Devil Arms - Mission 1: The 32nd Night

[Ex. 68471]

Bryce was sitting in his beat up old truck in the car park, debating with one of his "sources".

"..."

"Bryce? You still there?"

"Yes, John."

"Why did you stop talking? You know that freaks me out."

"I just saw and heard some things that could be considered interesting." He began to get out of the truck.

"What would that be?"

"Well, first I heard some gunshots. Then two other demon hunters showed up, one of whom made quite the dramatic entrance. And now more gunshots."

"I told you it was gonna be big."

"You are never wrong."

He closed the phone and tossed it into his passenger seat. He made sure that his boots were on tight, his shotgun was able to be easily slid out of the sling, and that his gloves were on properly. He strode up to the entrance and opened the door.

"DAMN!"

A girl jumped out at him. He jumped back as Limnades grew up his arms. "What the HELL are you doing?" Bryce demanded, trying to calm down. He then noticed the blades growing out of her hands. "Oh." He blocked a strike with his right arm, slipped behind the puppet, and stabbed it in the middle of it's back with a blade sprouted out of his left fist.

"I can do that trick too!" He exclaimed as he then blew it's head off with his shotgun. He slid it back into the sling as he kicked the puppet off of his blade. He turned around and saw more coming from around the corner. He grew a blade out of his right fist to match the one on his left. He then extended them as far as they could be extended.

"This will be fun." Bryce grinned as he sliced clean through the lead puppet's waist.

[mauve]

The woman was now walking down the hallways, nonchalantly twirling a handgun with one hand and gripping the trident in the other.

"Da na na, glaciers meltin' in the dead of night, and superstars su---" She stopped, hearing something coming from around the corner. By now she had grown used to the hollow thudding of wooden puppets marching here and there, but this sounded far more solid. It wasn't running like a frightened schoolgirl, meaning it probably WASN'T a frightened schoolgirl.

There was something else, too. Something that set this one apart. Krista frowned.


"Iron Maiden???" She put Scylla back in its sling on her back and reached into the leather bag hanging off one shoulder. Good. Plenty of ammo, even some shotgun ammo for the shotgun she was too freakin' stupid to bring along. She regretted that. But she had enough firepower to stand a shootout with Iron Maiden Dude back there, if he turned out to be on the demon's side. Worked for her.

She edged around the corner, handguns first.

"Who's there?" she demanded.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

Reese bounded up the stairs, finally reaching the floor he believed he had seen the gunshots coming from, dropping back into a slow and silent walk as he approached the landing. He thought he had heard singing coming from nearby.

As he cautiously edged out into the corridor, he scanned both directions to make sure he wasn't about to be ambushed. The coast clear for now he turned left and made his way silently along and around a corner, quickly finding the trouble he sought; three wooden marrionettes (poorly constructed, in his opinion) with short blades... and they appeared to be trying to sneak up on a woman who herself was slowly creeping around a corner, a pair of handguns drawn. Demons didn't use handguns, obviously she was also a demon hunter.

Reese decided it was time to break the silence, and some demon backs. "Excuse me miss," he called out, instantly grabbing the attention of the puppets, "but you appear to have some demons on your back." He threw Ixion towards the monstrosities, willing it to split as it travelled. A second later each demon found a piece of the glaive imbedded in its chest, each with an accomanying THUD. The pieces did little damage and did nothing to slow the creatures as they turned to face Tom, but before they could take another step a beam of lightning arced between them all, causing them all to do the Electric Boogaloo. After a few seconds of pulsing electricity their wooden bodies burst into flames before falling over dead. Foes dispatched, Ixions pieces rose back into the air and recombined in Reeses hand.

Reese was about to say something more to the woman, but a noise to his side caused him to flinch and draw his gun as another pair of puppets appeared behind him. He turned and fired four shots, two in each puppet, chipping away at their wooden forms as he stepped backwards, away from their slow advance. "Quite the infestation going on here." He looked over his shoulder at the other demon hunter behind him and continued, "Hey, are you just gona stand there or what?!" The sound of clonking footsteps indicated more demons were on their way.

[mauve]

"Hey, are you just gona stand there or what?!"

"Err.... Maybe?" Krista said, looking behind her at the current puppet-and-hunter battle. She looked back towards the Iron Maiden Singer. No move from him yet. "Bah. Fine."

The handguns left the hallway and were now trained on the puppets surrounding the newcomer. Shots rang out, and the nearest puppet's head whipped back as bullets smashed into its wooden cranium. She shifted her weight, swinging one gun behind her to fire at another approaching puppet.

"Well this certainly wasn't in the brochure," Krista said. She replaced one handgun into its holster and drew Scylla. "It's so hard to find quality schools these days."

[Arhra]

In a stand of trees on the school's grounds, Vespa lurked, concealed sitting on a low bough of a tree. She wore a long coat and her face was concealed under the shadow cast by her wide brimmed hat.

Almost invisible in the darkness, there was an evil, droning cloud about her. She was at the hub of a great network of her Devil Arm's creatures, the tiny demons fanning out to investigate the grounds. More were constantly departing as the ones sent out earlier flitted back in, reporting what they'd found and resting in their hive.

It was surprisingly hard work - while she could cover a lot of ground, they didn't see the world in a remotely human way, were limited by their low intelligence and the synchronisation was tiring.

But it was safer than sneaking around the school in person. Something about the disappearances hinted at demonic influence to her and, after all, she had more personal reasons for wanting to get to the bottom of this mystery.

She sipped from her thermos.

Suddenly there were muffled gunshots. She saw a chain of light on the outside of the building and a motorcycle rushed up to the school, its rider blasting the front door in. Her little spies rushed back at top speed, buzzing about her with agitation as they shrieked of gunfire, demonic attacks and human dolls. Vespa shut off the tangle of insectile sense impressions, shaking her head to clear it.

"What the hell is going on?" she muttered, sprinting across the lawn. Arriving at a small porter's door hidden in the bulk of the school's flanks, she pushed into it, carefully rattling the handle and it opened. It was well known to all students of Saint Catherine's, both past and present, that this particular side door didn't lock properly.

She slipped inside, on the lookout for any more trouble.

[Steel Shadow]

The halls were getting noisy now. There was gunfire coming from all over. The school must have hired more extra security than he'd thought. Another crashing sound added to the fracas as another puppet splintered into pieces. Tonare was enjoying himself tonight. So was David.

"Oooh we don't need no education." He hummed to himself, abandoning his attempt to keep quiet. Who'd hear him over all the noise anyway?

"Don't need no thought controooollll" David recited happily. Where was Drasco to tell him his singing sucked now, huh?

"Something something, bin the classrooooooom" Another trio of puppets. He dodged the first one, jamming his pistol up under its chin and letting the bullets do the work from there.

"Hey! Teacher!" He yelled as he raised Tonare towards the approaching duo and sent a lightning chain spiralling around them.

"Leave those kids alone!" Pulling the chain tight, he swung the captured mannequins up and over, smashing them to pieces on the tiled floor. Oh yeah, who said he had no style?

David grinned has he strode forwards, glancing at Tonare. "Remind me to listen to the Old man more often, would you? This is turning out very nicely."

Ahead of him a door swung open. "And yet more." David grinned, raising his pistol. Then an obviously human woman stepped in. "Or not." He sighed disappointedly. Then he noticed her guns and the way she held herself. He looked up, frowning curiously.

"You're surprisingly well armed for a teacher. Who the hells are you?"

[PhoenixFlame]

Flames crackled, gunshots rang, motorcycles whined and doors exploded, all in the rhythm of splintering wood and...

Muse? Iron Maiden? Pink Floyd?

No religion had a properly absurd armageddon story that quite measured up to this one. Yukari made her way down the hallway, ears open for the clopping sounds of wooden feet. Regardless, it was getting fairly hard to do just that through the cacophony of destruction. It'd be no small miracle if the school actually survived the night, or for that matter, anyone in it.

Swiftly and silently she ran down the hallways, avoiding (the gunfire, fire, and music would certainly kill them if she didn't) the sounds of the wandering, thoughtless automata. At this point they weren't really threatening anything, except delaying the hunters indefinately.

Entering the courtyard and skirting a column, Yukari ducked under the sudden gleam of a flying machete. The weapon bit deeply into the pillar she had just passed, attached to the spindly arm of yet another worthless distraction. Rising, she delivers a right palm-heel to the puppet's chest, whirling around to knife its weapon arm with her left hand. Her opponent disarmed, Yukari uses her momentum to pull the machete free from the pillar, sinking into a reverse-weilding back stance.

Pinnochio would have been ashamed of the doll's inability to comprehend suprise as it continued its approach. Crossing its momentum and rotating, Yukari scythes through the puppet's torso with a powerful sweep of its own sword, following up with a vertical rising cut to the girl's head.

"Begone." she whispers, walking past the once-beautiful mannequin as it awkwardly clattered to the ground.

Across the courtyard, the church chapel smouldered in flame, backlighting the shilouette of a vestmented man. Yukari approached, hands aside to signify she wasn't one of the monsters that, at the moment, she quite resembled. Thinking further on that resemblance was quite amusing, and Yukari could not help but inwardly chuckle at the things that it made clear to her.

"Are you alright?" She asks the priest.

[Krylo]

Raphael looked up at the girl highlighted by the flames. Her skin and hair spoke of asian decent, but in the modern world that meant little--with immigration as it was, and so all he took stock of was the fact that she was speaking, unarmed, and wearing the uniform of the students.

"Yes, my child," the priest responded as he stepped toward her, "I am fine, but there are dark things out tonight. We should find you someplace safe. Come."

Raphael held out a hand, gesturing her forward, the black chains of Abbadon catching the light of the fire behind him.

[PhoenixFlame]

Yukari let the impromptu sword she was concealing drop to the ground with a steely clatter, and shrugged. That chain coiled around the priest's arm gave away that he wasn't exactly a normal guy.

"Sorry, but you've got the wrong impression." She explains to Rapheal, "I was hired by one of the families here to look into this ordeal, and thought I'd try to blend in."

More gunshots.

"Of course, I suppose I was the only one who thought that would be a good idea." She adds, with a slight smile. "Where are you headed, father?"

[Ex. 68471]

As Bryce sliced through the last puppet barring his path, he heard singing drifting down a stairway.

"Oy. Off-tune singers." He grinned to himself as he heard the wooden thump of puppets making their way down the stairs. "Upstairs I go, then. Perhaps I can teach these rubes something more appropriate."

As he made his way up the stairs, if one were to listen closely, you could hear over the sounds of combat;

"I'm living on an endless road, around the world for rock and roll, sometimes it feels so tough, but I still ain't had enough..."