[ HH PRP ] Missed the short bus (Gale, Pokerus)

[poke mattix]

Pokerus may have been a Alumni, but she still spent much of her time near the school grounds. This was largely due to the lack of ideas of what she would do after graduation. But she had plenty of time to figure all that out, she was in no rush.

Strolling through the school corridors, she thought about getting something to eat, turning around a corner and through a door. But instead of a cafeteria, she was assaulted with the grey wisps and whispers of the haunted house.

Whelp, so much for food.

A quick glance of the area told her she had ventured into a large library, shelves upon shelves stacked with old books, most tinged with grey and looked so frail they would fall apart.

Curiously she picked one up, only to have it crumble to dust. She then pulled another off the shelf and began to read. This one was in a language she couldn't understand, and placed it back. Taking a third book she opened it and read the worlds out loud.

"Suddenly he sits up and tugs my..." She raised a eyebrow. "pulling off his boxer briefs his...What is this?!" She skips forward a few passages, leans away from the book, and continues to make faces while mumbling the words from the book.

kuuropii

ouo/

 

[kuropeco]

It had been a very long time since Gale had last been to the Haunted House.

After all, he'd honored his negotiations and agreements with Mei-Xiu and Bul, even if it had been a very long time since he'd seen or heard from either of them. Gale sincerely hoped that they were still doing all right - rarely were there any creatures who were as willing to work together as they were.

His duties had pulled him to the House this particular afternoon. Gale had Jinhai summoned and was pacing up and down one of the corridors, gloved fingers held loosely but carefully around his gun, looking for any sign of an intruder. He thought he felt something, heard something - and then he knew he had, because a soft voice was coming from one of the rooms to his right.

His grasp tightened, and Gale quietly turned the corner, amber eyes narrowing somewhat. A creature stood there, staring intently at one of the books, and it was unfamiliar to Gale, not one that he had seen before - or at least, not one he had seen before anytime recently.

"Hello," he said quietly, cautiously.

poke mattix

 

[poke mattix]

The dragoness was too engrossed in the 'book' that she didn't notice the approaching hunter, making faces at the passages written within. But when she heard the softly spoken greeting she looked up, gazing at the long gun held in his arms before at the hunter himself. This one wasn't familiar to her, but she could see the symbols on his coat were similar to Wilson's. Maybe they knew each other?

Regardless, she was finding it hard to feel any sort of hostility towards him. Which was probably bad because hunters were incredibly dangerous and known for kidnapping students in order to weaponise them, but she couldn't help it. They were human's trying to defend themselves after all.

Her tail flicked idly as she turned his way. "Sup?" She replied, closing the book and held it up for him to see "Have you read this before? I think it might be a book written by humans, but it's so bizarre!" Better be careful not to insult it, just encase he had read it and was a fan.

kuuropii

 

[kuropeco]

He didn't raise his gun to her, nor did he try to advance. Instead, Gale just stood there in the doorway quietly, watching with a wary expression on his face as he tried to determine whether this particular creature was an aggressive one or not.

His eyes fell to the book in her hands - and immediately (and annoyingly) his face turned a slight shade of red.

"I haven't read it," said Gale, sounding mortified. "And anyway, that's not a book anyone should read, I know what it's about from...from other people." Well, Twitter, really, but that still counted as other people. "It's a terrible example of human literature."

He paused a moment, and then asked cautiously, "What's your name?"

poke mattix

 

[poke mattix]

"Really?" Now she was curious. "I mean, it looks really really bad. Like, apparently this ghoul has this goddess she worships, and I think she does it by...uhh..using this grey boil. Some sort of ritualized barbaric sex." She flipped the book back open again before responding. "Oh, Pokerus, or Poke for short. You got a name?"

She then looked concerned. "Wait, this isn't some sort of spell book that summons this goddess by doing - UGH" She then tossed the book at gale because she didn't want to be touching that with a 10 foot pole.

It was only after she had done this that she realized that throwing a potentially dangerous spell book that could summon sex goddesses at someone you were trying to be nice to was a really bad idea.

kuuropii

 

[kuropeco]

If he'd been a bit younger, he might have stuffed his fingers in his ears. As it was, the creature even mentioning sex at all still managed to make Gale's face flush a deep scarlet as he stood there, completely flustered. "I, no, that is to say - please don't read that, it's utter rubbish."

He inhaled a breath and glanced around the room before his eyes settled on the creature again; all he needed to do was raise his gun, and the book bounced off of the barrel as he flipped it sideways, not wanting to touch it either. He gave it a horrified look before he turned back to Pokerus.

"Gale," he said, a little wearily. "My name is Gale. What are you doing in here?"

poke mattix

 

[poke mattix]

It may of been a awkward subject to mention that made even her uncomfortable, but if Gale had been anyone else Pokerus might have cracked up laughing at the bright color to his face. As such she tried very, very hard not to do. She may have snickered, and quickly coughed to try disguise it.

She then watched him perform a excellent defense, by using his gun. She may have looked more concerned as if the hunter didn't want to touch the book it was probably dangerous and more likely to summon weird things.

When asked why she was here, she just shrugged. "The haunted house saw fit to drag me here, so now I'm stuck until I find a way out." Which was always annoying because the place looked different every time she turned up here. "I'll break the walls down but I've already been eaten by the jacking house and I'm not keen to do it again."

She watched him, more curious then concerned. "Did the Haunted House drag you here the same way?" She honesty had no idea how they turned up.

kuuropii

 

[kuropeco]

He still hadn't made any move to attack, because he wasn't going to unless she did first. Gale watched her a little warily, though the snicker made him flush a deeper red, and he wrapped his fingers more fully around the gun, just out of pure instinct.

Gale gave a small nod. "I've heard it does that," he said, glancing about the room. "This place never stays the same, every time I come here it's different."

His eyes flickered back towards her and slowly Gale shook his head.

"No," he said, "I was sent here purposefully. I'm on duty patrolling here."

poke mattix

 

[poke mattix]

Well, that was one way to shut her up. Her snickering stopped as soon as the hands were around his gun, holding her hands up palms facing him. Now it was more a nervous laugher. "Y-yeah, this house sucks..."

Time to focus on other things. "Ah, so no wonder I keep running into hunters every time I turn up here." She mused out loud. "Though I rarely see horsemen here.." Although she had see the queen b***h in all her glory. As she recalled past experiences, it made her remember something else.

"Hey Gale, have you ever seen a hunter in a grey coat?"

kuuropii

 

[kuropeco]

"I'm not going to shoot you," said Gale, amber eyes flickering towards Poke again. "Not unless you decide you're going to attack me first. I don't do that."

He took a small breath and then gave a little nod. "We do patrols here sometimes, but the Horsemen have their own lairs and places to attend to, I suppose, so they have less inclination to show up at the House. I've run into a few at times, but not often."

Gale's head tilted sideways, brows furrowing in mild bemusement.

"A gray coat?" he repeated. "No...not that I know of. Our coats are white, as you know."

poke mattix

 

[poke mattix]

Pokerus relaxed with Gale's assurance he wouldn't open fire. "I have no desire to. I only fight hunters if they fight me." And there were a fair few of them too, but she wasn't gonna mention that.

"It's good you haven't seen much of them." Her face fell as she recalled some of her own meetings with the horsemen. "I've heard some bad things when it comes to horsemen and hunters. Personalty I like the horsemen far less, bunch of arrogant jerks." She clutched her stomach with a scowl, memories of pain running through her mind.

It didn't seem like Gale had seen anyone with a grey coat before, which was odd. "Hmm. I recall seeing a group of them with grey coats a long time ago, but they were really strange; they looked like hunters, but they seemed...less like hunters at the same time."

kuuropii

 

[kuropeco]

He gave a nod, and although he didn't lower his gun (more out of habit than anything else, just in case she decided to change her mind), he did relax somewhat, a little bit of tension easing from his shoulders. Gale's eyes flickered a little in thought.

"The Horsemen are vicious creatures," he said. "Not that some humans aren't, but they have a taste for violence that seems only satisfied by wreaking havoc everywhere they go."

His eyebrows rose; and something clicked in Gale's mind, though he wasn't quite certain if it was right or not.

"Strange...how?" he asked curiously, and then added quickly, "If you don't mind me asking."

poke mattix

 

[poke mattix]

Yup, that sounded about right. Pokerus had seen plenty of evidence for that, and it made her even anger. The more the horsemen destroyed, the more cause they gave hunters to fight back, leaving Halloween in the middle to try not to get caught in the crossfire.

She choose to stop thinking about those issues for now, it was just going to rile her up. Gale appeared curious about what she had said. Perhaps he did know something? "Not at all. But from what I could tell they didn't have hunter weapons...Oh! and they had red runes instead of blue ones." Not that she understood the difference beyond color, but she was curious to see if Gale would be able to explain. That was, if he was allowed to do so without getting caught for treason or some bullshit like that.

kuuropii

 

[kuropeco]

He took a sharp inhale of breath and then eased it out again, amber eyes flickering. Gale had finally relaxed his stance a little, and it was clear that he was not in any way going to attack Pokerus. He didn't know why it hadn't clicked before, but now it had, her description of the red runes the final piece of the puzzle.

"Don't trust them," he said flatly. "Don't get involved with them, if you can help it. There are some of us hunters that are willing to work with you, such as myself, but they're a disassociated branch that asks questions after the pain."

Gale eyed her warily. "In what context did you see them?"

poke mattix

 

[poke mattix]

She noted with his slight change of stance that he had relaxed, though she was more interested with what he was saying about these 'grey hunters'.

"So they aren't with you guys..." It was odd to hear a hunter say another group of hunters was untrustworthy, and she wasn't sure how much she could believe those words. Gale seemed like a pretty cool guy, but if they were competing against each other then it would make sense neither would trust the other side.

"Some of the details are a little foggy as it happened a while ago, but we were attacked by a few hunters. We were about to fight back bu the haunted house swallowed us up. Literally." She appeared indignant about this. "I was in my natural form too, can you believe it?" She sent a glare at the wall as if the place was going to offer a reply.

"Anyway, we ended up in a cave below the haunted house I think. There was only one hunter left but he was badly injured. The phone rang and some voice told us to get out of there within 10 minutes or he was gonna kill our families and friends. We managed to, and ended up in another weird house with all those grey coats staring at monitors."

kuuropii