Gateway

A headache.

This was far from an unusual state of being by now. Very far. Still, the screeching did alarm him.

Inhuman. Possibly chiropteran, not that Naito would use such a word. It seemed both like a bat and a human. Another of those experiments.

His eyes opened slowly. He could see the dark rock of the ground, the large tree sticking out that rapidly.... "ungrew" would probably be the term. One moment it was very tall, like giant kelp, the next it was half disintegrating into nothingness, half sinking into the ground and...un-develping. Another rock near him grew out of the platform on which they were lying, a second rock disintegrating like the kelp. Platforms around them appeared and disappeared at random, sometimes at actual right angle or other types of angle to one another, as if a central gravity did not exist.

He looked around. To their left was a swiftly-moving waterfall....off of nothing, leading [i]up[/i] and in some parts [i]sideways[/i] from nothing to nothing. He looked around at last. They were in a purple vortex of some sort, an abyss. Presumably there was an exit not far from here, but he did not know where. He looked to the fallen Jasmine, shaking her, trying to wake her up. "Jasmine, Jasmine, please be okay..."

"Cyrus!" He could finally hear something out of the screeches, the form of a purple bat like creature, a man by the voice, with four purple wings still attempted to fly. Attempted was the operative word, since the bottom wings (seeming to be the remnants of feet) were encased in stone, the top wings (formerly hands, with fingers on the ends) struggling to get him free. The Crobatmorph's back was to them, but he kept trying, looking around frantically, flying in a single direction. Presumably this was the right direction to go.

He seemed to notice them, however. "You!" he shouted. Two large buzz saws of wind revved before him, and launched themselves at the duo, Naito throwing himself over Jasmine to take the blow. He grunted, but it was, all things considered, not nearly as bad as other things he had been hit with. He looked at the bat-thing again, and his body began to glow brightly, mesmerizing any who would look at it. He was stuck in a trance...

Two purple slashes came, one from each unrestrained wing, probably hitting both of them. Naito gasped in pain as this happened, somewhat damaged by the Cross Poison, but not realizing the other effect of increased effect of critical hits against him.

That was the last the Crobatmorph was able to do, however. He tried, tried so very hard to escape, but then it happened. Another rock grew out of the ground before him, enveloping the top of his head. As a silent screech came, a tree came up from behind, pushing him up, up....and there was a sickening crack as his back broke, his body broken as the tree just disappearing as he finally died to this world.

The angel was shocked, of course, but he had no chance to react. There was a deafening roar, and a blue head snaked over Jasmine, grabbing him in its teeth by the waist and dragging him into the upward stream! He shouted, stabbing hard into the side of the head that he could not see, and was released, falling sideways into the water. He felt the current moving, but  nothing actually [i]happened[/i] to him in it. It just moved, with nothing actually restricting him. It was then that he looked to his foe.... and stayed there, horrified.

The beast had a human head with short, blue hair that was greatly unkempt. The eyes were a piercing red, the mouth unnaturally large and filled with enormous dagger like teeth. There was a large blue scar over the upper lip as well, but the rest of the body was far more disturbing. It had no arms, its forefront torso human, with scales folded over it as protection, but the human quality clearly there. The "tail" of this serpentine beast was really two fused-together legs. The back, however, was blue and fully scaled, with numerous white crests along its length, about three of them. The male Gyaradosmorph roared once more, his Intimidate skill working wonders to lower Naito's combat efficiency.

Meanwhile, Jasmine had a different issue. This one seemed to look like a hound of some sort, with black fur over most of his body, but brown on the undersides and snout, not to mention white, bonelike projections arcing over the back and around all four ankles (the limbs of which were normal hands and feet). Bony horns arced back out of his head, a bone-like "collar" of sorts around the neck. A forked tail came from his backside. The head, otherwise, looked humanoid, the eyes a deep blue, the teeth, though sharp, not nearly as large as the Gyaradosmorph. That wasn't to say that this Houndoommorph was not a threat. Even on his platform, which was, of all things, entirely [i]upside down[/i] to Jasmine's, forcing them both to look up, he still was ready for action, and showed as much as he half-shouted, half-howled, and lunged upward down toward her position. The Houndoommorph's teeth crackled with electricity as he tried for a Thunder Fang attack, an electrical bite that had a possibility to cause paralysis and electric damage. Immediately after, in case he had missed, he fired a blue fireball from his mouth. This Will-o-the-Wisp would, if it made contact and was successful, cause fire burn damage over the course of the entire battle.

"Die!" boomed the Gyaradosmorph, and the water picked up suddenly, forcing Naito back, down, down into the abyss! He didn't have time to resist, however, as the monstrous form charged down the new Waterfall, slamming him in the chest and forcing him flying back.

He managed to fly out of it at last with his wings, back up to Jasmine's level, but could not help with her situation. He charged energy in his swords.... "Moon Wave!" The attack hit true, making the serpent shout in anger, but Naito had to fly down, met him halfway... and the headbutt sent him flying, slamming hard into a nearby bottom of a platform, where he seemed to stay due to this odd gravity. He gasped in pain, reaching and taking out a Potion and drinking it, but rolled aside to just barely avoid the next charge. The solution was as such: The Gyaradosmorph was on the platform with him now, and ready for more action. He, on the other hand, had, as per usual for this venture, seen better days.

It seemed that, as per any end game, these two were especially ferocious, especially with the loss of the Crobatmorph, who was still aiming in the direction of where Cyrus presumably went, to the sheer physics of this Distortion World. They just had to hope that they could get out of this alive.