1d.) Storming the Castle

The combined electrical attack shocked Magnus severely, convulsing slightly as the paw was extended so that only the brunt of the leg would fall over Salem, which would do considerably less damage than the other attack.

Unconscious, Magnus still dealt quite a bit of damage to Salem...

Salem was pummelef by the large leg and got a bit of the lingering electricty as well. Magnus unconscious form landed on top of him as well. Still easily conscious however, he waved his paws about.

"Mmph mmph mmmp, mmm mmm mmmp!"

Lallium looked over to Tesla and gave a thumbs up. "Nice save." He then turned to Salem. "What was that?"

"MMPH!"

"I can't hear you with that big wolf on top of you."

"..."

"Oh wait, there's a big wolf on top of you." Lallium moved over and helped push Magnus off of Salem.

"Gah." Salem shook himself off as if to rid himself of water and then looked at the unconcsious Magnus with a grin. "Ok Lallium, hand me a post-it note and a marker."

Lallium raised en eyebrow, but complied. Salem took the note and scribbled something on it, then put it on Magnus' head.

Lallium read it aloud. "Minion and Property of Salem, the Prince of Chaos. Do Not Disturb." He looked at Salem. "So we're really just going to make every Dacre you beat a minion by default?"

"Yep. Pretty much."

Lallium sighed. "Fine. Now let's just beat this Yitur guy; I need my beauty sleep." Lallium thought a moment. "DaCre Castles DO have beds right?"

"Of course. I mean I did at least."

Lallium had another thought. "Wait... how exactly would a DaCre make a bed anyway? Doesn't it require like fibers and getting feathers and stuff?"

"Um... the Mattress King makes them?"

"The Mattress King?"

"Yeah. Every world has a Mattress King. He's a great and terrible DaCre who lives in the clouds!"

"Really!?"

"And he rules from a castle in the sky, and all the Mattresses obey him! And he can create annoying commercials with the wave of his hand!

"Wow... Hey wait a second!"

Salem began laughing. "You were actually falling for it!? MAN you are gullible. If I told you the walls of this castle were made of candy you'd probably run over and take a bite!"

Lallium looked offended. "I would not!" He waited a moment."They aren't, are they?"

"..."

"I was just joking..."

"..."

"Hmph."

Landind at one of the top of one of the towers. Echo dropped of Alex, who sensed they had a dilemna. " What's wrong.... " Alex said in a 'Of Course....' kind of voice.

" Well, I don't really know how to get inside without being spotted. I sense Iko's signature and Shobatsu's, but I can't find a way to get inside to them without getting spotted..... It's a bit of a bummer actually. I wanted to see some action from B ranks. "

Shobatsu saw that there were no more stairs to climb, and decided to make up the distance between him and Iko before they entered properly. Expected or not, it was still an A-Ranked DaCre they were going up against, and it wouldn't do to be vulnerable even for a second.

He began running on all fours for a moment, various muscles and bones shifting position to allow him the movement and increased speed of a quadruped, before his muscles bunched, and he leaped forward, suddenly along side Iko.

He fell back the distance required to give Iko exactly the amount of time he needed to open the door, and no more. As he did this, several hundred more lights sprang from his fur, giving Shobatsu quite a large swarm of fireflies.

Carlos kept pace with Luke, inhaling deeply, running with long, easy strides. He wouldn't be out of breath when they reached Yitur; he was used to physically exerting himself. He could only hope Luke was as capable.

In the flash of light, focused as it may have been, Iko had moved into the room ahead of Shobatsu, beginning to contort the shadows around his right arm. He needn't communicate, in his mind: this was for his pride, for his revenge... he wanted Shobatsu to have nothing to do with this blood grudge...

This, however, would prove to be his undoing: the instant Iko smashed the door, a veritable wall of fireballs, one for at least every half-square foot, came in on the pair's position. Charging as he was, he expanded the shadow around his arm to take the brunt of the blast, which only halted a few of the attacks before breaking, his arm and side taking a burn from the following heat...

"Its hard for me to hold back..." Yitur stated, retracting his hand, a red glow dying away from his finger. "Judging from the presence of you two, it will be another ten or fifteen seconds before your tamers arrive..."

Knowing the situation, Yitur raised his other hand, a purple glow appearing on his finger, preparing another spell... one that would be more dangerous than the first...

Iko stood up, ignoring what would have been serious damage: he used his left arm to create a crescent blade, and began charging forward again, forgetting his roar...

" LAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!! " An echo sounded as a super sonic scream hit the roof of the castle. Echo was trying to break it down so that she could fly in and help against Yitur.

If it worked, the cieling would shake, and the room would seem to rumble before the top gave way. With the level of the creatures below it. They were almost guaranteed to survive.

Shobatsu, however, wasn't about to let Iko put his life in jeopardy. He leaped forward in the manner of a wolf going for the jugular, instead aiming for Yitur's chest. The light formed by the fireflies formed a sort of cone around him, point centered on Yitur, as he left the swarm behind. The cone was spinning rapidly, almost in a drill-like fashion.

The light fox knew Yitur could teleport. His aim wasn't to injure Yitur. Rather, he wanted to interrupt the attack about to be launched at Iko.

Tesla allowed herself a chuckle, then helped Erik to his feet.

"There are a lot of data signatures converging on a single spot upstairs," Tesla said to Erik, loud enough for Salem to hear.

The two started up the stairs quickly, before Salem and Lallium. Erik seemed to be extremely interested in his XLR, twirling it around on his wrist and fiddling with a few of the functions.

Yitur lowered his hand, finishing the spell's preparation and casting it as Shobatsu approached. Before the spell became obvious, Shobatsu's drill hit the center of Yitur's chest, who vanished. He appeared in the opposite side of the room, in the right corner, from the fox and the hound's perspective.

The spell took effect: poison. At the room's entrance, where Luke and Carlos would have soon ran through, a wide pool of poison appeared, bubbling from the ground, rotting the floor slightly, filling a ten-foot diameter circle, five feet beyond the door, and five feet into the room at the longest line.

"Pity..." Yitur said, looking at the doorway, and smirking, looking over at Iko and Shobatsu, his finger glowing red, Iko already intently staring at the target.

"Stay out of this, fox..." Iko mutterred, looking at Yitur once again. "This is my fight..."

Taking a strong step forward, Iko raised a more powerful shield than before, taking the brunt of the fire attack. This darkness, however, seemed to be somewhat different from the last... it crackled slightly with a menacing red energy, as if Iko was using the darkness in his own heart...

" Nooooooooooot so faaaaassst! " A female voice sang followed by a loud crash. Echo crashed through a 12 foot decorative window within the room that Yitur used as his eye on the world below.

Falling off her back was Alex, he seemed to have been riding Echo piggy back. His eyes seemed to go behind his head as he went through shock of the crazy plummet and crashed he had just survived.

Echo stared at Shobatsu and Iko, then Yitur. " I suppose you're the bad guy? " Staring back at the entrance where the poison was, she stared at Iko and Shobatsu again. " Isn't there something you guys could do about that? It's a little dangerous for someone entering the room through a door. "

Shobatsu landed on the floor, skidding several feet feet on the smooth floor.

"He hurt all those people, Iko," said Shobatsu, sending newly generated light from the fireflies to make a shiny, glowing floor above the pit of poison.

"The DaCre, too. Everyone in the city was hurt to some extent, all because of him. It may have been your fight at first. Now... I can't just stand aside and watch."

He said this as Iko blocked the fireball, refocusing the cone of light around him into a sort of loosely defined aura, ready to reform at any point it was necessary.

The fox - and yes, now on all fours, he did resemble a fox more than a man - slowly stalked forward and to the right of the wizard, from Yitur's perspective, leaving Iko on the left side.

He didn't pay any attention to Echo as she crashed in seconds before he created the floor.

"Truly... you two are slow at heart in this..." Yitur taunted, chuckling slightly. His finger lit purple again, pointed behind the pair, starting back behind Shobatsu, aligned to the closest wall. He swept his finger from one side to another, the radius enough to catch both Shobatsu and Iko under their feet as well.

Iko moved forward, moving straight for Yitur once again, now getting on all fours, the reddish-darkness covering his body, without hesitation, as Yitur raised a golden glow on the end of both spell fingers...

Echo raised her hand foward was well. Her claws starting to grow aiming them at Yikur's head. Echo fired six claws attmepting to penetrate the corrupt wizards head and nail him into data.

She looked at the entrance. Wondering if lots of photons, or rather photon-like data. Could really support two humans over a pit of poison. Though Echo had seen crazier or harder problems solved with fixtures light, she believed in better safe then sorry..... for others, mostly.

Shobatsu leaped into the air, a pair of glowing white wings forming instantly on his back. He beat them once, giving him considerable lift as he kept pace with Iko, still having some leftover light.

Meanwhile, the newly generated light from the fireflies was used to begin to pave over the poison pit as before, the light moving swiftly enough across the pit that Iko would have to move out of it in a few seconds or Shobatsu would have to exert even more effort to move him before the paving could continue.

He was, truth be told, beginning to become very annoyed with the poison pits. He didn't know how potent they were, but judging by the source, they had to be nasty. Iko seemed to be fine so far, but he wasn't going to risk it. Besides, Carlos and Luke would be showing up any second now...

"Very gutsy, Iko," Yitur chuckled, looking at the charging wolf, specifically, at the feet as he moved out of the poisonous pit. A quick look of pain shot acrossed his face, as he began to walk acrossed the stone: his feet were burned raw, the skin completely removed, the showing meat of the foot looking pale, the veins purple: a powerful, acidic poison that entered the most blunt of ways.

Iko slowed, now in considerable pain, falling on his hands and knees as he coughed dryly.

"But, just plain idiotic... messing with an A-rank will only get you killed..."

Surrounding Yitur, due to the last spell, were four spinning swords: one above, one on his right and left, and one below, as he floated with this last spell. Grabbing the sword on the right, he looked up at the advancing Shobatsu. Grinning, he snapped his other hand, a sword aimed directly at a vital spot in Iko's right arm...

Exemplar was running at full speed straight towards the side of the castle, no signs of slowing.

Hefting Erick over her shoulder, the subtly strong DaCre picked up even more speed as she ran towards the wall.

Suddenly, she was upon the wall and she lifted her foot and stepped onto the wall, and then the next foot, and the next.

She was sprinting straight up the side of the as easily as one would sprint on level ground.

Raising her left hand, the one unoccupied by holding Erick a gun formed.

She kept running straight up.

Then, with a terrifically loud bang, a hypersonic bullet shot out, ripping through the wall on the floor where Yitur was.

Another bullet came, smashing a nearly parallel path to the first through the wall. The stone blocks started to shift and crumble, the second hypersonic impact causing serious damage.

And then the third came, finishing the Exemplar sized whole in the wall.

Exemplar, baring anyone repairing or blocking the wall, would be coming soon.

((This post assumes a long time to charge up these shots before entering the scene. She will enter with 0 power.))

All four of Yitur's swords, however, were knocked away by Echo's claws. As Yitur didn't see them, he was completely caught off guard and the swords fell back wards clattering to the ground. Echo's aim, however, was a little off from looking at the ex ***** trapped door. So instead of piercing Yitur's face, one shot right over him.

This shot off his funky wizards hat and pinned it into the wall behind him. The second hit his beard at an angle that made it sail past his neck. Missing the target that was Yitur's head. But it did however, pin his beard into the wall behind him. And didn't seem to be coming out any time soon.

Shobatsu cursed, making a sudden effort. The light that had been paving over the poison, so close to Iko at this point, suddenly lanced out in a focused beam, intercepting the blade of the sword in mid-stab. The light would push it to the side, completely avoiding Iko's arm, before seeming to melt over the section of the sword, gripping it, and turning it toward Yitur.

More light rose up by Iko, almost with a tide-like effect at the ocean, except it didn't recede.

Edit: The light reached the blade first, and by moving it caused the claw to completely miss.

...

A shadow rose up behind Exemplar, and hovered in the window, outlined in the sun. Looking directly at it would result in being blinded by the light. It was humanoid, and Exemplar would probably assume it was Jikon.

It raised an arm to its chest, and seemed to tear something off, or out. It repeated this with the other arm.

Still, it hovered there, whatever it had pulled out of its chest seeming to change shape.

Yitur looked at Shobatsu's effort, kicking a rebounded sword that Echo had knocked out of his hand, so that it spun on the tip of its blade. Grasping the hilt, Yitur met his blade with the sword that Shobatsu sent, sending it off balance.

It was an odd move... why would someone with such a defensive ability defend against the blade... still, he didn't break stride, looking over at Shobatsu and Echo. Smirking, he sent two of the felled swords at the center of each of them, the blades pointing towards their intended target... they seemed to be under his direct control, and were A-rank weapons...

~Clever, Shobatsu... such a charade will never work on me, however...~ Yitur thought, a claw stuck to his beard... he briefly considered just ripping out the whole thing...

Shobatsu beat his wings powerfully, sending up up, and... destroying the wings. The light from the wings snapped up the suddenly off-target sword, grabbing the hilt powerfully, and once again turning it to face Yitur.

Meanwhile, the fireflies near the door were rushing toward their master, still ascending slightly. The light they were generating rushed even more quickly toward him, already forming into two rough wing-shapes.

The sword that Yitur had parried, however, once again swung toward Yitur, the blade swinging down first this time to come toward Yitur from below.

Looking at the room as a whole, Shobatsu was really putting on an interesting show. Lights flashing and moving every which way, sword fights, a flying man flinging himself into the air...

Another blade came perpindicular, cutting and severing the light, following if dodged, at least throwing the blade off balance, as Yitur cut off the sword from below rather easily with his own sword.

Pointing his free hand at Shobatsu, his hand glowed purple... this was aimed differently, as if trying to put the pit directly on Shobatsu...

Meanwhile, Luke entered in on the bride of light, aware of Iko's damage due to the device. "Stay back, Iko!" Luke ordered, looking up at Yitur... he slowly began to charge his device with his spirit...

Exemplar was decelerating as she came into the room, at more of a power walk pace. She put down Erick to one side, who was looking somewhat exhilarated, somewhat embarrassed.

She was wearing a new outfit, her hair was free falling and the sunglasses were gone, though there were now two identical earrings rather than just one.

She was wearing a more traditional Japanese outfit this time, an Aikido uniform with a brown belt with a thin top and no shoes.

She took a moment to take stock of the situation, before lifting and launching in an almost sling like manner a large block from the wall that had fallen inside the building at the sword heading toward Echo, smashing the blade aside, at least momentarily.

Power: 4

Echo's claws were still foward, and as soon as Exemplar's head was a centimeter to the left of Echo's claw after blocking the sword. Echo fired off 5 more claws at the face of Yitur. The wizard was really annoying her. ~ If only all of us could go B rank! This would be over already! ~

Echo's head nodded toward Exemplar's a bit. A ' thank you' between two..... females.... in the midst of combat.

The light was severed, putting the blade of balance; the light was only severed by a blade's width, however, and reformed in an instant, making a second slash toward Yitur from the side opposite the one holding his sword. Yitur's beard was pinning him in place, however, preventing him from turning to block the blade properly. He would have to block and risk being disarmed, or take the hit...

The wings reached Shobatsu as he reached the pinnacle of his rise, just as Carlos entered. Having seen Luke pulling out his device, he'd also drawn out his TQ Hardwire, focusing channeling energy into it.

Shobatsu used the wings that grafted onto his back to get still more lift, jerking up out of the area Yitur's finger was pointed at currently. The second sword to be captured in light, however, thrust in toward Yitur, cutting through the air quickly and efficiently. The fireflies followed it closely, generating light quickly and easily, giving Shobatsu even more to work with...

...

Meanwhile, now holding two definite diamond shapes in each hand, the dark figure outlined in the hole seemed to be changing shape itself...

Yitur smirked, merely tugging on his pinned beard as one of Echo's claws grazed his face: in an instant, he vanished, the effort wasted in that direction. He appeared in the opposite corner on the same side of the room, looking at the pair of tamers who had just entered. Aiming a red-glowing finger, a barrage of fire blasted in their direction, just as Iko reached B, looking over at Yitur, growling...