2018-03-04: Fall or Fly

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  • Log: Fall or Fly
  • Cast: Alisha Diphda, K.K.
  • Where: The Pleasing Garden
  • Date: 3/04/2018
  • Summary: Alisha Diphda Makes her way through the bowels of the Pleasing Garden, desperate to reach the Shepherd's side as calamity comes to the once-forgotten Elw sanctuary... only to find someone familiar guarding the way forward, intent to challenge more than just her determination. (NOTE: This takes place at around the beginning of 2018-03-04: Fly Me To The Moon!)


<Pose Tracker> Alisha Diphda has posed.

Battles rage above against Quarter Knights, but many Drifters never reached the depths of the Pleasing Garden. One of them is Alisha Diphda. She was separated in the Garden, knocked off a ledge and sent down into the latticework of stone below the platforms. She runs along one, with her spear gripped in hand. The princess has a determined focus, as she looks to the two towers rising above.

She has a network of stone bridges to cross. The stonework here may as well be a metaphor for the Elw. Below the floating platforms, filled with wonders and terror, is a confusing mishmash of stone bridges. Many are crumbling apart; many end in open sky. Only a few lead on, towards the towers' lowest levels. Alisha runs across one, eyes drilling straight ahead, and her lips purse.

"Alisha, I think we're getting close. But... there is a lot of Malevolence in the air. I think the Drifters from Lost July and the others have brought it here," a voice from within her says.

She has only just gotten used to that, but the presence of Seraph Lailah is a comfort.

Alisha nods, though. "Yes," she says. "I hope we can get there in time. I do not know what the Metal Demons are intending, but..." The mere sight of those Metal Dragons brought back terrible memories of Adlehyde. "...We need to get there quickly. Sorey is depending on us."

<Pose Tracker> K.K. has posed.

Its presence is a subtle one at first. A tinge in the air. A tickle at the senses. Bare enough to be ignored by most. But it is there. Feeding. Growing strong off the mounting conflict within the depths of the gardens.

Until the thick pall of Malevolence in the air cannot be ignored as Alisha Diphda races across the rafters.

The Pleasing Gardens have seen better days; yet for how old it must be, how long it must have existed, floating here in the heavens, it is a tribute to tenacity, unseen and unwitnessed save by a lucky few. Though the stonework of those bridges fall to ruin here and there, dusted with debris and dirt from above, many more are sturdy still. They will lead Alisha where she needs to go. Shuttle her and her seraphic companion to the side of those who need her there. Her footfalls resound across empty stonework, her path clear--

   "O obsidian flash, be as a raging spear to run mine enemies through!"

--and then that tinny voice fills the air, resounding around the chant of magic. The distinctive crackle of Althena's Blessing running through the air.

                              "Demon Lance!"

And she will have all of a second to retreat before a burning shard of black and crimson Shadow magic crashes through the ancient stone work that has endured for so long, blowing apart its tenacious architecture into a crumbling, gaping ruin. The bridge partially collapses in a deafening rumble, dust choking the air. And on the opposite side of that gap, barring the way forward... a silhouette approaches. Footfalls filling the air with the metal ring of their approach.

"You seek to be at the side of the one you have dedicated yourself to."

And the gleaming white helm of the Trial Knight focuses its inscrutable features upon Alisha Diphda. No weapon in their hand.

"You shall know naught but disappointment this day."

But every inch of them speaking nothing but the impending violence that will come if Alisha dares try to cross that gap.

<Pose Tracker> Alisha Diphda has posed.

The Malevolence thickens until it is like a mist, a thick fog that almost makes Alisha choke. Now that she can see it and sense it, she knows what danger may be presented; she can't ignore it like she once could. There may be something meaningful to that, in how one with the proper Resonance can see a danger that so many are blinded to. Her eyes narrow, and she continues on down the pathway, until a voice cuts through the sky.

She has all of a second to retreat, but she does manage to. She sees the huge blast of shadow rip through the stone pathway ahead of her. Alisha gasps, and her eyes dart about -- but the dust obscures her foe, until she sees the figure approach. A silhouette that cuts through and stands against the dust.

An armored figure that she knows well.

Alisha tenses, every instinct in her screaming in anger. The princess remembers the prison filled with the suffering; an act of cruelty that she only just comprehends. Her eyes narrow, and she looks towards the Trial Knight with an anger that -- through willpower -- turns cold and focused.

"You mean to stop me?" she asks. "I would be glad to face you, after seeing what you have done in Krosse... but there is a great danger at play here! You must see this!"

<Pose Tracker> K.K. has posed.

"Yet still, you hesitate on the precipice of what must be."

Footfalls grow lost amidst the growing turmoil below until K.K.'s path brings them toward the very edge of that shattered gap. Facing directly opposite the princess of Hyland, the Trial Knight carries themself still with that unflagging, uncompromising stance; even here, even in the midst of these long-forgotten gardens. Even as war wages beneath them. Even as the Malevolence starts to grow too thick to be ignored, vaporous blacks and violets seeming to phase them little.

"Your enemy stands between you and what you desire, upon the eve of destruction. You attempt to barter what cannot be bartered. You attempt to reason where reason has no place." Their horned helm tilts, leveling the weight of their attention upon Alisha. Alone, with only Lailah with her. She stands her ground all the same, focused and honing that rage into a righteous determination that reflects off the polished surface of that faceless stare. And yet...

"It matters little to me what passes beneath us. Who lives or dies is no concern of mine own. I will not be moved from this path by meek pleas. There is but one reality here, and if you yet refuse to face it..."

Fingers spasm. Light glows at their right palm, faint motes against the rising dark.

"... I shall bring all this crashing around your ears!"

And they lunge.

One mighty leap, unhesitating, unblinking across that gap, they fill the air with a flash of blinding radiance --

"Know you again the bitter sting of failure!"

--before descending, a gold-edged spear of white and blue gripped masterfully in their hands as they bring it spinning down towards Alisha in one mighty thrust.

<Pose Tracker> Alisha Diphda has posed.

"I would not strike without an appeal to reason!" Alisha cries out, her free hand resting briefly over her heart. But the knight's words ring true for her. She knows, perfectly well, that her words are unlikely to move them. K.K. has always refused to lend assistance or to stand aside in the past. It is not the way of the Trial Knight to do such things, and so the princess finds herself staring at that polished, faceless steel mask.

Her eyes drift down, to see motes of white light rising away from their fingers. That gives Alisha pause, as she considers, and then she looks up to see the Trial Knight lunge. She cries out, wordlessly.

"Alisha! Be careful!" Lailah cries out in her mind.

The gold-edged spear slams down into Alisha's, as she brings it up in time to block just before it skewers her. She parries it on the blade, and sparks explode while steel screams against steel. Alsiha drives her spear up, diagonally, before she takes a step backward.

"If you would insist--then I will give you no quarter!" the princess calls back. She swings her spear to the side, trying to slam the butt of the weapon into the Trial Knight's helm. It is a feint, to buy herself more room.

Because next, she steps back, and then does a downward, two-handed thrust of her spear for the Trial Knight's chestplate.

<Pose Tracker> K.K. has posed.

Violence rings within the latticework bridges of the Pleasing Garden. Bladed edge shrieks its path along the haft of Alisha Diphda's spear, and for a brief moment, the world between her and the Trial Knight is alight with the rain of sparks in those brief, tenuous moments before the knight's conjured weapon is thrust aside.

In those moments between the clashes of violence, the Trial Knight wields that spear with unparalleled fluidity; it is already spinning within their grasp, a whirling, beautiful dance of violence that recovers and repositions K.K. even as the princess cries out her answer to the knight in word and in deed. Their stance, their motions, are like a fusion of styles those practiced with their weapon might notice. A fusion of Hyland and Rolance spear styles and older things still, as if combining the disparate parts of many into a grander whole.

And all wielded with an unmitigated sense of certainty, as if every motion of the Trial Knight is carried out in absolutes. It is the same certainty that brings them to move -with- the thrust of Alisha's weapon; the butt of that spear strikes with a muted clang of metal on metal, knicking their helmet in a way buffeted by their motion. Their left heel plants into stonework. Their spear moves forward.

And as the tip of Alisha's spear drives down for the Trial Knight's chest, K.K. -impales- theirs into the stonework, using it as a makeshift pole to -spin- themself about.

Alisha's blade screams parallel to the K.K., scoring a shallow cut against the surface their armor--

--as the Trial Knight looks to drive a single, booted heel into the Princess of Hyland's sternum.

"You have come far. But you yet lack the will, or the strength." Their words, a vague echo of their message in Adlehyde.

"The will to recognize what must be done. And the strength to seize it. Tell me, failed princess. For what do you fight?"

<Pose Tracker> Alisha Diphda has posed.

The spearwork is as great as any that Alisha has known, including Lady Maltran's. She is shocked, to say the least, at the way the styles blend seamlessly -- and surprised, too, as the Trial Knight drives their spear down into the stone, where it sticks. Which, makes Alisha vulnerable, even as she strikes.

In a moment, a successful blow transforms advantage into disadvantage. The Trial Knight's boot slams into her chest. The wind is driven out of her with a hollow gasp and she falls; she slams to the ground, hard, and rolls once. Alisha comes back up standing, though half-way kneeling over. She uses her spear to push her up.

'For what do you fight?'

Her jaw sets. She didn't have an answer, before, once; talking to Rose, she now has more of one. It is still imperfect, but in the heat of the moment, she calls it out: "For the salvation of the world! To deliver it from Malevolence! And... for Hyland, and all of its people!"

Two desires, ever at war within her, and she knows it the moment she says it.

She takes a step backward instead of rushing in. The edge of her spear swings up, and then light gleams off the blade -- an edge of bright white light hurtling across the ground, right for the Trial Knight. "Demon Fang!"

<Pose Tracker> K.K. has posed.

For what do you fight?

Stone cracks unpleasantly upon the Trial Knight's landing, spiderline fractures forming through ancient architecture, a hint of the precarious position these ruins still linger in. As Alisha recovers, the knight -rips- their weapon free, chunks of stone dribbling across the ground as the bladed tip snaps to their side, touched against the floor beneath them. Ready. Waiting.

Waiting for her answer.

For the salvation of the world! To deliver it from Malevolence! And...

Fingers twitch around the blue metal wrapped around the white of their weapon's haft.

And as white light surges forth, carving a deep furrow across stone, the knight reacts; body lowered, they charge into that blazing edge, spear swung upward straight into the heart of that spout of energy.

"DEMON FANG!"

The golden edge of a mirrored blade of light cleaves Alisha's Demon Fang; swiftly forged, it demolishes the bulk of Alisha's assault; the remaining energy batters against them with an impact of friction and power that superheats points of their polished white armor into a glowing orange that lights up the very air around them.

They are not stopped. But the delay might give Alisha the time she needs as that spear -thrusts- forward with swing after brutal swing, pivoting and twisting with every spinning motion of their blade -- looking to drive the princess back, back, -back-, towards a junction of bridges.

"And how do you intend to save this star? Or Lunar beyond?" they ask, between their thrusts, mounting in speed and potency with every question leveled.

"How will you save your people, when you do not stand at their side?"

<Pose Tracker> Alisha Diphda has posed.

The last thing that Alisha expected was the Trial Knight to use their own Demon Fang to shatter her own. It buys her a precious moment, though, to step back and insure her guard is grounded. That alone keeps her from being overwhelmed when the Trial Knight steps up and lays into her with brutal strike after brutal strike. The spear's movements are not alien to Alisha, but she only knows the Hyland styles; the blend of all of them makes them hard to match.

So she matches them -- but only at first. Her spear's edge catches the blade's thrusts in the first two, with another ring of steel. But then another strike slams into her side, where it cuts into her tabard and then against the chainmail that she wears under it. She hisses, softly.

The blows drive her back, and she raises her spear, blocking another, and then takes another strike along the side. She grits her teeth, stumbling back towards the junction of bridges. Alisha looks up, and stares at them for a moment.

"And what would you have me do? If I could bend reality to return to Lunar, then I would!" she says. "But I cannot! All I can do is find the knowledge necessary--and the power necessary--to make a difference here!"

She steps into the junction of the bridge. Then, she lunges forward at the last moment. She takes another blow from K.K.'s spear when she does. The blade cuts another gash in her tabard, and this time, the chainmail isn't enough to stop all of the wound. She feels blood well up between the links of her armored undershirt. But, Alisha stabs forward, once again for K.K.'s armor.

This time, light glows, gathers, and burns around the edge of her blade. It propels her forward, with a strength and speed that she could ordinarily never match, as she spins and slams the blade in a sudden slash for that whitened armor.

<Pose Tracker> K.K. has posed.

Steel sings its song into the tempest. The entirety of the Pleasing Garden seems to shudder in the wake of something monumental approaching. Something that makes the Malevolence thicken and grow wilder, like a storm of dissonance. White cloth whips wildly in the winds as the knight watches the princess stumble, their armored body lowered and prepared for battle.

The stonework beneath them cracks all the more deeply.

And what would you have me do?

Her will is strong. Her determination doubtless. She fights, even as she loses ground, even as the speartip of her enemy grinds dangerously against the chainmail of her armor. Her words are suffused of the conviction of someone dawning upon their reason to fight. But...

"I would have you know the face of strength."

She lunges. Fearlessly, she dives into that spear, knowing full well what will come; blood sheds a splatter of scarlet on the stone platform beneath them as K.K. completes their thrust. Bright edge glistens on an edge of gleaming gold. But the knight overextends, just a bit. And the Princess capitalizes, with a spear radiating a brilliant and powerful light. She has them at a disadvantage.

And yet as that blow strikes clean, there is little sense of anger of annoyance in the Trial Knight's body language. Only a vague sense of approval, easily lost within the heat of the moment.
    Metal screams before it heats and partially melts at through the side of white armor, turning it partially to slag. And Alisha can feel the faint victory that is her weapon biting into -something- solid underneath -- flesh? -- before the knight pivots.

"I would have you see your limits."

Their weapon glows, with a brilliant, cerulean light.

"I would have you leap from the precipice!"

And with one swing, that blue light EXPANDS into a MASSIVE blade of churning energy, shades of sapphire rippling down as it whips down, threatening to cleave into Alisha if she is not careful...

... before it -carves- into the stone of that bridge.

Damaged stone shatters. Rubble falls.

And then with it, towards stone lattices or whatever else may lie below.

<Pose Tracker> Alisha Diphda has posed.

There is a moment of exultation, though it is muted, to know her blow struck true. Alisha has no illusion about how dangerous K.K. is. The Trial Knight is her superior with a blade, and she knows that getting through with a strike is a true act of skill. She doesn't have time to appreciate it -- nor time to do more than notice the subtle approval of her actions.

But they speak. The Trial Knight says what they would have Alisha do, and the princess's eyes widen, as she sees the spear swing around -- and the blue light erupts and shreds through the bridge. It cuts into the side of Alisha, just before she leaps back. She howls in pain, as the rock shudders and cracks. It falls away -- it collapses underfoot.

And Alisha cannot step backward far enough. She goes plummeting, falling down into the open sky. Her insides turn to jelly; her green eyes widen like saucers. She screams.

And a voice calls out, in her head. "Alisha! Now!"

She realizes, then. It feels strange to do -- and still, Alisha opens her mouth, and cries out with two voices: "FETHMUS MIOMA!"

There is a terrific flash of crimson light. It rolls outward, and then Alisha comes rising upward. Her spear is gone; instead, she wields a massive claymore, gleaming a brilliant silver. Her hair is longer, and her eyes shine red instead of green. Pale blonde hair swirls out after her, as she swings the blade around. Flame swirls, gathers, and grows along along the huge weapon -- before she slams it down for the Trial Knight.

"My limits... I have yet to find them, but they stretch further than I expected!" she shouts, as the blade comes crashing down.

DC: Alisha Diphda switches forms to Armatus Fethmus Mioma!
<Pose Tracker> K.K. has posed.

"You may fly, or you may fall! 'Tis no one's choice, nor fault, but your own!"

And so they fall.

They fall, as stone rains around them, chunks of forgotten rubble from a bygone era soaked in memories long past tumbling around them. They fall, through Malevolence-soaked skies, as they intensify with the unholy roar of something in the distance. They fall...

FETHMUS MIOMA!

... until the princess decides she will fall no longer.

Crimson flares like a nova, expanding outward as the bonds between Seraph and Squire are forged in the heat of a spiritual crucible. What emerges, brilliant, from the tiny star of red, is something between the two, something that the Trial Knight is all too familiar with.

The Armatus.

The burning radiance of that flame-slicked blade reflects on polished white armor as K.K. turns in freefall. That faceless gaze fixates on Alisha, hovering above, crimson eyes shining with a strong will. Their fingers grip taut against their spear.

My limits... I have yet to find them, but they stretch further than I expected!

"'Tis just so," they murmur, a tiny voice kept to themself as the tremendous tip of Alisha's claymore crashes down, full of determined defiance.

They twist --

And the clash of steel is like the titanic CLAP of thunder, making the bridges they fall between quake from the rippling shockwave as the spear thrusts forward towards the flesh of the Seraph-infused Squire and claymore CRASHES against white armor, heating it, crunching it inward. There is a flare of light as the rippling, golden maw of a mighty dragon's manifestation meets that broil of flames.

And whether their blade strikes home or not, the force of the collision knocks the Trial Knight from the sky in that angry flash of warring flame and light: a glowing, superheated bundle of armor that CRASHES like a meteor into the depths of the Pleasing Gardens, rubble falling in hot pursuit.

<Pose Tracker> Alisha Diphda has posed.

That K.K. falls with her, that they fight even without flight, is astounding to Alisha. Her eyes widen sharply, which is abundantly clear when the Trial Knight manages to parry the claymore. The huge blade meets the spear. A powerful art also rises up to meet the flames that roil off the blade -- and the Trial Knight strikes true. The blade of the spear slams deep into Alisha's gut, and she feels it rip through skin and deeper. She screams when it strikes.

Even with the might of a Seraph gracing her form, there is blood. It darkens the front of her white dress, and begins to stain it with a bright, growing spot. She falls, then, too -- after the Trial Knight. She doesn't crash down the same way; she lands, instead, and immediately kneels. She hits the low platform they strike down upon, and her claymore punches into the ground.

Rubble is strewn about them. Alisha's eyes turn, looking through it, and through the dust that billows out. She looks until she finds the outline of armor.

A magical circle erupts underneath her feet -- runes, lines, and symbols all aglow with the red light of Seraph Lailah's power. It flashes, as Alisha begins the incantation: "O sacred flame, I call upon thee! Take Althena's judgment and make it mine own!"

Fire billows, soars, and begins to raise around her, as Alisha's voice reaches a fever pitch: "CROWN FI--"

But, she may have made a terrible mistake about the Trial Knight's recovery and speed.

<Pose Tracker> K.K. has posed.

Rubble settles in the depths of the Pleasing Garden. Far, far from this deep, dark platform stand the two towers of Life and Death, both in varying states of ruin from the small wars of conviction waged within them. Amongst the ruin, motes of Malevolence float like inverted fireflies through the air, darting this way and that in an excited frenzy. The skies have begun to bleed a distinct shade of twilight.

The herald of something calamitous on the horizon.

And amidst all this disaster that has graced the once-beautiful Elw Ruins, the Trial Knight comes to a stand. Their armor is charred, their armor dented, a gash driven through the side of polished white. The faint signs of scarlet on the rent edges of white almost easy to miss as they rise onto their feet... and turn that faceless helm upon Alisha. Conjuring. Althena's Blessing thrumming through the air in shining shards of red, heated light. They can feel the heat begin to broil at their armor.

"No," they say, and that simple word is wreathed with absolute authority.

"I have seen enough."

Take Althena's judgment and make it mine own!

Their feet plant into the platform. Their weapon steadies.

                             "CROWN FI--"

                                   SHUNK

And Alisha makes a terrible mistake.

It comes within the blink of an eye, so fast they might not be even perceived before they are -felt-. Felt in the sharp, cold sting of steel, impaling itself straight through Alisha Diphda.

Bright scarlet drips from the blade. The blow cuts clean through, surgical, precisely avoiding spine and critical organs. But it strikes. With absolute finality.

"What are you, child?"

The blade slowly lifts. And as it does, it seeks to heft Alisha upward.

"The forgotten princess of Hyland?"

Higher, so that she can see the twilight smear of the sky, the Malevolence that comes with it broiling with calamitous blows beyond that shudder the entirety of the Garden.

"The eager squire of a Shepherd?"

Light gathers, blues and whites and violets, channeling through that spear. Up, and up, and up.

"Hopeful savior of this Blue Star?"

Growing to a bright intensity...

"Are you defined by others, or yourself? Or defined by naught?"

... reaching a crescendo...

"Calamity comes, and shall not be abated by a weak heart. Know thyself, or fall."

And the surge of Malevolence that ushers the Lord of Calamity's Domain being born on this star is, perhaps, the last thing she will see...

...before a pillar of pure light engulfs Alisha Diphda, princess, squire, drifter -- and explodes, to launch her across the platform.

Towards an uncertain fate.

<Pose Tracker> Alisha Diphda has posed.

"Hrk!"

The blade impales Alisha Diphda clean through -- and then she stumbles forward, her mouth open and working. There is a flush of power -- and then her eyes revert to green and her hair darkens to its usual blonde color. She stumbles, halfway leaning against K.K. Except, of course, that the blade lifts her up. Before she can touch the white armor, and smear it with her blood, she is made to look up.

A churning sky of Malevolence greets her eyes. She sees it, then, twisting and churning. She can't quite manage to feel Lailah -- as the Seraph lands, in a heap, on the floor. She stares at it, as she gets held aloft, and questions asked for her. The light gathers and swirls, drowning out the Lord of Calamity's Domain. The power of that Domain washes over her.

Lailah is gone, in an instant, and Alisha's eyes look down to K.K. There is no way for her to meet their eyes, behind the alabaster helmet. A faceless mask, that offers nothing. Who is she? What is she defined by?

She still has no answer to that. "I-I--"

The weight of the Domain pulls her down. The blast of light engulfs her and launches her up. Alisha flies off the blade, and leaves a splash of blood in her wake. The princess slams into the ground. She rolls, in a twisted heap, and then she crumples. She doesn't manage to rise.

She falls down the rest of the way, subtle in that movement, and does not rise again.

<Pose Tracker> K.K. has posed.

No answer comes, before Alisha Diphda falls.

The Trial Knight spends some time after that, in the aftermath of that final, decisive blow, attention turned toward Alisha's crumpled frame. They could finish this easily, in that moment. No assassin-turned-squire. No Shepherd. There is no one there to help the princess.

It could very well be the end.

But it is not.

Whatever their reasons, whatever they might be thinking, K.K. does not deliver that final blow. Neither do they help Hyland's princess, the Shepherd's squire, Filgaia's drifter. They simply pivot on their heel, back turned towards her to face the Malevolence-soaked skies beyond. Blood dripping bright from the tip of their spear.

"... Fall or fly, Alisha Diphda."

And from that moment forward, as the Domain beats down on her with all its cold, oppressive fury, Alisha's struggle is her own, as the Trial Knight abandons her to wade into the dark mire unflinching.

Fall, or fly.