Mass Destruction [Elrick/Open]

[Axel]

I Could Go For Some Exercise
[Official Thread Theme: Mass Destruction (Reincarnation Version) from Persona 3]

The distinct sound of a Corridor of Darkness bounced off the columns surrounding a large, open area known as the Coliseum Gates. Axel stepped out and cast a curious glance around the place. This was the first time he had been here himself, and he found it strangely empty.

Figures. It's so hard to find good company these days.

However, the dry heat here was most excellent, in his opinion, without being too intense. Too much moisture was unpleasant, and he made a face as he thought about it. Mentally, he crossed his fingers. This first experience of the world really didn't need to be ruined by Organization members, current or former. At least, Marluxia would probably steer clear of this place. It wasn't lush with flowers enough for his tastes.

Still. It's too quiet around here. Wonder if something's going on.

He walked over to examine the large banners hanging along the walls adjacent to the gates. Apparently, these were tournament listings and rankings. Interesting. Not surprisingly, Sora's name was at the top of several of the lists. The kid was tough, no question about it. Axel didn't need official rankings to tell him that.

"Hmm..." He made his way toward the center of the area and examined the doors leading into what was probably the coliseum proper. Boredom was a terrible companion. Maybe he could shake it while brushing up on his skills. If there was even anyone inside. From the looks of things, this place was a ghost town.

[Lagunamov]

Things are only going to get hotter from here on out. Wear sunscreen.

Ten minutes had passed since Elrick entered the coliseum lobby, only to be greeted by some dwarf goat-man who started yammering at him. Of course, that was better than the silence that had invaded his ship. Lillian had been awfully quiet for the last couple of days, sometimes simply sitting there, staring off into nothing. He was now getting worried, and had even started to lock his door at night just to prevent any insanity-produced murder on his person.

While the goat-man kept going on and on about the place, Elrick’s gaze was diverted by the trophies on the walls, most donning the name of someone named Sora. ”What a girly name," he thought, returning his attention for a second to the red furred, creepy as hell creature in front of him. He mentioned something of some Games, where warriors from all over the world would flock there to fight and claim the title of Champion. It wasn’t going to be held until a couple of days later, but he took note of it. Taking part in that would certainly help him grow stronger, and he wanted to know what this mysterious prize for winning would be.

Turning his back on the anthropomorphic goat, he left the lobby before he reached the point where he might not feel guilty over killing the creature for miscounting words so god damned much. He opened the doors wide open, and after letting his eyes adjust to the gleaming sunlight from the outside, he found himself surprised to find someone there. Not only just someone, but a person who wore a coat exactly like the shorty that had also gathered at the jungle some days ago. Of course, his attention was derived not so much to his fiery red mane or marking under his eyes, but rather his abnormal body shape.

“Dude, are you a scarecrow or something?” he let the thought slip his tongue as he walked to the bottom of the short flight of stairs, kneeling and sitting on the second to last step. “Sorry, mouth has a mind of its own,” he chuckled, removing his beret from the heat of the sun. “Are those coats some fashion trend this side of the universe or something? I saw this guy who probably has some serious depth perception problem wearing one just like yours,” Elrick started rambling, mostly over the prospect of having someone to talk to for a change, considering a wall of silence was awaiting him back at the ship.

[Axel]

I Hope I Haven't Moved to the Sticks

Well, that didn't take long. As if staring at the doors for a certain period of time helped, said doors opened suddenly. Out stepped a person Axel didn't recognize, but at this point, anyone who wasn't Sora or someone wearing an Organization cloak was a welcome sight. Another plus was that he didn't immediately want to kill the Flame. Yeah, that was a nice bonus.

He had to chuckle at the scarecrow comment. Out of all the Nobodies making up Organization XIII, he was probably the most oddly-proportioned. Come to think of it, that was probably why Marluxia hated him so much. He was jealous of his tiny waist and shapely hips. That whole hating him for playing turncoat thing was just a ruse to hide the real reason for the loathing.

"Eh, don't worry about it. At least you aren't heaping threats upon my head and attempting to murder me." He grinned a little, then thought about the second half of what the guy had said. He'd seen another cloak wearer who was short and had a depth perception problem? Oh. Oh, that was rich. "You must mean Zexion. No question about it. That guy's hair... never understood it." He'd have to use that one the next time he saw the Schemer.

"So, are you from around here?" Judging by the fact that he was not familiar with the Organization cloak, Axel guessed that he wasn't. But it never hurt to ask just to be sure. "You haven't noticed anything, well, entertaining going on around here, have you? Because, to be honest, I'm bored as hell."

[Lagunamov]

Magician Flag.

Elrick was leaning back on the flight of stairs, his elbows resting on the stems right behind him. The man in black seemed friendly enough, at least most sociable than the previous man he saw wearing a cloak. “Oh, so you know him. You guys part of some club or something? You know, identical clothes and all,” he commented, his left hand spinning his beret on his index finger. It was hard to keep entertained at times.

“Nah, I’m not from around here,” he addressed the question directed at him, not that it was such a big secret anyway. Reddy had probably already figured as much anyway, just from his mention of the short guy he had seen. “Goat guy inside said some Games are being held here in a couple of days. If you got the patience, you can wait for that. Other than that…” he tilted his head backwards for a second, thinking. “I think he said the premises can be used for training or something. I kinda stopped listening to him. He miscounts stuff so much I had to tune it out somehow,” he explained what little he had heard inside, still considering himself what to do in this world. There was certainly little to do in terms of climbing and exploring like he liked to. Or at least, not there, he’d have to climb down to town.

“Oh, and the name’s Elrick by the way. I don’t really like going on this much without making at least a feeble attempt at a decent introduction,” he raised his right hand a little as if it were a little wave as he spoke those words. He also kinda wanted a name from the spiky read haired guy in front of him; otherwise he would keep referring to him as scarecrow, Reddy, or hips-don’t-lie.

[Axel]

You Can Have My Name. Don't Expect Me to Buy You Lunch.

"Elrick, huh? I'll remember that." He tapped a finger to his temple. Forgetting things like names, the current state of individual alliances, and the whereabouts of certain people was out of the question. Luckily, Axel made it a priority to keep things memorized.

"The name's Axel."

After indicating himself, he played absentmindedly with one of his coat's drawstrings. Now that he thought about, he wasn't really sure why he continued to wear this now that he was traitor material. Force of habit, he supposed. "I guess you could call it a club, in a way. You've never heard of Organization XIII?" He gave Elrick a skeptical look. Maybe he should ask a better question. "How about Nobodies? Have you heard about them?" At this point, someone who hadn't heard about Nobodies was rare, but that didn't mean it couldn't happen. That would just mean he would have to do some explaining. Even if he didn't like explaining himself to other people. Talking about not having a heart never did much to improve his mood.

The part about Games going on in a few days was a subject of far greater interest. But he wasn't keen on sticking around here, kicking the dirt out of sheer boredom, just to see what the Games were all about. "Not sure if I want to talk to this goat guy you keep mentioning. But if there isn't anything else to do around here besides train, I guess that's my only option." An annoyed look flashed briefly over his face. He could simply leave, of course. But world-hopping so quickly was starting to get old.

[Lagunamov]

If life gives you lemons, make sure to squeeze them to hell and then plant the seeds.

“Organization XIII huh?” Elrick wondered aloud, trying to think of any mention of it, but couldn’t for his life remember either Lillian or The King mentioning them. Of course, he didn’t have the greatest memory, and most of his attention had gone into the silver robbed creep. The term nobody he was slightly more familiar with, if only because some he heard some town folk drop it in some places. He was just too used to referring to Heartless and Shadows and Nobodies as a special breed of Shadows. Which wasn’t that far off the mark, but that was the terminology Orpheus used, so it got stuck on him.

“Nobodies are created when Shadows – I mean, heartless, are created, leaving behind the body and soul, right?” He started grasping at what he could remember, correcting himself to try and use the current terms in this side of the ‘verse. That was gonna take a while to get used to. “What about them? I know there can be some sentient Shadows – crap, Heartless,” he cursed under his breath. His tongue certainly had a very strong muscle memory for this stuff. “Is there anything I’m missing?” he inquired, mainly to fill the gaps of information that either Orpheus didn’t have when he left, or it didn’t reveal to almost anyone other than those even higher up the chain of command.

“Yeah, this place is kinda boring if you ask me. But at least the arena inside seems big enough to go wild without consequences,” Elrick commented, taking a quick glimpse at the door behind him. “Unless one or two dismemberings count as consequences that is,” he joked while tapping the hilt of his blade. At this moment, he could go for pretty much anything to do if only to kill the boredom. Then again, his options were either spend some time outside with a total stranger that looked more than suspicious but seemed nice enough, or go back to the ship and talk to the wall. The first option seemed like the best one, and he still had more than enough time for that social interaction to be valid, otherwise who knows when the opportunity would present itself again.

[Axel]

On Sunny Days, Only the Satyr Shows Up
[Your Affection from Persona 4]

So, he knew a little. That meant less explaining, which was always a good thing. Axel nodded at Elrick and scratched the back of his head. Hopefully, after he finished this explanation, the guy still wouldn't want to kill him. He didn't look like the overzealous type, but one could never be too careful in this day and age. There were some who found Nobodies an utter abomination and wished for nothing more than to slaughter them all.

"Nobodies are the shell that a person leaves behind when they become a Heartless. They have no hearts and can't feel emotions. They can only pretend to show them." Usually, anyway. That episode in Castle Oblivion was still on his mind. "On occasion, people with a strong enough will retain a mostly human appearance. But that's rare. Organization XIII is made up of these strong-willed Nobodies." He pointed to his chest. "I was a member for a while, but I'm not anymore. I left... for various reasons. And even if I wanted to go back now, I can't. I've been branded a traitor, which basically means I'm supposed to be killed on sight."

He shrugged, brushing off the weighty announcement. Having already been through death once, he wasn't really afraid of it. There wasn't a need to dwell on the possibility of dying again. If it happened, it happened. In the meantime, there was life, or something close to it, to be lived. "If you don't have anything else to do... how about some sparring in the arena?" There it was again. The need to have some form of company. But this Elrick guy seemed to be a healthy form of company. No Organization cloak as well as not reminding him constantly of Roxas was in the guy's favor in Axel's book.

As he moved toward the door, he couldn't help but comment on the surprising lack of people. "By the way, if the Games are so popular, shouldn't there be more people around? Does the weather affect when people show up or what?"

[Administrator]

...you are SUPPOSED to kill things here? I could get used to that...

Olympus Coliseum, a world of tournaments and gods. If you weren't careful with either, you could get killed. Of course, it wasn't that likely that the newest traveler to this world would be killed. No, he had followed an internal compass to the one world where it was okay to kill things, and the creature was absolutely certain he'd love his time here.

Ava looked around. Something had drawn him to this world, and it wasn't the scenery. It was possible that it was the death and suffering, but that wasn't likely. It hadn't drawn him here before. No, Ava thought it was probably that Axel-dar he'd developed. Somehow, he could feel exactly where the Nobody was at all times. It was...interesting, to say the least.

Of course, a little walking led him straight to the end of his gay-dar Axel-dar. And it was Axel at the end of the rainbow, how unexpected. Except, not really. Turning to the Nobody, Ava said, "Heya Axel~! You weren't planning on fighting things without me, were you~?" The tildes were noticeable in his voice. He really, really liked killing things.

[Lagunamov]

Information? Seems I picked the right answer from the multiple choice. Yippee.

[/i][/size]
If Elrick hadn’t seen a sentient Heartless only days before, who happened to tick the wrong nerves with him, he would have found it much harder to believe this Axel fellow was the equivalent for the Nobodies. But, it made some sort of sense, and it explained why even if he didn’t look different than a normal human – sans his scarecrow proportions – he still gave him a weird vibe at times. It was evidently what senses he had developed for hunting Heartless back home still worked. That, or it was the weird cloak, matching the other guy. He couldn’t be certain.

Either way, now knowing what he was, there was only one thing for him to do. His instincts ticked instantly, his eyes giving off a menacing look as he stood up. In a flash, he withdrew his sword from its sheath and pointed its tip to Axel’s throat. “Thanks for all the useful information. My job is to hunt down Heartless, and now I know which Nobodies in particular to strike down,” he said in a grave voice, his eyes giving a harsher look each passing second.

Then the sword was taken away from Axel’s throat and slid back into its sheath. “Just kidding, I could care less for you guys. As long as you don’t go around burning orphanages or something, you aint’ seeing the edge of my sword,” he chuckled, looking around. “Anyway, I’m good for some sparring. We can just kick the goat guy out of the way and enter,” he said, but as he was about to turn around and open the doors to the lobby again, he saw someone come towards them. Adressing Axel, to top it all.

Well, actually, what topped it off was that, not so damn long after he made a joke of hunting down weird creatures, someone who was obviously not human had to pop up. And it was apparently a friend of Axel’s.

[Axel]

You Almost Reversed This Connection

Oh, it was a good thing this guy specified the joke. The reflexive self-defense instincts quieted just as soon as they stirred, and Axel watched with a blank expression as Elrick returned his sword to its casing. His suspicious nature had obviously dulled far too much over the past few days. He didn't have to become naively trusting just because he might be lonely.

Ugh. Sora again.

Even though the guy was kidding about killing him, Axel still took note of the speed with which he drew his sword. It was a good reminder that death hadn't been kind to his battle skills. The prospect of sparring, without the pressure of having to actually worry about dying again, would do wonders to shake the rust off his prowess. He wasn't sure how well Elrick would match up against the likes of Xaldin or Xigbar, but any practice was better than none at all.

"You're lucky you're joking." A half-friendly smirk ghosted across his face. Nice guy or not, if certain buttons were pushed, the Flame wouldn't hesitate in unleashing the full brunt of his fury. Fire never discriminated, potentially consuming good and evil alike.

Elrick agreed to a sparring match, but before the two of them could make their way inside to move aside the goat guy, a familiar voice called out to him. A very happy familiar voice, too. Axel turned to see Ava approaching, clearly excited about the prospect of killing things. "Yo, Ava. Surprised to see you here."

It was odd, now that he thought about it. What were the chances that he ran across Ava again so soon after first meeting him? He wasn't following him, was he? Quickly, the Flame brushed the acute paranoia aside. "Yeah, we were thinking about going inside for some training. I take it you want to come along, too?"

[Lagunamov]

Sometimes, the only way to move a link forward is by having it reverse, only for it to turn upright the moment you save the lardass’ ass.

Well, it seemed Elrick’s social skills still remained a tad bit rusty. Nothing surprising, considering his lack of human contact in months, or the last couple of days of utter silence in the ship. Maybe he owned Axel an apology? Nah. Dude had just said Nobodies don’t feel emotions, and was only pretending. Though, to be fair, he seemed quite good at it. He could probably get some pity or concern out of certain people if he played his cards right. “Don’t give me that look. Either way, you probably should be careful about what you tell people,” he walked a little closer to him, to whisper some advice, if only so that the new guy around wouldn’t listen to it. “The other people who wear clothes similar to mine would actually kill you, or worse. Friendly advice.”

Now, returning his attention to the new subject, the newcomer who was apparently a friend of Axel’s, Elrick couldn’t help but simply note that the man was not human. Again. At least, if it was a sentient Heartless, it seemed better mannered than the other one he met. “So… you two are friends?” he asked, if only to drop some comment in. This Ava looked, well, interesting to say something. Him joining in on the sparring could be even better, if only to have a three-way battle royal going on.

“What scarecrow, I mean, Axel said. Come, it could be fun. Maybe a bit bone-breaking kind of fun, but fun nonetheless,” he joked while tapping the hilt of his blade with his fingers. That was an awful habit of his, if only because the constant tapping meant the sound of metal clashing against something would repeat itself constantly until he either stopped, or was made to stop.

[Administrator]

If you could see my face, you'd know I'm grinning. Widely.

Ava grinned very widely. Of course he would join them. It was no secret he loved killing, destruction, and other violent recourse, not forgetting the extermination or the evisceration, nor the carnage and other nasty things that followed. Though there were many to stand in his way, Ava never let that keep him down! After all, what was light if it didn't have something evil to balance it out?

And Ava was more than happy being that something evil. But, mind traveling back to the present, and away from the past memories of slaughters of many innocents, including but not limited to men, women, children, and some not-so-innocents. In fact, he had even destroyed Heartless before, and Nobodies, too. Before his mind went off on another tangent, he brought it forcibly to the here and now.

"I'm game. What kind of senseless murder of small children training are we talking about here? Is it the destruction of countless warriors of the light fighting each other or more complete eradication of societies training with dummies?" The grin was as wide as ever, and Ava was still singing most of his speech. Well, not really singing so much as speaking with a note of happiness to it. Somehow, that made it better and less creepy that he wanted to kill people and possibly eat their souls. Killer Rabbit, anyone?

[Axel]

Training: Rolling Around in Trashcans Not Included

Friendly advice was always appreciated, no matter who gave it. This case was no different. After Elrick shared that bit of information about similarly uniformed people, Axel nodded once at him. It was his silent way of acknowledging that he had filed it away. Dying again was one thing he wasn't particularly interested in doing. And to avoid dying, he needed not to be so trusting, which meant he should return completely back to his closed-off ways. Loneliness or not. Anything beyond surface acquaintances should be shunned.

"What? Friends? Nah, I wouldn't call us--" The Flame stopped abruptly, seeing the savage, feral glow in the creature's eyes. Might be best not to upset him. "Uh...sure. Yeah. We know each other." His tone was heavily laden with reluctance. "Actually, we met not too long ago. Kinda surprised to see you here." He ended up addressing Ava directly. Never having been one to think coincidences held much water, Axel was still a tad bothered by the fact that Ava had tracked him down so quickly. He hadn't exactly left a blazed trail.

In answer to Ava's questions, the Flame turned and headed for the door. "How about we find out?" Upon pushing the door open, he found himself inside a small vestibule, and sure enough, there was a goat guy standing in front of the door, stubby arms crossed over his chubby chest. This would be easy enough. "Comin' through!" Despite the goat man's protests, Axel brushed past him.

Now this was more like it. The Coliseum proper consisted of a large arena, lined on either side by stands. Columns were present here as well, and there looked to be gates at the far end, probably hiding some nasty beasts or something. A few barrels were scattered here and there. Perfect.

[Lagunamov]

Katana > Golf Club.

“That was quick,” Elrick thought as he followed Axel back into the lobby and past the goat guy. He made a small hand gesture to him as he went past him, as if to apologize for Axel’s behavior. Of course, he himself was moving past him in the same exact manner. It wasn’t like someone who didn’t even reach their waists in height could stop them anyway. Now, past the lobby and its, eh, questionable ‘manager’, they found themselves on the proper grounds.

In front of him, on top of a squared section of tiles stood several sets of barrels, possibly to train with. The squared section itself had a large column on each corner, which possibly meant that area might be closed off in some instances. If luck would have it, it’d probably be some weird invisible barrier that makes no sense to exist and cues curses from whoever runs into it inadvertently. “So, we bust some barrels then? I don’t want to add another world to my list of ‘not visiting again’ just because there’s a tab awaiting me,” he joked, though he was remembering that wall his ship crashed through at Twilight Town. Though, at least any tab from breaking barrels would be low enough for him to pay anyway.

Regardless of whether he’d have to pay for anything broken or not, Elrick took a good hold of his sword and dashed towards the closest barrel, swinging his sword, still in its case, towards it. The impact caused the barrel to fly back and hit a couple others, shattering into a thousand pieces of wood. The destroyed barrels were soon replaced by new ones that popped out of literally nowhere with a light flash of white light. “Oh, good. No paying then,” he grinned, walking over to one of the newly summoned barrels.

This time, instead of simply destroying it, he felt more… creative. With his right foot, he pushed it to the side, making it fall on its side, and stopped it from rolling away by slamming his foot on top of it. Then, still applying pressure on it, he dashed his foot backwards, propelling the barrel away for a couple of meters, only for it to return to him thanks to the direction in which it was spinning. As soon as it approached Elrick, he used his foot once again, but this time he lifted the barrel with it as if it were a ball. Launching it less than a meter, he kicked it with his foot as it was falling again, launching it even farther up… and making it land at the top of one of the columns.

“Ha! And here I thought I wouldn’t manage to do that again,” he thought, now returning to barrel-shattering mode. Holding the sheath of his sword with a tight grip on his left hand, he ran towards the column and jumped upwards as he approached it, only to use the impulse from the jump to run up the column itself. Reaching the top, in one swift motion he drew his sword and slashed the barrel, cutting it in half and each half falling to opposite sides of the pillar as Elrick reached the top, and with what little momentum he still had, pulled himself up and stood where the barrel once was.

“Alright, I’m a show-off. Gonna sue me?” he joked from atop the pillar, looking downwards towards the red haired man.

[Fate]

Okay, Maybe I'm a Little Crazy...
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Have a Nice Dream from Soul Eater.

Lillian honestly didn't mean to stay in his ship this long. It was only going to be for a couple of days until they landed and she got the chance to "fix" the ship, which translated to her finding whatever the hell was on it and shoot the hell out of it. However, that didn't happen. She found herself almost frozen on this ship and not wanting to go back to her ship. She didn't know why she couldn't gather the willpower to get back to her ship, but she found it much easier to just stay on Elrick's right now. She'd have to thank him a whole bunch later for putting up with her and her random bout of paranoia.

Though, no paranoia was hitting her at the moment. Instead, she was bored of seeing the inside of a ship for days on end and not doing anything. Elrick had been out and about while she just sat here. That just couldn't do anymore. She stood up from her spot, made sure she had her guns, and got out of his ship. They landed on this rather sunny world, though the architecture was sort of impressive. There seemed to be something going on at the Coliseum, some sentient-goat-thing walking around and blabbering about people just storming in and using his Coliseum. She didn't bother trying to converse with the goat, walking straight past him and ending up in the Coliseum lobby.

There was noise beyond the only other door in the room, which must have been what that goat thing was talking about. She went in only to find three other people in there. One of them was Elrick, which wasn't too much of a surprise. Then there was this anorexic guy with red hair and a black cloak; Lillian decided just to give him a weird look. There was also this odd looking Heartless creature... that apparently could talk. Great, more talking Heartless. That was just what she needed.

The three of them seemed to be destroying barrels as a form of training. Elrick had started to go after them first, even running up a column to do so. She just shook her head and chuckled. He used his skills to, of course, show off and was saying something to the red-haired guy. Eh, she could participate a little, right? She went more into the stands of the fighting arena, pulling out her guns and twisting them in her hands a bit to show off before aiming them at a barrel semi-near the Heartless thing. She shot it four times with about a second interval between each shot, thus destroying the barrel.

"Hope you don't mind," she said, "I got bored."

[/size]