Karaneshii ^The Obscured Clan^

[Kokuwagata]

"Well, the best person with plants here is Caly, but I suppose I could try to coax some fruits out of a plant."

She walks to the backyard, and walks up to one of the small fig trees, it was mostly a knobby and gnarled plant with more trunk and less branches. She presses her palms against the trunk and slumps against the tree.

Grue quickly hops off her head, and promptly jumps on top of the tree.

Within moments, the tree's trunk slims down and the branches almost explode as the fig tree becomes an idealized form, with a thin cylindrical stem, and a round spherical mass of leaves, which explode into blossom. The flowers promptly rot off, and fruits begin to swell from the base of the flowers, and then quickly ripen, and drop to the ground.

The tree remains an oddly organized topiary, much like a green apple lollypop, when Malem regains consciousness and gathers up the fruits. She puts them in an old aluminum watering can nearby and brings them back into the lobby.

"I can't make the plants bear fruit like that too often, it would be best if we explored this place thoroughly, remove all the traps and weird stuff, and then decided to stock up on amenities."  

[Dragon_Rider101]

"Wow, thanks. That was amazing. I don't think I could do that."

He gratefully took a fig and bit into it's juicy interior. After finishing, he continued talking.

"Can I help with the removal of traps?"  

[Kokuwagata]

Well, I guess so, but we've only encountered one so far, the hazards for the most part come from the fact this building is so run down.  

[Dragon_Rider101]

"Oh. So how do you plan we'll fix it?"  

[Marsel_lilas]

((actually. the gardens are already planted and mostly grown....quite a few of whatever was planted is ready to be picked, dug up and eaten......I just thought I should point that out before someone else forgets...oh that and the fact that most of the yard should be at least semi green if not almost fully back to normal and healthy))  

[Kokuwagata]

Marsel_lilas

((actually. the gardens are already planted and mostly grown....quite a few of whatever was planted is ready to be picked, dug up and eaten......I just thought I should point that out before someone else forgets...oh that and the fact that most of the yard should be at least semi green if not almost fully back to normal and healthy))

((Just because a plant is healthy doesn't mean it conforms to it's imago, or idealized form. The local fig trees in Davis produce perfectly good fruit, but have gnarled stumpy trunks, and are not so thick on branches, despite being once part of the university orchards. These trees are perfectly halthy as well, as they have few cankers; a canker is different from a gnarl; a gnarl is the spot where an old branch used to be.

In fact, perfectly shaping a tree to be like a topiary could be seen as subverting nature, as nature dislikes complex order, whereas flowing with nature would be allowing a plant to grow as it likes, bending with the wind, with roots wrapping over rocks in thr ground and sticking up in the soil, and so on))  

[Marsel_lilas]

((O...k... I think I understood what you said, but I feel very lost now.))  

[Marsel_lilas]

Caly was silent as she considered what to do next, knowing that the plants would be fine without her for now and that what was really needed was for the floors in all the rooms to be restored. With that decided she adjusted her grip on Poison and then headed back upstairs, releasing her powers once more, this time with a slightly stronger pulse. She knew that by tonight she would be tired enough to fall easily asleep.

But as she started heading towards the room closest to her, she felt that someone else was up there and remembered seeing Vincent come back up the stairs. She was curious as to what he was doing and found him easily enough, but he was sitting on the floor in the middle of a room. That caused her to watch him silently for a few moments before softly voicing her concern, "What's wrong Vincent? Are you okay?"

She came into the room a couple of steps, but wasn't sure how he would accept her at the moment. He looked incredibly sad.  

[Valkyrie Nightshade]

Vincent looked up at Caly. He had his mask off and in his hands. His wings unwrapped from his body as did his tail. His eyes were emerald he was still incontrol of his darker side, even though he had his mask off.

"Just feeling a bit lonely i dont know where Alex.. Campbridge is. I miss him thats all. A demon having feelings for someone else, yeah i know it sounds weird..." He said with a forced smile. He still wanted to be hugged to be held.  

[shinuko]

((Um, am I still welcome?))  

[Kenton Alkemi]

---  

[Dragon_Rider101]

"So what's the thing we need most help with that I may help with? I don't want to be a burden. I want to help out."  

[Kokuwagata]

"A demon huh...."

Malem shifted uneasily. It was not because she was afraid of demons, well at least the ones which weren't two stories tall, but rather her past with them...

She glanced away. The eyes are the windows to the soul. If he could see her soul...

...things might get ugly...

Grue clicked it's mandibles uneasily.

All of a sudden there was a loud crash outside.

"I'VE FOUND YOU AT LAST MALEM YOU LOUSY BI-"

His comment was cut off by another crash. It was a strange crunch, a sound of metal and knotted flesh against pavement. The ground rumbled.

There was then a throaty, gravelly...it wasn't quite a roar or a growl really. And it had a metallic echo to it. There was then the unmistakeable crackle of electricity swelling, and the hair on everyone's head stood on end, and then there was a bright flash in the front yard.

"NO YOU STUPID WRETCHED ANIMAL!! HIGHER!! HIGHER!! AND USE FIRE YOU STUPID MOTHER-"

There was a blast of chilled air, and a crunch as a giant ball of ice punched a hole right through the window, and skidded along the floor, and breaking off into several razor sharp shards of ice.

Malem ran outside, and jumped over the big crater in the ground. Before her was a 10 foot tall monstrosity, looking much like a giant white hairless gorilla, except the head had two blank squidlike eyes and a gaping tooth lined mouth. It was covered with armor plating all over with the Niebel Amry insignia spraypainted over.

"Well, well Malem," said a tall, long blonde haired, blue eyed man, with oversized mechanical gauntlets flowing with blue energy. This clashed completely with his tropical shirt and dirty cargo pants, "You didn't think I'd find you? I admit it was rather clever for you to hide in a building which doesn't appear to anyone looking for it, and I might have never found if it hadn't been for me giving up on searching for the day. However your biggest mistake was fighting in the arena. I admit, you impressed me even, I was afraid that alien would've done my work for me."

"Screw you Adrius," spat Malem.

"Oh my, ok, ok, let me try my good cop routine here. Now, I don't want to hurt you," He holds back a snigger, "But the Menschnatwiderstand could use a shaman with your talents to help put those filthy Helmians in their place. They're the reason why you've been exiled, they're the cause of all our problems. If we could round them up and control them, our problems would be gone, poof, and you could return! I imagine you miss your hometown. You said yourself once you didn't think the emperor's exile order was completely justified."

"That may be true, Adruis, but your group triggered the exile by trying to cause a coup against the Helmian emperor!"

"Well, we simply can't afford to have those dirty lizard-heads spoil our plans." He glanced at his gauntlets and insignia on it, a cross inside a circle, white on black. "Okay, I tried being nice. I lied. I really do want to kill you. Time to die."

"ALRIGHT GET IT RIGHT THIS TIME! FIRE FI-ERR, YOU KNOW THE BURNY THING?!"

The beast reared up and created a big ball of fire in it's hand, and then shot a ball of fire which exploded creating a cloud of ash and another crater in the yard.  

[Dragon_Rider101]

As the ice came in through the window, it left pieces of glass and ice alike strewn on the floor. Just as Sano was getting up from the ground after nearly being impaled by a big piece of ice, he spoke.

"Hey! WHAT THE F-"

He was cut off as a big ball of fire created yet another crater in the earth.

"I'm gonna go see what that is."  

[Kokuwagata]

Adrius yelled again, "GOOD MORE FIRE HIT THE GIRL!! GOOD HOMUNCULUS!!"

Grue had disappeared. Literally. He was probably hiding in the most remote corner of the house he could find.

The homunculus had opened it's mouth and cupped it's hands around it, and sprayed a gout of fire.

"You know, they wanted to send that idiot Reman instead of me. Reman. I can't believe it. And why did they promote him to Marschall des Rennens Auf? I should have had that position."

Malem responded, "It's simple. Number one, you're reckless. Number two, you lack subtlety, and Number three, nobody trusts you."

At that moment Malem ran up to the homunculus tank and hit it with a flurry of punches. She then backflipped out of the way of a fist.

However, at that moment, Adrius lept off the beast and intercepted her with a fist, sending her flying, and crashing into the house, sending shards of wood flying.

"Whoops, I forgot to turn it on." Adrius then pushed a button and his fists glowed with blue energy. "He glanced towards Sano, "Hey, hey, now the lady and I are having a private discussion. Don't be rude. I'll give you one chance to just walk away and not get hurt. I won't lie to you, she'll probably die, but hey, the best thing to do for weaklings like you is to scrape along, rather to die meaninglessly."

He gestures to the beast to attack Sano.

"Don't worry, they're slow and stupid, and if you run away, I'd say you at least have a good chance of surviving."