Pumpkin Picking Gone Wrong

It had been some time after the Fall festival and all the hubbub caused during the event had died down since then. During the interim, Zhāng had gotten back into his daily routine of treating whomever came to him with ailments as well as spending time buried in his never-ending research on some topic of interest or another. Thus, things stayed peaceful and more or less uneventful for a long while. However, now it came time for Halloween and all the associated festivities as well. So, Zhāng had decided to take a break once more in an attempt to refresh himself from the exhaustion brought on by his academic and professional efforts. To that end, he had gone out to take a stroll through the ever lively Magnolia Town which was his home base. While out and about, as he busied himself with taking in and enjoying the sights and sounds of the Halloween festival the spirit of which had pervaded the entire town and its populace, what looked like a flyer came fluttering towards him thanks to the occasional gusts of wind which were sweeping through the town.

“Hmm…looks like something else intriguing is about to happen around here…I guess it can’t hurt to check it out for a while…”

He thought to himself thus as he read through the flyer’s contents. The contents in question were apparently calling any available mages to come to the aid to the townsfolk in the preparation of the giant Halloween party that was coming up soon. After having read through the details, he put the flyer away in the pocket of his white coat and then headed off to a particularly large pumpkin patch that he had heard of which was apparently located on the outskirts of Magnolia Town. Thankfully, there wasn’t much traffic in the outskirts to impede his progress, so he managed to arrive at the patch without too much transit trouble. However, as he approached, his keen senses picked up the somewhat unnatural chill in the air and another more subtle feeling as well

“Good grief, what is it this time?…I am not one to succumb to fear and paranoia very often…but by the looks of that dark sky above…and this strange chill in the air…I had better keep my wits about me…

He thought to himself as he suppressed the urge to shiver and walked further into the pumpkin patch to talk to the owner about acquiring some pumpkins for the Halloween party. Little did he know though, that he would soon be entangled with the same two people he had encountered a while back during the Fall festival, namely MAI, the gynoid angel and Leo, the old veteran knight.

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Zhang's Appearance:

Spoiler:

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OOC:

Post WC: 453

Personal Total: 453/1500

Halloween was supposed to be a fun event. Candies, spooky stories, and the fun costumes were all meant for kids and as such, Lina was looking forward to it. However, when Leo was delivered a flyer regarding an incident in the pumpkin patch that was meant to be the place for a pumpkin picking event this year. Which is why Leo was found all by himself in the fields, along with other mages who answered the flyer's call while Lina was somewhere else in Magnolia trick-or-treating with her friends from school.

Standing straight and tall in the middle of the field, Leo casually throws his one and only dagger in his entire arsenal of weapons into the air and then catching it with the same hand he used to throw it up. This would continue for several more times before throwing it quickly wherein a crow squawking as with his final word followed it almost at the exact same time.

His throwing hand was kept a follow-through position, recalling his weapon back with his telekinetic connection he shares with every weapon he has. Once the dagger was back on his hand, he threw it again at another direction where another deathly squawk was heard albeit in a slightly different pitch. Indeed that was the problem with the pumpkin patch, it was being swarmed with crows. Crows that appear easy to deal with making the call for these many mages unreasonable. However, being a man of reason, believing that there is a reason for everything being done in the universe, Leo suspects that there is more to it than just crows pecking at the pumpkins but he doesn't know what yet.

And as an effort to lure out the greater evil, Leo continued to kill crows to lure it out but this being a task having no challenge at all, he was able to keep his throwing arm going as if only being controlled by muscle memory and every throw he made, a crow fell. Meanwhile, his head wandered to look at the other mages in the area, and was delighted to see two friends he had made just a few weeks ago, Zhang and MAI. He happily waved at them, so that they'd know he was there too.

Post WC: 384
Leo's Total: 384

As Zhāng marched on through to the center of the pumpkin patch where, presumably the grand prize was waiting for him, he noticed a tall older looking man waving at him from some distance away. He squinted his eyes a bit and upon closer scrutiny, he found that the man was none other than the veteran knight Leo whom he had met during the previous Fall festival some time back. Zhāng waved back to Leo and with a polite, and happy smile on his thin lips, he sprinted towards Leo as he had noticed Leo fighting in the middle of a flock of nasty looking crows.

“Greetings, Sir Leo!, It’s nice to see you again, good sir.”

As he drew near, he greeted Leo thus and decided to offer a helping hand, though he was sure Leo didn’t really need it. First, he noted the locations of about ten of the crows in the flock and then performed the handsigns necessary to activate the spell he had in mind for the occasion, while murmuring its name

“Claw & Talon Close Combat”

That caused his mana to surge into his hands and feet after which they glowed softly and began to mutate, ultimately resulting in his fingers and toes being covered by what looked like thick, razor sharp dragon claws and talons. Then, after building up sufficient momentum, he leaped high into the air where his targeted ten crows were and tore them apart with his dragon claws and talons by executing a series of mid air martial arts maneuvers such as jabs, kicks, and knife hand attacks. A few split seconds after that, he landed back down next to Leo to take a breather while selecting the next set of crows to rip apart and examining the corpses of the crows that he had just killed which had fallen around him. While waiting, he noticed Mai, the gynoid angel girl he had met at the same time as he had Leo, namely during the previous Fall event. He waved to her while calling out, trying to get her attention

“Ms. Mai!! It’s me, Zhāng!! How do you do?! Sir Leo and I are over here, so please feel free to join us if you would like to do so!!”

Then, he fell silent waiting to see if she would respond back to him and also what sort of reaction Leo would have if he happened to notice his rather flashy entrance into the field.

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OOC:

Spell Used: Claw & Talon Close Combat (C rank)

MP Remaining: 266/300 (due to +15% to MP costs from Lost Magic)

Post Count: 1/7 (+2 posts to Spell Duration from Lost Magic)


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Post WC: 415

Personal Total WC: 868/1500

Once again these three found themselves in another festival and it was actually thrilling for Leo, because now he could see them in action more than when they were together at the Fall Festival since he could not shake off the feeling of danger and dread that surrounds this strange flyer's request. And he was not disappointed with what he had seen so far, giving the other man in their group an approving nod to his feats of strength and agility that took down numerous ravens in a single move and thought it was impressive. However, he could have done without the rain of blood from his actions these pumpkins were to be picked after all. However, he was in no position to judge as his actions spill blood as well albeit to a lesser extent.

After the short exchange, Leo continued with his version of pest control still standing his group and not moving an inch from it as he believed it to be indeed the optimal spot. Shortly there after, the third member of their group, the very accurate machine known as MAI graced them with their presence, courteously bowing his head slightly down to her with his eyes closed. Yet, he immediately opened his eyes in shock with what MAI had called him: by his full name.

He was certain he did not mention that to her, so how could she have known? This caused him to panic as he raised up his head with a faint smile before taking MAI's hand gently and leading her aside as he told Zhang politely "Excuse us."

After having a traveled a decent distance away from anyone, the expression on his face changed to a stern serious look as the matter of his identity was no joke to him "How did you know my full name?" he asked. Although part of him must've been her impressive database which makes it worse for him. Who could've made her to know all about Leo and his identity? Does anybody else know? I must ask you to delete that information or something." he continued, all the while noticing that the dead crows from all around them fading into a dark energy, and it made his family crest sting a little bit. Dark Magic was present and it must've something to do why they needed this many mages here.

He followed the trail of energy that lead to a spot behind MAI which quickly gathered and formed a raging and roaring creature that ferociously swung at their direction. Calmly, he told MAI to duck as the creature's weapon was nearing them, he waved his left hand at it while his sword Archangel formed out of black thin smoke to block the attack. And now with his free hand, he made a fist that he thrust towards the being, pushing it away for his hammer Fissure had been requipped from his right hand.

This being that seem to make the remaining crows flock to it stood at the edge of the patch. But he thought he must still move this battle somewhere else and save all these pumpkins. And in an attempt to take this somewhere else, Leo bent his knees and lunged forward, only to disappear in a whisper of smoke, appearing merely inches apart from the creature, pushing it away from the patch again, bringing it down to the ground preparing to slam his hammer down on it. However, it dissipated to numerous ravens, that converged again just a few meters away from him.

Hitting only the pavement, Leo was determined not to make it a wasted move. So when the hammer hit the ground, he made a wall appear behind him, effectively cutting his enemy off from the patch trusting his comrades can find their way to his side any second now.

Post WC: 640
Leo's Total: 978

Zhāng noted Leo’s nod of approval and nodded back to him in turn, bowing his head to him in the way of a silent thank you gesture. Then, while waiting for MAI, the third member of their group, to show up next to them; he continued to watch as Leo took out some more of the crows/ravens. Luckily, he didn’t have to wait too long for soon after his exchange with Leo, MAI had deigned to grace them both with her presence, a fact that brought the ghost of a smile to his thin lips. However, something about MAI’s greeting had seemed to bother Leo greatly, for shortly after, Leo had taken her aside several paces away and had started to talk to her in private after excusing himself.

“Hmm…I wonder what those two are talking about…Sir Leo seemed quite surprised to hear Ms. MAI call him by his full name…Dragonbane, was it?…She’s proving to be ever more intriguing by the minute…”

Such thoughts had started to swirl in his mindscape as he watched the two of them. Even though his curiosity was screaming at him to enhance his senses so that he could overhear the details of their conversation and even though it was well within his magical prowess to do so, he held off on actually doing that since he didn’t want to be in either of their bad graces, so to speak. Instead, he decided to focus his attention back on being vigilant about their enemies and it was fortunate that he did, for not long after Leo had taken MAI aside to have a chat, the crow corpses that, till now, had been strewn about the patch like so many haplessly dead footsoldiers on a battlefield now suddenly began to disappear into some sort of black energy.

“Sir Leo, please look ou…”

He had started to call out, but never got to finish his warning, for fortunately, Leo had already caught on to the presence of the dark energy that was now coalescing near him and MAI. The dark energy had given birth to some sort of hideous bipedal crow monster, one that looked distinctly undead to Zhāng’s eyes. However, this didn’t seem to deter Leo as he had proceeded to request MAI to duck and cover before smoothly transitioning into attacking their newest enemy with what looked like a holy sword in one hand and a giant, imposing looking hammer in the other. Sadly, Leo’s initial onslaught didn’t seem to fare too well against the crow monster for it had somehow escape his clutches only to appear a few paces away from him. Zhāng was about to rush in to help, but he noticed that Leo had transitioned yet again into another move, this time, one that created some sort of protective barrier around the pumpkins that were their endgame objective.

“I see…now I feel like an idiot for having spilled all that blood next to the pumpkins earlier with that move of mine…I will have to be more careful henceforth in deciding how to use my magic…”

Murmuring to himself thus, he looked at MAI as he asked her

“So...shall we go and give Sir Leo a hand with this newest enemy, Ms. MAI?”

After posing the query to her, Zhāng took the liberty of activating another of his spells, one that would let him and MAI if she chose to cling on to him for a free ride, slingshot themselves up and over the giant wall that Leo had created around the pumpkins so that they could come to his aid.

“Hyper-elastic Physique”

No sooner than he had murmured those words, his upper limbs, from his shoulder to his wrist specifically, expanded and extended, eventually looking like a pair of ultra long giant noodles which stretched out past his position for several meters at the least. Then, he waited for MAI’s reaction and response to his query; all the while wondering if he would think he was being too forward with her.

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OOC:

Spell Used: Hyperelastic Physique (C rank)

MP Remaining: 266/300 (due to +15% to MP costs from Lost Magic, since this was a sig spell costing 0 mana)

Post Count: 1/7 (+2 posts to Spell Duration from Lost Magic)

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Post WC: 670

Personal Total WC: 1538/1500

Leo starred down his opponent and could hear him snarl even at this distance. But he might be wrong, it could be that there was another monster somewhere perhaps even inside the pumpkin patch again and having thought of that, he could not waste any more time with this crow monstrosity. His grip on his weapon tightened his was on bent knees once more as he prepared to charge, he had to end this quickly to help anyone who might need it back at the pumpkin patch. They were about to clash when Zhang came in with wobbly noodle arms. Such sudden movements distracted the crow monster and Leo could see it in the slight tilt of his head and a twitch in its eyes. A short split second window is all it provided but Leo knew such moments cannot be reveled in and must be acted upon quickly. In fact, he had already acted once he heard the spell be called out from behind. A slight twitch on his feet and knees would propel the swordsman forward almost at the same time Zhang came forth. He dashed once more onto the shadows and reappeared beside the creature with his Archangel aimed directly at its waist.

The creature having being stunned by the Leo's teleportation just stood there not knowing what to do and took the slash to the waist as Leo continued to move forward by taking a firm stomp on the ground, a footing for a twirl move he made after the initial attack to smash the enemy with his hammer to a wall. The crash stunned the enemy further another chance for Leo to unleash a flurry of strikes with his sword that he held with two hands after commanding the hammer to disperse.

Now a bloody mess on the ground, Leo watched as the crow creature dissipate into black energy that was somehow being sucked back to the pumpkin patch, leaving just blood and feathers where the body once was. Hurriedly, he rushed back, removing the wall the separated the patch from the crow monster only to find MAI battling a scarecrow that had come to life. Leo was stunned and wondered why such a creature was able to rise from a harmless scarecrow when their suspected mastermind was just defeated a moment ago. A thought he had reserved for later because MAI needed help.

Or so he thought. Because while he was rushing to aid her, Leo saw how efficiently she was able to dismember their enemy in a cold and calculated manner. The once cute bunny designed clothing she had earlier was gone and the skills of the battle machine was made apparent.

Now standing beside her, Leo nodded at her and at Zhang, for a job well done, also to check if they were alright. The area seemed peaceful now and the dark energies were no longer apparent and for that he took a sigh of relief and inhaled deeply afterwards. Then, as if picking up something in the air, he exhaled quickly and looked around with only his eyes. A familiar sensation was about them, a spooky sensation. He whispered to his comrades "It's not over yet..." before a fog rose out of nowhere covering the patch and his family crest glowed once again.

He slowly closed his eyes as he heard chuckles coming from all around them. It appears the true master is about to come forth. Finally understanding why these pumpkins had to be picked and crows removed, or at least that's what he thought was the reason. That indeed the legends were true. The legend of a pumpkin king coming from pumpkin patches every Hollow's eve gathering all sorts of spooky minions so they'd come and play with your children and eat their candy, and that the only way to combat them was to make carved pumpkin, to fool them that already, their kind had claimed this place. But there was no pumpkin carving to be found anywhere near them, and it would fall to them to deal with this one.

With the fog rising and getting thicker, Leo held on to his weapons and listened to the chuckling... until it stopped and behind them a faint glow was emerging from the fog. Leo quickly turned and hurled waves of dark and light from his Void Blade and Archangel as slowly as the glow was coming. He had caught their enemy, the Pumpkin King off guard as it was being carried off by the two waves of spells Leo had cast towards it but his assault did not stop there. After the wave movement, Leo impaled the light sword to the ground and a beam from heaven struck the king where it laid. The beam persisted and pinned their query to its spot writhing in agony as it burned in holy light. Leo motioned to his allies to charge at it and deliver their final blows at their tortured enemy while he ran towards it and proceeded to stab it multiple times with his lightning spear, Vandarr.

Post WC: 849
Leo's Total: 1,827/1,500

As MAI had somehow expected, Zhāng had indeed rocketed forward to help Leo in his fight against the crow monster. However, once again, according to MAI’s observations, Leo had indeed been more than powerful enough to deal with the crow monster single handedly, though the distraction Zhāng had provided by unexpectedly leaping over the Leo’s protective wall proved to be somewhat helpful in helping him deal with the undead beast.

“Oh my…Sir Leo’s power level seems to be well over 9000…impressive indeed…”

He muttered while watching Leo finish off the crow monster in a rather flashy way, what with the teleportation spell he had used and the way in which he swung those enormously heavy looking weapons around so effortlessly. Then, following Leo’s lead, both of them headed back to MAI’s location, expecting to be able to help her, but once again  Zhāng was pleasantly surprised and maybe even a bit awestruck by the coldly efficient way in which MAI had made short work of her own opponent. Her opponent seemed to be some sort of scarecrow which had been animated by the same dark energy that had a hold of the crows from before and which had also given rise to that undead crow monster from earlier.

“How intriguing…perhaps this dark energy should be my next topic of research…could make my academic sojourns into the realms of necromancy and resurrection somewhat easier…”

While such thoughts whirled around in his head, he looked about to survey the group’s handiwork. Most of the enemies seemed to have been dealt with by this point. He nodded back to Leo, accepting his thanks for his help, though again, it seemed that it was not really very necessary after all. Then, he went back to surveying the pumpkin patch to see if there were any other hidden enemies when, as if on cue, Leo had spoken out to warn the group about the appearance of what now looked like the true evil mastermind behind the recent troubles of the pumpkin farmers.

“So…those legends I had always heard during my childhood are true after all…a Pumpkin King, eh? Too bad it’s head is our prize and we have to donate it to the festivities ahead…I would have loved to make it my guinea pig in some future research…oh well, can’t always be a winner, I suppose…”

Zhāng sighed as he murmured thus, more to himself than to anyone else nearby and proceeded to watch Leo’s fight with the Pumpkin King as best he could, but the ever burgeoning eerie fog didn’t make things any easier. Still, thanks to his keener than average senses, he still managed to make his observations somehow. Leo seemed to be putting most if not all his best skills on display at present with the waves of dark and light energy he was hurling at the King, followed up by the giant beam of light from the sky that seemed to penetrate the creature and pin it to the ground, effectively leaving it at the group’s mercy. As if that wasn’t enough, he was now stabbing the King with some sort of spear made of lightning.

Zhāng breathed deeply and focused while cancelling his earlier spells and formulating some plans to deal with their last enemy. The problem was how to preserve the pumpkin while also taking out the spirit that had seemingly possessed it. He closed his eyes and put his fingertips together to form a rough circle with his hand, allowing him to go into his battle meditation. After a few minutes, he opened his eyes again since he had come up with a handful of plans and picked the easiest one of them to execute here. Without further ado, he manifested his dragon claws from earlier with a simple murmur to activate the spell

“Claw & Talon Close Combat”

After that, he proceeded to aim at the King with the intention of taking out those poison nail bearing hands, but no sooner than he had struck the beast’s hands, they dissipated into dark energy, leading him to think he was successful. Sadly, he was mistaken for they had reformed a few seconds after dissipation. The beast was now trying to slash at him with those same nails and managed to make a small nick on his skin, causing the area around it to turn a toxic green color as wisps of dark energy spewed forth from it in addition to the thin stream of blood that was flowing from the wound. With a slight twitch of his legs, he jumped back to put some distance between him and the beast. However, this only prompted it to spew bursts of dark energy from its still intact mouth at him. Since he was caught by surprise due to his assumption that it wouldn’t have done that because of the beam of light that had it impaled to the ground, the bursts of dark energy managed to hit him successfully, causing some moderate damage to him. This left him with several flesh deep wounds all over his body, but at least he was still mostly functional despite all the trauma.

“Curses…I shouldn’t have let my guard down like that…okay, focus now…”

He said to himself as he took note of the Pumpkin King once more to see if he could spot more weaknesses. He noted the strange lantern in its hand and how it seemed to be flickering more and more due to Leo’s continued assaults. With that fact in mind, he rushed in close again, this time avoiding the King’s poison nails and dark mist with ease since he knew what to expect from it. Once in range, he began his assault, first targeting the lantern with a series of spear hand strikes with his dragon claw enhanced hands and this time, he managed to destroy it, causing what seemed to be a fair bit of damage to the Pumpkin King, judging from its anguished screams.

“Okay. Now for the next phase…Head of Ankhseram”

He murmured once more to activate his next spell, and this one was a bit more flashy than his dragon claw spell since over the next few seconds, his head seemed to mutate, with his skin bubbling and his facial structure visibly morphing into something else entirely. The end result was still humanoid looking, but now unlike the rest of his sallow skinned lanky form, the skin covering his head took on a much darker hue, this one being a dark brown one. His facial structure looked much older as well, like that of a man in his middle age years. Lastly, his hair grew out till it reached his lower back and was now black as the darkest of nights. When he spoke, his voice was much gruffer and guttural than his usually baritone but mellifluous one.

Spoiler:

“Please step back, my friends. I don’t want you to get caught in the aftermath of my spell”

Trusting that they would heed his alarm and step back, he proceed to focus his attention back on the Pumpkin King with his next few words.

“Prepare to meet your maker, you pathetic insect!!”

With those few unexpected words addressed to the Pumpkin King, he went ahead and activated his final spell for the day by uttering its name

“Evil Inferno!!”

After that, he inhaled deeply while molding his mana to give it a hell fire element. Then, he inhaled deeply, causing his chest and abdomen to inflate visibly after which he exhaled just as forcefully as he had breathed in just a split second earlier. The result was a focused conical stream of hell fire which hurtled toward the Pumpkin King and enveloped it in a confined but still massive conflagration which led to a violent ground rocking explosion within the limited area of effect he had restricted the spell to beforehand. A few seconds passed and after that the smoke from his spell dissipated to nothing. The Pumpkin King’s body was entirely burned away, leaving its head intact and clean despite the flashy nature of his spell. The head was no longer possessed and now looked just like a regular carved pumpkin one would find at any All Hallow’s Eve festival grounds.

With his job officially done and with no other enemies to contend with, Zhāng powered down and cancelled his Partial Take Over spell, returning his head back to the way it usually looked without any magic augmentation. His face was once again sallow looking and his hair was once again neck length and a light blonde color, thus signifying his return to normalcy.

As he looked over the results of his spell, he lit a cigarette and breathed in the calming vapors from it briefly before exhaling softly and remarking idly

"My my...what filthy fireworks...I should try to be more clinical about my method next time..."

Sighing once more, but with a noticeably dramatic swish of his long white doctor's white coat and a brisk turn on his heel, he moved to face his companions, Leo and MAI to address them

“Well, the day has been won, my friends. Please accept my humble thanks for lending me your considerable strength and skill in the completion of this task. I am in your debt and will try to repay the favor someday. Shall we collect our prize and head back to town now?”

To emphasize his gratitude, he positioned his right hand above his heart and bowed his toward MAI and Leo in turn and looked at them both in turn, silently wondering what their reactions would be to what they had just witnessed from him while waiting for their replies and reactions if there were to be any.

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OOC:

Spells Used:

- Claw & Talon Close Combat (C rank, Lost: 34 MP)

- Partial Take Over: Head of Ankhseram (C rank, Partial Take Over: 30 MP)

Post Count:
- Claw & Talon Close Combat: 1/7

- Head of Ankhseram: 1/5


MP Remaining:  202/300

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Post WC:  1623

Personal Total WC:  3161/1500