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NoriWasHere
DisturbedSpec
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Aku the Samurai
Damycles
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LGHead Games
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.
”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.
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?”
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.