Jump 316 (Pika, HB, Ask)

Autumn. The train Jump 316 was cruising along the California countryside en route to Jump City. It was just before twilight and there was a beautiful sunset in the horizon. Today's trip had a rather sporadic number of passengers over the coach class cars as most had gotten off at earlier stations. Near the entryway of the last car right before the business class coaches, a lone girl in an unassuming plain white dress had a row all to herself. She had a pocket novel in hand, leisurely reading as the train made its way to its final stop. This girl was Rowena Kingsley. And despite how she looked, she was a knight on a mission. In the main car, the train driver issued an announcement that they would soon be arriving at Jump in about half an hour. It had been an uneventful but peaceful trip thus far and so no one expected the set of events that would occur next. Well, almost no one.

It was barely a minute after the driver made his announcement that a black ominous cloud suddenly appeared on the tracks about a hundred meters in front of the train. There was no time to stop. The driver could barely muster a thought as the train went straight through and disappeared inside the black mass. It covered a fairly large area and was big enough to swallow the entire train. However said train never reappeared on the other side of it. From an outsiders point of view, it would look like the whole thing was spirited away with only the black cloud remaining. Inside the cloud, the train appeared to be suspended in space. From the passengers' point of view, everything outside just went dark and the train had inexplicably stopped. There was an air of restlessness and panic in the air but no announcement of reassurance came from the driver even though that would usually be expected in such a case.

Rowena calmly closed her book and stood up from her seat. Though she was hoping nothing would happen in today's trip, she wasn't completely unaware that something might. After all the seemingly normal train was carrying quite a special passenger and cargo. Her mission today was to see to it that they reached their destination safely. As for what manner of being was targeting them now, she was a clueless as the rest of them.

A loud crunching noise from the front of the train was heard and caused a few people to scream, increasing the panic. Rowena raised her hand and summoned her lance along with her right gauntlet. Something was coming.

A blue haired boy snores, drooling on the seat. It was obvious he was having quite the nap....Till the crunch, that is.Jerkin awake, he speaks out."Watch out!!! Onion left flank!!!" Blinking, he glances around."Eh, what's going on?" Toji stretches, yawning and glancing out of the window."Night already?.....No...." Hand going to the knife on his belt, the halfling stands up,sighing. All he wanted was to rest after that mission...Glancing at the door behind him Toji sees some panicking people.Turning around, he strides through the  panix ing crowd in front of him, drawing his tanto out as he approaches the front of the car.

Rather than proceed immediately to the source of the noise, Rowena turned around and opened the door leading to the business class cars only to come face to face with a tall man in a suit wearing shades. He was one of the personal guards of the VIP she was escorting that day.

"Lord Myers is secure. The protection placed around the train is working as intended. The enemy has no choice but to approach from the front."

"And what of the other passengers?"

"Consider this bad luck. Part of why were on this train was to avoid catching too much attention. The fact that they got involved is just an unfortunate turn of events."

Rowena frowned slightly. Client request or not she most certainly despised the idea of leaving innocents to fend for themselves. The guard picked up on this mild displeasure though she tried to hide it.

"You're free to protect anyone you want while taking care of the threats. Just ensure none of them make it back here Ms. Knight."

Honestly she would have done that even without being told. As the cabin door once again closed, she finally started to make her way to the front of the train.

There was a second loud crunching noise as the roofs of the train cars were seemingly pushed down as though something was crushing the car from the top. This caused the windows to crack and break. The lights in the train began to flicker as the damage was taking its toll on the electronics.

In the midst of it all, something small and fast darted inside the cars from the broken windows. There were several entering the train. Rowena readied her lance, intercepting one of them and revealing what they were. The critters were imps. And they were the vicious kind with sharp teeth and claws. Already they were raising hell on the other passengers.

Rowena noted that the little devils appeared to have a symbol imprinted on their foreheads, suggesting they were bound and being controlled by someone. With a couple of quick swings, she sent a pair of them flying out the window, shrieking in pain. She then turned around to begin her sweep of the rest of the cabin before moving on to the next.

The situation in the other cars wasn't much different. But this was only the first wave. Something much bigger was lurking in the shadows outside.

A imp approaches a citizen, hissing wickedly.....Until it got speared through the head by a bolt of lightning, banishing it.As it fades away into dust, which also fades, a gloved hand grabs the man's shirt, lifting him up as a lightning coated foot kicks another through the window."Well...that was close...Annoying buggers." Setting the civilian down, Toji stabs a leaping imp in in the chest, banishing it. Finally seeing the blue hair, the demons hiss in fear, but continue on, what ever was forcing them driving them to fight. Toji snorts, and gets to work....

What started as seemingly chaotic attacks with no rhyme or reason quickly turned into a noticeably more organized assault. The marauding imps had identified the knight as a threat and surrounded her. With the limited space for movement inside the the train car, Rowena could not employ her skills in full even though under more normal circumstances, her lance-work was more than enough to keep the little demons at bay. She decided to summon the rest of her armor to ensure she was covered defensively. True enough the imps she missed with her strikes would find themselves in a bit of agony as they touched her blessed mail.

On the plus side, the creatures now left the passengers alone. But this was only one car of many. The other cars were likely in worse shape. After driving all of the imps away, the girl knight moved on to the next car to see what was up. As soon as she opened the door, yet another imp was soaring straight at her face. She swiftly eliminated it with an upward thrust but put in a little too much power on her swing. There was now a thin hole in the shape of a slash on the ceiling.

The imps were going wild in this car too. But what really caught her attention however was the next car up ahead. It was a lot noisier and she spotted flashes of light from the other side of the door. Someone else was fighting too? She kept that thought at the back of her mind as she was once again swarmed by incoming imps.

Meta had just been on the same mission as Toji, but the train was pretty bust so he had been unable to get a seat in the same car as his fellow Titan. So instead, he sat in a different car, staring out the window as people stared at him and his shirt, which was full of holes despite him being completely unharmed. Meta was just thinking about how he should have brought a book or something to keep himself entertained when suddenly all of the light from outside just vanished.

Meta got to his feet, ready to fight, that kind of thing didn't just randomly happened, it usually meant some kind of evil was afoot. Sure enough, the carriage went under attack by small creatures, the passengers all panicked but Meta just went to work, taking out imps with steel punches. One imp jumped at him and tried to claw his eyes out, but Meta just turned his entire head to steel so that the imps attacks were useless, when it tried to cling to his face he just tore it off, turned his hand to steel and crushed it's neck.

Soon, the imps realized that they should be teaming up against him so they all gathered around him and jumped at him. Meta turned his whole body to steel to survive the onslaught of scratches and bites, if even one part of his body was still flesh he'd probably get wounded in that area. Meta was pretty heavy like this, so he was slowed down considerably, this wasn't exactly ideal for fighting such small and quick enemies. For now, he was fine with how things were, better the imps were attacking him than civilians.

Toji rapidly punches at the little demons swarming him and doing their best to turn him into mincemeat. However, though he wasn't as durable as his pack brother currently was, he wasn't exactly wet cardboard. "Ow...ow..ow... Let's...examine... ow....the...OW....pros and cons..oww..of this situations. Pros..faster..ow..stronger...and less attention on civilians...Cons..owww...This hurts..oww.and...owowow...YOU LOT ARE BADLY ANNOYING!!" Snorting in pain and unbridled irritation, Toji sends out a pulse, driving them back a sec. The moment he got his hands on the one responsible..

This was proving to be inefficient, at least from Rowena's point of view. While it was good that her presence there drew the attention of the imps away from the civilians, the location made it impossible for her to use bigger moves to more quickly dispatch the enemies. As a result, rather than fighting one against twenty, it was more like she was fighting twenty one-on-one battles. The enemy's objective wasn't too hard to figure out. Whoever it was intended to cause as much chaos as possible in an attempt to find a weakness in the protection. It wouldn't be wrong to assume the imps would keep coming unless she cut them off at the source.

She backed away to the end of the car where she entered, luring the imps into the aisle. Once they were all lined up, she charged forward with her lance to eliminate the lot. Up ahead, she hoped whoever was fighting there had things under control. It was time to hunt down the mastermind. She looked above at the hole she had made earlier and slashed a second time to make it bigger, allowing her to jump through.

From on top of the car, everywhere she looked was dark. The sole source of light came from the train. Though there was nothing that could be immediately seen, there was an eerie feeling all around her as though she wasn't alone. Without warning something big and muscular hugged from behind but let go almost immediately, howling in pain. Startled, she turned around and assumed fighting stance as before her stood an intermediate demon, much bigger than the imps from before. It was about ten feet tall, not counting the long whip-like tail behind it. Normally something like it wouldn't intimidate her one bit, but the fact that it was able to sneak up to her and grab her without her noticing was a cause of concern.

Once the monster recovered from the burning pain, it glared at her furiously before disappearing into the darkness again. Just like earlier, Rowena could tell something was out there but she couldn't pinpoint where exactly. She was at quite the disadvantage fighting an enemy she couldn't see if she just stood there. She decided to proceed with her initial plan and move up to the front cars, dealing with the demon if it decided to attack again.

She jumped up and landed on top of the next car where she saw someone else fighting earlier. As soon as her foot touched the roof, a large claw took a swipe at her face out of nowhere with only her quick reflexes saving her. She fell on her back but was otherwise unharmed.

Metamorphi heard sounds on the roof of the train car, someone or something was on the top of the train, but that wasn't Meta's problem at the moment. His problem was the swarm of imps surrounding him, Meta tried as much as he could to catch them with his flailing limbs or crush them on his body with his arms. He got some, but this wasn't working out, he needed some backup.

Meta decided to take advantage of how many were swarming on his body and allowed himself to fall over, crushing the imps clinging to his back under his weight. The imps on his front started scratching and kicking and biting, but that wasn't doing anything other than ruining Meta's outfit. Good think he has loads of copies of the same shirt and the same jeans back at the Tower. Meta then rolled over, crushing some of the remaining imps who were not smart enough to keep their distance and using the momentum to bring himself back to his feet.

He had taken out quite a few, enough that he could turn back to normal so he didn't weigh as much, the imps jumped at him again and he swatted as much as he could out of the air with steel punches, before tanking the attacks of those that got through his defense by turning into steel. Their numbers were starting to thin, so he no longer really needed to worry about defense, he just went over and took them out with steel punches one by one.

Soon, they were all dead, the people who had been cowering in fear of the imps came out and applauded Meta, then they all gasped. Meta looked down and realized that the damage to his clothes was much worse than he thought. Meta looked around and picked up his communicator and his spare communicator from the ground, he'd probably just have to ask Toji to put them in his pockets or something. Someone took out their phone to take a picture, so Meta dashed into the next carriage where Toji was and started helping Toji out by punching imps. It must have been quite a sight for the people in that carriage, to see a naked man rush in and start killing monsters.

( I'm so so so sorry!!!! I hope you two can forgive me!!!)

Toji glances from the left to the right. Huh...sounded like pack brother was busy teaching them a lesson.Same with another...then there's noises on the roof. Toji begins banishing the bogies again. Hearing a door slam open, he points a lightning coated fist at said door, looking."..........AAAAAAAARGH!!! OH FORGER, WHY?!!?!" Toji turns around, rubbing rapidly at his eyes. Oh Forger...he needed brain cleanser. The boy lashes at another imp, sending it flying out, and shudders, glancing at Meta. He was careful to keephus eyes directed at the older teens face.His hair was glowing bad enough."Where in the Nine Pits are your pants, brother?"

There was no time to catch her breath. Before she could even try to get back up, the demon appeared right above her to stab her face with its claws but she managed to shift her head to the side to just barely avoid it. Its hand punctured the roof rather easily. She was in a rather disadvantageous position with the demon's large body practically on top of her. She proceeded to bash her shield into the demon's chest, causing it to roar in pain once more. But rather than retreat, it attacked more furiously, using both hands to smash her through the train car roof.

The impact rattled her for a few seconds and when she came to, she was on the train car floor staring at a dark gaping hole in the ceiling. She hoped no one got caught up in that and got hurt when she came crashing down. She quickly sat up trying to regain her composure but spotted two peculiar fellows who seemed to be fighting? From her position, the blue-haired one was mostly blocking the view of the other guy so she didn't notice yet that the unfortunate extent of his clothing damage.

Toji unfortunately saw Meta's naked state, more people cried out in surprise when they saw him but Meta didn't care, he wasn't ashamed of his body. Although that wasn't really the problem here. Toji asked where his trousers were, to which Meta gestured to the imps Ask them. He then punched one out of the air, splatting it against the wall.

Meta co-operated with Toji to fight the remaining imps and defeated them all. Then an angel fell from above, well, not an angel, more like a girl in armor. Meta went in closer to investigate, moving to Toji's side Are you okay? What happened?

Toji growls."Oh, that figures...Im kicking the butt of the leader, definitely!!!" His own gear was looking a little tattered, but not enough to be a big deal.Lashing out with a hand, he uses Lightning Ripper to slice apart a group of imps, banishing them. Then a girl falls through the roof. Toji aims his fist at the hole as Meta checks on her.

The taller man walked over to her to ask if she was fine. It was only then that she realized he was wearing practically nothing. Her face turned to a look of concern.

"I have been better. Are you okay?"

She stood up without needing assistance and looked up at the hole. The demon's angry face flashed for a moment before disappearing back into the darkness. It seemed it had no intention of following her inside. It was probably given orders to attack anyone who went outside. She then quickly surveyed the car she was in and it pretty much looked like the naked man and his blue-haired friend had things under control here, despite his appearance.

"I'm a knight tasked with guarding a client of mine currently on board this train. After ensuring he was secure I rushed out to protect the rest of the passengers. I had thought it would be faster to find the mastermind from outside, but the culprit's watchdog was more fearsome than I expected."

"You two are?"

She was careful not to say too much just yet. She was not entirely sure if they were on the same side and them fighting off the imps didn't guarantee that.

The girl was fine it seemed. So fine that she asked if he was okay Hmm? Oh, right. The imps did this. she would probably notice that he didn't have any wounds on his body, despite the fact that he claimed to have had his clothes torn at by Imps. She could think of that that whatever she wanted. She explained that she was a knight who was protecting someone on this train, then she fought some imps and got knocked through the roof by a monster keeping guard outside.

She then asked who they were, so he nudged Toji Show her the communicator he then turned back to her We're members of the Titans. No doubt that you've heard of them, or at least the old team from before the vanishing. We were just on our way back from a mission when all this happened.