Night and Day | INVITE

    Fend whirled around, unsheathing Palibur at the sound of rustling behind her. Was the perpetrator of this passed disaster still lurking in the shadows?! She tensed as a nearby bush rustled again ominously, and then... There was a croak, and a tiny blue frog hopped out of hiding. Fend breathed a sigh of relief, sheathing Palibur again. This area had a terrible air of dread and suspense. She felt like something was going to jump out of the shadows to get her...

    'There's nothing to worry about, Fend. It's only you here, and no one else.' She internally reminded herself... Well, no one else except her and whoever just screamed her name just then... "Wait wha-"

    And then she felt as if she'd just been hit by a truck. Time and space didn't have any meaning for a few moments as the wind was knocked clean from her lungs and she was sent tumbling to the ground.

    When her vision stopped spinning and she regained her senses, though, realization hit Fend like yet another truck. "E-Erebos?!" Shock overtook Fend's voice- lo and behold, the person who had her pinned to the ground in a tight hug was indeed her long-lost rival. "Holy shit, it really is you, you asshole!!" Despite her cursing, there was nothing but excitement in Fend's words. She quickly returned with a crushingly tight hug of her own. While she'd made plenty of new friends in the past months, but none of them could take the title of her number one rival like the first person she'd met in the mortal world had.

    Fend eventually released her grip and bouncing back to her feet. They had a hell of a lot of catch-up to do- and by the sound of it, Erebos had been very busy on Namek.

    At the mention of Ward's name, Fend gave a loud, exaggerated groan of pain. "Oh gOoOOOd, yeah, THAT bastard man. Stars above, did you see the finals and semifinals of the Budokai, too? Please tell me you saw it, I've been waiting to rant about that atrocity for AAAAAGES. That should have been us in the finals!!" She threw her arms in the air in frustration. Was she being overdramatic...? Yes, absolutely.

    The rest of the tale, though, was a lot more concerning. "Phakk..?" That name sounded familiar... But Fend couldn't put a finger on where she'd heard it before. "Well hot diddly damn, that's... a lot to take in." She grimaced, looking over the wasteland of craters and scars surrounding them. That was a lot of information dumped on her at once. "Did all of that happen here?"

    Palibur began to jostle in its sheath when Erebos showed her the gemstone he'd salvaged from the fight. "Shush, you." Fend spoke to the sword, gripping its hilt to still its tantrum. That little rock couldn't be why Palibur dragged her across the galaxy. But why did she feel like it was staring at her...?

    She turned back to respond, but something she spotted behind Erebos made her expression sink. Maybe Palibur wasn't just reacting to that shadowy gemstone. "Uh, that's cool and I'm sure we have a LOT more catching up to do, but I have a quick question first..." She pointed behind Erebos, where a mass of tentacles, mouths, and eyeballs were creeping out of a crack in the ground- another weakened, tumorous remnant of Phakk's corruption. All of its eyes were locked onto Fend. "What the FUCK is that?"

Ki Masquerade and Ki Suppression are still in use.

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Word Count: 972 (+582)

    Deciding who got first dibs on fighting Azoth and sitting down to watch and yell about the final rounds of the Budokai could wait. The revelation that Phakk tried to turn the whole entire Plait into some eldritch, writhing mass of purple flesh and sharp teeth made Fend feel sick. "...Why would anyone want to do that???" The bewildered Shinjin stammered. Apparently Phakk had gone on and corrupted a child with whatever vile magic this was, too, and Ward still went along with her.

    As Erebos handled a small bit of the corruption, the gears began turning in Fend's head. "Phakk... Wait, shit, isn't she a Shinjin?" Phakk was the outcast Shinjin she'd had a bite to eat with months ago on Earth. She seemed normal enough- a decent person, which was surprising for her kind, but to think that Phakk of all people was responsible for this hit Fend hard. "Damn..."

    There were a lot of things that still didn't add up. "Call me crazy, but isn't most Shinjin magic- even with the rotten ones or whatever- usually a lot less... uh... y'know." Fend paused, widely gesturing gurgling mass of tentacles. "Don't get me wrong, I've known Shinjin in general are hypocritical bastards for awhile now. Funny story, one tried to pass off a literal fuckin' bloody pentagram surrounded by dead bodies as pure good and holy magic to me awhile ago- but this is getting kinda ridiculous." Using sarcasm and humor to cope with shock and horror was nothing new to Fend. She sighed deeply. "First Ward ruins the Budokai, now this. Let me guess, he was all like "i am right because im a boomer, and you are wrong because you're a puny baby mortal, i win" if you tried to reason with him during the whole shebang, right?"

    Sitting around and moping about things wasn't going to help anyone. Erebos explained his attempts at keeping Phakk's influence contained- he'd even started to get a grasp on some light magic too. "Yeah, light magic tends to be real touchy. It takes a loooot of focus n' skill to get it to do what you want." She raised her free hand, conjuring a larger orb of light of her own. She spun it on her finger as it shifted in color and shape. To expect Fend to pass up a perfectly good chance to show off was expecting too much.

    Fend dispersed her light constuct, humming in thought at the mention of Palibur's abilities. Did it have purifying powers, or just fancy light stuff? "I have no idea, let's find out!" She turned to a mass of fangs and eyes pulling itself from a crevasse in the ground, Palibur in hand. The blade shone brightly, eager to smite the blight.

    As Fend began to approach the monstrosity, its many mouths opened wide to screech at the pale light shining from her blade. It turned, trying to retreat back into the depths of the cave it crawled out of. "Oh no you don't--!" Fend swung the sword, firing an arc of light at the fleeing abomination. The light burned the corruption on contact, causing it to shriek as half of its mass was completely vaporized. The remaining half spasmed briefly before fading into the darkness of the cavern.

    Fend whistled, turning Palibur around in her hand. "Yyyyup, I think I can confirm this thing's got some sort of burny purifying magic now. The more you know." It shook again slightly in her grip. Whatever Phakk unleashed onto the Outer Plait, Palibur really didn't like it.

Ki Masquerade and Ki Suppression are still in use.
Light Constructs is briefly used as well.

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Word Count: 1,568 (+596)

    Erebos's explanation of Ward's actions only caused Fend's head to spiral in confusion. He still helped Phakk when she turned into some rampaging shadow monster? And then he called the ones trying to stop said shadow monster bloodthirsty? "Ugh, I don't think I'm ever going to understand what the hell goes through that dumbass's head..." Fend rubbed her head. Trying to make any sense out of a Shinjin's thought process gave her a migraine.

    Moving along to the more pressing topic of the corruption's remnants and Palibur's surprisingly favorable matchup against it, Fend twirled the sword in her hand at the thought of its other hidden abilities. "God, I'd kill for this thing to have wifi. My ZPhone's signal is shit on this planet." She turned the sword, looking at the deep cracks running through its hilt. The things she'd give for even the slightest lead to finally find out what Palibur was really supposed to be...

    There was still the corruption that lingered in the kid Erebos mentioned, Pankaa. The demon summoned his Nimbus and prepared to go, but Fend had other thoughts. "W-wait, no, I-I don't want to kill a kid!!" Fend stammered in a panic at the thought of an attempt at purification going horribly wrong. "M-maybe if I can find a way to fix this thing, it could work?? Cause, uh, right now it's still sorta-" She reached a hand to one of the glowing cracks on its hilt. A stray spark of light burned at her finger, causing Fend to pull her hand back with a hiss of pain. "...Like that, yeah. But unsurprisingly, finding someone or something that can fix a sword that may or may not be as old as fuckin' time itself at this point hasn't been easy." 

    "...What the hell does this stuff even do to a person if it gets in them, though?" Fend grimaced at one of the burned, dismembered tentacles she'd scorched off the corruption. The thought of that hellish thing weaseling its way into the mind of anyone, let alone a child, made her feel ill.

    Thankfully, though, the mention of Korin Tower was a much more pleasant topic. "Oh, right! You wouldn't recognize the place now- I went and cleaned it all up. I've even seen some other Nimbus flying around the area now that it's fixed!... Also I kinda live there now too, I guess?" She shugged. "Apparently that tower was once home to some big shot martial arts teacher, but they're prolly super dead now judging by the state we found it in. Apparently their legend's still circling about, though, since I had some people climb up the damn thing- CLIMBING, I repeat- in search of training."

    Fend twiddled her thumbs, a sudden wave of anxiety washing over her. "And then, uh... long story short, I panicked and I may or may not have said I was the student of the dead martial arts guy, and now I'm teaching some people there now???" She felt terrible for lying, but she was in too deep now to go back. "If you see any of them, uh, don't tell them that part please." 

Ki Masquerade and Ki Suppression are still in use.

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Word Count: 2,095 (+527)