[IC] A Hero Tale {Complete}

[SuperFlash]

A horrified expression overtook the wind sage for a moment as he stared and watched Jenso's one with nature power get stolen from him and absorbed into Dacer. He had half expected this to cause him to mutate into some weird bird cat human hybrid, but thankfully that didn't seem to be the case, at least just yet. Overall now he was worried about Jenso and immediately wanted to get over to him to try and feed or inject a power pill into him, but he doubted that Dacer would give him the chance. Instead he turned his focus to Dacer and prepared to challenge him head on knowing that he'd need to find an opening to heal Jenso first before even trying to attempt it.

"Psssssh" Jeff spat at Dacer as stood there watching as he mocked him and his powers and tech. "Sure I got more tricks! Are they worth using on you? I dunno, guess we'll find out!"

As Oz showed up Jeff's eyes widened in surprised as he half expected him to be fighting Ada still, but then took note that most of the blobs had ceased fire for the time being. Jeff started to make a comment on it but stopped and blurted out in laughter upon the Fist of Krato's mentioning of Dacer being a furry. "HA! I was thinking that almost the entire time, but I was trying reeeeally hard not to say anything. And I mean REALLY!"

After laughing for a couple more moments the sage calmed himself back down and readied for Dacer to try his next move.

[tex]

Dacer crossed his arms. "Furry..? Is it because I'm covered in fur?" He pondered briefly, "Come on, Jeff. Face the music. Jenso's down for the count, your muscle-bound-bad-ass over here looks like he just took a trip through the meat grinder, and you? Well, come on, you're you." Both of the cat-man's hands lowered into his pockets. "The gap between us hasn't changed since that tree almost crushed you... Or did it almost crush the villagers? Hell," He shrugged, "I don't rightly remember! Maybe I'll ask Ra... Raj.. A..K...k-k-ka.." Dacer's speech began to stutter, and his voice shrunk to a slur. He backed away. "What. The Hell." Dacer grasped his head with both hands and closed his eyes. "What. The Hell."

^{"Your Ki's running a bit low there, 'lil Dace."}

Dacer staggered back as if he'd just been punched in the gut.

^{"You are aware that there's a hole in your chest. Right, sport?"}

"What. THE HELL."

[Necrophage]

"What I meant to say was.. Aah never mind it doesn't even matter." Oz tried to correct himself. He stood up with some effort, trying to shake off the disorientation. His eyes finally caught Jenso in his trapped state of paralysis. That was no good. That should be fixed. Oz put up his shield around himself and started stumbling toward the downed Jenso.

[Jensoman]

Jenso heard Oz approach and glanced briefly over at him before staring back at the sky. He began to channel energy into the ground through his back, as he felt some of the electricity leave his body. His entire body was hurting, but he wasn't going to stay there without assisting his friends.

[SuperFlash]

The sage stared blankly as he tried to bring up more insults to faze him. To be frank, it might have worked if it wasn't for the stuttering and freaking out that took place around the end of it all.

"Well, if it isn't obvious...?" The sage grinned "You are not looking too great yourself. I did manage to stab that nice hole in your chest after all."

The sage began to slowly approach Dacer overcharging the wind cannon in his right gauntlet while pointing his sword blade from his left gauntlet towards him. "It's as I suspected, your one with nature form indeed has a limit, just as Jenso's did. And it looks like your about at it!"

The sage couldn't help but feel there was a tad more to it then that as well, perhaps something to do with Pij being suddenly stolen away and Dacer not being able to handle it. Either way, there was an opening and Jeff wasn't gonna let it slip by without at least trying something. Turning into a full speed dash towards Dacer, Jeff charged forward aiming his left gauntlet out and firing out a cannonball sized blast that aimed to straight up nail Dacer in the gut with the power of a train. He then followed up with the blade equipped to his left hand and launched wind scythes at his left and right sides along with one above him, attempting to cut off any means of escape.

"Oz might look like blender meat right now, but I'm sure that's only cause he took down Ada, leaving you as the last thing in our way to getting in the tower! So do us a favor and quit now, before I get serious!"

"ULTIMATE WIND CANNON!!!"

[tex]

The Gaian's head snapped up, and sliced through Jeff's oncoming attacks with a series of wild slices. One cut through the oncoming cannon attack, several, more hectic, matched the oncoming scythes and disabled them.

^{"Whoa, nice moves. You're makin' me proud, kiddo."}

"SHUT THE FUCK UP!" Dacer screamed, reeling his right hand back, behind his head.

^{"You're near your limit."}

"You don't know shit about limits!" As Jeff fired his attack, Dacer rose his other hand backwards too, before swiping the two claws down in a forward arc. A giant white blade of ultra-refined Ki cutforwards, diving Jeff's attack down the middle, and heading straight for him with a great deal of force.

^{"This isn't you."}

"I'm better than you would have ever been!"

[SuperFlash]

It would be entirely wrong to say that Jeff didn't halfway expect the attacks to be outright countered. Despite the ultimate wind cannon's name, the attack never really was good at doing much, but being blocked by an even more intense attack. The second the attack showed signs of being ripped in two, the wind sage boosted himself over to the left going into a roll before jumping out of it and forming a cluster of 8 small wind spheres, about the size of tennis balls and firing them at Dacer like bullets from his changed angle. While these were not nearly as fast as the wind cannon sniper shots, they still could travel faster then Jeff at his max speed.

"Seems like you're losing it Dacer!" The sage responded with another attack at the feline's pride and cockiness. "Is Jenso's One with Nature too much for you to handle?!?"

[Necrophage]

Oz managed his way to to the barrier. It was some pinkish kind of energy. Unusual for the kind of fighter Dacer seemed to be. He must really have a broad array of skills. This barrier needed to be pierced.

With a shielded hand Oz poked at it. Dacer's barrier reacted with a flash of energy, batting his hand back with sparks. Oz took a deep breath. "I make walls and I break them." He chanted. Dacer was distracted by Jeff so this was a good chance to go in. He pulled back his arm and formed his hand to a spear-point. Lacing his hand in veil, he plunged it into the barrier. It fought at his advances but he just pressed harder. A ring of veil started to form, spreading out from his insertion point, forcing the hole in the barrier wider and giving him a space to work with.

It was a bad idea to go in there with the constant lightning. Even from the edge he could feel the static. Poor Jenso was stuck in it. Oz caused the direction of gravity to change and Jenso started to slide toward the opening until he was within reach. Oz grabbed him by the foot and pulled him all the way free before crouching down with him and erecting a barrier around them.

The Golden Hero was worse for wear so Oz helped him out by fishing for the pill pouch and pulling one out for him to use. He propped the hero's arm up and placed a pill in his hand. "You're not done yet. Get up! Let's face him together."

[tex]

Dacer pulled at his ears lightly.

^{"Heads up"}

Dacer's ear flopped upwards and he swatted the spheres away, one after another. One struck his shoulder, pushing him back, and he narrowly dodged the last two, immediately breaking into a sprint right afterwards.

^{"Where's you bow?"}

"Right here!" Dacer shouted, suddenly holding his arm outwards. His bow didn't appear, but as he pulled back on its imaginary drawstring, a stream of brilliant energy appeared, and he fired it towards Jeff at top speeds. He pulled back again and again, firing a barrage at the inventor with no signs of stopped. "There's nothing here that I can't bear, you fucking spaz!" He shouted, suddenly pulling back a black, swirling stream of dark light. The grass at his feet began to wilt, rotting away in mere moments in a growing circle around him as he charged the dark arrow. "Let's make your face a catastrophe!" Dacer spun around, towards Oz's barrier. "First one's gonna kill your friend, here!"

^{"Don't do that."}

Dacer's left eye closed, and his shoulder gave way slightly earlier than it should've. The arrow went off-center, grazing the side of Oz's barrier and flying off into the forest behind him. As it went on, it got larger and larger, instantly killing the trees, and turning them into withered sticks that could barely stand upright over the dead grass beneath them. At the end of its path, it exploded, changing the hue of the air to a darker shade for a moment. Dacer cursed under his breath and grabbed his arm.

^{"Not enough weight on your left foot. Sloppy posture too. Go down already, you're embarrassing yourself.."}

"No! Shut up! You're in no place to lecture me old man!" Dacer shrieked to himself, grabbing his head with both hands and flailing back and fourth frantically.

[Jensoman]

Jenso looked up at Oz, smirking weakly at him as he took the power pill. He swallowed it, as he felt power rushing through him. He originally wanted to save his power pill when he fought Yzeira, but he couldn't deny the fact that he was happy that Oz assisted him now. He slowly got back on his feet, smirking at his friend. "Thanks, man." He said gratefully, looking over at Dacer as he seemed to be going crazy and muttering something about an old man. It didn't take long for him for the realisation to sink in. "Lark..? Is Lark talking to Dacer right now..?" He muttered.

He shrugged it off for now. Defeating Dacer right now was more important. If Lark managed to keep Dacer distracted, all the better. He turned to Oz. "Be careful when you fight Dacer, Oz. He can use his Ki to overpower focused Arki attacks and launch them back at us, if he can touch them with his body. I'm not sure if he can do it with Arcane or Ki, but I'd stay on high alert regardless. He's also got speed bursts with attacks that are incredibly hard to dodge. But yeah...let's do it!" Jenso stated, and launched an omega saw at Dacer while Lark was distracting him. He prepared to detonate it when it got close to Dacer or the moment he'd vanish from sight with a speed burst, which would launch small saws in all directions near him as he dashed forwards, aiming to move to the opposite side of where Jeff was standing.

[SuperFlash]

Jeff flipped out a bit as he saw the barrage of arrows heading his way though iverall continued with his dashing momentum, as thr arrows flew by the sage swerved up and down, left and right as the arrows came flying by, splitting into 3 miarges and one real Jeff when a couple came close in order to confuse the feline archer. The sage took note of the Black Arrow that came at Oz and bounce off him with the utter most stroke of luck he'd seen this entire fight so far.
_{"Okay... so insane dacer... insane attacks... got it.."} The sage muttered quietly to himself as he once again recharged his wind cannon and prepared to fire it once more. In the meanwhile he kept up his own barrage of smaller sized wind spheres, hoping to keep the presure real on him.
"Still gonna have to be a little more focused if you hope to land a blow on me!" Jeff yelled, planning to keep Dacer's attention while the other two did there best to recover.

[Necrophage]

Oz looked wide eyed at the results of Dacer's black arrow. One with Gaia? Hell no! He was bringing out attacks that ruined nature at wholesale. What an abhorrent abuse of power. Oz brought himself back up to full height. The arrows could be deflected or dodged. One real hit however meant mummification.

Oz drew his arm forward with a half-sided stance. These two had been losing a battle against Dacer's speed and power. Maybe his presence can change that. "Focus on precision! Whittle him down and impair his movement. I've got you covered." Oz was on overwatch.

[tex]

Dacer's ears bounced and he snapped his head back up. With both hands, he performed a cross-slash with both hands, creating a grid-like attack that headed for Jeff, expanded, and stopped his miniature wind-spheres on contact with its sheer ki. Right afterwards, he spun around and held his claws up. But as the saw neared him, it split and dispersed into all directions. With his Ki-coated claws, he cut away at the incoming attacks, dispersing the saws with his fingernails as they got close, and only allowing a few to cut at the sides of his arms. The shallow cuts did little to dissuade him from cutting off Jenso's route, and immediately slashing at him with his right arm in a wide, right-to-left horizontal motion. His claws also left behind a trail of Ki, that went outwards as he slashed, creating a nearly 180 degree wave of energy that headed for Oz, Jenso, and Jeff based on the angle of his cut.

[Jensoman]

Jenso glared at Dacer as he approached, as he coated his fists in Arki. He began to channel Ki in the palm of his right hand as he quickly ducked under Dacer's horizontal slash attack while thrusting his right fist upwards at the expanding Ki, unleashing a focused shockwave of Ki of his own to stop it from striking him. He made sure that his hand wasn't too high to avoid it from getting slashed.

He was unsure if it would be enough to stop the attack from heading to Oz and Jeff, though. He coated both of his lower arm sections in Arki along with his hands as well, raising his arms upwards to his right in order to grab Dacer's arm when his slash would end. He devoted himself entirely on defense, hoping to use his sheer strength to hold Dacer in place, if only for a moment.

He shifted his left foot on the ground, and the flames he'd channeled into the ground when Oz came for him earlier erupted from the ground below Dacer. 'Geyser..' Jenso thought. He began to speak, but kept looking at Dacer. "Oz, I hope you understand the gravity of the situation!" He spoke. It was a riddle, but he hoped Oz would get what he was saying. He didn't exactly want Dacer to know what he asked him to do.

[Necrophage]

Oz stood sideways and projected a thick wedge shield in front of himself that split the slash in half as it flew the rest of the way past him.

With an affirmative nod to Jenso he pressed his palm downward like he was pushing down on an object. The area of their fight instantly became more uncomfortable as the gees were turned up. It would increase more as time went by until Oz stopped.

[SuperFlash]

Seeing the two waves of attacks coming his way, the wind sage did what he consider the best option in this situation, which involved going into a spin to gather the win around him using another boost to change momentum to an upward dash which launched him high up into the sky and within moments within the clouds. Realizing he might have gone a tad too high, the sage pushed the charge in his left wind cannon to max causing it to oversize a bit from all the compressed wind being stored inside of it.

Within a moment longer, Jeff dove and reappeared past the cloud cover and took aim at Dacer firing off the overcharged gauntlet energy once again as a small super compressed bullet shot. This time however the bullet seemed to be quiet different as it speed down towards its target, the bullet began to change directory in the air shifting around almost at what it seemed to be unpredictably as it looked to ricochet off the air it self as flew towards its target. In all truth, the focused wind sage retained complete control over the bullet and planed to have it ready to dodge anything that he could try to throw at it along with give chase to a moving target. However remaining still wouldn't do much good either as with the extra power that was focused into the shot would allow the bullet to hit its target, rebound, and go into for a couple more hits if not somehow stopped. Jeff made sure to keep the bullet steered away from Jenso as well knowing without proper focus, it could easily hit him as well.

"Wind Cannon, Ultimate Sniper Variant: Reflex Shot!"

[tex]

Dacer felt something cling to his arm. It hit him just then. Though he couldn't move away from Jenso, Jenso also couldn't move away from him. Then suddenly, his body began to grow heavy. Dacer Immediately rose both of his feet up to Jenso's chest, and pushed away, trying to wrench his arms free, while simultaneously digging into Jenso with his back claws. With his eyes following Jeff, that's when he saw the bullet. As it grew near, Dacer extended his right arm outwards, and his body began to flicker. In the blink of an eye, jeff's Arki bullet was suddenly sent right back at him, under new management. Did Dacer use his flicker dash to touch it? He rose his claw to swipe at Jenso, looking rather surprised. Dacer muttered something under his breath, What... but followed through with his clawing attack, aimed at Jenso's face.

[Jensoman]

Jenso smirked at Dacer as the gravity increased, despite the fact that he'd just dug his back claws into his chest and a yolt of pain went through him. Now, not only was he caught by his right arm, but he was also stuck to Jenso with his own claws. He'd lost his speed advantage and was stuck, and Jenso had no intention of letting him go. The geyser of flames erupted violently beneath the two, engulfing Dacer within it and leaving serious burn wounds all over his body while it straight up phased through Jenso.

As Dacer swiped at him, Jenso quickly reeled his head back and quickly tilted it to the left side side to move it out of the way and to keep his distance from the swipe, and let himself fall over towards the left while using his own increased body's weight along with Dacer's to slam both of them onto the ground and to hopefully get Dacer's swipe to miss by the sudden shift. He made sure not to fall to far to ensure that they remained in the gravity field. "Keep it up...!!" He cried out to Oz.

[SuperFlash]

With the constant amount of focus being put into keeping the bullet changing direction and bouncing through the air towards its target, the wind sage felt the exact second Dacer blink dash and ripped control of the reflex shot away from him. With Dacer lacking the ability to control the wind nor the ability to focus on it with Jenso right on top of him, this left the shot to just fly back upwards towards the sage acting as a regular wind cannon sniper shot. Using a last minute maneuver, Jeff rolled through the air to the right causing the bullet to just graze past his arm, only cutting it ever so slightly and leaving a tear on the sleeve of his jacket. It didn't take long for the bullet to just disappear into the clouds before fading somewhere beyond them afterwards.

Jeff originally planed to follow up by harpooning Dacer's arm into the ground in order to help keep him pinned down, but after seeing the flame geyser hit him directly, the sage backed off with hope that it would be enough. Instead the sage loaded a small capsule into his gauntlet for what he considered to be safety measures while landing not to far behind Dacer and Jenso.

[Necrophage]

Oz started approaching the wrestling pair at a slow pace, hampered by his own gravitational field. As he marched he began channeling energy into his arm. "Hold him down so I can punch the evil out of him."