The Truth

Jay rolled out his shoulder as he stepped forward toward the Beast which was still recovering from the attacks that the group had inflicted upon it. The aforementioned shoulder had been damaged pretty severely injured when he'd been hurled away from the Beast- in fact he was pretty sure that it had been broken. But his Restoration Skill had been hard at work at bringing it back to a functional level and while it still hurt like hell... he could use it. "We just doing it again, Wood-dude," he called over to the imposing, rather terrifying dummy-like creation of Evie's.

As soon as he called that out, he activated his own Acceleration skill on himself. The rest of the world seemed to slow down in his view, and that meant that the Beast was moving extremely slowly- as if it weren't even moving. The giant puppet lumbered forward, all-but throwing itself against the lumbering Beast. As Jay saw it moving forward, he shot forward as well, his own body reacting well to the Acceleration Skill.

He'd always been relatively active, and now he had a chance to actually use that and more with the Skills that he had been given. The High Impact skill let him strike with a lot more force than he could generate on his own, and this time around, he planned to use that to its fullest potential against the Beast. If he could stun it with one of his attacks, that would give Sasha and Wes the time they needed to get in and do what they needed to against this monster. "Here we go, dude!" Jay called out as he drew closer to it.

Despite its slow speed, it was still attempting to intercept him, slashing downward at an angle that went right through his intended path. He gave a small "Tch," under his breath as he was forced to adjust his momentum away from directly charging at the Beast. He shifted to his left, out and around the attacking arm, dancing just outside its reach, putting himself in direct line of sight of its shoulder. With a pivot on his inward foot, he brought his other one down and in a flash, he was surging forward.

"Take this, jerk!" Jay roared out as he slammed his fist into the creature's jelly-like hide. It was like punching a giant bag of water, and he could feel the force behind his attack being dispersed as it traveled throughout the Beast's body. Despite that, it seemed that the force behind it caused the Beast to shift slightly away from him, the imprint of Jay's fist in its side from the sheer force that had been unleashed into it.

Not hesitating to capitalize on the situation, Jay hopped up as well, moving to set his feet into the mushy, jelly-like hide of the creature before wrapping his hands around its long, spindly arm and wrenching it backward to keep it from being able to move it at all, this time. "You good, Wood-dude?" he called over.

Mr. Woodhead had a gouge through its body, but nonetheless, the puppet had wrapped its limbs around the Beast's arm, keeping it from being able to move at all, and it seemed that this time around, the group had managed to pin it much more effectively. "Cool! Nice one!" Jay called with a grin, before he looked over toward Wes and Sasha, who were standing in the wings waiting with Evie for their time to shine. "Let's get it!" he called over to them, ready to put this Beast down into the ground.

As the all clear signal was given, Jay looked on as the pair simply vanished from sight... and he had expected them to reappear right in front of the Beast as Wes had before... but this time, they didn't reappear. Jay blinked, confused and about to ask what was going on when he saw them out of the corner of his eye... over near Gustave. "Hey, Evie, what gives? You miss on your teleport?" he asked, looking over to her, and the girl just responded with an exaggerated shrug, and Jay frowned, looking over to where his brother and Sasha stood.

"The ruse is over, Gustave," Wes spoke, the grey energy building up around his hand before he thrust it forward at the older gentleman. Rather than take the attack head on, the older fellow easily sidestepped the clumsy attack, taking ahold of Wes' wrist with his fingers, and with relative ease, cast the young man onto the floor.

He stood up, giving a small smile to him. "Perhaps it is. But if you would come for me, you will find yourself in a more difficult situation than against my Summon," he spoke evenly, the kind old man watching with the same smile upon his features that he had been wearing for most of it. "While I would ask what gave it away, I would imagine that would be my reaction to your use of that...Skill of yours against my Summon," he mused, before spreading his hands in an apologetic manner. "If you can defeat it by going through me, then certainly the conditions of your battle test would be approved. But while I do applaud your deductive ability, I would advise just going after the Summon if you want to pass this examination," Gustave spoke, a bit more... proper and refined than he had been outside.

Wes stood back up, holding his wrist with his opposite hand- it felt like it was sprained from whatever Gustave had done to him. His eyes were narrowed slightly, before he glanced back at the Beast. Or rather, the Summon from Gustave that was masquerading as a Beast. He glanced at Sasha for a moment and gave her a nod, hoping that she understood the message that he was trying to convey as he looked back toward Gustave. "Sorry. If it's not a Beast I'm not interested in fighting with it," he spoke, and let the dark grey energies wrap around his hands once more. "You'll have to do in the meantime."

As he moved forward toward Gustave, Sasha disappeared from sight, and appeared behind the Summon with the use of her Teleport. She had guessed at what Wes had been indicating- to let him try and distract Gustave while she went after the Summon. She had guessed that it was a Summon, after he had said that he was a Life Framework. Evie was too, and rather than have any healing, she'd had multiple Summon skills. So Gustave must have had some Restoration Skill, and then this Summon skill for this giant thing, on top of whatever else he might have had.

Reaching her hands outward, she frowned slightly as she imagined how this creature would feel, but she didn't particularly have the mind to stop as she let the Venomtouch ability from her hands manifest, and then plunged them directly against the skin of the creature. She was mostly hoping that this would slow the creature down enough and allow it to fall and let them have the victory. She hadn't anticipated getting this serious in the fight, but she was finding herself at least wanting to prove that she could stand on the same level as Wes and Jay, if nothing else.

"That old asshole was controlling this thing," she called up to Jay, seeing the young man's slightly confused expression. "It's not a Beast- it's just his Summon. Like Mr. Woodhead," she explained, the creature starting to writhe and thrash as she pressed her hands forward against the soft, almost gelatinous hide. The venom from her Skill was pouring into the Summon, and it struggled, starting to grow steadily weaker in its movements as the other two kept it pinned in place.

Of course, there was the unintended side effect of her directly using her skill on Gustave's Summon. Much the same as when Wes had used his Devour Energy Skill on it, and it had affected Gustave... the venom was moving through the link back to Gustave as well.

Wes could see the man's skin starting to taken on a sickened sheen, but he was still keeping three steps ahead of Wesley, not letting a single touch through. "Not a bad plan, but I fear that unless you have an ace in the hole, you will not be able to best me, young man," Gustave responded, avoiding another wild swipe from Wesley, and tripping the young man, sending him tumbling to the floor.

As he hit the ground and rolled, Wes glanced up at Gustave, a look of defiance on his features. "I've got one last card to play," he announced, but didn't give any more detail into his plan. Despite the pain he was feeling, he began to pull himself to his feet, limping now on his right leg. "Evie, Ted!" he called as soon as he was stable.

In that instant, Ted's Acceleration skill was activated, slowing Gustave down further in addition to the venom that was now coursing through him. "Get 'im!" Evie called as she touched Wes, teleporting him directly into Gustave's blind spot.

The old soldier's eyes opened a bit at the combination attack from all three of them, and Wes grunted as he pushed both hands up in an attempt to finally use Devour Energy on Gustave, hoping that all the cards had been played right.