Wind In Our Sails [Flashback, Mission, Janus]

Mission 1:

Kosuke woke, slowly drifting from the realm of slumber into the world of the waking. Today, he had made plans to meet up with that Janus woman he had met recently to meet for coffee and discuss the strangeness in the city, to share experiences and see if they could find out what was going on. They would also no doubt theorize about the cause of some humans in the area developing supernatural powers, but that wasn't what was important at the moment. For now, he needed to get up, get dressed and be on his way. Throwing on his usual outfit, he would head out the door and take a bike to the city where the coffee shop was located. Once inside he would order himself something while he waited on the other spiritually enhanced human to arrive. He hoped she would get there soon, the clouds in the sky were quite foreboding, it looked like a storm was brewing.

1/8

Janus was wearing her trademark coat, some punk rock shirt from France and a was currently looking up at the sky as she tried to divine how long she had until it started raining. She could smell the pressure changing, a smell of both mist and loss as she noticed that she was a few minutes late to the coffee shop. Which was actually kind of sad how much Janus could be late with the literal ability to see the future. Janus guessed other diviners couldn't figure that one out either.

She walked in just as the first few drizzles of rain came down and walked over to where Kosuke was sitting down. She avoided ordering anything simply because somewhere at the edge of her divination, she could feel the gloom of masked monsters. Lots of gloom. Seeing the future sometimes meant very little in the way of changing it, so she looked over at Kosuke and nodded politely. "How bad do you think, I can already see combat in the future." She asked the young man, who hopefully wasn't coughing up blood this time. Janus was weird, she skipped most conversational formalities only because she didn't want to see thousands of futures with different answers. "You feeling alright today?"

Kosuke would allow a slight smile to come across his face as he saw Janus come in. He had learned very little of her powers the last time they met, but he figured she also learned very little of his powers as well, so they were even. She seemed to avoid small talk however, so he would also avoid it for the most part. It also seemed she could sense something bad was coming, was this a part of her power? He would answer her as he took a sip of his coffee, "I feel as good as I can. I suppose there is little hiding it, but I have a rare disease that is slowly killing me. Some days are better than others, thankfully, today seems to be of that sort." He would offer up a half smile at that, he was glad to feel healthy today.

2/8

Janus was glad to hear that, mainly because she didn't want something terrible to happen and then be stuck trying to save Kosuke while fighting what was most likely a masked monster. She looked at the window and started pointing at different spots. Like it was some game she just decided to play as she waited for him to finish his coffee. "Forty three... forty two... forty one." She stated counting down like it was an easy thing to do.

Janus had always been like that, sometimes things just couldn't surprise a Diviner. Though what she hadn't done was probably much more of an issue. Janus didn't have the ability to look far enough to see just what kind of monsters were coming through the portals, which was definitely the largest mistake she was going to make as she counted down. A masked monster scream erupted just as she got to two, and a portal opened as the rain started as she finished her downwards count. She figured they had a bit of time before everything went to total hell so she asked. "Hey how did you make that frog thingy topple over, that was cool."

Kosuke was somewhat confused as she seemed to start counting downwards. Looking out to where she was pointing, he couldn't see anything amiss or happening in those areas, and he didn't feel anything. Until she got to one, then he felt the presence of one of those beasts and heard its scream. She didn't seem all that concerned, but he felt that it would probably be in their best interest to go take care of it. "I'm not sure, I've just always been able to do that. Whenever something hits me, I can give the force right back to it, two fold! Say, how did you know that portal was going to open when it did?" He figured since he told her his, she could tell him hers! He kept a keen eye on the portal that just opened, waiting to see what happens next.

3/8

"I'm a Diviner, I see the future, kind of." She said stretching and getting up as another scream erupted. She blinked and looked back outside. "That's the biggest monster I've ever seen!" She stated as a second before one of the monster began crawling out of the portal. The diviner stared blankly as she realized, it was probably time to get a move on to save people, or die trying. Janus really needed to avoid that die trying part.

"How, I've never seen or heard of monsters that big!" Janus pointed out as she lifted up her coat over her face to block the rain and looked at Kosuke. "I can get the not as monstrous ones, maybe?" She told him, still in shock staring at the bigger and meaner looking one with a gangling pair of legs.

Kosuke was somewhat astounded by what he heard her say, the future?! His astonishment was overshadowed by the massive monster that dropped from the portal into the city. It was followed by more giants before one that towered over them all followed suit. At first they just meandered around before two of them started fighting, destroying parts of the city, and then it evolved into all out chaos as they continued to fight. Janus suggested she take on the less dangerous looking ones while he focused his attention on the massive one that stood out in the middle. That worked he supposed. "All right, take on those smaller ones quick, I doubt I can beat this thing on my own." It was a modest guess, but also a realistic one. He had no doubt that he would die if he attempted to accomplish this on his own, so he was glad she was there.

4/8

Janus nodded, watching the brawl like something out of a Kaiju movie. To be honest, if there weren't people in danger she probably would have grabbed popcorn and a soda and enjoyed the show. Sadly, that wasn't the case. The diviner bolted the moment Kosuke told her to be quick, mainly because she knew he could hit harder, though his stamina probably wasn't like hers. She raced at full speed towards the two that had begun fighting, her body moving somewhere between the speed of a bullet and superman, grabbing a few people and using her arms to support them as she moved them away from the carnage as she tried to assess the situation aside from monsters fighting.

"Seriously, right out of a kaiju movie, this is awesome!" The diviner stated before looking to the futures to start summoning other Janus to attack one of the monsters while she jumped towards the other one, latching onto it and gulping as she looked down and began to climb up towards its mask. She was lucky it was fighting the other and trying to swat her projections, or she probably would have been squished like an ant.

Kosuke had to admit, she was far faster than he. He could barely keep track of her movements as she rushed through the city saving people left and right while he was standing there flabbergasted. Shaking himself from his stupor he rushed behind her, towards the largest beast. He wondered briefly what he was even going to do before he found himself climbing through the air towards its massive facial mask. Pulling back his fist, he would deliver the strongest blow he could... but it had absolutely no effect. The beast actually ignored him completely as he stood there staring at it.

5/8

Janus didn't catch Kosuke's epic failure, cause she was having one of her own. You see, climbing on something much larger than you had certain disadvantages, like what to do if the other monster decides to punch right where you're climbing. She squeaked out something between a gasp of pain as the thing hit her back and an annoyed grunt as she tried to hold on only to find that the other monster had gotten her leg between it's fingers more or less on accident. "There is no way... this ends well." Janus said as she looked through the futures to send more projections at the monster that had grabbed her.

Which, was mistake number two. Janus' projections got the monster's attention so the first monster slammed into it and topped both of them over, while Janus was still in its hand as she screamed and was flung into a nearby wall. She hit the ground once and bounced before slamming into the wall.

"This.... means war." She said like daffy duck in some old cartoon she watched as a child. She got back up, one of her arms wasn't working right, probably cause of the swelling as she realized she had actually gotten lucky. The second monster was now down, and there was a telephone pole next to her. She summoned a projection to attempt to damage the thing a bit before one hand slamming the telephone pole down on the monster like a poleaxe and it screamed before dissipating.

The other monster looked down at her and she quickly noticed, her plan didn't account for one of them realizing she was a threat. "Umm.... my bad?" She said before she found herself slammed into the wall again.

Kosuke was still attempting to get the beast's attention as it watched his companion take on the other two, finally he decided to punch it again and yell as loud as he could, resulting in entering into a coughing fit, sending bursts of blood onto the white mask, "PAY ATTENTION TO ME YOU BASTARD!" This seemed to do the trick as he noticed it seem to shift its focus to him. Before he knew it, a massive hand was swatting at him. He held his own hand to intercept it in a manner akin to a high five, with two words mumbled behind a bloodstained smirk, "Full Counter." This resulted in the beast howling in pain as its arm was blown off from the force of the blast that seemed to pause the rain in the air before it then continued to fall. He now had its full attention.

6/8

Janus pushed herself out of the imprint she had made in the wall and grunted, there was blood somewhere. She could smell it in her nose, hopefully it wasn't her head, but at least she was still in one piece, now it was a matter of getting said piece to monster and dealing with said monster. She was right about one thing though, she sucked at this. For all her speed and lack of power, she had no real experience fighting. It was mainly flailing and shrieking. "Alight Give me a sec." She said looking up at the giant monster and panting.

"And... go." The diviner said as she bolted back towards the building and jumped laterally at the thing before rolling against the side and lunging like a self propelled rocket towards the monster's face. She cracked it's mask, and what she was pretty sure was her shoulder.

"Oh that hurts." She said as she got up from her new spot on the ground after ricochetting off the monster's mask. She quickly realized as it howled, that it was about to make her pay violently for that and she started looking for a projection to deal more damage to the mask.

She managed to get a ranged attacker Janus after the third try and finally with a satisfying puff, the monster began to vanish. Now she just had to get herself together enough to go help Kosuke. Sadly she could see very little of the future through the pain and her leg was wet. Her stitches had torn, that was the blood smell. "Damnit."

Kosuke panted as he barely dodged another swipe from the beasts massive arm. This was beginning to wear on his stamina and he hoped that Janus would be able to help him out soon. The beast finally caught up to him, landing a solid blow on his body before he could react. This led to him being slammed into the side of a building hard enough to crack the wall and send a chunk of blood out of his mouth. Looking up, he could see the beast preparing to launch another punch at him, this time, he was ready. Speaking as the fist neared him, he would reverse its damage, blowing apart its other arm. However, he realized then that the first arm was mostly reformed. "Well, shit."

7/8

Janus moved to the bottom of the monster that Kosuke was fighting, looking the regenerating arm and one that had been destroyed and making a visibly disgusted face. "That, is really gross." She said as she pushed a projection towards the monsters mask and then knelt down to get a running start to turn herself into a torpedo again. "Janus, this a really stupid idea." She said and trying to put the next few seconds out of her mind as she slingshot her entire body towards the midsection of the regenerating hollow if for no reason than to topple it over. She was hoping that Kosuke would get behind the head of the monster and use his super smashy thing to damage all the way through its skull.

Yep, Janus had no clue how Kosuke's powers worked, but at least she had a stupid plan in motion.

When he saw Janus get into motion against the beast, he allowed a sigh of relief to leave his lips. They may survive this after all. She had sent a clone of herself towards the beasts face while she seemed intent to tackle it into its sternum. Kosuke had no idea what to do for a moment, before he glanced to his right to see a piece of rebar sticking out of the wall he was imbedded into. As the beast fell, he would leap high into the air, pulling the rebar with him, and then stab it hard into its forehead once they hit the ground. This was enough to totally shatter the mask it had on, destroying the beast. It was then that Kosuke collapsed to the ground, coughing up copious amounts of blood, it looks like he pushed himself too far again...

8/8

Janus lay on the ground after the monster dissipated. She didn't need to look into the future to know one of her arms wasn't going to move for at least hours if it wasn't actually broken. She grunted and rolled a few times, which hurt really bad before slowly getting up. Her torn leg wasn't responding well either. They really needed to get better at this whole fighting thing. She thought as she looked at Kosuke. He had been coughing and there was blood, which wasn't good.

She dragged her broken self over to him and offered her one good arm. "Don't worry, we'll get better at this, or probably end up deader than doornails." She said as she looked at her blood stained pants. The diviner, was really starting to dislike masked monsters. Especially really big ones.