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The torrential downpour of lightning had to come to a stop at some point. That happened to be when he heard -- and felt -- something get struck. As his hands lower, the final few bolts strike, crackling and fizzling out as the last of their energy is spent. 

Soon, his eyes open, and just in time to catch a glimpse of something falling. It lands with a punctual [i]plap[/i]. Surely he's struck a figurative gold mine!

Alas, he is greeted with a convulsing, smoking mass of the wrong variety.

"Confound it... I've struck your one-winged friend," Schezo grumbles, letting out an almost gritty exhale. "Hmph! I shouldn't defile this creature's sacrifice like that! At the very least, it was useful."

What a waste. The magic he used was insignificant compared to what he has in store, but that doesn't make it any less of a waste of time. At least something positive came out of this, even if it took Cloud's perceptiveness to find it.

"Hm!" Raising a brow, Schezo places his hand on his hip and turns back to Cloud, now smiling at least a little. "That makes him a coward, then! He must have sensed my dark magic and run off. I'd admire his wisdom if that didn't make this more of a hassle."

His eyebrow cannot go any higher, though he does turn to follow his company's seemingly tactical retreat from the ledge. Out of curiosity, he moves toward it, peering down and almost squealing.

The creature with a cold air about it seems to strike his fancy! Something about it is almost too adorable to resist. It takes every ounce of self-control to move back and resist the urge to pet it. Despite his best efforts, it's still quite hard to miss his laser-focused, blush ridden stare.

"You there!" he finally exclaims, pointing at Hel with newfound vigor. "I have no issue with you joining us. In fact, I wish to gently grab hold of you and--"

[b][I]BOOM[/I][/b]

"--explode!?"

The commotion going on beside the building had been relatively negligible for a while. When a searing mass of plasma exploded in their direction, however, the busy bodies below suddenly became much harder to ignore. Narrowing his gaze, the dark mage sprints back to the ledge and vaults off. Through some strange magic, he's able to keep pace with the approaching plasma. That was, of course, until it struck the building.

…Or at least it should have.

The plasma, in all of its radiant blue glory, is not met with glass and plaster for it to easily melt through. In fact, it's faced with the opposite -- the translucent blade of the Dark Sword. With no floor to gain footing on, Schezo is instead pressed against the wall, hitting it with a thud. Both feet and one hand splay out to disperse the impact, preventing him from going through it.

"Is that it?"

The moment he's finished fighting against the physics itself, he can focus on the attack at hand. With nothing more than that one hand, he drives the blade further outward, somehow bending the brilliant blue mass with it until its trajectory completely reverses. Instead of leaving it at that, he pushes himself off the building, corkscrewing alongside the plasma and swatting it down with a mighty slash, sending it right for Firefly.

"If you-"

He was entirely unaware of the string of small explosives that were sent to the building. Their immediate explosion was a bit surprising, and it would have been the perfect way to respond to his remark if he'd been able to finish it.

"Bah, nevermind! You won't have the chance to interrupt me again."

It almost seemed as if Schezo didn't have enough time to act. He'd been falling so fast by the time he reached Firefly's elevation -- wherever that may be following his reaction to the plasma -- it seemed as though he'd just sort of passed him up on his way to the hard, unforgiving concrete. A sharp magic sense may have noticed something about his descent, however. In truth, he'd been emitting small, nearly transparent spheres of darkness. They spread out from his body, indiscriminately drifting all around Firefly (and inside of him if he's unlucky)

Having landed with very little difficulty, perhaps stumbling forward a bit to find his footing, the dark mage brings his blade up.

[h2][center][color=662d91]"Sting Shade!"[/color][/center][/h2]

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True to the name, the masses of shade soon began to sting as they expanded, adopting a shade similar to most of his spells. The danger didn't come from how quickly they expanded, but rather, how unrestricted their expansion was. Getting caught between any number of the particles would be a lot like being compressed by a variable number of searing, unstoppable forces. 

…Firefly isn't exactly small, either.

[@ratKing] [@Thatguyinastore] [@SkipTheKip]