Post by Phantasma on Sept 20, 2019 19:48:48 GMT -5
"Huh?" Trekking towards the tunnels Kite couldn't help but look around in confusion.
Planting the swords edge against his right shoulder and holding the pommel tightly in his head he darted his gaze left to right. The first sight he locked onto at the mouth of the tunnels was a suddenly aware Pluto and then moments later fire falling from the sky. Rather than looking up it was the remnants of a larger attack drifting to the ground, then came the sound. An explosion which got the hunter to cringe and convinced him to dart into the caves that much more quickly.
His imagination wasn't much and what worries came of absent allies now motivated him to go deeper into the hornets nest. A twisted knot in his stomach was attributed to missed opportunity and a bad omen, it was enough to get his heart drumming even louder the more he crept through the tunnels.
Sharp eyes stared into the black as pitch interior and noted movement just beyond the veil of sand. Hardly leaving time to wonder as the seconds ticked by and Kite dashed through the serpentine like routes color bloomed out from solid sand. The pale, bright nature of the flames and how they easily coasted in and out of solid material clued the hunter into immediately what they were. Heat radiated off of the motes and forced him to dodged them one by one as they spiraled out of the walls and overhead. In the darkness like this their very incandescence was an early warning, something to be thankful for considering what might've happened had Kite been touched fully by them. As more fell however it was more than just a minor inconvenience, the sand was beginning to retain that intense heat and force itself up to the topmost levels of sand. Each step was now punctuated by a hissing pop and kiss of cooler versus hot matter.
No longer exactly running Kite used the tips of his feet to dash hop forward, Slamming has hand or elbow into the wall in order to quickly alter his trajectory in the case of an overhead fire ball. The pain was comparable to grabbing a hot piece of metal or touching a stove while it was on, hardening his expression and doing his best not to string together profanity Kalisto crept ever closer to his goal.
There was a hole up ahead which despite having a wall of flames shower gently across its lips stayed darkened. Hesitating for only a moment Kite readied his sword in both hands and charged towards the door smashing into and carving out an additional space to slip into on the left side. Surprisingly almost no sand tried to fill the space once he jumped through. Casually dodging yet more overhead projectiles Kite couldn't help but have his mouth hang open a bit as he took in the sight before him.
In this artificial cavern now Illuminated by neko fire was a moon pool of sorts, some kind of lagoon that had a river feeding out the cavernous crack at the far backside of the cave. Like a crater the sandstone had lips of the pool keeping the murky blue back from the smooth cave floor. Massive pillars of sand rose into the meters high ceiling and a rush of air beckoned those within to the wound at the back. A titanic shape loomed in the pool, a kind of cocoon or chrysalis made from metal with windows dotting along various parts complete with some sort of periscope at the top. It was smooth, pill like and was far more metal than any other material.
Looking more like a contemporary model of submarine the swordsman could scarcely reason with what was in front of him, preparing for an attack when the entire thing hummed to life. Propellers on the back spun out and the periscope lodged itself into the caudal fin like extension on the top.
Relying on instinct again and due to the fact he was still in once piece it dawned on Kite that this could have been them attempting to run away despite not having either Leval or Graves in tow-- as far as he was aware. So he ran.
Pumping his arms, bent at the elbow like karate chops, he ran. Sucking in a voluminous amount of air as he did so and forcing it into his system as fast as he could. Various aches and pains were numbed once his little rhythmic breathing self-motivated his fight or flight response, called upon strength normally kept in reserve. Bending low in his sprint Kite clenched his teeth and commanded the team of his back and leg muscles to give him a jump to mount that crazy machine. Having a running start and already looming well over the average once the youth shot up to his former height he left the ground, soared up a meter or more and with wind roaring in his ears, water splashing against fluttering eyes he sunk his sword in and used the tool to climb the surface.
Tapping on the surface like he was doing was short lived. No sooner had he ascended that impressive height and stabbed his way to the top the entire structure started sinking into the pool. Kite was slow on the uptake as he hit away at the tower housing the periscope and eventually what he suspected was the latched trap door to get in. Fire that now refracted on closer water got him to look up and again issue out another impressive backwards jump that left him at the boarder of the moon pool again.
Watching the submarine sink into the waves a numbness washed over him and had his sword grip slacken.
Hanging his head in despair before briefly raising it and letting out a shout of sincere anguish. Frustration. Loathing. Hatred. All those emotions poured into his roar of a shout, ringed in his ears and got him to eventually come to his senses once it bounced back to him.
It was hot, like, thousands of times more hot than the desert had ever been. Gaunt started to regret his attempts at seeking shelter and was soon reminded of just how Miu's fire worked as it slipped through the sand and deposited itself on the ground below only to further slip inside. It got him on guard and similar to a certain swordsman he preferred his human half to being more maneuverable and dodging where he could.
Either through relaxed control on Kagenori's part or damage brought on by Miu the tunnels were unstable and several times the roofs of the tunnels collapsed leading the scorpion man to dig out his own side branches-- swimming in sand to get to his goal. Nearly suffocating several times he did eventually make it to the heart of the cave and could only do so thanks to some sort of animal letting out a roar of some sorts.
That animal was soon corrected to Kite, who the breathless man bug couldn't so much as spare a witty comeback for. He too was filled with a kind of frustrated rage when he saw the empty pool and could only figure they were late or Kalisto must have let them get away. Temptation arose as the insect rolled around in the sand as he very briefly considered abandoning the fool down here to die-- his incompetence had robbed them of their goal once again!
'No.'
'These are not... my thoughts.'
He reminded himself.
Once again banishing his intrusive thoughts through self denial Gaunt got around to feeding out his stinger through the darkness to latch onto Kite and pull him back out the way they came. He was slack in the grip and other than a twist of his head to the side to look at Gaunt he remained silent.
Breaching the surface was a dramatic effect of sand exploding outward and oddly enough they had managed to come right back out where the cave had originally been. In plain view of Pluto, Kagenori and now perhaps Miu if she had decided to come down after all this.
"Oh? He's... awake? When did that happen? We didn't even get to do Kites plan-- was it the attacks? No," Gaunt corrected himself unwinding his tail from Kite and allowing the youth to stand on the firm sand and look distantly at Pluto, gripping his hair with his left hand and moving those locks out of the way.
Face absent of tears, eyes closed and mouth in a firm frown.
"... You... Marine," Kite started and turned around on his heels pointing his sword at the Vice Admiral.
"Your reinforcements are gone. Whatever ship you came here in has left you and whoever else behind. Leave."
"Leave otherwise you're going to be fighting more than Pluto. And if him being asleep has given you that much trouble... imagine how difficult it's going to be when he's awake and with allies," Glaring those sinister red eyes forward Kalisto made his intent clear.
Gaunt tensed up but couldn't help let out a guffaw or two at how blatently careless Kite was with his threats. It was a relief to see he wasn't crying out of frustration but was it really wise to threaten a guy that strong? Would it even work?
"Leval... ah... We... need to retreat... inform... inform the... Vice... Mistakes were made... regroup at the base of operations."
"Regroup at Rainbase... wait for... pick up... Leval," Graves practically whispered into his transponder snails blackened speaker.
Planting the swords edge against his right shoulder and holding the pommel tightly in his head he darted his gaze left to right. The first sight he locked onto at the mouth of the tunnels was a suddenly aware Pluto and then moments later fire falling from the sky. Rather than looking up it was the remnants of a larger attack drifting to the ground, then came the sound. An explosion which got the hunter to cringe and convinced him to dart into the caves that much more quickly.
His imagination wasn't much and what worries came of absent allies now motivated him to go deeper into the hornets nest. A twisted knot in his stomach was attributed to missed opportunity and a bad omen, it was enough to get his heart drumming even louder the more he crept through the tunnels.
Sharp eyes stared into the black as pitch interior and noted movement just beyond the veil of sand. Hardly leaving time to wonder as the seconds ticked by and Kite dashed through the serpentine like routes color bloomed out from solid sand. The pale, bright nature of the flames and how they easily coasted in and out of solid material clued the hunter into immediately what they were. Heat radiated off of the motes and forced him to dodged them one by one as they spiraled out of the walls and overhead. In the darkness like this their very incandescence was an early warning, something to be thankful for considering what might've happened had Kite been touched fully by them. As more fell however it was more than just a minor inconvenience, the sand was beginning to retain that intense heat and force itself up to the topmost levels of sand. Each step was now punctuated by a hissing pop and kiss of cooler versus hot matter.
No longer exactly running Kite used the tips of his feet to dash hop forward, Slamming has hand or elbow into the wall in order to quickly alter his trajectory in the case of an overhead fire ball. The pain was comparable to grabbing a hot piece of metal or touching a stove while it was on, hardening his expression and doing his best not to string together profanity Kalisto crept ever closer to his goal.
There was a hole up ahead which despite having a wall of flames shower gently across its lips stayed darkened. Hesitating for only a moment Kite readied his sword in both hands and charged towards the door smashing into and carving out an additional space to slip into on the left side. Surprisingly almost no sand tried to fill the space once he jumped through. Casually dodging yet more overhead projectiles Kite couldn't help but have his mouth hang open a bit as he took in the sight before him.
In this artificial cavern now Illuminated by neko fire was a moon pool of sorts, some kind of lagoon that had a river feeding out the cavernous crack at the far backside of the cave. Like a crater the sandstone had lips of the pool keeping the murky blue back from the smooth cave floor. Massive pillars of sand rose into the meters high ceiling and a rush of air beckoned those within to the wound at the back. A titanic shape loomed in the pool, a kind of cocoon or chrysalis made from metal with windows dotting along various parts complete with some sort of periscope at the top. It was smooth, pill like and was far more metal than any other material.
Looking more like a contemporary model of submarine the swordsman could scarcely reason with what was in front of him, preparing for an attack when the entire thing hummed to life. Propellers on the back spun out and the periscope lodged itself into the caudal fin like extension on the top.
Relying on instinct again and due to the fact he was still in once piece it dawned on Kite that this could have been them attempting to run away despite not having either Leval or Graves in tow-- as far as he was aware. So he ran.
Pumping his arms, bent at the elbow like karate chops, he ran. Sucking in a voluminous amount of air as he did so and forcing it into his system as fast as he could. Various aches and pains were numbed once his little rhythmic breathing self-motivated his fight or flight response, called upon strength normally kept in reserve. Bending low in his sprint Kite clenched his teeth and commanded the team of his back and leg muscles to give him a jump to mount that crazy machine. Having a running start and already looming well over the average once the youth shot up to his former height he left the ground, soared up a meter or more and with wind roaring in his ears, water splashing against fluttering eyes he sunk his sword in and used the tool to climb the surface.
Tapping on the surface like he was doing was short lived. No sooner had he ascended that impressive height and stabbed his way to the top the entire structure started sinking into the pool. Kite was slow on the uptake as he hit away at the tower housing the periscope and eventually what he suspected was the latched trap door to get in. Fire that now refracted on closer water got him to look up and again issue out another impressive backwards jump that left him at the boarder of the moon pool again.
Watching the submarine sink into the waves a numbness washed over him and had his sword grip slacken.
Hanging his head in despair before briefly raising it and letting out a shout of sincere anguish. Frustration. Loathing. Hatred. All those emotions poured into his roar of a shout, ringed in his ears and got him to eventually come to his senses once it bounced back to him.
It was hot, like, thousands of times more hot than the desert had ever been. Gaunt started to regret his attempts at seeking shelter and was soon reminded of just how Miu's fire worked as it slipped through the sand and deposited itself on the ground below only to further slip inside. It got him on guard and similar to a certain swordsman he preferred his human half to being more maneuverable and dodging where he could.
Either through relaxed control on Kagenori's part or damage brought on by Miu the tunnels were unstable and several times the roofs of the tunnels collapsed leading the scorpion man to dig out his own side branches-- swimming in sand to get to his goal. Nearly suffocating several times he did eventually make it to the heart of the cave and could only do so thanks to some sort of animal letting out a roar of some sorts.
That animal was soon corrected to Kite, who the breathless man bug couldn't so much as spare a witty comeback for. He too was filled with a kind of frustrated rage when he saw the empty pool and could only figure they were late or Kalisto must have let them get away. Temptation arose as the insect rolled around in the sand as he very briefly considered abandoning the fool down here to die-- his incompetence had robbed them of their goal once again!
'No.'
'These are not... my thoughts.'
He reminded himself.
Once again banishing his intrusive thoughts through self denial Gaunt got around to feeding out his stinger through the darkness to latch onto Kite and pull him back out the way they came. He was slack in the grip and other than a twist of his head to the side to look at Gaunt he remained silent.
Breaching the surface was a dramatic effect of sand exploding outward and oddly enough they had managed to come right back out where the cave had originally been. In plain view of Pluto, Kagenori and now perhaps Miu if she had decided to come down after all this.
"Oh? He's... awake? When did that happen? We didn't even get to do Kites plan-- was it the attacks? No," Gaunt corrected himself unwinding his tail from Kite and allowing the youth to stand on the firm sand and look distantly at Pluto, gripping his hair with his left hand and moving those locks out of the way.
Face absent of tears, eyes closed and mouth in a firm frown.
"... You... Marine," Kite started and turned around on his heels pointing his sword at the Vice Admiral.
"Your reinforcements are gone. Whatever ship you came here in has left you and whoever else behind. Leave."
"Leave otherwise you're going to be fighting more than Pluto. And if him being asleep has given you that much trouble... imagine how difficult it's going to be when he's awake and with allies," Glaring those sinister red eyes forward Kalisto made his intent clear.
Gaunt tensed up but couldn't help let out a guffaw or two at how blatently careless Kite was with his threats. It was a relief to see he wasn't crying out of frustration but was it really wise to threaten a guy that strong? Would it even work?
"Leval... ah... We... need to retreat... inform... inform the... Vice... Mistakes were made... regroup at the base of operations."
"Regroup at Rainbase... wait for... pick up... Leval," Graves practically whispered into his transponder snails blackened speaker.