, holding it at eye level, "Fine. I'll do as you say, but your coming too. Maybe you can help get me out of whatever trouble your getting me into." Lowering the cane into a more comfortable position, Cigany began to walk toward the growling noise.

[Mesden]

"Hey, I was right. One more to join the crew. So," she took a couple steps towards Peter, keeping eye contact with him, "I'll assume you woke up in a strange place, got some weird message and that," she pointed at his attire, "isn't yours, but mysteriously came to you."

She turned away from him and took one step forward before saying, "Come with us if you want. We've all got the same story you do. This place is dead, but we heard something off somewhere down this road."

She waved her hand to motion the others to follow and continued down her own path.

[Krylo]

Jimmy opened his eyes to the familiar sight of concrete directly beneath his nose. It was nothing he hadn't seen before, but something felt off about it. Something wasn't quite right, and it wasn't until he moved his arms that he understood what.

'Pain...? a broken thought signifying the complete lack of pain he seemed to be suffering. James Shannon was used to waking up face down on the asphalt ground of the city, beaten, bruised, and bloody. He was used to his muscles barely working and a soreness permeating his entire being. Yet here there was none.

It worried him as he placed his hands next to his shoulders and began to push himself up, his long black hair cascading around his face and falling back to the concrete, if he had thought about that for a moment he would have probably fallen over again, but, luckily his mind glossed it over, much as the human mind is apt to do with the impossible.

He looked around upon standing, still paying little attention to himself, and what he saw was shocking. The city was both deserted and dead. Buildings were falling apart, bodies littered the street like confetti, but, most of all, he noticed the cracked glass of a nearby pizzeria's front window. Or, rather, he noticed his reflection in it.

This time, his brain couldn't gloss over the impossible, it was right there in his face. His short red hair was gone, replaced by long black locks, and he no longer had his irish freckles, but rather perfectly smooth pale skin. Gone too were his various scars from a lifetime of fighting on the street. Testing, he openend his mouth wide and pulled his lips back with his finger to find that he did, indeed, have all of his teeth once more. His years of fighting had all gone away.

Of course, so did the clothes he had been wearing before. His white, and incredibly tight, tank top along with his long black gloves, and that... whatever the hell it was he wore around his waist. Not to mention his pretty.

"...I look like a woman," he stated, his voice rather empty, as he looked over his new form.

Now, the way Jimmy saw it he could either freak out about this or go and grab a piece of pizza from that pizzeria he was looking through the window of. 'It isn't like the corpses inside are going to need it, he thought to himself, although his mind immediately doubled back and caught that thought. How callous and heartless it was. Now, James, 'St. Jimmy,' Shannon wasn't a bleeding heart, but what had happened here was truely horrible, and the callousness at which he accepted it shocked him for a moment, and made him sick on himself.

However, he also wasn't one to lose his appetite.

Walking through the destroyed door, he noticed that the pizza was still somewhat warm, though certainly not hot. Whatever had happened here had been recent. All the food in the front room, however, seemed to be covered with corpse, so he walked around to the kitchen, where a pizza was still sitting inside an oven--although the doors were missing from the cooking device.

He reached in and pulled out three slices--which he turned into a pizza sandwich, and began to eat as he made his way out through the corpses.

Luckily they hadn't begun to stink yet, or not even his iron clad stomach would have been capable of keeping down the food with the sheer amount of death surrounding him.

As he walked back onto the street, he felt a breeze blow past him, and it chilled him slightly. A still-burning drum fire, with the corpse of a hobo laying near it, drew the rapidly adjusting ex-street punk toward the warming flames. However, as he drew closer something strange happened.

The fire grew, burning wider and higher than should be possible, and then the flames formed words.

"We saved you," the flames spelled out amidst their dancing. At first James didn't quite believe what he was seeing, but just after he had read the words, the fire shot out toward him.

He instinctively threw his arms up in front of him as the fire ensconced his body whirling around him like an inferno, yet, oddly enough, it didn't burn. It actually just felt comfortably warm.

Soon, however, the inferno vanished and he felt the new weight of a sky blue and white cloak on his shoulders, which served to keep the cold from his barely dressed body, and, had he looked down, he would have noticed that he had three crossbows placed on his belt as well as a sword.

He didn't however, being distracted by a new messaged formed by the flames, and so the weapons would probably be a surprise to him later.

"Go and fight our enemy," the flames spelled out before disappearing completely, leaving not even the original fire in the drum.

James just stared for a minute. Things had been happening all too fast and all too strange. It certainly didn't feel like a dream, but it couldn't be real either. It just couldn't.

His mind swirled and his body stood still in shock until his thoughts fell back into place, and he found himself once more.

James Shannon was a street fighter. He barely scraped by in life and he hated every minute of it. No one had ever done anything for him without asking for his help, and he hated all of them for it.

Why should he help this strange voice? Fuck it.

"...Fuck you," the youth turned archer said as he began to walk off into the city, toward the distant sound of an engine--another bite of his pizza sandwich filling his mouth.

[lazy man]

Exen had been walking along for a while now, not really knowing where he was going. He felt like he was alone, but his instincts kept telling him there was someone else there. So far, his instincts sucked.

"Damn it, I get all a suit of armor and a big frickin' axe and then I just get to wander around for a while. What fun..."

It was maybe five minutes later that Exen saw someone a ways off walking along yet another dead street. Like Exen he was wearing some sort of armor and carrying around a lance. It was Jude, although Exen didn't quite know that yet.

"Hey, you! You aren't some part of my imagination, are you?" he called out, thinking he was just being delusional at this point.

[IHateMakingNames]

While wandering through the destroyed city, heading towards the strange noise, Shannan decided to try and figure out what has happened.

However, her thoughts kept focusing on her new female body.

So, I'm a girl now. I wonder what this is like? I suppose I'll have to sit down to pee. I'm going to miss my penis. Hm... Wonder what it's like to have a vagina? How does it feel?

Shannan started to move he rright hand towards her crotch, then quickly pulled it away.

No! I can't do that... now. Something devistating happened here, and the cause might still be around. I can't be distracted. Plus, I'm pretty sure that would make me a pedophile. Why couldn't I have atleast turned into a teenager? With smooth skin, large chest, cute-hey, I'm a lesbain now.

And so, Shannan kept heading towards the sound, lost in thought.

[CallmePrismatic]

Jude's head was watching the ground so much that the sudden intrusion of Exen's voice startled him back into this weird situation his life had jumped into.

It was those sounds. He was positive he had headed away from the noise but the more he walked the louder it got, as if he was walking right into it. Before finding another resident of the weird his mind had been contemplating the two possibilities it could construct on its own. One side told him not to worry because it was just the city's natural dead acoustics and he was in the right direction. The other told him that he was heading away from the first sound and straight into a new one.

"Oh, I guess I'm not alone here. Where's your friend off to?"

Both Exen's and Jude's eyes followed the strange figure that was shambling around the bend. The strangest thing Jude could pin on the man was that he was...normal. Normal stature, regular clothes, unique by being undifferent. All either of them could see was his back as he shuffled around the corner, the ominous noise a steady humming buzz in the foreground.

"Where's he going, isn't he with you?" Jude said, but Exen seemed (since emotions couldn't be read when the face was hidden under a thick helmet) as suprised at the man's appearance as Jude. Undetterred, and taking no mind of the rudeness at ignoring Exen for a moment, Jude ran after the man who had already walked out of his vision.

"Hey, wait up, how did you su-su-oh shit." Jude wished he could take the words back as he himself rounded the corner and saw what the next street contained.

The man he had followed was part of a scattered crowd of similarly shambling people, although it was what they were shambling to that really caught the eye. Most 15-foot tall bug monstrosities tended to. The men and women who shambled toward it willingly didn't seem to mind the fact that they were approaching something that could squash them. In fact, Jude instantly regretted seeing, they were vying for its attention; One of the closer shamblers waved it's hands until the six-legged monstrosity came about and promptly snapped up the human in its maw, swallowing its volunteer dinner whole. Jude thought he saw something small scuttle away, but then the man turned around.

He was a normal person, once. He still was, Jude presumed, under the scarring and boils. His eyes were gone and his mouth was agape, revealing another disgusting creature inside that poked its pincers out. "SKREEEE! SKREEEE!"

The chittering sounded out, above the massive bug's own movement and that of the other street inhabitants that, and Jude was taken aback by the sudden aural onslaught. Without thinking his arms swung the lance around in a wide arc that intersected with the man's head, cutting through the dead flesh but not the sound. As the once-man's head tumbled across the street the creature inside, a multi-foot-long beetle with more colorful markings, scurried out of its former home.

"What the hell?" Jude wasn't sure if he had said it or maybe the other guy who seemed stuck in the same situation, but he agreed with whoever it was. Jude wasn't sure if he was imagining the other be-armored warriors on the other side of the street, but he did see the massive bug cry out a reply to the slain vessel, and the 'people' around him followed suit. "Things might be getting bad."

[GARUD]

Peter was stunned. The girl was right. His attire, everything seemed out of place. Then again, this was no ordinary day.

"Alright, I'll go with you to this sound that you speak of. The name is Peter, and I have a feeling I may be with you guys for a while..."

He stopped to see something get it's head chopped off in the distance.

"What in the world just happened?"

He was answered with the shamblings of dead people making their way towards him and the group. Not only that, but there was a massive bug at the end of the street. It was easily 15 foot. The thing was absolutely massive. Peter just stood in awe. Subconciously, he drew a spear that was to be slung onto his back. Why was there a spear... probably came with the clothes. The man spun his spear in a twirl-like motion and opened up the neck of the closest zombie. The rotting thing staggered back, and a pair of insectoid legs burst out of the gaping wound. Peter quickly slashed at the bug creature hoping to kill it. It was big for a bug, as long as you didn't compare it to normal bugs. It took a couple of hits, and it lay on its back struggling to live.

Y'know, between this whole bug and surviving death thing, I am probably going crazy. But at least I'm ging crazy with other people.

Edit: CMP, I changed the post to notice other things.

[IHateMakingNames]

Shannan had climbed on top of a ruined building to get a better view of the area and hopefully find the source of the noise. Unfortunately, her plan worked.

From the top of the ruined building Shannan could see the giant bug eating people, and disgusting zombie looking people spreading out. On the bright side, she could see wierd looking, but not zombie liike, people who seemed to be against the zombies.

Shannan felt compelled to attack the giant bug and zombies. These must have been the enemies the blood was talking about. Because Shannan had left her sword at the bottom of the building so she could climb it, all she had were her pistols. Which was fine, because she didn't want to get near the zombie monsters anyway.

She reached behind her back and took her two handguns from their holsters. Stepping up to the edge of the building, she pointed the two guns at the zombie masses. With such a large amount, she didn't bother aiming. Then she opened fired.

"What the hell?" Shannan asked herself. She pulled the triggers, and heard clicks. No bullets were killing zombies. Shannan put her left pistol away, and took out the other handgun's clip. Which was odd, since Shannan never handled a gun before, but she knew exactly what to do anyway.

These guns have no bullets. The clips were empty. How can I defeat the enemies without bullets? I need bullets.

Upon desiring bullets, Shannon did something without realizing it. Blood from a corpse inside the building flowed out of the body and up through the cracks in the building. Shannan was suprised when blood shot up from a crack in the ground and poured into her empty clip. She looked down the clip to see the blood form into bullets.

"Works for me." Shannan said as she pointed her gun at the zombies and bugs. This time, bullets rained down on them. When she ran out of bullets, Shannan drew more blood from the corpse and refilled her clip.

[CallmePrismatic]

Jude tried to keep up with the unfolding situation. There was a group at the other end of the street, and at least one of them was reacting to the situation. Bullets started to rain down, peppering the zombie crowds although they didn't seem to mind a few hits to their un-living extremities and body parts.

A small group broke away and began to scale the building Shannan was perched upon. The big bug released an accompanying and supportive shriek and lumbered over to the building, and managed to dig four legs into the structure before Jude's lance flew from his hands, grazing one of the ground-based legs.

A new target decided upon, the big bug shrieked in a mixture of what sounded like pain and fury, then bore down on Jude, who made a valiant attempt to dodge between the massive legs and retrieve his weapon but ended in a futile struggle with the bug's head and was sent flying onto the concrete.

As he lifted himself up his entire peripheral vision was consumed by the bug, his just-acquired weapon lying out of reach. "Ok, I'll accept another divine intervention." The shadows around him remained stoicly silouhetted to their intended objects. "Great, at least I had a good run, all eleven minutes of it."

[Raiden]

Thomas looked up...and saw bugs. Big bugs. And zombies. Big bugs and zombies.

"Oh....shit."

He reached down to his hips, and pulled out the long and short swords. He never dual wielded weapons before....but if he was given these weapons, there must be a damn good reason!

[Phobic]

The rumbling now bordered on a roar, and Cigany was expecting to see large machines over the buildings. But as he turned a corner he saw the battle raging against the giant bug, and it's zombies. He lifted his cane to eye level and said, "I suppose you want me to get in there, don't you?"
He then gripped the cane by the base, waving it like a club, and running into the fray.

[Mesden]

"The hell...awwh you have to be kidding me..." her eyes looked upon the massive bug and the zombie horde. Not to let the others know due to sheer pride, she had a dwelled secret. One where things like zombies always sent a shiver down her spine.

She wasn't a fan of normal bugs either. No less massive, wall destroying ones.

Her hand reached back for the claymore, eyes debating what to do.

Alright, zombies are slow. I think. So big weapon is good. And that big bug is a bit oversized to use either of the smaller ones on. So, big one it is.

She walked forward, her strut a bit shaky as she was diving headfirst into a zombie crowd, but with little hesitation she ran the powerful blade through the zombie, its body falling in twain.

Ok, yeah, big sword=Good right now.

And with the conformation in her head, she continued tearing through the zombies, the large bug basically out of her reach and something she didn't intend on wanting to confront willingly anytime soon.

[Cloud Strife]

"Good god..."

Athellan had seen a few horror movies in his day, but he never dreamed he'd see them come to life before his very eyes. "I swear it's like a page out Gatekeepers and Resident Evil..."

Brushing those thoughts aside, he realized that the others had begun attacking the zombie horde. What stood out to him, though, was the fact that another man in black armor was staring into the maw of the giant bug. Reacting solely on instinct, he pulled off his longbow and pulled two arrows from his quarrel in one swift motion, nocking them onto the string. Without hesitation, he aimed and fired, striking the large bug-thing on its main body. That should get it's attention away from the guy...

[lazy man]

Exen had paused for a second before absorbing what he was looking at. A giant bug. And zombie-like things being controlled by other giant bugs.

"What the fuck is going on here?" he asked no one in particular.

Before he knew it, though, he was rushing up to where Jude had gone into the fight and was pulling his axe off his back. With the running start he had, Exen made a clean, strong sweep that cleaved one zombie in two and cut deep into another.

"...I don't get it," he finally said to himself, kicking the zombie off his axe, "but I'll play along." Bringing the weapon up over his head, Exen swung down into another zombie, mangling it and keeping it from getting up.

Exen kept going, dealing hard blows to the zombies that kept them out of commision. Maybe he could work his way up to the big bug, but that would have to wait, considering the wall of walking corpses in front of him.

[CallmePrismatic]

The arrows embedded themselves into the bug's carapace, and Jude rolled away from his prone and prey position as the giant gape that had once faced him backed away in search of the most recent source of fury. Weaving his way between the stomping feet of the bug Jude acquired his weapon again, noticing how cracks had begun to spring up from the pounding.

After twirling his lance around, Jude tried to assess the situation. Countless more animated dead began to stroll through the street but they were pointless. Jude didn't think any of them could outrun the bug for very long, and running might as well lead them to another predator or even the hive-equivalent. The arrows had penetrated the exoskeleton but hadn't drawn any blood so it must have been tough, so that left what?

"The legs?" A zombie seemed to offer an inquiring face to this random expostition from Jude, but it turned out to be a face that merely wanted to rip out some of Jude's vital parts. A quick slash warded it away and Jude applied himself to his personal discovery. "The legs! GO FOR THE LEGS!"

[Raiden]

Thomas was awkwardly using his two blades. Finally, after botching an attack, he put his shortsword away. He obviously wasn't skilled enough to dual-wield yet. Using just one weapon seemed better as he chopped down the zombies. One got in too close, and on instinct, Thomas grabbed him by the throat. He almost pulled his hand back in shock as torrents of electricity poured from his hand and into the zombie's body. The dead flesh fried and smoked until Thomas pulled his hand back. Sparks leapt from his palm...and he smiled.

"Hell yes."

He heard someone screaming about going for the bug's legs. He was close enough to the massive insect to do something about it. He sheathed the longsword and drew his Bastard Sword, held it to the side, and with his muscles flexing and clenching, did a massive slice to the vulnerable legs of the bug.

[IHateMakingNames]

While low accurecly bullets from afar didn't affect the zombies, several shots from above straight down their head were. Shannan wasn't sure if it was because zombies died to head shots, as every movie she had every seen indicated, or if it was because the bullets travelled down directly into the bugs controlling them.

After a while, the zombies had forgotten about Shannan. Now that she was out of danger, Shanna decided to get her sword. When she had climbed the ruins, she left it down there, since she couldn't sheath it or climb while holding it. Wanting to keep her height advantage, Shannan used some blood from the zombies she killed to create a large, crude hand, which she sent down to grab her sword, then bring it to her.

Now with all of her weapons, Shannan decided to take on the giant bug. Not wanting to actually go near it, she decided to use a ranged attack. Using the blood from the zombie bodies gathered at the bottom of the building, Shannan created a giant blob of blood. She put her sword in the blob to give it a sharp tip, then hardned the blood around it into a more aerodynamic form.

Shannan put both arms over her head, lifting the blood arrow above her head. She swung down with her arms, launching the blood arrow at the bug, aimed for it's center. While she had heard the scream to attack the legs, Shannan decided it would be easier to attack the body.

[CallmePrismatic]

Thomas's monster of a sword cleaved through two of the bug's legs, spraying the ground and surrounding area with a highly odorous green-esque liquid. The loss of a third of its stability caused the bug to flail around, mostly uncontrolled but still with enough rage-driven drive to batter Thomas in the chest with its massive mouth, throwing the electro-warrior into a nearby building.

While it struggled to regain control the blood arrow entered the equation, flying from the top of the building into Big-Bug's exposed underside. After penetrating its belly the blood lost it's form, melting away into a pool underneath its former target. From the bug's wound came a hoard of smaller creatures that landed on the discarded blood, absorbing it into themselves. Small arachnids and other beings with more legs than brain cells began to fall out of the wound, but Big-Bug had finally centered its balance, releasing a deafening screech before ramming itself into the building Shannan was perched upon. The blood warrior couldn't maintain balance and fell off her lofty height advantage, into a pile of twice-dead zombies that had gathered from her attacks.

Unaware its target had already fallen, Big-Bug continued to pound the building until its structure gave out, reducing the entire work to rubble. Jude managed to grab the prone Shannen before any debris could prove fatal, carrying them both across the street. The Bug tracked them, feet stomping more crags in the pavement, and screech again.

[Mesden]

Eliana saw Thomas get knocked off into the building and decided that helping a potential friend out of the rubble is a bit more important than killing some bug zombie...things.

She dashed over to the fallen comrade and began to pull and brush aside some rubble off of him. She held her hand out and he grasped it, almost pulling her down in her attempt to help him up.

[Raiden]

Thomas took the hand, knocking rubbled off him as he got up.

"I hate that bug. Really, I do."

He watched it lumber off, short two legs.

"I took some legs off the thing, and it STILL hit me."