Looming Shadows

Taiyo: "Maybe the gargoyles will have an idea."

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Azuma: "There are at least a dozen people that fall under that term."

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Xyukuse stabs the Chaos Ripper in the ground, using Akashic Torment to conjure up a tornado and push assholes away.

"Well, if Demona is the supplier should we drop in some time?" Hinode grasped to his glider and while he still wasn't exactly experienced when it came to using it, he was starting to show that he did at least have the superior sense of balance that came with riding vehicles that proved deadly if you so much as turned around and retraced your steps with them.

*Artexi looks at him, then at Xshittyname, before squaring her shoulders. She remains where she is*

<I guess we should be the better people.>
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Safian:<What if we lured him away from the island?>

L"I think they mean that he controls landscapes & weather, not the island specifically."

Female gargoyle<Yes. He may be slightly less powerful off of the island, but even if we could get him to leave without leaving our home defenseless, I'm not sure it would be worth it.>
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T"It will be hours before we can talk to the gargoyles again. We have to try to finish this as quickly as possible."

E"So we kill Demona?"

T"That shouldn't be necessary. We can simply use the Keyblade to banish her to a world that can't be accessed via Dark Corridor."
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*This blows Larxene away, but she rights herself in the air & retaliates by chucking knives all around him, which stop in midair & shoot rays of lightning that hone in on his position. Roatha also points a Keyblade at him & fires some lightning. Marluxia waves a hand, sending thorny vines heading for Xshittyname. The Archmage snaps his fingers, turning the ground under him into quicksand.*

N"Yeah, he's not getting out of this. Should we stop them before he gets killed?"

Black hair<What makes you think you can stem this torrent?>

*Nero jumps & looks back at the Weird Sisters, now behind him.*

White hair<Perhaps he knows that, even if he falls here, it will not spell his end?>

Taiyo: "Like where?"

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Azuma: "That's convenient. Couldn't we pool our own magic together and overpower him?"

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Xyukuse summons the Frolic Flame and uses Air Flair to keep him off the ground as well as darts towards Larxene to hack her to pieces.

"I'm sure that there would be somewhere, right?" Hinode raised a brow, knowing full well that his world wasn't going to work. Him being here was proof positive that such a barrier had already been broken.

Artexi:<What are you talking about?>
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Safian:<So run in spells blazing?>

Goliath<Don't think like the Archmage. We simply need to distract him until one of us can take the Eye of Odin off of him.>

L"That's easier said than done if he has the help of the Organization."

Elisa<Judging from what we saw, they're not very organized. They don't seem to work together very well. Maybe we can turn them against each other. That is if they're not fighting already.>
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*Thiera shakes her head disapprovingly at Taiyo.*

T"You should already know this & I don't have time to explain it right now."

E"She's right, we need to get moving because I don't want this part trailing way behind the Avalon subplot before Demona smashes everyone in the city."
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*There is way too much shit attacking him for him to just no sell it with a breeze, so though he manages to deflect the thorns, he is electrocuted & thrown back to the quicksand. Roatha hurls a Keyblade at him, using Explosion Raid, & swings the other, launching Dark Arrows at him. The Archmage flies into the air, blasting a torrent of flames out of his hands at Xshittyname.*

N"Oh, right. He's a Nobody, so he'll be reborn if he & his Heartless is destroyed."

Black hair<He surely has no hope of victory.>

White hair<You did try to explain that to him.>

Blond hair<Compassion can only take you so far.>

"Alright, let's go then!" He leaned forward, trusting in his own abilities even though he wasn't nearly as trained as they were when it had come to riding on these gliders. He simply knew that they had to get going and that she didn't have much more time to explain.

Artexi:<What would you suggest we do?>
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Monu:<We may be able to use Roatha against them.>

Azuma: "Probably our best bet."

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The two had their Gliders ready the whole time.

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Not being the kind of idiot to take things lying down, he rights himself while swinging at the surrounding enemies.

White hair<It is not our place to interfere in the affairs of mortals.>

Black hair<But if he falls here, there is no telling when his Heartless may follow suit.>

Blond hair<No telling when he shall be whole & living again.>

*Instead he's the kind of idiot who keeps fighting a pointless, hopeless battle. He is now sinking into the quicksand, basically immobilized, thorns of darkness & nothingness seeping out of his body, as well as little spurts of flame, wind, & mud.*

Archmage<Cease your attacks! If he pledges his undying loyalty to me, then I shall yet allow him to live.>
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L"...What kinds of things were they fighting over?"

Elisa<They mostly called each other weak & cowardly. Nero didn't do much. He seemed to be guilty about what happened to Roatha.>

L"Well, it's a little late for that, isn't it?"

Goliath<If there is one thing that I have learned after all of these years, it is that revenge & hatred solve nothing. We must show our enemies the errors of their ways.>

L"Roatha thought he could change Nero. Look where that went. If we took him out any of the other times we met him, that wouldn't have happened."

Female gargoyle<I agree with her, Father. He tried to destroy our whole clan, remember? And when you asked him, he couldn't even tell you why.>

Goliath<It is the nature of humans, not gargoyles, to lash out in fear & confusion against things they don't understand.>

L"Please, nobody's 'afraid' of that angsty little cretin."
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*And so they fly over the streets filled with statues clutching shopping bags, mashing sandwiches uselessly against their faces, reading news papers on benches, & so on.*

T"I see Pack Media Studios!"

E"Oh yeah? Well, I see trouble!"

*She points above the building where a couple of Wyvern Heartless & a trio of Axe Flapper Unversed are dive-bombing them. There are several more circling above the building, as well as a number of magic-type Heartless.*

*Artexi smirks, watching Xshittyname get his ass kicked*
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Monu:<That would point towards Roatha's change not being intentional. We could use that.>

Azuma: "What if somebody is? Nero wanted to change him and now that Roatha has changed, Nero doesn't like the result."

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Hitomi pulls up to aim her cannon at the approaching Heartless and fires.

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Xyukuse spits at the Archmage. Engulfing both Keyblades in flames he throws them, one at the Archmage, the other at Artexi out of spite and because someone lacks the will to think for themselves.

OOC: I'm very sorry I was out over the weekend so I wasn't able to reply again until just now.

Looking down from his solar sailor at the individuals beneath them who were positioned as statues, Hinode shook his head and sighed. "I told them that physical media was obsolete; that's what you get for reading the paper when you could have done it online for free."

Rolling his eyes he repositioned them to be back on the road, so to speak, as they soared in the air. Following along with his glider was at this point becoming much easier.

*Since he can barely move, they just kind of land a few feet from him, & since he's lying on his back while the Archmage is a ways away, he spits on his own face. The Archmage blasts him with fire, but Nero blocks with a Dark Shield.*

N"Enough, I think he gets the point."

Marluxia<Not likely.>

Larxene<The POINT, idiot, is that I'm going to rip off his ugly head!>

Archmage<Do not interfere with me, boy!>
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L"I was talking about Nero. We probably SHOULD be worried about Roatha. He knows all of our secrets & we underestimated how much more powerful that 2nd Keyblade would make him."

Elisa<Do you think it would be possible for you to spy on the Organization & relay information back to us so that we can come up with a plan?>
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*Good thing Heartless are stupid & the Wyvern didn't question why Hitomi let it get so close to her. It is blasted at point-blank & dissolves into darkness, releasing a heart that floats up to the sky. Since they were all flying so close, she also hits the Axe Flappers, which fall, but not very far, as Euryale rams into them & destroys them.*

T"Brace yourselves, they'll be coming in force now!"

*Sure enough, a trio of Wyverns fly over them to get behind them while the remaining 3 Wyverns attempt to dive bomb them. Meanwhile, the mage Heartless shoot fireballs & lightning bolts at them. 4 Axe Flappers also fly towards Euryale, swinging their ears & launching blades at her.*

Safian:<Maybe Thiera could make some sort of spell do we could listen in on them.>
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Eve:<If he'll cooperate now he's moe useful live.>

OOC: Let me know if this isn't all right, but I hope that it is.

Not quite having been experienced with fighting on a glider like this, but having seen Euryale in danger, Hinode quickly spun his solar sailer around and headed back toward the four Axe Flappers who had been threatening her.

He did his best to return fire with the weapons that he had only just started to learn to use, drawing on the experiences that were held over from all the time that he had spent riding light cycles in his own world. That gave him at least some balance for pulling off a maneuver like this.

Azuma: "Magic is likely our best bet. Unless we can find someone who wouldn't mind selling out their team."

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Taiyo moves about to ram the Wizard while Hitomi fires at the Wyverns.

L"We don't have time to expand the communication spell right now. You'll just have to sneak into their base & report back to us."

Female gargoyle<We can go part of the way with you, so that we'll be ready to attack at a moment's notice.>
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*The Wyverns attempting a head-on attack, not being very smart, meet the same fate as their brothers. However, the ones who slipped behind them spin & launch themselves at Hitomi's back like torpedoes. Euryale ducks to avoid as much of the axes as possible.*

E"Thanks!"

*She heads after the Axe Flappers that Hinode shot out of the sky. The remaining ones try to get some distance from him & also hurl blades at him. The mage Heartless see Taiyo coming & scatter, bouncing around & blasting fire & lightning at her.*
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Marluxia<I'm sure we can find SOME method of controlling him.>

*Marluxia makes a vague grin.*

Marluxia<In the meantime, we might as well just leave him there.>

Archmage<Agreed.>

*He claps, causing the quicksand that Xyukuse is stuck in to harden into bedrock.*

Safian:<I can hide in the shadows well, so maybe I should do it.>
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Artexi:<Hey, sounds like a plan to me.>

*Eve stands up*

<Speaking of the plan, what is ours now?>

Hitomi pulls up and turns around to shoot it.

Taiyo ducks and weaves about to close the gap between her and the Heartless.

Doing his best to avoid the blades that were being flung toward him, Hinode's armor got the first taste of metal-nicking-against-metal that it would have ever felt. That being said it was not long before his skin too felt that same attack and he had blood trickling down his cheek.

Turning as they received distance from him, his assault was filled a renewed fervor created by the fact that he had been so struck. He was ready to take those enemies out of the skies once and for all.

*The pattern of Hinode shooting the Axe Flappers out of the sky & Euryale ramming them continues until they are all destroyed. Thiera, whom I had forgotten about, uses her shield to protect Hitomi until she is able to destroy the Wyverns. The mage Heartless aren't all in the same spot, so I'm going to assume that Taiyo destroys a Yellow Thing I Forget the Name Of. The Red Nocturnes fly higher into the sky, shooting fireballs at her, & a couple of other Yellow things charge themselves up & dash at her.*
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L"That's what I was getting at, yeah."

Female gargoyle<The Archmage has made his base in a grotto not far from the palace. If I'm going to take you there, I should know your names first. Mine is Angela.>

L"Lilith Psyche."

*Lilith once again finds herself shaking claws.*

Elisa<Psyche? Are you, by any chance, related to Thiera?>

L"Yeah. And I guess Angela is Goliath's daughter?"

Goliath<Gargoyle hatchlings are raised by the Clan. We do not have parental bonds.>

*Angela whirls around.*

Angela<Well, that may be how it was done in your day, but like it or not, it's been 1000 years & I was raised by humans!>

L"...I didn't mean to start a fight."
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Archmage<You will march into the palace & lay waste to all who oppose us, whilst I use my magic to support you.>

White hair<They will surely send someone for reinforcements.>

Blond hair<We will head to the Hollow Hill.>

Black hair<And destroy anyone who attempts to awaken the King of the Britains.>

For the time Hinode had held his line. He might have acted thus far as though he had not known much about this world, but he had known how to do this and the adrenaline rush had certainly kept things up.

Unfortunately until they were all destroyed that had kept him occupied, and he had been unable to chase after the others such as the Red Nocturnes at this moment.