Following the 'Enemy'

Following the 'Enemy'
Date of Scene:	28 October 2012
Location:	Luca - Harbor
Synopsis:	Daniil tries to interrupt a Heartless attack on Luca, but ends up being a few minutes too late. Instead, he ends up dragged through a portal into a shadowy world where he faces one of the Shadow Lords' minions.
Cast of Characters:	Daniil Petrov, Hati

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Hati has posed:
Normally, Luca is known as a bustling port city. The draw of blitzball brings all sorts, even with the world in such dire straits. On this particular day, though, it is not the roar of the crowd, but the screams of townspeople as they flee the dark forms of the Heartless. These are the small time sorts, but there is still enough of them to cause a real threat.

A pair of them have cornered a child against some shipping crates, but just as the dark form is about to lunge forward, something stops it. The yellow eyes of the Heartless look up towards the form of a girl, crouched atop one of the nearby buildings. Hati, eyes narrowed, looking the part of a hunter, shakes her head and points the Heartless onward towards a crowd of adults who are trying to push their way through the narrow passage between two buildings.

It wouldn't be that great a leap to assume that this girl has something to do with the Heartless. Not only does she seem unafraid, but they ignore her as she leaps down from the rooftop, landing gracefully on her feet to look at the empty docks. With a smirk playing on her lips, she walks over to one of the crates, lifting the lid to inspect what's inside.

Daniil Petrov has posed:
Daniil had arrived at the port city only a few hours ago, and had been 'investigating' the strange sport known as blitzball, visiting the sphere viewing rooms to see videos of these and other well publicised Spiran events. This world seemed somewhat more familiar, and it appeared to be more closely connected to his own home lands, as there were no 'dark passages' between the two places. This was simply a continent that didn't exist a while ago. Before the blackout. The same seemed to exist in the records here, heartless, darkness - suddenly re-lit - but with new continents, others gone.

He heard the change in tone outside, as a trained ear should, there's a difference between adulatant shouting and terrified screams. He quickly headed out of the room and started into a low run towards the noises, trying to keep his head out of sight while weaving through the people running in the opposite direction. It's only a brief distance, so he's not long before he gets in line of sight to the heartless, and he ducks behind a large crate to try to spot what's going on before taking action.

Hati has posed:
Score. Hati raises a hand, carrying with it a handful of rings and other jewelry that certainly would have been sold in the shops around Luca. Some might even have magical properties sought out by adventurers. "You two." The girl calls out, distracting a pair of Heartless who are bouncing beneath a flag pole, keeping a scared man at bay. "I want this taken back to the castle. Now." The dark creatures scurry over, one clambering over the other, but as soon as they have hold of the crate, the two vanish into a swirl of dark vapor.

This leaves Hati, looking up at the man suspended above, clinging to the flag pole for dear life. "What a coward." She notes with disgust. The blue-haired girl certainly couldn't be more than sixteen - just a teenager, and yet the Heartless follow her commands. With a quick movement, the girl slashes her hand towards the base of the pole, smirking as she turns away.

Slowly, a gash made by unseen claws starts to tip the pole over, dangling the man off the end until he finally falls into the water with a collosal splash. "Hurry it up with those. We're getting out of here before the heroes decide to make an appearance." Four more heartless appear, probably having given up the chase and set to gathering more boxes as the wolf-girl watches, her tail swaying behind her idlely.

Daniil Petrov has posed:
Peeking out the side of his head far enough to see what's going on, Daniil eyes the girl, and the heartless following her lead, and leaving her alone. They're working with - or for - her. He flicks out his phone quickly, and snaps a picture of the girl and her minions to foward to HQ, and finds himself beset with a choice. To intervene or not to intervene, for the moment, the most important question. But seeing her lead them like that makes it a definite yes, he *needs* to figure out what makes them follow people, and why - that's key to figuring out what they're for. He slides the phone back into his pocket as he steps out, hoping she wasn't significantly stronger than she looked - he didn't want to engage this blindly, but the Heartless could disappear at a whim, and he wasn't willing to risk missing out on the opportunity.

"The heroes might be a little late, but I'll have to do for now - what a strange looking Heartless you are." he says, trying to draw a reaction from her, more information with it. As the heartless take notice of him, he holds his gloved hand with the contraption in the palm, and the materia inside flicker with energy, the air shimmering in warning heat. "So maybe you should put those things back and disappear into the darkness."

Hati has posed:
The sound of a voice from nearby causes Hati to turn, raising her scarred eyebrow as she looks towards the suit-wearing man stepping free from the crates. At first, it's mostly curiousity that shows in her mismatched eyes, but then the corner of her lip quirks in a smirk, showing one fanged tooth. The girl gives one dry laugh, her claw-tipped hands flexing slightly. "You must not know much about Heartless, then."

She isn't fool enough to give away too much information, especially to this would-be hero. As her fingers move, an aura of darkness lingers around her, the black and purple flames forming a circle around her feet. "Maybe you should think twice about threats you can't back up, because you know that isn't going to happen." Looking over her shoulder, Hati eyes the Heartless. "You have your orders, I'll take care of this one."

Then, her eyes look back towards Daniil, wolfish ears slicking backwards along her head. "How about you take the chance and run, before my fangs find you."

Daniil Petrov has posed:
"True that." Daniil agrees offhandedly, "Care to give me a crash course on why you guys are going around attacking people? Stealing things - generally being bad-guy things. You never know - if you could curb that nasty habit of causing trouble wherever you go - we could even be friends." he certainly isn't retreating, or letting any of his nervousness show. He takes steps towards the girl, looking her up and down, "So, if you're not a Heartless then, what are you?"

He touches a finger to his sword hilt, and a dark oily energy seeps out of it, winding up his arm and dissipating into the air around him, darkening it and making it momentarily cloudy. "You really looking for a fight, girl? Seems like you were just planning on picking on a few unarmed people and dashing." There's definitely a part of his mind that wonders how wise it is to taunt someone of unknown ability - but she's too collected to let information slip at the moment, and the chat wasn't going quite the way he had expected so far.

Hati has posed:
With their 'boss' occupied, the Heartless go about grabbing up whatever crates they can manage, vanishing into the darkness behind them. The girl doesn't follow them, her mismatched eyes are entirely set upon the man accross from her. "And why would I do that?" She asks, clearly not looking for a real answer. She's biding her time, making sure that all the Heartless escape with their stolen goods. It all seems to be the sort of things you'd find in a standard shop - jewelry with special properties, boxes of potions, that sort of thing.

When he actually asks what she is, Hati laughs, crouching slightly, her tail swaying behind her. Her entire posture screams predator, even without the benefit of her more wolfish appearance. "You seem to have the mistaken opinion that you'll get me to tell you what you want to know." She steps forward, the darkness lingering around her limbs as she moves. Even his attempt at a taunt only brings another of those feral smirks to her face.

"You know who the first people to run were, right? The guards. The men and women who should have been protecting these people." She laughs, mismatched eyes narrowing. The Heartless are gone now, leaving behind only these two. Eventually, the city guards might gather enough reinforcements to try to reclaim this part of the city, but right now, they seem to be hiding somewhere - all from one little girl and her Heartless. "Watch them sometime when danger comes. See husbands and wives abandon each other, leave their children behind to save their own skins. Not a single person stood up to stop it, not until you."

The girl doesn't outright attack, but she is watching him with that strange feral curiousity. "And even then, too little, too late." She smirks again, "Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got other business to attend to." The girl turns, a portal of darkness appearing behind her.

Daniil Petrov has posed:
With a smirk, Daniil says "What do you want me to say? I'll see if I can't get them demoted after we're finished here. But I did a little research, and it seems like you and your heartless have an unreasonable advantage over most of these guards. They're capable of repelling small fiend attacks, perhaps a raid by the local pirates.", the sphere showing some al-bhed was sketchy on the details of exactly who the blue-eyed strangers were, but it was uncomplimentary. "Not things like them."

"Also really not your place to be lecturing-" he says as she turns, "Hey!" he shouts, "Where do you think you're going?" and he starts towards her, not exactly sure how he was going to stop her from getting away - perhaps if he captured her, he could find out something useful. In the short time it takes him to reach her at a run, he's only come up with one plan - tackle her and see where it goes from there. Kinda tricky to tackle her ~away~ from the portal, though.

Hati has posed:
The girl doesn't seem about to make much in the way of comment, especially not anything that would give away the plans of her masters. "They ran like cowards. They could have driven off weak Heartless like these, but they chose not to bother." The wolf-girl doesn't bother turning his direction as she speaks, although she does seem to have a sixth sense that this conflict isn't over.

The moment he shouts, Hati tenses, moving like the predator that she is. When he tries to tackle her, the girl shifts her weight, using his forward momentum to propell the suit-wearing man right into the portal.

After a moment of being surrounded by opressive darkness, he would tumble out onto soft grass. The place the portal leads seems to be in the middle of nowhere. Tall trees of a dark wood surround a small clearing with a path that leads off into the distance. It could be a fairytail sort of place, if it weren't for the fact that the trees seem to press in ominiously. Whatever her reason for coming here, there is no sign of the Heartless, or the crates that they'd stoken.

A moment after his emergence from the portal, Hati comes barreling through, landing in a crouch and turning her eyes towards him, bemused. "Tsk. Didn't they ever teach you not to trifle with things you don't understand?" She's quick, this one, and the darkness still swirls around her as she steps forward, "So why don't you try telling me who you are, and just what interest you have in the Heartless. Otherwise... I could just make your life quite miserable."

Tendrils of darkness start to flare up from the ground around him, lashing towards arms and legs, trying to grasp and hold him still.

Daniil Petrov has posed:
The suited man tries to leap free, but is grabbed by a leg and does not get far, he resorts to using his magic to burn away some of the shadows holding him down, spraying tongues of flame into some of the tendrils, and trying to tug free of the one that had a firm hold already. He'd like to respond to her question, but he's a bit busy at the moment.

He gathers a fireball up in the palm of his hand and hurls it at the girl, the ball of fire burning through the shadow holding his leg to the ground on it's path, and leaving a path of burning embers in it's wake that briefly brighten on contact with the grass below. He takes a breath and says "I'm Daniil, and your heartless are ruining my world. Naturally, I intend to stop that." He knows that it's highly unlikely to be her fault directly, but she's the only heartless he's ever seen that had any kind of sentience, so she's the most complicit person he knows.

Hati has posed:
No, the wolf-girl certainly isn't making it easy to have a discussion, but she wasn't the one to attack first. Naturally, the more that the man struggles and tries to subdue her, the more likely it is that he will find himself the victim of her retaliation. When he begins to summon up those tongues of fire, Hati naturally steps back, her feral instincts keeping her from wanting to get too close to the flames. A low growl rumbles in her throat, tail tucking down between her legs.

When he turns that magic on her, though, Hati quickly rolls to the side, letting the fireball sail over her to impact into a nearby tree. As the flames begin to catch on the branches, the girl turns, raising a hand to sweep some dark magic around the tree, extinguishing them. "So you'd like to return the favor, is that it?" Apparently, she's a little protective of the forest around them, but she does have a point. "I don't know of your world, nor do I care. You aren't from Luca. So why don't you go home and protect your own people?"

Since she wasn't the one to start this fight, it would not be the wolf who ends it. Instead, she moves her hands, controling those tendrils of darkness as if they are extensions of her own body. They lash out, trying to catch at his legs, strike at his chest and face, and drain some of his strength.

Daniil Petrov has posed:
This time he sees them a moment sooner, and that's enough time for him to roll under the blows and put some distance between himself and the visible sprouting shadow limbs, though he glances all around, expecting more to appear at any moment.

"Maybe that would be simpler - but the thing is, and you really should know this already, given this is your side - there isn't an end to the heartless. It's not a fight that we will win straight-out." he shakes his head, "So no, I can't in fact just go back and bring the fight to them." He certainly isn't happy about the fact that the only one giving out information, albeit information she should *already have*, was him. "So, naturally - I'm going to have to insist you be more cooperative, Miss Not-a-heartless-honest."

"Not that it seems likely to happen." he adds, while moving towards those trees and trying to hide behind one, trailing a black mist that clouds the air around him and seems to distort his image.

Hati has posed:
"Just because I can control the Heartless, doesn't mean I know everything there is to know about them. For all I know, there might be some weapon out there in your world or some other that is capable of destroying them." As he dodges away from the tendrils of darkness that lash at his legs, Hati doesn't bother giving any real chase. Instead, the darkness seems to form into shapes, swirling into a protective barrier, taking on the shapes of large wolves which stand at her side.

No, she isn't going to give him information to help him with the Heartless, but she also isn't going to claim that she's some expert just because they can be bent to her will. One hand comes down, stroking it over the form of one of those astral wolves, even as her eyes scan right to the tree that he's hiding behind. Still, with him not attacking, she makes no move to retaliate. "For someone who claims to know about the Heartless, himself, you should really figure out how to identify one." With a smirk, she folds her arms across her chest. "Dark and twisted as my heart might be, I still have one.

Daniil Petrov has posed:
"And that's the thing I can't figure out, why anyone with a heart and a mind would side with the Heartless - what could you possibly hope to gain from taking the side of darkness? What could they possibly offer you that's worth all the destruction?" he peeks out from his hiding place, not showing much of a target, but he wants to see what she's doing. "If we had a weapon that could wipe the Heartless out - don't you think we would have used it before the blackout? Or at least by now? Really!? Why would we sit back and welcome your attacks if we could destroy you." he shakes his head "You don't make a whole lot of sense, girl."

It seems he's not attacking for the moment, prefering to have a chat with her, for all the good it's doing him. He's just getting ... weird feelings from her reactions, she is not fitting into any of the right pidgeonholes.

Hati has posed:
The wolf-girl's tail sways slightly behind her, the little pack of dark wolves beginning to coalesce around her as the power that formed them draws back inward. "I think if you had a weapon that could destroy the Heartless, it wouldn't take long for us to find the one who wields it, and destroy them." Oh, she'd heard whispers about that keyblade by now, but even if it could kill a few lesser Heartless, certainly one spikey-haired boy couldn't stand up against the entire might of the Shadow Lords? "But it's amusing to watch you try. It shows that not all of you are cowards, and I can respect that."

Slowly, the spectral wolves disappear, leaving just the form of the blue and black haired girl against the moonlight. "I make perfect sense, and you're fishing for information you won't get from me. So you might as well stop asking questions you know I won't answer. If you want someone fool enough to run his mouth, try the duck. He's probably off kicking puppies somewhere." Her clawed fingers tap over her leather-covered arms, her scarred eyebrow raising slightly. "As for the deep reasons why I'm cruel and vile enough to align myself with the Heartless. I can answer you in three words. I. Hate. Everything." She ticks the words off on her fingers. "Take it or leave it."

Daniil Petrov has posed:
He raises an eyebrow at her statement, "You sound a bit concerned. Is that something that you think has happened, or will happen soon?" he says - finishing with a smirk, knowing it's another question she won't be willing to answer. "We are certainly not cowards, in the most part. Though I have to say, attacking civilians then fleeing before the 'heroes' show up isn't exactly a show of bravery. Guards present or not. If you want to destroy the good people so much, why not wait until they actually arrive?" Though she may not be meaning to, her speeches do let slip small shreds of information, or at least hints. There was, apparently, a duck who needed to be ~spoken to~. A duck. These other worlds are strange.

"Perhaps I should ask you a question you will answer - do you have a name? Or should I just call you 'evil hate girl' from now on - seems like it would get silly." he shrugs, "And I didn't say you were cruel and vile - those certainly aren't off the table - I was kinda wondering why you were self-destructive. I get the impression that if the Heartless win, everybody loses. Unless I'm wrong about that."

Hati has posed:
"I wouldn't know." The girl replies with a shrug of her shoulders, shifting those claw-tipped hands into her pockets. For all she might often might give into her anger, there's no real point in raging out right now. He hasn't said anything truly worth her ire, not yet anyways, and it isn't as if she hasn't heard worse. "If it was impossible, I'd imagine that people like you would have given up a long time ago. Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is pretty foolish if you ask me."

There is still quite a bit of distance between them, enough so that she could probably flee easily before he has a chance to hitch a ride. Nonetheless, this must have been where she originally intended to go. There's nothing around here, though. Just the forest, and perhaps a lonely mountain in the distance. It is odd that she would go one place, and the Hearltess another.

"What you would call cowardice, I would call intelligence. Seriously, you expect me to wait around to get thrashed? Come on now." With a roll of those mismatched eyes, the wolf-girl just stands there, seeming relaxed enough to let him get this out of his system, at least until she gets bored anyways. "Hati. Although I suppose evil hate girl works as well as anything else." The name, even as she says it, has a strange tone to it, like it might have been said in another language. "But I think that other question is one you can probably answer for yourself. There's only a few options there, take a guess."

Daniil Petrov has posed:
Daniil gives a slight shrug, "We won't give up, it's not how people work." his thoughts keep coming back to wondering why he isn't currently trying to set this girl, who was undoubtedly a danger, and had at least some information he wanted, on fire. Something about her just ... kinda kept him from doing that just yet. "My current thoughts are limited to: Insane, stupid, or you've got some kind of deal. You don't seem stupid." he says, leaving the other two possibilities as worthy of considering. "One other thing that interests me - you don't seem to be telling the truth..." he adds, setting up a verbal trap for the girl, and trying to veer away from just arguing with and kind of insulting her. It wasn't going to help, for all that her weird way of acting unsettled him.

Hati has posed:
"Tell you what." The wolf-girl begins to bristle, the hairs on her neck standing on end as she clenches her fanged teeth. "I'll give you one last chance to not be a jackass. Try saying something that isn't meant to insult me. Otherwise, I'm going to just enjoy rearranging your face." There is a trembling in her arms, as if the girl is starting to lose her patience. "I don't have to be here. I could have just as easily teleported away to some other world the moment I tossed you through the portal. So, one last chance, Mister Daniil. Ask me something intelligent and I might stay. Say something that proves to me you're just as bad as those you think you're fighting against... and I'll rip your face off."

Daniil Petrov has posed:
The suited man watches her anger in silence for a while, unsurprised that she was angry, and surprised that she was offering a truce in spite of that. "Okay, you want an intelligent question - if you'll answer it: Why do you hate everything? Why are you stealing equipment that I frankly doubt the Heartless can use, in quantities more than you personally need? Why did you stop attacking me? And why am *I* the one on trial here?" he shakes his head at the girl, "Why don't you seem like you fit in?" he says, frustrated that she didn't act like a bad guy, or a good guy - and not grey-area, like he would probably consider himself, but some mish-mash mix of onyx black and whatever colour 'I don't get it' would be. Probably green. Noone likes green.

Hati has posed:
The wolf's eyes narrow slightly, the blue one with it's visible scar not quite so much as the other. The way that it moves across her eye showing that whatever caused that injury had likely been just short of taking her sight with it. The girl is quiet for a time, not even moving that tail behind her as she stands. The trembling stops in her extremities, and that likely means that some of the worst of the rage has passed. "I don't fit in anywhere." She replies with a sound that might be a laugh, but there is no humor in it.

"My world was destroyed by a force that has nothing to do with the Heartless. Everyone I ever knew, gone." Her hand moves from her pocket, snapping her fingers together in a motion that portrays just how fast the end of her world had come. "So far as I know, I'm the last of my kind. Losing your world does things to a person." Her hand clenches into a fist as Hati looks up towards the moon, letting the light reflect against her dyed hair. "There are worse things than the Heartless. Maybe you'll figure that out soon enough."

Hati motions with her fingers, starting to draw up some of that dark force that seems to flow within her, drawing out a glyph onto the grass. It isn't an attack spell, and it looks far more like the spell she'd used earier to summon up her portal. "I took the crates because I was told to, and killing you wasn't in the job description. I don't get bonus points for squashing would-be heroes, at least last I checked."

Daniil Petrov has posed:
The man certainly is on edge for her long silence, what with her stated intention to maim him should she dislike his words. Daniil raises an eyebrow at her words, she - if he believed her, though she seemed heartfelt enough - had been through a lot. She'd been damaged by the experience. He can't help a twinge of sympathy, but it's kept walled behind the knowledge that she was still undoubtedly an enemy of his world. He already was straying far from the wisest course of action.

"Worse than the Heartless - I certainly haven't seen any such thing yet. You willing to elaborate on that?" he says, then she begins to trace magic - he tenses for a moment before he realises she's not trying to attack her - it's not a long second before he recognises the style of symbol she'd used earlier. Definitely time to make a decision - she was leaving - he could possibly reach her, especially if she took the time to - yes - give parting words. But he doesn't break into a run, rather walking casually out of the forest. His thoughts decided, he won't try to capture her today, today his superiors would be told that she escaped - it would be mostly true.

"You know," he says, as she finishes her work, still at the edge of the forest and out of threatening range. "If we meet in similar circumstances, I'll have no choice but to stop you - however that needs to be done. No matter how unfortunate your own history - we can't allow you to ruin our worlds."

Then as a quick afterthought, "Oh, and who is this twisted...duck?" The concept still a little alien to him. "Doesn't sound like you'd miss him."

Hati has posed:
There is a hardness in the girl's eyes. She isn't looking for sympathy, or understanding - these are foreign things to her - things she has never truly experienced in her life. The closest is perhaps pity, so she growls slightly under her breath, tensing from that slight shift in his expression. "True chaos cannot be fought against, or reasoned with. It only destroys." This seems to be the extent of her elaboration on the subject of things worse than the Heartless.

The wolf completes her spell, leaving a swirling vortex of darkness beside her, but she doesn't move towards it. "Good. I wouldn't expect it any other way, and I have no need for your pity." With a growl, Hati steps back from the portal, narrowing her eyes as she watches him emerge from the forest. "We are soldiers, you and I. Fighters on different sides of a war. No matter which side you fight on, there is always a cost. I doubt you are an innocent, so before you judge the blood on my hands, look at your own."

Hati draws back again, keeping him ever in her sights, but shifting slightly away from the portal. "This will take you back to Luca. Take it, and get out of my forest." She growls with a tone of warning. It doesn't seem as if she's going to just leave him here, so instead, she waits, those mismatched, wolfish eyes watching him. "You'll know him if you see him."

Daniil Petrov has posed:
A little surprised by her subtle anger, he wonders what it was about what he said that set her off. He watches the completion of the spell, closer now - trying to memorise the pattern so he'd recognise it in future - not wanting to take a picture and draw attention to the fact he might have photoed her before. "Noone is just a soldier, Hati. Noone is so simple - I fight for a reason, and a purpose, and sides aren't really what matter - it's about doing what you think is right. So maybe another time, you'll tell me why you think what you're doing is right." he shrugs, stepping up to the portal and turning his head to face her.

Up this close to her, he peers at the animalist features over his sunglasses, "Oh, so it's dog ears, or maybe a wolf?" he observes with curiosity - "You never did tell me just what you were." he says, then steps one foot into the portal with a "See you later, Wolf-girl." and vanishes into it.