Matt lowered his blade, pointing at Re-Tuul. "Ohhhhh! Yeah, betcha didn't know that my friend here kinda has the ability to take the souls of demons! And seeing as how you've been a thorn in our sides for far too long, I think you'd make a GREAT addition to Soma's collection!"

Re-Tuul's greatest gift from his master, the world-eating monster Ziatoch, was that he could never be slain in the mortal realm; only in a death netherworld like Hell could he be put down for good. Any wound he could regenerate from, and any other death would not last.

But Ziatoch never said anything about if it could protect his soul from being stolen. Ziatoch was thorough--but Re-Tuul could be forgiven if he didn't want to test just how thorough.

The demon swept an arm back as his leg regenerated, and then flung it forward--antimatter exploded across the surface of its palm as the arm itself elongated to impossible lengths, right at Soma.

Re-Tuul was fast, but Soma was faster - with a yell he dived and slashed, cleaving through the extending arm with Claimh Solais.

Blood spurted from the severed arm like a fountain, staining both snow and stone black as it splattered across the ground. The hand, still alight with anti-matter, struck part of the ground, and a flash of light erupted from it as it vaporized a small portion of it.

Re-Tuul snarled as the remaining arm rapidly retracted during the flash, and his wings extended. With a flap, he was airborne, retreating backwards over the ocean. R.D., with his hand already covering his vision a bit, recovered from the flash first, and saw the demon. "Oh no you don't!" he shouted, his cannon weaponry regenerating with stolen pieces of matter. The Azurewrath swung into its gun position and the cannons swung into place.

Energy blazed through the air as the weapons began firing repeatedly, and Re-Tuul was forced to regenerate his his wounds and his weaponry while avoiding the blasts. As the remaining Meteor Fangs rejoined the replaced ones on his back and the hook-shaped sword slid up his arm, Re-Tuul created his metal shield on his left arm to block an attack before finally twisting about. Thrusters in the Fangs roared to life and launched Re-Tuul away at high speeds, the beams trailing him and falling short.

"Tch." R.D. halted his salvos and his cannons swung back in place.

"You'd BETTER run!" Matt shouted at the fleeing Re-Tuul, shaking his fist.

"He would've killed us otherwise," Hugo said, walking over with pickaxe slung and G-Stone aura flickering away. "We did better than last time, though."

Always one to destroy the moment, Hugo. Though Matt did agree with the analysis. "Well, I'm just glad we got some help." He faced Julius, who was coiling the metal whip back around the hook on his belt. "Julius, right?"

"Yes," Julius said. "I'm glad I found you in time. But I've never seen a demon like that before."

"Pray that you never see one like that ever again," R.D. growled, still staring off at the direction Re-Tuul had retreated in with his one good eye--the other was once more covered with his left hand. "Khaglessi are vicious monsters. And that one is impossible to kill."

Alasea slumped a bit where she sat, breathing heavily while she rubbed at her bruised neck. She was exhausted--the repeated fights tonight were taking their toll on them.

"Are you alright?" Ileyna asked, looking very concerned. The teenager nodded.

"I'll--I'll be fine. Just give a moment, Ileyna."

Unsure, the girl nodded and backed away, allowing Alasea to stand up.

"Is everyone all right?" she asked, looking about. She and Matt would need to get to the healing right away.

R.D. knew he needed medical attention--his face felt aflame, and his left eye didn't want to open. But he he kept his watch out over the open. Re-Tuul, he growled in his mind, feeling the usual rage burning inside of him at the name.

===Over the Ocean===

Re-Tuul sullenly looked back at the demonic castle as he retreated, knowing exactly where his prey had been. That fight had been nothing more than a test--he had wanted to see something, but the revelation of the boy--Soma Cruz--having the power to steal souls forced him to change his plans.

And the Dragon... he was growing stronger again. Pretty soon, Re-Tuul knew, he'd be back at full strength. For some reason, Daemonus was not overly worried about it. He said he had a plan. Re-Tuul hoped the plan was a good one.

"That Rising Dragon," he growled, looking forward again as he flew. "Such a stubborn bastard."

Then, the Khaglessi's mirth returned, and he began to chuckle. His red joker lips were upturned into that insane, toothy grin. "But... that's the way he ought to be, right? That's exactly how I like it!"

The demon soared through the night sky, and as the black scale he carried activated, the Multiverse seemed to silently scream as a hole was violently torn through it, allowing him to disappear into the raging black Gateway.

"I'll be okay," Helena said. "But he threw you around left and right, Alasea. Are you sure you're fine?"

"Nothing that I can't mend easily enough," Alasea said with a suffering smile. He only threw me around because of how useless I'm being.

She turned and placed a hand on the pauldron of R.D.'s armor, tugging it slightly to alert him to her presence. He tore his gaze away from the sea and looked at her.

"Let me see," she said, and he lowered his hand.

Four bloody gashes had been torn across his face where Re-Tuul had mauled him, and the bleeding painted most of his face in red. It flowed down onto his armor, staining the armor plating and the white jumpsuit beneath it.

Alasea recoiled in shock at the sight of his face. His forehead, cheekbone, nose, cheek, and chin laid open, but the the wound going across his cheekbone and nose had continued slightly upward, where it had shredded through his eye and left it a sunken mess. Alasea's face collapsed a bit, not knowing what kind of pain he was suffering through in his attempt to free her from Re-Tuul's grasp. "R.D...."

"God DAMN, man!" Matt said as soon as he got a good look of R.D.'s wrecked face. "Your face looks like shit." He twiddled his fingers, already alight with the glow of healing power. "Alasea, help me take care of this."

"Are you okay, Soma?" Julius asked as Matt and Alasea got to work on healing R.D.. Soma shook his head yes, arms folded. "Do you know these people?"

"They're friends of mine," Soma said. "We met at the castle in the eclipse."

"So those are the ones you were telling me about." The wind, already bitter cold, whirled faster. "Let's go inside."

Alasea nodded and readied her own healing magic. They did their best to fix R.D.'s face, concentrating most of their power on his destroyed eye, and it took a few minutes before they were done.

"I don't think we can do anything more to that deep cut," Alasea said quietly, referring to the one cut that had taken his eye. "Its scarred on the right side."

"Its fine," he said, his eye still closed. He ran a finger across the scar, which went from beneath his right eye and across the cheekbone, towards the hinge of his jaw. "Its nothing compared to what Dragon Drive FINAL gave me."

Alasea nodded, knowing that was true--that scar was much, much worse. "Try opening your eye. We need to see if we managed to save it."

He nodded, and after a moment it slowly fluttered open. It looked fine, so the surface damage had been fixed.

"Well?" Alasea prodded, knowing there could still be damage they couldn't fix.

"... I can see out of it," R.D. said at last, causing her to let out a relieved breath. "Guess you two managed to save it. Thanks."

Alasea smiled a bit and nodded. "Let's join the others inside then."

They took refuge from the cold in the tower they were originally trying to visit before Re-Tuul butted in with his whole "hey, let's fight RIGHT NOW because I'm a DICK" spiel. Matt declared a food break, which set Helena off to prepare warm drinks for everyone.

After warming up one of the cold meat sandwiches with his power and biting into it, Matt said, "There's nothing like having a meal after kicking somebody's butt. You know what this tastes like?"

"The next word out of your mouth better not be 'victory'," Hugo said, watching Helena light the top of her mug of cocoa before blowing the flame away.

"It tastes like...win."

"Eh. Whatever."

Alasea sat only slightly a ways from the others, trying to warm up her own meal before eating it. She'd had enough cold, between the battle outside and the Gerudo Desert's frigid winds.

As she did, she looked over to where Julius was. "I'm guessing you know about the Omega Essence too?" she asked.

Julius sat cross-legged, back straight while he chewed down a large portion of sandwich. "Arikado filled me in," he said after washing it down with a gulp from a silver hip flask. "Be thankful that that Celia woman doesn't have a piece of her own. Dealing with her summons is difficult when they can keep regenerating their wounds. Just like the demon we fought, actually."

"Don't you have ways to counter it?" Alasea asked. "Summoned creatures are a bit different to deal with than monsters like Re-Tuul. Much more easier to manage in the long run."

"The church is trying to develop seals to seal off the demon gates," Julius said. "Right now it's a race. The enemy makes a new gate, the church creates a seal to counter it, the enemy makes a better gate." He tore off another chunk of sandwich, chasing it down with his drink - took him a few moments to swallow the bundle. "The problem is that only magic users like Soma and Yoko can make the seal."

"Didn't you use magic on your cross?" Helena asked. "Or was that a magic weapon?"

"Yes. The cross is enchanted to return to my hand, but it's a minor enchantment. Nowhere near enough to stop a demon gate."

Matt shot a glance at R.D.. He didn't like how Julius kept calling them "gates". Maybe it was Mr. Paranoia acting up again, but on this journey, you could never be too careful.

Maybe I can be of some use, at least in one world, Alasea thought as she bit her lip. "I might be able to help," Alasea offered. "If I can see what kind of seals you're using, I can try and develop a new one or trace the seal style back to its base. If I can do that, I can make a new seal that's beyond the others."

"You can do that?" R.D. asked, leaning back. She spared him a glance and nodded.

"Ziatoch's minions are known to use summoning gates themselves," she said. "One of the first things Aisha trained me was how to counter them using seals and other types of magic."

Edited by RisingDragon on June 4, 2010 at 19:56:34.

"Good," Soma said. He hadn't eaten anything. Was it because he wasn't hungry, Matt wondered, or was it because of the "Dracula effect"?

"That would be a big help," Julius added. "Soma, show her the seals."

Soma stood up and walked back to give him some room. Blue energy massed in his hand and he threw it up, where it dissipated into a peal of lightning. As the lightning crashed, a fancy-designed circle formed around Soma, and he moved his arm back and forth along the points, tracing a bright seal before him. The lines of the completed seal flashed with blinding light for a split-second before vanishing, seal and all.

"Neat trick," Matt muttered, trying to wipe the spots from his eyes.

Alasea was impressed--the circle was a fairly solid one, a six-point circle utilizing interlinking magic circles. Luckily she knew how to work those, and it was simple enough for her to memorize the magic circle's design with the residue left behind by the seal's creation.

She nodded and delved into her purse, pulling out some sheaves of paper and a pen. "This may take a bit of time. I recognize the design base so it'll easy enough to trace its style and figure out its effectiveness.

She began drawing out the circle's base design on one sheaf, occasionally looking up to check the leftover residue. She smiled a bit, knowing she could do some good here after all.

Ileyna was sipping on a carton of juice while she watched and waited. She kept a bit of her attention on the tingling that she could feel at the edge of her consciousness, making sure the signals didn't change--she didn't want to find out that something was happening to the Essence she was tracking.

"Do we have a plan for dealing with the two candidates?" she asked after a second.

"I was going to hammer their faces in until they gave up," Matt said. "We'll be strategic about it, mind you-" he pointed at Hugo to let the Mettaur know this was addressed to him - "but all in all we're just gonna trash them with everything we've got."

"You should try separating them," Ileyna said, taking another sip of her juice. "I don't think their Essences will be as strong if they're further away from each other."

"What do you mean?" R.D. asked. Alasea was absent from the conversation, as she muttered under her breath while making notes on another sheaf of paper, and didn't look up when Ileyna spoke. Glowing could be seen from the tip of her pen whenever she switched back to the circle.

"Well... the Core is trying to rebuild itself, right?" Ileyna asked, trying to clarify. The girl was pushing her index fingers together as she did.

"She has a point," Hugo said. "Prometheus and Pandora destroyed us. And those two mech pilots weren't much easier. It's worth trying to seperate the candidates."

"Well, that does make sense, but what does she mean about the Core?" R.D. asked, sounding curious.

"Well, wouldn't it make sense for people who have the Essence to be stronger the closer they are to each other?" Ileyna ventured. "The pieces are trying to come back together..."

"Here's my theory," Matt said, waggling his finger. "I think that the pieces are feeding off of each other and amplifying each other's power when they get close together. Remember Geese?"

"You think he was so powerful because his Essence was drawing power from yours?" Helena asked.

"Precisely. But then somehow I figured out how to do the same and we were able to take him down."

"Couldn't you and Helena and Ileyna do the same thing then?" R.D. asked. "Hell, you might even be able to pull off a Dual Tech with one of them."

"Dual Tech?" Ileyna asked, giving them a confused look.

Alasea muttered a bit as she worked, seemingly oblivious, her pen scratching at one of the papers before her. "... connect the points to contain the power... have it rebound..."

Matt popped open a fresh can of soda with a fizzing crack, and leaned his back against the wall. "That's the term we use for combination attacks. As you may have noticed, I have a tendency to name things."

"I only say the names of my options because they're command words," Hugo said. "You call out the names of your attacks because you're bizarre."

"Hey, no argument there."

With his hands in his pockets, Soma wandered back over to Alasea. "How's the seal coming along?"

"... bridge the circle..." Alasea was concentrating hard on her work, running the calculations in her head for the seal she was developing. It was like she hadn't heard Soma speak. "... bridging it will help close the circuit to generate the power, but... what if..."

"I don't think I've ever seen her this caught up in her work," R.D. commented, now that they were all watching the teenage girl.

"... intersecting the three lines in the circuit... yeah, that should work..."

She nodded and took out another sheaf, one that already had a copy of the magic circle drawn on it--a quick glance to the tiny stack showed she had a few of them, likely transferred with a spell of some kind. She redrew the seal she was developing to completion, causing the lines and the circle to glow as she inscribed it.

Upon its completion, she nodded in satisfaction. "Stand back," she said as she got to her feet, motioning to Soma and those closest to her to move away. She lifted up her hand and concentrated, forming a sphere of power just like Soma had done before. She thrust it into the air, and it too burst with a peal of lightning, creating the magic circle behind her.

She thrust her hand up into the air and swept it counter-clockwise around in a circle, tracing the six points into a hexagon. When it reached to the top, she slashed her hand through the air three times, connecting the points into a lightning bolt from top to bottom. As her hand reached bottom, she swung it straight up, connecting it back with the top point, completing the circuit and the seal.

Power blazed from the new seal, greatly increased from the level displayed in the criss-crossing seal that Soma had shown her. After a split second, the light cleared, and she saw R.D. and the others trying to rub the spots out of their vision.

She turned and handed Soma the paper with the drawn seal on it. "That should suffice for a magic seal," she said. "I hope it works out for you."

Soma stared at the paper. "...thanks."

"We'll have to test it in the field," Hugo said. "After this we need to head up."

"Yeah, I know," Matt said. "Don't rush me."

Finally with her work out of the way, Alasea got a chance to eat her own sandwich. That sealing test had taken more out of her than she thought she would. She tore a bite off of it, chewed, and then swallowed it before speaking.

"So any of you have any idea how we're going to separate the two of them?" she asked. R.D. gave her a sidelong glance. Guess she was paying attention to them while she worked.

"We can knock one into the other room," Helena suggested. Again she dug in the sack for food.

"Or throw him out the window," Matt said.

Helena gave him her familiar 'don't give me that' look. "Matt, we might be beating him up, but let's not go overboard."

"I was gonna catch him! Besides, if we get one on the ground, then his buddy can't help out without going down."

"One of those damn lanterns of the Chronomancer's would be handy if we managed to separate them," R.D. said. "Ileyna can't be in two places at once, after all."