The Magic of Discovery

Tsuki's reassuring hand on Lucille's shoulder brings her back down to earth from her panicked state as she hesitantly nods. "O-okay... I trust you," She says, steeling herself. It's fine, she doesn't need to do damage, she just needs to get the giant death scorpion's attention and not die to its attacks. Simple, right? Yeah, totally.

She shakes her head to dismiss her doubting thoughts as she steps forward. When Tsuki casts haste on her the world seems to slow down, giving Lucille more time to react and think about her next move. As she sees the scorpion do its beam attack she notices the crackling electric energy. Seeing a bolt heading right for Tsukiko, she realizes she needs to act. Electricity is drawn to metal right? She glances down to her rapier. Not like she'll need this since she can't hurt it anyways, so screw it. She winds up and throws her rapier to intercept the beam, acting as a metallic lightning rod to absorb the attack and disperse the electricity into the earth once it hits the ground. She also avoids what's left of the partially blocked blast heading her way as she then runs up closer to the scorpion despite her reservations. Putting both hands up to her mouth she yells out at it. "HEY UGLY! You call that an attack? My grandma could dodge that!" She taunts, putting on her best defiant stance. "I bet you couldn't hit me if you tried!"

Once its attack had been thwarted, it clearly looked ready to completely ram the entire home and Tsukiko along with it. Still barring the way were the four who were now in it for better or for worse. Lucille's shouting, however, seemed to make the tail turn to face her and its legs caused it to turn and about face her. It was less about the nature of her insult and more or less the amount of noise she was making. It raised its claws and snapped them rapidly. They then dropped and faced forward as it reared itself back then charged forward.

Ed stepped into the way with his bulky form with arms outstretched, ready to intercept. The moment it made contact, Ed dug his heels into the ground and was pushed back by the force of this creature which made him give a strained grunt. He was barely slowing it down until it was mere meters before Lucille. Ace unveiled a couple of cards that acted as miniature little missiles that arced behind the scorpion and pummeled the sides with the projectiles that made the sound of chinking metal. It was enough to slow it down further but Ed was still struggling to keep it from getting closer. The Heartless finally then pulled out one of its claws from its front acting as a bulwark which Ed saw clear as day as a chance. Mooch saw this as a chance as well and quickly tossed a large chunk of munny at the open claw which seized hold of the currency before it could reach Ed. He then wrested both arms around the other claw and held it down once more as Moray dove into the fray to strike at the other claw to throw it off balance. The claw released its grasp on the munny which was then subsequently retrieved by Mooch with a fiendish little chuckle. Ed then attempted to lift the creature with a great grunt of effort as it was attempting to gain back its balance.

"We got it on the run!"
"Mooch, there exists a thing called irony. Best not to entice it...oh..."

No sooner than Ace finished his sentence did the legs of the beast begin to rattle rapidly against the ground, kicking up dust in the process. Faster and faster until the cloud of dust started to become a whirling force around it which pelted Ed with debris. Then the tail began to whip about alongside the dust storm. Finally, it let loose a chatter as a thundercloud billowed above the storm and began to literally rain down lightning. Ed was thrown off first but not before he gave the beast a strong push backward, the dust storm and thunder cloud following it. The bolts struck Mooch who barely managed to get out with just a jolt to her tail. Ace slid out a few more cards to deflect the lightning bolts and Moray used her rapier in tandem with Lucille's to course-correct the bolts. 

The stray bolts bounced off the barrier Eda had made while a few more struck the ground near Lucille and Tsukiko respectively. Another went directly for Lucille but it was intercepted by Ace who didn't have time to create another card barrier and instead took the brunt of it himself. He fell to one knee and coughed up some smoke.

"Regrettable...but I'll live." he remarked with a rasp. He eyed the miniature storm this thing had conjured and narrowed his visible eye. "I don't think we can get close to it now without getting injured."

Tsukiko didn't see much of the specifics of what happened in the fight in the latest exchange, focused entirely on what she was doing. The two keyblades struggled viciously to resist the fusion, but then almost like flipping a switch, she found the right balance, and they slammed together like they were meant to be one blade the entire time, morphing into a new form



Tsukiko twirled the new keyblade briefly as if to test that it had properly fused, then stepped forward, patting Lucille on the shoulder, then Ace as she cast cure on him to patch up his injury"Good work everyone, I've got this from here" she said, her voice taking an almost ethereal quality to it as her body glowed with power. Clearly this fusion keyblade carried a great deal of power well worth the challenge of bringing it out.

Tsukiko walked to the front of the group, standing between them all and the raging dust storm "I do believe I promised you getting to see some cool magic Lucille, so I'll open strong" she said, pointing her keyblade at the shadow of the heartless inside the storm. It was unfortunate it was thrashing about so much right now, between that and the dust storm she couldn't clearly spot the tail face to target it, but this first shot ought to hurt it enough to get it to shift tactics and open itself up for more attacks

A magic circle expanded from the tip of her keyblade, glowing as it rotated, then a laser beam of magical energy erupted from it to pierce the storm and strike the scorpion, followed by an explosion on contact. It was only the first level of the flare spell line, but it was on a whole other level than the spells Tsukiko had been casting before, even her combination spells. Part of that was her overall power was increased with Equilibrium out, but it was also that this was simply a higher level spell she couldn't even cast without that boost at her current level.

"That spell is called flare, it's probably beyond your ability for now Lucille, but you don't need to wield a keyblade to cast this, in time you'll be able to do the same" Tsukiko said, smiling back at Lucille "of course, I can't quite cast it whenever I want myself, the keyblade is helping. But plenty of people can use this without that crutch. You'll get there in time... but until you're ready"

Tsukiko took a ready stance with hey keyblade, her movements flowed more smoothly now. Her stance seemed more familiar to her with her one blade instead of her usual two, even without the extra power surrounding her, it was clear she was more dangerous now with one blade than she had been with two beforehand.

"You can rely on people further along in their training to fuck things up for you" Tsukiko said with an excited grin, the darkness she was channeling shining through a bit as her bloodlust rose and she grew excited for the coming battle.

Lucille yelps in surprise as Tsuki's hand is placed on her shoulder, and she turns to see the fully combined keyblade and the clearly souped up Tsukiko. She breathes a sigh of relief. "Oh thank goodness, I wasn't sure how much longer we'd have been able to hold that thing off," She says, stepping to the side to give Tsukiko some room to do her thing.

She was admittedly a bit shellshocked from the hectic battle, but there was still a strong part of her that was excited to see just what kind of things magic can do. As Tsukiko charges up a large spell circle, Lucille's eyes widen, further exacerbated by the resulting beam and subsequent explosion rocking the earth. The creature must surely have been obliterated by a blast like that!

Tsukiko's words would bring Lucille pause however. What does she mean 'probably' beyond Lucille's abilities? There's no chance is hell she could produce anything as cool as that! She can barely make a snowflake, let alone a giant laser beam! The crushing weight of expectations bears down on Lucille once more. Were they expecting her to be able to do that? What if it turns out this lack of magical talent is a permanent problem? What if she's a disappointment? Would she be relieved of her duty and thrown out of the house she was given?

The raging anxiety in her head would be interrupted however when the raging scorpion-thing charged forward, shaking Lucille back to the present as she yells. It's still alive?! How tough are these things? She has no choice but to back away as the creature lunges for Tsukiko, powerless to stop it herself. Hopefully Tsuki has that thing covered, especially as Lucille sees a trio of raptor-like approaching. She looks around and sees the otherworlders are preoccupied as well, and Eda's words confirm it. 'Nervous child' huh? Well she certainly isn't wrong...

Her sword quivers in her hand nervously as she watches the three creatures rapidly approaching. She tries her best to steady her breathing. There's no way around it, ready or not she's the only person that can stop them, or at least distract them long enough for the others to clean up. She tightens her grip on the blade, then charges forward with an exaggerated battle cry as she tries to push through her fears with sheer bravado. "Take THIS!" She yells, leaping into a horizontal slash at one of them followed by a thrust with her blade. She still couldn't muster any magic, but hopefully sword swings alone can do the trick.