"Mastering some skills" he said, summoning a rain of icicles on top of some unlucky monsters. "Anyways, we need to defeat these guys. Anyone got a plan, or should we just attack and hope everything turns out well?"

"I don't normally say this but perhaps we should leave. The Shadow only follows Outliers. If we go then the village should be okay." She sighed and looked at the ground.

'I suggest we just slay them...' He said, smirking as he twirled his sword. They could rally up all the other men that we fighting out here... But they were newcomers... Outcasts. Possibly, the townspeople wouldn't listen to them.

Kai sat on the grass and shut her eyes, meditating. She didn't want to fight today. She had seen and felt too much.

"I could trap them in a cage, and you guys could go in there and kill everything..." he said, hoping that someone heard him. "We could trap them in a cleared place so that the village itself doesn't take very much damage... " He glanced over at Kai, and shook his head; she was one of their best fighters, and if she's not in the mood, there's a very likely chance that she would get killed...
"Or we could push them out of the village with a barrage of attacks. Or something."

"Fighting now would not be a good move. The village is not in the right state for this." She slumped her back and lay on the ground, eyes still closed. "This is too much," she whispered.

Gandal looked down at Kai, raising an eyebrow. 'What if we got all the villagers to safety then Blue could bring down her magic powers to kill the baddies?' He moved his hand to his mouth, trying his best to hide the smile which broadened across his face.

Kai chuckled. "Did you just say what I thought you said?" She opened her eyes and stood, smiling at Gandal. "But that sounds like an idea."

"Well, evacuating the civilians will be nice, but I don't think I can take on all of these monsters by myself... I could hold them at bay while you guys try to evacuate them... is that ok?"

'Sounds good to me.' That mischievous smile started to blossom as he looked at Kai, 'Uh... Well, we better get this over and done with then.' Gandal flexed his hands, picking his dagger up from the ground.

Kai smiled and rolled her eyes. "You're such a child," she said with a laugh. She ran off in the direction of the village, not waiting for Gandal to follow. She went from the furthest edge of the town and worked her way to the middle, telling people to escape to the woods and that they'd be safer there. She hoped they would listen. She did get some questioning looks but she didn't double back to explain.

He looked at them, a hint of worry in his eyes, before he turned his back to them and started casting low ice walls in between the monsters and the majority of the villagers. It's been a while since he'd tried to use his powers on such a large scale, especially his ice powers... No, it would be impossible to accomplish this task with that-- he could only summon a couple of tall pillars without overexerting himself.
The temptation to use another method was strong-- there were a ton of shadows that he could extract matter from, maybe he could even use some of the monsters themselves.... He concentrated, and summoned multiple barricades of black chains, some tangled up with the beasts, from where the ice hills were.

Gandal followed momentarily, rolling his eyes also. He would rather be a child. Instead of going into the village he elevated his voice so the villagers battling the monsters outside the gates could hear him. 'Get back to the forests, hide there! You'll be safe!' The battlers looked towards him. About five started to run away, delving themselves in the thick forests which surrounded the village. The rest of the battlers shrugged and followed hastily.

Gandal smiled, running the way Marluxia went, into the heart of the village, where he could possibly help some more. If the monsters came into the village, they'd have no one to kill.

He'd forgotten how fun it was to fight with them.
After effectively trapping the monsters, he swung a few dark chains at them, and to his delight, they'd sustained quite a bit of damage. However, he'd stopped after slaughtering one group-- there was black blood everywhere, and it scared him that he could lose control like that....
He went and hid in a shady corner, reflecting on what he'd just did and wondering about the consequences of his actions.

Kai kept going throught the village until it was empty. "Bluebird! Do you have any suggestions?" she called. A tentacle crawled around her ankle and her eyes widened in surprise. She came to and slashed at it. Another came at her and crawled around her torso.

"These things don't stop!" Gandal yelled as he dug into his left pocket, pulling out a pistol. He aimed and shot at the black creature continuously, grabbing Kai's arm and pulling her away, "Lucky we got the villagers away, eh?"

She shrugged out of the tentacle. "Yeah. They would have been shadow-meat otherwise." She looked over to where Bluebird had stood. "Where'd he go?" she asked gandal, a cloud of confusion covering her face.

"To stop the other monsters?" Gandal replied, moving his head to the side as he moved into a crouching position, sighing. "He'll return, don't worry. He always does."

She grabbed an arrow and shot a screamer. "They don't quit. What is this?" she said in frustration.

"They're called monsters for a reason." He said through gritted teeth, quickly reloading his gun as he aimed and shot at a screamer which ran for them. These things certainly didn't stop.

Bluebird raised his head, black hair sticking to his forehead, and sighed.

There were still monsters to kill, yet he was taking the time off to reflect on his own problems when he could be solving the problems of the village. Frustrated at this prospect, he got up, picked up his weapon, and headed off to kill some more monsters.

After a while, when all the nearby monsters were defeated, he saw two familiar figures and ran up to them.

"Okay, I will ask later," Kai called to Bluebird as she saw him run towards them. "Any suggestions now?" She loosed another arrow at a screamer.

"They never stop." He paused, letting her run ahead. "We'll re-locate at some point later." Gandal called after her as he took something from his pocket - a small black cube which was about the size of a clenched fist. He tapped a small star sigil on the box as it started to glow a dark red which turned into a bright yellow. Gandal then flipped the box into the air as the sides of it started to break open, light bursting from every corner of the device.

He had to look away from the next bit as light shot out everywhere, illuminating his darkened and gloomy surroundings. The light shimmered as a red, glowing sword clanked to the ground noisily, shopping off fresh blades of glass. The weapon glowered before the light disappeared after a couple of seconds. Gandal reached over and picked up the weapon, changing into the fighting stance, "I knew this would come into handy."

Kai fell onto her hands and knees as the light temporarily blinded her. She looked back at Gandal and smiled. "Found a new toy huh?"

He quickly turned away, and shielded his eyes with his arms before the light could damage his eyes. He didn't move, until he heard Kai's voice, and knew that it was okay to look.

What he saw was an impressive sword, lying in front of Gandal. Was it from the light....?

"Well, we could attempt to round them off somewhere, but seeing that you have that weapon..." he trailed off before giving them a wicked grin. "Well, we could always try finishing them off..." he muttered, with a gleam of excitement in his eyes.