Light Vs. Darkness: The Hero's Return

R didn't smile as Sapphire walked in and kissed him on the cheek. He didn't usually smile, but that didn't mean he wasn't glad of her being there. A small nod was what he gave. Sapphire had known him long enough to know this was roughly his version of a smile. The news she came bearing was grim. Gexln had resigned himself to death. He would either defeat Dane and live the rest of his life in exile to protect the ones he cared about, or die trying. He had been well aware that Gexln was struggling with the darkness, yet the man no longer trusted him enough to let him help. The grudge he held against Sapphire for what she did to his son, and him for giving her the power to do so was a strong one. In fact, R wouldn't be surprised if he had been a major factor in his struggle with the darkness. The path he had taken was wrought with loss and tragedy. He had lost friends. The people now turned against Sapphire, proclaiming her as corrupt. A precious few still trusted in R's judgement.

Then again, it wasn't his judgement that mattered. It was Sapphire's. His hands were stained with blood, much of it innocent. He was not fit to guide the people. Yet Sapphire had retained her innocence even through losing herself to darkness. She was the only kind of person who could create a world of peace. He still believed he had made the right choice. Before he could respond, Xero had run off. "Dammit. She's so driven by emotion that she forgoes logic She can help him, but not by chasing him wildly without any real knowledge of what she's going to do when she finds him!" He said to himself.

Then, Sapphire began reciting Gexln's words. It was clear just how far he had fallen. Gexln had been one of the only people he'd ever truly thought of as a friend. It pained him that he was like this. Sapphire questioned him what he meant. "Sapphire, Xero came to me, asking for help. Lexcifur has been exposed to Ansem's darkness, it seems. If he truly has acquired some residual trace of it from her...then it may well be because i failed to completely remove it. If this is so, then his circumstances fall on my shoulders. I had to atone for this in some way. I had to help her. I forged a cross celestial link with her, allowing her access to my power. Gexln likely sensed this link. The darkness in his heart immediately made him assume the worst of things, and in his mind he saw a relationship between us where there is none."


Caleb had used his powers of projection to create what appeared to be a shining bomb. When struck, it would trigger into a watery explosion. Surely this would be effective against the flaming creature. Caleb proceeded to scatter them all around it, ready for them to detonate. Drawing his blade, ghost held it parallel with his body. "Narukami!" Lightning crackled along his blade as gleaming petals emerged from it, energy sparking from each one. With a slash of his blade, a wave of energy flew out, striking one of the bombs and detonating it.

Zavion used fist of the shadow dragon. You all know what it looks like.


Hunter began running at him, attempting to strike him with a poisonous arrow. It seemed it was either devote his attention to defending against that, or block the cannon shot from Gwen. Or at least, that would've been the case had his partner not been bro as fuck and done a Hayabusa raid. The keyblade flew down and struck the arrow from Hunter's hand while Beuce turned toward Gwen. "Firaza!" He yelled, hurling an enormous fire ball at her, colliding with her ice attack and causing the two to cancel each other out. Firaza was a strong spell, but it fell short of being called an ultimate ability, thus he couldn't enhance the power of it with his arm. Ohm seemed ready to strike, and hunter was more than likely getting ready for another strike. So far, he'd been 1v3ing pretty effectively, but he knew he couldn't keep it up forever. He could do nothing but defend through all the attacks, never getting the chance to really go on the offensive. He had to split them up.

He looked straight at Ohm. He was the most split off from the rest of them. Making a quick sprint, he darted toward the mute. His arm began to glow a pale green as he punched the ground. "Tornado: Eye of the storm!" The thing about wind magic was that it had multiple forms in single spells. This carried over, even all the way to the top. This would be akin to the barrier form of the spell. A heavy wind began blowing from Beuce, a full storm was blowing from him, causing his coat tails to wave around him. The wind formed into a spiral, then shot up into the air as a column around him and Ohm. The massive storm barred all passage, preventing entry or exit. The wind still blew within it, but it could be fought in. It had formed an arena for the two of them. "Just the two of us now. I'll deal with the other two in about a minute. This won't take long." Though he was confident, he knew this wasn't the time to get careless. Taking a stance, he prepared for the inevitable clash of swordplay.


She was under his spell. The others couldn't see it, to them she would just be standing there in a daze, but he could see her fear. She was afraid of what she might become. The thought of it terrified her. But, something was wrong. It wasn't just her. There was someone else in her nightmare, offering comfort from it. Bartholomew growled angrily to himself. Someone had come to ruin the fun. Looking over, he saw that a fight with the goddess' agents was beginning to break out. "Hunting are we? Monsters too can be made to fear." Waving his hand, a dark translucent crow flew out of his hand, flying toward phantom and attempting to steal the breath from his very throat. ​

 

As the beam was shot at Gexln, he nimbly rolled to the side to avoid it. Getting up quickly, he shot a few dark firagas off at her. They flew through the air, and as they did Gexln began sprinting towards Xero. He didn't want her dead, hell he didn't even want her seriously injured, but if serious injury were what it came down to, then that's what he would do; at least then she'd be alive. The dark firagas were very close to Xero now, and the Wanderer of the Dark took full advantage of it. He raised his blade in front of her and lunged forward with it, attempting to use his spell as a distraction. If it hit, it wouldn't kill her, but it would cause an injury that would most certainly scar her if the attack connected.


As the explosions went off, it was easy to see that the bird had felt it, the creature recoiling in pain as the tremendous force of the water gushed over those particular parts of its body. "Keep going! It's getting weaker!" Caleb cried out. They had to stop the bird, if it got any closer to the world it could probably destroy the entire world and all the inhabitants that remained on it. Flying higher, he stuck a few more orbs on the creature.


Well ****, Hunter hadn't expected Beuce to actually block the attack. Who used common sense these days anyway?! As the spell from Gwen collided with Beuce's, he was knocked off his feet and away from the white haired buffoon. He recovered quickly, but not quick enough. The moment he stood up, he saw that Beuce had created Erigor's wind shield. "Ginger, is there a rule that stops impenetrable shields? I thought there was something against god modding. Like what the actual hell are we supposed to do now? Sit here and twiddle our thumbs?" Hunter asked, clearly annoyed by the bullshittery. He took a chair out of his inventory and sat down on it, before pulling out a pack of playing cards along with it. "Fancy a game of strip poker?" the perverted man requested, a completely innocent look on his face.​

 

Xero saw the firagas fly toward her and the attack caught her off guard. She closed her eyes tightly and put her hand out in front of her as if she was going to create a barrier. But something else formed in front of her without her realizing. A blade of darkness was created and as the firagas shot toward Xero, the blade was launched right at Gexln as he sprinted toward her. The firagas hit Xero and she was pushed back a few feet and had a few burn marks from it.

When the smoke from the spell cleared she tried focusing back on Gexln. But when she did, the only thing Xero could do was stand there frozen in the horror she was now faced with.​

 

Gexln had stopped running. He'd been forced to the second the blade had stabbed into him. He looked down, as if he couldn't believe what had actually happened, only to see the pure black blade protruding from his chest, right above his heart. He grabbed onto it, dropping his blade onto the ground, and with a herculean effort, he pulled it out of himself, screaming in pain as he ripped it out of his body. He dropped it on the ground next to him as blood started pouring out of the gaping hole in his chest now and began coughing furiously.

The coughing stopped quickly as he fell forward and onto the ground. He looked up at Xero and immediately his first thought was to reach out to Xero, to take her hand. He was dying, and he wanted the last thing he did to hold the hand of one so dear to him. However, as he reached out, he caught the scent of R on her once again, and quickly he pulled his arm back. "Huh...the thing that kills me..is something R taught you...how fitting...I guess I was right then.." he stated, an edge of bitterness in his voice. He could feel the life running from his body, his will to live just about completely gone. "Guess this is what someone like me deserves..stabbed in the back by his wife, then impaled in the front by his old teacher...but hey, least you're safe now...at least you're safe now.." Gexln said, his voice getting quieter and quieter. He could barely hear Xero as he closed his eyes. It was over. People would be safe, he would no longer be a threat, and now she could be happy. Yeah, things had worked out, even if he hadn't intended them going that way. This was the last thought he had as the warrior's will died out completely, and all that remained was a corpse.​

 

Xero watched as Gexln pulled the blade out and blood pouring down his body. He reached out towards her and she ran over to him, only to see that he pulled away from her, "Huh...the thing that kills me..is something R taught you...how fitting...I guess I was right then.." Xero shook her head as she knelt down in front of him "N-No... No, no, no... R didn't... I didn't mean... I just..." Xero couldn't finish her sentence, the scene before her was too much. She wrapped her arms around him, not caring about the blood seeping into her clothes.

"I'm sorry... I'm so sorry..." Her tears ran down her face as she began sobbing.

"Guess this is what someone like me deserves..stabbed in the back by his wife, then impaled in the front by his old teacher...but hey, least you're safe now...at least you're safe now.." Gexln's words hurt. But Xero could only hold on to him, her hands gripping at the fabric of his shirt. As his voice began trailing off Xero looked at him.

"G-Gexln...?" She began to panic, "Gexln?" still no response, "Gexln?!!" His body was limp and Xero just couldn't believe what was happening.

"Gexln please get up! Please!!" Xero could only cry into his bloodied chest. Not wanting to do anything else, "Please don't leave me..."

Was this really happening...? This was a dream right? No, it wasn't... Xero had just killed Gexln.
​

 

Ohm had expected Beuce to use some BS super move. Their eyes met and he knew right then that he was singled out. He stood on guard as Beuce charged him and he watched every step the guy made as if it were in slow motion. Though the steps were delibrate, they weren't with intention of charging at him, just closing the distance between the two. Once close, Beuce created a sort of makeshift magical barrier out of sheer wind. One thing about magic was that it took many forms for one spell but the difference with wind magic was that it took mana to maintain. It was a double edged sword, it's incredibly powerful but maintaining it would be a *****. He then heard Beuce speak and snapped his attention, looking around for any way out, not really looking like he was paying any attention, but he heard every word. It looked like he had to do the one thing that he didn't want to do..fight Beuce first one on one.

The boss music kicked up full blast and Ohm had his sword at the ready, wasn't like he had a choice in the matter anyway. He held his sword to his side, raised it up and brandished it, sparks danced across his skin as his eyes opened, revealing the Thunder rune in place of his pupils as lightning danced around the two combatants. He tapped both feet and then vanished, only blurs of him remained where he once was as he slashed at Beuce from all sides, not in a full on attempt to defeat him but keep the guy on his toes and pelt him with little attacks.​

 

• Lucien
• Phantom
• Charlotte

• 
  Lucien nodded as he heard his response from both of his young female compatriots. With a smirk on his face he said, "good choice."Shooting himself back upright, he turned to face the messengers of the goddess. Dane seemed to free himself rather easily from his trapped area, and saw that he was taking on the pink haired boy. There was pretty much no chance that kid had against Dane right now, so he decided to go and take on the other two fighters. The griffon seemed to be floating in the air, waiting for a good time to come in and strike, which Lucien didn't feel like giving it. Looking around the forest, he found a good way to approach this flying thing. While it was focusing on the fight with Phantom and Dane, poised to swoop in at any given moment, it didn't expect what was to happen next. Jumping forward, Lucien planted both of his feet on a tree trunk and proceeded to leap straight off of it towards the griffon. Without much of a time to react, Lucien managed to land on the lion birds back and saw something interesting. Looking at the black haired boy who was just sitting on the griffon, he blinked a few times and said,
  "have you...have you been here this whole time?"
  
  Regardless of the boy's sudden appearance, Lucien let loose a simple kick at the boy to knock him off of his steed, only for the griffon to start bucking wildly and spin to throw Lucien off of its back. However, much to its dismay, things didn't quite work out like that. As Lucien did get thrown off of its back, he was still fast enough to kick the bird lion while he was falling through the air. When the kick had connected, the giant magical construct let out a weird cross between a squawk and a roar as the sheer force of it sent the beast hurtling through the air and into some nearby trees. Lucien landed, a tad unceremoniously, and figured that that boss was simple enough to deal with. However, the griffon was far from over with as it flew out of the foliage and back into the air. Taking a look at the group, it knew it needed to stop them, and did so with a carefully picked out magic. Not wanting to completely torch the area around it, it used ice magic to fire off large balls of ice. Lucien managed to roll out of the way of one, only to see it explode upon impact with the ground, leaving a small area where it hit completely frozen. This would be a problem if it hit them, but it seemed to be aiming for the people actually fighting or prepared to fight, let out a small barrage of ice bombs at them.
  
• 
  Phantom had been awaiting the people's responses, but it was almost entirely too obvious what they were going to choose. Especially if the last world he went to was any indication of this group's state of mind. While he was being the patient little cop that he was, he briefly lost focus on the group, only to be alerted when he saw a man with a scythe charging at him. Well, that answered that question pretty clearly. As the scythe was swung, Phantom was able to backstep the simple attack a bit, but still managed to get slight cut on his torso. Well, this man clearly seemed to be of the dangerous sort. And not one that Phantom could just sort of mess around with. Being within close proximity of the scythe wielder slightly worked out for him, as Phantom charged his rifle with ice, and used the imbue shot, buck shot right towards him. While normally a single bullet would have fired out of the gun, instead, a large spread of ice shards were fire off instead. After doing this, a bird immediately hit into him, and while it didn't feel like it with any real force, it still managed to make Phantom gasp for a bit. Being breathless was a bit of set back, in fact, with both of the people fighting him being in close proximity of him, there was little he could do while trying to catch his breath back, thankfully he didn't have to do anything. As the griffon had started to shell out ice bombs on the enemy, Phantom was able to recuperate during the confusion, and fired a few plain old bullets at Bartholomew.
  
• 
  As Charlotte had let loose a barrage of light shots at the creature, it seemed to be particularly unfazed by the attack. Furthermore, it was getting a bit more risky to stay so close to it as she was starting feel sweat cover her from the raw amount of heat the beast generating. However, Caleb had managed to create a good opening for the group to hit the beast with, as he planted bombs containing water spells in the beast. Following up on this, Charlotte had flown around to where she could see one of the bombs and let loose a wave of light, causing it to collide with the bomb and explode within the large phoenix.
  

 

​

Samsara could feel her heart weaken against whatever was going on. Doubling over, she felt tears drip down onto the floor beneath her, staining the ground. Opening her eyes, she noticed even her clothes had changed and that she now looked more like a Sage than ever before. Screaming in agony, she tried to rip the clothes off, but was unable to do so. Giving up, she pressed her back against a mirror and slipped to the floor. She was a crying, sobbing mess now. Looking up, she began to wonder if what she was doing was wrong. She wondered if things would have been better if she had never been born. Many more questioned flooded her mind as she brought her knees to her chest, folded her arms over her knees, pressed her forehead on her arms, and tried to sort things out. "Maybe I should just give up trying to learn to control this darkness? Maybe it'd be better if I just let it take over me..." she thought, sobbing. Tears threatened to flow down her cheeks again, but she stopped them. What was the use in crying if she was stuck here for a long time?

Looking down, Samsara noticed wisps of light through her arms. Turning her eyes upwards, she looked at the glowing figure before her. It was her father, or at least, her father's soul. Standing up, Samsara still couldn't look straight forward into her father's eyes, he was still taller than her, but only a little. Not knowing what to say, Samsara stood in silence before he hugged her in a warm embrace. This was when she got her first, good look, at her father. His hair was navy and eyes light brown. Just like her brother Ohm. Listening to her father, there was only one detail she didn't agree with. Samsara knew that her mother was not to be trusted or loved. Even if she had to kill her later, Samsara didn't care about Ananta anymore. Kross finished his speech and asked her to remember everything he said. She nodded and watched as he disappeared from her arms.

Closing her eyes, Samsara began to focus on what she wanted. She didn't fear this image of her anymore. Because it wasn't true anymore. She knew she'd never be like her mother. She was sure she'd never be like her mother, so she was able to slowly cause the clothing on her body to melt away and reveal her original look and clothes. The crystal around her neck seemed to turn nearly all dark now, only the tiniest light was still within it. Grabbing the crystal and looking down, Samsara grinned. "It's only a matter of time." she said. "Soon, I'll be able to just give it away and not worry about anything..." She chuckled, shaking her head. "I'm glad that dark guy taught me about this...." Samsara nodded to herself.

Eyes staring straight ahead, Samsara walked forward and pressed her hands on the mirror. Feeling darkness flow from her hands, she watched the mirror's image fade from what the other mirrors had been showing. Grinning at the mirror, Samsara saw Bartholomew's hand resting on her shoulder still. Thumping her hands against the mirror, she beat the mirror until cracks began to form. Then, once the cracks formed, small shards began to fall from the mirror before it shattered completely. Reaching her right hand over her shoulder, she gripped Bartholomew's hand. Her eyes lit back up and soon she had turned around and held her keyblade up to Bartholomew's neck. A frown spread across her face while she looked at him. "Do that again and I'll be sure to clip your wings." she threatened, letting him go. "But I gotta say thanks, because you've helped me a little today." she said, dark wisps floating away from her body and from where her hand had gripped Bartholomew's arm. "Now excuse me while I go to try and fight...that thing." she nodded her head towards the Griffon.

Stepping forward, Samsara stood behind Dane and awaited him to hop back towards her. "Got any plans?" she asked him, not wanting to get in his way. "Do I need to try and take down that kid?" she motioned towards Phantom, slapping away a few ice shards with her keyblade. Samsara was subject to fiercer magic than this, so she wasn't too scared of these ice shards. At least, not in their small numbers she wasn't, but if that kid managed to shoot off many in succession, she'd be in trouble. Looking up, Samsara saw the Griffon started to shell out it's own ice bombs, shooting at everyone. Reaching a hand up, Samsara managed to grab one before it exploded and returned the ice bomb, hitting the Griffon and causing it to reel back in surprise. Staring at her hand, Samsara hissed at the freezing feeling it gave off.

 

"How...?" Sherridan gasped, looking at the suddenly free Dane. I suppose this counts for an alliance now doesn't it? I knew I should have extended the range of the Null Zone to cover him. Never mind. We're on the same side... For now. I wonder how long that's going to last though. Whatever the case, I have to keep an eye on this group. For the good of the realm of course. Not to mention that they're looking for some sort of hero to fight against the Goddess with. She's sending one of her own agents after them. That says a lot about the importance of this quest. I have to somehow help them get along and find the Hero. Not that he had much more time for consideration, as the griffon rider began his attack. Sherridan dived to the side as quickly as he could, feeling one of the icy shards nick his left shoulder. He grunted in pain a little, but he'd had worse than that. He wanted to Null Zone the rider, but that was out of the question. He needed the others at their full fighting capacity. Therefore he had to try and disable the Griffon or its rider.

He ducked behind a thick tree, now ducking away from most of the icy projectiles being flung out. He considered his options. Clearly the flying mount was his greatest advantage, so he had to minimise it. He flicked through his arsenal of traps and arrows. There was only one thing for it. His Razor Trap. It would shred the wings of the beast and do some severe damage to its rider. He took one of them out from the satchel he had of them and set it. Then he stepped out from behind his cover, aimed and threw as hard as he could, the small metal contraption spinning towards Phantom.
He raced to the next tree, trying to keep moving. He couldn't risk warning the others, as that would alert Phantom who so far hadn't seemed to have noticed him at all. At the next spot, he loosed off a normal arrow at Phantom and ducked behind the tree again.
"These people don't mess around do they?" He muttered to himself. All of the magic flying around made this place very, very dangerous.​

 

• Zephyr
• Xross
• Avi

• 
  
  ​
  To answer the question that Stratos had wondered, yes Zephyr was serious about using wind to fight him. It was pretty clear that Stratos had plenty of skills when it came down to wind magic and that suing it to fight him would not be the best of ideas, but Zephyr didn't have much choice. His preferred element was fire, heck he had both red and blue flames as his disposal. Using fire against wind would definitely not work against him. He wasn't all that sure about how lightning would do so that was a different matter, one that he would wait before deciding to use it. Which brings us to his choice to use wind for it was either that or a shield and he was no Captain America.
  
  Back to the fight at hand though, the wind attack had proven to be quite ineffective. Shocking. There wasn't much time to think about that though for the wind mage had ran towards him. The gem on his gauntlet turned pitch black in preparation for what was to come. The attack that he was expecting to come didn't, instead there was a gust of wind from above. Said gust made it quite difficult to look upward and keep his eyes open, but he managed to keep them open just enough to see that he somewhat see by moving his right forearm in the path. It didn't help much, but he was just barely able to see the elbow that was aimed for his face. The gem that was on his gauntlet formed a shield that would protect him provided he wasn't coming down with more force than it could handle. Lousy borrowed powers. Zephyr may have been currently holding up a shield in defense, but he did have another arm that he could use to fight. He sent a few sparks of electricity into his left fist and swung it towards Stratos. Now was as good as any time to see whether or not lighting would actually do anything. Hopefully it would have better results than wind did.
• 
  
  ​
  The weak point of the phoenix had been revealed and the others weren't wasting any time in beating the crap out of the phoenix. Now whether or not the it revived itself after being defeated was a different thing, but they'd cross that bring when they came to it. During all of the phoenix beat down Xross had been trying to figure out how to attack it. He didn't have any means of flying so he could just go up close and personal against it. The best that he could do would be to shoot at it. It was tempting, eventually he gave in to the temptation and decided to go with it. With a quick snap of his fingers, a portal opened up on his left side. Snapping his fingers again. This time arrow of darkness had taken form within the portal and then fired towards the creature. Their target was both the Phoenix itself and any bombs that hadn't detonated yet (assuming that there are any).
• 
  
  ​
  "The whole time." Avi simply said. After that well he got kicked off the griffin that they'd arrived on. Well that sucked, thankfully there was a conveniently placed bush that broke his fall. Now that he'd landed safely, the question now was what the hell was he suppose to do. There was the given 'Help Phantom' which could very well be an easy feat seeing as how 90% of his mirror related abilities are defense related. Well there was still the griffin so that could pose a distraction for some of the people here that were fighting. Meanwhile he'd could start prepping some defensive spells. First though, he needed to get out of the bush that he'd landed in.

 

​

Having gone to elbow Zephyr in the face with his...well, elbow, Stratos was a bit surprised to see that a black shield had taken form to block the attack. Huh, this Zephyr kid definitely seemed to be more magically adept than Kel was back in the day. To further cement this, he seemed to generate some sort of electricity in his hand, which he then promptly tried to strike Stratos with. Being still in mid air, it didn't give the wind boy much options in terms of defense, so he just kind of braced against the attack as he let the aeroza barrier take the brunt of the attack. When he landed, a bit away from Zephyr, he saw that his arm had a bit of burn on it. With a quick wave of his hand over the wound, a simple cure spell had fixed it right up. He then looked back to the boy and got down into a runner's stance. Taking off towards Zephyr, running straight at him, when he got close enough to attack him head on, once more he did not. Instead, jumping into the air with a bit a of spin to it, a wind current had caused his spinning body to curve around Zephyr. Summoning his wind imbued keyblade back to his hand, Stratos struck at Zephyr's side with the weapon in the midst of his fly by.

 

​

So lightning did work against him, that would be good to know. Unfortunately his left arm had gone a bit numb due to the lighting attack that he used. It would be fine given some time, but it wouldn't be usable for the moment. Which meant that he would be on defense until he could. So he kept the black shield active for the time being as Stratos ran at him again. Much like last time when he'd gotten within striking range the wind mage leap above him, which prompted Zephyr to move the shield upward. Though he didn't expect Stratos to summon a keyblade and start twirling with it. So he was in a pretty crappy position to block so he ended up taking the full attack. Fortunately nothing broke, but given the force of the attack along with the wind, he was sent back quite a bit. A stinging sensation lingered from where he was struck by the keyblade, so he placed his gauntlet covered hand over where he was hit and casted cure. The pain soon alleviated itself as the green glow faded away. "Geez, your good. Though I can't be too surprised by that." His left arm had started to twitch slightly, so while he wasn't able to fully move it yet, he would be soon enough. All he needed was time.

 

​

• Stratos
• Jackie

• 
  
  ​
  After Stratos's attack had landed with a resounding success, the boy landed back down on the ground harmlessly and looked at Zephyr curing himself. As the boy with the odd combination of hair colors spoke up about Stratos being good, he responded with, "thanks. I mean, I fought with alongside your ancestor all that time ago and have only been fighting since, so I got a lot of experience up on you. Though, you are pretty good yourself." Stratos looked towards his opponent who seemed to be worse for wear here, but he had to finish this fight. Once Zephyr was over and done with, then Stratos could move on to Rinox, seeing as Beuce surprisingly seemed to have his whole one versus three scenario handled pretty well. Taking a calm breath, Stratos flicked his keyblade around so he was now holding it back handed. Starting to run at Zephyr, at about the half way mark, his speed suddenly changed dramatically upward as he used a burst of wind underneath his feet in order to propel himself forward, toward the boy. With his wind imbued keyblade, he looked ready to strike at Zephyr's side with the blade, and as he made the motion to do so, that attack never came. Instead, the blade had warped out of Stratos's hand and into his other one, causing Stratos to attack from the opposite side in an attempt to end this fight between the two of them.
  
• 
  
  
  Jackie had been experiencing a whole torrent of emotions as she watched the scene play out before her. First, it was revealed that Freya had been a spy all along. Gasp! The reveal had Jackie stunned as she let out a large gasp of astonishment. She then heard Lexcifur start to question Freya's trustworthiness, and was absolutely flabbergasted at the oddly armed destructive boy. This was obviously that moment when their relationship was supposed to hit a rocky patch, but still, it was too much! Then Freya seemed to leave, which was a scene that started to bring tears to Jackie's eyes and start sniffling as the beautiful shoujo romance continued onward. Blanc had stepped over to where she was and simply presented her with a box of tissues that he pulled from...somewhere. Blowing hardily into them and wiping her face, the scene only became more emotionally trying to watch as Lexcifur had pronounced his repressed and undying love for Freya, running over to her and the two kissing. It was so beautiful to watch that Jackie threw the tissues away and started to go over to the group. Completing the scene with only thing it was missing, cherry blossoms began to fall around the room, and Jackie seemed to be near the group in an instant as he joined in on the hug, effectively turning into a group hug. Through her happy crying she was able to get out a, "I'm soooo happpy for you guysss," sniffing in between words she then said, "it's just soooo beautiful!" And thus, the fantasy shoujo moment had ended with a third wheel glomping in on the action....Meanwhile Blanc just stood there kind of awkwardly, not really sure what to do with the tissue box.
  

 

Though he couldn't deflect all of the cuts, Beuce was, for the most part, fairly accurate with deflecting the blows. Ohm was fast, and coming at him from nearly every direction. The metal of their weapons clashed over and over as they met. If someone was coming at you from everywhere at once, then why not hit everyone at once? Frost coated Beuce's arm as he seemed to be charging some kind of attack. "Deep freeze!" He yelled, spinning in a circle as he swung the magic enhanced arm. An ixy wind blew around him, freezing everything in the immediate area. There were three ways this could go. The first being that the attack went off without a hitch. Ohm would be frozen, making him an easy target for a follow-up attack, and likely winning Beuce the fight. The second being that Ohm had backed off. Within the confines of the wind wall, there wasn't much space the attack didn't cover, but safe spaces did exist nonetheless. Ohm could flee to that and avoid the deep freeze, but Beuce had spotted where the safe area was beforehand, so he could make a follow up attack quickly and keep his opponent on his feet.

The third being that Ohm had some kind of ability he wasn't aware of, and negated his attack entirely. That would kind of suck, but depending on how it was done, he may still be able to keep up the fight and pull out a win. From the looks of things, Ohm was a jack of all trades, using every element and physical attacks in tandem, same as him. Just from what he'd seen so far, he knew Kross had taught him well. He was glad he didn't have to fight Gwen and Hunter at the same time. It was likely he could beat any of them individually, maybe even any combination of the two, but all three of them at once would be enough to overwhelm him.


Bartholomew made no effort to evade the bullets. In face, he didn't even attempt to block. The bullet hit its mark, and blew a hole in his side, another traveled through the bone in his shoulder, cracking it and causing his arm to hang limp, and the third hit him in the thigh. All three successfully wounded him. It looked as though he would be killed right then and there, but he kept his grin wide. Extending his uninjured arm at Phantom. A light green stream of energy began flowing out of Phantom as his life force was sapped away. The blood faded away off of Bartholomew. His wounds began stitching themselves back into proper condition. His shoulder snapped itself back into place as the bullet fell from the hole in his shoulder. Once he had been fully restored, he stopped the drain, and readied his sickle with the same unnerving grin he'd had the entire time. ​

 

Xero had heard Sapphire tell her to go back to Riel. She felt like she couldn't move, her body almost weighed her down. Her stomach churned and her chest hurt. What was the point of going back now? There was no home for her to go back to. Gexln was dead. There was nothing for her to go back to.

Slowly getting up and being covered in Gexln's blood, she reluctantly left the scene and went back into the cave where R and Sapphire were. She only stood there silently, tears rolling down her emotionless face as she looked at the ground.​

Lexcifur looked at Freya for a moment before his face became a bright red. He rubbed the back of his neck and tried to speak, "I-I just... I-I wanted... Y-you... Uh..." Lexcifur was too flustered to speak. He had honestly liked Freya for a long while. He just was never good at expressing such things and only covered it up with his usual attitude. "I-I didn't... want y-you to... leave..."​

 

Dane nodded in response to Samsara as he held up his arm. From his arm extended a shield of pure darkness, holding strong against the ice bombs fired from the elemental griffin. "Okay okay, you take down that guy. I'll go grab the other one" he stated, turning his attention towards Avi. Racing over to him, he was about to strike with his shield until the boy fell into the bush. The second his skin touched the bush, he had vanished as though he hadn't been there at all. What sorcery was this? Well, the only way to counter a magical bush was to destroy it entirely, everybody knew that.

From his scythe came a dark flame. Not a dark firaga, but more a stream of flames. The flames engulfed the bush, burning it to ashes in mere moments, however Avi was unharmed. What the hell was with that? This guy was interesting to say the least, with all his magical bullshit. "Nowhere to run now" he said, a wicked grin appearing on his face as he lunged forward and swung his scythe at Avi, intending to cut him straight down the middle.


Caleb watched as the phoenix had bombs set off all over it. Eventually, it was weakened to the point that the physical exhaustion was evident. It was breathing heavily, sending hot gusts in their direction, and the flapping of its wings were slower. It was all but finished, and Caleb would be the one to finish it. He flew on his keyblade glider high into the air, he hovered above the creature and cracked his knuckles. This was going to take a bit of effort.

The swordsman drew upon the reserves of magical energy and every bit he had left in his body. He formed an image in his mind, the dimensions and weight coming naturally to him. From above the phoenix a giant sphere of light appeared, and from that sphere of light emerged a giant greatsword, one that equalled the phoenix itself in length. "I will not falter!" he yelled as the sword plummeted down, stabbing into the great flaming bird and slicing straight through the center of it, cutting the creature clean in half. Caleb then released the magic, causing the weapon to simply vanish as though it had not been there in the first place. After the deed was done, Caleb flew down and landed back on Cite Des Cloches, breathing ridiculously heavily and simply sitting on the ground, the loss of energy easy to see.


Hunter was sitting down in his underwear. He was in the most intense battle of his life, in the ultimate showdown of ultimate destiny. Wait, no he wasn't, he was just playing cards. Looking at Gwen with a fierce gaze, Hunter opened his mouth to speak. "Go fish" he said in the most intimidating, serious tone he could muster, causing a gasp to come from the watching crowd. Gwen didn't say anything, and he knew he had won. He maintained that thought pattern until he heard a low mumble of laughter from the audience. He'd been playing Go Fish the entire time, instead of playing texas hold 'em, maybe that's why he wasn't winning. Clearing his throat, he let slip a sly grin on his face. "How 'bout we make this interesting? If I lose this hand, then you get to pick anything from my inventory and take it. Anything at all, and I can't complain about it at all. When I win, because men are superior and will never be beaten by a lowly female, you have to strip down to your underwear so we're on an even playing field. Then we play one more hand, and whoever wins that has to remove their underwear; and the censor bars will be disabled" the man said, the grin never getting smaller the entire time he spoke.​

 

'Deep Freeze!' the command rang out from his opponent. Ohm could start to feel the chill of the coming wind even before the attack initiated. His body enveloped in an orange and red aura as his eyes turned the same color. His body enveloped in the aura and the light shot out to meet the cold spell of Deep Freeze. Option number three. Both attacks cancelled each other out and a huge blast of power rang out from both of them as a result, making the earth around them crack in an instant and shake for a few seconds. Ohm stood his ground however, sword at the ready and glare set, it seemed that Beuce would either have to come at him this time, or retreat, and depending on everything, Ohm just hoped for the latter.​

 

• Lucien
• Phantom
• Charlotte

• 
  
  
  "SCRRRAAAAAWWWWWWHHHHHHHHHHHH" which was the fairy majestic sound of the griffon that Sapphire sent as razor wire had essentially eviscerated one of its wings and it fell to the ground. Lucien looked at the thing, and was wondering just what else Sherridan had in his wonderful bag of tricks. After all, he kind of forgot the dude even existed back when he was relevant. Rangers, always were clever at keeping out of the spotlight...whether intentional or not. Regardless, everyone else seemed to have Phantom handled and Avi was...well he was Avi. And given his opponent was Dane now...well it was only a matter of time before the gg was typed out from that kid. Cracking his knuckles, Lucien looked at the downed griffon, seeing what else it had in store, as he started to walk towards it. The griffon still seemed to be coming back to its senses as Lucien was upon it. Pulling back his arm, he brought it around for a quick jab at the things beak face thing, knocking it away. He followed this up with a roundhouse kick that sent the griffon sailing through the air and into a tree. Seemed easy enough a win.
  
  However, the griffon was not down and out just yet. Essentially shedding its busted wing and replacing it with one made of ice, and having ice start to form across its entire body, until it was one giant cryo griffon. Well that was a new one. Lucien stood at the ready to bash this bird brained ice sculpture in with his fists, though the bird lion was not so willing. Letting out another noise that could only be described as a mix between a screech and a roar, it looked to the group and started firing out a storm of ice spikes at the crew of the goddess who were currently helping, being a bit more vindictive towards Lucien and Sherridan.
  
• 
  
  
  Phantom was slowly disliking his job more and more as time went on. Sure, he had managed to put a few holes into the creep that he was supposed to be tailing, but something about his lack of reaction to it was a little unsettling. However, he didn't have much to think on that as the dear old ranger who had downed his ride had also decided on shooting at him. Of course, Phantom didn't really see this coming, and so when he actually noticed the arrow coming at him, it was a bit on the late side to react to it and as such, the arrow had ended up hitting him square in the arm, sending out a lot of pain coursing through him. As of right now, Phantom wasn't entirely sure what he was going to do as having only one usable arm was pretty hampering on the whole two handed rifle thing, not to mention there were other problems on top of that one. He felt strangely tired as he saw a green stream of energy flow in...uh...he wasn't sure if it was out from him or towards him, but nevertheless he was pretty drained now while Bartholomew was looking right as rain, apparently having just shrugged off a few bullet holes. The only good thing that happened for Phantom was that the scythe guy seemed to no longer be trying to kill him, though he still had to deal with three people at the moment.
  
  Feeling the sweat across his body and his breaths getting heavier, Phantom was aware that if he were to win this fight it was going to have to be soon or else he'd basically have no chance. So, going in for one last ditch effort, Phantom struggled to use his injured arm to help stabalize his rifle as he took a few back steps to keep distance between him and his opponents. The gun first glowed a light green as he fired into the forest, seemingly nowhere near any of the other fighters. His gun next glowed red as he fired a single bullet at Bartholomew, and finished by having his gun switch to a brown color as he fired a bullet at the ground near Samsara. The first bullet was the wind bullet, with having figured out the general area Sherridan was in due to the arrow stuck in his arm, the bullet was to curve in the forest and arc towards Sherridan's presumed location. Not a perfect plan, but one nonetheless. The second bullet directed at Bartholomew, being a fire imbued bullet, was to explode into a large ball of flame upon impact. He didn't know why, but he thought that igniting this freak would be a good idea...more so than the average person, that is. As for Samsara, the earth bullet was just to let out an earth spike from the ground towards her in order to injure one of her legs to, at the very least, debilitate her movement. With all of the shots fired, Phantom felt his arm go numb from the loss of blood and overall constriction of blood flow, and so simply slung the rifle over his shoulder, since it kind of needed two hands to be properly fired.
  
• 
  
  ​
  With the Phoenix being felled by Caleb, the group had done a job well done in taking out the giant bird, though they could hardly call this excursion a success in any regards. They were no closer to finding the hero, and worse yet, they were no closer to stopping the walking genocide of man that was Crybex. Even further still, they had to focus their attention back to their next goal, that being stopping Dane who had essentially enslaved Xander's friend. Once everyone had caught their breaths, they were to mobilize back to Disney Castle. Even if they weren't going to actively stop Dane, the group had to go back there to rendez-vous regardless, and so Charlotte was ready to go back to the library.