[center][abbr=Primrose][img]https://i.imgur.com/zqHOn9T.png[/img][/abbr]
[color=D34C25]Word Count: 532 (+1 expx2)
[u]Level[/u]: [b]11[/b] - [u]Total EXP[/u]: 227/110 
[b]Location[/b]: Inside the Qliphoth, The Dead Zone[/color]
[color=gray]𝙱𝙿[/color] [color=gold]●●[/color]●[color=gray]●●[/color][/center]
Primrose had dismounted the wolfos as soon as it brought he close to the Guardian. The creature returned to Midna, and the dancer followed up their combination attack with individual spells of her own. Darkness was most familiar to her, and she relied on that even as sparks of flame burst against the Gravemind with every spell she cast. She joined in with lighting it up, pumping magic into her finger tips and conjuring swirling shadows, and glittering moons. 

The Gravemind's response was one that Primrose would describe as throwing a tantrum. Still, that suited a monster whose fate was death just fine. As it sloughed more creatures from its body, and changed its shape to repel its attackers, Primrose backed off. She had to be smart about her mana reserves if she was going to be fighting for the long haul.

Daringly, she chanced another performance of Sealticge's Seduction. The Guardian saw through her before she was even half way done, raising a tentacle and cracking it down like a whip towards her. Primrose's eyes widened - she quickly began to cast a spell even as she abandoned the dance and attempted to get out of the way. She avoided a direct hit, and was spared from a more substantial sideswipe due to her Baldur Shell. The tentacle had smashed through it though, shattering the last protective ward she had. She could no longer rely on its protection for the remainder of the foreseeable future. 

Undaunted Primrose completed casting her hasty spell, unleashing a multitude of magic moons that erupted in flashes of light and fire against the horde and their master. 

[i]Alright then,[/i] she thought to herself. Even if her Seduction was too elaborate to perform while the Gravemind was wise to it, she still had other dances up her proverbial sleeve.

Primrose wove her dances in between casts of her wide range Night Ode, encircling the minions the Gravemind summoned in volatile darkness. For her fellow dancer Grimm, the Peacock Strut, making his own magic even stronger. For her regular dance partner Zenkichi, the Panther Dance, speeding the man up so that his continued destruction of the Flood was even swifter. For her most recent partner Midna, the Mole Dance, to help the reckless woman take less damage than she dealt.

After the most recent round of masking her dances within her spellcasting, Primrose paused to catch her breath. She was burning through mana quickly like this, and opening herself up to stray monsters she or Zenkichi weren't able to put down fast enough, but so long as it worked. 

When one of the Consuls managed to bring down Sectonia, Primrose turned her glare on O's floating eyes. She'd seen the cats and heard the Ace Cadet's call out, so at the very least the queen bee was still alive, but that news did nothing to quell the frustration she was beginning to feel. She took it out on the Gravemind, knowing that was where she could contribute the most. Energy encircled her body, her aura flaring white as she Boosted her next spell. She empowered her Moonlight Waltz, a pillar of purest darkness crashing into the Guardian from below.

[indent][/indent]

[center][abbr=Ace Cadet][img]https://fontmeme.com/permalink/190924/544c85ab5c75bc61a4bb5ce40dc0caa6.png[/img][/abbr]
[color=salmon]Word Count: 857 (+2 exp x2)[/color]
[color=salmon][u]Level[/u]: [b]9[/b] - [u]Total EXP[/u]: 293/90
[b]Location:[/b] Inside the Qliphoth, The Dead Zone[/color][/center]
With his hunter art Devouring Demon active, the Cadet's attack power was much increased from his already high baseline. Each cut he made with his sword was wide, deep, and expertly delivered. Though massive, the Gravemind's body was soft and fleshy compared to the hard scaled monsters Ace's technique was used for, and so he cleaved into it fairly easily when he had his openings.

The trade off for the power boost was that his vitality was constantly draining. He could regain it so long as he kept his combos up, but it was getting harder to as the Gravemind flailed and spawned more horrors, and his allies' magic ramped up. Every time its body morphed and spit at him, clawed at him, bit at him, or struck out at him it undid the health he restored, meaning that he was headed for a net loss. The hunter knew his limits though, and he kept track of how his body was holding up as he continued to fight. 

After splitting into groups the Seekers were holding their own well all things considered, but each of their opponents was powerful and deadly; eventually something had to give. 

When the first of the Seekers fell and a pair of furry felynes burrowed their way up from beneath the hollow, throwing the queen of Floralia onto a makeshift cart and hurrying her away from danger before disappearing, Ace knew better than any of them what that meant. 

[color=salmon]"That's one! We get three!"[/color] He shouted out, making sure that the group's morale wouldn't suffer if they thought that Sectonia had been kidnapped, or that she'd died if they hadn't seen the palicos. Hopefully they wouldn't need to use all three of those carts, but the longer things dragged on the more intense they would get.

The Cadet focused most of his offense on assisting with the severing of the Guardian's remaining arms. Cutting through them would take work and coordination for those of them that didn't have a big finisher to pull out, and with the less arms it had or more time it took to regenerate them, the better off they'd all be. While the Gravemind's body burned, Grimm struck out at the monster's head, and Zenkichi and Primrose kept most of the floodfested away, Ace fought beside Edelgard and -when she wasn't airborne- Midna, sucking up his discomfort with their spells so that they had the best chance to cut through the tentacles together. 

Though he wasn't near the group doing battle with A, his ears picked up the all too familiar yowling of more palicos as they scooped up another fallen friend. [i]That's two.[/i] 

One of the Gravemind's tentacles came slamming down towards him, sending Ace backward as he back-stepped with a wide flick of his blade across the Gravemind's skin. When the arm hit the ground he held his own, bracing himself through the shock wave and driving forward with a thrust. He connected, and he prepared for a jumping strike as the tentacle rose back up to keep up the pressure, but to his surprise it didn't lift. 

The Guardian was not a mindless beast. It shifted and rolled its arm, slamming into Ace laterally. It kept moving its limb until the hunter was trapped, pressed hard between it and the Gravemind's trunk. Only barely managing not to have the wind knocked out of him, Ace grit his teeth and attempted to maneuver his sword in front of him to cut himself free. It was much easier said than done, especially when the master of the Flood's body shifted, and suddenly he was surrounded on all sides by mouths with hooked fangs. 

As the teeth bit into him, piercing and crushing both, Ace let his hunter art go with a harsh exhale. Like the flick of a switch in his head he dropped out of the Devouring Demon state. He'd put good damage in with it, but he hadn't been able to keep up with healing himself - and now he was being eaten alive. The canon's on Ace's rigging began to fire where they were stuck, and he forced the metal extensions to shift so that their blades would cut. He pressed one arm against the Gravemind's tentacle and with pure force made a small gap, enough to get his sword in a better position. He ripped himself free from the predicament with a fast spiral slash from the longsword and his bladed rigging, literally, as teeth were torn out of the Gravemind's body as their sharp parts were still embedded in the hunter's armor.

Ace grabbed at the fangs that were attached to him and yanked them out with small sprays of blood. Ah, yeah, he did seem to be bleeding a lot now. He could have healed himself, taken the time to pause and drink a potion or throw another lifepowder, but outside sources of healing began to filter in as people abandoned the battle with O. If he entrusted his health to his teammates, he could finish the job and get another tentacle separated from the Guardian's body. 

And he did trust them.