(Twi) Twilight XI: School Days

[darkblade]

Alex Russo

"I won't bow to dead Britannians. Nor to egotistical chosen one wizards. So why should I bow to a dead egotistical chosen one Mesopotamian?" Alex asks the ultimate hero.

"Don't get me wrong I appreciate the whole not burning alive thing but I don't care much for your attitude and I already got a partner." She goes on getting to her feet. In this not quite real world her burns hurt a whole lot less.

"Saber, King Mickey the Mouse. A mouse, no, a man. A man who rose from nothing to bring order to a world of chaos. Mastered magics we beings of a single world cannot hope to understand and forged an Empire that bridged everything from Tatooeine to Earth 616. He may have some skeletons in his closet, but everyone does, even you. He died stopping the multiverse from being consumed by darkness."

"He did all of that without a drop of divine blood. So if you want your shot at the Grail then get in line. Because it already belongs to King Mickey and I, for the Disney Empire."

[Cracklord]

Hercules
The city of Dis was enormous, stretching to a size larger then any stable physical form that reality could hold, standing in the crater of a volcano as tall as a universe. Were one to come to the edge, they would see nothing beneath them even on the clearest of days but a darkness deeper then forever. But it was never clear, the air full of clouds of smoke and sparks that burned the lining of the lungs with every breath. Hercules didn’t even notice. He had bigger problems.
The only advantage of the mindless size was that it hid him.
The place stank of ash and brimstone. Everything burned to touch, and all he could hear were screams. The lava beneath the city was full of bobbing figures, screaming in torment at once. The damned.
The city was made up hardened magma, obsidian and crystal squats, suspended above the lava. The walkways were narrow paths of stone with no rails, that a single misstep would send you plummeting to the lake below. In the center of the city, carved from a single, unnatural looking spire, was a tremendous castle, sharp and hard as a blade, glowing red with heat.
Hercules' feet would be bleeding if not for the heat radiating from everything that instantly cauterized them, and the hairs on his body had burned off. The wall of figures who blocked his way were not demons, the forces of evil seeking to bind him into the river of torments for all time as they drank away his soul, nor any other forces of the netherworld. No. The dead themselves faced him now.
"Kratos." Hercules growled, no brotherly love lost at all. "Your doing?" He said, as he gestured to the forces arrayed against him.
"Not alone, brother. Though I hate you most, and with greatest cause, I cannot claim you myself. We each shall take vengeance in our turn. It is the ancient law of the pit, that each one to die at your hand may take vengence on your death." The other son of Zeus snarled right back, indicating the crowd of indistinct figures surrounding the ghost of Sparta. "You sent us all here, to this land of ashes and torment. And so shall you suffer in just proportion. Long have I awaited this moment."
"United in Hatred, is it? I killed each of you in turn and with good cause. I'll take you on again together if I must." Hercules replied, then stared at the army another moment, before settling on the perfect target for what he had in mind.
"Xerxes. Not a god afterall, I see. Indeed, nothing but a lapdog. I may have taken your life, but it was him who crippled you, left you a drooling mess ranting and raving and feeding on the suffering of others. Yet here you follow him."
Kratos's stare was a mix of overwhelming baffled, puzzled rage, and a hint of confusion, as though beginning to sense he was going to be outshone by his brother yet again, but not quite sure what there was that could be done about it, or how it was going to happen.
"Silence! You address omnipotence, tread carefully mortal." Xerxes had reverted to his youth as a warrior king before his spine had been snapped like a rotten twig, and he stood tall as two men, strong and powerful as any four, towering those around him, and clad in little except piercing and chains.
In his youth, a follower of the prophet Eli had told him that he would be damned for his life, and would burn in hell. Xerxes had laughed, and ordered a thousand slaves to stride out and smother an inferno with nothing but the press of their bodies and the stamping of their feet. When they had, despite the horrific cost to himself, he had claimed he had no reason to fear any hell.
Apparently, earthly loyalty was no help to him here. "Where are your slaves? Your palaces? Your soldiers? I'll tell you where, you're nothing on the other side, but the sum of your deeds, same as everyone else. And what is that?"
"Silence."
"A legacy of burned ships and dead men. And why is that?"
There was a pause pregnant with expectation. "Much as it pains me to admit, Ghost of Sparta, he's right!" Xerxes roared, and threw himself at the Spartan demigod.
The scuffle that followed was brief but brutally direct. The enormous figure was brought down with a few short, hacking movements, and Kratos tore his head off by expedience of driving his stiffened fingers into the soft flesh of his throat, then tearing away. The other son of Zeus may have been only a knuckle-dragging thug, and nothing more, but he was undeniably a spectacularly gifted one.
Hercules turned to another figure, further down the line. "He was your father, if only by adoption. He picked you up from the gutter to give you a life paramount in the greatest kingdom of the earth. Are you a man, to let him die without trying to avenge him?"
With a growl, Khashayar tossed himself after his father, swinging an enormous spiked chain. It went much the same way the last attempt to bring down Kratos had, but the nebulous chains that bound them to common purpose broke, and Kratos could only watch as the army united by common purpose descended into a angry riot, as they ripped each other apart, forgetting all about common cause. Hercules pushed through them, and glared at his half brother. "You and me. Now."

Alex Russo
The sparkle never left Gilgamesh's eyes, and the smile didn't so much as twitch, but nonetheless something hard to determine made it plain that he had listened to your less then flattering opinion of him, and intended to take it out on Mickey when they met. His towering ego demands nothing less.
"I see I was mistaken. You are an idiot afterall." He says, the smile exactly the same. "How common. But your defiance shall not be forgotten. Not by me. No, you have spurned my generous offer, and thus your wretched fate is sealed, as soon as a suitable punishment occurs to me. But know this. Before the end of this night, two masters shall be deprived of their servants, and one, or the other, shall accept my offer. And when that is done, I shall unleash my fury upon you, witchling." He leaned close. "Then I shall see this… mouse for myself. And you shall never see the grail."

King Mickey
Salem had returned to it's master, called back and brought to heel by one of the three orders on the command seal. It had probably saved Alex's life, kept Salem from being thorough, but created a difficulty for you. Harry was as much a threat as his servant, and while you could handily deal with one or the other, together they posed a greater concern. Particularly, that Harry might make an escape.
Two floors up, neither of them have seen you yet.

[darkblade]

Alex Russo

Two masters will lose their servants? Potter is too full of himself to accept Gilgamesh. Shirou too much of gentleman. That leaves Raven and Nico. Nico's servant had already been sent to Hell... Alex pulls her fear back in, hiding it from Gilgamesh as best she can. "Do your worst. Before you make your way back to Earth stop by Heaven and give them my name. Let them tell you how I saved their feathered backsides last Summer. Do you really think you scare me?"

***

Mickey

That was mostly true but the Mouse King had a trick up his sleeve that he played close to his chest. It was a power more fitting of an assassin than a saber but the noble phantasm of the Kingdom Key can still cleave through the walls between of this world and those that it touches. The downside is that too long in a world that doesn't contain his master and his mana will start to fade away. Sitting on a level of the Astral Plane Mickey focuses on Potter and looks for an opening.

[Colesign]

Leavenworth Smedry

Now!

Smedry jumps onto the Warden's back, fingers sinking into the wolf-beast's fur, gripping it tightly.

%%%

His talent is potent at full strength. Arriving late to bullets and all that jazz.

But compared to other talents, it's limited. Mainly because it's internal. It affects himself mainly.

He can 'stretch' his talent out to encompass others, but the same effect will encompass him as well. It's a talent of protection in the main.

So that's what he's going to do. Protect his companions (and the double agent). Take away Gmork's cruel strengths.

Give them what they need to win.

Smedry grins Let's start with this, shall we?

Clinging as hard to Gmork's back as he can, Leavenworth Smedry arrives late...

To his appetite. And even though Smedry's stomach growls, he couldn't possibly eat anything. His stomach feels tight and bloated and incredibly full, as if he'd just inhaled a buffet. The mere thought of food makes him blanch and want to heave. Even the dust settling on the tip of his tongue makes him nauseous at the very thought. Ugh!

And Gmork feels this in technicolor detail as he prepares to bite down on Hank McCoy.

[Cracklord]

Smedry, Beast
Gmork's jaws closed around Beast like a castle portcullis, then Gmork spat him out in disgust, threw back his head and howled, the sound echoing through the cave, the deep reverberation of it somehow conveying a perfect expression of hate, hunger, and a lust to tear things apart. He hasn't noticed Smedry clinging to his back, his focus is on the feeling in his stomach. For the first time since he was a pup, he doesn't feel hunger.
Werewolves are always hungry. Each day, they are designed to consume twice as much as they did the previous day, or their body pangs. If they go too long without, they'll begin to eat themselves. And Gmork had consumed entire armies in his time, left cities empty and full of ghosts. His appetite was always with him, more a part of him then his heartbeat.
He doesn't have a lot of emotional range. The rage is still there, but it had been swallowed by something like confusion, something so completely unfamiliar to it's nation it didn't know what to do.

"Look at that. They're going to win." The indifference leaves John's face, to be replaced by something sharp, ugly and cunning, that had more in common with wonder than anything else. It made him ugly. "Ha. Shows me right enough."
"Nah. Scrappy underdogs always win."
"Not always. You try and use the narrative, you usually don't go anywhere nice. Anyone trying to go kill a dragon because it's what heroes do, usually find themselves to be number seventy eight peasant boy eaten before the knight came along, or worse still, forced into some sort of allegorical role. But they're going to do it." John smiled. "Looks like we might be getting out afterall. Just got to stick to these two like glue."

Alex Russo
"We shall see." Gilgamesh said, then satisfied he'd managed to get the last word, allowed himself to vanish. Gilgamesh has taken a part in almost every Grail War since the beginning, you wonder if this is how he's done it.
Regardless, at the moment he's less of a threat then he will be. The last war may have only been ten years ago, but it was an unusually brutal one, finally won by Wednesday Addams (a name as good as synonymous with dark magic) and her servant Rider (Doombreed, she had called him, but most of the analyzing magicians agree that it was most likely Genghis Khan himself). If Gilgamesh has been in the material world all that time, then no matter his reserves he must be coming to the end of them, unless he has some secret natural wellspring of power that he can access at will.
But if left too long, he could make things very difficult indeed.

Mickey
Harry has no wards up in his room, and is too busy scolding his servant to pay attention to other dimensions. If you time it right, you could kill him before he was even aware you are there.

[Draxx]

Beast
Gmork was faster then Hank, good as his reflexes and instincts are he never had a chance. The enormous wolves jaws snap closed around him, and grind down on him with impossible force, and yet grind to a close.
Every muscle trembling, the strain making spots dance before his eyes, and one of his teeth actually breaking his jaw is clenching so hard, yet the jaw doesn't move, Beast holding the mouth open. It took all he had and then some, but the alternative was to die. And that was no alternative at all.

Hansel
Willie staggers, and goes down like a sack of potatoes. He's taken a few blows in his time, a brawler from way back, but your hit was perfectly measured and almost fractured his skull. He's not getting up in a hurry.

Archer
Behind Sam Axe, an odd man clears his throat. With a red coat and lime white hair, dark skin and red eyes. After a moment, you place him. It's the assistant history teacher.

[darkblade]

Sam

With Willie out cold Sam heaves the groundskeeper like a sack of potatoes and looks for something not on fire to tie him to. When he wakes up things will get unpleasant.

He turns as Archer announces his presence behind him. "Right, if it isn't another life and death matter it can wait."

***

Alex

Alex still not sure quite where she is tries to use the last of her mana to summon her IPP, to return her to her home dimension and away from the burning school.

***

Mickey

Not waiting around for a better chance takes his strike. Aiming to cleave right through Potter while only returning to the material plane for two seconds, short enough that should it fail Salem can't rip him into little tiny pieces.

[Colesign]

Leavenworth Smedry

Leavenworth notices Gmork's confusion, and elects to keep mum and not draw attention, like a tick on a puppy.

C'mon Professor McCoy. He psychically urges his fellow academic. Beat this whelp hollow!.

The moment Gmork tenses for a counterattack, Leavenworth Smedry will arrive Late to his sense of balance...and spread that to the would be servant of the nothing.

[Cracklord]

Beast, Smedry
Gmork has never feared anything, because everything has always been afraid of him. It is perhaps that which makes him think the sudden shift must be internal, rather than looking for a more immediate cause, such as a vigorous old man clinging to his back.
Staring down at Beast, who is glistening a little from drool, Gmork tilts his head in confusion. "It would appear I have no appetite for you morsel, I who have consumed kingdoms and armies. How can that be?" It shook it's great shaggy head again, trying to get rid of the nausea. "No matter. I wonder if The Nothing itself shall spit you back out. I doubt it."

Mickey
The Keyblade catches Potter in the shoulder, The Kingdom Key causing tremendous damage, and sending the Boy who Lived to the ground, unconscious from trauma, blood-loss and shock. He'll be dead soon, a tragic end to a man like him, but the only way forward.
Salem is not fast enough to save him, wasting time turning and trying to make sense of what it sees. And she is not Gilgamesh. She'll last no time at all without an attendant summoner. You could leave her here, and she'd last mere minutes, just as Harry would. But if you do, then she will most likely rampage through the school looking for you, and who knows what she might do to anyone she meets.

[AnimeKid]

Kidd

Kidd's eye twiched as he looked down at the number. He was about to throw it away when he decided to keep it. At the least they could be a valuable source of information. He let out a sigh as he turned to leave the hallway. This took up a lot of his valuable time. He still had to find a way to avert Liz and Patti's deaths. Speaking of which where are they? Turning on his Soul Perception he was able to find them...along with a demonic soul! And...were they fighting it?! Kidd ran forward at high speed as he desperately raced to where his partners were to help them.

Maka and Soul

Maka turned off her Soul Perception as she said, "I couldn't find him. He was out of my range. We'll have to move out further to try and find him."

Soul looked lazily at Maka as he said, "Well we are on top of the roof after all. Besides, you worry to much Maka. Kidd's a big boy he can take care of himself. WE should probably get moving and try to see if we can nab us another Kishin Egg Soul before dark. I mean, classes are already over. Curfew will be in effect in a little while."

Maka looks over at Soul before facing the campus as she says, "I guess your right...C'mon Soul, lets go." With that the duo went off in search of another Kishin Egg. Preferably Rosalie. Hopefully she hadn't told the rest of her family about the students from the DWMA hear to collect their souls. It was already bad enough that Carlisle knew.

Liz and Patti

Liz grits her teeth at how this guy was calmly talking about her and Patti's deaths. "Well we're getting through to our Meister, so stop us at your own risk, Patti"!

"Rogerrrr!" There was a pink flash of light as Patti transformed into her pistol weapon form. Liz grabbed hold of her sister and matched Soul Wavelengths with her. She then attempted to shoot the esteemed young man in front of her in the knee and the continue past him.

[Cracklord]

Liz and Patti
The bullet was magical in nature, and punched a hole an inch above his kneecap. He blinked, but that was it for physical reactions. Sebastien was used to being shot. And it certainly wasn't bad considering that which he was used to.
"Quite. Now look, little girls. I've been mauled by wolves, attacked by the ghost of someone who doesn't exist yet, and a pair of angels with more vice then virtue, and that's only today. So forgive me if my normal reserved and unflappable manner is somewhat strained." He says, with a sort of forced calmness that makes it very clear that while there might not be any outward sign, he feels like frothing at the mouth. Gmork had a big family, and he'd only dealt with the first of seven sons.
"You can't beat me. But if you want to try…" He scoops up a handful of his blood, which oozes up out of his skin in a disturbing way, and begins to bubble and hiss, as though it were boiling. However that's clearly not what it is doing, because it also solidifies, sprouting into a strange, deadly shape, that he brandishes as a weapon. A long whiplike shape, covered in hooked thorns. "Then I will regrettably handing you to master Yagami in less then prime condition." He growls like the demon he was.
Sebastien has lost his shit.

Kidd
You run towards the front of the school. It's on fire, and the new principal is standing in your way talking to a heroic spirit, one of the souls who get to keep on coming back after death to try and finish unfinished business. All well and good. Except that one…
Shouldn't be dead. Chronologically, he hasn't died yet.
Liz and Patti are on the second floor, about to take on Light's walking deterrent.

Maka and Soul
Instead you find Stocking, the angel, stripped naked and staring vacantly up into the air. It doesn't take a genius to tell there's something wrong with her. Or that she's very nice to look at, naked. It appears that providence, is heaping yet further indignity upon the Anarchy Sisters.
You also see Atticus tied up in the back of a van being sped off to have ghastly, librarian themed tortures heaped upon him, but that's really not your problem. Finding A Kishin Egg is, and the remainder seem to be in the school library…

[Draxx]

Beast
The wolfs advantages:
Size, power, speed, intelligence, familiarity with surroundings, agility, and will to kill.

His own was a considerably shorter list. This is what is called the lethal arithmetic, when you find yourself forced into a battle all logic shows you that there's no way to win.

He gets slowly to his feet, covered in spit from the inside of the wolfs mouth, carefully palming a small fragment of stone that Gmork dislodged from the wall, and holding it so that from Gmork's perspective it is completely invisible. Then he straightens, and meets Gmork's eyes, rolling the rock against the back of his palm as he does. The wolf was unspeakably dangerous. It still had it's vulnerabilities.

It still had weak points.

"You'll find me to be a sour pill to swallow." He growls, then tosses the rock underarm, with all the strength he can, at Gmork's eye. The wolf will see it coming, and flinch. With that second's distraction, he heads for it's leg, and lets his claws slide out. All he needs to do is damage a muscle, or better still break a bone. If he puts it down, he can leave it here and get on with things without having to fight until one is dead. In a prolonged and sustained confrontation, it's obvious who the victor will be.

Archer
"It is. Yours." The Heroic spirit says, then sighs. "I'll make this simple. Do you believe in any of the following: magic, ghosts, evil conspiracies that control the Empire?"

[Colesign]

Leavenworth Smedry

Leavenworth does McCoy one better. As the rock flies forward, Smedry switches tacks briefly, arriving late to his instincts, delaying his reactions...and extending that to Gmork.

The rock strikes true and hard.

[Cracklord]

(Starting to think everyone had lost interest)
Smedry and Beast
Gmork roars in pain as it is unbalanced by Smedry's metaphysical delay, and so the rock hits it in one eye with a sickening quelching sound, like a boot coming down on wet cement. Blinded in one eye and staggered, it only flails ans Beast moves in, a muscle tears, ligaments snaps and the bone breaks, unable to muster a coherent defense. It's size is it's downfall, it can't support it's own weight on just three legs, it's too unevenly distributed and already unbalanced. So it falls, and cannot get up.
Slowly it turns it's good eye from it's prone position to stare at the two of you, the orb glistening with a mad, irrational hate no sane mind could produce. "You have bested me. My sons will hunt you, but you will be gone long before they find your scent. Any you shall wish I had devoured you before long, Morsel. When the Nothing comes, you shall wish I had devoured you."
John claps his hands, to remind you both he's there. "Well, that's a compelling argument if I ever saw one. Still want to leave?"

[Colesign]

Leavenworth Smedry

He climbs off from Gmork, stumbling at bit as he releases his Talent.

"Indubitably so." He replies to John.