Bleach Hereafter RPG

Janus was cold. She hated the holidays, they made too many people gather in smaller areas, that meant she had to avoid all of them. She had on a T-shirt bearing the legend "If you can read this, pull me out of the snow" in upside down text. Beyond that she had her tailored cream jacket that she luckily had fed so that it would not devour some poor child. She sneezed as her divination pinged a blue mage and she groaned.

She sniffed again as she walked towards the blue mage more because there was nothing else going on. The diviner wiped her nose and looked at the broom with the set of presents through it. "What the hell?" Janus stated to nothing in particular. Janus sighed and sneezed, loudly, and three other Janus flew out of her body. The Cyclops, the punk rocker, and the blue mage Janus all were thrown clear of the Diviner. Their ethereal forms looking rather annoyed at this development.

Janus looked at the white robe as it teleported around and shivered. "You do not see stuff like that everyday." She said as the other Janus got up and brushed the snow off themselves. The three of them started fanning out in different directions just in case something happened as the Prime Janus looked at a box in front of her, and then around.

"Weird night." She stated to nothing and grabbed the box and waved it at the... witch? Blue mage, witch, did blue mages have witches? "You dropped one." She sniffled to the other girl before looking at the white robe. Her divination had already shown her the odd form of Nezuel from the future. Janus nodded at him.

The punk rocker walked up behind Janus a second later and stepped into Janus' body, disappearing after superimposing her future back into Janus' present. The other two were now looking around for anything else.

Okay, so the broom, while a fantastic idea in her mind, required a little more focus than she had anticipated to keep both in place underneath her and flying through the air. How else was she to explain how a stranger had flown right up alongside her and scared her like he had? That was the story, and she was sticking to it.

Vaera squeaked and flinched a little atop her mobile construct, and felt herself slide a little bit and begin to tilt to the side. Correcting herself wasn't difficult, though it took a moment of panic before she accidentally ran into the side of an approaching building. By the time she'd turned her head to look at the stranger, he was pointing out the Hollow that was following her in most confusing fashion. Well, it was confusing for about two seconds, then her brain caught up to the choice of wording, and she failed to stop her snickering before it came out.

"I see." She snickered again, and her eyes found the horned monster giving chase across the rooftop on the other side of the street. She was about to give her name when the creature changed its posture, and her eyes opened wide at the sight of its direction veering towards her, "I'm Vaer-AHH!"

She squeaked again, and pulled on the end of her broom to raise it and herself further up into the air. Not even a moment later, the Hollow crashed through where the bag of gifts had just been hanging and through the side of the building. She pushed herself to fly faster, gaining altitude and getting further away from...

Wait. Had it been aiming for the gifts, and not her?

Janus was going to turn away before her divination began to flare up harder than a teenager after getting out of an oil bath. "I should have stayed home." Janus stated as a sonic explosion knocked the wind out of her, which she heaved as the hollow jumped at her. She would have made a witty remark, but that would have issues considering she could not get enough air back for the moment.

She then found herself next to the witch on the broom, and her stomach lurched, she barely managed to not throw up, and probably would have, if she was not having lung issues at the same time. She also now had whiplash and massive vertigo. "How, does anyone do that?" She choked out as she nearly threw her guts up again using the dry heave to refill her lungs.

The cyclops, who had been left behind walked up to the hollow and then simply vanished as it struck out at her, vanishing. Back at the Prime, Janus was still holding herself together. She finally managed to sniffle and took a deep breath. "Alright, we are good. Oh... that, how do you do that more than once? I feel like we got shot out a gun, how does the Flash help anyone, this would just kill you. The time in a bottle and sweet dreams make way more sense now. Sorry, I talk a lot when I am nervous, it keeps us sane, we thought. Though, I thought witches used horns and guns, and dragons for brooms not... whatever this is."

The chaos was brief, but hardly because there was nothing going on. From her vantage point up high, Vaera sat still and watched in confused as instead of continuing to come for her -or rather, for the gifts she was carrying- the horned Hollow dove for someone standing on the ground. The creature's change of target only made a little more sense when she'd noticed the stranger was holding a present she must have dropped from the bag.

Before she could do anything or get in the Hollow's way, the man who had flown alongside her vanished with a frightening boom. In another moment, the stranger from the ground was standing beside her in the sky as well, and Vaera squeaked as the remaining gift was thrown back to her. She nearly fell off her broom, but did catch the colorfully wrapped box and took a moment to place it back inside the bag hanging in front of her.

"Um... Nice to meet you." She stammered a little, her attention forcibly split between the two flying with her and the Hollow on the ground. To tell the truth, she hadn't imagined she would run into it this quickly -or at all, even. Why was a Hollow targeting couriers, anyway? Nonetheless, the creature looked between the queasy stranger and herself, then kicked off the ground to climb up the nearby building at a terrifying speed.

"One second!" She had thought of continuing to run from the Hollow, but to tell the truth, something about leaving the other two alone with it didn't feel right to her. So, instead of flying off, Vaera took her left hand from the broom and held it aloft towards her horned pursuer. Briefly, she focused on the air between her and the creature, and in a dazzling explosion of vibrant and sparkling blues, conjured a net that fell of its own weight atop the creature.

It wouldn't stop or kill the Hollow, of course, but any time she bought was better than none.

"We shouldn't stay here." Vaera breathed and wiped the few beads of sweat from her forehead on her sleeve as she righted herself again. "There's too many people." Sure enough, as the netted Hollow crashed back to the ground, all the noise was beginning to attract attention. Hoping that either their spiritual power or the presents would work to draw the Hollow, she flew off again.

Sure enough, when the monstrous spirit had torn itself free of her net, it wasted no time in running after the gifts she carried.

Janus stood up and placed her hands behind her head and began to breathe deeply. Soft in, hold, exhale until her lungs were going on empty, and again. She did it twice more as they debated whether or not to stay there until she was sure that she had enough back in her for the moment. Well until something horrible happened. She shrugged her coat down to her elbows and turned back to the pair of them.

"Good luck, we see you will be perfectly fine." She said and one by one the entire army stepped out of her body. The Quincy version of Janus made an outline of reishi that looked like a gift for the holidays and handed them out to the other members of the army. Though a few of the other Janus looked really annoyed at the plan. Then, as quickly as they had stepped out of Janus. They all dispersed in different directions.

The monster could chase the army in every which direction if it really wanted, at least it should let the witch girl get out of sight for the moment. Prime, on the other hand, hoisted her jacket back up and shivered. "Well, get to whatever it was you were going to do." She said, mumbling a song to herself. Hhhmmm bells... Batman smells... robin laid an egg... the bat mobile lost a wheel, and joker did ballet."

The Army on the other hand, began running around the masked monster, all of them showing off their fake gifts to give the super high speedsters a small window of opportunity while holding its attention. Janus, was only human, possibly immortal depending on how you defined it... but the Army of Janus, was far more dangerous than most could ever hope to be.

The horned Hollow, affectionately known as Krampus, did indeed take notice of the woman's attempt to get its attention. It stalled, sliding to a still on the side of the building with its claws digging deep trenches into the concrete, and growled deep in its throat as its eyes burned a whole in each and every individual standing around it -or rather, in the gifts they each held. Its rage boiled over, and opening its jaw wide, it roared before leaping at the nearest figure with its arms outstretched.

Meanwhile, Vaera had put a considerable distance between herself and the creature.She'd only stopped long enough to notice that it wasn't chasing after her any more when she heard it roar further back, not to mention the boy's reappearance beside her again.

"I'd like that." She had to think on the offer of a safe place to hide for only a moment, but then stopped herself when she thought again of the presents hanging from the end of her broom. "But, I need to deliver these first." She was steadfast in her resolve about that. The Hollow would need to be dealt with, but for right now, she wanted to get these gifts to their destination first. "If anything happens to them und some kids don't have presents on Christmas, that'll be my fault."

Back on the ground, Krampus was venting its rage upon the woman and her many doppelgangers. Its claws swung wildly through the air, carving wide gashes into the ground and surroundings both, as it tried to get to the gifts she carried. There didn't seem to be any intelligence to its actions now, not like when it had been stalking and waiting for its target to be vulnerable before, but rather a sheer, unadulterated hatred for the colorfully wrapped boxes.

"You think she'll be alright?" Vaera nodded back towards the battle, still able to hear and see some of it as she flew. She had her job to do, yes, but she still couldn't quite get her mind off of how she was essentially leaving the Hollow to rampage. It was an uncomfortably conflicting feeling that weighed on her.

The army distraction was about as time consuming as it could be. Which was to say it lasted until the giant monster got one of the presents and realized that like most things the Two Faced god of changes did, it was a sham. The army then changed gear and tried to simply get in the way of the monster, which did about as much as you would think to something straight out of European lore, a fat bunch of nothing. Well, now it was on the other ones, as far as the Prime was concerned, she had done her civic duty.

So, the only human diviner watched as the giant flip off monster went looking for the two now tasked with delivering presents. Not like she could catch up anyway. She stretched and sneezed again before bundling herself up and sniffling. She wanted to be home, but it was still under repairs. She pulled out her phone and looked up a local place to get something to snack on. While she really did not want to be near people. It was better than being assaulted by a giant monster.

Apparently, much to her luck, there was a quaint diner a few streets away. Her divination pinged the start of something else, but as long as she stayed away from the monster or did not touch the presents, it was no longer her problem.

"Makes sense." No. No, it did not, but Vaera wasn't in any position to start arguing with strangers about how someone couldn't just... not die when they were killed. If she was still alive, then she clearly hadn't died, but whatever the case, it wasn't what was most important in her mind right now.

Fortunately, even the brief amount of time that the Hollow had been distracted had given Vaera plenty of time to put a good distance between it and the presents. From this far away, she was certain that it wouldn't be able to track her reliably. So, quickly and quietly, she directed her broom to carry her lower, until she was obscured again by the buildings on either side. She flew through the alleyways and between homes, trying to keep her power as suppressed as possible while keeping an ear -both literal and metaphorical- out for the creature.

Krampus had long since lost interest in the woman and her lies. Once it had determined that the gifts she carried were fake, constructed of nothing more than a few scant traces of spiritual power and its residue, its attention had returned to its true target. However, the objects of its rage were nowhere to be seen. Nowhere in the skies could it see the human who carried them, or the Arrancar that had accompanied her. After bellowing a long and loud cry of frustration, it leapt away from the well lit street and into the cool dark of the shadows atop a nearby building.

"I think it's safe now." Vaera muttered aloud, after spending several minutes simply floating behind a large sign and watching for the Hollow. She figured that if it were after the presents, she wouldn't want it to see where she was delivering them to; that would only lead it to the children! So, she was being more careful now, and only just began to lower herself back to the ground where she could walk the rest of the way.

The rest of the way, of course, being around the corner to the side door of a local fire station, where she understood they were running a toy drive. Vaera breathed a sigh of relief knowing she wouldn't need to stop by a different house for each present, though the thought of carefully climbing down people's chimneys to make her deliveries and enjoy some cookies and milk did make her want to laugh. With a quick glance back and forth to make sure she wasn't seen, she dismounted her broom, but kept it aloft to avoid carrying the hefty bag of gifts herself.

"Wait. The key..." Vaera paused at the door, lowering the bag until it set on the ground and opening it to get a look inside. Her outfit didn't exactly have any pockets, perhaps its one and only flaw, so that left only one other place where something so important could've hidden from her. For a few seconds, she peered into the large sack, then began to dig through it for the envelope that contained the key to the fire station door. She did not appear to have much luck, however, considering just how long she spent rummaging through the bottom of the large bag.