A L B U S . Renew, Phase 02.01.04

[Chaos Shadow]

Phoenix Narsil snapped awake and immediately leapt into one of the trees, crouching on the branch, three kunai knives held between his fingers. He glared off into the distance, teeth set, but was met with nothing but frustration.

"What's up with you?" Suriumon asked suddenly, himself having been roused by the ninja's disturbance in the tree.

Narsil glared down at him, then looked forward, then looked back. "I don't know," he said. "Something's-- happening out there."

"Good job," the wolf mumbled. "You wanna be more specific?"

"I can't. I can't see it." He shook his head, then glared off into the distance. "Just a... feeling."

"Good feeling you have, boy."

His attention turned upward again, and he found himself staring into the red-flecked golden eyes of a white-haired young woman. Beside her, resting in the tree, a three-tailed fox, black and flecked purple.

Pandora was visibly pissed.

"I really shouldn't be surprised," she admitted, leaping out of the tree and landing on the ground below the somewhat stunned ninja. "About the violence that my colleagues are prone to, I mean." She looked over her shoulder and whistled, and Karyxmon soon followed, hitting the ground and standing immediately before Suriumon.

Narsil hissed; "You're--"

"Pandora," she said flippantly. Flashes in the air, but the kunai all missed their mark, and she shook her head. "Am I antagonizing you right now?"

"Tell me," Suriumon suddenly growled, "why we shouldn't kill you now?"

She looked down to the wolf, her frown deepening. "Suri," she murmured. "How fantastic to see you again." He gave off a bark-growl, and she pulled down the sleeve of her coat, revealing a trail of what looked like blackened electrical scars. "Thanks for this," she said acidly.

"You stole something very important to me," he said, just as virulently.

"And to answer your question," she interjected, "there's no reason you shouldn't try and kill me now. I assure you you'll die, though, but if you've already accepted that truth, feel free to do so."

The wolf wanted to respond, but clearly could not come up with the words. She smirked faintly.

"I'm not here to fight," she said. "I actually had half an intention of coming here to run an errand for Edge."

"Nova," Suriumon murmured.

"Correct. Although now that I've arrived, I'm rather disinclined to give him such a nice present. Bow and everything, I had planned." She shrugged. "He'd probably just set it on fire the instant he got it anyway." Her eyes traveled up to Phoenix Narsil. "He's trying to do that to your other half right now, actually."

The ninja frowned. "Other half."

"Nn. Other half."

Suriumon glared at her, taking a few steps away and around before turning his attention to Karyxmon. "Do you speak?" he asked.

"When necessary," the fox responded flatly.

"The rest of your people would probably do well to wake up," Pandora continued, "and try and make their way to Flare Crater as soon as possible. Edge is otherwise occupied at the moment, as are Odin and Zaqueia--" She looked at them. "I'm kind of throwing names around. Alter-Nova, Alter... I don't believe he's among the living anymore, actually... and Alter-You." She pointed up to Narsil. "If you act quickly enough, you might be able to make it to the Crater while Edge is still trying to recover from his bout with his brothers. Catch him off guard."

[Chaos Shadow]

"So.... why are you helping us?" Said Nova stareing at the girl, "Are you... Dopplegangers having some kind of civil war or something?"

[Chaos Shadow]

"You come out of nowhere, don't you?" Pandora said. "I take it you heard at least part of that prior conversation. About how your ostensibly evil alter ego is off attempting to kill one of his brethren while another of his brethren attempts to kill him while another-- you get the idea. Three of them, wildly attempting to kill one another." She sighed through her teeth and shook her head.

"Men."

Pandora looked over and grinned faintly. "Ah, original. Good to see you again."

Chaos leaned against one of the trees, glaring up at Pandora and breathing through her teeth. She had looked to be in bad shape before, it was apparent the resting -- and she had actually slept this time, which made it all the worse for her to stomach -- had left her even worse for the wear, her exhausted slouch evident, the bags under her eyes darker. She winced slightly as she shifted her weight to her left arm and held herself up against the tree.

She stood there a long moment, looking at Pandora, and said, in perfect monotone, "I hate you."

[Chaos Shadow]

"I just got a very bad feeling," Simon said quietly, staring up at the mountain.

"Like what?" Caster asked, chewing on a sandwhich. Where he'd gotten the damn thing, Simon didn't want to know-he ws rather focused on the Mountain.

"Like...like there's something very scary there. Also a handful of annoying things, but mostly..."

"I get ya," agreed Caster. "Terrifying dark creatures and whatnot, ya?"

"Good use of slang," snorted Simon. Still...he straighted his glasses and fingered the stocks of his guns. "I don't like this, Caster. Not one bit. We're involved in too much as it is."

"Yeah, but there's something dark and evil around here!" Caster exclaimed. He finished off his sandwhich and then grinned wildly, twirling his staff. "Come on." He advanced towards the stone monolith and, after a moment's hesitation, Simon followed.

[Chaos Shadow]

Near Chaos, the ground began to lift itself slightly. It probably wasn't much to think about, until the area of instability grew wider and wider until finally what appeared like a furred hand emerged from the ground. It then began sreching for something, finally comminy upon a root of a nearby tree. Te hand grasped the root and then, a few seconds later, what appeared to be a fox-like creature emerged from the ground. The creature then gave a major sigh or relief

"Thank goodness I'm a foxtaur, Otherwise that would of taken forever,"

He then looked at the group that was standing near him. There were a few demihumand, like him.

"Uh, you guys may want to shield yourselves. I'm about to do what canines usually do when stuff gets in our fur..."

[Chaos Shadow]

Narsil reacted on instinct, hurling a shuriken at the foxtaur that had just clawed his way out of the catacombs. Thankfully, his aim was a bit off, and the gleaming metal star hit the tree just next to his head. Chaos looked over groggily.

"Little twitchy the-ere did you come from?" she said, noticing the presence of a tall, half-fox man-thing next to her.

"You picked up a mutant friend while you were off traipsing about not doing anything of particular importantce," Pandora said, promptly clapping her approval. "Well done." She quickly turned her attention toward the fox. "Carris, if you'd take an opportunity to run off and wake up the rest of their party. If anybody tries to attack you, just stand there and let them know how hopeless their situation is."

Karyxmon nodded and leapt away, into the short distance where the others were sleeping in their makeshift camp. The got there, came to a stop, and leaned back to balance on her hind legs, forming a small ball of energy in her paws, which she threw into the air. It cleared the canopy before exploding.

It sounded, strangely, like fireworks.

Back among the waking, Chaos had quickly turned to face Pandora again and taken a few shaking steps forward.

"Hey, hey," she growled, "we killed CK while we were out here, so that's one of you down thanks to-- thanks to us doin'-- stuff." Her mind was churning slowly, too slowly to effectively do much of anything. "That's something, at least."

"Something," Pandora admitted. "But hardly enough."

She turned away, plucked one of the kunai stuck to the tree next to her, and began to carve lines into the bark.

"Your party," she said, "is presently composed of..." She looked up, brow furrowed, as she tried to remember what their party was presently composed of. She latched on, and began taking knife to tree, making one long vertical slash for each. "The ninja above me, the boy here, this here wurfox," she intentionally slurred the word as she made the third strike, "the infected girl, CK's sadly living counterpart, a crazy woman with a phoenix, the seraphim of the Guardians, and," a more powerful strike as she pulled down the eighth slash mark, "you, my exhausted infected doppleganger."

Chaos merely continued to glare at her, but the wolf took a step forward. "Infected--?"

"Meanwhile." She made a horizontal slash beneath the first row, and began making quick marks for the rest. "We have myself, Koudet, Luxis, Abikari, AngeKikota, Zaqueai, Odin." Seven marks. "You presently outnumber due to the fact that you killed one of our weaker numbers, and one of our own has already killed another of our weaker numbers. Presently, we risk losing another thanks to the war games being played on the other side of the mountain. Also," she looked over. "You picked up no less than three new members to replace the three that we've already killed."

"You're point...?"

"My point is that you're all a bunch of underpowered useless individuals who have been chased across the island when you should begin taking the offensive in your desperate if ultimately futile attempt to kill us all."

[Chaos Shadow]

Ancient shook the dirt out of his fur and loked at Pandora.

"And what the hell are YOU suppose to be?"

"I'm as clueless as you are Ancient."

Ancient looked at the opening he had created to see his team crawling out: AngeVeemon, an angelic form of Veemon, Agumon, and Eliselmon, a green dragon digimon. Ancient blinked.

"Well, its good to see you guys are alright. That tunnel wasn't exactly stable."

"Yea, we're ok," AngeVeemon stated, "Getting burried down in Darkengard wasn't exactly fun...but I think Haruhi is seriously uneasy at the girl you just questioned."

"Easy there Wingman, we'll figure this out...or...maybe everyone else here will fill us in."

Ancient put on his Guardian Cloak and looked at Chaos, who seemed a bit uneasy about that other figure.

"You mind giving us the details here?"

[Chaos Shadow]

Nova looked off to the side noticing the fox thing, another random appearance. But long as it wasn't another doppleganger he was weirdly okay with it. Burrowing out the ground like that he seemed more like a mole. However he largely ignored the foc, a smile appeared on his face as he looked back to Chao's twin, doppleganger, alter-her.

Or what the hell ever they were currently going with.

"Heh, the fact that some you copies are killing each other is actually working out in our favor." He said leaning back on the tree he was currently on.

"And then you come here and tell us we have no chance in hell of actually being able to take anymore of you out. Don't make me laugh, If that the case then why are you here talking instead of doing your job and getting rid of us. The longer we linger around the more of you copies are going to die... or is that somewhat the plan? You did say something about sneaking up on Edge and killing him. As much as I would Love to reed his head from his body, that fact that you are encouraging it feels..."

His train of thought crashed, he didn't know the exact word to use, but something didn't seem right.

[Chaos Shadow]

"Who am I?" Pandora asked, and suddenly moved forward, took Chaos by the wrist, and dragged her over, hugging her tightly at her side and smiling. "This girl's evil twin! Can't you see the resemblance?"

It was becoming increasingly more difficult to do so. Pandora was white-haired and golden-eyed and dressed in black, sharp contrast to Chaos' white coat. Chaos, meanwhile, still had her medium-brown hair and hazel eyes, and looked ready to pass out or die. Or pass out and then die.

"Let go of me," Chaos growled, struggling against her doppleganger's grip. Pandora did so, and the girl immediately staggered forward and half-turned to look over to her.

"As for why I'm telling you this... one." She slammed the kunai into the bark of the tree. "I didn't say you couldn't kill any of us ever again. I said that killing all of us will likely be the death of you lot. Two, there is something of a civil war. Three, I have no loyalty to any of my inexplicably ambitious and violent comrades. Frankly, if they're all dead, so much the better." She shrugged. "I could go either way, though."

[Chaos Shadow]

Nova's eyes stayed sharply on Pandora, something wasn't right, "Then... where exactly is your loyality aligned too then?"

[Chaos Shadow]

Pandora smiled.

"You think we just came out of the nothing?" she said. She shook her head. "You can relax a little bit, boy." She sent a glance to Nova out of the corner of her eye. "If I'd intended to kill the lot of you I wouldn't have been kind enough to wait for you to wake up first."

[Chaos Shadow]

Nova sucked on his teeth, and clearly had a look of distaste on his face. He did not however say another word. But his brain was working in overdrive about the matters at hand,

"It's fairly obvious that they aren't created from nothing, if that was the case then we would already be dead. Thing is, we have no idea what is the cause of our doppleganger infestation. And lets not forget the little run in with the airship of doom. This is just too damn much... Who has that much control on this damn island." He thought, confused beyond words.

[Chaos Shadow]

"And if that had been the case, you wouldn't be in much of a position to be calmly discussing it at all, Pandora, was it?" Ray said quietly, leaning against a tree not too far from the group, though on the opposite side, making it difficult to see him for his dark clothes. "If everyone's awake, we can go. Thte sooner we go, the better a chance we have at catching the back end of the 'civil-war' we were just informed of and capitalise on it, right?"

[Chaos Shadow]

She looked over her shoulder to face him. "I guess I'd be a bit too preoccupied, Seraphim."

Suriumon took another step forward, glaring at her. "Loyalties or not, you'd just let us kill your brethren?"

"Yes." Marvelously blunt of her. "You kill them, or they kill you, or your collective numbers simply drop. I would be fine with either."

[Chaos Shadow]

Having just woken a small distance away, Roeck and Rouge rejoined the group rather confused at the sudden addition of another female.....who looked rather ominous in many ways.

"Um....." Roeck said as he sudden snuck up on the group, "new friend of yours?" he asked the group.