Illuminating Tales

Illuminating Tales
Date of Scene:	06 July 2013
Location:	Archades - Lower
Synopsis:	The source of the Archadian kidnappings shows up. Peter Pan's hat is ruined in a fight with his shadow. Things get real.
Cast of Characters:	Will Sherman, Stormfall, Peter Pan, Ariel, Kyra Hyral, Serah Farron, Alma Hyral

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Stormfall has posed:
Dateline--Lower Archades

The troubles with the lost children is that after a few days. After all avenues were exhausted. After it was decreed that the heartless were responsible for the kidnappings.. the search took a serious blow to morale.

People continued but the heart seemed to have gone out of them. An entire week after the illuminators and the heartless had been stopped and no activity since then. No straws to grasp for until tonight, when an entire sector of Lower Archades went dark.

The unnatural and oppressive darkness was an almost liquid barrier, the stars blotted out and even mechanical or magical sources of illumination having difficulty functioning inside the area of influence. Inside, reports of heartless activity and skirmishes with Archadian imperial soldiers start to trickle in from the borders of the darkened sector. Refugees fleeing the area tell stories of large creatures holding lanterns that burned with a grisly violet fire breaking into houses while swarms of shadows harrassed and harried from the borders, where a quarantine has been erected and frequent assaults from the heartless are common, as if trying to impede the Arcadian military from entering the zone of darkness as much as possible.

The zone is practically a mile of residental homes and small businesses in a tangle of avenues, corridors, alleyways and looming apartment complexes.

The source of the unnatural darkness and the heartless attacks are somewhere within that zone which you stand at the outer extreme of. The barrier is almost fairytale in it's dimensions. Everything is normal on one side, and on the other? Light simply seems to fall away into midnight gloom.

Alma Hyral has posed:
It was reported over the Judge-Magister channels that an entire sector had fallen preternaturally dark. An all-consuming umbra that held within many large creatures holding lanterns. Almost assuredly heartless.

A certain someone was probably going to kill her, but she was immediately en route to the district. She'd seen the head counts of children dwindle at the refugee camps over the past week...

Archades had wept enough. She didn't want to see any more tears shed.

As she steps towards the border of the darkness.. she looks into the oppressive gloom with a tentative look. She didn't have him here this time to keep her safe from the consequences of traversing within so much darkness. And she hadn't brought her detail, for a reason..

Taking a deep breath, she allows a yellow corona about her to form into being, limming every part of her body with radiance, before she places her hand within the tenebrosity experimentally with a tremulous look seeing if the darkness would consume it, or harm her... she can feel it actively trying to draw away the light, and she gives it an inquisitive look. She speaks to noone in particular, "How strange..." Usually it was the other way around...

She subtly tries to adjust the flow of energy within her to compensate, allowing it to self-regulate a little better so that the light wouldn't be stripped away, before stepping in entirely.. she felt like a lone candle in the dark. It was not a pleasant feeling as she continued to walk down the way, observing the changes to the district now stuck within the pitch.

Kyra Hyral has posed:
In stark contrast, Kyra's 'problems' lately have been exceptionally trivial. She's been out and about a lot, helping out, earning her own money, and generally refusing to coast off of Alma's excess and privledges granted by her work with the Archadean Empire. Sure, she doesn't /mind/ having it, but there's something about taking her own success into her own hands. Not that she hasn't had some successes prior.

The argument about retrieving Vector's shard plus the idiocy with the junk mail (whom she is certain she knows the true culprit of but has not said anything quite yet) has left her in a very foul mood. It's actually the perfect mood to be dealing with children-kidnapping monsters for because the target meant she didn't have to hold back in any sort of fashion. Geared up with her usual loadout of potions and handy technology known as "flashlights."

"Yeah." Kyra flicks on a flashlight, not even bothering with magic for this one quite yet. "Strange. Let's go."

Serah Farron has posed:
Following Alma, the other healer-of-service follows. She also heard the news, children disapearing, noone should ever have to be subjected so such news. No matter if the parents are there or not, its the future of this world after all. She couldn't let that go either, and sharing the same mind as Alma, she decided to come after her.

She tilts her head a bit, looking at the almost palpable darkness there "What do you make of this? I don't like the looks of this at all... Its like the darkness is able to literally swallow you." And she had her share of darkness nearly ripping her heart out too. Being dipped in it doesn't seem more appealing right now.

But she sighs when Alma just steps right in. She wishes she had some kind of protective light too. But, Kyra doesn't either, so... there might not be any immediate danger at least. And in seh goes.

Will Sherman has posed:
A loud monsterous sound comes from one of the allies.

Though...even in the oppressive darkness it sounds like someone is sawing wood. Like litterally. Snoring.

LOUDLY.

If you investigate the Alleyway, you found a certain hobo, sitting against a wall with his hat covering his eyes taking an impressive snooze. He twitches every once in a while, helping out Arcades is HARD WORK, and he needed A NAP.

"Zzzz.."

Stormfall has posed:
The street is narrow and crooked in a jagged fashion. This is one of the lesser damaged places in lower Archades but with the darkness comes a silence. Footsteps reverberate louder than they should across the dirt and stone pathways. The air has a tinge of rotten seaweed and sea salt to it, along with something like hot metal.

In the silence, a hobo snoring in an offshoot alley can be like an entire sawmill, grinding through lumber at an unprecedented pace. There are a number of passageways and each building they pass has been broken into or trashed. There is the crunch of glass underfoot from shattered shopfront windows. Doors have been wrenched off their hinges, baring their empty contents.

Clawmarks on stone and wood are frequent. There is a small intersection where several roads meet and where the evidence of the heartless becomes first hand. An Illuminator roams the road, it's ghostly lantern held high but empty save for a glowing, spasming speck of light ricocheting off the inside.

Kyra Hyral has posed:
Snoring. That's to be expected, isn't it? Wait. No. No it's not. Drawing her gun-the real gun that shoots actual bullets (!)-Kyra slowly edges down the alleyway to the snoring, weapon trained in front of her. Her flashlight flicks up, falling upon the curled form of...Will Sherman.

"This guy again?" Kyra comments, knowing she's met him before. Edging closer to him, she nudges the hobo a few times with her foot, then kicks him if that doesn't wake him up. "Hey! You need to get moving, this zone was put under quarantine." That noted, she's quick to leave the alley and join with the others. Just looking at the area tells her that something's definitely had their way with this place. It makes her sick to her stomach.

Spying the Heartless ahead, Kyra doesn't hesitate for one moment as she lifts up her gun, taking aim at the Heartless from afar. Out of sheer pettiness, she shoots at the lantern.

Alma Hyral has posed:
Alma's expression was pinched, as she strode through the darkness alongside Serah and Kyra. This was not a comfortable feeling. She looked at every single building which was unlatched, which had it's locks, windows, and doors broken, it filled her with an all-consuming sense of dread for the implications. "This darkness isn't quite as..." She shook her arm, trying to ward off some of the tingling. "...isn't quite as terrible as I thought it would be."

The sound of snoring draws her eye as well, as she waits for Kyra to wake him up, "Hey Mister Sherman. Glad that you're here too to investigate the situation." ...even if he likely just woke up here on chance, "..or were you here to visit Riku?"

As she spies the Illuminator, and her sister opens fire, she just watches and waits to see how it reacts for a time, trying to make sure it was indeed a Heartless/Undead/Monster.. they'd had a really bad experience with misjudging that recently. Seeing that it was unlikely to be alive or sentient she decides to test something else. Instead of attacking it via offensive magic, she tries healing magic instead. Covering it with a soft white healing radiance, just to see if it would react as the Undead did.

Ariel has posed:
Ariel, unlike others, is not here with a purpose. She happened to stumble by. But there seems to be adventure to have here, and that intrigues her.

Her job, if she can be said to have one, is bringing music to dark and difficult places. This is certainly one of those. But the place seems too somber for music. Not sure who she might encounter, she approaches cautiously. For the time being she seems to be alone.

Serah Farron has posed:
Serah Farron blinks as she almost stumbles on the guy snoring. Its hard to see after all! "How can anyone sleep here..." She wonders. She'd have nightmares herself... She prods the sleeping hobo with her foot. Hasn't she seen him somewhere before? She can't remember. But a loud guy like that she would probably remember.

She looks around as she spots Ariel following them. She wonders if she didn't just get lost...

"Do you think the children would disapear in here?" She cares for the children too after all, even if she doesn't know them well. She jumps as Kyra starts shooting "What's going on!?" Half panicked, wondering if they are already getting attacked by something. She can't see after all!

Will Sherman has posed:
Will get a kick or two in the foot, and he jumps up...

"Huh...wha? I'm awake! I'm movin' mister judge...just stop kickin' me.." He mutters, and slides his hat back and staggers towards the main road...

Yaaaaaaaawn...

Will immediately stretches, catching a shadow right across the face with his bare hand.

"Huh..?"

Stormfall has posed:
The lantern shatters and the speck of light flies out of it as it collapses in a heap of dark shards and vapor.

There is a very high pitched noise, which can be only termed as ultimate ire as the floating speck of light circles around the heartless once. It clumsily tries to grab for it again, distracted as the healing magic seems not to greatly effect it.

The heartless looks at the spark, then it looks at Alma. The heartless goes : as it tries to decide which to go again. This is hard. Mooks are not supposed to make choices. They are mooks!

It raises it's lantern, and then realizes it has no more lantern and throws the jagged remaining shards at Kyra petulantly before it and half a dozen shadows surge on the group. One of them is still smarting from being punched in the face, it's eyes swirly.

Peter Pan has posed:
Someone is kidnapping children, a whole lot of children. This has not gone unnoticed by forces beyond the city and even the world of Ruin itself. Beyond even that someone has noticed that someone was targeting children. They would have none of this, it was maybe the only thing in the world that would make him be in any way mature or serious about anything. So here he was perched up on a building and it was time to act.

The echoing call of a roster crow can be heard in the darkness if anyone looked up, they would see perched up there a young man clad all in green. Peter finishes crowing and drops from his perch and drops towards one of the lantern like heartless. The young man pulls a boot knife out and is upon it with surprising skill and speed. The shadows are caught off guard as the blade's strike come rapidly many are reduced to whips of darkness before he turns his attentions on the Illuminator and it goes down quickly. The small group of children inside are freed and he smiles at them.

"Come with me! I'll take you somewhere safe."

It would be so much easier if Tink hadn't run off on him. Just fairy dust and, but what's he going to do? He's not quite paid attention to the others. He's just so focused for once he's not paying attention to his surroundings entirely.

Alma Hyral has posed:
"Not Undead.." She notes, talking to Kyra and Serah. "..I suppose we'll have to.." The shadows surge at them, a half-dozen of them or more, alongside the Illuminator, and she throws up her arms reflexively. And then she hears a rooster's crowing. This puzzles her enough to look up, only to watch a flying young man in green tights dispatch all of the shadows and the Illuminator handily with a boot knife.

She actually has a sort of awed look at that. "..Wow, that was really something..." She pushes up her glasses on her nose, smiling gratefully as he reassures the children. "Do you need help with escorting them out of here?"

She looks sidelong at Will, Kyra, and Serah, before nudging Will again with her foot, giving him a bemused look, "We'll fill you in as we go. But basically, the darkness is back again and these things are kidnapping children."

Kyra Hyral has posed:
"...well that's new." Kyra mutters, momentarily distracted by the very animate light. "Wait, Alma, did you just try to /heal/ it?" Kyra almost sounds hurt. She remembers what happened in that volcano lair with Lux's creations and...look, how was KYRA supposed to know it was becoming sentinent? How was SHE supposed to know it wasn't going to rip all their faces off or tear them apart like it had done everything ELSE in that lab?! Last thing she needed were the people around her second guessing her judgement all the time.

Hell people were already doing that enough earlier regarding the Vector issue.

"Heartless, that's what's going on." she quickly informs Serah. "Look over there-" she lifts her flashlight to point at the illuminator just in time for Kyra to see it fling its lantern pieces at her. Unfortunately, this knocks the flashlight from her hand. Quite wisely, Kyra does not fire her gun into the darkness. She shoulder checks a lunging Heartless as she scrambles for the flashlight.

Then a flying man comes down to their rescue, much to her surprise. "That /was/ something." Kyra echos.

Will Sherman has posed:
Will's hand immediately falls on Kyra's shoulder.

For a moment there is a pause, the hobo's eyes are older than they should be, and he stares at her. The pat is...reassuring.

And then he yawns, as if turning the switch on and off.

Will, wordlessly, strikes out at a heartless Shadow and sends it flying right back to the sender. "Another heartless kidnapper...why Children specifically?" he muses...this is targeted...but the Shadow Lords aren't the center of this one. And heartless don't direct themselves like this...Will looks, seeing if he could prehaps see a string from the heartless to...something...

Ariel has posed:
Ariel catches up with those ahead. She DOES look a little bit lost, but, she's here now. She doesn't carry a weapon with her.

She looks up at the sound of a cock's-crow... backing up, when Heartless come near, she's delighted when they are rescued by the young man. But she has a lightning spell at the ready... which she nervously hides behind her back.

Though she's not mute, she's acting like it at the moment as she's quite nervous.

Serah Farron has posed:
Serah Farron sighs at the mention of heartless "I don't know what's worse, undeads or heartless. I hate both." She shakes her head "Why couldn't it be something like them playing hide and seek or something simple..." They probably wouldn't need her if that was the case, but still wondering... "... I hope the kids are alright, I had a near death encounter with the heartless before... I'm pretty sure that its a one way trip when they catch you..."

Yes, she's worried. She hopes. She blinks as the green boy appears in "Uhm... hi?"

Stormfall has posed:
The children do not get safely away as intended. The spiraling spark flies at Peter Pan, and there is another perhaps unprintable screed as the spark, resolving itself as a fairy grumbles at him with emphasis.

Another swarm of heartless come across from the top of a building but they all, simultaniously burst before they can reach combat area. They turn to vapor instantly without being touched.

There is a LOUD and very wrathful sound from somewhere that echoes around the darkened streets. As the children attempt to escape, another illuminator appears with it's small escort of shadow heartless. The children back up. One of them whimpers in fear while a small brown haired boy puts the rest behind him.

"It'll be okay." he says, swallowing hard. They back towards the party and the boy in green, a girl and the two boys looking nervously at the group and then back at the heartless who seem to now menace but not approach.

Peter Pan has posed:
Peter Pan suddenly notices something there are people here and a young girl is talking to him about the children to him.

"Oh hey uptight looking lady! I know what's going on! Lord Ombra is stealing children. I followed him here from Neverland."

looks to the children and gestures for them to go to Alma. He really doesn't seem to think much about what he called her either. Maybe it wasn't intentional?

"You know it!"

he replies to Kyra, Peter loves to show off after all Ariel is noticed sure as is the magic she has that seems to surprise Peter a little bit from the look on his face. Will on the other hand gets Peter's attention he looks at him and then calls out.

"Hey what the heck are you doing here? I told Nibs and everyone else to stay behind in Neverland! If your here, come on. We got to stop Lord Ombra!"

Peter seems to know Will or has mistaken him for someone else, it's really hard to tell given the sort of person the eternal youth is. Serah gets a tilted head for a moment Peter grins without any hint of shame.

"Hi there Lady."Heartless, they made things terrible ever since Captain Hook got them. He doesn't want to duel anymore it's terrible.."

Oh looky a whole bunch more heartless,s Pan shifts into serious mode and gets his knife ready he looks back to the collected heroes for a moment.

"Hope you can fight! We're going have to stop all these things! I'll not let them take anymore children!"

Will Sherman has posed:
Will see's something...

"Huh?" He looks towards the Pan... a fairy? Magic? ...someone like h-PAN!

"Hoooly crap." He says, "Wait no I didn't come t-..." But Pan just does what he does best. He laughs a little...

Will, however, grabs something. "Uh Pan." he says, pointing to the held string, and runs off. "If you don't keep up you'll never find Lord whatever. I know where to find him." Will says, with a mischevious grin.

Zoom!

Ariel has posed:
"I can fight," Ariel says, though she seems a little unsure about it at first... then she clenches her fists. "... If it comes to protecting them, I'll do what I have to do!"

Still, the Heartless aren't attacking, so, she's unsure. But she has a spell at the ready just in case....

Of course, Will looks like he's more interested in ... leaving. As long as he knows where he's going that's okay!

Alma Hyral has posed:
Alma gives Kyra a perplexed look, "I couldn't see if it was a Heartless or not, from this distance, so I was just testing if it was Undead like those spectres we fought near Cosmo Canyon. I mean, if they were then you'd able to disintegrate them with a single spell, like you did last time, right?" But they were Heartless, so no harm, no foul. She now knew what sort of magic to use.

Wait what, did he just call her an uptight looking lady? She suddenly looked very cross, until she realized that made her look even more uptight, she just grumbles a little to herself before looking back to Peter, now in a slightly foul mood, as she lets out a single breath before speaking to him again, "So, um.. who is Lord Ombra? Typical, scary darkness, Shadow Lord? Or something else?"

More Heartless. Alright, first priority was the children. She strode forward ahead of the retreating children, making sure they were clear and behind her before she started what she intended to do. She was still on the ground, and every step she took, she reached out a hand, as a rotating Sigil of radiant energy formed, at different points in the sky. At the end of her trip forward she stops, and puts four sigils in rapid succession in a kite like pattern. Representing a plumed tail. And then she closes her eyes and concentrates. This wasn't going to be quite as easy in the darkness. Sweat beads upon her brow as she tries to coax the necessary energy needed to ignite the magic.

Phoenix of the White Tiger of the West, and the Southern Asterisms...patron of Physicians. Your rebirth is at hand.

The sigils all flare to life as one, and a translucent blue outline of a firebird appears around them. The bird's outline then ignites with white flames, as the living constellation begins to surge towards the Heartless, avoiding any others amongst her allies that might be charging to prevent from harming them... Alma just stands back in front of the children, placing her hand within a yellow Sigil by her palm, subtly tapping it, coaxing it... and hardest of all, maintaining it within this oppressive gloom.

Kyra Hyral has posed:
"Lord Ombra?" Kyra frowns, "Who in the name of Cosma is that?"

She looks ahead to the sudden large swarm of Heartless gather toward the cowering group of children. Grinding her teeth, Kyra slips her regular gun away into her currently empty holster. A hand starts to dig around into her messenger bag, which is clearly heavy and bulky, filled with stuff. In this case, the first thing withdrawn is a large flask the size of a cantaloupe filled with frothy red liquid.

Still no magic from Kyra. She might be trying to conserve it right now. Instead, she goes for some old-fashiond explosives, but not after pushing her way through the cowering group of children, "Excuse me. Pardon me. Coming through. Just going to, well, you know..."

With a mighty heave, she chucks the heaping helping of liquid napalm right at the group of Heartless. Upon hitting the ground, the glass breaks and fire immediately explodes forth once it comes into contact with the regular air.

Serah Farron has posed:
Serah Farron goes for the children right away. Especially with Kyra's explosives going on, she's pushing and shielding the children out of the way "Can't stay here, this is very bad." She opens a hand out toward the heartless, shooting out a salvo of holy energies, just to keep them at bay, not wanting them to get any closer to the children as they flee. She's going to protect them the best she can while they escape at least.

"At least we found the children... Just gotta make sure they stay safe now." Despite the darkness surrounding her, she gets serious at the task too, concentrating to get the most out of her magic.

Stormfall has posed:
Zoom!

Will follows his nose (or maybe just a thread) across several darkened avenues to a place where four illuminators are gathered at the cardinal directions. They shine with stolen illumination, several children held by heartless near the figure in the center. The figure extends a hand towards them. The figure isn't anything but a shroud. A big black hooded cape without any definition at all except for clawed hands that appear to also be made out of material. A child cries out as they extend a hand and there is a dark flash, a smear of fog and greater darkness in which they disappear with a piercing cry.

A bass rumble of laughter comes from the cowl..

The children being shielded by Alma gasp a little in wonder and a little bit of fear at the sigils and constellations coming to life, but keep close to Alma and stay close to the group.

They keep especially close as the liquid napalm explodes, burning the heartless to ashes as they thrash and claw at it. (Although one child says 'whoa' in an awe-filled whisper at the pyrotechnics) Strangely the fire itself seems muted. It produces a wave of heat, but the light is lacking and distorted, almost choked out before it can really spread. The holy salvo seems to keep the heartless at bay but they don't seem to be advancing just yet.

Pan... The voice shivers, a crawling whisper like spiders across the skin. Just the voice itself seems to pull at the light, mechanical or magical both and make it quaver.

Another chuckle. I thought you might eventually attend.

I have something of yours..

The cloth fingers manage to snaThey should have sent more of their tin men instead.</span>

Peter Pan has posed:
It seems Will speaks Peter Pan very well as he the reply about Lord Ombra.

"Good work, Let's go! The longer we wait the more children, he will kidnap!"

Ariel offers to join them? That's enough for Peter, The Heartless are not attacking it's a very odd thing even Peter is aware that this? Is not a normal behaviour for them. Something is holding them back and that something is likely a someone, is likely Lord Ombra.

Alma's questions get an actual answer out of Peter before he's going to bolt off after Will who clearly knows where his foe is.

"He's the darkness. He has heartless, that's all we need to worry about. He's after the children, we shouldn't wait."

For once in his very long life, Peter is actually concerned about the passing of time. Time is important. The more time that passes the more likely something bad will happen to the children if only he could remember. Well he's got to stop this guy and he's got help so it's all good.

Then Alma fires off a flare oh pretty, no he is not to be distracted. Time to go as Peter takes flight after Will and calls out.

"These are not the only ones he has Miss Pink!"

Even if Miss Pink seemed a bit on the older side she was actually thinking about the kids well being so that was enough for Peter for the moment.

Then comes the laugh Pan knows it very well. While not known to the world at Large the thing they face is right up there with Captain Hook on Pan's enemy lit. This guy is perhaps to Peter /worse/ than Hook. Hooks the Pirate king sure, but this creature of shadow is something far worse than a mortal man.

Peter?s got his knife out and has it prepared and he looks actually serious.

"You have taken the children, return them now. You have nothing of mine!"

There's something strange if someone is paying attention to Pan? Pan is no longer casting any sort of shadow. He has no shadow, he's not even noticed that it's missing yet.

"So stop lying like the old man you are and give the children back!"

Will Sherman has posed:
Will looks down at Peter's feet.

Why? Because this guy was made of shadow, and is holding a shadow and it belongs to...

"...Oh boy.." He says, with a frown. However, one of Will's special skills is knowning how to not draw attention to himself, Mercade is the LARGE HAM, Will is only a LARGE HAM when he's really angry. He looks to Ariel! "Oh hi. Could you do me a favor..." WHISPER WHISPER WHISPER...

Will then ducks, and starts aiming to try and use Peter as a distraction to try and get behind the shadow dude...

Aiming to try and punch it right in the back of the head, right as Ariel SHOULD do something...or not.

Will's target here, of course, is to free the Shadow using SHENNANIGANS.

Alma Hyral has posed:
Sweat continues to bead on Alma's brow as the Heartless fall before them. This.. this was not comfortable. Now she knew why Riku warned her so thoroughly about calling upon the Light within the Darkness. And this Darkness was not nearly so deep, so all-consuming as the other she'd experienced.

But she continues to concentrate as the last of the Heartless fade, following behind to where Will had travelled, to the large figure in the shroud, her celestial firebird made manifest following along above her. She just murmured to the children, in a soft voice which was nearly crooning, Stay behind us.

She sees the thrashing figure in it's hand though and holds off. She remains still not daring to move, barely daring to breathe. Attacking now would certainly mean the doom of what was almost certainly a child. /Cosma give me strength/. She looks upon Lord Ombra, waiting for an opening. She doesn't even notice Peter's lack of a shadow in the dark. /Come on Will.../ He gets into position.. /Come on.../

SHENANIGANS ENSUE.

Her firebird inches forward ever so subtly as if in anticipation of Will freeing the child.

Kyra Hyral has posed:
How interesting, Kyra thinks. That fire was not burning as brightly as it should given the amount of ingredients that she'd mixed together for that batch. This definitely had to be an effect of this mysterious 'dark zone' that had overtaken this area. The doings of this Lord Ombra fellow Pan was talking about?

Kyra hears that voice and shuffers. The light of her flashlight flickers unnaturally and Kyra smacks the side of it.

A few moments later, they meet this 'man' face to face, sporting a strange shadow that seems alive-but is definitely not one of the Heartless. The way he taunts Peter Pan makes her pause and, very carefully, squint at Peter. He doesn't cast a shadow, she realizes, "What the...PAN! You don't remember this guy taking something from you? At all?"

Ariel has posed:
Ariel is a little startled, but is given a quick instruction. She nods over toward Will....

And she faces the shadow person head-on. Well, no one needs to tell her twice: this is bad! So she gathers a ball of lightning in her hand... and fires it out in an arc toward the cloaked figure. The lightning may not even hit him directly, but, it's not every day someone shoots lightning directly at you so maybe he'll find it a little distracting, or even damaging.

She hopes!

Serah Farron has posed:
Serah Farron decides... she's not going to add more attacks and take a chance of harming the children. She's making sure they escape safely, before turning her attention back to the 'master of ceremony' there. Did he just say 'Pan'? So they know each other or something? Well it looks like that boy is on their side at least, so she'll leave it at that. Maybe that's why the boy is here, running away from people like that. More questions, but later.

She looks toward Ariel that is helping out as well. She notes the nice red hair, but probably would be better if it wasn't in the middle of darkness right now. Maybe something she can ask her later. "Seems like he doesn't like Alma and Kyra either..."

Stormfall has posed:
Tinkerbell has to pretty much shout into Peter's ear to get his attention. "Watch out. He's got your shadow!" which, like navi sprites everywhere is something that is immediately obvious when pointed out.

Lord Ombra is comYou are a fool, pan. And you will always be-- OOOOFH</span>
SHENANIGANS!

They are in full on mid-rant when the little arc of lightning crackles across the intervening distance. The children cry out and cover their ears at the thunderous BOOM of the magic. While it grounds itself on Lord Ombra's outstretched hand, Will Sherman's fist grounds itself into the back of Lord Ombra's head. He punches almost up to the elbow through the cloth and doesn't find anything to connect with.

It's more than enough to cause them a moment of distraction and irritation. The cloak swirls around as if blown by an invisible wind, attempting to cover Will and trap him.

The shadow is freed but it just drops limply to the ground, arms crossed over where their sides would be while a baleful red aura flickers to life. The voice booms in an empty place near where the cloak is attempting to trap Will.

//FOOOLS!// I'll leave you to them, Pan after I've dealt with this one. I've already gotten what I wanted. Here.. have my little present to you as well.. as reward for your attendance.]

Ariel has posed:
Ariel looks a little embarassed. It's always too powerful when she doesn't want it to be, and too weak when it counts. Maybe she should consider lessons...

But, well, no time for embarassment. Will is in trouble...

Reflexively, she gets between the children, and what might come out of that dark cloak.

Alma Hyral has posed:
The moment Will connects and starts getting dragged into the realm, Alma punches through the Sigil right by her hand, light flaring. The blue translucent image of the Celestial firebird, with it's skeleton of conjoined stars and white flames dancing off it's surface surges forward at the being. It's taloned feet try to grasp the surface of the cloak, each one a tiny razor of light, which raises burns rather than lacerations and other cuts.

Grasping ahold of the cloak, it raises it's wings. A moment later, the flames playing off the surface of it's wings all blaze downwards into the upper half of Lord Ombra's torso, as all the light used to animate it is suddenly used to explosive effect.

The Sigil in her hand disappears, and Alma suddenly just looks very tired. She glances sidelong to Kyra... pursing her lips, as she considers something... "Kyra, I have an idea..." And then she taps her Linkpearl on, starting to speak a plan to her over the radio.

Will Sherman has posed:
The Hobo Class has IMPROVED EVASION.

Will is snatched by the cloak, but he ducks, rolls...and PUNCHES it right in the...cloak.

He barely manages to avoid being dragged to a DARK FATE...and instead rolls to his feet and points a finger...

"TOO SLOW I, Will Sherman, KING of the Hobos and defender of Children, Hobos, and dames will not let you get away with your...children napping. And also SHADOW STEALING! This is a crime of the HIGHEST order, and as a Detective, I will..."

He cocks a SUDDENLY SHOTGUN, "Will bring you to justice."

Peter Pan has posed:
Peter Pan is in a rare mood, those who might have ever run into him before or even heard of Peter Pan? Likely have never seen him like this or heard of him acting actually mature about something. Pan's giving off a bit of a papa wolf vibe at the moment. He's seriously is giving off that vibe as his allies of the moment are working their own plans. Lost Boy also known as Will the Hobo King is engaged in Shenanigans. Peter likes this guy, he actually kinda likes everyone here standing along side him. Even if some are borderline adults? They haven't become selfish jerks like all adults are.

"No I don't! I have my Knife, I know where Tink and my friends are! There's nothing else to take from me that's important"

Then comes Will, the boy is Pan brand crazy, Peter like that and he halts for a second at the lord?s word.

"What do you mean, old man. I just hear a whole lot of nothing....Wait! MY SHADOW! You stole my shadow!"

The last time it got lose, it was quite the adventure but it also was quite the pain in the rear to deal with. Worse something isn't right about it. Peter isn't going to waste any time, the eternal kid dives bombs at his stolen shadow.

"Be careful! Something is wrong with it! It's not like the last time it got away from me!"

Kyra Hyral has posed:
Fortunately, Peter eventually Gets It. Inwardly, Kyra sighs in relief.

Kyra certainly has more napalm where that came from. Yet she's not busting it out right now, perhaps out of fear that she would disrupt the extremly helpful SHENANIGANS. After all, it was those shenanigans that have seem to have freed Pan's shadow. She will be thankful for that a little later.

Involuntarily, she feels a shiver when that empty cowl turns her way and clasps her hands together. "Well if that's how we're going to play this..."

She turns her attention to Will and concentrates, calling upon the power of the Goddess. As she had been expecting, in this deep darkness, it is hard for her to bring the power to her. Conserving magic earlier had served her well as she prays for Cosma's blessing. Naturally, this blessing is not bestowed upon herself.

She turns it to who happens to be the sturdiest guy here. Yeah. This is /Will/. That's how flimsy this group here looks. Congratulations, Will. You are tank.

A soft white light surrounds Will Sherman, defying the unnatural darkness that Lord Ombra has brought with him.

Serah Farron has posed:
Serah Farron doesn't like this at all, but at least the children are safe. The attacks are starting, the aggression toward their small group is almsot tangible, so that's only normal. She wishes there was a way out by talking, but within the darkness... who would listen?

"I have your back, leave the healing to me!" She announces out, not even caring if the bad guy listens and targets her directly. You know, kill the white mage first, right? Either way, she extends a hand spreading protective magic over Kyra and Alma, who seem like they could use more protection. She won't ignore the others, but she's limited on what she can do in a single move, she found out. Would be nice if she could cover everyone at once.

Stormfall has posed:
As the celestial firebire swoops down and digs into the cloak, flames blasting downards one of the hands reaches up from the empty cloak and grabs the firebird. As the creature begins to explode..

There is a CRACK.

All of the light dies in the animating sEnough of this. I have no patience for any more fools. HERE, PAN. What is the phrase you are so fond of? ..Oh yes. /Stop. Hitting. Yourself./</span>

Then the cloak collapses in on itself as Will Sherman punches it again right in the cloak. And the shotgun cannot avail you with a villain using an Egress Card. They disappear with another dark flash of energy.

The shadow twitches and spasms again. The illuminators at the cardinal directions all explode as well as the surrounding heartless, all of that energy coalescing into a much greater shadow. A dark purple, vaguely humanoid figure rapidly grows until they are almost the size of a building. Long tendrils of shadow hang over their indistinct featuress, a ragged hole in their chest where a heart should be.

Picture reference: http://www.khwiki.net/File:Dark_Follower_KHD.png

BGM change: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fR9pKzaHyTc

The massive heartless lets out a cry of anguish, raking across the ground with massive hands to try and batter people into walls or crush them against the ground.

Ariel has posed:
Oh, no, a Heartless! Well... at least Ariel is not so confused now about what to attack. Attack that! It's clearly bad.

She gets ready for another bolt of lightning, when a hand claws into her. It knocks her against a wall... she's a bit bruised, but, she gets back up to her feet. Her hair is in her eyes a little, and she blows it aside as she regains her balance. "All right. Let's... do this..."

She charges up a little more lightning in her hands, and opens it up on the Heartless. Hopefully this bolt is strong enough... and doesn't scare the children too much!

Will Sherman has posed:
Will dives back, the shotgun of leadership in his hands as he looks at the shadow...

"Guys! It's not a heartless...not yet anyway! It's still Pan's shadow! I dunno what that jerk did, but it's all twisted and hurt from the inside...we have to free it! Pan, you have any ideas?" Will says, as he narrowly avoids some PHYSICAL striking. Will jumps back and forth, avoiding being struck, as he tries to position himself closer. Will's fist strikes out...

And then he aims to provoke one of those hands aiming to try and jump onto it...

TRIANGLE...

SHOTGUN TO THE FACE!

Alma Hyral has posed:
Serah casts her protective magic and she smiles at her gratefully. Alma looks like she's barely hanging on in this darkness, despite not taking any injuries. It really is that is exhausting for her just to maintain. She murmurs a plan over her Linkpearl to Kyra. Will punches through the cloak of Lord Ombra, and a massive Heartless appears.. and she has no time to contemplate her fatigue. No time for introspection.

Just time to act. The massive fist swings at her with talons outstretched... she concentrates, Time out. And suddenly time dilates and the Fist is moving at a languid pace, and she's corkscrewing upwards, a little yellow orb against the dusk backdrop.

She sweeps her gaze back towards Serah and the children. And then she's looping downward, back towards Serah and the gaping children. And she's trying to usher them back and away from the Heartless. "Get back! Get back!"

If any children are frozen with fear, she's touching them and /moving/ them rapidly. Trying to get them out of range of the Giant Heartless' claws.

And then she takes several deep breaths, trying to catch her second wind. Darkness distorts in the air around her as she draws some of it into herself. This was wildly uncomfortable for her, but she manages to just maintain. Light washes over her and Kyra, as her aura begins to blaze white hot rather than it's normal yellow.

Kyra Hyral has posed:
Moving her hands from clasped in front of her chest to pressed, palms-forward, out in front of her, Kyra manages to summon up a shell spell. A shimmering green shield surrounds her just for a few seconds at precisely the time the shadow's hand comes raking across the field. The magic manages to defect the hand over her.

"It's still his shadow!? It must've been filled with extra darkness to make it behave like this! This is unnatural! A person's shadow just doesn't turn into Heartless!" Experimentally, she brings out one of her vials.

One of her vials filled with something /nasty/. She's not sure if it'll effect a Heartless or a shadow but it can't hurt to try.

Serah Farron has posed:
Serah Farron is pretty agile even for a mage. As the talons sink down toward her, she jumps backward, a backflip enhanced by L'Cie powers that she's only just started to understand, rebounding against a rock to avoid the next swipe, and then jumping straight up, out of the way from harm. While in midair, she gets a good view of the battleground. Well, as much as she can from the darkness at least, its like a fog. But it gives her good vantage to target new spells toward the others. Will and Peter gets helped by her magic, but rather than their defense, she focuses on their offense instead.

Peter Pan has posed:
Peter Pan says, "Tink would have a better idea! She's busy with something else! I think she's just sulking because I left Neverland to chase after this guy!"

He stares at his shadow for a moment, just shocked for once in his long life.

Pan is about to attack it, when he is hit by some support magic from his allies. Oh right he can do a little bit of that. He notices Pink Lady can heal, Uptight Lady and Mog Girl could use a hand.

He pulls out a thimble that Tink has given him for emergencies. Now is a good time for such he flies over, Alma, Kyra and Serah. They'd got a nice dose of fairy healing magic, their wounds would start to knit themselves up at a slow but visible rate from the spell's effect.

Peter is always flying, always moving, never sit still. He's made of paper if you can mange to somehow nail him down. Though doing that is a huge feat few have ever managed to pull off.

He looks at the twisted shadow still somewhat in shock and says to it.

"You are not me!"

Will Sherman has posed:
"NO! DON'T SAY THAT" Will shouts at Pan. "NEVER SAY THAT TO A SHADOW!"

Stormfall has posed:
The bolt of lightning crashes into the heartless and explodes harmlessly against the rippling liquid skin. The thing lets out a nasty little laugh and flicks one of it's massive hands at her. A number of purple hued heartless shadows swarm upwards from the ground and attemot to lunge at Ariel and knock her down.

As they are looming over Ariel and focusing on them, Will oTRIANGLE!</span> SHOTGUN to the face!

The shotgun goes off and the darkside's head snaps backwards. There is a roar of petulance frustration and another swarm of heartless are flung in Will's direction.

Alma has to move one of them but the others are scrambling backwards. This time spurred by genuine terror. Some of the heartless attacking Ariel peel off and start to circle the children, lunging at them. The heartless explode in streamers of dark smoke causing the children to scream in fear, too afraid even to bolt.

The vial shatters across the Darkside and it moans, making a pitious 'BLLEAH' noise as if it had tried to swallow something it didn't like. The giant hands brush at the shards and rake the ground in frustration as they cannot get it off. The noise turns into a roar of anger.

The darkside slams both fists into the terrain, then POUNDS again. Dark shards of crystalline fire rain fron the surrounding darkness. Another grisly laugh ensues as Peter Pan proclaims such a thing. It's a bad thing to do that. A blasting aura engulfs the area. A psychic shockwave of lost dreams and broken promises.

It's all the niggling little disappointments and hardships that people grow from and compressed into a hammer, a spiked mace that comes down as the darkside brings their fists down straight at Peter.

Ariel has posed:
Ariel frowns in a crooked way... it seemed her magic had little effect. She braces herself and gets ready for another when a Heartless sneaks up on her and knocks her down. She feels them pulling on her hair, and clawing into her.

She reacts physically, throwing a little fist at one, and grabbing at another. Finally, she gets back up with a fairly surprising upward kick that knocks one Heartless up, and brings her back onto her feet in the process. She's getting used to fighting with legs, at least. Though she's still surrounded by them she thinks she can try to hold her own here.

Will Sherman has posed:
Will is caught by the DARKNESS RAIN.

He withers under the spell, unable to get out danger range, causing some minor wounds and painful memory lash. He grits his teeth...he won't quit here. THIS IS BAT COUNTRY!

Shattering the rain, he dives through again, aiming to try and roll under the thing's legs, aiming to take advantage of Peter distracting it.

He unleashes a storm of attacks, aiming to try and litterally knee cap Darkside, punch, punch, SHOTGUN.

"Looks like you.."

Will doffs his hat, "Don't have a leg to stand on!"

Peter Pan has posed:
Peter Pan says "What that's silly! It's a shadow and it is not me!"

There he goes living dangerously and totally unaware of what's going on. The Darkside however is a horror and it's just attacking. Pan knows it's his shadow, he's going to smack it till it behaves itself and gets it's sorry self back where it should be. Then comes a mace? He does not want a Mace to the face! Peter is quickly and perhaps rivals Will in his shear volume of life experience or perhaps more? Pan doesn't know he has no idea how old he is and does not care really. The Mace misses but it catches his hat, it's torn a sunder and Peter gets this look of horror on his face.

"My...my hat! You ruined my hat!"

Pan starts to make like a World War One Flying ace buzzing the huge shadow thing, attacking with his knife in place of a machine gun. More helpful magic comes his way and he continues his attack.

Kyra Hyral has posed:
Carefully, Kyra notes for future benefit that Heartless are succepable to genetically nodified bacteria. Certainly that will come in handy-but later. For now she had to think and plan and despite her misgivings with Alma recently, she is willing to follow up on the plan.

Even as she starts to have a sudden surge of doubt that seems to come from nowhere. At the time, she doesn't know that the darkside has produced these feelings and it actually delays her with following up on the plan that Alma suggested.

But after yet another moment of struggle, she clasps her hands together and starts to shape an enormous ball of light that the surrounding darkness will have to struggle to suppress. Slipping both palms open, she turns the spell and, in fact, casts it in front of Alma.

Serah Farron has posed:
This time, she's unable to fully dodge the attack. The darkness surrounds her, but doesn't defeat her either. But it burns like fire, all emcompassing. Its similar to when she almost lost her heart. Not pleasant, at any rate.

But her focus soon comes back. Maybe its the fight's adrenaline. Either way, she has people to help out, she won't let them down. Some of them seem to be more seriously wounded, so she casts healing spells toward them "I'm with you!"

Alma Hyral has posed:
She's struck by a shockwave of Lost Dreams and Broken Promises, transforming it into nightmares.. For a moment, she sees twilight claws with streamers of darkened energy reaching into her chest. Grasping her heart.. squeezing. She gasps, as fear grips her mind.. and then a spiked mace formed out of her disappointments.. she'd had so many as of late, clips her, causing her to fly backwards. She tries to think back, trying to hold onto that image, but it's already slipped from her mind. What in /Chaos/ did she just see?

But she has no time to dwell on the echoes of past dreams and nightmares. She senses that Kyra is ready, and she closes her eyes, mentally preparing herself. What she didn't tell Kyra about this plan is that it was /really/ going to hurt her. Especially given the wild nature of Kyra's White Magic. Her sister really was so much more powerful and stronger than she was, in so many ways. Except for one.

It used to make her incredibly jealous of her, despite.. despite everything that was done to suppress it. That she was naturally special. It spurred her to make so many mistakes that she wishes she could take back, that she regrets.

Her timing had to be perfect. She draws her arm back, waiting, allowing herself to listen, to focus, time dilates around her as she feels the first sensations of the magical power above and just in front her, like a buzzing, or a tingling on the back of her neck... and it comes as enormous ball of roiling holy energy, akin to an endless font of burning radiance, and luminescence.

She'd told Kyra to cast it in front of her to alleviate her fears.. but Alma moves underneath it the moment it manifests.

Her aura, was a singularity for magical energy, and it soaked it in like a sponge. Alma's white hot aura began to glow even brighter and blinding immediately, to the point where she couldn't even be seen within it. Her first thoughts were that she'd miscalculated, this was beyond her ability to contain or control. Kyra could barely do it and it came naturally to her At first her body just shuddered as she takes it into her aura, but then she literally let's out a scream as it threatens to consume her. But still she waits, and draws it in.. suspended between the ticks of a second. One fraction of a second passes, then another tick.. then another... and then in slow motion she cuts her arm across in front of her suddenly. The blinding mass of holy energy, rolls along off her body, along the length of her arm, to the tip, and she barely has time to scream out the words,

GET.....CLEAR!

In slow motion, she watched it continue to roll off her arm, her arm sizzling with wisps of smoke as it passed by, even protected as she was...even with her flesh regenerating under the fairy given spell from Pan and light given energies of her own. And then it continued onward. Time sped up all at once... it looked like it was catching up to her, as the roiling singularity containing both her light and Kyra's wildly powerful light carried forward into the giant Heartless. And if it struck the Heartless.. it would continue to carry it backwards with staggering force, until ultimately it collapsed into an effulgent explosion that seemed akin to the heart of a star.

Stormfall has posed:
The heartless explode, some of them knocked back into eachother while another gets kicked straight into the air where it lands on it's back and explodes with a puff of smoke. There are several more waiting for a chance. One of the children yells. "Watch out!" as three heartless with wide smiles painted across their helmeted visors clatter and leap for Ariel from behind.

BLAM -Kerchunk. Kerchunk. BLAM.

Will dives in close again, the shotgun exploding chunks out of the darkside which howls like a child with a scraped knee. They stomp their feet, each stomp aimed at Will and helmeted soldier heartless rising up with each stomp. The cheerfully smiling heartless lunge at the hobo king, swirly eyes wide as the darkside above them lets out another anguished howl.

The arms flail and thrash like a King Kong movie, the darkside trying to smash Peter Pan into a building as he opens up several slashes in the arms and head but against such a large creature is difficult to determine whether they are seriously hurt by it or not.

But what really was going to hurt was the ball of rolling energy that strikes the massive heartless straight in the chest and keeps going. They are shoved backwards as if by an even more titanic hand and slam into the wall of a building so hard athe entire structure cracks and shakes.

Then there is the detonation, as brilliant and fierce as any star that overwhelms this dark zone and bursts a ragged hole that lets the brilliant starlight of true evening and moonlight come back into the area for a handful of seconds.

In the aftermath, a much diminished shadow much more in the shape of Peter Pan lays against the cracked building. A dire red aura still pulses around them. They reach up tenatively and take something off of their shadow head, looking at it speculatively and then the dire red aura flares.

/You Ruined His Hat./ --- The shadow slowly pushes themselves up, putting shadow hat firmly on head and tilting it forwards.

It is so on.

It starts very gradually instead of the petulant smash of before. It seeps up from the ground, attacking from all angles as the very atmosphere of darkness seems to bear down on the party with crushing force and then is reabsorbed into the shadow which grows to not quite it's former height but is limmed in the dire red of pissy boss mode.

The psychic LASH hits like chain lightning, using loneliness and fear. Doubt and bitterness and resentment like a rain of swords. Trying to steal hope and light and rip it away with the childishness of the scorned. A psychic temper tantrum.

Will Sherman has posed:
Will finds it /exceedingly HARD/ to avoid darkness itself. Cloaks, sure. Massive fists? Usually...

He is swallowed into the attack...darkness, pain, anger, angst aim to consume him..it was like watching a Twilight movie.

The darkness eats at his body...it wants into something DEEPER...

No

Those sensitive to hearts and the emotions of others can FEEL something change in Will. Somethind deeper, older, and more potient sleeping within the Hobo comes to the surface. His eyes sharpen, his hands glow red...and he stands back to his feet.

He can see it...the strings.

He dives in, surge of power flowing around him as he aims to try and LEAP right towards the face of the Shadow, aiming a series of quick jabs aiming to roll down it's back, aiming once more to try and kick out it's legs with a much more STRONGER potient strike...

Then he litterally aims to PUNCH the thing straight into the air...

Then Will's strings aim to tear through it, aiming to litterally try and HOLD the giant thing there...

"NOW!" he calls for Ariel and The Pan.

Ariel has posed:
Ariel starts up another charge. She hopes if she concentrates this time --

Darkness tears into her. It lashes at her and eats away at her. For a moment she feels... bleak, hopeless. Maybe a little homesick. The shadows effect is draining her will, and she feels her knees buckle...

But Will helps to set up a shot for her. She knows that they can do it if they all work together.

Her fingers sparkle with a little lightning as she starts to call a storm...

She actually is surprised what she can accomplish when she puts her mind to it, and works with a good team. A cloud forms over the shadow Heartless, dark and stormy at first, but beginning to swirl with light. It opens up and blows fierce wind at him... and lightning, which jolts from the cloud to the ground. The light flashes brightly enough to distort any shadows. Hopefully, the Heartless Shadow will dissipate when it's struck with the overwhelming fury of the storm.

Serah Farron has posed:
Serah Farron should have been swallowed by the darkness this time. It was filled with so many strong, dark emotions. She was standing near the children, and she wanted to protect them from the incoming wave, even if she had to lose herself there and then. Children should never have to life through this kind of pain.

And yet... the darkness doesn't harm her. It rolls over her instead, an orb of shimmering light surrounding her, and pushing the waves back behind her, and over the children, leaving the group unharmed.

She doesn't even know what this was about... maybe its a helping hand from the shadows. But it doesn't matter, she can still fight. She brings out more of the curing powers to help the most wounded ones of her friends, countering the intense darkness with pure light and warm energies.

Kyra Hyral has posed:
Such force. Kyra can appreciate that, even if her spell was not aimed at the Heartless proper.

But the environment weighs heavy upon her. At that moment she realizes the oppressive darkness is hurting her as much as it did the others in her little party. Despite this, she's prepared herself mentally, which is also the reason the second shock to the senses perpetuated by the Darkside also fails. She's just too resilient to start worrying about fear and uncertainty.

But there was still something eating away at her. Kyra can feel it. That in mind, she brings a small vial to her and presses it against her skin, coaxing the special leech contained within.

Peter Pan has posed:
Peter Pan is the very concept of childhood, he can not be ended not by something like this. He is Peter Pan, the one human who is not allowed to grow up, to become old. To lose the sense of wonder that a child has, that can never be taken from him.

Somewhere under all his childishness is the understanding of how precious childhood is to those who grow up. In a way he protects it, and will strike down those who prey upon them. Pan is fast, it's all that saves him even as the attack catches him and starts to drain some of his life force? Peter endures he has to for the sake of the children who were taken, for the sake of his Lost Boys, for Wendy and her siblings. Everyone in Neverland, even the damn Pirates have their place in the strange little world. But the thing that did this? Peter can't recall what only that he knows are worse than Hook. Hook is still a man, he is evil but he is still humans. He has his hopes, his twisted dreams but still he has them. There's some strangled bit of light in the Pirate Captain. For he was a boy once who dreamed of the sea.

Lord Ombra has no light, there is nothing human there, if there was it's long drowned in the depths of his darkness. Lord Ombra is as much as creature of the Darkness as Garland or Maleficent. Peter hears Will's call and replies back.

"Here we go!"

Peter rises up into the air flying higher and faster he got an idea of what Will is going to do and like Ariel from how she's fought so far. He knows what a gun is, the pirates have a few after all and he knows they have power even if they are not magic. He doesn't discount them. He continues his flight upwards even as the Princess Of Heart prepares her own power to join Will in their combination attack. Peter lets Ariel's spell play out before he flies right at the thing, there's no anger in what he does, he's just focused he does allow him sell to call out.

"WATCH THIS!" Peter Pan will grab the thing in a bear hug to latch on and fly downwards at the ground aiming to suplex, the thing into the ground below as hard as he can. the speed is intense but Peter will hang on and only let go a second or so before impact and try to fly away. His allies have set him up perfectly, hopefully he can finish what he started.

Alma Hyral has posed:
In the aftermath of the blinding display of holy magic, Alma's aura dims away to almost nothingness, looking like just a thin outline of on her skin that makes it look jaundiced. She looks tired, diminished. Wisps of smoke are still rising from her robe and skin as her breath heaves within her chest. None of the damage was lasting thanks to the regeneration aura that was a part of her. And then she looks up and sees that the Shadow was getting up...a dire red aura surrounding it. She didn't have time to move. She's lashed by psychic loneliness and fear. Her fear of rejection, her fear of living, her fear of abandonment, her fear of living alone. It scours and scathes her, it brings her to tears.

She looks up at the Shadow, gritting her teeth. This, pisses, her, off.

Pushed to the point of exhaustion, she nevertheless moves forward at the Shadow, drawing from her deepest reserves, slipping into the height of her focus. There's a blur of motion, and she's behind the Shadow.

Small distortions appear in the air, little rips in the air. And suddenly the darkness is rended by multi-colored light that was akin to a prism, forming into a perfect cube of rainbow colored light over the Shadow in dimensions of about one hundred feet cubed, shunting anyone else who might get caught in the way out. A moment later... the Shadow and Alma vanish. And there's only a dark cube anchored to the ground, extending into the air, quite solid to anyone else who is in the way. Anyone close enough might hear a low background hum, which sounds infinitely peaceful, despite being able to barely make any of it out.

BGM change: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ha2zFwvIomw

Seconds pass. One.. Two... Three...

The outside of the black cube flares with impossibly bright light, which dies down immediately, perhaps only leaving spots in the vision of those who behold it, and it's a darkened cube once more.

...four... ... five... ...six...

Then suddenly there are countless flares of multi-colored light playing over the surface of the darkened cube, hundreds of blue, white, yellow, and red lights playing across it's surface..

....Seven... ...eight.. ...nine...

The cube shatters at the count of ten, like it was no more than a pane of tinted glass, the shards vanishing almost instantly into the oppressive gloom. Like it never even existed.

And then Alma wavers, and sags down to the ground behind the shadow, on her knees, her expression distant, abstracted.

Stormfall has posed:
Crouching Hobo, hidden Jab Punch.

The darkside moans as they are repeatedly struck, collapsing heavily to one knee as their balance is disrupted by pure force of the red punch. (Which someone has in fact spiked)

They are launched into the air and it is held there, entrapped by those tearing strings just in time for the rest of the triple tech to arrive. The full fury of the storm is unleashed, lashing the darkside again and again, the red aura flickering and then pulsing to life again stubbornly, the enchantment extremely powerful even under so much direct abuse.

More abuse is hurled onto the darkside as they are picked up and suplexed into the ground hard enough for the ground to shake and the children to fall over from the aftershock.

10 seconds of the universe then floods the darkside as the cube anchored to the ground starts to play it's lava lamp panoply of the universe over the outer sides. The flaring light punches another hole in the dark zone which quavers as those flares of light punch outwards like needles, flares of light ripping holes in the preternatural darkness.

The cube shatters outwards with a shattering down of glass and vanishes. The shadow, what little there is of it, has retracted back to the shape and size of Peter Pan. The shadow crumples to a heap, almost completely washed out and pale. They sit down hard as if greatly disoriented. The red aura had gone. They rock back and forth uneasily before leaning over to pat pat Alma on the shoulder.

Both consoling and also 'Whoa. That was neat' as the shadow then promptly falls over sideways and sinks into the ground, sneaking back to Peter Pan with the aura of a sleepy child collapsing back into bed and pulling the covers over themselves.

The dark zone collapses, letting moonlight and starlight back into this sector of Lower Archades. The remaining heartless quickly scatter.

Ariel has posed:
Thanks to another timely heal, Ariel is still on her feet, and feeling better. She gives Serah a nod.

And then she tries to give Will a hug - well, she goes for that, but it does depend on how up for that he is.

After that, she looks at Peter, and is a bit perplexed about the situation with his shadow. But it seems to have stopped for now. "Thanks! You did great! Everyone did."

Will Sherman has posed:
HIS POWER IS OVERFLOWI-

Hug.

Will immediately is normal again, because he's being hugged by a cute girl who helped him beat a kid's shadow out of evil.

D'aaaaw.

Will gives a hug back, because it's what you do. "I'm good...I'm fine, thanks..." he says, and holds up a hand for a HI-FIVE from Pan.

Peter Pan has posed:
Peter Pan would lie if he said he didn't have fun. This will be a story that will be told for the longest time of the Magic Lady, Mog Girl, Uptight Girl, Lost Boy and Pink Lady!. Man the Indians would likely love this tale some time around the camp fire. He also see his shadow is now back under control, also where it should be. He doesn't say a thing to it, it's already been punched enough, right?

Pet goes to recover what's left of his hat and grimaces, he'll have to get a new one made or fixed.

He seems in a good move

"Did you see that? I was amazing...no we all were amazing!"

Peter's cocky but this isn't something he can steal the credit on. Will gets his hi-five returned. It seems Peter may have brought some kids from Manhattan on a trip at some point. How else could he get new hip things? However after the high five he snaps back his head and does another rooster crow in victory then suddenly it cuts off as a look of horror crosses his face. You know that feeling of horror when you slept in on the day of your final exam and missed it? That's the sort of look on Peter's face right now.

"I remember now! Lord Ombra...I remember why he wants the children. They are his food, he'll eat their hopes, their dreams until all their innocence is gone...."

Alma Hyral has posed:
For a while, she looks almost catatonic. The Shadow pats her on the shoulder, and the stimulus dimly registers, as she lifts her chin just slightly to give it a glassy-eyed look. A few moments later she's smiling, as she returns the favor by reaching out and patting the shadow back before it slinks into the surface of the ground and back to Peter Pan.

She puts a hand down and lifts herself back to her feet.. She takes a moment to adjust her glasses, and then she looks to the back lines to make sure all the children are still safely out there, doing a mental headcount. She then walks over to Kyra and allows her lips to crack into an impish smile, "That was good.. but I think I can do better next time to get an even greater effect. I kind of mistimed it a little."

She cheerfully looks at Pan, "You were pretty amazing.." But all that cheer fades away the moment he speaks of Lord Ombra's aims. As she sucks in a sharp breath, "Then we'll stop him again, just like we did this time."

Will Sherman has posed:
"OH no! He's going to turn them into.." He pauses for dramatic effect.. "Republicans..."