Upon Leaving the Resturant

Ludwig smiled as he felt Gilbird settle into his hair, he moved to stroke the bird's feathers softly and recieved a chirp in response. How on earth did he not recognise the bird's voice? He looked towards Vash and nodded "Yes we should, Gilbert never goes far without Gilbird. If he's here and Gilbert isn't then something must have happened to him"

Stroking the bird's feathers again he asked Gilbird "Hey, do you know where Gilbert is?" Gilbird shuffled around a bit before answering "Chirp!"

Ludwig followed Vash down the street, keeping hold of his chair leg. There was terribly odd about the place. It was so quiet and eerie, surely a town would be more lively than this? This just felt so...so wrong.

"Vash" he whispered "Do you know what this place is?"

Vash watched Ludwig try and talk to Gilbird with an amused smirk, though he made sure the German couldn't see it when he turned to look at him. He lead the way down the street once more as he started to explain what he knew about the town so far.

"This place is abandoned," he begun. "It's as if everyone just stopped what they were doing and left. At first I thought it was an evacuation, perhaps a natural disaster is coming. But everything is too...intact for that. And some cars are still here. And while this town is dark I don't see any sign of a hurricane and there's no way there can be a volcano here. The only thing I can think of is they were running from the monsters." He glanced to Ludwig. That was the first he'd mentioned of the monstrosities he fought earlier. He hoped those were the only ones, but he also knew better than to hope for the impossible.

"In short it would be best to find our siblings sooner than later..." Of course he was still thinking of his dear sister. In truth he hoped she wasn't there at all, being spared the horror of that place. But on the off-chance she was, well, he needed to know as soon as possible. He taught her how to use a gun and while she could aim almost as well as him she'd never killed anything, not even an animal. He did not want her to start now, and he doubted she would even had a gun to begin with. Unlike her brother, she didn't bring guns with her wherever she went.

Ludwig listened to what Vash had to say, monsters? he thought. That was impossible, there aren't any such things. Was there?

"Monsters?" He asked "What...what do you mean by that? You can't mean actual monsters?" Ludwig felt his hand tighten around his chair leg, as much as he didn't want to admit it Vash was unlikely to be lying about this. Or anything really. Was that why they found Gilbird underneath all that rubble? Did Gilbert get attacked? He knew that Gilbert could take care of himself but he couldn't help worrying especially with monsters running around.

Ludwig quickly glimpsed around his surroundings, trying to see if there was any nearby movement. He found himself looking back at Vash, he looked tense and worried. He was probably worried about his sister, Ludwig realised, he hoped for his sake that she was ok.

"What do these monsters look like?" he found himself asking.

"Monsters," Vash confirmed with a solemn nod. He truly wished he was lying, that it was all a joke and he could turn and laugh at the look on Ludwig's face. They would then just start talking casually as they strolled down the street. They'd find Gilbert and his idiot friends as the masterminds behind the whole thing and his sister and Kiku would be standing right next to them, giggling softly as the other three laughed loudly. Vash and Ludwig would reprimand them, make them apologize, but before long all of them would be laughing about it as they made there way home.

Unfortunately that was far from the case. The situation was real, too real, as were the monsters. What do they look like? Vash wondered for a moment how he should answer that. "Each of them looked different," he finally answered, "like the chimeras from legend. But they're real here, and disturbingly...unearthly." There was really no way to describe it. He felt it when he first faced one of them. A strange energy like nothing he'd ever felt on earth. Did any of the other monsters there feel like that? He had a hunch that because there were so many people from so many countries, there were likely to be many more creatures there, all from their legends or perhaps from their own nightmares.

And if his theory was correct...what the hell kind of a joke was that place?

"Chimeras?" Ludwig asked, he wasn't sure why that surprised him in any way. It wasn't as if he even had any idea what these things looked like before hand. He had been worried that they would look human though at least this way they hopefully wouldn't run the risk of mistaking the monsters for people "I suppose they'd be at least easy to spot then...hopefully" but then again Vash wasn't sure if he was who he said he was back at the restuarant. Maybe there was a risk.

He walked onwards with Vash in silent, trying to catch any sort of glimpse or sound of the others. All was silent though.

"Where are they?" he asked, mostly out of fustration. He felt Gilbird shuffle around on his head again before chirping out loud.

"Shh" He found himself asking the bird "Not so loud!"

"I just hope we see them before they see us," Vash muttered as they continued on their way. Visibility was very limited in the town, but there was no logical reason why. It was as if the terrain just faded out at a certain distance, like the graphics of a video game. As they got closer everything was more detailed and they could see the true eeriness of the empty buildings. Did the strange visibility have something to do with that odd power he felt when he fought those monsters?

As Vash tried to piece together his thoughts he unfortunately wasn't looking where he was going. He had no idea where he was leading Ludwig, though it truly wouldn't have made much difference if he was paying attention. The whole town was so confusing and hard to navigate, he doubted he could even find the grocery store he met up with Kiku or the pet store he woke up in. It would be extremely lucky if they were to find those buildings again, or to just find anyone else.

But Vash wasn't on-guard as usual. The safe thing to do would be to find a place to stop and gather his thoughts, somewhere with only one entrance that they could monitor and keep guarded. His legs kept moving, however, never letting him stop. In the back of his mind he knew he couldn't. They had to keep going until they found someone, strengthened their numbers against the evil of that town. He felt obligated as a neutral country to do so and rally everyone together, even if it meant making the unlikeliest of allies.

Ludwig nodded at Vash's answer and found himself quickly looking around at their surroundings. The streets seemed to go on forever, with no real end. Everything looked the same, with little to no distingushing features on the buildings.

"'I wonder how long we've been walking for?" Ludwig wondered out loud. He honestly didn't know, this place was getting on his nerves. Where was everyone? He didn't like this utter silence, there didn't even seem to be any breeze. Nothing, just nothing.

During his moment of contemplation Gilbird decided that it would be a good idea to dig his claws into Ludwig's head. Ludwig barely managed to prevent himself from crying out loud.

"Gilbird!" he whispered "Stop that!" Gilbird just ignored him and chirped out loud. Ludwig felt a shiver run down his back, something felt strange, was the bird noticing something? Ludwig stopped walking and motioned for Vash to do the same. He could hear something, but he couldn't make out what it was. Footsteps maybe?

"Vash? Do you hear that?"

Vash barely even noticed Ludwig behind him, too caught up in his thoughts.

'I need to find a gun store, I'm already almost out of clips because of that first attack. I'm not good with close combat, so let's just hope Ludwig is. If I have to I'll sacrifice my non-dominant hand to save our lives, but that would be a last resort. Loosing or breaking a leg would slow us down and if I'm injured anywhere else it might be fatal. We need to strengthen our numbers and find someone who can perform first aid. But we also need to find some bandages. A drug store, if there even is one here in this small town. Er, is this a small town? We've yet to see an end to it, so maybe it's much bigger than we-'

His thoughts were interrupted when he saw Ludwig motion for him to stop out of the corner of his eye. He was immediately on-guard once again and put his hand to the gun on his hip. But he knew he couldn't use it much, or else he'd run out of bullets too soon. However, he didn't hear anything. He did feel a strange presence, though, one that was far too close and far too familiar.

"The monsters...?"

Hearing Vash, Ludwig swore quietly to himself, he'd rather hoped it wasn't the monsters, especially since all he had for a weapon was a chair leg.

He still couldn't see anything however. He squinted his eyes and peered around. It suddenly seemed to get so quiet, he could hear his own heart beat. The noise appeared again and Gilbird started to get more frantic. There was sudden movement and Ludwig felt himself getting knocked into a nearby wall. What the hell just hit him? Looking up he saw a huge dark shape blocking out the sun, leering down towards him. Panicking Ludwig leapt out of the monster charging straight at him.

Goddammit, a chair leg won't be any good with this! Was there anything else around he could use? He looked around but couldn't see anything of use. This was not good.

(Sorry for the delay in replying, I kept forgetting about this and then couldn't think of what to write)

(Ok, since it's been a month since this was last updated and I want to rp some more I'm going to finish this thread up and start a new one)

The monster lurched at Ludwig again and he found himself having to quickly dodge the creature's attack. For some reason the monster seemed to be more focused on him as opposed to Vash and with him without a weapon Ludwig quickly decided that the only thing to do was to run. He tore down the street and the monster followed, it screeched loudly. Ludwig turned around a corner and noted an opened door. He dove and quickly shut it before the monster caught up, he stayed silent until he heard the monster pass. When he was sure that the monster was gone he let out the breath he was holding.

"Hey Gilbird" he asked his brother's bird "You OK?" The bird chirped in reply and Ludwig slowly stroked the bird's head. "I hope Vash is OK" he said outloud.