[center][img]https://i.gyazo.com/31440370545d06cd672ff25309222dde.png[/img]
[h3][color=ed1c24]Jonas Highwind[/color][/h3]
[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4AkK1xjpnY]Shoreline Skirmishers[/url]
[@Krayzikk][@Inkarnate][@Caasicam][@Altered Tundra][@Rockette][/center]

[color=ed1c24]A bolt from the blue above my head slams into the chest of the inky giant, collision in sync with my own cleaving strike tearing through his midsection.

Proper extension of the knee, striking surface is the heel, every lever involved arranged in a proper line driving all of the force onto that single hard point. Heedless of the crackling energy, symbolic of the King and directly above my head, I allow a smirk to play across my features. Nine out of Ten, Liam. You pick up Karate over break?

A beat follows his arrival, and with the crack of thunder, he leaves as quickly as he came, springboarding off of the monster's chest and leaving the fresh scent of ozone in his wake. His leap carries him clear over my vision, the same direction he came, and I hear a pair of feet return to earth with a slight skid as he bleeds off momentum. Outside the firing line Bekah's revolutions had set from the sound of things, which then begged the question— Where was she headed?

As I track with my ears, tendrils of shadow rise from the boundaries and wrap themselves around "Shadow's" limbs while he staggers back towards the rift, now closing in on its boundary. Restrained. That has to be one of the Nyx kids. Dunno who, but the assistance is welcome. Gives me a moment to think. Now, the staccato rhythm of Bekah's footfalls has ramped up two or three notches. My guess is she's building up speed for another charging all-or-nothing shot, same in principle as Liam and I. That this now-constant drone of pounding footfalls is near my venerable vehicle is...

Look, don't you dare touch my truck, okay?

The rattle of metal concerns me, but I can name the sound— chains. If nothing else, I know the end product. That narrows down a few things about the situation. I don't know what plot of hers specifically involves a small length of the stuff— but I can name a few potential ones, and I'm in a good position to read them all. Nothing has changed. I can handle whatever is thrown at me.

The black, corded ropes compress upon the lanky sihlouette's extremities, who all the while I've been eyeing as he struggled against these bonds to no avail. They tighten further and further, before with a final and sharp tug, the creature's arms and legs give out beneath the pressure. They are torn roughly from their beginnings, leaving it with... stumps, really. It teeters over the edge, with nothing left to dig into the earth with or brace itself against. The battle is by all means won. One solid hit would be all we need.

A cornered animal.

In a panic, it summons what little free mass is left and lashes out with a final tendril, based from the stump of its left arm. It doesn't look like a true attack so much as desperately reaching out to grab the closest thing it can— In this case me. Does it want to use me as an anchor? Is it trying to make me with it?

Is there any point in trying to know, when there's a fair chance the thing itself doesn't?

No.

There's not.

Whatever it's trying to do to me, I will not allow.

A thick ebon mass rushes towards me, desperation propelling it faster than any other. The last vestige of its power, so boldly spoken of as eclipsing our own. Almost pitiful now.

"Is this all you have to show? Pathetic."

I bat its own words back in its face behind a smirk. Haluk's aura of courage must have me feeling myself after all— I've been pretty taciturn until now. It's a welcome feeling— something different than my own innate warrior's steel. Where I usually was simply able to cordon off any fear or concern in my mind to some safe spot far and away from the parts that let me plan out a win, this was [i]emboldening. Invigorating.[/i] Before, I could set off to take on the world with a calm, clear head.

Now? I can take it on and know in the deepest pits of my soul that I'll win.

In the instant the tentacle splits into a seven-pronged net to encompass me in those inky tendrils, my right hand handles the quarter ton heft of [i]Eckeseaxe[/i] without complaint as I swing it back across myself, straight through the base of the web. The weight still more than doubles my own, so a necessary shift in stance to compensate for the change in balance occurs—

And several things happen at once.

Firstly, much like the hounds that originally made up the creature, the chunk that had been lopped off like a branch beneath a machete did not retain its shape. It bursts into a cloud of inky smoke, one quickly dispersed by violent waves of wind in the wake of my weapon.

Or what's left of it. That second strike was evidently the limit for the tenuous grasp reality had upon the concept I had asked of my father's armory. After all, such was a reflection of the limited understanding I myself had upon the legend. I knew of it, and I knew enough based on the context alone to understand what I was looking for, but that is not enough to keep it around. The blade I once held in my hands has met a fittingly similar end to what I tore it through, shattering and returning to nothingness with the resounding crash of glass breaking. Such was not an alarming sound— many an Eidolon has given out on me before, and I knew this one would do so quickly.

Speaking of quick.

Third, a raven-haired blur far faster than the tendril I just dealt with rockets past me, towards the creature. In an instant, my eyes adjust— and in that instant, she has completed ten more strides and is long gone, only thing in her wake the chain I'd heard, hurtling towards me. 

Well, not being red means I probably still have transportation. That's good.

Towards my [i]face[/i]—

My left hand, free from the fading hilt of Ecke's emblematic weapon, reflexively catches hold of it as I would an arrow, out at arm's length as my eyes play catch-up to the one who'd thrown it at me.

She's gotten faster again, then?

Great.

Awesome.

Good for her.

I can't ever take it easy. 

But now I see, as she bounds through the air towards the thing's skull, the length of it that's wrapped around her hand and wrist. A simple gambit— given how the onyx giant is a second away from falling on its ass, and her own ridiculous speed, it's pretty clear that she doesn't believe she'll have the ability to fully replicate Liam and I's little spring board routines.

"Shadow" is teetering and recoiling from several critical strikes in the span of seconds. When she crashes into it with all that speed and momentum, it'll certainly knock it into the rift— but for the precise reason it will, she's in danger without this precaution. It cannot brace against this attack. It'll fall over far too soon. Won't absorb the totality of her force, so there's a good chance she'll still be moving forward after it enters the void. Even if she does manage to catch a rebound off of the jaw, I can feel from out here that it might not be enough to clear away from the tear in reality.

If such a thing comes to pass, I'm insurance to prevent her falling in after it.

I just need to wait for the right moment. Too soon, and she'll be caught between her force and my own.

I don't want to rip the girl's arm out of its socket. I'll catch hell from Dana and Haluk.

Not to mention, I'll feel awful about it.

I need to pull her in right at the moment where her forward momentum is neutralized— that crucial instant of hang time. That's when I bring her back to terra firma. I just need timing. She more than anyone knows my gift for it. Nobody else would be able to catch that instant in the heat of things.

She collides, hitting the far end of the pendulum with a thunderous force akin to a car crash. Kinetic energy was the weapon we both shared and adored, but her application of velocity may have just beat out mine of mass for this one. The argument for placement, however, isn't even close. I forced it back from its center mass— she knocks it over from the top.

And over it falls.

Knowing that her opportunity is rapidly fading away, Rebekah Cross uses her momentum to, recklessly and gratuitously, fall in for fractions of a second with the creature as she twists herself fully in the air, chain doubling as an axis.

A relative eternity to her and I compared to most. And judging from that manic grin of hers— enjoying every moment of it.

She needs a few more inches to optimize the connection. More distance to fall, to drift precariously close to certain death in the air. Against all reason, I lean forward, adding just enough slack to the links of metal that serve as her lifeline. I know what you wanna do. It's stupid. It's really dumb. It's needless.

Fortunately, you and I get along for a reason.

Her feet find its jaw, and she pushes off.

It does not carry her far.

It barely carries her at all, as her increased strength within the radius of her brother proves useful in pushing his mass down— but even we do not ignore Newton's Third.

She and the screaming torso of darkness accelerate away from eachother equally— it alongside the force of gravity, and her against.

She inches upward, mouthing something with an absolutely churlish grin on her face.

[i]...Nani?[/i]

For an instant, a space between milliseconds, she floats as that momentum bleeds off against the ever-present pull towards the center of the earth.

Go time.

I step my left leg deep behind me and wrench the chain from out in front of me into my ribs, accelerating sharply over the distance once I see that she's braced her arm after feeling and recognizing tautness. It's not maximum power, but I'm certain it's more than enough. I'm not so dim-witted as to hurt my main training partners while we sparred, let alone when we're cooperating.

And no matter what happens to a girl's weight over the summer, she flies to safe territory.[/color]