Rising Storm (Organization XIII, PM to join)

[Rook]

((Bumping. Come on, guys, we're better than this.))

[Larxene]

((^ What Rook said. In addition to that, I heard mention of post order. For this thread, as far as I am concerned there is NO posting order. There are too many game pieces on the game board to be concerned with any designated order. If we wait for everyone involved to post in a specific order - heck, some people involved in this thread have since gone poofles - you will be waiting for your turn forever.

That being said, post for your character when it would make sense. Being attacked by big-hairy-monkey-man? By all means respond, and not wait for fluffy-flower-man or tickle-me-emo to post. Play not teh waiting game. Take action! D8< *waves mousey-spear* ))

[Era]

((*Dodges Postasaurus Rook and Mousey Spear.* Me next! Me next!))

Just like that, Sora grew a backbone. A quick shield of wind to push the flames away, and then, as soon as he was in visual range, he was stringing attacks together. And not just any attacks - Ice attacks. Streaks of hardened cold were plummeting through the air straight for him.

With a wave of his hand, the redhead brought up a wall of flame, and in a quick attempt to dodge the attacks, he bent backward, using one hand to brace the ground for his back flip. He brought up his Frisbee defensively. As he had anticipated, a few large shards of Ice cut through his firewall, a few slammed into his makeshift shield, shattering upon impact with the smiling Fireball. The rest were near-misses, that plunged into the tree beside him.

Crud! If he wasn't careful, he was going to completely lose his control of the kid's attention. His eyes drifted only for a moment to the missed attacks, cold water dripping off of them and down the tree. That was dangerously close. His attention made haste to return to the youngster on the sand below his platform.

Keep it together...

In an attempt to keep the brunette's attention, the Heartless-esque Nobody coated his Frisbee in fire, tossing it toward Sora. Whether it hit or missed made little difference to him. As soon as the weapon returned to his hand, he slammed it into the wooden platform, and an explosion of flame shot forth, directed toward his attacker. An attack for an attack... but he wasn't done yet.

A smirk slid across his Heartless's face. "BURN!" A pillar of hot flame would shoot out of the ground near the Keyblader. As far as attention-grabbing went, he would be satisfied with that. They say the squeaky wheel gets the oil, after all.

[Zephiris]

(( Methinks posting rounds is what we started with, not turns. Just no set date. Not entirely sure what's up now, but in any case, thanks for getting posts in guys. xD ))

Xigbar

"And Xigbar, there is another one in the cave as well. Be wary."

"Another one, heh?" the Freeshooter muttered under his breath. Persistent buggers. Wherever the one was hiding, he seemed to be making no move then. In any case, he had more pressing matters to attend to - one being how to open the damn door, it having no handle or other notable feature; the other being the stubborn pursuer he still had clinging to his tail.

"Leave?" Xigbar snorted, turning. "As if. I just got here, kiddo. There's no need to get yourself worked up, though - hey, wanna help me open this thing?"

Xigbar stole a glance at the redhead's expression.

"Oookay, nevermind. Excuse me for one sec, then I'll leave." He took a moment to quickly assess how much time he had to make a quick little house call before the man attacked. A second or two, he bet. Probably enough time.

So he spoke to the empty air, facing the man's fists of light and darkness, each word rushed in quick succession. "Dilan! A little help in here would be fantastic. I think it'll take more than one of us to open -"

Suddenly, Xigbar abandoned the attempt with a grin. From behind the redhead he spotted the prowling blonde of her Highness creeping in to join them. But, he figured, there's no need to tell him that.

In the span of a second he had his guns materialized in his grip, aimed at the fierce-eyed kid, and opened fire with the first light rally of bullets.

[Larxene]

Amid the chaos Larxene lost track of her prior query, but all to quickly did she find another.

Voices deep within the secret cave met her ears: one familiar - Xigbar she identified - and the other not so much. Quickly and silently she crept her way deeper still till from the shadows that concealed her could she make out the shapes. Xigbar she identified immediately, and it seemed that a boy, one with red hair, had him cornered against a door. The Door.

They were so close to their goal, and it looked like that only this one boy - at the moment - stood in their way. A problem, she thought with a cruel, calculating smirk, that would be solved soon enough.

She hunkered down and waited, watched and listened as Xigbar and the boy exchanged words, grinned as Xigbar called out through the air to Xaldin for help only to suddenly cut himself short when he spotted her. Larxene gave a small, flirtatious wink as she readied her knives.

The guns appeared, the Freeshooter started his assault, and from behind the boy the Savage Nymph did the same. She let her knives fly, charged with lightning.

[Aryn007]

Sora was already on the move, his feet never ceasing or hesitating in this frightful tango of war. Whether he knew it or not, Sora's agility had always been one of his strongest assets in battle, allowing him to make gravity-defying leaps and bounds, Keyblade swinging all the while in brilliant flashes of white and gold.

It was no hard task to dance out of the way of the flaming Frisbee. A reflex jump to the side was all it took. However, he was feeling the heat with the next attacks coming at him in two different directions. Aeroga continued to shield him for most of the direct attack, but the geyser of flame which shot up by his feet managed to singe his exposed skin painfully. Oh, yes, the Nobody had his full attention.

The boy hissed in pain, but gritted his teeth and charged forward, closing the gap between himself and his foe, gripping his Keyblade with both hands, the teeth pointing at Axel’s heart—or where his heart would be if he had one. No more ranged attacks. He’d settle this up close and personal and send this enemy packing. Then he’d deal with whatever ruckus seemed to be going on on the other side of the island.

What caused the Heartless and to thoughtlessly bring war and destruction to a peaceful World was beyond Sora. He understood the concepts of balance. He understood that darkness did not equal evil. But there was something intrinsically and fundamentally wrong about this brand of violence. Meanwhile, a sense of growing dread was blossoming in his chest as the seconds ticked by, as though his heart were trying to tell him something.

[Era]

The orange-haired girl had narrowly dodged a new stream of Fire along the sand, feeling a wave of warmth from the element. She continued to analyze the situation while her silver-haired accomplice was charging in for a close attack on a member of the opposing team. As her mind raced, one weapon idly gave a backward spin, soon followed by its replica.

In the back of her mind, she had remembered registering the presence of one foe near the cave. Another had approached close by - a female - but she'd lost track of that one, being too focused on the attacker at hand. There was one fighting with Fire, in addition to the one she had been opposing. And that was all she had kept track of.

So then, there was a congregation on the Island, and it definitely wasn't to party. Something was going down; there was a reason they were here. But why? In all the blasted worlds, WHY? She couldn't pull out an answer, and the bafflement was frustrating.

Typically, Era was pretty smart, though she was far too humble to fess up to such arrogance. She had always been good at analyzing and putting the pieces together on her own, but this? She couldn't land an answer for this. Whatever the reason for their invasion of her recently-claimed Homeland, they weren't going to get away with it.

"I'm guessing you guys aren't here to play Bingo." She pointed one Shadow-Sword to the wind-wielding opponent. While her position was demanding, part of her mind had braced herself for the foe's next attack. "So what do you want?" Her voice was hard and cold.

She didn't actually expect her opponent to answer truthfully, but perhaps she could be a distraction, opening up an opportunity for her new ally.

[Rook]

With the widening shift of his feet, Rook took a defensive stance. His fists clenched and slammed together as a barrier of Dark energy shimmered around him- his Dark Guard shield. It hummed with a black and purple sheen as the arrow bolts dissipated and ricocheted against it's surface, the shield vibrating and beginning to break under the repetitious volley. The redhead gritted his teeth in preparation for a response to the attack, but a crackling from behind startled him. With widened eyes, he realized he was under assault from behind as well, lightning sparking on the rear of the dome. Another Heartless. The surprised look turned into a cantankerous snarl.

The dome began to vanish, disappearing in a dark glittering as it came. Era was still outside, and so far as he could tell, the cave was small, no other entrances or exits... aside from that door. That's what the pirate-looking gun-toter was after. Had to be. Rook had been the the Play Island before, been in this cave taking shelter from the rain. The door was the only thing here of import. Rocks and drawings and weeds and fungus and the door.

Damned if Rook would let some invading Heartless garbage get to what was on the other side.

The shield disappeared entirely, fading from few with a blighted twinkling. And as it did Rook was already bringing his arm up to aim. High above Xigbar's head, at the cave ceiling hanging over the door itself. It started as a purple-hued wisp of Darkness, but quickly turned into a bright white glow encasing his fist. Palm out, fingers extended, arm straight, "Guard Light!"

A brilliant explosion of force and Light rushed form his hand, impacting against the rock with all the finesse and gentleness of a treadless Panzer tank. The ceiling began to crack and crumble, dust falling and giving way to pebbles and stones. Rook doubted he would be able-bodied enough yet to handle both Heartless on his own, but that didn't mean he couldn't stop their progress. No Eleaus around this time, not that the redhead had seen. No geomancer to stop the cave from falling in on itself.

He shook the tinging pain away from his hand and slipped back to an attack-ready stance, shifting to a side to keep both in his field of vision and tilted his head, voice lilting in a curious tone "Fight me now..?"

[Deleted]

Xaldin

[/i]

Xaldin did nothing but laugh as the girl with the shadow blades addressed him, and he turned away from her as if dismissing her as a threat-a strategy he had planned out within the past few seconds. Once again, that sweet whisper of the air called to him, and he weaved it in the way he wanted. The result was imilar to an Aeroga spell, except instead of deflecting spells it acted as a net. Anybody who would try to approach him would be caught in his web of wind.

With that, he turned his attention to Sora, the Keyblade wielder that had caused him so much grief in the past. He smirked as he saw the protective wind spell around the boy. How foolish could he be, to use wind when wind's master was here now? A sweep of his hand once again weaved another spell of wind, causing Sora's protective barrier to distort and warp. He intended to get the boy's attention, and share the fun with Axel.

Besides, he had some payback for the boy. As his spears swept through the air into his battle stace, he heard Xigbar's low whisper, and sent a message back, and one to the Flurry of Dancing Flames, as well.

Xigbar, give me the word upon an opening. Axel, we nee to watch the girl, as well. She may not be a Wielder, but she is a threat.

His eyes then travelled to the silver-haired Wielder, and he shifted his stance slightly.

Try and attack me, I dare you...you'll be caught in a web of my deceit.

[Larxene]

The advantage that Larxene thought she had was lost in a matter of seconds. The boy had blocked both their attacks from ahead and behind... and then proceeded to blast the caves ceiling. A a dangerous tactic, yes... but she had to begrudgingly admit it was a rather clever one. What better way to protect the door when out number than bury it?

Stone and dust trickled from above. Soon enough the whole cave would come down around them. Casting a furtive glance up towards the cracking ceiling first, Larxene fixed her eyes on the boy, then Xigbar, as though to ask "what now?" But she knew time was now working against them. They came too far to fail then and there, right bye the door. Action needed to be taken. Now.

"See to the door!" Larxene called to the Freeshooter, and then lunged at the red-head, knives drawn and ready to be buried into flesh. "I'll see to him!"

[Zephiris]

Riku

[/blockquote]

They were at a stalemate now, the wind-wielder, the red-haired girl, and him. The lull allowed Riku the freedom to steal a glance at the two wildcards - Sora, and an astonishing look-alike to Axel. His heart suddenly pounded a fraction less discordantly when he realized his friend had found his footing again. After a few moments spared to watch them, however, Riku had to look away, and fixed the Heartless with a stony stare as his newfound comrade called to it.

"So what do you want?" she asked coldly, the storm attempting in vain to drown her words.

She was ignored. Riku tensed as the air began to move again, but as it spun he began to understand their opponent's new tactic. For every step the wind user stepped away from them and towards Sora, Riku followed. His jaw set as the blustery shield around the other Keyblader began to bend and warp. But if he assumed correctly, the other would not attack just yet. A sudden, foreign, and invasive voice in his ears and mind, whisper-close despite the distance between them, proved as much.

Try and attack me, I dare you. . . you'll be caught in a web of my deceit.

Riku's features remained frozen without effort. He said nothing, nor thought nothing, in case this terrible creature could hear those, too. As the XII member's stance shifted, Riku's did as well, but intentionally so that he would draw nearer to both the opposition and the girl. His proximity to the Heartless was dangerous, but he felt the only way this would work would be to have them fight in tandem again. In any case, he, too, had the ability to create a shield.

As he neared her, Riku attempted to catch her eye. Should she make a move, he would follow.

There was a disturbance in his peripheral vision. He knew only that it had to be the Secret Place, but for right then, he could do nothing but wait. He'd just have to trust Tidus - and this other strange Light presence he had been feeling all along, but had only noticed now, with the Road to Dawn in his hand and his thoughts more streamlined by adrenaline.

[Zephiris]

Xigbar

"Yeah yeah, Guard Light him to hell," Xigbar muttered irritatedly to himself, as he peeled himself from the wall he had been so unceremoniously flung to by the redhead's blast. And he wasn't even aiming at me, he thought grumpily, massaging the back of his head as he straightened. Faintly he heard Xaldin's reply, and smirked at the even fainter one to Axel, something about a girl they couldn't handle -

Clink. Something small dropped on his head again, bounced off and rolled to his feet. Xigbar frowned and looked up. He had to blink through an odd excess of dust that suddenly marred his vision.

"Oh shit."

Yeah, he got that the guy had something personal against him and Larxene - er, Braig and Arlene - but did he not care at all about himself? As if he could Guard Light his way out of a cave-in, too! No matter, Xigbar had half a cave between him and his target, and thanks to this kid he needed to reach it immediately. Xigbar's eyes caught Larxene's for a brief moment, but his feet were practically already moving by the time she called out to him. "I'm holding you to that!" he shouted back before vanishing.

His next step took him through a rip in space, taking a cloud of dust and debris along with him to the other dimension, and he was beside Rook. Another step, practically running now, another cloud, and he was in front of the door. Ignoring the grainy tickling in his throat, Xigbar's palms fell on the face, and sprawled rapidly across its surface in search for some means of opening. He could sense it now, the power behind the door. But the energy he himself shot towards it rebounded. He snarled - this search yielded nothing.

So he hopped backwards and whipped Braig's idiot guns from midair, let loose a barrage of enhanced bullets. They, too, ricocheted off of the door, as if he were throwing pebbles at concrete.

Damn it all.

"We're getting out of here, Xaldin, if you can even hear me," he began mumbling quickly. "It's no good, the thing's locked or something, and - arg!" A much larger piece of rock smacked into his shoulder on its way down. A stream of curses flew promptly forth.

Xigbar tore open a jagged warp portal. Larxene must have been doing her side of the deal well enough – he hadn’t yet heard another freaking Guard Light, at least - but if she didn’t get her ass moving he wasn’t gonna hear the end of it later. Furthermore, any wrong move would undermine the power of their ploy. Oh, well, when it was his own posterior on the line. . . .

He stepped through, overshot his mark in his haste, and emerged trippingly over some makeshift planks suspended over sand. As he slid to the beach he was forced to drop to one knee, hand splayed on the sand, suddenly overtaken by racking coughs.

He never did like redheads.

[Kuu]

This is SO the wrong place for me to be right now.

This was the main thought that echoed through the mind of Demyx as he clung to his sitar. The storm he'd conjured up with Xaldin and Larxene was well underway and had been for a while now. It was raining hard, he'd thrown a few attacks here and there and as per usual, it had done absolutely nothing. So that meant that his official part in the operation was unofficially over.

Which led to the inevitable question as to why he was still here, right in the middle of a scenario from hell where every step he made placed him in mortal peril. They'd really messed up with him this time - placing him, a pacifist (in the broad sense, for lack of a better word), on a world right in front of not one but TWO very pissed-off Keyblade Wielders who looked like they were ready to rip the disguises off their faces with a spoon.

Xigbar was dealing with things in the cave, and with Larxene there as well, he knew that whatever was going on in there was gonna be messy. That too - he HATED missions with Larxene, and this whole thing was no exception. He was silently grateful that she'd split off from the main group to join up with Xigbar - he was almost completely convinced that she'd been aiming to zap him with those crazy witch-bolts she was whipping down along with the real enemies. The last one had passed by far too close to his head for it to be coincidental. Eeeeeevil.

So why was he still here? Why was he continuing to strum his sitar, bringing the water around them to leap into battle, reluctantly launching a barrage of bubbles at the silver-haired Wielder and the red-head girl in an attempt to distract them from Xaldin and Axel so that they could find an opening, while hoping at the same time it would distract them from targeting Demyx himself? Why hadn't he opened a portal to the Corridors and just RTC'd once he'd got the storm up and running? Why was he still standing straight in the line of fire, with an expression that practically painted a red target on his face?

The answer was that Xaldin's back was rather clearly saying that if he were to leave now, he would be obliterated by the Lancer's bare hands. And that was freaking scary.

[Era]

-- Axel --

The Fire-dealer's eyes widened, surprise taking him as Sora's attitude suddenly transitioned from being a doormat to being a bulldozer. While he had no intention of actually dealing deadly blows to the Keyblade Wielder, he had no problem letting the boy think his intentions were such.

After all, Axel's true intention was to get Sora's attention; and that he'd rightly done. The infuriated brunette had come charging right at him, wanting to deal a blow aimed at the lithe Ginger's heart. If he had a heart, it would have been feeding his veins with adrenaline. But Axel knew something that Sora had yet to learn, and with a smirk, the Nobody brought up his arm, deflecting the attack. He was likely to inherit a few deep bruises, but for the most part, the blade should've been shoved on the ramp of his arm up and over his shoulder, and out of harm's way.

Right after redirecting the unwelcome attack, Number Eight narrowly rolled out of the way, backing up to give himself time to dodge whatever else Sora wanted to throw at him. It was clear that the redhead had yet to attack full-force. For now, the game plan was that with whatever attack he dodged, he would inch closer and closer to the Door, and the rest of the Organisation.

Xigbar, give me the word upon an opening. Axel, we nee to watch the girl, as well. She may not be a Wielder, but she is a threat.

It was obvious to Axel that the warriors of the Light were teaming up, and could potentially outnumber the Organisation, if they continued to disperse themselves as they had. It was just about time to fall back and regroup, as it were. It would be better to work their strengths together; after all, wind and Fire could do numbers when they acted together.

He found a gap in which he could muster a quick response, and with all the fluidity and smooth talk that was Axel, he sent a quick message in the breeze:

Hey, Larx. How's it lookin' in there? I get the sense you could use my help. . . The whisper was laiden with characteristically haughty pride, though this time, his proud words were very much in jest.

[Era]

-- Era --

The girl had heard what she thought to be a whisper; a quiet threat threaded between the torrential crashes of thunder, gliding gently behind the thrashing sheets of rain... but she was unable to make out a clear meaning behind the soft words. Perhaps it was a legitimate threat. Perhaps it was all in her head, or perhaps it was empty, and all he wanted to do was immobilize the two fighters of the Light by using their lack of knowledge against them.

It was difficult to tell... But the longer she sat here, the more time she would spend without a twenty on her idolized Ginger or his well-being. And she wasn't about to let some baddies gang up on him and take him down -- not as long as she had breath in her lungs. But on the flip side, her honor would not let her leave the two fighters of the Light out here alone; not after she'd stuck her neck out to help. So to her, the plausible outcomes were: Firstly, to charge the enemy dreadlocked, thickly-built character again, but that served them very little good the last time. She wasn't about to think it would change if they'd tried that method again.

Alternatively, she could selfishly trudge into the Cave to be Rook's full-fledged support, but that would consolidate the enemy forces, and who was to say that they didn't outnumber the Light? Not to mention that she wasn't sure what would happen to the other two "good guys" if she were to blindly charge into the cave.

She could surprise-attack the retreating redhead, which might open up ample opportunity for the Keybladers to gang up on these opponents with her. However, that method could very easily backfire.

Whatever she did, she'd have to think fast. Her eyes drifted from one player on the chess board to the next. Another second and she'd decided. Her feet sprang to life ever-so-quickly, her in hand, poised at the ready.

And she bolted right past the creepy, black-haired air-whispering fellow, straight for the retreating redhead. The threat had never mentioned anything about attacking the other members of the Dark Twelve. Naturally, this would leave them wide open.

Hang in there, Rook!

Strategically, this move was perfectly viable. But strategy was only half the battle.