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It was strange. The clarity provided by the blood loss, by the adrenaline, it was… A lot for Marshall to take in, as she steadied herself. Her skull pounded from a lack of fluids; her limbs ached as she willed herself to stay standing, and the massive portions of missing or damaged intestines couldn’t have helped either. And yet, despite everything, she saw the world as clear as ever. Even as her vision hazed, even as her grip on the lance sagged, she remained standing, eyes locked on her opponent, as Abby spoke. In truth, Marshall couldn’t help but oblige Abby; even if she wanted to take the next hit, the target had already been selected. Which made now the perfect time to move. The lance faded from her hands in an instant as their enemy finished its wind-up; and she broke out into a sprint towards it. Her vision blurred into a haze with each labored sprint; each step sending a shockwave of pain through her body as the two abdominal wounds threatened to leak further with each step-- But she kept moving. Even as her balance flickered for an instant, her hearing dimming to fill only with the pounding of her heart-- She kept steady in her sprint. The lance had kept her grounded, but… She couldn’t let it slow her down. She needed to move fast-- And move now. The distance was simultaneously longer than she could have ever expected, and shorter than she thought it would be. Like a blur across the field, she shot forwards with a single-minded goal, and brought both hands to her right side as she closed her eyes; the distance was crossed in a moment, with the armor still recoiling from the throw of the lance in her vision as she opened her eyes. The lance appeared in her hands at just the last moment, and in an instant, she felt the last of the supernatural strength that accompanied an art leave her. It plunged into the armor’s chest with less impact than before, but still enough to stagger the armor; as well as her. Marshall’s grip tightened on the lance as she came to a sudden stop as well; the wind knocked out of her as she struggled still to smile, staring up into the helm of the knight. Her mind slowed for that moment, adrenaline fading as the pain began to catch up to her; just in time for the fist of the armor to do so as well, slamming into the crater the lance had formed previously. An unpleasant squelching accompanied it (and whether that had come from her or the Armor, she couldn’t say) as her grip tightened involuntarily on the lance; lightning surging through her body as every muscle seized. She could hardly feel anything anymore. She used what strength she could muster to slam the lance further in, her legs growing weaker as the lance edged slightly further into the liquid form of the knight; water beginning to spill out all around the lance’s widening base even as she pushed the lance further in. “...Let’s just hope…” she’d smile, as she watched the lance raise its other hand; lightning sparking across its knuckles as it tightened it into a fist, and she closed her eyes. “...They make sure this is only your final stop,” she muttered, throwing her full weight onto the lance, thrashing it around inside of the knight, as--- Everything went dark.

It was a blur, in more ways than one. Marv heard the howling wind, felt it…it was intense, like he was experiencing a massive tornado or even a hurricane. It came out of nowhere but practically ravaged them all like a wild animal, feral and bloodthirsty. To say Marv's heart was beating miles a minute was an understatement…he honestly felt like he was going to collapse from a heart-attack. Everything else was fuzzy, as his vision played tricks on him…or did it? He could've swore he saw a portal open and…a Pokémon of some sort…and a human? He reached out for it, didn't he? Cause that was -----...he did want to at least make sure that ----- was alright... But was that what he was doing? Then…it all went black for Marv. The wind was the thing that caused Marv to stir, though it was a calm awakening versus the monstrous beast that whisked them from their previous location. No, this seemed more like a parent's tender touch to wake their child. It was something Marv did not mind, as he stirred himself awake. The surroundings seemed more colorful than the stone dungeon that had been their first awakening experience. The hot sun, the soft grass, the cool breeze, a blue sky and a few palm trees stretching above them. It was a beautiful picture that lay before them, at least, from what Marv could see. There wasn't any urban noise, which meant civilization wasn't around much…which was both a plus and a negative. The plus being, it was more peaceful and quiet. The negative being, they didn't know how far civilization was…and they needed that at least, especially if they wanted food. Marv finally began to sit up, no longer wishing to stare up at the blue sky, as he rubbed a hand over his face. He paused, looking at his hand. It was a white hand with blue…that…was right, right? He shuffled himself upward and began to hop…wait…hop? Regardless, he hopped until he found himself a small spot where water was. Looking down, he saw his reflection: a Froakie. He recognized the Kalosian starter, but was he always a-... His eyes went blank, his thoughts began to mist over. It was like he went into a sort of trance-like state. It lasted a bit before finally snapping out of it, though Marv then ended up wondering just one thing. …what…was I just thinking about? Once he got himself situated, he noticed Hector, Es and the aptly named Clobber (he at least remembered the little brawling octopus requested to be named that) looking at a… "Wait…is that…?" Marv muttered, tilting his head, looking at the white and yellow Pokémon. There wasn't any mistake. Once again, he hopped in the direction of the others, trying to make sense of the strange thing. “Hello? Are you awake? Did you bring us here?” “If so! Watch it, b-b-b-buddy! Unlike some of my friends here, I’ve got a br-brain, and can only t-t-t-take so many blows to the noggin!" "Oh yeah? Really coulda fooled me. Surprised you don't think they're dead, too." "Seemed like a bit of an insult…but maybe was meant as a compliment?" Marv shrugged. He looked at the three, before looking at the sleeping Pokémon. "And I'm not sure this little guy did it…unless they wished us out." The Froakie looked at the others, before explaining. "...they did a whole Poll back on the forum. Was a popularity contest…I think…but this little guy popped up. It's Jirachi. Soooo the odds of meeting a Mythical are…kinda high." He glanced at Clobber, seeing his face basically still covered in dirt. "By the way…yooooou want me to clean you up? Got something…right about here…" Marv motioned with his hand over his whole face, showing Clobber where the dirt happened to be.

Alois had done one of the few things he did very well. Stare dumbfounded for a brief moment, both as both Citron and Edrick had partook in self defenestration and that Gaston seemed to be far more competent at fighting then he did speaking. He supposed that everyone had to compensate for their incompetence somewhere else he just wished it was in less combat oriented endeavors. All the same, this dumbfoundedness lasted for only a few moments as the situation was most certainly not under control, least of all as knives seemed to fly out towards Link, and he had opted to be a little stupid himself. Paying no heed to the dangers of jumping out a third story window nor any of the group's poor prior experiences with such things, he leaped out of the third story window on the roof of the floor below. Alois paused, again, locking eyes with the assailant that had attacked Link moments ago. "Really?" The boy couldn't help but voice his thoughts seeing the otherwise innocuous maid who, as it turned out, seemed to be something of a trained killer. Before Alois could say anything more about this the woman, in quite the acrobatic feat, had leaped from the roof to the floor down below. Letting out a sigh the boy said, "of course, why wouldn't she be able to do that. Can't just be good at cooking and cleaning no." Alois had never seen the maid before, so for all he knew she was actually terrible at maid duties and was compensating with assassin skills. Shaking his head, the boy then ran over to the edge of the roof, looking down to see that the window that the woman had jump into was already closed. "Tsk." Clicking his tongue at the woman's exceptional speed, while he would've been inclined to go help everyone else he thought a knife tossing maid was something of a hazard to everyone involved. Drawing his axe - pausing for a bit as he heard an unfamiliar yell that belonged to a familiar voice, and seeing a wyvern on the ground when he was pretty sure it was charging when last he looked - Alois decided that his life of crime in this town was phar from over. Bringing the axe down, Alois committed an increasingly familiar act of breaking to then do the usual follow up of entering, clumsily going from the roof through the window below into the room. When he looked up, he saw that there was no maid to be seen. In fact, "oh, for the love of- " The sound of cooing that seemed to be more akin to screeching, followed by wings flapping and the chaos of feathers surrounding the boy. "Who has this many birds?!" Tsetseg had continued following along the members of the militia, feeling a sense of restlessness as she wanted to be sure that they were able to bring the bad man that would push people into a hole were brought to justice. Eventually, though, it had seemed the wait had finally come to an end. While Phai was currently not with them, based on nothing at all Tsetseg had every bit of confidence that the Phar Patrol girl would be able to catch up with them. While both Cora and Acantha had horses they were getting on, Tsetseg was getting ready to take off into a full blown sprint - she thought herself quick on her feet at least. However, at the idea of being able to get a ride on a horse was brought up, both due to a mixture of common sense and the thrill of being on horseback brought Tsetseg to believe that that was the much better idea. "Yeah, yeah! Let's go catch that bad guy!" Tsetseg scrambled onto Cora's horse, a determined look on her face that seemed to be slightly mismatched with the excitement in her voice.

“Ah, there’s that light failure again,” Brian said into his phone. He was glad he kept the flashlight on so he didn’t have to fumble around in the dark. “But I’m still here. I’m alive.” He scanned the area again with the light taking note of his surroundings. Yeah, it was still the same room he was just in, no mystic fakery there. There were urinals and a sink and a - “Jesus Christ.” Where the toilet had been was a ghost. It was the kind of ghost with wet hair that covered her face and stretched all the way to the ground where it mangled together into a heap. It was a sorry wretch of a ghost, all things considered, Brian thought. Still, its sudden appearance had given him a little jump, “I’m not going to say I didn’t believe you before, Carmen, but I found the ghost,” he said. To the ghost, but still with the phone listening in, he said, “Excuse me, can I just…” He extended his arm out with one of the seals in hand and kept going forward, ignoring the nagging feeling in the back of his mind that whatever it was it really ought not to be. If the ghost disappeared again, he’d just stick the seal on the toilet. If it stayed dormant, he’d stick it on its forehead and figure out something from there. He didn’t actually know how the seals were supposed to work. The ghost, though, did neither of those things. It grabbed Brian’s arm with a speed he wasn’t ready for, and its hand was clammy to the touch. “Excuse me, that’s-” Brian grunted. He tried to push forward, just, like, slide down the grip so he could stick the seal on something, but the ghost’s grip was firm enough there to make it kind of a struggle. And it had one free hand too, but it didn’t try to grab Brian with that one. Instead, it reached up to its head area and parted its hair, revealing itself to not only not have a face, but had a void instead of a face, a gaping hole that was impossibly deep for its place in the ghost’s body. It was directing the seal -- and Brian’s arm -- towards that. “Nope. Nope nope nope. No thanks,” Brian said. He yanked his arm back, but it took a few tries before he could get his wrist free. For the second time that night, Brian found himself sprinting for the bathroom door. He spotted Carmen as he came out, hung up the phone, and ran back over. “Okay, new plan. Let’s go back to the van and, uh, see what other stuff Shiki might have left for us.”

It was an ominous and foreboding feeling...the feeling of being watched. He had experienced in his life, sure...especially during his adventures within the Ever, those Undecided always did have a funny way of just appearing out of nowhere. Nevertheless, he kept a vigilant eye on his surroundings for the time being as he made his way to the Arena. However, once he arrived there, he would simply be met with a holographic sign... ARENA TEMPORARILY CLOSED FOR EMERGENCY MAINTENANCE "Hmmm, well that's troublesome..." Trevor sighed, seeing the grimoire rising up next to him. "Our third trip to this location and suddenly it's needing maintenance." Quite a mystery. Mayhaps what miss Nabudis said about Mauvache just simply knowing may be the case? "It's a thought...but one that we don't know for sure." he shrugged slightly, preparing to turn immediately on his heel, but he froze. Something caught his eye, something glistening in the sunlight. It was a rainstorm...of...knives. "What in the...?" Trevor clicked his tongue slightly, immediately casting Aerora as a quick wind swept around him and immediately defended him against quite a few of the knives. "And here I was afraid to not get a workout in." he muttered, immediately backing away from his original standing spot. Unfortunately, more knives continued to fall...more accurately, directly at him. Trevor began to grit his teeth somewhat, before having an idea. "Well...I had been wanting to test this one out specifically...MAGNET!" He shouted and threw his hand to the side as a small set of constantly rotating orbs of magic appeared directly to his right and with it, the knives began to gravitate direction towards it. "Perfect! It works like a charm...now, if I were the source of this knife-storm...where would I be?" Trevor began to immediately survey his surroundings. At first he didn't see anything, then he would hear something above. If he looked, which he obviously did, there would be a woman dropping down towards him from the sky. She seemed to be jumping from small round objects that appear right before she landed on them. Each time she landed she'd kick off, they'd break, and she'd land on another a bit further down. The young sorcerer raised an eyebrow, seeing this woman approaching him in quite the flashy display. It was obvious she was a potential user of magic, so this would be interesting. "Impressive trick you've displayed..." Trevor spoke, still staying on the defensive. "I suppose an introduction is in order...miss...?" "Oh, don't you know me? No why would you, we've never met. Isn't that funny? Because for some reason." She jumped from the next disk, vaulting overhead and twirling. "Looking at you makes me kind of upset, like you did something really, really, mean to me in a past life." Before landing a few more knives suddenly appeared in front of her and were shot towards Trevor. "Magnet!" Trevor cast the spell right in the area between him and this mystery woman, attempting to halt the knives. "Perhaps a case of mistaken identity?" he asked, walking away from the Magnet area to look at the woman. "Nevertheless, I suppose I'll introduce myself then. Trevor Masters, apprentice to Balthazar B-..." "Lacie! That's my name! Almost forgot it! But I don't remember the last name right now, maybe it's time to change it again." She tapped a finger to her chin. "Hm. What was I doing...Oh!" More knives, quite charming. Trevor frowned at being interrupted like that, but the name was now out there: Lacie. Unfortunately, it didn't exactly ring a bell... "Well, miss Lacie, whatever you believe me to have done, I can assure you I haven't." he said, nonchalantly firing off a Fira spell to stop the next wave of knives. "Oh, I know. I'm already past that part. I'm just greeting you. What's the saying...'knives to meet you'!" She then began to cackle. "Charming." Trevor sighed. "With the knives present like this, my dear, I feel like you may be trying to end my life. This seems all so sudden...I hardly know you." he said with a sly smirk, as he tipped his hat. "You could at least buy me a drink first." "Well I WAS trying to, but now I'm not! Oh, I've got tea!" She then is holding a cup, and a teapot, and began to pour some liquid into the cup. What even was she? Trevor had to ponder this. Never before, at least not in his recollection, had he ever met a woman of this caliber to the point where she seemed...almost absent minded. Ditzy even, but then again, it was rude to even make such a judgment call on that. "Well then." he said, remaining defensive, but was somewhat more relaxed about the situation. "So pray tell, my dear, why attempt to attack me...meet me...whatever you wish to call this?" "I told you didn't I? I wasn't lying, I'm a lot of things but not a liar!" She takes a sip of the tea, then seemed to remember something. "Oh yeah you wanted some didn't you?" She offered the cup. "I still feel kind of mad when I look at you, but the best people are a little mad I always say." Trevor snapped his fingers and had the cup float his direction, taking it in his hand. "My apologies, never once intended to insinuate you as a 'liar'. But perhaps, like I mentioned earlier, it's a case of mistaken identity. I seem to resemble someone you've met, perhaps" "Nope! I remember all the faces I've seen, especially mine!" She held up a mirror and gasped, "wait, I'm gorgeous!" Trevor blinked a few times, seeing the Cabanomicon rising up once more and writing the following for him to see: Seems you attract all the loons, Masters. He sighed and closed the book. "Thank you for your riveting insight, my leatherbound friend. Not exactly helping." he muttered.