Aislinn supposed that it was fair enough that Stratos was moving on to deal with helping more people, but it still left her feeling a little lonely as he moved on and she was left to fight more or less on her own in that side of things. While it was fine, she could handle it, it wasn't the first thing that she wanted to do. Besides it providing entertainment it also provided reason to fight. A person to protect other than herself. While Sarah wasn't there, Aislinn began to imagine her sisters smile. She imagined the reason behind her strength, someone to fight for. At this point it wasn't fighting to protect her or make her life easier. Aislinn was fighting to return to her sister. She knew that Sarah wouldn't be able to handle it if she never returned. She knew how heart broken her sister would be if she died here on this battle field. That was her reason to fight. It wasn't for her own sake even though it was fighting to keep herself alive, she was doing it for others. Just that thought helped give Aislinn focus. With that in mind she was able to look Stratos straight in the eye and offer him a nod. "Yeah, you stay safe too, and show them how it is done." Aislinn encouraged Stratos, though she knew Aux really didn't need to be shown up by anyone, it would still be entertaining to watch from a distance at the very least. Flipping over top one of the Neoshadows, Aislinn sliced at it's back getting a second wind.... or a third wind... or a fourth. At this point she wasn't quite sure which one she was at or how she was doing, honestly she was just going for it. Moving around the side of another group of them Aislinn pounded one heartless into several more before summoning her keyblade back to her and using it to charge her way through the next grouping. There was now some gaps in the defenses of the Neoshadows. Not enough that Aislinn could consider it time for a break, but enough that she was gaining confidence that there would be an end to this coming in a relatively short amount of time. If she kept up the pace that she was going, there would be no issues dealing with the heartless, hopefully opening a path for them to deal with the man who was creating the heartless, though that was a big if. Karina would never admit that she was upset, though her attacks lost some of the flare they had before and degraded mainly into harsh fast slashes with her whip as she tore through the heartless. As one got too close to her, Karina didn't even try and use her weapon, instead using her already clenched fist to punch it. When it fell prone, she took advantage of that as well as she stomped on it's face. Sure it wasn't nearly as effective as a proper attack and it took a little longer, but it still did the job and get some of Karina's anger out, though that was very little considering how good she had been behaving. It had been long enough that since she had last had a full on fit, that she had a lot of pent up rage that she was more than happy to take out on the heartless. Even as she did her eyes were still glued on Uniform fighting Shiro in the distance. While it wouldn't be right away, she was going to get over there and kill that over confident son-of-a-bitch. Total Words: 608 EXP: 60 Total EXP: 3660 Aislinn Heartless Defeated: 18 Neoshadows Karina Heartless Defeated: 6 Neoshadows 2 Darkball Enemies Remaining: 277 Neoshadows 358 Darkballs
Watching Luna start to walk off, Karina wondered if it was something that she had said. For once in her life she wasn't actually attempting to chase anyone off, but she sat there and watched as Luna started walking away in the direction of Koa, Hikaru and the red haired boy that she couldn't quite figure out who he was still. She had at least seen the other two before she had left with Lea, this boy was a complete mystery to her though. Luna seemed to be a little upset and Karina couldn't figure out what she had done this time. Sure she deserved it for plenty of times before, but having come back and just watching people who once were her friends, or acquaintances anyways, walk away from her instead of fighting at her side. Perhaps she had created a greater gap between her and everyone else than she had originally thought. Karina had never let herself think about it before, convinced herself it didn't matter, instead filling her head with thoughts of power, but now that she had given that up, she realized how lonely she really was. Sure Arctus was at her back now, but part of her had hoped when she came back to save her friends, that they would be excited to see her. Instead Ananta and Luna stopped by for short periods of time while the rest gave her a cold shoulder while they went about talking to each other and fighting along side those they were closer with. Perhaps she had put more distance between herself and everyone else than she though. Turning away Karina focused her attention towards the direction that Uniform was, watching him closely as she fought through the heartless. If no one else cared she was there, she wouldn't care for them, instead dealing with the heartless until she made her way over to her one true goal, made her way over and killed Uniform. It would just be a small step in the direction that she was heading. He was the first person to kill if she was going to kill her past and move on with her life. She had learned that strength alone she couldn't do it, but apparently she couldn't rely on friends all that well either, so determination had to be the answer. Instead of running and hoping it went away, she would simply have to face it head on and go to whatever ends to deal with it, starting with the pain that thought it a good idea to get on her bad side by constantly bringing up the past that she was trying to leave behind. One day... eventually she would get to her father. Aislinn continued to think back to her life at home learning about the keyblade and those first days after her parents death. However hard this battle was, it was nothing compared to the struggles of getting her life started again, getting up every morning and making lunch for her and her sister. It was those times that she learned what strength really was. It was the ability to keep moving when things seemed like they were impossible. It was that same strength that Aislinn carried into battle with her. Sure she was physically strong for the most part, but it was how she carried herself, the inner strength that she knew was important and the reason that she could get her way through things. As long as she had that strength, even as her body tired she could still fight to the very end. There was no laying down and waiting to die for her, that was not an option, she couldn't let it be with something like this. Total Words: 623 EXP: 60 Total EXP: 3600 Aislinn Heartless Defeated: 18 Neoshadows Karina Heartless Defeated: 6 Neoshadows 1 Darkball Heartless injured Neoshadow 1/15 Enemies Remaining: 308 Neoshadows 401 Darkballs
The swarms of heartless kept coming and Aislinn let her mind wonder once more trying to deal with the situation the best that she could. Her mind drifted back to before she had a keyblade, it was before her parents died. Something about her parents death and the desire to fight to protect her sister seemed to be the catalyst to bring her keyblade to her. Was it the tragedy that brought the keyblade to her aid, or perhaps how she dealt with it. Everyone here seemed to have gone through their own hardships, but each of them were still fighting instead of running and hiding or giving up, it must have been part of the reason that they had it. Aislinn always knew that strength of heart was something that keyblade wielders had to have, but perhaps she also needed something to show the strength of ones heart. If there was nothing to test yourself against then there as no way of knowing how long that strength would hold up. For Aislinn the hardship was the loss of her parents and the war against the heartless in her town. With her being just eighteen when her parents died, someone had to take care of Sarah, and keep her safe. While sure they could have found someone to look after them, at that point they were both old enough that they didn't want anyone else in their lives. That being said, they needed to support themselves, and that wasn't possible if they were both depressed, so Aislinn had to learn to be strong. As the heartless moved in closer she knew that she couldn't just sit back anymore either and help her sister ignoring all those around her, she needed to pick up a sword and fight alongside everyone else, it would be the best way to protect her sister. It was only so long after that before her keyblade came to her, and Aislinn was sent searching for someone to train her in how to use it. The training seemed to pay off seeing how she was managing to deal with the heartless here and now, even if she couldn't use the training to save her world yet, at least something was better than nothing, she had a place to start, she was quickly gaining power and now she was at the point that if she went home, she was sure she could make a difference, it was no longer just a maybe. The battle stretched on before her and while Arctus and Luna were fighting at a respectable speed, Karina found herself pushing herself more than she should to keep going, keep fighting. There was a jealousy of the power of those around her. She hated that she was so weak compared to them. At one point she used to be the strongest and now she was struggling to make a difference. While Karina was starting to get over her power hungry habits, it was not something that she broke in a day. It took a lot of time fore her to get over herself, and not feel the need to outdo everyone. From visiting her home world the thing Karina learned was that she would never be strong enough, and there was nothing that she could do about it. She had to deal with her problems another way and not just add strength until she was strong enough to rip apart the world. It would get her nowhere in the long run if she didn't deal with the issues in her heart, issues that Karina was still lost on how to deal with. Total Words: 606 EXP: 60 Total EXP: 3540 Aislinn Heartless Defeated: 18 Neoshadows Karina Heartless Defeated: 6 Neoshadows 1 Darkball Heartless injured Neoshadow 1/15 Enemies Remaining: 347 Neoshadows 434 Darkballs
Thea was rather confused but at least the man didn't seem to want to harm her, even allowing Zephyr and Gavin to slowly catch up even if he took the time to talk with her first before he got there. "What sort of danger? What sort of evil? They said you were taking their children and they were just trying to keep them safe. I don't understand. I do want to see the other kids, I need to know that they are alright. And if you are telling the truth we need to help the others." Thea tried to ask and figure out a bunch of things at once. Necos wasn't making much sense in her mind, and that was perhaps because Thea was tired and her mind tended to jump from place to place. "I am not in danger anyways. I can handle myself. I am a powerful mage, see!" Thea summoned a little bit of fire to her hand before looking back to Gavin and Zephyr arriving. "Guys... I think you should hear this. I don't quite get it, but maybe you can make more sense of it." "Alright good night Chief Yolvun. We will continue our search tomorrow. Thank you for your help." With that Everette turned to follow the other two towards the Inn. While Everette felt tired and ready for bed himself, there was a lot on his mind about everything that was going on, and the state of the town. Sure being S-class he had been through a lot of towns and seen a lot of different situations, but the longer he spent with Renza the more he wanted to get this sorted out and quickly. The girl reminded him a little bit of Thea, all the energy and positive attitude despite their circumstances. For Thea, there wasn't much he could do to chance things, but for Renza, they could get this dealt with. Looking at the writing on his hand, Everette cursed quietly to himself, he hated his memory problem and he just studied the note he had written to himself which was already starting to smudge. "This is important. There is no way I will forget about it." He tried to tell himself quietly, as they reached the inn. Heading to the kitchen he unpacked some of the food and grabbed a knife to cut some vegetables. "Renza do you want to peel the potatoes, and Conrad start on the meat?" Everette asked. Everette decided that he couldn't be trusted with anything that could burn, he had learned that rather quickly when learning how to cook. Way too often did he forget to check the stuff on the stove and it burned, at least with chopping things it was repetitive enough that he could handle it.
Keep moving, she could do that. She kept on her feet and dodged out of the way of a few attacks. Aislinn had surveyed the field to see who was doing well and what was going on. For the most part things were exactly as she had expected them to be. It was clear that this new group was no amateurs though. They were holding their own as well as anyone else in this battle, despite the fact that they didn't have keyblades of their own. It was almost entertaining watching the bigger man with the ax go about this battle. He seemed to have a lot of fight in him and Aislinn wished luck to all of his allies that had to deal with him. From what she could tell just by watching him for a moment, that he was a hard one to deal with, had a lot of energy to him, or at least it seemed that way. The girl who made the big entrance seemed to be more familiar with those around her, though much to Aislinn's surprise not as many people were talking to her as she had originally thought. Then Hikaru and Aux were talking to another boy who had quickly run over and caught Luna's attention. To her it was interesting watching how everyone was getting along now, perhaps that was just something she found interesting, but it at least gave Aislinn something to contemplate as she fought the heartless that were now coming at her from all sides. There was not a chance she would let them catch her off guard though as she shifted her balance and adjusted to give the muscles on her right side a bit of a break and fight the heartless focusing more on using her left, less dominate side for fighting. When Karina turned her attention back away from Stratos, she scanned the rest of the people. Guilt still sat in her heart when looking at Beuce due to what had happened the last time she was in this battle and ended up falling unconscious. That was not going to happen again, and even if she did, she was sure that Arctus would have her back. Karina was just thankful that there was no mutated behemoths to face. These Neoshadows were nothing compared to Derpy the Derpmoth, or Arma or even Free Willy Cat. The heartless in that battle were all insane and stupid and Karina didn't know how to handle them, meaning at some times she seemed to find her mind broken. It was really weird really, Karina didn't like thinking back on those times, it was not pleasant to say the least and to say she had lost it during that battle was an understatement. Glancing back to Arctus she certainly hoped that it didn't happen again during this battle. She had enough embarrassment for one day, she didn't need to add to it by losign her cool. Wanting to show off a little more of what she had learned to do, Karina channeled her flames through her whip and sent it flying at the heartless, causing a bit of an explosion that took out some of the heartless around it as well. It was just a shame that there was no fire based heartless here, if there was she could show off her fire eater ability. That being said after the explosion at the lab, perhaps she had enough of that for one day. Though she had been healed, Karina could still feel the faint ache from where the injuries should have been, she was just thankful for the power that Lea had given her, if it wasn't for that then she would have been dead. Total Words: 629 EXP: 60 Total EXP: 3480 Aislinn Heartless Defeated: 18 Neoshadows Karina Heartless Defeated: 6 Neoshadows 1 Darkball Heartless injured Neoshadow 1/15 Enemies Remaining: 394 Neoshadows 497 Darkballs
