Alyx couldn't help but smile at seeing Fiona float, what an amazing world she now found herself in. "That is really cool. Thanks for the advice, I'll keep it in mind." She paused to think "I shouldn't have a hard time triggering this if it's controlled by emotion... I've been feeling those a lot lately." "Heh..." Then with an awkward smile and nod she turned to face Adi, before she get caught up in her daydreaming once more. "Defender? Yeah okay, I can do that..." She said, scanning the faces of her teammates. "Just uh, one thing... Which one of you is Brennan?" Seeing as how she had no idea where the 'game field' was, she figured she'd just stick to her fellow defender and follow his lead for now. Couldn't be too hard to learn a simple game, right? She wasn't going to let some bright lights and color intimidate her. She'd pull her own weight, powers or not. "For now, anyway..."

"Great." Damian grinned, feeling that went just about perfectly. He dropped to one knee as he waited for the team to settle into defined roles, his gaze shifting between Lotus and Max. "...Our water and lightning combo could fry the entire opposing team, then again I'm betting they'll be considering that possible tandem heading their way. Hm, a tiger is always useful of course, especially when it's not swallowing my arm." Those last few words were mumbled low enough for no one to hear. He recalled that the unfortunate experience was definitely his fault. Oh, ice, he hadn't considered that. "Welp." He moved to completely sit on the ground, feeling the calm before the s*** of lightning and flames and other assorted chaos across Apollon. Hopefully the opposing team was taking just as long to figure out their roles.

“Adi likes to address everyone by surname.” Logan said, placing a hand on his chin. “Brennan is Fiona. She can fly and summon chains, so your airbending will synergize well if you can get it working. If the enemy team gets past you two, Fiona should fly up to the tower and help Derrek defend.”

The junior began to pace back and forth. “Li’s strike team will likely be comprised of Max, Damian, and either Lotus or Evelyn. Tsubaki will almost certainly be in the back, setting traps with sigils. It’s hard to say what Heather’s role will be. We still don’t know what she can do with her arte yet. On top of all that, Li can sense our presence, so we can’t count on the element of surprise. I say we blitz them before they have a chance to prepare."

Tsubaki nodded at Heather's request, but before she could assist, Li had already began to evaluated his team. He glossed over Tsubaki in his summary, which was actually somehow a soothing constant for the girl, in her ever more hectic life. However, he didn't firmly decide on any roles in the end either, even the ones that weren't contested, and seemed to be gathering more information instead.

Silently offering Heather a juice box from her pack of things, she spoke to the group on her behalf. "I think it would be a good idea to have Heather as the Keeper. Being new to Apollon she probably doesn't know the terrain as well as us and would be put at a disadvantage because of it. Having her as the Keeper would be advantage though, assuming the opposing team know as little about Filarum as most of us. Element of surprise and such..."

-----

Derrek gave his superior an ironic, if not surprising proper salute before heading to his post. As he passed he also pointed his finger like a gun and gave his signature click and wink to Fiona adding a, "See you at the top."

It wasn't long before he reached the tower and paused. Somehow he had forgotten since his last visit here the tower's inside was an infinite set of stairs. He raised his fist to the sky and shook it, before building up the nerve to once again face his oldest foe.

Logan raised an eyebrow as he watched Derrek walk away, suppressing the urge to put his hands on his hips and say "Oh, Derrek." in a whimsical tone.

Lotus continued to stand there depressed as her teammates were debating what position they would play. She finally began to get bored.

---

Heather took the juice box from the weird Asian girl. it wasn't coffee but it would do. Heather began heading towards the tower with her juice box. She was ready to prepare her traps and tricks.

---

Id laughed at Logan's speech. "Your great and amazing plan that our leader entrusted you with is to charge the enemy blindly and hope that they aren't prepared?"
Id pause watching Logan as he thought "I like it. So um do you have an idea on how to get over there other than running? Because I don't want you guys to hold me back because you're gasping for air."

As soon as the young Scot had put his plan forward, there seemed to be agreement all around the assembled. Seeing as they were wasting time and breath, he took off. While he probably wanted to say something about the mouthy junior never exercising enough to even know what gasping for breath really meant, Adi quashed that as he found the impromptu strike team following him like ducklings. If he were Senior Pearson, he might have thought the whole arrangement cute but his mind was focused on the game before him.

The path he was taking was rather roundabout. If there were flyers they would see he was taking random turns where he could but otherwise he was always moving in the direction of the opposite tower. He was sure Junior St. Augustine was going to spot him but he trusted his guardians to at least delay her. Yuriel had taught him how harsh an advantage a flyer could have. If he were to stick within the rules of the game he was going to have to keep himself low and in cover. That was why he hoped Junior Douglas had a plan. If not, well, he supposed he could improvise.

Deep in meditation, Daniel observed the spirits moving about while collecting energy. He realized he had more energy at this point than most of the first years put together. Still, he would be cautious about approaching Evelyn. Rising up, he ambled towards the enemy tower separately from the other offensive players on his team.

"They're approaching" stated Evelyn calmly, she could feel the movement of the opposing team's energy signature from across the city heading towards them. Looking towards Damian and then Li, she could see that they could sense the movement as well.

"Alright everyone!" commanded Li in his typical gentle yet firm demeanour "We need to finalize our plan."

"Lotus and Dot's ferocity would prove to be incredibly vital as strikers," spoke up Evelyn "Likewise, Damian is physically the strongest out of all of us, so he should also be a striker to break through their defenses."

"Tsubaki is also right about Heather" added Li "She knows the layout of Apollon the least, and we have the element of surprise with her abilities." He turned to Evelyn "Like you said earlier, your spiritual sense and combat experience make you the most fitting for a striker-"

"But that is also what they expect of me" Evelyn interrupted.

"True, but we don't have much other options..." he looked towards Tsubaki and Maximilian "Maximilian can easily defend the tower with all the water from these fountains, and Tsubaki can also manifest a powerful Arx sigil."

"You're right, we don't have much choice otherwise, though we can perhaps make them think that I stayed behind with a display of the Lux sigil. The light may cause the other team to assume that I am in the vicinity, and be more cautious"

"That's actually a good plan! Ok, Dot and Lotus, you both cover me," instructed Li "Evelyn and Damian, you guys will be on offense. Be careful Evelyn, they're going to target you the most because you're the most skilled."

"Clearly" replied Evelyn with an eye roll as she began to hover off of the ground.

Li chose not to reply at that moment, thankful for his great sense of patience, and began to sprint ahead with the ball in his hands. His footsteps echoed throughout the empty alleyways as he raced toward the other tower.

********

The time in which Li's team had spent discussing was precious time that Adi's team had used to quickly approach the line separating the two sides of Apollon. Soon they would breach into Li's territory, and the defenders would have to hold back. Realizing their current plight, Li instructed Maximilian to serve as an additional "pseudo-striker" and follow them at least to the line, where he knew they would clash. Meanwhile, Tsubaki stayed behind to defend the tower.

*****

Staying low to the ground, Evelyn had peeled away from the primary group. She was hoping that Lotus, Dot, Maximilian and Damian would be able to hold their own weight against the approaching strikers. Even before Li had begun to ran, she could feel the amassing ethereal energies typical of Daniel.

As a child, she recalled the many stories she had been told of her ancestors' witch hunting. While the modern St. Augustine family was not as adamantly opposed to the use of magic, she had still been taught the elegant and brutal arts in slaying one inclined to magic. What she did find odd about Daniel however, was that he did not depict the typical omnivident user of magic.

Evelyn was often warned about the dangers of magic for the omnivident, how it had a drug like addictiveness that drained your spirit of its powers. She had seen this in Basil, and even one of her own uncles, but Daniel proved to be quite atypical to this cautionary tale. His powers in omnividence were less honed, though that was due to his own doing, but his she could feel that the energy of his spirit was not waning. It was as if the magic worked with him, rather than against him.

Curious as it may be, she was still going to run him into the ground.

******

"So," said Fiona awkwardly, as silence fell upon her and Alyx after the group had departed "Do you wanna try something with your powers?" She smiled with a sincere twinkle in her eyes.

*****

"Quite a show, my dear" spoke Miss Rachel casually as she walked out from the shadows of one of the buildings.

"The crown you wear is very heavy Alice, but no one wants a mad queen. Each of these children are not only under my protection, but they are under yours as well, while you are club president."

Alice summoned a knife, simply because it felt right. "Club president... I saw myself as some sort of outcast the moment I finished my first witch hunt." She looked to the panicking totems with a pityingly distraught expression.

The entirety of her team had left Tsubaki, though entrusting her with a task. Evelyn had suggested Tsubaki try to trick the enemy team form a far into thinking Evelyn was going to be a defender in the game by using Tsubaki's Lux. Tsubaki had noticed a few glaring flaws in the plan, but before even pointing them out was overruled by Li. She supposed however, if somehow no one on the enemy team was paying attention to their spiritual sense that would tell them Evelyn's powerful soul was no where near the light being made, and she could somehow make light that could out shine the sun that was in the sky illuminating the ancient city, and could be seen from the ground despite the numerous buildings in the way, the plan wouldn't be a total waste. And even if it was, she had nothing else to do but wait anyways, so why not try.

She decided to do it from the base of the tower, the only place she both needed to be and need to make the enemy team try to avoid. She hadn't needed to use Lux that much yet, but she knew it normally manifested for her as a red paper lantern with a golden Lux on it that let out a warm glow all around. In theory it would always be that unless she herself underwent a massive change in character, or she purposely tired to change it during a particular instance of it. The second sounded easier, and all around less fundamentally life altering so she decided to go with that first.

She thought about what was requested of her, a solid display of raw power, something that would catch the eye of those around her and make them wary. All things she knew about only secondhandedly, but weren't completely alien to her. She took a deep breath before slowly drawing her sigil. She was taking just a little bit of extra time to figure out what to say, since "Lux, light up the darkness" was out.

"Lux," she called as she reached for where she expected the lantern poll to be, "be bright and bold!"

What she got was definitely Arx, however instead of a lantern on a pole, the pole was an ornate dragon tilted off to one side as Tsubaki's hand only gripped on of it's lavish horns, and the lantern, was, well, a disco ball dangling from a chain on one of the dragon's claws. While the ball itself shown bright specks while it steadily revolved, most of the light shot out of the beast's mouth at the ground like a flashlight. Tsubaki dismissed it after struggling with it for a few seconds. For some reason she had trouble trying to move the sigil, despite her sigils literally weighing nothing.

Seeing how plan B was a bust, and still not ready for plan A, she took some time to think up a plan C. The reason the "special edition Lux" was problematic, so Tsubaki assumed, was because it was based on her, but a version of her that didn't exist. Raw power, being the center of attention, being a show off? She didn't want that stuff, and her spirit probably agreed, and weighed down the twisted version of herself she had made. Not basing the sigil off of herself and manipulating it, but instead just basing it off someone else altogether and just fueling it, might work. Might being the key statement, honestly she didn't think it would work any better, but she could at least be satisfied if she at least gave this her best shot.

Once again she began drawing her sigil into the air. This time she didn't try to feed it any specific information, but instead just felt about the individual's soul. Notatoram, even Libarae, weren't very in touch with the spirits of others, but that was okay, as this wasn't going to be a complete picture, just the one Tsubaki had. "Lux, show me Evelyn!"

Once again a strange version of Lux formed for her. It was, a lamp of some sort. It hung from a rigid handle, and didn't seem to be lit, though Tsubaki felt she had seen it some place before. It took but a moment for her to turn it upside down, or perhaps right side up?

"Oh, it's like a strobe that undercover cops put on their cars in movies... ACK!" The last sound was accompanied by a semi-snort.

Right as she had figured it out it realized a short but violent burst of light. Intense enough that it caused her to drop it and blinding her for a minute or so, of course with the side effect that it dropped to the ground and disappeared before before it could send off a second flash. Tsubaki elected not to try again after her vision had mostly returned, which gave her some spare time to contemplate whether that was going to be good enough, and what that version of Lux said about how she saw Evelyn.

---

As Derrek finished his accent, surely a task that took him more time than it took his team to retrieve the enemy ball, he was a mess of man. There was nothing more he wanted to do than to just rest in the empty room. However the fact that it was empty distressed him greatly. He was sure that there was something he was supposed to be guarding up here, and that it wasn't here almost certainly meant somehow the enemy team had beat him here already and took the ball, and were probably well on their way back to return it to their tower

"Well crap." He sighed as he took a seat on the steps, pitching the bridge of his nose. "There goes any chances I had of looking like I was worth having in this stupid monster hunter club..."

Lotus nodded at Li. She looked down at her sword before attaching it to her hip where it normally hung. With a deep breath she took off keeping pace with the rest of the team trying not to sprint to far ahead of them. As she ran she had an Idea.
"Hey Damian, You can still do that invisible trick right? If so you should try and flank them. they'll think Max is a striker and before they realize it we'll hit them from multiple sides." After she finished talking she noticed Evelynn split away from the group. "Well that may make things a little more difficult."

---

Idelia kept pace with the others. She wanted to win this one way or another. But she needed to give her team the advantage. Id then raised her arm with an open hand.
"Ego, be my eyes for a sec will ya?" after she spoke she made a fist as the bird lunged off her shoulder into the sky. Once he was up in the air he began to look around. He spotted a group of 5 shapes moving towards them. Upon closer inspection he identified them as Lotus, Max, Damian, and Li. Ego was about to begin his descent when a bright flash from the enemies tower caught his eyes. He wasn't sure what made it but he figured Id needed to know about it. With his recon done for now he swooped back down and relayed his message. Id nodded sending Ego back into the air as she relayed what he told her to the others with her.
"From what Ego It sounds like Evelyn is defending. I never took her for the defensive type. So great Scottish leader, what's our plan of attack? Or would you rather us just let chaos take over this one? I'm personally fine with either and will probably take the chaotic route either way, but I wanna be prepared for your whining before hand."

---

Heather sat there a moment watching Tsubaki struggle with her sigil for a moment before turning around to ascend the stairs. When she did a bright flash lit up the room and blinded her. After rubbing her eyes and gaining her vision back Heather spoke.

"I don't know what that was. But do you think you could do it again when the opponents arrive? It would be a good tactic to use on them provided none of them are prepared for it." Before Tsubaki gave a response Heather began climbing to the second floor.

Heather looked around the room before sitting on the stairs and opening a book. She decided that she could get some reading in before they arrived. No use in wasting energy to manifest strings before the enemy had arrived. Heather let out a yawn before muttering to herself about how she shouldn't have stayed up that long last night to finish her book. Heather then frowned at herself for not packing more coffee in her backpack.

"And why is that?" asked Miss Rachel with genuine curiosity "James-er-Mr. Albright didnt have too many anecdotal accounts on the SDU"

"The others..." She began. "They did what the Omnivident were meant to do, helping the spirits have peace, protecting the world from demons, exercisms... While my work was bloody. I've killed so many people, half of them didn't know what they were doing wrong... It was hard to face the other students." She smiled weakly, and her eyes became wet. "Now, they're all dead, and I'm in charge. What right do I have to stand as an example to these gifted kids? I can hardly call myself holy, and I'm not the wise teacher they need." The tears began to fall, and Phora began to cry too. "And you... You never tell me anything!" Her tone shifted, angry, but strained. She stood up and brandished her sword. "I'd rather die than let things continue this way!" She ran towards Rachel, poised to strike. "Tell me everything or cut me down!"

Logan was surprised to hear that Evelyn was staying back. Nevertheless, he quickly replied to Idelia.
"If Evelyn's defending, that means we have air superiority over their strike team. Just do what you do best, I want complete mayhem. I'll hang back and provide cover fire from the rooftops. Everyone else should stick together and focus on clearing a path for Adi."

Logan allowed himself a brief smile. This strategizing stuff was easy. As the opposing teams continued their respective approaches, the Scot broke off from the rest of the group and climbed on top of one of the nearby structures, then continued to follow the others from his vantage point. He couldn't see the enemy team yet, including Evelyn. Maybe she really had opted to defend.