RP - OrgD - The Rose's Watch (March 2015)

    Dasher stood in the courtyard of Castle Destruction, trying to resist the urge to begin tapping a foot. He was looking forward to the chance to take down some Heartless, but unfortunately, his impatience had led him to prepare apparently well before his companions for this mission did. Now, here he was, waiting to meet them and get moving.

    Upon hearing the mission, Liliax was... hyped up...? Was that the correct term? Liliax didn't know, herself. It had been a while since she'd been sent out and she wanted to know if she could put her training to good use. The only problem she had was the fact that she had to work with others - strangers, to make things worse. She didn't mind people, but let's just say she preferred working alone.

    As of the moment, she was to meet the two others who were sent on the mission with her. Arriving at the meeting place, she saw someone who was already waiting. That makes one more... She thought to herself. She stood at a distance from the other person who was already there, and sighed to herself.

    Rakxed made his way through the halls, resting his arms on the back of his head. A small grin was on his face; if the Heartless were as weak as the rank of the mission would suggest, then they'd make for some good practice when it came to legitimate combat. Of course, he'd have to keep his guard up, ‘cause it was kill or be killed with those things. Plus, if he recalled correctly, the Nobodies he ended up being paired up with were going to be new faces, so he guessed it would make for a good way to get to know about more the Organization's members.

    The Redhead eventually stepped foot in the courtyard, taking a few breaths just in case to maintain his cool attitude. After seeing the two strangers that were in the area, he began to approach them with a casual wave. " ‘Sup? Let me guess, you two are the pawns I'm tagging along with for the trip to this... Beast's Castle, was it?"

    Dasher's ears perked, and he raised his head to regard the dark-haired girl and bearded young man as they approached. "Hello!" he waved, trying to be friendly, though the two gave him very different impressions - while the male seemed to share his interest in meeting, the girl seemed distant and uninterested. He stepped toward her hesitantly, and extended a hand, trying to do this "handshake" thing the other Nobodies had taught him about. "My name's Dasher. I'm... kind of new here, but I hope I'll be able to help out in this mission. I'm definitely looking forward to taking down some Heartless!"

    He tried to get a whiff of the girl's scent, but the smell was somewhat alien to him - he guessed that she wasn't originally a "human", as the other Nobodies said their original bodies were, but he just couldn't guess what she was.

    Liliax glanced at the next person to arrive and continued thinking to herself. The two were quite tall compared to her, and they looked just a bit older than her. Not intimidating. Definitely not. The two both exchanged their greetings, but Liliax just stared. I'm just here for the mission... Not to be all friendly with whoever these two are.

    Liliax disregarded the hand extended to her and sighed yet again. I suppose it's time I introduce myself as well. She glanced at the two who were there with her, knowing one that's named Dasher and the other? "I'm Liliax, and that's all you need to know." She said, hoping that would be that so they could carry on with the mission.

    Rakxed smirked as he looked at the two strangers. He was surprised Dasher's name lacked an "X" like the previous members. In fact, the name actually didn't seem scrambled like the others did, either. However, the male didn't worry about it too much, as what the two said basically confirmed his assumption. "Thought so," he chuckled. "The name's Rakxed. I'm not too new here, I've just been so busy with... stuff, that I haven't been able to do too much."

    He soon noticed that Dasher was holding his hand out as if he wanted to shake hands with either of his comrades. Since Liliax seemed to be leaving him hanging, he decided to shake the Nobody's hand. "Wish both of you the best of luck," he smirked. "If these things are weak enough to warrant this thing having a Pawn rank like us, I bet these things can't be too hard to wipe out. We're pretty much going to be pest control, now that I think about it."

    Dasher accepted the handshake from Rakxed, albeit with a little confusion, and scratched at one of his hair-horns. "Well, there's nothing wrong with pest control. I kind of enjoyed it, back home. And, as long as we stick together, it should be a breeze! ...Right?"

    Liliax shrugged. "Let's just go... and get this mission done." She glanced at Rakxed, then at Dasher. "The sooner, the better." Besides, if anything happens, it's not that bad, is it? It was bound to happen sometime, she thought. She narrowed her eyes, her patience running. They should leave soon, so they'd get something done.

    Rakxed looked a bit confused as to why the two didn't open a portal yet. Maybe the two had yet to figure out how, or something. With a chuckle, the boy raised his hand, trying to look cool, and with a snap of his fingers, he opened up a Dark Portal to where the castle they were assigned to go to was. "After you," he simply said with a smirk.

    "Whoa!" Dasher jumped back a few steps upon the appearance of the portal, looked back at Rakxed in astonishment, then to the portal again. "How did you do that? That was cool!"

    Liliax stood back and watched the two talk, wanting to just go in already. Keeping her thoughts to herself, she started tapping her arm with her eyebrows knitted close together. If her face wasn't that of impatience, then she didn't know what was.

    "Magic!" Rakxed said with a laugh, "Seriously though, I don't know how to explain it. It kind of just... Happens I guess. The higher-ups might be able to tell you about it far more better than I ever could."

    As he walked through the portal, the Redhead ended up being taken from the courtyard of Castle Destruction to an entirely different castle. Statues surrounded the circular, stone floor they were standing on. In front of them was their destination, an old, ominous castle that held the foes they were hunting for within its walls.

    Dasher turned to Liliax, offered his best smile, and followed Rakxed through the portal. On the other side, he took a few minutes to adjust to the sudden darkness in contrast to the sunlight from their own Castle's courtyard, and quickly looked around. "I'm not sure exactly, but... should we just be going right in? I think I remember hearing that if strangers came to OUR castle, the rule was to chase them away."

    Liliax was the last to enter the portal. After reaching their destination, she took a look around. I don't believe I've ever been here before... And she probably hadn't. When was the last time Liliax left the castle…? She didn't remember ever leaving the castle, actually.

    The atmosphere of the new place was quite different from that of the courtyard, much to Liliax's liking, if anything. "I doubt it's the same here," Liliax said, disregarding any possible dangers that may lie ahead. She walked ahead carelessly, but made sure that Rakxed and Dasher were following behind.

    "Well," Rakxed began as he approached the main gates, "If I recall correctly, as long as we minimize the noise we make, we should be okay." Once the redhead got close enough to the entrance of the castle, the male pushed the door open and slowly made his way into the castle.

    "Ah, wait!" Dasher reached out, calling to the other two. "Before we go in... maybe we should make sure we each know what the others are going to do. When I fought the Heartless in my world, we mostly guessed what each of the animals could do, but here... well, things are a lot different." He gestured to himself. "I'm able to move fast, and I focus on kicking things. The others told me that the rest of you use your... hands? I think they're called hands - to hold weapons."

    Liliax turned to Dasher, who had stopped her and Rakxed from going in. She stared off into a distant space, thinking. Might as well cooperate... She thought to herself. "...Yes, I do have a weapon. And I suppose he does, too." She gestured over to Rakxed. Liliax looked down, and thought of what else to say. "I...I just fight. That's it." Without anything better to say, that's all she came up with, and that's all she said.

    Rakxed turned to the two with a smirk. "So we got someone that can do close combat. Good, then the most I'll have to do is ranged combat!" He chuckled. "Anyways, let's try to avoid the west section. I'm pretty sure I remember the assignment saying it's off limits so... Maybe the entrance to the center might have at least a clue?"

    After approaching his companions and peering into the castle's main hall, Dasher could see that the structure was indeed massive, maybe even as big as their own home, supported by strong beams, with doors against each wall, and a small flight of stairs that led to both a very large set of doors straight ahead, as well as paths reaching both left and right. "...Maybe..." he said, uncertainly. "I'm still not used to this whole 'castle' business, but the big doors seem kind of... scary." Normally he might have been proud of himself for remembering what a "door" was, but for now he was much more concerned about the mission... and keeping his antlers on.

    "Ah, yeah...The west section..." Liliax was confused as to where “west” was. Directions really weren't her thing. Maybe I should just let them do the leading and follow after them. It was a thought, a simple one at that. "...Possibly." Liliax shrugged. They could just wander around, yes, that wasn't a bad idea. It would be better if they knew where they were going, though. So far... the mission was decent. Nothing bad had happened... yet. Maybe nothing bad would happen at all. That idea was doubtful to Liliax, though. She was expecting something bad to happen anytime. She was waiting.

    Her thoughts were drifting away, going down in a spiral and becoming depressing. It wasn't unusual for Liliax, being the pessimist she was.

    "I don't know," Rakxaid chuckled. "This place doesn't seem too bad." The male approached the door ahead of them and, much like the previous gate, pushed it open. On the other side was what appeared to be a large ballroom. At first glance, the area seemed to be completely empty. The redhead sighed; if anything, looking around wouldn't hurt to see if there were any clues to where the Heartless could be hiding.

    Immediately feeling better at the sight of such a beautifully lit room, Dasher rushed in, becoming a blur as he stopped in front of the large glass windows that depicted a starry night sky, then turned to take in the golden banisters upstairs and the ornate pillars holding them up... he quickly became bored with the unnatural orderliness of the room and returned his attention to the stars outside, but only found that doing so was equally as troubling, since he was seeing the stars outside while bright light illuminated the room. He shook his head and grumbled to himself.

    The ballroom was quite different from the rest of the place. Liliax initially thought the place was dark and gloomy, much like herself. Seeing the illuminated room made Liliax think - they hadn't been walking around a lot, but they were sent on this mission for a reason. "Am I the only one who finds it odd that we haven't encountered any Heartless yet?" It was a bona fide question. Liliax let the question slip; nonetheless, she was curious. The place they were currently in didn't seem to have any, nor did the previous ones. This might take a while... she thought with a sigh.

    "Well it does seem a bit suspicious," Rakxed agreed, "But I’m not exactly sure know how frequently these Heartless buttheads pop up, exactly, so..." as he wandered around the room, looking for something suspicious, he had this odd, ominous feeling that something might end up jumping out at him and the others when they least expected it.

    Having already put some distance between himself and the others, Dasher put a hand to his head to fight back the slight headache he was getting. "Well, it depends... in my world, the ones that could fly just kind of appeared in the air, and the ones on foot sort of came up out of the ground. It's not very hard to miss, anyway." As he is speaking, a small humanoid form begins to rise out of the floor behind him, wearing some sort of odd headpiece. It is followed by a pair of vine-like balls appearing in midair, and several more of the small humanoids begin to appear.

    Seeing the heartless appear, Liliax readied her scythe. She could have gone in to attack at any moment, but realizing Dasher didn't notice the Heartless, she called out to him first, as they were expected to work as a team and help each other.

    "Behind you!" She pointed to them, hoping she called out fast enough. Liliax charged straight for one of the little creatures while speaking. They're heartless... They truly are... she thought, her scythe in hand as she swung it down upon the Heartless. Her training really paid off, and it was probably evident with the way she handled her scythe.

    Rakxed turned when he heard the strange noise that suddenly sounded, stepping back a bit when he finally realized that Heartless had suddenly popped in on the scene. Without hesitation, the Nobody drew both pistols, each one bearing an unknown, glowing object from within. He looked over the foes they were facing and then to the other Nobodies; by the looks of it, they were most likely going to have to get up close and personal while the redhead should try and maintain as much of a distance from the creatures as possible and pelt them with the glowing objects in his pistols.

    "Heh, these the only things here?" he chuckled in overconfidence. "No wonder this is a Pawn-rank mission!" From the two types of foes present, he determined that the Darkballs were the bigger threat, considering the stupid things seemed larger and were able to fly and all. The male took aim at the nearest one of the... purple vine-balls, and fired his pistols one after another, launching plasma-bullets at the creature. Each bullet hit and, thankfully, despite their small amount of damage dealt individually, added up to deal a rapid flow of pain... if Heartless could feel that stuff, anyways.

    Dasher, meanwhile, had already reacted to Liliax's warning, twisting just in time to notice the Soldier Heartless as it attacked, clipping his side. Reflexes kicking in, he ran a short distance away. "Aw, come on!" he yelled, both in anger at himself for not being on his guard, and at the Heartless for using such a dirty trick. "That is NOT gonna happen twice!" Channeling his power into his feet, he rushed back into the growing swarm of Soldiers, leaping into the air and performing a somersault, then delivering a flurry of kicks into the Soldier that had appeared behind him, following the strikes up with a spinning kick that collided with its head and sent it flying, knocking down a few others as it went. When the Heartless hit a wall, it crumpled and dissolved into nothingness.

    Liliax continued slashing the Heartless with her scythe. There were quite a few of them, and Liliax understood why a team had to set out for this mission. Rakxed took care of the Heartless in the air, which was convenient, while Dasher and herself dealt with the Soldiers. It was a quick and easy job indeed, taking care of these Heartless. They were quite weak, but there were surely some stronger Heartless out there somewhere. Maybe they'd encounter some if they carried on? Liliax decided to just focus on the task at hand - taking care of the Heartless that were currently in front of them. Soon enough, there were about half of them left.

    With one last shot, the ball Rakxed was blasting at dissolved away. "Are you kidding me?" he laughed, "These chumps are getting taken down so easily! There's no way it could be THIS easy." Thankfully, by sheer dumb luck, the Nobody spotted another one of the airborne Heartless chomping its way towards him and, as quickly as he could, he turned and began to shoot at the spherical beast like he did the previous ones. "Too slow!"

    Dasher continued his high-speed assault, deciding it was easier to whittle down the Heartless' defenses and stun them with his kicks, rather than focusing on one and leaving himself open for attack. "Don't get too comfortable!" he called. "That's when you get hurt - trust me, I know!" He knocked aside two soldiers and tackled a third as it tried to make its way toward Raxhed.

    Liliax rolled her eyes at Rakxed. "Aren't you a little egotistical?" Within the moment she spoke, a couple of Heartless took the chance to approach Liliax. A small grin cracked at the corner of her lips as she defended against their attacks. This is quite entertaining, she thought, as she quickly reverted back to her nonchalant expression. She then swung her scythe with what seemed like a little bit of elegance. Maybe Liliax herself was becoming egotistical, who knew?

    "I don't know," Rakxed said as a Soldier approached from behind. "These things aren't too much of a challenge." The Heartless used this time to kick the overly-confident male from behind, making him fall down. "Ow, you ass!" he growled as he turned to the ambushing Heartless. As he got up, he put away his pistols for a second and channeled a pair of plasma saw blades above his hands. He then tossed both of them at the Heartless, drew his pistols out  and shot the semi-armored creature after the blades hit their target, making the Heartless fade away. "Okay, I see your point... but at least coming up with uses for my element isn't as difficult as I felt it would be, as limited to small constructs as it is."

    "Practice makes perfect," Dasher grunted as he rammed a Soldier with his antlers and tossed it towards Liliax, allowing her the pleasure of slicing the creature in half. "Keep it up! We're almost done..." He turned, noticing that the three of them had whittled away so many of the Heartless that only four Soldiers now remained... and were oddly retreating toward the far end of the room. Before he could prepare to rush them and finish the job, three more Heartless burst into appearance in front of them - each resembling the Soldiers, though twice as big.

    Liliax appreciated Dasher's actions, and gladly cut the soldier in half. The group of remaining Heartless were retreating, but Liliax wouldn't allow that. They were on a mission, and Liliax would rather do it right and be thorough. About to chase after the remaining soldiers, three more appeared. They were Soldiers... maybe? They were, besides the fact that they were twice the size of the ones they had defeated earlier on.

    Liliax took a quick glance at her companions. There were three of those things, and three of them. If it were up to Liliax, she'd just go for it, but she was waiting for some kind of 'go' signal. Maybe they'd go for the same one? Maybe they'd get one each?

    Rakxed looked at the 3 large creatures, trying to think of the best strategy. He looked at the other Nobodies briefly. "Okay, so do any of you guys have any plans of your own that I should mind?"

    Dasher glanced between the two of them, trying to decide how they should handle the bigger Heartless. I'm not used to being in charge... he thought. The distraction almost cost him, as one of the much larger and apparently faster Heartless launched into a tornado kick, spinning around like a top and coming straight at him. Caught off-guard, Dasher put all his power into his right leg and kicked back. Their feet connected, and while the momentum knocked the still-spinning Heartless away from him, he also fell on his rear from poor balance, leaving him wide open for the two other Commander Heartless to close in and swipe at him.

    "Before any of that...We need to stay safe, at the very least." Liliax said after watching the events unfold. Liliax took a look at the other two Heartless. The first one was quite far, thanks to Dasher, but the other two looked like they could come charging at the trio at any moment. Liliax then thought - was all this planning even necessary? It was better, but was it necessary? Liliax shook her head. "But anyway...Let's try putting some distance between them and us," she said, taking a few steps back.

    Rakxed sighed; of course these things wouldn't give them the time to make a plan to take them out. He channeled sawblades on the backsides of his hands and swung his arms like he was tossing them. This time however, one of the larger creatures slashed at the blades with its claws, deflecting the blades back at the redhead. Thinking fast, he channeled a field that formed between him and the path of the blades. Thus, the saw blades shattered as they hit the field. "Huh," he said as he realized he’d managed to actually find a defensive use for his element by sheer dumb luck. "Yeah, getting away from these buttheads seems like the best tactic."

    In defending himself from a follow-up kick from the Commanders, Dasher found himself flying through the air at high velocity, and trying to right himself, he landed heavily on his feet and slid a short distance, ending up next to Rak. "Oof! ...Yeah, no kidding!" He examined the situation from where he was standing now, his eyes poring over the scene in front of him - three Commanders, and four Soldiers, all closing in on them. There were no hiding places in the room, and nowhere to get the enemy snagged, like he would sometimes do with the trees in his home world. Then something clicked in his head, and he launched into a rapid speech. "I have an idea. Rak, you and I are going to distract them while Lily takes them down. Fire off some shots into the air, and leave the rest to me - as soon as you see an opening, Lily, you take it. Sound like a plan?"

    Lily? Liliax was a bit put off by the nickname, but just grunted in response. She still nodded to agree with Dasher's plan, though. Having someone good in range combat like Rakxed was a plus. So all Liliax needed to do was stand and wait for a chance to swing her scythe around like crazy. Sounded good. And now all they needed to do was put the plan into action... which was easier said than done.

    Rakxed nodded with a smirk, aiming at the armored creatures, the barrels of his pistols glowing.  When his aim was steady enough, he began to shoot at the Heartless, firing one gun after the other. He began to strafe around the area a bit to make sure he knew he got the creatures' attention via if they were following him or not.

    As the Heartless turned their attention to Rakxed, Dasher took off running at the highest speed he could manage, charging up the wall and spinning as gracefully as he could onto the balcony. Once up there, he proceeded to jump from one area to the next, tracking Rakxed's attacks and kicking any wild shots that came his way back down toward the Heartless, from behind. Between the two of them, Raxked's plasma beams began pelting the seven Heartless in the back, stunning them from the constant barrage and leaving them vulnerable.

    Due to the two doing very well with their distraction, Liliax was able to find an opening very quickly. Once she did, she ran towards the nearest Heartless and brought her scythe down forcefully. A single hit wasn't enough to defeat it, so she continued swinging her scythe about. Soon the Heartless turned to her, and she was hit, though not that badly. Liliax returned to what she was doing, ignoring the minor injuries sustained earlier. One of the three stronger Heartless were gone, but there were still the other Soldiers. Thinking they'd repeat the process, Liliax waited for another opening.

    Figuring that the smaller Soldiers would only end up complicating things, Rakxed began to focus targeting the smaller Heartless, making sure to give the larger two a good pelting to aggravate them. This process eventually led to one taking a few headshots, causing it to dissolve into nothing. He then proceeded to attempt this method again, but the Heartless caught on quickly, as the larger Heartless began to block the path between Rak and the small fries.

    Dropping down to the lower floor again, Dasher quickly closed the gap between himself and the four last Heartless, putting his momentum to use on the three Soldiers - with a flurry of kicks followed by three powerful strikes, he knocked each one of them into the larger Heartless, each one slamming into it before disintegrating, leaving only the Commander itself to deal with. "Finish him off!" Dasher yelled, beckoning to both Liliax and Rakxed to attack it as he powered up for a high kick.

    Liliax nodded and did the same thing as she did a while ago: she jumped up this time, the scythe going down more forcefully than it had previously. And again, Liliax found herself cutting up the Heartless. Each swing more powerful than the last, Liliax swung her scythe without a care.

    As Rakxed moved to a location that wouldn't cause the path of his plasma beams to be too close to Liliax, he realized that as he was continuing to shoot at the objects, he was starting to grow weaker. Why was that? Did it have something to do with his element? Did he have only such a big supply of it for a certain amount of time? It didn't matter too much to him at the moment, however; right now he had to help out on taking care of these things. He attempted to fling two more sawblades at the larger Soldier and thankfully, due to the other Nobodies keeping it occupied, one blade successfully hit the larger Heartless.

    In the span of those few precious seconds, Dasher had finished building up enough power in his leg for it to start vibrating, and as the Heartless came down off of the shock of having been stricken by Rakxed’s sawblade, he delivered a swift high kick, launching the Commander so high into the air that its helmet bounced off of the balcony overhead, and as it fell back down, Dasher spun in place and did a sidekick, sending the enemy away to crash heavily against the doors to the ballroom, where it slumped over and faded away. Dasher took a few deep breaths before muttering, "Well... that was fun... right?"

    Before his company could respond, they could hear another voice speak up from the other side of the ballroom door. "Is someone there?" There was some hushed murmuring, before another voice audibly joined the first. "Someone should fetch the Master; it might not be safe inside!"

    Liliax quickly turned to the source of the voices. She wasn't sure if this was a good or bad thing. Probably a bad thing. "...We're done here, right?" Her eyes flickered from the door to her companions. "Maybe we should just leave..." she said, knowing that they were done with their mission. Or they could wait and see what would happen, another possibility. That could lead to certain... problems.

    "Are you kidding?!" Rakxed yelped, "Don't you remember, we're supposed to not cause too much commotion. We might be dead meat if we get caught!" He hastily opened a portal back to Castle Destruction and rushed his way into it.

    "I agree; retreat!" Dasher hissed, jumping through the portal as well. Liliax quickly followed after them, walking casually into the portal back to Castle Destruction.

    As the portal closed behind them, Dasher stretched awkwardly, trying to get a kink out from where he took a hit during the combat. "I guess the mission's over... I guess I'll go and report what happened to Queen Nexious, now..." he nodded to Rakxed and Liliax each in turn. "Thanks a lot for coming with me on this mission - I don't think I could've managed against those three big ones by myself."

    "Eh, it was nothing!" Rakxed chuckled, brushing the back of his head. "Gave me a good challenge to practice my skills on, at least. I wouldn't have been able to do so well without your help, though."

    Liliax nodded her own acknowledgement, and thus the trio parted.