The closer that Zephyr got to them, the clearer the scene before him became. The flutist had their hands up and wasn't doing anything to harm them, in fact they seemed to allowing them to catch up. Just like back at the clock tower it struck him as odd. If they really wanted to, they could have easily just left with Thea before they even got to this point. Small parts of what he was saying had reached Zephyr, namely how the children supposedly safe. Zephyr finally came to a stop upon reaching hem, fatigue catching up with him as his breathing became heavy. "I'd prefer to confirm the safety of the kids before hearing whatever he has to say."
The statues of the heartless that had been frozen solid as a result of Kel's aura had begun the process of cracking. It started off small, one simple crack forming either on their bodies or faces. Those cracks started to spread throughout their bodies, connecting to the other forming cracks and covering the entire bodies of the heartless leading to them finally breaking apart into dust. The dust shone like diamonds and blew away in the gentle breeze that just happened to appear for this precise moment to add a special effect of sorts to this whole scene. It was a nice display though, pretty and full of light. A huge juxtapose to the whole realm of darkness they were fighting in and the massive wave of heartless that they were currently in the process of dealing with. Eventually the light faded into darkness, totally not unintentional ominous foreshadowing, once again leaving Kel to prepare himself for the next attack from the heartless before him. Kel looked towards the green haired girl from earlier as she spoken to him again, this time asking a vague question. Having been left confused by the question, Kel swipe away a Darkball that had wandered over towards him before motioning to his keyblade. "This?" There was also the possibility of the cowl that had appeared after donning the solider job. He didn't think that was what she was referring to, but you never know. Another possibility came to mind shortly after. What if there was something behind him that she was informing him about. Kel quickly turned around just in time to see two Darkballs heading in his direction. Perfect timing for him. One horizontal slice later and they were donezo. Back to the matter at hand, Kel had decided to go with his first guess as to what it was and motioned back to his keyblade. "This is a keyblade." Assuming his guess was right, he really hoped that he didn't need to explain what a keyblade was. Outside of 'a weapon of light to fight heartless' he didn't have much of an answer. Not to mention that clearly it wasn't the only means of fighting heartless, both as he's seen in other worlds and right now by this girl. Speaking of which "Who are you by the way?" Elsewhere more and more Neoshadows had in fact set their sights upon Vallus, who was more than happy to oblige in dealing with them. They had saved him the trouble of closing distance as they had all gone after him at once. Despite that, they still attacked him one at a time in the same method that they had done so before. There was a small difference, in which they were consecutively attacking him as opposed to waiting for an opening to strike. They struck shortly after one of their own was felled by his blade, keeping Vallus on his toes as he continued cutting through them like butter. Vallus was having no troubles in keeping up with them while keeping his attacking fluid and connected. No matter what method they used to try and catch him off guard, nothing was working for the heartless. A group attack would not be the way to go about it, nor would be sending he biggest guy they had to deal with them. The overwhelming force that Vallus, among basically everyone else, was something that they would need to think outside of the box to do. Whether or not they could actually do that is a different matter. And this is filler for an even 600 words. Words: 600 Exp: 60 Total Exp: 1511 Blessed Thief: 30 Total Munny: 780 Heartless Defeated: Kel: 33 Darkballs Vallus: 6 Neoshadows Enemies Remaining: 574 Neoshadows 609 Darkballs
Kel didn't wait til the heartless had decided to attack him first before making mounting his next attack. He had already started cutting through heartless that were near him. A good five neoshadows were slain by him before any of the other heartless had lashed back at him. The first wave of attacks had come in a group of three neoshadows that had all taken to the skies for their attack. Kel readied himself so that when the three heartless came diving down towards him, he was able to counter their attacks with one swoop of his own. There was not let up after their attack as another neoshadow went to attack. Once again they had tried to attack him from behind, though forutnately for Kel there was no contact made from their attack. He was left at an odd angle though and dodging would have made things even odd while increasing the risk for him losing his balance. Blocking was his best option in this particular moment. The neoshadow's claw had met with the presumed blunt side of his keyblade and stopped its attack dead in its tracks, from there the presumed sharp end of his keyblade was used to cut the heartless down. At the end of this heartless slaying he found a green haired girl speaking to him. She'd given him a simple greeting, which Kel replied with a "hey". Their conversation, if you could call it that, was short lived as the girl had gone back to heartless slaying. A task that he went back to himself as another batch of heartless made their way over to him. There were about eleven of them as while he could deal with this his usually manner, that could result in him simple getting tired as things processed. Kel made sure that he was firmly planted to the ground before before concentrating on the ground. Moment had passed and a chill was sent throughout his body. Through the slight motion of his foot, a wave of ice froze the ground underneath all of the neoshadows that had approached him and froze them solid. The sight brought a breath of relief. He'd finally started to get the hang of using his aura. Vallus had been doing well in his own respective battle with the heartless he'd come across. He had been slicing and dicing his way past the heartless and nothing seemed to stop him, not that they could. Despite having the option of being able to freeze time at will, it would kill the potential effort he could put into this fight and make things dull. Not to say that he wouldn't use his power, but whenever he needed to do so. When two darkballs had leap out to attack him, they were swiftly cut down before Vallus turned his attention towards another one. Time was briefly frozen in order for him to get a head start in his approach towards the heartless and before it could react, Vallus was already upon the heartless with his blade plunged through the face of the heartless. Four down and with their being another five close by, the swordsman went right to work in doing away with them. Each one requiring one slice to finish them off. At the end of this cycle, he'd cleared out those particular heartless and already ran off towards another group of heartless. There were plenty around, some even taking a notice to him and how he'd cleared through the group of heartless that had moved towards him. Perhaps those would be the next ones on his list to attack. Words: 603 Exp: 60 Total Exp: 1451 Blessed Thief: 30 Total Munny: 750 Heartless Defeated: Kel: 15 Neoshadows Vallus: 9 Invisibles Heartless remaining: 801 Neoshadows 748 Darkballs
For someone who has been running non stop this whole time, Zephyr was seemingly doing a good job in keeping pace with the flutist. It was difficult to tell for certain with the mass amount of fog that was obstructing his vision. The flute still reached his ears which was Zephyr's indication that he was going the right way, but during his run, he spotted a faint light in the distance. It looked like it was a flame. When the realization had hit him, the fog opened enough for Zephyr to once again see the flutist walking off, this time with Thea in tow. There was no hiding the shocked expression on his face as he called out to her. "Thea wait!" Zephyr felt himself running at a faster pace upon seeing Thea walking away with the flutist. He aim was still the flutist, but if he could at least get Thea away from them, then something would have come out of this.
When the heartless had been cleared out, Kel took that as his chance to finally catch a breath. The armor that had formed out of nowhere through darkness had chipped away gradually before it had fallen off him completely. It was odd being back in his regular attire, as in no special abilities from any job of sorts. He was still dressed in his new outfit that he had picked up back in Shibuya before all this had started. The break was short lived as another wave of heartless was rapidly approaching them. Now that that the armor was gone, Kel was able to regain more of his strength and stood up to face the oncoming threat. Just as he had done this they were joined by help of sort, answering Luna's stress induced request. Seeing Karina among the group was surprising, but to see Mizu as well was a much greater shock. There was relief in knowing that she was alright. Kel had to make a quick dodge of a heartless's attack while he was distracted by this. Unsurprisingly it was another Invisible that had taken this chance to attack him as well as a small horde of lesser heartless. By this point Kel was starting to think that he had either done something to these Invisible, besides constantly beating them, for them to have it out for them as much as they did or they just wanted him dead for no reason. The latter option reminded him too much of Nequa and all of the misfortune that she brought upon him. The invisible had struck at him once again and Kel blocked the blow instead of dodging it. He remained firmly planted in his stance with his keyblade blocking the attack as a white hooded cowl formed around his him. His attire had taken color change to black, finalizing his change into the soldier job which gave him an extra burst of strength. Exactly what was needed to push back the Invisible that had attack him. The heartless came crashing down with a thud and lost its grip on it sword that was later stabbed into the ground. From there Kel was quick to go in and grab the sword. The mighty blade was hefted onto his back just as another group of Invisibles moved in for the attack. One mighty swing was all it took to cut through those three heartless with ease and a simply toss did away with the Invisible that he had stolen the blade from in the first place. The heartless watched as its own sword came crashing down upon it, right on its head. Despite it being a while since he's been in this form, everything was still coming to him naturally. A good thing for sure despite the only real issue would be getting use to going from two keyblades back to one, but that cycle already occurred when he had on the armor. When the four darkballs had flown down towards him, Kel was quick dodge out of the way of their attack then noticed that they were grouped together still. That would be a mistake on their part for as his keyblade glowed in a golden light, Kel charged in and struck with a devastating three his attack or 'Cross-Slash' on them. Landing right in the middle of another battle field, Vallus took a look around to get a grasps on the situation they had literally jumped into. Large numbers of heartless and a smaller group of people using keyblades were fighting them off. Though he was surprised to see Uniform him and couple help but to smirk at the replacement for the arm that he had taken off himself. He would have loved to remove that one as well, but there were slightly more pressing matters to attend to. Perplexed by the new comer, two nearby invisible had chosen to attack him. A fool hearty effort on their part, for much like the last time an Invisible had tried to attack Vallus from behind, they were frozen as he had frozen time with ease. Moments for Vallus, but an eternity for the heartless later and everything resumed with the head of the heartless being gone completely and removed with dark smoke vanishing in the air as their bodies soon followed suit. "Some people never learn." Vallus couldn't deny one thing though, here he would be able to get more of a workout. Words: 744 Exp: 60 Total Exp: 1391 Blessed Thief: 30 Total Munny: 720 Heartless Defeated: Kel: 4 Invisibles, 4 Darkballs Vallus: 2 Invisibles Heartless Remaining: Defeat 993 Neoshadows Defeat 966 Darkballs Defeat 27 Invisibles
Chrono had awoken the next morning with a yawn for he hadn't gotten as much sleep as he would have liked. It wasn't because of the noise that he had heard outside in the halls, he wasn't asleep yet at that point. Rather it was because of his own doing. He's always had trouble staying asleep when there were a lot of things on his mind and his mind did tend to wander at times. So that with the whole business of Aria's nightmare on top of all that Tinarah had to experience, sleep was pretty quickly removed from the equation. Not the most ideal situation to wake up in, but he had no choice but to make the best of it. Chrono left his room once he was fully situated and caught the tail end of the conversation that was going on between Edna and some of the other supers. "He has a point." Chrono said, motioning to Boreas. "Beggers can't be choosers, especially not in this situation."
Zephyr was perplex as to why flute player was simply standing there as he continued to get closer and closer to them. It was already shown that they could get further away in the time it had taken him to get up there himself. Whatever the reason was, Zephyr would be certain to question about it when he had caught them. Or so he thought. Right as he'd reached out to grab them, they had vanished. "Dammit, where they'd go this time." Zephyr looked around for any signs of a person or sounds of a flute. Moments later when he did hear the flute, he realized where it was close to. "The town hall!" Just like that, he was back running after them. His approach to the town hall was greeted with not the best of things to hear. "Over there! It's Necos! He has a child!" Looking ahead, past Thea, Gavin and the guards, he just barely managed to catch a glimpse of the hooded figure vanishing the the fog. As he ran past them Zephyr quickly said "I'm going on ahead after them" and headed after the fog. He could still hear the sounds of the flute, which to him meant that there was still a chance to catch this guy.
When the smoke from his firaga spell had finally cleared, Kel was quick to notice that the heartless specifically around him and thinned out a fair bit. Primarily he was left facing Darkballs with a couple of Neoshadows still lurking around. He charged in to attack after making this assessment of his surroundings and cut through a Darkball that had drifted close to him. As the heartless dissipated, the others took notice to their comrades untimely demise and set their sights towards Kel. The latter, who had stopped moving after his attack on the heartless, gave the remaining ones a simple taunt. His free hand had extended itself out towards them and from there he motioned for them to 'bring it'. Some of the heartless took the bait and dashed at him with full reckless abandon. He would have liked it if he'd gotten the attention of all of the heartless, but this number was good enough. Nothing beyond what he could handle. The 3 charging Darkballs had gotten within his attack range and Kel was quick to jump over them all. While in the air, he aimed his Kel flicked his keyblade at them. All three of the heartless were completely carved through by the spinning keyblade before it returned to Kel for him to catch in his hand. The other heartless that had stayed back as the first three attack saw this at their chance to strike and flew into the air to attack him before he could land. Knowing that he he wouldn't be able to dodge from his current position his options were now limited to either blocking or trying to make a counterattack, Kel choose to go with the latter and used the first Darkball that had gotten close as a foothold to adjust himself. From there he spun, igniting the tip of his keyblade in flames, and struck down on the remaining heartless that were coming to attack him. By the time he had landed, the heartless had already completely vanished from the sky. Words: 340 Exp: 34 Total Exp: 1331 Blessed Thief: 30 Total Munny: 690 Heartless Defeated: 19 Darkballs Enemies Remaining: 5 Darkballs 11 Neoshadows
In the time that Aria had been gone hand delivering the rest of the hot chocolate to everyone else, Chrono had continued taking his casual sips of the hot chocolate. Over time, growing more use to taste of the warm liquid, he'd begun to drink it like it like normally. He'd only drunk as much as he could before the heat started to get to him again which lead to him putting down the mug that contained the half drunk hot chocolate. "Its pretty good. Easy to see why it was getting so much attention." Take had strode into the kitchen to make himself some more hot chocolate, having trouble with applying the frosting to it. He felt like there was something more than just the magiktech generator bothering him. However Edna has entered as well, ushering them to get some sleep. It was good to hear that she had more than enough rooms to suit all of them. Chrono had finished up the rest of his hot chocolate and went to the sink to wash it himself. "Thanks again for the hot chocolate." He said to Aria before heading off to an unoccupied bedroom to retire for the night.
Kel couldn't help but to chuckle at what Luna had said regarding the guy who had brought about this horde for them to fight. Did all princesses act like this? While Luna had skated around, taking care of the heartless that continued to chase after her, Kel pondered this. Easiest way for him to go about this was compare her to the other princesses that he's come across in the past. There was the princess in Nottingham, but he didn't really speak with her much if at all and she wouldn't be a good example. Technically there was Mulan, but she was a princess of heart while Luna was just a regular princess. Not to mentioned acted differently from each other. That just left Princess Minnie back at country of musketeers. Come to think of it, Kel didn't really have a basis for any of his princess comparisons. "I don't recommend trying to fight him by yourself." Kel said, striking away another group of heartless that that had jumped at him. All it had taken was a quick couple of slices for him to be completely rid of them. "I will agree that this is all getting pretty tedious." Unfortunately there wasn't much that they could do outside of continue to fight for as long as they could. Help would be much appreciated though. Sure they were now masters, but they were only just given that title and this was the first thing that they were thrown into following it. A little on the unfair side if you were to ask him. Luna had run off to go help Aslinn and a group of darkballs had tried to chase after her the moment that she did. Kel had gotten right in their path and tapped his keyblade onto the ground causing five mines to appear. Darkballs may have floated so regular mines wouldn't work on them, but seeker mine was different. The instant that the heartless had gotten close to the mines, they leap off of the ground, into the air and right into all of the heartless. That group of heartless had lit up in one massive explosion that did away with them while knocking back any heartless within the blast range. Words: 373 Exp: 37 Total Exp: 1297 Blessed Thief: 30 Total Munny: 660 Heartless Defeated: 3 Neoshadows 8 Darkballs 2 Shadows Enemies Remianing: 103 Shadows 46 Darkballs 41 Neoshadows
To hear that she wasn't the legitimate daughter of Onyx, but the adopted one was news to him. Then again none of the rumors that he heard ever went into details regarding the legitimacy of any kids that he may or may not have. None of them even mentioned kids in any way, shape or form for that matter. Lazuli listened to the story of how Auburn lost her birth parents and met her adopted parent and it was a true example of the harsh realities they face in this world. The huntsmen and huntresses could only do so much after all. That of course being a small reason in which he decided to be a hunter among other things, the vast majority was his own natural born interest with a hint of defining his father. "That must've been rough, but from the sounds of it your father was good at helping you adjust."
The flame pillar vanished after a few moments which made may for the next batch of heartless. These were more on the aggressive side as they had very quickly leap out towards him immediately after the pillar of flames had vanished. Their claws were outstretched and poised to strike. Kel however easily stepped out of the way of the first attack and before he could counter it, the heartless managed to get a strong foot hold on the ground and lunge at him once more. This force Kel to have to block the attack, even being pushed back slightly by the force that the heartless had behind. An impressive display to be sure, but wasn't enough to have any real hindering affects on Kel. With a little effort of his own, the lone neoshadow was pushed back to the egde of the moonlight. From there he took a quick step forward to slice the heartless in two. This made way for another pair of neoshadows to close the gap between themselves and Kel. Both heartless seemed to be keen on attacking from his sides at speed that were quite impressive if he was to be honest. It had happened in an instant. The neoshadows leap towards him, both claws poised and ready to strike. If he had both of his keyblades out, then Kel would've been able to block both of the attacks easily. With that not being the case, he was forced to improvise to avoid taking damage. So he ducked, right underneath both of the heartless that were attacking him and leaving them caught off guard by the sudden movement. The neoshadows had crashed right into one another as Kel rolled back from the two of them to give himself enough space to launch a counter attack. A purple glow coated his keyblade and was followed by a purplish aura as he attacked with a Poison Edge. He'd thought he was safe from any more heartless, leaving him unaware of the darkballs that were heading his way. In fact he was more distracted with Luna skating to noticed. Fortunately Luna herself had done away with the two heartless before they could land a blow. A blow that would not have done as much damage as normal, but still would have done damage and being able to avoid it was great. "This place is surrounded by darkness, maybe he's just giving them a reason to show up." It was still a good point though. Even if there heartless were simply being baited out here, for the sheer number of them to all take said bait was an concerning as it was impressive. Luna skated around after the heartless that had tried attacking her again, clearly growing annoyed by it. Her next use of faith was a clear show of it. That prompted Kel to look around and find that there were a small group of darkballs that were trying to make their way over to the duo. Kel struck down the first few with a quick thunder spell, but the remaining for did well to disperse quick enough to avoid the attack. Despite this, they were quick to dash right back in to attack the keyblade wielder, who responded to their efforts in kind. The signature cherry blossoms had started to fall around him as Kel closed his eyes. From his current stance, he waited til he could sense that the heartless were all lined up and unleashed his zantesuken upon them all. By this point Luna had again regrouped with him, exclaiming her grievances with being a prime target of the heartless. "Heartless are attracted to light and you have used a lot of it." Both the faith spell and the moon that shone down upon them were proof enough of that. "To them you're like an all you can eat light buffet." Speaking of which, there were two shadows that had attempted to sneak up on Luna while she was talking to him. Kel literally just poked the ground right when they formed to be rid of them. Words: 681 Exp: 60 Total Exp: 1260 Blessed Thief: 30 Total Munny: 630 Heartless Defeated: 3 Neoshadows 8 Darkballs 2 Shadows Heartless Injured: Shadow 1/3 Heartless Remaining: 245 Shadows 113 Darkballs 113 Neoshadows (1 Reserved) 1 Invisible (1 Reserved)
While Kel was fully ready and willing to fight off the heartless force that was heading his way despite his weakened condition, fortune had smiled upon him as Luna had moved to covered his back. It was appreciated, very much so. "Thanks, I can still fight though." And he fully intended to. So long as he was still standing, nothing would change that fact. From behind he heard Luna proclaim something behind him before things got noticeably brighter around him. Kel looked both up and around to see that a moon had appeared overhead and was radiating a bright light that shone down upon him.The light had served to accomplish two separate things, the first was to surprise the heartless as well as keep them at pay from the unknown light source. The second purpose however, was likely the most important one. As Kel bathed in the moonlight, the flow of darkness that had been seeping out of his armor had ceased completely and Kel was feeling very much rejuvenated. He had to have been on the brink of collapsing for right now he felt like the complete opposite. Full on stamina and energy, all ready to face down the heartless threat. "Much better in fact." Kel said, eagerly and unaware of the two darkballs that had chosen to strike down on him from above. He'd barely managed to hear Luna's head's up in time and moved out of the way, allowing her to strike down the two heartless. It seemed like the moonlight had not only regained his stamina, but given him equal stamina as Luna. Just how much stamina did she have then? "So that's what it was then. I feel a lot better then I did before." And it was time to show just how much better he felt, With the heartless resuming their approach, Kel armed himself with his keyblade and went on the offensive. His sights were first set upon two shadows heartless that had tried to attack Luna while her back was turned. The mere instant those heartless had jumped out from their puddled formed, Kel was there to bring about a swift end to the two of them. "Just returning the favor." He said to Luna, it being the least that he could after all that she had just dome for him. The dark wisps had made a brief return around him and for a good second he felt his strength fade, however he was still currently within the glow of the makeshift moon. Thus it wasn't long before that strength he had appeared to lost had come right back. That was perfect actually. The moonlight counteracted the affects of this dark armor he was wearing. He found that to ironic in it own special way, but dwelled on it not. Instead he braced himself for the swarm of darkballs that were coming his way. With each...floating motion they made that brought them closer, it would appear in which they were laughing. Their numbers had evidently given them quite the confidence boost despite how past encounters with them had gone. In fact it also discounted the fact that two of them were dispatched with great ease by Luna. Maybe that was what they figured as by having greater numbers, their chances of both survival and victory would increase. Suffice to say that was not the case at all. Still a bit on the low side when it came to magic, he couldn't unleash another faith spell upon them and it didn't matter too much to him. There were other spells in his arsenal that would do quite the same amount of damage. For example seeing as they were all still grouped together, Kel first casted graviga which pinned them all to the ground. Now they were easy targets for a firaga spell, one that was laced with darkness given it a much larger and wider range of destruction. Kel of course had not think the spell do that much and the orange and black flame pillar that formed as a result completely threw him off. Words: 682 Exp: 60 Total Exp: 1200 Blessed Thief: 30 Total Munny: 600 Heartless Defeated: 19 Darkballs 2 Shadows Heartless Injured: Shadow 1/3 Invisible (Scarmiglione): 25/50 Invisible (Cagnazzo): 25/50 Invisible (Barbariccia): 25/50 Enemies Remaining: 380 Shadows 158 Darkballs 140 Neoshadows (1 Reserved) 4 Invisibles (4 Reserved)
None to his surprised, his first time use of faith had indeed attracted another group of heartless That cleared up what little doubt about what was attracting them, making it another thing that Kel could possible use to his advatage. It wouldn't be now of course, he was preoccupied with preparing to deal with the current batch of heartless moving in on him. Using faith had fortunately lessen the would be affects of him losing strength, but unlike all of his physical abilities, he knew for a fact that he wouldn't have been able to cast multiple spells back and forth. The fact that his faith spell had even done that much damage was still a surprise to him. The heartless had finally reached him, to be exact it was a lone darkball with a shadow riding on its back. An interesting tactic, but a futile one nonetheless as Kel simply had to swat them away. It was quite comical actually, watching the darkball and shadow fly off towards a nearby tree. Once more he felt a tiny bit bad for the shadow and it was sandwiched between both the tree and the darkball. If that was their front lines, then dealing with the rest should be easier in theory. Looking outward Kel immediately recognized them as neoshadows. He'd certainly got well acquainted in fighitng them before and this should be no different. His armor made a thunderous sound as he ran on to meet the heartless head on. The heartless didn't fear the oncoming threat to their life and face it head on. Their fear meant not to him, even if they seemed to only fear either the strange or the very unusual. Like the neoshadow that had hulked up after eating another shadow and proceeded to go on a rampage. It wasn't a pretty sight, nor a fun fight at all. Kel shuddered at the possibility of that happening again. The bright side was that none of the heartless themselves seemed to be willing to experience that either. Had to be because of the risk involved, namely the being wiped out by their own kind. Completely understandable. When the first wave of strikes came from the neoshadows, Kel was quick to dispatch of them in a single swipe. His strength was still waning, but he didn't let that impede on his progress. More and more he cut through the heartless that were standing in his path. Slowly and slow he continued to cut through them all. He continued to get weaker with each strike and it was starting to show. Holding up his keyblade became more of a chore and his shoulders sagged harshly. The wisps that formally flowed off his armor were now a full blown stream at this point. The connections were there and as clear as day, but there wasn't much that he could do to combat the affects. The condition got slightly better with each heartless slain, but in the grand scheme of things it did little to help him overall. If there had to be one benefit to all this, it was the fact that each attack that managed to hit him in his weaken state was weakened by the armor. A very slight benefit. All of the heartless around him had all been slain, but a whole new batch was fast approaching. To make matters worse, behind them was another pair of heartless that he's grown familiar with. Invisible. Both of which commanding their own separate group and all of where were poised to strike. Seeing that, Kel had no choice but to deal with this lack of strength and fight until he couldn't move no more. Words: 615 Exp: 60 Total Exp: 1140 Blessed Thief: 30 Total Munny: 570 Heartless defeated 15 Neoshadows 1 Shadows 1 Darkballs Heartless Injured: Invisible (Scarmiglione): 25/50 Invisible (Cagnazzo): 25/50 Invisible (Barbariccia): 25/50 Enemies Remaining: 386 Shadows 208 Darkballs 140 Neoshadows (1 Reserved) 4 Invisibles (4 Reserved)
So it was pretty bad. Chrono didn't know hat exactly to say at the end of her tale. The nightmare itself already sounded bad enough, but for it to have an actually effect on her in real life. From that alone it had to be serious. Not many things seemed to add up as of recently. Chrono had no idea what he could say in response to all that and just took a casual sip of the hot chocolate that was given to him as everyone else started to file out of the kitchen. Despite all that he was just told, the hot chocolate was pretty good.
The little breaks that he'd been getting in between the heartless attack were doing less and less to actually help his condition. Not to mention that the wisps of darkness that were still coming off of him had yet to stop. It also didn't appear like there were any signs of it stopping either which posed a different issue as he had no clue what would stop this from happening. All and all it was a very problematic situation to be in. A stray darkball had managed to get the drop on him from behind and get in a quick attack. An attack that didn't really feel like it did much to be honest. That wasn't just because he was wearing armor either. Right when the attack would have normally struck him, a protective field formed out of the dark wisps that were still steaming off of him. By no means was it a full on shield or anything, but it was a small area that formed in a large enough size to nullify some of the damage he'd taken from the blow. Needless to say, the darkball was beaten shortly after it had hit him. Overall it was another strange thing that he was able to do with this armor of his. Another thing that Kel was having trouble getting used to was the matter of how he was down to using one keyblade. This, fortunately, being a much easier thing for him to get accustomed too. It was off when he'd take a stance that would imply he was using both his keyblades, but it was an easy fix regardless. This small little error didn't affect his ability to kill the heartless, which was really the important fact in all this. It had been during this time that a legitimate sized horde of shadows rolled up on him. Wasn't anything compared to the grand scheme of heartless that they were forced to deal with right now, but when compared to the other small batches that had rolled up on him, this was certainly impressive. This happened to coincide with a silvery glow surrounded him, as well as a feel another surge of power. Sadly it still didn't do anything to affect the lingering dark wisps around him. That constant reminder was really starting to annoy him, especially with how he still managed to feel drained regardless of any methods that wasn't beating up heartless and even that only did so much and not enough to actually combat the affects. Well with a horde this size, surely the affects wouldn't be too bad if he were to strike them all down in one single attack. Kel knew for a fact that he had a couple of attacks that could actually do that, but there was one again that woudl actually wipe them all out in one fell swoop. Kel slightly spaced out his feet and aimed his keyblade into the air, muttering the single word "faith" and four beams of light shot out from his keyblade and into the sky. Shortly four pillars started to rain down into the crowd of shadows, wiping them out in large suecession. Fortunately this whole magic spell didn't drain the living mess out of him with its four attacks, plus it did a lot more then what he thought it would do. It was a magic attack and magic never was one of his strong suits. In a matter of moments all of the heartless were wiped away in four pillars of lights. Said pillars that typically resulted in more heartless showing up if all the times Luna used it was anything to base it off of. Oh well, if anything did show up, then Kel would face them head on before they could get to Luna. Words: 634 Exp: 60 Total Exp: 1080 Blessed Thief: 30 Total Munny: 540 Heartless defeated 56 Shadows 1 Darkballs Heartless Injured: Shadow 1/3 Enemies Remaining: 754 Shadows 296 Darkballs 312 Neoshadows (1 Reserved) 12 Invisibles (4 Reserved)
Chrono must have hit the nail on the head when Aria had explained herself and well, he could understood how she felt. He never really told anyone about his nightmares, so there was no 'you'll grow out of them' talk for him. Even still there was a brief moment in which his nightmare did cease, only to resurface much worse than the last one. He was grateful that he's hasn't had any recently though. Chrono continued to listen to Aria, actually becoming a bit curious as to what had made things worse. "I don't think it does." Torrin had walked into the kitchen and thrown in his two cents. "Well what exactly happened this morning? Sounds like it was pretty bad."
"Keeps you awake?" Chrono wasn't quite sure why she'd want to do that a first. After everything that they've been through, sleep was something that they could use the most. He thought about it briefly which was long enough for him to remember something he'd overheard Qamar saying to her. It was the full thing, namely the words 'somebody sleeping in your room with you' and 'nightmares'. "Is it about a nightmare you've been having." Part of him was unsure if he should have asked about it. Nightmares could be personal business and he didn't want to pry.
The door breaking conversation had turned to another mentioning of hot chocolate and to be completely honest, he was started to get curious about it himself. Since curiosity had gotten the better of him, Chrono ended up making his way into the kitchen a bit after Aria had. "I hope you don't mind. With all this talk of hot chocolate, I kinda got curious myself." He said with a sheepish grin, making his way over towards a nearby table and standing there. He'd never watched anyone make hot chocolate before, closest thing was when his mother made tea and even then he tended to show up just as she was finishing up by pouring the tea into a cup. Before pouring another one for him of course.
At the time Kel had been more focused on what had happened to him to really take in anything on his surroundings, so to hear Luna's voice reminded him that he wasn't the only one here. In fact odd were that Luna witnessed the whole spectacle regarding him and the shadows. Her confusion was understandable, he had no idea how much of what he apparently did she saw, but the end results were still the same as his. Despite all this being made out of darkness, there was no form of pain. In fact it was quite the opposite. The darkness had completely healed and injuries sustained as well as was empowering him. To feel all this was certainly new to say the least. "I don't know and again I don't know." Two separate questions were asked, but the same answer applied to both of them. The only thing that he did know was that somehow this was all connected to when he'd accidentally grabbed the heartless and started draining the darkness from it. Wait. That spell that Megumi taught us. Did I use it? Looking down to his hands, he caught a glimpse of the wisps of darkness that lingered around his palm. That explained the darkness healing him, but did nothing to explain the suit of armor he was now dressed in. That was an entirely different matter that needed to be address. Unfortunately that would have to be later for a group of Darkballs had floated their way down towards the duo. His keyblade was brandished and he ran in head to fight the heartless. The first two were taken out with ease, which allowed Kel to noticed that both during those attack he felt in strength drain from him and the the moment those heartless were beaten had helped him regain some of that lost strength. It was a complete trade off, but a noticeable one at that. The trend continued as Kel continued to hack and slash his way through the heartless around him, only stopping when it got to the point in which he felt more exhausted than usual. The heartless around him were nearly defeated and this was a task that shouldn't have taken nearly as much effort to leave him feeling like this. Kel noticed while he was catching his breath that there were more wisps of darkness flowing off of his armor. Another Darkball flew and him and was swiftly defeated resulting in the wisp around him briefly turn into flowing darkness before losing some of its intensity. He would've thought nothing of it, but the flowing of darkness happened to coincide with another moment of strength loss. It another mystery about whatever the heck this suit of armor was. He would've said that he'd gotten used to it but that was only brief moment before he felt his strength being sucked away. Before that the next gripe that formed was the helmet. The helmet itself was fine, but he wasn't fond of the idea of wearing one. Maybe that was why back home he had more of an admiration for the knights who wore armor without their helmets. Of course those were for the higher ranked knights who had earned the right to not wear their helmets and well as maintained the skills to back it up. Come to think of it he'd never really seen his father wear armor before. Not even when they had their sparring matches, he always went in there without any form of protection. He had to have had a a lot of confidence in himself to actually do that. Words: 605 Exp: 60 Total Exp: 1020 Blessed Thief: 30 Total Munny: 510 Heartless defeated 2 Shadows 8 Darkballs Heartless Injured: Darkside 1: 52/1500 Darkside 2: 1232/1500 Invisible: 22/50 Enemies Remaining: 1467 Shadows 337 Darkballs 383 Neoshadows (3 Reserved) 20 Invisibles 2 Darkside
