My helmet shattered against the ghoul as his headbutt made impact. The shards were strewn across the battlefield, half melted from the inside. I tried to catch my breath, taking a few steps back. It was getting harder to breathe and I couldn't help but notice how dry my mouth felt, despite the next bit of blood I spat out in conviction. As if on queue, the glowing gem on my chest began beeping even more rapidly. I didn't have the Doc's feed anymore, but I knew what that meant. I didn't have much time left.

"I get it, I get it. Shut up." I knocked on the gem stone, "I'll finish this with the next one."

I breathed in deep, pulling my arms back, charging my energy as hard as I could. "Burning!" A loud and long beep exuded from the suit as the glowing finally dispersed from around me, including the radiant energy welling up in my hands. "No, No! NO!" My vision began blurring as parts of my suit that had been under stress from the radiant energy finally gave way, crumbling and falling away. My mouth felt so dry and parched. I wanted to shout louder but it already felt like passing sandpaper through my esophagus with every breath I took. I fell forward, my eyes slowly beginning to close.

As your light fades, I grow stronger. Don't worry, I'll protect you.

It was that voice from earlier... The one that told me to trust the ghost. I slowly nodded along, fighting to keep my eyes open. I couldn't help but notice, I hadn't fallen to the ground. Instead I noticed bits of odd black energy extending from the ground, holding me up somehow. "That's new..." Once I had regained my composure and could stand on my own, the black energy began working it's way along my body. It wrapped around the crumbling portions of my suit, reinforcing the fragments and coating my gauntlets like some sort of arm wrap.

"BUR-!" I pivoted one foot behind me, taking a running stance towards the ghoul. "-NING!" I launched myself directly towards the ghoul, forgetting everything else for a moment. With every step I took, shadows sprung out from my feet, attempting to add a spring to my step. I wasn't quite sure how to use this new power, it didn't seem like a direct translation for my radiant energy. Yet, when I focused on needing to go higher, two shadow tendrils sprung up, grabbing onto a building from either side of me, vaulting me up. It was like I was thinking of what I wanted to do, and someone else was trying to figure out how to do it. It was a bit jarring, especially as the tendrils took me to the apex of my height, and began pulling back even further. It was just then that I realized the tendrils were using me like some sort of makeshift slingshot, Oooh yeah, that should add a nice oomf to my-

"ATTACK!"

The tendrils pulling me back let go, as the ones acting like a sling shot began picking up speed. I aimed a downward strike at the Ghoul, hoping to smash him into the ground and put an end to this. I panted heavily, clutching at my chest as I stood there waiting for the dust to clear for my attack.

"Version... Shadow Smash... Did I do it?"


Current: STR 8 | DEX 7 | CON 8 | WIS 02 | INT 05 | CHA 23

Abilities (Power 53 | Base 73)

Shadow Whip: [Tier 0] Tendrils erupt from Shouichi's shadow, allowing him to grab onto things and minorly manipulate objects. Tendrils have 75% ability power when manipulating external objects, ie weapons, people, items. Tendrils have Shouichi's 100% ability power if they are only moving him, ie using the tendrils as makeshift grappling hooks to swing himself(no passengers), help him climb up a wall, or even tendril pushups.

ExSEED (Debuff) Tier 1: Shouichi releases the safety limiters on the suit, allowing it to perform at super mortal levels. Negative stat abilities are avoided for as long as the ability is continuously in use. If ability is stopped, and reused, negative stats are stacked upon deactivation of second use. +10 STR, +10 DEX while in use. -5 Str, Dex, Con, Wis upon post after each successive continuous use of ability.

Eslia barely registered what was going on as the sharp pain thrummed in her chest as she tried to keep her breathing even. She figured it was time to back off a little bit she wasn't going to be able to physically help out in this condition. With much effort she stood trying to make her way closer to the entrance of the alley. She kept producing *little orbs of light just above the ground so she would not see the bodies. Essi was trying to make more conscious decisions to keep her from panicking as she could only imagine what kind of state hyperventilating would put her in right now.


(OOC:
*Tier 0 - She can produce small orbs of light that stagger in size and disperse quickly they are various colors and are varied on how bright they are she mostly uses it for glamour for her shows as they typically trail her hands/finger tips)

Tom would accept the machete from the helpful man, feeling its balance in his hand. Broad blade, heavier at the top, sharpened tip, handle guard... Yes. This would do.

"Crazy... yeah well, sometimes crazy is all that you have left for options. Dunno about you, but anyone willing to go for a kid? They need to get put down. Hard."

With that, Tom would turn on his heel and bolt back to the fight, activating his Ghostfloat to suspend himself from gravity's hold and running up the nearest wall carefully (thank you shoes with good traction) to the roof. Once there he would carefully move along the top, once more intangible to reduce noise, observing the fight. If the ghoul got free from the grapple and got back up from the repeated attacks, Tom would throw himself at top speed from the rooftop straight at the ghoul, blade in both hands tip aiming for its torso, remaining intangible until the last moment to maintain his acceleration and remove any sound from his passing.

If no such opening presented itself... Tom would merely watch and wait until such an opening did, and then perform the diving blade attack, or watch the ghoul fall. He didn't need to be the one to kill him, he just needed him gone.

((OOC: Ability use 1/4

Tier 1: Ghostfloat: Tom can temporarily suspend gravity for himself and objects in his possession, freeing him from the burdens of the world's gravitational pull. For 2 posts, Tom and any non sentient objects in his possession are not subject to gravity. Note, he cannot suspend gravity for others; only himself.))

Yeva would reverse her grip on the knife after seeing the effects it really had. Seemed like the best option for her would be to go all in. She would create a red magic circle on herself before moving forth to jam the knife into any solid piece of the torso of this creature she could and twist it, really try and produce a wound worth something.

The thought of it made a slight smirk appear.

((OoC: STR: 17 (37) | DEX: 16 | CON: 20 | WIS: 14 | INT: 10 | CHA: 6

Trash Goblin Knife: +10 Str

Enhancement Circle - Yevva can place a color coded Magic circle on a person which increases a single stat by +10. She can only place one Circle on a person at a time, and only one of each color at out one time. +10 Str
2/2

Anora would manage to make it to Eslia without worry, narrowly avoiding tripping over Sneeze.

Potage would manage to force the man's head up despite the pain they felt, especially when combined with Rowan's Critical Hit To The Nads, causing the villain to lose any ability to defend themselves temporarily as they screamed in pain against Potage's arm.

This opening would allow the others to make their moves. Shouichi's attack would be able to strike full force, but the impact would be enough that it would cause the man's body to jerk violently, throwing Potage off of him and into safety from the coming blades. As the man moved upright after the impact, Yeva's blade would strike him, that searing against his flesh happening once more as the blade ignited his skin. At the same time, Runa's blade would stab from the front, piercing his chest, albeit with great difficulty. It was Tom's attack from above, stabbing the man in the back with his jump attack, pushing him further into Runa's blade and causing it to pierce his heart with the intense momentum as both blades would meet their mark from either side.

The man would fidget and squirm between their attacks as blood dripped from his wounds, trailing down the blades before he smiled, gasping out blood as he spoke.

"It was... a beautiful hunt... my dearest wife, if only I could... eat you again..."

He would slump over into the blades, his body ceasing all movement as he lay dead. The Ghoul was beaten, though the scars he left on the Bleeding Heart may never heal.

In the far distance down the street, a white haired man would be watching, turning to walk away when the killing blow was dealt.

[OOC: The event portion concludes with this final attack. Congratulations! Use the remaining rounds for closing posts or checking on your allies. There is no need to wait for a GM any longer for posts. Rewards will be going out soon.]

After landing his attack, Tom watched and listened as the ghoul died from the combination of blows it just took, the final blows being the swords impaled into either side of his torso. Not letting go of the handle, Tom would carefully lower himself to the ground, well aware he was still ignoring gravity and using the sword as an anchor point. Once both feet were on the ground, he would tug once before frowning, realizing the issue inherent with what he just did.

"One less psychopath on these streets. Could someone help me get this sword out? I... didn't think this through and I need to return it to the guy I borrowed it from. I'm not strong enough to tug it free, fuck I think I might have hit bone with that hit..."

As he spoke, Tom would tug the sword a few more times futilely to demonstrate his point before releasing it for someone else to help him, making sure his feet never left the ground.

Yeva pulled the knife free and tried to inspect it. What quality did it have that burned the guy when the steel made contact? Made no sense to her, but she would reach down to the guys clothes and use them to clean the knife. She would need to investigate that further. She would give Rowan a nod of recognition before leaving.

There was too much going on here, too many people, and too many questions. She needed to think and figure out if she really gave a shit. She got involved out of instinct, and the likelihood Albert would of sent her to deal with it anyways. Murders happen all the time, people go free who should be hung all the time, this was just another thing.

This knife would be inspected much further for markings or maybe someone in the underground would know more about it.

My eyes widened, the thing was still moving, even though I barely could. I thought as I hard as I could about stepping forward, shadow tendrils manipulating my limbs like a marionette, you know if puppet strings came from the ground instead of the sky. If I'm being honest, it was kind of uncoordinated but it was getting the job done. However before I cold wind up for another attack multiple blades pierced through the fiend.

"Jeez... Glad that's over. Thanks." I politely thanked one of the shadow tendrils as it wiped some sweat from my brow. "Wait. Where did you come from?"

The shadow tendrils all completely froze for a moment as if caught in the middle of some guilty act. Then almost faster than I could comprehend all of the shadow tendrils began rescinding back into my shadow. That included the ones holding my armor together, wiping my brow, and holding me standing up. That meant that I began falling forward.

"R-right... I could use a nap anyways." I said, too tired to do anything to stop myself from falling face first into the street, my armor falling apart and crumbling away as it had done before the shadow bandage. But then I remembered something that made me want to fight the sleep that began encroaching me. My eyes struggling to try and stay open. "Ah. Wait... I gotta make sure everyone else... who fought him... is okay..."

Essi looked at Anora with gratitude. She would gently pat her helper's hand and spoke with great effort.

"Us non-combatants are useful in many ways. Any effort we manage to make is a success in one way or another."

The redhead didn't know if she was saying that to lift her savior's spirits after such a horrid experience or if she was trying to convince herself. After all she felt nearly useless the majority of the time. Despite her guilt and shame-riddled thoughts she offered Anora a small smile.

"Thank you."