This ones for Africa! (Mindy)

Quinn smiles down at the man, her gun tapping a tune on his forehead. He told her that he knew something about the goddess that was currently being worshiped and so far that was as good of a lead as any to help her find her friend. They are all powerful, right? Unfortunately for her, it was just words tossed out to get her into the alley so he could claim her, whatever that meant. A minute, quick gun creation and a pistol whip later, he was whimpering on the floor begging for her to spare him. "So mister, I would really like it if you told me about that goddess. Though we could always play a game instead, I like playing games."

Her smile told him that saying he wanted to play a game would be the worst mistake that he had ever made in his short life, and so he just blurted out everything he knew, saying that his boss had spoken of it on the phone and he had happened to overhear. A few other questions told her exactly where she had to go and with a pat on the poor man's head she left him alone, heading straight for the man's boss.

It took her a few minutes to work her way around the city, but finally she made it there, a place that seemed like it was the exact opposite of where she wanted to go. She stares at the building for a bit before nodding once and trying to go through the front, completely ignoring the grunts there, seeing as how none of them looked very boss like, only to be stopped by two people who clearly didn't like the idea of her going past them so easily.

"Hey girlie, what do ya think ya are doing? Where did ya leave ya momma, come back when ya older and we'll show ya a good time."

Quinn stops, trying to understand what the man just said through his accent, thinking on it for a few seconds before putting the translation process on a low power and continuing on her way, deciding to ignore what she couldn't understand. The man reaches out and grabs her shoulder, clearly annoyed at being ignored. He opens his mouth to say something, not even realizing exactly how fucked he is. Before he could figure it out, Quinn makes her pistol again, slamming it against his jaw and sending him to the ground before turning rapidly and firing off a single shot, removing the brains of his fellow guard. A moment later a second gunshot rings out, alerting everything in the base that shit was about to go down as Quinn steps through the door, leaving two dead guards behind her.

The moment she walked through the door she find a half dozen guys staring at her from access the room, guns pointed her direction. "Oh, hello! Can you tell me where your boss is? I need t-" They didn't even let her finish speaking before they opened fire, though ultimately hitting nothing but air since she disappeared before even the first bullet could finish traveling across the room. As they look around the room a voice, Quinn's voice, can be heard from behind them. "That was really mean, if you would just take me to the boss we can play this game later." Quinn's face puffs out in annoyance, while playing games with the huge mass of people that she could hear coming towards them sounds like fun, she just wants to find her friend already, it's been months!

The men turn, trying to get their weapons back into line to fire at the young meta girl, only to find that she is already moving, cutting her way through the dozen guards with a sword that clearly wasn't there a moment ago. The one farthest away from Quinn backs off, pulling out his radio and speaking into it as he watches his comrades get slaughtered in front of him. "We have a single meta, young girl, red hair. She has enhan- argh." Before he can finish his report, Quinn tosses her sword at him, cutting through his hand, the radio, and his shoulder in one smooth motion, pinning all three together and into the wall he had backed into. As the man looks up from the sword, he sees Quinn smiling at him, a gun in her hand pointing right at him. "I win." Quinn pulls the trigger, putting the young man out of his misery before looking around the room and sighing. "They all break so easily, I wish Mindy was here, her butler is more fun."

Quinn steps through the guard house and out into the main courtyard and stops, looking over the dozens of people that were facing her, every single one of them pointing some sort of weapon at Quinn. She blinks a few times, her small smile getting wider as she realizes just how much she can play. Quinn opens her mouth to say something, but clearly they weren't going to deal with her shit, opening fire the moment she tried. She was forced to move out of the way of the concentrated gunfire. They even had some rocket launchers that they fired at her, going all out in an attempt to get ride of the threat before she could gun any more of them down. As they waited for the smoke to clear, suddenly grenades rolled out of the dust cloud, smoke coming from them as it completely blocks their vision before gun shots started to ring around around them, both from Quinn picking off the more dangerous targets and the people starting to freak out and shoot their own allies in the confusion.

Quinn had only taken out five or so guys before they all retreated, but through her moving around in the cloud of smoke, three times that number lay dead, the survivors watching the cloud while they wait for any movement to give Quinn away so that they can try to gun her down again. While they waited, they could hear the sound of machinery getting closer, which meant that their reinforcements were already on the way. As the mecha were moving closer, thirty well armored men started to appear around the smoke clouds, where were somehow lasting far longer then they should, thanks to Quinn dropping more smoke grenades as needed. One of the armored men takes a step forward, wind gathering around his hands as he starts to forcefully remove the smoke, everyone tensing up, getting ready to attack the moment it was clear.

As soon as the smoke started to get pushed out, a rocket flies out of the cloud and slams right into the wind user, sending him flying back into a wall, where he was completely still. Quinn had taken and reloaded one of the dropped launchers and took out the biggest threat to her, the one who could remove her cover. You could hear a pin drop in the silence that followed, which was quickly broken by another smoke grenade rolling out of the cloud and restoring the cover, followed by a giggle that sounded very amused. The men all around the cloud open fire with everything they got, bullets, rockets, fireballs, giant pieces of rock. They all flew into the cloud as the metas and the normal soldiers all tried to at least hit Quinn once. Suddenly a shape bursts out of the cloud, heading straight for the biggest group of soldiers.

Quinn giggles again as she cuts someone's leg off, spinning as she dodges a punch from one of the metas and gently inserts a knife into his throat, sliding past him as he drops. An off handed toss sends a grenade bouncing in the middle of a group of four soldiers, sending them all flying as it goes off, though Quinn was already dodging a set of rapid knife thrusts from a speedster. Unfortunately for him, she was faster, allowing her to first cut his arm off, then follow it with a beheading, her sword breaking as it finishes the cut. Sighing in annoyance, she throws it at a charging soldier, hitting him in the leg before using him as a stool to get some height, another sword appearing as she falls, this time inserting it straight through the shoulder of another soldier, all the way to the hilt. She turns lazily, a gunshot going off as she finishes off the man who was just a stool.

The metas had crossed over to where Quinn was going crazy, letting the normal soldiers retreat a ways and regroup. Quinn looks around at the dozen augmented metas around her, all of them looking more than just a bit annoyed at how she was handing them their asses. She giggles again before dropping a smoke again, the metas cursing as their sight is once again blocked by the super annoying little girl that seems to get off on pissing them off. Quinn appears in front of one of the metas, launching into a perfect three point strike, which makes the meta stagger back as she moves onto the next one, firing off another three hits before moving on, dancing between the metas as she slowly beats them down. The metas could only grunt in pain, their suits unable to protect them from all of the damage, though they could easily tell that she wasn't super strong or they knew they would be dead already. That or she was just playing with them and pulling her punches.

The dozen metas stumble out of the cloud of smoke, getting away from Quinn before she can finish them off and letting the regrouped soldiers open fire on the cloud. Of course, the firing squad was packed far too tightly, so when they stopped to reload, a grenade was tossed out of the cloud and landed among them. They screamed in terror, half expecting to die right then, only for nothing to happen besides another giggle coming out of the cloud. It took them a moment to realize that the girl tossed a fake grenade at them, she was totally just playing around with trained, armed men. Anger clouds the men's judgement, some of them rush into the cloud screaming for her to come out. That screaming stopped quickly, but was followed by screams of pain and terror as Quinn broke them one by one.

Of the people that were there when this battle started, Quinn had already taken out over half of them, but she was losing interest in the normal soldiers who couldn't play any of her games for very long without breaking. So, with that it mind, she decides to get ride of the toys that weren't very fun so she can turn her attention to the ones that are way more interesting. Gunshots started to ring out from the clouds of smoke that still dotted the area, and with every shot, one of the normal people fell to the ground. Some of the soldiers tried to flee before they were gunned down too, but they only took a step before a bullet found them, leaving just the metas and the ever closer mechas. Now that the normal soldiers were out of the way, Quinn giggles again, letting the smoke, finally, disappear as she glances around at all of the carnage and death around her.

She looks over at what seems to be the leader of the group of metas, giving him a smile. "Well? Shall we continue our game?" The metas look around at each other before nodding, they were going to hold her here long enough for the mechas to get into place and then they would finish her. All at once, they rush at her, twenty-seven people bearing down on one lone girl. They never stood a chance. Quinn sidesteps a punch, shoving a knife into the man's elbow, then redirects a punch into the same man's skull, the crack easily heard by everyone that was fighting. She then takes out someone's knee with a well placed shot before turning and blocking another punch with a knife, giggling as she hears the screams of pain around her.

Twist around to avoid a blast of fire, Quinn can smell the flesh start to cook as it hits someone else. Without even pausing for a moment, she closes on the fire user, leaving three knives in his chest as she slides past him, using him as a shield to block a hail of gunfire from yet another meta. Letting the body drop to the ground, Quinn returns fire, the meta unable to dodge her very accurate gunfire. Quinn takes a step back to avoid a tackle, letting him hit the floor. She stares down at the person like he was stupid before shooting him too. The rest of the metas had backed off at this point, not wanting to stay within her reach, seeing how easily she managed to avoid every attack they threw at her. One of the metas takes a step forward and slams his fists together before getting into a stance, telling at Quinn to come on. She giggles again before charging right at the man, wanting to see what sort of fun game he had planned for her. She was barely two steps away when a speedster flashed by her, tripping her up and causing her to fall right into the grip of the man, who slams her onto the ground before another six metas pile onto her, easily holding her down.

Quinn looks around and frowns, unable to move at all with all of the weight on her. One of the metas chuckles before he points at gun at her. "Eh, not so tough now little girl?" Granted, it wasn't really a threat to her, seeing as how she can catch anti-tank rounds with her teeth, but being held down wasn't fun at all, well, unless it was Mindy. Quinn smiles up at the man, a twinkle in her eye. "I have a present for you. Here, catch." With that, Quinn tosses a round object up at the man, who went to catch it before realizing that it was a grenade. His eyes widen as he starts to dive away, only for him to never have the chance. As the grenade goes off, everyone that was holding her down goes flying away, either dead or dying. The metas that were far enough away to not get hurt by the blast pray for their fallen friends, but glad that the demon was gone too, only to stop and stare as Quinn stands up, dusting herself off and looking annoyed at the holes in her clothes. She looks up at the remaining men and giggles again, which sounded more like evil laughter to the survivors of her rampage. "Shall we continue our game?"

Quinn glances around before spotting the speedster, she points at him before starting his way, shooting the meta with the wounded knee and removing him from the game since he couldn't play anymore. The speedster takes a step back and turns to run, only for Quinn to be right in front of him, she wags a finger at him before punching him in the face, following that with a blow to the gut. "I do not like people who mess with my games, so you will have to take his place." Though Quinn wasn't super strong, she was still very fit, so it only took her a couple hits to leave the speedster knocked out on the floor. She steps onto his neck and with a quick push, a snap is heard, leaving the poor man with a snapped neck. The dozen survivors take a step back, realizing now that she had been playing around with them the whole time and they were all as good as dead already.

Quinn looks at the people who are about to flee and giggles again. "I dislike people who run away. It is not fun at all." They glance at each other before turning to flee at the same time, all attempting to go different directions. Quinn doesn't even give them a chance to take a step before she already starts firing at the runners, clipping them in the legs as they turn, moving far too fast for most people to even see the movements she just made. They all get hit at almost the same time, causing them all to drop where they were standing, groaning in pain at the fact that they can no longer use one of their legs. Quinn giggles again before finishing them all off, a single bullet to the head for each of them before turning and waiting, the mechs had finally arrived.

There was fifteen of them, and they made sure to come in from different directions so that she was surrounded again. Quinn claps her hands together cheerfully, happy to have more people to play with. "So, who wants to have fun with me first?" She also throws in a super adorable head tilt, almost making them forget that she slaughtered most of their forces.

Of course, they didn't just let Quinn get back into her groove, their vulcan cannon spinning up before starting to spit bullets at her. Quinn instantly moves, tossing out multiple smoke grenades in an useless attempt to block their vision. Seeing that it wasn't working at all, Quinn just vanishes from the center, scooping up one of the dropped RPGs and reloading it as the mechs start to spin around looking for her. The first one to spot her is met by a RPG flying right for his cockpit, far too close for any attempt to dodge, but instead of going down like she thought it would, the mech tanks the attack like a boss and returns fire, the vulcan joined by a gauss cannon now that she isn't in the middle of them, punching a hole in the wall behind her as she dodges out of the way.

Vanishing again she sits out of view, pondering on what to do to handle this new threat. She could just ignore it, but where's the fun in that? Leaving in the middle is for when nothing else works. Suddenly thinking of an idea, Quinn claps her hands together. "I got it!" She appears on the back of one of the mechs, inserting a cord into a slot on it's back and almost instantly breaks through it's cheap and low grade firewalls, turning the mech into basically another body for her to control. The pilot shouts in confusion as he suddenly turns and just unloads a full missile barrage onto two of his buddies, taking them out of the fight near instantly. With that done it continues to turn in place, lining up a gauss shot before releasing, removing a third mech from play. Quinn dives off at this point, the mech she was on being wrecked from combined fire of the others.

Quinn appears by another mech, this time shoving a grenade in between the armor by the missiles before kicking off and landing a safe distance away as the grenade sets off a chain reaction, blowing up the missiles and causing the mech to slump over. Seeing that they don't stand a chance where they are now, the ten remaining mechs turn tail and run, retreating into a more defensible location, trying to make it impossible for Quinn to sneak around to their back like she has been doing.

Instead of chasing after them right away, Quinn finds it much more interesting to let them get back to cover before moving in. Letting them get settled, Quinn collects weapons she hasn't yet scanned and includes them in her every growing database of items before finally walking through the base, looking for any traps or ambushes that could have been set, but unfortunately they didn't even try to sneak around her, instead just forming a row at the end of a hallway and waiting for her to appear before shredding it.

Already bored with the mechs since the pilots were completely dumb, Quinn just appears behind all of them, pulling out plastic explosives and wiring all of them up to blow before setting a simple motion censor behind them, leaving them to wait for what was never going to happen.

Quinn prances through the halls and walked into the office of the boss, where he was cowering in his chair from the radio reports of how his forces were just being cut down by a single girl. The moment Quinn opens the door, he rapidly pushes a button to call back any of his people that were still remaining. Mere moments after he did, an explosion causes the whole compound to shake a little. Quinn looks back towards the direction she came from and giggles. "I guess they had a blast."

Quinn skips over to the boss and pulls his violently out of his chair, slamming him up against the wall, her smile not slipping for a moment. "So, where is this goddess you worship? I would really like to meet her." The warlord coughs twice before trying to spit in Quinn's face, though she easily leans out of the way before it can hit her. "I won't tell you shit!"

Quinn giggles a little as she creates a gun and caps the warlord in the knee, holding him up as he screams in pain. "Do not worry, we will have a lot of fun playing together."

---Three Months Prior ---

Two months had passed since the Las Angeles fiasco and the area around Q7's lab had finally gotten back to normal. Mindy, the newly christianed Quinn, and Sebastian were staying at a hotel further down town, where they were trying to plan what they were going to do from there.

The days had passed like leaves in the wind, and with each of those days Quinn's actions and speech became more and more articulate. Sebastian watched as Mindy grew closer and closer to small girl, hovering over her like a doting older sister, showing and telling the young girl how things worked and how to do things. Quinn was a quick study, it was as if she knew what they were yet with a wonder as if it was the very first time she had seen them. Having watched the mysterious little girl over the last month, Sebastian couldn't help but draw similarities with the old robot but they were over shadowed by the glaring differences. Personality being the top of the list.

Despite all of his suspecions, Sebastian knew that the admireable little robot was destroyed, having inspected the crisped remains of her body himself the night of the mages' attack on the Los Angeles Bay Area. Since then the shaft they had escape from had collapsed and despite his progress towards clearing the path, it would still take a while to open the path back inside. At Mindy's suggestion, they had set a grave marker for Q7 over where her lab been buried under. Quinn had watched the two with uncharacteristic silence as they wore their best black clothing and held a small rite for the robot. It wasn't anything big it was a way to say good bye to their tiny friend.

Even though it had been a month they were no closer to finding a solution or anything remotely close to a plan. They had little to no clue who the attackers were, much less where they were, and even less so how they were going to fight back. Even if Seb could win a rematch and if Mindy could beat Lily, there was atleast the rock monster that had killed Q7 and god knows how many. Mindy wasn't going to let something like their odds of survival stop them, but Sebastian couldnt help but wonder about what they would do.

It would turn out that his fear of lack of progress was pointless because everything went to shit. The day started like all of the others, Quinn having finished snuggling next to Mindy for the last hour slipped out of bed for her morning injections, (one of their first roadblocks in their new household was when they found Quinn's aversion to eating food and anything remotely from an animal. The devised a makeshift system with her help to make the food shots). As Mindy got out of bed, her hair all still perfectly in place, she changed her clothes with a snap of of her fingers as she walked out of their room. She turned and asked her if she had her breakfast to which Quinn responded with her honest to a fault manner causing Mindy to smile. Pouring herself a bowl of cereal, Mindy made her way to their balcony like she did every morning. Pulling on the mana stored within her and pushing it out of her out stretched hand causing the air shimmer and to warp. The mana fought solidify into either light magic or dark magic. If she could force it to be both or neither maybe she could break her limitation of using only one or the other. The mana finally balanced out before it fizzed out completely. The corner of her mouth creeped down into a small frown of annoyance. Before Mindy could turn back into the room, A figure stood hovering in the air in front of the balcony.

Veronica gently hovered in the air, bobbing gently, despite the look on her face which was much more serious then the last time they had met. "We must go Mindy. The situation has changed. The Archangel has descovered where you are and I wont be able to keep you safe from him." Mindy raised her eyesbrows more in curiousity then surprise.
"And who is this "Arc angle"?" A moment passed before Veronica finally responded
"I can't tell you."
"We'll take our chances, thank you." Despite their interaction during the time of Mindy's recovery from her injurys, Mindy didn't trust the ominous young lady.
"Sorry." Veronica held her ground before suddenly teleporting infront of Mindy.
"It wasn't a request." She said as she shot her hand forward to grasp Mindy's neck, just as Mindy exploded into shadow. Using the most recent strong emotion she had, Mindy used her fustration into jealousy and rage to access her darkness magic. As Mindy tried to fall out of Veronica's reach while bombarding the older girls body with the shadow magic, The shadows seeped in to Veronica's body faster then they into all the thugs she had use the nightmares spells on before, Leaving Veronica to hesitate a second before continuing to reach out and clasp ber by the neck. Without an emotion in her voice, Veronica said,
"The things that keep me up at night are much scarier then what I fear." Mindy's mine jumped through shock and terror leaving her to ignore the potential paradox of Veronica's statement.

Sebastian and Quinn had jumped up when the balcony had exploded into darkness. Quinn had been practicing walking and was still balancing just well enough to keep waddle from place to place. She constructed a gun with her magic and began to shoot anywhere Mindy had no chance to have moved to during that time. Breaking into an all out spring towards the glass sliding door to the balcony andd threw himself into shattered panes of the window.

With Veronica's hand around Mindy's throat, Mindy blindly shot concentrated blasts of shadow magic at her general direction. Sighing Veronica forced light magic into Mindy's body causing the mana inside of her body to become unstable to rebound the magic Mindy had been casting. A painful scream tore from her lips as her body writhed in pain. Veronica began chanting a spell under her lips just before Sebastian broke through the remnants of the glass slider door. Finally being able to see now that the shadows been disperced. He shot out his hand to pull Mindy away from Veronica, and began swinging his fist towards Veronica. Before the fist connected, Veronica had finished the spell, dragging all three of them away, leaving Quinn in the slightly destroyed room to explain to the landlord on how that had happened.


-In Africa-

Sebastian fell uncerimoniously on to the ground. Hovering above him was Veronica holding a struggling with conciousnouss Mindy. They were in some sort of cavern With a strange bright blue pool in the center was filled with what couldnt be water, a substance that was both completely tranquil and was raging like a storm on the ocean.The magic was so thick that the air hummed and Sebastian's teeth rattled.

Veronica released her grip on Mindy's throat, but rather then let the body fall, she kept Mindy aloft with small teathers of magic. Moving with the percision of a surgeon, Veronica inflicted three incisions on the arms, (one at the wrist, one at the base of the forearms and one at the shoulders), two on each leg (along the shin and across the base of the leg) one across the forehead into the shape of a sigil that dipped into right above the eyes, and finally five on the trunk (one on each corner and finally a cross in the very center). Mindy's blood flowed out of her into a pool beneath her.

The smell of iron flooded Sebastion's nose, as he lifted his hear he noticed that half off his vision was red, at first he thought it was his before he saw the body of Mindy shuddering and spazzing in the air. With a flourish of her hand, Veronica's hand turned into the darkest shade of obsidion before she stabbed it into Mindy's chests and ripping out a small ball the size of a large pebble and crushing it into dust.

Reaching into his side holster, Sebastian pulled out a nine milimeter he had purchased from a guy in a trenchvoat behind a nearby strip mall. Flipping off the safety, Sebastion fired twelve rounds in quick succession at Veronica. The bullets slammed into an invisable wall that seemed to envelope her. Turning over to her unexpected stowaway, Veronica barely moved her hand to slam Sebastian into a nearby wall, leaving a clear indentation in the wall. Sebastian pushed himself free from the wall before being picked up by a large invisable hand and lifted above the strange blue liquid.
"It isn't personal, but you put everything at risk. Rest in Piece." And with that She threw him into the pool where he disentgrated within seconds.

Mindy knew that she was dying. She just didnt know why it hadn't happened yet. That and well she felt extremely cold, the pain was replaced with a terrible chill. Through barely open eyelids, Mindy saw as Veronica drew close to her face and caressed her cheek.
"I will keep my promise."

With a flourish of her hands Veronica brought the on the verge of death Mindy to just above the pool. Drawing mana directly from the pool, Veronica began weaving it into a crystal diamond-shaped tank around her. Liquid from the pool began to flood into the case, and flowed into all the cuts on Mindy's body. The envelope now finished, Mindy floated inside of her new crystal prison.

"I'll come back for you, after the danger... has been taken care of." Veronica turned to leave before taking one last look at her cousin.

"All I do, I do for love."

----
-In an Undefined Time-

A young girl walked on a small tiled road with a rust crusted bicycle. The girl was wearing a small white dress with a black sash. He hair was tied back with a black ribbon, and two small ribbons were tied to her wrists.

The sky was a bright red into a incandescent white as the sun rose behind the girl. As she looked off towards where she was headed, she saw two spires of smoke ascending into the sky. She couldn't help but miss the birds that used to fly through the clouds.

Throwing a leg over her bike seat, she began to pedal despite the fact that the chain kept getting stuck, and one of the wheels was bent out shape. The girl found herself staring at the bikes white handles and the white, rust speckles streamers coming off them. They were a gift from someone she couldnt quite remember.

She didn't know where she was going. Only that she must reach there.

----
Eternally orange sunlight streamed through windows down to a large cast iron cage. There laid a post-adolescent girl with silver hair with a green hue sprawled on the floor. Clutched to her chest was a transparent globe containing what seemed was a modern day suburb. Her eyes were lazily engrossed on the tiny globe, a solace to the monotony of her monochrome jail.

The girl had laid there for as long as she could remember. The cage wasn't locked but the doors leading out of the room didn't open and the windows were much too high to reach. Nothing changed there. Not the time of day. Not the inhabitants of the room. Not the smile on the girl's face, that she wore more as a mask then an expression. Nothing changed except for the small transparent globe. It depicted the lives of people who lived there, all repeating their daily routines, but everyonce in a while one of the residents would do something unexpected, and it was for those moments the girl obsessed with the globe.

It was after what felt like several eternities, before she finally noticed a change. The drop of red into a scarlet pool beneath her head. Moments passed before she reached up and realized that the blood was coming from the corner of her mouth. She pressed a finger to the spot and stared with quickly blossoming excitement. Looking down at where the pool had been moments before only to find a stained cell floor. For the first time in a long time, a smile touched the girl's eyes finally matching the one plastered to her face, as she began her new project. Hours passed into each inch of the stain that she traced into the ground. Time didn't matter anymore. The old globe left on the ground, neglected and replaced with the girl's new toy.  

----
-About Two Months before the Present-

After what seemed like an eternity or five, Mindy managed to get a hold of herself. Everything was still foggy but she got the idea that she was dead. It wasn't sadness that she felt; She didn't feel much at all actualy, except for maybe overwhelmingly bored.

Despite feeling like she was on her back, Mindy took a step forward. At first, the steps were disorienting but they became more solid the farther she got. It wasn't long before she found her self in something that resembled an antechamber of an arena or a baseball stadium. There were large braziers of purple fire on the obsidion colored marble tileing. At the end of room was a pitch black shield and a spear made of purest silver on top of a pedastal overlooking a set of doors that were four times the size of Mindy.

Picking up the the sword and spear, she struck the tip of the spear into the marbled floor and watched as it cut deep into it with little to no effort. Now curious, she turned over the shield and tried to pierce it with the spear, but with zero success. With the pair in hand, Mindy moved toward the door and pushed passed it to find a large staircase going deep down into the darkness. The temperature rose the further down she went until it was sweltering and she found her self in front of another pair of doors. As the doors creaked open scalding hot air spilt out of it and she found her self in a massive cavern with that was washed in a red light of the lava that lined in what seemed to be an ocean of lava. The air split and broke as the waves of heat caused it to shimmer. Making her way in, Mindy had to squint to see clearly. All around the lake was clear edge that was several inches higher then the level of lava. All around her were ashen life-sized statues of people holding the same shield and spear that she had gotten in the previous room. Some held the shield up others had droped it and were in the act of scampering away, and others were holding both in front of them as if to ward away evil or something of the like.

Past the statues, and hovering high above lake was a small island with a larger then life onyx throne. Upon the throne sat a red haired girl wearing a black and red dress. She wore Mindy's face but had crimson red eyes that were ablaze like tiny embers. The girl held a strange goblet that held some sort of moving object that Mindy couldnt make out from behind the girls hands.

"Red was never my color anyways. Little Red's mouth curled up into a small, smug smile before she lazily signeled forward with her hand. From behind her throne jumped out a small charred humanoid creature, that dived straight into the lake of Lava. It grew and grew until it was a large golem the size of small coporeate building, a small coporeate building made of lava. The beast loomed over Mindy and let loose a feral, hollow roar the reverberated throughout the room before swinging out a its molten fist towards Mindy. Instinctively, Mindy waved her hand in front of her to make a barrier, but nothing appeared. She didn't have her magic.

Turning on her heel, Mindy began to run away. She unhooked her arm from the shield ready to throw it away as she turned her head to see the massive fist colide with where she had been standing only moments before. Rather then destroying the floor, the fist collapsed into a tidal wave of lava, that raced towards Mindy. With a spin, Mindy threw forward her shield on to the floor and jumped on top of it. Turning towards the raging wave of lava, she leaned the shield away it and positioned the butt of the spear to help her keep her balance as the lava picked up the shield. With careful pushing, she was able to  ride over the initial wave with only slight amounts of the lava coming onto her. Wherever the lava splattered onto burnt away cloth and flesh, but wherever the flesh burnt it would regrow just to burn again. It wasn't possible to die here, if she got encased she would be doomed to be trapped in eternal suffering.

With the help of her trusty spear, Mindy survived several more waves and even a couple of balls of lava that had been chucked her way. She might have even waited for the golem to some how tire out or something if an aberrant wave hadn't splashed back from the wall and threw her balance. The spear flew from her hand and flew into the sea of yellow and red, lost. The titen of fire slammed its fits into the lava yet again to launch a wave to swallow Mindy whole.

The wall of magma loomed over the paddle-less Mindy. There wasn't much she could do, She shot her hands in front of her, doing all she could to will it away. Something shifted inside of her, and what felt like a dry husk  of her body flowed with mana again. Mindy gasped and shut her eyes as a feeling not to different to how it feels to breathe again after almost drowning washed over her. More lava splashed on to her, making it even more difficult to conventrate, but despite the pain she was in, Mindy began to laugh. A laugh not of joy or happiness, but a cruel laugh. It started small and grew till her body convulsed and writhed with it. The golem paid the laughter no mind and began to throw more molten balls; pity it made no difference, the balls couldnt save it.

Mindy continued to laugh with mania as she lifted both of her hands. Hundreds of shields rose from the lava and intercepted the balls mid-flight. With a wave of her hands, hundreds of spears rose up and pierced the golem like a pin cushion. Filled with a rage it began to charge at the girl. Raising her left arm and straightening her hand, Mindy summoned her spear to her side. Taking a second to steady her aim, she threw the spear straight through the golems head, despite its core being in its stomach. It bellowed and roared as it broke into a larger tottering sprint at Mindy before seemingly to trip and clutch at its chest screaming. Mindy hovered over to the beast and ripped out the loadestone core from its chest, and watched the rest of the golem colapse into charcoal dust. Stone in hand, Mindy slowly hovered up to the floating island. Upon her throne, the doppleganger writhed, clutching the spear that had pinned her into the chair. The gobblet she had held before now on the floor, out of it rolled a still beating heart.

Raising her hands forward, Mindy pushed on the spear with her mind, Forcing it deeper into the black throne. Pushing and pushing till the chair broke. The dopplenganger was launched back, but was finally free. She lept forward, hurling fire balls at Mindy. The hole where the spear had pierced her began to slowly to mend it self and heal, but at a speed where it would take a couple minutes to finish.

With the ease, Mindy blocked the fireballs with her shield. The doppleganger wasn't nearly lucky enough. The spear flew a furious speed, pinning one of her calfs to the floor. Another one flew out, pinning her arms into place. It wasn't long before the other girl resembled a porcupine. Walking over to the pinned girl, Mindy slammed the side of her shield into the neck of the doppleganger. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. And it was done. The head came loose and hit the ground.

Reaching down, Mindy grabbed the other girl by the head. At first the eye twitched, and the mouth begean to foam, but as time passed life slowly eased back into the severed head. The head began to laugh Wickedly. There was to be no victory here. The doppleganger was sure to return eventually. Mindy walked over to the edge and tossed the head over the side. Laughs quickly began to split into screams as the severed head realised what was it's fate was. The head spun on its way down before it was skewered in the back with another spear, slamming it into the lava. The screams quickly became drowned wails.              

With the fake finally dealt with, Mindy walked over to the knocked over chalice and the heart it had held. Slightly singed but a bright cherry color, the heart pumped as if it was still inside it's original body. It was the doppleganger's, she some how knew. More of a feeling then a fact. It was warm to touch and it pulsed defiantly in Mindy's hands. Mindy knew what she had to do. She ate it.

It burned on the way down, and it lit her sinuses on fire. When it reached her stomach, it seemed to vanish, the feeling appearing where her own chest was. The blood in her veins boiled, and her nerves exploded into pain. Everything was agony before, as suddenly it had started, it wasn't. It felt right. Like she could finally breath clearly; more clearly then she had ever had.  

In the back of the lava room was another giant set of doors. Hovering through it, Mindy started down another set of stairs, leaving the the blazing heat and the now echoing wails of the facsimilie behind.

----
Sebastian was dead. Getting atomized was not one of the ways he thought he would go, but there were definitely worse ways to go. Some part of him was always morbidly curious of how it was for all of his past selves. Were they conscious the entire time? Did they watch his life like a reality show, or were they just in stasis till they were needed? It might have explained why they were so eccentric when they talked to him.

It was a pity that he wasn't able to do much in his life, but at least it was over. Not his worries anymore. He didn't need to worry about tiny killer androids, or tourniments with ancient destruction gods going awry, or gender bending magical girls, or even giant panda people with crazy chaos and order gods in their head. Everything was over.

In the infinite sea of white that swirled around him, Sebastian just made out a large group of people floating towards him. It took him a minute before he noticed that he recognised them. They were his past incarnations. This must be how he would join their ranks.

"2361, there is now a problem."
~~~
2362 started her life in the afterlife. There wasn't much that she knew about her new life, but instinctually she knew that she should have appeared in the world of the living, and that she shouldn't be a she. Nothingness swirled around her. She couldn't help but wonder if this would be considered the pre-life, if the state of being was what gave it it's name or if it had been given that name long before and it had stuck. 2362 dismissed the thought. Knowing the answer wouldn't improve her situation.

Her mind wanderedm subconsciously reaching out into the memories of her past selves, discovering that the compilation of all of the knowledge they had gained through their lifetimes could be summoned here. With a yawn, 2362 focused on the image of the library from the memory and found herself surrounded by a maze of bookshelves. The bindings of the books all looked of different ages, and different styles.

And so she began. Many books were in languages and tongues long lost, but thankfully with enough concentration, she could glean the understanding of those languages from her past lives. She would finish a book and place it back on the shelf, before suddenly grabbing its neighbor and reading them to fruition

~~~
"What do you mean I'm dead but I didn't die" His past lives began explaining to him that their soul had survived inside the leyline. The magic that passed through the crystal containing Mindy, was flowing through what remained of his/their body, and had caused it to become female. To complicate things even more, none of the other incarnations could contact the new version of them. The flow of magic had cut the line of succession. Theoretically, Sebastion should be able contact and mentor her when the new body finally escaped. And for that reason they were going to instill the merits and abilities of all of their fighting prowess and knowledge into him. As the past selves worked on fixing their current pseudo-death scenario, Sebastion was to be complete whatever training they had for him.

A fair number of the challenges were riddles or sometimes even regular problems, but others there were brawls and some even just training sessions. It wasn't long before Sebastian found himself face to face with the first person to be a true challenge. It was an old fisherman with a smug smile.

The fisherman told Sebastian, that to pass his challenge, all he had to do was avoid his attacks for fifteen seconds. Any means would be allowed. When the whistle blew, The man vanished from where he stood and appeared in air next to Sebastion's head, and slammed the top of his foot into Sebastion's face. It was over before even a full second has passed.

Attempt after attempt, And Seb could not get passed the five second mark.

"Son of a-"


(OOC Note: This was done during a Double Xp event. The double xp was extended to posts of preexhisting threads. It was for the month of February and was extended to this Friday [Today]. Total word count is 4527 words, Meaning 9 experience from 4500 words x2 = 18 experience, 27 words left over)