[IC] 5v5 3Dark vs Bolts

[Lith]

It’s hard to say what this “Hael” would do in response to such a doomsday scenario where the vile wind and life force fueled strikes barraged them. Ideally, Hayden Armstrong meanwhile would avoid any such macabre timeline. Forsooth, it was certainly grand the *man piloted mecha* was so swift. Yet perhaps more fortunate still was a greedy hostile.

Like the individual grains of sand in the hourglass, time was always the greatest resource and the most contemptable obstacle to songs of triumph. One would do well when faced by a volley of arrows to raise their shield. Faced with a battering ram, well advised to avoid its trajectory would be a skilled warrior. Yet when faced with the piercing stings and the bludgeoning force all at once, raising your shield, dodging to the side, praying to your god to invoke a oathbound blessing that enhanced your body’s attributes, then launching a volley of attacks meant compared to any one reaction a compromise. At least, this was according to the database regarding clerics, foul divine wizards they were. All the same, compromise – perhaps in effect, certainly in that precious time we mentioned earlier. And like ripples in the stream of history, they beget more ripples.

It would then do well to be succinct and summarize where ripples began to flow. Senko had hardy no doubt unnatural flesh, likely through some sort of ill conceived barrier magic. This pushed them to do something rather foolish. Reyes had not been a threat, their projectiles neither enough to kill nor even wound.. and yet Senko saw fit to avoid them. Worse, saw fit to hit a feverish stride to reach *Hayden* of all people. Quick enough that their estimate was a physical encounter with an attempted “jab” right after the imminent “detonation” of all things! But not so quick that there wasn’t a timeline stretched, between this movement and action, then with the alleged metal rending storm. A time where destruction had not been wrought upon Armstrong’s person, and yet the enemy tango closed their gap just enough. A brief flash of blue silver.

Armstrong’s Intel brand CPU, unaffected by the various performance hits that previous generations suffered, could work out the math on this warped version of “if one train is moving at X MPH and another at Y, when do they meet.” Again, it would be a mere flash of blue & silver in that decisive moment – a hidden element to this math equation kept secret from the opposition, that would be the conclusive dark variable of the trick question at hand. Although not terribly strong on its own sans a bit of charge time, Senko seemingly throwing themselves towards it out of sheer hubris certainly would help. That being…

//Moonlight Beam//.

A plasma blade stretched “light” that even amidst the sauna this forest had been reduced to, would freeze bitterly. This aspect was unlikely to meaningfully affect the dubious gendered ninja clan, they were wizards at the heart of things after all. Elemental magic’s their bread and butter. The focused vacuum and cutting edge that would blast forth however; well tests had shown it working decently on numerous sorcerers. And they tended to have access to “Mage Armor” and the like. It was reasonable to assume a similar principle would take root here.

Hopefully in that moment, the combined efforts of Senko and Hayden would drive this metaphorical blade deep into the hostile’s heart. And if not, well that sucks. Ripples were messy, that’s why you shouldn’t stare at bodies of water nor gleam metaphors out of them.

[L0nginus]

The song of nature, the endless, blissful chattering of Creation. Oh, how it all crowed in Senko's ear; how their beauty warmed her soul in the execution of those.. tresspassers. For every advantage they had, for all the machinations of industry, none could compare to the simple purity of this forest, of its creatures. They whispered to her, cried out in clarion calls to inform of their misdeeds, and it was all.. so.. loud. How disturbing then was it to her when their greetings died in their throats, when the nymphs playing in the wind lost their muse and became lonesome whistles, when the articulate deers and birds and insects became baying animals? When the world she saw became a hazy husk, as the flame which sought to consume Totsuka's mind came for her first. She hadn't seen it coming, the scourge. The hollow echoes of creativity wrought from a man whose humanity was scooped out with a shovel, and buried a thousand miles deep. Her ESP was burned out with the kind of psychic agony that could only be described by having a needle inserted into your frontal lobe, twisted and pulled in and out like some kind of profane plunger. She was the filter. Now, she had become the victim. Shortly thereafter, the roar of armor-piercing munitions clatter off, punctuating her feeling of invincibility with three puncture holes in her auric field, followed by the screeching symphony of his mindfire infesting the points of impact. His bullets left three gaping holes in Senko; two bleeding pockets in the chest, and one center of her forehead. It wasn't in him to wonder if she'd live past her summary execution, the mutation of his energy and the world-chi infusing her would poison her soul, and rot her flesh ever faster. It was a punishment for her presumptuousness, thinking she'd be spared the rod and dodge something with sight she could no longer have.

Akane boxed with the sunlight to his sun, swinging at his radiance but never quite reaching the thing which produced it. She confused the light for the star, and found that she wasn't chasing shadows, but her own tail. Akane blocked him off at the boundary line between the artery and the tangible form of this verdant land, she had halted his progress with the tranquil wall of darkness she produced, and sought to banish the outpour of his energy. There was one problem. Her Dark Chi had the blessings of this land through Senko. The parts of her energy which contacted with his contorted and quivered as his energy and the natural power of this forest melded together immutably into a blight of the spirit, a toxin which dwindles the soul into a wasting corpse. Neither chi nor psychic energy, both had ceased to be and so became something distinct from the summation of its parts. This blight, in combination with the explosive and scorching principles of his energy, killed the curse which came to pass, either by riding one of the divergent streams of his violent emanation, or simply by having been killed off in the main generation of Akane's defensive wall. In that same measure, he faced down the eruptive force of the potentially still living Senko. They had spent their enhanced reserves into multiple different things, but with Reyes' own enhanced production of power put toward one single thing, even though it was an area of effect, the consolidation of power was much higher by comparison. He pushed back with the expulsion of his energy, overwhelming and poisoning that jettison of spiritual power into a downward implosion that served to crash into Akane's defensive fortress— threatening to burst wide the gates to the blessed leyline.

The outward expulsion of Jackson's thoughtforms twists the saturated space into an irreconcilable mess. It began as a mere 20 feet, but the twisting of natural energy on the surface area polluted the natural beauty of this place greviously. His prowess pushed that corruption away from Agent Reyes, distributing it at a rather slow moving rate, but one that eagerly turned trees to withered dregs and inspired the beasts of this land to bleed from every orifice. If Akane's lightning bull, if the additional layer of projectiles and the shadow of Senko's chi touched it, they'd end up deteriorating before even having the good sense to be destroyed at the touch of Reyes' energy. But, this same development offered its own brand of evil. The attractive quality of Hayden's Moonlight Plasma drew in the poison toward it, bringing about a marriage of death and destruction.

Reyes completed his evasive manuevering and looked off in the direction of the male Ryuusei's position after he had taken cover from the shot fired in his direction. Jackson fired another shot at him for good measure, directing his bullet to go right through the tree and peg him on the throat, entertwined with an accelerant of psionic potential in the same trigger pull. A second one aimed for Akane's head as she aimed at Donny.