With the blaze striking true, the boy pointed his keyblade at the heartless once more. As such, he lit the tip of the keyblade up with magical energy and directed it at the same target he had always struck at. Stratos used Fira on Blizzard Lord
As the rain had ended, Stratos's fira spell had ended up doing much more damage than it had been all turns prior. Gripping his keyblade tighter, he knew that this was a good chance, for both him and the enemies. Their damage would be considerably equal, and so he needed to give it his all at this moment. As Aislinn's question reached him gave her a thumbs up saying, "well, I'm doing fine enough. Tough fight, sure, but it hasn't reached that point yet." While Stratos's words were a bit ominous he then reciprocated saying, "how about you? I know it's not your first fight, but hey, it's the first huge one against heartless I've seen you in, so how you holding up?" Once he had asked the question, the boy then went to strike the heartless with the same spell he had before Stratos used Fira on Blizzard Lord.
While Stratos had seen that the water was about as effective as he was thinking it would be, which was to say very much so, it was unfortunate that he could not continue this process forever. However, he could still contribute in fighting against this thing in quite the same manner as he had always, and so hurrying up at the same pace that Steel was going at, the boy let his keyblade sizzle with heat in the rain and let loose its blah blah blah attack! Stratos used Fira on Blizzard Lord.
As the attacks kept coming, Ananta started to look worse for wear and Beuce looked...tiny? Well, that was certianly - "oooooh, that explains it," Stratos muttered. He saw the strange floating cat next to the man and everything suddenly made far more sense. The lords had kept their constant pressure up, seeming to target Ananta and Steel with great fervor. The former had not taken to being hit the best, however the latter seemed to have the reflexes to handle the balloon like heartless. While thankful for this, Stratos could tell that this could not last forever. Furthermore, while they had been attacking, they had mostly been on the defensive and were only dealing some middling damage at a time towards the creature. With the rain pattering against his skin and clothes, Stratos took a deep breath as he realized that he could not simply do the same thing forever and expect them to win at this rate. As such, he pointed his keyblade towards the flaming one of the duo, and from his blade bubbles started to form at their tip. Once four had been created, he fired them all at the creature. Stratos used Aqua Splash against Volcano Lord (all four bubbles towards it)
As the frost breath coated the area, Stratos couldn't help but shiver as he was struck by it. The chill, however, was soon replaced by a rising heat as fire seemed to blanket the area. The boy wasn't quite sure what he was going to do about any of this increasingly poorly escalating situation, and so he stuck to what he was going to do normally. As Steel spoke, Stratos said, "I mean come on, in the face of this, how could we not?" He gestured towards the large heartless, "after all, gotta keep morale high at all times and all that. Or just not be bored. One of those two." With that, the boy pointed his keyblade towards the heartless and fired off the same spell he had done before. Stratos used Fira on Blizzard Lord.
As the barrage of icy attacks had struck the lords, it appeared they weren't that phased by it. Stratos had wondered what was going on, when he remembered some parts of elemental interaction. Fire held a distinct weakness to the element of water, an element that seemed far harder to grasp knowledge of then the rest. While he had realized this made the fight slightly more difficult to deal with, he had decided to go on and do the exact same thing he had been doing this whole time. With flame on his keyblade, the boy directed his attacked towards the frozen lord. Stratos used Fira on Blizzard Lord
After the fire hit, it seemed to have both greater and less than an effect on the creature than Stratos was hoping for. In fact one could say that the affect was absolutely average. However, this would not deter him from doing it again, no. There wasn't a specific reason that Stratos felt so bent on spamming this one spell over and over again, though Beuce's earlier words might've had something to do with it, but he was going to continue onward with it regardless. As Steel started to explain to Ananta what it was that Beuce said, it was at this point that Stratos had forgotten that the others couldn't see them unless they were specifically their partners. He was also sure that he heard some pretty odd claim from Beuce as well, but, now was not the time to inquire about it. Or it was the perfect time to inquire. Really it was all about how long the fight lasted. Seeing Steel slide past the attack and release one of his own, the boy let out a small whistle, before turning back to the creature. Pointing his keyblade at the heartless of ice, he launched a fireball from it. Stratos used Fira on the Blizzard Lord
Marley still felt a bit frustrated as Cerdic shoved the torn paper into their hand, wondering just what their problem was. Annoyance still clear on their face, the opened up the crumpled piece of paper, looking at what the page had said. Their eyes showed a strange mix of surprise, intrigue and of course, rising anger. When they had finished what little was there, they momentarily looked up, wondering just what it was this paper was even talking about. They didn't know what it was they had agreed to, what it was they were tricked into doing, and what it was that had happened as a result. They did, however, understand what they were a feeling. With a burning desire to find this Aevum and get whatever answers they needed to get from them. With that in mind, they crumpled the paper up and simply put it back in their pocket. As they turned around, getting ready to leave, their already irritated mood was only soured further. Marely could understand why they were so damn presistant about getting the book, after all it was quite the curious notebook. However, looking at it now would probably only frustrate them all further and Marley had enough questions without answers for the moment. As they were about to walk over to the scene, Marley heard Cerdic's comment on them, their eyebrow twitched a bit in annoyance. Nevertheless, they made their way over to the pinned body of Cerdic, and looked down at him, a face not filled with any real emotion or pity behind it. "You're going to share the rest of that once we meet up with the others." After stating this, Marley summoned their keyblade, moving with an upward slash to knock Daeni's keyblade away from him. Dismissing their blade, they then bent down to pick up the small prince with both of their hands, in an attempt to both hoist and throw Relli off of the man. Once that was done, they simply said, "it'll only annoy you looking at it by yourself. So just stop making walking more complicated then it needs to be and let's go." Looking at the sorry state of Cerdic they then scoffed with, "you too you flamboyant he-she." With that, Marely got ready to leave.
As the gang had made their way to the town square, it was to no one's surprise that Frollo was the mad man behind this swarm of heartless. As he seemed primed to burn and freeze? the city around them, Stratos got himself ready to strike out at the boss. As Steel made his monologue, Stratos perked up a bit realizing that Steel had called himself a king. Well that was certainly different from what he was expecting. Stratos then began to think about it and remembered that Luna was also a princess. That was a lot of royalty for one group. He shrugged it off as a pretty odd coincidence, but didn't pay it much mind beyond that as it was only between those two. It wasn't like Ananta was some kind of queen and Beuce also some kind of king or anything. As the rain started to fall, Stratos pointed his keyblade towards the Frozen heartless, getting ready to attack it. While he knew that the rain was definitely going to dampen this attack, he couldn't help but feel compelled to use it anyway. And so, with the flame igniting at the tip of his keyblade, Stratos launched his attack out. Stratos used Fira on Blizzard Lord
While Daeni did not actually answer what it was that Alder had done to it, there seemed to be some sort of odd confrontation and tension between her and Cerdic. She wasn't quite so sure why he was suddenly so interested in the journal, especially as he had wanted to leave it behind not moments ago. However, while Daeni seemed reluctant to do so, she eventually gave the book over to Cerdic. Marley was only made more curious by really secretive vibe that Cerdic was giving off to the rest of them. Walking up, expression both curious and irked, Marley said, "so what's so interesting about the journal there Mr. Big and Brave." Walking over to him, the keyblade wielder extended out their hand, as if gesturing him to give the journal over saying, "care to share with the class?"
So, for the boss battle, equipping Spellbinder (this lowers my mod on strength by 3) Command Deck: Fira Splattercombo Vorpal Blitz Cure Aqua Splash
After the heartless had been felled, the next order of business would've been quelling the flames around them. However, Stratos heard one of the Gargoyles shout out, directing their attention towards something else. Up in the distance, there was a large, bulbous heartless. It's torso seemed to contain a primodial fire within it, as it waved its wand around conjuring flame that would spread across the city. The creature had apparently been the cause for all of the red nocturnes they had fought until now, and thus they needed to bring it down if anything was going to improve around here. "Come on guys, I think we've got a much bigger fire to fight up there." Seeing that it was floating towards the cathedral, Stratos went to go attempt to meet it and halt its progress before it started to torch the place.
After the boy had taken down his swarm of red nocturnes, he turned his attention to the next one. While preparing to go strike them, he noticed something peculiar about them. They were floating in place, still, without any form of movement whatsoever. Recognizing this to the be the effect a stop spell, he quickly looked around the area to see Steel fiddling around with magical energy, swiping through it as if browsing through a catalog. After seeming to be pleased with his selection, lightning arced out from his hand, striking down and destroying each of the heartless he had frozen. While the spell itself was one that was fairly simple, the display was impressive enough that Stratos let out a small whistle. Twirling his keyblade, getting ready to take down the next group of heartless, the boy's thoughts were briefly interrupted as a giant made of glowing watery spheres walked over to him. Surprised, understandably so, Stratos jumped back away from the thing, keyblade at the ready. Though, as it approached him, he realized it was of a similar make to that of the Blizzagolem, and didn't do much else as it laid its spherical hand on him. Feeling a wave of relief course through him, the injuries and burns that the boy had incurred in this fight were vanishing and mending. Not soon after did this happen, did he then start to feel a gust of wind surround him. The spell was definitely familiar to him and one that he had used many a times in the past. However, there was something that felt different about it. Something that didn't quite feel similar to the Aeros of the past that he had used. Looking for the source of this windswept barrier, he saw a third golem. A creature made entirely of twisting winds, parting the smoke every where it moved and granting a shield of wind to all their allies. Stratos was a bit impressed by not just Beuce's sudden talent to bring out all of these golems of varying elements, but also being able to sustain all of them at once. He had only had the one summon magic before, Dumbo, and while he didn't have the ability to test summoning and maintaining multiple at a time, keeping one out was strenuous enough. He briefly wondered what it was that gave him this ability, though figured that now in the midst of the burning city, was probably not the best time to figure it out. With that out of the way, Stratos looked to find the last group of red nocturnes that were floating about. They were, like all of the others before them, in a cluster of ten. Dancing about the smoke and flames, they seemed to frolic and revel in the chaos and destruction they were causing. Sighing, the boy figured that trying to just strike them down in the same way as he had all the rest would be too boring a finish for these malevolent creatures. And so, his mind settled on using something that he had yet to do. With this resolution in mind, a blue light emanated from the boy's clothing, drifting off and returning him to his normal attire. Twirling his keyblade, the boy slowly approached the heartless, the light started to envelop his keyblade. This light spilled out to the ground around him, slowly growing upwards into large pillars. When the pillars had reached the apex of their height, Stratos smirked towards the red nocturnes. Their joviality seemed to end at this, frozen by the sight. With a flick of his blade, Stratos let loose the pillars of the faith command towards the heartless. In an instant, they were enveloped by the light, destroyed by a resulting explosion and soundly defeated. After all, fire could not beat the faith, (preach it!) Word Count: 634 BP Spent: 30 EXP Writer 2: 60 EXP Total: 420 EXP Blessed Thief: 210 Munny Enemies Remaining: Red Nocturnes: 0/100 (Preach It!)
After dealing with the small cluster of red nocturnes that had attempted to set the cathedral ablaze, Stratos continued to look onward to see where the next set of heartless would be. The flames were most definitely spreading, and the smoke was making things far more unbearable than they needed to be, yet he couldn't give up. He wasn't quite sure how he'd deal with the fire once this was all said and done, but taking on the heartless was as good a first step as any. However breathing the air was becoming harder, his body starting to feel a bit sluggish from the heat and sweat was starting to fully cover his brow. This was soon offset, though, by a sudden flow of cold air that felt both refreshing and strange. Looking to see where the cool air was coming from, Stratos looked a bit until he saw exactly what the source was. A large golem made entirely of ice, bright and glistening in the otherwise dark and dreary scenery, making all the air around it shimmer with specs of frost. While he had only ever seen this type of magic once, this specific kind at that, it was one that he remembered as though it happened yesterday. The spell that belonged to the youngest member of the order, and the first he had met. Back then he didn't really understand just how amazing a mage she must've been, but seeing this in person for a second time, it was quite clear just the raw amount of magical power and talent that went into making such a construct. Yet, the one who summoned it was not the blue haired girl of the order. No. The one next to the golem, an ecstatic and triumphant expression on their face was none other than Beuce. As he looked at the golem, Stratos realized something. In spite of how much stronger he had gotten and how much he had started to understand, he had only just started. While everyone else had reaffirmed their strength during their trials to reclaim their keyblade, Stratos had already known they were plenty strong to begin with. They simply used their reaffirmation to propel themselves further. He was different however. He had known his weakness, his own lack of power, and had come to terms with such things. He had used that to start to move out of everyone's shadows and start to cast his own. Yet at the end of the day that simply meant he had so much catch up work to do. While before, his expression would be one that was vacant, looking towards an impossibly distant sight, and simply be disheartened. However, now, the boy's expression was one quite different. A large smile across his face, one that seemed to have some sort of excitement and thrill. He could tell that doing something like that was far beyond him at this moment. Heck, he wasn't even sure how long he'd have to keep working at it before he could do that tier of magic. Yet, he knew it was not impossible. It wasn't a matter of possibility, simple a matter of time. Taking a deep breath, the boy focused himself and got ready to go and deal with the heartless once more, when he heard Beuce yell towards him. Seeing something go through the air and towards him, Stratos caught it. Examining it, the item itself was one that was all too familiar to him, yet he was still confused. Shrugging, he just figured that Beuce really liked throwing Ethers to him, and so he waved and shouted back. "Thanks! I'm probably not going to give this one back this time, though." With a slight chuckle, the boy tossed the item in the air before catching it once more. His attention now turning away from the ice golem, he looked towards the red nocturnes that were floating about. While not something that could be deemed as impressive or unique as what he had seen Beuce do, the boy still had something he could do. In a flash of blue light, his outfit change once again, briefly surrounded in blue fire. His eyes had become a calm azure, his clothes a much deeper shade of blue. On the back of his hoodie there he bared an insignia in the shape of fire. His hood had become longer and more pointed. His keyblade had shrunk, being more akin to a wand then an actual blade. Looking at the cluster of red nocturnes, he saw them charging a massive ball of flame as they had last time. However, once the magical energy had been fully gathered, rather than launch it at any specific area, the heartless merely fired it upward. Raising an eyebrow, Stratos curiously watched it, only to see it explode in the air, turning into a large storm of much smaller fire balls that began raining down. While he could not use Zantetsuken in this form, he knew just how to stop this rain from causing massive damage. The blue flames traveling across his keyblade, once at the tip it became more a blue crackle of electricity that Stratos thrust towards the sky. When he had pointed it upward, there was a slight delay as the magical energy was expended. Soon, lightning started to rain from the sky, striking a small collection of the fireballs mid descent, destroying them. Continuously swiping his keyblade towards the sky, Stratos continued to call down more lightning, casting Thunder one after the other and destroying more and more of the raining fireballs until he had intercepted nearly all of them in this method. The heartless seemed definitely surprised by this, but the boy brooked them no quarter. Swiping towards the air, Stratos conjured four bubbles of water at his side, and fired them off towards the heartless. Each one seeking out a target, resulting explosion from the collision caused not just their targeted to be destroyed, but also all of those close to them. With the attack completed, Stratos tossed the ether in the air, absorbing the power from it and feeling ready to take on the rest of the red nocturnes. Word Count: 1034 BP Spent: 30 EXP Writer 2: 60 EXP Total: 360 EXP Blessed Thief: 180 Munny Enemies Remaining: Red Nocturnes: 30/100 (3 BP Each)
"Alright, alright." Mumbling to himself, Stratos nodded after having finished his full combo of skill commands. The attacks weren't used for the sole purpose of just getting the heartless killed, no. Instead, it was more of a way to finally help recharge his ever waning mana pool. After the splattercombo had finished, he definitely felt a good charge back, but he was not near full just yet. He would have to still wait just a bit more and attack just a few more heartless before he was back at tip top shape. With one final nod of affirmation to himself, acknowledging his current status, Stratos looked around to see where else the red nocturnes were flying around. This was a much easier said statement then it was done. Beuce had been right, the resulting smoke from the red nocturnes' previous attacks had started to make things all the more difficult to see. Not only did they have to deal with the heartless themselves, but also the rising flames from the attacks by these heartless. The boy was somewhat worried, though, about how they would handle such flames. After all, they were still stuck in the UG, and their influence over the RG was minimal at best. Even if the heartless were as well, all they needed to make sure a single spark made its way out. It was much easier to start a fire and keeping it going, then it was to put it out. As such, the best way to keep the fire from spreading any further was to simply get rid of the things providing more flame onto the area. After a bit of looking around, the boy had found another group of heartless, a cluster of ten red nocturnes not unlike all the rest that he had taken on prior to this. Twirling his keyblade a bit, the boy then took off for the group of the heartless, gripping tighter on the hilt of the blade as he made his way over. When he was within range, the heartless took note of him, and stopped the fire blasting against the city and decided to direct their attacks over to the keyblade wielder. With the orbs of flames starting to gather on the tips of their pointed hats, the red nocturnes had begun to let loose a barrage of fireballs towards the boy. Stopping in his tracks, Stratos started to let loose a flurry of swings towards the fireballs. One after the other he batted them back towards their caster, causing the ball of flame to explode upon impact with the creatures. Though, despite this, they seemed none too affected. When the flame and smoke of the explosion cleared, the heartless remained virtually untouched by it, and saw fit to just start charging up its magic once again. As the heartless saw that their first batch of attacks hadn't really worked out that well, they got together, and decided to try to take a different approach this time around. As the red nocturnes gathered in a circle, the magical energy they had started to gather and coalesce towards the center. Gripping the hilt of his blade with both hands, the boy started to focus and prep for his Zantetsuken, but quickly rethought using it. The ball of flame had already started to reach a much larger than normal size, and he wasn't sure what killing the heartless would do it to while it was charge. So instead, he simply decided to bide his time and wait. While doing so, the orb's size continued to grow and expand, becoming almost its own miniature sun with a size that dwarfed any of the creatures creating it. As they had finished charging the attack up, they seemed poised to fire the sphere and let loose its destructive wrath. However, they weren't aiming it at Stratos, or any of the other keyblade wielders. No. Instead, their focus was towards the large cathedral, the Notre Dame itself. With one final pulse of magic, and a small flip, the red nocturnes fired off the giant sphere of flame towards the large building, it sailing towards their with remarkable speed in spite of its size. Having to think fast, Stratos resharpened his focus and prepared his, practically, signature command. As he took in a deep breath, time seemed to slow down around him, to almost a complete standstill as the cherry blossoms started to flat around the area. Closing his eyes, the boy visualized the necessary attack needed to stop this giant flame orb. Once the answer was found, he opened them, appearing within a single instant beyond the flame orb and a giant slash mark appearing underneath it. Once time resumed, the orb halted its progress, being cleaved in two from the bottom and forcing the flames to jettison harmlessly into the sky above. Of course, being close to this attack, Stratos was knocked back by the impact, and forced tumbling into the ground. After his body had knocked into it, and he skidded across just a bit, he got himself back up. Wincing a bit from the pain of his landing, the boy dusted himself off, and looked towards the red nocturnes. If heartless could feel emotions, which he wasn't actually sure if they were able to, these certainly seemed to have some degree of disappointment to them. Twirling his keyblade a bit, Stratos's grip around it tightened before he decided to charge straight at the heartless. A bit surprised that the boy was moving so fast again, it took them a small bit to actually start their attacks up, but soon enough they were charging their fire spell. However, it was not soon enough, as the keyblade wielder had jumped at one of them, bringing his keyblade down and slicing it in twain. The other heartless had taken this opportunity to fire at the boy, but, sliding dashing away from where he was, he then let loose another splattercombo against the remaining heartless, felling all the ones in the immediate area. Word Count: 1009 BP Spent: 30 EXP Writer 2: 60 EXP Total: 300 EXP Blessed Thief: 150 Munny Enemies Remaining: Red Nocturnes: 50/100 (3 BP Each)
After twirling his wand-like keyblade about, a blue light seemed dissipate off of the boy. As it did, both his weapon and his clothes had returned to their original state, and it left the boy to go and hunt out more of the heartless that were prowling around. While staying in that form did give him a good deal of magical power, it wouldn't matter any if he couldn't use his physical prowess to resupply his magic. Stretching a bit, getting ready to bring his keyblade down on more red nocturnes, he soon saw Beuce flying around on a line made of electrical power. He saw the attack, and studied it a bit. He did not know how to completely copy the attack, yet ideas were going off in his head as to how to replicate the same effect. While he had reached a solution, it was not nearly as efficient, nor probably as effective, and thus he simply decided he'd wait a bit before he tried to replicate the real move himself. As he was studying this attack, the boy's thoughts were interrupted as Beuce had landed near him, asking him if he had gotten, physically at least, stronger. At this question, the boy started to think about it a bit. Magically speaking, he felt like his old self was at a higher level than where he was now. Defensively he also felt as though he was more susceptible to both physical and magical attacks then he would've been before as well. However, the margin between those powers and then and now didn't feel all that wide. In fact, it felt as though it were at a level that he could easily catch up, given enough time. In regards to his physicality, though, there was definitely a major change. He had noticed earlier, but it felt as though his body was lighter and moved to match his thoughts more precisely. His swings had far more force behind them then they had ever had before and as a result, all of his physical commands felt as though they packed more of a punch now. Then there was the fact that his body was moving faster and he was able to react to things more precisely and with earlier timing. After thinking about it for a bit, Stratos looked to Beuce and said, "yeah, I guess I have. Not sure why it happened but I've felt like this since we got here. It's a pretty strange feeling. Not bad, really, just different." As he said this, he then looked at the man, before realizing there was something off about his appearance. However, before he brought it up any further, the boy could see the blazes of more red nocturnes ignite through the smoke. "Well, they don't seem to be relenting anything soon." Spinning his keyblade, the boy tossed it at the first of the red nocturnes. Rushing after it, he then leaped into the air. After the keyblade struck through the heartless, he summoned it back to his hands. Once there, with a sudden burst of movement, the boy slid through the air, cleaving two more Red Nocturnes. When the speed from the sliding dash ran out, there were still a cluster of seven more of them around him. With another sudden burst of movement, the boy let out a series of seven strikes, one for each heartless, cleaving each of them as his blade passed through them. When all was said and done, he landed on the ground, with the previous hearts of the red nocturnes floating into the air. Word Count: 600 BP Spent: 30 EXP Writer 2: 60 EXP Total: 240 EXP Blessed Thief: 120 Munny Enemies Remaining: Red Nocturnes: 60/100 (3 BP Each)
After the last of the heartless had been dealt with, the gang had all regrouped themselves. Dismissively, waving their hand towards Cerdic as he praised himself, once again, saying, "right right." As Daeni asked if it was safe around them, Marley triumphantly nodded, only to then realize that things around them had gotten a lot quieter. Before they could take note about what this meant, though, a sharp pain went through their head. Going to clutch their head on instinct, they could feel memories start to resurface in their mind. The atmosphere of the memory was a mystery to them, and they couldn't even piece together what it was they were doing. But there they were, facing...someone. Who? They looked at their face but each time they tried to recall it the same question just kept coming to mind. Who? Who? Who? Each time they asked the question it only got less and less clear and each time they tried to remember who the face belonged to their head only hurt more. Eventually, the pain seemed to erupt across their body, taking hold in their chest. Clutching their chest, eyes forced shut from the pain, sweat forming across their brow, Marley tried to remember more about what was going on. However, the more they tried, the more pain they felt. Eventually, just trying to brute force it became unbearable, letting out one large grunt of pain, before finally giving up. When they had, the pain started to subside and they finally were able to stand back upright. Breathing heavily, feeling far more exhausted from this ordeal then any of the actual fighting, they simply muttered, "ruin what?" Trying not to bring it up, the somewhat fatigued keyblade wielder looked at the others, Cerdic who seemed to be insistent on getting the book and Daeni who was stargazing. Looking up, they felt some odd sense of relief to see that the overbearing darkness had somewhat subsided in the area, before looking back to the two of the other LIGHT members. The words that Daeni had said finally processing in their head, they more specifically to her and said, "wait, what did he do?"
With the magic spell finished, Stratos looked around to see that there were still quite a good deal of red nocturnes floating about. With the swarm not showing any signs of relenting on the town and the keyblade wielders, Stratos looked to find another group to beat down. As a small cluster of the red nocturnes got together, they started to pool their magic together, creating a clear shimmer of heat in the air. As the flames started to form individually, they started to gather and coalesce into one much larger fireball, one that seemed poised to create a large, explosive inferno throughout the city. Seeing this was going to happen, Stratos knew that he would not be able to stop the ball of flame from actually being launched. So all that left was stopping the attack itself. Taking in a deep breath, Stratos focused a bit harder on this one, knowing that precision was everything with this next attack. As the cherry blossom petals started to rain from the sky, Stratos focused his senses, closing his eyes and attempting to get a clear and precise mental vision of what he wanted to happen in his head. As the fireball was sent forward towards a building in the city, Stratos opened his eyes and in that instant time seemed frozen. In the next instant, he was directly in front of the ball of fire, a large slash mark appearing underneath it. When time seemed to resume as normal, the flame seemed to be both split and force upward, shooting up like a geyser. While the heat was intense, it was mostly harmless to both the boy and the surrounding environment. The red nocturnes were not pleased by this development, as they seemed to scatter and surround the boy. Charging up their own individual flames, they started to let loose a barrage of attacks towards the boy. Striking upward towards of the few of the attacks, Stratos was not able to attack everything within a full circle of him, and thus was peppered with a few blasts of fire here and there. The fireballs exploded on impact with the boy, and he could feel the heat start to rise around him, the pain not really relenting either. In fact, there seemed to be a constant area of pain that was welling up on him, and as he looked towards it, he saw that his back had caught fire. Biting down on his lip, to suppress any noise other than a few grunts of pain, Stratos knew that he needed to do something fast to get out of this circle of hellfire. Having to do this without magic was quite a pain though. It was at that moment that an idea struck the boy. As this idea struck, his heart became aglow as blue lightning started to crackle around him until a burst of light came from it. His clothes had become bluer and with it, the gold trimming of his keyblade had shifted to a blue color as well. His keyblade had shifted shape as well, the teeth instead shifting to the tip of the keyblade and covering a sapphire gem, while the actual blade had become much shorter. The fire on him seemed to subside and the boy looked towards the heartless, a new look of intensity contained within them. Pointing the wand-like keyblade at a red nocturne, energy started to be pulled out from it, before it exploded into a puff of darkness. The energy flew towards the boy, being absorbed in the keyblade and empowering the boy. With a single flick of his wrist, lightning fell from the skies, striking the remaining heartless around him, and clearing the immediate area around him for the moment. Word Count: 627 BP Spent: 30 EXP Writer 2: 60 EXP Total: 180 EXP Blessed Thief: 90 Munny Enemies Remaining: Red Nocturnes: 70/100 (3 BP Each)
There they were, waiting in the realm of darkness. Waiting amidst the other people who had been gathered. They sat on the ground, tapping their heel against the ground somewhat impatiently, and tugging at their already upped hood. Their face, partially covered in shadow, had a bored look to it as the girl was simply waiting. She didn't really know for how long they'd be waiting, but Lea was definitely taking his sweet time with whatever it was he was doing. Standing up, the girl started to tap her foot more, as she crossed her arms. Soon enough, though, footsteps could start to be heard, and the girl's ears perked up. As the leader of the organization finally made his way in, Aeira threw her hood down and looked to him with a wave, saying, "welcome back Gramps." Looking to the girl among them, she raised an eyebrow saying, "oh, and hey there stranger." Aeira looked at the girl for a bit as if analyzing her, but simply shrugged as if they hadn't really found anything of interest. Walking away for a bit they simply said, "well, whatever."
After striking the heartless with his blizzard spell, he then went to attempt to fire another one at the red nocturnes that were staring him down now. As he attempted this though, nothing came out, which caused Stratos to look briefly confused, looking at his keyblade to figure out what was going on. His eye widened soon, though, at the realization and said, "oh right." It was no wonder he was unable to cast the spell now, as all he had been doing since they got Phoebus was casting magic. Well, even if his magical reserves were depleted for the time being, that didn't really matter much. He would just get it fully charged and raring to go once again, which was a simple enough task. Besides, for the time being it wasn't as though the enemies he was against really required him to go full steam with magic. As he had been thinking these things, he looked up and saw that the red nocturnes were none too happy with the boy. The tips of their hats charging with magic again, Stratos could see the air around them ripple with heat as a ball of flame was fully formed. Once the magic had been completely charged, it launched it at the boy, to which he simply put his keyblade between him and the attack. When the fireball made contact, it was deflected, though bounced off in a random direction. Seeing the blaze strike a random area, Stratos silently cursed under his breath, noting that he couldn't just be reckless with how he fought against these creatures. Following the first ones lead, three more red nocturnes had appeared and started to repeat the process. As they started to shoot their magical fireballs, Stratos's grip tightened around his keyblade. Knowing that he had to be careful about his counter he swung down on the first one, smashing it into the stone floor causing it only to leave a small char on the ground but not much else. The second one, he then did an upper slash, striking the fireball from underneath with his keyblade, sending it into the air. As the slash had caused his form to be knocked off balance, though, and he didn't have anyway to properly direct a slash, the third attack he took head on. With the fireball exploding on impact, Stratos was knocked back, skidding across the ground as he tried to recorrect his posture. Before the four red nocturnes could attack again, though, Stratos started to spin his keyblade, tossing it at the first one. Running after it, the spinning keyblade had cut through the heartless, and once in range of the others, Stratos summoned the blade back to his hand. With ice imbuing the blade, the boy jumped into the air, slashing two of them before bringing his keyblade down with a hard slam on the forth. Looking around, the boy noticed that these red nocturnes were just starting to come in droves, and were beginning to set fire to the surrounding area. Clicking his tongue, Stratos looked around to try and figure out which ones would be the best ones to take on first. Without magic to use, he couldn't actually cover much distance just yet. And so, the boy simply charged at a small cluster of red nocturnes, keyblade at the ready. Jumping up, Stratos burst through the air with a sliding dash, cutting through one and using strike raid on another before touching the ground. As he did, he felt a bit of magical power come back to him, and channeled his magic into the air. When done, he called lightning down from the sky, striking four of them down. Word Count: 618 BP Spent: 30 EXP Writer 2: 60 EXP Total: 120 EXP Blessed Thief: 60 Munny Enemies Remaining: Red Nocturnes: 80/100 (3 BP Each)
