The World Ends with You: Another Game [PG-16]

[parallelzero]

It was a hot day in Everett, what could be considered the most culturally diverse city in the world, that much was for sure. But, it was even hotter for a girl who had been lying unconscious on black tarmac for god knows how long. That was the first thought that crossed the mind of one Miss Alexis Bryans as she lifted her head from the ground. She was dazed and confused, but not for the reasons most would expect. The second thought to cross her mind was an inquiry as to why she was outside. Sickly since birth, leaving the hospital had been strictly forbidden for her for years now. Yet, as she raised her head to look around, eventually bringing herself to a sitting position, she came to conclude that she was indeed outside, more specifically in J-Part, home primarily to the Japanese and smaller Asian cultures in the city. More specifically, according to the nearest road sign, she was on Animanga Road. It was a bit of a silly name, but the various shops selling just those things plastered along the road gave it meaning. But... WHY was she there? Her hospital was in E-Block, the English quarter of the city. Not to mention the fact that she had no idea how long she had been lying there, so how come nobody had bothered to help her up or transport her somewhere safer?

Alexis pushed a pink strand of hair out of the way of her vision, the obvious contradiction not occurring to her as she finally got to her feet with a lot more ease than she was used to. Since she was always holed up in that hospital, she didn't have very much physical strength, yet how come of all of a sudden she could stand with ease? Plus, why was everything so much larger? It was almost as if she had shrunk or something! After getting to her feet, she found something in her hand... and there had been nothing there a moment ago. Opening her palm - which was unusually small in appearance, how long had she been off her medication? - she found what appeared to be a... pin? It was round, while the base colour was black and it had a white design of sorts that was something akin to a skull. The girl shrugged, reaching to put it into the pocket of her hospital gown for now when she noticed something off. She... wasn't wearing her hospital gown?

In place of her gown, seemed to be a white, pleated skirt of sorts. Further examination revealed that it was part of a white dress, although the upper portion was covered by a tight, pink jacket with long pink sleeves that had black cuffs. To make things worse, she had a white hood / cape combo that was shaped like an upside down "V", creating what almost appeared to be two tails flailing behind her, and it was all tied together around her neck with a nice pink bow. White boots sat on her feet, with black leggings filling the void between the boots and the skirt. Panicking, she ran over to the closest shop window to catch her reflection, almost fainting in the process. The girl that stared back wasn't her... at all. She was younger, at least three years younger, and her hair and eyes were PINK! The girl screamed when she realized that fact, and screamed yet again when she saw the entire outfit at once. Heart... earrings... a white, feathered beret... a small pink heart beneath her right eye. She looked just like a magical girl! She screamed again.

Flustered, Alexis wandered in a confused daze down the road, ignoring the shops she would normally find interesting. Then she had a thought. She could just go back to the hospital! They'd know what happened, right!? But, which way was the hospital? She hadn't been outside in forever! "Um... excuse me?" She stopped to talk to one of the shoppers - an otaku girl around her age... well, her old age. But the girl kept on walking, as if she didn't even exist. Alexis puffed up her cheeks and went over to the next person, a young man. "Hello, could you tell me how-" But he just kept on walking as well, not even giving her a second glance. Was she being ignored? She screamed again, to see if she'd get any reaction with her now ridiculously high voice, but nobody looked. "What's... going on?"

The wand she had found laying beside her, more specifically the heart shaped jewel on the top, began to flash suddenly, drawing her attention to it. Words started to write them selves along the stone. "Welcome to the Reaper's Game, day one. Now it's time to have some fun. Before the timer runs dry you must go, to the top of a mountain of ice and snow." She was suddenly brought to her knees as a ridiculous pain erupted from her right hand, taking away her breath. When the pain subsided, she found herself looking at a timer etched into her hand. 60 minutes? Just what the hell was going on? It sounded like she had to do what that message said, but why? She didn't have to, right? She was more interested in finding out what the heck happened to her!

If things today weren't going bad enough, the feeling of something knocking her to the ground from behind sure didn't help. She rolled over so that she was facing upwards, to find herself staring at... a giant frog? A giant SKELETAL frog? FIVE GIANT SKELETAL FROGS?

"..."

"..."

"..."

"OH COME ON, GIVE ME A BREAK!" Her high pitched voice screamed.

 

[Loki]

Roque's eyes snapped open as he reached out to block a blow that would never come. Or more accurately, had already done its damage... or so he'd thought. He narrowed an eye in confusion as he pushed himself off the sizzling streets, looking around at the people who seemed to instinctively side step him. They didn't say anything about the fact that he was sprawled across the ground. They didn't even... look at him. If they did, they looked through him, rather than at him. Ouch. He looked down in his palm to find a pin with white skeletal decal. What the heck? Wait, Roque instructed himself, finding something else that was out of the norm that worried him much more than the pin. Confusion was written all over his face when he furrowed his brow, unable to sit up the way he usually did. He made it halfway, with the help of his arms, and then nothing. He tried to stand, commanding his legs to move, and they did nothing. He took a deep breath. Panicking was not the right thing to do. Rolling up the hem of his jeans, Roque saw nothing particularly wrong with his legs on the outside. In fact, they looked as muscular as they had yesterday. Roque frowned.

Yesterday?

And then he panicked. He remembered the bats swinging down onto his precious limbs, and then the one that swung into his head that he'd never actually seen connect. Was that why nobody was looking at him, or talking to him? "Hey!" Roque called out, feeling like a lump of useless flesh in the middle of a cross walk, "Hey!!"

Gladness filled him when a man in a red hoodie stopped in front of him, holding a folded blue leather wheelchair. "Can you help me?" Roque asked as aimiably as he could, indicating that his legs were quite useless. He said nothing, and Roque was vaguely aware of the fact that even from below, he couldn't see any of the man's upper face. Suspicious? Definitely. But was now the time to care? Definitely not. The man said nothing, unfolding the wheelchair and putting it down on the ground, testing to see if the wheels moved properly, and then turned around with his hands in the single pocket of his clothing. The stranger had shuffled away without a single word of greeting.

Roque was too shocked at the man's back to say anything. What were those things sticking out of his back? Wings, obviously, but… they were so real, it was almost like they were custom cosplay accessories. Weird people you found in the J-Block. Especially on Nanba, but he'd usually steered clear of J-Block before now. "Uh…" Roque said, looking around with an irritated and somewhat embarrassed expression, trying to conjure up a non-demoralizing way to flop his way over to the handicap assistance, "How do I…?"

Comparable to a seal out of water, Roque's journey over to the wheelchair was not his most graceful maneuver, and getting on it was an entirely different story. With only his arms to hoist himself up, it was no easy feat, considering the only training he'd done with his arms was shotput and pole jumping- like what, three years ago? "Urk." Roque sighed putting each hand on each arm rest and trying to put his even weight on both sides so the flimsy wheelchair wouldn't topple over. "Got this." He mumbled to himself, biting his lower lip as he let the side of his hip pin the seat down. Ouch- again. The yo-yo's he kept in his pockets to keep him busy between competitions had been victorious in jabbing into his pelvis. He let his eyes scan his surroundings again. Hopefully no other dead people had seen his struggle; because he was sure he looked like a dying bird, flapping his arms to no avail….

He twisted around and let his butt fall into the welcoming seat. "Oof!"

The young athlete let another sigh escape his lungs, more relieved this time due to the fact that he had successfully overcome the wheelchair. Now.

Roque looked around for the cosplayer. He had a lot of questions, including why- if he was dead, his legs were like rubber, and why he was still here, and many many why's. But first on his list was, how to use a wheelchair. (… was there a brake?)

 

[Gummy]

The heat was nearly unbearable on the streets of Everett. There was not a single person who wasn't drenched in sweat or wearing summer clothes. All those poor souls, forced to endure the harsh weather to provide for their families or meet up with friends. However, no one's predicament was as bad as the young man's, who was lying with his back against the asphalt. A passerby walked infront of his body, gaining him shade for a split second, only to be interrupted by the sun's blazing return. As much as he tried to ignore it, intense light was doing a number on the male's tightly shut eyelids. He was intent to lay there as long as he wanted... wait, where was he laying in the first place? Leonardo's eyes burst open in the realization that was obviously not indoors and he tried his best to sit up. How long had he been lying in the middle of the street and why had no one woke him?

"Ni— Nigiri Street?" Leonardo read the nearest street sign aloud as he ran his well manicured hands through his crimson mane. A quick search of his memory revealed that the street was famous for the multitude of sushi restaurants located on it and was located in... J-Part? His house and the modeling agency where he worked were located in E-Block, so he almost never ventured out of that section of Everett. And yet, he found himself sitting in the middle of the street with people mainly of the Asian ethnicity literally walking over him. It made a little sense, he reasoned, as anyone in E-Block would have recognized that gorgeous face and helped him up immediately. He subconsciously unbuttoned his black shirt, showing off his sparking six-pack, and waited a few more seconds to see if someone would help him up. He noticed a petit looking Asian girl, around the age of sixteen, running eagerly in his direction. With a smirk, he held his hand toward her so she could pull him up, and was still smiling when she ran right past him into the arms of another male. Frustrated beyond belief, Leonardo pushed himself off the ground, brushed the dirt off his bright red pants and stepped right walked up to the now kissing couple.

"Do you have any idea who I am!?" he shouted, pointing both index fingers at his face. Not only did the girl not answer, but she released her boyfriend's lips from her grip and the duo continued down the street without a care in the world. Normally this would have caused Leonardo to blow his lid, but his attention was stolen by the odd object in his hand that he was certainly not holding five minutes ago. It was a black pin, from what he could tell, with a strange insignia on it that somewhat resembled a skull. A sudden feeling of absolute dread flooded Leo's body as he examined the pin and he something was telling him it was no ordinary accessory. So far this day didn't include a single ordinary thing. With nothing else to do, Leo tried talking to strangers again, hoping that the previous couple was so in love they were oblivious to the outside world. Unfortunately, each and every person ignored his existence, which felt really weird for someone who was always in the spotlight. He pressed his hands hard against his face, praying this was some kind of nightmare that he would suddenly wake up from. However, when he peeked through the fingers, he saw that he was still on J-Block and that someone was staring intently at him. He removed his hands fully to examine the being, and was shocked when he recognized the jet black hair, gothic attire and intense red eyes.

"Arietta, is that you!?" Leonardo cried with a hint of relief. He and his younger sister weren't very friendly since their move to Everett, but he was sure that she would acknowledge him. He reached out and wrapped his arms around her in a tight hug, to both let her know he was glad to see her and to make sure he wasn't some kind of ghost, as that could also explain why no one interacted with him. The friendly gesture was met with a fast moving palm slapping hard against his cheek, sending him reeling back a few feet.

"Don't touch me," she said in a rather unenthusiastic tone. Leonardo cried in pain as the stinging feeling from the smack lasted for a few more seconds. When he fully recovered, he walked up to his younger sibling, ready to give her a peace of his mind, but she opted to speak first. "If we can interact and see each other, you're obviously in the same dilemma as I, but the least you could do was introduce yourself before putting your hands on me." Leonardo looked past the fact that her tone resembled that of an aging woman on her death bed and was nearly brought to his knees at the fact that his own sister didn't know who he was. Before he could formulate a reply, the sound of a cell phone ringing occupied the silence. It rung a second time, and both siblings pulled phones out of their pockets that they knew wasn't theirs. Arietta opened hers first and read aloud:

"Welcome to the Reaper's Game, day one. Now it's time to have some fun. Before the timer runs dry you must go, to the top of a mountain of ice and snow."

"What the he—" Leonardo's retort was abruptly ended by an indescribable pain coming from his hand. His eyes watered as he drop to his knees and held his hand as if it had just been shot. After a few seconds, he wiped away the tears and looked at the now limp limb, determined to find out what could cause such a painful sensation. He was surprised to find that a timer, counting down from sixty minutes, had tattooed itself onto the backside of his hand. He looked confusedly at Arietta, who was also clutching her hand tightly, but her face showed no signs of irritation.

"That was... quite painful," she whispered before locking eyes with something behind Leonardo. The boy caught her gaze but desperately wished she was staring at a gorgeous boy or something. The way this day had been going so far, whatever was behind him could have been anything from his imagination. A deep, intimidating growl broke his determination, and he immediately hopped to his feet and stood beside his sister. Inching towards them were two grey, wolf-like creatures with blue symbols all along their body.

"Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap! What the hell are those!?"

"No idea, but something tells me they're not going to leave us alone."

 

[JX Valentine]

There were a number of reasons why Max hated J-Part. For one, he felt that the place was filled with posers, people who wanted to be Japanese but just weren't. For another, the prevalence of brightly-colored Japanese advertisements put him off. Then, there were the crowds, masses of people all around him that couldn't care less that he was in their way. One after another, reasons for hating that place tumbled through his mind like an endless internal chatter just as loud as the voices around him.

But over all of that, there was one particular reason: this was not where he remembered being the night before.

As he sat on the sidewalk, Max ran through a mental checklist. First of all, the last thing he remembered was it being nighttime. He was sure of that. The moment he cracked open his first beer of the night was crystal clear in his mind, at it was definitely nine o' clock at night. This, however, looked like it was in the middle of a bright day. Second, he was certain his friend didn't live in J-Part – or, for that matter, anywhere near it – and that he was at his friend's apartment when… when what?

That's odd, Max thought. The rest's all… fuzzy.

Slowly, he stood up. The mass of people moved around him as if they didn't remotely acknowledge his presence. That was fine in his book. He didn't care, so long as they didn't bother him. Besides, if they didn't bother him, he'd have time to think. One of his hands reached up to rub the back of his head.

Weird. No hangover.

He squinted as his other hand pushed his sunglasses back up the bridge of his nose.

"Oh well," he muttered. "No big loss, right?"

With a shrug, he started forward, pushing through the crowds of people. It disturbed him that he couldn't quite remember the night before, and for that reason, he stopped after only traveling a short distance.

I'll call one of the guys. They'll know, and we'll have a big laugh about whatever the **** I did.

Settling on that for a plan, he reached into his pocket for his cell phone and stopped. He paused for a brief moment, then pulled out the object that somehow pressed itself between his phone and his leg. It was a pin, small enough to fit in the palm of his hand, black with a white skull and crossbones emblazoned on its smooth surface. Narrowing his eyes, he lifted it above his head as if to inspect it in the sunlight.

Huh. Maybe one of the guys slipped it in my pocket.

With a shrug, he pinned it to his sweatshirt and tried again for his phone. In an unusual wave of relief, nothing else was in his pocket – no mysterious possible relics, no creepy insignias, nothing but lint and his cell. A smirk played across his face. Familiarity. It was a comfort to him, although he wouldn't admit it in front of his friends.

His hands moved in a fluid motion to draw the phone out and flip it open. Before he could touch a thing, it beeped to life, and a single message appeared.

"Welcome to the Reaper's Game," he murmured as his eyes glanced over the message. "The **** is—****."

As if his phone was wired to a high-voltage cable, it jumped out of Max's hand and smacked into the pavement. Max himself doubled over. A searing pain ran up his arm for several seconds that felt, to him, like an hour and a half. He clenched his teeth and stiffened against the pain until it finally surrendered, subsiding into nothing but a warm, dull throb in his right hand. Shaking, Max took a few deep breaths and lifted his hand to examine the palm. There, in his skin, he saw a timer slowly tick down from sixty.

"What the ****?" he whispered. "What the ****…?"

Swallowing, he stooped down to scoop up his phone, thanking a random deity that it wasn't broken as he pocketed it. Then, he shuddered the rest of the feeling off and pushed forward. He had plenty of questions about the timer and his situation in general; he just didn't know who to ask (or, alternatively, beat up) for answers. So instead, he pushed forward.

Eventually, he pushed far enough to find himself nearly tripping over something green and low to the ground. Stopping short, he found himself in a small island – a place where fewer people milled. Instead, right in front of him, several green, skeletal frogs (frogs that were, he noted, unlike normal frogs in that they were larger than poodles) hopped between himself and a girl with the most ridiculous and obscenely pink outfit he'd ever set eyes on.

He paused. First, he glanced at the girl, then the frogs, and last back at the girl. After a moment of thought, he sighed.

"Bloody hell, I'm still plastered."

With that, he turned his back on both the girl and his potential enemy.

 

[Shadowfaith]

Every bead of sweat that ran down his being felt like a tone of bricks. His shirt was soaked through with the stuff and his hair clung to his high cheekbones as if they were its only hope. His sapphire blue eyes were hooded by his soft brown eyelashes as they looked aimlessly up at the sky above, simply staring and nothing more. The figure lay in the middle of the sizzling path where people were simply waking past him, not paying him any attention or offering him help just in case he was ill. A singe eye did not make contact and he couldn't even feel the burst of air as people walked by him in a hurry. They were all dressed in summer clothing, so he was obviously in the same world as they were, but still no attention was hurled his way. His eyes quickly averted from the clear sky when a burst of white erupted into his sight and he watched as a young girl with cute pig-tails walked by with an ice cream in her hand, holding her mothers hand as they crossed the road.

Shane licked his lips at the thought of that cool ice cream running down his throat and soothing the burning, but the funny thing was is that he didn't feel like eating at all. Didn't feel as if he needed to. His eyes went back to they're aimless staring at the sky and as one loan cloud passed his vision he remembered a day in his life with his family, up a hill side over looking the sea with a picnic basket held firmly in his mothers hand an a kite clenched close to his sisters chest. Her skirt was the same white as the little girls and the cloud that hovered just above. He smiled at the picture in his head, only briefly before it hazed over with red and black as his mother threw a sandwich at her father for something Shane could not remember and straight after, proceeded to take the picnic basket and throw it over the ledge before storming off back down the hill side. His father called to her, throwing insult after insult before abandoning the kite he had been flying with his daughter and storming off after her.

His sister stared longingly at the red kite as it drifted away into the distance, abandoned and lost. Being led by the wind, further and further away from the innocent little girl. Drifting higher and higher towards the heavens. Shane looked at the obviously upset blue eyes of his sister and was startled to find her staring back, only there was no more longing or tears in her eyes…only anger. "This is your fault." She whispered, before dropping her sandwich on the green grass and following her parents tracks down the bank. Shane sat there alone, his hands linked around his knees and his sapphire eyes staring aimlessly at the blue sky. "It's always my fault" he muttered, before he was thrown harshly back into reality (or sub reality as it were).

"I can't remember anything about the good times we had." He whispered to himself, completely forgetting about the sweat that stained his clothes. "But I know they're there." He raised a hand to hover above his head and he stared at the offending white pin that stuck out in the middle of his palm, mocking him. "It drives me mad that I can't remember all those fond memories even though I know they're there. I remember being happy, but I don't know why. I'm afraid…I'll forget I even knew such times." He clenched his hand around the pin in his hand and shook his head furiously. "I won't forget! I can't! They were what drove me on through life and I know, I just know they were good people, all of them." He raised himself from the blazing ground and stared around himself for any clue as to what was going on. He was defiantly in a place he recognized, that was a positive thought at least and he wore the clothes he was in when he was out that…that night!? He had almost forgotten.

He had been spiked, that much was obvious and his friends…well his friends as far as he knew abandoned him. But he knew they wouldn't have, they wouldn't have been his friends otherwise (or was he just being foolish?) "No!" He yelled aloud, unwilling to believe that friends would do such a thing. "I know they were there, I just know it! It's this place!" He growled staring around himself, getting oddly frustrated, which is something he never found himself as being. He took a claming breath and focussed on that night. "I was rushed into hospital. I remember opening my eyes a few times there too. But after that…nothing. I woke up here…It doesn't make any sense." It was like trying to piece together a puzzle that he had lost the pieces of. He just couldn't do it, he needed to investigate into the matter more. But how?

He stared down the street at the familiar shops and locations, he even remember some of the faces that passed by. He knew they couldn't see him, that much was obvious and he was almost 98% sure that he was dead, but he knew that this wasn't just the life he was doomed to lead. The pin in his hand was not something he personally would have connected with the after life and the fact that he could not remember the good times with his family was not something he ever thought he would forget in his afterlife. But then…maybe he was wrong. The entire situation was too confusing for him to understand and he knew that his only hope was to find someone who did have an idea of what was going on…if there was anyone around. Filling his lungs with a an enormous gust of air, he unleashed a hell bent scream. "HELLO!!!???" it echoed for what seemed like a millennia. No one around him paid him any heed and he was tempted to run up to them and shake them, but somehow he knew that it would either a)do no good or b)make the situation worse. He sighed and ran a hand through his sweat dampened hair. This was getting him no where, if he wanted to find out what was going on, he needed to move. Placing one foot in front of the other he began his trek down the road, passing familiar sights and people but paying them no attention, for he knew that remember such places would only bring back the painful memories of his friends and family and the last thing he needed now was a distraction.

 

[Loki]

"Reaper's Game." Roque mumbled blandly as he read the text on his phone, a surplus of keychains dangling from the unit's hook. If there was one thing he ever had in relation to the J-Block, it was his love for too many keychains on one cell, but this strange perk didn't give him any comfort now. He sifted through the new menu, the phone having obviously been reprogrammed or something. It was obviously instructions- very vague, hard-to-understand instructions. A brief, sharp sound signaled the replacement of the instructions with a black screen, red text dripping down it.

YOU HAVE SEVEN DAYS.

"... A week?" Roque raised an eyebrow, hitting the CLR button in annoyance to go back to the instructions, "Okay whatever." He hated time limits. He set his own limits, and he didn't need anyone else to set them for him. Let's see... he scrolled down the text. Make a pact with another player. Whatever the heck that meant. Player would probably be someone like him, who was invisible to pretty much the rest of the whole freakin' world. It was so crowded though. How would he find someone like that? Wait, calm down, start over. He took a deep breath.

'I'm definitely dead.' Roque touched the back of his head, feeling nothing where there definitely should've been a nice lump, 'But why am I here of all places?' Looking around, he snapped his cellphone shut. 'And what's this reaper's game supposed to be for?'

Rolling himself past the bustling civilians, he carefully kept his eyes on the ground, deathly afraid of running something over, or even worse- "Stairs?!" Roque groaned, reaching the top step of three. "Umm..." Desperately looking for a handicapped ramp, he dejectedly changed course so that he could move past the obstacle. Being confined to a wheelchair was starting to turn out to be a real pain. He wandered aimlessly for what seemed like forever, before he heard a "HELLO?!" echoing through the crowd. There were so many people- how was that one yell so clear? Roque sat where he was for a few minutes before deciding he had nothing better to do than check it out. "Hello?" He called back somewhat warily, staring hard at the crowd and attempting to find someone that they were determinedly not looking at. But nobody seemed to be really looking at anyone.

"HEY!" Roque yelled back, before slumping back into his wheelchair in defeat. Guess that person hadn't been like him after all. He glanced back down at the pin in his hand, tossed it up in to the air and caught it. It was pretty stylish, he had to admit. Maybe it'd be easier for people to tell that he was like them if he wore it….. Fastening the pin to his sleeve, Roque leaned over, adjusting the hem of his pants and feeling very disturbed when his ankles and shins felt absolutely nothing. "Okay, now what." Roque was starting to get used to talking to himself; never a good thing. But he was too distracted to care, because all of a sudden, he felt like he was going insane.

"… Ugh, it's huge." Roque commented on the frog hopping calmly towards him. "That's beyond nasty- woah!" Roque grabbed onto the wheels and jerked himself back- narrowly dodging a good kick to the face. His face registered disbelief at the frog's hind legs- 2D and… well… 2D!! "OI! WHAT ARE YOU-" Roque yelled frantically retreating from the weird monster thing that was chasing after him. The familiar sound of a text message on his phone interrupted his concentration and Roque let out a frustrated cry, pulling it out.

"I'M BUSY." He snarled at the screen.

Make a pact with another player. It was the instructional thing, but the words were highlighted.

"I WOULD IF I COULD." Roque snapped it shut again and ducked when the frog leaped over his head. He opened his eyes and saw another sitting patiently in front of him, its throat bulging as it watched him with it's beady eyes. "You have got to be kidding me!"

 

[parallelzero]

"Unless you want to be erased, I suggest you make a pact, little sister." A voice clearly echoed in Alexis' mind as she got back up in time to barely dodge the attack of the giant frog. "Even though it's just a Dixiefrog, you won't be able to defeat it alone... The voice was female - cold, yet complacent. Alexis knew she had no sisters, and ERASED? This was nonsense. "It's not nonsense. Look, there's another player nearby. If you want to prove to me that you deserve to live, you better make a pact with him right now." Her eyes turned in the direction of the blond haired boy, who seemed to have taken notice of her and her attackers. As she was about to call to him, he turned his back, apparently in an attempt to pretend they didn't exist.

"H-hey!" Alexis called after him, being careful not to make any movements that she'd regret later as she began to shuffle in his direction. "You can see me, RIGHT!? Then don't run away! We need to make a pact or something! or we'll get erased! And, as a defender of justice, that would be horrible!" Wait... what? Where had that defender of justice line come from? Her mouth just moved on it's own! And, as she imagined, it certainly wasn't making the already strange plea any more realistic in sound. "C-come on! Help me out here!" One of the Dixiefrogs leaped at her while she was trying to convince the boy, and it knocked her to the ground with a heavy thud as it pinned her down against the ground and her gimmicky wand flew across the cement. For a frog, it was freaking heavy!

"Looks like you were just a simple copy after all..."

"What? Who are you!?" Alexis called back to the voice while pinned, probably appearing crazy to the boy she was attempting to enlist for help. Though, that ship had probably already sailed. "Maybe you'll find out someday. Let's just say we're enemies, my little 'Defender of Justice'."

 

[JX Valentine]

It took Max a beat to realize the girl in pink was addressing him. Shoving his hands in his pockets, he shrugged and tilted his head.

"A pact? What the hell are you on about?"

Suddenly, something dawned on him. He pulled at his sweatshirt and examined his pin, then removed his hand and glanced at the timer. All of a sudden, everything made perfect sense.

"Oh, I get it," he said. "This is a reality show, isn't it? Where're the cameras?"

He glanced around as his mouth spread into a smile. Already, he was mentally sizing up each window and object in the nearest vicinity in an attempt to figure out which one might have held a camera. Mailboxes, objects in store windows, hats… His eyes briefly flicked to each one by one before going back to the girl as she shouted who knew what about things he didn't really pay an ounce of attention to. All he knew by then was that it must have been some elaborate network scheme.

Well, he was certainly one to play along.

"All right. I'll make a pact with you. And to start off…"

He darted forward and drew back his leg with the intent on punting the frog that pinned down his to-be partner. His body ducked to the side as he tensed his leg and put all his strength into the kick.

This thing's gonna fly sky-high, he thought with a smirk.

And then, he swung forward. His foot connected with the rump of the frog, and with an indifferent blink, it rose only a few inches.

Max backed up. Of course that struck him as odd. Even though he could feel that it was fairly heavy for a frog, it should have at least moved a little. But this… this didn't even flinch.

"What's going on?" he muttered as he looked at his hands.

Before he could stop to think about it, the frog turned and blinked at him. His sunglasses slipped down the bridge of his nose as he realized that it finally noticed him and probably wasn't at all pleased that he literally tried to kick its rear.

"Uh… oh. Crap. Come on!" he shouted to the girl. "We've gotta get out of here!"

With that, he darted around to the girl's side and reached down for her hand.

 

[Shadowfaith]

'It's always your fault, Shane. You always ruin things.' The girl in the pure white dress commented, holding her teddy bear close to her chest and running a hand over its ragged head. She was sat on her bed with her legs drawn up to her chest, the teddy nestles between the fold of her legs. A rippling yell echoed from down the hall way and the little girl clenched her eyes shut, throwing her hands over her ears in a meek attempt at drowning out the words that were yelled. The handsome man was leaned casual against the door frame to the bedroom, looking quite out of place amongst the fairy pink wallpaper and the horde of stuffed toys lining the room. A mellow look was etched upon his face and he dare not meet the eyes of the younger lest he wish sudden death. He sighed. "I'm sorry Katie." He muttered, never once lifting his gaze from the cream carpet below his feet.
'That's not going to help now, Shane' the younger whispered, nestling her face into the giant stuffed animal's head. 'Just go away.'
So he did, he turned his back on the little girl and walked down the hall way, clutching onto the handle of the door and pushing it open…

Shane found himself back in the streets of the J-block, surrounded by people who couldn't care if he was alive or dead. He noticed that the hot sweat of the boiling hot day had been replaced with the cold sweat of the harsh nightmare he had just snapped from. He ran a shaky hand through his hair out of habit and released the breath that he had not noticed he had been holding. "If I ever get out of here…If I ever see them again…" He couldn't answer his own question. He didn't know what he would do if he got out of here. Would the good memories that he knew were there return? Or would they be lost to him forever? Did he even have good times with the people he loved the most? He didn't know anymore, his heart was slowly loosing respect for those he never thought he'd stop caring about. "I need to get out of here." He muttered before lifting his gaze from the floor only to look upon an incredibly abnormal sight.

He sub consciously took a recoiling step as the figure in front if him let out a loud 'Croak' and the pulsing bulge of his throat expanded. "A-a frog?" He questioned, a slight grimace on his face. He had never been a fan of the slimy creatures and to see a giant one standing before him now put him off even more. The creature took a hop forward and Shane was forced to drop onto his backside in order to dodge it, the frogs webbed feet barely missing the hair of his head. "What the-!?" He quickly stumbled to his feet and made a dash back in the direction he had walked from. The shops passed by in flashes out of the corner of his eyes and he was eternally grateful for the fact that the zombie like people could not see him for at this moment he didn't care who got in his way.

He came to a flight of stairs and came to a complete halt for just a second in order to register exactly what he needed to do. Off into the distance he spied too more of the greasy suspects chancing what seemed to be a "Wheelchair?" He frowned, not believing his eyes before registering that another frog was certainly on his tail. He grabbed hold of the side bar and quickly threw himself down the blocks of steps. He landed rather awkwardly on the hard concrete, but continued to run, ignoring the shooting pain travelling up his left leg. He yelled, "HEY!" as he ran towards the two attackers and they're target, hoping that whoever occupied the escape vehicle would hear him over the hustle and bustle of the every day folk. The occupant had to be the same as him, just had to be. "Why else would there be two giant frogs chasing it/" He said aloud, noticing how incredibly bizarre and stupid he sounded.

He felt something vibrate in his pocked during his pursuit and withdrew the iphone from its confines. He stared curiously at the screen which clearly stated 'Seven days' and 'Make a pact with another player?'.
"If I could catch him I might." He stated rather frustrated before shoving the now offending object into his pocket once more and picking up the pace.

 

[parallelzero]

Ah... good... The boy was going to come to her rescue after all! Alexis felt a little relieved. Maybe now she had some sort of chance of survival! He could be her knight in shining armor!

"Oh, I get it," he said. "This is a reality show, isn't it? Where're the cameras?"

At that moment, all of her hope was lost. "ARE YOU AN IDIOT!? THIS ISN'T A TV SHOW!" Her fears were giving another booster shot when the boy's attack did nothing to the strange creature. Well, she figured he had it coming, but she would have been more in-your-face about it if her life wasn't in danger. As she reached up for, and finally grabbed his hand, the frogs closing in further and further, the two were suddenly engulfed by a strange light as their hands finally touched. Was this the pact that she had been told to make? Well, both sides had agreed, so whether or not the other youth considered it a joke or not was apparently not of any importance.

"A blissful melody surrounded by a world of corrupted noise, the defender of all that is good in this city!" Alexis' voice clearly addressed the frogs as the light began to fade. "Wrongdoers like you will taste the light of justice! I am Super Magical Heart Princess Ally!" She rose the rod in the air, and continued saying things she couldn't really believe she was saying. "I don't know what you are, but you're clearly evil that needs to be exterminated!" She pulled her rod back quickly as it began to glow pink, a pin appearing on the heart shaped jewel indicating it's use. "Super... Mega... Ultra... Happy... Love... Beam!!" She threw the rod forward once more, and a beam of pink light erupted from it, taking out a good half of the frogs.

When all was said and done, what she had just said and done finally occurred to her, and she turned bright red. "Gaaaah! What the heck did they do to me!?"

 

[JX Valentine]

When the light faded and Max found himself alone with the frogs, a long and creative stream of curses ran through his mind. He even made up completely new swears for the occasion.

And then, the frogs started for him.

Jumping, dodging, running – Max did whatever he could to avoid the frogs, but somehow, they were faster than him. One latched onto his chest with all four legs, and with a shout, he tried to shake it off. Before he could, it shoved him with its back legs, driving him hard into the cement. He winced and stared at the sky.

This ain't gonna work, he thought as he struggled to stand. I need a plan. Hey! He reached into his pockets. Someone gave me that one pin. Maybe they gave me something to fight these things.

His hands closed around everything (other than his wallet and cell phone) that he touched and brought them into the open air. Opening both palms, he found nothing but three small pins, roughly the size of the black one. These, however, were bright blue and glittery, and rather than a skull and crossbones, these had strange symbols he was certain he'd seen before.

Well, ****, he thought. So much for that.

Suddenly, the frogs began disappearing. Before long, half of them were already gone. With a blink, Max watched as the others hopped towards him.

Maybe they just go away after awhile?

Still, the other half weren't vanishing as quickly as he wanted them to. One of them launched itself into the air, its round eyes fixed on him and its tiny front legs prepared to latch onto him. He flinched, squeezing the pins in his hands as he turned.

He felt a rush of cold air, and things went dark for a brief second. Before he could think about it, the sensation dissipated, and he stumbled backwards. With a blink, he tried to get a grasp on his mind when he looked up and beyond the remaining frogs. There, on the other side of the battlefield, an exact image of himself stood, looking just as confused as he was.

"Okay, this is starting to freak me out," he muttered.

A weight latched onto his shirt. With a frown, he swiveled his head, only to find a frog dangling on his sleeve.

"Get off, get off, get off!" he shouted as he swung his fist.

He felt slippery flesh under his fingers, and the frog detached and fell from his arm.

Well, at least they felt that, he thought.

A grin spread across his face as his feet got to work, punting whichever frogs were left. To the side, he could hear the wet smacks of feet on flesh. He glanced over briefly to find his duplicate punching and kicking anything he could get his hands on.

Boy after my own heart, he is, Max mused.

Whether it was his female partner doing all the work or the teamwork between the duplicate and himself, Max couldn't figure out, but he fought until finally, the last frog disappeared in a flash of static. Immediately, with what seemed like a flash, he was brought back to his partner. The duplicate was nowhere to be found, and as soon as he realized that, he opened his hand and looked at the pins again. His partner was already shouting about something, and for whatever reason (not that he really cared), she was bright red.

With a shrug, he stuck the other pins to his sweatshirt and responded with the exact tone he offered someone else for sympathy.

"Yeah, yeah, that's great. What do we do now?" he asked.

 

[Loki]

"UWAA- OOF!"

Roque landed with a hard thud as he spilled out of his wheelchair, the latter toppling onto it's side as Roque scrambled to sit upright. It was hard to twist around however, with his two dead weight legs determined to stay face down and the imminent, pressing issue of big frogs getting closer... He tried to kick away the nearest frog, but clenched his fist in frustration instead. His legs wouldn't move! Of course they wouldn't move! If they could, he'd have outrun these dang things by now! "Hey get outta my fa-"

"HEY!"

Roque's throat closed up automatically as he looked around. The voice was clearer over the dull murmur of the crowd. His best bet. But he didn't have TIME for his best bet! He dragged himself out of the way as a frog tried to pounce onto him, turning away when the other tried to follow up. He was glad he'd lifted a few weights for training, but his arms weren't exactly going to last much longer if they kept on bearing the brunt of his full body weight. He looked frantically around for the voice from earlier, vaguely keeping an eye on the frogs which were busy with that bubble attack thing again which hurt like a mother.... well it hurt, when the bubbles burst too close to you.

"Hey!" Roque caught sight of someone running straight for him. Who else could have yelled? Everyone else was walking around and away from him, as if polarized by magnets. But if he was going against the flow of the crowd, then he was definitely different.

"Over here!" Roque waved fruitlessly, wishing he could halve the distance just by running over, but no dice. He was stuck here until the other guy, (in the heat of the moment, he seemed to run as slow as St. Pious' sprinters!) finally made his way over. Pulling out his cellphone, Roque tried to figure out how this pact business was done. Ew?! Hold hands?! Roque made a face, but as soon as a bubble burst against the side of his arm, he decided he really didn't care. If this was a solution to getting rid of the froggies, then so be it.

Pushing himself off the pavement as best as he could, Roque held out his hand and snapped irritably, "C'mon, grab my hand!"

He'd feel pretty dang stupid if the kid ran right past him and in all actuality, through all this, hadn't been able to see him to begin with. And not only would he feel stupid...

'Man that would suck...' Roque thought to himself.