Plan A (Beyril)

A calm sea of snow slowly building on itself, creating a grand blanket that would befit a slumbering giant hiding beneath the arctic. Or a scowling, white-haired boy climbing his way out of the massive layers of snow that once buried him. "Every time I come here, it's even lamer..." He produced a pair of binoculars and examined the horizon, searching for anything he could distinguish as a sort of landmark. "Now that Reaver isn't operating here, I don't even have a fight to look forward to. I don't care what Death says though, Reaver going dark does, in no way, mean that he's dead or out of the fi- aaAAGGH!" Ace shouted, plummeting into a massive detention in the ground that he'd missed, due to the tunnel vision provided by the binoculars. He landed hard, face down, and groaned. "I hate everything..."

Despite his sour words, Ace stared on in awe as he lifted his body to gaze upon what was a massive, archaic stone temple embedded into the ice at the bottom of the chasm. "It was hiding on the other side of the world in an ice cube this whole time, and we never even knew..." The boy stood slowly, snow falling from his coat in large chunks.

Zella was deep within the recesses of the temple. She had bundled up well, a fur coat and mask covering her face from the winds outside, but she had a job to accomplish here and she wasn't going to stay inside for long. A slight rumble echoed from the interior, and she walked just a bit faster down the hallways.

An ominous voice echoed to Zella's memories. "You're only getting close to him so that you can kill him."

Not so gracefully, Ace scrambled over mounds of snow and down icy slopes in approach to the old ruins. "Alright, let's see if that psychotic creep left anything behind when he ditched this old place..." Before long, the Weapon reached the doors, narrowing his eyes at their imposing girth, and he gave them a shove, pushing them inward at a slow pace. The weight of the metal groaned as it scraped against its hinges.

"There's snow on the inside..." Ace realized upon inspecting the doorway. He checked for footprints, since they wouldn't be erased by the new snowfall like footprints on the outside would. After finding only small, irregular patches that couldn't be confirmed as humanoid or bipedal, he decided to remain cautious and push on into the darkness.

Zella frowned, hugging her coat tighter around herself. She hated these jobs; nothing good could come of this... But she had a debt to pay. And heavens know she doesn't just forget those. She sighed, walking forward until she heard a menacing growl echo behind her. A chill went up her spine as she broke into a full run. The sound of claws on the ice raced behind her.

Ace acknowledged the growl as well, though he hesitated to act. If it was coming towards him, an enclosed area such as this hallway was likely the best place to fight whatever it was, assuming it was as large as it sounded. "Maybe now I'll finally get myself a soul." He considered closing the doors on the unknown creature, but decided against it due to the lack of light or alternate escape route. Instead of moving at all, he knelt over the snow and ice, eyes closed, carefully considering all of his options like he was playing a game of chess.

Zella barreled forward, looking over her shoulder and running straight into Ace. The wind pushed out of her chest as she gave an "oomph", and she hurried to her feet, "Run, before it catches up!!"

Ace collapsed immediately upon receiving the impact and hit the ground, groaning. He was about to yell at the asshole who had been rude enough to slam into him full speed, but the girl's warning forced him to reconsider. He scurried back onto his feet and followed the stranger, checking behind him to look for whatever was coming for them.

The sound of hundreds of scampering feet, like claws going up glass raced behind them. The blue-haired girl yanked him ahead of her, crying, "Run!" as a giant icy centipede rounded the bend behind them.

Ace whipped around as the beast began to cut them off. It was long enough to where there were absolutely no openings, which meant that the two would be forced to fight. Could the girl even fight? What the hell was she even doing here?! "Hey! Can you defend yourself? If you're a witch or something, now's not a good time to worry about keeping secrets!"

Zella shook her head as she ran, "No, I'm a meister! I was locked up here!" she corrected.

"A Meister?" Ace reached into his pouch for a smoke pellet. Hopefully this thing didn't have any senses superior to its sight. He snapped the pellet against his shoe, as the snow would probably have stopped it from popping, then gripped the strange girl by the wrist under the cover of the smog. "I'm a Weapon from the academy. You sure are hella lucky I showed up here. Try not to drop me." In a flash of light, Ace transformed into his weapon form, expecting to be caught by his improvised partner.

Zella caught him with ease, letting the chain drop a bit through her other hand as she let the weighted end gather momentum, "Anything's better than what's behind me."

Ace's handle was stiff and frigid, despite the cloth wrap, and it didn't alter itself to fit Zella's grip like a normal weapon. The chain was heavy and felt as though the links were stuck together, not moving in the right ways. "Don't get us killed." He grumbled as he braced for the combat.

Zella laughed, "There's no killing that, we just run." She swung his blade forward into the wall of ice, pulling herself up with the momentum.

"I'm all for living to fight another day," Ace argued. "but I didn't come here to rescue you, I came here to investigate those ruins, so if you're running, then you're gonna have to get up this wall yourself."

Zella groaned, getting to the top, "You have any suggestions, wiseass?"

Ace reverted to his human self, his hand appearing in Zella's where his handle was. "It doesn't look like it's got any sense of intellectual cognition, so we can easily lure it into a trap. You seem pretty good at being bait for this thing, so leave the rest to me, huh?" The Weapon peered over the wall to watch the massive centipede as it prepared to charge them.

Zella groaned, shoulders slumping, "Why do I always have to be bait?" she muttered to herself, calling out, "Hey! Over here, bug brain!"

Ace held out his foot, putting him in a slow, falling motion, before taking off in a burst of energy, sprinting down the wall of ice and snow like a blur. He pinned kunai repeatedly into different parts of the walls, spinning wires through the ends. He could only hope that the monster chasing them was being properly distracted by the mystery girl, as he couldn't turn his head to see it, nor would his vision be clear enough to discern it's movements if he could.

Zella kept making noise, screaming out at the monster as it chased her, "You better know what you're doing!" she cried as it quickly closed the distance between them.

"Shit, she's not fast enough." Ace said, running for the monster and its prey. He slowed down to a normal, human speed once he got closer, then made an effort to get on to the centipede's back, dragging his now-blade-shaped arm along it's back in an attempt to catch something. "Run back for the ruins!"

Zella rounded on her heel, feet nearly falling out from under her on the ice and started running back for the ruins, the creature taking her turn to work on closing the distance further.

Ace tossed out his chain, wrapping it around the centipede's head, steering it away from Zella to give her some breathing room. He wouldn't deter it for long though, and he could only hope that she could reach the door before it caught up to her again.

Zella barreled forward, jumping onto a snowboard she had been holding onto her back and pushing off with an odd blast of blue light that shot her forward.

Ace eyed the energy that the strange girl seemed to output, but was far too busy as it stood to entertain his curiosity too much. Instead, he focused on not falling off of the centipede or getting buried in the snow, and did his best to watch for the wires, so that he could spring his trap before it was too late.