Final Fantasy: Darkness Descends

[ChobiChibi]

Blaaaaaargh!

Shayna~

Although this place was a little creepy and rather annoying in the way it didn’t seem to end, Shay couldn’t help but feel excited. The prospect of there being treasure at the end, the idea of it being enforced in her mind by the ramblings of Sirius and Adair, was too great for her that she couldn’t help but seem a little hyperactive on the outside. On the inside, she would have to admit that she was like a Labrador puppy, bounding around, tail wagging frantically, wanting to sniff at everything, waiting for someone to just throw the bloody ball already!

As well as this, anxiety began to settle in the back of her mind. Selene was the closest person to being her friend in this situation, despite the fact she was from Ivalice. Shay knew that if she dared to share her opinion on the matter of the “pirates”, she would probably be disowned. The simple fact was, she was fascinated by the pair. Who wouldn’t want to just spend their days flying around and hunting for treasure? It sounded like an ideal existence to her. Of course it was illegal... She does the exact same thing herself on a smaller scale; she couldn’t deny the fact that it was wrong... It didn’t stop her being a thief, which would make her just as bad as Sirius and Adair in Selene’s book.

But of course, they thought she was a ninja, not a thief. It would have to stay that way.

A Ninja-thief. She corrected herself, taking a stroll around this new room. I could be something cooler... Ninja-assassin... Her line of thought was broken as the sound of metal clashing with stone echoed around the room. Looking back towards the table, she saw Selene’s mysterious body-guard, katana in hand, his eyebrows twitching.

“Seta, what the hell are you doing?”

Shay giggled quietly. At least she wasn’t the only one that embarrassed Selene. With her treasure hunting mode back in full swing, she skipped over to the table, peering at all the symbols. Convinced that Seta was merely doing it wrong and that she could obviously figure it out, she began to press the buttons in as many combinations as her overexcited mind would let her.

“So this machina also accidently pressed the right combination of buttons too?” Shay asked the Al Bhed girl, Nii, her frustration just about coming through into her voice.

“He must have done...” Was her reply as she moved closer.

Taking a deep breath and biting her lip, she tried her hardest not to comment further, but failed miserably. Letting the air out in one rather large, continuous sigh, she added: “It’s a conspiracy... Machina aren’t meant to think for themselves... Stupid bloody machines...”

Bugger...

She noted an unimpressed expression on Nii’s face, lined with a little shock. “No, what I meant was!” She began, talking rather quickly. “I’ve got nothing against the Al Bhed themselves!” Liar. “I just don’t trust the machina, that’s all...” Stop digging a hole...

She merely rolled her eyes and sighed a little. To be honest, Shay couldn’t blame her. What Al Bhed could say they have never received any discrimination before?

“Sorry...” Shay smiled sheepishly, trying her best to lighten the mood. “I didn’t mean to cause offense...” She poked another random button on the table, frowning as she got no response. “Maybe we should all try?”

With Selene to her left, Seta opposite her and Nii to her right, they began to press more combinations of buttons, the four of them picking one each. But of course, that didn’t work either...

“For crying out loud...” Selene muttered. “How hard can this be?”

A sudden brain wave hit the young ninja. She placed both hands on the table and hoisted herself up, turning herself around and sitting on it, covering most of the buttons. Her grin soon faded as the room remained exactly the same. She glanced around at the others before taking another look around the room, still perched on her new chair. “I give up. There has to be something we’re missing here...”

~~
Blaaaargh!
I give anyone and everyone permission to shove her off the table... >_>
YAY Page 2!

[Crystal Tears]

Selene

To be honest, Selene was getting sick of this groups horrible luck. She wanted to go home, a thought no doubt crossing others’ minds. She was particularly afraid of what would happen when and if this table did something other than sit there and become a bench for Shayna. The princess huffed quietly, intent on figuring out the problem rather than getting extraordinarily angry at the thing.

Though that was proving harder than what it should’ve been. Selene had to admit to herself, she was spoiled, and before this there was NO problem she couldn’t solve by using one of three methods:

1) Get angry
2) Get violent
3) Ask Seta

Selene hated old world technology, it focused on old magics and spells that were useless for the most part (aka Spiran ‘technology’), and if they did it, they were down right annoying. Her father had said that she should learn about them, and she had a little, one her adventures with Seta, which more or less resulted in him telling her about exactly what they were facing. But from his current actions she highly doubted that her bodyguard knew anything about this.

There was, only one symbol she recognized on the table. It looks somewhat like a snake holding a lantern, but she had pressed that button with no avail. Maybe this table was broken, and was refusing them because it didn’t know the code either.

That’s a negative idea Selene… She thought to herself as she stepped up to the table again. There’s no way out of here, you’re going to die if it’s broken. The woman bit her lip nervously and gestured for the ninja to get off the table. Shayna did so quietly, and stood to the right of Selene as the princess stood there silently, ignoring the back chatter of the group as she stared at the keyboard. Hand up to her mouth as she thought.

What the hell did the snake-lantern mean? Light? Maybe, it’s kind of dark in here. But I tried… She looked over at a small round button on the side of the table-top; it was covered in dust, but not as much as other buttons. I wonder..
She pressed the button, and the rest of the buttons popped up. Shayna sort of jumped when it happened.

“What was that?”

“A reset button…” Selene answered to her. “I think…”

“What’d you do?”

Selene looked to her left to see a Moogle fluttering by her shoulder. “I reset the board.”

“How handy…” He frowned, landing on the edge of the board as to not touch the buttons. “Anything else?”

Selene reached out and pressed the button again, it sunk low into the table and suddenly the room lit up. More torches on the walls sparked to left and suddenly everything could see the elaborate designs on the wall, particularly of a massive beast with people seemingly dying around it.

“Friendly, ain’t he?” Adair called from the back, moving forward to peer at it like it was a masterpiece in an art museum.

Shayna visibly paled, Sori blinked, and Selene didn’t exactly know what to think.

“What the hell is that?” Selene questioned, coming ‘round to the other side of the keyboard to gaze up at the massive mural.

“Looks like a lizard.” Shayna pipes up from behind her.

Oh how incredibly helpful, I turn the lights on to reveal a giant mural of a doom lizard. Selene frowned at herself and turned back to the keyboard in frustration, then looked at the group for a second and sighed deeply. We’re gonna die…

~ ~ ~

My dear sister will post the next plotty jumpy thingy, but you’re welcome to post in between. ^^

[classy_cat18]

Sori - Time Mage Moogle
About to get cabin fever

At first, I thought this was just a little obstacle and that it wouldn't be too hard to figure out the keyboard.

Ten minutes later, I was itching to knock the nearest person out (preferably one of the pirates) with my rod. I distracted myself by pacing restlessly around the room, then fluttering around the room like a crazed bat. I finally tired myself out and sat on Batilis's shoulder.

"Maybe the keyboard just works for Kumas," Nii muttered as she sat near us. "He's been acting weird since we arrived here. He walked up here on his own...there was that stuff he was doing on the ice...and then he seems to know how to get around here on his own."

"Wait. Please don't be thinking that we're trapped here without him," Sirius told her.

"Maybe he came from here," she continued.

Her thinking was interrupted when Selene started pressing buttons. The group turned their attention to her. I fluttered to her to she what she did. "What'd you do?"

"I reset the board," she answered.

"How handy..." I landed and looked at the strange keys. "Anything else?"

She pressed it again. The room lit up and revealed a strange mural of a not-so-friendly scene. A giant lizard beast was having its fun slaughtering people. That's...not a good sign.

"It could be worse," Shayna reasoned. "We could be trapped in the room with the monster."

"Don't make this worse, kupo!" I yelled. "Forget the damned treasure and that heap of walking metal; I want out of here!"

"Nii is not leaving Kumas!" Nii shouted back.

I groaned and stamped my feet in frustration. "Did you ever think that Kumas was luring you here? He wants us to be eaten, kupo!"

A few people looked at Nii as she glared at me, then softened her expression to one of worry. Batilis came behind me and picked me up by the collar of my shirt. "This one does not think he is helping us."

I yanked myself from his hold and flew closer to the mural. Maybe there was something hidden that could get us back to where we were...

[Pichu Luver]

Adair Stroud

“Absolutely ridiculous I say! Locked in a room with only a mean beasty for company. Excluding most of the present company of course.” Adair spared the briefest of glares in Selene's direction.

Thus Adair stopped his critique of the mural masterpiece and meandered over to the keyboard. After seeing just how the people were being eaten, tortured, pulled apart, killed, ravaged, thrown, burned and excreted Adair believed he had the answer. No one spared any attention for him of course. For if the brilliant minds of Selene and basically anyone else could not figure it out, what hope had Adair?

Every hope of course because fools are just too ingenious.

He reached the keyboard and studied the keys with utmost care. Sirius came up to him and said,

“Any ideas Adair?” For Adair could always be counted on for ideas, just not plans.

“Some my Captain! I do believe I shall be getting us out of here post haste!”

Siruis was of course skeptical, he just knew Adair too well. Hence his left brow was lifted and doubt was all over his slightly bloody features. Adair grinned and went back to his study of the exasperating keyboard.

With the greatest of dignity he lifted a finger with flair and pomp and pushed in one key which looked to him the utmost likeness of himself. He would never say so though, for the others would be too jealous and in awe of his grandeur.

That it was a swirl with a couple of dots did not mean his mind needed to be examined in detail.

And nothing happened.

“Alas! We need more victims for the monster! My grand self would not fill this beast. Come forth my fellow victims!”

Everyone looked at him like he was crazy. Thankfully though Sirius--to save himself the indignity of saying he hired a idiot--looked over the keyboard and pressed a button. Then Shayna bounced over and decided it seemed like a fun idea and also pushed one. Slowly everyone came over and hit a key for there really was nothing better to try.

Still nothing happened.

Then the button for the lights popped up and a rumble echoed through the chamber that sounded eerily like the noise a awakening dragon would make. The lights went out and blue lighting took its place at the foot of the walls. A wall split in two and slid open, revealing another teleport crystal.

“Skies and fair ladies!” cried Adair and he rushed forward. Others made similar cries of glee and a few ran forward as well.

Then, as it of course would, the opening slammed shut.

“Arrrrrrrrrrrrrgh!”

Adair crumpled into a ball, sliding to a stop against the wall. Other less fortunate individuals tripped over him and slammed into it.

While they were groaning Adair hastily got to his feet and backed away, least any fists or slaps came his way. Then the chamber groaned again and started to shrink in size.

“ADAIR!” they all cried, murderous eyes meeting his. He gave them a hasty bow and backed into the wall with the mural on it.

“We almost got free! Where's the fun in killing us with no attempt at freedom? Surely there must be a point!” he said, his voice getting smaller and smaller as they came at him.

Then once more the cave came to his rescue and the mural opened up behind him. With an undignified shout he tumbled backwards down the hole. He was not there to see it but the whole room tilted, the keyboard retracting into the floor. A few were successful for a time in not sliding down the ramp but eventually they all fell down the hole.

Adair got a few bruises in his tumble down the hole, and he could hear the shouts and curses of others in a similar predicament. When he thought it would never end the hole spat him out into a narrow but very long room. It was also lit by blue lights in the bottom of the wall and had all manner or creepy things painted on the walls.

He got to his feet, brushing himself off when he heard cries of pain from behind him. He leaped aside and who came sliding out of the hole but Shayna! He grinned and made to help her up and she being the bubbly sort had already forgiven him.

“Any idea where we are fair lady?”

OK! This is how the groupings shall be:

Selene + Sori
Temzi + Seta
Laevra + Niosa
Batilis + Sirius
Adair + Shayna

I love randomizers. XD There's also a over abundance of i's in those names above. Hmm. Anyway go forth and attempt to survive the Labyrinth. No you can't get out until CT or I say so, but any manner of unpleasant things that can possibly kill you may happen to your characters. Channel your inner Indiana Jones I say! You're in each room only about two minutes before it starts to squish so be fast hmm?

Oh and if there is no posting without explanation we are unfortunately not guaranteeing your characters' survival. So you know, Tower, PM's... email... chat things... etc...

Later!

CT's lovely message: Chironu is with Kumas, as you wanted. If you have ideas for Chironu please PM me or some such. :3

Have fun and dun die everybody ^^

[Crystal Tears]

Selene

Selene didn’t really appreciate the floor dropping out from under her, the slant was almost so steep Selene couldn’t keep upright to glide down, but she managed to keep her balance. Desperately she reached out and grabbed a ledge, clinging to it madly as people around her fell into different hallways which split off from the main slide. The slant of continued to grow as Selene supposed the place realized someone was desperately holding on, she didn’t want to fall into the darkness, especially because of the high chance of their being a doom lizard down there.
Then of course, as her luck was truly that bad, a Moogle fell straight into her chest, and her grip slipped. So much that now her fingers were the only thing really preventing either of them from falling.

“Why the hell aren’t you flying?” She growled, struggling to hold on.

“There’s some sort of magical land-lock!” Sori snapped in response. “I *can’t* fly!”

As Selene lost her grip, there was a moment, she had perfect balance and almost seemed to hover in the air. “Yeah, well…” She frowned. “Neither can I.”

She didn’t particularly like falling, especially not with a Moogle clinging to her like she was some sort of cushion. Selene was well aware that her landing wasn’t going to be pleasant, but she couldn’t help but feel as if she had already tumbled a ways before, and this was only going to be a short drop.

A loud thump seemed to signal the lights to slowly flicker on; Selene laid there for a moment. Taking a couple of deep breaths, she dared to lift herself up. She was surprised to find herself in a smaller rectangular room that had about four hallways spawning from it. What was more surprising was that the Mog had abruptly vanished.

“Sori?”

“Over here!”

Selene looked to her left and saw the creature standing in the doorway to a hallway. But the Moogle didn’t seem too interested in heading down it. Quickly the woman got to her feet and wandered up behind him.

“What’s up?”

Sori looked up at her and looked back down the hall. “Got a weird feel to it.”

“It does?”

“You’re Hume, so I wouldn’t expect you to understand.” He frowned, which cause the woman to roll her eyes. “But this hall feels different.”

“Bad different?”

“Uh huh.”

Selene turned away from the hall and looked at the others. “Alright, so let’s pick another.”

“That’s just it,” He turned, his arms crossed. “All of them are like that; they all feel as if they’re waiting for some unlucky fool to step in them.”

“Great…” She took out her gun and twirled it a little, if only to relax herself a bit. “So we’re stuck.”


It was then the entire room shook, and what sounded like gears and other various contraptions echoed through the halls. The shock was overthrown by abrupt panic and fear as the floor began to rise and a couple pillars of the room shrank. Selene bolted for the closest door, coughing a little as she inhaled probably a thousand year old dust. Sori quickly scampered over to her, slipping into the hallway right after her.

“How fast can you run?” Selene questioned, looking at the shifting hallway.

“Uhh-“

“Not fast enough.” She scooped up the Moogle and bolted down the hallway. Spikes from the walls shot out just behind her, quickly catching up to the duo.

“Run faster!!” He ordered, glancing over her shoulder to see that the ceiling was slamming down behind them in sections.
Then it became apparent, that no matter how fast one could run, one wasn’t quite fast enough to beat this place on their own. Not without some such of holy intervention and dumb luck.

Having a spell cast on you is an interesting feeling, or so Selene thought. She could feel her heart begin to pound faster and her muscles were suddenly looser and much more ready and willing to sprint then before. As a spike shot out from before her she threw herself into a headlong roll, hitting the ground the pain felt like nothing but more motivation for her body to keep up this ridiculous speed. She scrambled up; with Sori clinging to her the woman literally dove into the next room as the hallway disappeared behind them.

As she put him down, the Mog looked rather peeved, checking his pom-pom and shooting a glare at Selene.

“What?” She questioned with a *slight* edge.

“You touched my pom-pom.”

“You were going to die.” She frowned. “Mogs aren’t known for their speed when running.”

He seemed to almost puff up in annoyance, a feature that amused Selene, but she kept her cool and looked around at the new room. Noting to herself that she was getting better at keeping calm towards people, though this was all because soon enough they would escape this and she would be home, and she would NEVER leave the manor again. Of course she thought this and then noted with the haste spell she might look like she was hyperventilating, and a bit antsy.

“Alright,” Selene turned to the little creature, who was also scanning the room. “Which way?”

~~~~

Description of place: a massive, shifting maze with lots of traps and multiple levels. Every two minutes it shifts, rooms or hallways can have traps, or both, if you really want to torture your chars.

[ChobiChibi]

Shayna~ The Adventures of the Drunkard and the Retard~

Shay really hadn’t enjoyed the last few moments of her life. She had been one of the first to slip down the hole, crashing harshly into the walls with every twist and turn, unable to stop herself. She was relieved to see the light at the end just before she hit the floor with a thud. She looked up to find the man that had gotten them into this new predicament standing beside her, offering her a hand up and grinning. She couldn’t hold anything against him though; she probably would have done the exact same thing.

“Any idea where we are fair lady?” Adair asked the rather disorientated girl as he helped her to her feet.

The fair lady simply shrugged, taking a look around the room. It was more like a corridor, with another door at the end of it. “I don’t know...” She mumbles, her eyes catching a particularly graphic and gory painting on the wall. “But I don’t like it. Maybe we can head back?”

She turned around, climbing back into the hole and peering upwards. Her first observation was that it was black. Pitch black. The second, therefore, she had to make by touching the walls, finding they were quite slippery and quite steep. Sighing, she climbed back out and faced her new companion. “I guess the only way is forwards! Off we go!”

“To freedom!” He exclaimed, raising his beloved hipflask in the air before taking a quick swig, following behind her.

In order for her not to get too scared by the paintings and the whole situation, Shay paid more attention to the floor and where her feet were going more than anything else. She noticed one of the bricks in the floor protruding out, so decided that once she reached it, she should stand on it, just for the sake of it. As she did, it sunk perfectly back into place, a rather loud CLICK echoed around the hallway. She turned back to Adair. “What do you think-”

With no more than a quick outcry of “Shayna!”, Adair grabbed hold of her arm and violently pulled her backwards, causing her to fall ungracefully onto her bottom. For a moment she frowned, annoyed at the pirate’s sudden outburst, but once she saw the axe swinging from one side of the corridor to the other in the exact same place that she had been standing, she soon changed her tune.

“Thanks...” She smiled at him as she stood up, brushing herself off again. Both of their friendly smiles seemed to fade quite quickly as they took another look down the corridor, noticing that it hadn’t been just one giant, swinging axe that had appeared, but about a dozen, maybe less, razor sharp blades were now gliding through the air, blocking their path.

“We’re going to be sliced up like tomatoes for the lizard’s convenience...” Adair spoke, breaking their moment of stunned silence.

She frowned as he took another swig from his hipflask. “Now’s not the time for Dutch courage!”

“There’s always time for Dutch courage, fair lady!” Was his reply as he put it away. “The more time, the better!”

Shay watched them carefully, noticing that they all seemed to swing a few seconds after each other in the order that they were placed. “If we run at the exact right time, we should be able to get to the other side.” She explained, trying to focus on the exact rhythm.

The reply she received was rather muffled and inaudible, so she turned around, only to find Adair on his hands and knees with his head stuck up the hole. “I told you, we’ll never get out that way...” She rolled her eyes as she walked towards him, his hipflask catching her eye, sticking out his back pocket. With light and nimble fingers, she removed it carefully, placing it in her bag. “Come on, Adair, it’ll be fine!” She tugged on his trench coat. “We can do this! For Spira!”

“For Spira!” he exclaimed as he stood up, grinning from ear to ear.

With their morals now boosted, they stood a few feet away from the first swinging axe, with Shayna studying their movement carefully. Once she figured out the pattern, she spoke. “Right, run after three...” She takes a deep breath. “And by run, I mean sprint.” She added. “Ready? One... Two... THREE!”

With a quick burst of agility, Shay sprinted towards the other side of the room and, just as she’d predicted, missed every single blade. She grinned at the other end, trying to catch her breath. “We did it Adair!” She congratulated, looking up to face her companion.

Only he wasn’t there.

She was pretty sure he would have screamed if he’d been impaled by an axe, so she turned around to find him at the start, looking quite pale. As she opened her mouth to speak, Adair quickly cut in. “I can’t do that! I don’t want to be lizard food! Especially not freshly prepared lizard food!”

“I did it!”

“But you’re a Ninja!”

“What happened to ‘For Spira!’?” She frowned. She sighed a little, but her expression soon lightened as a little imaginary light bulb flicked on above her head. “What about ‘for Dutch courage’?” She asked, watching the man’s expression shift to confusion.

Careful to choose the perfect time, she pulled his hipflask out from her bag, holding it up and shaking it gently. As she expected, Adair rushed forwards, narrowly missing the axes, having to roll to avoid being sliced by the last two. He got to his feet quickly, snatching his precious alcohol from her, opening it and taking a large swig.

“Onwards!” he cried as the room began to tremble, the walls seemingly closing in on them. He grabbed Shayna’s arm, dragging her towards the doorway and into a new section of corridor, stopping where the stairs began.

The Ninja tilts her head to one side as the room stops shaking, a perplexed expression lining her face. “That’s funny, I didn’t notice stairs when I looked earlier...”

Appologies if I made Adair a little too alcohol dependant XD Tag Rio! *skips off*

[classy_cat18]

Niosa Tiera

I didn't know I could hurt so much by tumbling head first into a dark tunnel, but it wasn't as painful as when I landed. I blacked out for a minute upon impact.

Waking up brought me new pain. "Ugh, Nii's stomach hurts," I groaned as I rolled onto my back.

I heard some shuffling as someone walked close to me. "Yeah, sorry about that. I landed on you when we fell in here." I sat up and turned my head one of the Viera from earlier, the one that was arguing with the idiot pilot.

I shifted my legs so I could stand, but yelped when something pierced the skin on my butt. Laevra winced as I pulled out an arrow. "Is this yours?" I asked her.

She nodded and took it. "There's no way to go back, and I don't like the feeling I'm getting from the creepy passageways."

The room we landed in had a certain lack of man-eating lizards but that didn't mean that it was nowhere in the place. The walls weren't ornate like the previous room's. I could see gears behind large cracks in the walls. "This is interesting..." I got up and studied the walls.

Laevra stood beside me. "Gears. Something in this room is mechanized."

We froze we heard a loud creaking noise. The gears started to turn. The ceiling started to drop. "Yeah, the whole room!" I shouted.

The two of us ran, but Laevra ran toward the passageway while I ran back to my bag. "HURRY!" the Viera cried out as she stood in the doorway.

I rushed for the exit, my lower half lowered as the ceiling got lower. It was only halfway down when I cleared it. We didn't wait for it to finish, instead running down the shrinking corridor. I felt something lower under the pressure of my sudden weight but ignored it.

"I hear something," Laevra panted as she looked back at me.

"Nii stepped on something." There was a groaning...

And then a wall slid up in the middle of the corridor, blocking our escape. Laevra and I crouched as the ceiling got even lower. Another doorway appeared on the side just in time for us to avoid being crushed.

I groaned and followed Laevra down the new corridor. "Nii is fascinated by this place. But Nii would like to find Kumas and leave quickly."

Sori - Time Mage Moogle

"You're asking me?" I rubbed my ears in frustration and looked back at the closed corridor from the center of the room. My magic rod was lost; it had fallen into one of the other tunnels. I could still do magic, but it felt easier to do the more powerful spells when I had it.

Selene shrugged and pointed to the corridor ahead of us. "Might as well go straight."

I led the way, pausing when a heard a whistling sound, a yelp accompaning it. "What...was that?" I slowly asked while I cautiously looked back at Selene.

"Something shot up at me!" She jumped to her feet and continued toward the door, only to step down on another switch hidden in the floor. A spear pierced the air where she was standing a split second ago, then sunk back in. "I don't get it! How come you're not setting these things off?"

"I guess I'm too light," I said a little too nonchalantly as I kept walking.

"Isn't there something you can do about these things?" She kept still, not knowing which stones triggered the traps.

To make things worse, we heard a sound like when the first room tried to crush us. "Just run! That Haste spell will run out soon so use it while you got it!"

It was stop-and-go for her, but she managed to dodge everything and met me in another corridor. Thankfully it wasn't shrinking like the room, but tilting downwards to another floor. "Just how big is this place?"

[Crystal Tears]

Selene

Search in circles
Every time I try
I've been here before
I've seen you before
I can't escape winding down these halls
Hard to find a place where there are no walls
And no lines begging me to cross
Only straight ahead better move along
Like Clockwork
I commit the crime
I pretend to be
everything they like
~ Trapt

Peachy… Joy… Great… Fantastic…. So many words dripping with sarcasm floated in Selene’s mind she wasn’t quite sure which suited this entire situation best, she was sick of temples. In fact, she would personally order the long range cannons from the coast of Ivalice to blast this particular place to hell once she escaped from here. Selene stepped over Sori carefully, half-trying not to touch his precious little pom-pom (that looked like a damn wolf had picked it for a chew-toy) and moved on.

Of course, it was considerably darker down this way, and just as luck would have it, Selene took a step and found out something most distressing.

The floor was missing.

“Son of a wh-“

Missing? Perhaps that was the wrong term, it was there alright.

Just fifteen feet down.

Selene slammed hard into the ground, and groaned. She gritted her teeth as her arm began to ache, as did her leg. What bothered her most was that her curse had been cut off by the sudden, horrible sensation of falling. Slowly she lifted herself up so she was sitting upright. Her leg looked bad, but her arm was fine after a quick shake.

“Are you alive???”

Selene shook her head and slowly got up. She backed a little away from the wall she had been leaning up against and stared up into the darkness. “I never knew you cared!”

Promptly a Moogle dropped down beside her, landing roughly on his rump, he got up and fixed his pom-pom quickly. He looked at her, and then her leg. “You’re leg okay?”

The woman looked down the dark hallway, half answering the question and half assessing their current situation. “Perfect….”

“I think this place is fixed to switch on timed intervals.” Sori stated, breaking the awkward silence between them as they made their way to a larger room. “Two minutes to be exact.”

“Really?” She replied, taking her gun from its holster and checking it absentmindedly.

“Yeah…” The Mog crossed his arms at her as they entered the next room. “You didn’t notice?”

“Not really…” The gunner replied, looking around the room and narrowing her eyes a little. “What does it matter? You did.”

“Of course I did, I’m a Time Mage.”

“Well…” Selene smirked a little looking at him and then the room again. “It’s a good thing I have you around isn’t it?”

“Do I detect sarcasm?”

“No.” Came her oozing reply.

“Either way,” The critter growled, turning back to the room. “This place will probably switch in about thirty seconds.”

“Shh.” Selene hushed; cocking her gun she became rather quiet and stepped a little more into the room. This room was a little too safe, and if her little time-Mog friend was right; the only danger that was present was the shifting ability of this entire temple. As dangerous as it was, that seemed a little too easy, considering their previous encounters. Sori stuck close to her leg, looking around nervously.

That’s when it hit them both, a horrendous smell that easily made Selene’s stomach churn. Attempting to ignore it she didn’t drop her guard. Something wasn’t right about this room, and she wasn’t about to let whatever it was get her without a fight.

“How many more seconds?” She questioned quietly.

“fifteen.”

“Gurggh….” Every hair on Selene’s body seemed to stand when that sound fluttered into her ears. Slowly she turned to the left, the dim lighting only showing a few features.

Like that its flesh was dark brown and a rotten grey mixture. It had seemingly no eyes, or they were so sunken that you couldn’t seem them without ideal lighting conditions (which this temple had seemingly never heard of). Ragged, torn clothing hung off of it and in its hand it loosely clutched a sword. It paused for a brief moment, perhaps looking between the two before it lumbered closer to Selene. Who decided that was as close as it was going to get, she fired, blowing off its hand clinging to the sword, which clanged soundly on floor. The next shot was into its head, blowing a good portion of it off.

The monster stumbled and moaned but kept coming. Quickly Selene shot it three to four more times until its body seemingly crumbled into dust.

“That….” Sori blinked. “Was disturbing.”

“Argh…. Urgh….Mehgg..”

Selene and Sori looked behind them as seemingly a horde of undead was stumbling towards them from the hall they were in. The doorways to the other corridors seemingly sealed themselves, leaving the Mage and the Gunner trapped in the seemingly vacant room. Selene pointed her firearm at them and took a step back as her companion seemed to be conjuring a spell as he padded backwards.

“How long?” She asked; firing a couple of times into the growing mass that was flooding the room.

“Uhhh…” He said. “Five seconds?”

She grimaced and kept firing, and jumped back when a sudden fireball flew from the Moogle into the horde, blowing apart about six zombies. The others kept stumbling in after them, as great of a shot as she was, Selene wasn’t made of ammo, and a mage could only cast so many spells before they were out of energy. Her back was pressed against the farthest wall now, Sori stood at her side, sending off giant fireballs every time he could.

“Time!” Sori yelped, as the room began to rumble, walls began shifted, and the doors opened.

Oh thank the Gods- Selene for the briefest of glimpses saw a shining, yellow crystal on a pedestal. She was torn out from her one second trance by a creature who decided to grab her arm. Angrily she forced the gun in its mouth. “Go to hell.” She growled firing and turning the monster to dust.

“Selene!” Sori called from down the hall. “Come on!”

She dashed, infinitely faster then any dead thing. She quickly caught up to her companion and grabbed him again.

“We are not staying on this level!” She called, scrambling up the moving staircase that had appeared mere seconds ago behind the Mog.

To escape being crushed, she jumped, rolling into the upper room just as the maze stopped its shift. Lying on her back for a moment, she let go of the critter who looked rather peeved and about to yell at her.

“I know… I know…” She panted, slowly getting to her feet. “I touched your pom-pom… Won’t happen again…”

* * *

Got bored, needed to write.

[Pichu Luver]

Adair Stroud

“Stairs or not we shall take them! And you!” he pointed to Shayna. “Don't steal my rum. I'm a mild mannered man besides the random outbursts at inanimate objects and uppity blonds.” She looked at him doubtfully with one brow arched, a smirk playing about her lips. Adair however simply looked like the wise man he knew he was deep down inside of the dark recesses of his hidden genius. It was dark because there simply wasn't to be had a single bulb to light the place. Except in moments of greatest peril.

Like now.

Or the entire day really, didn't matter too much. Fact was Adair was running out of ideas as he had a limited store of these genius bulbs. Before we carry this metaphor on to far we should perhaps turn back to the people in peril.

Up the stairs they went. Well Adair went anyway, it was a sad day when Adair had more balance then a ninja but so it was. He was half carrying the girl up the stares she was so clumsy.

“Darlin' I thought ninjas were supposed to be GOOD at this sort of death defying act business. Or heck a thief even since you seem to be the type.” He gave her a look. “A klutz generally makes to much noise for the snitching kind of profession.”

“ I never actually said I was a ninja.” she quipped as she skipped along, barely touching the ground as Adair held her mostly off the stairs they were traversing. The height difference between them was probably a benefit to both their health's.

Adair laughed, “Of that I will concede the point. Those mean looking stars make one assume though.”

“Well no one messes with a ninja!” She looked quite triumphant with that statement. “Besides!” they reached the next level and Adair set her down; leaving her free to do some sort of funny jig and pull a shuriken free, twirling it on a finger. “I'm good with these.”

Adair eyed the spinning weapon. “Remind me to make sure I never get you drunk.”

She looked puzzled but Adair just walked forward eying the floor. “Well to my keen perception there doesn't appear to be death steps in this dance hall.”

“No... there's people.” she chimed in, stepping up beside Adair. He looked up and there were five individuals who most assuredly had not been there when they had entered the room. They were dark skinned and nearly naked, dressed similarly to Ronso minus the fur. They had the most peculiar masks though, a skull with what looked like Chocobo feathers dyed red and black adorning the crown. They also had paintings on the skull that made them look all manner of scary. To finish up the 'angry native' look they had cruel looking harpoons and spears as weapons.

He blinked. “Where...?”

“The walls of course silly!” she hit him on the side of the head and took out her other star. “Your perception is lacking. Shall we?”

“... No I am a master negotiator. Wouldn't be out of jail if I wasn't.” He then lowered his voice to a whisper, “I also want a mask, show me your skills lovely maiden.” He took her hand, kissed it and swaggered forward. He heard a snicker behind him but he didn't care. His 'drunk duck walking' stride always put everyone at ease. Never say an idiot doesn't know how idiotic they look.

He approached the natives and they eyed him with suspicion. The leader (due to the bigger headdress) of the not-fun-kind-of-pissed brigade stepped up and proceeded to do a dance. There was much in the way of angry gesturing, squatting, leaping and funny body movements. Adair watched with utmost care and then copied it back to him, all the the steps in perfection. He even added in his own sound effects.

This seemed to both surprise and irritate the crew and they all started to dance and Adair was with them the whole way. Then shocker of shockers Shay joined them! Given purpose (and an abundance of jumping) she seemed to have some balance and he started his most great of plans. He convinced them to start to spin so they got on the right side of the room for escape.

He squeaked at the top of his vocal range, “Kugi wagi feebobi POO!” and looked to give a significant glance to Shay, but she was gone. He also noticed the master madman was missing his very pretty mask; at the very same time the man took note of it as well. He was going a very interesting shade of purple as his other minions stopped and looked at their leader. He felt a tap on his shoulder and Shay was there, mask in hand just as the room began to shake.

“Grand!” he yelled and they sprinted from the room as the dance crew shouted--enraged--and ran at them with their mighty mean pointy things. Adair and Shay leaped through the shrinking door and the natives shook fists and yelled more incoherent-ness before disappearing into the walls. Adair didn't understand how, it wasn't his strength to understand the hows of things.

“You're not a bad dancer.” Shay said, handing over the headdress.

He grinned and plunked the mask over his head. A perfect fit. “Neither are you my unsteady thief. On ward ho!”

Thus a ridiculous feather headed pirate and a totter-y master thief marched forward in step down the stairs. They attempted this with dignity but Shay tripped, Adair picked her up again and she sneezed as a feather went up her nose.

[Weasel Overlord]

Sirius fir Sterrl de Famfræn

[Captain and General Ruler of the Wolfstar]

master of a nothing place

The floors were… moving! Moving floors! And sliding! And not to mention making-him-fall-over-ing! Sirius had been glaring at Adair when it happened - the floor just… dropped away. He’d collided with Batilis, who made not a sound save a soft grunt, and then they both slip-slided down a tunnel that was astonishingly steep. Sirius knocked his head at the bottom, and when he awoke a few seconds later, with Batilis’ creepy masked face looming right up in his vision, he punched outwards without a thought.

Those masks were stronger than they looked. Sirius sucked his bruised knuckles wryly and grinned up at Batilis, whose expression was as carefully blank as any man in a mask.

“So what now, then? I mean, where are we, Batilis old chum?”

Batilis looked around as Sirius pulled himself to sitting, cross-legged. “This one does not know.”

“I should have known,” Sirius said, shaking his head. “Urgh, I feel a bit woozy. Help your captain up would you, good man?” He held out a shaky hand and Batilis hauled him upright with nary a warning. Sirius stumbled forward and then caught his balance.

“You’ve got some strength on you there, my man,” he laughed. “Try not to dislocate my arm next time, though, yes?”

“This one apologises. This one did not mean to dislocate his arm.”

“Well,” Sirius dusted off his backside, which was exceptionally dusty. “It’s okay, because you didn’t, see? Just something to watch out for, perhaps. Now then!” He looked around at the place they’d slid to. “Where the bloody hell are we?”

“This one notices that the hallway is long,” Batilis observed, unhelpfully.

“Well, you certainly win a prize for stating the obvious.” Sirius peered at the wall closest to him with trepidation. “Do these symbols, uh, remind you of anything, my man?”

Batilis ambled over and joined Sirius, his mask-nose almost touching the wall. He nodded in agreement, punctuating it with a soft grunt. “Symbols,” he said. “This one thinks they are the same as in the above room.” He gestured to the ceiling vaguely.

“I think you’re right, Batty,” Sirius said, frowning. “Maybe they’re… oh. Oh shit… run!” He didn’t wait for a reply from Batilis - just grabbed his forearm and set off at a dead pelt for the opposite end of the corridor.

And just in time too, as the piece of wall they’d been examining felt a pressing need to slam together with the piece of wall opposite.

“Shiiiiiiiiii-” Sirius yelled as they ran, chunks of wall slamming together behind them as if they were dead set on hugging him and Batilis a little bit too tight.

Just as they reached the precious square of light at the end of the corridor, the final chunks of wall slammed into place and it was gone. Sirius threw himself to the floor, and Batilis landed at the side of him, panting roughly.

“Well, that was unpleasant,” said Sirius, master of understatement. “I vote we never do that again, eh Batty?”

“This one does not like being called Batty,” Batilis said, and Sirius could see him glowering, even from behind his mask.

“No problemo my man! No problemo. Now where are we this time?” Sirius got the feeling that he’d be saying that more frequently from now on.

NOTE: Kalah’s leaving… what does she want to do about Batilis? Anyone know?

[Emotional Faun Chiko-sai]

Sorry it's so choppy and got cut short, my BL engagements are calling me T^T

Chironu Twice-Born
It is a northern country; they have cold weather, they have cold hearts.

Once I was a bird, soaring in the blue sky. I turned, and then I was a wolf. I turned again, and I was a person.

I have many forms, but am master of none.

I cried, and my tears were silver. I cried again, and my tears became gold.

They say when I speak diamonds fall from my mouth. That is wrong. But my words were worth every rumoured jewel.

I charmed dragons and garudas alike with my precious-metal tongue; I was the consult of kings long dead; I oversaw the shaping of the continents and stirred them all with a reed.

All in the past, this, all in the past tense, all except the last--

I cannot sleep and dream with my brethren; I am not yet deaf, nor yet am I blind.

There is a restlessness uncommon in my blood.

A little tick is nagging at the edges of my fraying presence.


Chironu, having tired of throwing her spheres at Kumas and not receiving significant response, picks lint and cobwebs off its shoulders. They walk in relative silence in the catacombs - at least now they can walk; earlier there had been swimming, jumping, acrobatics involving the avoiding of sudden juttings-out of rusty metal. In the usual circumstances, she would have been content to chatter to the empty air: this time she twists her mouth in a funny frown, eyes wide and watchful, taking in the scenery, what little of it there was to see.

There is nothing that she is not used to here. Gagazet had the cold, and the caverns, and the half-ruined, crumbling architecture; despite the differences of craftsmanship, and the careful upkeep of the present surroundings (no dust, she noted), they were akin in aspect. Inhabitants and prevailing disposition of aforementioned inhabitants to outsiders differed markedly, but the inherent personality of some locations cannot be changed.

She knew she had not been wrong to follow the clanking machina, although so far it seemed to be deliberately showing her the quickest way to die.

I could have tarried with the others, and though doubtless they be merry companions they know not where to go, and this one, whatever else he may be doing, he does.

The atmosphere of the corridor changes, oh so slightly. She ducks, and several icicles miss her by a hairsbreadth. They reverberate off the machina's chestplate, not noticeably impeding its steady advance.

In a matter-of-fact way, Chironu readjusts her headdress. Kumas barrels now through a barely perceptible crack in the wall that, within the next fifty metres of forced, nimble footwork, widens into a pathway. They make their way slowly along the twisting, winding passage, now wide enough that they do not brush against the torches of everlasting fire that line it. The tongues of flame are frosted, and give no warmth.

Eventually an ornate doorway, looming decorously, appears in the middle distance. Kumas trudges over the boundary in the mindless manner of machina, the cogs whirring within it not having the sapiency to detect danger. She can smell the latent menace, had noticed it a while ago ever since they'd stopped needling up traps. Whyfore bother with the small ones when you had a large one to end all large ones in the one space where all the people you wanted to spring traps on were bound to blunder into, is the general gist of it.

Imposing and even artistic, chunks of ice are set liberally throughout the chamber, which is equal parts frozen rock and zealot's fantasy. The sounds of metal scraping metal echo round; the acoustics of this inner sanctum were well thought out. Chironu cocks a wary head, looks up at the intricate sculpture on the ceiling, at the multicoloured stalacs -tites and -mites, at the garishly tattooed woman waiting seated imperiously in the center of the room.

The woman's eyes roll in her direction, reptilian in their penetrating chill.

Any more of this and she'd expect laughter, most likely insane, echoing in the dank depths of the glacier-cavern.

Fur bristling, the taste of magic thick and metallic clouding her mouth, she sidles into her destiny.

Her lip curls.

This more a statement than a query: "Kumas, sweeting, what have you let us in for now... ?"

This next to the seated entity: "What ho, dear lady."

She bows, theatrically.

A small diversion:

Temzi and Seta -- in later days they would look back on the memory of the first hours of their meeting and laugh (at least Temzi did).

Which goes to show that Temzi's nature is good enough to overlook, among other things,

spikes and pikes;
the spill of blood, and the long slow scrape of the pendulous scythe;
the worm-slow creeping of their feet upon the nightingale floor.

[ChobiChibi]

Shayna Xanthrope~ Further Adventures of the Drunkard and the Retard
“Still Alive”- GLaDOS

After the run-in with the natives, Shay was actually beginning to feel a little better about this. She hadn’t had to hold in laughter this much for a long time. She had particularly enjoyed the dancing and the fact that just exactly how she got that mask was a secret. He would never figure it out. At least she’d ended up stuck in here with someone that would keep her amused until the very end.

Alas, things were about to take a turn for the worst.

As they entered this new room, what little lighting there was decided it was best to go out, leaving a few spotlights shining down onto the floor, the circles of light creating a polka dot pattern. The only other light came from the doorway at the other side of the room. Shay was unsure of this new room, but Adair seemed quite confident, striding through the dark, the feathers on his native mask rustling with the swagger in his walk. Knowing that the room would soon try to squish them, she follows the pirate.

Deciding that the patches of light would be safer, as she could actually see the floor, she stepped through them, barely noticing the swoosh as something brushed the back of her neck. “Adair? What was that?”

He turned to face her, the mask instantly making her smile a little. “What was what, darling?”

“Nothing...” She mutters. Adair shrugs, continuing through the room towards the door.

It was when they were close to the door that Shay really started to notice a change. There were more patches of light, and the swooshing became more regular. She also noted that Adair seemed completely un-phased by anything. It was only when she felt something hit her bag that she panicked.
She moved it into the light, to see what had hit it, to find an arrow lodged into the side of her bag and had began to tear the fabric. As she moved it out of the light, it was then that she saw another arrow fly past her face.

“Adair! I don’t like this!” She calls to him, finding that he’s already at the doorway, holding up her bag to show him the arrow. “How did you not get hit?”

The noise of the walls shifting blocked out his reply. She gave up being cautious, there was no time for it. She ran for it, receiving scrapes from multiple arrows, but much more inconveniently, one lodged itself just below her right shoulder, the sudden impact and pain causing her to stumble. The large stone doors slammed shut just after she got through them.

“Excuse me, Shay?” Adair began, obviously about to make some clever comment about the state they were in. His eyes widened as she took hold of the arrow, bracing herself to just pull it out. “Are you sure that’s wise?”

“Probably not.” She replies, tugging it out as quickly as she can, throwing it on the floor. “I’d rather not have it, though; Yevon knows what damage it would do...” She pulls off her glove, tying it tightly around the wound in an attempt to slow the bleeding.

This new area was larger than the last and squarer, its four corners containing a statue each. There was no obvious exit and as they reached the center, the statues came to life and began to stomp towards them.

“Somehow, dearest, I don’t think there’s any time for my master negotiating skills...” Adair commented, reaching for the hilt of his sword.

Shay took one of her shuriken, and although she was just as accurate with both hands, her left hand was far less powerful when it came to throwing these things. As a result, she only cracked her target’s chest, instead of breaking it as she had intended. This only seemed to make the stone men angrier, if statues had emotions.

She couldn’t help but notice that these things were only coming for her, as Adair was carefully deflecting hits that she either couldn’t block or didn’t notice. They all seemed to hit her arm too, which only made her more frustrated.

What the hell has Adair got that I don’t? She thinks as she deflects yet another stone punch, finally breaking its hand into tiny stone pieces.

A quick glance at him gave her the answer she was looking for.

The headdress! Her brain exclaims. They think he’s a native!

As the room begins to tremble again and the exit reveals itself, Shay gives up on her fight-to-kill attitude, going straight for one of the statue’s stomach, breaking it in two. As it begins to crumble, she leapfrogs it, jumping towards Adair and clinging to his back the best she can.

“Ninja-san! I can’t carry you and fight!” He cries, not ready for this sudden weight, albeit a small one.

“Run, Native, run!” She cries, struggling to cling to him with her bad arm and keep the statues at bay with the good one.

Adair had to duck significantly to get through the door this time, as it was already closing as they went through and was kind enough not to want to knock his companion out. Of course, no matter how gently he would let her to the ground, Shay was going to fall over, and did so in the most unspectacular way possible, contrasting from the last few times.

“I want to go home...” The disgruntled ninja grumbled, looking up at the native-pirate with her big, blue sad eyes.

“Best foot forward?” He half questioned, holding out his hand to help her up, again. “Talley ho!”

[Crystal Tears]

Nova

The labyrinth was created for a simple purpose; a purpose that was beyond any outsider could comprehend. They had Espers, fallen angels of the Gods, and Aeons, angelic monsters that had long disappeared when the creature they called Sin ceased to exist. Their magic was twisted and untrue to the nature of the world, and it was an insult for them to have lived this long. The labyrinth, once a test to see who was truly loyal to Izlek as to die for him, now was given new chore.
Snuff the life from all those who dared to try and take Midgar away from its people.

The labyrinth has failed though, failed time and time again to be rid of *any* of them. Not one of the infernal people who had just happened, in some way or another to survive the almost perfect crashing of their stupid airships. Apparently influential magic could only do so much; sometimes the defence of nation had to be done with a more direct approach.

So Nova acted quickly, she used to her magic to begin the shift again. But this time, it would bring them all together, for a quick and clean method of murder. She smiled and looking at the ceiling of the room with an ear slightly raised, the shifting gears of this place made one last rumble. The witch sat in the center of the room, next to a mighty contraption made years before her existence. It looked like an oversized lantern to most, yet the light it gave off was aqua in color, and mist poured off of it and onto the floor.
Then something came.
It was a machine, wrapped with magic it stomped into the chamber with little regard for anything. Following behind it was a person, an invader, though she didn’t feel particularly there. Nova watched her silently, in the back of her mind noting the quiet rumbling from above.

“What ho, dear lady.”

The magical object next to her reacted, the energy hitting the soulless contraption and seemingly shutting it down. The woman (though Nova could be wrong) seemed to smile, smile at what? She reacted to the mist, the magic that the object emitted.

“Kumas dear! Now is not the time to slumber!”

Her gaze didn’t break from the intruder for a long while. Perhaps they were on equal footing, both skilled with magic, considered outcasts by the main group, and otherwise didn’t seem to like groups. But the witch was confident she was better, some would even use cocky to describe her. All that had, had met unfortunate deaths.

I have never killed a soul; only put them in a position to die easy. For this I am not guilty of a single death that has followed with meeting me.


“Where are your friends?” The witch finally broke the silence, and glanced at the shutdown machine. “Other then your machine.”

“The group of warriors yet-to-be-named, they are dancing above, or sprinting. Most probably the latter.” She spoke as if she had been best friends with Nova for years, in this song that reminded the woman of a song-bird.

She narrowed her eyes, and looked at the ceiling that had small amounts of ice falling from it.

How fast can the unnamed warriors run I wonder?

Selene

“This isn’t right!” Sori yelped, as the maze began to shift about four seconds after the last. The moogle stood balancing on a square tile as some of the others moved away.

Selene cursed, she leaned up against the wall as the floor began to give away and shift. The woman growled, watching as a ramp moved up to replace what used to be there. She hopped down, frowning a little as Sori jumped down beside her and looked down at the tunnel.

“I thought we didn’t want to go down another level?”

The gunner began to walk forward, and the Mog followed, whether he was comforted or not.
“Selene?” He questioned, skipping a little to catch up with her. “Selene?”

“It’s going in the opposite direction as the other.” She replied, entering a larger room.

“You know that?”

“I have a vague sense of direction…” Selene murmured, looking around in all that the grand hall. The walls lacked the descriptions the others had, and the hall seemed to go on in either direction for ages. The only light was cast by chandeliers hanging high above them.

And then there was a serious of curses, but they weren’t conventional, they were off and oddly spoken. Selene turned her and Sori blinking in silence as an oversized metal star fell flew out of the stone doorway and clanged onto the ground. Shayna tumbled out, she seemed to float in midair; halfway between being upright and fall on her face she was caught. An outstretched hand held her shirt tightly.

“Don’t trip again midear, I fear the ground is as solid the last ten times you decided to test it.” Adair’s voice floated into the room. “I assume test, unless you have a longing to study the tiling, then I suppose I could let you go.”

“I’m fine floating, thanks.”

“Shay?” Selene blinked. The ninja beamed, and did a small movement, that costed her the support from the pirate. She fell, abruptly, and met the ground.

Face first.

Adair’s head popped out, and looked at the other duo who had decided to join them.

“Yo ho!” He grinned, taking a rather large step he plotted out into the hall. Selene blinked, not knowing whether to be disappointed or impressed he had made it. Adair outstretched his arms, and suddenly it was quite evident that the temple had in fact, tried to kill him.

Many times.

But the strangeness didn’t end there, Selene’s eyes travelled up. What the hell is that?? The gunner’s hand immediately went for her holster, but Adair seemed on top of things.

“Wait! Don’t fire!” He exclaimed, keeping his hands elevated. “I won’t hug you if you don’t want me too!” The pilot grimaced, “I was happy to see you alive again, milady….”

“I doubt that.”

“So do I.” He smiled, and in a shocking twist, she returned one too him. “A smile? Blasphemy dear, you never smile. Not for me.”

“Maybe I’m smiling because I’m in the perfect position to kill you.”

“OH well…” His eyes darted to the bag he had. “I… have rum?”

“Saved.” He grinned at her response, and Shay, who had recovered, grinned, despite the tile impression on her forehead. “Now… What the hell is on your head?”

“Oh this? It’s a souvenir of my daring theatrics with the locals to the lovely tune of ‘Ugga-Ugga’.”

Sori crossed his arms. “You stole it.”

“I did NOT!” Quickly he pointed to Shay. “She did, I merely accepted the merchandise she had procured from the engagement.”

“So you stole it, and pissed them off.” The mog countered.

“Well I didn’t kill them!” He still had his hands raised. “Much better then what you would’ve accomplished, pom-pom…. By the way, it’s looking a ruffled… Did you want to borrow my comb?”

Sori had, despite his fur, changed to a brilliant shade of red. Murder flickered over his eyes, and Selene had to stifle her laughter.

“Why I outta-“

“No killing my pilot!”

Everyone turned, seeing a rather distressed captain of the missing Wolfstar. He came out of the doorway.

“Captain! Your clothes look fabulous! Your face does not.” Adair said with the bluntest honesty of the time.

Selene and Shay broke into laughter.

“Blood does nothing for your complexion sir; you could borrow some foundation from one of the ladies here.” He smiled. “You see I need none, for I have avoided grievance!” He then noticed the many holes in his wardrobe. “Though my attire *may* need replacing, I-“ He gestured to himself but quickly put his hands back up. “Am perfectly suited for *my* duties.”

“Flying the ship, you don’t have…” Selene commented.

Adair grinned. “That would be them, yes. Thus, I nearly have to survive! Thrilling heroics involving fire-breathing, man-eating, woman-distressing lizards, are left to you fine, outstanding… doom-maze dwellers of sorts.”

“Are you under arrest Adair?” Sirius looked curiously at his pilot, who seemed to suddenly clue-in his hands were still raised.

“Of that, I am unsure. May I put my hands down Captain?”

“That is entirely up to the lovely lady gunner to your right.”

Adair turned and attempted a puppy-dog look on Selene. As far as the expression itself was, it could’ve possibly worked if Selene had not been thrown off by the creepy ‘I-kill-you’ mask on his head.

“Fine, you’re free. Just… stop looking at me.”

He blinks, and looks up at his hat. “Oh… Well,” He grabbed his headdress and spun it around, so it was staring behind him. “Better milady?” The pilot seemed oblivious to the frill of feathers he now had.

“Much.”

Shay paled. “I’m not!”

“Nii wonders what’s on pilot’s head…”

“oh well!” Adair swivelled around as the rest of the group (minus Nii), seemed to address much more dire issues. “That is an interesting tale of bravery and thrilling heroics on my part! And Shay’s… Sinister swiping abilities.”

“We are nearing the Dragon!” There was a series of clangs, clunks, dongs, and dangs that floated out of a certain doorway.

“Three guesses who that is.” The Captain frowned a little.

Selene looked over at him. “A walking gong?”

“Tin-man!!” Adair exclaimed as an armoured figure half-tripped into the hallway.

Shay looked over at Selene. “Close enough.” Then a much-more dignified Viera stepped out and around his armoured counterpart. He took a quick glance around and nodded at Selene and simply raised an eyebrow at Adair, who had his headdress on backwards.

Thud.

Adair threw his hands up again as the group looked down the dark hallway where the thud emanated from. “I didn’t do it!”

Selene looked nervously over at Sirius. “What was that?”

~~~~

MASSIVE TAG OMGZ

zomg dialogue O:

Yesh! PLOT ADVANCEMENT! We need one! Welcome to Level two of the temple! Everyone meet up here, and *how* you got here (cept Sori), and chat and crap. Feel-free to move on long the conversation and the group down the tunnel. I’ll present our next challenge probably in my next post.

And of course, if I got anyone wrong, I’m sorry. And I left Kalah’s characters out because it’s up to whoever was partnered with her to determine if her characters are still around.

Have fun~

[classy_cat18]

Sori - Time Mage Moogle

Well, just about everyone was together. But the one that I was worried about was Batilis. "Which one of you was with Batilis?" I asked. "You know, the furry guy in the mask?"

Everyone looked at each other and shook their heads. I sighed and let my ears droop. "I hope he's okay. If someone like me can get through this labyrinth okay then I'm sure he can too."

The white-haired Al Bhed groaned and pulled something out of her bag. "Nii found this in the maze. It's yours, right?" She handed me my precious rod.

I widened my eyes and grabbed it. "Thank you, kupo! My grandfather would skin me alive if I lost this!" I shouted happily.

She nodded and started to walk down the hallway toward the source of the "thud". "Kumas is this way. Nii is sure of it," she murmured.

"You sure are stuck on that machina," Laevra commented.

Nii stopped, looking more than slightly irritated. "Nii salvaged and fixed him. He led Nii here. Kumas is Nii's partner and Nii is not leaving him!"

[Pichu Luver]

Adair Stroud

Adair was for the first time today inordinately pleased. He had been merely 'ever-so-pleased' when drafting the Zephyr. Now was a whole different kind of giddy, hyper,'2-year-old-on-a-sugar-high' type of gratification. He was absolutely tickled with his truly bewitching souvenir. He would have been delighted had it merely looked pretty upon his stupendous head. But! Oh, but the but! It saved him from being made the saddest (yet epitome of masculinity) of pincushions and the statues ignored his wily ways! It was enough to make his ego fit to pop!

That this boon upon his grandiose frame gave such rewards and asked nothing but to be paraded with pride put quite the skip in his step. His ego hadn't even been damaged yet after thinking that fate tempting thought, so he was feeling quite invincible and inordinately smart for being the fool.

“Best foot forward?” he asked his most astounding of assistants. He wasn't effected by her eyes as she was with him and she would thusly survive. He would ensure his own self would, so it was predestined she would too. Besides he needed to see his gifter of invulnerability made it through in thanks.

As he hoisted her to her feet he shouted the definitely mandatory call of, “Tally ho!” and they paraded on. Shay was decidedly downcast for being injured and tripping so very much, thus he set to regale her with a tale of his youth. This fortified her spirits as she was soon laughing and found out his penchant for dress-up started when he was a truly young lad.

The downside was he was swaggering a goodly amount do to his exuberance, and waving his arms in emphasis, so Shay lacked the support she had previously enjoyed. So she tripped and fell and Adair was knightly in trying to save her from misfortune, but alas sometimes he was unsuccessful and she met earth... or more precisely tile.

Then Shay happened to notice in the midst of his next tale that they had yet to meet with another chamber wishing to deal out their deaths. In fact the hall had seemed to have a abrupt turn that whilst they were talking Adair had failed to notice.

“I don't know about this...” said Shay, worried as she had every right to be in her injured state.

“Not to worry lass, surely they think us marvelous for surviving their trials and now wish to meet us in person. This way,” he leaned in close, grinning in a conspirator-y manner, “I can haggle on terms of release. And this,” he pointed to his delightful hat, “will be our leverage should we meet with those natives. Though I do think it dandy and will try to keep it.”

She looked slightly hopeful seeing as how the last negotiation had gone fairly well. He nodded to her in a confident manner and they continued on. It was only around the next turn they saw the stairs leading down into a passageway.

“Let us go make our horse trade darlin'!” he said and smartly stepped down the stairs. Shay smiled and said something to do with puppies Adair didn't rightly understand but it sounded right so he grinned in return. They each took a step and well... Adair really should have learned by now.

Shay stepped to far and lurched forward. One of the stars on her back finally slid out of place (as it had been threatening to do earlier but as it wasn't a threat to Adair's existence he ignored it) and flew down the stairs. It dinged on the wall, a sound Adair barely perceived as he chased a tripping, stumbling and very drunken looking Shay down the stairs. He almost grasped her hand or clothing but it always slipped from his hold as she kept lurching in a most peculiar manner. He was cursing up a storm and Shay oddly enough was giggling so he wondered just what preciously was coming from his mouth. Finally she reached the bottom and stumbled, leaning much to far forward. Adair made one last effort and snatched the back of her shirt.

Actually being a bit exasperated at his poor partner he said, “Don’t trip again midear, I fear the ground is as solid the last ten times you decided to test it. I assume test, unless you have a longing to study the tiling, then I suppose I could let you go.”

“I’m fine floating, thanks.” She said, happy to have missed the ground.

“Shay?” Adair heard and he leaned a bit to try and see out the door. Unfortunately Shay made some sort of giddy movement and twisted out of Adair's grasp.

So she met the ground.

Adair decided that perhaps that was where she should stay. So he leaped out and stepped over her.

“Yo ho!” he cried raising his arms in greeting. Even if Selene and Adair saw eye to foot he was happy to meet someone he didn't have to save. It was a lot less effort on his lazy soul.

Thus continued their statements of hate and love (love of course equating to rum) and others made their way to the group. Adair wondered at the smallness. It would seem Adair and Shay had been most lucky. That is until...

DEAR YEVON WHAT HAD HAPPENED TO HIS CLOTHES?

He was almost affronted at his state of keeping, riddled with arrow holes as it was. He'd have to replace it and that was quite upsetting. Money was to be spent on rum! Not the necessities of clothing! Fiddle-fish that was a problem. He was a half-decent sower (fixing clothing he had fast learned usually involved being surrounded by others doing the same, aka women) but this was much beyond his means.

After the tales of his and Shay's exploits were repeated many times to those who wished to hear of their astounding courage and intellect there was the THUD.

“I didn't do it!” cried Adair, assuming (as was necessary) that all mishaps were his fault. Then Selene asked the inessential question of identification that obviously no one could answer.

However Nii thought she had one.

Adair did not agree.

“Ah, no non-inebriated-swirly I disagree.” She looked annoyed as was obligatory, “All thuds of mysterious origin ultimately mean my death. Or at least the attempt to confer that honourific to me. So I declare...” He cleared his throat and paused for effect.

“MUTINY!”

There was a moment of resounding blink-ages (he could practically hear the eyelashes swishing). So he primely turned around and headed the other direction down the hall. He fixed his hat, then his arms were a-swaying as he meandered away more or less straight.

“As much as I hate to agree with.... that.” Selene said refusing to declare him of a sentient race, “I...do.”Adair smirked as he could perfectly imagine her grimace; like she had a nasty taste in her mouth. Though Adair of course was sunshine and daisies. Anyway he heard her boots click as she started off after him. Then he heard the pitter-patter of gleeful feet and Shay appeared next to him. “I'm with them!” she declared and Adair gave her a one armed hug.

“You are of great wisdom deary.”Ah, women following him. Life was grand. However, “Comin' Captain?”

Sirius appeared on the other side of Adair just as he finished that sentence. Adair would never admit it but his Captain did have a way of walking resplendently. He almost wished he was capable of the same.“If I did not, how would you survive?”

“Pluck my Captain, pure pluck. Which reminds me,” he reached into his parlour-bag and pulled out two potions. Handing one to Shay he tossed the other to Selene who had limped up to the other side of her.

“Now you can never say I didn't do anything for you clicky.” He gave his trademarked (TM) half smile as she caught it and glared.

[ChobiChibi]

Shayna Xanthrope~

Never before had a potion been so revitalizing! Shay had quickly drunk it without much thought, she trusted Adair now, and they had saved each others’ lives. Not that either of them had much choice, but he could have easily have just left her there, laying on the floor with a tile print on her forehead. No, they had looked after each other instead, they were almost like comrades.

She hadn’t felt like this towards a group of people in a while. A long time, in fact. Maybe it was just her survival instincts kicking in. Deep down, she hoped not. She hoped they would still be friends when they got out.

If they ever got out, that is.

She untied her glove from around her arm to find her wound was slowly healing. She didn’t care how long it took, this potion had also made the pain go away, and that’s what bugged her most.

“Not putting that back on...” She muttered, holding her blood stained glove between her thumb and index finger. She folded it up, putting it away as she reached into her bag and pulled out an identical glove, slipping it over her hand and up over her elbow. “Better!”

“How many pairs of those gloves to you have, exactly?” Selene questioned, having watched her as they walked, a small frown settling into place.

“Enough!” She replied, her voice a lot brighter and cheerful than it had been before. “I’m always ripping them on my shuriken. Would rather it was that than my arm!”

Selene rolled her eyes a little, but her expression seemed to soften to a small smile. She wasn’t limping so much anymore, which Shay was pleased about. For a moment, she glanced behind her, finding that Seta had followed, most likely because of Selene leaving, and that Temzi had followed him. Laevra wasn’t far behind either, for what reason she was following, Shay was unsure, but it did seem a lot safer to stay in a large group. Sori, too, was flapping along behind, which just left...

“Nii!” Shayna called, having stopped and turned around, watching the girl glance between the group and the direction in which the machina was. “It’ll catch us up! And it’s only a machine anyway!”

The Al Bhed girl looked pretty annoyed at the Spiran, to be honest. Shay wasn’t the best at choosing appropriate words when it came to machina; she had no reason or need to respect them. “Nii will wait here! Kumas is Nii’s friend!”

“How can it be your friend?” The Ninja frowned, dumbfounded as she walked back towards Nii, noticing the floor seemed to have a slight gradient to it. “It doesn’t have thoughts, it doesn’t feel anything...”

“Kumas is very intelligent!” Nii retorted, her arms folded in a defensive manner. “Nii thinks he’s programmed to do more than he shows.”

“Exactly!” Shay argued, ready with her counter, now only a few feet from Nii. “He’s programmed. He only does things that other people have told him to do!” She watched the Al Bhed girl begin to fill with rage. She was enjoying this far too much, but she couldn’t stop herself either. “And it’s not like its alive or anything.”

That was a mistake.

With that, Nii lashed out, trying to hit the Spiran, but Shay’s training kicked in, leaning back to avoid the hit, instead only being pushed.

Unfortunately, her training recently seemed to be faltering. That small shove sent her completely off balance, falling towards the stone, slippery floor, her training not being able to compensate for the fact that people cannot defy gravity. Human instinct causes one to reach out and grab for something when one falls.

That’s exactly what Shayna did.

She reached out and grabbed Nii.

The gradient of the floor was a lot steeper than she had previously thought, so they went sliding down the path, easily catching up with the others and shooting straight past them. They were gathering speed and it was growing darker the further they went. She had to stop them.

She flipped onto her stomach, reaching out and taking hold of Nii’s arm, much to her discomfort, giving her a look of ‘get the hell off me, bitch!’. Without wasting any more time, Shay quickly took hold of her shuriken from her back and stabbed it into the floor, coming to a very abrupt halt, clinging on to Nii.

“What did you do that for?” The Al Bhed questioned, frowning at her.

“Look, just because I don’t like your bloody machine doesn’t mean I want you do die!” Shay retorted, clinging onto her shuriken for dear life, terrified of what they’d find if they slid any further.

[Crystal Tears]

Selene
Somebody's gonna die
I'm gonna get in trouble
My ex will start a fight
He's gonna start a fight
We're all gonna get in a fight

The group was quiet for a long second as they watched Shay and Nii zoom past. Selene blinked, that wasn’t exactly smart. This hill was growing steeper and steeper, it was taking everyone an incredible amount of effort to not fall forward or to slip.

Except for Selene.

She had done this, or a task like this, at home. Banister sliding, it was incredibly fun, and not exactly a trick you forget easily after you learned it. Seta might recall, hell he probably did, Selene had been landed on him numerous times when she was learning how to do this impressive feat simply because he was always standing in the right place at that right time. Concern filtered across her face as she stared into the darkness.

“Shay?” She called warily.

“We’re here!”

“Is Nii alright?” Laevra questioned.

“Yeah she fine-“ Selene tuned out the sudden conversation and looked at the ground. There was a bit of rubble on it, nothing worth noting, only one small, tiny fact.

The rubble was vibrating.

That wasn’t normal was it? Things shook when the maze shifted. But the walls weren’t moving; nothing (except maybe the floor) was moving. There was no reason for it to vibrate, but as the others continued to curse and converse with each other, Selene carefully knelt down and placed her hand on the floor. The woman paled and rose up; fear was beginning to grip her again. Could their luck be that bad? Could something else be coming to get them? She slowly looked back up the hill, having fallen a little ways behind the others.

There was something there.

It was a good distance away, but it was gaining. At incredible speed, flowing into the gunner’s ears was the sound of something coming, something very large and-

Selene ran, nearly falling flat on her face at first she recovered and bolted down the increasingly incline. She began to slide again, and the group came back into her sights.

“RUN!” She cried, and watched as Adair needed no more further instruction, probably something to do with when a woman with a gun cries run you just do it. “GUYS MOVE IT!”

So they ran.

But it, it was catching up. The ground was rumbling for everyone now, they were quickly catching up to Shay.

“Shay!” Adair called. “Deary time to run!”

Shay looked confused as both Adair and Selene (both being the fastest of the group) approached her on opposite sides; they gripped her and Nii and got them to their feet as quickly as possible before zooming past. It was no doubt now everyone could tell that they weren’t on a normal hill, this floor was continuing to drop, so much that the gunner feared eventually there wouldn’t be a floor left to slide or run upon.

She dared to look behind her, and quickly looked back in front.

“What are we running from!?” Sori cried, desperately holding onto Sirius’s shoulders.

“A boulder!” Selene cried, and pulled ahead a little bit more.

~ ~ ~

Sort post, just gotta get the ball rolling (... lawl)

Alright, final challenge for the maze: Run.. (as if thats any different from the last ones...)

[Pichu Luver]

Adair Stroud

“RUN!”

So he did.

It was a particular quirk of Adair's whenever someone yelled 'duck', 'think fast', 'run' or anything else along the lines of 'move your ass fast' he invariably did. It was probably due to the man who now thankfully thinks him dead, (due to shooting at him chained to ground with the guns on a warship) obviously wished to end his dynamite days. So he had gained the ability that whenever someone told him his life was in imminent danger, with the shortest possible sentence, he listened.

And he was a damn fast runner.

The bullet/sword/anyotherpainfulobjectthatcouldhavepossiblybeenthro wnathimthathedoesn'trememberanymore wounds on his back and backside attested to his ability to run away quickly. He was so fast in fact that he often threatened to fall over; as his body never learned the knack of keeping in time with his rapidly moving soles. He was not a brave man, heck no he valued his own skin too much for that, so he gained the next best thing.

SPEED.

Dexterity he only had when fighting, as his dancing childhood (legitimate types or not) had gained him that... but only when not running. Running involved sustained movement in one direction. Dancing was rapid movement in whatever way kept him upright (and alive). Zig-zagging when running made him harder to hit, but did not generally get him away from authorities.

So the faster he went the more his arms windmilled, or flailed, or he did a little jig-thing to the side. All to stop his upper half from toppling the lower half of his hifalutin self. Generally he had an uncanny likeness to the cartoons featured on spheres when he was a child. The ones where all you saw of the fleeing cartoon was a circle of dust below and the upper half of the body looking sort of confused. THAT was Adair.

So people generally kept out of his way as he would bowl them over in his bid to keep upright and moving rapidly. Thankfully he managed to slow down enough that he could lurch Shay and Nii to their feet. Then he took off again so he could regain the imperative SPEED.

Oddly Selene seemed to possess a skill that Adair lacked. He hated to admit a failing but for some reason she was sliding along quite nicely and keeping up with his Mach-one footwork. It did not click that the ground was in fact tilting downwards and he was now leaping with each step to keep going down ASAP.

“Selene?...What.... precisely... are we... runnin... from luv?” Adair gasped out, only now realizing he did not know why he was running.

“Boulder!” She didn't risk a glare at him in her concentration on sliding.

“Ah.” he risked a glance over his shoulder and saw he and Selene had quite the lead on the others. Some were also sliding while others were running tilted back a bit. Adair did not know rightly why, nor did he see the evil thing coming to smush 'em like ants.

Finally momentum caught up with his wild attempts to thwart its will.

He could feel the pull of gravity on him as he ran but had attributed it to his lack of balancing skills. That was until he toppled ass over tea-kettle after his heel skidded on the floor; something that seemed to get farther and farther away with each stride. Due to his skills at the improbable he tumbled and hit the roof.

“Bloody hell!” he yelled as he curled into a ball and thumped his way down the hall, hitting walls, the ceiling and a floor that was rapidly becoming just another wall.

Finally he heard the screams (and what the men would like to call 'yells') of the others as the floor he wasn't touching anyway became too steep to slide or run down. He came out of his ball and looked up, seeing the faces of his compatriots in various stages of terror. Then he looked down and saw... was that his reflection?

“Bugger.”

He slammed into the water that he then both blessed and cursed in the same sentence. Which of course came out as a serious bubbles and uninterpretable noises as he choked on the very thing that had just saved him from a narly end.

Didn't mean it hadn't stung somethin hurtful.

He swam like a thing possessed to the side, getting out of the way of those behind him. Selene was first and she splashed down to the right of him, kicking his ribs as she swam away (he'd believe it was an accident). He touched the shore as the water erupted multiple times as people slammed into it's surface. He reached for those floundering and grabbed their hands, yanking them to the shore.

“Faster would be better everyone, unless you want to be a piece of gum.”

CT's lovely message (you know I'm going to tell you something bad eh?): Alright, second floor of the challenge. Guess what you have to do? No seriously, take a *wild* guess....
Now, picture this hall/floor like a teeter-totter. We don't make any significant difference to the weight, but the boulder... Is a different story. When it hits, we're gonna roll/fall towards it. Your challenge is to *not* do that.

[Crystal Tears]

….

Selene
Noose around a choking heart
Eternity torn apart
So toll now the funeral bells
Bye Bye Beautiful

So this was getting bit ridiculous, falling, water, getting up, helping others. Their lives had been in constant danger and others were beginning to lag behind. As the shadow of the boulder began to loom there was a blur of a large rock and everyone jumped, ran or otherwise tried to get out of the way. Selene yelped, the floor shifted, it was like being on some sort of teeter-totter, the weight of the boulder causing the once level floor to become a very steep hill very fast.

Selene scrambled and leapt, grasping one of the raised floor pieces. Her wrist greatly protested to this, but she swung herself up. She sat there, and dared to look down into the dark depths of the newly formed cliff side. In the darkness, two things lit up, fire blazed from them and the gunner gulped as they seemed to burn into her like she was staring at the devil himself.

“Alright…” She mumbled, “It has eyes…” She grabbed into another and climbed up higher. “Burning, evil eyes… But eyes…”

The woman glanced over and blinked. Adair, there he was, clinging to the normal tile, spikes on the toe of his shoes dug deep into the crevices between each one. Selene stared for another second before jumping and grabbing hold of another ledge. She was going to put as much distance between her and that boulder with eyes as she could.

That was probably everyone’s intention, but she and Adair were doing the best. That was until the drunk, who was a little ahead of her, slipped. He let out a sudden yelp and flapped his arms as if trying to fly (or keep his balance) before tumbling down. Selene did a long jump to another set of raised tiles and turned it into a desperate, hand out-stretched belly-flop. She slammed into the ground hard, slid a little and her hand clasped shut.

On Adair’s sleeve.

The man, who was panting heavily looked up and saw that Selene’s body was laying half on the ledge, her other arm was desperately clinging to a crevice between the tiles and looked as if she was having one hell of a time staying where she was.

“Lassy I never knew you cared!”

“I…” She groaned, slowly lifting him up so he could grasp the ledge. “D-don’t…”

“This is evidence otherwise- WAH!”

She twisted her body around and flung him onto the ledge. Adair looked curiously at the gunner who was already trying to make it higher.

“We need a pilot.” She replied.

“Ah, yes, good point. Well, it’s splendid to know my grand title will keep me alive!”

As he said that, the entire cliff-face shuttered and groaned, and suddenly the steep drop was becoming more practical.

“Oh, I… Suppose I spoke too soon.”

“Run!” Selene ordered, and as the ground became once again possible to tread the group was off to the races again, the hillside soon enough turning flat.

“What are we running on?!” Shayna gasped, obviously growing tired of this.

“A… Teeter-totter… Dearest!” Adair replied, taking off, running as fast as before, with Selene moving just as fast beside him.

Selene sprung, clearing a row of raised tile as Adair nimbly dodged one.


Then the two leaders were forced to glance at each other with a very concerned expression..

“That’s… not…”

“Oh… Yes… it is…” He replied, paling a little.

“No…” Selene gulped.

“Bugger.” They said in unison.

Swinging from side to side, glinting in the light barely cast from the walls, were axes.

They glanced at each other again as the even ground began to turn into a hill they had to run down.

“Good luck.”

“Same to you deary~”

[Weasel Overlord]

Temzi :: Dragoon of Justice

:: standing in the shadows ::

Temzi and Seta had, rather confusingly, become separated from the main party. The mob was lost to them, as it were, and Temzi was feeling ever so slightly perplexed and bemused and generally displeased about the situation. But, as ever, he did his utmost best to not show negative feelings, and he instead opted to chatter away ebulliently to the stone-mouthed Seta, who punctuated his rare breaks with the occasional grunt - just to show that he was listening, and possibly that he agreed or disagreed with whatever it was Temzi was opining at that moment in time.

Temzi stalked the corridors of death and despair and doom and other d-like words with nary a worry. A simple trap could not hinder a Dragoon of the Order of Justice in his mighty quest, oh no! No indeed! His armour, however… that was rather a different story.

Clank.

“Seta!”

Clunk.

“Watch out for that-argh!”

Smash.

“It’s huge!”

Smoosh.

“ARGH!”

Cronk.

“Now really, what sort of deadly trap goes ‘cronk.’ That’s just bad form, do you agree, my fellow adventu-”

Cronk.

The thing that went ‘cronk’ went ‘cronk’ slightly more loudly, and slightly more menacingly at Temzi’s last words, as if it were determined to win back its reputation as a deadly trap. The thing that went ‘cronk’ cronked as if its life depended on it - though it did not, for things that go ‘cronk’ are not actually alive. The thing that went ‘cronk’ cronked Temzi so hard that his helm slid a further two inches down his face, until the nosepiece was embracing his mouth and the eyeholes were giving Seta an entertaining view of Temzi’s nostrils.

“Ow,” said Temzi, rather unnecessarily. He pushed at the helm, but to no avail – it was thoroughly wedged on, and he grimaced. “Uh Seta, I think you might have to uh, help me from now on?”

Seta’s face, though Temzi could not see it doing so, moved in the very small semblance of a smile, and he reached out and rapped smartly, three times, upon the front of the helm.

“Ow!” said Temzi again. “I say! Unfair play that Viera!” He flailed around for a second, uselessly, and then was still. “Seta, are you still there?”

“Yes,” Seta replied.

“Have the cronking things stopped now?”

“Affirmative.”

“Oh good. Although I suspect that it might be winding itself up for another go at the old head. What do you say we get moving, Seta, my honourable Viera chum?”

“Agreed,” Seta agreed.

“I uh, might need something in the way of assistance, mind?” his voice rose slightly at the end of this, and he groped around blindly for Seta. Having found him and given him a fairly good groping, Temzi managed to get himself a nice firm hold on Seta’s coattails, and he wrapped the one hand in material and clasped Dragon Whisper even firmer with the other.

“Lead on, brave adventurer! Only… try not to lead on into any pendulums of doom or spike traps or pitfalls or cronking things, yes?”

“Yes,” Seta nodded, and they went forth into the brave, not-so-blue-but-more-blood-coloured yonder with not a small helping of trepidation.

Luckily for the intrepid warriors of Truth and Justice, the next room contained a mere sliding floor, which dropped them right through a lovely trapdoor and then out of the roof and into the centre of a nice, waiting group of friends.

“Ow,” said Temzi, needlessly, as Seta landed atop him. “You know, for a race of rabbits, you Viera weigh quite a lot more than one would expect,” he said, conversationally, as he shoved at the shape he assumed to be Seta (for the helm was still well and truly wedged in place). “Not that I mean to be rude or anything, but you know. Maybe you’re getting a bit porky?” He poked Seta in the fluff of his bobtail, blissfully unaware of the social faux-pas he was committing. “Not sure about that fluff either. Has no-one ever recommended you a shave, Honourable Seta? I did hear at the Academy that to attract women, one must be clean-shaven and have a manly yet groomed appearance.”

A snigger came from somewhere in the room, but Temzi carried on blithely. “And not to mention a nice haircut every once in a while. A dab of cologne, perhaps, and you’re ready to go!”

He clamped two hands on the helm and pulled with all his might. “A little help, perhaps?” When two more hands clamped down atop his own, he smiled. “Ah Seta, I knew you wouldn’t forsake me! Yes, your knightly strength should be all the help I need!”

Two tugs and he was free, and all-of-a-sudden-full of the realisation that, for the first time since he’d left the Academy, people were seeing his face!

He looked up, in all his messy, helm-haired glory, at the helper - Seta - who looked down at him, the ghost of a smile flitting across his face.

“Groomed?” he said, and a blush to match his hair rose up Temzi’s cheeks with all the speed of a fast-approaching death-pendulum.

He rubbed his dishevelled head and stared firmly at the ground, his battered helm clasped to his chest like a life jacket.

[Pichu Luver]

Adair Stroud

“Good luck”

“Same to you deary.” He returned, as the race to run continued. Or perhaps it was a chess game where everyone were pawns and that boulder-bomb behind them was a queen with a serious drag fetish. Adair did not know. The monsters around these parts never followed rules he was familiar with. Spira made sense, Ivalice was ridiculous in its penchant for monsters on steroids. There wasn't just the many varieties of small beasties, they had to be HUGE but with the same rules as the small ones. It was truly aggravating in its desire to kill its inhabitants.

Take this ludicrous test for example. They didn't just have to deal with a bomb focused on their death by inferno (he didn't care what Sirius said about explosions in the morning, a phoenix he definitely was not), but gravity was inserted for the fun of the master player. Gravity just was not a fair addition as it was the chief problem Adair had with remaining upright. It really was a nuisance this thing called gravity.

Oh well, kept the lasses in bed, but right now gravity had decided he needed to speed toward the axes wholly intent on replaying the um.... well he never was good at history but it involved people who ate slugs and frog legs so her head probably deserved to come off.

However he found his head to be a grand example of the perfection possible in a male form so he decided – resolutely of course – to keep it.

Thus off came his scabbard and he fell on it.

Selene did not spare him a glance other then to possibly notice his head was no longer occupying is previous place in space. Though the imminent meeting of axes and a probable engagement with them had her necessarily distracted. Adair did not wish to deal with any more attempts on the removal of his thinking cap, so he ducked. Sort of.

It was called the 'skeleton' for good reason.

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

The needed outcry commenced as he headed, headfirst (he now realized the fault in his masterful plan) towards the axes on his belly, skidding on the scabbard of his sword. He used his metal studded feet to steer and he swerved madly around one set of axes and zigged the other way around the others. They were just high enough up to mostly avoid his sliding form but he didn't need anymore ribbons in his clothing. No matter if the ladies would appreciate it.

The outcroppings 'decorating' the floor were the main threat now, a serious risk to knocking him out cold should he hit one. He wildly careened around one but this brought him into unfortunate contact with Selene. He never could seem to stop nearly toppling the lass.

He couldn't believe he actually heard her squeak as she tripped over his tobogganing self. He expected to hear curses and a sailing blond body but no! He did not give her enough credit it would seem. She used her trip to stumble onto his back!

The girl had skills, even if she HAD driven the air out of him in her thumping onto him.

“Oy!” he called (sounding more like a asthmatic Moogle then he would later admit to) as she balanced and looked way to much like a snowboarder for his dignity.

“Oh! There's a head!” she said, sounding both surprised and amused.

“Of course there is you belligerent baboon! My body has it's talents but avoiding death without my superior intellect would be impossible.”

“AXE!!!”

Truning back to the raceway, he did a wonderful impression of a owl as he stared then axes intent on taking out their new version of team sport.

He made unintelligible noises of terror as he thrust his right foot out and careened sideways past the axe. So that both of them stared at it and possible their deaths as well. Then they could not see the next one as they were faced backwards into the disbelieving eyes of the their fellow comrades.

Around his um... 'manly' cries of horror he heard the screams of his fellow passenger.

Oh wait they were actually high pitched mostly intelligible words.

He listened.

“ADAIR! ABOUT FACE!”

“Trying love!”

She kneed him in the spine for such a word, though it was more likely she was dizzy and wanted to make sure if she went because of his idiocy he would too. He felt her grasp the back of his jacket and they slammed into the left wall and for a few moments they straightened out. Amazingly the next set of axes they had slid past backwards and Adair promptly decided he had horseshoes up his ass.

Alas, those horseshoes fell out. For the exact second they turned around and straightened out he slammed face first into one of those outcroppings and well... he saw gray, stars and nearly passed out.

Do to momentum (he, if he had been capable of thought, would of deduced physics was altogether a evil science) he flipped over the block and Selene was nearly bucked off as they were tossed through the air.

In his semi-conscious state his body flopped through the movements and when he hit the ground the pain of impact jarred him slightly from dreamland. He screeched from the pain and opened his rainbow filled eyes (due to blood in them) he saw a psychedelic axe.

Out of terrified noises he covered his head and hoped for the best. Selene his stalwart passenger had somehow more sense then he (not surprisingly in Adair's current mental state) kicked his left leg out and leaned to the right. They swerved around the axe and thankfully saw once more their reflection.

“A...” he said (clearly unhinged) “there a friendly chap I know.”

“How the hell do you know it's you?” Selene asked.

“I'm figuring I'm not the pretty one.... Eh! Were flying!”

By now the floor had become a wall again so they were dropping towards the ground. Which Adair decided to announce by flapping his arms and declaring,

“WERE FREEEEE FAAAAAALLIN!”

“Oh wow.”

Clearly she did not know what to make of him. Thankfully she had mercy on his delirious soul and kicked his legs so he was now parallel to the water. Instead of headfirst.

“Sorry.”

“Whatever fo-”

Adair thus became the penultimate of belly flopper's and he knew no more.

*shifty eyes* Me? Torture Adair? Never! ^^''''

[classy_cat18]

Sori - Time Mage Moogle

I guess I should be feeling bad that I had averted the whole teeter-totter of doom by hanging onto Sirius' shoulder. But with the magical landlock still in place, I had no alternative. I'm sure Sirius wasn't too thrilled either with a wet Moogle clinging to him, especially since any furry thing tends to stink after a while. "Don't say a word," I told him through clenched teeth when he had the chance to hold his nose.

After all the running and jumping and screaming, we managed to make it to a safe area. I let myself on the ground and sat down. "This just keeps getting better and better," I grumbled.

There seemed to have been two members of our motley crew missing. Those two tumbled in shortly after us. It was the stiff male Viera and the chilvarous Dragoon. The Dragoon looked like he was having helmet issues. I giggled uncontrollably as Temzi commented on Seta's need to shave (although he would've looked ridiculous without the fur). Seta helped Temzi remove his helm, and then a chorus of gasps followed.

We could see his face.

I was speechless. Nii was not. "Nii thinks you're the one that needs grooming," she told Temzi.

"I agree," I chipped in. "That's one serious case of helmet hair."

"Says the Moogle with a pom-pom problem," Selene muttered.

I shot a glare at her while patting my pom-pom. I turned pale, however, when I felt less fuzz than usual. "What...happened?" I slowly asked myself.

"Oh, it might have been the near-miss of that dreadful axe on the way here," Sirius commented.

I merely twitched in shock before screaming at the top of my lungs.

[Crystal Tears]

Selene
Pumping up the volume, breaking down to the beat
Cruising through the west side
We'll be checking the scene
Boulevard is freaking as I'm coming up fast
I'll be burning rubber, you'll be kissing my ass

There were numerous incidents where Selene’s mind had comments that her mouth refused to announce. When Adair’s body (later revealed to have a head), tripped her, she decided to use his back like a board and catch a ride (as bad as that sounds…). She had been somewhat dismayed the troublesome drunk (pilot) was alive, but when he proved to be a fast mode of transportation she had forgiven him for still having his precious head.

She had kept her eye on ahead of them, though he had not. So her mind decided she should warn him.

Oh shi-

“AXE!!”

So they had brilliantly avoided the axe, which both felt compelled to stare at. But then something she had not counted on (what so ever) happened. Adair’s body swiveled around, the gunner kept her balance beautifully but none the less they were in a very bad predicament.

The fiery eyes of the massive bomb almost seemed to stare right at her, as an axe they narrowly missed swung in front of her view for a moment.

Well… Hello

Her board seemed to think screaming and screeching curses and things no one could understand was the way to deal with this.

“ADAIR! ABOUT FACE!”

His reply was typical, but as they begun to spin again she knelt down (admittedly roughly) and clung desperately to his collar. They missed a good number of axes and for a moment Selene thought maybe they would get through this alive.

Shiiiyiyiyiyiyiyiiit!

They did numerous flips (and flops) through the air and it was Selene that forced his body to land belly first on the ground. Consequently they kept going, her mind jarred and cleared by the landing she stood up again, noticing that Adair had covered his head, and there were great many (sharp) obstacles in the way. Promptly she made use of her quick-thinking mind and kicked out left leg and leaned to the right.

Then, they were falling again, pure luck allowing them to dodge the last axe. Adair began to flap his arms and Selene had to kick his legs so the pirate wouldn’t dive head first into a not-so-deep pool.

It was then she remembered something from her past. She had once jumped from the balcony on the third (or was it the forth?) floor into the pool. Only the woman had been little then and not understood the concept of belly-flops hurting from a mere diving board 6 feet above the water’s surface…

Oh… Her mouth opened a little realizing they were falling from much higher than the 3rd or 4th story. Crap…

“Sorry.”

“Whatever fo-“

Then there was a definite slap when the man careened into the pool’s surface.

Hitting the water wasn’t something she was too keen on. No, Selene preferred staying dry, but the worst part about it was that it hurt. Slamming into the pool was better than hitting the ground, but honestly… The body could only take so much abuse before it decided enough was enough and there you were lying there, knocked out. The woman broke the surface of the water and gasped, before reaching out and grabbing the coat collar of Adair. The man had proved he had more sense than luck, but that had promptly run out it would seem.

That bodily limit that was mentioned? Yeah, Adair had long passed the line and now was being dragged onto the tile. Selene groaned, using her fading body strength she dragged the poor man several feet before taking a breather as the first of the others began to slam into the pool.

The man weighed a ton, exactly why she didn’t know but he could be an anchor for a small boat. Gritting her teeth she summoned up her strength again and hid behind one of the rise tile platforms as the glowing eyes of the boulder briefly came into view. The monster of a rolling-device slammed hard down behind the group, and Selene couldn’t help but notice Laevra was nowhere in sight. Hoping the best for the Viera she turned her attention back to the unconscious man.

As the boulder hit the pool, Selene’s eyes widen and she grimaced as its cruel mouth turned ablaze. What was it her father told her of bombs before?

“Think of a bomb like one of life’s fine lessons… It’ll all comes back at you in threes.”

Then her mother had spoken. “Then it blows up in your face.”

That was two.

Then the floor shifted abruptly, and the level ground became a Cliffside. Selene nearly fell onto her comrade, who was still out cold. Holding herself over him (which was a position she really didn’t want to be in), she stared at him reddened, scratched, bleeding, and broken face, and slapped him as hard as she could.

Adair jolted, groggy and miserable. “Wu… Wut… What?” His eyes slowly opened and Selene stared at his one shrunken and one extremely dilated pupil.

That’s inspiring… She frowned. “Adair!”

“Who? Oh me, yes lovely, what about me? You can have me if you really wish it darlin’!”

Selene frowned, and Adair seemed to clue in who he was talking to.

“OH! Selene! Uh no, I meant no, I didn’t…” He gulped. “Don’t shoot me?”

“Do you have another potion?”

“Rums in the bag,” He said, and began to giggle incessantly.

Raising a brow at him and then turning her attention to the bag she reached in, grasped a bottle that didn’t feel like it was rum, noted how there was something wet and furry in Adair’s bag (she wasn’t going to ask), and pulled it out.

The floor began to shift, they had to move soon.

Without thinking about his need to breathe, she opened his mouth, pulled the cork out of the bottle (spat it out), and shoved the thing practically down his throat.

He coughed, and sputtered, but the potion seemed to fix his brain (as best as it could, Selene doubted any miracle liquid could heal that thing..), and he clued back into reality.

She leapt onto the higher platform, and remembered how fast he reacted last time. The gunner chanced a glance back at him as she continued to catch up the others.

“RUN!”

Not five seconds after she had said that, was Adair right next to her, climbing as quickly as he could as the floor slowly began to level out again. It was then, at that exact moment, everyone heard that horrible noise of gears shifting.

Selene growled, and grasped another tile.

Now what?

The raised tiles and pillars everyone was using to climb were sinking back into the floor which was forming a definite curve. People all exclaimed various curses, but the dear old captain who Selene had temporarily forgotten about due to the life-threatening situation topped them all.

Of course, that could be because he was falling.

Without thinking about her own safety (again), and with little grip on small crack between each tile, she swung herself out and caught his arm roughly. Her arm screamed in pain and she let out a definite groan of frustration and agony.

Sirius looked up at her, surprised to see he was no longer falling to his fiery demise, and Sori looked up over his shoulder.

Selene managed a strained greeting.

“…Hi…”

[Weasel Overlord]

Sirius fir Sterrl de Famfræn

[Captain and General Ruler of the Wolfstar]

dreams are made winding through my head

The death of one Batilis had been a sad incident indeed for poor Sirius. In fact, he was so traumatised by the event that no-one could get the story out of him.

All everyone knew was that he now had a supreme fear of doors. Closing doors. Closing on him about the waist. Like lift doors. Decapitating his delectable top half from the even more delectable bottom half. Nono no nonono. He was not going to think or talk about it. No. NO NO NO.

But anyway. Matters at hand were somewhat… disturbing. To say the least. Not only had he survived evil closing rocky doors of doom (by a hair), but now he had to contend with, like, boulders and stuff! Tipping towards him like rolly death! Argh!

He mentally added see-saws of death to his “I really hate this” list, and concentrated extremely hard (and handsomely) on staying the hell alive. Luckily, balancing on one leg while being violently thrown to one side was a speciality of Sirius’, having to escape from many a dangerous husband situations as he had.

His few glimpses of Adair being ridden like a surfboard caused him to guffaw for a brief period of time, before his mouth was abruptly filled with Moogle-fur as Sori tumbled from nowhere and hit him slap in the face.

“Mf-owf-uck-” said Sirius, flailing. Sori kindly took himself out of Sirius’ mouth and satisfied himself by perching on his shoulder, his little Moogley arms wrapped tightly around his neck.

“Much as I - cough - appreciate that - splutter - Sori, could you, you know…” Sirius promptly saw stars as he choked slowly to death in the grip of the Moogle.

“Oh sorry!” Sori yelled in his ear. “I didn’t see you there!”

Sirius choked back laughter as air filled his lungs once more.

And then, suddenly, his ear was being pinched as hard as it had ever been pinched before, and he appeared to be toppling off a cliff.

“I say! Where did this cliff come from?! This falling situation isn’t really ideal, you know.”

“Well I can’t exactly help out now, can I?”

“And you’re gripping my ear rather tightly, I must say.”

“It’s the only thing available!”

“Well, that may be true my uh, Moogle, but I’d prefer it if you, say, gripped me somewhere else, perhaps? I have some perfectly good clothes, you know.”

“What if they tear, Captain? What then?”

“Then you shall fall to your untimely and tragic death, my Moogle friend, but at least you will not be pinching my ear quite so much.” Sori changed his grip, and Sirius smiled a rakish smile. “Thank you kindly. Now, if we may turn our attention to our current, ah, predicament?”

A hand reached down from nowhere, and Sirius breathed a secret sigh of relief.

“Hi,” the arm said, as a face loomed into view. And a very welcome and pretty face, at that.

“Selene!” Sirius exclaimed. “Fancy seeing you here in this moment of mortal peril. If you could, perhaps, aah yes, there we go.” He hauled himself up with Selene’s help, and Sori clambered over his head and flopped onto the floor.

Sirius himself was also flopped out on the floor, but still holding onto Selene’s hand as if it were a lifeline.

“Madame, you have saved the day! Can you imagine what a disaster it would have been if you’d have lost your only captain?! Unthinkable!” He shook his head tiredly, completely ignoring the look on Selene’s face. “What can I do to repay you? Oh I don’t know, what would be an apt reward for such a magnificent service to mankind? No, to Ivalice itself? I don’t think there is such a reward. Or perhaps…” He looked up at Selene through his lashes, batting them in what he called his trademark “no man should have such amazing eyelashes” look.

“Those’re some girly lashes you’ve got there, Captain,” Selene retorted, her face set stubbornly.

“They are a reflection of your beauty, my darling,” smiled Sirius, sickeningly. Selene almost seemed to physically gag, and her face twisted into a grimace.

“Disgusting. Does that ever actually work?”

“Two out of three times, my love,” Sirius smarmed, taking her hand. He ran a finger across her palm, all the while looking up at her seductively. “So. Onto the payment, yes?”

Selene shook her hand free and made as if to leave, but Sirius planted his hands firmly - one on either side of her face - and leaned closer, taking note of Selene’s blue eyes and perfect complexion. “People all over Ivalice would pay for a reward such as this from Sirius fir Sterrl de Famfræn,” he frowned for a second. “And frequently have, at that.”

“Oh shut up and get it over with, if you must,” said Selene, rolling her eyes. “Since you won’t take no for an answer, I suppose I-”

Her words were promptly silenced as Sirius worked his mojo on her. His magical, kissy mojo.

And, for at least two seconds, two people in the horrible temple of death’s worlds were rocked.

EDIT: THIS WAS TOTALLY A DRUNK-POST. CAN Y'ALL TELL!?!

[Crystal Tears]

Selene

The moment their lips touched Selene’s body tensed and her hands were frozen halfway between clenching. So it looked as it any second the woman would take it upon herself to rip the flesh from Sirius’s pretty (though she would not admit to herself) face.

Sirius fir… OH to hell with his entire name. The man is dead, gone, I swear to whatever deity happens to be on the forsaken piece of shit continent (which she had determined was *not* worth it) that I will personally see to his execu-

His firm hold on her face softened so he was cradling her cheek as one hand drifted down to gently hold her arm.

Oh wow…

For the briefest of seconds Selene lost herself in the kiss and her tension was lost. Whatever came over her; it made her arms lift so that she was just beginning to ever so softly touch his arms.

Then there was that distinct, reality inducing rumble.

Following that was a typical Selene Raminas reaction to any man touching her in a way that she deemed unfit. And this, to the much more regal and uppity part of her mind, was definitely unfit. So, she pulled away and they stared at each other for another second as her two very different views on the world slammed into one another and battled for control.

She slapped him as hard as the woman could muster, leaving a very distinct red hand mark.

Next time, he can flap his pretty little arms and hope to hell he’s a Garuda.

Apparently the side she had grown up with won and the adventurous, fun-loving woman was forced into the background once again.

And now, they ran.

Of course they were in last place, if there were indeed standings. Sori had at some point grabbed onto Seta, which had explained why the annoying little furball had not broken the two apart. Which wasn’t she quite if she would’ve thanked the moogle or cursed him… Selene was sure however, that this hallway couldn’t be as simple as it was letting on, a curved floor to help the bomb along was an advantage for this death trap, but the last had seemed a little more challenging-

And there was a massive hole in front of them.

The others found their own ways to cross it, but Selene was as tired as hell and just wanted to relax. Sirius seemed to glance over to her, as if he also was lacking an idea at exactly how either of them was going to cross that trench (which would conveniently fill in for the boulder most likely). The gunner had a plan for herself, and her uppity mind told her to leave the dear Captain to his gruesome death. But she couldn’t, no, for all the evil in her she had a good heart. So as they rapidly approached it, her hands began to glow a bright white which the pirate seemed to take a keen notice of.

“Are you hands meant to do that, fair lady?” He remarked as they ever so neared the hole, she shot him a glare. "I do hope they won't be staying like that for long - I might have to kiss you again and that wouldn't be good for my clothes or my eyebrows"

Keenly tempted to leave him to die, she flicked her hands and a white energy shot at the ground below them. The glow spread out before vanishing, leaving only a faint glow around their feet. Selene bolted, knowing the spell wouldn’t last forever; she dashed clean over the hole, followed closely by Sirius.

“another comment like that,” The woman huffed as they ran, giving Sirius a dirty stare.. “and next hole I’ll leave you to jump over.”

They were catching up; she was relieved to know this. Of course, now the hall made much more sense. While the last level had raised floors and such, this one has pits, trenches, holes, and whatever else someone could fall into. The woman groaned mentally as she weaved around one hole, leapt clean over another (both followed by her ever so faithful companion…).

"you only say that-“

She leapt, he leapt.

“-because you want to see-“

She jumped, he jumped.

- my manly, captainly mega-leap!"

She reached what looked to be solid ground for the moment and let her guard down for a millisecond. Then of course, she looked to her left, she didn’t even have time to scream, her mouth just barely dropped as her mind tunneled and her blue eyes focused on a swinging axe about to impale her.

But the blade was robbed of it’s victory, Selene was gracefully moved out of the way by the captain who thought it was necessary to sweep her (as that was the movement he did) clean off her feet. The woman blinked, heart still pounding from the near-death experience she had just had. And he was carrying her, while moving ridiculously fast for such a feat.

"as I narrowly avoid peril to save my fair maiden."

She would’ve killed him for that last comment, but she dearly owed him and she was much too tired to run herself. So, like all good noble-raised women, she did the one thing that seemed fair.

She made him do all manual labor, as she literally did almost nothing worth noting.

Well, this is convenient… And awkward…

“I am not your fair maiden….” She growled, used the spell once again, giving them a supreme advantage over the boulder and those forced to jump and bound. However, one could not use an overabundance of spells (even to aid) right after having gone through that could really be described as hell. So the spell so cleverly named Float was becoming increasingly taxing.

“Fair maidens get carried in all the stories!” He smiled, that sickeningly Sirius smile that Selene was really beginning to hate.

What really bothered her, however, was that she had no real comeback for that remark. And Sirius knew it too, the gunner toyed with the idea of running on her own, but she really didn’t want too. At least if she died this way, it was due to his stupidity as her ‘knight and shining armor’ and not one of her own mistakes.

Finally she managed something.

“At least you’re not Adair…”

He laughed, how the hell did this man manage to catch everyone, carry her, and talk and laugh at the same bloody time? Selene concluded that his lungs must’ve been having a heyday. Then she noticed that the floor was slick from the water running down it now, and that it would be much easier to slide.

“Drop me.” She was intent on doing this last little stretch on her own.

“Pardon?”

Put. Me. Down.”

"I would, but we're only just getting started"

If looks could kill.

Selene managed to squirm from his hold, and though she ran at first, she waited for a rather damp patch of smooth(ish) tile and began to once again slide. She looked once again like a snow or skateboarder with the board (Adair was much too far ahead for that), but quickly began to overtake Sirius. She was happy, that maybe, she would escape him, only he learned how to do it quickly (thought not as gracefully as Selene), and pulled next to her.

They quickly caught up, and were closing the gap between themselves and the leaders.

Which was a good thing; because that giddy Bomb behind them was quickly gaining ground.

[classy_cat18]

Niosa Tiera (Nii) -- Al Bhed Gunner

"Why are you still carrying that bag?" Shayna demanded as we raced down yet another corridor of horror. Her look suggested that it was another thing that was better off ditched.

I patted the messenger bag that hung from my shoulder. "Nii needs ammo," I answered.

"WATCH OUT!"

I looked ahead and yelped as an ax headed straight for my neck. Fortunately I ducked in time to save everything above my neck. The only thing that was cut off was a few hairs. Shayna almost got hit while she had her attention on me.

It just got worse when we got to a big hole in the middle of the corridor, right in front of more axes. Temzi, who was in the lead, managed to spring over it with his Dragoon jumping skills. I quickly got an idea. "Nii's glad that Nii lugged this around!" I pulled out my rifle and fired a Thundara at the swinging ax closest to the hole. The attack blasted through the pole at the top, freeing the blade from the ceiling. The blade fell to the floor in a loud clang, then toppled over.

The result: instant bridge.

"Excellent!" Adair exclaimed as he used it first. The pole creaked under his weight. The others followed until it was my turn. My weight seemed to be the straw that broke its back. I cried out and jumped the best I could for the ledge. My feet touched the edge but the weight of the bag as it swung backwards threatened to throw me off. Adair and Seta each grabbed an arm and pulled me to safety.

"Th...thanks," I said breathlessly.

"How about we continue our terrifying race?" Adair suggested as soon as I caught my breath.

Sori -- Time Mage Moogle

"Hey! HEY!"

It was no use. Those two were so absorbed with each other, it would've taken that boulder to separate them. My ears lay back in frustration and looked up at Seta as he stopped to wait for his mistress (or whatever Selene was to him). "Miss Selene--" he started.

"Forget it, she's dead to the world right now," I said hastily as I climbed up his clothes. "Mind giving me a ride?"

The Viera sighed and took off running after the rest of the people that weren't busy smacking lips. Seta nimbly dodged the axes that swung our way, even though one of them got pretty close. In a panic, I grabbed his ears and jumped off of him. Seta grunted as his head got yanked back, the closest thing to a scream anyone would get out of him. "A little warning before you do that?" he grunted.

I smiled a little and grasped his shirt, letting go of his ears. "Would you rather have those ears chopped off?"

He ran over the makeshift bridge made by the Al Bhed and waited for her to cross herself. To our horror, it snapped when she was halfway over. Fortunately she leaped to safety with the help of Adair and Seta.

Now the floor was full of smaller holes and other things to trap us in. I rode Seta's shoulder as he jumped and weaved through the obstacles, dodging even more axes. Only this time his manuevers were hampered by the fact that the tile had gotten slippery. "I got an idea," I told him.

I aimed my rod at the slick floor ahead of us. "Blizzard!" An icy beam froze the water and trailed down the ramp. "Now slide!" With emphasis on the last word, I yanked on his ears again, this time hard enough to pull him to his butt.

Selene and Sirius zoomed past us, looking like pros. "You little furball!" Selene shouted at me over her shoulder. "You couldn't wait three seconds?"

"Sorry, but you two seemed so happy sucking each other's face off!" I shouted back. "And that wasn't three seconds!"

Nii must've been caught by surprise because she slid beside us backwards, her eyes wide. "Um...Nii hears the boulder again," she whimpered.

[Pichu Luver]

Adair Stroud

Adair was running again.

He didn't know why, only he had gotten the order from Selene. . . and he wasn't quite sure who she was but the name seemed to fit.

So he was running and as everyone else was running it seemed like a wise action to take; even if he didn't know why. The benefits of recent memories being lost to unconsciousness were that he felt no fear, besides that the obstacles in front of him were of the most outlandish sort he had ever witnessed. Oddly, they seemed to want to kill him. He couldn't imagine why. Though, he supposed he had been avoiding death for a while as he was damn tired.

So he ran across bridges of wooden poles, saved a damsel who he vaguely recalled he should never say such a thing to her as she would possibly take it the wrong way. He looked behind him as even in his confused state of mind he was of course in front saving his lovely ass. He knew everyone's name but he didn't know how he knew them. Only that since they weren't shooting at him he must not be the cause of their current predicament. For this he was grateful.

Then.... there was ice (he cursed it in his flamboyant way).

He remembered ice.... and monsters and....

“CONFOUNDED YEVONITE BASTERDS!”

Of course such exclamations should never be said while sprinting down an icy decline. Even with steel toed boots. Fate just deemed such things foolish for the mortal man to do. So... he tripped.

And somersaulted.

And flipped.

And skid.

And then rolled. Really he could make the Archades gymnastic squad with the amount of contortions he put his body through and come out with no strained muscles. Some might wonder at the background that could make him capable of such flexibility, but for the sake of their minds they quickly dismissed it.

Finally he managed to land on his feet, however it was a lost cause. He was seriously the deer on a pond scenario as he just could NOT get purchase. Or he did and sent himself through his Olympic routine once more. Somehow though, he was keeping himself in front of the pack and he was FIRMLY ignoring the hysterical laughter he could hear behind him as he did a superb rendition of the tango/waltz/rumba and something involving a hula-hop in his bid to keep upright.

Throughout his embarrassing (yet incredibly skillful) dance number the axes had been missing and replaced with numerous holes. The axes returned now and he decided chopping lumber was wise.

He brought out his sword and started swinging.

He REALLY hated physics.

“AHhhHHhhhHHhhHHhhHHH!!”

He was the tornado of destruction. Spinning rapidly, putting any figure skater to shame, he spun his way down the ice until it finally was no longer the ground and he was 'free falling'. He saw his reflection... noticed it was more mirror like then normal and called,

“SORI YOU!.... SOME'UM SOME'UM!”

He flipped his sword so the point was face down and slammed into the ice. The concussive wave of energy or air or something Adair didn't understand broke apart all the ice around him, but not the piece his sword was now lodged halfway into. His knees were crying uncle but he stood anyway and tugged. And yanked and did some stupid sort of jig as he pulled on it and sunk under the water.

The splashes of the others hitting the water surrounded him as he pulled, but he gave it up for a lost cause... but not his sword. He dragged it out of the water (emerging much like a lagoon monster he did admit) and skedaddled out of the way of the bomb-boulder. His own personal anchor bouncing along behind.

[ChobiChibi]

Shayna Xanthrope~

The young girl felt some sort of relief as she hit the water for the third, and hopefully final, time. She was a very good swimmer, fortunately, from the many games she had played of Blitz ball when she was younger. It was a lot easier than running, jumping, sliding, avoiding... She was quite lucky that she was the observant kind, otherwise she was sure that she would have fallen down of the holes or been sliced open or some other kind horrible fateful event would have killed her.

She took her time swimming to the other side this time, despite the impending doom of a giant, grinning boulder looming in the back of her mind, thinking about exactly what she had observed. First and foremost, she knew that she would probably never be able to “outrun” Adair in a panic, the concept of which made her chuckle slightly. Secondly, this silly Al Bhed girl was quite good at magic, she would have to admit, a skill that Shayna took a very long time to learn, but didn’t manage to perfect. In her mind, she had no need for magic when her fists and shuriken could do the talking. Thirdly, there was Selene...

And that damned Pirate, Sirius.

She had seen them. I mean, who hadn’t? Sirius had the cheek to sweep Selene off her feet and, despite that sour look she kept giving him, she could tell she quite liked it.

Now, Shayna’s not normally one to get petty over these things, but in all honesty, she wasn’t quite sure who she was more jealous of; Selene or Sirius.

She made it to the other side quite quickly, actually. Obviously the big grinny boulder had more of an affect on her subconsciously than she had realised. Quickly squeezing the water out from her soggy shirt, she hurried to catch up with Adair, whose sword had a rather large piece of ice lodged on the end of it. It was then that she checked that she had both shuriken, which she somehow did, and began to feel the cold.

“Want some help with that?” She asked, her teeth occasionally chattering.
He turned to face her, looking tired and defeated. Stopping, he nodded, not quite sure what the ninja had in mind.

She took her shuriken, holding it vertically in front of her, raising it up above her head, watching Adair as his eyes widened. With as much strength as she could muster, she brought it down towards the ice, hitting it with precision. A small crack appeared where one of the points was now imbedded.

Shay smiled sheepishly as Adair sighed, although he had the faintest of smiles now lining his lips. “Nice try, little ninja...” He tilted his head as he studied the block and their weapons... “Wouldn’t it be funny if...”

“Don’t say it.”

“If your shuri-”

“Don’t!”

“-ken was st-”

“ADAIR!”

“-uck?!”

She glared at him, noticing the last of the group, Selene and Sirius, were giving them odd looks as they walked by, with Sirius lightly patting Adair on the shoulder as he went. “It’s not stuck, dear Pirate.” She insisted, imitating his speech. “It’s merely resting there. Observe as I pull it free with ease.”

So Shay clasped it and pulled. Frowning as Adair smirked, she pulled harder. She lost her footing on a small patch of ice and slipped. Adair couldn’t help but laugh, but soon shut up with the death glare he received. Standing up and brushing herself off, she addressed him again. “Right, you hold onto the sword this time, it’ll be easier...”

Unfortunately, she had actually loosened the shuriken quite a lot, so it would only require a small tug now for it to be free. Instead, she pulled with all her strength, tumbling backwards as it came free, only just stopping before the water’s edge.

“Told you so...” She muttered, the room spinning slightly.

“This still doesn’t solve my problem...” He commented, holding it just above the ground and slamming it back down. The crack widened slightly. “Ooh, maybe now it will work... Fair lady, may I have your assistance again?”

“Only if you don’t laugh at me if it gets stuck...”

“So I can laugh if you fall over?” He received a glare. “Obviously not.”

A few well placed hits later, the ice cracked, followed by a chorus of “Yay!” from the two of them.

Their celebrations were cut short as the rumbling sound of a boulder grew a lot louder. They turned to look, only to watch it grow closer to the edge.

“Maybe we should run...” Shay suggested.

It was too late for suggestions. It toppled over the edge, the big ball of flames hitting the water. Hard.

The Pirate and the mini Ninja stared, looking like rabbits in the headlights of an oncoming car as a wave of water came towards them, hitting them and soaking them from head to foot. A mutual look of distaste adorned both their faces as they stared at the boulder, which was now apparently stuck in place. Only a small part of it was submerged, the rest was still ablaze, which, fortunately, dried the pair’s clothing quite quickly.

“Now we should go...” Shay commented as a rather large drop of water hit her from where the ice on the ceiling was now melting.

[Crystal Tears]

Selene Raminas
We are what we're supposed to be
Illusions of your fantasy
All dots and lines that speak and say
What we do is what you wish to do

So she had a challenge.

It seemed for whatever reason that Sirius was quite good at catching on and learning on a whim, the floor had turned to ice but that didn’t much matter. It only increased their speed, and Selene did her best to ignore that furball of a moogle named Sori. Selene actually found it sort of fun, really, racing someone. Sirius seemed to catch on that as Adair has sheer dumb (as everything he did was idiotic but worked) luck, they wouldn’t beat him to the end. But he could, maybe, race and beat Selene to the pool.

That was a laugh, but to see him try was going to be funny.

For the most part they were even, but when Adair turned into a spinning wrecking ball, their race was forced on hold. The man’s body was seemingly going to insane and suddenly they were falling. He had quite a lead but his ‘curse’ seemed to confirm everyone’s notion of the blizzard tactic, it had been fun, but now it seemed intent on ending them.

The pool had frozen.

“SORI! YOU!” The was a pause as Adair seemed to think of the right word. “SOME’UM SOME’UM!”

Oh wow.. Selene half smirked too tired to care that hitting that ice was probably going to hurt and kill her. Best insult I’ve heard all day.

He did a flip and the gunner watched as he decided that going sword first (point down) into the ice was the greatest way to live. She supposed any ordinary person would’ve failed, but the moment he stabbed the ice a wave of air rushed away from him and besides the platform he was standing on, the rest of the ice was mere shards. Selene watched Adair as he desperately tugged on his sword but with no avail. It was stuck and he was sinking.

Selene hit the water first, followed closely by Sirius and then the others. She watched the pirate pilot do some sort of contorted movement she supposed was meant to loosen the sword. Before she could watch anymore the woman rushed out of the water, intent on not dying via boulder on brain. She coughed up water she had accidently inhaled at some point as she staggered away from the pool. What was the point again? The moment that boulder hit the pool they were dead.

Maybe if she got enough distant between her and the-

Her eyes spotted Adair and Shayna trying desperately to remove now both a shuriken and a sword from the block of ice. She chuckled a little as she moved past, only then noticing that Sirius was beside her.

Of course, why should she of thought differently?

She was angry, Selene for a brief moment (which had not been longer than three seconds, no matter what that furball insisted), shown weakness. And of all the people here, it had to of been the damn Captain. Well the woman could come up with a number of excuses, Reasons she reminded herself, to why such a thing had happened. Which made her smile.

1) She was tired, when you’re tired you don’t think clearly. Adair was exhibit A for this fact, though Selene wasn’t sure if that man ever thought clearly.

2) The gunner had been convinced she was going to die (that hadn’t changed), near-death brings on odd behavior… Again look at Adair.

3) It was a strategic move, kissing Sirius had meant she hadn’t had to run for a bit. Giving her enough energy to survive.

Selene rolled her eyes at her own thinking, realizing that last reason had been complete crap.

4) He was ten times more attractive than any man here, or any man she had met before.

5) … He had kissed her. Not the other way around.

Exactly. She thought, completely forgetting about impending doom. Sirius kissed me, I didn’t and wouldn’t kiss him. Ever. The exhaustion from the near-death experiences allowed for me to get lost in the moment. Selene straightened up a bit and had a small smirk on her face. But I never kissed him.

Obviously Selene was overlooking the fact it takes two to tango.

Then there was a sudden bang and Selene cringed. Everyone did, or at least prepared to die. However the explosion which no doubt would be big; never came. She looked behind her to see the boulder had been set ablaze, but past that it didn’t explode. Just sat there, grinning devilishly at the group standing before it. Like it knew something they didn’t.

“Now we should go…” Shay commented.

Adair wanted no part of this ‘moving’ thing Shay was suggesting. He nodded in agreement with her, but didn’t move. He was leaning on his sword, almost to the point where he seemed ready to fall over. Selene didn’t bother trying to stand anymore, her legs gave out and she flopped down, leaning her back against the temple wall.

It was then she noticed her arm, was hurt. Odd, when had she hurt it? Between the raised tile, pit-traps, swinging axes and the boulder… She couldn’t remember, only that she realized that it was causing a good amount of pain and she had just thwacked it on the icy ground. So she sucked in air that sounded more like a hiss as she tried not to swear. Her dear pirate (as she had decided that if he wanted to be around her so much, that he would be labeled as hers) took notice and his expression changed to worry.

“What has happened to your arm my dear lady?” He questioned in a concerned, pretty-voice that sounded like he was mocking her.

“It’s…” She attempted to move it and winced, leaving it resting on her leg. “Probably broken.”

“Where is Laevra…?” It dawned on them both that the woman was not here, with the rest of the group, leaving only two options. Selene thought she saw sadness break onto the man’s face for a moment before it was buried under his ‘charming’ smile. The gunner just looked at the ground, not really knowing what to say. “Well I am no mage, but I will try my best to mend your arm, you can be sure of that.”

Selene, from past experiences when she was younger, knew how much traditional healing without magic hurt. Her face paled a little and the woman shook her head, much like a child not wanting to get a shot.

“It’s fine.”

“Come now, not even you believe that.”

“Yes but-“ He picked her arm up gently and pain through it, up and down. She suppressed a yelp into a quiet sound only Sirius could and gave him a foul glare. “It. Hurts.”

His look was that of apologetic, and Selene looked away and bit her lip as he (somehow) braced the arm with a piece of wood seemingly from nowhere and a piece of torn cloth.

“It will do until we escape from this horrid cave, then I will see too it you get the proper attention you deserve my love~” It was the way that Sirius said that particular sentence that made Selene blush only a tad and suddenly look abhorred.

“To hell with you pirate.” She growled in response. “You can take your mojo and shove it up your-“

“You like it!” Came a sneer from Sori. The moogle seemed oblivious to Selene reaching for her gun and cried: “OH! The landlock is gone!”

Then Adair… Well, she wasn’t quite sure if he fell or flopped. Either way his sword bashed the pest (as was Sori’s new nickname) right on the head. Selene watched in pure glee as the moogle’s eyes spun in all directions before the thing fell to the ground unconscious and bounced only once. The woman grinned, for the first time, in this horrible temple, because that had made her instantly happy.

“No it’s not.” Adair moaned.

Then everyone laughed.

“Adair.” Selene said to the half-conscious man. “You’re my hero.”

“What of me?” Sirius frowned; seemingly annoyed that Adair had simply knocked a moogle out and was pronounced a hero.

“You’re the overall hero of hers.” Shay beamed, she had forgotten about her suggestion of moving. “Adair is of the moment.”

“Is that so?” Sirius looked speculative of Shay and Selene, the gunner just rolled her eyes and looked away.

“Sure.” And then she looked back at Sirius with a smirk. “Whatever you want to believe.”

* * *

ALRIGHT! We’ve made it to a break. Woo, we’ll continue on later but here’s the time to get some major interaction with your characters.

Plus realistically they would’ve been dead of exhaustion, let’s give them a break. Just DON'T GO INTO THE CHAMBER yet. Stay in the hall. You're all tired. Sit the hell down. XDD

[Pichu Luver]

Adair Stroud

Exhaustion did not suit Adair. He was a man of action... in the most limited sense possible. What he meant was that he would be ready to do anything to save his life, and the least amount of work he had to do the happier he was. These last twelve hours had been decidedly against his character and he resolved to do no more.

It also brought back bad memories of only just managing to survive the many attempts on his life by the Judge-on-a-righteous-vengeance-pure-embarrassment-path.

So he leaned on his sword, as he wasn't sure if he should be ready to defend his life some more. Not that he was entirely sure he could lift his sword, but the point was he would be able to stand up. He was leaning heavily on his sword to be sure, but he was superb at looking nonchalant when in fact he was only standing because of said glorified bat. Bluff and voice acting was his forte.

Around these unlikely fellows though... he dropped any pretence of health and looked inordinately exhausted for those who knew him well. He also became aware (since he was no longer running for his life adrenaline had abandoned him) that his knees were screaming bloody murder. His head also still had vague pretencions of a migraine and every inch of him ached in varying degrees.

But he would not lay down.

Not until he knew harm was not going to befall him in the next second.

So he pulled out his sunglasses (which had been stowed away in this cavern of dismal lighting) and delicately put them on; to hide his fatigue should the need come for it.

Then Selene basically collapsed down the wall and Adair sighed in relief; he had his okay to flop.

He was only half-listening to the conversation between his Captain and Selene (as previously stated Sirius had basically claimed her for himself therefore Adair had no further interest in her or Sirius' attempts at winning her over) until the Moogle had mocked them. He was confused on what he was mocking them about but Selene evidently did not appreciate it. He watched out of the corner of his eye as Selene reached for a gun with her good hand and he smirked.

Now considering everyone was absolutely tired and some trembling from the sheer lack of energy Sori's next exceedingly energy-filled statement Adair decided was totally inappropriate for the occasion.

He flapped his funny little wings, rose into the air and joyfully (and as mentioned before immodestly energetically) declared,

“OH! The land lock's gone!”

Adair closed his eyes, annoyance briefly appearing across his features. He then leaned back, and collapsed to the ground, arms outspread. Perhaps, only perhaps mind, stretching a little more with his right hand to accidentally bash Sori with the broad side of his sword.

The Moogle hit the ground, unconscious. Adair's sword a moment later with a rather musical clang.

“No it's not.”

The remaining conscious teammates laughed. Maybe a tad on the hysterical side but they were so tired everyone was a might giggly.

Adair chuckled a bit and took a deep breath in, enjoying his moment of doing positively nothing.

As was fate's decree that everything Adair enjoyed was to be interrupted, Shay decided at that moment to flop like everyone else was doing (with varying degrees of dignity). Shay being Shay of course decided to take a step back and she tripped over one of Adair outstretch feet.

She squeaked, fell backwards and collapsed onto Adair's chest. Adair grunted in surprise but otherwise did not react.

“Sorry! I didn't mean—”

“No worries luv,” he tiredly patted her on the shoulder but he believed he missed has he thought he felt blinking movements and a pointy protrusion.

It was then he felt wiggling along his side in the region where the bag was placed.

“Oh shit.”

“What?!” cried Shay sitting up and looking around. The rest looked at Adair with some concern.

“Um...”

“YOU ASS HOLE!!! WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK I AM?!? A BLITZBALL!?!”

Out of the bag emerged something wet, furry and brown. A bedraggled, seriously miffed, frazzled, ragged and generally rundown looking Moogle lifted into the air and pointed a wand at Adair's head. Shay's mouth dropped open in shock and everyone else (except Sirius) looked extremely surprised.

Adair didn't even move.

“Everyone,” he said waving a hand around, “meet Mog.”

“MEET ME? MEET ME?” If possible the strangely coloured and Jamaican accented Moogle looked even more pissed off.

“I have been FROZEN, DROWNED, BEATEN, BASHED, STABBED, POKED, POINTED, TILE BURNED, SNOWBOARDED UPON, FLUNG, SLAMMED, SMASHED, SMOTHERED and now NEARLY CRUSHED!” his bright blue pom-pom was waving around as he accentuated each word with a wave from his wand. “The LEAST you could do man was wait until I had time to clean myself up!”

“I as well have been through such horrors, and you decided to come out all self-righteous just now. Leaving me no time to warn your good self.”

“You HAVE have you?!” he said (completely ignoring the later part of Adair's sentence) Tell me something, have you been as previously stated been all those things within a short amount of time? No you had DAYS, time to recover from each horrible incident. That I also happened to SAVE YOUR ASS FROM.”

Adair snorted. “I meant today genius.”

Mog carefully pick up his clothes and noticed the holes. “So someone has ATTEMPTED to shoot you.”

He looked at Selene.

“I would assume her, but as you are still alive it would leave me to conclude that someone else has tired to shoot you and sadly missed. And I am well aware if you were to die that I would die shortly after. BUT I would die happy knowing you went first.”

He then had time to look around noticed the bomb. “Hhh!” he cried. He then turned to Temzi.

“Looks like you.”

With that statement he disappeared inside the bag once more.

Temzi, attempting to keep up his chivalrous attitude said, “Who was that good fellow?” and at the same time Shay asked in disbelief,

“You keep a Moogle in a BAG?”

Adair sighed “As I said, Mog. He gets angry easily and no, he keeps himself in there as he gets odd looks for his speech and colouring.” She still looked unsure. “Really. He wouldn't go back in there otherwise. He could (and I say this with great pain on my pride) kick my astounding ass.”

“DAMN RIGHT!!!” came (slightly muffled) from inside the bag.

Adair groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Anyone else have strange little friends to introduce us to?” asked Selene, amusement and exhaustion colouring her words.

Sirius and Adair smirked but wisely said nothing.

*grins* And thus CC and I introduce you all to Mog. A very strange NPC. No one can interact with Mog when he is inside the bag because as I said before, he's weird. He'll come out when he's needed (and not) at various times. So you know... continue resting.

[classy_cat18]

Hey, no abusing the black mage! *uses Thundaga on everyone*

Sori - Time Mage Moogle
Urge to destroy world rising...

Purty stars...I wanna catch one... I slowly opened an eye and clutched my head in pain. What had hit me? And who? I had the slightest suspicion that the man that was chuckling and bragging about it had something to do with it.

That was it. If he wasn't in enough pain already, he would get a double dose of it now.

"A...dair..." I grunted as I got to my feet. My hand was clutching my rod tightly. "Is there a reason that you felt it was necessary to knock...me...out?" I emphasized the last three words through gritted teeth.

Adair's smile promptly disappeared. "Now now, little--" he started.

"LITTLE?" I flew up to eye level. "Your attempts of weaseling out of things are ineffective on me! I'm tired and hungry, which do not help my mood!"

"You're not any worse off than the rest of us," Selene groaned.

I glared at her and instinctively looked around for Batilis. He wasn't with us the whole time we were worried about the boulder-bomb thing. So why was I looking for him now? The energy that I had somehow drawn out to annoy everyone was starting to drain from me. "Oy, Sirius." I tugged on his pants leg. "What happened to Batilis?"

He kept his back to me. "Apologies, mate," he replied in a strangely serious tone. No fancy speech, no innocent looks.

It was all the confirmation I needed. Tears escaped before I had the chance to hold them back. "Dammit." I weakly kicked his ankle and plopped on the floor, finally too tired to even yell.

[Crystal Tears]

Selene
Now it is poor me, why me, oh me
Boring the same old worn out blah blah story
There is no good explanation for it at all
Ain't no rhyme or reason
No complicated meaning
Ain't no need to over think it
Let go laughing
Life don't go quite like you planned it
We try so hard to understand
Irrefutable, indisputable
The fact is
Psssh
It happens

So time had passed, and for whatever reason the group had stayed where they were. The ice had melted a little and the stone walls were being uncovered. Selene was too tired to note the descriptions or hieroglyphs, she really wanted a break. She wanted to go home, she kept thinking that but her mind couldn’t help but make it stay relative. But the woman had a bad feeling; it twisted in her gut like a snake, and struck at her heart, even as she was far too exhausted to do something about it. Her blue eyes gazed down the hall to the chamber no one dared to near and she felt that viper strike at her again.

Selene winced as she moved her arm a little and felt it ache in protest; at least it was braced, though she didn’t know how well. The woman assumed that do to being a pirate and not always having the best resources available, he would know what he was doing (to an extent), but once they escaped (if they ever did), she would have it properly looked at. So for the time being the gunner was stuck in a throbbing agony that never seemed to end. What made this entire situation worse however was Sori.

She didn’t like him, no, not much. But the look on the Moogle’s face was that of utter despair. Selene had no idea how long he had known the Garif, but that didn’t change the fact the poor thing had just lost a friend. She didn’t often let her guard down to truly show she felt sorry for someone, that shield of hardened emotions would and could protect her from almost anything. Though apart of her mind desperately screamed for her to raise that precious block again, she gently nudged the fluffball, who looked up at the woman with devastated, teary eyes.

Sori stared at Selene for a long moment, before slowly getting up and moving closer to her, leaning against her side as the group continued to chat quietly. The shield went back up, as the Mog didn’t seem too interested in talking, maybe later, but not now. In fact the shield came up just in time to let the woman deal with the fact Sirius had licked his thumb and was gently cleaning a cut on Selene’s face with his saliva.

He probably thinks it’s made of gold… She thought with a smirk, and moved her head away from his ‘care’ and gave him with a stern look. The man shrugged lightly and smiled.

Oh how she hated that smile.

“Darling you should show off that beautiful smile of yours more often, it’s to die for.”

Selene leaned her head back, trying her best to ignore his voice. But it was very persistent. “Don’t you have someone else you can bother?”

“None as fair as you.”

“Please Venat, end me now.” She growled, wiping off her brow with her hand.

“Darling of the dearest regard, do not find fault within yourself for the Captain’s many sins. Adair rambled in his dazed, exhausted state. “Killing yourself would be a great weight upon my soul. Sirius, alas, would not carry the same toll...”

“Adair…” Sirius growled with slight annoyance.

“I am not finished pay-dispenser.” Adair said with a not-quite-awake dismissive swing of a hand. “Such a stunning example of the female persuasion should find herself extraordinary in every regard. The ability to place with the utmost diligence a bullet in her thought processes from a mere trifle of a distance of 1 inch does not showcase her true skills.… Thus-”

Everyone stared dumbfounded and confused, Selene had to question.

“What the hell is he saying?”

“I am not quite sure…” Sirius said, looking at him slightly perplexed. “When exhausted he speaks likes he’s from two centuries ago…”

“I do believe he is complementing you dear lady.” Said Temzi.

“Oh.” Selene stared at Adair, not sure if she should be angry, suspicious or merely annoyed. ‘Great two dogs licking my wounds…’ she thought. Adair however, once cut off gave up on speaking. ‘Probably too many brain cells being used to quickly.’ She decided to, as usual, ignore him.

Until he tried to kill her again.

She sighed and Siruis looked over.

“So many sighs luv! Adair wearing on you?”


No.” She gave him a glare. “You are.”

Me but I-“

“Nii would appreciate if the love birds found a different nest or stopped chirping.”

Selene glared at the woman. “Yeah? Well Selene would appreciate it if machina-lover shut up and went to look for her crack-pot machine.”

That silenced the Al Bhed, who gave the gunner one of the most hateful glares. Adair gave an amused snort while Shayna seemed all too pleased with the idea and laughed. Sirius even smirked too. Selene could care less, exhaustion made her easily amused and even more easily upset by comments, the woman longed for the opportunity to have most of these people hanged.

Carefully the woman got up, that feeling of horror had been overwhelmed by desperation and longing for home. Upon her standing, the others slowly followed her, except Sori. Selene knelt beside him, ignoring the pounding pain in her arm.

“Come on..” She urged, making the Moogle look up at her. “Let’s go.”

“Why?” He muttered in an angry tone. “Why should I?”

For all her cruelness and ‘I’m-above-you’ characteristics, Selene could be outstandingly kind and convincing. “Because I’m positive Batilis wouldn’t want you to die down here, when we’re free and clear of this place… You can mourn, until then..” She offered him her good arm. “We have to keep moving.”

Sori though still looking tired and miserable, nodded and clambered up her arm and sat comfortably on her shoulder. Shayna stumbled to her feet. Adair stood up as quickly as he could, resulting in him nearing tumbling over due to lack of balance, nearly taking out Shay. Which was sort of awkward, but Selene couldn’t say anything. She had been kissed when the boulder had been tumbling towards them in a happy ‘I’m-going-to-squash-you’ manner. Sirius leapt up with a surprising amount of energy and stood beside Selene, intent on apparently keeping the broken arm safe. The others got up and ready as well.

Ignoring the feeling screaming at her to turn the other way, Selene walked forward, and entered the next chamber. But her mind went blank as the others slowly began to catch up; all she could do was stared at the twisted, half-frozen mess before her.

“A… A Ship!” Selene yelped, and cried in agony as the rushing Adair zoomed past her by slammed into her arm. She blinked profusely trying not to cry as Sirius neared to try and quell the pain.

Blinded by pure rage and the need to kill, Selene (with her good arm and hand), whipped out the Calpyso before the rational part of her mind could catch up and fired numerous shots causing a explosion of red feathers from his stolen hat to erupt into the air as the bullets barely missed (she damned her good arm for being broken). Adair abruptly froze with arms flailed, leg supporting him bent awkwardly and the other leg up and stretched before him like he had kicked someone with about as much grace as a drunken Chocobo whitewater rafting.

After a moment of realizing he’s not dead… Adair felt the need to scream.

“MY HAT!”

It was then, at that moment as her vision began to un-tunnel, that Selene noticed two more people. One was the crazy person with the headdress from before, and the other was an woman with a slightly confused expression and cruel eyes.

Adair looked over at them both, not daring to move anymore than he had to turn his head. “Hello Ladies~”

* * *

Alright breaks relatively over, feel free to ask me what Nova would say or wing it. Thanks River for the help with my post and sorry to anyone who’s chars were played wrong.

[Weasel Overlord]

Sirius fir Sterrl de Famfræn

[Captain and General Ruler of the Wolfstar]

just a lighter shade of blue

A rest! Blessed blessed marvellous fantastic wonderful rest. Splendid terrific amazing blissful orgasmic rest. Yes, Sirius was incredibly grateful for the rest. He’d spieled through at least fifteen different words of glee, which earned him glares from some, quiet chuckles from others and a hearty slap on the back from Seta, which could have meant either “shut up now,” or “I profess my undying love for you,” for all the emotions the Viera showed. His permanent clanky shadow was slightly more outright in his annoyance, but even Temzi was never annoyed for long - and he slumped down against a wall, head on Seta’s shoulders, as soon as was polite to do so.

Sirius was all in favour of rest, but when there were fair ladies who needed a thorough wooing, well, he could do nothing but follow his instincts and woo away for all he was worth. Okay so, admittedly, the lady Selene was proving to be a tad more stubborn to woo than many, if not all, of the ladies he’d previously wooed, but Sirius was nothing if not persistent.

After some fair few attempts, Sirius was no further in his wooing. Selene had, variously, comforted the distraught Sori, ignored Sirius then got annoyed at him, got enraged by Adair and shot his hat off, which amused Sirius to a rather large extent. It had amused Sirius so much that he’d been rather too busy laughing as they walked to notice the ominous-looking pair of people outlined by light at the other end of the chamber.

His laughter was cut short, dramatically, by Adair. The cheeky son of a was approaching the two what-looked-like-women with his wooing head screwed firmly on and his wooing voice near oozing from his mouth.

“Adair! Not on, my man! Not on! Get back here!” Sirius pointed dramatically at Adair, who was tottering rapidly closer to the women. One of them seemed to be the young girl from outside - the one who had followed the machine into the caves before they could stop her - but the other Sirius knew not.

As he grew closer to the pair, Sirius realised that something was not right about them. Well, the crazy girl - he already knew something wasn’t quite right about her; after all, she was a tad insane - but the other woman… something was off.

Her eyes were as cold as shards of ice set into her face and it took Sirius a split-second to decide that he didn’t like her. He grabbed the back of Adair’s collar and yanked him backwards.

“Uh come on Adair, don’t bother the nice ladies now.”

Adair made a strangled sound, and then his hat fell off. Sirius, not noticing, continued to drag him backwards, and so was exceptionally shocked when Adair punched him in the back of the head and leapt away triumphantly.

“OW!” yelled Sirius, as Adair picked up his hat from the floor, wiping off the dirt and muttering to it like it was a dropped puppy or something. “Adair!”

“You nearly made me leave my hat behind Captain, bad show. It’s ok,” he crooned to the hat, “Daddy won’t leave you ever again! He’ll get you some lovely new feathers and patch you up good as new and all the lady hats won’t know the difference! Or maybe they will, but never fear, cos the ladies love a good scar as myself and the good Captain can vouch for, and they’ll be all over your dashing new patches and badly-sewn fixings and everything and argh-”

Adair choked once more as Sirius, grabbing at his collar again, dragged him backwards.

“Selene, my beauty, I do not think that woman means us anything in the way of good tidings,” Sirius said, nodding not-so-subtly towards the two as-of-yet motionless women.

As if on cue, the ice-eyed woman advanced forward and Sirius yelped, letting go of Adair and rushing to shield Selene from anything bad that may happen.

---

HALP I DUNNO WHAT TO HAPPEN NEXT.

[classy_cat18]

Sori -- Time Mage Moogle

Okay, so I'd admit that Selene knew how to get someone where it hurts. I never would've thought to blast that damn hat. I would've fried the pirate instead. The display earned a small chuckle from me.

The moment, however, died when I noticed the two women in the room. The half-Al Bhed and an unfamiliar woman. Adair, not-so-surprisingly, tried putting the moves on them. The shocking thing was Sirius stopping them. He also saw that the unfamiliar girl was not friendly. She took a step towards us and Sirius rushed to stand between her and Selene. The girl just gave a small smirk and stopped again.

"Oh look, Miss Stranger!" Chironu exclaimed happily. "The scarlet bobble is here!" I glared at her and tightened my hold on my rod. The other girl ignored Chironu.

Great. No idea on what she's capable of. My mana was low; I would need an Ether to be of any use if there was a battle ahead. I strained to look around Sirius and found something in the girl's hand.

There was no mistaking the custom-made mask of the Garif named Batilis.

My ears shot up as I loosened my hold on Selene, who saw my shocked look. "What is it, Sori?" she asked me.

"In her hand...it's his mask." I pointed to the object. Then my expression turned to one of anger. "Hey! Where did you find that?"

The mysterious girl tilted her head and looked at me as if I was a stuffed Moogle instead of a live one. "Why do you ask?" she asked quietly. She almost sounded innocent but I detected a bit of mocking behind it.

I growled. "Don't answer my question with another question! How and where did you find it?"

She was unaffected by my mood. "That wasn't your question."

"ANSWER ME!"

"I don't take demands from others but if you're so curious...my friends brought it here."

"Friends?" I fluttered down from Selene's shoulder. "I haven't seen anyone in this labyrinth."

"Not unless you count those no-so-friendly natives I saw before," Adair commented.

My small fangs bit into my lower lip. The girl had stopped talking and was even looking bored. What was she doing there? Was she in charge of the labyrinth? If so, she was in for serious trouble.

[Crystal Tears]

Alright, because Nova is going to be so prominent, I should help people out and make a Form for her.

Name: Nova
Age: Unknown, looks early twenties
Race: Presumed Hume
Gender: Female
Origin: Unknown Continent
Appearance: 5’5, slick green and blue eyes with a reptilian/feline look to them. His skin is a little tan, and all over her are tattoos that look like monsters or demons of some such. She wears the stereotypical image of what a tribeswoman would wear, cloth covering bits that shouldn’t be exposed to the world, with a necklace made of bones (in particular claws) along with bracelets. She has is a demonic skull she wears as a headdress, and *long* black hair.
Personality: The first impression you get from Nova is that she’s a hollow shell when it comes to ‘good’ emotions. She’s cold, sadistic, and calculating, seeing herself better than all those who oppose her. To the people who side with her, she’s a God, wielding power beyond imagination for some unknown reason. Nova is cunning, and secretive, not letting anyone know her thought-out plans until they must. She is not easily swayed or lied too, and even in the bravest men she inspires fear and confusion.
Weapon Style: None, she has no weapon.
Weapon Type: --
Weapon: --
History: Unknown, the natives to the unknown continent worship her as a God trapped in human form, awaiting for the key to release her. To those from distant lands she’s barely known, but already there are whispers of a witch with more power than the Spiran Summoners from long ago.
Other: Nothing.

Nova

She stared intently at the group now filtering in, only a smidge of happiness managing to keep her cool. Two of them were dead, one was in mourning and the others exhausted or battered. Yes, though the numerous traps had basically failed to rid her of this problem, she decided it was necessary to take more direct action. After all, though her luck was far from good, it only swayed in their favour a little, a truth that could be quickly and efficiently corrected. Nova smirked, watching the Captain (of the ship frozen into the chamber wall) drag his pilot back.

Nova locked eyes with the other woman, her arm braced crudely her determination rivaled the witch’s. The Captain called her Selene? No doubt she had heard that name before, but alas it would have to wait to ponder about it. They were intruders and needed to be dealt with in the swiftest of manners. So stepped forward, first to go was Selene, she had magic in her ancestry, and that was a threat no matter how miniscule. Flames spawned on the witch’s arms and she flung the spell forward, a monstrous fire ball heading right for the other woman.

But it didn’t hit.

The spell seemed to slam into a magical wall that hadn’t been there before. It formed a fiery cocoon around the Pirate and Selene, before fading into nothing but embers and smoke. Nova gritted her teeth, that weren’t part of the plan, how could a mere looter and pillager concocted such a powerful protection? She didn’t have time to think, as when now the pirate had drawn his sword, standing between black-haired witch and her target.

“Now, that just wasn’t polite.” He responded with a confident smirk, the blade shining in the light of the paling. “Are you alright Selene?” The pirate spoke with a cooing tone resembling a mother bird speaking to its child.

“Peachy.” Came the annoyed response, though she did look thankful for the powerful spell the man had apparently concocted.

The creature on the woman’s shoulder acted than despite the lack of mana it had, flinging a smaller ball of fire forward Nova growled. The spell vanished, turning into smoke. She ran her fingers along one of her tattoos, noting how it glowed like fire and created a distant hunger in her soul for blood and battle. She imagined the people in front of her came from places with the same hunger, her spies had spoken of a war, a war they were bringing here, to a world fallen so far from its former glory.

“You bring a war here, and expect no retaliation.” She smirked, taking a step back.

“We haven’t brought a war here!” Cried the girl with the large stars.

“Aye!” cried the pilot with the stolen mask, she would make sure to kill him slowly if he survived this, “I got some lovely victuals in my bag. Make everything shiny!”

Nova smirked, touching the magical device in the middle of the room, the light changed to vivid red and orange, mist pouring onto the floor and into the air. She noted how it made the long-eared one twitchy. The bloodlust growing inside of her seemed to flow into the paling, making the colours dance wildly.

“No?” She smiled, pupils narrowing. “I suggest you take a look around the sky little one, you’ll find you are so very wrong.”

The tattoo on her arm faded away, and the paling activated. The mist swirled and Nova watched with a sick smile as the group before her cringed and felt the dark effects of the tainted mist. It formed into a massive beast thought to be long dead in the temple, its scales black and eyes alive with rage and carnage. Two massive sickle like horns on its head made it look a little awkward, but none the less terrifying.

“You have evaded the traps of the temple, but you will not survive the Claret Dragon.” Nova smiled wickedly, tossing the mask to the dragon which caught it in its jaws and swallowed, she then began to fade into darkness. “Kill them all,” Before Nova faded, she pointed directly at Selene. “Starting with her.”

Selene

“Starting with her.”

Oh sweet Lord why me?

The group split as the Dragon blasted a stream of fire into the middle. Selene rolled, keeping her arm tucked close to her she felt the heat from the blast but no extreme pain so she was going to assume she hadn’t been struck. Sori had ducked in closer to her neck, so he hadn’t touched the ground in the slightest. The woman didn’t have to turn to know that overgrown lizard was after her, the stomping and snarling, along with the occasional heat made her realize that she was definitely screwed.

Selene ducked behind a rather large chunk ice and rubble, and began to change the ammo of her gun with one hand. This proved to be more challenging than originally thought but none the less she was doing it. Sori slid down her good arm and stood beside her, watching the gunner struggle to change the ammo clip

“What are you doing?” He questioned, ears twitching as he no doubt heard the lizard approaching. “This is a bad time-“

“My ammo is fire elemented.” Selene growled in response. “Pass me that cartridge.”

Sori picked up the clip that was oddly cold to the touch and handed it to her. Selene slammed it into Calypso and cocked the gun, smiling a little as the handle began to turn a little chilly. “You know ice spells right?”

“Of course!” Sori smirked, but his attitude seemed to waver. “But I need an ether…”

Selene frowned, and then visibly paled as a rather dark and daunting shadow was cast over them both. The gunner took off, Sori hastily scampering up her arm and onto her shoulder as the ice cover they had was instantly vaporized by the sudden stream of flames. Selene swiveled around, aiming as best she could with her off hand she fired, icy bullets pelting off the thick hide of the Dragon.

“Well… That could’ve gone better…” Selene gulped.

Careening down from the sky, spear in hand was a familiar Dragoon. The attack slammed down onto the Dragon’s head, making the mist around it wisp away in a wave like shape. But the attack seemed to do little, only succeeding in aggravating the monster, who blatantly ignored the one who has just attacked it and swung around, tail heading straight for Selene.

The attack still hit, but a golden shield made of tiny puzzle like hexagons took the brunt of the blast, instead of crushing Selene’s bones, it only sent her spiraling to the ground with a spinning head and her broken arm pleading to just be cut off to avoid this abuse. The world around her was blurry and grey, yellow and black dots appearing here and there as she struggled to stay conscious.

“Selene?” The voice sounded distant and familiar. Sounded like that Moogle that had been on her shoulder… Sorry? Was that his name? What a weird name for a Moogle… “Selene get up!”

The world went black then.

She saw a blur of images from the events before hand and then even farther back to the ship crashing. She remembered plummeting, and how deep down she had been terrified of the black. The black she now lay in even though the monster was still alive. Someone must’ve cast protect because realistically she should be dead, of course thinking realistically she should’ve died back in the traps, she had survived each one with skill and luck.

What a time for luck to run out… She thought. The ship is right there, and Adair’s a pilot…

It was kind of cold in the dark, not to see the chamber had been cold except for the random spouts of sheer heat from blasts of fire, but this cold was different. Selene didn’t particularly like it; the only thing that was a benefit was that her arm had stopped to ache because she couldn’t feel it anymore.

… If I’m going to die anywhere… She snarled at the black. It’s Ivalice, not here.

It almost felt like she was clawing and hacking her way out of the darkness, feeling was beginning to return, the sensation of pure agony from her arm cluing her in that reality was only seconds away. Selene could feel the cold ground on her back, and the edge of the gun just out of her good arm’s reach. Yelling and cries, trying to coordinate against a fiend that made those headless giants from before look like kittens.

Ugly, mean headless kittens, but kittens…

She groaned, probably not heard by the others but that was fine. Her eyes slowly opened to see the ceiling. Selene smiled; it was no long spinning and had no grey edges with random dots.

“Foul beast!”

Selene looked over, seeing Temzi struggling, the Dragon had him pinned under a clawed foot, it’s mouth beginning to grow bright as it prepared a breath of flames.

“Temzi!” She cried, forcing herself onto her knees and grabbing the gun. She took only a millisecond to activate the enchanted gun and fired; a Blast of ice and snow erupting from the muzzle and slamming into the head of the creature. Its aim was thrown off and instead torching Temzi it torched the tile beside him. Selene forced herself to her feet as the red eyes of the Claret Dragon burned into her. She fired again, another blast blizzard smashing into its face and cracking the horn on its snout.

It growled, the orders from its summoner coming back, it left Temzi, stomping towards her.

That was until, Adair slid in between Dragon and its target.

“Now now, perhaps you should guard your backside!”

There was abrupt fire from a rifle and the Dragon growled, swinging its tail and smashing into numerous things behind it.

“Adair?”

“Hello!” He grinned, as they moved out of the way, the Dragon temporarily distracted by a vengeful Temzi. “My good lady, we were under the impression you croaked!”

Selene frowned.

“Not to say we want you to croak, only frogs do that sort of thing!” The pirate paused and sort of nodded to himself. “Oh and toads, but that is completely irrelevant to my point!”

“If there is a point…”

Adair fixed his head. “The dear Captain would be quite upset if you did indeed perish.”

The gunner contemplated shooting him, but decided it was wiser to keep hurting the angry lizard “Yeah, where was my apparent ‘knight in shining armor’ when I was out cold?”

“Sweet Selene, I was being a distraction so the nasty dragon couldn’t do any more harm to the sleeping beauty.” He took her good hand and kissed it lightly.

Definitely going to have him hanged.

The glare she gave Sirius was one that rivaled the Dragon’s, and took her hand away quickly, closing her eyes for a moment in annoyance as she spoke. “I’m amazed you find time to try your ‘charming’ tactics on me when we’re in battle.” She growled in response, and went back to firing at the monster as Shayna leapt onto its back and attempted to hack through its scales with her Shurikens. She appeared to be having a little trouble.

“Not to point out an obvious fact, but shouldn’t at least one of you go help Shayna?”

“Right you are Selene!” Sirius patted Adair roughly on the back and nearly knocked his hat off. “Go forth Adair!”

“Pardon Captain?”

“Go help the dear ninja, I’ll protect Selene.”

Selene gritted her teeth as she reloaded. “Joy.”

Though the woman thought that Adair only cared for himself, he trudged off towards the Dragon, though he looked a tad hesitant.

Selene didn’t blame him, especially when the Dragon began to blast fire at those it took notice of.

* * *

Alright, these characters *have* to post in this battle for the Claret Dragon (look it up on ffwiki) to die…

Sirius, Temzi, Sori, Nii, Adair, Shayna.

I don’t care in which order, but they all have to post.

And now, in certain battles I will randomly select three characters (via dice) to see who is allowed to unleash their special attack in the fight. If you do not use your Overdrive in the battle where you’re approved to do so, it does not carry on into the next big fight.

OVERDRIVES

Selene, Temzi, Sori

[classy_cat18]

FYI, it's pronounced "Soa-ri", not "sorry". Otherwise I would've put two r's in it.

[Weasel Overlord]

Selene got the name wrong cos she was pretty near dead at that point, I think. Correct me if I'm wrong, Sie. ^_^

[Crystal Tears]

My dear Kirst would be correct~ :3

[classy_cat18]

Niosa Tiera -- Al Bhed Gunner

Thanks to the scattering of everyone, the monster was being assaulted on all sides even though its main focus was still Selene. I got a shot in while it was distracted by her and Adair, then promptly dove out of the way before the dragon could knock me out with its tail. "Why does it want Selene so much?" I asked myself.

The dragon whipped its tail again and smashed something out of its way. "Kumas!" The machina slid to my feet, still and silent. I ran to him and put my ear to hiss chestplate. "You're not working..."

As soon as I said that, Kumas' markings glowed again. His gears started working. You should be out of power by now. You should've been out of power a long time ago. But you've been running better than before.

I looked up at him as he rose to his feet. "You've been feeding on the magic that emanates from this continent..." I jumped from a loud roar the dragon made. "Machina can't do that!"

The Claret Dragon prepared for another attack from Selene. Unfortunely, its weapon of choice was right beside me. Its tail came straight for me, ready to go through me to reach its target. Too fast!

CLANG!

I opened my eyes, not even realizing that I closed them. Kumas had moved quickly enough to catch the tail before it could hit me. "In Defense Mode," he told me mechanically.

The overgrown lizard realized that it had a new threat. I fired a Blizzara just as it turned its head and opened its mouth, ready to roast me. The shot flew into its mouth, temporarily freezing its insides. "Ha! Can't protect everything with those scales!" I crowed.

It didn't take long for it to shake off the brain freeze and throw off Kumas, who landed far from me this time. But it was distracted again by someone from Selene's side.

But it wasn't Selene.

Sori -- Time Mage Moogle

(3rd Person POV)

That bitch. She had the gall to throw Batilis' mask to that thing like it was a goddamn bone! And now it was on its way to the stomach!

Oh, Sori would get it back. Even if it meant blowing up the damn thing and pulling it from its guts! If only he would've known an attack that would damage it that way. His mana had been depleted.

But somehow that didn't matter.

He felt something big surfacing.

Sori walked in front of Selene and Sirius, clutching his rod tightly. "Get back," the Moogle growled at them.

"I thought you were out of mana," Selene said.

"I feel fine." He locked eyes at the dragon although it was currently preoccupied with Shayna and Adair.

"I'll say. Your body's kind of...glowing," Sirius commented.

It was true. Sori's whole body was covered in a white aura, just like his eyes now were. He looked back at the two but said nothing else as he gave his wings a test flap and flew a few feet off the ground. A nice flying target for the Claret Dragon.

"HEY! UGLY!" Sori screamed angrily. The monster gave him its attention. "GIVE IT BACK, YOU BASTARD!" The dragon just growled. "MOOGLE RAGE! STOP!" Before it could make a move, Sori raised his rod and cast a spell that froze the dragon in time.

That was only the first phase of attack. The rod was now glowing pale blue. "BLIZZARA! BLIZZARA! BLIZZARA! BLIZZARA!" Each elemental attack seemed to pass through the dragon's armorlike scales. He shot two more Blizzara and sank to the ground, back to being exhausted.

Adair looked at me in shock. "What in all that rules us was that?"

The Moogle looked at him with confusion. "What was what?" He looked behind him. "Who cast Stop on the dragon?"

"You did!"

Sori narrowed his eyes. "I don't know Stop."

"...You don't remember what you did?"

"I remember getting really angry..."

"Guys, this thing is starting to move again!" Shayna yelled.

OOC: Moogle Rage: Sori's Overdrive. Sori starts with either Slow or Stop on the enemy, or Haste on himself. Then he shoots a barrage of second-level elemental spells of his choice (Blizzara, Thundara or Fira). Goes through shields and doesn't require any MP.

[Weasel Overlord]

Temzi :: Dragoon of Justice

:: everyone’s a hero ::

Temzi took advantage of the Moogle’s time spell. The Claret Dragon was stopped, after all - paused perfectly still with its foot upraised, ready to stomp atop of the beleaguered Dragoon once again.

He stabbed at its foot rather ineffectually, drawing claret blood from the pad, which steamed and dripped its way onto his own foot. Blood shouldn’t be that hot!

“Argh!” Temzi yelled, grabbing his foot with one hand. He hopped up and down for a minute before toppling rather spectacularly backwards. Luckily, he’d had the foresight to jam his helm back on before the fight, so all he got was a small bash to the back of the head.

He shook his head to try and halt the ringing in his ears, and then hoisted himself upright with the help of Dragon Whisper. He flung out one hand, and balanced Whisper horizontally in front of him, its point near touching the floor. The tiny Snowfly bounced against the delicate glass of its cage, almost as if it was straining to get at the dragon.

Which was coming around, slowly but surely. It shook its head blearily, and then fixated one beady eye on Selene again. Temzi did not know what the beast wanted with Selene, but he wasn’t about to stand for an upstart dragon taking out its rages on an innocent lady, oh no! The very idea put him into such a rage, and he felt the calmness of his lessons take him over.

His vision tunnelled so that only the disgusting beast was remaining, and the sound of blood rushed in his ears. Temzi twirled Dragon Whisper, revelling in the eerie sound it made as air channelled through the tiny holes in its blade.

Someone might have commented on that noise, but his hearing was far too muffled to notice.

The spinning of Whisper grew faster and faster, until the sound of wind rushing through was much more than a mere whisper - it was beginning to be more reminiscent of a gale. The motion of the spear became a blur as Temzi whipped it in complex patterns; figures-of-eight, above and below his head, in front and behind, until anyone watching was sure that he would cut something off, some vital limb, perhaps, or maybe a chunk of rock would shear away from the wall.

Either way, it didn’t exactly look safe; but Temzi was the calm centre in the eye of the storm. His eyes were completely vacant. Not that anyone would try it, but waving a hand in front of his face would cause no reaction.

Dragoon’s Trance was an ability taught to all Dragoons as a way to completely focus their hatred of Injustice and their anger about Treason and all the things that Dragoons fought against.

Within his mind, Temzi was aware, barely, of the threads of life filling the chamber. There was the roaring, blood-red of the Claret Dragon; the tiny lives of the two Moogles; the large spirits of the two sky pirates; the cold metal pairing of machina and Al-Bhed; the duplicity of the ninja girl; the solid, quiet Viera; and the bright, beaming ray of Selene - the one who needed protecting. She was the sun, the moon, the stars, the Lady, the precise combination of personality that Dragoons were imprinted to serve and protect.

His eyes snapped closed and his head dropped, chin to chest, as the wind grew to almost unbearable proportions. As it washed over the party, it glimmered as it touched their skin and they found themselves invigorated - almost as if the past hours were nought and had never been. Selene’s arm healed, and she flexed it with a grim smile. Sori’s mana replenished almost as if it had never been lost. Spirits rose, smiles flashed and heads turned, determined to end the life of the Claret.

Temzi felt all of this, and he smiled a wicked smile. His eyes flickered open once, twice, thrice and came to settle on the dragon, narrowed with bloodlust and charged with a kind of energy that made them seem near-demonic.

The Trance Wind had done nothing to the dragon save slow it, marginally. Even a dragon of its size would have trouble fighting against a wind that strong, though it did not affect the party in that way.

Temzi raised his free arm dead straight in front of him, whipping Dragon Whisper about it at a terrifying speed. His palm faced the dragon, and he whispered something under his breath in a language long forgotten by all but the Academy. His voice rose, as did the keening of the wind, until he shouted the final word and thrust out his lance horizontally, parallel with his outstretched arm.

As it thrust forward, the wind seemed to gather around it, increasing its girth and length fourfold. It stabbed through the Claret’s skin like butter, straight through the scales on its chest. The dragon reared up, the near-invisible lance piercing its strongest scales and full-clearing the back, and it issued a scream closer to the sound a Hume would make than what would come from a dragon’s vocal chords.

The wind-lance was gone as quickly as it came; Dragon Whisper shrank to its normal size once more, leaving behind a token of its affection in the Claret’s chest - a hideous-looking hole about half an armspan wide.

Temzi sagged, holding himself upright by sheer force of will and his grip on Whisper as it dug into the ground of the chamber.

-----

Temzi’s Overdrive is as follows:

Kain’s Piercing Wind - The Dragoon goes into Trance, and summons up a wind similar to that produced in Reis’s Wind. For the party, small amounts of health and mana are recovered, and their confidence is bolstered. The wind then coalesces around the Dragoon’s lance, and thrusts forward into the enemy, piercing any defence.