Matt frowned. "All right." He glanced back to the others. "Let's move. But be ready to shoot and run."

Blazen's eyes widened as heat came to his feet from the attack. He then shot away, dust kicking up. He flew backwards, his back to the ground. He would continue to leave the blast radius. He would then plant his hands on a building and then pushed himself up and landed on the roof, out of the blast radius.

"Aren't we always ready for that?" R.D. asked, his eyebrow raised. The group soon gathered their things and made their way out of the ruined building. Cairn, Ange, and Levi saw them off.

Alasea squinted as she looked up into the sky. "Ugh," she groaned.

"Something the matter?" R.D. asked.

"Yeah," replied Alasea, "This place just makes me sick."

"Me too," Helena moaned. She really didn't look good.

Matt noticed this. "...you okay?"

"Not really..."

"Damn." Matt glanced around, trying to see through the fog. "I can't see shit!"

Hugo was also looking about. "I can. I'll be able to notice anything if it comes up to us."

As they walked, R.D. looked down at his gloved hands, flexing them slightly. He could feel the corruption in the air.

"It'd probably be best to keep out of the open as much as we can," R.D. said, "This air can't be good for us."

He looked up at Matt. "The girls are probably feeling it worse than we are because we have the Core and Lumiya," he mused out loud, "But I'd rather not take our chances for too long."

"Heaven's CRASH!" Blane yelled unleashing his own explosion ,that wouldn't harm the light, to counteract Diablo's, "And...?"

The explosion easily wiped out the Heaven's Crash, almost as if brushing it aside. The entire city block was reduced to a crater, and when the explosion finally disappated, Diablo was gone.

However, his voice seemed to boom all around them.

"Next time you won't be so lucky, children," he roared, "Next time I'll personally rip your bodies to pieces! And even if I fall to your blades, you will not overcome the might of the Destroyer!"

And with that, his presence was gone.

"Sounds good," Matt said. He was waiting for something to happen-he practically knew something would.

Blazen was crouching on the ruble he stood on with his arms over his face. His eyes were shut tightly as dust and waves came by. He winced as some metal scraped his cheek. He then stood up and shook his head to see the area destroyed. He growled and stomped the ground hard. "He got away." He growled as he went back to his base form.

The group continued, marching over piles of rubble and trekking over the crystalline ground, fighting off the urge to sick up. But, eventually, they were getting tired of it.

"Over there," R.D. said, pointing to a large, circular building, "Let's take refuge in that."

"Just a little bit more, Helena," Matt said, leading Helena along-her skin felt a bit chilled, and judging by her breathing, it was becoming harder and harder to keep moving.

"I know," she managed to reply.

The doorway into the building was blocked slightly--a problem easily remedied by R.D.'s fireball. He lead the group into the building, into a large, round and empty room.

R.D. blinked as he felt sunlight again. He looked up, seeing that the roof only covered the outer edges, leaving the rest open, and swore.

He looked around the room, and found that it wasn't entirely empty. Occasionally, he saw that some crystals planted on short poles littered the room.

Alasea wandered up to the nearest one and instantly felt relief. She felt clean again, and lost the sick feeing in her stomach. She quickly turned back to the group. "Bring her over here!" she said quickly.

Kalmar, however, did not revert to his base form. He retained his new powers as he cast about warily, expecting Diablo to reappear any moment.

"I don't like this," he muttered, his deepened voice seeming to echo anyways, "There has to be somewhere we can go, without running into freaks like that."

He chuckled slightly to himself as he looked down at his arm, "Well, I guess I fit in, though."

He raised his eyes and quickly spotted Blazen, and levitated towards him. What disturbed him was the fact he could not find either Kite or Blane. "It seems we have overstayed our time here, by far." he told the God of Fire, "Do you know of any haven's nearby?"

Taking in the room, Matt led Helena to one of the crystals. "Here, sit down," he urged her, helping her down.

Helena lowered herself to the floor successfuly. "Thank you." Her harsh breathing, seeming to echo about the room, calmed down to a normal pace. Still, it felt troubled.

"This is gonna be a pain in the ass if we gotta keep stopping because you all keep getting sick," Hugo muttered.

Matt folded his arms. "Hey, if you've got a better idea, lay it down."

"How Cairn and them can stand the air is beyond me," Alasea muttered.

"Well, they live here," R.D. said, looking about the room, "They're either used to it or their mutations granted them immunities to it."

Blazen thought for a moment before decideing one a path. "North." He said in thought. "I feel we must go there next." He assured before looking to the sun. He turned to his right, north. He then looked around for Blane and Kite, he grimaced on thier possible fate. "What do you say?" He looked back to Kalmar.

Kalmar nodded, his own thoughts on Kite and Blane echoing the other mans.

"North.. sounds good. As long as we're away from this place."

Blazen nodded and began toward North. How long it would take to get to where it would be safe, he did not know. He wasn't even sure if that were possible. However, all he cared about was getting out of here in one piece. Thus he continued on, not to stop until night fall. With that motivation even, he started to run, cutting the time getting there greatly if Kalmar could keep up.

"In the meantime, we gotta cope." Matt sat down on the floor before Helena. "Here, let me make you some painkiller or something. Would that help?"

She looked at him past her hanging hair. "Yes."

"Okay, lemme just-"

He paused. "Hold on."

He leaned his head closer to Helena's face, causing her to back up out of a need for personal space. "What is it?"

"Your eyes. They're all...gold and crap. And it looks like-" His own eyes widened. "Sweet Mexican BACON, those are your dragon eyes!"

"They are?!" Helena quickly brought her hands to her face. "Are you serious?"

"Go look at the floor, I'm serious!" Matt said.

She quickly stood and ran back outside, lowering herself to the ground, taking a good hard look at herself. Hugo, quick to blame someone, snapped, "What the hell did you do to her now, Matt?"

"I didn't DO anything! Why do you blame me for crap I didn't do?!" Matt threw up his arms. "It's probably the fucking atmosphere!"

"Knock it off, you two," R.D. said, looking around, "This is not the place to argue. Besides--"

Movement on the upper rim of the room caught his eye, and he saw a black shape.

"Oh fuck."

The Ing let out a hiss and leapt down into the lower room.

"Bang, motherfucker!" Matt shouted, pointing his finger at the Ing and whipping it back. With that motion, an electrically charged shot burst from his finger at the Ing.

"Damn it, they're comin' for us!" Whipping out his pickaxe, Hugo glanced backwards at Helena. "You okay, kid?"

She raised her hands to her face-somehow, someway, despite the lack of stress, scales had begun to dot all about her skin. "What's going on?" she asked.

"Damn it AGAIN!" The Mettaur fired his own shot at the Ing.

The two shots struck the Warrior Ing squarely in the legs--despite that, it quickly shrugged off the hits. However, before it can go much further, R.D.'s plasma burst sent it sprawling across the ground. As it did, two more Warrior Ing dropped down behind it, and two more jumped down behind the group near Helena.

"Shit!" R.D. said, drawing a Phase Blade as the first got up and lashed out with one of its forelegs, which extended unnaturally at R.D. Parrying the strike, he fired another plasma burst at it.

Matt turned around quickly, drawing out his energy blade and slashing the air before him. "Vorpal Slash!" The familiar light-blue energy wave shot foward at the Ing. As he did this, Hugo ran around the present melee, trying to get to Helena so he could protect her.

(OOC: Screw it. I'm tired of waiting. I'll just say Kouken and Juno and co. left.)

"Well then," Meta said, "we could find ourselves a place to stay, and chat further there. I think that's a better plan than that, no?" She asked Poncho.

She then turned to Kouken. "For the same reason the Egyptians got their guards from Nubia: Nio is practically a part of Aluz, and their mental and physical training of their inhabitants is far better than that of Aluz'. As such Nionian guards are better than Aluzian."

Edited by Morphman on February 12, 2007 at 20:21:21.

(Juno responded to Meta's thing on the last page Morph.)

(Juno posted >__> TALK TO PURPLE LOCKS)

"A better plan than what?" Poncho asked, cocking his left eyebrow, whilst placing his beloved hat back on.

"I don't seem to recall a plan before your plan, which would mean no plan was presented as a plan before your plan, making your plan the best plan, hm?"

Edited by Teej on February 11, 2007 at 11:09:31.

The moment Matt turned his back to attack the Ing behind, another, now behind him, opened three miniscule portals, one right after the other, each firing a beam of concentrated light energy.

As another one of the dark beast's attempted to strike at R.D. as he busily fended off the first Ing to appear, Alasea used her short swords to slice off the offending appendage. The creature screeched and fell back, then reformed its leg and lashed out at her, laying open her arm in a bloody gash.

"Ahh!" she cried out, falling back. She aimed one of her blades at it, and fired a beam of concentrated light--this time the beast screamed in pain and backed away.

Edited by RisingDragon on February 11, 2007 at 13:44:31.

The beams smashed into Matt, and he was sent sprawling to the floor. "GAHHHHH!"

"Matt!" Hearing Matt's pained cry, Helena quickly stood, facing the Ing. Panic swept through her body as she clenched her scaled fists hear her chest.

"Get back!" Hugo shouted at Helena, running in and firing his own shots.

"Kougenjin!" R.D. shouted, firing a wave slash from his Phase Blade. The attack slammed into the beast in front of him, and he spun around, firing a plasma burst at the Warrior Ing attacking Alasea, knocking it back.

The Ing at the back screeched and reared up on its legs. It then dived, entering a roll in an attempt to tackle Helena. If it succeeded, Helena would be in for a nasty surprise--it was their way of attempting possession.

Not knowing what else to do, Helena screamed, and threw out her clawed hands.

A beam of pure, blazing energy inexplicably launched foward, streaking at the Ing.

Hugo ducked over his helmet just in time, as the beam surged over his head. "Holy SHIT!"