~Mirror Magic : Dreams of a Resolution~

RE: ~Mirror Magic : Dreams of a Revolution~

[Noir Moves to G4: {H4—G4}]
[Noir waits.]

Let's try this once more. It had better damn work.

He squeezed his eyes shut; rubbed them hard; prayed fervently; thought happy thoughts; and then he opened his eyes. THe black blob–hole–void–monster thing was still there. He could barely make out anything. The room was too bright, and the blob–monster—blobster?–thing was too dark. "Ugh. Why me? Why me allatime?" He muttered as he massaged his temples, dazed and confused.

It all started with the weird mirror that sucked him up and tortured him in every way known to humankind. Or was that every way known to his mind? At any rate, it was unpleasant and Noir had the express pleasure of telling his mind to shut up and stop recalling the awful horror of those black tentacles. Oh, knowing some of his friends and their active imaginations he'd known where that could have gone, very quickly. IN fact, poor Noir was fairly sure it went there and more… the experience had left him in great mental stress and agony. Not good.

The plus point was that he had some means of fighting, now. From what Noir could see he wasn't in mufti any more… he'd had donned on him battle armour, like he'd always dreamt of having, and he could feel some strange powers coursing through his body. Something instinctively told him that could he gather the power, he could unleash a showstopping wave of energy that could mess up this blobster thing pretty badly… but he couldn't figure out how to do it, and he didn't want to explode things just yet. His appearance had changed dramatically, however—no longer was he a weak adult human on the verge of middle age. When he looked into the mirror, before the tentacle things attacked him, he caught sight of a magnificent beast right out of comic books or manga or something… just like he'd always wanted to be.

One thing troubled him… on the one hand there was the blobster on the floor, but on the other hand there were uncannily human shaped shadows on the floor near the walls at the far end of the room. It was all very suspicious and vaguely unsettling, and to be frank he wanted none of this. "I want none of this." But these things were attacking him, and he had to defend himself somehow… he had a shield in his hand, but if only he'd a knife or something to stab them with! he ponders. Then again, they were probably resistant to knife stabs. For now, Noir edged a little closer, which was reckless, and cautiously craned his neck, trying to get a better glimpse of the blobster.

 

Blackness and pain. A throbbing ache located thirty-two degrees from center on the right side of her forehead. If she was entirely human, the pain might have bothered her enough to complain, but, after all, she wasn't human. That fact, however, did not excuse the aggravation rising in her system as she gazed upon a terribly bright room and some freakish blob creatures. "Lovely," she muttered, ignoring the migraine pounding on her skull. With sudden flourish, a purplish red aura appeared around her, two blood colored pistols appearing in hand.

The blackest heart circulates a steady stream of poison. Black Rose's Poisoned Blood protects her from a random status effect!

"Eleka nahmen nahmen. Eleka. Eleka!" the woman spat suddenly, the aura collecting around her turning pitch black before colliding in on her weapons. Her gold colored eyes rolled in exasperation. "Ya gonna keep me waiting?" she called to the closer of the two humanoid blobs. "Well?" a tap of her foot, ". . . Fine. Have it your way." she huffed when they gave her no response. All the dirty jobs, she thought scornfully, readying her weaponry.

Black Rose casts Imbue! +10% FOR for 10 Turns!
DP Remaining: 20/23

Poisoned Blood bestows its power upon Black Rose's Weapons!

 

Alban looked around the white room with a certain fear. Who wouldn't, after that torture he had to endure? His pale, bagged eyes looked glanced over that... That thing in the center of the room. He couldn't for the life of him understand anything about it -- well, not that he particularly cared.

"And just when I thought it couldn't get any better," Alban said sarcastically, with a deep sigh, "Just another thing I have to deal with."

He noticed then that the giant horrific blob thing spat out two humanoid... Blob. Things. Straight towards some other man who seemed far too gaudy for Alban's taste. But obviously this was going to be the closest thing to a friendly face he'd get here. It was nicer than those black blob things, anyway.

Yeah, those blob things would have to go. It was now that Alban realized that he was holding a pair of sewing scissors in his hand. That'd do perfectly really. He scraped off a large thread from his heavy, enveloping cloak, which then began to move on its own, by virtue of Alban's own ability to command fabrics.

He took a few steps forward, the thread's tip sharpened to a point. It then shot forward at Alban's mental command, shooting through the air right towards the monsterish figure, where he would command it to go through its body, and pin it to the ground, if only temporarily.

Here he noticed the woman across the way from him. He shrugged slightly at her display. This'd be an interesting excursion, Alban could tell that already.

{Alban moves to cell E8.
Alban uses Rooting Thread on Ypnebuś! 8 FOR damage. High Chance of Bound! DP: 14/21.}

 

[Noir Moves to G2: {G3—G2}]
[Noir uses Overload on Zlagudèi: Chance of Weakened!!! Exposed!! Leaking!! Bound! Obsolescent.]
[DP Cost: 7. DP: 25 →18]

"Hang on hang it hang it hang it hang you hang you hang them all." Letting loose some curses and even fouler language at the general situation, Noir couldn't help but panic—first that weird blobster thing. "I sound ridiculous. Listen to me. 'Blobster', pah." Well, genius, do you have any better word for it? What're you going to call it, a Phobos or something? This isn't Final Fantasy, you ass. "Point taken… urgggh, now I have to deal with the blobster–minion enemythings. This isn't fair, three against one!"

At that point, thanks to more shenanigans, two of the black blobs in the distance sort of popped to reveal… more people. "OH SHIT!" Noir, having no better command over his extremely extensive vocabulary of "shit", "hang it", "fuck" and "hell", let loose another stream of profanities in a blind panic. Assuming the worst, that these new people were more enemythings out to— hang on, "enemythings"? You fool! That old lady called them Raeshtorjhas, not 'enemythings'. How do you survive, you dunderhead? "Okay, okay! Raeshtorjhas they are, fine, hang you, weird disembodied voice in my head." Noir assumed these were more Raeshtorjhas, and resuming his mental screaming, a liittle paralysed by fear, he fell to the floor, closed his eyes and raised his shield.

But… what was this? He heard sounds of cloth tearing, and looked up to see one Raeshtorjha having attacked one of the blobbier Raeshtorjhas—upon closer look, that was a man's figure? Maybe? And it seemed like the other one was a woman, up to no good deed, certainly. Noir certainly didn't know what he was seeing. He was at a complete loss as to what trick he ought to try to make sure this act of charity didn't go resented…

Dumb little joke, aren't you? Right on cue, that mental voice. "Well, tell me what to do then! We can't all be geniuses like you!" Silence. Wonderful. He'd gone and offended his only source of information and guidance, shitty as it may have been. Well, Noir had instincts, even if they weren't sharp, and those instincts were now telling him that the more human Raeshtorjhas mightn't actually be Raeshtorjhas, and they might be human, so go and help them, damn you! …maybe that voice was a more vocal manifestation of his instincts. The world may never know.

At any rate, Noir edged towards the closer Raeshtorjha—the one near the kind lady who seemed ready to perform no good deed to the evil things—and perhaps he knew what to do. It was weird, but he could see the flow of energy intensify in the woman as she did a thing—probably strengthened herself in some way. And upon squinting, he could see the man's cape share his energy flow. Or something. He was probably delirious and making this up, he doesn't know. But suddenly, instincts took over, and he could see something of an energy flow in the Raeshtorjha, or something… but then he figured something out, or the instincts did, and he caused his own energy to flow into the Raeshtorjha, and suddenly it spasmed, and fell motionless once more. Maybe that worked? Maybe it didn't. The already weak energy flow in the enemything weakened, though, which was a good sign, right?

 

Rhyme switches to Minigun

Rhyme attacks Woltum. 8 FOR Dmg
Bonus Damage: 10%

Rhyme opened her eyes to a bright room. And it was just that. An incredibly bright room. There was very little detail that Rhyme could use to describe this room, except for maybe the massive black ooze at the center of the room as well as these shadow-y humanoid-ish blobs. Okay, it wasn't the best description ever but it was all Rhyme could come up with for whatever those things were. Still, even though Rhyme didn't know exactly what they were she could tell they were not friendly in the slightest. The girl could figure out what these shadow blobs were once they stopped moving and she could look at whatever bits and pieces that're left once she's done with them. Speaking of which...

Rhyme's hands felt around the floor, picking up her shotgun as her eyes spotted the minigun just a few feet away from her. Quickly she jumped up and with a great amount of excitement retrieved her weapons. Her eyes then fixed themselves onto the closest shadow blob and her lips curled upward into a mischievous grin. The girl put away her shotgun and took hold of the minigun, aiming it at the blob.

It came all of a sudden. The repeated sounds of gunfire. The sound of hundreds of empty shells being spat out and dropping onto the ground like they were coins. And of course the shrill laughter of a girl watching it all.

Rhyme attacks Woltum. 9 FOR Dmg.
Bonus Damage: 20%

 

Black Rose attacks Zlagudèi! 2 Hits! 8 FOR Damage per Hit! Chance of Reduced!

All at once two rounds, one from each pistol, fired, resounding throughout the horribly lit room like a firecracker. The woman, who still appeared rather frustrated with everything, huffed, the minor traces of smoke pushed from the tips of her weapons. With the strange refraction of light, she could not quite see if the bullets had hit their mark, but this fact did not seem to deter her. She seemed almost certain that she had finished the fiendish blob, and instead her golden eyes focused on a nearby man. "I hope you're not planning on standing around all day," she spat, although the malice in her voice seemed rather lackluster: more annoyed with the circumstance than the person.

 

The sound of gunfire filled the strange room.  Guns.  Such an effortless, dry way to kill things.  No beauty in it whatsoever.You just point at something and it dies, how was one supposed to express himself while using such a boring weapon.  Of course, he was dumbfounded when the crazy girl nearer to him began maniacally laughing as she fired away. "At least you found a way," Alban said quietly to himself, slightly annoyed already.

Seeing that the Blob Thing just in front of him was now tied to the luminescent ground, where it had seemingly tried to... Do something to him.  It didn't phase Alban one bit.  Alban walked over to it calmly, with a look of pity on his face, while cutting another piece of fabric from his cloak, this time from the right arm, swiftly forming it into a shape like a shamshir, and equally as sharp despite simply being fabric.  Yes, this was battlefield artwork; sure it may not be as efficient as a gun, but this was far more beautiful. He struck with the improvised weapon, swinging as hard as he could without fear of it moving out of the way.

{Alban moves to cell E7.
Alban attacks Ypnebuś!  6 FOR damage!  Critical Hit chance increased by 25% from Alban's P-Skill Measure Twice, Cut Once for attacking a Bound enemy.}

 

[Noir Moves to F1: {G1—F1}]
[Noir cycles DP.]

"GAH." Guns. The woman whose energy flow shifted and strengthened, she pulled out a gun and shot twice the Raeshtorjha nearby that he'd just weakened, and the most recent lady on the other side of campus peppered another thing on the other side of the field with holed with a maniacal peal of laughter. YOU ABSOLUTE KNOB, TAKE COVER! If you get killed, I do too! Screaming for his life, Noir gracefully drops his white, shimmering form to the ground in an attempt to protect himself. If clumsy were graceful, then you'd be the apple of the eyes of ladies and gents all over.

"StopitstopitSTOPIT! I don't need you badmouthing me all the time! God, you're so damned annoying!" In a fit of anger, half–screeching and half–raving, he got up to his feet and charged towards the next Raeshtorjha beyond the gun–lady near him, yelling at said gunwoman. "Couldn't you at least warn people when you shoot those guns? What are you, some sort of crazy sociopath?!" Almost immediately, he tripped and stumbled, out of breath and sporting a comically enraged expression on his face. Gawd, why does this always happen to me? Do you want an honest answer…? Ugh, stop it. Stop invading my thoughts. …I am literally your thoughts. I am very much and very tragically a part of your mind, nimrod. Groaning and silently cursing his fate, Noir got up on his feet. Ugh, fine, since you're such an amateur… try relaxing and drawing some of the energy in this room into you. Pleb. "Hang on. How do you know all this?" Thanks to you being a dumbass, I don't. You just have marginally good instincts.

Grumbling at the disembodied space voice in his head, Noir squinted arounf at the room, and saw the weird energy flowing around, swirling and eddying in various pockets in the aire. Let's try this… Concentrating hard, with a constipated look on his face, he called the energy towards him. Nothing. And then as he relaxed and stopped with the constipation–faces, the energy slowly flowed towards him, making circles and slowly pouring into his body. "That… doesn't feel too different…"

 

{Lissa moves to C0 [A0 - B0 - C0]}
{Lissa basic attacks Ximeda (C2)! 6 IMG Damage!}

b a n g ... BANG

The sound of two shots in rapid succession, followed promptly by a spray of bullets and shrieks of the laughter of some maniac flooded her senses, jolting her wide awake in a matter of seconds. She reflexively curled into a ball, as though it would protect her from the peppering of gunfire that she subconsciously feared was flying above her head. Lissa opened a tentative eye, hoping to pinpoint the source of the shots being fired all around. It didn't sound as though the shots matched one another. Surely she had to be caught in the midst of some sort of terrible crossfire. Bleary-eyed and woozy from the cacophony of concussive noises all around, she forced herself out of the ball and sprung up from the ground upon which she sat. Her eyes did not adjust as quickly as the rest of her body did, and she faltered slightly, trying to get a grip on her surroundings. Get it together, Lissa, she thought to herself, grinding her teeth against each other, remember your training. You've practised resisting the possession of spirits. Her training had not, however, prepared her for the sight that met her sleep-addled eyes.

Before her was a twisted mass of inky black, obscured slightly by the blazingly bright light of the location she currently resided in. Which seriously begged the question, Just where am I? Her time to answer her own question was cut remarkably short by the giant... thing churned and morphed in a disgusting manner, before spewing forth something her way, and something else at a different trajectory into the depths of the bright light. That was another thing her training had taught her. Never trust bright lights. That one was more of a joke, mind - and old wives' tale passed on from Invoker to Invoker at a young age, when they first learn of the power of the spirits...

"StopitstopitSTOPIT!"

A shrill voice, clearly in the middle of the onset of a panic attack, pierced her thoughts. The Spirit Invoker could not pinpoint the source of the hysteria, but it did induce some strange manner of baseline confidence, knowing that she was not alone... but then again, she hadn't been before, had she? There was the tall and armoured boy with the closely-cropped blond hair, who carried around a sword... and the girl - the musician. Equally blonde, but much more 'wild' in appearance with her tattered blue tunic. The two of them had been replaced, as far as she could tell, when she had come to this new locale. The panicked male voice she heard had no trace of the stoic tone the armoured boy had had... and the location. She could remember pillars. And spectres dressed like battle-worn humans, each of whom had been defeated by their trio. Lissa was confused. Where had they gone? Where had everything gone? Were they out there still...?

Lissa, FOCUS.

She admonished herself, still not entirely connecting to the reality of the situation that she was in. The... thing that the blob had spat out was inching towards her. Slowly, yes, but moving towards her all the same. Lissa looked down by her feet, steadying herself, and spotting her pitchfork by her feet. "At least some things never change..." she murmured to herself. Brushing off the thin layer of dust that had settled on her dress, she readied herself to stick her staff through the humanoid blob of an equally murky darkness. If it had a soul, it would be suitably ripped away from its shadowy existence - this much, Lissa could guarantee.

 

Even as the black sword made of hardened fabric cut the the shadow blob in front of Alban, the thing refused to die right then and there. While this certainly annoyed him, he couldn't help but smile. For he knew -- That thing was nearly dead. In fact, he felt that it was hanging on by but a thread, and he drew, perhaps sadistically, a certain satisfaction from this.

That didn't change the fact that it was still alive though. And the annoyance of this fact drove his next attack, swinging the shamshir he had fashioned towards the shadowy thing once again. It was now that he remembered something. Something about this creature. He could swear someone had told him about these.

Was that a dream? Alban could barely tell what was real anymore. At the moment though, it didn't seem particularly important. All he knew was that he was in danger, so he kept his attack going.

{Alban attacks Ypnebuś!  6 FOR damage!  Critical Hit chance increased by 25% from Alban's P-Skill Measure Twice, Cut Once for attacking a Bound enemy.}

 

Black Rose rolled her eyes as the girl not pelting the blobs with bullets cowered over to her left. "Oh come on," she groaned, gold eyes locked on the trembling girl with disdain. Removing them for but a second, she pointed her pistols at the large blob none too far from her. "All the children want to play until it gets serious." she muttered, firing off two more round with indifference.

Black Rose attacks Phobos! 2 Hits! 8 FOR Damage per Hit! Chance of Reduced!

 

{Lissa moves to C1 [C0 - C1]}
{Lissa uses Ghost Blade on Ximeda (D2)! 7 Darkness IMG Damage! On KO: Restores 15% Max DP!}
<DP: 16/24>
{Lissa's Innate Property Paranormal Blessing activates! On KO: Increases Lissa's IMG and RSL by 10% for 3 Turns!}

Still a little shaken from getting up so abruptly, as well as from the ringing cacophony of gunshots that had roused her from her dreams, Lissa shook her head. The bright lights did nothing for her disposition. Thankfully, however, the black splotches were present for her to take out her anger; they stook out like sore thumbs in the vicious gleam of whatever-the-light-source was. It was a wonder that she had been able to plunge her staff into the core of the being, all things considered. She said a brief "Thank you" to the spirits under her breath, before suddenly...

"Oh come on." A voice. And not a particularly amicable voice either. Distinctly female, though. Lissa spun around to locate the source of it, but her vision was still fuzzy at best, and she got dizzy very quickly. She clutched at her temples, narrowly missing the tall, feminine figure before her. She immediately could make out vivid red hair, neatly done in a fountain updo. Followed by... not quite as friendly a face as the other girl. The blonde, with her sweet-sounding banjo. This woman was firmly knit into a frown, gazing upon Lissa with an appraising purse of the lips. "All the children want to play until it gets serious."

Lissa stood with her mouth agape. This woman had the audacity to dismiss her, one of the last in the line of her practise - no, her art - as a mere child?

This was unacceptable.

With a quick maneuver that belied her current state of dehydration and visual inebriation, her pitchfork was suddenly against the throat of the woman. Her normally-steady hands were quivering in what Lissa couldn't peg down as anticipation, anger, or just the fact that her dreams had been so bizarre of late. "Listen here, lady," she spat in a tone that made the last word seem like it were some sort of corrosive acid that she couldn't wait to get off of her tongue, "I'd kindly suggest that you take your smarmy tone elsewhere. It's been a long couple days for me. And disciplined as I am..." she withdrew her pitchfork momentarily, before brandishing it and whirling around in a fluorish of motion, causing a spectral blade to materialize in its three points, extending viciously outward, elongating, and solidifying with an otherworldly wail. She swung it down with a lunge upon the black blob, crushing it beneath the spirit matter of which the blade was composed.

She looked over her shoulder, "I won't hesitate to rip your soul out."

 

Rhyme switches to Shotgun

Rhyme moves to cell B-7

The laughter stopped, eventually. But that was long after the blob had been reduced to an unmoving puddle of black goop. It wasn't exactly easy to tell the difference between something alive and something dead when it's constantly being pelted by bullets. Okay, it was fairly easy but Rhyme always had to shoot something a few (dozen) more times before she's satisfied. Once she finally stopped firing and settled down slightly, Rhyme let out a giddy squee like a little girl opening her first Christmas present. Seeing all that goop fly everywhere as it was pelted relentlessly by dozens upon dozens of bullets felt so exhilarating.

With the blob gone and the only other thing in sight (besides the other people but they could be shot at later, when they weren't helping her) being the giant blob, Rhyme reached for her belt. Clipped onto it was a small round object with a circular pin on one end, a grenade. She always carried a few of these with her, after all the only thing that could make gunfire better would be explosions. Without a second thought Rhyme tossed the grenade at the large blob at the center of the room.

"Wheeeeeeeeeeee!"

Rhyme uses Grenadier on cell C-5. Hits Phobos on cells B-4, B-5, C-4, C-5, C-6, D-4, and D-5. +20% damage output. 11 ATK Dmg per hit, 7 hits
DP: 7/18

 

[Noir Moves to E2: {E1—E2}]
[Noir uses Frenzied Touch on ?: Bestows Poisoned! Chance of Confused!! Bestows Provocative on self.]
[DP Cost: 9. DP: 24 →15]


In Noir's eyes, the moon could hurtle down to the earth in the next three seconds and the world be damned, he would not lift a finger to stop it. Not that he could even if he wanted to, but the sentiment stood. For not the last time, cursing his fate as offensively as he could, Noir surveyed the battlefield of unusual sorts, attempting to take stock of these other people who surely had come to… "take care" of him as soon as the threat of the evil blob was done with.

Straight in front of him was the dark patch on the ground that emanated an aura of evil so pure, so overwhelming, so balefully malignant, so entrancing that Noir felt drawn to it. His instincts were of survival—complexed with paranoia, to say the least of it, he was—and he hated himself for even thinking of moving towards the patch of black, but his limbs had a volition all their own, and he found himself walking towards the monster. On the other side of the field, the seamster destroyed another one of those monsters, but Noir was so far gone that he didn't notice—nor did he notice the one gun–wielding madwoman on his side shooting the monster.

You completely base, unintelligent miscreation. Stop thinking about the monster—you're in the jaws of the wolf, dumbass.

And with a loud boom, as the grenade thrown by the other madwoman across the room exploded over the dark blob, Noir came to—and fell to the ground with a yell as splitting as thunder. "GAH DON'T KILL ME!" In a reflex movement, Noir expunged a great deal of energy towards the black splotch—You fool, your skills will be useless now! You should let the others destroy it, and then use your energy to defend yourself if they come for you!