[IC] Elementals: The Scarred World (Semi-Open)

[Coga19000]

Jonathan passively accepted the fist thrown at him from the shadow that popped out of nowhere. The fist landed cleanly on his right cheek, with a loud smack, but Jonathan barely flinched. In fact, he wore a small smirk at the laughable attempt to take him by surprise -he did not seriously expect him to see a man participating in a raid with what seemed like very experienced Elementals with nothing but two knives and not have similar skills himself, did he? His metal robe was now also glowing, and he could feel part of its let shoulder mophing towards his left hand, slowly forming the metal gauntlet that would allow him to operate his gadgets.

He noticed the bar's attendants leaving en masse from the building in every exit they could find avalaible while the shadow pulled out its knives at he exact moment his gauntlet was finished. Even though he approved of the civilians evacuating, the cover they prvided to the Nightshade fleeing with them was a major problem. He did have a non-lethal way of stopping him, but it could still endanger and incapacipate the masses rushing towards the door. Still, he had to act fast.

And his course of action was to throw a left punch towards the shadow; an unsucessful one, in fact, as the shadow was quick to react in a backward head tilt that got him to partially lose his balance -just as he had planned it on doing. Using his conserved momentum, and not worrying about the distacted shadow fighter, he stepped firmly with his left foot, stopping his roll, and at the last moment of his swing, he threw the device he was holding -a small spherical object with six sealed holes on it designed to be a flash grenade- towards the Nightshade, trying to be as precise as his worn-out eyesight would allow him. The flash was mainly supposed to daze others and cut connections betwen Shadows, but he would prefer if no civilian was deafened or burned from being too close- secondary side-effects of the powder that he had never before found necessary to remove.

[hoppiholla391]

The table was on fire. Well, of course the table was on fire. It was just that kind of night.

Growling, Vanahara shot up from her crouch with her shoulder braced upwards, and the table went with her—the flames hadn't yet charred through to the underside. The heavy piece of furniture flipped, launching a few feet towards the mages and sending cutlery and tankards flying. Vana rolled with her forward momentum, planting a boot on the flaming edge of the now-upturned table and vaulting over it, trusting the treated leather to not be too badly damaged. She cleared the table and the momentary heat of the flames and didn't stop for any fancy moves—simply bodily tackled the ice mage back to the ground.

She wasn't interested in killing these people—disabling should be more than enough. She was about to do more than just pin the woman to the ground when out of the corner of her eye, she caught the flash of a black cloak—quickly disappearing out the door.

"Kaffas," Vana cursed, but the ice mage required all her attention—and running off on her own after a skilled Nightshade wasn't in her nature. She settled for shouting over her shoulder and calling the group's attention to the missing opponent. "Nightshade's getting away!"

[Mictlan93]

"FUCKIN' CATCH!" Initially, Joey thought "Yeh, she is a catch, inn'she?" in regards to the crossbow clad mage, before realizing the Earthshaper was actually telegraphing an attack. So naturally, as the big ol' chunk'a rock came hurtling towards him, our ravishing rogue put his hands up to catch it, deflect it, or at least make the impact hurt less. He was quick enough to get his hands up, at least, couldn't do anything about the rock though. He tried pushing it away as it flew through the air, and he could feel the opponent's forces pushing back. Much, much stronger than he would've expected.

So, he did the next best thing: sidestepping. This attempt for naught, however. Even as he began to move, the dodge was cut short as the rock slammed into his right shoulder. "HHhk-!" He stumbled off kilter, the shoulder and arm wracked with pain. Sensations he was trying to ignore up to this point, were now at the front of his mind. "Agh, ya bint! Just got this arm fixed a few hours ago!" Joey cried over the roar of the crowd. Turning focus away from his opponent for just a second, he took note of the heat slowly growing nearby, as a table was lit on fire (of course it was, it was natural progression) and was currently being tossed away.

"Nightshade's getting away!" He could hear, and without a doubt, Joey quickly noticed the hooded figure making for the door. "Guess i'm gonna hafta work a lil' faster if I want those wicked knives." He turned his attention back towards the bulky Earthshaper. "Fine then." He took off towards his target, flashing his steel in his free hand. "Imma dominant lefty anyways!" He pounced once more. With a swipe of his left arm, the shards in his possession were sent back to their owner with extreme prejudice, mostly towards the man's facial region. He was sure they would barely distract him, but he planned on following up with his dagger, and hoping for the best.

[WriterRaven]

"Don't worry, I'll teach both you and your vial throwing friend! FUCKIN' CATCH!"

"Son of a black dragon..." Ling did the only thing she could think of to avoid taking a stone salvo to the face. She ducked and threw up one hand to cover her face... then the table erupted in flames. Because of course it did. The renegade Pyro was in her element, projecting a stream of fire that threatened to burn down the whole bar if she was allowed to persist.

It didn't look like either side was going to come out of this fight unscathed. With the Earthshaper's attack having missed her head by an inch, Ling stood up and fired a shot his way. The bolt punched into his stone armour, but didn't seem to have much of an impact beyond very minor cracking. She quickly disregarded the idea of attacking him further. By this point Vanahara had thrown the table - an impressive feat in itself - and tackled the ice mage. A fair few others seemed to be engaging that one in particular, and Commander Hayes was about to close in on the Pyro...

"Nightshade's getting away!" The call came from Vanahara. As much as Joey might appear to be struggling against his counterpart, the fact remained that the rogue carrying the valuables was on the run.

"I'm on it! He can't outrun a crossbow!" Ling reloaded Kei, checking the autoquiver's contents through a small gap in its design - eleven bolts, including the loaded one - and ran for the door, passing the last of the stragglers as she made her way into the open, glancing around before she spotted the glint of a fallen jewel in the road. And beyond that, the hastily fleeing thief. She didn't bother with yelling at him to stop, as that would just waste time and alert him to her presence: instead, she took a second to aim, then fired, reloaded, and began to repeat the exercise.

[Blaze96]

Alexander had ducked behind the table when the bolt of flame had come their way.

'Well, that needs to stop. Sooner rather than later.' He thought before the table was flipped and the younger students launched their attacks. Seeing that the fire mage was still focused on them he decided to use that to his advantage. When the table was flipped he stood and charged, using a very bright light shined directly at the fire mage's eyes to provide a temporary distraction. The light was a floating orb that would hopefully mean that any wild strikes would only singe him rather than burn him alive.

It was only a few second before he had dashed across the bar, this was not his first fight with an armored opponent. Even the lightest armor always lead to a bit of slow down if you expected it to stop arrows. More so if you wanted it to stop a sword or an axe from cutting you open. However lighter armor left you largely unprotected in more vital areas, and he had plenty of first hand experience with hand to hand attacks. More than once a drunken person in various level of armor had decided the healer must either be exceedingly wealthy or in need of a new missing tooth or ruptured organ. He had needed to learn to fight, and he had studied hard in this craft as well.

Upon reaching the fire mage a targeted punch landed in their throat, another tactic of distraction while also causing damage. Using the momentum he had gained he grabbed her wrist and flipped her onto her front. Placing a foot on her back to keep her from immediately pushing herself up he pulled the arm from its socket. A fire mage with use of only one arm was better than one with two. However he still kept hold of her wrist even as he did his best to prepare for the counter attack.

"Please stay down. I would hate to break your arms."

[MrOmega]

The table getting lit on fire was an obvious consequence of starting a fight with these people. In fact, Drew wasn't the only one not surprised by this, from the look of things. Seeing Raven charge forward with the sword actually reminded Drew of a Fire mage he knew back at the academy. Would have been nice to have him come along....

As everyone else made their move, Drew just sprang up from the table. Though his heart was pounding and his mind was going a dozen directions at once as he thought of what to do, on the surface he looked calm and undisturbed by everything that was happening. It was probably because they had the advantage in numbers, but even more likely it was because he knew exactly what he was going to do.

The fire mage was being taken care of the Master and Raven. Most of the others tried to stop the Nightshade. That left the earth and water mages. And Drew had an idea to deal with them both. Vana's decision to get physical with the ice user complicated things, but it might just be in a way he could use to his advantage. He started working on the ice mage's armor, turning it from ice to water once again. "You know, covering yourself in an element to protect yourself sounds smart at first. But in a world where there are hundreds, possibly thousands of individuals who can manipulate the same element, you'd find it often leaves you vulnerable to moves like this."

With a flick of his hand, he tried to send a splash of water into the Earth mage's face. Drew was steadily positioning himself between the two, getting near the counter. The air around him (and with time and concentration, around them) would start to become moist and damp. A small layer of mist was starting to form around the storm mage. "Were I a more malicious individual, I would have made ice spikes. Inside the armor. And then compressed it." he said, stating this flatly, almost with the same dull tone would use to read a list of groceries. He was hoping the cold sounding threat would hide the fact that he wasn't nearly skilled enough to pull off a move like that. But he did have a trick up his sleeve.

[UnusualStranger]

As the flashbang flew towards the crowd of people and the Nightshade now shoving his way out of the door, the flash temporarily dazed and caused screams and more panic about the door as some caught the full brunt of the blast. The Nightshade, unfortunately, was not one of those to catch the problematic effect as people panicking to get away had knocked the weapon away from them. The blast had some effect on the crowd, but the fighters were all left relatively untouched unless they stared into the door.

The shadow that had been left behind decided the metal mage was causing more trouble than they were worth. With a quick few swings of the shadowy daggers, the metal mage took a few quick cuts as he had been instead focused on stopping the fleeing Nightshade who now was making his way outside with Ling in pursuit with the crossbow.

As Vana had jumped on the ice mage, there was a close struggle as the metallic mage and the armored ice mage tangled. While the ice mage was slightly dazed from the sudden physical contact, her expression changed when the armor she wore turned into more of a watery mess, soaking Vana as well. Working quickly, Vana was suddenly finding herself either being weighted down or otherwise in some small spots very frozen as the water she had soaked in from the melting backfired. "Thank your boyfriend later for me." She taunted, shoving the mage off and hearing the scream of her fire companion. Thinking quickly, icy daggers were pulled from her armor and launched at Alexander to get him off the fire mage.

The stone mage could be described as only amused as Joey figured the attempt to assault the face of the armor that he still held strong. As Joey jumped at the earth fighter, he quickly was grabbed, and with almost superhuman strength launched Joey towards Drew, finding the unoccupied mage to likely be the biggest problem at this point. "GIRLS WE ARE LEAVING." With a quick set of stomps, the boards under the earthshaper shattered, giving him access to the bare earth which he wasted no time pulling the earth to do some quick stone throwing with the new source. The rocks themselves were not targeted, being thrown in any direction to either distract or cause panic.

The fire mage was screaming as her arm was pulled, though Alexander also had to deal with the burning that only intensified as the close combat came into play. While she was obviously downed initially, the assistance from the ice mage meant that Alexander could not just remain there with danger being tossed his way. With the grip released, the fire mage rolled away, and let the fire do similar to what the earth mage now did. Unleash fire just wherever in the hopes of causing chaos, which was MUCH more effective as more of the bar caught fire.

Raven in the meantime left the fire mage to Alexander who had at least temporarily dealt with the problem, only to now have to race to the ice mage who threw daggers at the Master Illuminate. Bringing his blade to cut, he was met suddenly with an icy spear. With a growl he shoved the ice mage away with a violent shove. At least with him there the few icy daggers which flew at Alexander ceased for now, having to dedicate much more attention to Raven's interference. It also meant that Vana wasn't being actively iced over any more. This left the fire mage to simply leave trails of fire to the door as the remaining mages made their intentions clear. They were leaving, and they did not plan on leaving without leaving a distraction behind.

Meanwhile, as the Nightshade began his retreat into the night, suddenly a bolt slammed into the bag he had carried on his back. "DAMMIT!" Running as fast as they could, the Nightshade did their best to sprint into the dark and try to get away from the eyesight of Ling, hoping that turning a few corners and going off into the night would be too risky for the crossbow mage to follow.

[Coga19000]

Jonathan felt the shadow knives rip into his flesh, and clenched his teeth while trying not to shout. The hits were more cuts than stabs, and the metal robe have him some light protection; it was definitely way softer than solid emtal however, and he could therefore feel the shadows tearing part of his back with a sensation both like and unlike an actual dagger. He had forgot the cryptical horrors of the Shadow, and obviously underestimated their power.
Turning around to face the Shadow, he threw another punch on it -for real this tine- and then kicked it as far away as possible. As the Shadow was pushed back, Jonathan used the time he bought to reach for his necklase, and a the while starting to slowly harden the robe around his arms.

[Mictlan93]

"Oop-" Was all Joey could really utter out as he travelled through the air, in realization of his plan's inevitable failure. He was plucked from his pounce with relative ease, before being tossed away like a dirty pair of knickers. Joey wasn't exactly prepared for that. He would've thought the Earthshaper would've at least tossed him to the ground, and kept the fight between the two. Instead, Horatio found himself hastily colliding with the Hydromancer. Slamming into Drew with a dull WHULFF!, Joey was sure to roll back to his feet quickly, to prevent any sort of vulnerability. He'd be lying if the air wasn't knocked out of him, though. "Sorry 'bout that, mate." He apologized to the Hydromancer, taking a second to regain his breath.

Judging by the bulky Earthshaper's announcement, it was clear he was ready for a retreat. And judging by the increasing disarray of the bar, it seemed they had the perfect cover to leave out on. Thanks to the fire girl's efforts, the place was going up in smoke. It presented with Joey with thoughts that he might've considered out of character. "Do we keep after 'em? Or try and put out this fire?" He'd usually be too self centered to ask such questions. But, they were the only ones playing through his mind in the current.

That, and the slight aggravation towards the Earthshaper who easily outclassed him. It was the first time he was presented with such a problem. And as the guy started flinging earth all over the place, he really felt the need the need to oppose him. Y'know, actually let his heroics shine for once. And yet, the man projected rocks and shards that were way out of his weight class. Not to mention the armor he could barely touch. That feeling of utter defenselessness really tugged at Joey the more he thought about it.

[hoppiholla391]

By the time Vanahara managed to crack the ice rooting her knee to the ground enough to break free, her nose was bleeding and she was not pleased. She grabbed the nearest tankard, lined up her shot, and flung it full force at the back of the ice mage's head with the precision only an Ironworker could muster.

The tavern was in trouble. The place was saturated with alcohol, and the flames were spreading from the overturned table. She was caught for a moment between trying to douse the flames and pursuing the mages—but she wasn't on her own this time.

"Hidalgo! Andrade!" she called, gesturing from her soaking clothes to the fire and hoping he got the message—put water on this, please. She hesitated for just a second before gathering up the forks and knives nearest her and heading for a window. "Master Alexander, we need some light outside—"

[WriterRaven]

"Run all you want, I'll hunt you down," Ling muttered to herself, running to keep up as the renegade with the goods dashed away. She rounded the same corner he had taken to find him about to dash round another. If the Nightshade planned to use the dark corners of the alley to hide from her, he had another thing coming. She knew the tricks that her fellow Nightshades used to hide in the dark. If he tried to disappear, she would notice the signs. Probably. So she persisted, pushing herself to keep up with the sprinter.

Ling didn't have to worry too much about her fitness: as long as she could still fire a bolt at the end of the chase, she was fine. And if need be, she could knock back some of the Restorative on her belt to ease the drain on her stamina and keep up the pressure. She rounded another corner and fired Kei - a second too late to catch the Nightshade in the back of the leg. The bolt hit the ground harmlessly as he sped away. But still she pressed on, reloading as she ran. She'd landed one hit already; she would do it again.

[Blaze96]

Alexander's hands burned, but adrenaline made what would have been crippling pain and screaming into a dulled throb at that point. However he was no fool, he focused his energy on making sure the surely damaged nerves in his hands wouldn't be permanently so. He always felt that stupid should hurt, and he applied that philosophy to himself as well. It was then he saw the daggers coming towards him.

"Gods damn it." He managed to get out as he let go of the fire mage and dodged most of the daggers. Most was not all however, and he felt the familiar pain of a dagger sinking into his back. Luckily, while it hurt to high hell, it didn't hit anything immediately life threatening so he was able to continue on. Not pulling the dagger free from his back as the call for light came through.

"Then you shall have it." He replied as he rushed outside. Hands charred, blistered, and bleeding with a dagger made of ice in his back. Alexander focused both on keeping himself alive and providing the energy for what would need to be done next. Luckily he hadn't been too far behind the mages as he essentially turned himself into a spotlight. Focusing a bright beam in the direction of the retreating mages.

"Unfortunately, taking them down will be up to the rest of you."

[NeoAJ]

The attempt to siphon off the ice mage's armor was halted too quickly for Nataly's liking. As a result she only had coverage reaching halfway up her arms. Not a lot, but it'll do. She held back, ducking out of the way as she concentrated on drawing any moisture she could from the area to improve her improvised gauntlets. It was tough to keep out of the line of sight. Between the growing fire and the raging battle, she had almost nowhere to go. A propped up table let her hide well enough to focus on growing the magic.

It took forever in her mind to get any ice growth going without the reserve the opposing ice mage provided. Damn it...I can't concentrate with this fire. Fuck!

Hidalgo! Andrade!

Vana was calling. If she wanted herself and the other Hydro, it probably wasn't to split an appetizer plate. Guess that answers that decision. Nataly jumped out from her hiding spot and shot her mustered gauntlets at the overturned table, hoping to douse the source as quickly as possible. "There's not much here for water!" she shouted as she tried to pull whatever moisture she could; from the air, from spilled drinks, whatever. "The fire is just like burning it all away!"

[UnusualStranger]

With Jonathan's surprise kick, the shadow stumbled back, and raised up the knives once again, to confront the mage as he prepared his weapons as well. However, before either could move against each other, the shadow began to fade away. The shadow pointed to where its eyes would have been, then back at Jonathan as he was suddenly no more. The lack of the opponent did not allow the mage to relax, as the bar was beginning to show the problems with fire and the many alcoholic drinks scattered about, as some began to explode and the building began to crumble.

With Joey and Drew both entangled for a brief moment, the Earthshaper took the time to smash yet another hole into the earth to pull more dirt about, and began to use it a little more to be defensive instead of smashing everything. Walls of dirt while not exactly impressive, would do the job for what they needed to do which was protect themselves as they fell back. Any assault would have to get through some dirt walls.

Meanwhile, Raven was still tangling with the icy knight, and while he did have the better skill in the blade regard, the building burning around them was a bit more of a concern to the metal knight than it was a mage covered in ice. When a quick break happened, Raven could only grin as a mug slammed into the back of the ice mage's head, causing her to stumble a moment. While Raven was fully intending to take advantage, a drink spilling over and bringing flames to his feet interrupted that idea.

"Gods damn me, we need to get out of this burning tomb!" Raven shouted as it appeared that their own water mages were not going to be able to tame the inferno. There was far too much fuel for the fires here, and fighting at the same time was not going to help things. "Forget the damned rogues, its time to get out!" Raven turned to get to the door, ignoring the opponents who seemed to have also lost the stomach for doing more fighting.

As Alexander turned himself into a spotlight, while it was effective in keeping the retreating mages from looking at him, the effectiveness was somewhat lost as they were not intending to stare into the light mage, and with the room now exploding in flames quite literally, it was already the brightest building in town without Alexander's help, and the now constructing dirt walls was more than enough to stop light in some sections.

Meanwhile, outside when Ling turned the next corner she was met with a new problem: a shadow which was more than ready for her coming around, and took a quick swing at her. Since the shadow has just been called, it did not yet have its knives drawn. But close range punches would work for the escaping nightshade to keep from being followed or shot again.

[hoppiholla391]

As much as Vanahara hated to admit it, the tavern was a lost cause. Years of spilled drinks had made the wooden structure even more flammable than it should be. Vana hesitated for just a moment before growling to herself and acquiescing to the Commander's orders. She ran for the door, thankfully still unblocked due to the stream of civilians who'd fled, and managed to make it out without anything flaming fell on her.

Once she was out, she took a moment to regain her bearings, quickly buckling on her metal bracers now that she had space to breathe. Vanahara whipped around, looking for the path the Nightshade had taken while simultaneously shielding her eyes from Master Alexander's flare. There—just barely on this side of the corner, a man-shaped shadow not dispelled by the magical light. Which meant the Nightshade was nearby...

Vanahara looked up, eyes narrowing as she picked out the stars overhead. The constellations were slightly off from what she knew back home, but...often, in the faceless and shifting desert landscape, the only reliable map one had was the stars. Vana was practiced at this, at least—which meant she'd be able to find her way back here, if all else failed.

"Ling's in trouble," she said shortly to anyone who could hear before running perpendicular to the street and disappearing into an alleyway. She'd seen something of the layout of the village as they'd flown in, and it seemed to be a basic wheel shape, circular streets with spokes in between, and it was more of a hamlet, really. If she could cut off the enemy Nightshade...she might just be able to get the town's valuables back.

[MrOmega]

Drew, not being the most physically durable individual, had to spend time getting up after Joey was slammed into him. He tried to get the fire under control, but there was so little to work with he couldn't contain it. Even his attempts to draw water from the air were proving useless, since the heat was too much for him to make anything useful. With the water gone from the air around him, he was denied his trump card, and really any form of attack he had. He had to get out of there now.

He regretted what had happened with Vanahara, but at least Nataly was able to help her out. Still, it was becoming clear that even his attempts to stop the place from burning around them were going nowhere. He had to rush out, ready to cover the others on their way out. He had a small mist around him as he was outside in the open air, trying to get their path ready with water quenching the flames near the door. He was hoping for a certain enemy mage to make their move. He wanted to go after Ling, but he lacked the quick offensive capabilities to be of any real help. “Come on! Someone faster than me get out of here…” he said, keeping his eyes peeled.

[Mictlan93]

"Forget the damned rogues, its time to get out!" Seemed the Commander answered Joey's internal debate as the fires of the bar sprouted exponentially and quite explosively. "Yeah, yup, sounds like a pretty good idea." He thought, scrambling out after Drew. As much as the Earthshaper's dirt walls tempted him, flame was literally licking at his heels. Round two with the bulky fellow would have to be cancelled for the time being.

Rushing out into the cool air of the town, Joey was quick to notice a few things. Like Master Alexander glowing so bright Joey almost risked being blinded. And in the flash, he could see Vanahara bolting off down one of the alleyways, claiming "Ling's in trouble," in that husky voice of hers. "Ling...crossbow gal...knifey git...knives!" The fire and earthshaper almost made the rogue forget of his initial objective. And, he figured he'd inject himself into that particular equation. So, he took off after Vana, the light emitting from Alexander growing dimmer and dimmer as he tailed her. "Right behind ya, V!" He called, slowly gaining as he pushed into a sprint. She had a definite lead, but the clangs and jangles coming from her metal parts didn't make it too hard to lose her.

"Running down a dark alleyway, eh? S'like a typical Sunday night for me." He thought, smirking all the way.

[NeoAJ]

"Forget the damned rogues, its time to get out!"

Nataly was already thinking along those lines. Looking around the tavern as the flames continued to lick a black trail across the wooden booths and floorboards, options were somewhat limited. My fault for backing into a corner... The path to the front door was being rapidly consumed by the fire, so there was only one option that remained accessible. At least for the moment. Hope the chef wasn't a drinker...

She bolted for the kitchen, hoping to escape out the back way into one of the alleys. The walls separating the serving area from what could be generously called the prep area were holding out long enough to keep the passageway clear. It was still hot in the kitchen, so Nataly made haste to get out. The back entrance would do nicely.

Quickly exiting the building and shutting the door behind her, the Hydromancer moved away from the soon-to-be inferno and caught her breath, taking in some needed moisture from the surrounding air. The alleyway was dark and damp, and looked to be rather secluded, lit up only by the flames starting to poke out from the tavern's roof. "Well...where do I go now? Where is everyone?"

[WriterRaven]

Still in pursuit of the thief and his bag of riches, Ling rounded another corner, Kei up and ready -

Smack in the middle of the alley was a shadow, fists raised. It threw a quick jab at her as she stopped herself. Presumably the grey-black replica belonged to the rogue Nightshade. Ling had to admit, that wasn't something she'd seen coming; she'd expected tricks like the mage obscuring himself from view, or vanishing from one building's shadow into another to throw her off his trail.

"That's how you wanna play this? Fine." Before the shadow could draw the pair of knives its owner had openly carried, Ling bullrushed it, slamming the front of Kei's metal stock directly into its chest. A two-handed blow with a blunt object was stronger, and more convenient, than the silver-inlaid knife she carried on her belt. Plus she would likely be outmatched in a knife fight; she mostly used her own blade for cutting ingredients and taking blood samples when she needed them.

As the shadow staggered backwards from the impact, Ling pulled the trigger, firing a bolt directly into the shadow. At this range, she couldn't possibly miss. With no time to reload before it could recover - or so she assumed - she took another swing at it.

Several sets of footsteps began to echo down the alleys behind her; one of them had a voice to match. "Well...where do I go now? Where is everyone?"

"Nataly! Over here, give me a hand!"

[NeoAJ]

"Nataly! Over here, give me a hand!"

The familiar voice caused Nataly to turn her head towards the source. "Ling?" Moving towards the source, she found the Nightshade that had been so helpful to her on the ship locked in battle with...another shadow? It had to be another Nightshade but where were they? It didn't matter at the moment as the darkness was causing Ling enough problems as it was.

Stepping away from the burning building, into the darker, damper portions of the alleyway, Nataly attempted to reconstruct what she had going for her inside the bar, pulling whatever moisture she could from the air to coat her fists with a thick sheet of ice, spikes poking out of where her knuckles would be. It was moving much quicker now then when she was fighting the flames and she had a hands worth in a matter of seconds.

As she approached the scuffle, she hesitated for a moment. "Can I even hit..." Her question was answered with Ling's swing. "Well she would know..." Nataly charged into the fray, fists drawn, still adding ice to her makeshift boxing gloves as she attempted to cut off any dodging attempts with some ice spikes to the shadow combatant.