The Firstborn of Death [Adeptus Evangelion]

[Vrock_Summoner]

Spoiler: Links

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Dice-Rollig Thread

OOC Thread

In Character Thread

”Welcome, everyone… To the Neverdeath Academy Anniversary Dance!”

A wave of polite applause spreads in a low rumble through the crowd of seated students around the contemorary ballroom.

Spoiler: Approximately What the Ballroom Looks Like

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The seating areas surrounding the dance floor are shadowed with blacklight, making it hard to see the other students and further illuminating the sparkly central dance floor.

All around you, the other students, dressed up in fancy tuxedos, expensive dresses, and more androgynous (but still formal) assortments of clothing, sip and nibble at their appetizers and pretend to show interest in the speaker at the center of the floor.

"We come together to celebrate the 10th Anniversary of the official opening of the Neverdeath Academy! Tonight is a night of cheer, expression, and most of all, pride in this institution, and your places within it as the leading generation of academic minds, the carriers of our future."

You all hear what almost sounds like a yawn, caught in the periphery of the microphone. The wrinkly, grey-haired speaker steals a startled glance over his shoulders as the student body lets out a nervous chuckle, but the distraction soon passes.

"A-hem... Here to set the tune for this procession is H-Tek, who've spent the last couple of months working together with our academy's own orchestra to prepare the pieces being played tonight. As the band begins to play, please feel free to begin the festivities amongst yourselves and enter the dance floor at will as we await the serving of the main course."

The red light is flooded over one of the ballroom's walls, revealing black curtains covering a small stage.

"Please welcome H-Tek, the Neverdeath Orchestra, and, of course, Ookami Haruka!"

Spoiler: Ookami Haruka

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So. This one's all up to you. What kind of entrance do you want to make? Do you want to come out with minimal fanfare, dressed akin to the other students, and make a heartwarming speech? Bust out the flashy outfit and light show to turn everybody's eyes on you all at once and steal the stage instead of playing along with being background noise? Or, heck, wanna be having a panic attack backstage and not come out yet? Your first impression is in your hands!

Spoiler: Alia Res

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Alia is currently seated next to a somewhat older boy (~16) from her robotics class, Teru Shinba, a half-Persian, half-Japanese boy with well-groomed, curly black hair in a fairly unassuming (for the occasion) white tux.

Although Alia doesn't pay much attention to other students in the class generally, she'd likely be a bit more aware of Teru than most due simply to the peculiarities of how he treats the objects around him. As president of the Student Cleanliness Committee, Teru spends a great deal of time cleaning, repairing, and caring for things all throughout the high school classrooms, particularly within the robotics and chemistry classrooms. In addition, he has a consistent ritual he follows whenever giving people things, whether they be gifts or otherwise. When handing the object off, he'll kiss the object, or, should the other individual allow it, the person's receiving hand, as a way of wishing the object a good journey.

He turns to Alia as people begin to get up and mingle or meet up with their partners.

"Hey," he opens with a warm grin. "You disappeared so quickly yesterday that I didn't have a chance to thank you for catching my robotics project when it got knocked to the floor. With all the fragile components, it'd pretty much have shattered to pieces." There's an awkward pause for several seconds, and then he clears his throat and continues. "I... I hope your hands weren't cut up too badly." Another awkward pause as he rubs behind his head sheepishly. "Well, anyway, to thank you, I went out and bought you a ticket to the local robotics museum. I remember your eyes lighting up when we went there on the last class trip so I thought you'd appreciate a chance to go again. So, I wanted to give you this before I go find my dance partner."

He holds out a ticket for Alia to grab, then thinks better of it, grabs Alia's hand himself, places the ticket in her hand, and leans in to kiss her hand in his usual sendoff fashion.

Spoiler: Seiko Akagi

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Seiko didn't quite manage to catch the seat next to Alia (whether she was trying to or not), but she's still close enough to watch her even through the blacklight. As Seiko watches, an older, dark-skinned boy with curly black hair and a white tuxedo sitting next to Alia grins at her and begins to talk to her confidently, slowly growing more flustered as he talks, at one point beckoning to the dance floor, until he eventually somewhat shyly grabs her hand and kisses it.

Do with this information as you will.

Spoiler: Yuuta Mori

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How awkward. Yuuta didn't even have a dance partner at a pair dance. There were a few other people around looking for partners, but... Well, that would require starting conversations. And of course, the blacklight isn't any good for reading by. At least the hors d'oeuvres are pretty good.

Before Yuuta has much time to contemplate what to do now, though, a sensation of something resembling television static begins to form on the border of his vision. At the corner of his perception, simultaneously sounding like a whisper within his ear and a shout from far away, he can just make out a voice saying "It's... ur fau... ta!" The sound of static for a few seconds, then the voice again: "All... y... lt..." Then it snaps back to normal as if nothing had changed in the first place. None of the other students appear to have noticed anything.

Spoiler: Kenzaki

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Due to his prodigious perceptive skills, Kenzaki is the only one who notices what's happening during the strange sound incident with the microphone. A flit at the corner of his eye brings his attention up to to the rafters where much of the sound equipment is set up, and he spots... a girl? Not just any girl, though... It's hard to make out through the blacklights, but that almost seems to be... Alia! But that should be impossible. Kenzaki's already well aware of where Alia is sitting and there's no way she could've moved that far that quickly without being noticed.

As he's processing what's happening, the Alia up in the rafters makes pointed eye contact with Kenzaki and flashes an uncharacteristically wide grin. In that moment, Kenzaki's vision fills up with static, and in the next instant both the burst of visual static and that Alia are gone.

With barely another moment to collect his thoughts, Kenzaki feels a tug on his sleeve and another boy's voice worriedly (or perhaps shyly?) saying, "Hey, Kenzaki?"

Spoiler: Kenichi

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"Oi, Kenichi! Are you even listening!?" The angry-sounding blonde girl next to Kenichi seems to use all her willpower on whispering that rather than yelling it. "Dance floor's free! We're here to get judged as the best couple, so get off your behind and let's make an unforgettable entrance before anyone else gets there!" She taps her almost gaudily expensive heels repeatedly in impatience.

This girl's done nothing but nag, complain, get angry, and make demands the entire night, except when she had a chance to show off her exceedingly expensive dress for a camera or make the pair look like a happy couple when a lot of people were watching. She hadn't even mentioned her name, though Kenichi would remember it being Lira based on the mission report from the Chief Advisor of the Operations Director. Probably not the most ideal dance partner, but orders are orders.

[Elfbird]

Alia accepts the ticket, holding it to her chest and closing her eyes for several long moments - a silent welcome into her care, and recognition of all it's been through to reach her, though to anyone watching it must seem as if the love of her life just asked her on a serious date or something.

She's dressed up in a frilly white gown, synthetic flowers woven into her hair, because that's what her nurse felt like doing today. It's a bit awkward all around, but they're making an effort for each other to do their best - Alia at wearing the gown, the gown at being worn, and the flowers at staying in her hair properly. She and her rhinestone-studded heeled shoes had been practicing for quite a while before this.
Really, she's here to visit and encourage the chairs from East Wing 211-A/B and welcome the silk drapery out of storage for the first time since last Easter. A lot of strangers would be showing up just for this event too; she wondered if they'd meet again or not.

Finally, she whispers: "Thank you. I'll cherish you."

As the dance music starts up, she'd wander over to the speakers, place a hand on them to feel the beat, and complement them on their incredible strength and projection.

[fibericon]

Ah, yes. A social gathering. How unfortunate that it was the best situation to find a large number of toothpicks. Toothpicks are so useful in building Yuuta's little creations that he almost thought they were cheating. Oh, but the Tower of Babel he could create with them! He paused, glancing around, chasing the oddity in his peripheral vision. When it ended, he shook his head, and muttered through gritted teeth.

"It is absolutely not my fault that there is no historically accurate visual representation of the Tower of Babel. Now, the documentary hypothesis by Julius Wellhausen, that's something we can talk about."

He stopped, straightened up, and looked around, only just realizing he had said that out loud. His tux was a little wrinkled from leaning over to craft his amalgamation of food and toothpicks.

[Muja]

The backstage area was always so unpleasant to Haruka. Cramped to the point personal space was rarely given, loud as sound crew pitter patter abound to their next job, and the assistants constantly checking in on her needs (and stressing her out to high heavens, more often than not). Truly the preamble to her appearances were always the most irritating part of the night. Luckily that was about to change. Locking eyes with a nodding manager across the covered stage, the young lady moved to her mark.

'Time to shine, sweetheart'

The black curtains rose and bright light enveloped the stage, Her stage. And now it begins again.

"Helloooo Neverdeath Academy!" Haruka began with a warm smile, holding a modest wireless mic to her lips and placing her other hand against her waist.

"I am certainly glad to see you all so excited for this event! We all have been working so hard to make this the best dance ever, so i hope you all enjoy it." she smiled wider , nodding respectfully to the staff present along the corners of the room before gesturing for her fellow musical students to begin.

"Now...Lets get this party started!"

[Syless]

How dare he. How dare he.

Seiko had been staring at Alia- how could she not? The vision of beauty and grace, the only girl to see the world more clearly than Seiko herself, the one she would become one with. And she was being approached. By a boy. With interest.

A kiss. A kiss? It doesn't matter if it was to the hand or not, it's still a kiss! It's still something he doesn't deserve, something -no one- deserved, even Seiko herself hadn't earned the right- and he just took it. This was utterly unacceptable.

Seiko's stare shifted- from its lock on Alia, to a lock on the boy. He needed to be put in his place... but how? In a place like this? Watching the other couples, she smiles as a fitting punishment comes to her. She'd always wondered how bad an accident from dancing could get... after being sure she could spot the boy again, should he go to the dance floor, Seiko stands up and scans the other loiterers. Somewhere in the group there must be someone easily enough led to be a proper pawn. All it would take is the right person- and there they were. A quiet boy playing with... toothpicks? Seiko walks over to him, adopting one of her winning smiles- recognizing the boy, but forgetting his name. One of the other proper pilots. He'll definitely do. She reaches out her hand, still smiling at him.

"Would you like to dance?"

[Arayl]

Kenichi blinks a couple times and turns to the girl and says as he stands and holds out a hand to the demanding girl, "Oh, I'm sorry about that I was listening, let's get out there then" Once she takes his proffered hand he leads her out onto the dancefloor to join those who've already started dancing. Once they arrive on the floor he pulls her in close and begins to lead her in a simple American waltz in time with the music that the school's orchestra is playing.

He is wearing a black tuxedo with a white shirt that has a red carnation boutonnière in his jacket's lapel buttonhole, his blonde hair has been combed and tamed into a side part to the right, compared to his usual messy hairstyle that it is in any other day.

[Vrock_Summoner]

The students cheer and begin to sway as Haru's music picks up, lulling them into her vibe. As soon as the music starts the students are instantly enraptured in the mood to dance (those not actively fawning at the edge of the stage, anyway), but stop short as they realize they were all beat to the punch by Kenichi and Lira taking the center of the dance floor.

The two move together with such grace and in such harmony with the music that compared to the other students they seem more like the personifications of the sound waves coursing through the room than two humans doing a routine. Despite their amateur skills, the two just clicked in this dance, producing what could've almost been a professional performance (though a bit too rough around the edges to actually bring to a professional competition as-is). Between the music and the dance, the students were largely spellbound, and no others entered the floor. At the conclusion of the first song and their dance throughout it, the dancers bowed, and the students clapped a great deal. One even loudly burst into tears at how emotional he was and had to be hushed to the side of the room.

After that had concluded and the next song began, other pairs began filtering onto the dance floor, including Teru and a frazzled, tired-looking older girl. Neither of them paid much attention to the other or anything at all, resulting in some piss-poor dancing... and a perfect opportunity for Seiko to strike, when her and Yuuta come out.

[fibericon]

Ah! What? No! Why?! Right, this is a dance. Why are you here, Yuuta? It's to dance, isn't it? No, it's to acquiesce. But you acquiesce by dancing at a dance, don't you? I suppose I can't argue that logic, and it would at least put some value on the practice. This is fine. Seiko is another pilot. This is fine. There wasn't any music when I was practicing. That might have been an oversight, but music would have been distracting.

"Okay."

Wow, smooth talking, Yuuta! She's all over you now! Her actions actually probably maybe don't have anything to do with you. She's not looking at you. Wait, she's not looking at me! Seiko, you're so nice. That takes such a load off of me. Now, just look down and... ah. No numbers. No footprint stickers. Whelp. That's fine, just close your eyes and imagine them. I can see them. This is okay.

This is not okay.

You know how you can't see people with your eyes closed? As it turns out, Seiko is still there, even with my eyes closed. I put my foot where the sticker was supposed to go, but there was a person there. Probably Seiko. Huh. I no longer have solid footing. I'm falling. It's fine, it's fine. Minor stumble. Seiko is so much stronger than me. She can catch me. This is okay.

This is not okay.

Yeah, just don't even bother opening your eyes at this point, Yuuta. It's not going to help. Probably just going to make everything worse. Down we go. Sorry, I guess? I feel like this isn't quite my fault. Yeah, this is absolutely my fault. The Tower of Babel thing wasn't, though. I think I did a pretty good job with what I had to work with.

[Volthawk]

Kenzaki blinks again, sweeping his vision across the hall to find Alia - the one here in the dance hall. It just takes a moment to confirm that she's still around and dress differently to the other Alia. As he looks around, he replies to the other boy, not yet paying full attention to him - something was up here, and that mystery took up his focus. "Yeah, what is it? Have you seen something?"

[Vrock_Summoner]

"W-what?" The boy who came up to Kenzaki stammered in confusion. "Was I supposed to see something?" He fidgets nervously, twirling his brown hair around his finger a bit. Despite his shy mannerisms, he's actually a fair bit larger than you - you'd recognize him as one of the stars of the Academy's athletics programs and somebody you've tutored quite a bit, a German boy named Connie Sprouss. "I just came to... I mean... Are you okay? You seem stressed." He seems very concerned for you.

[Volthawk]

Looking around to the boy, Kenzaki shakes his head. "Oh, just...yeah, I'm fine. Don't worry about it." He thinks for a few moments before standing up. "Sorry, Sprouss, excuse me for a minute."

He was over to the speakers, where Alia (the real one? Perhaps) was doing her thing, and stands next to her. "Can we talk? I have some things I need to ask you."

[Elfbird]

Alia turns to Kenzaki, patiently waiting for his latest round of pointless questions. A tone of urgency in his voice...? Either way, it probably doesn't concern her. Human problems.

"Yes, we can talk."

[Volthawk]

"Well-"
Kenzaki opens his mouth to speak before pausing. The thought strikes him that he hasn't considered how to go about this, so he takes a few moments to think before he speaks. For a second, paranoia creeps in and he asks himself if she's able to be trusted, if she's involved in a bad way, but he dismisses it. That'll just get him nowhere.
"Do you...have a twin? I saw someone who looked just like you in the rafters. Different clothes and...different personality, I guess, but otherwise just like you."

[Syless]

Seiko grins as she pulls the hapless boy to the dance floor. A simple plan, really- dance with Yuuta, then, once she's maneuvered close to Teru and his partner, 'accidentally' trip over Yuuta's feet, sending Teru crashing down, maybe even breaking one of his limbs... that would be exquisite.

Unfortunately, plans so rarely go as predicted. Seiko's fundamental mistaken assumption was that she would be able to dance- but gymnastics and martial arts, while using the same skills, aren't dancing. Things seem to go... alright, at least for the first few beats, before going very, very wrong. Seiko is trying to mimic the people around her and move according to the music- but Yuuta is moving with a very rigid, practiced routine. The two don't mix well, and before too long, Yuuta steps on her foot and slips, and the two come crashing down.

It's not a complete failure, though- before things fell apart, she'd still managed to maneuver over to Teru. So while she meant to 'accidentally' slip and trip the boy... instead she quite legitimately slips and falls, but still manages to catch herself enough to send her leg careening into the sweet spot on the back of Teru's, hoping to make his knees give out, at worst.

[Vrock_Summoner]

Seiko may have gone into this expecting to waltz on over to Teru, have an "oopsie" moment, and give him a stealthy, controlled kick to show him his place... But that is not what she got.

Instead, after the first few beats of music, Seiko and Yuuta began to tumble over one another, knocking over three other pairs of dancers. Almost more by sheer luck than intention, Seiko got entirely thrown off her feet just as she was passing by Teru, and, with a sudden flash of thought and a determined kicking motion, found her mark, knocking his leg out sideways. He yells out in pain as his dance partner tries desperately to hold up his weight, and, finding herself unable, settled for tripping over her dress and tumbling down on top of him.

Everything goes quiet except the music as everyone stares with gaping mouths at the atrocity Seiko has wrought, with five pairs of dancers fallen to the floor. The other students, pompous though they are, are simply too dumbfounded to point and laugh at the moment. And as they stare, the sound of Teru swearing and grabbing his leg can be just barely heard over the symphony.

Oh, and Yuuta's there too. Hope he doesn't feel any sense of panic about being the center of so much attention or anything.

[Elfbird]

An image flashes across Alia's mind - a doll with her face, the rest a pink slurry across the rocks it had been force-ejected into.
She unconsciously turns her back to the food table.

"Yes, I have a lot of twins. They all have the same personality as me. I don't know if they wear clothes or not until I'm replaced; then we wear the same clothes."

She's used to Kenzaki's random interrogations by now. She might even derive some amusement from giving unnecessarily candid answers, with the additional benefit of ending the interaction sooner.
...Sometimes.

[fibericon]

Having kept his eyes firmly shut, Yuuta didn't quite know how bad it was just yet. Sure, he bumped into people. There was swearing. He was on the ground. He was laying on fabric. It was a dress - he was sure of that. It wasn't Seiko's dress. That's a kick in the shoulder. Not Seiko's heel. The fabric is gone. Kick probably wasn't intentional - not nearly hard enough. Oh well, time to get up. No more moving around with your eyes closed. That seems to be one of your lesser ideas.

Oh no. No, no no no no no no no. Stop that. It's not my-! Wait, we've established this. I had forewarning even. Could have used some more details. Maybe I would have jammed a toothpick through my foot and said I was too injured to dance. No, I'm not strong enough to- damn it stop staring at me! Stop it! Wait, I'll pick Seiko up, be a gentleman.

Yes! That's a... thing people do. The descriptor escapes me. Well what about the other three girls you knocked over, Yuuta? And the boys? And the boy you injured? Aren't they not even worth a second thought? You're god damned right they're not! They're... it dawns upon me that people are still staring. Can none of these people find something better to do than... stare at a commotion I caused literally in the center of the room, illuminated by lights...?

Well, Yuuta, you've spent a good moment standing and looking around without doing anything. Oh, you must be so proud of yourself for using the word "moment" correctly, but you're wrong - it's only been seventy-three seconds, so ha! Seventy-three seconds is nothing! It's... yeah, now it's been a moment. A long, horrible moment. A sweaty one. Should I still offer Seiko my hand? My sweaty, weak hand? Yes, I should absolutely do this thing. I don't even know if that's sarcastic or not anymore. Whelp, here goes chivalry. Actually, funny story, chivalry doesn't have much to do with being nice to women- right, hand.

"Uh... sorry," he says meekly, possibly too quietly to be heard over the music, "Need help?"

[Volthawk]

Kenzaki pauses again, his mind working to make sense of Alia's statement, to figure out what that could possibly mean. The ongoing chaos on the dancefloor didn't take up any of his attention - sure, he was aware of it, but it didn't matter to him given the mysteries in front of him. "Okay...I don't think I understand. Same personality, replacement, saying we...you're not talking about anything natural, are you? They must be somehow unsuitable for piloting now, or the Academy would be using them too, but to replace you they would have to be able to synchronise effectively...particularly given your high ratio...anyway, Alia, could one of these twins be running around by themselves?" He turns around for a moment to think, facing the dancefloor but still paying no attention to it. He had a possible explanation in mind, but the implications were just too much for him to process right now. "Alia, where do you and your twins come from? Do you have other family?"

[Elfbird]

Alia... doesn't care overmuch about Kenzaki's ramblings. The commotion on the dance floor grabs her attention - some of the girls' skirts are in danger!

"Ask a doctor. I must go!"

Alia dashes to the dance floor and gives an exasperated shout to the flailing humans: "STOP MOVING!"

Heeded or not, she kneels down - careful of her own dress - and starts to gently untangle fabric from heels and extricate it where pinched under bodies. She doesn't care if she gets a few cuts and bruises in the process.
"Ugh, poor thing! We can sew you up, but it'll be hard to find matching thread..."
"I'm sorry you had to go through this on your first night out. Will you be okay...?"
"Oh, how could they! That body doesn't fit at all - you're about to burst at the seams! C'mon, let's get you off right away!"
(With that last one she begins undressing the ill-fitted student at once, without regard for protest.)

[Vrock_Summoner]

With all the commotion on the dance floor and the reverberating vibrations of the music, few notice the low rumbling in the floor, steadily increasing in intensity, until it grows very thunderous indeed.

"Earthquake...!?" Lira cries out, clinging to Kenichi's arm for stability. Many of the girls in heels who haven't already fallen over struggle to keep their balance.

"Everybody stay calm!" One of the security agents shouts. "Please just follow me out of the building in an orderly-"

The rumbling reaches its most thunderous and transitions into an explosive crack filling the room, as several sections of the floor shatter and begin to shift, huge drill bits poking out of them. As the oversized drills fully push out of the marble floor, sweeping aside the debris as they go, they reveal what they're attached to: large, pinkish-skinned humanoids with two rows of eyes going down their faces instead of any other facial features, with smooth, featureless bodies and massive fleshy drills for hands. As they emerge, some of their faces seem to split down the middle, opening up to reveal a mass of short, squirming tentacles that start feeling around in front of their faces, as well as large, teethed beaks.

Spoiler: What their under-faces look like - warning, a bit disturbing

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One of them bursts out directly under Alia, shredding and fraying the bottom of her dress. As she stumbles, its drills stop spinning and clutch onto Alia while it bites at her shoe with its beak, snapping the heel clean off. Alia is grappled!

Many students start screaming as the creatures appear from the floor throughout the room, at least a dozen total. The standard security and special agents at the edges of the room draw their guns and shout "prioritize the pilots!" as all goes to hell.

One drills up onto the stage directly in front of Haruka, and the on-stage bodyguards (clearly not half as prepared to handle this as the military security) pull out their batons reflexively. Haru, the two bodyguards, and the entity are Engaged.

Connie can be heard screaming "get it off me!" but nobody has time to care.

The rest of you have managed to fortunately avoid being the immediate first targets of the entities and are free to act normally. You are all Exposed.

(Open Initiative, as long as each of you acts once per round I don't particularly care what order it's in.)

Combat Start

[Elfbird]

Alia lets out a scream of surprise and frustration - just like that, her shoe snapped and her dress being shredded, for no crime but the misfortune to be with her that night.

"I won't... I won't let you..."

She falls limp, shaking with building rage.

"Do what you want to me, but LEAVE MY FRIENDS ALONE!"

The tension hits critical, and her legs launch into motion - curling up beside her and striking the sides of her shoes against the floor to loosen them, then kicking them as far away as she can. She'll otherwise try to keep her torso still, so as not to tear the drill-tangled dress further, putting her bare feet against the monster's eyes to deter it if it tries to crawl closer.

[Volthawk]

As the monsters emerge, Kenzaki's second thought is safety. His first is getting a look at the monsters and wondering about them - he'd never heard of ones like this, and they were definitely strange and interesting, but before long his brain switched to the immediate priority, survival. With the monsters between him and the exit, escape was unlikely so he just looked for a place near the agents to hide and hunker down while the adults with guns handled the the creatures.

Once there, he pulls out his phone and tries to get into contact with someone in authority. Even though security had likely already informed them, he felt like they should know about what he saw, and in any case making the call himself made him feel just a little less helpless in all this chaos.

[Syless]

Seiko looks around in concern at all the people staring at her catastrophe. Mission accomplished, but... she really kind of failed. She ignores Yuuta's invitation to help her up and just springs up herself... just in time to feel Alia's hand on her dress.

I don't- is she- what-

Seiko's brain freezes up, and before it can reboot to actually process this new information, the ground shakes and the beasts appear. Her brain shifts gears immediately into combat mode, slipping her hand to the holster on her upper thigh and removing the straight razor. Once the creature grabs Alia, her course of action is obvious- she lunges for the beast, intending to plunge her blade into its skull, only for one of Alia's shoes to hit her as they're flung from the feet of a goddess, causing her to stumble. The blade still finds its mark, though a bit less elegantly than Seiko would have hoped. But that's par for the course for the night. As she moves, she lets out a low growl.

"Let her go, wretch of a corpse!"

[Muja]

"Everyone! Make your way outside and let the security protect you"!

Haruka drops the mic from her hands, her orchestra collegues scrambling about as the sound of instruments clank againt the ground. Things have gone terribly wrong, the monsters abound just being the worst bit of it.

Knowing that she has no real way to confront the creatures, Haruka not being allowed to carry weapons on school grounds, the girl decided that taking her own advise would be the best option.

'Time to slip out,
Before things get worsr'

[fibericon]

Yuuta is probably the only person in the room smiling. As panic sets in and the room moves into proper chaos (as opposed to targeted chaos, localized around his person), the adrenaline obliterates his brain to mouth filter in a glorious, triumphant shout.

"Now this! This... is absolutely... not... my fault! Huh. Seiko just jumped one of them with a straight razor. I should help. But how are you going to help, Yuuta? You didn't complete combat training, remember? Well, I suppose the best way I can help is to get out of the way of people who know what they're doing. Oh, come on. You're all running. This is not how you evacuate. You can't even say you didn't know because we had fire drills. Well, I can only control my own behavior."

Yuuta crosses his arms to narrow his profile, then calmly meanders toward the closest exit, keeping his eyes open for any immediate threats to his person.

[Arayl]

Kenichi seeing the things burst up onto the dance floor after the earthquake turns his head to his dance partner and with his unimpeded arm points to one of the tables near the back of the room saying, "Let's get over there hopefully we'll be unnoticed by whatever those things are and from there we'll get out the doors" Once he said that he would guide her to the table he'd pointed out and from there to the doors.

[Vrock_Summoner]

The room fully erupts into chaos, as guns blaze and hand-drills whir to life to start messily dismembering students.

In the initial general carnage, around half a dozen students are subjected to drills or beaks, sending blood spattering through parts of the room. Most of the wounds are thus far nonfatal, though two students are entirely impaled on drills. They are definitely dead. Also, one student managed to get caught by a stray bullet from the military security's assault rifles. Shucks.

The military security had a much better time putting down the zombies than the zombies have putting down students due to their professional-grade assault rifles. Seven zombies are killed outright through being riddled with bullets, while four more are left with staggering with severe, gaping wounds, but alive. Notably, a couple of zombies that get hit seem to have the bullets bounce off them or do no damage - clearly these things are quite tough.

Speaking of which...

Spoiler: Alia and Seiko

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Seiko's knife digs into the zombie's flesh, but it feels like most of the force from the stab was shed penetrating some repelling force around the zombie, and the wound ended up being so shallow you doubt it caused any real damage. It did, however, get the creature's attention, and to the limited extent this being seems capable of feeling and expressing emotions, royally pissed it off. It swings its massive drill arm sideways at Seiko (using it like a cub rather than a piercing instrument) to try and get her to back off, but you manage to duck to the side of the lumbering, obvious strike with relative ease.

As one of its arms is occupied and no longer clinging to Alia, Teru sees an opportunity and throws himself up from the floor, attempting to snack Alia away from the monster through the gap in its grip. However, as he puts his weight down on his leg during the lunge, he cries out in pain and stumbles into the zombie's arm face-first before falling back to the floor.

As it glares at Seiko, a bullet catches it on the back of the head, though said bullet appears subjected to the same resistant force your stab was and leaves only a grazing wound. You see an S2 Agent holding the smoking gun and closing in on your location.

Alia is still, unfortunately, grappled.

Spoiler: Haru

Show

As you and your companions sprint towards the backstage door, along with an S2 Agent here to assure your safety, another zombie lumbers out from the side, having just burst up from the floor back here. Though it moves slowly and predictably, the rest of your bandmates are unathletic, panicky, and erratic, and it manages to cut them off from the door, its drills revving up. You, however, thought a bit faster, seeing you wouldn't make it, and took off for the metal stairs a few meters over from the doorway, remembering that it leads up to a fire escape. As you hit the level the fire escape is on, you steal one last glance back, and see your bodyguards dodging around the zombie they were shielding you from and peppering it with baton blows. They didn't really seem to be doing anything to it, but it's the thought that counts. At this rate they might even survive to their next paycheck. Good for them.

You bolt out the fire escape door into fresh air and successfully Flee the combat. No extra zombies are waiting outside, miraculously. Or strangely, depending on how you look at it.

Spoiler: Kenzaki

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As your cell phone puts in the call to the Operations Director's personal line, you can't resist peeking out over your cover to observe the carnage. You manage to catch Connie attempting to break out of the grip of a zombie clinging to him, only to be slammed into the floor on the tip of a drill. You avert your eyes as the whir begins and try not to notice the screams. Really, this is a relief, all around. Having to turn him down for the dance would've been awkward.

Another zombie begins lumbering towards your cover, but two S2 Agents pelt it in the back with bullets, and it turns its attention towards them instead.

In a number of seconds you connect with the Operations Director, a woman named Larys Rose.

"What the hell is going on at the dance!? Are you and the other pilots safe!?" O.D. Rose urgently demands.

Spoiler: Kenichi

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You and Lira have no trouble sprinting over to the table, where an S2 Agent covers you from the single zombie that had given chase to you, and you can effortlessly make it out the side emergency exit with her.

The two of you have successfully Fled the battle.

Spoiler: Yuuta

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Despite the audacity of your confident stride towards the main door, you manage to position yourself well enough that the zombies always have a closer student to attack, and you successfully navigate without interference by a single zombie. How considerate of them not to ignore your careful planning. In fact, by the time you got there, the rather heavy doors had already been mostly pushed open by the other terrified students who had been closer to them in the first place. That would be extra considerate, if they weren't about to make actually walking through the doors difficult as they swarm out, shoving one another like rabid dogs. Truly, nobody understands proper procedure for an evacuation!

[Elfbird]

With the monster now thoroughly distracted, Alia takes the chance to reach back and drop the hidden zipper on her dress, slipping out the bottom once free. Still crouched low, she starts quickly-but-carefully threading the tattered dress off the drill. Ugh, bloodsplatter - it'll take forever to scrub those stains out tomorrow.

Spoiler: OOC

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Alia's intention is still to minimize damage to the dress, but if the situation changes and it becomes a cut-off-the-finger-to-save-the-hand scenario, she'll just hug the dress and bolt, letting whatever's still stuck tear off.

[Volthawk]

Kenzaki was not prepared for this. Sure, his training had made him aware of the possibilities and risks, including the simple fact that Xibalbans kill people, but that was a little different from seeing it all unfold here. When one lurched towards him, he focuses on it, kind of grateful for some sort of distraction from the wider chaos, and as the guard's bullets hit it, he noticed something - they're not as effective as they should, and to him that suggests one thing, a WOL field. So they're radioactive as well as murderous. Not good.

Then he hears Rose respond, bringing his focus back to the situation. He responds, his voice clipped both to get the information across quickly and because he wasn't quite in the frame of mind to chatter on. "Zombie attack, sixteen creatures. Drilling adaptation, WOL field. Security's engaged, nine creatures left." When the question of the other pilots is raised, he has another look over at the chaos before continuing. "Alia and Seiko are in the middle of it, Yuuta's getting out, think the others already escaped." He pauses for a moment, catching his breath. "Saw another Alia, she disappeared then they came. Think it's relevant."

[fibericon]

You know you said all of that out loud, right? No, I'd never do that. Wait, I absolutely would. Hmm. Well, I'm sure the various sights and sounds made me seem rather small in the grand scheme of things. Now, what's all this? Are there monsters in the hallway? Are the doors monsters? No, of course not. That doesn't make any sense, but neither does their behavior. Escaping certain death should be a cause for celebration, not additional panic. Hm.

I bet if I time it just right, I can run through a gap in the door. Sure, they're just cramming in there at random, but I just have to monitor everyone approaching the door and mentally plot their vectors. Easy.

Ow. Ow. Stop it. Stop. That did not work. Now I feel shoes. Open your eyes, Yuuta. Yes, definitely shoes. I'm being trampled. Whelp. Let's see if I can't get up and just shuffle through like a normal person.