(Edited together from a combat tutorial)<br/><br/>Ok, so going off what you just posted. The guy, Iron Reed, turns around, and looks at Noriko, panicking for a bit. "Fuck. Guess this isn't your lucky day." His body starts to flow and change, as does the jewelry. "Sorry, but you're gonna die."<br/><br/>Noriko is puzzled when Iron says it's not her lucky day. Her eyes widen when his body began to shift and change right before her. The gang leader's eyes narrow immediately as she attempts to jump back and away from the imposter. "You ran into me, don't think so highly of yourself." She dropped down into her well practiced readied position and prepared herself.<br/><br/>Noriko propped herself on the balls of feet and rushed toward the shape shifting imposter. She wrapped her fist subtly in an invisible glove of essence as she lunged forward with punch. "Reed's good kid, you bastard!" Noriko didn't want to waste anytime, she had to take this guy out and find the rest of her gang.<br/><br/>The shifting man's jaw crunches under her fist, as if hit by a heavy hammer. "Shit, girl, you're gonna regret that in all kinda ways.<br/><br/>She dances out of the shifting man's reach and attempts to grab his arm. She simply smirks. "Funny enough, I'm still feeling pretty good about myself. I can't say you will." As she attempts to reach for the man's arm, she prepares herself to hold onto him, maybe even moving around him so that he can't get at her. Noriko wants to make him beg.<br/><br/>She grits her teeth when she realizes she wasn't able to get as good of a handle on the shifting man's arm. Noting that he is going to shift his body to be full of spikes, she decides to throw the imposter instead, wanting her hands to lack as many holes as possible. Her instructor never really did praise her for her upper body strength too often, only two yards of throwing distance being an excellent reason why.<br/>The monster slowly makes the rest of the transformation, into a strange ape-deer looking hybrid monster. The jewelry he has looks far more impressive. "Goooohd. I'm going to enjoy goring you."<br/><br/>Noriko waits for the ape-deer to charge her, waiting for the right moment to sidestep out of it antlers. "You gored the air where I just was, I'll let you count that one." Noriko immediately move forward to put the shapeshifter in a hold.<br/><br/>The monster makes a sickly, pained noise as you crush the very life from it. It gurgles what you assume is a taunt of some kind, and tries to break free from your iron grip. It fails, and the monster that was impersonating one of her men spasms one last time as she breaks several vital organs. It's not all the way dead, but only powerful charms could save him at this point. He's going to die one way or the other.<br/><br/>Noriko hears the sicking cracks once more as she applies the pressure on the monster and feeling it spasm beneath her, Noriko allows a small grin to cross her lips. She doesn't say a word to the monster as she allow it to simply lay there. Bleeding out was all it deserved now. "Fuck. It just isn't your lucky day, is it?"<br/><br/>A small horde of shadowy figures start to spill out from where the fighting was. A few focus on Noriko,  moving to attack, but the vast majority ignore her for... unknown reasons.<br/><br/>Noriko redirects her attention to mass of shadow figures rushing toward and moving around and pass her. Weaving in and out of the attacks of the first two, and spinning around them, she plants one of her legs down firmly on the ground so she can lash out with the other. "Lady luck has placed a curse upon you all."<br/><br/>The monster that got kicked almost goes down from a single mighty kick. The rest of them quail for a bit, before one of the monsters rallies them and makes them strike in unison. And like a wave of dark water, they flow, striking in unison.<br/><br/>As the wave of dark water moved in to shallow her up, Noriko moved against them, weaving between their attacks and slipping just by them as if she were a spirit. The wings of her anima banner were spread out, a white bird now among a sea of blackness. Planting her foot down again, Noriko wrapped her foot in a swirling purple light before kicking another one of the black forms.<br/><br/>The shadow thing falls down, out of the fight. He can move and bleed, but with his almost collapsed lung, he's not doing anything interesting. One of the figures goes and puts its friend out of it's mise... no, wait, it's going and crippling the thing. Another strikes at Noriko in a blind rage, missing for the anger. Sadly, it wouldn't threaten anything but children and drunkards. Or the surrounded.<br/><br/>A second monster goes and finishes the maiming of the marked one, pulling it's attack at the last second, gouging the left arm into uselessness.<br/><br/>Noriko leans back to avoid the blow that might have connected with her chest. It bewilders her what these creatures were doing to one its fallen. She couldn't say that she felt sorry for it, but it was disgusting what its "comrades" were doing to it. Coming back forward, she brings her fist to bear, shrouding it in purple and white streams of light. Her raven flares, almost as if to give a shout. And one of the shadow beasts is struck, and falls over, dead, her essence charged fist crushing the beast's chest inwards. This conflict continues for a long while, before it starts to dawn on her; this is a dream of some kind.<br/><br/>Noriko feels her efforts wasted on these shadow beasts as they continue to swarm her. While she wards they off she starts to really look around the town square. She realized that it didn't look anything like how she remembered it. It was similar, but the fountain, the obvious feature was missing. Standing still she concentrates on her surroundings, everything feeling less real.<br/><br/>The surroundings stop being less wrong, more like where she really was when this happened. Let's see. If she remembers right, these things should be gone, and she should have just gotten through the fire, and back to the safe-house without incident.<br/><br/>Noriko concentrates on the space before her and attempts to bend it to her will. She causes the smoke to clear and then adjusts where the alley way in front of her comes out to, trying to get it to as close to the safe-house as she can.<br/><br/>Dreamlogic being what it is, a wind comes into existence, blowing away the smoke. And you notice a shortcut, rather obvious, but that you had 'somehow' missed up till now. You know, because it didn't exist in reality. But you get back to the safe-house quick and unfollowed. Now, if you remember right, there were two of your newer thugs, didn't know their names yet, arguing in there.<br/><br/>Noriko dashed down the newly made shortcut as the wind began to clear the smoke, wasting no time. She keeps her eyes and ears open and is happy to see no one was following her. The first thing she heard was the arguing voices of two of her gang's newest additions. She made a point of knowing each individual of her ranks by name, but she hadn't gotten the chance with these two. She took a moment to listen to what they were arguing about before she decided to open the door to walk in. It might have been a dream, but Noriko was curious.<br/><br/>The dream argument is mostly blandishments, as you only vaguely remember the exact nature of the argument. But it's not devoid enough of context for you to not get that it was about, fittingly enough, respect and lack of it. Neither one had been in there long enough to really know what respect meant in this outfit, and weren't showing any of it. You kinda remember the tack you'd used when this happened, so you can probably use it again and get the dream goons to shut up.<br/><br/>The gang leader just shook her head at the argument. She would have to set them straight. One of the things about new additions; they always had to be taught what respect was. She opened the door to the safe-house. While she knew keeping her banner up would have gotten her killed, this was a dream and hell, why not have a little fun at her subconscious' expense. She strolled into the room and gave the two thugs a measured look. "Is there a problem here, boys?"<br/><br/>Her talk of running a ship, well principled, and why it should be adhered to falls a bit flat on her own ears. Perhaps knowing it's a dream sapped a little of the passion from Noriko's voice, but it doesn't matter. The dream goons shut up, as she remembered it happening.<br/><br/>Despite her own critique on her own performance, Noriko was pleased to see that she had full reign over her ship of thieves. Time to figure out what the stir beneath the deck was about. "Stories, both of you, tell me your sides." She pulled a coin from her pocket and designated each of them head or tails, she flipped the coin and allowed it to land on the floor.<br/><br/>The stories sound even more bland, mostly because they weren't impressive arguments then, and now that it's mostly blah blah blah too much, blah blah pinched some money, blah blah, it's even less impressive.<br/><br/>Noriko did her best to listen to them, holding back the urge to call them both stupid until they were done. It was hard considering how bland their stories were, she thought that she might fall asleep. Or develop an allergy to their bullshit. They needed a better screening process for members, not that she appreciated being lied to  well, but a little competence by the new selection would have been a little reassuring. She spoke once they were finished and giving a speech on how they were involved in a high risk business and that petty squabbles such as these that get people riled up did not contribute to the well being of the group. If it wasn't good for the gang, it wouldn't be for her and it certainly wouldn't be good for them.<br/><br/>She's about to go and say something more, but there's a pounding intruding on her thoughts. distant, quiet, but yet somehow unmistakable....