Character Lounge

[Joat]

*OOC: Darn it! Edit ninja’d!*

“Right. Evil angry spirits. Never mind. Leaving you spirits behind now,” I say.

[Boog]

"Awww... Hell." Boogey said, seeing the ominous silhouette and hearing the voices, "You know, creepy is all well and good. I approve of creepy. But does it have to be such stereotypical creepiness? Come up with something new, man." He slowly backed away from the oncoming figure, looking around for some sort of... well, anything useful.

[Joat]

I look at Boogey. “Might you, perchance, be looking for a weapon?”

[Stygian]

The next moment, the floor wrenched under the Boogeyman, and he was flung back like a ragdoll through the doorway behind him into the big hall. On top of him, the huge hall chandelier crashed down, and razor-sharp pieces of glass nailed themselves into him and into the floor.

[Joat]

“Rrgh! Those were my last doses of Samanthium I used back at med bay! Crud and nine tenths!” I go and check to see if Boogey is okay.

[Aisha deCabre]

"You do that," Aisha panted, still looking around frantically and inching her way towards the staircase.  She was walking in a bit of a circular motion with each step, one forward and the other back to check behind her, and then forward again.  Had the floor gone on its own?  The spirits had done it perhaps?  Her mind was starting to build up fear beyond measure.  But the claws on her feet stuck into the floor to anchor her, lest she'd start running and never stop.

Her ears flattened.  She tried to remember her training with Mistress Rynkura...many evil spirits had such tricks.  The panther recited a bit of a mantra, which brought strength back to her legs and sense into her mind, and blocked out the voices with a mustering of concentration.

"I say we just get up out of here and find the exit.  It seems to be doing more damage to wait and think about it."

Her teeth were clenched and the normally short fur on her tail was poofed so it looked like a snaking feather-duster...but otherwise she felt obligated to be one of the sources of strength.

[e_voyager]

the battle over the victor in slightly damages armor  heads downs the crumbling stairs. "hello!" what happened now the victor wonders and his auto repair  kicks int but it would be an hour before he was fulling healing at the rate that it takes complete repairs.> "is anyone ones around?" the victor jumps form place to place looking for a familiar face or a way out of this place.

[Joat]

“Hold on a sec. This may be desperate, but it could work!” Sylver says. He then begins to chant a series of religeous songs, all in the super-fast language of binary.

[Stygian]

Pacing backward, Aisha noticed a tall mirror hanging on the other side of the room. She could see her reflection looking directly back at her. But in that mirror, darkness swirled around her. Eyes were moving in those shadows too, red and filled with malice and evil. Her reflection wrenched, and while nothing happened to her personally, the image of her in the mirror was suddenly struck down and knocked forward on her knees. She couldn't take her eyes off it, as things started clawing at her reflection's face, seeping into its nose and mouth. She watched herself struggle, shaking, biting and tearing at the shadows to no avail, until finally, her image in the mirror collapsed forward on the floor.
   Then, slowly, her reflection pushed back up to its feet, her back turned to them. And when she turned around, an evil smirk was on her face, her eyes glowing that same horrid crimson. She started walking against the mirror's surface... and then stepped through it, her foot setting silently on the floor in front of it.

[Mel Dragonkitty]

Mel was backing her way around the room trying to watch everywhere at once. She could tell how scared she was by the fact that her wings wouldn't stop fluttering. "Saltica, you've seen this before. What happens next?" Then she saw the second Aisha and froze, too scared to move further.

[Joat]

Sylver sees this. Well, the part where the reflection steps into the real world, anyway. “Oh no, you don’t, mirror monster!”

This causes me to look at where Sylver is looking. I draw my sword. I charge at Ahsia (Aisha’s reflection) and Sylver rams into the mirror to shatter it.

[Aisha deCabre]

Aisha was gaping at the spectacle before her, the grandaddy of all shudders having taken her spine over and chilling her to the bone.  She took a few steps back for every step the doppleganger had taken through the mirror...literally through the piece of glass.  The creepiness she felt before now increased twice-fold.

"This isn't happening, this isn't happening, this isn't happening..." the pantheress whimpered, now sensing the dark energy on her own easily without the aid of the tail ring.  Her knuckles despite the black fur on them were almost starch white from gripping the boomerang handle tightly.  The abomination before her moved with the fluid, deadly grace that the real self always did when moving to finish off her victim.

Evil spirit trick!  Had to be, that's all it was!  Aisha's other hand dove into back into the belt, drawing the dragon blade.  She held both weapons in front of her each within a steel grip, still ready to fight if need be, decisions racing through her mind.  Go back downstairs and expose everyone else, or face this alone and run upstairs...and abandon everyone?

"Back off!" she roared, standing and holding her ground while everyone else suddenly charges to her aid.  "Va usted, maldita!" ("Leave, damned!")

((And while we're at it, is there a command for making accented letters and upside-down exclamations here?  ))

[Joat]

I do not take the time to look for a translation for that.

“We won’t let you fight it alone!” Sylver says.

“No, wait. She has a plan. I can tell,” I say.

*OOC: IC Joat has a knack for being dead wrong, doesn’t he?*

[Stygian]

The other version of Aisha just smiled, and started walking against them, drawing out a similar blade in addition to her boomerang.
  "Ah, no voy en ninguna parte, querido. ¿Soy ya dentro de usted, recuerdo?" the doppleganger said with a smile. Another lapse in the light made her eyes stand out against the background as they glowed. "I don't have to fight you, really. But I will, just to show you what you've become...!"
   She rushed at them, the light flickering and making her already snakelike, terribly fast movements harder to follow. She threw her boomerang at Aisha's head, and then made a circular swipe through the air aimed for her legs.

   Salticia simply shouted to Mel:
   "I don't know! You can't foresee this stuff!"

[Joat]

“I hope the real version knows what she’s doing,” I say.

[Boog]

Boogey writhed on the floor, straining against the shards pinning him.
"OW! Owowowowowowowowowow You sonova..." It really just went on like that as he worked at removing the glass. "C'mon, Aisha, you can handle this. It's an imposter, and according to the spider woman she's probably a little less real than me! You can take her!"
A mind, a body, frig, what can I USE? He scrutinized the doppelganger, the strange shadows, everything through which this creature had acted. What can I use?

[Joat]

“You looking for a weapon?” I ask once again.

[Boog]

"It'd be something," Boogey grumbled, "Although I'd also really appreciate someone helping me pull out all this freaking GLASS!" Yeah. Methinks he's cranky.

[Stygian]

Suddenly, something looms over the Boogeyman, a twinkling shape of red and crystal. He can't make out much but rudimentary features from its slim, snaking frame, but he can see clearly what the thing is made of; blood and glass shards compose its entire structure, one sliding and slithering around the other. The thing seems to... smile at him, and then stretches up one arm, forming it into a wicked crystalline spike and readying to thrust it into his head...

[Joat]

After calling on Sylver to defend against the monster, I begin to help pull out the glass. While doing do, I explain, “Alright, the sword may be huge, but it shouldn’t be too much of a problem if held in two hands, since the material is so light. If you’re really strong, you might even manage it with one hand. There is a button on the bottom of the hilt. When it is pressed, the blade will light on fire, though the flames won’t be large enough to reach the hand of the one wielding it. Pressing it again will stop the flames. Don’t worry about me. Claws and fangs are enough weaponry for me.”

[Aisha deCabre]

Aisha kept her eyes focused totally on the abomination from the mirror.  It was indeed almost like she was a carbon copy...even her language was flung back with the same deep and smooth intonation and prowess.  It was trying to intimidate her, and so far it was doing a fair job.  When the sword was drawn, she almost wanted to cringe and give up.  So she...it...has my arsenal.  The panther's ears perked up then.  So maybe she'd use my strategies?

Her feet were like coiled springs, as was her opponent's, it looked like.  Her senses, however a little disturbed by everyone else and her own fear, were on a hair trigger.  Chica, fight with your senses intact or you're gonna be six feet in the dirt!

It lunged, using all of the power that she herself had, and her eyes followed.  The boomerang was the first to be released, straight for her head, but her eyes were on the weapon that would really catch her...the sword.  She could neither duck nor jump...but swerve, yes.

Aisha's feet released and in the same sort quickness moved off sideways, opposite the direction her doppleganger's sword was going, avoiding both.  It wasn't fast enough to not catch her...the blade sunk a little into the skin of her leg, and the boomerang sliced off a few inches of her fringe, but she kept going as if it hadn't hit at all.  Her dragon blade came up briefly to intercept the whirling thing with a CLANG and cause it to fly off in another direction altogether.

In three steps she had flanked her opponent, the dragon blade coming down in a horizontal slice to its side in passing, a silver blur hitting the apparition's left leg at the base of the body.  Her own boomerang came up as she leaped behind to the other side, aiming to knock the weapon from its hand...or perhaps slice the hand off.

Don't stop moving, whatever you do! Aisha chided her mind.

[Joat]

The glass is all pulled out. I hand Boogey the sword. Then, without warning, I transform into a wolf. “Being an alien hybrid has its perks,” I say. I then look at Aisha. “Maybe I was wrong about her having a plan. Or maybe THAT was part of her plan, too. Hm…” I think.

[Stygian]

The doppelganger was caught from the side, but doing exactly what Aisha herself would have done, it used its momentum to twist around and make a forward leap away from the blade. But the sword still took, making a gash along its side. The thing rolled up on its feet again, pressing a hand to its side. It then looked at it, the blood on its hand...
   "Mmmm... warm..." it said, and much to Aisha's disgustance licked it off not with a tongue but a number of little black tendrils from its mouth. Then it smiled, and leapt at her again, this time moving in a circular pattern and using its feet for kicking as well as the sword.

   The blood-glass creature snaked back from the Boog and the scientist, and curling up into a ball of sorts, and then whipping out with its form, flung out hundreds of shards of glass, sharpened like razors at them. The things twinkled as they sped through the air like a deadly rain.

   In the roof, the lightbulbs start to pop, and darkness settles. But sparks fly off of them, sparks that unreasonably enough do not extinguish when they reach the floor, but set it on fire. And the shadows seem to crawl into them...

[Joat]

I transform into what seems to be a fox and teleport myself, Sylver, and Boogey in a puff of smoke to a safe distance. Then, when the shards stop, I teleport back there in a puff of smoke. Though I am directly in the fire, I do not seem to be harmed at all by it.

Then my eyes go wide and I say to myself, “Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, STUPID! Why didn’t I think of this when the Chrono Drive broke down?”

[Mel Dragonkitty]

Mel realized she had backed herself into a corner once again. Ironically the same corner from which she had watched the earlier events unfold. She stumbled over one of the gouges her claws had made during the mental attack. She could see Aisha and her doppleganger and Boogey now had a glass monster but she was too scared to even think of how to help. The green glow seemed more solid now and she couldn't locate any of the others though she knew they were near. Then she saw the fire and her brain shut down entirely. Fear drove her to her native form at the sight of an ice dragon's greatest enemy. She hissed mindlessly at the monster.

[Joat]

I teleport to Mel, then put my paw on her and attempt to teleport the both of us away from there.

[Stygian]

You couldn't. Your teleports had been getting harder and harder... and now it seemed like trying to dive through tar. It was simply... too hard.
   The fire on the floor, now the only source of light in the room, crackled with crimson and amber flames, growing larger and larger. It started... melding with the shadows, and changing its shape. It grew larger and more solid, taking on a quadrupedal shape. Its neck lengthened, wings sprouted...
   When it turned against Mel, the thing was about equal her size and shape, a glowing, roaring fire the shape of a dragon, breathing fumes and advancing slowly on her. And from behind her, she noticed, the wall seemed to be... moving. Sharp things stung at her back.

[Joat]

“A flame monster, eh? Now this I can handle!” I say. “But then, my flame attacks will be null and void. Oh, well.”

I lunge at the flame monster, prepared to bite.

[Aisha deCabre]

Aisha was matching her opponent's moves blow-for-blow, never winded or exhausted yet, but high on the adrenaline that always happened when she was embroiled in a fast, hard rush of flashing weapons and up-to-the-second reflexes.  Steel met steel as the creature's sword and feet were parried by Aisha's own dual-wielded weapons.  With every second that passed, the panther stopped thinking of this creature as a carbon-version of herself and more like just another demon to take down.

This thing had her skills, but it couldn't have had all of her memories...this thing didn't train with the most powerful healer and swordswoman in the home region.  It didn't have years of good advice locked away in the brain to call upon at certain times.  In this, Aisha convinced herself that she had the advantage.

It was then that she happened to remember something funny that Rynkura had told her when she was still young and all too eager, and sometimes advice she didn't follow:  "I don't care if you think it looks dramatic and neat, child, you shouldn't always fight with a cape when you're in a close fight with something fast."

This was something that the other "Aisha" hadn't caught on while mirroring the real thing's arrogance.  The huntress hid a smirk and while continuing to parry, loosened her own cape.  Another blow parried by the boomerang, she tossed her wrist back and threw it at its head.  As predicted from before, its eyes were elsewhere, following the sword as it dodged the whirling blade.

It was that moment of weakness that gave it to her.  Aisha leaped into the other's blind spot quicker than it could follow, her own cape falling from around her neck so that it wouldn't be a hindrance.  Aided by the slowness of the other due to the bleeding leg, She grabbed the opponent's cape and carried the momentum as she whirled around, turning it into a "living" slingshot.  It tripped onto the floor and was anchored by Aisha's foot.  Heh, so THAT'S why she told me that.

"Tu mueres ahora," Aisha sneered and her sword sliced downward, aimed for the chest while the neck was pretty much pinned by the cloth.

[Mel Dragonkitty]

Mel didn't even notice the little thing at her feet with the monster in front of her filling her entire mind. Her tail lashed at the wall behind her as she roared and sprayed the monster with shards of ice.