As Kaida explained to Stratos that the aura she picked was time, the boy chuckled a bit at the fact that the one he was currently using was its exact opposite. He was also slightly jealous that of the after image effects provided by the time aura, with instead his own aura being not much in way of visual flair. Though, both of the ones he had used so far certainly gave him a different than normal feeling. The darkness one was unsettling, to say the least, making him feel like there was something constantly clawing at him from within, trying to link to the world around him and absorb it. While Stratos himself wasn't exactly fond of this sensation, based on the power he had used against the invisible heartless earlier, he could see where people might easily start walking down the wrong path and be consumed by it. This very thought filled the boy with a resolution to keep himself under careful watch, albeit by himself, whenever he had decided to use its power. His other aura, however, made him feel odd for an entirely different reason. Though the space aura had made the air, and likely gravity, around him heavier, he himself didn't feel all that affected it. It was an odd feeling to know that something was heavier, but not feel that it was. All the same, it seemed to be quite useful for the purpose of dealing with these heartless and he wasn't complaining at all about it right now. As Kaida gave him a salute, telling the boy she was going back to dealing the supermassive wave of shadows, the boy gave her a salute in kind. "While you're doing that, I'll be busy dealing with their bigger counterparts. Can't leave any one of these heartless unchecked after all, and I'm sure us dealing with these swarms is helpful enough for those two over there," he pointed to Aux and Aislinn, "to finish up their job." As the girl ran off he said, "keep up the good work yourself." With that done, the boy turned to see what was next on the hit list of heartless. Cracking his knuckles, he looked around to see a few neo shadows starting to gather up, and figured they'd be a good test drive to see just how his new aura functioned in full. After all, he never considered Ignis a full on mage, and neither did she towards herself for that matter, yet when she was enveloped in the thunder aura that seemed to stop being the case. As Stratos wasn't all too familiar with the power of the space element, he figured the heartless before him would be a good way to start to learn. As the first Neo shadow leaped at him, reached out his hand to parry. As the claw was slapped away by the boy's hand, he channeled the power of his space magic into it, causing the creature to become lighter and float into the air. With another coming at him, he proceeded to do the same thing as before, only this time increase the gravity. The claw of the Neo Shadow fell towards the ground, and the second heartless was now stuck in position, trying to lift its own claw up. As the other three came at him, he merely said, "graviga," and stopped on the ground, a wave a of magic rippling out from him. The Neo Shadows were lifted into the air as the magic passed through them, floating harmlessly around. Concentrating on the spell that was on them, he managed to focus the gravity on them even harder, forcing the neo shadows into one large mass of darkness. As they all seemed now bound together by the magical force, the boy lifted up his hand, generating lightning from it. "Thunder bell!" With a large orb of lightning being fired from his hand, it struck the clump of neoshadows, destroying them all instantly. Word Count: 664 EXP Earned: 60 EXP Total: 1380 EXP Blessed Thief: 690 Munny Heartless Defeated: 5 Neo Shadows 1 Shadow Heartless Injured: Darkside 1,197/1,500 Heartless Remaining: Defeat 1902 Shadows Defeat 436 Neoshadows Defeat 432 Darkballs Defeat 25 Invisibles Defeat 2 Darksides
Stratos chuckled a bit as the girl mentioned her lack of surprise about the dark angelic heartless. As she asked if they could use keyblades, the boy was about to say something, but the two of them were interrupted by a pair of the very same heartless they were talking about. Both of them seeing the attacks coming, just as Kaida had, Stratos held up his arms to guard against the attack, being forced away by overall strength the heartless had in its blade. Wincing in pain, as he skid across the ground from the attack, he looked back towards the dark angel heartless, it looking back to him. Raising up its sword, it then pointed it towards Stratos, as if challenging him before twirling the blade in its hand and gripping the sword with both of its hands. Spreading both of its wings out, the creature dove at Stratos, poised to strike him down. As it approached Stratos, the boy ducked under the horizontal swing of the heartless, springing back up to uppercut it. While his attack was successful, the creature's head lurching up, it's knee was now close to Stratos's gut and decided to make him very aware of that. As the knee struck into him, Stratos had the wind knocked out of him again, being forced back away from the invisible. Stumbling back, recovering from the attack, the boy held up his arms again in a guard against the creature. As the invisible charged its blade with black flame, the magic exploded against Stratos's guard causing him to grimace in pain once again. However, as he was not pushed back, he was now in optimal striking range against the heartless. With his dark aura flaring up, the boy focused on his next attacks, letting loose a flurry of attacks, repeatedly punching one after the other against the creature. With his powered up Splattercombo, he managed to knock the invisible backward, and open for a counter attack. Unleashing the power of the Four Seasons against the creature, Stratos first let loose a palm thrust against it of flame, followed by a punch imbued with earth. His arms being imbued with water and wind respectively, the boy then punched with both hands at once into the heartless's gut, destroying it as the attack finished. As he did, a stray shadow jumped at him, trying to stop him only for the boy to let loose a round house kick towards it, instantly killing the heartless. With that done, the boy looked over to see Kaida continuing her fight against the invisible that had initially attacked her. While it seemed that the fight had escalated, now a few more strong looking heartless entering the fray, the boy felt the need to step in and help her, but that was quickly ended as she seemed to have things under control. Watching as time seemed to stop around her, an aura enveloped her as well, causing whatever effect her stopga seemed to have be even greater than normal. As she finished off the heartless, Stratos let out an impressed whistle, saying, "nice moves you got there Kaida." As he said this, three more dark balls seemed to teleport next to him, ready to bite down on him. Dodge rolling underneath them, they only ended up chomping at air. Looking at the three, a thought crossed his mind as the dark aura around him dissipated. Suddenly it was replaced by a different purple aura, one that seemed to cause the air around him to grow heavier just by existing. Clapping hands together he shouted, "graviga!" causing the dark balls to be pulled in and smash together, destroyed under the intense gravitational force. With that done, he looked back to Kaida, smile on his face saying, "so I take it that's one of the auras you got?" Word Count: 642 EXP Earned: 60 EXP Total: 1320 Blessed Thief: 660 Munny Heartless Defeated: 1 Invisible 3 Darkballs 1 Shadow Heartless Injured: Darkside 1,197/1,500 Heartless Remaining: Defeat 1928 Shadows Defeat 441 Neoshadows Defeat 432 Darkballs Defeat 25 Invisibles Defeat 2 Darksides
With the last of the Nequa bots defeated, Aeira looked on as Kar-kiara began to make her way into the building. As the brawler followed after her, Aeira's eyes widened as a large explosion took place, engulfing the building and those around it. Bringing up her arms and trying to use her gauntlets to help defend against the attack, the girl was still forced away by the sheer power of the explosion. As the explosion ended, Aeira still stood upright, her feet firmly planted on the ground. However, her expression was one that conferred a clear sense of pain from the attack, for as resistant to damage as she were even that was powerful to her. Still, with the trap having been sprung an annoyed expression crossed her face, clearly displeased by it. While her ears were ringing from the boom, she still managed to make out a question asked, with her answer being, "we tried to enter the building to stop Nequa and it exploded." The girl then had a look of realization cross her face, realizing the voice was entirely unfamiliar to her and saw that it belonged to the girl in the pod. "Oh, so you're awake. That's good. Probably." While Aeira's voice was normally more level, she was uncharacteristically loud as her ears were still trying to readjust themselves. Looking over to the rest of the group that was engulfed in the blast, she said, "are you all able to keep going?"
With the first of the dark angel like heartless having been felled, Stratos was given a bit of a reprieve to catch his breath. As he did so he started to think of what the heartless were like here. The last time he had fought the neo shadows, in the first wave, they were only difficult to face due to his sheer unfamiliarity with them. However, this time they seemed to be far more ferocious in nature, and not only were they more aggressive but he had felt as though they were faster and stronger as well. They were able to continually exert great pressure, greater then what he had experienced not a few moments ago, and he wondered what was going on here. And though he had only managed to fight one of the dark angel heartless in the last encounter, these too seemed stronger as well. Trying to figure out what was going on here, the boy looked over to Aislinn and Aux fighting the gigantic humanoid heartless. As he did, a thought crossed. Darkness was something that could grow from small quantities and the larger it grew the stronger and more unmanageable it became. So, with the raw quantity and quality increase in the heartless here, he wondered if the presence of the heartless themselves was causing the heartless to become stronger. The boy wondered how accurate this line of thinking was, but was swiftly cut off as another dark angel heartless came down to attack him. Dodging away from the attack first, Stratos did not want to deal with another one of these things so quickly after the last, especially with the damage he had taken so far. He needed to get his wounds healed, though, he hardly expected the heartless to give him the breathing room to actually cure himself. Then, he thought back to Shibuya. He thought back to when he had become a master and both the power he had been given by Megumi and the aura he had obtained as a master. Focusing on that, the boy was able to hear his own heart beating, as he realized it was calling to the realm around him, trying to use its power. Taking a deep breath, wisps of darkness started to appeared around Stratos until it errupted into a full blown aura. With the darkness around him, Stratos looked at the heartless coming towards him. He knew that in order to stand on equal footing to things, he needed to copy from the strong. And when it came to darkness, there was only one creature he knew to be the strongest. As the invisible dove at him, the boy dodged to the side, and reached his hand out towards the creature. Grabbing onto its face, a black aura appeared on his hand as dark elemental magic began to be pumped through it as he simply said, "drain." The heartless tried to pull the boy's arm off, however, the longer it stayed on the weaker the heartless's resistance seemed to be. The dark body of the heartless was slowly broken down, being absorbed into the boy's hand and that darkness travel through his body. As it did, the darkness seemed to mend the boy's wounds, until he seemed fully restored. As he was, he looked at his hand, noticing the heartless was no longer there having been fully absorbed into him. "Well, that works." Feeling fully invigorated now the boy looked over to the other heartless around him. Seeing a few dark balls floating towards him, with energy back at full the boy merely punched the ground shouting, "thundara!" With that, lightning fell from the sky, striking the dark balls down and felling them all instantly. As looked around for the next heartless, he heard a sudden thud behind him, causing him to jump back. On guard, he looked over and said, "oh, Kaida. Hi." He didn't quite think about how what he did looked like to others, but she didn't seem to say anything about it so he instead looked over to the shadows she had been dealing with. "Oh, yeah, that's a really big problem. Meanwhile, I've been busy dealing with their larger brothers and uh...heartless that know how to use swords...I'm about as surprised as you are on that." Word Count: 718 EXP Earned: 60 EXP Total: 1260 Blessed Thief: 630 Munny BP Remaining: 2 Heartless Defeated: 3 Darkballs 1 Invisible Heartless Injured: Darkside 1,197/1,500 Heartless Remaining: Defeat 1930 Shadows Defeat 442 Neoshadows Defeat 436 Darkballs Defeat 27 Invisibles Defeat 2 Darksides
Moving through the horde, the boy got in a guarded stance as yet another Neo Shadow leaped at him. As the Neo Shadow had charged him, the boy stepped backward, immediately evading the first of the attacks from it. However, this way not enough as the Neo Shadow began to spin around, rushing into him and striking into unguarded self. The wind being knocked out of him, as the neo shadow's foot knocked into him, the boy skidded backward. Putting up his hands again, the heartless moved towards him with its claws, raking them over his arm causing a large cut to form across it. Wincing in pain, the Stratos looked for an opening against the heartless he was fighting, though the creature was moving much faster than usual and was unrelenting in its pressure. Trying to evade the attacks, the boy kept moving side to side, the boy's hand charged with fire. Punching forward, the boy struck the heartless's claw, using the fire strike attack and destroying the claw entirely. Moving in closer to the creature, he then slid into it with his fist striking dead on into the creature's gut. As he forced the creature back, he then delivered one powerful roundhouse kick to the Neo Shadow's head, causing it to lurch to the side before being destroyed under the damage it had taken. Catching his breath, Stratos was a bit taken aback by the suddenness by which he was attacked by the creature. The boy felt a bit weird, having just used skills that he knew how to with the keyblade with his bare hands. It wasn't so much that it was odd that he could do it, but it was more so that he knew how to to begin with. In fact, thinking back to the other monks he had scene, they hadn't used the power of the Four Seasons either, yet he knew how to almost instinctively. While he was thinking about this, though, his thoughts were interuptted as a black angel like heartless descended onto him. With the heartless bringing down its sword, Stratos backed away from the creature, causing the heartless to plunge its blade into the ground. Pulling it back up, the boy looked on guard against the powerful heartless, having his hands up ready to fight it. Taking a deep breath, Stratos began to focus on the opponent before him, before back stepping away from the heartless as it slashed its sword towards him. The angelic heartless continued to put on the pressure towards Stratos, trying to cut into him, put the boy proving to be a bit too evasive for it. This, however, was stopped as a dark ball had appeared behind him, mouth open. Stopping to not be bit by the creature, Stratos stuck his hound out shouting, "Firaga!" as he launched a ball of flame into the creatures mouth, destroying it. This pause allowed the angelic heartless to bring it sword down, cutting clean across his torso and causing the boy to cry out a bit in pain. Feeling the pain rush through him, the boy grimaced, bringing his hands up to guard against a follow up strike from the heartless. While he was absorbed most the damage in the hit, he was still knocked back by it, only for the heartless to dive towards him. Though it was fast, Stratos was not about to lose to this creature yet, and instead charged himself with yellow lightning. With the speed of his hunter's limit allowing him to catch the creature off guard, Stratos managed to instantly close the distance between him and his charging foe and with one powerful punch, managed to take the heartless out entirely. Word Count: 619 EXP Earned: 60 EXP Total: 1200 Blessed Thief: 600 Munny 1 BP remaining Heartless Defeated: 1 Shadow 1 Neo Shadow 1 Dark ball 1 Invisible Heartless Injured: Darkside 1,197/1,500 Heartless Remaining: Defeat 1932 Shadows Defeat 443 Neoshadows Defeat 448 Darkballs Defeat 29 Invisibles Defeat 2 Darksides
As the boy had managed to fell the heartless with his Zantetsuken, it had barely made much of any kind of dent in their numbers. Thinking it was time to change things up yet again, the boy took a deep breath, trying to focus on another power that had since been out of his reach. A power that was locked behind that of the blade, and that before he had become a master would have seemed impossible to achieve. However, now that he had a clearer mind for it, he focused on how to emulate the power. As he did, a green and red lightning began to surge around him, as his heart pulsed with a similar color. Being entirely enveloped in it, the boy's outfit changed once again. This time, rather than a blade, an emblem of a fist was emblazoned across the back of his jacket. The Jacket itself went from a black color to one of a green one and seemed completely zipped up rather than the usual open style he kept it. His pants had shifted to become gray sweats. Most shockingly, though, the boy didn't seem to have a keyblade, instead black cestus on both of his hands, with red trimmings on them and an emerald gem on the center of the back of hand. Remembering how both Karina and Glen had used this all that time ago, the let out one last deep breath, punching his hands together to signify the shift to the monk state of power was complete. As he did, he suddenly felt far more healthy than normal, like just being in the form had increased his overall stamina. The main problem with the form now, however, was that Stratos was barely a sword fighter to begin with. Never had he actually fought bare handed. Yet, despite this, he didn't feel hesitant about it, and instead gestured for the heartless to attack him, saying, "come." As he provoked the heartless, a Neo Shadow had leaped at him, claws at the ready. The boy dodged to the left first, moving away from a slash before clenching his fists and letting out a left hook towards the shadow. As the punch connected, the neo shadow was clearly staggered, only for the boy to follow up with a second punch to its face. As he had destroyed the heartless, he looked to see that two more neo shadows were charging at him. Taking in a deep breath, the boy's movements began to shift. His leg went ablaze as he kicked towards the sternum of one of the neo shadows, followed by a wind powered uppercut. As that destroyed the neo shadow, he then looked to the other one which he proceeded to kick with an earth imbued foot, followed by a water imbued punch. As the attacks had finished, both of the neo shadows were destoryed under the power of the Four Seasons. Taking in another deep breath, the boy looked at his hands and said, "yeah, I could get used to this." Seeing the next set of shadows move towards him, the boy punched one out of the air, followed by kicking the second. As he destroyed them, he saw the others jump at him, claws at the ready and the boy was already locked into his attacks. However, with almost unnatural reflexes, the boy's arms instantly went into a guard, blocking the attack entirely. As he did, he let out yet another flurry of blows at the creatures, destroying each of them in a single punch. Reinorienting himself, the boy looked to the other heartless near him, and got ready to strike at them. Word Count: 612 EXP Earned: 60 EXP Total: 1140 Blessed Thief: 570 Heartless Defeated: 21 Shadows 3 Neo Shadows Heartless Injured: Darkside 1,197/1,500 Heartless Remaining: Heartless Remaining: Defeat 1958 Shadows Defeat 444 Neoshadows Defeat 441 Darkballs Defeat 30 Invisibles Defeat 2 Darksides
As Stratos had felled the last heartless of his, he looked around to see that everyone else had similarly done their job in defeating heartless. With that done, the battlefield seemed clear for now, and the group was otherwise fine to proceed. Of course, the order member still seemed to be fighting off the man by the name of Hughes, and appeared to be having some form of difficulty in doing so. While Stratos was about to go help the man, beginning to jog over to him, he was stopped dead in his tracks a Hughes snapped his fingers. The newly appointed keyblade masters had felled over one thousand heartless already, and Stratos was feeling confident in how much they had managed to get done, and how swiftly at this. His eyes went wide, however, at the sight of the endless sea of shadows, more than doubling the size of the last one, alongside an onslaught of what he believed to be twice the number of neo shadows and darkballs they had dealt with previously. If that weren't enough, he saw the same looming figures in the distance that they had seen last time, creatures that were humanoid in shape with black tendrils covering their face. Only this time there were two of them. And after waiting a few seconds, there didn't seem to be anyone falling from the sky to destroy them this time. Whistling at the sight, Stratos felt odd. The last wave hadn't exhausted him in the slightest, and he still felt as though he had plenty in the tank to go through. And despite the number of heartless that was before them being doubled in size, he didn't seem to be any bit nervous in his dealing with them. Instead, he seemed to be sure of something. Sure that were he to merely trust in the skills he had learned and acquired, that this wave would prove no bit more difficult then the last. Twirling his keyblade in his hand, the boy began to walk forward as he saw Aux immediately jump after one of the large humanoid heartless. While Stratos felt a bit tempted to join in on the action, he saw there was a bit of wave between him and it. Shadows and Neo shadows galore that seemed to start charging towards his direction. Sighing the boy got ready to go into a fighting stance and deal with them. However, while he was enjoying testing out his new found strength in the soldier power, he was starting to feel quite restricted by it. Which probably had something to do with the restrictions it put on him. So, letting out a deep breath, the boy focused and was enveloped in a red light. The light flooded off of him into small particles of red, as the boy was no longer in the red tinged uniform of his, his jacket returning to its black color. His keyblade as well had returned to its original shape. As Neo Shadow leaped at him, the boy pointed his keyblade up saying, "firaga." The ball of flame formed at the tip, launching itself at the airborne heartless and exploding against it, instantly destroying it. Looking at the smoking blade he said, "much better." Opting out of his limiters now, the boy took a deep breath as cherry blossoms began to flutter around. He figured he'd give this wave the same greeting he gave the last. And thus, disappearing in an instant, the boy appeared on the other side of the heartless that were rushing at him, instantly destroying them in a single slash. Word Count: 603 EXP Earned: 60 EXP Total: 1080 Blessed Thief: 540 Munny Heartless Defeated: 3 Neo Shadows 21 Shadows Heartless Injured: Darkside 1,353/1,500 Heartless Remaining: Heartless Remaining: Defeat 1979 Shadows Defeat 447 Neoshadows Defeat 449 Darkballs Defeat 30 Invisibles Defeat 2 Darksides
After catching his breath from his last great escape attack, Stratos seemed ready to go back to killing the rest of the heartless that were floating around. However, before he continued his death march, he was stopped by Ignis. He was a bit weirded out at first, as the girl just seemed to be examining him head to toe, but things started to make more sense as she began to explain to him about the power of the soldier job he was using. She certainly made sense in saying that his body was probably not used to how he was using it. After all, whenever he had attempted to combo, it was only ever with the power of the ranger, which was highly nonphysical. Even then, the only physical power that he had ever truly relied on was Zantetsuken, which was for more explosive in nature than anything else others would normally do. At least it wasn't so bad that it caused him to break his bones every time he used it, though. So that was good. All the same, the girl had a point and trying to fight the heartless without using any of his skills and only raw bladework was certainly a different kind of challenge. Before trying it out himself, he decided to go and watch Ignis's demonstration of it, watching as she went to go fight a dark ball. Or at least attempt to. He lightly chuckled to himself as the girl seemed to get frustrated that the heartless was ignoring her, but continued to stand around and watch as she got more aggressive in her approach. Idly watching as she then proceeded to get into a melee with the heartless, the girl eventually stomped away from them all, telling him to fight like that. While the intital exchange was humurous, what he saw was definitely quite skillful fighting, so he figured that if that's how she got to that point, he might as well try it. "Alright, well, let's see how I do Teach." Twirling his keyblade around, the boy began to run towards another horde of dark balls. As the heartless noticed him, the boy saw that they were also ready to fight him as well, and began to roll towards him as they cackled in his direction. Bringing his keyblade up, the boy instincitvely wanted to ignite his keyblade, but rather than doing that he instead forced himself into a guard. Skidding a bit back, when the attack first hit him the boy winced a bit as more of the dark balls continued to barrel into his guard. As they were all now suspended in the air, the boy instinctively wanted to go and attack them all at once with a cross slash, however he held himself back. Instead, he jumped up into the air, spinning as he did so and slicing with his blade against them. He managed to cleave through two of them this way, delivering multiple cuts that destroyed them in the process of attacking them. Landing back on the ground, the boy was then assaulted by the other six, yet rather than trying to zantetsuken through them, he merely backed away from them. Dodging the first four, he then moved in forward, he unleashed a few basic slashed at the last two, cutting through them. He then continued to repeat this process for the last four, managing to cut through all of them with regular basic slashes. After he managed to cut through them, he said, "well, that was different. And kind of difficult. I think I see what you mean. Still, maybe I'll go get more practice with this thing after we're done here, kind of hitting the limits of what I think it can do." Words: 628 EXP: 60 Total EXP: 1020 Blessed Thief: 510 Munny Enemies Defeated: 8 Darkballs Enemies Remaining: 1 Shadow (Reserved) 16 Neoshadows (1 Reserved) 16 Darkballs (1 Reserved)
With the last few dark balls that were attacking him having been dealt with, the boy turned around to see the next set of heartless that he needed to go and deal with. hel ooked at the dark balls that were still around, seeming to be under fifty in count now. He was pretty sure there was at least a few hundred of them to start with, so the dwindling sight of them started to inspire Stratos to start kicking it into high gear. Spinning his keyblade around, the boy got into his fighting stance as he began to move towards his next few dark ball enemies. Of course, as he started to move forward, one immediately warped in front of him to cut him off. Opening its maw to chomp down on the boy, Stratos dodge rolled backward to avoid the maw of the creature. Spinning his keyblade, the boy tossed it at the heartless, though the attack seemed to go wide as the dark ball had moved to the side. Summoning back his keyblade, the boy ignited his keyblade as he jumped up towards the heartless. With a powerful slash, the attack flaming keyblade cut through the dark ball like a knife through butter, causing the creature to be engulfed in flame as it was split in half. As he got ready to go back and attack the other ones, he head Ignis call out to him about how to use his soldier job more effectively. Nodding at her comments he said, "yeah, it seems like a pretty simple power to get used to. I'm just not too used to raw swordplay with my keyblade is all, you know? Up until now I've always been more reliant on using my magic to compensate, or trying to use large super attacks as shortcuts to win fights. So, just charging in and slashing like this is pretty new for me. But, a guy could get used to this kind of thing." Trying to rely more on the raw power of his blade, the boy started to step lightly on his feet, before charging out towards the next set of dark balls. Of course, before trying to actually start his attacks against these creatures, he was immediately stopped as the seven dark balls teleported all around him. Suddenly surrounded, the creatures started to cackle at him before hovering towards him. All of them had then began to hover towards him, maws open and ready to chomp down on him. Without being able to jump away from this attack, and not having any magic to blow them away, Stratos knew that he had one get out of jail free card. As the closed in on him, the boy took a deep breath as he seemed to focus inward. Slowly, the advance of the dark ball began to slow down, only for them to come to an absolute stand still. The cherry blossoms began to flutter around, only for the boy to suddenly vanish from where he was. A large slash mark had appeared across each and every one of the dark balls. Appearing outside the circle, the dark balls slowly turned to face him, only for their eyes to go wide as they paused. The slash marks became more defined as the dark balls were split in half from the slash itself, breaking back into their clouds of darkness, dissipating into the void. Taking a deep breath, the boy looked around to see that he had managed to get out of that sudden swarm scott free. Even if he didn't have magic and he didn't abuse the power of limits, he knew that now with his physical strength, he could fight on par with everyone else. Total words: 623 EXP: 60 Total EXP: 960 Blessed Thief: 480 munny Heartless Defeated: 8 Darkballs 2 Shadows Heartless Remaining: 15 Shadows (leave one alive) 21 Neoshadows 39 Darkballs
After recovering from Ignis's attack that he managed to be in the crossfire of, Stratos took a deep breath as he looked around. He could barely see any of the shadows left, the small tykes barely able to form any sort of offensive now that there was so little of them. The tall, gaunt neo shadows were also very few in number as well. Seeing that they were almost done with this wave, Stratos felt a wave of relief run through him. Before, they had fought one thousand heartless. They were able to be brought to their knees by such a number, and were barely able to get out of the last fight. However now, they had fought far more than one thousand to begin with. The shadows alone had almost matched that number, and with the other new and dangerous heartless that they were facing against. Though he knew that there were still many more heartless to be defeated, some looming in the distance threateningly, Stratos knew that they were far from over. Yet, with this wave almost finished, Stratos already felt pride well through him, and though he had taken some damage, he was nowhere near out of stamina yet. Taking in a deep breath, Stratos readied his blade to begin the assault against the remaining heartless. Of those that were still around, the only one that was still numerous in number were the dark balls. Thankfully or not, Stratos had been a focus of theirs for a bit now, and he had them as a focus as his. Spinning his blade around, the boy looked at some of the remaining dark balls that had just been floating around, moving towards him. One by one, another dark ball started to join the fray, with the dark balls beginning to cackle a bit at them. Each of them opened their mouths, gnashing their teeth seeming to just let out a strange noise that resembled laughter. As they had all gathered together, eight of them in total, the boy spun his keyblade around, getting ready to fight them head on. All eight of them began to roll, floating down to be parallel with the ground before starting to roll against it. Trying to bowl him down from just the ground, the boy leaped over the first three that rolled at him, but as he did, the next five all seemed to bounce off the ground. With each of them bowling towards him while he was still in mid-air, the boy had to think fast. Being unable to dodge roll while in the air, he knew he had a skill that would allow him to still perform an aerial dodge. With a burst of speed, Stratos had sliding dashed through the air, dodging the attacks entirely and landing back onto the ground, safely. As the eight stopped their rolling, trying to roll in place to stop their momentum, they all started to fling back towards him. Spinning his keyblade around, the boy tossed it in a strike raid, causing it to bounce off one of the dark balls as it slayed it, forcing the blade to lodge into another one. Summoning his blade back to him, as the other five made their way towards him, the boy took a deep breath before slashing an X into the air. As it exploded into a gust of wind, the force of it stopped the dark balls in their tracks and destroyed them entirely. With that done, Stratos walked forward, only for two shadows to try and stop his advance. With a swift slash, he managed to cut through the two of them, destroying them almost instantly. Word Count: 613 EXP Earned: 60 EXP Total: 900 Blessed Thief: 450 Munny Heartless Defeated: 2 shadows 8 Dark balls Heartless Remaining: 19 Shadows (leave one alive) 21 Neoshadows 56 Darkballs
With having destroyed the last few dark balls, Stratos looked around to see the next heartless that he would have to deal with. As his current charge was dealing with mostly the dark ball, or rather the dark balls had made them his charge. As he was about to get ready to fight though, he heard Ignis call out her question and looked back to her. "Oh come on, these kind of heartless are nothing to deal with. So they're a bit dexterous and numerous. I'd much rather fight a horde of these then those behemoths again. I'm sure if we keep persisting for awhile we'll be done with this fight in no time. No help needed...Except maybe some from that master over there," he pointed over to where the man who fell from the sky was. "Though he seems to be a bit occupied at the moment." Looking over to Beuce, who seemed to mostly agree with his sentiment, the boy then said, "yeah, if all that's in there is a bed I'm not going to complain for a bit. Though maybe we'll all find another clothing store to get a new wardrobe change." With that banter done, Stratos moved on to fight a dark ball that had appeared in front of him. Backing off from it, the boy raised up his keyblade to guard against the attack, the chomp somehow being deflected against the metal of his keyblade. Leaping into the air after it, the boy charged his keyblade with ice once again and begin to strike at them. With the first two slashes, he had managed to cleave off two of the tendrils spinning in the air for another third strike against the dark ball. With the final strike being brought down against the creature, he managed to cleave the dark ball in twain, and completely destroyed it. With that done, two more dark balls bowled towards him, causing the boy to dodge roll backwards and forcing the two dark balls to run into each other. The boy imbued his blade with darkness as he rushed forward, striking the two dark balls with a splatter combo attack. Two more spawned in trying to bite down on him, but the boy merely matched blows with one of them, bringing his flaming blade into one of their mouths while trying to kick the other one away. Spinning his keyblade, he then tossed it towards the dark ball, and struck the creature with his strike raid. As Ignis asked about Auras Stratos said, "you know I haven't actually used one of mine yet. Trying to get used to the power this form of mine is giving me now, first, you know?" He felt an odd sense of duty to try and defeat the heartless that were attacking him first with the power of his soldier form before going into another form against the heartless that were left. And the wave seemed to be thinning out, so Stratos felt confident to go and attack the remaining ones with this power. As the dark balls in front of him seemed to be ready to attack him, the boy looked like he was about to respond in kind, only to then look to the side. Seeing a wave of flame come towards him, the boy yelped a bit, trying to use a cross slash to stop the attack from hitting him. While he managed to get rid of most of the attack, he was still a bit singed by the residual damage of it. As Ignis apologized he said, "it's alright, it's alright. I figured I could use a hair...burn anyway." Looking over to see that the dark balls he was fighting were also destroyed by the attack he said, "and I think it did more good than harm." Total words: 632 EXP: 60 Total EXP: 840 Blessed Thief: 420 Heartless Defeated: 2 Shadows 8 darkballs Heartless Remaining: 47 Shadows 26 Neoshadows 64 Darkballs
Stratos spun his keyblade around as he was getting ready for the next assault of dark balls. He was wondering why these heartless were starting to focus him so hard, but didn't think it quite mattered at the moment. All that mattered was that the heartless were here, and as a newly made keyblade master, it was his job to stop these heartless from winning. Just before, back in Central Haven, they had fought against a mere one thousand heartless. Just that amount alone was enough to bring them to their knees and force them to retreat. They had been brought to the limits of their stamina and though they were triumphant against those heartless, more had flooded in and forced them backwards. Each time they had made progress they were met with a stronger foe and forced back into retreat. But this time, he was going to stand against them. There was no way backwards, and the only way forwards was through swarm of heartless before them. Though the foes last time were greater, the numbers this time were well over one thousand. And if he had the strength now to cleave through these droves of heartless, then there was a chance that they'd be able to retake Central Haven after all of this. Focusing on the task at hand, though, came first. And that task was dealing with the droves of dark balls that still remained. As eight of them began to warp in, trying to fight the boy who had been dispatching them thus far, the eight seemed to start to act in a different pattern than normal. Rather than all individually attacking him, the eight seemed to to get it into their heads to strike him all at once, as a group. The dark balls started to move together, and the strange dark tendrils across their bodies started to link up together, pulling each other in tighter. When all was said and done, the eight dark balls had formed into one large, lumpy looking sphere of dark balls. Sighing at the sight, Stratos merely twirled his keyblade around and looked at the creature before him. "Well, come at me big guy," Stratos goaded the creature. Letting out what seemed like a mix of eight laughs and roars all at once, the creature began to roll at the boy. Trying to chip away at the creature, to start with, Stratos tossed his spinning keyblade in a strike raid at the creature. The blade however, was harmlessly parried away from the creature, causing Stratos to click his tongue in annoyance. Summoning his keyblade back to his hand, he began to swiftly move to the side, trying to avoid the creature's attack. He knew that trying to guard against a creature of that size and oddity would probably result in more harm then good, so relying on his speed was by far the more reliable option at the moment. However, after he rolled out of the way over the first attack, the creature seemed to spin faster and in the opposite direction. With quicker speed, it started hurtling itself towards Stratos, causing the boy to let out a small sigh as an aura of yellow lightning began to crackle around him, spewing from his chest again. As his Hunter limit was started up, the world became slower as the boy studied his opponent more closely. Trying to stop it now, he noted each of the knots of tendrils, and with swift slashes he had managed to strike each of them with his limit charged keyblade. When time resumed to normal, the dark balls all let out a small roar in pain, as they were exploded into a puff of darkness. Total Words: 621 Exp: 60 Total Exp: 780 Blessed Thief: 390 Heartless Defeated 8 Darkballs 2 shadows Heartless Left: 199 Shadows 90 Neoshadows 133 Darkballs
As soon as his first assault from the darkballs had finished, a second one almost immediately had started up. As a new dark ball had appeared towards him, the boy first dodge rolled out of the way of the attack, quickly reacting to the attack as it came at him. As the chompers of the heartless continued to come towards him the boy continued to move backward away from the heartless, only for another one of the darkballs to bowl towards him. Rolling out of the way of the second's attack, the dark ball that had been trying to chomp at him had instead had its mouth filled as the second dark ball rolled into it. The two seemed to be stuck for a moment, and Stratos eyed them, curious about what was about to happen with it. The two were just paused in mid-air, and neither seemed to be actually bothered by the current predicament they had found themselves in. Instead, it merely looked towards Stratos, and now with the mass of two dark balls, started to roll towards him. Rolling with greater speed and with more awkward timing, the boy could barely guard against the attack. The raw force behind it seemed to cause him to skid across the ground, grimacing in pain when the attack had connected. To make matters worse, more dark balls had seemed to be attracted to this location. One by one, six more had joined the fray, causing him to be facing down yet another total of eight. All of them began gnashing their teeth, bar the two that seemed to be stuck together, and looked like they were ready to start chomping through Stratos's skin. Not wanting to be the next meal, however, the boy started to run the opposite direction that they were in, trying to get them towards him while also not being a siting duck. However, this plan was cut short, as he had to stop in his tracks. One of the dark balls, rather than trying to roll into him, had merely teleported in front of him to stop his run. Opening its mouth, getting ready to bite into the boy, Stratos instead spun his keyblade, tossing it into its mouth. The blade went through the creature's mouth, and as the creature attempted to close its jaws, it instead burst into darkness. Summoning his keyblade back, the boy saw that the other seven had managed to catch up with him. Thinking that guarding against them would force him into a war of attrition that he would not win, he instead sought to match blow for blow. The boy slid forth in a dash, cleaving through the first of the dark balls as it tried to bowl into him. As the second came at him, the boy ignited his keyblade, and pivoting on his foot, the boy jumped and spun into the air, bringing his flaming blade down onto the creature. As he managed to kill the dark ball with his flaming blade the third one had appeared next to him came in to bite down on him. Spinning his keyblade, the boy tossed his sword with a strike raid, cleaving the dark ball in twain. With only four more coming at him, the boy took a deep breath as he focused for his next strike. As the four dark balls rolled towards him, the boy slashed an X into the air with more force then he had done before. As his cross slash exploded into a gust of war, the two lone dark balls had been instantly destroyed, as the two conjoined ones were forced apart. Jumping at them, spinning in mid air, with a single slash the boy had managed to cleave through the two remaining dark balls. Total Words: 631 Exp: 60 Total Exp: 720 Blessed Thief: 360 Heartless Defeated 8 darkballs 2 shadows Heartless Left: 256 Shadows 97 Neoshadows 149 Darkballs
As Stratos was ready to take on the next collection of shadows near him, his own words seemed to come back to haunt him. Almost immediately after saying that he was fine to Ignis, a dark portal opened up next to him. From it, almost instantly appeared the strange black spherical creature with a few tendrils across its body. The creature seemed to almost chuckled at him as it flew towards him, trying to chomp down on him with its giant jaws. Stumbling back away from the creature, Stratos let out a small yelp of surprise, as the creature then seemed to start rolling in the air, bowling over towards him. Stratos raised his keyblade to defend against the attack. Though he managed to parry the attack entirely, he was still off balance and was thus forced back away from it. As he was, yet another dark ball had appeared out of nowhere near him. Ducking down, he managed to avoid the attack as it tried to chomp down on him as well. Jumping up, the boy tried to use an uppercut slash against the dark ball to hit, though the creature seemed to roll away from the attack, seeing it coming. "Well, these things are annoying." Not deterred in the slightest though, Stratos continued to charge at the dark ball, only for the original one to bowl towards him again. Seeing this coming, the boy managed to jump up into the air, avoiding the attack as he did. As the second one attempted to bite down on him in his descent, the boy coated his blade in flames before stabbing it down into the mouth of the creature. The sword entering his mouth faster than it could chomp down, the flaming blade managed to run through the creature, coming out the other end of the creature and setting it ablaze. With that settled, the dark ball was destroyed instantly. However, with no down time to get through this, two more dark balls had appeared near him, trying to chomp down on him. Nimbly flipping backwards, the initial part avoided the first of the attacks while the second part of the flip had his feet smash into them. As he landed back on his feet, the first one bowled towards him, though standing his ground, the boy guarded against the attack again. This caused the creature to recoil, and with a steadier guard this time, Stratos was able to follow up. Leaping into the air, he coated his blade with ice once more, spinning to strike it three times with each spin. The first two strikes took out chunks of the heartless, while the third one had managed to destroy it entirely. With that having been taken care of, Stratos sighed as four more dark balls spawned in, accompanying the two that had come earlier. He wasn't entirely sure if he would be able to deal with all six of them bowling at him at once, but he would certainly have to try. Knowing that his guard would crumble against the attacks, the boy first dodge rolled out of the way of the first two that were trying to hit him. The second two he managed to jump over, leaving him in the air for the fifth to bowl at him. Guarding against the attack, the boy was sent back to the ground as he was smashed in by the mass of the dark ball. The final one then charged the boy, though he was just about fed up with this at this point. Taking a deep breath, cherry blossoms began to fall from the sky, as the boy vanished from sight, only to strangely appear in the same place. As he did, the darkballs he had been fighting, as well as a few shadows, were instantly destroyed by the attack. Total Words: 641 Exp: 60 Total Exp: 660 Blessed Thief: 330 Munny Heartless Defeated: 2 Shadows 8 Darkballs Heartless Left: 285 Shadows 102 Neoshadows 165 Darkballs
As Beuce accepted the help, he then unleashed yet another thundaga spell from his keyblade. The thundaga, however, looked a bit different in nature. Rather than being the usual yellow bolts of lightning that fell from the sky, these seemed to have an odd black and purple coloration to them. As they appeared to strike with more force than normal, Stratos was wondering just what it was that Beuce was doing to make his magic that way, when noticed that he was also in a new state as well. There seemed to be an overwhelming aura of darkness radiating from him, and while Stratos was thinking about how to change into a state quite like that, the concept in his head started to become fuzzy. It wasn't as though it was impossible, though. He figured one just needed a sufficient connection to darkness and a large, raw amount of strength. He had the darkness part down, but for as strong as he had become, he was still nowhere near reaching that level. As the man commented on it apparently sapping his strength, he figured there was probably something about the darkness that naturally ate away at you when you tried to abuse it, but didn't try to get any farther in that line of thinking. As he shifted out of the form however, he noted how they had come a long way from when they first started. Chuckling, the boy said, "yeah, remember when you used this form for the first time and laughed at what it did to my own aura. Well," turning around he saw a few shadow jump at him. With a single cleave of his sword, the shadows were immediately destroyed. "Don't think it's quite as funny now," the boy joked. This joke was cut short as a Neo Shadow pounced towards him, claws at the ready. Dodging away from the attack, Stratos rolled backwards, and as he did he saw the Beuce was also occupied with a neo shadow of his own. However, the white haired man seemed to be holding his own, which meant Stratos had to now deal with this one by himself as well. While he had been fighting a large amount of neo shadows so far, these were still early experiences with them. Coupled with their already speedy movement and strange flexibility it made fighting them somewhat difficult. Putting up his guard, the boy deflected the first attack from the Neo Shadow, and immediately went into a retaliation of his own. Immediately leaping off the ground, the boy smashed the keyblade into the ground, sending the heartless flying into the air. Following up with imbuing his keyblade with ice, he then slashed twice, forming a cross of frost over the Neo Shadow. With a singular downward slash, the icy cross broke, and immediately destroyed the Neo Shadow. Landing back on the ground, he looked to Beuce saying, "well, not so bad once you get the hang of them...probably. But it certainly makes you want to destroy the little ones if this is what they become, right?" As if on cue, a few more of the shadow heartless began to make their way towards him. Spinning his keyblade, he tossed one with a strike raid as he had managed to fell it in a singular strike. The next few leaped at him, causing the boy to recall his keyblade and let loose a swift cross slash, forcing them out of the air and killing the instantly. As he kept fighting them, another familiar figure eventually entered the area near them. Jumping in slight shock, the boy said, "oh hey Ignis. Haven't actually gotten around to fighting those things yet," he gestured to the dark balls. "Been kept plenty business with these little guys after all. We're doing fine, but you're free to join if you want." Total Words: 644 Exp: 60 Total Exp: 600 Blessed Thief: 300 Munny Heartless Defeated 1 Neo Shadow 21 shadows Heartless remaining 298 Shadows 102 Neoshadows 178 Darkballs
Stratos continued his persisting tempo against the neo shadows he had found himself exclusively fighting. The creatures were certainly different than most of the others that he had fought up to this point. Most heartless tended to rely on either sheer numbers to get through their opponent or overwhelming power. There were also the few that had magic themselves, but, those still tended to fall into the other categories. These neo shadows, however, seemed to put an emphasis on speed, flexibility and patience. Though their attacks were wild and erratic in terms of aesthetics, they still had a hunters stance about them before they went into the fray and their wild attacks were far more patient and measured then one would expect. Probably because they had the speed and reflexes to keep up with their thoughts that they were able to do such things. All in all, Neo Shadows were certainly tough customers when it came to fights. Getting ready to start up the next phase of his charge through this horde, Stratos saw the figures of the Neo shadows start to move towards him, signaling that they wanted a piece of him as well. With a sigh, the boy merely spun his keyblade around and prepped himself for the coming quintet of heartless. With the neo shadows advancing on his position, the boy back away from the attacks coming at him dodge rolling away from the first of the pounces by the neo shadows. With his blade in hand, the boy then parried the next claw attack of the second one that pounced at him, only to then see a third spinning at him. It's body was parallel to the ground, horizontally spinning like a bladed pinwheel at him. Jumping of the creature, Stratos avoided the attack, only for the fourth one to immediately pounce at him. Sloppily trying to guard against it while in mid-air, the boy managed to deflect the attack, but was slammed to the ground as the claw had pushed him in that direction. Having to pick himself up fast, Stratos rolled on his side to avoid the first of the neo shadows that had pounced at him again. He sprung back to his feet in time to guard against two of them slashing at him with their claws again, blocking the attack entirely but being forced backwards. The fourth one then spun at him from the air, having a vertical spin to their attack. Stratos was starting to get a bit overwhelmed by these pact tactics, and with no magic to use, it wasn't like he was able to pluck it out of the sky. Still with brute force he would overcome these numbers,and so with a swift cross slash he had managed to stop the one spinning at him. The attack had managed to decimiate the first of the neo shadows, yet the other three were now trying to make their way to exploit this opening he had created. His body crackled with yellow lightning as they approached, and spinning his keyblade around, his body moved faster than it normally would have. Charging head first into the swarm of neo shadows, he let out a flurry of slashes towards the closest one, the speed at which he did it catching the other two off guard. Pivoting, he tossed his keyblade at what, skewering it in the head while turning around to simply punch the other. Summoning the keyblade back to his hand, he dashed at the one he had punched, cutting it through as he followed through with one final slash. Looking to the side, he saw a black lightning bolt strike one of the shadows, and though it was impressive it seemed to be quite taxing on the person who used it. So, dashing it, with a few slashes towards some of the stray shadows, Stratos said, "having some trouble there buddy?" Total Words: 651 Exp: 60 Total Exp: 540 Blessed Thief: 270 Munny Heartless Defeated 4 Neo Shadows 6 shadows Defeat 447 Shadows Defeat 119 Neoshadows Defeat 172 Darkballs
Moving through the hordes of heartless, the boy next turned his attention towards a singular shadow that seemed to be moving away from all the others. Thinking it was easy pickings, Stratos merely spun his keyblade around and tossed it towards the creature, attempting to fell it instantly. The heartless, however, saw this coming, and merely dove back into the shadows underneath the ground. Calling the blade back to him, Stratos looked partially annoyed as the shadow had managed to avoid his attack, and started looking to where the creature was crawling to. As his gaze managed to follow the creature of darkness's travels, he got ready to repeat the same process as the heartless brought itself back up onto the ground above. Tossing his spinning keyblade at the creature, this time the blade missed its mark as a neo shadow had appeared out from the ground, uppercutting his blade with a simple strike of its claw. Sending the blade wild and away from him, Stratos merely focused and called his blade back to his hand. With the weapon now back in his possession, he looked at the neo shadow free willy cat and simply said, "I see." This realization was then only more punctuated as the smaller shadow was suddenly surrounded by two more neo shadows, both of them seeming to want to strike at Stratos. With the three Neo Shadows charging at him, Stratos knew that he'd have to deal with them quickly, or else he'd be simply overwhelmed by their speed and numbers. With the first charging at him from his left, Stratos swiveled to the right, bringing up his blade to parry the attack away and shove the neo shadow away. Dodging rolling forward, he avoided the next attack, coming from the opposite side. While the neo shadow had designed to rake its claw against Stratos's back, the boy's evasive maneuvers had caused the attack to hit nothing but thin air. Looking back, there was only one more that was charging at him, spinning vertically like a bladed wheel towards him. Stratos was somewhat confused as to how it was able to keep itself off the ground, but didn't think it mattered all that much. Instead, he merely spun his keyblade in his hand, tossing it at the neo shadow. The two spinning forces cancelled each other out, causing the blade to fly away from the creature and the heartless itself to stop in its tracks. Summoning the weapon back to his hand, Stratos ran towards the creature, sliding with a dash towards it and cleaving through the neo shadow instantly. As the first of the heartless were destroyed, the other two vaulted towards Stratos. Without much effort, the boy got back onto his feet, striking the air twice swiftly in an X formation. The cross exploded in a violent force, blasting the two neo shadows away and killing them instantly. Looking towards his intial shadow taregt, Stratos began to move towards that, only for two more neo shadows to vault at him from behind. Sighing in annoyance, the boy dodged backwards, rolling underneath the leaping neo shadows, before getting back onto his feet. With both of the enemies in front of him now, the keyblade master focused on the two before him, causing cherry blossoms to fall from the sky. As they did, time seemed to come to a stand still, and in a single instant Stratos had appeared beyond both the neo shadows and the regular one. With a slash mark appearing across both of them, they both exploded into darkness leaving nothing behind. Total Words: 600 EXP: 60 Total EXP: 480 Blessed Thief: 240 Munny Heartless Defeated 5 Neoshadows 1 Shadow Heartless Remaining Defeat 567 Shadows Defeat 131 Neoshadows Defeat 181 Darkballs
Stratos continued his advance through the heartless, stopped by yet another Neo shadow. Looking at it, the neo shadow seemed to have a darker, red color to it, and was far more light on its feet then the others. Leaping towards Stratos, the neo shadow moved with much greater speed then the other ones, catching Stratos off guard. Barely being able to keep up with this creature, Stratos just barely managed to put his keyblade up to defend against the attack. The blade managed to push the claws away from its original intended target area, though the attack still managed to force its way past his guard and strike him in the shoulder. Wincing in pain, the boy attempted to back off from the creature when it went to rake at him with yet another one of its claws. Being able to see the attack coming at him more clearly this time, the boy managed to fall backward, dodging rolling backwards to avoid the attack. When the claw had struck empty air, however, with impossible flexibility the neo shadow then flipped towards the boy, kicking him with both of its dark born feet. It pushing off of him and he being pushed by the attack, the distance between the neo shadow and Stratos had increased. Getting back onto his feet, the boy thought about the opponent before him, wondering how exactly this neo shadow seemed to be stronger than all of the others so far. Thinking about it, he didn't recall seeing anything like this in the initial horde, though given how many there were it was entirely possible that he missed it. Even still, the creature still looked different and out of place, making Stratos wonder if it was either a different breed of neo shadow entirely, or if it had somehow absorbed the power of the other shadows around it. Regardless, it didn't change the fact that it was the opponent Stratos was squaring off with now and he had to stop them. While normally he would just think to use his Zantetsuken, there was a part of him that didn't want to have to fall back on that technique every time the goings got rough. Instead, he felt like using all the other techniques that he had accrued across his journey. So, taking a deep breath, the boy tightened the grip around his blade, getting ready to see just what the neo shadow was about to do, as he attempted to figure out how to deal with the shadow. As the creature pounced at him, Stratos dodged to the side again, avoiding the first slash of the shadow's claw. Bending its other arm around to try and attack the boy, he managed to cleanly guard against the other attack. Stepping forward, he tried to slash against the Neo Shadow, but its body had bent unnaturally sharply to avoid the attack. Jumping back away from Stratos, the boy wasn't ready to just let the pressure end on this creature and leaped after him. With Ice imbuing his blade, he struck the creature twice, before slamming it back to the ground with a third empowered slash. Landing back on the ground, he then went to end the shadows life. One slash following into another, each attack flowing into a rhythm with each slash managing to take off more chunks of the shadow. At the end of his slashes, the boy hopped into the air, pounding his sword into the ground causing a shockwave to force the Neo Shadow up off the ground. Now in the air, the boy slashed at it a few more times before letting loose one last powerful swing of it, finishing his combo. As the creature was felled, it exploded into a large puff of darkness, leaving nothing behind of what it once was. Total Words: 632 Exp: 60 Total Exp: 420 Blessed Thief: 210 Munny Heartless Defeated 5 Neoshadows 1 Shadow Heartless Remaining Defeat 574 Shadows Defeat 136 Neoshadows Defeat 190 Darkballs
Keeping light on her feet, the pressure of having to dodge and guard against more magic was partially alleviated as Koa let loose a metal spear that pierced through two of the robots. With their numbers already half thinned and their number now greater than the nequabots, Aeira was able to move far freer than she had normally been able to. With one one Nequabot focusing its attention on her, she was able to close the distance between it with simple ease, first dodging a firaga it sent and destroying a chunk of ice fired at her with a simple punch. As she had finished closing the distance, the Nequabot tried to charge both of its hands with magic and smash them into Aeira's face. The earth girl, however, swiftly ducked away from the attack and with a swift kick swept the bot's legs out from under it. Catching the robot in the chest with her elbow as it fell, the girl quickly spun back into a standing position and with a simple axe kick broke a hole into the Nequabots torso, stopping it. 4/10 Nequabots left.
As an gust of wind sweep around Stratos's body, he felt the familiar feeling of the defensive Aero spell go over him. Giving a thumbs up to Hikaru as he made his way away to go and help out Kaida, Stratos turned back to the heartless before him. The shadows were as persistent as ever, crawling towards him and trying to use their raw numbers to try and stop him. Normally, the boy would try and use some big awe inspiring attack like Zantetsuken to merely clean them out in an instant, but he knew rapid firing off that technique would only lead to more exhaustion. His next option would be to use magic. Yet, the form he was in locked him out of one of his most reliable tools. Without that to fall back on, Stratos still didn't feel any sense of panic or urgency. There was some strange confidence he had in the skills with his blade. Moving forward, he noticed that as he did his body felt lighter and he could see the enemies' attacks more clearly. A neo shadow charged at him, and though it was faster than Stratos, the boy could still see the attack coming. His body responded in kind, moving to avoid the attack and mostly doing so, with the part that did hit merely being absorbed by the wind barrier. And while he knew he couldn't match the creature's speed, he felt an innate knowledge that he surpassed the neo shadow in one regard. As the creature swung its claw at him again, Stratos responded in kind with a sword slash. Though the shadow had managed to hit him, the attack was still absorbed by the Aero. The same could not be same for the neo shadow, however, as Straots's blade had managed to cleanly cut into the creatures arm. With ease, the blade cleaved off the neo shadow's limp and as it, in a panic, tried to make its way away from the boy, he retaliated with yet another slash. His blade had managed to cleanly find its way across the shadows neck, severing it from the body and causing the shadow to explode into a puff of strands of darkness. In merely two clean hits, Stratos had managed to fell the Neo Shadow. The boy was barely injured from the exchange and he still felt absolutely focused on the task at hand as another collection of Neo Shadows jumped at him. Taking in a deep breath, he focused on the first of the enemies crouching into a prepared stance to take it on. As the second leaped at him to slash with its claws at him, Stratos moved forward in a burst of speed. Avoiding the attack entirely, he then closed the distance with the second one and in the same movement slashed through it. Turning back around, he immediately threw his keyblade with a strike raid attack, cleaving through the neo shadow as it was recovering. As he finished off his two opponents, Beuce had come up to him as well. Stratos raised an eyebrow as Beuce mentioned that he had gone and gotten stronger than him when he wasn't looking, unsure of what he actually meant. Stratos was still positive that Beuce was in a different league then him when it came to power, and while Stratos knew that he had gotten stronger he still wasn't in the same class. This was only proven to him more as Beuce let loose a trio of spells to decimate a wave of heartless in an instant. Yet despite knowing this, the boy had a smirk cross his face. "Well, if you don't want to me pass you up." A collection of neo shadows and a shadow started encroaching on the boy from behind. Turning around, with very little in wasted movement, the boy struck the air twice swiftly. As a cross formed, a large X shaped explosion of force caught the shadows off guard, instantly destroying them in the process. Turning back to Beuce he said, "you might want to keep a faster pace." Total Words: 684 Exp: 60 Total Exp: 360 Blessed Thief: 30 Total Munny: 180 Heartless Defeated 1 Shadow 5 Neoshadows Heartless Remaining Defeat 605 Shadows Defeat 169 Neoshadows Defeat 196 Darkballs
