Re: All-Consuming Shadows

[Teldranis]

Being thrown up into the air by the gravity orb, Teldranis contorted his body in the air just enough to keep himself from getting a major wound, the neoshadow's claws only lightly bruising him. Seeing the shadow, he quickly jumped up to his feet and swiped for the neo-shadow yet again, planning less to hit him and more to ward him off as the new threats emerged.

[Jaixe]

Jaxe swirled and landed to the side, grazed but generally in decent shape. The other shadow lunged at Teldranis as Jaxe didn't relent from his own assault, attacking again from a different angle. The Red Nocturne charged to fire once more at the enemy, a three-pronged attack.

[Teldranis]

Teldranis, for a split-second, panicked. He knew of no good way to escape this situation - he knew there was no way of blocking these strikes, and that every bit of damage to his body would be capitalized on by these creatures. Then, his instincts kicked in, and he committed to what the youthful often do - improvisation. Using a variation on the technique he uses to charge enemies per khala formation, he created a sudden burst of speed to move directly to the side of Jaiex and the shadow, the fireball striking just next to his feet as he did so, before turning, striking with two sudden attacks of his psi-blades towards Jaiex.

[Jaixe]

Jaxe saw the attack coming but was unable to react in time, thrown back as the black shadows hissed from his arms, wounded. He snarled at Teldranis, holding a gravity spell in one hand and resurrecting yet another shadow with his other. There were two now, to his side, and the Red Nocturne on the roof.

[Teldranis]

Teldranis jumped back, Firing off a psionic bolt as he did so at the resurrecting shadow, before destroying the other shadow with a sudden charge forward, stabbing through it's head. "give up." Teldranis told the heartless, whilst on his toes and waiting for the Neoshadow to use his strange ability again. Teldranis knew he couldn't manage to live through this if he got hit with that technique again.

[Jaixe]

Jaxe crouched and snarled again, as the Red Nocturne charged up another fireball attack. As Jaxe went to charge, ignoring Teldranis's attempts at intimidation, he suddenly stopped and stood upright, looking around. He was sensing something odd, an odd nothingness, one that permeated the air. He snarled again but not at Teldranis, and then morphed, headed for the building and then jumping up to the rooftop.

[Teldranis]

Teldranis was initially surprised by his opponent's sudden departure, but, shrugging it off, instead turned his energy towards defeating his remaining opponents. seeing the Red Nocturne's fireball, Teldranis opted to, instead of dodge, cut the fireball with his psionic blade, the two energies clashing and ending in dispersion of the fire-ball. afterwards, the remaining shadow attacked, but missed, Teldranis easily dispersing it with a psi-blade with it by itself as it was. Looking around, he waited to see if more heartless would follow, but for the moment he saw none. It was then he heard a low sniffling noise...

[Jaixe]

Jaxe snarled back at Teldranis as he dispatched the remainder of his allies. He, however, morphed and exited the area regardless. This fight will resume another time.

[Teldranis]

Teldranis rushed to the sound of the crying, only to see another shadow, bearing down on the little girl. "Noooooooo!" She screamed in a high-pitch voice. Teldranis, noticing what little time there was before the shadow reached her, used charge, the ability transforming him to energy for only a few microseconds in order to give him a speed boost. The shadow died an inch from the little girl, stabbed with a psionic blade.

[Teldranis]

The little girl cried louder at this, frightened by the suddenness of the heartless's death, and by the equally alien appearance of the being who defeated it. "Do not be afraid." Teldranis told the little girl softly, who made a little gasping noise, no longer crying. Still, she refused to budge from her spot.

[Teldranis]

Teldranis decided to explain himself. "Your brother sent me. He's worried about you. I'm here to help." Teldranis told the girl. She simply stared at him in response.

[Teldranis]

"I told him I'd bring you back to the first district, and that is what I intend to do." Teldranis told her, kneeling down in an attempt to ease the girl's fear of him. "So... you aren't going to hurt me?" The girl asked finally.

[Teldranis]

"Of course not! I swear on the Khala I will do nothing to harm you." Teldranis told her. The girl giggled. "Hehehe, you're like a knight from a fairy-tale. Okay, I'll follow real close."

[Teldranis]

Stepping out of the alleyway, the girl following, Teldranis made a sudden motion to the girl to keep back. "Stay back. It appears I might need to do something before we can leave..." Teldranis told her, narrowing his eyes at the shadows and heartless before him...

[Teldranis]

They came from the shadows, crawling on the walls, before extending outwards, shadows dropping at the end of the alley, and a nasty-looking spherical creature pulling itself out of the wall that reminded Teldranis of a hydralisk's Grin with it's toothy maw. "Go down the side of the alley, stay out of sight!" He told the girl - less for fear that she might get hurt. He would not allow that.
She did not need to see what would come next.

[Teldranis]

Everything he'd seen of these creatures, and everything he'd done to fight them, came rushing back into his head. He'd been fighting, until now, a lost, unfocused boy, fighting for life but in truth seeking death. He realized that now, looking inside himself, and realized how foolish - how incredibly selfish of him it was. There were people here trying so hard to cling to life, to what remained despite the darkness, working through their pain.
A humming sound glowed as Teldranis ignited one of his Psi-blades. How disrespectful of him to attempt to try to throw away his life in spite of seeing all of that. Regardless of their opinion of him, he was a templar. He had honed his fighting skills to protect - not to seek death, simply to escape his own pain.
Charging forward with a slide, Teldranis immediately cut the dark spherical creature - "darkball" he thought to himself - Directly across the face before it could react, and igniting his second psi-blade, following it up with two quick strikes to the darkball's face before sliding forward again, dodging the shadow's attempted slashes from the side, as he pivoted back to face his opponents, a quartet of soldiers forming behind the shadows.

[Teldranis]

Teldranis regarded each of his opponents with a look, more familiar with their style of attacking now, and waited, seeing a glimmer from the soldier closest to him and using that split-second to ready himself for the kick that came next, not moving back, but actually grabbing the being's leg, before throwing him at one of the shadows. The other shadow turned to morph into the ground, but Teldranis quickly stabbed downwards, keeping his blade-length to it's maximum setting.
The shadow dissipated, as Teldranis heard, rather than saw, the other soldiers prepare to kick him. Thankfully, it was uncoordinated, giving teldranis the time to use his psi blades to block, not one, but three different kicks in succession with his blades.

[Teldranis]

Teldranis pulled his leg back in a smooth motion as the shadow hit by the thrown soldier recovered, the being seeming to move in slow motion to him now. Pulling his arm down to slice the creature in the same motion, his left psi-blade left a trail of sky-blue energy as it cut through his opponent in a wide arc. A second trail of deadly energy followed, Teldranis's right psi-blade finishing the job, as he pulled his front leg back to pull himself back into a shorter stance.
"This feeling... I feel as though I've gotten the old feeling of my strength back... or, at least, a bit of it." Teldranis thought to himself. "Leave now." Teldranis stated in a firm tone to the rest of the heartless, knowing it wouldn't even cause them to balk. "And I'll spare you further harm."

[Teldranis]

Teldranis braced himself as the Soldiers, seeming to learn that he had more issue with their kicks the more they used them in concert, swung towards Teldranis all at once.
At the beginning of this encounter, Teldranis would likely have been caught off-guard and injured by this... this was no longer the case.
Sidestepping one kick by pushing his legs outward into a wider stance, shortening and moving himself out of the way, the soldier he'd thrown earlier hit only air with his kick.

Two of the soldiers, mercifully, came at Teldranis's sides, and he blocked each kick with his gauntlets, Teldranis's physical strength enough to do so with only minor effort on his part.

One more Soldier attacked from the front, however, and Teldranis prayed his gambit would work, as he stared straight at the creature, an electrical discharge echoing from his head just as the soldier's leg was about to strike his face

[Teldranis]

the soldier was knocked back in a pivot, electrical arcs going through his body as he sat in a corner of the alley, paralyzed. Teldranis had no time to waste, as he charged forward, his body glowing blue as for just a few microseconds he transcended his physical limits and become pure ether, almost seeming to teleport in front of the left soldier, which he dispersed with a pair of stabs from his blades, the two strikes Happening so quickly that it would look to an ordinary person like both strikes occurred at the same time.

[Teldranis]

the remaining pair of soldiers Kicked at Teldranis at the same time once again, but Teldranis slided towards them, their kicks arcing on either side of his body, before using his newly acquired maneuver to then close the distance.
Teldranis was not merciful, Attacking the front soldier with a pair of psi blades it barely managed to try to block with it's claws, before firing a psionic bolt at the one behind it, the creature not managing to react in time. Pressing the other shadow, a pair of stabs barely dodged by the shadow caused it to turn to it's left, in a perfect position for Teldranis to bring a slicing uppercut with his blade into the shadow.

Pressing his advantage, he moved forward with every extra attack, adding a downward thrust, a horizontal slash, and finally a vertical slice that bisected and dispersed his opponent.

[Teldranis]

The soldier that was behind Teldranis got up to it's feet, dazed, but found itself knocked off his feet again by another psionic bolt, and dispersed, as Teldranis took a half-second of relaxation, relieved that he'd managed to destroy all of the-
The soldier in the alley!

[Teldranis]

Teldranis turned the corner and to his horror, saw that the shadow had managed to get up, as he heard a banging noise in the side of the alley that made his heart sink.
Looking over to the other side of the alley, Teldranis was both relieved and utterly surprised at the sight of a little girl banging on the soldier's head with a frying pan she had somehow procured, not strong enough to truly disperse the hollow but keeping him on the ground with repeated blows.
"Bad bad bad bad!" The girl yelled as she continued beating the soldier with the frying pan, who, quite unprepared and unwilling to entertain further nonsense, disappeared through a dark portal it formed beneath it.

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