Serious: The Milky Way Pirates Chapter 1: adventure in Windmill Village ((THREAD CLOSED TO EVERYONE EXCEPT MASQUERADE))

"I should really help them, they seem at a bit of a disadvantage. Even though it's against my rights to even kill them...Maybe I'll just knock them out or something."

Without thinking for another second, Alek hurried to the scene of the battle. However, he was stopped by one of the bandits once he got there. The bandit thrusts his knife towards Alek, skimming his ear by just a centimeter. With that moment Alek had, he quickly punched the bandit's stomach twice, and then gave a sharp left hook to his face. "Hm, this is quite the excitement I've had in a while. So, who's next to be knocked out?"

Arianne blushed quite a bit as she withdrew her hand from his chin noticing that Avery was also rather red-faced too. Did he feel that sudden... "spark" too?
She coughed a little, clearing her throat and trying her hardest to wipe any intimate thoughts from her mind...while at the same time, finding it near impossible to tear her eyes from his. 

"Oh ven ahora, Arianne," a tiny voice in the back of her mind hissed. "Come now. This is so unlike you. Since when do you let yourself become so taken and trusting with strangers that you've only just met? Since when do you lose all of your composure and etiquette in a man's presence? Since when do you allow yourself close enough to a man for the two of you to share a ki-...what am I thinking?!"
Though whether or not she wanted to deny it, she had secretly liked the feel of the peck she had given him earlier... 

Arianne immediately snapped herself from her stupor and blinked, hearing Saki's request. She gratefully took Avery's hand, a wide smile breaking out across her face. "Yes. I'd like to talk later... For now though, it would appear we must fight alongside Snow and our fellow crewmates..."

Truthfully, Arianne had no qualms about assisting Snow. If it hadn't been for the wolf's encouragement, she mightn't have had the guts run after Avery to convince him to stay. 
She felt as if she was indebted to Snow, in an odd way. 

Without hesitation, Arianne pulled a silver long- bow from the folds of her red coat and pulled a silver arrow from the quiver at her belt. Only standing at the edge of the ship's wall and taking aim, she fired an arrow. 
"Oleada divino plata!" 
("Divine Silver Surge")  

It shot into the throat of one of the bandits attacking Jack, Alek and Snow and in the ensuing chaos, Arianne looked to Saki and tucked away the bow, drawing her sabre. "I'll do my best to defend the Andromeda and its crew, Captain."
And with that, she headed down into the brawl, her blade brandished.

Buchanan nodded his head as he heard that Snow needed help. He hadn't the slightest clue who the hell Snow was, but Snow needed help damn it and Buchanan could be of service. The kind of service Buchanan provided was always satisfying. Buchanan raised his guns and smiled knowing how helpful he really was. As soon as he saw the scramble with some bandits, he knew that Snow was involved in it. His pointed his pistols at the crowd and fired off two shots.
As the bullets blasted forth from the barrels, a plume of flame pointed them in their direction. Two bandits were distracted by the sound of gunfire- two bandits fell to the bite of a high-caliber round. A smirk formed on Buchanan's face as he saw just where he had shot the assailants. The bullets entered their skulls and burst out the other side. There was a harsh squishing sound as the targets simultaneously died. The flesh peeled off their heads at the entry and exit points. Blood quickly spurted out onto the ground, making an amalgam of red fluid and grey matter. One thought went through Buchanan's brain as he stared at the puddles on the floor, Fucking delicious.
"Oh, that was wonderful you two. Just a perfect performance in every aspect. The way you painted the earth was clever; it was like you left a little calling card. One criticism though; how are we going to top that, Roman?" He was almost completely enraptured with his lethal trick-shot, his two victims didn't see their deaths coming till it was too late. He looked approvingly at the two and muttered, "the epitome of excellence." His grin grew wider as he thought of Roman suggested his next technique; it was almost excessively showy, but that was why it brought him so much elation.

A grin slipped itself on the face of the small child in the hiding place, still being unnoticed. She'd succeeded in staying undetected thus far but frankly, was rather bored with it. Her face twisted a bit as she thought about what to do and, after a few seconds the grin slipped back onto her face.

Grin remaining plastered to her face, the girl snuck back the way she came and pulled the strings of her belt causing it to morph into a strange yellow cloud. This cloud was special as it was one that could be ridden upon. Jumping onto the cloud, the small child flew over toward the fight and drew the strange pole from her back. Seaming to down strike the pole in the air as she neared the brawl the pole stretched and smacked 2 bandit over the ehad, causing them great pain and knocking one of the two out. Laughter came from the cloud dwelling youth as she flew lower and pressed the dial she had down where it was on her hand. Flames irrupted from the dial at the bandit who was still standing which had been the second to be struck by her pole, the man dodged just barely gaining a nice burn on his arm.

Pulling his gun, the man began to shoot at the child to which she responded by trying to dodge, she succeeded but was struck by a single of the bullets in the arm. Pain riddled her body as she fell from the cloud and it switched back into being her belt, sending the girl crashing toward the watery depths of the ocean.

*CRAAAAAP* thought the girl as she careened downward. using the one good arm she had, the cihld latched onto the edge of the dock as best she could, hoping to keep herself from falling in, if she fell, she'd be screwed...totally screwed.

To think, this all started because she had taken a little bit of food and a book from a store that for some reason, sold both objects in question, had been chased by marines, hidden on a ship and went to fight all because she could. For her first time in a town..city...village whatever the normal people classified it as, everything was just wonderful, freaken roses and sunshine...NOT!

Snow witnessed a small girl wondering in the fight, she had managed to defeat a few of the bandits. Snows Tail managed to tear off the faces of the bandits he intended to fight. They were left without faces with small pieces of skin stuck to his now hardened tail. He ran towards the girl that was about to fall, a bandit shot 4 more bullets to finish of the girl, Snow got there just before he fired without having enough time to use his shield, he took the bullets.. all 4 of them. 2 had hit metal parts but 2 of them had struck his shoulder and feet. Snow was injured, he looked at the bandit with devil eyes, he lost all control over himself and turned his tail into a sword. A loud howl was uttered from his mouth, he charged at the terrified bandit, effectively slicing the bandits arms in the blink of an eye, he stopped and used his sword to cut through his remains without any hesitation, the blade smoothed through him as if he were paper. He was split in half. Snow walked over to the young girl and put his tail down to help her get back up. He made sure to make the tail fur soft again so she wouldn't cut herself with his hairs. Snow stood in front of her ready to protect her. Another howl was heard across the ship showing his warning to the bandits not to make the mistake of harming the child.

Grudge watched the battle unfold, confused on what he should do to stop them from causing more chaos. "I'll just do what I always do, be awesome!" he told himself loudly. He then held his guitar by its neck and base, holding it as if it was a spear, and as he touched a small pannel, a large blade flicked out of his guiatrs end, turning it into a naginata, a long bladed spear. "Hey lame bandits! It's just pathetic to attack little kids, pets, and groupies! So back of our feel my awesomeness!", Grudge chalenged confidently, then quickly playing a few quick rifts on his guitar before leaping at the bandits and swinging his naginata guitar wildily and thrusting his weapon randomly, hoping to take out as many foe's as he could quickly.

Ongaku watched the battle pulled a pick outta his pocket and ran it across his finger drawing blood. "Yep it's a throwing pick." he thought before throwing it at one of them attempting to cut his cheek and grab his attention.

“Okay, so maybe my help is not necessary,” Avery muttered. He had been about to jump into battle after Arianne, but then hung back, realizing that the crew was wiping the floor with the bandits. “Eh, but it’s no fun just standing here. Stay, Lawrence.”

With those words, Avery cast himself over the edge of the ship and plummeted down into the fray. As he fell he whipped his bo staff off of his back and separated it into two nunchucks. His arms became blurs as he pummeled the bandits directly below him with his nunchucks, knocking three of them unconscious. Then, as he landed, he snapped his nunchucks back together into a bo staff and whirled it around his body, sending bandits spinning away in all directions.

"Tenshi no Surashu!" shouted Arianne, calling her next attack and bringing her Scarred Sabre downwards in a deadly slice across the body of one of the attacking bandits.
She continued to slice her way through the scuffle, constantly murmuring quiet, habitual prayers under her breath for each of the victims of her blade. She raised her eyebrows at Snow's howl and looked over to the wolf, surprised to see the child that he was protecting.
"Madre de Dios...Mother of God...what's that little girl doing here?" she wondered, immediately heading over to assist Snow in taking care of her.

Arianne knelt down beside the child, keeping a defensive stance but managing a gentle tone when addressing her. "What are you doing here, little girl? Where are your parents? This place isn't safe enough for you..."

She stared at the bandits as they fell, one by one to their death at the hands of many assailants. Eyes scanning the crowd as they died, it was kind of sad in a They did something back kind of way.

A women approached her and knelt down to her level, much like she'd seen the only other adult in her life do when she was a child. This surprised her a little bit as well as the question as to why she was where she currently was. She shrugged, falsely aqua appearing hair falling a little down to about her shoulders, still mostly in the ponytail position it had been in before. She was there because....she didn't have a reason really and this annoyed her. She frowned, mentally kicking herself for not having come up with a plausable reason beforehand and watched the women.

the other question was one she didn't like or rather....didn't understand. What did she mean where were her parents? She'd seen about 3 other children with adults thus far and had assumed they were to those children, what her grandfather had been to her, nothing more. Confusion slipped noticeably onto the child's face as she tried to sort everything out.

A bandit came up, in a direction in which both the wolf and the new women would miss (So I can waist someone too.) Raising her pole toward the currently airborne criminal, it began to stretch rather quickly and hit the bandit square in the jaw...not the intended place. Blood spurted and poured ont the child in her hair and over her already somewhat blood stained clothing from her bullet wound. The bandit's body hit the floor rather hard and remained still, blood pooling from the now deceased man's body. He was dead...dead, she hadn't meant to kill that one, just hurt him that was why she chose to attack the man's stomach, damn air moving people's bodies and messing with her plans. The pole retracted itself to the normal hight, red pole covered now in crimson blood.

The child stared at it for a second, ocean blue eyes matching ocean blue hair tinted in crimson blood fixated on the pole. Frowning for a second she put it back on her back and looked at the women, wiping some of the blood from her face with her bare arm to clear it off. "What's a Parents? I don't have one of those, are they like Grandpa? Cause he had to go away for a bit, longer then I thought actually." she explained quickly. She knew what death was by now, had killed plenty of people now, 2 bandits and 3 marines, that made 7, so then there were allot of other marines on the ship she blew up way back when but they probably got away or something.

Turning toward the water she removed her pole once more and sat on the edge, making it stretch out again, she dipped it into the ocean holding tight to the clean end, this would wash off the blood hopefully....now if only seh could do that to herself, but she couldn't, what can'ya do?

What the…a KID? Avery had taken a somewhat calmer moment to scan the area and make sure that everyone, well, actually just Arianne, was okay. And then, when he had seen Arianne, there was a very young girl next to her and close to that idiot wolf.

The sound of approaching footfalls brought Avery back to reality and he launched a kick into the chest of a bandit, who had been trying to attack him while he wasn’t looking. Avery felt, rather than heard, one of the bandit’s rips snap and the man was thrown back a couple of feet. Avery frowned. He hadn’t meant to do that. In fact, he had his staff ready to bash the man in the jaw to knock him unconscious. Avery may have been violent in battle, but he wasn’t bloodthirsty, as many of his allies were acting.

Then Avery sighed as a couple more bandits rushed towards him. Just how many of these bowling pins were there? And why were they still fighting back when they were so obviously outclassed? In a resigned sort of way, he ducked under a swinging sword and swept both men off of their feet with his staff. A quick rap over the head was all that was needed to finish the job.

Alek was doing well fending for himself against the bandits without any weapons except his fists, until they started to crowd around him making him highly uncomfortable. He quickly pulled out his axe and started bashing them with the head violently. He never intended to kill them, but they were starting to get annoying. Just when he was about to catch his breath, one bandit was aiming towards the wolf, along with a woman and a child. "Wait, why is a child here at this time? Wait...A CHILD?" The bandit had a revolver aiming right towards their backs, and laughed sadistically.

"Oh no you don't, ya prick!" Alek quickly dashed through the chaos and locked on to the bandit gunner. The bandit was about to fire, he had his thumb pull back the hammer, his trigger finger ready, but then he came over a sudden case of decapitation. The gun just missed Snow, going over the wolf's head by a tiny bit. Alek calmed down and looked at the dead bandit he killed, he violently shivered at it. "Come on! Man up, Alek! This isn't a time to be soft! One wrong move and you'll wind up dead like the bandits!" Alek was deep in thought trying to rally himself to fight like a true man. The sudden death cry of a bandit quickly shook him out of it. "Alright then, no matter what, this is or life...or death."

A metaphorical spark lit a metaphorical fire in Genshis' head. There were bandits outside. Genshi ran out of the kitchen again and onto the deck. Surely the bandits were still present, and were apparently having their asses handed to them, as well as being killed. But Genshi did not want to seem like dead weight, so he began to look around. He spotted a couple of them, armed with pistols and jumped off. One sword unsheathed he charged for them and swung his sword, with enough strength to shoot a spiky blue wave. One of them dodged it, but the second one was hit hard. Bandit 2 fell to the ground, but bandit 1 was sharper. he took aim at Genshi's head and fired. Genshi fell to the ground too, but he got up, much to the surprise of bandit one. A gray area on Genshi's forehead with a bullet embedded into it ought to have explained it.

"I ate the Clay Clay fruit, I'm a clay man now." he said, sheathing his sword and Covering his fist in dense clay. He wasted no time knocking bandit 1 out cold almost instantly. Genshi bet he looked cool. He turned to the rest of his crewmates engaged in battle,

"Are you guys okay?"

As Grudge struck and stabbed down a number of bandits, he noticed his allies fighting alongside him, together taking down their enemies with ease. "Hey roadies! are we done with these poor excuses for crowd fillers yet?", the arrogant fishman guitarist asked as swiped an enemies legs out from under them. Man, these guy's are weak, even I'm tougher than them and I hardly fight, guess I'm just awesome that way. Wonder why they were down at the docks? Maybe there fans too?, Grudge thought to himself as he fought, and then stopped aruptly to the confusion of many. He took out a pen and a piece of paper and looked at the nearest bandit and said confidently; "I'm guessing you guy's are my fan base around here huh? Well no need to push and shove there's plenty of awesomeness of this rock legend to go around! Sorry for taking some of ya out back there! So, who am I making out this autograph to?" He waited with a smug smile on his face for the nearest bandit to say his name.

Arianne's eyebrows raised in confusion at the little girl's response to her question and then she flinched, letting out a gasp of horror as the young girl skewered the bandit that was poised to attack her and Snow.

She watched her for a moment in confusion at the sight of the young girl washing the blood from the tip of her pole.
An image of such innocence meshed with a remenant of such violence.
Arianne swallowed, seeking to hydrate her very dry mouth.
This was no ordinary little girl. This child was desensitized to violence but clearly, she could take care of herself quite well. Though, a battlefield was still no place for a child- a child with fighting capabilities or not.

Arianne carefully took the little girl's hand, producing a silk hankerchief from her coat pocket and wiping the blood away from the child's face, the way her own, late mother used to do. "Come on, little girl. My name is Arianne. I'm going to get you to safety."
She flinched at the sound of a gunshot, looking up to see a bandit being decapitated by another man. She shouted over to Alek. "Thank you, sir! I owe you back a debt in battle."
She bowed her head to him and then looked around the battlefield. Genshi, the new man (Alek), Grudge and Avery seemed to be sufficiently taking care of the bandits around them. She called out to Grudge. "Mr Grudge! Please continue keep them busy for the next few minutes!"
She looked back to Avery, making certain that he was alright and smiled faintly when she saw that he wasn't merely hacking his attackers to a pulp.

Arianne looked back to the little girl, giving her hand a gentle, reassuring squeeze. "Please, come with me now. It's alright. You can trust me."

”Yeah, yeah, we’re all happy and rosy,” Avery grumbled to Genshi as he flipped over a bandit, landed next to the cook, and smacked the bandit down. “Stupid idiots just won’t quit,” he muttered angrily as more came towards them. “Why don’t you guys just all…ARGH!” A bullet whistled through his guard and hit his right shoulder, almost causing him to drop his staff. “Blast it…” Avery took a step back, winced, and stumbled slightly. More of the bandits moved in on him, attempting to finish him off. “Not good,” Avery whispered.

Lawrence heard his master’s cry and he jumped so that his front paws landed on the side of the ship. He spotted Avery giving ground and with a furious bark, the bloodhound took off for the ship ramp that would lead down to the dock.

The women spoke to her again and she turned around to a silky cloth against her face removing blood. She watched, vision passing the women and stuck on the scene around them; the blood death violence. It was getting out of hand, far too out of hand.

She frowned and rolled her eyes, she was supposed to just leave? This women wanted her to get out in the middle of such horrors? Why? These people were being very mean attacking the cool ship like they were and as such, were being justly punished for it. They just kept coming though, swarms of them...there had to be an end.

Yeah...no, not happening yet. Standing back up and removing the pole from the water where it had been held, she held it out so one end was toward herself and the other toward the hoard of newly arriving foes. "This ends now!" she stated bluntly as the pole stretched "Pole wall." she muttered. The red pole widened quite significantly till it was the hight of a normal human man and blocked the new bandits from entering the area, leaving only the remaining few to be dealt with.

Turning toward the new bandits she frowned. "You might wanna leave now guys!" she shouted toward their direction. Hopefully this would keep them out of the way and end the seemingly endless onslaught.

Jack, in his 'berserk' personality, was murdering the bandits coming at him at that time with the same sick grin and a subtle laughter to match it. He flung at a bandit with his ninja blade, slashing through his chest, making blood spew and moved on to the next guy, who attempted to shoot him. Jack sniggered and started to soru, shooting behind the man and hiding in the shadows near him. "Where the hell is he" the bandit said, looking around for the man who had disappeared. Suddenly, a ninja blade stuck into his back, and Jack had successfully preformed a backstab. Normally, Jack would have left it like that, but he was feeling extra bloodthirsty today. Turning the blade with extreme force, Jack then slashed the blade out of the man from the side, making him bleed like hell and, obviously, die. Turning around to see a lady with a poll fighting, Jack smiled and yelled at her

"HEY, ARE YOU GONNA FIGH ME TOO?" He yelled

Saki smirked as she looked at the bunch of bandits that were beaten up by her crewmates, I'm so lucky, we're strong enough, but we still have a long way to go before we can become the best crew in the whole world!, Saki thought as she fixed her fighting mittens again.

"Well, here I go" she said as she run towards the railing, then with one hand on said railing, supporting her weigh, she jumped off the ship and landed gracefully on the docks.

"So, wanna have some fun with me?" she said teasingly as she focused lightning in her mittens and shoes. She started running towards the bandits, she approached one in fast speed (partly thanks to the lightning focused in her shoes) and punched him hard in the stomach, electrocuting him at the same time. She watched how the bandit cried in pain and fell to the ground... unconscious.

She dashed to the nearest bandit and this time focused some more lighting in her right leg, kicking said bandit in the nuts, electrocuting him as well. The bandit seemed to be unaffected and cut Saki slightly in the arm, Saki stop smirking and focused a large cluster of electricity above the bandit and unleashed it, a lighting bolt crashed down the sky and deep fried the damned bandit.

She looked around and found a common looking knife, she picked it up and focused lightning in said knife, heating it and reforming it into a short, wide blade, narrowing to a downward curve, ending in a sharp point. Happy with the result, Saki focused lightning in the blade again, but this time not as enough as to heat it so it can be reformed. Once charged with lightning, Saki threw the blade towards a bandit, aimed to his heart, the blade reached the bandit's body, thrusting in the place where his heart is located, the bandit's hairs went up as he was electrocuted, his t-shirt was stained in blood and his eyes went lifeless as he fell to the floor, dead.

((Saki has a good aim, not like someone *cough*Alice*cough*))

Saki then noticed that there was a child, a little girl with Arianne, they left the battlefield, Yes, good person, Arianne is really nice, she thought of the little girl's well being, that shows that she has a good heart. I'm glad she's in my crew, Saki thought as she continued to fight the bandits.

She stared in awe as the girl did some kind of thingy with her pole and created a wall between the bandits and them, there were only some bandits left in their side. Saki dashed towards one and hit him various times and stopped when he fell to the floor, knocked out. She dashed to the next, continuing with this process.

Soon, with the help of her crew mates, the last bandits that were left were all knocked out/dead on the ground of the docks.

"Yeah, we're the greatest!" Genshi shouted.

For their first fight, they did extremely well. A large group of bandits is not something easy, but this crew did it with great ease. And Saki had a very cool devil fruit too. Genshi had a really good feeling about this crew.

A grin appeared once more on the child's face as she watched the final bandits get, for a lack of a better word totally thrashed. The ones on the more calm side of the pole running away as they heard the defeating sounds of their comrades. Who would have thought bandits had friends...seriously, full on buddies, did htey go bar hopping together? Where they drinking buddies?

Taking the distraction as a good thing, the (currently)aqua haired girl pulled the string of her belt once more causing it to turn into a little yellow cloud. Jumping onto the cloud slightly risen off the ground it began to get higher and higher. "Bye!" she exclaimed, waving her good hand cheerfully as she began to quickly leave the area.

She wanted to stay, to go onto that fantastic ship with the nice lady and the fluffy wolf and the crazy psycho dude who had asked her, in a very loud unneeded manner if she wanted to fight. To be with the strange fishy-person who seemed to think everyone should know who he is, to ask him who he was and watch his reaction. To meet the lightning lady who had entered a bit later into the fight. That was all, the one thing she wanted at this very moment with every fiber of her being, but she couldn't....just couldn't.

She flew there, in the sky on her cloud alone, unsure of what to do. All they knew about her was she was a kid and having a kid around would be pointless. Seeing her destination, the girl moved the cloud over closer to the ground and walked to the small pond. Taking her clothes off, she began to wash them in the water as best she could, it was high up in the near mountains so no one was around to see her. The blood wasn't washing off, how frustrating.

Removing the clothes from the water, the child placed them on a rock and slid herself in quickly, Freezing water seeping into the wound on her shoulder, making it sting heavily. Laying her head back, the child enclosed her hair in water and tried to remove the blood....wasn't working! Why wasn't it working?!?

Seconds passed and the girl left the pond, Taking her clothes, she made her way back somewhere no one else knew about, a small camp. This camp had a blanket and a roll out mat. Moving over quickly she began to pick up the supplies and stuff them into a bag, she would go with the people, weather they liked it or not.

Slipping on her wet clothing again, she began to alter her appearance while keeping the same age. Aqua eyes became black as did Aqua hair, matted and blod soaked still, hopefully it would be less noticeable now. Taking up her cloud belt once more, bag of camp stuff over her shoulder, the girl made her way back to the docks where the ship was. Slowly.

The bandits' were no match for Alek's superior strength and were usually sliced into pieces by the time they even tried to attack him. Bodies and broken weapons were starting to pile around him, so Alek decided to back up to the ship. Suddenly, a wall formed , blocking off the new hordes of bandits trying to get to reinforce the old bandits struggling to put up a fight. "Well that makes things incredibly easier." Alek watched as the last bandits were finished off, he was a bit tired and feeling a bit noxious, probably because of all of the dead bodies. Alek was impressed, this crew was really strong. He didn't really know if they were new pirates or not, cause if they were they're awesome at fighting.

"Whoo! You guys are great!" Alek exclaimed.

“Whew…that could have been bad,” Avery muttered. He dropped down into a crouch and felt the bullet wound, wincing as his fingers came into contact with it.

Lawrence appeared and after taking a look around to make sure that all of the bandits were defeated, he charged and ran headlong into Avery, knocking him onto his back. Avery gritted his teeth as the pain flared up again and he held back a scream that threatened to tear free from his throat.

“Gerroff, you crazy mutt,” Avery grumbled, shoving Lawrence off of him with his good arm as the dog try to lick him excitedly.

Lawrence caught sight of the wound and the blood and he let out a mournful howl, which earned him a light bop on the head from Avery.

“I’m not dead yet,” Avery told him. “So stop making so much noise. Oi!” Avery directed this last ‘word’ at everyone else in the crew. “Do we have a doctor yet?”

As soon as the confused bandits regained there senses, the nearest one to Grudge slashed his sword at the fishman guitarist, tearing up the paper he held. "Wow, calm down dude, it's only an autograph!", Grudge said in confusion and suprise, which followed by more suprise as the bandits were taken out by his crewmates. "Huh guess I'll never find out if they were fans.", he mumbled to himself. He then looked around and noticed pretty much all the bandits were either dead or in no condition to fight. "Wow, guess the roadies I picked were a good choice.", Grudge commented to himself as he leapt back on the Milky Way pirates' sship.

Arianne's eyes widened when the little girl continued to fight off the bandits, clearly stunned. She felt relieved when the bandits finally backed off and looked around at everyone who had been fighting...Snow, Saki, Jack, Grudge, Alek, Genshi, Buchanan, On, Avery and newly, Lawrence.
When her eyes returned to the little girl, she was bidding her "bye!" and hopping on what appeared to be a small cloud.
The scientist rubbed her eyes to verify what she was seeing and reached out to take the child's hand again. "Hang on, wait! You shouldn't be alone!"
Her fingers just missed the little girl's and she sighed, her shoulders slumping.
The poor little girl...hard-going as she was, it was only too clear that she was on her own and had no one significant taking care of her. Arianne could relate only too well to that- having been nothing more than a street urchin for many months of her life after her mother was killed.

But she was sharply pulled back to reality when Avery suddenly called for a doctor. Her eyes widened. He was hurt.
She ran over, noticing the bullet wound in his shoulder.
Arianne put her arm around him to support him, not daring to touch what already looked like a painful tear in his flesh. "I don't know. I think we had one, but he decided to leave and come back to us later..." She rolled her eyes, remembering the man's aloofness and arrogance. She eyed the wound, saying in a softer tone. "I might be able to help...but I'm a scientist, not a doctor. I know how to sterilise a wound to free it from bacteria, in theory...but I'd really only be "winging it", so to speak."