Swallowing her own ferocious pride, Ashley pushed her way towards the edge of the fighting, her lungs burning and muscles aching. Leaning against a wall for support, she cursed herself for being so weak and cowardly especially when that Mikale dude probably seen her leave the fight, but then she smiled to herself because he now had to do all the fighting himself. Glancing down at her makeshift dagger, she placed it in her other hand while she inspected the tiny splinters that the wood had given her. Frowning at her hand, Ashley stood back up and intended to closely watch all the male students to witness what abilities they had while she caught her breath when she heard a loud, aggressive growl rapidly approaching her. As she turned, the large creature had already launched itself from the ground and had it's claws outstretched for her throat. Ashley barely managed to dodge it as it's claws skimmed her shoulder.

Wincing, she jumped away from it and crouched as she watched the cat-like slime creature as it darted back into the crowd. Ashley sat for a few seconds before realizing it's method of attacking. She quickly stood up and darted away from her spot, when the creature landed right where she was a moment before. It once again moved back into the crowd of students. Deciding this creature was going to be a problem, Ashley stood her ground and waited for it to come back. She stood in a defensive stance, her body slightly shaking from the weariness that dragged her down. She could tell her movements were already beginning to slow, but she refused to admit it.

A second later, the cat-thing parted out of the mass of students, it's jaws open and ready to kill, but unfortunately for it, Ashley was also ready. Ashley rolled to the left as it landed, she then tackled it as it tried to retreat. She had to admit the cat was fast but not fast enough, for her determination drove her to end the fight and get rid of the problem no matter how tired she was. She hoped Mikale was watching so she could prove to him that she was not to be messed with. Ashley drove the sharp wooden stick into the back of the creature's neck as it bit her arm trying to get away. It's body slowly crumpled to the ground, a soft growl escaping it's throat before going still.

Sighing, she sat down and tried to lean back, but winced while trying to put pressure on her arm. She looked over at the wounds it had given her, they were bleeding but not too badly.
"Heck," she said to herself as she stood back up. She rolled her shoulder, but she didn't care to cover the wounds up, she didn't believe they were bad enough.

Scanning the area, she realized most of the slime monsters had all disappeared and most of the students had crowded into one area. Did I miss something? She asked herself. Loud roars ripped through the cavernous room, coming from the area with all the students. Ashley took a shaky breath and started forward, once again heading into battle. Suddenly, she heard yelling not too far away saying the words "Please wake up now!" Looking indecisively between the sound and the fighting, she was unsure where to go. A minute or two passed before Ashley decided to go toward the yelling. She tiredly rushed toward the where the sound was coming from and she found that Lalisa had fallen unconscious and there were two unfamiliar people surrounding her. She noticed that the one who had dragged her away and sat her down was a guy. Scowling, she felt something climb up her leg. She glanced down and realized it was some slug slime creature.
"Nasty," she said before kicking her leg and tossing it off. Ashley then drove her attention back at the guy who was "defending" Lalisa from the slime creatures.
"What are you doing!?" She asked the guy aggressively as she continued to try and fight off the slime creatures although she felt like she was going to collapse. "She doesn't need a guy defending her," Ashley said, barely noticing the other person that was near Lalisa too.

Lalisa is floating.

Everything is white, white and blue and lavender, unlike the black and brown halls of the Academy, and Lalisa thinks, oh, I must be dreaming. The floating in her limbs, the light-headedness, the blank, white space of nothingness... all lend to the easy conclusion that she is dreaming. She is, of course. After using up her magic reserves so quickly, her body had shut down, causing her legs to give out and rendering her swiftly unconscious. It was a severe oversight, that of using so much energy--and for such a stupid reason! Not something she'd like to repeat.

Especially since she was trying to show off. Oh, Grandmama. I'm so sorry. I forgot my manners again. She must remember to apologize to Feine, and thank him for his assistance. She can't be prejudiced against somebody so quickly. It's not right, and besides, they're going to spend a lot of time together. She mustn't judge, even if Feine is a bit of a snob.

She is still floating, however, and as is the way of dreams, things begin to happen. Firstly, her childhood home comes into view--a little gingerbread cottage, complete with chocolate shutters and gumdrop shingles. This was Grandmama's finest creation, of course. As a baking witch, she worked for many years in a small bakery, but those days were over by the time Lalisa came. Now, all she has are old recipes, passed on from grandmother to granddaughter dutifully. And Lalisa has tried her best...

Onto another dream--Mother's face. Lalisa remembers only scant details of her parents, but this memory was one of them. A figure, with the same dirty-blonde hair that Lalisa sports, smiling and singing her to sleep. She was so young then. So young to be an orphan.

So young, murmur the Fae. So young to be cursed. So young and so vulnerable.

Fate can be cruel, her mother had said, whispering for fear of somebody listening, besides the dying fire. The curtains were always closed. Fate can be cruel. Her head hurts. Like a heavy weight, a headache suddenly springing to life, and at the same time Lalisa sees colors. She opens her eyes, and light floods in, noise and light and chaos. No more dreaming; back to life again. The haze of colors ceases, and Lalisa sees blurry shapes--Ashley, a hooded figure, another? The light hurts, insistent on drilling into Lalisa's eyeballs, and she closes them again. Her headache persists. Somebody is talking. The back of her neck burns, right where her birthmark is placed, and she gasps.

"Mother!"

Something is wrong. Something is very, very wrong. Where are the Spirits? Where is Grandmama? Is she still dreaming, for there should not be this much black around her. How long did she sleep, fainted and useless? The questions continue, but Lalisa has other plans. She needs to help; that is what a good girl does. Her eyes burn but Lalisa forces them open, and she sees the Spirits, swarming like so many bugs around her. So many of them! She was asleep, a deadweight, and yet... people decided to help her? She must thank them, too; so many things to do! Her birthmark hums appreciatively; everything is warm warm warm and

--green.

To Lalisa's horror, the skin on her left hand begins to crack, splitting open from the palm to reveal not blood or bone, but thousands of flowers. They spill onto the floor, taking root, and vines growing outward from her fingertips--like her magic, and yet not hers at all. Her birthmark burns, and vines wrap around her neck. Her fingers twitch, and green grass grows up to touch them. The plants sing, even as the pain her hand grows, the cut stretching wider, this must be a dream--is it?

Is this Lalisa's power? No, it is only what has been ordained, what dear grandmother has tried to conceal, for magic can kill and the Fae always have the last laugh. And the Fae were tricked, and the Fae will have revenge.

The plants whisper to her, and Lalisa screams and awakes.

@QueenNugget@Canidae@Metamore@pandapolio

In mere seconds, a figure whooshed past Fillan, it was the same guy he'd seen earlier and he was making a mad dash towards Lalisa and the stranger. Fillan pressed his back up against the cold brick wall, his expression nervous and head swarming like the leeches with thoughts. The guy with jet black hair exchanged words with the stranger, Fillan could see his lips moving but it was all oddly deaf to him. The guy grabbed Lalisa from the crumpling stranger and moved over to the side. He set her down and began to furiously work on pulling the leeches off of her. I should go over there. What am I even doing? Even though he wanted to feel brave and run over there, the best he could do was shuffle his feet a few inches closer. I can't just stand here and watch people die... He prodded himself to move a little closer.

Then he stopped dead in his tracks.

The guy looked straight at him. Fillan felt like being spotted creeping down the hall looked at least somewhat suspicious and he had the burning urge to become invisible. In one instant, he wished he was back at his old desk with his math textbooks and stacks of math packets. He shook it off, No, I need to stay here, in the present. The guy had asked me to come over and help, that's all. He stepped away from the brick wall and hurried over towards Lalisa. The guy was ripping the leeches off of her. Fillan followed suit, trying his best not to look uncomfortable grabbing grubs. He almost forgot about the stranger until he heard a small noise. He tossed his head and looked over his shoulder at the stranger, his teal eyes a little puzzled as they searched the person. They had horns, which he noticed just now. Who are they? Maybe I should talk to this person at some point.
Further off, but quickly closing the gap, he saw someone hustling down the hall. She had a fierce expression on her face. What's her name again? Ashley? Ashley hurled towards the group at top speed. Fillan shot his gaze back down at Lalisa and tried to focus on these leeches. Kludd said something about staying away from her for some reason...but why?
"What are you doing!? She doesn't need a guy defending her!"
Ashley thundered, but also sounded a little ragged as she spoke. Fillan cowered a little closer to the floor, hoping to escape by unnoticed as he continued to pull the leeches. Maybe that's why...

Almost as soon as Ashley said something, Lalisa's eyes flickered open and then she started screaming. He was startled by the sudden cry and leaped backwards, his face mixed with fear and worry.

Searching Lalisa's mind for an escape, Seren's mind began to blot. When that unmistakable sensation took hold of them, it was not a simmering tingle, but a searing growth. Sprouting from Lalisa, taking root in Seren's chest, and twining around their bones. Suffocating the off and shaping Seren's spine straight. Rather than dilating, it was as if their pupils began to wither and float away like crushed leaves in the wind.
Somehow the scent of stale gingerbread wafted to their sense of smell; somewhere an inner voice decried their slowing pace; and someone's sprinted steps skidded to catch up to the two. The two. Recalling they were even with someone pulled Seren up the precipice, but they were not on solid footing yet. There was something very wrong about this dream, which was more a quagmire of memory muddled with an influence Seren couldn't quite place, but knew they felt before. Either way it left their body on auto-pilot, while the autonomy of their mind was entranced by delving deeper into Lalisa's dream. A growing number of leches still sapped Seren's spirit underneath their baggy clothing, so the danger and flight impulse stayed strong, but only as sustaining as candle fire.

Seren didn't struggle or assist much as the teleporter took Lalisa from their back. Even with the growing distance between the two, the connection was not severed, but the boy's appearance shook a little clarity into them. Seren brought up a hand to scrub their face, and didn't take note of the tint budding from the center of their palm, or the slug inching its way up Seren's sleeve. Off mixed with the overgrowth of influence.

It wasn't directed at them, yet still the exclamation resounded off their skull until it's echoes blurred; singing frequencies soared into a scream.

Seren smacked their left hand to their ear. 'No!' Something was flickering Seren and Lalisa's bond, and through the gaps Seren's wisdom seeped through. They flattened their hands at their sides, reverting back to the forced passivity of younger days spent covering up hellish nightmares and Seren's walking into dreams of horrors they could not comprehend. Pathetically faint they muttered, "that wasn't real." Seren could feel a set of eyes on them, but they couldn't force themselves to do anything but stare. Even then, they exhaustedly blinked ahead. It was all they could do to just restrain from giving into the wrong, and submitting to the dream. However a moment of peace and focus was not to be had, and their broken concentration invited splashes of off that numbed where the leeches suctioned to.

Seren wobbled. The blots in their mind widened, and stretched their stamina paper thin.
Seren hollowed. Warmth spread like flames licking logs. Their vision dotted. It wasn't black. Whispered songs. Splitting skin. Their hand. Their sight wasn't black. A scream. Seren collapsed.

@OliveYou
@pandapolio
@Canidae
@QueenNugget

As the students begin to attack in groups of twos and threes, the shadow beast roars again, sending a shockwave throughout the hall and knocking down the students unlucky enough to not withstand the blast. In the back, the spellmakers start to summon restraints, lashing out and pinning the bear to the ground, bit by bit. Anyone close to the bear would feel the negative energy radiating off in waves, as is usual for a Spirit, and the sharpest may feel the shadows beginning to probe at their minds, looking for a way in. Once it finds the weakest point, it attacks more thoroughly, but in the this moment, the bear is occupied with more pressing matters. For now, the darkness only saps away at the frontline's energy, though the spells cast impede this ability somewhat.

The pairs split off, attacking from the back and the sides, to trap the bear in the middle of the hall. The Spirit lashes out, hurting anyone unprepared for such an attack. A few students fall. Others take their places. Miss Headmaster calls out to the crowd--

"Do not engage alone! Defend, attack, remember your training! New arrivals, stay back!"

--and the bear roars. Although the Spirit is rapidly reaching "death", it fights hard, swinging its huge claws and summoning small shadows to aid it. The students, however, are well trained for this type of battle. The fight will be over in just a minute or two, at most, but right now, the great hall is in chaos. In the back of the hall, Lalisa stirs.

Now not fully asleep, she blinks once. Twice. Her head hurts immensely, but she's alive. A slug crawls up her leg, and she slaps it off. Where is she? Disoriented, but quickly gaining consciousness. Taking in the scene in front of her, she sighs.

"I messed up," she says, sleepily. "Sorry. Grandmama." Rubbing her eyes, Lalisa tries her best to summon up her magic, but her body protests and she doesn't feel like burning herself up, so she tries to breathe instead. The people around her--so many!--are fighting hard, and for a moment she wants to thank them, but something else catches her eye.

A tin. A tin of cookies... her cookies. On the ground, spilling out.

Now, Lalisa's not offended. Rather, she's simply hungry--so she reaches out, grasping for the edge of a cookie. It's a strange thing to do in the middle of a battle, yes, but what else can she do? Maybe eating and replenishing her strength is the best idea in the such a situation.

She sounds like Feine. Speaking of which, where is he...? Did he just leave her? How rude of him. Lalisa catches ahold of the cookie tin.

"Does anyone want a cookie?" she says, while five slug-spirits crawl towards her and a large and dangerous enemy rages in the background. It's never too late for a cup of tea, Grandmama would say. No time like the present...

@ReveTheDreamer@QueenNugget@AGenericUser@Insert Alias@Metamore (so, like... shockwaves area-of-effect, powerful single attack, high health/low speed? where is my video game generator)

What... why am I...?

The pain Raph was experiencing sent shocks up to his brain, making his next movements clumsy. His head was pounding, reeling so that his vision was beginning to blur into an indistinct haze of color and battle. He swayed slightly, stumbling to keep his footing as his weakened head tilted to stare at his bleeding arm. The blood seeping out of the large gash and dripping onto the ground was such a beautiful crimson color, wasn’t it? With emerald leaves and beautiful petals breaking through as well, the new blossoming buds seeming to push the gash open wider. Raphael just stared, blankly, everything moving in slow motion like someone had slowed down the world. The edges of his sight began to dim, as small voices echoed in his head, giggling and scratching.

Get... get out of my head! He shouted silently at the little shadows, who merely cooed in response. The internal conflict was not reflected in his blank and dead expression besides a twitch in his eyebrows, gaze still fixated on the beautiful red blood.

Deafly, as if through a bad microphone and hidden under static ringing, Raphael picked up the roar of the beast. Im supposed to be fighting. I can’t stand back, I can’t, I can’t... But his own thoughts were buried under the wicked shadows mumbling in his head, the madness creeping over. Creatures of the light were sensitive enough to these things, but they gain a certain kind of advantage when the sanity of the person is barely hanging on.

Raph outstretched his good hand, it numb to his body and attempted to force another manifestation of light, only receiving weak flickers. His face took on a confused and almost frightened expression, it clearly cut off by a giant shadowy paw slamming into his side and hitting him against the wall under a window.

The fae boy collapsed, eyes blurring and darkening. I can’t... just rest. Frustration filled him at his weakness, closing his golden eyes finally as his body lay under the stream of sunlight pouring in through the glass.

”If anything just remember... the sun is your strength.”

Suddenly, the blonde boy had found away onto the beast’s back, eyes ablaze with the kind of fire they always held, but this one was fiercer and deadlier. Raph had almost taken on a whole different personality, a burst of adrenaline that was unheard of for a mere human. He was muttering something vaguely, glaring down at the beast as if they were the only two on a stranded battlefield. In his offhand, a gigantic sword of light formed slowly, larger and much sharper than previously seen by the boy. It was hard to say this was even Raphael anymore at this point, as he brought the blade down in a clean sweep. Off came the bear’s arm, it howling in pain as Raph dismounted, eyes harsh and cold, that of a hardened soldier who’s been through many a wars. This definitely wasn’t the same Raph from earlier.

The gigantic arm came down with a thud on the ground, accompanied by splatters of the ink like blood and screeches of agony from the bear monster. Raph stared blankly, lips tightened into an aggressive downturn of the corners of his mouth. He took a step forward, as if readying another attack, but suddenly fell forward face first onto the ground— fast asleep. Some of the younger students dragged him off quickly away from the front lines, the muscles in his face loosening into the gentle expression of resting. The strange outburst was certainly unusual and almost frightening, but it had contributed a great amount to fully taking down the monster. It really does make some wonder, though, where that unusual power came from such a small young boy...

@OliveYou

Feine had found himself sprinting into the heat of battle, determined to slice up shadows... but he couldn't help but pause. Other people were fighting the enormous shadow that took the form of a bear, so this left him with the chance to witness the events going on by him. They were fleeting moments that would never happen again, so it was important to capture said fleeting moments and bind them down into the depths of memory. Only then, would Feine be able to vanquish the bear shadow. He thought it'd be an easy task for him, so he could afford to wait while the other students attempt to defeat the creature.

Who knows if they would succeed? It wasn't Feine's problem, that was for sure. As Feine reached into his pockets to retrieve his notebook and pen, though... he couldn't help but notice something repulsive. It was nothing more than vermin, a leech of some sort, and it was heading slowly towards Feine.

"You disgusting cretin!" Feine growled, as he motioned downwards with his hand - causing a powerful gust of wind to press the leech against the ground. "I can't blame you for seeking my blood - I am Feine Rhiter, after all. However, I despise leeches! Mere creatures that rely on others. By themselves? They're completely helpless! ... Just like you are now."

With an almost sadistic grin, Feine looked upon the leech struggling against the winds he'd summoned.

"I hope you feel pain, because I intend to crush the life out of you. But, please, don't make it take too long." Feine calmly uttered, taking a step over to the leech... before bringing his foot down on it with force amplified due to the winds. "You bored me! Rot in your shadow world or whatever. I don't particularly care. Now, where was I...?"

It was at that moment that Feine noticed something happening with the enormous bear shadow from earlier, though. It hadn't been hassling Feine, thankfully. It seemed to know its place, at the very least. Now, more notably, was the blonde student fighting the bear. Feine knew he'd seen this student before, but what he hadn't seen was the student form an enormous sword of light, and cut off one of the bear's arms. It was almost impressive, and most definitely interesting to Feine. His colleagues weren't pushovers, but they certainly weren't up to Feine's level of expertise... at least, that's what he thought. But after the boy's nearly-impressive acts, he... fell asleep, and was promptly dragged away. It was certainly strange to see a meek looking boy suddenly 'go wild' so to speak. It was like a whole different person than Feine imagined.

"All tuckered out from your big day, are you? Then I'll take over if you're just going to go for a nap." Feine quietly muttered to himself, not wanting to be upstaged by the blonde boy.

But after watching the blonde boy summon his sword out of light... something came to Feine. He needed his spear - where was it? He couldn't recall if he could form it out of wind, but it seemed doubtful... wind wasn't solid. Magic could do all sorts of things, but could it do that?

'I'd be a fool to get my hopes up. So, instead...' Feine pondered.

Off in the corner of his eye, Feine noticed an unremarkable student, who fit the 'Generic Guy' trope to a T. But something drew Feine to this person... it was the fact they were simply leaning against the wall, with a spear in hand.

"I advise you stop drooling like a troglodyte, and hand me that spear!" Feine ordered with a biting, almost venomous tone. "You're clearly not making much use of it, are you, neanderthal?"

With a whimper, the unremarkable student handed Feine the spear, which he immediately readied - and with it, he immediately lobbed it straight towards the enormous shadow bear - wind propelling it forwards...

And by a stroke of luck, it struck the bear's back leg, where it got stuck! "That marks your demise, beast. I'll give you a few seconds more to live, so make your peace with the Gods above. Maybe they'll laugh at you. If they are... don't worry. I'm laughing on the inside at you, too."