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
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2 yrs 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
Just when Juri had been sneaking in, she had been yoinked up into some nightmare scenario where, apparently, one of the Seekers had to choose to die. Considering she thought she was running with selfless hero types, it took way longer than she thought for someone else to cave. Eventually, Princess Midna did and it dropped Juri right back where she was before, like it was all in her head. Taking a moment to regain her composure, Juri turned her eyes upward through the glass dome at the encroaching moon, her mouth falling open.
”Tch,” Juri sneered and kept moving through the outside of the enclosure. ”Course it had to be the blue chick who vacuumed up my bike to bite the bullet. Where the hell is my cycle, now?” Juri complained to herself.
Not long after Juri slipped through the Cretaceous enclosure’s electric fence with the help of her hacking ability, a familiar crimson light shone down through the glass dome of O’s Command Center. When the martial artist looked up, she saw the Consul’s giant, disembodied eyes phase through the glass and descend toward her, narrowed in frustrated incredulity around his glowing lemniscate pupils. “What!? How in the world did you…?” They squeezed closed, then shook from side to side. Without the rest of O’s head there to gesticulate, the motion looked a little odd, but Juri got the memo.
Juri couldn’t help but laugh, looking up at the eyes. Her artificial eye glowed as she prepared to use another hack, expecting O to try something.
“Bah, nevermind that. Look, let’s talk this over.” O lowered his tone insistently, his voice a conspiratorial, projected whisper. “Why are you even fighting us? I know you’re not like the others. I’ve got an eye for these things, see. You don’t play by their rules. So why are you dancing on their strings?” His eyes swerved around her, their gaze bemused. “Don’t you know they’ve sent you on a suicide mission? Even if you do ‘save the world’, your existence ends with the Endless Now!”
Juri narrowed her eyes at the accusation she was dancing on anyone’s strings. But she didn’t let this conversation stop her from searching around the perimeter of the glass dome. When O mentioned the suicide mission, she did slow, her eyes unfocusing for a moment with interiority, before she kept moving forward.
”You must be worried if you’re tryin’ to turn me. Talk about a pie in the sky. How ‘bout you show me where you are and we speak in person?” She said with a grin. Juri was fairly immediacy oriented these days, and the pleasure of murdering some desperately bargaining overlord was high on her priority list.
As Juri snooped around the various consoles and rooms that ringed the Command Center’s upper levels, which seemed to be mostly full of large, blinking machines with no discernible purpose, O’s entreaty grew subtly more urgent. “Of course I’m worried,” he hissed as if through gritted teeth. “After all, this world is all that any of us have. If -and that’s a big if- you all actually do destroy the World of Light, it’s not like you’ll wake up with everything back to normal. Maybe some semblance of us will continue on out there, but the ‘we’ who live now will be really, truly dead! Don’t ‘we’ deserve to live!? Better to reincarnate again and again in the World of Light–or better yet, become Moebius! Moebius is immortality. Don’t you see, that could be you!”
His eyes widened as he spoke, and as if to underscore his point, he began to create all sorts of things around Juri. Grass, plants, trees, furniture, vehicles, animals, workers, and more all showed up for a moment, then disappeared. Only a rather expensive-looking motorcycle remained; evidently O had been listening to Juri’s mutters. “The whole world, your very own playbox. Power? Prestige? Revenge? Entertainment? Whatever you crave, it could be yours! Why sacrifice your very existence for them, when you could rule over such fools instead, bend them to your every whim!” Judging by the speed and intensity of his monologued appeal, Juri must be getting close to his hiding spot.
Juri’s stance widened, gripping her Ghoulsaw tightly as she moved forward, surveying the changing objects until her eyes landed on the motorcycle. Consul O could make objects and creatures appear out of thin air, she wasn’t trying to be caught off guard. More than her eyes, she relied on her ears. Her heart began to race, and some deep-seated anger began to boil under the surface. This guy and all his ‘points’ were really rubbing her the wrong way.
Still. She couldn’t pretend O didn’t have her attention. ”You ever heard of a guy named M. Bison? Sometimes he goes by Vega. Big guy in a stupid hat, white eyes and shit-eating grin. Leader of Shadaloo. World dominating type.” She asked.
The Consul paused long enough for it to be conspicuous. “...And what if I have?”
Juri chuckled breathily, now certain that he had. ”Do the math, genius. You offered me revenge. I could even kill someone like him, right?” She asked, though she felt like she already knew the answer and was already out of patience.
“As many times as you could ever want,” O replied, his voice a little too eager. In the pause that followed, there happened to be a brief lull in the battle outside, and Juri heard a metallic clank a couple doors down.
That took her by surprise, and Juri’s eyes widened. As many times as she wanted. At the clank, she turned over her shoulder, and her face soured. Her knuckles whitened. ”Because he’d never really die.” She growled. She wanted him to suffer. But more than that, she wanted to kill him. Really kill him.
Her hands shook. ”He’d come back like he always does. I could torture him for eternity and he’d forget it every ten years. I’d have to start over forever until I ended up like you, trying to bargain my way out of a fight as some new batch of fucking dickheads tries to kill me!” Juri sped forward with a Drive Rush, looking to search as much ground as possible now that her temper had suddenly boiled over. She couldn’t believe she let this arrogant prick slow her down for even a second! Play her for a fool?! God damn it!
”So come on out, asshole! I think you’re the only one between the two of us here that can really die!” Juri called out.
After a moment of stunned surprise, O gave a raspy snarl. “Argh! Vitriolic brat. Would you spite the air for having to breathe it? Your mother for having birthed you?” He paused for a moment, then snickered. “Ah, that must be it! What use is eternity for one for whom existence itself is ennui? What you really crave, then, must be death!”
When Juri burst through the door with a Drive Rush-boosted strike, she finally spotted him. A Consul, armored and masked like all the rest, but wizened and wheelchair-bound. On either side of him stood six zookeepers with randomized appearances but uniformly dead eyes, tranquilizer rifles at the ready. Between them and the door lay an obstacle course of waist-high metal food troughs full of meat, water, and vegetables. O’s Moebius eyes reappeared in front of his helmet, flaring up with red light. “Fire!”
”Shitty geezer!” Juri spat. If she was one thing, it was vitriolic. She lit up with blue Drive Parry energy, and swatted the six darts out of the air with a broad-sided swipe of her Ghoulsaw, letting it swing out wide. She launched herself forward with another Drive Rush. Her feet left the ground as she span nearly sideways through the air over the first few obstacles, saw blade extended. Then her Ghoulsaw slammed into the ground and she planted her feet on top of it. She would let it carry her with a horrifying metallic yowl as it carved through floor and trough alike, only made more manic by the speed increase and streak of energy from her rush and the spray of debris and detritus as she barrelled towards Consul O. At this rate she was looking to carve him and his wheelchair up the middle.
As she closed in, however, an electric fence shot up to protect O from the front. A prehistoric -themed concession stand then popped up around him to shield him from all other angles, its walls of solid stone. With all O’s efforts focused on defense, however, only his zookeepers remained to actually attack Juri. They kept shooting at her, even if their aim left something to be desired; from a physical standpoint, they seemed to be completely normal humans.
Juri reared back, stopping suddenly and hooking her foot on a lever of the Ghoulsaw. She leaned all the way back and tapped her prosthetic eye as her shoulder blades hit the floor, darts sailing through the space she had just occupied. A moment passed and the electric fence turned off. She span on the floor in a break-dance like maneuver and then lunged through the gap in the fence towards O, taking her Ghoulsaw with her to dive inside and slice into his thighs before she even hit the ground.
O howled, his body wrenching in agony as his wordless cry resounded within the echo chamber he’d boxed himself into. While his legs didn’t do him much good, as indicated by his wheelchair, he was still unfortunate enough to have feeling in them. When his concentration was broken and his body moved, his ocular apparition melted away, and the Consul was nothing but a defenseless old man. He had only one card left to play: an attempted to teleport away in a flare of purple Moebius energy, but that would take precious seconds he didn’t have.
Juri let the Ghoulsaw fall where it lay after she landed on the ground, and skittered forward like a spider after its prey. ”C’mere!” She growled, twisting her body to slam her heel into his face to interrupt whatever spell he was casting, knocking him onto his side.
”Wuh oh!” She crowed. Then her plan was simple: stomp his neck and twist. With only the feeblest manner of opposition at his disposal, O could do nothing to stop her. He could only gasp in terrified desperation. “Wait-!” Then came a terrible crack, and the Consul’s body went limp.
Juri stood in silence for a moment, exhaling. She gave the body an extra kick to make sure he started turning to ash. Instead, she quickened his disintegration into glowing purple particles that left not the slightest trace behind, not even a spirit. Juri frowned. The Consuls were different than everyone else in this fake-ass candyland world, she thought. She guessed they didn’t ash.
”’...Wait-!’” She repeated mockingly. ”Heard that one before. Not so eternal now, huh?” Juri asked, picking up her Ghoulsaw. She gave it a wipe, brushing some of the fruit chunks off of it with a frown.
”...Tch” Juri grit her teeth. ”Ennui. What a loser.” She mumbled. She slipped out of the gate and dealt with the remaining guards in a manner-of-fact way.
Juri tipped her head skyward through the dome and to the encroaching monster moon, and listened to the battle outside. ”Uuugh. Alright. Where’s that turtle brat and his toy boat sister?” She asked, before moving to leave the room to find them. She'd find the dome completely empty.
Level 6: 33/60 Location: Dead Zone: Qliphoth Word Count: short Points Gained: 1 x 2 New EXP Balance: Level 6: 35/60
Juri did indeed disregard the little punks Rika and Jr, who she remembered from their time at the bar. While Junior did upgrade her tommy gun, she had since cast it aside in favor of her Ghoulsaw. What had he done for her recently? Not much. Besides, she had no interest in fighting…hippos or whatever.
Juri cracked the door open with her hacking and went inside O’s command center, on the hunt for the wizard behind the curtain. Forgoing her martial arts for now, she went with her Ghoulsaw, figuring precision and speed weren’t needed for now. Those annoying red eyes, floating around the place. Where was this little creep?
Well, she didn’t find a little creep. Instead she found a dinosaur. ”Haah?” She asked, tilting her head to the side. That wasn’t what she expected. ”Badass…” She muttered to herself, looking the beast over. A quick scan of the environment showed that O wasn’t here. There must be a secret door or something, right? Unless Sandy’s intel was somehow wrong.
The fences were definitely electric, given the voltage. This all looked very Jurassic Park. There was nothing she could do with this T-Rex in the way. The downside of relying on wild animals was that they weren’t inherently aggressive, Juri thought. Just, well, wild.
Juri wasn’t afraid of the T-Rex. Worst case scenario she felt like she could sever a single ankle with her Ghoulsaw and cripple the poor thing. Sure it was dangerous but so were assault rifles, and Juri could handle those no problem. Instead, though, she thought she might have a quicker way. Or at least, a more fun, less animal-chopping kind of way.
Making a mad dash to the right, she quickly hacked the electrical fence to temporarily disable it. Then she dove right through the bars and slipped through, crawling into the space between the round dome and the square fence. She shimmied right. Either the fence would come online before the Rex came after her, or she would slip to the side as it crashed into the fence and damaged the glass dome around the exterior. Since she hadn’t triggered Galeem’s aggression curse, she wondered if the T-Rex would choose to pursue after some prey like her crammed behind a re-electrified fence, or seek freedom in the outside world. Either way, by Juri’s calculations it was a win-win for her.
”Heh heh” She giggled. As she went, she scouted out the room from the edges, looking at the interior and at the ground beneath her feet for any sign of exits or entrances. O had to be here somewhere. She’d flush the little rat out.
Level 6: 31/60 Location: Dead Zone: Qliphoth Word Count: 400~ Points Gained: 1 x 2 New EXP Balance: Level 6: 33/60
With Fortune back in action, the jumping of the smug prick ‘D’, or Dracula, continued in earnest. He seemed displeased about it, and pulled out some magic scythes. Juri played it cool, letting the others take the brunt of his attention. It was a necessity, taking a significant amount of time to allow her Burnout period to end. Without it, she still had some speed and strength, but her combos, defense, offense, and mobility were all severely limited. She swiped in occasionally, but usually just threatened to attack with her presence, trying to fake the lord of vampires out and overload his mental stack. This run and gun approach limited her effectiveness but also made her a lot safer.
Really, Juri considered the other battles. The Gravemind loomed overhead, bellowing and hollering about who knows what. Should it come down to it, Juri could start hacking into the monster with her Ghoulsaw. Consul A was casting crazy spells, which Juri had no interest in dueling against. Moreover, though, the only one who had actually managed to put a Seeker on ice was Consul O, who used a rollercoaster to smash the ugly bee queen into the ground. She got carted away by magic cats. A bizarre sight, but with everything else going on Juri pieced together it was some kind of insurance policy. No wonder the Seekers were being so careless. Though Juri had pushed her luck with that battle with Fortune.
When Sandalphon chimed in about O being on the move and the nature of D’s weaknesses, Juri thought a swap was in order. O was dangerous, and currently only the little boy angel was on him. Plus, the technologically oriented O could be stimied by Juri’s natural hacking prowess…and there wasn’t any animal that could catch her.
”Someone should use one of those wooden fences to stake him in the heart,” Juri commented off-handedly, before spending a Drive Rush to blitz across the battle arena, towards O’s little command center. While smashing people with her own hands and feet was fun, she was eager to flex her technological prowess. With Sombra’s power she could shut systems down with a wave of her fingers.
Juri sped towards the constructed command center, hopping from high point to high point as she did. As her head long sprint concluded she prepped her hack.
”Outta my way, Hallmark!” She warned Pit.
Roller coasters would go dead, rides would malfunction and sputter to a stop before O wanted, etc. Well, at least one would before the ability went on cooldown but that was all Juri needed. When she was close enough, she felt as if she could just use her hacking skills to bid the door of the command center: ”Open Sesame.” and stroll inside.
Lvl 14 Ms Fortune (139/140), Level 6 Juri (21/60) Word Count: 3164 + 8exp
Having wound up near Roland after falling prey to Consul D’s bewitchment, Nadia set her sights on him, ready and willing to test his mettle with her own arsenal of weapons. Luckily for him, Roland’s wealth of supernatural experience -both with brainwashing and other, even worse methods of control- meant that he not only recognized what had happened, but also knew a surefire way to set Nadia straight. If he could just stagger her, that shock to the system should loosen the Consul’s grasp. Of course, by now he knew enough to know that Ms Fortune didn’t go down easy, but there was no problem the Fixer couldn’t solve. With swords aglow from stockpiled power, he charged toward his opponent, and Nadia returned the favor with a headlong sprint on all fours. “Finally,” she exclaimed, her voice somewhat slurred. “Someone I can really fight!”
Only a few seconds into their furious clash, however, Nadia got blindsided from behind. A lithe leg bent her straight into the path of a cruel upward knee strike, followed by an airborne thrust kick that sent the feral tumbling. She came to a stop about twenty feet away, not so far from the iron perimeter of O’s hippo exhibit, then rose with teeth gritted. She hadn’t caught sight of the curmudgeon that sucker punched her, she’d grown so familiar with the feel of those kicks that she could be blindfolded and still know just who to blame. “Hah…haha.” Though very much not herself right now, Nadia still found it in her to give Juri a toothy smile. Her eyes were glazed over with a wine-red haze. “Hahahaha! C’mon then! Let’s play!”
Juri grinned, and then turned that grin onto Roland in a warning fashion for a second before refocusing on Fortune.
Roland looked at Nadia getting intercepted by Juri who seemed to be a bit… too eager to fight the mind controlled cat girl. Uh, hopefully she didn’t go overboard but if she was going to knock some sense back into her ally, well, Roland could focus on D again. With his buffs he was a lot faster and stronger, and he still had more room to grow.
Nadia pulled off her head and rolled it forward like a bowling ball. Then she reached into her pouch and withdrew the Free Lemonade, which she promptly pitched in Juri’s direction. It arced through the air, hurling sour yellow juice everywhere, but long before it hit the ground Nadia’s body seized the initiative. With Charge she bolted across the battlefield, closing the space Juri made in an instant, then instantly launched a Fiber Upper–a truly degenerate move, if Fiber Upper still had its armor.
The double projectile throw had made Juri want to play defensively. Juri knew Fortune had speed and reach of her own, so blitzing around the place might leave herself vulnerable. She strafed at a measured but quick pace, setting a hand on her hip as she eyed the rolling head. As the flask rolled in she widened her stance and prepared to block, only to instead block the wild fiber upper instead.
”Haaaah?” Juri crowed incredulously. Juri went for a big punish. To provide insurance against Fortune’s head or that acidic bottle she started with an armored Drive Impact, going low, planting three out of four limbs, and slamming her foot into Fortune’s chest to crumple her in place and knock the wind out of her with a Punish Counter. She stabbed Fortune’s torso with her elbow and a thrusting chop before spin kicking her away- only for an imploding burst of wind to draw Fortune back in and into Juri’s waiting arms, where she axe kicked Fortune into the ground. The bottle turned out to be more of a damage over time situation, which caused some lemony stings in Juri’s thigh and feet but she disregarded the damage for now.
”You really are drunk!” Juri spat. ”But I’ll happily kick you around if you’re gonna keep bein’ stupid!” Juri said. As if to put this to the test, she raised her foot as if to stomp on Fortune, only to draw backwards incase she exploded upwards with another reversal. This also had the side effect of getting her out of the citrus acid puddle.
Juri’s retreat took her just out of range of Nadia’s flailing, disjointed legs as her body rose with a spinning kickflip. She landed on her feet in the middle of the lemonade puddle, and no sooner had her boots splashed down than her head zoomed forward, propelled by a spurt of blood from its severed neck. It closed the distance fast for a weak low hit, but Nadia herself followed behind it in a sprint on all fours, which happened to be a tactic that Juri knew well. After a few steps of crunching across broken glass, though, feral put an extra twist on the tricky approach by hopping into the air, then airdashing barely even a foot off the ground to fly in for an overhead light kick. Expertly timed, it landed split second after her head made contact. “Paw-don me!”
Juri had planted her hand and feet on the floor like a spider. She deflected Fortune’s head, but her head jerked backwards as she caught the light kick for her trouble. Whatever, she could always focus in and bust out the Drive Parry. ”You don’t even have paws.” Juri said, trying to find a moment to slip in a backhand counter strike.
When her kick connected, Nadia went all-in. She chained the quick opener into a heavy X-scrape Claws, then put that momentum into a somersault axe kick that bounced Juri off the ground. A quick dash forward allowed her to confirm two claw swipes, followed by a Tornado kick to start an Unchain combo. Still new to Angel’s tricky technique, she went for a simple chain: a high Sobat kick, a sweeping Under Blow punch, a revolving high kick, and finally an upward Lariat as the finisher empowered by Fluffy Soft. “NYAH! Keep the chain-ge!”
Her combo lasted only a moment, accelerated and made a little more punishing by the blessings of Aha the Elation. Though the Lariat launched Juri high, the fight was far from over, and she could flip out and recover with neither fighter at advantage. Even without the lingering speed boost from Clockwork Apple, though, Nadia was the type to press her assault regardless of advantage. “Under purr-essure!” With her head not far behind, the feral dashed in to keep the pain train rolling.
Juri landed three-point with a huff. As Fortune swung she shifted backwards and returned fire with a stopsign kick to the chest. Then she span down to send a streak of slicing energy towards that head following suit, using her last Fuha Stock and two bars of Drive Gauge for the extra juice. ”I’ll crush you!” She hopped up with a spin and brought her leg down on Fortune’s unbalanced body like a great hammer, looking to slam Fortune down onto her own head with the ankensatsu.
“Ugh!” Running straight into Juri’s extended leg took the wind from Nadia’s lungs, and the knockback from it left her head wide open for an opportunistic saihasho. That crawling crescent wouldn’t stagger her by hitting her head, but the slap of energy kept her disoriented enough for Juri’s heel drop. “Me-owch!” Nadia grimaced, ears flapping in dismay. While she practically sat on her own head on the way down, the impact informed her just where her noggin had fallen. She grabbed it with one hand while firing the other like a grappling hook behind her. It flew toward the iron fence behind her to latch on so she could snap herself to safety, but the maneuver gave Juri another split second or two to make something happen.
”Haha, nice!” Juri casually lifted her leg as Fortune retreated. In the wake of her foot was a line of black and white energy, indicating Juri refilling her Fuha stocks to continue using empowered moves against her wily opponent. It also gave her a moment for her Drive to recharge some more.
”Finally. Come at me like you wanna kill me, it’s more fun that way.” Juri grinned, her visible eye wide. ”That vampire freak’s done us a real favor, don’tcha think?” Juri beckoned, and began to walk forward, a saunter in her step. Her reactions were on a hair trigger, looking to batter Fortune away, especially if she took the aerial approach.
After hopping to her feet, Nadia held her head by her ears for just a moment, her eyes glassy but filled with hate. “Hah…hahaha!” She gasped, a smile spreading over her face. With one hand she replaced her head on her shoulders, while with the other reached into a belt pouch and withdrew the Bait Launcher. “It would be my purr-leasure!”
Juri liked this side of Fortune.
Foomp. A slab of raw steak arced through the air.
”Seen it!” Juri hissed, recalling their brief, damageless encounter at the Carnival Games where Fortune used the Bait Launcher. She stepped forward to meet the meat and spent an OD Fuhajin to fill the rest of her stock and annihilate the meat projectile in mid air.
Nadia clicked her tongue and used Rosetta’s Roll and Gun to near-instantly reload the Bait Launcher. When she fired again mid-cartwheel, she aimed low, and the steak hit the ground about halfway between the two combatants with a wet plop. Unfortunately for Juri, it didn’t matter where the bait landed–only that she was the closest foe to it. A brolic bengal tiger popped out of nowhere only a half-dozen feet away from Juri. With a bloodcurdling roar it went wild, attacking the martial artist with a barrage of huge swipes from its clawed mitts.
”Annoying-” Juri said, but six feet was better than no feet. With a bit of extra space she focused in and used Drive Parry, a high noise ringing out as she deflected the claws on either side of her with her hands and raised foot. Juri still didn’t like fighting animals, but she went for the counter hit by sinking her elbow into the tigers chest as it raised its upper body. Then she lifted it upwards with a pinwheel kick to launch it over the edge of the nearby enclosure, where it poofed away.
While the relentless tiger bought her a few seconds of time, Nadia quickly traded out her gun for two new items. In one hand she wielded her dagger Athame, and in her other she clutched the Ripened Heart. “It’s time…to cut loose!” Still grinning, she slid the knife along her forearm in one quick motion, not even flinching as her blood poured from the wound. Reacting with her innate Lightning type, the metal blade sparked the Conducted reaction, granting her Multitarget. Electric arrows radiated outward from her body as she pressed the Ripened Heart to her chest and breathed deep, boosting her natural regeneration into overdrive. Then Nadia crouched down in a track-starter stance, transformed her legs into a white tiger’s with Fluffy Soft, and burst forward in an all-out sprint to rush Juri down.
Juri wasn’t sure what half of that stuff was, but she could only guess Fortune was going all out. ”C’mon then!” She taunted, resting her arm on her raised leg and coaxing Fortune forward with an outstretched finger. If Fortune did some vicious strike, as Juri was predicting, Juri would vanish in a split-second blur and reappear a short distance behind Fortune where she backflipped away to put more distance between them, to run out the clock on all these buffs and frustrate Fortune into making a mistake.
She narrowly avoided disaster as Nadia, propelled forward by the twenty-percent speed boost from Fluffy Soft, hopped up to deliver a wild dropkick. Thanks to Multitarget, her legs extended with blasts of electric blood to blast outward in a surprisingly huge cone, but once her target slipped out of harm’s way, the dropkick amounted to little more than a show of force. Nadia’s legs returned to normal as she picked herself up, and after only a brief moment she locked onto her target. Juri flipped away preemptively, and the feral saw her chance to strike. “Gotcha!” She performed a quick somersault to launch an El Gate axe kick that stretched out its furthest extent, aimed not at her airborne opponent but the ground where she would land. On impact another burst of electric blood went off, this one with a five foot radius. Whether it hit or not, Nadia hopped up with her other leg in order to snap down to her extended one. She zoomed in, and upon arrival, slashed her dagger in a glinting arc.
Juri slid backwards, blocking the axe kick and burst of blood. She slipped backwards and away, the dagger cutting across her side with the tip. ”Ah!” Juri stepped backwards. If Fortune kept moving forwards in that moment, Juri would try to slap her across the face with a backhanded jab.
Though inconsequential at first blush, that small slice was all it took to inflict a serious defense debuff on Juri courtesy of Athame’s weapon skill, and Nadia seemed to smell blood. She pivoted around to follow up with a whirling kick, only to be interrupted by a backhand to the face. At around the same time, a wayward magic pulse from Geralt’s Quen gave Fortune a shock from behind.
“Buh!?” In that instant Juri took her turn back, and promptly turned the tides with an OD Tensenrin. A whirling pinwheel kick took Nadia into the sky, and once at the zenith Juri twisted to bring one leg back down on the feral’s head. She hurtled into the ground with a yowl, with her opponent only a split second behind. Nadia had a plan, though, to make her rival think twice about applying pressure–and as with all her best plans, Nadia didn’t give it a second thought. When she sprang off the ground, she did so with one knee lifted to perform her Blue Monday Blockbuster, her eager eyes bright with mischief.
Juri raised her hand and elbow as if to stab down onto Fortune. But she had been saving her Super since this bout started. Fortune wasn’t thinking straight, and the one thing that could clinch the victory in this time pressed moment was for Fortune to do something really, really wild. Which she did. As Fortune lifted her knee, she would not find Juri’s extended arm ripe for countering, but a quick shift as she slid backwards. ”Womp womp,” Juri said, Rushing in to kick Fortune in the side and in the face with a double kick before she could recover.
Time to cash out. She would have to put everything into this to keep Fortune down long enough for her to come around or whatever the hell needed to happen. Juri used the extra advantage from her Rushing punish counter to plant her hand on the ground and kick up into Fortune’s chin, before blitzing around her before she could recover to kick her in the side and in the head again. ”Nighty night!” She drove her elbow into Fortune’s head and then Drive Rush cancelled again, laying on more kicks and strikes before launching Fortune into the air.
She used a Fuha charged projectile to send a ki slice beneath Fortune before she landed to pop her up for a pinwheel kick. Juri’s eye flashed purple as she used her ultimate technique.
”Time to die!” There was an explosive impact as she kicked Fortune high into the air. Somehow, Juri was waiting for her about twenty feet up, having beat her to the apex of the launch, to kick Fortune back down. With a burst of speed, tongue trailing out of the side of her mouth, she beat Fortune back to the ground and kicked upward to practically impale the woman on her foot. She held Fortune aloft, bringing herself to Fortune’s face. She took the moment to gauge Fortune’s mood. Fortunately, some confident, unbothered smile wasn’t waiting for her.
”That felt good, didn’t it?” Juri asked, gently brushing her fingers across Fortune’s cheek. Then she finished the ordeal by using her foot to slam Fortune face first into the ground.
Juri took a few steps backwards, hunching her shoulders and breathing heavily. While she was still doing decently on health, she was completely burnt out with no resources left to speak of. With the debuff Fortune put on her, if Fortune wasn’t knocked out or back to her senses after that beating, Juri would be in real trouble. ”Hah…still…with us?” Juri set a hand on her hip, feigning absolute confidence despite her panting.
When slammed into the ground, Nadia had fallen apart, her pieces lying strewn across the ground. Her Multitarget buff expired, and for a good moment she really did look dead. Of course, the dismembered feral was still very much alive, but it took a second or two longer than usual for her to recover. When her eyes blearily blinked open, they were back to their usual ocean blue. The sounds of allies fighting and undead monstrosities running amok brought her back to reality like smelling salts, but in no state of consciousness did she relish setting eyes on Juri. Half-formed images and memories from her time in D’s thrall hit her like a wave of nausea. “...Ugh.” Rather than ask what happened, she focused on pulling herself together. Whatever had befallen her, she was still alive, and her job wasn’t over yet.
After a moment Nadia got up into a crouch, took a quick look around to make sure she wasn’t in active danger, then used her Ripened Heart. It went dark after doing so, meaning that it would offer no more healing for the time being. Even worse, she recognized the puddle of lemonade nearby, as well as the glass shards around it. “My lemonade?” That magically-refilling pitcher had been a one-of-a-kind relic, and now it lay broken. It was a genuine bummer, and it left Nadia crestfallen. A moment later, though, she shook her head and put on a smile. This loss just meant that finishing this fight would be that much sweeter. “Whatever. Let’s go!” She grabbed Athame and stood up, ready to fight.
Juri had her Ghoulsaw out, but when Fortune’s eyes were back to their normal color, her idea of chopping Fortune up to keep her from reforming would have to remain a fantasy for the sake of the mission. Besides, killing those smug Consuls and that idiotic Gravemind would be the sweetest prize around here. ”Finally,” She said, holstering the weapon. She had also taken the time to sit the battle out to regain her breath.
”I’m bored of kicking your ass, so try not to fall in love again, Fortune.” Juri needled. The catgirl tried to ignore her.
Level 6: 21/60 Location: Dead Zone: Qliphoth Word Count: 400 Points Gained: 1 x 2 New EXP Balance: Level 6: 23/60
Juri zipped forward low, her sense of balance impossible as she propelled herself forward like a spider skittering out from the low, dark places of the world.
”Tch!” Juri grit her teeth as instead of carving into the smug prick on the throne, she carved into some kind of wolf instead. ”How scuzzy can ya get?” She growled. Still, the saw buried into the ground and dragged her forward to slash across D’s legs in a spray of blood. And fire, which Juri assumed was because of some wizard on her team, she didn’t care who. Annoyingly, D didn’t seem to mind that much. If Juri had taken that same hit, it wouldn’t have drawn any blood at all because of her ki, but it woulda hurt! Juri jumped backwards and adjusted the strap of her ghoulsaw so it was on her back in one swift evasive motion as blood darts shot after her. She rolled under some and then popped up to her feet to parry the rest as she turned blue, using her foot and hand to deflect the needles.
That dumbass Fortune and that bratty looking Roxas followed up next, to mixed results. At least Roxas had the decency to get flung away! Fortune got snatched, and before Juri could intervene, put under some kind of charm. ”Oh, you gotta be-” Juri scoffed. Then she looked at Dracula. He did look like he was in good shape. Juri frowned and shrugged ambivalently.
Still, Juri intervened eagerly and without hesitation as to the new Fortune problem, trying not to let the catgirl act. ”Oh, Fortune, won’t you just snap out of it!” Juri pleaded sarcastically.
”I don't wanna have to huuurt you~~~!” She sprinted to intervene and Drive Rushed forward, zig-zagging along to try and hit Fortune with a grab.That is, quickly putting her foot on Fortune’s shoulder, forcing her downward into a rising knee that took them both into the air before kicking Fortune in the belly to send her flying away. If that worked, the technique would do a bit of damage but mostly create distance.
”Me and Fortune can have some playtime, just don’t let me see any more of you chumps get got!” Juri barked as the fighting continued.
Level 6: 07/60 Location: Dead Zone: Qliphoth Word Count: 538 Points Gained: 1 x 2 New EXP Balance: Level 6: 21/60 +5 +3 +4
The walk up was annoying but ultimately uneventful. Juri could chop into nerve clusters and even through doors if she wanted too with her new toy. When the Consuls made themselves known, Juri shouldered her new Ghoulsaw, eager to try it out on any of the ugly bastards who got too close. ”Appreciate ya all gettin’ together in one place. Hope next time they send five, save us some walking!” Juri said, seemingly unperturbed by the odds.
When the monsters started gathering up, Juri wasted no time and span into the crowd with her Ghoulsaw. They didn’t fight back, which made it a lot easier to turn them to ash. And with every spin of her body, any flood that slipped past her were pulled right back in and would have to escape all over again.That was thanks to her new power she got in this very tower, and Juri liked it a lot. She imagined it could even be used to extend her combos, not just snatch up anyone outside her kicking range. Juri had a little smile on her face. ”Thanks for the practice, chumps! Think I’m really gettin’ the hang of it, now!” Juri said as she pounced on the last little guy she could, sawing him in half down the middle.
Enough pre-show. Time for the real fight to start. The Gravemind was imposing, and a bead of nervous sweat rolled down Juri’s face. ”Tchuh…you freaks always come up with the stupidest shit to say. D O A. So stupid. Dead On Arrival’s more like it.”
When the fight kicked off, Juri played evasively, strafing around and slowly closing in, watching the various encounters begin to unfold and play out. With her speed, she felt confident she could zip into any one of these fights to blindside some sucker. When the big tentacles came out to blast some of the Seekers, Juri jumped over the resulting shockwave. Monsters spilled out, but Midna and Prim targeted them with their spells. Juri’s eyes flitted from place to place as she scampered atop iron rails and bars. She went under one of the tractors and lept atop the scarecrow atop before leaping across the way. Roland was fighting a guy who looked a lot like…Dracula. D for Dracula? He was currently pushing Roland back with a storm of blood rain. But Juri felt like she could zip in from the side. To facilitate her flank she pumped a bar of drive gauge into it, and positively blitzed across the battlefield with a streak of green light. This would give her next attack plus frames, too! Juri forwent all grace for power, and swung her Ghoulsaw as hard as she could at Dracula.
If he dodged or deflected it she would lodge it downwards into the ground and grind it along towards him to cut into his legs and just force herself past him like a hit and run. ”Watch it!” Juri jeered. Her plan next was to holster the Ghoulsaw for now and fight with her hands and feet, which were much, much faster and capable of combos and EX-moves and defending much more efficiently. But for now, just a big fuck off swing would suffice her entrance.
"You'd make a good firefighter, Cora," Pei said as she pushed Cora down the hall in her wheelchair towards the debriefing room. "See even with my cool powers I still have to work my way up with structures or regular ladders or what not. If one person or just a cat is stranded somewhere you could just fly right up there. And you could bust holes in ceilings to let smoke out, and manage backdraft. There's a lot you could do." And when she wasn't talking, she was singing a bit to herself, as she tended to do.
Pei pushed Cora into the room and sat down next to her, quieting down as the meeting began. Sitting respectfully as Daphne and Viktor began their somber debriefing. Maybe it was just because Batman was watching but Pei felt like she didn't want to say much. She already felt like she said enough on the plane.
When Kass apologized to her, Pei smiled gently, with relief. "Hey, it's okay, no problem. Apology accepted. I coulda handled all that a bit better so I'm sorry, too. It's all good, really," Pei said, she it was obvious she meant it. Genuinely more relieved than anything else that there may be no bad blood between them for words exchanged. Even if Kass did hurt Pei's feelings. Her puns, for the record, were not stupid. And her catch phrases were cool. So. Glad that's settled.
Whatever, it's fine. It's all good.
Well, then, after Zach said some stuff, Will started talking, and Pei started tapping her foot again. She really, really wished people would stop talking about the League this way. Really wished.
Though, Cora telling Will and the others to shut up also annoyed Pei. She got that Cora was in a bad mood because of all the pain, but it's not like anyone was insulting Cora. So telling everyone to shut up as if they weren't here to talk annoyed Pei. But she stuffed down that annoyance and said: "Did you wanna be here? We can go back to the infirmary if you want," Pei offered Cora quietly on the side. If Cora was going to be put in a sour mood, she could catch up with the debriefing later and get on some medicine.
Then Quiver started talking some more, about how he felt. Pei was very unhappy with how Kila attacked Will. It was no wonder he felt so shitty. Pei hardly felt like she was in some kind of in-group. She, Cora, and Vincent were newbies too, even newer than Will who had been on the team once before. Kila attacking Will was a serious offence, and he needed to be benched.
But what were the League supposed to do? Lock him up? It was a good thing they didn't. If Metamorph hadn't come, who knows what would have happened to Daphne. They would have had no reason to keep her alive. Of course ideally Metamorph would have come with backup, using his freedom and trust to tell the League what he thought he knew, but still, right? Pei thought all of this to herself as Will made his case known.
But she wasn't really the target audience. This time, with Batman himself here to speak, she would keep her mouth shut. There was no reason for Pei to say: 'Well, actually, you've been on the team longer than I have' or 'The League didn't do anything wrong' even though she kind of wanted to say both of those things because Pei hated feeling like people were mad at her or her heroes. And she didn't want Batman thinking Pei agreed with all of this. But. She wasn't involved in the drama. And unlike Grumpy McZapzap over here she wasn't going to insert herself. Grumpy McZapzap. Heh.
The truth, Kass said. What truth? What could the League know that they didn't? Didn't they spend the most time around Metamorph? Pei rubbed her face and sighed, the closest she was going to get to speaking up.
Juri’s shouting drew the attention of Therion, his ears flicking towards the noise. It sounded like she couldn't be too far off. He'd found a generator of his own fairly fast, but once he was in front of it the thief's hands hovered above the various wires and plugs. There were lights indicating what was working and what wasn't, and some kind of plunger with a knob jutting out of the side of the machine. Rather than slap around at it with limited success, he abandoned it to race in Juri's direction.
Through a mess of tangled growths he spotted her, and the monster after her. That she'd taken such a bad wound already perturbed the thief, though he kept his caution. At least until it looked like the Dredge was about to catch up to her, at which point he couldn't wait and observe any longer.
Therion burst from the brush and went in with a vicious dagger strike designed to tear through magical barriers, on the off chance that this thing had some kind of invisible shield. But that wasn't the case - and the weapon didn't so much as scratch the hideous creature. It lurched and swung its hooked arm out wide, narrowly missing the thief as he ducked and backpedaled away from it.
Juri took the opportunity to put a lot of distance between her and the Dredge. Not that she would, but shouting ‘thank you’ would undermine the distraction anyway. Juri rounded a couple corners and peered around to make sure it wasn’t following her. Then she put her back against a wall and slid down, clutching her wound. ”Grr…what the hell?!” She groaned through clenched teeth.
”Ugly bastard is playing his own rules…gotta get those generators running and get outta here. Bet that’s it’s weakness. Since when do I talk to myself? Since I gotta frickin’ two inch gash in me, that’s when!” Juri ran a hand down her face. There was a massive meathook on a stick in front of her, causing Juri to frown. She had a feeling Mr. Hooky Hands had nasty intentions for whoever it caught. She spotted a nearby crate and started to rummage around in it. Inside was unfortunately not a medkit, but instead a toolbox. That’d make fixing the generators a lot faster, though one of the fantasy bozos could probably make better use of it than she could. Juri put her hand on a nearby wall and peeked over it, making sure the coast was clear. In the mist she spotted a light, and decided to move over to it, staying low and slow.
Back in the small clearing she'd hurried to leave behind, Therion was having a hell of a time losing the monster now that its attention was on him. He had avoided any hits so far by running and ducking behind the weird trees, but how long he could manage that for he didn't know - it almost seemed like the thing was getting faster the longer it gave chase for.
A glint of something metallic caught his eye and the thief made a sharp turn, barely avoiding the Dredge's hook as it slammed it down overhead in the space he'd just been. Therion sprinted toward what turned out to be one of the copper golems, grabbed its shoulder and threw it behind him as he vaulted over it. The golem collided with the Dredge, and though it didn't hold the creature up for very long it was enough time for Therion to assume his beast form. Faster and better suited to a crazy alien jungle hollow like this as a large white cat, he escaped the terror's radius for the moment.
Elsewhere Edward sprinted through the undergrowth, flames licking around him singing the plants that he didn't hack out of his way with a machete, till he suddenly burst out of the foliage and into a clearing housing a large futaristic structure of some kind. While he would have loved to investigate the building itself, atop it he saw the flickering lights perched atop a pole that his golems had seen before, specifically perched atop the generator Juri had found.
Speaking of those, the golems had lost sight of the creature, and were now scattered throughout the forest, trying to find it once more. Still, while ”Concerning” it was also ”all the more reason to prioritize the generator”, something he did by hurrying up the stairs, and then using the banister and a singular large flap of his wings to reach the roof, avoiding the distractions found within.
There was plenty of one found up top, namely the generator in question, which the man crouched down to inspect, and immediately became engrossed in attempting to understand the workings off, very much overanalyzing the entire device rather than getting to the root of the problem.
This, combined with his slash and burned trail, ment that down beneath his feet, within the base a locker popped open, and the horror slipped free, scent upon him. Moment’s later it ascended to the roof the proper way, and approached the man tinkering with the generator. He was not so blind as to be caught entirely unaware however, as as the hook came down Edward spun and raised his buckler to meet it, only for his arm to be effortlessly forced down and the Dredge’s grotesque weapon to be driven into his shoulder.
”Blast it” the man cursed, stumbling back towards the edge of the room, and then dropping off it, wings unfurling as he dropped, preventing the fall from breaking his ankles upon landing. He still stumbled to his knees, hand gripping his bleeding wound, but he had a single life line for that, his feather staff striker appearing beside him to deliver a burst of healing.
At that moment, several things happened in quick succession.
The Dredge appeared, looming at the precipice he’d just dropped down from and then, as the healing touched him, held up its unarmed hand which glowed with a pestilent aura that just as suddenly surrounded him instead. Yet rather than take effect, a barrier flashed around Edward as the Mirror Weakness passive skill he’d gained from a feather shield reflected the debuff back at the Dredge instead.
Initially this seemed to have had no effect, the Dredge hurling itself off of the roof and coming at him, but as the man rolled to the side to avoid it, the monstrosity charged on, blind to his presence as he pulled himself to his feet.
It then began to swing its weapon around wildly, only for a summoned set of copper golems to arrive just in the nick of time to distract it. Spears were banged together, prompting the Dredge to lunge towards and start tearing the golems apart while Edward used his wings to leap back up the way he’d come and perform a quick rather than clever repair job of the generator. Wires where put where they made sense, jams were cleared, and just in the nick of the time, as the now able to see again Dredge emerged back to the roof, having had to take the circuitous root back up, the engine purred to life.
Job done, the Dreadnaught did not dain to stick around, leaping off the roof and taking flight one more time. He didn’t go too far however, and instead made for a nearby tree that could support his weight, landing within it. Then, when the Dredge came and started to rip that tree down, he took wing for another, doing his best to look unwinded while hanging from his new perch.
He did a little too well at that act perhaps, as rather than continue to hunt him, the monstrosity departed into the foliage.
”Looking for easier prey, or worried about the generators, I wonder?” the Dreadnought asked the creature’s back, though naturally it did not answer. With the generator repaired, and the monstrosity gone after the others, Edward stuck around only a little longer, specifically to catch his breath and to investigate the Base interior for anything of value, finding two chests containing a medkit and a near dead flashlight for his efforts.
Through the window he would catch a glimpse of Juri and her toolbox as she was ducked down at an angle to obscure herself from the Dredge.
Noting her wounds, the man waited for the Dredge to leave the area, and only then approached, not trusting himself to not give her away by mistake, or wanting to find out what the blighting curse he’d reflected would do to a living person.
He offered her the freshly discovered medical kit without a word rather than deal with any predicted stubbornness that offering to help treat her might cause, and instead simply enquired quietly ”How are we faring?” with regards to their progress.
Juri snatched up the medkit and eagerly applied it to her wounds, stemming the bleeding. SHe concentrated on that, gritting her teeth as she wrapped the gauze around her side. Then she set the toolbox in front of Edward. ”This toolbox’ll stop your medieval ass from zapping yourself on a generator.” She said.
”Appreciated” Edward replied with more than a hint of sardonicism in his tone at the barely veiled insult, but he took the kit anyway and took a moment to pursue its contents regardless.
”I managed to get one. Somehow the ugly bastard snuck up on me. I think it can teleport somehow. Maybe through doors?” She theorized, thinking of the open locker behind it.
”It did seem to enter that structure without going through the main entrance” Edward replied, adding to the data point, before thinking back and, with Juri’s theory in mind, coming to a conclusion ”Hmm, and one of the metal cupboards where open within … which explains the otherwise pointless seeming external latches they sport …. As if to seal it inside?”
”It also attempted to inflict some sort of curse when I healed myself nearby, one that left it blind when I reflected the effect back at it” he added, only now after Juri’s self medication had proven that it couldn’t simply do so from anywhere in the arena, and that proximity matter.
Juri looked down at her bandages and then at Edward. ”Eh? Healing curse?” She got back into a crouching position and went to grab his head and squeeze. ”Bastard! Usin’ me as a damn guinea pig, huh?!” She said in a harsh whisper.
”Preferable to find out what it does now rather than when it is on top of us” he replied calmly from within the squeeze, even as he prodded her gut with his (unloaded) flintlock, before suggesting ”now let’s not have it go to waste. You can chew me out to your heart's content after we are no longer in danger”
Juri pushed his head to the side and lightly smacked the gun in the same direction. ”Like I’m afraid of some 1700’s peashooter. Whatever, gramps. I’ll kick your ass later.” She got back into a crouch and leaned around the side.
”Coast is clear. Try to keep up.” She crawled forward and away at a rapid pace.
After a moment the man sighed, holstered the empty threat, crouched down and followed after her.
When the seekers burst from the bloody walls of the tree, they found themselves in yet another hollow. This one was completely alien in appearance. Like the Qliphoth itself, it was hard to tell if the growths that pushed up from the ground and wounded around the area were plant or fleshy animal. Or if they were even part of the demon tree in the first place, and instead just something strange it had absorbed into itself. The fact that there were mundane objects scattered around like closets, wood boards, and busted machines suggested the latter. The area seemed to be larger than those below it, and instead of a nebulous energy surrounding the perimeter there was a massive wall. It was thick metal, integrated into the Qliphoth’s hardened inner skin. It would be very difficult, if not outright impossible, to break through – but the Seekers wouldn’t need to. A huge, ornate metal gate stood not far off, sealed shut by a massive circular door with the number 101 painted on it. Beside it was a console and a switch that, presumably, would open it and grant access to their next way up.
But the various faulty and flickering lights around the door, and on some of the lifeless machines strewn about, indicated that whatever this place was it was clearly operating under emergency power, and indeed, the controls for the great door at the front of the chamber lay dead as a result.
An inspection of the rest of the room revealed not much else and most notably caused Edward to come to the conclusion that ”there seems to be no other way out.”
To which Therion replied with a simple, "so let’s get it open."
Therion didn’t know or care how the blood flow determined where the Seekers ended up. With no way to choose where they were headed or who they arrived there with, as long as they were moving in the right direction that was the most important thing. If they ended up in a challenge none of those present could clear, then… they’d just have to find a different way forward.
It was pure chance that he and Portsmith had ended up in the same hollow again. Or maybe not, since they’d squeezed into a vein one right after the other. But after fighting together with the man he’d come to the conclusion that the dreadnought was competent, so Therion figured he’d lucked out there in the teammates department. On the other hand, it seemed that they’d been joined by Juri and that mercenary - and even after spending a week cooped up in Mafia Town with them he still didn’t have a strong read on either one. Juri he knew was a violent wild card, but at the very least, her strength and raw combat ability would probably come in handy. And Snake seemed smart and capable, which was the reason the thief had initially avoided him in Mafia Town in the first place.
First and foremost though the thief approached the door, inspecting it for any lock he’d be able to get through.
Edward, meanwhile, set about forging more reinforcements, forming, at his own pace, a perimeter of spears and a cannon more or less identical to the one he’d set up for their previous encounter: spears forming a ring in front of the door, cannon facing away from it. However, he did have a suggestion, which was, ”we could attempt to simply blast it open?”
Juri was happily wielding some kind of gruesome new buzzsaw weapon. At Edward’s suggestion though, she frowned and looked at the door, and slung the weapon over her shoulder. ”Are you stupid? That thing literally looks like it’s for a nuclear bunker.” She said dismissively of Edward and his weird little army set up.
”I have no context for what that is” Edward replied simply, and unfortunately for him he wasn’t going to get it right now.
She walked up to the console and scanned it with her regular eye and her artificial eye. ”It needs power. There’s probably a supply or something.” She looked between the other three, and her eyes landed on Snake.
”At least one of ya ain’t from Narnia or whatever and knows what to look for.” She said.
By pure luck or cosmic coincidence, the grizzled Mercenary had managed to find an unblocked blood vessel; traveling up through it and slicing his way out onto another level shortly after dealing with the hellish insectoids from earlier. Snake found himself in another chamber, this one a bizarre environment of biological growths that had at the very least seemed to absorb itself around a gigantic steel wall. His attention quickly snapped to the conversation up ahead, and relief washed over him. He was at least glad to find others from the group had made it to this new area, and soon made his way over. Just as he made his way over, holstering his pistol and sheathing his knife, the punk girl’s gaze settled on his bloodied form. Looking to the strange bunker door at her utterance, he spotted the breaker lever next to it, and a quick cursory glance at the flickering lights affirmed the deduction he’d overheard by the group. Blowing the door open would be possible, yet nobody here, not even the summoner of the cannons, could hope to break through a nuclear blast door with their current firepower.
Snake wasn’t an electrical engineer, but he was quick to surmise the obvious option available. ”External power is going to be the only way we’re getting past that door. We can either split in pairs of two or stay together as we search. I wouldn’t advise going this alone.” Snake said, moving over to the console and reading it. The flickering, stilted typeface almost looked like an old MS-DOS readout, tinted green as the diodes and circuits made tiny flicking chirps as the ancient terminal hummed. Emergency power was active, yet no reroute was available. A digital facsimile of a rectangular power bar was displayed off to the right of the screen; with a red-colored readout of 10% showing the total amount of power the system had. Taking the adjacent machines offline could provide a marginal boost to the power they needed, but it of course wouldn’t be enough. Turning away from the console, Snake un-holstered his handgun as he ejected the magazine and racked the slide; catching the bullet and thumbing the projectile back into the magazine as he tapped and shook the excess blood out of the interiors of the guns. Mentally noting he’d have to have his weapons turned into the armory for a cleaning after this deployment, Snake re-inserted, bumped, locked, and re-chambered his handgun as he holstered it again.
“Anyone else have other ideas?” Snake questioned the group.
After confirming that yes, the lock was completely electronic with no way to get past it without fiddling around with the power source, Therion turned back to the other three. His tail twitched, but otherwise he didn't appear affected by Juri's comment. Even an idiot could follow the cables running from the console out around the area, and given he'd learned to drive and operate some high tech railway gun already, he could figure this out too.
"That's fine with me. We can split up to cover more ground," the thief said to Snake. They could go in pairs; as always, the sooner they could leave the better.
”This is acceptable. Signal if you encounter any hostiles” Edward agreed, far too intrigued in this opportunity to tinker with some of this magicless power technology to let Juri get to him.
”Whaaatever. Rather get cozy with some ugly freak than stay stuck with all you stiffs.” Juri said, turning out her upper lip and blowing some air at her bangs.
But whether the group stuck together or split up, they would have to come to the decision quickly. An eerie feeling came over them, alerting them to the presence of someone else nearby... or something else.
It lurked in the fringes of their vision, observing for a moment. But this was no ambush predator; it was a killer, and it drifted on a carpet of shadows as it moved directly towards the group. It raised its hooked, knotted appendage high, trailing terrible noises as it went. Shrieks. Cries. Whimpers. Pops. Cracks. Feasting sounds. Dark sounds.
The sounds of death.
Edward’s cannon immediately pivoted round and fired a round at it, but the resulting thunderous detonation seemed to have zero impact whatsoever on the entity, a fact he described with forced calm as ”Concerning”
If this thing had some sort of invincibility like the tar lion outside had been, they were all in a lot of trouble - and Therion wasn't about to press his luck.
The thief turned and ran, his eyes tracking one of the many cables along the ground. "Pick a direction and let's go!" he called over his shoulder.
No way that guy’s cannon was packing candy floss rounds, Juri thought. That blast shoulda done something, but it didn’t. Ever since Carnival Town Juri had gotten the idea that some places just played by their own rules. ”That is one ugly freak. Even uglier than the last freak.” Juri said with a frown, backing up as it…slithered? Walked? Towards her. Juri put a stack of crates in between herself in the creature. It was faster than it looked, but, the stupid thing had to go around them. Immediately some of its scariness was lost- this was no different than playing tag or hide and seek.
”Tchuh,” Juri chuckled to herself, and took off running. Though fixing that gate while that thing was after them might be pretty damn annoying. The Dredge gooped after her at a heightened pace, ready to catch up and gore her with that hook arm. Juri kept ahead of it, and spotted what looked like a busted generator, but she wouldn’t stop to repair it with this thing on her ass.
Behind her, Edward did two things. He took off running as well, flames forming around him as he sprinted in what was, frankly, a very unhelpful manner when it came to avoiding notice. The other was he sent the squads of constructs he’d summoned out looking for generators as well. They weren't going to hurt it, of course, and it didn’t seem interested in wasting time killing the lifeless beings, but it would certainly help him keep track of it, and give the others a barrier that would let them pass through that would block the creep itself.
Juri was light on her feet, jogging backwards. She rolled her eyes as Edward set himself alight with power, but the little constructs were helpful. The monster was bogged down and way too slow. She gave it a quick scan with her Feng Shui engine and found it was about as strong as she was. Something about that didn’t add up- if she had taken that cannon shot head on she would have at least flinched. ”See ya, loser,” She taunted, before going low and vanishing from sight. Now the Seekers were scattered and hunted.
Juri got to a generator and popped open the hatch. It was just some loose wiring. In a matter of moments it sparked to life as Juri put her often underutilized sharp intellect to use.
When the generator rumbled to life, a light came on, and the light revealed the form of the Dredge bearing down on her. In front of her, even, like she hadn’t left it behind but had walked right into its clutches. Behind it was an open locker, the interior shrouded in darkness. ”Fuck off!” Juri cursed, scrambling backwards in surprise. It brought its hook down across her shoulder and chest. Juri couldn’t believe it as she saw red splatter everywhere. Was the hook wet already? She put her hand to her shoulder and it came away crimson with her own blood. That didn’t make any sense. Its power level was still only as high as hers; it shouldn’t have hurt her that much! Some other entity was giving it strength. The Dredge stared at her, like it was taking in its own handiwork.
The pain remembered itself and promptly set her nerves on fire. Juri found herself hunching over, her knees weak. ”Take a picture, asshole!” She spat, before mustering her composure and turning to run, leaving a trail of blood behind her. She went through a nearby doorway and slammed down a palette that was resting against it, only for the thing to blast through like it was nothing.
”Somebody get this freak offa me!” She yelled in alarm.
Lvl 7 Sandalphon (40/70) and Lvl 6 Juri (7/60) Word Count:4,009 +5
With a flash of bright green vital energy and a dizzying burst of speed that made her almost impossible to track, Sandalphon’s rescuer darted into the action. Taken by surprise as it fixated upon its would-be victim, the guardian was an easy target; Juri could take her pick of its many faces. Her foot swept in from the side like a hook punch, cutting through the curtain of stringy black hair to connect with one of the guardian’ cheeks. The snappy blow knocked her target’s surprisingly elastic jaw askew, and it did force the monster to take a half-step back, but the guardian reacted much less to the clean hit than a human would. It was heavy, solidly built, and in this brief moment that she had the guardian on the back foot, Juri could take stock of her opponent in all its nightmarish glory. It seemed to be the product of at least a half-dozen pallid corpses, callously mashed together like clay in a potter’s hand, then tightly bound in barbed wire. The hair of its constituents formed a ragged mane draped down around its exposed spinal column, and it dripped blood with every tortured step. With so many heads to spare, a blow to just one would barely register, and as the rest looked Juri’s way they seemed to leer right back at her.
Juri cracked her neck from side to side. ”Just means I getta crack your skull more n’ once.
The guardian raised its left limb, a grotesque club of amalgamated arms reaching out in a greedy, clumsy grasp. Its voices harmonized in drunken, delirious laughter even as its fists closed on empty air, which suited Juri since its buzzsaw descended the next moment. Wider than the canopy of an umbrella, its heavy blade narrowly missed her, and the overswing gave Juri a moment to position herself in front of Sandalphon. The archangel herself, of course, remained encased in ice and unable to respond, but it wouldn’t be long before the martial artist had her answer. Nevertheless the guardian immediately challenged Juri’s protective commitment, its bloodstained sawblade singing as it charged.
The next second fists met steel, sparks flying as the sawblade ground against Juri’s guard. It chewed away at her drive, spiraling her down toward burnout, but before her energy could bottom out Sandalphon unfroze in an icy shower of red-tinged fragments. “Freeze duration: three seconds,” she informed Juri, her face and voice impassive as she dropped her gunstaff, knelt down, and unslung the Eye of Sol. “Recharge time: twelve seconds. Three to go.” As she took aim, she used a mirage to create a blue tile beneath her, and summoned both her Strikers. The Crimson Vampire Maid Annabella appeared and unloaded her massive rifle into the guardian three times, punctuated by an energetic, full-force slam from the Hammering. Their attacks forced the guardian back, at which point Sandalphon took her shot, not at one of the monster’s heads but at the single spine supporting its grotesque upper body. The guardian let out an awful noise somewhere between hysteric giggles and tearful weeping.
Juri shook her forearm, holding her wrist. ”I ain’t doin’ that for ya again, so don’t shoot yourself.” With her drive gauge low, her options were limited. Sandalphon probably had the right idea- she should go for the body and limbs first instead of the heads. That could come later. Juri sprinted forward at her unboosted but still quick speed, and shifted to the side to give Sandalphon a clearer shot. Then she dropped into a crouch, planting her hands on the ground at her side and kicking out at the creatures back knee. Then she span around and slashed into its ankle with a ki strike. Popping back up she prepared, nay hoped for another buzzsaw to come her way so she could parry it this time.
As the buzzsaw came her way she grinned and met the blade with one leg and her hand. Her body flashed blue and instead of a grinding sound there was a ringing clack sound, almost wooden. The saw blade would find no purchase, and after Juri absorbed the force of the attack she shunted it aside and took another step back. ”Kya ha ha.” With that, she had gotten most of her drive gauge back.
As the guardian stood, seemingly puzzled by the lack of carnage on its blade, another fiery shot burned through the curtain of hair to melt against its spine. It gave a bleary chortle and turned to face Sandalphon, making it trivial for the archangel to land another Frost Lock on its center mass. Ice coated its horrendous form in an instant, but given the guardian’s bulk, one frosty projectile wouldn’t be enough to freeze it solid. Guffawing, the monster reached down and carved into the Qliphoth flesh at its mangled feet, spraying shreds of plant matter until, with a mighty heave, it hurled a mass of debris toward its challengers.
Sandalphon narrowed her eyes. Seizing what looked like nothing, she performed a quick yank, and in an instant a handful of shimmering razor wires tightened. The largest hunks of flesh stopped in their tracks, caught like insects in a spiders web, and with one more tug the wires sliced them to ribbons. Some chunks did fly Juri’s way, but the archangel doubted she’d have much of a problem. The bigger issue was the guardian charging into one of the hollow’s many mirrors, at which point it promptly disappeared.
After a silent, watchful moment, Sandalphon caught a glimpse of inky hair to her left. She pivoted to fix her scope on the guardian, but stopped just shy of pulling the trigger. It wasn’t the guardian, but its reflection in a mirror, and she’d been only one nervous squeeze away from a self-inflicted headshot. “...I appreciate the advice.” Both she and Juri could see the guardian in several mirrors around them, giggling as it approached from behinds its reflective veil.
Juri side stepped into position behind Sandalphon, looking in the opposite direction of Sandalphon. With a frown, she eyed the many reflections. ”Wouldn’t want any more of that brain leakin’ out.” She commented.
”Say, I wonder.” She rolled her neck to the side, almost a twitch. Her green, prosthetic eye lit up. Juri hadn’t used it in a bit, but her Feng Shui engine let her scan the power level of other living creatures. Usually Juri thought everyone was weaker than her so why bother, but, in this instance she wondered if the device would be able to scan illusions. Whichever one of these mirrors had the real Guardian in it should have more ‘ki’ or whatever than the others. If it couldn’t detect the fake ones, then Juri would know. If this little counter-trick didn’t work, she’d just have to start smashing all the mirrors.
Juri wasn’t the only one who put her thinking cap on. Sandalphon’s pupils became concentric circles with clockwise-spinning lines, just as one might see on a radar screen, as she invoked her External Information Network to scan the area. Instantaneously she received a return ping from Juri, relaying an extensive list of vital statistics, but when the invisible electromagnetic wave touched the mirrors, they bounced off their reflective surfaces rather than entering the guardian’s domain. The archangel pursed her lips. “It’s as if it slipped away into another dimension.” Maybe Juri’s efforts bore more fruit, but Sandalphon doubted it. If the guardian could use these mirrors as portals into some backwards mirror world, there was a chance that the duplicates weren’t illusions, but different visions of the same monstrosity. “We should destroy them,” she urged. “Then its either trapped in there, or trapped in here with us.”
”Yeah, yeah!” Juri said dismissively. Stupid eye thing, what are you good for?
Before the two could implement any strategy, the guardian charged. It barreled toward the Seekers with its buzzsaw screeching, ghastly faces alight with laughter. Both Juri and Sandalphon turned to face the mirror that portrayed the incoming guardian head-on, reasoning that it would emerge from there. At the last moment, though, it slowed down. In the corner of her vision, she saw a side profile of the monster advance into the frame of a previously empty mirror, and the next second the guardian veered right, plowing back into reality from the ladies’ left. By then, Sandalphon had already turned. “There!” It sprinted in for a whirring haymaker to carve the Seekers in two, but Sandalphon managed to not-so-gracefully dive out of the way. Before hitting the ground she lobbed a pinpoint-accurate Frost Lock that flash-froze the guardian in place.
While lying on her side, breathless from the impact, Sandalphon called Hammering once more. The Nikke appeared with her trademark maul at the ready, but rather than take aim at the guardian, she obliterated the mirror it came from. One down, thirteen to go. Juri knew how long the freeze would last, so it was up to her whether to go for more mirrors or to rack up some damage.
Juri landed from her leap over the buzz saw, stance low, her front hand on the ground. Her Feng Shui locked onto the Guardian and started scanning it out of spite. With a Drive Rush forward she blitzed towards the Guardian, and then right past her, flicking it on one of its noses as she went. She streaked forward and smashed into the mirror closest the Guardian and then carried her into the next with an elegant kick. With another regular dash she grabbed the back of one and simply shoved it forward onto the floor, breaking it. Then she made a face at the creature, like she had done that last one by accident.
”Oops!” She grinned. As the freeze ended Juri strafed right to get to the next one to toss it, too.
Shards of ice flew far and wide when the guardian broke free, accompanied by a burst of flat, unamused laughter, as if the monster were being sarcastic. Able to see in all directions thanks to its many heads, it identified Sandalphon as the closer, more vulnerable target as she picked herself off the ground, and turned to go after her. It lurched forward, and -unable to use the Eye of Sol without a blue surface beneath her- Sandalphon reflexively summoned her other Striker. Annabella appeared with her rifle trained on one of the guardian’s heads, but much too close.
The monster grabbed the weapon’s barrel with its left hands, then carved into the sharpshooter with an overhead slash. While the striker vanished, her wound opened on Sandalphon’s torso, and the archangel gave a ragged gasp. Her rifle fell from her grip as she staggered backward, only avoiding a fall with a timely summon of her gunstaff in order to prop herself up. As the guardian lumber closer to finish her off, she summoned a Cerulean Mirage on top of herself, then lifted the butt of her gunstaff to shoot the mirage in the foot and detonate a diamond-shaped ether explosion. It knocked the guardian back, and put Sandalphon on her last legs, but with what little strength she had left the archangel began to cast Angelic Praise. As holy ripples expanded around her, the only question was whether or not she’d be in time.
All the while Juri was happily breaking mirrors, getting the number down to about five, all of the remaining mirrors all in the same-ish cluster. When she turned to check on Sandalphon, her shoulders sagged and she let her head fall backwards. ”Huugh!” With an overly big exasperated groan she spent Drive Rush to zip across the chamber and come to Sandalphon’s rescue. Letting it rock, leaning forward with her arms out to the side. No doubt it saw her coming, but it only had two arms and two legs. As it was knocked back by Sandalphon’s spell, Juri came in for an empowered sweep against the same knee leg she had targeted earlier. One big hit to try and roll its knee or ankle and get it to topple.
With several legs messily fused together, the guardian wasn’t one buckle easily, but Juri’s kicks were nothing if not powerful. Combined with the damage already done to the monster’s limb, her strike was enough to throw the nightmare off balance, and its disproportionately top-heavy mass did the rest. It went down, flailing its limbs with helpless, childlike anger, and as Juri pounced to take advantage one of the guardian’s unpredictable thrashes caught her in the act with a painful slash. The next moment, though, Sandalphon’s Angelic Praise pulsed outward to restore the bulk of her health. She took a deep breath, conjured a blue tile beneath herself, and swung her gunstaff into firing position to join Juri in pressing their advantage.
Due to Juri’s natural ki durability, no blood was drawn. But damage was still done, and she still felt that familiar embrace of pain in no small quality. ”You random little-! Hahaha!” She flicked out her leg a couple times with the same intent of loading a shotgun. With a slice of her heel she sent out an OD, Fuha powered projectile along the ground to slash into the creatures side. Then she dashed over it, moving in faster to slam her foot on the beasts damaged knee. Then she would flip over to its other side just as her projectile would connect.
Sandalphon added some reprisal of her own in the form of repeated ether shots, rate of fire prioritized over accuracy since even in the midst of the guardian’s thrashing, she couldn't miss a headshot of she wanted to. She knew it would take too long to retrieve her Eye of Sol, but the archangel definitely missed its sheer stopping power. Though she and Juri exploited the guardian’s tumble as much as physically possible, the two weren't exactly bastions of burst damage, and the horror still had plenty of fight in it once it rolled to its feet.
It wheeled around, giggling madly as it searched for an escape route, but all the nearby mirrors lay in pieces. With no avenue of regress, the guardian went berserk and began to rampage, lurching around on its wounded leg with one giant swing after another. Sandalphon put some distance between herself and the freak with Vault and Heavensent, then scanned the guardian as she drifted a safe distance away. “Only thirty-five percent remaining,” she declared. If Juri could weather this thing’s fury and strike back, victory would be theirs. Once she landed, Sandalphon scooped up her Eye of Sol and began to set up. “Aim for the spine.” Once atop a blue tile, she cast a Cerulean Mirage near the guardian to help distract it, then put the creepy carcass in her sights.
Juri backpedaled, ducked, and dashed away from the swings, using her speed and its sluggishness to her advantage. She was pretty happy with the leg damage she had wrought, giggling.
”Easy money, Sandy!” She called back. She turned away from a swing and then spun her upper torso, clawing the creature across the face. Baiting out a counter swing towards her upper body, she ducked underneath it and shifted around to the back. Twisting and then planting her feet, she turned all that momentum into an eye-watering elbow to the creature’s spine. She transitioned into a four fingered stab like she was trying to find the cracked gap in the vertebrate. Using a significant amount of drive gauge she cancelled that attack into another elbow into the same spot, and followed it up by planting her hand on the ground, turning away from the creature and slamming her heel into its back. Once, twice, she used her Fuha Stocks to slash around elegantly again, creating distance between the two once more.
With each grievous blow, the guardian’s gibbering grew more and more frenzied, it's laughter deranged and despairing. For all its gruesome power, it couldn't seem to land a solid hit on the meddlesome martial artist even after it learned to ignore the tantalizing Cerulean Mirage, but Sandalphon always erred in the side of caution. Whenever Juri landed a hit, the archangel followed up to stagger the guardian with a well-aimed sunstreak from the Eye of Sol. The first headshot could reliably punch a cauterized hole, and the second was enough to pop the head. In this way Sandalphon helped extend Juri’s combos, keep her safe from reprisal, and rack up damage until she judged the time to be right.
The archangel adjusted her aim, and shot her Cerulean Mirage. It absorbed the solar slug and erupted in a diamond blast of blue flame, close enough to the guardian to knock it down. This time it fell on its right side, its huge saw partially trapped beneath its clammy bulk, and it's cracked spine exposed. Sandalphon lowered her weapon and stood, her pupils reverting from crosshairs to normal with a sense of finality. “The honors are yours.”
Juri didn’t need to be told twice. Or, really, even once. And there was nothing particularly honorable about the way she was descending on the creature, slamming her heel into its exposed spine after a full front flip. She stood on the creature and began hopping and down, driving her feet into its back with little hippy hops. It was a gleeful, goblin-like display. She would keep it up until it was broken in half, in which case she kicked one of its heads. ”Loser~!” She spat breathlessly, stepping off the Guardian and watching it start to decay into ash.
Amped up, she shook out her arms and hopped up and down some more. With a cackle she kicked at the ashifying corpse.
Finally, she re-noticed Sandalphon, and looked around at their current location. ”M’kay, Sandy. Even though I had to save your ass twice, you weren’t totally useless. Do that magicky radio doohicky thing you were gonna do so you can tell me what you see all the time. ” She commanded off-handedly.
The archangel had averted her eyes during Juri’s savagery, not out of any misguided sympathy for the monster or unwillingness to do what must be done, but simply because she took no pleasure in the act. Once the deed was done, she approached her ally attentively. “I am grateful for your aid. You performed quite well.” She kept her feedback objective and positive; the fight had gone well enough, after all. Granted permission to bring Juri into her circle, the archangel nodded, then reached out and held a hand beside the martial artist’s face. A ripple of holy water pulses into the air, its concentric rings forming into a yellow-blue sigil, reminiscent of a halo. A second later it faded away, gone when not in use.
”Ulblblbl~” After a moment, Juri made a weird noise and chased Sandalphon’s hand away with her waggling tongue.
“Done.” Sandalphon stepped back, wiping some hair from her face. She knew she must look dreadful, especially since not all of the blood staining her clothes belonged to the Qliphoth, but there were more important matters at hand. She made the executive decision to slick her hair back to keep her vision clear, then noticed the spirit of the guardian on the floor. She nodded at it. “To the victor go the spoils.”
Juri stared down at the spirit, going over the rules in her memory. ”I sure as shit ain’t spirit bonding with that ugly thing, no matter how cool that mirror trick was. God, who would? As for a Striker…meh.” Juri shrugged.
”Plus, it means I get to stop on it ooone mooore time.” She chuckled and then stomped on the spirit. But what resulted seemed to genuinely dazzle Juri.
You have obtained: Ghoulsaw The cruelest of weapons built for the crudest of Grineer soldiers. Rips through metal like flesh, and through flesh like day-old pudding. It never seems to run out of fuel, and the dextrous wielder can even plunge its blade into sufficiently soft ground to ride it like a deadly skateboard.
”What the heck? Oh my- woah.” With quiet reverence, Juri picked up the hefty weapon, though she was plenty strong enough to use it. This time when she laughed, it was an almost sweet, innocent sound. Excited, like unwrapping a toy on Christmas morning. Though when she revved up the nasty weapon and heard it purr, her laugh turned much more familiar and cruel, already imagining the havoc she could wreak.
She swung it around a few times for practice. It was slower and much less precise than her normal attacks, leaving little room for her defence. But the speed and power of the blade itself was undeniable. ”Oh ho, man! It ain’t no fine art but it has its uses!”
When she studied the device closely, she noticed something unusual about its design. ”This thing’s balanced. It’s balanced, Sandy.” She said, the implication clear to her. She planted it in the floor and crouched atop it, the blade sticking into the fleshy ground. Lo and behold, it didn't fall over. Juri looked to Sandalphon for confirmation, her mouth a small, excited ‘o’.
Juri activated the engine and it sped across the floor with a streak of green energy, carrying her with it. For a few blissful moments she rode it across the chamber before crashing into the far wall.
Landing in a heap next to the weapon she laughed uproariously, clutching her stomach and kicking helplessly.
”Did you- did you- did you see that?!” She asked between breaths.
Despite her disquieting demonic surroundings, the intense and painful fight against the guardian, the visceral filth that clung to her once-fine clothes, and the nightmarish road that brought her her, Sandalphon seemed to be smiling. It was slight, not the sort of gormless ear-to-ear grin that Nadia was wrong to wear, but like a diamond it all the bright for it's rarity. “Naturally,” she replied matter-of-factly, collecting her weapons in a routine manner. “I feel as though I've seen another side of you.” Juri breaking the tension with her antics has evidently worked wonders for Sandalphon’s mental state.
Juri didn’t know how to react to Sandalphon saying that. It made her a bit self conscious. ”Haha, yeah, well, ptchuh. Whatever.” She stood up and dusted herself off. She looked down at the weapon and righted it, biting her lower lip. She muttered something about getting practice in. But she couldn’t just carry it around when she wasn’t using it. Juri looked to her tommy gun, and plucked the strap from it, jury-rigging it (Juri rigging?) it to the applicable parts of the ghoulsaw instead. Now she could put the saw over her bag and wear it like a backpack or big duffel bag. As for the tommy gun itself, well, she just plum tossed it out like old garbage.
”Thing was runnin’ low on bullets anyhow. And no way am I gonna lug it the whole time. And what, look for and then carry around drum magazines?” She made a face. ”No way. This new thing is way cooler, and I don’t think it runs outta fuel. There’s no intake, and it’s all sci-fi lookin’.” She said, patting it with approval.
Before the two could go any farther, however, another surprise came their way. The hollow seemed to darken around them, and in front of them appeared ethereal cards, three apiece. Stoic in the face of the unprecedented phenomenon, Sandalphon scanned the area for any threats, then once satisfied, speed-read through the options laid out before her.
Cold Storage - your freeze effects last 2 seconds longer Dispel Disaster - when a character is healed, defense is increased by 24% for 10 seconds Raindrop Earrings - every 18 seconds, standing still will confer Repeat, which will refresh the next used skill
After finishing, Sandalphon could only hypothesize that some sort of unseen power had seen fit to reward the Seekers for their efforts in this unholy place. That speculation created a lot more questions than it answered, but for now she would need to accept this unexpected windfall. Since these projections seemed to require her input, she concluded that she must choose between them, and after a moment the made her selection. She could already refresh her own skills via Rapid Analysis, and while temporary defense bonuses could be useful, the extended duration on her Frost Lock would be invaluable–as long as she didn’t freeze herself again. Sandalphon selected Cold Storage, and turned to await Juri’s arbitration.
”Hah?” Juri looked over her cards, one side of her nose wrinkling up. ”Free shit?”
Passion Dash - your dash causes a small magic burst at its terminus and inflicts Weak, decreasing outgoing damage by 30% for 4 seconds Questioning of Purpose - increases break effect (ability to reduce opponent's toughness/poise/guard) by 50% Energy Sandals - your dash stacks 24 energy, up to a cap of 600. Your next attack after dashing consumes all energy to boost damage by 1% for each point of energy consumed
Weaker enemies meant more fun, and Juri was always light on her feet. So she picked Passion Dash.
“Jealousy and love are two sides of the same coin,” rang the impossible voice of Aphrodite. “Maybe there’s room for envy, too, hm?”
”Envy?” Juri asked, an edge in her voice. But the vision faded.
Juri had never used magic before, but she felt like she had the new skill, just like the card promise. She took a long step to the side, and there was a spark of energy. Now she could weaken her enemies whenever she pleased? ”Uh. Okay.”
Once ready to proceed, the archangel eyed a bloodstream on the other side of all the shattered glass, pausing only to calculate how many years of bad luck Juri had incurred. “By my best estimate, we're only about one third up the Qliphoth. I’m glad that you like that saw–you'll have ample opportunity to try it out.”
Juri was trundling alongside Sandalphon on her Ghoulsaw, moving at a slower pace and slowly swerving left and right like a first time skateboard rider. It left a badass gash in the ground as they went. Concentrating, she didn’t look up from the floor when Sandalphon spoke. ”Wonder if I’ll get to hear their screams over the engine?” She mused absent-mindedly in reply.
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