Guild Wars III Roleplay (Rated T)

[Ikkin]

Even as Sev healed Ikkin - far too slowly for his comfort - he didn't take his attention off of his foes. He doubted that his new allies could hold them off for long, and he didn't particularly like the idea of being surprised by a jet of black fire.

Prepared as he was, he definitely didn't expect Strife to start wielding the city hall itself as a weapon. Not that it mattered much; he was far enough out of range of the city hall that he didn't need to worry about.

What he did need to worry about was that ridiculous copy of himself, even if its appearance wasn't particularly surprising. It even felt the need to announce its presence with a childish taunt, which Sev found somewhat amusing.

It also felt the need to announce its presence with a blast of fire, which Sev found a bit less amusing. Still, dodging it was trivial, and Sev intended to show that. He appeared behind his doppelganger, claws extended to rip into it as it blasted itself backwards. "Oh, I'm so scared," he said dryly.

And then he realized that he'd forgotten something rather important.

Oh, Darkness.

So much for healing Ikkin the right way.

Well, it wasn't like this didn't just make things more convenient.

He wasn't sure what, exactly, healing phoenix fire would do to his opponent, but it didn't really matter at this point. Even if it did nothing, he'd still have Ikkin back to help him out.

Not that he needed her to help him take down a lesser copy, but he didn't really care about a fair fight anymore - he just wanted to make the thing go away so he could help take out the real enemy before he did any more damage.

[Strife]

The pirate ship made a quick turn - quick by the standards of large, demonic flying boats - and moved away from the giant chunk of city hall heading towards it. The ship curved around one of the watch towers at ground level, and the city hall smashed into it with violent force.

As the pirate ship kept moving away from the scene, the watch tower crumbled into pieces from the impact. The remaining walls of the city hall fell apart completely, but the stone platform it had been sitting on remained mostly intact, merely splitting itself into two smaller pieces.

What this meant for Strife is that instead of one giant mass of stone to push around, he now had dozens of smaller pieces that he could maneuver more easily. With that in mind, he expanded his psionic grip to cover the two larger halves of stone from the city hall, as well as a large group of the smaller rocks, walls, and debris from the watch tower.

Strife would need both of his hands to control all of the new building blocks, so he made a short teleport-dash up the side of the building he was clinging to. He stood triumphantly on the edge of the rooftop, and he glanced at the mass of stones and the pirate vessel hovering in the distance.

A smirk appeared on his scorched and barely recognizable face. He slowly lifted both of his hands upwards, signaling the rocks to ascend into the sky. Once their altitude matched the pirate ship, he began to gesture with his hands, flicking them and moving them about with a strange elegance, much like a musical conductor.

In response, one of the two larger chunks of stone from the city hall headed straight for the pirate ship. The other chunk stayed behind for a few seconds, and then headed towards the underside of the ship, where it would remain until Strife decided to use it. Meanwhile, the dozens of smaller pieces zoomed forward at a much faster speed, spiraling through the air in unison like a miniature cyclone. Strife instructed the smaller pieces to orbit around the ship, where he'd be able to strike with them as soon as he caught an opening in their defenses. In the meantime, he would see how the ship reacted to the larger chunk heading straight for it.


Meanwhile, at ground level, Dark Sev succeeded at distracting his brother from the healing process. Sev teleported away, so his jet of fire missed his intended target. Instead, the unearthly flames engulfed the unconscious body of Ikkin, its cruel fingers painting her clothes and skin solid black and eating away at her very existence.

"Oh, I'm so scared," his brother said mockingly from behind.

Dark Sev stopped himself and turned around quickly, only to be met with a face full of phoenix fire. This fire, however, was the healing variety, and it had the same effect on him that a hose of water would have on a person. It didn't harm him, but it pushed him back and obstructed his vision. Most of the fire curved around his body and landed on top of Ikkin's smoldering corpse. Since she was dead now, Sev would be able to revive her quickly instead of spending a longer amount of time healing her injuries.

Dark Sev pushed himself out of the trail of healing flames, and he flew backwards until he was hovering above the spot where Ikkin's new body would appear. Using a combination of his phoenix fire and the Underdeep energy feeding his soul, he raised the temperature of the ground underneath him within a ten meter radius. The stones that made up the pavement below rapidly changed color into a deep, glowing red, and the surrounding air started to bubble and vibrate from the intense heat. Dark Sev hoped to transform the ground into lava and drown Ikkin before she had a chance to regain her wits.

[Deleted]

Once that roar had left his throat, Kovaran stepped off his sword and onto the ground. He then turned around and grabbed the grip with both hands, pulling Zankantou out from the crack. It was not effortless, of course; he grunted very loudly, possibly louder than he would have needed to. Regardless, once he had succeeded, he rested for a second before lifting it up.

The strap which would hold it to his back was still attached to the blade - he had not had time to properly "unsheathe" the weapon during his fall. So the warrior would simply re-strap it to himself. He quickly checked for damage, then slung it back on, adjusting to ensure its security.

It was then that he spied a familiar shape in the distance. No, two of that familiar shape - the phoenix. Yet one of them was the familiar colours of Sev; the other was not. The other shot fire at Sev, who dodged (teleported?). The red one then turned and himself shot fire at his opponent. This one was not a burst, but a continuous stream.

Wait. Was someone there? Kovaran had already begun walking quickly in the direction of the battle, and now that he was somewhat closer, he could see that there was a being lying there. A familiar being.

"Is that--" He thought aloud, "--Mage Ikkin?"

By now, the darker bird had retreated, and now seemed to be focusing on her as well. The ground above her in his vision was shimmering, and the ground below was changing colour, very swiftly, into red. And the air was heating - he could feel his own heat beginning to rise.

A horrid realisation struck.

"Ikkin!"

Formalities could be darned now - she was in danger! Almost without thinking he broke into a run, heading straight for the battle and the mage. The reptile crossed the distance with blinding speed, even as he felt the air getting hotter, and even as the soles of his boots began to glow red. As he drew close he held out his arms, planning to scoop the kitsune up and carry her away.

He was almost single-mindedly focused on saving her.

[Gelquie]

((Among the Rubble))

Gelquie could barely comprehend what had happened. In the few split-seconds that she had, she made a sort of attempt to sort it all out.

First, she was having a stare-down with Draco, who had tried to lecture her on what is fair.

"Says the one who sets the millions of creatures on his supposedly hapless victims," Gelquie and her double muttered out, resisting the urge to roll her eyes. Then something horrible happened; the building had started to shake... And then there was free-fall. That was it. They were going to die. They were going to crash and everything was going to tumble down on top of them, and then they would be dead. Sure, the ninja being dead was a plus, but she was not fond of having herself die in the process.

But that wasn't what confused Gelquie. It was what happened afterwards. The man had looked more than ready to charge and kill her--well, both of them--and she wouldn't have put it past him to do something that would end in her death. But... no. She had heard a clatter of a weapon dropping to the ground, and then there was darkness again. Gelquie thought for a brief second to fight what was around her before deciding against it; mostly because the whole process of being in the dark didn't take very long. Before she knew it, she was standing among the rubble. She had just barely managed to maintain her illusion so that it appeared right beside her.

And she was here now, standing among the rubble, very much alive. That was what happened. But going through the memories didn't stop one odd fact: this ninja had saved her life. After going through the trouble of separating her from the group in the first place. There were so many things that this could mean. Gelquie paused for a brief moment as she sorted more things out before both her and the illusion smirked.

"Neat trick, sir," Gelquie admitted. As she spoke, the other illusion also seemed to speak, with Gelquie allowing a duplicate of her voice come from that direction, so that they were speaking at the same time. "No, really, I mean it. But I have a suggestion: Why don't you find out how you want to treat or kill me before you start trying?"

At that, the Gelquies' smiles disappeared as Gelquie switched herself into battle mode. Part of her pondered whether she could really survive a fight with a ninja. But another part of her pushed that thought away. If he was going to try to kill her... Then he could certainly try.

But first, she had to buy some time. She didn't really like the way the fight was starting, but she could buy a moment to set some things up. He needed to be preoccupied, and she only needed a few seconds. Gelquie stared at the area around Draco and concentrated carefully.

Suddenly, hummingbirds! Thousands of them!

[Draco]

Draco begins to walk towards Gelquie, but stops when he spots a hummingbird. Then another bird. And another... And another?!

"Hummingbirds... Hundreds of them..."

He begins to swat at them, disappearing with each swat, but never ending.

"This is... Annoying!"

He slashes with his kunai and swats at the colorful birds of annoyance.

"Attacking me with harmless birds? Is that the best you can do?!"

"I find it really humorous myself. It's stopping you after all."

"Stay out of this you! You've been getting in the way to much recently!"

"That is because you have becoming more and more weak."

"I am not weak! I have the power! I can destroy this weak mage!"

"Good luck with that. By the way, you've been talking out loud in your creepy voice."

He growls as he swats at more birds, still trying to move towards Gelquie.

The sound of someone screaming someones name in the distance can be heard.

----
<<In the room in the flying building bent on destroying a flying ship...>>

The flaming Draco clone calms down and glares at Lupehunter.

"You did this, didn't you?"

He charges at the mage.

[Jina]

[glow=black,2,300]The White Weewoo[/glow]
"Let him be, he's cool... for now."

Owen was put down by the mist. "Well, you could've done it sooner," he muttered.

However, he had no opportunity to complain further, as the ship came under attack by a flying rock. It was soon avoided though, so Owen was able to return his thoughts to more important matters, like finding out the name of this gorgeous lady.

"Alright, gentlemen, get downstairs and ready the starboard cannons. Bonus points if you figure out a way to shoot burning cannonballs. As soon as that underdeep-beast is within range, fire all. In fact, as soon as anything at all is within range, fire all. Remember, there's no kill like overkill."

"Hey, you can't order me around, I want to-" Owen remembered what had happened with the mist. "So where do you keep the cannons?"

Jina was already halfway down the stairs. "Follow me!"

Owen went down the stairs and saw Jina pouring gunpowder into one of the cannons. "Fetch me one of those cannon balls on the top shelf, would you?"

He grabbed one, and noticed it didn't quite look like a normal cannon ball. "One of these?"

Jina looked up. "Yup, that's the one. Carcass shot. It contains explodey stuff, so it burns and then goes boom." She finished loading the cannon. Then, she opned the hatch and looked outside. "O...kay, the Underdeep is looking scarily close. In fact, we should probably fire at it now." She stood back, and rolled the cannon forward. She reached into a pocket. "..Oh, great, where did I put those matches?"

Owen pulled out a heat crystal from his spare power pack. "Here, just use this." He opened his suit, and used the crystal to light the cannon.

It went off with a loud bang, causing Owen to cover his ears quickly. Jina smiled. "See, the good thing about using the traditional methods is, it gives you time to protect yourself against permanent ear damage." She stuck her head out of the hatch so see if the flaming cannonbal would hit.

[Ikkin]

Dead people, Ikkin thought, normally didn't dream. Neither did formerly dead people who'd just been revived by a phoenix.

Which made her current situation really odd - she couldn't really think of any other reason why she'd find herself laying down on what felt like a kitsune-sized stove burner. Being healed by Sev usually didn't leave any kind of aftereffect, no matter how badly she'd been burned beforehand.

Maybe if she opened her eyes, she thought, she'd wake up and the burning would stop. That'd be nice.

"Ikkin!"

Ikkin's eyes snapped open, and she blinked a few times to clear her vision. Before she could figure out what was going on, she found herself scooped up into the strong arms of... a giant lizard?

Well, he might not have been Prince Charming, but not burning alive certainly made it easy to think, and she had to thank him for that. She probably could have flown away on her own, but not before suffering more burning than she cared to think about.

"Hey, thanks," she said, still a little bit confused from the weird revival. "But I think I can take care of myself from here. There's a crazy Commander out there who really needs a taste of his own medicine," she continued, her voice growing in strength as she spoke.

Up above, Sev had taken advantage of his doppelganger's attempt to fry her to attempt to slam his claws into him from behind.

[Huntress]

((Aboard the Weewoo))

"Zagora!"

The voodoo witch was sitting rather nonchalantly on the railing of the ship, seemingly ignoring the fact that the ground was a good thirty or forty yards below her. As the captain called her name, she looked up and raised a "yeah, what?" eyebrow.

Hunty pointed at the betentacled mass of Underdeep looming before them, or rather beside them, now less than half a mile away. "How close would we have to get before your Underdeep amulet works on it?"

"Somezheeng like fifty feet," Zagora said. "I don't zheenk you vant to get zat close." She nodded at the blazing shots that the ship just spat out below the railing. "And I don't zheenk you need to."

The carcass shots tore out through the mist surrounding the ship. From this range, there wasn't much accuracy to hope for, but the Underdeep was a very, very big target.

"Stones!" Bloody Mary warned. Sometimes it was good to effectively have four eyes. Hunty hissed a hasty series of commands and the Weewoo turned itself to face the rock flying towards it. The mistpool underneath the ship stretched itself out towards the rock.

The meepit's eyes widened. "What exactly is she going to-"

The mist grabbed the rock.

The following scene could easily have gotten written down on the pages of the history of naval warfare, presumably in the chapter titled This Really Happened, We're Not Messing With You, if anyone had been around to witness it and write it down. As the rock continued to fly toward the Weewoo, the ship's mistpool pushed against it, shoving it downwards, jerked forward, sending rooftiles flying all around them, and essentially leapfrogged over the rock.

There was a low 'woomph' as the mistpool shifted again, letting the rock go and stretching itself out all around the brigantine's hull. As the ship began to fall, the mist whizzed up and with another 'whoomph', formed semi-transparent wings that struck down again, bringing the ship to a quivering halt.

Bloody Mary waddled towards the edge of the bridge and discreetly threw up over the railing. For a ship, it'd been a disturbingly fast maneuver.

"It'd be so much easier," he croaked, "to just kill that guy."

"Dunno about that," Hunty said, spinning the wheel. The ship turned, caught wind and began to fly in a wide arc around the Underdeep-monster, away from the flying rocks. "If Ikkin hasn't managed it so far, I don't put much hope on any of us for this. It's a miracle that we've come this fa-"

A low, dull roar ripped through the air. It wasn't loud, but it seemed to use frequencies sounds don't normally use, so it gave Hunty a pretty nasty splitting headache for a moment. She blinked furiously to clear her head, then turned to look at the Underdeep.

The shots had hit and were burning, with fire that wouldn't go out. In fact, it seemed to cling somehow. One of the house-sized tentacles smacked at the burning patches in an attempt to put it out, and the tentacle caught fire as well.

"Crud, that stuff is expensive," Bloody Mary said, sitting up. In this world, nobody knew what napalm was, but Boom, the ship's resident meepit alchemist/mad scientist, had at some point invented a substance that had about the same effect. Its cost price was roughly two thousand shinies a barrel and they only used it in a very sticky situation, but right now Hunty was glad that they'd decided to invest in a barrel at one point.

"If this world goes down, it doesn't matter how much boomoil we have left," she said. "Go tell 'em to fire it all at it, looks like it's working."

Bloody Mary groaned to himself and trotted off.

[Strife]

Strife couldn't quite make out the details from this distance, but if his perceptions weren't deceiving him, the pirate ship just used a coat of mist surrounding it to push itself over and around boulder that he hurled straight in their direction. In the process, roof tiles were scattered all over the place. Strife deemed the roof tiles large enough to use as extra ammunition and quickly added them to his psionic net.

The smaller stones, and now the tiles of roof, began to orbit the ship with increasing speed until they were nothing but blurs to the naked eye. Then, at the rate of about three per second, he proceeded to bombard the ship with them, pushing the stones toward its center of mass. If the mist surrounding the ship somehow blocked or reflected them, he hoped they would distract its defenses long enough for him to send the second large piece of stone crashing into their backside - which, by the way, was now traveling forward in order to do just that.

While this happened, the first large stone, which the pirate ship had hurled towards the ground, continued to fall. Strife let it smash into the pavement, creating several smaller pieces for him to work with. With a flick of his hand, he promptly had these pieces shoot straight upwards, aiming for the underside of the vessel in the midst of everything else that was occurring.


Meanwhile, Dark Sev grew disappointed when the pool of lava beneath him became void of any kitsune. A soldier with the head of a lizard had leaped to the rescue, scooped up Ikkin, and took her to safety before the red hot stones completely transformed into bubbling lava.

Looking forward, he noticed his brother was not in front of him anymore and instinctively thrusted himself upwards with the flap of a wing. Sev's talons dug into his tail feathers, which, luckily, he never found to be of any particular use.

Turning around, he noticed that Sev was hovering over his makeshift lava pit. Giving him little chance to move again, Dark Sev spread his wings out and lifted his head straight towards the sky. His body pulsed in a color that was as black as the dark side of a moon. At the same time, the lava began to shoot straight up from the ground in small globs, aiming for Sev's underside.

The lava, of course, didn't require that much effort to control, and it served mostly as a way to encourage Sev to move out of the way. What Dark Sev was banking on was his brother trying to attack him, at which point the overflow of Underdeep energy coursing through his body would transfer itself into Sev via physical contact. If he spat fire at him instead, he was still in a position to move out of the way, or failing that, use the Underdeep energy to explode violently and take his brother with him.

[Zylaa]

((The White Weewoo))

Zylaa had just loaded her own cannon with carcass shot when the ship suddenly lurched with a loud "WHOOMPH." She fell flat on her stomach with all the grace of a weasel.

You would think Zylaa would get tired of mocking that line. You would be wrong.

Another whoomph threw her momentarily in the air before she smacked against the wood again. It's one thing having this happen at sea. The air you expect to be a nice place, she thought.

"What the heck was that?!" she said, not really expecting a reply. She scrambled back up and looked out to see a beautiful blaze of flame spreading across the scary Underdeep mass. "Shiny," she said, pleased. She turned back towards the hatch in time to see Bloody Mary, who gave the command to fire all.

She looked forward once more to see tiny pieces of stone whirring around the ship. That, she decided, was something for the mist to deal with. She fired her own cannon at a spot still untouched by the spreading fire, and cheered as it hit.

The stones circling were getting a bit worrisome though.

[Gelquie]

((Dueling Draco.))

Gelquie couldn't help but let out a small smirk. The hummingbirds were doing exactly as she had intended. She smirked even more as Draco began talking, and the change of voice only confirmed what she had seen so far.

"I bet you two do have the power, though maybe not the mental stability." came Gelquie's voice from all directions.

A thought then came to Gelquie. She wasn't a fighter, and now that Draco was sufficiently distracted, she could probably get out of this easily, and go... somewhere. Maybe hide. She could probably still affect some battles that way, and then not have to fight a ninja... But then she figured that she probably had the advantage here; she would rather see her attacker before the attack. She would just have to make due here. Particularly in the uneven terrain of the rubble of the building...

Gelquie concentrated on the area around the ninja while both Gelquies separated from each other, circling around Draco in opposite directions. Then, Gelquie clutching her dagger with her good hand (and her image doing the same), what seemed to be water appeared below Draco. It spread out from where he was standing and rose until the very murky water completely covered the rubble below. The water had a perfect stop at the edge of the rubble, and took on the image of currents, looking strong and going in many directions... Even if it wasn't water at all, or even tangible.

By this time, the swarm of hummingbirds had lessened significantly, but Gelquie decided to keep them up anyway, just to keep swarming and annoy Draco.

"You'll want to be careful," Gelquie's voice came from all directions. "The rocks below can get quite slippery."

[Ian Wolf-Park]

Strife's Manor

Lupehunter was satisfied with his handiwork in healing Toshiro, so he decided to let go at that point.


"You did this, didn't you?"

Lupehunter looks up and sees Draco charging toward him. He did not like where this was going as the ninja was using his exhaustion to his advantage. Fortunately, even though he was exhausted from healing Toshiro, Lupehunter still had a few more tricks left up his sleeve. Immediately, he began racking his brain to determine which trick was the best option to use. He made up his mind a few seconds later.

Once he knew what to use, he withdrew both of his daggers and recited a spell to fuse them into a double-bladed sword. Then he grasped it in his right hand and waited for Draco to strike.

[Deleted]

He had succeeded. Kovaran had scooped Ikkin up from the molten ground, and, holding her tightly (and taking care not to injure her), rushed away from the two phoenixes. The air rapidly cooled as he ran, and the colour of the ground beneath went back to the vague grey that they were when not being melted into magma.

Then Ikkin spoke. The big lizard slowed his mad dash rather suddenly, coming to a halt a good distance away from the birds. Even as he was stopping, he looked at the kitsune in his arms and smiled a warm smile, in response to her saying 'thank you'.

That smile did fade somewhat as she continued. It was good that she could walk herself, though she did seem in better health than she was back in the forest. Although, how had she ended up almost dying like that? He had not seen her leave the building--Oh deities. I was not there!

And now she planned on... helping someone who had helped her? Was that what "give someone a taste of their own medicine" meant? But her voice seemed to be saying something different to her words. What had happened to her? What was happening?

Kovaran was silent. Awkwardly he looked skyward, to see... well, it was quite a spectacle.


"Ikkin," he finally spoke, his voice unusually soft once more, "After I let you walk yourself - support your own weight - would you know how I could help? I cannot sit down and do nothing. No, not while this world is threatened..."

Without waiting for an answer, he set Ikkin down on the ground, making sure she was on her feet.

[Jina]

The White Weewoo
All of a sudden, Jina was flying. Well, technically, being on a flying ship, she was flying anyway. But she was flying in a more being thrown about sense, now. And Zylaa appeared to be, too. Owen, on the other hand, had merely stumbled.

"What the heck was that?!" asked Zylaa.

"Um. I don't know, maybe we accidentally flew into a building?"

By that point, Bloody Mary had come down and ordered everyone to fire again.

Yeah, like we hadn't thought of that already, thought Owen.

Jina stood up, rubbing her head, and spotted something on the ground. "Oh, that's where the matches went. That's handy." She loaded the cannon again, took aim-ish, and lit the fuse. Owen decided to block his ears this time.

After the cannon went off, Owen looked out of the hatch. The fireball hit the Underdeep in a spot that was not yet on fire. In the meantime, however, another bit of fire was burning away where a tentacle was connected to the Underdeep's body. The tentacle had soon fallen of, and fell to the ground, still alight.

The Underdeep reached down with another tentacle, and picked it up, taking care not to touch any of the burning parts of the tentacle. It looked over at the Weewoo, and threw the burning tentacle at it.

Jina wasn't quite sure that Hunty didn't have her eye on something else on the top deck, and a burning tentacle hitting them would most definitely not be good. "Erm. Weewoo, I think we should probably get away from that tentacle flying at us." Okay, talking to a ship makes me feel stupid. "In fact, just go straight up!"

The ship took a short while to respond, but the Underdeep was far enough away that it didn't matter. The tentacle passed underneath them, sweeping away the stones that were moving up to hit them. The Weewoo started to drop down again once the tentacle had passed underneath.

Owen was still watching the Underdeep, and had noticed something. The tentacle that had fallen off was now regrowing. Wait, how is it doing th.. although lizards do it, I suppose. "You, pirate girl. Keep firing the cannons, I'm going upstairs."

Jina rolled her eyes. Boys.

Owen went up onto the deck, and found Hunty. "You're in charge, right? Well I'm not sure if you noticed, but that.. thing.. just regrew a tentacle, and I get the feeling it can grow more, so I would suggest trying to find something a little more powerful than what we're using."

[Draco]

<<Gelquie Battle>>

Underdeep!Draco continues to swat at the annoying birds that hummed around him.

"I bet you two do have the power, though maybe not the mental stability."

"Hey!"

"She can't hear you stupid."

After a few moments he begins to notice the birds are lessening and smirks.

"When these birds are gone, you'll be a sitting duck. The only thing you have left is that clone, and I can do the same thing."

"You'll want to be careful. The rocks below can get quite slippery"

"What the heck is she talking about now?"

He begins to feel a wetness around his legs. Looking down he can see water rushing around under him.

"Water?"

"This girl is getting more interesting by the minute. What she lacks in combat skills, she's making up with this magic. Of course she lacks skills! That's why she's hiding behind this stupid magic! If you were smarter, it wouldn't bother you as much."

"You know what? Stay out of this!"

He takes a step and slips on the now wet rocks, falling on his back with a large splash. He growls to himself.

"I am so going to kill her... Slowly... Painfully..."

Turning his head, he can make out the legs of one of the Gelquie's. Which one, he didn't know.

---

<<Lupehunter Battle>>

The flaming Draco clone continues to advance towards Lupehunter. His legs give out, becoming nothing but ash, and he falls to the ground.

"Heh, so this is how I go out? I know I'm just a shikigami, but I was hoping to hold out a bit longer..."

As he speaks, the rest of his body burns away like paper, leaving only a mouth.

"I would suggest trying to get out of the building... If you haven't noticed, it's been moving."

The rest of the shikigami clone burns up and blows away out the window.

----

<<Gelquie Battle Again>>

"There goes the shikigami..."