STICK AROUND FOR THE COMEDOWN

Cedar town was decidedly boring, except for four things. Quite a large number sometimes, four in this instance meant only that Hime could withstand staying here for the remainder of the day and one night until she could rest enough to travel back to her guild hall. Her last excursion had been somewhat taxing; burning down a town meant using fire, and when Hime used fire she was never subtle. Such a lack of discretion always resulted in destruction at the cost of her energy and reserves. It was an addicting feeling in a way though, having used up all of one's energy; the peach haired slayer was accustomed to always struggling to keep that broiling overflow of vicious, snarling fiery energy inside. Having nothing there felt a bit hollow, but reassuring in the sudden lack of necessity to hold it back from pouring out. Because really, she didn't want to hold it back, at all, and she normally couldn't be bothered to make the effort to.

However, this state of slight listlessness rendered the slayer unable to react properly the first time she saw the sun flicker out. Not really, it didn't blink out or anything even remotely similar; rather, that was the illusion given off, when the burning star slipped out of sight, courtesy of a large, opaque cloud. The actual concern was the cloud itself. While nebulous and slowly drifting, there was a strange urgency and danger to it, and the tinge was darkened and almost black as an undertone to the smoky gray. If she hadn't known better, Hime would have brushed the sight off as smog drifting at a higher altitude, or something similar; after all, a town had just recently been burned to the ground, and it could easily have given off a lot of air pollute. Yet, there was something uncanny about just how well it blocked out the natural light of the sun, the lampposts nearby flickering on in reaction before the sun re-emerged from the clouds and all seemed to return to its previous average state.

But then, the clouds began to swirl far more heavily, and further the sky grew even more dark as lacrimas activated and an uneasy feeling, an odd unrest rose in the citizens nearby to the peach-haired slayer. She found herself glancing suspiciously around her, a frown present that betrayed a sense of uncertainty in this situation. It was as though the population was taking on a herd mentality, but with out having been affected directly by any sort of miasma or propaganda. Hime began to quicken her footsteps, hoping to make it back to the small inn where she was staying for the rest of her time in Cedar.

Unfortunately, her attempts were unexpectedly cancelled by the sudden deposition of a dozen or more bodies, directly in front of her. Choking on a sudden exclamation, the fiery slayer stumbled back a half step, her heel catching on the ground as she tumbled towards the road. Managing to catch her balance before slamming into the pavement, Hime let out a small noise of annoyance; no matter how enhanced her senses might be, surprise and the subsequent worry for her outfit being ripped or dirtied by the ground, had influenced them to an unexpected degree. "Who are you?" she began to address the small group, but then the female suddenly realized that the strange group of people had indeed, been deposited and fallen from the sky, from those strange, swirling black clouds that were now centered directly over Cedar without any indication of continuing their movement onto another town. Hime's expression was now affected with disinterest and a bit of irritation expressed in the downwards turn of her mouth; she was sure that these people were not important, and more likely dead, if they had somehow been picked up and swirled around in the sky. Natural weather disasters were phenomenal in their power.

Much to her surprise, accentuated by the immediate shriek upon realization of this, the bodies began to move and stand up straight- copies of regular citizens and everyday Cedar people stared at her and lurched forward, their fingers clawing in her direction as their feet rushed forwards, unnervingly quick for a body whose face appeared so blank and unfocused. Whatt in the actual gods was going on here? Hime leapt backwards the moment she noticed the way their fingers twitched and slashed in her direction, as combined with their strange, mob-like predatory stance overall she would be highly displeased to find herself within their reach at this moment in time. Turning tail and beginning to flee, the slayer was forced to screech to a dead halt when she realized that in jumping away, she had backed herself up near to being against a park bench, in the center of the sort of square. That wouldn't have been a problem except that several more meters behind the bench, and to a little ways on the side, there approached more of the unsteady figures of citizens, or more like copies of them that had fallen from the sky.

Hissing at the sight, Hime eyed a bright haired individual who she had noticed sitting rather placidly on the bench before this calamity had officially struck. Her eyes didn't seem to be vacant, and there was nothing particularly twitchy about her movements, so the fire mage assumed that she had either not been affected by the storm or that her clone or whatever had been dropped off elsewhere in the city. The peach haired mage was never one to do a good deed for no reason at all, but this was getting to be like the main scene of a zombie outbreak novel or something, and attempting to forge some sort of working alliance, no matter how temporary or small, seemed to be a practical and almost necessary concept. "These things are weird, want to blow them up with me?" the slayer asked candidly, her fingers already spinning blue-colored fireballs into existence. They were the same hue as the sky should have been in the middle of the day, instead of that dark grey and cloudy color. She was unconsciously daydreaming about sunny weather, and had therefore formed her flames in such a way.