"GARUD, YOU IDIOT STOP THIS THIS INSTANT!" IC shouted in fustration as the darkness forced him into a slow crawl up the pillar.

Don't have a flashlight, guess I'll have to make due. IC thought. He leaned back, and hurled the Wind Edge up the pillar. The Wind Edge started scrapping along the pillars, creating sparks as it went up so hopefully IC could get an idea of what was ahead of him. When he saw the vines, he knew was going to have to do something to get by them. While the Wind Edge cut some down, it grew back at a much faster rate.

Once the Wind Edge ran out of pillar, IC reached out, and in another second caught the Wind Edge again. IC was going to hate running blindly up the pillar, it was something that he wasn't sure he could do. But what he was sure of is that he could create a small gap by tearing the vines with the Wind Edge first. IC started running up the pillar again, a little slower at first, but picking up the pace really quick.

He stuck the Wind Edge in front of him, and scrapped it along the pillar, creating sparks so that he could see a little better, and so that he could start cutting through the vines.

The darkness wasn't bothering Hawk all too much if truth be told. Sure it was darker, but he had the eyes of a hawk and therefore, very good eyesight, even in darkness. The only problem was he couldn't really do a whole lot more than what he was doing.

"There has to be some way to assist the others...", he thought.

"That's it!"

Hawk sent a psychic message to REI.

"Keep spinning him, I can see so I'll tell you when to let go"

It was after he thought(said) this that he realised for the first time that he didn't know if the android could even pick up psychic thoughts. Surely whoever had built her would have thought of that...

Wouldn't they?

If Rei were able to receive psychic thoughts, which would require a brain made out of spongy, brainy material that generates and receives psychic waves rather than a series of microprocessors, the android would have answered Hawk's query about this exact matter with a very definite "No".

However, because that "No" was completely truthful, she couldn't answer it anyway, and continued to stand there blindly, unaware of the bird's attempts to communicate with her via silly means.

Rei lowered her right arm from its previous position of getting ready to chuck Skyshot, at which point her human projectile hit the ground beside her with a dull thud, ankle still held firmly in the android's clutches.

"Well, that's no good," Rei pondered aloud, "Looks like I'm blind again. Anyone wanna tell me where to throw this guy?"

"Damnit, looks like I can't communicate with her after all. We really should have tested that out before running into battle!" But that would, of course, be far too easy!

"Can anyone relay a message to the android for me?", he asked the group at large. "As I seem to be the only one who can see the Caryatid I can direct her when to throw, but she can't hear me. Or, you know, we could just like, Get rid of the all encapsulating darkness!!"

"Who thought it'd be a good idea to turn the lights off in the middle of a boss battle?" Steel asked, looking around accusingly. The effect was lost in the darkness however.

"Rei, the psychotic bird," Steel, bitter? Nooo... "is trying to tell you that he can point you to the caryatid, but is apparently unable to communicate with you. I give him a 50/50 chance of telling the truth or being controlled by the enemy. Or just plain insane." He shrugged nonchalantly. Then winced in pain. "Oh yeah, that reminds me. Skyshot, could you heal my... You're busy. I'll ask later."

"Anyway, follow the bird, or you could try calculating it's position from all the sparks Inbred is making over there." He noted, watching IC's vertical dash. Then he looked down. The ground was shifting. That did not bode well. "Whatever you do, could you do it quickly?"

Rei may have been virtuous, but she was nothing compared to Skyshot.

Most people would have reacted vigorously and violently after being hoisted up by their ankle.

But not Skyshot.

Most people would have attempted to do actual physical harm to the person when realizing their intent was to throw them into an exceedingly dangerous and provoked superhuman.

But not Skyshot.

Most people would have begun plotting the destruction of the person, their family, their loved ones, and anything they held dear, in reverse order, when the person starting spinning them like a lariat over their head.

But not Skyshot.

Okay, a little Skyshot. Nobody's perfect.

Skyshot's brain began whirling what with the blood rush to his head, and received a boost from smacking the ground fairly hard. He recalled a few things. First, his last Float spell had worn off a while before. Second, if Rei failed, he'd most likely end up in the vortex. Third, he could clearly make out the Caryatid's glaring aura and thus her position. Fourth, it was very unsettling fighting someone more Good than he himself was, and wished it was practical to dispel the thing. Fifth, if someone could cool off the room real quick, his infravision would work. Sixth, Control Weather did work that way. Time for a mana-burner.

"Control Weather: Humid. Control Weather: Cold. Infravision."

The room gradually began to cool off at a barely noticeable rate, and he began to make out more shapes amongst the various auras. Now if only he could be convinced this was any kind of good idea, he might even cast his Infravision on Rei and go for it. "Aren't you a machine or something? You have perfect memory recall, don't you?" He clapped his hands over his mouth. What...have...I...done...

Garud paused. Everyone was complaining about his spell, even though he was only trying to help... himself. He sighed, so he knew just how to remedy the situation.

"Alright, let there be light!"

The demon slayer sucked in all the darkness, and it centralised in his hand. The ominous black cloud was unformed into any item so far, so it just stayed there. However, with the darkness gone, there was a strange unnatural light that filled the dome. Any sunlight was gone but this new light was there to replace the darkness.

"Y'know, my plan was to block off the sunlight, and then use that shadow that would result so I could use a strong spell. So don't hate me for turning out the lights for a moment. It is an Earth Caryatid, and Earth benefits from sunlight."

Garud smiled and scanned for the Caryatid and found that alot of snakes had surrounded him.

"Oh, it's whacking time!"

Garud drew his staff and started to belt them around. There was alot of them though.

"Aren't you a machine or something? You have perfect memory recall, don't you?"

"Well, yes," Rei shrugged half-heartedly in response to Skyshot's query as she scanned the area with her own infravision, attempting to get a lock on the target, "But the target is moving very fast and quite randomly. Remembering where it was a second earlier wouldn't do much good, I'm afraid. Thanks for settling things down enough for me to use some of my other ocular scanning systems, though. You're a sweetie!"

Even after Skyshot's series of weather control spells, there was still too much interference for the android to get a precise lock. The Caryatid was still moving, however, and the longer they waited, the slimmer their window of opportunity to attack became.

"Rei," Steel spoke up, "the psychotic bird is trying to tell you that he can point you to the caryatid, but is apparently unable to communicate with you. I give him a 50/50 chance of telling the truth or being controlled by the enemy. Or just plain insane."

The android girl blinked for a moment as she processed the statement for a few moments before finally turning her attention to her addresser. "So, wait..." she asked, "You mean to tell me that bird is part of the team?! I thought it was just somebody's pet!"

I looked around some, lighting the area near me, though the heat was keeping some snakes away, thankfully. I moved to the group, though I kept the heat up, and stayed a little ways away.

As Syttulg continued to stare at his hands, his nannites, still unsure of what to do and wanting to conserve energy, made the mistake of landing on his shoulders. A ripple of his flesh and they were gone.

Although they could no longer act outside his body, the inside was another matter. They made their way through his bloodstream and headed towards his brain. Ten seconds of work later, he had just enough intelligence to send them commands, although in the disoriented state that had been caused by a sudden brain increase, he wasn't quite sure what was going on.

All he knew for the moment was that the stone woman in front of him was incredibly beautiful, and that his nannites were for some reason inside him.


He extended his hand towards her, directing his nannites to turn his hand into a bouquet as he did so.