In the year 2012, a mysterious illness began to sweep the globe. In its wake, those who survived it were left with immensely powerful supernatural abilities.
As the number of people capable of wielding magic powers increased, they began to organize and seize control of the course of history. Using their powers to travel between parallel universes, these mages forge empires of a scale never before seen. And at the center of it all is the Academy, a neutral institution founded for mages to share their knowledge with each other.
Mages struggle against each other to impose their will upon the multiverse, but there is one threat that unites them all together. In recent months, mysterious entities have appeared. These entities wield power far greater than any one mage, and they seem determined to annihilate all of humanity. The mages will have to set aside their differences in order to beat them. The fate of the multiverse depends on it.
Post by Wally Oliveira on May 23, 2018 18:51:46 GMT -7
Wally didn't have time to dodge the shadow construct that he have become frequently acquainted with. This time however, he didn't have to. With a familiar kid's yell of warning, the snake monster shifted to take a blow from Vieri, which just happened to cause a coil to swat at the unfortunate construct just as Wally spun around to see. "Ha! You messed up! Nice screwup!" He laughed, before realizing something better, pointing at the far away figure of the mage circling the pyramid. " You're the shadow mage! God, finally I figured it out, now I know who's for me and who's not!"
He didn't quite see Vieri, or anybody's reaction to his newest illusion just yet, having a twenty foot snake perched above obscures your vision like no tomorrow, but he at least knew he succeeded. No one interrupted him while casting his magic, and Vieri even got into a better range by flinging himself at the snake mage. Talk about a good few freaking amounts of luck!
He cupped his mouth, smirking and yelling at the general direction where Vieri jumped. "How's my magic? Too weak? Looks like mine's doing more in the long run!"
For a moment, Diana watched. She'd seen these mages before and there was only so much she could glean from watching them fight alone. Snake lady was doing snake things, guy in the wall was messing with the terrain, fake guy was making fake things, the shadow mage was flailing ineffectually and trying to hug people, so nothing particularly new and interesting. No obvious openings were made, though if she were being honest she wasn't looking very hard. She was sure this fight was interesting and all, but there were so many new things to stare at and investigate that she had never seen before and it made it a bit difficult to focus on the fight itself. Whether or not they won had very little to do with her, and as much as she wanted to make all of Vieri's dreams come true, she always wondered whether or not doing stuff like this was actually a good idea. Painting a target on his back aside, people were hell and she liked him as the optimistic doof he was right now. So he could solve is own problems, right now she had a cool wall to investigate.
Of course, there was no way she could pass up the chance to egg him on like this. Their enemies gave her such the perfect setup too. She supposed she could afford to help him a little bit.
"Yeah, seriously Vieri, you've been off your game lately. What even was that? This wall's been more interesting to watch than this fight. It's getting embarrassing to associate with you sometimes."
It was a pretty interesting wall to be fair, but she figured that'd get a strong enough reaction out of him. She went ahead and turned her attention back to the wall to get a better look at it. Rubbing her chin, another thought came to her. There was only so much her mundane eyes could see, even while enhanced, but some people had powers that might let them see something else. She tapped the stone of the wall lightly with the pointy end of her spear.
"Hey, guy in the wall, you must have a unique perspective on all this. What's this wall like from where you're standing. Or existing. Or whatever you want to call it?"
Post by Vieri di Adatto Isabello on May 24, 2018 14:21:04 GMT -7
He used the force of the explosion to propel himself backwards from the pyramid, landing a short ways from its base. That was one hit down; only a matter of time before either the snake or the building gave out.
“I’m just getting started, Scales-” Vieri’s challenge cut off abruptly as his eyes widened and his gaze was stuck somewhere between the top of the temple and the sky.
The temple that was falling over on him, as it were. Since when did anyone here have powers like that?! Was it the building kid? Last time he’d tried to put together what the kid’s power was, it was fixing buildings, not flipping them over on their side. Vieri had a lot of questions and the thing that couldn’t decide if it was a pyramid or a staircase was growing in his vision. Weren’t they supposed to be trying to protect this thing?
“What the hell?!” He took a staggering step back and shot another explosion up into the sky at the building, hoping to blow out some more chunks before it all crashed down on top of him.
It did absolutely nothing. He’d broken hunks off of it just a moment ago, he had no idea. So he tried again and fired another explosion up into the air. It worked as badly as his first attempt, and as the building fell down on him, he stumbled backwards onto his back.
The impact never came. Instead, he was surrounded by complete darkness. Grumbling to himself about how he didn’t want hugs from buildings, he reached his arm up and fired another explosion to get the damn thing off of him. Nothing seemed to happen; he knew the explosion went off, he could feel the heat and the stone below him liquidate a little, but he didn’t see a thing.
Vieri felt his stomach drop. He wasn’t panicking, he was just firing off a couple more explosions to make sure.
“Damn it, now of all times?!” Of course his eye had to give out now, in the middle of battle, while he still had no idea what the hell was up with this building. His power couldn’t pick up stone; for all he knew the dumbass third of a cube could’ve missed him completely and he was just cautiously picking himself up in the middle of an otherwise empty battlefield, or the whole thing could’ve been one of Ponytail’s illusions. Based on how the guy was shouting at him, he was willing to bet that was probably it.
“Shut up, Ponytail, if you’re going to fight get off your ass and do something better than just chucking around fake buildings!” And through all this, Diana was taunting him. He turned towards where his powers said she was, at least, and shouted, “That goes double for you, Diana! My vision just went out! The hell are you even doing?!”
Post by Serpentarius on May 25, 2018 2:42:34 GMT -7
The swatted construct dissolved midair, Tristan quickly started considering ways to make this fight end to his benefit. It wasn't easy. He only had a vague idea of his Vieri's powers and fighting style and knew even less about Diana. It was difficult to try and think of what was likely for them to try and to work around that. Luckily, though, Diana simplified that by insulting Static.
It was pretty simple. Make the elecromage mad and he'd hit harder. Given how hard it was to dodge explosions, emphasizing just how much force was behind the booms was probably a valid plan. One that he could help with.
A swarm of simple humanoid constructs poured out of every nearby shadow, all of them rushing to surround Vieri. They'd have a distinctly more simple mental makeup than his usual constructs, but they should be similar enough to do the trick. Anyone who could actually see them would be able to tell that they were, for lack of a better phrase, practical shadows of the other constructs with almost no substance to them, but Vieri was apparently currently blind. They'd do.
"I know you know this, Vieri, but you're surrounded," Tristan would yell, hoping he personally was out of the telepathy range. It wouldn't do for his plan to be revealed. "I've decided that helping someone so... Woefully incompetent is a waste of time and resources. Surrender peacefully."
At best, Vieri would do his thing and everything would go to pieces. At worst, maybe the enemy would buy his bluff and think he was actually turning traitor. It'd be nice not to worry about getting hit.
Interference: Illusion against Kaida
As easy as it would be to be dead weight for the rest of this fight, she wasn't feeling inclined to intentionally sabotage Vieri's efforts. She still wasn't sure if any of this was a good idea, but they could talk about that later as sanely as two people having a shouting match could. This place seemed cool enough, so they might be able to get something out of it, and if she saw signs of insanity, she could deal with it then. So she figured she should help in the best way she knew how (that required very little effort from her so she could keep looking at the cool wall): piss him off as much as possible.
Diana knew a rivalry when she saw one and the way the shadow mage and Vieri kept talking to each other made it obvious. Rumors from the academy made it even more obvious. After she said her bit to Vieri, she subtly looked over at the shadow mage and tried to motion to Vieri. It was one thing for her to taunt him, she did that a lot and he was probably used to it by now, but it'd be another thing entirely if she could get the shadow mage to do the same. She'd go along with whatever he decided to say to try to rile Vieri up further. Hopefully after seeing the effects of pissing him off in the last fight he'd get what she was trying to do. It was surprisingly effective.
But she could do more than that. When Vieri got sufficiently mad he did this sparky thing and that was why his hair always looked so ridiculous. All she had to do was wait until the sparks came and then amplify those. They'd be generated far larger and more dangerous without any extra effort from him too. Meaning anyone that got near him was likely to get shocked before they could do much to him. It was perfect. And she was on the other side of the room so she probably wouldn't get shocked. The shadow mage might, but she would conveniently leave that part out. He'd proven that he can probably take it and she figured a telepathic connection like he described would be safe from any of the non-pain effects of getting shocked anyway.
---
ACTION: Maneuver (Enhancement) for Vieri
Jack, Boiúna, and the third mage they were fighting alongside had ended up stumbling into a pretty secure defensive formation, Jack thought. But he didn't want to get complacent. While the other mages were trash talking each other, Jack was just worried about guarding against a potential followup attack.
To that end, he decided to try using an old trick on an old target, but with a different intention this time. The stone under his ally's feet would begin moving like a treadmill again, albeit in a much more controlled manner than during their fight in the Academy. Hopefully he could get him to a safer position.
Action: Maneuver (Field) for Wally
Kaida lurched away from Vieri's punch, practically now just feeling the pain. Still, it was alright. She tried to raise her head away from the buildings, the scarlet rain knocking over various people below but not injuring them. Her scales almost seemed to be putting themselves back together, and she slowly creaked an eye open. The blood stopped in seconds, and she grasped the building tightly.
She had told him to give her everything he had, so she started raising a tail against any incoming attack, clearly ready for it.
Action: Manuver Protection on [Kaida]
Everyone was gunning for the pyramid, or at least the snake and yours truly on it so maybe the pyramid should be a little harder to get to. He wasn't exactly sure how to prevent rushes towards the pyramid completely, so he did the next best thing. He stalled. It was easy really. All he had to do was "expand" the width and height of the pyramid, along with everything on it, to make it look closer. That should keep the opponents off of the pyramid for maybe a minute or two.
Of course, Wally had to wonder where that kid's voice came from. He shrugged, wherever that kid was, the illusion should keep him, everyone else, and the pyramid safer than before!
Maneuver (Field) on Jack
This ‘fight’ was annoying as all hell. He hadn’t even been really attacked, just had some fake-out, his vision go out, and a bunch of idiots saying idiotic things to deal with. The electricity arcing off of him was coming in tall waves, in no part helped by his teammates who were spending more time coming up with clever phrases than actually helping him.
And then Jackass Frost turned traitor.
He couldn’t see them, everything was still black, but there sparks all around him. They were too small to be human and too wrong to be animals, so Frosty’s claim very likely held true. He wasn’t going to bother to check - the guy had better hope this was a joke, because if he thought he could pull something like this he was going to regret ever setting foot in this universe.
“I hope you feel every single one of you I murder.” His voice was low and as cold as every one of that traitorous bastard’s puppets.
Frosty himself wasn’t in the vicinity of the blast radius, nor were any civilians. It’d be fine to go all out.
He widened his stance, let the electricity build between his arms and hands, allowing it to jump far over his shoulder and reconnect with his leg, until finally with a loud yell all the energy was released at once. Vieri himself was the center of the blast that ripped outward and upwards, blowing out stone and everything in its path. Scales was set to be somewhere within it just due to her size, but she was big and also an enemy. She could take it.
Aggression(Force) against Tristan Kaida!
---
Interference (Illusion) by Tristan Carter against Kaida Adachi results in SUCCESS, +10% combat advantage
Maneuver (Protection) by Kaida Adachi for Kaida Adachi results in FAILURE due to suppression by the equal-or-greater Interference (Illusion) Tristan Carter used
DianaTristan Carter and Vieri di Adatto Isabello have reached 100% combat advantage! They will be able to drive the other mages out of the city and establish a foothold on this continent.
1. Smash this place until the mundane residents beg you to stop! You're mages, after all. +5 Zenith, +50 Impact
2. Approach the mundanes peacefully, now that you've driven off some mages who were obviously hostile invaders. You're humans, after all. +15 Zenith, +30 Impact.
3. Display the versatility of your powers until the mundane residents are overwhelmed with awe! It's not about what you are, it's about what you can do. +10 Zenith, +45 Impact
Post by Kaida Adachi on May 25, 2018 5:28:57 GMT -7
Kaida thought that she would be fine, she healed fast and was perched on an area that she personally felt was going to protect her well, and it did, you know, mostly. She could hear gasps as electricity raced into the air and across her scales, what she would give to not be constantly surrounded by water! Her arms gave out, and she only managed to stay on by wrapping her head around the top of the temple. Only problem with that, her vision was fading. "Oh no. Oh damn." Her voice was eerily quiet as she suddenly started unraveling from the temple.
"Serpent? Er, Boiúna?" A voice? Almost familiar...oh! The noble! She almost felt a burst of anger, what did she say about leaving the temple? But she couldn't, not when this fear was almost agonizing. "If...If I fall, I might crush the citizens." She mumbled around a mouthful of blood. Little did she know, she looked like she should scarcely be alive, much less be talking! Bone showed clearly around her jaws and neck, and blood was drenching the temple...wasn't that ironic. She couldn't see the noble that well, but assumed he agreed, "I-I have to-to leave. Don't let anybody...anybody follow, or...I might...I might feed on them too." Now she could smell fear, but squeaked on, "I'll be...back. remember what I-I told you."
Finished, she nudged the temple, "Hurry," She growled to whoever was inside the temple? Was the temple? "It's...it's over. We can...we can come back and get this guy l-later." She didn't talk to the illusion boy at the bottom, having never noticed him, and stumbled off her perch. Evidently, this was a good idea. His vision was spotty in places, her mouth lost its feeling a long time ago, and her mind tumbled and swirled. Eat, your going to pass out... Yeah, yeah, she just, had to get to the water.
She made it, but she couldn't eat. She made it far enough that she could tell she'd vanish, took a deep breath, one that could last a day if need be, and passed clean out...
Post by Wally Oliveira on May 25, 2018 6:36:37 GMT -7
Wally could not accept that he have lost. He have been doing great, and then the snake monster have slithered their way off of the temple, completely removing what have been protecting the temple other that himself. "Where are you going?! Hey! Where the freak are you going!? We're winning, we are!" Nope, acting like it didn't even hear him, just because it was bleeding from head to tail! It couldn't be that bad, all it did was get hit once or twice.
Then his illusion wasn't really working. It looked like his illusion kind of backfired, as in, Vieri was destroying the pyramid and he couldn't even see it. As in, Wally had to scramble out of the way of falling rubble, a few pieces hitting him, but causing no further injuries other than bruises. Unfortunately, that meant he have moved all the way to the forest's edge. He dismissed the pyramid illusion, but kept the darkness illusion around Vieri. If he was going to leave then he wasn't leaving without "winning" in a way. It couldn't be fun to be blind for another hour or two while his illusion lasted without him!
"Fine, fine! Maybe I didn't win completely, but I'll just come back and fix that. See you all when I come back!" With that he leapt past the bushes, intending on reaching the portal to the Academy as fast as he could.
Post by Vieri di Adatto Isabello on May 25, 2018 15:18:02 GMT -7
Vieri drew in a deep breath and himself up a little straighter. His neck popped to the left, and his knuckles against each other. If he hadn’t seen that one, it was pretty certain; his eyes were out, and he didn’t know for how long. It was going to make getting anywhere difficult, and him nervous to try - he knew where the ground was beneath him and where living things in his range were, but the ground was dirt, not plants, and he’d just tossed a bunch of rock chucks everywhere if the ground itself hadn’t been given a new topography. Already, he felt a little off balance and a lot lost. Scales and Ponytail were on their way out, at least. They’d won.
Diana and him had won, that was. Why Frosty was still here after a move like that he had no idea, and if he could see the guy could bet he’d be using his powers to catch the bastard proper right now. He’d be damned if he was going to let a lack of vision stop him completely, though.
“Tristan! Get over here and face me, jackass!” He shouted loud enough to make his voice crack. Now that several of the mages had left, heads and eyes were starting to come out of buildings and turning to the few people left. Good on them for being smart, no one dared leave or near the lingering mages, which meant Vieri could safely keep up this fight for as long as he hated that bastard’s face. Electricity was still jumping off his tensed, upturned hands and his bare shoulders and forearms. The ionized air allowed it to make high arcs above and around him. “You send more of those shadows and I’m going to blast them and the ground they stand on!”
Diana raised an eyebrow at the shadow mage's response. She was expecting an insult or two, but not something like this. This was going way above and beyond the call of duty here. If she couldn't clearly see how shitty these constructs were and how they were blocking the snake lady and giving more places for Vieri's electricity to blow up then she might have actually believed him. She did her part, so she went back to looking at the wall and tried to get what was going on out of her mind. It was already difficult enough to keep a straight face through all this, but she couldn't afford to let her thoughts betray what was going on. Vieri needed to blast this place with everything he had if they wanted to make a sufficiently impressive display. Plus, she didn't want to be looking right at him with her senses like this because she was pretty sure it'd make her eyes bleed. Even with her hands over her ears, the boom from the attack was nearly enough to blow them out. She winced, reminding herself to maybe not do this the next time they fought together even if it was useful.
As hilarious as it might be to let them fight it out, there probably wasn't much need and Vieri was over there freaking out about something that wasn't real. Plus, if she wanted to get them to fight later she doubted she'd even have to try. Diana did note that Vieri actually used his name though. That was rare. Her lips curled into a small smile as she started making her way towards the ball of darkness he was in. He was making friends, how cute. But at this point she couldn't keep a straight face anymore. She probably could if she tried, but that felt like work right now. They won, she could do what she wanted. She burst out laughing and pulled out her spear.
"Nice one Shadey!" She shouted, more so she could hear herself talk after that boom than anything. "Vieri, you're not blind, it's the illusionist. He put a black bubble around here. Here, this way."
She looked down at her metal spear and sighed. She really needed some rubber gloves for situations like this, or maybe even a rubber grip on the spear itself. This was probably going to hurt. All she could really do was wrap her hand in the sleeve of her jacket and hope for the best. Diana gently pushed her spear into the bubble of darkness because she had no idea where he was either. A little bit of stabbing was probably okay, but she didn't want to stab him too hard. Unfortunately, the darkness seemed to be following him around. Diana clicked her tongue and continued speaking far louder than necessary while her ears healed.
"Forget about the shadow mage, he didn't betray you. Come on, I'll make sure you don't run into any walls. We have an adoring public to impress."
Post by Tristan Carter on May 26, 2018 18:04:10 GMT -7
Tristan had taken care to get out of the line of sight before the ensuing flash of light could vaporize him. Good thing, too - he may not have been able to feel pain through them, but he could feel all of the constructs blink out of existence in the same instant. Somebody seemed to have made Static mad. Luckily for them. Reptar seemed to have been caught in the blast and needed to make a retreat. The kid in the walls was probably out of the battle as well, which just left Ponytail. He quickly seemed to realize he was outnumbered and outgunned, though, and disappeared through some bushes.
Now that the wannabe god was dealt with, that meant that the biggest concern was now the explosive dipstick. And even that was a concern quickly handled by Pokey. Tristan was comfortable enough with what he heard that he was willing to approach the mage with the darkness bubble. Given Vieri could somehow read minds, it was probably reasonable to assume that he knew Diana was telling the truth. And if not, he was pretty confident that his own mind would give it away. If Vieri could get past his anger at the thoughts of what a dumbass he was for falling for such an obvious setup, that was.
"You're welcome," Tristan said with a mostly contained smug tone, though it quickly turned more joking than insulting. "In repayment for giving you the... Motivation to win, I'll happily accept you admitting that you're not nearly as smart as you think. Or, if that's too much for your precious pride to handle, I'll make due with you just owing me a favor in the future. If you think you can handle that, that is."
He smiled briefly before looking back over the pyramid. There was no way that the carnage here wasn't a hazard to people's health. Or several. Somebody needed to make sure that problem was fixed and, given how Diana was talking, that was probably going to be left to him. At least he wouldn't be doing it alone, even if he was technically doing it by himself. The joys of being able to be in multiple places at once.
"Don't do anything stupid or I will have to fight you again, Static," he said with a sigh. "But yeah, if you're gonna go and grandstand, now's your best opportunity. You may want to go and get on that."
To Jack's credit, he was careful not to let himself get knocked silly by an electric blast this time. In part, that was because the attack didn't end up being directed toward him. The other reason was that as soon as he realized he was in danger, he moved his focus away from the center of the fight and mentally braced himself for everything to go topsy-turvy.
In the aftermath, his sense was still scrambled and disoriented, but that was probably fine, since it seemed that the fight had reached its conclusion. There was no point in trying to keep it going at this point. As much as it rankled Jack to let those bullies come away with another win, he wouldn't be able to do much but embarrass himself like this.
Fortunately, the victorious mages didn't seem to be too concerned with tracking him down and sending him packing. Jack decided to just stay merged with the structure for now. He'd try to sneak away later... maybe after nightfall. He'd just have to hope that he didn't get further blown up until then.