Chrys reeled back from the pain of the blow to her stomach, and perhaps from her Master's harsh words as well. She rather liked to think thinking before you acted wasn't quite the same as hesitating. Charging in recklessly could be just as dangerous to others as not acting fast enough, after all. But then, perhaps her Master meant something different. Rather than just the powers immediately available to her in form of attacks, there were others that she forgot she had all too often. With a pulsing glow, Chrys began to levitate into the air as she let a new form take hold of her body. It was her Fleur form. The new elongated robes and dark blue hair shone with a magical Aura, and Chrys burst forth to deliver attacks to the Light Chaser once more.
Steel smiled as he returned Stratos' fist bump, mostly staying silent as they observed the natives all gathering around Lilo and Stitch. Even Aux seemed a bit happy... if perhaps destined to drag himself back down before too long. "You did good." He said as he watched Nani wrap Lilo in her arms. "We've still got a long road ahead of us, but if we can all keep this up, we'll pull through." (7/31)
Steel leaped over the defensive wall that Aux had provided the team, diving straight for Gantu's ship once more. H e continued to his aerial onslaught until he felt himself overflowing with a special kind of power. Retreating back a ways, he dismissed Star Seeker and held Artisan Shard into the air above him. Though he was in mid-air, a magical rune appeared and halted his descent. His hood flapped in the wind, leaving the lupine face and scarred eye he had kept hidden down on the beaches of Hawaii on full display. The eye pulsed with it's unnatural glow as energy enveloped him. "Let's Finish This!" He shouted to his fellow hunters. OC: Steel Attacked With An Aerial Combo! Steel Attacked With An Aerial Combo! Steel Began Using Trinity Limit! (6/31)
A burst of energy saw Steel's health restored, and the silhouette of Stratos stood between him and incoming cannon fire. A glint of determination in his eyes, Steel grabbed Stratos and dashed out of the oncoming shot. The ship trembled momentarily upon impact and large scorch marks were left were they had stood. He nodded to Stratos as he let go, and to Ananta as well. "Thanks, both of you!" He leaped back into action to once more deal a string of hits to Gantu's ship. OC: Steel Attacked With An Ariel Combo! Steel Attacked With An Ariel Combo! (5/31)
"Splash Dash." Steel muttered the words quietly as he leaped from the wing once more. As he flipped through a cloud the water vapor seemed to trail after him, congealing in a small pools around him as he approached Gantu's ship once more. Gantu's hull once more found itself on the other end of a string of blows from Steel's weapons. This time though, the attacks were much more powerful. The power of Steel's Aura seemed to have been boosted by several factors, and the increased stamina of it granted him lengthened his combos in such a way that aided his damage even further. He retreated to Jumba's ship once more. Steel Activated Splash Dash! (Water Aura Level 1) Steel Attacked With An Ariel Combo! Steel Attacked With An Ariel Combo! (4/31)
Chrys cast Reflega. With the several magic beams shooting at her, it was near instinct. Doubtless it was one her master had accounted for, and was all to ready to counter. Not willing to give him that chance, Chrys darted out of the field of protection as the beams bounced off, rushing towards her teacher with her weapon at the ready. She used a blitz attack to attempt to hit him as the beams trailed not far behind.
Everyone having chipped in to add to the beating, the enemy ship now hung motionless in mid air as Jumba circled around it. "Good Move!" He shouted to Aux as he leaped back in to attack with Gusto. He was ever so fond of Stop spells after all. He pounded against the outer hull once more, though with the Stop in effect the combo seemed to have even less effect than before. There were no clangs and reverberations upon the impact of his weapon, so it felt like hitting a brick with a stick. Still, he knew it was ultimately because of the Stopra placed on it, and so he did not let up on his attacks. Putting full force into his combo's he eventually returned to Jumba's ship once more, waiting for the chance to strike again. OC: Steel Attacked With An Ariel Combo! Steel Attacked With An Ariel Combo! (3/31)
The fight had begun, and Steel found himself climbing out on the ships' wing to fight against their opponent. Balancing there with all the fancy flight maneuvers that were occurring was something of a challenge, but through some mysterious means he could never hope to understand, he happened to make it work just fine. Taking the opportunity given to start the fight, Steel coated his blade in ice cold energy. He leaped toward Gantu's ship, doing a quick series of upper slash attacks on the hull. Even when the ice energy faded though he continued to beat against the ship, though his attack pattern varied greatly. The blows were surprisingly powerful, but then, a keyblade certainly would do more damage to an alien ship than a normal sword. Or at least in most circumstances. He landed back on the wing of Jumba's ship... somehow... and stood back as the others continued the assualt. OC: Steel Used Vorpal Blitz! Steel Attacked With An Ariel Combo! (2/31)
Steel gave a heavy sigh as he watched events unfold before him. Clearly, this group was still far too dysfunctional in spite of everything they had done earlier. He wanted to say something, anything, to set things right. But he had never been any good with words. This was a fact time had proven, no matter how elegant or refined he tried to make his speech, he was not really the best person for helping others. Even with that said, he didn't really want to leave Aux alone after that interaction with Ananta. It seemed ever since they got here everyone was intent on rubbing Aux past in his face. Well... okay not everyone. Just the girls. Sure, he had made up with Kaida but... Perhaps the first step in this 'support' thing was to just be there for the other, even if he could calm himself down on his own, the presence of someone else might- and Ananta was heading over there too. Well, shoot. He didn't know if she was actually going along with him, but if she was he would probably need to intervene. Hopefully, she would get a clue with how he acted after Myed left, and leave him alone. That said, he himself followed after Aux with little notice to the others. 1/31
Chrys nodded to her mentor with a look of determination. She leaped back before charging back in with several blows aimed at his extremities, casting a quick Waterga spell to increase the force of the blows. She finished off with a sweeping attack before going to attempt to put distance between herself and the master once more. She didn't particularly think she would be landing any blows on him so soon; even if he deemed her approaching his level, she definitely wouldn't be catching him off guard this early in the fight, not without pulling something really extraordinary. She definitely had a few aces that she would use at opportune moments... as opposed to saving them for the last possible moment as she had done far too often in the past. Truly fantastic failures those were. She didn't want to make such mistakes again. Not when there were people counting on her, people who were expecting more of her. Besides, this was the exam, and she should hold nothing back, just as the master said. Even so, there was something of a difference between not holding back and being reckless. Also: the fact she was taking this exam in of itself did not mean she was near the masters level just yet.
Steel sighed to himself as he continued to blast away at Gantu with magic spells. Fire burned and lightning surged as the caster contemplated to himself just how many self-righteous meatheads had found a way to fit their oversized egos into this one multi-verse. He left the thought to simmer as he took a brief analysis of his surroundings. After Ananta, caught up in her own little world as she was, had abruptly interjected into his prompting and come up with a plan on her own, the group seemed to be set on going through with it. Aux had really been tossed around though. He sent the other a quick healing spell before continuing his own assault. He crept closer to Gantu's feet steadily before attempting to rush forward with a barrier surge in an attempt to do as Ananta said and try to knock him off of his feet. His attack was apparently matched in time with another, as Stratos came zooming in with a somehow physically noticeable slash and a burst of cherry petals. Their newly arrived ally continued to attack Gantu while Steel contemplated his next contribution. OC: Words: 190 Exp: 19 Total: 79 Damage Dealt: 172 Gantu: 268/1500
The android had seemed to want to respond to Grav's question, but he was distracted by the Rami. Personally, he found himself rolling his eyes at the woman's belligerent, not to mention imbecilic behavior. She was inferring an awful lot of camaraderie into the simple mention of cooperation, and it seemed the very idea she didn't have to like anyone else here to work with them was completely beyond her. He shook his head as the impending fight only grew larger, with several new participants becoming involved via further violent lack of forethought from the Rami. "Might as well just take the out," Grav whispered to the android from his new position at his side. "She's obviously more interested in punching things than getting out of prison, and someone like that probably wouldn't be much help anyway. No point in getting involved in this little scuffle. Not when we could spend the energy making other plans." He shrugged. Your choice of course.
It seemed that the time had come; the Mark of Mastery examination would commence as soon as she made her first move. Summoning her keyblade, Chrys eyed her opponent from across the room. She wasn't nearly as nervous about the idea as the others had been. There was a time before they came along after all, and visual aids would have had to come from somewhere. Now though, it was the moment of truth. Not much more lethal than training, ultimately, but with a considerably heavier impact. Her stance a bit less relaxed than usual, Chrys charged towards her master and made a single, basic attack. So began the trial. A test to see if she was truly worthy of the light fate had dictated she was to inherit. A look into the deepest depths of her heart. She was curious to see what lie there.
"Unfortunately, stratagems in whatever group I'm with usually are just 'Hit it until it dies, is incapacitated, or otherwise is no longer a problem.' Not to say we didn't use any actual battle plans of course, but..." As steel shot off another thunderbolt or two at his opponent he had a sudden realization. "It's either that or just... I usually get delegated to hitting things? I'm actually not to certain of how many times I've actually been involved in a rescue, but I feel relatively certain that every time it boiled down to hitting stuff. Hold on... how long has it been? I'm not sure I remember everything that's even happened since we started this quest." Steel launched off another Ice crystal as he pondered this. "Does anyone else feel like that? Like it's been way longer than it should have been and their memories are sort of hazy?" He abruptly shook his head at his own statement. "Nevermind I'm going off on a tangent. Look, I'll keep shooting magic at him and someone else can try giving him a hard time from another angle. We'll distract him, and someone else can try and sneak up and free Lilo. How does that sound?" It was a good start to a plan at least. OOC: Words: 213 EXP: 21 Total: 60 Damage Dealt: 86 Remaining: 1154/1500
Cadoc could admit to being equally as surprised as the others when Auburn grew to a much larger size but took the girl up on her silent offer of a lift relatively quickly. As she carried them across, he did find himself wondering about the exact implications of her personality. He assumed this was her semblence, and that particular manifestation of Aura usually had a lot to say about a person's inner thoughts. Granted, it didn't always, and it wasn't always obvious when it did. It was food for thought. Whatever the case, it had saved them the time and trouble of finding an alternative way of getting across. So with that said, he naturally nodded along with Lazuli's thanks. "Yeah, thanks for the lift!"
Chrys nodded in agreement with Avra as they neared the manor. "We can hope. I may not know what it's like to have that exact kind of relationship with my siblings, but I can relate to wanting to do your best for them even if they might not feel all that positive of you as a result." She winced and she felt the words tumble out of her mouth awkwardly. "Sorry, I'm still better at listening than actually knowing what to say." Chrys chuckled with self-deprecation. "Still..." She looked behind her at her three remaining companions before looking ahead to their destanation once more. "We're getting there..." She said to the girl beside her. "Little by little..." It wasn't really the manion she was talking about.
Steel took up his sudden stance at the rather sudden turn of events, ready for battle. They probably weren't going to be getting that ship anymore, but oh well. Besides, how much good would the vessel even do them if the ones who gave it to them mistook them for locals? Granted, they had their keyblades. Whatever the case, now was the time for battle. Both Aux and Ananta had started them off, though Ananta was complaining about the practicality of fighting in her swimsuit. "If you were concerned about fighting in it, why did you change into it?" He questioned as he followed her lead by slinging spells at their larger opponent. He circled Gantu swiftly, firing off the lightning bolts, ice crystals, and fireballs from multiple different angles, hoping to do good damage and distract at the same time. Of course, remaining evasive was a nice bonus to the process. In the meantime, Ananta had decided to just blatantly declare they were pretty much either in law enforcement of some kind, or superheroes of some kind. Sure, it was obvious by now that they had some kind of magic key swords and weren't really normal, but they could still pass themselves off as good samaritans of some such and not as some group. The keyblades themselves leaned to them being a team, but a set purpose like 'protecting the innocent'... "Reassurances are all well and good Ananta, but do try to be just a little more guarded with what you say, won't you?" He made his plea as he fired off another third-tier thunder spell from next to Emyd. The sitar playing tourist was being surprisingly stoic about the whole thing as he strummed a slightly more up-tempo melody on his instrument. Other than that though, he was just lazily staring into the sky. With his eyes covered in sunglasses, there was really no sign of him even acknowledging the battle that was erupting on the beach not all that far from his location. The music was even... oddly fitting for the situation, like music meant to fit some kind of tense situation. That aside, Steel decided to avoid going near his position again; it wouldn't do to attract Gantu's fire towards a civilian. He had already shown little enough care in accidentally capturing one after all. No need to complicate things further. EXP Writer II: Words: 395 Exp: 39 Total: 39 Dealt 86 Damage! Gantu: 1328 / 1500 BP
Grav winced at the sudden outburst and could only watch in astonishment as a fight brewed from almost nothing. The briefing with the warden was unpleasant enough, but to attack an individual who had been acting rather amicably in such a way seemed rather underhanded. The woman had only politely responded to a prompt, after all, completely unaware of any cultural taboo. The other individual had clearly been seeking out a means of excuse for her belligerent behavior. What had he expected though? These weren't victims of framing as he had been, they were actual criminals. Granted, the warden said the others he had been thrown in with had gotten there for some pretty odd reasons, but... a lot of these people wouldn't be the type to see reason or leave him alone just cause he didn't feel like socializing. While he had been thinking about his current predicament, an android of some kind stepped in to try and break up the fight. He supposed that was a good thing, but it could be that he would just wind up in the impending brawl as well. He sighed as he heard the taller individual speak of changing their current situation. "What is it that we can do even?" Even as he muttered the words though, he did find himself seriously considering their options. Whatever the others were in for, he hardly wanted to live a miserable life in prison for what someone else did. However, he was unable to think of much, mired in gloom and depression as his mind was.
