thenearshore | disappearing Dog

It's not too bad. Besides, the more prayers you get the more donations at your temple, right?

[Really, he just wants to actually try his hand at this answering prayers thing. Dog catching seems easy enough.]

I say we snag some beef and check out the alleys. I'm betting it's going to avoid the noisy and crowded areas.

I guess? [She wasn't really interested in that kind of thing, so she wasn't paying much attention. After being a robber and then a mercenary, donations just seem kind of weird.]

Then let's do that. You know a place that sells that around here?

I know a place that cooks up strips of meat, I could snag a few raw strips of beef. I usually get my free dinner for working there anyways.

[He's excited enough for the two of them to get out and about. Avoid jokes about taking your dog for a walk. He skips a head a bit and makes his way to the food truck. Not even saying high to the employee he just easily lifts a few strips from a pan of them and snags a little baggie to put them in.

Once they are not close enough tot he food stand to draw attention he speaks up again.]

See? Easy!

Nice moves. [While he was doing that, Reika was standing around looking shady as hell (she's helping, you see), but it's not like Near Shoreans notice her on the best of days.]

Let's start nearest the home. [She starts heading back in that direction.] Dogs don't get that far, do they?

Thanks!

And dogs do I bet they try to find their way back after a while.

[He's getting used to her... ways? He goes with her back towards the home of the missing dog. He starts with one in a side alley across the street, then starts placing "bait" in locations trailing towards the home.]

You stick around and try not to look scary. I'm going to go for a higher vantage point.

[He's going to start climbing the side of a house, hopefully before she has a chance to respond negatively tot hat little comment.]

[But what if it was a dog that didn't want to go back— Hey!]

Yeah, yeah.

[At least her intimidation methods weren't Kyosui's, though Kyosui wasn't trying to...intimidate, per se. Ken had a pissed-off-looking face all the time, though. ...Watching Shuusei climb reminded her that she used to operate in a team.]

[Never for catching dogs, though.] Be careful or you'll get the cops called on you. [She might as well be lookout against that possibility, too.]

By the way...I could have teleported right up and saved you the trouble.

I think our kind get away with this sort of thing more often.

[Though as for her teleporting suggestion. He realizes he needs to actually pay more attention to what the gods are capable of. He is working for one after all. She always seems able to handle herself in most situations though so he never really worries too much.]

I could use the exercise. I just found a new cake store.

[And with that he finds his perch and looks around, crouching dangerously close to the edge. He's about to start up another conversation when he spots movement several blocks away. A low to the ground form ducks back by the garbage of a home, as if hiding but trying to keep an eye on the area.]

I see something, not sure if it's our dog.

[Heh.] They might get pissed enough to see you if you kick in a window. [Doesn't look like they're going to run into that problem, though. Cake notwithstanding.]

I'll go check it out.

[Normally she would have walked there, but since she brought it up, she's reminded that she can teleport over, so she does so.]

[Aaand then she calls him about half a minute later.] Pretty sure it was the dog, but it bolted. Can you see us?

[He has to find her again after she teleports. Realizing she probably went to the alley he looks over in time to catch her calling to him.

Bolted?

He looks around then spots something rushing down the back street. He points as he stands on the roof, stepping back and getting ready to run and jump. Hopefully this doesn't go poorly.]

It's heading that way on the back street! Cut it off!

[And the moment she looks away, if she looks away, he's going to run and jump. Barely clearing the gap and landing roughly on the next roof. He gets up, starts running and tries again, this time landing on his feet as he's hoping to outpace the dog from above.]

[She looks up to see him point, and then watches him jump when she notices that that's what he's doing.] Heh. [She should have done this sort of thing earlier. This is shaping up to be kind of fun, for dog-catching.]

[She isn't familiar enough with the streets to be very precise in her teleporting, so she has to pause after every one to glance around and ground herself. On her third jump, she spots the dog.]

[Haha, it thinks it can get away. Exhilaration running through her veins, she pulls out the Heat T2 and with it shifts into her alternate form. Which can generate fire. She throws a lick of flame in the dog's general direction and surrounds it in a flaming circle.] Catch it! [Since its owner probably doesn't want it returned burnt, and all.]

[So parkour isn't necessarily his thing. Being reckless though is and so he goes.

And as he tries to keep up with her and the dog, he sees her transform and use her powers.

Oh, yeah, fire. That's going to help. The dog is panicking in the middle of a ring of fire so he grabs quickly climbs and hops down to almost ground level. He leaps into the circle of fire and quickly scoops up the dog hoping she can control this enough not to burn the two of them up.]

I got it! Enough! Enough!

[Deadpan.] Jump out. [She doesn't mean it. The fire doesn't last too long anyway; she wasn't actually setting anything on fire, per se. But due to being a NEVER for so long (i.e. long enough), she doesn't have a good grasp of how other people would get affected by it, so she reverts to normal, teleports into the ring, grabs Shuusei's shoulder, then teleports the three of them out.]

You looked kinda unsteady on the roofs. Tell you what, next time I'll do the jumping. [She says it jokingly; she's still pretty exhilarated from a combination of the chase and the side effects of the T2.]

Got a good grip on it? Let's go to the house before it gets away again.

[He's about to protest but then before he has a chance he's being teleported out with the dog. Now, standing pretty unsteady after all of that, he shakes his head.]

And let you have all the fun? No way. Oh, and I got the dog. There's no way he's getting away after all of that.

[Though now that he's walking with her, he has to wonder.]

I wonder why it's afraid of this area. I mean I know why you're scary but it was pretty scared to begin with.

[If that's an insinuation that she overdid it against that poor dog...yeah, she totally did. Though him saying "scary" reminds her that he hadn't seen the alternate form before, which was probably something she should have addressed earlier, since she wasn't planning on not using it...] Yeah, pretty scary, huh? Feels great, though. [Possibly addictive, but who cares? She certainly doesn't.]

[As for the actual issue here...] Who knows? I don't get animals.

[She spots the house up ahead.] Do you want to go, or should I? [They wouldn't be remembered, but it's not like the whoever-it-was would perceive the dog as floating in midair. ...Probably.]

I'm starting to think I'm out of my league a bit. All I turn into is a toy.

[An akayashi killing toy, but still. He's carrying the dog under his arm as he nods to her question.]

I'll do it, easy enough. Just keep an eye out for... I don't know. Somethings off about this and I can't shake it for some reason.

[Maybe with his special name being Inuki he has a special connection to dogs. Or he's just good at picking up on signs that something dangerous is around.

He does the child like talking to the dog as they head to the house.]

It's okay, the scary lady is here to save the day. Let's get you home where it's nice and safe!

You can shoot, that isn't nothing. Guy I knew once was great at that. Met a couple other shinki who could shoot, too.

[But now that he's brought it up, something does strike her as a little odd. As she was teleporting around, she could have sworn she saw more animals. As he goes to return the dog, she takes a look around. Uh, yep, there sure are a lot of animals around here.]

Think I'm feeling it, too. Did you see anything else while you were on the roof?

[He shifts his grip to open the gate in front of the dog owner's home.]

Movement, but nothing too interesting. Probably more animals.

I wonder if they're forming gangs...

[As he opens the gate, the dog panics and breaks free. It hits the ground running and heads behind the house into the back yard and out of sight.]

Hey!... Damn, well at least you're home... you ungrateful...

[And then that's when he notices movement and looks up. Climbing down the building, almost peeling itself from the shadows, is a large akayashi.

As Reika looks around, animals begin to scatter and more large, monstrous forms begin to detach from the shadows. Shuusei's still staring up at the one that seems to just now become aware of the shinki below it.]

Ah... I think I spotted something...

[Understatement!]

Edited 2017-04-05 00:24 (UTC)

[Well isn't that something. Looks like she's going to have to do her job as a god whether she wants to or not. She adjusts her gloves, out of habit more than anything. She knows about touching ayakashi and how badly that can go if they aren't careful.]

Oi, get away from there. It's after you.

[They probably shouldn't wait around for them to congregate, either.]

You'd rather people not get hurt when we fight, right? [She...may or may not be conflating him with someone else right now, shhh] Let's lead them away if we can.

Well it has to catch me first!

[He feels his heart racing and something about the way this thing looks at him makes him eager for this. He doesn't even have time to wonder why as the thing leaps down and he leaps to the side out of the way. He then gets to his feet and races towards her, hoping she plans to lead the way as the thing gives chase.]

Sure! I think I got a trick for that!

[He skids to a stop, trying to focus on this again. He's been practicing but not diligently. His fingers move through the air and he forms a line on the ground. The barrier is stronger than his previous attempts and the first akayashi to leap from the alleys at him slams into it.

He laughs and starts running again, pausing now and then to put barriers up and funnel the akayashi in a column.]

See?

[Of course he can't do this forever and if he doesn't pay attention this could end poorly, but right now he's enjoying himself.]

[She has a second to wonder if he only gets like that when a fight's imminent, since the chase wasn't a real fight and he was sorta like this during that zombie parade. Then her mind gets occupied by more important things.]

Hey, don't lead it toward m— [She stops as she realizes what he's planning. Alright then!]

[She looks over occasionally as she runs; that sure is some trick. Heh.]

There. [An abandoned car lot is great place to have a fight, right?]

You got a plan?

There's one more thing those barriers can do, but I'm told it won't really stop them for good.

[He's going to give up funneling when they have a destination and run towards the car lot with her. He lets her get ahead of him before skidding to a stop and drawing his gun.

He turns on the things chasing them and tries to create his borderline at a specific spot. He lines it up right behind the lead akayashi and manages to block the rest behind the barrier. The barrier slices through the outreached fingers of the second akayashi, harming it.

Shuusei then levels his hand gun at the lead akayashi and fires two shots.]

[She pulls out her T2 but hesitates—it was one thing for the NEVER team to work together once they'd all gotten their respective Gaia Memories, but it had never taken much for the NEVERs to work together. She's never had to take care so the fire she generates doesn't hit someone.]

[... Way too much thinking for a fight.] Yo! Don't get hit!

[So saying, she moves to the ayakashi's other side and starts firing (literally).]

[Meanwhile, Shuusei's definitely taking risks here.

That is, until she unloads fire upon the first ayakashi. Yup, that's enough to make him back up. His handgun doesn't quite have the same impact.

The barrier that the others slammed into is holding, but not for long.]

We have to finish this one quick or we're going to be facing all of them soon!

[Of course there's only one way to put them down for good after you soften them up a bit. That was a bit beyond his control though at this point.]

You sure this thing's been downed enough? [Doesn't seem like it to her, based solely on her own fights against other things, but if she's interpreting him correctly and his borderline's about to go down, it might be worth a shot.]

Alright, I'm going for it. Inuki!

[If he's one for noticing such things, he might observe that her grip in this form is warmer than her usual corpse-cold hands, having been heated by the fire she was just throwing.]

[But more importantly— How does Rend work again? Both of them have to be doing it, right?] Uh, fire when I give the signal.

[He knows his barriers aren't great yet and it's not holding up well now that the things are trying to break through.

Unfortunately for her, he's not really a traditional weapon when he changes. The handheld device appears in her hand.]

I think you have to point the camera at it.

[He selects the application "Rend" and it opens up the camera. A friendly little tutorial reminder ghosts over the camera image telling her to touch the screen and swipe over your target to activate.

It really is like a game. Get it on screen and swipe across like you're playing fruit ninja.]

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I for some reason got myself stuck that they were spelled akayashi! orz

i didn't even notice tbh lol

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