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Post by Raven8 on Oct 2, 2017 16:17:23 GMT -8
The Shadow Devil's scanning routines are once again interrupted, causing a beast that normally gives no reaction to damage to recoil against the sheer power of Vanguard's shot, especially given its powered-up properties from Mistair. However, this time it does not immediately hide. Instead, it looks on with a now solid yellow eye. With a cackling spark, the Shadow Devil releases a massive ball of pure plasma, engulfing most of the room as it flies forward at no target in particular. Behind the strike, the monstrous creature once again shuts its eye, allowing its liquid body to stretch out and practically engulf the entire wall behind it as it prepares for its next move....
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Post by Nightshade on Oct 3, 2017 7:53:57 GMT -8
Nightshade took this moment to act after seeing the thing shift its attention to Vanguard. He had gotten everyone out just in time to see Thorn get crushed and then escappe while also acquiring a new form. He hopped to his side, while still keeping a little distance. "Thorn! Are you okay?"The black-purplish dragon groaned. "Mmmmmrgh...I feel...soooooooo sloppy. Back in Black though."Nightshade rolled his eyes. "We need to use electricity on this one. The ADLink does not lie. I fwe keep launching random stuff at it we will simply lose energy while the thing doesn't die. Can you still fight?"Thorn slowly nodded. "Yeah. Although don't expect me to move any time soon. I need to find out how to control this Black Goop. I do have some Elec attacks on me though."Nightshade grinned. "Good, I think it's time to use that."Thorn flinched visibly even though his new body was semi paralyzed. "What!? In the middle of a battle like this? This is no time to try out experimental stuff! It could backfire or fail and that leaves us open to that thing's DeathTouch. Not Good."Nightshade scanned the aera around him. "Yes. But it seems the only way to truly do some serious damage. A Joint Technique is our only good shot on him. That eye we need to hit is too hard to target. However, we could make sure it has nowhere to hide. Rather, we need to make sure that we are going to hit it anywhere it decides to show up.""...Alright, what's the plan?""You have a DarkThunder, do you?""Yes." "Good. Be ready to slot in on my mark and of course, go with the flow."Nightshade would turn over and shout at Vanguard. "Yo! Dark Dude! Set everything on fire. NOW!" Nightshade then lowerd into his battle stance, focusing. "Time to put this thing down NSD Style."
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Post by Gaia on Oct 4, 2017 7:16:18 GMT -8
Vanguard.EXE
Vanguard was only barely paying attention to the two strangers going back and forth, focusing his attention on the massive sphere of electrical energy plowing through the room. It didn't provide a whole lot of wiggle room, but, it somehow appeared less as a full frontal strike. While it was a large force of energy, it was unfocused and untamed - without direction. Meanwhile, behind the sparking glare of raw energy, the devil had already shielded its view and retreated into a wall.
Whatever the two operatives were planning, it would be useless while its eyes were closed - they'd be better off just getting away from the wall. While the large force of energy appeared foreboding, it wasn't at all what their primary focus should be. He wondered, though . . . even with its eye closed, would it risk an assault in a potentially volatile environment?
Vanguard's darklight harvesters blazed with force, the fire-like substance wreathing up as he channeled the power within himself. Raising a hand, he met the raw energy with raw power, surging his own personal source of volatile energy. His darklight blaze, while appearing as fire, can transmute to almost any occassion - it is not truly a blaze at all, but, rather, refined and purified dark energy. Within his grasp, he has full control of its form; to others, however, it is as volatile and destructive as the most dangerous of fires.
In that instant, he surges a disruptive field through the large sphere of plasma, testing his theory against its strength. Surging his darklight energy across the surface of the massive sphere of plasma, he compresses and focuses the energy of the sphere down into a much smaller, more focused mass of force, surrounding the plasmic energy with his own darklight power. In a shove of force, he sends the compressed sphere reeling back towards the mass of goo amassing on the wall. The sphere, while slow travelling, compacted tons of force through his compressed darklight energy, imperceptibly shifting in the air to reach his preferred target.
As much as he'd like to try and be of service to the other two agents, his flames simply didn't function in the way they wanted them to. Besides; he was still reserving his energy. The darklight blaze around his hands had flared up stronger, and the coils around his wrists were releasing bursts of his life essence like exhaust vents. Thus far, the Shadow Devil hadn't made any moves against him, but, he had to be ready for it to strike at any moment. It has to be smart enough to eventually realize what is hitting it with such force; and, when it does, he has to be ready.
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Post by Zane on Oct 4, 2017 8:25:40 GMT -8
She was listening to their request while keeping the enhanced power focused on Vanguard, a pale green aura encasing him as he did so as well. It was all to allow him to better perform his plan. His approach made sense as well, seeing as if it launched from the wall directly then it would have to pass through the very sphere it had once fired at them. But if it moved up to the ceiling or down to the floor again and then sprung forth then it could still present itself a chance to strike. So she would go on the offense for once as well, until a warning went off rather loudly in her head. It was something that they had connected to her as one of the agents who knew about it, the screen running by in her field of vision as she finished observing it in an instant. But she was perturbed by this too... no, she had to focus for now. This new development would have to wait. And she would have to keep her concerns on the overall safety of those involved to herself.
"Keep it in mind for later and give me a minute."
The tell-tale pale green light coated the others now in different areas. It was already with Vanguard so she didn't need to do so again for now. For Nightshade it happened around his hands and feet and for Thorn on his body, though Vanguard would be the one she was focusing her influence on right now, so they were getting a lesser degree of support. It was so they weren't influenced by her own traps anyway, placing her hand to the floor as a layer of symbols being etched into the ground before they disappeared rather harmlessly. In this case the trigger used for them was for those not influenced by her support at the moment that would activate when something near or over them. It was an ice trap this time, designed to freeze incoming parts of its liquid body should it begin to launch it across the room at them. It held a range of effect that didn't cover the possible ceiling approach, but that was fine as is.
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Post by Raven8 on Oct 4, 2017 10:09:20 GMT -8
Vanguard's best move causes the plasma orb to shift and become unstable, even being pushed back by the force. However, there is an unforeseen issue. Due to Vanguard's lack of experience with deflecting attacks, he does not manage to fully reverse the Shadow Devil's plasma ball, causing it to instead burst into a flash of energy nearby. The energy bathes the dark Navi in a shower of pain, dealing significant damage to him in the process.
The wall that the Shadow Devil occupies pulses and ungulates due to the creature's presence, seeming to grow more restless in the process. However, this does not last long. After a few moments the body of the Shadow Devil divides into a large number of individual cells, each roughly the size of an average Navi. The monster forms a large cube of these individual spheres, and then it launches its strike. En-mass, the black spheres begin firing off from the main cube like cannonballs, each one following a forward path to the opposing wall. It only takes a moment for the entire room to become full of moving black orbs as the Shadow Devil transports itself from one side of the room to the other in perhaps the most damaging way possible.
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Post by Nightshade on Oct 4, 2017 12:18:59 GMT -8
"Tsk. Did that goy ever learned Teamwork? He's going to get us all killed if he'll just mindlessly attack..." Thorn spatted, unamused.
"Here he comes! Duck!"
Thanks to Mistair helping out a little with his new body, he was able to move, barely just in time to avoid everything. For Nightshade, it was his natural element. "We Need to take care of those Spheres!"
Thorn smirked. "On it Shade! DarkMeteors...Slot in!"
Thorn would aim the flaming meteors at the spheres, making sure the angle of impact would deflect them away from him and the others. Nightshade took that moment to wave some signs with his hands before slamming them into the ground.
"Water-Style: WAVE WALL!"
He summoned a huge stream of water to immediately put out the dark firery meteors. In a mere moment, the two of them had soaked the whole room in a thick layer of steam. Each of them took a side of the room, readying up.
"Aaaaaaalright...now show us those beautiful eyes of yours..." "Thorn, On my mark!" "All Set!"
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Post by Raven8 on Oct 4, 2017 12:24:22 GMT -8
As the room fills with steam, something odd happens. The Shadow Devil's movements hault. Amid the thick blanket, the two sides seem to almost look through in silence. However, part of this plan had already backfired. Through this cloud, it was now impossible to tell if the devil's eye was exposed. The monster also seems to somewhat understand this concept somehow, as it now begins to slowly creep upward, beginning to cover the room's lighting.
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Post by Zane on Oct 4, 2017 13:49:21 GMT -8
She really wasn't fond of cannonballs when they were flying at her. But this at least fit with her non-verbal plan, so she got to work on trying out her gymnastics. Nightshade was presently the most ideal for this, so he would be the choice for this. All she had to do from there was follow his lead and things should work out well enough, the pale green glow taking to her legs now. So she made a break straight ahead toward the oncoming attack, planning to cut through it and to the other side as it made its way ahead. This was only halfway successful, as she had almost not properly accounted for her diminished movement and had a pretty close encounter with the launching spheres several times. Even though they weren't direct hits, they still hurt a fair deal with this. But then the pattern that she was expecting it to do changed. She had planned for it to stop at the other wall and then change shape to press the attack.
"Huh?"
Instead the room got filled with steam in a move she was certain led to the people who made the steam getting burned for it because one side's eyes were better than the other's. She would point out that it was a cyclops, but they'd figure that one out easily enough without her saying it. Though she had said later, she realized her error again by not specifying when that later would apply partly because communication was a two-way street. It was heading up to the ceiling at least, so that part of her approach was still ready and she didn't have to worry completely about evading the cannon field. Luckily for her, her eyes were one of her best features. So she stepped back and continued the waiting game, making certain of her position as a bit away from Thorn, Nightshade, and Vanguard.
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Post by Gaia on Oct 4, 2017 20:01:39 GMT -8
Vanguard.EXE
Vanguard cringes under the weight of the influxed energy, the sudden force of the unstable backlash sending him skiding across the floor. He managed to remain standing, though, and found himself staring blankly at the collection of plasmic energy still coursing over his body. He usually had masterful control of his own darklight energy; it had never failed him before . . . when paired with the energy of the Shadow Devil, though, he simply couldn't meld it, even after influencing it withi his darklight data.
He didn't have time to divulge in his thoughts, though. Quick to think, Vanguard knew he didn't have the speed necessary to dodge the individually flying spheres of pure destruction, and instead gambited by allowing a few of them to smash into his form. He'd done this same thing with Magnolia, before, to try and test her own strength - he'd already seen how strong its energy based attacks were.
The sludge hit like a cannonball, and he lost his bearings. Rocketing into a nearby wall, Vanguard hit it with a loud thud. That was painful, but, it was mostly just pure force; he hopefully needn't worry about any puncture wounds from which he would bleed.
Heh. He'd almost forgotten that he could bleed, now. What a trivial thing to worry about . . .
Vanguard raised his head, suddenly realizing something. How was the Shadow Devil affected by that? How was it adversified? He looked up from his place on the wall, watching as the shadow devil began to lurch back up, the sudden presence of steam in the room coercing it towards the ceiling. With the steam in the room, they had no way of telling whether or not the creature had its eye open, even if they could still see the thing itself moving about. Once it covered the light fictures on the ceiling, they'd be in total lights out - and that would only make things worse.
The Shadow Devil was assaulting them less head-on than he expected, though. It wasn't going full throtal - it was more like it was distracting them, toying with them, taking time to consider its own attacks. While it was considering a move, though, they were losing time . . . while it would be beneficial to the devil to put them in darkness, it wasn't necessarily the quickest way to end a battle.
Either they were being toyed with, or the Shadow Devil is on a mission that requires a lot of time - even outside of its attempts to hack the NIA's servers.
It was starting with its two halves separated - they were slowly inching upwards and together on the ceiling . . . were they attempting to block the lights, or just trying to get back together? Either way, he couldn't let that happen. Leaping up off of the ground, Vanguard surges his energy into his palm, the flames around his left hand dissipating in strength as his right hand nearly erupted with renewed vigor. Smashing his fist into the ceiling, he releases a pulse of sheer, volatile energy, many times larger than his normal offensive - because its purpose was an all around defense. Generated from a series of fortified energy barriers, enemies would have to clash through his energy little by little to get through it. The same idea could be turned into a powerful offense, as the darklight energy he uses to make the sphere was still volatile, burning and shocking all at once, to the touch. The mass of the prominence, glowing like a miniature purple star, would hopefully keep the two edges at bay - and, with any luck, force them to reform on the ground . . .
. . . except, if they did that, he'd be wide open.
He siphoned just a fraction of his left over energy into his coils once again, a particular chip practically pulsating with raw power flowing into it. He was prepared to strike back, if he was right.
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Post by Raven8 on Oct 4, 2017 20:24:13 GMT -8
As the two halves of the Shadow Devil lurch upwards and begin to meet in the middle, they unexpectedly meet a central barrier of some form. Energy of an unknown source. Unable to see what exactly it's hit, the Shadow Devil relents from its attack pattern, instead re-forming into a set of liquid cells at the two sides. However, at this point, the devil does not repeat it previous pattern. Instead, both sides begin to rocket towards the center in a massive barrage of liquid cannonballs. At this point the monster re-forms its normal body-structure. It had reformed in such a way that Vanguard and Mistair are to its back, and Nightshade and Thorn are at its front.
The Shadow Devil reaches its arms out to its sides as a large, bright orange orb appears near the top of the devil's body. The moment that the opening presents itself, another titanic orb of energy surges out, nearly blanketing the half of the room where Thorn and Nightshade stand.
However, this was also the moment that something else happened. One second after the orb fires forward, a slit opens on the back of the shadow devil's hand. From this slit, the true eye peers out at Vanguard, gazing at the Navi that had already damaged it twice for less than a second and sending out yet another gargantuan orb of plasma.
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Post by Nightshade on Oct 5, 2017 5:20:36 GMT -8
The absense of light did not phase the two fighters at all. It was Thorn's natural element, while for Nightshade it was nothing more than a minor setback. He had trained with various darkloids for a while now, and had come to respect the darkness as not a destructive force, but an alternate way to draw out your inner strength.
He let out a small smile. He was so scared back then. Thorn had taken his time off work to teach him about the Dark. Nightshade remembered the night he spent in a completely dark room with Thorn on his side. A night of dead silence. He actually enjoyed it, it didn't feel that bad. Maybe because he was together with a very experienced Darkloid. Thorn's soul was beyond black. The purple dragon always tried to draw out more of its darkness every day, but he knew...and knows...to not overstep boundaries.
Still, now that he couldn't count on his sight, Nightshade's feral side came in handy. He did have some cat features after all. As soon as his body detected movement, he sprung into action. A barrier instantly popped up to repel any threat from all direction, its resistance to multiple attacks without breaking surely helped. At least it would be enough to survive. Thorn was having it easier, his toxicity being like a shield to him, dissolving any projectile before it would reach its target. He should ask him about those fancy Triune protocols later on if they lived.
They both didn't know where the eye was located, but it did not matter. If the Devil was attacking then the eye must have been open to ensure lethal hits. Nightshade didn't even need to call it. He and Thorn were on the same wavelength.
"BattleChip, Bug Death Thunder, slot in!" "DarkChip, Dark Thunder, Slot in!"
Steam was such a marvelos element. Trillions of microscopic water particles. Being so light, they would take the shape of its container to perfection. And with the area permeated by it, for the Devil there would be no small cracks or crevices he he could possibly hide. Not only that, but covering the full volume of the room meant that whatever the eye was, their next attack would be able to reach it should it be open.
Furthermore, Steam would obiously soak everyone in a thin sheet of condensed water, setting the best stage for what was coming next.
[smear:7b19e6]"Joint Technique: Arc Thunder!" [/smear:7b19e6]
Both Nighshade and Thorn released their electric attacks, making sure to have compatible voltages, combining the two with ease. Like a hair dryer in a bathtub, the electricity would bounce off the steam, diffusing into the entire room. Water here aced as the medium in which their attack would spread.
That was their plan. Area of Denial. In this case, denying the enemy any defense by leaving it no safe space to hide. Not only that, but by shocking the monster's entire surface area would ensure a hit regardless of the eyes's position. The only tricky part was making sure they would be ambushing the enemy and catch it off guard.
But that didn't stop there. It wasn't a simple elemental attack over a large area. DarkThunder was the main source of offensive power, while Bug Death Thunder served as a hindrance with its bug type properties. Downloading and hacking would not be the easiest thing to do if your systems bugged out. The small sheet on condensed water would make sure that the electricity would stick to its target once struck.
The only problem with Joint Techniques like this one is that they are a one shot wonder. Should Thorn and Nightshade fail to hit their mark and cause any kind of damage or debilitating effects on the target, they would not be able to do it again. The long set up time was also yet another setback. If it werent for Vanguard pissing the devil's off of them it would have been way harder if not impossible to do.
Still, it was clear that they were kind of grasping at straws around here. Nightshade's stamina was running low and despite Thron's evolution he had sustained insade amounts of damage. They would not be able to keep at it for much longer.
That though...the thought of dying...made Nightshade shudder. He couldn't die there. He had still his goals to accomplish. He wanted to make things right. If he would really die though...he would not die a coward.
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Post by Raven8 on Oct 5, 2017 7:12:56 GMT -8
The omni-directional burst of electro-static energy arcs across the room just as the duo had intended, but the farther that it travels the weaker it becomes. By the time it reaches the eye of the devil, it's dropped to less than half of its intended damage. However, the sudden and unexpected jolt doesn't go without an effect. Electricity begins to pulse across the core of the devil as its liquid body seems to quiver. The pupil of the eye shrinks as it looks around, trying to understand what exactly happened.
<For the remainder of this turn, it is safe to touch the Shadow Devil while its eye is open>
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Post by Unknown on Oct 5, 2017 19:25:22 GMT -8
As the Shadow Devil attempts to grasp the situation, three pools of crimson appear on the side of the Shadow Devil's eye; one near the left, right, and middle of the Shadow Devil, yet still a distance away. Noticeable pools, but would easily be missed if David was too focused on Goliath.
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Post by Gaia on Oct 6, 2017 9:42:00 GMT -8
Vanguard.EXE
The Shadow Devil suddenly pooled off of the ceiling, avoiding his darklight barrier, and drops back down to the walls, converging into the center of the room to take form once again. From his position on the ceiling, having dug in with his fist, Vanguard can look down on the Shadow Devil just beneath him.
Without warning, its arms spread wide, and it releases yet another sphere of massive energy, directly at the pair of new agents. Then, he saw the red glow of the eye on the back of the Shadow Devil's hand, glaring up at him, as if taking him into consideration for the first time. With the opening eye, a second sphere of plasma came rocketing forward.
He used just a last sliver of his stacked up energy to place a series of reticles on the Shadow Devil's body - each one delving deeper than the last, starting at his revealed eye and digging ever deeper into his data stream. What would become taxing - and perhaps even worrisome - to the devil, though, was even as his eye closed and vanished, the reticles blipped up and followed behind it, opening up across the surface of the devil's body as the eye shifted from his hand. Vanguard's eyes shifting across the devil's body as quickly as the eye could shift, his sky's view of the devil's body giving him full reign of his analytical abilities, now homed in on and focusing solely onto the Devil.
Surging the barrier of his life essence inward, rather than allowing it to take the full brunt of the strike, Vanguard absorbed the massive show back into his form, the blaze around both of his hands practically a pyre of purple fire. Reaching down into the depths of his core, where his darklight energy fights in constant tandem against the darksoul within him, Vanguard surges all of the excess power outward, the coils on his arms, the spikes on his shoulders; every crack within his armor spews darklight flames.
And, then, the energy sphere was upon him. Without anything to deter it, the massive show of force crashed into him, and he felt the searing agony from before instead spread across his entire body. The force of the blow threatened to tear the ceiling out from above him, but, he held fast, closing his eyes against the agony, all the while taking in what energy he could siphon, his darklight flames licking at the energy sphere for fuel. When he opened his gaze, his white eyes, behind his visor, were now ablaze, and the scorch marks and wounds across his body even spewed forth his hellish pyre. He'd descended into his Darksoul . . . the depths of his power. He took a deep breath to prove to himself that he could still master himself, and the coiling flames around his body calmed to a simple aura. While he had just fallen into his darksoul, he was far from his limit.
Now, the real fight begun.
Within the agony of the sphere crashing into his body, he hadn't even noticed the arcing electrical coils that the two new agents had thrown out. What he did notice, though, was the effect of the arcing electricity it appeared to have on the Shadow Devil - its form was constantly shifting, bubbly and quivering. He noticed the pupil of its eye dilating, and, still clung to the ceiling, also noticed the strange crimson glare appearing across its surface.
He didn't have time to think of what those could mean. He intended on ending it, right here, right now. Taking another deep breath, Vanguard surged the darklight blaze back up to its full glare, and, in a sudden blur across the ceiling, he was simply a darting point of purple movement.
When he reappeared, he was perfectly positioned directly above the eye of the Shadow Devil, his darklight hand shifted into a fine tuned blaze of energy no thicker than a hair. The blaze, while controlled and tuned, was radiating with force. As he turned, mid air, to drive the fine tuned blaze directly into its pupil - sending the strike straight through the reticles he placed - the cannon fire that he released before into the Shadow Devil's stream would seem like a mosquito bite in comparison. His timing was impeccable, and, even if the shadow devil attempted shifting its eye across his body to deter Vanguard, the darklight warrior moved far too quickly, and darted too and fro to chase his target with a series of four strikes, sometimes channeling the darklight laser stream through his knees or feet, relentlessly driving deeper and deeper into his target of choice: The Shadow Devil's code and data stream. His pinpoint calculated strikes were far more lethal than they appeared, and, should the eye ever appear on the legs of the devil, the true damage they were causing could easily be seen in the massive crater left in the floor from the simple laser piercing through its data.
When the series of four strikes were over, his assault was not. Channeling left over energy that he'd been amassing the whole time into his chips, a series of them sprang free from his slotted coils and began rotating around his body. Grasping at one mid-air, as he shifted to aim another strike, Vanguard punched forward with his darklight fists, still surging with incredible power, each strike releasing a meteor-like blaze of dark energy. These meteor strikes were only empowered by his previous show of force, left over energy from his fine tuned strikes forcing the meteor like blaze down to miniscule pellets of power that went racing towards the shadow devil with sonic booms behind them. Sending forth a barrage of four meteors total, Vanguard then begins to wildly press his hand into the series of chips surrounding him.
A darkened kunai, flying true without failing, despite being unaffected by his pinpoint accuracy, sprung forth first from the whirlwind of dark energy. Then, as Vanguard became little more than a blur within the field of energy, a series of fine-tuned blades - remniscient of DarkSwords - jutted out from the sphere of dark power surrounding him. Moving about within his own sphere of energy like a quill, Vanguard went rushing forward with the shifting blades, their edges refined so that there would be no hiding spot, aiming to crash himself against the Shadow Devil with all of his force, and what remained of his incredible burst of speed.
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Post by xoDeathy on Oct 6, 2017 10:29:08 GMT -8
"... Eh hue hue hue hue... "
The crimson pools that had remained dormant respond to Vanguard's last mad dash of DarkSwords, opening a tear in the network's coding straight in Vanguard's path, causing him to reappear on the other side of the Shadow Devil hopefully crashing into a wall, but Shadow Labrys knew not everything goes as planned.
"I'm impressed, snipey boy. I didn't think ya'd charge the thin'. But ya know, it's no fun when it's four on one, don't ya think?"
Her mechanically-echoed voice was followed by the crimson pools collapsing together, and reforming into a larger one, unveiling an iron maiden atop a rising minotaur roughly the width of the Shadow Devil wing-span included. The minotaur roared as its horns exuded great flames, only revealing half of it's body from the ground.
Shadow Labrys turned to the two fighters she intended to place the trap for.
"Well lookie lookie, if it ain't the cat. My my, you sure have gotten stronga'! Tha's why imma send Asterius to deal with ya!"
Asterius continued to roar as it turned to face Nightshade and Thorn, reeling back both fists and then simultaneously crashing them onto their position. Regardless of making contact with the two Navi, damage to the floor appeared to be nonexistent.
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