Dauntaun Blues

[Burgundy]

On an overcast day amidst the smoggy isle of Dauntaun, a boat struck ashore – a small vessel containing only two inhabitants. A man and a dog. The man's hair was a wild tangled mane of crimson, knotted and dried with salty sea breeze. His dog's short hair was a bit ruffled by rolling waves, not terribly different from how it would look with a bit of one on one time with a brush.

"Kukukuku.... kukuKAKAKAKAKA!!!"

A strange sound akin to laughter emanated from the vessel. Or perhaps it simply was laughter, it would be difficult to tell, especially since their food supply had run dry a few days ago and the man was probably a bit silly from hunger. No, it was simply a breathing method he was using to stave off the pangs that came with it, which only intensified now that a glimmer of hope existed.

The man peeled his salty self off of the surface of the dinghy and stumbled out onto shore, his landlegs taking a moment to kick in nearly causing him to topple. The dog followed suit though rather than showing any signs of clumsiness, his quadrupedal form was ideal for shifting surface stability. He simple shook the salt from his fur and looked up at the man with a look that conveyed modest exasperation.

The red-maned expeditioner would look ahead to the island before him, and notice big buildings, a metropolis. It felt somewhat familiar to the town he grew up in. "Well, Grant. We made it to shore. Let's split up and look for food before proceeding. No point carrying on with an empty stomach," he'd say to his companion. The doberman, named Grant, would let out a kurt, affirmative *Woof* and then trotted off to the left, to scavenge around the rural area.

Left alone now, the young man would begin trekking toward the large buildings. He was bigger now, so begging would be more difficult. He wondered quietly as he made tracks if perhaps somebody would accep chores for a meal ticket or something. That would be the ideal, especially if he could get a meal up-front. The city wasn't a terribly far walk, perhaps a half mile or so. It would have been a faster run, but the stranger to these lands wasn't in a physical condition to go all-out yet. That much would have to wait, for now.

[Kami-Gaz]

A city blanketed in a toxic smog was something that was so alien and new in this world that Mika had been woken up to that she didn’t believe such a place existed. Alas, lo and behold it did! Tall towers of glass and metal, smoke coming out from every building and choking up the streets. It was amazing but awful at the same time. A wonder the innocent dog just really could not wrap her entire head around. How could a place with so much be so dirty?

Ever since she had arrived on a ferry a few days ago the young angel had noticed a few things whilst milling about the island in her hybrid form. One thing was that she stood out like a beacon in the darkness. Due to the toxic nature of the very air of the island and the nature of her own abilities the faint halo that was barely noticeable above her head burned with a bright white flame as it dripped its healing salts. Her wings had a similar effect, the thin layer of salt they produced was constantly burning with that white purifying flame. This gave Mika the benefit of being completely fine on the island and not made sick.

Over the few days people would flock to see what was going on, marvel at the girl who was on fire and some crazy people would try and tough it… well when they did, they were immolated for a few seconds as the toxins that were in their body burned away leaving those people feeling amazing. After that people started giving the dog money just to touch her wings for ‘healing’.

---

Now… Mika was sat on the pier with a large crowd of people surrounding her. They were until recently all clamouring to get closer to the girl, wanting to get their chance at being ‘healed.’ That was until Mika stood up and took her towering full form. “STOP!” She had bellowed, her towering form now accompanied by two large white flame wreathed arms, more wings coming from her back and two burning faces on either side of her real one. “You’re all really loud!” She carried on over the silence before flapping her many wings and taking flight.

“I’ll be back later I need to go and get something to eat.” She called down, the falling salt particles washing over those who were nearby. One of her real hands clasped around a big bag of money… something she never had a lot of before. She darted down the dock towards a quieter part of town before landing on the ground and returning to her hybrid state.

“People are so weird… Like why do they always do weird things when I show my wings?” She asked herself as she began a long slow stroll down the dock front, letting her canine sense of smell guide her. There was an amazing smell coming from not to far from where she had landed, that would be a good place to eat.

[Burgundy]

It was strange. Landing on an island with a stomach empty as the void really made it difficult to take reality at face-value. For instance, it felt like a dream to have landed on an island with so much development. He'd never seen such large buildings before, and he'd certainly never experienced such a disgusting atmosphere. The reality and his hunger were enough to make his head spin.

The red maned adventurer had meandered into the urban section of the island after some time, maybe fifteen minutes or perhaps an hour; time was difficult to gauge. It was rather quiet, to the point where he couldn't yet shake off how otherworldly this city seemed to him just yet. What certainly didn't help was happening to walk past a tall young woman with a pair of angel wings. 'An angel?' he wondered idly to himself. He'd stared for a moment while processing what it was he was looking at, before shaking his head and rubbing his tummy in a futile attempt to calm his metabolism down before it killed him.

If he was seeing angels he truly must have been on death's doorstep.

He continued walking, without giving the winged lass another look, because if he knew anything about angels, it was that they whisked people away to the afterlife. It wasn't his time yet, and he wasn't going to let his dispute with Grant be decided by a battle of empty stomachs, will, and fortune. The only divine messenger he needed was a sign that said 'restaurant'.

And that was thankfully not terribly far away. Except... Well his ears caught something in an alleyway not too far away, a familiar sound. The sound of somebody getting absolutely thrashed. His stomach begged for food, but his mind immediately knew he had other business to attend to, and sharpened to the task at hand.

The adventurer turned a corner and would look upon the scene. A small man in a suit, kicking an average-sized man in a suit curled up on the ground, with a nearby larger man just sorta looming over him. "You see what you get when you don't pay back the overtime, Jeeves?" said the smaller man between kicks. The middling man whimpered as he was mauled, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, please..."

Well this certainly wouldn't do.

"Hey!" shouted the adventurer, sticking his nose into some business that wasn't his to stick his nose into. The small man and the large man would stop for a moment, and look over at him, the small man giving a sort of questioning grunt before asking, "Eh? The hell are you? Can't you see we've got some business here?"

The audacious young man prone to not minding his eyes, would simply raise a fist with an extended thumb up to his chest and with much bravado would announce, "The name's Cosmo, and I'm really hungry. Stop beating this guy up so I can eat in good conscience."

The small man would get an agitated look on his face, which was understandable cuz some dumbass was literally appealing to the better nature of a loan shark. "Good conscience? In this city? How's about I meet you halfway and make you un-conscience?" the smaller man would offer rhetorically, cracking his knuckles.

Suddenly, he had two men bearing down upon him, while he was on too empty a stomach to run away. Cosmo would sigh with a resigned look on his face, before a fist promptly planted itself into it, knocking him against the wall next to him. A foot then shot squarely into his ribs, and another fist caught him once more in the face before he finally bounced off the wall and fell to the ground.

Cosmo might have brought this upon himself, but he was made of sturdier stuff than whoever that was slumped onto the ground over there. The small man went about pummeling him while the big man loomed overhead, but honestly, this guy's fists didn't hurt as much as his hunger did. "Stick your nose in our business when you can't even protect yourself? You got a deathwish or are you just stupid?" berated the smaller man who was still attacking him, while he just sat there and took it, his expression not really changing, nor was he responding in any entertaining way. He didn't start a fight, as much as he wanted to, he was just gonna take his beating and carry on. He still had matters to settle with Grant, and until then, he could start no other fights.

He wondered what would happen first? Would this little guy get bored, or would he die of starvation?

[Kami-Gaz]

Mika couldn’t help the salt on her wings and halo bursting into a bright white holy flame in this smoggy air, she did do her best to muffle and reduce the overall area by folding her wings up against her back. The halo she could do noting with, it was not really there, she could nudge it but never truly cover it. After the first day she had stopped trying, it had just drawn people too her anyway. It was quite funny how shiny stuff attracted people.

The angel had a soft smile as she bounced the large sack of money in her hands, her walk wasn’t quiet, her large canine ears were flicking at all the sounds in the area, even the faint one’s normal people could not normally pick up. The subtle growls of the red-haired man’s stomach. The hushed commotion around the corner not far behind her. The waves crashing in the distance. The world was constantly in motion. The smell she was following was oh so close… but her sense of right was tingling.

If that red haired man was having a grumbly stomach, she would be a bad dog for not helping him with food… A moment passed as she stopped in place and turned back to see his form vanishing into the smoggy mist and rounding a corner. He seemed to be heading to the commotion that was happening. ‘If I help him and stop the commotion, I’ll be a super-duper good girl!’ She thought to herself, pulling her thoughtful face into a super massive grin.

Without hesitation she shifted her weight and began to run after the red man, running as fast as she could. Mika was excited to be helpful and use this money stuff she had no real concept of how to use to get food. Normally she just wandered around as a dog and people would give her good scraps… but today? No, she would be making her own scraps to eat. “I’m here to help!” She announced happily before stopping in her tracks to see red man on the floor.

The angel frowned. This was not good. People hurting innocent hungry people? This was bad… really bad. A growl rumbled from Mika’s throat as her form shifted yet again, from the hybrid form she had grown accustomed too to her full form. She had grown to easily twelve feet tall, and gained a second set of arms made purely out of this burning salt. Each side of her face was set alight by masks made of salt and her wings grew and split to form three pairs of flaming wings.

“Leave him alone!” She bellowed, a booming voice coming from her as she approached as a true vision of holy fury.

[Burgundy]

It was a strange sort of day. Angels were usually messengers of some sort, or escorts to heaven. Yet here one was getting involved in stuff that wasn't even his business let alone hers. 'What an idiot...' he thought to himself hypocritically for a moment, though if he were being honest with himself, he was having trouble processing what was going on at all.

The thug who had been successfully distracted from his shakedown, however, was very well-fed and yet he was seeing the same thing. Hearing the same booming voice, and witnessing the same face of divine wrath. "What in the hell!?" the man exclaimed somewhat ironically, "I don't get paid enough for this!" With that, the tall and short men would book it like a pair of wanted felons on the lam. Thus Cosmo was left alone with a towering angelic form and a crying man on the ground.

The hungry redhead would sigh as his stomach growled angrily, standing himself up with a bit of bruising, but rolling his neck to release some tension, rubbing his shoulder with a free hand. "Okay fine..." he began, clearly a bit agitated that his hallucination wasn't a hallucination, "I guess I'll ask. What business does an angel have with a guy like me?" He would stare down the face of holy wrath with a somewhat disinterested look on his face, "Am I dying or not?"

[Kami-Gaz]

As the goons made their departure the visage of holy fury watched them, her eyes in a piercing gaze. When they were gone, she let out a big sigh and a calm smile appeared on her real face. The burning salt ones on each side of it being still. That situation was dealt with now, being big and commanding like a master was so draining! Especially when she had such an empty stomach.

In a poof her form shifted back down to something far smaller, the masks of salt vanished as did the extra pair of arms and her wings returned to just being the single pair. The calm smile she had on her sterner form seemed to be far friendlier and happier in this hybrid form, as such her tail was wagging side to side softly and her dog like ears were perked up.

“Business? I don’t sell anything…” She spoke not understanding the saying straight away. “I was looking to get something to eat but then I heard people in trouble so I came to help!” Mika spoke, clearing up this silly persons notions that she wanted him for something. “You’re not dying today!” She finally added before thrusting her hand out as if waiting for a hand shake.

“Paw?” She asked, remembering when she was taught the trick and seeing everyone do it when they met. This human was silly, but not as silly as all those other ones that flocked to her and got on their knees. They weren’t playing but praying, or so they said.

“I’m Mika! Mika Gooddog.” She announced with a great big smile, flexing her wings out as she did to illuminate the entire alleyway in a fantastic light. 

[Sam]

*Pant, Pant*

*Wheeze*

*Pant, Pant*

Lucien sat down, his legs shaking... that trek through the sea had taken a toll on him... and it didn't help that his encounter in Cinna Island had left him wounded. Sitting on his galley fit for a giant he removed his breastplate revealing a simple white-tunic underneath. Grimacing and clenching his teeth he removed the shirt, it didn't help that the shirt was sticking to him as he removed it, underneath it all he found bandages sputtered with dry blood.

Well, at least the bleeding had stopped for now. But the pain remained, peaking underneath the bandages he saw the makeshift stitching of the massive wound on his chest. It was gaping, a slash from the axe of another of his kin that had cleaved right into him when he least expected it. Purple bruising around the edges of the wound made Lucien's head spin. He'd seen plenty of wounds on the battlefield.

But there was something odd, about seeing the same kind of near-mortal wound on yourself that changed things. He just hoped it wasn't infected, a wound of this size infected would spell almost certain death for him. The little people didn't have the right equipment to dispose of an infection on someone of his size. Whatever the case may be one thing was certain, he was at less than half his power right now and would likely be so until the wound finally healed.

Where he was could shatter buildings like glass, rend steel like a ferocious beast, or crumble stone into sand... he simply couldn't do that in his state. That level of exertion would be enough to open the wounds. He couldn't as much as crumble stone without accidentally hurting himself.

"Hopefully this island has a physician willing to tend my wounds.

Looking up the blue-haired Titan looked at the island ahead, he had noticed that the sun was no longer beating on his neck. No, this place was dark. But it wasn't the darkness of night that shrouded this land. Nor was it the darkness of some sort of black magic. Nay, this was the work of something else. He knew that smog, it was the smog of a smith's forge but tenfold that. Could there be a giant smith in this land? Certainly, it was hard to believe that the little folk, the demi-giants as Lucy often called them... could produce this much smog or operate a massive smithy. He had heard rumors of the giantess he was following, the red-headed woman with emerald eyes.

That one yes, apparently she was a smith of sorts. A lady of the forge. It was more than what Lucien could say for work, he was a combatant and a strategist. A genius commander of legions and heir to the Laurent House's Fortune! One day he'd be crowned Grand Duke of the Laurent Estate. Or he once was at least. Lucien had long left that life behind. To him, there was nothing left for him back home, not after those savages took it all. The large man let out a sigh and looked at his bandaged hand. Get up now... or rest for a few seconds? He had some decisions to make.

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Sir Lucien |French Blue #0072BB | (Post Count: 1)

[Kami-Gaz]

Some time had passed since Mika had saved the red-haired man and let him wander off. She had returned to her original dog form and was trotting along the dock, looking for a place to eat. Why were there no places open?! What had happened, just a little earlier this dock front was alive with the smells and sounds of people cooking food. It cannot have just been her imagination… the last time she had gotten this hungry she had been flying between islands and had to rest for two nights! TWO! The people who had given her food said she had enough for a week but that was gone by the morning of the second.

The doggo had failed to notice the looming dark mass of the giants ship drifting close to the dock, but after a while she smelt blood… bad blood. The pup stopped in her tracks and sniffed the air, and felt where it was coming from. “WHERE DID THAT COME FROM?!” She exclaimed, obviously surprised and scared for her tiny little boat that was left tied to a lamppost near by.

In a sudden movement she shifted to her twelve foot tall full form and beat all of her wings, the salt that it produced and coated them blazing a bright white holy flame of purification in the toxic smog. “Someone needs help!” She exclaimed, flying over to the ship at full speed. Whoever was on that boat needed help, the most she could do was purify the wounds and fight off any bad people that caused them.

She flew in an arc, her flaming wings, halo and side faces a beacon in the murky haze of smog. People on the island that could see her started to gather and watch the figure fly to the giant ship, fly to a problem that they wanted gone. Giants here were a sign of trouble…

[Sam]

It didn't take much time before the little people started to congregate around Lucien's boat. They looked up in awe and fear. At first, Lucy had been surprised at their reactions when he first arrived at the blues. But eventually, he got used to the fearful looks of the small ones. It was understandable, the average human couldn't do anything to a giant. That wasn't to say the little ones were weak.

No... Lucien knew better than that. Humans were dangerous, perhaps more dangerous than giants... they dominated the planet after all. Their ability to reproduce at a rapid rate and construct things at high speeds because of their meager lifespans made them act in a rush. They developed so fast and with such coordination. It was like watching ants at work. Yes, humans were like ants. To a degree. But despite their strengths, they had shortcomings. Humanity's biggest enemy was themself. Quick to build as they were to dismantle.

Their destructive nature knew no bounds and Lucy knew this well. So he was careful with them. You never knew when an exceptional warrior would find his way to the top and challenge even a giant's might. That said, it was for that very reason that humans were to be subjugated and dominated. To put it lightly, humanity was incapable of caring for itself. They were children. Barbaric little children, who were amusing to Lucy in the same vane that a puppy is amusing to a man.

It was for that reason that Lucien had set out to sea, he wanted to be a protector. If even his land could suffer attacks such as those of the giants of Elbaf. Raids that left land untouchable for generations... where only ash permeated? Then, the same could happen to humanity. Ruffians! They were about in the lands of man and Lucy was here to weed them out because clearly, the World Government couldn't. He would be the savior of mankind! A saint herald for many generations. That's how he'd go down in history. 'Shining' Lucien Laurent! Bringer of the Dawn! Vanquisher of Darkness! He who would bring judgment to the heathens that's plagued the earth like maggots clinging to an apple.

"Heh?"

The musings of the blue haired giant were cut short, there was something off. The smog, it was thinning and a radiant light showed before him. That's when he saw it, small it was... but clear as the light of day itself. An angel? Winged it was, with the visage of a woman... not quite what Lucien envisioned with such creatures. Less so did he expect to be visited by one, like the saints of old? Peculiar.

"Hail, beast of heaven! What brings you before my presence? What can a humble servant of Holy Mara do for you on this fine day?"

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Lucien | French Blue #0072BB | (Post Count: 2)

[Kami-Gaz]

Beast? BEAST? Mika was a good dog, not a beast! The Seraphim frowned as she approached, her flight path coming to a stop a few feet from the giants face so she could get a good look at his face and examine his body. That was when she could smell the old and bad blood that was prevalent around his wound. That was one good thing being a dog could help with… smelling bad things that should not be around a person, or giant. “You talk funny big man!” She shouted, he was so loud so she must be loud so the big fellow could hear him.

Her flight was a hover now, her eyes inspecting the big man from up high. That was it… his chest had a gaping wound on it and ratter bandages covering it. She frowned and looked at the big man and drifted closer to his face, flaming wings flapping hard. “Are you a bad man?!” She asked in a bellow, a shout that came from the depths of her gut. It was booming and loud and would rattle windows if there were any close enough.

“Did you get this from a fight?!” She asked again, she wanted to know if this enormous man was bad before doing anything to help him… She was going to help him either way she just needed to know if she needed to knock him out and get the good people and their police dogs to come and take him to what they called… the dog house. It’s a confusing name for sure that one.

[Sam]

The angel made a point, an odd one by Lucy's standards. He didn't think he spoke weird. That was a bit rude on the divine beast's part but Lucien would not object instead he crossed his arms and looked down on her. There was certainly more that she would say, no? That's when she inquired. Was Lucien a bad man?

"Nay! I am not a bad man, I am a noble knight of Alturia! I go here and there purging evil with divine fury!"

Lucien proclaimed! Getting to excited for his own good as he raised his voice. The ordeal causing him to cough up some blood, the giant groaned in pain. Putting one hand over his mouth as he lurched forward, closing his eyes. No... a true chivalrous knight couldn't show such weakness. This was most embarrassing, he leaned back and took a deep breath. His face, softening up ever so slightly as it picked up strays rays of flaxen sunlight.

"Yes, I fought another of my kind. A tyrant with a large axe! I defeated him, but not without him cleaving into me."

Lucy explained, pointing at the area of the wound from which the scent of death emanated.

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Sir Lucien | French Blue #0072BB | (Post Count: 3)