Where's the Hope?, The Light is sometimes hard to find...

[Rixan]

'It's different than I remember it being in it's prime. The buildings are run-down, as if no one has bothered to maintain them. The wood is rotting, and the metal rusted over. There is no hope amidst these worn-down people.

I'd pity them, if it were possible.

The only structures that still have some physical integrity would be the edifice that I am sitting on now, a few shops here and there in the first and second districts, and a recent orphanage for those left without parents by the Heartless. A kind gesture, though it could prove as hopeless as those within.

An off-worlder seems to also be attempting to rebuild the old cafe that once stood in First District--the Golden Ribbon, if I recall correctly, though the owner may wish to change the name.

Perhaps I should set up shop as well... blend in with the populous. I can do so easily enough.

I would also be able to see if a certain young man understood my message as well.'

~~~
Thorns of nothingness surrounded the figure standing on top of the run-down bell-tower atop the former Gizmo Shop, and then disappated, the figure having vanished with them.

[Nero Claudius]

There was no comparison between this run-down town and the magnificant temple from which he had come, but all the same Nero preferred the rotting, dingy buildings to the white marble pillars buried in his memory. Temples were places for respect and humility - this town was more or less a living version of the Underworld, with which he felt much more comfortable than he should have been. Basically, he felt at home, which was ironic, since few houses still stood here.

Nero heard it before he saw it, and as his vision swiveled upward he managed to catch the tail ends of something dark disappating against the moon. Curious, he sauntered to the building - the sign reading Gizmo Shop creaked in the wind, and something inside crashed loudly. Perhaps it was just another beam falling; there were probably more just barely resisting time's corrosion; he shouldn't go in.

Ignoring his conscience, Nero pressed a palm against the door, and when it refused to open he summoned his keyblade and unlocked the rusted thing. He still had to push his shoulder against it, but it opened enough for him to slip inside, and disappointment hit him when he was met with nothing but complete darkness and a vague scent of flowers.

[Rai Ichida]

Rai Ichida was on his way home... well, what he had instead of a home, anyway. Despite having lived in Traverse Town for two years, he had still not managed to get himself a stable living arrangement. The town contantly received more people than it lost... and that was saying a lot, since fights that ended in death weren't that uncommon.

His current... "home" was a sort of apartment with roomies, only there were five of them last time he'd counted. There was a bed, admittedly, in his room and his roomies were nice enough to agree to an arrangement in which each night someone else got to sleep in the bed, but Rai didn't really care. He was used to sleeping in all sorts of places, and could more than deal with the thought of simply having a roof over his head that night.

Still, things could be better and he always felt thankful when he passed by the orphanage, knowing that someone his age was able to receive a place to stay there. He'd often considered offering to help out there, but when it came down to it, he wasn't sure he was suited for the job.

As he passed through Second District, he saw something move out of the corner of his eye, and not the normal hustle and bustle of people trying to get from one place to another. Rai was also fairly sure that with the glimpse of gray, he'd felt a bit of strange energy surge.

Rai decided to turn around and investigate, curiosity getting the best of him. He quickly headed in the general direction of the Gizmo shop. As he did so, he noticed that someone else, apparently following the same abnormality (since people didn't normally bother with the abandoned and sealed shop), was trying to break in through the rusted (and locked) doors.

He also watched as the... bluple haired boy summoned a very strange weapon to his hand--one that resembled and long, but light, sword with a pronged blade. Rai was vaguely reminded of a key and found the similarity to be accurate when the other boy unsealed the locks on the door of the Gizmo shop and slipped inside.

Feeling his curiosity grow, Rai could only follow.

[Rixan]

From her hiding spot in the abandoned hotel, Rixan watched the two young men as they entered the Gizmo shop to investigate her disappearance. She smiled slightly; one of them was a Keybearer.

"It's been a long time since I've seen a Key..."

She stepped out of the hotel and put on her typical act--that of a curious teenager--and followed them in as quietly as she could.

She rather 'enjoyed', one could say, seeing the various expressions on the faces of Somebodies.

[Nero Claudius]

(So I was totally waiting for Xy or Shelti to post but guess not. >>)

It wasn't that he was skittish, really, it was just that he was so trained to react to anything quickly and violently that eventually it had become a habit. Nero hadn't been expecting the other boy, and considering it was dark and quiet, he could easily hear him, and with the scent of flowers permeating the air it was easy to distinguish his scent, too.

And if there was anything Nero was even remotly proud of, it was his speed. As the boy walked in, Nero twisted towards him, swung the keyblade as fast as he could, and grinned when the reverberations through the handle and up his arm told him that it had connected with SOMETHING.

[Rai Ichida]

[I'm not sure either of them is going to be joining in. Neither's posted either place, even though they know the site is up... ... =x; We'll see. You can pester them about it later.]

Rai wasn't a newbie, in any sense, to battle. He hadn't expected the other boy to be quite so violent, however, nor quite as sharp. In most cases, the people of this town were slow to such things as being followed--they seemed to be used to a relatively calm lifestyle.

It wasn't like he carried his huge blade around town with him, either.

Maybe he was the one getting soft from two years in Traverse Town.

Either way, he couldn't help letting out a sort of low-ish hiss in pain as the blood trickled down, one of the prongs of the blade going right through muscle in his left arm. He'd used his left arm to block, of course, since there was nothing better to block with.

"That was necessary..." Rai muttered unhappily, yanking his arm from the prong. At least the bit of magic in his blood made him heal relatively well. ... at least he was pretty sure he wouldn't be lasting damaged.

There was a pause between Rai's mutter and his foot flying out in the direction of Nero's ribs, it just wasn't long enough to track.

It was a good thing he HAD that endurance, and that speed.

He still really missed healers.

[Rixan]

Rixan smiled, her expression showing amusement--she would be feeling that, if she could.

She hadn't expected this Keybearer to be violent. After all, the last three hadn't been exceedingly violent (though she wished the brown-haired one would have been less naive). She watched as the two boys started to fight, curious about their fighting skill. She was particularly curious about the Keybearer; having a Keyblade does not necessarily mean knowing how to use it.

'At least he knows basic functions of the weapon,' she thought calmly. 'Blunt weapon, universal lock-pick...'

She stayed in her hiding spot behind the door, watching the fight progress. She vaguely felt the strange urge to join in to test the Keybearer, but she pushed aside the sensation.

Testing the Keybearer herself would come later. For now, she would observe his skill in battle.

[Cardinal Maes-Wechsler]

She had been working in a small diner that was created from a car of a train that crashed long ago, its flotsam somehow losing its way and falling into the middle of Traverse Town. She guessed it wasn't just a refuge for people. Still, it was nice to have a job and to talk to people and to work in such a strange building. It gave her a sense of individualism. It had taken her awhile to get used to, but there were no more things like adventures... Bryan and Taylor were gone, and she would just... get used to life as it was. She had to.

Still, as Cardinal closed up, she had just put away her key and walked into second district when she caught a glimpse of another key, and a big one at that. God that kid was reckless. And an idiot too... Wasn't he a show-off for a keybearer? No, maybe he just stole a keyblade. She had heard Bryan talk about them, and god, they were like his heroes or something. They were always going off on adventures and having a blast and saving the world and all that crap. That kid didn't look much like a hero. More like that kid that sat in the back of a classroom and blasted music from his headphones so that no one could concentrate.

Card decided to ignore it until she saw more people walking into the gizmo shop. Well, if it had been intended to be a secret hideout, it wasn't very secret. Besides, the gizmo shop had been down for years. People would definitely notice it... she did pin at least one as a local-- it was hard to tell these days-- and decided that nobody would be that stupid.

So it was definitely just some high-and-mighty keybearer destroying random things and some people who decided to tag around. She started to head towards the broken down whateveritwas that she stayed in when she stopped in her tracks. On the one side, she could keep on living her life as it was, daily and routine. On the other, the next time she and Bryan crossed paths, she could say she met a keybearer too, and on top of that, he wasn't even a very good one, so hah, you idiot.

She liked the latter a lot more.

Smiling, she ran on over to the gizmo shop and looked inside to see that that punk hit that guy she thought she had recognized. Jesus Christ, they weren't really picky with who they chose to be heroes these days, she thought, huh? That was annoying, but what was even more irking was the jealousy that was starting to form in her stomach. It made her slightly irrational.

"What do you think you're doing in here?"

Smart. That kid looked like he wasn't only not afraid to hit her, but not afraid to get hit. Plus, he had a freakin' keyblade, and, if Bryan wasn't wrong on that one too, she could totally get her ass handed to her. Well. At least that would be interesting.

[Nero Claudius]

If it counted for anything, Nero had managed to block the foot with his arm; the force just happened to send him reeling into a rotting support beam. It held, which was surprising, because it was nearly falling down anyhow, but the ceiling beam didn't, and Nero realized if he weren't so fast he would have been trapped under the rotting wood.

But that was the least of his worries now, wasn't it? Because not only were there now more people, he was officially engaged in the trade of a battle. What should he concentrate on - the two new girls, or the boy he was fighting with? The girl that had come first had a strange prescence to her that felt... abnormal, to say the least. It made Nero definitely not want to stick around, which made him all the more curious.

There wasn't enough time to think - he decided to kill three birds with one stone and, with a quick
Firaga Fire spell, ignited ablaze the rotting wood that had almost crushed him. The fire would spread quickly - he'd be able to see how these people reacted, and in the hubbub that followed, perhaps he could make an escape.

As the fire began to engulf the small shop, Nero caught a glimpse of all three of the people. They looked weird, that was all he decided, and that was all he needed to decide before deciding to leave. Nero was halfway to a window and going when suddenly he caught something out the corner of his eye; a bouquet of flowers, with a black rose as a centerpiece... what was it doing here?

He dove right back through the flames to retrieve it, ignoring the burns that seared up his arms as a result. Thankfully, the bouquet wasn't damaged - the flowers sported a few ashes, but he brushed those away, then bolted for a window, defenestrated himself, and fled, clutching them to his chest.

[It suddenly occured to me that you can't have Firaga, so we're just going to say that Fire is good enough, mmkay?]

[Rai Ichida]

"Tsk," was Rai's only response as he watched Nero fly out a window, clutching some flowers. He only saw it out of the corner of his eye, of course, because the growing flames were a somewhat more pressing matter.

He turned to the two girls, who he'd barely had time to fully notice until that point. He had a feeling the older girl, with all that strange energy, could probably handle herself, but the other one...?

"Hey, you two!" He called, vaguely and shortly. "You okay?"

[Rai is so much more of a classic Keybearer than Nero, but Nero ROCKS as a Keybearer (yes, Jing, he does) but in a different way. ... which is why Rai is in reserves for Keyblade of Self if no one else takes it.]

[Rixan]

Rixan's eyes narrowed slightly in what would be anger at the irresponsibility of this Keybearer. "Amatuer," she muttered to herself, before casting a Blizzard around the area to put out the flames. She had intended to fix the Gizmo Shop as a base of sorts from the inside out, and she couldn't very well do that with it burning to the ground. The lives of the two humans in the building also mattered, but it didn't occur to her first.

She sighed and looked around the room. 'Not too much damange,' she thought. She would have to find some way to repair the damage the fire DID cause. She looked at the boy that had just spoken and flashed him a confident smile.

"I'm fine," she said, winking at him. "Takes more than a little bit of fire to catch me off-guard." 'Keep the act up,' she told herself. 'They won't spot what I am if I don't act too suspicious.' "What about you," she said, turning to the other girl, making a look of mild concern appear on her face.

[Cardinal Maes-Wechsler]

She didn't even bother to respond to the concerns of the others. "THAT LITTLE PUNK!" she yelled, which signified that basically she was absolutely fine, except for the whole loathing thing. She took a look at the two who were, like she had thought, unrelated to that boy.

"Take care of this place, will you? Haste!" She turned and fled out that same window, hoping that there would be something soft to brace her fall, but no, like always, just cobblestone. She nearly fell and there was a sharp pain in her ankle but she muttered "cure," having a dearth of potions on her, and continued.

"HEY YOU," she said. "PYRO JERK. I DON'T CARE WHO THE HELL YOU THINK YOU ARE." This was an indirect insult to her, and one to Bryan as well. She wouldn't let him go around making a mess and thinking that he didn't have to suffer any consequences. She'd rather have been pummeled into the ground.

With that thought, weapons materialized in both her hands, both sharp and like daggers, but with large guards. She had to be fast to use them-- they were incredibly heavy. Years of training, and she'd finally gotten used to her katar, which was good, because she hoped that maybe, just maybe, they could help the fact that she, a civilian, was about to commit suicide fighting a goddamn keyblade master.

[Nero Claudius]

Nero hadn't exactly gotten far - the cobblestone may have broken his fall, but he had a feeling it may also have broken an ankle, from the acute pain that tore up his leg as he limped around a corner. The second girl had followed him - he hadn't taken much notice to her, considering that of the three, she was least interesting to him. In a way, he almost wished the first girl or the guy had followed him. He would have liked to have known more about the strange prescence, and finishing the fight wasn't a bad idea, either.

Well, when life gives you lemons...

Nero pivoted, clutching the flowers in one hand and his keyblade in another. The burns on his arms had started to ache, but he ignored them in favour of a battle stance. The THINGS the girl was using... Nero first thought they were daggars with guards, before he realized that they basically WERE daggars with guards - just much more maneuverable. So he'd have to watch out for two weapons while protecting the flowers, huh? Easy enough, if that wasn't being too arrogant.

Resting most of his weight on one foot, Nero waited as the girl came charging down the street - he wouldn't attack first, this time, and though he was basically giving up one advantage, he reasoned that this girl wasn't too much of a threat, anyway, and could be dealt with accordingly.

After all, Nero had never really liked lemonade.

Meanwhile, without his noticing, the flowers had begun to wilt.

(Nero's injured, which may level out the playing field a bit for Card. ^^ Should be a good fight.

And, um, Crim, I know you told me to ignore the flowers but... XD;;; I can't. I just can't. So there.)

[Rai Ichida]

The younger girl went flying out the window and Rai could only stare. He had a feeling he had been wasting sympathies again.

He considered following the pyro, but upon thinking that idea through, he decided it was pretty pointless. Somehow, he had the impression of the other boy being a jittery fledgling with ability too great for him to use yet.

... Then again, all things considered, that, in and of itself, should probably have had him worried.

Instead, he turned to the white-haired girl, his eyes narrowing. He was almost positive that her energy was the same one that had drawn him and the pyro both to this place.

"Who are you, anyway? Or what?"

[Cardinal Maes-Wechsler]

(XD I am trying not to yell "HIDE GRIMTOOTH" but it's hard...)

Her eyes narrowed and she ran forth, katars behind her so that she could make a full swing with both her arms-- the timing for which had taken her a really long time to master-- and just hoped he wasn't as fast as her, or at least, not as fast as her with haste cast.

Long- and medium-range weapons were annoying to her because she was only able to land any hits in while close range. Also, when they sparred, Bryan's bullets had ricocheted back and dealt some damage that way, so she wasn't sure how she was going to handle a keyblade.

What was this kid doing abusing the powers of a keyblade anyway? Some divine power had given him an opportunity and he had thrown it away for self-gain. That really, really pissed her off because there were so many people more deserving of a keyblade than he was.