Braving The Elements [Shuhei & Sworbet]

A pair of crimson hues looked around, a mix of disgust and annoyance sparking through them. Talonia. She had lived here for a couple of months back when she was guildless and knew the town like the back of her hand. The small alleyways. The loudness. The bars. The smell of alcohol. The taverns. The drunk, lust-filled looks. Yeah, this was Talonia alright and she did not miss it at all. There was many occasions when she had to kick several men in the crotches for following her around when she was shopping for rare goods in the black market. Being a famous Noble came with a price, in this case having illegal photos of you being sold around to magazines and newspapers.

A star-filled night sky revealed itself as they walked out of Talonia. They... simply thinking about the fact that she, Duchess Havoc, was going on a mission with another guild member made her feel rather weird. It also made her curious about how guildmates were supposed to treat each other. Glancing over to where her partner was she attempted to pinpoint what she knew about him. Shuhei Kisaragi was Blue Pegasus's attractive ex-guildmaster. The white-haired male was friendly, but polite at the same time and was apparently known as a womanizer. He had also constructed the gorgeous Guild Halls. Focusing her attention back on the sky, Rae let a small sigh of relief escape her glossy lips. Nighttime was her home, it was when the darkness thrived and her powers were at its full potential. Her companion asked her, breaking the silence. "It is quite fine indeed." She replied back to him politely as she ran a hand through her long, blood-colored hair. Unfortunately the beauty of the calm hours of darkness did not last even a moment longer as thunder and lighting tore through the sky, quickly followed by a downpour of rain."You know, I was feeling a little parched."  Amusement flashed briefly through the Duchess' eyes as she looked back at Shuhei. He somehow seemed to be enjoying himself.

With a sigh, the devil ran a hand through her soaked hair. She was drenched and did not enjoy the rain at all as her bodysuit tended to become heavy, stick even more to her body and slow her movements down a bit. Last time she had to wear it when it was drenched was when she was swimming away from a pack of sharks, and she took it off back then in order to move faster. A strong wind began to blow as well, making the ability to see just marvelous for the pair. Shuhei seemed to happily accept these conditions, which was completely the opposite to Rae who just really wished for them to change. "It's good that you're enjoying the weather but we need to focus on our mission." The Duchess told the male in her usual monotone voice as she crossed her arms across her chest. At that moment the rain stopped. Rae could only raise an eyebrow as the wind seemed to cease as well. Warm, dry air took over the previous cool one and clouds hid the endless canvas of stars. The temperatures started increasing at abnormal speeds, quickly reaching to around 35 degrees Celsius, which was quite unnatural for even the hottest of countries during their nighttime. Color rapidly drained off of the devil's face, making her look paler than usual. She felt sick. It was simply the way hot temperatures affected her. "We should get to the source of these weird weather disturbances." She muttered before she took in a deep breath of air, attempting to ignore her weakened condition. This was a job, and when the noble was on a job her body conditions did not matter. She had ignored the sickness before, she could do it again. She just needed to focus on something other than her pain.

Cold. It was true that in a logical sequence that would be what followed after the extreme heat. Normally the Duchess would be quite happy with freezing weather- her body felt good, somewhat at home. It probably had something to do with her heritage on her father's side of the family, he tended to never go out to work during the summer but was always the first one leaving the mansion during winter time. This time however she was drenched and wet hair and cold air did not go well together. The noble scanned Shuhei's frame as he looked ahead of them, his tone of voice was for once sounding serious as he seemed to look for a solution to their upcoming problem. Rae nodded as he told her what he could see through the now quickly rising fog, if they didn't want to possibly catch a cold or some other sickness they really did need to move fast. As the air temperatures suddenly started dropping the red-haired female felt an arm sneak around her waist. She could only blink as she found herself face-to-face with her partner, her crimson hues met his emerald green ones. He winked at her prior to giving her a quick apology for their situation. Before the Duchess could protest to his actions however a dazzling light overwhelmed her and her body felt weird. She couldn't exactly describe it but for a brief moment she felt nothing, then the heiress heard an annoying screeching noise and felt her body come to connect with something solid.

Rubbing her eyes a bit before looking around, Rae found herself on the metal floor of what appeared to be, as had Shuhei said, a drilling station. Standing up and dusting herself she glared at her partner. The crimson-haired mage had mixed feelings towards what had just happend- First of all, she was amazed at how fast the Blue Pegasus wizard had transported them into a shelter which no normal human would be able to see through those foggy conditions. Secondly, she was annoyed at how she found herself on the cold steel floor. The Duchess could understand that in order for him to use his magic on the both of them he had to hold her close, but she couldn't forgive him for her landing spot. "I appreciate the ride but next time please do improve on the parking." The devil hissed at the tan male before her cold gaze scanned around the drilling site. It wasn't small. Looking at the steel beam from afar, she noticed that it had a weird opening which was connected to a half-open pipe that led further into the facility. Her black heels clicked as she walked over to the pipe and nimbly climbed to its top, inspecting it closely. Crouching down she picked up it's contents, observing their crystalline properties. "Lacrimas?" She muttered/asked quietly before glancing back at Shuhei blankly. As a noble , the Havoc heiress was confused at how drilling happened in general, she had read about it briefly in books and newspapers but it had clearly not been enough. Despite that, it was easy to put two and two together and figure out what had caused the earthquake which disturbed the god's shrine. "It appears we have our culprit." The red-haired female said calmly as she traced a large crack in the earth's surface with her crimson hues. If they were to follow that it would probably lead them to the shrine of the god.

Rae was drawn out of her focus by a rather grouchy-sounding voice. Her crimson eyes redirected their attention to the figure of a small, bearded man who was holding a rather dangerous object. He called the team of mages "Thieves" making the Duchess raise an eyebrow at him as he approached Shuhei in an aggressive manner. She was slightly annoyed at the automatic assumptions of the human, who had now presented himself as uncle Ben but said nothing as her companion looked back at her and managed to handle the situation in a friendly manner. As Ben lowered his weapon the devil let out a sigh of relief which appeared to be somewhat synchronized with her partners'. They had both slipped off the hook. " The pleasure is all mine, Ben. And it's completely alright. I understand how important your property must be to you so it's only natural that you protect it." Rae said in her usual monotone voice, but smiled and curtsied at uncle Ben, just to make sure her comment sounded more convincing. Through her eyes it was visible that she didn't care a bit and just wanted to get on with her job, but her noble heritage would not allow her to just brush off a commoner. Commoners were the building blocks of the industry, they did all of the production work and she was the one who had to sell it's quality to the neighboring kingdoms. If the commoners were unhappy, they wouldn't work, and Fiore would loose a large amount of profit.

"Have you, by any chance, come across a weird shrine or some sort of ruins recently? As my partner mentioned earlier, we are looking for it." The female asked politely, glancing at Shuhei when she said the word "partner." Usually she would've used the word teammate as it was more appropriate. Dismissing the weird factor, Rae gave yet another fake smile as she heard Ben's answer to her question. "Aye, I did happen' ta stumble across something of that sort a couple of days ago." The commoner said, running a hand down his beard a couple of times before turning to the direction of their objective. "Would ye like me ta lead ye to there?" A mere commoner? Lead her? The notion sounded ridiculous to Duchess and caused her to want to get rid of the geezer as fast as possible. Usually she would've quickly taken him up on that offer but for some reason, her pride wasn't allowing her to do so. The decision wasn't solely hers to make either and thus Rae found herself looking for Shuhei's opinion. Her crimson hues met with the emerald ones of the tan mage, he didn't seem like the type to mind for such little matters. "I suppose we wouldn't mind a guide to the ruins..." She said coolly, sticking to her noble manners of not rejecting anything that could potentially benefit her, well, them. If Ben could indeed get them to their objective in the fastest way possible she would allow him to do so. Running a hand through her wet crimson locks she followed behind Ben on her high heels while wondering how long it would take for them to get to the temple/shrine.

The member 'Shuhei' has done the following action : Dice Rolls

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'Monster Dice' :

Queen of The Night Form:

A sudden banging on the steel walls of the lacrima station forced the Duchess to stop in her tracks. Turning back to look around, she heard Ben explain to Shuhei about the "thieves." This old geezer was seriously too much. She was starting to get sick of his assumptions. Rae could only rub her temples at the ridiculousness of this situation as whatever was outside started hitting the metal door, denting it with each blow. As flames started coming in from outside the door the blood-haired female knew that she was in trouble. She had a bad affinity with fire. Following after her teammate and Ben into some back passageway tunnel, Shuhei managed to close the door after them just as their enemies burst into the room. The Duchess was able to catch a glimpse of their opponents and it wasn't pleasant for her at all. A large flame, in the shape of a salamander. Turning back in the direction of Ben and running after him she ignored the loud banging noises which came from around her. The old man shouted about them taking something but to her it honestly didn't matter. She could feel the excitement pulsing through her veins as she heard the door behind them open violently. The red-haired female saw Shuhei pause in his steps and was about to do the same until she heard him say that he'll catch up. Calmly, the noble ran after Ben, catching up with him easily as they came up to the exit of the passageway Rae was greeted by a ton of creatures, similar to the one she saw earlier- a large lizard made of fire. Her crimson eyes also spotted a large amount of white birds which flew above them. They didn't look friendly. As Ben told her to keep the enemies busy while he started up some weird four-wheeled machine he jumped into, the Duchess faced  the hoard of flaming salamanders fully. As she debated on how to approach them the mage heard a loud sound and familiar male whizzed through the air in a white light.

It was just her luck. Her teammate used the exact opposite of her own magic. He shot brilliantly across the dark night sky, almost as if he was cutting through it with a knife. The energy he gave off did disturb her a little bit for some reason, but at the same time, she found it kind of amusing. Turning back around to face the hoard of Salamanders, the Havoc heiress ran a hand through her long hair as her eyes turned to slits. She could feel the devil blood pumping through her veins. It was night...and nighttime is when darkness is at its prime. No element was stronger at this time, be it fire, wind or light. As the salamanders growled at her and approached her she stomped her heel onto the ground causing a powerful wave of dark energy to channel itself from her feet up to high in the sky, moving in circular motions. From it spawned a large pair of dark silver wings, different from her normal devil ones. They looked more brutal than her usual simple Devil Duchess wings- they had sharp edges and gave off a very dangerous vibe. As the dark energy dispersed, Rae emerged in her Queen of the Night form. Her usual body suit had changed into an armor, her long straight hair had curled and dangerous pair of fangs popped up from beneath her red lips. Her skin tone had gone a pale, almost snowy white. It an almost ironic contrast to dark magic contained withing her body.

As the fire lizards inspected her, seemingly curious about the change the devil wasted no time and put her hands in front of her, holding the palms of her hands in fists. Calculating how close they seemed to be apart from each other she noted that her idea would indeed work. "Look Behind, you brainless reptiles." Rae muttered to herself in a chilling voice. Just as her opponents started to charge at her a large wave of darkness swept through them,  washing them off the metal platform. Walking over to the edge of the factory, she looked down at her end product. A fall from this high up onto the solid, dry ground was bound to hurt a lot. A small amused smirk crept upon the blood-colored lips of the Duchess as she saw that quite a lot of the fire lizards had been knocked out. "Shuhei, could please handle the birds?" The crimson-haired wizard asked, her tone as cold as usual as she looked back up at the wind creatures before glancing back down towards her own batch of opponents.  As the surviving enemies stood back up from their fallen position, Rae closed her wings and jumped off of the platform. Gaining speed through the power of gravity she landed straight onto the head of one of the salamanders, the strength with which she hit it causing the ground from under it to crack and for the fiery being to cease exist. At this exact moment she didn't care about protecting Ben. The adrenaline was pulsing through her veins and her her lips curved up into an amused smirk. The Duchess' love for adventure made her enjoy every second of facing these strong creatures. Fear? Such a thing did not exist.

Shuhei's spear horn pierced through the fiery reptilian, piercing through its glowing hide and ripping it in twain. The two halves fell and then erupted like fireworks, igniting the sky with a dazzling blanket of fire that surrounded the white wizard. Inhaling deeply, the white wizard sucked up the flame's light, that was drawn to him like streams of water traveling through the air that glowed vibrant orange and yellow, until there was naught but night left in the sky. Shuhei exhaled a long and calm sigh. "Well, that takes care of one." The White Wizard said, before a menacing breeze circled him. Shuhei peered in to the darkness around him, and though they were difficult to see in the dark, he became aware that the air elementals had surrounded him and circled him like vultures around a wounded animal.

In spite of his own situation, Shuhei looked down towards his ally, worried for her safety more than his own however what he saw came as a surprise. Her devilish form appeared fearsome, and yet beautiful, in spite of the wings, tail and fangs that Shuhei usually wasn't too fond of, and proved to be more than enough to handle the herd of flaming salamanders that threatened her. Shuhei scratched the back of his head and grinned. "Way to show me up." He said with a light chuckle. "I guess I shouldn't worry about showing off too much." Raising his gaze and Looking forward towards the invisible flock.

The moment the air elementals converged on him, Shuhei shot higher in to the sky. Drops of water fell on to his face as he ascended, and suddenly it began to downpour. The shape of the invisible birds became more apparent as the water coated their bodies and followed Shuhei in to the clouds in a cone like formation. Suddenly Shuhei stopped and leaned forward, stretching his arms behind him. "Divine Arrow Storm!" He shouted, as his arms became like a blur as he fired a constant volley of sleek short rays of light in to the flock of birds like rain, and one by one they began to fall from the sky, pierced by several arrows of light each, and with one well placed spell they were dealt with. Those that survived were finished by the fall that landed them all around the Duchess below Shuhei.

Like a comet Shuhei fell towards the earth and landed near the old man and the buggy. "What's the hold up!?" Shuhei shouted as the old man continued to turn the key to no avail. "Damn thing won't start!" Ol' Ben replied. Shuhei glanced back towards Rae who continued to fend off the Salamanders. "Well what does it need!?" Ol' Ben hopped out of the Buggy and opened the hood compartment and took out a spherical lacrima. "Lacrima's toast, Yer' gon' have to go back in and get another!" Quickly Shuhei grabbed the Lacrima and looked towards the steel shaft through which they exited the Station, and in a flash of light He vanished, only to reappear a moment later with a new lacrima. "Get the damn thing started!" Shuhei yelled again.