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"Mage Alpha. Excellent to see that you are staying on task.

For the purposes of our mission, High Mage Mindy has come up with the wonderful suggestion of not using our ranks and having alternate names until these intruders are well taken care of. It would do well not to reveal our strengths too early on, preferably until at least it is too late for the invaders of our home world.

As well as disguising our strengths and names, I shall not seem to be in the appearance of my elite armorings. I will require one of our armor crafters to create a special protective casing for me that will appear to be more common, as Mindy has suggested.

Alpha, what other preparations have you made so far?"

For the next number of hours, the mages prepared their battle plan. Sephiroth and Milaku were their main "Bring in alive at any cost" targets, while the rest were expendable, although still ideal to try to bring in alive for various tortures and experiments.

Currently, Xun had the idea for Mindy to use her new puppet to attack him to get used to the new creature's abilities. Xun ingested a very rare and special parasite blessed to him by Jiluzix that would allow him to literally come back from the dead once his body was destroyed, almost no matter how ruined it was. The parasite had a spell on it that would keep his soul from wandering and retain it to whatever remains were left, and force them to regenerate back into his normal form.

"Hold nothing back against me... While I must do so to retain the usefulness of your new tool and to not damage it severely, I do not want you to do the same to me. Begin!"

In his hands, Xun held two small battle axes, and he rushed right away, attempting to cleave at one of the limbs of the fire imp experiment that Mindy now controlled, while then spinning to slash at it's stomach.

"Good. We must learn to adapt as quickly as possible. I know I haven't given you enough preparation time with the new body, but that was for my own reasons. It helps us to serve Jiluzix better, when we are off our guard and can still retaliate well..."

The darts bounced off the flat side of one of Xun's axes as he attempted a swift kick to the imp's stomach, to be followed up by throwing one of his sharp instrument's at it's thigh.

"...And adaptation along with perseverance is key to reaching our higher ranks, and preserving them. Had I not adapted, I would still be a failed, undead experiment, worthless of any mage title under our Lord."

Xun hissed, not out of pain, but out of instinct and reaction as those fiery claws slashed through his armor, peeling away a few layers like the weak skin of some fruit up against a sharp knife. Still, there was more protection to slice through.

He heaved his remaining axe at the demon's stomach, while quickly picking up the one he threw earlier, slashing at it's ankles to cut tendons away to make it fall. Though fast and relentless as he was, Xun was actually holding back some... He wasn't using any of his magics, so Mindy was able to hop back and dig the demon's fiery claws into his shoulders at weakpoints in his armor.... piercing through and burning into his flesh. Xun hissed again, then grunted, smacking away the muscular arms of the imp as he rolled away from the dangerous situation with his one axe.

"Good, good. You've inflicted pain. Push further, and inflict death on me if you're able!"

Xun moved almost unnaturally fast, and attempted to headbutt the demon with the very strong metallic helmet he wore, then brought his axe down in the area between the neck and shoulder for a slicing blow.

The powerful hellfire consumed many things, including the few exposed areas of Xun's flesh from the damaged armor he had. The fire literally swarmed into his suit, as he roared in anguish instead of screamed, sounding like a maddened hell beast. Tendrils moved behind walls, bursting through the materials and structures, and quickly excreted a fluid that put out the fast-spreading hellfire. By this time though, Xun fell to his knees, wavered, then collapsed face first to the ground, the smell of thoroughly burnt flesh strong in the air.

His fingers twitched, then he exhaled a last breath as his spirit left his body, helmet rolling off his now completely visible, ash covered skull. From there, they could see further into his suit of armor and that he was mostly all skeleton with burnt flesh and ash, organs consumed in the powerful heat.

Just then, the magical creature he had ingested acted then, forcing his soul back into his skeleton while the flesh unburned and rebuilt itself all around. Xun turned his face before they could see what it looked like and put his helmet back on, standing up just ever so shakily. When he was whole again, he moved towards Mindy herself calmly, and with an eerie coldness that probably made her think he was going to punish her of lower rank.

Instead, he bowed his head towards her momentarily.

"You've done well. You've lost control, but you've accomplished your means. Continue pushing yourself to the hardest of limits, and you will please Jiluzix to no end. Please Jiluzix, and he will reward you, making you the closest of flesh and kin. I require a moment."

Xun went to one of the tendrils and fell to his knees again, and began to murmur prayers fervently to Lord Jiluzix, humbling himself before the demon "god". The tendril shifted, then jabbed him through his armor, into the back of his neck with greatest ease, injecting him with rejuvenating substances. Though he hadn't appeared to lose much strength after being resurrected, apparently it was more than it looked, as he was now even stronger looking than before.

"Oh thank you, my god Jiluzix, my father, my blessed one, my existance, for your gift to me."

Solomenly he took the tendril and kissed the tip of it, pressed it to his forehead, then let it slither away.

"This one is very versatile. I do believe it should be able to handle most of what you are able to do. We still have some time... I shall go out into the field with you staying here and controlling the being. Perhaps we can find a number of those traitor electrical imp slaves to test out your control on..."

Once everything was prepared, Xun and Mindy's new puppet headed to some of the backways and outskirts of the main city of Ni'Jitogrimiz. One of their keen eyes spotted some remains of an animal that had been hunted in a somewhat clean fashion, even if the hunter had tried to make it look like a wild demon had gutted it.

Xun stepped over towards it, and dipped his fingers into it's little remaining gore, then rubbed his fingers together in a thoughtful manner for a second. Though it wasn't entirely apparent, he was using a small amount of his magic to focus on what had killed the creature, along with what was visually around the area.

"Work of Lightning Imps alright. There should be a den of them not too far from here. See if your now blessed tool can sniff them out. The trail's well covered, but still somewhat warm... this creature was slained only about a day ago at most."

"We are going to attempt captures....

...Very well, follow my directions to make this pattern with the flames...."

Xun gave Mindy rather precise directions as he had her burn lines, curves, and strange corners into the ground with deep scorches. It was almost like he was guiding her by being directly in her mind, despite their distance, as if he was somehow following the link between her and the puppet.

When finished, she found she had made a very large magical circle, full of smaller inner circles and symbols all around Xun, who had been at the very real risk of being burned to death by "holy" fire. Xun then unlocked part of his gauntlet, and sliced some of his flesh with a sharp armored finger, allow blood to drip in certain sections of the etching. Black flame raced all around as the symbol glowed a dark green color, and drew nearer and smaller towards Xun, until it encompassed him entirely. The little remains of the dead animal, bone and flesh, were sucked up into this magical energy circle, and drawn into Xun as they quickly rotted and spoiled...

The final effect was that Xun now had a sickening poisonous aura that could affect whoever he wanted, along with controlling how potent or weak he wanted to affect whoever was in range of his magical spell. Mindy could feel the toxic energies bristling over her altered fire imp, but otherwise no other effect could be felt.

"This will also have a curing effect on whomever I choose, whatever their ailment may be. Those against us will become ill and weak, to the point of death if I wish, or to the point of being unable to fight. For now, I'll hold back on it, and help you as necessary if any lightning imp attempts escape once we track down their den."