Once Upon a Shrine...!

[Bean Bandit]

OOC: Ryder'n Rat! Rat combat Rolls! 2d6 = 5

IC:

Ritsuko's gun barked twice, the raspy snap of bullets being fired being followed by the impacts, staggering the monster again.

The two children looked sharply at Ritsuko, then back at the demon...then back at Ritsuko, nodding. "Right!" they agreed, sprinting out and toward the house, circling around the demon, who was turning to orient itself on Ritsuko herself, and looking none too happy about the brand new bullet holes in it's torso, to judge by the snarling, and sudden increase in drool output...

[Carthrat]

Carthrat starts moving in a circular fashion around the demon herself, angling towards the bombed-out shack the other woman had entered.

Another shot blasts out from her pistol, aimed upward towards the huge demon-thing's 'head', or whatever substituted for it.

Legs.. shaking. Fear.. rising. No! Must maintain composure. Must not fuck up. Right! Keep talking, keep commanding!

"You! Rei!" she barks, gesturing towards the demon. "Help me kill this thing! Throw another ward at it! Sword-Girl! Go and make sure that Kikyo-bitch is *dead*."

[Bean Bandit]

OOC: May!

IC:

The passage was long, but there was nothing as large as a statue in it itself. However, Tsuruko begins to notice that there are room branching off from the main hall, as the bomb shelter for a shrine needed to be ready to house as many seeking refuge as it could...

[Asrana]

"Argh...so many rooms..." Tsuruko growled, counting the number of side passaged.

"Can you help me search them? If you find a statue big enough for someone inside it, don't touch it or anything, just come and get me?" she asked the small girl, trying to smile.

[RyderHakubi]

OK... what can you do to clear the rubble... think Ryder, think...

Ryder watched the battle intently, waiting for her moment to act...

Hmm... The chain?  No, wouldn't work... Beam?  Possibly, but it could collapse something... Arg... What can I do?

[Bean Bandit]

OOC: Ryder'n Rat! Rat combat roll, 2d6=11

IC:

"Does -everyone- know who I am?" Sailor Mars complained, irritated, as she raised her hands, narrowing her eyes at the demon. The demon continued to advance at Ritsuko, lumbering cautiously toward her and grinning as the gunshots riccocheted off the lumbering monstrosity's skull, causing only long, shallow gashes in the skin.

The red fuku'd senshi of love and justice raised her hands in an obviously practiced motion, and yelled out to Ritsuko. "Get ready to -move-, Carthrat!" she roared, narrowing her eyes in concentration. "BURNING...."

Motoko, seeing Rei prepare to attack, did the only thing she could, and dove into the shattered woods...

OOC: Gonna pause in the middle of her action to give you a moment to act, 'Rat.

[Carthrat]

Ritsuko quickly dives somewhere away from the demon thing, firing another shot for good measure.

[Bean Bandit]

OOC: May!

[12:28] <+Nako-chan> ----
[12:31] <+Nako-chan> Nako nodded slowly, looking up at Tsuruko, puzzled. "O-Okay." She agreed tentatively. "But won't someone inside a statue be dead by now?" she added doubtfully, peering into the shadows with the cautious unease of the dark common to children.
[12:32] <@Tsuruko> Tsuruko patted Nako's shoulder, shaking her head. "The body my friend's in isn't human, dear. Don't be afraid, she'll be asleep, please?" she asked, almost pleadingly as she looked around anxiously.
[12:35] <+Nako-chan> Nako didn't look terribly reassured, but she nodded again, slowly. "I-If you say so." she agreed softly, shivering a little. "Where are you going?"
[12:42] <@Tsuruko> "I'll take the ones on the left, you start on the right, heading towards the end of the hallway, 'kay?" Tsuruko answered, still trying to smile. "If you find something just come out to the entrance of the passage and yell."
[12:44] <+Nako-chan> " 'Kay." Nako replied softly, edging away from Tsuruko, but clearly reluctant to lose sight of her entirely.
[12:45] <@Tsuruko> "Don't worry, everything'll be fine." Tsuruko flashed Nako a smile, and dashed into a passage, beginning a frenzied, adrenaline driven search for any statues that could fit a human inside them...
[12:46] <+Nako-chan> ----
[12:50] <+Nako-chan> The search went on for quite some time, but while Tsuruko discovered a great deal of clutter...in fact, far more than a mother and daughter caring for a shrine -should- be able to generate, she didn't run across any statues at all. Nako had been silent for awhile, but an occasional thump could be heard, proving the girl was working hard at a job that clearly bothered her. About to give up on the room she was currently in, Tsuruko suddenly heard a soft yipping noise, almost like a small dog in a great deal of pain, seeming to come from a shadowed corner of the room...
[12:52] <@Tsuruko> Tsuruko raised an eyebrow, keeping her sword ready while drifting towards the noise to get a closer look.
[12:54] <+Nako-chan> As she moved closer, Tsuruko could see nothing overtly hostile. Just a tiny silouhette, struggling to free it's leg from where it was pinned under an ornamental incense altar...
[13:01] <@Tsuruko> Tsuruko blinked, raising the incense altar to try and free the creature...
[13:05] <+Nako-chan> The tiny sillouhette yipped softly, hopping free and limping over to Tsuruko, sniffing at her feet. Strangely, the paw it was favoring glowed and sizzled a bit...sparking, in fact.  
[13:07] <@Tsuruko> Tsuruko sweatdropped. "Okay...mechanical doggy," she muttered, shaking her head. "And looking mildly familiar. I don't suppose you know where Bean's gotten to?"
[13:09] <+Nako-chan> The dog nuzzled her foot and barked, and then, in a moment of extreme surrealness...nodded to the swordswoman, almost eagerly.
[13:11] <@Tsuruko> Tsuruko facepalmed. "Okay, I don't have much of a better idea. Show me where Bean is?" she asked, trying not to laugh.
[13:13] <+Nako-chan> The dog nodded, then began hobbling to the door, whining a little every few steps, and not covering a lot of ground. To be fair, the little thing had stubby little legs to start with, and with one injured, couldn't be blamed for slow progress...
[13:14] <@Tsuruko> Tsuruko sighed, picking the dog up in one arm. "Okay, give me directions with your head."
[13:17] <+Nako-chan> The dog weighed a bit more than Tsuruko would have expected, but on a whole, it wasn't taxing her strength to carry it. The dog seemed to understand, and immediately pointed his nose at the door to the room, and barked once.
[13:17] <@Tsuruko> Tsuruko proceeded, following the dog's instructions...
[13:18] <+Nako-chan> As they left the room, from the direction Nako had gone came a bloodcurdling shriek, along with a deep rumbling...
[13:20] <@Tsuruko> "Fuck," Tsuruko swore, giving up on directions and dashing towards the girl, growling. Stupid fucking god damned things getting in her fucking way.
[13:23] <+Nako-chan> Diving into the main hallway, Tsuruko was confronted with a perplexing sight. Nako was sprinting toward her, as fast as her oversized miko robes out take her...and being relentlessly pursued by...of all things, a hovering buddha statue...
[13:25] <@Tsuruko> Tsuruko almost fell over. "O-kay...this is new," she muttered, setting the dog down, and facing the statue with her sword ready.
[13:33] <+Nako-chan> Nako zoomed past Tsuruko, and stopped a few feet behind Tsuruko, visibly trembling, but somehow managing to keep from crying. "Oh man....this REALLY, REALLY sucks!" The statue, suprising quickly, raced forward to catch Nako...but before Tsuruko could attempt to halt the statue's progress, the little dog jumped forward, butting it's head against the backs of the tall woman's knees, sending her toppling to the ground...and the statue kept moving forward, until the prone woman was directly underneath the hovering statue....and then the world disappeared, replaced by white nothingness...
[13:33] <+Nako-chan> and the statue kept moving forward, until the prone woman was directly underneath the hovering statue....and then the world disappeared, replaced by white nothingness...  
[13:43] <+Nako-chan> ...leaving Tsuruko lying in her back, staring up at the seemingly endless white...
[13:45] <@Tsuruko> Tsuruko blinked. "Well shit," she muttered, looking down at herself, and then trying to roll onto her hands and knees.
[13:47] <+Nako-chan> Rolling over, Tsuruko found herself on her hands and knees on a large blue circle, seeming etched in the void, and decorated with runes, and latin, and other spiritual lettering...but most peculiarly, she cast a shadow onto it, without a visible light source...
[13:49] <@Tsuruko> "Er...okay. So I might not be dead. This is a good thing," she muttered, standing and looking around.
[13:52] <+Nako-chan> "You...who possess the spiritual power of ancient demon hunters..." Began a deep, booming voice, coming from everywhere and nowhere at once, "It had been my choice to entrust my daughter Kurumi to the mystics of the line of this shrine, but circumstances have intevened to force me to place her in your care, instead. Will you take on the resposibilty of shaping her into the hope for humanity's future?"
[13:54] <@Tsuruko> "Sure, overly dramatic and mildly annoying booming voice," Tsuruko answered, snickering softly to herself. "Now could I please access Bean in the form of Kurumi?"
[13:57] <+Nako-chan> "Make no mistake, Aoyama Tsuruko. I speak not only of the challenge you face now, but the future as well. Do you accept this?"
[14:07] <@Tsuruko> Tsuruko blinked, almost giggling. "As long as I'm in this body, I'll take car of Kurumi-Bean," she answered, smiling.
[14:18] <+Nako-chan> "So be it." With that, in a blinding rush, the world rushed back, and Tsuruko was again lying on the ground in the passageway...only the statue was gone. Twin piles of Rubble lay to either side of her, the remains of the metal statue. She was, however, directly under the body of a rather cute girl, in her late teens by the looks of things.  With bright pink hair tied up in a ponytail, and dressed in a rather peculiar maid uniform, cast in primary colors, white, blue and red, with the frilled shoulders and robotic looking buttons making for a rather odd appearance... her body was sprawled out on top of Tsuruko's, and her lips touching the older woman's limply...  
[14:32] <@Tsuruko> Tsuruko idly hoped that Nako wasn't watching, and remembering the lyrics to the SAK opening song, very tentatively leaned into the kiss. A gentle shudder rippled through her body as the act brought up a wash of restrained memories...
[14:36] <+Nako-chan> Nothing could be seen, but Tsuruko had the distinct impression of a 'glow' where they touched. Nothing happened for a long moment....until a very soft, distictive thump-thump was heard, and a pair of wide blue eyes opened to meet Tsuruko's, a blush spilling over her Kurumi's face as she drew back from the kiss, embarrassed and shocked...then looked down on the woman beneath her. "Goushoujin-sama?" she whispered, looking puzzled at the words coming out of her own mouth...
[14:39] <@Tsuruko> "Erm...my name's May? Or Tsuruko? Bean?" Tsuruko asked, blinking and looking behind her to see if Nako was watching.
[14:43] <+Nako-chan> Kurumi blink-blinked, then glomped May, tightly. "May!" she cheered. "Where are we? How...wait, Tsuruko, from Love Hina? Then who am I?" She rambled, sitting up to examine herself...and her expression falling a little as she noticed the rather large, bouncy protrusions on her chest. "A girl...? This happens too often...These are really weird clothes, and..."  
[14:44] <+Nako-chan> Nako just stood and stared, a deep. deep blush staining her cheeks...
[14:48] <@Tsuruko> "You're Steel Angel Kurumi," Tsuruko answered, blushing and trying to regain control of her mind for a moment. "And yeah, I'm Tsuruko...we should actually kinda rush, Ryder-jisan, Motoko, Rei, and someone else are fighting Kikyo upstairs...nevermind we just showed the little one something we shouldn't have."
[14:53] <+Nako-chan> Kurumi sat back, nodding and trying to take that all in, when the dog walked up to her, yapping cheerfully. "Kuanyan?" She asked, picking the tiny dog up, pausing for a moment to examine the long gloves she was wearing, then glancing down at the puffy mini-dress/maid apron she wore. "Bleah..." she muttered. "I want to change...Uhm...Nako-chan?" She asked the girl softly.  
[14:54] <+Nako-chan> Nako came forward, blinking. "How do you know-?"  
[14:55] <@Tsuruko> "Don't question it for the moment, we'll tell you later if we have opportunity, dear," Tsuruko interjected, standing up. You should stay down here until the fighting's finished, we've gotta go help a couple friends."
[14:56] <+Nako-chan> Kurumi smiled and nodded in agreement. "Hard to explain, like she says...but, Kuanyan's hurt...can you look after him? If you get in trouble, he can turn into a glider to help you run away, okay?" she told the little girl, looking perplexed at why exactly she was so cheerful.  
[14:57] <+Nako-chan> Nako nodded dumbly, accepting the dog, and Kurumi looked down at the woman between her legs, and smiled. "This...is kind of weird. I can't seem to help being cheerful as a default state, but...yeah. What do we do now, Goushoujin-sama?"
[15:03] <@Tsuruko> Tsuruko sweatdropped. "I'm not gonna get you to stop calling me that, am I?" she asked, snickering and shrugging. "Ah well, now, we go back upstairs, and help kill anything in our way. Then we reorganize for further operations. Okay?"
[15:05] <+Nako-chan> "Hai desu!" Kurumi agreed, then shook her head, a more even expression settling on her face. "THis is going to take some getting used to..."

[Bean Bandit]

OOC: Ryder 'n Rat! Rei combat roll - 2d6 and gets 9

IC:

"...MANDALA!" Sailor Mars yelled, just as the demon turned to re-orient itself on Ritsuko. Spinning in place, flames began to appear, a ring of fire becoming eight flaming circles, with Kanji visible inside. With one fiece gesture, she sent them flying toward the demon.

The flaming rings of fire struck true, the demon bellowing in pain and rage as his arms and legs were engulfed in mystical fire...

[RyderHakubi]

"My turn..." Ryder grinned as the chain began to glow once more...

"Now is the time for the winter of your discontent, because I am your judge, and you have been found wanting!  VENUS LOVE-ME CHAIN... SLICE HIM TO RIBBONS!!!"  Ryder screamed as she rushed up with the glowing blade of sharpness and slashed out with it...

She wasn't so sure why she said that... maybe because it sounded cool...

[Carthrat]

Ritsuko rolls back to her feet, and without missing a beat, goes to check on Kikyo.

[Bean Bandit]

OOC: Ryder'n Rat! Ryder combat roll, 2d6 = 5!~

IC:

With blinding speed, Sailor Venus' 'Love Me Chain' lashed out at the demon, the mystic chain rocketing out, snaring the demon tightly and retracting, slicing it neatly in half, and showering herself and those nearby in a spray of rather disgusting ichor.

Fortunately, aside from being smelly, the blackish ooze seemed to have no overly detrimental effects, and the main battle seemed to be over, though Motoko was nowhere to be seen, and combat sounds could be heard in the forest itself.

It was right about then that a large impact tremor was felt by all, followed by a metallic sounding scream...

[Carthrat]

Carthrat made a snap decision. "Ryder! Take those two!" she yelled, gesturing at the Gatekeepers. "Go and look for that noise! Rei! We're going to the forest!

Let's move, people!"

So saying, Carthrat dashes off to the aforementioned forest..

[Bean Bandit]

OOC: Ryder'n Rat!

IC:

Sailor Mars hesitated before throwing up her hands in exasperation. "Fine! Whatever! Just stop using my name in public, will you?" she growled, stomping up to Ritsuko, no easy feat in those high heels.

[Bean Bandit]

OOC: Ryder'n Rat! (Anyone out there? Hellooo)

IC:

Before anyone got very far, a rythmic pounding noise, mingled with the sounds of crunching wood came from the ruined shed...