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Post by Ikkin on Mar 14, 2010 16:34:21 GMT -5
Ikkin definitely didn't expect the sword to go crazy as soon as the flames touched it, and just barely managed to block its first strike through a mix of heightened senses and pure luck. Her luck turned against her very quickly, however, as the sword spun around her own in a way that no swordsman could possibly attack and slashed her across the stomach. Her magical clothing tensed up again to prevent her from getting cut, but it couldn't absorb all of the force, and Ikkin found herself doubled over as all of the little breath she'd been able to catch left her once again.
Gasping for air, it was all she could do to push herself backwards and out of the way of the sword, though not quite in time to keep it from slashing her legs as she fell away.
She floated several feet below the sword's level and about ten feet out of range, waiting to see if it would follow her and keep up its berserk charge, but it didn't seem to have enough control to intentionally attack her.
Instead of being able to sit back and recover, though, Ikkin found herself under attack by thousands of small pieces of black stone in rapid succession, and was forced to summon high-force winds once again to protect herself. She blasted these winds directly at Strife, hoping to use his own stone weapons against him.
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Post by Strife on Mar 14, 2010 17:05:07 GMT -5
((The Skies))
Strife grinned with satisfaction. He made a good call in staying away from the sword, as it had wildly thrashed around the air in every direction possible. It swung itself at speeds that were too quick for even the kitsune to handle, and it managed to slice at her stomach and legs before she was finally able to back away from it. She then proceeded to launch high-pressured winds in his direction, reflecting his stone bullets back at him.
As the bullets merely bounced off the surface of his armor, a mysteriously soothing voice flew into Strife's ears and enveloped his body.
You are my enemy, you shall be healed, the voice said, with the calming tranquility of a soft singer. It was a healing spell.
Strife didn't even have time to curse before he felt pain - genuine human pain - rattle across his body and soul for the first time in ages. He let out a deep scream as his joints twisted and contorted, and he started to drop from the sky like an anvil, unable to focus on keeping his rocket boots operational.
He had also lost control of his psionic powers, and the ring of stone spires began to plummet to the ground as well. His powers, to a degree, were also responsible for the city hall's ability to float, and the entire building started to shake and tremble as it too dropped rapidly from the sky.
Strife himself was the first to land. With a metallic thud, he slammed into the rocky and badly damaged street. The spires followed next - most of them crashed into the streets, while others demolished a handful of the already devastated buildings of the city, sending huge clouds of smoke pouring into the air.
Strife ignored his pain as much as he could, pulling himself to his feet quickly. He focused all of his newly-freed psionic energy into restoring the city hall's levitation.
Inside the falling hall, the rumbling subsided, and the building itself came to a slow and steady halt. It had fallen more than halfway down from its original position in the sky, and due to its closer proximity to the ground, the shadow it casted on the streets below became more intense.
Strife gave himself a moment to pause and regain his senses after the fall, while his eyes darted around the air in order to find where his opponent had wound up.
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Post by Jina on Mar 14, 2010 18:07:09 GMT -5
((I skipped pages here and there in an effort to catch up, so please correct me if I get something utterly wrong.))
Airship-thing
Owen looked down from the Airship as it was flying over Tabloid Town. The airship was too slow for his tastes though, and he wanted a ship of his own to join in any fighting with. Luckily, there appeared to be one close below them.
He stepped up on the side of the airship, waited a few seconds for the right time, and then stepped off. He fell for a short while, then landed on the roof of the ship, denting it. He crawled forward, turned around, and started punching at the ship, trying to make a hole.
Spaceship-thing
Jina opened her eyes.
Oh great, did I knock myself out with chloroform again?
She was tempted to ask what had been going on, but it would draw attention to the fact she had been asleep. So instead, she said, "So, err... what do we do next, exactly?"
At that moment, someone started banging on the roof.
Tabloid Town
Patri had woken up, and caught up with the rest of the adventurers. They were discussing their next move, when they heard Kassandra's healing chant.
Each adventurer was reminded of being in the Underdeep, but this time, they saw it through the Underdeep's eyes, and they realised that they had not been possessed.
As soon as they returned to conciousness, the ooze started approaching them. Sandra quickly jumped into the air, turned into a Roc, and grabbed everyone else, letting them climb up. Then, she flew up into the air to tke a look around.
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Post by Ikkin on Mar 14, 2010 18:18:14 GMT -5
Several things happened all at the same time as the stones Ikkin had reflected found their target. Some type of singing rung out through the air - sounding oddly hollow despite the singer's obviously-beautiful voice - a refreshing feeling washed over Ikkin, soothing the pain in her stomach and in her legs, and her opponent was suddenly falling from the sky, screaming in agony.
For a moment, she wondered if she'd done it with the stones she'd blasted back at him, then remembered that he'd made it quite clear earlier that he couldn't feel pain. But he was definitely in pain now, and he seemed to have completely lost every bit of control he'd had over the world around him. His jet-boots gave out on him, dropping him into the ground, the spires of rock he'd made smashed into the street right along with him, and even the massive mansion he'd made out of Tabloid Town's city hall started to fall, too, much to Ikkin's horror - Sev was still in there! Fortunately, it suddenly stopped before falling much more than half-way, and Ikkin turned her attention back to her opponent, who was still on the ground, apparently looking around to try to find her.
Well, she wasn't going to pass up an opportunity like this. Feeling nearly as ready as she had when the fight had first began - and maybe not entirely sure of how much energy as she had left - she took all of the energy of the winds she had used to reflect the Commander's stones and turned it into thousands of shards of wind, each as sharp as a razor. They circled around her in a sphere several feet thick, creating a barrier of sorts that would tear anything unfortunate enough to touch it to shreds, which she intended to use as an offense as well as a defense, diving down towards her opponent directly in an attempt to strike him with it.
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Post by Strife on Mar 14, 2010 18:45:41 GMT -5
((Streets of Tabloid Town))
Out of the corner of his eye, Strife saw his opponent, now covered by a whirling sphere of wind energy, descend upon him like a bird of prey. Luckily for him, he was on solid ground again, so he teleport-dashed a fair distance backwards just as Ikkin and her sphere of wind shards made contact with the ground, viciously cutting up the pavement beneath her.
Without hesitation, Strife stretched his arms out and pulled a fast-moving, continuous wall of stone out of the ground in front of him. The wind shards tore through the stones like tissue paper, but he was pulling them out of the ground as fast as they were being destroyed, giving him adequate protection from the air storm while he conjured his next attack.
His mind searched the surrounding area for his sword, which had likely calmed itself and fallen to the ground by now. He found it easily, though he could tell that the kitsune's fire had weakened its sentience. Nevertheless, it could cut through all other types of magic - including the wind shield - giving the perfect opportunity for a literal backstab.
While he wasted his opponent's stamina with his neverending supply of stones, filling the air with massive amounts of dust and debris, he willed his sword to move directly behind Ikkin. The blade pointed itself at her, and it launched itself through the thick barrier of wind, aiming at her upper back.
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Post by Ikkin on Mar 14, 2010 18:54:51 GMT -5
Ikkin probably should have stopped trying to shred Strife after tearing up the first few walls of stone that he'd raised up to conserve energy, but she was far more determined to beat him than tired, and she was hoping that she might be able to outpace him.
A distortion in the wind behind her distracted her from this, however, and she turned around to find the crazy sword heading straight towards her.
Well, she had an idea of how to deal with it this time. She reversed her momentum just as the sword would have struck her, flying up above and behind it, and converted all of the wind shards into fire, losing a fair amount of energy to do it. She made sure she wound up at least ten feet away, preparing for the inevitable backlash.
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Post by Ian Wolf-Park on Mar 14, 2010 18:55:23 GMT -5
Strife's Manor
Lupehunter was suddenly lifted into the air for a few seconds when the manor started to drop. As suddenly as it came, it stopped, dropping him back on the floor, hard. He winced in pain upon landing.
"Great, looks like my knee is going to be bruised for a bit. Wish I had cat like abilities," he thought to himself. "Oh well, looks like I have to end this battle and fast."
He moved back several metres, positioning himself to where Draco was before running and then sliding on the floor, aiming towards Draco's feet. As soon as he was close enough, Lupehunter slashed one of Draco's legs, hoping that it would be enough to cripple him, even if it was for a short while.
As soon as he stopped sliding, he got up, daggers in his hands, waiting for the next move.
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Post by Draco on Mar 14, 2010 19:27:06 GMT -5
<<Strife's Manor>>
Draco continues his charge, swinging his weapon around. At least, that is what he should have been doing. Instead he way laying on the floor from being blinded by pretty colors, and the manor falling from the sky. Then when he stood up again, he was attacked! So of course, he fell to the floor again.
Staring at his leg he curses. He knew the Underdeep would heal him, but that didn't stop the fact that it still hurt like crazy. Trying to stand again, he falls over. He glances at the cut again, some muscles must have been severed. Glaring at Lupe Hunter, than Kiddo, and than everyone else in the room, he grits his teeth.
"This doesn't look well for me. However I am not prepared to die just yet."
He melts into the shadow under him.
"Oh, and Kiddo, you can keep my sword for me. I WILL have it back."
Toshiro and Gil lift themselves from the floor and throw knives and kunai at the spot Draco was, only for them to hit the ground and do nothing.
---
Outside the room Draco melts into the hallway. He looks around and crawls down the hall for a few moments before melting again. He repeats his several times before getting himself into another room. He sits in the room, watching his leg heal slowly.
"Oh great work. You ran away! Face it, you can't fight them all, even with power. I admit I wanted more power, but you have to train to be able to use it properly. And you were fighting Kiddo! Are you stupid?"
"Shut up.. Shut up. Shut up! I know! It's not like I didn't have another battle plan. I..."
"Just really stink at fighting. You didn't even use my techniques. If you at least used those, you would have been better off."
"Like you could do better? I would like to see you try."
"Oh, I can. If you would just let me take control of my body I would show you."
"That's not happening. I know you just want your body back."
"Feh! I'll have it back, and I'll lock you away again like I did before!"
"Have fun trying... In the meantime, a little present for our friends."
He stares out the window, wondering if he could see the fight outside, but could not.
---
Back in the room where the battle was just taking place, the nightmare creatures begin to come out of the shadows.
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Post by Strife on Mar 14, 2010 19:42:26 GMT -5
((Streets of Tabloid Town))
In a very impressive maneuver, Ikkin had moved out of the way and instantaneously converted her razor-sharp air shield into a bright sphere of fire. The voodoo sword let out an ear-bleeding scream as it started to thrash around once more, its entire surface being painted with searing flames.
Strife could feel his hold on the sword starting to fade, so he had to act quickly if he was going to take advantage of its power. Conveniently enough, the replacement of the air sphere with a fire sphere would enable him to plow through with his heat shield, unaffected.
A trail of silhouettes appeared outside the fire sphere as Strife teleport-dashed to position himself for his next move. Then, with the flick of a wrist, he forced the ground in front of him to ramp upwards towards his floating opponent. He then teleport-dashed up the ramp of stone, and just as he reached the peak of the ramp, engaged his jet boots, aiming to knock his opponent straight into the path of the wildly flailing sword.
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Post by Ikkin on Mar 14, 2010 20:12:09 GMT -5
Ikkin moved further out of range of the sword as it flailed around, screaming so wildly that had she not known better, she would have thought it was a human burning alive, rather than a magical weapon. Half wanting to put it out of its misery and half wanting to make sure it didn't get back up for another attack, she sheathed her own sword and used both hands to force all of the fire from her sphere into a blast aimed directly at it. The screaming became more and more intense as the flames grew hotter until Ikkin thought she couldn't take it any more, but its movements became less coordinated to the point where it seemed like it could be ignored in favor of the real threat.
Speaking of which, she noticed out of the corner of her eye that the Commander was no longer in front of her where he had been a moment ago. The sound of earth shifting and rocket boots firing rung out behind Ikkin, and she knew she had no time.
Figuring he was aiming to push her into his sword, which still hung suspended in the air but now flopped around limply like a fish out of water, she leapt right over the blade, twisting herself around to face the Commander as she reached the same level as him, and grabbed the upraised hilt of the sword with both hands, swinging it upwards as he dashed in, hoping to catch him under the right armpit and take off his whole arm. He might not be able to feel pain, after all, but even he couldn't ignore the loss of a whole limb.
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Post by Kiddo on Mar 14, 2010 21:59:47 GMT -5
<<Ex-Duel with Draco>>
"Oh bloody hell. Wait. That's too appropriate. Let me think of a better curse."
The ninja bounded to the middle of the room, motioning for the others to gather close. The shadow creatures were such a mix but Kiddo could see frost around some of them, which meant that a portion were based on her fears. Which meant she could at least kill off her portion... and if lucky, then some. She pulled out a small sphere.
"Everyone, gather round!" she said, "And close your eyes when I say three."
Grinning, Kiddo flipped something on the sphere.
"One."
She dropped it.
"Two."
The small ball started to hum and glow.
"Three. I love having a genius inventor for a brother, yanno?"
And the ball exploded into pure light, brilliant, painful, beautiful light that flooded the room, smashing into the waves of shadow creatures like the ocean hitting the sand. And Kiddo, her eyes shut, waiting for the burn under her eyelids to dissipate, thought she heard... or felt... something in the distance.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
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Post by Gelquie on Mar 15, 2010 0:05:21 GMT -5
((Just Outside the "Let's Kill Draco!" Room.))
Gelquie wasn't confident if her illusion worked, but she still risked turning her head around looking at the battle with Draco. He didn't seem to be the best figher, for a ninja; he fell to the ground easily and attacked so haphazardly that Gelquie doubted his training. She wasn't wholly experienced with them, but she had watched one of their battles on occasion.
Then she heard a voice in her head, and a warm wave suddenly washed over her as her scrapes and cuts she received earlier began to knit and mend themselves. Gelquie couldn't help but let out a small sigh of relief as some of the pain began to go away, and she began to calm down. Her headache lessened, her back ached less, and that nagging pain her arm had...
Gelquie blinked as her arm looked worse for wear... by a lot. Then she pieced it together. She had been so busy trying to escape death and getting out of the wreckage that she didn't even notice that she'd twisted her arm. No wonder she had so much trouble trying to climb out, and why she was mainly using her right hand to do everything... And now that she acknowledged its existence, it began to hurt more, even with the healing.
Then the building rocked threateningly, and Gelquie didn't even have time to freeze before she slammed into the ceiling before being pressed to the floor as the building began to fall from the sky. It didn't take her long to realize what was happening, and her heart dropped to the pit of her stomach.
"No no no no no no NO! Please..." Gelquie closed her tearful eyes and pressed her right hand as tightly against the ground as she could, hoping and praying for anything to happen, or for the death to be at least very quick. Still, she didn't want to die like this... Then as quickly as it started, the fall stopped. Gelquie opened her eyes and stared at her hands before realizing that the manor hadn't crashed.
Inwardly blessing her luck, Gelquie staggered up and watched the fight's conclusion, still too shocked to do anything in the scant few seconds remaining. Her eyes went wide as Draco sunk into the shadows and seemed to disappear. She hadn't seen much of shadow magic, and this man used it as comfortably as breathing... And then more creatures came out of the shadows, and she was broken from her thoughts as fear crept back into her mind.
She heard Kiddo's shout to get into the middle of the room, and Gelquie knew she had a plan. The question was whether she should reveal herself to complete strangers; how would she knew she wouldn't attack her? She contemplated this until she saw her take out a sphere. Gritting her teeth at what might come, she rushed to the middle of the room, making it just in time and closing her eyes at the last phrase.
Even her shut eyelids did little to block out the light. Grimacing, she wondered when it would end, and tried not to imagine what it would be like if her eyes were open.
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Post by Strife on Mar 15, 2010 3:43:35 GMT -5
((Streets of Tabloid Town))
Strife rocketed through the massive sphere of fire, his heat shield glowing and crackling as it absorbed the energy of the flames.
Before he could drive his shoulder into Ikkin, she moved back far enough to grab his sword - now solid black from being scorched to death - with both hands and swung it upwards as he came towards her. He expected it to bounce off his armor and continued zooming forward, extending his right hand and preparing himself to punch her square in the jaw.
Much to his surprise and dismay, however, the sword sliced through the underside of his arm and up through his shoulder, cutting the entire arm clean off his body. It flew across the air and landed on the ground nearby. Out of sheer shock, Strife disengaged his jet boots and landed hard on his back.
The air was filled with the putrid stench of undead flesh. As Strife got to his feet, handfuls of maggots started spilling out of the hole where his arm used to be. His head darted around frantically in search of the missing limb. He spotted it a short distance away, the armor on its surface flickering in the erratic light of Ikkin's heat sphere.
Strife turned towards his opponent in the distance, who was now hovering in the air with his sword in her hands. He lowered his head slightly and locked his static, lifeless eyes with hers. The expression on his face grew more disgusted and angry by the second.
The Underdeep inside of him started to spill out, creating a thick mist underneath his opponent. At the same time, Strife's dislodged arm pulled itself towards him like a magnet, snapping back into its socket. It wasn't completely reattached to Strife's body, but the armor surrounding it allowed it to snap back in place just the same.
Within the span of a few seconds, he had lost his weapon and, temporarily, his arm... and now, he was about to lose what little sanity was left in him.
He snapped.
Strife yelled at the top of his lungs, which, considering the state of his voice, penetrated the air with the power and terror of an entire legion of soldiers. Using his psionic strength, he forcefully pulled his sword to ground level, taking its current wielder with it. From there, he left a trail of silhouttes behind and appeared instantly in front of his grounded opponent. He swung a strong uppercut, aiming to knock his sword out of her grip. He immediately followed this by appearing directly behind her, aiming a straight punch at her lower back. He appeared at her side and aimed for the shoulder, then swung around to the other side and aimed a kick at her leg. All four moves were executed together in less than a second.
He continued to go berserk and bombard his opponent with a flurry of lightning-fast dashes, punches, and kicks. He moved so quickly that it would likely be difficult for her to distinguish the real Strife from the silhouettes he was leaving all around her. He continued to scream during this whole process.
((Floating Hall of Strife))
Sev used a blast of fire to propel himself straight upwards and out of the way of Dark Sev's dive. Dark Sev flew into the column of fire, which burned off a sizeable portion of his torso feathers, revealing his black-colored skeleton underneath. A living creature would have been killed by this, or at least passed out from intense pain, but as Dark Sev's body was a puppet of the Underdeep, it didn't seem to faze him.
Dark Sev didn't stop flying, and continued to lunge straight upwards towards his brother. Since he was already so close to him, he'd be able to latch onto him and wrestle him to the ground, as long as his talons didn't disintegrate before then.
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Post by Ikkin on Mar 15, 2010 16:18:27 GMT -5
Ikkin, being a trained swordswoman, had expected that removing her opponent's arm would be anything but clean, and thought she would be prepared for the consequences.
What she didn't expect was the smell - an awful stench like something that had died months ago and had been left out to rot. She couldn't help but react with revulsion, turning her face away into her collar and blocking her nose with her left hand while holding onto the sword with the other.
She quickly steeled herself against the smell and moved in to finish off the Commander, who had fallen to the ground on his back, when a dark mist started to leak out of him, and his arm zoomed back into position. Ikkin stopped, momentarily shocked by this, along with a renewed assault on her senses as he began to scream.
Because of this, she wasn't able to let go fast enough as the sword she held pulled her towards the ground, so quickly that it wrenched her arm right out of socket. She didn't have time to respond to this, as he was suddenly in front of her, trying to knock the sword out of her hand. She normally would have tried to use the sword itself to block this, but it was stuck too firmly into the ground, so she backed out of the way, hoping his punch might knock it free so she could grab it with the other, uninjured arm.
Before she had the chance to do anything else, though, a sharp pain shot through her back, and she found herself falling forwards, and she only managed to avoid a second hit to the shoulder because of a flash of metal she saw out of the corner of her eye. This just gave his next kick even more momentum, slamming into her already injured leg so far that she thought he might have broken it. It gave out under her, dropping her to the ground backwards, but she managed to break her fall without taking too much damage, and rolled out of the way of his next attack. She was still on the ground, though, and wasn't sure how she could get up without walking straight into a punch, so she tried creating more wind-shards to force him back, keeping her hands as close in as she could while still controlling the wind.
***
Sev hadn't expected his duplicate to be stupid enough to fly through his flames on purpose, but he wasn't going to let it throw him too much.
If his copy was going to try to grab onto him physically from below to get him to the ground, well, he could take advantage of that. He flew straight down towards him, his own talons extended, hoping to use his own momentum to attempt to slam his foe into the ground.
He wanted to get this over with quickly - Ikkin's magical signature had suddenly diminished quite rapidly, and he wasn't going to let her get killed if he could help it. It took too much effort to bring her back.
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Post by Strife on Mar 16, 2010 4:02:09 GMT -5
((Streets of Tabloid Town))
Ikkin was on the ground now after suffering repeated blows to her arm and leg. She rolled out of the way of Strife's final strike while tossing wind shards upwards at him. The shards eroded the piece of armor directly in front of his stomach and knocked him backwards a bit, but his rampage was otherwise unaffected.
With a short teleport-dash, he appeared directly above the kitsune, then dropped himself on one knee, driving it directly into her stomach in order to keep her in place. He then stretched out his fist and swung it sideways, delivering a hard punch to the side of her head. He did the same thing to her right shoulder with his other fist, then repeated it with her left shoulder, and again with the upper part of her chest.
Then, while letting out a sickly laugh, he grabbed both of her shoulders, pulled her up, then drove her back down into the ground so hard that it caused the earth to shake beneath her, but not hard enough to actually kill her, and hopefully not hard enough to knock her out. He wanted her to be conscious for every moment of pain that he inflicted.
Finally, Strife grabbed the sides of her head with both of his hands, squeezing tightly while pulling her up far enough for her forehead to physically touch his own. He forced her to stare directly into the raging static of his eyes while his putrid breath crept along her neck.
"It's over," he said under his teeth, the fury in his voice more apparent now than ever. "I will drink your tears and bathe in your blood!"
Just as he shouted his last sentence, he burst into a psychotic laughing fit as he drove the kitsune's head into the ground. He then channeled the energy of the mist surrounding them into his fingertips, trying to pump her mind full of Underdeep nightmares. During the process, he continued to gaze into her eyes with sadistic pleasure.
"Scream for me, little girl! SCREAM!"
((Floating Hall of Strife))
Just as Dark Sev had hoped, Sev lunged at him, talons extended. At the same time, he continued to rise upwards towards him.
A small explosion ensued as the bodies of the two phoenixes collided. Dark Sev wrestled violently with his brother as their entangled bodies spun around in the air. Embers and sparks flew in all directions. Talons and beaks swung around so wildly and quickly that it almost looked like the phoenixes had merged into a single, chaotic ball of flames.
Dark Sev paid special attention to Sev's chest during this process, trying to tear away at his heart. At the same time, his body continued to melt into a more skeletal form.
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