Team 1 (evilparsnips and Switchblade)

"Hmm. I saw a ruined pillar when I was falling, but that may have been my imagination."
Markus activated the hell-o-copter and flew up, above the trees. He looked around for a bit before seeing the pillar about 2 klicks away. Huh. Not that far away, I guess we could make our way there in about an hour if we're not interrupted again.
He descended, and told Mike about his sighting.
"I can't be sure that it's the temple, because I heard that there are ruins everywhere in the forest. But it's a lead, and the only one we have. What do you think we should do?"
While waiting for Mike's response, Markus muttered to himself "Our team."

"Well, it's the closest we can get at the moment. Even if we don't find it there, maybe we can find a clue there." Mike suggested. "So, we start that way?" He pointed towards where Markus said he had seen the pillar. "Lets go!" He started walking. "You know, this would be a great chance to get to know each other more!" He called back.

ooc: yeah, walk to towards the pillar through the woods. I'm sure something will happen. Once I think of something. you might run into another team. but we'll cross that bring when we get to it.

As they walked, Mike chattered away incessantly.
"So, I wonder how well that snake did at school, because he was certainly terrible at Adder-ition!"
He laughed out loud, before turning back to Markus.
"We're a team now! Team MM. It was pretty cool I got teamed up with you. I really hope we find Matt and Nathaniel. Is Matt in the initiation? I forget. I know Nathaniel is, but I'm not sure about anyone else." As he spoke, he fired a blade into a low hanging branch, and pulled himself onto it, so he was climbing through the trees just above Markus' head.
"So, what genre of music do you like? Rock? Pop?" He said, picking up on a random subject, as he climbed.

Markus started walking along with Mike, who had started to swing across the branches like some kind of monkey.
"I like the music that violin kid was playing, uh, what was his name again?"
Markus pondered a moment, then reached into his pocket and produced his modified walkman and a CD case with a rather peculiar pattern on it. He flipped the case and read the name.
"Oh, that's it! Ty! Yeah," he said, pocketing the case and his walkman. "I liked his music. I don't really listen to music that much, but I do have a hobby of upgrading or tinkering with things when I'm bored. Do you have any hobbies?" Markus asked, with a small smile on his face.

"I like rock music, but that isn't too heavy. Any screaming and it just sounds like someone having their legs torn off by being tied to a rock and having his legs tied to a car. In hobbies, I... Kind of have a hobby. I play chess, but only against myself, as I didn't have many friends when I was younger. But now I do!" He said, still swinging along.
"Ooh! I have another joke! Guess what my favourite pie is? Pie-thon! Ha!" He said loudly, nearly falling from his branch. "How about... What kind of food do you like?"

"I like meat, sometimes raw, but not bloody. I don't like sugary foods that much, as when I'm hyped up, I can't concentrate. I do like Pizza, Fish and Chips, and Apple crumble. I don't really like trying new things, so I-" Markus stopped talking as he saw the pillar to his left, through the trees. As he approached it, he called out to Mike, who was still swinging ahead.
"Uh, Mike? We're here."

Wow, time goes by fast when you're talking to someone. It feels like only 5 minutes ago they had left their reptilian adversary's corpse in the woods.

Markus walked up to the pillar, nearing the edge of a clearing.

" I don't like sugary foods that much, as when I'm hyped up, I can't concentrate"."Welcome to my world!" Mike said enthusiastically when he heard this. They reached the pillar, and Mike shot an anchor up to the top of the pillar, retracted it, and pulled himself up the rest of the way onto the top.
"I can see my house from here! Wait... No I can't. That's depressing." he said, to no one in particular as he looked at the view.
"I wonder how many Grimm live in this forest..." He thought out loud, as he looked over all the trees.

In the field with the pillar there stood two rows of 6 pillars each. At the end of the pillars was a small temple with 6 pedestals. On three of the pedestals there was a key made out of sapphire, a key made from ruby, and a key made from emerald. On the other three pedestals there were three locks. One made of gold, another of silver and another of platinum.

Next to the temple there stood several open cages.

Markus took a second to take in the situation. "Okay, well, there are 3 or more grimm loose in this area, and it seems as if those locks and keys are the artifacts. I suggest you distract the grimm while I run in and get one. Then, I'll help fight."
Markus paused for a thought.
"Hmm. Which one do you want? I'd prefer the Platinum lock but as we're a team, we should both have a say."

"Ooh shiny!" Mike said when he spotted the artefacts. Then he saw the cages. "Not so shiny. Grimm." He mumbled. "Yeah, the blue one's fine." He agreed, and with that he jumped down from his place on the pillar. He skipped out into the clearing, planning to draw whatever the creatures were out towards him, leaving Markus free to run.

Markus air-stepped to the pedestals. That was one of his abilities, but the only one he can do purely out of aura, the rest depend on dust or his weapons. He reached out and grabbed the Platinum lock from the faded marble pillar, then pocketed it.
"That was easy..." He tried to resist the urge, but his inner child took over, and his lips curled to make a small smile."... too easy"
There. I jinxed myself. Ah well, Maybe this fight I'll get to kill a beast. Although Mike's blade may not have been aimed with intent to kill, when in action, I need to kill something. I guess that's a side effect of my hand.

The caw could be heard across the area and a shadow flew over the temple blocking out the sun for a moment from the teens. The Nevermore circled around and let loose a flurry of feathers at the two teens as it passed.

ooc: Team 6, Team 4 and Team 2 will be merging into this thread with you guys.

Markus looked up and saw the enormous beast. With a sharp intake of breath, he remembered these particular types of Grimm. Nevermores.
"Mike, watch out! They often attack when you least expect it!"

Markus saw at the edge of the clearing two new students. Another team, Drake, was it? I don't recognize the other one.
As he looked round, he saw two other teams approaching. One team was in the forest, not far from the clearing, and it looked like the girl who was climbing the tree yesterday, with yet another student unfamiliar to Markus. The third and final team, however, also not too deep in the forest, Matt and Ty. At last, some familiar faces!

As Drake and Straudd progressed, as the shadow passed overhead over what was presumably the Temple he stopped, looking up. There is an almost sick and twisted gleam in his eyes, the same that Straudd would have seen when he had inspected the burnt out remains of the Deathstalker.

He thumbs the trigger of the flamethrower briefly, letting a flicker of flame dance across the Talons, turning to Straudd and nodding. Then he quickly glances about, noting others arriving from other directions. For a moment he freezes, spotting Indigo, realising this situation had the potential to spiral rapidly out of control.

"I think we managed to find the right place Straudd. Of course, we found a dancing partner too. A big one." He points up toward the Nevermore and then nods, before turning and raising his hand for the others to see. He was the second tallest within this initiation so it wasn't like you'd miss him with those blades on his hands.

"Everyone! Over here! Group up!" They needed a plan. Stragglers wandering in piecemeal around a single Nevermore, nevermind anything else was a bad plan to start with.

Indigo reaches the edge of the forest and runs into the clearing, Cain following close behind. She looks to the distance and spots two students. She also spots a nevermore circling high above. Looks like I was right. It sucks being right. Indigo looks back at Cain. "Come on, let's group up over with them!" She runs off toward the other new arrivals, hoping the nevermore wouldn't notice her.

Straudd grins as he sees the temple, and takes a step towards it, only to be cut off by the Nevermore's loud calling. He spins around, priming Black Judgement for battle, switching over to yellow, lightning element dust and cranking the power up high. He looks over to Drake to see him beckoning to several other pairs of students - none of whom he recognizes, except for a couple he had  spotted on his walks around the school but had never talked to. 'Regardless of whether I know them or not, they're going to make this fight much easier.'

Markus hears the Nevermore's squawk and decides that this is his moment to shine. He runs past Drake, into the forest, hungry for some combat. "Bring it on!" he shouts, his eyes glowing dark red and his gauntlet fluctuating between red and black. He was truly, at that moment, a blood-thirsty beast. He air-steps up a tree and launches himself up towards the Nevermore, activating the helicopter on Switchblade.

((OOC: Listen to Red Like Roses part 2 extended on youtube when reading initiation threads- it makes it seem 1000x awesomer))

Mike hears the caw, and looks up. He sees the volley of feathers, and simply says, "Oh snap." Then he draws his blades, fires one at one of the trees nearby, and zips straight to it. Then he hears Drake yell. He uses his blades to latch on to a nearby branch, retracts, and unlocks it just before he reaches it, propelling him towards the other team. He hits the ground, and uses the boost of speed to aid his running. He reaches the others, and skids to a halt. Panting, he looked up at the two people, Drake and Straudd. Then he says,
"Hello! My name's Mike Caudex. I think we've met" To Drake, completely forgetting the nevermore temporarily. He then looks at Straudd. "I don't think we have though. What could be a more perfect time than now?" He says, a massive smile plastered across his face.

Indigo arrives next to Drake, her feet sliding on the grass as she stopped. "Lovely day, huh? I suppose you've got a plan to get rid of Poly up there?"

Tyler entered the clearing just as things seemed to calm down. He walked over to the growing group of people and eyed the Artifacts, running his eyes along all of them before settling on the Emerald Key, he would grab and pocket it, hopefully Matt wouldn't get mad at him for making the decision on his own... But he noticed the nevermore before he got here, and he wasn't about to waste time picking one of these keys or locks. So, reloading both of his dust cartridges Tyler smiled. Bring it on you overgrown Pidgeon! He thought as he looked around, hoping Matt was still around.

OOC: Yeah, Switchblade and eyeblaster3, there is no Deathstalker. Just a nevermore.
Also as a note since there are 8 of you in this thread now. I'll be making my post when I have time after 2 conditions are met: the majority of people have posted (ie: 5 or more) it has been at least 2 hours since the most recent post.

Note: if you didn't get a chance to post between my posts just combine them as though they were one post. I won't target people who havn't posted.

IC:
The Nevermore circled around the area watching as more of the teenagers group together near the edge of the forest. It flew to the opposite cardinal direction of the group before heading in their direction from a good distance above. It flapped it's wings and leaned back launching a barrage of feathers at the group hoping to separate them and make for easy prey. It then continued it's circle looking for it's next target.

Mike snapped back to reality, when he turned round and saw the bird fire another volley of feathers at them. Mike dodged pretty easily, but they couldn't just do this all day. He needed to get it close to the ground. Then the majority of the people could attack it. But his blades wouldn't fire far enough or fast enough to hit the nevermore where it was right now. He needed to get higher. He contemplated using a catapult launch via his grapple blades, before remembering Markus' hell-o-copter. He tried to locate him through the flurry of feathers raining down on them.

Of course, rounding people up was something easier said then done. His reaction to Mike's overly enthusiastic approach to introductions was to scowl for a moment beneath the scarf-mask and then he froze for a moment as Indigo stepped up.

No. Calm. Take control.

"Evasive maneuvers...but keep together. We need to come up with a plan." He tumbles at the barrage of feathers, black eyes flickering blue a moment as he sends an arc of flame over Indigo at any feathers that may be headed towards her.

"We have to get up to that. I need to know what people do. I know what Straudd does, the rest of you are a mystery. I need someone who can do the following...get myself and perhaps one other up there and someone who can help me get that down to earth."

"In addition we need the people who are ground based to keep it occupied. Use your range. Keep mobile. But when it comes down...you need to be fast. Anyone who can snare or immobilise something...keep your eyes open for the window. So. Volunteers for air duty? And anyone here who's strong or got half decent tricks with Dust?"

Markus called down to Mike through the feather air-strike.
"Mike! Remember how we took down that snake, when I was above you? Let's try that!" he said, as he activated the gauntlet's electromagnet and reached down, waiting for Mike to fire his grapple blade up to him. Unfortunately, the electromagnet interfered with the Gauntlet's latch system and it popped open and fell down into the forest, revealing his black, hairy, red-clawed Grimm hand. Instantly, Markus' plan was forgotten.

Markus' expression would have been comical if it wasn't so terrified. His face twisted into an expression of untamed rage, his pupils turned red the whites of his eyes turned a glowing neon blue. Switchblade fell to the ground, and lodged itself in the dirt not too far from the huddle of other students. He would have fallen, if his aura wasn't keeping him locked in place. Then, he was launched at the Nevermore, leaving behind him a trail of red mist, which could have easily been mistaken for blood, roaring as he did so, "BLOOOOOOOOD!!!"

Straudd leaps backwards away from a feather hit, and then left and forwards, dodging another feather while moving back towards the group. He looks up just in time to see Markus leaping up at the Nevermore. 'Is he crazy? What's he doing?' Then he looks over at Drake, who is explaining a plan to the other students. Realizing he wasn't well specialized to get even himself that high up, he nods at Drake and says 'I'll help keep it distracted while you work out how to get up there. Good luck.' He then dashes away from the group so as to draw the beast's attention away, before sending a bolt of electricity up towards the Nevermore, carefully aiming so he doesn't hit Markus in midair.

Indigo jumps back as a feather rockets toward her and is subsequently incinerated. Giving a nervous thumbs up she attempts to regroup. "Hey plan maker! I can stun it! I just need to touch it!"