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[morelikeisabeast]

A school like Daybreak collects a frankly absurd amount of supernatural power. It's like a beacon that shines across the spirit world. Smarter, older spirits know better than to get anywhere near it lest they get exorcised by some VERY powerful people. Weaker, dumber spirits can't figure out how to get past the school's wards and defenses.

There's a VERY slim window of spirits that can figure out how to slip through without notice, and these occasionally show up and haunt stuff. Nothing as scary as the hollows. Just the odd poltergeist. Annoying, but not a serious danger to anybody.

Isabel approves of this situation.

Anywhere on campus that students are allowed, and possibly a few places they aren't, there is a small but non zero chance of finding her fighting one. If you happen to be spiritually sensitive enough to see ghosts and spirits, you'll semi-regularly find Isabel trash talking various angry ghosts in a bizarre mix of French and Spanish while shooting bolts of red energy from her fingers at them. If you AREN'T spiritually sensitive enough, you'll see the same scene, but without the ghost or the bolts of red energy. It looks like she's just shouting at the air while jumping around like an idiot. Is this improv street theater? Is she playing pretend? Why is she suddenly yelling at you to duck?

Comments

[talkstoposters]

What if one of the ghost seems a bit more physical than some others? What if it also happens to look like a very smallish person with reddish brown shoes, a sheet over there head, and boxing gloves? Because that's currently what's roaming around the halls. Looks like it could be just someone playing a prank, but that sheet is pretty expressive. Also it might have walked through a few walls to look for something. Definitely suspicious and worth checking out. Or punching it. It does have boxing gloves on, after all.

[morelikeisabeast]

Isabel couldn't be SURE this was a hostile spirit unless she caught it attacking someone, but the boxing gloves were a bad sign. So she peered at it from around a corner, lying in wait, tracking its every move...until it walked through a wall.

"Sonuva..."

Time to try to find a way around that wall. Isabel broke out into a run after it, which probably killed any chance at stealth.

[talkstoposters]

Isabel will be able to catch it before long. Luckily for her, it doesn't seem to have noticed her yet. In fact this thing does seem a little...dim. Several times the ghost seems to get confused roaming through the halls and turns around more than a few times. Eventually, though, it will reach its destination after a few minutes. The broozer walks towards the gymnasium and disappears through the wall next to the door.

[morelikeisabeast]

Isabel chased after it and burst in through the door a second later, brandishing a book in one hand and a swirling aura of spectral energy surrounding the other hand.

"Okay bucko we can do this the easy way or the FUN way!"

[talkstoposters]

The broozer turns around, staring back at Isabel curiously. It takes notice of the spectral aura surrounding her, though, and readies itself. Smacking both its fists together in a threatening gestures, it lugs itself forward. The ghost isn't very fast, especially with its tiny legs and awkward body, but it's guard seems pretty tough. Taking it head on is likely not the best idea.

[morelikeisabeast]

Whups looks like they're fighting now. Never mind that Isabel was the one who started it.

Isabel put her dukes up, but a thought sent a cloud of paper out of the book which floated into the air before condensing into the shape of a dozen more fists that also had their dukes up.

[talkstoposters]

Well that's unexpected. Here he though there was only one target to punch, but now there's a bunch of them? The broozer doesn't seem to bothered by this, however. Obviously when there's one person with a bunch of help, the smart idea is to...try and take a swing at one of the paper fists. Clearly this is the best idea ever and will not turn out badly.

Broozers are not known for their intelligence.

IDK if Isabel would be able to tell he's dead but feel free to swing however

[unpocoloco]

Héctor had only learned he could see the dead this year. Obviously he could just look in a mirror, but specifically the ghost kind? That hadn't been something he'd thought about. The problem now was that he couldn't tell the difference. So far the dead he's seen have been very much there, indistinguishable from any human. Which meant, even the non-human could still seem very there and, well, in a place like this, how could you really tell what was what?

But there was one thing he did know, even from this distance; His own language. Very unkind things being said in his own language.

"¡Ay! ¡Niña! ¿Qué estás haciendo? That had better not be a student you're attacking there!" He makes his way over as fast as his legs and cane will carry him.

I’m gonna say she can’t tell

[morelikeisabeast]

Isabel froze, looking panicked for a moment, and switching to Spanish to match him. “It’s not what it looks like!”

The “student” turned around towards Hector, revealing that it definitely was not human. It’s face was just one big mouth, full of shark teeth at bizarre angles. Definitely not human. Isabel has been trying to track this one down all morning, which was tricky when it looked perfectly human from behind, and didn’t want to have to start all over over a misunderstanding.

Cool cool

[unpocoloco]

"Madre de--!" Nope, no, not a student! Very, very bad thing! He sucks a breath and stumbles back.

Then his brain kicks into gear. "What do you need?! Quick! Distraction, attack, or back up?" Depending on what kind of thing this was, she might need more than one.

[morelikeisabeast]

"Back the frick frack up!"

The spirit, which we shall call Mouthface, pounced at Hector but fell short and splatted onto the ground in confusion. A tendril of red energy was wrapped around one of its feet that extended through the air to Isabel's hands which were gripping onto it like she was playing tug of war.

[unpocoloco]

"That is very much not what I meant!" He points out, even as he's drawing back out of that thing's reach. Should he use an attack spell? This really seems to warrant it but so had he when he'd been hollow and he can't ignore the awful idea that this was a person once.

"I've got a destructive spell and a summoning rune for help and you've got two seconds to tell me which I'm using, niña!"

[morelikeisabeast]

"Oh."

She felt slightly foolish for assuming that anyone at Daybreak was a noncombatant. There were some, but most of the people here could hold their own.

She struggled to hold it in place, but was slowly getting dragged, and the energy cord holding it back was getting thinner and thinner. "Destructive! Go destructive! Blow it up! It's stronger than I thought it would be!"

[shockingblue]

Gunvolt was headed back from quite a bit of tinkering and rune work from the Anvil, looking forward to taking the rest of the day off and for himself. Since talking with Nana about it, he'd been doing his best to include some time where he didn't think about fighting, the Nightfall, or advancing his powers. Reading a book, watching TV, playing video games, or just trying to find a hobby he really wanted to enjoy.... something different.

Well, something different was what he got when he passed by a more remote corner of campus, near a tennis court. He caught activity, a lot of movement, really, out of the corner of his eye. At first sight, he didn't think anything strange of it. ...That is until he realized there was no one else on the court. GV quickly turned to get a better look, suddenly picking up the girl's taunts in French and Spanish.

But none of it made sense. There was no one else there. Couldn't be. ...Yet something in the back of his mind said there was more than met the eye here. Though he couldn't explain it, it was a gut feeling, and his inner Flame stirred at it. Trusting that feeling his Flame was pushing on him, he drew closer.

"What's going --?"

But before he can finish asking the question, she yells at him to duck.

He's baffled and probably doesn't react quickly enough. What sort of misfortune awaits this newcomer?

[morelikeisabeast]

Isabel was fighting a giant three headed frog that spat sticky slime. You know, normal fair for a Wednesday. Her hand was currently stuck to the side of her head and she only had one shoe on because the other one was stuck to the ground. Her free hand had a morning star made of paper in it, which she had just used to wollop the spirit-frog across the tennis court while instinctively giving in to the terrible jokes in her soul and yelling "Fifteen-love!"

Only then did she notice the other kid. The frog did too, and jumped at him. Isabel yelled "DUCK!"...and then the frog landed on his chest.

It didn't really weigh much. If Gunvolt couldn't see it then her certainly couldn't FEEL it. But there was definitely the sensation of being hit by something. And, for just a second, he could see it. Not the whole thing but a sort of ghostly purple blob in more or less the same shape.

Then it jumped off of him, using his head as a spring board to reach the top of the fence around the tennis courts and back into the school proper, causing the top of the fence to shake slightly. It was poltergeisting, that wasn't a good sign, but it shouldn't be too dangerous yet. Isabel decided to make sure this guy was okay first.

"Hey, you okay?"

[shockingblue]

There was that sensation again, stronger this time, feeling like it landed squarely on his sternum. For only a brief instant, he caught sight of some kind of weird shape on him; it wasn't much more than for a split second, and he felt the hair on his neck stand on end. Electricity within him, crackling in alert.

And in what could barely be described as a second, the blob seemingly vanished from in front of him. Suddenly he felt the hair on his head stand on end for just a flash, and then he heard the rattle of the chain link fence. And just like that, his feeling all but vanished, resonance and flame within settling down like nothing had ever happened.

The boy blinked twice, confused, and looked up to the fence line, before turning his eyes back to Isabel.

"...Yeah? I'm fine. What... was that?"

[morelikeisabeast]

After a moment of focus she was finally able to detach her hand from her head with a grunt. The paper morning star fluttered apart into pages which got sucked back into a book which settled into her hand so she could tuck it into her pocket. "Frog spirit. It's started poltergeisting, so someone will have to deal with it before it gets strong enough to actually hurt normal people."

She looked a little closer. "Could you see it at all? It looked like you could feel it at least."

[shockingblue]

Gunvolt watched her weapon flutter back into a book, clearly unused to a sight like that. Even if he'd been here for a few months and has seen all manner of thing, something like that was entirely new. And actually pretty cool.

"A spirit? Here?" He didn't disbelieve that, but frankly knowing the school had plenty of wards, made it strange that more had slipped through. "...Yeah, I did, but only for like a second. This weird little purple blob thing, when it was on my chest. But I definitely felt something."

He tilted his head a little, curiously.

"That's the first time I've ever felt anything like that."

[morelikeisabeast]

"Some always manage to slip through the wards. Grandpa thinks we should have a total bubble but that would stop any outlanders from getting in or out of the school too." She explained.

When he mentioned that he could see a weird purple blob thing, however, her face LIT up and she grabbed both his hands while practically bouncing in place. "Wait you're seeing shades without even concentrating!? That's so cool most people never see them at all or need to cast spells to see them! Oh just wait there's so many crazy things I can show you!"

[betheman]

God.

It's always just so strange. Even though Gongenzaka technically knows that spectral things Exist, and do Things, things that only certain others can see...he. Still can't see it after all. So it's just weird.

Gongenzaka stares, and blinks, watching as Isabel jumps around. He's glad for the French. He's always been glad for the French, it's so much easier to understand

Erm...

Hmm.

He's not sure he should do anything.

[morelikeisabeast]

The weird thing about watching Isabel fight when you don't have spirit vision is that some of the moves she makes look actually physically impossible. Sometimes she would kick off of things that didn't exist, or cushion her falls with bubbles of invisible force.

She was fighting a beard spirit, not that Gongenzaka could see it, and had it on the ropes. She didn't have nearly enough facial hair for it to be a serious threat to her.

Isabel stopped for a split second to wave at him before diving back at it while yelling something about hipsters.

[betheman]

"Mnnhhh...." Well, she's having a casual enough time then. That's the kind of cue that is. Eventually (somewhat helplessly) he just cups his hands to shout- "...Whoever it is you're facing, you're doing well I suspect..!"

It's probably kind of like when an older relative watches someone playing video games. God knows what's happening, but he likes to think you're winning.

[morelikeisabeast]

"It's slippery! And kind of itchy! If I'd known it was going to be so dedicated to not getting punched, I would have limbered up more!"

A bit more struggling, and then Isabel made a dramatic chopping gesture as if she were holding a sword of spectral force. Which...she was. She stood very still for a moment, then collapsed to one knee.

The spirit, unseen by Gongenzaka, slowly split in half in proper post sword clash fashion. When Isabel turned to look over at her friend, he could see that she had just now grown a beard. It was already starting to flake off, but for the moment she looked mildly ridiculous.

[betheman]

"Auh? Slippery? ...Just what on earth is-" He cuts short when Isabel turns and has a. Beard.

"................beard..?" He blinks rapidly, unsure what to say. "...It was...something with beards?"

[morelikeisabeast]

"Y...yeah, how'd you k-"

She reached up and touched her face. "Oh gross. I hope that's not permanent."