Thread: Bounty Hunters Part II: The New Era

"Your senses of perception are as strong as ever, I see," thundered a booming voice that seemed to shake the whole foundation of the tree. The voice seemed to radiate from the earth itself, giving it a powerful and all-mighty sound to it. "But I'm afraid that you caught on to me a little too late, it seems. You see, I have you surrounded and there's nothing you can do about it."

As the voice came to a halt at the end of its sentence, a featureless mannequin made from compacted sand rose up out of the grassy and overgrow area at the base of the Tree. It had no facial features and could barely be identifiable as a human, but it was being controlled by a much more powerful being, like a puppet with its puppet-master. However, the sheer power radiating from the humanoid mannequin was enough to make the air tense.

"Do you recognize me now?" the avatar from the ground asked. As she spoke, the avatar molded into the shape of an actual human, gaining dark brown eyes, tanned skin, and long brown hair that fell far past her shoulders. "Of course you do," she growled at Sakura. Their fight at Mount Olympus was something that the girl could never forget. "But wait, there are more of you?" she asked with a sinister smile. "Fantastic," she laughed.

"What once was is no more. I used to be Demeter, weak goddess of the Harvest and manipulator of the Earth. But now, I am the Earth! Fear the wrath of Gaea!" she screamed, the same sinister smile on her face. She sank back into the Earth, but as she did, thousands more of the ground mannequins sprouted up, all moving towards and up the Tree of Knowledge.

"Demeter." Klay gritted his teeth. Demeter had been a previous enemy of the Slayers during one of their missions before she joined as one of Black Shadow's disciples. "Wait....I'm the one that fought you and I kicked your ass too." he frowned at the fact that he had been forgotten.

"Not the time Klay." Sakura gritted her teeth before materializing two black sickles. "I didn't think we'll be seeing them so soon and we can't be too reckless, there might be more Disciples around." she pointed out and saw Marisan and Sadie get among them.

"So they'r plants huh." Marisan stated cooly.

OOC: Big announcement, Jester will be joining our ranks he used to be a member of the first Bounty Hunters and was the one that played the character of Ellen as well as Demeter, one of Black Shadow's Disciples.

Tye glanced down the tree, at it's base were all the sand "people". "Uhhh, guys I think we have to do something?" He said as crimson lighting now flowed up and down his arms.

(OOC: @Jester; We welcome you with all of the love and cookies we can muster up)

Serah got into a ready stance. "This doesn't look... good."

"Okay guys, basically Demeter can control nature in itself." Klay explained. "Or at least as far as plants and earth, even if she appears in front of us physically it doesn't mean that she's actually here."

"Ok, so then how do we fight her?" Tye asked, he watched the sand men climbing the tree.

Jeremy readied his tonfas, "Since using your powers can mess with the tree we will have to get down lower so we can use our skills to the fullest extent, right Marisan?"

Brine pulled out his pistols and fired at the sand people, especially the ones highest up. "So what, if she can just make avatars from nature, then how do we defeat her?"

"Demeter is always close." Klay smiled. "She can't control them from afar so she should be somewhere around here."

"Thing is Jeremy." Marisan interrupted. "That we can't really risk that cause we don't have much of a surface to fight below this point."

"Hey isn't glass just cooked sand?" Brine said turning to Jack and Stephanie.

"Maybe for you..." Jeremy begand to run down the tree, spinning and swinging his bo staff at the sand people. Jeremy began traveling around the tree, swinging and flipping along the branches, trying to stop the sand people from advancing.

Shimo's eyes flickered.
Crap... Too much aura around here to sense her...!
She palmed a seal, and a rocket launcher blossomed into her arms.
Ah well, old fashioned way then I guess.

Jakku sighed in irritation, looking back at the leaves.
"I'll find you. I promise."
He leapt down from the top of the tree, his armour forming around him.
His eyes glowed a dark yellow within his helmet.

"What?" Stephanie asked snapping out of the small trance she was in before realizing there were Sand men below. "Ah crap, I really need to stop doing that" Stephanie muttered, while she heard everything going on, it didn't register on her mind exactly what it was until now, distracted by the thoughts of Kate, she knew she had to put a lid on that, before it kills her.

"I can try to burn them, but I need to get closer otherwise I risk burning the whole tree down, so that makes my power the most dangerous to be used right now" Stephanie replied before she carefully placed one foot on another branch, some of the leaves were in the way of her line of sight.

"So while Stephanie's powers are the most convinient they're also the ones we have to avoid." Klay nodded his head before seeing the sand people charge at the group. He summoned his blades and spun around, beginning to slash at them so as to avoid hitting the tree's branches.

"Then I will use them as a last resort, although instead of hanging around on the tree while my powers become useless, the alternative is I can jump to the ground and hopefully get enough distance from the tree to fight them" Stephanie suggested staring down, she could see a small spot to land in but she would have a very small limited of time to get some distance, and even then she may end up in more danger then up in the tree, a risk she was willing to take.

Jakku landed in the middle of the swarm of sandmen.
He drew his katana with one hand, tripped a sandman, and tossed it aside on his blade.
He skipped away from another blow easily.

Shimo looked at the rocket launcher.
OK, so something less destructive... I don't think I have anything like that...
She pointed out.

"This day can't get any worse." Jack muttered under his breath before leaping out of the tree, landing on the ground gracefully due to a well timed teleport.