Crisis on Tournament Isle!

((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.

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 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:

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.

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.

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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 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:

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
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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)