After Zephine's masterful plan of dealing with a tornado was successful, the group had managed to safely retrieve the orb from the clutches of the evil tornado. Having finished that, their next target was indeed the acid lake that looked like it would kill you just for being near it...thankfully that wasn't the case. However, something weird was coming out of the lake, something that Zephine immediately recogonized as the things they had fought back in Edolas. Only more watery and less fiery. Drawing out her scythe, Zephine kicked off the air and sprung herself forward towards the water umbrae. The demons, being right on top of the lake, weren't exactly expecting a full frontal assault on them, and so Zephine was able to do a quick fly by, decapitating one of them on her scythe, causing it to sink right back down into the lake. With a cocky grin on her face, and twirling her scythe around as if to mock the other umbrae, she was hoping they'd take the bait. And that they did, as two more leaped at her from the lake, to which she simply blasted one back with flare and let out a flurry of slashes on another, eventually grinding it into dust across her blade. 21/24
As Alkes and Star made it back to the area, she held out her orb triumphantly as she waved to the both of them coming back. It seemed that Alkes had gotten a little on the drenched side, and so she said, matter of factly, "and this is why it is always important to pack a towel before going on interplanetary excursions." She then stood there for a moment, pondering on that fact, when a shocked look came across her face as she said, "wait, I didn't pack a towel." In frusturation she tousled her hair as she looked back to Alkes and said, "whoops, sorry about not coming very much so prepared. Maybe if we're lucky we'll fight an enemy with fire again to warm our spirits on!" It was then that they were presented an option of where to go next to locate their next orb. This one seemed to be guarded by...a tornado. As the group had flown to the tornado, Zephine was somewhat curious as to how the hell they were supposed to get something out of a tornado? It was then that Zephine had eureka moment. "Alright guys, I got it! First, I'll fly over there, and distract the tornado. While it's focused on me, you two just go fwoooossshhhhh, and zip fwop smash right through the tornado using both of your raw fighting spirits and then we can get the orb out of there." This was the only logical solution, save for throwing a bomb at the tornado, and seeing as they were short on bombs, Zephine had flown over to the tornado to begin...distracting it.
Going that Berseker point for the Zeph meister
Zephine had continued to fly around in the world, looking too and fro for whatever the orb thingy majigger was that she was to be finding. It would apparently be easily recognizable by the stars on it...which made Zephine stop and think for a bit. Her own orb didn't have a star on it. It was just a regular old orb that just happened to transform into a scythe. So what if these orbs weren't actually the ones they were meant to be protecting? Ah well, no real use thinking about it now, there were orbs to find. As she continued to fly around the area, she eventually saw that there was a lot of frozen area around here. Not really that much to work with given everyone else had specific clues and she was stuck with...it being in ice. If that even. Still, she continued to float about and looked around examining everything she could. It wasn't until she noticed something weird in one of the icy parts of the tundra that she floated down to take a closer look at it. It seemed to be a spherical object just sort of encased in the ice, so Zephine just sort of thought of the best way to get it out. Summoning her scythe to her side, she started picking at the block, realizing that it was taking a tad bit in order to break it out. Man, there had to be some sort of method that she could be using to get it out faster. If only she had some sort of fire on her- whoops. Zephine, facepalming a bit at the realization, sent out a flare spell at the ice block and defrosted the orb. Looking at it, it seemed to be a bit different from her own, but it indeed have a star on it in addition to being bright orange. Taking this as a sign of success, Zephine decided to bolt back towards the others and share with them her find.
Zephine had listened to the people, happy to see that her playing dumb had worked after all. Though, apparently these two were in charge of guarding the orbs of this world, so she thought they could just sort of ease up on the playing dumb thing. As they continued following the people, they eventually were taught...how to fly! Wait...what? Zephine was tapping her foot on the ground as she thought about to fly in the air. Thinking long and hard about this, as her foot kept tapping against the solid air beneath her, she was wondering how she could possibly fly. Wait a second. She was flying! "Whoa, this is awesome!" She gave a thumbs to the rest of the group and then with a large grin on her face she looked back towards the two green people and said, "don't worry, I'll go get those orbs in the weird tudra place. Later!" With that, she bent down taking a sprinters stance, on thin air, and kicked off the air speeding towards the icy plane. 1/2
At the end of the day, the group had managed to convince Ollie that they were indeed friends. And friends don't eat each other. With a huge sigh of relief as he left to go and do something else, Lucia was now paddling her way towards the ribbon rope that was created in order to climb out. As Zwei had asked a question, Lucia thought on it for a bit. She nodded her head and said, "yeah, I think we should. After all, I'd feel really bad if we just up and left the guy after making friends with him." She thought more on this and saw a notebook that was just sort of laying there almost as if it had belonged to someone who just wasn't there anymore. Opening the notebook, she saw that it was completely blank...which meant it was perfect for writing a note in! Climbing out of the pot, Lucia started to write across the pages, one word per page so it'd be big enough for Ollie to read. When all that was said and done, Lucia tore all of the pages that she had written in out and laid them down on an area that Ollie could see. The message read "SORRY OLLIE, HAVE TO GO SAVE KINGDOM AND BEAT WIZARD. BE BACK LATER FOR LUNCH." Putting the notebook away, Lucia turned to the group and said "alright, we're good to go now!" With that, she joined the others outside of the cabin and looked at them. "What's wrong with his face," Lucia pointed at Thomas's overly blissful face, having completely missed the event that transpired prior. Charlotte had continued to be a bit on the annoyed side, as Dale had kept up that haughty attitude of his as he walked forward wordlessly. All that had to be done now was explore the temple before them and there was a question about whether or not to go into it or not. While Therity's observation that the temple was a bit on the ruined side, Charlotte looked at the place and said, "while that may be the case, I don't see much point in search the outside of the temple. Aside from knowing the basic shape of the building, there doesn't seem be an effective way, short of some sort of impossible, to get anywhere up the temple. So our best bet to progressing is just going forward." As she said this, he started to walk towards the temple entrance, but stopped to see if Ra or Ander had any sort of input onto this. Dale would most certainly have input, though, it would more likely be about some sort of leadership usurping rather than something constructive. Aoki just looked to Edric and said, "yeah yeah, I'm going. Give it here." She walked over to Edric and grabbed the outfit that she'd be changing into. "Give me a sec real quick." She walked away from the group to an area where she couldn't be seen, and came back in a maid costume. It didn't...feel good...at all. Now that she was in the costume and actually knew what she was going to do, the actual task seemed way worse than she initially thought it was going to be. Regardless, she was signed up for this job now, and couldn't really get out of it. Letting out a bit of a sigh as she reunited with the group, she said, "alright, let's get this over with and start getting that book."
Iota was tense as the group had made it to the Elven country. It was hardly past her expectations that the group was rejected from the town guards. It was only a natural response when one had proclaimed neutrality. However, what put her on edge wasn't the guard's answer, but rather the king's. It may be something akin to paranoia, however, the way Jedediah acted seemed extremely suspicious to her. He seemed a little too friendly and a little too lax about most likely breaking their neutrality stance in the war. However, no one else seemed to feel this way as they all seemed to gleefully accept his welcoming. Nevertheless she silently decided to follow along with the group and go to this feast that was to happen. As the guards had now let them through and the king and prince were here, and seemed to be oh so accommodating, Ancel couldn't help but have a large grin spread across his face. Looking at Travis he nodded and said, "he did say he would treat us to entertainment, didn't he?" He then turned his gaze to the king as he said, "and if I'm to be entertained, than the only thing that I think that will do the job is an all out fight with you," he pointed to the leader of the elven populace. "Everything we got at our disposal, no sort of safeties or anything." Iota immediately looked to the boy with a baffled look on her face as she said, "do you have any idea what you just asked?" Beating his chest, with a proud look on his face, "of course I do! After all, if this guy is willing to let us in then that must mean that he isn't afraid of the Olympian Thrones one bit." For whatever reason, rather than military strength, Ancel took this to mean that he had more individual strength. After all, kings were always super badass fighters, right? That's how the world worked. "Which means, he has to be confident in his own fighting prowess to be completely unafraid of them. And I want to see just what strength lies behind that confidence." He then shrugged and said, "besides, it's not like I'll go above and beyond out of my way to kill him per se, but if he happens to die in the fight that just means I'm way stronger right? And if I have the strength to beat someone who has that level of strength than that means I could easily be ready to take on one of Thrones." Pointing back to the king of the elves, he said, "so, what's it gonna be, King Jedediah?"
After the white garbed man made his grand monologue and entrance, it seemed that their hunt for finding the pieces of...music, he supposed, was finally over. As they got the final piece, Stratos looked a bit confused as he just said, "man, what a weirdo that guy was." Regardless, Karina seemed to finally be all good to stand on her own, and so she hoisted herself off of both him and Base and stood on her own. The group was soon transported back to the world that they had originated from...which was still flooded and with an infinite amount of brooms that was to be seen. As Mickey seemed ready to undo all that he had done, it appeared that they were a little too late as a somewhat familiar face revealed itself to the group. The unstoned version of Master Yen Sid. Well, that was a bit unfortunate. While Stratos was about to go on a whole recounting of the journey which would implicate...well really everyone here, Glen came up with a reasonable and pretty harmless excuse which made Karina want to act like it was the biggest problem in the world and that she had to shoulder the problems herself. Hm. Stratos sighed as he saw that the girl still didn't really get what working as a team was all about, or even catch it all from how Base and he had supported her earlier. When there was trouble, they all had to help each other and make everything easier for everyone else. And if everyone was making everything easier on each other, than the overall problem became much less difficult to handle. "Come on Karina, you can't entirely be at fault here. I mean, sure, things might have gotten a bit out of hand, but you know, sometimes it's the negligence of the seniors and teachers that are really the problem." He suddenly realized that may or may not have been the best thing to say given what actually happened, but he kept going on. "So in that regard, I, as someone with more experience in magic than yourself, have failed you. After all, I couldn't make sure things didn't get out of hand or go at a rate that was good for you." Granted, both Base and Beuce had more aptitude in magic than he, but while they were supposed to support each other, throwing each other under the bus didn't seem like a good thing to do either.
Hitting him straight on, Stratos had managed to successfully beat out Zephyr, and quite soundly. While the boy didn't seem to be out cold, he really didn't seem to be in any sort of fighting condition, and so Stratos gave him a bit of a quick two fingered salute as he said, "nice fight there Zephyr. You got good potential, and I'd be alright to spar with you anytime. Well, that is when we're not on opposite sides. Then that's just fighting." While his attention was about to be turned towards Rinox, his fated duel was then interrupted then once again by a sight that put him into a brief state of shock. It was one of the opponents Beuce had been fighting...only he was missing something. That being his clothes. He was soon landed on and was down on the ground with a pale look on his face as the realization of what was happening was slowly setting in. It was then that Stratos yelled, "get off of me, get off of me, for the love all that is good and holy get off of me and get some clothes!" It was at that point that Stratos pounded the ground with his fist, and when he did, he let out a large burst of wind. That being his usage of the spell Aeroza, only in the form that pushed enemies away from you. It was used in an attempt to get the naked man off of him and clear away.
Zephine nodded as Alkes was in agreement with her, and then looked as some new faces joined in the fray. There was something...completely unsettling about them. Star hit it on the nose when she said that it was them knowing exactly what they were here for. When asked what to do next, Zephine said, "well, just leaving these guys doesn't seem like a good idea, after all, they are the only people we've seen so far. Don't worry, I've got all the negotiation skills we need." Going out of the group huddle, Zephine gave a friendly wave as she said, "hello there, uh. green people. How we got here? Well, isn't it obvious? We just walked in through the front door of this here castle. I mean, when a castle's front gates are down, not much to stop you from walking in there am i right?" She then seemed to look up curiously as she said, "sooo, about those orb and angel things you all happened to be talking about. I'm not entirely sure I know what you mean by that, but you know, if you'd be willing to inform us so we can all be in the same loop, than that'd be great."
As the group had ended up getting out of the carriage Rho stepped out and looked at the Everlue Manor. Something to behold really. While the group was walking towards this very interesting building, it was then Edric declared what their ticket into the mansion was. A maid outfit. While the notion of being a maid was an enticing one and the experience was one that he had none of, he did not feel like he would be completely up to the task of the being a maid. Though he couldn't help but let out a chuckle as the large stone man vehemently declared against being the volunteer. Then there was the man with the tambourine who could change his perceived gender, which was certainly something new. Though at the end of it all, Rho simply said, "I agree with the wind boy's suggestions," he motioned to Zephyr. Meanwhile Aoki had been sure to step a bit away from Zephyros as he went through his transformation. It was actually pretty unsettling to her and wasn't entirely sure what to make of it. However when it came to being a candidate Aoki...really should have seen this coming in all honesty. Nevertheless she said, "if it comes down to it, sure, I can go in as a maid. Not to mention I've got a little device of my own that comes in handy for these kinds of circumstances." It was then that Conrad had walked over to her and introduced himself to her, to which she extended out her hand and said, "pleasure to meet you Conrad, name's Aoki."
Lucien Phantom Charlotte "SCRRRAAAAAWWWWWWHHHHHHHHHHHH" which was the fairy majestic sound of the griffon that Sapphire sent as razor wire had essentially eviscerated one of its wings and it fell to the ground. Lucien looked at the thing, and was wondering just what else Sherridan had in his wonderful bag of tricks. After all, he kind of forgot the dude even existed back when he was relevant. Rangers, always were clever at keeping out of the spotlight...whether intentional or not. Regardless, everyone else seemed to have Phantom handled and Avi was...well he was Avi. And given his opponent was Dane now...well it was only a matter of time before the gg was typed out from that kid. Cracking his knuckles, Lucien looked at the downed griffon, seeing what else it had in store, as he started to walk towards it. The griffon still seemed to be coming back to its senses as Lucien was upon it. Pulling back his arm, he brought it around for a quick jab at the things beak face thing, knocking it away. He followed this up with a roundhouse kick that sent the griffon sailing through the air and into a tree. Seemed easy enough a win. However, the griffon was not down and out just yet. Essentially shedding its busted wing and replacing it with one made of ice, and having ice start to form across its entire body, until it was one giant cryo griffon. Well that was a new one. Lucien stood at the ready to bash this bird brained ice sculpture in with his fists, though the bird lion was not so willing. Letting out another noise that could only be described as a mix between a screech and a roar, it looked to the group and started firing out a storm of ice spikes at the crew of the goddess who were currently helping, being a bit more vindictive towards Lucien and Sherridan. Phantom was slowly disliking his job more and more as time went on. Sure, he had managed to put a few holes into the creep that he was supposed to be tailing, but something about his lack of reaction to it was a little unsettling. However, he didn't have much to think on that as the dear old ranger who had downed his ride had also decided on shooting at him. Of course, Phantom didn't really see this coming, and so when he actually noticed the arrow coming at him, it was a bit on the late side to react to it and as such, the arrow had ended up hitting him square in the arm, sending out a lot of pain coursing through him. As of right now, Phantom wasn't entirely sure what he was going to do as having only one usable arm was pretty hampering on the whole two handed rifle thing, not to mention there were other problems on top of that one. He felt strangely tired as he saw a green stream of energy flow in...uh...he wasn't sure if it was out from him or towards him, but nevertheless he was pretty drained now while Bartholomew was looking right as rain, apparently having just shrugged off a few bullet holes. The only good thing that happened for Phantom was that the scythe guy seemed to no longer be trying to kill him, though he still had to deal with three people at the moment. Feeling the sweat across his body and his breaths getting heavier, Phantom was aware that if he were to win this fight it was going to have to be soon or else he'd basically have no chance. So, going in for one last ditch effort, Phantom struggled to use his injured arm to help stabalize his rifle as he took a few back steps to keep distance between him and his opponents. The gun first glowed a light green as he fired into the forest, seemingly nowhere near any of the other fighters. His gun next glowed red as he fired a single bullet at Bartholomew, and finished by having his gun switch to a brown color as he fired a bullet at the ground near Samsara. The first bullet was the wind bullet, with having figured out the general area Sherridan was in due to the arrow stuck in his arm, the bullet was to curve in the forest and arc towards Sherridan's presumed location. Not a perfect plan, but one nonetheless. The second bullet directed at Bartholomew, being a fire imbued bullet, was to explode into a large ball of flame upon impact. He didn't know why, but he thought that igniting this freak would be a good idea...more so than the average person, that is. As for Samsara, the earth bullet was just to let out an earth spike from the ground towards her in order to injure one of her legs to, at the very least, debilitate her movement. With all of the shots fired, Phantom felt his arm go numb from the loss of blood and overall constriction of blood flow, and so simply slung the rifle over his shoulder, since it kind of needed two hands to be properly fired. With the Phoenix being felled by Caleb, the group had done a job well done in taking out the giant bird, though they could hardly call this excursion a success in any regards. They were no closer to finding the hero, and worse yet, they were no closer to stopping the walking genocide of man that was Crybex. Even further still, they had to focus their attention back to their next goal, that being stopping Dane who had essentially enslaved Xander's friend. Once everyone had caught their breaths, they were to mobilize back to Disney Castle. Even if they weren't going to actively stop Dane, the group had to go back there to rendez-vous regardless, and so Charlotte was ready to go back to the library.
As everyone seemed to be trying to talk up this giant, it seemed to be working out alright. Then things took a bit of a turn when Ollie stopped trying to have them for lunch and instead just sort of cried about not having any friends. With a bit of a slide glance Lucia thought that that might have had something to do with the big guy trying to...well...eat everyone who landed in his abode. However, pleading out to the guy, Lucia said, "it's alright big guy. You know what, like Hasu said, you're not alone now, you got us to hang out with. So chin up bucko, you got yourself some grade A chaps to have a jolly good time with now," and chaps were friends, not food. Rho listened to what the noble looking young one that was Vance had to say. He simply needed a guild to join? Well, whatever could have prompted such a need? Regardless of this man's vagueness in response he was asked a question himself. "Who might I be? Well, if you were simply looking for a name, than I suppose you could call me Rho. A pleasure to meet you noble one, though, I doubt the feeling is mutual at the moment." With the ever smirk on his face, he simply waited by for the cart to carry them to their destination. After Dale had gotten himself up and the group seemed ready to go, tensions were rising between both Dale and Ander. It seemed that both thought of themselves in some sort of very high regard, and Dale's arrogance and Ander's critical and anecdotal response only seemed to cause the two's condition to even worsen. Charlotte walked over to Dale and said, "I would rather you not carve into one of your teammates with your magic Dale. Not to mention, I would hardly call him pointing out the obvious as 'usurping' your leadership." After all, Charlotte had said basically the same thing as soon as the fight had ended and it hardly seemed like insubordination to her. "Now then, as both of you seem so keen on leadership, I would remind you all that ultimately cooperation and not questioning each other's every move is key in having an optimal team. Whether they be leader or not."
As Alkes had joined in with the duo, to now make them a trio, Zephine was starting to get amped up now that the full party was ready and raring to go. "Same Alkes, glad the three of us get to be a world saving team again." With that out of the way, the trio of them had started onward in their expedition to go search throughout the castle. Looking through the halls of the castle, the place seemed to be average enough, though it still had that same off vibe that all of the outer area of this world had. It was a bit unsettling that there just wasn't any sign of life here, whatsoever, and was starting to wonder if this was just the angel's doing. However, it then seemed like Star had taken a liking to the food that was here to eat. While she seemed to be ready to pounce on it like a wild beast, Zephine let out a nervous chuckle as she put a hand on the girl's shoulder to help keep her from diving in. "As great as this food might seem, um, isn't it just a bit weird? I mean, there's no one here, so why is there all this food? We should probably just leave it and keep going on."
Stratos Jackie After Stratos's attack had landed with a resounding success, the boy landed back down on the ground harmlessly and looked at Zephyr curing himself. As the boy with the odd combination of hair colors spoke up about Stratos being good, he responded with, "thanks. I mean, I fought with alongside your ancestor all that time ago and have only been fighting since, so I got a lot of experience up on you. Though, you are pretty good yourself." Stratos looked towards his opponent who seemed to be worse for wear here, but he had to finish this fight. Once Zephyr was over and done with, then Stratos could move on to Rinox, seeing as Beuce surprisingly seemed to have his whole one versus three scenario handled pretty well. Taking a calm breath, Stratos flicked his keyblade around so he was now holding it back handed. Starting to run at Zephyr, at about the half way mark, his speed suddenly changed dramatically upward as he used a burst of wind underneath his feet in order to propel himself forward, toward the boy. With his wind imbued keyblade, he looked ready to strike at Zephyr's side with the blade, and as he made the motion to do so, that attack never came. Instead, the blade had warped out of Stratos's hand and into his other one, causing Stratos to attack from the opposite side in an attempt to end this fight between the two of them. Jackie had been experiencing a whole torrent of emotions as she watched the scene play out before her. First, it was revealed that Freya had been a spy all along. Gasp! The reveal had Jackie stunned as she let out a large gasp of astonishment. She then heard Lexcifur start to question Freya's trustworthiness, and was absolutely flabbergasted at the oddly armed destructive boy. This was obviously that moment when their relationship was supposed to hit a rocky patch, but still, it was too much! Then Freya seemed to leave, which was a scene that started to bring tears to Jackie's eyes and start sniffling as the beautiful shoujo romance continued onward. Blanc had stepped over to where she was and simply presented her with a box of tissues that he pulled from...somewhere. Blowing hardily into them and wiping her face, the scene only became more emotionally trying to watch as Lexcifur had pronounced his repressed and undying love for Freya, running over to her and the two kissing. It was so beautiful to watch that Jackie threw the tissues away and started to go over to the group. Completing the scene with only thing it was missing, cherry blossoms began to fall around the room, and Jackie seemed to be near the group in an instant as he joined in on the hug, effectively turning into a group hug. Through her happy crying she was able to get out a, "I'm soooo happpy for you guysss," sniffing in between words she then said, "it's just soooo beautiful!" And thus, the fantasy shoujo moment had ended with a third wheel glomping in on the action....Meanwhile Blanc just stood there kind of awkwardly, not really sure what to do with the tissue box.
Having gone to elbow Zephyr in the face with his...well, elbow, Stratos was a bit surprised to see that a black shield had taken form to block the attack. Huh, this Zephyr kid definitely seemed to be more magically adept than Kel was back in the day. To further cement this, he seemed to generate some sort of electricity in his hand, which he then promptly tried to strike Stratos with. Being still in mid air, it didn't give the wind boy much options in terms of defense, so he just kind of braced against the attack as he let the aeroza barrier take the brunt of the attack. When he landed, a bit away from Zephyr, he saw that his arm had a bit of burn on it. With a quick wave of his hand over the wound, a simple cure spell had fixed it right up. He then looked back to the boy and got down into a runner's stance. Taking off towards Zephyr, running straight at him, when he got close enough to attack him head on, once more he did not. Instead, jumping into the air with a bit a of spin to it, a wind current had caused his spinning body to curve around Zephyr. Summoning his wind imbued keyblade back to his hand, Stratos struck at Zephyr's side with the weapon in the midst of his fly by.
After slamming into the large beast with her barrier attack, Charlotte looked to the group and called out to them saying, "good job everyone." She then looked over to the mouse and watched it start to scurry away into the wilderness, knocking down a few trees and freeing Dale in the process. She walked over to the man, extending out her hand, and going to help him up onto his feet. She responded to Ander's question of whether or not she was alright with a simple nod, and then addressed everyone else saying, "Ander is right, we should be careful as we proceed onward. While that over there is clearly our next destination, as the mouse knocking down the trees had to have made a good deal of noise, our ability to use stealth may be severely limited now. As such, keep your wits about you, and make sure you're any injury you sustained last fight is well and patched up." With that, she used her own cure spell on herself as she continued to go forward along with the group towards the temple.
Lucien Phantom Charlotte Lucien nodded as he heard his response from both of his young female compatriots. With a smirk on his face he said, "good choice."Shooting himself back upright, he turned to face the messengers of the goddess. Dane seemed to free himself rather easily from his trapped area, and saw that he was taking on the pink haired boy. There was pretty much no chance that kid had against Dane right now, so he decided to go and take on the other two fighters. The griffon seemed to be floating in the air, waiting for a good time to come in and strike, which Lucien didn't feel like giving it. Looking around the forest, he found a good way to approach this flying thing. While it was focusing on the fight with Phantom and Dane, poised to swoop in at any given moment, it didn't expect what was to happen next. Jumping forward, Lucien planted both of his feet on a tree trunk and proceeded to leap straight off of it towards the griffon. Without much of a time to react, Lucien managed to land on the lion birds back and saw something interesting. Looking at the black haired boy who was just sitting on the griffon, he blinked a few times and said, "have you...have you been here this whole time?" Regardless of the boy's sudden appearance, Lucien let loose a simple kick at the boy to knock him off of his steed, only for the griffon to start bucking wildly and spin to throw Lucien off of its back. However, much to its dismay, things didn't quite work out like that. As Lucien did get thrown off of its back, he was still fast enough to kick the bird lion while he was falling through the air. When the kick had connected, the giant magical construct let out a weird cross between a squawk and a roar as the sheer force of it sent the beast hurtling through the air and into some nearby trees. Lucien landed, a tad unceremoniously, and figured that that boss was simple enough to deal with. However, the griffon was far from over with as it flew out of the foliage and back into the air. Taking a look at the group, it knew it needed to stop them, and did so with a carefully picked out magic. Not wanting to completely torch the area around it, it used ice magic to fire off large balls of ice. Lucien managed to roll out of the way of one, only to see it explode upon impact with the ground, leaving a small area where it hit completely frozen. This would be a problem if it hit them, but it seemed to be aiming for the people actually fighting or prepared to fight, let out a small barrage of ice bombs at them. Phantom had been awaiting the people's responses, but it was almost entirely too obvious what they were going to choose. Especially if the last world he went to was any indication of this group's state of mind. While he was being the patient little cop that he was, he briefly lost focus on the group, only to be alerted when he saw a man with a scythe charging at him. Well, that answered that question pretty clearly. As the scythe was swung, Phantom was able to backstep the simple attack a bit, but still managed to get slight cut on his torso. Well, this man clearly seemed to be of the dangerous sort. And not one that Phantom could just sort of mess around with. Being within close proximity of the scythe wielder slightly worked out for him, as Phantom charged his rifle with ice, and used the imbue shot, buck shot right towards him. While normally a single bullet would have fired out of the gun, instead, a large spread of ice shards were fire off instead. After doing this, a bird immediately hit into him, and while it didn't feel like it with any real force, it still managed to make Phantom gasp for a bit. Being breathless was a bit of set back, in fact, with both of the people fighting him being in close proximity of him, there was little he could do while trying to catch his breath back, thankfully he didn't have to do anything. As the griffon had started to shell out ice bombs on the enemy, Phantom was able to recuperate during the confusion, and fired a few plain old bullets at Bartholomew. As Charlotte had let loose a barrage of light shots at the creature, it seemed to be particularly unfazed by the attack. Furthermore, it was getting a bit more risky to stay so close to it as she was starting feel sweat cover her from the raw amount of heat the beast generating. However, Caleb had managed to create a good opening for the group to hit the beast with, as he planted bombs containing water spells in the beast. Following up on this, Charlotte had flown around to where she could see one of the bombs and let loose a wave of light, causing it to collide with the bomb and explode within the large phoenix.
As Lucia had been a fair bit away from the others as she was rafting across the broth lake, she was a bit surprised about how Dawn had managed to successfully rush her way all the way over to where Lucia was, but questioning it was a fool's errand. After all, stranger things had happened. However, she happily patted her friend on the head as she rushed over to greet her and said, "good to see you again Dawn." It was then that the group reunion was interrupted a pretty hideous sight that made Lucia sort of jump back and give a yelp of surprise, only to calm herself down. It was then that she realized there wasn't much to fear, as this beasty was indeed not a giant robot overlord. So it was all fine. Okay, no. They were about to be eaten by a giant sickly yellow green colored thing and it was not going to be a pleasant time for any of them. Looking at the troll, she said, "hey, there, Mr. Giant, man, person. Can I call you Ollie? Sounds easier for both of us." She then cleared her throat as she looked at the troll and changed her tone to be a more of a friendly one. "now then, Ollie, buddy, I don't think we'd reeeaallly make that good of a meal for you.I mean come on, look at us, got too much hair to go through so much metal, it's just an overall bad time for your throat and stomach, trust me. So, um, instead, why not just, not eat us. That seems like a pretty good idea. We're not even that filling, we'd probably just detract from the healthiness of your soup. And I'm sure there are other things a big guy like you would like to have way more than us. So what do you say?"
As they had moved on from the guild, they found a cart that they would be able to start moving on with the mission. However, there seemed to be a bit of a squabble between guild members. Aoki sighed as she got into the cart, and she was quickly growing tired of basically everything that was being said. As her frustration with the group grew, she started grinding her teeth, only to finally reach a breaking point when Zephyros decided to set the cart on fire. "Oh my god, both of you just shut up." With an annoyed face she looked over to Zephyros and said, "listen, you. Music man. I think I speak for everyone when I say that we'd very much like you not burning down the cart." She then looked at rich van winkle and said, "and you, I don't get what your problem is, and why you think you're soooo much better than all of us, because quite frankly we're all in the same boat right now. All in the same mode of transportation and all having the same goal. And you're definitely not in any sort of position that's higher and mightier than us, so if you could just tone it down with your oh so posh attitude, that'd be swell too." This group...was definitely going to suck. Rho, meanwhile, had just been calmly smiling throughout the entire endeavor. He found this group to be a tad on the interesting side, and found their infighting to be just as humorous. As he seated himself next to Vance, he turned to the nobleman and said, "my you seem to be quite the odd one. I can only venture to guess why someone who seems to have come from high standings would join such a rag tag team of people." As Lucia was using her carrot to propel her vegetable craft along the soup, it was then that others started dropping in. As Hasu pointed out, Annika had magically descended from where they had, and landed on a veggie herself. It was then that Thomas had come down to be with the rest of them, and it seemed like the whole gang was all here...minus like, half of the other people. Ah well. Calling out, she said, "hey there guys! Yeah, we're just hanging out for now. Not really sure what made this brew, but I think it's best not to think about it until things become...less fine." After they had let loose their barrage of attacks things seemed to be looking up for them. Despite the attacks it had sent at them itself, Charlotte and the others stood strong and were going to overwhelm this foe. As such, she flew at the thing using Barrier Surge.
