anemoi | (no subject)

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(no subject)

Who: Hiroshi and whoever else joins him or occupies the building, along with very bad things.
Where: Sirocco Library
When: February 3
What: Hiroshi's found a potential solution to the Oni problem -- but he's soon got problems of his own...
Notes: Part of the Ao Oni plot. Remember that it is possible to die and become an Oni, but this is entirely mun fiat. Note that the plot will still advance if this thread does not wrap up within the week, but a lot of things will have to be handwaved.

The face wakes him up again. He's been seeing it in his dreams more often since the alerts began going up. His actual dreams, not the memories that had occasionally masqueraded as dreams. He's not sure what's worse.

At least he's reminded of where he is. Not that it's difficult, considering he's been here for several days straight now, barring closing hours. The Library in Sirocco is reassuringly large and comprehensive. Surely, with the hundreds and hundreds of tomes sitting on these shelves, something would turn up of use. But he's beginning to run out of time today; closing hours are fast approaching.

He sighs, flipping through the pages of the book in front of him. He looks down. Furrows his brow. His finger runs along the lines as he tries to make sure he's reading what he thinks he is.

"Th...this is it!" he yelps -- and turns red as he's quickly shushed.

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"What's it?!"

The little boy hiding behind a bookshelf is shushed as well but he leaps out from where he'd been spying on Hiroshi for a little while, anyway. ...Why was he spying on Hiroshi? The plate of food he's not-so-obviously hiding underneath a (ruined) book may have something to do with it.

Rudolph jumped out of his seat and ran over to where he heard the shout. "What is it?" the doctor questioned.

Yuta had been along as well. Finding a way to get rid of those damned blue monsters took priority as far as he was concerned. Peering from behind a nearby bookcase, he called:

"What did you find?!"

What the -- how many people were paying attention to him? He regains his composure, adjusting his glasses. "As a matter of fact, I think I may have tracked down reference to an item which may help us clear out the infestation we've been dealing with lately," he replies.

"It's some kinda magical artifact that only really amazing black mages can use, right?"

Palom beams and sets down the plate next to Hiroshi, removing the book with a wrinkled nose as he does.

Rudolph leans on the table as so he can see better. "Go ahead, any little scrap of information is something we can use."

Yuta walks over looking anxious. "Well? What is it? Is it something we can even find here?"

Hiroshi points to his book. "Well see, it's --"

His explanation is cut off by a piercing scream from the front of the library -- a scream that is itself cut short. Moments later, the lights go out as a loud siren blares; the librarian that had previously shushed Hiroshi quickly ducks under her desk.

"What...?" Hiroshi looks around, confused.

"It's not my fault!"

It totally isn't. Palom smashes the book back down over the food and tosses everything into a convenient trash receptacle nearby.

"What's going on?! I didn't even know libraries had alarms! I thought you were supposed to be quiet!"

Rudolph tenses as his eyes adjusted to the dark quickly, his hair stood up on end. "Grab the book." He hisses to the group as he grabs for the desk lamp, yanking it out of the outlet. Brassy, heavy.

Yuta freezes, his eyes straining for the smallest hint as to what the danger was. "...Damn it. We won't be able to hear where they're coming from with all this noise!"

Whoever they were. But with things being as they were, it wasn't hard to guess...

The noise is definitely loud. But if you strain your ears just enough, you can make out an underlying sound. A familiar one.

teraterateratera

And then, before anyone can process it, huge, lumbering blue forms enter the library. Three of them total; one of them is humanoid. Another looks more like a two-legged llama. The third is small and flat, with no arms.

Hiroshi barely drops a beat. He scoops the book into his bag. "Let's go!" he yells, moving deeper into the library. Damnit damnit damnit, this isn't an abandoned building! Why are they HERE?!

"Aaaaaaaaaaugh!"

So much for all his boasting. At the first sign of the creatures, Palom bolts throwing fireball after fireball over his shoulder. He was probably doing priceless damage to the books, but for some odd reason, he wasn't think of that.

"What are they doing here?! This is the middle of the city! H-Hiroshi!! What did you just find?!"

Rudolph turns, running after the kids. "Whatever it is, it will have to wait until we escape!" He scans the area, and once the last person gets past him, he hangs back to grab a restocking trolley ad flips it on it's side, block the path.

Ohgodohgodohgod

Yuta makes an attempt to isolate all three at once, but his focus is already slightly lowered by the fact that he is also turning to run. If it stops them at all, it won't be for very long.

In a calmer state of mine, Hiroshi would be somewhat more bothered by the scorched books, especially since they're doing about as much good as the LAST time he used that spell on them. Right now, however, all he's concerned about is getting away from THOSE things, RIGHT NOW.

The small flat one is a fast bastard and manages to get out of the line of fire while the other two get isolated briefly, but apparently its maneuvering isn't so great and it slams right into the cart.

Hiroshi just prays they don't notice the poor woman behind her desk; thankfully, they seem to be rather focused on the four of them; possibly because they're appropriately distracting.

Although... he could've sworn they were all looking directly at HIM.

He's not even sure where to go. There's got to be an emergency exit, right? They wouldn't be able to lock it just like that, right? Still, he heads for the back, hoping that he can at least lose their line of sight.

If only he remembered Warp. He remembered Warp's existence, of course, which wasn't nearly as useful and generally only led to awkward situations wherein he wished he remembered Warp instead. Palom stops flinging fireballs as a gut instinct and continues to run after the others.

When he hears the crash, he whirls around and quickly makes a decision.

"Break!"

In an instant, the trolley is a granite statue and that much harder to move. With any luck, the petrification would spread to the monster as well.

Rudolph didn't look back when he heard the crash, or that weird sound of the cart petrifying. He suddenly remembers the lamp in his hand.

"Can you remember where the exit is...?" He questions as he rolls the item in his hand, and with a good swing he chucks it some distance away, letting it crash into a display several yards away. "That should distract them, hurry now."

Yuta just focuses on following the others while keeping that isolation going as long as possible. It's times like this that being physically fitter than a normal kid his size and age really comes in handy.

The break spell doesn't spread to the flat oni, but it wastes a lot of time trying to figure out a way around it without crashing into other things. The other two onis are only held briefly before the effect shatters, and they begin lumbering over again -- although the llama one does get distracted by the lamp.

Hiroshi runs through the stacks. "I think it was over here! I don't know! I wasn't really bothering to pay attention!" he yells in response. Please don't be locked please don't be locked...

The humanoid one will end up pushing the stone cart out of the way -- it's not like anything is holding it down -- as it makes its way over to them.

"Blizzara!"

Ice comes next, bursting out of the floor to form a barrier. It is ice. It is quite fragile. But Palom follows it up with another Blizzara, this one encasing the feet and the hands of the monsters in solid ice.

Then he scampers after the others.

Rudolph knew it'd be a matter of time before the Llama-Oni resumes the chase. "We'll have to figure that out when we get there, now we just have to get there." He shook his head as he pauses to throw chairs and reshelving carts down whenever he found them.

"But what'll we do if the door's locked?! It's not like there's a ton of cupboards to hide in here!" Yuta can't help but call out as he runs.

"Well we can't stay still! We'll have to outmaneuver them!" Hiroshi yells. If nothing else, the onis seem to have maneuverability or speed, but not both.

He sees the exit soon enough. But something makes him pull back; that weird, sharp tingling in his mind called instinct. It turns out to be a good call; something descends from above, blocking hte exit. It looks like half an oni head, but from the nose down there are nothing but long, black tentacles.

"Change of plans. New aisle!" Hiroshi croaks, before ducking down one of the other aisles.

"Aaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"

Palom provided two things: magic that didn't work, and screaming to set the correct horrifying tone. Even though he is a little ways behind the others, the sight of creature itself is disturbing enough to elicit a yell. He changes course after Hiroshi soon enough.

"B-B-But... there aren't any other exits!"

"What in Ezra's..." Van Richten trails off, not even questioning who Ezra was as he scans the area. "Can we make one?" He questions as he found his voice oddly calm, despite his heart racing.

This terror feels familiar. "Or can we avoid them and head to the main entrance?"

Another oni, another attempted isolation. It's basically reflex by now, although it's still not that strong due to the stress of the situation. He runs to follow Hiroshi and the others.

"Don't tell me we need to find some kind of key while all of them are following us. There's no way we'd make it!"

Hiroshi ducks and weaves through the aisles. The Onis follow as best as their large forms can, but it's obviously a little awkward, and the flying one is still breaking out of isolation.

"We're not destroying more books than we need to! If we have to, we'll blow the front gates open, but if we move right we should be able to get past them! I've done it before!" he yells, running. As if to make a point, he ducks and rolls just as he exits the aisle -- which is perfect, as Llama Oni takes a bite right where his head was. It's hardly a SMOOTH roll, but it does the trick.

"Why are you thinking about the books when we're all gonna be killed by horrible blue monsters?!"

Palom is not so proficient at ducking and rolling but decides that he has never been so happy to be short in his life. He runs right underneath Llama Oni's stupidly long neck.

"Can't we just blow a hole through the wall right now?"

He'll let Hiroshi field the question, gasping as the young man dodged the Oni. Rudolph had a crazy thought as he remembers the arrangement of shelves, and suddenly slams his shoulders against the shelf that seem to separated them from the Llama Oni. It started to creak, then he rams against it again, unbalancing it.

He hopes it stays still long enough to be pinned, if not, it could cause a chain reaction of falling shelves.... "Keep an eye out!"

Yuta had also ducked under the llama!oni, although he was probably short enough to avoid it anyway. "Didn't your book have some way of getting rid of them?! Why can't we just do that?!"

Llama Oni probably should've gone all the way out of that aisle, and now currently has to deal with a pretty heavy shelf. It's shaking pretty wildly; getting out would be a good option.

"Because we have no idea how much of this stuff is available anywhere else! We lose it, we may lost important information we need!" he yells back. To Yuta, he adds, "And it's not something we can just whip out like that! We have to -- whoa!"

He pulls up short as the flat oni tries to charge at him -- and rams into the wall again, as Hiroshi's well-timed stop prevents it from getting him. He runs past it while it's stunned. "Come on, talk later!"

"So your plan is to just keep running around them and hope they leave a space to get out eventually?!"

This sounds like an awful plan. Palom takes the opportunity to try and freeze the oni to the wall as he scampers on by.

Rudolph rubs his shoulder as he keeps running, eyes peeled. "What about the Librarian? She may have the keys!" He called out to the group as he kept pace.

"Is she even still alive? There's already more of them than we thought!"

Yuta continues running, although he pales at a sudden thought.

"And if they get her, she'll..."

Damnit. "Okay, look. I'll get them in one place, you do that... whatever thing you did to make them stop for a bit, and the rest of you guys get her the hell out of here! There might be another one near the entrance, too, so be careful!" He doesn't wait for anybody to accept; he just divebombs over, leaping onto a table. "OVER HERE!" he shouts, heart pounding.

This is suicidal. But he can't shake the feeling that it's him they want more than anybody else. The other monsters begin to make their way through the aisles back to him...

"You're gonna die! Who'll feed the dumb octopus if you die?! I'm not doing it! I don't even like it! Hiroshi!"

Palom casts one last spell, covering the floor underneath the monsters with slick ice in the hopes that they slip before he turns away.

"Are you mad?!" Rudolph hisses. "That's suicide - it's best we stay together." He stated as he grabs a lamp from the table and throws it at another display case, shattering the glass to distract it further. "Come on!"

Yuta runs only a little longer before he stops, pausing to isolate them. In his mind, he pictures a large box, forming right around all of the monsters - and the bookshelves between them.

"Come on-!"

It is only after the Onis slip, slide, crash into things, and are eventually -- temporarily -- isolated that Hiroshi realizes in the back of his mind that he hadn't actually been CERTAIN if Yuta could pull it off. He sure is glad he could, though!

He darts off the table and looks under the desk. "No arguing! Let's get going here!" he shouts, grabbing the woman's arm. An odd thing to say, since the woman apparently has no intention of arguing. Or shushing. Quiet time in the library is CLEARLY not an option here.

He heads back towards the front, barking at the woman to pull out her key. She obliges, and he leads the way to the front as the Onis break out of isolation.

There's an unfortunate victim here, as well as a door to the back room of the library that is undeniably locked. The victim's head has been bitten right off, but Hiroshi knows better than to get anywhere near it. Good thinking; close inspection indicates both that the skin is turning blue, and the head is growing back.

Better hurry, guys.

That is pretty much the grossest thing he's ever seen ever. ...Actually, Scarmiglione could probably give it a run for its money, but Palom doesn't remember that quite yet. He will, however, have a distinct thought that he's fought tons of zombies and ghouls and stuff like that before and the right thing to do was to set them on fire.

That is what he does. Palom will wave impatiently for Hiroshi and the librarian to hurry up.

Rudolph felt bile in the back of his throat at the body especially as he sees the slow change. Suddenly in a fit of misplaced rage he grabs a broken stem of a floor lamp and slams it into the body as hard as physically possible, ignoring the rather sickening sound.

"Let's go." He hisses as he steps back and ran to the door.

Since everyone else is taking a shot at it, Yuta goes ahead and isolates both the body and a decent amount of space around it. If the fire catches, it'll have more oxygen to keep on burning instead of being snuffed out right away.

"Hurry up!"

The body twitches and contorts angirly at the constant disturbances. As a corpse, it seems to be burning away, but it seems to be a war between the burning of flesh and its conversion to pure oni. Of course, isolated like that, nobody can see it.

Hiroshi steadies the librarian as she shakily unlocks the front door. It takes a bit, but thankfully she manages to get it, and the doors open.

The Onis are trudging along behind them, but the way open is present now. Hiroshi takes advantage of it, leading the woman with him.

Various cop cars are beginning to pull up to the library now.

Palom bursts out through the door into the fresh air and freedom. ...That wasn't nearly as bad as the first encounter, but still. These things were bad news.

"Don't go in there! You're just gonna get killed!" The cops will surely listen to his words of sage advice. He turns to Hiroshi as he stumbles out, making sure that he's going all the way down into the street. Knowing him, he'd turn around halfway and say something dumb like, 'Wait I've got to see if there are any other survivors'.

Rudolph follows out, panting heavily. "The Blue Monsters are in there, you heard the reports." He stated as he silently prayed to anyone that the others go out.

Yuta's the last one out, though he turns around to watch the entrance as soon as he's a decent ways out. If those blue monsters even so much as take one step out of the door, he'll immediately isolate the entire thing.

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