2020-10-24: Let Us Cling Together
- Log: Let Us Cling Together
- Cast: Seymour Guado, Tidus, Cyre H. Lorentz, Lunata Croze, Marivel Armitage, Jacqueline Barber, Seraph Boudicca, Ivan, Shalune Amira, Lulu, Belize, Venetia Vuong, Mariel, Rikku, Cecilia Adlehyde, Yuna
- Where: Bevelle - Via Purifico
- Date: October 24, 2020
- Summary: At the entrance to the Via Purifico, Seymour commits murder again. The Drifters confront him; they must go through him to escape.
==========================<* Bevelle - Via Purifico *>========================== Via Purifico is the immense, ancient labyrinth built underneath Bevelle. It is attached the prisons in the temple complex. It is a place of death and despair, as those tried and found guilty are sentenced to it -- to escape and prove their innocence or (as happens far more likely) die within. The labyrinth has countless glyphs, which are warded and make navigating hard (and teleporting away impossible). There are many portions that are flooded, as well, and that adds an extra level of complexity. BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtN36ITVrCo
DC: Yuna switches forms to Lady Summoner! DC: Lulu switches forms to The Black Mage! DC: Tidus switches forms to Star Player of the Zanarkand Abes! DC: Mariel switches forms to Herbalist Mariel! DC: Seraph Boudicca switches forms to Oracle of Moor Gault! DC: Marivel Armitage switches forms to Crimson Noble Marivel! DC: Cyre H. Lorentz switches forms to Wind Shaman Cyre!
<Pose Tracker> Seymour Guado has posed.
Escaping from Via Purifico is no easy thing.
Different routes exist. Some lead to the mountainside; to switchbacks and treacherous trails. Some lead to the high road to Bevelle, which has long since been abandoned at the start of the war. Too high for the Guard to scale and send sizeable troops to -- and too high to be useful for moving large Yevonite forces to harry the Otherworlders -- that road has now been abandoned. Highbridge, the enormous stone structure dating back some three hundred and fifty years, now sits abandoned.
It is both an escape and a way to come to the rescue. From the outside, it involves slipping past a Guard barricade. From the inside, once Via Purifico is escaped, it is but a short few rooms -- and a flight of stairs -- to the great bridge.
But the way to the bridge is not empty.
At the end of the bridge closer to the Via Purifico entrance -- pincered neatly between those escaping and any coming to the rescue -- is a quartet of Guado Guardians, the cleric that Tidus stabbed through the chest during the wedding, a man in green and yellow robes with a bald pate, and the familiar form of Maester Seymour Guado. With his blue hair and robes, he cracks a smile.
He looks towards those coming -- no matter the direction -- and he takes stock of the fact that he is, perhaps, about to be in a pincer attack. He seems nonplussed.
"Ah, Lunata," Seymour says with a smile that is utterly polite. "I see that you have escaped only to come here. It is a shame that this is where our acquaintanceship ends. An order to end all of your lives have been passed down." He smiles, then. "But... that is what you wanted, was it not, Lunata? An end to all of this? Shall I deliver that end? Shall I... free you?"
Then, his eyes turn to Ivan. He smiles. "And your presence is proof -- this is all a foul Althenan plot, is it not? I see you, Guard assassin. I remember you."
He doesn't address Yuna or her Guardians... but that, in a way, is a cruelty. What is about to happen is her fault.
But the cleric that Tidus ran through looks at him with an entirely different emotion. Her eyes are sorrowful; red-rimmed, like she had been crying. She opens her mouth, to say something, but then Seymour Guado gives her a look. Her mouth closes, after that.
The man next to Seymour looks at the Maester. Then, he looks towards the rest. Towards Kimahri, who stands closer -- and then beyond, towards Yuna and her group. He takes a step forward, a hand over his chest, as he meets a pair of eyes. A pair, it seems, of red eyes. Father Zuke takes another step forward. "Lulu!" he cries out. "Wakka! Please--please, we have not passed the point of no return."
He ducks his head low, for a moment, almost in a bow. "We may yet walk this back! We can find a way out of this!"
Seymour's pale eyes flash. He looks down at Zuke -- with a hint of irritation, and a hint of perhaps something crueler. "Ah, Father Zuke... how noble of you."
OOC: Welcome to BATTLE TIME. I am going to try to keep a good pace going tonight. As such, the next pose and CODED COMBAT will begin in approximately 30 minutes. DO NOT USE A CODED ATTACK THIS TURN. If you cannot pose in that time, you can pose the next round. I will be trying to pose approximately every hour thereafter and may choose to skip folks who have not posed in that time.
<Pose Tracker> Tidus has posed.
Jail and would-be execution were a heck of a time for Tidus, son of Jecht. After getting beaten up by Evrae Altena right at the finish line, only to get dragged to safety by Auron (WORST. RESCUE. EVER), he took the time with his friends to settle, rest, and dole out healing items. Especial care is given with Yuna and a Baskar Hi-Ether or two. Possibly there was a save sphere! Either way, Tidus is still looking battered, but he's at least fighting fit, which is more than he and most of his friends could have said while they were in the Via Purifico.
So it really kind of just figures that the instant everyone leaves and makes it onto the Highbridge, Seymour and his posse are right there to greet them. At least Tidus and his friends aren't alone, either--it looks like a whole ton of Drifters have made it this far, too.
At first, Tidus scowls to see Seymour. However, the moment he spots the cleric from the One Thousand Plus Steps with him, he brightens with palpable, obvious relief. "Hey, it's you! You're okay!" Then he pauses, seeing her actual, miserable expression. "...*Are* you okay?" He glances at Seymour as the Maester shushes the cleric with a glance; then he sobers. "...I'm really sorry," Tidus concludes quietly. Whether she's 'okay' (read: alive, and not Unsent) or not, it still applies. He might not have meant to stab her, but it doesn't change the fact that he did. "Um... My name's Tidus. Is it okay if I ask what yours is?"
He'd warn her that she's in bad company and she ought to run while he can, but, well, if she's here in the first place, she's probably not going to listen. Maybe she's even being forced to be here, if the way Seymour had bullied her into silence with just a glance is any indication.
Even worse, it looks like an old friend of Lulu's and Wakka's is here, too. Tidus opens his mouth, then shuts it, and glances over at his friends in dismay. It's bad enough to fight friends; it must be even worse when it's obvious they don't know what all is going on.
Still, this is a part of Lulu and Wakka's stories, not his. Tidus will let them tell this Father Zuke guy what's up. ...if he'll listen, either.
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.
Escape from Via Purifico was never intended to be possible. Being dropped into Bevelle's spooky fiend-infested, machina-filled cellar was a one-way trip, equivalent to a death sentence. If those condemned to it were pure, the Church would say, they would prove it by escaping.
But none did, and so Yevon could maintain its air of benevolence while disposing of all those who it found too troublesome to keep around.
Except they were clearly not expecting otherworldly drifters to end up in their cellar.
One such individual is a particularly unrepentant heretic. If you gave Cyre Lorentz a whole bunch of machines, applied a bit of rotational torque to his pupils, and applied a cipher to the language center of his brain, he'd be about the kind of person that the average Yevonite would expect to be found in Via Purifico.
Except, you know, he's from another world, worshipping foreign gods.
And more importantly, he's got a major bone to pick with a certain treeman.
"Seymour Guado," says the Wind Priest as he saunters out from the pit he literally crawled out of only a few minutes ago. "I should have expected to see you here. After all, this is where your temple puts its heretics, isn't it?" A vindictive smile tugs at the corners of his lips, "And who could be a greater heretic than one that orchestrated the summoning of a Second Sin?"
It was a near thing. Too near. If they had taken only a few moments more, then Desperation would have been free-- or at least, in the hands of the Veruni. Cyre honestly isn't sure which option would have been worse, but he's glad that it's not something he needs to worry about. Still, the man responsible is standing right there.
He looks to Lunata and shrugs as if to say 'hey, it's time to punch this guy in the face- you in??'
<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.
Lunata has had an incredibly bad time in Via Purifico and imprisonment in general -- it's awkward enough to be entrapped within one of those cages on her own, but people she knew throughout the entirety of the Yevon clergy when she was serving there kept seeing her, largely through the guardsmen shifts and other miscellaneous bureaucracy that kept lining up.
They tell her she's a heretic, and a mistake. That they should've never trusted an Otherworlder. There's just a little bit more guilt to be had there.
But that was then, and this is now -- she's had the time to escape thanks to Jacqueline and Shalune, who were far more equipped to handle the tunnels than she was on her own. She's ragged, but somehow still standing, no small thanks to Jacqueline's necromantic potions, Mariel's own herbal remedies, and unnatural freakish undead vitality. Death Defiances, we could say.
She spots the Guardians first as she comes to a skidding halt, and then her eyes lock with the figure in the center -- Seymour.
"Seymour..." He addresses her before she can say anything else. Isn't this what she wanted? And end to all this? Does she want her unlife terminated at his hand?
Other Drifters arrive -- and Yuna's group as well, with her Guardians. She looks relieved to not be alone, turning back towards Seymour as she musters her thoughts, head spinning.
"Yeah. You're right," Lunata experimentally finds her words. "I'm not gonna deny it -- I'm not gonna go pretend I didn't want to find a way to toast myself in a Sending or get flushed down the Farplane or nothing."
Orochi-Agito is drawn, and she brandishes its sharp side as she readies herself in combat posture. Cyre gives her a look for a moment, and she nods in turn.
"... but ... I'm talking about you, Seymour. The way you show me how much you're hurt in the same way I was, when you tell me you want to just blow everything up and give everything the death it deserves. You got your unlife, and I don't think it's making you happier. And no matter how many mini-Sins you grow, it's not gonna give you satisfaction either."
There's a faint breath -- a useless one, given her lack of functioning lungs -- as she hops on her toes several times.
"I don't know if I can help fish you out of that mindset... but all I can do is try."
A faint scowl.
"That's how much our friendship's worth, even if you say it's over."
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.
It's no easy thing.
But well within Marivel's anticipations. Perhaps some died, perhaps. But Marivel knows full well what happens when you leave a drifter crew to die. Maybe not every Drifter crew, but Marivel has already recognized the heroic spirit present in her friends and allies. It would take a bigger death trap than this to stop them. She knows precisely the sort of threats that get those that carry Anastasia's hope with them to die. This wasn't it.
"May we dispense with the formalities, Seymour? I had an honest conversationo with a man recently and it was rather refreshing. Surely, as you are are now--you have no more nened for deceit." Marivel says. Her experiences with the Yevon Church, outside of Yuna and her guardians, has been largely one of insolence, paranoia, and cruelty and it is simply because of Yuna's existence--and none other--that she doesn't immediately begin an assault, that she deosn't bring all that she could bear. Spira wants to handle Spira's problems but so far, amongst Yevon, only Yuna and her adventuring team seemed content to actually show kindness to Otherworlders, to fight for another world. As far as she's concerned, Yuna and her Guardians are the only ones from the Church that have any right to tell her or her people how to handle Spira's problems.
"Do you enjoy being dead, Seymour Guado? will you enjoy being dead for anoother ten years? Another hundred years? Will you be pleased to be spectral visage for a thousand years? How aboout ten thousand years?"
She shakes her head. "You have already consigned your allegience to the Clysmian threat. Had you and your fellow ghosts sought to be more than fiends, I would have defended thee to oblivion. But as it stands, you have simply used your demises as an avenue to abandon all faith, all morality, and all truth. These things may be lies, but they are lies that will be made true."
She draws Guillotine and points it towards Seymour.
"But death and life exist within balance. All those that seek to undue that balance are a threat to the world. And my people were forged, vowed, and birthed to elimimnate threats to the world."
Her eyes narrow. "That has been my role since before your 'Sin' had been birthed. It will be my role until the Time of Promise has come to pass. There is nothing you can do to eliminate that future, all you can do is leave excess wreckage of lives in the meanwhile. This is not about your father. This is not about Spira. You will allow Yuna to heal you," by which she means send him. "Or there's nothing but emptiness waiting for you. You struck at my world. I will allow no alternative."
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
Jacqueline Barber is tired. She's exhausted. She's spent a week or so within the prisons of Yevon before being dropped into Via Purifico. They did not exactly show the greatest care for the health of their prisoners. She was able to provide some potions for the others, along with Mariel's help, but that only helped to restore her stamina - it would take a lot to undo the wear her time in prison has dealt to her.
That is to say, when they arrive to the bridge leading out, she is not exactly in her best condition. And to find Seymour himself flanked by guards... Jacqueline grimaces. She would be lying if she said a bit of despair didn't creep into her thoughts. Jacqueline looks toward Lunata as Seymour addresses her, then takes a deep breath and steps forward.
"Sorry - you heard her, Seymour. Lunata is staying with us." Jacqueline says, shaking her head. She sends Lunata a brief smile. "And we're getting out of here. All of us - in one piece."
Jacqueline looks over everyone gathered before them.
"And I'd like it to be the same for all of you, too. Please, step aside and let us go. We don't have to fight anymore." She requests. "This doesn't need to devolve into violence yet again."
She's not against the idea of punching Seymour in the face, of course - but right now, they're all tired and worn down and the same can't be said for Seymour and his retinue. Still, if it comes down to a fight, she'll do what she can to provide whatever opportunity Lunata needs.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.
CRY, CRY THE UNDYING --
SMASH! the gates! CRASH! the ways! O, Altana! Altana!
O, dear heart, there is something in the water.
Drip, drip, and clamber out, potions for the mortal, and when Boudicca found Mariel the one left to her passed from gauntlets to gloved claws. The medicine passed hands and the woman did not stay; could not stay. There are shadows long, and stretching longer.
There's a shadow in the way.
Boudicca is not damp as she steps from the direction of Via Purifico to that bridge; she ought to be, hair for miles twisting out behind her in twin roads, dark and dark split in their ways by that light green ribbon, those tips all dipped in air. They lead to a face carved in steel, stern eyes, stern lips.
No potion in her hands; they grasp to fists.
"How many," is the question which follows Lunata's heels, as she draws to a close and a stop and a breath. "How many Sins will you enact on this world - Seymour Guado?"
Come beat now the anvil of the ANSWER; forged here is the Seraph Boudicca, who stands for the flesh Mariel would knit.
<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.
After a harrowing experience in Via Purifico, seeing the sun again is not something Ivan is about to take for granted. But it seems that the promises of clemency upon escape were much exaggerated. Instead, Seymour and his retinue face down the people attempting to find freedom. That's bad enough.... but then Seymour's attention turns directly on Ivan.
And your presence is proof -- this is all a foul Althenan plot, is it not?. I see you, Guard assassin. I remember you.
Ivan's eyes widen; he is taken aback at being recognized by a former target and having the word assassin thrown around for anyone to hear.
"I am... less popular with Althena's Guard than you might think, but that is a long story..." He interrupts himself, his face screwing up. "...and I think maybe you are not being sincere and you are just inventing a political excuse for whatever you want to do next..." Maybe Ivan shouldn't try to guess at politics.
"At any rate, don't underestimate me, I have become very unpredictable!"
<Pose Tracker> Shalune Amira has posed.
"Must be nice to be able to say something like that so casually, huh? 'We've not passed the point of no return! We did a whole bunch of heresy and kidnappings and even made a mini Sin, but you can still stop this!'" comments Shalune as she sweeps alongside Lunata, her gaze fixed straight ahead at Father Zuke. The Little Dipper looks scratched and damaged, occasionally sparking across its base, just as she looks ragged and kind of bedraggled, a red smudge of scratches on her cheek and a shoddily-bandaged rip on her sleeve. But the young woman and her machine are both still standing.
(In a very Shalune act of pouting defiance, one of the lamps ripped from the walls of the Via Purifico decorates the front of the flying scooter. It's as much a trophy as it is a functional piece of the craft now.)
What Shalune doesn't seem to have at the moment is the capacity to joke; there's a weary edge on her usually upbeat voice, and her brow's drawn lower than normal as she glances towards Seymour. It's a bit odd to see her scowling. "You already tried to 'free' a bunch of people back on Filgaia. It didn't work. I told an ancient machina to shoot your baby real hard in the face," she adds, maybe relishing the chance to be so blunt just a little. "But I guess that's not really much of a heresy anymore as far as Yevon's concerned."
Lunata's hopes do manage to dislodge her temper, at least, and she sighs softly as she rubs at her forehead. "Still feels weird to know I'm more pious than the whole clergy put together," she mumbles to herself, and flicks a rod of metal into her hands, the ends of it telescoping out into her staff.
<Pose Tracker> Lulu has posed.
Different routes exist; through those few rooms and a flight of stairs Lulu made her way to the Highbridge, gathering herself up as best she can. The water did much for the dirt, but not for the cuts and scrapes; the water is not gone, Lulu having but reccently escaped the waterway. It is not so long. What healing items they could use made a difference.
The black mage walks in time with a blitzer, her fellow Guardian Wakka. At first, she is fine with not being addressed--is fine with Seymour's attention and that of those with him going elsewhere. She scans over Seymour's entourage so quickly that for a moment she doesn't see--
"Father Zuke!?" Lulu answers, red eyes meeting his. She sees him step forward--so does Wakka. Wakka's expression of surprise is practically full-body compared to Lulu's refined exclamation, but they're both surprised.
Lulu is visibly pained. She does not look to Tidus, though Wakka looks around and sees him. "H-hey--"
"It's too late," Lulu says, resolute, though it wounds her to do it. Her vaunted composure holds, but the fatigue is nevertheless visible in her expression. It is so long, and so much... "Even if there were a way out..."
"...We can't just leave Yuna, ya? And--And Maester Seymour is--"
"He is among the Unsent," Lulu finishes. "...Even if you don't believe that--"
"Please," she says. "Just go. I'm sorry, but that's all I can say."
"..." Wakka is tense. ...So is Lulu, for that matter.
<Pose Tracker> Belize has posed.
Meanwhile, up on one of those dangerous switchbacks overlooking the Bevelle Highbridge, a certain figure watches--close enough to potentially get spotted by anyone observant enough, but clearly far enough away that they aren't going to join the battle, either. After having lost their aeon duel with Yuna, Belize is in no condition to do battle with anyone, at Seymour's side or not, though nobody but Yuna herself needs to know that. However... Yuna had warned them--had told them to watch Seymour closely, and to watch with eyes wide open.
There are many Drifters here they recognize (that insufferable Marivel, for one), and many others they do not. Their gaze lingers in particular on Lunata, and their expression pinches with concern. So she, too, is still here...
Slowly, they shake their head, then still. If Yuna is mistaken, then they'll be in the wings to help Seymour and the others retreat. If not... then this battle will surely be educational.
No matter how little they wish it to be.
<Pose Tracker> Venetia Vuong has posed.
Venetia Vuong's official opinion of Bevelle is that it is very pretty, but also, that it sucks, because they put you in jail. To be fair, of course, Venetia did show up here as part of a force intending to disrupt a political(?) marriage. However, after an attempted drowning and general terror journey, she is not in a forgiving mood.
And here is the worst part of it:
She was UNDERWATER. Venetia has to BREATHE - which meant she had to share a respirator with people to avoid drowning. Which meant that she could not blow off a head of steam by cursing the Yevonic institutions or persons who have brought her to this fate, to this moment.
To this shining pathway.
Venetia starts taking a deep breath as Marivel speaks. She sees other people, but she focuses on one person in particular. Her head tilts forwards. Behind the damp lace of her face mask her eyes shine.
"SEYMOUR OF GUADO!" Venetia shouts.
"You tried to rip our dying planet a new hole it didn't need, and now I see you here in front of me. Put your front legs up or fill them, you anthropophagous blue-ticked trash hound!"
<Pose Tracker> Mariel has posed.
Escaping Via Purifico was one of the hardest things Mariel has done. Deep in its halls, she thought she would be alone forever; even when she was close enough to hear another person, she felt isolated. Buried and forgotten. Lost to the world - and while Mariel did not fear the world passing her by, she feared solitude.
But she - and her friends - made it through an ordeal in the older sense. They escaped, as it was said nobody ever did from Via Purifico. And that raised Mariel's spirits. She wasn't alone if she had them and they had her. It was a start.
It was hard for her to not just run outside immediately, to get out of the confining oppression of Via Purifico, but she didn't. While some of her party went back in, the rather bedraggled and nearly exhausted Mariel stayed in the last few rooms to catch her breath, and - more importantly - to make sure that other escapees made it out with as much help as she could manage. She traded and scrounged for what she could to make sure that they were, if not in perfect form, at least better than they were before.
And her bag is at least partially stocked now, too. She felt she was going to need that, somehow...
...and she isn't wrong. Eventually, when everyone who is going to make it out by this exit has, when she herself is as recovered as she's going to get and she has resupplied her satchel (thankfully dried out by this point), Mariel makes it onto Highbridge with the others. She remains at the rear out of simple party planning; she doesn't really fight very well, or at all if she can help it, and so she doesn't go in the vanguard until she needs to help someone.
At first. Mariel was not expecting Seymour here. It shows on her face - startlement, distress, settling into an uncomfortable feeling. Seymour, here and now.
"No," Mariel says, quietly.
"No. I do not want to hurt anyone. I don't want to fight." She looks at Father Zuke, and tries to smile, but she can't entirely manage it. "I would rather talk. But - what Seymour has done - it is wrong. It is something that should never be done. He, an Unsent, did try to call a second being, kin to Sin, and - I - we heard what the Maesters said. They don't care. Not truly. Not for the people and not for what they say they believe in."
"Please ...let us past."
<Pose Tracker> Rikku has posed.
Despite her fatigue, Rikku seems cheerful as they arrive to the bridge. "Almost made it! Just a little further and..." Rikku had been looking back, though then she looks forward, squints and...
Her eyes just widen, as she skids abruptly to a stop. "You're kidding me! We were so close!" What Rikku has no idea is that the small cruelty of Seymour's presence, is nothing compared to the greater cruelty of his guests.
Rikku's hands cover her mouth, as she recognizes the cleric that Tidus impaled. The cleric that stepped in his way. "Oh... Oh- Tidus." The accusations towards the Drifters whose only true crime was to help the Al Bhed with Yuna's wedding.
... but then her head almost gets whiplash, whipping around to look at the man calling out to Lulu and Wakka. "Lulu... Wakka... did he really bring him here just to..."
She looks momentarily dazed, but then suddenly she clenches a fist and it all becomes anger towards the man. "What is wrong with you!? It's one thing after another - murdering your father, creating a new Sin! Invading my home! Harassing Yunie at every turn! I still don't even know yet how many people you killed that I grew up with just because of you haven't given us a single second of rest!"
Her volume drops, as if she's starting to sound a bit choked up, "You're... you're not even doing this because of your faith! You killed them all because they got in your way! And now you're parading these people out in front of us all like they're... they're..."
Perhaps she realizes her error at that moment, as the next word is so terribly soft.
"... disposable."
Suddenly anxious, her expression slides down and she swallows, trying to hold something back from her eyes, "I'm sick the way you treat everyone. I'm sick of you."
<Pose Tracker> Cecilia Adlehyde has posed.
Cecilia Lynn Adlehyde, following her own disastrous run of Via Purifico, a small detour to answer the voice of the Guardians, and a little bit of party shuffling, has also arrived. She hovers generally in the vicinity of Tidus and the Gang, aiming to make Claude's wish that they keep an eye on her easier for everyone. Besides, they're already used to rambunctious summoners getting themselves into trouble.
The Princess of Adlehyde steps up alongside the rest, looking across the group Seymour has summoned as...moral un-support. She grimaces. "All this just to hurt their spirits," she mutters, and scowls. She's guessing, but with Seymour it seems like a good guess.
She looks just a touch unsure of what to say.
Then Venetia starts shouting. She looks blankly at her. "....yeah, basically that," she says, nodding firmly. "I'm sorry, Maester." She produces her staff, stamping it into the ground. "But you have become something that I can no longer allow!"
<Pose Tracker> Yuna has posed.
Things that have happened to Yuna in the last week:
* Kidnapped, twice
* Finally met her mother's family, most of whom were immediately slaughtered in her defense before her very eyes
* First kiss stolen by horrible zombieghost creeper
* Who she sort of technically married in a SAY MAN AND WIFE kind of way
* Threw herself off a tower in a suicidally dangerous escape attempt
* Merged with her fifth fayth
* Got arrested and imprisoned, then tortured for a confession
* Pope Grandfather Figure turned out to also be a horrible zombieghost creeper
* Surrounded by other Cardinal Figures who apparently worship zombieghostdom, and almost casually reveal that the teachings she's based her entire life around are lies
* They found her guilty of excessive truthtelling and sentenced her to excommunication and death
* Found and lost and found some but not all of her Guardians and friends in the Via Purifico, who she's STILL worried and guilty about
* Fought a duel with an old friend sent to kill her who ALSO turned out to be a non-creeper, only mildly horrible zombieghost, apparently everyone she knows is dead
* Almost drowned several times, like, a lot
Yes, Yuna has been chewed up and spit back out by both the living and the dead lately, just, over and over and over. Despite her better efforts to not show it, in the manner that summoners are taught to hide any suffering, to disguise it with composure, to smile through all pain... yeah, no, we're well past that. It shows.
Her raiment is ragged, she is both soaked and filthy simultaneously, and various abrasions and scratches on her shoulders and back and cheeks both weep blood whenever they're stretched and, somehow, fail to explain the current fragility of her frame. No fiend could have harmed her with such thorough brutality, such profound intent. Her whole body is a little hesitant in its motions, in the manner of one whose body has been recently, and harshly, punished for daring to move at all.
But she got up every time, back then. And she's still going now... for some generosus definition of going. She's more staggering than walking out of the Via Purifico, and if it wasn't for a recent emergency infusion of Rikku and Tidus' potion and ether supplies, she wouldn't even be doing that.
As her face emerges from subterranean shadow and into natural light for the first time in a long time, it's easy to imagine her praying to express the simple, overflowing gratitude she obviously feels to be back out in the open air. That she doesn't shape the Yevon prayer is perhaps the most stark indicator of all, as to what she's just lost. What she's still losing. The scope of the betrayal of her faith is a seismic event, sometimes a slow burn and sometimes sudden and violent. There have been aftershocks. There will be more.
Here comes another few, in fact. The priestess' tortured expression; Father Zuke's familiar figure twisted into unfamiliar misery; and Seymour himself, his casual cruelty to both of them, to her allies, to everyone. To all of Spira, it increasingly seems.
Each falls upon her like another physical blow. It would be easier to close herself off, to not FEEL all of this pain, her own and others'. But then she wouldn't be Yuna. And she can only ever be herself. She knows no other way to live, nor to die.
But there's something else stirring in her, too. The courage and defiance of the wedding crashers, her rescuers and friends. Their simple APPEARANCE -- 'alive and well' might be an overstatement, sometimes on multiple levels, but nevertheless, it's so much more than what it could have been.
She may not pray, but her lips mouth something silent and reverential all the same. It might have been 'thank goodness'. Thank goodness they're here. Thank goodness they've escaped. They can see the way they make her eyes shine.
Now all that stands between them and the treeline is the one person she both least and most wishes to see.
She takes one step forward, then another, then another, until she stands at the fore. And if she quails, miserable to be anywhere near him -- that much, at least, she hides well. Her chin lifts. Her two-toned gaze is steady in meeting his. Her lips part without reservation.
"Enough, Seymour," she says simply. Firmly. Sadly.
She's here... to stop him. As many times as it takes.
<Pose Tracker> Seymour Guado has posed.
"You--" The cleric looks at Tidus, eyes wide. "You never should have come here. My name is Ihara, I-I'm--" And then, with a glance, Seymour silences her. He turns, instead, towards Cyre. His eyes meet his. He smiles at him.
Then he shrugs. "I did. What of it?"
His pale eyes turn, then, towards Lunata. There is the slightest nod of his head; he tilts it once to the side. "The way I was hurt...? That--" And there is a flash of something in his eyes. Anger, not at having it figured out, but pointed out. "Our friendship is far from over. This is what true friendship is, Lunata! To give someone what they need..." And then he looks, with fury, at Jay and Shalune. "...even when they would deny it and be led astray by those who blind them to the truth!"
He glances at Marivel. She speaks -- and he shrugs. "You presume much about my world and my thoughts, creature. You are nothing to Spira--and never shall be. I will destroy you, all that you love, and you will thank for me for it!"
He turns, then, and looks at Ivan. "Then I shall make the manner of your death unpredictable. You escaped execution by the Trial Knight--but the reprieve ends here! Perhaps you should have remained with your heretic friends?" He smiles. "Or... perhaps it would delay the inevitable."
He glances once at Venetia. "Ah, Filgaia lacks in class, does it not?" he says. "Well! Very good." He looks at Rikku, then. "If you're sick of me--then I will soon offer you relief."
His eyes turn. Across the Filgaians, then the Lunarians -- across all of them, in turn -- until finally settling on Boudicca, then Cecilia, and finally Mariel. He looks at them and then smiles, widely. It is uneven. It is unhinged. "I have given our worlds the greatest gift of all: their end. I await your gratitude!"
Zuke looks at Mariel. His eyes meet hers for a moment. "No," he says. "I am sorry. I mean you no ill will, but..."
He looks back to Lulu and Wakka, with a final glance at Mariel. "Grand Maester Mika's order was clear, Lulu. You--Wakka--all of Lady Yuna's Guardians and the Lady Summoner herself... are to die," Zuke says. "But I have some sway. You need not throw your lives away! There is only so far that you must carry this, Lulu! Wakka!"
He slams a fist against his chest, with a loud 'thump.' "So, please, I--"
"No, Lady Yuna," Seymour interrupts. "It is never enough."
Seymour's clawed hand punches into Zuke's back and then out of his chest. It comes through gripping a bloodied mass of reddened muscle. Then, he yanks it back through the wound he made unceremoniously. He drops the piece of Zuke; the man stumbles, a hack and a gasp, blood running from his mouth. Then, he crumples down, pyreflies flowing from him. They join with the Guado Guardians, who fall apart into masses of the glowing, shimmering prismatic orbs. Then, Ihara falls down -- and her body and Yevonite robes alike begin to unspool into so many pyreflies.
"I relieve you, Father Zuke, of this burden--of the burden of life. Of the burden of suffering." His pale eyes turn -- and he smiles, a wicked and cruel thing. "As I shall relieve all of you. Revel! Revel in my KINDESS! IN MY MERCY!"
And then he convulses. It is a terrible, ugly thing. His left hand, where the fingers were shorn away, twist and curl in an unnatural way. His jaw juts out, twisting; his eyes rotate and twitch rapidly. His tongue snaps to each side, as muscles draw tight in his spasms. The pyreflies swirl around, and then infuse into him all at once. His skin turns ashen grey.
Stone explodes out from his back and his head, forming an altar that he is halfway merged into. Seymour lifts off the ground, legs dangling -- and his robes follow after, turning purple and grey. He twists his head around, and cracks a smile -- the same face as Seymour, but with a rictus grin that isn't something ever seen in life.
Around him, a terrible and insect-like monster gathers. The Mortibody curls around him, resting along his right arm. Pincers emerge from its mouth; its eyes look at him, and then at the others. A long, stinger-tipped tail curls around his body, with its segments starkly visible.
Seymour throws a hand out towards those gathered.
Down around Yuna, Jay, Shalune, Marivel, and Venetia, explosions of flame erupt. Blasts of fire scorch Highbridge's ancient stones and rock. Globes of water form into the sky, swirling, and then come down in a brutal rain of high-pressure water blasts for Rikku, Cecilia, and Lunata. The skies open, too, angry and short, and bolts of lightning hurtle down for Tidus, Cyre, and Ivan. Then, finally, jagged blades of ice explode up underneath the feet of Lulu, Boudicca, and Mariel.
DC: Seymour Guado switches forms to Seymour Natus!
GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Yuna with Multi-Fira! GS: Seymour Guado has gained 1 Combo! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Jacqueline Barber with Multi-Fira! GS: Seymour Guado has gained 1 Combo! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Shalune Amira with Multi-Fira! GS: Seymour Guado has gained 1 Combo! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Marivel Armitage with Multi-Fira! GS: Seymour Guado has gained 2 Combo! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Venetia Vuong with Multi-Fira! GS: Seymour Guado has gained 2 Combo! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Rikku with Multi-Watera! GS: Seymour Guado has gained 2 Combo! GS: Seymour Guado assumes the Stoic stance! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Cecilia Adlehyde with Multi-Watera! GS: Seymour Guado has gained 2 Combo! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Lunata Croze with Multi-Watera! GS: Seymour Guado has gained 2 Combo! GS: Seymour Guado spends 1 Combo on Poison! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Tidus with Multi-Thundara! GS: Seymour Guado has gained 1 Combo! GS: Seymour Guado spends 1 Combo on Poison! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Cyre H. Lorentz with Multi-Thundara! GS: Seymour Guado has gained 1 Combo! GS: Seymour Guado spends 1 Combo on Poison! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Ivan with Multi-Thundara! GS: Seymour Guado has gained 2 Combo! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Lulu with Multi-Blizzara! GS: Seymour Guado has gained 1 Combo! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Seraph Boudicca with Multi-Blizzara! GS: Seymour Guado has gained 1 Combo! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Mariel with Multi-Blizzara! GS: Seymour Guado has gained 1 Combo! GS: Seymour Guado has completed his action. GS: Lunata Croze guards a hit from Seymour Guado's Multi-Watera for 98 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lunata Croze gains 1 additional Combo! GS: CRITICAL! Rikku takes a solid hit from Seymour Guado's Multi-Watera for 196 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Rikku gains 1 additional Combo! GS: CRITICAL! Venetia Vuong guards a hit from Seymour Guado's Multi-Fira for 109 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Venetia Vuong gains 1 additional Combo! GS: CRITICAL! Jacqueline Barber critically guards Seymour Guado's Multi-Fira for 34 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Jacqueline Barber gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Shalune Amira takes a glancing hit from Seymour Guado's Multi-Fira for 85 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Shalune Amira gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Shalune Amira activates Evade bonus! GS: CRITICAL! Mariel guards a hit from Seymour Guado's Multi-Blizzara for 104 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Mariel gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Disrupt applied to Mariel! GS: Yuna takes a glancing hit from Seymour Guado's Multi-Fira for 78 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Yuna gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Cyre H. Lorentz takes a solid hit from Seymour Guado's Multi-Thundara for 157 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Cyre H. Lorentz gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Poison applied to Cyre H. Lorentz! GS: CRITICAL! Lulu fully evades Seymour Guado's Multi-Blizzara for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lulu gains 1 additional Combo! GS: CRITICAL! Cecilia Adlehyde guards a hit from Seymour Guado's Multi-Watera for 124 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Cecilia Adlehyde gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Marivel Armitage critically guards Seymour Guado's Multi-Fira for 33 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Marivel Armitage gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Tidus takes a solid hit from Seymour Guado's Multi-Thundara for 164 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Tidus gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Poison applied to Tidus! GS: Ivan guards a hit from Seymour Guado's Multi-Thundara for 88 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Ivan gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Poison applied to Ivan! GS: Ivan activates Guard bonus! GS: CRITICAL! Seraph Boudicca fully evades Seymour Guado's Multi-Blizzara for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Boudicca gains 1 additional Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Yuna has posed.
Kimahri is even more succinct than Yuna was.
*SCHTHULK*
His halberd enters Seymour's transforming chest with a horrible sound (or perhaps, it enters some magical barriers, whatever, the foley stands because it's great).
"RUN!" he yells. "PROTECT YUNA!"
Auron seems to be having similar ideas; suddenly the red wall of his coated back is all she can even see. "GO!" he bellows.
Yuna is... well, she's Yuna.
"I won't leave Kimahri behind!" she shrieks over the thundering spells suddenly blanketing the entire bridge.
"He's a guardian!" Auron snaps back. "Protecting you is everything."
"Auron!" Yuna protests again, digging her heels in both literally and metaphorically -- and glancing at the less-traditional members of her party, Tidus and Rikku, for support.
<Pose Tracker> Tidus has posed.
A lot happens. For one, Venetia screams a whole bunch of crap at Seymour. It brings a grin to Tidus's face and helps strengthen his resolve in the face of that poor cleric. Lulu and Wakka tell Zuke how it is, with Mariel playing Good Cop and Shalune playing Bad Cop on him in turn; Tidus wonders how much he'll listen. How much he'll be *allowed* to listen.
"Ihara," he repeats at the cleric. "Wish I could say it's nice to meet you, but... you know." He hesitates; what do you say to someone you almost killed? That you maybe *actually* killed? "Look--if you hate me, I don't blame you. But if you want to run away, you can hide behind me. That's the least I can do to make up for what I did to you."
Tidus then nods over to Cecilia, who steps up nearby him and the other guardians, then gives Rikku a pained, sympathetic look. He squeezes her shoulder in solidarity--then he focuses back on Seymour.
Yuna tells the Guado enough. "And enough is enough is *enough*!" Tidus chimes in, drawing Brotherhood and shifting into a defensive stance. "You might have the church fooled, but you haven't fooled any of the rest of us!"
Except--
Except, somehow, he's managed to underestimate Seymour's sheer cruelty. Rikku even called it, that Seymour's entourage is just expendable to him. Even so, Tidus never expected him to straight-up murder Zeke on the spot, to absorb his and Ihara's pyreflies (so she *was* Unsent, a part of him unhappily realizes) so he can become an even worse, even more depraved monster than before.
"SEYMOUR!!" Tidus screams, resonating with rage and horror and grief for his friends--Lulu and Wakka for the friend they just violently lost, Rikku to face the man who led the slaughter of her people, Yuna to have to deal with Seymour's bullshit YET AGAIN--and for Ihara, whom he knew for literally only a minute or two, for getting led here just so Seymour could *use* her. The cost of giving in to his emotions, the emotions he grew up getting mocked for, is an enormous lightning bolt that jitters through his muscles painfully. He grits his teeth, clenching the hilt of Brotherhood--
And then Kimahri cuts through all the BS by just straight-up stabbing Seymour through center mass.
Maybe Auron's right by choosing this moment to flee, to respond straightforwardly to Kimahri's shout by doing exactly as he says. But Yuna doesn't go, and Tidus frankly wasn't planning on going anywhere anyway. Kimahri's a guardian?
"That's right! We're all guardians!" Tidus declares, shooting a look at Auron, then to Rikku, to Wakka, to Lulu, before finally zeroing in on Yuna. "Yeah, and you know what that means? Yuna... Anywhere you go, I'll follow!"
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.
Marivel looks to Venetia. "Hey Veni." She tosses something towards Venetia with her free hand. It is an EMPATHITE RADIO. "I mostly held off because it was fun whenever you'd give me shit and I didn't want to ruin our special relationship."
She shrugs both shoulders. "But would you like to give me shit with the backing of ARMS, the official drifter-supported peacekeeping force for all of Aquvy and, occassionally, the moon?"
Officially peacekeeping force for all of Aquvy is one thing, but The Moon?? Marivel just decided that, apparently.
"So I keep hearing from baby ghosts." Marivel says to Seymour, bringing her hand that had been holding the empathite radio forward and the fire wafts around her, leaving the Crimson Noble unharmed. "You step away from the realm of the living for a few months and suddenly think you're the gods of the dead."
"It has been clear to me that the Yevon Church has little desire to end Sin. I'm doubtful they even desire The Calm anymore. They and you know where your power comes from. Though I doubt you are a loyal servant of theirs either."
But Seymour even goes so far as to murder his fellow Yevonites right then and there. Marivel has deadened her heart for this well in advance even if it proves her points more than any words ever could.
She glances to Auron for a moment as that old story plays in front of her again. "Is it only her choice," She asks of the world. "When it is convenient?"
She swings her blade forward, unleashing a blood red cutting wave out from Guillotine towards Seymour as she holds her ground. A simple but effective and spammable maneuver.
"No more sacrifices," Marivel murmurs. "Only murders."
GS: Marivel Armitage has attacked Seymour Guado with Demon Fang! GS: Marivel Armitage has completed her action. GS: Seymour Guado critically guards Marivel Armitage's Demon Fang for 24 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seymour Guado gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Seymour Guado activates Guard bonus!
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.
'What of it' he says. Cyre throws his arms wide open in a great big full-body shrug. "I mean! Nothing really, considering we kicked its ass. But in some parts of the world, what you've done would be considered very rude. And in those same places, rudeness is not punished just by chucking people into convenient pits." Cyre sighs, letting his arms drop. The motion is exaggerated in part from fatigue, but mostly from the sheer frustration associated with this entire exercise. "...You know, I'd always thought that I'd someday have to tear down a cathedral with my own hands. I'd always dreamed of somehow being there at ground zero when the filth and corruption finally cracked Granas' porcelein facade like rotten yolk through an eggshell. But I fully admit that I never expected it to happen."
Cyre's expression tightens as the zombieghost puts his claws through a kind man's chest. Some part of him wonders why he expected any different out of this monster wearing the face of a man.
"...I never expected just how much suffering it would cause. Selfish. I was selfish. Vindictive. Hah, I don't know how I expected otherwise. Of course those who put their faith in such things would be so badly hurt by its betrayal."
Blood paints the stone. Pyreflies drift through the air-- and converge, twisting 'round until they cause that thing to materialize. Cyre has seen it before, once. Seeing Seymour transform into a bloated, hideous mockery of a sacred shrine for the second time does not make the experience any more pleasant.
Nor does it mean Seymour is any less dangerous.
Lightning blasts down from above, and in spite of having more experience dodging such things than most would ever be able to glean from a year spent on the Gandolf Lightning Plains, Cyre is just unable to avoid it. A blast of electricity smashes down into him, and his face twists into a rictus of pain as the surge pours through his limbs.
But he's not down. Not out. He just used an X-Potion moments before the battle had even begun, and he's not about to let such a precious item go to waste. There's a sound like a star twinkling in the dark. Suddenly the air crushes inward around Seymour and his parasite pal, the atmosphere of Lunar imploding so abruptly that a miniature burst of plasma flares out from the very center of the collapsing sphere. "...The people of this world do not need saviors such as you. For Filgaia and Lunar both, this ghost council will be dismissed!"
GS: Cyre H. Lorentz spends 1 Combo on Poison! GS: Cyre H. Lorentz has attacked Seymour Guado with Grand Pressure! GS: Cyre H. Lorentz has gained 1 Combo! GS: Cyre H. Lorentz takes 24 damage from Poison! GS: Cyre H. Lorentz has completed his action. GS: Seymour Guado critically guards Cyre H. Lorentz's Grand Pressure for 26 hit points! GS: Seymour Guado activates Guard bonus!
<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.
Lunata's attention should rightfully be split eighteen ways about now, but some force that some people would say is fate has her look up. Look up, and see Belize's presence up on the switchbacks overlooking the bridge.
"Belize! I--" Lunata pauses. It's too far for her to do more than call out to her, and if she doesn't pay attention, the consequences will be dire.
The mood in the room is clear -- Boudicca, Venetia, Rikku and Cecilia all speak to the same bullet points that she agrees with; that he hurt their world and created a new Clysmian, that he's now showing them all this not even out of faith, just to hurt people. And Marivel speaks of how she would have defended them, as fellow undead, if they tried to be anything but fiends.
Mariel speaks more gently, to Father Zuke, and Lunata looks between her and Lulu and Wakka's difficult resolves. Yuna's quiet, but weightful statement of 'enough'. And Ivan, of course, is a loose cannon without a badge.
And... she has her own closest people here too, as Jacqueline insists that Lunata's going nowhere, and Shalune makes a well-portioned jab about faith and piousness.
"... I too wanted death as a way of protecting me from the things that frightened me," Lunata speaks up, before her eyes widen as Seymour punches through Father Zuke, and devours the other Guardians in a shocking sight;
She should shout, call to the others. But it's too late. Instead, she grits her teeth, as she stares up to the monstrous form that Seymour has taken. His jaw manifests outwards, and his eyes rotate... it's awful to see, and yet--
It's all incredibly familiar to Lunata, body-horror extraordinaire.
A globe of water rises from the sky and crashes down, and she's forced to throw herself to one side and roll along the highbridge and hit a railing. There's a grimace as she wills herself up once more.
"I thought of so many things about my life that stressed me out. The way trouble just seems to come out with no end -- Mother and all the trouble in Adlehyde, the Guard, Odessa..."
She places her hand to her chest. "I've been there, Seymour. Wishing these things and me would all just go into a nice, comfy, black and inky blanket of nothingness. I looked to that end, the day I met you in Spira."
If he's going to summon help, then... so is she.
Fist clenched to her heart, and her hand gripping the blade that carries the Artificial Medium of Death, she manifests forth--
"Come forth, Ge Ramda!"
--the spectral Lich of Rujm el-Hiri, manifesting forth from her shoulders as she did on that very same day their fates are intertwined.
...In exchange for the power that thou hast requested...
--01:37.539--
--03:56.226--
--06:12.729--
The dial spins. Ge Ramda's translucent and rotted figure drapes her, ending waistless with her tapered spine; yet, she is ephemerally beautiful in the ancient bridal raiments she dons, a golden crown coming true to sight once more.
Pushing past the wounds the water-spell deals her, Lunata rears back and aims her own 'Mortibody' towards Seymour's, Ge Ramda's bony claw CLASHING against Seymour's pincers.
GS: Lunata Croze spends 1 Combo on Poison! GS: Lunata Croze has attacked Seymour Guado with Cherry Ronde! GS: Lunata Croze has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Venetia Vuong has posed.
"CLASS? If what you're doing is 'classy,' then I'm a mango mint squash!" Venetia answers Seymour, which is almost entirely reflex. She seems to have spoken her peace. Or perhaps, her anger has now met a target of true stature, of whatever sort.
She takes a moment, as Seymour addresses the others, to pray under her breath. "Depths below carry our plea, to Dinoginos neath the sea, take two gella, set us free; let -"
Whatever cornball rhyme or plea dies in the back of her throat as she sees Seymour's hand through Father Zuke.
Why is this so different from another monster? Venetia thinks to herself as she watches, with perhaps more awareness and fine cognition than the average, the fossilized petrification of the Father who had plead for the lives of these kind people who had helped them and whose main sin, to her, seems to be having been a little too far ahead of the curve.
Because he almost pulled it off on Filgaia, Venetia thinks. And this is HIS country... and he didn't do THAT before.
And - someone is -
Venetia looks at Marivel, and she almost laughs; and after a half heart beat, enough time for the horrible transfiguration to complete, manners take over. "I accept," Venetia says, accepting the object: "Though I wouldn't bet on us right now. Armitage, you'll likely live. If it comes to that, tell Jimmy the Gear's his, could you? And tell them I gave it the college try."
She puts the radio in her hip bag, reaches for something else -- AND EXPLODES IN FLAMES!! No; the premonitory thrill of subtle energies had made her tense, and the flames lick at her still-damp clothes, burn her skin, and she topples and rolls a full two body-turns away, staying thence on her belly, smouldering...
"Right, then," she mutters to herself, and she finishes pulling the weapon out of her bag. "Call me classless, will you--"
Grasping the gunsmoke pistol with both hands, Venetia sights forwards and she waits for a moment - a moment just after Marivel's attack twists a fraction away, a moment when the big blue fuzzy fellow had turned partly away - and then she pulls the trigger four times in rapid succession. After this she rises to one knee, tensed, watching and feeling closely.
GS: Venetia Vuong has attacked Seymour Guado with I Don't Want To Be Naive About Gentleness In This Town! GS: Venetia Vuong has completed her action. GS: Seymour Guado takes a solid hit from Lunata Croze's Cherry Ronde for 118 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seymour Guado gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Poison applied to Seymour Guado!
<Pose Tracker> Shalune Amira has posed.
Shalune's weary disbelief extends to Seymour's attempt to set Lunata against her and Jacqueline; she scoffs for a moment, her eyebrows shooting upwards in clear surprise. "Okay, uh-- you really haven't been watching all that well if you think Jay has anything less in mind than whatever the absolute best thing is for Lunie at any given time," she points out. "Me, maybe not so much, but--"
She can't say anything more than that, because that's when the Maester casually puts his hand through another person's chest. There's a long drawn-out hiss of surprise, and it takes Shalune a moment to realize it's her making that sound, to realize that she's instinctively trying to tune out the sight in front of her. It's a cold relief when she finds herself moving, already gunning the Little Dipper forwards and around in an evasive curve. She's not sure that what she's evading is anything physical so much as her own senses, but she'll take it.
It turns out to be a well-timed dive; Seymour's transformation is barely finished before the air grows searing hot beneath her, and it's only the way she sweeps the craft she's on out over the dizzying drop from the Highbridge that saves her from the worst of the explosion. "Lunie, Jay! Got your back!" she yells as she hunkers down on the Little Dipper, one hand on the brightly-coloured hat she's wearing. It's much, much easier to try addressing them than think about what lies in front of them.
Somewhere behind her, she can almost feel Ge Ramda's clock ticking away, shaving off more time - though if she dares stop to think about it, it's probably her heart hammering against her ribcage instead. But aside from thinning her lips, she doesn't say anything more, knowing how important to Lunata this is. Instead, she grits her teeth and wills the Little Dipper to go faster, wringing everything she can out of its engine.
GS: Shalune Amira has attacked Shalune Amira with Flux Form! GS: Shalune Amira has completed her action. GS: Shalune Amira accepts Shalune Amira's Flux Form for 0 hit points! GS: Quick applied to Shalune Amira! GS: Riposte applied to Shalune Amira!
<Pose Tracker> Mariel has posed.
"The end is not a gift!"
Despite her sudden outburst, Mariel does not look aggressive. Rather the opposite; she holds her satchel up in front of her, almost shield-like. She looks small and frightened, but her voice has conviction in it.
"Our planet is hurt. It is wounded - yes, it is dying. I can feel it, inside. And so is yours, but in a different way. Sin here, and Malevolence elsewhere. You see it, too. But - you gave up. You only want it to end, so you spread it. Other people - they ran so they didn't have to watch it happen." Mariel's voice catches. She remembers those days. "But I - I - " Mariel trails off, before continuing onward, more quietly.
"I won't give up. I believe in the people here, and on Filgaia. Because..." Mariel doesn't know how to put it into words. "Because... This world and every other can be more than pain and sorrow. We have to be strong to make it another day, but tomorrow will come..."
This time she does stop entirely. She looks at Zuke, apologetically despite the fact that he just pointed out that she's marked for death. But then -
Seymour strikes, and Mariel screams. No words... but she had thought even that was beyond Seymour. Mariel reaches for her bag, but she knows she can do nothing for them - not at this distance, not with what she has.
With her hand in her satchel, Mariel scrambles away from the ice shards. Not fast enough, entirely; they don't rise from directly underfoot, but the expanding blossom of ice catches her, the sharp edge cutting into her arm. She makes a pained noise, clamping her mouth shut to avoid making it louder, as she digs deep inside her bag.
Inside, Mariel searches around before retrieving not a normal bottle of medicine nor a flower but something round, the kind of thing she almost never uses - she's wondered, more than once, why she carries it.
This is why.
Mariel pulls out an almost spherical bottle capped with a cork. The front of the bottle (jar?) has an almost comic grinning demon's face on it. It is less comical when Mariel shakes it vigorously and throws it, overhand, at Seymour.
It doesn't hurt as such when it erupts into a wave of energy. There is no physical blast wave. What the shockwave interferes with is standing magic - and Seymour, as something made out of pyreflies, is just non-physical enough to count. It is the first time Mariel has ever wanted to actually strike someone, and have it hurt. The guilt will come later.
Mariel herself scrambles toward the others afterwards. She's not sure what she wants to do but she knows she will want to do it.
GS: Mariel has attacked Seymour Guado with Giga Mind Bomb! GS: Mariel has gained 1 Combo! GS: Mariel has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
Jacqueline glances toward Shalune for a moment. That scowl... it's a rare thing, but right now it's well-deserved. She looks back toward Seymour, then.
"You're the one who's blind to the truth, Seymour. Blind, and lashing out at the world around you." Jacqueline replies, shaking her head. She does, however, send Shalune a brief smile as thanks for her confidence in her before looking back at Seymour. "How can you hurt so many people, and try to bring down the same calamity that threatens your own world onto another, and still think you're in the right?"
She listens to what the others say - to what Seymour says to them... and then she watches, horror evident in her expression, as Seymour thrusts a hand through Father Zuke, and condenses his Guardians and the cleric into firelies. Jacqueline steps backward, her hands clasped over her mouth. For a moment, she's too shocked to even speak - especially as he suddenly begins to transform. And then Seymour attacks, and Jacqueline finds a burst of adrenaline she didn't know she had left as horror transforms into indignation. Fire rains down toward her and a gauntlet-covered hand snaps out. It glows and a barrier diverts the flame around her. The stone around her glows red hot from the intensity of the flames, and beads of sweat run down her face. If she had taken that directly... Her barrier comes at the cost of precious stamina, but at this point it's better than the alternative.
"Y-you... you monster!" Jacqueline hisses. "They trusted you! They were your people! You can't treat them that way!"
She rages not just for Lunata's sake now, but for theirs. With a gesture of her right hand, the air around Seymour begins to crackle with electricity, before suddenly a bolt of lightning lances down defiantly from the sky toward him.
"You clearly don't know anything about kindness or mercy! Don't sully those words with your foul intentions!" Jacqueline snaps at him. "Your 'kindness' and 'mercy' is nothing but murder, plain and simple! What will it take to make you understand that, Seymour?"
She glances, briefly, toward Lunata as she speaks - and as she calls upon Ge Ramda. In the past she would have been concerned, but... now, she knows that Lunata is trying to turn away from it. Ge Ramda - or rather, the effects her summoning has on Lunata - is concerning but... Jacqueline takes a deep breath, putting that out of her mind for now.
One thing at a time.
"Right!" Jacqueline calls back to Shalune with a nod. Having her with them was reassuring, as always.
GS: Jacqueline Barber spends 1 Combo on Gatling, loading 1 into Gatling! GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Seymour Guado with Lightning Strike! GS: Jacqueline Barber has completed her action. GS: Seymour Guado takes a solid hit from Jacqueline Barber's Lightning Strike for 150 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seymour Guado gains 1 additional Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.
"Death, come too soon, is no gift. It is tragedy." Boudicca delivers her words in iron, old and wrought and stained with a hundred days in rain. "And these worlds are older than you are, Seymour Guado. Older than I am - older than we are." She will not name Marivel and Mariel so plainly; but they are older than she is, to be sure. "The age of a planet is unlike the age of a man. And," she adds, a little less harsh, to Mariel, "even dying, it is not dead."
But a million words like wingbeats could fall on the peak of a mountain, and still it would only shave down an inch of its height. It would take unspoken millenia to bring that mound to ground - and they have only moments.
In moments, the answer Yuna receives reveals everything about their efforts.
There is drawn tension at Boudicca's eyelids, the flat of her cheeks, the line of her lips. A short sojourn from polite gestures; no breath on her lips. His fell kindness fells Father Zuke, and her lips twist to a maze which let no cry escape.
Flesh is so fragile and so trusting and so easily crushed.
The ground opens up underneath her but Boudicca is not beholden to the earth; with a gust of air she leaps up over the jagged ice, a gauntlet coming down to grasp at its side and flip herself around its exclusion zone. Her hand flicks to the side, releases, sends a cascade of glittering ice into the air.
Any one of them would freeze her flesh down to her bones.
She has no flesh; no bones.
She has a story, and so many times it repeats.
"So, a step beyond..."
She has faced the enemies of all Filgaia, consigning the planet to oblivion. This man - is he a man? - he is something else, something she names as she steps forward, guided by the clarion-point of Kimarhi's spear.
"... you are the enemy of all who live."
A Seraphic glyph alights at her feet, a gust which collects around her before it pours in towards him and his altar. Without a word she indicates her unwillingness to flee; she, without flesh to freeze, will stand between Seymour and the others, with chill words and a steely gaze.
"I abjure you."
GS: Seraph Boudicca has attacked Seymour Guado with Buffeting Headwind! GS: Seraph Boudicca assumes the Avenger stance! GS: Seraph Boudicca has completed her action. GS: Seymour Guado guards a hit from Venetia Vuong's I Don't Want To Be Naive About Gentleness In This Town for 53 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.
Truly... Seymour is the one who is unpredictable. He absorbs his companions, appearing to steal their very lives and wear them for armor.
Ivan sucks in a horrified breath as the ghoulish spectacle unfolds.
Then, the air around him fills with lightning, coming down in too many chaotic bursts to hope to avoid. The first crashes through Ivan before he can act; with a shaking hand, he unsheathes the umbrella at his side. As the canopy bursts open, revealing white fabric patterned with glowing golden whorls, a dome of radiant light issues forth, absorbing the worst of the subsequent thunderclaps.
As they subside, he turns the umbrella on Seymour, allowing it to turn its judgmental eye(?) upon his sacrifices and his death-worshipping words.
"No one asked you to bring them that kind of kindness! Let people die on their own schedule!"
The energy dome that once provided shelter surges toward Seymour in a knockback burst of holy energy.
GS: Ivan has attacked Seymour Guado with Umbrella Rebuke! GS: Ivan takes 27 damage from Poison! GS: Ivan has completed his action. GS: Seymour Guado critically guards Mariel's Giga Mind Bomb for 19 hit points! GS: Seymour Guado activates Guard bonus!
<Pose Tracker> Lulu has posed.
Of cours Zuke would not back down s easily. Lulu is not surprised by that. But still she can hope he will leave. Beginning to shake her head, she looks at Zuke. "No, I--"
"ZUKE!"
Seymour may as well have put his hand through Lulu's chest for the way she reacts. She stumbles forward as if strings were cut, stares at the bloody form of the man she knew. She keeps that same shocked expression for long moments.
Another down. One to go.
She was not his Guardian anymore, but even so--The sight burns itself into her vision, sears at her heart. A hand rises over her chest, as she looks down suddenly. "..."
Lulu wrenches herself free and can imagine something tears. Wakka is as shocked, his eyes wide in sudden horror. Of all the things he expected, this is the least.
"You..."
Memories of the Temple in Bevelle, of childhood flood through her. One face, the same kind face who invited her to Besaid in the first place. And here...
'RUN! PROTECT YUNA!'
Lulu looks immediately to Kimahri, sees his wapon sink in, and sees to the spells blanketing the entire bridge. The ice comes at her, and she acts more on instinct than thought; she feels the cold coming, and steps to the side, a jagged blade of frost erupting in the space where she once stood.
There is no time for mourning now. There is only... "Yuna!" Lulu's voice is sharp, calm as ever, after Auron snaps. Her fingers curl as she looks suddenly to Yuna--and then Tidus, in surprise at first.
"...Father Zuke," Wakka repeats, and then grips his blitzball, looking to Yuna too.
GS: Seymour Guado fully evades Ivan's Umbrella Rebuke for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seymour Guado gains 1 additional Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Cecilia Adlehyde has posed.
Cecilia is too busy trying to play bravado games with a lunatic to notice Yuna before the Summoner calls out to Seymour. Cecilia glances to her and can't suppress a smile....but Seymour's wild look sets her back to a sneer. "I guess we haven't been properly introduced," she says, her jaw setting.
She's about to say something when Seymour....mutates, hideously. Absorbing the pyreflies of the fallen - of the men who served him, the woman who came with him, and the man freshly slain, all. Cecilia's fingers tighten. "...I knew you were monstrous. But words are beyond useless, I see." The pressure wave roars at her and she thrusts her staff back at it, a bubble of magic presenting itself between her and the attack. It still collides with her hard enough to blow her back several steps, shoes grinding against tiles. "Mariel's right!" she grits out. "Just because we must end does not mean the journey has no value! Life is not suffering merely because it concludes!"
She reaches into her Medium case, flipping the clasp and letting one oft he Mediums leap into her hand, which she thrusts forward. It locks into the complicated spell diagram she weaves with her Ark Scepter.
Yuna's party is rushing to protect the Summoner, as well they should. She sticks more to the front, for now. Tidus isn't going anywhere and that's cause enough for her to hold her stance, holding her staff high as the Medium scatters into motes of colored light. "MATERIAL!" she calls out, as the lumbering form of Grudiev forms behind her, the titanic Guardian with the crystalline shoulders shrieking defiantly at Seymour's twisted form. It blasts light across the gap, shockwaves of disrupted earth bristling upward from the force of the blast.
"Magnetron Bomb!"
GS: Cecilia Adlehyde has attacked Seymour Guado with Material - Magnetron Bomb! GS: Cecilia Adlehyde assumes the Stoic stance! GS: Cecilia Adlehyde has completed her action. GS: Seymour Guado guards a hit from Seraph Boudicca's Buffeting Headwind for 49 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seymour Guado gains 1 additional Combo! GS: CRITICAL! Seymour Guado guards a hit from Cecilia Adlehyde's Material - Magnetron Bomb for 109 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Yuna has posed.
Wakka and Lulu's grief pierces Yuna almost more profoundly than what caused it -- Father Zuke's death -- and the horrendous internal lurch she feels as the center of spiritual gravity shift and draw pyreflies into Seymour. But the way they look to her, amid all this, wanting like her not to go but to stay... is both balm and bane. She feels so responsible for them, and everything they've just gone through, already. For all of this. Seymour isn't wrong, to assume that he hardly need say a word to torment her, knowing that she'll do the job for him. Knowing that she feels this is all her fault.
Tidus' smile rejuvenates Yuna more than any number of his Hi-Ethers could. It is possible to see her straighten, to see a light return to her, something she hadn't even noticed that she'd lost -- she had never lacked resolve, but without him and the others, she might have lacked the simple strength to see this through.
But she isn't alone.
And she won't leave any of them behind. Not Kimahri. Not Marivel, or Lunata, or Mariel, or Ivan -- no one. They came for her.
She stays for them. No matter what.
"Anywhere I go?" Yuna echoes her Guardian breathlessly.
Tidus nods firmly. "Yeah, anywhere!"
"Well, then!" Yuna replies, embracing his full meaning. She nods at him.
Their voices ring out in unison:
"Let's go!"
There are so many different ways to say I Love You.
Here are two more:
Yuna advances instead of retreating.
And Kimahri, faced with the wholesale refusal of his ward to use his sacrifice to escape, does the only thing he can: he doubles down, thrusting his spear ever more deeply, into as much of Seymour as he can reach.
He roars, a bellow deep-chested and defiant and -- something more, too, something wordless and profound. Something proud and pained. Something joyful and sorrowful.
He loves her. He loves them all.
GS: Yuna has attacked Seymour Guado with Kimahri uses L1! It's not very effective...! GS: Yuna has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Tidus has posed.
As he launches himself back into the fray, Tidus raises his free fist and shouts to his friends in earshot: "C'mon, guys!! Let's send Seymour packing on a one-way trip to the Farplane and make this the last time he slimes around in front of us!!"
It's a simple rallying cry. But that simplicity has a force all on its own. The sun has strength just by shining on the worlds that orbit it, and it's that strength that Tidus shines out now to Yuna, Rikku, Lulu, and the others guardians. Maybe, to a lesser extent, it shines out to the assembled Drifters, too.
GS: Seymour Guado takes a solid hit from Yuna's Kimahri uses L1! It's not very effective... for 73 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seymour Guado gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Tidus has attacked Yuna with Cheer! GS: Tidus has attacked Rikku with Cheer! GS: Tidus has attacked Lulu with Cheer! GS: Tidus takes 24 damage from Poison! GS: Tidus has completed his action. GS: Yuna accepts Tidus's Cheer for 0 hit points! GS: Hyper and Shield applied to Yuna! GS: Lulu accepts Tidus's Cheer for 0 hit points! GS: Hyper and Shield applied to Lulu!
<Pose Tracker> Lulu has posed.
But Yuna does not retreat. Lulu would have gone--she would have left, in an instant, despite everything, left even Kimahri, knowing that she would expect the same. But...
"...Me, too," she says, and cannot quie be apologetic to Auron about it. She advances, instead, along with Tidus's momentum.
Lulu's hand extends forward and in her fury, she calls upon the elements. Out here, there is still the frigid air of Seymour's terrible ice magic, and she calls upon it. She feels the icy heart of cold itself, and it is herself.
"Seymour," Lulu says, voice hot with an undeniable emotion. It is all she says at the moment--instead of words, she channels that grief and rage into a spell.
Mist erupts in the space near Seymour's monstrous form, and a moment later it becomes a large jagged spike of ice.
GS: Lulu has attacked Seymour Guado with Blizzara! GS: Lulu has gained 1 Combo! GS: Lulu assumes the Avenger stance! GS: Lulu has completed her action. GS: Seymour Guado takes a solid hit from Lulu's Blizzara for 135 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seymour Guado gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Rikku accepts Tidus's Cheer for 0 hit points! GS: Hyper and Shield applied to Rikku!
<Pose Tracker> Rikku has posed.
"I don't want your relief." Rikku says, petulantly. "I just want you gone."
She finds herself looking at Yuna though, as Yuna says 'Enough.' And Seymour's reply is... to put his hand through a man's chest...
Rikku recoils at the sheer violence of it, the twisted cruelty, her hands over her mouth again. Despite the best efforts, what happened at 'Home' did not make her numb. No, even if this priest is not someone she knew, it is someone that means something to Lulu and Wakka. Their horror is personal.
It is like Seymour cutting open a forming scab of a wound that hadn't even truly stopped bleeding yet. As the horror rises anew. And Rikku trembles, because...
... the thing he is already nearly killed her once.
Frozen in place, she only starts moving when the waterspout starts forming, the pressurized water starts cascading down in bursts. It catches her full on, slamming her to the bridge again and again as she yelps, soaking her far more violently than anything in the Via Purifico.
And then... Kimahri. 'RUN!' Rikku looks up from her place on the bridge, drawing herself up. 'PROTECT YUNA!'
It wasn't so long ago that Rikku saw Kimahri's fuzzy arms curled around Yuna so protectively. "But... Kimahri..."
Finally climbing painfully, back to her feet. Part of her wants nothing more than to take Kimahri's suggestion in this moment. Fear is the predominant emotion of the moment for her. But even then something overrides that. As she suddenly walks up to Wakka and gives him a fierce, quick hug that can only be counted in the ticks of a second, "I'm so sorry Wakka." She'd hug Lulu too, except she doesn't think Lulu would appreciate it. "...I'm sorry Lulu." She remembers, when someone who was important to her was killed...
... they both gave her a second. A minute. Despite the fact they were all in danger. Despite the fact that Yuna's status was unknown.
Disentangling herself, she looks towards Yuna, and the exchange between her and Auron. Then she looks at Tidus... and nods enthusiastically in support of their exchange, before shrugging back to Auron, "Sorry Auron - but I'm with them!"
Despite how scared she is, seeing the pair runs in puts a smile back on her face as she shrugs at the much larger Guardian and turns to follow them towards Seymour, "We didn't go through all that just to leave another Guardian behind!"
Rikku advances with them.
En route, her hands are a blur, as she actually pours an alchemical concoction onto a sphere. Which glows with increasing radiance, before she chucks it on high. It bursts into a shimmering prismatic wash of pyreflies and other light that floods the room and covers all of the Guardians with multiple protective layers of barriers, and also flooding their body with a sudden burst of speed.
The last time she did this, that creepy insect thing with Seymour did away with it. Perhaps she's hoping it doesn't notice? Or that he can't get them all? Or even... just to buy them some time from his spells ripping them apart. And as Tidus cheers her on. She takes it by trying to psych herself up.
Alright Rikku. Chin up. Eyes forward..."
She says with a double slap to her face. Before the last few words becomes a whisper, "... this is for you, Keyakku."
GS: Rikku has attacked Rikku with Mix: Mighty G! GS: Rikku has attacked Tidus with Mix: Mighty G! GS: Rikku has attacked Lulu with Mix: Mighty G! GS: Rikku has attacked Yuna with Mix: Mighty G! GS: Rikku has gained 1 Combo! GS: Rikku has completed her action. GS: Rikku accepts Rikku's Mix: Mighty G for 0 hit points! GS: Quick and Shield applied to Rikku! GS: Yuna accepts Rikku's Mix: Mighty G for 0 hit points! GS: Quick and Shield applied to Yuna! GS: Lulu accepts Rikku's Mix: Mighty G for 0 hit points! GS: Quick and Shield applied to Lulu!
<Pose Tracker> Seymour Guado has posed.
"Ah," Seymour says. He chuckles, dryly, as his body completes its transformation around the blade of Kimahri's spear. "The Ronso. It troubles me, how I forget the ones I must break. I beg your forgiveness."
And then he slams a backhand for the Ronso, to hurl him backward.
A moment later, Marivel's wave of fiery cutting energy that slams into Seymour. It knocks him backward before he can follow up, but he still catches it in a clawed hand. He grips, impossibly, red energy; pyreflies that make up his hand shine, and then brighten... but he shatters the Demon Fang by crushing it. His eyes, still the pale ones he had in life, meet Marivel's.
"You call yourself old... and that is precisely the problem. All that is old must die. All that is ancient must be forgotten." Then, he speaks a single command: "BEGONE!"
One, then two, then four, then sixteen pinpoints of bright orange light appear around Marivel. Little lines and beads of light draw in -- rushing into them -- and then explode in titanic fireballs and shockwaves. The ground is blackened and burnt in an instant. Bricks crumble away from Highbridge, and collapse down into the impossibly deep ravine below. The ground quakes underneath Marivel, as the air about her is scorched with nuclear flame.
Lightning slams into Seymour a moment later. He turns his head, crooked at the neck -- the altar bends with it -- and he looks at Cyre. He smiles, for a moment, and then he shakes his head. "You killed it in its infancy and gloat. How simple. No wonder your dreams are the same -- thuggish dreams of brutality, that reveal the shallow pool of your morality."
He throws a hand out, and then three huge spikes of ice form, and explode towards Cyre, seeking to impale him. "You say you have learned, but I will show the futility of such lessons!"
Lunata descends, with Ge Ramda about her shoulders. A familiar sight, and the bony claw slams into the Mortibody. A cut is torn into it; armor plates break away, then waft away into pyreflies. Seymour snarls up at her, then. "The difference between us is that we lack the drive to seek that end, Lunata! And--that you would ever settle for only your own!"
He smiles at her, again. "Wouldn't you want, instead... to save those you--NNGH!" The Mortibody slams into his side. The thing's insectoid form pulses, draining something from Seymour. Then, it wheels around, and tries to mightily backhand Lunata away from him. "TO SAVE THOSE YOU LOVE MOST!?"
He seeks to make a point. "I can -- and I shall, Jacqueline Barber." Lightning slams into him, striking hard; sparks fly up, and some of the altar cracks, before it reseals. But then he meets Lunata's eyes -- and the same pinpoints of orange light that appeared around Marivel also appear around Jay. Lights draw in, thin and red...
...and then Jacqueline is at the center of a fiery maelstrom that explodes up around her, in a column of hellfire.
Venetia's gunshots slam into him, one after the other. His body withstands; he turns to look at her, some of his hair wafting in the wind -- and some frozen in stone. "Your outrage will soon come to an end," he says. "Be at peace."
He throws a hand out. Two balls of fire shoot away, hurtling towards the stygian sorceress, and then explode in fiery shockwaves as they get close. He throws a hand out, and then he catches Mariel's spherical bottle with the back of his hand. He throws it backward, as it shatters; the shockwave roils off his hand. "Yes, Filgaia hurts--and that is why I offer mercy."
He smiles again. "How can I hurt Filgaia? How can I murder my subordinates? It is to free them from this endless misery!"
"Death is a gift. And I am the most generous being in existence!"
A burst of holy energy flies at Seymour -- and he turns, holds his hand out, and then sends out his own formless field of white energy. It holds the umbrella at bay -- and for a moment, Seymour would swear he is being judged. He does not like weather gear judging him.
"The schedule is lacking! Do you truly feel this world is worth protecting?" he asks, before he throws his hand out. Multiple lightning bolts explode out. They shoot at Ivan -- they also arc off to strike at Mariel and Shalune too, making the air stink of ozone and sparks to explode outward.
"I do not propose a natural end--I propose to end nature," Seymour snaps back towards Boudicca. Her wind slams into him, knocking him backward. He grits his teeth, some hair blown back. Then, he swings a hand down -- and three fireballs swirl into existence, and come crashing down for the Seraph, one after the other. A moment later, though, light slams into him.
Grudiev blasts Seymour backward, across Highbridge. He twists his head around on the altar, a maddened and manic grin on his face as he looks at Cecilia -- and the fading form of the Guardian she summoned. "The journey should never be permitted!"
Two balls of water form. Then, they fly through the air like missiles, and come crashing down for Cecilia. His eyes turn, then, at Yuna, Tidus, and Rikku as they rush in.
"Like moths to the flame...!" he bellows. He throws his hand out -- and more blades of ice form, exploding out like jagged pikes to halt the trio's charge, in defiance of Auron's demand. But a moment later, another spike of ice also explodes -- this one slamming up into him and pierces his body. Pyreflies waft away, before the wound seals, and he looks towards Lulu.
"You shall join him soon, Dame Lulu," he says. He smiles at her -- then thrusts a hand out, forming a trio of water orbs. They each fly off, swarming in, and then explode in high pressure blasts of water. "This separation is but a temporary inconvenience!"
GS: Seymour Guado has activated a Force Action! GS: Seymour Guado spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Marivel Armitage with Nuke! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Jacqueline Barber with Nuke! GS: Seymour Guado has gained 1 Combo! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Cyre H. Lorentz with Multi-Blizzara! GS: Seymour Guado has gained 1 Combo! GS: Seymour Guado spends 3 Combo on Headshot and Poison! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Lunata Croze with Mortibcrasher! GS: Seymour Guado spends 1 Combo on Poison! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Shalune Amira with Multi-Thundara! GS: Seymour Guado has gained 1 Combo! GS: Seymour Guado spends 1 Combo on Poison! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Ivan with Multi-Thundara! GS: Seymour Guado has gained 1 Combo! GS: Seymour Guado spends 1 Combo on Poison! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Mariel with Multi-Thundara! GS: Seymour Guado has gained 1 Combo! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Venetia Vuong with Multi-Fira! GS: Seymour Guado has gained 1 Combo! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Seraph Boudicca with Multi-Fira! GS: Seymour Guado has gained 2 Combo! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Cecilia Adlehyde with Multi-Watera! GS: Seymour Guado has gained 1 Combo! GS: Seymour Guado assumes the Stoic stance! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Tidus with Multi-Blizzara! GS: Seymour Guado has gained 2 Combo! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Yuna with Multi-Blizzara! GS: Seymour Guado has gained 1 Combo! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Rikku with Multi-Blizzara! GS: Seymour Guado has gained 1 Combo! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Lulu with Multi-Watera! GS: Seymour Guado has gained 1 Combo! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Seymour Guado with Mortibsorption! GS: Seymour Guado takes 24 damage from Poison! GS: Seymour Guado has completed his action. GS: Seymour Guado accepts Seymour Guado's Mortibsorption for 143 hit points! GS: Hyper applied to Seymour Guado! GS: Tidus takes a solid hit from Rikku's Mix: Mighty G for 0 hit points! GS: Quick and Shield applied to Tidus! GS: Rikku guards a hit from Seymour Guado's Multi-Blizzara for 90 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Rikku gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Disrupt applied to Rikku! GS: Marivel Armitage guards a hit from Seymour Guado's Nuke for 126 hit points! GS: CRITICAL! Shalune Amira takes a solid hit from Seymour Guado's Multi-Thundara for 206 hit points! GS: Poison applied to Shalune Amira! GS: Tidus takes a glancing hit from Seymour Guado's Multi-Blizzara for 82 hit points! GS: Disrupt applied to Tidus! GS: Mariel takes a glancing hit from Seymour Guado's Multi-Thundara for 79 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Mariel gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Poison applied to Mariel! GS: Jacqueline Barber takes a solid hit from Seymour Guado's Nuke for 203 hit points! GS: Lulu takes a solid hit from Seymour Guado's Multi-Watera for 151 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lulu gains 1 additional Combo! GS: CRITICAL! Venetia Vuong takes a solid hit from Seymour Guado's Multi-Fira for 193 hit points! GS: Cyre H. Lorentz takes a glancing hit from Seymour Guado's Multi-Blizzara for 78 hit points! GS: Disrupt applied to Cyre H. Lorentz! GS: CRITICAL! Yuna guards a hit from Seymour Guado's Multi-Blizzara for 109 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Yuna gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Disrupt applied to Yuna! GS: CRITICAL! Lunata Croze takes a solid hit from Seymour Guado's Mortibcrasher for 113 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lunata Croze gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Mute and Poison applied to Lunata Croze! GS: Ivan takes a solid hit from Seymour Guado's Multi-Thundara for 142 hit points! GS: Poison applied to Ivan! GS: Seraph Boudicca takes a solid hit from Seymour Guado's Multi-Fira for 159 hit points! GS: Cecilia Adlehyde takes a solid hit from Seymour Guado's Multi-Watera for 162 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Cecilia Adlehyde gains 1 additional Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.
Lunata blinks a few times, as the Mortibody interacts strangely with Seymour. Is it leeching health from him? Well... needless to say, she's very familiar with undead beings draining the very life from out of her, yet...
"I do. I want to help those I love most. These two you're shooting fire and lightning at, actually--" Lunata grimaces as she delays her speech in order to attend to more pressing matters: their two fighting Mortibodies, Ge Ramda acting as a shield to brunt the worst of the backhand as the stone-like surface of Seymour's parasite wears down on her.
She's tossed, but not off the bridge, landing perpendicular to the railing once more.
"There is a woman who stands so strong against all the threats in the world, she shines like a sun. A sun I found... too strong and too much to bear."
Lunata doesn't directly name her, but the way she glances towards Jacqueline is clear enough for Seymour and her, both of whom have the context.
--08:42.517--
"Does that feel familiar? The fear of seeing your loved ones hurting and sacrificing themselves for a greater good you didn't think is worth fighting for?"
--09:52.126--
A pause, as she leaps, high into the air;
"That drove me-- to the ground!!"
To punctuate her point, she strikes in tandem, Orochi-Agito and Ge Ramda's claw bearing down upon the Mortibody once more. Looks like she's got a target in mind for this fight.
--13:33.337--
"So much so I nearly screwed everything up. But... you know what happened next?"
She spares a glance to Shalune and Jacqueline, with a renewed smile, full of confidence.
"I finally told them how I was feeling!"
GS: Lunata Croze has attacked Seymour Guado with Papillon Reel! GS: Lunata Croze assumes the Avenger stance! GS: Lunata Croze takes 26 damage from Poison! GS: Lunata Croze has completed her action. GS: CRITICAL! Seymour Guado takes a solid hit from Lunata Croze's Papillon Reel for 189 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seymour Guado gains 1 additional Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.
The schedule is lacking! Do you truly feel this world is worth protecting?
"I barely know anything about this world!" Ivan shouts back. "I'm not going to stand here and condemn the whole thing!"
He would leave it at that, at his own ignorance and irrelevance, but a boldness overtakes him, perhaps sparked by a whisper of the certainty of the umbrella in his hand, and he adds: "And neither should you! You're one person! How much could you possibly know about everybody else's lives?!"
Another barrage of thunderbolts rains down. It will take the umbrella some time to gather a fresh charge, but Ivan still tries to shelter beneath it. The energy sizzles his nerves, leaving him reeling and shuddering until he shakes his head and pulls himself back together. He stows the umbrella again, procuring three throwing knives that he holds in place for a moment between the fingers of one hand. He sends them flying through the air toward Seymour; along the way, they ignite into the shape of fiery hornets.
GS: Ivan spends 1 Combo on Poison! GS: Ivan has attacked Seymour Guado with Fire Wasps! GS: Ivan takes 23 damage from Poison! GS: Ivan has completed his action. GS: Seymour Guado takes a glancing hit from Ivan's Fire Wasps for 69 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seymour Guado gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Poison applied to Seymour Guado!
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed. <SoundTracker> FROM HERE TO ETERNITY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xs-PzathtLA
"Don't be ridiculous," Marivel cracks a smile at Venetia. "Brad's the last member of my team I'm letting die."
BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xs-PzathtLA
"...Hah, well, tis easier to promise than tis to fulfill. But the True Queen of the Dead is on thy side." She pauses. "No. Tis not quite correct. I am but on the side of my ideals. But my ideals will never allow me to take a single one of you for granted. Those who carry the weight of the world on their shoulder... A weight that is too much for anyone to bear... I will remember you all. I will love you all. All I have prepared for these past thousands of years was for you all." She shakes her head. "All so that you would survive. All I desire beyond Ana....is that all of you get to live in the peace you get to forge. I know it is temporary. I know conflict is eternal..."
Red tears flicker in her eye. "Even should Sin die, Spira will not be saved."
"So perhaps I am a bit like Yuna myself. All I wish to bring is a temporary period of true peace. All I wish is for those that bring that peace to be allowed to enjoy it, if only for a little while. They fought for it, they should live to see it--whether it be for a hundred years, ten years, or one year."
Seymour catches her strike and declares the problem of her existence.
"Aye," Marivel agrees. "I am too old and should have left this world with my parents. But the hopes of my people are stronger than your brand of mercy. And even though I ought be long gone... I will not surrender myself until my objective is complete. I will destroy everything in the way of my rewriting of this galaxy's cruel edicts."
She steps forward and marvels at the sixteen brilliant points of orange light. The fire explodes around her. The ground quakes underneath her. Nuclear flame surges through her and around her, leaving ash and smoke and nausea for the living near her in its wake.
But all the same the fire fades eventually, and a crackling magic seal shimmers before Marivel, preventing the worst of the damage, though leaving her winded and scorched.
"Nuclear fire..." Marivel murmurs then laughs and claps her hands once. "Well done, Seymour! I had no idea you knew how to split the atom!" She laughs and laughs and laughs as she throws herself fforward towards Seymour, eyes wide as she aims to lash out with claws and bite down with fang into Seymour's monstrous body. She isn't trying to draw out his spiritual essence into her--this is just how a Crimson Noble fights when they get excited--as monsters do. Trails of blood red energy lance out from her eyes, teetth, and claws with each strikee.
"But even Lord Blazer, Demon Lord of Atomic Flame could not kill me, you'll need more than that if you wish to grant me your mercy, Seymour!! Hit me harder! Come on, you're so close to being able to kill me! Oh I will resist, but I won't complain if you manage it! I've had a good life, and I'll be with my parents! But you're not CAPABLE yet!! More than fire, scourge me with something that rends the soul! Can you do it?!"
Her eyes are wide and wild. "Your sorcery is so close...! Tear me apart, damn you! You promised I'd thank you but this isn't enough!!"
GS: Marivel Armitage has attacked Seymour Guado with Bloody Mari! GS: Marivel Armitage has gained 2 Combo! GS: Marivel Armitage has completed her action. GS: Seymour Guado guards a hit from Marivel Armitage's Bloody Mari for 82 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seymour Guado gains 1 additional Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.
"Wow, way to move the goalposts," the wind shaman deadpans at Seymour's casual dismissal of the little miracle that they carved out of the bloody dirt with their own torn-off fingernails. "You're making yourself look so big and inevitable only after ripping the heart out of a good man and-- wait."
Something dawns on the shaman. Something that brings him sudden awareness of a critical factor that may or may not form a cornerstone of Seymour's argument. His ears twitch, even as a colossal array of frozen spears form around him and rain down. He twists through them as if dancing between raindrops, but even making a good attempt of it means that his tattered robes end up sliced to ribbons, and the skin beneath torn to bloody shreds. And yet, his gaze remains focused, keenly, on the monster's face-- even as Grudiev blasts him halfway across the bridge.
And then... he laughs.
"I get it... I get it now! You-- you're the kind of person for whom nothing is ever good enough! You find reasons, no matter how badly you try, for why everything you do... Everything ANYBODY does, just doesn't measure up! And the worst thing about it is...!" An enormous icicle falls into the space Cyre had occupied just a split second ago. He darts out of the way, wind dancing at his heels. Wind rising under his steps, leaving pockets of compressed air in his wake that whirl like tiny landmines in the places that he's left behind.
"You're... you're not willing to put in the effort to learn...! You don't see how anybody would be willing to! After all, it's all pointless, isn't it!? It's all empty, and all you can see is that emptiness! So of course it looks to you like a blessing to take that empty, worthless journey from cradle to grave away from the world. But...!"
"All that it means to me..." He says, a little sadly. Honest sorrow is imprinted on his face. "...Is that you never knew love. If you felt hope once, it's gone now. So you can't find the courage to do anything at all, and lack the desire to even attempt to change. And still you disparage people like Lunata, people who have found a reason to exist in this hard, unfair world! If that's what you need to keep excusing your own behavior, then..."
"I pity you, you unloved, lonely little incel."
Cyre leaps back, out of the way, as the whirling gales he left in his wake suddenly turn into missiles of hyper-compressed air, aimed to punch holes through the temple-body making up half of Seymour's everything.
<Pose Tracker> Mariel has posed.
Mariel had, deep down, only expected her attack to be a momentary distraction. To cover for Yuna, if she chose to retreat - and Mariel wouldn't blame her, after all she's been through. With Yuna, after all, Seymour's attention is personal.
But she doesn't, and her Guardians don't - nobody does. And though Mariel hates to fight, she understands that sometimes it is necessary. Today it is necessary, before Seymour brings something else into the world. There are two more. Obsession, Desperation... those weren't the only ones her people had considered might exist. To say nothing of what *else* he might do.
So Mariel too holds her ground... well, more or less. She's definitely running, almost scrambling away from Seymour, but that's more because she doesn't want to be out in the open than cowardice. Though she is afraid. She'd be crazy not to be. That Marivel is *not* afraid worries her. What is she doing...? She said -
Mariel cuts her train of thought off when she sees the thunderbolt arc away from Ivan and toward her. She pulls up short, and the lightning bolt strikes right in front of her, showering her with painful sparks and shards of stone. She feels her hair try to stand on end, and given parts of it have come free from her braid, it starts to get frizzy. So does the fur on her ears.
It hurts. It hurts a lot, and she knows it's worse than it looks through her robe, but... even with the pain she's not alone. "It isn't a mercy. It's just - it's selfishness! You want it to end for yourself, but you can't bear to have it go on without you... I understand that." If Seymour hadn't done everything he'd done, she'd feel sympathetic for him, even sad.
But he has. He hurt Filgaia, he is in the process of hurting Spira and the rest of Lunar, but what he did to his own subordinates - people who believed in him, trusted him, came to help him - that's almost worse. It certainly pains her heart to have seen.
"A flower that grows, though everything seems against it... that flower is strong, and beautiful, and worth protecting, whatever you or anyone else says. It's not to be abandoned. Not for anything. Everyone!" Mariel has retrieved three bottles, two that look like potions and one full of something green-blue. She mixes them, quickly, pouring from one bottle to the next until she has three full of combined liquids - she may not be able to create as many jury-rigged items as Rikku, but with medicines she feels comfortable enough.
It isn't herbal, or at least not the herbs she's used to, so she can't draw the energy out directly. Instead Mariel scatters the liquid in the bottles, trusting to let the potions do their job. Others fight; Mariel strides through the battlefield, anointing people as she can, trying to catch the worst of the wounds. (She carefully avoids Lunata because this is *not* a Lunie-safe blend.)
"Be strong, please!"
GS: Cyre H. Lorentz has attacked Seymour Guado with Stepping Wind! GS: Cyre H. Lorentz takes 22 damage from Poison! GS: Cyre H. Lorentz has completed his action. GS: Mariel spends 1 Combo on Reload! GS: Mariel has attacked Shalune Amira with Ambrosia! GS: Mariel has attacked Venetia Vuong with Ambrosia! GS: Mariel has attacked Cyre H. Lorentz with Ambrosia! GS: Mariel has attacked Ivan with Ambrosia! GS: Mariel has attacked Cecilia Adlehyde with Ambrosia! GS: Mariel has gained 1 Combo! GS: Mariel takes 22 damage from Poison! GS: Mariel has completed her action. GS: Mariel heals Cyre H. Lorentz! He gains 210 temporary hit points! GS: Cyre H. Lorentz activates Reload!!
<Pose Tracker> Tidus has posed.
"Rikku! Right on!" Tidus cheers, giving his best friend a thumb's up as her alchemical cocktail gives him a defensive boost. He feels lighter on his feet, too, and hops back and forth as he looks around Seymour The Super-Creepy for an opening. For now, he continues on with his cheerleading by shouting, "Cecilia! Looking great with that Guardian summon--knock 'im out! Marivel! Don't let that jerk get to you--we've still got a chance to figure out a happy ending! Venetia! You keep telling 'im off, you're speaking for everybody here!"
Tidus could easily keep going, calling out and encouraging everyone on his side (whose name he knows, anyway), except then Seymour conjures another spell, and the air around Tidus freezes before sending up a spire of deadly ice. It would have skewered him had he nod dodged to one side in the nick of time; instead, it *merely* leaves a horrible gash up his side. He snarls in pain--but he won't back down yet. After all, he's got plenty of Words of his own for the Guado Maester.
"Stupid Seymour--you seriously think killing people is saving them?! If you're so miserable with your own life, go and die on your own time! Quit making everyone else miserable with you, just because you're some--whiny little crybaby who can't stand to be alone!!"
(projecting much, tidus?)
"We're all still trying to survive here!" he continues, ignorant of the potential other applicability of his own words. "And we're *going* to survive, and we're going to beat Sin, and we're *all* going to go home safe and happy--Yuna included! We're NOT going to die! Not to Sin! Not to you! And not to that damn Final Aeon!
"So GET OUT OF OUR FACES ALREADY!!"
GS: Tidus has attacked Cecilia Adlehyde with Cheer! GS: Tidus has attacked Venetia Vuong with Cheer! GS: Tidus has attacked Marivel Armitage with Cheer! GS: Tidus has gained 1 Combo! GS: Tidus takes 20 damage from Poison! GS: Tidus has completed his action. GS: Mariel heals Cecilia Adlehyde! She gains 210 temporary hit points! GS: Cecilia Adlehyde activates Reload!! GS: Mariel heals Venetia Vuong! She gains 210 temporary hit points! GS: Venetia Vuong activates Reload!! GS: Cecilia Adlehyde accepts Tidus's Cheer for 0 hit points! GS: Hyper and Shield applied to Cecilia Adlehyde! GS: Venetia Vuong accepts Tidus's Cheer for 0 hit points! GS: Hyper and Shield applied to Venetia Vuong! GS: Mariel heals Ivan! He gains 210 temporary hit points! GS: Ivan activates Reload!! GS: Seymour Guado takes a solid hit from Cyre H. Lorentz's Stepping Wind for 114 hit points! GS: Riposte applied to Cyre H. Lorentz! GS: Mariel heals Shalune Amira! She gains 210 temporary hit points! GS: Shalune Amira activates Reload!! GS: Marivel Armitage accepts Tidus's Cheer for 0 hit points! GS: Hyper and Shield applied to Marivel Armitage!
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
Jacqueline shakes her head in disbelief at the... matter of fact way he says it. 'He can and he will', he says.
"Have you learned nothing from your friendship with Lunata?" Jacqueline asks, shaking her head. "Death isn't the relief you think it is. Life is important - it deserves to be lived! To steal that away from people - and to act like it's some kindness, that's-"
Jacqueline doesn't get to finish. Suddenly, the air around her turns red. She throws her hands up to protect herself, and her barrier flashes into existence. This time, however, it isn't enough. The column of flame tears through her barrier, consuming her. She lets out a cry as it lifts her up and as she crashes back down, flame licking at her form.
She lays there for a moment... until, she hears Lunata's voice. A woman who shines like a sun, huh...? Jacqueline can't help but go a little red, at that. It hurts to move, but... with some effort, Jacqueline hauls herself to her feet. Lunata's smile, full of confidence... it's enough to keep her going.
"...It's true. And when she did... she opened my eyes, too. ...She had to be pretty direct about it, though. Turns out, I'm a little dense. I'm...really impressed at how patient she was, all that time, just for me." Jacqueline admits with a sheepish chuckle. "So, you know... I can't accept your mercy, Seymour. I've got my whole life ahead of me. ...And, there are a lot of people out there who have theirs ahead of them, too."
She shakes her head.
Jacqueline exhales sharply.She's not really in any condition to do another big spell at the moment, so she settles on something equally helpful.
"Lunata, Shalune... this one's for you!" Jacqueline says. With a gesture of her left hand, she invokes a Crest Graph - thankfully protected from nuclear flame by her gauntlets - emitting a wave of violent energy that settles over their weapons, enhancing their power.
GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Lunata Croze with Mage Armory! GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Shalune Amira with Mage Armory! GS: Jacqueline Barber has gained 2 Combo! GS: Jacqueline Barber has completed her action. GS: Shalune Amira accepts Jacqueline Barber's Mage Armory for 0 hit points! GS: Hyper applied to Shalune Amira!
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.
"Wow, way to move the goalposts," the wind shaman deadpans at Seymour's casual dismissal of the little miracle that they carved out of the bloody dirt with their own torn-off fingernails. "You're making yourself look so big and inevitable only after ripping the heart out of a good man and-- wait."
Something dawns on the shaman. Something that brings him sudden awareness of a critical factor that may or may not form a cornerstone of Seymour's argument. His ears twitch, even as a colossal array of frozen spears form around him and rain down. He twists through them as if dancing between raindrops, but even making a good attempt of it means that his tattered robes end up sliced to ribbons, and the skin beneath torn to bloody shreds. And yet, his gaze remains focused, keenly, on the monster's face-- even as Grudiev blasts him halfway across the bridge.
And then... he laughs.
"I get it... I get it now! You-- you're the kind of person for whom nothing is ever good enough! You find reasons, no matter how badly you try, for why everything you do... Everything ANYBODY does, just doesn't measure up! And the worst thing about it is...!" An enormous icicle falls into the space Cyre had occupied just a split second ago. He darts out of the way, wind dancing at his heels. Wind rising under his steps, leaving pockets of compressed air in his wake that whirl like tiny landmines in the places that he's left behind.
"You're... you're not willing to put in the effort to learn...! You don't see how anybody would be willing to! After all, it's all pointless, isn't it!? It's all empty, and all you can see is that emptiness! So of course it looks to you like a blessing to take that empty, worthless journey from cradle to grave away from the world. But...!"
"All that it means to me..." He says, a little sadly. Honest sorrow is imprinted on his face. "...Is that you never knew love. If you felt hope once, it's gone now. So you can't find the courage to do anything at all, and lack the desire to even attempt to change. And still you disparage people like Lunata, people who have found a reason to exist in this hard, unfair world! If that's what you need to keep excusing your own behavior, then..."
"I pity you, you unloved, lonely man. A heart that has never known fulfilment should never pass judgment on the world."
Cyre leaps back, out of the way. The whirling gales he left in his wake suddenly turn into missiles of hyper-compressed air, aimed to punch holes through the temple-body making up half of Seymour's everything.
<Pose Tracker> Cecilia Adlehyde has posed.
"YOU do not give permission!" Cecilia suddenly screams, the words bubbling out of her. Seymour's next attack SLAMS into her, those two watery missiles burrowing through her shield and sending her flying backward. She lands, roughly, on her back, wheezing. "You don't..." she hisses. Mariel's thrown Ambrosia lands with her, and she feels its strength fill her as she smiles with gratitude, forcing herself up. Strength begins flowing through her, and she is able to acknowledge Tidus with a nod. "Yeah. I think..."
She finaly gets herself up into a kneel, looking at the hideous mutated Seymour. "...You don't get to decide. Someone like YOU must never be allowed such a thing. Our short sight cannot know the value of living!"
She rises up, fingers touching a new Medium; her newest, claimed but hours ago, here on the body of a man unjustly killed in this place. "And you use the guise of your faith to do it. No...no this is your faith, isn't it? A prophet of nothing! Well, I have my own answer to that. Come out! Holy Man Sorrow!"
The Medium explodes upward from her case like a missile, whirling and swirling around her on invisible Leyline currents. "It is true....that this world is painful. That these worlds are dying. But they are fighting! The very world itself clings to survive! You don't know me, do you, Maester Seymour?"
The medium settles in front of her and glows, light passing between it and the Princess. "I am Cecilia Adlehyde. And it is my Oath to speak for Filgaia where its voice will not reach! So hear my words and know that YOUR PATH IS FALSE!"
She throws her arm forward, pads of her fingers touching the Medium's back as the woman and Medium both explode apart into motes of light. "Material!" she screams, her voice reverberating in the chamber as that spent leylight rapidly reforms into a tremendous figure - tanned, tall and muscular, with the hindquarters and mane of a lion and the face of a man. He wears only prayer beads and a loincloth. He could almost look like a Spiran Aeon, if not for how he came about. His long tail, bound up in white bands, blows in an unseen wind.
"It is the role of a Saint," Cecilia's voice says, as the figure stares with silent contempt at Seymour Natus, "to protect people!!!"
Iona Paua, the Saint Guardian, thrusts his staff into the air, and a RUSH of magic roars away from him, enveloping the room and encasing everyone who battles Seymour in a shell of blessed light.
"Sacred Isolator!!"
GS: Cecilia Adlehyde has attacked Venetia Vuong with Material - Sacred Isolator! GS: Cecilia Adlehyde has attacked Jacqueline Barber with Material - Sacred Isolator! GS: Cecilia Adlehyde has attacked Cecilia Adlehyde with Material - Sacred Isolator! GS: Cecilia Adlehyde has attacked Mariel with Material - Sacred Isolator! GS: Cecilia Adlehyde has attacked Marivel Armitage with Material - Sacred Isolator! GS: Cecilia Adlehyde has attacked Seraph Boudicca with Material - Sacred Isolator! GS: Cecilia Adlehyde has attacked Shalune Amira with Material - Sacred Isolator! GS: Cecilia Adlehyde has attacked Lunata Croze with Material - Sacred Isolator! GS: Cecilia Adlehyde has attacked Tidus with Material - Sacred Isolator! GS: Cecilia Adlehyde has completed her action. GS: Venetia Vuong accepts Cecilia Adlehyde's Material - Sacred Isolator for 0 hit points! GS: Shield and Surge applied to Venetia Vuong! GS: Jacqueline Barber accepts Cecilia Adlehyde's Material - Sacred Isolator for 0 hit points! GS: Shield and Surge applied to Jacqueline Barber! GS: Seraph Boudicca accepts Cecilia Adlehyde's Material - Sacred Isolator for 0 hit points! GS: Shield and Surge applied to Seraph Boudicca! GS: Mariel accepts Cecilia Adlehyde's Material - Sacred Isolator for 0 hit points! GS: Shield and Surge applied to Mariel! GS: Shalune Amira accepts Cecilia Adlehyde's Material - Sacred Isolator for 0 hit points! GS: Shield and Surge applied to Shalune Amira! GS: Venetia Vuong has activated a Force Action! GS: Cecilia Adlehyde accepts Cecilia Adlehyde's Material - Sacred Isolator for 0 hit points! GS: Shield and Surge applied to Cecilia Adlehyde!
<Pose Tracker> Shalune Amira has posed.
Shalune's still not completely able to focus on Seymour; her eyes keep sliding off of his transformed form, in a way she can't really prevent. Lunata, for all the times she's damaged and hurt herself in the line of a fight, still felt inescapably like Lunata. This is something altogether different, and the Maester's ranting and fervour combine with his form to leave her shivering slightly to herself. She's not really the sort to call someone inhuman, but this cuts about as close as it gets.
She yells with sudden pain as Seymour's lightning bolt takes hold, the engines on the base of the Little Dipper scrambling and shorting out. The craft plunges, and nearly out of view and down below the bridge - but it's with a will of effort, and the kind of morbid relief of her hands seizing up around the handlebars, that Shalune manages to pull the nose of the scooter upwards for long enough to regain control. She doesn't trust herself to say anything for a few moments, but that's enough to pull up and around.
"We don't--" she starts, realizes her voice is wavering a little as the last few sparks ground around her, and tries again. "We don't expect Lunata to save us! We're here alongside her, not to rely solely on her! Heck, just as she felt like trapped about Jay, I felt trapped about her! You can't know how people are feeling just by trying to bull forward on your own!" If she's a bit meandering, it's only because her thoughts are as well; she doesn't have a great way to put the three of them into words, but there's no shortage of faith behind her words.
Jay's sorcery settles over her, empowering her weapon... ... ... ... which does not, in and of itself, explain why it's her scooter and not her staff that glints with an empowered sheen, until it becomes clear that she's not intending to slow down, and simply decides to follow up Lunata's assault by impacting Seymour's hide as hard as she can. Braced against the impact, her shotstaff is in her hands, point-blank directed at what she'd like to consider the former Maester.
In lieu of anything more, she pulls the trigger, and bathes the spot she's just rammed in a solid line of light.
GS: Shalune Amira has attacked Seymour Guado with Sudden Impact! GS: Shalune Amira assumes the Avenger stance! GS: Shalune Amira takes 24 damage from Poison! GS: Shalune Amira has completed her action. GS: Seymour Guado guards a hit from Shalune Amira's Sudden Impact for 87 hit points! GS: Seymour Guado activates Guard bonus!
<Pose Tracker> Venetia Vuong has posed.
Before the chaos: "Well, let us hope," Venetia had replied to Marivel.
NOW, IN THE CHAOS:
Bursting flame pours upon Venetia and she runs into a big problem from this, in addition to the obvious one of being assailed by fire bombs in her immediate area. (She covers her face; this and the reflexive touch of the Crest Sorceror's path spare her the usual things where like you start to fry in your own lard, etc.)
That problem is that the remaining bullets in her gun pop off. The action cycles; the gun jerks in her hands as the weapon discharges, and she is left with hot, finger-scorching brass to go with the problem of, you know, the evil man who is offering a generous source of death.
No, beyond generous. Is he trying to destroy... ALL life? Venetia thinks. Her brow knits through the pain. A moment later she is washed over, blisters on her hands fading away as the aches and pains of swimming and hauling ass fade beneath the baptism of the small woman, of Mariel.
"Thank you," Venetia mumbles, the words perhaps a little unfamiliar. She kips back to her feet, putting the too-hot gun into the bag to cool off and hopefully not boil anything. Out instead she pulls a Crest, and she smiles with more effort at Tidus's encouraging words. "Tell him off, eh...?"
"Well, then," Venetia says as she takes another deep breath:
"Your premises slide around like butter on a skillet, Seymour! You argue poorly, and only from power! A man in a Gear can order around a thousand men on foot, but it doesn't make him RIGHT! Your methodology is doomed to ultimate failure - because there are things even in your power and wisdom, you do not know!"
The Crest Graph is brandished and violet-crystal light shimmers round Venetia as she narrows her eyes, sighting down along the tile of bronze. "And as for this TRICK of yours - I think I see it - you're spinning it off, eh? Well, let's see how well that works." What's the worst that can happen, Venetia thinks: The Crest melts in my hand? I mean I have two of them, don't I?
Does she mean hands or remaining intact Crests? IT IS A MYSTERY. Venetia nonetheless presses forwards with a glare, and the shimmering conjuration of Ley crackles -- followed by a rippling surge of upwelling square pillars, the bridge yielding upwards still-damp, gloriously-veined marble in its shining and all too real form, the upthrusting eruptions like hyper-accelerated blunt spikes, a wavelike line aiming to catch Seymour-- or at least throw complications in his way!
GS: Venetia Vuong spends 1 Combo on Interrupt! GS: Venetia Vuong has attacked Seymour Guado with Ancient Pillar! GS: Venetia Vuong has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Rikku has posed.
"It's gonna take more than he's got to do us in." She calls back to Tidus, and whether she believes it or not, she SOUNDS like she believes it. The blizzara pikes form, and Rikku extends her shield and tosses something. Just as one of them touches the targe... a fire gem ignites into an explosive blaze.
The ice rapidly finds itself breaking before it can penetrate her shield too far. Rikku was STARING at the point of an ice pike about to impale her face when it begins to melt away.
Taking a breath of relief, she jerks her arm and flings the length of ice away.
"That wasn't flame at all! That was ice! You are terrible at giving gifts! We're going to be returning these ones to sender!"
As tired as she is, Rikku finds herself getting her second wind as all the Guardians line up to face him together with the Filgaian drifters. Perhaps it's Tidus, perhaps it's Yuna. Perhaps it's everyone together that's spurring her on.
"All this talk about how you're going to end our misery! You think I'm just dwelling on how miserable things are all the time? No! I'm looking forward to our future together with Yunie and the others. A future without Sin. And whether I like what you did or not up on Filgaia - you proved that was actually possible!"
This time she seems to paste a bomb fragment to a sphere. One might think that she's created impromptu ordnance.
And you would be correct in a sense! As Rikku tosses the luck sphere high, the bomb fragment bubbles as if she'd prompted some unexpected chemical reaction. It suddenly bursts, the pyre flies igniting into vibrant flares of green and blue that shower around Yuna in divisive hues that match her eyes. "Right now, when it comes to us seeing that future-"
And the colors burst into a surge of preternatural power that infuses the trio of them. "-you're in our way."
GS: Seymour Guado guards a hit from Venetia Vuong's Ancient Pillar for 68 hit points! GS: Seymour Guado has lost 2 Combo from Interrupt! GS: Lunata Croze accepts Jacqueline Barber's Mage Armory for 0 hit points! GS: Hyper applied to Lunata Croze! GS: Lunata Croze accepts Cecilia Adlehyde's Material - Sacred Isolator for 0 hit points! GS: Shield and Surge applied to Lunata Croze! GS: Tidus accepts Cecilia Adlehyde's Material - Sacred Isolator for 0 hit points! GS: Shield and Surge applied to Tidus! GS: Rikku has attacked Yuna with Mix: Hero Drink! GS: Rikku has completed her action. GS: Yuna accepts Rikku's Mix: Hero Drink for 0 hit points! GS: Amplify, Burst, Hyper, and Surge applied to Yuna!
<Pose Tracker> Yuna has posed.
Rikku's alchemy -- and more than that, her determination -- pours across and through Yuna, and she gives her cousin a grateful smile.
A smile.
She's still smiling, at a time like this, and she isn't even faking it. She can't help it. Rikku and Tidus fill her with such a simple, golden happiness. One that not even Seymour can destroy.
Not for lack of trying.
He already scorched her; now she emerges from amid icy shards, which have shattered against a hastily erected mystical barrier, and also her body. It does not so much bruise her skin as bruise her bruises. She has layers of them now. It is just one more pain among many.
And yet it is everything; he is so dangerous. And he is so very deadset on hurting, killing, as many as he can... her smile fades.
And her voice cracks across him like a whip.
"Stop comparing yourself to Lunata," she tells Seymour. "You're nothing alike! And Belize, they defied death to defeat grief, not create it! Not being alive doesn't make you a monster -- you chose that path all on your own. And killing people doesn't set them free."
She looks down at her open palm. At the fresh brand there, the Yevonite rune horribly red against her pale skin:
HERETIC
"It just makes you a killer. I know that more than anyone."
She takes a deep breath.
"But that is the past... I'm here for the future. Helping guide the dead on their path is the sacred duty of a summoner, but Lunata, Belize... they've taught me that that can mean a lot of different things!"
Something wells up deep inside her. Something that Seymour -- that all of Yevon -- cannot extinguish so easily. They bowed and broke her body. With fatal blows, they shattered her belief in the centerpiece of her entire life, her religion...
...but not her belief in PEOPLE.
Faith reverberates within her.
In Lulu's righteous fury. In Lunata's love for her family; in Jacqueline's return of the same. In Rikku's twinned, heartfelt grief and hope. In Mariel's beautiful rebuttal. In Cecilia's passionate oath. Even in Marivel's ancient misery.
And in Tidus' sunny supportiveness -- though she glances at him askance for a split second, momentarily shocked by his extra little addendum and all it implies. There's no time for that right now, though.
Folding her hands over her heart, she confronts Seymour fully:
"I won't let you do as you wish -- I won't let you HURT anyone anymore!"
White radiance explodes out of her and into them, all of them, as many as she can reach with her heart.
As many people as she can trust with her life. That's what she told Dona, once. That's how many Guardians she has.
And...
...it remains within her, after, lighting her up from within like a white flame.
Because despite everyone, despite everything, despite ALL OF THIS...
Yuna has faith in herself, too.
She extends her wounded hand in both entreaty and banishment.
"So tell me -- Seymour -- why? What keeps you from the Farplane? What do you want, Seymour?"
GS: Yuna spends 1 Combo on Reload! GS: Yuna has attacked Lulu with Faith! GS: Yuna has attacked Lunata Croze with Faith! GS: Yuna has attacked Jacqueline Barber with Faith! GS: Yuna has attacked Rikku with Faith! GS: Yuna has attacked Mariel with Faith! GS: Yuna has attacked Cecilia Adlehyde with Faith! GS: Yuna has attacked Marivel Armitage with Faith! GS: Yuna has attacked Tidus with Faith! GS: Yuna has attacked Yuna with Faith! GS: Yuna has gained 1 Combo! GS: Yuna has completed her action. GS: Yuna heals Jacqueline Barber! She gains 210 temporary hit points! GS: Jacqueline Barber activates Reload!! GS: Yuna heals Lunata Croze! She gains 210 temporary hit points! GS: Restore! Poison removed! GS: Lunata Croze activates Reload!! GS: Yuna heals Rikku! She gains 210 temporary hit points! GS: Restore! Disrupt removed! GS: Rikku activates Reload!! GS: Yuna heals Yuna! She gains 210 temporary hit points! GS: Restore! Disrupt removed! GS: Yuna activates Reload!! GS: Yuna heals Mariel! She gains 210 temporary hit points! GS: Restore! Disrupt and Poison removed! GS: Mariel activates Reload!! GS: Yuna heals Cecilia Adlehyde! She gains 210 temporary hit points! GS: Cecilia Adlehyde activates Reload!! GS: Yuna heals Lulu! She gains 210 temporary hit points! GS: Lulu activates Reload!! GS: Yuna heals Tidus! He gains 210 temporary hit points! GS: Restore! Disrupt and Poison removed! GS: Tidus activates Reload!!
<Pose Tracker> Lulu has posed.
Lulu's first reaction to Seymour is simply a furious look--and it does nt abate as the watery orbs crash around her and explode into great bursts of aquatic force. It hits her hard, smashing through her attempt at a guard and knocking her backward.
Lulu's anger grows along with her wounds. She does not cheer to encourage someone else; she doesn't say a lot. Yuna and Tidus and Rikku and Kimahri have said it already, and Wakka will go on with her.
"Thank you," she says to Rikku," but she is still full of anger in the moment--she cannot stop for softness.
"...We'll do it for him, too," Wakka says to Rikku.
But Lulu steps forward. Where she used ice, she found water. That means there's another to try. She does not immediately speak again. Nor does she speak yet. Yuna's words speak for her right now, put into words what she cannot yet, what she is still building within herself.
She feels Yuna's faith, and it drives her. That flame builds up farther within her--until it must be expressed, small at first.
Lulu extends her hand, doll under her arm, and this time a burst of flame erupts from the ground at Seymour, a blast large enough to unbalance, to create openings--
But more importantly, to burn.
"You speak of mercy..."
GS: Formation! Lulu has attacked Seymour Guado with Fira! GS: Lulu has gained 1 Combo! GS: Lulu has completed her action. GS: CRITICAL! Seymour Guado guards a hit from Lulu's Fira for 134 hit points! GS: Lulu enters CONDITION GREEN!!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.
When nature ends, what happens to the spirits of nature..?
The Seraph of Wind, Boudicca, has no answer to that question, but it adds an uncomfortably personal edge to the blades Seymour spits. She tries to flee the fireballs in just the same way she did the ice; but the oxygen of that breeze only serves to feed Fira, and one-two-three they trace her flight path and slam into her.
One-two-three, and she's down on the bridge, and her silks are smouldering by the time she picks herself up. Those embers speak to a deeper burning; she IS, elementally, and from her the fire finds ample fuel.
"To hell with your mercy," she wrings out her oath, as she sweeps embers from her silks. Once and again the volume rises, stoked by flame, from something hewn to what howls. "Consign your peace! You are mad or false and your prophesy empty in both paths! If you wish for oblivion - pray stay for the dance!" Perhaps she and Marivel aren't that different, after all. Telling him off...
Another glyph lights the arena, and from it comes air - air which threads through Lulu's Fira, now, to feed it to greater heights as it meets Seymour. This is not only an elemental reaction which he can exploit; Boudicca has been balancing on this edge for some time now.
And so does grief begets anger; it is anger which stokes her words, each with punctuation. The light of Iona Paua is her backdrop, and under the Saint's guidance she stands straighter, speaks clearer. "My end has teeth, Seymour Guado! Have you never heard to be careful of what you wish, you misbegotten reprobate?!"
GS: Formation! Seraph Boudicca has attacked Seymour Guado with Recurrent Air! GS: Seraph Boudicca has completed her action. GS: Seymour Guado critically guards Seraph Boudicca's Recurrent Air for 19 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Seymour Guado has posed.
Seymour follows what Lunata means. His eyes glance at Jacqueline Barber only a moment after Lunata's, and then he looks back at her. He sees her rise up, Ge Ramda's claw and the sword in her hand coming down. They drive in, deep, into the Mortibody -- and pyreflies explode outward, blasting away at the double strike into its chitinous hide. The Maester snarls.
"Gh--and what answer is that!?" he shouts at Lunata. There is another grimace; another groan of pain, as the Mortibody's tail slams into him, and begins draining pulses of life from him to mend its wounds. "The sun dims, Lunata! And where will you be then!?"
He looks at Jacqueline, then -- and his eyes narrow. "Life is a lie! We tell ourselves that our lives have meaning--but the truth is that they are devoid of it!"
Shalune's staff drives into him. His flesh is stone-like; it cracks when she hits, now, and pyreflies burst out from those cracks. "We never know the truth of how others feel! They hide themselves from us--even those you hold dearest!"
Throwing knives fly at him -- bursting into fiery, stinging bugs -- and slam into him, one after the other. Those force Seymour back from Ivan, and he turns his head towards the former assassin. "Because there are those of us who embrace our ignorance--as you have chosen, assassin! And then... there are those who find the truth and GRASP IT!"
Marivel's red energy lances slam into him. He glares in her direction, but doesn't respond to her taunting. He turns his head, though. His eyes look down -- barrel down into Tidus's, at his shouts. At three words he remembers, once, hearing in Bevelle.
'Whiny little crybaby.'
"You..." Seymour says, and then he barks out a laugh. Manic and maddened, as always. He can't even muster a remark about surviving. His shock is thorough. "You are Jecht's son! You are him...! Brought here to Spira--to the same end that he was! I see that I underestimated you..."
And then Seymour says a word he never has before, and it is filled with malice and awe and obsession: "Tidus!"
His head snaps, then, to Cyre. His winds slam into the Unsent, knock him backward -- lacerating him, sending out bursts of pyreflies along each cut -- and then he grits his teeth. "I have known love... and seen that it leads only to despair! Understanding someone, knowing someone... these things only lead to the desolation of your soul!"
Venetia's eruptions explode under him -- pillars of squared stone, smashing into him. They drive him backward.
He glowers in Rikku's direction. He doesn't answer her cry, at first. Yuna cries out to him, and he looks down at her. "Lunata... Belize... they were the closest to understanding. I thought you were, too--and now I see how mistaken I was," he says.
Flame swirls up, at Lulu's command. It hurtles upward, smashes into him, and burns some of his flesh black. The stone is blackened, but more wafts away as pyreflies. He sways -- and then throws a hand out, and beats back Boudicca's blast of air with a wave of conjured water. They crash together, exploding in the middle.
"Oblivion is a prize to be shared, spirit!" he barks down at Boudicca. Then, a question reaches him -- his eyebrows lift, as he looks back to Yuna.
'What do you want, Seymour?'
"What do I want, Lady Yuna?" Seymour asks, his head turning -- looking down at Yuna with those eerie pale eyes. "I want to shatter the lies of this world. They are bound too deeply into it--for every happiness, every triumph, every smile and every love are tainted with them! I have found the way--and would have walked that way with you!"
He holds the Mortibody aloft. There is a pulse of sickening white light. It shoots across Highbridge; it strips away the reinforcements and magical assistance summoned, as the pulse rolls outward, and then fades. Seymour's voice booms out, a moment later.
"WITNESS! WITNESS THE MIASMA OF THIS WORLD!" Seymour screams. "IT HARKENS TO MY CALL!"
Pyreflies swirl. This statement is always true of Spira, but today, it changes from a gust to a gale. Hundreds, then thousands of pyreflies swirl all around Seymour. The altar-bound Unsent becomes lost in a whirling gale; a shadow, a silhouette in a tempest of swirling pyreflies that make nearly any attack impossible to get through. The tempest, though it rages, is strangely silent -- the way that pyreflies are.
Seymour speaks through this.
"Spira is a land locked in a cycle of death!" he cries out. "A land that is in an eternal cycle... and I have seen this cycle played out--one found in the lands of Meribus! In the lands of Glenwood! People beseech a goddess who has forgotten them! On Filgaia, they plead for Guardians and gods to save them... and weakness is their only answer!"
His voice booms.
"I know the answer!" he cries out. "To bring ruin and devastation to cleanse both our worlds! Perhaps Rek'gora lay dead... but I have seen the truth! A Clysmian can be born--and Sin can be born again, and again, and again! And I have seen the way! I claim this as my obsession! I am your prophet, your saviour, your true Pillar! I will bring you the freedom that you deny yourselves!"
Seymour screams out his truth: "I WILL BECOME SIN! I WILL BECOME THE INSTRUMENT OF ABSOLUTE LIBERATION!"
GS: Seymour Guado has activated a Boss Action! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Shalune Amira with Desperado! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Yuna with Desperado! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Rikku with Desperado! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Tidus with Desperado! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Lulu with Desperado! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Cecilia Adlehyde with Desperado! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Venetia Vuong with Desperado! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Ivan with Desperado! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Cyre H. Lorentz with Desperado! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Jacqueline Barber with Desperado! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Lunata Croze with Desperado! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Mariel with Desperado! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Marivel Armitage with Desperado! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Seraph Boudicca with Desperado! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Seymour Guado with Mortibsorption! GS: Seymour Guado takes 19 damage from Poison! GS: Seymour Guado has completed his action. GS: Seymour Guado accepts Seymour Guado's Mortibsorption for 151 hit points! GS: Hyper applied to Seymour Guado! GS: CRITICAL! Lunata Croze critically guards Seymour Guado's Desperado for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lunata Croze gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Tidus fully evades Seymour Guado's Desperado for 0 hit points! GS: Rikku takes a glancing hit from Seymour Guado's Desperado for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Rikku gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Dispel! Hyper and Quick removed! GS: Disease and Hex applied to Rikku! GS: Cyre H. Lorentz takes a glancing hit from Seymour Guado's Desperado for 0 hit points! GS: Dispel! Riposte removed! GS: Disease and Hex applied to Cyre H. Lorentz! GS: Marivel Armitage critically guards Seymour Guado's Desperado for 0 hit points! GS: Jacqueline Barber guards a hit from Seymour Guado's Desperado for 0 hit points! GS: Dispel! Shield and Surge removed! GS: Disease and Hex applied to Jacqueline Barber! GS: Lulu fully evades Seymour Guado's Desperado for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lulu gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Mystic extends positive status by 2 rounds! GS: Cecilia Adlehyde used Mystic on Cecilia Adlehyde! Status effect durations increased by 2! Temporary HP duration increased by 2! GS: Cecilia Adlehyde has activated a Force Action! GS: Yuna heals Marivel Armitage! She gains 210 temporary hit points! GS: Marivel Armitage activates Reload!! GS: Marivel Armitage enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Marivel Armitage accepts Cecilia Adlehyde's Material - Sacred Isolator for 0 hit points! GS: Shield and Surge applied to Marivel Armitage! GS: Shalune Amira takes a glancing hit from Seymour Guado's Desperado for 0 hit points! GS: Dispel! Hyper, Quick, Riposte, Shield, and Surge removed! GS: Disease and Hex applied to Shalune Amira! GS: Cecilia Adlehyde guards a hit from Seymour Guado's Desperado for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Cecilia Adlehyde gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Disease and Hex applied to Cecilia Adlehyde! GS: Mariel takes a solid hit from Seymour Guado's Desperado for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Mariel gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Dispel! Shield and Surge removed! GS: Disease and Hex applied to Mariel! GS: Yuna takes a glancing hit from Seymour Guado's Desperado for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Yuna gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Dispel! Amplify, Burst, Quick, and Surge removed! GS: Disease and Hex applied to Yuna! GS: Yuna activates Evade bonus! GS: CRITICAL! Seraph Boudicca guards a hit from Seymour Guado's Desperado for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Boudicca gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Dispel! Shield and Surge removed! GS: Disease and Hex applied to Seraph Boudicca! GS: CRITICAL! Venetia Vuong fully evades Seymour Guado's Desperado for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Venetia Vuong gains 1 additional Combo! GS: CRITICAL! Ivan guards a hit from Seymour Guado's Desperado for 0 hit points! GS: Disease and Hex applied to Ivan!
<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.
Once more, Jacqueline shines like the sun she is in Lunata's heart; there's a pause and a scratch of her finger on her cheek as Jacqueline responds in kind, and she has to shake her head and get the distractions out of her mind since they're in the midst of combat.
Instead, she turns her spell to empower her with Crest power, strengthening both her and Ge Ramda's claws; she feels the power of the Saint Guardian whose light, at first, feels diametric to her own, yet... the Guardians all come from one in the end.
(She's also very glad Mariel is selective and doesn't tag her with Ambrosia, which she's had terrifying off-screen run-ins before.)
Shalune confesses how she felt trapped about her too, and knows it; yet, they're moving on, a little at a time. They'll get there, as long as they keep moving forward. That much, she's certain.
She hears Yuna's piece as well -- that she's here for the future, and that she and Belize both... have taught her that can mean a lot of things. That faith reverberates deep within her...
... and pyreflies swell -- it's an upswing of life that is dangerous even to her, as they thrash and rage, tearing away not only physically but emotionally and mentally as well.
But Lunata is here, right now, with her most steadfast and closest of allies... and the most important people in her life.
She comes out the other end of the storm, a little worse for wear, but not as much as it could have;
The sun dims, Lunata! And where will you be, then?!
As the pyreflies subsume around her, she answers gently but clearly. She presses her hand to her chest, as Seymour proclaims to wish to become Sin.
"I'm also trapped in a cycle of death, Seymour. And maybe, maybe, eternal punishment will still await my soul at the end of all this, and I can't fix that."
Her eyes flash as she readies herself, sheathing her sword as ephemeral manifestations of the forest surround her.
"I will have lived.
I will have lived knowing I loved and was loved in turn.
I will have lived knowing I got dealt a raw hand and made the best of it anyway!
It won't take away what I leave behind and have experienced in these two worlds!"
A clear chime rings through that phantom forest -- and the trees slide, as both she and Ge Ramda slice through in one clear stroke.
GS: Lunata Croze has attacked Seymour Guado with the Word for World is Forest! GS: Lunata Croze has completed her action. GS: Seymour Guado takes a solid hit from Lunata Croze's the Word for World is Forest for 144 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seymour Guado gains 1 additional Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.
Marivel! Don't let that jerk get to you--we've still got a chance to figure out a happy ending!
Marivel pauses in her assault to look to Tidus. He's...not wrong. They still have a chance. "That's right..." She looks to him. "I already placed my chips on you, didn't I? If nothing else, I gotta see if someone will finally beat the house."
Seymour raises Mortibody, but Marivel's brief fatalistic demand that Seymour could not yet hope to fulfill is done and set aside. Twin white radiances from Cecilia and Yuna pulse into her. She feels her wounds fade, her pain ceasing. The Saint Guardian, she thinks, it's been a long time since she felt that power. It makes her think of Ana. There's still a chance for a happy ending.
"He won't have the same end," Marivel says with the full knowledge of what that means. "I won't allow it. Tidus will live until one hundred and five and die surrounded by an embarassing number of blitzball trophies and great grandchildren who are oh so tired of hearing his stories about he and his friends saved the world. The world will weep at losing a true legend of the sport. You despair at the cycle, thinking this will end it, but I'm already ending it. You can just wait for that change from the oblivion you desire."
The pulse hits Marivel.
It doesn't affect her beyond causing her to stall. It's not Cecilia and Yuna's support that render her unaffected, it's just Marivel's innate nature--but their support does keep her moving forward, keep her steady, keep her calm.
"When he dies, Tidus will be surrounded by his loved ones. He won't even feel it. Won't even sense it. It'll be the happiest day of his life, following nearly a century of happiest days of his life."
She looks to Seymour and licks her lips.
"You are composed of pyreflies and thus can control them."
She licks her lips again.
"You call them pyreflies. I call them evening snacks."
And she leaps forward, aiming to clamp down against Seymour's neck with her fangs and DEVOUR.
GS: Marivel Armitage has attacked Seymour Guado with Life Drain! GS: Marivel Armitage has completed her action. GS: Seymour Guado has activated a Force Action! GS: Seymour Guado guards a hit from Marivel Armitage's Life Drain for 113 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seymour Guado gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Seymour Guado activates Guard bonus! GS: Marivel Armitage drains Seymour Guado! Marivel Armitage gains 56 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
Jacqueline sends Shalune a nod as she speaks. It's true, every word of it - put better than she could have, in fact.
Jacqueline's eyes turn toward Cecilia as he recites her oath. And she sees her invoke the Saint Guardian - watching as Ione Paua fills the air with light. Protective, blessed light. A light that is soon joined by Yuna's own light - precious and strong. Jacqueline shuts her eyes for a moment. The light of the Guardian, combined with Yuna's... it eases her pain, and she feels a bit more sure of herself.
"...Thanks, Cecilia, Yuna." Jacqueline says, sending the both of them a nod. "I won't let you down."
She looks at Seymour, then, as he responds to her... and shakes her head.
"...You know what, Seymour? ...I'm sorry. I'm sorry you feel that way - I really am. It hurts, to think about everything you must've gone through to come to that conclusion." She says, her voice sincere. "Life does have meaning - but you have to find it for yourself. For me... it's the meaning we find for ourselves, and in each other. I find the meaning of life in the support and care of those I love - Lunata, Shalune, my Caravan Kinship, everyone... And I find it in the smiles of those we help on our way! In seeing people, from different lands, different worlds, working together to make the worlds a better place! That is the meaning of life to me - and neither you, nor anyone else, can take that from me."
She stares at Seymour, then - really stares at him.
"...Did you lose your meaning, Seymour? Or, maybe you never found it in the first place." She asks, then shakes her head. "...Sorry, maybe I'm rambling. Anyway..."
Anyway, it's time to fight.
Seymour retaliates against the others before emitting a terrible, sickening miasma of pyreflies. The force of it sends Jacqueline to her knees. It's... overwhelming, almost. She feels her fatigue from her time spent in prison rushing back to her.
But yet again it's the sight of Lunata pushing against it all, and her voice, that urges her to stand up again. Jacqueline draws a deep breath.
'Eternal punishment', Lunata says... that's still something Jacqueline needs to figure out, but right now, they need to deal with Seymour.
...But how?
Sorcery... right now, in her current state, she needs to save it for defense. But there is something else she can do. Jacqueline draws out a bottle of lavender liquid. She takes careful aim and hurls it at Seymour in defiance. The bottle shatters and splashes its contents everywhere on contact with a surface - whether the ground or Seymour himself. It's a weakening solution, designed to sap the strength of anything it makes contact with.
Would it be enough to stem the tide of his terrible might? ...She's not sure, but it's worth a try.
GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Seymour Guado with Diminishing Draught! GS: Jacqueline Barber has completed her action. GS: Seymour Guado critically guards Jacqueline Barber's Diminishing Draught for 28 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Tidus has posed.
"Heh, you can say that again!" Tidus calls to Rikku. "We'll show *him* who's boss!" His grin turns grim, and he adds, as much to Lulu and Wakka as it is to the young Al Bhed, "For Zuke, and for Ihara, too...!" He might have only met them for a minute before they left his life permanently, but... nobody deserves what Seymour did to them. They were *people*, alive or not, and they mattered to other people, too.
Marivel hears his call too and eases up a little on her own madness to acknowledge her bet on him; Tidus gives her a firm nod. "Yeah! You can't go backing out on us now!" Venetia continues telling Seymour off. Tidus grins. Foul mouths are great when they're being aimed at someone you despise. Cecilia announces who she is to Seymour and decries him with the power of Ione Paua, who spreads his blessing to many across the battlefield, including Tidus. He basks in the Guardian's power, smiling up at the aeon-like entity. "Thanks, buddy," he says. Given that they'd met not too long ago, it kind of feels like a favor from a friend--and not just Cecilia herself, to whom he shouts, "And thanks to you too!" It's hard to imagine the Guardians ever thought she wasn't strong enough; she's got plenty of strength now, in Tidus's opinion.
Yuna meanwhile sends forth the power of her faith, and it empowers him like his support empowers her--fades the pain of the magical assaults he's endured up 'til now, makes him better ready to turn everything he's got on Seymour now that they've all spent this time prepping. He does catch that look she shoots him, and he gives her a little nod. Yeah. He knows, now. Later, they'll talk.
But now, they've got to finish this.
Something happens that Tidus doesn't expect, though: Seymour actually *pays attention to him*, not just to his jeers but to HIM, and through those same jeers connect him to his father. It's a jolt, far worse than that Thundara from earlier, and for a moment, Tidus is stunned. Not just by the recognition itself, though... but by HOW Seymour recognized him.
'Whiny little crybaby.'
After all, that's the insult that his father always hurled on him.
He grits his teeth, anger and shame and irritation welling up inside himself. Even if it *is* Seymour, he ought to be better than that... He ought to be better than his old man. So when Seymour shouts his name, Tidus shouts back, "So what if I am?! You're still nuts!!"
And as if to underscore Tidus's point, Seymour goes on to scream that he will become Sin.
'Jecht is Sin,' Auron had told Tidus once. It had taken him a long time to believe that, but he knows now it's the truth. So he also knows that Seymour's ravings are also founded in truth. In something that *has* happened, and something that can happen again. But before the chill of that knowledge can settle into Tidus's bones, Marivel shouts back at it--concocts a *truly* embarrassing happy ending for him, one that can't help but make him give her a goofy grin. "Oh my *god*, Marivel, come *on*! D'you have to say that stuff right in front of everybody?"
He focuses back on Seymour, though, grinning. "She's not wrong, though, Seymour. We're not gonna let things go the way you want them to." He lashes Brotherhood along the stone floor of the Highbridge and up towards Seymour Natus's grotesque body. A jet stream of high-speed water lashes off the edge of his watersword and shoots like a comet for central mass--cutting through the stream of pyreflies, cutting through Seymour's obsession, cutting straight to the heart of the matter--and potentially opening up a nasty tear. "Not if I can help it!!"
GS: Tidus has attacked Seymour Guado with Riptide Cutter! GS: Tidus assumes the Avenger stance! GS: Tidus has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.
Understanding which leads to desolation...
Oh, Boudicca thinks; I wish Ida and Dean were here.
This false, mad prophet, who would share oblivion with the whole world - he calls. He calls and the pyreflies come, and it is a gale which threatens to unseat the Wind Seraph from the bridge entirely. She staggers, finds her footing too late, as she looks up to the storm with naked horror.
Weakness is their answer - is it?
It is true Boudicca is young amongst the ancient; it is true she is at times all sound and fury.
It is true she is more vulnerable to spiritual assaults than dear Marivel, licking her chops.
Boudicca takes a breath to centre herself, and remembers her Seers as she focuses on the mortals here. Snap go her fingers, flint and steel, and it is Cecilia who will first feel the spark of Moor Gault's fire burning that that pyrefly shroud. It begins with the Shaman, but does not end there; to Cyre and Venetia, to Mariel and Marivel, to Lunata and Yuna.
The warmth of the hearth burns away the world's sorrows.
"Understanding is no desolation, Seymour," Boudicca speaks to the bone of it, reaching between worlds. "If you would be Sin... you understand nothing."
GS: Seraph Boudicca has activated a Force Action! GS: Seraph Boudicca spends 2 Combo on Inspire and Reload! GS: Seraph Boudicca has attacked Cecilia Adlehyde with Rekindling Breeze! GS: Seraph Boudicca has attacked Cyre H. Lorentz with Rekindling Breeze! GS: Seraph Boudicca has attacked Venetia Vuong with Rekindling Breeze! GS: Seraph Boudicca has attacked Mariel with Rekindling Breeze! GS: Seraph Boudicca has attacked Marivel Armitage with Rekindling Breeze! GS: Seraph Boudicca has attacked Lunata Croze with Rekindling Breeze! GS: Seraph Boudicca has attacked Yuna with Rekindling Breeze! GS: Seraph Boudicca has gained 1 Combo! GS: Seraph Boudicca has completed her action. GS: Cyre H. Lorentz accepts Seraph Boudicca's Rekindling Breeze for 0 hit points! GS: Restore! Hex removed! GS: Cyre H. Lorentz activates Reload!! GS: Cyre H. Lorentz enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Poison expired! GS: Cyre H. Lorentz gains a Combo from Inspire! GS: Venetia Vuong accepts Seraph Boudicca's Rekindling Breeze for 0 hit points! GS: Venetia Vuong activates Reload!! GS: Venetia Vuong gains a Combo from Inspire! GS: Mariel accepts Seraph Boudicca's Rekindling Breeze for 0 hit points! GS: Restore! Hex removed! GS: Mariel activates Reload!! GS: Mariel gains a Combo from Inspire! GS: Yuna accepts Seraph Boudicca's Rekindling Breeze for 0 hit points! GS: Restore! Hex removed! GS: Yuna activates Reload!! GS: Yuna gains a Combo from Inspire!
<Pose Tracker> Rikku has posed.
Rikku gives Tidus a look as Seymour starts laughing over that comment, as if she's aghast. Somehow she thinks she's better off with Seymour barely knowing who she is as compared to Tidus whose name he just spoke aloud.
Rikku can't help but smile, for real too, as she sees evidence of Yuna's faith erupt forth splendidly, the white radiance manifesting and washing over her.
Seymour's sickly pale glow from the Mortibody manifests. She was expecting this. He'd already used it to strip her of her alchemical protections once back on Filgaia. But simply expecting it does not make her anymore ready to prevent it. It streaks by her and as she tries to twist out of the way it clips her arm. Suddenly the pale glow of pyrefly light dissipates from around her.
And she feels decidedly ill. For more reasons than simply because of that awful light. What Seymour wants for this world is so awful.
"... Become... Sin?! What?"
The sheer depravity of that statement stuns her. It takes her a few moments to even feel like she can move against the horrible truth of Seymour's twisted mindset. It feels so utterly alien to her. Fortunately the way Marivel embarrasses Tidus causes her to laugh a little. Then covers her mouth and gives Tidus an apologetic look - before turning back to Seymour.
"Now I know why I never listened to anyone who claimed to have all the answers." Rikku says, still sounding aghast, "You got proof that we'd all be better off that way? Because all I see when I look at you is proof that we wouldn't be."
She doesn't know how they're going to beat Sin. Not really. If she had time. Just more time. Then maybe they'd find a way. Yet even if she doesn't have that answer...
"Even if I don't have all the answers... or any of them. I know that Yuna is my answer as to how the world can be better."
Rikku digs out something from one of her pouches as if she were going to put together an alchemical concoction... then goes cross-eyed as she unfurls it. "Um - whoops!"
It's a crest graph.
Hastily rolling it back up, she tosses it Venetia's way, "SORRY! I think this is yours!" How did it come into Rikku's possession?
Quite mysterious isn't it?
Except even as she throws the Crest Graph backwards she then tosses a bomb core forward towards Seymour. "And this is yours!" It bursts into a sharp detonation of hellfire that cascades over his form.
GS: Rikku spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Rikku has attacked Seymour Guado with Use: PeRiOdIc Table of Spiran Fiends! GS: Shield expired! GS: Rikku has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.
"It's better to have loved and then lost!" Cyre barks back in reply. "That pain is just part of being human! The warmth that love brings, the euphoria and the uneasiness both-- they're worth that pain and despair! Loving someone, being loved by someone, knowing and understanding one another and accepting everything-- it's proof of the fundamental truth! That life has meaning! Its loss doesn't erase that fact!"
Ambrosia washes over him. Tiny motes of light and life contained within a misty mixture of herbal essence pour across his body and sooth his wounds and aches. Cyre takes in a deep breath... Right as that awful white light strips his brief ehancements away. The shaman curses softly as he hits the ground awkwardly and falls into a painful roll that-- nearly ends with him falling off the edge of a cliff, but he skids to a stop a few inches short.
It's a near thing-- but it's not the first time Cyre Lorentz has fallen from a high place and survived. In fact, one could make the argument that he's far too used to doing just that.
He groans, propping himself back up. "You... want to make yourself into a Clysmian? You... You don't understand anything about them...! They're made up of ley just the same as the Guardians! You can't have obsession without life! You can't have desperation without life! If you bring that terrible power to bear, then..."
Cyre reaches to his chest. To where a slim, silvery talisman dangles over his heart. Motes of light begin to swirl around him, beginning as a trickle and then rising to an overpowering flood. They're a strange parallel to the storm of light surging around Seymour, but these are no pyreflies. The Ley of Wind gathers around Fengalon's chosen priest. The air begins to blow in a gentle, invigorating breeze that grows to become a defiant, howling gale. Around Cyre, the emerald light has become a blinding viridian flash, and in its wake...
A divine, white tiger stands tall and powerful. Over its limbs, in lieu of stripes, are writ prayers to the World and hosanas to life and those powers which sustain it. Over its shoulders, a great, golden disk that shines like the sun on a clear-skied day. Wind wraps its body like a holy raiment, conjured there by Seraph Boudicca's power, even as it tightens its massive claws into powerful fists.
"As one who walks with the Guardians, I must oppose it with all the might I can bring to bear!" The Wind Tiger's voice echoes from all directions, as if resonating in the air itself. He launches forward, reaching with both hands, claws grasping at that pyrefly aurora, the iridescent flow of immaterial essence that yet has enough substance to flow in currents between his fingers. Fengalon's power joins with Moor Gault's in that shroud of pyreflies, and Cyre tears at it with every ounce of strength he can muster.
...And from his claws, injects a cataclysmic crush of wind essence, creating a wave of pressure that threatens to pop the pyrefly coccoon like an ominous red balloon.
DC: Cyre H. Lorentz switches forms to Nahual - Fengalon!
GS: Cyre H. Lorentz has attacked Seymour Guado with Storm Warning! GS: Cyre H. Lorentz has gained 1 Combo! GS: Disrupt expired! GS: Cyre H. Lorentz has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Lulu has posed.
Lulu can hear many talk to Seymour; Otherworlders with their own perspectives, the other Guardians, Yuna herself... Seymour. She hears him. Knowing love...
Lulu almost thinks she understands Seymour better, in those moments, as she looks at his pain, such as it is. But she cannot be satisfied any more than a raging flame can be satisfied with scraps.
To shatter lies... The Mortibody's white light pulses across, and Lulu avoids it. And then... Then she sees it. The 'miasma'... and Seymour's true aim.
"You're... mad," Lulu says, staring at him for a long moment. Her rage does not abate. If anything, it grows.
A little girl within her stares daggers at Seymour, too. A girl who did not know the truth of the Final Summoning, so long ago. A girl who was too young, far too young for the responsibility she tried to claim.
Death itself howls in silence. Seymour speaks through it, and Lulu feels death itself so close. It does answer Seymour's call. There is so much of it... And yet--
"SEYMOUR!" Lulu calls then, Zuke's fallen form flashing before her eyes once again. The sight of Yuna, next, threatens to move into her vision. And a third form, long ago. What was an ember becomes a blaze.
"My only regret in facing you in this moment is that your madness shields you from the pain you should feel. Even if I am no longer Father Zuke's Guardian..." Will Yuna's death be her fault, too? The fury burning within her only grows at her doubts, pushes all else aside.
"Even so, the only mercy you will know will be Yuna's Sending. Your truth can go to the Farplane with you!"
There is much she does not know. There is much she does not understand. But...
Fire begins to rage around her, a circle surrounding her person, blazing with heat. There is something she does understand.
Lulu lifts both of her hands as she draws power towards herself, Mog at her feet mirroring her motions. "I hope this hurts."
Air collapses in on itself and then bursts into a searing blaze of flame through the pyreflies. Then, a second explosion rocks the air. A third; a fourth. Each is an attempt to move closer to Seymour's form, and each bursts is hotter than the last.
GS: Lulu has activated a Force Action! GS: Lulu spends 1 Combo on Link! GS: Formation! Lulu has attacked Seymour Guado with Firaga! GS: Lulu has gained 2 Combo! GS: Lulu has launched an attack Link! GS: Lulu spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Formation! Lulu has attacked Seymour Guado with F U R Y! GS: Lulu has gained 1 Combo! GS: Lulu has completed her action. GS: Cecilia Adlehyde accepts Seraph Boudicca's Rekindling Breeze for 0 hit points! GS: Restore! Hex removed! GS: Cecilia Adlehyde activates Reload!! GS: Cecilia Adlehyde gains a Combo from Inspire! GS: Seymour Guado takes a solid hit from Tidus's Riptide Cutter for 139 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seymour Guado gains 1 additional Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.
Because there are those of us who embrace our ignorance--as you have chosen, assassin! And then... there are those who find the truth and GRASP IT!
Ivan doesn't understand. What 'truth' could be terrible enough, and universal enough to want to condemn the whole world, not even letting people decide on their own whether their lives have been worthwhile?
"Why do you think you know better about what people need than the people standing here telling you they want to live their lives?!"
But it goes deeper than just wanting to bring as much death as he can, and calling it a gift.
A swirl of pyreflies, and a cold, abrasive light. I WILL BECOME SIN! I WILL BECOME THE INSTRUMENT OF ABSOLUTE LIBERATION!
"THIS IS THE WORST DREAM I'VE EVER HEARD OF. WHY IS ONE SIN NOT ENOUGH!?"
Ivan crosses his arms in front of him before sweeping them upward, the pattern calling forth a great bubble of searing heat that rolls for Seymour, seeking to envelop him.
GS: Ivan spends 1 Combo on Poison! GS: Ivan has attacked Seymour Guado with Searing Sphere! GS: Ivan takes 28 damage from Poison! GS: Ivan has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Mariel has posed.
Mariel does her best to tend to the wounds of the others, but there's so much of it - so many people, fighting Seymour, that she cannot keep up alone. After the battle, she could treat all the survivors, but all at once, like this - no.
It has to end, and soon, or they'll be overwhelmed.
The summoning of a Guardian is a sign to her. Mariel doesn't turn away like she used to; she knows the Guardians do not hate her. That was never her punishment. "Iona Paua," Mariel says, quietly. It has been a long time since she has seen him. She was never close to him; what she was interested in rarely intersected with Ione Paua's domains.
Mariel has a bit of a different relationship with the Guardians than the Shamans. She doesn't always make a point of her beliefs - but if Ione Paua is willing to grant her this gift of energy regardless, she will take it.
And she will take Yuna's faith. It energizes her; Mariel stands up straighter. She can help here. She *can*. She feels it. It means a lot to be trusted, and believed in. Not many people have done that, in her long life - or at least, if they did, they asked things of her she could never give. Yuna doesn't. It's refreshing.
She is very grateful a moment later, when Seymour reveals his goal.
"That..." That is insane, Mariel thinks. Impossible. Utterly repellent. (Also, he knows what a Pillar is, Mariel notes, though that isn't much of a surprise given where Rek'gora was summoned.) He wants to become a Clysmian; she doesn't exclaim that is impossible, because it is so difficult for her to comprehend that it is a true desire. There are many words for it and she uses none of them; staring in sheer shock at the words, she is an easy target for the wave of energy. It pulls at her, inside, in an unpleasant manner, and the swarm - the veritable cloud of pyreflies - makes it worse.
On Filgaia, Mariel is accustomed to feeling the slow death of the planet. Lunar is different. She isn't quite a part of it in the same way, but close, like a puzzle piece that's been slightly misaligned. But it also lacks that feeling of impending death, the faint sickness like a broken tooth at the edge of her senses, all the time.
With as much death as Seymour has made manifest here, Mariel feels it. And she understands: Spira's cycle is a sickness too, but a different sort. More subtle, perhaps, but still there. But she swore - she swore -
Mariel falls to her knees under the onslaught. She presses her gloved hands together, cupping nothing at all, and she *feels*. She lets Lunar fill her the way she lets Filgaia do so, like a blind woman reaching out in all directions or someone straining to hear every tiny sound in the forest. It's not a sense she has words for in any language but her own.
And she feels the Filgaians and the Lunarians. They don't feel so different from each other, points of life in the cloud of death. She would never be able to do so under normal circumstances - people are too dim and diffuse to make out individually, except against this contrast.
"No," Mariel says, again.
"That isn't the answer. My people thought leaving was the answer, and they were wrong. You think ending it is the answer, and you are even more wrong. I made a promise... I made it in anger, but I think I was more right than I knew. But - until Filgaia is green again, and Lunar is well - I will stay, and stop this!"
Mariel breathes in, more metaphysically than in actuality, and then exhales. She opens her hands, and a cloud of pink-purple sparks slowly drift away from her, a counterpoint to the multicoloured pyreflies. They aren't the same thing at all; this is *life*, a feeling of a healthy Filgaia, just for a moment. There isn't enough to fill the bridge. It's nowhere near the size of Seymour's pyrefly swarm. But, just for an instant, it might be enough to push back the feeling of death. She wobbles, unsteady even on her knees from giving up so much of her energy. Boudicca helps, but it's still more than Mariel has to easily give - it's just not stopping her from doing it anyway.
Cradled in Mariel's hands is a single white flower. Yuna has seen it before. So have a few other people.
GS: Mariel has attacked Cyre H. Lorentz with Small Flower! GS: Mariel has attacked Lulu with Small Flower! GS: Mariel has attacked Yuna with Small Flower! GS: Mariel has attacked Shalune Amira with Small Flower! GS: Mariel has attacked Rikku with Small Flower! GS: Mariel has attacked Seraph Boudicca with Small Flower! GS: Mariel has attacked Jacqueline Barber with Small Flower! GS: Mariel has gained 1 Combo! GS: Mariel has completed her action. GS: Yuna accepts Mariel's Small Flower for 0 hit points! GS: Restore! Disease removed! GS: Lock State applied to Yuna! GS: Rikku accepts Mariel's Small Flower for 0 hit points! GS: Restore! Hex removed! GS: Lock State applied to Rikku! GS: Jacqueline Barber accepts Mariel's Small Flower for 0 hit points! GS: Restore! Hex removed! GS: Lock State applied to Jacqueline Barber!
<Pose Tracker> Venetia Vuong has posed.
A saint's blessing?
Are the Baskar's spirits with them? Cecilia calls on this - she uses this blessed power so readily. Venetia would be humbled, but, dear reader, that is not something she is very good at, so instead she simply lets herself swell with power.
Except, of course, that it is a sense of righteousness, a secondhand blessing from tired gods. This is in comparison to a man who is speaking words of portent - a truth of miasma? - and is sheathing himself in that curiously beautiful and certainly dire sparkling light of... of what? The souls of the dead? They are surrounding him.
Venetia sucks in breath through her teeth even as she suddenly throws herself forwards, and behind one of her own fallen pillars. The curled-up crouch spares her something she cannot quite place, but it also means that she is several yards closer to Seymour.
So, Venetia thinks, what do I do now. Shoot my --
'SORRY!'
Venetia's eyes turn towards Rikku. Her mouth hangs slightly open. 'I THINK THIS IS YOURS'
She plucks the Crest Graph out of the air. There is a bronze-colored sparkle. Venetia looks at it, her eyes still wide as saucers. "I can work with this," she calls to her. "Thank you!!"
Pressing the bronze graph to her forehead, Venetia mutters, "iona paua if you are here right now for real then give me a hand because by all the benzine in all the tanks i am in a bind and this man is preposterous. help me please."
And then she pops up, to bellow, "YOU WOULD SCRAPE THE WORLD CLEAN, like some kind of recycled newsprint?? You'd scrape off the past as well as the present and the future?? You just KEEP GETTING WORSE, SEYMOUR!" The graph is twisted round, held forwards.
"Fracture becomes beauty... and edge! From the Abyss's bloody lips: FACETER!"
The Ley erupts, twists, and it seizes on the recently created chunks of marble as well. Which rise upwards, fracturing into needle like shapes as the stone pressurizes, turning into a rainbow of quartz, shards of jagged turquoise, shining lapis-lazuli, boiling transient sparkles of opal!
GS: Lulu accepts Mariel's Small Flower for 0 hit points! GS: Restore! Stagger removed! GS: Lock State applied to Lulu! GS: Venetia Vuong has activated a Force Action! GS: Venetia Vuong has activated a Force Action! GS: Venetia Vuong spends 2 Combo on Gatling, loading 2 into Gatling! GS: Venetia Vuong has attacked Seymour Guado with Faceter! GS: Venetia Vuong has completed her action. GS: Seraph Boudicca accepts Mariel's Small Flower for 0 hit points! GS: Restore! Hex removed! GS: Lock State applied to Seraph Boudicca! GS: Seymour Guado critically guards Rikku's Use: PeRiOdIc Table of Spiran Fiends for 30 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seymour Guado gains 1 additional Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Shalune Amira has posed.
Seymour's screamed answer to Shalune draws her up short, even as her craft veers away from its impact and climbs for distance and height. Something new crosses her face; it's the first sign of real genuine pity she's felt this altercation, and she shakes her head a little to herself. It drives home what Lunata's been saying all along; gives her a bit more in the way of meaning and understanding.
More than anything else, to her, his raving sounds scared and cracked.
"... sorry you had things happen to make you feel that way," she mutters, privately and to herself, and then she sucks in a deep breath and shakes her head. "I mean it. It's a terrible way to feel. I wouldn't wish it on anyone... but that doesn't excuse the rest of it, I think," she mutters softly to herself. It's either that or register his plan to become Sin, and she's not completely sure she can manage to take in the enormity of that without her head spinning.
Or maybe that's the miasma that settles over her, which she realizes when her head abruptly starts to swim, the air dizzying around her. She dry-heaves, her head spinning, and only catches herself when she nearly pitches over the handlebars of the Little Dipper before pulling herself back again.
Pride for Lunata and Jacqueline is what keeps her going, more than anything, but the deep breath she sucks in also helps. Gritting her teeth, she sweeps the Little Dipper around once more, bracing against the control stick as she urgently fishes in her pocket for a canister, then rams it onto place at the end of her shotstaff. There is just enough time to recentre herself on the back of her scooter before ramming the stone-like hide of the Maester once more. If raw power won't get her through his defences, maybe perserverance will.
"Stop, for even one moment, and listen to what she's saying," she entreats in the empty moment afterwards. "She's trying to help you. She's trying to bridge that gap."
But she says this over the building whine of her shotstaff, held ready at her hip. Energy swirls around it as whatever engine she's packed into the small machine starts to fire. Rather than shooting a line of white light, it builds a gigantic ball of pulsing energy - and she lets it loose, hopefully towards the breach she might have created.
GS: Shalune Amira accepts Mariel's Small Flower for 0 hit points! GS: Restore! Hex removed! GS: Lock State applied to Shalune Amira! GS: Shalune Amira spends 1 Combo on Link! GS: Formation! Shalune Amira has attacked Seymour Guado with Storm on the Wind! GS: Shalune Amira has launched an attack Link! GS: Shalune Amira spends 1 Combo on Gatling, loading 1 into Gatling! GS: Formation! Shalune Amira has attacked Seymour Guado with Soaring Clouds! GS: Shalune Amira has gained 1 Combo! GS: Shalune Amira's Avenger stance ends. GS: Shalune Amira takes 25 damage from Poison! GS: Shalune Amira has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Cecilia Adlehyde has posed.
Cecilia reforms from the haze of Leylight that the Saint Guardian dispersed into. She trembles. That took A LOT out of her, and she shows it, pressing a hand to her chest to help steady her breath. Yuna's light aids her some, and she raises a thankful hand to the Summoner. But then, still panting, she has to stare in awe and horror at the powers Seymour summons. At the thing that he becomes. "He's....mad," Cecilia rasps. She knew it, of course; had resolved it. But to hear him say something SO audacious, what else can she say to that?
She sees that terrifying power gathering and thrusts her staff forth, a geyser of raw magic against Seymour's pulse. It doesn't completely negate it but prevents him from stripping ALL of her protections, at least.
"I won't allow that!" Cecilia gasps. "I can't!"
She feels Boudicca's energies sparking inside her. She is not sworn to Boudicca, nor to any Seraph - but Cecilia is the Shaman of Filgaia itself, the Innocent One who stands for the whole world. She is able to take that spark and usher it into flame, allowing it through her and into the others with a wave of warming flame.
They're beneath the earth, but the earth and the sky have their unions. She reaches down to her Medium case, grabbing yet another from the pack, and thrusting it forward. An image of parting clouds - the icon of the Heaven Guardian, Solais Emsu. "All the people under heaven are in peril from a man like you! MATERIAL!"
The Medium bursts apart into its motes of light, and the form of the great heavenly sage Solais Emsu appears behind her, a tremendous man in heavy robes. He could look like a sage of Bevelle, even, his robes ornate and trimmed in gold; but it is with cold disinterest he regards Seymour, as magical circles combinea round him, interlocking into elaborate magical circuits, before a unifying sigil appears before him.
And then the charge circuits discharge into the firing sigil, which BLASTS Seymour with a tremendously wide beam of raw magic.
"Heavenly Revelation!"
GS: Cecilia Adlehyde has attacked Seymour Guado with Material - Heavenly Revelation! GS: Cecilia Adlehyde has gained 1 Combo! GS: Cecilia Adlehyde's Stoic stance ends. GS: Hyper expired! GS: Cecilia Adlehyde has completed her action. GS: Seymour Guado guards a hit from Lulu's Firaga for 182 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seymour Guado gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Seymour Guado guards a hit from Lulu's F U R Y for 184 hit points! GS: Seymour Guado guards a hit from Cyre H. Lorentz's Storm Warning for 104 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seymour Guado gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Shieldbreak applied to Seymour Guado!
<Pose Tracker> Yuna has posed.
'Become Sin?'
Yuna is bewildered.
Sin isn't a title and it isn't a person. It's just an it. It's just... death, destruction, massacre, atrocity. Lately, recently, she has been forced to confront the idea that IT might have been a baby once, like the Clysmian they destroyed on Filgaia, but the idea of anyone BECOMING Sin is like... speaking in tongues. Sounds are coming out of Seymour's but they don't mean anything.
She is only newly aware of how little she knows, truly, about Sin, now that the core of Yevon has been revealed to be stasis, the terrible status quo where only death can enjoy rebirth.
'I would have walked that way with you.'
What way? As her husband? As her Guardian? He told her himself -- 'as Yunalesca had Zaon, take me as your pillar of strength...'
It just doesn't make any sense.
It doesn't make MORE sense after she's engulfed in pyreflies. Excited, corrupted pyreflies. They don't have feelings -- they ARE feelings -- and that makes them both the least and most effective way to attack Yuna. Her greatest strength is her greatest vulnerability. Is this not always the way?
Her vision swims...
--RAGE AND DARKNESS AND MADNESS--
--JECHT--
...and fire burns...
...Boudicca's fire...
...and a flower blooms...
...Mariel's flower...
She casts a grateful look both Seraph and Elw, afterwards, as her eyes clear. She hears Marivel's plans for Tidus and smiles softly. Perhaps a little bit shyly, though despite various assertions to the contrary, from various directions, she knows that she will never be, can never be, the mother of these hypothetical children. She hears Rikku's faith in HER, returned at blinding intensity, and her resolve redoubles further.
Yes. She will bring about that better world.
A world without Sin.
And, as Lulu proclaims, a world without Seymour.
She has failed at Sending him so many times.
"Seymour," she says, as quietly as he is loud. As many others are loud. "You speak of Sir Jecht... but I promised your father that I would stop you. I promised Belize that I would stop Sin -- end Sin, forever. And I promised myself, too... that I would not do it through suffering, but... with kindness. The world can be cruel, but..."
She shakes her head.
"You can't decide for whom it is worth living in. You can only decide for yourself. I can only decide for myself."
She glances over at Ivan's cry. It moves her. Even if he didn't mean it that way, the Otherworlder speaks for all of Spira in assuming the status quo. One Sin, isn't that enough?
"When there is NO Sin -- THAT will be enough."
Someone, several someones, stir deep within her.
"That is the dream of all summoners..."
She fingers one of Rikku's fiend bits, something tucked away in her obi for a dangerous moment like this one. A tiny chunk of dark elemental, for weakening, for draining.
"And," she amends, smiling at her Al Bhed cousin, "The dream of all Spira's people. It is not yours to destroy -- it is ours to protect. To create."
GS: Yuna has attacked Seymour Guado with Use: Rikku's Goodie Bag of Swag! GS: Yuna has completed her action. GS: Seymour Guado guards a hit from Ivan's Searing Sphere for 103 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seymour Guado gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Poison applied to Seymour Guado! GS: Seymour Guado guards a hit from Venetia Vuong's Faceter for 88 hit points! GS: Seymour Guado takes a solid hit from Shalune Amira's Storm on the Wind for 231 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seymour Guado gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Seymour Guado takes a solid hit from Shalune Amira's Soaring Clouds for 238 hit points! GS: Seymour Guado guards a hit from Cecilia Adlehyde's Material - Heavenly Revelation for 95 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seymour Guado gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Seymour Guado guards a hit from Yuna's Use: Rikku's Goodie Bag of Swag for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seymour Guado gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Cripple and Mute applied to Seymour Guado!
<Pose Tracker> Seymour Guado has posed.
The air around Seymour is a storm of pyreflies. A hurricane of them, and it makes a very real wind. Somehow, though, the flash of her eyes cuts through -- and Seymour's meet hers. She launches forward, into the tornado.
And she slashes through. The blade cuts deep into Seymour, side split open; pyreflies explode out around them. "Gh--!"
Then, he glances over his shoulder and snarls in her direction, once. "No!" he yells. He throws out one hand -- and a massive wave of fireballs and water blasts explode around Lunata, Jay, and Shalune alike. "If the world takes something from you, Lunata..."
And then bead after bead of angry, orange-red light appear. They shudder -- lines of light draw into them -- and then explode in huge, colossal blasts of nuclear flame. "...THEN IT NEVER MATTERED!"
Marivel's teeth strike stone. She drains some life -- but not from the pyreflies. She bites upon his neck, drawing ephemeral force from Seymour, until he swats her away. The pyreflies are not drained.
They are something she knows, in that moment, that she cannot know. They are something ancient.
They are beyond this moment. They are older than Spira when it became Spira.
They are not Marivel's -- and they are nothing akin to her snack. They are far, far greater than she ever understood... and she knows, the way only an immortal can know: she can research and study, but they would never be hers, as sure as the wind and rain would not.
"What," Seymour spits at her, "did I tell you? Begone. Your life and love are nothing--you are banished from this world!"
He throws his hand out -- and beads after bead of light form. She invited him to kill her; he tries to oblige. Dozens of nuclear explosions sound, one after the other, blasting a gaping hole in the side of Highbridge and sending a rain of superheated, slagged stone below.
"I have found a new meaning!" Seymour snarls down at Jacquline. "A better one!" As the last fires and droplets of water leave, he slams the great claws of the Mortibody down, slashing across her -- even as her draught flies in. He bats it away with the other hand, the vial shattering -- but none of its liquid getting on him.
He turns his head down, back at Tidus. "I wonder... do you have what he does? Will you give into despair--will you see the futility of your life? As he did?" Seymour asks. "Tell me, Tidus!""
The blast of water slams into his chest. It cracks and splinters, not unlike stone; Seymour screams, as he is driven backward. Then, he throws his hand into the air. Fireballs come raining down -- mixing with globes of water, crashing down rapidly about Tidus. Then, he turns to Boudicca -- his eyes flash -- and he sends three immense fireballs careening towards her.
"Then form your understanding in death, shade!" Seymour bellows, before he slashes the Mortibody's claws down for the Wind Seraph.
"This world's end must be brought about! You, as an Al Bhed, must have seen this--that injustice is writ into this world!" Seymour yells at Rikku. "I shall be the true savior of your kind!"
Another three fireballs form -- and slam down, one after the other, towards Rikku, and try to burn her out in but a blink of an eye. At the same time, the Crest Graph and bomb core fly up -- but a fourth fireball forms. It slams into them, and they explode a distance away from the Unsent.
"I will bring obsession to its very apex!" Seymour shouts back at Cyre. "Oppose me, if you wish--" Fengalon's power assails him, a wave of pressure that blows back many of the pyreflies swirling about, and slams into Seymour. He surges forward, then, and slashes down, strong enough to crack the flagstones under Cyre's feet when he hits with the Mortibody.
Lulu rains fire down upon him. It slams into him, blow after blow, driving him backward. Explosions blow off chips of stone -- they fly away, then turn into pyreflies. Seymour looks down, teeth bared, and snarls down at Lulu. "You will never send me there!"
A crack runs up his face, like a statue that has not finished shattering, from Lulu's spells. It cracks further -- as he sends his own rain of fireballs down. One, two, three; each explodes with a smaller fiery blast, before a bead of light forms near Lulu. Then another, then another; then a titanic, atomic explosion that scorches the skies and burns Highbridge's stones black.
"Then you shall sleep!" Seymour yells down at Ivan. "And see this glorious dream for yourself! I have been granted a unique vision, one far greater than any of you!" he bellows, before sending down wave upon wave of fireballs and water bursts, splashing and burning into steam around Ivan, before the sphere of flame engulfs him.
He screams as he burns, and barrels forward to breakl from it. He looks down, then, with gritted teeth and a furious expression for Mariel. "You... you do not DENY ME!" he screams at her, and then sends down fireball after fireball. They crash down around her -- as if, after she kept back his previous efforts, he could stop her with that. They may strike her; they may burn her...
...but the flower comes through, unscathed.
"How--how dare you!" he screams, and then slashes down the Mortibody's wicked claws, striking down at the Elw with a final blow.
"The past exists only to die, sorceress!" Seymour shouts down at Venetia but a moment later. Needles of stone rise, slamming into him; gemstone after gemstone smashes brutally into his body, which cracks -- and he snarls, hurling back at fire and water at her. They rain down -- fireballs and blasts of water, smashing down across her. It is, a moment later, that he gets rammed into by Shalune's scooter.
He turns, then -- and gets blasted in the chest by her shotstaff. It blasts out the back of him; pyreflies trail from entrance and exit wound. The grievous injury does not slow him. "Gh... how little you understand! You cloud her eyes!"
Then, he thrusts a hand out -- and those beads of orange-red light appear. One after another, as grains of a darker red light are drawn in, and then the space around Shalune explodes in a fiery blast, which blasts up into the skies themselves. "THERE IS NO GAP TO BE BRIDGED! SHE WOULD DENY REALITY!"
Solais Emsu summons magical circles about Seymour; they flash into existence, seeming to bind him, and then white light slams down. It smashes him to the ground, but then he rises back up. His eyes blaze, pale and enraged, and he looks at Cecilia. "You--all of you who would defend the order of this world... you must all be broke! I see it now!"
He throws his hand forward. A trio of fireballs form -- and then sweep down, coming together onto Cecilia, and then explode in a colossal pillar of fire and smoke.
He turns, then. He looks at Yuna, and his expression is anything but that young, charismatic pastor; it is angry, it is pained, and it is manic in a way that can only be described as wild. "I will not permit," he snarls at her, "the people of Spira to have will. It leads only to their continuous misery--and I shall free them of that!"
Fire and water slam down around the bedraggled summoner. She walks through it -- flames and blasts of water burning and drenching her -- and that tiny little bit of dark elemental strikes. He snarls, backing up, as it burns and sizzles where it hits. Pyreflies drift off him, more and more.
"E-enough," he snarls. "I end this here!"
Seymour holds up the Mortibody. Light shines out from it -- a thin, grey beam of light that washes across Tidus, Rikku, Cyre, Ivan, Venetia, and Yuna, and then they feel stone rising up. It begins to encase legs -- up to the waist. Then, with a scream, Seymour SLAMS the Mortibody down. It rakes across them -- and EXPLODES the stone about them, fragments shattering and breaking mightily with the blow.
And then he sags. Pyreflies rise off him -- and smoke, wrack, and ruin from their many attacks. He hangs there, for a moment, dazed.
GS: Seymour Guado has become ENRAGED! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Seraph Boudicca with Multi-Fira! GS: Seymour Guado has gained 1 Combo! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Rikku with Multi-Fira! GS: Seymour Guado has gained 1 Combo! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Lulu with Multi-Fira! GS: Seymour Guado has gained 1 Combo! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Mariel with Multi-Fira! GS: Seymour Guado has gained 1 Combo! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Cecilia Adlehyde with Multi-Fira! GS: Seymour Guado has gained 1 Combo! GS: Seymour Guado spends 5 Combo on Headshot and Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Marivel Armitage with Flare! GS: Seymour Guado has gained 1 Combo! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Jacqueline Barber with Mortibslasher! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Seraph Boudicca with Mortibslasher! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Cyre H. Lorentz with Mortibslasher! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Mariel with Mortibslasher! GS: Seymour Guado has gained 1 Combo! GS: Seymour Guado has activated a Boss Action! GS: Seymour Guado spends 5 Combo on Headshot and Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Lunata Croze with Flare! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Marivel Armitage with Flare! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Lulu with Flare! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Shalune Amira with Flare! GS: Seymour Guado has gained 1 Combo! GS: Seymour Guado spends 1 Combo on Link! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Tidus with Break! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Rikku with Break! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Cyre H. Lorentz with Break! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Ivan with Break! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Venetia Vuong with Break! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Cecilia Adlehyde with Break! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Yuna with Break! GS: Seymour Guado has launched an attack Link! GS: Seymour Guado spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Tidus with Shattering Claw! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Rikku with Shattering Claw! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Cyre H. Lorentz with Shattering Claw! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Ivan with Shattering Claw! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Venetia Vuong with Shattering Claw! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Cecilia Adlehyde with Shattering Claw! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Yuna with Shattering Claw! GS: Seymour Guado has gained 1 Combo! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Lunata Croze with Multi-Fire and Multi-Water! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Jacqueline Barber with Multi-Fire and Multi-Water! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Shalune Amira with Multi-Fire and Multi-Water! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Tidus with Multi-Fire and Multi-Water! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Ivan with Multi-Fire and Multi-Water! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Venetia Vuong with Multi-Fire and Multi-Water! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Yuna with Multi-Fire and Multi-Water! GS: Seymour Guado takes 21 damage from Poison! GS: Enrage purges all positive status! GS: Stagger removed! GS: Seymour Guado has completed his action. GS: CRITICAL! Marivel Armitage critically guards Seymour Guado's Flare for 56 hit points! GS: Marivel Armitage critically guards Seymour Guado's Flare for 45 hit points! GS: Cyre H. Lorentz accepts Mariel's Small Flower for 0 hit points! GS: Restore! Disease removed! GS: Lock State applied to Cyre H. Lorentz! GS: Lunata Croze accepts Seraph Boudicca's Rekindling Breeze for 0 hit points! GS: Lunata Croze activates Reload!! GS: Lunata Croze gains a Combo from Inspire! GS: Cyre H. Lorentz takes a glancing hit from Seymour Guado's Mortibslasher for 132 hit points! GS: Cyre H. Lorentz takes a glancing hit from Seymour Guado's Break for 0 hit points! GS: Entangle and Shieldbreak applied to Cyre H. Lorentz! GS: Cyre H. Lorentz activates Evade bonus! GS: Marivel Armitage accepts Seraph Boudicca's Rekindling Breeze for 0 hit points! GS: Marivel Armitage activates Reload!! GS: Marivel Armitage gains a Combo from Inspire! GS: CRITICAL! Lunata Croze takes a glancing hit from Seymour Guado's Flare for 134 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lunata Croze gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Mute and Poison applied to Lunata Croze! GS: Lunata Croze guards a hit from Seymour Guado's Multi-Fire and Multi-Water for 78 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lunata Croze gains 1 additional Combo! GS: CRITICAL! Cyre H. Lorentz takes a glancing hit from Seymour Guado's Shattering Claw for 126 hit points! GS: Shalune Amira takes a solid hit from Seymour Guado's Flare for 218 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Shalune Amira gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Stagger removed! GS: Mute and Poison applied to Shalune Amira! GS: Rikku guards a hit from Seymour Guado's Multi-Fira for 94 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Rikku gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Jacqueline Barber critically guards Seymour Guado's Mortibslasher for 51 hit points! GS: Rikku takes a solid hit from Seymour Guado's Break for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Rikku gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Entangle and Shieldbreak applied to Rikku! GS: Jacqueline Barber guards a hit from Seymour Guado's Multi-Fire and Multi-Water for 78 hit points! GS: Shalune Amira fully evades Seymour Guado's Multi-Fire and Multi-Water for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Shalune Amira gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Shalune Amira activates Evade bonus! GS: Rikku takes a solid hit from Seymour Guado's Shattering Claw for 213 hit points! GS: CRITICAL! Mariel fully evades Seymour Guado's Multi-Fira for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Mariel gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Mariel activates Evade bonus! GS: Venetia Vuong takes a solid hit from Seymour Guado's Break for 0 hit points! GS: Entangle and Shieldbreak applied to Venetia Vuong! GS: Mariel critically guards Seymour Guado's Mortibslasher for 52 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Mariel gains 1 additional Combo! GS: CRITICAL! Venetia Vuong guards a hit from Seymour Guado's Shattering Claw for 143 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Venetia Vuong gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Venetia Vuong guards a hit from Seymour Guado's Multi-Fire and Multi-Water for 59 hit points! GS: Cecilia Adlehyde guards a hit from Seymour Guado's Multi-Fira for 100 hit points! GS: CRITICAL! Cecilia Adlehyde takes a solid hit from Seymour Guado's Break for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Cecilia Adlehyde gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Entangle and Shieldbreak applied to Cecilia Adlehyde! GS: Cecilia Adlehyde guards a hit from Seymour Guado's Shattering Claw for 136 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Cecilia Adlehyde gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Lulu guards a hit from Seymour Guado's Multi-Fira for 88 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lulu gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Tidus fully evades Seymour Guado's Break for 0 hit points! GS: CRITICAL! Lulu takes a glancing hit from Seymour Guado's Flare for 132 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lulu gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Mute and Poison applied to Lulu! GS: Lulu activates Evade bonus! GS: Tidus takes a glancing hit from Seymour Guado's Shattering Claw for 108 hit points! GS: Tidus takes a glancing hit from Seymour Guado's Multi-Fire and Multi-Water for 73 hit points! GS: Yuna takes a glancing hit from Seymour Guado's Break for 0 hit points! GS: Entangle and Shieldbreak applied to Yuna! GS: Yuna activates Evade bonus! GS: Yuna takes a glancing hit from Seymour Guado's Shattering Claw for 112 hit points! GS: Yuna takes a solid hit from Seymour Guado's Multi-Fire and Multi-Water for 125 hit points! GS: Seraph Boudicca guards a hit from Seymour Guado's Mortibslasher for 166 hit points! GS: Seraph Boudicca fully evades Seymour Guado's Multi-Fira for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Boudicca gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Seraph Boudicca activates Evade bonus! GS: Ivan guards a hit from Seymour Guado's Break for 0 hit points! GS: Entangle and Shieldbreak applied to Ivan! GS: Ivan activates Guard bonus! GS: Ivan guards a hit from Seymour Guado's Shattering Claw for 116 hit points! GS: Ivan activates Guard bonus! GS: Ivan takes a glancing hit from Seymour Guado's Multi-Fire and Multi-Water for 67 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Ivan gains 1 additional Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.
There's a pause in the battle as Lunata hears Jacqueline's more quiet realisation. About what Seymour must've lost to come to that realisation.
It's a realisation she herself knows, but it doesn't make the words any less meaningful.
"Yeah," Lunata answers. "And..."
A long, very thoughtful pause.
"I know also how much it hurts to hear people who're in the thick of it talk about how much life is meaningful, and what it means to them. Because it makes you go, 'why don't I feel that way?' ... you can get buried inside those feelings, so so deep..."
There's a faint grimace, as Lunata readies herself for what's to come; there's that spell again -- a spell she faint knows Lulu speaking as the ultimate Black Magic; the last time, she had Yuna's reflective barrier up. No such luck, and she also isn't savvy enough to know what a Starveil is.
The resultant blow is... grievous, as Ge Ramda nearly dissipates from the extreme shock of the nuclear waves; she's down on one knee, scuffed and battered, but she withstands with a grimace, buoyed only by the faith others have in her. She's searching for Shalune, trying to make sure she's still up and running. A pause, as she beckons for her attention at this next part:
"Also, the world taking something from me, well... I never told you what I did before, did I?"
Lunata has a scuffed, toothy grin. Then she's two-- no, four, no, five; afterimages dance and swan about as she charges straight through the swirl of fire and water, all the more grazed as she finds aerial superiority.
"I was a waitress. The world taking something from you's kinda part of the whole gig!! So, Seymour--"
A glint of light catches her blade, as she descends one by one -- divebombing the form of Natus in an explosion of energy at its core, forming a cross-shaped pattern of it.
"Welcome to the Starfall Saloon!! Can I take your order?!"
GS: Lunata Croze spends 1 Combo on Poison! GS: Lunata Croze has attacked Seymour Guado with Rosario Impale! GS: Lunata Croze has gained 1 Combo! GS: Lunata Croze takes 28 damage from Poison! GS: Lunata Croze has completed her action. GS: Seymour Guado takes a solid hit from Lunata Croze's Rosario Impale for 244 hit points! GS: Poison applied to Seymour Guado!
<Pose Tracker> Tidus has posed.
Yikes. *Yikes*. Remind Tidus never to make Lulu mad. That being said, her fury is honestly awe-inspiring, in the same way the massive conflagration that follows is awe-inspiring, in the same way a volcanic eruption is awe-inspiring. The fury of Mother Nature, and the fury of Lulu, *demands* awe, right before it reduces one to ash. Maybe Father Zuke is plenty avenged without his help.
'He's... mad,' Cecilia utters. "No kidding," Tidus calls her way. "Don't worry--we're all on the same page here! None of us are gonna let Seymour carry out his sick destruction fantasies!" Somehow, it's easier this way--reassuring someone else, rather than dwelling on his own worries. Marivel's teasing future scenario for him helped a lot, too, even if it makes Rikku laugh at him a bit. (He gives her a wry look, but no worries, no offense taken; he sees her apologetic look back.) Because...
'Do you have what he does? Will you give into despair--will you see the futility of your life? As he did? Tell me, Tidus!'
Tidus makes a face. "You talk too much, *Seymour*!" he spits.
Seymour turns his unrelenting madness into powerful assaults back on everyone, but with particular nuclear force on Marivel and fiery force on Mariel. "Mariel! Marivel! Watch out!" Tidus shouts, possibly too late--they're both a little too far for him to run to their rescue, and anyway, Seymour's wailing on him as hard as he is everyone else. Yuna stands up against him, beautiful and poised and with so much strength and nobility despite all the hell she's been through that Tidus's heart just aches with admiration and adoration for her, and Seymour responds with that beam of light. Tidus manages to backstep out of its way, avoiding the petrification, but by the time he realizes what's happening to everyone *else*, the Mortibody is raking across him, *exploding* him, because there's plenty of stone to be had around here even without his having been struck directly.
His body smokes, which is really quite alarming, but he rolls over with a groan and picks himself back up. He looks over at Seymour Natus to see *him* smoking, specifically with pyreflies. "This is it...! This is our chance!" he says, voice rising to shout at everyone. "He was like this just before we beat him back at the Baskar Village! That last round left us all hurting, but this is the last push! Everybody, let's give him everything we've got!!"
Lead by example: Tidus launches himself up, the rubber soles of his shoes providing traction against the broken ground, and forward, sword leading the way. There's no cleric to jump in the way to take the hit for Seymour, and his living body is long gone. When Tidus sprints back and forth all around the Unsent, slicing and slashing as he goes, there's no more need for hesitation.
The end is here, all right. For *him*.
GS: Tidus spends 1 Combo on Link! GS: Tidus has attacked Seymour Guado with Slice and Dice! GS: Tidus has launched an attack Link! GS: Tidus has attacked Seymour Guado with Quick Hit! GS: Tidus has gained 1 Combo! GS: Tidus's Avenger stance ends. GS: Quick expired! GS: Tidus has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.
The understanding of death is --
Certainly Boudicca understands where she has been, and this time when she takes flight from the flame which threatens to consume her, she manages to run faster than fire. Too late does she realise her winding path has brought her too close to Seymour's altar - his claws.
Down they come.
Down she goes.
She is down for some moments, and when she rises she has not quite given the energy to repairing her shell. There are deep gashes torn through the steel of her armour, where her heart should be, down to her liver. It is a bloodless gap: but surely it tore through.
The back of her armour is torn in just the same place, after all.
But the understanding of death is secondary to another understanding; fallen leaves and wild gardens. Look, there; it is subtle, but the sparkle of pollen is still visible on the light steel of that plate. Mariel's flower is the mystery which brings Boudicca back upwards, the strength of the Elw.
"Neither Filgaia nor Lunar deserves the wickedness you seek," Boudicca speaks against him, with less volume but no less anger. "Its people are not broken to deny you. You horrific wraith... the moment you deny their will, you become their foe! Actions taken on their behalf in spite of their beliefs --"
Well, it's not like she's speaking entirely hypothetically, that woman who stood vigil at the mountains and abjured any attempt they made to cross them.
"-- this sources 'misery'!"
Her hands have been empty, this whole time. It is how she acts for Filgaia: she empowers the mortals who would defend the world. But Boudicca does not only act for Filgaia; and magic is not all which is given to her. Tidus calls for one final push, and Boudicca grasps her tonfa in her hand, and she will find a friend in his methods --
-- because she springs in to strike Seymour in close quarters, too, coming up from below before she slams down from above, in a swift aerial manoeuvre.
GS: Seraph Boudicca spends 1 Combo on Link! GS: Seraph Boudicca has attacked Seymour Guado with Cerberus Strike! GS: Seraph Boudicca has launched an attack Link! GS: Seraph Boudicca has attacked Seymour Guado with Soaring Blast! GS: Seraph Boudicca has gained 1 Combo! GS: Seraph Boudicca has completed her action. GS: Seymour Guado takes a solid hit from Tidus's Slice and Dice for 180 hit points! GS: Seymour Guado takes a solid hit from Tidus's Quick Hit for 100 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.
"Sorry," Marivel smiles at Tidus. It's a small genuine smile that even reaches her eyes. It's the sort of smile that makes Marivel's other smiles look like bush leagues. "But when the bad guy starts screaming about becoming the Antilife, it's a hero's responsibility to shout about their hopes and dreams. I had no choice." Does she expect Yuna to be the mother of those children? Or grandchildren? She makes no expectations. Perhaps they love each other, indeed they certainly do, but love is a complicated thing and comes in many forms. Love is plain to see, readily visible, but its form is always amorphous. Sometimes, it even carries a sword.
Marivel knows more about the truth of Sin than she cares to let on but it was a promise to keep it silent and while Marivel likes to hear herself speak, she always keeps her promises even if she doesn't always manage to keep her hopes.
Something ancient. "More than it appears is it?"
She wipes her mouth. "Well, going a little mad now and then can prove educational. But you cannot banish me that easily, Seymour. Sorcery is the science of magic and I am a scientist. Testing presumptions is what science is all about. I'm a little less eager to disrupt seemingly natural processes than you are."
Nuclear power surges through Marivel once more. It's much more potent than the first strike, easily eradicating her barrier and erupting around around her, subsuming her form in its flames. It flenses her skin from her body, burns what remains into black charcoal. Her teeth are melted in her skull, her eyes boil out of her head and burst. Her head is a monstrous skull that does not look like the skull of a human but rather some monstrous thing.
She steps forward, through the flames. "Tis but a vessel," Marivel says, her mouth not moving. Her skull still. Boudicca tries to support someone burned to this extent with MORE FIRE but this is a fire that surges from wtihin. "You haven't hit me yet, Seymour. But I just need to subdue you long enough for Yuna to dance you off. Allow me to show you my nuclear fire."
Guillotine transmogrifies into a staff and she slams it into a ground as she chants a familiar spell.
"I Carry The Hopes Of My People Within Me And Sing The Song Of The--"
She pauses. Her head turns, slightly, towards Yuna. To Tidus. To Boudicca.
Then she laughs once and adds, "No, you do not get to feel the fury of their hope, you who throws away his own people with your war against lie itself."
She leans on her staff. "No, today. I sing not the song of the extinct. Today, I sing the Song of the Living! ARMAGEDDON!!!"
And with that she SLAMS her staff into the floor and sends deluge of darkness forward to engulf Seymour, perhaps giving him but a taste of that oblivion he so craves as light becomes a distant memory within her spell's throes.
But she isn't done.
"These drifters... Their small hopes shall slice thy destiny to ribbons! SPLIT THE ATOM! MEGATON!!!"
And then an eruption of nuclear fire explodes out from within that darkness as the Crimson Noble, the last of her people, channels the devoured soul of an atom bomb purely to cause one ghost a measure of discomfort.
The winds of Boudicca drift along Marivel, casting flecks of her ashen flesh up and around her as if caught in a gentle breeze.
GS: Marivel Armitage has activated a Force Action! GS: Marivel Armitage spends 1 Combo on Link! GS: Marivel Armitage has attacked Seymour Guado with I Carry The Hopes Of My People Within Me And Sing The Song Of The Extinct - Armageddon! GS: Marivel Armitage has launched an attack Link! GS: Marivel Armitage has attacked Seymour Guado with Small Hopes Shall Slice Thy Destiny To Ribbons - Split The Atom MEGATON! GS: Seymour Guado takes a solid hit from Seraph Boudicca's Cerberus Strike for 136 hit points! GS: Disrupt applied to Seymour Guado! GS: Marivel Armitage has completed her action. GS: Seymour Guado takes a solid hit from Seraph Boudicca's Soaring Blast for 32 hit points! GS: Slow applied to Seymour Guado! GS: Seymour Guado takes a solid hit from Marivel Armitage's I Carry The Hopes Of My People Within Me And Sing The Song Of The Extinct - Armageddon for 179 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
Jacqueline is surrounded by the feeling of death... and it is the beauty of a tiny flower trying to survive that helps pull her out of it. Jacqueline concentrates on that feeling - that fleeting sensation of a healthy Filgaia.
She listens too - quietly, as Mariel mentions a promise she made. She really is glad that Mariel is here with them, she thinks.
Jacqueline looks toward Shalune. And then, Seymour is enraged. It's... terrifying, really. He was already unhinged, but he was able to maintain a semblance of control before... But now?
Now, it's as if the madness has overtaken him.
Suddenly, fire and water assault her on all sides. Jacqueline has to hold both of her hands out, stretching her barrier to cover her entire body. But, tired and exhausted, it isn't enough to protect her entirely. She is battered by flame and water both, and forced to her knees... which is when the claws of the Mortibody come slicing toward her. Jacqueline's eyes open wide in surprise, and she quickly draws her cloak around herself and casts her left hand out.
A pillar of stone rises to catch the claws. They shear right through it, continuing onto Jacqueline herself... but, by this point, their momentum has been dulled enough that, rather than slice right through her, they crash into her steelcloth cloak bluntly. Even that, however, is enough to knock the wind right out of her and send her flying, rolling to a stop a few feet away with her glasses clattering to the floor next to her.
Even still, Jacqueline rises yet again. Wheezing and putting on her glasses once more - slightly cracked on the left lens - she stands up.
His wording - the way he insists that once something's taken, it's gone forever. A few things click into place.
"N-no... you haven't." Jacqueline says between breaths. "You're just... running away. You're running away from something that was too horrible for you to handle, aren't you...? And... taking it out on everyone else. Am I wrong?"
Jacqueline straightens up.
"What was it? What happened, Seymour?" She asks. "Who did you lose...?"
Jacqueline exhales, her breath normalizing. She listens to Lunata quietly as she bears her heart. She doesn't have anything to add to that... but, it's so wonderful and nostalgic to hear those words. Jacqueline can't help but smile a little despite herself - despite the situation.
"...You're not the only one who knows how to combine fire and water. Watch." With those words, she lowers herself into a stance that might be familiar to others at this point. It's a spellcasting stance - with a focus on devoting every bit of one's focus toward control over the weaving of sorcerous energy.
In her left hand, a spell of water begins to build - and in the right, fire.
It is fire that comes first. She casts her right hand out, and flames begin to blossom into existance around Seymour, exploding outward with great force. As this happens water begins to build, and build, and build around him, until finally with a sweep of her left hand it crashes toward him in a great wave - extinguishing the flames before vanishing itself.
GS: Seymour Guado takes a solid hit from Marivel Armitage's Small Hopes Shall Slice Thy Destiny To Ribbons - Split The Atom MEGATON for 161 hit points! GS: Seymour Guado has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight! GS: Jacqueline Barber has activated a Force Action! GS: Jacqueline Barber spends 1 Combo on Link! GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Seymour Guado with Spellweaver Stance! GS: Jacqueline Barber has gained 1 Combo! GS: Jacqueline Barber has launched an attack Link! GS: Jacqueline Barber's stance ends. She enters the Avenger stance! GS: Jacqueline Barber spends 1 Combo on Poison! GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Seymour Guado with Dualcast - Tidal Flame! GS: Jacqueline Barber has completed her action. GS: CRITICAL! Seymour Guado takes a solid hit from Jacqueline Barber's Spellweaver Stance for 114 hit points! GS: Seymour Guado has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight! GS: Seymour Guado takes a solid hit from Jacqueline Barber's Dualcast - Tidal Flame for 166 hit points! GS: Poison applied to Seymour Guado! GS: Seymour Guado has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Lulu has posed.
Lulu has the same feeling as Yuna; 'becoming Sin' is impossible, would be absurd if Seymour were not so very intent upon it and instead is chilling. But she has her defiance... and Yuna has her own.
"All of ours," Lulu agrees with Yuna. There is a world that has seen much--she has seen much, in that world, a great deal of awfulness. Lulu can understand a perspective wherein love itself is only the prelude to loss--
And she abjures it. She refuses it. She will not stay in that realm, and her fire will prov her point. She watches Seymour's form spew chips, run a crack up his face. Lulu allows herself a grim look that is not quite a smile, at his snarl to her.
But then there is fire that is not hers. Lulu braces herself, interposing the bangle at her arm between herself and the fireballs, Yuna's faith sustaining her, Mariel's magic reminding her well of life.
But it's the next spell that comes in, that bead of light. Lulu looks to it and is already moving, leaping to the side as it explodes, and the blast briefly engulfs her at its edge, knocking her through the air and to the ground near the other edge of the bridge, burned by atomic flames and still smouldering. She is certainly no longer soaked through from the Via Purifico.
...But Yuna's faith sustains hr, and for all her wounds, she rises. One hand on the ground first, long enameled nails scraping inaudibly against stone before she pushes up. To one knee, and then to both feet, her hair ornaments glinting in the light of more flames. Her dark attire hides soot and blood both well. Her dark makeup does not hide her pride in Yuna's words and attack.
Her rage is not spent, but she cannot so quickly call upon it so freely as before; in time, grief will remain. But before that time, before the night falls...
"You're right about one thing, Maester Seymour," Lulu supplies. She uses his title, but somehow that itself is a cutting kind of word for others to hear it. "I will not be the one to Send you to the Farplane."
She looks to Tidus in his cheering, and sure, his body is still smoking. But he's jumping forward. He's there, up close... and that gives Lulu another opening, she is sure.
She has no more words for Seymour in this moment. But she has one thing, and that is a chill to settle near him, a mist that begins to spread through the air. Water in the air rushes to a center, crystallizing in a flash, and then a massive, jagged chunk of ice erupts, rough and bladed, and shatters.
"...I'll see that dream realized."
GS: Lulu has activated a Force Action! GS: Lulu spends 2 Combo on Headshot! GS: Lulu has attacked Seymour Guado with Blizzaga! GS: Lulu has gained 2 Combo! GS: Lulu takes 20 damage from Poison! GS: Lulu has completed her action. GS: Seymour Guado takes a solid hit from Lulu's Blizzaga for 177 hit points! GS: Cripple and Mute applied to Seymour Guado! GS: Mighty applied to Lulu! GS: Seymour Guado has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Rikku has posed.
The sheer depths of Lulu's rage doesn't startle Rikku at all. She may not know Lulu too well, but she understands that her outward calm does not mean unfeeling. Quite the contrary, she feels it deeply. It's a fact which sad, as much as she respects Lulu for it and how cool she is in the moment.
She doesn't think she could ever say something like that.
And then Mariel presents her counterpoint, as pink sparkles float upon Rikku's nose. She goes cross eyed looking at it as it lands on her nose like a snow-flake.
And then pops, dissipating the effects of the Mortibody's unholy radiance.
"And we'll be right there helping you, Mariel." Rikku promises.
However then... Yuna. Rikku feels something in her chest grow light as Yuna smiles at her. And Rikku is certain it is a smile that holds a promise for their future.
Seymour tries to dispel Yuna's smile so often, and Rikku finds herself so irrationally mad about that. It's certainly not his greatest sin, but to her perhaps it could be. She can see a trio of fireballs forming. And Rikku suddenly gambles on a quick grab. And tosses forward a fish scale. It bursts forth into a bubble of water.
Her targe does the rest of shielding her from it. The flame and steam in turn redden her skin, but it prevents her from being a charred husk. "My kind didn't ask for a savior Seymour! Why do you think we Al Bhed were kidnapping Summoners to begin with? Because we didn't think anyone should have to pay the price of being one!"
And Rikku looks with him with something that seems like equal parts anger and pity, "And that includes you."
She's known about the truth of Spira, in that it inspires people to think they should become saviors. From Marivel she has learned it is the same elsewhere. And now looking upon Seymour, even if she doesn't get it... how he intends to do this, WHY he wants it. She does not doubt that this world that demands saviors sacrifice themselves did this to him.
And then Seymour's composure seems to break, as light shines towards them. Rikku tries to dive out of the way as the Mortibody's light touches her. To her horror, it does. And from the waist down... she starts to change into stone. "Gnnnghhhh! You!" The girl struggles to move, but the weight of her body is now too much, in her attempt to crawl. She doesn't even have time to spout her anger as the claw then extends and strikes the ground.
Stone bursts around her, and Rikku shrieks as it sends her flying.
In the aftermath, her ears are set to ringing. And Rikku lays there in a daze. Then abruptly she sits up, and pats her legs. "Ah-ah!" They're... still stone. And they're cracked, but... intact. And she knows enough about these spells to know that if they're intact they're still there.
"Aha... thought I was a goner..." She says as she seems to laugh off her near death at the hands of being SHATTERED.
And then Tidus calls out an important point, and Rikku looks at Seymour. He looks much diminished, tired. "Everything I've got huh?" From her seated position, Rikku suddenly reaches into whatever pouches aren't petrified, hastily cobbling something up. "Seymour... if you really want to be the savior of my people..." Pulling a pin, she suddenly hurls an object, "... then I think I'll show my appreciation by giving you a statue."
It flies towards Seymour, with an ominous plink when it gets too close, and a sudden spread which seems like it might be ominous in it's likely petrifying possibilities.
GS: Rikku has attacked Seymour Guado with Use: Petrify Grenade! GS: Rikku has gained 1 Combo! GS: Rikku has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Venetia Vuong has posed.
Seymour reveals the depth of his power, his transfigurations. It is like the sea compared to a comfortably sized lake (as Venetia assesses herself): you might mistake one for the other, but there IS a difference. Having dispelled what ley-like energy she could gather in the double-timed invocation of Faceter, Venetia is momentarily on the backfoot.
He defies them. Or are we defying him? Venetia thinks. She wipes blood from her lip with her wrist and a moment later --
"Rahgh!" Venetia snarls at Seymour. However, he gets the final word a moment later, for fire and water both fall upon her. Venetia yields ground, snapping out her other Crest of the moment and twisting it upwards; several marble pillars sprout outwards, shattering and collapsing into white-glossy rubble and bursting the water, and in the case of one of them, a fireball; a last one smashes near her, and she shrieks for a moment, but she doesn't fall. The passing wind whips the mask off her face, and she slaps a hand momentarily over her eyes:
In the moment, the beam touches her.
Stone washes up her legs like a cold and rigid tide. Venetia stares down, the unnatural sensation a prelude to - to nothing good. It is at her knees, too far up to leap away from, before she can even gather her thoughts. It circles up the waist as she tightens herself, striving to stand steady as --
-- is it full body or burst --
-- it is burst; the blast smashes out and around her, ripping shreds in skin and flesh and boots as she staggers again. Her heart pounds. Venetia stares downwards at the ground, her body too stunned to tell her directly how bad it is. She stares at droplets of blood -- droplets, she thinks. Droplets. She tenses, and the blood flow does not tear, and -
That is when she looks upwards and towards Seymour.
... who is, nonetheless, all the way over there. Fortunately, there is a solution for this problem, and as Venetia watches the glorious strike of Lunata Croze, Tidus's call to action, and winces at the actinic brightness of Marivel's sorcery, she says to herself, "Everything dies..."
She dumps the brass on the ground, and slots in what rounds she can find. "But what dies can some day come back. Surely you'd see how that works..."
Venetia closes the action of the gunsmoke arm, leans back against the edge of the bridge, and raises the weapon again, and when the way is momentarily clear - between tide, flame, glacier and more besides - she pulls the trigger.
<Pose Tracker> Mariel has posed.
Mariel looks like an easy target for Seymour. She is kneeling, a flower in her hands and surrounded by little more than the little sparks of life she's drawn - mostly from herself - to try to push against his dark miasma.
And she's working entirely on feel. This is like nothing she's ever done before - like nothing she even really knew she could do, except for the time she drew the flower out in Rek'gora's presence. She's lived on Filgaia to see its decline, and the only thing she can think of it as feeling close to is when she tried to coax the lands around the Decaying Labyrinth back to life. She couldn't do it then, even over months. It was too much.
But she has to try. She saw the world hurt once, by accident; she would not see it hurt again by one man's crazed desire. If she can, even for a moment...
...and for a moment, it works.
Fireballs rain around Mariel as Tidus shouts his warning; she's too busy to reply. She can't counterspell them - she wouldn't know where to start, having never made a study of that sort of magic - but she can feel the energy that makes them up, and everything Seymour is doing has that same tinge of *wrongness* to it. It is caught in the cloud of pink and purple lights, guided gently off course; all of them slam down around Mariel but none of them quite make contact with her. Still, she's collecting an assortment of small burns just by sitting there.
Unfortunately, whatever she is doing both takes a lot out of her, and leaves her slow to react, physically. Nothing she can do can stop the claw from cutting into her, striking down. Mariel loses her mental focus, and the little sparks of life wink out, fading into the world around her as she takes the blow, tumbling several yards before coming to a stop.
She's bleeding. The wound is deeper than she'd like, but she doesn't think it's deadly in and of itself... but it's always harder to tell on yourself, through the pain. She tries to push herself up, half-succeeds, tries a second time and makes it to her knees again.
Mariel reaches one hand up toward the wound in her side. She has a poultice already in hand with the flower pressed gently against it, which she holds against her side as she rises. She really is unsteady on her feet, now with the injury adding more to that, but there's a little more she can do; Mariel opens a little satchet with her free hand, tossing it in an arc toward Seymour and scattering the tiny grains of pure salt within. It is all she can think to do; to send him away. Not Send, but... it's something.
These are her friends. She needs to support them. She has no energy for words anymore, but this - this she can do.
GS: Venetia Vuong spends 1 Combo on Gatling, loading 1 into Gatling! GS: Venetia Vuong has attacked Seymour Guado with Revelation of a Firearm's Dream! GS: Hyper and Surge expired! GS: Venetia Vuong has completed her action. GS: Mariel has attacked Seymour Guado with Purifying Salt! GS: Mariel has completed her action. GS: Sneak! The true nature of Rikku's attack becomes clear! GS: CRITICAL! Seymour Guado takes a solid hit from Rikku's Mix: Cluster Bomb for 237 hit points! GS: Cripple and Jam applied to Seymour Guado! GS: Seymour Guado has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Rikku has posed.
Except that's not what happens when Rikku's grenade goes off. Because a moment later what spreads through the air are numerous smaller explosions, blossoming everywhere around his massive Unsent form.
"Kidding! You don't deserve one - it's just more explosions!"
<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.
Seymour offers 'sleep' -- of an eternal kind, no doubt, which he seeks to bring about with burning steam and raking claws. Ivan is seared by the water-and-fire assault, and caught in a stone grip, before the Mortibody attacks. As the stone shatters, Ivan staggers.
Someone who wishes to bring death to everyone... who has already proven he has the power to bring forth another Sin, who wishes to be Sin...
This is more than just a matter of pushing past him to regain their freedom; this person and his ambition has to be stopped, or the world could get so much crueler... maybe the world could end.
He hears the others--asserting their resolve or trying to get through to him. In particular, Jacqueline Barber asking him who he lost... was it some trauma that convinced him that losing something is the same as never having it?
"If that's how it feels for you, I can't tell you how to see the world, but you've got to let people find their own meaning in their pain!"
A pattern of hand movements summons a cloud of tiny, crackling stars. They rush toward Seymour, dancing and twinkling, before they burst into explosions all around him.
GS: Ivan spends 1 Combo on Gatling, loading 1 into Gatling! GS: Ivan has attacked Seymour Guado with Stars of Fury! GS: Ivan takes 28 damage from Poison! GS: Ivan has completed his action. GS: Seymour Guado takes a solid hit from Venetia Vuong's Revelation of a Firearm's Dream for 62 hit points! GS: Seymour Guado has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight! GS: Seymour Guado takes a solid hit from Mariel's Purifying Salt for 86 hit points! GS: Seymour Guado has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight! GS: Seymour Guado takes a solid hit from Ivan's Stars of Fury for 199 hit points! GS: Seymour Guado has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.
Mortibody is a much-abused horrible monster-bug/primary weapon. If it's true that all actions produce an equal and opposite reaction, then the way that the stone cracks and shatters beneath the godbody of Fengalon is a clear indication of how much punishment Seymour's weapon must be enduring. Cyre receives the cataclysmic blow with arms crossed over his head. The ground beneath his feet gives way before his guard does, legs and knees buckling before the force of the strike.
And still, he does not fall.
There's too much at stake here. Too much that could go wrong. Lunar could not survive the manifestation and maturation of another Clysmian. And so he pushes on, though exhaustion is seeping into his soul as he strains to maintain the Nahual state.
It's a struggle. A pale light washes over him, pinning him in place. His very nature rails against it, every atom struggling to escape- to be free of these bonds, and not merely because he knows what is about to come.
Death. The Mortibody slams into the ground, the stone exploding into a storm of shrapnel like coffin nails burying deep into the flesh and essence of the Wind God Shintai. He screams in pain and the air itself reverberates in sympathy. Death comes--
And it is the strength and resilience of a tiny flower that pushes it back at the last.
The pained scream turns into a defiant roar. As the wave of pulverizing power passes, Cyre stands with his body half-obliterated and yet, standing in stubborn rejection of the inevitability of it all. "...Running away, huh?" Jay's conclusion resonates. The god-tiger seems to sigh, its nearly-broken form sagging from the sudden onset of exhaustion. "...That I can understand. Wanting to run away from something painful... Is normal. That, too, is what being human is about. Desperation... Is something I know far too well."
In the next instant, that sense of utter exhaustion is gone-- and so is the tiger.
Because it moves faster than the eye can follow. The only sign of its passage is the vague distortion of air left in its wake--
And then Seymour would see it. Or rather, he would hear it first. Or rather, the slight popping of the eardrum would precede the howl of wind would precede the feeling of a beast's enormous claws raking into him to try and tear jagged canyons through his sepulchral form.
"I'm sorry that you could never find a place to call home, no matter how far you ran," Cyre says from somewhere behind Seymour's back, even as the air begins to hum around the unsent maester, singing an ominous tune. "But even so, I really don't feel bad about doing this. Even if the Aquvian Baskar are jerks, to use them to bring death upon the world..."
Deafening, the hum builds to a crescendo as the sound barrier abruptly catches up to the Nahual. A catastrophic shockwave barrels through, tracing the path Cyre had taken until it smashes into the unsent with all the force of a hurricane making landfall. "...Is something that can't be forgiven!"
GS: Cyre H. Lorentz has activated a Force Action! GS: Cyre H. Lorentz spends 1 Combo on Link! GS: Cyre H. Lorentz has attacked Seymour Guado with Gale Claw! GS: Cyre H. Lorentz has gained 1 Combo! GS: Cyre H. Lorentz has launched an attack Link! GS: Cyre H. Lorentz's stance ends. He enters the Avenger stance! GS: Cyre H. Lorentz has attacked Seymour Guado with Hypersonic Resonance! GS: Cyre H. Lorentz enters a Counter stance! GS: Cyre H. Lorentz has gained 2 Combo! GS: Cyre H. Lorentz has completed his action. GS: Seymour Guado takes a solid hit from Cyre H. Lorentz's Gale Claw for 178 hit points! GS: Seymour Guado has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight! GS: Seymour Guado takes a solid hit from Cyre H. Lorentz's Hypersonic Resonance for 180 hit points! GS: Seymour Guado has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Cecilia Adlehyde has posed.
Cecilia has an appreciation for Lulu's brutal hatred. She's had to be her party's outlet for violent sorcerous rage, after all. This time, what she feels is more like a steel conviction. She manages a thin smile for Tidus. "Yes, of course. Together we will stop him. We've done the same before with madder creatures than this."
WAS Mother madder than this? She wonders. Perhaps it's best not to make it a contest, she decides. Seymour's eruption of fire and Death rages down on her. She bashes some of it aside with her magic, but then a blast wave of breaking magic rips through her defenses, stripping them away. She can't stop it, this time.
Then, her shields down, the Mortibody's raking claw slashes across her belly, sending blood and fabric flying as she careens into the air, then lands in an ungainly pile with a nasty "WHOOF!"
She slams a palm against the ground. Her eyes scan around. Marivel seems fine. Venetia's holding up. Mariel's holding up, if only just. Alright. They've got to end this. She presses her hand to her chest, and feels an ember remaining from channeling Boudicca's power. Yes. Alright. "Thank you," she says, perhaps loud enough to be heard, though who it's directed at is unclear. She forces herself up, slowly.
She grabs that ember from within, and reaches down to place it in a Medium in her case, which she withdraws. She thrusts this forward, eyes on Seymour. "Words are useless on you," she says, tired. "There's only one thing to do with something like you. Come! Material!"
The emblem of fire scatters to leylight, and behind her, the tremendous phoenix of Moor Gault screams into existence. It spreads its wings wide, and the stone under those wings begins to sear and char, exposed to sudden, tremendous heat.
Cecilia tries to find Seymour's eyes beneath that twisted form. "Vapor Blast!" she screams, before the heat suddenly blazes, searing even this thing beyond death to dust, she hopes.
GS: Cecilia Adlehyde has attacked Seymour Guado with Material - Vapor Blast! GS: Surge expired! GS: Cecilia Adlehyde has completed her action. GS: Seymour Guado takes a solid hit from Cecilia Adlehyde's Material - Vapor Blast for 188 hit points! GS: Seymour Guado has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Shalune Amira has posed.
Shalune grits her teeth against the impending explosion - or tries to, at least, except Seymour is screaming in what seems to her to almost be anguish, and she simply can't leave that alone without trying in some small fashion to respond to it.
Instead, the air ignites around her. There's a soft yelp that becomes a strangled noise of pain, and this time she isn't able to hold on through it. It's only sheer luck that, when she's thrown back by the explosion, she lands on the Highbridge itself rather than fall off the side; the Little Dipper skitters across the stone, and nearly pitches off before the engineer's survival instincts - honed more for the preservation of technology over saving her own skin - make her reach out to grab it.
She's not out for the count - her other hand immediately starts to lift her off the ground - but there's not a lot of strength to her right now either, and she sinks back down, only lifting her head to watch Lunata's falling strike and Jacqueline's tidal wave as both resound with a distinct finality.
Jacqueline's question still rolls around in her mind; with it lodged there, she can't really bring herself to launch another attack on Seymour, and besides, it's not like she's in much state to. But something makes her move anyway; gathering her strength into her arms she heaves herself up once more and back into a sitting position, lifting her head up towards the combat as she catches her breath.
Something tells her she should at least witness the end, for Lunata's sake. And something tells her she should probably greet the pair with a quiet smile afterwards, just to make sure they're all alright.
GS: Shalune Amira has attacked Shalune Amira with Still Standing! GS: Shalune Amira takes 25 damage from Poison! GS: Shalune Amira has completed her action. GS: Shalune Amira accepts Shalune Amira's Still Standing for 0 hit points! Disease prevents the heal! GS: Shield applied to Shalune Amira!
<Pose Tracker> Yuna has posed.
Seymour drowns Yuna in a deluge of water and flame. He encases what's left of her in stone, then shatters her. Enormous shards flake off of her shoes, her skirt... and, at her bare ankles, he claims another pound of flesh.
Gasping, she stumbles, falls to her abused knees, which bark on impact. She was already in a bad way before this fight even started. Now she is much worse. And so are all her friends. And so is all Spira, if this goes on...
Yuna's aeons are in a bad way, too.
Roll call!
* Shiva - made a lot underwater challenges, not. 0 MP.
* Ifrit - wrecked by Belize's Shiva.
* Ixion - wrecked by Belize's Leviathan.
* Bahamut - at like, 1 HP. See also: Ixion.
Valefor, though... Valefor wasn't harmed by their extreme skydiving exercise. If anything, it was very much the opposite. The moment, the miracle of connection that summoned her, was a moment and miracle of culmination as well. She had never felt closer to the fayth of Besaid. They love flight. They love FREEDOM.
Who is Seymour, to speak to them of LIBERATION?
Seymour, who through violence and death seized her from her family and imprisoned her in Bevelle? Seymour, who tried to bind her through holy rites, and just for cruelty's sake, just for power's, claimed her lips, instead, once he knew she would speak him no oaths?
Valefor was also the first aeon that Seymour, in death, ever banished... it was agony, upon Filgaia. And a very long time until they were, very recently, very gloriously reunited.
Now her fayth wants to go through that again. Every pyrefly in their soulchild's body, ripped away, every conjured atom rent asunder. All for a moment.
Just one moment of existence.
'I will not permit the people of Spira to have WILL,' snarled Seymour.
'This is it...! This is our chance!' shouts Tidus.
'Neither Filgaia nor Lunar deserves the wickednes you seek,' says Boudicca.
'Their small hopes shall slice thy destiny to ribbons!' promises Marivel.
'Watch,' instructs Jacqueline.
'I'll see that dream realized,' declares Lulu.
'My kind didn't ask for a savior, Seymour!' cries Rikku.
'Everything dies... but what dies can some day come back,' murmurs Venetia.
'You've got to let people find their own meaning in their pain!' yells Ivan.
'That, too, is what being human is about, observes Cyre.
'Together we will stop him,' smiles Cecilia.
Just one moment of existence... that's all anyone has...
FAITH
FAITH
One moment is all they need.
Will burns in Yuna's eyes as, locking gazes with Seymour's insufficiently broken face, she presses her empty palms -- well, one will never again be truly empty, not of its brand -- to the remnant stone of the bridge.
One vast summoning rune, then many smaller others, spinning in a mandala, blossom beneath her like a flower.
<SoundTracker> Wings - Reprise - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJTXDCh2YiA
A seed of white light -- Yuna's light, the same light as before -- grows in each of the outer runes. Then they too bloom, each exploding a sphere of raw power up into the sky.
When they collide, high above, the scent of peaches washes over the battlefield...
...and Valefor takes wing...
...Valefor, who almost none of her friends were close enough to the edge of the Tower of Light to see. Valefor who flew by implication, by gasps of awe from the warrior-monks.
Now, at last, they see what all Yevon saw.
The sacred avian has become more... intense. Her entire existence is such. Her hues more vibrant. Her wingspan greater, yet her body denser also, not only more beautiful but also more powerful, or perhaps that division is misunderstanding only, perhaps her beauty and power are one. Each wingbeat gently stirs the hair and clothes of those below, until she furls them -- time is of the essence -- and plunges, to land with unfair yet wholly appropriate gentleness at Yuna's side.
Yuna runs her fingers beneath the plumage at Valefor's neck, scratches beneath her beak, then accepts a nudge from the great bird's head. It is difficult to say where Yuna ends and Valefor begins, as she rises.
Now they're both on their feet.
They share a look -- then, as one, turn to stare once more at Seymour. At his misery and his madness. At his unbelievable capacity for harm.
His final living plea was for her not to pity him.
She -- they -- deny him that, once more.
Yuna thrusts her palm into the air and Valefor, simultaneously, explodes upwards with an earsplitting cry, a shriek of challenge and defiance and, inexorably, joy, joy to once again have taken flight. Even though it's tactically unsound she turns a swift loop-de-loop; she cannot be anything but what she is.
Then, with a shake of her head, she traces a vast circle in midair with the tip of her immense ponytail, while Yuna, below, lowers her outthrust arm from pointing at the heavens, to pointing at the one who would threaten not just one but every earth.
Magic lingers in the path of her vast mane's swing. But that's only the beginning.
Reality yields to Valefor -- now not only does she feel MORE real, but everything else is LESS, the whole world darkening, nothing exists but the bird, The Bird Is The Word. The bird, and the magic glowing, growing within her beak. It isn't flame or lightning or ice or water. It just... is.
Maybe it's like Yuna's healing, in that extreme moment.
Maybe her analysis in her duel with Belize was wrong.
Maybe Valefor, too, is an elemental.
The element of love...
Sometimes love carries a sword... and sometimes love spreads its wings.
The circle she traced has become a runic circle, with three recipient nodes. When the magic in her mouth has reached its climax, when there is nothing left to see in the world but a white-pink wholly the opposite of the white-gray miasma Seymour's mortibody had summoned... the circle spins.
Spins, and accelerates the energy leaking from Valefor's entire body. An all but endless barrage of energy, it strikes and strikes and strikes and strikes again, yet never -- not even once -- strikes one of those brave enough to engage Seymour in melee. It is a phenomenal expression of both power and control.
Control Yuna didn't have, when she faced Seymour at Macalania.
"Death has diminished you, Seymour," she exclaims, then realizes she said her thought out loud. She presses two fingers over her lips, flustered by her accidental rudeness.
But she has grown.
They all have grown...
Not just her, and not just Valefor.
They are all so much more than they were.
How much more can they become, together?
"...there's... no need... for you to pity the living," she concludes, more deliberately.
DC: You switch forms to Valefor! DC: Yuna switches forms to Valefor!
GS: Yuna has activated a Force Action! GS: You have activated the Force Action Snipe! GS: Yuna spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Yuna has attacked Seymour Guado with Energy Blast! GS: Yuna has gained 1 Combo! GS: Yuna has completed her action. GS: CRITICAL! Seymour Guado takes a solid hit from Yuna's Energy Blast for 285 hit points! GS: Seymour Guado has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Seymour Guado has posed.
There is a brief moment, when Seymour looks at Lunata, when his expression is something besides a rictus mask of anger and righteousness. There is a moment where the mask is down; where he is, once again, a pale-eyed boy staring at what used to be his mother, and finds that his heart isn't filled with sadness... but hollowed out, like there isn't any more emptiness. It isn't a blank expression; it is something worse.
Of all the people that Seymour has known...
He wanted Yuna to understand him.
He thought Belize might understand him.
He thought that K.K. might seek to understand him.
But only Lunata Croze understood.
BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ge18n2JCwBs
And then she descends. The battle is back; his mask is back up. The blade pierces through him, chest to back, and he crumples forward, energy exploding outward. He is slammed backward, and Tidus is on him. "Tidus!" Seymour shouts, anger writ large on his face again. His blade slams into him, breaking past stone -- pyreflies exploding out with each impact. Boudicca's tonfas join, each blow shattering pieces of stone. The altar on his back cracks; pieces fall, as she batters him repeatedly. Marivel's nuclear blast slams him backward; his arm cracks, then explodes away into fragments of stone and pyreflies.
Jay asks him questions -- but he gives no answers. Fire slams into him, exploding all about, and then the wave of water bowls him over. Lulu's ice explodes up, under him, and slams into him. Rikku's grenade flies -- hits him -- and explodes into so many fiery blasts. Venetia's ARM fires, a blast blasting chips of stone out of his side.
His protections begin to unwind and vanish -- whisked away by them. A moment later, Ivan's crackling fiery stars strike -- and explode, one after the other, even as Seymour tries to rise. His eyes meet Ivan's -- angry -- but he cannot find words. Cyre's shockwave, a moment later, blows him back towards the center of Highbridge. Pieces of him crumble, falling away, in the aftermath.
He looks less like a person, and more like broken statuary. Cecilia's flame, guided by Moor Gault, engulfs him; the flames rage and a circle is burnt black in the center of Highbridge.
Valefor's blast of light comes down. It hits the center of the circle -- it hits Seymour. There is another, brilliant explosion of light that flashes up into the air. It fades, then, and the Seymour that lay there is the blue-robed man, not the Unsent monstrosity. Pyreflies hover about him. His left hand's fingers flicker -- and then fade away, pyreflies drifting. His eyes blink.
"Is... is this to be my end...?" he asks, his voice weakened.
Then the mountainside explodes.
Superheated chunks of rock fly out from above. They come raining down -- streamers of red, smoke trailing off, as they go crashing down for the crystalline forest of Macalania below. A gaping hole is torn in the side of the mountain, smoke rising from it, and then the thing that tore the hole arcs through the air: a rainbow.
A twisting thing, energy of a thousand different strands of light, in pale greens, whites, blacks, and off-hue blues. It slams down into the middle of Highbridge. It sheers through the stones, which explode apart in a moment.
It begins to collapse underneath their feet. But, they are fast -- and Seymour is beaten and broken. The bridge gives way -- and Seymour topples down with the rocks, falling after. Pyreflies trail up after him, as he descends into the darkness.
The air, finally, falls still. A few last pyreflies drift away. And, not so far away now, Macalania awaits.
<Pose Tracker> Tidus has posed.
No wonder the Al Bhed blitzball team is called the Psyches; Rikku hits Seymour with a psyche of her own when her 'statue' turns out to be a cluster bomb. "Hah!" Tidus crows, leaping back to enjoy the fireworks from a safer distance. (Fortunately he was already on the other side of Seymour Natus when the grenade came in.) "Good one, Rikku!"
Marivel apologizes with a genuine smile, and Tidus scoffs but smiles back. "*Excuses*." Whether he'd like Yuna to be the mother/grandmother to his progeny is a question he /absolutely is not/ going to answer right now, so in that sense, it's good they've still got a battle to wrap up.
"Madder than Seymour? That's scary to think about," he quips to Cecilia.
And then, Yuna summons Valefor. Tidus saw her the first time Yuna summoned her, and right now is very much like back then--but also different. He pauses to stare in wonder, to admire--and then to back off even more when the Energy Blast descends. Yuna's gotten even stronger, he realizes, and he's proud of her for it. Proud of all of them, really, to be able to stand up in the face of something as horrible as Seymour and send him packing.
He does wonder, though--
'You're running away from something that was too horrible for you to handle, aren't you...? What was it? What happened, Seymour? Who did you lose...?'
--but not for very long. Jay's very nice, but Tidus just doesn't have it in him to sympathize with Seymour.
He doesn't shout back at the late Maester this time. He just watches as everyone's combined forces absolutely *wreck* the Unsent--until suddenly a rainbow erupts from the mountainside and destroys the Highbridge below him. With a mental '?!' Tidus watches as Seymour falls, trailing pyreflies in his wake. In the stillness that follows, he slowly, carefully walks up to the edge and stares down into the abyss into which the man he hates has vanished.
"And *stay* down!" he shouts.
Satisfied, Tidus turns and heads back to his friends--to Yuna. With the battle adrenaline seeping away, he finds himself bone-tired, but he knows he's far from the worst off. He looks around at the assembled Drifters and gives them all a smile. "Thanks, everyone. We did it. Now... let's get the heck out of here, before the *next* horrible thing happens, yeah?"
It's an attempt at a joke, but his laughter is weak. Still, Tidus gazes over at Yuna and watches her for a moment. ...They still need to talk. Maybe soon, once they've gotten to safety, they'll have the chance to do it.
Either way, he picks up the pace, both for getting out of this terrible place and in helping the others as needed get along on their way. They *all* need a lot of rest after this.