Pierce Michellis, Silus Dawn-Riser

A foul smell finds its way to Pierce's nostrils, waking him with a start. As he sits up his hand breaks digs into loose soil and grass. He didn't remember sleeping on this last night. He's still wearing his sleeping clothes, gray sweat pants and a white, now dirt and grass stained, shirt.

Pierce's hunter instincts take over, doing a scan of the surroundings. There's a pack, hopefully and supplies and his gear, leaning on a tree to the left. A cave opens up in front, probably where the rotten smell is coming from. As Pierce backs away from the ominous hole in the rock he looks behind him.

"Okay. Wasn't expecting that."

There's a boy on the ground, still fast asleep. He's wearing what I guess are sailor clothes, a stereotypical bandanna wrapped around his head. That's not the surprising part though. Where his forearm should be is a harpoon, glinting in the sunlight.

"Hmmm."

Waking up in the middle of nowhere. I've got someone with me. What looks like beacon packs ready for us. What could thi- INITIATION!!!

Pierce sprints towards the pack he assumes to be his. Inside he finds his miscellaneous supplies and his clothes. He finds a beacon contact scroll, which he sets down against the tree.

There'll be time to read that later. Right now I need to find my stuff.

As he digs through the pack, some things falling to the damp forest floor, he spots what he's been looking for.

He pulls out his bracers, grinning like an idiot. "Now we're cooking with gas."

Pierce opens the scroll and reads as he puts on his gear, sliding the bracers on last.

"So I guess Hook Hand over there is my partner." Pierce says, jogging over to him, ready for anything now.

The world is a blur the moment Silus half-opens his eyes. He seems to be outdoors, but he can't remember how he got there. He raises his torso so his left arm can support its weight as he attempts to get his bearings.

"Deep Locker!" he groans with his right hand on his temple, his head aching. "What happened?"

As his eyesight begins to clear, he turns his head around to view his surroundings. He can see that he is in what looks like a cave. A barely lit cave.

His heart races as soon as the near darkness of the cave registers in his mind. He then frantically looks around for a light source because he is practically night blind in the cave. He finally finds a lantern hanging just behind him and he puts his heart to rest with a sigh of relief.

The sailor then notices a figure partly illuminated by the lantern squatting with his back facing him. That has to be a person, he figures. Before he can try to hail him, the figure stands up and approaches him, carrying what looks like small packs.

"So I guess Hook Hand over there is my partner" are the first words Silus hears from the person since he came to.

"That's Harpoon Hand to you!" is for some reason the Ahab's Bay lad's first words to him.

Pierce stops in his tracks, skidding a bit of dirt onto Harpoon Hand's normal hand.

Deep locker? Where's he supposed to be from?

He's sitting up now, propped up on his arm. There's an odd look to him, like he's completely out of his element. To be fair, Pierce isn't all to used to caves either.

"So, I guess we're partners." He says, grinning "I'm Pierce. And looks like we're partners, Harpoon Hand."

Bending down a bit, Pierce extends a hand to help the guy up, gibing a wide grin. "C'mon, get up. We've got things to hunt... Eer, just watch which hand you grab on with."

Silus reaches his right hand towards Pierces, mindful of his warning with Navy Mako.

"Silus," he introduced himself in kind.

He grabs onto Pierce's hand and gets on his feet, having enough of his nap on the cave floor. He then gestures to Pierce by flicking his thumb against his fist several times, asking "Got light?"

"Not right now. Hang on a sec." Pierce says, quickly looking for the source of the eerie lighting. A simple look up determines it to be coming from a lamp hanging above them.

One of the Gemini Jaegers unfolds and flies towards the rope holding the lamp with a flick of his arm. The rope lets go with a satisfying snap, the lamp falling onto Pierce's open hand.

"Well now we've got light. Where to?" Pierce says, holding up the lamp, the Jaeger quickly locking back onto his arm and folding with a metallic clink clink clink.

As Pierce grabs hold on the lantern, its light radiates forward into the cave, illuminating a fork on the path: one heading straight, the other heading right. Silus has no experience in cave spelunking at all so he is completely out of his element. Then again, neither is Pierce, as far as he can make out of his partner.

"Yer askin' a sailor where ta go in a cave?" he remarks as he looks at Pierce with a raised left eyebrow. "Well..."

He stops to think for a few seconds and finally makes a decision. "Bahhh! Go right! What can go wrong?"

"Right it is!" Pierce says, just as clueless as Silus is.

A sailor eh? I wonder how good he'll be in a fight.

"Let's get going" Pierce says, walking and keeping the walls in his peripheral vision.

A minute or so of silence passes before Pierce decides to break the growing silence.

"So..." He says, his voice echoing off the rocks "Er... got a semblance?"

Might as well see what we've got before we find what we're up against.

Growing up in Ahab's Bay has taught Silus many things, especially ones related to the sea. But anything to do with Aura is not one of them.

"Sem...blance?" he muttered as he tries to make sense of the word. "You mean resemblance? Well, I don't know. Do I look like someone famous?"

He scratches his head wondering why Pierce would ask a question he perceived as trivial.

...

"Hahahaha!"

It takes all of Pierce's willpower to stifle his laughter but it doesn't really work too well. It bounces off the cave walls, easily audible in the eerie silence. Remember that sound could alert any animals, Pierce clamps his hands over his mouth, though it isn't too effective.

"Ooooh." Pierce says, still calming down, a chuckle shaking his shoulders every few seconds. "Sorry, that caught me off guard."

"I can't blame you though. Can't say I have any semblances of my own.... They're abilities by the way. Kinda like super powers. You wouldn't believe the ones some of the folks back home have." Pierce says, reminiscing about his town. His family.

Pierce's burst of laughter, though suppressed right afterwards, only compounds to Silus's confusion by a tiny amount. What's so funny about what I said? he thought.

He then humours his partner with his brief talk about all this aura stuff, until he mentions "folks back home", seemingly reminiscing about them.

Ah. Home. Ahab's Bay. Folks. Morris. Hardrad.

Those are the thoughts that fly through his head right afterwards.

"A little early to miss home, don't ya think?" was his remark.

"A little early to miss home, don't ya think?" Silus said.

There's a quick silence as Pierce thinks it over, their arrhythmic footsteps the only noise in the tunnel.

"I guess, but it's not really missing. It's more of... I dunno. Thinking of all the great people back there. It makes me wanna do better here. Maybe one day, I'll see them again. I'd be more useful. I could help people. Save people."

"Just a little motivation" Pierce adds when he notices he's been talking way too much.

"We'll live through this," Silus assures Pierce, patting his shoulder with the right hand. "Tell ya what, once we're done with this initiation, I'll treat us a nice round of drinks. I'll even let you pick the place."

As the two march further into the right fork of the cave, Silus realises the air within the caves. Open air this isn't, he thinks. But at least it smells a little familiar.

He turns to Pierce and ask "How do ya like the smell of this place?"

"Wait!" Pierce whispered as urgently as he could, holding a hand up to silence Silus

"I hear something. I... ugh smell something too." He said, opening all his senses wide open. Ears ready to hear anything approaching, Eyes scanning the area, darting to and fro, and most importantly, legs bent and ready to jump out of the way.

There's something awfully familiar about this.

"Silus, we'll chat later. I think something's up ahead. Looks like initiation is finally starting." Pierce said, unfolding the Gemini Jaegers.

Silus can barely see anything beyond their lantern's area of illumination, but he can certainly feel the earth rumbling. Is it an earthquake? Is the cave coming down on them? Or is something of great mass moving about? These are some of the thoughts racing through his mind.

Knowing the rumbling can't be a good sign, he raises Navy Mako, at the ready. "What timing," he quips. "Of course there's something down here."

Pierce puts his finger to his lips, eager for the quiet. He didn't want whatever was coming to get the upper hand.

Quickly, Pierce unfolds the Gemini Jaegers, holding the lamp beside him and shielding his chest with his left arm.

The ground here is loose but there are parts that are harder. Denser. Something's been through here and judging by the noise being in front of us, we've been walking in its footsteps. How could I have missed them?

Pierce sidesteps towards the right wall of the cave, making sure to keep his free hand ready and way from the wall, while motioning for Silus to do the same.

Silus notices Pierce moving to the right wall of the cave with their sole light source. Panicked, he leaps to the wall. As soon as he lays his hand on the wall after the leap, he quickly spins, turning his back towards it and leans against it, Navy Mako still raised. He concludes with a huff for all that movement.

"Ya see anythin'?" Silus whispers to Pierce. "My eyes ain't so good in the dark."

"I'll be back." Pierce whispers, lowering the shutters over the lamp and putting it at Silus' feet.

I can't see them. They can't see me.

Pierce goes into a low crouch and slowly creeps towards the sound, both shields raised and ready. He's careful about where he's stepping, checking each one for any possible problems. As slow as it is, Pierce knows it's the best way to get to your prey.

Slowly, step by step, Pierce moves forwards.

Silus can only stay behind with the lantern as Pierce ventures forth quietly to scout ahead for any possible threat. He feels rather useless in that cave.

"If we were outdoors with open air and good lighting..." is his grumbling before trailing off.

Just get your stern back in one piece, he thinks about Pierce.

What could this be? Argh, what did the scroll say? I remember new grimm. New grimm new grimm new grimm new grimm.

Inching against the wall, growing ever closer to whatever this was, Pierce thought of what they'd be up against.

Ok. There's the bats, the leeches, and the rats. What am I forgetting? Neither of those could sound that big or leave marks that big.

"Deep...Locker..."

Silus's eyes widen in astonishment. Even with scant lighting, he can make out three white, unearthly figures emerging from the water, hissing. And it looks like these lizard-like beasts are advancing on Pierce. Surely he can see them coming too.

He can't afford to leave his would-be drinking buddy in danger, so he shouts at Pierce "I got yer back, lad!" before firing his Navy Mako at the creatures' general direction. While the harpoon flies forth, he picks up the lantern with his right hand and dashes to Pierce's side.

"I got yer back, lad!"

Good. Silus noticed them too.

Pierce takes a few steps back as two, no, the three lizards crawl towards him.

Dammit. I was planning to take it out quickly.

Dropping the stealth strategy, Pierce unfolds the Jaegers, there bronze colored surface glinting dimly from Silus' lantern.

As the three grow ever closer, Pierce picks out the one farthest from Silus.

They don't look too fast. With the Jaegers on my feet, I could easily outrun them.

"Silus! You take that one one!" Pierce yells, pointing at the one closest to his partner.

With a metallic click one of the Jaegers latches onto Pierce's left boot, skating him quickly out of biting range and towards the side of the monster at his left.

Silus' hand looks like it can grapple like the Jaegers.

The clumsy thing probably can't keep up.

We could easily skip this entire fight.

Pierce spots his favorite target, the beast's neck, wide open.

But that'd be boring.

The buzz saw flies.