(Their trek to find this alleged warehouse was taking a bit long, but he was certain that the directions were at least accurate. While this was happening, Talal remarked upon her experiences as a Freedom Fighter, thus far. 'Thrown to the wolves' was an understatement. By that anology, she was really
escaping the wolves, having stoned one to death in their own larder and legged it. Talal and the others, all of whom were acquaintances of Sekai, had done fairly-well when you consider the circumstances. They had been forced into an aspect of The World without introduction or mercy, while Canti at least had had some tutorial and Q&A prior to doing anything heavy. Actually, as a Twin Blade, he could only do anything 'medium', but that's neither here nor there accoding to the
rimshot in his head. But he had to understand that Talal was, for all intents and purposes, winging it. And before the flight-capable Twin Blade started making puns about that, he glanced back at the Bogie and asked him...)
Canti: Shadow? Any formal training?
Shadow: Nope.
Canti: Didn't think so. Looks like I have to be teacher. I don't have goddamn clue how to pull that one off...
(Yeah, it was pretty much as he'd feared. Canti had become one of the veterans and now he was charged with handling problems that new people had. To be perfectly honest, he wasn't really looking forward to that. He did not
really like to lead in anything. Action-guy, remember? Yeah... Talal began to chuckle at his statement.)
"I didn't mean to imply... Any suggestions you may have, be it technique, weapons or armor would be greatly appreciated."
Canti: Okay, okay... I gotcha. I'm not complaining....heh, much.
(That aside, they were moving along, moving along...and Canti stopped. And then, he facepalmed.)
Canti: To the left of the giant mexican hat building...but did they really have to? I mean, really?
(The 'warehouse' was, in fact, nothing like one, externally. No, that would be far too easy. Somebody decided to make the exterior of their building resemble
a certain blue box from a show about time travel and label it, "The Warehouse". Honestly, hadn't they already SEEN something like this earlier? And yet, they had to go with a design like this, because they wanted to make the "It's bigger on the inside!" reference. Keeping his eyes on the ground, Canti headed inside with Shadow following.)
Canti: That's a bad joke, even for here.
"Ohhh my...you're right, that is bad."
(It took her a second, but she got it and followed him inside. Fortunately, there did not follow any sort of room with a roughly hexagonal console or a column that was rising and falling, nor was anyone ranging from the likeness of
William Hartnell to
Matt Smith to be found. Instead, what we had here was a big giant movie warehouse interior...with lots of wooden supports, scaffoldings, and catwalks around! There was one door out, and Canti and Shadow proceeded towards the middle of the massive room. Shadow stayed off to the side, though, as he had no Twilight power whatsoever. The dark Twin Blade clapped his hands together now.)
Canti: Alright, this is your unskippable tutorial session right now. If you've played
Final Fantasy 8, you know where I'm coming from. Where shall we get started?
(For those of you not savvy enough, like if you've never played that game, you may not want to. There will be parts of it which are slow and tedious, and unskippable. In this case, it was unskippable, but necessary. They needed to improve themselves.)
"Ummm...I don't know...stances maybe or attack moves?"
Canti: Funnily enough, I started developing different methods of attack with my blades because I was bored. I mean, all the blades are different, so I thought I'd mess with them a bit. I'm not a stances guy and most of the basic Twin Blade maneuvers are good, but we're creepy-agile people with awesome reflexes. So like...I'd take one of those knives with the three blades in the different directions...and start spinning 'em about like a sawblade. I practiced this, for hours on end, so I could have buzzsaw hands. Or uhh...did you mean more the viral stuff?
"Oh! ah, no that was great. I tend to forget how agile we are as Twin Blade's and don't use it to its full advantage. Stances now that I think about it are probably not as important since most of our attacks are done on the move. I guess what would really benefit me would be having the time to practice as you did."
(She had a laugh at this, which admittedly DID seem funny. Then, she said
"Hold on a sec." as she spied one of the supports and went over to it. From there, she pulled out a piece of chalk - Where did she get chalk? - and drew up a makeshift bullseye on the thing. Canti seemed to approve of the improvision she was showing here. A good idea and all. Stepping back then, she said...)
"There! How about you? Try to aim one of your spikes but umm....wait until I get out of the way. Hehe"
Canti: I like it. Now, let me see if I c- Hey!
(Whoosh...THUD! He'd raised his hand so that he could then point-and-fire, but the instant he was thinking about it...it happened, and the spike went sailing behind him instead. It hit a different support and stuck there.)
Canti: I think I'm going to need more practice than
you.
"I think you're right. Just...keep it over there will ya? I'm not made of spike proof material over here. Go ahead, try again!"
Canti: Neither am I...
(She'd been trying to hide the smile on her face, but Canti knew a potential snerk-fest when he saw one. Right now, that potential lay in a Twin Blade in leather with black wings and black eyes. So be it. And we don't know exactly when this happened, but Shadow was actually behind Talal all of a sudden, kind of like a ninja... Smart dog. Now then, Canti continued to launch spikes at the target, all of them missing and hitting the floor behind it or just nicking the support. Finally, he hit the target...but what he'd thrown at it was his right shoe.)
Canti: Hah!
(We're just waiting for the other shoe to drop here. Talal had that kind of
eeek look on her face. He needed to find his trigger. But how? What was happening wrong? She decided to interject before he began again. So, as he was putting his shoe back on...)
"Okay... do you remember what you were doing or thinking before the shots that got the closest?"
Canti: Getting really angry and moving my hands quicker?
Shadow: Muttering obscenities and death threats at the target.
Canti: Stop reading the chat log!
(The other Twin Blade tapped Shadow on the should and told him that he wasn't helping. But then she whispered
"But keep reading them." with a wink and a look of mischief. Whether the devil dog got the hint on that, we may never know. He was more intelligent than he looked, though rather odd as well. Now, she was back to dealing with with the winged one.)
"Okay Canti, let's try again. This time concentrate on your thoughts and movements. Try to think about aiming then release. No sudden jerks with your arm either until you are ready to let go. Ready? Go!"
(This time, he tried to just make it appear in his grasp like last time and throw it. Okay, that worked. Now, he tried it like he was firing his Darkness Flame attacks from his hand.
That worked. Then, he-)
Canti: What the...?
(Okay, another spike hit the target and he hadn't even moved. Canti noticed that it came from his chest. He blinked and tried this again. And...that worked as well. He followed by trying some wing-launches and...missed, of course, but he was more intrigued now by where he could launch things from places like this. He shot more from his chest and hands, badly-damaging the target beam at this point.)
Canti: I'm a
Cactuar! A Cactuar, I say!
(And yet, you would more or less call this a Spikey Hell, which is a different monster technique altogether. In response to this, he heard Talal clapping and walking towards him once he was done launching spikes around.)
"Very nice! I think its safe to say the bullseye is defeated. Feel a little better now?"
Canti: I feel...less likely to kill someone with a handshake, yes. I'm not sure how to make your shriek thing work, though.
(There was a pause as she thought something over.)
"Can I ask you something?"
Canti: Shoot.
(Bad choice of words. Talal appeared to hold her hands up suddenly, as if to protect herself from maybe a launching blade which...didn't happen. There had been a strange sort of ripple involved in that. When a multitude of spikes failed to happen, she slowly lowered her arms and shrugged, going
"Heh, reflex?" before regrouping her thoughts a moment and continuing.)
"Is it right to assume that these abilities, or viral attacks I think you may have called them, start small and gain power and a greater degree of damage as you learn how to control them?"
Canti: Definitely. My black flames are fueled by SP and they were originally just as a flamethrower move. I've had to compensate by buying a ton of Mage's Souls. I've cornered the market. I'm a little more efficient now and getting up in levels helped. Learning new ways to use it sometimes holds better than actually being more powerful.
"Okay, good. Because my thought is that as far as that 'shriek thing' as you called it goes, I don't think I'll have to worry about controlling it for a while. I think it manifested because I was {A} feeling very overwhelmed and was freaking out and {B} because of all the Twilight in the area. So really, I just need to figure out if that and super hearing are the only things I can use or if there is something else."
(That was sort of a toughy, wasn't it? She had this lost sort of expression, unsure of where to really go from here in terms of figuring it all out. For Canti, it'd been easy. He made flames. He made flames that were composed of Darkness. Once you realize that it's due to his elemental strengths, the rest comes naturally and you figure out the dynamics from there. Hers, though... He had to think about this for a moment. She had had exceptional hearing, listening to a conversation from across a room, and then shrieked so powerfully that Garaa was visibly affected. Was it...?)
Canti: Well, seems to me it's all related to sound, I guess.
"Yeah, that's where I'm at too. But really, what good will it be to me or the group until I'm big enough to let out that shriek thing again?"
Canti: You gotta figure out what triggers these things, for one, and see if there's a way to will it. What do you feel when any of this starts up? Tell me, anything, even small things.
"Honestly, all I felt was fear when we entered the Anid sector. I hope that isn't my trigger because I don't want to be afraid all the time. Wait! When I heard that conversation between Takua and Sekai, I was...relaxed, calm. I guess you could say I had an open mind?"
Canti: Sort of a zen focus? Why not?
"So, I just need to have clear thoughts? That....could be problematic. Okay, let's try something. Canti, you go over there and then whisper something that I couldn't possibly hear."
(She was pointing over to a spot some 25 feet away, across the room basically. Alright, fine. Giving a shrug, he went over there and started quietly sing something. Talal closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She listened, but at first...nothing. She opened one eye to make sure he was saying something. Seeing his lips move, she continued to concentrate, focusing and trying to picture him in her mind. A slight tilt of her head and she begain tapping her foot and smiled.)
"Are you going to share those coconuts?"
(Canti looked impressed at her, but then shouted...)
Canti: The song's not really about coconuts!
(As you may have guessed by now, he had been singing "Lovely Bunch of Coconuts". And...well...you know as well as I do that it has nothing to do with actual coconuts. Talal began to say
"If they're not about coconuts then...." Her eyes went big, gasping and slapping her hands over her mouth. Oh yeah. Payback for the comment about where all the spikes can come out of!)
"You better not be talking about part of a woman's chest Mr. Canti!"
Canti: I regret nothing!
(This said in a half-joking manner, the dark Twin Blade risked moving in closer so that he didn't have to yell across the room anymore.)
"Regardless, I think I have the hang of it. Do we have time to....spar a little?"
Canti: I dunno. I'm planning to lie my ass off about where we've been so we don't get shouted at. D'you think we can pull off a spar?
"You have a good point. As you said, everyone that enters here gets a different room. We would be very difficult to find in a place like this. Sparing can wait. We probably should head towards the castle. Rain check?"
Canti: I'm weak against water.
(Another
rimshot came from...somewhere, probably Canti's playlist.)
Canti: But yeah.
(She smirked and looked around, holding back the urge to playfully smack him for the comedic response, but had a retort of her own.)
"Thanks for the tip! Now I know how to defeat you. Mwahahaha! How do we get out of this place?"
Canti: The door, naturally. You expected maybe a catapult?
"Well, it would be a quicker way to travel, but ahh...no. The door will do just fine."
Canti: Thought as much. Wouldn't want to traumatize you, getting back.
(He was referring to her problem with heights. She caught the reference, but reacted defensively about it.)
"Hey! It wouldn't traumatize me."
Canti: Maybe not, but it
would hurt at the end.
(The Twin Blades went and left the room. Shadow, who had been mostly silent for a while now, got up, and began to recite an excerpt from the original
Transformers movie.)
Shadow: Proceed...on your way to oblivi-
Canti:
Shadow, will you hurry it up?!
Shadow: Yes, master!
(The demon dog ran to catch them up, and they were now on their way back to the Vak.)
OOC: From here, we return back to the point in time where my post picks up again in the main thread.