Yes they did disintegrate, but seeing as she has total control over everything within the space it's not too surprising for her to remake them.

I'm pretty sure she dived off the slippery slope after watching both Cody and Tobias die right in front of her, though I can't be sure exactly how far gone she is.

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Spirit. In every language in all the Realms, surface and Underdark, in every time and every place, the word has a ring of strength and determination. It is the hero's strength, the mother's resilience, and the poor man's armor. It cannot be broken, and it cannot be taken away. - Drizzt Do'Urden, Ranger of Mielikki

Like I said, is she far gone enough? And before the Void Erasure formed into a sphere of death they blew apart unless she can move it. She probably can.

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The Life and Times of Shad Staydamind PPG fic; finished. part 1/3
Dual Minds Think Alike PPGD fic, part 2/3; finished (trilogy is on an indefinite hiatus)
Hidden Angels Original, ongoing fiction. (also hiated. Stupid college!)

But the sight of the two corpses sucked all that warmth away "What happened, Sora...?"

When the voice finally responded after some hesitation, each word was shaky, whimpering their way to Bubbles' ears. Somewhere, Sora was crying. And there was no chest to cry into this time. "H-He was going to give it all up fo-for m-m-me!"

"What do you-"

"Even after all that I'd d-done, he wanted to forg-fo-FORGIVE me!" Sora's voice stammered. "I didn't have Cody, but I still had him!" her voice grew quiet again "I... always had him. Even when they took Cody away... I still always had him. I had him and I RAN AWAY FROM HIM!"

Bubbles' footing wobbled as the remnants of the towertop on which she stood once again trembled as another tremor shook everything around her "H-Hey, calm down!"

"I can't, Bubbles! I CAN'T! This was a MISTAKE! ALL OF IT! Isn't it obvious!? This would never have happened if I didn't listen to HER! I could have stayed with him! He wouldn't be like this now if I had! He... He was going to tell me my real name..."

Bubbles was almost too afraid to ask "How'd he die?"

When Sora responded, Bubbles had never felt so much concentrated disdain "She did it."

"What!?" was Bubbles startled response.

"And she did it because she wanted him to stay in the past. She wanted me to join a new future. Her future. One where I could still be of some use. She killed him as he held me. I felt his heart stop beating."

"S-Sora, please, I-"

"And do you know the worst thing, Bubbles?" the voice persisted. "She's actually right. There's so much I can still do. I might be able to do things for her, with her that would completely change this world. But that would mean people accepting us. And I don't think they will. And why should they? I'm not like you! I didn't choose who to side with from the moment I could first make a rational thought. You didn't kill people to embrace your life of freedom. I envy you. There's so much I could do... but I can't. Not the way you do."

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Bloodsguar Studios member

WE ARE ALL GRIDS

Oh boy...looks like she's starting to embrace Blood's idea...or maybe she already did but just got lost in her anger?

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Acknowledging, not embracing. She had me until "...people start accepting us." and Blood's idea of liberation is putting herself on a pedestal getting a kick about regular humans fearing her, not caring about acceptance at best and killing them at worst.

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The Life and Times of Shad Staydamind PPG fic; finished. part 1/3
Dual Minds Think Alike PPGD fic, part 2/3; finished (trilogy is on an indefinite hiatus)
Hidden Angels Original, ongoing fiction. (also hiated. Stupid college!)

I swear I need to work on my choice of words...

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"But there's still so much you CAN do!" Bubbles argued, "With the powers you have, if you only stopped what you're-"

"These powers!?" Sora's voice thundered. Bubbles winced as she felt a sudden surge of anger directed straight at her "What good are these powers!? All they do and all I do is make people angry! I could destroy this whole city! I don't care what's left on the outside! But what good is that when I don't have the power to bring them back!? WHAT GOOD IS THAT!?"

Bubbles' lip was quivering "Y-You still have... so much you could do in your life, Sora! So many chances to be amazing!" Flashes of red lit the strange world around her, streaks of burning light raining through the distortion's barrier, hunting Sora from the outside. They fizzled and dissipated as they seared past like burning meteors. Still they came, sending invisible shockwaves through everything that existed around her. Bubbles held her head in her hands and yelped as the tremors rocked every bone in her body.

"Is that annoying you?" Sora's voice, suddenly calm, inquired. "Let me see if I can... here. See that?" Bubbles opened her eyes to find herself staring at some sort of window. It was flat before her, like a screen. But it was not a way out of this contorted nightmarish place. "I've opened a view-portal for you. Simple really. It looks like they don't care that you're in here with me." Bubbles watched the sleek, black, orbiting monster unleashing its side-mounted weapons upon the sphere as though spectating from not far above the spacial bubble. As the view before her flashed a rainbow of colours - mostly reds - the very same burning blasts of plasma and energy rained down from somewhere far above, sending further shockwaves through the air and into her skull, making her wince. It was identical to the machine that had flown through the void itself, but it lacked the scarring and scorching across its shiny surfaces that came from its exposure. It was its counterpart. Sora's voice was soft, yet sinister "Would it matter to you if there were people on this thing? When your life is in danger, do you not put yourself before them?"

Bubbles grunted, her skull reverberating under her skin "W-What... are you going...?"

"I told you, Bubbles, they don't want me in their world. And you're right, the two worlds can't co-exist. So instead..." Bubbles' eyes widened as she saw something horrid on the view provided to her. Something lashed out from the glowing surface of the sphere - a tendril of the same golden, coalescing light. It snaked itself around the huge machine like a strangling vine even as the aircraft continued to pummel the surface of the sphere. Then Sora's voice spoke once again, almost emotionlessly "I will take from them." The tendril clenched itself, constricting the body of the machine as it ate away at the polished metal hull. Like a twig, it snapped. Its slender form buckled and its neck snapped back, broken viciously as an explosion met the implosion and ripped the whole thing apart. But still the tendril gripped it and mercilessly pulled the crippled thing within until the smoke and fire disappeared beneath the surface of the distortion. The thunderous shockwaves ceased as high above her, Bubbles could see that same fire burning.

Then even that died away. There was silence once more. The portal closed. Sora's voice let out a sigh. Bubbles felt like screaming but it would be just as futile against her.

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Bloodsguar Studios member

WE ARE ALL GRIDS

Wow... I knew those modified bombardment aircraft wouldn't stand a chance against Sora, but that was pretty pathetic...

In fact, judging from her attitude towards the whole ordeal, I think it's safe to say that she wasn't too bothered by the bombardment in the least, and only took action when she noticed Bubbles was feeling discomforted by the onslaught.

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Spirit. In every language in all the Realms, surface and Underdark, in every time and every place, the word has a ring of strength and determination. It is the hero's strength, the mother's resilience, and the poor man's armor. It cannot be broken, and it cannot be taken away. - Drizzt Do'Urden, Ranger of Mielikki

If so, then why the hell didn't she do anything when it breached the Void Erasure in the first place? I'm pretty such Bubbles was scared enough then. That aside, I'm not sure "anticlimactic" would be the proper word for what I just read. I thought this was supposed to show us that humanity has other potent solutions besides falling back on the Supers they may very well be secretly afraid of. Not that I expected Lockbow to always be around but I had this idea where Bio targeted that for capture and went for Arbalest instead for some reason.

Possibly a useless question considering the kind of story this is, but was Lockbow stronger then Arbalest?

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The Life and Times of Shad Staydamind PPG fic; finished. part 1/3
Dual Minds Think Alike PPGD fic, part 2/3; finished (trilogy is on an indefinite hiatus)
Hidden Angels Original, ongoing fiction. (also hiated. Stupid college!)

"You've been nothing but nice to me." Sora's voice said, as gently as Bubbles had heard thusfar. Blackened shreds of metal began to float and flow around her as the air's burnt odour intensified. Bubbles watched them dissolve until they were nothing but black snowflakes. The giant flying machine was reduced to dust before her eyes. There was nothing to stop Sora's rampage. "So, for that, I promise I won't hurt you. And, if you prefer, you don't have to watch what I'm about to do either."

"Sora, you don't have to do this!" Bubbles pleaded "Don't allow this... this THING to take control of you!"

"This thing IS me!" Sora retorted as more and more tremors reverberated around terrified Bubbles "I am every square inch of this place and I can see and control it all! And they're afraid of me, out there! I'm not a timid little child who's getting pushed around by the bigger people, anymore. Cody... and Toby... they're safe inside me, now."

Bubbles felt her lip quiver as the tremors rattled her head. She pressed her hands to her temples as she grunted "This... this isn't who you are, Sora!" her muttered words were so faint that she could barely hear herself.

But Sora heard her perfectly. "This is what I was always meant to be. I'm free from them and nothing can hurt me anymore! I don't need them, and I no longer need THIS either!"

There was a thudding sound off to Bubbles' left. Drawn to the sound, she gasped and fell to her knees beside the thing that had dropped onto the remnant of the rooftop platform on which she stood. She stared up at her with empty green eyes. Unconscious eyes. Soft blonde hair fluttered beneath her skinny and bedraggled body. Her lips were parted only slightly but her chest did not rise or fall with breathing. The shockwaves came harder as the void sphere began doing things which Bubbles couldn't see or understand. She felt her stomach wrenching as though being flung about on a rollercoaster. She draped her arm over Sora's unconscious, abandoned body and pulled her close. She still felt warm. The talisman around her neck floated above her sternum, glowing radiantly and tugging against her in a hopeless bid to break free. The light from the bejeweled brooch shone in Bubbles' eyes even has her head felt like it would tear itself to pieces. Sora was no longer within this body but Bubbles didn't want to let it go. She felt an incredible rage seething from all around her; an emotion that the unmoving body in her arms could not express.

She bit her lip and held that which was once Sora close as she felt hope begin to slip away.

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Bloodsguar Studios member

WE ARE ALL GRIDS

well... I certainly wasn't expecting this.

So I'm guessing that Sora's powers have manifested to the point where her mortal body is no longer needed/ able to contain it, and that she has either passed or will soon pass the point of no return.

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Spirit. In every language in all the Realms, surface and Underdark, in every time and every place, the word has a ring of strength and determination. It is the hero's strength, the mother's resilience, and the poor man's armor. It cannot be broken, and it cannot be taken away. - Drizzt Do'Urden, Ranger of Mielikki

she isn't the talisman is she? like some other rather dark anime?

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A grain of truth in every lie, a hidden lie in every truth

If you got sick of the world, and made it better to gain some peace of mind, would you be selfish or selfless?

That was what I was thinking actually. Of course, if she dumped her body then the talisman must have been dumped as well.

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The sound of her steadied breathing echoed off every cold steel surface within the empty elevator shaft - the steel box and cables built for it lying in a crumpled wreck somewhere far below. Buttercup closed her eyes, glad that for even a moment there was no psychotic and delusional esper child trying to break her nose, nor a remote-operated gunslinger on tank treads trying to rip a thousand tiny holes through her body. The air, acrid and stale within the trashed building's interior, was nonetheless cool against her face as she rose floor by floor. Light shone into the vertical shaft through the ajar and busted elevator doors joining each floor. A shockwave from Sora's insane party trick had hit this tower hard.

She could hear the wind buffet the tower even from this far within. Its structure was an old and rusting ship with a hull so worn and weathered that it was barely holding its shape. When - or if - this crisis came to an end, the tower would one way or another be destroyed. Buttercup knew that no sane man would let this battered shell remain standing. Perhaps Sora's energy-sphere-or-something-like-that would demolish it first and save the wreckers a day's work. She could hear her own breath echoing off the twisted metal rims lining the elevator shaft. Light shone through from a couple of floors above and then a few floors again above that. She was wary, cautious, but she didn't slow her ascent. When the late afternoon light streamed into her eyes she refused to squint against it as she poked her head through the opening and surveyed the floor beyond.

Empty.

With no windows to block the force of Sora's vacuum, everything in the large office-like space beyond had been whisked out, save for a couple of things. A chair was wedged and therefore saved by its leg around a support column which in itself was barely keeping itself rooted to the ceiling and floor. Electrical outlets and their multicolour wires had been ripped out of the walls, the column and from out of the roof; ceiling panels torn away. The carpet, cut and arranged in neat squares, was left patchy and incomplete with sections missing. There was no power so there were no sparks from the frayed and shredded innards that had been pulled loose out of the walls and from above. Everything that was once hidden away had been torn out. Exposed. But one thing was not hiding on this gutted floor. Grumbling with disappointment, Buttercup returned to the elevator shaft and kept rising. The distant golden glow streamed through from the west. Then the dank and dark of the shaft consumed her again.

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Bloodsguar Studios member

WE ARE ALL GRIDS

So we return to Buttercup. Guess the damage caused by Sora's...thingy...was massive...at least on that tower any way.

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Wait. Late afternoon light? Exactly how much time has passed since they arrived in Townsville?

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Spirit. In every language in all the Realms, surface and Underdark, in every time and every place, the word has a ring of strength and determination. It is the hero's strength, the mother's resilience, and the poor man's armor. It cannot be broken, and it cannot be taken away. - Drizzt Do'Urden, Ranger of Mielikki

Oh crap, I guess that means one of those pics I commissioned is grossly inaccurate (maybe that's why Griddles didn't pin it to the relevant chapter at DA). You imagined sundown too?

_________________
The Life and Times of Shad Staydamind PPG fic; finished. part 1/3
Dual Minds Think Alike PPGD fic, part 2/3; finished (trilogy is on an indefinite hiatus)
Hidden Angels Original, ongoing fiction. (also hiated. Stupid college!)

I was thinking the sun had pretty much set by the time the action started happening.

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Spirit. In every language in all the Realms, surface and Underdark, in every time and every place, the word has a ring of strength and determination. It is the hero's strength, the mother's resilience, and the poor man's armor. It cannot be broken, and it cannot be taken away. - Drizzt Do'Urden, Ranger of Mielikki

I actually thought it was night time.

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Folding her arms, Buttercup closed her eyes with a huff. She knew she was here. She'd felt it before and she felt it again now. She couldn't really explain it - it was just instinctual. If Bubbles was able to tell how a person was feeling on a whim, perhaps this was some other latent kind of power? She didn't want to think about it too much. The last thing she wanted was a headache. Well, a worse one. Her nose still throbbed with a dull ache with each pulse, which she tried her best to steady. She never dared admit to being nervous but the thrill of fighting an unpredictable enemy just as easily got her heart racing. This girl, though, this esper... she was something else entirely. Not altogether unpredictable and for the most part not scary. But she was capable. Tenacious. Nothing seemed to stop her. Frustration got her worked up too. She licked her lips and tasted no blood. Most of it was on the back of her hand after she'd wiped her nose and mouth. Eyes still closed, she listened to the echoes of the steel asylum she floated within. More creaking, more sounds of distant thunder. The roar of the engines of the great black eagle had diminished, its friend consumed by light and fire. Buttercup only saw the tail end of the sleek beast's destruction, kicking herself for her inattentiveness. The other had most likely disengaged, leaving Sora to her mayhem and Bubbles, wherever she was, to her faith in her friend's diminished sanity.

No loudmouthed espers, no pursuing man-made assassin machines. No enormous black flying metal monster with its technicolour arsenal. The thundering sounds from Sora's call-it-what-you-will was growing gradually more distant. She could hear her pulse between her ears, trying to forget that consistent throbbing pang in her nose that came with it. The tiny jet hairs on her neck stood up as a sudden impulse sent a shiver down her spine. Her heartbeat double almost instantly and her eyes flew open just as she sucked a hissing breath past her clenched teeth. Something approached from behind the elevator door bulkhead she found herself face to face with. A tiny part of her mind ticked over as her hand formed a fist and reared back.

The element of surprise was unlikely.

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Bloodsguar Studios member

WE ARE ALL GRIDS

It would be funny if it wasn't Blood on the other side of the bulkhead.

So is Buttercup also discovering some latent ability now? It would certainly help distinguish her more than just being the one who fights.

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Spirit. In every language in all the Realms, surface and Underdark, in every time and every place, the word has a ring of strength and determination. It is the hero's strength, the mother's resilience, and the poor man's armor. It cannot be broken, and it cannot be taken away. - Drizzt Do'Urden, Ranger of Mielikki

Blossom has no business being on the front lines in her condition, much to her frustration. It can only be Blood due to her seeing that Sora can defend herself, sanity notwithstanding.

_________________
The Life and Times of Shad Staydamind PPG fic; finished. part 1/3
Dual Minds Think Alike PPGD fic, part 2/3; finished (trilogy is on an indefinite hiatus)
Hidden Angels Original, ongoing fiction. (also hiated. Stupid college!)

Though even Blood's going to have some issues...and possibly more bruises.

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With a yell she send her fist crashing forward just as the solid twin doors shot out to meet her, propelled by an invisible yet familiar force. Her knuckles smacked into the metal, sending an echoing CLANG up and down the elevator shaft. The steel was no tougher than biscuit wafer as her knuckles punched through, leaving perfect indents on the dull gunmetal grey slabs as they split apart and separated down the middle. They whizzed past her ears, smacking into the rear shaft wall with a second CLANG. Light streamed onto Buttercup's face again, her emerald eyes leering over the top of her outstretched fist. She jumped forward onto the edge of the floorspace, the doors tumbling and thudding their way to the basement far below. Buttercup lowered her arm, a smirk spreading onto her face.

Blood, silhouetted by the distant and luminous ball of golden fire and looking completely exhausted, was blunt with her disappointment "Fuck you..."

"Aw, I was hoping you missed me."

"Your sister was never this determined!"

Buttercup strolled forward, the windowless sides of the tower letting the air bluster through and tickle her bare thighs. "Would it surprise you if I told you that I could feel you pinging me through the gap between those doors? Moment I felt you, I knew when and how to react. I think you're running out of tricks."

Blood didn't back away as the smaller girl approached. There was nothing to retreat toward except the thirtieth floor ledge. She was sick of running. She'd put Blossom down; Buttercup was no less susceptible. Why couldn't she get the wimpy blonde one for a change? "If I could cut you up and work out your little secret, I would, believe me."

"Oh, naw, you'll just try and smoosh me with a couple of elevator doors." Buttercup shrugged. "That makes sense, right?"

"You look like them, you talk like them, you surround yourself with them!" Blood hissed "But you're not flawed like them!"

"Should I be?" was the quizzical response.

"That's why this is MEANT TO HAPPEN, Buttercup! You, me, Sora, all of us. Together. The one side. All of us, fighting - come no closer! - fighting for a better future!"

Buttercup continued to advance despite Blood's warnings and the tips of her fingers beginning to bristle with that odd red aura. "If I had a nickel for every time someone asked me to join their side, I wouldn't need to knock any teeth out."

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Bloodsguar Studios member

WE ARE ALL GRIDS

Haha, shout-out the that old PPG episode.

But anyway...what is this round 4 or something? I think it's Round 4.

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