Guardians

Virginia walked up the steps to the fifth altar, which had previously been unaccessible to her small band of drifters. She wasn't entirely sure which of the four idols in her possession would be the one to activate this altar, summoning the guardian of - she hoped - love. That was their plan. They had a much better idea of what they were getting into this time around, though that didn't stop her from being a little bit nervous. Sure, they had already collected eight different guardian mediums, but they'd only had to fight four of those like they would now, and those four had been significantly weaker than those they faced now. These were the legendary guardians which compromised the qualities of man, that separated man from beast and gave them strength.

She glanced at Gallows beside her, who smiled and nodded reassuringly. He was the one among them who knew the most about the guardians - though truthfully, that wasn't saying much - and he had been the one to recognize the idols as the keys to reawakening the four legendary guardians. But he hadn't paid enough attention as a student to know which idol corresponded to which guardian, nor even to which altar. So it was a bit of a guessing game moving forward. Ideally, they would take on Love, then Desire, then Courage, and finally Hope. But that may have been a bit of hopeful thinking, now that they were in place to move forward.

Clive sat in the back of the pack, his sniper rifle trained on the altar, four bullets prepared to be fired in rapid succession. Gallows held his shotgun loftily in one hand, more so as a back up than anything else. He was by far the most skilled in wielding the magical powers given to them by the guardians, and would use them to pound against the guardians barriers to allow Clive clear shots. Meanwhile, Jet was posed off to the side, his machine gun gripped tightly in both hands, though he wasn't going to rely much on that either. The magic gifted to him was of a supporting nature, and his job was to keep Clive as powerful as possible. And Virginia...

Virginia did her best to guess which idol to place, but it still took her a couple of tries to get it right. But when she did, the idol simply vanished into thin air, and the group could feel the air shifting around them, as the guardian stepped forth from another world into their own. A massive dragon appeared before them, decked in gold with glorious purple frills and wings.

Gallows cursed under his breath. "Of course we'd get Hope first," he muttered angrily.

"Maybe you should have studied more," Virginia hissed back, lifting her dual pistols and firing off in a pair before the guardian could even get a full grasp of what he was facing. It turned immediately upon her.

Virginia was the bait to hold his attention.