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[ ROUND 2 - 40 HP / 40 HP ]

She saw herself sitting on the highchair that represented that she was the head of the family. People were kneeling before her and in the corner she could see her parents gazing up towards her with proud faces. She was finally were she was suppose to be. She had reached her goal.

Then the image changed. The queen was there, laughing at her again. It said some taunting words about never ever reaching this future. Shadow didn't want to hear what she had to say anymore and attacked. The mirror shattered and thh person on the other side got hit.

(( Doing a catchup / reactions post for round one, will roll for round 2 next. ))


"David?" a female voice called, distracting him from the terrible revelation of Pachua's true nature.

He turns, sees Raze, but before he can take a step in her direction, her memories surround him. At first a child, then a thrill-seeker. Sometimes she speaks, or is spoken to, in a language he doesn't understand. He picks up enough. "Joy?" he repeats after a death-defying bike ride. He steps towards her--

But there are too many people close by and he's sucked into more memories.

"Newer shinigami need to strengthen their reiryoku and they can only do this by battling!"

"Oh god," he groans. He knows that weird style of speech, always with maximum volume and enthusiasm. It's worse when he realises the person the memories belong to - GreenRanger - idolises the weird division assistant. At least one of the people he's befriended here is a Hunter, he tells himself.

When GreenRanger falls in love with a power ranger on a tv screen, he places a hand over his eyes and groans. "Really?" He doesn't want to see this, particularly not from GR's own eyes.

It fades and another one doesn't start right away. He breathes a sigh of relief. Until he looks up and remembers Pachua, and his original problem.

"You think I'm a what?" he demands. Even worse than his friend being a monster is that fact that Pachua thinks Davey is also a monster. "I'm not a ghost. I'm a human!" he yells. "Just your food source, right? Only I'm not such an easy snack - I'm a Hunter!"

He waits for Pachua to recognise his enemy. Rage burns through him, worse than what he'd felt towards the Queen. His right hand clenches into a fist, releases, squeezes again. It makes aborted movements, his body moving on instinct to summon Azrael to his hand. He can't here, of course, with no tag and nothing but a fainter link than usual to his weapon's mind. Azrael coils tighter around Davey's thoughts, hissing at Pachua and at being unable to join the fight, to defend his chosen.

Maybe he would have made a move against Pachua with his gauntlet instead, but the impending fight is interrupted by Joy's arrival.

"S-sorry to barge in," she croaked, "Spare a girl some healing? My cards aren't working for some reason and I-"

She holds up her hands. They are grey and stiff. Davey reaches out to grab one - cold stone meets his touch. His rage vanishes and his mind reels at this latest revelation.

"What happened?" How? How could this happen? Davey's body is fine and he didn't see anything wrong with Pachua's while they were arguing, either.

"Were you set to fight the white queen? Did you serve the red?” Pachua asks.

Their cards aren't working. Davey tries to grab for his own, but they are all greyed out in his menu. "I can't select anything," he says and his tongue feels thick in his mouth. "The Queen - I think she's blocked all our cards."

She wouldn't be the first boss to remove the use of abilities, but even his normal attack, defense and heal cards are unavailable to him.

Whatever is happening to Raze - Joy, rather - can't be stopped. At least not by them.

The dark room changes around them and Davey's stomach drops out. As if things aren't bad enough, it appears the White Queen is gearing up for a stronger attack. Flashes of light echo through the room, reflecting off hundreds of items that twist and move...

"Are those mirrors?" he asks, staring hard in the dark for a better look.

A mirror shatters and he reaches for a weapon he doesn't have. It was behind Pachua and suddenly something punches the quetzalcoatl through the broken mirror.

Another smash and someone attacks Joy. More mirrors break, but they sounds are fainter and he's more concerned with Joy, who's fallen onto her attacker. He doesn't want to assume she needs help, but after a moment it's obvious she's having difficulty getting back up. Kneeling, he lifts one of her arms over his shoulders, then gets them back on their feet.

The stone effect is slowly moving up her arms. "I don't know how to fix this," he says quietly. "If defeating her will reverse the petrification..."

Close to her ear, he says, "Don't be scared," ignoring the tangle of nerves in his own stomach. "This isn't real. Not entirely."

Once he's sure she's steady on her feet, he releases her. It looks like this is turning into a battlefield - or a free for all - so he needs to be ready to fight if Joy can't.

[ Round 2 -- 40 / 40 HP ]




He makes the mistake of looking directly at a mirror. The disjointed image of the White Queen blurs and fades out, and a new scene takes its place.


"Are you sure?" he remembers being asked.

"Yes," he'd replied without hesitation.

Now he walks through the burned ruins of a school, filled with corpses (not in his own body, of course, just a golem). They're all monsters, he knows, even though they distinguish themselves differently. It doesn't change what they are or what they do. They're not as terrifying when they're lying still, some half buried, some in pieces. They look young. It reminds him of a memory he saw a long time ago, when he'd mistaken the setting for a normal boarding school until he looked closer.

These aren't children though, he reminds himself. These are the creatures that prey on humanity, silent killers in the dark, tormentors of those unlucky enough to see the supernatural. These same children, or some just like them, have attacked the Hunters over and over. Houses flattened, civilians killed - spouses and children and friends alike. They had this coming. They had it coming.

He repeats it as he steps into a courtyard. It's easier to believe when the bodies are clearly inhuman - a fox the size of a house.

"God, look at that one," one of the newer trainees sneers. "Isn't it ugly? Still, I could make a lot of boots from that."

"Bet your girl would like the feathers," another chimes in.

Davey looks over, ready to snap at the children that they're not on a school trip here. The words evaporate in his open mouth. Dwarfing them is a lifeless serpent, blue scales reflecting the light of the still-burning sections of buildings. Its eyes are open but glazed over, seeing nothing. Bright feathers adorn head, tail and two massive wings.

He thinks suddenly of a mouse-eared figure he once knew. Immediately he shakes it from his head.

"Get back to work," he roars at the two idiots, pleased when they jump and scramble to escape his legendary wrath. When they disappear, he turns back to the dead quetzalcoatl.

This was necessary. They had it coming. He doesn't feel bad about this. Not even when he recalls a round face with huge eyes and a confused expression. "You were fine with me before..."

Azrael rouses in his mind. ~Second thoughts? I didn't realise you liked him that much.~

Davey resolutely turns away. "Liking a mouse is completely different from liking a snake." He continues on and refuses to look back.


The scene breaks as the mirror shatters under the force of Davey's gauntlet. Which continues into Pachua's face, previously hidden on the other side of the mirror.

Davey steps back, the gauntlet disappearing. He doesn't know how to summon it back (or how he called it this time at all). Staring at Pachua, he thinks he should feel guilty. But he doesn't. It wasn't that long ago he was trying to summon any kind of weapon to attack the monster he'd called a friend. So even though he hadn't meant to hit Pachua, he's not overly fussed about it, either.

"s**t," he realises, "she doesn't need to attack us directly. We're going to kill each other."

[ ROUND 2 -30 HP / 40 HP ]

Was he safe? There did not seem to be any more mirrors chasing after him. Clopper had been careful to ensure that he kept his eyes closed as he hurtled away from the monster.

But the White Rabbit had hoped too soon. There, right in front of him was a mirror and it was beginning to show him images.

Clopper did not want to look but he was unable to turn away.

It was him. Definitely him in that image. But unlike the blood and death and war as in the previous, this mirror was showing him a calm scene instead. Clopper could cope with calm. He liked boring. It meant safety and consistency.

But what he couldn’t cope with was an approaching figure in the mirror. It was dark, it was huge and it was scary. Yelping, Clopper made a stab at the figure in the mirror; only to have the mirror shatter and reveal another player.

“Oh no!”

If there was one good thing about this shitty, shitty situation, it was that Davey was there. After that whole ALICE-murder-spree, Joy was sure this wasn't just a dream. She wanted to tell him that, wanted to warn him about ALICE and what the psycho AI was doing to all of them. Not that she knew the whole story but she was certain whatever it was he AI was planning it was not good for them. But it was getting harder and harder to move and speak. You would think something internal would be the last to go, wouldn't you?

If she concentrated, she could speak at a decent speed, "This is all ALICE's doing." She tried to say more, to gather her thoughts in a more coherent story, but then Davey started his own mirror-smashing and the collateral damage was the guy (what was his username? And thank God squinting wasn't beyond her range of movement yet) who'd tried to help her out. Sucking in her breath, she tried to approach, maybe offer to help pick at the shards. Her stone skin had saved her from cuts, not that she had problems with bleeding or pain. Unfortunately, she found herself staring into another mirror.

------------------

She wasn't old, she was mature, yes, that was the word she was looking for. Her form was fuller, muscles more defined, hair still short and mussed but kept out of her eyes by the tiara. The skirt's length used to bother her, but after hundreds of battles, it ceased to matter to her. Her scars were still there, on her arms and legs and practically any exposed skin, which there was a lot of given her uniform, but she never minded them before and she sure as ******** didn't mind them now.

Not when there was this massive, monstrous shadow rearing to its full height, dwarfing her to an ant's size. Her hands began to glow, the air around her started to crackle, her skirt and bow billowing from the upwards gusts. "In the name of Deus," she said, joining her wrists together as she pulled her arm back. Feet apart and planted for balance, she sharply thrust her hands forward, declaring, "I SUFFER YOU!"

And from her hands came a massive beam of energy that dug deep furrows into the ground before finally arcing into the shadow. The impact was deafening, a sonic boom that shook the world over, and light exploded to blinding. When the dust cleared, the shadow was no more, obliterated into ether.

At first, she thought her ears were just ringing but it soon became apparent what she heard were fast-approaching footsteps. She turned and was greeted by a scythe-blade made of the darkest night and hummed with malice. The tip was at her throat but the wielder stopped, "Mission accomplished. We no longer need you."

"What?" she hissed and the scythe reaped.

------------------

Someone was screaming. Loud and high and incessant. It was only when the pitch reached mirror-shattering range did Joy realize it was her keening, and she stopped too late to save poor, poor Ouroboros-Tea from a shower of mirror-shards.

She pitched forward, intending to run, to try to maybe shove him out of the way. But her legs had stopped listening to her and her knees had given in to the stone. And she fell again, hoarsely asking for forgiveness, with her cheek against the ground. She doesn't know what the Dormouse is, or what Davey is. She doesn't know anything about Hunters or Halloween.

And she's so, so tired.

[ ROUND 2 - HP 30/ 40 HP ]

Stalking away from the a*****e who'd kicked him he had hoped to get away from the mirrors but instead found himself face to face with one. He'd almost ignored it, almost, until he realized he could see himself.

He looked older, slightly more warn with a few more scars, but he looked happy. He watched as the man, as he, got up and walked over to a large set of french doors which opened into a small garden. There was nothing like that on Deus. He hadn't seen places like that since the last time he was back in Hawaii. For a moment everything looked perfect. It seemed like he was, well, home where he belonged. The only thing that seemed to be missing was someone to share it with.

Maybe the threat Deus was fighting so hard against had finally been defeated? They'd all been allowed to go home and live in peace? He'd survived and ...

It was a short lived thought as the image faded away and the laughing face of the Queen appeared. Snarling he pulled out his new, and lets face it favorite, weapon. The flames seared against the mirror and after a moment it shattered under the heat throwing hot broken glass and the last licks of the flames at the poor player behind it.

[ ROUND 2 REPLY TO PHYMI : 30 / 40 HP ]

Tea had stepped back when the mirrors popped up and covered the room. Despite her trying to get away the mirrors were everywhere. The mirrors weren't the issue, it was the Queen's twisted body that appeared in each and every one. Just a piece, but it was still horrible.

One mirror though wasn't depicting the Queen, rather it looked like liquid glass as it rippled till an image appeared inside. Tea didn't really know what was happening but she thought it was someone's face, distorted as to not get a clear picture, smiling. As she walked closer to try and understand it better the mirror shattered and 00zingTea was struck with a machette.

It must have done some damage and Tea was still to groggy and slow to react properly.

"What is your problem!!!" She yelled at the little orange-haired Cheshire, "Attack the Queen, not me!" She crossed her arms but did not return the attack, even though the girl deserved it.....




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