TAKE DOWN: INFINITY SHIFT ~FORUM RPG~

Locke
Defends his honor!
->MISS!

Sephiroth
Sighing at the fallen comrads, you swiftly cast another Bolt from the heavens.
->48 Damage to Guard Scorpion

Khos
Summoning a power from within, that you knew you had all along, you break out Repeating Fist!
->174 Damage to Guard Scorpion
(I've modified the damage formula to try and match with FFT)

Archeia
Casts Haste on herself, next turn she can do 2 moves!

Storm
Casts Cure on the whole party!
->HP is 2/3 restored! (Whole Party cast reduces spell power, but it's still pretty effective!)

Xavion
Turtle-brain ideas like this are hard to come by. Maybe your small harpoon could wedge apart that massive ton of metal scorpion leg! Let's DO IT! At least you do some damage...
->23 Damage to Guard Scorpion!

Selphie
Attack
->4 Damage to Guard Scorpion!

Zeuzio
Potion
->HP Restored!

Guard Scorpion
Lock'n'Load! Ripping bullets through the air at the bastard trying to rip off his own leg...
->40 Damage to Xavion!





Guard Scorpion (HP: ??)

Zeuzio
With a double chop of your axes, you bring down Guard Scorpion a peg. I’m running out of witty battle sayings.
->17 Damage to Guard Scorpion

Locke
Stabbing your dagger, you deftly spin for another swing!
->8 Damage to Guard Scorpion

Storm
Being a White Mage has perks, and downfalls. One downfall is using a whip.
->4 Damage to Guard Scorpion

Xavion
Your harpoon finally breaks the weakened armor, and mechanical parts fly everywhere. You find CPU.
->23 Damage to Guard Scorpion
+1 CPU

Khos
Surrounded by fire, you rumble upwards through the body of the machine, causing it to spark and flinch. There’s now giant hole in the middle.
->11 Damage to Guard Scorpion

Archeia
You were partly cured by Storm a moment ago, so your total damage output was dwarfed. See, the other skill set up would have been better!
->6 Damage to Guard Scorpion

Sephiroth
“This battle is meaningless to me. We’ve dallied far too long. Let’s end it.” With this nonchalant statement of superiority, you cast Bolt from your hands, Force Lightninging the Guard Scorpion.
->48 Damage to Guard Scorpion

The Guard Scorpion trembles and shakes, slowly turning red and vanishing into thin air.
KEEEUUUUUUUUUUUUUIIIIIIIIIHHHH.......
Dun dun dun da da dun dun da da!

VICTORY!
Strike a pose!
+20 EXP to Zeuzio, Xavion, Storm, Khos, Locke, Selphie, Sephiroth and Archeia.
Zeuzio, Khos, Xavion, Storm, Archeia, and Locke are now Level 10!
Selphie is Level 9!
Sephiroth is Level 13!
+2 HP, +1 MP, +1 Skill Slot (Active Skill only!)
The survivors gain 1000 gil each. (1100 to Zeuzio, 2000 to Selphie)
+100 LP!

Khos
You bend over and pick up a weird little flat-ish square block. It was laying on the ground where the mysterious trenchcoat-wearing man was standing when he warned about the Scorpion Tail.
+1 Special License!

Storm
You find a similar flat-ish block on the ground where some stranger had cast Magic Missile during the battle.
+1 Special License!

The Party
With the dust settling, your relax, and move your dead comrads to a pile of corpses.
"What next?" Zeuzio inquires, bored by the daunting affair now surpassed.
"To the Reactor." Sephiroth leads the way without stopping to ask for anyone to follow.
"What about these dead guys?" Archeia insists.
"Do with them what you like. I'm here on business," Sephiroth retorts without looking back.
"Uh, what do we do?" Selphie wonders, head tilted.
"Just Tent them," says Duonce, emerging from the ship. "You all really saved my bacon there, so this one's on the house."
After Dounce has set up the Tent, and the bodies are shoved into it, the lot of you wait around until morning.

You all wake up to Gourd_Clae barging in the sleeping quarters.
"Hey y'all! Let's go! Something's happened!"
groggily, the team assembles on the deck of the Enterprise. You are all outside Nibelheim.
"Uh, what's going on? Weren't we at the Reactor a few hours ago?" Khos wonders, rubbing his eyes.
"Y'all spept like wee babes in them hammocks! I didn't feel right wakin' ya!" Cid chirps sheepishly.
"So what's up?" Zeuzio asks, impatiently.
"It's Sephiroth... He's in the Nibelheim Mansion for days!" Storm explains.
"What's he doin--wait, 'DAYS'?! How long were we asleep?!" Zeuzio demands.
"About three days," Allen Hunter grumbles, sounding very bitter. "By the way, thanks for reviving us in the Guard Scorpion battle. We didn't need the EXP anyway."
"We-ell, we did spend three days fighting Goblins..." MrChearlie notes.
"Like that's the &@%ing same!" Hunter curses. "Anyway. Someone should go check on Sephiroth."
"Grusha gheua shlursh," Xavion suggests, but no one speaks Sahagin.
"I'll go. You guys stay here," Zeuzio offers, stepping towards the bow of the airship.
"Hey, let me come! I haven't been out this way yet!" Archeia cheers, and joins Zeuzio. "Not even sure where we are, to be honest. Hey, adventurin' is fun though, right?"



In town Zeuzio finds Selphie humming away, perched on the water tower (recently fixed).
"What're you doing here?" Zeuzio asks.
"I live here!" Selphie hops down, and fixes her hat. "Glad to see you woke up, sleepyheads!"
"..." Zeuzio said, even though '...' is an improper use of the English language.
"We're here now. Have you seen that Sephiroth guy around?"
"Him? Nah. That bum's been over in the Nibelheim Mansion for like 3 days or something! Gosh."
Zeuzio sighs, and continues towards the mansion. "Well, let's go check it out."
On the trio went, into the dark and empty Nibelheim Mansion. Clearly built for a large family or with plenty of servants, this place is now cold and haunted. The quiet in the air is highlights the fact there's no music playing...
"Icky, I don't want to be here," Selphie whines.
"This place could use a fair bit of dusting," Archeia notes.
"Come on, he has to be around here somewhere." Zeuzio plods on, searching room after room, until they happen on a study with a funny-looking wall. "Here, this is odd. It clearly looks like a door."
"Check for switches somewhere, maybe a candlestick or book in the bookshelf?" Archeia rattles off.
While Archeia and Zeuzio seek out this hidden switch, Selphie leans against the mystery wall trying to watch everything all at once. Too many creepy noises and stuff!
There's a creek from the hallway, and Selphie jumps against the wall, causing it to bust open!
Following quickly, Zeuzio and Archeia find a winding, rickety wooden walkway leading down.
"This way!" Zeuzio expertly decides.
At the bottom they find Selphie, holding her head with a circle of stars spinning above her. Zeuzio quickly casts Heal on her Stun status effect, and they're off again. Scooby-Dooing down a long dirt corridor that seems to serve no purpose.
At the end, the find a door.
"This is it. He's either dead, or really hungry," Zeuzio announces.
"We shoulda' brought some food!" Selphie chimes in.
Through the door, you find a science lab. Wandering around a lab, Sephiroth is reading a book. He appears to have been awake all this time reading, judging from the bags under his eyes. Yet, he reads with the zest of an addict of knowledge.
"...an organism that was apparently dead, was found in a 2000 year old geological stratum. Professor Gast named that organism, Jenova... X Year, X Month, X Day. Jenova confirmed to be an Ancient..."
"What's all this about Jenova?" Archeia bursts in, interrupting his reading.
With a slow movement, Sephiroth places a finger on the page, so as to not lose his place.
"It's something I'm trying to find out." Sephiroth returns his eyes slowly to the page. Briefly, he glances back at the trio and narrows his eyes briefly, as if to say, "Silence."
After a moment of regaining his composure, he continues. "X Year, X Month, X Day. Jenova Project approved. The use of Mako Reactor 1 approved for use," he read, walking slowing towards a narrow corridor leading to a library.
"My mother's name is Jenova... Jenova Project... Is this just a coincidence?"
"Probably," Selphie says. "It's a pretty common name."
"Shh!" Zeuzio warns, as to not interrupt this story scene.
As if he couldn't hear them, Sephiroth wondered, "Professor Gast... Why didn't you tell me anything? ...Why did you die?"
"Ahh, awkward..." Selphie announced, backing out the door whence they came.
"Yeah, really..." Zeuzio added, nodding for Archeia to follow. The trio headed back upstairs, past the hidden doorway.
"What now?" Archeia asked the leader.
"Eh, sleep on it? Maybe he'll come to his senses by tomorrow."
"Tomorrow? Wow, you like to sleep!" Archeia noticed.

The next day, Zeuzio awoke to the sound of humming. In the next room, Selphie was working on opening a safe.
Hopping to her feet, Zeuzio found the room she had taken over in the mansion completely clean. Out in the hall too. It was like someone had cleaned the whole mansion! The windows, previously dusty and hard to see through, are now crystal clear. The mansion now holds a warm, cosy glow.
"Gotcha!" Selphie exclaimed, opening the safe.
Selphie found 1 Special License!
+1 Special License
"Come on, let's go check on Sephiroth," Zeuzio demanded, like a wet blanket.
Waiting patiently in the study with the secret passageway, Archeia was sipping tea and eating a home-made sandwich.
"Is it time to go down and see Mr. Grumpy?" Archeia asked rhetorically, and setting down her tea.

Downstairs, inside the secret underground lair with deranged experiments in, the girls found no signs of Sephiroth.
"Psst!" Selphie whispers. "This is creepy!"
"Ha, ha, ha..." Came a voice.
"Creepier!" Selphie whines.
"Come on!" Zeuzio ordered, leading the others down through into the hidden library. Books strewn everywhere, and Sephiroth sitting behind a desk covered in research.
"Who is it!?" the man in the black cape (see: inventory) demands. Looking up, he locks eyes with Zeuzio and begins to stand up. "Hmph... traitor."
"Traitor?" Zeuzio wonders, feeling even more awkward than last night.
"You ignorant traitor. I'll tell you." Sephiroth begins walk around the desk with his arms raised out, as if he were sneaking in a cartoon. "This Planet originally belonged to the Cetra. Cetra was a itinerant race. They would migrate in, settle the Planet, then move on... At the end of their harsh, hard journey, they would find the Promised Land and supreme happiness. But, those that disliked the journey appeared. Those who stopped their migrations built shelters and elected to lead an easier life."
"Uh..." Zeuzio starts to say, but is cut off by more of Sephiroth's inane ramblings.
"They took that which the Cetra and the planet had made without giving back one whit in return!" Sephiroth twirls like a ballerina and and points directly at Zeuzio's forehead. "Those are your ancestors."
"Eh, are you sure? I don't think I'm from this planet," Zeuzio pleads.
Not listening, Sephiroth continues. "Long ago, disaster struck this planet. Your ancestors escaped... They survived because they hid. The Planet was saved by sacrificing the Cetra. After that, your ancestors continued to increase. Now all that's left of the Cetra is in these reports."
"Okay, so what does that have to do with you?" Zeuzio paraphrases from a certain game script.
"Don't you get it?" Sephiroth asks, smacking his palm to his forehead as if to say 'DUH!'
Walking past the trio of gals, Sephiroth explains, "An Ancient named Jenova was found in the geological stratum of 2000 years ago. The Jenova Project. The Jenova Project wanted to produce people with the powers of the Ancients... no, the Cetra."
With dramatic lighting cascading across his face, Sephiroth announced, "I am the one that was produced."
"Pr...produced!?" Zeuzio asks.
"Like a test tube baby?" Selphie gasps.
"What did I get myself into?" Archeia ponders, off to the side.

"Yes," Sephiroth explains, as he begins walking beyond the girls and into the connecting corridor to the science lab. "Professor Gast, leader of the Jenova Project and genius scientist, produced me."
"Uh, gross. How did he...?" Zeuzio wonders despite herself, but Sephiroth is now quite a ways away. Taking a few steps forward, she calls, "Se... Sephiroth?"
Pausing in his steps to ready his MP3 Player, Sephiroth says, "Out of my way. I'm going to see my mother," and then drops his MP3 Player so his themesong will play as he exits the scene.
SEPHIROTH LEAVES THE PARTY!

Racing after the weird man, the trio are too late...
They rush up the stairs, through the portal, out of the mansion and see---Nibelheim in flames!
Getting into the heart of town is easy, there's people laying dead in the streets as all the buildings burn. Yet, Sephiroth is nowhere to be found!
"Hey, there!" Selphie points out.
Somehow you missed Sephiroth killing a man outside the Mansion. Pretty good trick, missing that.
Well, the cool part is here...


With Sephiroth gone, and the flames getting hotter, there's only one thing left to do!
Head back to the Airship! Outside Nibelheim, things are worse than ever. You barely make it out alive, with all that fire stuff in the way. Yet you do! Time to get on the Enterprise!
"Argh..." says a voice of a man laying on his face.

The trio hurry to the man's aid. Then you notice, there are a bunch of people laying around here. It's your party! The Enterprise is gone!
"Seph... Sephiroth stole the Enterprise..." whispers Gourd_Clae, the team informant on important information.
"Sephiroth!?" Zeuzio demands. "Sephiroth!!!"
Falling on her knees, as the gravity of the situation hits her, all hope seems lost.
Suddenly, Storm hauls himself to his knees. Summoning the power of Cure, he quickly heals the party. Everyone is now 100% HP.
Cid and Duonce are nearby, rubbing their heads. Duonce is wearing a large backpack, and can provide limited-time itemshop supplies.
"&*#! Never trusted that silver-haired @#$!" Allen Hunter bleeps. "At least we made up our EXP, sorta."
"What now?" Zeuzio asks the hot-headed, one-legged man.
"A bunch of us went out and fought some Goblins while you were galavanting in Nibelheim."

+10 EXP, 500 Gil and 50 LP to Gourd_Clae, Allen Hunter, RabitZ, and MrChearlie! (All Gain 1 Level!)
And now back to the show...