[IC] TotMV:G2: The Battered Hero

[Strider]

Edmond realized that he had not had time to return Visrii's halberd to him.
 He caught Visrii's eye, and tossed the halberd in his direction.

[Yours Truly]

The grey cloaked man continued firing towards the flying heartless, he smiled and made machinegun noises as he did so, and he saw a decent amount of the flying heartless fall to the barrage of the metal bound booklets.

[Sutoratosu]

Aurora paused beyond the gates, as the other lot began the advance on the wave of creatures. She glared at the shaded forms with familiar exasperation as each and every one of their presences entered her mind and she knew, within that instant, that each and every one of the skittering little fucks shared the same type of basic issue towards the edibility as the behemoths earlier. But they were even worse, most of them had no true flesh to begin with... as if they were composed of pure shadow. And lo and behold, one of the slimmer, quicker ones bearing a toned physique and trailing tails off his head- thinking it was clever by sneaking up on her -leapt down with claws outstretched, aiming for her neck... only for its on head to be snatched up in a Chitin clad fist fast as lightning and smashed right into the ground as a small crater formed before the snarling. 

       Just as she thought. These things did not even leave bodies when they died, unlike the larger ones. Simply burst back into shades and vanished. And more of them had taken note of her, those who'd managed to get around or survive the forward advance slowly closing the distance. But they began to retreat the instant several of them burst into light and flames, a radiant burst of starlight blooming with quick succession from her palm. Well, the smaller runts at least. All the more mature ones did was charge faster onto their death, as with one sweeping swipe a lance of the same burning radiance formed in her hand, cleaving them all in twain where they stood before being fading away.

 

Her eyes burned into those who yet remained. Quickly, it seemed like they were reconsidering their choice of ganging the outlier, fleeing from her as she charged with spydric speed, a mere blur of black that occasionally lashed out to impale and cleave away at the shade with her legs, chasing the poor fools until finally... there came one who would not flee before her. A robust, bipedal sphere of a demon, seeming to stand defensively like a wall as the smaller lot scurried under it's stout legs.

 

It's existence was cut just as short, as he summoned the radiant lance and with a single deft spin leading into a violent thrust, impaled the beast with every ounce of force her charging form could muster. And she didn't stop the frenzy, tearing through more, and more, and more of them, roaring in her fury at their inedible states as one by one, more and more of the shades fell to her skirmishing light, their attempts to escape her wrath as vain as trying to flee a bolt from the blue...

[Code: PIRULUK]

Kagari simply strode along the path, her arms crossed before her. As she walked, the two Ten-chans mounted on her split bow fired round after precise round at the weak enemies, each shot taking out an enemy. Her perky and well-trained butt was one of the few things she could take pride in, and she wasn't going to waste it on small fry like these. It was reserved for truly threatening opponents, and these creatures seemed nowhere as dangerous as the strange tree-like ones they had previously encountered.

 

So, instead of paying attention, she allowed her cute little turrets to do the work as she tried to enjoy what little of the scenery remained.

[ElfCollaborator]

Sachi, meanwhile, does what she does best.

 

Which is to say, she slams her foot into the ground, releasing a pulse of magic drawing the attention of any nearby Heartless. As the monsters surge towards her, she places her shield up, their claws and other such appendages landing like paper balls against a brick wall on her tower shield. Her stance is firm, her form perfect; trying to knock her over would be difficult, due to her small size. As the attacks hail upon her, she retaliates in kind with powerful thrusts of her spear, driving them into heads and chests with purpose and practiced precision.

 

These creatures weren't Vertex. These creatures were nothing compared to what she had faced before.

 

And so she'd show them what a Hero could do.

[Twinwolf]

"Can't see anything! It must be further down the path!" Hikari called down to the party. 

"Hikari, focus on the fight for now." Ivory said. 

Hikari nodded, and returned her attention to the battle. She swooped past Sachi, casting a defense-boosting spell on the girl and melting a few of the black creatures in the exhaust of the wyvern-jetbike, before returning to the air to attack the air-creatures.

[DragonRage]

As Alexandria continues her push, a couple of the bird creatures get the bright idea of flanking her shield.  "Barrier dropping!" She calls out, "Cover me!"  As fire lances out from whoever was backing her up (I think Izumi and Edmond were behind the shield, but I don't want to speak for anyone's characters, so I'll keep this generic.), she turns and hammers the birds into the ground as they dive to attack.  Then, she turns back to the front and charges her plasma cannon.  The shadow creatures flinch back, not out of fear.  Fear isn't something such beings feel.

 

But the waves of scorching heat emanating from her transformed right arm evoke an instinctive response.  A high-pitched whine fills the air as her plasma reservoirs fill, and she sends a brilliant beam of white-hot power sweeping over the battlefield, charring and incinerating the small fry, to rest on one of he huge, spherical creatures.  After a few seconds of focus, the big beast slumps to the ground, the beam bursting out of its back just before she runs out of plasma and cuts it off.

 

Her right arm emitting hisses and pops as it slowly cools, Alexandria raises her barrier again and resumes her slow advance.

Edited December 12, 2016 by Zoe_Walker

[LucidRain]

Visrii caught his staff from the possessor and instantly ducked back as the giant metal lady scorched the area with discriminating menace. A lady always lives up to her size, right? He thought, watching the beast's sizzling remains. 

 

He continued to charge through the mass of black creatures, the swarming pestilence that continued to shroud the area like a plague of locusts.

The objective, he remembered from the back of his mind as he electrocuted a midget over and over, was to pierce straight through this area and destroy a 'machine' or portal.

 

He kicked the midget away and growled irritably. There was no way this swarm would end unless someone stopped to focus on the source itself.

Glancing at the flying creatures, he judged if one of them could hold a flailing humanoid on their backs. Barely, but the human would have to be quite small.

That meant not him, unfortunately. He'll have to find someone smaller, but could still take hits.

And he'll need to find some high platform to 'hijack' the birds from.

Finally, he'll need air support, someone who could defend the payload.

 

His eyes found the knight-girl, the flying lizard and Alexandria.

Ah, shit.

"Hey you!" He shouted to the figure who Heartless attempted to attack with frenzy, "Over here!"

[DragonRage]

"Eh?"  Alexandria turns to look at Visrii, ignoring the creatures clawing fruitlessly at her shield and leaving scratches in her armor.  "Are you unharmed?  Do you require assistance?"

[LucidRain]

"I'm fine, I'm fine!" He yelled impatiently, "I have a plan - just get that knight-girl's attention!" He pointed to a shield-wielding figure up ahead. She could tank enough damage, hopefully.

Get the metal lady's attention - check.

Now he needed the knight-girl's attention, and uh, the next step was sketchy.

 

Edited December 12, 2016 by AGuyPassingThrough

[S34N1C]

Theodore

 

After blasting the small monsters for a while, he turn his attention to helping out his allies. He puts on some inspiring battle music  to cheer them on. 

Edited December 12, 2016 by S34N1C

[Yours Truly]

The grey cloaked man had given up with trying to fire at the flying terrors, if the weather was any different he would be a flying, book firing incarnation of crushing death, which is why Solomon started charging through the sea of heartless, with an off white light enveloping him, as he threw punch after punch as he screamed the eternal challenge of"Death or Glory!".

[Noir]

Venus

The stage set before Venus was…unappealing. Creatures regardless of size and anatomy, winged or specter, thewy, grotesque, or small, it mattered not; they were all in their own ways ugly. Black, shadowy spectres embodying the filth of the world, fading into naught but dust once eliminated, little left behind. So gauche. And all about him his associates were eliminating them, one by one, with means perhaps as equally nasty and unlovely. 

 

But Venus was different. He was a being destined and born to make and craft things that were beautiful. And that included the demise of a living thing -- the loss of a life, important or not, Venus had right to make each beautiful. And perhaps only he could make it beautiful. 

 

“And now-“ Readying a rose-like steel sculpture from his cloak, he tossed the enchanted piece of sculpted metal as it landed a stone's throw away beneath him, ready for it to explode in a matter of seconds; an excited expression graced his exterior upon knowing how much ignorant creatures were within the weapon's vicinity. “The curtain rises.”

 

From the hem of his cloak he withdrew Whisper -- silently speaking to it as per the gun's namesake, his fingers tightened around the handle and he readied himself for attack. The instrument he held in his hand was, a product of his genius and wealth in gaining the finest materials and smiths for its construction. Precise and deadly, it was, in his time of which he was needed for more…morbid services, the paintbrush for his art, the coup de grace of his performance, with each especially crafted, bijou bullet the paint of which his art would flow. He decided to appease his attentions on the more humanoid creatures, readying Whisper as he committed to his first shot:

 

One.

 

Whisper released its first bullet, its first song; a flurry of rose petals burst into bloom as the bullet reached a first cluster of targets. In a burst of purity that was Venus’ art, the bullet’s contents turned the plain forms of the dull shadows into something radiant and exciting, like a flower blooming in the dawn. 

 

Two. Three.

 

Second and third bullet emerged from the gun, each ever as powerful and feverish as the other as they struck their targets accurately and squarely as they writhed at the bullets' influence, each bullet the songs and dances that the puppets acceded to.

 

Four.

 

This last bullet would be the finest. The feel of the magic as it surged within the bullet quivered the weapon, struggling against the containment of the casing. He wasted no time to fire it -- and immediately, the explosive flower that he had left at his location burst as the final bullet met its mark detonated, unleashing a burst of magic like a flower blooming in the dawn, the massive explosion forming a crater in the explosive's wake, carving the ground in the very pattern the metal shell was designed with. The magic of the final bullet only added further to the already stunning scene of murder as the art released itself in a seraphic glow of light, bright as the sun to Venus' eyes shielded behind his mask. Even the deafening sound of the explosions were music to his ears. 

A smile, almost direful, remained on his face. A flower, four bullets and his beloved gun were all he needed. The glittery, dusty remains of the black shades as they faded were a welcome addition to this new piece, even if it was devoid of the primary, idiosyncratic color of sanguine never absent in his magnum opus. Venus wasn’t killing people like he has hired to in his passive job as an assassin now. They were things much worse, but much more enticing.

 

A scattered display of floral petals, and the splatter of color from each bullet as they consumed and beautified their targets. One would have to have witnessed the scene from a high place to experience the beauty of the scenery before him, but Venus remained complacent. It was a new setting, and to that he had outdone himself. That, and good art did not need to be planned; it was felt. Caressing the side of his gun as if an owner grooming a pet, he gazed attentively at the painted canvas that stood before him.

 

Now that is what I want to see.

 

Edited December 12, 2016 by Noir

[Shamitako]

Katsuo

 

Katsuo accepted the rolled up drawing and placed it in one of his pockets. He would hold onto it for as long as his limited space for inventory would allow.

 

~~~

 

The enemies here were numerous, but not particularly strong looking. Still, Katsuo was itching for a fight. He detached Gwaedu from his ear and transformed. It didn't seem prudent to take out every enemy, but he could certainly maul a path through them.

"You ready girl?" He asked.

Gwaedu blinked happily.

"Alright then, let's get smashing."

He charge forward, swinging Gwaedu into one of the larger shadow creatures. It flung aside effortlessly, but a number of its smaller companions lunged at him. He grinned and spun Gwaedu around, pointing her towards the ground. His other hand pulled three cartridges from his pocket and quickly fed them into Gwaedu. The mace glowed bright scarlet and a magic triangle spread from Katsuo's feet. The closest of the shadow beings clawed at the end of his coat, but it wasn't enough to deter Katsuo from slamming the mace into the ground with both hands. The magic circle collapsed inwards and a wave of pure magical energy exploded from Katsuo in all directions, scattering wisps of shadow to the wind. An instant later he was back on his feet, charging forward and smashing into on of the spiky things. It was tougher than the shadows were, but he was still easily able to knock it off its feet, sending it tumbling away. Two of the larger shadows and a small horde of the tiny ones charged at him. He stood up straight and blinked behind them, whirling around to bludgeon them to bits. Another spiky ball thing came charging at him, he grabbed another cartridge and loaded Gwaedu again, swinging down on the creature with a powerful, magically charged, overhead swing. It crumpled inwards like a piece of paper. Katsuo ran forward again, looking for more things to break.

 

~~~

 

Gwaedu blinked at Katsuo furiously, trying to point out to him that he was running the wrong way, but he was already lost in the battle. He swung aimlessly, smashing every shadow in sight. She pulled back, but he wouldn't stop pushing. She wasn't able to stop him, she needed someone else to calm him down. Katsuo's new friend, the happy mask salesman, seemed to be busy with his own fight. She wasn't really sure if any of the others would bother to come to the rescue. Maybe the nice flower tank, but she didn't know how to call for the nice flower tank to help. Well, she could speak, but she didn't like speaking, whenever she spoke she wanted to express feelings, and she wasn't supposed to express. With no real solution, she resorted to the simplest solution. She glowed bright red, sending out a signal to everyone in sight, "HELP."

[DragonRage]

Alexandria notices Gwaendu's flare, and that Katsuo is cut off, isolated, and going in the wrong direction.  No matter how good at killing things he is, that's a death sentence.  He'll get tired eventually, and the enemy's numbers are limitless.  She gestures in his direction, and a faintly glowing, yellow cocoon of tiny hexagons wrap around him, taking the few hits that break through his guard in his place.  Text and images scroll across the hard-light projection in big, purple letters just below his line-of-sight, visible without impeding him.

 

"You're going the wrong way!", accompanied by an arrow pointing him back toward the main group and the factory's predicted location.

[ElfCollaborator]

Sachi sees the signal, still taking attacks from the shadowy beasts onto her shield. Her eyes flit about, attempting to spot the source of the signal, before tracing it down to a nearby swathe of fallen beasts, not too far away from her.

>If I don't go after him, he'll......no. Let's hurry up!<

"I'm on my way!"

With a determined- though still girlishly childish in a way- roar, the Hero puts all of her strength and weight behind her shield and charges through the crowd, Alexandria's shield simply aiding her sight as to mark her target. Against the might of her shield and the speed of her run, the shadowy creatures are forced aside, and Sachi cleaves through like a hot knife through butter. Her spear runs a few unlucky enemies through that remain standing in her way that aren't knocked aside. 

Edited December 12, 2016 by ElfCollaborator

[kj1225]

Kyle follows near the back of the others. He was only a man after all. Ofcourse that didn't do much to stop him from blasting on of the biggun flat on it's back. He follows that up by walking to the fatties face and stomping it a number of times before stepping back and continuing on mopping up stragglers and those that get behind the group. That felt good.

[Shamitako]

Katsuo

 

Katsuo was too far gone to bother reading, but he could tell that he was being granted some form of protection, which he was grateful for. Sachi charged up nearby and he spun to face her, whirling Gwaedu in her direction. An alarm went off in the back of his mind, warning him that this was an ally and causing him to hesitate. It was just enough for Gwaedu to pull herself to a halt before smashing into Sachi's shield. Katsuo snarled at the sudden lack of smashing, but it was respite enough for him to return to his senses.

"Dammit." He said as he returned to fighting again, although this time with much less zeal.

Gwaedu blinked apologetically.

"It's not your fault girl, you try your best." He told Gwaedu.

He then looked over his shoulder at Sachi, "Thanks for coming to help, I'd appreciate if you'd stick nearby just in case I lose it again."

Gwaedu blinked in agreement.

Katsuo slogged forward slowly, only attacking enemies that were a threat to his advance. He reminded himself again that he didn't need to slaughter everything, just make it to the end.

[Ragnar]

Jesse

 

Jesse snorted at the whole fiasco, it seems some of teammates are enjoying in dealing with these small fry minions and go ham in charging right in, and some seems to stray from the path they are given. The hunter couldn't care less about how many of these things are, just as long he's close in hunting down the head of this infestation and getting this over with. He is an angel after all and like most of his race, Jesse believes in seeing the bigger picture.

 

The angel smites down one the incoming heartless with the butt of his rifle like it was nothing. It went through the creature's chest and its eyes were engulf in a divine bright light, its whole body glows and violently burst out from the inside as the angel erase it from existence. Jesse sighed and continues to advanced, not letting these any monsters come near to the group.

Edited December 13, 2016 by Ragnar

[ElfCollaborator]

Luckily, Sachi's appearance belies her true toughness. She barely flinches at Katsuo's continued attack as it bounces off the top of her shield.

 

She nods, placing her shield up and standing behind Katsuo.

"Y-you're going the wrong way, b-by the way. The g-goal is behind you...."

 

[LucidRain]

Visrii saw the incident with contempt.

Ugh, everyone getting distracted because some idiot decided to be downed by these midgets.

"Hey! You, uh, Paladin! I need your help!" (OOC - He means Sachi, by the way.)

He despised calling anyone for help, but right now, situation required him to.

He fired off a lightning strike, sizzling a tanky looking Heartless next to the paladin, trying to ease off the attacks on the girl.

 

[Chevaleresse]

((As a note, Heartless don't really become corpses or anything. Once you kill one, it disappears in a burst of shadow, and Emblem Heartless release hearts that then vanish. The Twilit critters do, though.))

 

The party more or less effortlessly sweeps through the first wave of Heartless, making good progress forward. The Hellfire Knight swapped into their armored form, spraying the enemies with a withering torrent of hot plasma and bludgeoning anything that was unintelligent enough to close the gap with a weighty cannon arm, occasionally grabbing one and holding it in place while their shoulder cannons fired concentrated pain into them at point-blank range. There's no glowing or telltale arcane signatures that indicate a stable portal nearby, but the enemies still flow.

 

Well, there wasn't, anyway. 

 

An array of nail-like pillars much like the ones that had greeted them earlier drops from the sky, putting up barriers that block the paths both forward and backward. They drop from another strange portal, but this time there's only a trio. They immediately set upon the party as the Heartless trapped in the arena with them move in as well, the small ones flattening - literally - themselves occasionally to avoid damage or sneak behind one of the heroes to claw at their legs, while the larger ones of those almost dance toward them with agility, darting in for a quick, vicious slash of shadowy claws before disappearing into inky blackness and reappearing elsewhere. The spiked ones alternate between spinning like tops and tossing themselves into the air or directly at the ones attacking them, landing with concussive force.  

[kj1225]

Being in the back and thus already near the barrier Kyle wasn’t very worried. He just backed up until he was against the wall, amazingly not getting attacked, most likely due to his lack of flashiness in general. Not that he was against it. Really, seeing all these women kicking ass in close quarters was a fantasy of his come true. Only way it could be better for him is if they were dressed like ninja. That said, he wasn't nearly as successful at keeping the enemies back as he was getting into a defensive position. Despite his best efforts the bigger shades managed to hit him multiple times, mostly being stopped by his vest but on did smack him across the face, leaving some scratches that are sure to scar. And of course the ankle biters managed to get by his kicks a few times to claw at his legs. Reall,. The only ones that didn't have much luck attacking him were the toplike ones which he easily blasted away with his shotgun.

[DragonRage]

Alexandria sighs; using her plasma cannon in such close quarters would roast her allies, and hammering these things one at a time would be a very inefficient use of her time.  Instead, she angles her shield and calls out to the most vicious-looking enemies, "Hey, you!  Your father was a welding arm, and your mothers reeked of WD-40!"

[Yours Truly]

After an unnecessary amount of time Solomon had finally realized that his plan wasn't going to work; the whole atop a mountain of corpses thing works out better when your enemy leaves an actual corpse, and it was starting to get quite tiring with punching everyone and everything in his nearby area, and those little heartless has been clawing at him for a while now; possibly drawing some blood from the few scratches that made through the plot armor covering his legs; Solomon wasn't sure about that; he was still feeling quite numb after getting knocked down by one of those weird spiky spinning things.

Solomon decided to make his way towards the Metal Lady; despite some of her rather outlandish statements she seemed to be kicking arse, so to speak, and Solomon had always found that hiding behind the person with the most cybernetics is the best way to survive in any combat situation; Solomon hadn't bothered to count the amount of heartless he needed to punch to get to her, but it didn't matter; he still had enough time to say "PRIME! I require your assistance with taking down those pillars; we need to-"; Solomon was knocked down by a flying heartless before he could finish that sentence.

Edited December 14, 2016 by Cronos5010