Insanity Thy Name Is... (Loru/Open)

[Angelus]

...

A corridor of darkness opened and a figure dressed in black stepped out onto the sand. The dark vortex disappeared, leaving the figure alone. It removed the hood masking its face, and it revealed a black haired young man.

"Hellooooooooo Tahiti!" The young man said, as he looked around. He stroked his soul patch and thought aloud.

"Wait a sec, that's not right. Is it?" The beach he was on was deserted, so he couldn't exactly ask someone where he was. He stopped stroking his facial hair, and then began to walk down the shoreline. His arms swayed as he did so, and his feet almost seemed to be hopping. If his way of talking didn't cause someone to stare at him, his walking would. And it was at this moment that he began to sing.

"These boots were made for walking, and that's just what they'll do..." Someone had better run into him soon, he couldn't remember what came next.

[Oathkeeper Emi]

Buttons needs some excitement.
--

Anybody walking by probably would have ignored the bit of red sticking out of the top of the crate, and the quiet muttering coming from inside. Most people were used to Loru sitting in her box talking to herself, or her invisible cat... well, at least the people who made it a habit to walk around in alleyways at sundown. People who do that usually don't care.

It had been six whole days since any kind of excitement. The incident with Axel, Ain and Soren had been almost completely forgotten. Although, sometime Loru would look up into the night sky with a forlorn look on her face, looking for them. But the feeling usually passed after only a moment, when she was distracted by something else.

Not to mention her head still kind of hurt.

Loru noticed it was beginning to get dark and abruptly stopped her babbling. She looked up into the sky sharply, mouth hanging open a little.

After several minutes, it got dark enough for her to emerge from her hidey-hole. She rocked forward, knocking her crate over and tumbled out. After rolling around in the dirt for a few seconds, she finally managed to roll onto her stomach and get up.

Go tO tHe BeAcH, Lulu.

"Okay, Buttons! We'll go to the beach today! The beach, the beachthebeachthebeach... the beach![/color]"

She took off running, not really minding the still hot pavement under her bare feet.

[Angelus]

Asa'd been walking for some time when he realized that it was no longer sundown. It was now beginning to get dark. And poor Asa, well he didn't particularly like the dark. It's not that he was afraid of it or anything, it was just that when it got dark out, he had a habit of running into things, tripping over things, and the like.

"Oh boy. Easy does it now."

He began to walk extremely slowly, his feet more or less dragging through the sand to avoid tripping over something. It may look silly to the few people that were now walking by, but it was far less silly looking than him lifting each leg up as high as he possibly can to avoid tripping over something. He then stopped when he saw someone running toward him. In fact it looked like she was about to run straight into him.

"No no no no no no no!"

Those watching were probably asking themselves why he just didn't jump out of the way. Well the answer to that was simple. Asa forgot he could do that.

[Oathkeeper Emi]

Buttons always lands on his feet.
--

Loru had the bad habit of closing her eyes when she ran like that. She would space out and just run and run and run down the beach. There weren't usually people on this stretch of sand at this time of day, so she was used to just being able to run uninterrupted.

She held her arms out, as if she were trying to balance herself, and her head tilted back a little. She stumbled a little on the fabric of her dress and coat... in fact, that was what brought about the collision with Asa. She would have run into him anyway. She wasn't paying any attention to the words coming out of his mouth, she couldn't even hear him. She was somewhere far, far away.

Until she tripped over her dress and fell on him. More accurately she stumbled a few steps and fell over, dragging him down with her when she grabbed onto his clothes trying to steady herself. She flailed about, trying to untangle herself from her own clothing.

"Ahhh! They've got me, they've got me! Get 'em off, get 'em off, they're gonna take me back![/color]" she shrieked. There was true terror in her voice. "Buttons, save yourself! Run away, you stupid cat! Ruuuuun![/color]

[Angelus]

He knew that bad things happened when it got dark out, and this only proved it. Some girl tripped over her clothes, and when trying to regain her balance, grabbed onto his and took him down with her. It probably didn't help that her eyes were closed though. He hit the ground and let out a slight grunt. Her flailing about didn't help either, because her arms kept smacking him in the face.

"Hey!" he cried out before rolling out of harms way. When he heard her screaming to some cat, he quickly got up and untangled her.

"I didn't see any cat, although it probably would've helped if it had been wearing boots. I would've seen it then."

Asa brushed himself off and looked around, just to be sure that there was no cat in sight.

[Lagunamov]

The stuff he grew in his graden was also very weird...

Xigbar was sitting at the very of the pier, his hood covering his head as he looked out to the ocean. He had been sitting there for a couple of minutes, mostly taking a break from gathering information, or more accurately failing at gathering info, on the man who had attacked his old home world. He knew the other members who had left the castle to search the worlds for any hint would be more than enough, but stopping at the place where the newest pair of keyblade wielders resided could help drive the investigation forward. They were, presumably, still in contact with the mouse king and the people from Radiant Garden, so he was trying to find them and lurk around, hoping they might mention something.

Of course, in the couple of hours he had been there he hadn’t even seen them yet, prompting him to rest for a while at the pier. It was already growing dark, so it wasn’t like he would be that easily spotted, so he was more than free to drop his cover and be out in the open. A commotion behind him at the beach distracted him, making him turn his head around to check what the hell had happened. For a second he thought one of those annoyingly dovely-lovely couples were about to get it on right in the middle of the beach. It wasn’t like it would be the first time he accidentally peeked on two love birds going at it while he was on a mission. That’s what came with the job, if you investigate enough, you are bound to run into those kinds of things.

Fortunately (or unfortunately, he wasn’t sure yet), that didn’t seem to be the case this time around. While he was quite far from them, he did have a good enough eyesight so as to inspect the scene, scouting a very strange looking female in what he could have sworn was the red piece of cloth he had seen hanging from the side of a box in an alley earlier that day, and a man who was a zipper away from infringing copyright on the Organization’s cloak. Xigbar’s sensoring abilities weren’t nearly as good as Zexion’s, sure, but even he was trained enough to distinguish a nobody from a regular human just by looking at it.”I guess I could do something about this… let’s just hope he doesn’t turn out like my last recruit, that damned fruit basket…” he thought to himself, remembering that he was the one to recruit Marluxia a couple of years ago. For now, he simply remained there and observed, he had to evaluate how to test the new nobody first.

[Oathkeeper Emi]

Buttons can't handle this right now. He'll be in his trailer.
--

Loru stopped flailing suddenly and rolled around in the sand. When she finally stood back up, having untangled herself and decided that she wasn't being captured by The Bad People, she was covered in sand.

"Well, of course you haven't seen him. Because he's cat, duh. A white one. So of course you haven't seen him. You haven't seen a white cat, so you can't see it. Duh,[/color]" Loru said, planting her hands on her hips. As if THAT made plenty of sense and this new person was a moron for not knowing.

She glared at Asa, looking him in the face without actually looking him in the eye. "What are you doing here? Buttons told me to come here to run, run, run. You aren't supposed to be here, no one is. No one but Lulu.[/color]"

She poked him the chest. "You're with them aren't you? If you are, you know I'll have to kill you, right? Buttons says so.[/color]"

Needless to say, she would have a lot of fun killing this man. Considering last time her prey got away.

[Slash]

A possible fight?

Go to other worlds, she had thought. You'll train more that way, she had thought. You can't just spend your entire life in Radiant Garden or you'll never be good enough, she had thought. So she hitched a ride to wherever.

Well, there was only one problem with this...most other worlds were freaking hot. Like this one. Waaaaay too warm. And far too peaceful. There was nothing to do here, and she was wasting her time walking down these god damn beaches and she should just grab another ride out of here and-

Wait. There was a black-cloaked man. And in her experience, those folks were usually incredibly powerful. There were others around him, and they looked like they were going to fight. Perfect. She hated the act of conversation and would rather not, but a bit of goading was only for the greater good. And the girl was clearly mentally unstable, so it would be easy.

"You're not very smart, are you girl? We're all with them." She leaned against her scythe, considered trying a sardonic half-smile, and decided not to after she remembered she didn't really know how to smile.

Maybe the others would get angry at her for goading the girl on. Then she'd have a much harder fight on her hands. Perfect. This stupid world had actually been worth going to.

[Angelus]

Cuckoo, cuckoo! Her clock's bird never quits sounding off...

Asa shrugged when Loru asked what he was doing here.

"I don't remember why I came here. I'm not even sure where here is." He smiled and turned around.

Helloooooooo Tahiti! He was repeating himself again, but he didn't know that. And by the time he'd said that he had completely forgotten that she was asking if he was with them, whoever they were. But it was at about that time that another woman spoke up saying that they were all with them.

"I'm not with anybody. At least, I don't think I am." the Nobody replied stroking his soul patch, with a confused look on his face.

"Hmmmmmmmmmm."

[Oathkeeper Emi]

Buttons has given you your orders.
--

Loru narrowed her eyes at the newcomer. The girl leaned over her weapon and smiled at Loru in a way the older woman took as patronizing. And she had actually admitted to being one of Them. The male who'd she'd been speaking with earlier claimed to not be with Them but to Loru, that seemed a little unlikely. A lot unlikely, actually. That would be the paranoia talking.

She lifted her hands and shook the sleeves off. They bunched around her forearms and she went for the tonfas tucked into her sash.

"I have to do what I have to do,[/color]" she sighed with mock regret. "If you're with Them, I have to kill you. That's just the way things are. You seem ready for battle, young one.[/color]"

It wasn't meant to be an insult. Loru saw that Furiae was younger than she was, so in her mind that is who Furiae became. The Young One. "You came prepared. They're getting smarter. You...[/color]"

She gestured to Asa with her left hand. "You'll be easy to kill, you don't even have a weapon![/color]"
Her countenance changed then, going from sullen to tickled. She bit her lip and wrinkled her nose, holding back a giggle. She threw her head back and laughed.

As she laughed, she made the first move, slinging her arm blindly and whacking Asa in the head. She hadn't put all of her strength behind it, but there was still considerable force in the attack. She went for Furiae next, kicking in hopes of knocking her scythe out from underneath her and making her lose her balance.
All of this happened within the span of a few seconds and Loru was laughing shrilly the entire time.

[Lagunamov]

He may be only a zipper away, but that doesn't mean he qualifies already.

While the entirety of the situation far in front of him entertained Xigbar to a certain extent, if a fight actually came from it, it wasn’t going to be anything worthwhile. While a three way rumble between a nobody, a human, and a nut job was certainly material enough for a video to bring back to the castle for some laughs amongst the more, well, normal nobodies, a camera was unfortunately lacking at the moment, and Xigbar wasn’t about to make a quick trip back to the castle just for that. Plus, the fight, which didn’t seem to be coming any time soon, wouldn’t be even remotely enough to test the new nobody.

Everybody that went out to recruit a nobody into the organization worked in a different way. Last time, Xigbar played with the soon to be named Marluxia, almost driving him to paranoia. This time, he was going to take a more direct approach. Snapping his fingers, five dark portals opened up around him, a Sniper emerging from each of them, floating in the air as if they were on invisible chairs leaning back. Being his nobodies, they seemed to have inherited several of Xigbar’s traits. He watched as the insane woman smacked the nobody he was about to test, chuckling at the sight. And then she went after the woman with the scythe, making Xigbar seriously consider stretching the requirements to join them… but it’d probably be turned down by some of the stuck up ones back at headquarters.

“Boy, they sure don’t make them like they used to,” he commented, shaking his head at the pitiful scene playing out before him in the beach. He would just stay where he was for now, away from that annoying sand, and leave the work for someone else. “A’right, you guys go mess with them. Don’t be too rough… Actually, scratch that, you can be as rough as you want to,” he smiled under his hood, ordering his five lackeys to carry out the orders. As soon as he was finished, they vanished from his side, soon reappearing close to their target, forming a perfect circle around them, floating several meters away from them. Even from where he was standing, Xigbar could hear the sound of their crossbows getting ready, taunting them. “I suppose it doesn’t matter if he makes it with a scar or two.”

[Slash]

How perfect.

Furiae was quite pleased with how things had turned out. The black-cloaked men were truly beneficial, weren't they? Yes, they were. Always helping her out. She made a note to treat any black-cloaked person she met with as much politeness as she possibly could. What would have been merely an interesting distraction had now become an exciting three-way battle.

She quickly jumped back from the crazy girl, and turned to the Nobodies, twirling her scythe. This was...fun? Hrm. Fun. That was a word people used sometimes. She never really understood it. Well, she wasn't miserable or bored, so she was probably having fun...except she wasn't miserable or bored when sleeping either, and she was pretty sure sleeping wasn't fun. Whatever. If anything was fun, these sort of things were fun.

Maybe it was the correct time to try smiling? What muscles did you use for that? She quickly reviewed the functions of her facial muscles, picked a few, and made a valiant effort.

Ah. Success.

It was not kind or inviting in the least- the cruel, hard smile of someone who had never known real happiness. Combined with her absolutely humorless eyes it gave off the impression of insanity and malicious intent. She made a note to try it more often- it could be a successful intimidation tactic if used often.

"How absolutely fascinating," she said mostly to herself. "Such selflessness in assisting my training. I don't think I'll ever be able to pay back the black-cloaked men."

With that, she focused on a Sniper. It fired at her- using her speed, she managed to reflect the projectile back at the thing, hurting it. She moved in quickly, attacking with the precision of one born for battle.

[Oathkeeper Emi]

Buttons thinks you are kind of a jerk.
--

Loru's attentions shifted fast enough to give someone whiplash. She stumbled to a stop, arms swinging by her sides, and stared at the new enemies with wide eyes.

"Uwwww...[/color]" she breathed. "Five, six, seven seven seven! I've never seen you guys before![/color]"

One of the Snipers shot at her and she squealed and recoiled in horror and pain. "How rude![/color]" she shrieked, waving her weapon at it. It shot her again. Loru stomped her foot when she recovered.

"Stop that![/color]"

Of course, when Loru stomped her foot and really meant it, the effects were somewhat different than if say... a child were to. The result of her little temper tantrum was a considerably powerful tremor under all of their feet, knocking at least one of the Snipers- the one that had attacked her- down. When the mini-earthquake subsided she dashed over and whacked the Sniper with her left-hand tonfa. It was a childish kind of attack, a weak attack. More of slap than an actual strike meant to hurt. She leapt backwards, spinning her weapons back into their defensive position and raising them to head level.

Where were those silly warrior spirits when you needed them?

[Angelus]

Paaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaain! I'll behave I promise!

Asa had just been hit in the back of the head by something hard and... well, he wasn't sure what else it was. He spun around, rubbing the back of his head.

"That hurt! What did I ever do to you!?" He asked, his eyes watering as he saw the thing that hit him. Tonfa, of the wooden variety. Well that explained why it hurt so much. Wooden things always had a tendency to hurt. They were so hard, cause they were made out of wood. Wait a second, was he repeating his thoughts again? Bah, he didn't care, it's not like anyone else knew what he was thinking, could they?

Asa looked around suspiciously for a second, and determined they could not. By this time the scythe wielder and Loru were beginning to fight, and then the snipers made their appearance. His brethren were here, and what they did next was not exactly the beginning of a beautiful friendship. They shot at him. Well not just him, but the other two as well. It was fine by him if the other two got hurt, one hit him for no reason and the other tried to group him with her.

"Have fun fighting each other!" Asa said as he proceeded to run away. The Snipers fired at him three more times, but his legs carried him just fast enough to avoid being hit. Putting a bit of distance between himself and the two warriors, he felt a slight tremor where he was standing, but not enough to knock him over.

"Wooooooooooah! Wicked." He shook his head and held out his hands. His flail appeared, and the joyful face disappeared, being replaced by one lacking any emotion. He put his weapon up in the air, and began to spin the flail. The chain attaching it to the handle grew longer and longer, until it reached a full fifteen feet. By the time it had reached this length, one of the Snipers that had managed to get close to him was gone, and Asa was focusing his efforts on another. He stopped the spinning weapon, and taking the chain in his hand he ran toward the nearest enemy Nobody, smacking it five times with his weapon before it vanished.

He'd managed to kill two. And fortunately for him, that's all of them that had come near him. He turned toward where their master was and squinted.

"Yup, there's definitely somebody up there." He dropped his flail and waved at Xigbar while shouting to get his attention.

"Hey you! You up there! Are you responsible for these Nobodies being here!? Hello!?" He shouted as loudly as he could, just to make sure that the other Nobody heard him.

[Lagunamov]

At least he seems unlikely to plant a garden in the castle like someone else...

The situation Xigbar had orchestrated by summoning his special brand of nobodies had certainly turned into an interesting direction. While the man he was testing managed to prove sufficient enough to defeat two of them rather quickly, which proved at least that while he seemed to be along the same lines of Demyx in terms of personality, he actually impressed by the physical strength of the nut job. Too bad she wasn’t a nobody, or she would make a very fine addition to their ranks.

“Yes, yes, I summoned them, no need to shout,” he answered when confronted by the nobody, not bothering to really take down his hood for a proper introduction yet. “You are not half bad, ya know? But such a simple display of strength ain’t gonna cut it,” he lied. The only real requirements to join The Organization were to be incomplete creatures like them, and he already qualified. Xigbar simply felt like messing with the guy and have some fun at his expense. He had already proven to be a better case than the flower boy, at least personality wise.

Deciding he could have a little more fun if only for a couple of minutes – after all, there were no rules in the recruitment section saying he had to deliver new recruits intact – Xigbar summoned his Arrowguns to his hands, standing in his usual battle position. The remaining three Snipers were still fighting, so that could entertain the regular humans for a while. “We have a minute or so till they are done. Show me what you’ve got flaily,” he mocked him, jumping back towards the very edge of the pier. A one or two minutes long spar never hurt anybody.