[IC] Under Night In-Birth Hollowed Altar: Night One

[GodofGamingRWBY]

All

 

The Night has begun. Dark beings wander the normally peaceful streets of Kanzakai, hunting unfortunate souls that are out in the Night. But, there were also those bitten by the dark beings, the Voids, and tonight, like most Nights, marked their most active moments.

 

Licht Kreis HQ

 

As per normal, the Licht Kreis HQ was buzzing with activity on tonight, for obvious reasons. Much of the Executioners, at least the ones that weren’t away from the city, were already out on the field, while others made sure information and readings of the city were up to date. The only difference tonight was the young woman standing at the front of the building, most commonly known as the Third Executioner Annabel, leaning on the wall as she waited for the Executioners-In-Training.

 

Abandoned District

 

As per normal, the Abandoned District was dead silent. Not a soul was moving in it, except for the Voids, and a single pair. A large man, sitting inside of a ruined building, and a smaller woman, resting inside of one of his giant, clawed hands.

 

“Lady Linne” Waldstein finally spoke, his gravely voice spurring the woman awake, which was simply her opening her eyes and allowing Waldstein to lift his arm, letting her neatly slide to her feet.

 

“Let’s get to work” Linne replied bluntly, placing both of her hands in her jacket’s pocket and walking out of the building, her light steps followed by the much louder steps of Waldstein, who had to squeeze his way out of the building to follow Linne.

 

Old Residential District

 

For Izumi and Chimi, the Night was rather peaceful so far. There was a surprising lack of activity, not many In Births walking around in plain sight, and the Voids weren’t attacking anyone. Yet, at least.

 

Chimi found himself wandering the vacant streets of Kanzakai… Specifically, the rundown section of the city. The moon had long since risen to signal the Night, which meant that now, the Licht Kreis would be active in monitoring the city and key areas. Though, what that meant for the “Mountain” Emperor was a mystery.

 

Izumi, on the other hand, found herself near the residential area. There were signs of Voids around, mostly slightly damaged walls and streaks of black staining cement. Where they were was a mystery currently, but they had to be near.

 

 

Riverside Plaza

 

The Night, despite its many horrors, somehow managed to make the Riverside Plaza a relaxing place to be, due to the fact that it was pretty much abandoned, and the lights of the city constantly reflected upon the surface of the river. The only thing that ruined the sight was the fact that the sky was filled with blood red clouds.

 

This is where Jakob, the Tri-Fold Spearman, found himself at this time, staring over the shining river. His most recent client had contacted him a week prior to the Night, and had requested him to meet here for a job. Why inside of a Night, of all places, was something that Jakob would likely find out later.

 

About 30 minutes into his wait, Jakob would finally notice a man approaching him from the otherside of the plaza, dressed in a large, beige trench coat, brown boots, and an equally beige fedora that did a somewhat decent job of hiding his facial features, “I hope I haven’t been keeping you too long. I trust that the Voids have been avoiding this area?” he asked, placing a hand inside one of his pockets.

[DragonRage]

Izumi rides throughout the district on her motorcycle, looking for trouble.

[IntSys]

"Ah... The Hollow Night. The only time where I can walk into Kanzakai without much trouble. After all, they already have a lot on their hands tonight," Chimi said to himself. He scaled up to one of the empty buildings around him, getting a better look at the surroundings. With the Licht Kreis Building being directly east from here, he knew where he was not going. The area to the north seemed even more quieter than the rundown area he was in, so he decided to head south, approaching the Residential District.

[Twinwolf]

Rei Torakuma was humming a tune to herself as she walked down the street, seemingly uncaring for the dangers of the Night. If anything, she was excited, and it was all she could do not to keep her power from activating and sending sparks around every step.

 

The horned young lady was practically dragging another with her, until she came to a stop in front of Annabel. “Hey! Sorry for being a bit late, we were just finishing some homework. There were some... redos, when we had to print new copies of the assignments and stuff...”

[Chevaleresse]

The girl in question, toting her own set of horns, seemed to be quite literally smoldering with anger about something. "If they'd just make the damn directions clear, there wouldn't be a problem at all." The air seemed to get warmer as she approached, cooling slightly as she took another deep breath. "Anyway. Tonight's supposed to be a fun one, right? I've been waiting for this."

[GodofGamingRWBY]

Licht Kreis HQ

 

As soon as she saw the two approach, pushing herself off the wall, idly spinning her spear into a more comfortable resting position as she walked down the steps to meet them, "That's quite fine. Nearly wasn't able to come myself thanks to it" Annabel stated after Rei's statement, "But yes, tonight is the Night" she added, glancing up at the sky. While it had yet to fully manifest, the red mist that covered the sky was beginning to fill, slowly blocking out the moon.

 

However, soon enough, she looked back at the two, "I'll be supervising you two while we're out there. For the most part, we'll simply be tracking down as many Voids as we can so I can observe you fighting. Any big targets we find will be my responsibility. Can't let our Executioners-In-Training get killed on the field, right?" she asked, bringing a hand to the back of her head as she did so. Soon after, she brought it down with a sigh, "Sorry, I'm not that good with this 'official' stuff. Shall we get straight to the hunting?"

 

Old Residential Area

 

For Izumi, instead of finding Voids, she'd begin to make out the form of a gigantic man, almost a tower, and as she swiftly approached, she could make out a chain of skulls on him, along with the giant axe he wielded.

 

Chimi himself heard Izumi long before he saw her, as he was heading towards the Residential Area. Unfortunately, aside from the motorcycle and figure atop, he couldn't make out much from the distance he was at... Which, all things considered, shouldn't be much of a problem soon.

 

Kanzakai High

 

The Terror of Death, Aki, found herself on top of the district's High School at the start of this Night, staring over as much of the city as she could from her perch. Like most of the others, Aki had not been disturbed much, despite seeing several smaller Voids prowling the area. Either they were ignoring her, or something else was going on.

[Chevaleresse]

"Please." Shinobu seemed annoyed at the Executioner's hesitance, but then again she was giving the local cloud cover a glare that seemed to indicate her irritation at it continue to exist. "I'm ready to strut my stuff against as many of those things as you want me to tear apart, and then some." A note of pride, or perhaps more accurately arrogance, entered her voice at that, though it was still masked over by suppressed anger. "I've been waiting."

[DragonRage]

Well, this guy didn't seem to be a void creature.  However, that didn't mean he wasn't a monster.  Between that axe and... were those human skulls?  They had to be plastic or something like that.  Probably.  Hopefully.  Better ask, because an enormous serial killer would just be the perfect start to this night.  Revving her bike's engine mostly for the hell of it, Izumi pulls up alongside the huge man.

 

"Hey there!  I don't suppose those skulls are fake, are they?" She calls up to him, "Because beating down an enormous serial killer taking advantage of the chaos tonight and sitting on him until morning comes and I can hand him off to the police is really not how I was hoping to spend my night."

[IntSys]

"They are as real as they can be!" Chimi laughed. "Though, I'll share that hatred of nutcases with you, miss! These skulls belonged to the evil men who dared to attack my domain and threaten my men!" He fiddled with the skulls as he took a closer look at the woman's obnoxiously loud motorcycle. He then measured the woman's height visually, before finally saying "honestly, I do have better things to do on a Hollow Night than to sleep under a woman's buttocks."

 

"But I won't say no to a duel if that's what you want." He added casually.

[DragonRage]

"A good fight to get the blood pumping would be fun.  Don't get to practice fighting people with polearms often," Izumi considers, "But there's monsters about tonight.  Maybe once the sun rises, but for now I'm more interested in hunting down some critters before they hunt down someone who can't fight back.  Have you seen sign of any?  It's usually pretty obvious when one of these things is active, but I've been coming up dry so far."

[IntSys]

"Haven't seen any so far either. I'd wager that it's because there's barely anyone left here to prey upon, aside from adventurous idiots... Then again, I've recruited some idiots like that," Chimi said. "Were I you, I'd look for those kind of idiots instead. At least they seem to be easier to find."

 

He turned to a nearby back alley. "Or maybe, these critters have gotten smart enough not to expose themselves on the streets. Neither you nor the Executioners are going to bother with dark corners after all, with how many of them there are throughout the area."

[Twinwolf]

"Yeah, let's get going! I've been waiting for this for days!" Rei says cheerfully, more sparks coming off of her. Her voice was less arrogant and more, well, excited - she had really been looking forward to trying out some real fights. 

[StormLord]

Jacob turned slowly to look at his client before addressing the man in a tone almost too casual considering the circumstances.

"It's been quiet, though at least you chose somewhere nice to meet."

He took a few steps closer to meet the man half way.

"Down to business then?"

[GodofGamingRWBY]

Licht Kreis HQ

 

With both Rei and Shinobu's insistance to get going, Annabel nodded, "Right. I can only give suggestions on where to go and follow you two around. So, I would suggest heading in the direction of the Abyss. Which should be..." she began, before raising a hand to point... Only to pause and narrow her eyes, "Er... In between here and the Residential District. Voids like to swarm it due to the mass amounts of EXS" she stated.

 

And at that, the group of the headed out, making their way towards the Abyss...

 

 

Cathedral

 

In the many minutes that passed while Annabel, Shinobu, and Rei walked, the city was unnaturally quiet. Annabel herself had stated that normally, Voids would be extremely active, and yet not one had even poked its head out to attack. But, thankfully, by the time the trio began to walk past the large Cathedral, that changed.

 

Mostly due to the fact that there was unnatural clanging resonating from inside, far to short and erratic to be any bells.

 

 

Riverside Plaza

 

"Yes, let's" the man replied, "The job I have is simple. I simply want EXS from various In Births around the city to assist with my research. Due to your reputation and success rate, you were the best suited for this. To start off-" he paused,  pulling out a large stack of yen, from underneath his jacket, "Five hundred thousand yen, an upfront payment. Each suitable example of EXS you bring me will be worth two million. And to get said EXS..." the man continued, pulling out yet another object from his jacket, this time a small silver disk with countless grooves in it, "you simple need to have this around. My own design, it will absorb unknown EXS for later analysis. All you have to do is find the sources."

[Chevaleresse]

"Well? Not much point in waiting." Shinobu put one hand on her sword, the air around her already starting to heat up as she strode forward toward the doors of the structure. "They're in here, and I'm gonna rip them apart!" She sounded a bit too excited at the prospect, though Rei at least would know that Shinobu had never been the type to avoid a good fight. A young Torakuma had gotten in quite a few scraps with the boys on the playground, and the attitude had never quite gone away. Though now, there was a rather darker cast to it. . . When she got to the door, she threw it open none too gently, daring whatever was within to attack.