After having felled a swarm of neo shadows, it was apparent that their number was starting to dwindle quite rapidly. Stratos looked around, seeing the combined efforts of all the keyblade wielders around who had continued to put on an unrelenting pressure against these creatures. Though the enemy was great in number and strength, so to were the keyblade wielders. He had known there were two of the dark side heartless to begin with, but they were felled almost instantly by Mizu and her ice golem, Sprinkles. Then there was the strongest of the regular heartless, the Invisbles, heartless that wielded swords and possessed an oddly humanoid figure. Yet, within the blink of an eye, those too had been vanquished. With the two biggest threats being destroyed in almost an instant, all that left were the hordes of neo shadows and dark balls. And as Stratos looked around, what once looked to be an endless sea of darkness and yellow eyes, seemed to be significantly smaller. With the group having felled nearly half the neo shadows already, and not being too far off with the dark balls, the already motivated boy was feeling even more invigorated to finish the fight against this wave of heartless. Readying both of his keyblades, the boy looked towards the less marred waves of dark balls, and decided to take them on. Running towards the dark balls, the boy charged both of his keyblades with ice as he rushed towards the heartless. Jumping into the air, the boy used both of his keyblades to slash twice at two separate dark balls, creating an icy cross against both of them before bringing down one hefty swing against both heartless. With his vorpal blitz having been finished, the boy continued to slash through the heartless with aerial combos as he moved through the waves. With each slash, he was able to keep his hang time in the air longer. To perpetuate this, the boy charged his blades with darkness, striking more and more, faster and faster through the horde of dark balls. As his splatter combo had finished, slaying a few of the dark ball heartless along the way, he went to finish off his onslaught with an aerial finisher. Striking four times with his keyblade, his aura started to flare up as he stroke grew heavier and heavier, causing heartless to gravitate towards his position. Slamming down both of his keyblades onto the epicenter of his gravity force attack, the boy let loose a large burst of force, propelling himself well into the air and destroying a large collection of dark ball heartless in the process. As he reached the apex of the height that his combo finisher had granted him, the boy began to descend once again. Some of the dark balls that had remained from his onslaught were now floating towards him, ready to intercept him on his way down. Uttering out a simple, "red slash," the boy charged his keyblades with magical force once again. With one being charged with fire and the other with lightning, the wave of heartless that tried to stop him on his way down were cleaved away in a single cross slash of elemental power. Landing on his feet, the boy merely twirled his keyblades as the heartless he slew exploded back into dark smoke. Aeira, unsurprisingly, kept punching things. These things were heartless, of the neo shadow variety. These heartless tried their best to harm the girl, but she didn't seem to have any break in her stride as she continued to punch through the neo shadows. Total Words: 600 Exp: 60 Exp Total: 3660 Heartless Defeated: Stratos: 30 darkballs Aeira: 6 Neoshadows. Enemies Remaining: 528 Neoshadows 575 Darkballs
As the girl continued to fight against the heartless, another neoshadow had moved its way towards her, aiming to do what the other heartless could not. With one swipe at the girl, she merely raised her hand up to block the first of its attacks. Stepping back, ducking against the attack of the next claw. As she did, she went for a counter attack of her own, punching towards the neo shadow, who surprisingly managed to leap backwards against the attack. Rushing forward, the girl let loose another punch towards the creature, which it managed to avoid with surprising deftness. Trying to retaliate, it let loose another claw swipe at her, to which the girl merely stopped her advance and raised an arm up. Blocking against the attack, she more parried with her fist then anything else. As the creature was now off balance, the girl grabbed onto its arm, the one she had just parried, as the creature tried to move away from her. With a death grip on the creature, the girl pulled the heartless towards her as it was now unable to escape. Clenching her fist tight, she let loose a singular strong punch at the creature's head, destroying it in a single head, which caused the rest of the body to follow. As she managed to defeat it, its body dissolving back into black smoke, the girl looked over towards the boy she had asked the question of earlier, as he seemed to be responding. She had a look of disbelief on her face as he pointed towards the boy as he pointed towards his keyblade. She merely responded with a blunt, "I know what a keyblade is." Deciding to clarify a bit further she said, "I meant the glowing...ice thing you have. It's magic like, but it definitely isn't magic." As he then asked her name, she responded in a similar monotone fashion saying, "Aeira. And you?" Before she got her response, though, she was beset by yet another wave of heartless. With five more neoshadows making their way towards her, the girl didn't move from her spot, instead stomping on the ground. As she did, from seemingly nowhere, a collection of rocks started to orbit around her. With a simple punching motion, the rocks flew towards the neoshadows, each one finding a mark as they soared through the air. With each rock colliding with an enemy, that enemy was staggered and stopped what it was doing, its lunge being interrupted. While the rock seemed far less impressive than the power of her punches, it caused what Aeira was hoping to accomplish. With surprising swiftness, the girl moved towards the rest of the heartless, and without actually stopping her charged continued to let loose one punch after the other into the neoshadows. The creatures were destroyed as she hit them, their body dissolving back into black smoke. Stratos continued to fight against the neoshadows, the heartless continuing to exude an offensive pressure against the boy. Trying to stop them before they could get close enough, the boy merely stopped himself, and focused as he started to take a deep breath in. With the cherry blossoms beginning to scatter through the wind, the boy looked at each of the heartless, trying to size up where the perfect place to strike was. As he determined it, the boy vanished, appearing on the other side of the swarm of heartless in a single instance. While normally only one cut was let loose on each of the heartless, this time, there seemed to be a cross cut, that soon expanded and cleaved the heartless in twain. Words: 607 Exp: 60 Total Exp: 3600 Blessed Thief: 30 Total Munny: 1800 Heartless Defeated: Stratos: 18 Neoshadows Vallus: 6 Neoshadows Enemies Remaining: 550 Neoshadows 609 Darkballs
Moving forward, Stratos continued to fight against the neoshadows as best as he could. While he definitely felt stronger than he normally would, he had never actually fought using two keyblades before. To say the least, it was an awkward feeling as he normally wielded the one weapon in both of his hands. To feel the weight of both of them individually, in either hand at once, was a bit difficult to get his slashes where he wanted to go. All the same, he wasn't about stop here. Not yet. He had a feeling that if he could master the use of this job's power he would be able to deal with these swarms of heartless without that much issue. Charging head first into them, the boy started his fight against the neo shadows once more. The first five of them charged at the boy, readying their claws and swiping at him, trying to tear into his flesh as they were wont to do. While two attacked him at once, the boy merely slashed with both keyblades at once, intercepting both attacks and forcing the heartless back from him. As more came towards him, the boy merely spun his keyblades around, before aiming them at the heartless. Charging them up with magic, lightning beginning to form a sphere on the tip of either of the blades, he merely said, "thunderbell." Firing both spheres off at once, they exploded on contact, destroying the small collection of neo shadows at once. Looking towards the others, the boy charged his blades with magic again, this time the elements on them being different than before. As two neo shadows leaped at him, he slashed once with wind, striking the heartless dead on a releasing a large gust that bowled the one neo shadow into another. His other blade, charged with water, struck the other neo shadow dead on. Exploding into a torrent of water, the boy had destroyed the body of the neoshadow from the raw force of his attack in one fell strike. Spinning his keyblades around, he tossed one with a strike raid at another neoshadow, cleaving through it as he charged up his second one with fire magic. Looking at the one next to him, he merely called out, "firaga." The fire ball was let out, into one of the neoshadows, destroying it instantly. Summoning back his first keyblade, the boy then charged them with elemental magic once more, this time one light and the other dark. As neo shadows leaped at him, with a cross he brought the red slash against one of them, the two clashing elemental magics forcing their way through the heartless's body. Turning around to guard against the other, the boy slashed once into the heartless, knocking it into the air. Jumping up after it, he began to let loose an onslaught of slashes against the neoshadow, cleaving into its body. With one final stroke, his gravity aura flared momentarily as he let loose a large bubble of force against the heartless, destroying it instantly. Landing back on the ground, the boy looked surprised at what he did, merely saying, "well that was new." Spinning his keyblade around, the boy went to go back to attack once again. Meanwhile, Aeira's bizarre adventures continued as she did the unthinkable. She punched. Punched more heartless. One after the other, she continued to punch the neoshadows around her, wanting to destroy them as quickly as she could. Her fists seemed to move effortlessly through the bodies of the neo shadows as she punched them, as if there was no resistance to be had when doing so. With one final punch, the girl delivered a death blow to yet another heartless. Total Words: 621 EXP: 60 Total EXP: 3540 Stratos Heartless Defeated: 18 Neoshadows Aeira Heartless Defeated: 7 Neoshadows Enemies Remaining: 580 Neoshadows 642 Darkballs
As the boy had made his way over to Aislinn, the woman also seemed to be in the zone of killing a large swath of heartless all at once. Though the waves were getting more and more formidable, it was easy to see just by watching someone else that killing them was also becoming easier and easier. As he had finally closed the distance he called out to her, saying, "hey Aislinn. You seem to have things under control here but, need a hand anyway?" As he asked this, he saw Ananta come running up to the again. He hadn't actually seen the girl much, outside of the time she appeared just to heal him, but was glad to see that she was still up and raring to go. Gesturing with a, "yo," in response, Stratos couldn't follow it up with anything more as the girl managed to trip and fall flat on her face. Unsure of how to react, the boy just stood there, about to ask if she was alright when she had finally gotten back up herself. When she had asked how much longer things would last, Stratos said, "well, I can't say for certain, but I'm sure we're still far from over. Hughes doesn't seem to be acting desperate yet, which I imagine he would if we were nearing the end of his army. But you know, the more we kill the faster we get at killing them, so who knows how long really." As Ananta had offered up a cure spell, the boy felt some of his wound close up and his body become more invigorated, as if the spell had melted away the fatigue he was gaining. "Thanks for the assist Ananta, 'appreciate it." As the girl went on to describe what she had been up to, Stratos looked a bit dumb founded at first, looking over to where she was pointing. There was certainly a man and woman over where she was pointing to, but he didn't realize just who they were at first. The man, he had absolutely no recollection of, as the two more than likely had never met before. The woman, however, Stratos looked at for a bit, trying to piece together what Ananta had said with her appearance. "Wait. That's Karina?!" The boy's voice had genuine surprise in it as he said, "man, she looks completely different. And what is that weapon?" He looked to Beuce and Ananta as he asked, "did she always use fire so liberally?" While this new information was certainly confusing, there was still a large mass of heartless around, and stopping them was his first priority. "Well, guess I'll ask her myself later, for now," the boy readied his twin keyblades. Charging his blades with power again, this time one became far heavier, as it amplified by his Gravity Aura, while the other was frozen over with ice. With a quick few slashes from red slash, Stratos had managed to cut through a swath of Neoshadows. As Aeira continued to punch through heartless after heartless, she felt a sudden chill in the air. Readying herself to see if it belonged to a new foe, she instead saw that it belonged to the keyblade wielder she was near. The power was curious. Different then the other elemental powers that the rest of the team had. Not only in execution but also in nature. And whatever it was, it seemed to be effective at killing heartless, as the boy didn't seem to have any trouble killing more than twice the neoshadows she could in the same time frame. After punching through another set of them, an oddly competitive expression on her face, the girl looked over to him and with a blunt tone she said, "hey. What is that?" She pointed at him, but gave no further context as to what she meant. Total words: 647 EXP: 60 Exp Total: 3480 Heartless Defeated: Stratos: 18 neoshadows Aeira: 6 Neoshadows Heartless Injured: Darkball 8/9 Enemies Remaining: 739 Neoshadows 739 Darkballs
Stratos continued to maintain concentration on his blizzagolem for as long as he could, yet even that was proving to be quite difficult. The golem continued to fight for as long as it could, before it finally collapsed into snow and ice, and the power of the summon had ended. On the one hand, Stratos was sad to see his golem, Snowflake, go. Even more so he was unsure if the creature could actually think of feel, though tried to push those thoughts out of his mind as it would lead to some very deep yet very unproductive thinking. On the other hand, not needing to maintain constant concentration on a creature to keep it existing made it feel as though a giant weight was lifted from Stratos's shoulders. With a no longer constant tug on his mana supply, the boy felt like he was freed up to do other things, like try and summon more golems. Of course, that was probably not for the greatest at this moment, as he didn't want to keep being a burden on his other teammates, what with Beuce having to go out of his way to continually defend him from the oncoming neo shadows. So, he thought he was freed up to do something more productive. Like no longer being in this summoner job power. Focusing a bit, the boy was enveloped by the bright blue light that he had appeared when he first shifted, and was now back to his regular outfit. "Thanks Beuce," the boy called out to his friend. "But I think I can take care of myself now. Like this." He recalled something that Kaida had used at the start of this battle, something that allowed her to wield two keyblades at once. While he had seen this done before, what she was using was far different from that. And it was something he felt as though it was right within his grasp to use. Focusing a bit the boy was enveloped by a red and blue light, this time covering his body before dissipating. His jacket was now a purple color, a blue and red yin yang emblazoned across his back. In one hand, Stratos held his keyblade Synchronous Gale, though the usual green of the blade was replaced by a red color. In the other hand, a perfect mirror to the weapon, only with the red replaced by a blue. As he shifted into this form, he felt a surge of both physical and magical power surge through him, bleeding out to his compatriots around him. Looking at the heartless before him, the boy ran towards them, empowering his two keyblades with magical power. One keyblade ignited with fire while the other surged with lightning, Releasing the two slashes at once into a neo shadow, Stratos had managed to fell it with quite some ease. "See, I'm all good now. Now," looking over to Aislinn, who seemed to be felling quite a few invisibles, the boy said, "let's go help the others." With that the boy motioned for Beuce to follow, running to where Aislinn was and felling heartless all the way there. Seeming to get in a steady rhythm of fighting these things, Aeira consistently and persistently continued to let loose punch after punch into the heartless in front of her. The neo shadows that continued to move towards her found themselves facing the equivalent of a brick wall on wheels. Despite their attacks, she managed to continually dodge them effortlessly, block them effortlessly, and any attack that seemed to go through didn't seem to phase her at all. Add to this, that each and every one of her punches was a sure kill, and the heartless were all in all having a bad time against the girl. Total Words: 636 EXP: 60 Total EXP: 3420 Stratos Heartless Defeated: 19 Neoshadows Aeira Heartless Defeated: 7 Neoshadows Enemies Remaining: 849 Neoshadows 884 Darkballs
The blizzagolem continued to move around the battlefield, ice at the ready to tear through the ranks of the heartless. While the neo shadows had thinned around it, there were still more heartless that needed slaying. Specifically, the dark ball variant of heartless, which merely floated around in the air, coating the sky with their dark presence. The creatures looked towards the golem, who in turn was looking at them, and with mouth as a gape they began to make their way towards the golem. While the golem was beginning to decompose in form, its power was no less plentiful, and it wasn't about to give in at the sight of these dark ball heartless. Gathering more magical power into both of its hands, large chunks of ice began to form one after the other into its hands. Moving them towards each other, the ice began to combine into a much larger ball of snow and ice, the crystallization of the air becoming more and more apparent as it happened. As the two hands came together, the boreal sphere of magic began to let loose a miniature blizzard as the creature reeled back its hand, ready to attack once more. As the dark balls grew closer and closer, the creature thrust its hand forward, letting loose a storm of icicles into the swarm of dark balls. One after the, icicles shot out in a gatling gun-esque fashion into the swarm. Piercing through each of them, the dark balls were riddled with holes and were slowly frozen over as they let loose a screech of pain before their bodies were decomposed. Exploding into darkness, the creatures returned back to the dark smoke and was returned back to the realm from which they came. With that out of the way, the golem began to bend on one knee, it clearly reaching the limits of its power. As the snow and ice began to break apart, the magic that held it together clearly coming to an end. With that done, golem began merely mundane snow and ice that fell to the ground, littering it with its frozen remains. After saying hello the new person, Aeira didn't seem to give much in way of other pleasantries, her mind clearly focused on the battle at hand. With fists at the ready, the girl wasn't all that surprised as a neo shadow had jumped towards her, trying to rake into her with its claws. As it did, however, the girl merely raised her hand, unmoved by the attack as her gauntlet absorbed the blow entirely. Clenching her other fist, the girl let loose a single powerful punch in the face of the neo shadow, destroying it instantly. After having defeated one, there were still five others that came towards her, claws at the ready to tear into her flesh. The girl did not move from her spot, however, merely standing her ground as the five neo shadows charged at her. The first slashed its claw at her, to which she merely answered with a punch of her own, tearing into the creature's arm and going into its torso. As two others approached from the side, the girl brought back her fist, punching outward in an uppercut fashion against them, her fist going straight the shadowy beings chest. After that, there were only two more that tried to stop her, both sinking into the ground and charging at her from underneath. As the got close, though, and seemed primed to jump out of the ground, the girl merely stomped her foot against the ground, breaking it and causing the heartless to jump out at bizarre angles. With two swift punches to the off balance heartless, the girl had managed to finish them off just as she had all the others. Total Words: 633 Exp: 60 Exp Total: 3360 Heartless Defeated: Stratos: 30 dark balls Aeira: 6 Neoshadows heartless Injured: neoshadow 14/15 Enemies Remaining: 879 Neoshadows 890 Darkballs 9 Invisibles
Aeira stayed light on her feet, continuing to beat down through the swarm of heartless. There wasn't much to this repetitive process that she continued to repeat, continually just pummeling through wave after wave of heartless that came her way. The girl's fists were clenched tight, and gauntlets at the ready to both take and deal whatever damage would come her way. Raising her gauntlets up, the girl started to rush towards the neo shadows which in turn tried to match her. The first of the neo shadows slashed at her, to which she merely brought her gauntlet hand up to defend against the attack, the claw glancing off of her hand only for her to bring the other up for an upper cut. The fist slamming into the chin of the neo shadow launched the targeted heartless into the air, being destroyed as it soared upward. Looking at the next few neo shadows near her, the girl seemed to be challenging them with her glare, though none of them seemed to wish to get closer. Beginning to take the intiative, the girl started to step forward, only for the neo shadows to back up. However, this seemed to be a bait, as out from the ground more neo shadows burst ready to claw into her. The girl, however, didn't stop as her pace continued as normal even if her focus shifted to the ones round her. With fists at the ready, the girl barely slowed down as she brought her fists to the side, punching into the sternums of the two neoshadows, destroying them instantly. Contiuning to press forward, the girl managed to punch through the heartless she had intially looked towards, tearing into them with her fists and again breaking through their ranks with unfettered ease. As she had made her way through the swarms of neo shadows, though, she eventually ended up next to a teal haired boy wielding a keyblade who also seemed to be slaying some of the heartless. As she looked at the boy, she merely said, "hey there." The girl however, didn't seem too keen on conversing, as her attention was drawn towards the heartless around. Stratos was having a difficult time keeping the golem around, feeling it was starting to get to its limit. Summons in general were not the longest lasting of beings, and with the golem front lining and taking as much damage as it did, maintaining the creature was starting to become impossible for Stratos. The blizzagolem looked around, the neo shadows still trying to tear into the frigid golem that was breaking through their ranks without much issue. Charging up magic into its hand, the creature tossed the chunk of ice into the air. The small chunk of ice slowly started to expand, before breaking into a collection of shards that rained down on the heartless below. Each of the shards speared into the neo shadows surrounding it, causing them to be destroyed almost instantly from the attack. While it looked around, only around ten of the heartless had been felled by its icicle rain, and there was still more surrounding it. Though the sea of darkness was vast, the golem was making some kind of large break into it, and it would continued to do so as it reeled back its fist. The air around it started to crystallize as the magic gathered into its fist, and with a single punch, the creature let loose a a stream of ice magic in a line in front of it. The line of ice speared through a nine more neo shadows before it finally stopped, and broke apart. While the snow and ice of the golems form seemed to start breaking apart, the golem itself didn't seem any bit ready to call it quits. Total Words: 635 Exp: 60 Total Exp: 3300 Total Munny: 1650 Heartless Defeated: Aeira: 6 Neoshadows Stratos: 19 Neoshadows heartless Injured: neoshadow 6/15 Enemies Remaining: Defeat 893 Neoshadows Defeat 921 Darkballs Defeat 14 Invisibles
Stratos continued to sit back, well more stand back, as his ice golem continued to make its way through the swarm of heartless. He wasn't quit sure how to feel about the whole thing at the moment, between feeling very useful and very useless. On the one hand, the blizzagolem was definitely a powerful force in of itself, and could fight and destroy the heartless about as well as Stratos could. And it wasn't as though maintaining the summon itself was an effortless process, having to constantly maintain focus and a small supply of mana into the creature to both sustain its existence and keep it attacking. Yet all the same, he was just kind of standing around, unable to actually fight anything. He didn't have a weapon to use, he didn't have magic to cast and it wasn't like his body was able to unleash the power of skill commands like it would be able to during his time in the monk job power. As such, he was just kind of standing there, helpless to do anything about any of the heartless that had made their way towards them. Which speaking of such was only further punctuated by the sudden arrival of a group of neo shadows trying to get the pounce on him. Rolling out of the way, Stratos didn't quite know what to do about the creatures, as Snowflake was quite far away, but he didn't have to as the heartless were instantly slain by Beuce, appearing out of seemingly nowhere. As the man had mentioned being taught from Mizu about creating something to the affect of Sprinkles, Stratos merely looked in awe of the rampaging ice golem. "Well, I've been making leaps and bounds in terms of progress and even I think that's a bit out of my league. Though, curious to see what other tricks the mage of the order has up her sleeves." As Beuce remarked that he'd give him cover, Stratos nodded to the man, saying, "thanks for the assist." With that, he turned his attention back to the golem, which continued to rampage through the neo shadows. One after the other, the neo shadows tried to overpower the blizzagolem but they were met with little success. Crashing its hands together, it let loose a burst of frigid magic around it, destroying the heartless surrounding it. Charging its fist with magic, the golem punched into the crowd, letting loose a burst of ice magic that exploded, freezing and slaying even more neo shadows that were in the vicinity. Aeira was not deterred by the coming neo shadows. These creatures were fast and plentiful, but to the surprise of the heartless she was equally as fast and more than strong enough to deal with them. As one lunged at her, claw extended, the girl stepped forward and to the side. Dodging the attack, she then grabbed the arm of the neo shadow, beginning to swing the heartless around like she was winding up for something. As more heartless were approaching, she launched the creature at the others at high speeds, the neo shadows colliding with each other as they did, the one colliding and the ones being collided into bursting on impact. While some of them were surprised by this, the girl was unrelenting in her own pressure, actively running at the heartless. With fists clenched, she began punching one after the other, a calm and measured expression on her face, as each of her hits dealt a fatal blow to the heartless. After slaying yet another few neo shadows, Aeira looked at the horde and merely said, "hm. There's a lot of these." Words: 610 Exp: 60 Total Exp: 3240 Total Munny: 1620 Heartless Defeated Aeira defeated 7 Neoshadows Stratos defeated 20 Neoshadows Enemies Remaining: Defeat 939 Neoshadows Defeat 922 Darkballs Defeat 18 Invisibles
After the blizzagolem had helped kick start the fight against the new wave of heartless, Stratos said, "alright Snowflake, get going and deal with the lot of them." The golem merely nodded at the boy's command, getting ready for yet another leg of the fight. Charging forward, the creature seemed to want to fight the heartless head on. Stratos didn't exactly mean for that to happen, thinking it would be better off just continuing to lop the large ice chunk spells, yet he was fairly certain that it was fine as it was. The whole commanding a golem thing was a new experience for him, and he wasn't entirely sure how to make it follow his orders better. Yet all the same, he was fairly certain things were working out. This was only punctuated as the golem seemed to bend down, seeming to get ready to put force into his magical snow ice legs. Leaping upward into the air, the golem came down onto the ground with a mighty crash, unleashing a burst of frigid wind towards the surrounding heartless, blowing them back. "Yeah, it'll probably be fine." Stratos seemed to try and assure himself of this, as he was about to get ready to go and fight the heartless himself. Extending out his hand, though, he seemed to have trouble manifesting his keyblade. While that was odd, what he found even odder was as he extended his hand out, he attempted to cast a spell. As nothing happened, Stratos was starting to think that there was something restricting him from actually fighting, likely the power of the summoner he was using right now. "Oh, this is probably going to be a problem." As the boy came to this realization, he figured he would have to swap back out of this form soon. Though, if he did, would the golem go away? Not wanting to test theory out, the boy merely stood back, and watched as the golem went to do its work. With hands covered in ice crystals, the blizzagolem Snowflake began to punch towards the ground, aiming at a collection of neo shadows. While some of them sunk into the ground and others jumped away, some were not as lucky. With 3 of them being unable to evade the attack, the icy fist merely crushed the neo shadows turning them back into their natural black smoke, covered in frigid crystalline air. Being in the thick of things, though, made it quite a bit difficult for the blizzagolem to actually fight. The neo shadows that weren't being attacked began to charge at the golem, leaping off the ground and onto its back. As their claws suck into its body, however, the crystalline being merely flexed its back, releasing a frigid burst of magic from is back into those that had attacked from behind. Their bodies being instantly covered in ice, the offending neo shadows had dropped to the ground, and with a heavy thud shattered against the ground. Charging its hand with more frigid ice magic, the blizzagolem formed a claw of ice over its hand, sweeping downward at the creatures of darkness. Those that were unable to move out of the way in time were swept up by the claw, freezing from the frigid chill of the blizzagolem's ice. As their icy forms were torn into by the golem's claw, they two were rended and destroyed. With one last sweeping punch, the blizzagolem punched downward with its icy fist, crashing its appendage into the ground, releasing spikes of ice from the point of impact that fired off at the surrounding neo shadows. Aeira continued to move her way through the swarm of neo shadows. As one of the clawed creatures tried to leap at the girl, she merely clenched her fists and let loose a powerful uppercut into the head of the creature. As the fist connected, the heartless was instantly destroyed. With A few more coming towards her, the girl merely cracked her knuckles, taking in a deep breath as she took a readied stance at towards the heartless. All of them had charged in the same direction, all of which began to leap at her with their claws. One after the other, the girl managed to maneuver her body to dodge the attack, letting loose a single targeted punch into the head of the heartless. Each time, she managed to evade the attacks, felling the neo shadows in a single blow, returning them back to the darkness from whence they came. Words: 604 (Stratos part) Exp: 60 Total Exp: 3180 Blessed Thief: 30 Total Munny: 1590 Heartless Defeated: Stratos: 20 Neoshadows Aeira: 7 Neoshadows Heartless Injured: Darkball 1/9 Neoshadow 10/15 Heartless Remaining: Defeat 967 Neoshadows Defeat 966 Darkballs Defeat 27 Invisibles
As the group had managed to finally fell the last of the heartless, Stratos was starting to feel a bit of fatigue set in. While they had managed to slay a large collection of the heartless, it had seemed that Hughes had an almost never ending supply of them. This time, as he and the member of the order that he was battling were starting to get to a stand still, Hughes summoned yet another wave of heartless for them to all deal with. While the last one had definitely been difficult to deal with, this one was something on a completely different scale. A swarm of darkness as far as the eye could see, similar in mass to the one that they had just fought yet entirely different in composition. The boy couldn't see a single regular shadow in the entire swarm, instead seeing nothing but the elongated an gaunt bodies of neo shadows, a swarm of dark balls hovering above them as they began to come into view and of course, yet more large and imposing heartless. Those with the angelic features, wielding swords, and the others that towered above all else. With two more of the colossus heartless, the darksides that had proven quite difficult to deal with before, Stratos was starting to see why everybody else had been worried. Yet still, he couldn't and wouldn't lose heart in the face of these monsters. He, and everyone else, had worked so hard to rise up and become masters, return to the realm of light, and defeat No Heart. There was nothing that would stop Stratos now, and if he had to kill every single heartless in the realm of darkness to escape it, then so be it. As he was mentally readying himself to take on this wave, however, what appeared to be a miracle happened. Out of nowhere, someone that Stratos had not seen since the beginning of his journey but recognized all too well appeared. "Mizu?!" The boy called out, in great surprise. When last he saw her, she had been taken by Nequa and it was a pretty big toss up as to what her fate was. Yet, here the small girl was in the realm of darkness, raring to fight. Not only was she here, but a collection of other individuals that Stratos didn't recognize at a glance were there as well. He wasn't quite sure what was going on, who these people were, and why they and Mizu were all in the Realm of Darkness, ready to help out, but he was not about to look a gift horse in the mouth. Feeling reinvigorated, his spirits escalating as he saw the giant Ice Golem named Sprinkles grab at and destroy two of the large dark side heartless. Looking at the ice golem, Stratos remembered that the Blizzagolem that he first saw was created by Mizu, and while he could never hope to create something as large as Sprinkles currently was, he knew he had the basic theory down for it now. Recalling how the order member had summoned them and how Beuce in their most recent fight had, the boy started to focus inward, as his body became enveloped in a light blue light. When it had stopped glowing, the boy's jacket had become much longer and a light blue to match the light that was over him. It had an isignia of a flame, a lightning bolt and a snowflake all in a triangle, on the back of his long jacket. Curiously, though, he didn't seem to have a keyblade. "Well, if they can, no reason I can't." After assuring himself of this, the boy began to channel magic power through him, the air suddenly becoming much colder as the magic around him started to flow. A large spell circle formed, and as it did the flowing magic gathered into the boy's hand. Slamming it down onto the ground, the circle glowed much more intensely and as it did the chilled air started to flow much faster. All centering on a single point in front of him, Stratos shouted, "Blizzagolem!" With that, the cold air became crystals of ice and one after another continued to form what appeared to be a large bipedal ice sculpture. When all was said and done, a golem made of snow and ice held together by raw magical power was formed, towering over the boy. "Alright, who's ready for round 3 now?" After asking his comrades, the boy didn't really wait for an answer as he pointed at the wave of heartless. "Alright Snowflake. Go show 'em what for." The golem clapped its hands together, before charging into the wave of heartless. With the magic in its hands beginning to glow more intensely, the already frigid air crystallizing even further, the golem had formed a large chunk of ice in its hand. Shot-putting the sphere of magical ice, it tossed it with great force towards the wave. As it was airborne, the first thing it had managed to hit was the dark balls, beginning to tear through the never ending swarm. The ball didn't get that far, as the mass of dark balls had broken the sphere, yet the damage was very clearly done as the attack had finished. Whistling, Stratos merely said, "that's a nice trick you got there." Aeira watched as the ice golems started to populate the battlefield, flatly saying, "well, that's a neat trick." Punching her fists together, the girl summoned her gauntlets onto her hand, and looked towards the wave. While she wanted to go punch Uniform very badly, she didn't want to have to deal with an army of heartless at the same time. Besides, she was more than likely to just get in the way of it all anyway. Looking to everyone else, Aeira merely said, "I'm going now," and without a word of confirmation or acknowledgement, she rushed off into the fight fists tearing into some nearby neo shadows. Total Words: 1000 Exp: 60 Total Exp: 3120 Blessed Thief: 30 Total Munny: 1560 Heartless Defeated: Stratos: 30 Darkballs Aeira: 6 Neoshadows Heartless Injured: Neoshadow 2/15 Darkball 1/9 Neoshadow 5/15 Heartless Remaining: Defeat 993 Neoshadows Defeat 970 Darkballs Defeat 33 Invisibles
Following Kar-Kiara to the hideout, the girl looked with a slightly annoyed expression on her face as she saw what appeared to be a broken keyblade on the ground of the floor and nothing else. Something had happened, something that was definitely to their detriment. Aeira knew next to nothing about Luther and Mellus, less so than probably everyone else in their group, yet she knew two things about them. The first, and most important thing was that they had elected to stay behind, so only something big could've forced them out. Then there was Lea, whose broken keyblade signified that something had bested him. All the same, there appeared to be no bodies, or signs of anyone else having been felled here, which meant they probably met a different fate then death. All the same, this might've been an issue, but it wasn't really the most pressing one, what with likely the army of heartless that was currently fighting other keyblade wielders. Looking at Kar-Kiara the girl merely said the second thing she knew about the missing duo. "Trap or not, no one in this group is weak." After stating that more in a matter of fact tone then anything else, Aeira followed up with saying, "and don't worry about leading yet. We only have to fight now." With that, she also had waited for Oswald to take the lead as to where to go.
As Aeria watched the whole scene unfold before her, while she found the whole thing to be mildly amusing and humorous, her expression didn't change from its neutral wresting position. She did, however, briefly looking more warily at the rabbit as it drew its keyblade, as the group had had quite polarizing run ins with keyblade wielders thus far. Eventually, though, it was determined that their was an army of heartless fighting a collection of keyblade wielders that Kar-Kiara knew and that if they were to help them they needed to get going. While Aeira had already come to her own decision, she awaited what their temporary leader had to say. As she made her piece about wanting to go help, Aeira merely shrugged saying, "if that's what you think, I'm ready to punch some heartless." Aeira had a simple task. Fight her enemies. And it was clear where those were, so she had been planning on going anyway. All the same, the girl cracked her knuckles as she said, "so are we going now?"
Stratos listened as Aislinn told him why she was in the realm of darkness and why she was now in the realm of darkness and what lead her to seeking out the power of a master. She told him about her homeworld and how there wasn't much of knowledge as to what a keyblade or keyblade master was for her to figure out, and she also seemed to learn more in actual fighting then she did through any kind of practice. Though, thinking on it, Stratos had barely ever practiced using his keyblade when he had first gotten it as well. In fact, he didn't even have anyone who knew what it was, bar the one man, and had to figure out pretty much all of it on his own. The woman also told him of the state of her homeworld, telling a story that also sounded somewhat similar to his. Though, while his had heartless that threatened their very existence as well, they were more just wild animals that wandered the world and attacked anything nearby. This sound more like a concerted effort by the darkness itself, actively trying to devour everything in that world. While things might not have been good there, it seemed that everything had ended up working out for Aislinn to reach where she wanted to. It was then that Ignis stepped in as well, talking about how her world had constantly been at war as well, though from the sound of things it wasn't exactly heartless that were at fault for it. Looking at the both of them, Stratos couldn't help but smile as he jokingly said, "well, it sounds like none of our home situations were all that great. But, we all faced them before," he looked between the two, saying, "well, Ignis and I did at least, and since we're I'm sure we've conquered them once. So now that we're stronger than when we were in that illusion, there's no reason we can't do it again." Looking over to Ignis he said, "meanwhile, I'll probably keep on holding on to this weapon after we're done. I didn't really use a sword before I got this weapon, and really I don't think I've even been using this properly until just now. But, you seem skilled enough with a blade, Ignis, and we've only got up to go from here." Twirling his keyblade around, he said, "well, we at least got another realm to go to first though, and these guys over here," he pointed towards all of the heartless still swarming around, "don't seem too keen on letting us go and do that." As if on cue, a few neo shadows began to rise from the ground, heads twitching about as they readied their claws to charge at the group. Waving to the two ladies he said, "if you'll excuse me for a second." Sliding across the ground, dashing all the way, the boy slashed out with his keyblade, striking through one such neo shadow. With his blade piercing the heartless, it was struck down instantly, only for the boy to then slam the ground with his blade, saying, "seeker mine." As he did, magic was channeled into the ground creating four small discs of magic. The discs then moved out, seeking the heartless around him and exploding all at once, destroying each and every one of the neo shadows. With the resulting smoke from the explosions and the dark smoke from the bodies of the heartless, it was clear that they were felled by this powerful magic, leaving Stratos to then focus on more oncoming heartless. Total Words: 604 EXP: 60 Total EXP: 3060 Heartless Defeated: 11 Neoshadows 5 Shadows Heartless Injured: Invisible (Scarmiglione): 25/50 Invisible (Cagnazzo): 25/50 Invisible (Barbariccia): 25/50 Enemies Remaining: 445 Shadows 283 Darkballs 155 Neoshadows (1 Reserved) 4 Invisibles (4 Reserved)
After slashing through the shadow, he had forced it down to the ground, causing the dark creature to writhe on the ground for a bit, however, it soon managed to pick itself back up as Stratos had landed back on the ground. The large neo shadow didn't seem to be any bit fit for fighting, a hand of it missing and a large amount of wounds riddling the creature's body. Slashes across its entire body, bleeding some manner of darkness out of it, as the heartless's head continued to twitch around, this time its eyes wildly looking all over the place without any sort of semblance of who was actually before it. Though it was injured, the creature wanted to continue fighting, and with a surprising amount of vigor, the creature began sprint towards Stratos. With a claw raised, large and ready to slash at Stratos, the boy merely brought up his keyblade to guard against the attack. With gravity magic imbuing the boy, his aura flaring up as a result, he managed to stop the attack dead in its tracks, the force behind it being far less than before. Pushing the hand back, the boy spun his keyblade in his hand, thrusting forward with it as it stabbed into the chest of the neo shadow. With that done, the creature stopped moving, its wounds starting to flare up more as the darkness began bleeding more and more until it finally exploded into a mist of dark smoke. With that done, Stratos merely swung his keyblade around in a flourish, denoting his victory against the creature. As he was beginning to get back into the fray, he heard Aislinn call out to him, asking him about himself. Her questions had been geared towards why he had joined the SOS group to begin with, and why he had ever wanted to become a master. As he was about to answer, Stratos had realized that he never actually thought about the answer to this question, or at least not in quite some time. He realized that he probably hadn't been apart of the SOS group for more than a year, and yet he felt like there was no time in his life where he wasn't with them, jumping around worlds and fighting heartless just because it was what his life was. Outside of that, he had never actually thought about what it meant now that he was a master, also just thinking of it as a mere means to an end just so that they could leave the realm of darkness. Though, he knew the answer was greater than just that. "Well, to be honest," he started, "I only joined this group because it was the only place I feel like would have me. I don't want to get too far into it, but things weren't great back in my homeworld, and I needed to run away from it. I just happened to get a letter from this group around the time to join them, so, that's just what I did." He shrugged. "As for becoming a master, well, yeah. I suppose it's a matter of circumstance more than anything else. I didn't train to become a keyblade wielder, so I didn't even really know they existed until I was taking an exam for them. And we only took the exam in the first place because it was our ticket out of the realm of darkness. I guess also getting these new powers was a bit of a cherry on top." Looking to the woman he said, "how about you? People don't just randomly walk through the realm of darkness and you seemed pretty skilled with a keyblade when we first met. So did you have some apsiration to become a master?" Total Words: 630 EXP: 60 Total EXP: 3000 Blessed Thief: 1500 Heartless Defeated: 12 Neoshadows 3 Shadows Heartless Injured: Invisible (Scarmiglione): 25/50 Invisible (Cagnazzo): 25/50 Invisible (Barbariccia): 25/50 Enemies Remaining: 501 Shadows 287 Darkballs 177 Neoshadows (1 Reserved) 4 Invisibles (4 Reserved)
Wtih only one of the heartless that Stratos was facing left, the boy looked towards the heartless and looked down in a showdown against it. The neoshadow was barely still standing up, it's body looking like it was mostly broken down. From the gravity imbued slash that Stratos had given it, it looked as though it were also missing an arm, the boy presuming that he must have severed it while he was going on his flurry of slashes. Imbuing his blade with a dark power, poison seemed to flow into his keyblade, slashing at the creature. Normally, the attack wouldn't do much in ways of damage, and he wasn't even sure if the heartless would be afflicted with the poisonous effect from the poison edge attack. However, the heartless barely had any life left to give, and any resistance it might have had towards the boy's attack was basically made null and void. Slashing forward, his slash went into its chest, cleaving through the dark body that made it up. The shadowy creature broke apart, being felled in that final stroke, and exploded into a smoke of darkness, returning to the void of the realm of darkness. With that out of the way, the boy looked towards the next set of heartless, wondering how many more he needed to go and slay. While he saw that Aislinn was being involved in her own swarm of heartless, the boy began to walk forward towards the swarm, only for him to almost immediately find a new fight to be apart of. A neoshadow leaped out of the ground, trying to uppercut him with his claw, the boy just barely managed to dodge out of the way of the attack. As the creature then brought its claw back again, it slashed forward trying to rake into the boy's torso, though he had managed to bring up his keyblade to defend against the attack. However, the force behind this neo shadow's claw was far greater than any normal one. Even the one that he had fought earlier wasn't quite as strong as this one, as he was pushed back, his feet skidding across the ground as parried the attack. The, now looking at it more closely, larger than normal neo shadow began to dive towards the boy, spinning at him like a wheel as he brought up his keyblade to guard against it again. The heartless grinded against his keyblade, the boy having to put a large amount of gravity magic into his legs to keep standing his ground. Imbuing his keyblade with a large amount of gravity magic as well, aura empowering his magical force, the boy managed to force the large neo shadow up. With a pulse of magic, and shoving his keyblade upward, he caused the creature to begin floating upward into the air. As the heartless was now harmlessly floating in the air, the boy pointed his keyblade at it, shouting "fox taser." With lightning beginning to charge up at the tip of his keyblade, a small dart fired at the creature. However, while it was floating, it managed to stop the dart with its hand, the resulting eruption of lightning being localized entirely to that area. As it did, the hand was blown clean off, the handless arm smoking with a black and purple smoke where the hand used to be. The creature eventually fell from the air, freeing itself from the gravity magic, but as it did the boy leaped into the air after it. Imbuing his keyblade with ice, with two frost slashes he then attacked with one final attack, forcing the shadow onto the ground and damaging it heavily. total Words: 616 Exp: 60 Exp Total: 2940 Blessed Thief: 1470 Heartless Defeated: 12 Neoshadows 1 shadow Heartless Injured: Neoshadow 4/15 Invisible (Scarmiglione): 25/50 Invisible (Cagnazzo): 25/50 Invisible (Barbariccia): 25/50 Enemies Remaining: 509 Shadows 288 Darkballs 211 Neoshadows (1 Reserved) 4 Invisibles (4 Reserved)
As Stratos had made his way to where Aislinn was, he watched as Aislinn decided to try and show off her own skills as well. Creating what appeared to be a small ball of flame, Stratos looked on the girl let loose the orb. At first, he wasn't quite sure what it was she was doing, thinking it to only be a fire ball from a regular fire spell at first, the boy soon realized that the more he looked at the more it was much more than just that. As the orb exploded, causing a large shock wave of force and vaporizing everything that was in its area. The explosion was much larger and far more impactful than just a regular fire spell, and noting the colors of the attack, they seemed to be a brilliant mess of yellow, orange and fire. Whilsting as she finished the attack, he said, "might not be a flashy but it's just as reliable. Probably more." After denoting how well her attack went, Stratos was about to follow up Aislinn on fighting, as the woman went to go into combat with more heartless. Seeing an array of sword wielding heartless go at her, Stratos was about to go in for an assist, but was stopped by something else. Looking to the side, the boy was just barely able to pick up his keyblade and guard against one of the attacks, parrying the claw away with her keyblade and twirling it around. Tossing his keyblade as the thing was recoiling from the attack, with a spinning strike raid, he managed to slice through the arm of the heartless, summoning it back before igniting his keyblade. Cutting across the torso with his fire strike, the neoshadow was destroying in an instant, evaporating back into darkness. Before Stratos was able to take a breather, his attention was still focused on a swarm of neo shadows trying to pile onto him. One after the other, the moved forward with their claws bared and swinging at him. And so Stratos was given no choice but to parry them one after the other, guarding and reducing the bulk of the damage he would have received from most of the neoshadows. Of course, his guard was not infallible, and instead he was taken aback as one of the neoshadows managed to snake past it, claws slashing into his torso. Wincing in pain, the boy then went to attack, pointing his keyblade at the heartless that just hit him, firing of a ball of flame into it as he said, "firaga." After the explosion managed to fell one of the heartless, he looked back to the others that he had managed to parry. Pointing his keyblade at them, water started to form at the tip of his keyblade as he said, "Aqua Splash." Four orbs or water formed at the tip of his keyblade, launching towards four of the neo shadows, each orb exploding with an aqueous force as it hit. Dashing forward, the boy slashed into one of the other neoshadows, and began to start letting loose a flurry of slashes into all of them. By charging his blade with his gravity aura, one after the other he managed to continually slash into them with heavier than normal slashes, the impact behind them being far greater than normal. And as he managed to finish his attacks up, he had felled close to twelve neo shadows, with only one of them managing to live through the attack, still barely holding on. Stratos pointed his keyblade at the barely standing heartless, ready to keep on fighting against this creature. Word Count: 606 EXP Earned: 60 EXP Total: 2880 Heartless Defeated: 11 Neoshadows 1 Shadow Heartless Injured: Neoshadow 3/15 Invisible (Scarmiglione): 25/50 Invisible (Cagnazzo): 25/50 Invisible (Barbariccia): 25/50 Enemies Remaining: 514 Shadows 289 Darkballs 245 Neoshadows (1 Reserved) 4 Invisibles (4 Reserved)
As his graviga had managed to cause most of the heartless to fall, crushing each other under their own weight, the boy was able to see just how much stronger he was now that there was no dark side taking most of his attention. Whatever it was that the member of the order did - or at least he presumed that was who gave them the silver light - it was certainly a great improvement. Feeling invigorated, the boy looked towards the neo shadow that had managed to survive the power of the gravity spell, getting back up on its hind legs and standing upright. Getting ready to strike at the boy, he merely held up his keyblade, ready to intercept it on its course. However, the shadow was injured, its form barely held together by the strands of darkness that made it up, as it slowly began to hobble towards the boy. Weakly raising its arm at him, with a small sigh, Stratos lifted up his keyblade in response. With a slash from the weapon far faster than the claw, Stratos managed to cleave into the torso of the creature causing it to explode into darkness. With that out of the way, the boy looked on to see where else needed his attention. As he looked around, he noticed that the battlefield suddenly felt much less...crowded. With the defeat of the two enormous heartless, the dark sides, there was a much needed weight that felt like it was lifted from the field of combat. Added onto that, there was also just signifiicantly less heartless. While the dark balls and Neoshadows that were moving around were definitely still plentiful in amount, he could feel like there was an end to them, and that this fight would be over a lot faster than he had initially thought. Then, there was also the shadows. What was once an endless sea of those small little heartless definitely seemed to approaching an end. While there was still an enormous amount of them, one that Stratos knew was far too large for him to count, he could tell the size of the swarm had been reduced by an incredibly significant degree. As he had been doing not much but fighting the dark side and the neo shadows, he hadn't noticed it until quite now. Looking out into the sea, he knew that Kaida had been located in it for most of her time in this fight, yet he saw two others now being swarmed to no end by both neo shadows and shadows. Recognizing them both to be Aislinn and Ignis, the boy decided he'd lend a helping hand out to both of them. Though the distance between them was great, there was no distance that his strongest attack couldn't cover. And when it did cover it, it left a wake of destruction in its path, something the two looked like they could use right about now. With a calm breath, the boy focused on the heartless in the distance, closing his eyes as he got a clear visualization of the place he wished to go. As cherry blossoms began to fall from the sky, time began to come to a stand still. All the heartless had stopped moving, all the keyblade masters had stopped fighting. In that single instant everything stood still. And then, he was gone, appearing far across from where intitially. With a rush of force, the boy cleaved through a large wave of heartless approaching both Aislinn and Ignis, looking towards both of them. Directing more towards Aislinn he said, "this time I thought I'd lend you the hand." Word Count: 606 EXP Earned: 60 EXP Total: 2820 Heartless Defeated: 4 shadows 11 Neoshadows Enemies Remaining: 626 Shadows 296 Darkballs 279 Neoshadows (1 Reserved) 12 Invisibles (4 Reserved)
As Stratos had managed to cleave off the arm of the dark side he watched as it fell to the ground slowly but surely. As it did, he watched as the slammed against the ground and start smoking with darkness, slowly but surely deteriorating and returning to the void from which it came from. Before the could fully be destroyed, however, Aislinn had moved up to do her piece. After managing to cleave off the other arm of the heartless, Stratos watched as the girl slashed into the heartless's body and tore a long gash across its body, before removing the blade from the creature and jumping off of it. As she did, the second arm crashed into the ground, beginning to go up in dark smoke as well. Soon enough, both the arms began to lose their form before finally exploding into the darkness that made them up, returning back to the realm from whence they came. The body of the dark side, now bleeding darkness from both of its arms began to fall down on both of its knees, before finally falling forward onto the ground. With a resounding thud, the creature seemed to be defeated, its body soon breaking apart and turning into naught but mere black smoke. As the body vanished, there was nothing left to denote that it was ever even there in the first place, and instead the two keyblade masters stood triumphant over its lack of remains. After having defeated the heartless, Aislinn began to talk about her new clothes and how they were now torn up. Looking at his own clothing, he noted that it was also looking a bit worse for wear as well. As the girl kept speaking about it, also talking about her own family, Stratos merely said, "yeah, I was really liking this jacket I got. Gives me some nice freedom with my arms and I think I wear the black pretty well." After stating that, he shrugged, "well, I'm sure these things will just fix themselves anyway. If you don't pay attention to it, these things tend to work themselves out." As the girl then moved back into the hordes of heartless, the boy nodded and watched as she went about her business. Getting ready to dive into the tide of shadows as well, he was stopped as a collection of neo shadows jumped out of the ground and began moving in to attack him. With claws at the ready, they began their charge towards the boy, rushing at him one after the other. The first three he managed roll backwards against, evading them entirely. The next two he dodged to the side to evade their attacks. With that out of the way, there were still seven more on him and he wasn't exactly nimble enough to avoid all of them. Waving his keyblade into the air, the boy managed to cast a spell of gravity causing five of the remaining ones to hover into the air. Guarding against the next, parrying it away, the boy then ignited his keyblade and cleaved through the final one, destroying it in a single stroke. As he finished that one off, the others that he had evaded earlier continued to move towards him, swinging his keyblade at the air in their direction. The heartless that were rushing him suddenly found it far harder to move, being put under an intense gravitational field, as the ones he had sent skyward before came crashing down onto the ones below. With that maneuver, he had managed to destroy most of the ones charging at him, leaving only one left, being heavily injured. Total Words: 609 EXP: 60 Total EXP: 2760 Heartless Defeated: 11 Neoshadows Heartless Injured: Neoshadow 1/15 Enemies Remaining: 694 Shadows 296 Darkballs 301 Neoshadows (1 Reserved) 12 Invisibles (4 Reserved)
As he was about to begin fighting the large collection of heartless, his attention was turned towards the dark side once again, as it had been for so many times before. As he needed to focus on the big opponent and see if it was going to do anything while focusing on the littler ones as well. Looking over, he had seen a small glowing figure darting its was towards the darkside. As it did, the dark side let loose are barrage of dark spherical projectiles, which the person seemed to dodge past and deflect only to then get onto its already wounded arms. Stratos looked in awe, as the person had managed to cleave into the already wounded arm and left a large gash, darkness smoking off of it as it reeled back in pain. As the creature now seemed to be bleeding darkness from every which way it was only a matter of time before it ended up being felled. Looking at the figure who had come to aid him, Stratos realized that it was his partner from La Cites de Cloches, Aislinn who was using her own aura at the moment to help fight against the creature. As she seemed to be safe now, having avoided the heartless's last attack, the boy gave a wave to her. "Hey Aislinn, thanks for coming over, "he called out. "How have you been so f-" it was then that Stratos cut himself off, seemingly recalling something. It was at that moment that he played back all of the memories in the most recent encounters that he had, thinking back to all of his different heartless fights, playing it in reverse. It wasn't until he got to a few neo shadow fights that he remembered the girl calling out to him, saying that she was here to help him against this foe, saying to try and make it quick against it. Holding up his hand, he said, "oh you've been here for awhile haven't you. Oh, this is awkward. But uh," quickly recovering from his awkward discovery the boy said, "yeah, partner, let's make this quick. With that number you did on its arm over there," the boy pointed to the still smoking gash he continued, "I think we're just about ready to finish it off. So how's about it," he held his fist up towards the woman, going for an air fist bump to her given the distance, "one last powerful strike from each of us ought to do it." Putting his hand on his blade, the boy started to focus inward, and reaching out to a power he hadn't used in quite some time. While it was clear that Stratos was using a limit, do the lightning crackling from his chest and covering his body as his heart glowed, it wasn't clear exactly what he was doing. After all, when he had used his Hunter Limit, the lightning was a yellow color. However here, the lightning did not have one color, instead shifting between each and everyone one of them forming a rainbow effect around his body that soon localized itself onto his blade. As he did this, petals began to scatter around his, though instead of the usual pink cherry color they had, they were more a blue and white coloration. As his blade charged up with light, becoming an intense sword made of raw light energy the boy looked at his target. Getting into a stance as though he were ready to draw his blade he merely said, "Link Synchro: Tenken." With that, the boy vanished from sight, appearing on the other side of the dark side in a single instant. The dark side didn't seem to notice anything at first, however, soon a white slash mark appeared across its arm. Looking at it, the white soon expanded until it became a violent explosion of light, severing the dark side's arm entirely. Looking to Aislinn he said, "it's all yours." Word Count: 663 EXP Earned: 60 EXP Total: 2700 Heartless Defeated: Heartless Injured: Darkside 2: 119/1500 Enemies Remaining: 1146 Shadows 300 Darkballs 325 Neoshadows (1 Reserved) 13 Invisibles (4 Reserved) 1 Darkside
As the lightning golem's fist connected with the dark side's face, Stratos's attention was turned over towards the fight between the large creatures. He winced a bit reflexively, seeing the explosion of lightning across the dark sides' face which forced the opposing creature back. Looking at the dark side, it was looking much worse for wear then it originally had. While its body was already showing lasting signs of damage, wounds all over its body bleeding out dark smoke. More recently, however, its face looked worse for wear as well, the mess of tendrils that had been across it not being nearly as large as it had been before. Parts of it were missing, while others just seemed burned off or melded into the rest of creature's face; a clear scorch mark indicating this as smoke of darkness indicating the wound and being caused from the heat of lightning showcasing itself. The fight against the titanic creature seemed to be nearing its end, and thus, Stratos had figured he would go back to his job of slaying neo shadows. Now, while it wasn't guaranteed that he would be fighting against, given the current trend he had been seeing here, it was almost a definite conclusion to reach. As if the universe were trying to prove him right, as he looked on to see what heartless were being attracted towards him, it was yet again five neo shadows. The group of shadows began to walk towards him, noticing the boy's keyblade and taking far more of their focus onto it then they put on the lightning golem behind him. Twirling his keyblade around, Stratos gestured towards the keyblade, provoking the heartless towards him with a smile on his face. The heartless, clearly being goaded by this, started to bare their claws and rush towards the boy. The boy began running to meet the heartless midway through the their dash, and with a burst of speed slid across the ground with a dash and cleaved through one of the neoshadows. Breaking himself against the ground, skidding on his feet, he moved past the other four heartless, with the neo shadows being shocked by a tactic that Stratos had used numerous times by now anyway. Igniting his keyblade, the boy ran towards one of them, with one of the neo shadows ran towards him slashing at him with a claw. As the two weapons collided, Stratos won out on the power clash, destroying the heartless with his fire strike, only to point his keyblade at another one firing off a blast of fire into another, killing it in a single explosion. Of course going on the offensive left him open, and so he was cut by two seperate claws moving through him, wincing in pain as it happened. Tossing his keyblade into the air, the neoshadows seemed confused only for the boy to clap his hands together. A rush of gravity pushed down on the heartless, crushing them against a large amount of pressure on them. After the lightning punch had connected with its opponents face, the golem's other hand finally restored itself. Instantly going to use it, the creature went to punch the darkside, only for it to raise up an arm and blocked the fist with said arm. While the lightning golem's fist was able to force its way through the arm, bringing up its other arm and going into a punch. Landing its lightning charged fist into the side of the darkside, the creature buckled under the pressure of the hit, though was still managing to stand tall and hold its ground. Total Words: 601 EXP: 60 Total EXP: 2640 Blessed Thief: 1320 Munny Heartless Defeated: 5 Neoshadows Heartless Remaining: 1146 Shadows 300 Darkballs 325 Neoshadows (1 Reserved) 13 Invisibles (4 Reserved) 1 Darkside Heartless Injured: Darkside 2: 475/1500
