Ooc: Courtesy to @Cstar for making this lovely banner. Stay classy girl. The new day brought about with it some sort of looming sense of dread. The young boy had gotten himself out of bed, recalling the events of yesterday, and the day before then with some sort of sense of unreality. It was way too hard to believe all of these events had actually happened in such a short succession as they had, and the fact that so little was being done about it was something unsettling. First, there was the art project disaster thing that had occurred, in which a group of students had simply been a bit too showy with what they could do and got stopped by the security force rather quickly. Next, there was the gym class STRANGE fight. Something that was bound to get the attention of the big wigs at this school. Sure, Blaine didn't partake in these, as he tried his best to stay out of sight and out of mind when all of these happened. If he kept the overall amount of involvement that he put into these kinds of events, then he would most definitely not stand out and most definitely not be punished. The lack of actual morning announcements, however, was completely unnerving. While the event was one that had escalated extremely quickly, Blaine figured that if they never mentioned it or drew any attention to it, it would probably fade out of existence. However, totally ignoring just made those who did know about it grow more suspicious. Blaine had wondered if the instigators of said fight had gotten into any real trouble yet, though, even if they did, with the way things were going he'd likely never hear about it. Well, the only way he'd find out about it was if he actually went to class, and with all the rule breaking going on now a days, this was a bad time to be late. Putting on the glasses he didn't need at all on, Blaine started his walk to science class. As he made his way down the hall, he didn't hear anything too unusual about what had happened yesterday from most of the students. In fact, it was only really same old same old with most of the people. Well that was a let down. The crowd as a whole could not provide him with any information, and so he would have to get closer to the source if he wished to learn more about what was happening. But that was, of course, risky. And he didn't want much risk right now. As he made his way towards the class, he stopped in his tracks, wide eye and frozen at the duo standing in front of the door. There he was. The one with the black motif. He was the one who started the entire hullabaloo yesterday, and of course he was punished, only Blaine thought he was. The fact that he seemed to be casually chatting it up with someone else, perfectly fine, seeming like a regular human being (who just happened to be able to alter his body,) was odd to say the least. Blaine started to put as little attention onto himself as possible as he continued observing the two. Though despite all of the things that were going on right now, he was wondering one key thing before he knew his day could go on as normal...why were they standing in front of the class door?
Stratos was standing there listening to Ana's description of her current magical prowess, when suddenly thought of something. Despite being a newbie to this whole, keyblade thing, he did understand the paths one's heart could take and how it could shape one's overall abilities. It was one thing every keyblader knew about themselves, and was able to share with others. Stratos, being a guardian, had no idea how to use thunder yet. It was a spell that took a lot of magical know how and concentration to use, and so obviously warriors also didn't learn how to use it until much later. The only path that could learn it at a reasonable rate was probably the path that had to deal with magic itself, the mystics. Based on their fight with Gilgamesh, Stratos figured out that Kel was obviously a warrior, and unless Ana's heart path and actual thought process conflicted like his own, then she was most likely a mystic. The only one he didn't know was Beuce, who seemed to display an equal prowess in both. However, Beuce then confirmed that he was actually a warrior, which meant- "sadly I don't know thunder myself either. The only spells in my compendium are Mine Square, Aero, Cure, and Blizzard. Being a Guardian who gave up warrior, I'm not going to be able to get thunder or fire any time soon so, sorry. However, Ana, you're a mystic right? Shouldn't you know thunder by now?" It was then that Stratos heard Beuce's comment about seeing a new magic in a fight, to which Stratos's eyes lit up and he said, "whoa really? Man, this magic duel is gonna be so awesome!"
When Ana asked about any plans they would have to make to fight the witch, Beuce entered the conversation saying that it wouldn't be really the smartest idea to talk about their plans in front of their enemy, especially because she wouldn't do the same for them. "Well honestly, just look at her." Stratos motioned over to the witch. "I mean, she's probably senile and really slow or something, seeing as she hasn't done anything in the like, I'unno, minutes of us talking casually in front of her." He then turned to Kel saying, "well I mean, napping before a fight would get your body too cold, so you'd need to re warm up before actually being able to fight her. But ya know, I guess we could make some banter to pass the time." Stratos wasn't sure what kind of banter it would be, but hey, maybe it could pass the time while they were waiting.
Stratos was wondering what was going to happen in this wizard's duel. It was obviously going to be on involving magic, and sure, Madam Mim wouldn't be able to use her broom, but he wouldn't think this old hag only relied on her broom to do magic. Then there was just what kind of magic she had. Oh boy, did Stratos love seeing new magic get used. Like Blizzagolem and Reflegora, those were totally awesome to see, and he could only hope to use it sometime in his life. Though, she might use something completely atypical. Hell, she might be like some sort of conceptual illusionist thing, using her power to use spells to turn into different things and the like. However, he knew that he couldn't just ask her about her magic as the fight went on, that would just be detrimental to the party. Speaking of the party, he wondered if Beuce was going to be back in time for the fight. That'd be bad if he wasn't.
Stratos watched in sheer...something...he didn't know quite what expression fit the scene that happened in front of him, but he knew it was something that would most likely never happen ever again. Beuce came in and kissed Kel...seemingly out of literally nowhere. Hm, he never would've pegged either of the two to do something so scandoulous as they were waiting for their opponent to respond. It was then that Kel responded with the most pissed of flaming punch he had ever seen. Once the heat had ended, it looked like Beuce went blasting off...probably again. Ana wasn't making things any better by holding out a sort of sign that showed her support of the ship. She then offered Kel some water to calm him down, though he knew that based on his years of reading comics from right to left, that this would only end in one of three ways. First, he would be extremely nervous and blushy around Beuce from now on alongside being super pissy, the classic Tsundere as one might say. Two, he would be legitimately pissed with him for a while and actually want to end the man. The final option was...that he and everyone else in the group would act like this had never actually happened. The third was the most likely. Stratos then just stood there, not really sure what to do in this situation anymore, hoping that the magic duel thing was going to break them out of whatever the hell this was.
Eh whatever, I might as well jump on this skit icon bandwagon. Stratos's appearance is exactly that of Seto Kousuke from Kagepro.
As Noir had cheerily asked his question, he was immediately yelled at by the one who sported a sword. He was then promptly ignored as that man and one who seemed to have some sort of weird gold eye patch thing began to argue with each other some more. It was there, that he learned that all four of them were actually on top of the world tree itself. Whoooaa. That was something different. He had no idea a building like this existed on top of the world tree. It was then that the purple haired man made some item related puns, only for the one the puns were directed at to get extremely pissy at him. The purple man also jokingly told Noir that they were all in hell now. Aw, but this place wasn't that bad. In fact, as fireballs were being slung at the purple haired man, Noir realized just how much these people hated each other...or at least how much the fire slinger hated the others. Watching these people was totally going to be a fun pass time. Clapping his hands together, still cheery in expression, Noir said, "now now. I think it would do us all some good to get off of this giant arena first. After that seems like a much more practical time to kill one another. Wouldn't you say so?"
As Stratos, Kel, and Ana all held their hands together in a sort of triangle formation around Ana's crystal, there was only one thought that had pierced through Stratos's mind. From an outside perspective, this looked like the dumbest thing he'd ever done. During this part, blue streams of mana or something flowed out of the two participants and into the crystal. Stratos was kind of concerned when it came to a loss of mana. His physical strength and speed were piss poor and there was no way he could rely on them for anything. Magic was his thing. And if this loss of mana affected that, well ****. That'd be bad. After Ana kissed him on the cheek and apologized, Stratos simply sighed, shrugged and said, "just make sure it doesn't happen again and all will be fine." Now all that was left was waiting for this magic duel to begin and Stratos was ready to play with a full 40 cards.
30 Spoiler: How I Rose Richard had finally made it to the bottom of the Ivory Palace. During these past few days since he had started the ordeal, he had been ebbing his way down the gauntlet, until finally he made it here. It was here that he would finally get the long held back explanation from Maalik. The room was pitch black, and devoid of all detail, save for Richard's existence. It was then that clapping emerged from somewhere within the darkness, and the angel in question emerged as if from seemingly nowhere. Richard waved to the figure, saying "yo." Maalik returned the gesture as he said, "you did well to make it all the way down here. Though, it wasn't like I was expecting you to fail or anything." Maalik then looked around and sighed, "well I guess I should welcome you to my home." As Maalik outstretched his arms, detail suddenly filled the previously blank room. The ceiling was cavern like, with stalactites hanging from them. The rest was simply a wasteland of fire and brimstone. Demons could be seen running around, while the screams of the damned and restless echoed throughout the entirety of the area. There was a single word that could describe this place, and that word was- "Welcome, to Hell." "Nice place you got here. So, what, didn't like Heaven or something?" "As I said before, I've never been to Heaven before. That's because this is where I was born, and this is where I lived until I made my way into Earth." Maalik then sighed and said, "well I guess since I owe you a story, I might as well start at the beginning. As an angel, my job here was to monitor the overall status of Hell, keep demons in check, and punish sinners that found their way down here. This job was ingrained in me since my very birth down here, and it isn't like I hated it or anything, after all it was mostly my reason for existing. "Now the thing that annoyed me, was all the other angels that existed. Them all living their posh lives in Heaven, doing very minor things and doing very little work. Though regular angels weren't the worst. That was the archangels. Those who seemed to be regarded as the most powerful amongst us, well, suffice to say they were also seen as the most revered of us. It's not like I particularly hated them at the time, it was just that there superiority over mine simply because of my living arrangements annoyed me. Though, my opinion dropped severely at the time of my fall. "As I said before, my job was simply maintaining Hell. And I was a fairly powerful angel myself, so the demons posted virtually no threat at all. Hell, most angels weren't even a problem. But then there was angel that I obviously couldn't fight. After the grand rebellion against Heaven, guess who was sent down to Hell to be imprisoned? Well, dealing with the Morning Star himself wasn't the main issue, though it was a big one. It was the fact that he had brought with him an army of dark angels that had fought alongside him. It was more than I could handle. Unfortunately, because Lucifer then took over hell, I had essentially failed my original purpose. Let's just say that not everyone is so understanding, and one slip up that you couldn't control ends up getting you the boot. And so that's how I fell, or more ironically, rose to Earth. " Richard stood there taking in everything that Maalik had told him. This certainly was a first. The cold angel that he had been with to this point had never really shared anything about himself, other than his name and duty. Though Richard could only exchange the only gesture that was known between these two. He sighed. "Well, I guess that finally explains the resentment I was feeling from you towards everyone. So, I guess that means that this finale is a bit of a grudge match for you then?" "Not really. It's true, I hated all of them before. Hell, I hated humans more than anything because I only ever saw the worst of them before coming here. But, thanks to some hosts of mine, and a certain electrically charged guy, I finally found myself able to, at the very least, only strongly dislike instead of hate." Maalik then made an expression that Richard had never seen from him before. Maalik smirked. "Guess you weren't the worst of hosts I've had either." Richard returned a smirk as he started to approach Maalik. "Weren't? Isn't it too early to be speaking like my time is already over. I'm not sure I'll be able to believe your comments about your strength if you talk like that." "Right. Well then, I guess we got a grand finale to pull off here." "Yeah. Let's go." With that, Richard and Maalik preformed one simple fist bump before the dream world that they were in faded out and ended. Richard's eyes opened as the sound of the big bad himself resounded across the entirety of the city. Richard briefly thought about whether or not the country's government was actually going to do something about a giant tear in the earth, though, it'd probably useless if they did anyway. Regardless, he stood up and drew out his blade as the climax was now drawing upon them. The entirety of their journey, all the people that were met, all the places they had been, all the fighting they had done. It all lead up to this one point. Despite all the fighting they had done the past few days, for some reason, Richard felt better than he had ever before. The time for sleep was over, and Richard felt fully focused and ready to take on whatever would come their way. Obviously the dark angels would be the key targets to take out, as the demons were essentially cannon fodder. The two targets in particular being Leviathan and Lucifer. With one being the destroyer to end all destroyers, one who's power was so feared that he was only managed to be shoved in a prison forged by some of Heaven's strongest. The other, being one of the most powerful angels to exist, the quintessential angel to have fallen from grace, and the leader of the rebellion of himself. And Richard wanted to bring them both down equally as much, as did Maalik. As the charge began, Richard had made up his mind. As much as he wanted to fight these things, fighting them alone was tantamount to suicide. And so Richard said to the rest of the group, "who wants to help me slay a squid?"
As they were getting ready to throwdown with Mim in a showdown of extreme magical proportions...and probably a lot of BS...there was definitely going to be a lot of bullshit here. As she declared that she was creating a rule for the Magical Duel...Stratos had no idea there was actually going to be rules to this at all. He thought it was just going to be a straight up magical nuke fest. But the condition here, granted by Mim, was that they couldn't use their keyblades at all...not like Stratos was actually strong enough to efficiently swing the thing around and hurt people that way, but it was still annoying. As Beuce was telling her his condition, he first told Stratos to go help Ana out. Stratos wasn't particularly fond of her right now, but oh well, he was probably going to be the least useful in this fight and getting the actual Mystic back into the magic fight was probably going to be priority number 1. "Yeah, I got this." Walking over to Ana, he bent down, and with a pretty blunt voice he said, "so, whatcha need me to do?"
With Suzuki pointing in a certain direction, asking if they should go that way, Amethyst agreed to it and thus the pair started walking in that direction. And they kept walking. And walked some more. Good lord this walking. Her feet were getting sore from having to traverse the dumb foresty terrain that they were in. Her arms weren't exactly in tip top shape either, having to continually punch out heartless that kept appearing, without even the ability to do anything to them. And finally there were the trees. At any other point in time, she would have said that the silver trees were captivating to her eyes. In this case however, all they did was reflect the light of the sun, making the damn place way too bright. All in all, this entire situation sucked. It was only until she found more of them clustered around a certain area that things changed. Repeating the same process, she quickly punch the green music notes out with her fists alone. Somewhere along the way, she had realized that these things were immune to magic, and so she didn't bother using her flames at all. After the duo dealt with the swarm of heartless, Amethyst notice someone resting on a trunk. One look at her and she thought she seemed a bit famaliar looking. Looking back to her partner, and then back to the person, she asked, "is that your sister?" Well this was certainly an awkward situation to be put into. He was lost. Quite so. Due to his horrible sense of direction and however he had even gotten here in the first place, he had most definitely no clue where he actually was. So how did he get here? Well, first there was him just strolling the town that most everyone lived in. Then there was the house and yard full of people fighting more heartless to their heart's content. Finally there was that black thingy that just sort of poofed in. That was when he, and most likely everyone else there was warped away. He had actually appeared there at the final moments of the fight, and hadn't made his presence known at all, so obviously no one would've known he was there. There was still the underlying problem of figuring out where he was. It seemed to be like some sort of grand arena thing...and that's about it. Regardless, the expansiveness of it simply took his breath away. "Whoooa." Was all he could say at the sight. Then he noticed something. There were people here. Oh, happy day. They seemed to be perfectly in control of the situation however, so Noir did not feel the need to interact with the heartless at all. After all, he'd rather not. However, just standing here and not saying anything would be far too rude, and he did not want to be rude. Plus they might be able to tell him just where he ended up. With a smile on his face without a care in the world, he waved to the group of people saying, "hello~. Would you kind people be able and willing to tell me where I am?"
As Lauren was explaining how she had literally had no idea how she even pulled it off in the first place. Well that was troublesome. That meant Sal was really going to have to dig deep in order to help her master what little use of these powers she had. As for what use it had...well he had a few ideas in mind what aggression powers could do, though he had no idea how far Lauren could progress in one day. It was then that she shoved him out of the way after creating some sort of red dust in her hand, shouting at him that he shouldn't touch it at all. Naturally, the first thing Sal wanted to do was touch it. However based on Lauren's urgency, he could only assume that this was what made Sven and Tiia go insane yesterday. So this is what her power looked like. Interesting. It certainly seemed different from the traditional elemental like powers everyone had, and Sal could only wonder how it all worked. Though, he figured that touching it was basically going to make him become super savage, and that was just not good for a mentor to do. However, Lauren had used her power right here. That was a start. And figuring out just what it could do in its rawest most unrefined form was something else that was needed to be figured out. And so, Sal smirked and said, "well, you were able to spawn whatever your power really is, and that's something. However, let's see what it can do." Sal then waved his hand, creating a gust of wind to blow the dust in the general direction of the demons.
Tsk. Ana was proving to be a real handful to deal with right now. As much as everyone had tried to tell her how stupid she was being, she continued on her path towards self destruction and decided to challenge the masked fellow instead of the witch that they were hunting for, most likely going to burn in a beautiful bonfire, and help get rid of whatever problems she was causing right now. Best case scenario was that the masked one, who was obviously too powerful for them to deal with, decided to totally ignore Ana's challenge and they would just have to deal with Mim by herself...well okay, best scenario was that some sort of deus ex machina happened and both of them just dropped dead, but that most likely wasn't happening here. After Beuce had accepted the challenge, Stratos said, "and with a res stat like mine, you're spell are going to have a hard time breaking through this body. So, I guess I'm willing to help my friend here and take you on." It was true that physically, Stratos was pretty wimpy. He could barely put any force behind his keyblade strikes at all, and he had no sort of speed to speak of. But with magic, well he was more of a sort of pseudo-mystic than he was a guardian.
The entire thing was going south fast and quite frankly, Stratos was becoming uncharacteristically annoyed. Here there was, someone who clearly had the power to shutdown the two most powerful members of their group. And rather than everyone getting ready to fight this fight, one of their members was having a meltdown. Despite everyone basically telling her how she wasn't worthless, she didn't seem to want to hear anything that they wanted to hear. Instead, when they tried to comfort her, she just started to shut them out more and started to rant about how terrible her past was. It wasn't that Stratos was an uncaring person, it was just that there was a time and place to delve into one's self worth, and one's own tragic story. Right before a fight, that's not an optimal time to do that. Thankfully, Beuce seemed to actually showcase his serious side, or rather, show it more overtly than normal, and Kel was also able to step out of his seeming uncaring shell. However, the fact remained that this masked figure was in front of them, and needed to be dealt with. "Now then, if you think your worthless and everything is too terrible to continue onward, well wouldn't that be a good decision to make after we deal with the enemy in front of us? As Kel said, you aren't going at this alone, and relying on us isn't a bad thing. Lord knows I'd be helpless without the three of you here. So, why don't we get started?"
So here it was. The penultimate day to basically doomsday. Things seemed as normal as ever at the gates, though, as demons continued to swarm and rage towards them in an attempt to break them before Lucifer even made his way up and out of hell. And so, there he was, using his wind sword technique to mercilessly cleave the demons before they could even make their way to the stairs. There was a short bit of time left before things got real, and there was one member of their team who seemed to be more nervous about her own abilities than anyone else...other than Kai who was always unsure of himself. "Alright Lauren, I'm going to help refine your powers today, as it is almost literally now or never." He stood there with her, wanting to be able to make sure that she had complete control of herself and what she was capable of. As shown from yesterday, her power clearly made people more aggressive...or at least far more vicious. Having some like that go out of control during the final battle could prove to be almost certainly deadly to them, and he wanted to make sure no mistakes would happen like that. "Now then, I guess some practice using it on people who aren't team members would be a good start. Just remember, we're angels so our power comes from belief. If you don't believe that you can do it, and do it properly, then you almost certainly won't be able to." Sal wasn't exactly an instructor, but hey, he had to try something with this girl.
Stratos had seen that the situation turned south extremely quickly. In an instant, that magical enemy girl appeared and was all like super spell shielding. When she did whatever spell that was, it instantly bounced Miss Mizu's own magic back at her and put her quickly to sleep. Well that sucked. On the brighter note, Stratos was in awe of the magic being dished out here. Oh what he would give to use that kind of magical energy for his own gain. His eyes were full of sparkles until his attention was turned to the self deprecating Ana. Thankfully, Kel had jumped in to liven her spirits before she turned into a witch or something. Stratos walked over and said, "that's right. If you were a useless party member then I'm sure you wouldn't be here in the first place. The fact that you are proves that you have worth to not just this team, but everyone in general. Besides, we can't beat ourselves up before we even get started, now can we?" Stratos then faced towards the hut and shouted, "Beuce, whatever is in that hut is clearly not relevant to us right now, so get out here." Stratos remained a calm smile on his face, not quite sure how the fight against Nequa would go. "Now then, I assume you're here to fight against us?" Diplomacy was never an option in these situations...but it was nice to think it was.
Stratos was actually quite interested in the talk of magic and the various tiers that went along with it. As things stood, he obviously only had the first tier of magic. But, despite being a guardian, Stratos actually wanted to know more about these seven tiers of magic. He wondered if, later on, he could learn how to use that kind of magic from Mizu or Merlin. Though based on his response, most likely not Merlin. It was then that they had reached the hut, and their plan of action already went underway. Beuce charged straight through the front door, guns blazing, minus the guns, with Ana following after him because she was pretty bi-polar with the dude and was flipping between the Tsun and the Dere quite frequently. Regardless, Stratos walked over to Kel and said, "well, I'm sure that given the circumstances we can most definitely run like the dickens away form the duo of witches if things turn sour. I'm expecting it to be more like us getting thrashed and then just ensuing with magical barriers and many a common enemy fight, so I doubt an escape plan is necessary."
Stratos's question more than not, answered unpurposefully by Ana and her lookout post that she had. They had done it! They had found the hut that the witch was most definitely probably 72% sure to be there. "Great job Ana!" Stratos called out to her giving a thumbs up. It was then that Kel asked what their plan of action should be. Right! Planning. Something that was quintessential to any endeavor through any situation. Turning to Kel, Stratos said in his calm demeanor, "well, the best case of action would probably be to calmly explain the situation to her and then beat her over the head with our various magics and keyblades if she insists on causing trouble."
Sal was busy just dealing with the demons in his own way. His blade was actually just flying all over the place, slicing demons wherever the wind took it. He was more or less observing the activities of everyone else, and was grateful to see that Alistair had managed to assimilate rather well with them. And even Richard was talking to him, Richard not really ever doing anything when it came to interacting with people. Then there was something he totally wasn't expecting to see at all. It appeared that Sven and Tiia, two people had known had problems with each other in the past, were blanketed in this red mist thing. Then suddenly Lauren jumped in there, trying to calm them both down before they killed each other. It was only when demons came in and tried to kill them both did they stop trying to kill each other and then savagely go after the demons instead. Not wanting them to run out of demons to kill, Sal grabbed a bunch with a large blast of air and sent them flying towards the two. When the demons landed, they took out some with themselves, but weren't dead yet, and were stunned at that, thus providing the perfect fuel for the battle crazed lunatics. Sal walked over to Lauren and simply said, "hello there Ms. Lauren. Am I correct to assume that these two trying to kill things as brutally as possible is caused by you?" Sal really only had the fact that Lauren wasn't effected by that mist, and the fact they were willing to kill demons as proof that it was Lauren's powers, though it could still be wrong.
Stratos was really hoping for a giant sign in the forest with flashing lights that indicated that there was a secret entrance nearby, though they had no such luck. Hell they couldn't even find the not secret entrance at this point in time. So they continued to walk through the forest until Beuce and Ana started having a blatantly obvious and somewhat audible secret conversation with each other. It was then that Beuce shouted whilst lifting Ana off the ground, saying he wouldn't let her down. Stratos then had the sudden urge to find out what time it was and checked the sun to confirm that it indeed was not 3 AM. Damn, no dinner for him yet. Ah well. He then turned to Merlin and asked, "so, will we just know this Witch's place when we see it, or is it just something totally inconspicuous?" If it was the latter, Stratos would have to be on the lookout for rocket classroom desks in the sky.
