Scene #5446: Fear the Reaper

Owner	Pose
Kotone Shiomi	The path towards Tartarus leads through the Dark Hour, complete with green sky, massive yellow crescent moon, coffins on the streets, and blood flowing where water should be. The place itself is at the center of a school complex, replacing the main building. The massive tower seems to be composed of various bits of building randomly arranged. At the front entrance, Kotone Shiomi is standing, with her naginata on her back, her evoker in its holster, and her SEES tag on her arm. She looks a little nervous, meandering impatiently for people to show up.
Sanary Rondel	One of the arrivals is a healer in white! Not in the white mage sort, but more along the lines of someone with questionable fashion sense wearing a coat that meshes horribly with her t-shirt and sweatpants. Also, Sanary has a giant axe strapped to her back. to go with her healing staff because of course she does. Spotting Kotone, the axe wielder raises her free hand in a lazy wave in her approach. "Hey there. This place is really..." She gestures around them slowly, not really motioning at anything in particular. She doesn't even finish that statement, instead ending it with a confused noise and blank stare at the tower going upwards.
August Kohler	August is here. Hoodie, holstered pistol, mirrored bracelet. Since the last time he's been in Tartarus, though, he has new scars - bad burns over his right hand. His expression is as serious as usual, with a slight frown towards Tartarus. "How strong is the Shadow, precisely?"
William Pauwel	The Dark Hour is normally a terribly eerie untime of unday. A city should be bustling with life, no matter how late it gets. But the Dark Hour is static. Nothing is alive. Nothing is alight. Everything is still and silent and dead. Everything... Except for the tell-tale roar of a mighty engine. A beam of light turns a corner and swerves up the road leading to that terrible tower that used to be a school. The motorcycle attached to it, and the young man riding on top of that, chase after it and eventually skid to a stop just inches from the main gate. "Hooooo boy," Will drawls as he slings himself out of the saddle. "This place sure is dreary. You folks really live here? All I see 'round are coffins and creepy towers and pictures of ladies in way too much lace that somehow covers /absolutely nothin' important/ and basically nothing else." Will may have taken a detour through Akihabara. "Well, anyway!" He grins, extending a hand to their host for the evening- and the only person here he DOESN'T recognize. "Name's William Pauwel! Nice to meet you. Y'all said you needed a light?"
Janine Liberi	Janine is here, having ventured out of her world for the first time in a long while. Her sword hangs by her side as she stifles a yawn. "Why does the Dark Hour have to be so late? Are you just dead at school every day or something?" she asks Kotone.
Kotone Shiomi	"Stronger than anything we've encountered before." Kotone answers August, and then she looks at the gathered group, "The coffins have people in them, and it's only like this during the dark hour." She informs William, shaking hands, "Kotone Shiomi, Special Extracurricular Execution Squad." Then nodding to Sanary in agreement and then glances towards Janine, "Only after we've gone in, we don't go in every night, it's too exhausting to go in multiple nights in a row." Then she heads in, and heads straight for what seems to be some kind of portal, "We'll be going to the twentyseventh floor, that's where we detected the shadow. The portal only takes us to the twentyfifth, so we'll need to fight our way up a little. Typical shadows aren't too bad at these floors." She explains. Once through the portal, they arrive in a block with purple lights, escher-like patterns on the floor and green walls lined with faces. Shadows lurk a-plenty. Kotone immediately pulls out her evoker and points it at her temple, taking a deep breath as she pulls the trigger to summon a floating jack o'lantern in wizards clothes, holding an actual lantern.
Janine Liberi	"If it's so tough, why are we even bothering? If it's in the way, at least bring your whole crew to deal with it," Janine grumbles, just for the sake of grumbling. "Though I gotta say, a tower that exists in a 25th hour of the day is probably cooler than a forest you get to through mirrors." "I take it back," she groans once they arrive. "This place is a neon nightmare. Is this the red light district of the Collective Unconscious?" she moans as she slashes as Shadow with her sabre. "And what the fuck, isn't that one of those Jack things?" she adds, pointing at Kotone's Persona.
Sanary Rondel	"... So those aren't decorations. Awesome." Sanary grimaces slightly at Kotone's explanation about what they've already seen otuside, then clears her throat while raising her free hand in a vague sort of salute. "Sanary Rondel, pig farmer." That didn't sound very impressive at all. "Lead the way, then. I'lll keep you all in good shape, but don't get too-" She stares at Kotone blankly at first, then holds out a hand to stop her, then stops herself when she realizes that the teenager didn't just splatter her brains spontaneously. "... Huh. That's a familiar-ish face." Sanary laughs after a moment while shaking off the mental image of what could have happened, then looks over at Janine and August. "Right? Doubt he's the same one, though. Anyway... Don't let your guards down." And with that, Sanary takes up the position of the group's healer! She does a decent job at that, and she's not even half-bad at brute-forcing her axe into the larger Shadows. It does become rapidly apparent, though, that she's not really suited to fighting the smaller and more evasive Shadows at all. Axes that size aren't meant for flighty things! Damn hands.
William Pauwel	"Uhhhhhhhhh well that's kind of morbid ain't it? People just being stuck sleeping in coffins for an hour." Is there some kind of weird magical coffin gnome what goes around shoving people into coffins? That's a little strange to think about, but stranger things have been true. "Well. Anyway, it's nice to meet you, Miss Shiomi! We'll get along great, I'm sure." Probably. For some value of 'great.' "Wow, this place is kind of..." Will rubs at his eyes, apparently trying to scrub the neon hellscape away from his vision before just deciding that maybe wearing his visor might help filter out some of the more garish colors. "This place is pretty strange and--" Kotone puts a gun to her head. "NO WAIT YOU HAVE SO MUCH TO LIVE FOR." BLAM SWAP Oh no, Will looks like he's trying to slap the gun out of her hand! TOO LATE TO DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT!? But his momentum's already in motion, and his hand's not slowing down. His reflexes are good, but maybe not 'point blank gunshot' good!
Kotone Shiomi	"Because it may prove to be key to solving the mystery. If it goes bad, we'll bail." Kotone answers Janine, and then right after she pulled the trigger and summoned her Persona, William slaps the evoker out of her hand. She blinks, "I guess I should've said something, but I thought everyone knew at this point, sorry." She kneels down to pick her evoker back up, while Pyro Jack starts throwing fire at the shadows. "Yeah, that's Pyro Jack." She answers Janine, and then the group starts to carve itself up to the twenty-seventh floor. Once there, it's empty of shadows, aside from one, it takes a little while for it to arrive, but when it does the power it has is palpable. A floating, attered black robe with a head wrapped in white, blood-stained cloth, yellow eyes peeking out and chains floating arpund the upper body. Hands holding a pair of long-barreled revolvers. Unlike other shadows, who seem to have only paid attention to the group when they came in close proximity, this one is rushing straight for them, and is quite clearly all business.
Sanary Rondel	With everyone else around to pick up Sanary's slack, the healer is looking... Actually mildly peeved about something. "Really been slacking off..." She mutters to herself, dragging the axe a bit behind her while keeping her eye open for whatever it is that they're looking for on the 27th floor. "Is this what happens with...? Dammit." At least Sanary isn't muttering about her own perceived failings and repeated faceplants for long. With the oddly robed Shadow making its presence known, she feels an odd chill running through her spine. "... Be careful, everyone. We can't let this thing get a chance to breathe!" Do Shadows breathe? Who cares. Whatever the case is, Sanary channels her magic outwards towards the rest of the team, providing them with an added burst of energy straight from her own reserves!
William Pauwel	Will slaps the gun out of Kotone's hand! A moment too late. His eyes are wide and his face is about as white as a sheet. "Why did you--- huh?" She's... not dead? He stares at her like she's grown a second head. Yeah, that's clearly how she survived that. "Uh. You... But..." "...But people die when they're killed...?" Fast forward a few minutes, Will still looks like he's trying to work through what just happened. She shot herself in the head and then that thing with a pumpkin-- that Pyro Jack-- popped out of a spout of blue flame. So it's like with August and the others, then? But if she has a Jack as a Persona, then... Will squints at the back of her head from under his visor. Is she one of them, then? An Honorary Jack...!? Something flashes red across his eyes. Will turns towards the indicator and the enormous, tattered, hangman's cloak charging their way. "What the-- is that the one we're looking for? Judgment!" A slender line of white-blue light traces through the air as what looks like an oversized handcannon is pulled loose from its holster. Will darts back mid-draw just as Sanary's energy boost surges through his veins. He aims. He fires. Three blasts of crackling, coruscating energy surge downrange to meet the Shadow's charge. "Come on you varmint! You've got guns too- let's see which of us is faster on the draw!"
Janine Liberi	"Damn right. If I'm gonna die dealing with shit like this, I want it to be my own shit." Janine's complaining is in top form today as they ascend to the target floor... and right off the bat, there it is. Much less subtle that some of the symbols in the Forest. "That's just the Grim Reaper with a gun, straight up," she says as it barrels towards them. "I'll run distraction," she says, before rushing towards the Shadow with her sword. "Over here, assclown! Take a shot if you think you're hard enough!" She begins to serpentine to make that shot harder.