[Life's been busy the past couple of days. Post Edit for Strom & Shadows' moves incoming *goes back through posts to see all actions done against Strom*
Oh, also, because the Doppelgängers are based off of the appearances of the knights, it's imperative that I know what they look like on the outside. Strom can't copy projectiles or special effects of weapons without seeing them beforehand... But if a knight had a second blade on their hilt, it'd be pretty obvious that it could be used for dual-wielding.
I'll use any posts involving appearances of the Knights that Strom is in conflict in as a "blueprint" for the doppelgängers, but detailed descriptions of the armor/weapons they use would make the copies much better to use (*looks at Isphea, who hasn't been described*)!
As a final note... It took a really long time to compose all of the appearances given for characters. It took a total of 85 minutes to scan through all the messages for hints of character-appearances... And yes, some info was hidden deep in posts far off the intro. Like Keep's choice of undergarments, for example. Underwear ain't no joke!]
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Pippin:
Pippin watches as the still non-introduced bearded man starts putting sticks together and making a fire. She then immediately kicks the fire to the side, effectively dismantling the campfire as well as any hope of ignition as they spray across the small clearing.
"Now WHAT do you think you're doing?" Pippin puts her hands on her hips and gives an exasperated sigh.
. and .
"You knew I had some relation to Biscotti, and yet you started that primitive... Thing?" she points to the sticks on the ground, finding the nearest one and stomping the remaining flame out of it.
"I am a Combat Chef. That means I can cook, and when I cook, I won't use petty fire-places made on the fly." She reaches around to her backpack and and slings it around, placing it on the ground with an audible "Thump"; she then presses a small button on the bottom-right of the container and a small holo-screen pops up. After scrolling through a couple of odd-looking tools, she presses on one, and the lid of the container opens.
The next instant, a small flash of light appears and a chef-grade stove appears on the dirt, where the former fire was being set up. It has an oven and a couple of frying pans already atop the hot-plates.
"Now, all we need is some meat, a couple of herbs, and... SPICES!" remembering the chest in the middle of the clearing, she dashes over to it and smacks it open. Beast box or not, all boxes are the same in her eyes.
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Doppelgänger Nyroc:
The Doppelgänger's head slices clean off, due to the slice being aimed at a point between its main armor and helm, reinforcing the view that these copies weren't too difficult to handle...
Before the head spikes a line of its black goop-like skin down to its body, a line of magenta rippling across the connection, where the head is retracted to the body, re-connecting and suffering little damage due to the clean cut. The Swarm eye stays fixed on its copy, and it runs quickly to Nyroc while avoiding the path of falling trees.
It readies its own Hammer, glinting off the light like polished steel, and magenta energy flows through the copy's weapon until the blunt end of the hammer glows pink. The strike will sweep from the copy's left (Nyroc's back) to its right (Nyroc's front) through a turned sweeping movement.
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Doppelgänger Isphea:
[Since the description of Isphea isn't that clear, I'm going to assume that due to her readying her gun when she went to join the fray, she's a gunslinger, and would therefor dress/act like one. I'm also going to assume Grell attacked with his Hawk Blade, and not his Claws (as the Hawk Blade was indicated to be his primary melee-offence.]
The sword strikes true, and cuts from the copy's left shoulder down to its right hip, sparks of neon-pink flash slightly, but the blade is out before their influence can drift into the sword. Before any other strikes can be taken, however, the copy jumps back quickly.
It manages to leap about 10 meters... The jump wasn't powerful, but it seems that the makeup of this copy is quite light.
The doppelgänger then readies a pitch-black version of Isphea's gun, using its other arm as a surface to deflect stray recoil (like this), it then fires three shots at Grell.
The bullets are smaller than regular alchemer-bullets, probably an approximation from Strom as to what the ammunition would look like. They're a dark hue of purple (darker than Umbra Driver bullets) and radiate an aura of pink as they fly at their target.
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Doppelgänger Keep:
Almost unable to keep up with the actual Keep's speed, the copy shifts its target to the one who seems to be giving him cover... And creating a bunch of noise. Due to Keep not having the Fang of Vog on him when Strom drew the pre-made doppelgänger, it holds its Swarm-copy of the Gran Faust (which doesn't look much different from the original) and dashes to Nyroc.
Taking notice that his copy is also headed towards this target, the black divine-equipped copy orients itself accordingly, so that it will strike from Nyroc's front after his own copy strikes while avoiding any falling debris... And tress.
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Doppelgänger Grell:
The clawed copy's eyes catch Keep's quick movement to the cover of trees being felled by Nyroc, and it switches targets. Dashing quickly, with no short amount of power, the copy closes the distance quickly by leaping above an almost-completely-fallen tree and directly towards Keep.
With its void-version of the Hawk Blade (without the hawk details, due to them not being able to be seen by Strom when he originally drew the copy) in its right hand and claws on its left, the copy dives down with the aim of striking first with the downward force of the sword, then following up with offence or defence using the claws, which shine bleakly when light reflects against them... The weapons are probably denser than the doppelgänger itself.... Stronger than regular steel, perhaps.
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Strom:
The trees fall quickly overhead, but Strom's Large Swarm Eye within his helm would have needed to be blind not to notice them -- peripheral vision or not, trees aren't the most discreet things in existence. The next instant, some sort of flying object is being blasted at Strom as well...
Strom never bothered to memorize the looks or effects of projectiles launched by Knights, especially because they had such a vast array of them. This time, however, Strom would remember the look of the projectile and what it did. Not for his own sake... But for a copy.
You see, Strom is quite the perfectionist, and since he took the time to successfully summon copies of each knight, it would be a shame if they didn't act as exact replicas.
That being said, Strom motions a finger from below the book to point out at a particularly close tree, and his Épée quickly responds. Within an instant, the blade had reached the tree, cut off a wide chunk (enough that any remaining falling-tree-bits wouldn't crush Strom), and swiped the log at the incoming projectile's side with enough speed to intercept it with a good deal of force and quash any effects it may have had... Well, that's what Strom thought anyways.
Strom jumps back with a great deal of force -- hoping to move back to avoid any other falling trees. An instant after his evasive maneuver, the drill is struck on the side... And explodes. A couple of stray slivers of wood blow at Strom, but they bounce off... With the exception of a couple slivers being lodged in his Void-black armor-less areas, but the slivers soon fade to nothing in black mist, and the areas recover in moments. It seems small attacks will recover quite quickly.
"₩ħaŧ an ɨnŧɇɍɇȿŧɨnǥ wɇaᵽøn... Ɨŧȿ ɇxᵽłøȿɨøn ɍɇ₥ɨnđȿ ₥ɇ øf ŧħɇ ȼħaȿɨnǥ øf a Ħøwłɨŧƶɇɍ wɨŧħ ønłɏ ɨŧȿ ħɇađ ɍɇ₥aɨnɨnǥ... Ħ₥..."
"What an interesting weapon... Its explosion reminds me of the chasing of a Howlitzer with only its head remaining... Hm..."
As Strom remains airborn, he makes a quick sketch of what he saw of the projectile... A drill-like object, from the short look of it from two different angles (the first, a short look from it as it headed right at him, the second for the less-than-a-second view when Strom jumped) -- it wasn't detailed, but it would suffice. His Épée makes its way in front of him in the meantime.
Damage sustained from a clean cut from one of his copies transfers slightly over to Strom, leaving a shallow gash along his entire neck... But Strom doesn't even flinch. Phantoms don't really feel pain, after all. The wound then begins mending itself. It will probably fully heal in 10 seconds.
The damage from a gash along Isphea's copy transfers through to Strom as well, but due to his chest being mainly covered in black Heavenly Iron Armor plating, the gash causes cuts on the armor... And heals within moments.
It seems that attacking copies in areas where Strom himself is vulnerable (joints, hands, feet, legs) will be more effective than elsewhere. But unless one of the Knights is being extremely observant for the moment he was struck by the transferred damage, then the only one who is able to take heed of this knowledge is Strom himself.
Strom quickly draws in a thin 3-D circle to replace the damage sustained by Nyroc's copy. While re-connected... Small blows would eventually render them without their black substance, this replacement for whatever neck-flesh would have been grabbed by Keep's sword as it cut through cleanly should suffice.
He then follows that drawing with a jagged line of black, which will go over Doppelgänger Isphea's wound.
Strom then quickly rips off the sheet where all three drawings were sketched upon, and the objects materialize. The eye on the book then glows fiercely for a moment, and the objects beam off to their hosts. The repairs meld in with the material of their masters, but the projectile finds its place within the Doppelgänger Grell's cannon, which is slung over its back.
Keep still had a minute or two before his body shuts down from the drug, so he uses up a grand total of 3 seconds to whizz out of his hiding place, decapitates Nyroc's copy, and ducks under the falling tree.
---
Ever since the Swarm's hostile take over of Haven, the Gremlins have been strangely docile. That is, they seem to have disappeared. Outside of Emberlight and it's denizens, the many Gremlins of the Crimson Order seems to have simply vanished off the face of Cradle.
It was safe to assume, that the Swarm was probably causing the Gremlins just as much trouble as the Knights. Not just that, the Strangers have also disappeared. Some of them were found to have taken refuge in Moorcraft though.
Moorcraft.... the most inexplicable place of them all. Most creatures native to Cradle seem to avoid that place like the plague. The only things that inhabit that 'town' are Strangers, Knights, and Undead. And for an equally puzzling reason, the Undead are also strangely docile when in the Manor. Even the Swarm's influence seems almost non-existent in the Manor.
But enough about exposition, time to continue the story.
Caite had finally managed to stumble into a Gremlin Compound. The place was, surprisingly, not deserted yet. Key word here being 'yet'.
At the moment, in a closed laboratory filled with tubes of mysterious liquids, Caite stands in front of one of the Laboratory's computers.
She found some very..... interesting data.