Ajax Thera - Councilman - Hellmouth
The large Dragon Slayer was quick to face Aiden when he popped out of the ground behind him. The pellets were easy to dodge for the most part, given how small they were. The quantity of them, however, kept it from being too easy. Trails of steam notably rose from several spots along Ajax's body, from where they had struck him. One had even hit his chestplate, boring a hole and exposing his skin. But the skin itself only seemed slightly red if anything, certainly not blasted through like the armor.
"Throwing drops of water?" Ajax wondered aloud, mostly to himself.
"Surprisingly effective..." The Wizard Saint watched Aiden gain some distance and begin powering up another attack. His yellow eyes fixed on him, as if he was reading into Aiden's mind and soul. The amount of magic he was putting into it was tremendous, likely impossible to replicate without the power of Dragon Force. Ajax adjusted his position, taking a defensive combat stance. Aiden's explanation for his belief, for his attempt at defeating Ajax, was heard, but no response was given. Ajax only maintained silence as the spear of ice was completed.
It was only when Aiden charged that Ajax reacted.
"Lava Dragon's Magma Armor," he calmly said, holding both his hands forward with the intention of blocking the incoming attack. His entire body, even his head, became encased in a thin layer of lava with thick rock plating floating over it, giving Ajax the appearance of a black and orange monster. The spearhead was caught in his hands and the attack was halted perfectly, with the Saint losing no ground. Before he could counterattack, however, Aiden unleashed the second part of his spell.
The powerful, dragon-shaped blast overcame Ajax and forced him backwards. His feet skidded across the ground as he was pushed back by the power of Aiden's attack. By the time he managed to regain his footing and halt this attack, the blast of ice encased him, far away from the battlefield. After a second or two of silence, the Saint smashed the ice around him and stood upright to survey the damage. The power of the attack was impressive, and certainly caught him off guard. But as the Magma Armor around Ajax's head slid out of the way, allowing him to appear human again, he began stretching his shoulders.
"That was... more than I expected," he admitted. After the Magma Armor began dripping off his body, Ajax jumped back towards the group, clearing the distance in a single bound. He landed directly in front of Aiden and stood upright. His armor that he had been wearing the whole time was clearly damaged, with several holes and the edges now tattered. The man himself, however, seemed hardly inconvenienced.
"Your determination is admirable," Ajax told him, not making any efforts to help Aiden up.
"But I am not an opponent that can be defeated with simple determination."At this point, Oriel finally got up and began growing hysterical over Aiden's condition. Perhaps his earlier guess that they were in a relationship was correct after all. As she knelt beside the fallen Dragon Slayer, Ajax stood over the two with a particularly intimidating stance. His shadow was large enough to cover the two of them, and the only feature they could see from the silhouette was his yellow eyes.
"You don't seem to understand your position," Ajax started, his voice seeming slightly more scary than before.
"We are the only living things for hundreds of miles. There are no doctors, no nurses.""Every mistake made out here comes with a dangerous price. Any injuries that cannot be remedied with first aid will not be remedied. Any sickness contracted will go without medicine. And what you will soon learn is that for every rule broken you will have three days of rations revoked. The possibility of death doesn't come from me or any other external source. Your lives can only continue if you two have the will. Otherwise this desert will become your graves."With his foreboding speech concluded, Ajax looked back to Kyou. He gave her a nod before turning his attention back to Aiden and Oriel.
"He's simply exhausted. After exhibiting so much magical power, it would only make sense that his body can't keep up once the magic is gone. He should be on his feet by tomorrow. Or rather: he better be." Ajax put his right hand on his left shoulder and rotated it a few times.
"My body is a bit sore from that last one, but I'll be in operating capacity in no time. As for you..." The Saint remembered the blow he dealt her.
"I aimed low so I wouldn't break your ribs. Every human is different, so it is possible I failed. I suppose we'll see if you are able to train tomorrow morning or not. Though do take care to remember this... any training session missed will count as breaking the rules. Three days of food and water will be taken as punishment. Speaking of punishment..." Ajax walked away from the recruits and faced Kyou.
"I noticed you used your teleporting magic. I'm assuming it was on Stacy. Will she be back in time to begin training tomorrow or will she only step in once my training has been completed?"Hana Oshiro - The Last Samurai
The pink-haired woman's eyes widened in surprise as she turned to face Yunin.
"He dodged?" she spoke to herself, sounding genuinely bewildered. His arm had been sliced through, indicating that her attack would've surely done him in. Aside from the fact he managed to avoid the brunt of it. Her moment of shock left her vulnerable to the counterattack, and the blast of wind knocked Hana back several meters though she did land gracefully on her feet.
"Nobody's ever dodged that attack before..." she mumbled to herself, still clearly distraught that her attack had failed. A pain came from her chest, causing Hana to instinctively take one of her hands off her blade and clutch at her heart.
"That..." Before she could delve further into shock, the blitz of arrows from a familiar mage snapped Hana back to reality. Her fighting instinct returned and Hana moved back to keep her distance from Yunin, stopping next to Annabeth in a smooth slide.
"Anna-san," the Last Samurai greeted, bringing her free hand back to the hilt of her blade.
"You picked a good time to return!" Despite the power of Annabeth's archery magic, it seemed that Yunin took no damage.
"This is a tough one..." Hana took a new stance, crouching low with her left leg out to her side and holding the blade horizontally above her head. She closed her eyes again, trying to concentrate. But no matter how hard she tried to isolate herself and Yunin in the world around her, she simply couldn't. Her earlier failure still haunted her.
Her closed eyes notably twitched in pain, but she remained in her stance.
"We can try-..." Hana stopped herself, hearing Yunin begin to vomit and feeling his magic lose pace momentarily. She finally opened her eyes, slowly getting out of her stance while Yunin's body was destroyed from the inside-out, with help from a miraculously recovered Sairis Ward. The rain that Yunin had brought hardly lasted a few seconds as a result, and it seemed that whatever realm they were in finally was broken.
In a matter of seconds the battle had been won. While others may have taken the opportunity to relax or possibly celebrate, Hana was clearly not in an upbeat mood. The sword in her hand vanished in a flash of light and she faced away from her comrades. A darkness hung over her for a few seconds as she looked back on the day.
"I was useless..." she muttered to herself. Her left hand slowly started moving to her chest, but Hana was snapped out of her daze by the sound of someone singing.
The pink-haired woman turned to face Anna, watching with quiet curiosity as her elder sang to the unconscious Jeanne in order to open a locket kept on Jeanne's person. This seemed to rapidly assist in healing her, as if it simply reversed the effects of her own magic. Hana was mesmerized by the display, though her attention soon drifted away. As Jeanne woke up and greeted Annabeth, Hana faced away from her fellow Lamia Scale members and sat down on the ground.
With her legs crossed, she propped her elbows on her knees and held up her jaw with her hands. The pink-haired woman let out a sigh as she looked over at the deteriorated body of Yunin. Her pink eyes were clearly sad, but her expression was otherwise hard to read.
"... Did we really win?" she spoke, her voice sounding much more calm than a few minutes before, but notably more depressed than one would expect from her. With a sigh she closed her eyes and let the world melt around her. She wanted to meditate, to clear her head. But this state only lasted a few seconds before a grimace formed on her lips and she opened her eyes.
"We didn't..."Stacy Kaiser - White Tiger
Her red eyes only glared at Gwen.
"Hilarious..." Stacy remarked at the joke, her voice clearly layered with poison. With a huff, she turned away from her fellow Ice Make mage.
"There's no point," Gwen began, holding one of her hands out in a gesture.
"Even I can see that we aren't on that thing's league. Thankfully there are a few people here that are, and it's better to not get in their way." Almost on queue with her words, the realm they were in began to shatter and the fight with Yunin concluded.
Stacy turned to face Gwen again, an angry expression on her face.
"I still hate you, you know," she said rather bluntly, crossing her arms again and taking a harsher tone.
"I just have better sense than to kill you over the past. I would just love to rough you up some more... but that changes nothing. Picking on you was always easy, but never satisfied anything." She closed her eyes and let out a sigh, slowly tapping her right foot now.
"I'm too sober for this... I feel like my head is about to explode."Piper Hatfield - Ms. One Shot
Finally, it was all over. The bespectacled sniper leaned against one of the buildings of Augustine Town, a notably refreshing environment compared to the hellish version of it they were in before.
"Wow..." she let out, looking up the sky.
"I was not prepared for this... I wasn't prepared at all." Piper looked back to the time she joined Harpy's Wing. Back then she thought it would be a fun experience where she could master her skills and make friends.
This, however, was entirely different. Demons, illusions, gods, evil. Piper knew that she enjoyed any excuse to shoot at things, but things like this were not in the gameplan. In fact, if several S-class mages hadn't shown up she would probably dead, along with the others that opted to go to Augustine Town. And on top of it all...
"I missed my shot on that jerk," Piper exclaimed, sounding more surprised than angry. She adjusted her glasses a bit, as they had begun to slide down her nose.
"Oh man... everyone's gonna make fun of me now... I guess I should regroup with everyone..."
