(OOC: Pretty much the same way as how pretty much anything never did anything to your characters. Although in a slightly different way now, taking into account what I have learned in physics class.

Oh, don't worry. It's not as if it did nothing. It's more like... the damage is delayed.)

Blazen looked more at the pillar than Kalmar as he recovered. He stood idlely in thought as it glowed and worked its magic. He then looked to Ellie.

"Pillar of Light...Daughter of Dawn...Daughters...of Dawn." Blazen mumbled to himself. It seemed like an old bed time story to him. Something his mo-...step-mother used to tell him. "How many of you are there?" He then asked, Ellie quickly.

Ellie closed her eyes and grasped the power of the Pillar again, and Kalmar's shirt and armor materialized over his upper torso, covering his claw from sight. She opened her eyes and and got off the ground. "Yep! The Daughters of Dawn! There are currently four of us."

For some reason, that felt wrong of Ellie to say, and there was only one thing she could think of that would make it feel wrong. Through the Pillar, she stretched out her senses, and sensed four other Pillars across the world, their influence now spread out wholly.

"Yes! She's finally arrived!" Ellie said happily, pumping her fist into the air. She realized her actions and blushed. "Sorry. We have five Daughters now, including me."

"Who are they?" Blazen asked again just as quickly and more demandingly. Blazen knew that he would need as much info on these Daughters as soon as he could get it.

"Down, sparky," Ellie said, laughing at how domineering Blazen was getting, "I'm getting to that."

Ellie sat back down in the grass and looked at the God of Fire.

"So, how long have you been alive this time around?" she asked.

Helena's eyes widened. "You could...you could return me to normal?"

Blazen's eyes narrowed on Ellie. "A couple of weeks to a month." He mumbled. "Now are you going to answer my question?" He asked a bit more commanding.

"Yes," Alasea said, "If I could get the others here. But it wouldn't be wise to do that right now. We'd have to use all of our power to accomplish it, so we'd be defenseless."

"That shouldn't be too much of a problem for me and Matt," R.D. said, putting a hand on a Phase Blade.

"Yes it would," Alasea replied, "That much power would be a beacon for anything that's even remotely capable of sensing energy. It'd be like a thousand burning arrows in the sky pointing to us. It can be done... but not with our enemies roaming about."

===At Germany===

"In time," Ellie said, "Well, I'm sure you know of Maya and the Seven Beasts. But since your death, Earth has gained a... new contender."

===At Xobelisk===

"Fine," Re-Tuul said, "I'll go get Diablo and then I'll be off."

The Khaglessi stalked out of the room, making his way down Xobelisk, a black tower seemingly made out of endless different dimension, until he reached a strange location indeed. It seemed to have a sky, one burning red, billowing with black clouds. A roofless, ruined cathedral hung over a lake of lava. Re-Tuul flew inside and landed in its center.

Inside he found Diablo kneeling within a large circle and pentagram set into the floor. His cloak was sprawled along the stone floor, and his black sword was stuck into the ground in front of him.

"Diablo," Re-Tuul said, causing the being to look up, "We've been given orders."

Silently, Diablo stood up, ripping his dark blade from the ground. Re-Tuul continued. "The Rising Dragon and his friends have returned. Bring them back here. Kill anyone except Willard, and bring the corpses here."

Diablo nodded, and in a crack of lightning, was gone.

Matt frowned. He hasn't considered trying to remove the beast from Helena's soul...could it be done? Would it be wise? "Still," he said, sternly, "once we find a safe place, I've got to try." He looked up at Helena. "If I can fix what happened to you, I'll do it."

"...thank you," she said, barely at an audible level.

"In the meantime," Matt said, now perked up, "back to killin'." He promptly went back to his handheld game.

"We should get some sleep," R.D. said, "God knows we don't need to be exhausted tomorrow if something decides to attack us."

"You're right," Alasea said, "You should. I can renew your supplies and make you a proper vehicle in the morning."

R.D. nodded to the new Daughter of Dawn, then went to get his pack.

"Fucking bullshit," Matt muttered, saving his game and putting it away.

"What is it now?" Hugo asked, low enough for only Matt to hear.

"I don't see why I can't do that kind of stuff, like make cars that don't try to eat us and other crap," Matt replied. He hunched over. "Damn it, I try all the fucking time, you know that?"

"Yeah, I guess." Hugo began shrinking his pickaxe to prepare for rest. "Look at it this way. Your scope of power is way larger than hers, so at least you can do more things. And no one else can make a flying shotgun like you can."

His shoes off, Matt began peeling off his socks to air them out for a while. "I guess. Still pisses me off." As the cool air ran across his bare skin, he paused. "...and I want to cure Helena."

"You'll figure something out. You're good like that." His pickaxe now stored on his helmet, Hugo settled down, his eyes closing. "Night."

"Night."

******

Morning came without interruption, thankfully. Now restored, Hugo waddled away from Matt, allowing him to snore. His eye trailed to Helena, who, even as a human, was curled up like a cat, totally comfortable. How she did that, he didn't even know. With everyone else asleep, he set himself to his daily run of diagnostics, as well as updating the daily database he kept of the events that had happened to him on this adventure.

Alasea was the first of the humans to wake up. As she sat up from her rest, she stretched, breathing in the morning air deeply. The sun was just rising above the horizon, yet Shayol Ghul still seemed to be an avatar of darkness, diminishing its beauty.

Alasea looked around and suddenly blushed. It would seem that when she slept, the cool air had caused her to unconsciously move to someone else for warmth--namely, R.D.

She stood up carefully, as not to awaken anyone else, and stretched out fully. After a few minutes or so, R.D. had awakened, and he rubbed his eyes, blinking at the morning light.

"Good morning," Alasea said quietly, causing him to turn. She was sitting on a large rock buried in the ground, near the Pillar of Dawn. "Sleep well?"

"Better than I have in a while," R.D. said groggily.

Matt still snored as Hugo poked him once with the end of his pickaxe. "Hey," the Mettaur said. "Wake up."

"Ehpissoff," Matt muttered, waving away Hugo and turning on his side.

"Eh, he'll be up soon," Hugo said. Walking over to Alasea and R.D., swining his tademark weapon around him casually, he asked, "So, what bullshit are we doing today?"

"Well," R.D. started, creating a sphere of water between his hands and eyeing Matt, "We'll see if we can find a portal out of here. What about you, Alli?"

"I'll be catching up with the other Daughters," Alasea said, "I don't think I can travel with you guys anymore."

"Fair enough," R.D. said, floating the water sphere over Matt. "Matt, we need to go as soon as we can. You have a count of three before I drench you."

Alasea walked over to Helena and knelt down beside her, gently shaking her to wake her.

Matt lifted a finger. "If you drench me, I will kick your fucking ass," he said, eyes still closed. "Also, I will not give you any Coke I happen to acquire."

Helena's eyes batted open as Alasea shook her awake. "Unh...?" Her gaze lazily drifted up at the other girl. "What is it, Alasea? Are we going now?"

Blazen grew uncomfortable. "Who?" He asked simply.

The attack was indeed truly massive and truly powerful, it possessed a greatness in both quality and quantity, and to Meta it seemed as if Electra was busy converting every single particle of every single aspect of her existence into power for the attack, which, if it were true, would be pretty much of a suicide attack for Electra. Yet, as Meta did not close her eyes this time, gazing into the pitch black darkness of the attack Electra exacted upon her.

(OOC: Well then, since you stated "explosion" as well as not-really-but-quite-looking-like-it stated that it apparantly is more powerful than the last attack Electra did, I assume it was slightly longer than the last attack. Explosions are actually quite short, though.)

Meta had quite lost some sense of time by the time the attack ceased. She raised her arms to shield her eyes from the rays of the sun, and blinked. Was Electra still there? She wondered.

An orb of fire and an orb of lightning appeared over Matt.

"Okay, you have four choices," R.D. stated, getting annoyed, "You can get up, get drenched, get electricuted, or get set on fire. I don't know about you, but I'd like to get a move on before we're attacked."

"Well," Alasea said unsurely, "I think so, if Matt ever gets up."

===At Germany===

"Ziatoch," Ellie said, "The Destroyer of Worlds. He's a powerful being, as strong as Kuro with the potential to grow stronger."

Ellie picked up a stick and started doing little doodles in the dirt. "We've known He's been coming this way for a long time," the Daughter of Dawn continued, "That's why we're here. The five of us protect the Pillars of Dawn, so that one day the time will come when they are used against Him. Until then, we have to protect them from whatever enemies come by."

===At Egypt===

"God dammit," Michael muttered as Electra screamed, standing up and thrusting his hand out. An orange, hexagonal shield formed in front of him, and the explosion slammed into it as it came near him. The explosion couldn't break through this kind of barrier, no matter how strong it was--only two different things could break through it.

Edited by RisingDragon on April 15, 2007 at 11:47:16.

Matt waved his hand and dismissed all of the elemental balls. "Ask me nicely and I will consider it."

Hugo groaned in irritation. "Matt, would you please wake up?"

To that, Matt instantly sat up, opening his eyes. "Why, THANK you for asking me so nicely, Hugo! I will do just that."

Yawning, Helena stretched, pushing her palms foward along the ground and extending her arms fully while arching her back, as if she was like a cat.

"...what are you doing, Helena?" Matt asked.

"Hmmm?" She straightened her back and drew in her knees. "Stretching."

"...I see." Dismissing the notion, Matt wiped his eyes, removing any crud that happened to irritate him.

R.D. cocked an eyebrow at Matt. Now he's just trying to annoy me.

"So, fearless leader, any idea where to go after this?" he asked. "We've got too many enemies around here. Ziatoch, Maya, Re-Tuul, the Seven, Akuma... you name it, we've probably pissed it off."

"Hmmm." Leaning foward, Matt caged his fingers. "Until I have a solid idea as to what we gotta do here, let's make sure Alasea joins up with the Daughters of the Dawn first."

"Um," Alasea spoke up, "I can communicate with them telepathically. Aisha showed me that when we met at the Pillar."

"Oh," R.D. said, "Well, check that off the list, then."

"I want to do it anyway because I've got no idea what to do next," Matt said. "Also, I want to find out more about what's going down."

"Well then," R.D. said, "Let's get ready to go. We could probably find out what's going on if we can make it to a town that hasn't been completely destroyed."

"You should," Alasea said, "It's pretty devoid out here, you won't find much. Want me to make you a vehicle?"

Matt's brow furrowed. "I'll make us a vehicle," he declared, spreading his fingers over his chest in a show of self-importance. "I've been practicing, so I'm confident I can make something fairly useful."

"That's stretching it a bit," Hugo muttered under his breath.

Matt spread out his arms. Eyes narrowed, concentrating, he made slow gestures, focusing on the art of creation that often eluded him. For a few moments, Hugo tolerated this, but as nothing failed to materialize, he finally snapped, "Hurry up, would you?!"

"I'm workin' on it!" Matt snapped back. He then stood straight again, rubbing his chin. "Hmmm. Usually I create a horrific bastardization of machine and monster right about now, but nothing seems to be happening..."

Helena happened to glance up. "...um...Matt?"

"Yeah?" he answered, without looking at her.

"What's that?"

Matt looked up...just as a 1955 Pontiac Star Chief fell from the heavens, smashing into the earth behind him with a resounding crash.

R.D. winced at the sound of screaming metal. As the dust began to settle down, R.D. cautiously walked over to the car and used a gust of wind energy to blow away the dust and debris to reveal--a completely ruined vehicle.

"Congratulations, Matt," R.D. said flatly, "You destroyed our ride."

Alasea looked at the destroyed car thoughtfully. She then opened her mind to the vast well of power that was the Pillar of Dawn and drank from it deeply. Looking at the Pontiac once more, she snapped her fingers once. A blinding flash of light occured, and when it cleared, the car had been completely repaired.

"There!" she said happily.

"That was incredible, Alasea!" Helena exclaimed.

"BAH!" Matt suddenly shouted, waving his hand in dismissal. "Ride your fancy outdated car! I'll make my own ride!"

"Matt, come on, don't be a bitch," Hugo said.

"I'm not, I'm just gonna get this right for fucking once!" Turning away from the group, Matt began rubbing his hands together. He wouldn't admit it, but he felt almost...threatened by the relative ease of Alasea's effort to fix his mistake.

Helena watched as Matt furiously worked within his considerable realm. "Matt, come on. You don't need to prove anything."

"I'm not," he replied, voice at an even, gruff level. "I'm just gonna do this right."

"Let him be, Helena," R.D. said, crossing his arms and leaning on the Pontiac. He figured out what Matt was feeling and sympathized with it.

"Um," Alasea said, releasing a very nervous laugh, "Did I do something wrong?"

"It's a pride thing, Alli," R.D. said, "At least, I think it is. Just let him make his car and we can go."

While he hoped Matt could get the vehicle made easily this time, R.D. was still going to keep an eye on things and a small cyclone in case of falling cars.