Blue Pegasus VS The Syndicate

Spoiler:

It had been a hell of a rush to get mobilized when the call came in for aid, but Blue Pegasus had done very well in their turn out. The guild master, team rampage, and the former guild master as well, Zack, Shuhei, Akryn, and Akeya, the guilds four heaviest hitters at this time. Crescent Island had come under attack, from the reports a pretty vicious attack too. Blue Pegasus, being the closest guild, was the first to receive the call, and the first to respond. A group calling themselves the Syndicate was apparently trying to destroy the resort island. The Syndicate was the name of an exceptionally dangerous and brutal guild that had reportedly been destroyed some hundred years ago. This new group was likely some sort of attempt at remaking it and trying to attain some of the original guilds glory. Akryn highly disapproved of this new guild, not for their tactics or their goal, no, that was to be expected. What bothered the former assassin was that this new group wanted to feed off of the name of the old one and use it to launch themselves forward. Besides, this new Syndicate was going after a resort, targeting harmless, and defenseless, civilians. It did not help Akryns mood that one of his sisters happened to live on and work on that island, and if she got involved in a fight against this Syndicate it would alert their former guild to her location. Before that could happen Akryn fully intended to squash them all. He currently stood on the deck of one of Blue Pegasus' impressive warships, soaring through the air towards the island at max speed. He had brought every single weapon he could, his massive starry end on one shoulder, his golden sword and black ssword on either hip, and his daggers on his back. "Can we make this thing go any faster?" Akryn called back to the driver.

In all honesty this was also a great opportunity for him. If this Syndicate was strong enough to live up to the original guilds name then that meant it had some serious power behind it. Akryn had already started talking with Zack about becoming a real ace for the guild, a true recognizing of his skill and prowess, and a huge honor. Plus Akeya was coming along. Akryn wanted to impress both of them, though for perhaps vastly different reasons, and this was a hell of an opportunity. Besides, it might be a good way to introduce his sister to the guild, if she was about. He knew Shuhei would like her, hell, Zack too maybe. Akeya might even end up attracted to her as well, it would not be the first time something like that had happened. "I want to get there before they finish the island off! Then maybe afterwards we can laze around some. Hit the beach, work on our tans, swim some? I am curious how Akeya would look in a swimsuit after all."

"Speed is normally my thing and timing is of the essence here, but if we rush in we might get hit by a stray shot. We also don't want to alert them of our presence too quickly." he said calmly though he honestly agreed with Akryn's thought. He would of preferred to go faster, but he couldn't put the guild at risk. This was his first mission he'd lead since he became a guild master. He would make sure that all of them came back alive or die trying. He wasn't too worried though. Akryn was strong, as was Akeya. Both had the potential to be aces of the guild. Then there was Shuhei, the former guild master. The man had more experience than Zack and had lead more missions. He was also very powerful. Yes, he wasn't worried. The top two wizard saints, a guild master and former guild master, two H rank mages. Throw onto that the members of team rampage and Devon and they had a very strong force. There was also the fact that Zack could without much effort put both Shuhei and Akeya into their respective forces. Power was something they did not lack. Their own issue was numbers. A group known as the 'Syndicate' likely sounded pretty powerful.

He turned away from his position at the very tip of the prow to look at Akryn. "Do not worry Akryn. We will have plenty of time to relax." he said trying to reassure the man. However, the image he then presented was one that had Zack pause. Akeya in a bathing suit. He wasn't quite sure how to process that image. If you removed the dragonesque features from the woman then she would be quite beautiful. The dragonesque features however were not that off putting. In fact, Zack quite liked the exotic look. However, putting that body into a swimsuit was a difficult image. One he just couldn't quite process. "It is certainly an interesting image. Be interesting to see Devon in one." he said as a reply. It was actually quite odd that he had not considering how long the two had been teamed up. He'd seen her in outfits other than her armor, but never as anything as revealing as a bathing suit.

The mission ahead of them would not be an easy one even with their skill and strength. Their disadvantage was numbers. Perhaps the airship would provide an edge, but it was possible that the syndicate also had airships. The famous 'shipyard' had recently started up production again and was said to pump out ships and schematics even faster and of better quality than before. He'd been considering taking all of the ships there for an overhaul. However, for now they had to use this current ship.

He walked back to the prow of the ship and remained there his eyes closed focusing on the direction ahead trying to sense any approaching projectiles that a ship might launch. Or anything like that. It might also allow them to identify when they were close to the target area. Perhaps he could leap down from the airship and strike them when they weren't expecting it.

As the warship headed for their destination, carrying the four mages who would take care of this new Syndicate group that had shown up without warning, and apparently with a grudge, at least one of said mages wasn't very happy about the entire situation. Actually, she was completely fine with the job itself. The Syndicate sounded like a group that would only become more dangerous if left alone, so taking them down when they were still focusing on something like a resort made the most sense. The fact that they were claiming to be the inheritors of one of the more dangerous and powerful of dark guilds from long ago, and would declare on pretty much everything legal, only made this more apparent.

The problem was the method of transport.

While Akryn and Zack were both busy looking forward and preparing themselves for what they might encounter once they reached the island, the only female mage to come along was curled up in the middle of the deck, grumbling and growling. Anybody who looked at her would only see a dragon with midnight blue scales, in the same position as Akeya's actual form, and growling and grumbling with a deeper tone of voice. She still wasn't sure why she had been so stupid as to agree to using one of the warships to travel to the island. She was pretty sure that she could fly there with her own wings, and if necessary even carry one person with her. The others could have used the warship. However as a Dragon Slayer she really should have thought twice about entering the ship and only realizing what this would entail once it had already begun moving. Now it was too late, and she was stuck there waiting for this torment to end.

Well, at least Akryn had managed to make sure that she wouldn't go so far as to actually vomit. When he saw the shape that she was in he had given her his...well, it looked like a gem which looked like an eye. As long as it was directed at her it would manage to at least keep her stomach from rebelling too much. However it wasn't capable of completely removing the motion sickness, so the half dragon was still curled up and grumbling as her mood gradually only got worse. The gem was hidden behind her body, her wing covering it as one of her claws gripped tightly onto it. This way no matter were it pointed it would at least be gazing at some part of her body, which should be enough to keep her from needing to empty her belly.

Hearing the two males talk didn't do much good for her mood either, grumbling some more as they talked about putting her in a swimsuit. Or at least they were thinking about what she would look like in one. Normally she wouldn't have given two figs about such a thing, but right now she wasn't in the mood to have people think of her in such a way. Unfortunately making them stop would require her either raising her voice or walking over to them, and either of those ideas was against her current policy of doing as absolutely little as possible while she waited for the damn ship to stop moving. So there was little left for her to do but to just lie there, having everybody who helped keep the ship afloat and moving in the right direction steering clear of her. From their point of view they had a sick dragon lying on the deck, and even worse, the sick dragon was also angry and grumpy. Even if she was a member of Blue Pegasus, they wouldn't be so foolish as to get close while she was in such a mood.

While whimpering quietly Akeya tried to focus on what they would have to do once they reached the island. As usual she would as quickly as possible become invisible, most likely hiding in Akryn's shadow as he moved about and did all the socializing stuff. While he gathered information through the people and whatever else he could find the half dragon would stand guard, using her hidden location to keep an eye out for trouble. That was how they usually took care of things. If possible she could then also try to assassinate the leader of the Syndicate, although with how powerful the group was supposed to be she was somehow doubtful that doing that would be easy.

Another curious thing was seeing what Zack and Shuhei would do. She knew what types of magic they used, and had seen Zack train and Shuhei use some flashy spells, but she had yet to see how they acted during a job. Neither of them was as serious as Akeya or Akryn, Zack appearing somewhat more carefree and Shuhei giving the impression that he just sees it all as some kind of opportunity to have fun. However they were both also immensely powerful, so they had somewhat valid excuses to not take things as completely seriously as Akryn and she herself did. They were still weak enough that they had to compensate for it with intelligence and concentration. Not that Akeya would ever call herself weak, but she was not yet strong enough that she could just take on jobs like this one without a single worry.

Although it couldn't go any worse than this stupid ride.

Akryn smirked at Zacks reply and turned to look out at the island again. As he did however three things caught his eye. The first was a sudden, and massive explosion to the north of the island, sending a huge pillar of flame up into the air in a swirling spiral pattern. Next was a part of the island seeming to rise up like a tidal wave, curving up into the air before slamming down onto the ground again, also in the north. Either two mages were fighting or these Syndicate punks were trying to wipe every one out. The second possibility was unacceptable, and for a brief moment Akryn considered leaping from the bow of the ship and speeding on ahead. However, just as he was about to leap something else caught his eye. Twin beams of brilliant light appearing off the ships starboard side and blasting in towards the side of Blue Pegasus airship.

Whether the blasts connected or not a new ship would appear from thin air, obviously cloaked. This one however was positively massive, larger than even the vessel Akryn was on, and it had rows of magical cannons along its hull, many of which were currently aimed at the new airship. Perhaps worse however were the soldiers lining the main deck, over a hundred of them, all armed with obviously magical weapons. Many had grappling hooks and what appeared to be wooden planks, likely magical to hang on to other airships. Even worse, some of those on the deck were currently manning deck mounted harpoon guns, aiming them at the vessel. Akryn cursed under his breath and drew his golden sword, tossing it towards the new, enemy vessel. Halfway there it would shatter into the three hundred golden kunai which would begin spinning towards the enemy, even as Akryn rushed to the side of the blue Pegasus ship and leapt from the railing, drawing his black sword and pulling his massive, starry end from his shoulder. He crashed into the waiting enemy boarders and began swinging, the sound of steel on steel ringing out through the air within seconds. "GO ON AHEAD! I will drop this bad boy and meet up!" Akryn called back to Zack, Akeya, and Shuhei. He would leave his healing eye with Akeya for now, she still needed it. But for a moment he grew concerned. More often then not his strikes were deflected, or dodged in the case of his starry end, and the enemy were starting to surround him. Akryn smiled as he returned his kunai back to sword form and grasped it between his teeth, crouching a bit. "Allright ya bastards. Come and get ya some from a real warrior." He growled, just before the horde of fighters rushed him from all sides.

The member 'Akryn' has done the following action : Dice Rolls

'Monster Dice' :

What Akryn had considered doing Zack had indeed done. As the huge pillar of flame had flown upwards Zack had dropped from the ship's prow and seemingly kicked off the air before flying at top speed towards the location of the pillar. As such he was not around to deal with the beams of light that were heading towards the ship. He turned briefly at the sound of the commotion to see a ship, larger even than their own, preparing for some sort of boarding. However, there was no time to turn around and stop that now. He'd have to hope that Shuhei, Akryn and Akeya were enough to handle the situation. There were lives to be saved and an island too. He just hoped he wasn't forced to go all out on this mission otherwise there might not be much of an island left.

As he flew towards the location he noticed a group of around 40 men. All of whom were armed with swords and seemed to be wrecking the place and attacking people. Now that was something he just couldn't let happen. All those men would see was a twinkle in the sky before a huge blast of sound and dust sent them all flying. When the dust cleared there appeared to be no-one there, but that was because the source of it was already moving and striking. Forty men of this class were no match for him. In a few mere moments a quarter of them had been knocked unconcious, but it was that moment he stopped in his tracks.

This was not out of choice, but because a rather sticky mucus like substance had suddenly seeped out beneath him whilst he was distracted. As he turned to see the source he saw a man with a rather bedraggled appearence. His hair was black and in a bowlcut and from his nose dripped a long stream of mucus. This seemed to be the source of the sticky material trapping Zack. Despite the warm climate the man was wearing a rather thick cloak that seemed to give him the appearence of being a large man, but the keen eye would see he was thin to the state of almost being emaciated.

"You did well to beat so many of my men so quickly Mr Rose." the man replied. "But you fell into my sticky trap. Behehehe bye bye" With that he stamped his staff down and the liquid around Zack exploded sending a huge pillar of flame to tear up into the sky though this wasn't as large as the earlier one. As the flames cleared Zack was standing there with his face burned and his clothes as well. However, he didn't seem particularly phased by the explosion. He raised a hand to his hair and wiped a small amount of mucus from it flicking it away.

"So you're in charge snotty? I guess i'll have to take you down then." As he said those words the man's eye twitched slightly.

"What did you call me?" he said and to Zack's surprise lifted up a large piece of rubble and hurled it at Zack with ease and great force. Zack however did not hesitate and just sliced it in two with his sword. "Nobody insults me or the don quixote family and lives." Zack just shook his head.

"Well if you want to kill me then you'll have to try a bit harder than rocks and goop." he said and with that he suddenly lunged forward trying to slice him in twain, but his sword seemed to stop as it hit what turned out to be more of the mucus-like goop. "You wear this stuff? Damn, I thought your fashion taste was bad enough before."

The member 'Speed Demon Zack' has done the following action : Dice Rolls

'Monster Dice' :

Hearing Shuhei's comment, after the White Dragon Slayer had jumped down to announce to them their speedy arrival to the island, Akeya actually softly sighed in relief. Normally she wouldn't actually display such a sign of displeasure at her current situation, but then again normally she wouldn't be affected this much by something this small. She didn't know why all Dragon Slayers would suffer from motion sickness like this, but it was by far one of the most inconvenient parts of her new life. She could deal with no longer really understanding or getting along with humans, she could deal with being a kind of hybrid creature rather than a pure blooded human or dragon, she could even cope with the possibility that once her family sees her like this they might treat her as a monster. It would of course be very saddening, and it would take a while, but she was fairly certain that if such a thing were to occur she could muscle through.

However the fact that no matter what she tried, she would always and permanently suffer from motion sickness simply because she was now a Dragon Slayer and a half dragon to boot, was both severely inconvenient and infuriating to boot. There were vehicles in development which apparently did not make Dragon Slayers ill, but those were rare, experimental, difficult to make, and quite expensive. Unless the techniques used to create those vehicles suddenly became a lot easier and required cheaper materials, and they started to become mass produced, she would have to accept the fact that for journeys too long to undertake on foot (or on wing) there would be no way around having to endure this illness, this feeling that if she made even one movement she would immediately empty her stomach, then and there. Well, if she was alone the length of the journey wouldn't matter unless it was through lands where she would not be able to find enough food, or if it was overseas. Regardless, this weakness, which so far as she knew was not one she could simply eliminate, got on her nerves, which did not combine well with the fact that the motion illness was already making her grumpy to begin with.

So when the first signs of trouble showed themselves, and that giant warship popped up right next to their own airship, the deck already filled with men eager to get into a fight with these oblivious fools which would dare approach the island that was being taken over by the Syndicate, Akeya was already in bad enough a mood. This just pushed her over the edge that she really felt that the only way she could get over it was if she a) got off the ship as soon as possible, and b) killed all those who were trying to intercept them on their journey to the island. Due to her position lying in the middle of the deck she couldn't see, but she was quite sure that the island was already in sight for those standing at the railing. They were close enough, she could finally get off this thrice-damned ship and return Akryn's eye.

The only problem with that last part of the plan was that the moment that the warship got in sight Akryn had already begun attacking it, jumping off their own warship so he could land on their deck and fight them all at once. That was about what she expected of him, and she also expected him to be able to survive that, although it seemed like there were several enemies on that ship that they would to have take note of. Well, none of them on the level of Shuhei or Zack, but Akryn had told them that he would do it alone, and the amount of magic power from the enemy warship, both from the vehicle itself and the ones using it, was far above Akryn's, so he would have to use what power he had a lot more skilfully. Still, he was a respectable fighter, so if he said that he would catch up later on she believed him.

What she did not expect is that Zack then would immediately also jump off of the airship, although instead of joining Akryn he immediately covered the rest of the distance to the island. Not that she didn't know that he could do that, but she hadn't expected him to actually do it. However that wasn't her priority. Akeya herself was now slowly moving towards the edge of the airship, to the side where there wasn't a massive amount of enemies waiting. She didn't want them to spot her when she was still in this state. As soon as she reached the railing she climbed over it and then jumped off of the airship, down towards the blue waters that still took up the space below the ship. However instead of falling into the ocean she spread her wings, turning her dive into a swoop as she flew towards the island. Akryn said he would take care of the warship, so she would first go to the island and see if she could already begin liberating it. Or to be more exact, start killing that Syndicate that was trying to claim the entire place as their own.

Although before she left she still turned around mid-air and threw the lachrima Akryn had given her towards the warship. Now that she was flying with her own wings instead of relying to that stupid contraption of an airship she no longer suffered from the motion sickness, which meant that it was time to return Akryn's eye to where it belonged, in his eye socket. She could clearly see where Zack was fighting: at least one other fire pillar already surged up from that place. She had the feeling that she should not head there, so instead she went for a spot on the island a bit further away from the beach. Although before she could actually land something quite alarming happened: instead of her lowering her altitude to meet the earth, the earth suddenly rose up to meet her. The half dragon swerved to the side, avoiding the stone pillar that was taking on the shape of a giant hand rather quickly, only to sense a rain of magic bullets quickly moving towards her. Creating a Shadow Shell and by dodging she managed to avoid actually being hit, but her Shadow Shell was immediately destroyed in the process. Hovering up in the air Akeya looked at her two current opponents: the stone pillar had taken the shape of a man, large enough that even when she was still flying high up in the sky he still towered over her. The crystal needles came from a man standing on the ground far below, which made the fact that he had been shooting so accurately rather impressive. The giant man looked like a warrior, but from what she could tell with her draconic enhanced eyes the man on the ground was more of a commander and a tactician.

This was going to be tough to deal with, although at least with that giant man around she would never be out of shadows to use.

The member 'Akeya' has done the following action : Dice Rolls

'Monster Dice' :

The member 'Shuhei' has done the following action : Dice Rolls

'Monster Dice' :

(Ok since all the strong have been claimed, I only have one strong opponent to face. So by the rules in the job I will instead be facing another strong opponent. Yikes)

A sudden, and loud, crash was the warning that someone had entered the room. Though, as the young, white haired mage flew across the room to slam into the wall on the other side of the room, it would be painfully apparent that he had not entered the room of his own accord. Akryn slowly pushed himself up to his hands and knees, blood leaking from a head wound, as he turned his head slightly to turn and look at the man who had thrown him. Currently walking through the same hole that Akryn had created came a mountain of a man. Easily eight feet tall, with a musculature that made Akryn look small, Vergo of the Syndicate smashed his way in. His entire body was currently a dark shade of purple, with not a scratch on that skin, despite Akryns best efforts. Akryn had actually managed to clear the main deck with relative ease, at first, but then this guy had shown up, and he hadn't been alone. Two other rather powerful mages had been with him, and Akryn had managed to elude them. But the three of them had split up to find him it seemed, and Akryn was far from prepared to handle an S rank mage, especially one whose skin could ignore any attack Akryn threw at it. He would have to get creative here soon.

However, as Akryn rose he would be distracted by a new addition to the fight, one of the powerful mages from before. Through the very ceiling above Akryn came a massive man, towering over even Vergo, with a belly like a gigantic cauldron, dressed in a red leotard. Akryn looked up just in time to have that gigantic belly smash into him, driving him straight through the floor like a nail, his opponents belly flop actually driving Akryn and the fat man, Machvise, through two more floors, before they would finally stop, Akryn properly squished underneath the massive meat bag. "How do ya like my two ton splash-iin?" Asked Machvise, from where he lay atop Akryn. His smile would change into an expression of shock however, as he would begin to rise, slowly being lifted into the air.

"Its kind of light to be honest. You sure are sneaky for a big man." Akryn growled, as he began to slowly raise Machvise up,over his head, his teeth grit with the effort. He was used to lifting huge weights, but he had to admit, two tons was a bit much, even for him. However, it wasn't that weight that would be the problem, but instead the person waiting for him as he lifted Machvise. A tall, thin man with a massive smile, and a gun pointed at Akryns face. Up above, Machvise would grin, and Akryn would sense a surge in magic just as the gun went off and he felt the bullet rip through his abdomen. "Ten ton splash." Said Machvise, as Akryn dropped from the gunshot and was again smashed underneath the massive fat man.

The man laughed out loud as Zack tried in vain to pull his sword free. "Bye Bye Mr. Rose" he said and then the man seemed to flow through the back of his jacket, which began to glow brightly. Zack stared at it for a second and then did the only thing he could think of, he dropped his sword and leaped backwards as far and as fast as he could in that brief moment before the jac1ket detonated. Unfortunately, his speed wasn't quick enough and he was hit by a lot of force. Enough that he was sent flying through several buildings. THere was a sudden roar and Zack lunged forward in a blur of speed grabbing his sword and this time aiming for a piercing strike. Yet his opponent too was swift and had managed to form a large wall of mucus blocking his path. It was a close run thing though and the tip of the sword managed to stab the end of his nose scratching it slightly.

The explosion hit once more, but this time it seemed to shatter Zack into thousands of pieces. The snotty man began to laugh. "I told you that you wouldn't get away with insulting this family." he said proudly and smugly. However, in response to this there was a small cough from behind him. He turned to see a fist flying at his face. As it collided there was a large explosion that sounded like the roar of a lion and shaped like a lion's head.

"And I said you'd have to try harder. Don't underestimate the Pegasi." Zack said for it was him who had spoken. Now a lot of people watching this might wonder exactly how Zack survived the explosion. Hadn't he been shattered into pieces by the explosion? Well, that was what appeared to have happened. However, what had actually happened was once more he had let go of his sword and activated a low level, but still very useful spell called Kawarimi. This caused him to vanish in a flurry of black feathers, that seemed to resemble his black clothing, and be replaced with something nearby. In this case he chose a piece of the rubble from the buildings nearby. Thus the rubble shattered and he got into a position to get in a decent blow with his juoken spell.

However, it seemed the man wasn't quite done with that and had managed to survive the blow and the explosion, even if it did send him flying. Coincidently, or perhaps purposefully based on Zack's grin the blow had sent the emaciated man straight through the buildings that Zack had been knocked through though about 10ft to the left. What's more he also went through more buildings. "Looks like my explosion beats yours. Got anything bigger up your rather sticky sleeves?" Zack said though he really hoped it was all the man could muster. THis guy wasn't the big boss and he didn't want to waste all his energy here. Those explosions he'd been hit by had done more damage then they appeared to.

Magic:

Akeya didn't have the luxury to wonder how the others were doing right now. Of course she trusted them to be able to take care of themselves, but now she could do nothing but think that as she was forced to put all her attention to her own situation. Something which did not happen that often. Akeya was a very focused person, so most of her attention was on whatever she was doing anyway, but most of the time that was more her own choice and she could still afford to at least use a small part of her intelligent mind for other things. This time around that was not an option.

These opponents were not ones she could take lightly.

The giant man made out of stone was, honestly, not too dangerous in that technically the only attacks he had were of the physical type, which meant she could avoid them all easily just by turning into a shadow. As the Shadow Dragon Slayer she had become practically immune to all opponents who only had physical attacks, although while in shadow form her own ability to attack was also severely limited. She could still use her magic, but while physical attacks went right through her she couldn't use physical attacks herself either, and she actually didn't possess that many spells which were focused on dealing damage to her target. Most of her magic was focused on mobility and stealth, which meant they enhanced her own physical performance since they made it easier for her to get close to the enemy and slit their throat.

So in a way the giant stone man was still an issue because while he couldn't really hurt her, he could make it very difficult for her to hurt him. For one thing she was an assassin, not somebody who removed large chunks from the scenery. She had no idea where the vulnerable spots on this guy were, and it looked like he was just made out of stone. While she could damage stone she didn't believe she could just drill a hole through this large an amount, and she suspected that just like she became a full shadow this guy's insides would also be made of stone. In which case she actually had no idea how she was supposed to deal with him. Destroying the entire stone giant was a ridiculous plan, and seeing how it had formed out of nothing it might just mean he'd create another body even if she somehow miraculously managed to reduce the current one to rubble. Honestly this was going to be tough not because she feared being defeated by him, but because she would need a while to even figure out a way to defeat him, if she could think of anything at all.

That and he was constantly swinging at her anyway, even though she was pretty sure he had already seen that massive stone sword of his go right through her without causing any damage. He was big, he was tough, he was strong, but he had no way of damaging her, but kept swinging away anyway. It was probably a good thing that she was high up in the air, otherwise the landscape underneath them would already have been reduced to a wasteland due to that giant sword smashing everything to pieces. At least now the only thing he did was keep sweeping up giant winds which would make it dangerous for any other flying creature to get close. And forcing her to stay in shadow form because if she tried to return to her physical form he might hit her, and she didn't think being hit by him would be a good idea.

The other problem was that mage all the way down on the ground. She didn't know what exactly his deal was, but he could actually hurt her with those crystal spikes he kept shooting at her. It didn't look like they would run out any time soon either, so she couldn't even just stay up there and wait for him to run out of fuel. At least now that she knew that she had to avoid those things she had an easier time avoiding getting hit, especially since she could just fly around the giant stone man so he was blocking the spiky man's line of sight. Still, this just put her in a position where she herself was not in danger. She still didn't know how to deal with this scenario. She could fly down and try to kill the spike shooter, but if she did that stone man would most likely smash a large part of the island trying to hit her. Normally she wouldn't really care, but she was supposed to have come here to protect the island by getting rid of these guys, not help destroy it by frustrating a giant made out of stone wielding a sword and a short temper.

As she thought about how to approach this issue she noticed that somebody was running up the stone giant's body. More importantly, the stone giant was either unaware or didn't stop them for another reason. Whoever it was, they were seriously fast, since it looked like they were running up there using nothing but their raw speed to keep themselves from falling down. While still watching the figure it suddenly jumped at her, yelling something while lashing out at her with their leg. The half dragon stayed where she was, watching somewhat curiously as the man (at least, she thought it was a man) went right through her and fell back down all the way to the ground. That was weird. Was that another one of those dark mages who was terrorizing this island? With some luck that assault had resulted in him falling to his death. They were too high up for anybody without some serious toughness to survive that kind of fall. Still, better to make sure.

Finally moving Akeya dove, ignoring the stone giant for now as she focused on reaching the man while he was still falling. It looked like he saw her coming, once she was close once again trying to kick at her. Akeya's blindfold showed that he gathered almost all his magic in his legs, reinforcing them enough that if she wasn't just intangible he would most likely have kicked a hole in her. She should probably count herself lucky that she had gained the magic which made her so good at dealing with physical fighters. After letting his leg go right through her once again she materialized, her tail quickly wrapping around both his legs and tying them together. The stone giant above her appeared hesitant to attack now that doing so would also hit the leg mage, which was good.

Now that she had the man's main weapons tied up Akeya started spinning, using her hold on the man's leg with her tail to also make him spin, which resulted in him yelling rather loudly as he most likely became dizzy and nauseous really quickly. They were still approaching the ground quickly, as the half dragon was now just focused on making the leg man spin as quickly as possible while the two of them were falling. When they were about to reach the ground she suddenly let go of his legs and instead spun a final time, her tail now making a large curve before slamming in the man's stomach at the same time that his back met the ground, resulting in a devastating impact which made the ground shatter and break around the two of them. Akeya gritted her teeth as even though she was letting the man take almost all of the impact she could still feel a fair amount it through her tail. Nothing which she couldn't endure, but it wasn't a pleasant feeling.

The feeling of the man's bones being broken and pulverized by the impact was a lot more satisfying. She could see how his eyes became blank as his consciousness left him, the smash causing too damage for him to stay awake. It looked like he wasn't quite dead yet, which spoke volumes about how tough he was, but he wouldn't be able to do much any longer. Especially since his spine had been reduced to dust and paste, so even after he woke up he wouldn't be able to feel or use any part of his body below his chest.

Meanwhile the stone giant above them roared in anger as he saw his ally get crushed like that, raising his giant sword with both hands and preparing himself to pierce the now apparently physical half dragon who had done that. Akeya looked up at him, standing right on top of the leg man as she waited for his sword to come down. Once it did she turned back into shadow form just before it landed on her, resulting in the weapon going right through her and instead turning what remained of the leg man into a smear on the ground. The ground which also was pierced as the stabbing motion with the sword caused it to create a deep hole in the earth where the leg man had been lying.

Akeya herself stood next to the sword, confirming that the leg man was indeed gone from the face of the planet before looking back up at the stone giant. He was, in a word, humongous. He was so big that she wasn't even sure if it was that useful to him. Sure, it allowed him to deal a lot of damage in one go, but this time around it had caused him to accidentally kill his own comrade because he was too busy trying to swat the fly that had been buzzing around his ears.

Akryn for his part, up on the enemy airship, was fairing much more poorly than the rest of his allies. He had once again managed to elude the three of them and forced them to separate to find him. Not that he had faired much better one on one, as he was currently sword fighting Diamante in a losing battle. He had retrieved his eye gem using telekinesis and used it to heal the gunshot to the stomach he had received, but he was still at a huge disadvantage.

Akryn quickly thrust his sword towards Diamante, who responded by grabbing the steel wall, turning it to cloth, and yanking it out where it hardened again, stopping Akryns thrust, before Diamante would cut through the steel, suddenly cloth again, whip the cut piece around, and then hurl it at Akryn, the cloth rehardening to steel as it flew through the air, forcing Akryn to snap his sword across to deflect the steel discus, before snapping his sword down and across to deflect Diamantes own stab.

Akryn quickly leapt back after that, wishing beyond anything that he had Akeya at his side right now. But she wasn't here, and Akryn would have to fend for himself, especially as Diamante reached into his cloak and pulled out a small, folded black cloth, which he whipped out to the side to unfold it. As Diamante whipped it out however it would harden again, forming into a large cannon aimed at Akryn. With a wicked grin, Diamante tugged the string on the end of the cannon, setting it off, and firing out dozens of small iron balls which peppered the entire hallway, with a larger ball in the center of it all.

Akryns eye widened in realization before raising his black sword to block the main shot, accepting the ripping to his body that the smaller shots caused. However, Akryn had underestimated the power of the cannon, and it would come as quite the painful shock when the cannon ball smashed through Akryns defenses, snapping his black sword in half and then smashing into his chest, sending him flying backwards to slide along the floor of the hallway on his back, the broken piece of his sword still in hand.

Akryn lay there for a moment, trying to regain his breath, before several loud popping noises caught his attention. Akryn would raise his head from the floor to look at Diamante, before his eye would bolt open n shock and fear. Diamante had pulled out several more cloths, which had hardened and formed into confetti launchers, which had of course launched confetti. Black, cloth stars, which had rehardened once leaveing the launcers and formed into large, heavy, and extremely sharp spiked iron balls. Akryn quickly leapt to his feet, turned, and ran, sending out his telekinetic abilities to search for another of his swords. Akryn grabbed a doorway and yanked himself inside the door, but not before three of the spike iron balls grabbed at his back and tore through his skin, causing him to hiss in pain before stumbling forward, trying to regain his balance. He had taken an incredible beating thus far in this fight, and he was not sure he could win here. Even as he thought this however he would look up, realizing from his experiences with Zacks airships where he was.

Akryn had discovered the cooling room. Usually an extremely bland room, this room was designed for one purpose only. Cooling the massive magical cannons used for war usually. The blue Pegasus air ships actually did not have these kind of cooling rooms, as none of them had the kind of cannon that required it, and Akryns face drained of blood as he realized what he was looking at.

These guys had a Saturn Cannon from the Bosco black market.

It seemed, unfortunately for Zack at least, that his opponent did have another trick up their sleeve as from the debris the sticky, mucus-like substance began to pour out. It slowly began to form into replicants of his opponent each of which held up their hands and began to fire tiny bullets of the same substance out. They even had spin in order to add extra piercing power and accuracy. However, these bullets were not much for him to deal with. He dodged them easily with a raised eyebrow. Was this all this man was capable of? Suddenly, though he was answered as bullets hit him in the back knocking him down. He quickly rolled to the side and leaped upwards into the air. It seemed the bullets that had been launched by the first replicants had formed into other replicants on the other side, which is why he had been hit. Then something else hit him though not in the literal sense. Why hadn't the mucus that hit his back exploded?

There was a sudden laugh and something hit him hard in the head knocking him straight down into a large pile of mucus. From the rubble emerged the real one with a smile on his face. "Do you like my duplicates Mr. Rose?" he asked as the clones began to fire more bullets of the mucus at Zack covering him in more and more of it. It was sticky and making it hard to move. "I bet you were wondering why the bullets didn't explode earlier? Well, you see I knew you'd take to the sky and set up some replicants as a trap hehehehe." That made sense. So he had guessed how Zack would react and thus set up a trap to smash him into a puddle so he could be overwhelmed by the bullets.

"Clever, but still...why did you choose such a gross magic? Couldn't you have I don't know...melted me with lava or something?" he asked though he wasn't too worried for himself. He couldn't die, but it would make the Pegasi look weak and on top of that would put the guild members at risk. Especially to a guy like this when all the guild were so relentlessly physical, except possibly Akeya. This would be a bad opponent for any of them. He had to end this. The question was how? Right now he was stuck and his spell to avoid situations like this couldn't be triggered yet.

"Ninpou Junsui Chikyu." he whispered and descended into the ground but left behind an after image so that it seemed like he was still there. This was the technique of Virgo, commonly known as diver, but for him he called it Junsui Chikyu or Pure Earth. It was a very useful technique. There was a great explosion above that shattered the ground and almost managed to get Zack. He had been forced to sink deeper into the earth than ever before. As the dust cloud began to settle Zack hurled his sword, using magic so it passed through the ground freely, and let it land up above on the surface. It would look like his body had been totally disintegrated by the force and only his weapon left behind. Would it fool the mucus man? That was not clear, but it should give him a couple of seconds breathing room.

However, he hadn't gone undamaged by the attack his clothes had been saturated in the sticky liquid so even as he descended through the earth and much of it was rubbed off when the detonation occured he was hit by an explosion as well. It was far less powerful than the one above, but it was still enough to do some serious damage. He really did have to end this and then spend some time to recover.

Magic:

One Syndicate man was already dead at Akeya's hands, pulverized beneath the stone sword of the literal mountain of a man who had been getting too frustrated in his attempts at hitting a shadow. Akeya couldn't even really see any remains, since they were buried underground together with the rest of the ground which the stone giant had impaled with that sword of his. She actually had no clue if that man who had just died was anybody important. He had shown some impressive magic, the ability to infuse enough magic energy into his legs to run straight up that giant and execute some frightening kicks. That alone was enough to make her belief that the man hadn't just been your average mook. However that skill and power hadn't done him much good as he had jumped into nothingness from a very, very high elevation in an attempt to attack somebody who clearly was capable of manoeuvring in the air and who could fly freely. He probably was confident in his ability to land without hurting himself, since all that magic in his legs should also be capable of helping with that, but that he hadn't seen it coming that Akeya would then make use of the fact that she could freely move in the air to make his landing a bit less comfortable, following up with allowing him to be killed by his own ally... He could've been paying a bit more attention before performing his leap of faith. Although to be fair, if his only ability was that he could kick very hard he wasn't very suited to fight Akeya anyway. At least, directly. If he had managed to perform a sneak attack he could have caused a lot of damage. Thank the gods he hadn't done that.

Anyway, time to move to the next. Akeya had already almost completely forgotten about the stone giant, or at least dismissed him from her mind. He was a bit hard to completely ignore, being the ridiculous size that he was, but he wasn't really a threat to her, so she didn't have him on her mind at the moment. Instead she had to deal with that man who had been pelting her with spikes all the time. His attacks had actually been able to hurt her even in her shadow form, which meant that he at least had to be dealt with. The half dragon turned into a shadow and merged with her surroundings, leaving the stone giant completely dumbfounded as he tried to figure out where his target had disappeared to. He had already realized his mistake in killing the guy with the leg magic, and now he couldn't even continue the mission of eliminating all intruders because the intruder was evading him. Normally that shouldn't be possible, since he was one with the land and could even feel footsteps on the ground, but this woman wasn't leaving those either. Like a shadow she just disappeared without a trace, the stone giant staying rather angry at these developments.

The half dragon quickly moved towards where she had last seen the man who was shooting spikes, but then noticed that he was surrounded by a group of weaker men, whose positioning and behaviour indicated that the spike man was their commander and that he was directing them. They were setting up a perimeter, making sure that Akeya couldn't approach without being spotted. What's more, it looked like the spike man was rather clever and had very good eyes as well, because the foot soldiers were clearing out the area so there weren't any shadows Akeya could use to properly sneak up on the spike man. She could still reach the foot soldiers since they were not done with their job yet, but it wouldn't take much longer before even they would have their shadows separated from the shadows Akeya could access right now. It wasn't often she encountered somebody who had the opportunity to see her using her shadow abilities, and then had the presence of mind to realize that this meant that they should try to stay away from any and all shadows.

It was a bit of a shame then that Akeya had to disappoint them in their attempts at keeping themselves save from her ability to be sneaky. It was true that without shadows her mobility and versatility were decreased, but she couldn't be a proper assassin if that alone was already enough to keep her away from her target. These people weren't even the first who had tried that, and it wouldn't help them any more than it had helped the others who had tried. An assassin was somebody who tried their best to be able to kill their target efficiently under any circumstances, even if those circumstances were stacked against them.

The half dragon actually allowed herself to smirk in a rather condescending manner as she silently casted a spell, more specifically the spell that she called Kagemai, more commonly known as Shadow Dance. She could naturally merge with the shadows, becoming nigh invisible to detect, but while using Shadow Dance she was utterly invisible in the darkness, and in the light as difficult to catch as she usually was in the shadows. The only downside was that she couldn't move very fast or the chances of being spotted while in the light would increase, but that didn't matter. It lasted long enough for her to slowly walk past the foot soldiers, all very carefully paying attention to their surroundings but only looking outwards instead of towards their commander, and walk up to the spike man from behind, from which point she formed a dagger out of shadows and aimed at the commander's neck.

She had nearly no warning, and it was only her supernatural reflexes which saved her, as suddenly the ground on both her sides arose and tried to smash her in between. Rather than letting this opportunity slip by she escaping by shifting forwards, tackling the spike man while quickly slitting his throat. Once she confirmed that his veins had indeed been severed she jumped away, turning into a shadow just in time to be smashed between two other slabs of stone which had appeared out of nowhere. Where were these attacks coming from? The shadows gathered to reform her shadowy figure as she looked up at the stone giant, who looked suspiciously lifeless. He had originally arisen from the ground. Apparently he had returned once he realized that he couldn't catch her like that, and the moment that she had materialized to kill the commander he had tried to kill her instead. He had failed, as the spike man was now bleeding out, and Akeya was quickly moving away, but now she still had another problem to deal with. The spike man was the only one who could hurt her while in her shadow form, but the man who could turn himself into a mountain apparently could detect her as long as she was on the ground and materialized. Most likely paying attention to her footsteps through the earth. As long as she was in her shadow form she had no real footsteps, but she couldn't do anything in her shadow form other than move about, and apparently the moment she materialized to act he would jump on her. And if she took to the skies he could see her as well.

It looked like she would have to find a way to take the earth mage out before she could move on in this mission. At least she now could stay in her shadow form and wait indefinitely as she thought of her next move, since none of these foot soldiers which tried to chase her had the abilities that the spike man had possessed which allowed him to hurt her shadow form.

Akryn was in fact not enjoying his fight like Shuhei had thought. He was currently on the run again, his left arm hanging limply as he ran, blood pouring from a gash on his head, down the side of his face, and there was another deep gash on his abdominal muscles. No sword was in hand, no magic or athletic skills were on display, and Akryn was not even using his Motomiji Star to heal himself. He had a far more important mission.

If these guys had a Saturn Cannon on board he needed to get to the control room immediately and prevent it from firing. He had researched many weapons in his years, mainly in his search for a way to beat his father finally. One of those weapons he had considered for a while was a Saturn Cannon, a massive mix of science and magic with power to rival an Etherion Cannon. If these guys fired it then the island would likely be destroyed, and there was no guarantee Zack and Shuhei would survive, let alone Akeya and his sister! He had no time to waste, he had to find the main firing controls.

Even as Akryn ran however, the wall in front of him would explode outwards, the gigantic Machvice slamming through the wall with a huge, maniacal grin. "Well I found ya~iin!" He said, thinking he had finally caught th slippery fighter, right before Akryns knee connected with his large nose, breaking it and forcing the big man to topple backwards, giving Akryn an opening to leap over him and keep running. "Out of my way you fat bastard! I need to drop your ship!" Akryn snarled as he kept running, sliding around the corner of a hallway, and receiving a large, purple fist to the face, with enough power to send the running fighter flying backwards to collide with a wall, denting it with the impact before Akryn would then slide back down to the ground, the dented wall behind him covered in blood, his now broken nose leaking as well. Akryn would look up, grunting in pain and seeing all three of the S rank wizards in the hall way in front of him. He was in trouble, and so were his friends, and he knew it.

As the three mages advanced, Akryn closed his one eye and focused. He hated this, he really did, but he had had a contingency plan for this. He reached over with his good arm, grabbing tightly to a pipe on the wall, blood leaking from the deep gash in his right hand, where he had dug out the fire lacrima implant. "Sorry Akeya. I dunno if I can take ya on that next job. Wish me luck." He whispered before using the motomiji star and tapping into the fire lacrima he had hid deep in the vessel.

________________________________________________________________________________


Down on the island below, the various battles would be interrupted by a deafening roar, as one side of the gigantic main airship, the one belonging to the Syndicate, would explode outwards, an explosion that would ripple backwards, erupting out the side of the vessel all the way to the engines. Akryn had embedded his fire lacrima in the main cooling unit of the Saturn cannon, a cannon that had been charging, The explosion would send a shockwave across the island, shattering windows and knocking some people off their feet, before the massive vessel would begin to slowly drop from the sky, descending at a nasty angle aiming to land on the island itself, large chunks of the vessel starting to break off as it fell and tumble down further to the island.

It seemed that his attempt at fooling the man had worked as Zack sensed him walking about forming his coat of the strange mucus like substance once more. Even deep beneath the ground, 6ft under, Zack could hear the man's annoying, arrogant, cocky laughter. He was so confident he had beaten the second god of ishval. So pleased that he had apparently killed the Blue Pegasus guildmaster. It was something Zack would have to correct him on, but he had to be careful. The guy's explosive techniques were quite devastating and there was no guarantee this wasn't some kind of trap. What if he was bluffing? He took a deep breath preparing for his next move. It was then that he made the big mistake. He touched Serpens. He touched the sword of the serpent bearer without his permission.

With another second even passing Zack suddenly rocketed up out of the ground and hit the man with a powerful uppercut to the jaw sending him flying into the air the sword still in hand. In a blur of motion he began to move around the man in a strange formation. "Never without my permission." he said with a snarl to his voice and then suddenly moved straight at the man punching him heavily in the gut winding him. He then backflipped kicking the man in the jaw before he had a chance to react and that was the end of it. Zack's kicks weren't exactly weak and his boots had a hidden secret. He extended a small blade just before impact stabbing the man through the jaw and into the brain. Instant death. Yet as if not noticing this he continued the flip with the man embedded and threw him with his leg at the ground before flying down, calling his sword to his hand and impaling the man through the back.

He stood there for a moment a triumphant smile on his face. There was a darkness behind his eyes. A darkness that people had not really seen before. However, as suddenly as it had come he took a few steps back almost stumbling as he stared at the mangled body on the ground beneath him. "What....what....what?" he asked his body shaking. There was clearly fear on his features. "What happened?" He stared at his own hands and fell to his knees unable to comprehend what had actually come over him. He knelt there for a while. "That was you...wasn't it Ophiuchus?" Zack said speaking to the celestial spirit half of his body. WHilst it was true the fusion had made him immortal, the new Ophiuchus, he had always felt some kind of presence in the back of his mind. Something that he had only really seen once before when he'd been dealing with some people abusing the power of the sun.

There was no response though, but strangely he could feel an almost smugness in the back of his mind. Zack looked at the sword Serpens and rose to his feet. He turned to walk away, but found himself unable to do so. His body wouldn't move. He sighed deeply and the sword came to him and sheathed at his waist. It then he saw the explosion in the distance, in the direction the airship had been in. Had something happened? He flew back at high speed, just in time to see the large syndicate ship come crashing towards the ground. If that hit then a lot of damage would be done to the island. More than what that explosive snot guy could of done solo. But it was a huge item. What could he do to stop it? Even with his strongest attacks he couldn't do much. Maybe...he could re-direct it out to sea? But would that potentially cause a tidal wave of some kind? Then again, a wave was probably a bit easier to deal with then a giant ship. Especially with two people specialising in gravity.

Magic:

In the forest a game of cat and mouse had developed, or at least a semblance of it. The soldiers, all angry and agitated by the fact that their commander died so suddenly, no real warning given with the one who had killed him acting as if they could never stop her, were all frantically searching for the half dragon so they could get revenge for their boss. They might not be actual mages, or very intelligent, but they were still loyal soldiers of the Syndicate. They couldn't let some upstart freak get away with killing one of the Executives of the family!

As for Akeya herself, she was hiding in the foliage, looking down at the soldiers running about as her body had merged itself with the shadows. Humans never really remembered to look up when searching for something. It was always in every direction but up, because up was normally the sky and what could hide itself in the sky straight above? In a forest there were always plenty of shadows, so after she had reached the trees climbing upwards and finding a good spot hadn't been particularly difficult. Of course, just because she had managed to avoid detection by these soldiers didn't mean everything was going easy for her. She was currently faced with one rather obnoxious obstacle, one for which she actually had no idea how to deal with it.

Right now she was still in her shadow form. The reason for that was that while she had already managed to kill that man with the strong legs and the commander with the crystal spikes, the last actually strong guy that she had encountered was somebody who might actually be impossible for her to assassinate. And if she couldn't assassinate somebody her effectiveness immediately decreased immensely. This guy who could apparently become one with the earth and the stones was as bad an opponent as she ever had. Sure, she could stay hidden for basically forever, but she was supposed to take him down, but she couldn't do that as long as he was part of the ground. She could somewhat track him, since even when down there he still had a magic presence that focused on his actual body, but Akeya wasn't somebody who could just drill a hole into several feet of solid ground just to pierce the heart of the man hiding underneath. And this guy was hiding a whole lot deeper than just a couple of feet.

And as long as he was in there he could sense her as long as she had weight. Because weight would apply pressure to the ground, and he could feel that. It might be that he couldn't do this as long as she was up in the trees, but she wasn't willing to risk it. For now she was safely hidden, and since there wasn't a set limit to how long she could keep her shadow form, and no real disadvantage as long as she didn't have to fight somebody, she preferred to sit up here and try to think of a plan.

First off, it was practically impossible for that man to actually harm or kill her. He could try to smash her with stone, but she could sense when he tried that, and unless he managed to catch her by surprise or she was unable to react she could turn into shadows faster than he could smash her. So in that aspect she was safe. However the same still counted for her. She had no way of reaching him, and it didn't look like he was planning to get out of the ground any time soon. The stone giant hadn't moved in quite a while, so he probably had a limited area in which he had full control. Or maybe he just could only focus on one area but could switch focus really quickly. Either way, he was searching for her.

If he could sense her through the ground she should find a way to not actually touch the ground. As mentioned before she had no idea if the trees counted as part of the ground when it came to the stone man finding her. Flying could work, although if she flew above the trees she would be spotted a lot faster, since the sky was bright and happy right now, which contrasted rather heavily with her midnight blue scales and limbs. If she flew underneath the trees she could be found by the soldiers. They might not be inclined to look up, but having a shadow flying overhead might attract some attention. That and she'd have to stay in her shadow form because flying between trees when you're about human-sized is not something she wanted to try out.

So far as she could see she didn't really have a choice in what to do right now. She could try killing the soldiers, but she had to take a physical form for that. And the moment that she took a physical form and got close enough to one of the soldiers that stone guy would attempt to smash her, forcing her to turn back into a shadow and retreat. Which would set off the soldiers and tell them which area she was in. The soldiers and the stone guy might not be able to harm her, but if they managed to reveal her location to somebody who could she would be in trouble. Which meant that the only thing she could do right now was carefully sneak away and try to find another group of enemies to deal with. The stone guy would need somebody who could actually pull him out of the ground...or destroy the ground together with him. The latter might annoy the people of the island though.

Speaking of annoying people, as she began to move she was interrupted by the sound of an extremely loud explosion. And loud usually meant big. Moving a bit higher Akeya poked her head above the trees to look towards the source of the sound, where she could see the giant warship that had attacked them looking like it had most of its insides blown out. It was ragged, on fire, and most importantly it was falling straight towards the island. That was going to mess a lot of things up, and just like with the stone giant Akeya didn't really have a way to prevent it. She was an assassin, which meant that she was very good at utilizing all her energy to kill a specific target as efficiently as possible, using only the minimal amount of effort and energy required. Well, that and she had trained her physical form a lot, so she could do stuff like dodging that leg guy before grabbing him and smashing him straight against the ground from quite high up. However this meant she was all about anti-personnel: she was very good at killing and incapacitation, along with not being detected, but both the stone guy and this falling warship simply required things she did not possess.

Akeya's eyes widened as she saw the ship descend towards the island. Unless that ship was magical in nature, or those flames were fuelled by magic she should be fine even if it actually crashed, but she still didn't want to be there when it hit the ground. On the other hand, she remembered Akryn jumping onto that ship to stop it. If this was his way of stopping the ship she would have to show him the definition of subtle after this was over. For now it might be better if she checked to see if he was still alive. Not like she had anything left to do over here anyway.

Like a shadow Akeya raced through the trees, slipping from darkness to darkness as she headed straight for the falling airship. She had to slow down a bit and make detours to ensure that she didn't actually catch the attention of the soldiers below, although fortunately they were also distracted by the massive ship, so it wasn't as bad as she had expected it to be.