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I guess my comfort zone is "eccentric side character."

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Ria

@Scarifar@rawkhawk64@Bartimaeus@AtomicNut




Ria cocked an eyebrow as the girl she'd just seen sputter up blood, collapse on the floor, and ducking fie, rose ton her feet and proceeded to get...real friendly.

She signed as the other girl got what could only be described as a grip. She let her indulge for just a bit, tilting her head to the side and staring listlessly at the wall between Brutus and the ghostly boy. The other ghostly boy. What, was exploding how they reproduced?

She considered Michaels words. He had a point. There was no way for them to fight, especially carting around her lame ass. "You're right. You guys did your part. Saved a lot of lives in here. No reason to go out and get yourselves killed. But, I think there's one last issue in here we have to address."

"Honestly, flat justice," she said, looking down at Diana as she lifted up one arm and extends two fingers. "Right at this moment I wouldn't mind you putting your fingers wherever you like, iiiiiiffff..."

She struck quickly and decisively, shoving her fingers up Diana's nose and trying to peel the other girl off. "If I thought you were really Diana right now! I might be high as a kite, but I still got a great view from up here. And let me tell you, your mouth might tell lies but that body don't. Michael, wrestle this bitch!"

Wrestle this bitch they might have done, were it not for the sudden shock that cracked the walls and send Ria tumbling off Michel and onto the ground amidst the bodies. The lights flickered once, twice, then gave up the ghost and they were all engulfed in darkness save for the light that managed to find its way through the cracks.

Gilliam

@supertinyking




Gilliam had no knowledge of the threat posed by the masked men. In fact he took their intrusive pile on as an opportunity to sate his hunger. Tendrils exploded out of him, wrapping the cultists, drawing them closer as his back bulged and deformed. It spilt down the middled, opening up into a great maw with teeth like tombstones and greedily flapping tongue.

The side dishes throwing themselves at his mouth was thrilling, but he found he was having some trouble. The main course, it seemed, had been overcooked. His skin was hard, chewy, with the texture of old tires. He knew because he had eaten tire before like this, just ripping and chewing with as many mouths as possible. It was inefficient and crude. Luckily for Gilliam, he was civilized now. He could utilize utensils.

Gilliam shrank slightly as he pushed more of himself into his tentacles and all along the them new tentacles formed, smaller, like hairs. Some were topped with small, sharp blades of bone, others three pronged barbs, and still others just shriveled little tubes. His mouths ceased there ravenous chewing and there was a bubbling sound as the tubes shook, bulged, and then spit clear burning stomach acid onto the areas his teeth were having trouble with. Not missing a beat the prongs stabbed down into the affected area as the blades went to word, rapidly moving back and forth to cut the meat into chunks so the forks could deliver it into the patiently waiting mouths. Bon appetite! Was there anything more civilised and elegant that this?

Even still, he could feel that his opponent was far more brutish in his methods. It shook him, to feel the familiar sensation of teeth sinking into his flesh. He almost lost it, almost fell into a pit of paranoia and terror, but realization hit him like a ton of bricks. "It was you." He said calmly, eyes coming into the sharp focus of the fundamentally insane. "You're the one I've been feeling. You're the one I've been hiding from for the past month. You? You?" he laughed wildly, joyously. "Pitiful old men. Joyless, wretched creature, I got you again. You were hunting me, but I got the drop on you! Hahahhahahahahahah!"

He was still laughing when the masks went off, and Gilliam was blow all across the street. The end of the tentacles tangled with the cultists flopped back and forth like a beheaded snake as parts of the boy it had been attached to rained down around them. It slammed, spasmed, weakly jerked, and laid still.

But it hadn't stopped.

The furious work of the little knives, the little forks, the little dedicated acid squirters, it hadn't ceased.

The tentacle coiled upward, standing for battle like a king cobra, and on the underside right below the smoldering tear where it had been attached to his body a faced resolved out of the flesh. A face that was human like but in now way was it a man anymore. It looked at Legion, and smiled.

He would be next.

Before that, though, an uninvited guest. Metal clashing against the ground drew his attention. "Luigi." It said, in a voice like air being forced through a hose. "Are we to debate the riddle of steel once more?" The face hacked, and out from its mouth emerged a long, jagged blade of bone. With whip like speed the Gilliam serpent jerked back and swung itself through the air, gripping as tightly as it could to its opponent, to come in and slice from the opposide direction of Luigi to leave the cultist no escape. If luck was with them their blades would meet in the middle of this man.
"That's the spirit, old timer. I guess." Georgia said. It wasn't a big turn around, but he was at leat agreeing to hang around this shady castle. She had a feeling she'd need as many friends as she could get going forward.

Speaking of friends, one of these guys was actually talkative. She turned to face the coin flipper and gave a smile. "Oooo, 'milady.' Haven't been greeted like that since the Round Table conference. Of course you can come, the more the merrier. We can split...the..."

She lifted her head unknowingly toward the main gate, a quizzical look plastered across her face. The pen spinning on her finger slowly lost it's momentum and clattered noisily to the floor, but she didn't pay it any mind. "Who is that?" She said to no one, narrowing her eyes. "Who's...is somebody there?"

She didn't even pay attention to the Emperor excusing himself as she slowly walked toward trying to pinpoint whoever this was. This was some kind of psychic anomaly, the impression of an impression of a person, like being alone in a room and feeling someone's shadow on your back. That was nonsense though, she wasn't trained to pick up this sort of thing. Whatever this was couldn't be this faint if she was feeling it, it would have to be incredibly powerf-

Then the connection became concrete and the suddenness of it sent her to her knees. Memories flooded in, people she had never me, places she had never been, wars she hadn't fought. It had been a shadow, the shadow of whatever it was that was casting this pressure. Thunderclouds, a psychic hurricane throwing out wave after wave of feelings, memories, impressions.

"Gyaaaaa, stop, who are you?" She cried out as the waves kept pounding against her brain. She'd heard stories from abduction survivors, how they'd been assaulted like this until it a scrambled their brains and left them with holes in their memories forever. Then, as though in respond to that memory, she felt the pressure pull back leaving behind an impression of confusion. Like it hadn't expected that reaction, like nothing like that had ever happened to him before.

"Yeah, well, I don't think we're working on 100% the same wetware here." She said crossly, shaking her head and staggering back to her feet with the help of Snopes who had so kindly slid his head under her arm and was now growling in agitation at the thought of his master being hurt. She noticed the guard had rushed in to inform them of that giant wave of heartless that had appeared at the palace gate. She didn't notice that her nose was now gushing blood until she felt it on her lips. "It's like you're a quantum computer, and I'm a CB radio. You can't expect that to be wholly comparable, Amuro." She paused for a moment, before clutching her head. Cripes, she had a headache. "Good, you left your name in there. What else?"

She searched her thoughts, and her eyes widened. "Evacuate the castle!" She shouted at the guard. He stood there, confused, before she walked up and grabbed him by the armor. "That thing has a gun that can punch through whole battleships, you think a bunch of stone is gonna be able to stop it?"

The man looked at her like she'd gone crazy, then looked over her shoulder at the Empress. Georgia growled, "Sheep," before pushing her way past the man and sprinting down the hall. "It's a machine! It's a giant war machine!" She called back behind her.

The comforting clicker-clack of claws of stone followed her, but she wasn't sure how much good his claws would do against that white devil she'd seen in her mind. Truth be told she didn't know what she could do against that thing, besides treat it like an ornery t-rex and tie it down till it stopped struggling. She just knew that this was the first modern city she'd seen in ten years and there was no way she was letting it burn before she got to enjoy at least a little of it.


Linkle

Level 3 - (13/30) -1 + 2

Location: Peach's Castle – Out Front, Moatside
Word Count: 757


@Delta44@Lugubrious



It didn't take long for Linkle to get bored of this situation. She tried to be upbeat about this, but it just didn't feel right. She remembered, back when she was younger, her grandmother had knitted her a wonderful green hat and she'd worn it proudly around the village until two of the older boys had snatched it off her head and tossed it back and forth to one another as she ran around trying to get it back. Crying. This was reminding her an awful lot of that. Sure Junpei was still doing his level best to kill them, but she felt bad for him.

She tried to take her mind off it, and how embarrassed she was going to be when everyone came back out of that castle to see them doing this, but there really wasn't much to do. She tried counting the aches in her body from that solid hit. She got a good look at herself in the the moat, touching her new ears in surprise and unsuccessfully trying to wash the red streaks that had flowed out of them due to their clipping from her hair with the cool water. She even tried to come up with a new idea, maybe a way to handle this where the three of them still came out looking kind of cool, but before she could figure something out the Master appeared.

It wasn't the worst thing that could have walked out of there, but she still felt her face redden as he announced how he'd been wondering where they gotten off to, and all she could do was sheepishly point to Junpei and look away. Linkle still breathed a sigh of relief as the green energy called up by the Master, like the essence of Farore herself, finished what Minako had started. She watched in the reflection of the water as a pair of white blobs, limp like dead fish and seemingly caught in the updraft of the green energy, where lifted up from the inside of her hood and delicately attached themselves to the plateaus of her new ears. There was a flash along the place they joined and suddenly they were complete again. She bounced a few times, just to make sure everything was in working order again, and smiled as she watched them bob up and down. All right, she was ready for round two!

Before they could get to that, though, the Master had another revelation to give them. Apparently when they'd been away Kirby had taught everyone a new trick. That made sense. Tora using it had just felt so natural she hadn't questioned it, especially with that big dragon Bowser around to occupy her thoughts. She watched, grinning with anticipation, as Minako tried it out. The grin only turned to a grown as the hearts she made cracked, shattered, and exploded one after another. She turned back to the Master who was getting ready to jump in himself, but held up her hands. "Don't trouble yourself, Master. If I've got nothing else it's a stalwart heart." She nodded, mostly to herself, and clenched her hands into fists before shouting, "Leader, hold on, I'll be right over!" to the opposite bank and taking off at a dead sprint across the bridge.

When she approached Minako Junpei was nearly to the shoreline. She skidded to a stop in front of her, looking down at him struggling in the water. Then she brought her hands up the middle of her chest, her fingers just barely brushing against her keepsake compass, and concentrated. She tried to think of hearts, picture hearts, feel hearts, but nothing was happening as she tried to force it out. This was harder than it looked. Normally it was the other way around. Then, as she concentrated, her mind drifted back to that old hat. There was a glow, a glow that at first looked like it was coming from the compass itself, and out from her chest materialized a glowing, crystal pink heart that she lifted proudly above her head. "Da da da daaaaaa!" she called to herself, just like when she was a kid playing hero games.

She regarded it curiously. She wondered if she could use this to heal people? Before she could get to far down that line of thought Junpei reached the shoreline. She smiled down at him, taking the heart in her hands. "Told ya we'd save you!" she shouted, then wound back and pitched the thing right at his face.
"It doesn't matter what name they have. They've had a lot of names." She said in answer to Hirutila. "Annunaki, Dewo, gods, Gentry, it all comes out meaning the same thing in the end; bad news for the rest of us." She hoped the old keyblade order had gotten them all, and it showed in her tone.

She was pulled out of her anger when the old guy asked whether she was some sort of Canaanite. She didn't have the best grasp of geography considering that she'd had to learn brands new geography, but she remembered from old Aaron's rambling about bible codes that it might be some biblical place. She wasn't positive, that was his specialty not hers.

He also could have been asking if she was a vampire, and that was a whole other can of worms she didn't want to get into. She decided to give a non-committal shrug. "I was born in Nevada. My family moved out there from New York...they had family down in North Carolina..." she answered, throwing her hands to show she didn't know much more than he did. His world probably didn't even have a Nevada. "Before that, I don't know, Africa? That's the safe bet." She figured Africa would have to be universal enough to be a clear reference point regardless of what world line you were from. If there wasn't an Africa something was fundamentally wrong with the foundation of human history.




She felt sorry for Hirutila. She knew what it was like to get a whole lot of new context dumped on you all at once, and she'd been lucky. She'd been young enough to have not experienced a lot of the world, to let truths settle in and calcify into the bones of how you understood reality. She'd been able to flush away the things she'd found to be wrong. The old timer, though, was clearly overwhelmed from trying to take in all this new information.

She heard the Emperor try to coax him along, with words of duty, and decided to help out with a bit of pragmatism. She held out her hand and put out a little thought into the universe to call the thing to her hand. There was a flash, and there it was. Perception plus effort equals reality, in a more literal sense than the philosophers back home probably meant it. She showed it off to him. "Besides, if these things are really a threat to this Leo guy he'll probably be after you no matter where you are. I'm still not 100% sold on this whole thing, but I think no matter what comes at us it'd be better to stand together and look it in the eye. When I think about it like that there's no downside to hanging around a little longer, right?"

Now, with that out of the way their good host had mentioned something about a library. She whistled, and Snopes stopped playing around and loyally trotted back over to her. She dismissed the blade with another concentrated thought, reached into one of the dinosaurs saddle backs, and pulled out a blue fountain pin that she spun on her finger as she turned to Damianos. "Lead the way to that library, Mr. Wizard. I've got a long night of copying textbooks ahead of me."
Gilliam

@Crowvette@Dezuel@supertinyking




This one was strong. Gilliam hadn't expected it to be this strong. He felt the rush of air as he was ripped from his perch and thrown back into the wall, then again, then across the ground, leaving red and pink smears of himself across every surface.

Through it all he could fuel the pulse of life, the flow of fresh blood flowing through the tendrils he'd coiled himself around. He willed his own tendrils change, hard little nubs forming into points as he was slammed into a final place. Thoroughly mangled, Gilliam pulled himself back together as best he could as the prey spoke. He spine of kinship and recruitment, and Gilliam couldn't help but let out a wheezy little chuckle. "I apologize, sir." He said without standing, every word coming out in a strained half whisper as it forced itself out of his broken body. "Bracing though your negotiation tactics may be, I have a previous obligation to consider. And unfortunately for you, you've chosen said previous obligations land as your hunting ground."

There was a sound like someone taking the first bite of a fresh, sweet plumb as the mouths that Gilliam had created on his tendrils began to take the first tentative bites of their counterparts. Long strips of pearly white teeth, sharp as knives, opened and closed to try and bring fresh meat and blood down their new esophagus into his stomach. They wrapped around more tightly, trying to keep their meal from pulling away, intending to feast until there was nothing left of them.

"Oh, beg my pardon again sir. I'm afraid my tournament debut has left me a might peckish."




Ria

@Scarifar@rawkhawk64@Bartimaeus@AtomicNut




There was a loud, crackling boom like the roar of the ocean as the entire room was bathed in light. Brutus's beam, Diana's power, surged across the room and engulfed the wood masked cultist. His form was briefly visible as a black shadow within the light for anyone who could stand to look upon it before vanishing.

When it ended everything was silent. The masked corpses at their feet laid still, their rhythmic head knocking coming to an end. All there was left of the cultist was a rapidly cooling hole bored halfway through the opposite wall, red hot dry wall and cement left melting in its wake.

"That was the sexiest thing I've ever seen!" Ria said, breaking the silence. She limped out from her hiding place. Phone still open in her hand, she gave Michale a rough bump as she grabbed him to help support herself. "You agree, right Michael? You asshole? She wasn't gonna abandon me, no sir, you piece of human garbage. Diana!" She called out across the pile of bodies she's have to cross to get over to her and Brutus. "That was hot. You too, Brutus, holy shit."

It was around this point that she finally noticed a message on her phone. Curiously, she opened it and, upon reading it, gave a mirthless laugh. "Hey guys, message from King. He says that we're under attack. Here." She leaned the phone over so Michael could see it. "Ya'll want to go get in more fights or do we hole up somewhere?"






Bak


@RoflsMazoy@rawkhawk64@Crazy Scion@KillamriX88@Dezuel




At some point Bak had stood up. She didn't know when. Maybe it was when Rurik and Christine's sister started fighting in earnest. She was still trying to figure out what was going on. Rurik said they had to fight. Christine was saying no. There was a tension she could sense from them and Clara that she'd never felt before in any meeting. Christine kept getting more and more distressed, casting wind far to close to Clara for Bak's enjoy meant. What was going to happen? She felt like they were going to so something to one another.

While that was going on Yuuto kept up his fight with...someone. She wasn't sure who, but he seemed familiar and that didn't make her feel any better. Was he the enemy? No, he was standing up for Christians sister so...that meant...

It was nonsense! This was all nonsense! Everyone was fighting but no one was anyones enemy! It tore her up. She wanted to protect her friends, but protecting one friend meant maybe hurting another one. It was paralyzing. All she could do was make sure none of their fights came near Vittorio.

Then, suddenly, everything seemed to stop. Thobias, seemingly from nowhere as he always did, appeared and spirited the sisters away. Yuuto and the mystery boy were collapsed in the mud. Clara was still, but didn't seem happy. Bak felt her breathing, which had been sharp and irregular as she watched all this, level out. She felt things come back into focus.

There was no conflict now.

There were only injuries.

That was something she could understand. She focused on that.

Bak was running on autopilot. She stomped over to where Rurik and Clara had been left and put herself between the two of them. "We can not stay here." She said, pleadingly. "We need to leave. Can not go to hospital. We've broken many laws today." She looked pointedly over at Yuuto and Vittorio as she said this, beofre she reached out and closed her hand around Rurik arm, She'd forgotten all about how bloody her gloves were. "I'll carry you. Climb on." She insisted, in a tone that brooked no argument despite its wearyness. "We're leaving." She repeated, talking specifically to Clara. "Call Celestine."

Then, if he didn't hop up, she'd drag him away from Clara. She thought it was very important to get him away from Clara. Clara would tell them where to meet Celestine.

She went on past Vittorio, stopping to check that he was still breathing before moving on out of the fire scorched area of this park and into the mud. She felt herself sinking as she walked up to where Yuuto lay. She looked down at him, and for a moment felt intensely angry. In a way, this was all his fault. He was the one that had gone too far. He was the one that had ruined the entire day. But as she saw just his injured he was, and how tired he seemed, she felt that anger cool down. There would be time to reprimand him later. For now she hauled him up out of the mud and placed him over one arm. "Do not ever do that again." She whispered, but she wasn't even sure he could hear her.

Then she turned to the mystery man, hovering above him like the blade of a guillotine. "Oh." She said, slightly surprised. She knew this guy. He wandered around the school at night sometimes, taking classes at night. Bak had avoided him, mostly because she'd thought he was a vampire. "You are one of us. Come along. We have doctor that can help." With that she reached down and started to drag him up as well.

After this she'd go get Vittorio, after getting all these gyus arranged semi-comfortably so she could carry him more gently, and they could all find a safe place to rest up and stop being such big fools. Everything was going to be all right. She was going to make sure everything is all right.
Plight of a Demon, Fury of a Girl





Rurik stood there, battered and bloodied, just watching the demoness close in on him, his hands still pocketed. One might have thought he was all talk and his bluff had been called. One might have also thought it was a stupid fucking bluff to begin with.

He then seemed to lean into the punch. As he did, a burst of energy coiled up in-between his face and her fist, knocking the blow away. He then slipped a hand out of his pocket and turned his palm toward the demoness's gut, unleashing all the power he'd stored up while they were talking. It was unfocused, just raw kinetic energy pouring out. All he needed was to push her back and leave her unbalanced.

He then took a breath, and his form loosened up.

He'd never been a fan of the final application of his power. He preferred to sit back and let his enemies come to him. He'd let them make their mistakes and then punish them. If he had to use that power, then that meant he had to get serious. If he had to get serious, then he didn't want that fight to begin with.

Today... today was just a little different.

He waited until the demoness either steadied a bit or picked herself up off the ground -- until she made a good target. He set his feet... and then flew. Power burst from beneath his feet and he closed the distance between them in a blur. He'd said he really wanted to punch Kath in the face, and he had, but that didn't count. No, this was a punch. When he wanted to hurt something, this was what he could do. All his momentum culminated in a flying punch aimed across her jaw, and then on impact he let out another burst from his fist, doubling down on the attack.

He meant it as a blow from himself and the world -- reminding her that life didn't give a single fuck about who you were. If it wanted to tear you down, it would. He was happy to pass the lesson along.
The demoness felt her toes digging into the ground as the combined kinetic force pushed her back, then the hard double impact of the punch across the face. That dull, sorry ache spread through her whole body, as she was thrown away, deeper into the park.

There was a feeble luck in that punch, however. It threw her clear, enough to let the stream of water let off by the back flipping David cleave along the ground where she'd been right into Rurik.
She felt her back slam hard into an old tree and slid down the course bark to a resting position.

Reaching up she adjusted her jaw. That could be bad. If she had to heal herself she couldn't do anything for Katherine. The Katherine part of her mind didn't make things any better. Fight, fight, fight it went, incessantly. Infectiously.

She shook her head and pulled herself up, fire leaping from her palm into the scratches she left as she gripped the old tree. It would star burning soon, eating away at this old growth from the inside. Not the most worthwhile kindling, but every bit counted now.
Rurik was caught somewhat off guard by the water. What the hell was Yuuto doing? Wasn't he a professional or something? With another burst he juked out of the way, but it killed his momentum somewhat, letting Kath begin to get up from where she'd landed. He spoke again as he walked toward her, though keeping an eye out for more random bursts of water.

One more and he swore he'd actually kill that idiot.

"Sure, fine, I wagered your sister a few times. But she's still around, so I'm sure you can figure out what that means," he spoke coldly. "I beat every little piss ant who challenged me into the dirt. You think you're the first idiot who thought they could take me because they knew kung-fu? You're not better, Kath. You're not special. You're just annoying." Oh sure, he'd actually lost once or twice, and him winning had little to do with Christine still being around.

But Kath didn't need to know that right now.

He didn't charge in again, there wasn't an opening this time. He simply walked until he was just out of arm's reach, eyes locked onto her, full of defiance. And condescension -- so much condescension.
"I'll give you this, boy, you have a strong right hook." She whispered so as not to be heard by Christine. "More than strong enough to keep what you've gained through combat. But amongst all the trees you've felled I believed you've overlooked the forest." She mugged at him, and feigned a swipe with her nails.
Rurik didn't intend to let her touch him again. He knew full well he couldn't reliably counter every attack like he had before, especially not now that she knew he could do that. Most of his fights had witnesses, so plenty of times he'd seen people try to predict him with varying results.

The best answer was usually to do away with finesse and introduce them to the ground with overwhelming firepower.

He darted to the side with a small application of his burst and then threw both hands out to unleash a double-barrel blast of destabilized energy at just shy of point-blank range in an attempt to flatten her.
She smiles, and as he began to move she jumped up as she'd always intended. The blast collided with the tree, shattering the bark and with it the fire that had been growing beneath. The flames jumped greedily in his direction, as though hungry and alive, bolstered by the sudden exposure to fresh air.

The demoness landed amid the now smoking branches. "You see? Through your actions you've courted only misery, and not only for yourself. You certainly gained nothing tangible from entertaining such challenges. You have made yourself neither a lord of those you defeated nor seem to have any interest in doing battle for its own sake. It puzzles us."
Rurik's eyes widened at the sudden flare-up. He felt the unbearable heat hit him before instinct drove him to burst away from it. Heat and fire, some things never changed when fighting Kath. He shook his arms to make sure no embers were left clinging to him and took a deep breath to calm himself down.

"I don't need to lord over anyone, Kath. I just need you to shut up." He looked up at her tiredly, looking almost bored. "Now I'm gonna give you til' the count of five to get out of that tree before I force you out of it the hard way. 1..." He needed a second to recharge anyway...

She had just about enough of hearing Rurik’s stupid bullshit. It was incoherent ramble as far as she was concerned, a stupid boy spouting big words that added up to complete nonsense. Lot of words, no meaning behind it. Rurik has always made her angry, but him thinking he was right, or that he won this little fight? That was just above and beyond the stupidity she could tolerate.

Her will could not be contained by some mere demon, not when it came to Rurik and protecting her sister. Her flames engulfed the Demoness in her mind as pure unbridled rage took over. Her form seemingly melting into one coherent mass that while still resembled a human, it had little of it’s features. She had gone above and beyond anything she had ever done with her body, the mix of urgency and annoyance tapping into her inner reserves to fan her flames into an inferno.

Her hands and body moved on her own, the Demon’s will subdued in a flare of heat that swept across the park. “2.” Kath hissed as she exploded from the tree like a bullet shot from a gun, her fist primed and ready to collide with Rurik’s jawline as she launched at the boy with mind boggling speed.

Boom!

"OH SHIT!" Rurik had to launch himself backwards as Kath dove at him. It looked like he'd finally gotten Kath angry enough to pop back out. He could feel the impact of her landing even as he dodged it. She'd come much closer to actually hitting him than he'd have liked. Fighting her was always such a pleasure... "You seem angry. Is it something I said?" He mused with a bead of sweat sliding down the side of his face. "Ah who am I kidding? That's default for you."

His plan had worked, but a little bit way too well. Now what? This was going off the rails.

Let’s see how good you are at talking shit when I’ll knock your teeth out!” Kath exclaimed as she stared with her glowing eyes at Rurik. She had lost her temper for sure, but she was surprisingly mindful for being this angry. Not that it amounted to much, this was Kath that we are talking about after all, but it gave her a slight sense of clarity. And it was enough for ehr to know she had the upper hand...before she would pass out. She didn’t care about any plans the demon had, she just wanted to beat Rurik up while she still could. If she dies after it from blood loss, at least she will perish in glorious combat.

She didn’t give Rurik much chance to take a breather. Less talking and more fighting She motivated herself as she jumped right after Rurik, a hand ready to punch him in the face, while she prepared herself to follow up with a knee to the gut as soon as she landed at the same time.

"You young fool." Came a voice, a face manifesting from the flames enveloping Katherine's body. The demon looked sternly at the girl as she flickered and waved. "I was barely keeping you alive as is. Can't you feel your wounds opening up while you throw this tantrum? Is this the hill you choose to die upon?"

I won't die. Not yet! The flames will stop the bleeding...for now. Kath thought. Nothing was supposed to happen like this. Yuuto wasn't supposed to have a sword and she wasn't supposed to get hurt. But...things don't always go as you want them to. More often than no they go out of control as soon as they start. But if I die now, at least it will be in combat. Then you can keep your integrity too

Rurik once more tried to shoot backwards, but it worked about as well as running away from a falling tree in a straight line. Why was she so fast!? His surprise at her speed sort of scrambled his brain and he tried to deploy his shield in a panic. Normally it would have been fine, he'd been able to, somewhat, sustain it through Cassius's full power launch, but the half-baked shield he threw up crumbled under her attack. Rather than tossing her back, it barely canceled out her momentum while he was thrown on his ass. He needed a plan before he was just curb stomped.

Well, he had one idea... but it was all or nothing at this point.

He dug his heels into the dirt and used another burst to send him sliding backwards to a momentarily safe distance. The grass was slick thanks to what's-his-ass, but the mud and grass stains meant after this his jacket was pretty much ruined... again.

He rolled to a knee and went to put a hand down to steady himself only to see stars. Pain exploded up his arm and he realized not only did he get knocked over when he shield failed, but his wrist and perhaps more had totally snapped under the pressure.

Thus he was left on one knee, right arm tucked against his chest in pain while he glared warily at Kath.

He'd liked his odds better when he'd thought he had two hands...

Katherine winced at the pain and her eyes darted to Rurik. He seemed hurt. Broken. Ripe for beating the living soul out of. "You're done for asshole!" She shouted as, rage taking over her as she let out a battlecry to ring all the ears before she launched herself at Rurik for a finisher, her arms ready to strike as a ploy, truly aiming to knee her opponent.

The throbbing that was radiating more and more up his arm was really making him reconsider his bravado here. Honestly, the only thing keeping him going was the sound of Kath's voice... and how much he wanted to make it go away. Even if Clara hadn't been there and he could have risked telling her he was actually kinda trying to help, would she have listened? His abundance of cynicism told him "no."

So in the end it truly was just resentment fueling him.

He had to time his next move carefully. He'd left a little something behind when he'd slid across the ground, pumping his energy into it as he went. Now Kath was running at him across that very ground. He set it off, and it honestly wasn't much. But all he needed was to remove her footing. It didn't matter how fast she could run if the ground disappeared from beneath her feet.

He wanted her to fall... fall so he could catch her. By the face. With his fist.

With everything he had left, he would burst from his crouch and throw an empowered left at her jaw.

BANG!

As Kath ran across the ground Ruril's energy blasted off, sending pebbles flying up at the girl but she merely shrugged them off in her rage. But the small hole it cause proved to be a greater problem.

Even if it wasn't too significant in the end. Propelled by her momentum, Kath's leg made contact with the ground a second later anyways, and she had ample time to adjust to the laughable hole that Rurik's last ditch effort made. Was he at full power this could've been a challenge, but without any sauce behind his power? What a joke.

Kath didn't care, she had no sympathy for the boy. She didn't see a sliver of truth in his words or lies in her own line of thinking as she continued her dash near uninterrupted. No, her entire world had become one with this finishing kick, this last attempt for a girl who embraced death and wished for nothing more than to see the sole source of grievance in her fleeting life defeated and to make sure the most precious thing to her was safe: her sister. She couldn't miss, she couldn't lose. Not now when there won't be any more chances. She let out a scream as she propelled her knee forward, towards the bursting Rurik.

Rurik felt his fist collide with her face, right in the jaw. It was a meeting of two huge forces and his powers couldn't protect him from it. He could punch a rock without breaking his hand, but this was a bit much. The shockwave rattled the bones in his arm and it kinda hurt, but then went blissfully numb. That was probably a bad sign.

It was too late for him to realize at this point that Kath's raw power had let her just surge through his trap. Not undeterred, but not quite as vulnerable as he'd been hoping... not even close. He might have gotten lucky, his punch had to have thrown her off otherwise what had happened next would have been catastrophic.

He felt a blazing hot impact right on his solar plexus. He popped backwards from it, but somehow landed on his feet... unable to breathe. He let out a high-pitched squeak of pain. Rocked and doubled over by the impact as he was, he couldn't even see what had become of Kath. He could only hope she was too down and out to hit him again.

He managed one step before falling to his hands and knees and puking as the pain turned his stomach. Fortunately it had been mostly empty this time.

"Oh... come on.... I didn't even teleport this time!" He gasped, trying to keep the world from spinning.

Just before her knee connected into the hit she had imagined she felt the sharp pain in her jaw as Rurik's fist collided with it, painfully knocking her teeth together as a numbness spread through her jaw like wildfire, and her vision turned blurry. She could tell that he gave everything into the punch because even with the ungodly amount of momentum she put up the punch was nearly enough to bring her to a halt. She stumbled forward a few meters before she nearly collapsed down onto her knees from the nausea that hit her. She saw stars and it felt like someone drilled a screw straight across the jaw and then painfully started twisting it.

She wanted to swear something but then realized her jaw was dislocated from the punch. Which she didn't even know was possible while in this form. She reached down to her mouth and then with a painful groan she snapped her jaw back into place. "Fuck!" She snarled angrily and shook her head a few times, hitting her temple with the base of her palm to regain focus. Probably not the best idea when you definitely have a concussion, but she was past those concerns now. She could feel the wounds sapping away at her strength with every second, even if her form stopped herself from bleeding for the moment. As she could feel her stamina running out as well now that her fire consumed more than ever. Still, Rurik lay on his knees before her. She allowed herself a small grin as she made a few unsure steps towards him. "Better stay down pukeboy."

"Selfish children, and you say you don't love this bloodshed. You've killed us for it." The face of the demoness said bitterly as it danced in the flames. Then, as if to twist the knife, she nodded toward where the Ice was now spreading from the feet of the panicking Christine. "And look at what you've both done to your poor sister."

"I... resent that..." Rurik gasped out. "Just... gimme five..." He made a feeble attempt to stand. Nope. "T-ten... seconds..." He panted heavily. There was no way he was fighting back. If she attacked, it'd be all about survival. Assuming he could muster the strength to even escape. Every time he tried to gather energy, he'd need to stop to focus on trying to just breathe, and he'd feel his energy seeping back out of him. He could barely think straight.

Kath clenched her fist angrily as the demoness's words sank in like a bitter acid that ate it's way through the walls she erected to justify her cause. She peeked over at Christine, her eyes quickly darting away in shame. She might die here today once her power runs out, and as much as her rage wants her to beat the soul out of Rurik, it would be pointless bloodshed. She couldn't break her sister's heart like that. Christine...she wanted better for her. "Come on, stand up!" She commanded in a way that didn't take no for an answer and held her hand out for Rurik. "You fought valiantly." She winced as she felt her powers seeping away and the pain returning. She didn't think she had much longer, so at least she could make amends.

Rurik flinched and shut his eyes tightly against the beating that was about to c- Wait what?

"Wait, what?" Rurik said aloud. He almost thought it was a trap, but to be fair to Kath... she wasn't that clever. He tentatively reached out to take her hand, but then noticed the blood starting to leak into her clothes again. "Uhhh, you got a little... uh..." Wait, he hadn't done that. And she'd been fine a minute ago.

And then it clicked. The demon had been fine. While fighting she'd seemed fine, but now she was totally powered down... so...

Shit.

Well she was still standing, so that was a good sign, right? Standing up was usually a good thing. Dead people couldn't stand, after all. She probably just needed a doctor. If she could still stand then surely a doctor could do something. It'd be a real pain if she died after all this effort.

Maybe Clara could help. She'd teleported them there after all.

"Well, it seems things have come to a resolution." Clara looked past Christine, only just barely acknowledging her. She no longer needed Christine's cooperation. She strode past the distressed girl and over to the two fighters.

"Hey, so-" Rurik began.

"Well done I suppose, now we should see about removing the demon. This is our best chance." Clara spoke over him. Well so much for her helping.

"I dunno, seems like it's asleep or something. But hey, Katherine's back in that saddle. I'm sure Christine will be happy about that, what do you think?" Rurik subtly shifted between Clara and Kath... as if it would actually matter.

". . . Indeed." Clara's eye twitched ever so slightly. She was starting to see Rurik's hand now. Of course she'd been suspicious but she hadn't expected him to actually hold his own enough for it to make a difference.

Rurik swallowed -- now what? If Clara wasn't gonna teleport Kath to a doctor then who? Where the hell was Thobias when you needed hi- Wait... was that him over there? When the hell had he shown up!??!?

"Yeah, but I think we should probably get her and Christine to a doctor now," Rurik suddenly raised his voice for no particular reason... while shooting anxious glances at the boy over Clara's shoulder.

". . . perhaps. . . but first. . . please move." She spoke a little more forcefully. Christine and even Rurik could be useful in their own right. She didn't want to have to force the issue with them if she didn't have to. But she would.

Christine continued to watch over Clara as more and more of her surroundings turned cold. Uncharacteristically of her, she didn't trust her at all. If she made a move, she would freeze her instantly.

Meanwhile, to her displeasure, Rurik and Kath continued their fight. She could only continue to shout at them to stop as she was guarding Kath from Clara. Thankfully, the fight didn't continue for much longer, and it ended with Kath's victory.

However...

"Kath!"

When she noticed all the blood seeping through her clothes, she quickly ran towards her.

"Kath! A-are you alright? A-a doctor! We have to get you to a doctor at once!"

She no longer cared about Clara. Her attention was fully aimed at her gravely wounded sister.




Thobias watched the entire fight from the rooftop, not particularly out of sight but far away enough that most people wouldn't bother to look his way. Not while there was a spectacular fight going on right in front of their eyes. And he too enjoyed watching it, it was certainly worth sticking around for a little longer. Both Rurik and Kath took some savage punches straight to the face, and both were still standing. He knew he could never take any of that, but he also wouldn't really stick around. Or care enough to start a fight like that anyways.

But as things escalated and Kath seemed to have finally grasped victory, things turned grim again. Even the friendly notion of Kath towards Rurik didn't lighten the mood as Clara closed up on them. And Kath was starting to bleed again. Bad. Heck, even Christine popped in to defend her sister! It seemed like nobody wanted Kath to die, even if she was quite hard to talk to most of the time. Well, brash maybe, but not hard to talk to. If you didn't piss her off. Like Rurik. But that's beside the point!

This was his time to act. He just hoped that everything would go according to plan. Liam and Sarah were ready to intervene, and if things turned really ugly even Brutus could intervene. Let's hope it won't come to that. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

"Here we go!"

With a flash of light, he appeared right by Christine and Kath, placing his hands on their shoulders as he flashed an arrogant Smile at Clara. "Sorry to drop in and ruin the party, but the show's over." He glanced at Rurik and winked before disappearing with another little flash, bringing Christine and Katherine away with him. And then he followed up with a dozen or more in quick successions, getting them a good block or two away in a few seconds. "This should be far enough..." He finally stopped when he couldn't even remember which direction the park was and then opened a portal back to their hideout. "Okay, time to go you two." He said and pushed the two girls into the portal before following behind them and closing it.

Liam and Sarah were right there, a table already cleared and prepped for Kath to lay down on. Thobias beckoned at Liam and smiled at Christine. "Don't worry, Kath will be fine. If Liam can't patch her up, nobody can." Sarah and Liam quickly got Kath onto the table and prepared to stop the bleeding on the girl. Everything should be fine now...it was just a shame he couldn't watch the tournament any longer.

Christine did not see what’s coming in the slightest.

Thobias suddenly appeared out of nowhere, touched her and Kath, before teleporting them away. And they continued to teleport several times in a near continuous manner. Even if Christine wanted to protest, she wouldn’t be able to due to how nauseating the whole process was.

Thankfully, they eventually stopped, at some distance far away from the park.

“T-Thobias, where are we--” Her protest was cut short by him pushing them into one final portal that teleported them once more. Where? She had no idea in the slightest. And that immediately sent her into full alert mode.

But apparently it was a place where Kath could get the treatment she desperately needed, according to Thobias, so Christine calmed herself down. And now, she could only watch as the two treated her wounds.

It’s alright. I know you’ll be able to make it, Kath...




@RoflsMazoy@rawkhawk64@Crazy Scion@KillamriX88@6slyboy6@Hammerman
"If it wouldn't be to much trouble..."Alexei said to Alicia before finally giving up the ghost. Maybe it was the injuries, or the cost of using too much wild magic in quick succession. Either way his body just couldn't hold out anymore against the exhaustion assailing him. With the situation reported to a senior the very last tether binding upright snapped. His eyes fluttered, he listed sideways, and collapsed into the grass. The only thing visible were his tiny little legs still laying in the shadow of Nidgardt.

"I'm sorry." He said. "It's been a long day. I just need to lie down for a moment."
I wouldn't mind punching Yoko. I also wouldn't be averse to punching Jonas. The whale too, don't know why, just want to fight a whale.




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