[IC] A Hero Tale {Complete}

[Jensoman]

Jenso listened to Bruce's words, and his sad look vanished. He seemed somewhat happy and at ease now. "I see...I guess he did go out as a hero in the end, after all.." Jenso spoke softly, clenching his fists tightly. "I'm real sick of all that the Order's done. Like I said, I'll consider Yzeira's offer, but I really can't promise anything." He spoke coldly.

[Hatman1801]

Alvios looked to the side at Vale for a moment, then stoop up, focusing on Bruce. He had words for Jenso, but he wanted to wait before acknowledging him. What Jenso had to say could dictate the actions of the future, so he may as well deal with what was in the present first.

"It's nothing so simple that I could teach in the sparse time we have. It's more than just a change in posture, or breathing, or muscle control. It's a full change in perspective, in technique, and in spirit." Alvios held up a hand, and formed one of his Ki blades, refined so much that it looked like real metal. In the next instant, just a glance of his eye, it changed shape, elongating into a spear. A flick of his wrist, and the entire thing shattered into small particles of light, dancing around his arm for a moment before flowing back into his body.

"Ki is a physical energy as well as a spiritual one, a combination of body and soul. The inner potential of a being, brought into manifest. Unlike Arcane magic, its form is defined by the wielder's personality and heart, rather than knowledge, hence why Jenso's typically takes the form of flames, and mine of blades. Its limit varies, as it is much like an imaginary muscle; you can train it, make it durable and powerful and flexible, but a muscle can never grow larger than the body it carries. These are all basics, probably things you know inherently, but they're key to understanding how to control it at a precision level."

Alvios tapped the edge of Vale's sword with a finger, the ever-sharp blade splitting his skin without effort. He held up the would, and it only existed for a moment before regenerating. "My healing involves focusing my Ki on the would. Flexing that inner muscle just enough to stimulate the cells for near-instant regeneration. But it's like holding fragile glass. If I pushed too hard, I would simply discharge excess power, and heal faster than the body can manage, so it compensates with recovery over full rejuvenation, like cauterizing it instead of fixing it. I wouldn't heal nearly as quickly, and the injury would still be a weak point. On something larger, like a lost chunk of an arm or a rib bone, that would be detrimental. I could end up with half a rib, or an arm too weak to lift a stone, until they regrew naturally. On the other hand, if I don't push hard enough, well, nothing useful happens. People with mastery over Ki tend to recover from wounds quickly anyway; what I do is just taking that principle and amplifying it to its maximum potential."

Alvios shifted his weight, leaning on his sword slightly. "Healing other people... I don't know why, but it seems to be unique to me. I take the Ki used to improve recovery, and move it into another person. My Ki stimulates and assists theirs in that hyper-accelerated regeneration. Typically, when one person's Ki meets another's, they clash. It's like having two people exist in the same place at once. Regardless, that same principle, moving my Ki elsewhere to act, it's the foundation of my light blades. Like how Jenso fires blasts he can manipulate outside of his body. It's still a part of you, still a muscle to flex, like changing the direction of a punch."

Alvios formed another Ki blade, shrunk it down to the size of a pocket knife, and had it fly around his wrist a few times, demonstrating. "My Ki reserves aren't very high. So, rather than try to do something I cannot, and break the maximum amount of growth my body can handle, I fold it. Have you ever forged your own sword? As the molten metal is beaten into the core and edge, you fold the metal as it becomes thin. The metal moves back into itself, while impurities are flushed away. Again and again this is done, and the quality of a blade is often directly related to how many times the metal was successfully folded. That is how I sharpen it. Then, the principle of healing. I move the Ki outside of my body, and control it. Those controlled blasts, I've made them thinner, sharper, and more controlled by me, as the impurities--excess force, force beyond my control, wasted energy--have been flushed out. That is how I can control it outside of my body with more precision. Moving them intricately, reforming them, melding them back with myself. Ki is more than a muscle, it is spirit. It's understanding that Ki is a force from your body, without the limitations of skin or bone. Controlling every blade is like moving the tiniest bit of tissue in a finger joint. Something that your body cannot do naturally, because it has a human shape, follows physical limitations."

Alvios turned to Jenso, keeping an eye trained on Bruce as he finished his winded speech. "All of those concepts have taken me years to perfect. For this final battle, if I would take one thing from all of that; fold your Ki. Flush out impurities. I do it subconsciously, every day. It's a reflex now, like a heartbeat. But even if you must exert a little bit of willpower to do so, removing the impurities of unnecessary force moving anywhere that isn't your attack could both lower your Ki consumption, and improve the potency of the attack. Now then..."

"We don't have the luxury of considerations Jenso. If you want to take on the Order, I will fight alongside you, to save all worlds. If you want to join them to just save ours, I will not object. After everything we've seen, both from ourselves and from our enemy... do you think we can win?"

[Jensoman]

Jenso listened to everything Alvios said. His words were intriguing. He would have to focus on precision as well, if he wanted to beat Yzeira. Sheer strength alone wouldn't be able to do the job. When Alvios asked him if he thought they could win, he thought it over for a moment. "We haven't seen the Order fight at their full strength yet. Or at least, not most of them. But I think we have a good chance to win. I have a lot of confidence in our abilities. We've overcome plenty of tough ordeals in the past, and I believe that we can do it again. Not only that, but I don't want the Order to get away after all they've done to us and to our universe. I don't want to gamble our universe carelessly, but I want to fight them. They need to be stopped, once and for all. That's how I feel." Jenso stated to Alvios. "Besides, I honestly doubt that Yzeira and the others wouldn't end up coming back to this universe eventually. And when they do, I'd probably be controlled or have my mind warped to fight for the Order against you guys...there's no way in hell I'd let that happen."

[SuperFlash]

The wind sages eyes widened out of surprise when Dacer suddenly took control of the wind board from him, but his reaction quickly swapped over to a grin which followed after with a laugh. "Good, saves me the trouble of having to retain focus on it"

"Try and keep up!" The sage teased as he blasted off towards Ada at his current sage mode's full speed, using it to cover the distance between the two at an alarming rate. The sage kept up his guard and split appart into a mirage, and leaving a plama bomb floating insde it in order to make attacking him more difficult. Unless Ada started to place focus on Jeff, he would be able to reach her within a couple of moments.

The buster now with its arm's primary weapon systems down for the next couple moments, made sure to keep close watch of the legs once with watching for notifications left by the attack dromes which guarded it as the tenticles shot up towards it. Once again the legs prepared and fired off arcane pulses to repel the tenicles, despite also catching the smaller robots in the crossfire as well. While this damaged and outright destroyed some, all the robots that were struck flew towards the ground, exploding into plasma against any tenticles they were to bump on the way down and bombarding any that were still in the ground upon contact.
The Buster then went with releasing a shockwave from a cannon that appeared in the center of its chest, using it to launch the arcane tornado into the tenticles that flew up after Oz, using enough force to stop it just before it would hit the gravity user.

[Necrophage]

Ada's tendrils went straight for Oz. It was a good thing she didn't understand the gravity of his power. Oz made an immediate right-angle turn, defying logical laws of physics as he warped them to his advantage by changing the direction of his downward movement. He wove through the incoming tendrils, making sharp turns and moving at angles impossible to someone who didn't have the power to directly affect nature's laws.

"I've got you now, witch." Oz moved in for a straight enough path toward Ada to project and throw a spear of force at her. He dipped up into the air and slowed to a hover over her where he began to project a dome from the base of his disc, intent on trapping her again and giving the others their chance to close the distance. If Oz could catch her, even for a few moments it could make all the difference to ending this swiftly and effectively.

[tex]

The Order buster's natural defences weren't up to snuff. Unexpectedly, the tentacles, after being blasted apart, reformed immediately, and latched onto the giant, sluggish monster of a machine, stopping it in mid-flight. More tendrils rose up, grasping onto its legs tightly, to keep it from moving, began changing to a darker hue, and solidifying around the robots lower joints. There was no escaping now.

Meanwhile, Jeff's path was cut off by a series of walls that rose, one after another. A moment after he split from his clone, his real body was overcome by a tidal-wave of pinkish sludge that blocked his path and began to wrap around him, zoning him away from Ada. Dacer flew overhead, raising his altitude until he was above the cloud line. The archer licked his lips against the fierce winds, before slowing his climb, and moving slowly over the battlefield. He began to channel Ki into both of his claws, but before he could assist anyone, Oz easily sped around the oncoming tendrils like some kind of human pinball. The Gaian eyes Jeff, channelling his Ki until it reached optimal density, high in the sky. Nothing went after him.

Back at her platform, Ada kept her vision focused on Oz, despite having a detailed view of the entire battlefield. Jeff's clone, the one that had gotten past her barricade, was met with yet another barricade of a similar fashion, which wrapped around him and forced the clone to either retreat, or be consumed. Oz's initial attack was met with a sudden jutting fractal of smooth purple glass, that erupted from the platform she stood upon like a diagonal wall, and diverted the force-spear away, before lowing again into the nicely smoothed out arena below her. It moved like a machine, fast, precise and rigid. Ada herself wasn't about to Let Oz get anywhere near her with that bubble anytime soon, though. The tendrils, despite being torn apart by the order buster's attack, reformed behind Oz, and fell back towards him, looping around and moving to pinsir him from behind with a slowly forming wall of purple spikes. From below, the moment his disc began to expand, shimmering spikes shot up from the crafted plateau all around Ada, halting the barrier's expansion at several points, and jutting beyond its scope by several yards. Hundreds of them made it past the barrier's range before Oz could complete it, leaving little spikes to poke out of its walls, and by extension, gaps for Ada's eyes to peer through by the time it reached the edges of her arena. The spikes were opaque, and almost glass like, but signified Ada's ultimate density; She'd created matter that could withstand even Jenso's Omega saw. Although its density was absolute, the one-inch diameter of the little spikes made it clear that she wasn't about to be liberal with it. At any rate, despite the barrier halting her physical movement, she wasn't sealed from the majority of her ooze. Ada began to conjure a slick of sludge at her feet the sped towards the edges of the bubble once again while moving around the base of her spike forest, like it had done before, to get a head start on shattering the irritating defence before she would have to deal with anything in close quarters.

[Necrophage]

After maintaining the shield for a moment an uncanny thought occurred to Oz. He had been standing over her as the shield went down. She wasn't trapped yet, her spikes had made sure of that. Even then she attacked Oz with a spike but it missed. Oz didn't even need to dodge it. Could she actually tell where he was with part of the shield over her? Maybe he didn't need the shield at all for anything other than to contain her. It was a gamble but it brought to mind what Ada herself did to her goop earlier. She turned it into gaseous form to give her more cover on the field.

Oz, still standing atop the formed barrier, flexed his good hand. It didn't need to be much, just enough that it would leave Ada nearly helpless. He summoned a mote of energy into his hand, focusing on making it do what he wanted. It flipped, flexed, spun and twisted until he grasped the thought he was looking for. The mote broke up into tiny bits but maintained a mist-like consistency. Oz grinned. It wasn't wet, nor was it a gas. That sure as hell didn't mean he couldn't mimic it.

The disc rose up away from the shield at Oz's will. It wouldn't do if he got impaled from a raging Ada after this. He extended his hand over the edge and pushed against the power inside him. A haze of blue energy poured out of his hand. It drifted downward toward the dome and settled in a thick, glowing fog. It wasn't that the energy was wet but being in its presence felt thick and heavy nonetheless. Plus it was made out of veil and Ada hated that stuff! It was no solid shield but he imagined that being surrounded by this would make Ada feel like she were seeing through viscous mud.

[SuperFlash]

As the pink sludge came at him, the wind sage didnt hesitate or slow down one bit, merely reacting to the ooze by swinging both arms upwards in a swift motion to launch a special wind scythe with a dark blue glow at the ooze that was aimed to strike directly in front of him. As the scythe made contact with the the ooze, it made easy work with slicing an opening for Jeff to slip through, but the sage didn't stop there. The sage then followed up by swinging both hands outwards and causing the sycthe to explode into a burst of hurcicane level winds which launched and kept any goop away from Jeff so he could easily pass through unaffected. With his mastery and control, he could pass through unphased while everything else was pushed away.

The mirage in the meanwhile fell back until meeting up with the real Jeff and letting it fade away while Jeff repeated his technique to get past this goop wall as well. He then reformed the mirage and placed the sphere back inside it, pretty much resetting any atempts of Ada discovering the real over fake. Unless another form of hazard aroze the two would be only a yard away from the fog Oz brought upon Ada and thus be ready to strike soon enough with the wind cannon he was overcharging and the Omega Saw he was powering up.

The Order Buster continued to struggle for a moment until the arm systems finally recovered, leaving the robot to immediately begin to spin its torso around as thr blades around its arms returned, allowing it to slash at the tenticles that grabed onto it from all angles and free it enough for bosters which appeared on various parts of thr legs to activated and boost it free of the tenticles grasps. Openings then appeard from the legs which rained giant plasma bombs down onto the tenticles bellow to downright obliterate them and stop anymore from coming back up as the mech gained ground and approached Ada as well.
With the legs keeping the rest covered the arms and torso both began to super charge once more, drawing power from a burst of arcane energy that shot forth into it from Techmo.

[tex]

As Oz's mist flooded the dome, her eyes narrowed. She stumbled across her spike-array, moving towards the edge of the prison with her hands extended, feeling for her path. Slowly, the ooze the flooded the battlefield actually began to return to its normal colour. What was more, it lost its more animated properties, falling into an immobile mass that mimicked the properties of an undisturbed lake. Ada grunted and rubbed her eyes carefully with one hand, quickly reaching the edge of the dome. She placed her palm on it, and began to overcome Oz's veil with her own void-infused Entropik Ooze. The colour of his barrier quickly shifted from where she put her hand. In moments, it would melt away, providing her an escape route. With the barrier and the fog hiding her position, she could move unseen. But the witch wasn't too keen on letting them get any close than they already had. She prepared the platform beneath her just in case.

'If they want a show, I'll give them a show'

[Necrophage]

Oz could feel the entropic effects like a gnawing feeling on his focus. She was trying to get out. He glanced around to make sure the others were in close proximity and they indeed were. He focused on what energy was still there and pressed his hand downward. The shield started flattening down in a crushing motion, flowing around the spikes like water being drained. Ada's location was no secret but he couldn't see her with his veil over the area. That also meant she likely couldn't see them. Yet.

If she got out of the barrier she would be a short distance away from getting total coverage of her vision again. Oz observed the slight warp in hue around his shield from whatever Ada was doing. He pointed downward at the spot for the others but said nothing to avoid alerting Ada. No one really had vision. This would be interesting.

[tex]

Dacer picked up his walkie talkie and spoke directly to Jeff.

"As soon as I see her, I'm gonna jump in and hit her hard," He announced, still flying high above the field. He lowered himself as he passed over Ada's prison, and clenched his free paw carefully. "Strike at the same time. If she sees either of us coming, this won't work."

[SuperFlash]

With Ada's defenses seeming to back down Jeff and the Buster both managed to easily approach the dome. Jeff took note of Dacer's words and made a hand signal to the buster before nodding back to Dacer.
"Right, I'm ready when you are." The sage responded back as he finished the overcharge to his wind cannon and prepared to fire it once Dacer fired his attack. The wind around him and the mirage seemed to shift a bit as well, stirring up around him and the mirage as if he let out a change in output for his energy. "With us getting this close, she has to be starting to get desperate. Be ready for anything."

The Order Buster, taking note of the signal given by Jeff, called forth Techmo and received another burst of energy from the city in a quick burst which it used to super charge itself and make its entire body glow a bright blue. The Buster then landed on the ground not far from the small tower of ooze Ada had created, making a shockwave in the process that blasted away any of the goop on the ground nearby upon landing. The robot then took a step back and swung its arm backwards in a odd stance which it made in preparation for its next strike in the second she would choose to appear.

[tex]

The purple section of the wall melted away, prompting a puff of Veil to sputter out. But Ada was nowhere to be seen. In the same moment, the hardened spikes that pierced Oz's barrier melted away. But she didn't emerge. Instead, something else jumped out. Dacer narrowed his eyes and restrained himself.

"Of course," he grunted angrily. The thing that had jumped out? It was... Her? No, it wasn't her. Dacer knew it. Ada stood behind, standing firm inside of the veil-flooded bubble. The goo at he feet began to crawl up the walls of Oz's barrier, slowly breaking through and oozing out of the hole that Ada had created. The thing she'd sent out had purple skin, and no mask. This was a clone. It didn't pay much attention to the buster, landing on the ground near the base of the tower, and standing up straight. It stood quietly, smiling. Suddenly, the ocean of ooze around them began to bubble back to life. "She's definitely getting desperate," Dacer grunted, conserving his Ki. Something about his newly acquired stamina didn't feel right. "I've never seen her do that before."

Ada's voice returned, a psychic shock-wave that rippled through the minds of the nearby fighters.

"You have a delightful talent for irritating me, children. Let me show you a little something I learned from master."

Her clone began to run up, into the sky, using quickly-forming miniature platforms as footholds, each which fell back into the ooze after rising up to support her graceful figure.

"You can't trap me! You couldn't ever hope to blind me! What a stupid plan!" Ada knelt down inside of the veil and placed her palm against the flattened top of her platform. "We are an ever present force of destruction and terror, malice and catastrophe, hate and rage. Your attempts to subdue chaos are for nothing."

Ada's clone stepped up into the path of the order buster and braced herself with a dance-like composure as her words continued to echo. As the first strike came forward, she thrust her hips sideways, shuffled her feet across the quickly forming platforms, and moved her shoulders rhythmically, summoning a copy of the robot's fist to cancel out its strike.

She began to hum a tune, not stopping for a single moment, as if to choreograph the movements of her second body.

"Ignore her," Dacer grunted, "She's still in there. Eyes on the prize, Jeff, Oz." Dacer suddenly dove down towards the barrier, ignoring the clone. But his path was blocked off by several tendrils of purple matter. He swerved cautiously, avoiding all he could on his path downwards.

[SuperFlash]

As the copied fist of goop collided with the Buster's, the machine quickly responded by forming its arm blade and sending it out to stab into the fake hand in order to slice an opening into it before using arm thrusters to shift the motion of the attack into one aimed to slice the hand into two pieces and using the other hand to launch an arcane pulse which would knock the goop away and far off towards the ocean. The robot then followed up by having thrusters appear in its right leg which it use to rise up and launch a swift high kick at the Ada clone which with overcharged movement power, moved at surprisingly swift speed despite the size of the machine. It then aimed to release another disintration pulse from the leg the second the kick landed in hopes to make a devistating combo.

"Yeah, the buster has got that part handled." The sage spoke to both Oz and Dacer from his communicator. "Oz I got a plan, but I need you to place a new barrier over the other one the second my attack passes through. And make sure it's air tight. We will need split second timing.. not sure how well ill be able to control this just yet..."
With that the sage closed his eyes and built up power around himself and the clone and with a burst of wind coming towards himself, seemed to disappear along with his clone, as if they both vanished into thin air. The only thing visable during that moment was a burst of wind which traveled at sonic speeds to the barrier of Ada's
Within a second later Jeff reappears with his mirage in front of the barriers opening. There the mirage charged head first into the opening acking like he was going to slash Ada head on with Jenso's saw but instead exploded into a a burst of plasma that aimed to wipe out the purple goop thats surrounded thd opening of the barrier.

"NOW OZ!!" The sage shouted as he was half gasping for air as if he was holding his breath. It didnt stop him however from firing off his wind cannon through the exploding plasma and what seemed to be directly towards Ada. With a small delay, the force of the shot ripped through the air with maxium force causing any and all hydrogen atoms in the air to simultaneously rip apart and explode all around her in a massive explosion.

With that Jeff once again disappeared and with another sudden burst of wind appeared next to Oz within another blink of the eye, once again gasping for air. Despite so he couldn't help utter the words...
"True... Wind Cannon Ultimate..."

"NAPALM STRIKE!!!"

[Necrophage]

Oz on queue projected a bigger dome beneath himself to cover the area. As it finished the first dome would begin to dissipate.

[tex]

The clone moved swiftly along the air, but with the robot's foot tearing through her footholds, it began to plummet, right into the foot of the order buster. With a resounding splat, it was launched across the field like a comet, flying far enough to disappear as it left Ada's range of control. Within the dome, however, the real masked witch stood, coughing as she inhaled unhealthy amounts of the veil-drenched mist. This was unexpected. The fact that they had meta energy on their side was astonishing, but what made it even worse, was how its properties directly interfered with her eyes. It was like wading through a thick smoke. Even her powers began to dampen over time, causing the ooze-like ocean around them to slowly fade away. Then the explosion rang out. Ada turned towards the noise as quickly as she could and rose her hands. The second dome of energy concealed the result, but her small tower of goop, within a few moments, began to melt downwards. It wasn't long before Oz's barrier was suddenly overcome by an influx of searing mist, dissolving it in its entirety as it emitted from the melting plateau. The mist clear quickly, however, and nearly all of the goop faded, only to reveal a sphere of dark matter. Ada's body was nowhere to be found, but most of her magical essence had disappeared. Weren't these creatures supposed to have unlimited stamina? What happened? The bubble opened up, and with a loud Gasp, Ada was revealed. Burn marks ran down the left side of her face, revealing her tattoo, which had been nearby seared off in its entirety. The burns ran all the way down her left side. When the ooze fell to ashes, it showed her on one knee, gasping heavily, with half of her body covered in blisters. Her eyes flickered weakly, and she rose her un-burned hand, but it buckled from her earlier injury while fighting Oz, and Dacer's body appeared behind her, grabbing the length of her forearm, while cutting through her elbow with his free claw. She lurched forwards and rolled to the ground, grunting profanities as she clutched her severed arm just above the elbow and thrashed around frantically. Dacer dropped Ada's removed hand to the ground, and she scurried as quickly as she could, in no particular direction. She was headed towards the beach as a surprising pace, despite her injuries, through a series of crawling fumbled and face-plants. Dacer followed her slowly and glanced at Jeff, huffing through his nose.

---

~ End Of Chapter 183 ~

[tex]

~ Chapter 184 ~

_{You Had This Coming}

"Stay away from me!" Ada shrieked, pulling herself to her feet. She limped and stumbled across the dying grass with Dacer close behind. He huffed a gentle laugh and shook his head, following a few paces behind.

"Where's the fun in that?" He hissed, reverting to his normal form. He suddenly stumbled forwards himself, and Tiger was expelled from his body, landing several yards away on his side. Dacer glanced at him to assure the little cat was ok before pushing himself to his feet weakly. Ada stopped and spun around, letting out a single laugh. The archer looked up at her with untapped ferocity in his eyes. She laughed harder.

"Oh, you're right- What fun is there in that??" She wretched, backing away from him until her feet met the edge of the beach. She turned back, and fell to one knee before standing up again. The woman's posture was weak. She wobbled, her eyes flickered, but her smile was clearly visible. The half of her face that had been burned twitched. "Stupid! You're all so abhorrently stupid!" Dacer pushed himself back up to his feet and stomped towards Ada. Her eyes widened and she spun around, tripping over her own feet and falling down the slope of sand behind her. Dacer stopped at the beach's edge and lowered himself onto one knee. He could barely breathe.

[Necrophage]

As Ada scrambled away and the battlefield changed Oz dropped all the power he had been channeling. The veil faded and he glided to the ground. Ada was done. Whatever she had left seemed to have collapsed. There was a suspicious nagging that it wasn't her that shut off all that power. He had his doubts as to her simply running out of fumes. Something was amiss but it was unclear exactly what.

The guardian jogged to catch up to the two. Ada was on her last feet, stumbling and retreating away. It was pathetic. Oz felt kind of sorry for her even with the truth racing through his mind of all the horrors she had committed. She was indeed a piteous creature, given too much power and never reined in.

Oz slowed his pace to a walk as he drew close to the pair. Close enough to see Dacer slow down, his wounds and whatever else he suffered were catching up to him. Oz knelt next to Dacer and looked him over while keeping an eye trained on Ada. The Fist of Kario wasn't much of a killer. He was still a softy even at this time. He fully considered that his blows could have killed Ada earlier and had accepted it as the best solution but as she was now? He didn't feel it. No bloodlust or sense of true justice backed him up. His soul just ached looking at the torn apart witch.

"Did you still want to finish this fight?" Oz addressed Dacer. "If your vengeance still burns I"ll help you sate it but I can't promise it will feel like you want it to." He reasoned. Regardless of Dacer's choice there was no doubt among the group. Ada needed to die.

[tex]

"Get away from me," Dacer grunted, lightly pushing Oz away, "I don't need your help, or your preachy bullshit." He stepped back up and summoned his bow, firing an arrow straight through Ada's left leg. The burn flesh tore apart, and her shin was completely detached from the force of the arrow. Her voice trembled and bubbled angrily, devolving into a tantrum. She slammed her two remaining limbs against the sand, dragging her singed hair left and right. She spun her body around and glared at Dacer and Oz angrily. Dacer's bow disappeared and he fell forwards, his consciousness leaving him for a moment.

[Necrophage]

Oz stepped back toward Dacer and awkwardly caught the archer by hooking the good arm under his armpit and lowering him safely to his knees on the ground. The guardian gave him a dejected look. Dacer wasn't necessarily wrong with what he said so Oz just held his peace and said nothing while he waited for the man to come to.