Hearts Come Together (KH-Universe Free For All)

((Z… could have elaborated more on your actual summons in your profile? You’re sort of stepping out of the parameters you set for yourself with this one; not so much the abilities themselves, but the application of said abilities)).

He hadn’t even fired a single shot, or made a single swipe or thrust of his bayonet, yet Adrian’s heart was already racing with the sheer energy of battle. It was hard for him to admit it after the weeks of solitude and general peace and quiet, but he had actually missed the feeling that the fighting brought to him… he felt… alive again. And he never felt more on his toes than that moment in which the crazed creeper child sprouted his wings. The crow had taken flight, but it would have to get shot down eventually. Yet the first thing was first, and the attack mounted on him had to be repelled before a counter could be made.

That process proved simple enough. As the spear-pointed feathers flew towards him, he casted another defensive spell. This time, air, not light, served as the foundation for his spell work. A tornado-like whirling of wind pushed from the ground with a gusting force, circulating around the entirety of Adrian’s body. The feathers, despite their speed, were still feathers, and still fell victim to the effects of the air moving about. The shielding of the aero spell pushed them idly away, like a large man brushing a small child from his path. The wind would remain in this state for another few seconds, though dying off as that time elapsed.

His focused shifted then to the other man, the necromancer. His minions had all collapsed, and a single, grotesque warrior had been left in their stead. As the warrior charged forward towards the winged creeper, its “master” was rendered unprotected. Taking this as an opening, Adrian raised Marksman to fire. It wasn’t a long process; he and his target were mere feet from each other. No aim was needed, no thought processes required, and no benefits and backlashes to be considered for the shot he took. The burst of light expelled from the tip of the weapon en route to the necromancer’s torso area.​

 

((It would appear that Zerieth has departed from the site all together. Looks like it’s down to just you and me, old friend)).

Dead, or severely injured; Adrian neither knew nor even cared at that point. Judging by the sound of the Necromancer’s scream as Marksman’s light shot burst against his body was enough indicate that he wouldn’t be getting up for a good while. And even then, he’d probably be feeling torn and beaten.

Adrian looked to the battle ensuing between the lunatic and the samurai zombie. It could barely be called a battle of course. The mad boy worked with an effortless, slightly comedic, and particularly graceful efficiency. Within seconds, the samurai had been tripped up.

As the fate of the undead warrior unraveled with a skewering, Adrian took his moment to prep for his battle against his apparently fanatic stalker. His game, at least for the time being, was going to be a defensive. His hope was that if he held out for just a little bit, the boy would wear himself out from his raging and energetic madness. It would be then that Adrian would be able to pull out the stops and suppress his tantrums.

In the spirit of this strategy, he lay down a pre-conceived bit of spell work. A handy spell circle, inactive, but at the ready, was place, unseen, upon the ground surrounding him at his feet he held his ground. Then, to give his strategy the kick-start it needed, he called out to the kid. “Alright. Good work with that one,” he said in a shout. “Now get lost. You’ve done enough here. I’ll take care of any other funny business.” If the kid was still in his mindset, the thought of being told to back off and leave would be the perfect provocation.​

 

The moment came when Kilet’s arm began to shoot forward. In this moment, Adrian’s instinctive actions took over beyond any other train of thought. With a simple call, the spell circle he had placed around him snapped into action. Around him, within a three-foot diameter, a high, shielding wall erected between him and the barb-like needles. The needles bounced off the shield, falling harmlessly to the ground.

Yet Adrian still spat at himself. He could have easily dodged them if he had thought of that first. Then the shield would have been there for when it was truly needed. He had wasted some of his reserves for casting.

As always, a by gone remained a by gone. He’d learn from the mistake of pre-planning his moves for the time being, at least until the little madman could present a discernable pattern of action, which seemed likely given his nature. With a beck, Adrian called down his shield, and raised his weapon. One shot filtered out from the end of Marksman’s barrel. As he had raised his rifle, he had seen the mirror, and as soon as the shot came out, he had dropped to the dirt, evading the rebound of his own round, which blasted into a rocky wall behind him.

Down on the ground, his hand dug through a pocket in his coat. From it, he drew out a chain with a small pendant attached to the end. He reached down toward the bottom of Marksman, and swapped the chain in his hand with a similar one at the end of his weapon. A weak flare of light ensued, and he held a new weapon in his hand. Marksman had changed form, become a smaller, and less gun-like object. Standoff was more adequate for working the close quarters within which he knew he’d have to work to settle the spook.

But the first thing was to rid the boy of his mirror. If he tried to circle around, it would be an obvious gesture, and all the kid would have to do would be follow around with the mirror in front of him. He could try going over the mirror, and getting a quick shot in that way, but that would only mean using more of his magic, which he wasn’t too keen on. But then… if the mirror were destroyed, shattered, rendered useless or halted, somehow, he’d have one less thing to worry about. Giving a slight flourishing of his new weapon, Adrian pushed a force forward from where he stood. Just a Gravira spell set to push forward rather than down.

With a force placed upon his defense, and by extension, him, the madman would have likely had difficulty adjusting its positioning. This being his thought process, Adrian cut quickly forward, placing himself off to the side of his enemy. When a clearer shot beyond the mirror was apparent, he expelled another small blast from Standoff’s barrel. The shot was placed around the upper legs. Though whether or not it actually made contact, Adrian cared very little. He didn’t want to kill or even injure if he didn’t have to, just get the kid to settle down and leave. A second after his shot was fired he ran forward. Hopefully the kid was distracted enough to allow him to get in close.​

 

What luck some people have, Adrian pondered as his shot bounced off the well-placed knife. Or maybe I'm just a worse shot than I remember. Either way, let's hope that it doesn't happen again. He'd have laughed at the madman's fortunes if they hadn't impeded him so precisely; he'd have laughed at a lot of the things the guy did if he weren't the one on the other end of the antics. His shots had been blocked off. With that in mind, he had convinced himself that the battle would have to get up close if he wanted any chance of getting the guy to back down.*

Before he moved to bring the battle into closed quarters, he caught a glimpse of activity around the madman. In particular, he had sprouted a second of himself, a clone, perhaps to aid him in battle. It seemed likely, and all the more... Annoying. The games were getting tiresome, and the madman was getting to be more of a burden than he anticipated. He had to think differently if he was going to get anywhere.*

Concentrating rather hard on his next move, he thought to himself... Scatter Streams. A circular plate of energy, about a yard in diameter, manifested before him. At once, the plate shot out its contents. At first it seemed to be moving as a single blast. Then, a few feet away from its launch point, the single beam split into a series of about thirty smaller beams, arcing around the madmen to close in on him from as many sides as possible. He took care directing as few as possible on a direct path forward, as to avoid having them reflected back at him by the mirror.

He then jumped up, and glided in towards his opponents. "I really don't have time for this shit," he muttered.​

*

 

Suspense floated anxiously in the air like bumblebee searching for that perfect flour. As he watched his beams scatter out towards their target, Adrian's perceptions seemed to slow down. The beams, the workers, of whom he was only partially aware, moving about, and even the dust kicking up in the blast's wake were at a snail's pace as he waited for the contact to come. There was no way he could see for his foe to slip out from this sort of hold. Not if all he was doing was standing there waiting for it to hit. It was... In the bag this time. Another day's hard work done and he'd be able to call it quits until morning.

There came an explosion. Adrian's heart leaped up in joyous triumph. But it was only for a quick second before he realized that the explosion was a black cloud of feathers that was thrown up just before his attack made contact. Teleporting? Portals? A shield? They all seemed possible given the way the battle was going. Yet the time was not there to figure it out. His attack made contact with something, whether a shield, his opponent, a rock or maybe even itself. He braced against the momentary shockwave.*

Lowering his defenses a second later, he felt a hard, blunt force strike him in the face. His right we wet cold and forced itself shut in pain. Laying on the ground at his feet, the staff the maniac had been using as a weapon presented itself as the obvious culprit. He could only be was thankful the that "scythe" hadn't struck his eye; better to have a black one than no eye at all.*

As best he could, he scanned around his position. Maybe the scythe throw was last, desperate effort for his foe to take as much of him down as possible before being struck. In his mind, Adrian was convinced of that; he had seen no trace left of either doppelgänger as the smoke settled from his blasts. He grunted his way to his feet. With a strand of caution, be began to trek. Ack towards the entrance to the digging site. His work was done... It seemed.​

*

 

A weary, annoyed, and somewhat beaten Adrian slugged his way back down the valley. He looked up at the lodge in the distance. He knew he'd have explaining to do when he got in; there was no doubt that the workers in the maw would have rushed to tell a manager or foreman what had been going on. He could hear the *list of offenses being read out in his mind quite clearly already: starting a fight on company property, reckless endangerment of workers, damage to company property, murder on company grounds while under company jurisdiction. It would be the Academy all over again. But at least the mining company didn't have authority to banish him from the world they were on, just from the land that it owned there.*

Suddenly, he stopped walking, though he wasn't sure why. He looked around at the mine workers, and they all seemed to be staring at him, and at something above him. He looked up just in time to see the boy he had been fighting to tame dropping from a floating staff. He rolled his eyes, but by the point he didn't care that he had put so much of his power into a fruitless attack. "I don't know who you are," he said blandly. "And I have no clue what it is you're trying to get me to remember. Whatever it is, I'm sure there's a good reason you want me to remember, and that there's probably a damn good reason why I forgot. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to come up with an alibi for all this ruckus our little squabble caused."

He stepped around the boy, and walked on several yards before stopping again. "If it makes you feel any better, I'll remember you next time we meet, of that ever happens."​