Welcome to Gaia! ::

He looks at you and smiles with wide eyes and too-sharp teeth. His fingers, tipped with red, curl fondly at you, beckoning.

"Come here," he says, quiet, playful. "Come here so I can see."

You do not want to, but you are compelled as much as he.

"You don't know that," Lezli said, sing-song and mocking. He swirled closer with his scythe and chain, the serrated, rusty edge cutting into his shield. It stung. "I feel real. I have a name, I have a face. Mine looks better, too."

Leslie backed up, brows furrowed. "But you're not me. You don't have... you don't have the things that make me, me."

Aleria glittered a searing teal, their crystal shining as he swung.

hp: 24
damage: 5+1=6
boss hp: 23/30

"Stop," Leslie hissed, sight blinded by fury and fear in equal measure. He lashed out with flailing hands and kicking feet, breathing ragged as a bull did upon seeing red. "You can't have it."

It was not tangible. It had no form, no shape, but it was important.

hp: 16
damage: 2
boss hp: 19/30

"I hate you," he hissed, and unlike most of the time when he used that phrase, Leslie actually meant it.

There were two of him to direct that hate at, and he was talking to them both.

"I bet you do!" Lezli laughed, squatting in front of Leslie as he laid prone on the ground, a heap of bones and clothes. "I get s**t done, you know? I don't need anyone. Do you still cry to your mother for help? Should I push your limits, and see what happens?"

He laid a boot-clad foot on Leslie's hand, applying pressure.

hp: 8
damage: 2
boss hp: 16/30

"Interesting," Lezli murmured, as the long, agonizing moments carried on. "Nothing, huh?"

Leslie spat on his alternate self's boot, intent clear-- one equally returned by a firm kick to the temple, putting him out like a light.

hp: 0
damage: 1
boss hp: 14/30

He knew her face, even if he wasn't sure about her name. Sharon? Cheryl? No, it was Sherry; a staple of Life Division, even if quietly so. At least one tech had waxed poetical about her hair and something about flax until another had smacked her clean in the arm.

"Why should I--" Lezli started, but was soon knocked off his feet and propelled across the ground, rolling several times before coming to a stop. He turned his head and spat blood. "That wasn't very nice of you, human."

Leslie sat up, fearful and his heart still hammering. She looked very much like a hunter should: strong and sharp and unrelenting. It wasn't fair.

Leslie wobbled to his feet, looking at Sherry with caution. She was definitely human-- or closer to it than a Horseman, at any rate-- and definitely a dispenser of some type of justice.

He watched her swing with decisive intent, and his shadowed self had no choice but to obey her orders, dissipating into nothing. "Jesus," he mumbled, scrubbing at his face, eyes downcast to (poorly) try and hide the fact that they were red.

"Uh. T-Thanks. And s**t. I'm..." Way out of my ******** league. "Yeah."

He rubbed at his face, wear. Leslie was in s**t shape and he knew it; shield worn down and Aleria reluctant to surface again, to take any form but the incorporeal.

"What do...what do I do now?"

Leslie blinked in surprise as the band-aid, when applied, actually...did something.

Runic, Aleria mused sleepily before they curled back up in his mind, retreating from his consciousness.

"Makes sense as much as the rest," he replied with a shrug, Hello Kitty band-aid stuck haphazardly to his cheek. It seemed that Leslie was too out of sorts to care about the decal, for once. "I'll try and keep out of the way."

Leslie gave her a long look, opening his mouth to maybe say something else-- "I...Hope we get back soon." And then he shoved his hands into his pockets, and marched... on. To where, he wasn't quite sure, but it seemed he was gravitating towards the fog.