Chronicles of Gaia (RP)

"Sounds like you'd be useful in any team" says Maiya, thinking of her as a mix between Yusuke's Goemon and Ryuji's Captain Kidd. "A persona with two elemental attacks, huh. In our group the only one who can do that is our leader, Minato. He can use many personas though, for whatever reason." Says Shoya, thinking of the apathetic blue boy who lead them through their trips into Tartarus. "Wait, your leader does that too? So does Joker!" Says Maiya, eyes lighting up at the thought of her black haired dork of a leader. She was fascinated with the parallels each of their world had, envisioning Joker with an evoker like Shoya. They both turn to look at Lynn, already half expecting her leader to be the same. Either way, their interest in each other's leaders was peaked. However long this conversation could last, it was fascinating enough to temporarily forget the dire situation they found themselves in.

Aislin gave Rikazu a grateful smile; while she was nursing a dry throat from talking too much, she was also emotionally worn from the subject at hand. This had been rather hard, both for her to admit to others, and also to talk about it in a way that they could comprehend. She may need to stick to the "manipulate time and space to watch events on other worlds" spiel for anyone else they might meet. The train ride passed without further event, the four exiting out onto the station where Kahlua promptly snagged a map from the rack of brochures nearby. Aislin merely pointed out where they were now, where their end destination was, and thus they began the walk to HQ... or at least as close as they could while avoiding the whispers and fights on the streets that is.

Back on the ground and no longer needing to be concerned about the crushing of a sector, Ama appeared to slump slightly, the flickering between her current and 'new' selves happening rather rapidly before stopping back on her current again, said flickering having ironically aided in the restoration of her voice, "Sooner I get out of here the better off I'll be, new version is relentless, lacks the power but shares that stubborn streak..." Straightening up, a hand on her neck as it a made a cracking sound with the movement, she turned to look around, "Last Train has already gone, we need to get up topside, and my credentials won't work yet, egh." Celere thought about flying up, she wasn't restricted and could do so, but the spectacle would be impossible to explain, and the truck was out of gas so there was no way they could just ride up on a motorway or something, "These pillars and whatever, did they have any emergency maintenance shafts or something? During construction surely they needed a way to access the innards from both ends right?"

Aislin leaned against a non-wavering wall in an alley, trying to catch her breath. Well, metaphorically at least. She looked over at the others in her group: Kahlua was nursing his side from where he had been slammed against a lamppost, Rikazu was checking to make sure no one else was nearby, and Kudret was currently limping from the previous fight. The four of them were practically next to Shinra HQ... well, what could be seen of it from the bands of Whispers circling it. Aislin walked over to Kudret and kneeled, whispering, "What's wrong?" "Something's in my paw, I can not get it out," the lion replied, keeping the paw in question raised to prevent further discomfort. Aislin simply plopped down next to him on the ground, pulling out from her bag the med kit she had snitched from a broken house. All the people in it were dead; judging from the scorch marks, someone had tried to use Lightning Materia and the backlash had destroyed the place. She pulled out the tweezers and then carefully turned his paw up so she could see. "This will hurt," she warned before getting to work on pulling out the glass she could. If she couldn't find all the slivers, she may have to utilize the scissors...

---

Kahlua rubbed his side with a grimace. That last fight was certainly not a good one, involving no less than ten other people that decided to try jumping the bystanders instead of finishing off each other. Aislin at least had stayed out of the way by virtue of staying put out of sight while the three boys ventured forth. The potion had eased the pain, though not completely. Speaking of... "Hey, Aislin, didn't Ama want you to call her?" he called softly, making sure to not be heard outside of their group. Aislin stopped what she was doing and gave him a glare. Kahlua just stared blandly back, to which she huffed and placed Kudret's paw into her lap. Pulling out the phone and dialing, she proceeded to set it down next to her after pressing a couple more buttons and picked up Kudret's paw once more. After a couple of heard rings, it clicked. Aislin told it curtly, "We're in an alleyway in view of Shinra HQ. There's small bands of Whispers floating about the immediate area. Try to be careful on your way up." She paused, and then added blandly, "You did say to call when we got there." Kahlua couldn't help but snort at the mildly concerned tone coloring her words.

Ama's phone rang and her pick was hurried and irritable, she sighed as it went back into her pocket, the way her head slowly turned unnerved Toré a little bit, but neither he or the other had time to react to anything as she grabbed them by the throat, a wash of blue-green obscuring their vision for a brief moment before they emerged somewhere else, Ama walking up to the alleyway Aislin was and leaning against a wall by the entrance, "Keep an eye out, things are obviously rough up in this district, makes sense considering the monstrosity we'll need to penetrate..." she hated the sight of this thing, even in her own younger years, as hard as they were to recall, it'd been a compound of no more than three floors, this was something her stomach really hated the sight of, "I can see why certain groups of interest wanted this thing gone." Toré was spluttering, having apparently swallowed whatever fluid he'd been dragged through, Celere meanwhile took her time to observe her surroundings, an uneasiness falling over her, "A pinnacle of human ingenuity, wasted like this while those below continue to suffer in the murk, that's not what we're here for though." she took her place on the opposite side of the alleyway entrance, arms crossed with a hand quietly humming as it held onto to her energy, slowly pulsating like a heartbeat, an idea had come to mind, an extra use for potential energy constructs, if she could replicate it here in the same manner her energy functioned back in the world she was otherwise stuck on... she could probably extend herself a few days, maybe a week.

Rikazu hadn't quite expected a fight on this large a scale, though with all the chaos surrounding them the male couldn't exactly say he was surprised. Either way it was a good opportunity to see if he could use his magic freely with the whole materia trick they had done earlier. After knocking out several people the mage stayed a small distance away from the alley, wanting to ensure nobody would follow them there. Somehow he felt like this wouldn't be the end of their fighting here. Lynn put a finger to her chin after hearing both the leaders of Maiya's and Shoya's groups used multiple persona's. "Yeah, Yu does that too, I think he called it the power of the 'Wild Card' or something?" she mused while thinking. "He had some crazy powerful ones too...wonder what the deal with that is, what makes them special?" (God, writer's block and lack of time is really nagging at me...)

Some time had passed before any of the three moved once more, Ama sliding into the alley without so much as a sound, regardless of how she found Aislin and the other, they were running low on that ever-decreasing thing called 'time', she could positively feel the oncoming personal schism growing more potent by now and more disturbingly, she was starting to hold conversations with her other self in her own head, somehow, someway, she needed to be the one that came out on top, but she refused to do so with violence, easier said than done when the other kept attempting to put a bullet through her skull in these mindscapes, she left the beast side there to keep the other half at bay while she began to verbally converse, "Alright, how we holding up here? Aislin, need you to tell how to go about this, I know rough interiors of the place, but how to get in I don't have the first clue..." she shuffled awkwardly on her feet, eyes looking off to the side at someone only she could see, and the muttering of 'What is your problem... Just quiet down in there already' far from inaudible.

In the short time that had passed since Ama, Celere, and Toré arrived, Aislin had finished pulling out all the slivers of glass from Kudret's paw and fixed it up with a bit of Potion. She thankfully hadn't been forced to use scissors, though it was a close call there. Once that was done, she had again peered out to the towering building, running through her mind what she needed to remember. Aislin paid attention once more when Ama spoke, looking over at her, or more specifically, her uniform. "We go in through the front." She replied in a slight rush, thoughts and ideas coming together in a snap as a plan fit itself together in her mind. "You look like one of theirs with that uniform on, so it'll be easy to just waltz in, take a keycard, and head to the elevator. That thing doesn't go up all the way, so we'll have to leg it up some stairs from there. We'll need a new keycard to get to the 65th floor, that's part of Hojo's domain I'm sorry to say. Once we get through that it's a straight shot to the President's Office and right there is the roof." "Hold on a minute, are you saying we can literally bluff our way up?" Kahlua demanded, to which she met his eyes squarely and said in an almost forceful tone, "Yes." The male blinked, a little taken aback and then shrugged. "Okay, whatever you say then." Aislin could tell the nonchalance in his tone was forced, but she couldn't be bothered to answer to it now. They didn't have much time left; she could almost sense it. Though that may also be the fact that the soundtrack in her mind had switched to a song titled Hurry Up!.

Ama pinched a piece of her clothing and stretched it forward, "This thing?" she was stock still for a moment, clearly incapable of connecting the dots that were clear as day to just about anyone else who'd spent a modicum of time here, "Ah whatever, let's get moving, just stay quiet and if Aislin's right, I'll be able to talk our way upwards." she turned and walked out of the alley, still holding her attire forward with a quizzical expression, only letting go of it when back to her position against a wall, waiting for the rest to get out. Toré's head hurt, he felt the souls swirling around, the pain the majority were in, and it took a few moments to filter out the voices he kept hearing in his head, one particular voice gave a warning to him however, about an entity higher up in the building that loomed menacingly overhead, "I'll meet up with you on a higher floor, I'm going solo for a bit, something I need to examine before you get there." no response could be given before he blended into the crowd of people around, no-one noticing a lab coat going missing from a duffel bag, no-one noticing the apparent apprentice of an 'esteemed' doctor heading to work, Toré was getting a little too much guidance from that voice he was listening to.

Aislin did not glance up when Toré walked past, only offering a "Beware the woman in red; she likes to torture pretty boys," while rearranging the items in her bag to make sure the potions and status heals were on top. Once finished, she walked out to join Ama, standing a solid two paces behind her and one to the left. If anyone dared to ask, she'd admit to having walked like this behind someone many times before.

---

Kudret tested his paw a few times before settling his full weight down. He was still marveling at how... easy it was for Aislin to simply hold the glass shards she picked out, as if she held no fear of getting them stuck in her own flesh. For that matter, to admit that without her glasses she couldn't clearly see the end of the alleyway, yet with them on pick out small glinting shards... *It seems she will continue to find ways to surprise us, cub. I'm looking forward to meeting her in person.* Kudret said nothing in response, letting his emotions speak for themselves as he walked out to join the two girls.

---

Kahlua rolled one of the empty materia between his hands, studying it. It really did feel like he was simply rolling a crystal from home; Aislin was more right than he had thought. He shook his head and pocketed it, intent on following the others. He could see Rikazu crossing over to where the group was beginning to gather; looks like other than Toré, everyone who had come in was there. They were ready to go.