[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/5r7OTIh.png[/img] [b][color=Aquamarine]wordcount:[/color][/b] 1,404 (+3) [b][color=Aquamarine]Midna: level 9[/color][/b] EXP: [color=Aquamarine]///////////////////////////////[/color]/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// (31/110) [b][color=Aquamarine]Location:[/color][/b] The City of Glass [color=Aquamarine]Warp Charges:[/color] 1 [hider=warp locations] Virgin Victory teleport room Top of the Split mountain Outside the Convent of Our Lady of the Charred Visage Tostarena Town S.O.U. Building Seiran Clinic Underground Roadway (Seiran Rebel Base Outskirts) Below City of glass entrance (plate maintenance tunnel) Vandelay Campus (Alleyway) [/hider] [/center] As it turned out, yes, holding hands was what they did, and so the princess proceeded to fully offer her hand to Sakura as if she was inviting her to dance at a royal ball, despite the urgency involved in needing to flee the giant machine that had just crashed the party. Once it was taken, they were off, waltzing across the city in a series of teleporting leaps. In doing so they excited the fantastical futuristic city found near the heart of the city and entered a region near the outskirts that was far more mundane. Well, mundane for those who were familiar with the modern world at any rate. To Midna it was still new and interesting architecture, just of a different flavor. More somber, less garish. She felt like she might have liked it if she hadn’t found out it had been used for some sort of vile practices, and they really must have been vile indeed considering some of what the city authorities thought was ok. [color=Aquamarine]”Or I suspect they might have not closed it at all, and simply claimed they did. It seems like a stupid decision to start using it again for new terrible things. Hmm, or very smart cover due to how obvious it is”[/color] the princess mused, before shrugging [color=Aquamarine]”we’ll just have to demolish it to be sure it can’t be used a third time. After we get everyone out. Dark deeds tend to linger so it’d be best to get rid of the place if we can”[/color] Speaking of dark deeds, the princess could not stop herself from commenting on the theories on where OSF got more psychics from, despite the fact that she should really have left it to Sakura on if she would elaborate or not, by adding that [color=Aquamarine]”the psyfish part certainly was, at least according to the psyfish themselves”[/color] and then leaving them to do with that information what they would. After that she stepped back to let the psychics do their thing, but made sure to take note of all the abilities whichever one of them she was going to go with would have access too. As it turned out she ended up heading out with Gemma, mostly because she happened to be standing near him when they were sorting out teams. He ended up leading them into a lovely combination of hospital ward and prison, or at least that was how she interpreted the presence of the metal gates. Kept prisoner within where no people, but rather collections of manikins in various states of disassembly. [color=Aquamarine]”Creepy”[/color] she commented, before jokingly telling Hemma [color=Aquamarine]”You’ve really brought us to the nicest place for our first time together, didn’t you”[/color] Midna was slightly concerned that the collection of manikins might hide among their mist some of the Other, like the Rummy type ones who were rather manikins-ish already, but that fear turned out to be misguided. It was the manikins themselves that were to be feared. It started with the flickering of the lights when they were powering up a gate, a hint of movement that could have just been a trick of the light, and then a full blown attack when the fuse blew and they were plunged into darkness. Ironically, it was the last gasp of the light that made it hard for Midna to see rather than the dark itself, the flash from the blown fuse momentarily blinding her. Meanwhile, when she turned to face the noise of several approaching somethings from behind them, and her vision returned, the darkness was clearer to the princess of twilight than if it was a brightly lit space. What she saw was a headless manikin lunging for her, already past practical summoning or shadowhand range. She momentarily wished she had been carrying a weapon in preparation for an ambush, but even as she had that though she felt a thread of connection to her blades she hadn’t before. She always knew roughly where they were in her otherworldly collection of course, but now it seemed clearer, as if she could reach out and touch them. So she did, the princess reaching down to her side, clasping two left hands around the hilt of her longsword, and in one swift motion drew it into the world of light. In a soft flash of moonlight she drew the blade from a portal as if it was a scabbard, cleaving the blade into the side of the manikin, sending it stumbling to the side. She flashed a grin behind her mask, and prepared to line up a strike on the next of her foes, only to see out of the corner of her eye the one she had struck was entirely unharmed, not a dent in its clothy gown or wooden looking body. She only had a moment to process that before she had to deal with the next, backing up a step and bringing her blade down, before swiftly drawing one of Zanzo’s cleavers as she had the long sword to strike a third. The heavy blow smacked it away, but again, no harm was done. A fourth foe was struck by a third drawn blade, but now that they were out, the 2 cumbersome cleavers proved as unwieldy as she had expected. She took another step back as she clumsily bashed a fifth manikin aside, before having an idea. She lightly tossed the two cleavers to the ground as she guarded with the longsword, letting them fall into portals. Then she took another step back, and proceeded to quickly draw the cleavers again, bashing two manikins away. Drop, step back, draw, strike, another step back- and she suddenly found herself bumping into the wall, and having made no noticeable dent in her foes. It took that bump to knock her out of the rhythm she had gotten herself into, one free of thought and focused in action, and to really take in the futility of what she had been doing, but by then it was too late. The princess was swarmed by the monsters, who reached past the blades that she tried to cut them with and grasped her arms. They pulled her forwards as more hands reached out, crushing grips grabbing her chest and neck, trying to crush the life out of her. She gasped, robbed of air, before dropping her weapons all at once, and then dissolved, slipping through their fingers. A moment later she reappeared on the opposite end of the darkness cloaked room, having faded into shadows and then hopped from where the horde was upon her to another spot. Momentarily losing their quarry did little to phase the manikins, though what did was an odd disunity that proceeded to occur. The ones the princess had struck with the crescent moon blade drawing strikes moved to cross the room to reach her specifically, while the others went for the closest hero, causing a small traffic problem in the process and at least one manakin stumbling over another and tripping to the floor in the process. [color=Aquamarine]”Interesting”[/color] she commented between heavy breaths as she observed this, her mind switching gears from what kind of firepower she could bring out to hurt these things, to something more immediately and observably useful that she could do. With a wave of a hand she summoned the stocky shield bearing exosuit roadblock whom she had turned into a striker, and commanded him to [color=Aquamarine]”Get their attention for me”[/color] The suit obliged, challengingly beating its shield with a fist, which caused a half dozen or so heads to snap in its direction. While her striker taunted their foes, the princess stepped forwards to strike another manikin with an attention drawing slash, having deliberately dropped her blades into portals before hopping away, adding another member to her growing crowd of manikins who wanted to get their hands on specifically her. That became the core of her strategy going forwards, the princess taunting the unkillable foes, and then using her ability to shadow hop about the dark environment to lead them in a merry game of cat and mouse which they were unable to win, thereby keeping them off of the others. Her hope, then, was that they would be able to find some way to win or move forwards while she acted as bait, drawing as many of the foes away from them as she could.