spin_kick_snap | Limbo City, Saturday Noon

Kathy knew they were going to have to fight demons. She had yet to go to Limbo City and not fight demons. But she'd at least expected the fighting to wait until they'd gotten to the damn tower first.

	The demons that lined the path to the tower were different than anything they might have seen before - but also more familiar. Several large figures clothed in long robes with heavy hoods leaped down off a broken arch, scythes in hand, their eyes flashing red. "Let's see what you're made of," the girl growled, yanking Kalina-Ann from her back. "Showtime."
	"Oh, fun," Anders said, with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. He didn't have time to get more sarcastic: There were demons, and he needed to fight them. He gripped his staff ably and aimed it at the hooded figures, stunning them with a sudden bolt of lightening.
	Funny, really: these two demons were literally cloth and bones, and yet that blast of lightning saw them convulsing in place, stunned and hurting. (Magic, of whatever kind, would always hurt a demon.) Past the demons, the girl's head jerked to the side abruptly, her eyes narrowing at Anders - what was that? But then she saw the third demon dashing forward towards him. She could deal with that later; right now he'd be busy.
	Anders felt the girl's eyes on him and turned to frown briefly at her before all his attention went to the third demon. He tried to hit that one with lightning too, intending to freeze all three before he could use a stronger spell yet to take them down.
	He'd have to move quickly. As the electricity burst through the third demon's body and anchored him in place, the others had stopped convulsing.
	Anders cursed under his breath when he noticed that the first two demons were no longer shaking in place. It was always easier to hit a target that couldn't hit back. He made some complicated motions with his hands and staff, and a rain of fireballs began to fall on the demons.
	That... was new. Sure, some of the demons had found themselves on the receiving end of Dante's flaming axe already and hadn't been in any rush to reproduce the experience, but that wasn't quite the same when it was raining down on you. The demons roared, trying to dart forward to stop the mage, but the fringes of their cloaks were already burning. They lit up with fire like a piece of dry wood.
	Kathy, turned around and confused by this shifting maze of towers, dashed through a doorway. Her Thundaga-modified bokken was at the ready, electricity crawling over the materia's smooth surface. She almost looked ready for battle, save for her expression when she saw those robed figures, clustered together on the floor like an outcropping of warts. "Shit shit shit shit," she swore under her breath. Then her eyes skittered past them to the girl wielding a a goddamn bazooka. "Fuck." Congrats, Lady. You were registering as a bigger threat than the damn demons.
	The girl wasn't paying attention, Kathy. Sorry. She shouldered the bazooka instead, aimed... and fired one straight into a cluster of advancing demons. She shoved the bazooka back in its holster and hurled herself off the bike, nimbly flipping onto the battlefield.
	As much as it might sting her pride, Kathy's common sense was pointing out that she'd much, much rather not register on the girl's radar than be considered a threat on it. Besides, now that the bazooka was put away--and what kind of person had a bazooka holster?!--the demons the girl was fighting were quickly climbing up Kathy's threat meter anyway. Pulling out her modified bokken, she let loose a jagged bolt of lightning, aiming the blast of pure Thundaga at the closest demon, crossing the distance between the two of them faster than humanly possible to slamm the weighted edge of her bokken into its temple.
	Lady flipped between demons, bouncing off a large scythe-blade coming her way. Up in the air, she drew her handguns and rained down fire. "I think there's something behind those big doors!"
	Okay, wow, she even moved like Kathy did. Kathy was getting some uncomfortable vibes here and she really wasn't sure what to make of them. "On it!" Kathy said, changing directions in midair. She wasn't much of a match for a horde of demons, not without a bazooka of her own. So instead she bounced, flinging herself through the air, using the demons and their weapons as springboards to stay in the air and pick up even more speed. Moving like this again was exhilarating, she had to admit. Hated to admit. Couldn't deny. "Keep 'em off me!" she demanded, sliding under a pair of scythes right to the giant doors.
	"You've got a lot of demands for a stranger," the girl muttered, but her aim was true. One by one, she picked off the demons Kathy left behind, running after her. The bazooka came out again, blasting the last of them up against the doors right as Kathy reached them.
	"Did you want these doors open or not?" Kathy snapped, digging out her lockpicks and getting to work. "I'm not the one packing a goddamn military-grade arsenal." But for all that the doors hadn't even shuddered under the weight of the blast, Kathy's picks were doing just fine, releasing one tumbler after another until the final one slipped into place and the great door groaned open.
	...to reveal a large hallway with, at the other end, another door flanked by two statues. The girl slid her guns back into her pockets as she walked into the hallway. "Interesting," she said.
	"I was gonna say anticlimactic, but that works, too," Kathy said, scanning the walls and ceiling for signs of demons, traps, or demonic traps. "Odds we're gonna have to fight those statues?" Kathy was putting her money on 'high.'
	Just as she said that, a booming voice rumbled through the room. "Oh, well hello." "Look, brother! It's been ages, but we have company!" "I see that." "We must be gracious hosts and entertain them." The girl's hips were swaying as she walked up to the statues, bazooka still in hand. Demons, she was pretty certain.
	"If we weren't going to before, we certainly are now," Anders said dismayed. "Can we just kill them before they monologue at us? I'm not feeling very patient."
	"You know, I'd be willing to negotiate for peaceful passage if I thought we had any chance of it happening," Kathy said with a sigh. Honestly, of the three of them, she'd probably be the best at matching just how much these two could talk. "Hey!" she called up to them. "Any chance this can be resolved by, like, a battle of wits or a riddle contest or something?"
	"Should we do that?" wondered one statue. "Our guests are getting awfully sighy." "What is sighy? I mean, what does that mean?" "Sighy is when--" A single gunshot ran out, right over their heads. "We just want to keep moving," the girl snarled. "Keep moving," one of the statues echoed. "No... that can't happen. We're here to guard this door, you see." And both statues began to shake as they rose to their feet.
	Someday, the sight of moving statues at Kirkwall's harbor would give Anders serious deja vu. But that was years away as he stood in the tower with a furrowed brow. "You can guard it and let us by," he suggested brightly. "Tell your .... manager, or whoever, that you saw us and decided we weren't a threat, because we aren't." He shot Lady a worried look. "Our friend just got a bit excited."
	You know, there was something to be said for subtlety. Stealth. Patience. Kathy was definitely feeling sighy, yes. Especially since she wasn't sure that her Thundaga would be as useful against these guys as they'd been against the other demons. "Last chance," she offered, scanning the hall for options. Hmm, that chain over the door--that had possibilities. "You let my friends go through and I'll hang here and talk with you awhile. It must get old, only having each other to talk to, no?" Not everything had to be solved by violence, angry girl! ...Odds were this one would, though.
	"It does get old," mused one statue. "Should I feel offended about that?" said the other. "It doesn't matter anyway." "True," said the second statue, "Since we really can't let you pass." Something shifted. Changed. The statues seemed smaller somehow, and more vivid, one red, one blue... they kept changing, stone to muscle, losing inches, until they were the same size as their opponents. "Sorry," said Agni, drawing his flaming sword, "It's not personal." "I'll bet," the girl sneered, and drew her bazooka.
	"Always the fighting," Anders sighed again, already fluidly twirling to point his staff at the guards. "Too bad. We could have had a nice little chat." He aimed a jolt of lightning over the statues' heads, still hoping to warn them off.
	Kathy was pretty sure the opportunity for warning them off had ended around the same time the statues' transformation sequence had. Anders' bolt of lightning was followed up by a blur of Kathy; she darted up to the red one, leaping into the air to deliver a roundhouse kick directly to its face.
	There was no warning these guys, no. Agni took the kick to the face gracefully - without bending much at all. "Leave," he said, and sliced at Kathy with his blade. Rudra's blades whirled, firing a strong gust of cutting wind in Anders' direction in retaliation. And then there was the girl, bazooka in hand-- "Kathy," she bellowed, "Use this!" Not the bazooka. The handgun she was hurtling across the room.
	The wind knocked Anders backwards, and he smashed into a wall before he regained his balance. "You're going to pay for that," he shouted, preparing to launch ice at Rudra.
	"So, I, uhh, don't have your levels of experience with these things!" Kathy warned, even she launched herself into the air to avoid Agni's blade. That put her directly into the path of the oncoming gun, so she reached out and deftly snatched it from the air. But 'not as much' wasn't the same as 'none' and Kathy, at least, had gotten some practice with handguns over the summer. She checked the safety as she used one of the stone columns as a launching pad, knees flexing almost to the ground as she landed. Seconds later she was airborn again, rushing towards the red demon, squeezing the trigger as soon as she got within point blank range. Who needed aim when you were this close? She kept squeezing until the gun coughed and clacked, completely empty.
	Rudra didn't seem very intimidated by Anders. In fact, Rudra was kicking his foot back, clearly getting ready to go storming straight at Anders, hefty shoulders first. But Agni was having a harder time. While Kathy fired, so did the girl, hammering enchanted bullets into the demon's side. It roared-- a terrifying, "Hey!!" -- and flailed around, its blades sending fire spewing everywhere.
	Anders cast a flimsy shield to guard himself against Rudra as he stored up energy for his next attack. He was sweating and his heart was racing and he worried about Kathy -- and somewhere, deep inside, he loved all of this.
	Kathy was trying very, very hard to ignore how much she did, too. Trying to convince herself that her heart was hammering out of fear, not exhilaration, that her mouth was curved in a rictus, not a grin. Her gun was clacking dry and Agni was throwing fire, so Kathy let herself keep sailing past. She landed against the far wall, near the door the demons had been guarding. There was a giant metal chain there, its coils sprawled along the floor. Hmmm. She was getting an idea.
	Kathy seemed like she was doing fine. The girl powered past her, Kalina-Ann sliding back into her hands. "Duck!" she bellowed at Anders, as Rudra made impact with his shield.
	Anders wasn't an idiot. He ducked, sliding backwards on his rear toward the same chain Kathy had noticed. As he went backward, the shield faltered and he cast another fireball at Rudra.
	And there he was, sliding towards her just as she needed him. "Anders!" she called, giving him a bright, slightly manic grin. "Perfect! Grab the other end of that chain, would you?" It was huge and heavy and, most importantly, conductive. And she and Anders both had lightning at their disposal right now. "We don't have to kill them, just stall 'em long enough to get away!"
	The second Anders ducked, a massive rocket slammed into Rudra's body, knocking him forward into Anders' fireball. Momentarily dazed, the demon staggered and found himself face-to-face with the back of the girl's bazooka. Neither were paying a lot of attention to what Kathy was doing.
	"You got it," Anders hollered back at Kathy, grabbing the chain firmly in both hands. "We go on three?" He was grateful Kathy had her lightning stick; it would make this much easier.
	Kathy was beyond grateful that Reno had given it to her, all those years ago. Maybe if she'd had it back in Los Angeles-- Never mind. No time for that now. "On three," she agreed. "One...two...three!" They ran forward with heavy chain towards the demons advancing on the girl. And when they were close enough they couldn't miss, Kathy called "Three!" again and they heaved.
	The chain shot forward and slammed into Rudra's back, whacking Agni in the knees. Agni buckled, and the girl had to swerve to get out of its path. "What are you doing?!"
	"Taking them down," Anders called back, and aimed a precise jolt of lighting at the end of the chain.
	Kathy sent a bolt of Thundaga at the chain, hitting multiple links at once, all of which ran to the nearest points of ground--the demons at either end. "Like I said to him," she panted, the materia pulling energy from her like water, "we don't have to beat them, just make a chance to get away."