Mortimer was waiting... again. He found that he did quite a lot of waiting these days... mostly for people to just show up of course but then again that was what he did. He was the man who waited for people to come... and they always did. Sometimes they were invited, other times they just dropped by. But it was always when he was sleeping that they managed to come around (granted he did spend MOST of his free time sleeping so statistically speaking it wasn't that odd).

The shadow mage was lying on the small island sleeping the day away. Well it was't really an island... more a small gnoll of sandy grass, (or maybe grassy sand) which sat in the middle of the lake adjacent to his cabin. It was well into the lake so anyone (who couldn't fly) would have to swim or find some other means to cross it.

Jess couldn't swim so here she was having to use her Earth magic to cross... She'd spotted Mortimer, someone had told her he live around this area and she thought she'd visit him... She didn't know what it was but after Kagami had gone something had changed about him... She seemed less cheerful for one... But she was near collapsing from trying to get onto the island that way... She panted, finnally shouting "Mortimer! Guess who!" With her distinctive loud yet undeniably feminine voice...

Mortimer was sleeping but apparently his unconcious self decided to through Jess a bone as a long black bridge unfurled across the water at the instructors feet. She could now cross to the island safely but the shadow mage remained unmovable.

"Oh thank goodness..." She said, crossing the shadowy bridge... She instantly noticed Mortimer had done that while asleep... "Huh." She wondered if he would wake up on his own in a few minutes or if she would have to wake him up (With a punch to the ribs if all else failed)... And so first tryed waiting, then shouting in his ear, then shaking him and shouting, then finally the punch... If any of those worked then she would stop...

[Yeah, ow... Hope it doesn't take a punch to the ribs!]

At the punch Mortimer seemed to stir his eyes flutering slightly before rolling over and waving his hand. "Please Ella-chan just five more minutes." Apparently he had mistaken Jess for someone else and was now trying to use some excuse so as to not be woken up. If any tactic was to be used to wake him up, now would be the time to use it.

"Who the heck is Ella?" Jess shouted right in his ear, Shaking him even more...

[I know short post... I'll be gone in like 15-20 mins and we will have to finish tommo... well its technically already Sunday since its past midnight so... About 10 in the morn is when I usually wake up. Its 12:44 now.]

[Eh, I'll probably be off till 3:00 pm later today. Need to take a plane back to Ohio... then school starts again on Monday ]

At this Mortimer woke up shaking his head. "Huh, what... oh it's you jess... what are you doing here?'

[ Darn... Well Let's make as many posts as we can at least...]

Jess smiled... "Wanted to check up on you Mortimer... Someone clued me in on where you lived. Anyway... I noticed you just haven't been the same since Kagami left..." She lightly slapped herself. Why was she rambling like this...

"Ah" He replied. Apparently Jess had caught onto that. Mortimer was truly disheartened by Kagami's leaving but he thought he had done a rather good job of hiding it so far. Standing up he looked away from Jess. "So what was it you were planning on doing about it then?" He had considered lying to Jess, telling her that everything was alright and that he was doing fine but he knew she would have seen right through it and then there would have been a back and forth between them, maybe even an arguement and he just didn't want to go through that. Jess had been one of his few good friends since Everlasts destruction and he didn't want to jeapordize it now.

Jess snickered... "So you two met in a fight right from the start..." A momentary pause "Why does that not surprise me?" She added in sarcastic tone. "But... What exactly did she face in that battle... And why did she befriend you after that?"

Clearly Jess didn't fully understand Kagami's pugilistic ways... The Vampire only respected those who could and would defeat her in combat...

"So in other words you want to fight me?" Sometimes Mortimer just couldn't figure people out. Why was it that people could only understand each other when they were in conflict? "Alright, if you want to fight then I'll give you the same handicap I gave Kagami. I'll only use two techniques and you can attack first... Ok?

"Fair enough." Jess stated, stepping back as she got her tonfa out of mallet space... "Terris Mundus Arcania Armis" She mutted that incantation quietly yet clearly, and chunks of earth began surrounding her to form armor... Then she attacked, using her tonfa to thrust herself forward, planning to kick Mortimer to land on him, then pin him down... Same tactic she used in the start of her fight with Joseph. She wondered if the Shadow Mage had heard of Joseph...

As the giant woman charged and seemed about to hit, the form of Mortimer dissolved into a swarm of bats fluttering around, diminishing the impact and breaking around the charging woman. Normally Mortimer would use this for running away but against a pure melee fighter it was the ultimate defense.

The swarm of bats continued to spread around Jess trying to bite her hair or scratch at exposed patches of skin. None of it could really harm her, but when a bunch of winged rats began swarming around you like africanized bees.... it was bound to be unpleasant.

"What the-" Jess screamed, surprised at the shadowy bats... Crud... Now she realy improvised spells but didn't know what else to do, sinking into the earth.... Now she didn't have much oxygen to spare so she knew she'd have to make this quick... Once Mortimer reformed she would be able to sense it by the vibrations he made, then she could launch her sneak attack...

A drop straight down into the earth... good tactic. Mortimer knew he couldn't get to her like that.... but he did know a way to hit her.

Flying up as high as he could, Mortimer reformed himself into a human... and began falling.

Jess wondered what was taking Mortimer so long... She didn't realise he'd figured out what she was planning, and so was totally unprepared for Mortimer's own surprise attack.

[Short post I know, but... >.< Headache this morning from caffeine withdrawal]

[Dun worry. I've seen it happen and it's not pretty. Part of the reason why I don't drink coffee]

As he fell he withdrew his cane from the billowing trenchcoat and began forming a massive spear with the cane at its core.

"Spear" was a generous term however. It was more like, a large spike at the bottom followed by a flat surface which he stood on while a long pole extended from that... still it was dangerous as he began accelerating and falling even faster towards the island... he hoped.

Jess was hit... right in the small of her back and the only thing that kept her from bleeding heavily was the force of the impact and pressure of the spike still in her back... She knew she'd die without proper medical treatment, she was experiencing that level of pain... But still she wouldn't give up... Or wouldn't have if she wasn't screaming in the agony of the injury... As much as she tried to ignore the pain and keep fighting it was too much and overwhelmed her.

[If Jess had seen this coming Mortimer would have been the one in trouble]

As Joseph was walking around aimlessly hoping something interesting would happen, he suddenly hear a scream far away, he thought he recognized the scream, "That can't be Jess... can it?". Joseph started running to were he heard the scream and found himself in front of a lake, and in the middle of that lake was what seemed to be a small island with black bridge conecting it. He saw a boy with white hair standing a top of Jess who was lying down on the ground. Joseph suddenly dashed forward screaming "JESSICA!!". When he got to the island he chanted: "Vultus of nex ut punctum meus hostilis!" and a stone spear came above from the ground as he threw at the a white hair boy.

[I know. This attack only works on a stationary, slow-moving/unaware target. Couldn't use this without you being underground and immobile. ]

Allowing the spike to dissipate Mortimer used his only healing technique, the shadows embrace surrounding Jess in a womb of darkness. There she could rest and heal. There she could sleep and think about what had just happened. As soon as he had done this however the stone spear arced toward him. Normally he would have done something to avoid it but in his weakened state he had no choice but to take it... And boy did it hurt.

Whenever he did that attack he was completely drained of magic. Dropping from that height and controlling the drop so that he landed on a precise target was strenuous enough but even SURVIVING the drop was difficult for him. Honestly he was surprised he had even managed to hit Jess and hadn't fallen into the lake or something.

As he drifted of to sleep he wondered whether or not he would tell Jess exactly how close to victory she had come. He briefly wondered about the boy who had hit him in the gut with a stone spear but that would have to wait till after he woke up...

[Uh... Mortimer... You neglected to read Joseph's post. >> I gave him permission XD]

EDIT: Whoops... Misread your post. nevermind.

Joseph was sruprised that the spear hit the boy, he knew the boy was strong enough to defeat Jess, so why couldn't he dodge the attack. Joseph ran over to the cocoon were Jess was but his gut told him not to break it. He touched the cocoon and he felt as if energy was being given to the person inside.

He saw the boy was seemed to be sleeping, he wasn't dead since he was still breathing, so Joseph shattered the earth spear that penetrated him. Joseph knew he wasn't good with healing magic so he put preassure on the wound with hopes of stopping the bleeding. He needed to know what happened here. So for now he waited.

OOC; Letting JK post. Her turn technically. Just do a time-lapse and assume that several hours have gone by when you wake up.

Jess rested, she knew she'd heard Joseph's voice shouting a spell and wondered if Joseph had misinterpreted the situation... But no matter... She had to rest, she knew.

"Sigh" Joseph did all he could to tend to Mortimers wound, Jess wasn't waking up either. There was nothing Joseph could do now, so just like them he layed on the grass watching the sky, waiting for one of them to wake up...