1b.) Into the Melee

"Sure," said Jikon to Exemplar just a moment after she said it.

Jikon leaned back onto the foot he hadn't moved when taking a step toward Echo, letting the bolt shoot by him and vanish into the foliage of a tree. There are certain comedic laws that must be observed even in a heated battle, however. There was a strangled 'caw' from the tree, and a bird of intermediate color and size dropped down from a branch to the ground.

"Don't waste my air," said Jikon toward Echo, before, with a flick of his wrist, sending the steak back toward the group of strangely inept DaCre. Voyle's face, to be precise. With pinpoint accuracy.

"I'll take this group." Exemplar said, before turning to the inept minions.

With barely a whisper, her steps brought her at a quick dash towards the group of Salem's former minions.

She was moving quickly, but not at a complete sprint, so she still had plenty of ability to maneuver, if she got creative with her momentum.

Specifically, she was going straight for Derkholm, likely believing him to be the greatest threat.

The steak nailed Voyle's head and knocked him over, but this resulted in numberous lightning bolts flying into the sky before rushing back towards the ground like artillery.

Jack and Priscilla rushed Jikon, a ball of flame appearing in his hands and an orb of spinning ice in hers.

"Ignius Break!"

"Cryoflair!"

The two orbs hit eachother in midair and cancelled themselves out in a burst of steam. Priscilla turned angrily to Jack.

"Hey, I got dibs!"

"You never called it."

"Oh yeah, well;"

"DIBS!"

"Hey, that doesn't count!"

"Rock paper scissors?"

"Sure."

The two shook their fists three times, Jack ending with rock and Priscilla with scissors.

"Ha! Rock beats scissors!"

Priscilla held out her hand and Jack was blown backwards by a beam of ice, and hit the ground.

"And ice beats rock." Jack rolled his flaming eyes.

"Was that really neccesary?"

Priscilla shrugged and smirked. "What can I say; I'm a sore loser."

They both completely ignored the fact that Jikon was only a few feet away.

* * *

Gyro flew in front of Exemplar, raising a guitar.

"Sorry babe, can't let ya do that. Derk's just too delacat.

Derkholm rolled his eye's but Gyro continued.

"Can You Dig it?"

A black electric guitar materialized in Gyro's hands and as he strummed the chord spires of rock sprung up towards Exemplar.

Jikon watched, fascinated as the two bickered and completely ignored the enemy in the heat of battle. No one could be that childish, could they? They had to be doing it on purpose.

After a moment, Jikon seemed to remember that he was battling at the moment. He coughed politely, also releasing a black cloud of gas that puffed out toward the ice-user. The gas would severely injure the body where it touched, literally melting skin, and cause temporary blindness if impacting the eyes.

The gas was also extremely foul smelling, and if Priscilla was sensitive to smell, she might simply pass out when it got near her, avoiding damage but being put out of the battle.

As the spires came up towards her, one of them actually came up under her foot. She felt this change, and shifted her foot, and actually pushed off of the side of the spire as it came up to impale her.

This tiny extra burst of speed was all that was required to dodge the rock spires and enter melee range with Gyro.

As her left foot touched the ground, her right fist began to swing at a slightly lower than horizontal angle in comparison to her shoulder.

If unhindered, it would strike at Gyro's heart, if Gyro had anything resembling human biology.

It was a moderate blow, with not her entire momentum with it as her right foot was still in the air about halfway to landing.

Power 3.

Priscilla made a foul expression. "Oh my god... Jack you've broken wind before but you just shattered a HURRICANE..."

Jack tackled her out of the way of the poison gas, the fire engulfing his body hot enough to burn the gas into bare vapors that couldn't do any harm.

Priscilla noticed this and suddenly looked extremely irritated. "You'd attack a GIRL! I knew chivalry was dead but hell you're probably the one that killed it! I mean, you could have ruined ths dress! Black stains DON'T come out of white. No wonder your teeth look like rejected corn."

Jack meanwhile had conjured balls of flame into both hands. "The lady dost protest too much me thinks. But thou hast her honor much offended. Fall before my flames creature of the night."

He tossed the two orbs of fire towards Jikon's chest.

* * *

Gyro spun up his guitar and blocked the fist with it, but the force sent him flying backwards to recover in the air about ten feet away.

"Jeez lady, temper much? I know you want a piece of the G-man but ya can't hit me that way unless ya mean it." Gyro strummed his guitar. "Can You Dig It?"

The rock spires began moving in a straihgt line towards Exemplar, breaking off into two chains approaching.

In fact, there was quite a different effect from the intense flame that Jack used. In higher stages, the poison move evolved to a more fog-like substance than gas, losing the distinct effect that an open flame had on the more gas-like D-Rank form of the move.

As Jack threw his flaming body into the cloud to tackle Priscilla out of the way - burning her side with the briefly intense exposure to the flame - the gas did not burn the gas into harmless vapors. In fact, the gas exploded.

Jikon leaped backward as he saw the flaming fool leap toward the cloud, knowing exactly the reaction that was about to take place. He had seen it happen many times before. It was, after all, his own attack. Still, a wave of heated air rushed over him at the fringe of the explosion, nearly blowing him off his feet, not to mention singing his eyebrows.

Jack, at the center of the explosion, would be less fortunate. While the intense flame he was already engulfed in would protect him from the flame of the explosion, the sheer concussive force materializing on all sides would deal more severe damage. If Jack wasn't unconscious from the effects, he would probably wish he was. In any case, he would be in no shape to make or throw fire balls of any sort.

Priscilla, knocked out of the way to some extent, was just outside the radius of the gas. The explosion would, however, rush outward. The concussive force would blow her about fifteen feet in the direction Jack had pushed her, with burn damage on her back. Her wings would likely be damaged for a while, grounding her. She might be capable of continuing the battle, though with still great damage and no flight capabilities, she would be vulnerable.

Jikon's eyebrows regenerated in a second, being extremely minor damage, and a slight ache in the front of his body disappeared nearly immediately as the minorly irritated tissue healed.

Making the rock spires already behind her come to attack Exemplar was kind of silly, seeing she was already dashing forward. This meant that attacking with them after a short monologue would be quite pointless.

Even more important than that, was the fact that, due to Exemplar running forward, Gyro wouldn't even get to say his whole monologue before Exemplar closed to close combat with him again. Ten feet is an incredibly short distance when you are running.

This time, her left fist, still shrouded in the sleeve came forward to do a similar strike, only aimed at the right lung.

Meanwhile, Erick called out, smiling, in a cheerful tone, "Who do you think you are, Demyx? You can't talk and fight at the same time unless you stick to catchy one liners!"

Jack was blown into a spin and flew off, those his own fiery tendancies made him avoid any burns or the like the explosion was of good size and knocked him a good deal backwards where he landed on his feet.

"*was... a substance most foul." He fell backwards, and little stars made of fire began circling over his head.

Priscilla was more fortunate, she shot almost entirely out of range with a little trail of snowflake like fairy-dust and turned to face Jikon once again.

"Man... have you ever heard of breathmints? I mean smell is one thing but it EXPLODES? I think mentos just met it's match..." She held out her hand. "Not that it matters. Cryoflair!" A ball of spinning ice fired out towards Jikon; it would freeze whatever area it hit as well as the nomral force of impact.

* * *

Gyro blocked with his guitar once more and managed to move higher when he was knocked away, to a spot about 4 feet above Exemplar's head.

"Dude, it is SO not cool to attack someone when they're talking to you."

Jikon stepped to the side, easily avoiding the attack when it was fired from such a long range. The ball continued on to hit the corpse of the bird laying just barely visible in the bushes, making what was possibly the world's first bird-sicle.

"Insults, now? Well, I suppose one has to resort to that, when their own attacks are so ineffective..." he said.

"Your friend should be fine when he wakes up in a while, if a little dazed, by the way." he added, beginning to move toward the fairy in slow, deliberate strides. "After all, you seem so concerned for him."

" Hey you ugly ass zombie! You don't even need air to breathe, so why don't you just crawl back into the grave you crawled out of before I have to bury you! "

Echo had retreated into the trees, unseen by Jikon or any of the other DaCr, her voice seemed to come from everywhere at once. Which it was since she was manipulating the soundwaves she released.

She was preparing to launch an attack on Jikon, he would provide excellent experience to push her up to the next Rank.

As Gyro's hands pushed against his guitar in order to block the strike and use it to propel himself up, he would feel a sharp, stabbing pain, as he impaled himself on sharp barbs, that would make it difficult to pull his hands off without extreme damage to the flesh of his hands.

The first attack had been to insert a token amount of nanobots into the guitar, so that Exemplar could use Nanobot fabrication to create these barbs.

Also, Exemplar's left hand, veiled by the sleeve, also had some barbs inserted above her hand, Wolverine style, barbs that would hook into the guitar.

This would prevent Gyro from fleeing to higher in the sky, unless he ripped the flesh off of his hands.

Pulling back on with her left hand, and thus, the guitar Gyro was attached too, she punched forward with her right hand, curled in a fist, aiming for a concussion strike to the head.

If Gyro feared death, it would not be a bad idea to just opt for concussion, as going for a nonlethal strike meant Exemplar didn't intend to kill them, as of yet.

~~

Of course, this would all be irrelevant if Gyro had some method to block or otherwise prevent this chain of events, in which scenario, Exemplar would probably pause for a moment to consider her next plan of attack.

Priscilla fluttered backwards a little at a slow pace, as if backing up. "Man you are a CREEPER."

"Voltage Maxima!" Voyle seemed to have finally recovered himself and launched a shotgun-like set of bolts towards Jikon, in the hope that the spread would make him more accurate.

* * *

Gyro felt the initial sting as his hands started to press on the barbs.

"What the... Crank it Up!"

Gyro emitted a shockwave from himself and propelled backwards, away from the barbs and before they could hurt him. The guitar ruined, he held up his hands and another one appeared.

Meanwhile the rock spires were still approaching from behind Exemplar, and would be in range just about then.

Suddenly, Echo lost interest...... She couldn't explain it herself, she just... mellowed. She began to remember who she was. And suddenly, a grin with four giant fangs spread from ear to ear. It had taken awhile, but Echo had retirieved her memories. And they told her, that she was in fact, a successful singer in this dimension. Though her memory told her that her home where she sang was probably on the other side of this world.

" Come on Alex, we..... are going to find Iko and Shobatsu. "

Echo was feeling light as a feather. A strange light was emmitting withing her, filling her with happiness.

~ I knew I was a great singer! * She roared with triumph in her head as she picked up Alex in one amr. Thrusted him over her shoulder, and began to fly towards Shobatsu's signature, as Iko and Salem's were too faint to follow. But Shobatsu's use of the light flies allowed him to be sensed, barely, at this distance.

Jikon heard the beginning of Voyle's battle cry that preceded every attack, and leaped forward, spinning once quickly in the air. As he faced backward, away from the fairy, he released another cloud of the gas.

Jikon was very fast, so nearly escaped the area of the attack in that one leap. The bolts would have hit him, however, were they all arriving at the exact same time.

While launched at the same time, the one aiming dead-center toward Jikon's original location would lead with the group in reaching Jikon's location as the others moved in various other directions to some extent to cover the wide range.

The lightning bolt ignited the gas, making an explosion similar to the previous one. Jikon was using this to his advantage, however. His leap had brought him considerably closer to the fairy and, before he started to lose momentum or descend too much, the gas exploded.

The explosion pushed him forward extremely quickly, all the force of the explosion moving toward pushing him away rather than hitting him due to his already great speed in that direction. His back took a scorching, filling the air directly behind him with the scent of burning flesh, and smoked slightly.

Beyond the scorching, the only effect of the explosion was to send Jikon completely out of the range of the bolts. In fact, the blast helped Jikon close the distance between the fairy and himself even more quickly, putting him in striking range.

Jikon threw a punch toward the main body of the fairy, palm open, while exhaling a stream of the gas directly above the fairy to discourage her from trying to rise up. The sheer momentum of his leap and the explosion coupled with his strength would be enough to put the fairy out of commission.

She would survive the strike, certainly, with the possibility of broken ribs. It was that or ruptured organs. They would heal in a few days, due to the DaCre's rapid healing rate, or the next time she absorbed data.

By the time Gyro felt the sting, it would already be too late to avoid damage, as the barbs were quite small, though numerous. And by the time he said "What th" he would already be concussed, likely unconscious and in no shape to use attacks if he wasn't, preventing his use of the shockwave to defend himself. One really doesn't have time to talk in melee combat.

Exemplar swung her left hand around, guitar still on it, to smash the guitar against the rock spires, along with some footwork, propelling herself out of their path.

Addressing her next statement mainly to Derkholm, but loud enough that the whole group would hear, Exemplar spoke again.

"Advance in the opposite direction, and you'll make this a whole lot easier on all of us."

Priscilla summoned a sheild of ice on front of herself as jikon struck, but the blow was still more than enough to carry through and send her flying. She hit a tree and wobbled in the air a moment.

"Seriously... how... rude."

Priscilla fluttered to the ground, unconscious.

* * *

Gyro had time to look at his hands in irritation before the blow.

"Aw come on..."

Whumph.

The guitar dematerialized and Gyro fell back on the ground, unconscious.

* * *

Derkholm put his fingers to the area here his mouth would be (the bandages didn't move when he spoke, so it was very difficult to tell HOW exactly he talked) and let out a whistle. Volye stopped firing, having done enough random damage.

"I would suggest we retreat for now. I would also like to tell you that Jikon here is indeed not a vampire, and that humans have indeed made it into our world."

Voyle, a little overwhelmed, still managed to be irritated. "If you knew this, why didn't you say anything EARLIER!?"

Derkholm shrugged. "This way seemed like more fun. Though I must admit these DaCre are a bit more... savage, than I expected."

Derkholm held out his hands and sand sprung up from the earth, seemingly from nowhere, and moved across the ground. The sand lifted up Priscilla, Jack, and Gyro and pulled them back over to Derkholm. Derkholm gave a small bow and turned to leave, Voyle scuttling after him.

"Hey, I'm in charge here and I say when we leave!" Voyle looked back at Jikon. "Um... now's good!"

Voyle scurried ahead, Derkholm taking his time and following.

As Derkholm was giving his first sentence, however, Jikon had already taken a few lurching steps over to the unconscious body of Priscilla and picked her up in both hands. He looked calculatingly at the point of impact, and smiled slightly. Less damage than anticipated, but still a victory.

He walked over to where the mummy stood, focusing as he did so. Muteki felt a strange pulse from something in his pocket, and drew it out again. His JK Dot screen was glowing again. He slipped it onto his wrist, and focused on it, trying to divine what was going on. This was, conveniently enough, the right thing to do.

Jikon's form shifted, the slouch vanishing, skin turning from gray-green to an elegant white, hair lengthening to a glossy black shoulder-length, eyes turning from milky white to a glowing blood red, teeth turning white and elongating at the canines, nails evening out and turning black, rags turning to an evening suit and cloak... In other words, becoming a vampire in the place of a zombie.

He handed the body of the fairy to the mummy without a word, taking a step back after doing so. He didn't smile as he said Jikon wasn't a vampire. He didn't approve of unnecessary violence, but he needed to strengthen the boy's connection to him, and, after all, they HAD started it.

He was, in a way, happy that the damage to the strange group had been minimal. Their amusing attitudes would have made him feel guilty for severely injuring them. He hoped they would understand his position, and not hold a grudge. They probably would, but he could hope.

Jikon smiled at Voyle's childish need to reassert his leadership position. He wondered how he'd come to be leader. Perhaps it was because no one else really wanted to be one.

He nodded toward the mummy, as one undead to another, just before he turned to leave. "Best of luck out there," he said, the faint slur of his words caused by a rotting mouth completely gone now.

He looked over to Exemplar when the minions had left.

"Nice work out there," he said simply, flashing a pointed smile at the female.

At that moment, about one-hundred fireflies entered the clearing, and began circling the two DaCre and two tamers. This went on for a few moments before the fireflies began to slowly move into the forest, hesitating every so often, as if to be sure the two were following.

Jikon sighed. "I expect you should come with me. The other human-partnered DaCre will probably be interested to meet you."

. . .

Fifty fireflies began to circle Voyle and Derkholme, and began trying to lead them out of the forest, in the direction of the castle...

"Right." Erick nodded as he spoke, ready and willing to follow.

And where Erick went, Exemplar was sure to follow. Well, kind of sure.

Anyway, she didn't switch to C rank yet. If there was more combat, getting a bonus for being at a lower rank could be helpful.