... :P!
It seemed upon further inspection that what Pagos said was true. It was hard to realize at first since the damage had already been building over time, but the enemies attacks were indeed getting stronger. "He means that the Heartless are starting to do more damage, Zeno." Trying to think quickly, Chrys cast Cura on herself and Avra, since they seemed to be the ones in most need of it an the moment. She cut through two more Crimson Jazzes before hitting a third with an MP drain to siphon off some MP. Having done all she could for the moment, Chrys put up her guard, relying on the extra strength from her Watera spell to augment her defenses. OC: Enemies Defeated: 2 Crimson Jazzes Enemies Remaining: 9 Gargoyles 8 Air Pirates 1 Crimson Jazz 22 Search Ghosts Effects: MP Haste: +1 MP MP Drain: + 5 MP Water: 2 More Turns Avra's HP: 42/120 HP: 49/115 MP: 7/40 AP: 12/62(+10) DP: 3/3
I'm not doing much at the moment, but I did want to get a few things out of the way real quick... First off, I'm going to purchase the 'Ray of Light' accessory for 800 munny. That leaves my remaining munny at 2365. Further, that was the last requirement for a job, one of two that I unlocked recently, and am just now mentioning, cause I'm just so great with speaking up. Black Mage Unlocked! White Mage Unlocked! I'm not gonna use either yet! For one last adjustment, I will equip 'Trinity Limit' because I have like 15 more AP than I used to, and I was using all but one, so... yeah. I'll pick out what to do with the last 11 later. Just to be clear: AP: 37/48
Cadoc didn't really mind much which way they went one way or the other. "It's all the same to me. I'd be happy to go either right or left. So if there aren't any objections, right sounds like a perfectly acceptable direction to go in!" ... Maybe he was overselling the 'cheery' bit too much. Oh well. He had piped up to say... something, at least. If he was going to start speaking more often, he had to start somewhere. Cooperative two cents wasn't a bad place to start on that either.
Chrys overheard Avra's question as she sliced through a Crimson Jazz. "I do see what you mean, but crowd control like this is a bit more complicated than just brute strength, isn't it? I mean, the master said that there is a whole hoard of heartless waiting to tear through, so this can't be much more than the first wave." She smashed two more crimson jazzes heavy blows from her blade before casting Watera on it. After that, an Air Pirate that had been a bit too hasty in its charge promptly met its end. "We don't want to wear ourselves out, so we'll have to think strategically." OC: Enemies Defeated: 3 Crimson Jazzes 1 Air Pirate Enemies remaining: 18 Gargoyles 10 Air Pirates 3 Crimson Jazzes 22 Search Ghosts Effects: MP Haste: +1 MP (Also plus one from last turn?) Watera: +10 AP HP: 64/115 MP: 11 (12?)/ 40 AP: 0/62(+10) DP: 3/3
Steel didn't really feel much like laughing anymore. Granted, he still could. He still kinda wanted to even. Someone had just died though; it would be in poor taste. Better to stay silent that incur the wrath of the others, even if he had originally planned to do it before Hikaru was gone. Yep, Hikaru was gone. It was strange to think about... and he was plagued with a horrible empty feeling if he even tried. There wasn't time to think anyway. As the others all went off choosing boats, Steel climbed into a boat just after Ananta, joining Kaida, Aux, and Stratos. Unaware of the black slimy "tear" that had cascaded from his eye, Steel pondered the light Aux now held within him. Hikaru was not truly gone, or at least not yet. "See you again..." He whispered silently as the world kept turning. OC: Steel to Ohana Island
Amidst the crowd of floating nemesis', Chrys remained determined to do her best in eradicating as many dark entities as possible. Now surrounded by several Air Pirates, she readied her blade as they flew forward, countering with calculated cuts as she stepped to their sides. When they all seemed to want to charge her at once, she cast a quick reflera spell to counter. OC: HP: 79/115 AP: 2/62 MP: 25/40 DP: 3/3 Enemies Defeated: 5 Air Pirates Status: Reflect
Braden rose with the others as they all turned to leave. He had remained mostly silent the whole time, listening with only the vaguest signs of interest. Most everything that had to be said about their conversation had simply already been said by the others. It seems Qrow was more right in his observation than Cadoc had originally thought: he was being incredibly anti-social. Granted, it was simply a byproduct of circumstance more than anything else, but the fact remained that even now he had little to say. He never did really; most of the time he just gave a cheerful anecdote while keeping his true thoughts to himself. Which begged the question of whether or not he had anything worth saying. It was a good question really, one he had never really thought about. However, he wasn't going to just start up a random new conversation and pour out his life story or anything. He supposed he would just have to make sure that he took a more active role the next time conversation came his way. In the meantime, he simply accompanied his team to Noire's location.
With a determined look on her face, Chrys summoned her weapon as she and her companions readied themselves for the upcoming battle. The first enemies that came toward her from the swarm of heartless were Search Ghost and Air Pirates. She blocked a punch from one of the more corporeal opponents before taking a slash at it. Unfortunately for her it managed to dodge the blow, but she recovered quickly by swiping to the side. While it was reeling from the blow she ducked underneath a nearby search ghost and grabbed it by its 'tail.' She proceeded to swing it towards her original target and slammed them into each-other. She repeatedly slammed the ghost around to hit multiple other opponents. Dazed as it was, it hardly had the presence of mind to fade from her grip. "Don't worry everyone," She started as her flail dissapated into black smoke. "...We've been training for this! We can handle it no problem!" OC: Enemies Defeated: 1 Search Ghost 4 Air Pirates HP: 115/115 AP: 2/62 MP: 40/40 DP: 3/3 Enemies Remaining: 20 Gargoyles 16 Air Pirates 20 Crimson Jazzes 39 Search Ghosts
Unfortunately for Steel, Beuce's advice was... unfollowable. It didn't take long for No Heart to cast at all... and that should've been easy enough to predict since he proceeded to spew even more hot air as he was always quick to do. His arrogance was frustrating, more because of how self-counteracting it was than anything else. He started going on about how they should be despairing over how powerless they are compared to him, and how they weren't making a difference, yadda, yadda. But really, what did he want them to do? Give up? Wouldn't that be bad for his plans, though? No matter how you look at it, No Heart was the one who had been going on about needing seven lights, so... wouldn't discouraging them like this be a bad idea? Bragging just seemed like a major tactical flaw at this point. Sure, as far as the evil Master was aware there were probably always going to be suckers who would be willing to do things for the greater good, but it seemed they had awhile yet to go and he'd only have to wind up looking for replacements. Taunting them into giving up at this point was... well it was stupid really. Waiting until just before the "Final Battle" or some such to kill off four of their members seemed like a much better option. Then again, he also wanted Kaida dead specifically for some reason, so he supposed the threat of destroying others was just a result of that. Still stupid to try and destroy their hopes though. Where did he think their precious light came from? About 90% of it was hope. Plus, Steel was kind of used to not making a difference... well... sort of? It had been his ultimate goal really... which was weird compared to most other hero-quests, but it was the whole "The world shouldn't have to pay for my mistakes..." thing, so... It was no skin off his back, really. At least in this dimension, he wasn't completely stark-raving mad. "Would anyone judge me for laughing at him?" He asked his two companions as both he and Aislinn struggled against their bindings, though it was a considerably more subdued attempt on his end. Probably better for them anyway since too much struggling would probably make things even harder for all of them. "I've got a good reason for it and everything." He tacked the comment on as an assurance based on the fact that most people didn't seem to have the same thought processes as him about these sorts of things.
It would be a lie to say that Chrys hadn't been even mildly surprised to hear her Master bring up the Mark of Mastery exam. At the same time, it would have to come sooner or later. It was as he said after all: five years had passed since her Master had found her. To really think about it was shocking. Time had flown in a way she never would have imagined it to. Standing here now with the others, she knew that objectively they would all need the abilites and privelages granted by the title of master if they wanted to agaisnt their true opponent, no matter how well they might be able to hold up against the other wielders. "Very well. I am ready to begin whenever you would have me do so Master."
Not a moment ago Steel had been content to sit and watch; it didn't really seem they had the power to get out of this, and even if they were all about to die in a terrible way he... didn't really feel upset about it at the time. More than anything it felt like death was just a sultry temptress leading someone on at a nightclub at this rate: all 'will they or won't they?' Cause be honest they had come close several times already and this event alone was proof their opponent was far more powerful than them. Then... No Heart had strutted in with perhaps the most aggravating plan yet. He could get over comparing them to pawns since most villains were just arrogant like that. This guy clearly was in a position to brag, so whatever, right? Right. He would not abide, however, the complete and utter robbery of Aux's free will. Not to mention the illusion that he had manifested to outright abuse Aux and his position in pretty much every way. All with the ultimate goal of using the boy to kill one of his own best friends. Steel may have been frozen in place, but his fingers seemed to be clenching tightly around the phone he had been casually browsing through mere minutes ago. The horrible cruelty was on par with... well... it was something that he would do. The old him. The original him? Steel Zero? The Storm's Eye. Yeah, he found that he was settling on the Storm's Eye. But regardless of what you called him, it ultimately boiled down to the fact that Steel was once again reminded of a past life. It seemed like the reminders were everywhere. It made him sick to think he had come from a creature so... deluded. It was also equally horrifying that the being was still alive and well, likely tormenting the citizens of his own dimension with his own vengeful and misguided good intentions. However, what mattered more at the moment was the scene unfolding in front of him. The pure anger he felt kicked up essences of his own darkness and felt that inherited power seething within his twisted looking eye. However, he did not reach for that particular power: it could be honed on its own time, but for now, it was useless. No, he instead found his mind wrapped around a rather different power. Equally inherited from his predecessor, this power took new shape within the keyblade, but was still just as strong as even within him. Time Immunity. With the single thought of "Speed Rave" energy rushed around him. Even with no verbal cue, the command had been accepted and his power immediately broke him free of No Heart's spell. He ghosted out of Ananta's grip, his clothes practically phasing through her hand as his phone vanished and was replaced with Artisan Shard. "You Dastard!" He wasn't even finished shouting by the time his leg had kicked No Heart's weapon away from his neck with a single agile movement. With his next, his powerful claws swiped at the enemies chest. Though they were wickedly sharp, there was no way that even his supernaturally honed claws would cut through armor imbued and crafted with the magic of the keyblade. However, that in no way meant that the force of Steel's blow wouldn't knock No Heart back a relatively good amount of space. He quickly made to close that space as he dashed forward for another blow, weapon primed for a lunge toward No Heart's lack thereof. He was confident that he had either freed the others from the stop spell or at least given Aux a distraction. He was unwilling to abandon his assault on their most dangerous opponent, as even a single second of hesitation could give the man all he needed. "Give Aux back!"
"Yeah, this is fair." Steel muttered to himself as he flipped through his e-mail. Once he had realized that some random overpowered person was casting stop on them one by one and Ananta had frozen herself onto his shirt, he had quite frankly decided to just not even bother with a meaningless attempt at counteraction. He would likely just be frozen in time before he could do much more than pry himself free from Ananta's grip, or alternatively strip off his cloak. He decided that pulling out his phone and checking for any missed messages was much more productive at this point. Come to think of it, he had this thing for a while now, hadn't he? How did it... work... exactly? It was supposed to allow him to contact home and compile information, but couldn't he contact home anyway? Well, he supposed he would pass out if he did... that is, before Gale and Winter headed back. Rolling the mystery around in his head, he changed flipping through his information archives while he waited for... whatever was happening... to be done.
Chrys felt her hands clenching into fists as she heard about the council of lights. How could anyone do such a thing? Even in the event there really was something to all this 'balance,' there had to be a better way to maintain it than to actively ignore the safety of others and just let others die? Of course, there might have been other ways to help Tinarah, but sending her to some dimension that no one knew about could just wind up putting her in more danger. What would they do if something happened to her? They wouldn't know until it was too late. It seemed to Chrys that getting her proper training was indeed a better solution... but what about what she had to face along the way? For that matter, was throwing her back into this war really all that better of an option in the end? She supposed it was Tinarah's call on that front. Shaking her head, Chrys put the thoughts out of her mind for now. "I see... very well then. I have no more curiosities and am ready to begin.
Karina regained her keyblade and it was a heartfelt moment for all. As Steel hung back to watch the others say their goodbyes, his attention was pulled toward Ananta as she made known her intent to communicate with him. It seemed she was deeply regretting her actions. "Well... Yes, you did something incredibly dull-witted and shallow. I can't really argue with that." ...Oh wait, there was a 'but' wasn't there? "...However..." Steel began rather slowly, wishing not for the first time that he was better at the whole 'pep-talk' thing. "...It's good that you recognize you did something wrong; that's the first step to preventing such things in the future. Doing something stupid doesn't necessarily make you a stupid person. At least, that's my experience..." That was his actual opinion, right? He wasn't just trying to make her feel better? Rolling the sentence around in his mind a few times he decided that it indeed was his own honest thoughts on the subject, and so should suffice.
Chrys had a lot of thoughts at that moment, but she wasn't sure if any of them were really questions. Not much point questioning how the Master had known about Dentro; he was capable of senseing far more than they were. There was no point in asking the Light Chaser why the other wielders were so insistent on protecting the darkness after seeing what it did to the world around them, Dentro, and even their own friends. The innerworkings of an individuals mind were not easily known, and she was not sure she wanted to know what ideas they might have had in their heads. She also didn't feel like she had the right to pry into such things, even if the master did know. One true curiousity did occur to her though. "I suppose... I would like to know what happened to Tinarah... She was older than when I saw her last."
At first, Steel was rather appalled when a continuity error of all things occurred. Even after all this time, space hadn't exactly straightened out around him and... it could be weird. However the situation wound up resolving itself, and Ananta came to apologize to Karina on her own initiative. Even if it was something that could very well get her killed. He was proud of her for doing that... even if he still thought all interaction between them would need to be limited in the future. Around them, the others began performing the keyblade inheritance ceremony. This was an idea Steel wholly supported, and he summoned the Artisan Shard to perform the next line and give Karina back the power of the keyblade. "No more borders around, or below, or above..." Flipping around the weapon to hold the handle out to her, Steel hoped that Karina could sense the sincerity behind his words. He himself knew just how easy it was to take that sort of freedom for granted or abuse it. It was a great power, and he felt it was a great honor being able to grant it to someone. He also took pride in being able to give it to someone who needed it, and he sincerely believed would not abuse it. Even if she had a bit too short of a temper.
2 Hp Upgrades 1 Ap Upgrade Learning the Second Chance ability.
Steel stared with curiosity at the sword glowing ominously in his hands. A second passed, then two, and oh yeah, his arm was definitely getting heavier. "How curious." The rather bland statement came with the thought that he considered the spell extremely overkill coming from the otherwise calm individual who seemed to have otherwise accepted that murder wasn't happening. Shrugging the arm that carried the apparent drama queen, he dropped the sword with the relatively simple comment: "A bit of an overreaction, don't you think?" Before he could get much out a whole slew of things happened, starting with the label 'Steve, moving on to the equally exaggerated and unnecessary act of binding Arctus to the ground with gravity magic and then... Oh boy. This was painful... on so many levels. He found himself once again holding his head in his hands as what had started out as a peaceful conversation had officially dissolved into... a Karina event. Even worse, one of the dreaded Karina AND ANANTA events that he had been so lucky to miss out on for the most part. He had heard tales though. The tales of the tortured screams in the dead of night, and the howling winds of the worlds crying out for the two to cease their self-righteous yammering. It never stopped though. Never. This was proof enough that they would always find a way. But really, if he listened to it, things just seemed like more than anything else they just wanted to hurt each other. He knew that's not what Ananta really wanted, but it's what she was doing, and Karina... well Karina felt the need to retaliate or justify herself. Completely understandable, really. But it still didn't change that this couldn't keep happening everytime they were within sight of each other. So rather than follow after Ananta, Steel spoke up. "No. I'm sorry but 'this...'" He trailed off as he gestured to the general area of the two girls. "It has to stop. I know you're not doing it intentionally Ananta, but you're hurting her. You would actually hurt a lot of people with words like that." He turned to Karina. "...And Karina, it's understandable that you want to react violently to this stuff, but the fact is the more you react, the more she does. If you two want to hate each other on your own time, then that's fine, I get it. But we can't have you two having a huge fight every time you're near each other. It's something we all tend to focus on and saving the world kind of needs to be our first priority over personal matters since if we fail, you know, personal problems won't really exist... or we'll be too dead to deal with them at least. You don't have to be friends, you don't have to forgive each other, all you have to do is... stop. Stop talking to each other. It only drags you both in deeper. I don't care who started it, just stop responding. You're both better than this, I really believe you are, and that's why I'm telling you right now that this just isn't worth it, whether it's Ananta's words or Karina's fist. This has gone on too long and I refuse to watch you hurt yourselves. One of you has to be the bigger person and walk away." So now it was out there, he had said his peace. He hoped that Ananta didn't get offended, and he could only pray that Karina wouldn't find some insult in the fact that he just wanted them to stop fighting, but it didn't matter. Even if they both turned against him he would stand by his words and walk away. If Karina really still refused to comply with reasoning so simple, still choosing to see an insult where there was none, than it just wasn't his problem anymore.
Steel couldn't help but facepalm as good ol' Karina came charging in and punched Aux in the face. She was off doing who knows what with her apparent boyfriend and hadn't heard any of the information that they had just learned. He sure hoped that she didn't get mad for being out of the loop, what with her being the one to actively go out of her way to exclude herself from it in the first place. If Aux didn't really have a choice to his actions, then killing him would just be unfair even if trusting him was unwise. Neither action would be helpful really. Of course now Karina's doe-eyed love interest was charging in to follow her lead as well. He pulled out his sword, and well, Steel wasn't having any of that. On knee-jerk reaction, he leaped up to two legs and towards Arctus with haste. He wasn't the only one taking preventive measures, as Kaida cast a powerful Stopga at that exact moment. He grabbed his frozen oppenent and relieved him of his sword, the sound of the metal clacking against the tips of his claws. With Arctus sword in one hand and body restrained in the other arm, Steel pulled the two some distance away before he spoke. "There's this thing called a 'conversation' guys. We were in the middle of one, and it's considered rude to interrupt." He doubted that the Karina now restrained in Buece's arms would think very highly of any comment from him, but that was her problem.
