spira_rp | If you need an explanation

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If you need an explanation

Things had been fucking weird since Orochimaru's death. The Palace had been a weird place to be; Tayuya answered to Kuja now, and that was weird enough. Kuja had always been the damned prettyboy she didn't have much to do with, except for mocking Kadaj for taking after him. Now she had to report to him, take instruction from him...

They'd had to clear out Orochimaru's labs, too. That had been really fucking weird. There'd been a few samples to terminate and dispose of, and lots of research notes to either move, or destroy. L had claimed some, Kuja had, of course, been given everything relevant to the Sound Five....

There'd been some stuff on the Arrancar. Orochimaru had kept some data records from his encounters with some, like Ulquiorra, and Nel, and lots of data on Wonderweiss. Tayuya hadn't told Kuja about that, she knew what politics in Khamja could be like. She'd considered destroying it, at first, but then.... There was only one person that really should have data on the Arrancar, and she knew that most of it probably wouldn't be new, but some of the stuff on Wonderweiss at least, and the procedure he'd been put through might be helpful.

She'd taken it to Aizen, quietly, and somewhat sullenly, telling him that she wouldn't want it to get into the wrong hands. Kuja wouldn't have any use for it anyway, not that she'd asked him, but whoever was taking over the labs, and it clearly wasn't Szayel because he'd bitched loudly about that fact when he'd found out, might have, and they probably shouldn't have it.

She wondered if it had influenced the later decision to allow her, Grimmjow, and Yylfordt out together. Kadaj's absence in their little party was still being felt, at least by her. It was odd just hanging about the Palace. The rest of the Sound Five, Four now, since Kimimaro had taken the peaceful out offered to him, had got over their anger with her for being friends with the Arrancar. It wasn't her fault Nnoitra had got involved, and anyway, it wasn't like she was friends with Nnoitra. Sleeping with him once didn't make them fucking buddies.

Yylfordt had used the excuse of wanting to stop by Rush Valley and pick up some supplies. It was as good an excuse as any, and clearing it with Kuja was easy enough for her once Grimmjow and Yylfordt had been given the okay. Apache wasn't allowed, though; maybe it was because she wasn't actually part of Skite, or maybe Aizen just didn't want too many of the hotheads going out together. Tayuya was hotheaded too, but Aizen hadn't seemed to make much grumble about her joining them. Of course, she was part of Skite, and wasn't under Aizen's control, but maybe handing over that data had got her in Aizen's good books for a couple of days.

She'd asked Kuja if she could get out of the Palace for a while. He probably knew, or at least suspected, that part of her reason for wanting to get out was to see if they could get in touch with Kadaj, even if he wasn't prepared to come back home yet, but she wasn't about to admit that to Kuja. Still, monkeyboy wasn't dumb.

Yylfordt had done his shopping in Rush Valley, and then they'd moved on to the desert around, killing time before heading back, and picking on some of the local wildlife. Tayuya, at least, was finally feeling a bit better, especially after she'd called on Ifrit to murder some really unfortunate things. Working with her Aeons made her feel better in general, and Ifrit was her first, so he was always special.

Killing things helped too.

She'd dismissed Ifrit and was wearing a wicked grin when the absence of the Aeon's reiatsu allowed another one to creep across her senses.

"You have gotta be fucking shitting me," she said, turning towards where it was coming from. She couldn't see anyone there yet, but she could feel it there. They weren't trying to hide their presence, so they were probably on a hunt, or doing the same as them and letting off steam by murdering things that didn't deserve it.

She'd felt the Ryoka berserker's reiatsu enough times to know it by now.

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Yylfordt backed up as the glyph grew, staying out of its way. He'd seen Tayuya summon plenty of times before, but he hadn't seen all her Aeons. This one was new to him.

The horrible, weak feeling venomtouch had afflicted him with wasn't fading, and staying on his feet was starting to hurt.

He sagged as Tayuya took command of the field.

Grimmjow backed away from Saix's desperate swing and grinned as he caught the scent of the blood from the cut he'd inflicted. His joy was short-lived, however, because he didn't miss that flash of yellow eyes even through the fine rain of sand. He knew what that meant.

He dodged Saix's first berserk attack, making a conscious effort to stay out of his reach. Berserk made him much stronger, he knew that by now, but it sacrificed defense and rational thinking for the power boost that the self-inflicted status affect afforded him.

Then he heard whale song. It was a curious thing to hear in the middle of Ivalice's biggest desert. A low, haunting tune mixed with the one Tayuya played and he could have laughed when the smell of brine mingled with that of the desert heat and fell around them all.

The Fire Elemental's life was going to get a whole lot more difficult.

Still, he had his own battle to fight. He moved in when a swing left Saix open and charged and fired a bala at mid range.

Axel watched as Tayuya played her flute. He was wary of it. He knew by now that she was a Bard of some talent and had no doubt that it had been her that had put Aerith to sleep. People tended to underestimate Bards and he have known better than that. He knew Demyx and Demyx, despite his slacker attitude, he was a force to be reckoned with on the battlefield.

He had no idea what she was casting, but there was something ... oppressive... about it, as though she was readying a Water spell. But Bards didn't cast Elemental magic, did they? Demyx did, but he was the exception. Spira's natives didn't work like they did. Besides, this girl was Fire Elemental, not Water. Her Reiatsu told him that.

His dread increased as the sensation of Water grew more intense as the tune went on and mingled with the distant song of a whale. It didn't make sense. A whale? In a desert? He felt as though he was being drowned.

It all became clear when the singer burst from the watery Glyph.

An Aeon. A whale Aeon. It was immense and impressive and terrifying at the same time.

Axel had heard about them, but he had never seen one. This one was his opposing Element and it was powerful. It wouldn't be susceptible to any of his Fire attacks. His options were limited. His Commando abilities were part of his easy repertoire, but his other Classes weren't so good. One damaged him as a matter of course and the other wasn't a front line class at all.

He gripped his Chakrams a little tighter.

Edited 2014-05-21 16:17 (UTC)

Saix barely escaped taking the bala blast full on only because he was already swinging again. The weapon caught some of it, Saix's arm caught some more, and the berserker snarled, staggering with the blow and losing his grip on the claymore.

It was the only acknowledgement Saix gave of any damage, however. He'd suffer for it when he came out of his berserk state, but for now, his only real focus was on hitting Grimjow as much and as hard as he could. To that end, he bellowed, and moved in to attack again, bare-handed for the moment.

Tayuya smirked cruelly. She could see the little changes in Red's body language which strongly suggested he was considering his options and didn't like any of them. It gave her a warm fuzzy feeling inside.

First thing she needed to do was cripple his defences.

"Hit him with whale song, Bismarck," she said.

She might have been the opposite element, but there had been common ground for them to work from; they both used sound to damage an opponent.

Grimmjow snarled, using Sonido to evade Saix's anger-addled bare-handed attacks. He stopped near Saix's weapon, gripped the handle and pulled.

It was lighter than he expected, but just as unwieldy. He swung it hard, aiming a vicious blow at Saix with the flat of the 'blade'.

Axel's eyes widened as she gave the Aeon that command. He didn't know what Whale Song was, but he was about to.

Oh, it was worse than he imagined. The sound almost caused him physical pain, or seemed to. He gritted his teeth, holding his Chakrams out ahead of him defensively, as though that would do anything to hold back the sound.

When the song faded, he felt drained, though not weakened, not in terms of strength anyway. Whatever that move was, it caused Deprotect and possibly Deshell. That was... bad and it was bad enough that he was at a disadvantage anyway.

He couldn't risk that again. He concentrated his Chakra before the Aeon could make another move and aimed a Silence spell at it, hoping that the metal augmentations the thing wore wouldn't block the effect.

The blow knocked Saix off his feet and he hit the sand with another snarl. The impact left him dazed, and in a lot of pain as earlier injuries caught up with him.

The enemy held his weapon, Aerith was down.... Saix tried to shake the fog from his head and assess the situation.... He could feel the reiatsu of something powerful and water elemental, but it took him a moment to realise it was an Aeon.

This was going very badly.

He fought to get himself back to his feet. He needed to finish this fight and help Lea. He needed to finish this fight and help Lea now.

Bismarck recoiled from the Silence spell as it landed, and Tayuya cursed, "Clever little rat bastard, aren't you?"

Not that it mattered much. It would have been nice to keep using Bismarck's special attack, but she could adjust the plan. Aside from some status effects and physical attacks, this guy probably didn't have much he could use against Bismarck, and that's what she'd been aiming for.

"Boost." She wanted Bismarck's Overdrive.

Grimmjow watched Saix stagger to his feet and allowed himself a smirk when he saw that he was no longer in a berserk state. The blow had effectively knocked him out of it ... good. He'd keep that in mind for future reference.

He concentrated his Chakra while Saix was still reeling, boosting his defences in the process.

Axel didn't know what Boost was, but he didn't like the sound of it. He narrowed his eyes, resigned, and opened his hands. One Chakram stuck in the ground at his side, spikes first. The other dropped just enough for him to grab it by the outside rim.

He brought the other hand up in front of him and concentrated his Chakra, using a hand sign that Aerith had taught him. Flames leapt up around him, first orange and then black. He spun in a half circle, Chakram held out in front of him, and sent a powerful wave of ink-black magic out at the Summoner and her Aeon. It spat and bubbled like boiling oil as it headed for them.

By the time he stilled, his teeth were gritted and he had to force himself not to falter. Darkside was effective, but it hurt.

Bismarck reeled from the attack, and Tayuya winced in sympathy. That was a Dark Knight move, and with Boost in play, sure it would help bring Bismarck to his Overdrive quickly, but it hurt, too.

The thing with Dark Knights, however, was that they hurt the user as well. Resorting to using them meant that Red was gambling on his own strength lasting longer than Bismarck's. Not a comfortable gamble for anyone to have to make against an Aeon.

"Attack!"

Bismarck sailed forward to hit the Ryoka. With Silence, his special move was crippled, but he could still hit hard.

Yylfordt had collapsed back into the sand. He felt weak and shitty, and couldn't find an antidote, which meant either that they were back on the Ragnarok, or that one of the other two was carrying and they were too preoccupied to look yet.

Watching Tayuya work an Aeon was cool. His own approach with Ark had been, essentially, make her hit things until they stopped moving. Tayuya played tactically, though. Yylfordt made a mental note not to go pissing off any summoner class people.

He dug out a potion and cracked it open to keep himself going while Tayuya and Grimmjow did their things. Grimmjow looked like he had the upper hand finally, too.

Saix saw the flames and the blackness from Axel, and scowled. Lea was a self sacrificing idiot; their healer was down, he shouldn't be using techniques which harmed himself except as a last resort.

Except that it was a last resort. Saix scowled further at that realisation, feeling a horrible, cold tightness in his stomach.

His opponent was still holding Lunatic. Having been hit with it once already, Saix was reluctant to run in and get hit with it again. Instead, he paused, catching his breath. He didn't really know what to do now. They were losing.

He didn't want to lose Lea again.

Axel's eyes widened at the Aeon's approach and he scrambled to move aside and avoid the attack heading his way. The size of the whale made it practically impossible. He evaded the worst of it, but cried out as the tips of Bismarck's spear-like Machina protrusions tore through his clothing and the flesh of his arm, the pain driving him to one knee. He gritted his teeth and gripped the Chakram that remained to him in a trembling fist.

He struggled to focus his Chakra enough to cast a Fire spell on himself. At this rate, they'd be lucky to come out of the other side of this battle.

Grimmjow risked a glance at Tayuya's side of the battle. She was okay, and Bismarck was doing its job against the Fire Elemental. He'd seen his Dark Knight techniques in the last battle, so he didn't have any doubt that he'd resort to self-damaging attacks to try and take out the Aeon. It didn't look like he needed to, though. Bismarck was doing a good enough job of shredding him itself. Good.

Yylfordt was suffering, though. He was grounded, and keeping himself going on potions. That was less good.

Grimmjow turned his attention back to the Berserker, wanting to finish the fight quickly. First, he decided that denying him his weapon was a good idea and hurled the Claymore with all his strength as far as he could out into the sands where it stuck in a dune, heavy-end first.

With that taken care of, he steeled himself, raised his sword, and moved in for a vicious attack.

Saix followed the trajectory of the claymore with his eyes, watching as it landed in a dune, far out of reach. Half a moment later it burst into light and disappeared.

Saix held his hand, collecting his chakra into a new copy of the weapon. He could hold the claymore's shape well enough, but over time it would weaken, and if Saix lost contact with the weapon that would happen a lot faster, but Saix, out of all of them who had trained, was the fastest at recreating his weapon once lost.

Saix was already moving to swing as the weapon reformed in his hand, and he channeled chakra down it, letting his enemy run directly into a ranged attack.

Saix realised late that it felt different, that the colour wasn't blue and black like usual but fiery orange and red. His chakra had always taken the shape of flames, but they were cold flames, blue ones, that had no capacity to burn. Now, even Saix could feel the heat as the attack left his weapon and trailed through the air like a flaming ribbon.

It didn't feel like his own chakra, either. He spared a glance in Axel's direction, a silent question forming on his lips.

Tayuya was riding the vindictive high of her enemy's cry of pain, when she felt something off in Grimmjow's direction.

The berserker shouldn't be using fire. The berserker shouldn't be capable of using fire like that. Everything they knew about the berserker said he was non-elemental, and next to never used magic.

She could feel that wasn't the berserker's chakra behind the move. It felt like Red's, and that--

"Grimmjow!"

Grimmjow had his sword raised to block the attack from Saix, but Pantera could do nothing to stop the fire, and he had no time to use any of his Sentinel techniques.

He snarled as the flames seared his flesh, his hierro doing nothing to protect him from the fire. The pain was blinding and the smell of his own burning flesh caught in his nose.

He'd fought Saix enough to know that elemental magic was unlikely to be in his roster, so confusion mixed with the agony of being burned.

Axel cast his own spell to try and boost his recovery time, only dimly aware of what was going on around him. It didn't do much to help. He felt little improvement. The gouges in his arm and side still hurt and blood still leaked through his fingers.

When he felt the strong sensation of a curious familiar Chakra and spell, he looked up.

That was when he heard the Summoner cry out.

Saix didn't understand what had just happened, but he recognised when he had an opportunity he could ill afford to waste. He moved in to launch a brutal attack while his opponent was injured and off his guard.

He needed to finish this fight, because Lea was still in trouble against the Aeon.

Saix raised his claymore and swung, hard, while he had the opening.

With Tayuya's shout, Yylfordt's attention swung to Grimmjow.

Berserker boy using fire moves. Well, that was new. The funny thing was that everyone seemed surprised by it, including Berserker boy, and that was interesting. Shame Ulquiorra wasn't here this time, really.

Yylfordt hurt, but he dragged himself back to his feet. If Grimmjow couldn't rally himself, they were in trouble again. He drew his sword.

Not that he'd last long if he had to re-enter the fight.

"Come on, Grimmjow," he muttered.

Tayuya grit her teeth. Grimmjow was hurt, but she wouldn't lose focus. Her own fight was still going.

"Boost," she hissed to Bismarck.

Red was trying to patch himself up, which meant he was suffering. Good. Tayuya was going to make him and the berserker suffer.

Grimmjow saw the swing in time to get his sword up to block it, hand braced against the flat of his blade. His arms shook as they took the force of the blow and he dug in with his feet for the traction needed to throw his weight behind a move to push it off.

He stood, teeth grit and panting, sword gripped so hard in his hand that his knuckles were white. To his credit, he didn't look down at his chest to see how bad the damage was. There should be time for that later.

The berserker was winning, but all wasn't lost. Grimmjow hadn't yet released. He raised a hand to fire a bala at him, to put some distance between them, and let the bolt fly with a low thrum of sound.

Axel got to his feet.

Aeons were a problem, he decided. He narrowed his eyes at the beast and considered his options. It was immune to Fire, so his natural abilities were useless, and it was large, so basic physical attacks weren't likely to have much effect.

Black Sky was a possibility, but he didn't want to risk damaging Saix or Aerith, not when the former had the upper hand for now. It would likely take out the Al Bhed and debilitate the blue-haired enemy, but it wouldn't be enough to finish off the Aeon or the Summoner.

For one crazy moment he considered using Charon, but he squashed that thought as soon as it came to him. It might not be enough and, if it wasn't, it would leave Saix alone to face the Aeon and his own enemy.

He scowled at the girl pulling the Aeon's strings and raised a hand to cast.

In the end, he settled on Demi.

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