Arabelle

"Good girl." Arabelle smiled. "Don't worry, you'll understand it when you see it."

--And then, they were rudely interrupted. Some female player with silver hair and pretty, pretty red eyes ran up to them in what was probably the least professional greeting ever. Also... she kind of reeked of airhead. Well, teaming up was hardly a job interview, but there were still unspoken rules of etiquette. Arabelle looked from An to Mishiro, then back again. Have they met? Was there some reason this... reallyyy weak player was approaching them and not one of the other teams looking for extra members on the stage? Whatever. Even one damage can help.

"'Of course! Just do your job and don't get killed and you're perfectly welcome!" The small purple-haired girl accepted the join request with a sweet smile. Yeah, no. This was supposed to be just me and Shiro-chan but maybe if you're good for conversation, maybe I'd actually be totally fine with it. She pointed Mishiro to a group of zombies nearby. "We were just about to go after another group though. Ready yourself and stay out of my way at first."

That means you better pull your weight when you get the chance to, noob.

The executioner's scythe descended on their enemies' heads.

~~BINGO BOOK

It was there on the ground, writhing in pain. It was going to die at the two reapers' hands, anyway. The persistent little thing just had to cling to "life" to annoy them and delay the inevitable. She nodded to Mishiro. Decent, could use a lot of work, but that had been a killing blow right there... if only the zombie didn't have a strange special ability of some sort.

She gave her scythe a showy little twirl and chopped off the creature's head. 

Okay, how many did they have left to go?

A quick survey of her surroundings showed that they had a lot. The small purple-haired girl whirled around to face her teammate. "Do you still have that weapon I gave you? The one with Bleed?" She remembered that weapon, mainly cause its name made her laugh. The Widowmaker? For a Rare weapon? Well, maybe if they meant the wielder... but whatever, she wasn't going to make that joke when she was about to ask her wonderful best friend to use it. "Put it on and use it for the next battle. I wanna try something."

~~BINGO BOOK

Mishiro kind of sucked at this.

The small purple-haired girl would have been content with sitting around and chugging down as much offbrand energy drinks she could before the next round of mobs came along, but watching her teammate stumble around clumsily with her scythe was almost painful to watch. And totally boring. If that was just as much damage as her regular Sword Art could do, they'd be spending more time fighting than the time they thought they would save by conserving energy consumption so they won't take too much breaks in between.

Sigh. Arabelle retrieved her scythe from where she had it propped up on an upright chair. "Don't take this personally, Shiro-chan," she said, loud enough for the girl with dull eyes to hear. "But you're not supposed to hold it that close to you." 

To demonstrate, she unleashed a weaker Sword Art that consumed more than half of the last creep's HP. Enough was left for her teammate to get the last hit on.

~~BINGO BOOK

Arabelle spun around and took a few steps back. A zombie that should have been handled by another team took a swing at her but she quickly distanced herself and jabbed the blunt end of her scythe against its chest. "Hey!" she called out to the incompetent group through cupped hands. "Keep your eyes on your mobs, we're trying to fight our own group here!"

The inside of the tent really was not the best place to fight. Even someone with as much experience as her was having difficulties. The space was simply too small, the other teams were inside, and there were lots of obstacles in the way. She would have considered just taking Mishiro outside and going on a rampage, but there were zombies rising from the inside of the tent's ground too.

They'd be cut off from the buffs before they knew it.

Speaking of.

The small purple-haired girl ducked under another swipe - sending a glare off to the other teams - and withdrew an energy drink from her inventory. She tipped her head back and downed the entire gross-tasting thing in one gulp.

~~BINGO BOOK

Just one?! If she had less composure, Arabelle would have thrown her scythe down in frustration. But no, not even that; she liked this scythe too much to even scratch it any more than necessary. She watched, tense, as her weaker teammate defended against two of the undamaged zombies. Okay, she was doing fine. Not like they would do anything worse to her than one HP of damage and some dignity lost at those... smelly... grimy hands. Clearly, she'd underestimated the dirty bastards by a slight margin - or not at all slight. Once again, one of the zombies she'd hit survived... with what looked like 1 HP.

It'd happened too many times to just be a coincidence. And Mishiro already proved that it was at 1 HP, by finishing off with a basic attack.

No offense, Shiro-chan.

"No need to tell me, I've got it!"

So somehow, they had a weird special ability. She didn't know exactly what but she wanted to completely finish them off this time. The small scythe wielder zeroed in on one of the zombies that was now getting up in the aftermath of its attempt to attack her friend and ignited her scythe. She twirled it in her hands and unleashed her Sword Art.

Arabelle made sure to tear it to shreds this time.

~~BINGO BOOK

Their energy bars were full and the zombies in the tent weren't going anywhere. Arabelle stood up with her friend's help and re-equipped her scythe, giving it a wide practice swing. As agreed, the higher leveled player of the two was assuming lead for... however long this event was going to take. Really though, there wasn't much difference among the weaker creeps; the small purple-haired girl opted for the ones nearest them.

Dragging themselves up with much difficulty, a newly-spawned group of zombies groaned and stumbled over chairs in their attempt to make their way toward the stage.

Arabelle bent her legs. The large scythe in her hands flared a bright pulsing green. She raced forward and leaped off the edge of the stage as if she and her scythe were as light as a feather, and descended, slamming her weapon down with the full force of her Sword Art. 

The ground shook at the force of her attack. One zombie cried out in pain and disintegrated into blue dust. 

~~BINGO BOOK

Arabelle sat on her ankles and crossed her arms. "What? Here I was, trying to give advice, and you just gave your Mishiro version of 'no u.' Mine isn't even as bad as zoning out multiple times in the span of a conversation! Meanie!" She wasn't actually counting, however, she believed it had happened a few times already within the day. No - she thought with a huff - most of the time, she felt like she was holding a one-sided conversation. She only ever felt that way from half-hearted video interviews back in her old high school!

That aside, her earlier reprimand didn't hold meaning only in the literal sense. But whatever implication Arabelle had intended flew right over the other girl's head and smacked against the wall on the other end of the tent. Trying to give advice by way of hints to a person who only takes things literally was hard.

"Oh. My family." Of course. Claude, Mishiro, and a movie night. Given that current topic they had very weirdly arrived and dwelled on (or briefly touched on for filler), it made sense Mishiro would ask if she had the same experience. "No."

And that was that.

Arabelle giggled at the thought of the three-years-younger version of her scout having to drag a more inexpressive Mishiro into a movie night. Every Friday. "That's cute," the small purple-haired girl said with a hum. "I wish there were movies in here. They're the most romantic date ideas. And... and... doesn't watching a movie beside someone else and just hearing each other's comments just give you a warm fuzzy feeling? Right? Is that how it feels like?"

For those few moments, Arabelle did not sound like she was entirely sure of herself.

"Honestly though, nothing else? Sounds like a very unproductive two months to me." She turned away from her friend and pouted. So no progress on that front... what a disappointment. After all that work she put into giving him advice and inviting him to the beach party, he just ruined it all himself. Well, maybe there was a part of him that was half-hearted about it. Maybe they would meet again and it would actually turn out for the better. She was cheering for the latter! It was always the fun thing to watch!

And then, the conversation fell dead. At this point, her friend would have continued or something, but she just... didn't.

Holy crap, this was depressing.

"Hey." Arabelle held her friend by the shoulders. "It's unbelievably rude to think of someone else when another person's right in front of you, you know?"

Arabelle smirked.

"I don't know, Shiro-chan," she hummed with a playful smile. The small purple-haired girl squeezed her friend's hand before Mishiro could drop it after their quick little high-five. "It's a common trope in fiction. Doesn't matter who does the pushing, all that matters is the fall, yeah? And more than half the time, it makes for the cutest moments! You need to watch more movies." 

No homo though. Full bi. She was just teasing.

At the girl's suggestion, she took notice of their surroundings and nodded in agreement. Letting Mishiro take the lead, she climbed back onto the stage and positioned herself behind the large treasure chest - oh, there were still items~ - which was the most likely thing players were going to bother defending. Pessimist much? The small purple-haired girl sat down and dragged down her friend to sit alongside her.

"So tell me what you've been up to lately, Shiiiro-chan~." Arabelle smiled sweetly and leaned back against the chest's lid. She didn't let go of Mishiro's hand. "I say you're my closest friend a lot but we haven't been talking much lately. Let's see, how about we start with... what's going on with you and Huginn so far?"

The small purple-haired girl pointed an accusatory finger at the two living (heh) zombies. "Hey, I swear I landed a hit on both of you earlier!!" -- Okay, there was only one left now; Mishiro did her job and handled one of the two remaining with a single-target attack. Nice, nice! Going by their strategy, she would have downed another energy drink by now, but her energy was at an all-time low so the full implementation would be later, after bringing their EN pools back to full. -- That left one. She glared at it as if just by glaring, it could drop dead. "I swear I landed a hit on you earlier. Now, go die and stay dead."

The zombie snapped into motion and literally b*tch slapped her from her chair.

Thankfully, she had her ever reliable safety net, which was her best friend! She fell into Mishiro's arms - some might even say bridal style - and the girl underneath almost staggered at the sudden weight. Keyword: sudden. Not weight. Okay? "I guess you can say I fell for you, huh? My, my, how embarrassing~. What would Claude and Huginn say about us, I wonder~?" Okay. Enough teasing. Arabelle wrapped an arm around her friend's shoulders and used her as support to stand back up. She turned to the zombie with a deadly expression.

Of course. The most mature way to respond to a b*tch slap was another b*tch slap. But with a scythe.

Seconds later, the zombie was wailing in pain and disintegrating and Arabelle and Mishiro were sharing a cute high-five for victory. "Alright. That's it for the test run. Let's take a quick break, okay?"

~~BINGO BOOK

They climbed back onto the stage, carefully circling around one of the more powerful and dangerous variants, then dropped back down and leaped over a row of seats to engage with another group. This time, the zombies didn't seem too interested in pursuing the players they sighted from afar, rather they stalked about aimlessly near rows of empty and knocked over seats and only raised their heads when Arabelle got too close.

"Back to your graves, you go!"

Grinning smugly, she rocketed forward and knocked a zombie closer to the group. It wailed, clawed at its torn clothes, and tried to bat her away. A bright green aura instantly ignited around her scythe, and she unleashed a large powerful swing - seemingly at nowhere at first, until it generated a shockwave that sheared off half the creeps' health bars. Arabelle hopped onto an empty seat and sent her weapon's blade on a path to their unguarded necks.

~~BINGO BOOK

It was easy to forget that her friend had heavy armor on. It was the misleading overcoat. Definitely the overcoat. Without it, she would look like a tank - which she already partly was. Mishiro was a third of Arabelle's level and yet, she had the much better defense. The small purple-haired girl almost pouted at that fact, but at least she could forever gloat that she was the superior DPS.

She whistled.

"Right, right. I was going to do that anyway."

The zombie lay <<Paralyzed>> on the ground with Mishiro standing over it, ready to beat it back down as soon as it stood. Scaryyy~! She could see what boys found so appealing in Mishiro now. Arabelle popped off the cap of an energy drink and downed the entire thing in one gulp and oh ew- it had this weird tangy aftertaste. Probably everything in this event minus the funnel cake was gross. Looking around, she found that the rest of the zombies were being handled by the other players already in the tent.

Was the end finally in sight? Who knows, that gave her a bit of an opportunity to chill. 

"Hey, Shiro-chan. Let's set down a strategy for the next group of creeps."

~~BINGO BOOK

Mishiro went after the easy target. As in, the one that was literally on the ground already.

Which was fine since it had the highest HP, but--

"Not enough for an AoE?" Arabelle called out. Another one would have been nice, so she could have focused down on the two with higher HP values. She was surprised and totally smug that she was the one pointing this out, but... they needed to coordinate. They did not at all settle on the roles each was supposed to play, leaving it as: just use the strongest attack you possibly can while also trying to conserve energy.

Yeah, not the best.

Another barrage of attacks from her end wiped out three at the same time. Leaving - the undead that was out of her range because it was going straight for Mishiro. And it looked hungry. Ooooh, crap! The small purple-haired girl put as much power as she could into her legs. Claude was going to kill her, Claude was going to kill her, Claude was going to--

The zombie inflicted a total of one damage.

Needless to say, Arabelle was freaking shook.

~~BINGO BOOK

And then, Mishiro stopped talking. 

Arabelle quirked a brow at her friend. She had already grown used to the rather dull girl's silence, but it did come off as a bit disconcerting at times. Like she would just suddenly leave a conversation hanging. The small purple-haired girl considered bringing up something else, but she figured the girl probably needed to concentrate.

Like... it was evident from her movements that she was still new to this.

She followed up with a weaker AoE to cover up for the mobs her friend missed. Finding her balance, she ignited her scythe and steadily unleashed three wide swings at the mobs' general direction, strong enough that her hair blew back with the breeze. Two hit. Two missed. They were moving rather unpredictably. "Woah-- hey!" Arabelle slammed her axe down on a zombie that dared to touch her with its filthy muddy hands with a vengeance. 

It was on her clothes. Ew.

~~BINGO BOOK

Arabelle smirked at her friend's input. Always the logical person, Mishiro was! God, she sounded the exact same as Claude. Give her any additional knowledge and she'd be stuck with two mega-nerds. 

And good with an axe, Mishiro was not.

She had to restrain a laugh as the girl clumsily swung her weapon around.

"Outside the tent...?" The small purple-haired girl had to tilt her head in thought. "They can't reach the roofs, that I'm sure. So if they're looking for places to recover, there's always that! Other than that... I came from the other side of town, just so you know, and even if it was overrun by zombies, there were none of those places. Ergo, those consumables are most probably limited to here."

The possibility of players coming back was small though. Unless the event stretched on for too long, they would already have gotten all that they needed. If anything, this place was perceived to be where it all started. Heck, in video games, this was where the final boss would show up!

Oh, the zombie was recovering. It barely had any HP left, so she gave it a simple flick with her scythe. And just like that, it died and their first group of mobs were over and done with.

~~BINGO BOOK

Arabelle allowed her ashen eyes to wander. She found a section of the tent where players seem to be entering and exiting out of. Some carried items that looked very close to the ones they'd consumed.

"Oh, cute." She pointed that section out to her friend with a smirk. "The game gave us nice things to go along with this event. Well, there's your answer, Shiro-chan."

It was about time they actually started. The small purple-haired girl leveled a glare at the zombies still inside the tent. They were clamoring all over the chairs, knocking them over in an effort to get to the NPCs and players. Thankfully, their killing an NPC did not seem to come with the effect of also turning them into a zombie. With the amount of NPCs living in the Town of Beginnings, it would've been an awful mess. Messier than it was now anyway.

"Ready? I'm heading in!"

With that proud announcement, she jumped straight into a group of smaller, weaker zombies clustered together and unleashed her Sword Art. Three instantly died upon coming into contact with her weapon while another... stayed alive with a sliver of an HP left. It growled at her and slowly started to amble forward.

Oh, this was the troublesome part. Of course they weren't just going to be plain old mobs.

~~BINGO BOOK

"--I think you'd know how to distinguish them."

Arabelle prepped her scythe and consumed her free buff. "I'm glad to be working with you today, Shiro-chan! Oh, when was the last time we did something like this together?" She already knew the answer to that and it was rather d e p r e s s i n g. Despite calling the girl her best friend and all, they had literally never fought by each other's side since day one. Well, maybe... if sparring without enhancements counted, but that was admittedly 90% of Arabelle receiving a one-sided beating and 9% of Mishiro lecturing her and 1% of her actually doing things right. If it wasn't obvious enough already, she wasn't the best at martial arts. 

That wasn't any good. There was something fighting at each other's sides as equals gave that beating each other up didn't. "Need a scythe? I've got my old one," she offered. Eyeing the axe at the girl's side, she traded over Shikama Douji. Considering the other girl's weapon of choice, it was likely she knew already: martial arts wasn't the best for eliminating large hordes of creatures like this. "Just send her back when we're done and we're all good. I... kinda have an attachment to her, even if she's weaker than my usual."

~~BINGO BOOK

"Eeeeee!"

Gross, gross, gross!

Without even looking, Arabelle lopped off another head with her scythe. A loud thud, followed by a fainter one - before the decapitated mob returned to dust. The small purple-haired girl had been enjoying a nice leisurely walk to the latest Halloween craze there was when all of a sudden, the temperature seemed to drop a few degrees and literal zombies started bursting from the ground. What the heck? This was supposed to be a safe zone! What was it with safe zones and events invading said safe zones lately?

An event...

Ashen eyes blinked at the halfway-ruined but still colorful flyer on the board. For this to happen while a rather peculiar circus with its suspicious NPC in town... it was too much to be a simple coincidence... and she happened to recall one of her closest friends expressing interest in attending just some days ago. She was not concerned. Not at all. Baka! Mishiro could handle herself. But she couldn't stand the thought of leaving Claude's sister to the wolves, when going in and checking would only spare a little trouble for her. 

Arabelle slammed the butt of her scythe on one mob and reversed her grip to slash at another. As soon as the dirty little nuisances were all handled, she took to the roofs and sped towards the site.

Sure enough. Majority of the zombies were coming from her destination. She searched the outside and shouldered past fleeing players and NPCs - oh, and the occasional annoying undead, but there were some that were too strong and other players had to step in to handle those for her - and pushed past the tent flaps--

Wait, why the hell were they still charging for entrance?

She let out an exasperated puff of air. Thankfully, it wasn't all for naught. Arabelle found her friend beside a treasure chest full of free goodies. "Hey, Shiro-chan! What happened?" She took as much as she wanted, just for good measure, as Mishiro brought her up to speed. Shady ringmaster. Lured everyone in with the promise of a nice circus act. Well, turns out they were the circus act. And now they were stuck fighting these guys for god knows how long. S i g h. It was the Rain Minion event all over again! She realized she took too much and dropped a few back into the chest. Arabelle grabbed her friend's hand. "Alright, loser. There are the strong ones and there are the weak ones. Obviously, we're going for the weaker stuff and leaving the others to the frontliners. Believe me, they're here."

--She whirled around and slammed the blunt end of her scythe against the head of a zombie that was practically already falling apart. It burst into data fragments as soon as her blow connected.

"I think you'd know how to distinguish them."

@Mishiro

"( ˘ ³˘)♥"

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• [T1 - Perfect] Elven Eye -- Enhancements: Keen, Keen, Keen

Name: Minuet in G Major, BWV Anh. 114
Your Profession: Performer
Your Rank: 2
Roll ID: 124352
Roll Result: 9 (LD: 10)
Item Type: Support Song
Tier: 1
Quality: Uncommon
Enhancements: [x1] HP Recovery
Description: [reference] A simple piece that restores a small amount of HP when played. Recorded on a rectangular blue crystal with a small black phoenix etched into one of its sides. 
Post Link: http://www.sao-rpg.com/topic/16480-f11-r2-performer-magnolia/?do=findComment&amp;comment=582344

Name: Air on the G String
Your Profession: Performer
Your Rank: 2
Roll ID: 124354
Roll Result: 12 (LD: 1)
Item Type: Support Song
Tier: 1
Quality: Perfect
Enhancements: Familiar Sight [+2 LD when attempting to find a familiar]
Description: [reference] The second movement of Bach's Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D major played on a piano. Its slow, soothing tunes can attract friendly creatures and raises a player's success in finding one of them to tame. Recorded on a rectangular blue crystal with a small black phoenix etched into one of its sides.
Post Link: http://www.sao-rpg.com/topic/16480-f11-r2-performer-magnolia/?do=findComment&amp;comment=582344

[Swimsuit Image]

Arabelle was having lots of luck with debuff songs recently, so she thought to try it on expanding her collection of support songs. They weren't as good as the crystals Alchemists offered, but they did give their own buffs which were limited only to her profession. She slid open the lid and warmed up her scales, starting off with a simple beginner piece she already knew by heart. To her delight, the performer crystal accepted the recording and she happily picked it up to check her enhancements.

Uncommon.

Yeah, whatever. It was an easy piece, anyway. The small purple-haired girl dismissed it into her inventory and flipped to the song she had marked down for a Familiar Sight.