[IC] ANKL. Part I: Awakening

[Sutoratosu]

Arya

Aaaaaand guess who? What interesting timing....though the past day or two had a lot of 'Interesting Timings'.

     "Oh uh... well I guess I can't blame you, really," Arya said, unusually sheepish. Her face was still flushed from the previous line of conversation, no doubt Natalie would notice "Before an hour ago, I would've brushed this whole thing off as insanity, too. But that Girl....what she was able to do...." 

 

There is a grimace as she recalls Miss Bates. Never particularly liked her, but never had any real beef with her either. Even if she did though, not even the bitchiest of teachers she'd gone through would've deserved to be gutted and burned like that... like some mere animal. After a moment or two, she shakes her head, pushing the scene back down and trying to smile.

 

It's a thin, weak one. "Anyway... I'm glad you decided to come back. Mother Opium and I were just... talking about a few things."

[Shamitako]

Mack

 

Even if the war cry hadn't alerted her, Mack knew Arturia was coming. She had mere moments to get ahold of her bat, just barelyu managing to get a decent grip around the handle with her good arm. This time, not only did the gem on the end glow white, the entire bat joined in. As Arturia's blade came down, it was met with a desperate swing, one that, had this been any other bat, would have been easily knocked aside by the force of Arturia's blow. But this wasn't any other bat, and instead Arturia's blade was met with a completely unstoppable force. It was only a glancing blow, a more direct strike and it was likely Arturia would have found the bones of her wrists shattered from the force of the blow. But instead all that happened was her blade being redirected and slowed, such that it flew over Mack instead of cleaving her in half. Mack used the time she'd bought to roll away and back to her feet, or at least a kneeling position from which she could more easily get to her feet.

 

"Seems you're more of a problem to kill than I was thinkin'." Mack admitted through heavy breaths, "I'll give you this one, but only 'cause you're cute. Layla's hangin' from a tree about twenty meters back thataway." Mack pointed past Arturia. "Don't worry 'bout that bein' a lie, I ain't goin' nowhere carryin' her over my shoulder, not like this, I ain't got a reason to keep her." She made no effort to move, it was likely that if Arturia continued attacking, she could win out and kill Mack here and now.

[Chevaleresse]

Arturia breathed heavily herself; she wasn't the most fit individual to start with. She held her blade pointed at her foe, fixing her with a hard gaze as she tried to think through her options here. It would be safest to kill her; she was a clear threat and willing to do the same to others, and had potentially jeopardized her chances of actually getting Layla to trust her. Still, it was one thing to try and split her open in a fight for her life, it was another entirely to execute her when she wasn't resisting. Layla had to take priority, too.

 

She made her decision. "Drop the bat and walk away." Disarming her would at least reduce the threat she posed; she didn't know if the tomboy had anything else to defend herself with. Granted, if she did, she'd have probably used it by now, but you never knew. 

[Shamitako]

Mack

Spoiler

Dubstep for dank bat dropping: 

 

"If you insist." Mack raised herself to her full height and held the bat out in front of her, pointed towards the ground. "Droppin' the bat." In the same instant she released her grip, energy flowed from Mack's fingertips into the bat, causing it to glow white once more. Its tip struck the ground and a massive shockwave exploded outwards from it, upturning the ground as it rapidly tore through the forest. Trees were toppled and consumed by the crushing wave of dirt and stone. Arturia and Mack were flung far away from one another as a thick cloud of dust rose around them. Though perhaps impossible to hear over the rumbling of the raging earth, a squeal of terror echoed out nearby the place Arturia landed (and was partially buried).

 

Natalie

 

Natalie's mother joined in Arya's assurances. "Yes, it's perfectly understandable. I'm just glad you've come back." She said kindly, "I just finished giving Arya a gift, and I have one for you as well." She retrieved another jar like the one she'd given Arya and set it in front of Natalie. "This jar contains a powerful weapon, like the one carried by the inquisitor, that you can use to protect yourself. It's yours on one condition: You keep yourself and Arya safe."

Natalie looked nervously at Arya and then back to her mother. "I'm not sure I can. I don't have the same sort of resolve that Arya does... I'm not sure I can fight someone like that again."

[Chevaleresse]

Arturia opened her mouth in the beginnings of what was probably a burst of profanity before the shock wave shut it for her. It was a tad difficult to think in the time between struck by such and coming to a rest half-buried in dirt some distance away. She slowly began to struggle free of where she'd landed; the girl might not have been encased, but she was reaching the point where everything hurt. "This is what I get. . . for being. . . fuckin'. . . reasonable," she muttered angrily to herself as she pulled herself to her feet. She looked around; had she heard a scream? "Lilith?" she called out. She was pretty sure she should be close to the girl, at least; not that she had a lot of reasons to actually trust the person she was just talking to. "Where are you?"

[Shamitako]

Riley

 

Katja shrugged. "You come with Katja eventually." She said nonchalantly. "It take time, but Katja has lots of time."

Riley glared at her in a quiet rage. Once again she was trapped in this frustrating loop, and as best she could tell, the only way out was for Alva to capitulate. In a way, this was even worse, at least last time she had been at the center of it, she'd had some sense of control. This time, everything was in Alva's hands. This would have been so much easier if she'd just killed Alva a little earlier, before Katja found them. It seemed that now she had a new goal. "Kaede." She said finally, "It seems my priorities have changed, keeping Alva from them now seems to coincide with keeping her alive. I don't know how we can defeat this time loop, but we stand a better chance if we work to fight Katja together."

 

Arturia

 

The ground had ceased its rage, and a deathly silence hung over the world along side the dust. Arturia couldn't see much through the cloud, a dull brown obscured her vision in every direction. No response came to her call, not even an echo. If Lilith really was nearby, she was in no condition to respond.

[Chevaleresse]

Arturia picked a direction that she thought was probably toward Lilith, judging based on the assumption that she'd more or less been tossed straight backward and that Mack hadn't lied about her location, and set off through the dust cloud, keeping one hand ahead of herself in case she was going to run into a tree or something. She mumbled curses under her breath the entire way, trying to focus on her anger at the situation; it was her primary defense against the icy claws of fear and anxiety that threatened to slip through her ribs. She was going to find the brat of a god, she was going to drag her by the ear back to Kallisto, and then she was going to go home and take a goddamn nap. She wasn't going to worry about the very real possibility that she would find Lilith dead, if she found her at all, or how badly injured she herself might be at the moment. . . Strong soul, right? Technically I'm supposed to believe in that shit. 

[Raindrop Valkyrie]

Kaede

Kaede wasn't sure how she was going to beat time itself... or perhaps, the control over time that Katja had, but she was glad that Alva had decided her own fate. Even if it was going to cause the both of them suffering... it was at least of her own will.

Kaede was surprised by Riley's words. she still didn't exactly trust her, but, she did suppose that together they'd be stuck in this loop so it behooved her to help not hinder. Strange thing fate was, now that an enemy would become at least for the time an ally. Kaede parted a small section of the mass of ribbons where she thought Riley was from the sound of her voice. Only enough for hers eyes to meet Riley's. The dark lakes looked into Riley's eyes, no emotion rested in them that Riley would be able to see. "Hmmm, fate has interesting plans today. l agree."

[GodofGamingRWBY]

Platinum

 

At her own place in the court, Platinum couldn’t help but narrow her eyes as she thought. She unfortunately didn’t see the flash from Sharp, but she had more than enough on her mind as it was to keep her occupied. Namely, that flash of light, which she still had no clue what it was, except it was completely unnatural by all accounts.

 

Finally, Platinum sighed, bringing a hand to her forehead. This entire this was confusing enough to start making her head hurt, specifically since there was no truly logical reasoning for any of this at this point.

[Shamitako]

Arturia

 

Arturia did, in fact, run into a tree. But her hand was incapable of guarding her from it, as it was her feet that discovered it half-buried in the ground. She tripped over it, though she didn't fall. She did, however, managed to catch notice of a rope tied to one of the branches. Following it led downwards, under the tree.

[Chevaleresse]

Another, louder string of expletives sounded from Arturia as she tripped, stopping only briefly when she caught sight of the rope and then restarting at a significantly increased volume. She checked the other side of the trunk - nope, definitely under the tree entirely. "God damn it, I was trying to help, why the fuck did this have to happen. . ." She scrabbled at the tree, trying to lift it or at least roll it to the side; Arturia eventually started moving toward one end of it in an attempt to at least get leverage out of it. Not that she expected to be entirely productive, given that she was a fifteen year old girl who was exhausted and battered trying to lift a fucking tree, but hey, it was worth a try.

[Sutoratosu]

Arya

"Come on, Natalie, don't sell yourself short like that," Arya said, "When that girl burst into the kitchen behind me, you sprang into action before I could even so much as move. Even if you aren't sure how you did it, the fact is, you did something back there, and did probably without even thinking very hard. I don't think... no. I know I couldn't have held her off anymore at that point, if you hadn't stepped in when you did. You've got plenty of resolve, even if you don't think do. 

      Besides, her only tricks seem to be using that Scythe and lighting herself on fire. And we know she'll be back, that she won't stop until someone's dead. She had countless advantages here; seperated and defenseless targets, greater experience, the element of surprise... But she wasted all of those. She toyed with us, was so assured of her success she didn't take it seriously... until it came back to bite her. But by then it was already too late for her..."

 

She hesitated for a moment, gazing into those lavender eyes once again. There was an odd certainty to her expression, as she took hold of Natalie's hand "Think about it, Nat. This was her biggest chance at this, and she failed it with flying colors. If we're standing together when she tries again, if we're both actually prepared the next time... She might not get to limp away."

 

Curiously, she neglected to mention how she'd been too cowardly to end this whole mess already. Knew she should've grabbed that fucking scythe and taken the bitch down a peg when she had a chance, grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr....but fuck it. Her and Nat were both alive, and the bitch hadn't even roughed her up that much, all things considered. There was still plenty good chance to make sure Kindle got hers, in good time....

[Shamitako]

Arturia

 

As she neared the tree's tattered roots, Arturia began to hear a sound. A whimper not unlike a wounded animal. The sound came from past the base of the uprooted tree, where a terrified mass of blood, flesh, and dirt that Arturia recognized as Lilith was huddled. The blood seemed to be coming from a multitude of smaller scratches rather than any sort of major wound, though Arturia could see a rather nasty looking bruise through a hole in the stomach of Lilith's shirt.

[Chevaleresse]

"Oh thank the fucking gods, she's alive." The phrasing was reflexive, and it felt a bit odd in her mouth as she spoke it. She now personally knew one and was currently talking about another. She gave Lilith a wide berth, though, despite her relief; the girl hadn't exactly demonstrated a good response to stress. "Lilith, it's Arturia. I'm here, let's just try to find our way back to camp." She tried to keep her tone as calming as possible, though she couldn't keep the raggedness of stress and exhaustion out of her voice. "I'll explain what I can once we get back, but we should be safe now." Should. Not that she was sure. Though the other girl was hurt worse than her, and unless she had some sort of safeguard against that ability was probably in bad condition wherever she landed. Arturia wasn't sure how to feel about that thought; on the one hand, she had tried to kill her, violated her personal space, and had both literally and figuratively spat on her. Still, a small part of her thought they could have been friends had they met under different conditions.

[Twinwolf]

Alva

 

Alva still... didn't quite understand what was going on, in all honesty. She was not by any means stupid - it's just that the events were completely incomprehensible. This sort of thing didn't happen in real life, it was purely the domain of fiction. And yet, here she was, with clearly impossible actions by the girls around her and facing a woman who she currently had every reason to believe wanted to take her away to be slowly, painfully, and violently sacrificed to some unknown purpose. And she apparently assumed she could stop the magically-armed Kaede and sword-armed Riley, which considering she was watching Kaede do magic didn't seem quite so impossible as it normally would.  "...I-I feel like I'm missing a lot of information here... explanation, please? Like, just a quick one?" She asked, both to Riley and Kaede. She couldn't exactly help without knowing the situation after all. She felt tingling over a not insignificant portion of her body, but was chalking it up to the terror, unaware of the magic power causing it. "What is she doing? D-Do we know how to stop it?"

[Shamitako]

Arturia

 

Lilith didn't respond, it seemed like Arturia's presence hadn't even registered with her. It was like she'd retreated inside herself to escape the events that had just occurred. Arturia would find it hard to blame her as the dust all around was slowly beginning to settle, revealing that this tree was far from the only result of the destruction wrought by the ground's upheaval. She couldn't see more than a few meters (still much better than struggling to see her hand in front of her face), but Arturia could see enough. Not a single tree remained upright, all were lopsided or outright uprooted. The undergrowth was almost totally gone, buried as dirt and stone had torn across it, now only present as sparse strands of green and upturned roots littered through the uneven earth. Arturia even spied the fresh carcasses of a few small mammals that had been crushed by the earth or flung through the air as she was. She could only imagine how much worse it was outside her narrow field of view.

[Chevaleresse]

Arturia shook her head. A small voice in the back of her head tried to say this was her fault, a voice she did her best to ignore; she wasn't the one who had attacked someone else, and she wasn't the one who'd decided to cause mass destruction over a reasonable request. Focus on the task at hand. She stood up straight, and circled around Lilith, keeping a healthy distance; the girl was unstable and obviously not in the best mental state at the moment, and she didn't want to spook her by making contact abruptly. "Lilith," she called out again as she approached the girl's front. "Lilith, please, we need to get back to camp."

[Shamitako]

Natalie

 

Natalie shut her eyes and took a deep breath. When she opened them again, they were like hardened ice. It was a false determination, only granted by her faith in her mother and in Arya, but it was enough to give her strength. With as calm a voice as she could muster, she told her mother, "Alright, what do I have to do?"

Mother Opium opened the jar. "Reach inside, take hold of what you find, and pull it out." She answered.

Natalie nodded, took another breath, and reached down towards the jar. The instant her fingers touched the liquid metal, there was a burning sensation. She tried to recoil, but it was too late. The metal jumped out of the tube, travelling up her arm. There was a sharp pain as it stabbed through her shoulder. The burning intensified as the metal moved under her skin, travelling from shoulder to neck, onto the cheek, and finally resting behind Natalie's right eyebrow, where it spiked outwards in two painful bursts of flame.

 

Natalie sat up, she hadn't realized she'd fallen on her back. At some point during the ordeal, she'd heard her mother cry out in surprise and concern. The burning had mostly faded, but there was still some residue of the sensation coming from the side of her face where it had spiked. She reached up to touch it, and was almost unsurprised to find that the spiking flames had been the formation of two literal spikes exiting her skin. The spikes were small, half and a quarter inch respectively, and curved upwards just slightly from the side of Natalie's face, just inside the temple of her glasses. The larger one, the one placed slightly higher on her face, had a tiny bulge that felt like a gem embedded in it. She paused to consider that she might have to switch to contacts instead of her stylish glasses, before remembering that there were more important things at hand than fashion.

 

It was then that Natalie finally notice her mother's voice again, "Natalie, are you okay?" Though it was slightly muffled still, Natalie could tell by her tone that this was the third or fourth time the question had been asked.

"I think... I think so." Natalie answered, suddenly feeling extremely winded.

"I think so isn't good enough right now. That's not supposed to happen!" Natalie could hear the panic in her mother's voice. She was worried, she always worried.

"It's alright mom, I'm okay." She reassured, "I don't really understand, but I think this is exactly what was supposed to happen. It seems not every weapon is made to be held in hand." The hand touching the spikes lowered, almost of its own accord. Natalie instinctively knew how to use her weapon, as though her mind itself were connected to it. She pulled her hand back so that her palm pointed up, and with a short, almost unnoticeable jolt of that burning pain--which she now realized was the burn of ice and not the burn of flame--a metal spike emerged from her palm. "Or maybe they are." She said with a giggle.

 

Platinum

 

As Platinum lamented over her inability to solve the mystery (though she hadn't exactly tried very hard), the ground beneath her suddenly began to shake. Alongside it, a loud rumbling came from the forest where Arturia and Layla had run off to. A cloud of dust emerged from it, followed by the trees starting to thin out as the furthest trees visible through the foliage were toppled. The rumbling reached its peak as a wall of dirt and stone rose up, crushing and toppling a large chunk of the treeline.

 

The event caused a panic as the ground roared in anger, and most of the girls scrambled to escape in the opposite direction of the devastation. In the ensuing chaos, Platinum found herself barreled into by one of the fleeing girls and easily knocked down due to her small stature. There was a short moment of blackness, though she couldn't tell if she'd hit her head or simply closed her eyes out of fear.

 

As the ground stabilized itself once more, Platinum found vision returned. The first thing she saw with it was the face of a girl, Lexi Aislin to be precise. Lexi seemed a little dazed, groaning as she too returned her eyes to an open state. She didn't seem to realize what had happened. With a confused look, she tried to sort out what was beneath her with her hands, squishing at what little breast Platinum had. After ten or twenty seconds, realization dawned on her face alongside embarrassment. She jumped to full cognition and scrambled backwards, her face flushing bright pink. "By Nayru! I'm sorry sorry!" Her apology scrambled itself as she rushed to get it out.

 

Platinum is now a Water Pulse

[Raindrop Valkyrie]

Kaede

Kaede wasn't really sure how she'd explain any of this. lt was a world she herself was only just introduced to. How would one even make any sense of this to someone who wasn't a part of it? Luckily, emotion didn't hold sway over her mind she could reason still and the doubt didn't set in and cause panic or... worse. lnstead she figured she should just be truthfulwith Alva...she couldn't help if she didn't believe her, but... what was around her and what was going on should have alerted her... she hoped that Alva would be willing of accept that which was in front of her.

"As far as l know... she is controlling this space and placing it into some sort of loop of time. She's done this once before but you don't remember l take it. She'll keep resetting the loop until she gets her way more or less; Until events take the course she'd prefer. You may not remember what l've said when this reoccurs. You could lose parts of your memory in the reset. l seem to be unaffected for the most part. Why? l don't really know. But l'm not entirely sure how to stop it. But, l suppose we've a lot of time to figure just that. She was out of view last time... but she's right in front of me now. Meaning that Riley and l can at least attack the source if nothing else this time. Unfortunately, that's all l can tell you."

[GodofGamingRWBY]

Platinum

 

… After a good while of thinking, Platinum couldn’t help but sigh again. She wasn’t going to figure out anything about this by just thinking to herself, that was obvious. Best course of action was just to check out that ball again. After all, it wasn’t like she was able to walk out and find the girl responsible for-

 

And suddenly, just as Platinum began to think about that train of thought,the entire forest started to collapse, with Platinum herself stumbling from the shaking earth before looking at the toppling trees and cloud of dirt and stone. Thankfully, Platinum was more at the edge of the field, furthest from the entire chaos… Which was unfortunately where everyone began to run to as Platinum took steps back from it, in complete disbelief at what was happening. First the entire dodgeball incident, and now the forest being ripped to shreds by something? At this point, this day couldn’t get weir-

 

…

 

…

 

After a few seconds of blackness, Platinum began blinking her eyes open. Last thing she remembered was someone ramming into her, knocking her to the ground, followed by darkness covering her vision. Judging by the dull ache at the back of the head, she probably hit her head… Which was probably why she couldn’t really think straight at the moment. Everything just seemed out focused… Like the person on top of her. She felt like that face was familiar, she just couldn’t really put a finger on it… No wait, it was Lexi, she at least remembered that. Or rather… Aislin? That was her last name right? Right, it was. Only thing she couldn’t figure out what was (and for a bit, had been) squishing at her-

 

Oh.

 

About at the same time Lexi realized what she was doing, Platinum realized as well, eyes widening as she looked down and saw it first hand. That was about when Lexi scrambled off her, allowing Platinum to prop herself up on one elbow, bringing her other hand to the back of her head. Now this was awkward.

 

“At least ask next time” Platinum replied, her tone making it rather obvious that she was snarking that out. Honestly, she didn’t really mind, in all honesty. Well, if she was able to think straight, she probably would’ve just punched/slapped Aislin without any hesitation, but she wasn’t, so that opportunity already went and gone. Then there was the fact that it was obvious that Aislin wasn’t thinking straight herself, so it wasn’t entirely her fault… As long as she ignored the time it took for her to realize.

 

The main thing that managed to make Platinum ignore the entire thing rather quickly was the field of devastation in front of her, causing her to slowly, with a bit of a groan, get back to her feet. She took it back, the day could, and did, get a lot worse.

 

… At least she could admit that there was definitely something unnatural going on around here.
 

[Shamitako]

Arturia

 

Lilith still didn't respond, and it still seemed as though she had yet to register Arturia's presence. It didn't seem like there was anything Arturia could do to gain Lilith's attention, at least not without startling the poor girl. As she observed Lilith to find a solution, Arturia began to notice more details about the girl. She wasn't just small, as she might seem at first glance, she looked rather bony, or even malnourished. And the bruise wasn't the only thing visible on her stomach, there were a dozen scars from what must have been knife wounds. But most disturbingly were the things that came from within the girl's whimpers. They were words so soft that Arturia could barely make them out, even when she went quiet to listen. Though it at first seemed like gibberish, listening long enough would reveal a string of phrases being repeated over and over. "...No, don't put it in there. The pressure, suffocating pressure. Mommy, mommy. The ashes, dying black ashes. Don't make me go in there. The smoke, empty grey smoke. The things they do, they hurt. The fire, lovely white fire. Don't you love me? Fire, fire, fire. Make them stop, mommy. What is power? Eden's curse is coming. No, don't put it in there..."

 

The evidence seemed to point to a pretty clear conclusion, one that any sane person would try to deny they had reached. Arturia had heard plenty of horror stories about Laylites. With how much of a pariah Laylites were, rumors of heinous acts were abundantly available. Occasionally one would be arrested for doing something particularly cruel, but those seemed like outliers to those who weren't already convinced of their evil disposition. Yet even if Arturia had believed such stories, the impact of seeing the results with her own eyes, hearing a child's lament with her own ears... There was no preparation for that.

[Chevaleresse]

"Nayru's tits, what happened to you. . . ?" Arturia murmured. She'd thought that most of it was just unfounded rumors; sure, the Laylites were a bit odd, but to her they were just another Line, a Line she might have chosen had the circumstances in her life been different. She shook her head. Can't stop to treat her abuse now. Therapy later, right now I need to get her - and myself - back. Still, if she were the type, she'd have wanted to give Lilith a hug, poor thing. She hesitantly crept closer to Lilith until she was at arm's reach, and then slowly extended a hand, tapping on her shoulder and calling her name again, louder this time. If even that failed to elicit a response, she'd just grab the girl, gently but insistently, and try to pull her along.

[Shamitako]

Riley

 

"Katja doesn't seem to have anything up her sleeve besides that hourglass. We just have to outlast her." Riley smirked, "I doubt we can kill her in here, but we can certainly make her suffer."

Spoiler

 

Riley drew her rapier and flicked it up to point at Katja. As she did so, her clothes and skin rippled with a white light. Her jacket and nails changed color from navy to bright white. Her t-shirt and skirt vanished, leaving her in just her black sports bra and leggings. A white tattoo in the shape of a simple eye design emblazoned itself onto her stomach, with the same appearing in the center of her forehead and on the back of her hands. The tattoo on her forehead was especially strange, as the simple dot that served to represent the pupil moved with Riley's gaze, as though it actually served as a third eye.

 

"Both of you hurry up and transform as well, we don't know how long we have until the loop resets." Riley instructed.

 

Lilith

Spoiler

 

This time, Arturia did manage to elicit a response, though perhaps not the one she was hoping for. With an angry hiss, Lilith grabbed Arturia's wrist and--with a surprising amount of strength--yanked Arturia towards her. Simultaneously, she rose to her feet and transformed. Before Arturia could catch her balance or attempt to shake free, Lilith's free hand was on her neck, nails biting at the skin. The look in Lilith's eyes was that of a cornered animal lashing out in fear. Several tendrils of lightning jumped out of her back and turned to point at Arturia. But they froze in place just before striking. Lilith's eyes searched Arturia, trying to discern if she was friend or foe. Finally, the tendrils vanished and Lilith released her grip. She fell back down, releasing her transformation as she went. Though she no longer whimpered and she knew of Arturia's presence.

 

"I'm sorry, I thought you were mommy." Lilith whispered, "I want mommy. I miss mommy."

 

Trick

Spoiler

 

"At least ask next time." The diminutive girl said with a snarky tone.

This prompted a flustered response from the still-confused maiden of the sea, "I'm sorry. I will. Next time? I mean, uh." Somehow Alexus turned an even deeper shade of pink than she had already.

The third party, who had rushed over when she'd seen Alexus fall, lowered her head in between them, hanging upside down in the air as she was wont to do. "Hi there!" She said cheerfully.

 

Alexus just stared in shock, that was fine, Trick wasn't actually there for Alexus. She was there for the maiden's knight, though the girl the goddess had just been fondling wasn't exactly what she'd been looking for. Still, being nearby Alexus could lead her to a compatible knight. She needed to hurry though, staying out of Mack's way had delayed her a lot, she wouldn't be able to exist in this place much longer. She was extremely lucky that Mack hadn't attacked Alexus for some reason, she didn't want to lose this chance.

[Chevaleresse]

Whatever expletive Arturia was about to utter was cut off when Lilith seized her throat. Apparently the mix of pleading and fear in her widened eyes had convinced the goddess that she meant no harm, however. She collapsed backward, coughing a bit as she tried to regain her breath. "Kallisto's. . . rancid. . . ugh." Arturia rolled over and pushed herself back to her feet. "No, I'm not. . . no. Sorry." She took a short moment to collect herself and look about a bit, resisting various urges, including but not limited to "cry," "scream at Lilith," and "scream at nothing in particular." Hopefully the dust had settled enough that they could actually navigate back to camp; she didn't have a spectacular sense of direction in the first place, and being knocked out, blasted around, and strangled tended to have a somewhat disorienting effect. 

 

"Lilith, we need to get back to camp and talk to, uh, Miss Katherine. I think the girl that attacked us is gone, but it's still not safe out here." Not that she was convinced the camp would be entirely safe either, but it was a better option than languishing in the middle of the devastated forest. Arturia crouched in front of the girl, still transformed, and offered her a hand.

[GodofGamingRWBY]

Platinum

 

For the most part, Platinum chose to ignore Aislin’s flustered response, mostly as a way to ignore the still kind of awkward situation. She felt like it was at least the best move, all thing considered… If she actually focused on fixing it she might get angry enough to-

 

Quote

"Hi there!"

 

Suddenly, a red haired girl popped her head down from the top of Platinum’s vision, causing her to stumble back with a surprised shout, now staring at the third party as her mind raced to try and figure out an explanation as to why she was FLOATING UPSIDE DOWN IN THE-

 

Then, just like that, Platinum sighed, “Everything all day today…” she thought to herself in annoyance, before fixing her posture, her eyes never leaving the new arrival, “Uh… Hello” Platinum replied hesitantly, “... Mind explaining how you’re doing…” she began, gesturing to the other girl’s feet, “... That?”