The Light Within The Dark.

[Adimus]

"Franz! Franz!" A small girls voice rang out. "Franz, are you alright!?" Everything was blurry, and all that Franz could feel was the burning sensation of what felt like fire all over his body, and a cooling soothe felt directly after each flame passed over him. Opening his eyes, he noticed the fire coming off of his body, and that there was a young girl standing over him healing his wounds. "What hap...pen...ed..." The words barely escaped his mouth when the girl quickly hushed him and and said "You fought the American boy, and barely lived to tell about it. Still lost the fight though."

Letting his head roll to the left, Franz caught a glimpse of the boy who had defeated him so badly. He sat there, wearing a simple shirt, and cargo shorts, equipped with a chinese tai chi sword and a western buckler, and he was also in very bad condition, beaten to a bloody pulp. The object that defeated Franz with such dire ease was the shotgun that the boy was holding, and the boy looked at Franz and before he passed out, said "Well frenchie, guess I won the bet. After this fight, I think I'll name my new toy....Mr.....Boomy.....Has a nice ring to it after what I did to you don't it!"

The dream Franz was having echoed in his head, his days of youth and trial on his way to Knighthood. The weeks spent inside a cave of perfect darkness, fighting creatures of untold strength, and meeting one particular American with a heart of gold but a serious attitude problem.

"That Adimus, I wonder how he's doing." Franz said as he woke up from his dream. He was on an airship, a battle ready assault cruiser armed and prepped for a trip down to Japan, to investigate what had happened and look for any surviving quincies and people with spiritual powers. Looking over to the window he noticed Dretta looking outward over the lands they flew across. Walking over to her, he placed his hand on her shoulder and said "Whatever troubles you, don't worry, it'll be set straight soon." He himself then looked over the window railing and saw the airship come across the city of Jerusalem, Israel, and beheld the both beautiful and dreadful sight.

The city was constantly under siege, every day 24/7 by hollows, arrancar, and even rogue humans. Whatever source of power flowed under that city, it must've been the holy grail of all power sources. Oh the irony. "That poor city never gets a break. However it is the single strongest human point of power left in the world, and barely anything can scratch the surface of the dome, let alone take the city. We need to go there to resupply and pick up an extra contingent of people. Mostly advance guardsman and tech experts. We'll have to blast our way through, So if you don't mind, I'll be at the gunnery bay. Care to join me if you like." Said Franz as he left the Bridge to take mount on a gun turret.

Just then a giant hollow flew up beside the airship, and began to fire off ceroes at the vessel, which in turn began to fire it's main starboard cannons. "Well it would seem we now have little choice but to fight! Meet you up on top!"

[dizzyizzy]

Dretta had woken from a short nap, dreamless as usual. She activated her Ranstengai and moved about on the ship, they were making a sort of flat J loop from Germany to Japan requiring them to move south then head east. They were flying over the Middle Eastern countries and she could actually hear the music for the scenery playing in her mind. ~such a different place, still a wasteland like the rest of the world, yet still holds life~ she thought glancing over at Franz as he slept; he had been sleeping since they left getting up once to eat before sleeping again… ‘saving energy’ as it were. Dretta had ended up with a bit of back pain, but ignored it. Her nap was shorter and she stared out the window now looking as they approached one of the strongholds, Jerusalem, the center of faith for many religions.

She looked up at Franz, slightly surprised that she did not notice his movements. “Heh nothing bothers me” she shrugged looking back at the dome. “I wonder if this place will ever know rest” she murmured, “It seems so beaten yet strong” she sighed pushing some hair from her face. For a moment her mind trailed to the idea of Quincies, and oddly had a sudden hope that she would meet one here. Hope for finding another was probably the only thing keeping her from just dying.

“I don’t think you’ll need me with you- oh fuck” she growled feeling the pressure of a incoming Hollow. She stood up and moved to where Franz had directed and looked around, “oi Frenchie never been on one of these things, what exactly will you have me do?” she asked seeing that if she did not do something right they might crash, and end up getting not only attacked by the hollow here, but by the ones on the ground and even the humans. ~Holy Land… Peh more like Oh Holy Shit Land~

[Adimus]

"You won't need to mount that thing, use your crossbow, it's just as strong." He said as he climbed up the ladder to the gunnery stations, and mounted one of the turrets. Rotating the turret around, Franz unloaded on the flying hollow, barely making a dent into the thing. "Damn it, this one is a tough one." He said as it launched off smaller versions of itself and he quickly dispatched those. As if things couldn't get much worse, the hollow fired off tentacles and latched itself to the ship, and began to rip it apart.

"Holy Shit land indeed! Dretta, we have to kill this thing before it rips the ship apart. Cover me as best you can, I'm jumping over!" Franz said as he grabbed a parachute and pulled out his sword. Unhooking the chain within the pommel, Franz threw the sword into one of the tentacles and as he spun around on the chain, severed the limb from the ship. Using the momentum he swung himself over onto the hollows back, and began to charge up a good chunk of spirit energy before driving the sword into it, burning it through to the other side. Franz looked up and noticed four other points where it might have a similar weakness, each one where it's wings would be. But before he could kill it, he would have to cut it off from the ship, or else the dead weight would drag it down. "This is going to be one hell of a day."

"Human, you shall die here, along with everyone else aboard that joke of flight! I am The Grand Dragonfly, remember my name as I devour your soul!" The hollow spoke as he sent hundreds of mini hollows flying at him.

"Yup, hell of a day indeed. I hate heights."

<<<<<Boss Fight!>>>>>>
Grand Dragonfly Hollow!!!

[dizzyizzy]

Dretta fired off a few bolts killing the smaller dispatched hollows, but against the big hollow it seemed to ‘ping’ off the surface. “shit shit shit” she growled starting to put a bit more energy into the bolts now, “Yes you go do that.. Wait what?” she looked over in time to watch the Frenchmen leap onto the hollow. Dretta paled slightly as the tentacles started to pull at the metal around the ship’s surface causing the machine to lurch slightly. “Okay, range on the tentacles, and melee on the boss” she muttered to herself as she took aim and started to just send a barrage at the tentacles; the bolts were melting at the skin, slowly scraping it off the surface of the ship.

“…” she reached onto the back of her belt and pulled out a grenade, stared at it and shook her head placing it back on her belt, “Another time” she declared before going back to just destroying the tentacles trying to get them off the surface and slowly firing up toward the Hollow itself. It was a disgusting creature, a Hollow Meganeura. The small creatures it summoned caught Dretta’s attention as she shot off a few bolts to help out Franz before returning to the Tentacles.

Even as she fired the tentacles had cracked the metal pulling it up slightly at the seams, but with Dretta’s assault what damage that could have happened was stopped nearly in its tracks. “Come on Franz kill it already” she snapped only to find herself getting struck by a tentacle throwing her back hard causing her crossbow to disappear. “…I’m….I’m okay” she announced sprawled out on the ground a bit feeling that she might have cracked a rib as she started to rise up.

[Adimus]

Franz was shocked to see a hollow so large and powerful but still able to speak and act intelligently. Running through the giant scales and hairs that protruded from it's back, Franz hacked and slashed his way against hordes of mini hollows, finally reaching it's next pair of wings and tentacle. In this case however, a type of guardian seemed to spawn off from the Dragonfly, and Franz was forced to kill it before he could move on to the wings.

Clashing in a duel of skill with the guardian, Franz made quick work of it by slicing off it's hands then offing it's head. As it's body fell to the ground Franz' flames began to crawl over it and finish it off entirely.

Raising his sword into the air, and repeating the same process of charging up his spirit energy, Franz drove the blade deep into the Dragonfly's back and set it on fire, destroying it's wings in that segment of the beast. As the hollow sank in altitude, so did the airship next to it, and upon seeing it, Franz ran over to the part of the hollow that had the limb stretched out, and hacked at it until the limb fell off and detached from the airship.

"Two down, three left." Franz said giving out a heavy sigh. "Captain Callahan, this is Commander Franz, come in Captain Callahan." Franz radioed the airships captain, who was no doubt, busy trying o coordinate the air battle currently underway.

"This is Cpt. Callahan, what is that you need from me Franz, As you might have noticed, I'm a bit busy up here." A raspy British voice came through the radio. "Cpt. Callahan, I need you to place a main gun battery on this thing, right where I place a signal flare." A series of coughs and exclamations came through the radio in respone to Franz request, followed by "Are you daft Commander!? Firing the cannon that close to the ship will damamge us as much as the hollow, there's no way I'll fire that thing now!" Franz face palmed as he listened to the Captain. "Look, I'm fully aware that the main cannon can leave a rather nasty dent on us as well, but I hope you're much more aware of the dangers present if we leave the situation as is. I'll mark the hollow, you fire, got it? And don't worry, I'll find a way to minimize damage to our vessel."

After a moment of radio silence, the captain came through with "Fine, I'll fire the cannon, but how do you intend to mark it?". Looking over to the Bridges window, Franz flared up, and said "See me now? I've been on top of this damn thing tearing it apart, but it's taking too long and too much to finish it off. Now, I put a flare here, now shoot the damn gun!" Franz yelled at the captain, who responded in swears of disbelief and barked right back at Franz, but in the end, fired the main cannon at the hollow. Franz franticly ran to escape the blast, and set up a barrier using his aura to help shield the airship from the blast. The effort greatly reduced Franz strength, but left him with just enough to finish the job. Watching the lower half of the hollow fall and fade away, Franz sighed in relief that his job just became that much easier.

The resulting shriek of pain from the Hollow also noted that it was weakening, and the tentacles it had wrapped around the airship loosened. "Dretta, fire on the tentacles, tear them apart!" Franz yelled to her as he ran up to the next point to be bombed.

[dizzyizzy]

Dretta had watched as the hollow was blown in half, ugh just like an insect capable of living with half a body... ew! Her eyes noted the tentacles slowly losing grip, along with the explosion and Dretta Swiss cheesing the tentacles it would be easier now to remove them. Her side hurt a bit, but she shoved the feeling away as she summoned her crossbow and started to shoot them off turning them into stumps. Her bolts at this point had also caused scratches on the ship, ~I'll just say those are from the tentacles~ she thought.

This was getting annoying, she was close to just throw a grenade just to spice it up, but that would result in hitting Franz... Which she had to remind herself was a 'bad' thing to do. "He'd only get a bit beat up... no no not a good idea still" she muttered to herself as she finished of the tentacles causing the ship to lurch again as the weight of the Hollow was pulled off. Dretta braced herself rubbing her side as she stared at the sight of the hollow trying desperately to hover with the Frenchmen sitting on him trying to kill the thing. She hoped he would not get shot or killed.

"Okay Franz you can stop riding the bull, and you know not die horribly" She shouted wanting him to get back into the damn ship! "Oh but before that kill the stupid thing, it's starting to smell" she added stepping back into the ship to hide what emotions she was feeling. Any explosion that would come next would cause the Quincy to flinch slightly.

[Adimus]

Running across the spine of the near dead monster, Franz's blade sung a deadly harmony and cut down whatever stood in his way.

The last weak point of the giant hollow was just ahead of him, and nothing of note stood in his way, cutting through swaths of hollows and finally Franz reached the spot that he had to signal for destruction. "This is it, time to end this abomination!" yelled Franz as he raised his arms into the air and drove his sword into the back of the giant hollow, leaving a fire to signal the Captain where to bombard next.

Just as the main cannon fired at the spot highlighted by Franz's flare, Franz himself was throw away by the blast as he attempted to jump away from it. The force of the explosion made him fly away from the airship, and go down with the giant hollow. Realizing just how deep in trouble he was, Franz let loose the chain within his sword, and just before he ran out of the reach of the ship, Franz threw his sword and using the chain within he wrapped it around a piece of the ship.

Dangling a thousand feet in the air Franz climbed up and pulled himself back onto the airship. Moments later, the Airship managed to dock itself into the loading bay, and the shield was bought down in a large enough area in an even smaller time frame to let the the in fully. After the ordeal, Franz went to find Dretta, and upon finding her, noticed she was holding her side as if wounded.

"Dretta, you're hurt! Here, let me help you." He said as he summoned forth the Light to heal whatever had harmed her. WHen he was finished, he looked at her and said "Welcome to Jerusalem, City Of Light and Spirits."

<<<<<<<<<<<<VICTORY>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Grand Dragonfly Hollow Defeated!!!!!
Achievement Unlocked!!- Rough Holly Landing - Defeat the Dragonfly Hollow and safely land the U.S.S Hollybrook inside Jareusalem's sirship port. - 25G