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[earthpulse]

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[heiroglyphs]

Hey Edna, got time to talk?

I wanted some critique on my rock forming.

text;

[earthpulse]

Maybe. I'm a very busy woman, you know. Herding Meebos is a full-time job in and of itself.

What kind of critique are you looking for? Structure and solidity? Force?

[ The first part is definitely a lie; she has absolutely nothing to do at the moment. ]

[heiroglyphs]

Whatever you think needs work. Don't go easy on me.

[...]

What's a Meebo?

[earthpulse]

Are you sure about that? My training and all that entails is very strict.

If you've seen a white-haired nerd seraph in blue before, you've seen a Meebo.

[ Mikleo. It's Mikleo. She's not even going to dignify him as a water seraph anymore, but a nerd seraph...truly a sad state of affairs. ]

[heiroglyphs]

Sorry, never met him.

And yes, I'm sure.

[She's seen her share of rough training.]

[earthpulse]

Fine. Where do you want to meet up? Just so you know, I'm not going to pay any property damage fines.

[ She needs that money for their household!...Even though two out of five of them don't need to eat. ]

[heiroglyphs]

How about the park? We should have plenty of room to work there.

text -> action

[earthpulse]

[ ... ]

All right. Maybe we can convince any onlookers that our activities are just a modern art installation.

[ ...Although that would depend on whether they could see Edna or not in the first place. In which case, it's all up to Weiss! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ]

I'll be there in 20 minutes.

[ Edna is always on time, except when she doesn't want to be. True to her word, she'll be at the park near the residential distract in approximately 15 minutes (maybe she was a bit more eager than she let on), standing outside with her parasol. ]

action;

[heiroglyphs]

[Weiss arrives about a minute after Edna, approaching the girl from behind. That large parasol makes her pretty easy to spot on this sunny day. Not that she found it weird. Being a fair-skinned girl herself, she appreciated someone wanting to keep out of the sun.]

Hey, Edna. Ready to get started?

[She draws her rapier from her side in preparation.]

[earthpulse]

Sure. Show me what you've got.

[ She's so enthusiastic about this. To be fair, this is her level of interest...nearly 99% of the time. ]

[heiroglyphs]

[She takes a step back, spinning the cylinder on her rapier until it selects a chamber containing a brown vial. This reminded her so much of learning to first use her Semblance when she was a child, her older sister looking over her shoulder and telling her every way she failed. Such happy memories that shaped who she is as a person.

With a look of intense focus, she points her sword towards the ground a few feet away, a circle of light appearing on the ground bearing her family crest. With a quiet grunt, she beckons the earth to move and a cube of pure rock bursts forward, perfectly symmetrical but lacking any defining features.]

There.

[earthpulse]

[ It's like she's really casting an arte.

After Weiss is done casting, Edna walks up to the rock cube and begins inspecting it, hitting it with varying amounts of the strength she can channel. It holds, but cubes are one of the sturdiest structures in terms of geometry.

When she's finished inspecting the outside of the cube, she punches it, breaking it into two pieces while channeling Giant's Strength (this will be a little sore for her), and inspects the inside structure for a little while before giving her final verdict on the cube. ]

Sturdy enough. You've got the basics down. What about attack and defense?

oh that was some a+ html on my part.

[heiroglyphs]

Sure, how about this?

[She jumps backwards, hanging in the air while she summons another glyph a few feet in front of Edna before a collection of stalagmites rupture the earth.]

[earthpulse]

[ She is truly a Tales character. The only surprise is that she didn't yell "Grave!".

Edna walks up to the stalagmites, and analyzes the angle they're shooting at. ]

What kind of enemy did you have in mind? An aerial one, or a ground-bound one? One that's running away, or coming right at you?

[ Not all structures can apply to all enemies, of course, and it depends on the battle context. ]

[heiroglyphs]

Something like this works better as a trap, probably something running towards me.

[She has other elements to tackle fleeing monsters.]

...How do you attack a flying monster with earth?

[earthpulse]

[ She shrugs. Honestly, she doesn't have much of a good answer. ]

Dunno. I usually throw a rock at it or use Air Pressure to pin it down and then go to town on it.

[ ...But it's way better to let someone like Zaveid or Dezel deal with flying enemies. ]

But the former's unwieldy and imprecise, and you probably can't manipulate gravity for the latter to work. ...Unless you want to surprise me right now. If it ever dives down low enough though, you could try to bring it down that way.

[ And try to trap it in an earthen prison like she did with her brother. ]

[heiroglyphs]

[Oh that puts a smirk on her face.]

Well, I can't use earth Dust to do it, but consider yourself surprised.

[It's one of her favorites, in fact. Nothing beats running up the side of a building or turning your partner into a giant slingshot.]

[earthpulse]

Well, huh. Consider me surprised.

[ She really is, even if the way she expresses it is just a raised eyebrow and less of a flat look than usual. Praise from her doesn't come often but again, she can respect skill and ability when she sees it. ]

Have you ever used your gravity manipulation on enemies? If not, consider yourself a little more enlightened today.

[heiroglyphs]

[Gonna make you proud, Sensei.]

To hold them in place sometimes, yeah. But I mostly use it for movement.

What do you recommend?

[earthpulse]

Again, it depends on the situation. Accelerated movement is better if you're going up against a slow-moving lug, but against speedy annoyances, I'd say pinning them down with gravity is better. Less movement for them, more opportunities for you.

[ To launch those sweet, sweet combos. But of course, this is assuming that Weiss's world follows Tales Logic (tm), where stunlocking is a thing and aerial combos can also be a thing. ]

The best situation would be a slow them and a fast you, but we can't always have what we want.

[ Things happen in combat. Artes are interrupted, someone breaks out a Mystic Arte, people get status effects when they don't dodge in time...etc. ]

[heiroglyphs]

[Only if the combos involve ridiculous gun physics, then they can go all day.]

Time dilation makes up for most differences in speed, though gravity might work better in groups.

[She touches her chin. This is absolutely fascinating. She hasn't been able to work with someone with a similar fighting style since she last spoke with her sister, what now feels like ages ago.]

But I'm curious about what you do when enemies get too close. Do you have a weapon, or short-range attacks?

[earthpulse]

Uh, duh.

[ To emphasize her point, Edna starts spinning her parasol in Weiss's face, slowly, then gaining speed. Fortunately for Weiss, she will not move in for the bop...yet. That is only reserved for rude Meebos who talk about her behind her back, and not genuine curiosity. ]

What did you think this was for?

[heiroglyphs]

Staying out of the sun...?

[She leans away from the spinning parasol. Truly this was the picture of intimidation.]

[earthpulse]

And keeping dry in the rain, poking rude Meebos, having a signature item, and so on...killing a lot of birds with one stone. But I digress.

[ They've had this skit before. No need to go over it again. ]

I push hellions back using this. On top of being a catalyst for my artes, I'd say I'm also pretty good at umbrella-fu.

[ Whatever...that means... ]

[heiroglyphs]

[Surprisingly, after "hellion", "arte", and "Meebo", "umbrella-fu" might have been the most understandable item on that list.]

So your umbrella is kind of like my rapier. Can you fight without it, or do you need it to use your, ah... "artes"?