"..."



Ringo slammed against the floor, out of breathe. He looked at the broken baseball bat on his hands and then dropped it on the floor. He recently killed another one of those monsters. It is surprising how such slimy creatures can be so durable. Ringo opened his backpack to see his quote on quote ammunition.

"Lets see...4 bats and 10 wooden swords left. If these things are not broken by the end of the hour then I'll be surprised." Ringo closed his back pack and continued on alone...He turned towards the giant green tower. He always wondered why that tower only appeared during this time. Ringo was still new to this green and bloody environment...Ringo couldn't check the time, after all nothing electronic worked in this hour.

Ringo started to walk towards the tower till he saw another black blob. Its arms then stretch to attempt to claw Ringo but Ringo managed to jump back. He then took out another baseball bat and whacked away one of his arms. He was not going to try to summon Raphael. He then slammed the baseball bat into the mask like area of the shadow and then started to bat at it endlessly. He kept slamming bat into the slimy creature.

Ringo stopped batting, seeing if the creature was willing to continue on. The creature was somehow still twitching. Ringo sighed as he looked at his bat, now broken. Ringo looked at the creature and then his eyes glowed blue. The creature was then sliced clean in half. The angel feathers fell. Ringo then slammed on his knees. He was slowly getting use to summoning Raphael...but it was still tiring.

"Am I the only one in this cursed hour?" Ringo asked himself as he adjusted himself to a sitting position and opened his back pack again to check his supplies.

Three months ago, on the night of a full moon, something wicked came scratching at Hayate’s window pane during the dead of night. That had been his first real introduction to this strange time around midnight and to the intense brand creepiness which came along with it. The sky turned green, the ground ran crimson with blood and every movement caught out of the corner of his eye really was movement of some kind - not merely a figment of his imagination. Ah, but let’s not forget the tower...

How was it that he’d been living in the Port Island residential area for years now and only recently had discovered that their school, for reasons unfathomable to him, morphed into a giant tower of doom every night? Well. That was what he got for thinking he led a fairly mundane existence, he supposed. Just when you got to thinking that life was comfortable, Hello Apocalypse!

Really, he oughtn’t have been trekking out to that blasted tower alone again, with it’s slithering, dark blobs of excess limbs and strange hordes of gravy gone long-bad. He’d been slapped around quite well in the past, but there was something just... almost addicting about the place. As if once you’ve been inside for the first time, it gets under your skin, into your blood and you can’t help but come back. Some people did drugs to get high. Hayate killed monsters, apparently.

“But which is really safer?” he muttered with a soft sigh, his only real comfort being the weight of his big, sharp, ouchie-looking metal whip against his hip. That point was seriously up for some debate. I mean, who hid a weapon underneath their trenchcoat and went flouncing off to fight creepy critters of their own free will? There couldn’t have been many people. So far, he hadn’t run into anyone else, anyway. As he neared the tower, however, he was more than a little surprised to find that someone was already hard at work attacking monsters outside the twisted green tower. And then... there was...

A summons. A messy-haired boy who looked to be younger than Hayate himself, had summoned a being to his fight and in spite of himself, the tall blond had to smile. Someone else with a power like his own! He’d always known that there were others, but thinking so and seeing it were two different things entirely. The monster had been dispatched and the boy was digging around in his bag. Hayate though he’d heard him say something, but with the various distortions of this time of night, he couldn’t make out what it had been. Well, if he knew one thing, it was that making your presence known before coming into firing range was probably a good idea, so that you didn’t get attacked by mistake. Being laid out by someone else’s critter would sooooo ruin his night.

“Hello, there,” he called out to the messy-haired boy, waving politely. “Nice job with that creepy critter. Care for some company in the tower?" It was so rare to find someone else running off to do the same things he did. Didn't it make sense then, to team up? "Don't worry,” he remarked, moving his coat aside to show the coiled weapon at his side, "I won't slow you down."

"A visitor...?"




“Hello, there,” Ringo looked around to see a strange long blonde haired boy. He was wearing glasses and a trench coat. Ringo thought the boy looked strange but it didn't matter. What mattered was is that he was not the only one experiencing this twisted environment.

“Nice job with that creepy critter. Care for some company in the tower??" Ringo was confused for a moment but then turned around to see the giant deformed tower not far from him. "Don't worry,” said the boy. He then opened his trench coat to show the chain whip. At first Ringo was horrified, wondering why he isn't apprehended for violating the Japanese Arms Control policies but then again it would be more useful against these creatures then a bunch of wooden bats and swords. "I won't slow you down." Ringo hesitantly nodded.

"Well...hello there too...I guess company wouldn't hurt but...at least I should know your name." Ringo bowed in politeness, the boy was most likely older after all. "I'm Ringo, it's nice to meet you." Ringo picked up his back back filled with his quote on quote weapons.

When the messy-haired boy bowed and introduced himself as Ringo, Hayate let the trenchoat fall back over the whip (which was actually just an impressive collectors display piece, not at all weapons grade) and followed suit. Names were fairly necessary, weren’t they? Oh, yeah. Haha. That helped, didn’t it? He’d been so thrilled to find someone else wandering around during this time that the thought hadn’t even crossed his mind.

“My name is Hayate and it’s nice to meet you, as well. It really is very rare to find others who fight during this time.” He stuffed his hands into the pockets of his big, dark maroon trench and walked up beside Ringo, who was hefting his bag full of...what, exactly? Wow. Impressive! For being the younger of the two, Hayate had to admit Ringo seemed to be the better prepared.

“Shall we, then?” This wouldn’t have been the first time Hayate had ventured into the tower, nor would it likely be the last. He found that the more he ran around killing these creepy things, the better at it he became. Likewise, the more he summoned Cassiel, the less taxing on his body it ultimately was. Still, he wasn’t about to do a lot of that tonight, if he could help it. Big if on that one.

The tall blonde gave the entrance a good shove and led the way inside, immediately dazed by the customary odd heaviness of roiling power, which hung so thickly in the air that you could have cut it with a knife. And served it for dinner. Then wish you hadn’t. He kept his attention on their surroundings at all times, his eyes straining to pick out monsters from random blobs of darkness. No easy task, either. Those creatures were just a little too good at sneaking up on you when you least expected it.

“So, how long have you been at this sort of thing?” Hayate was willing to bet that Ringo was fairly well-acquainted with this sort of thing, just by merit of his big bag of stuff, but it was always good to know for sure.

"Company..."



“My name is Hayate and it’s nice to meet you, as well. It really is very rare to find others who fight during this time.” The long blond hair placed his hands in pockets of his marron trench coat and walked along side Ringo. he does have to agree...there isn't that many people around during this hour. This is the first time he saw another person around while his few months of wondering around this hour.

“Shall we, then?” Ringo nodded slightly. Ringo in all honesty did not want to go inside the tower. He wanted a better weapon then a back punch filled with wooden swords and bats that break at any random notice.

“So, how long have you been at this sort of thing?”

"About a couple months now." Ringo was not going to state when he began to experience the dark hour. He would rather not at the moment. He looked around the interior of the tower. The grand stairs, the golden clock on the left and the orange and green gate way on the right. he looked up the stairs. Ringo took a wooden sword out of his back pack. "So what do you suppose this tower exists for?"