The Pursuit of Ice Cream: Sweet Success

The Pursuit of Ice Cream: Sweet Success
Date of Scene:	13 October 2012
Location:	Bodhum, Traverse Town
Synopsis:	The missing pieces of the heavily desired Sea-Salt Ice Cream have been recovered, and Scrooge McDuck will be meeting in Traverse Town with the brave souls who managed to recover it, both to pick up the pieces and to deliver their hard-earned reward. Spirits are high! After all that they've been through, the brave souls who banded together to locate the pieces are unlikely to expect anything to go wrong. Or do they? Come one and come all to traverse Town! Don't worry if you weren't there before, there's always some sea-salt ice cream ready for you. Right?
Cast of Characters:	Magica De Spell, Scrooge McDuck, Deidra, Will Sherman, Mercade Alexander, Tifa Lockhart, Sarafina Carenze, Avira, Maira, LEXUS, Sora
Tinyplot:	The Pursuit of Ice Cream

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Scrooge McDuck has posed:
Traverse Town. The scene of the crime. Scrooge McDuck is standing outside of the shop, and the three nephews are standing around the vault that holds the two pieces of recipe that the heroes managed to prevent from being stolen. The older duck is leaning with both of his hands on his cane and is looking mightily menacing for a duck his age. He seems to be waiting for something though - and it's not any heartless or anything like that.

No. He's waiting on the return of the remaining pieces of his precious recipe.

Tifa Lockhart has posed:
One of the first to get to Traverse is the barmaid. Of course she wants her cut of that deal she had. She's looking forward to selling them and many munnies after all.

But before that she took a few days to heal up those burns, wether they were from fire or ice, in the chinese hotsprings <3 That's at least one thing that went well.

Mercade Alexander has posed:
Hail the returning victors!

The Twilight Detective Agency (still hiring!), as well as the many mercenaries, barkeeps, and wanderers who joined their search, have returned to Traverse Town. Mercade Alexander approaches the richerst duck in Duckberg (or not, depending on what story arc you're looking at) and smiles. "Good news, Mr. McDuck. We're here to report success." He removes the pages from his coat. "These are the missing pages of the recipe..." He presents them to Scrooge, "And here is a detailed report of what we've encountered, as well as a list of the people who assisted with our work. I hope you'll find it informative."

A good number of the people who have been helping have even accompanied them!

Will Sherman has posed:
Will walks behind Mercade, hands behind his head and hat back on his head.

He cracks his neck for a moment, he has had a lot to think about lately...more than he wanted to really. However, now he gets to try and figure out the mystery of the strange threads. He waves to Tifa, she was defintely a help in all of this...but he lets Mercade do the talking tonight.

He really wants to see this through.

Sora has posed:

Unlike certain other people, Sora has no claims to make of victory in gathering pieces of that oh so nice recipe. He's been hanging out in Traverse Town over the past few days, trying to figure out what to do next and where to start looking. So far, he hasn't really figured that out.

However, there seems to be a gathering of sorts, and as such the boy whose hair is entirely ahoge and whose feet are several sizes too big, gets curious. He walks over and asks a random person in the area the most pressing of questions. Well, his most pressing question right now. Might not be as pressing to others or in other times.

"What's going on?"

Avira has posed:
While not weilding the recipe pieces herself, the short woman known as Avira did have some of a hand in seeing to their return. Under other circumstances, she might have considered her role too minor to really merit pushing for the promised reward. Lately, though, money was still pretty difficult for her to hold onto, so any bit helped.

Nevermind the fact that she heard that Mr. McDuck here was literally rolling in the dough. Surely he could spare some for a reward, right?

As she approaches to join the proud members of the Twilight Detective Agency, she briefly stops by Sora to explain. "Hey kid. McDuck here put out a reward to find some missing pieces of an ice cream recipe that was jacked by Heartless a few weeks ago. We managed to track 'em down, so now we're gonna give them back." Grinning, she keeps on strutting and rolls herself on up next to Mercade.

Maira has posed:
Suddenly, Maira! Or maybe she's been there all along? Maira is strange like that. She just pops up out of nowhere and pretends it is normal. She's standing to the side of Avira, grinning widely. While she didn't even know they were going to get paid for their help, she was all to happy to accept a little reward. Maybe she'd buy herself some new clothes! Because seriously...she keeps burning them all.

"Hello everyone!" she greets, chipper. She turns her eyes the rich duck with curiosity. Such strange things in this world!

Scrooge McDuck has posed:
The Scottish Duck looks up when Tifa Lockhart ends up howing up, his head tilting a little. He tips his cane against his long black hat and then nods his head. "'ello there lass. Found me recipe, did you?" His gaze quickly skips to meet that of Mercade, who answers that very same answer! "Ah! Me recipe!" The old duck is quick on his feet and makes for the papers offered to him. He puts his cane over his arm and starts reading them, adjusting the glasses at the end of his beak.

One can probably see his expression grow a bit sour. "That's a lot of people, lad. I assume you want them all to be paid?" His black eyes stare up to Mercade, before he's distracted by Sora's question. He waggles about a little to face him, and... seems to give him a curious look. He rubs underneath his beak for a moment, and is just about to say something, when behind the group of heroes, a single Shadow Heartless shows up.

"Oh no. You be not takin' me recipe from me!" Scrooge quickly puts it to his chest and moves to the vault. The boys get behind him, while the little shadow heartless just gazes in a confused manner at the others. But then, something strange happens. Will might see it first, how the white lines of those recipes suddenly shine and 'bind' together like someone just started sowing them all together.

The moment that vault opens, the Recipes begin to shine! And in proper McGuffin style, they start rising up into the air above Traverse Town...

They come to stick together amidst a beautiful pieceful glow, that momentarily even reacts with the Keyblade that is with Sora, forcing it to come out had it not yet...

When suddenly!

/SWOOOSH!/

A raven wearing a brownish-gray hat swoops down from the sky and grabs the glowing - and now complete - recipe. At that very moment, on one of the rooftops, Magica De Spell stands with her broom in her hand. "Hahahaha! Thank you very much for the recipe!" The raven tries to land on her hand.

"Magica De Spell!" The three nephews call out, pointing at the woman, while Scrooge McDuck gasps! "Not again!" He quickly grabs a stone and then throws it at the raven! Scrooge really has a mean arm, because he manages to scare the raven away from Magica - and it begins to fly off into the distance! It's heading in the direction of Bodhum! "Ahhh! Darn you McDuck!" She's quick to get onto her broom, and tries to make after the raven.

Someone, get that recipe!

Sarafina Carenze has posed:
There is a duck. A duck with a cane. Sad to say, SArafina isn't really sure this is the strangest thing she's seen yet but really, she has a friend in a Namingway, which is basically a moon bunny, so in a sense a duck with a cande is basically not weird. At least it's not a shoopuf.

Meguca is suffering. Maira is immolation.

Sarafina, who has been kind of gaping at this duck for a while, notices Maira's arrival. She smiles over to her, that relief from before having never quite left her eyes. "Ahh, Maira--it's good to--"

Crazy stuff happens. Something about a recipe?

"Ah?" Sarafina says.

DUCK BLACK MAGE WHAT?

Mercade Alexander has posed:
Mercade shrugs. "Well, you'll see that we /did/ have to bring on some assistance to deal with the giant Heartless monsters that the witch was calling up. If we didn't have their help, we'd probably be dead or worse right now." He grins, and slaps Avira's shoulder, and gestures to Tifa and Maira. "Especially these three. They've literally been lifesavers. Surely people putting their life on the line for your treasured recipe are owed some compensation? I know Tifa has her own deal with you, but..."

And then things get interrupted. Mercade looks around as things get shiny and flashy, and he notices the kid has a huge key... "What the hell is that?" Mercade blinks, transfixed for a moment...

AND THEN RAVEN'D. Mercade falls back, gasping. "Ugh! You again! We beat all of your cre- wow, nice throwing arm!" Mercade points. "FOLLOW THAT RENT MON- I MEAN, RAVEN!" MErcade takes off at a dead run. Holy cow, he moves fast!

LEXUS has posed:
However, things suddenly get...

More complicated. There is a flare of darkness, and from it rises... A man in a black business suit. His expression is weathered, and one might not think much of it but for the gleaming neon-purple circuit pattern on his tie and running up along the jawlines to the sides of his eyes, which gleam with a twin-circle, circuit-purple design within black irises, giving the impression of a clearly inhuman mind within the shell.

"Greetings, programs." The man says, simply and pleasantly. "I apologize for interrupting these proceedings, but objectives must be met." He reaches out, a field of... digital distortion flickering in the air, and a hexagonal column of crackling lightning rises up around Scrooge McDuck, neatly capturing him. "I will be acquiring this entity."

Tifa Lockhart has posed:
Tifa Lockhart has a brief moment where she's about to sprint after that crow. She's fast on her legs, she probably would catch up to it...

But that 'thing' that appears and captures mr money-duck stops her in her tracks instead. As much as she wants that recipe back, if its going to cost someone their freedom or life, she's not about to have it either.

A quick spin on herself, and she changes her trajectory, bouncing to the side and then back toward LEXUS

"Let Mr Duck go!" She can't remember his name yet ~_~ She opens up with her usual flurry of punches, testing out the defenses of this... new opponent. Why can't she get something familiar like wolves or bandits on motorcycles or something she already fought before ~_~

Magica De Spell has posed:
It may be noted that Magica is still sporting that black eye - although it's gone into a lighter shade of blue by now. She's flying after the bird, who has by now landed on the top of Bodhum's trainstation! There's a ladder on the side of the building that will help people get up there! Someone stop her before she manages to get that recipe from Poe and use it for her own dastardly plans.

Deidra has posed:
Deidra is a very happy employee of the Twilight Detective Agency and she's here with Mercade's following up behind him. Looking for all the world to be in a very g ood mood for all her clearly not being a human? She seems to express her emotional about the same physically baring the tail which sometimes seems to have a mind of it's own. She looks to Mr. McDuck for a moment and just listens, to him before something happens. Something is going on here it's Magica again. She growls a little bit her eyes shifting red.

"After them!"

She'll quickly bolt after her comrades and the theif, she's not about to let Magica get away without a fight even if she's way in over her head magically against her. She's the only real defence her friends has that she knows of.

Avira has posed:
Avira is grinning again, likely allowing Mercade's praise to go to her head...even though she actually didn't do too well fighting that one monster. "Hey, there was a /kraken/." Avira's quick to point out, "A Heartless kraken. There's probably even a couple of people that aren't on there." That red-haired guy with the guns, for example, whom she still didn't know the name of! Though before anybody gets paid, there's a little commotion.

Upon seeing that one lone Shadow, though, Avira freezes up. It's a little odd behavior to see from someone who has faced several larger Heartless-though it's also unlikely to be noticed right now with the recipe magically pulling itself together. It's only the flash of light from the keyblade that seems to shake her out of this strange state of inaction. Just in time to see that recipe that people worked so hard to assemble being stolen by Magica. Again!

"ARRGH NOT YOU AGAIN!!" Avira suddenly explodes, her face red with anger. "MAIRA! C'MON! Let's cook this goose!"

About to take off, she looks over her shoulder to make sure her new partner in awesome is coming along. It is precisely at this moment this strange well-dressed and glowing man appears and suddenly disappears Scrooge McDuck. "Oh no-" missing recipes were bad, but missing people were worse. Out the Spine comes, gleaming oddly in the light. "-apology-" She charges, point first to lead with a thrust hard enough to (usually!) knock back.

"-not-" the strange serrated weapon is pulled back, and the grip rolled over in Avira's hands to invert the angle, following through with an upward slash as the sword faces downward.

"-accepted!" Her hand seems to leave its firm grip again, fingers nimbly manipulating the weapon, twisting it again in mid-air, to which she catches the grip in both hands and brings it down with a powerful chop.

Maira has posed:
"What an interesting accent," Maira observes, listening to Scrooge speak with fascination. Her eyes then widen as she follows the glowing of the recipe pieces merging together. Wow....that must be some ice cream. She absolutely needs to try it! She is just MAD about ice cream!

Now, as if to personally thwart her, Magica shows up to steal the recipe.

The pyro-girl's eyes flash. Her whole form suddenly bursts into flame like firework in the night, her magic in direct line with her anger. "I AM HAVING ICE CREAM TONIGHT!" she informs the retreating sorceress. "Get back here!"

Maira turns toward Sarafina, more happy to see her than she can show. "Get your chainsaw Sarafina! Aft--" interrupted, Maira looks to Lexus.

Gulp. "...You are doing what now."

Maira watches as the rich duck gets trapped and the group splits to deal with both problems. Seeing as Maira has Avira and Sarafina by her sides, she'll stay with them!

Maira looks to Avira, grins, then aims her fiery rage in LEXUS direction!

Will Sherman has posed:
Will is pretty fast on his feet!

Infact, it is pretty amazing how fast he is, especially, when he pulls off bullshit manuevers like...

Kicking off one side of a building, he leaps, aiming to grab the ledge of another, and attempts to nearly throw himself up the side of the building...it takes a few times for him to perfectly get up there...but it was faster than climbing a latter, and he was doing it while chasing after the bird...

Acrobatics, thy name is Will.

He moves, leaping towards the next building and aiming to try and get close to the Raven...hopefully just in time to kick Magica in the face.

Mercade Alexander has posed:
Mercade chases the raven and Magica, rushing towards Bodhum and the trainstation. "Why do these birds always pick the most obstacle-festooned path to fly?" Mercade yells, as Will quickly passes him. Mercade's got raw speed, but Will moves like some kind of hobo-monkey.

Finally, he gets to the train station, and he leaps onto the car, grabbing for the ladder and shimmying up to try to carefully approach the raven. "Okay, hold still..." He says, ignoring the sorceress in favor of trying to get the recipe back.

This will probably backfire.

Sora has posed:

A stolen recipe and all kinds of oddness. It's a curious thing, and without giving it too much thought, Sora joins the chase, rushing to follow the naughty witch and her bird. All kinds of weird acrobatics are done on the way to avoid bumping into strangers and to pass the unusual architectire of Traverse Town.

He does manage to keep up, but he's probably arriving last, though certainly in time for the shenanigans that will doubtlessly come to pass today. "Thief!" He points his giant key at Magica de Spell as he speaks that word, somehow pronounced like being a thief was the worst possible insult one could use.

As Sora speaks this grave insult, he does his darndest best to make it weigh down on Magica De Spell's very soul, why? Through magic, of course. A little bit of magic can chance the tide of /any/ battle, and he's pretty sure that someone who flies on a broom has magic of her own, so it's all fair, right?

Sarafina Carenze has posed:
What's a program, Sarafina wonders. Something intrinsic within Sarafina makes her reluctant to draw a giant chainsaw against a duck. EVen if it's an evil magic duck. She needs to think about this first. Philisophical thoughts. Thoughts deep deep within her psyche, something that must be analyzed here.

Now this fellow appearing like woah and talking about objectives? Sarafina draws her Chainsaw. This feels more appropriate, especially since he is threatening a duck. A duck with a cane. An old duck with nephews! A family duck!!

That woman from before, she thinks, Tifa--she was at the beach. And there is a yelling woman over there too, whom she doesn't know, but seems to know Maira.

"This is a lot of work for a--what is it--'ice cream' recipe? Could you not get your own sweets?!"

The jetpack ignites, she launches herself at LEXUS, throwing a kick and a couple of punches--intending to push him away from Scrooge McFamilyMan.

Magica De Spell has posed:
Magica continues to fly as fast as she can towards the Building on top of which the Raven has situated itself, only to find herself intercepted by the monkey-swinging Will! He ends up kicking right against her side, forcing her back and further up into the air! When she finally halts herself in the air, she looks down on the group of 'heroes' - and spots Mercade trying to get to her brother! (...) Don't ask.

"Get away from him! That shard is mine!" Shard? What shard? More importantly. Will, remember that 'white line'? It seems to be pointing at this very area. A little below them in fact, through the roof!

The Raven quickly tries to fly away from Mercade, but ends up landing not a few feet from where it started. It seems it doesn't want to get too far away from Magica - but finds it too dangerous to approach her as well.

Sora's insults in the meantime, seem to touch Magica's heart. "Thief!?" She shrieks, cackling angrily. "I am no thief! I am a proud Witch of the Magica family! You know nothing, little boy!" She then grabs for a wand and then calls out; "Bippity Boppity... Boo!" And a few birds on the roof near Mercade suddenly are transformed into dangerous snakes that have it out for him! She then turns towards Sora and Will, squinting her eyes at them.

It seems she's not quite noticed Deidra yet - coming for her. That'll make for a good surprise attack!

She then waves her wand rapidly between Sora and Will; "Bippity Boppity, KABOOM!"

Suddenly, small orbs fly out from her wand that will explode on making contact with anything!

LEXUS has posed:
Scrooge looks up in horror, and whacks at one of the 'bars' with a cane. There is a shocking ZAP, and Scrooge's bones are comically visible for a moment before he falls to the ground with a PAFF. "Argh, this be a bit of a situation now, isn't it?" He says.

Meanwhile, the forces of Light (or at least ice cream) have something to say about 'dis. The program raises a hand, deflecting some of the force of the attack, but Zangan Style martial arts is superior to the defenses of Sassy Program Fighting. The impact knocks LEXUS back, cusing him to frown for a moment. Avirs comes in again, the blade slashing out and cleaving into the man, and the wounds cause parts of him to shatter and abrade, leaking... cubes into the air? The fireballs rain down upon him next, breaking off more pieces and smashing him into the ground, before Sarafina smashes him, causing him to completely collapse into a cloud of lights and junk data...

Or not, as the drifting pieces pull back together, reforming into the man as he was before, albeit significantly more roughed up. "Troubling. Exhibited power levels are higher than anticipated. I can see why DeSpell had issues." He snaps out a hand, and a long bar of neon light appears, rezzing in as he sweeps it through the air like a conductor's baton. An array of effects begin raining down upon the heroes, as pylons strike up from the ground, blasting out chains of lightning through the area. Digital ice rains down from above, attempting to chill and sap power away, before LEXUS cuts the baton across, unleashing a large blast of burning blacklight across the area, scorching those it hits and disorienting them. "The reasoning is irrelevant at this time. She desires the recipe and I am willing to assist her in her work. I will question once the objective is secured."

Will Sherman has posed:
Will looks up!

Oh god magic!

Then it flies away from him...

"Well, that was clo-" then it hits him in the back of the head.

Moments later, he walks out of the kaboom, and he looks disatisfied by this development.

Instead, he looks around...the strings of fate seem to be thick here...the white thread going through here.

he grabs the lines real quick, before aiming to increase the strength of his own, Mercade's, and Sora's.

Sora's seems's strange...he doesn't have time to look at it more throughly.

Mercade Alexander has posed:
Mercade is busy chasing a bird. However, SNAKES! "SNAKES!" Mercade yells. "Why does it always have to be snakes!" Now he's dancing around betwen cars, trying to jump back and forth to not get bitten while the trolliest raven around basically keeps Mercade busy. He'll be like this for a while.

Sora has posed:

Well this is becoming a bit of a situation. Sora most certainly saw the magic coming, but it can't really be said he could find a way to evade the accompanying pain. He holds his keyblade in front of him to limit that as much as he can, but enough comes through that he's a bit scorched looking at places.

"Ah. A witch, then you must like magic." Sora /assumes/ that she won't like /his/ magic in the least, first firing a flash of ice to try to briefly capture Magioa de Spell in, then giving that a bit of a shock of thunder, and finally melting it all up with a sudden blast of fire. All very rapidly after eachother, turning it into a combination of elemental magics.

Tifa Lockhart has posed:
Tifa Lockhart gets hurt, not too bad physically overall, but still a good hit in, even as she tries to brace for the impact and deflect most of it, doesn't seem to do much against something raining down upon her after all. One of the blind spots of many martial artists is right overhead.

But she's not gonna that that much daunt her away either. Let's see if this thing likes being airborne.

She makes the equivalent of a flash step, practically going out of sight, using blind spots to get into range rapidly, right underneath the program's chin, as she's standing in a prone position. From this stance, a sweep kick comes in, hoping to sweep it off its feet, and followed by a flowing uppercut, hoping it lift it up, and while its not touching the ground, her arms wrap around it for her signature supplex, slamming it back down. Let's see how it takes that.

Avira has posed:
Being right up in this mysterious man's face gives Avira an up close and personal look at the effects of her strikes. This isn't entirely unusual since it seemed that wounding Heartless didn't really make them bleed like a living thing. But the leaking tiny cubes like this, it reminded her very much of...pixels? Nevertheless, she's quick to slip out of the way to avoid being caught up in Maira's magic, which she was clearly expecting.

Avira's jaw drops when he all but reforms like the Terminator-or one of those horrible ooze monsters she's fought in the sewers before. Curse those things and their multiplying. If this man knows Divide, Avira will be extremely unhappy.

As she starts to close in, LEXUS produces his strange glowing wand and, as if acting on the triggering of a sixth sense, Avira's eyes narrow and she immediatly goes evasive. It's hard to get a good look at how she manages to dodge all of that, but sometime amongst the confusion she's pulled out a small shield and used it to knock away descending piles of ice. By the time the blast of light fires out, Avira's managed to get behind LEXUS.

Whom she promptly jabs in the back with the Spine. A blow to the back of the head follows, not with the serrated edge of the weapon, but with the thick pelvis-bone shaped handguard. While he's (hopefully) reeling, Avira smashes into LEXUS from behind, leveraging her whole body weight against him.

Maira has posed:
Fiery, completely unimpressive rage! Sigh. Maira looks at her hands, willing her magic to do better. Oh yes, she is just warming up, surely!

Now, the other women have a much better time of it. Tifa with her fist, Saraf with chainsaw, Avira with her wicked looking blade. Expecting to see blood, Maira instead sees....cubes?

She blinks. "Huh...cubes...but I didn't drink the blue potion today...."

Then suddenly, bad things. Maira cringes as the pylons strike her with lightning, her hair standing on end as she convulses. As if she needed a worse hair day. What is worse, a blacklight zaps her, making her body feel heavy, her magic sluggish, and her brain feel like pudding. "Unnng?" she inquires, flopping over for a moment, trying to get a handle on herself. Uist is telling her something, his voice like startling icicles that break through the dumbing noise.

"Yes...I'm only getting started. Spirits of flame, purge and protect us!" she shouts, drawing a circle then around herself and perhaps another. The glowing light of the drawn circle closes, then bursts into beneficial greenish flame.

Sarafina Carenze has posed:
Sarafina considers. Is it possible to free OH SHIT HE'S BEING SHOCKED TO DEATH--oh wait no he's fine. Okay. Maybe she should avoid striking at a lightning shield when she doesn't know anything about how it functions. MAybe dig underneath the guy but that would be a lot of property damage then again he does look to be wealthy but then again maybe he's an ice cream con man??

She has never seen a being such as Lexus, however, and stops short upon seeing him look like data. But she doesn't know what DATA is. Or what it means. Or what's going on.

"What the--" She says. WAS LEXUS SENT BY THE DEVIL (no sir he's on the level)

"I see." Sarafina says. "I can accept loyalty to one's allies. In that case I will ask a more personal question--" She throws a punch even as Lexus sends lightning and ice from above, slamming into SArafina from above--but not before she gets that punch off.

"What..." She breathes out. "Are you?"

She jumps up, striking out with THE POWER (gauntlet) once more, and another strike with her other hand--but it's all a feint for one last strike from the Chainsaw, which she finally spins around her body, going for a bisecting strike. Though lord knows if that will do anything to such an entity as LEXUS, beyond her understanding--but clearly some manner of monster.

Her injuries are pretty rough, as usual, there's areason she's got a scarred face. But Maira's support comes in at a rather nice time, however alarming being on GREEN FIRE is.

"Ah--ahh--thank...thank you, Maira." She manages.
One of the wingeyes seems to have 'rolled' a bit.

Deidra has posed:
Deidra was lucky to be spared the first attacks from the powerful avian magic user before her. She watches Sora and her friends move in on her. She now has time to prepare, out comes her tome and she's opening it to a certain spell she ahs and she starts to chant in latian. It's clear she's below Magica in terms of her skill but she's still got enough to actually be effective as she contiunes to cast a curse upon the other magic user to hopefully leave her more open to the elements and the actions of her comrades.

Magica De Spell has posed:
Magica glares down at the group below, squinting her eyes at Will as he seems to have dodged the Kaboom for a moment... only to be hit by it not seconds later. Ahh, that felt nice - she considers. Her gaze then skips towards Sora, while she pushes her hand down on the broom she's sitting on, and tries to move towards the roof as quickly as she can... only to be intercepted by Sora! The young man makes for quite the wild variety of elements that get thrown at her.

Ice, Thunder, Fire! One by one, they hit her. The first freezes her, making her look like an icicle on a stick. The second zaps her! Her outlines flicker and one can see her insides for a moment - that is to say, her skeleton white against a black outline. And then the fire hits! This time however, she manage to get away, as she jumps off of her stick and turns her rod onto herself, and quickly turns into a raven by her own transformative magic, before she ends up dragging a new broom out of nowhere to sit on. She then makes for some quick wand-waving magic to dispel the casting of Deidra's - stopping her spell with a mighty fizzle in the air! Poof!

"That was my good broom! You will pay for that!" She shouts. And she starts... well... waving her wand about like a madwoman. People may or may not suddenly transform into other animals, or otherwise find something around them start interfering with them much like Mercade's snakes.

And speaking of those snakes.

One of them just turned into a Lion.

And not seconds later, a group of pots and pans fall from the sky on her 'hapless' opponents!

LEXUS has posed:
LEXUS appears to not be one for dodging much, as he continues to be the focus of a rampaging offensive. Tifa unleashes a deadly martial arts combination strike, though LEXUS appears to be resistant to being thrown about he is still taking significant damage. Avira clocks him one, getting physical as she smashes into him, while Maira goes on the healing support.

Sarafina asks pertinent questions while punching him and unleashing the deadly chainsaw. As his body partially disintegrates, LEXUS replies. "This is quite painful, one moment."

He pulls himself together once more, this time one eye shorting and sizzling with static as he floats backwards in the air. "I am the Logistical Espionage Xenogenesis Unification Service, shortform LEXUS. I am a program from a place known as the Grid, where other entities like me work for their creators to manipulate data. Knowledge."

He smiles faintly. "Knowledge is power. Power is survival. IT is a brutal place, full of entities who struggle against the power of the tyrranical Master Control Program. Survival requires additional power."

LEXUS rises into the air, spreading his hands out. The light-bar disappears as the purple circuitry flashes on his form. "Forgive me, this is necessary." There is a sudden pulse of energy, a bright burning bar of purple that fires into the ground... And moments later, the air around them changes. There is a crackling seething force as the purple circuit patterns grow and spread like brambles, piercing into anything they get near. Anything they touch seems to lose color, some parts of the ground crumbling and leaving holes. Those fighting him might be a little worse off.

Will Sherman has posed:
Will is burried in..pots and pans and other magical tomfoolery.

It's annoying, it's also taking it's toll on them all. He can see the whisps of magica surrounding them, clouding their destiny...however, it won't be enough to stop him...he pauses...focusing on her lines for a moment.

"Tell me, don't you need luck to cast magic? I mean, having really bad luck can easily turn against you right?" he says, with a grin on his face.

He moves viciously, aiming to duck right into melee with her, aiming two strikes, almost like a seal, on either side of her head, before flipping back to try and kick her straight up...

Before coming down, aiming to smash her down...down towards Sora.

"Serve!" he calls towards Sora.

Avira has posed:
This would easily mark the first time Avira's heard anyone explain themselves in the middle of a fight. "A /program/?" she gasps, pulling back, realizing now that her assessment that he was bleeding pixels was entirely correct. "Like from a computer and everything? How...how can you be here like this?" She circles around him, apparently preferring to stay behind him at all times. Keeps him on his toes. Makes her harder to hit. Usually worked in most group fights, right? Except he reveals that he can float, which makes trying to flank him on the ground pretty useless.

Avira really tries to evade the decay, but she quickly realizes that unless she could fly, she's got nowhere to evade to and braces herself for the pain. Though she tries to put on a tough and brave face about this, she can't help but cry out in pain rather suddenly as the circutry winds around her and saps her energy. She can easily see that Maira isn't much better off either. Gritting her teeth, she struggles and tears herself free, staggering over to Maira.

"Hold on-" she says breathlessly, reaching out to grasp Avira by the upper arm, unconcerned with her fiery nature. A blue glow spreads from the grasping hand, first covering Maira, then spreading to herself.

Deidra has posed:
Deidra knows she's in over her head and finds out just how much she is. As she attemps to protect hereself from the first spell send agianst her. That works up, but the follow up, just ravage her. She's not so much hurt but she doesn't feel right, she feels something is very much indeed wrong with her. The Gargyole is very much out of her league. There was Sora, who appears to be able to make use of magic along with that strange key balde of his. Well she's glad he's here to help as it looks like she's in over her head.

She grips her spell book aas Will calls out a tatic ot Sora, she'll wait just long enough before she chants again. This time jagged bolts of ice appear before her and launch themselves at Magica. She's clearly not happy at all.

Sora has posed:

Welp, that's not pleasabt. Sora tries his darndest best to avoid all of those pots and pans and magically summoned animals and all those other magical effects from hurting him. He's not doing that all that well, but he's not letting himself be held back by some reciple stealing witch now, is he?
And apparently it's time to play ball with the witch, that giant key trying to smack the witch back up to the sky, joining it up with a few more bursts of delightful fire, well, delightful for anyone but Magica De Spell, who might start to feel a little toasty.

"Game and Set." Sora calls back towards Will after his 'delightful' combination.

Tifa Lockhart has posed:
Tifa Lockhart can't veryily defend against this either... what's with these unavoidable attacks that come from every direction!? She graaaahs, as this was very painful for the barmaid. She reels back, but still stands on her legs. This isn't going very well for them it seems.

But she's not going to let go without a fight either. First, let try to live through another round of these. These attacks are extremely painful!

She pulls back slightly, moving out of range. She's had to soak up those attacks from up close, maybe a bit of distance will help ~_~ A green aura surrounds her, using what magic she has to strengthen herself, spreading it to her nearby companion.

Sarafina Carenze has posed:
Sarafina would have difficulty getting upset with LEXUS if he wasn't A) blasting out her friends and
B) He was doing this for an ice cream recipe. Seriously. An ice cream recipe. He doesn't sound like he's foolish, so there must be some reason for the recipe, but he said he w asn't sure and was just helping an ally, an ally that is causing this much trouble for an ice cream recipe. Perhaps, she thinks, it's a secret recipe--but Sarafina is basically the opposite of a merchant's daughter, it doesn't quite occur to her while stealing a secret recipe would be worth so much trouble.

And speaking of trouble, LEXUS is an entity that can put himself together after being chainsawed the hell up. This makes Sarafina want to run away again, since--better part of valour, and all that--but she knows Maira won't--which means this isn't really an appropriate time. Perhaps with enough 'pain', he'll decide that ice cream isn't worth the trouble too.

She takes in a low breath, biting into her lip--especially as that bar of purple hits the ground and starts doing things she doesn't understand. She knows enough to not stand in bad, though, stepping away from the strange patterns, eyeing LEXUS carefully. Logistical Espionage Xenogesis Unifcation Service. She knows about three of those words. The word 'Espionage' is most notable. "A spy, then." She says. "But if 'data' is knowledge, programs work with this 'data'--then a program must be some manner of familiar. So you are under the service-- Ah! I understand!" She grins suddenly. "That duck is a wizard, you must be her familiar, then, and this Master Control Program is something like a demon king."

She is glad this all finally makes sense!

"I will have to send you back to your realm--I have sworn to protect that child." Even if it's only to herself. The others--well, Tifa and Avira can obviously take care of themselves and also aren't young children.

She darts forward, seeking to flit around the strange programs, striking forward with her gauntlet and--suddenly--

EVERYTHING IS IN HI DEFINITION.

Moving cinematically, Sarafina swings the chainsaw back with one hand pulling on the string as it revs up, the blades spinning rapidly around the device.

TRIANGLE, SQUARE, TRIANGLE, CIRCLE, L1, R2, CIRCLE!

Sarafina strikes rapidly with the Chainsaw, as if to try and dissipitate the 'familiar' back to its demon kingdom--before following it up with one last downward swipe from the weapon! Clearly this 'Computer' is the name of this Hell world.

Magica De Spell has posed:
Magica's eyes widen as Will suddenly bounds up for her and slams his fists firmly against both sides of her head. One can see her eyes rattle around for a moment due to the impact, stunned. Not moments after, he kicks her up off of her broom, and then smashes her back down again! She's quick to grab onto her broom, holding on for dear life - looking down at Sora as Will Sherman calls out towards him - only to be properly beaten down to the ground by Deidra's icicle assault!

And down there, Sora is waiting on her! His key smacks against her broom - which she uses to block him before stepping down onto the ground, only to be assaulted by the firey magic that comes bursting out of Sora's strange weapon! The girl makes for loud annoyed quacks in regards to his comeback, and suddenly 'poofs' into nowhere, and re-appears in the air again.

"Why you!" Her vocabulary seems to pretty small, now doesn't it? "I won't let you get your hands on the recipe! It's mine! You won't even appreciate it!" She then sticks her wand into the air, and calls out to far darker forces. From out of nowhere, black Blobs appear and fall down towards the ground! Darkballs! And they're quick to start casting magic at the heroes, appearing before them and trying to slam into them, before casting dark magics at them.

Maira has posed:
Lovely green flame or not, what Lexus just did HURTS.

Maira stares in horror as reality itself seem to change, the pulsing energy seeming to beat in time with the frenzied bass line of her heart. The circuits pierce her in a myriad of location, ripping through flesh and pinning her, seeming to snake through her very veins. Maira cannot desguise the terror in her scream.

She pulls at the snaking circuits, tearing herself free and doing more damage to herself in the process--and oh, is Uist angry. The anger of her ghostly companion bleeds into her consciousness, her whiskey colored eyes glowing with an inner flame. She lashes out with her magic, her flames forming a gigantic hammer that slams down upon Lexus like a righteous deity, followed by the attack from Uist. A chilling presence, forming incorporeal, before Maira, reaches out a hand. The fire-mage behind him reaches out her hand as well, as if the two are tied by strings to each other, mirroring movements. The two cast Holy, and follow it with blooming fireball in a wicked magical combo.

When the attack is finished, the form of Uist disappears once more, and Maira looks to Avira as her Regen spell is cast. She smiles weakly, nodding to her in thanks. "Computer...program? Here?" she asks, confused (but not nearly as confused as Sarafina). Indeed, she grew up surrounded by technology--of course, she was never wealthy enough to own any of it.

When Sarafina tells Lexus she swore to protect Maira, the young woman blinks. Wait, when did that happen!?

Sora has posed:

Perhaps Sora is getting used to Magica's attacks, or perhaps the heartless are a more familiar sight, either way, the boy doesn't just try to bat away the incoming magic anymore. He just does it, and with it comes the revelation that this strange witch duck is probably not as strong as she'd like to be, and that her words are repetitive.

"I don't know why you stole that recipe, but if you're using heartless you must be up to no good." Sora proclaims as a defense of his actions, and with it he summons even more magic, "And if you're up to no good, maybe you should cool off and think about what you've done."

What's that? Yes, certainly, it's the frozen cold of a blizzard spell, aimed for Magica, but even like that, it seems Sora is preparing for something beyond that.

Will Sherman has posed:
Will has had about enough of this shit...

His hand punches out, aiming to smack the fireball away...it creates...odd feed back. The hand destroys the strings, shattering the magic, and causing a minor feedback for both, only physically harming Will. Magica might understand that he's litterally affecting things on a metaphysical level...which is bad if it interacts with her magic like that.

Then he leaps, aiming to soar right up towards her... his body spinning, aiming to kick her...trying to stun her, before...

His right hand glows red. He moves to strike...the sky shattering as he does so, litterally giving images of...SOMETHING distructive in the background. The power isn't completely focused at it's strongest point...but Magica can see it all. Ragnarok, as a matter of speaking...before he litterally aims to try and shatter her magical ties in one strike.

Deidra has posed:
Deidra sees she's got Magica down for the moment, but she's not out no. As strang as this avian humanoid is? She's clearly got a lot of power to draw on and is a threat to be wary of. She's caught in dark magic she makes use of against her. The blobs strke her and she's not able get clear in time. She's hurt, noticabl at this point and one taloned hand reaches for something hanghing from her belt. It's a potion, she pulls the cork off with one talon and downs the enti4re content dropping the empty bottle there's not time to recover it. She's already casting again to unload upon Magica with even more ice shards and she's not letting up.

Tifa Lockhart has posed:
Tifa Lockhart isn't in one of her better days apparently. The normally agile and dex martial artist is having a hand time getting out of harm's way no matter what she does. She's scorched all over, bitten by those summoned heartless drones, she's feeling on her last leg. Well, if she's going out, might as well make it flashy at least.

She closes her eyes, taking a deep breath, moving into her fighting stance. Calm and still, focusing what she hast left of strength into this. A glimmer flashes through her eyes as she opens them up, diving in straight into the computer program, fist pulled back as she flashes toward it. Its already charging up with explosive energy, which she releases on impact, a mighty drive through his chest, sending the ripples of energy through him.

But even as it explodes, she's not stopping. She turns around, from the back of her target, she gives it a hard bodyslam, using all of her weight into the hit, and then jumping up, using her grip around Lexus to lift him up, and throws him into the ground, hoping to smash it with all of her might.

Magica De Spell has posed:
"S... stop doing that!" Magica calls out at Will, not understanding the specifics of the magic he is using. It goes beyond her own understanding of magic. She's just a witch after all, something of a minor sorceress at best in power. Her knowledge comes from books handed down from her family. Sora's magic she knows how to deal with far better of course! Or at least, so she thought.

With Will Sherman nagging at the very fabric of her magic, and managing to get up at her level again - as she prepares to counter-spell Sora's magic, she suddenly finds herself struck. Hard! That right hand glowing and the imagery of something she doesn't understand nor know - Ragnarok - ends up slamming into her other eye - ending up giving her another black eye! And waving as hard as she can with that wand, all it does is fizzle as Sora's magic crashes into her.

Comedically, the duck turns to a popsicle again, and falls down to the ground. There, Deidra ends up adding a little bit of her own magic. The Darkballs suddenly disappear, along with the 'disabling' of Magica. Did she 'hold' them into this town by some means? Normally, after all, only very minor Heartless showed up here. How odd.

More and more ice piles on top of Magica, when the raven suddenly squacks and lets go of the recipe in favor of getting to his sister, and starts pecking at the ice, and then ends up throwing a little satchel of powder onto it! The ice suddenly 'poofs'- and is gone - and Magica ends up standing there, wet, her hair a mess and her eyes glowing white. That, or it's an animation error. "That's enough. I will deal with you all once and for all! - Boo Boo KABOOOOOM!" She yells out, her wand in the air, letting out a /firework/ of exploding meteor-like pebbles that rampage throughout the entire area... yet somehow don't break the actual surroundings. They mostly just seem to hurt if anyone dares touch them.

In the meantime, Poe yells out, "C'aaaw! I must get the recipe back! Nevermore!" And quickly flaps back to try and beat Mercade to the now still recipe.

Avira has posed:
"Yes, I'm a user, I'm-gah, no, it's none of your business!" All the sudden Avira looks awfully flustered about something. Fortunately, Sarafina getting up in LEXUS's face seems to stop this awkward line of questioning. For now at least. "Maira-!"

Avira takes up her shield, stay behind me for a sec!" she calls out, drawing closer to her as reality seems to warp and strange (pixelated?!) Heartless start appearing. With strange precision, perhaps spurred by her desire to protect someone else here, she tears through each and every Heartless that approaches with powerful blows of the Spine. As she fights, the spine seems to take on a pale white sheen, which oddly enough seems to be counteracting that sapping energy rain and driving off the flames. Avira doesn't really notice this, too busy occasionally glancing back at Maira. "C'mon, we can do this! Don't give up!"

In a burst of white light, Avira suddenly darts off after the program, holding her Spine low to the ground with both hands as she charges. Queue furious button mashing.

She strikes head-on with impaling force, briefly leaving the Spine embedded in LEXUS for a second so she can reverse her grip, turn her back to face him, then yank it back out. "THIS IS IT!" She flips her grip again, then whirls around to turn upon him with a wide arcing slash in one direction, quickly following up with a second wide arcing slash in the opposite direction. Then another, then, yet another, the blows striking with such speed and intensity that LEXUS is quickly juggled into the air.

"NOW!" She crouches and leaps after him, twisting high in the air, somehow managing to clear the height she sent him up to.

Her foot comes down in an axe kick, heel aimed at LEXUS's head. "STAY DOWN!"

Will Sherman has posed:
Will isn't able to luck his way out of this...

Force to the ground, Will doesn't stand up immediately, groaning as the force of her magic blasts his body...

Slowly, however, he rises...his body hurts...he's pushing himself too hard, too fast...and the reaction between this sorceress and his magic is painful.

He doesn't have any more quips...no more sarcasm...

He runs, right at her, aiming to duck right below her, aiming to kick her upwards before spinning back around...and aiming downwards once more...aiming to slam his hands down on her head to try and flatten her.

He then looks at her, for a long minute. "Stop doing that."

Maira has posed:
This is getting really tiring. All of it. This is an awful lot of trouble to go to, isn't it? For ice cream?--Wait. What is she thinking!? Ice cream is so worth it! But, moreso, the lives of her friends are in the balance! Now, she has more than just Uist, more than just a friend no one can see and most don't believe exists. That is what she'll fight for.

When Heartless appears, strange, digital and pixelized Heartless, Maira's protective green flames flare up, keeping them at bay--and burning them. For while the fire heals her, it burns them. Interesting...

Avira further protects her from the Heartless and Lexus, and knowing good sense when she hears it occasionally, Maira stays behind Avira for a time. The girl takes a look around, frowning deeply. They are hurting. This is not going well. What should she do? Her attacks seem to have little effect on this being...but she has to try. Taking a deep breath, Maira begins to cast once more.

If the sky were not already dark, it would grow so then as Maira gathers for her spell. The wind begins to gust around Traverse Town. Anything that isn't nailed down begins to blow around in the fierce gale that develops; in fact, one that that is nailed down comes blowing on over as well. A metal lamp post is ripped from the ground and careens toward Lexus, intending to fustigate him quite soundly! "I won't give up! No way! Not ever!"

Sarafina Carenze has posed:
What is a computer. What is a User? Sarafina doesn't know what those things mean. WEll okay she understands a 'User' as something that 'uses' something. Uses a computer? Uses programs? Maybe that's his name for wizard, SArafina thinks.

But even apparent absolute destruction doesn't destroy LEXUS. Sarafina steps back, eyes wideening with horror as she lowers her weapon. A demon that doesn't even die when it is slain, but simply reappears. And judging from his words, he seems to have no leash, no--'User'--to control him.

"This is why we went to war with Mysidia." She mutters to herself. "All this reckless magic, and then something gets unleashed that cannot be put back in its prison." She sighs. Still, he's rather polite for a demon.

She charges through, a bit recklessly. When did she vow to protect Maira? when she found out what it was like to have failed at protecting her. Indeed, in a sense, she never really made such a vow, it was just so natural to her it may as well have been one. A promise to oneself.

The circuits rip throuhg her armor and body, she seems to distort as she lashes out wildly with her fist, throwing one armed jabs, purely to try and keep himself from revitalizing himself from the land again. He can't do it forever, can he? He isn't unlimited, is he?

"What is taking the others so long..." She complains to herself before she suddenly spins around in a circle, a small localized whirlwind spinning around her as she swings the chainsaw around her body. Naturally she'll try and wait for a nice moment where she won't accidently rip through an ally.

Sora has posed:

Those explosions /hurt/ despite all Sora's attempts to make them be less painful, and it almost seems as though the boy has had /enough./ This is it, it's gonna be over now if he gets his way. He doesn't jump on the Duck's back though, but he does go in a grand, all-out offensive where he tries to take out a lot of heartless and throw Magica up in the air.

Then once she's up there he'll jump up to smack her back down to earth, then (hopefully) mop up the remaining heartless and beat up Magica De Spell so she's not (much of) a problem anymore here. It's not a pleasant sight, and it's probably even less pleasant to /experience/ it.

Deidra has posed:
Deidra is hurt pretty badly from the looks of things the terirble magica unleahsed by Magica keep comming at her evenn as her own magic does at lest seem to be working against her. She's now going to struggle and attempt to get into the air and recover enough to start dealing with her injuries she's moving into attack but she's just taken such a beating she's got issues on focusing on casting a spell. She casts another short curse and follows it up with a another ice spell but it's about as much as she can muster.

Magica De Spell has posed:
Poor Magica. Will's hands come straight on her head, and she ends up smacking down onto the ground. Little ducklings start tweeting around her head while she's on the ground, only to be followed up by Sora's Keyblade suddenly smacking her back into the ground, then back to the ground again. Little bandaids have formed on her body by now, and little green balls suddenly explode from her body, feeding people health they may very well need. This is followed up by Deidra suddenly draining her magic with her icey abilities and curses! She's completely out for the count it'd seem.

"C'aww! I'm coming Magica!" The Raven with the hat suddenly calls out, flying back to Magica and spreading some powder over her, transforming her into a rat, before he grabs her with his claws and lifts her into the air and takes her through a portal, leaving the recipe behind and everything that had been transformed or transmogrified turns back to their normal states. "Nevermore!" The Raven calls out one more time, before the portal closes right behind it.

Speaking of keyblades, Sora's keyblade starts glowing white again, and seems to want to point somewhere. The recipe. Now if only someone could pick it up, so it could do its magic...

Will Sherman has posed:
Will, groans and leans against a wall, looking at Sora.

He looks at Sora a great deal now, now that there wasn't anything to fight...

Refer to Will's wiki page for more information on the sight.

Will takes a breath, as Mercade aims to pick up the Recipe.

"...Spiky hair...large shoes..." he says.. "You're name isn't Sora is it?" he asks.

LEXUS has posed:
Tifa is having none of these shenanigans as she hammers into LEXUS, smashing him apart into pieces. There are explosions of neon light and bits of data flying in all directions as the martial arts expert unleashes her most powerful attacks upon him. He crushes into the ground in a crater, his body shuddering as Avira runs him through, the spined weapon ripping through his body and creating more spatters, the digital entity beginning to lose cohesion as Avira savagely sends him flying into the air. Maira follows up, beaning it with a beanpole and sending it flying around through the windstorm, moments before Sarafina REACTION COMMANDS, shredding into him the Program with terrible force. LEXUS discorporates, though only a portion reincoporates this time, The Program missing a large portion of its body. It's voice is laced with static, voice strident as he responds, "I STILL FUNCTION. I MUST SURVIVE, I WILL NOT ALLOW THE FAILURE OF THE OBJECTIVE!"

Space twists, inverting and shuddering as LEXUS unleashes a wave of force, empowering the Daemon Heartless as they continue to rush forward in hissing, chittering waves. Individually they are weak and easily dispatched, but they seem innumerable. Perhaps LEXUS is the key to this conundrum. The neon purple circuitry also undergoes another growth spurts, growing again and seeking out more sustenance for the Program... But at what cost?

Mercade Alexander has posed:
Mercade was busy scrambling all over the station, trying to avoid being mauled, bitten, shredded, pecked, and run over by trains. THAT IS A THING THAT HAPPENS. However, finally Poe goes to bail out Magica, finding her more important than the recipe! This is a relief as he lunges, catching the valuable paper out of the air as he lands. "GOTCHA!" Mercade yells... And then falls, landing on his face on the platform. "Ow." He groans. Slowly, he peels himself up and looks around, rubbing his face. "Okay, I HOPE that's that."

Avira has posed:
Avira lands on the ground, breathing hard, that white glow quickly fading from both herself and a weapon. She seems surprised with herself, as if she didn't really believe she just pulled off that series of manuvers, most of which actually worked. "...quickening..?" she murmurs, swinging her sword out to her side to dispatch a Heartless. A winding bit of circuitry spears into her back, draining her of her energy, and she yelps, pulling herself off and staggering sideways. Avira starts to back away, rejoining Maira and warding off the incoming daemon Heartless.

"SORRY!" She calls out to LEXUS, "BUT WE'RE OUT TO SURVIVE TOO!" Backing right up to Maira, she murmurs over her shoulder at her, "I'm ready to lay down some ice. How about backing me up with that awesome fire of yours?"

Her left hand lifts, pointed at LEXUS from through the chaos. But rather than actually fire upon him, she slaps it to the ground first, spreading out a layer of ice in front of her. Then she grabs the hilt of the Spine, allowing the magic to spread down the length of the "blade" and elongate the serrated edges with layers of ice.

She takes a small running start and slides along the icy surface, using her momentum to take her ice-imbued blade into and past LEXUS. "WHEEEE~"

Behind him, she slips off the ice and hops sideways, striking once more with the icy blade, sending the crystals shattering from it. Then, leaping backwards, she drops to her knees, slapping her palm against the ice she made.

As if it were evaporating water, it melts rapidly and disappears-but only momentarily. Avira reaches out to grab LEXUS from behind and spread the very same ice onto his body with her touch.

Tifa Lockhart has posed:
The space warps around her, and down on her last leg as she is. Last ditch effort to try to hold on to her conciousness, her arms cross in front of herself, using them to shield against the incoming attack. Her body shines as she concentrates all of her remaining energies into her defense, as if she was building a wall of magic around her.

While it doesn't stop the attack enterily, it seems to deflect enough of it away, the magic dampening the attack...

The energy bubbles around the barmaid, and then she unleashes the magic she used to defend herself, making a wave around her that scatters the heartless and the remaining purple energies, leaving her... standing, scorched, but alive. She pants as she looks at the offender "Okay, you're going down now."

Nothing too flashy here... she's out of juice, running in to punch its lights out, if she can.

Sarafina Carenze has posed:
"It is not invincible!" Sarafina says which is probably more of a surprise to her than to Avira, who seems to know about these COMPYOOTORS and OOSERS. Of course, Sarafina is rather spent herself. And it's especially evident when LEXUS knock SArafina onto her back, wings cracking against the ground as she hits the floor. And perhaps if LEXUS hadn't been shouting like that, maybe then she would have not gotten up.

But let someone see a piece of victory, they'll be that much more willing to fight for the rest of the victory cake.

C--chance...!" Sarafina shouts, rolling to her feet, leaving the Chainsaw on the ground as she blasts forward, for a strike!

Maira has posed:
Maira looks to Avira, a smile appearing briefly as she nods. Oh yes, she'll back her up with a little fire! She blasts away, but it all doesn't seem to be necessary. Between Avira, Tifa and Sarafina, these girls have got this handled, she is pretty sure. The best thing she can likely do is heal them.

Maira takes a deep breath, her cure materia glowing inside her before that light extends and surround those who seem to the most injured, Tifa and Avira. For Sarafina, she will have a potion ready!

LEXUS has posed:
And so it comes. LEXUS stares at the firepower coming for him and he says one simple thing.

"End of line."

There is a scream as Tifa and Sara explode through LEXUS, and Avira comes cleaving down with her chilling strike. He screams wordlessly, the data exploding outwards and streaming down into a black vortex, the Darkness consuming him before vanishing. The world around them restores itself to normal quickly, the Daemon Heartless vanishing in puffs of digital hearts without their controller.

The electrical cage around Scrooge McDuck vanishes too, and he toddles to his feet. "That was amazing!" He says. "Thank you for helping me..." He squints, then. "So... Has anyone seen the recipe?"

Tifa Lockhart has posed:
Tifa Lockhart falls to her knees, exhausted after taking all of those attacks in. She looks over to the hatted-duck, nodding "Yes, the others are retrieving it. I would hope they managed to get it back at least." she pushes loose strands of her hair back, getting herself back under control after the fight. It was pretty tough "I hope we'll never have to do this again at least, not for ice cream."

Sora has posed:

Suddenly two weird things kind of happen at once, there's the glowing keyblade which wants to move up, and Sora kind of lets it, but right as that keyblade gets to that position and does its fancy keyblade magic, Will asks Sora if his name is Sora. Now /that/ is odd. "Uh, yeah, I'm Sora." He's taken back from that a little, just a bit.

Recovering quickly enough, he twirls the keyblade in a way he's never done before yet which feels like second nature to him, finally pointing it at the recipe and a shiny line of light crossing the distance between. Maybe, if you listen closely, there's the vague sounds of an old lock at work.

Sarafina Carenze has posed:
Did they just kill a demon for ice cream, Sarafina wonders to herself.

She shakes her head. It's probably just banished. For ice cream.

"The others must be after it. Perhaps if we hurry we can catch up to them--but I don't think we are in much of a condition to lend a hand even if we were to find the Duck-Witch."

Sarafina breathes in sharply after saying this. A braincell or two may have perished in the utterance of that sentence.

"Still," She adds wryly. "You always keep your eyes on the prize don't you? Do you know why they were so keen on taking your recipe, Sir--ah... I am afraid I do not know your name? I am Captain Carenze." She...offers a hand, for shaking purposes.

She's seriously worn out, but she is accustomed to being proper while in agonizing pain.

Mercade Alexander has posed:
Mercade watches that happen. He has no idea what he's seeing here, but he does tilt his head at the sound of the lock. "That's... That's a Keyblade, isn't it?" Mercade says. "The thing that can lock or unlock anything?" Yeah, he heard about that. He gets up, and looks at the recipe. "Man, good as new, and it didn't even need tape. Magic, man. How does it work?"

Avira has posed:
LEXUS explodes into pixels around her and the world finally rights itself. Aivra breathes a sigh of relief, which only deepens as Maira fills her with more healing energy. "Ahhhhh." Smiling, she sets the tip of the Spine against the ground and rests a hand on top of it. Is she...striking a pose?

Probably.

"Thanks! That recipe...ugh, that lady duck's crow flew off with it. I know Mercade and his assistant Will went running off after it. So hopefully they were able to catch up..." Avira picks up the Spine and returns the strange weapon to its sheath at the small of her back. Avira's small buckler shield follows, also attaching behind her.

Will Sherman has posed:
Will takes a moment to understand what he just saw...

He shakes his head, looking at Sora. A Keyblade huh...seems...full of destiny to him. "That explainsit. I'm a friend of Riku's. He's hung out with us, trying to find you and another girl." he says, putting his hand out to give Sora's a good shake.

"The name is Will, Will Sherman. This goofball is Mercade. And the chick with the wings is Deidra. Thanks for helping us out...but...uh...what was that thing you just did with the key and the locking?"

Oathkeeper has posed:
As the line of light hits the recipe Mercade is holding up, a piece of blue suddenly lifts up from the center of its body, leaving the actual recipe in Mercade's hand - and bringing the blue Gem, or 'Shard' up into the air. The thing indeed seems to be 'unlocking' for a moment, before it suddenly explodes beautifully into sparkles that fall down through the roof...

Seconds later, the tracks that used to lead into nowhere, suddenly shine and continue to spread further into the distance... and from out of nowhere, a trolley suddenly comes riding down the railroad! The thing looks old, and certainly not like it belongs to Bodhum. And not moments later, from the doors of the Bodhum Station, a series of people walk out, confused.

<< YOU HAVE UNLOCKED: NEW ORLEANS >>

Deidra has posed:
Deidra is clearly hurt noticably and she's breathing pretty hard, but she's alive and well otherwise. She watches magica well just get rbought down finally as she transforms and flies off as a small bird of some sort. "Good riddance to her." She bites back the pain and thinks it could have been much worse. "Don't worry i'll be fine once I get some sleep."

She pauses looking to Will never having a chance to mention she's run into Sora until now. Still it's best to let Sora speak for himself after all.

"Would you belive I gave Sora our card a little while ago and wait what just...." She stares for a moment did they just open a way to a new world?

Maira has posed:
Maira doesn't strike a pose. Maira just sort of falls over. She is officially spent.

Reaching into her pocket, she pulls out a health potion and holds it out toward Sarafina with a smile. "Here you go...drink think. You probably won't see blue for days but It'll do the trick," she informs her sleepily. "There...had better be ice cream. I want some. Nnn..."

Flop.

Sora has posed:

"Yeah, it's a keyblade, and ... I don't know everything it does. It unlocks everything, you say?" And then, like, woah. Sora watches the trolley come riding down and the people coming out of it, "Did I do that?" It's all exciting and weird and exciting and different and exciting and new and exciting.

Though there's other, more pressing matters than need his attention right now. "I heard Riku was looking for me, and I'm looking for him /and/ for Kairi. Haven't found any trace of Kairi yet, but I'll keep looking. It's nice to meet you, Will and Mercade. Wish I did so under different circumstances."

Will Sherman has posed:
Will looks at Sora for a moment...

"Well, you know, you could stay put, like hang with us for like a day or two? I talk to Riku pretty frequently, but man...that guy is always so serious and won't stay still."

He pauses... "He's been beating himself up too, looking for you and Kairi. I'd do his heart some good to see you, I think." Will knew something he wasn't sayin'.

"Anyway...so that was why that item seemed to be important...a gate to a new world? I don't get it, but now I know what my eyes were seeing."

Mercade Alexander has posed:
Mercade gasps. "Whoa! That's /awesome/. It's like you just unlocked a whole new road to take!" HE looks over to Sora. "Well, we were asked to look for you. Anyway, come with us, let's go see how everyone else is doing. Scrooge wants this recipe pretty bad and I think we'll all be happy to see it back in the right hands."

Mercade Alexander has posed:
This is about when the triumphant heroes return. Mercade, with Will, Deidra, and Sora, show up, with Mercade tightly holding the RECIPE OF ICE CREAM POWER in his hand. "HEY GUYS!" Mercade calls. "Are you all-" He pauses, looking at the damage to the area. "Oh hell. What happened here?" He grimaces. "Looks like a warzone. Are you all alright?"

Tifa Lockhart has posed:
Tifa Lockhart is sitting against a wall, near the rich duck-man, nodding as she waves to the others. She looks pretty burnt up herself. And exhausted "We kept Mr Duck safe, no worries."

Will Sherman has posed:
Will looks a bit beat up...but he's walkin' on his own power.

"Cool." he says, shaking his head. "...So uh....We punched Magica so hard she screamed bloody murder. Also, I think she doesn't wana throw magic at me anymore."

Sarafina Carenze has posed:
"It's you." Sarafina says, somehow unsurprised by this. She waves an arm at Mercade before letting it drop. "We fought a demon known as a 'program'. We banished it back to the hell known as 'computer'. It seems it has been acting without the benefit of a wizard, or as he called it 'A User'." She nods slowly, explaining patiently--she doubts Mercade is going to get any of this, she barely got it herself after all. "But with luck, he will not escape his imprisonment again without User Aid. He claimed to have been working 'with' the Duck-Witch," She grimaces upon saying 'Duck-Witch', "But we were able to save the Duck Entrepeneaur." A smaller grimace. "And was unaware as to the purpose behind the recipe. Frankly, I am unsure why there is so much trouble over ice cream, but we were able to survive. It seems you succeeded."

Avira has posed:
"Well we're all alive..." Avira starts before getting a little /too/ excited all the sudden. "This creepy guy named LEXUS showed up and trapped McDuck in some kind of virtual cage thing! So we all fought him and it was crazy and he warped reality and all sorts of nasty stuff and summoned HEARTLESS from a WRITHING TECHNOLOGY DIMENSION-actually I think it was called the grid???-and he said he said he said-"

She takes a deep breath, "-he said he was a program! Like a computer program! Existing in the real world! And that he had to survive against some control program and everything but we went and smashed him into itty bitty blocks. Oh yeah and I think I did a quickening, it was really awesome."

Deidra has posed:
Deidra listens for a moment starting at Avira for a moment nodding seeming to get what Avira is speaking of. "This is not good, not good at all. Wait what? how is that even possible we have never even made self aware computers." She's got no idea about cyote, she really doesn't know. "This is just getting even stranger really." She's looking pretty beat up but it could be wors, right? About the new world she'll leave that to Mercade or Sora to speak of what else happend it's not her place to do so.

Sora has posed:

"We unlocked a new place or something. Seems there's a train going to this place called New Orleans now. I think it was stuck inside the recipe?" Sora explains their most recent achievement as he comes with the others, his heyblade held steady in his hand. "I think that's what the witch really wanted. That which was hidding insidethe recipe, not the recipe itself."

"We beat her up, too, and got he recipe back." He rubs the back of his head and has this kind of goofy grin. "It's weird, and I'm tired. If anyone needs me, I'll be at the hotel until at least solidly into tomorrow."

Tifa Lockhart has posed:
Tifa Lockhart left the others to give out the story here. She nods "Well everything seems to be going for the best then?" She wonders "Unlocked? You mean like, the darkness is gone or something?"

Will Sherman has posed:
"I...guess? As it....it wasn't there before, and was there then." Will says,

"Apparently, the recipe had a shard like thing on it. And His keyblade unlocked it. Also, because of all that...I can detect these shards now. Or maybe I always could? Who knows...but I think we might be able to restore some of the lost worlds this way."

Avira has posed:
"I dunno!" Avira says to Deirdra, "Maybe he's from a world with super advanced technology that has computer programs in the real world." She still seems so very excited about all of this. Clearly she's riding some kind of high from the adrenaline of the fight.

Sora's words are pretty surprising. "Is that why the recipe did that weirdness earlier? Hmmmmmm." Well, one more place to map, right? "But that's so weird, how can a shard of a world hide in something so small...?"

Mercade Alexander has posed:
Mercade listens intently to the commentary, and he blinks. "A program from a computer? That's crazy! That's... Well, I guess I can just throw out 'impossible' now." He sighs, and hands over the recipe to the shocked and dazed McDuck, who totally promises the checks will be in the mail.

MErcade will /find/ this duck if he welches on this thing, man. He will /find/ the Duck. He turn turns to Sara. "Yeah, like Sora said, it seems like the Recipe had something hiding in it. When Sora used his keyblade on the recipe, it released thie crystal thing, which exploded, and a new train track opened up to another place. That was weird... But that Keyblade looks like it's really useful."

He looks over to Avira, and nods. "That sounded awesome! But wait, quickening? Like Highlander? Man, did you cut a program's head off?" Mercade pauses. "Do programs have heads?"

Deidra has posed:
Deidra says "New Oreleans?" She seems to know it from her reaction. "I wonder if it's part of my world or from one like it." She looks back to Sora for a moment tilting her head. "It seems that key does unlock things after all, I think a city counts as very good treasure myself."

Mercade gets her attention again "I have no idea..."

Sarafina Carenze has posed:
Sarafina doesn't even get a check. She'll be lucky to get free ice cream, she imagines. She does pause, however, looking towards Deidra who is--also winged, just like her. She doesn't bring it up now, of course, it would be a bit impertinent--

--but there are others like her? Did that mad doctor do this to her too? She doesn't seem to be a troublemaker.

"A shard--and the keyblade..." Sarafina frowns. "...If he can restore worlds, no wonder the Heartless are after him." She shakes her head. "Mercade, you should take Sora to your hideout. I think it is about time I see it for myself as well. Leaving him here--while he is weakened--more Heartless will likely come for him and his keyblade. The way it hurts Heartless--I haven't seen anything like it."

Yes the computer stuff is pretty crazy. Makes more sense to Sarafina than the duck though. "This one did."

Will Sherman has posed:
Will looks at Sarafina for a long long time.

Like. Right at her. It's a bit uncomfortable for a moment, before he finally blinks and shrugs.

"I punched that duck in the eye. Twice." he says, grinning. "So yeah, so now we can like...restore worlds maybe? I don't know."

Then Sarafina and other people say a lot of words that make sense.

"Well, Riku wants to probably see him too, so if like...he hangs with us for a bit we can probably get them back together."

Tifa Lockhart has posed:
Tifa Lockhart stands up slowly, putting hands on her knees to lift herself up, quite tiredly it seems "Well that'd be good if we can do that. But let's hope not all of then are tied to crazy witches, huge monsters, and tracking stolen pieces of things into various cities.

Mercade Alexander has posed:
"Well, everyone looks tired as hell. Let's go get some pizza, and then we can go relax back at the office. It's not far from here." Mercade smiles. "Victory pizza is the best kind, right?"

Sarafina Carenze has posed:
Sarafina Carenze glances at Will. Sarafina doesn't seem uncomfortable by it. He's clearly an orphan child and as such probably a bit messed up in the head, untrusting of adults. She's seen it before. But he looks old enough to be a man by Baronian standards now and he seems to be fighting, like a man should. She approaches Will and pats him in the shoulder in a motherly way, smiling at him.

"Well done." She says. "Very sensible."

she turns a bit to look at Mercade, nodding to him for a few moments. "A solid plan, sir." This exposes her wings to Will for a moment and--

THE EYES GLOWER HATEFULLY AT THE MANCHILD, THEY WISH TO EAT HIM, THE EYES, SO THAT THEY TOO CAN SEE WHAT HE SEES, THEY WISH TO DEVOUR HER TOO, AND THEY WILL, NO SOUL CAN LAST FOREVER

"What is this pizza?" Sarafina asks.

Mercade Alexander has posed:
Mercade Alexander, totally not noticing that the wings are being all Satanic at Will (because Mercade doesn't do the magic thing, he's just a detective, dammit), replies, "You've never had pizza? It's sort of like bread with sauce, cheese, meats, and vegetables on it. It's pretty good!"

Tifa Lockhart has posed:
Tifa Lockhart slides a hand back, tossing her hair backwards, making them look as good as they can... but she's going to need a shower, or an extremely long soak in a bath tonight, that's for sure. She's just glad for a job well done by everyone at least "I'm all for pizza. But stay off the anchovies."

Will Sherman has posed:
Will is not put off by the touch, Sarafina seems nice enough, and he's grown used to being treated like a kid. He just grins at her, "Oh yeah. I can be sensable sometimes."
Will stares at the eyes.

Right at them. Will isn't afraid, unlike someone who would be for being seventeen years old, he holds up a hand...almost instinctually...the aura around it turns red...revealing something...a broken landscape...a destroyed world...in short, the essence of ragnarok for but a brief instance to those eyes.

And then turns towards Mercade.

"It's basicly the second best thing ever." he says, with a nod.

Mercade Alexander has posed:
"Relax, people." Mercade holds out his hands. "We can get /more than one pizza/." He pauses, looking over to Will. "What's the best thing?"

Sarafina Carenze has posed:
The eyes are mollified by the vision of a dead world and the rage abates.

What a nice kid, SArafina thinks. SHe's not the sort of person who argues over pizza, though she isn't the sort of person who knows what pizza is until Mercade informs her.

"Mm--well, it is not a dish in my native land." She says, and then suddenly louder, as if in challenge, "I will try this pizza!" She punches her palm and picks up her ridiculous chainsaw and slings it over her shoulder with one arm. "To the office! CElebration is in order." Nobody died, always a good reason to have this pizza.

Ramen is too much for her to consider right now.

Tifa Lockhart has posed:
Tifa Lockhart hms "Ramen huh, I'm more into pizza right now. Without anchovies." She gives a polite glare to Will's outburst at that, but then smiles allc harmingly. You can almost see the halo even.

Will Sherman has posed:
Will returns the playful glare towards Tifa.

"You are to angelic what Mercade is to rich, lady." he says, with a grin.

Sarafina Carenze has posed:
"Detectives are wealthy?" Sarafina asks, still stumbling over that word from time to time. She really could be a gargoyle! She's not, though.

Deidra has posed:
Deidra looks over at Serafina for a moment pausing at her wings and wonders for a moment about her. She looks more human than Gargyole to be sure well save for the wings. Whoever this winged human is she seems all right. "Hey Will? Mercade do you know a good place for me to sleep I'm hurt and need to rest soon..." She looks at Sarafina and smiles a bit "Nice wings, able to fly or just glyde with them?"

Will Sherman has posed:
"We're going back to Manhattan, Deidra." Will says to her, and looks over at Sarafina. He just grins at her, "You're right. Mercade, I am sorry for calling you poor." BAM!