Improvised Munitions Handbook [Mod]

[Pyxis]

After awhile of searching, Pyxis had still come up with nothing. For all intents and purposes, she was in an ordinary library. Massive, sprawling, and full of books in every language, as well as some in languages she had no record of? Yes. About as well organized as the fight at the shrine? No, considerably less organized than that. Impossible? Most likely. But there wasn't anything that made it stand out as a shadows' library. Was she going about this wrong? Or was she just not going deep enough end. She never had managed to get all the way to the far end of the library, after all. Maybe she should start looking for that, first off.

[Kitten4u]

CAUTION CAUTION
A powerful enemy has appeared

Knowledge Balance
Mind Charge
Auto-Tarukaja
High-Counter
Hell's Judgement
Heaven's Judgement

Null: Light, Darkness
Weak: Ice, Wind

[Pyxis]

So Pyxis continued deeper into the library, trying to see if she could reach the end. And she got pretty far in. Probably farther than she'd managed to get before, all without running into any shadows that wanted to pick a fight with her. Then, with a suddenness she didn't usually associate with the appearance of shadows, a blip appeared dangerously close on her radar. Close enough that it had to be just past the end of her current aisle. She continued towards the end of it, weapons primed and ready to unload, and rounded the corner. There, sat a massive set of scales, easily as tall as she was, but balanced on a single point. The body of the shadow was shaped like a Celtic cross, with a ring around the intersection in its body. Several inscriptions adorned the ring of the balance, but Pyxis didn't pay much attention to them. She just opened fire on it.

Elpis materialized with a simple thought, her form shining brilliantly as she called down a rain of meteors on the shadow. Although it didn't seem to be weak to the attack, it took full damage as the charged attack pelted it, leaving it acting a little bit strange. That must have been confusion setting in. It spun in place, clearly trying to regain a balance that had been thrown off by the attack, and lifted slightly off the ground as its central ring shone with a bright light. But as the light energy built up, the shadow fell off-balance again, causing it to damage itself. Pyxis wasn't about to let the opportunity go to waste, and called forth another rain of meteors on the shadow. Again, it hit, throwing the shadow a little more off-balance and forcing it to recover before it returned fire. This time, it successfully got the attack off, gathering a mass of darkness within the ring, firing it off into the air, and bringing it crashing back down on Pyxis.

Ow. Even for as big as that attack was, it hurt a lot more than it should have. Especially with Pyxis's armor. Did it have an offense-boosting ability? Yeah, it had to. But either way, Pyxis was still good to go. Noting that the shadow was still going strong despite the damage she'd already thrown at it, Pyxis switched to shooting to conserve energy. The shots found their marks, with several of them hitting all over the shadows' body. It spun in place, trying to avoid the rest of them, but ended up taking more to the plates that contained and fueled its light and dark energy. So, as it tried to charge again, the energy exploded in the face, damaging it. Pyxis took the opportunity to keep shooting, although this time it managed to deflect the shots right back at her.

Fortunately, she resisted even armor-piercing bullets, so it didn't do much. It did give the shadow time to recover, but not enough time to break free of the confusion that Pyxis had inflicted on it earlier. Its next attack again exploded in its face, damaging it. So Pyxis fired again, and the Balance shadow's counter ability failed to trigger. Now, it was finally starting to wear down. The confusion would wear off soon, though, but fortunately it failed to attack yet again, damaging itself one final time. Pyxis took the opportunity to charge up, preparing to finish the shadow in one more attack. ...Just so long as it didn't counter. Noting that she should probably switch back to Agneyastra now, Pyxis braced herself for a retaliation. But the shadow began charging up as well, gathering both light and dark energy in each of its plates. So it came down to that, then. Just one big game of chicken, where she either finished off her opponent or took a devastatingly powerful attack in return.

Well, she sure as hell wasn't backing down. The meteors fell, and from the moment the first one collided with the Balance, she could tell that it wouldn't be able to do anything to stop her. The remainder fell, pummeling the shadow until it started to break apart, and finally collapsed and dissolved under the onslaught.

[Kitten4u]

That was a fierce battle!



Almost as fierce as me!
You also found: Level 6 Armor

[Pyxis]

Rather than completely dissolving, the shadow left several pieces of itself behind after dying. The scale plates and central ring remained almost fully intact, but no longer surged with light and dark energy. Most of the rest was just fragments. But somewhere, in the final rain of meteors, something else that clearly didn't belong had appeared as well. Lying next to what was left of the central support and surprisingly undamaged despite all the punishment the Balance had received, was...a maid uniform.

Navy blue and white in color and long enough to reach almost to her ankles, the uniform was very similar in appearance to the one Pyxis wore. The material was entirely different, though. Despite a somewhat limited sense of touch, Pyxis could clearly see and feel that the threads were woven impossibly tight, and didn't feel like any cloth she knew of. Could that be why it hadn't been damaged? Or was it just being shielded by the Balance's own body? Either way, she needed to get this appraised. If it was anything special then, well, she could put a lot of use to it. For now, though, she would have to cut her exploration short. It was difficult to fight while carrying clothes around.