Dead Station (mission)

[Kazu]

Takeyashi hadn't expected such speed from Chamcham. Judging by his other teammates' reactions, they didn't know it either. It's not like he was complaining, though — the young spiderling was quite thankful for Chamcham's speedy nature. As the little lizard zipped off, Takeyashi's mind focused on the loud fighting sounds coming from the village. A rather large dust cloud was beginning to appear, which could only mean that Houjin had already started fighting the undead bandits. Takeyashi trusted Houjin to be able to take care of those small fries, while he went ahead and dealt with the true threat. He wondered what exactly it was that they were up against, but soon put it out of his mind. Making plans was basically useless without the information that Chamcham would bring them.

As they waited, a development unfolded. More lights appeared around where the green light had come from, each colored differently. Takeyashi wasn't sure whether to be concerned, intrigued, or just plain confused. "That's curious. It's almost like..." The young man's voice trailed off, mostly because he wasn't even sure what these lights were like. They were unique, and not really similar to anything else he knew of. What in the world was causing them? It was then that a thundering howl ripped through the air — like the sound of snapping wood, the sound reverberated through the air even this far away from the light's source. As Pantha spoke up, saying how it most definitely wasn't Chamcham, Takeyashi's stomach sunk a little. "That's precisely what has me worried. Whatever made that sound," a chill went over the young man's skin as he thought about the howling more, "isn't natural. We're dealing with something terrible." Pantha and Snout seemed to agree with him. Whatever it was that had made that sound, it was making everyone uneasy.

Suddenly, Chamcham came running back towards the group. White as a ghost, the little lizard shot straight up Snout's body and hid himself in the lycan's fur. Chamcham gave the young spiderling one look, and the young man knew. Something had scared their scout. Something massive and, as far as Takeyashi could tell from Chamcham's interpretive communication style, mind bending. There was something immensely unnatural going on, and Takeyashi didn't like it. The young spiderling directed his gaze back towards the lights just in time to see a fifth light shoot up into the air. A brilliant orange color, there were now five individual colors. As far as he could tell, the colors were unrelated; really though, how the hell would Takeyashi know whether they were related or not? It seemed like they would still be walking blindly into danger. "Well, looks like we're going to have to just get closer to see what's there. Whatever it is, I'm sure we can take it." Takeyashi wasn't sure how confident he was in his own words. He was trying to be as confident as possible, but that didn't change the fact that they really had no idea what they were up against. "We'll stick to the shadows, and get as close as we can. Keep your eyes open, everyone." Takeyashi would lead them towards the lights, moving from one hiding place to another. They would be as stealthy as possible, moving as close as possible. They needed a first hand account of what was going on.

 

[Takahashi Aki]

Sticking to the shadows was the smartest thing to do, but it was perhaps the only thing they could do. As they grew closer and closer, there was something there in the deep dark landscape. It was massive, and the coloured lights seemed to hover about it. There was a snarl of sorts as they approached, but women stopped to give eachother an annoyed look. The sound was not cat or canine like. It sounded reptilian. Whatever it was, it was alive - or as alive as a reanimated dead person could be. The sound died off, as the sound of snapping would could be heard. Something was moving in the dark, something was stirred. The movements were not fast, but slow.

Chamcham in all of this would emerge from Snout's head and would slap himself trying to get their attention. He did not want them going any further it seemed. He managed to get everyone's attention, but that was not before they would see the terror in question that lurked the landscape. It looked like a tree at first. A great old tree, but as the tree would have roots, the party present would not find roots that dug deep into the earth. The feet, or a lack of a better term for this tree, were crocodiles which seemed to be infused to tree itself. Vicious large crocodiles, their skin tone matching that of the tree and the bark was rotting and looked quite dead. The jaws, in which there were four of them were snapping viciously which explained one of the sounds they heard earlier. These creatures had no eyes, but empty sockets. If the spiderling were to look up, he would see what the lights were ... and that would perhaps cause him to feel a sense of dread. The lights were ... candles. The candles were in a hole of a chest, a human body which hung from a noose which hung from the branch of a tree. Five dead bodies, with holes in their chests, and in those holes were candles of the corresponding colours he had seen. The bodies were swaying in the wind, their candle light unthreatened. The tree branches would move, and with it did the bodies move too. The branches were like arms, and there were five of them. This tree monstrosity was perhaps unlike any of them had seen before.

A great and mighty roar would come from the village and something was sent flying towards them. One of the gunman or bandits had been bested by Houjin. The body slammed the ground upon impact and seemed to break into pieces. The tree responded. It lowered one of the branches, and one of the bodies seemed to come to life. The hole in the chest would be filled in, and the light disappearing. The body would make its way across to collect the equipment of the gunmen and would begin to head towards the village. The tree would then collect the body, roots and vines would emerge to collect the remains and would place the body onto another branch and one would have to assume a regeneration process would begin here. Such would be confirmed as black liquid would begin to coat the body.

What was this terror? This was indeed quite a threat, and it would confirm much of Takeyashi's theories. How could a tree be a necromancer? This was indeed the source of the village's ills. Snout was appalled by the sight and coughed up something. Pantha visibly was shaken. They were clearly out of their element here.

 

[Kazu]

"What the hell..." Takeyashi couldn't believe his eyes. Before him was a monster, completely unlike anything else that he'd ever seen. He was immensely thankful for his call to stick to the shadows — if that thing had noticed Takeyashi when he'd first spotted the creature, the Ranger in Training would have been snapped in half before he came back to his senses. Staring at the creature with a mixture of intrigue and disgust, Takeyashi managed to pull his thoughts together in order to come up with a plan to deal with this thing. "Right, tree-monster. Obviously we'll use fire jutsu, but..." It was clear that this creature was the head-boss around here, although its motivations were not entirely clear. That, however, was none of Takeyashi's concern. His mission was to save the townspeople, and that meant eliminating the necromancer tree. It was slightly worrying that the young man seemed to be in a state of sadistic joy while he contemplated how to completely eradicate this giant monster, but so long as the townspeople were saved that really didn't matter...right? Whispering to his teammates, but not taking his eyes off the monster before him, Takeyashi began to walk them through his plan. "Okay, I've got it. I'll scribe a seal with a couple of powerful fire jutsu inscribed inside of it. When I yell, release the seal like this," Takeyashi showed Pantha and Snout what to do using an example scroll, "and all the jutsu will be released. You don't need any chakra for it, so it should work no matter what for you two." Placing the scroll down, Takeyashi silently began to pour some of his chakra into the parchment. A small seal began to form on the paper. which would store within it a handful of fire jutsu which, when all released together, would hopefully produce a massively effective result. Within the seal, Takeyashi poured two justu in particular: one to provide devastating power, and one to help him escape.

With the trap now ready, Takeyashi handed over the seal to Pantha and Snout. He trusted them to get into a proper position, and to activate the seal when he gave the signal. He flashed them a smile, and gave Chamcham a light pat on the head, before he stepped out of the shadows. "Don't you worry about me, little one. I've got this all under control." Takeyahsi was certainly confident, or perhaps he was foolhardy? Either way, the six-armed shinobi would move away from his compatriots while still hidden in the shadows, and only emerge once he was safely away from his teammates. He didn't want the monster to find them as well, after all. Once he was out in the open, probably still outside of the monster's field of view, he caled out loudly to the great beast that loomed above. "Hey, tree-thing! Down here!" Takeyashi waved up at the creature as well, so that he would be sure that the thing would see him. He waited for the monster to turn around and see him, obviously wanting the beast to know who it was that had destroyed it. Calm and collected, and yet obviously ready for a fight, Takeyashi squared his shoulders and spoke up again. "As I understand it, you've been terrorizing a village around here. That is unacceptable, so I've come to deliver punishment to you. Tell me your name, so that I tell the tale of your demise across all of the lands!" Takeyashi was seriously cocky right now. However, egging the creature on was his strategy. No matter whether you were or weren't human, anger was always a distraction. From the smallest rodent to the greatest monster, anger led to sloppy mistakes. Takeyashi was betting on that. He would goad the monster until it fell into his trap.

"Do you even have a name, or should I simply call you 'Ugly'?"