Welcome to Gaia! ::

[Carribean Sea ~ The Black Pearl]

Noelle had pretty much gone unnoticed. This made Titan's statement, as much as she hated it, true. Everyone was in the fight but her, and this made her frustrated. Without earth she had no healing capabilities, and little magic to work with. This didn't mean she was completely useless though. She was already thinking of ways to work around her weakness. One of them was a little far fetched and would need some time, but it was worth a try. Out of the corner of her eye, the agromancer saw James take some rather nasty hits and fall to his knees. She grimaced and ran towards him, tugging at a carved stone canteen at her hip. It wasn't the same one as her pitcher plant canteen--this one was smaller and had a different shape engraved in the front of it.

"James!" She said as she approached him, almost backing up towards him to keep her eyes on their enemies. She held out the little canteen towards her friend, simultaneously pulling several seeds from her pouch. "You okay? Put this on your wounds. It won't heal them but it will help."

When James opened up the container, he would find it filled with a kind of sticky sap. This sap she collected from a Give and Take tree in the jungle. When put on his wounds, the sap would ease some of James' pain and stop the bleeding. Meanwhile, Noelle was pressing the seeds she took in between her hands. Each of them flattened and some of the smaller ones fused together to become bigger and weightier. As soon as she was finished making the Seed Strike, she looked for an opening. Hopefully she was continuing to go unnoticed so she could land a hit and actually do some damage.

Prote caught Noelle's movements and could see what she was trying to do. He had seen her make the attack once before and knew what was necessary. He watched her lock her eyes on a target, Xaldin, and wait for the perfect time. He decided he was going to give it to her. Prote jumped into the battle, coming at Xaldin with fierce speed as his right arm elongated and changed into a blade. The agromancer saw Prote's move and made her own, throwing several of her seeds in the spear weilder's direction. She could only hope the simultaneous attacks would overwhelm him.

[ Yuffie ; Beatrix ; Axel ; Seymour : Angel Grove : City Streets ]

Beatrix watched, calmly, as Leon and Kyle both attempted to swing at her; with an eerie ease, she deflected the blows with her own blade, her strength having seemingly increased in the duration of her absence. She did not, however, counter-attack, because she was distracted by the sudden Lotus Shields surrounding Yuffie and Axel.

Axel, of course, attempted to open a Corridor of Darkness, but the tendrils of Darkness fizzled out of existence mere moments after appearing, causing both the Nobody and the Ninja to glance at Beatrix, their faces remaining as lifeless as before. Beatrix merely nodded.

Suddenly, her body became enveloped in the all-telling black aura of Darkness, wafting up from her body like a smokey flame as she held her blade to the side; in a blur of motion, she did a complete 360-degree spin, attacking both Leon and Kyle with a wave of Darkness...

And shattering the Lotus Shields behind her in the same motion.

Kyla, the source of the prisons' strength, would have felt a sudden surge of Darkness backfire through the strings of her mana, like fire entering her veins for a moment as the shields were broken, allowing both Yuffie and Axel freedom. Both of them vanished in a blur of motion, their speeds amplified by the Darkness of Ooze's mind control.

Axel had gone straight for Bobbi, appearing behind her as he tried to strike with his two chakrams, both blazing with magic fire.

Yuffie appeared in Kyla's blind spot, her own giant-shuriken covered in a black aura as she attempted to slash at the pictomancer's back.

Beatrix, meanwhile, used the distraction caused by her previous attack to dash between Leon and Kyle, going instead for the gun-toting Nicholas, her blade charged with a crackling aura of black-and-purple.

Seymour, eyes narrowed as the battle began, caste a quick Haste spell on Kyle, followed by Amy, hoping the two speedier fighters would be able to help out.

[Alan :: Angel Grove :: Outside the Church]

Alan edged backwards, drawing closer to the border of the gravity field. There was a lot going on, but the only thing Alan could afford to focus on right now was the Esper. As Terra threw spells around in the period between being repelled and charging in again, Alan prepared one of his own. He made a motion with his free right hand as if tossing a ball to himself. Suddenly, a thousand motes of white fire filled the palm of his hand, like unpacked snow. "Astral Firaga!"

Alan tossed the motes into the sky, where they appeared, for just a split second, to be stars. Then, as they reached the apex of their trajectory, they transformed into uncountable miniaturized fireballs, hailing downward and in the general direction of Terra. Terra would find herself charging straight into a miniaturized meteor swarm.

So that's Solar and Astral . . . I wonder what Lunar Firaga should look like?

[Quistis :: Caribbean Sea :: Black Pearl]

The spears grazed the blue mage, drawing blood from her left hip and her right shoulder. Quistis couldn't help but curse, the pain sucked and the enemies were definitely not weaklings. With ideas running through her head, Quistis immediately picked one of the spells in her repertoire, releasing sonic waves aiming for Luxord and Xaldin.

She wasn't going to go down that easy. She still had to find him.

[Nick :: Angel Grove :: City Streets]

The blonde cursed under his breath as his bullets were deflected, but blinked as Yuffie and the one-eyed knight appeared along with Axel. He frowned, then slapped himself on the forehead.

Wow, really? I forgot this part of the movie? I must be an idiot or something. Ooze can control people...Futher mucker. Seriously. Wait...why is she coming towar-...Oh my.

Nick looked up from his train of thought to notice Beatrix heading towards him, sword-a-glowin' dark. He immediately got up, backing away as safely as he could and opened fire on Beatrix.

{Kyle : Angel Grove: City}

While Beatrix blocked their combined attacks, she didn't counter-attack yet, which surprised him. Considering the speed with which she blocked them, he figured that he would be sent flying again. But he wasn't. Thinking about attacking again, he stopped when he saw her engulfed in Darkness. That couldn't be good. It never was. Time to move. With that complex thought in mind, Kyle weighed his options. He could attempt to run. Or he could dodge.

Deciding dodging to be the best choice of action, Kyle immediately collapsed onto his back, barely avoiding the wave of Darkness. And then they were all gone again. Even as he got up, he was trying to keep everyone's positions in his mind. There was the new girl with the bow, obviously an ice user, getting attacked by Axel. Kyla was getting attacked by Yuffie. And Nick was getting attacked by Beatrix. Nick could probably handle himself. Alan was doing fine...probably. Dani was doing ok as well. If Amy helped Kyla, he could help...the ice girl who he presumed was Bobbi.

Deciding to help said ice user, he sped towards Axel, his speed increasing greatly due to Seymour's spell. "Amy! Cover Kyla!" He shouted out, striking at Axel with a barrage of thrusts, trying to push him away from Bobbi.

[Cloud : Angel Grove : Outskirts]

It was a stray one, a small Shadow, that came after Cloud. The thing had gotten far enough away from the main group to notice him; one swipe, hardly a thought, had the thing dissipating into smoke.

Heartless don't care who you are, so long as you have a heart, but the majority of them were attacking the rogue like a moth to the flame. Some areas re-spawned Heartless continually; was this such a place?

I should head back. The sound of that explosion still rung clearly to him. His curiosity was satisfied. He should go.

But he didn't. Instead he moved closer, drawing the attention of the lesser heartless immediately. Before the Infernal Machine could notice him, Cloud had executed a Sonic Rave, dashing through and coming to a stop in the midst of this chaos. He had no expression, his face a perfect mask, and he offered no explanation; Cory was right next to him.

[Cloud : Outskirts]

Him, too? The look. They all had it, all of the Earthlings, rogue included it would seem. They looked at him like an old friend, someone they were familiar with on a larger scale than just recognition. Having experienced it from all of the others (with few exceptions), Cloud was used to it by now.

Cloud squared himself with Cory, not shying from eye contact, and likewise ignoring the Heartless before them– a Heartless that was almost certainly powering up, if not ready to attack.

"I recognized something," Cloud said cryptically. By itself, it explained almost nothing, and could mean anything. He ignored the assumptions.