You just got PUNK'D [solo/event]

Eireen was bent over a small stream of water, humming softly to herself as she cleaned the blood off her blade.  Actually, such a thing wasn’t necessarily required from her, but it was a nice pastime nonetheless.  Seeing as she had just taken out her target, there wasn’t much for the reaper to do.  Of course, there was always the chance to go sightseeing in the scenic town of Sakuramori.  But, she’d probably end up seeing everything overtime as she kept performing tasks in the area.  The thing with interesting stuff is that you’ve got to take your time getting through them.  If you just do all the fun stuff all at once, what’ll you be leaving behind for later?!  As someone who’s lived far longer than their physical age suggested, Eireen was a champion of this idea.  How much self control did you need to clean a bloody sword instead of explore?  Well, that only lasted for a bit longer, and then all of a sudden Eireen was all out of ideas.  The town was starting to look more and more appealing…

“CHANCE.  I’m booorrdeeed.  Tell me a joke.”  The pink haired mage muttered internally, taking a seat by the stream.

“Huh?”  Chance’s voice came out lethargically, “What’d you say?”

Eireen’s eyes narrowed in agitation, “Were you not even paying attention?  What are you up to?”

“Filing a report, duh.  What else?”  The ethereal shot back, his harsh words serving as a contrast to their usual composed manner.  Perhaps Eireen had been playing around with him too often, so he abandoned any semblance of respect for her?  Probably.  Oh well.  “Well, what did you want?  I don’t have all the time in the world.”

“Um, actually I think that you are in fact immortal and therefore have all the time in the world.”

“Shut up and tell me what you want.”

“Aw, don’t be like that~!  Chancceeee~!!”  Oh, Chance’s presence was fading.  Did he seriously just leave?  Eireen sighed, getting to her feet.  The exchange with her partner was brief, but filled her with enough energy to pursue a more fruitful endeavor.  She was ready to g and be self reliant: to find somewhere nice to nap until she got her next assignment!  Yeah, that was a good way to spend her free time!  There was actually no need for Eireen to sleep, but she often did so to pass the time.

“Hmm, where’s a good spot?”  She murmured to herself, wandering deeper into the autumn forest.  And it didn’t take long for something to catch her attention either.  Well, it wasn’t a good napping spot like she’d hoped, but instead the noise of caws and clanging metal.  It was probably just a punch of mages doing who knows what, but it caught her interest either way.  Using a leaf bare tree as cover, she observed a group of two people desperately fending off a vicious murder of crows.

The sword wielder swung at a crow, but it nimbly evaded the attack.  “Urgh, there’s no end to them!”

The magic user cast wind shot of sorts that took down one of the birds, but still left a lot of other ones flying around freely.  “They’re so hard to hit, and are aiming for out weak points too!  But we need to collect the pumpkins for the party!”

“Yeah, that pamphlet from the sky that dropped all over town asked us to help, but we can’t defeat these crows!”

Wait party?  Pamphlet all over town?  Eireen grinned, she had found a good pastime to keep herself occupied while Chance was reporting the reaping.  If the pamphlet dropped “all over town”, that mant she could helpt too, right?  Maybe they’d even let her attend if she brought a pumpkin by!  As the pair began to retreat back towards Shirotsume, a grin began to form on the woman’s visage.  Judging from the direction they were headed towards, the farm with the pumpkins was just east from here!  Eireen would be getting plenty of pumpkins, but first she needed to deal with the darn crows.

690 ❈ 690

Eireen swiftly requipped Big Daddy, Ivory’s Ash, and Rebellion’s Zeal, although only the pale cloak and rocket launcher were actually visible on her person with Blessed Valor floating next to her on standby.  Silently aiming at the black cloud of feathers, the aimed for their very center.  In a second, Eireen released a missile that resulted in a mess of feathers and a lot of dark eyes fixated on the reaper.  Too bad they didn’t just go down all at once, but she could still two things she could tell from the things.  First off, they were extremely efficient, moving more like a well oiled machine than a group of animals.  Secondly, they didn’t stray far from each other, meaning attacks with large areas of effects were good for them seeing as they didn’t disperse.

The dark cloud approached, but Eireen simply blasted them once more.  The bird’s movement’s were limited to pained flaps, and one last burst was enough to render them dead.  The scent of burnt whatever they were eliminated through the air, causing Eireen’s intrigue to even intensify.  Whatever those creatures were, they weren’t crows.  The reaper knew the scent of burnt feathers well enough to discern that, but don’t ask why.  Anyway’s, they were dead, but not really.  After the murder’s corpses started to move together, forming into some sort of crow-based abomination.

The creature let out a horrible scream before rushed at Eireen, its unnaturally long talons stretched towards Eireen.  Quickly leaping out of the way on a branch of a neighboring tree, the reaper quickly switched out her arsenal.  Specifically, her bazooka was changed in favor for her scythe, The Mincer.  From her perch on the tree right above the abomination, the floating Blessed Valor finally came into play.  It shot a beam of light down at the creature, causing it to real back in pain.  As she had thought, an undead really didn’t like holy-based attacks.  Eireen shot once more, but the painted creature began flailing about, its talons slicing right through the tree Eireen as perched on.  Leaping off, the reaper brandished her scythe, swinging downwards at the recovering monstrosity.  Yet another scream was emitted by the beam, extending its muscular arms to grasp for Eireen.  However, all it was met by was a light beam to the face, and this time whole it was suffering from the blow Eireen took the chance to decapitate it right then and there.

It seemed that the corpse of the crow creature wasn’t going to get up once more, so Eireen quickly hurried towards the site of the pumpkin patch.  After all, she hadn’t forgotten her original purpose!  In no time, she arrived, flecks of vivid orange speckled around the rich dark brown soil.  She couldn’t help but smile to herself, now this was a proper pumpkin patch!  No wonder those bozos were headed here for those pumpkins!  Hopefully the farmer that worked here didn’t mind her just yoinking some off his hands, the dude wouldn’t miss them anyways.  But as the pink haired woman was inspecting the site for a good pumpkin, movement was caught in her peripherals.  Good thing she hadn’t dispelled any of her requips, because some spooky scarecrow was lumbering towards her with a scythe in hand.

“Oh, so you plan on matching me~?”  Eireen mused to herself, firing off a shot with Blessed Valor just to test the waters.  It connected, doing some damage but not to the extent to the crow thing.  Another shot just ended up being dodged, but she guessed such was expected when you use the same move twice in a row with no variation.  The mage sprinted towards it, meeting scythe to scythe.  But from the looks of things, Eireen’s opponent this round wouldn’t actually be too difficult for her.  All of its movements with the scythe were unpredictable, but would be easy to deal if you’re paying attention.  Much unlike the murder of crows, the scarecrow seemed to be aiming anywhere if felt like, its cackle ever present.

Basically, Eireen could easily out finesse this loser out of this world.  The scarecrow swung down, but Eireen parried before twirling her scythe in a way that it sliced into the scarecrow’s dumb smile.  However, that didn’t slow it down in the slightest, yet another blow being directed at Eireen.  However, this time around it was simple just to move out of the way, slicing one of the object’s arms clean off.  It was odd how, unlike the crow thing, the walking burlap sack seemed to have no sense of pain, only swinging in a crazed fervour.  And honestly, his laugh was kind of getting on her nerves.  The scarecrow swung again, Eireen easily dodging and dealing another blow.  At this point, she had dealt sustainable damage to the laughing fool, but suddenly the scarecrow’s movements suddenly sped up.  It thrust the butt of their scythe handle into Eireen's stomach, launching her backwards into a nearby pumpkin patch.

She groaned, getting to her feet steadily.  Well, that’s what she got for letting her guard down, but now she was ready for this little encounter to wrap up.  She took a deep breath before her body reduced to ash, the particles moving towards the scarecrow at an extreme pace.  Of course, the thing tried to take a swing at it, but just as before Eireen morphed her body to avoid the attack.  Resuming a physical form, Eireen deftly sliced the cackling moron’s head clean off.  Surprisingly, its body still swung at her, but this time Eireen wasn’t going to be dumb again.  She jumped onto the incoming blade before slicing downwards, cleaving the scarecrow in half.

The reaper took a deep breath, about to go onto collecting some pumpkins before a heavy fog descended on the field.  Of course, there was one last thing to deal with.  A big ol’ pumpkin dude brandishing a lantern.  From the magical readings she got from the creature, this would probably be the last encounter before it was pumpkin collecting time!  Without wasting a second, Eireen fired a shot at the pumpkin thing before advancing.  It connected, and left an opening for a follow up.  First she immediately went for the head, only to be surprised that the pumpkin sacrificed their hand to keep that part of them.  However, the pink haire mage wasn’t letting up yet, twisting her body to deal another blow to the thing’s torso.  Although the cut was a bit shallow, it still seemed to do damage.  The pumpkin swung at Eireen with darkness infused claws, but they proved simply for her to dodge.  Assuming her ash form, she moved directly behind the pumpkin, swiftly dealing three blows to its back.  It whipped around for yet another slash, but this time Eireen leapt into the air, neatly maneuvering to slice part of its head off.

Now it was kind of like a half-way headless horseman… without a horse.  Well, the pumpkin shot condensations of dark energy at Eireen, only for her to duck and deal two additional blows to its ankles.  As it began stumbling due to the sudden loss of some crucial ligaments for standing, the reaper’s scarlet eyes widened as it caught onto an opportunity to finish it.  First she sliced off the arm that actually had an arm before moving to the head.  Wouldn’t want a repeat of earlier, would she?  Either way, the headless body of the pumpkin creature fell limply to its knees before getting a faceful of dirt.  Wait, it didn’t have a face anymore, huh?  Eireen glanced at the decapitated head, the entity’s horrific gin still present after death.

“Huh, that would make a good jack o’ lantern…”

1288 ❈ 1978 [WC Met]