Bright Lights of Summer!

Before they had left the guild hall for the capitol, someone, whose appearance had luckily for them gone undetected by Juliet, had said wasn't she a bit overdressed? Originally, the mage had been planning to go in her ordinary uniform, the same one she wore practically every day. Clearly military garb, in primarily black with matching boots and a red capelet. Naturally, the girl had paused. Even though she couldn't ascertain where the comment had originated from, she was willing to take it into consideration. That was why... Juliet was wearing a much more casual outfit now. With sunglasses to protect her from the flashing lights and earplugs tucked away in a pocket just in case, her outfit was extremely out of character for the girl. But hey, she was only human, and she wasn't intending to stick out like a sore thumb.

Glancing over to her side, the mage felt confident that if anyone were to appear strange, it would be one of her guild mates. Illya Pegasus, for example, wore a ridiculous, traditional esque ball gown that Juliet thought would be more suited for a meeting with some prince of Minstrel than a rave. Going undetected was preferable for Juliet, though. It had to be taken into consideration that Illya loved to be noticed. Her other guild mates were... doing their own thing. Juliet, personally, hated parties. First of all, there was the drinking that went on. The girl detested the concept of being influenced by substances whose effects were out of her control. And then... there was the dancing. She took a step back, away from the direction they were headed. The music was loud and clearly audible even from here, still a decent ways away down the block from where the partying was actually going on. "..." Grudgingly, she followed the group.

As they got closer, Illya began chattering away even more, the mage unable to prevent herself from sharing her thoughts out loud. Yes. So much fun. "I'm going to sit in the corner and keep track of everyone to make sure you don't die," the girl deadpanned, but she was only half joking. Who knew what Dies Irae members looked like when partying. Hopefully nobody would get sliced and diced by a rampaging Illya who decided arbitrarily that someone was dark. Actually, now that Juliet was looking closer at the corner of the block, just a few meters away, there seemed to be quite a few people gathered around a complicated looking machine. Intrigued, as she always was by technology, Juliet stepped forward, glancing back at the group to make sure she wasn't about to wander off too far. After all, someone had to make sure nobody got in trouble tonight. "What is this?" She was about to ask a woman who was also peering down at the electronic, before suddenly it lit up and began to rise in the air, glowing intensely with multicolored lights. "Ah!"

Inadvertently, Juliet took a step back, bumping into someone, who moved out of the way, letting her stumble backwards until she found herself facing the person who had let her in, now moving back into place and trapping her within the circle. "... What?" The mage tried to push her way through, but nobody would budge. "Nobody leaves this circle until you win or lose!" A voice announced from behind her, and Juliet whirled around to see a girl with vibrant red hair in a fun outfit approaching. Suddenly, from her side, another one melted out of nowhere?? Ah... they must have been twins. Straightening up, the mage eyed them dubiously, but she also searched for her guild mates out of her peripheral vision. "... I don't want to dance, so let me out," Juliet told them plainly, but they shook their heads. "Nuh uh," the second one said, "That's breaking the rules of the game." Frustrated, Juliet tried to compromise, "Well, I can't hope to beat you with just myself, it's two against one." She would attempt to reason with them, only for the first twin to disagree. "Mm, just find someone to partner with, yo!" They looked at her expectantly.

Juliet glanced to her side as another person pushed their way into the small open clearing that had emerged in the middle of the rave goers. Giving him a nod as a greeting, the mage met the eyes of the twin nearest to her. They each had the same bright red hair and fair, freckled skin, with identical faces in every possible way. For that reason, it was difficult to tell the two apart. However, she did her best to focus on the one on the right. Since she was to that side of Jariel, she figured he might want to confront the twin on the left. "Let's go, then," she murmured, eyes boring into the dancer in front of her. This entire series of events, with being trapped and forced to dance, was utterly a nightmare. The two of the twins began to dance as a new song came on, moving together in a way that showed they'd had plenty of practice. "..." Juliet made no noise, her concentration split between watching the other two and also trying to make sure her fellow mage was alright.

Finally, she got tired of attempting to move around awkwardly and held up her hands. "I concede defeat," Juliet said flatly, before turning her back to her competitors. Whether or not JJ was doing well and beat them all by himself, she was ready to head out. She had participated in the debacle, which ought to be enough for the people trapping them to allow her through, no? Unfortunately, it seemed like they didn't agree. "No no lady, you gotta get stamped before ya can leave!" The stranger grabbed Juliet by the wrist, and she resisted the urge to jerk her arm away. He was not doing any harm yet, and she couldn't hurt these civilians, no matter how tempting it was to strike them across the face as they babbled and tried to keep her up. The man stamped her on the back of her hand, a rainbow silhouette across the back of her hand. As she tilted it slightly, it seemed to glow a little bit as it fell into the path of a shadow. Shrugging, Juliet finally pulled away her hand, the stranger's grip having loosened. "Thank you," she said flatly, before her attention was abruptly seized by a scream that came from only a few meters away.

There were people scattering as a group of strange, corrupted looking water elementals soared down into the area. They sent spurts of hot pink liquid shooting towards some of the people who had been partying nearby. Yelling in pain, everyone began to scatter, and Juliet's eyes narrowed. "Hey!" In the midst of them, there was a girl standing who seemed to just be scrolling through something on her iLac. The uncanny thing was that she wasn't being attacked by any of the creatures, though. Other than that, they seemed to be aggressively going after everything and everyone in the vicinity, their liquid burning through a nearby set of speakers that got sprayed. Luckily, it didn't seem like any of the people had been hit by the plasma yet. The mage's mouth thinned into a line and she pulled her hand into a fist, pulling a long axe out of nowhere. With her requip in hand, she first sent a thin, transparent shield flowing around the nearby rave participants. They didn't deserve to get seriously hurt just for wanting to have fun, even if it was a bit silly and dangerous to do drugs and go drinking and dancing, in her opinion. Then Juliet teleported towards the nearest elemental, slashing through with her axe and sending a pulsing wave of energy towards the monster. This was far from over, but it was a start.

Juliet tired of this "festive event." She turned to Jariel, a smile on her face. "Nice," the mage uttered, grateful to him for taking care of another one of the elementals. He was currently... glowing, as a result, but hopefully, there were no negative consequences to his actions. Being lit up like a space disco ball wasn't too bad of a price to pay in exchange for defeating the poisonous creatures; in fact, it was almost a benefit. Glancing towards her fellow mage, Juliet winced. On second thought, no, she would not go that far. Making a dash towards the nearest elemental, the blonde whirled her axe through the air, slashing through them but wincing as they reformed effortlessly. It seemed as though taking care of these wouldn't necessarily be as simple as she had assumed. However, JJ was doing work. His business seemed to be the destruction of plasma elementi, what with how he blasted them with light and the pure power of his fists. She watched first as he managed to destroy the majority of their bodies with tight punches, apparently gathering their life force and recombobulating it into further power. How the cycle of life turned, she supposed, or more accurately, how the cycle of slayers went. In the same mindset as her own, Juliet thought she could detect just how unamused he was by the techie, snobbish girl. Although her expression betrayed that she was not feeling completely secure any longer, her actual positioning didn't give off any sign of heading to another location. Instead, she began to type slightly furiously, and Juliet narrowed her eyes. While it was possible she was sending videos of their activities to media outlets, or some other outlandish stunt to try to get them in trouble, there were more likely scenarios. For example, she could have been recording their abilities to pass on to her comrades.

Either way, Juliet felt unsettled in her presence. Just as she was turning to go (after all, it wasn't really acceptable to go ahead and smack her around without having done anything violet or outwardly wrong in particular) she heard JJ speak up. His cordial behavior managed to force the mage to relax; if her guild mate felt as though they could reasonably leave this girl to her own devices for now, she felt alright with going along. Suddenly, her fellow mage made a mad break for something out of her vision, in a direction that led to some place she had no idea of. Squaring her shoulders, Juliet forced her way through the throng of other partygoers to follow after him. As she was doing so, however, the crest on her back began to burn. Sinking into her skin, she winced as the magic enveloped her body. The mage struggled to steady her breathing, chanting to herself to stay calm and not let any sign of pain show on her face. This was not really the time for her old scars to resurface, and the girl had no intention of allowing her crest to derail her from the current situation. However, the pain soon became unbearable, and against her will, tears pricked at the corners of her eyes. Gritting her teeth, Juliet tried to pull herself together, before she finally realized that there might be a reason behind these happenings. The crest did sense imminent danger, although it was definitely finnicky and unreliable when it came to predictions. After all, there had been no twang of pain when the elementi were showing up. That didn't mean, though, that now was a fluke. Calming down a little now that she realized the origin of the crest's irritation, Juliet reached out with her magic, sensing the area around herself. She followed the slight magic signatures until she reached the stage where the two Illyas were doing very different things.

Both had a performance of sorts going on. One, the shorter haired Illya, was very high up in the DJ booth, messing with the equipment. Assuming she was trying to play music, Juliet felt tempted to call out in support of her before she shuddered. Wouldn't it be embarrassing if she were recognized? She dug her fingernails into the palms of her hands as she made a resolution to clap and cheer, should she manage to get the songs working. Other than that, the blonde couldn't promise enthusiastic or outward support; it simply wasn't her style. Much to the mage's surprise, a loud clamor of music began to sound out from the speakers, with a strong, thumping beat that had the crowd going wild. Well, even if the choice had seemed inadvertent, Juliet was relieved that her guild mate was doing alright. She searched the stage again for the other Illya who she had spotted earlier. The girl was easily found, because she was just accepting a microphone, standing in the center of the raised platform. This was about to be another one of her infamous speeches. On this occasion, though, the words pouring out of her mouth did seem to be an actual announcement type deal, the kind idols gave at concerts. So Illya had plenty of practice with that, and it was coming out now. Juliet felt relieved that she wasn't going to be the victim of death by microphone amplified rambling at the moment. Unsurprisingly, the other girl still spoke her mind. She offered to give the crowd a concert, which the blonde wasn't sure every one of them appreciated. Even if the majority did know of Illya Pegasus, not everyone at this rave  did or even was a fan of hers. However, she couldn't judge, and it wasn't like Juliet to be the unsupportive type. Especially when she had called her out like that. The mage wasn't blushing, it was only the lighting.

Just then, Juliet caught a movement near the front of the stage, among the crowd. The form of a dark clothed figure with cybernetic armor emerged, stepping onto the stage. Her eyes narrowed, suspecting he was up to no good; despite the techno vibe that many of the rave attendees had going on, none exactly showed up in armor. Immediately increasing the rate at which she shoved through the crowd, the mage barely managed to make it close enough to teleport forward the moment she saw his arms move. Colliding with the blast that flew from his chest plate, Juliet's crest wrapped around her as she took the brunt force of the blow, pale violet magic exploding out and coating her skin. As she panted, her body bruised even though it had technically blocked the blow, she glared at the Beta. At this point, words were unnecessary. She wasn't much of a talker, anyway. Dashing forward, a silver knife materialized in her hand and was immediately brought down in a swooping arc that just barely missed his shoulder when he dodged right. Spinning her axe around in her hand, Juliet ignored the crowd in favor of attacking the idiot who had attempted to cause trouble. Unlike the plasma elementi, this one had more of a physical form and was perfect for her weapons. She held out her axe, pointing it straight at the man. A powerful burst of energy sprung from the blade, slamming into him and knocking the breath from his lungs. Served him right for doing the same to her earlier... Juliet sliced across his torso with her axe, sending him stumbling back. Even though his armor might have taken the majority of the hit, undoubtedly, he was still injured. How badly was unclear.