Mosaic City, located along China's coast, is quite large city sometimes called the Crossroads Between Nations due to its diverse population. While it was once a large tourist spot, the city was placed under a blockade as the military appeared claiming there was a radiation leak. The true hazard, however, is much more sinister.
The spider attempted to dodge the two physical attacks coming at it. Unfortunately, it hadn't worked as intended and took both hits. From there, it fell to its torso where it was forced to take a moment to get back up. Again, it prepared its syringe by holding it up and aiming in the general direction of the users.
[Stun Needles]
Another barrage of needles spread out, hitting the humans where they stood. Holly is exhausted.
As for the spider, it had only become apparent, but it seemed to be stumbling a bit. It likely won't last much longer at this rate.
Post by Holly Mason on Feb 12, 2014 3:58:55 GMT -5
The spider sent another round of needles at the group, but this time it affected her a little differently. One in particular struck her in the torso and she swore it was dripping with something. Suddenly she felt a little dizzy. This must be exactly what the other two felt. It was probably good that she opted to enhance their attack instead of turtling, something like this could lower their combat effectiveness so bad that they couldn't fight back properly. To make matters worse, she was pretty sure this was the attack that hurt both of her allies quite badly. It was another awkward choice to make, but there was no way she could hold out like this forever. Turtling wasn't even an option anymore, this thing had to die and it had to die now. Fortunately, it already looked pretty injured. All she had to do was give her allies the chance to do so.
Holly closed her eyes and raised her hand with her card in front of her face. As she crushed it, she uttered one word and slowly opened her eyes again.
"Dekaja."
If her guess was right that should take away the shadow's ability to dodge as well as it has been. Then it was just a matter of wailing on it enough that the group took it out before it took them out. The skill took more energy out of her than she would expect normally, but she wasn't that surprised at the moment given how exhausted she felt. She still had a reasonable amount of power left though. Enough for her to use her shitty attack spell and heal a few times at least.
Again and again, the idea of having a persona was so appealing. It would have also been appealing had he had not been saddled with some freak ass piece of nature that seemed to cover his weaknesses quite well. It was, the least to say, quite infuriating. Still, the feeling of pain that had encompassed his body was much less compared to if he had not awakened. He had a tough body, even without a persona, but having Arondight innately making his body stronger was more of a boon than anything else.
He had fought in worse conditions, had so much more pain inflicted unto him, and to top it all off he had been alone then. No teammates to depend on and surely no one to give him any kind of healing to make the battle less tedious than it already was. He had gone through these problems without a persona and had lived through it. It was not possible for him to fall down now, not to some goddamned spider.
Tanking on the brunt of the hail of needles that punctured his body and made him out to be a porcupine, the red eyed User grunted in and with much effort pushed his body forward to keep on attacking with his swords. His body screamed at him, and mentally he screamed back with much ferocity. He owned his body; not the other way around.
With a herculean effort did Vice once more lunge towards the opponent’s legs and hacked away at it with all of his strength.
Post by Ayakura Alisa on Feb 12, 2014 5:29:45 GMT -5
The spider was shuddering, it was growing weaker and weaker. Yet, it still stood, and once again released needles into the fray, striking at all of us, and it seemed the affliction struck the other girl as well. Still, she was able to launch some sort of dispelling enchantment at the spider that seemed to remove its blessing of alacrity. Even so, it did not do damage, so it was up to Vice and myself to take care of that deed right now. Panting, I glared forward and spun Izayoi in my hand, I had enough of this. It wasn't fair. Kneeling from the rain of needles, I coughed as I tasted blood in my mouth. Enough was enough. Some blood trickled down my lips but I wiped it off and tried to power through the lethargy.
君の命を切るよ
Growling and rousing myself, I leaped forth once more, garnering as much energy as I could, I jumped as high as I could, striking directly as far up to the body of the spider as I could reach, which admittedly wasn't very high when I had done the deed, for I struck right at the spider's abdomen, right around the area where her legs joined to the rest of the body.
魔物・・・消えよ!
My strike was an overhead, slicing downwards with my knife. As with the deed was done, I rolled off to the side and rested my body against a wall. I was panting and coughing, looking back up at the monstrosity.
Again, the spider stumbled around a bit as it was hit by a few more attacks. For some reason, it was unable to dodge any more blows. Panicking, the spider retreated a bit before attempting to regain the agility it had lost. Despite its efforts, it was still on the precipice of defeat.
[Sukukaja]
Making a last ditch effort to regain its agility, the spider boosted its speed as it tried to escape the humans.
Post by Holly Mason on Feb 12, 2014 21:54:37 GMT -5
So she was right. That was interesting, it was like the spider was able to use the skill without doing anything when the battle started. It was likely the same for all the other fast shadows she had seen. Did it work the same way with the other buffs? It seemed as though every time she fought a really strong shadow it raised more questions than it answered.
The shadow cast again, and while she was expecting the worse, the only thing that happened was that the shadow was enveloped in a bright green glow. Holly grinned. Well, wasn't that convenient? If it just kept doing that then they'd win this battle easily.
"Hmph," she scoffed, crushing the card in her hand once gain. "Dekaja. Both if you, finish it!"
The attack had managed to deal some damage, and despite Vice's current situation, he could feel the smile and mirth on his face began to widen. The thing had retreated back, trying to do something. The user had thought that it'd be something along the lines of trying to regain some kind of advantage it had but whatever it was had been easily enough cancelled by Holly.
And right now, Vice widened his grin to the most manic version he had available. The shattering of glasses then soon began to envelop the room. The echoes of shards upon shards breaking as they made contact with something sturdier than them spread around as the form of a massive hulking armour knight appeared. There was no flourish required and on its own, Arondight flew forward with his sword seemingly absorbing the light around it.
A massive Cleave flew then, aimed to bisect the arachnid right in the middle, and to finally finish it.
Post by Ayakura Alisa on Feb 12, 2014 22:44:53 GMT -5
The spider had visibly started to retreat, seemingly aware of its own imminent demise, or something profound of the sort. Soon, it tried to apply yet another enchantment on itself, in fact, it was trying to replace the increased agility that the girl had dispelled... However, it was immediately dispelled again by another utterance of Dekaja. Will keep that in mind. Twirling Izayoi in my hand I ran up to the spider thing again, readying my strike, even as Vice launched his own attack in a flashy attempt to try to cleave the damn thing in half, I decided I would attack on point and strike once more at the abdomen, slicing as well, reaching out as hard and as far as I could.
It wasn't rocket science to the spider that she had been slowed once more. She turned to look at the tall blonde girl, realizing that she had been the cause. Of course, the look was nothing more than that. It knew the end was here. With nowhere to run, the strange creature took the two blows from the other two humans where it collapsed. From there, the shadow began to disintegrate into nothing.
Post by Holly Mason on Feb 13, 2014 2:47:00 GMT -5
Holly met the shadow's gaze with a smirk on her face. She was pretty sure it wouldn't get the chance to even try to stop her from cancelling its buff, but even if her allies were unable to finish off the creature this turn she was the least injured of the group and she was sure she could take whatever it threw at her. There was no need to be afraid, and there was every reason to be pleased.
As expected, her two allies were able to finish off the shadow before it could do anything more. The temporary strength granted by her magic gradually began to fade along with the shadow. Unfortunately, the feeling of exhaustion did not. She would have to hide it. Holly straightened out her posture and stretched looking down at the remains of the shadow. The shadow was dissolving as expected, there was...something being left behind. Cautiously, she approached the dissolving shadow and poked at one of the things with her foot. She wasn't quite sure what it was, but it didn't seem to be dangerous. She picked one of them up at random. Perhaps the blonde lady would know what it did?
"Good work everyone. Looks like it dropped something for each of us."
After investigating the mysterious things the shadow left behind she began healing their wounds. Just casting was putting more strain on her mind and body than she would have liked, but she kept grinning through it all. They just took out a powerful shadow! And more importantly, would the barrier blocking her from going further into the hospital be down? Would she actually be able to explore somewhere besides the mines? She had gone there so much that it seemed impossible that there would be anything else. That alone gave her enough energy to make her exhausted state seem normal.
Hopefully she could at least heal them most of the way. It wasn't healthy to walk through this place half dead.
Post by Ayakura Alisa on Feb 13, 2014 6:56:50 GMT -5
Down for the count. 消えました. Well, that was that. As the shadow began to disintegrate into nothingness, it left three trinkets in its wake. The girl had taken one seemingly at random. The one I picked up looked similar to the red trinket I had back home. It was distinctly black. Probably protected from some other kind of thing, but I never used my trinket... I probably should at some point. It might actually be useful. I put away Izayoi and felt the warmth of healing rejuvenate me a little, yet it did not detract from my lethargy. Oh well. "So it did, miss," I noticed that despite her being struck by the exhaustion, her... elated state seemed to perk her up a little. I sighed and leaned against the wall. She was pretty hyped about the victory. I guess we should be. I was probably just letting the exhaustion get to me!
"I feel so lazy. I am going to go home, take a shower, and then sleep." I ended, keeping my new find with me.
That was a lot more satisfying than Vice thought it would have been. The adrenaline rush felt so much more focused and concentrated nowadays that the young man was feeling the rush longer. He knew his body was getting tired and tired more due to the luxurious actions he was partaking it and though he wasn't really one for dramatics and theatrics, he was still a guy.
And every boss monster deserved to at least be defeated in a spectacular fashion, regardless of the difficulty. He may not have been the one to deal the last attack but hey, he made sure that the kill would have been secured. Standing tall nonetheless, forcing his body to keep on standing as he walked with measured steps towards pile of drops, he noted that Alisa had left without much of anything.
The emergence of his health, something that should have been a positive thing, sort of ticked him off a bit. He knew, to an extent, just what Holly was capable off and still she was pushing her mental energies out in order to do this.
"Holly, Holly you can stop."
Vice uttered as he picked up the module that had been left behind by the enemy. He pocketed it without much of a fuss and turned to the only other person in the vicinity.
"Take a break for a bit--and don't start with me. We're both exhausted from the fight and it doesn't matter how sturdy our body is if we'll just be keeling over in the next few seconds."
Post by Holly Mason on Feb 15, 2014 18:38:48 GMT -5
Holly waved at the normal as she left. There wasn't much else to do or say really. It was a shame the normal didn't have it in her to celebrate their victory a bit. Holly wasn't exactly feeling super fantastic herself, but she would never waste a chance to gloat, feel awesome, or any excuse to do something fun and/or interesting with people. Oh well, she would just silently judge the normal for a moment.
When Vice spoke, Holly folded her arms and looked at him out of the corner of her eyes. Her grin faded slightly, but she was still pretty clearly pleased with herself.
"Well yeah, that's why I healed everyone. Even if the shadows around here are pretty weak it's not smart to walk around half dead," she paused for a moment and looked towards where the normal was walking off. "I guess we should get out of here too. This is no place to celebrate a victory."
He told her his piece and that was that. Whatever else her reaction would have been to it, that was her choice to go on over. Stretching his limbs a bit, and rolling his shoulders, the older of the two made sure to give the place another good sweep with his eyes before doing anything.
"Nothing else worth of value left and I guess we could count that as the Stratum Shadow. The barrier should be gone next time we roll around here."
It was really just Vice thinking out loud rather than anything else as he turned his body slightly to face the exit where Alisa had run off to. Trying his best to fight off the creeping exhaustion from taking over, the young man decided to try and place some thought on where exactly would a celebration be done?
"Wouldn't wanna attract the shadows with all the noise, yeah? Still, I wonder where a good place for celebrating would be…"
Post by Holly Mason on Feb 17, 2014 18:08:57 GMT -5
"Finally. I wonder what was taking everyone so long to kill enough shadows to get it to appear," she sighed. "Well, normally I'd just go out and buy myself something nice, but I'm open to suggestions."
Holly wasn't interested in a lot of the things most people were. She didn't care for food, movies, video games, most forms of entertainment...but she was willing to tolerate them if the company was good enough, or failing that the circumstances that made her want to go out in the first place were good enough. In this case, both were worth worth it.