painsaws:

_@golem-boy

liked this for a starter!

  _{It’d been a long, long while since they’d been in a city. Not even Argent D’Nur had anything they could compare to human infrastructure– no, only humanity could make something so lively out of something as dead as concrete. But that was the thing, wasn’t it? For somewhere supposed to be packed full of busy people, there was a serious lack of people here. Either their memory was awful and they couldn’t remember what cities were like, or something was wrong. Their bets were on the latter. Things really liked to go wrong.}

  _{The Slayer dropped from the ruined building they’d been portaled into, sending cracks across the concrete surface from the impact alone. Not wasting a second, they dusted off their Praetor, hoisted their shotgun, and marched on forward. If one listened closely enough, they could hear the vaguest traces of humming coming from the towering figure. It felt like they’d go stir crazy without it. Way too still ‘round here. Needs some jazzin’ up! I mean, demon roars ain’t preferable, but somethn’! Ba-dum dum dum dum dudum, badum dum dum duuum…} 

  _{The barest of movements catches their attention; even just in the corner of their eye, the prospect of something around brings a grin to their face. They spun on their heel, tossing the gun over their shoulders– might as well give the fella a head start if they had bad intentions.}

  _{‘ Ooh, finally! Somethin’ happenin’, been too long! Only got so many songs I can be hummin’ here! C’mon out! I don’t bite– well, migh’ bite, but prefer not to! Ehehe. ‘}

The motion becomes more solid, and it’s definitely not human, whatever it is. It drops headfirst from a third-story window, a big bite taken out just adjacent; bricks thrown out from whatever blew the hole out.

The thing stops, turns to him with a funny mechanical noise, and swaps from that catlike stance to this funny little hunch, clusters of bloody-red eyelights fixing on him. It makes this noise, a kind of monotone, hollow croak. It raises one curved arm; it doesn’t so much have an elbow as it does a chain of them, some kind of knives mounted astride the forearm. It looks to be readying to shoot, but that endeavor is cut off with a thunderclap.

Or, more accurately, a high caliber round going off about two meters from them.

The thing croaks again, staggering on its double-kneed legs, and collapses in a heap.

The assailant rolls into existence, sort of; he appears in a blue ripple, and gestures for them to keep that big shotgun pointed elsewhere.

Friendly and squid are two signs that come up. The rest are jumbled, out-of-practice. Eventually the slate-clad soldier gets annoyed–at his own lack of skill, it seemed–and points to the dead scrapheap, signing squid again. Not-friendly, there, and then he points to himself. Man. Friendly. You?