Re: Crisis on Tournament Isle!

[Verity Lohlepher]

Even in the midst of being gnawed and clawed by rats, Verity still managed to find her fighting spirit. She was more annoyed than panicked at the prospect of being attacked. Well it wasn't so much a prospect as it was a reality. She growled at the rates on her shoulder and was about to brush them off when Crisis came to help and shot them down. She was also pulled away too much to her slight chagrin. But mostly, she was grateful. She was about to start her attack again when she felt a tug on her hair. At this, Vera wondered what was wrong with the rat. Her hair was hardly alive, it wasn't going to feel anything. If she hadn't been so focused with fending them off she would have started to berate it.

As it was, Tatsuma called out his plan. What. That was his plan? As much as it sounded as if it would work, how on earthland, could he expect her to know which bloody spell she had used against him the first time they met. She remembered the incident quite vaguely but she didn't pay attention to what she did in that fight! So while the others got into kick butt mode, Verity got into the what-the-hell-did-I-do-those-couple-months-ago mode. Vaguely she heard the dragon slayer call out his roar. Uhh. Well she remembered her being attacked. That was pretty obvious but what else did she do? Better yet, what had she been able she do. While she thought, she continued fending off rats.

Right! Inspiration. She had used Fiera Ignis! And at that time she only had two spells she knew. She had also summoned Hauskor but she didn't think she used any spells on that...yeah, she hadn't. It was kind of hard to think when she was so pressed for time. Crisis had started to use her spell. She began to panic. It was her turn next and she was really struggling to figure out what the hell she had used. It was one or the other. Now it was really her turn. Oh screw memory. "Uhhh...ummm...Flame…Arena?" She went with the first spell she could think of. Which wasn’t even out of the two she had thought she might have used. Nonetheless, flames washed out onto the floor causing the rats to hop up and down and effectively she guessed, be beaten down easier. And then she remembered the spell she used. Burning Circle right? And she guessed her 'jackpot' way would be gladly welcomed. Now she had to remember what it was. She couldn’t even remember the last time she had used it. "Fiera Ignis…uhh burns my floor…fairly? While I sweep!” She said uncertainly before turning in circle. And with that a steady stream of fire poured out of her broom, overcharged style and started killing the rats more easily than not due to her previous spell. If she had half a mind at that instance, she would have realised that she actually never used that spell when they first met. In fact, Tatsuma probably didn’t know it existed. Since the girl was aiming her spell everywhere, she wasn’t actually sure what happened to Tatsuma and Crisis. Oops. She hoped she hadn’t burned them.

155/200 MP or  105/150 MP not sure whether to take Rank 3 or Rank 2 since she levelled halfway through (Flame Arena, Burning Circle)

[Tatsuma]

((Just use rank three, I was going to use my rank 4 spell since I was technically rank 4 when we started this))

Instinctively, Tatsu wanted to throw up his shield, still he stopped himself from doing so because he didn't want to hurt Verity or Crisis. As the fire washed over the rats, some of it managed to hit him too. He wasn't particularly happy about that part, but he was happy to be free of the rats. Once the last of them was destroyed though, somehow he started to feel better, the wounds disappeared in the same puff of smoke the rats did and he looked out to see a shadowy figure. At that point Tatsuma took off running, launching himself toward the figure as fast as he could (as that was pretty fast).

He only made it half way to the figure before it suddenly disappeared and he let out a roar, electricity crackling all over his body in powerful waves that crackled off of him with loud pops and screeches. Then, all of a sudden, they stopped and while he regained his composure he turned to make sure his team hadn't come to any more harm. Suddenly the survival challenge was starting to make more sense. They couldn't afford to keep doing this if they were going to make it through.

As he calmed down he realized that the burns has actually managed to cover parts of his arms and his hayori was burned badly, with holes on the back and the bottom in tatters, one of the sleeves was gone and the other was handing on by a few bits of fabric. He simply ripped it off, placing it in his pocket in case the fabric could be used later and to make them harder to track... not that the person that had attacked them twice so far had demonstrated any problems doing that. Regardless, he was prepared to take the fight to that person's home... if he could even find it. They needed a way to track their enemy.

Fully composed again Tatsu approached Crisis and Vera.
"Well it may be a bit late now but that was an excellent example of teamwork. I think we may want to work on the delivery. If we're all targeting one person though I think Vera should attack first and we'll just call that formation 1." He said. They had made some serious headway together, now they just needed to make a little more progress. It was important, but he still didn't exactly want them seeing certain aspects of his personality.. The fit of rage being an example of that.
"Is everyone okay?" He asked.

[Crisis]

’Was that an incantation?’ Crisis thought to herself. ’Man, when was the last time I heard an incantation sp-’ “WAUGH!”

Crisis was officially a Venn Diagram of pain.  Lightning on one side, fire on the other, rats all over, and it all overlapped with her in the center.  The lightning was one thing, she kinda did that to herself, but the fire officially made them the most dysfunctional team on the island.  It was probably a safe bet that the other teams weren’t accidentally hitting each other with their attacks.  Plus, Crisis found the incantation silly and poorly executed, but that was an issue for another time.  At least the rats were gone now, so it wasn’t worth complaining about.  After all, she’s been burned before.

She covered the left side of her face, where the rats had done the most damage, with her hand as she turned to face Verity.  The girl was probably going to be worked up enough about setting a teammate’s butt on fire without have to see what half a face looks like after a fresh rat-mauling.

“Alright, good teamwork,” she said as she wobbled a bit uncertainly.  “I see we both have some work to do in the areas of not hitting each other-slash-ourselves with area attacks, but I think we’ve made some great progress today.  So, uh, let’s take five...”  She plopped down heavily on the ground, extinguishing the flames on her backside.  Parts of her poncho still smoldered.  “...You don’t mind if I smoke, do you?”

When Tatsuma came back and asked if everyone was alright, Crisis realized she wasn’t in nearly as much pain as she was during the fight.  Feeling her face, she confirmed that it was all still there and unbloodied.  In fact, the only scars on her body now where electrical and fire burns, and even they weren’t all that bad.

“I’m fine,” Crisis said incredulously.  She stood up and did a few torso twists.  “Hell, maybe even better than before the fight started.  Maybe I should be mauled by illusionary rats more often.”  She stopped to wince and hold her left arm again.  It wasn’t quite as severe this time and ended pretty quickly.  It wasn’t even bleeding this time, though she still shook it out again.  “Okay, so whoever’s attacking us probably doesn’t want us dead.  At least not yet.  Been lobbing softballs, too, I’d wager.  We can probably expect bigger game in the near future.  Maybe even something a little more intellectually challenging.  Rule of three, you know.”

[Verity Lohlepher]

Unfortunately, both Tatsu and Crisis were burned...well it had been accidental at the very least. Also, it had killed the rats. Talking about killed rats, Vera saw they were disappearing again, just like the previous time. She looked up swiftly and saw the shadowy figure from before. So she hadn't been imagining it. She knew Tatsuma saw it to because he went slightly crazy upon seeing the figure. Well she guessed he had a reason for being angst. So she didn't bother when he ran off. Upon further examination of herself, she was surprised to find that her previous wounds had disappeared. Even the bit in her hair that the rats had attacked grew back. Basically, she was unscathed (well her clothes weren't but she could fix that later). She turned around to see Crisis and immediately felt guilty. While she was healing too, the burn marks were caused by Verity herself and so didn't disappear. She laughed uncertainly at the girl's joke about them needing to work on the not hitting each other part of teamwork and sat down besides her.

She was absolutely useless wasn't she? She gave a nod to signal to the other girl that she could smoke and went back to staring at the charred earth around them. Her fighting style was pretty destructive she had to admit. She formerly hadn't cared but if she was going to be attacking even her allies, she was going to have to work on that.

When Tatsuma came back she was still staring lifelessly at the ground. Useless. Her least favourite word. She barely acknowledged his words, instead plucking bits of ashy grass from the ground. She was listening though. When he was down, she sighed and turned to face him. She needed to think of 'useless' as some kind of darkness and being in the darkness didn't mean she could find her way out again. "Yeah, I'm fine." She said unconvincingly. Crisis was actually kind of enlightening to the mood with her comment on intelligence. The blonde cracked a smile. "Well if that's the case, I think you and Tatsu would be better equipped to deal with it," She looked up at Tatsuma. "Are you okay?" She asked him. She wasn't worried about Crisis and it was only fair to return the question.

[Tatsuma]

Tatsuma looked at the girls. One of them was now smoking and the other... her shirt was kind of tattered. It was badly enough that parts of her bra were visible and while that in and of itself wasn't exactly on his list of major concerns, and he normally found himself wanting to see more, it still wasn't the place and it was already pretty uncomfortable as it was. In addition to that they weren't alone and it could be distracting later.

"Wolves were bad enough, rats were difficult, the next thing should be more challenging so you're probably right. We may want to go ahead and use up the mana to form better team tactics." He said to Crisis as he draped his hayori around Vera to make the action a little less awkward. That aside she wasn't fooling him with her tone either and he had been around women enough to know when they weren't telling the truth. He couldn't help but want to comfort her even though she hadn't given him any verbal indication something was wrong.
"And you did great too Vera, just a little bit more control and you'll be fine." He told her as he sat down next to her and put his arm around her to try to help with the comforting process.
"Plus my Hayori is now battle worn which is always cool. We'll be fine we just need to learn each others' magic. Now I know two of your spells Crisis, and Vera.. I think I know three of yours." There was a point to his statements and he eventually managed to feed into it.
"Everyone is okay and that's all we need for now. Let's eat and go on about our day, maybe we can find out where the person doing this is staying at and we can get some answers." He added.

[PatriotArrow]

This is the final encounter. It might last longer than the others, depending on how you role play it out.

-ENCOUNTER-
Name: Revelation
Type: Neutral
Description: The shadow'ed woman appears before you, her features still cloaked in the black smoke. It's obviously a female, wearing dark clothing and a witch's hat. She sounds young, and her eyes are brown, as noticeable through the smoke as the glare accompanying them.

Her attitude is direct and forceful. She isn't overly rude, but she doesn't waste time with niceties either.

At first, she insists the group are fools and that they should leave the island now. If attacked, she will defend herself with terrifying yet nonlethal force, using a combination of S-rank wind magic and powerful sorcery, themed with the black smoke.

If the group insists upon working together as a team to beat her, she eventually drops the facade, the smoke disappearing completely to reveal a beautiful young woman with long green hair. She expresses pride in her old friends the guild masters raising such talented and smart young wizards.

If the group fails to come together as a team, she expresses disappointment, claiming that she thought the guilds were closer than this.

The group cannot actually beat her; she is as powerful as the guild masters.

Either way, she eventually admits that she was there to test them with powerful illusions to see how the guilds came together. If one of the characters has met up with another guild in a thread on friendly terms, she tells the ones that have done so that their willingness to work together with the other groups is what the games were supposed to inspire. She also introduces herself as Sonata Elswere, Sister of the old codger, Ranor Taiga.

After a short conversation, she tells them that the tournament is over early, because she is bored of games and the guild masters didn't tell her she *had* to make the tournament last as long as was announced. With that, she disappears into smoke again, promising to see them soon on friendlier terms.

[Crisis]

Crisis grimaced a bit when Verity looked away from her. Her joke about smoking had clearly gone over her head. It was one thing when people groaned at puns, irritating people with them was part of what made them funny to tell, but people not even realizing you made one was a disappointment. It couldn’t have been the execution, could it? Asking “Mind if I smoke?” while on fire was practically a cliche! If she had been on a roll lately, she could’ve also declared herself to be “On fire,” but that was neither here nor there. How could anyone miss that? Well, maybe she wasn’t emitting enough smoke. Magic fire tended to be lacking in that regard, she found.

“Finding game after a battle may be a little tricky,” Crisis remarked when Tatsuma brought up food. She stroked her chin. “All that ruckus would’ve scared them all off, assuming whoever attacked us didn’t also veil-off the fight to keep the wildlife from being disturbed. Fortunately, most plants don’t scare so easily, so there’s that.” She left out that, if they absolutely had to, they could resort to eating the condiments she was hiding somewhere on her person in a small case. Tatsuma and Verity would likely recall that whenever she ate anything she covered it in condiments that were ludicrous in both amount and nature. Even berries were at least dipped in something. She had been generous enough to share, of course, but even Crisis wouldn’t suggest they eat that stuff straight.

“As for my magic,” Crisis continued. “The effects are different, but the execution is pretty much the same. I just have three things you guys should keep in mind, though: One, aim for the target behind the Gate, two, the one with the big, red X is a shield, so don’t hit it, and three, I can currently only cast these at arm’s length. That means I’ll have to either be near one of you two, near our target, or potentially in the line of fire. I also like to keep moving, so it might be a bit of an adjustment if either of you prefer to stand your ground or can’t keep up.” She scratched the back of her head. “I know it’s a bit of a stylistic paradox when it comes to teamwork and all, but this is an inherited style so I know I’ll eventually be able to cast these at a distance. Until then, you’ll have to bear with me.”

[Verity Lohlepher]

Vera completely missed Crisis’ joke about the smoke. To be fair though, Crisis hadn’t actually been on fire so the usually slow girl wouldn’t even have gotten it after the joke was long gone. Or pun. She was a little annoyed that her question got entirely missed by Tatsuma too. When someone showed some degree of concern, she would prefer it if they responded. Also, she didn’t lie. Ever. So despite her fashion statement being somewhat skimpier than the usual due to having half of it missing in the form of holes, she was totally okay with walking around like that. It wasn’t a fashion contest, geez. Apparently the boy thought it was. She scowled slightly. Her scowl deepened even further when he thought it was necessary to comfort her. And who said physical contact was comforting? At least he (kind of?) cared. So while she managed to refrain from shuddering, nothing stopped her mouth. “Criticism accepted. However, when I say something, I mean it. Therefore if I say I’m fine, I’m fine. Even if I’m unconvincing.” She stated as she somewhat roughly lifted his arm off. “Also, battle worn clothes means it’s unusable. I don’t suggest wearing it again.” She patted his arm and took the haori off herself – it was wayyy too baggy for her taste – before giving it back to him. “Keep your useless clothes,” She said cheerfully before moving some distance away to re-quip her t-shirt into some other t-shirt that wasn’t battle worn or in other words useless.

She was conscious of Crisis explaining her magic when she saw the shadowy figure appear in front of them. Her face grew thoughtful. “Looks why we don’t have enough time to come up with any strategies…or bother about explaining our magic,” She said gesturing to the figure whom she could now see was a woman. She had quite a cool hat if did say so herself. Nonetheless she did cause some painful experiences. Verity stooped to pick up Fiera Ignis from the ground. Never hurt to be prepared.

[Tatsuma]

wow completely rejected, despite the fact he had only been trying to help out he simply let it go. Now wasn't the time for petty squabbles either. If she genuinely wasn't upset that made it easier to just move forward. Still he disagreed about battle worn being useless. He like the style of it still and he'd just get a new one later, it still covered more than her shirt, but he had also forgotten that she was a re-quip mage momentarily and that she might have more clothing. While she changed he first responded to Crisis.
"Close range is my specialty, besides that I should be able to dart in and out of spell ranges though your abilities are definitely great for achieving team harmony. I'm sure you'll get to where you want to be with them soon." He said with a smile.

As he threw his hayori back on and turned to look at Vera she pointed to the figure behind him. Someone had managed to sneak up on him again? Well that was getting old, and obviously he needed to work on that. He turned around to face her and slid his hands down to his sides to make sure he wasn't giving off any misconceptions about how he felt about being anywhere near the person.
"Well hi there..." He said out loud. "Damnit, I didn't have enough time to set up other formations. We're going to have to wing it." He thought to himself as he tried to make plans.

As he tried to figure that out, she started speaking about the team leaving the island and the black smoke that cloaked her seemed reminiscent of the rats and the wolves. So this was the person that had been attacking them? By herself? They hadn't run into any of the other teams while they had been on the island so he didn't know if they had been confronted by her first or if she was just picking on them for some reason, but he assigned it to himself to bring the group together. As long as he could assist with their combinations he wouldn't have too much trouble, plus, daft though Vera might be, she wasn't stupid, and Crisis already knew how to use her spells to help others.
"We have a job to do here for the survival challenge and repairs to be made for the atrocities the magic council. Let me be clear when I say, that for nothing else but the satisfaction of trying to help bring Fiore together. I don't know if the guild leaders contracted you, I don't know if you're just trying to harm people on this island, or if you're just some shadow-clad hermit who's afraid of people, but we'll be happy to take it on ourselves to protect the other teams from your magics. I can only assume you are the one sending out beasts to harm people, on this I can't speak for the rest of my team, but I'd like to put a stop to that." He said, speaking the last sentence a bit coldly.

He figured it was more likely that the guild leaders had contracted her to attack teams, but he still didn't like the feeling of being run along like a rat in a maze and he didn't know if any of the other teams had bowed out or been harmed because of it. He slowed though, giving Vera and Crisis a chance to withdraw if they wanted, but he had said "we" because he believed they would want to fight back too.

[Crisis]

Crisis chuckled as Verity rebuked Tatsuma’s offered rags in favor of re-equipping fresh togs. After three days, she still thought the whole “Tsundere” act she felt she was witnessing was cute. Although she didn’t really pick up on any special affection from Verity towards Tatsuma, so you probably couldn’t really call it a Tsundere thing, but it was still an entertaining thought. Which probably meant Crisis needed to date more, if she was vicariously living through imagined relationships between party members. Next thing you know, she’ll be writing fanfics about them, and that would just be creepy.

Whatever sense of calm the scene had was shattered as Verity pointed out their unexpected visitor. The shadowy figure she had spotted before had finally revealed herself, in as much as she was still concealed behind a cloud of smoke. Crisis’ arms calmly slid under poncho, secretly gripping the weapons holstered there, as the figure informed the trio that they had worn out their welcome. Tatsuma informed the figure that they had official business here, of a sort, and she would be put to task if she continued to be a threat.

“So we’ve reached the final act already, huh?” Crisis remarked. “Y’know, I can’t help but think that you couldn’t’ve been here long if you’ve claimed this as your territory. If there was a sorceress living here who was scaring people off with ghost-beasts, we’d’ve heard the rumors long before we set foot on this island. Not to mention there’d be considerably less garbage.” She chuckled. “Though, I’d have to admit, I’d be pretty ticked, too, if people were dumping their trash my backyard. Furthermore, if you were that big a threat and just wanted us out, I don’t think it’d take more than three days for the council to get us off the island, no matter how good the show’s ratings are.” She leaned forward a little bit, not letting her hat block her view of the figure. “I’m pretty sure I mirror my dragon-slaying friend’s sentiments when I say we’re not leaving this island until the game’s over, so if this is the final test, you better get to proctoring.”

[Verity Lohlepher]

((Apparently life doesn't like me all too well >.< If I don't post tomorrow, skip me as per usual))

Verity had a bad habit of tuning out in dull and long sentences that served no purpose. Surprisingly though, she didn't tune out on this woman. The woman was, to say the least, a plant the girl very much wanted to dissect. She wasn't actually sure how much words rang true in her mini-speech but Vera was not about to give up. She never gave up even when she wanted to. Possibly that statement was a little exaggerated but no big deal, it was close enough to the truth. The girl's expression remained neutral and she began to edge closer to Tatsuma and Crisis.

Whereas the other two seemed to think making their own speeches about whatever, Vera really didn't see the point in adding more words. The woman already had heard two, they didn't need to bore her with three? Besides that, the blonde hated speeches. What ever did people say in them? The only thing she could think of saying would be 'I agree!' and honestly, Verity didn't think that'd be good for her already kind of sinking life on screen. Instead, her expression said what she didn't say which was still technically, 'I agree' with the possible addition of curiosity (or in one word, determined).

She reached the general position Tatsuma and Crisis were at in no time. "Do you think it'd be better if I used electricity this time?" She asked. She was ready to store away Fiera in order to have the free hands needed to summon Hauskor. The dagger would probably be more useful at this current point than her broomstick. The girl hoped that combined with her epic staring expressions, this would send the message across to the woman that she'd also fight. At least it was nicer than outright saying 'what? Seriously? You expect me to have wasted three days of my life? No way!' or something like that. Verity suddenly smiled. So that was what she would have said in her speech should she have chosen to do one. She turned around, ready to hear a response and prepared herself for immediate action should they have to do so.

[Tatsuma]

Tatsu, along with the rest of his team was now resolute. Vera asked him a question, and he thought about it for a second. Still he would have rather she kept that for in case he ended up needing the mana. If they could last a while she might be able to do both, but he worried about her weapon getting broken.
"No, use your broom and back us up with everything from a distance." He thought about his strategies. Formation 1 was the only one that had he could just say without barking orders for her to read. That meant he would want to save that for once he had set it up. Then again there was no guarantee that she was even going to fall for that either. As he quickly ran through the available list of strategies he activated a couple of his own spells.
"Tsuzuri Raiden!" He roared as he activated the spell of the same name along with his primal mode. His body crackled with an additionally powerful charge of electricity as he activated his lightning storm power. It wasn't something he would be able to keep up for long, but he intended to end this as quickly as possible.
"Crisis use boost Vera's spell, Vera if you have something single target, use the gate." He said as he took off. The total boost from his spells gave him the agility he needed for most to keep from following him. A brief flash of lightning and he moved, quickly enough to burst forward making an attempt to slam into her, not from in front, but from behind. His own combined with that power he prepared another of his favorites, setting up an aftershock so that if he hit the girl she would be struck again a few seconds later by yet another strike of lightning. The plan being to strike her, force her into Vera and Crisis's spell and deal his own damage to her. Afterwards he would fall back to the group and use his speed to keep mid range and close range to keep her away from the rest of his team.

((I'll handle controlling the NPC so we'll be able to end after a couple more rounds of posting))

Tsuzuri Raiden:

Lightning Storm:

aftershock:

Primal mode:

Total agility: 16
Bonuses: Cloaking, reflective (X1), buffed (agilityx11)

WP: 300/300
MP: 155/290

[Crisis]

Crisis looked a little disappointed that the shadowy figure hadn’t responded to her. That’s fine. It didn’t really warrant a response, but she generally preferred something in the way of banter. Especially in this case. She was fairly certain she… they… were facing an illusionists, and illusionists were tricky bastards. They were always trying to mess with your head, making you see things that weren’t really there. Of course, Crisis was no stranger to head games, although her milieu was more in the way of talking smack to get them off their game. Illusionists, though? You never even knew if they were standing where you thought they were. This smoke-shrouded facade was all they had to go one. If she could get her talking, she might be able to tell by her voice where she really was. Then again, the smart illusionist is also a ventriloquist, throwing their voice for misdirection, so there was no guarantee that would be useful to track her down, but at least she could be more certain.

It was then Tatsuma decided to kick things off with what Crisis figured had to be his most powerful techniques. He appeared to go through a transformation that wasn’t so much physical as mental. The waves pure malicious intent radiating from him were palpable. It was hard to believe she was looking at the same person. She doubted the whole of the Urban Legion could pool together this much ill-will, and it served to underscore the utter lack of it she could sense from anywhere nearby, least of all the woman before them. This woman sent rats and wolves after them for the sake of getting them off her lawn, and yet she could sense no ill-will from her. Could this be just another stunt after all, or was it simply another illusion?

Tatsuma’s command almost didn’t register before he went charging into the fray, as Crisis was so taken by the contrast. She drew her weapons again and turned to Verity.

“I’ll say one thing, Vera,” Crisis said as the gate with the chevrons appeared before them as she cocked the gun. “It’s not going to be worth holding back.” As she tightened her grip on her sword, a second gate appeared behind the first, hidden from the shadowy figure’s view, this one sporting concentric arches. Her tone suddenly became more lighthearted. “So just go wild and have fun with it!”

These Gates weren’t going to stick around forever. If Verity didn’t make use of them, Crisis would. No sense letting perfectly good MP go to waste, after all.

150/200 MP:

[Verity Lohlepher]

Wow. How fast was this guy? His speed had just about doubled from when she last fought him. But now wasn't the time to be standing in awe of his speed. She readied her broomstick in an appropriate manner. Realistically, she didn't have the choice of overcharging her ranged attack. Overcharging the broom caused it's area to increase. Tatsuma had asked for an attack that was single target. The girl knew that without the charge though, it's power would be severely decreased. Oh well. Luckily for her Crisis was there to help. The girl took the necessary position and waited for the call to attack.

She almost laughed at what Crisis was telling her. No holding back meant hitting a jackpot. Hitting a jackpot meant not really doing the job that needed to be done. She guessed she could take that in a 'do the best you can while not at full power' kind of thing. In any case, Vera was determined to stay calm and not panic. She saw the gate and started to concentrate. Aim through the gate, that's all she needed to do. Crisis fired the second gate away. And she called her attack. 'Burning Circle!'. She swung the broom around her shoulder and pointed it at the gates. The flames erupted from the bristles and were sent on their merry way. She released the breath she had been holding unconsciously. The shot went well. The blonde watched nervously as they passed through the first gate and then through the second.

[Tatsuma]

Tatsu swung with his arm, a feint, but his second attack came as a powerful kick aimed for the girl's head as almost simultaneously Crisis' gates and Veras attacks lanced for her. Everything seemed to be working in conjunction, when suddenly a spiraling wall of wind whisked the flame away as it spun around her body like a tornado. As a result when Tatsu smashed into it he found himself being struck by the wind wall, and while the flames did damage he didn't sustain any serious damage from the fire, the wind sent him flying backwards. It was bad but it wasn't as horrible as it could have been. He had to think of something. Walls usually had some sort of limiter as for how much they could block, meanwhile his lightning hadn't rebounded on him and it gave him an idea. He disappeared and reappeared landing in a flash next to the rest of his team.
"Vera use Hauskor, I think if you throw up that shield of yours when she tries to rebound we might be able to make some headway. This is probably the best I can do given the circumstances guys so we're going to have to hope it works unless anyone has anything better." He said. The plan this time was to open up an assault, use his attack to lure the woman into thinking his assault was the set up, then when she countered Vera's dagger the shield would take the hit for him and he could then use his lightning palm to slow her down and make it easier to hit her. It was complicated, but he trusted them to use whatever they could to back him up just like he would for them. He also knew it meant he would have to cover for Crisis to get close enough to use the shield.

Without any more of a hint, Tatsu zipped forward, unleashing a powerful combination of attacks to try to keep his distracted. To his growing annoyance she was blocking everything, moving like a leaf on the wind and avoiding the hits she couldn't block. Still he just had to distract her.

---------------------------------------------

The figure reacted quickly, matching Tatsu's enhanced speed and reacting as necessary to all the attacks while she worked her magic, preparing to summon the shadow beasts behind them so she could end the fight before it got too out of hand. They had displayed decent team work and that was satisfying enough, but she was ready for them to leave already.

Sustain cost: 51
MP: 104/290

[Crisis]

Crisis wasn’t expecting the magnified, accelerated attack to be deflected like that, but she couldn’t really say she was surprised. She got a sense of the shadowy figure’s power the moment her blade met the illusionary wolves, and an even better sense when the rats seemingly ripped half her face off. Frankly, she wasn’t expecting to have much effect at all, but at least their opponent was polite enough to feign personal concern. The wind barrier was not only a good demonstration of the stranger’s power, but also reinforced the idea that there was something there to protect. Crisis was still pretty sure they didn’t have the slightest chance of winning, but that just meant victory wasn’t much of a concern and they could just show off. But since she already used the best offensive gesture she could use against a single target already, and trying to go big with Gate of Multiplication was more likely to do harm than good, she was going to have to get a little more clever if she wanted to show off.

Tatsuma seemed to give an order to Verity, but Crisis got the impression he was talking to her. If memory served, the only weapons she saw Verity use were the broom she was already holding - Fiera Ignis - and a dagger she saw her with when they fought the wolves. If Verity was anything like Crisis, she only had the two weapons, so presumably the dagger was Hauskor. Daggers weren’t so great defensively, lacking the reach of swords to keep enemies at bay, so she doubted it projected any sort of protective barrier. She also wasn’t quite sure what he meant by “Rebound,” but it was giving her some ideas.

“Right, let’s do this!” Crisis declared as Tatsuma charged in directly. She followed soon after, firing a few token shots as easily-deflected cover fire as Tatsuma closed in, but she veered to one side as a flanking maneuver. Once she was in melee range she would swing southpaw with her sword, but even though there were more attacks for her to deal with the stranger deflected and avoided them all expertly.

This was not a full-out offensive, though. Crisis was prepared to cast not just one, but two spells, one from each weapon. When the stranger made her move - BAM! - she would get the big, red “X” of the Gate of Denial. That likely wasn’t going to be enough to completely stop the attack, but it might just slow it down. And then - KAPWING! - the Gate of Redirection would knock it away! If she was lucky - if the stars aligned and all that - she might even be able to redirect the attack back to the stranger. Hey, a girl can dream, right?

130/200 MP:

[Tatsuma]

The amount of concentration required to talk and communicate what he needed was ridiculous. He didn't realize he had messed up, but it turned out okay because they had managed to understand him. As Crisis fired off some rounds. As she did, Tatsu disappeared in a flash, leaving the woman to dodge or block the shots while he reappeared to her right and continued his assault. The wind shield he had seen before appeared and swept away the shots. That was good, it was expected, but he didn't want the shots to hit Crisis's shield. When Vera threw Hauskor Tatsu waited for the woman's wind shield to pick up and when it did he waited for it to circle around to hit him. The dagger attack to the front caused the wind shield circle the dagger toward him just as Crisis's shield went up and Tatsu grinned as he caught Hauskor, disappearing to take cover behind Crisis's shield..s shields. Evidently she had other tricks up her sleeve. While he didn't know what one of them did, he recognized the "X" she had mentioned and he watched as the woman retaliated finally.

A sharp cutting wind sliced through both shields with ease, though Crisis' gate of denial managed to slow it down enough for him to react. With Hauskor in hand, activated his shock shield, and while the attack sliced right through, buffing him and slicing him in the process, and even going so far to even chill him to the bone, he managed to keep his footing thanks to the three shields in between him and the attack, and he stabbed the dagger forward and to the left so the wind shield would pick it up and carry it (based on the direction in which it had blown before), just in time for Tatsu to slam both of his electrically charged palms forward against the butt of the dagger.

Though he hadn't held out much hope, he was pleasantly surprised when the dagger slipped past the wind shield, projected by the extra electrical power, and for a moment he even believed he had gotten her... until his hands made contact with her left shoulder. The dagger was firmly stopped by a cloud of shadow, meanwhile his hands, which had already discharged the magical energy into Vera's dagger, struck her shoulder hard enough to jar her.

He exhaled sharply as his spells ended and his hair draped down over his face instead of standing up, as it usually did when he was out of mana, and he panted heavily. He also made note that he no longer felt the wind against his arms.


Sustain cost: 51
MP: 4/290
----------------------

Sonata was genuinely surprised. The other teams had done well and she was rather impressed that this one had managed to get an attack through. It seemed like the boy had drained himself completely and the girls had played support, but there was something in their teamwork that showed her they hadn't JUST been following his orders. Each had been creative enough to coordinate their own twist to what he had said and each had been able to adapt well enough to the changes that it had strengthened the result. They had even forced her to give up her own focus that had been dedicated toward summoning the arcane beasts she had intended.
"I think that's enough. The other teams are fine, and your trial is over." She said as the smoke covering her dissipated to reveal a beautiful young (looking) woman who bore a smirk on her face.
"You should be proud to have such a cohesive team, I would even go so far as to say I am. I'm Sonata Elswere, sister to Ranor Taiga and sole inhabitant of this island, and now that introductions are done, you're free to leave since he failed to put a time limit on this little event. Fair well, I'm sure we'll meet again, though hopefully not on violent terms." She said, her smirk changing into something of a smile just before she turned to leave.

[Ended] (But feel free to post an exit post if you'd like)

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