Damn Snipers [Closed Training]

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~ 1933: Damn Snipers ~

~ Long arm of the Law ~

Learning: Aquí y allí (Here and There)
Training: Reiatsu Proficiency

Loki looked down at their severed arm; it had happened during a fight with a rival Adjuchas who had dared to attack them while their attention was diverted, attacking from extremely long range with a highly compressed beam of energy to attempt to behead Loki. They had managed to feel a distortion in the energy behind them and had begun to turn as they were struck, instead of going through the base of their neck it instead ripped off one of their arms at the shoulder. The hollow had been able to hide it's position well and moved covertly, taking shots again and again as Loki searched in vain for it's source. The lanky swan like hollow was dead now – a quick meal for Verlassen to recover their lost energy – in the end, Loki had simply unleashed a barrage of Cero blasts to flush the creature out of hiding and had then torn it apart; hardly the most efficient way of using reiatsu, but he had been desperate.

'We only ever run into cowards these days,' Samantha growled in irritation; few beings seemed willing to take them on face to face any more and because Loki and Verlassen had little need to hunt for food (instead consuming reishi) they seldom decreased their powers enough that the foolhardy attacked them. On the rare occasion when they were attacked it was almost always with an attempt at a massive surprise attack. Detecting such attacks was a troublesome process, especially those that were cleverly concealed, sometimes Loki had been dealt severe blows before even realising an opponent was in the vicinity.

Today they had managed to avoid a potentially lethal strike; but it was as much due to luck as anything else – they would need someway to address that, Loki realised. Yet as Loki looked at their severed limb there was another problem that he identified, 'When our Gel is separated from us and the Gel seeds, we cannot move it, we cannot repair the damage quickly at all.' He stooped to pick up their right arm and in the instant he did so he began reshaping the shattered shoulder joint, affixing gel to each of the broken sides and rapidly building a bridge between the severed arm he held and the stump; as the bridge thickened and the shoulder began to repair itself. The bridge of gel between the two sides began to retract, pulling the arm up towards the shoulder where it stuck like glue for a moment before the gel on each side merged into the other, leaving no sign of the former damage. It was an impressive repair mechanism, but unless Loki or one of the Gel Seeds were in contact with the limb it was impossible – a difficult quandary given the force of the blow had been enough to sever the limb and knock it several feet away. 'In battle we may not have time to reshape a new limb, instead we might need to be able to reuse the one we had already fashioned.' Loki thought, concerned at their limitation.

Their ability to move Gel was one of the founding stones of their capabilities, it was their main method of movement and of incalculable assistance in their hand to hand combat skills. Loki himself could only move the gel that was directly in contact with Verlassen's body, or else was directly in contact with gel that as – it required a sort of direct 'pathway' between Loki and the gel to be manipulated. The idea tickled Loki's memory for a moment, yet he could no locate the source.

On the other hand, Loki was able to create Gel seeds, these seeds he created either with a reserve of energy of their own or supplied them energy as they needed it; each of the seeds was able to manipulate any gel that they were in contact with, or that they were able to form a 'pathway' with, in the same fashion that Loki himself could. 'So I can manipulate the gel if it is touching me or gel that I am touching; the seeds can manipulate gel in the same fashion and through them I can also manipulate that gel...' There was something there, some common thread not just in how the gel could be manipulated but something less obvious, after a few moments it occurred to him. 'The seeds themselves,' he thought, almost bewildered, 'I supply energy to the seeds at a different location which then manipulate the gel through a pathway.' A sort of pathway connected to a pathway.

Loki bit the tip of his tongue and allowed a drop of blood to leave his mouth, mixing it into the gel that was encasing their mask, shaping a small portion of the clear substance into a small ball Loki lodged the seed within and threw it across the sands. After it was nearly twenty feet away Loki concentrated on the seed, willing it to sprout just as he always did, as he did so he directed a portion of Verlassen's conciousness, Jun the Shinto Priest, towards the seed, the soul would control the seed and be able to manipulate the gel in it's surroundings using the reiatsu Loki provided it in a steady stream.

Jun formed a face in the Gel and smiled slightly at Verlassen before beginning to create more gel using the reiatsu that Loki provided, directing it into a broad conical hat shape atop his disembodied 'head.' Loki smiled in return before frowning as he considered the task at hand, reached out towards the hat with his will, Loki directed his energy through the seed and into the gel. It was the same way as he would transform the costume that he wore, instantly the cone shaped hat distorted, the top pushing upwards slightly as the sides contracted, becoming a top hat made from gel. There were no differences from normal, nor had Loki expected any, for it was something that they had done often enough in their previous years.

Yet in doing so – Loki was directing his energy over the intervening space without any recognisable sensation of reiatsu, except from the seed and gel itself. Loki frowned in concentration, this time as he moved to reshape the Gel he also used his more capable Revealing Gaze to look for any sign of the link between them. He wasn't quite sure if it was because the energy was their own, or whether it was because of their skill in the use of Revealing Gaze, but Loki was able to detect a very thin, almost wraith-like tendril stretching from himself to the seed, and then a more obvious flow of reiatsu from the seed to the gel. As he maintained the link, changing the Top hat to a wide brimmed cowboy hat; Loki moved his hand back and forth through the barely perceived link, yet he felt nothing. Intrigued, Loki instead manifested energy around his hand, causing it to rapidly vibrate as he attempted to diffuse the energy within the conduit; once again however the tendril of energy seemed completely unaffected.

With such a link between him and the seed, Loki was able to send his energy through and affect the gel – even perform other techniques, or allow Jun to do so, using Verlassen's energy. 'Could we create such a link without the gel seed?' Loki mused to the souls in Verlassen rhetorically.

It might not have been asked expecting an answer but Gertrude supplied one anyway, 'It is worth trying,' she observed calmly, 'but perhaps it would be best to try without Jun there first.'

The Shinto Priest seemed surprised at being discussed and was a little unpleased that she might be suggesting that he could somehow be interfering; 'If anything I am helpingLoki's efforts,' the priest maintained, a little upset, 'when his energy comes though I help direct it towards where he wants it to go.'

'I am sorry that was not what I was trying to say,' Getrude hurried to assure the man, 'rather I was attempting to point out that directing energy to a seed where one of we Verlassen were controlling the energy meant that any attempt to duplicate our efforts without a seed would also need one of us at the point where the energy is being used.' She reasoned, doing her best to appease Jun while at the same time convincing Loki, 'There is no need to make things more complex than they need to be after all.'

Jun was still a little unhappy with Gertrude's explanation, yet as Loki retracted the man's thoughts from the gel seed the priest made no comment. This time as Loki gazed at the gel seed with Revealing Gaze and send his energy through it was markedly more difficult; trying to focus on the location proved rather taxing until he remembered the lessons he had learned during his efforts to acquire the Marking skill.

In short order, Loki was able to establish a connection between him and the uninhabited Gel seed, as he did so he began directing reiatsu through the wraith-like conduit, into the gel and shaping the entire thing into a slightly larger, perfectly round sphere. On one side of the sphere a tiny ball of light reddish brown energy began to gather, condensing into a cero which blasted into a nearby dune, leaving a small crater near the base which rapidly filled with the loose sand dislodged by the blast, falling from the dune above.

Loki considered the task before his seriously, the intangible pathway was most certainly the most pressing dilemma, yet on that point Loki had an idea. Recalling the insubstantial sensation that the conduit that he had observed between him and the gel seed, Loki began to infuse a thin passage way in the air with reiatsu, the thin ribbon of energy quickly unfolded. Yet as Loki sought to direct it slightly to the right of where he had left the discarded ball of gel, it snapped mid way, as the energy within the area diminished. Frustrated, Loki sought again to create the intangible ribbon of reiatsu, again and again it snapped as Loki sought to stretch it to the desired location; with his mounting irritation, Loki examined the flow of energy as it left their body, carefully he directed the flow of energy, endeavouring to keep the stream of reiatsu even and without and large fluctuations.

Finally, after another thirty minutes, Loki managed to stretch out the stream of energy three feet to the right of the sphere of energy and as he did so he concentrated on the end – imagining the energy pooling into a condensed ball of energy at the terminal. Within a few moments a dark reddish brown ball of energy appeared, yet rather than fashioning it into a cero, Loki instead drew inspiration from Gilgamesh and Enkidu the Bount and Doll that they had consumed; from the ball of energy, Loki produced a cavalry sabre shaped sharpened blade of compressed reiatsu. Swivelling the blade, Loki swung it down against the ball of Gel, the blade of energy scoring a deep gash in the shape before Loki pulled it free with a thought.

With that, Loki pulled on the ribbon of energy with his mind; the blade darted back towards them at great speed and Loki caught the 'hilt' of the blade in his right hand. Behind their mask Loki smiled grimly speaking as he silently made a solemn vow – his thought not shared even with the other members of the Verlassen, 'I swear to protect you all.' He made a sweeping motion of the sword and allowed it to dissolve.

~ Lifting the Veil ~

Learning: Velar (Veil)
Training: Reiatsu/Hollow Technique Proficiency
>>Training for spherical field covering based on previous film based technique 'energy manifestation' and spherical field based techniques 'obscure' and 'subterfuge' as well as completely transparent techniques like the conduits used in 'Here and There'
>>Training for Multiple attacks, based on previous gel repair technique
>>Training for Sustained use (similar to Obscure)

Yet learning how to reattach their limbs without picking them up, or how to create blade of energy in the air would not help them detect that an attack had occurred or where it had come from. What they needed was some way to detect an attack, even if it was at the very last instant; even as he thought about that, the memories of the cowardly sniping swan came back to him and Loki could remember something that the swan could use to cover it's blind-spot, a sort of 'sheet' of energy. Apparently it didn't protect at all, and was flimsy, but rather would allow enough warning to move slightly before an attack came – something that Loki had managed by sheerest chance before.

'A sheet of reiatsu huh?' Loki mused slightly, the closest that they had come to this was either a less dense, transparent film compared to the energy manifestation they had used for the glove; or a sort of tangible, condensed version of the field they had used with their obscure and subterfuge techniques.

Loki's first attempt at the technique was to perform Obscure, not so much concerned with suppressing their reiatsu as it was quickly creating the enclosing shape of energy; to this he began to infuse with more energy as he attempted to pool energy across the surface, starting with a spot directly before him. Yet no soon had he started than Loki quickly gave up, the tiny film that had began to form was a completely opaque reddish brown colour, even ignoring that, it was so incredibly taxing on Loki's reiatsu that it would never be a feasible technique.

Discarding that idea, Loki instead attempted the inverse, this time he began focusing on manifesting energy around his hand in a glove shape and slowly, ever so slowly began to pull at the outside surfaces – not merely on one place like he did when forming a blade, but rather on all of it. At first it seemed to be proceeding smoothly, the glove like shape began to grow into a semi-sphere, the dark reddish brown becoming lighter as it reached a size of nearly twice as large as Loki's head. Yet as he attempted to continue to expand it, the film began to tear in places and Loki could feel each and every tear, it wasn't a painful sensation but rather it was similar to that he felt when gis Gel was cut – an awareness of damage.

With the holes beginning to gap more and more open, Loki attempted to repair the tears in the same way that he would fix a hole in his gel shapes, directing the rest of the surface to fill the holes while he supplied more reiatsu to the rest in an attempt to ensure that it retained it's strength. As the film continued to expand, Loki began to sweat, the amount of energy required to maintain the compressed sheet of energy mounted – though the energy within the technique had not increased, the highly compressed energy was now an extremely thin layer compared to what it was before; yet despite this the amount of energy Loki was able to manifest in this fashion seemed very limited – in the same way he could not expand the covering to provide a full body armour it seemed that expanding the sphere to cover his body was also going to be futile.

Sighing, Loki pulled his hand out from within the semi-sphere, allowing it to float before him as he noted the hole where his forearm had been quickly began to close under his ministrations. What remained was a complete sphere, empty with a very thin compressed layer of light brown reiatsu; still, unlike the sheet that he had envisaged, the sphere was far from translucent. With a nudge of his reiatsu, Loki opened a small hole, as he did so he concentrated on the sensation, attempting to ensure that he could precisely locate the breach; closing the hole, he repeated the process in a different spot, again and again. Several holes in quick succession, each time he frowned with concentration as he laboured to pinpoint the exact point and timing of each blow.

Finally Loki created a hole once more and this time instead of closing it he gripped the sides of the hole with his reiatsu and attempted to force the sphere open once more; the instant he did so, the sphere distorted as the reiatsu within attempted to conform to the shape his reiatsu had indicated it had lost it's spherical shape, instead becoming a sheet nearly five feet in length and two feet wide, yet STILL it was completely opaque.

Why was it so easy to see? Loki could understand if it were visible because he was using Revealing Gaze, but instead the colour was a solid light reddish brown to the naked eye. 'Yet earlier we were able to create those reiatsu conduits without them being visible.' Jun observed, much to Loki's delight.

He immediately resolved to infuse the sheet of energy with the wraith-like reiatsu he had seen earlier, yet he could feel the energy distorting as he did, it felt bulkier, somehow resisting the infusion. Though the sheet of energy turned clear almost completely transparent, there was still something imminently solid about it – Loki reached out with a finger and prodded the sheet, it tore quite easily under the pressure before Loki mended the break. 'Why can we touch it?' Loki wondered, before he dismissed the idea – it would be a fairly useless screen if it could not be touched.

Looking at the screen carefully with Revealing Gaze, Loki considered the sensation it gave him, their was a certain flimsiness to it, but it was in no way the wraith-like sensation that the energy conduits gave. As he allowed the sheet to dissolve, Loki concentrated on the sensation again and once more began to use Obscure, just as he had with the first attempt at the veiling technique.

This time however, as the sphere like field formed around Loki, he infused it not with energy manifestation but with the much less condensed, solid yet flimsy reiatsu of the transparent screen he had created earlier. The result was a barely visible film of reiatsu that surrounded Loki in a perfect layer, even covering the bottom of their feet – just as the Obscure technique did. As Loki walked, the pressure was enough to tear the film under their feet, so Loki concentrated carefully and diverted more reiatsu to their feet repairing the tears and then reinforcing the portion of the film that was scraping against the ground slightly tougher; yet after less than a minute the sphere had become so ragged that there was no point maintaining it.

Again and again Loki formed the sphere, each time he continued to move around, using Sonido de Reverberacion to attempt to see how it fared when moving and changing directions quickly; yet each time it bore up for a time before failing. Loki growled in irritation, forming the sphere again he directed reiatsu into his limbs and used Sonido de Reverberacion again, intermittently lashing at the sphere with his tail to tear holes in the film which he then needed to repair. In time, without realising it, Loki was making the indentations less apparent, the streams of reiatsu used within Obscure to circulate his reiatsu became less prominent, unlike when attempting to subdue his energy, while creating a veil of energy he did not need to move the energy about. Though he did not immediately recognise it, the simple spherical shield that he had developed was almost exactly the same as his original, unsuccessful attempts to hide his reiatsu; yet while it was unsuitable for the original purpose he had developed it for, when infused with the flimsy film it was almost ideal solution for the reiatsu veil. His efforts continued for hours and eventually he was able to maintain the shield for longer and longer, until it felt like very little effort at all to sustain, even despite the numerous repairs.

~ Misdirection ~

Learning: Eco (Echo)
Training: Reiatsu Proficiency

Though learning how to use their reiatsu so far from their own body without any discernible connection between the points would without doubt be very beneficial from now on; in terms of protecting them from would be snipers or other types of attacks it would be of little benefit. Snipers relied on delivering high precision attacks to their opponents, usually over vast distances, just as the swan had done; though they had survived through luck, the attacks had been accurate and had Verlassen been less fortunate they would have died.

Particularly when they had managed to evade the first blast, the swan had continued to move around stealthily, attacking repeatedly from different quarters all aimed at Verlassen in what had been an intimidating display of skill, were it not for their Sonido de Reverberacion which allowed them to change directions so very quickly (making aiming more difficult) they would have been hard-pressed. Yet even still, the struggle had been too close for comfort and Loki was keen to develop some sort of skill that would allow him to better mislead their attackers. As he considered their options, Loki admitted he could think of few; their skills were simply not suited towards such a thing; yet as Loki pondered the situation, he felt the stirrings of memory from the swan that they had eaten.

The swan had been attempting to snipe when his mark, the crab, spun quickly, scuttling to the side as it did so as the high pressured beam of energy narrowly missed its head. Yet even as the swan prepared for a second blast, there were signs of quick movement as the crab used Sonido and something unusual happened, sixteen other crabs appeared, scattered about in a thirty feet radius.

Strange false crabs had appeared, each had been complete with sound and smell, their reiatsu just as convincing as the original as they scuttled around making footprints on the sand. Unsure of which was the original, the swan lined up three of the crabs that had been foolish enough to line up, with one blast of the highly concentrated energy the swan's attack tore through each of the images with barely a sensation of resistance.

Yet as the blast faded, the swan had become increasingly confident on which of the images were fake, but the moments it had taken proved costly, for a black rip was torn in the air and the crab departed unmolested; around the quickly closing black hole the few remaining crabs quickly disappeared.

The memory was of one of the other hollows that the swan had hunted, unsuccessfully at that. Were they able to duplicate such a feat it would be incredibly useful; already Loki could begin to see how it might work – they had just created conduits that would allow them to send their reiatsu through, which would assist them in misleading enemies.

Creating the needed conduits proved quite easy, as Loki formed the wraith-like ribbons of energy he completed the ends, allowing his reiatsu to pulse slightly from the end of each as he moved them rapidly through the air in rough approximation of his own speed.

Yet the reiatsu Loki sensed was that of a technique, not of a being. It did not fluctuate in the same way, instead being almost constant in it's flow of energy, a characteristic of the energy supply being made to the conduit; so the sensation differed slightly from the feeling of the reiatsu leaking directly from Verlassen's body. After a moment of consideration, Loki began to form a small reserve of energy at the end, building it up and creating the same sphere like field used in Subterfuge to instead regulate the flow of energy, making the produced oscillations more closely match those that Loki himself was emitting. While such a sensation might cause a reiatsu sensitive opponent to be momentarily distracted by the seeming duplicate of Verlassen itself; yet even a casual glance in the direction would reveal there was nothing there.

They also needed some sort of image, though nothing that they had previously dealt with had ever involved light manipulation and frankly Loki was at a loss how they would begin working in such a medium. Instead he turned to things they were more familiar with, namely the recently created Veil. Allowing all but one conduit to dissolve, Loki focused at the end and began to create a spherical veil of energy, solid but flimsy to Loki's eyes it was nearly transparent so he used his Revealing Gaze to examine his construction as he worked on it.

He had chosen the veil because it seemed a likely size and used very little energy, but rather than a clear sphere, what they needed was something that was shaped as they were and with colours to match. In their attempts to create the veil they had quite quickly noted how malleable it was and Loki hoped to use this to be able to adopt more complex shapes, like those of their costumes. At the same time the veil's transparency might be fixed by infusing it with their ability to adapt the colours in gel; thus taking on the same colours as Verlassen itself.

Instead of stretching the sphere as they had done when creating it, Loki was instead pushing in at different places on the surface, after a few moments a vague shape began to resolve itself, it looked something like a human with a very large tail; in time the shape sharpened, becoming more and more accurate in its depiction of the human form Verlassen, which was the costume that they wore even now – though it was completely clear.

A moment later, Loki began the next step, infusing the shaped veil with Gel Verdopplung, adopting Verlassen's colouring, the scaled areas became a reddish brown and the gel became more opaque and slightly accented with the same colour. Loki sat back for a few moments and admired his handiwork, at first glance they were extremely convincing, even up close; though as he continued to look at them his reiatsu senses began to reveal them for fakes – despite that he was buoyed.

After the brief respite Loki began moving the conduit through the air and the Verlassen shaped Veil moved to follow. Yet Loki was less than pleased to note that the figure was not moving its limbs as if it were making the movements itself, that was something the crab had been able to do and Loki would not tolerate being less. Since they had already infused the Veil with Gel Verdopplung, it was a simple matter to move the limbs provided that Loki had actually acknowledged the need to do so; instead of merely gliding across the ground, the false Verlassen stepped quickly, its arms moving in counter-step as its hips rolled and their tail swept sinuously behind them.

Though close-up Loki could readily tell the difference given their creations lack of their distinctly snakey smell, at a few paces it was far less obvious. Despite that, Loki was a perfectionist when it came to protecting Verlassen and so could not tolerate the potential weakness. Through Gel Verdopplung they had developed the capability to duplicate chemical and biological factors in their gel, and Loki hoped to use this in an attempt to create sweat glands and release the appropriate pheromones.

Loki sent his reaistu senses over his own body as he used Revealing Gaze to examine their own body's workings and at the same time concentrated on the human-like snake figure of the copy and began to slightly alter the infusion of energy that was Gel Verdopplung. Bit by bit, Loki began to add the sweat glands there were throughout the snake's real body and focused in a couple of sites, one around the top of the hood below the head and another just below the hood; he even went so far as to include the very faint musky smell from their nether regions.

As he stepped in close and enhanced his sense of smell, Loki laughed slightly, he hadn't anticipated being glad to sniff his armpits any-time soon, yet the results were convincing, that was for sure. His laughter continued a little longer until it cut off abruptly as he looked at the false Verlassen; 'What the hell am I doing focusing on smell when it cannot even make a sound?' Loki screamed silently at his own foolishness; was there no end to his stupidity?

Concentrating on the figure before them, Loki attempted to make it speak, yet without lungs or anything else there was no noise of course, yet the prospect of creating a completely anatomically correct shape seemed daunting; another weakness was revealed as Loki attempted to make the shape clap, the noise was extremely minute, the veil being so thin that the resulting sound produced was negligible. 'I remember reading once,' Jun chimed in to forestall Loki's frustrations, 'that sound emanates from the movement of the air as vibrations run through it in waves.'

'Vibrations?' Loki asked in amazement, he could feel the Shinto Priest's acknowledging nod. If sound were a matter of vibrations then perhaps there was no need to mimic the internal workings of the false Verlassen. Instead Loki concentrated on the energy within the shape, flicking at it to produce more profound vibrations; as Loki had the figure clap this time, he could feel the resulting vibration and on the next clap he flicked the reiatsu, as he did so, the film of energy produced a louder sounding clap, just like what Loki himself was able to produce as he clapped the effort with the original gel created hands. He could use such an approach for footsteps and the like too, it would be extremely useful.

Speech or the sound of breathing however were far more difficult to reproduce, it took Loki nearly four hours to produce a murmuring note, the result of not just a single manipulation of vibrations but several dozen performed in rapid succession. A voice could not be heard distinctly for nearly two hours more and even then it did not sound like Loki's own. Another hour passed as Loki experimented with the tone of voice, finally managing to replicate their own after much effort.

Still he was less than pleased with the result and was going to continue when Samantha halted him. 'We can throw off our enemy by creating false images of ourselves, their reiatsu is convincing, they are even complete with sound and smell.' Gertrude said quietly, to distract Loki from his toils, he had become too immersed in his efforts to protect them recently, she felt; so much so that he was in danger of becoming blind to all else. If by some chance they DO attack our true body, we can create a cover around our entire body which can help us sense the attack at the last moment. I think that you have done as much as we could wish for.' She said, pressing the last point as much as she could without seeming to admonish Loki in front of the others.

Loki seemed ready to argue for a moment, sure that the field should provide them with protection, not just let them feel attacks – yet the moment passed and he nodded his head wearily. 'Yes of course, I -,' he paused, clearing their throat, 'I just thought such beings would leave us alone by now, they are so much weaker than us but we keep getting attacked.' The attacks might be less common and using more contrived means, yet the danger to Verlassen had not decreased and the stress was beginning to mount on Loki. Perhaps it was time for a vacation.