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Post by Firebreath Fishslap on Oct 3, 2009 14:58:09 GMT -5
"Sure, go ahead," Souji said. He was going to need a lot of sleep tonight. He looked ahead. "It looks like you two found the stairs no problem."
K1 helped support Souji. "You really didn't need to go get those flashlights, really!" K1 said. "We could have fused a demon or something or--"
"Let's just get going. We're wasting precious time, and if Naoya's prediction's right, we only have until tomorrow," Souji said. K1 took a step forward as Souji did, and the two of them walked together, while Brigid stayed in the middle of the group, lighting their way.
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Post by mugenginga on Oct 3, 2009 15:07:50 GMT -5
Yuugi looked pained. It had finally dawned on him how irrational he had been. He nodded, trying to look supportive and confident. It didn't really succeed. He turned and headed down the stairs. If his theory about this World was right, he hoped K1 had a good selection of demons. He didn't want to force Souji to summon his Personae. He knew it took energy, and Souji seemed to be using all that he had just to stay on his feet.
As soon as Yuugi stepped onto the next floor, he heard that voice again. And this one seemed closer to Atem's than before...
"What makes a person strong? Is it the ability to rise above one's opponents? Or the ability to stand up after a loss?" the voice shifted to the slightly warped version they'd heard before, "How can I survive if I can't even do what common thieves can?"
What part of that is Atem? All of it?
Yuugi turned to Souji, "That's still the Shadow, right?" He tried to not look worried, and was actually partially successful. To K1 and Souji, who knew Yuugi, they'd stand a chance of realizing how hard he was trying to seem strong.
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Post by Firebreath Fishslap on Oct 3, 2009 15:26:32 GMT -5
Souji nodded. It was always painful for one to hear the inner thoughts of their friends, especially one like Atem, whom Yuugi had known for years.
This next floor seemed even darker than the one above, if that was even possible. Not that that wasn't expected. These places always got darker as you went along.
At least they could somewhat see thanks to Brigid's fire.
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Post by mugenginga on Oct 3, 2009 15:46:40 GMT -5
Yuugi seemed relieved. Logically, he knew that it was merely Atem's suppressed feelings that his Shadow was saying. And while the emotions were real, acting on them wasn't necessarily. But he was confused at the last comment. Did Atem think himself weak? Yuugi walked forward, all but having to rely on the wall. If it was several degrees darker here, did that mean in a few floors even Brigid's fire wouldn't be enough?
Yuugi jumped as he heard a kind of garbled growling noise. Thanks to the low light, it was more than likely the Shadow would get the drop on them. What would be surprising is it would be a variety Souji didn't know.
It was a rather large type, and had been flashing shades of red before launching at the group. There was only one there, but the size was similar to the odd knight Shadows Souji likely had annoying memories of. It looked vaguely like a metallic lion with wings resembling razor blades. It's paws were double the size proportions would say made sense and its tail was more like a spiked chain with a mace-like ball at the end. The typical mask of Shadows was yellow and took the place of the face...
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Post by Firebreath Fishslap on Oct 3, 2009 17:29:17 GMT -5
K1 turned around as the shadow pounced at him, knocking him and Souji both to the ground, sending batteries flying all over the tomb floor. Souji turned to face the shadow, and grabbed his sword. K1 looked like he was dizzy. Not good.
This shadow was very different from ones Souji had seen before. He grasped his sword, which had fallen out of whatever hammerspace pocket dimension he hid it in. "Yuugi! Help!" he yelled.
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Post by mugenginga on Oct 3, 2009 17:49:20 GMT -5
Yuugi had never seen his size as an advantage. It never seemed to help in the many encounteres he'd had involving physical fighting. But it helped here. As in the Shadow missed him. He heard the batteries skitter across the tomb floor and whirled around as Souji shouted for help. In the silver haired teen's current state...
Yuugi grabbed Nefertum's card and crushed it, "Nefertum, protect Seta-kun!"
He'd had the order out before the Persona had fully materialized, but his connection to Yuugi meant he fully knew what it had been told. It slipped past the Shadow, which had summoned what looked like spell tags out of the air and surrounded K1 with them, creating an invisible but very tangible force around the dizzy teen. Nefertum took up a position near Souji and fired a Garu at the Shadow. It didn't do much damage at all.
The more immediate concern, however, was the spell the Shadow had cast on K1. Souji would know it. And now they had to rely on its low rate of effectiveness or that K1's being was one resiliant against the spell known as Hama...
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Post by Firebreath Fishslap on Oct 3, 2009 19:36:11 GMT -5
The floating white spell tags surrounded K1 for a moment, before converging on the prone teen. There was a sound like that of a bird hitting a windshield as the spell tags reflected off of K1 and shot right back at the shadow, which let out an unearthly screech as the spell tags burned through its body, and the shadow dissipated. K1 groaned and climbed to his feet.
"Ow. That hurt," K1 said. Souji blinked a couple times. K1 caught the stare. "What?"
"...You don't even have a Persona, and you just reflected a Hama skill back at that shadow," he said in amazement. "How did you do that?"
K1 tensed up like he usually did when things related to himself or Abel or the Throne of Bel came up, and came up with a bullshit response. "Oh, um... the COMP did that. I guess I got a skill from a demon that can refect those kind of attacks." That was a lie, as K1 only had Physical Reflect, and that hadn't even been working properly since he came to the island.
"That scared the heck out of me. I didn't think that would come out of nowhere like that," K1 said. He turned to Souji, who was picking up some of the batteries he'd dropped in the fall.
"I didn't recognize the mask on that shadow. Or the appearance," Souji said.
"Huh?"
"Shadows have masks that match their arcana. But this one's mask was strange. I'd never seen one like that before," Souji said.
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Post by mugenginga on Oct 3, 2009 19:46:13 GMT -5
Yuugi looked between the two other teens. It occured to him what might have actually happened with the attack. He couldn't come up with why it had occured, what with his lack of knowledge about the various skills of Persona and demons, but it was enough to make the look of confusion leave his face. Not quick enough for Souji to likely miss, however.
Nefertum dissipated back into card form, which materialized in Yuugi's pocket. He leaned down and helped gather batteries. Thankfully, they had a metallic surface that reflected well with Brigid's flickering flame. He heard Souji talking about the Shadows, "Maybe there are Arcana you don't know about?"
That didn't make sense in Yuugi's head. Souji obviously had experience with this kind of thing, and he knew that term. It came from the origin of playing cards, decks relating to fortune telling. Tarot cards. He'd never been into them that much, but he'd run across them with his interest in Duel Monsters. He'd heard of some people actually using them for Tarot purposes, which struck him as a little odd. He stood up with a few batteries. Souji seemed to have gathered more.
(OOC: Blatent reference to Yami Bakura near the end of the Duelist Kingdom arc, btw. XD He used the DM cards as tarot cards with Pegasus. XD Yuugi never knew about this, but I figure if one person did it, others did.)
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Post by Firebreath Fishslap on Oct 3, 2009 20:07:21 GMT -5
Souji dumped a handful of batteries into the bag. "I don't think so... maybe it's a Minor Arcana? I have heard that there were Persona of the Minor Arcana in the past, though not anymore." He stood up straight, still wobbling on his feet. "Anyways, that's good for now. We should go before any more shadows show up."
Brigid was standing patiently by K1, who was helping pick up batteries too. "Oh, yeah, let's go." Here's hoping we don't have to go down more than a few floors to get to Atem... K1 added to himself.
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Post by mugenginga on Oct 3, 2009 20:43:11 GMT -5
Yuugi nodded. Something nagged at him but it wasn't important with Atem in danger. He looked at his feet before turning. Souji wasn't going to last much longer. And if it was a long way down... they'd have to come back tomorrow. He remained quiet as he walked forward a few steps, before stopping and turning to Souji and K1.
"We should go back.... for Seta-kun, I mean."
Please don't ask why I made that choice. I don't know if I can stick by it if you challenge it...
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Post by Firebreath Fishslap on Oct 3, 2009 21:19:04 GMT -5
K1 turned to Yuugi. "Yeah... We're all pretty exausted as it is."
Souji didn't object. He wanted to save Atem, but he was exausted. It wouldn't be worth it if he got himself killed in here. With that, he pulled out a small silver coin-like object. On the face of the coin was a two toned mask, while on the other side, there was a kanji that read "Return."
"This is a Goho-M. When I use it, it'll teleport us outside of Atem's reality." Souji explained. He gave everyone a couple seconds to brace themselves for this, before using the item. There was a bright flash of light before the whole group appeared back out in the sand.
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Post by mugenginga on Oct 3, 2009 21:30:57 GMT -5
Yuugi had braced himself, but he still had to throw his hand to the side as they appeared outside. It was rather like the conflict of signals that caused motion sickness. No matter how much you're expecting to be teleported, its still rather disorientating. Of course, he als didn't think to prepare for the near blinding light, which meant his attempt to catch himself failed and he fell into the sand.
He hadn't wanted to go back, but it had occured to him he was putting the others in danger. He couldn't do that. He sighed as he pushed himself to his feet, trying to see if the others were there. Souji had said they'd all go, but this was the kind of thing Yuugi worried about.
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Post by Firebreath Fishslap on Oct 3, 2009 21:40:28 GMT -5
K1 and Souji both had materiallized outside. Brigid had not.
"...I suppose Goho-M's don't work on demons," Souji said. K1 was already fumbling around with his COMP. Obviously, trying to return Brigid to the COMP.
"She's fine now. Yuugi?" K1 called.
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Post by mugenginga on Oct 3, 2009 22:53:41 GMT -5
"I'm okay, K1-kun." Yuugi replied, thankful to hear the teen's voice. For some reason or another he had materialized a bit apart from the group.
Actually, he was a bit closer to they inverted pyramid, and it was a result of his attachment to Atem. He stood up and looked around, "We can leave from here, right?"
Yuugi was tired physically and exhausted emotionally. He had no idea what time it was back in the real world, but he had intentions of falling into bed. He needed to do laundry... maybe he'd wake up early to handle that. His school uniform needed some repairs, as well.
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Post by Firebreath Fishslap on Oct 3, 2009 23:12:57 GMT -5
Souji nodded. "K1, can you call Kikuri-Hime down here?" Souji asked. K1 nodded, and pressed a couple of buttons on the COMP. Kikuri-Hime disappeared from the chamber she'd been waiting for the group in, and reappeared in front of K1.
"Kikuri-Hime, can you get us out of here?" K1 asked.
"As you wish, Master."
For the second time that day, the group teleported out of the area.
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K1 fell out of the television and landed on his face. Next to Kikuri-Hime. Before he could move, Souji landed on him too.
"...Heeeeeeeeeelp..." K1 whined. Souji... appeared to be asleep. "Are you kidding me?! Kikuri-Hime, get him off of me!"
"I'm moving Yuugi through the portal as well at the moment," Kikuri-Hime said. "So no can do."
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