A Glimpse (Open)

[shiningdrake]

Drake felt the full force of Shouki's blow. "Ouch!" came the cry from both Drake and the demon. That was definitely going to leave a mark. Drake thought the battle was pretty much over, and it was, but the demon had one last surprise in store.

Drake felt himself rising into the air. He knew what was about to happen! The demon had regained complete control somehow, and was about to do something very, very bad.

The demon stopped rising, and began casting a spell, with insane focus. He would not be distracted, and would not be stopped! The words came: "Feel the despair of dying worlds, and know evil beyond chaos! Darkness shall consume everything... Obliteration Fear!!!"


The final words rang out ominously, and a crimson light released from the demon, in a twisted version of Drake's Aura spell. It was insane, the radius was almost ten meters! Then, that gathered into a glyph in front of him, glowing blood red. "Drown in darkness!" An insanely large beam of darkness shot towards Shouki. It was impossible to avoid. Drake saw earth flying up into the air from the force of the attack.

Then the demon was gone, as the attack faded. Drake felt himself falling, falling into darkness... When he woke up, he was still in complete darkness. Shouki was there with him too. Drake had no injuries. "Where are we?" he wondered aloud.

He heard a voice. The evil, hollow voice of the demon. "A nightmare. One you won't wake up from so easily." There was a flash of crimson light, and standing in front of them was the demon. It looked like Drake, except for the previously mentioned differences, and now it was wearing black. Still Drake's clothes, but they looked black.

"In order to escape from this, you must defeat me in combat. However, if you lose, you die, permanently this time, along with Shouki, and all worlds will end. So, feel up to the challenge?"

The demon was glowing with crimson power. Drake looked at it in horror, before drawing his own swords. "Very well then. En garde!" And Drake charged at the demon. He stabbed with his shortsword, while his longsword attempted to smash through the demon. The stab hit the demon's left arm, while the swing was blocked by the demon's own longsword.

Drake jumped back. The stab had done absolutely no visible damage. Not that he had expected it to... He heard the demon's hollow sounding laughter ring through the endless darkness. "Is that all you have?" The demon disappeared... No, not quite. Drake felt a powerful blow on his life energy. He turned around, and saw the demon. He was slightly crouched down, and had his arms both out to the side, holding his swords. The demon laughed "Submit to the end quietly!"

[Genshuku]

Shouki's last thoughts before the spell was cast: Oh shi--(Her eye also got an O shi-- look too, like that's important)

And there they were, in what seemed to be Drake's mind, soul, or just in a dream sequence where they both happened to be for some reason. Well, that was bizarre. But, she better win this new fight.

"Probably in a dream. I can tell because that's what your evil clone is thinking....gah, it's a good thing there's more than just him here. If I were--oh now is not the time to talk like that. I am NOT alone."

The demon then appeared and spoke it's first words that weren't directly from Drake.

"Hey, I was right."

...

"Congrats, your right again. I would keep count, but that's rather pointless, considering you can read minds and all."

...What? Did the eye just spe--

"Yes, I did just speak. I blame the fact that we're in a dream. Now stop focusing on me and focus on the main problem."

The demon continued to talk, mentioning how all the worlds would end in his speech. The eye 'spoke' in reply to that.

"Well, it would suck to get a Game Over. So, we have to win this."

Shouki also replied to his challenge (wondering just what the eye meant when it said 'Game' Over):

"Of course we accept, not like you're really giving us a choice in the matter."

And then, Drake charged at the demon, but Shouki knew what it was going to do, teleport. So, she shot a basic line of danmaku at where it was going, just to test if it really was all it was. By the time the demon got there, the shots were right in front of him.

The eye could not help from saying something, to everyone else's confusion.

"Watch out, it could go EX on you! Don't hit the amu--nevermind."

Up until it said 'nevermind', it sounded rather mocking. Perhaps it was the fact it was comparing the demon to a Stage 1 boss...but who here knew?

(Dood, I've been ditched...)

[shiningdrake]

The demon flinched as the shots hit him. Drake didn't skip a beat, he charged at the monster again, slamming it into the air with his longsword, and then slamming it further with his shortsword in a spinning slash, followed by a deadly slam downward with the longsword, at the same time as a slice upward with the shortsword, making a scissor-like attack.

Drake kicked off of the falling demon, accelerating its momentum to the (invisible) ground. He landed on one knee, and he pushed himself off of the ground while turning to look at the demon at the same time. The demon was on the ground, groaning. Drake then thought It can't be this easy... before facepalming. Whenever he thought that, he turned out to be right.

There was a flash of light. Well, not quite... Almost like a flash of darkness, is what it seemed like, despite the fact that their surroundings were nothing but solid black void. It was an eerie shade of purple. When that light had faded, Drake saw... "Alicia?!"

No, not quite. Alicia had glowing white wings, this had wings with feathers that formed an eerie pattern of dark purple, almost black, feathers, and blood red feathers. Also, this creature had blood red eyes, not Alicia's blue ones. It looked the same otherwise though. It had Alicia's golden hair, with some lighter and some darker strands, which somehow made it look more golden than any single color could.

She wore a dress like Alicia's as well. A white, long-sleeved shirt, which was tight around the wrists, but slightly further out from the rest of the sleeve right below that tighter part. Over that, a sleeveless shirt, which was black, but had darker black lines across it diagonally, making it look like it was made of squares of fabric almost. And then a dark green skirt, with a dark red fringe.

This "Dark Alicia" was floating high up in the air, wings outstretched. Then, she looked at Drake, and said in a voice that could almost be called seductive, but definitely sounded evil as well "No, of course it's not that easy. Now, you shall both die... Starting with her!" She drew her sword and made a swooping dive towards Shouki, far faster than the eye could see. The sword she wielded had a very thin, blood red blade, with an intricate golden handguard on the black hilt, which also had a golden pommel.

The attack that Shouki suffered with no chance to dodge was truly blindingly fast. Shouki would barely have time to register the pain of the first cut from the attack before she suffered the ten-thousandth cut. Basically, even though the attack had begun with a dive, it continued with the dark angel flashing in a merciless flurry of blades around Shouki, that was so much faster than anything natural would ever have been able to move at, much less control.

Each cut did pretty much no damage, but there was no doubt Shouki would feel almost ready to collapse after this. Fortunately, the attacks were hardly normal, they didn't actually seem to do the damage a normal sword probably would, but Shouki would still be bleeding slightly, feeling the pain from each cut, and feel unable to move with her life energy brought down to almost nothing.

The dark angel stopped attacking, and then flashed again, in a double-image speed charge towards, and through Drake. Obviously, she was mostly showing off with this, she easily could have done the same thing while just appearing to have teleported, and the power of it made Drake stagger down on one knee. Of course, the power of the attack from Drake's mirror image, which came next was staggering. It was off of the ground at this point. It leaped towards Drake, slamming down with its longsword, and then unleashing a blinding (but visible) flurry of blows.

[Genshuku]

The eye spoke about this new situation.

"It seems as though the dark sides of people are coming out of nowhere with enhanced powers. Good thing this is a dre--"

It was cut off by so much slices that it was utterly ridiculous. Completely and utterly ridiculous. And on that, it spoke again.

"Holy crap, I'm lucky I don't have a nervous system. But....oh boy, the strings connecting me and her..."

It seems some of them were severed right off. Even worse, that was the least of her problems right now, as she was reduced to rags with that attack.

"Ahhh......Ow...That actually hurt. That's just insane. Just...insane...like a dream. But, it's one I have no control of...but, it's either fight or die. But..."

She went to Drake, knowing that bothering to attack something that fast was simply a waste of time, and then spoke again.

"This IS your dream, right? Don't people have control over their own dreams?"

The eye spoke as well.

"You know, with how much power they have, at our CURRENT state, we would be stuck in a Hopeless Boss Battle. But there's a trick to this one, I can tell...and it could be what she just said. I wouldn't know, I'm just a floating eyeball."

Needless to say, if they didn't find a trick to this, they were screwed.

[shiningdrake]

Drake fell to his knees under the relentless attack. He couldn't... fight... He tried to get up, but couldn't move, too exhausted with his life force being taken out. He felt himself fading. Is this the end...? He wondered. He heard both the evil mirror images saying, in a combination of the two voices that was incredibly eerie "Yes. This is the end!"

Drake was about to lose consciousness completely, when he heard Shouki's voice. "My... Dream...?" he repeated back. No, it wasn't precisely a dream. He had no doubt that everything really was over if he died here. However... Maybe...

He focused, searched for power within himself. "Yes!" he cried, and felt his power flow through him. He released his power, and everything turned from darkness to light! Power would now be flowing through Shouki as well. Drake's shortsword shone with white light, and his longsword caught on blue flames. He went into a combat stance, and prepared to face his mirror image in a real battle!

Shouki would have to face the dark angel, but it shouldn't be a problem, she'd likely have comparable abilities to it now. He shouted to Shouki, "Let's go! Let's win this!" before charging at his demonic mirror image, unleashing an incredible flurry of blows. The tables had turned!

[Genshuku]

The eye spoke at this new power up and scenery change.

"Drastic scenery change, followed by drastic power change..."

And then Shouki spoke.

"...That sums everything up quite nicely. The tables have turned, and now both of you are goners."

Her sword glew with a light even brighter than the surroundings, and then it took a white flame, which then surrounded her. And then, she began to use a spell.

It would be a spell card normally, but this IS a dream world. So whatever. She said the name out loud, as that's how spell cards worked.

New Energy "The Absolute"

Her sword then began to glow a shade of white so...white, it's pretty hard to explain. Something that made the light in the area look like black in comparison.

And then the sword got longer. FAR longer. It made Sephiroth's blade pale in comparison. It must have been half a mile long. Or at least a tenth of a mile. It was hard to tell, being so bright.

And then in a flash, the sword was swung at the dark angel, vertically, at a speed that rivaled what she showed before.

That's gotta hurt. If she wasn't obliterated by the first blow, she would follow up with a horizontal slash, leaving the trail of the first to get in the way. And if THAT didn't do the trick, the pattern of horizontal and vertical would continue, making it hard for her to escape.

Her eye commented on this (and somehow, the tears on the strings mended, which it will also comment on):

"O, V, E, R, K, I, L, L, what's that spell? OVERKILL. Oh, and it seems the healing powers of light have mended those strings. But that's nothing important, with the overkill going on."

She replied, possibly in mid slash:

"Agreed."

[shiningdrake]

Drake's mirror image took the abuse for a bit, before fighting back. As Drake struck downwards with his longsword, the demon blocked it with his own, and as his shortsword struck to the side, that was blocked as well.

They stood there, pushing against each other. Drake was pushing down for the most part. Eventually, the demon pushed upwards even harder, sending Drake flying. Drake did a backflip as he flew through the air. Then, he shifted into a dragon. He unleashed a roar, and sent a stream of multi-colored, shimmering light towards the demon, with bits of fire, lightning, ice, rock, crystal shards, flower petals, all kinds of showy stuff surrounding it.

The demon transformed into a dragon as well, with another crimson flash, and let out a roar itself. All of its scales were black, and instead of fading to white on the wings, it was to blood red. Darkness blotted out the light Drake had sent... For half an instant, before it disappeared, and enveloped the dark dragon.

The prismatic light eventually faded away, and Drake saw the demonic dragon glaring at him with insane eyes. It sprang through the air towards him, with a flurry of crimson claws. Drake fought back with his own brightly shining claws.

They fought for a while, seeming pretty evenly matched, Drake matching each flurry of claws and powerful breath with his own. Eventually, he said to it, Time for this to end! before rising further into the air.

This describes what you would observe if you watched this, as it included a bit of illusion as well:

There was a night sky behind Drake, with stars shining brightly, and a full moon. Drake began speaking Eternal light, undying darkness, an everlasting fight that eclipses the truth and cause endless suffering. The moon behind him seemed to shatter, and the stars suddenly had thousands of colors Wishes of the innocent now reach the sky, and darkness disappear! DRAGON STAR!!!!!!!!! Drake unleashed a breath attack of prismatic light like before. This time however, it was soon followed by an azure blue light, beautiful in its own way. Then, all of the stars seemed to turn into spears of light, which flew towards the demon.

Drake roared, and suddenly, there were two Drakes! One was still in dragon form, the other was in human form, with both of his swords out. They both lunged towards the demon, unleashing an incredible flurry of blows, as the spears of starlight pierced the demon and then exploded, making another column of prismatic light rise up, before the other azure light crossed everything in sight, slicing through the prismatic light, and the demon it was obliterating, at the same time both Drakes sliced through it as well, joining together. Everything then became enveloped in that azure light...

This was around the same time Shouki finished unleashing a flashy move of her own. Everything was enveloped in light, of every color all in one, indescribably beautiful, and then they were in the forest again.

They were standing in a small crater, and everything near the edge of that crater was twisted beyond recognition, all the trees looked evil in themselves. Well, maybe not precisely standing, Drake was kneeling on one knee, in human form and then he pushed himself up. "What exactly happened?" he wondered. Was this the effect of the spell the demon had unleashed before that insane "dream"?

[Genshuku]

Shouki also awoke from the dream after the blinding blows, and awakened as before. Her eye was mute once again, and if one looked right through it's thoughts, it looked rather disappointed. Due to eyes being windows to the soul, that was quite possible. Shouki herself looked rather tired.

"That was...interesting. We must have been in some dream world. And all of this...certainly the effects of the spell that was cast."

Something was overhead. Was it...?

So this was Feudal Japan, right?

THEN WHAT THE HECK WAS A MECHA DOING HERE?

It noticed them waking up, and nervously turned from side to side before fleeing. Whether it would get away without being attacked was a whole different deal.

"There was someone in there, assessing damages. Apparently, someone wants all the attention here, from what I read. Even to the point they want to make sure nothing else is causing a fuss but them. That's...odd. Must be one crazy god, trying to fix damages after she said she was going to destroy the world."

[shiningdrake]

"Assessing damages...?" Drake wondered. Nothing truly evil would try to minimize damage. This whole thing might not be as simple as it seemed. Although, perhaps Shouki was right, and whoever was responsible was just totally crazy.

Then, Drake realized that the power he'd had in that dream or whatever it technically was, was no longer there. And yet, Shouki wasn't dead from that huge beam that had caused the big crater. He sighed. Whenever Light or Dark power was involved, things tended to start making much less sense... Oh well.

He then began thinking about what they should do next. He turned to Shouki,"So, Shouki, what do you think we should do next? Should I go look for more allies while you stay near the castle?" Even as he asked, he still wasn't sure about it. Would it really be safe there? After all, if the one in there was totally insane, then it was entirely possible they'd decide to attack her...

[Genshuku]

At what Drake said about Light and Dark powers being involved making things not make sense, the eye blinked knowingly.*

And Shouki responded to him. You know, both his thoughts and words.

"As weird as it may sound, the people that work at the castle have a 'no violence unless absolutely necessary' policy**. So, I should be fine. You can look for more allies if you wish."

*(*blink* Agreed. Not like you can hear me now though.)
**(They would die in DROVES if they didn't have it. Smart, dood.)

((Ew, horrible post by me. I don't have much, but it is the near-topic-closing phase, so yeah.))

[shiningdrake]

Drake was still unsure. He knew he shouldn't be, Shouki no doubt really did know what she was talking about. He said to her "Alright then... Well, see you later." and began slowly and unsurely walking out of the forest.

He still couldn't help that little nagging doubt that he knew was unreasonable, but he did tend to worry too much sometimes... He stopped for a moment, shook his head, and sighed, before continuing. He had seen a village earlier, he'd stop by there to look for people, and hope that someone wanted to help in this...

[Genshuku]

(So, what happened to the thread in which they are already IN the castle? If you want to join in, they would have to be near the gate and Drake will not be in it.

However, then I need to know if this is taking place before, after, or during To The Castle, where something is happening in their path of travel to the gates, and a reason for them going to the gates in the first place would have to be found.)

(GONG is an awesome song.)

[Genshuku]

(If you want to use this thread, Shouki's waiting at the castle gates for Drake to arrive. Otherwise, you should either continue your own thread, or edit the post slightly.)

(And then delete the OOC posts. It's cluttering up the thread.)