2019-06-15: Two Storm Fronts
- Log: 2019-06-15: Two Storm Fronts
- Cast: Seraph Lanval, Seraph Ragnell
- Where: Thunder Plains
- Date: June 14, 2019
- Summary: ' When their personal convictions put them at cross purposes, even the most innocuous of actions by one is colored differently through another's new cause. An inevitable clash between two elemental powers occurs in an environs all too easy for the both of them to bend to destructive effect.
==================================================<* Thunder Plains *>================================================== The Thunder Plains, occasionally known as the Gandof Thunder Plains, are an open, barren landscape connecting Guadosalam to the Macalania region. It is an area that is constantly - yes, /constantly/ - bombarded by lightning and thunder. Crossing the plains was all but impossible due to the never-ending storm, until an Al Bhed named Bilghen set up several towering lightning rods to draw the storms' fury and provide travelers with a (comparatively) safe road. He was in the process of setting up the final tower when he was struck by lightning and killed, something which lesser minds would regard as irony, but which the faithful know is poetic justice for a blasphemer against Yevon. I mean, they'll still /use/ the road. Because Yevon wants them to. Clearly. BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Gea_xz-cJ8
DC: Seraph Ragnell switches forms to The Free! DC: Seraph Lanval switches forms to Oracle of Schturdark!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Lanval has posed.
The Thunder Plains are never calm. The Thunder Plains never relents. Whatever dictates the bizarre weather phenomena here in Spira, it has dictated thus: 'let there be lightning, also wind and water can come too.' But there is a reason they call this place the Thunder Plains, and not the Thunder and Wind and Rain Plains.
One only has to hear a close strike of lightning as it blinds those mortal eyes who look directly at where it strikes. Nobody wants to be caught out there. What little safe haven there is, huddles close by to any lightning towers that yet survive to draw the storm's fury towards it. Then, there are the roaming Fiends to worsen things further. With how many lives this place can and does claim, there's no shortage of unaccepting dead to swell the ranks of pyreflies indisposed to feelings of antipathy.
As it so happens, one Seraph Lanval is present to keep watch while others he travels with are resting in one of the few surviving maintained shelters along the way. The constant lightning storms are enough to unnerve anyone out of anything involving the concept of rest.
The most he can impart, then, is a sense that they will be safe. A small joy - that's what Seraph Lanval, the Mirthful Wellspring dealt in after all, as he sits somewhere a short ways away from a lightning tower in relative tranquility for the environs.
He is sitting upright while taking meditative drags off of his kiseru-style smoking pipe - or more accurately a bubbling pipe, for that's what escapes his breath and the pipe itself. Iridescent, shining bubbles flit about the air as though a tiny sliver of light within the gloomy environs. Carefree, transient, floating things that go where they will and then cease to be - but there's always more.
The rain has grown a bit more gentle (compared to the usual) in the last hour. It's been some time since there's been a lightning strike too close by, though one can still hear them striking on the regular. The wind has ceased howling.
As calm as it's ever going to get, here.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
Never calm, never relenting--but there's something about them that's soothing to Ragnell. It's not exactly a mystery why; she *is* a Lightning Seraph, and her soul is of the storms. A place that's constantly storming is naturally relaxing to her. Anyway, they could've called this the Thunderstorm Plains, since that's just as accurate, but Thunder Plains is a bit snappier, so.
Ragnell, for her part, travels alone. She doesn't need to worry about getting struck by lightning (and in fact quite enjoys it when she is, because of how invigorating it is), and she's usually doing her own thing anyway, so she meanders down the path without really bothering towards the lightning towers for the most part. She does note one of the shelters, though--and the bubbles that float up through the air, pretty, shiny things that grab her attention and pull it towards its source. Soon she's nosing her way in and finds Lanval there, a reassuring presence for his traveling band.
"Yo!" she says cheerfully, despite the fact that the last time they met, he made it clear he wasn't pleased with her. Ragnell certainly doesn't have a short memory, so this can probably be attributed to the fact that, well, she just doesn't think of Lanval as an enemy. "I thought those bubbles looked familiar. Doin' all right for yourself out here, huh, Lanv?" She folds her arms, leans on a shelter wall, and looks out towards the somewhat-less-raging-than-usual storm. "'s'not so bad out there right now, so if y'all are gonna get goin', now's as good a time as it's ever gonna be."
A beat. Her red eyes slide towards Lanval. "...unless you wanna get that storm goin' again in a different way?" she suggests lightly.
Oh yeah. She hasn't forgotten at all.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Lanval has posed.
'Yo!' The voice carries through the plains as well as any sound of thunder might. Even in the most innocuous contexts and expressions of such, from one Seraph Lanval's experiences, Lightning Seraphim are among the best at announcing their presence among the entire elemental spectrum they dwell. (Based on his scientifically sound findings of 'when a few heckled him over Everyone-Knows-What-By-Now, their disapproval sure sounded the loudest.')
The bubbles all pop at once, save for one that pops half a second later as if it were going 'wait, what's going on-- oh,' and one eye opens half-lidded as Ragnell cherfully stands a ways off and casually asks about his very well-being... as she leans against the shelter.
Her advice, independent of any other context, is sound. She is of the storms that dwell Althena's skies. She would know when it is the safest/best time to brave said storms. There would be little reason to doubt her claims, at face value.
"Mmmph." He grunts, as if having settled as such that the idea of moving again is momentarily an unpleasant prospect. The bubbling pipe disappears on his person. With his present heading, he actually has to turn his head a short ways in order to be able to catch Ragnell in his peripheral vision.
"They're reshtin'," he says, matter-of-factly. The decision, put in the hands of mortals. Mortals, instead of the divines among them. The divines who would be far better judges of this sort of thing.
"They'll get goin' when they're ready." When they're 'ready,' it will never be as sort-of calm as it is - but Lanval puts the decision in their hands instead. His words are terse. In the times before, he's always been a pleasant - and sort of dim - drunkard. The tone he's taking in his voice now is uncharacteristic of him.
The number of times he's been ever found being truly irate in the last five hundred and a half years of his existence could probably be counted on one average mortal hand. (Maybe two, there've been edge cases.)
The drinking gourd at his lap has both of his hands clasped upon it, as though to protect it.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
'They're reshtin',' Lanval declares, and Ragnell sighs faintly, shaking her head and shrugging one-armed, as if Lanval's being unreasonable for no good reason. There is, of course, good reason, and she knows it, but, well...
"S'pose you can't rush folks," she concedes. "I got no business here beyond sayin' hi, so I'll see ya later." And with that, she pops her head out and heads back into the storm.
And that might be that, if Lanval were willing to let things go. But then, if he doesn't trust Ragnell enough to say when the storm has safely abated, does he really trust her to move along and mind her own business?
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Lanval has posed.
She's got no business here beyond sayin' - pardon - saying hi. As Ragnell follows up her shrug to head along her way, back into the storm... she'll find that the storm has indeed picked up.
One facet of it. She hasn't been found out to be a liar by this phenomena, for she'll be able to sense those energies that are easy to pick up when one of their kind starts to exert and project their very element. The rain is picking up.
"Ya think an ally to the Adversary of Man ish gonna shtop by, give advice that might be in the besht of interesht to the mortalsh preshent... 'n leave it at that?" Asks the only possible culprit for this building rainstorm. Lanval's balance is usually very wobbly at best, for he oft finds the act of getting up a touch unpleasant. Water's nature is to be at rest, and instead be at the mercy of so many other outside forces and entities that generally does what they will with it.
It's not long before he's walking upright, further out into the rainstorm that he is not at all bothered by, bare feet striding across the jagged, rough, rain-slick terrain like it's no thing.
"That ain't like ya, Ragnell..." His eyes start to open, presently half-lidded, "...doin' shomethin' kind on behalf of mortalsh without shome other end in mind fer 'em..."
The rain picks up more. (At this point it is, metaphoricaly speaking, dead lifting.)
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
Ragnell heads back out into the storm to find the rain has picked up. This isn't especially surprising to her, considering who she just said 'hi' to and his general attitude towards her. She comes to a stop, thumbs hooked on the pockets of her pants, as Lanval speaks behind her. Asking a rhetorical question.
"She might," she replies thoughtfully, gaze up on the overcast sky. "But you don't really believe that, do ya?"
Of course he doesn't. He even says it's unlike her. To a certain extent, he's even right; even before she started working for K.K., she was known for playing pranks on humans. They were never *fatal*, but they tended towards being meanspirited and could sometimes get pretty nasty. Being helpful to mortals for no other reason than to be helpful? It's certainly an unusual look for her.
She knows that, so she doesn't argue the point beyond what she's already said. She just turns around to face the Water Seraph, standing upright as he is.
"You wanna fight about it?" she asks calmly, hands resettling to rest on top of her holstered pistols.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Lanval has posed.
It wasn't all that long ago, to Lanval, that Ragnell was one of the few of his kind that showed him patience, understanding, and kindness at his lowest moments. When he bore the shame of being a Lord of the Land effectively fired by Althena's will (by proxy), freed of his reign over a patch of land that the mortals found new depths of depravity to indulge within. An establishment that would be missed by no one, of mundane nor divine make.
He had said as such to the Guiding Star, Clarine, who was wracked with anxiety over being in the presence of someone who was willing to dare aggress against one who had been nothing but a friend to both of them.
"Mmm." Lanval grunts as Ragnell has herself ready to draw her holstered pistols. Lightning is nearly unrivaled in the natural world for both its power, and the speed in which it travels. That is only but one advantage she would enjoy over him.
The usual stupid smile on Lanval's face - a Seraph whose very nature tends towards lingering joy at rest - is simply not there. The rain intensifies, more and more. It is deafening. It is pounding. The skies darken further, standing to rob (Resonant) mortal eyes of the ability to even pick up the trademark colors of the spirits' elemental manifestations as a heavy fog picks up from where all the rain pummels the rocky ground underneath.
It becomes less of a torrential downpour and might be just shy of being an outright roaring waterfall descending upon them, as that question is asked.
"Yer ashkin' me that now..." He says. That rain is the proverbial punch to the face. The proverbial slap of a gauntlet. He knows full well of Ragnell's power and ability.
"I ain't keen on lettin' ya do ash ya pleashe, goin' where I know it'sh gonna." He declares, as he stands unmoved by this incredible storm. A large boulder is currently being carried downstream a ways behind him.
He's not pulling punches.
(or raindrops, for that matter)
GS: Seraph Lanval has attacked Seraph Ragnell with Rain of Fear! GS: Seraph Lanval has completed his action. GS: Seraph Ragnell guards a hit from Seraph Lanval's Rain of Fear for 66 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
There isn't really any evading the increasingly torrential downpour as it soon coalesces into a veritable waterfall to smack Ragnell downside the head. All she can do is weather it (ha) as best she can--which is fairly well, given the circumstances. It still hurts like hell, but water is a deceptively strong element: seeming weak for its fluidity, but possessing intense pressure and force when it comes together.
Vaguely, Ragnell's glad she doesn't have her trademark hat right now. A fight like this would positively ruin it. ...for as long as it took for her to rematerialize it, but that's not the *point*.
"Figures," she replies. "You always were stronger than you like to let on, Lanv." A beat. Then she pulls her pistols, heartbeat-fast, and opens fire rapidly, not at him, but into the air, such as it is with all this water in it. That proves to her advantage, when those shots drag the rainfall with them and then storm down just as torrentially on Lanval with sheets of both water and needle-thin lightning. It gives Ragnell a bit of cover, turning Lanval's element on him as she does.
It also might, rightfully, be seen as a way of pulling *her* punches. As Clarine might have said, Ragnell's always been friends to *them*; her quarrel has never been with her fellow Seraphim. But when the quarrel is about what to do with mortals, well, this kind of fight is unavoidable, isn't it?
GS: Seraph Ragnell has attacked Seraph Lanval with Squall Shot! GS: Seraph Ragnell has completed her action. GS: Seraph Lanval guards a hit from Seraph Ragnell's Squall Shot for 60 hit points! GS: Cover! applied to Seraph Ragnell!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Lanval has posed.
Reflexively, Lanval sweeps a hand inward to a flare-up of watery energies. Water, by its nature, tends to have so many things get inside of it - great and small, and also very small. Water and electricity barrel towards Lanval at rapid speed. The natural rain is filled to the brim with ions that are fit to conduct the electrical power. Obscuring steam rises where it all makes contact--
Lanval's defense, a sheet of pure, distilled water to catch and insulate the burst, redirecting it from conducting its full wrath. With no ions in it, there's nothing to conduct, but that is a state of existing that seldom lasts long before it is contaminated by things that can. (Like the rain itself!)
It disperses it, but it does not nullify the full charge as it catches through his feet and sees him giving further ground as some steam rises from his person.
Further room for Ragnell to breathe, to run, to reposition.
To shoot again.
"At shome point, ya keep pushin', pushin', pushin'... the water'sh gonna hafta go somewhere." He has always been permissive of a whole lot of things in his day. A lot of indignities, of mortal and Seraph alike.
The pressure built metaphorically, it does so physically as Lanval moves about the rocky field. To mortal eyes, the heavy-set wastrel is possessed of anatomically improbable flexibility. That his apparent fine motor problems in so much as even walking normally most of the time is more a better expression of what he actually is. Rolling and gliding along through the steam-filled haze, he tries to close in on Ragnell's position as he spins and staggers along.
"Whatever yer up to," Lanval says as he grabs a hold of the rope tied to the drinking gourd now heavier with the water of Filgaia itself, swinging the tiny thing with all the force of a far greater mace as such it destabilizes his balance in a massive backhand swing, "I know you ain't gonna tread lightly..."
GS: Seraph Lanval has attacked Seraph Ragnell with Layabout's Lariat! GS: Seraph Lanval has completed his action. GS: Seraph Ragnell takes a glancing hit from Seraph Lanval's Layabout's Lariat for 60 hit points! GS: Riposte! applied to Seraph Lanval!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
"Everything goes somewhere," Ragnell counters. It's not, as far as quips go, a very good one. "Not gonna tread lightly, huh? What, you think I'm gonna go clompin' around in big, heavy, fuck-off boots?"
Maybe not a great joke either. Lanval swings his gourd at her; Ragnell rolls with the punches, literally, taking it on the arm and letting momentum shove her into a sideways roll, mitigating the damage, rather than trying to stand her ground and take more. As she comes up, a Seraphic glyph forms at her feet. She poses, pointing guns at Lanval, and calls, "Pierce through! Shock Lancer!"
A spear made of lightning materializes, crackling in the rainy air, and then shoots forward towards Lanval like a heat-seeking missile.
GS: Seraph Ragnell has attacked Seraph Lanval with Shock Lancer! GS: Seraph Ragnell has completed her action. GS: CRITICAL! Seraph Lanval completely evades a hit from Seraph Ragnell's Shock Lancer!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Lanval has posed.
As Ragnell catches the gourd with her forearm, Lanval tumbles off away from her. By appearances, it is the weight of the gourd that seems to be calling the shots as to where Lanval's manifestation travels. In some poetic sense, a loss of freedom of movement. A dictation. In more physical terms, it is that heavy.
Crackling energy fills the air as Ragnell brings forth a deadly arte, and Lanval looks ready to flop onto his back at an... inopportune moment.
'Shock Lancer!'
Thunder cracks loudly across the Thunder Plains when the bolt of lightning comes zeroing in for him. From where it looks like it's ready to stab through his back, Lanval kicks off the ground, and from there...
He whirls in the air, spinning about the lightning strike and its forks like a snake coiling about a pole, never quite touching it as it lances what little open space there is before it can make contact.
The ground where Lanval once was violently explodes, scattering stone and turf to form a small crater that the rainwater will claim in time. For the graceful whirl that comprises the evasive maneuver...
...his landing appears way less than that, landing flat on his back as the current of floodwaters carries him further back towards Ragnell. He doesn't have a proper heartbeat, but there is that rise of emotions best reflected as an exaggerated cringe and the facial hair around his lip standing on end from the tiniest exposure to the electrical charge. That tiny taste of what almost was.
On his back, a Seraphic glyph forms where he rides the waters, as though the glyph itself were to be seen as a makeshift raft as he holds the drinking gourd skywards.
"Cleanshe away the enemy, body 'n shpirit," not only is he casting a Seraphic Arte on his back, he's just slurring through it. That's... never stopped him, ever. "Blessed Drops!"
Shining, pure globules of water follow where the flooding waters carry him, dropping down like artillery from the air as the shine of sanctified water pierces the gloom of the storm - and threatens to smother Ragnell underneath.
GS: Seraph Lanval has attacked Seraph Ragnell with Blessed Drops! GS: Seraph Lanval has completed his action. GS: Seraph Ragnell critically Guards a hit from Seraph Lanval's Blessed Drops for 28 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
"Woah!" Ragnell utters, eyes flying wide as Lanval flies up and around like a mid-air gymnast to evade her arte. As much as she knows that Lanval is a lot stronger than he acts, that he's not one to be underestimated, she never expected him to bust out *those* kinds of moves. She's surprised, and impressed.
And then he falls flat on the muddy ground. *Splat*.
She might laugh if the circumstances were different, and almost does anyway. And while she knows that this, too, might be a gambit, she can't stop herself from leaning over and peering down at him. "You okay, Lanv?" she calls.
He responds by way of Seraphic arte. Ragnell has but an instant to guard herself against the incoming Blessed Drops--but she does, drawing on the ambient electricity. When the sainted bubbles burst against her, she slashes through with lightning, which absorbs much of the incoming force.
Then she breaks into a sideways sprint, hopping up and down slick rocks with far more ease than anyone should rightfully have. As she runs, she opens fire multiple times, and the lightning bullets crackle and arc back towards Lanval where he lies.
GS: Seraph Ragnell has attacked Seraph Lanval with Storm Runner! GS: Seraph Ragnell has gained 1 Combo! GS: Cover expired! GS: Seraph Ragnell has completed her action. GS: Seraph Lanval guards a hit from Seraph Ragnell's Storm Runner for 83 hit points! GS: Disrupt! applied to Seraph Lanval!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Lanval has posed.
Lanval looks up at Ragnell from where he drifts along as she pops the question about his well-being. Quaint, but an intriguing mirror of their approaches and attitudes towards the encounter. The flooding rainwaters keep carrying him along as Ragnell returns her fireafter deflecting the blessed waters, giving chase towards him as she fires.
It is a losing battle to halt all of the shots as he churns up more and more purified water to try and soften the lightning's ability to pierce into water filled to the brim with particles ready to do electricity's bidding. Even sheer contact with the natural world picks some of that up.
The final shot in her present volley is what finds the opening, coursing electricity through Lanval where he presently lies as he flips out of that stream with a pained yelp and rising steam. The rainstorm abates noticeably with the disruption of his flow.
"...'m not what I'm worried 'bout," he finds the words again as he rises. Even with the momentary lapse in the rainstorm's ferocity, there's enough displaced water flowing and navigating about this part of the Thunder Plain in search of whatever part of the ground will contain it.
Another flex of elemental power, another crashing wave of water rises from one such flow to try and catch the quick-moving Ragnell and knock her over while the hairs of his beard flatten out to gradually return more to looking like a flowing waterfall.
GS: Seraph Lanval has attacked Seraph Ragnell with Crashing Wave! GS: Seraph Lanval has gained 2 Combo! GS: Riposte expired! GS: Seraph Lanval has completed his action. GS: Seraph Ragnell completely evades a hit from Seraph Lanval's Crashing Wave!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
It's true. Another Seraph might be insulted by Ragnell's approach; her expressing concern for him is another way of saying that she doesn't respect him, that she's so assured of her own strength that she can afford to worry about him and not herself. That's not Ragnell's intent, but if Lanval interpreted like that, she wouldn't be able to fault him. But even now, with Lanval taking this fight far more seriously, he doesn't get offended. He's not really offended by much.
Or maybe he's super-offended, and just good at not showing it. That's also a possibility. Especially as water twists and flows and crashes down as a wave to try to crush Ragnell beneath. It's all-consuming, as such waves tend to be.
So Ragnell cheats: she teleports in a burst of lightning from *under* the wave to *over* it. She lands light on the water as the surge passes, and once again a Seraphic glyph forms beneath her as she chants: "O darkened stormclouds, loose thy blade... Thunder Blade!"
Lightning strikes at an angle towards Lanval in the form of a sword, as if the gods above had hurled it down into the earth. The impact alone has its own shocking impact; then a moment later, it EXPLODES with concussive, electric force, more than enough to knock someone off their feet even if they managed to avoid the initial strike.
GS: Seraph Ragnell has spent 2 Combo on Gatling, including 2 on Gatling! GS: Seraph Ragnell enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Seraph Ragnell has attacked Seraph Lanval with Thunder Blade! GS: Seraph Ragnell has gained 1 Combo! GS: Seraph Ragnell has completed her action. GS: Seraph Lanval guards a hit from Seraph Ragnell's Thunder Blade for 87 hit points! GS: Healthy! For entering Condition Green, Seraph Lanval receives 50 temporary hit points. GS: Seraph Lanval enters CONDITION GREEN!!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Lanval has posed.
He's not who he's worried about. He should be, against the Lightning Seraph of an unshakable conviction and desire to do as she does. As she phases in and out of the very place she would be struck, power once more builds. His eyes open up more as she puts forth the words to another potent Arte. The sky above temporarily parts to let through the light of the time of day as a blade of lightning cleaves through the rainfall into the ground from whence Lanval stands.
Stands... but does not flee, as he sneaks a sip from the drinking gourd.
Light and sound fill the air, overwhelming the senses as lightning strikes. The natural strikes of the Thunder Plains are more like rude finger pokes compared to this.
This is a lightning strike.
The earth parts from where it makes impact, scorching the very ground. Water all around evaporates. A new crater forms, from where the rainwater trickles into it as though shy of what could have caused it.
It takes a few seconds for the storm clouds to converge back from whence the Thunder Blade descends, and the air itself seems far too dry as smoky steam wafts from that point of impact. Lanval can scarce be seen through it--
"'Tis the designs the Adversary of Man may yet have for Filgaia," Lanval can instead be heard through it, as he rises up. Steam escapes his left arm, from where he took the brunt of most of that, as he starts to project a more primal aura of water in all its forms. The fresh rain, the crashing waterfalls, the rising tides... but of acrid chemicals, soiled mud, "and all who doth dwell within or near..."
The lights of his eyes shine more clearly through the steam that would obscure him, standing upright with hands on his drinking gourd. "Thy allegiance be to the Adversary of Man, but thou wouldst yet proclaim concern?" ...The mirthful laughter comes back. That's a bit more like him - but there is a truth that leads further into why Lanval is more powerful than first appears. "Thy humor would be welcome... were thy presence no laughing matter...!"
In a flourish, the drinking gourd's contents are poured forth in a great streaming blast of water. As a Seraph, Lanval's Domain is in enjoyment of life and its simple pleasures. The water he naturally projects - as would be the case with most of his ilk - reflects that of Althena's boon to her people. Pure, clean, beautiful. The platonic ideal of water that can be enjoyed and cherished by mortals.
This is the water of Filgaia. It is nowhere near as healthy. It has been, over time, misused. Injured. Twisted into any number of foul, painful, disheartening things largely beyond any Lunarian's imagination.
That is the water being splashed onto Ragnell.
GS: Seraph Lanval has spent 2 Combo on Headshot! GS: Seraph Lanval enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Seraph Lanval has attacked Seraph Ragnell with Spilling Goblet! GS: Disrupt expired! GS: Seraph Lanval has completed his action. GS: CRITICAL! Seraph Ragnell completely evades a hit from Seraph Lanval's Spilling Goblet!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
Steam and smoke arise, then clear, and Lanval's aquamarine voice cuts through the rain. Ragnell frowns, eyes narrowing slightly, at what he says, at the gleam in his eyes. She gets his point, but...
"Wellllll, in all fairness, you're not exactly a human, are you?" she points out. "Workin' for the Adversary o' Man doesn't mean I'm obligated to have a ragin' hate-on for all that exists. An' if you're gonna say somethin' like, you protect humans so it ought to count--I really don't think it does! Even I know there's humans with potential out there! We just disagree on how many o' them there are!"
It's at least an explanation for the seeming discrepancy in her attitude. If she has anything else to say though, there's no time for her to say it before Lanval unleashes the broken, twisted water of Filgaia upon her. Ragnell dives to one side, already sensing the foul, rank nature of it the instant he unstoppers it. So this is the power of Schturdark--not so pleasant, that, though maybe that's being unfair to the Guardian. Ragnell doesn't consider that too hard. She just sprints, taking herself out of the way of what would have surely been a devastating attack if she hadn't reacted in time to avoid it.
As she runs, she aims her pistols at Lanval and concentrates power within them. A blazing light burns and grows within their muzzles, and then *fires* in a single, white-hot beam that sizzles through the rain towards the Oracle of Water.
GS: Seraph Ragnell has attacked Seraph Lanval with Rage Laser! GS: Seraph Ragnell has gained 1 Combo! GS: Seraph Ragnell has completed her action. GS: Seraph Lanval takes a solid hit from Seraph Ragnell's Rage Laser for 147 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Lanval has posed.
A counterpoint and a clarification is backed by a concentrated and well-calibrated beam that cuts through it all. Every obstruction, every existential layer - it goes through. The exchanges between them have been alight with raw power, two of the eight elemental aspects of Althena's Blessing grasping, lacing, and twisting through a battlefiled suited to both of them. At some point or another, for some time, the eternal storms here ceased to be that of whatever bizarre phenomena dictate the continued storms on the plains.
It is a storm of a Water and Lightning Seraph having it out.
The sheer excitement inherent in such a sight takes a more straightforward tone as the beam cuts into and through Schturdark's chosen, the wounding best reflected in the flickering of his manifestation as he staggers back across the small crater from where he had stood in the center. A free hand clutches where the beam first makes contact, though there is no (...physically speaking) bloodletting.
The mirth that emboldens and strengthens Lanval's presence wanes from the injurious shock of it, the rain lightening as if in accordance to a building weakness.
"And yet, by moving to corrupt Love... thy actions would doom all..." All the mortals, maybe - but he's not of Man, as she points out. He's not mortal. In order to steady himself, he has to take a sip from that gourd in brief--
--yes, the gourd that just tried to splash that awful foreign water, Lanval in his later years as Lord of the Land did go to some lengths to keep hold but wow he is really drinking this--
--and that's all the time he has to take in that sip as he steps back to that center of the crater, that place of positional disadvantage where the water still trickles in slowly, where the humid air has gone more dry, the surrounding moisture evaporated in the wake of the Thunder Blade.
"Mortals... they doth do as they will," those words of his that have carried him through those aforementioned rough times, a sort of resignation and acceptance as he stands more upright anew. (If the quality of that water says anything, mortals sure have done what they will to it...)
The rain starts to accumulate again. The Seraphic glyph underneath him is the pointer finger saying, 'he's doing this, his fault.'
"To what end doth destroying a world achieve for sake of those mortals thou deem worthy, then...?" It would probably be easier to answer him if the rain weren't pounding anew. Bludgeoning, in their weight and volume, just as when he first tried to aggress upon the passing-by Lightning Seraph.
GS: Seraph Lanval has attacked Seraph Ragnell with A Building Storm...! GS: Seraph Lanval has gained 1 Combo! GS: Seraph Lanval has completed his action. GS: Seraph Ragnell completely evades a hit from Seraph Lanval's A Building Storm...!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
By corrupting Love, her actions would doom all. Ragnell's eyes flick to the mud and rock as she chuckles ruefully, barely audible over the continuous storm. She doesn't deny what he does. Of course, by saying nothing, neither is she admitting to it, but does Lanval have any reason to believe the situation is anything but what he just described?
oh goddess is he *drinking* that nasty-ass water lanval please learn to love yourself
Ragnell grimaces as she sees this, pace slowing to a jog but not stopping as she circles around him. "That's true," she calls back, of mortals doing as they will. Something they and she have in common, she doesn't say. But what's the point of destroying the world, then?
"Let me ask you this: is there really any answer I could give that'd be good enough in your eyes? Do you *really* wanna know, or are you jus' try'n'a make a point?" she calls back. The rain gathers, then shoots towards her; she bursts into speed, and a shot that might have hit if she'd remained at the same pace whizzes past behind her. The hammer of water instead impacts on the stone behind her, smashing it into pebbles. The rain in general picks up, though, which means that Ragnell would be well-advised to end this quickly.
Even so... "O sacred will, gather, and in this name, lay waste to my foes," she chants, a glyph of her own gathering as she twists and faces against the Oracle of Water. A matching glyph forms beneath him--and above him. Ragnell points, and the lightning falls from each point of a six-pointed star before falling in unrelenting claps in the center. "Divine Saber!!"
GS: Seraph Ragnell has attacked Seraph Lanval with Divine Saber! GS: Seraph Ragnell has completed her action. GS: Seraph Lanval completely evades a hit from Seraph Ragnell's Divine Saber!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Lanval has posed.
Does he really want to know? Does Lanval, who has invested himself with the Guardians to such a point that he is willing to take that kind of water into himself? The sheer act of that drips with overzealousness - but he was the kind that stuck through a horrid place to be enshrined until the bitter end.
(A kind of sweet end, in some ways, for what that place was like!)
He has no time to answer for clarification, for Ragnell brings forth a six-pronged electrical surge from above and below. If he stands in the center...
...He doesn't. As the power builds, he draws the pooling water nearer and thrusts it upwards in a geyser-like burst he dares not make further contact with beyond the first push, ejecting himself through a perceived opening through the glyph above. He lances through that opening with an acrobatic grace that one of his build simply could not achieve were he actually mortal.
His landing at the edge of the crater as the combined lightning strike outright unmakes anything caught within that center is more graceful than before - marginally - in that he lands on his seat. It looks more like one who is sitting down leisurely rather than someone who would have shattered a mortal pelvis.
"I know naught the nuances of thy design..." That much is a confession. He also has never been quite the most intelligent among his own kind. He doesn't want to entertain the idea that her kindness to him may have been part of an overall greater cruelty to a world at large. And yet...
He works up that stupid smile of his, as that glyph builds up around him. "'Tis what it be..." And there he goes, drinking of it again. Bubbles surface around him, starting to fill the space already chaotic by lightning storms, falling rain, choking dust, and is that a Yellow Elemental drifting over as though it were ready to try and jump in on them?
It gets buffeted by the ambient bubbling.
"Seraph Ragnell!" He calls the name as he begins the proper chant accompanying the whole thing. "I bid thee be on thy way in good health!" More bubbles. Bubbles reflecting Lanval. Laughing, lounging about, traversing like it's one big fun house hall of mirrors, trying to surround her. (Also there is a Yellow Elemental drifting about closer, as though crowded towards her. It is a minor nuisance at best.)
In reality - a part of reality less filled in bubbles - there is one last bit of laughter as he wipes his mouth with his arm while facing away from it all.
"Revelry Labyrinth!!"
It all explodes in a catastrophic burst of sanctified water.
GS: Seraph Lanval has activated a Force Action! GS: Seraph Lanval has spent 1 Combo on Gatling, including 1 on Gatling! GS: Seraph Lanval has attacked Seraph Ragnell with Revelry Labyrinth! GS: Seraph Lanval has completed his action. GS: Seraph Ragnell completely evades a hit from Seraph Lanval's Revelry Labyrinth!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
No matter how nasty that water might be, someone has to do it, right? Though Ragnell doesn't want it on her, and while she might grimace to see Lanval drink it, she does understand the significance of it. Whatever he may think of her, however much they may oppose one another, she does respect the lengths to which he'll go to protect his newfound home. Ragnell's always had respect for someone with that level of conviction, and now, on top of that, she's starting to see Lanval in a new light as a combatant. He's grown stronger, hasn't he? In a variety of ways.
Lanval lands in a seat, and even manages to make it look graceful. He admits to not knowing the details of what she's up to, and Ragnell barks out a laugh. "That's on purpose!" she calls back, which is just as much of a confession. He doesn't know what she's about? She doesn't *want* him knowing what she's about. So, this conflict is inevitable. She accepts that, which is why she doesn't hold it against him. 'Tis what it be.
Bubbles rise, here, there and everywhere. You'd think they'd pop with all this rain and lightning and that stray Yellow Elemental with more spite than sense, but such is the Water Seraph's power. They swirl about from him around her as he chants, calling on the height of his strength, smashing in towards her as he laughs--
But the thing about bubbles is that they're prone to popping. Some of that is their power, as seen by the phenomenon of cavitation; some of that is their weakness, as lightning bullets crack at speed and power, tearing through just enough of the incoming Revelry Labyrinth that Ragnell can forge her way out in a burst of speed as the remaining bubbles explode behind her. It's not without effort, and she's left panting to represent, even as a breathless being, what toll in took on her--but hey, it's better than getting exploded, like the poor Yellow Elemental over there, whose bits explode from here to kingdom come. Goodbye, pyrefly.
"Not bad," Ragnell murmurs, red eyes narrowed as she focuses in on her opponent. "If'n you're so insistent on me bein' on my way, I guess I'll oblige. But--" She snaps her twin pistols up as glyphs of light burst up beneath herself and Lanval, towing each of them together for an instant. She opens fire with several bursts of crackling light, bam-bam-bam, bam-bam-bam-bam-bam, bamBAMbamBAMbamBAMBAMBAMBAM. "Sorry, friend," she declares as her pistols glow with rapidly accumulating power for one last blast of a shot, "but it'll be on *my* terms!
"PRISM TANGO!"
BAAAAAAAAM. A massive beam of lightning, not unlike the Rage Laser she'd unleashed earlier, bursts forward to slam forward and dead center into Lanval... assuming he's still there.
GS: Seraph Ragnell has attacked Seraph Lanval with Prism Tango! GS: Seraph Ragnell has completed her action. GS: Seraph Lanval takes a solid hit from Seraph Ragnell's Prism Tango for 184 hit points! GS: Seraph Lanval has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Lanval has posed.
No one faces back towards an explosion above a certain level of proficiency and power... but just before the burst, Lanval feels a tinge of electrical power whizzing past his manifestation's ear, and the laughter starts to slow. One eye closes, the other giving a sideglance at the realization that something is--
'Not bad.'
She escaped the labyrinth.
There's something poetic about that he's not of the mind to put a finger on, for he has never had cause to ever aggress upon her - but Ragnell has never been one to be contained against her will. As she opens with the volley of shots, Lanval whirls up to a stand. Bullets of light graze about him in a delicate movement the bulk of his form should render him incapable of, but it is not from a position of power. Symbolically, more and more ground is given with every shot that passes. His back is up against the metaphorical wall.
Not quite the physical one. There's an Iron Giant coming down this way, slow and steady, with undying malice coming from its eyes.
Lanval catches himself in a forward stagger, clutching the drinking gourd in both hands as if to prevent it from spilling more than it should, as Ragnell's pistols reach the peak of their accumulation - the declaration that it will be on her terms.
The Prism Tango strikes. The lighting bolt doesn't go through him.
It carries him with it, in that instant, hurling him forward at the speed of lightning itself. Light(ning) flashes through all his senses, taking temporary leave of it as his mass slams through a--
--wasn't there an Iron Giant there, a moment ago? Maybe if Ragnell or any undeclared nearby observers are present, they should ask that cluster of pyreflies right there if they've seen it.
The blast carries through all the way into the nearest lightning tower, hurling Lanval's manifestation against it as it absorbs the brunt of the blast and then courses further with it, a lighter but no less deadly aftershock violently shaking the Water Seraph as he slumps over on his knees... and then on his chin, steam rising up from him. Only one of his eyelids has it in itself to lift itself up, revealing a half-lidded eye drained of the shine that tends to denote the awakening of Lanval's latent power.
Nothing like a blast of that caliber to sober someone up, as his manifestation clings barely to materialization.
"...Mmmmph..." The most effort he can put up in protest or resistance is one arm being lifted up while the other clutches the drinking gourd against the rest of himself, but it, too, falls limp and hits the rain-slick rock underneath. The fracture of the ground underneath him is of an ideal size to house him, as is the earth's right to contain water to its shape.
That one half-open eye tries to fixate on where Ragnell is, but the strength to say much in defense, or in protest, was instead expended on that impotent arm movement.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
Maybe she overdid it a little.
That's Ragnell's first thought when not just Lanval but a hulking Iron Giant that had been set on interrupting the fight get severely owned by her Prism Tango. With barely a glance at the cloud of pyreflies, she jogs towards the lightning tower where Lanval had ended up at the end of the prism. Not all the way--Lanval has made it clear that her kindness is not welcome--but close enough to determine that, even if he's badly injured, he's not about to keel over and die. The scar in the earth to scoop him up and cradle him helps, as does the fact that it's under the lightning tower. With that cover, he should be okay. And if the mortals he'd been watching over notice and look for him...
For a moment, she considers drawing their attention to his absense so they can do precisely that. She decides against it. It'd just upset Lanval more in the end. Same for if she left him a potion or a gel or cast a healing arte on him. She's not *his* friend as far as he's concerned, and after a certain point, you really have to be mindful of someone else's pride, even if it seems like they don't have much of it.
As such, instead, Ragnell touches a pair of fingers to her forehead in farewell, then turns away. "Later, then," she says, before heading to the north for Macalania Woods, away from his charges.
If nothing else, Lanval can say this: he *did* drive her off from those he decided to protect.