Infinite Justice: Beyond (Marvel,DC,DBZ X/Over, IC, Open)

[Charmera]

DeeDee
The Devil's Den

Chorus' eyes widened, but then she realised who it was and raised an eyebrow in her direction. Her first instict was to reach for Verse and cut her head off. But she sighed and rolled her eyes. She grabbed a new napkin, wiping saliva from her cheek and then she grabbed another napkin to write on.

Haven't got voice back yet. And so far he's an acquaintance.
Managed to find one of the bastards, but the trail went cold after that...

You actually might be able to help. You might know someone called Janice. Tall, atheletic, red hair. She's quiet intense and moody, and prone to outbursts of rage?

"No voice back yet huh? Bummer. And two things I can tell you about Janice, if the hair was pink you'd be describing CeeCee to a Tee. Secondly, whoever she is I should get her in my bed. Hmm, maybe I already did, Yesterday it was Dana, the day before Joanne, then there was Zoë, Joanne again, Cindy, Amber, Joanne, ... Am I dating Joanne without realizing it?" The listing of names continued for a bit until DeeDee snapped out of it because of the fumbling and shy behavior of Chorus's acquaintance, as she put it. DeeDee couldn't help but starting to laugh hysterically at how he was acting and talking.

"I...I...I'm Ranger or, August Carter." I told DeeDee.
I then hastily grabbed my helmet and shoveled it onto my head to hide my shame before speaking again.
"Anyways DeeDee, I am sorry for talking to your Girlfriend like that. I did not mean to...mean to..." My voice trailed off as I placed my arms across my chest, as if to place a barricade between us.
"Anyways, I need to get going. People need me to save them and all. If you want...the two of you can come along. I have a feeling we can find something to do in Gotham..."

After a little wile the laughing dimmed down enough for a response to be possible. "You are the cutest, shy guy I've met in a wile, your reaction, it's like you're a kid just starting puberty trying to talk to a girl for the first time. It's so adorable that if I liked guys I might've given you a free pass with me." The giggling kept going between sentences, it was just to amusing to her, this was fun, talking instead of randomly blowing stuff up, there wasn't much time for that when being hunted after all. "And relax soldier boy, me and Chorus aren't a thing, I mean, I'd sleep with her in a heartbeat, and it would be a night to remember, or any other time of the day to remember really." DeeDee stopped talking just long enough to give a wink at Chorus and then went straight back to the conversation.

"If you want to have a shot at her give it your best I won't stop you, I'll even help you a bit." DeeDee looked back over to the barkeep "Hey Gary, when this guy orders something with alcohol for the next 3 hours it's on the house, anything without alcohol, he still has to pay. Also send one of the waiters to the security room to check if there's someone in the club with the description on this napkin." "Sure thing boss". DeeDee returned her attention to Chorus and August. "Two birds one stone, if that chick you're looking for is here then we'll find her, and in the meantime, feel free to keep awkwardly hitting on each other."

DeeDee chose to ignore August's response abut going in to Gotham, hoping he would realize there was no reason for him to leave, especially now that there was someone checking for this person Chorus was looking for.

Chorus nodded. And began writing again.

Thank you DeeDee. You have no idea how much this means to me.
I'll repay the debt at a later date. Maybe see if I can get a demo tape from you into some music exc's I know.

And while she wasn't all too interested in sleeping with DeeDee, a voice sighed mournfully from within the blade, unheard by the other two. "Days like this I wish I had a body" Spoke a female voice inside Chorus' head.

We all have those moments Amy.

I don't

Shut up Jack.

Ignoring the voices in her head, she began writing once more, having passed a napkin to DeeDee. She wrote and then passed it to August.

I wouldn't mind staying for a little while longer. If you want to fight crime I'll tag along. Though we could always fight someone here or something.

[Charmera]

---

---

The wizard merely watched with apathy as the twin torrents of fire from Samantha's hands raced towards him, and then, with a distinct lack of passion, raised his own hands to intercept the flames, with them stopping just before touching him and swirling around, forming into bigger and bigger concentrations of fire until eventually, two large fireballs had formed in front of the wizard's hands. Then, with a simple, effortless flick of his wrists, he sent them hurtling towards the little werewolf that had taken up a position in front of her sisters to protect them from him.

"Eat me?" The wizard said with a curious voice. "If you wanted to eat me, why didn't you say so? You would have saved me so much effort."

Before the wizard's attack could actually harm Hanah, though, Sarah quickly stepped forward. She knew that her sister could take it, as she was by far the strongest of the three, but even then she felt compelled to protect her and Samantha however much she could. Acting quickly, almost on pure instinct, she used the shadows around her, bending them and giving them form in order to raise a barrier in front of her. The fireballs crashed against them helplessly, and though they managed to shatter the shadow wall, the flames never even got close to her sisters, much to her relief.

But then, she turned her gaze to look at the wizard, staring at him fiercely at first, defiance in her eyes. But that fire was quickly smothered as she gazed into those large, glowing, piercing amber eyes, those two emotionless yellow pits of chaos. She bit her lip and looked away, feeling ashamed of herself, and also fearful. She hated to admit it, but she was afraid, afraid of that man's power, afraid of how he seemed to defy even death as he chased after them, afraid of one day being unable to stop him, afraid of whatever he would do to them when he finally got his claws on her and her sisters. She was not as courageous as her little sister, that was for sure. In a way, Sarah envied her little sister. Hanah didn't have the same gifts, but she was always so strong and brave, and that courage was something she wished she could have, but sadly lacked.

Suddenly, a powerful gust swatted her aside, sending her crashing into a nearby wall. Sarah yelped in pain as she lay on the ground, her beautiful face twisted into a portrait of suffering, as even this abuse proved very painful when inflicted upon her fragile body.

"My dear, you should have learned by now that you cannot take your eyes off your enemy if you want to survive. I would have thought that after so many encounters with yours truly, you would have learned that lesson very well. It is quite a shame to have to hurt that beautiful face, after all." The wizard said with the same mocking voice as always, before turning to face Hanah and Samantha, twin pits of chaos glaring without passion, the rest of his visage obscured by his hat, a large pointy hat that would have undoubtedly been laughed at in any other circumstances. "This could all be so simple if you stopped resisting me, children, and yet you refuse. I cannot accept that." He stated, waving his hand forward. Rows of frozen spikes burst forth from the ground, headed straight towards the two sisters.

Quickly, Hanah pushed Sam out of the way, making sure she would be safe from the spikes, and then she pounced on her opponent. Hanah met the wizards gaze, sending the universal message that she was no longer playing around. The hurting of one of her sisters was something she couldn't accept. No one touched Sarah or Sam while she was around. No one. She would shred anyone who did it to ribbons, and eat what was left. This wasn't the kind of family you fucked with lightly. Not when it had someone with teeth that could tear through metal easier than tearing through paper.

When she landed, she began her onslaught of bestial rage. It was less bravery and more a void of fear that let her attack the man so. Fear was for prey. Prey was what this man would become if he didn't stop following them. To empahsise this point, she grabbed with both her claws and snapped with her jaws in a motion that would take out the entire torso of a regular human. Though if Hanah was thinking strait she might consider that this was no ordinary human.

---

The beast shrieked in pain as the great ball of fox fire struck it in a wing, momentarily destabilizing it. Clearly, it had caused some damage, but not enough to cause it to lose the ability to fly. A few more shots would likely do the trick, and many more could likely put down the beast for good, but it would take a while, definitely far longer than other means. It was a risky thing to attempt.

However, the giant bat did not give Garnet and Masami much opportunity to ponder these possibilities, as it descended towards them in a blind rage. It certainly did not seem sentient, only very powerful, which was hardly something that made Garnet feel relieved. Diving aside, the blonde woman took the unnamed sword and slashed at the giant monstruous bat as she rolled away from its attack, causing it a great deal of pain and even drawing black blood from the monster.

When she stood back up, she saw it, at the far end of the large platform they were fighting on, resting at the foot of one of the many pillars that surrounded the circular platform: a bloodstained pedestal, bearing an object that she couldn't quite distinguish from here. She had to reach it, she knew that much. However, looking towards the monster, she noticed that it was now very much pissed at her, so that was a problem.

That was when she had the idea.

"Masami, I'll give you your distraction! If you can reach it and cut it down, great! If not, then at least pelt it with fire, maybe it'll lose one of its wings!" She shouted hastily, before darting for the pedestal, turning to shoot at the beast now and then. The beast was quickly gaining on her, however, and it was only a matter of time before it reached her.

Masami nodded, and seem to disappear. One of the skills she had unlocked or mastered through this gaining of a new tail allowed her to disapear from most eyes, even very keen ones, with little to no effort. And it seemed this demon thing did not have keen eyes, as it allowed her to get very close to the giant thing close enough for her to reach it as Garnet wanted to do so. She jumped, using her agility and speed to flash step to close the distance between them very quickly so he would not escape her, and grabbed the beast. Though as soon as she did so she realised her time would be limited, so she used to oppertunity to climb up the beasts back and hack at its wings with her blade. She also made sure to use her illusion magic to create a covering for his eyes so that the room ahead of the monster would be completely dark and very hard to see. She planned to use this to keep Garnet from being killed, as the monster wouldn't be able to see it's target.

If it's wrath should be directed at Masami... the fox reasoned she would jump that bridge when she got to it.

[Charmera]

"NO!"

The noise was startlingly horrid, more so than it should have ever been, assisted by the hollow nature of its surroundings, echoing indiscriminately through the empty Batcave to be heard only by the man who did not exist. He stood almost perfectly still, the only movement being the rising and falling motion of his chest, until the echo of noise died out at last, leaving his breathing as the only sound to be heard in that lonely, dreadful cave.

Then, and only then, did he remove his bleeding, broken fist from the shattered remnants of the Batcomputer, using his control over the passing of time to force it to flow in reverse, healing his hand from any damage that it had suffered, nevermind that he had caused it himself. After that, he simply stood there, still once again. His breathing, once accelerated, forceful, angry, had now slowed down to a more normal rate, and his other fist, which was clenched at his side with almost enough force to draw blood, had finally loosened up. For a moment, he had been consumed in utter rage at the grim revelation that the machine had shown him, but now, Gilbert- Was that his name? Did he even have one to begin with?- had no more fury. Now, he had nothing left to do, but grasp this revelation. Accept it.

Raising his hand and pointing it towards the Batcomputer, Gilbert did the same thing to it that he had done to his own hand, reversing the flow of time and repairing the machine to its pristine state. As he did so, he repeated in his head the words of the mysterious voice, understanding that they were the truth. She was right, he had nothing. He was no one. His existence, apparently, had been a falsehood. What else was false? His life in the streets, was it a forgery? The time he spent with his friends before his powers manifested and went berserk, was that just a product of his imagination? An alien hallucination lodged inside his memories? He did not know, and he had no way of knowing. Idly, he touched the black patch over his eye, wondering where it had truly come from.

But then, there was one thing he knew. The Time Demon existed, and it lurked inside of him. And just like the voice told him, he had been chosen. He had been chosen because of the circumstances of his very existence. He had nothing, so he had nothing to lose fighting the Time Demon, no? Was that it? He cursed the unknown names of those who had made such a choice, but he knew that this was his destiny, and that he had no way of running from it, for the Time Demon was already inside of him. There was no choice but to struggle, there was no choice but to fight.

"AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!"

Just as he finished restoring the Batcomputer to its pristine, undamaged state, a burning sensation, a searing punishment, an unbearable pain ripped through his whole body and even beyond, ravaging his body and soul alike, causing him to feel an agony far beyond anything he had ever felt before in his false life. Against such a violent assault, Gilbert could only fall to the ground and howl in pain, his senses overloaded by the crushing devastation wrought on his body, leaving him unable to act. He was, of course, completely unharmed, his body in a perfect condition, but the pain he felt was completely out of line with this, destroying him.

When he was finally able to wrestle a bit of control over his body from the agony he felt, what he did was begin attempting to drag himself out of there, crawling through the ground even as he writhed in pain, slowly but surely moving towards the exit of the Batcave. He had left everything the way it was before Salis' black hole had destroyed everything, he had done his job here, and so, he had no reason to remain there. He didn't want to be found there, either, as it would likely raise questions, and questions about himself were the last thing he wanted to answer at the moment. It was this conviction that eventually led him to the outside of the Batcave, and once he was away from there, he allowed himself to fall to the ground once again, clutching his body and head, flailing pathetically in an attempt to soothe the pain, for he was still being struck by wave after wave of burning agony.

Eventually, the pain faded, and once it did, Gilbert immediately stood up and clawed at his chest, tearing his shirt apart to reach what he thought was the source of his pain. And at that moment, he saw it, the strange symbol that had accompanied him ever since he had been possessed by the Time Demon. At the beginning, he recalled, the outer circle had been empty, but as time passed, the needles slowly began to move, and as they moved, the circle was filled with a strange symbol. Now, the needle had almost reached the starting point yet again, and Gilbert could not help thinking that something terrible would occur when that happened. He wondered what had caused it to move. Had it been his use of Ku's power? Was that it? Did the needles move because he used the power of the Time Demon indiscriminately?

As he wondered about this, a great shadow was cast over him, and then a great light, and as Gilbert looked up at the sky in order to see what had caused this, he saw up there, in the distance, something terrible, something that sent a shiver down his spine.

It was destruction, and it had come on wings of flame.

Meanwhile, a figure stood on the moon. One which earth was mildly unfamiliar with. Of course her species had met the earthlings and had heard legends of their prowess and battles. However that was not why this girl was here. Instead, she was tracking a new foe. A target which she now looked at through her scope of a weapon which could obliterate the sun of this solar system. Suddenly, she heard a ringing. "For Ganu's sake..." She cursed. Frowing, she pressed a device on her ear.

Aeshadan-mai Aru. Greeted a voice. He used the greeting of the old tongue. Not too old. About a century old. Though that might as well be a thousand years for the Rantu. Still, the old tongue was common enough. In fact, the new tongue was already dying out slightly, Neo speak was all the rage these days. Though honestly Aru thought it merely a fad.

"Ashandan-Mai Huntmistress Curu." She replied. "I have the target in my viewfinder at the moment."

Have you a clear shot?

"Negative. If I miss, then the earth could be damaged."

Unfortunate. You're not willing to take that risk?

Aru frowned. "Mistress, there are innocents down there."

Asra will surely kill them. Or go on to other planets. You have a shot. You should take it.

"I respectfully disagree."

As is your right. I'm merely giving advice. It's your hunt after all.

Aru paused. "All right." She sighed. "Haruma-Mai... I can't take your advice. I will have to engage on earth."

Unfortunate. But It is your choice. I only hope you remember your training Little Aru.

"I will... Mother." She spoke, before closing off the com chat. She frowned again. Then moved in persuit of Asra. Not too fast that he'd notice her though.

[Charmera]

Cora
Cora smelt the burning electricity in the air and saw Katie raise her arm as if to attack. Cora thought she was about to do it when suddenly she stopped. It seemed like all her emotions started to break through at once and Katie dropped to the ground as she seemed overwhelmed by her feelings. Cora took a step to closer to make sure she was okay and unfortunately at this moment Jasmine smashed through the wall and made her mistake. Cora thought about going after her but decided against it. She would find her later and bring her to justice, right now she should be there for Katie. However Cora didn't know what to do for her. The android merely knelt by the bed and took her friend's hand gently. She tried not to interrupt her friend's moment but let her know that she was there for her. Tears were still in Cora's eyes as she grieved as well. Eric had been so kind and thoughtful, and Katie loved him so much. It was so unfair that he had to die.

Katie lay there for a while, tears in her eyes as she sobbed her eyes out. She didn't know how long she had been there for, but it had been quite a while. She got up after a short time, sitting up in the bed. She dried her eyes. "I... I should have stopped her. I should have stopped all this..." She spoke, unable to speak very coherently. She looked to Cora, then to Val, Then she looked down. "No one had to die. No one should have died. Least of all him..."

[Charmera]

---

---

Sarah looked up at Sam as she was lying on the ground, still greatly hurt by the impact, her face twisted into an expression of pain. With some effort, she sat up, leaning her back against the wall in order to support herself. She was very damaged after hitting the wall and falling to the ground because of the wizard's wind spell, the hit causing quite a number on her fragile body. But even then, she knew that she had to get up and continue fighting the wizard, for the sake of her sisters. She couldn't let him get to them, after all, and so, steeling herself, she nodded at Samantha and gently took the potion from her hands, putting it to her lips and drinking the liquid hastily. As soon as it touched her tongue, she grimaced, the awful taste nearly causing her to gag, but she resisted and pressed on, swallowing everything. Almost immediately, she began feeling better. The pain caused to her by the wizard's attack swiftly faded, and she felt fine once again.

"Thanks, Sam." She said affectionately to her sister, before standing up.

As all of this happened, however, not all was well. Hanah's attack, most likely, was successful to a degree far greater than she expected. The wizard's torso was turned into a mangled, bloody mess contained inside her jaws. By all means, the fearsome wizard with pits of yellow chaos for eyes should have been dead, completely and utterly dead. Had he been a regular human he would have been dead, for certain. Yet, instead, he placed his hands on Hanah's shoulders, and suddenly, these hands began bursting with electricity that was blasted straight into Hanah's body. It was definitely not to kill her, durable as she was in her werewolf form, but it was more than enough to cause her pain, and, most importantly, it was far more than what should have been managed by a dying man without a torso.

"You have not learned either, have you? Death can not hold me." The wizard said, coughing blood into Hanah's face, though his face always remained obscured.

Hanah grunted in pain, backing off slightly, In the process she let go of the part of the wizard she had been nomming on. "I suppose I haven't. But you haven't learnt diddly squat either" Usaully she wouldn't bother trash talking in a fight, since no one but her sisters actually understand what she was saying beyond "growl" and "roar". Even in her more humanoid dragon form her words seemed to be going backwards to most people. Though, this wizard has also been able to understand her, which could be mildly disconcerting. Honestly Hanah was actually kinda happy she could trash talk for once. She often saved all her material for fights with the wizard. Then she saw Sam's attack and mentally smiled. She timed her charge so that the ice would freeze him first, or at least distract him. "You haven't learnt that fighting the grimm Sisters is a good way to get your ass kicked!" She howled, as she charged in, aiming to tear off his arms and likely beat him to what passed for death to him.

[Charmera]

---

The monster shrieked and flapped its wings wildly as it felt the pain of Masami slashing at its wings. The kitsune caused a great deal of damage, and eventually, the beast fell to the ground, unable to fly anymore due to the grievous injuries on its wings, the left one nearly completely severed. However, before falling to the ground, it managed to shake off the fox woman. Then came the tremendous crash, which shook the entire platform on which the battle was taking place. It was about to turn and begin attacking Masami, and would have done so, had it not been for the crystalline sword which suddenly tore through its body, lodging itself in its torso.

After throwing her blade to continue drawing the creature's ire, Garnet continued riding towards the pedestal, having been joined by Shadow moments before her attack. The monster, however, while unable to see, relied on sound to find its way, much like regular bats, making Masami's illusion moot. As such, it could detect where Garnet was, and charged up a fireball in its mouth before launching it towards Garrnet. Despite this, the blonde woman and the Phantom Horse continued racing towards the pedestal, as she knew that the treasure on it was vital for her mission.

The fireball exploded, but when the smoke cleared, there was nothing there.

Suddenly, a blur approached, and Garnet's nameless sword was removed from the bat's torso. The blur began circling around the monster, moving far faster than a human should have been able to move, firing off several shots at the creature before coming to a halt next to Masami. At that moment, ceasing to be a blur, Garnet became fully visible. There was a part of her arm that seemed burned, but it also seemed to be healing more or less quickly. However, likely what was most surprising was the mask now on Garnet's face, covering all of her features, though her curly blonde hair flowed freely behind her.

"Ready to finish it?" She asked Masami.

Masami nodded, having recovered from being thrown off. She flicked the blood off her sword, gripping the blade tightly. She was impressed by Garnet's sudden disaplay of speed. Though wondered from whence this power came. She then noticed a mask on Garnet's face. "A mask... seem's you've already looted the dungeon." She remarked. Surprisingly, Masami has played some video games in her time. She was not always the diligent fox she was now, yet there were times where she still referenced those games she played. "Now, to see if we can't get us some XP..."

---

The target that Aru was chasing after was none other than the Fallen Rainborn whose flames could consume everything. Flames that even now hungered for more to destroy, a ravenous instinct that had led the Ashbringer to Earth, a planet full of life that could be snuffed out at a moment's notice, like a feeble candlelight engulfed by the void. Floating over the surface of Earth, the Blazeborn released a stream of flames that descended towards the planet, ready to burn. These were not the dark, corrupt Absolute Flames that burned away even magic and death, but they were more than enough to incinerate whatever they touched regardless. An attack that was by no means his strongest, but likely enough to draw out any hidden strength that the puny inhabitants of this planet may possess. Strength that he could steal.

Down on Earth, Gilbert saw all of this happening. He saw the fearsome warrior clad in black armor who seemed to be kept aloft by wings of flame and bore a sword as dark as the void. The red visor of his helmet only made his appearance more intimidating, and soon he proved that he was as menacing as he looked by releasing an enormous stream of flames with nary a movement, with just a thought. Frowning, Gilbert reached out with his hand and began stealing time from these flames, causing them to reach the natural conclusion of their existence within instants: extinction. The flames were unraveled, denied the opportunity to incinerate Earth by a lone man with borrowed power.

But even this borrowed power was enough to catch the Ashbringer's eye, and so, he descended to Earth, towards the one who had displayed this mysterious power over time. Asra flew down, carried by flameborn wings of destruction, and came to stand in front of Gilbert, red glare pointed at him. The two stared at each other, Asra with cold indifference and etheral calculation, Gilbert with utmost caution and startling uncertainty.

Growing tired, the Blazeborn made the first move. Swinging his blade in a wide arc, he summoned a wave of flames that raced towards Gilbert. Seeing the attack, the young man faced it head on, rushing towards it and stealing all time from it in order to empower himself, before reaching Asra and delivering a punch with one hundred times his own strength, completely destroying his own arm in the process, just so that he could harm his enemy.

He barely made a dent in the armor.

Pausing for a moment as if to accentuate the futility of such an attack, Asra hit Gilbert with a brutal uppercut, sending him high into the sky without even using all of his strength, which could crush the earth and rend the sky. Idly flying into the air within his own broken body, Gilbert thought to himself that, even with all of the Time Demon's powers, it would take a miracle for him to be able to stop Asra. He couldn't do this on his own, yet as far as he was concerned, he was on his own. A hopeless sitaution, or it was in the eyes of one who did not know that an ally was fast approaching.

That ally came down like an avenging angel. Her eyes narrowed upon her opponent. Her quarry was treated to both her contempt and her anger. She had been tracking this abomination since Aiuar, and he had given her lots of trouble as well as causing many deaths. Now she sees him practicing melee combat, not even using a weapon. The ultimate disrespect for an opponent. Are there no lows these villains wont sink to? How very barbaric. She thought. Then she deployed her three drones, each hovering around the battlefield.

Then, two plasma cannons formed around her hands, the barrels pointed at the corrupted rainborn as she suddenly blasted him. Though she kept her plasma yeild down as she did not want to kill Gilbert, not raze the entire country. This was merely to attract the attention of Asra.

[Charmera]

---

---

The joint attacks wrought havoc on the wizard's frail body. Samantha's winter storm froze his body and Hanah's relentless assault reduced him to a bloody mess of a popsicle. The ennemy that Sarah feared so much was all but defeated. And even then he refused to die, his face still obscured by that absurd hat of his, the two yellow pits of chaos that were his eyes still very much alive despite his grievous wounds.

"Children-"

Suddenly, a spike of shadows shot up form the ground, impaling the wizard's head.

For now, at least, he was gone for good.

But then the wind carried strange words to the sisters.

"Consider this a mere chance encounter, children. The next time we meet, you will find very dreadful, I'm sure. Look forward to it!"

And with that, the wizard's mangled, lifeless body faded into nothing but dust, scattering in the wind. Seeing this happen, and understanding that they were no longer in immediate danger, Sarah dismissed the shadow pike with which she had impaled the wizard, and rushed off towards Hanah, throwing her slender arms around her little sister's hulking werewolf form, pulling her into what could only be described as a very awkward hug. Sarah's eyes were watery on the sides, due to equal parts fear and relief. "Are you alright, sis?" The eldest Grimm sister asked softly. She knew that Hanah was the strongest, that she could definitely take on much more than she ever could, but even then, she could not help but be worried about her, against all logic. She loved her sisters dearly, after all. They were everything she had, everything she'd had, ever since she could remember.

Such was her concern, that she completely forgot about the sack of money, lying not far from where the three stood.

The hulking wolf was growling angrily at where the dust what until suddenly she felt the embrace of her sister. Then she suddenly stopped. Hannah made a short whimper, then drew her own sister into a hug. "I'm-" She spoke, inhaling, then exhaling. He size went first, shrinking rapidly. Soon she was shorter than her sister and no longer had any fur, apart from around her soft and plush wolf ears. She nearly collapsed from the drain of transformation, now visably and obviously weakened. Though she held her sisters embrace. "I'm fine Sarah. Really." She smiled, a canine cutely poking out as she weakly grinned. She turned to Sam while still in her embrace.

Samantha Grimm
Finally that creepy wizard was dead, at least for now. The police would no doubt be arriving soon so they had to move quickly. She turned to see Sarah hugging Hannah in concern. Sam thought it was sweet, but Sarah was always worrying about them excessively but right now they didn't have time for that. "Come on, we have to move. Get in the van, I'll drive first. We're leaving the city tonight." She told them, using her darkness claw spell to lift the large amount of money into the van before climbing into the front seat starting the engine and waiting for her sisters to get in.

"Sure thing." She was glad Sam had thought of the money. She was quite distracted with her sister. She didn't like to see her older sister cry. She depended on her, and Sarah worried and cared for them so much. Taught Hanah everything she knew. Even though she was jealous, she loved Sarah and Sam so much. She took Sarah's hand and led her to the van.

---

This time Garnet definitely laughed. "You know, of all the things I expected from an attractive and refined fox lady who hunts evil spirits, videogame references were the absolute last." She commented, before pointing her nameless crystalline sword at the bat monster, who shrieked in agony at its status: one of its wings nearly severed, its torso sporting a sword hole, and its other wing severely wounded. It was in a very poor condition, indeed, and Garnet smirked. "Now then, let's finish off the boss and continue with the story, shall we?" She said. Suddenly, her expression turned sour as she glared at the beast. "I've been itching to finish this damn game already and move on." She stated.

Then, the two ladies charged at the beast, each of them moving incredibly fast, their sword slashing and thrusting at the creature, who was unable to react to such a ferocious onslaught. Cuts and scars manifested all over the beast's body as it stood helpless in the middle of the room until, finally, the cursed warrior and the fox woman stood on opposite sides of the monster and stabbed their blades into its heart at the same time. The bat struggled no more, and died at last. Its body disintegrated into shadows which scurried off swiftly, disappearing from sight.

At that moment, the platform they stood on began to rumble. The pillars began to fell apart, and at the very edges of the circular platform, as bits and pieces of masonry fell, she could see a bright light from the holes where they had once been. Lava, she suspected, if only because such a cliche explanation would fit in perfectly with most of everything else she had seen there so far.

Paying it little attention, Garnet walked back to Shadow along with Masami, offering her a hand to help her up into the Phantom Horse despite knowing that she probably didn't need it, also implicitly allowing her to ride in front now. Shadow would only follow its master's wishes, anyway.

"You've helped me quite a bit by fighting here alongside me, so thanks for that. I'd like to help you in return, so if there's any place you'd like to go to, just say so. Shadow will take us there." She stated calmly, as if she was unconcerned about the fact that the place was falling apart.

Masami smiled widely. She liked this womans confidence a lot. She was deadly, efficent, cool looking and very mysterious. She had a sort of allure and coolness to her which Masami couldn't help but enjoy.

In a word. She was a "bad-ass". Perhaps not the most "refined" description, but Masami thought it very apt.

"You may learn that I wasn't always so refined. And I didn't always hunt monsters. Or at least I didn't do it as well." She replied, performing the move to dry her blade and then placing it into the scabard. Her face then turned serious as she walked towards shadow. There was a grim look on her face. "We need to go back to the inn. I have the feeling that we might get some answers as to whom had commanded the Tengu. Her scent led me to them. The one of corruption and defilement." She mused. "I smelt something like it at the inn... Which is why it might be best to check and see if my suspicions are correct or not..."

---

Gilbert soared to the air until eventually the force of Asra's uppercut was able to carry his broken body no further, allowing him to begin the descent. As he dropped, however, he could have sword he saw something strange in the sky. A glint of gold, a strand of white... and then little more. It was just a momentary vision he had as he fell, but he saw it nonetheless, of that, he was certain.

He realized, in a very harsh way, that he had done nothing to avoid falling to his death, not that he could do anything in the first place, he was just, in a way, amused at his own distraction, even through the pain. If the blow had not been enough to kill him, the fall certainly did the job just fine, every bone in his body shattering from the impact as he became little more than a bloody mess on the pavement. But the power of the Time Demon resided within him still, and though he did not want to use it, he saw it as a necessary evil in this occasion. This monster, this beast clad in black armor, it had to be stopped, it was simply something that had to be done. If he would suffer another flash of pain as a result, then so be it. Such were the thoughts that led him to rewind time once again and bring himself back to life, his consciousness inhabiting his body once more.

But when he did that, he saw something that surprised him.

Asra had been too busy watching Gilbert rise and fall to pay attention to anything else, and so, he did not suspect that he was being chased, nor that the one being pursuing him had already caught up. The feeble human's efforts, they were laughable; Asra would certainly have laughed if his altered thought process had allowed for it, but he did not find any of this humorous. He merely observed the human to confirm his destruction. His ability was very interesting, but he, himself, was pathetic. A worm. As worthless as the men of steel that had faced him before. They bore great power, but they showed not the will to use it, which in turn meant that they did not need it. But Asra, he did need that power. His task was, in his eyes, something that trascended this miserable universe which he cared nothing for except in terms of what it had to offer.

Seeing Gilbert crash into the ground, Asra turned around. He was the only one who stood against him, and he showed him no power worthy of helping him challenge the Tyrant God. He would incinerate this world, and then leave to continue his mission.

Or he would have, anyway, but suddenly, bursts of plasma rained down upon him, searing his armor, though in the few places where the blasts managed to break through, they did nothing to the black reflective stonelike substance he was made of, despite burning through his flesh. Curious, Asra turned around, seeing the Rantu huntress standing there. Pointing his sword at her, he released a stream of his Absolute Fire from its tip.

At that moment, the alien warrior would feel everything around her slow down as her perception of time quickened, the stream of flames that would once have been lightning-fast and hard to dodge slowing down considerably without explanation. On a nearby rooftop stood Gilbert, who had moved there as quickly as possible in order to reach the blue woman. At the present moment, all he could think of was defeating the abomination that threatened his world, the corrupted creature below, and what he saw there, above, was an ally that could help him achieve this, or, more accurately, someone whom he could help achieve victory. He had thought that only a miracle would help put this monster down, and the miracle had come.

"Is there anything you can tell me about that thing?" He called out to her. "This is my home, let me help you protect it. I can heal you and make you a better fighter with my powers. If you will defeat that thing, I'll give my life to help you." He stated. Of course, he opted not to mention that 'giving his life' was not as meaningful for him as it was to other people on account of him being able to rewind time even after death. It was cooler this way.

The Alien warrior turned to regard Gilbert, her blue face betraying little emotion, before she nodded slightly. She then teleported next to him to avoid the fire. She had her drones coat Asra in plasma fire to keep him busy for now. Likely they would all be destroyed, but she had more. It was tactically sound to make him think she would be depleted though, Meanwhile she changed her plasma cannons for a single Light Rail rifle, her opponent in her scope. She aimed for her target, adjusting for less explosion and more power. So she wouldn't wreck nearly as much of the world. She couldn't had done this earlier as it also reduced the range considerably.

"What's your story human?" She asked nonchalantly. She punctuated her sentence by firing a projectile faster than light at her opponent. Her mind easily being able to juggle the conversation and sniping Asra. "Not many would give their lives for anything. I should know. I deal in death." She commented off hand-idly. "There has to be a reason. Especially against an abomination like Asra." Another shot rang out. A Rantu proverb states that it is best to never take one shot when you can take two. Aru very much stuck by this moto. Though her next shot that rang out after the second proved she didn't take it litteraly. "Though, if we're luckly. Then no one will have to die. It's why I came down here after all." She then got ready to move. She'd have to take this human with her.

[Charmera]

Cora
Time was such a strange thing. Regardless of what happened around it, what terrible life altering disasters occurred, time persisted on, unyielding, and uncaring of pervious events. It seemed unfair truly. How could time be so cold? How could people be expected to keep going when their world collapsed around them? Couldn't time just stop for an hour, a minute, a second?

These were the thoughts that ran through Cora's mind that morning. It had been two days since Jasmine had attacked the Justice Queen's Headquarters, two days since Eric died. Katie hadn't come out of her room since then, except to use the bathroom or other necessities. Cora didn't mind, she knew Katie needed time. Cora brought Katie her meals every day, and other than that tried to keep herself busy. She had been searching through police data and radio chatter to get any sign of Jasmine but she had seemed to completely disappear. Cora also went back to her lab and brought back the gravity chamber for her to train in. Nothing she could do however could get her past the fact that today was Eric's funeral.

Cora had woken up very early as she usually did. Being an Android she didn't need much sleep. She got dressed in her training gear and set the gravity chamber to 20 times the Earth's gravity and went to work. She trained for about two hours until she was drenched in sweat. She couldn't get thoughts of Eric's and the look on Katie's face off her mind. She had tried to be strong for Katie but it was hard. She charged angrily at one of the robotic opponents in the chamber and smash it hard to the ground. She smashed into it over and over again until it was nothing but scrap metal. Cora burst into tears and began sobbing in the chamber. About twenty minutes later she went back upstairs and showered, changing into a fresh outfit. She decided to make breakfast for Valancy, Roy and Katie, Naja and Kylie were still away in space and Cora hoped they were alright. Cora wondered if Katie would come out to eat with them, she hadn't in two days, but she'd have to come outside for Eric's funeral today. Cora knew that would be incredibly hard for her.

Katie awoke early, as she usaully did, though she really had little other desire than to wallow in despair. Often she would try and think about the events, replaying them in her mind. She tried to hold on to what she could of Eric, but it was hard to even think or reflect on memories without seeing his twisted neck and blank dead eyes. Or seeing the monster the shy, nice girl she and once known had become. Jazz was not always so bad. She was smart, funny and could be sweet when she wanted. Katie had a habit of dating introverts it seemed. She had the patience and the will to help them out of their shells. And to an extent, she ends up getting... attached.

But now she regretted even meeting the two of them. She had made both their lives miserable when she had wanted to make them happy. She still hated Jasmine to an extent, but more what she had become which was almost unrecognizable. And she felt like for all the good she tried to do she was actually screwing things up. She wanted to help people whenever possible however possible, but when things like this happen, one has to question whether they're doing any good at all... or spinning in an endless hamster wheel powered by their own mistakes, crushing the lives of those around them.

She walked out of her bedroom reluctantly. She knew she had Eric's funeral. She had to accept that she had to go. It would be... bad not to. She felt she needed to take this step. And she needed to think about the team too. She was either going to have to put on a brave face for them or set up her resignation... She was leaning towards the second. Katie wondered if she might be holding the team back or hurting it with her presence. Like she did Eric and Jasmine. She couldn't bare to see her friends in the JQ suffer because of her.

She came to breakfast, sitting down at the table and looking down at it with sadness. She suddenly felt the great emptyiness of loss at that moment. She looked over to a counter to see the three things she had picked up from Eric's room. She was tempted to cry, but had not done so since the incident. She would not let herself for some reason.

"Whats... for breakfast?" She asked first.

"Hm. I didn't notice. You punch like a human." Ash joked. Ash once again felt pain, though she didn't let that stop her. She did seem to be hurt, though she wasn't tired. She could taste a little bit of blood from a previous punch to the face. She licked her lips, clearing the blood dripping from her nose. Then she attacked. She went for a right handed punch to the stomach, and then followed it up by moving to another side and unleashing a punishing kick. And then she hopped back, not wanting to stay for the brutal counter attack. In fact, she wanted to see if she could counter her next moves.

"Kidding aside. You fight well Valerie." She commented with a smile. "I should honestly thank you for challenging me. I had forgotten how fun it was to brawl like this..." She commented.

For once, Val seemed to be a bit offended at being called a human. However, she realized all too late that it broke her concentration. She doubled over just seconds before impact, but took the full force of the first strike on her stomach. Quaking as Ashy's strike landed, Val was launched to the side by the follow-up kick, sending her smashing against the cage as she grit her teeth and eyes to manage the pain effectively. Val tore her eyes open in preparation for more follow-ups, but found that Ashy had backed off. Needless to say, the Mad Goddess was just ever-so slightly pissed.

Val rushed into Ashy's personal space and striking zone quickly, dodging a blow and delivering one, which only managed to stumble Ashy. But the girl followed up with an upward knee, thrown in an attempt to hit Ashy's face or chest, but falling just short of either. However, the true purpose of that knee wasn't to make impact, but to get Val into a position to execute a beautiful harai goshi throw, or simply a sweeping hip throw. Val locked her arms behind Ashy's head and yanked, pushing Ashy's center of gravity onto herself, and them simply slammed the other girl on the mat, Val on top, and instinctively raining punches on Ashy's face.

She managed to get a few in before being thrown off by Ashy, who expertly turned and gave her back to Val to protect her face and did a push-up like motion - throwing Val off and stumbling onto the mat. She shot up quickly, breathing heavily, searing pain in her stomach and kidney region, but impressed at her opponent's skill. "Yeah..." She said in between a few breaths, holding her hands lazily, "You fight...pretty good." She finished, bracing for another assault by the Vokornian.

More blood. Gods this is both Haven and Abyss at the same time. She thought to herself, in pain, and it did effect her and bother her. But it just felt so good too. Though she started to think it might impair her fighting ability. That would not be good. "Only pretty good?" She replied. Then she got back up and recovered. "Well. I'll just have to actually try then." She replied cockily. She had been trying before of course, so her comment was half jest and half cocky bragging. With that, she suddenly charged her opponent. But then suddenly changed the angle of approach with a spin and was coming in from the side, unleashing a hail of attacks upon her opponent's arms and shoulder joints, mostly punches and jabs and the odd elbow. And then she suddenly sent in a sweeping kick to her opponents stomach, then a punch to the face.

She whirred back again, smiling then unleashing another attack. But it seemed that her opponent was rearing back to do the same. She noticed that they were both going to collide with one another fists too late...

And so the sheppard will learn the nature of her shell of flesh, taught pain once more by the Queen of madworld.

---

Sarah couldn't help smiling as she felt her little sister's massive, furry arms embraced her as well, feeling the mighty werewolf's warmth. The smile grew wider still as she felt her begin to shrink in her arms, feeling the fur fade until eventually, the thing she was embracing was no longer a fearsome werewolf, but a pretty little girl with wolf ears. The fact that she seemed weaker made Sarah worry, even though she knew that this kind of thing usually happened after Hanah used one of her transformations, and so, she tightened her embrace on her little sister, unwilling to let her fall or let her go, though the smile and the comment made her feel better, and so, finally, she let go, toying a bit with her little sister's ears.

"I'm glad you're okay." She said, before turning towards Samantha. She was right; the police was likely after them after their robbery of the First Bank of Starling City, and they had spent too much time there already. The best thing they could do for now was head elsewhere and lie low for a bit, maybe (though if there was anything the Grimms could not do it was lie low). She was just glad that Sam remembered to take the money. She'd forgotten about it during the fight with the wizard and while making sure that Hanah was okay.

Getting into the back seat of the van along with Hanah, she spoke. "So were are we going, Sam?" She asked her younger sister curiously, leaning back on the seat and stretching her arms a bit. "Somewhere with cute boys I hope." She added with a smile.

Her sister seemed to almost purr lightly as her ears were played with, her cat form side coming out whenever that happened. Had anyone else done that, they would have either earned a punch in the face, or she would have simply bitten their hands with her sharp canines lightly. Not enough to draw blood, but enough that they knew it was off limits. However her sisters were special, and therefore the only ones allowed to touch her ears.

What Sam and Sarah were saying when they got into the Van Hanah kinda half listened to, until they said Gotham. Her ears perked up. "Gotham!" She asked. "With, Batman! Robin! Batgirl! All the famous big name superheoes! Yes! I have some autographs to collect!" She had not considered that Batman was no longer in Gotham, and that superheroes might not be willing to give autographs. Especially not if she chased them down in Panther form first.

[Charmera]

Hiroshi:

Frail.

Even as he felt Claudia shift upwards and bound once more, he could only bring himself to think about how frail he was. Earlier today he was one of the strongest warriors in the universe, but now he was a broken shell waiting for someone to heal him, after he'd failed to avenge his daughter. He, Hiroshi Mako, the first to achieve the level pf Ascended Saiyan, of Saiyan powe-

There it was again. An unbelievably powerful Saiyan was far away from him, battling with another no doubt on a distant planet. Even as he lay there, he could see the warrior in his minds eye. A golden god wreathed in flame, with golden locks stretching down his back. Something about the power was soothing, yet terrifying in the same moment. He could feel the exact same power within himself, yet he couldn't reach it. But as he lay dying in Claudia's arms, a shiver ran over him, this was a power he would acheive.

Coughing, the scenery finally changed to a familiar site, a old Japanese style building, with a white cat working quietly within.

"K-Korin.. Sensu.." His voice echoed, the cat yelping as he rushed towards him, a small green bean between his fingers.

Claudia slowly lowered the Saiyan onto the ground. Then she took the bean from the cats hand and sat down next to him. "Thank you." She spoke to Korin, a sincere look on the hulks face. She inhaled, then fed Hiroshi the bean. "Alright. You're going to eat this. Then were going to go rend the flesh from that freak and use his intestines as a noose. Then... I don't know what happens then. But we're going to get through it while dancing on his burning fucking corpse." She spoke with such rage and hatred. "We will smash him until he's no more."

---

Garnet chuckled upon hearing the kitsune's comments. Really, she should have guessed that Masami hadn't always been like that. After all, wasn't that the case with her? She hadn't always been a woman who hunted monsters with cursed weapons, after all. She hadn't always had the achievement of shooting alien demons or beating giant gargoyles silly. So, she supposed she shouldn't have been so hasty to judge Masami.

Shrugging off that train of thought, she listened to what the kitsune said about the inn. Frowning slightly, Garnet nodded at the fox lady as she helped her up onto the back of the Phantom Horse. With that done, she stared straight ahead, pausing for a moment.

"Alright then. What are we waiting for?" She asked. Shadow, apparently, saw it fit to respond to this question with a derisive snort, but the blonde rider ignored it and spoke again. "To the inn it is. Let's go." She said. Immediately, Shadow took off, and the three of them went on a journey through dimensions once again, soon reaching the inn.

Masami nodded. She soon hopped off. "Honestly, I'm a bit disapointed. Turns out that bat was not nearly enough to push me onto another tail..." She commented as she looked behind her. She tucked the two tails back in for the sake of energy. She was sweating a little. She would soon recover her stamina if she gave them a break. She inhaled, enjoying the smell of fresh air and... she suddenly sniffed a bit. Then a frown came onto her face. "Well. That's definitely Yokai. Though is it good or bad..." She asked. Often it was not good to polarize things, but to a Kitsune there was little else. As soon as one walked the path of corruption and selfishness, they tended to get lost in it. For the good of all, Masami made sure no one paid for a Yokai's corruption other than the Yokai itself.
She looked around, something wasn’t right. It made the Kitsune frown. “Hmm…” There didn’t seem to be any people in the streets. The town was dead quiet. Silent and void of even heartbeats. But she could still hear footsteps…
Footsteps without heartbeats…
“It’s a trap!” Shouted Masami. Pulling out her Katana and igniting it with foxfire. Suddenly, surrounding them, were warriors. Their armour visable, yet seemingly there were wide gaps in the armour filled with black flame like energy. Instead of heads in their helmets they had ethereal faces, frozen in expressions of rage or horror. The black energy seemed to radiate off them, and made for imposing foes. “Goryō” Muttered Masami. “The ghosts of dead warriors who died horrific deaths. They should not be underestimated.” She said to her foe. “But so many… in a peaceful village… Why do they attack us?”

---

Still accelerating the perception of time for himself and his extraterrestrial ally, Gilbert was quite relieved when she nodded and then approached, still keeping up her onslaught on the black beast before him. It seemed that she was willing to do what it took to stop this Asra, and it seemed that she was also willing to let him help, though for now, the best he could do was accelerate her senses and help protect her from the creature's flames, since it was more than evident that even hitting him with one hundred times his own strength had done absolutely nothing to the invader. So for now, he decided to simply help the Rantu and let her take the lead. His reserves would keep him going for a while anyway.

The woman's questions, however, took him by surprise.

"I..." He mumbled, pausing for a moment before sighing. "Well, alright. I can cheat death, sort of. It's why I survived that hit he gave me. My mind can outlast my body, and then I can rewind my own death. That's why I'm not afraid to die." He explained. "Now, if you ask why I'm fighting, that's a different matter. I... feel like it's my duty. Some things have happened that make me question myself often, but even despite that I know that if I don't do something, millions could die. Should they die if I can do something about it? I think not." He stated. "That's why I tried to fight him, even though I hardly even dented his armor, and it's also why I'm hoping you can kill him before he causes any more damage."

Meanwhile, Asra felt the drones pelting him with plasma blasts. They further shredded his armor, leaving him nearly completely exposed, parts of the chestplate and half of his helmet being destroyed by the attacks, along with his black boots and gauntlets. His red hair flowed out of the gap in his helmet, and from behind the half-cracked red visor, one could see the bright green gaze of a Rainborn. The cloth and skin on some parts of his body had burned away, exposing more of the black material underneath. Eventually, the Ashbringer grew bored of this, and decided to annihilate the drones. There was a beat of his flameborn wings, and suddenly, a spherical wave of Absolute Fire manifested, with him at its center. The sphere expanded constantly, incinerating everything it touched, leaving not even ash behind as it devoured everything, until finally, it engulfed the drones as well, at which point it ceased expanding, disappearing.

However, then came the sniper's assault. Asra actually sustained damage from that, including one of his hands being blown off. He did not seem to react to this, but suddenly, his every injury was enveloped in dark, corrupted fire, and he let out a bloodcurdling scream. Suddenly, his injuries seemed to disappear, and shortly after the fire dissipated.

"And here I thought I was the only one who could cheat." Gilbert thought to himself. "He's... he's burning away time. He destroys the event that caused him damage, and the consequences disappear. I had never met someone who could do that." He said to Aru. That was only a half-truth, of course, as that which the Time Demon did to rewind time as a bit similar in practice, even if it was not so similar in principle.

"It's going to be difficult to put him down if he keeps that up. We need to find his weak point."

'Duty. That is a good enough reason. And I'm guessing that death still brings you pain? And the darkness of the Nether World can't be very comforting." Aru spoke. "Or wherever you humans go when you die... So it's not like this is easy for you." She then paused.

"But...we'll get though this." She spoke, then observed him healing. She narrowed her eyes.

Aru frowned. She sighed as she put away her weapon. “Bothersome.” She muttered. Even though her foe was clearly resisting her attacks, Aru seemed not the least bit fazed. Though it was, like what Gilbert had said, a half truth. She was confident, perhaps to the point of arrogance, but she still didn’t like her opponents durability. He should be very much dead by now. She swapped out her weapon for the Bubble gun. She thought back to the taychon arrow. Though that thing was still untested. It could render the light cannon completely obsolete… if it didn’t have the chance of blowing up in her face. “I have a weapon that might be able to deal with time reversal. But it’s very unstable. I could end up cracking this planet if I miss, or even if I end up killing him and the bullet goes through. It might just work if we find a weak point. “ She remarked.

“We should see if normal weapons work on this… “Weak point” first. And see if we can find it before that.” She paused. “I’ll keep him occupied. Do you have any way to find his weakness while I do so?” As she spoke, she sprayed the area with bubbles. They were all traveling very fast and bumping into one another. It would be hard to avoid them. He could simply use his fire… but it would distract him and keep him busy.

[Charmera]

Claudia slowly lowered the Saiyan onto the ground. Then she took the bean from the cats hand and sat down next to him. "Thank you." She spoke to Korin, a sincere look on the hulks face. She inhaled, then fed Hiroshi the bean. "Alright. You're going to eat this. Then were going to go rend the flesh from that freak and use his intestines as a noose. Then... I don't know what happens then. But we're going to get through it while dancing on his burning fucking corpse." She spoke with such rage and hatred. "We will smash him until he's no more."

Hiroshi:

For the first time in as long as he could remember, Hiroshi knew what he was going to do.

" I need clothes." He spoke, Korin rushing to retrieve a black and dark green dogi. Pulling the shirt over his head, Hiroshi sighed, clenching his fist over and over again as blood pumped trough his body, his muscles vibrating with the strength passing through them. Turning to the cat, Hiroshi stuttered for a second.

" I... Thanks." He finally managed. Turning, the Hybrid strode to the edge of the tall tower.

" He;s still down there," He muttered " He won't be stopped by anyone down there."

The cat raised an eyebrow as he waddled over to the Saiyan. " Few beings I know possess the strength to outright defeat him, and he grows even stronger every minute. Ascended Saiyan just isn't enough Hiroshi, there has to be another way to stop him.

Korin:

He half expected an annoyed look from the boy, an outraged cry at his jab at Ascended Saiyan, but none came. Instead, the Hybrid stared unbendingly out over the earth around them, yet sadness and fury were mixed up in his eyes.

" Perhaps we could u-" Korin began to speak, before the air filled with static.

Energy swirled around them, golden fire sweeping across the small room, brimming from the cracks between tiles. With a sharp increase in wind, Hiroshi's hair shifted gold, force blasting in all directions, extinguishing the fire around them, swirls of dust and energy crrying anything not stationary away. As unexpected as it was, Korin was forced to plant his feet to stop from being blown away.

Staring with shocked eyes into his eyes, Korin saw only impassive seriousness, the same look he'd seen on his face when he'd come to heal so he could fight Garlic.

Before he could shout profanities at the Saiyan, electricity brimmed around Hiroshi, his power skyrocketing far beyond what it was earlier. his muscles bulging violently before tightening inwards against his frame. Wave after wave of force washed off Hiroshi, clouds surrounding the building rippled with energy, finally bursting with lightening, set off by the Hybrid.

Suddenly, it dawned on Korin. Hiroshi's almost constant battles and injuries had done more to improve his power and skill then he could have ever hoped. Even when he'd brought the bean, he'd assumed the boy would be dead before he returned, especially considering the shape he was in. He was as strong as he'd felt him when he'd unleashed his full power against Garlic, the blow that had collapsed the Dead Zone. The only one who had harmed the Giant besides Claudia,was Hiroshi. But this power wasn't hidden or reserve.

Stepping forward, Hiroshi stepped to the edge of the building.

"No. Claudia, stay here with Korin until I come back, your not strong enough."

Korin:

Claudia frowned, the air around her increasing in temperature as her hands closed into fists. She had kept herself together for Hiroshi, and had been quite surprised and glad that he had summoned the power to fight and the will to do so. But no one. Fucking no one. Told her to stay out of a fight. She wasn't going to sit around and wait anymore. "I'm not... Strong enough?" She asked. Her teeth gritted in barely contained rage. "Fuck that noise. I'm coming with you." She spoke. In as calm and level a tone as she could possibly manage.

[Charmera]

Claudia frowned, the air around her increasing in temperature as her hands closed into fists. She had kept herself together for Hiroshi, and had been quite surprised and glad that he had summoned the power to fight and the will to do so. But no one. Fucking no one. Told her to stay out of a fight. She wasn't going to sit around and wait anymore. "I'm not... Strong enough?" She asked. Her teeth gritted in barely contained rage. "Fuck that noise. I'm coming with you." She spoke. In as calm and level a tone as she could possibly manage.

Pissed.

She could not come. She couldn't be hurt for his mistakes, and he wouldn't lose her today. So even if he had to drive her away permanently, he would not let her fight today. Spinning around, his face contorted into that of barely contained rage, Hiroshi stormed over to the Red Titan, growling as he got within centimeters of her.

" What good did yours, mine or Hazzel's do her huh! What good will your rage filled attacks do in a fight like this? You will stay here! Just fucking listen to em this once!" He barked, his teal eyes filled with a mixture of sadness and fury.

Claudia had dealt with just about enough at that point. With a single hand she reached out and grabbed the Sayain, lifting him up to about eye level, her blue eyes full of a blazing fire one might not yet have seen. "Listen well. I'm only going to say this once." She spoke. "I like you Hiroshi. A lot. And I understand you don't want to see me hurt. But all your doing right now is pissing me off. Which makes me want to make sure you kill this monster and that your safe even more."

"I'm not going to be the girlfriend who stays at home and cooks while you're out fighting. I am the girlfriend who smashes with her boyfriend. So don't you dare think for one fucking minute I'm letting you dump me here and fight a big ass Saiyan. Because I care about you too. And want to make sure your not killed either."

"And if you disagree with any of those points, your welcome to try and stop me from coming with you. Because the only way you're going to do that is by killing me." She spoke. Then flashed a savage smile. "Now, do you understand, or do I have to bash it into your skull?" She spoke, drawing their faces closer, so their lips were almost touching.

[Charmera]

Skyworld

The Great Fountain, as always, was a most serene place. The soft darkness of the Skyworld enveloped the horizon wherever one looked, incorruptible, uniform, perfect, a black mantle that enveloped that world that lay beyond the confines of the universe. From above, though there were no clouds whatsoever to mar the kind and ever-present darkness, gentle drops of rain poured everlasting, never ceasing, never changing, always falling at the same pace. These drops of water made circular ripples in the crystalline, pure surface of the Great Fountain itself, causing the pristine water to appear to move constantly, weaving intrincate patterns that were as beautiful as they were ephemeral, dying in the same moment they were born. And these patterns, they went on and on almost eternally, for the Great Fountain was truly enormous, it was the only land in the Skyworld, the only thing inside of it beyond the rain and the mantle of darkness enveloping it.

And its inhabitants, of course, for all around the Great Fountain were the Rainborn, children of the toymaker and creator of the Skyworld, Father Sky, and Mother Rain, the holy rain which fell eternally upon the Great Fountain. The Rainborn, the joyous kind that lived in the Skyworld, were as always enjoying their lives in that serene land, free from the constraints of time, the rigors of age and the concerns of mortality, all of them thriving atop the Great Fountain, standing atop the gentle surface of the water that loved them and never allowed them to sink. Some of them, they danced gracefully with agile steps, and their feet served to draw abstract pictures on the surface of the water. Some of them, they played happily on the ripples, and their haphazard movements sent the water into chaos and gave it an aspect of joy. And some of them, they fought on the Skyworld for thrill and rush, and their conflict seemed to breathe life into the water.

Among them all, standing impassible at the very edge of the Great Fountain, staring out into the endless darkness, was the progenitor of all the Rainborn, Father Sky. He was tall, that much was certain, taller than any of the Rainborn present so that all of them could look up to him, but never so tall a to appear as a menacing giant, instead of a gentle tree in whose shade one could rest. His form seemed to shift and morph constantly, but he always retained a clear similarity to his creations, the Rainborn. He bore no reflection on the surface of the water, and his body seemed to be made up of darkness; yet, this darkness contrasted clearly with the mantle that covered the Skyworld, in a way none comprehended but all accepted as true, and within this darkness, there were endless stars. His eyes were twin suns glistening serenely, and on his head, made up of the same matter as his body, was something best described as a top hat.

Father Sky stared at the endless darkness, the veil beyond which lay the universe from which they were separated, a veil that was never forbidden, and at the same time, never meant to be broken on accident, or with a dark purpose. But as he mused and mused, the divine creator felt the presence of one of his children, approaching him, seeking him. He did not move, however. Only when the child had approached, did he finally speak. There was no mouth for him to speak with, however, and the words simply resounded in the child's head, the voice adopted by these words being that which the child found most fatherly.

"What is it, my child?"

The child in question had been aproaching her father with some trepidation and concern for a while now. Though she had talked with Father Sky and made this walk through the fountain many a time, she was still worried. As was always the way with Ihra. She paused when she was adressed, though his words gave her comfort, making Ihra almost forget the anxiety. She sighed, calming herself. She then turned to speak to her father. She wondered how to make her request, how to put what she wanted in to words. "Father." Spoke the child, buying time. "Do you know where Asra and Etla are?" She had been thinking about them and worrying about them day in and day out ever since they both were gone. Of course she had been worrying about Asra longer since he left first and his... change. Then Etla's accident... she couldn't help but worry for her Rainborn sister too. Who knows what could have happened to them?

Father Sky nodded at his daughter's words, the galaxies in his folded hands shifting and shuffling. "Though my power here is absolute, it is not so there where your brother and sister have ventured, that place called 'universe' by its inhabitants." The dark figure said, its voice resounding in his daughter's mind. He then paused for a moment before continuing his speech, immobile, impassible. "Yet, it allowed me to protect your younger sister in her venture through the strange cosmos beyond, and even now it allows me to fathom where, in that enormity that is the universe beyond this veil of darkness, your brother and sister, your dear siblings, may be." Father Sky stated, the suns in his eyes dimming for just a moment.

"Is there a reason for this question, my dear Ihra?"

Ihra looked down for a moment. Then looked back up. She then nodded. "Yes." She spoke. Though he likely already knew what she wanted (after all, he was her father) already, Ihra felt the need to ask. "Can I go find them?" She asked. "Can I go into... this "universe" to find the two of them and... help Etla if need be and..." She would have blushed. She knew she had been told that Asra was gone, that she couldn't do anything, but Ihra wanted, no, needed to help. She needed to save him. Somehow. And if not she needed to exhaust all possible ideas before...

Before someone killed him... A thought she could not bare. Even worse if it had to be by Etla's hand. No. She wanted to make sure she tired her hardest to help her brother. Though, if necessary she would have to make sure he didn't hurt Etla or anyone else.

Once more Father Sky listened to his daughter's words as she spoke, sensing the determination in her voice, knowing the unspoken sentences inside her heart. Indeed, the dark creator knew already what his daughter wanted, for no desire or thought remained hidden from him within the Skyworld, but what good would it do to jump ahead to the conclusions? Was it not preferable for a father to allow his children to express themselves freely? Indeed, it was, and so, he waited for Ihra to finish speaking before replying to her, pausing as if he was musing over what she had said, though in reality, he knew the answer he was going to give already.

"I see that your love for your siblings is very strong, my dear daughter, Ihra." The starlit figure remarked serenely, before turning to face the Rainborn, twin white suns staring at his daughter's eyes. "But I must ask, have you thought this through, child? Are you certain that this is what you want to do? It may take time before you are able to return to this place." He explained. He knew that his daughter was well aware of the potential risks of venturing beyond the veil of darkness, at least on some level, but he wanted her to be absolutely conscious of the mission she was about to undertake. Ihra's intentions were noble, as they always were, and that was something he was proud of, but before being allowed to leave, he would hear her speak her resolve once again.

The child nodded again. "I need to. I... need to know that they're alright. And in the case of Asra... I need to know." She knew her father would pick up on what she meant, even though she did not speak the words, more out of familiarity than out of knowledge of his incredible banks of knowledge. She sighed. "I know the risks are great, and I may not come back for a long time. I know that I may not like what I find in that world. I know I might not be the most skilled of us... But I still want to go." She spoke. "I have had much time to think since they left."

She looked up, staring into her fathers twin suns. A look of determination on her face for the mission and task ahead.

Seeing this unyielding resolve with his own two eyes, Father Sky nodded at his daughter. "Very well, Ihra, child of the sky and the rain, second to last of my daughters, I grant you permission to leave this veiled Skyworld and venture into the lands beyond. But my dear, I will allow no child of mine to leave unprepared." He proclaimed, and then, he raised his palm, with his palm up, facing the rain, and as the rain fell on his hand, it slowly stopped, solidifying, transforming into something else. Slowly but surely, the object took shape, becoming a sphere made of what seemed to be bones. Once the object had fully formed, he presented it to Ihra, waiting for her to take it.
"This Core is built with the bones of an ancient race of creatures once encountered and befriended by my eldest son, Ocra. I believe you will find it an appropiate tool for yourself. It bears the power of those ancient creatures, and it will aid you in your journey beyond the veil." The dark creator spoke, and then turned towards the endless darkness of the Skyworld once more. "Now go, my child, go and fulfill your mission, and may your convictions guide you. Jump down from here, away from this Great Fountain of ours, and into the darkness, and I will see to it that you reach your destination. And if ever you find yourself in trouble, then remember that though we may live in isolation, there are many that owe us much, and they will hear when you call for help." He stated.

He then paused, but before Ihra could leave, he started again. "And if all else fails, remember this well, my child. Remember that Father Sky is always watching."

Ihra took the object, handeling it ceremoniously and carefully. "Thank you Father. I hope to return successful one day." Ihra spoke, smiling for once during their conversation. She place the core within her. Empowering her. Suddenly a vast amount of medical knowledge flowed within her. She could feel the thoughts and minds of her brethren around her as the information empowered her. She sighed, feeling a serene calm fall over her like a blanket as she felt the soft, comforting embrace of the core. She took out her armour. Seeing how it now seemed to have a symbol on it. She wasn't sure what it meant. She put her armour back. Her blade seemed unchanged. Ihra smiled, this core was perfect for her. She loved it already. She moved towards her father and then embraced him. The dark being morphing himself to hug her back. She stayed like this for a little while. Then backed off slightly.

She looked up to her father and nodded once before she left. "I will remember. Thank you father." Ihra then turned and ran to the edge of the fountain, getting room to move. She then did a running jump off the edge of if and into the darkness. Letting it swallow her.

[Charmera]

Claudia had dealt with just about enough at that point. With a single hand she reached out and grabbed the Sayain, lifting him up to about eye level, her blue eyes full of a blazing fire one might not yet have seen. "Listen well. I'm only going to say this once." She spoke. "I like you Hiroshi. A lot. And I understand you don't want to see me hurt. But all your doing right now is pissing me off. Which makes me want to make sure you kill this monster and that your safe even more."

"I'm not going to be the girlfriend who stays at home and cooks while you're out fighting. I am the girlfriend who smashes with her boyfriend. So don't you dare think for one fucking minute I'm letting you dump me here and fight a big ass Saiyan. Because I care about you too. And want to make sure your not killed either."

"And if you disagree with any of those points, your welcome to try and stop me from coming with you. Because the only way you're going to do that is by killing me." She spoke. Then flashed a savage smile. "Now, do you understand, or do I have to bash it into your skull?" She spoke, drawing their faces closer, so their lips were almost touching.

" But this isn't your fight anymore. I failed Tomia, and as her Father I will avenge her. She was a little girl Claudia, she didn't deserve this, she didn't deserve the life she was given. If I get in trouble... You'll know. But until I am beaten and can't take him on my own, I want you to trust that I'll take care of myself okay?" He said softly, giving a soft smile as he inched his head forward, their lips meeting softly as he grinned. Looping his arms around her, Hiroshi gave into happiness for a moment.

Claudia sighed after the kiss. Rolling her eyes. "Fine. We'll try it your way first. But I will be watching you. If he hurts you I will come in and shove his head into his ass." She growled slightly, looking around, but then her smile returned. She was still holding Hiroshi, and her smile was a mishevious, devious sort of smile, with a bit of her savage hulkish nature. "Let me do one thing for you though." She spoke. She took him to the edge of the look out, still holding him with one hand. "Now, which way do you think Broly went?"

The Flame Guard stood by silently as Batgirl spoke to the SHIELD operative. She certainly had the attitude of a proven battlefield commander. She seemed like a natural leader. John was glad this was the person in charge here. This was someone he could work with.

Cora smiled when Valancy thanked her, "You're welcome Valancy, I'm glad you like them." She gave a sheepish laugh and blushed a bit when Valancy asked if it was her recipe. Luckily she didn't seem actually mad about it. "Well ya kinda. I never actually cooked for anyone before I came here." She admitted. "Besides, yours taste so good, I couldn't resist." She added flatteringly with a joking smile. She hoped maybe her and Valancy joking around could help cheer up Katie, at least a little.

Katie paused as she ate. Slowly. She wasn't all that hungry, but she reasoned if she didn't eat something she would likely starve or upset Cora. "They're really good..." Spoke Katie weakly. She ate them. Normally they would have all been gone by now and she would have been asking for seconds, but Katie wasn't in the mood to eat yet. She sighed. Finishing off half the pancake.

[Charmera]

---

After Shadow had led them back to the small village in the woods where she had managed to take a shower and acquire new clothes, Garnet dismounted shortly after Masami did, accidentally letting out a huge yawn. She was tired from the battle with the bat, though only slightly so, and the sensation of being able to relax a bit after such a fight was rather enjoyable, though she suspected she would not be able to enjoy it for long. Idly, she listened to the foxgirl's comments about the bat, not really knowing what to say about her tails. She wasn't yet quite sure how those worked, but it was apparent that it was important for Masami to collect... grow... acquire? She wasn't even really sure what to call it. Gain, she supposed. Idly, she removed her mask, not wanting someone to freak out if they saw her with it on. As she did so, looking for where to put it, she noticed that once again her clothes were stained with blood, though to a much lesser degree than before. She sighed at this. It was rather hard to stay clean when one was hunting monsters and abominations, it seemed.

Warily, she walked behind Masami. Truth be told it didn't seem like there was anyone to freak out at a masked lady, which was odd. It was certainly a quiet village, but she clearly remembered that there had been at least some people there when she had last been, and it couldn't have been that long.

And then, they were attacked by, of course, vengeful warrior ghosts. Garnet ran a hand along her blonde hair, a bit frustrated. "Alright, alright. I've got your back, General Ackbar." She said, not quite sure if the silver-haired Yokai would get the reference. She doubted it, but then, Masami had surprised her once already, she could always do so again. "Now tell me: do I cut them, shoot them, punch them, what? Those gaps in their armor make it seem like they have no bodies, so I have no idea. You're the expert here." She stated, getting into position as she gripped her nameless sword.

"Was... was that a Star Wars reference?" Asked Masami. "I may be a Kitsune warrior who spends most of her time hunting and killing monsters, but I know what Star Wars is." She joked, but then returned her mind to the current problem. She parried a strike from one of the Samurai ghosts, noting they retained quite a bit of their skill. "I think your bullets are good for dealing with these guys. They're just souls after all." She had sensed what they had done to the Tengu. "Otherwise. Just try to destroy as much of the armour as possible." She sliced one of them in half. The soul essence leaked out like blood and simply disapated over time. She then sent out waves of foxfire, burning and overpowering her foes. She then looked in the air. "There... There's something else too." Her enhanced senses could feel the ground tremble and hear the sounds of stomping feet. Big feet. "Do you hear that?"

Cora
Cora heard Katie's words and tried to hide her frown. She had barely eaten half her pancakes when she was done. "You're welcome Katie." She told her in a soft tone. Things were so different around the JQ now. Cora realized how much energy and life Katie brought into building. She was so much fun and so kind, but right now none of that was there. Cora had wished things could go back to normal, but she knew they needed to keep going, the JQs mission was too important not to. She was determined to be there for Katie as long as she needed. She'd never abandon her friend under any circumstance.

Katie looked up, seeing the looks on everyones faces. She needed to stop this. To find a way to drag herself out of the misery she had found herself in. But she couldn't. It was just too hard to accept... Too hard to move on.

Dammit. I need to stop this. I look pathetic. I need to think of the team too.

She inhaled. Checked her watch. "I... I'm going to go to the funeral." She spoke. "I'll understand if you all don't want to come with me..." She spoke. She could use some support, but... She was the only one who "had" to go.

-Snip

The brutal punishment that Ashy unleashed into Val felt like a punishment for being so worn out so quickly in their bawl, the flurry of punches, kicks, jabs, and strikes hitting deep and forceful impact each time they landed. She doubled over from the gut punches, only to be smacked in the face and sent rearing to the side. She was tired, worn out, out of breath from that last throw, but a second wind brewed in her lungs. She eyed her opponent carefully, looking for the right moment to go back on the offensive, just one shot, Val reckoned, in order to win the fight by knockout. Val saw her opportunity and seized it, stepping forward into a single straight punch - pouring her all into that one final blow.

Just as Val's padded knuckles smashed into Ashy's face, she felt a similar, burning hot sensation spread across her left cheek. Val's head was thrown to the side, the hot feeling turning into a red, warm feeling that faded her vision into a soft pink color, following a quick jolt of white light, revealing only a black canopy with colorful shapes to her eyes. It was only for a moment, but Val sprang open her eyes once more, her view of the side of the mat, staring directly at the bottom of Ashy's feet. "...Wyah?" She asked, a large muscular hand grabbing her shoulder, lifting that arm and putting it across her torso.

She tried to move but just felt so tired, so Val watched the beefy back of Mir as he tended to Ashy, who seemed to fair just as well. Her head bobbed about, Ashy's eyes failing to affix themselves on a particular thing, until she too snapped back to life. Val weakly pushed up on one of her arms, the joint shaking at the elbow as her nervous system slowly came back to life. "Aufersan." She said, forming a word in her head that didn't transfer to her lips all too well. "Ah.." She sounded out, trying to regain her speech.

"Relax, Val. You both got quite the haymakers to the face."

"Aht washn't ah heihmayker..." Val said, throwing her body into a sitting position, her upper torso leaning lazily over her legs and hips. "Aht wash ah sta-straht pawnch..." She shook her head a bit, trying to clean off the fuzzy bits on her mind, surprisingly fixing her voice in the process. "Straight punch!" She said with clarity, nodding her head at the accomplishment. Val looked over to Ashy, the girl also fairly awake. "You fought good. Real good. I wouldn't mind...training with you, sometime." Val said, raising her knees up and resting her head on them, "Just...not right now." She joked, Mir gently laying an icepack on Val's head, walking over and kneeling down to Ashy, presenting her with one as well.

"I'll be honest, it was quite the fight." Mir whispered to Ashy, but loud enough for Val to hear as well. "You looked pretty awesome." He said with a sweet, genuine smile.

Ashy looked at Val. She pointed a hand towards her once opponent and concentrated, focusing her power on her to heal and mend her. To block her pain and heal the wounds she had inflicted. "Vokornian tradition. After a friendly fight you heal your opponent if able." She explained. Then she smiled. "Thank you. I was kidding about the human thing. Your kind fights well and hard. And you should be proud of being a fighter among a race of fighters Val. And I'd be happy to train with you." She spoke. "Honestly, I'm not sure I was as good a demonstration of our races capabilities though. My sister is much better at this sort of thing than I... "

"I'm much better at magic. If you ever want to learn a few neat cantrips or tricks. Let me know."

She then turned to Mir. She smiled too, impressed by his genuineness. "Thank you too. Perhaps we will have to spar sometime as well." The Vokornian beamed at him. She felt his skin and... it was tingling her senses. She stared into his eyes. Then broke gaze. "I may have to leave soon. There are a few people I must visit considering my new... condition."

[Charmera]

Cora
Cora heard Katie's words about the funeral and turned around to look at her. "Of course we're going Katie. You're our friend, we won't let you go alone." She told Katie sincerely. She was confident that Valancy felt the same way. They were friends and teammates, and what were those things for if not for times like this? Cora didn't make herself any pancakes, she didn't really need to eat very often. However she did make herself a fruit smoothie because she needed fluids to survive even though she didn't need to eat. When she was done cleaning up the kitchen she'd head to her room to get ready for the funeral. She couldn't imagine how hard this would be for Katie.

Katie nodded. "Alright." She spoke. Then grabbed her car keys. "I'll drive. It'd be best if we didn't teleport there or something." She spoke, holding onto the counter. She then moved towards the door, leaving the room. She kept her back turned to hide her tears.

A few hours later.
The funeral had been as Katie expected it to be. She still felt hollow and empty. Like someone had torn out a lung. They had sat down for the last rites and the proceedings, and then after the Funeral happened and the coffin was burried, Katie stood in front of the grave, in black formal wear. She knelt down next to the grave. "Eric... It's me... Katie," She spoke. She hadn't tried this. She had tried everything to relieve her grief. "Look... I'm sorry. Sorry for... dragging you into this. I... should have been able to save you. I should have been able to do something. I mean,.. isn't that what we do? We save people. It's our job. Our life. Our calling. We have these powers so we can save people from things they can't fight. So... Why couldn't I save you?"

"Why couldn't I save you?" She asked again.

"Because he couldn't be saved." Spoke a voice.

Katie turned and saw a little girl. Her eyes widening as she saw the figure. A white dress. A glowing aura. The world around her seemed to get better, though a little more cartoony and cute. It was one of the only things that had snapped Katie out of the reverie of grief.

"Who-"

"Does it matter?" She asked. Katie thought. She supposed it didn't. The little girl smiled. "Don't freak out. This is all in your head... but real at the same time."

Katie couldn't help but awkwardly pause. She was about eye level with the girl kneeling down. "Okay. What do you mean?"

"Hmm?"

"By what you said. "he couldn't be saved""

"Oh. Well. He couldn't." She paused. There was a silence. Then she sighed. "It'd take a while to explain, but certain things have to happen in the timestream. This is one of them."

"Wait... so you knew this was going to happen?"

"Yes... and no." Another pause. "But that's not really the problem. The problem is you." She spoke. "You need to accept that events happened the way they did. No amount of obsessing over the details and wishing you could change things will fix that."

She paused and looked at Katie. Who frowned. "No offense. But your like... eight?-"

"Eighty billion three hundred and sxity four."

"What?" Katie said.

"That's how many years since my own love died." She spoke. "So yes. I do have experience. Your smart enough to know I'm not human. You've already realized that I have no eletrical impulses of my own so you know I'm not a little girl. And this is just too darn weird to be a hallucination isn't it? So no your not going crazy."

Katie frowned. Then sat. Then sighed. "Fine. Magic fairy. Tell me how to deal with loss."

The girl sighed, exhaling. "Honey. I'm as old as the universe. And I can't tell you how to deal with loss." She spoke. "Though, tip number one would be to not let it define you."

"I've seen too many wounded people who let themselves become more injury than person. Loss is part of life. But loss is not life. Life goes on despite your loss. And you have to deal with that. Now you can either dwell on it or make peace with it. It's your choice." She spoke. "It's not as hard as it sounds. You have friends. Try focusing outwards once more and stop focusing inwards. It'll do you some good."

Katie blinked. That actually made sense. "But... That can't be all there is to it?"

The girl smiled. "No. It's not." She admitted. "In truth. You'll never fully let go. But thats not a bad thing. We remember the dead because they're worth rememebering." She spoke. "You're missing him. So find something of his to hold onto when you do feel like that. And make sure the dead can rest in peace."

"But... what do I do?"

Her smile widened. "I think you already know." She spoke. "But if you need a hint. Think of Roy."

She paused. "Seriously. What are you? Your starting to freak me out."

The girl Laughed. "Again. Not important. But if you must know. My name is Lula. And I help people just like you. And if your ever doubting the fact that you make a difference, think of someone else you helped. The Tin girl who you helped find a heart and a home."

Katie looked down. She had been so stupid. Cora. She had helped her. She had made a difference. "But what if I-?" As she looked up, she saw no one next to her. She got up and inhaled. She still felt... drained. But not empty. She had been filled with something. It was hard to descibe. But now she was feeling energized for the first time since Erics death. She felt the need to do something...

Back at the JQ headquarters.
After the Funeral, Katie had seemed different. There was something on her mind. Something other than her own grief. Think of Roy? What about Roy? What happened with Ro- Suddenly she remembered.

She suddenly got a burst of speed as she got into the lobby. She went up the stairs faster than she had ever done before. Up and up the stairs she went. Her heart pounded as she raced upwards until...

She saw the computer. Walking towards it. She saw the desktop and an unfamiliar icon, yet familiar when she remembered the picture on the USB stick. She clicked on it.

It opened up to a screen. A small software screen. Katies eyes misted up as she saw it.

For the most awesome team of Superheroes ever to bring Justice to planet Earth.
I'm probably not going to be around when you guys get this installed and see this message, but I thought I'd put something up to let you know how much you all mean to me in case of my absence during the presentation of the gift.

Naja, though I've not known you for long I still think your awesome. You're probably the most sensible and level headed person I know, as well as the strongest. Try to keep the others from hitting each other too hard.
Kylie, this may not help you get into space and see the galaxy, but it should at least keep unwanted intruders out of your room. Heck, maybe you get to space before you see this. I honestly wouldn't be surprised.
Valency, Without you, this software wouldn't be even remotely possible. I've always wanted to design this kind of stuff, and you've gone a long way to helping my dreams come true. Thank you.
Cora, I've also not known you long, but this is also designed for you. In fact some of your systems inspired this particular brand of software and helped instrumentally in it's designing, though you may not realize it.
Katie, not to single you out. But you are the love of my life. You know that right? You are smart, and funny, and wonderful. I love you so much, and want to see you happy more than anything in the world. I know this JQ stuff has been stressing you out, but keep in mind I've never seen you happier. So I'll keep helping you wherever I can.

To the others. Make sure my girlfriend doesn't die from exhaustion or anything. Drag her out by her hair and get her to relax. It's one of the hardest things for her.

Anyway. Without any further ado, this is my (rather late) founding gift to you. Hope you all enjoy playing around with it. I added a few more things other than security so you should all have fun.

Activate and go to Menu Deactivate

Katie slumped back in her seat. Then chuckled a little. "Damn it Eric." She spoke. "I don't have trouble relaxing... what are you talking about." She spoke, obviously in denial and she chuckled even more. Tears were coming from her eyes. She then whipped them.

"Thank you Eric." She spoke. Then hovered her mouse over to the activate button. A final tear coming out of her ear as she clicked it. "And goodbye..."

[Charmera]

---

---

Gilbert nodded at Aru's words. It was true, even though he could cheat death through Ku's power, pain was not something he could simply ignore, and most things that brought death also brought pain with them. So while it was not exactly as difficult for him to give his life away for a cause as it likely was to other people, it was still not exactly a simple thing. For now, though, it was best not to think about such things and focus on the corrupted Rainborn.

"I'll see what I can do." He said to Aru as she sprayed bubbles all over the battlefield. However, just before he was going to jump down from his spot in the rooftop, the woman's voice, the same one that had led him to the Batcomputer to try to prove his existence and fail in his endeavor, spoke inside his mind once again, as if to guide him. At first, he was reluctant to listen. That voice had caused him a very nasty surprise earlier, and he didn't want to go through that again, not to mention that, being in the middle of a battle as he was, it was not a convenient thing to listen to whatever it was. However, soon he decided to listen, as he realized that the voice was trying to help him and Aru in their battle.

"The chest. The chest houses its Core. Destroy it."

Gilbert quickly turned to Aru.

"It's weak point is in its chest! We need to get it off the ground. If you can do that, then I can try to expose the weak point, and you'll have a clear shot if you fire from the ground. That way, you won't be at risk of destroying Earth if you miss, or if the bullet goes through after you fire." He said, before looking back at Asra, who had currently grown bored of studying one of the bubbles enveloping his arm and was corrupting it to the point that it destroyed itself, releasing him from it. Then, once again, he sent a wave of Absolute Fire with a beat of his wings, incinerating the bubbles surrounding him. Gilbert frowned at seeing this.

"I have no power, not like yours anyway. I can't do much against him, I can't force him off the ground. But if you can do that, then I promise you, I will give you your opening." The young man said.

Aru paused, and then nodded slightly. There was a suddenly "ding" as if something in the oven had finished cooking and Aru suddenly pulled out several flat disks from her suit. She quickly pressed a few buttons and tossed them, the drones popping out and floating before they hit the ground, suddenly splashing her foe with plasma fire, Railgun fire and a few more bubbles blasted out at him. Another distraction. And then Aru grabbed Gilberts hand.

"Try not to be sick." She spoke, as suddenly they were teleported behind Asra, the teleporting would make most non Rantu nauseous. Aru frowned at being so close to her enemy, but sometimes being close to yoru enemy was a nessecity. Not to strike them in melee of course, thats why shotguns were invented after all. "Do what you need to do. You have roughly ten seconds before he kills us." She gave Gilbert a little time to make preparations and such. Suddenly, Aru slid forward from her hiding spot and in front of Asra so her rifle would point up at him. She then blasted upwards with the large Tachyon rifle into his chest. She dearly hoped he had managed to create her opening.

---

Upon hearing her sister's words, Sarah's crimson eyes fluttered open and she let out a big yawn. Up until Samantha had parked the car next to the roadside dinner, Sarah had been sleeping peacefully, recovering all the energy she had spent during the bank robbery, and later during the battle against the wizard. However, just those four hours of rest had been quite wonderfu, and she felt fully refreshed and ready to roll after waking up. Not wanting to let Samantha go off on her own, the elder Grimm tried to move, but she failed to do so, and could only smile when she realized why.

"Come on little flower, it's time to grab something to eat." She said, lightly shaking Hanah in order to stir her. The two had fallen asleep in the back seat, after all, so it was little surprise to Sarah that when she woke up, Hanah was sleeping with her head on Sarah's lap. "You know I'd love to let you sleep some more, but your sister's going to leave us without dinner if we don't hurry and catch up with her." She chuckled lightly.

After Hanah woke up, Sarah too stepped out of the car and followed Sam into the dinner. "Since we have the money, we should order lots of dessert." The elder sister stated, more to herself than to the others, nodding firmly to herself as she walked inside. As was the norm, once she walked inside, most if not all pairs of eyes turned to look at her and found it very difficult to move away, captivated by the pale lady's unnatural beauty, but Sarah, more than used to this kind of attention, simply walked past the other patrons and found a table for herself and her sisters.

---

She growled softly. "Just five more minutes..." She muttered happily. But then her eyes shot open with almost frightening speed when dinner was mentioned. She pounced up. "Egh! I'm up! I'm up! Let's go." She suddenly spoke.

As she entered the room she noticed how all the eyes went to Sarah once more and sighed, rolling her eyes and folding her arms slightly. She had come to expect this really, but it was a tad annoying how she never seemed to get any attention when next to her sister. It was like she was invisible... She snapped out of her thoughts of anything but food quickly however when she saw the menu, at which see oogled more than the people in the restaurant oogled at Sarah. Meat! Meat! Glorious Meat! Pork! Beef! Stake! Sausages! Chicken! Come to mama. She paused and snapped out of her trance as soon as she realized she was drooling. She coughed awkwardly. "I'll have... the meat." She pointed at the meat section. All of it.

---

Garnet nodded at Masami with a sheepish grin on her face as she asked about the reference, quite amused that she knew what it was. Once again, she was proven wrong, but she didn't really mind. Traveling with someone so full of surprises only meant that there was little chance of ever being bored, after all. Another nod, a more serious one, came along as the kitsune explained that her bullets would work just fine in destroying the Goryo, and that if they failed, she could always destroy the armor and cause the spiritual energy inside to leak out. The fox lady swiftly demonstrated this by slicing through one of the ghost warriors and destroying him with relative ease, so Garnet figured that there really wasn't much to these things. With that in mind, she pulled out her pistol and fired off an entire clip, managing to destroy three of the Goryo before being forced to block an attack by another one who had gotten a bit too close. Putting away Misery, she materialized Agony and punched the samurai's chestplate, shattering and causing the ghost to disappear.

"No, I don't. You have fox ears, Masami, remember?" Garnet remarked after dispatching the previous enemy, and took a moment to retrieve her mask and don it, feeling the power coursing through her. So long as the mask was on her, her agility was increased greatly, and wounds would heal in time. A powerful artifact, indeed.

"But if you know what it is, by all means, tell me. A warning in advance would be nice." She said as she took her nameless sword and sliced through one of the Goryo.

Masami wade through quite handily herself as the two of them cut through the Goryo ranks like a sword. Though they were all trained Samurai, their skills were rusty after a long death. Not so for the two women who seemed to be handily dealing with the Horde. "It's big. I know that for certain. Though that doesn't really narrow it down." She then paused and looked around. Most of the Goryo were dead or... re dead. They were all dead technically. Or undead. Whichever. Though she didn't see any giant monster that would cause these footsteps. She frowned. But then she realized what was wrong. She grabbed Garnet and pushed them both through the door of the inn.

Just in time too. A second later a massive boney, fleshless foot slammed down where they once were, destroying all the remaining Goryo. Masami got up and drew her sword. And then the room of the Inn was suddenly burst open to reveal a massive white skeleton. "Gashadokuro. A giant skeleton made of the bones of the starving... But this was always a plentiful area. No records of famine or drou-" She suddenly dodged a massive bone fist. "Someone must have imported this thing." She commented. "But who would have the resources to command one of these..."

She faced the giant skeleton. Blade drawn. "Be careful. This thing is tough and strong." She spoke. suddenly hurling a ball of fox fire into it's face. It flinched, though didn't seem too fazed.

[Charmera]

Somewhere on the asteroid belt, Hadrimmelis meditated silently, mulling on the many things that she had done during the aftermath of the Time Demon War in order to ensure that Ku would not wreak havoc upon the universe once more. His surviving brothers and sisters, including the elder Kazayannú, had devised a myriad failsafes and countermeasurs to firmly ensure that the fearsome Time Demon would never escape his chains, buried beneath the Great Temple in the Dragon Force Dimension and left there to languish forever and be forgotten by all but its captors. She, however, had done something different. She had devised a way to stop the Time Demon should he ever break free, without having to go through such a massive loss of life. A way to destroy the creature for good. A way to stop it before it had the chance to cause as much destruction as it had caused during the war along with its siblings. And it had only required a single sacrifice. Just one! The bargain of an eternity!

Back then, it had seemed so simple, so easy to accomplish that it would have been nothing less than a sin to refuse to go through with it. Just one sacrifice, that was all it would take to stop Ku if he broke free once again, and this time, for good. It was not just simple, it was not just convenient. It was necessary. Hadrimmelis and everyone else who was alive at the time had experienced firsthand the horrors that the Time Demons were capable of inflicting upon the universe, and that one sacrifice was a small price to pay to spare the universe a second scarring. It was quite simply the right choice, and that was it. But now, so long after the crisis, the scarlet World-Dragon wondered about the truthfulness of that.

Had that really been the right choice? She wondered, as she watched the battle taking place on Earth.

"Greetings sister." Spoke a voice from behind the world dragon. Another World Dragon apparently, with a smile on her face. "Apologies if I interrupted your meditation, Kazayannu told me that you were here, and we haven't conversed in a while. I've been rather busy lately after all." She spoke. Yamirakkelis (Or Yama as she was more often known, or Yammy, her rather embarrassing nickname) sat next to her sister. She had purple hair, odd for a human form and it often was a little conspicuous, but she liked it. She also had blue, knowledgeable eyes, framed by her ever present glasses. She seemed to always wear them without fail. She didn't need them to see, but she wore them for reasons only she knew. Then there were her wizarding robes, again, unneeded, but part of the image she was associated with.

"Your thinking about something aren't you?" She asked. "If I were to hazard a guess... it would be Ku and the Time Demon War wouldn't it?" She paused. Waiting for her sister to confirm or deny her assertion. Her guess was based on what could reasonably put a first generation World Dragon like her on edge.

[Charmera]

Gotham city
Ihra walked out of the blue glow of the energy she had ridden to earth and into the streets of Gotham. She looked around, her eyes widening. Around her were dark boxes of grey, a few beings who looked like Rainborn, but with looks of apathy or sorrow on their faces were scattered across the street, metal poles holding lights or holding more metal. She frowned slightly, pausing as she looked around in confusion. She turned around, about to explore a little, when suddenly she felt a force slam into her sending her sliding back. As she looked up, she saw it was a short beast with glowing red eyes and what appeared to be a window into it's camel like hump of a stomach. Some sort of translucent material. Inside was a man with a look of terror. At first she thought the man might be in trouble. But then his expression became angry.

"Get off the road!" He shouted.

Ihra cocked her head. "Road?" She paused.

"Yes! Road! You dumb broad!"

She shook her head. This was too much. "But... don't you want to get out of the beasts stomach?"

The man shook his head and pressed the middle of a strange wheel. Suddenly the beast roared. The Rainborn jumped back, keeping an eye on the beast as she moved to a slightly more elevated part of the... road? That must be what this is called.

"I don't like it here already..." She whined. She was out of her element. Usaully she liked reading the many books Father Sky let them peruse or playing or talking with her brothers or sisters. This sort of exploration was quite jarring a shift.

"Oh dear..." She mutter. But then she saw a group of men in front of her. Her eyes widened. Then she smiled. "Perhaps they can tell me more about where I am!" She spoke. She ran up to the group, all carrying various items. Though they did look quite physically large and a little scary, but she knew better than tp judge solely on appearance. "Greetings humans!" She spoke. Then shyly asked one of them, a slightly embarased look on her face. "You wouldn't mind telling me where I am and showing me around this... place? Would you?"

The man smiled. "Yeah darlin' we'll show you around all right." He spoke, then made a neck movement to the others. They took out their items, that now Ihra was now close she was able to see. They looked like sticks of metal and wood.

"Oh!" She spoke. Remembering the one thing she had heard about earth. Baseball. "Are you going to play-" She was cut off when suddenly she was whacked across the skull with a metal stick. She frowned. She wasn't hurt or phased by this. "Um... Is this some form of greeting?"

The men fell back a bit. "What the hell?" One of them darted forward and poked Ihra with something. She did know what this was. She was going to retaliate when she realized it was completely harmless. The man repeated the action.

"What... are you doing?" She asked. Then it dawned on her. Her durability had been elevated by the new core. So if she was at normal durability she could have been damaged...

Her expression hardened slightly. She reached out her hand, and used telekinisis to snatch all the weapons away. Then she threw them all into the street. But then that made them mad.

One pulled out a tiny thing of metal and pulled something. Then a light and a sound was made. Startled, Ihra ran. She quickly escaped the group, who didn't seem to persue her. Perhaps they were as confused as she. She frowned. Disapointed with herself. If she were Asra or Etla, she would have fought them and stopped them from potentially hurting more humans or rainborn. But Ihra had no idea what that thing was doing. She had felt something... Was she poisoned? Infected? She quickly ran through her now ecycolpedic medical mind and concluded that she wasn't, if she even could have those ailments she had only heard of in theory.

Ihra looked down in despair. "I have no idea what I'm doing. How did I expect to be of any help?" She asked herself. But then saw something. The wall behind her actually gave way slightly. She turned around and saw a small orb like device and the wall slightly...Ajar? OH!

It's on hinges? Thats... actually quite clever. She walked backward, seeing the box she had leaned on in full. "Devils... Den?" She asked. Then frowned. "What's a devil?" She did know what a den was. A place when you went to hide from your siblings who were playing hide and seek. Something like that? Was this a hiding place? Did she need a hiding place? She did have 5 humans and a metal beast upset with her, so all in all it might be good to find somewhere to lay low. She noticed this was actually a somewhat larger yet shorter box. She shrugged. She couldn't make sense of human architecture... Buildings! That's what the box's are!

Ihra walked in, finding it rather loud for a hiding spot. Lots of humans. She frowned. Why would someone want to hide here. In fact. This was a rather stupid hiding spot considering the sign said it was a hiding spot. Still. She had made the most progress here. She seemed to be figuring things out a little more. She was making progress, but the more she unveiled about this... place the more she...

Wait. Humans. That's what these beings who looked like Rainborn are? But how do i know that? Perhaps my core's abilities told me. I did get a lot of new information I;m still trying to process.

She still wandered. This still doesn't make any sense. Even if I do work out how human society works. How am I going to work out where to find Asra and Etla? Why did I think this was a good idea? The beast is going to catch up with me again and eat me like he did that man! Then it'll spit me out and the other men will use their metal weapons to... I don't know! What do those things do! She worried and wandered, and would have snapped had she not heard a familiar voice.

"But anyway," She said, picking up from her earlier comment. "I don't mind if things get heated. The hotter it gets, the better."

"ETLA!" She shouted. She saw crowds and a room. Her telepathic powers reached out and found a mind confirming it was Etla the small crowd was watching. She smiled, walking through the crowd, but when she started to get angry looks. She got guilty. "So sorry!" "Excuse me please." "I need to get through please." She spoke. Until she was nearby the area Etla was. She seemed to be sparing with someone. "ETLA!" She shouted. "ETLA!" She shouted again, waving. She then paused. What if I'm interupting her sparring? Won't she be mad...?

[Charmera]

---

Garnet simply rolled her eyes at Masami when she said that whatever was coming, it was something big. That much was painfully obvious and didn't really help Garnet figure out what kind of monster was approaching. She softly mumbled something about a military officer named "Obvious" as she faced off against yet another Goryo, briefly wondering if there was something in her arsenal she hadn't yet used. Suddenly, her mind thought of Despair, and so, thrusting forth the arm that bore the bracelet with the purple gemstone, she willed the skeletal purple hand into existence, and it manifested soon enough, reaching out towards the undead samurai. But instead of pulling it towards her or pulling her towards it like it often did, it constricted the Goryo, eventually crushing it inside the ethereal fist.

Garnet was fairly content with the outcome of her little experiment, btu she didn't have much time to think about it, as Masami suddenly tackled her, pushing her into the inn just before a giant bone foot stomped them and ground them into a fine crimson-tinted paste.

Getting up just a moment after Masami, she hastily adjusted her clothes, which for a moment there showed a tad more cleavage than she was comfortable with, and listened to the kitsune explain what they were going to face off against. The giant skeleton, she said, had apparently been taken here from somewhere else.

"Well, that only confirms that this whole thing was a trap, Ackbar." Garnet remarked, before looking up at the skeleton. It was pretty huge, but nothing she couldn't take. She had been fighting giant monsters since... a handful of days ago, but she felt like she had it down to a science already. Plus, Masami had been at it for far longer, likely, so she was confident they'd be fine. "Now then, time to take this one down too." She said. And with that, she began charging up Agony, the gauntlet glowing with red energy. Reaching out with the hand bearing the purple bracelet once again, and the skeletal purple hand reached out, latching onto the skeleton's leg. Garnet used this to launch herself at high speeds towards the skeleton.

"Femuuur..." She said as she flew towards the skeleton, ready to punch its leg and look awesome while doing it. "KILLER!"

The leg cracked as hit was hit, sending the monster back as it sat it's boney ass down on a poor individuals house. The monster then moaned. No fearsome roar. No acknowledgement of any pain. Of course, those were the pro's of being a giant skeleton. You didn't tend to let things like limb's being cracked get you down. Masami's eyes widened as she suddenly had an idea, you could almost see the light-bulb over her silver hair. She quickly rushed towards the leg, slamming her blade into it. It cracked again. Not enough to break fully, but enough that it would begin to show some real structural instability. This time it didn't so much fall back as look at it's foe with a blank, almost innocent stare.

"Focus on this leg! Then we can bring down the head together when he fal-" Suddenly Masami was slapped by a giant hand, brushed off the leg and into the inn, She groaned as she was hit. Then suddenly the Skeleton focused on her. Walking towards the Kitsune and ignoring Garnet, rearing up a massive fist. Masami recovered, placing a sword in defense which may or may not do anything.

Samantha
Samantha just smiled and shook her head at her sisters' behavior. "I can't believe I'm the normal one." She joked. After a little while their meals arrived, well Sarah and Hannah's weren't meals as much as they were whole parts of the menu. Samantha started to eat her food as soon as it arrived. She was quite hungry after everything that had happened today. When she finally stopped to breath, she spoke to her sister, "So should we talk about what happened today?" She asked, she was often the one who kept them serious and her sisters called her a buzzkill. "I thought we killed him in Central City. How did he come back?" She asked in a hush tone.

Hanah frowned, about to chew through a whole leg of lamb with her knifelike teeth, She sighed. Buzzkill Sam was at it again. "I don't know Sam..." She spoke. "I mean, we can do some crazy stuff, and it's all magical... maybe he has a different sort of magic." She spoke. Then tore off a chunk of meat with her teeth. "He's creepy. That's for sure." She spoke. Then she suddenly looked down. And sighed once more. "If I didn't hesitate... maybe you wouldn't have gotten hurt Sarah. I should have pounced on him as soon as he showed his ugly hat..."

---

Noticing that there were more drones on the battlefield now, Asra decided that he'd had enough. Gripping his sword, he moved at the speed of light and sliced through them effortlessly, before flying high into the air. Holding out his free hand above him, he began generating massive waves of Absolute Flame, just waiting to be released, unleashed upon the ripe world that was Earth, to feed on its inhabitants and devour it whole, leaving nothing behind, erasing Earth forever. Aru's words rang true: ten seconds were all the time that they had left before Asra killed them. Ten seconds were all the time anyone had left before Asra killed them, for not life nor sound nor light could escape from that fire.

Yet, getting him to fly was exactly what they wanted.

Gilbert, truth be told, did feel a little bit sick after being teleported with Aru, but he quickly overcame the nauseating sensation through sheer willpower, also aiding himself by sending himself back to an earlier state. However, time was running short, and so, immediately, he tapped into the enormous power of the dreaded Time Demon, using that forbidden might once more and absorbing the life of Earth itself in order to fuel his attack. He drained and drained, enough so that he would be able to create Aru an opening for her attack, without knowing the consequences that his actions would bring in due time. He charged himself, just as Asra charged his flames.

And then, he jumped. He jumped like never before in his life. His legs painfully shattered from the sheer force of the leap, which was far greater than the force he should've had as a human. However, he ignored the pain, clenching his teeth and pushing on. His jump had taken him all the way to where Asra hovered above Earth, and for just one moment, the two were right next to each other. At that moment, Gilbert's fist shot forward, impacting Asra's chestplate with several million times his own strength, the temporal overlap fueled by the drain performed earlier allowing him to have enough strength to break a star.

At this, Asra's eyes widened. His chestplate burst open, shattering miserably, and even his chest split apart where it had been struck, the black stonelike material parting away to reveal a glimpse of the Corrupted Core sleeping beneath.

The next instant, Aru's Tachyon Arrow skewered him mercilessly, destroying the Core. Asra stopped functioning, just like that. His flames went out of control, and devoured him before fading from existence, the will of the Ashbringer no longer sustaining them.

Afterwards, Gilbert's broken body landed on the drained Earth. The impact had completely destroyed him, erased him, the sheer magnitude of the impact joining forces with Newton's laws to annihilate him. And yet, already his body was slowly reforming, though it would take a bit further before it happened. In the mean time, Aru would be able to appreciate the price of their victory. The drain that Gilbert had performed earlier had come with a great cost. In order to grant him the power required to expose Asra's core, all life on Earth had to be drained, its time stolen by the thief with noble intentions, never to be given back. No more creatures walked the surface of the planet, no more.

They had saved the Earth, but now the Earth was hollow.
[/quote]
Aru looked up, seeing the bolt of... something simply disperse in the sky. She wasn't sure what material could survive that kind of acceleration, but whatever it was it was pretty unstable when lanuched through a corrupted Rainborn's chest. She lay down, exhaling out of exhaustion. That was months upon months of tracking... over. Shot through the heart. She would be proud of herself, if she didn't feel... wrong. There was something wrong about all this. But she didn't know what...

"We did it." She spoke out loud.

---

Amidst her meditation, Hadrimmelis felt a presence appear somewhere behind her. However, a fraction of a second after detecting it, she dismissed the thought of taking preemptive action. She recognized this presence, after all. It was the presence of one of her siblings, another of the World-Dragons. She felt this with ease, her vast psionic capabilities granting her absolute knowledge of everything that surrounded her, even in her human avatar form, though these abilities were obviously diminished. They would have a much greater range, if she was awake, but there was no reason for her to be awake at the present moment. To awaken would cause the destruction of her people, after all, and the laws of the Dragon Force forbid her from causing such a loss of life.

Either way, she didn't pay much attention to the other presence until she spoke.

"Yamirakkelis." Called the blonde avatar, nodding without turning. "Yes, I was thinking about the Time Demon War. I was... wondering if one of the decisions I made back then was the right one." She stated. Between World-Dragons, consensual communication was necessary, as their psionic abilities ensured that they would not be able to breach each other's minds.

"But that is not a topic I would like to discuss, frankly. It was merely the solitude of this place that led me to think of it." She stated. "Now, what brings you to me, Yami? I presume it is not a call for help or anything urgent like that, as you would appear far more agitated if that was the case."[/quote]
"Fair enough. I was just curious. You should be used to that from me. Especially considering how silent you First generation types all are about the war." Yami then sighed. "I know. I know. 'You weren't there. You don't understand.'" She spoke, imitating the line she had heard so often. She stretched slightly, looking forward. "I suppose I may never understand. We're sisters... yet sometimes I feel like the gap between us is... large." Her face seemed to visibly go down. She never liked that gap, and often wondered what had happened in those years she wasn't there. What she had missed in those many billions of years. What she could have experienced.

She smiled slightly at Hadri. "Can't I just say hello to my big sister?" She spoke, then shrugged. "I came partly to check on what you were meditating on." She spoke. "Also to share. I've been doing a lot of research recently. A lot of good findings have been turned up." Yami continued, adjusting her glasses. "But mainly because I wanted to talk to you. About... assorted things. Most anything really."

Cora
Cora frowned when she saw Katie walking back to her room, it was clear that she was crying. Soon Cora went to her room to change as well, wearing a black dress that she had bought for the occasion. They then all drove in Katie's car to the funeral, Roy wearing formal attire that Valancy had bought for him.

The funeral was a very sad occasion. Cora tried to stay strong, but couldn't help but let a few tears fall to her face. She hadn't know Eric very long, but he was so kind and caring. She knew she would have become close friends with him, and he had made Katie so happy. After the procession and Eric was buried, Katie was kneeling at his grave along. Cora and the others stayed back, she needed time alone with him. When Katie came back she seemed different however. She looked distracted, but not as depressed as before. Cora wondered what she could be thinking about.

When they reached the lobby of the JQ tower Katie suddenly shot upstairs at high speeds, Co had never seen her move that fast. "What was that." Roy asked in shock. He had never seen Katie move at high speeds before.

"That's one of Katie's abilities. She can moved at high speeds by speeding up the electrons in her body." Cora told the boy. "I'm going to go look for her. I hope she's okay." She said to Valancy and Roy before heading upstairs.

She looked around the tower for her, wondering where she had gone. Finally she say lights on in the computer center and she heard Katie talking to some one as well. She approached slowly until she was standing behind Katie, leaning against one of the processors. "Hey Katie, you okay?" Cora asked softly, concern in her voice.

Katie looked through watery eyes at Cora. She turned her seat towards her and smiled. "I... think I am. Finally." She spoke. "I... know the pain will never completely go away, but I know better than to let it rule me anymore. Plus I had some help." She spoke. Then thought back to Lula's words. "But... how have you been? I know this had been hard for you too... I mean supporting someone after a loss is something I can't imagine you're familiar with." She moved towards Cora. Then embraced her friend. "But still. Thank you. You were there for me. I needed you." She spoke softly.

[Charmera]

---

Garnet grinned to herself as she heard the massive 'crack!" of the giant skeleton's femur as it suffered under the sheer force form her fist's impact. Sure, it hadn't quite broken like she hoped, but at least she had caused quite a bit of damage, and for that she was content. She watched as Masami rushed over to it and began attacking the cracked leg as well. Evidently she wanted to bring it down too, so cooperation was key here.

However, she didn't get to punch the leg again, instead being forced to kick herself off of the giant's femur in order to avoid being slapped away like Masami.

Then, the giant skeleton tried to punch Masami. Garnet's eyes widened as she saw this. "Shit!" She thought to herself. "I have to do something! I can't let another friend bite the dust!" She told herself, her mind racing to figure out what she could do with the artifacts she had on her currently. Thankfully, it didn't take long before an idea popped into her head, and just in time, too, as the fist was about to collide with Masami's blade.

Acting quickly, Garnet tapped into the power of Longing, the amulet with the orange and blue gemstone, causing a portal to appear right in front of Masami's blade. The portal connected to another, which had oppened just next to the giant skeleton's own cracked leg.

"Pick on someone your own size, anorexic bastard." She muttered as she used Despair to swing to Masami's side. "You okay?" She asked.

"I'm alright." She spoke, pain still flooding her system. The Bone cracked and the giant skeleton toppled as the femur did "shatter" Masami moved backwards, realizing the skull of this giant skeleton would land right in front of her. She hopped back as the landing of the skull at her feet set dust kicking up and bits of bone. Masami paused, wondering if the thing was truly dead or not. Her answer came momentarily. It groaned and moved it's fist upwards, attempting to strike her. But she managed to dodge him, learning from the last time she was hit.

Masami then looked towards Garnet. "Go for the Skull. Enough blunt trauma and we can crack it!" Masami spoke, as she suddenly hopped over the skull to the back of it and slammed her blade into the back of the skeletons head, slowly cracking it. She frowned as she sheathed the blade and simply used her own fists.

---

"I see." Hadrimmelis stated, closing her eyes for a moment to check up on the battle taking place on Earth. The threat had been disabled, it seemed, but at a great cost. The planet had suffered much in order to ensure that no other planet would suffer at the hands of that monster. It was a regrettable necessity, but not a regrettable action. After all, almost always, sacrifices were necessary in order to stop an even greater misery from spreading. Once again, this train of thought took her back to the Time Demon War, but she shook her head. She didn't want to fall into those dark thoughts again so soon, especially now that Yamirakkelis was present. She didn't want to show weakness in front of one of the second generation.

"Some of us avoid talking about the war because we did things we are not entirely proud of, Yamira. The annihilation of the Time Demons can be considered as an objectively good thing, but the lengths we were willing to go to in order to ensure that nothing like the war would ever happen again still frighten us sometimes." She explained. "It is not because we think you would never understand, much less because we want you to feel segregated."

After a sigh, the World-Dragon's avatar smiled. "Now, you wanted to talk to me, yes? How about you tell me a bit about your findings? After all, if you claim to have been too busy to pay a visit, then surely you must have found something interesting enough to absorb your time." She said.

---

"I... suppose that's understandable. I merely prodded as first hand accounts tend to be more informative. But if you don't wish to speak of it than I will do so no longer." Spoke Yami. Still. I can't help but feel that Gap... She thought to herself. She did get treated differently due to her second generation nature by her first generation kin. It irked her slightly.

She smiled when the topic turned to her discoveries. "Well I've been refining soul manipulation a little more. As well as trying to adapt and create a form of magic so that it's easier for us to use and pick up. Linking it to the dragon force perhaps." She spoke. Then adjusted her glasses. "After all, I don't intend on being the only dedicated magic wielder out of all of us. And I don't expect you all wish to undergo the lengthy process of learning and attuning as I did. it would also allow us to bestow magic upon our champions." She sighed. "Not all that much luck there. The Dragon force itself seems to reject my attempts to do anything like that. Which might explain why it takes longer for us to pick up magic, so this might be a dead end. But I did find some promising results in the Aura department and some talks with the Vokornian collective have led to them giving us access to their libraries, which could lead to more discoveries considering our shared knowledge. The Order and the Kabal still refuse to speak to us of course..."

"I tried to find some information on the being... "Lula." which you described and there are a few texts that refer to her in my library. I may be able to loan them to you if you're curious."

---

Not far from where Aru stood, Gilbert's body had managed to fully regenerate yet again, and he stood up shakily. That last attack had taken quite a bit out of him. Indeed, it had completely burned his reserves of stolen time, and in order to regenerate, he had exhausted himself. Barely able to walk, and only slightly more capable of standing, he looked up. Asra was gone, destroyed by his own corrupted flames once his Core had ceased to function, but the world felt... different. Empty. The sky was gray, and there was not a sound but that of his own breathing and his own footsteps, as well as whatever mechanical noises came from Aru's suit.

Hearing the alien's comment, Gilbert would have smiled if it weren't for that strange sensation. Instead, he simply nodded, more to himself than to her as she could not see him.

"Yeah, we did it." He echoed, taking a few steps towards the white-haired woman and offering her a hand. Earlier, when the fight against Asra was in full swing, he had barely stopped to observe her, too focused on the battle. That is not to say, of course, that he didn't look at her; he had noticed her appear after all, had offered her some aid and worked together with her, but he had seen her as only an ally, had looked at her without seeing. Now, however, there was no such pressure, and he couldn't help but notice that, for a blue alien woman at least, Aru was quite pretty. She had some rather human features, after all, and he realized that he quite liked her white hair.

Before he had the chance to comment on it or even help her up, though, something happened. The same pain that had ripped through his body inside the Batcave came back, with a vengeance. Suffering flooded his every sense, causing him to fall to the ground and scream in agony. With apparent despair, he clawed at his chest, ripping off his shirt and looking down to what he knew was the source of the pain. And there, he saw it.

The clock had made a full revolution.

Aru flashed a small smile. The first one she had made this entire time, and took Gilberts hand. She was about to speak further when suddenly he convulsed, leaving her on the ground. She frowned and suddenly floated upwards, quickly moving towards Gilbert. "Are you okay? What's wrong?" She asked, noticing the tatoo he had exposed. Some sort of chrono tracker for humans she supposed. Why would it be on his chest?

[Charmera]

---

"I can do that!" Garnet shouted back at Masami, using Despair to latch onto the creature's skull and pull herself up towards it. With the momentum from the pull, she delivered a pretty solid punch to the skull, empowered through Agony's might, the cursed gauntlet colliding with great force against the bone and creating an explosion of red light around the area of impact. Afterwards, she settled into a more or less comfortable position atop the beast's skull and began pounding at it with Agony, over and over again. She couldn't beat it with both of her fists like Masami did, as using the hand that didn't have a gauntlet would likely only end up getting her hand broken and dealing no damage whatsoever to the skull, but on the other hand (pardon the pun), Agony held the power to destroy entire buildings in one strike, so cracking the skull likely wouldn't take too much effort, or so she hoped, anyway.

Pausing for a moment from her tedious task and looking around from her vantage point, Garnet spoke. "So, uh, do you think there's any more of these things coming? I think it's pretty suspicious that this guy came alone and crushed all of its buddies without a second thought." She said before resuming her task.

The Skeleton really couldn't do anything against the two warriors. It sort of simply flailed around as it was slowly beat into submission. Masami gritted her teeth. "Taking too long..." She spoke. She hopped down.Using her incredibly speed and strength, she got under the neck/spine of the great skeleton, grunting as it's weight was on her shoulders. She roared as she suddenly pushed upwards, the beast shooting upwards with considerable force. Then when it came back down, assuming Garnet didn't stop punching, Masami had timed her own final blow so that they would strike at the same time. Either way, it was enough to crack the skull with a resounding crack and a blast of light. Then the struggle stopped, and slowly parts of the beast seemed to disentigrate, the Skeleton no longer one full skeleton, but as various bones fell off it was revealed to be the combined skeletons of many a soul.

"Anything else coming..." Her ears perked up. "Not that I can hea-" Suddenly there was a flash of light as another tail was added to masami's backside. She exhaled. Not yet knowing what powers it had brought. "I... suppose I leveled up." She spoke as she grinned sheepishly. "Three down... nine to go."

Meanwhile, Garnet and Masami might soon notice a group of black clad humanoids nearby. Eyes fixed on the two of them. But for now they did not strike, nor did the Kitsune notice them. The two warriors had time to rest. But they were being watched...

[Charmera]

"I see." Hadrimmelis stated, closing her eyes for a moment to check up on the battle taking place on Earth. The threat had been disabled, it seemed, but at a great cost. The planet had suffered much in order to ensure that no other planet would suffer at the hands of that monster. It was a regrettable necessity, but not a regrettable action. After all, almost always, sacrifices were necessary in order to stop an even greater misery from spreading. Once again, this train of thought took her back to the Time Demon War, but she shook her head. She didn't want to fall into those dark thoughts again so soon, especially now that Yamirakkelis was present. She didn't want to show weakness in front of one of the second generation.

"Some of us avoid talking about the war because we did things we are not entirely proud of, Yamira. The annihilation of the Time Demons can be considered as an objectively good thing, but the lengths we were willing to go to in order to ensure that nothing like the war would ever happen again still frighten us sometimes." She explained. "It is not because we think you would never understand, much less because we want you to feel segregated."

After a sigh, the World-Dragon's avatar smiled. "Now, you wanted to talk to me, yes? How about you tell me a bit about your findings? After all, if you claim to have been too busy to pay a visit, then surely you must have found something interesting enough to absorb your time." She said.

---

"I... suppose that's understandable. I merely prodded as first hand accounts tend to be more informative. But if you don't wish to speak of it than I will do so no longer." Spoke Yami. Still. I can't help but feel that Gap... She thought to herself. She did get treated differently due to her second generation nature by her first generation kin. It irked her slightly.

She smiled when the topic turned to her discoveries. "Well I've been refining soul manipulation a little more. As well as trying to adapt and create a form of magic so that it's easier for us to use and pick up. Linking it to the dragon force perhaps." She spoke. Then adjusted her glasses. "After all, I don't intend on being the only dedicated magic wielder out of all of us. And I don't expect you all wish to undergo the lengthy process of learning and attuning as I did. it would also allow us to bestow magic upon our champions." She sighed. "Not all that much luck there. The Dragon force itself seems to reject my attempts to do anything like that. Which might explain why it takes longer for us to pick up magic, so this might be a dead end. But I did find some promising results in the Aura department and some talks with the Vokornian collective have led to them giving us access to their libraries, which could lead to more discoveries considering our shared knowledge. The Order and the Kabal still refuse to speak to us of course..."

"I tried to find some information on the being... "Lula." which you described and there are a few texts that refer to her in my library. I may be able to loan them to you if you're curious."

Meanwhile, the elder world dragon might find that there is a telepathic message sent towards her. Though it was not to the avatar in specific, but towards the entity of Hadri as a whole. "Hello Hadrimmelis. We haven't spoken in a few millennium have we?" Spoke the voice. The voice of Ashyhandra, the Vokornian who was present during the war against the Time Demon Ku. And she sounded like she had many a year ago. Countless, countless years. "I thought I'd share the results of a recent... development." She then couldn't resist any more. "I got my body back!" She nearly squealed in a girlish manner.

[Charmera]

Cora
Cora was surprised, but releaved at Katie's words. She did seem to be better. Then Katie asked about how Cora had been doing. "I'm fine Katie. These past few days haven't been easy on any of us, but you needed my help and there was no way I wouldn't be there for you."
Cora then blushed a bit when Katie hugged her. She wasn't sure why, it's not like Katie hadn't hugged her before, but this felt different. "You're welcome Katie. You did the same for me. I'll always be there for you." She told Katie as they hugged.

Katie looked up at Cora. She often had to do this as she was the shorter of the two and prone to hugging. She flash a big smile. Though there were still tears. "Thank you. Thank you so much. You're the best best friend anyone could ask for Cora. I... I l-" The word caught in her throat. "I like you a lot." She spoke. Nodding. She let go of Cora, wiping her tears away. She then smiled again. "I promise, I'll always be there for you too."

[Charmera]

"They grow up so fast don't they? Though, really I wouldn't know..." Commented Aqua. As usual she had snuck up behind ember without realising it. Her ability and control over the three states of water made getting almost anywhere quickly and quietly vey easy for her. "Oh! Sorry if I came up here unannounced. I thought I could talk to you since your my only friend and all..." She spoke. "I mean I tried to make friends with a bunch of Dolphins, but ummm... Dolphins are real jerks, let's just leave it at that."

She moved a little more towards Azure. "It must be nice having a kid..." She remarked.

Ember
Ember isles

"I know you live here and it's not like I scare easily so sneak all you want. And if you want to get rid of some dolphins, then take Azure with you around noon to meet them. He loves sea food and he always gets hungry around noon." Ember chuckled as Aqua said the part about it being nice having a kid. "Having a kid is nice, you put in a lot of effort, time, and everything you do in the end is at the least partially for them. But you get a lot of love in return for them."

Ember turned to face Aqua as she continued talking "But then they turn in to a teen. And everything I just said is still completely true, keep that in mind, but when they become a teen some things get added. In this case it's like a spear in your butt that you got to attached to, to remove. A constant pain in the ass that you love above anything else and wish nothing but the best for." Ember looked at the room where Azure was in and smiled "Once he's finished cleaning his room, take him away from the island a bit, play the cool aunt and let him vent a bit. When he returns after that he'll have that shy apologetic look on his face that shows me he's still a good kid, and I'm still a good mother. Some venting to a third party will do him good."

Ember stretched her ethereal body a bit, it was more out of a feeling that she should than a real need as she had no muscles to go stiff and in need of stretching. "Besides I could really use an hour or two for myself, stretch my own legs and wings for a bit, I've been starting to feel cooped up on this island myself. And that should never happen as it's my island."

"Sure." Spoke Aqua, smiling. It was not often she got to go play with Azure. "As for the Dolphins... I do hope I don't see them ever again." She spoke. She would have blushed, had it been possible for water to blush. "But yes, You should take a break. I shall play dragonsitter for a bit." She spoke before walking towards Azure. She smiled, using her water powers to slide underneath him and reform in front of him. "Hey big guy! How are you?"

Azure grunted, seemingly still moping and grumbling.

"Yeah, I could guess you didn't want to clean your room. I saw the fire."

Azure nodded. Another grunt came.

"Well. I know you think it's unfair. But you should know by now there really is no point in arguing with your mother."

The dragon mulled this over, and even the teenage dragon had to agree that arguing with Ember was an impossible battle.

"Look. Don't worry about it. Once your done I'm going to take you out on a trip! We can visit a few nice islands and see a whale or two! Wont that be fun?"

The Dragon let out a snort.

"You guess? Hmph..." She sighed, then shrugged. "You'll like it once we do it. You always do."

[Charmera]

---

Hopping down from the fading skeleton of the giant, well, skeleton, Garnet landed gracefully on the grass next to Masami, the black mask allowing her to, among other things, maintain her balance with ease as she fell, as though she was born to be an acrobat, though of course it was only the doing of the mask and nothing more. Either way, she landed next to the kitsune, glancing at her and raising an eyebrow as she was cut off mid-sentence by the flash of light that heralded a tail sprouting from where tails were usually found. The blonde woman caught herself staring at the kitsune's tails for a moment too long, and with an awkward cough, she pointedly looked away, crossing her arms in front of her.

"Well, that's not something you see every day." She remarked. "And for the record, I wasn't paying attention the first time it happened."

Afterwards, she turned to watch as the very last vestiges of the giant skeleton faded away. She looked down at her clothes only to notice with a faint smile that they were not grossly stained with blood as they had been after the battle with the Tengu. Only some of the blood of the giant bat was on them, but not nearly as much, and of course, the skeleton itself and the fearsome Goryo did not bleed, so they did not stain her.

"You know, I could really get used to fighting things that don't have guts and blood to spill all over me when I kill them. It's much cleaner." She commented as she took off the mask and put it away, glad to see with her own eyes even if the mask was quite useful in combat. Seeing through the slots of the mask made the world seem... bleaker. Darker. Redder, too, in a way. It was very useful, but it was also very unnerving an item. "Anyway, let's go into the inn, eh? You can practice whatever you do with those fluffy tails of yours and I can check if my clothes are still here. I might just find my pack of smokes if that's the case." The blonde woman said, walking into what remained of the inn as she ran a hand through her curly hair.

Masami nodded, turning from her fluffy tails whichs she was admiring. Garnet might notice her natural alure and attractiveness had increased with the number of tails. "Sure." She spoke. "A surprising amount of techniques I never understood are now becoming... clearer. I think I become smarter with each tail." She commented. "I believe the elders described the process as such." She spoke. She shrugged. "We could also talk. I'd imagine theres quite a lot we could talk about. After all we've been through a lot together but I don't know all that much about you. And the same goes for you with me I'd imagine." She spoke.

She then curled her hands into fists then uncurled them. "Though, if you really are curious as to what I can do. I suppose I can test what I have gained. I'd prefer not to stay in this form more than I have to though."

---

---

Hadrimmelis nodded slowly and periodically as she listened to the other World-Dragon detail her research and the results thereof, taking everything in and storing it away in the massive machine of thought and reflection that was a dragon's consciousness, even when the vast majority of it slumbered peacefully. Though she wouldn't admit it, the crimson dragon was actually rather interested in seeing where her sister's research would lead her. Not every World-Dragon delved into the fields of magic and such, after all, least of all the elder Kazayannú, who had been the first and had seen so much more than the others combined. He was often overconfident in his experience, she believed, but then, she was yet to prove him wrong, much to her chagrin.

"I see. Well, it hardly surprises me that the Progenitor rejects your tampering. You should know by now that the Dragon Force is alive, Yamira. I can tell you that if someone attempted to tamper with in such manner, I would not be veryp leased myself." The elder World-Dragon stated, though she shook her head a moment afterwards. "Not that I wish to pretend to understand the Dragon Force. Perhaps it simply is not meant to be." She stated. At the next portion however, she simply nodded again. The Vokornians had helped the dragons plenty, and in turn the dragons had helped the Vokornians as well. The two races, one could say, got along fairly well, though that stopped being the case after the tragedy that split them into three different factions. Now, only the Collective maintained relations with them.

"Which is fine by me." She thought with a mental shrug. The views held by the other two factions were views she cared nothing about.

At the mention of Lula, though, the avatar seemed to perk up, a smile creeping into her face. "I would love to be able to read them sometime. That would be a very nice gesture on your part, Yamira." She said warmly.

It was then that she received the message. It was directed towards her consciousness as a whole, of course, and not at any specific avatar, but still, the content of the message caused every single avatar to stop what they were doing and listen; even the one who was currently occupied with quelling an intergalactic war between a confederation of sentient stingrays and an empire of robotic kittens. They all stopped and listened, and they all were rather surprised to hear what they just heard; a logical outcome, really, considering how Hadrimmelis herself was truly surprised. If one could gaze deep into the core of a blazing deathworld, one may have seen a pair of gigantic eyes flutter open for a second, before closing again.

"I... For real?" The World-Dragon consciousness thought back in a manner very uncharacteristic of a being who had lived billions of years and was slated to live billions more. "I am very happy to hear that, Ashyandra. Could I see you? I very much want to see this with my own two eyes." The dragon's mind paused. "I mean with the two eyes of one of my avatars, of course." She said.

Meanwhile, somewhere, an avatar worked very hard to keep war from erupting, sighing to herself.

"Perhaps. But the implications are a little disturbing, for me at least. What if the Dragon force doesn't like magic? What if my use of it has somehow displeased it since it is a living entity?" She considered. "It would be quite unfortunate to discover the very force that we are so bound to is displeased with you, would it not?" She continued questioning. It was the way to aquire knowledge, to ask questions. She also always liked to get Hadri's take on things. Her added experience and wisdom was a boon, even if she did not dedicate herself to learning as much as Yami did. After all Yami was almost obsessed with learning as she could. It would get to the point where almost all her avatars were hunting for knowledge.

"I would be glad to loan you those books. Though I would like them back at some point. They contain many a theory on dreams, which is a subject I have some interest in at the moment." She spoke.

Then she saw the avatar in front of her silent. Not saying a word. This surprised her. World dragons were of course able to keep track of many a thing at once, so it was rare they could be visibly distracted. Yami herself was multitasking with countless avatars at this very moment herself. She almost waved her hand in front of Hadri's face. "Sister... Are you alright? Was it something I said?"

"Of course! Do you think I would joke about that?" Ashy communed with audible joy. "I feel so much better than I did cooped up in that stupid shell of armour. And yes I would love to meet. We have many a thing to discuss. I actually could use your help..."

And so the shepard will find allies in those than the Children negected-

"Shut up!" She spoke. Not sure if the world dragon could hear that voice. She might be able to. She might not. "Anyway, where shall we meet then? And by that I mean which Avatar should I meet with?"