where we're going--

[polymods]

✖ EVENT HORIZON

Ⅰ. ARRIVAL
You can read all about your character's arrival in the game lore.
There has always been some confusion as to whether or not the ferry cuts through sea or sky, but this month as you glide along you will find yourself more and more convinced that it is the latter. It is nigh impossible to see where you are headed, the way forward shrouded in darkness.

At first you think the lights ahead are stars.

The ferry docks inside of a metallic bay of some kind. It’s an extension of what must be the island, although this one does not resemble any earthly land mass. It appears to be a deliberately constructed structure, contained on all sides. Maybe you’re familiar enough with technology or science fiction enough that you realise it resembles a space station more than an island.

Once you’ve disembarked from the ferry, you will find that you cannot go outside of the structure.

Inside, there are seemingly endless corridors for you to explore. The halls on the upper deck are rounded, metallic, with lights set at regular intervals. Here there are chambers roughly the length and width of a single bed, with sufficient height for a person to crawl in and sit up on the bed. There is a television screen set in the wall at the foot of the bed by the door, and sockets for electronics. That is all.


Also on this floor is a mess hall where you can get beige, mostly tasteless nutritional sludge dispensed from machines. Water and coffee are also available, likewise dispensed from machines. (There is a cookbook hidden on a shelf written by one Serak the Preparer, but no ingredients anywhere.) There are private showers and bathrooms, a small gym, and rooms clearly meant as places for people to sit and talk. There is a medical bay, although there is no staff. In fact, the whole place seems empty.

There are some rooms that are locked - these look like offices. The doors to these rooms are extremely difficult to break down, but if you have superhuman strength you could manage it. Or maybe you’re clever enough to work the electronic panels beside the doors.

Inside you will find round monitors on the walls and square tablet-like devices on desks. Attempt to work any of these and a soft, pleasant but emotionless voice will inform you that you do not have access. You can try to speak to the AI - called MUTHER - but it is supremely uncooperative. Someone very good with technology could use the tablet the old fashioned way, perhaps, to access files. You might want to be careful, though - MUTHER might decide to retaliate. Harshly.

There doesn’t seem to be a temple anywhere readily apparent.

Notes:
1. The High Temple and anything characters may have stored there is only accessible to those who are experiencing their first island outside of the TDM via a marked door. Everyone else must make do with what is available.

2. Please remember to mark threads appropriately with Content Warnings when necessary.

3. The televisions play mostly game shows. You can also find a set of controllers for it and play Pong. Just Pong.

4. MUTHER will not deliberately kill any people on the station - her programming forbids it. She is not above releasing hallucinogenic gas into the air vents, though.

5. Have fun!

---

Ⅱ. CONSCIENCE
CW: psychological trauma, threat of death.
It’s easy to get lost; nearly identical corridors branch off from one another. As you walk along you gradually become convinced that someone is following you. Periodically you’ll hear footsteps, a sigh, a rustle of cloth. But every time you turn around you see nothing… unless it’s one of your fellow Travelers. Or maybe you run into them because you’re so busy looking over your shoulder.

Regardless, as you walk along the lights in the corridor flicker, and when they turn back on you will find someone you know standing directly in your path. Someone who you know absolutely cannot be there.

Maybe they died. Maybe you haven’t spoken in years. Whoever they are, the feeling they inspire within you is one of intense guilt. You did something to this person, something for which you think you can never be forgiven.

The apparition might speak, or it might just watch you with silently accusing eyes. You begin to wither under its gaze, feeling weaker and weaker until you can barely stand. You just want to lay on the floor and close your eyes… maybe forever.

Your fate rests in the hands of whoever is with you or finds you. All they have to do is introduce a smidgen of doubt into your mind, a recognition that maybe it isn’t all your fault. Of course, that means you might have to tell them what you did.

Oh, dear.

Notes:
1. The severity of the offense is of course up to the player - this can be deadly serious, or played for laughs. No matter how it is played the only way to save a character from sleeping on the floor until they die from dehydration is to convince them of even the possibility that they might not be guilty. They do not have to feel completely absolved.

---

Ⅲ. STOWAWAY
CW: monstrous creatures.
The lower decks of the station are darker, more utilitarian looking. These are corridors that lead to rooms full of computers and machinery that keep the station running so it’s probably best to keep out of there.

There are also storage bays filled with both prosaic wooden crates and large metallic pods. Most of these are locked up tight. But not all. Investigate some of the pods and you’ll find that the floor around them is wet with some sort of milky, slimy substance that sure seems like it came from a living organism.

Maybe you should get out of here.

Before you can get good and gone to the upper decks, however, you find exactly what you probably didn’t want to unless you have a very exciting Tinder profile: an alien.

At least eight feet tall, with pale almost translucent skin, the creature has an elongated skull and a mouth that hosts two sets of jaws like a moray eel. It has a whiplike tail and spiky protrusions along its upper back. It is bipedal, and very, VERY fast.

Better hope you’ve got something to fight with! Your chances of survival are definitely greater if you work with a partner.

And you better hope there’s just the one.

Notes:
1. The aliens are extremely dangerous, but they CAN be killed. Their blood is thick and yellow but is not acidic or poison.

---

Ⅳ. TEMPLE
CW: potential insanity, violence.
If you wander the dark lower decks long enough, you will find yourself moving ever inward toward the very center of the station. There is a door there that is supposed to be locked, but often isn’t. It’s waiting for you, beyond that door and down a dark corridor: the station’s heart.

The room the solitary corridor opens into is round, walls sloping gently up to a domed ceiling. In the middle of the room is a machine of some kind: a series of concentric thick metal rings rotate in different directions around a sphere. The only noise it makes is the gentle swooshing of the circles as they spin out, up, around.


The air feels heavy and charged. It’s not pleasant.

Before you can leave, all of the rings line up so that they appear to radiate out from the sphere in the center. Light flares, and then in the space where the sphere once was you can see it:

Home.

It’s your homeworld, perhaps exactly as you left it, or perhaps earlier or later along in the timeline. It may be pleasant, or it may be awful, but it is undeniably the place from which you came. The place where you belong.

Stare into this portal home long enough and the compulsion to return will slip over you. You just need to jump into the glowing, trembling center of that dimensional gate.

Whoever is with you, however, realises that leaping headfirst into an unknown dimension might not be the smartest idea you’ve ever had, especially considering how ominous the whole place feels. They might be able to talk you down. Hopefully they can talk you down, because the longer you stare at the portal the more convinced you become that you MUST leap into it, and the only way to do so is to kill whoever is trying to get in your way.

If instead you turn away from the dimensional gate, the lights will flare once more before the rings resume their movement. That brief glimpse of home is gone. In its place is the sound of soft voices; people you have left behind, calling out to you with accusations of things left undone, begging to be told why you won’t come home...

These voices will follow you throughout the ship. They are not constant, but they never leave you alone for very long. They won’t be silent until you give them an answer to the question of why you have chosen to remain.

Notes:
1. If characters DO jump into the gate… They can pass through and emerge on the opposite side gravely injured or completely out of their minds. Or you may use this as a very dramatic exit from the game.

Is anybody out there listening?

Network · Logs · OOC · Memes · Plurk

Comments

Hawks | BNHA | OTA

[nanban]

I; ARRIVAL

Hawks realises immediately that he is not cut out for whatever the hell this place is. How is this even an island?! Okay, well, the how doesn't matter. What matters is that he's a dude with wings suddenly stuck in a confined space. He's not claustrophobic at all (lucky), but he's…not a fan of being confined like this. He can't exactly fly around or stretch his wings here. He avoids the tiny bedrooms where he can't even open his wings halfway. You might find him catching a nap sitting up in the mess hall. He's a light sleeper, though.

He's very tech savvy, so he does manage to get into the offices. He tries them systematically, even though they're pretty much the same. He gets in and…the tablets inside give him a whole lot of nothing. Catch him coming out of one of these (clearly not the first one he's gotten into), grumbling:

"Y'know, when I said I wanted a higher tech place, this is definitely not what I had in mind."

He sticks to coffee in lieu of whatever that nutrition goo is. Another conversation starter he comes up with is:

"Do you get the feeling that something bad happened here? Where is everyone? This feels like the kind of sci-fi movie we all die in."

Hawks is a pretty laid back guy so he sounds casual saying this, but he's not exactly joking.

II. STOWAWAY

Hawks knows better than to go looking like this. He absolutely knows better! But he feels too confined in this whole place, so he goes snooping around anyway. He shoves away that feeling he's had since showing up here that this is a bad damn idea.

But here he is, down in the lower decks. There are some kind of weird pods here. Of course there are. Look, he watches movies. This is definitely trouble. Is…is that one leaking? Yeah, all right, it is time to go.

He's not the kind of person who is about to stuck around and investigate once he gets one boot near any of that sticky goo on the floor. He's already leaving. He can take a hint! But it's too late by then.

Hawks is very fast, luckily for him, but his speed relies on being able to fly, and he's limited here because of the lack of space. Still, down here there's enough room for him to at least not have to rely only on running. Even then, he's still pretty fast. It's not as if his wings are missing, so he has some help. And he has one feather brandished as a sword pretty much immediately.

He's also got killer eyesight, so he doesn't need to be up close and personal with this big nasty alien. It's enough to have seen it from a distance. The trouble here is that he does not want this thing getting loose above decks where it will threaten people other than him, people who are probably not as fast…people like whoever else is unfortunate to be running around down here.

"Hey! If you can't fight, you are definitely gonna need to run. Immediately," he says to whoever shows up for this close encounter of the unwanted kind.

III; TEMPLE

OPTION A:
Despite that alien problem, Hawks still ends up exploring the rest of what he can react on this space station. He can't think of it as an island, really, because that seems like an absurd idea. Anyway, he wants to know what else there is to find here. He's not sure they're here for a reason; he's not sure they're in any of these places for a reason.

Finally, he finds that centre area. There's something sinister and unsettling, he thinks at first. The air here makes his feathers fluff up and stand on end. It's not a good feeling. But there in the middle, where the big spherical thing is, something…changes.

He feels like the floor drops out from under him and he doesn't have wings to catch him.

Home. Japan. The war. The other heroes. It's been months, and while he's not always thrilled about the expectations placed upon him, he has a job to do there, and a crucial one. He gets this crazy idea, looking at this sphere, that he could just…go home. All he has to do is go through it, like a portal. It seems so easy.

Luckily, he's not alone, and whoever he's with can talk him out of that crazy ass idea. Right?

[ ooc note: Hawks will absolutely not commit a murder here in order to go home, fyi. ]

OPTION B:

[ Toss me a starter here and have Hawks talk your character off this ledge instead! ]

IV; WILDCARD

[ none of these working for you? Find me at boywonder for a different option or just drop me something else here and we'll go with that! I'm open for anything EXCEPT Hawks dying pretty much. ]

I

[prodigalmess]

"Yes," Malcolm agrees, sipping his cup of identical, awful coffee. "I know exactly what you mean."

He hasn't liked the vibe of this place ever since they arrived. Each island that he's been to before this had inhabitants. Being alone here just ups the creep factor exponentially.

"It's obvious that there were people here at one point. Where did they go?"

Nowhere good, probably. Maybe they went insane after being cramped inside a small space for so long?

[nanban]

Hawks isn't in the greatest mood, and understandably. He feels closed in. Can't fly. Doesn't want to eat goo. Probably has had too much terrible coffee. But he's also a pro hero and is used to dealing with people. So he manages a smile that he doesn't feel before he continues the conversation.

"Right. There must have been inhabitants. So...we either find bodies, which let me tell you, I am not looking forward to. Or we find whatever caused there to not be bodies."

He takes a sip and manages not to grimace.

"Or there's a third option, which is we find nothing at all, and I think that's actually the worst one. Man, what was the point sending us here?"

[prodigalmess]

Malcolm doesn't even eat that much and he's tired of this goo. He'd like the little food that he does eat to have some flavor.

"I agree." That would be the worst option. "The deity here seems to like to test us as part of our rehabilitation, though I'd argue that this has been a really intense test for a lot of us." Lots of people seem to been struggling here, himself included. It's going to be a long two months.

[nanban]

Hawks is big into food. He loves food! He has a fairly fast metabolism (he has to, to keep up with his wings and his speed). This goo…yeah, he's not a fan. He'll exist on bad coffee until he has to deal with the goo. Blech.

"Wish we knew what the test parameters were supposed to be, or how to pass them, huh?" he says with a sigh. "This one is my least favourite out of all of 'em so far and we just got here. But that's just personal. I don't like being somewhere I can't move around. Or somewhere with no people."

[prodigalmess]

Malcolm avoids red meat and tends to eat small portions. Being very full makes him feel sick. And he doesn't like how red meat bleeds. The goo is pretty damn bad though.

He nods when Hawks mentions the lack of people. "That's the most disturbing thing to me," Malcolm says. "Every other place we've been has been inhabited. Having nobody here is unnerving. Did something happen to them?"

There's evidence that people were here at one point. The absence makes the whole place feel claustrophobic.

[nanban]

"Well, this place didn't just pop into being on its own, right? Someone must have made it and inhabited it."

He's actually not sure about that first part, since how do any of these weird islands work? This one isn't even an island somehow. He doesn't understand the metaphysics of that at all, but that's not too important for now.

"And something or someone must have…I don't know. Killed everyone here? Yeeted them into space? My guess is the thing responsible is here somewhere. How we can prevent ourselves from falling prey to it, I dunno yet. But man, I don't wanna be cooped up in here for months."

ii

[wwrench]

It's not the pursuit of anything in particular that's driven Wrench further into the bowels of the station's labyrinth. The man is an old hand at making do with very little, and by now he's caught on that there's not much hope in thinking he can find an easy escape hatch that'll spit him out the other side of this mess. He may not have fully accepted the premise that he's on some kind of journey to make up for previous ills and heal his presently-orange-coded soul, but at least some of his hapless desperation has subsided.

If there's anything Wrench wants, it's just space. He doesn't sleep much as it is, so the size of the chambers don't bother him. It's the lack of greenery that does. He'd love to see even a single tree or blade of grass. Hell, even a leafy vegetable on one of the plates in the mess hall. Unfortunately, it all seems to no avail. The lower decks may be dark, but at least they don't feel so much like being trapped in a tin can. He's almost ready to untack his shoulders from their hunched position around his ears until something whips past his periphery at a streaking speed.

Wrench twists around in time to see wings, then feels the vibration of the words as they appear on his ScryWatch. Fight what? he signs hurriedly, already squaring up.

[nanban]

Hawks skids to a stop (never in danger of crashing into Wrench; he has good control, after all, having had wings his whole life and everything) and spins back around to face Wrench. He catches the gestures and realises that's probably communication signs, but he doesn't understand it. He doesn't know sign language, but even if he did, not being American would put a language barrier between them that whatever universal translator works on words won't help here. Well, shit.

He's a fast thinker, though, and he's still got one free hand. So he types one word on his ScryWatch. He says it aloud, too, since he has no idea if Wrench was signing at him because he can't hear or can't speak. Could be anything, after all. Gotta cover the bases.

Aliens.

Of course he's a trained hero and he won't leave anyone behind, so he doesn't take off again. He doesn't recognise Wrench and has no idea if this dude can fight or not. He doesn't know if they can take out this alien thing, either. But he'll stay here to make sure that if nothing else, Wrench doesn't get murdered by an alien.

I

[kyley_b]

Sitting in the mess hall, sipping his own coffee, Kyle nods.

"Uh, yeah dude," he agrees. "Like an entirely abandoned space station of this size? There's definitely a room full of corpses around."

He considers this, then adds, "Unless they sucked all the bodies out into space. But someone or something would have to have done that."

Kyle sips his coffee. "There's got to be surveillance footage."

[nanban]

Hawks wrinkles up his nose, but not at the coffee. The imagery Kyle's comment conjures up is pretty grim. Not that he hasn't had a similar thought.

"Gross. Hope someone else finds it before I do," he says. It's not as if he's going to stay put here and not go looking around. That's just not in his nature, after all.

"You think we can find the footage? It has to be here somewhere, right? There has to be more to find than just…shitty coffee and a lot of nothing." He has no idea what kind of tech knowledge Kyle has, but no time like the present to learn.

[kyley_b]

Kyle has a pretty morbid imagination.

He snorts laughter. "Dude, seriously. Although with my luck it'll totally be me."

Kyle nods and sets his cup down. "Oh, it's definitely SOMEwhere. I bet if we can get into somewhere with an actual computer we can use we could go digging for it. I'm pretty good with computers, so if it's anything like back home I might be able to figure it out."

[nanban]

Hawks also laughs.

"You'll just have to make sure you're not alone when you find whatever it is, then," he says, grinning. He can joke easily enough now about whatever it is they don't know. It isn't that he doesn't take this seriously, but he has to deal somehow. Playing it off a little is just a way of coping, especially when he feels (ironically) too grounded here, unable to use his actual strengths in the enclosed space.

"I'm not terrible with computers myself, but I'm not some kind of hacker either. Maybe we'll be able to figure it out together, though. Wanna have a look? There's gotta be some usable tech not too far away."

[kyley_b]

"I'll be sure to surround myself with one of you constantly. You can save my ass again, make me feel like a damsel in distress." He snorts laughter. "Thanks again for that, though. I tell you, dude, its annoying being one of the few totally normal humans around here. At least David's powers aren't good for fighting. ...don't tell him I said that, he'll probably write me an essay on why they actually are."

He nods, pushing his coffee away. "I do. Most of the rooms here seem to be locked, but maybe we can fuck with the electric locks."

[nanban]

"Hey, there's nothing wrong with having a different skill set." Hawks is unused to people without powers at all, but he remembers something Kyle said before about it, the way he talked about people without powers. He doesn't want to be a dick on accident, here. Not all worlds are like his, and even in his own world…sure, there are probably some biases people can overcome. He thinks of himself as open-minded, but he's always just felt bad for people who didn't get a quirk, or who got something so tiny that they might as well have gotten nothing. It's not a superiority complex on purpose, but society drills it into you.

"He'll do you a whole ass lecture," Hawks agrees, but he's smiling. He hasn't told anyone else about his thing for David, but it's not a big secret now that they kind of talked about it? Probably? He's never had the freedom to just like someone before, so it's kind of weird.

But he doesn't dwell on David right now either way. He stands up, leaving his terrible coffee on the table to come back for it later (is this littering? can you litter in a shitty empty space station?).

"We can at least try," he says. "What else are we doing other than waiting around for a black hole to swallow us?"

I

[helpdesk_hero]

Well, at least he wasn't the only one investigating the strangeness of this place. Here was David, walking down the hall with his cup of coffee, holding a tablet in hand, his eyes only barely on it even though his eyes were darting back and forth behind his sunglasses.

All of that stops with the combination of seeing Hawks (which earns a smile), and the comments (which earns a snort of laughter).

"Honestly, I'm more a fan of randomly abandoned creepy space station that is absolutely going to be filled with something trying to kill us than, you know, something more Matrix style."

[nanban]

Hawks at least has a smile for David, brighter than he feels at the moment because he's glad to see David's face. Wow, feelings are silly? But he's not complaining.

"Anything useful on that thing?" he asks, gesturing at the tablet. He has yet to have any luck with any of the tech on the station, but he'll keep trying.

He tilts his head quizzically at the last part. Being from the nebulous future of an alternate Earth means that pop culture references aren't always his strong suit.

"I'm almost afraid to ask now. What's this Matrix thing?"

[helpdesk_hero]

Hey, if there is someone whose day is brighter for seeing his face, David welcomes that knowledge. And feelings, while silly, are a warm mess in his chest that make the rest of the chill this place gives him some comfort.

"I haven't gone into it yet. I have been scared to do it alone, lest my technopathy trigger some attack problem that starts to shred into me and I need someone to tear the tablet away from me. And the Matrix is this movie series in my world where machined and computers took over from humans, but the war between the two basically ruined the world and blocked out the sun. So the computers basically use humans as living batteries. And keeps people plugged in complacent by leaving them in a fake digital world mirroring the 90s."

[nanban]

Hawks snorts into his coffee cup, not sure how much of that to take seriously. But…no, he's going to take it seriously. They don't know what's up with this ship, if the AI is some weird murderous rogue type or not. Hawks had considered that possibility, though living batteries and fake digital world sounds pretty dire. But either way, the tech they're faced with could be dangerous, have something to resist hackers. It's a fair thing to worry about.

"Wow, that's dark," he says. "You're right. I'll definitely take this over that."

He sets his cup down on the table.

"I can help keep a look out for attack computer stuff, yeah? You look for whatever you can find and I'll take that tablet if something looks like it's going wrong. I'm not a tech genius, but I'm sure I can manage that much."

He's tech savvy, anyway, and he's good at reading people and reacting quickly, which probably matters more in this situation.

[helpdesk_hero]

"Super dark, and sometimes ridiculously funny. The messiah complex story line did end up annoying me in the end though."

The invitation for support does earn a smile though. He's been considering seeking someone out for support. In fact he had been considering Sephiroth because the man seemed capable, but at the same time he had worried that the whole thing might good poorly if they man didn't understand how things worked.

"Tech genius won't help here anyway. The screen will either display too fast or not at all, given how I intend to push my power into it. But you probably would be better to recognize something going wrong, so I'm glad for the offer. And glad I haven't had lunch yet. If something goes wrong, and I'm still in my own head, I'll probably need a dark, quiet place to lay down."

II

[unkindled_madness]

"You can run if you like." Hawks clearly spoke before looking to see who was approaching. This isn't Sephiroth's first time in the lower decks, and he came here for the express purpose of hunting these aliens.

Was it reckless of him to do so alone, without the expectation of encountering assistance? Maybe. Maybe he's running on caffeine more than sleep, and wrestling with some issues that haven't remotely had the time to settle, and not making the best of decisions. He knows these things are strong.

But, so is he. He so rarely has the opportunity to let loose on something that can take it, and how is he going to hone his newfound magic without practical application?

His eyes glow in the low lighting, and he raises the Masamune into a ready position, watching for the alien's approach.

[nanban]

Hawks's eyesight might be unparalleled, but he wasn't really looking at who was coming. He was still looking at the murderous alien coming down the hall, gosh! But he recognises Sephiroth's voice even before he turns his head to see him.

He's not sure if Sephiroth's eyes always glow like that or if it's new or he hasn't seen it before or…yeah, well, that's a question he can ask another time. Hawks is also running on too much caffeine, but otherwise, he's pretty much fine. He did not come here to fight. He'd actually prefer not to. He's cool fighting to protect others, but he has nothing to prove to anyone and Sephiroth looks like the kind of guy who could just take out a bunch of these aliens without any problem.

So he could just leave.

But that would be completely irresponsible, especially for a hero. Sephiroth looks…a little off, maybe? Maybe it's the light, or he's just tired, or who knows. Something is uneasy here, though. Even without that, Hawks would never just leave someone alone to fight aliens.

"I'm not gonna leave you here, man," he says, skidding to a stop. "I'm a great wingman." Haha, get it? He's hilarious. "No, but seriously. I play backup on a team a lot. Those things cannot get outta here or they'll hurt people who can't fight them."

That's another reason he can't just let this go.

[unkindled_madness]

Sephiroth nods. Protection is... an afterthought, for him. There are a few people he doesn't want these things tearing into. But this isn't really about that.

"Then don't get in my way. These are monsters, not villains."

And he's been fighting monsters nearly as long as he can remember. Shinra would capture them much like these things were caught, and he would be expected to demonstrate his skills against them. But they didn't know... Well, maybe they have a better idea of what he is than he does, but they didn't understand him. They could only train him like a human, expecting the peak of human abilities.

As the alien comes within range, Sephiroth blasts it with a fire spell that fills the corridor. Not something conjured up from the Planet but from within him, and maybe just scratching the surface. He isn't sure.

The alien shrieks, slowed by the flames-- but it keeps coming.

[nanban]

"Yeah, we've had a few monsters back home. I know the difference."

Hawks has never indicated that he's the kind of hero who might kill someone, but…he's not not that kind. In a future he hasn't lived yet, he will kill a villain because letting him live is too disastrous. He hasn't done that yet, but it's somewhere in his nature to realise that the balance between a life and the greater good means you have to do the hardest thing.

But Sephiroth is right; these aren't villains. They're not something to reason with. The only thing they can do is take them out. Hawks isn't built for this kind of combat, especially in a space he can't fly around as much, but he's physically very fit and he's still fast.

That feather sword in his hand might not look like much, but it's razor sharp.

Oh. Fire. Sephiroth can use fire. That's…sure a thing, isn't it? Hawks's biggest weakness is fire, so he has to be extra careful here. If his feathers ignite, it will be a disaster. Luckily, the man he works with the most can literally light himself on fire, so he's used to being around it. One of the villains he's gotten "close" to also uses fire, but he's a lot scarier than Endeavor.

Sephiroth is, too, really. Not that Hawks is actually scared of him, but he's got that manner about him now. He came here to fight monsters. Who does that?

The alien pushes forward away from the flames. It's still burning some itself. Hawks, not wanting to risk getting lit up when he can't fly away too quickly, decides to try another tactic: fanning the flames. He flaps his wings towards the monster and the fire. He can't get enough power to stop the monster's advance, but he can make that fire grow.

He also still has razor sharp feathers. He can spare a few here. They'll grow back eventually.

So he throws one like a throwing knife. He has good aim, and it strikes the alien in the ?? face ?? Or at least somewhere in the centre of its head. It screams again. Whatever passes for blood in that alien oozes from the wound, and the creature stumbles.

[unkindled_madness]

Sephiroth has other spells at his disposal, there's just something particularly satisfying about fire.

He watches Hawks out of the corner of his eye--the movement of his wings and the way that feather somehow acts like a blade. It's a good strike, but maybe not quite deep or accurate enough to kill. It's a strangely-shaped head and who knows exactly where the brain is in all of that?

The alien catches itself and shifts its momentum into climbing the wall, probably aiming to gain some advantage by getting above them.

The Masamune has a longer reach than the creature's limbs, so Sephiroth darts in before it can regain much speed. It lifts one arm in an effort to deflect this blade away from its head, screeching once more as the Masamune slices a long gash along its forearm, spilling more of its strange blood onto the floor below. It retaliates now by lashing its tail around, but Sephiroth is more prepared for that this time around and ducks under it before stepping back out of its range behind it.

Unfortunately, this also allows it out of the Masamune's range, and it turns to proceed towards Hawks, the perceived weaker target.