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Xion Two months ago, almost to the button, a giant pile of yuckos arrived in a really shitty part of a very hot city to beat up frogs.

Seriously. Frogs.

AND SO WE RETURN TO...
PHOENIX, ARIZONA

One would be tempted to call the urban fringe of Phoenix the 'armpit of America', but that would imply a wet heat - and instead, there is a crisp winter bite to the flat open desert that is broken by warehouses and streets, trucks and industry. An effort to bring green dapples the land with mostly-naked trees in the brisk winter months. Both spiritually and physically 'empty, the particular lane seems uniformly abandoned, dead-ending in desert and unupkept freeway overpass pylons.

People pass through, but few linger.

In the Realground (AKA, Normie Reality), a single laundromat-dry cleaner stands dilapidated but lit, though nobody is inside. The floors shine with a fresh wax polish, but the outer facade peels and fades across its entire surface. A Vertically Challenged person sits on a stool in front of a cash register in the back, counting crumpled bills out into bins - more crumpled bills than would have ever reasonably be in the till of a laundromat, even. Only one machine spins around, the contents a terrible mix of fabrics both natural and synthetic, colors and darks in with the whites.

In the Underground, the realm just adjacent and tuned-up from reality, the whole dead-end drive is set in monochrome, small voxels of darkness hanging in the air with large voxels of white, drifting around aimlessly. The laundromat itself is cast in baroque white, clean walls of eye-glaring 'marble' edged in exact right angles. At the counter is a black-coated figure with the bottom of a fuzzy white chin visible, and a large red deely-bopper hanging over its head like a pom-pom.

There is an unused metal shed across the street that, for no apparent reason other than absurd convenience, has an unstable, small natural warpgate inside of it: those that were here last time would remember this where the Cult Kids and Namine had tumbled out of. This time, it's just a natural anchor for return. At least one of the Cult Kids - Xion, from the overall height and build - is inside the laundromat/baroque bleached white citadel to fresh clean clothes, speaking to Mog (the Moogle in the cult robes, floating by the register on his little batwings) and a man who fits the classical ideal of a cowboy.

The 'cowboy' had a large brown hat on, prominently featuring a hatband studded with a variety of exotic fangs and long eye teeth, a matching brown greatcoat that he's somehow wearing in the absurd dry heat of Phoenix in summer, and a pair of well-worn pale blue denim jeans and cowboy boots - complete with spurs. Apparently 'south' of physical middle age, what hair is visible is a shaggy sandy blonde and his eyes are a laconic all-American baby blue. His face is rugged with stubble about his cheeks and a thicker beard following the contour of his jaw, with a bushy moustache that hides his top lip. At his hip is a long frontier knife, and his right wrist jangles with a charm bracelet. In his mouth he chews a single, un-lit cigar.
Xion "So you had nuffin' to do with them necromancers." The cowboy asks.

Mog shakes his head, the pom waggling back and forth with gusto. "Oh good kupos no. I ran them off for ruining --... The sanctity of life, kupopo."

"So you wouldn't mind if I asked you and yours to set that right, I reckon?" The cowboy drawls, both thumbs tucked behind his belt buckle as the shifting of his feet causes a dry clink of spur on linoleum floor.

Xion, hood down but cult clothes on, leans on the counter. "Did he just say 'I reckon?'"

As the group piles in, Mog flags people down. "Hey! Kupo timing! Now, this gentleman-" Mog begins. The cowboy turns and tips his hat in greeting with his left thumb in introduction. "John Pritchard, as y'please. Sherrif of these parts." He adds.

"-is from the Council, and heard about our little undead ku-fluffle, and since we're certainly not trucking with Lawbreaking individuals, he'd like you to go handle the necromancer. Who exists, kupo."

Xion's eyes are bright. "Oh boy! A real necromancer, that'll be a great mission!"
Mog raises a tiny little stubby arm. "And Xion will fix the pipes Demyx broke last time trying to 'do something cool, watch this'. 'Cool' meant ice. He thought he was a kupoing smart-guy."

Xion deflates. "Oh. More plumbing..."
Roxas A streak of light travels down the road at a steady clip, representing the form of Roxas skipping much of the intervening space from wherever the hell he went back to the laundromat. The little streak of light darts through the back entrance of the laundromat, emerging behind the counter next to Xion-- and from it emerges Roxas, currently dressed in some of the casual athletic clothes he got on their trip with Lilian.

His arms are filled with junk food.

"I'm back. I forgot what flavors of icee you wanted so I just got all of them." Roxas says, depositing /nine/ different frozen drinks on the counter before beginning to sort out some other stuff in his arms, "I also got the reese's pieces, jerky, doritos..."

Each item is deposited on the counter as he lists it off. Until he notices that /some/thing is going on. Roxas looks between Mog, Xion, and the 'cowboy' with incredible confusion.

"Wwwwhat's going on?" He wonders, dubiously.

Then ruins the overall feel of his demeanor by grabbing a cherry icee and slurping on it audibly.
Raziel Raziel happened to be in the wrong place at the right time, exploring this strange other dimension he discovered, that basically is the same (more or less) as the spirit realm he was used to slipping into when he could not project his ghost form into the material realm.  

This becomes very awkward when he projects his physical form in the middle of the street, only to get caught by Xion and asked for help with a thing.  Raziel, the man that he is could not turn down a plead for help with a situation.

'Entering the strange place, I hear the spinning of machines, swirling what I could perceive as garments around in a circle.  Some with water and some without.  I could feel the warmth from the ones without water, indicating that this was some strange form of elaborate garment cleaning.  While strange and somewhat noisy, one could not deny the advantage of such a machine compared to washing by hand and waiting for garments to dry.'

The ghost-corpse notices the mog talking to a man who talked in a strange accent, talking about a necromancer.  Raziel narrowed his eyes, nothing ever good came from necromancers.  After all, one made Kain, and that right there should tell you everything you need to know about their ilk.

"If there is a necromancer, then I shall be glad to aid my services to its extermination.  I am Raziel, and while my appearance may be disturbing, I assure you I am not a mindless abomination, I am a spirit.  I am also not a vampire...well not anymore."
Deelel It had been almost two months since Deelel's last trip to the land known as Phoenix Arizona. The frogs were not something she'd be able to in all honesty forget. What had been a simple visit to a world had turned into the start of finding out it was a very active world in terms of trouble. Noise, Heartless, Demons and more seemed to run wild. So she'd felt the need to come back to make sure the frogs or something worse hadn't returned to the Laundromat-dry cleaners seemed to be a bit worse for wear. That's just the normal level of existence, for the state in the Underworld? Something seems like it might be up.

Deelel is fairly quick to leave the Warp Gate and enters fairly sift order as she looks to Mog for a moment and then to John.

"Mog, Sherrif Pritchard."

She does gives a look at Xion for a moment with a look of sympathy as she's got repair work to do.

"We have a Necromancer to deal with from the sounds of it, Roxas."

She also looks to Athela for a moment.

"Well we'll be doing something about that hopefully soon."

She'll look to the Sherrif for a moment.

"Is there anything else we should know before we head out, sir?"

She also gives Raziel a hard look for a moment.

"I see, I think....but you are clearly no zombie I get that much!"
Seifer Almasy      Necromancers are things that knights beat up. They are bad people who summon dead things and kidnap good people to do bad things to. They hold kingdoms hostage and they let loose plagues of undead on the land. Sometimes they have skeleton swordsmen.

     But Seifer Almasy is also a member of the Concord and he has his priorities straight.

     "OK," Seifer says, "But you're gonna owe us. I don't do freebies for dudes."

     Once he's made that clear, he looks around at everybody, then does what he usually does - introduce himself. He presses two fingers to his forehead in a lazy salute. "Seifer Almasy. Fox Knight, Hand of the Concord, King of the Moon. Kind of a big deal. Let's go mess up that dead guy."
Axel Axel is in his black hoodie as he approaches with the others, appearing from a dark portal from a little secret errand (he was taking a nap). His hood is down revealing his spiky red hair and his weird under-eye tattoos, as he comes in and leans against a wall so that they're not all crowding. "Well, Sheriff..." He speaks with a mild yawn, still waking up, as he stretches his arms out. "You need us to deal with a necromancer, right? Easy enough. Especially if it makes it clear we're not messing with the undead." Something something 'make a good impression'.

Despite having considered murdering one of this guy's faction's secret police yesterday. Woops.

As Roxas steps in, Axel moves over to the counter, waits for Xion to pick her flavor of icee, and grabs the one that's least likely to be her favorite because he's thirsty. He does it casually enough that it seems he really doesn't expect his friends to mind. "Sounds like that necromancer who tried to take our clothes was loud enough to be a hassle. Is it her we're after, or someone else?" The last question is to the sheriff, specifically.
Evangeline      Almost as shadowy as these people in the dark robes is the nearly silent Evangeline. She floats through the air with barely a sound, and the sounds she does emit are just soft metallic whispers much like fingers being drawn across guitar strings. Even then, it only happens when she moves quickly. She could easily be mistaken for some kind of Heartless, though of course she lacks the empty heart-shaped hole or any kind of crest.

     She follows the group into the Underground laundromat, then tilts her head slightly before floating over to the moogle. She reaches out a handless arm toward his deely-booper and fingers emerge from her arm before she tries to lightly pat that soft, fuzzy orb.

     Whether she succeeds or not, she then slowly turns to the others. "...necromancy...is bad..?" she asks, her voice coming not from her featureless face but from a large red watch around her wrist, as well as any devices that can pick up radio waves. Luckily it is the soft, barely inflected voice of a girl in her early teens. Her feline tail gives a small swish as she talks, but her pointed cat-like ears do not move.

     Seifer introduces himself, and she gives a bow at the waist in an oriental fashion. Which leads to her accidentally doing a somersault in the air before righting herself. "...I am...Evangeline...member of the 501st Joint Fighter Wing and part of the Paladins...I was here when the frogs attacked...so I thought I should come help clean up..."
Athela Valemore Athela Valemore pulls her cloak a bit more firmly around herself, but other than that the biting cold doesn't seem to bother her much. Those who know her better would probably realize it's not for herself she's wrapping up, but for the small slug-like dragon that tends to nest within the fabric. Pokemon dragons and cold do not get together on agreeable terms, but also too loyal to the young knight to not accompany her just because of some discomfort.

It's at least not as cold inside the building. The local authority is being introduced, but her attention is seized by the one doing the introductions. "So this is this worlds moogles?" A fingertip is rubbed at her chin thoughtully. "Still almost resemble a Clefairy..." Is that pom-pom bobbing on his head as soft and fluffy as a Clefairy's curly bangs? She would almost be tempted to try and find out, but that would be extremely rude.

Especially when such childish musings need to be put aside for the sake of their being quests to be done. "Necromancy," she utters with a distinct distaste in her voice. "THose that toy with unnatural forces to mock Life..."
Xion Mog is a self-respecting moogle capitalist, thank you very much. In cult robes! He's a respectable kupo who runs a respectable business, and his pom-pom is the envy of all other moogles for its lustre and fluffiness.

He probably has special pom shampoo and is willing to sell it for you.
You are certain he is willing to cell you pom shampoo, actually, because looking at Mog is like looking at a shop's inventory screen: he has more potions than you can carry - garunteed.

Sherrif Pritchard's hat-tipping hand becomes a hat-doffing hand as MULTIPLE LADIES (not Xion, Xion is a weird cult kid) and LADY-APPROXIMATE/-PRESENTING... ... THINGS arrive. "Folks." He greets, and stops cold on Raziel.

"Well ain't that somethin." He mutters, replacing his hat on his only slightly hairline-receeded head. "Got girls in sterling. What a world. And..." Raziel gets a Clint Squint. "W'ever you are. And yeh, missy."

John gestures to Raziel, still Clint Squinting at the undead knight. "Binding a soul t' the material when it should move on. Taking away th' will and ultimate end. S'un-Godly."

John signs the crucifix, tapping forehead, chest, and both shoulders. "But y'ain't no necromancer, and I ain't the posse to bag you." He drawls, the hint of 'gimmie a reason' edging into his voice.

Seifer, however, talks of GETTING PAID. Mog looks at John. John Clint Squints at Raziel. Mog looks at Seifer.

Seifer, ostensibly, waggles his eyebrows while mouthing 'p a y m e' and flexing while double-thumbing at himself and whispering 'm u n n y m u n n y m u n n y' to himself to the tune of Bubba Sparxxx's Ms. New Booty.

Or not.

Mog groans. "Fine! Well, if there really IS a necromancer, and you help our 'friend' the Warden here, I'll pay you the standard finder's fee, and throw in a..." Mog appraises Seifer. "... tttttwo Strength Nuts."
Seifer Almasy      "Sure, fine," Seifer agrees, having little reason to disagree and being perfectly fine with the idea of Strength Nuts, whatever they are. They sound like protein that makes you stronger. This is fine.

     He may in fact have been mentally thinking 'munny munny munny' to the tune of Abba's 'Rich Man's World.' It is fairly probable.
Raziel "Not created in a standard way, sir.  I was not the result of traditional necromancy...though what I have been told I do not wholly believe.  For the same reason, you would not trust anything that looks like a giant squid and claims to be the cycle of life and death." Raziel says annoyed, "I was more than happy to pass on, instead of being contained in this wretched form."

"These terms are acceptable.  If there is a Necromancer, we can take care of it." He says with a nod, nodding to Seifer.  
Lilian Rook     Lilian had shown up early in some nice clothes for touring around the mythical ~America~. She'd exited the shed, spent about sixty seconds in the phoenix sun, staring blearily into the worthless desert expanse beyond the dead end road and the most depressing little laundromat she's ever seen, and says "Fuck this, I'm out." to nobody around.

    She comes back after an unnecessary shower (to get the gross Armpit of America feel off), and come back with the standard Immunes corps light response gear instead, due to it maintaining a better internal temperature (the basic thing anyone would do when splurging a lot of money in a suit like that which people are expected to spend a lot of time doing strenuous physical activity in).

    This time she also gets it right in ending up at the Underground. The surreal stark white marble on dark empty road is at least more interesting to look at, which she states out loud. The floating voxels are too interesting though. She has to poke at one or two. Nothing bad ever happens like that.

    "I don't necessarily think the necromancer is dead." Lilian replies to Seifer while pointedly not paying much attention to the Sheriff, tapping away instead at what would be a smartphone if it weren't a floating hologram square with Apple copyrighted rounded edges. "Necromancers use magic to influence the dead. Performing seances as mediums, binding or banishing ghosts, using psychometry on corpses; that kind of thing. You should ask that guy." she says offhandedly while tilting a head to Raziel, in a callous act of GHOST RACISM. She swipes the floaty phone window away. "Lilian Rook, Immaculate Extinguisher, Immune corps rank Crimson Sword. If you prefer: Dame Commander Lilian Isabelle Rook, of the Unseen Order of the Scarlet Cross." She then reaches out sideways and scores an icee. Like hell Xion is going to drink all six remaining. Slurp. Aggressive, antipathetic slurp at Sheriff.

    "Around here, apparently." she replies to the . . . floating robot thing. Honestly. Multiverse. "So, would you like to be useful, Sherrif Pritchard? If you're asking-" she briefly switches from her normal received pronunciation to a kind of bad Arizona drawl. "-'we and ours' to go take care of it, you'd better have some actionable intelligence." Sluuurp.
Raziel "Yes, you are not wrong Dame Rook, I am actually very well and uniquely situated to deal with threats of the spiritual sense," Raziel says with a shrug. "However I am not myself a necromancer, just that I have more than my fair share of run-ins with them."
Lilian Rook Slurp. "Oh, I was figuring he should ask you about necromancers since it seems like one would have had to raise you to be here." Slow, possibly racist slurp. "No offense, but you definitely don't read as a ghost that came back on its own due to attachments to the material world."
Athela Valemore The various exchanges remind Athela that she should properly introduce herself as the others have. She crosses an arm to her midsection and bows forward to Mog and the Sherrif, cloak draping down from her back as she does so. "Athela Valemore, Knight Errant of the Keldeo, Guardian of the Tides of the Swords of Justice." She stood back upright. "And whilst I may not be of your world, I come to its aid and help of its people, same as the tides men travel unit many lands."

Payment is not of her concent, that is not the purpose of her deeds. Though rewards given upon completion are not frowned upon, either. "Strength Nuts?" She tilts her head to the side, rubbing her chin again. "Mayhaps something like the Berries Pokemon favor..."
Raziel "Revenge, if it worked like that in our world. However, there is more wrapped in my existance than that. I was not the result of a Necromancer. Unless giant squids claiming to be the cycle of life and death are necromancers. Even then, I do not trust his word for my unique resurection."
Lilian Rook     "Couldn't anyone who subverts death and brings people back as undead ghost things claim to be a necromancer? I mean, if he did, how would you argue that it doesn't count?"
Xion Xion, like a small child in a candy store, is more stopped by the sheer quantity of choice and decadent corn-based goodness in each bursting bite of awful-for-you flavor to start in on the Cherry Coke icee quite yet.

"Oooh, and they've got the ones with the crispy rinds too!" She practically squeals with delight, opening the bag with relish and getting out a chip to...

Dip in the cherry coke icee before eating. "Sweet and savory!" she slurs around a mouthful of flavor disaster, before going for a slurpee.

Lilian swipes the Blue Raspberry Icee - the Kingly Ambrosia of all icee, from which the once and future king of cold headaches may be drawn. Xion will forever mourn missing her BIG SUCC from the BIG GULP.

"You can just tell me, I'll open a corridor."

John sighs. "Mighty oblidged, missy. Ma'am." Xion is the first one addressed, but the second is a snappingly deferential nod to Lilian.

"Not familiar with the pedigree, but the title walks." He observes.

Behind the counter, Xion uses her left hand to hold her icee while twiddling her fingers in the air as if searching.

"Where to, Mister Sheriff?"

John pulls out a small passport-sized notebook, pulling a pen out and thumbing through the pages. "2023 West North street."

Everyone stops dead. "Who the heck names something kupoing 'west north street'?" Mog observes.

John shrugs. "Necromancers?" Is the unhelpful response.

Xion's wiggling, searching fingers catch on something and pull, like opening a curtain or a shower screen, revealing a tenebrous dark realm that only goes for, like, two feet max before another tear in space reveals...

Yeah, it's a graveyard. Big, cliche graveyard - stone gate, wrought iron fence, big steeple-like situation in the center. Someone in a brown robe digs at a grave, blurrily, through the portal.

They're digging the wrong way - excavating a grave. In broad daylight. How uncouth!
Evangeline      Apparently either not noticed or not stopped, Evangeline gives the moogle's pom-pom a pat, then floats away from the moogle. Apparently even strange alien girls can't resist the pom-pom. She shakes her head when payment comes up. "...I do not need payment...this is the sort of thing the 501st and the Paladins are happy to do..." she says in that soft voice of hers. She nods lightly to Lilian when she answers the Neuroi's question, and John helps to solidify just why it is wrong. It is slavery of sorts, something Evangeline is very much against since she herself was enslaved and coerced at different points in her life. "...if you know where it is...I will follow..."
Roxas Roxas looks /extremely/ dubious about dealing with necromancers. They're so... /smelly/. He eyes Seifer with distant interest, something about him clicking in the back of his brain. Or rather, not his brain, but his astoundingly messed up metaphysical structure. But he's blessedly distracted by Xion.

"H-huh...?"

He mimics her dipping. It's not so bad, he thinks-- but it's not really his style, either. On the other hand, it tastes super distinct! Roxas sways back and forth comically as he tries to judge the rind dipping.

It's not until Xion tears open a hallway through the corridors that Roxas pays much attention to what they're doing. He's chewing a handful of reese's pieces as he does it. He points into the portal, "Ohh, THAT place. We've gotta go through that place if we want to go to the grocery store around here. It's convenient because it's always connected. There's necromancers there? It seemed like a nice enough graveyard to me..."

These kids are weirdos.

"Not true," Roxas interjects over Evangeline's statements, "I'm totally happy with getting paid to do this incredibly gross thing I don't want to do. C'mon, let's go... man, I'd have worn my robes if I thought this was where the day was going..."

Roxas grabs a loose clothespin from the counter and secures it over his nose before marching into the Corridor of Darkness.
Deelel More people arrive, Seifer, Axel also arrive then comes Evangeline someone she has not seen in ages as she looks to Evangeline. "Greetings Evangeline it's been a long time." She looks back to Seifer. While she's not had much contact with the gunblade user? She certainly knows of his reputation as someone who is quite an effective fighter. Overall the group seem to be pretty capable in her views. She will pay close attention to anything the Sheriff has to say though.

Lilian's arrival is noticed ass well and Deelel takes a moment to look her over for a moment.

Well she was about to ask where they needed to head to.

"West North Street? Strange..."

She makes note of it and then comes the Corridor and away they go Deelel will not waste time as she head right for the figure digging the grave, they don't look like a modern day earth gravedigger to her.

"Greetings, just what are you doing to that grave? You don't look like employees of the graveyard to me."

She's not got a weapon out yet, as there is the slim chance that it's not cultists or something, but she's got a ready stance to any of her allies watching her that indeed she's ready for a fight, if it comes to that.
Raziel "Because it claims it is a god.  I think it is just a giant parasite, but regardless I am unsure of how exactly I cam to continue...existing." Raziel says, with a bit of an exasperated tone.  "When I said he looked like a squid, I meant it literally."

Raziel steps through the portal when it opens, not even giving the name of the street the dignity it doesn't deserve.  Only a fool would name a street like that, and this is why we now have Necromancers.  However, as they see the man excavating a grave in broad daylight, behind a strange coat.

Raziel lifts a hand towards the man, aiming to grab him with his telekinetic power and attempt to throw the man unceremoniously towards the group face first on the ground.  The ghoulish figure looking down at the man, should he land, with a frown and squinted eyes.  

"Hello.  What are you doing?"
Axel As things are explained, payment is squared away, and Axel noisily drinks at his (grape) icee, the Corridor of Darkness is opened as there's a weird standoff between Raziel and the Sheriff. Axel takes a moment to make sure it won't get violent, and then pull his hood up and walk through the corridor. It's mission time.

After the short walk, he's in the graveyard, where the black-robed not-cultist-probably confronts the brown-robed-maybe-a-cultist. Axel moves up to the digger, looking over his work, and making sure he's not in range of a surprise shanking. "You know, you're pretty ballsy to be doing this in the broad of day. It's like you're begging to get in trouble!" Axel's hand stretches out.

He's waiting for the moment where he needs to summon his chakram and stab into this guy, though as Raziel telekinetically goes to move him, he changes position along with the guy to keep his execution stance ready.
Lilian Rook     Lilian stops slurping on a member of the highest tier of artificially flavoured iced drinks, opening her mouth for a fraction of a second to ask who in their right mind names a place North Street and then divides it into subdirections, but then Mog beats her to the punch. The ghost of a smile twitches to her lips. When Xion goes and TEARS OPEN A PORTAL IN TIME WHERE etc. Lilian takes a moment to just lean around the side and get a good look up and down it. "So that's what these look like on the inside." she murmurs.

    "The Paladins definitely still get paid to do it though." Lilian suddenly follows up from Evangeline doing something sheerly out of the goodness of her heart (ick), but when she's spotted literal midday grave robbing, she straightens up a little, ceasing the mildly aggravating intentional drink slurping, and dropping the aggressively disinterested tone. "I'd ask if necromancers are so unified here that they build and name civil infrastructure, but that's a little egregious, don't you think?" she says, gesturing through the portal.

    
                -----[stop]-----
    Lilian goes back to slurping though, going through the drink at a steady pace, careful to avoid brainfreeze, while deciding what she thinks exactly of John Pritchard, spending a lot of time staring at him while he's in mid-gesture. Him and his awful fashion sense.
                -----[start]-----

    Lilian turns about, and the drink cup appears empty and spinning dramatically across the counter, optimized to make that 'coin landed just off' sort of slowly accelerating dance. "Oh well, you cut a vampire's arm off and stab her in the chest, you might as well go the whole way. Thank you for your timely information, Sheriff. Honestly, we've got too many people on hand, if anything. This should take no time at all." Unappreciated awful wordplay.

    She steps in right after Deelel. "What she means to say is that you definitely aren't performing a regular exhumation, so drop the shovels, move away, and turn around with your hands over your head." Lilian adds. "I know we're in America, but digging up corpses is still illegal. Oh and by the way, I already know why you're doing it and what you're planning, so don't bother. Seriously. You'll only be wasting your own time; I happen to have plenty to spare today." More below-radar awful wordplays.
Xion John Pritchard, Sherrif (Warden) of the Council, is frozen in relative time, chewing on his cigar and engaging in Full Yee-Haw Fashion.

When Xion opens the portal, Mog is accosted by pom-foolery, flailing a bit. "H-hey! That's very sensitive! Normally I charge people--" he funes, but otherwise doesn't stop Evangeline from rubbing his pom. It is fluffy and soft, with the material texture of a rather furry stress-ball. Squeezing it causes Mog to make an aghast noise and look extremely offended.

The large shadowy/marble-y voxels outside reprise on the inside of the corridor, marking the 'entrance' of the inside of the portal, in the short distance between the two points as the UG representation of the Laundromat, which is more like some sort of bright white Washing Fortress - with the dark motes soft and warm like embers or coals, and the white marble blocks cold and sheer and tinking softly like stone when prodded. They have a weight to them that the darkness doesn't - a surity, a firmness.

The Graveyard - with active graverobbing! - is set in a large plot just across the street from a large Vons grocery store with a mostly-empty parking lot. As promised, the trip through the solid 'ground' in pulsing purples, bruised reds, aphotic deep blues, and abyssal blacks all about spits them out right at the closed gates - which nobody here should be bothered or slowed by.

Raziel immediately telekinetically grabs the graverobber and throws them wide, the robe going wide to reveal the form of a pale woman, with two slender corpse-white arms, a beautiful head with dark purple lips and a gentle nose, a mane of black hair, a wonderfully statuesque collarbone, anddddddddddd skeleton. The rest is a skeleton. Bleached, dry bone all the way down, which clatters and smashes apart as she's tossed around.

"Oh no!" She shrieks. "I've lost my everything! Master, master! Ahh! AHHHH! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" She begins shrieking, as fists start pushing through the earth, people in various suits and formal dresses pulling themselves out of the earth as a light turns on in the chapel at the center of the graveyard.

Thunk-clinking with his spurs on through the Corridor, John Pritchard moseys on in behind the group, tipping up his hat at the goings on, while shamblers pile on and the banshee-wail of the skeletal 'beauty' grates on ears enough to cause bleeding and headaches. "Yeap."

"That's necromancy."

Thanks, John.
Athela Valemore A cemetary. Because of course it is. Where else would a necromancer look for new victims? Desecrating graves of the depared and all that. Still disgusting, still unforgivable. But enough people are making demands of the graverobber to stop, so Athela contents to remain a bit farther back in the group, warily. No matter how much she hopes, these things never go a peaceful solution.

Her instincts prove to be true. As soon as the skeletal woman freaks out at being accousted, the young knight's divine intuition kicks loudly in the back of her head. Shamblers arise, swarm in and lunging. Only to grab empty air as a jet of bubbly water from her feat launchs Athela up and away from the would be attackers.

As her jump peaks she grabs the hilt of her divine weapon and draws it, frost-like motes fogging around the blade at her touch. Resolute Blade is gripped in both hands, the glaive-like weapon's longer hilt allowing her to thrust it down past her feet as she drops back into masse that had tried to swarm around her. It doesn't matter if the blade hits the undead or the ground as Athela lands, from the point of impact ice erupts, great spikes of skewering cold sheering in all directions around her to farther drive the swarming mass of undead away.
Raziel The ear-piercing screech is somewhat lessened by a quick covering of his ears.  Yes, even a ghost as ears.  However, there is still some blue fluid, causing the creature to stagger but a little.  However, he was not down and out, and more mildly annoyed than anything.  The right hand, which was constantly glowing in a strange spiral pattern, as the wraith blade manifests into his hand.  

The ghost-like blade flashes in a flurry of motion, aiming to strike at the source of the screech, and then the next target.  Again and again, he strikes, before finally the sword turns red, and he lifts it up, showering the zombies that are rising in flames.  

'The creatures were not like the ones from our world.  Immune to the rays of the sun.  However, we shall test their ability to handle the touch of flame.'

This causes the ghost to move back into a defensive position, looking around.  If there was a 'master' as she called out...
Deelel Deelel had to give them a chance as it seems yup these guys are graverobbers from the looks of it, they also didn't down and by her user, they really are undead very freaky rather looking undead. It's time to fight, and Deelel snaps her wrist summoning her high tech looking keyblade to it. She stares down the undead as they start to rise, memories of a viral outbreak when she was younger comes out into her head. It was so much like it, and she takes off like shot, while shes fast? The undead are pretty numerous and they do manage to grab hold of her before she's able to wriggle free and keep moving. It's also clear she did get a bit roughed up from that too,

She'll start hacking away with her keyblade. She's putting a lot of oumps into it trying to get her allies some breathing space, while she tries to also size up how many undead they might be facing.

"Athenla we need to keep them from mobbing us or our allies!"
Roxas Roxas claps his hands over his ears as the shriek of the woman reaches him and-- immediately gets dogpiled by a bunch of bodies. Great. The first action that he's seen to take is a fantastic burst of light that sends zombies scattering back from him -- harmlessly, it's simply a pushback that buys him the space to actually /do/ anything.

"Aw, c'mon! The smell is going to be all over me, me." Muttergrumble. The only good thing is that Mog is prepared to deal with this sort of crap, so there's really no /problem/ with this. It's just a short-term inconvenience.

Fortunately, Roxas occupies the same setting as a bunch of Final Fantasy characters, so he knows what to do immediately.

"CURAGA!" He cries into the surroundings, thrusting an outstretched hand towards the zombies. Sparkling particles imbued with light race through the mass of corpses. Just in case he's wrong and a core damaging component turns out to be useful.
Seifer Almasy      Oh cool. Skeletons. He's not too happy that the necromancer turned out to be a woman (she'd probably be cute if she had skin and stuff); he was expecting a wicked black-robed guy with a knife over a woman-

     -wait, why was he expecting that? That's not...a Sorceress...

     Seifer's momentary distraction as he tries to figure out why he thought *that thing* gets him bit. He gets clipped by one of the skeletons, slashed across the chest. It reveals the bandages underneath - bandages from the very major beating he took at the hands of Rider in order to finish him off. He flinches reflexively, which gives the skeleton a chance to go at his face.

     No way.

     The gunblade swings up at an impossible angle, bouncing into the skeleton's claws. It tears through the claw like paper. Seifer pushes his foot against the skeleton and sends it *flying* forward, to crash over a grave and probably come apart and pelt everything.

     There's a lot of skeletons.

     Seifer's lips split into a wide grin as he goes *barrelling* forward into the mass of them. His blade carves into skeletons left and right. It's like watching Da Vinci paint the Mona Lisa, or hearing Mozart play music. Seifer is a *genius* with that stupid-looking weapon, and his talent far surpasses anything an ordinary person could do even with a *sword*.

     No wonder he's so excited to be in the thick of it.
Axel The graverobber is held up...and is also a skeleton...and is also shrieking enough to cause earpain to the nearby Axel. In a flash of darkness, silver and red chakrams appear in his hands, and immediately, one ignites in flame as he moves to slice through the woman's neck and decapitate her, spinning the disk like a saw to silence her. Though that might not be enough to kill her, and he's almost certainly going to get mobbed. So to cover himself...

Axel points his spare hand behind himself, gesturing. He's not as focused on the mobs as everyone else, but he'll likely take out a handful that focus on him, probably as they're tearing at his robes and scraping into his flesh, with a big burst of fire in the form of a sphere moving to get them off his back. "Burn, baby, burn!"
Evangeline      Evangeline looks over and raises a hand to offers a very slight wave to Deelel. "...hello again...Deelel...how are you..?" she says before looking at the moogle. Luckily she doesn't actually squeeze, just pets it for a few moments before moving on. "...Oh...if there is a charge...I will pay it..." she says. The details will have to wait though. The portal is opened, they all start through...and already there is trouble. A graverobber. Evangeline doesn't really understand the whole 'humans burying their dead in the ground' thing, but she does find it odd that this human seems to be a skeleton with a proper head on it.

     She floats up and over the gate, only to find herself assaulted by corpses. This -really- doesn't make sense. If these people were all raised by the same person, why was one trying to steal from the others? She dodges the incoming strikes as best she can, and those that hit cause a blue sphere of hexagonal energy panels to form around her. She then rises above the graveyard a short distance as the ends of her sleeve-like arms and the red panels on her wings start to glow. "...I am sorry...I know it isn't your fault..." she says to the corpses below before she fires a multitude of thin, vectoring red beams, trying to take out as many targets as she can in one go. The area becomes tinted in red light, and each beam causes an explosion as it vaporizes things on contact.
Lilian Rook     "Is it? That's a bit tacky, right?" says Lilian, who is now behind the Sheriff despite having left well before him and standing in the graveyard ordering the robber to do things (she absolutely knows what a banshee is, and like hell she's going to stand around in a scream AoE). "Are you sure you should be doing that?" she then asks Seifer, with all the luxury of sounding cool and aloof that someone who cheated out of getting earblasted is afforded, ostensibly in response to his bandages. "There's no shame in sitting this one out and waiting for the big bad."

    That rapidly turns out to be a misestimation though. She visibly chokes down a snort when he produces the ridiculous-looking gunblade and holds it in his trademark equally ridiculous way, and then ends up holding it in her throat for a good few seconds when he actually gets to work, as impressed by the sheer absurdity as the actual skill. ". . . hm, well I guess I take it back then."

    Lilian does a little more looking around, partly to survey the enemy formation and the limits of their intelligent movement and targeting, and partly just to watch with a critical eye. "A couple of nice swords here, I see. For randoms, anyway." says the young lady with a perfectly boring looking normal sword strapped over a shoulder. "A little unimpressive that the small fry managed to catch some of them off guard, but it's fine."

    She then raises her voice, holds her hands to the side of her mouth, and yells "You heard the woman! So would the old master please come out and promptly surrender? It's okay if you don't! I'm fine with breaking your everything too!" across the grounds. It echoes.

    Lilian upturns her fingers and twists her wrist as if winding up a key. Interlocking gold tracery expands outwards from her thumb and fingertip, forming layers of elaborate, rhythmically revolving and counter-revolving circular patterns. 'Dialing it in' to the size and contraction she wants, Lilian snaps her fingers, and the layers of magic collapse together into a single, hypercomplicated disc.

    The air then crackles and burns away in sleet-angled plumes of reentry flame as dozens of thin lances of 'boiling' and staticky white-gold energy fall out of the sky like the debris from a meteor, skewering zombies with only tiny holes, but causing them to explode into fine mist and red chunks. She rakes the stream of falling particle beams across the graveyard, until it's pounding the steps of the chapel and blowing glowing holes through the roof, in the good old American tradition of air striking any kind of building that probably maybe contains a bad guy.

    The Warden would probably have a conniption if he knew how she was doing it, but he can suck it. "If you hurry it up, I promise not to get my sword out~"
Xion Via blade and spell and quite a bit of fire and light, space is bought by the intrepid group of 'like actually 6 more people than needed for this encounter built for 2-3 Heroic Do-Gooders' from the absurdity of 'the entire graveyard coming back un-alive, rising from their grave in their open-casket best'. Spears work (they're zombies), as do the flats and sharp bits of blades and weapons (zombie skeletons), spearing through and snicker-snacking away decaying corpse remains (and bits of flesh-rotted cloth) from the group before a saturation bombing of green-tinted motes of curing (see: searing) light Do The Opposite to zombie skeletons without class levels or templates and the tremendous symphony of vectored fire and fray-leaping circular ballet of swordplay framed by the CLICHE TRACER LASER EXPLOSIONS that tear up earth and upset the headstones.

Meanwhile, Raziel and Axel go to silence the banshee. This sucks. A lot - the scream, while closing, becomes a physically tangible wail of heart-stopping terror.

Heart-stopping... Terror.
To... R-raziel. And Axel. With the power of flaming chakrams, the Soul Reiver, and a casual disregard for 'being scared, but to shitty status effect death', the pair American History X the banshee into a burned, Reived empty skeleton whose pale skin immediately rots as the magic (and bound soul) leaves her.

This is when thunder booms overhead, in the dry warm air. The completely clear, summertime sky.

A lightningbolt reminiscent of a Victor Frankenstein movie crackles down and--

--Is utterly consumed by an orbital bombardment of Screw This Entire Thing lightshow called down by Lilian, a single human shape inside lit in relief on the window as the entire place Heckin' Explodes in a shower of flinders and little wicking motes of magic.

John whistles through his teeth. "T'aint 'unseen' about that order, ma'am." He mutters appreciably, as a black-robed man with a long white beard stumbles out - Roxas would recognize him as the rather nice groundskeeper who let the Cult Kids cut through his graveyard. "You've KILLED my wife! AGAIN! And... she was just... going to prepare the latest graves for their new empowerment, in their second life! But I won't let you INTERLOPERS ruin my good works. I'll save all my flock, and let them live again, under the auspice of the moon! I will share it with you, too! The finger -- OF THE GRAVE!"

A staff snaps into being in one gnarled old hand, tipped in a dark onyx, and is swept out, a pulse of ill-feeling magic heralded by the wild whites of his frantic eyes.

Out of the air, a veritible cloud of Helpful Pointer Fingers (you know, like from Final Fantasy 7) gnarled and twisted into a single outstretched long-nailed finger try to touch the entire group. If they touch skin - a wasting curse, of awful pain, turning healthy flesh (or, in some cases, metal and otherwise) into rotting flesh. If they touch heart - through clothes or armor, even - much worse will happen.
Raziel The Soul Reaver flashes, as the soul of the Banshee, is drawn into it.  He can hear the scream of the soul as the mad soul that formed the reaver blade devours the soul it had managed to grab ahold of.  There is a surge through the blade, as the Reaver becomes excited.  He would have to be careful, lest he draws the blade's ravenous hunger on himself.  

Turning towards Axel, he delivered a nod.  However, he turns on a heel as the true Necromancer appears, and not even before his speech finished, blasted them with a touch of death.  However, Raziel was not so easily destroyed, in fact, while it hurt a bit, he starts slowly starts healing the damage delivered.  Undead flesh slowly restoring itself as he narrows his eyes towards the actual treat.  

'The source of this disturbance finally showed himself.  Withered, and attached to corpses as if they were the living.  A disgusting thought, however, I had long grown away from such attachments.  However, the man was angry and dangerous.  We would have to deal with him fast, to prevent more defiling of the dead.'

Raziel moves, trying to get near the old man, before jumping towards one of the gravestones, before using a telekinetic force to launch himself towards the old man, aiming to soar at him Reaver first, aiming to try and smash the man into the ground, before unleashing a flurry of thrusts.  

"Necromancer, your defiling of these corpses ends today.  We will send your mad soul screaming into the afterlife, where they belong."
Seifer Almasy      Oh cool, death hands.

     Oh cool, an *actual necromancer*.

     Seifer is on this like white on rice. He goes diving through the host of hands, narrowly avoiding being touched right on the heart. He gets to feel cold, rotten, and awful as some of his flesh deteriorates. He shrugs it off, because he does not give a shit right now. This is what he's supposed to be fighting. This is a Hero Moment.

     Why is this a hero moment, though...?

     Huh.

     Well, anyway. Seifer bounds over the grave, touched by the hands, parts of his face rotting unpleasantly as he goes in. His gunblade swings around as he takes a suitably dramatic stance.

     "No good works here, motherfucker! Zombies are fucked up!"

     Seifer moves forward through Raziel's flurry of thrusts. At first it looks like he's going to stab the man, or cut him.

     Instead he just knees the guy in the jaw.

     "Plus they paid me, and, no offense, but your wife ain't got any *skin*!"
Deelel Deelel does not enjoy this it's rather creepy and she knows humans have certain views about how to treat the dead. Conversely she doubts any of the original owners of the risen bodies would be angry at the living defending themselves right? Either way, she does not want to be zombie food, right? She's gearing up for a new wave of attack when the Necromancer reveals himself she pauses about the death of his Wife again? Wait what is the Necromancer doing?

Deelel finds out in short order as the finger rain comes. The Finger rain is coming for her and she just moves, with all the speed she can muster, she zigs and zags avoiding the rain, leaping over the dead and some tombstones in the process but she emerged unharmed.

She does not look happy.

"Be together with her in the hearafter...if that is your choice."

She'll then start casting spells a lot of blizzards and Aero class spells. Wind and Ice will buffet the Necromancer, as Deelel does this, however, she's not even done yet.

That is mostly cover as she gets in trying to get up close and personal with the Necromancer with her keyblade and she'll attempt to cut down any undead who get in her way.

"This needs to stop I have seen where it leads!"

She'll keep up the attack trying to get the Neromancer to stop casting, this stuff has to stop she'll even flip over him if she can to strike from behind.

She will also time her attacks to take into account Seifer and Raziels own so she does not clip them with her own attacks.
Axel Axel can feel his heart pounding as he closes up for that execution strike. However...he doesn't feel terror. He actually just calmly, coolly, continues to strike after the briefest pause, taking out the banshee skeleton with the help of Raziel, who also gets a nod. It's time to march forward. As the gravekeeper reveals himself as an insane necromancer and starts spouting that crazy, Axel just ignites his second chakram, and casually spins them in his hands.

"You know, I thought you were pretty nice. But, looks like the graveyard shift drove you batty, eh? Let's clean this up."

Which Axel says right before the horrible pointer fingers impact with his skin. His flesh begins to rot as he grunts in horrible pain, staggering back as he clutches his rotted arm. It really hurts, but it's not enough to stop him from fighting. It is enough to stop him from making a big attack, though, so Axel goes simple.

The chakrams go boomeranging out in an X shape, moving to try and cut through the necromancer and strike him down or set him partly on fire as Axel dashes in his direction.
Athela Valemore With a firm yank Athela pulls her sword from the ground, swinging it in circle one-handed to shake some of the grave dirt and undead remains off before regripping it in both hands. "The twisting of the strings of life end tonight, so these souls can rest in proper peace."

As massive twisted fingers appear and thrust forth she kippups backwards, using the frosted ground that remains from her attack to slide away from one of the ghastly appendages stabbing towards her. Several more follow, that are knocked askew with deft swipes of her divine blade. Save for one that manages to angle past the weapon, and as she ducks scratch across her shoulder. Athela hisses as she teeters a moment, a motly patch of withering skin on the side of her neck where the dastardly digit grazed. Several severed strands of hair flit to the ground, greying from their vibrant red before crumbling away into dust.

The gnawing sensation at her neck is, for the moment, put aside. Her own discomfort matters not in comparison to those who would suffer, living or departed, that would suffer this man's mad machinations.

"The tides shall wash away your diseased presence, necromancer!" shouts the young knight as she does just that. She steps forward and swings low with her weapon past her side and arcing it upward. Elemental water surges up and outward with the arc, escalating quickly into a rising wave of water!

That rolls up like a tsunami and then comes bearing down with enough crushing force to plow through the accousting appendages and crash down upon the maker of undead!
Lilian Rook     "I mean, it *used* to be a secret society, but then a lot of stuff happened --for everyone." Lilian raises her voice in response to John to get it over the sound of burning air, sizzling beams, exploding stone and shrieking shrapnel, apparently starting to warm up to him due to the compliments rolling. "Besides. This man is technically the only witness 'out of the loop'. If he's gone at the end, then there's no problem."

    With a twist of her fingers, Lilian disassembles the whole circle like disengaged gears, and the barrage subsequently stops, giving the smoke a little time to clear. "That's a sad story, old man." Lilian then calls over the grounds. "Sorry though, you'll have to blame the Warden here. He has a problem with the way you're doing things, and it so happens that you're digging up corpses without a medical or investigative authorization to be doing so. So if you'd-"

    Giant hellish necromantic pointer fingers. Lilian squints upwards, narrowing her eyes in just the slightest hint of wondering whether to think of it as silly or occultically meaningful for a moment, and then her eyes track back down. "Now it's attempted murder, hm? You're really going to regret that, you know. I might have been able to help you out if you were just afraid of getting your head cut off with an anti-magic sword-" Oh yes she's heard about it "-but I'm afraid you're out of luck now."

    These are the kinds of fights that Lilian likes. The sort where the enemy has big windups and telegraphed tells to all their attacks, relying on mooks and gimmicks. It's the easiest kind to cheat. The kind where she has a good second of warning to squeeze time by the neck and drag it to a halt a little more tenderly.

                -----[stop]-----
    Lilian starts walking forward. She cranes her neck up to look at the giant undead hand flying overhead, turning her head as she walks to grimace at Seifer's physical rotting and excitement, and then to Raziel looking all giddy feeding on souls on the opposite side of her. Her feet lift off the grass, and she glides over at a running pace, settling down again just before the necromancer, and then striking onetwothree flash punches into his gut, sternum, and ribs, kicking one leg out from under him as she steps past, and delivering an elbow strike to the back of the head as she does so. She doesn't use her full strength, because she doesn't want to turn him into blood jelly, so she has to guess a little bit how much is too much or too little.
                -----[start]-----

    The grass ruffles, and Lilian is once again dramatically behind someone. This time it's the necromancer himself, who is/has been/will be the subject of a kind of brutal physical roughousing of the kind that rioters go to ICU for. Turning back to look, flipping her hair over her shoulder, Lilian says "Sir, I'm going to need you to stop resisting arrest. I repeat, sir, stop resisting."

    She really is on a field trip with these America-isms.
Evangeline      Evangeline isn't fast enough to avoid that touch. It passes right through her shield somehow and she actually lets out a sound that isn't broadcasted over devices. A metallic-sounding gasp...followed by an ear-piercing metallic shriek as those pain and rotting effects take hold. Pieces of her black form start to flake away, disintegrating into cherryblossom-colored powder, and it seems the touch missed her 'heart' by only a small margin as a rose-colored glow becomes visible from a growing hole in her torso. She quickly covers it with her arms, though the glow is still visible through the cracks. Those who managed to get a glimpse might have seen the lower portions of a fist-sized gem, roughly spherical in shape thanks to its many facets.

     A silvery glow can be seen around the edges of the wound, but it seems to be continually kept at bay by the effects of the rotting attack. Damaged as she is and having to guard her core with her arms, the little Neuroi can only fire with the panels on her wings. A small number of those vectoring beams are fired toward the necromancer. If he is controlling the hand that seems to be the best course of action.
Roxas It isn't his heart that stops.

A Nobody is made of flesh and blood, this much is true. But what you're ultimately attacking when you attack them is not their body but their ability to keep themselves constituted. So when that strange spell reaches Roxas, his heart doesn't stop. He flickers, bleeding substance into the surroundings, shadows flowing off of him like great tongues of flames. It feels strange, in a way that Roxas can't actually articulate-- to himself, much less anyone else.

Unlike Axel, he /can/ feel afraid in a conventional way.

Also unlike his fellow Nobodies, Roxas has the capacity for bravery that does not exist within their spectrum of existence. stares out towards the old necromancer, dropping into a low stance. The flowing color that dances away from him begins to cease, the last wisps of it evaporating into the surroundings unceremoniously as the newborn threads of "being" that had only just begun to drift away draw themselves back in.

Roxas takes a step forward and transforms to light. It cuts across the old necromancer in a streak that carries on past it. Perhaps he re-materialized momentarily and struck in that moment-- and perhaps he didn't. It's /real/ hard to tell.

But as something vanishes from his hand as he re-materializes a few yards to the necromancer's rear, Roxas skidding to a halt and trying to catch his breath, it's probably safe to assume so.
Xion The gnarled staff of onyx and the Necromancer surges with a dark force as Raziel closes to smash the man into the ground, the flying strike being met with a wall of bone that first must be shattered through - the Soul Reaver tearing through the bone as so much magic-stuff and ephemera solidifies into calcium-rich shards - and the Reaver bites against the man's chest.

Which, even for a weapon like the Soul Reaver, is like hitting an oak tree with a well-swung axe. Certainly the tool for the job, but still, a surprisingly durable if emaciated frame.

"My power is that of life! Life! Can't you see?!" He wails, and sends Raziel back with a literal tidal wave of further conjured bone, harmlessly but annoyingly blasting him back with a classic 'boss shoves you away transitional move'.

"THERE ARE MANY GOOD WORKS!" Howls the necromancer, as he sends Raziel away, turning with fierce contention to the man who'd call zombies... THE BIG NAUGHTY WORD, GASPPPPPPPPP

GASPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP!!!!!!

Seifer's masterful bladework is a sight to behold, but his flying knee comes out of freakin' nowhere, cracking the man's jaw with a mighty snapping sound akin to breaking a arm-thick branch over one's knee and roaring defiantly at NATURE!!!!!!!

Or in this case, not-brittle-at-all old necroman bones. He's certainly juiced on calcium, but he can't speak his jibba-jabba any more with his entire jaw smashedly dislocated.

As the necromancer uses his leg to step-kick Seifer away (again, mostly harmlessly), Deelel flips right over his head, his wangling staff incapable of swatting her over the air, where her key-blade strikes though his back. You know, there's a lot of flesh in the back. Bone, too. But focusing the strike at the tip of the blade allows piercing weapons to take advantage of lower surface area!

Or, in Deelel's case, screw all that, the end of her weapon is a giant keyhead, and it rams right through his lower body and spills (slightly rotting, darkened) viscera across the ground, causing the necromancer to gasp and groan, swinging his staff like a bat to wallop Deelel away - carrying her key out of his chest with a wrenching tug as well. Oops! Ow.

Axel gets his one liner without a Villianous Quip Of Opportunity because, well, Seifer smashing his jaw in is still a Thing that Happened, and Axel's vaguely Protagonistic X-Cut (every protagonist has an x-cut attack, Prove Me Wrong) of flame crucifying him in flame (at a 45 degree angle, but, hey, it's poetic, sue me) as the burning chakrams erupt in a blast of superheated magic.

NOW he screams in pain, gurgling and wet as his wounds are cauterized - not that that matters at all.

Following that, he's cooled down by a nice, cold bucket of water. Athela is such a nice person, especially after that rude Axel did his X-CUT of fire at the Necromancer. Respect for her elde-

Oh wait that's a magic killer tsunami. That's not respect for her elders at ALL. Buried under a magical deluge of crushing tidal forces, when he re-emerges, he's flagging and steaming, soaked to the bone and dripping blood and water in near-equal amounts. He can barely manage an 'I...!'

Before three strikes - bleeding keyhole in his gut, now-cracked sternum, and splintering ribs - his suddenly faling leg tactically swept out from under him, and then his head Police Brutality'ed in, face down on the ground. It's pitiful, and if someone had a smartphone, would make great viral media as Lilian tells him to SIR PLEASE STOP RESISTING.

He really doesn't have a choice, now, does he? Staggering - flaggingly - to his feet, he struggles to stand. It's pitiful, but there's a swelling of magic power. A susuration in his voice that gurgles direly. Local policies with wizards is to kill them very fast for a very specific reason.
Xion Scarred by the panel lasers that skate across his body like cutting wire but don't quite seal the deal of 'stopping his spell-work', one final spell.

"Aw hell." John mutters, reaching like lightning to his side; not for his knife, but for a revolver tucked into a mostly-concealed holster hanging at his thigh. His draw is like lightning, but there's something else that's quite a bit faster than the peal of thunder:

Light itself, a flashing zip-zip-zip and then --

What perhaps only Lilian can appreciate fully, a single shining moment, a one-frame meeting of keyblade and body. Like right out of a samurai movie, Roxas lands, and then... Right after, John Pritchard's bullet lands right at the center of the Necromancer's dome, but the head doesn't loll, and the body doesn't fall. Instead, like a punted football, the head goes flying off, still gurgling out one last dark spell that will never be completed.

Whistling relievedly, Pritchard pushes up the brim of his hat with his sixgun, and gestures to the group. "Damn sight of fine work there... 'cept a the end. Don't ever let a wizard get 'one last' spell off. Death curses... nasty business. When a man's got nothing to lose, the power they can pull out of their boots will blow your spurs off."
Raziel The wave of bone sends Raziel away, staggering him for a moment, but not actually hurting him.  He narrows his eyes as the necromancer goes on about it being life magic.  However, it appears he was ready to charge another spell.  

However, thanks to the quick action of the group, and their ally it would never come to pass.  The man's head flies off, the spell stuck in his throat, and Raziel lets out a sigh.  However...

He draws the standard that covers his mouth down, revealing a mouth without a jaw.  However, as he does so the ethereal air attempts to draw in the lost souls of those who would be nearby.  Very specifically, he is looking to draw in the soul of the former Necromancer, aiming to devour it and send it to its next life.

The act itself, if successful, would start repairing the flesh of Raziel, restoring him back to greater functionality, as the Soul Reaver itself shifts back from a sword, to a swirl of energy on his clawed hand.  Slowly, the standard returns to it's position covering his jawless face.  
Axel Axel's X-cut succeeds with the help of tsunamis and lasers and knees and other dangerous stuff, and Roxas manages to help prevent the guy from getting a last spell off. As they wrap up, the chakrams are desummoned, and a hand is waved over the side of his arm. "Cura." Petals and golden bells appear over Axel as the rotting flesh starts to get repaired, though it'll still be sore and damaged for the rest of the night.

And then, through a flash of dark hammerspace...Axel retrieves his icee and finishes it. /That's/ where it disappeared to! He's going to head back to the laundromat, get whatever they get in return, maybe hang out with friends, and then head back home to nap some more. Truly the adult life.
Athela Valemore Watches the head fly into the distance after all the other pummeling the dark man took. "Your advice is wise," Athela replies to the Sheriff as she sheaths her divine sword. "Where I come from, they tend to use it to violently explode themselves." She so hates when the cultists do that. Hollowed are pretty much undead as she sees it, so similar circumstances.

Now that the fight is over she pulls off a gauntlet, and presses her hand to the spot on her neck that got necrosis-fied. There's a bit of a soft hissing and misting effect as she uses water's cleansing aspect to heal the withering effect before it spreads farther.
Roxas Roxas rises from a crouch. He just sort of stares blankly, sufficiently revolted with /everything/ that just happened that he really doesn't even want to process it at all. He turns 'round in place, and waves a hand to summon another Corridor of Darkness that yawns open onto the sidewalk in front of the Shitty Laundromat.

He unapologetically strips down to his shorts, immediately deposits his corpse-y and gut-sy clothes for washing, and grabs a spare black coat he knows will be there because they end up in these situations at least once every couple of days.

Looking a little shellshocked, he wanders right on back to the back of the counter and grabs one of the remaining slurpees, mindlessly sipping on it while staring at a wall.

Apart from giving people a route back to the QUEST GIVER-- Roxas is just waiting for Xion to be done here and trying not to think about any of that too much.
Deelel Deelel is a program she can not unsee anything she has ever seen and she will never be able to unsee this. The smell is strong enough to haunt her too, she's pulled back, however. The Necromancer was under himself and she scrambles back as her allies come in with blade spell and more. She does get a clear view of the final takedown from Roxas attack she can't view it, in the same way, say Lilian might be able to do. She looks away shaking her head and banishing her keyblade for the moment. 5R
She looks to the Sheriff for a moment.

"I will heed that warning."

A final death curse, magic that costs your life to use, the sort of thing you use on your way out. She'll keep that in mind but if she had blood? She'd be very pale right now.

"I think that's our end of it I best be going."

She'll head back to Mog to make sure it's handled and in the end? Xion may have been the lucky one to miss all of this.
Lilian Rook     Lilian was sort of hoping for the bag of bones to give up when police brutality-d to the ground, but the deranged old fart gets up and starts chanting up a death curse, not only 'after all that', but solely to spite them at the likely cost of his own life just because he'd been beaten. She stops in an unseen instant, but by the time she has, and turned around, Roxas is already in perfect laser samurai slash freeze-frame through the guy, and so after a couple of seconds of appreciative looking around (and taking a picture), she steps back and lets nature take its course.

    Lilian sticks her tongue out a little in distaste when the old man's slightly rotting head flies off like a sack of crimson potatoes, but she only watches it rolling through the dirt for a little while, before it being back to business, strutting back to group looking incredibly smug and self-confident for cheating her way out of harm the entire time.

    "Curse. Now there's an old-fashioned word." she says. "Well, it was his funeral I guess. If you want to make the case that what you're doing is morally arguable, you don't . . . well, you don't go down that entire checklist of wrong choices, honestly." She pulls her hairpin and lets it back down again, shaking her head to clear her shoulders. "I would have been fine. Does that take care of what you were nagging the moogle for?"

    She spares a glance back over. "Oh, and good job I guess. Roxas and Axel as usual, obviously, but that ridiculous handgun bayonet apparently worked perfectly fine. Same for that somewhat less ridiculous ice sword glaive . . . thing." She looks at Raziel, as if deciding whether to pay a half-assed compliment as well, but her expression sours a little upon realizing how he's regenerating himself.

    "If so, I'd like you to deliver the payment and then go home." she says to John.
Evangeline      Evangeline's wound finally starts to close properly as the necromancer's head goes flying. She is still for a few moments, then she slowly raises her arms until they are straight up and down. "...gooooooaaaaal..." she says in a much quieter and monotone voice than such a word should be uttered. And possibly mixing sports.

     The glow in her torso finally disappears completely, and she visibly relaxes. Which is unusual in itself, because she doesn't show appropriate visible reactions all that often. She then looks to Raziel. "...what did your sword do to that person..?" she asks, motioning to where the banshee-like creature fell.
Xion "A death curse--" John begins, but Roxas handles the explanation better than he can, what with his drawl. It's mostly a formality. Death Curses... They're just kind of a Thing. He adds a few explanatory bits at the end, and then dusts his hands, returning his free thumbs behind his belt.

With that handled, John slowly holsters his gun with an idle twirl, nodding in turn to everyone. "Mog'll handle yer payment. He owes me for ramblin' on past his little..."

There's a grimace, and a downturn of the brim of his hat as he turns to leave. "Marble operation."

Moseying on down the street, Warden (Sheriff) John Pritchard meanders away from the group with a thunk-tink of boots and spurs..

From Roxas' Corridor, Mog comes with over a dozen sacks all heavily burdening his little bat-wings.

"Alright, valued clean-- customers, c'mere for your reward. Or don't! If you leave your property alone, after fifteen minutes I'm legally allowed to claim it as mine again, kupo!"

Each person gets two sacks: One brown, one green. The brown one is more a paper bag, with a jarrito soda of random variety and two split-shelled red nuts. When consumed, they raise your Strength Score by 1. In terms of most of you with hundreds - maybe even THOUSANDS - of points of strength, it's nothing. Incremental. But, hey, eat enough and you may see a 0.01% DPS increase! Tremendous. The sort of thing you'd let rot in your inventory for the 'right character'. The other bag - the green one - contains shining, twinkling Munny, which is basically credits that a rainbow barfed on. They spend like credits.
Seifer Almasy      Seifer takes his reward. He is busy explaining Gunblades to people who do not understand them when Roxas says something Very Particular. Seifer's hand goes to his head. His reward spills out over the floor. The Munny bounces around.

     He grabs Roxas by the shoulder.

     "Hey. Hey! What movie? What movie do you mean?!"

     There's something wild in Seifer's eyes, something that wasn't there a moment ago when he was looking all cool and suave and badass and showing off Hyperion.

     It's desperation.

     If Roxas doesn't answer fast enough, Seifer will lift him off the ground by his collar and shout at him.
Roxas Roxas, who is AT THE COUNTER and pretty clearly trying to forget what he just deal with, drops his icee in surprise when grabbed. He thinks about it a minute, and shakes his head, "I don't know, Xigbar was watching it. He's older than most of us, so he's really into a lot of that stuff. It was filmed back during the Sorceress War-- I remember 'cause he asked me if I knew that the dragon in it was /really/ a dragon, but I said no, so he started talking about it a lot. I think the hero's name was Zefer? I can just /ask/ him if you want."
Seifer Almasy      Sorceress War.

     Zefer.

     The dragon really was a dragon.

     "The Sorceress's Knight?"

     His voice is barely above a whisper. His free hand is over his eyes. He's *dropped Hyperion*. It's landed sticking straight up out of the floor. It's very sharp.

     "Is it the Sorceress's Knight?" he asks again. His voice is a little louder this time. He hasn't let go of Roxas.
Athela Valemore Athela Valemore doesn't do it for the rewards, but that doesn't mean she's not going to accept when they're offered either. Even if the benefits of the supposed items is questionably insubstantial.

The other is money of some kind. That's always good, especially for someone that does the whole wandering hero randomly helping people and dealing with rediculous side-quests routine.

And getting food that's always important too
Roxas "I think that's what he /was/." Roxas admits, "But I don't know the title or anything. I guess it would make sense to name something after the hero though, so... probably? The actor was this really famous guy..."

He screwed up his face a little thinking about it, "Lagoon, or something like that. Because he was one of the people who locked the Sorceress up, back then."

"Do you... do you need an ambulance?" He asks, perplexed.
Evangeline      Evangeline follows the group back to Mog's Laundry, her various wounds continuing to knit back together the entire time until she looks almost as pristine as she did before the fight. She takes the rewards, then tilts her head slightly. She doesn't really drink water-based drinks, but she bows to Mog all the same. "...thank you..." she says, then looks in the other bag. Oh look! Tasty metal snacks!

     Without thinking much about it, Evangeline takes one of the Munny from the bag and in a very practiced set of motions opens a mouth she didn't have before and puts the Munny inside, then closes her 'mouth'. "...mmm..."

     She listens to the conversation around her and watches Seifer with curiousity. "...are you alright..?" she finally asks.
Seifer Almasy      Seifer drops Roxas. Both hands go to his head. He doesn't look like he's in pain. He looks like he's struggling to remember something. Flashes of something. Like he's trying to know something he's not supposed to know. Like he's trying to pull something important out.

     Briefly, he looks up, past everybody. He's looking off into the distance, like at the horizon. "What?" He says to thin air.

     "Are...you sure?"

     Another pause.

     Seifer shakes his head. He pulls himself up, shakily. Then he pulls up his gunblade, pulling out of the ground. He takes a step forward.

     "Dangit!"

     He punches the nearest hard object. It might be a gravestone. It might be something else. He looks like he's sweating. His eyes are slightly dilated. After a moment he waves off Evangeline and Roxas.

     "I don't need an ambulance."

     "I need to go find Molly Carpenter."
Roxas Roxas finds his feet fairly easily, but he can't help but stare at Seifer as he /talks to nothing/ like some sort of crazy person. He is rapidly coming to the conclusion that maybe this guy /is/ crazy, slowly crouching down to retrieve what's left of his icee as he puts just a /little/ bit of distance between them. A half-step out of Seifer's arm's reach, it looks like. He sips on the icee again.

"Uh..."

Unfortunately, Roxas DOES NOT KNOW MOLLY CARPENTER. Some sort of PLOT CONTRIVANCE that DID NOT OCCUR robbed him of the SICK EXPOSITION that would be required to remedy this misunderstanding. He shakes his head, "I don't... know who you're talking about. So good luck, I guess?"