As the demon tide continued to rule the sky, Aeira stood her ground on the earth, awaiting what other nonsensical attack the creature would send her way. As the creature began to spin around, it started to circle itself, creating a ring in the air as it did so. During this time, Aeira was wondering just what it was about to do when it started to spew shadow heartless at her. While not an overall new attack, what was new about it was that it was not firing large clumps of the shadows at a time at her. Instead, it was rapid firing them off towards her, one after the other. At first Aeira had tried to punch against it, but was inevitably starting to be forced back by the sheer number, with just a bunch of shadows on her. Once the attack had finished, Aeira, now on the ground and underneath a swarm of shadows scratching her, merely slammed her fist into the ground. With the shockwave being generated, the heartless were knocked off, followed by the girl striking back at the shadows and destroying them one after the other. Red Demon Tide: 3,230/5,000
As the demon tide continued to float around, circling in the sky, the girl got ready for whatever kind of charge it would do at her. Flying through the air, the demon tide moved in Aeira's direction, doing what Aeira assumed to be getting ready to strike at her. Putting her hands up, the girl was surprised when the demon tide instead just flew overhead, and with a confused look on her face looked up towards it. "Oh," she said, as a large clump of shadows were dropped onto her from above, trying to slam down onto her a crush her. Taking a quick breath, the girl reeled back her fist, and with a swift motion punched into the ball of shadows. Though she wasn't able to destroy it all in one go, the sphere of heartless still became a less solid mass, instead scattering to the ground. Stomping on the ground, the girl knocked the heartless into the air with a quake, getting down onto her hands and with a spinning kick tearing through all of the heartless. Springing back up onto her feet, the girl then looked back to the demon tide. Red Demon Tide: 3,380/5,000
As Aeira got ready to strike against the demon tide yet again, the girl looked to see that another had stepped in to fighting the red demon tide as well. As Vallus had managed to cleave through some of them, Aeira was quick on the follow up. Stomping on the ground, the girl summoned more rocks yet again. Combining the rocks together, turning her large rocks into a giant boulder, the girl punched forward. The rock was sent hurtling forward, right into the side of the demon tide, causing the creature swarm that was reeling from Vallus's attack to be caught off guard by the sudden impact. The wave briefly broke apart, though somehow the shadow heartless managed to merge back together and continue flying around, causing hell for everyone in the area. Red Demon Tide: 3,530/5,000
After sending the demon tide hurtling up into the air, the girl looked around to see that there were still shadows clawing at her heels from the initial onslaught of the tide. Stomping on the ground, the girl caused a quake to happen, forcing the heartless onto their backs due to being tripped up by the force. Sweeping her leg in a circle, Aeira managed to kick through all of the heartless, destroying them in one single stroke of her leg. Standing back up, the girl looked towards the demon tide as it started to come back towards her for round two. Not about to turn it down, Aeira stood her ground as the heartless demon tide dove towards her, spinning in a drilling fashion. Creating a few orbting stones around her, the girl put them in front of herself, creating a shield to buffer against the rush of heartless, then sending another punch into the core of the heartless swarm, sending it back again. Red Demon Tide: 3,810/5,000
After punching away parts of the tide that were thrown at her, the girl began to brace herself once again, waiting for more parts of the demon tide to be tossed at her. However, instead of that, she instead saw the demon tide start to move towards her, diving its way forward. Unsure of how to actually deal with the entire swarm flooding its way towards her, the girl then noticed that within the swarm was a large bulbous orb of darkness. Seeing it, and seeing legs of shadows coming out from it, the girl figured that if there was a weak point to target, it would be that. Bracing herself, the girl tanked the heartless flying at her, only to then unleash an uppercut at the orb, sending the demon tide upward in pain as the attack struck solidly against it. Red Demon Tide: 3,960/5,000
Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Being in the middle of the tide, continually being pulled back through it and scratched by the heartless as she was making her way through it. Grabbing at each and everyone one of them she could, the girl was having a bit of a difficult time fighting them, and eventually was expelled from the wave once more. The scratches being evident by the wounds the girl had on her face, she still readied herself for the coming swarm that was moving towards her. Beginning to spin in the air, the girl looked quizzically at them. It was only then that she realized what was happening as a flurry of shadows started to be lobbed at her from the swarm itself towards her. Being caught off guard, the girl could only raise her arms up to defend against the first bunch of heartless being lobbed at her, preventing some of the damage. As another collection of shadows was lobbed at her, the girl clenched her fists and looked towards the swarm. Figuring this was the perfect time to strike back, she let out a mighty punch towards the heartless, felling the ones shot at her in one punch. Red Demon Tide: 4,110/5,000
After sending the rocks into the demon tide, she managed to slay a few of the shadows in the demon tide, the girl wasn't sure this was the most effective method in dealing with them. Clenching her fists tighter, the girl began to think about running back into the tide, though first, her rising irritation was starting to be tipped over by something else. Looking over to Arctus she shouted, "Shut up already!" With that done, the girl then decided that running head first into the swarm was probably far less irritating than listening to the two's exchange. Getting into a sprinting stance, the girl started to run towards the demon tide, jumping into the air and back into the demon tide, punching at it as she was swallowed into the swarm. Red Demon Tide: 4,260/5,000
Skidding across the ground, the dirt being kicked up from underneath her feet as she did so, the girl gritted her teeth as she stared back at the demon tide. Generally, the strategy of rush in an punch things was both successful and reliable. However, as things were now, it was neither. Swarms were annoying. Flying enemies were annoying. Swarms of flying enemies, well the negatives didn't cancel each other out. So, clenching her fists tighter, the girl tried to think of a way to combat the demon tide before her. Smashing her foot against the ground, a few rocks formed around her, orbiting about. She wasn't the most magically inclined of people, but these were still shadows at the end of the day. So, punching forward, the girl launched a flurry of rocks in the direction of the demon tide, trying to damage it. Red Demon Tide: 4,410/5,000
Being split apart from half of the others of their group, Stratos looked towards those he was left with to fight against the heartless. Looking at them, Stratos was fairly confident in their ability to bring the enemy down. He had never actually fought alongside AJ before, though he had seen that he was fairly competent in fighting against the other heartless from what he saw so far in this battle. Then there was Aux. Stratos wasn't still wasn't the most comfortable fighting alongside him, but he had not turned on them yet, so he simply had to rely on that fact alone. As Kaida was the first to spring into action, Stratos smirked as the girl fired off two thunder bells. "I don't know," the boy replied. "I think things are more likely to get a bit hot in here." Pointing both of his keyblades at the darkside, Stratos created two orbs of flames at their tips. Stratos dual cast Firaga (x2) After being chewed up and spit out by the demon tide, Aeira was grimacing as she got ready to dive right back into the demon tide of heartless. Clenching her fists tight, the girl began to sprint forward, jumping into the spinning spiral of shadows. While she was consumed in it again, the girl continued to punch out and forward towards the heartless, striking them one after the other, managing to collide her punches against some of the heartless. Though the attacks weren't that efficient, the girl was not the most well equipped to deal with the heartless in this form, and so after awhile of punching she was once again spit out of the swarm and back to the ground. Red Demon Tide: 4,560/5,000
As the group was split apart, the girl furrowed her brow as her conversation with the supposed keyblade master was abruptly put to a halt. Seeing the large wave of heartless start to fly around, the girl noticed that it was actually not a single heartless. It was just a wave of shadows all clung together. Looking at her hands, then back to the demon tide, the girl merely said, "how annoying." Punching her fists together, as Kar-Kiara - apparently Karina - and Arctus seemed to be dealing with the blue wave of heartless, the girl decided to go and aid Koa against the red one. Making her way over, Aeira jumped forward, leaping into the demon tide. Aeira was swallowed up by the wave as she punched into it, vanishing from sight. A few moments later, she was expelled from it, landing on the ground hard next to Koa. Picking herself up, the girl didn't seem any bit phased emotionally ,- physically she seemed to have taken some damage - before saying, "don't worry. They won't be able to make their way past us." Red Demon Tide: 4,710/5,000
After Aeira managed to punch through the swarm of heartless, there were hardly any left to speak of. She managed to slam her fists through a good quantity of the neoshadows, and there was a sense of pride well through her as she looked to see the progress of the other keyblade wielders. There were a few outliers among them. The boy with the blonde hair. The boy with the black hair. And the woman with the black hair. Those three seemed to be generally isolated from the rest of the other keyblade wielders, but they were proving more than a match for the heartless, which in turn made Aeira want to push herself even harder to strike down the neoshadows before her. Looking around, she saw the other pace of the keyblade wielders, and knew that she was already outpacing them as well, which gave her a small sense of validation, but all the same it wasn't enough to make her slow down and take it easy just yet. Though the heartless were few in numbers, they were still up and alive, and she still raring to go against them all. Her attention was briefly torn away towards the voice from Kar-Kiara as she mentioned something about Uniform's powers. It took her a second to realize that the statement was directed towards her, not specifically but in general, as she said, "wait, we're the Black Coats?" She hadn't remembered if that team name was decided on already, but it made enough sense that the girl didn't bother questioning it. Regardless, it didn't matter if this wave nearly complete or not. If Uniform would continue to summon heartless, then she would continue to destroy them. It was that simple. Looking over to the boy she had responded to, him now giving a response of his own, and explaining what the glowy ice thing he had surrounding him was. "Aura, huh?" The girl was not familiar with the term, though from the way the boy acted it seemed that he wasn't all too familiar with it either. However, for the most part it seemed to be something magical in nature, and something linked to being a master. While he didn't say what kind of master, Aeira could easily come to the conclusion that he meant a keyblade master. The girl furrowed her brow at this, seemingly displeased with the answer, but her face returned to normal as he said his name. Nodding, as though she were merely affirming that she now knew his name the girl said, "got it." As she went on to punch more heartless, she paused briefly, before turning back towards Kel and asking a question. "So, Kel. I take it that means you, and all of your other companions here with keyblades are masters?" Regardless of the answer, the girl went back to punching the heartless around her, with very few neoshadows left, with her having already cleared a large swath through them. As one of the neoshadows jumped at her, the girl merely ducked underneath it, grabbing its leg as it passed over head. Looking towards the other heartless around, she spun once where she was standing, before tossing the neoshadow into another, causing them both to vanish. Running at full sprint towards four others, the girl jumped into the air, landing heavily on the ground and create a shockwave from her earth magic as she did. With the heartless off balance, Aeira grabbed towards two of the neoshadows, crashing them into each other before spin kicking the last two she was fighting. With the deed done, the heartless merely exploded into black smoke, having been defeated and destroyed. Words: 613 Exp: 60 Total Exp: 4260 Blessed Thief: 30 Total Munny: 2130 Heartless Defeated: Aeira: 6 Neoshadows Enemies Remaining: 13 Neoshadows 5 Darkballs
After the large offensive pressure of one of the waves of neoshadows had been dealt with, there was no rest for Aeira's continued onslaught of punching against the heartless. Both she was not letting up the pressure on her own offensive prowess, and the heartless didn't want to seem to give up on fighting her. Clenching her fists tightly, the girl moved forward, rather than being in a readied guarded stance, running at full speed towards the neo shadows. As one of the neoshadows went to spin in a horizontal way, parallel to the ground, the girl didn't slow down when approaching it. As the leg of the heartless came close to her, threatening a kick, the girl merely grabbed onto the leg of the creature, beginning to spin along with it. As she started to spin forward, she jumped into the air, and with a heavy amount of force spiked the creature down onto the ground. The raw force of her toss had caused the creature to smack against the ground, bouncing a bit upward even despite the sand it fell on and getting close back up to the girl's height. Close to her elbow, the girl merely struck with her elbow towards the creature, causing the neoshadow to break apart from the raw force of the attack, as she did. Landing back on the ground, the girl looked towards the other neo shadows, a death stare in her eyes as she challenged them to move closer. And closer they did. Three of the remaining six dove into the ground, becoming apart of the shadows as they tried to scurry towards the girl. The other three neoshadows moved closer to her as well, trying to charge and lunge at her. The middle of the charging three spun in a vertical motion, perpendicular to the ground, as it tired to wheel its over her. The other two moved to the side of the girl, trying to rake their claws into her torso in preparation of her avoiding the middle one. Unfortunately, they didn't expect her to move to the side and catch one of their claws, instead putting them in the way of the spinning heartless. As she shielded herself from the heartless with one of their own, the other three appeared out of the ground trying to all slash into her back. Stomping on the ground with great force as they came up, the girl caused a small tremor to shift the ground around and force the neoshadows off balance. Clenching her fists, the girl pivoted to the side, grabbing one head of the neoshadows behind her and starting to push it past all of the others, spinning around sweeping all of the other heartless away from her. Tightening her grip, the girl crushed the head of the heartless in her hand, only to turn to the other of the three that had charged her. Quick stepping near it, the girl punched into the chest of the neoshadow, her fist going through the body of darkness and slaying it instantly. The two that she had knocked to the ground were getting up, but the girl didn't give them the chance to do anything else as she let loose a sweeping kick into both of their heads, slaying them as well. Stratos continued to tear through the waves of heartless, the sea of darkballs being far more notably lower in volume than it had been at the start. There were now clear gaps in their presence, and it was clear that with one last spurt of fighting them the dark balls would be felled before long. And so the boy merely kept up with what he was doing, slashing through the dark balls as best he could. Word Count: 627 EXP: 60 Exp Total: 4200 Heartless Defeated: Aeira: 7 neoshadows Stratos: 30 darkballs Heartless Remaining: 141 Neoshadows 115 Darkballs
After defeating the most fearsome of the foes she had been fighting against, the girl was immediately beset by yet another swarm of neoshadows on her position. Readying herself, the girl put herself back into an offensive stat as quickly as she could, though it was rather sloppy given the speed of the neoshadows. With the neoshadows leaping after Aeira, the girl attempted to try and merely punch forward rather than guard. As she stepped swiftly forward, despite her lopsided form and hasty actions, the girl still had the power to back it up, and had intercepted one of the claws with a punch of her own. Breaking past the claw, her fist then collided with the neoshadows head, causing it to be launched backward due to the force of the hit before exploding back into a dark smoke. After the attack, though, she was immediately dog piled by five other neoshadows. Using her other hand, she managed to grab and toss one of the neoshadows away, but was slammed into by one of the them, as the other two slashed their claws against her arms. Due to her stone skin buff, the pain and damage wasn't actually that great, but she couldn't afford to keep taking hits like this. With a fifth one coming in for her head, the girl moved forward again, however, rather than a punch she went in for a headbutt. Slamming her head into the neoshadow, she forced the creature back, and into the ground, causing the body of darkness to ripple before exploding into dark smoke. As the four other neoshadows moved towards her, the girl readied her stance to fight back against the creatures, this time more prepared for them then she was before. As the one closest to her tried to ram into her once more, the girl grabbed the head of the neoshadow, and merely tossed it into the air before looking towards the other heartless that were coming towards her. With her two fists she managed to catch both of the neo shadows jumping at her with either of them. The darkness rippled across as her fists came into contact with them, and their heads seemed to be moving farther away from her at a faster rate then the neoshadow's bodies did. Completing her punch, she sent the neoshadow's body flying with them breaking apart in mid-air, turning back into a dark smoke. With only one left moving at her, Aeira merely grabbed the arm of the falling neoshadow as it got back to her height, and used it as a weapon. With a hefty swing, the girl slammed the neoshadow she was holding onto into another of the neoshadows, crashing the two into each other. With that attack finished, the two heartless exploded into darkness, signifying that they were bested and slain, the black smoke drifting through the air before it dissipated. Readying both of his keyblades, the boy continued to tear through each and every one of the darkballs that continued to come towards him. With another wave of thirty trying to crash into him, the boy charged his body with rainbow lightning once again. As the lightning coursed across him, it eventually was channeled into his blades as he attempted to combine two commands together once again. His keyblades igniting, the boy swiftly dashed forward and through them, spinning his flaming blades through the creatures. "Link Synchro: Sweeping Fire Slide." With the attack having finished, the boy skidded across the ground as the flames consumed the darkball heartless destroying them in a single instant and returning them back to whence they came. total Words: 605 Exp: 60 Exp Total: 4140 Heartless Defeated: Stratos: 30 darkballs Aeira: 6 Neoshadows Heartless Remaining: 164 Neoshadows 149 Darkballs
With one set of neoshadows having been defeated, the girl moved on to fight against yet another one of the neoshadows. With her fists at the ready, she saw a larger than normal neoshadow, veins of red coursing through its body as the imposing creature looked to try and stop the punch happy girl. Noting that it was definitely stronger than a normal one, without even having to exchange blows with it once, the girl immediately got her way into a fighting stance. Putting both of her hands up to guard against whatever the creature may send her way, the girl had her knees partially bent and her stance steady as she waited for what the neo shadow was going to do. The creature merely looked at her, its head fidgeting and twitching at seemingly random as the creature began to walk around and try to, more than likely, find an opening in her guard. In addition to its head moving in an almost spastic way, had its claws seemingly titch around as they went form open and ready to slash to merely moving around at random. As it did, the creature looked towards Aeira, and in a surprising burst of speed and suddenness in motion, the heartless immediately closed the distance between it and her. With her hands up, she managed to intercept one of the claws as it first tried to slash into her, parrying the claw away. However, with a sudden snapping motion, the other claw had moved towards her and seemed to snake its way past her guard. Trying to avoid it, the girl could barley move out of the way, and merely braced herself for the following pain as the claw managed to rake across her skin. Though the blow was lessened due to her magic, it was clear that the heartless was nothing to mess around with it, as it managed to deal significant damage to her. As it tried to put on more offensive pressure towards her, the girl, rather than guarding against such speed, decided to take it in stride. Stepping forward, the girl attempted to close the distance between her and the neoshadow. While the claw tried to snake its way past her guard, it was met with much lower success this time. As she had moved forward, rather than stand her ground, the girl had managed to actually avoid the claw though was still slammed into by the arm. With a swift punch to the gut, the girl had managed to force the creature off its feet from the sheer force of the attack. Pulling back the fist she had just used, the girl went on to follow up with yet another punch to its gut, beginning to put on a large amount of pressure towards the creature. As the creature's body was being impacted by a large amount of force, it was no longer actually on the ground. Reaching out with both of her hands, she grabbed onto the arm of creature, spinning it around before slamming the creature down onto the ground. Throwing the heartless back into the air, the girl then delivered one final uppercut into it as it was felled by her fist. Stratos, meanwhile, was still killing dark balls. With cherry blossoms fluttering through the wind, the boy had initiated his attack once again as he managed to vanish from sight. Appearing on the other end of a sea of dark balls, it was clear that he had used his zantetsuken attack, to fell each and every one of the heartless that had kept moving towards them. total Words: 602 Exp: 60 Exp Total: 4080 Heartless Defeated: Stratos - 30 Darkballs Aeira - 7 Neoshadows Heartless Remaining: 186 Neoshadows 183 Darkballs
After having slain the heartless with his dark combo finisher, Stratos looked at his hand, wondering just what it was that he had done. Or, more like how he had done it. This was a bit different from the power of the gravity aura, which was merely a pulse of gravitational magic. This was like an actual construct, an appendage made from darkness itself. Wondering what this new power meant, Stratos at the very least could figure out that the power of darkness was quite a unique an odd one. With that done, though, the boy decided to shift back to his other aura. Focusing a bit, the darkness that was surrounding him subsided, with a calm lighter purple color surrounding him. As this happened, the air around the boy grew heavier as his gravity aura had flared up once again. With that out of the way, feeling a bit more comfortable in this aura, the boy focused and summoned both of his keyblades back to his hand. Twirling his keyblades around, the boy looked for more heartless to go and fight, which didn't take very long as there was still a large swarm of dark balls around, merely floating around looking for people to fight. Deciding to more than oblige them, Stratos ran at the collection of dark balls ready to cut a swath into them once again. As the dark balls looked towards the boy, they dived at him, maws ready to chomp down onto the keyblade wielder. Dodging under the first, with a swift roll, he then found himself being attacked by a swarm of five. Being unable to avoid all of them, the boy instead decided to face the heartless dead on. Charging his keyblades with magical power, the boy merely declared, "red slash," before slashing twice at the dark balls. With one keyblade charged with earth, a rocky substance coating it, and the other light, glowing brightly, the boy tore through the five heartless that were coming at him. However, he was then stomped in his tracks as a dark ball had warped behind him, biting down onto his shoulder. Wincing in pain, the boy didn't have much time to react as yet another swarm was coming at him. Tossing one keyblade in front of him, the boy twirled his other keyblade behind him, firing a chunk of ice out from it. The blizzard spell had managed to fell the darkball, while his strike raided keyblade managed to tear through a few others. Calling his keyblade back to him, there was still a large quantity of dark balls that were left, mostly still trying to ram their jaws and chomp down onto the boy. Focusing his magical power, the boy created four pillars of light around him, which started to spin around him. As he declared, "faith," the pillars moved outward, exploding against the dark ball swarm when they collided. As the flash of light magic occurred, the wave of dark balls were destroyed in one fell swoop, causing them all to erupt into dark smoke as they were felled. Aeira. Punching. These are things that are often paired together. Even more so when it comes to fighting heartless. With one collection of neoshadows down, the girl had yet another one to go towards to try and stop. With one neoshadow jumping at her, she merely stepped back, punching it in the face to fell it. Then there were like six other neoshadows. And they all tried to the same tactic at once in an attempt to overwhelm Aeira. And the girl was not overwhelmed. Instead she punched more neoshadows and destroyed them. Yeah. total Words: 605 Exp: 60 Exp Total: 4020 Heartless Defeated: 30 darkballs 7 Neoshadows Enemies Remaining: 209 Neoshadows 245 Darkballs
Aeira continued to brawl against the neoshadows in front of her, one after the other as they came. The first one lunged from underneath the ground, trying to slash at her with its claws attempting to rake them against her body. Being able to react to this in time, though, the girl lifted up her gauntlet and managed to stop the attack from connecting altogether. Reeling back a fist, ready to punch into the head of the neo shadow, she was then ambushed by a different set of neoshadows, a pair that tried to attack her from behind. Trying to keep her balance on the fight, she stepped backward and put up her hand blocking against the first attack of the neoshadow. However, as both of her arms were now occupied she couldn't do much to stop the third claw from scraping across her back. Her face becoming more irritated, as her now stone skin took the blow, the girl pulled back both of her hands to turn and face the heartless that attacked her. With a singular punch, she managed to knock the head off of the neoshadow cleanly, destroying it in almost an instant. As the other two that attacked her tried to back off, the girl reached out with both of her hands, grabbing at the arms of the neoshadows that were trying to escape. Slamming the two creatures together, she managed to vanquish them, with only four more being around her. As they circled around her, waiting for an opportunity to pounce, the girl kept her focus steady and ready to deal with the creatures. As they first charged her, she brought up one hand to block the first set of claws that tried to rake against her. Bringing up the second gauntlet as the second one ran at her, she knew that she was now exposed but didn't seem to mind much. As one tried to run at her back, the girl merely stomped on the ground, causing a tremor to shake through the ground. As it did, the creature stumbled and couldn't complete its attack as a fourth one ran at her. Pushing off the leg she used to stomp with, she brought up her other foot in a mid air sweeping kick, striking the heartless clean in the head. Moving her gauntleted hands around the claws they were guarding against, she grabbed onto both of the arms, spinning the bodies around as she too was spinning the air. As she landed back on the ground, she brought both of the neoshadows she was grasping onto down onto the one on the ground, killing all three of them in one fell swoop. With that done, the heartless had exploded into darkness, leaving Aeira needing to find more opponents to punch through, a small competitive feeling rushing through her as she saw how easily the rest of the keyblade wielders seemed to be dispatching through the waves. After Stratos's grand entrance, there seemed to be yet another swarm of dark balls floating towards the quartet, ready to chomp down on all of them, swarming around. Taking a deep breath, the boy's gravity aura flickered, before erupting in a plume of black and purple darkness, his aura having shifted as a result. Looking at the swarm, he readied his keyblades, rushing headlong into the fray, swinging his keyblades in a flurry of slashes, letting loose a combo through them all. At the end of his combo, the boy dismissed both of the keyblades, creating a large claw of darkness that he swung at the swarm, destroying the dark balls in one fell swipe. Total Words: 607 EXP: 60 Total EXP: 3960 Stratos Heartless Defeated: 30 darkballs Aeira Heartless Defeated: 6 Neoshadows Enemies Remaining: 271 Neoshadows 328 Darkballs
With both of his keyblades back in his hands, Stratos looked towards the swarm of heartless as they continued to move all around. Assessing the situation, it seemed that the sea of dark balls was considerably lower in quantity then when he had first started to tear into them, a large quantity of them having been entirely destroyed. Looking around, he saw the efforts of everyone else beginning to come to fruiton, as it appeared this wave was going down far easier than the second one did. In fact, it might have been at the same pace as the first one was. Looking around, he knew that Mizu and Shiro were hard at work, both of them dealing with the swarms of heartless but also keeping the man summoning them at bay. If he could summon this many heartless at once, and continue to toe to toe with the Order, Stratos had no doubt that he was truly a powerful foe, and wasn't sure how well the group would stack up against him otherwise. Furthermore, Shiro seemed to be capable of making all of them far stronger than they normally would be, which was a power Stratos couldn't even begin to fathom how it was possible. Generally, he had a basis to go off of that he would be able to copy, but both what Shiro was doing and the magnitude to which he was doing it was entirely foreign to him. The more he thought about it, the more he realized just what it meant to be a member of the order and how much of an elite group of keyblade wielders they were. While Stratos felt like he was starting to fully catch up, he realized just how far a way he still had to go to become a true keyblade master as he watched the two members of the order get to work. Focusing back to the battle at hand, Stratos's attention was drawn away from the heartless around him, as he thinned out a fair few of them. Instead, he heard a rather irritated yell come from elsewhere, his attention being focused to where Hikaru was. The yell itself had actually come from Aux, who seemed to be in the midst of dealing with his own swarm of dark balls, and the two of them were with someone that Stratos didn't recognize. Thinking he was probably a member of the group that had come alongside Karina, a group of people who seemed to be fine holding their own against the heartless at the moment, he figured the trio of them could use a hand. More specifically, Aux. Looking to Aislinn he said, "Aislinn, I'm going to assist them over there. Keep safe." Bending down, the boy began to focus as his familiar cherry blossom petals fluttered in a nonexistent breeze. In an instant, he was gone from where he was standing, instead nearer to Aux now. As he appeared, a large quantity of heartless were slayed, exploding in a puff of darkness. Looking to Aux, with a smirk on his face, he said, "you look like you're struggling a bit." With one wave of neoshadows down, the light was beginning to shine at the end of the tunnel. The girl was making surprising progress in pummeling these heartless, but it was quite irritating for her. She was more suited for dealing with singular larger opponents, and having to fight a swarm was a bit out of her comfort zone. All the same, she wasn't going to slow down just yet, and instead continued to punch into each and every one of the heartless near her destroying them in a single blow. Total Words: 615 EXP: 60 Total EXP: 3900 Stratos Heartless Defeated: 30 Darkballs Aeira Heartless Defeated: 7 Neoshadows Enemies Remaining: 301 Neoshadows 371 Darkballs
One after the other, as the heartless came towards him, Stratos managed to fight and fell each of the heartless. He was starting to get into a rhythm himself, responding with every attack he received from the heartless with one of his own. The pressure that they were exerting was incredible, but despite that being the case the boy didn't feel at all like he was about to give in to it. Instead, it pushed him further and further, to continue slashing through each and every one of the heartless that were coming his way. He found himself getting more and more pumped up, his body moving entirely on instinct as he tried to go faster and faster against the heartless, achieving his own sort of lethal tempo. With the wave of dark balls that he had just fought being felled, he was not about to stop and decided to continue to press the attack against them. Running forward, another cluster of dark balls looked his way as they charged towards him, maws at the ready to try and stop him. As they flew at him, they tried to bite down on him one after the other, which prompted the boy to, rather than charge at them, roll back away from them. The swarm of dark balls came at him like a tide, with each of them flying forward and trying to chomp down on him. However, backing away, they instead bit against air, and their momentum was broken by, rather than stopping at the boy, crashing into the ground. As he managed to avoid the tide of dark balls, the boy then pressed the offensive against the heartless and went in for an attack of his own. Twirling the first keyblade of his, the boy tossed it forward into the swarm, the blade spinning like a helicopter blade as he used Strike Raid to give it the power to slash through the swarms. As it cleaved into one of the dark balls, it seemed to slow down and as it moved through more and more, it eventually veered off course and was flung away from the tide. As that was happening, though, the boy used the other keyblade to charge it with thunder magic. Magical energy began to flow through him and into his blade, as the tip of the keyblade seemed to have an electrical charge to it. As the electricity gathered more and more, it eventually formed a familiar orb of lightning which the boy merely pointed at the swarm of dark balls. With a shout, he said, "thunder bell!" The orb of lightning flew forward, breaking against the tide of heartless and letting loose a shocking explosion that managed to tear through each of the dark ball heartless, causing them to pause as they were being shocked. As the lightning continued to course through their bodies, the tide of dark balls started to convulse, letting loose a small screech of pain before exploding into the same dark smoke they always had, indicating their defeat. Summoning his keyblade back to his hand, the boy looked onward to see what next in this swarm he would deal with. After going clubbing with one of the neo shadow heartless, Aeira turned her attention to more that seemed to pop out of the ground. They jumped at her, all seven at once from all different angles. As it was, there was no way the girl could dodge all the attacks, so she instead decided to power through them. A small aura of earth magic crossed her, before fading away and leaving her skin looking more rigid. Pushing through the heartless, Aeira punched her way through the neo shadows, tanking the slashes from their claws and seeming to be in little pain or trouble from the attacks she took. Total Words: 638 EXP: 60 Total EXP: 3840 Stratos Heartless Defeated: 30 Darkballs Aeira Heartless Defeated: 7 Neoshadows Enemies Remaining: 387 Neoshadows 467 Darkballs
As his slash made it was through the dark balls, the energy of light, fire and ice washed over the air, dissipating once the slash had finished. The blades started to have their own magic dissipate, the flame across one ending and the chill across the other thawing out. The blades of light as well turned back to their normal state as keyblades, as the boy fell back to the ground, landing harmlessly on the ground. The two keyblades were no longer radiating with energy, the limit having ended. The heartless that he cleaved through, however, had all ignited, froze or were generally destroyed by the attack he had just unleashed, the 30 of them merely returning to the darkness from whence they came as they exploded into dark smoke that merely flowed through the air and slowly dissipated from view. The boy looked at his blades, thinking it was amazing how many different powers he could channel through each of his weapons, and how having two of them was greatly enhancing the strength of his attacks. Then there was also the nature of his limit. He wasn't actually sure if what he just did would work, unsure of where the power of the job's command and power had lied in relation to his others, and wasn't sure if it would speak well, so to speak, with his other powers. However, the mixture of faith and red slash had worked flawlessly, and the intended result was even greater than he was expecting. Knowing there was great power in his command mixing, the boy wondered how the other powers would work if he had mixed them together, only having done this a select few times. All the same, it wasn't exactly something he could rapid fire off, and so instead he focused towards the other heartless that were still around, getting ready to try and build up his limit's power once again. With blades at the ready, the boy charged towards yet another swarm of darkballs, that were merely floating around and took note of the boy. Letting out a chortle as they saw him rush towards them, the dark balls vanished from sight, causing the boy to stop in his tracks, aware of what was coming next. As the dark ball appeared next to him, coming out from a dark portal, the boy was expecting something like that, and merely ignited both of keyblades as he went in for a fire slash against them. As more dark balls appeared near him, through a similar manner trying to bite at him, the boy repeated this process over and over again. Each time, he guarded with his keyblade against the attack or rolled out of the way of the bite, managing to absorb or avoid most of the damage, though a few bites had managed to get past his defenses. Grimacing in pain, the boy wasn't going to stop however, as he continued to let loose a flurry of slashes into the swarm of heartless. Each time he did, he preformed another variation of red slash, his blades seeming to change color and effects as different elemental magics continued to form across them. All the same, the boy managed to cleave his way through the large gathering of heartless, coming out somewhat worse for wear from the exchange. As Aeira continued her rhytmic punching against the neo shadows, she noticed one that seemed to manage to avoid her initial punch. With her flow being disrupted from this, the girl looked at the neo shadow, and as it jumped at her to get an attack in, she merely grabbed at its arm. Looking over to the other neoshadows, rather than punch them, she started to use her newly acquired neoshadow to beat the current ones to death with. Total Words: 635 EXP: 60 Total EXP: 3780 Stratos Heartless Defeated: 31 Darkballs Aeira Heartless Defeated: 7 Neoshadows Enemies Remaining: 418 Neoshadows 498 Darkballs
After felling a large slew of the dark balls, the boy landed back on his feet, trying to see what needed to be done next. Though they were making great strides against the massive and plentiful waves of heartless it wasn't as though there work was close to finished yet. In just this wave alone there were still a numerous amount of heartless to get through and it wasn't as if the ones left were giant pushovers. This wasn't even imagining what else there was to come, after this wave, as the boy figured the person by the name of Hughes still had something up his sleeve. The man seemed pretty much insane, and while the group was making quick work of his endless waves of heartless, he didn't seem like a man who was being backed into the corner. Not yet at least. So, that merely meant that the boy needed to keep slaying heartless until they got him to that point. Getting ready to fight against more of the heartless, noticing a collection of neoshadows make their way towards him, the boy seemed ready to go and lay into them with his keyblades, when Aislinn had jumped into the fray taking the attention off of him and onto herself. The boy used this moment as a bit of reprieve, trying to collect his breath seeing as there weren't any more heartless trying to kill him right in that instance. Looking over to Aislinn he gave a wave saying, "thanks for the assist." Getting his keyblades readied, after the woman had managed to slay through her own swarm of heartless, the boy went back to work. A large collection of dark balls were starting to make their way over to him, maws at the ready to chomp down on him. They too were plentiful in number, a much larger than normal swarm coming to attack him, yet the boy didn't move to run away from them. Instead, he merely moved at them head first. Jumping up, the boy swung his keyblades at the open mouths of the dark balls as they went to bite at him, effectively parrying the attack before the jaw could clamp down on him. As he did, he was pushed back a bit by the recoil of the attack, but, with so many dark balls in the air, he managed to land on one of them, using his feet to propel upwards into the air. Continuing this process, he managed to slash through a few heartless at a time, managing to slay them as he continued to leap up and off of them like floating platforms. However, this was eventually stopped as the dark balls were starting to form a wall in his way and bunch around him. Needing an easy way out, and fast the boy charged himself with a familiar rainbow lightning. The energy went into his keyblades, charging them up as well as his blades turned into white light swords made of pure energy. One of them then ignited as the other froze over, as the boy shouted, "Link Synchro: Sanctum Slash!" With a large cross slash, the boy managed to cut a swath through the dark balls that were attacking him. Aeira continued to punch punch punch the neo shadows. They weren't exactly all that difficult to deal with at this point. Though their movements were erratic and they themselves were fast, Aeira could start to see an order in the chaos of how they fought. She had found herself in a steady rhythm of punches, continuing to strike one after the other into the neoshadows, managing to almost effortlessly dodge their attacks and strike back with patient, measured movements. Word Count: 640 EXP Earned: 60 Exp Total: 3720 Heartless Defeated: 30 Darkballs 7 Neoshadows Enemies Remaining: 471 Neoshadows 566 Darkballs
