Avatar of Zoey Boey

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Recent Statuses

5 mos ago
Current Cassandra Cain
1 yr ago
im 24 now
13 likes
1 yr ago
Back home. I need a breather, lol.
1 like
1 yr ago
one more five horu drive to home...then ill stop spamming the status bar. promise. go back to only updating it once every few months
2 likes
1 yr ago
back in my home state. actually a real nice hotel compared to the last one that had cockroaches in the bathroom. so thats cool and good. ready to get home tomorrow. blehhhhjgkjgkjhatk
3 likes

Bio

Spider-Man is my favorite superhero

Most Recent Posts

Karin Level 5: 19/50
Location: Astral Plane
Word Count: Short
Points Gained: 1
New EXP Balance---
Karin Level 5: 35/50
+16


Karin stirred and stood on the other side of the portal as the Chimera cured the build up of energy she didn’t quite remember having. It was clear from the way she was standing with a hand on her head and eyes bleary that she wasn’t quite sure what was going on. She offered a half-hearted goodbye to Goldlewis, but not a thank you, though perhaps it simply slipped her foggy mind and it’s not like she remembered him saving her.

Eventually though, the fog cleared from her eyes and Karin settled on being sullen. No doubt the monster was dead. She’d never get to face it again. Cheeks red, she remained quiet and kept to herself. Thankfully, all of her teammates made it out alive, despite Karin’s defeat.

She joined Midna at the SOU hideout. She was glad to have a place to bed down, even if it wasn’t up to her usual standards…yes, she had survived in the wilderness. There was nobility in that. And luxury. This was neither noble nor luxurious.

Midna was already fast asleep. Karin sat down on a chair and rubbed her face, thinking of the battles she fought today. Hopefully they had advanced their cause in some way.

Karin sighed. Her thoughts drifted to her summer estate back in Limsa.To Mr. Ishikazi and Mr. Shibasaki. Even Birdie. How were they? Were they all right without her? She also thought about Sakura. With their failure to make much progress, it fell to her, Raz, and Peach to do their best and succeed.

Eventually Karin dipped her head and nodded off to sleep. In the morning she would wake up bright and early and try again, hopefully having learned something. In particular with Sakura at her side once again. Though she may be reluctant to admit it, the plucky girl was her best friend.
Karin Level 5: 18/50
Location: Astral Plane
Word Count: Short
Points Gained: 1
New EXP Balance---Karin Level 5: 19/50 +7 +6


Karin followed behind the others, using her grappling hook and jumps. When they encountered the massive creature battling Goldlewis, she narrowed her eyes. Three massive floating body parts. Roxas presented a good theory, and Karin was eager to test it.

Karin dashed and tried to avoid lasers and bullets heading her way. She had to get closer. Close enough to hit one of these floating parts with her bare hands.

One of the lasers swept past her, and she dashed to take advantage, only for the explosions that erupted from the ground to sweep her up into the air, spinning. ”Wh-what?!” She was already low on defensive ki, she couldn’t afford to take many more hits!

More giant balls of energy came her way, so she attached a grapple hook to the wall to pull herself away. Unfortunately, a passing bolt of energy severed the cord and left Karin to fall on a predictable bath towards the ground, grunting as she passed through a bolt on the way. She landed face down, roughly, and took a full second to get up. As she got to her hands and knees a massive metal gauntlet smashed her against the stone. Karin wheezed and her face twisted with pain. The ground cracked and reddened and exploded beneath her, damaging her heavily and crushing her against the metal hand. There was a tremendous yellow spark as Karin’s ki rebelled against being turned into red paste.

The monstrous hand retracted, leaving Karin in a crater. Karin stirred, pushed herself up to her hands and knees, wavered, and then collapsed back down into the cracked stone beneath her. With a frustrated sigh, the heiress closed her eyes against the dust, losing consciousness.
PRCU roleplay: A school for superheroes!

PRCU lore:


Level 7: 31/70
Word Count: itty bitty
Location: The Under → Home of Tears
Points Gained: 1 (+25)
NEW EXP balance--- Level 7: 57/70




Listening to Polaris was easy.

We’ve always stuck together.

Withdrawing her Tool Gun, she turned what probably would have been a considerable mining effort into a stroll. The little weapon had proven useful time and time again ever since that Museum.

The Director was happy to get out of the muck and into the rain. The atmosphere out here was downright pleasant, and moody in a good way.

“That probably took a couple years off my lifespan. But we made it.” Jesse said, taking in the scenery.

There, they ran into a familiar face. Cornifer the Cartographer. “That’s some trade secret.” Jesse muttered good-naturedly. He also told them a valuable bit of information: there was a Consul in town. And exactly where he lived. Seemed like a target worth considering, or at least worth learning about. But a problem for later. They all needed to recharge their batteries.

That was when they were interrupted by a stranger. Jesse figured she was a good judge of character. Cornifer seemed nice, and this guy knew Cornifer, and this guy also seemed nice. Personally, Jesse was up to getting to know the place.

“Gee, thanks.” She said sarcastically when he said they all looked awful. Therion responded, and it was a bit of a cold reception, so Jesse stepped up to the front of the group.

“But yeah, we just kinda went through a bunch of bullshit to get here. My name’s Jesse Faden. If you could help us out, we’d appreciate it.” She said, looking to follow this fellow to promised medicine.
The Incorrigible Iceburn!


Interactions
Metamorph: @DClassified
Cybergirl: @canaryrose





And so, Iceburn was privileged with being on her first mission with Young Justice. Their goal was to stop the bank robbers currently taking a bunch of hostages. This was definitely among the highest stakes she'd ever dealt with. At the very least, their didn't seem to be any super villains around! Iceburn was nervous, excited, and smiling on the trip over. Maybe not entirely appropriate, but she couldn't help it. Pei was here to win. Since being run out of Coast City, she had been hankering for a good old fashioned Day-Saving.

Kila was the leader of this mission, a fact that, for some reason, Iceburn had the ability to vote in. In her opinion it would probably just be best if the squad had one consistent leader through all the missions. At least Kila had good ideas about what the best thing to do was.

"Let's do this, Metamorph." Iceburn said, pointedly proud of being able to say cool superhero names. Speaking of cool superhero names...

Pei glanced over at Stormcaller and smirked cheekily. "Glad you took my advice, Stormcaller! Rolls off the tongue a lot better than Ence-ence- whatever. The other one. Good luck! See you in a little bit."

With that she went to follow Metamorph and Cybergirl to their entry point. They were searching for the security room. Iceburn checked behind them, her dominant left hand shimmering with ready-to-go power. Apparently Nymph had already gone no-contact. "She's probably just being sneaky." Iceburn surmised with a shrug. That, or she was currently struggling with an air duct and getting blown all over the place. But Iceburn kept that thought to herself.

"This looks like the spot." Iceburn muttered as Metamorph reached the metal door. It was locked shut, but Iceburn figured she could break through fairly easily. She was about to speak up, when Metamorph did first. Iceburn's grin widened.

"With pleasure, monsieur." Iceburn said with a curtsey, pinching the edges of an imaginary skirt. She approached the door, rubbing her palms together. Then she brought her hands against her mouth. Gently, she blew concentrated icy mist onto the top hinge, than the middle, then crouched for the third. They crackled and frosted over entirely, the ice seeping into the metal.

Cracking her neck and stretching out her arms, Iceburn gestured for both of them to stand back. Her right boot than began to shimmer with misty energy. With a running start she did a push kick against the middle metal hinge detonating the energy in her foot for extra oomph. At the same time, she detonated the frozen hinges. With a burst of fog, the door cracked off its hinges and slammed against the floor with a thud. Pei sprung after it and into the room. There wasn't anyone inside, of course. If they couldn't get in, neither could the bad guys. Though, a security room like this would be a good place to hole up if you could get the security guards to open it for you. The seige had been going on for a while though, so there were a dozen reasons as to why this particular security room was abandoned or untouched.

So she stepped out of the way and bowed again, doing a broad sweeping gesture to invite them both into the room. Particularly she pointed Cybergirl to a selection of screens above a desk. "Your camera suite, mademoiselle. Please, make yourself comfortable." She said, suave.

Iceburn looked at the screens, seeing which rooms had hostages and which rooms had bad guys. At least, the ones with cameras in it. "Look at these bozos. All tech, no wit. They didn't even think to shoot out any of the cameras." Iceburn criticized, tsking her tongue.

"Unfortunately for society, stupid people with guns are usually more dangerous than smart people with guns. I think we're gonna have to hit these clowns hard and fast, before they have a chance to react and start using human shields." She said, punching her fist into her palm.

"But, anyway. I'm followin' your lead. Where to next, Metamorph?" Iceburn said.



Aberration

Sector 7
Goldlewis, Roxas’ @Double, Karin’s @Zoey Boey, Midna’s @DracoLunaris, Pit’s @Yankee
Word Count: 5475 (+6)



The hummer soon emerged from the tunnel’s confines onto an elevated highway near the Sector 7 hub, its surface littered by wrecks engulfed in flame. Much like Kunad Highway as seen by the Seekers earlier that day on their flight in to Midgar, where roads snaked around one another at a variety of elevations, a number of other paved bridges could be seen in every direction. This sprawling interchange was where traffic both into and out of Sector 7 got redirected through the proper tunnels to reach their destinations, but with the area in crisis, the whole stack of interconnected overpasses and underpasses looked like one big nightmare. Goldlewis had no choice but to slow down to maneuver around the wrecks as the team tried to push forward in pursuit of that determined officer. Plenty of Filthwings filled the skies, demanding everyone’s attention to avoid any lethally lucky shots.

Midna at least got a chance to get plenty of practice with her Charr Pirate Musket, its unlimited ammunition meaning she could just keep shooting over and over till she hit whatever was attacking them. Assuming someone else didn’t get it first. To do this, the princess leaned out the window, and holding her shadowhand in front of her like a shield, while pressing the barrel of the musket between middle and pointer finger, and aiming though the same. Whatever energy blasts didn't hit Midna's shield usually ended up being deflected by Pit's, as the Orbitars flitted back and forth blocking shots. The weapons' own shots were on the weaker side so he stuck to protecting the car, leaving all the airborne targets to the princess.

It wasn’t long before the heroes found their quarry. Up ahead, a bus lay with its totaled front end punched through the highway’s concrete barrier, a good third of it suspended over nothingness. More crashed cars crowded its backend, aflame and seemingly ready to explode at any moment. Just above the busted vehicle floated a strange anomaly–a jagged, deep red tear in reality, teeming with vivid crimson particles. “Aw, hell. It’s a goddamn gate!” Goldlewis spotted that policeman running toward the bus on foot, having seemingly lost his motorcycle somewhere along the way, and the veteran soon saw why. There were civilians trapped in the bus, and though they’d already squeezed their children out of the windows in the hopes that they’d flee to safety, the adults couldn’t get out. Their crying kids wanted to run to them, but their parents yelled at them to stay away, and a couple very short adults who’d managed to escape along with the children tried to keep them in line. Goldlewis put the hummer in park and threw open the door. “We’ve gotta help ‘em out, quickly, before…!”

As if on queue, the cries of panic from inside the bus turned to a hideous mixture of pain and terror. The people on board began to twist and spasm, suffused by red particles and in a chorus of haunting screams they transformed. Red crystals erupted from their bodies, their skin twisted into gray, stonelike flesh, and their appendages erupted into unnatural weapons. As the shrieking children cowered the new aberrations tore free from the bus. Without a word, the policeman extended his X-baton and engaged them in combat.

”Th-They’re all people?” Roxas stammered, suddenly getting a sick feeling in his stomach. All those aberrations and mutants that he and Karin had dispatched on the semi-truck. They had all been… people? Roxas was no stranger to the concept of people becoming monsters. He knew full well where creatures like Heartless and Nobodies all came from. But in those cases, the victims themselves would be restored after their Heartless and Nobodies were destroyed respectively. These things… they weren’t like that - at least as far as the Keyblade Wielder knew. Those people could very well be gone, with no way to save them.

The Keybearer lost his grip on his weapons - both of them slipping from his hands and falling to the ground before vanishing in a flash of white and black respectively. He was feeling weak at the knee and dropped to a kneeling position. Was it exhaustion? The overwhelming guilt of so many people being lost? Both? After a moment he managed to push himself back to his feet. His eyes narrowed and his expression hardened into one of determination and resolve. He couldn’t let this get to him. He had to do something. And helping that lone policeman was as good a place to start as any.

Roxas suddenly broke into a sprint toward the action. When he got close he leaped off of a wrecked car and used flowmotion to kick himself off of two airborne aberrations before finally landing on the ground near where the policeman stood - Keyblades drawn and ready to lend him a helping hand.

Karin gasped as she watched orphans be made in front of her eyes. ”How dare..?!” She dashed into battle, boiling with indignant fury.

Midna raced after him on wolfos back, the hound leaping from vehicle to vehicle as she shouted out the question she thought was key ”How do we stop that happening to the kids? Or us?”

Behind her, Goldlewis was running as fast as he could. “Stay away from the gate, and finish this quickly!” he roared.

Rather than go to face the monsters directly, Midna moved straight to the children urging them to go ”Back that way, quick” directing them towards the hummer, because it was better than nothing. They tottered, staggered, and tripped in that direction. Then she raised the shield she had equipped while riding over, and put herself between them and danger as she moved to escort them to somewhere, anywhere, that was safer than where they were right now.

Pit was on their heels, only slightly slower. Mid-run he'd traded the Orbitars for the bow, the weapon a comfort in his hands once more. He didn't shy away from facing down the humans turned monsters, though his expression had grown more grim than it had been previously. Seeing humans corrupted like that was awful, and a big reminder that life wasn't fair - else this kind of thing wouldn't happen to innocent people. But if they didn't deal with them as monstrosities now, they wouldn't be able to save the people that still could be saved.

Pit skidded to a halt beside Roxas and drew his bow, sending an arrow of light slamming into an aberration that had started towards Midna and the children. He glanced between the police officer they'd been chasing and Goldlewis, adding his own question to Midna's.

"And how do we close that thing?!"

The officer cartwheeled backward to dodged a flesh-shredding double claw slash from an aberration, then leaped forward. His flying kick struck the monster in the chest, and he landed with a diagonal baton strike. A second strike came right on its heels, followed by a revolving kick to the head with momentum that carried through into a sweep. The baton in his hand transformed in a wave of blue particles as he swung it overhead, becoming a giant blunt-edged gladius easily four feet in length. With it the officer cracked down on the aberrations head, dispatching it.

His eyes flashed toward the newcomers. Capable strangers were not so rare a sight in Midgar, and police or not, he needed the help. “My X-baton can destroy the gate,” he said. “Keep the aberrations off my back and I’ll get it shut. And if any of you start feeling sick, get out of here IMMEDIATELY, understand?”

”Got it!”

"Okay!"

The Seekers had no other choice but to, and without hesitation put the plan in action. Goldlewis deployed a Thunderbird grenade to chase an aberration down and blow it up, then bore down a shield-bearing mutant with his coffin like a wrecking ball. With one mighty swing he broke its guard wide open. He stomped down hard enough to not just crush the aberration’s foot but crack the pavement beneath it, then knocked it down with a sweep of his own and brought his coffin down with a withering Behemoth Typhoon. Of course, the one he’d detonated with his Thunderbird jumped at him the next moment. In total, there were eleven remaining aberrations: two with bows atop the bus and blocking the gate, four with two sets of giant claws apiece, three with long, pointy lance-arms, one with a deformed shield plus club, and one with two giant fists. That last one had been a rather large man, made bigger still by his aberration, and he stood almost as tall as Goldlewis himself.

Midna herself focused on the children, despite her being rapidly demonstrating she was bad with kids. She was aided in this by her fellow small folk, the Lalafell trying to herd the kids away from danger as best they could.

”Come on, move, we need to get you away from the portal” she insisted as she grabbed and hauled a bawling child who Goldlewis had just orphaned away from the fight. The child, a boy of barely a half dozen years, struggled, trying to run to what was left of his mother. Then he was pulled close as the universe attempted an act of twisted mercy to reunite them, delivered at the tips of the mutant’s arrows, only for Midna to deny that fate with her shield … and her shoulder.

She cursed wordlessly as crimson fowled her black suit, only to in the next breath commanded ”Javelins, take down those archers!” as she went right back to child corralling despite her injury.

As she pulled back, her strikers stepped forwards to provide ranged support to the heroes. Four frozen Chilfos raised frozen spears and hurled them forth, then disappeared. In contrast the three amazonian initiates all darted for the cover of a burnt out car, using it as cover from which they periodically popped up to hurl psionic spears at the archers, or any other targets of opportunity, before going on cooldown. To their chagrin the shield-bearing aberration seemed to take its protection job seriously, and blocked a couple shots meant for the archers.

As for Roxas, he took it upon himself to watch the policeman’s back. His intended purpose was to make sure not a single mutant got past him in some attempt to get to the officer or the gate. And boy did they try. Many of the clawed ones attempted to attack Roxas or sneak past him. But thankfully, he was able to make good use of his Dual Counter technique to keep from being swarmed while also keeping them from getting by him.

Unfortunately, after that stunt on the semi-truck, Roxas had no MP to spare at the moment. It would be a little bit longer before he was recharged enough to start shooting spells again. But that didn’t mean he was completely out of ranged attack options. At one point Roxas threw both of his Keyblades in opposite circular motions. This resulted in them both circling around him two times each in opposite directions as a small A.O.E. against the mutants trying to get past him. Afterward it was a simple matter to re-summon the weapons back in his hands again.

Karin, ready to dish out some pain to the creatures that steal the bodies of the innocent, picked a fight with the biggest monster she could find. The giant aberration with two fists was her target, and she dashed forward. She jumped at the last moment, coming in at a steep angle to spin and kick the monster in the back of the head. The monster was already turning with a lariat, and swatted Karin up and away, shrugging off her kick with the momentum of the hit. She landed with a roll and silently chastised herself for losing her cool. Then she dashed back in. This time, she waited for the monster to strike first, and it obliged, crushing the ground she was just standing on as she sidestepped. She did a series of palm strikes, finishing off with an elbow to shove the monster down. Normally it would have fallen over, but it’s big hands let it stay up as it grabbed the ground and threw itself bodily at Karin. She blocked the impact and skidded backwards, trying to stop it.

Karin struck its face with a palm and it reeled, but on the second hit it steeled itself in her direction and went for a grab. She leapt out of the way- just short! It snagged her ankle and she lost her balance, falling onto the ground for a brief moment. It brought it’s fist down upon her midsection, and the heiress was crushed into the ground and bounced. ”Oof!” It went to do it again and she rolled out of the way, wiping her lip.

While Midna's strikers rained attacks on the farthest enemies and Roxas, Karin, and Goldlewis took on those closest, Pit moved to intercept some of the other aberrations as before they could cause any more problems. He opened with two arrows aimed at the shield wielder. As expected it raised the mutated limb up to block, but the streaks of light veered to either side of it and then crashed back together on each of its flanks. It grunted and turned to block a third arrow coming at it, leaving itself open for Pit to get up close. He spun the bow blade in his hands, slicing the aberration until he spotted movement in the corner of his vision.

"Whoa!" he exclaimed, jumping backward to avoid a sharpened appendage stabbing into him. Another of the lance-arm aberrations joined in, lunging both of its arms forward to skewer the angel. Pit deployed the Orbitar shield for a quick block, regaining his bearings to go back on the offensive.

The lancers split up and dodged sideways to circle around the angel, not unlike how he’d split his arrows to hit the shieldbearer a moment earlier, then attacked from both sides in quick succession with vicious thrusts. It was a test of both agility and tenacity to fend them both off at once. Blue and gold flashed around Pit furiously as he worked to block, parry, and deflect the rapid strikes. What did slip by were glancing blows, leaving thin cuts on his arms and side. The club-armed aberration that had been skulking nearby finally decided to try and repay Pit for the damage he'd inflicted on it, with a screech it lifted its arm up and brought it down heavily in an attempt to cave the angel's head in. Pit caught it with the bow, both of his hands on the handle to push up while the mutant pushed down. He was seemingly locked in a stalemate, which the lancers both rushed in to capitalize on. They came at him in a pincer attack again, but their target was not as trapped as he seemed. The bow split in the middle, letting the monster's club fall to the ground as Pit propelled himself backward with a mighty flap of his wings. He could feel the sting of a shallow cut on his cheek from one of the lancers getting too close, and let out a sigh of relief that it hadn't been worse. He clicked the two halves of the bow back together and spun it once in his hands, letting his determination carry him forward to engage the aberrations again.

Up on top of the bus, Roxas’ spin maneuver managed to disperse the two archers to give the officer room to work, but after getting clipped the aberrations backed off toward either end of the vehicle. The one at the front let loose a barrage of rapid-fire projectiles with decent spread, while the other charged an arrow. Roxas couldn’t effectively deal with both at once, but Goldlewis lent a hand. He’d bulled through the chaos behind the policeman and his escort as a sort of rearguard, bashing aberrations left and right, and now he jumped onto a car to bounce off the hood even higher in the air. A glyph-enabled airdash allowed him to close the distance to the sniper, which pivoted to shoot him, but with his coffin held in front of him like a shield Goldlewis tanked the hit. In reply five arms reached out to strike repeatedly in a pinwheel blow, and when Goldlewis landed on the bus a final punch sent the archer flying away. The other aberration, out on the precipice above a lethal drop, was Roxas’ to deal with.



“You two, get off the bus!” the policeman called. He had laid into the gate with his X-baton in Gladius mode, cleaving into the red tear with big, heavy swings. Where the two collided the red matter gave way, but each blow only chipped it, so it would take another minute to break down. “Red matter is pouring out of the gate, you have to minimize your exposure!”

”But-!” Roxas started to protest, but reluctantly agreed anyway.

Without a word Goldlewis obliged, jumping down from the bus to the asphalt of the highway. When he spotted Pit fighting one against three, he ran up to help even the odds. Though Pit couldn't spare him a glance while facing down the enemies, when he noted the man’s approach he asked with a slight grin, "You want a pointy one or - uh, the other one?"

“Whatever’s convenient!” Goldlewis lashed out into one of the lancers from behind with a superlative backfist, knocking it aside. It stumbled but kept itself from falling with its lance, using it to launch itself back into the fray. It went low and jabbed Goldlewis twice in the foot as he tried to wind up a Behemoth Typhoon, then followed up with a flurry of stabs. Rather than risk more damage the veteran blocked them, taking minor chip damage. When it went for a final stab he backdashed for distance and pulled out the Skyfish, but by the time he opened fire the aberration was already on the move. It ran in a circle around him, taking a few bullets but not enough for Goldlewis to put it down. When the minigun clicked empty it charged in, springboarding off the weapon’s barrel for a killer jump strike. Goldlewis stopped it in the nick of time with a well-placed elbow, then came down with an overhead Behemoth Typhoon to turn the monster to dust.

Instead, the aberration veered to the side, and as the coffin cracked the ground it buried its lance in his stomach, just beneath the ribs. “Agh!” The veteran’s weapon slammed to the ground, and he clamped his hands on the aberration’s lance. “Grrrrah!” Teeth gritted, he snapped he deformed arm like a lobster claw, then grabbed the monster by the shoulders. “You!” He lifted it up and bashed it with a mighty headbutt. “Damn!” Another headbut cracked its face. “FOOL!” Upon taking the final headbutt the aberration’s head exploded, and as it slumped to the ground Goldlewis sat down hard on his coffin, trying to put pressure on the stab wound.

With one less enemy to contend with, Pit could focus less on defense and move in to finish the other aberrations off. He jumped as the monster's club came down at him again, spinning the bladed bow at its head. It screeched as its face was torn up, and by the time it raised its shield to prevent more damage Pit was already rounding on the other lancer. He blocked one stab with his weapon and caught the other on his bracer. He shoved the lancer away and then thrust the sharp end of his bow behind himself, catching the aberration behind him off guard with a jab to its gut. He spun again, this time quick summoning the Upperdash Arm to shoot forward and plow into the shieldbearer, cracking its hardened limb and sending it up into the air. In a flash he pulled the bow up into a regular firing stance and peppered it with arrows, and when it fell to the ground it began to turn to ash.

Still one more, he reminded himself, turning the bow on the lancer. The light arrow he fired struck it in the chest, though it did little to slow it down. It practically threw itself at Pit pointy-ends first, the force behind the double strike enough to force the bow away. Pit blinked in surprise, though when the lancer straightened up with intent to follow its attack with a couple more stabs it found that the bow had once again been split into two, both of the blades slashing down through each of the aberration's shoulders in a cross shape. It staggered for a moment before it too fell dead.

The lancer that Goldlewis had taken off his back had been dealt with, and as for Goldlewis himself -

"Are you okay?" Pit asked, eyes wide, though with no healing abilities to speak of though he couldn't do much at the moment to help either way.

Roxas - despite having done what the policeman told him - opted to remain relatively near the bus. Hopefully he was far enough anyway to not be affected by the gate, but the policeman had told them to get away if they started feeling sick. Roxas wasn’t feeling sick yet so he figured he was still safe from the gate for the time being.

By that time the two remaining clawed aberrations, recovered from Goldlewis’ sideswipe and driven back from the gate by Roxas, charged for Midna and the civilians. They seized the opportunity presented by an opening to bear down on the children, some of them belonging to the people they themselves had once been, but the kids’ protectors weren’t about to let that happen. The male lalafell pulled out and took aim with a Manganese Arquebus, and though his aim was unsteady, his shots helped open the way for Midna to deal with them personally.

Midna, who was still holding her wound shut having been too busy handling children to use some of the healing gel she had in her pocket dimension, turned a masked face towards the monsters, a single glowering eye all that was visible of her face. Within it, no fear was found

”Bear and bug, go!” she commanded, opening portals and unleashing beastial titans which she commanded to ”Slow them!”

A fusion of wolfos, dragon, bear and machine lunged for from her left, a mass of metal and flesh that towered over the clawed mutant as it bore down upon it. It tried to dodge to the side, only for a paw to reach out and smash into it, the side swipe driving causing it to crumple and fall to the ground.

Said fellow faced the Buzzing form of Midna’s Vibrava, and it did not even need to approach to attack. Instead the highway below it glowed with cracks of power, which then burst upwards, the power of the earth blasting it from beneath and launching it skywards. It rose, and then received a devastating crunch for the pokemon’s insectile jaws, before being dropped down atop the bear batted one.

Rather than finish the job however, that was all the short amount of time Midna could sustain the spells supersizing them, and so they dropped away, leaving the mutants picking themselves up to face Minda herself.

Midna, and the massive ball of runes and turquoise magic she had hefted above her head in a shadow hand.

”Twilight-” Midna shouted, taking notes from a certain street fighter and naming her attack as she slammed the massive ball of power down atop the pair ”-Volley Bomb!”

The sphere of power passed through them harmlessly for a moment, until it was half inside the ground. That was when it detonated, blasting the pair of mutants into ash. The princess didn’t even bother to watch this, having already turned away to keep ushering the children away.

As Midna succeeded, the pre-occupied Karin tried to finish off her foe as quickly as possible. She spun around the creature and drove her elbow into its back, then kicked out at its knee. It toppled on purpose, looking to crush her, but this time she was too fast. She canceled into a dash to the side and came back in just as fast, slamming the creature into the air with a palm thrust. As it fell back down she used the same arm to slam it away. This time it was too overwhelmed to stop her jump in attack. She stomped its head into the ground, and then slid into the monster, forcing it to stand. ”Ressen Ha!” She exploded upward with an EX-attack, her arms pinwheeling as she bifurcated the upper half of the beast and rose above it. She landed lightly and then whirled around to see how the children were doing. She hadn’t expected that to take so long! That wasn’t good enough!

”Thank you, Midna!” She called out, relieved.

”How much longer to go?” Roxas called back to the policeman. He’d been holding his position after getting down from on top of the bus - but he’d been watching his fellow Seekers finish off the stragglers. He was still trying to stick with his original goal, which was keeping any of the mutants from getting past him and attacking the policeman.

With a yell the officer jumped up, performing an overhead flip. “It’s OVER!” He came down with a hefty two-handed blow and cleaved through what remained of the gate. It blew apart in a burst of red lightning and fluctuating pixels, which quickly fizzled out. “...Thank you for your help.” For a brief moment he crouched there, catching his breath, before he stood up. Noise and motion from the sky drew his attention to a police helicopter on approach, its unique futuristic design featuring a ring-shaped rotor instead of the typical blades. It flew deeper into the chaos, in so doing drawing the policeman’s gaze to a battle unfolding further down the road. A temporary evacuation shelter had been set up, but it was under attack by a handful of aberrations, with only a couple fellow officers on the case. He jumped down on the opposite side of the bus and sprinted toward the action.

As he left, however, Karin and Midna began to realize something was wrong with some of the children. Their cries and wails had taken on a fever pitch, not just from sadness but from pain as well. At this point, their suffering couldn’t possibly be just mental, and whatever it was seemed to be affecting the lalafells, too. Those who’d gotten closest to the chaos, as well as the lalafell woman, suddenly collapsed. As the others either ran in every direction or stood paralyzed in fear, the stricken twisted and contorted in agony, and finally transformed into aberrations themselves. After another moment they too went on the offensive.

”Come on!” said Roxas as his shoulders sagged with fatigue, ”Give us a break!”

“Pachacha!” the lalafell man cried out, tears streaming down his face as he succumbed to a coughing fit. The thing that had been his girlfriend rounded on him and struck him with her claws, sending him skidding backward. As she approached to finish the job he shakily pointed his arquebus her way, but thinking better of it turned it upon himself instead.

”Good God!” Without even thinking, Karin dashed in to direct the gun away from the man. She turned her back to the aberration that used to be the person’s lover to interpose herself between the creature and the man.

Roxas, getting frustrated, quickly threw Oblivion at the attacking aberration and made a mad dash toward it, ”I’m not losing anyone else!” he aimed his second blade and fired off a Blizzaga that left behind a thin trail of ice on the ground in its wake. Roxas hopped on and used flowmotion to grind the ice rail and cover the distance in a much shorter time.

Once in melee range he re-summoned Oathkeeper and tried to focus, ”Alright, if my Keyblade can free people from Galeem then I don’t see why it can’t do the same for these people too…” He didn’t know how smart of a move this was. Or if it was even possible. But he was tired of feeling like he couldn’t help these people. He lunged forward and thrust the tip of the weapon into what he hoped was aberration’s heart and attempted to free the innocent person as if freeing them from Galeem. The thrust amounted to a normal attack as the aberration reacted, twisting off the keyblade’s point to turn around and attack Roxas instead.

That left Roxas no choice. He barely managed to block the attack in time, but was at least able to knock the aberration back with Dual Counter. Then he blasted it with a Dual Shot.

”Goddesses preserve us” came a curse from Midna as the princess who had found herself surrounded by new foes. While she had been praying that whatever Roxas was pulling would work, a shadow hand was holding off an archer, while she used her shield to block lance strikes, and her wolfos was hopping back and forth to try and keep them out the claws of a third and a fourth.

Now that his ploy had failed, the princess muttered ”They're already gone. Like stalchildren” to herself to convince to do what needed to be done, swallowed, and then gritted her teeth.

She crushed the diminutive archer held in her shadow hand in a single action, and then raised the ash dripping palm up, pulsing out an expanding orange ring of energy around her, wreathing the other two in shadows. A claw slipped past her guard, racking her mottled skin through her suit as she charged the attack, but she bore it for a moment longer, and then released.

The dark energy zone lashed out, orange lightning coursing through the mutant children, and then the wolfos she was astride lunged, and in a flash ripped out three throats and left the shaking princess surrounded by ash and the spirits of dead aberrations.

Seeing this, Karin snatched the gun from the person’s hands and stared at him. ”I-…”

"What are we supposed to do?" He was stumped. If the Keyblade failed, then what other answer was there? That's when it hit him. His Keyblade wasn't the only thing that could free people! He dispelled his weapons and faced the increasingly sick lalafell man, "Please… please work…" he said as he manifested a pink Friend Heart and then threw it at the man.

The heart made contact not a moment too soon. Its touch cleansed the poor fellow from the corruption mere seconds away before the red matter density in his system would have reached the point of aberration. He slumped down against the highway railing, panting, but wide-eyed as if he’d been suddenly jolted awake. “I thought I was gonna…” He looked around, a cold sweat beaded on his brow. “But…Pachacha…”

What could Karin even say? ”I’m sorry. You must get yourself to safety.” She said.

The lalafell took a shaky breath. “R-right.” Looking around at the frightened kids still uncorrupted enough to escape aberration, he furrowed his brow, then reached out for his arquebus. “Please. I’ll need it to signal for help. And if any more show up.” Karin nodded solemnly and handed him the weapon back. Despite the losses, their presence made a difference. Karin gave Roxas a grateful look for thinking faster than she could at that moment.

”The same for the rest of you!” Karin shouted. She swept a hand in the direction of any civilians or children who had been frozen in shock.

After Pit crushed enough aberration spirits at Goldlewis’ bidding to find him some Medicine, the veteran got to his feet, a harrowed look upon his face. “Goddamn redshift,” he spat. His eyes fell on a leftover aberration spirit and he made to stomp it, only to give it a second look. “Hol’ up a second.” He squinted at the mote. It looked more red than usual, and within the off-color light wasn’t a human spirit, but the twisted visage of an aberration. “Weren’t these people a minute ago? Is this how spirits normally work…?” With an uneasy grunt he hefted his coffin to continue after the policeman.

Karin didn’t answer, not able to theorize at that moment. She passed by Midna and set a steady hand on her shoulder. ”Come. There is yet more to be done.” With that she went to follow Goldlewis to the next theater of battle.
Vincent and Pei




Vincent stood alone on the training grounds, his eyes closed. His spinal implant glinted in the sunlight, his sleeveless athletic shirt tailored to allow his implant to easily connect to the port on his back. Over the years, thanks to a mentor of sorts he had when he first started fighting, he had become rather skilled in a particular form of shadow boxing. It only took one or two fights for him to get an idea of the way someone fought, right down to their form. At that moment, there was one person he wanted to fight again, more than anything. He wasn’t a man who was used to losing and if he ever got the chance, he wanted to be ready to make sure that one loss remained his only loss.

His eyes still closed, Vincent took a fighting stance as he imagined his own mentor, Nightwing, standing in front of him. Their fight, admittedly, didn’t last very long, but it was long enough for Vincent to get a good idea of how the veteran hero fought. Before, Vincent had made the first move, which he was sure was the reason he lost the fight, so he decided to let ‘Nightwing’ take the initiative. His right forearm turned jet-black as he hardened it to block a strike from one of his mentor’s Escrima sticks. Driven by the instinct that had not only made him undefeated but also kept him alive, Vincent countered with a left straight, his fist hardening at the last moment before ‘impact.’

The match continued like this for a few moments as Vincent and the mental image of his mentor attempted to counter each other. Patches of Vincent’s body hardened seemingly at random, as if he were actually defending from attacks he couldn’t block. Then, Vincent saw an opening in ‘Nightwing’s’ defense. Part of the outer shell of his implant leapt from his back and around his hand. Vincent focused on it, using his power to increase the speed and power of his punch, doing his best to capitalize on the opening…then he suddenly stopped and let out a frustrated growl.

Just like in their actual fight, Nightwing had quickly figured out that it would’ve been difficult to damage Vincent, given how quickly he could harden specific parts of his body. He had purposefully made an opening, which Vincent was eager to take advantage of. The result was Vincent’s right shoulder dislocated, soon followed by the left when he tried to attack in anger. Even though he had essentially been fighting his imagination, Vincent had caught himself about to make the same mistake.

”Shit, he’s tough even in my imagination,” Vincent muttered as he sat on the ground. ”I’ve got a long way to go before I can take on the real thing, again.”

”Times are tough in dreamland.” Pei said suddenly in the training ground. Pei was light of foot, sure, but maybe running a combat simulation in his mind had allowed her to unintentionally sneak up on him. She hadn’t said anything before because she had gotten distracted by the implant she spotted, resisting the urge to tap it with her index finger.

Vincent looked over his shoulder as Pei approached from behind. ”Yeah, I suppose you could say that,” he replied with a shrug. ”Not a big deal, though. Just means I have to work harder.” As he said this, Pei’s smile widened, endeared by the earnesty.

A moment passed as Vincent’s face took on a more thoughtful expression. ”...Pei, right? What brings you here?”

”I…” She glances around, trying to think of a reason, before settling on a version of the truth. ”...am mostly looking for someone to annoy! Mind if that’s you?” She went to plop down on the ground next to him, legs crossed.

”So, who are we fighting?” She asks, slapping her hands on her knees and leaning forward.

Vincent watched as Pei took a seat next to him without waiting for his answer. ”Nightwing,” he answered without hesitation. ”He kicked my ass before I got here. In fact, it was how I even ended up here, in the first place. It was the first time I’ve lost a fight in…well, ever. So, I’m working on getting good enough to beat him next time. But, I guess being trained by ‘the world’s greatest detective’ gave him a pretty big head start.”

He then turned to Pei and asked, ”So, why are you here? And I don’t mean here, next to me, but here...” he gestured broadly, indicating he meant Mount Justice.

”Well now I’m here to help you defeat Nightwing in imagination combat!” Pei says excitedly. ”No wonder you couldn’t beat him on your own. He’s strong, smart, funny, faster than Batman, and has unbeatable glutes.” She lists off Nightwing’s defining features. ”He’s the Boy Wonder!”

”Have you tried giving him a mirror and saying the back of his hair is messed up? That might distract him.” Pei suggests.

Vincent let out a laugh at Pei’s suggestion. ”I’ll try to remember that for next time,” he replied, still chuckling. He wiped his eyes as he calmed down and asked, ”What else can you do, besides give surprisingly sound fighting advice?”

Pei was taken aback that he enjoyed her joke so much. Had she finally found the perfect audience, she wondered? Her smile brightened. ”Oh, me?”

Out of white mist, an icicle formed in her hand. She flung it at a nearby training dummy, and the icicle shuddered before popping with an impact, spreading mist and frost. ”Aaand that’s basically it in a nutshell.” She said, scratching her pale head of hair.

Vincent let out a low whistle as he watched the misty cloud around the dummy dissipate. ”Now that’s pretty cool. Pun fully intended,” he said. ”Can you do anything with the mist, too?”

”The mist is where the ice comes from! No mist, no ice.” Pei explains. With a flick of her wrist, the mist that spread out from the exploded icicle zipped through the air, reforming into the shape of a large, intricate snowflake. She set it on her palm and blew on it, and it dissipated back into mist. ”Tra la la la la~” She whispered whimsically, wiggling her fingers.

”So, if you’re, say, trapped in the desert, you wouldn’t be able to do that?” he asked. ”Or can you make the mist wherever you are?”

”The second thing!” Pei said, demonstrating by shooting a stream of mist from her fingertips. ”It’s ‘no mist, no ice’, not ‘no ice, no mist.’” Pei clarifies a little unhelpfully.

”Oh! And this!” She flipped her legs and transitioned into a handstand. ”Eh? Eh?” She wiggled her eyebrows, sounding much more excited about this ability than the previous one.

With an arched eyebrow, Vincent watched Pei effortlessly went from sitting into a handstand. He nodded and said, ”Impressive. I’ll be sure to call you if I ever need to read something upside-down.”

He hopped to his feet and stood up, rolling his neck. ”Me, I’m not quite so acrobatic. I punch and control metal. Though, I do suppose I have one other trick.” His spinal implant clicked and whirred as it seemed to open up. Metallic panels spread out and rearranged themselves, glinting in the sunlight as they took on a familiar, yet oversized, shape. In just a couple of seconds, a pair of large, metallic wings had unfurled from Vincent’s back. ”It’s not often I get to use these things. In fact, I tend to forget about them more often than not,” he added with a chuckle.

Pei fell from her handstand, staring up and upside down at Vincent, as her mouth formed a small ‘o’.

”Wow! Metal wings!” She said. She made a ‘flapping’ sound effect and wiggled her hands around.

”Do they work? Can you fly with your metal wings?!” She asked.

Vincent couldn’t help but smirk, feeling a sense of pride well up inside of him. Rather than directly answer her question, he started to flap his wings. After a couple of flaps, he began to rise into the air, the only sound coming from his wings being that of the air moving with each flap, despite being made completely of metal. ”I’ve never really put them through their paces, so I’m not sure exactly how fast or high I can go,” he replied as he lowered himself back to the ground.

As soon as he regained his footing, a few ‘feathers’ fell from his wings. Rather than fall to the ground, however, they stopped in midair and began to float around Vincent. ”And since they’re made of steel, I can do this,” he added as the feathers arranged themselves to form a large letter ‘V’ in between himself and Pei before returning to his wings.

”That’s so sick!” Pei leapt to her feet. ”We gotta test 'em out! Wanna see how high up you could go if I blew you up?” She asked.

Vincent was about to agree, then stopped. ”Wait, what do you mean by that?” he asked, slightly confused.

”Like this! Iceburn Special Technique: Cloud Leap!” Pei stomped the ground, sending out a cloud of mist beneath her, and then she formed it into a temporary compressed ice cloud that burst upwards. She went about twenty feet in the air before landing, cushioning her fall with another burst of mist. She rolled, dispersing her momentum with a cloud-like formation in her wake.

”Now imagine if I did that for you except you had wings!” Pei said.

As he watched Pei ascend using her clouds, then return to the ground, Vincent gave a thoughtful nod. ”Alright, that’s pretty cool. Let’s give it a shot!” He unfurled his wings again, then gave it another thought. ”You sure this’ll work, though? I mean, I’ve gotta be quite a bit heavier than you are.”

Pei giggled, nudging his shoulder. ”Of course I’m not sure if this’ll work! That’s why we’re testing it!” Vincent grinned at that, seeing the sense in what Pei said.

Pei whipped her hand about and created a slow moving vortex of ice and mist that came up to about Vince’s knee. ”So you step on that, flap your wings, I’ll launch you up, and we’ll see what happens!”

Vincent nodded and raised his wings, ready to bring them back down, but paused. He turned to Pei and held out his hand. ”How about it? Wanna take a trip around the island with me?”

Pei’s bravado lost a step, and she found herself flattered. But then her grin widened, and she smacked her hand into his. ”Would I?!” Using his hand as leverage, she went to pull herself onto him in a piggyback. She used her other hand to maintain a connection to the ‘jump pad’ of ice.

”Ready when you are!” She exclaimed.

As Pei hopped onto Vincent’s back, the steel between his wings morphed and molded itself into a kind of harness. He lifted his wings again and stepped onto the mist cloud. Pei moved her hand straight up, and the mist surged upward into a windy cool shower. As he brought his wings back down, he felt the mist propel him and Pei into the air, quite a bit faster than he would have been able to on his own. Using his momentum, he flapped his wings again and again, making himself pick up speed as they ascended. Within moments, they were a couple hundred feet above the ground, his wings spread out to catch the thermal currents rising from below. ”How’s the view?” he asked Pei, raising his voice over the rushing wind.

Pei was holding on tight now, her heart gripped by exhilaration and terror. They had gone much higher than she anticipated, and though she could cushion most falls, skyscraper height was much beyond her capability of survival.

”Aaah!” She screamed into the back of his shirt. ”Aaahahah! Haha!” It morphed into a laugh as she glanced around.

”High!” She yelled.

”Higher?” Vincent called back, mishearing Pei through the rush of wind. He brought his wings down harder and climbed higher into the air. Pei realized the translation error immediately and just cackled, holding on tighter. In truth, he wasn’t exactly sure why he knew how to use his wings. Back in Bludhaven, he never had much opportunity to practice with them, yet here he was, flying as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

He evened out at about four hundred feet, less than half the height of Mount Justice. ”Still doing okay back there?” he asked Pei.

”Perfect!” She said, hanging on very, very tightly. At this point, she was just a giggling mess.

Vincent grinned, then tucked his wings in. The two of them dove toward the ground, hurtling headfirst. Vincent found the speed exhilarating: he couldn’t help but grin almost madly as he did his best not to laugh, knowing the wind would steal his breath. At the last moment, just before he and Pei reached the tops of the trees, he unfurled his wings and leveled back out, using the speed from the dive to fly even faster.

Before he knew it, the two of them were about to circle back to where they started. He started to flap his wings backwards to slow down and managed to land safely where he and Pei had been chatting not too long ago. ”Goddamn, that was great!” he exclaimed as his wings retracted back into his implant. The ‘harness’ that had wrapped around Pei let her go as he stepped away. ”I didn’t know I could go that fast!”

Pei detached from Vincent’s back and then dropped belly-down onto the ground, grabbing the dirt. ”I didn’t know you could go that fast, either.” She said, voice muffled by the dirt. She let out a few residual nervous giggles.

Vincent sat down on the ground next to Pei and leaned back on his hands. He could still feel the rush of the wind against his face, the thrill of defying gravity. ”I almost didn’t wanna come back down,” he said with a chuckle. He then turned to Pei and asked, ”You feel alright? Still got all your pieces?”

Pei gives a thumbs up from her position on the ground. ”That was…”

She cuts herself off, before looking quite seriously at Vincent. ”I can’t remember the specifics. But an oil worker, in the American Wild West, fell several storeys while working on a regular job. Right from the tippy top of the tower all the way to the ground. He survived with minor injuries because of the lucky consistency of the mud.”

Pushing herself up to her feet, she continued. ”His friends went to go help him up, but the first thing he did was climb right back up that ladder and get to work. The reason? Because he knew if he didn’t climb back up that tower at that very instant, he’d never climb it again.” She said sagely.

”Basically, Vince, what I’m saying is-” She went to jump into his back again. ”If I don’t do it again right now I don’t know if I ever will!” She cried.

”Whoa!” Vincent cried out in surprise as Pei went to climb onto his back again. He chuckled and stood up, carrying her piggy-back style as he said, ”Alright, alright, one more lap. I don’t even think I need a hand, this time, either!”

Once again, his wings spread out from between his back and Pei. He lifted his wings and brought them back down. Dust rose from the ground as he and Pei rose back into the sky, though not quite as quickly as the first time. He gave another strong flap and they once again sped off, climbing higher as Vincent continued to pick up speed.

”Eeeuuuhhh~!” Pei made an unsure noise and laughed some more. ”Don’t forget the harness!”

”Right, sorry!” he called back over the rushing wind as steel once again wrapped around Pei’s torso, securing her to his back.

“Yes, I can feel it- I can feel my security and my confidence growing with every second!” Pei said, not really sure if she was lying or not. “Just don’t do any loop-de-loops!” She cried out as they got further and further away from the training ground, their voices trailing into the open air.

Sakura Level 9: 26/90
Karin Level 5: 3/50
Location: Suoh
Word Count: 983
Points Gained: 2
New EXP Balance--- Sakura Level 9: 28/90 (pending)
Karin Level 5: 05/40 (pending)




Karin joined Roxas in being truly surprised at what she saw. Sakura stayed on her knees, head bowed, her eyes closed. Karin crouched and waved her hand in front of Sakura’s face.

”Fascinating..! I wonder what he’s doing in there?” Karin said aloud. ”I imagine there won’t be much to look at in her brain.” She joked dryly. Truly, though, she hoped this would work. She needed a worthy rival, and seeing Sakura being held back by some unfair mental curse was starting to get under Karin’s skin. It wasn’t like Sakura to not just bounce back.

Karin sat down and meditated for a while, observing the sky, city, and people.

Raz emerged and Sakura opened her eyes, shaking herself out of her trance. He asked her how she was feeling, but she didn't quite catch the whole thing.

”I’m…I’m ready when you are, Raz-kun.” She said, holding her head.

”Sakura, it’s over. He said it went well.” Karin said flatly.

”Huh? Already?” Sakura asked, looking at Raz.

”You were asleep for ages.” Karin said.

”...Oh…I don’t…feel any different?” Sakura said. ”Raz-kun, do you think it worked worked, or..?” She asked the psychonaut. ”I guess we won’t know for sure until something traps me again.”

Regardless of the measure of Raz’s success, their conversation would have to be short. ”You can give her the details later once we’re in a base of operations. We must reconvene for dinner, and get Sakura fused. Hopefully that little stunt fight won’t blow our cover.” Karin said.

”It’ll be fine…I’ll look different! And I’ll call my Hadokens ‘Wave Motion Fist’ instead.” Sakura said.

Once they reunited with Goldlewis in the Hummer. Sakura nodded at Peach and accepted the spirit, holding it in her hands. ”Phew…okay.” She’d never get used to the weight of another person’s Spirit in her hands. Though it wasn’t nearly all that remained of another person after they were gone, it was their essential power condensed into a single object.

”I promise to do my best.” She said to the Spirit quietly. It was all she could promise to do. Hopefully, wherever this person was now, Sakura could honor their gifts and their talents by using them to do more good. The last time she had fused, she had done it in a desperate situation, which had let her get used to the concept. Now she was doing it again in a more tactical gambit. She still planned to defuse with this spirit once the work was done, just like last time with Arashio.

Karin set her hand on Sakura’s shoulder for a moment, a gesture that Sakura found very reassuring.

With a quick, resolute sigh, she put the heart into her chest.



The light died down and Sakura looked down at herself and her hands, felt her hair be shorter.

”So… how do I look?” Sakura asked. Her voice sounded the same. Maybe a little deeper, but her voice tended to get pretty low when she shouted out her attack names anyway. She also sought out the nearest mirror and touched her face, feeling its slight differences. She pulled at her headband. This happened with Arashio, too. Now that she was fused, she didn’t feel uncomfortable with the thought anymore.

”You look fine to me.” Karin said. ”I could see you dressing up like this and dyeing your hair like that.”

Sakura caught the look on Roxas’ face, and smiled, reassuringly. ”It’s still us, Roxas-san.”

”This happened with me before, too. It’s much less of a change than coming back from getting your wisdom teeth removed, or getting punched really hard and forgetting where you are for a bit.” Sakura said.

Though, she was more confident. Casually, she unzipped her jacket and let it fall to either side, showing off the red crop-top underneath and her toned midriff. ”I’m actually kinda excited, now.”

”That’s good. We’ll meet this Luka Travers and see what we can do within this city.”

When she stepped out of the hummer, Sakura gasped, covering her mouth with both hands. ”Oh, my gosh..!” She said, surprised. It was like a whole different city!

”Is it that splendid?” Karin asked.

”There’s…there’s more commercials than I would have hoped for, but, yeah! It’s beautiful!” Sakura said.

Once inside the place, Karin accepted the handshake and tipped her head respectfully, while Sakura also accepted the handshake.

”This menu is familiar.” Karin said.

”I want the sushi! See if it stacks up to my moms. Probably not, but, y’know, what does?” She said. She waved her hand through the vision menu, amused and happy. Karin raised her eyebrows, equally amused, and went back to perusing her menu to pick out something delicious.

”Thank you for meeting us here. Are we here for pleasantries and small talk, or, exclusively business?” She asked, looking to set the tone right away so everyone was on the same page.

Level 7: 29/70
Word Count: 904
Location: The Under
Points Gained: 2
NEW EXP balance--- Level 7: 31/70




Jesse winced as the giant leg wailed its final horrible scream. Cleaved in twain! Blood everywhere. It was dead. They had won! Jesse faked a spin with her Service Weapon, and faked holstering it too, just for good measure.

“Who the hell is Isaac, anyway?” Jesse asks the room, not really expecting an answer.

This place dropped its rewards, though Jesse wasn’t particularly interested in any of them. She certainly wasn’t going to put on those creepy high heels. As far as she was concerned, she had gotten lucky with her Sigil, and she wasn’t going to push it.

Seeing the hole to their next floor, Jesse just barely failed to suppress a childish giggle.

“Oh, gross.” Jesse said, poking it with her foot. “Listen, before anyone does anything. I am capable of healing with a striker of mine. As long as you can stand in one place for a bit, the Healing Waters at your feet will heal most wounds.”

It was Nadia who took the plunge first. Poor Nadia. Nobody asked her to do these things, but she did them anyway. “I hope you don’t start to resent us!” Jesse called down to her as Nadia descended.

When Nadia gave the all clear, Jesse went second, dropping into the hole. As soon as she saw light, she slowed her descent with a low, quiet bassy sound. They really did look like some giant stomach. Grody. There were four more items, and some of them looked fairly innocuous. Others, not so much. Either way, she had already gotten her reward and was happy to let her teammates do as they wished.

Only too late did she realize the pun of what she was looking at for the ghostly pepper. “Oh, Sectonia, I wouldn’t- Oh. Ooh. I’m sorry.” She said grimacing sympathetically.

There was a sigil, the type that Jesse recognized. “That one’s probably safe.” She said to the room. Ganondorf took it, and it made him big. That was it. Good for him! He seemed like the type of person to like being taller than most people, and now he could be taller than an even greater amount of the population. Personally, Jesse would probably bang her head on the top of many doorframes.

As soon as all four items were gathered, seven tough looking creatures ambushed them out of the blue.

This really does remind me of the Hiss. At least I have other people to take the heat off me now. The only downside, and it’s a big one, is that they die sometimes. Nonetheless, not if I can help it.

“Seven of us, seven of them. Easy money, people!” Jesse said encouragingly, drawing her Service Weapon.

Out of the fleshy ground emerged some kind of grotesque skinless muppet named Mr. Fred. It smacked into Jesse’s thigh, its contact with her poisonous. She almost lost her balance. “Ow.”

“Uh. Hey.” Jesse said as looked into its soulless, beady eyes. It responded by wrenching four attached Homunculi out of the ground, pale tumorous things about half Jesse’s height, all attached with skin cords to wherever the bottom half of Mr. Fred was. Almost immediately, her Sigil power activated, wrenching projectiles of mostly blood from the soft ground beneath her and splattering them into one of the Homonculi and Mr. Fred.

Jesse evaded backwards, avoiding a burst of blood in the meanwhile. She plugged one of the Homunculi in the face with Grip, causing it to splatter and then ash. The rest of them couldn’t reach her due to their cords, which Mr. Fred promptly severed. That ended up sending more blood Jesse’s way, and then Mr. Fred burrowed back underground. Jesse floated into the air to avoid the small reach of the creatures and the blood spray. They glanced up at her just in time to get shattered with Shatter. From their ashen corpses Health crystals spawned and zipped into Jesse’s resonance, recuperating the damage she had just taken.

Mr. Fred popped out of the ground and fired blood at her. Jesse sidestepped and returned fire, only for him to dig back under ground. This repeated once more before Jesse began charging up Pierce. When Mr. Fred emerged next, half of his face was blown off by a superheated psychic round, her gun spinning and cooling off.

When it went to burrow back underground, she used Launch to rip the surface flesh off the ground and reveal the wounded creature. With Mr. Fred on death’s door, his Resonance weakend, Jesse reached out and found his essence with Launch. “Gotcha.”

She plucked him from the earth like a wet radish. While he floundered in mid air, she clenched her fist and violently imploded him into a meatball. Dropped to the ground with a squelch, his corpse vanished into ash. Jesse regarded his loathsome spirit with a frown and nudged it away with her shoe. She couldn’t imagine herself using it as a Striker. She wanted to save room for something more useful, like Uncle Sven the Alchemist.

Omori let himself lose his cool, but Jesse guessed there was a little of that going around.

“See? Easy. If anyone’s scratched up, like I said I have Sven the alchemist as a striker for healing. At the very least, it’s refreshing.” Jesse said.

“So, how do we get outta here?” She asked, looking and walking around. “The good news is, we aren’t being actively digested.”
Pei and Cora


talk about nothing in particular





Two superheroines were being spirited away to their new life of adventure on a cutting edge Justice League jet. A sleek, modern design that was full of space on the inside and as capable as floating perfectly still in the air as it was going faster than the speed of sound. On the inside there were chairs bolted into the walls and a decent amount of free space in the middle.

On one of these sides, seatbelt unbuckled, her hands crossed behind her head as she relaxed, was Pei Huo, the light-blue skinned girl who went by Iceburn. She was in her superhero uniform, the black base and pink highlighted cropped two-piece. Combined with her white and rainbow colored hair, she was kind of hard to miss.

She cracked one eye open and looked at the other girl across the way. ”Hey. Hey! I think I’ve left you alone long enough. Cora, right?” The two had had a brief introduction at the beginning of the flight. It was supposed to be a short flight, the Jet picking them up from separate locations then taking them to a base.

Cora was staring out a window when the girl said something to her. She turned and looked at the girl who was dressed in a pretty cool costume like Cora. She had a huge two-tone wool coat on and a white helmet for hers. She was also wearing a thick pair of gloves that had pieces of metal sewn in to conduct electricity better. It was cozy. ”Yeah, that’s me. So… Justice League. Crazy, right? You get struck by lightning and next thing you know, you’re way up here.” She took her helmet off and sat it in her lap. Cora’s eyes were solid blue, and part of her face looked burnt. ”How’d you get here?”

Pei probably would have disagreed about the ‘cool costume’ thing on Cora’s part. ”Not Justice League. Young Justice.” She skipped out of her chair and strolled over to Cora, sitting down next to her. She rested her arm across the back of Cora’s seat and leaned in, not much for personal space apparently.

”I was born a freak, I didn’t need to get hit by lightning. I bet everyone wishes they could get superpowers from crazy physical trauma. Bet there’d be a lot of people with Car powers, though.” She mused.

”That is, I am assuming you got lightning powers. It’d be weird if you got, I dunno, spider powers from getting struck by lightning. What’s the word- incongruent?” She spoke with a slight Rhelasian accent, it sounded something like one of the other south east asian accents.

”Probably “weird.” But uh, yeah, I got lightning powers. It’s cool- Wanna see?” She brought both of her hands up and leaned back a bit to put some space between them, when suddenly a glowing blue spark flickered in and out between her palms. It was about as thick as a pencil, and eventually turned into a solid arc that danced like fire.

”I got struck by lightning, so naturally I get lightning powers. That’s weird but it’s not that weird.” Because being struck by lightning and getting anything totally isn’t weird.

”I’d love for you to show me more!” Pei grinned. ”Just keep in mind we are in an aircraft. If you blow a hole in the wall, I will probably die unless I grab you and use you as a cushion or something.” She said. She looked at the dancing arc between Cora’s hands.

To match, she lifted up her palm and created a floating crystal of ice that appeared with a crackle. A thick white mist drifted from her pale hand. ”I have ice powers! I didn’t get struck by ice though, like I said, I was born a freak. Although it is possible I was dropped into an ice bath as a baby or something.”

”Okay, that’s pretty co- awesome.” Cora stared at the little misty cloud curiously. ”Oh yeah, I can fly too. Well- Kinda. You know how when you run electricity through a wire, it makes a magnetic field? I can do that to myself and float off the ground like I’m a wizard or somethin’” Cora sounded southern. She was from Florida, after all. ”I’m not real good at it or anything, but I can jump over buildings with it!”

”It is cool.” Pei responded. ”A single bound, huh? How high we talking?” She flattened her hand and moved it up and down, making several notches in the air to represent height.

”Something like uhh… A hundred feet maybe? I dunno, I jumped over my house a couple times and it’s got two floors. Landed like a rock but I didn’t break anything. It’s like I just ignore a part of gravity, sort of. Problem is I can’t stay that high up. I float back down, but I don’t actually touch the floor. It’s weird.”

”So…your house is two storeys and a hundred feet tall? Or are you just guessing that’s how high you can go?” Pei asked, tilting her head to the side.

”Just guessing.” She shrugged.

”So you’ve never done it before. Well, whatever- as long as you’ve zapped bad guys before it’ll all work out.” Pei pat Cora on the shoulder with gusto.

”Welllll… Not yet.” Cora said, laughing a little. ”I only got zapped a month ago, haven’t had a chance to zap another person aside from Wonder Woman yet, and that didn’t really do anything.”

Pei looked at Cora intently. ”As long- as long! As you have done anything ever in your whole life besides getting struck by lightning, you’ll be fine.” She said, happily setting the bar as low as possible so Cora could step over it.

That prompted an outburst of laughter from Cora. Which in turn widened Pei’s smile. ”Yeah! Okay- Okayokay that works. Yeah, I’m halfway there already! I knew I could count on me!” Pei seemed pretty cool. Cora liked her already. ”What about you? Ever freeze any bad guys yet?”

”The thing about actually freezing people is that they die fucking instantly. Pei clarified.

”But I have encased them in ice. Or stuck them onto walls. I can make my ice not that cold and put air holes in it, so I can put them in cubes like in the cartoons. See their little eyes looking around like ‘Aah oh noo I’m stuck’ it’s great.”

”That’s cool, I’d probably just electrocute them. Did you know that if you zap someone hard enough they stop breathing? There’s this muscle around your lungs that pulls in air. It spasms if it gets shocked bad enough. They might stop breathing anyway if you shock them, but that’s how tasers work!” Cora was… A bit of a nerd for stuff like that.

”Dark!” Pei said cheerfully. ”I didn’t know the specifics, but I assumed that-” She slapped her hands together violently several times. ”-If you shoved enough electricity into someone they die. Or, I guess, in your case, get superpowers! You ever worry you might give someone superpowers? Well I guess you wouldn’t know since you haven’t tried it on anyone yet. No time like the present to find out, though!” Pei said with a nod. She was still smiling in her assertively friendly way.

”I could probably just burn a hole through someone instead. A lightning strike is as hot as the surface of the sun. Hardly anyone ever gets hit by a bolt of lightning, and usually the ones who do have to learn how to walk again, or something else happens that changes their life. Normally they don’t just die, but uhhh… It’s possible. I can’t blast anyone like that but I can still probably put them out since, y’know, it’s lightning and all that.”

Pei nodded rapidly. Whenever she spoke, she typically spoke with her hands. In this case she stuck both her hands out and pinched the air, slowly pulling her arms back in over and over again, as if to demonstrate the concept of ‘restraint.’ ”Generally- geeenerally want to avoid putting holes in people. What makes us special is the power to subdue without harming. So in general tazing will be MORE than enough, right? Hey, listen, we’re both gonna be the new girls on the block.” She switched gears.

Now she set her arm across Cora’s shoulders entirely, leaning in to whisper conspiratorially. Which made Cora give her the shifty eyes for a second. ”You and me. Blood pact. We look out for each other. I can guide you and help you, being an experienced superhero myself. And you can- you can- well, I’m sure we’ll figure that out, that’s why I’m here to guide you! What do you say? Do you have a knife on you so we can cut our hands and slap ‘em together?”

”Heh. Sure. But… I ain’t got a knife. Can you make one out of ice or something? Actually that sounds painful. Uhhh… Let’s just promise to do it without blood?”

”Fine, fine, we’ll settle for second best.” Pei raised her other hand and clenched it into a fist. With the exception of her pinky, which she extended in a hook.

Cora wrapped her gloved pinky finger around Pei’s and a sacred pact was formed. ”It’s official now.”

Pei’s grin, somehow, widened even more. ”Pinky pact.” Then she sniffed. She did it a couple more times and leaned in more, like she was trying to identify the scent of Cora’s perfume or something.

Cora looked at her with a bit of confusion. ”It's static. My powers are weird.” Totally natural for a girl to smell like the screen of a tv from the 90s. Totally.

”Ssstatic?” Pei asked. Then it clicked. ”Oh, static! That’s what the TV at the orphanage smelled like!” She pulled away, laughing. ”Hey, look. When we walk into a room together, we’ll make each other look less weird by comparison. Or maybe more weird. Either way is good, right?”

”I hope so. I mean, I’m already kind of weird. Well, not that weird. I mean- I’m pretty lucky compared to other people that get zapped by lightning but I’m perfectly normal.”

”Mmm? Mmm?” She made a pair of high pitched, unsure noises. ”Mmm.” That last one was sure. ”You’re pretty weird. Glowing blue eyes, two-toned face, smell like TV static, the hair.” She gestured to each part in turn.

”The outfit. No offense.” She said, her hands up placatingly.

”I mean I haven’t even been able to make eye contact with you this whole time. I’m just guessing. Might settle just for staring here-ish.” She pointed at the space between Cora’s eyes.

Cora responded to that by looking Pei directly in the eyes. ”You can’t see it right now, but I’m making eye contact with you right now. Staaaaare.” And stare she did. ”By the way, you aren’t that weird. I mean- There’s a guy in the Justice League who’s from Mars. That’s weird.”

”That’s space racism!”

”It’s superhuman racism if we’re weird!”
”We are weird, though.”

”I don’t think you’re weird. I think you’re cool.”

”I am cool. I am the coolest. Pei admitted. ”But nonetheless unusual.

”That’s what makes you cool! You’re literally cool too. It’s cool to have superpowers and say “FREEZE” when you freeze somebody!” She exhausted the word “cool” and then added, ”Right before I zap a motherfucker.”

”So you’re going to say freeze and then electrify them?”

”No I’d probably say something like, “You’re in for a SHOCK today!” And then zap them.”

”Because the idea of ‘freeze’ is that you give them a chance to surrender first. I can’t just use that interchangeably with a one liner.”

”You absolutely could, though. It’s your power, make as many interchangeable one liners as you want, and don’t let anybody stop you.”

She looked at Cora quizzically. ”No, I’m being serious.”

One of Cora’s oddly non-snow white eyebrows went up. ”About the surrender part? Yeah, I get that. I mean the jokes though. All the actually interesting heroes have tons of one liners. That’s why Batman sucks.”

”You’re trying too hard and your hubris is showing.” She said flatly, letting the silence afterwards hang for a moment.

”...And besides, Batman has the coolest one liner ever. He only needs one.”

”Yeah? What is it?”

”’I’m Batman.’” Pei said.

”…Know what? Point. That’s pretty good.”

”My name is already a pun, anyway. Iceburn.” She turned so Cora could see the back of her black top, the encircled symbol that looked like both ice crystals and fire.

”Oh… That looks really cool. Okay- I know I’m saying that a lot right now but really. I like that.”

”Thank you, thank you. It’s because my ice can explode if I want to. It might be a little mean but I’m happy with it. It was either that or Snowdrop! If I ever decide kicking ass isn’t for me anymore I’ll fall back on that one. What about you? Right away I look at you and think: Bright-Eyes. Or Static Shock! I think that one might be taken, though.”

”Mine is Enceladus, because when I use my powers, it’s really bright, like a flash of lightning.” She said, assuming this girl had any idea what the name even meant.

”Run that by me again?” Pei asked, turning and cupping her ear towards Cora.

”Enceladus. Like- The moon of Saturn? Brightest object in the sky that isn’t the sun?”

”...That’s kind of a deep cut to center your entire brand around. Is your target audience astronomers?”

”No, it just fits. It’s a really bright object in the sky, I can fly and I shoot bolts of lightning at people that happen to be stupid bright. Make sense?

Pei was acting like she was trying to be careful around someone who still believed in Santa Claus. ”...Do you like planets and moons and stuff?”

”Yeah, actually I do. I’m a space nerd.”

”Well, that’s all that matters.”

”Yep! So- How’d you get here? Wonder Woman heard about me and came looking for me, and that’s how I got here. Did someone catch you roughing up bad guys or something?”

That was when they got the notification- they were at the base that had the teleporter- said teleporter was to take them straight to the island that they would be spending the next stint of their careers.

”All right! From the bus, to the jet, to the teleporter. I hope they have a unicycle when we get there!” Pei said excitedly.

”Yeah! Look out world, the weirdos are comin’!”

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