Expedition to Autunno Keep [PLOT] Day 1 - Hard Landing

Yin quickly gathered his bag. That certainly doesn't sound good. He thought he felt a strange energy come from the direction of the keep. What is that? He wondered, It feels like...like...despair... He frowned as they began going towards the very place where this feeling was coming from. Something is very wrong with this. He concluded, But I guess the only way to stay alive is to stay with these guys. He made the mistake of looking up at the sky, "Well," He said to nobody in particular, "Isn't that lovely?"

Glancing up at her training at the sudden lack of sun to spot the Nevermores, she would blink twice before realizing they are not a figment of her imagination, running over to Jim, she would shift White Dragon to primary form and put it on her belt.

Aphelion looked around and up at the Nevermore swarm. Gods, deliver us. he quickly prayed before running up to the group heading out.

I wonder if these ungodly birds spit Dust... he wondered as he followed Jim. He started whistling as he walked. "Never show fear." he reminded himself with a quick whisper, despite shuddering sightly.

Melissa, like everyone else (Surprisingly...), noticed the massive amount of Birdies gathering in the sky, blackening out the sun and casting their dark, terrifying glares down upon everyone around the ruins. Any normal person would probably wet themselves at the mere thought of this many Nevermores in the sky, but the people gathered here weren't normal people - all of them were brave warriors, and it showed. However, that didn't mean that they weren't afraid - no sane person would be casually eating cookies in a situation like this, completely uncaring about the horde of Nevermores that could swoop down and wipe them al- Wait, what's Melissa doing?

Melissa, despite seeing the Birdies clouding the sky, was happily munching away on the cookies and other snacks laid out, not even caring about the Nevermore army gathering.

'No reason to waste good cookies! I'm sure those birdies will be fine with me making sure these cookies don't go to waste! I don't think anyone would want to waste cookies, after all! Especially not cookies as good as these!' Was what was going through her mind as she hummed with a mouthful of cookies.

El Taladro swelled with pride upon hearing his name. Unfortunately, the large number of screams and howls quickly interrupted his joy. Under normal circumstances, El Taladro would have been annoyed, but these were not ordinary circumstances. With a quick glance around, he saw his allies follow his fan into the stronghold. He smiled when he saw Leo. His confidence and passion burned bright and he turned to face the birds that had blocked out the sun. "You have become quite a nuisance. Only clouds may block out the sun, and you are NOT clouds." He called out to the creatures as he gripped the table, lifting it and tipping its contents onto the floor. "FACE YOUR JUDGEMENT." He bellowed as he spun around, gathering momentum, before letting the table fly in the general direction of the birds.

{{Sorry about the cookies, amigos. Also, that table isn't meant to hit anything.}}

"I believe you can handle creating our path. Don't collapse everything though." She spoke calmly, still looking out the window, watching the small amounts of light coming through fade away into darkness. Evacuating would probably be best... but likely impossible at this rate. I assume the archeologists will have a safe place to hide, otherwise we won't last forever against that darkness. Leonius is right. We should regroup with the others and a course of action can be decided then, after we get a better assessment. It was apparent that she was thinking to herself as she stared, not really looking for anything, but she turned around, ready to follow Leonius' lead. "After you."

Isabelle instinctively drew her blades when she heard the roars and screams of the Grimm, but when she turned to look where the noises came from, she simply stared in amazement.   I... don't think we'd even have a chance against that many of them.  She headed over to Jim, hoping that they would leave this damn place before the giant group of Grimm got any closer.

Unfortunately, Melissa's cookie banquet was interrupted by a man randomly lifting up the table, spilling all of its contents on the ground. Melissa stared in shock at the wasted cookies littering the ground for a few moments, looking up at the man, back down at the cookies, up at the man and so on and so forth, hardly able to believe what happened. Why would someone murder innocent cookies like that?! THE MONSTER!

'Roaring' in 'rage', similar to how a kitten would, Melissa charged at the cookie murderer, futiley attempting to tackle the large man to the ground. When the first tackle didn't even budge the man, she continue trying to ram him, but to no avail.

Nigrum, frustrated walked to the wall and slid down to a sitting position on the floor. As he sat his hearing began to slowly come back. He heard a caw and looked up, it was dark out now. He looked towards the sky and saw a huge flock of nevermores. "Hm, this is fantastic" he said standing up.

Over the sounds of people moving around he caught the calm and collected voice of the woman who had been talking earlier, or so he assumed, "Everyone, please get inside. Please don't provoke the Nevermores into attacking early." He let out a sigh, finally some sanity, he thought wallking towards the doorway grabbing a cookie from the table as he passed. As he continued past a cookie hit his foot, and then another. He turned around to see El Taladro listing up the table.

"Come and face your judgement" he shouted before spinning around and throwing the table at the birds.

Nigrum stood, stunned for a moment. "Do you not listen?!" He shouted at El Taladro throwing his arms up in frustration, "don't provoke them into attacking early! There are more nevermores there than we could all take down without risking casualties."

"Viola is that you?" Chiu asked. It sounded like Viola and the blur before her was the color she expected. "I can barely see so I'm not sure what happened, but it sounds like they are moving us to camp early. Someone mentioned Nevermores. Plural. So things may be bad."

Glancing up at the sky when she hears Chiu mention Nevermores, Viola sees the problem, "Oh... Ok then. Glad I'm a light sleeper. And yeah, it's Viola."

Grabbing Chiu by the arm, she starts heading in the direction of Jim, intent on actually listening to someone else for once. "Come on then... we should probably follow them."

"Thanks." Chiu said as Viola led her away. Even at the top of her game Chiu was ill-equipped to take on  a large scale grimm like a Nevermore. An entire murder of them? Impossible.

She was always impressed by hunters who could leave large swaths of destruction in their wake, but Chiu preferred her kills to be a bit more...personal. She might be able to count the number of grimm she had killed on her hands, but she could honestly say she had looked into each of their eyes. They did not deserve the bliss of a quick death. They deserved to see it coming, and to know she was the one who killed them.

"So...Where did you dissapear off to?" She asked Viola. "I lost sight of you when the fight started."

Pausing as they catch up to the rest of the group, Viola gets within whispering distance of Chiu, just to avoid other people butting in. "Well, let's see. I jumped out of the airship and landed in the treetops, ran away from beowolves that had seemingly no problem being 50-75 feet up in trees, jumped on a Nevermore that I then proceeded to light on fire. Then I decided it'd be smart to ride said Nevermore down towards the ground, where I jumped from about 50 feet up. All the aura use and general effort I had to put forth made me collapse and pass out shortly after I landed."

Sighing slightly, she looks around in case there's more prying ears, spotting nobody, and most of not seeing the one person she truly wants to avoid. "I started coming to just as the fighting was ending, and heard the Janitor say I was fine... so that was all dandy. However, I got kinda peeved when Leo decided it was more prudent to go see to that catgirl that already had the luchador right by her side, rather than move me elsewhere. I got annoyed and ran away. That covers pretty much everything, I think. I also had a brief discussion with that pink haired girl, but beyond that nothing else."

"Wow, you soloed a Nevermore?" Chiu was impressed. Viola was much more powerful than she seemed."All I faced was a pair of Beowolves. Wounded one, but the other exploded before I could kill it."

She could not believe one of their group had been abandoned while unconscious on the battle field. Even she would not do something like that, and she didn't even like most people.

"Which one is Leo? Point him out and I'll kick his head in. Oh, I can be mad at the cat too if you want. Although I would need to make it clear I'm not some anti-Faunus radical." she took a mental note to see if any other Faunus were around and be extra nice to them. Although she did often wonder why any Faunus trained to fight would be hunting Grimm and not taking the freedom humanity refused to give.

"I only lit it on fire... and I was kind of holding on to it by the neck so it couldn't do a whole lot to me. And I think it broke one of my fan blades, but I haven't looked at them yet to be sure. "

Frowning as she looks around more, she actually doesn't spot either Leo or Kirkka... so she continues speaking.

"Leo is the eight foot tall machine that is much more human than anyone would ever give him credit for... which is one of his flaws at the same time. And no, the catgirl did absolutely nothing wrong. I keep meaning to find her and say how sorry I am, but I either can't find or she's not on her own."

As they continue walking, there's still no sign of Leo or Kirkka... which is extremely suspicious.

"Right... Modus: Iudicium"

As his wings shifted slightly, not swinging forward like normal, Leo pointed his gauntlet down at the floor, and the tinny voice in his ear sounded. "Cast Repeater. Overdrive." The giant didn't bother asking before he grabbed Kirkka around the waist with his free hand and forearm, and the temple screamed in both of their ears as six high velocity armor-piercing slugs and a barrage of packets over-charged with dust-fueled kinetic energy splintered the floor under their feet. As the stonework shook, Leo activated the spacial anchoring system on his suit, slowing his, and Kirkka's, fall as he fired again, taking out a second floor as they descended amidst dust and rubble.

He cut the system a bit off the ground, ending with a shuddering thud, and clearing debris out of the way with his foot as he let Kirkka down, looking up to see a man whom he assumed was the third staff member looking up at him from less than a dozen yards away with a look of absolute horror plastered upon his face, and several fellow students.


A GIANT ROBOT MAN CAME DOWN THROUGH THE $@%#ING FLOOR-SLASH-CEILING OF THE KEEP. Jim shook as he looked at the monster who had just punched through two floors of the priceless ancient ruin, a few rocks that it had just punted out of the way that hadn't been there before he made a hole in the floor above. A GIANT ROBOT MAN. JUST FELL DOWN. THROUGH THE RUIN. HOLDING A REDHEAD LIKE A @#%$ING MONSTER FROM A &#$@ING MOVIE. The whole $#@%ing world is ending, and what does the universe send? A GIANT ROBOT MAN. WHO FELL FROM THE CEILING.

Dumbly waving students toward the sanctum they had set up, Jim felt his eyes water. It was as if all his dreams were coming true in the most terrible ways possible. As if the universe was intent on squatting over his dreams and defecating upon all that he had ever known as great.

Jim just sighed, his voice shaking as he looked at the two. "... The sanctum is this way... please mind the ceiling... and use already-existing openings..." He turned back toward the entryway to the sanctum, sighing as he lead people closer to the safe zone.


When El Taladro threw the table, Bell was on it, a yellow seal appearing in its path and smacking it down to the ground as Heinrich turned to the masked man, and crazy girl assailing him.

"GET. IN. THE KEEP." the bear-man barked, glaring. "I WILL NOT ASK AGAIN." He turned to Bell, then looked back up at the murder above. "WE'RE WITHDRAWING. ANYONE TOO STUPID TO FOLLOW WILL BE LOCKED OUT OF THE SANCTUM."

Bell looked like she was going to object, but Heinrich was already moving back, keeping his weapon trained outward. She just looked at Melissa and El Taladro, biting her lip. "There are more cookies inside. Come on." With that, she started to follow.

Kirkka observes through the window, trying to see what she can in the darkening sky. Is.. is that a table flying through the air? Wha- Wait! Suddenly, a giant armored limb grabs hold of her, followed by a very loud blast. I don't know what I expected... She thinks to herself, as she is pulled through the large hole blasted through the floor. Wooooooosh! Concentrate.


Another blast, followed by plenty of dust and gravity. Upon reaching the bottom, the giant limb releases her, and she steps away, trying to dust herself off with little success.He touched my ass! He grabbed me just so he could do that probably! But it was a metal arm... and we don't really have time for me to cut off his arm as punishment. Perhaps later... Giving up on the dusting, she looks toward Jim as he stands there, dumbfounded. "Sorry about the mess." She says to him, as he motions toward the supposed safe house. As she begins following and regrouping with the others, she double checks her staff, ensuring all the dust canisters are present and ready.

"More cookies inside? Okay, let's go!" Melissa said, moving to follow the Cookie Goddess who had promised her more cookies, having stopped mid charge and almost tripped over on herself. She considered saving the poor cookies on the ground, but realised the nevermore had probably come to feast on the cookies - it would be rude not to leave them any.

"GET. IN. THE KEEP." the bear-man barked, glaring. "I WILL NOT ASK AGAIN. WE'RE WITHDRAWING. ANYONE TOO STUPID TO FOLLOW WILL BE LOCKED OUT OF THE SANCTUM."

Nigrum turned away from El Taladro, frustrated. He could deal with him later if he was going to ruin this for them. At to the bottom of the trust list he goes. He thought walking into the sanctum, the Panther creating a steady click on the ground as he walked.

El Taladro heard the roar of the half-man but continued to stare at the oncoming enemies, teeth bared in a fierce expression, eyes wide and wild. He could take them. There was only like... what? 20? 30? What were 50 nevermores when compared the the power that the young Luchador brought to the table?
I can. WE can! He thought. A quick glance around showed that his allies were retreating. His head whipped back to face the oncoming horde. His logic and reason told him to move. He couldn't do this alone. But his pride held him locked in place.
After a few tense seconds, he tore his eyes away from the enemy with visible effort and an audible grunt, before turning and entering the keep, frustrated and blood thirsty.

Yin lingered to see if the fiery young man would yield. He's brave, I'll give him that. He thought. If he stays, I'll proudly fight by his side. He waited a few more moments, resting his hand on the hilt of his blade. He saw the boy spin hard and stalk off towards the keep.

It seems he does have some brains though. Yin thought as he followed the boy inside. He's certainly an interesting fellow.

"WE'RE WITHDRAWING. ANYONE TOO STUPID TO FOLLOW WILL BE LOCKED OUT OF THE SANCTUM."

Isabelle could tell that Jim was upset, probably due to the table-throwing and the ceiling-destroying.  Not wanting to be left outside alone with an army of Grimm and some cookies, she followed the others inside, keeping her weapons ready in case of an attack.

Hearing the word 'shower' Viola perks up slightly. Glancing around, she notices everyone else looking elsewhere or hesitating at the 'no privacy' thing.

Hah. Glad I'm not really body shy... but I can be first at something else while I'm here! First off the airship, first Nevermore kill, first shower... why not?

Finding somewhere to place her bag, she quickly grabs one of her changes of clothes and heads off to the showers. Glancing back at the others, she says, "Enjoy the show, boys and girls." Stripping down to nothing, she starts up a nice cold shower and quickly starts shampooing herself.

Leonius watched Viola go, biting his lip under his helmet. His mind was torn. Primal urges wanted to see her, despite bitterness, and despite his memory being clear and her body already familiar to him. Emotion was outside, thoughts given to the crew of the airship who had been caught out there, and questions of if they could have helped them.

Logic, however, wanted to focus on the now, glancing at El Taladro. "Apologies... for abandoning you... back there, my brother..." He crossed his arms, shaking his head. "I had to have... words with our escort..." The giant jerked his head at Kirkka, sighing. "... It raises spirits... to see that you made it in okay... We should speak later... It is long overdue... for a little discussion..."

He slapped El Taladro on the shoulder, before spotting Isabelle and looking down at her.

The little one, whom he had held as she bled to death under threat of amputation. Who had survived. In whom he had invested that hope, and through whom it came to fruition.... "... I can see... about setting up something... more private if you'd like... to clean up the Beowolf slobber..."

Chiu's heart soared and crashed all in a single sentence. There were showers available, but no privacy. She could rid herself of the reeking Beowolf blood only if she exposed herself to the entire group. She couldn't do that. In front of all these strangers. Besides, if the tin man had a projector, he probably had a camera too. But the smell was starting to get to her by now. Sleep would be an impossibility. She was a little disappointed her vision had improved as well as it had. If she had still been blind she could have convinced herself no one was watching.

As she debated showering or not, Viola stood and begin digging through her bag. Is she..? Chiu asked herself. She watched as Viola pulled out some clothes and made her way to the showers, taunting the group. Damnit! She cursed silently before standing up and following after Viola. She had to convince her to wait, or something, who knew what kinds of pervs there were in their group.

She entered the open bathing area too late, Viola was already showering. Chiu spun around, but not before catching a glimpse of smooth pale curves. She could already feel the heat rising to her cheeks as she ran back to her gear and drew her blades. Heading back to makeshift choke point in the hallway, she spun around and pointed back at the group.

"N-no peeking!"She stammered in warning.

Isabelle sheathed her swords and placed them on the ground against the wall, next to her bag.  Looking around, the place didn't seem very impressive, but surely it was enough for everyone to be somewhat comfortable.  Except for the fact that the showers had zero privacy, that is.  That fact didn't seem to phase the girl Leo had been arguing with, whose name she couldn't recall.  At this point, showering didn't really seem worth it.  Isabelle went to scratch her head, stopping when her hand touched the Beowolf hat that she had completely forgot she was wearing.  Removing it from her head, she stared into the red eyes.  Could it have been the reason the Beowolves weren't attacking her?  You've caused me a lot more trouble than good.

She put it down next to her weapons, turning to face Leo when he spoke to her.  "... I can see... about setting up something... more private if you'd like... to clean up the Beowolf slobber..."  She seemed skeptical.  "And what exactly did you have in mind?"