Trails of lightning were her only warning, a Barrier barely flashing into existence before electric imbued knives strong enough to raise the hairs of her skin even through her armor crashed against her. Before she could even counter, the lighting trail zipped away, the reformed woman hopping in place and adjusting her grip on her knives.

Fast... Aqua narrowed her eyes. For once, the subtle tremble in her body wasn't just from adrenaline. It was from fear. For so long she had fought against unthinking creatures driven only by their instincts, but now? She cartwheeled out of the way, a line of what had to be Thundara strikes but somehow different bearing down on her former position.

Fighting against those humanoid shadows was a pain at first, but overall their fighting style was the same, to the point that she could list at what ranges and what conditions they would perform certain actions. Against a proper sentient being for the first time in near twelve years? She felt safe in saying her concerns were justified.

The sight of Robin rushing in, fists alit with fire magic, spurred her into action. A spinning horizontal strike to close the gap, a falling diagonal slash to cover Robin's recovery, a close range shrapnel style Blizzara; none of them connected, the woman merely swaying side to side as if she were dancing.

"Ugh, are you even trying?"

"No!" Somehow, the shout came from them in unison. Robin rose out of his crouch, uppercut leaving behind a streak of embers. At the same time, Aqua twirled around him, Prelude to Fate arcing down as both offense and defense to cover his exposed torso. Though the woman tried to retreat from their combined strike, a minute application of wind to their backs kept them at her heels, unified strike after unified strike not allowing any respite. A build up of energy made her throw out another Barrier, Robin crouching into the space created by her widened stance. For the briefest moment, before a surge of Fell magic crashed over her senses, Aqua caught the scent of the woman's specific mana signature in several places around them.

"On my signal," he murmured, left hand still ablaze with fire magic, clenching in their signal for 'Barrier'.

The scent of Grima faded, giving way to altered lightning.

Aqua reinforced her Barrier, her focus glowing brightly as she poured mana through it. The impacts of something crashing against her defenses felt as if she was taking them personally, every pointed edge blunted into the same sensation as a punch to her stomach. But she soldiered on. She had taken worse before, and her shield wasn't even cracking, despite the intensity behind the strikes.

Aqua frowned. Was that... was she being attacked from three sides at once? From directly above, and then two attacks from the sides... She glanced towards her right. A crack was beginning to form in the Barrier, and with as many strikes as she was taking, she didn't dare try and repair it.

Suddenly, the onslaught stopped, the woman leaping back into the air.

Her body froze.

It was hard not to, when that overbearing memory of Grima unleashing his might came to the fore whenever his specific brand of Darkness appeared. A cloud of fire tinged smoke exploded outwards, the heat washing over her even through her barrier. Instantly, Aqua dropped her Barrier and dashed forward, tracking the whorls in the smoke to find her target.

There! On a whim, Prelude to Fate was dismissed to her pocket space, her fists tightening as she leapt straight up. Locks of blonde hair undulated through the air, their owner's face clenched in pain.

Small flits of Aero adjusted her approach, allowing her to land a falling kick onto the woman's stomach. Another burst of magic moved her into the prime position to land two punches to her face, and another allowed her the chance to kick the woman to the ground, launching herself further into the air.

Aqua chambered her left hand back, calculations running through her mind like a puzzle slowly being filled. The distance between her and her target, how much power she wanted in the spell, the size of the beam, even the duration; as she thrust her hand out, an array of glyphs flashed out around her hand, the rings rotating with a script she only passingly understood.

"Thoron!"

It was indescribable just how empowering the sensation of a beam of energy the size of her forearm shooting out of her hand was. The draw of magic and how it coursed through her body; the way the hairs on her body raised at the energy flying out; the way her vision brightened as a solid mass of manifested lightning tore through the air.

Mana once again shot out of her body, sending her twisting through the air and away from her assailant. Aqua rolled into a defense position the moment she landed, Robin entering a stance beside her. "Didn't know you knew close combat like that," she quietly remarked.

"You pick things up here and there." His stance tightened, Robin bouncing lightly on the balls of his feet.

"Really?" The woman rose from the ground, pushing off her knee and straightening out. "You seriously used Thunder magic against me?" She narrowed her eyes. Despite her words, there was no denying how frazzled her hair was, nor the scuff marks on the left side of her coat where her heart would be. She scoffed. "Fine then, let me show you what real lightning is!"

For a brief moment, Aqua wasn't sure whether or not the blurred images of their foe was a result of lingering stress in her body, but when Robin moved to intercept a handful of them, she knew they were real. Much too fast to throw out a Barrier, Prelude to Fate bounded back and forth between blocks, her arm slowly growing numb from the sparkles of lightning shooting down her blade.

Instincts screamed for her to turn around, Robin's name barely leaving her lips before she threw out a Barrier. A spray of knives fanned out around them, each one blossoming into small pillars of light and jagged ribbons of that altered Darkness that she had no familiarity with. A tremble in her core made her reflexively flood the Barrier with more energy, the hairline fractures in the panels disappearing with the added strength.

Were those ribbons corrosive to her magic?

Once again the woman circled in on their position, each copy only landing a single strike or two before another took their place. "Getting the feel of things?" Robin asked, a wave of flame flung out from an arm buying him a moment to breathe.

"Barely." Aqua winced as a handful of knives slipped past her guard, the weapons failing to break through her armor but the lighting held within sending spasms across her chest and arm. That one single strike was the herald to a torrent of pain and convulsions. Gashes far longer than the woman's knives should have been capable of tore through her armor and clothes, the chill air making every parallel wound even worse. But all that paled in comparison to the arresting absence of sensation that flared with every slash. She was only vaguely aware that she was being knocked through the air, blacks and dark blues barely being recognized as she tumbled to and fro.

Another surge of Fell magic broke through the haze of disorientation, a fleeting moment of clarity allowing her to correct her body into a one handed handspring. The instant she landed, she let an Esuna circle around her body, leaving her only with the sharp pain of fresh cuts and phantom memories of the electricity wracking her body.

Aqua bit back a curse as a step that was supposed to be solid and sure turned into a stumble. As much as she wished to cast a Cure on herself, doing so meant she would need to dismiss her armor into the protection of her pauldron, and however long it took to bring back out meant she would be so very vulnerable to another string of attacks. A blur of black made her throw up another Barrier, holding it despite the fact the figure slid to a stop well in front of her. Precise, linear streaks of lightning clashed against wide, arcing trails of flame several times, Robin unleashing another concentrated explosion of Bolganone in front of him.

She narrowed her eyes as Robin stepped forward, delivering strike after strike but never succeeding on landing a blow. Something about his movements, beyond the fact that he was taking an up close and personal approach to the woman instead of his usual rear line supportal strikes was bothering her. It was the fact that she knew his reactions were much faster than that. Several times during their spars, when she knew a blow should have landed, suddenly a hand would be there to stop her blade in its tracks, or a spell that was on track to strike his torso would only land as a glancing blow; and that was to say nothing of the red or blue glows that were sometimes mixed with purple at the contact points.

"That's enough!" In the exact same fashion that Robin caused explosions of smoke and flame, a blinding flare of lightning flashed out, the bolts of energy a terrifying blue as they crackled out.

Aqua grimaced as she rushed up to Robin's side. Until that point, her sight was mostly able to make out the details of their foe, but after the eruption of light, she could scarcely make out the silver chains adorning the woman's coat.

"You're not even from this World!" she shouted, flinging her arms out to the side. "You're just some useless Somebodys who somehow slipped past our radars!"

Once again, her breath hitched in her throat, though for an entirely unfamiliar reason. Aqua was keenly aware of how every hair on her body felt raised. Of that strange metallic taste on her tongue that reminded of blood.

"Aqua!" A pulse of Fell magic tore her away from her thoughts. "While she's open!"

For once, it was Robin taking the lead as they charged forward. Bolts of lightning crashed downward from the rapidly clouding sky above them, cutting towards them and forcing them to constantly sidestep.

"And I'm supposed to believe that you're capable of giving me trouble?!"

Aqua threw up a Barrier as another dome of what had to be third tier lightning magic snapped out, dropping it the moment the webbing passed over her. The woman's head twitched to the side as she stabbed forward, Prelude to Fate shooting harmlessly past.

Eyes flicking angrily towards her, her lips curled in a malevolent grin. "Thoron!" she mocked.

Pain. Pain, pain, pain; her entire world consisted of pain and frazzled nerves, of taking one of Terra's rare two handed blows straight to the stomach and being left with nothing but choking gasps of air and a desire to heave. Twin jabs stabbed down into her back, a wave of spasms making her scream a silent scream. "E-Esuna!" With the knives still jammed into her back, Aqua only had a moment of clarity to remove them. She grit her teeth as she reached back to pull one out, muscles crying at the strain, grabbing hold of one of the knives and wrenching her arm to the side, knocking the other blade out.

She supposed in that moment, she should have felt dread. Dread, or resignation. Robin was being assaulted from all directions by a flurry of distorted clones, still as a statue with only red and purple lights flashing where knives met cloak his only sign of action. And still standing, ribbons of lightning writhing around her arms like an unconnected wheel, the woman grinned ferally.

"And now," pen tube thin bolts of lighting streaked all around them randomly, seemingly gathering together into arcs that grew ever larger as they centered in on the woman, "you say goodbye!"

A column of blinding white light shot into the sky. In the corner of her sight yet to be overtaken by the pillar, Aqua noticed cracks in the ground glowing a faint blue-yellow.

Thundaja. The woman was casting Thundaja, and she was a specialist in Thunder magic.

No Barrier would be enough to save her. Protect her, yes, but with her armor bearing a gaping hole over her stomach and so many injuries across her body she lost count, would she even be standing after it landed?

The light grew even further in intensity.

Twelves years in the Realm of Darkness, a Keyblade Master without a keyblade, and here she was, kneeling at her end. How disappointingly fitting.

Aqua closed her eyes as she felt the minute twitches in magic plateau. Her only regret... no, she had no regrets. Only forlorn, tearless sighs.

The magic crackled outwards, screeching outward for but a second before it exploded.

Aqua instantly slammed her right hand onto the ground to support herself, her left shooting up and forming a Barrier around her. The storm, no longer controlled, sent bolts of lighting tearing across the ground every which way. When at last it faded, every breath rank with the scent of scorched air, what remained behind was Sora impossibly in a defensive position, frowning at the woman.

"Larxene," he muttered.

She tsked. "So the hero arrives once more," she drawled. The knives in her hands disappeared in a flurry of electricity, Larxene bringing one arm across her stomach and bracing the elbow of her other with the back of her hand. "Well now, Hero," Larxene leaned forward, a maliciously teasing look on her face, "did you have fun playing with that toy again?"

"Riku isn't a toy!" he shouted back. Almost angrily, he charged forward, attempting to deliver the most telegraphed overhead blow she'd ever seen since she was a child. Predictably, it hit nothing, Larxene rolling her eyes as she side-stepped the blow.

"Are you even trying?" she repeated. "Ugh, whatever. If you're here then that means that brat got what he needed." She frowned and blinked away from Sora's next strike, her body distorting in hazy horizontal lines that almost reminded her of a mirage on the far off distance. "And that means I no longer need to be here." She grinned and waved a hand in parting towards Sora. "Ta tah~" Towards her, and especially towards Robin, she gave a noxious glower.

The moment Larxene disappeared, Aqua stumbled towards Robin, throwing an arm over his shoulder and sagging into him as he took the majority of her weight. "Where are the others?" she immediately asked Sora.

"Uh." The boy blinked, turning to face the skyscraper they had once been on. "I... actually don't know?"

"Aq— Mage Knight! Just find a safe place, we'll pick you up!"

"You heard Hiro," Robin muttered, turning them towards an alley. "Hunker down and recover."

/ - /

Aqua frowned as she lifted her arm to pull out another spoonful of soup, the muscles around her shoulder blade grumbling in protest at the motion. Though Cure could do wonders for wounds, that didn't stop the relevant areas from feeling like the day after a hard day of training.

"Still feeling sore?" Ethel looked up from her bowl, a tiny, concerned look on her face.

She nodded. "Probably won't feel any better until the day after," she answered. "Until then, I'll just have to suffer." She glanced over at Grima, the Fell Dragon had taken control at some point upon the realization that the restaurant they were at was primarily meant for meat. "Would be nice to not need more than a single meal to get rid of aches though," she said pointedly.

"Do not conflate the capability to ignore pain hours after the fact with enhanced regeneration," he responded. That rumbling timbre of his was almost entirely absent, a trait she was only able to note because she was looking specifically for it. "Nor that of an acquired tolerance to pain."

The din of the restaurant took over at that moment, a silence falling over them. For Aqua, it felt vaguely comfortable. There was good food to be had and they were all alive with no debilitating aches or injuries that wouldn't be gone within three days. But she knew that wasn't how it felt for all of them. She glanced at Ethel's face as she spooned out another serving of soup and meat, a clump of noodles taken at the same time. Ethel was thinking upon something heavily, staring at the man beside her who was more than validating the pile of plates beside him of yet to be cooked meat. Just as she was about to ask what her friend was ruminating on, she spoke a single word.

"Eyes."

Aqua looked at Grima, nudging him when he said nothing in response.

"Hm?"

"Your eyes," Ethel repeated. "They're a different color."

"It's okay, Robin," Aqua said, savoring the taste of her meal. Compared to the broth Robin had ordered, hers was rather tame and mild, but it was that stark contrast that made it all the better. "Ethel and I talked about some things while you were gone."

Ethel scoffed. "Talk is a pretty strong word there, Aqua."

"But not an incorrect one," she countered, a sly smile on her lips.

"Do you recall that one alien creature from Fred's comic books?" Grima asked after a moment. "That 'Venom' creature?"

Ethel nodded, a look of confusion appearing on her face.

"Imagine that, but my host and I have reached amiable terms." He set his chopsticks across his bowl, grabbing hold of the extra set he specifically requested and began placing more thinly sliced meat into the cooking pot. "Side effects include extremely elevated magical abilities, a slew of knowledge of which to take advantage of those abilities, and an aversion to meat for reasons I will not go into."

She frowned. "You or..."

"Him."

Aqua waited a couple more moments before she lifted her bowl towards the pot. Grima, not breaking stride, deftly swapped from the chopsticks to the serving spoon with holes in the bottom.

"Which is rather annoying since we've previously proven that meat deals with our heightened fatigue and irregular heartbeat."

She looked up at that. While it was a new fact, it wasn't exactly as if it had many situations to come up. In the Realm of Darkness hunger and fatigue wasn't much of an issue beyond a generally bone deep sense of wanting something, but it was something that you could learn to ignore. Here in the Realm of Light, Heathcliff did an amazing job of providing a vast spread of food, tailoring specific meals for all of them based on their preferences. That Robin, whether because of Grima or Heathcliff, had never provided a reason for concern in the health department was thus unsurprising.

"So... got a name for when you're out and about, Mr. Red Eyes?" Ethel held out her bowl, Grima's eyes flicking towards her but filling her bowl all the same.

"Grima," he answered. "Though I doubt you'd be able to notice my presence as keenly as Aqua, so settling for calling me Robin at all times will suffice." Another silence settled upon them, their waiter bringing another armful of plates, these ones of the lamb variety.

Aqua glanced at Ethel once again, quietly watching as a myriad of emotions warred across her face. At times it seemed like she was going to ask something, and other times her friend contented herself with simply staring at both herself and Grima.

"Something more you wish to learn?" Grima inquired, dipping a few slices of meat in and out the pot before bringing it to his bowl.

Ethel pushed her bowl to the side, folding her arms and leaning forward. "Sora doesn't really know how to keep a secret," she whispered. "He thinks that just because he's only him and his friends in a room that nobody else can hear him."

She nodded. There was a reason why she had Robin's preferred music turned up so loudly when he was gone.

"I heard him talking about what they're going to do once they deal with that Riku kid. About what world they're going to go to next." Ethel pressed her lips together into a thin frown. "But... if you two came from a Realm of Darkness before all this, something tells me that when I say 'world' and when Sora says 'world', there's a huge difference. You two..." Her lip tightened even further, her hands clenching. "When all this is over, I'm not going to see you again, am I?"

"Ethel..."

Grima made a few gestures with his chopsticks, a soft pulse of magic washing over the three of them. "Highly unlikely, at least for the near future. Sora seemed to recognize that boy," and so did she, went unsaid as Grima stared pointedly at her, "and we dealt with somebody else bearing the same coat as him. That means there is more of their kind around, and undoubtedly Sora has been dealing with them. His presence here is more than just coincidence in regards to our rescue. When we leave here, I'm sure we'll be heading straight into another forest fire."

That... that seemed entirely accurate. Aqua let her head fall. From fighting the Unversed, to fighting Xehanort and his underlings, and then fighting Terra who had been possessed by Xehanort. From there it was into the Realm of Darkness and all its inhabitants, and now she was here, dealing with a boy that had never grown up and apparently given in to his Darkness, galivanting around with a group for unknown reasons.

And she still didn't have either of her keyblades.

"But until then, let us enjoy the time we have. Mortal life can be so very fleeting, so cherish the moments you have." Grima hummed in pleasure as he brought the bowl to his lips, that ethereal rumble she had come to connect with 'safety' echoing quietly around them.

Going to be taking a week break for various things on top of the usual 2 week update; next chapter will be released March 21st.

Huh. Already almost three months into the year. My how time flies.