Midnight Carnival (IC)

[Satehi]

Anne Burdine
Dark Hour – 10 minutes in
South Iwatodai – Shijima Park

The chill disappeared. But what did that mean? Anne didn’t think she’d actually managed to hit them. But what could cause them to leave their prey?

Well, perhaps she was just lucky, and they'd found something else to attract their attention... she tried not to think too hard on what that something else would be, deciding to resume what she had been doing previously. However, before she tries to continue-

"I know what you did."

-the voice interrupts.

Whirling around to search for the source of the voice, there’s no one there. P-perhaps it’s only her imagination, caused by the creepiness of the world that now surrounded her... How could someone have found out about it in the first place? No one else should've been able to tell.

But then it repeats.

There’s no way it could be her imagination. It’s real-and someone knows. But who is talking to her? No matter where she looks, it’s just the same dark forest. If the voice is telling the truth and is talking about what she thinks it is, it could be over.

The bitter laughter only scares her more. Trembling, she grips the shovel tighter, watching the quiet, moonlit forest.

“W-who are you? Show yourself!”

[Froggie]

Dark Hour
00:10:00

}ï{

Dark Hour
00:15:00

---

@ Tokisaka Reiji & Mitsuzuri Ayako
Northwest Iwatodai – Ouba Girls Academy Dormitories

The sound of frantic, running footsteps can be heard from the floor above momentarily, but it is soon drowned out by a crashing noise so loud that it almost seems like the floor might give in it any moment and come crashing down under the weight of whatever just moved. The crashing noise repeats shortly after and once again – fast, angry… hungry.

Inside the dormitory’s halls, the only light present is from the window at the end of the hall. You can barely make out the stairwell in the darkness at the end of the hallway near the window and its faint green light.

Moving towards the stair well, the chill is ever present and menacing and the staccato noise of footsteps gets closer, constantly being drowned out by the louder crashing noise.

But there is no screaming.

Silence.

A cold miasma hangs thick in the air...

Hungry.

Oppressive.

From the stairwell, something shoots forward, amazingly fast, crashing bodily into Ayako with a screaming leap. It's a young woman in dark green colored pajamas. Ayako recognizes her as a third year, but does not recall her name. Her back is bloodied and she's gasping for breath. The crashing noise stops at the top of the stairs.

Silence.

Silence.

The window at the end off the hall shatters and a large shadow, like an armored quadruped bellows even as it charges towards you, jaws and slavering fangs.

---

@ Alex Bailey & Justica Farrell
Northwest Iwatodai. - Playground.

Justica rushes forward catching the shadows by surprise with her Persona, the knight swinging so fast that it seems like a white arc cleaves the darkness and gloom of the other hour to find the shadows flank with a brutally powerful slash.

Ichor pours freely and violently from the knight's violent slash and the shadow screams an almost human scream of agony. It leaps back shakily and bears it's fangs at the two.

However, before Justice herself can get in melee range to engage it once more, behind the thin form of Alex Bailey a slimy, green monstrosity manifests - A pulpy, tentacled head surmounted a grotesque scaly body with rudimentary wings. It lazily extends a hand towards the frenzied shadows and suddenly whips and tentacles of water smash into the canine shadows with terrifying force, eliciting yelps and growls of surprise and anger that sound strangely human from the ones that are taken by surprise .

Up on the tree branch, the young blonde girl screams and cries in fear, though she's no longer being attacked.

Misery hangs thick behind the cold miasma.

The shadows break apart.

Two run towards Justica, crazed eyes glowing wildly and emitting a keening roar even as three others take stances in the back and begin to glow with an sickly aura. The final shadow bounds and leaps towards Alex, gibbering wildly.

(You have caught the six medium shadows by surprise,. They're now turning to attack you.)

[Yun]

Takeda Kurogane
Southeast Iwatodai – Strip Mall(Dark Hour)
10 minutes into the dark hour

Kurogane walked up the stairs with a steady pace his senses straining for any sign of human passing or alarm but only heard a barely audible song and as he neared the second floor of the mall...

Crash!

Crash!

Crash!

...Stopping for a brief moment to plan Kurogane found that he had mixed feeling over the pending battle. He was eagerly awaiting the test of his survival skills but this was overshadowed by the knowledge that others in this world weren't prepared for the coming battle and wanted nothing more than to live normal lives.

Therefore I'll protect them while we search for a way to return this world to normal but where should I search for people next? The second floor? Third? The roof? Humans when frightened try to put as much distance between themselves and what is scaring them and it has a lot less exit points than the other floors so I'll do a quick look around of the roof first.

[Fangstrike]

Tokisaka Reiji
Northwest Iwatodai – Ouba Girls Academy Dormitories

Thanks to his years in both police force and the military, Reiji calmly analyzed the situation. After he made sure nothing else was going to come crashing through the window at the top of the stairs after the girl, he quickly approached the wounded girl and examined her. She was alive, but she needed serious medical attention as soon as possible. Given their situation, a trip to the hospital might prove useless since it was quite far and there were unlikely to be many people on staff if there were any at all. The former officer was about to suggest they take her to the nurse's office when the window at the opposite end of the hallway exploded.

His body reacted before his mind did, swiftly turning his body and taking aim with his beretta. For a moment, Reiji was taken back by the Shadow's horrendous appearance, having never seen anything like it before, but when it charged, he snapped out of his surprise and trained his gun on the creature's head before emptying his semi-automatic. The Shadow's roar was drowned out by the continuous staccato of 9mm rounds being ejected.

The hallway wasn't narrow by people standards, but it left little room for the hulking beast, making it somewhat easier for Reiji to hit its body. However, Reiji also realized they'd be sitting ducks if the creature reached them. They needed room to manuver. The Dark Hour's strange moonlight pierced the hallway through the windows on the leftside with a view of the courtyard.

"Ayako, I'll cover you. Can you make it to the courtyard with her?" It might be difficult for Ayako to carry someone who was relatively the same height and weight as her, but Reiji knew she was no damsel in distress.

[Katie]

Justica Farrell
Northwest Iwatodai. - Playground
Dark Hour ??:15

Gawain's blow was effective, causing one of those monsters to scream in pain. But, the rest were not taken care of. She went to charge them again, but-

That monster, who seemed to be bonded with that person, was attacking the beasts with tentacles of water. None of them had fallen, and the monsters had decided to split up, two lunging towards her and three preparing something in the back.

And Justica, who's sense of reality was warped by her notions of justice and heroism and video games, knew what to do.

She swung her sword at one of the abominations, before jumping back. Gawain reappeared and Justica struck a ridiculosuly cheesy heroic pose.

"THROUGH FIRE, JUSTICE IS SERVED!"

Gawain swung his gigantic sword at the two shadows, as a wave of flame spread from the slash. An oversized, burning form of a sword-beam, to be precise.

Justica put up her guard once more, and waited for the hellspawn to close in again.

[Elyrin]

Alex Bailey
NW Iwatodai - Playground
Dark Hour, 15 minutes in

The spell worked better than Alex expected. The wolf-shadows didn't seem to be prepared for a ranged attack, and every one of them was struck. That, and the attack of the knight on the other side of the park, seemed to draw the attention of all the shadows away from the young girl. Of course, that meant one of the shadows turned to rush towards Alex. Two more leapt towards the steel knight, and three hung back, surrounded by a sickly glow. Magic? Alex retreated, stumbling backwards as he tried to decide what to do.

Alex could try to stop the ...spellcasters, but that might let the closer shadow in range. Blasting the closest shadow away might let the three in back finish casting their strange sort of black magic.

...not that his magic was any better, really. Alright, fine. That girl has been screaming and crying for long enough, let's see how you all like it. Alex raised a hand pointing again in the direction of the wolf-shadows, a wave of fear rolling towards the shadows as Cthulhu rumbled, casting a spell. "Knight, stand back! Persona, Evil Smile!"