2021-07-04: Inflexible Determination (HD)
- Log: Inflexible Determination (HD)
- Cast: Gon Guado (plus certain others), Jacqueline Barber, Seraph Boudicca, Kaguya, Pearl, Marivel Armitage, White Knight Leo, Cyre H. Lorentz, Billy Lee Black
- Where: Zanarkand Ruins
- Date: July 04, 2021
- Summary: Just beyond the treacherous journey up Mt. Gagazet, one Guado loyalist to Seymour still draws breath even after his kind were routed in the attack against the Ronso. Spira is at the cusp of a time of irreversible change - at what point can he no longer deny a truth that will undo everything he has ever worked for? Where Gon's martial arts acumen has been found wanting before the new and novel disciplines and tactics of Otherworlders... he has yet to show the fullest reaches of his mastery of White Magic when combined with his peoples' ability to shape pyreflies into Fiends in his final stand.
============================<* Zanarkand Ruins *>============================= Zanarkand was once a thriving metropolis on the northernmost point of Spira - now it is a testament to the folly of a people long since dead. It is also the source of Spira's only hope. The ruins of Zanarkand are thousands of years old, yet much of the crumbling infrastructure still stands, laid out in an unusual, enduring stone. Pyreflies flock to the location, lighting up the area and dancing among the shallow waves. The greatest concentration can be found in the heart of the ruins, in a giant dome - the pyreflies are so strong there that the entire area is almost like a sphere. Memories thought buried can resurface, given voice and physical form, only to vanish a few moments later. At the centre of the dome is said to lie the end of a Summoner's Pilgrimage - the means to obtain Final Aeon and slay Sin. BGM: Final Fantasy X - To Zanarkand
<Pose Tracker> Gon Guado has posed.
The caves of Mount Gagazet are not completely safe, but reaching shelter from the ceaseless blizzards renders the remaining challenges within something of a victory lap before they can reach Zanarkand - this time without the peril and inevitable detours the frequent timely(?) avalanches invite.
Once everyone catches their breath and makes their way through to an exit where snow and ice aren't lying in wait to ambush, they are greeted with daylight the appropriate color for passage between the times of day. Bright golden yellow floods the sky as clouds beneath run orange and those above a smoky purple.
It is no less frigid, though the rocky earth beneath one's feet is devoid of snow... or any moisture. It feels like what's beyond this cave is devoid of life at all - a sense that even drawing breath here is a form of intrusion of a place where only death 'lives.' The air is thinner yet, as if to draw breath at all some sort of affront.
You are not the only 'trespasser' here.
A lanky, slender man with pointed ears with teal-hued hair - a Guado - sits shirtless with his back faced from those approaching Zanarkand. The Guado are known to be physically more frail than most others, and this one's scars are many across prominent veiny 'roots' all over his body. For his advancing age, he maintains about as well-muscled and athletic a frame as he does, for his circumstances.
Pyreflies flit around him in an orbit, rather than from and within - a subtle distinction that Otherworlders might miss, as they speak.
"Time and time again... I have failed my people," a familiar voice laments. The one and only Gon Guado, one of the finest warriors of his people... not that his constant defeats at the hands of novel situations and strange new people and their ways of thinking reflect that. "Their rightful place in Spira weakening by the day. That Spira itself, its very cultural fabric unraveling and eroding right before my eyes... that my own children not only would live to see this, and then become among the envious dead."
Gon rises to his full height and turns around, dispelling one misconception that might arise from the visual of the pyreflies about him. Fog leaves through his nose and mouth, as he breathes - for he still is among the living. That the air itself should freeze him to death does not bother him. There isn't much life in his eyes, however.
"And yet, I am still entrusted by Lord Seymour to see his will done." A man, so stuck into the strict social hierarchies of his people - loyalty to the leader of the Guado and their wishes and desires, no matter how worrisome, destructive, or terrifying. That their sheer arrogance about their place in Spiran society led itself well to horrible acts against the Al Bhed and the Ronso dovetailed neatly with Seymour's nihilistic wishes... is he beyond grasping that troublesome truth for sake of his pride? His perception of what it means to be a Guado?
<Pose Tracker> Gon Guado has posed.
"I have been battered by your... retorts, your beliefs, your belligerence, for long enough," Gon musters back up some emotion in his voice, some fire, gesturing with his hands outward as the pyrefly clusters he's gathered take leave of him, coalescing together into a Fiend. That strange, esoteric power a number of Guado boast, the capability to summon Fiends at will.
An enormous ape-like beast emerges in a transparent form that rapidly solidifies, flaming red fur lining its head in a great mane, down their arms, around their hips, and their feet. Both enormous hands and feet terminate in flesh-rending talons, its enormous leathery hide a striking bright blue - one may have been witnessed at Macalania Temple, so long ago.
This is that beast's greatest, most terrible form fused together from unrelenting emotions and thoughts woven into a whole, innumerable in quantity and exacting in granularity.
Coldest-Blooded Beast of Rage Hotter Than Flames
WENDIGO KING
They bellow with a deafening roar as they slam their palms into the ground to shake the entire mountain, and Gon stands unperturbed and undisturbed as he casts a spell whose name and chanting is missed - but not the effect. Ice at its absolute coldest - not as a means of robbing warmth, but some sort of unspoken sorcerous promise of permanence and unchanging structure.
GS: Gon Guado has cast attacked Wendigo King with ?????????!
GS: Wendigo King accepts ????????? from Gon Guado!
GS: ????????? applied to Wendigo King!
Gon's work is not done, as sound returns to the gathered, finishing another spell - one of unrelenting, smoldering inner fire that emboldens and empowers to let one's might draw from an endless wellspring of power, and the Wendigo King flexes its limbs thusly - encased both in the extremes of the White aspects of Fire and Ice - ready to hurl itself into the gathered with reckless abandon for nothing less than utter destruction. (Even that may not be enough.)
"Our ways are set," Gon states as he slips into a ready stance - notably, his bladed gauntlets are missing, now leaving only his bare clawed hands. "You shall see how little you can change the inevitable..."
OST: Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster - Enemy Attack
SPECIAL NOTE: Both Gon Guado and the Wendigo King more or less count as the same target! Feel free to attack whicever target tickles your fancy. Beware, however, an interesting complication will become apparent by the next round...
GS: Gon Guado has attacked Gon Guado with Berserkga! GS: Gon Guado assumes the Avenger stance! GS: Gon Guado accepts Gon Guado's Berserkga for 0 hit points! GS: Burst and Hyper applied to Gon Guado! GS: Mighty applied to Gon Guado! GS: Gon Guado has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
The Caravan Kinship's crossing of Mount Gagazet was fraught with peril. But they did, eventually, succeed in crossing the mountain and, after some time to recuperate, now move forward with their sights on Zanarkand. The hard part is over - now all they have to do is cross through this one last pass and a few caves and they should be in the holy land.
...At least, that is the way it seems, but as Jacqueline Barber moves forward she finds her way barred by none other than Gon Guado.
"...Gon." Jacqueline greets quietly. She can see it, something in his stance and the way she speaks that puts her on edge. And then he says something that sends Jacqueline reeling, taking a few steps back with a look of shock on her face. "Timu and Pani are...? O-oh... oh Gon, I'm so sorry..."
She wracks her brain to find something, anything she can say after what she's just heard... but then, Gon makes his intentions clear as he brings forth a great beast - a king among Wendigos, unleashing a defeaning roar. Jacqueline flinches back, and then shakes her head.
"...Gon. I... We don't have to do this. Please, just stand aside and let us pass. I don't want to fight you. Not like this." She pleads. But she is careful - in one swift movement she turns, using the momentum to fling a bottle of lavender-colored liquid at the feet of his Wendigo, where it smashes upon the ground and unleashes a plume of smoke that drains the strength of those caught in it for too long.
He's done a lot of terrible things, but she can't yet find it in herself to bring harm to a grieving father.
GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Gon Guado with Sapping Solution! GS: Jacqueline Barber has completed her action. GS: Gon Guado takes a solid hit from Jacqueline Barber's Sapping Solution for 0 hit points! GS: Weaken applied to Gon Guado!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.
"You are mistaken!"
Do not forbid breath itself to come when all breath is come to this place, breeze about her, rustling long, long braids and the silk trim of plate armour. Boudicca has left the girls with her travelling companions -- she would not have abandoned Pani and Timu alone, but here, where the air is thin, it is practical to send the air to find the path away.
"Though proud Timu was shy to ask our aid, they climbed this mountain with determination to their hearts! They withstood the scepticism of those around them, to do what they felt was right! Pani shaped strong Fiends to lesser, and Timu warmed us with the fires of her salvation! They are here, just as you stand!"
Boudicca steps forward, arm slashing through the air in an aggrieved motion. There is a high timbre to her alto voice, as though the grief of this father has shaken her no matter his multifarious crimes.
"If you need to feel this anger towards us, then come! Break your anger upon me, the Seraph Boudicca! But do not come to us from this place of sorrow," she grasps her hand to the metal at her chest, "this... this is too cruel even for the likes of you! A father ought not outlive his children. No matter by plague, nor by war..."
... Boudicca isn't talking in theoreticals, is she? This woman, who has watched the villages for centuries...
She shakes her head; she looks to him again, with those grey-green eyes so flooded by an immortal lifetime of tears. "But, this 'rightful place' of yours... know it cannot be placed upon another's neck."
A Seraphic glyph, windy-green, alights around her, and the breeze gusts out towards him.
GS: Seraph Boudicca has attacked Gon Guado with Fateful Wind! GS: Seraph Boudicca has completed her action. GS: Sneak! The true nature of Seraph Boudicca's attack becomes clear! GS: Gon Guado takes a solid hit from Seraph Boudicca's Be Not Afraid for 0 hit points! GS: Restore! Dispel! Burst, Mighty, and Weaken removed!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.
And rather than flensing, the breeze cleanses, gentle and firm. "With clear eyes, come to us! No less!"
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
The Duchess Kaguya Alathfar does not require 'safe'. She appreciates the relative dry and absence of snow in the caves, though--that much is much better. She could say a lot of things about snow and, in fact, the Guard have heard her say a lot of things about snow on the way through. It's still cold, of course, but she and her strange green armor have had a chance to dry out on the trip over.. as she lifts a hand to shield her eyes against the bright golden yellow.
"Nn," she mutters, but shortly it is not just 'an overly bright sunset' that awaits her. It is a man she recognizes, and her eyes narrow. She notices--he's alive, all right.
"...Have you ever considered that maybe your people needed failing?" she wonders, lowering her hand and stepping onto the stone, boots crunching against rock. "Your Lord Seymour needs ending."
Kaguya's pale green eyes cast over the Wendigo King, and its roar is loud enough to shake the ground on which she stances, the shock of their strike at the ground ruffling her hair as she stands there. She watches him cast--ice, and fire, both... White magic. Support.
"Changing the inevitable is pretty much what I'm into," Kaguya says, approaching. Her Guard tabard is white, the pin of House Alathfar gleaming there; beneath, the armor of her Veruni containment suit gleams in the fading sunlight, vivid and virulent green.
"..." She looks down, and then looks up again, hearing Jay talk. 'Timu and Pani.' And then, from Boudicca, news that they yet live. Even so... Even at that cleansing breeze--
"...I know your type. You're not going to stand aside. You're not going to take the lives lost up until now and think maybe violence isn't the answer, maybe we don't need still more... and you know, maybe I'm like that, too. I'm not going to pretend I have any moral high ground on you."
"But you're not going to stand in my way."
"But you could surprise me."
The small Veruni pulls her ARM, the strange white-and-black shotgun of her own work, and loads a gleaming cartridge into it, cla-CLACKing it loaded and taking aim--not at Gon, but at his Fiend, the Wendigo King. Pulling the trigger, Kaguya lets loose a blast of cascading white rings, the concussive force sufficient that it distorts the air itself on its way to the Fiend.
"I doubt it, though."
GS: Kaguya has attacked Gon Guado with Concussion Rounds! GS: Kaguya has gained 1 Combo! GS: Kaguya has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Pearl has posed.
It was not long after the Guard had crested Gagazet that Pearl had said she needed some quiet, and headed into the caves. Realistically, she had to meet up with her Guardian, and discuss what to do there. And she did. She also found a pair of young women in desperate need of help. And much better support than someone like Pearl could offer. She'd done what she could, and then they asked something of her.
'Please help us stop him... him, and Maester Seymour.'
'Very well. I will help you as much as I can. And I had intended to face Maester Seymour if he came into my path. And I will do what I can to keep you safe.'
She should be escorting them herself. She shouldn't have gone ahead, but she decided it better to clear the way ahead, so Pani would not exhaust herself reshaping pyreflies. She'd need her energy. She'd left her littlest Guardian with them, and Jean would be able to watch from the shadows. Or more explicitly, if the guard were occupied.
So now she is here, in front of the man most supportive of her becoming a summoner. Her harsh mentor of Yevon. A strong warrior, dulled by age and his own preconceptions, unable to change. A man she could not actually respect. He reminded her too much of someone else.
"You continue to do so, Sir Gon," Pearl speaks, projecting over the winds of Gagazet, "by joining this march to death and destruction." *You're one to talk.* But he confirms what she thought. And she growls. "...Timu and Pani live, Sir Gon. They march through Gagazet right now to find you. To stop this madness. To stop you." She speaks firmly, like one speaking authority and truth. "And I promised to aid them. Timu asked for my help, and I do not intend to disappoint her."
But it's like talking to a wall. He's so enslaved to his beliefs. He can't change, or shift, even when it means fighjting to the death. The Wendigo King is summoned, and Pearl tenses, pulling her staff in front of her. That's a powerful beast, and not to be underestimated. But... this is not a fight for Leviathan. This is a fight for Pearl herself. To beat some sense into a foolish old man, so his daughters can maybe save him. She starts raising the power of Althena's Blessing.
'Our ways are set.'
"That's why those girls are the only hope the Guado have of a future." Her eyes are hard, as she points her staff. She doesn't chant- chanting would give her away. Darkness seeps out of the ground under the Wendigo, seeping into it, to eat away at it, slow and brutal. This isn't a fight to kill quickly.
She doesn't want Timu and Pani to find a corpse. That means she would have failed them.
GS: Pearl has attacked Gon Guado with Shadow Sap! GS: Pearl has gained 1 Combo! GS: Pearl has completed her action. GS: Gon Guado guards a hit from Kaguya's Concussion Rounds for 44 hit points! GS: Break applied to Gon Guado! GS: Gon Guado guards a hit from Pearl's Shadow Sap for 74 hit points! GS: Poison applied to Gon Guado!
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.
Marivel steps out from behind Boudicca. Wait, when did Marivel get there?! That's a good question. There isn't going to be an answer to that. Maybe she just sort of picked that moment to drop in and make a scene only to find that there was already a scene going on that she had very little to do with.
She quirks her head a bit when Gon Guado summons a fiend.
And then she says, "Gon." after a moment. "Your kids aren't dead."
She isn't the only one saying that of course but she lets that hang for a moment. "Tis true that we have bothered you with our beliefs aplenty." She adds. "But what of yours? Why do you believe in Seymour, a man who has admitted himself his plan to become Sin and grant everlasting death to everyone. Ever. Why are you loyal to a man like that. I am not providing you my opinion on the man, this is something Seymour was all too happy to share with us, the world... Why are you serving a man such as he? He hasn't exactly denied murdering HIS own father either."
She crosses her arms. "I have met some stubborn pappies in my life, but you're really something else."
She looks towards Kaguya, waggles a few fingers at her, and then gestures with a hand to place a hand on Boudicca's back.
"Status Lock!" Status Lock, notably, inflicts the Lock Status effect. It's ... pretty self explanatory there. And canon!
GS: Marivel Armitage has attacked Seraph Boudicca with Status Lock! GS: Marivel Armitage has completed her action. GS: Seraph Boudicca accepts Marivel Armitage's Status Lock for 0 hit points! GS: Lock State applied to Seraph Boudicca!
<Pose Tracker> White Knight Leo has posed.
The small group of Guards made it to the top in one piece, but it was not an easy climb. Most of the others are resting, regrouping, or scouting the way ahead--but Leo noticed a pair of footprints in the snow that hadn't been completely buried. More than one, in fact. Others had come here, before them, and he set out to trace them.
The big Ronso's boots crunch across the rocky ground. His eyes pick out the figure ahead, shrouded by Pyreflies--one of the Guado, and one he recognizes, at that. His lip curls as he remembers the man's crimes, but as Gon turns to face him--them, because Jay and Boudicca are right there, with him, and Pearl and Kaguya, too--the rage begins to dim. He sees the emptiness in Gon's eyes, and realizes it's more than just his children. It's everything.
"Guardian Gon," Leo says. He looks at Boudicca, and then at Pearl, and there is not a sliver of doubt in his eyes. "The Seraph Boudicca and I have had our differences, but she is nothing if not brave and true. And if Lady Pearl swore to protect them, they yet draw breath." He steps forwards. The Pyreflies congeal into a massive, feral shape, but Leo doesn't go for his blade--not yet. "Seymour would end all of Spira--all of the Silver Star--and call it righteous. He has failed your people, drawn them in with sweet lies about their right to rule. You have a choice."
The wendigo bellows. The force of it sends Leo's hood flying back; his hair and cloak whip in the wind. He grits his teeth, and drops a hand to the hilt of his blade. "You can continue aiding his mad crusade, or you can believe in something better. A world where your children will grow up, safe, free of Sin."
Leo takes another step forward. His blade leaves its scabbard with a ringing tone, and a blast of pure white radiance surges from its edge. The cutting wind rushes not towards Gon, but towards the Fiend he's summoned. "I have your back," he says, to the others.
GS: White Knight Leo has attacked Gon Guado with Demon Fang! GS: White Knight Leo has gained 2 Combo! GS: White Knight Leo has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.
Gagazet demanded everything that the Carakin had to give, and then some. The sacred mountain of the Ronso race, so nearly eradicated only a few weeks ago, froze them to the bone and buried them under a tide of ice and snow, but even then they endured. They pressed on through gelid gale and driving frost, and only now-- only now they've recovered enough to make the last leg of the journey, a handful of heretics on a twisted pilgrimage to Zanarkand, to drive a stake through the very heart of Yevon's Sin-faith.
And of course, there is someone standing in their way.
"You," Cyre Lorentz sighs, rubbing tiredly at his still-weary eyes. His body is thinner than it was, his face gaunt. So much energy had burnt away just trying to stay warm on Gagazet's slopes. So much was demanded of him, so much was given. And now, this one stands again in their way.
...And all, ostensibly, because of the orders of a monster wearing the form of a man. But Cyre suspects that he would have come here even without it. Tradition and the drive to preserve it has pushed far too many to do stupid and reckless things.
'Our ways are set,' he says. 'You shall see how little you can change the inevitable,' he says.
"You've got a lot of nerve," Cyre sighs, pulling his hood from his head, relishing in the brisk breeze that blows through his hair. "To say what we can and cannot change. The wind's going to go where it wishes, no matter what kind of tree stands in its way. Either bend in the gale, or be broken by it-- that's the choice you have to make."
He has daughters? Daughters who are still alive. Makes sense. Cyre shrugs... And promptly kicks off the ground, a shockwave stirring the stone and scything across the wasteland to pound into the not-so distant Guado. Step after step, Cyre's speed builds, shedding shockwave after shockwave as the wind begins to howl and scream.
It's a strange day, he thinks to himself, when he finds his thoughts aligning more closely with Kaguya's than with some of the others, but this is Cyre, after all. If he wasn't spitting in the face of authority, he wouldn't be who he is.
GS: Cyre H. Lorentz has attacked Gon Guado with Stepping Wind! GS: Cyre H. Lorentz has completed his action. GS: CRITICAL! Gon Guado guards a hit from White Knight Leo's Demon Fang for 147 hit points! GS: CRITICAL! Gon Guado takes a solid hit from Cyre H. Lorentz's Stepping Wind for 156 hit points! GS: Riposte applied to Cyre H. Lorentz! GS: Wendigo King has Fallen!
<Pose Tracker> Billy Lee Black has posed.
Billy and his friends had their own wild time attempting to get down the mountain, but with Zanarkand before them, they set off for the final stretch, and to reunite with the other Wolves.
But with everything transpiring here, it is alone that Billy approaches the site of Gon Guado's final stand. The one-time Etone emerges among the group listening to his eulogy for himself. "...and yet you choose to place yourself here again," he murmurs to himself, as the ape-beast appears. The scream it releases sets his cloak to flying.
Billy reaches for the bracer they found in the ruins of their escape from the mountain, half-consciously tugging it tighter. He's not used to the equipment, but he can't rely on Ethos to furnish him replacement anymore. Best to get used to it.
There's something dull in Billy's demeanor as he watches Gon boast of his determination. "...meaningless faith," he says, to nobody.
Then he whips up one of his gunsmokes and shoots him.
GS: Billy Lee Black has attacked Gon Guado with Colt M1873 Single Action Army! GS: Billy Lee Black assumes the Avenger stance! GS: Billy Lee Black has completed his action. GS: Gon Guado guards a hit from Billy Lee Black's Colt M1873 Single Action Army for 63 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Gon Guado has posed.
They assemble - disparate parties, motives, and faiths who at least have an understanding that 'Seymour = bad, Sin = bad, Going Here To Deal With Both = good,' and that Gon happens to be standing in the way of 'Going Here To Deal With Both,' as he is met with further challenges.
"You would relent and apologize after taking what cannot be given back?" Gon asks, without the angry indignation that would often coat his voice. He was taken aback the very first time anyone stood up and talked back to him after he gave Jay and her friends such a dressing-down, as the Wendigo King hurls itself into the plume of smoke and finds its movements... a bit less animated.
Boudicca steps in with words true and familiar about his children. Names, and their capabilities, and what they did, as a breeze runs through the two of them. "You would claim to know my own daughters?" Gon sounds incredulous at the idea. "You would suggest... children, at all, would climb Mount Gagazet..."
A wind sweeps away falsehoods, exaggerations, enfeeblements, and deceptions blows between the both of them. To Boudicca's keen senses, though - unnaturally for her power - something seems to stick to the Wendigo King. Something in the nature of that White Ice spell that will not be swept aside so easily... what is it? Could this mortal's grasp of the White aspects of Althena's Blessing be so great to stand against an elemental spirit manifested of Her power and a Guardian as well? (This answer is a mildly horrifying 'kind of, well, yes, it looks that way' - enough that he will not be coming at her with clear eyes.)
"My people, the Guado? No," Gon sneers through all of that even as the Wendigo's rage cools, if never fully abates over there - Boudicca might have just saved everyone's lives then and there by removing that, "it was the Al Bhed who consorted with those who would disturb our way of life, who had to be dealt with before they allowed your heathen Guard to do any more harm... I saw to that," and there's your reason why Home happened, "the once loyal Ronso... they would stand against Lord Seymour even now--" Kaguya more or less interrupts him as she shoots the Wendigo King with exotic ARMs fire, who plows into it like it's not much even though it shudders from injury.
Then, Pearl arrives, and her resolute voice as she echoes what Boudicca says, with additional note: they're here to stop him, and further horror and indignation wrest within him as he takes steps back from her confident stride to join the others.
"To... stop me? To suggest the Guado would turn on their own, much less my own daughters... falsehoods, lies! You would carve ever fresher wounds upon me with words such as those?!" Gon shouts, as suspected - like a wall. A wiry, shirtless, pathetic wall, as Black Darkness starts to consume and seep into the Wendigo King, picking apart his last line defense bit by bit.
Marivel echoes a third time - his kids aren't dead, with the concession about how much they've bothered him and his kind with their incompatible ways, but a more pressing question: why support Seymour and his omnicidal goals? Gon was there to hear some of his boasts and goals when the Ronso were being attacked. Even worse than that - Gon was there when proof showed up that Seymour murdered his own father, the previous leader of the Guado.
"Guado affairs..." Remain with the Guado, but he can't finish that sentence. "It is ever the Guado way to follow their leaders towards greater prosperity, whatever form it takes. Should it take the form of peace where there is no more to find," says a grieving father who cannot except he has no grounds to grieve.
Leo punctuates his points by sending a Demon Fang tearing through the Wendigo King, whose form starts to flicker and fade from collected damages, which seems... all too on track with Gon's previous futile efforts to stand up to and overturn those before him. "What 'better' can exist..." He sees something in Leo's eyes that are somehow familiar but not, a similar anger and emotion like seen in the faces at the base of Mount Gagazet. "Spira shall never be free of Sin! This is immutable...!"
Cyre, like before, once again messes with everything with the power of the wind behind him, the shockwave running through Gon and the Wendigo King alike - and the latter appears to explode in a great cloud of pyreflies, right then and there. Gon's reaction to that is... muted. Resignation that it's over? "What you can or cannot change," he says as he comes up from a kneel, "how little you presume," so arrogant for--
Being shot by Billy in the shoulder. There is a quickly-cast Cure spell to stem the worst of the pain and the bleeding, ever trivial. Too trivial, like a mere breath. It is, as one who bears such familiarity and mastery of the White aspects of Althena's Blessing across two opposing elements. "Meaningless, you say..."
And then icy feathery wings about an aurora appear, clasping around the pyreflies in a tender, loving embrace... and certain question marks reveal themselves...
<Pose Tracker> Gon Guado has posed.
GS: The true nature of Wendigo King's ????????? buff becomes clear!
GS: Reraisega returns Wendigo King to full fighting strength!
The pyreflies reform into that same Fiend, no worse for the wear, as Gon lowers his hand from his now less injured shoulder.
"There are none among my people more versed in the power of prayer," he manages a small, arrogant, for once well-earned smile to Billy in his crisis of faith. It is true - Gon Guado before them, for his failings as a direct combatant, is nearly uncontested. Before them, the expression of the fullest potential of White Magic, as applied to the Guado discipline of pyrefly weaving - what may be beyond true living bodies is well within the grasp of these pyrefly constructs.
What comes in is a whirlwind of inevitable violence as the Wendigo King bellows, swinging their arms wide and uncaring as to whether they hit anyone or anything in front of them with the blunt force of their massive arms or the flesh-rending, steel-tearing claws, even at the prospective threat of its own 'demise' from excessive force and recklessness.
For the pinnacle of White Ice of Althena's Blessing has ensured it will continue to do so in perpetuity, whether or not the one who cast it is still there.
At last, Gon might have gotten one over those vexing Otherworlders, but that moment of condescension feels hollow - still mired in the mistaken belief of the fate of his very children.
GS: Gon Guado has activated a Boss Action! GS: You have activated the Boss Action Extend! GS: Gon Guado spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Gon Guado has attacked Billy Lee Black with Ochu Whirl! GS: Gon Guado has attacked Cyre H. Lorentz with Ochu Whirl! GS: Gon Guado has attacked White Knight Leo with Ochu Whirl! GS: Gon Guado has attacked Marivel Armitage with Ochu Whirl! GS: Gon Guado has attacked Pearl with Ochu Whirl! GS: Gon Guado has attacked Kaguya with Ochu Whirl! GS: Gon Guado has attacked Seraph Boudicca with Ochu Whirl! GS: Gon Guado has attacked Jacqueline Barber with Ochu Whirl! GS: Gon Guado has gained 1 Combo! GS: Gon Guado takes 26 damage from Poison! GS: Gon Guado has completed his action. GS: Cyre H. Lorentz takes a glancing hit from Gon Guado's Ochu Whirl for 72 hit points! GS: Kaguya takes a solid hit from Gon Guado's Ochu Whirl for 158 hit points! GS: Marivel Armitage takes a solid hit from Gon Guado's Ochu Whirl for 171 hit points! GS: Seraph Boudicca takes a glancing hit from Gon Guado's Ochu Whirl for 76 hit points! GS: Seraph Boudicca activates Power Burst! GS: Pearl fully evades Gon Guado's Ochu Whirl for 0 hit points! GS: Pearl activates Power Burst! GS: Jacqueline Barber guards a hit from Gon Guado's Ochu Whirl for 84 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.
Marivel surely dropped in to help Boudicca as she helped Pani and Timu ascend. Marivel is friend to all children, just like Boudicca, didn't you know?
It's okay, Boudicca believes in her capacity to make a scene. She has first-hand experience. And, after Marivel's own convincing argument, a hand on her back, and a state thusly locked. Boudicca looks back to her, with a gentle smile. "Marivel," she says, with all the relief of seeing someone dear come to help.
Which is not to say everyone else isn't some shade of important to Boudicca, too. Pearl's own insistence that the girls are alive, in particular, illustrates for Boudicca where the girls may have acquired some certain additional assistance, after they lost track of each other back there. Boudicca was quite worried for them, so she's glad to hear they found more help.
And -- "Ah, Leo..." Boudicca breathes, as he names her true, no matter where they've stood on the battlefield. She still wished to consider him a friend, too, did you know? Even when they stormed Spira...
(And of course, the wind is fond of Cyre, who serves it so well. He lives in the winds of another world, but wind is wind is wind, and so the spirits know him.)
And there's Jacqueline, with much the same approach as she... and Kaguya, with just the opposite...
(All right, be fair, she doesn't know Billy that well. But if Dean has taught her anything, it's that Billy COULD be her friend. Maybe Billy would like to meet her bestie Marivel too! That would be lovely!)
It's certainly a shade horrifying -- or impressive -- that Gon's White magic is as strong as it is, even with what Boudicca manages to blow away. Even when everyone manages to bring the Wendigo down, that magic brings it right back up again. "If only Pani were here presently," Boudicca says, but more quietly, as if she is speaking to Marivel rather than Gon. They could really use someone who could shape strong Fiends into weak ones, right now.
She doesn't have much time to linger and weep, though -- the Wendigo King is coming. With all the alacrity of the wind Boudicca leaps away, the immense force of its arm-swings altering the fate of the air ITSELF, causing her to stumble on her landing. "So," she says, as she straightens, "we cannot convince you to stay your hand and hear reason, after all."
Boudicca sighs, and the world sighs with her, as she reaches out to Marivel. "... then, we will not fail. Will of wend!" She incants, as a green Seraphic glyph alights around her, the breeze coiling around Boudicca before it flows out to curl around Marivel, instead. "Thousand Sky!"
Boudicca knows she isn't the best at violent solutions, but she has an awful lot of friends here.
"Guado problems can no longer be shouldered by Guado alone! Those girls understand what you do not -- this, a poison to your world! You would see it burned to ashes in the name of 'inevitability' -- there is nothing noble to this!"
GS: Seraph Boudicca has attacked Marivel Armitage with Thousand Sky! GS: Seraph Boudicca has completed her action. GS: White Knight Leo takes a solid hit from Gon Guado's Ochu Whirl for 137 hit points! GS: Billy Lee Black guards a hit from Gon Guado's Ochu Whirl for 87 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Pearl has posed.
It was as she suspected. Gon Guado was closed off. He would not listen to speech, to reason.
*Stop trying, then. Kill him. Clear the path.*
Pearl shakes her head and readies herself. And then someone else speaks- Leo had followed her. She is somehow calmed by his presence. But...
'And if Lady Pearl swore to protect them, they yet draw breath.'
Something is off. Was it just that he used her title as a summoner? Surely. And they are in a battle situation, with unusual allies. It was just a simple jump in her heart rate, it's stable now. Nothing to worry about. "...The White Knight speaks true. I came this way to clear the path and save Pani her energy. My Guardians stay with them." and watches the Wendigo fall to Billy's bullets. Maybe he'll-
And the Wendigo rises again, and charges, sweeping out at her. And Pearl steps out of it's way with the grace of a Martial Artist, not the clumsiness she displayed as Ena. Her staff redirects some of the blow, letting it's claws fly past her, moving like the winds of Gagazet.
Magic is not her first language.
"....One of the greatest warriors of your people," Pearl states, to Gon and everyone else. "Master of prayers with chilling calm and radiating warmth." She looks at Gon again, even as the Wendigo readies for another strike. "That's what Timu said you were, with tiredness and resignation in her voice. Are you that? Or do you simply seek death?" His indignance that they might stop them. "...Are you really so dense, Sir Gon Guado? Your daughters have not turned on the Guado, they're trying to save them. Save you. They don't want their father to die a fools death." *How lucky of them to have one.*
The Wendigo is in close now, and fcasting is risky, so Pearl lifts her staff. Ena would have swung it recklessly, helplessly, like trying to fend off a swarm of wasps. But here, Pearl shows the true nature of the attack- a deliberate strike driving the staff in a swing for the Wendigo's knee, the strike hidden in the flailing. This is the truth under the mask, Gon Guado. The fighter hidden under the nervous, hopeful Aspiring Summoner. You did not teach her as much as you thought.
GS: Pearl has attacked Gon Guado with Desperate Swing! GS: Pearl assumes the Avenger stance! GS: Pearl has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
Kaguya waves back to Marivel, and nods when Leo says he has their backs. She's still holding her ARM in both hands at this point, eyeing the Fiend primarily and Gon secondarily. At first, she's fairly calm about all this. She sees Gon indignant, acting as she expects. But he speaks up, and she is paying exactly enough attention to pick up on something here. To pick up on...
"...You? Saw to that? To their... consorting?" Kaguya is quite still for a moment, after her fire is loosed. She is still as other attacks sink against the creature, as the immutable nature of Sin is brought up again, as Guado affairs ar ediscussed. She is still in until the Wendigo rises up again and swings out, the bellow preceding a swing that knocks her from her feet and back against the rock, sending her skidding there at first in quiet. ...Until she gets up.
"Noble or not," Kaguya says, wiping some blood from her lip, mask still down. She stows her ARM behind her back, rolling her shoulders. "It's his goal. It's what he wants. He said his ways are set. And you know, that's fine with me."
"Make peace with your god, Guado."
Kaguya abrubtly takes off at a sprint and charges forward, weaving past the Wendigo this time to instead pop up in front of Gon and rear back with her fist. She seems to slow a half-insistant, as if meeting resistance in the air, and white life energy starts to gather in front of her fist--and when she slams it forward at him, it becomes a beam of powerful energy aiming for his heart. Kaguya snarls as she unleashes it, her sharp Veruni teeth giving her a bestial appearance.
"TODAY YOU DIE!"
GS: Kaguya has attacked Gon Guado with Reaper's Toll! GS: Kaguya has gained 2 Combo! GS: Kaguya has completed her action. GS: Marivel Armitage accepts Seraph Boudicca's Thousand Sky for 0 hit points! GS: Pray grants a random effect! Lock State and Quick applied to Marivel Armitage!
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.
"You're damn right I presume little!" Cyre spits back, casting a brief glance at the forces arrayed against this desperate old man. The fact that this eclectic band of people from so many disparate corners of two different worlds have come together is a miracle in and of itself-- One that he has witnessed before, but which never fails to inspire a mote of awe. Two of Althena's Guard, its greatest knight and premier assassin, two of the Carakin, himself included, a Veruni, a Seraphim, even one of the legendary Crimson Nobles... And one other. "You've got no idea what kind of legends we've broken," he continues, as the Etone fires a single slug that seems to dispel the colossal Fiend. "How many times we've had to reassemble our views of the world and our places within it. Do you think you're the only one who has had to face a crisis of faith...?"
The battle... is it over?
No. Not by a longshot. The fiend reassembles itself, glued back together by white magic unlike much Cyre has ever before witnessed. "Tch," the shaman clicks his tongue, possible solutions to the monster running through his mind, none of which he finds particularly appetizing given the circumstances. Except there are... a scant handful.
The monster begins to flail, rampaging with little regard for its own safety, so buoyed it is by the power of Gon's faith-- and its own faith in its master. It is, Cyre reflects, a reflection of Gon himself. But there is a weakness there.
Because Gon is just a man.
A father, maybe. One whose children yet live. But a man nonetheless. Cyre's eyes harden as he darts aside, dodging through the Wendigo's furious assault. Stone shards tear crimson lines across his skin and the force of each blow rattles his teeth, but he avoids a crippling injury.
...All while whispering a prayer Gon would find utterly unfamiliar under his breath. Both Jacqueline and Kaguya, though, have heard it before.
...Though last time it was invoked, they were sneaking into a mafia boss' base, not fighting a grief-stricken madman.
Leaping over a flailing limb, Cyre reaches out with a claw-like grasp. Even from a distance, he is connected to Gon by the air that churns between them. He bids it... To rush inward around the old man's head-- but it's a particular mix of air he's interested in. The pressure drives in, locking the very air that Gon exhales in a bubble around his skull. An Arcana that not only induces pressure-based shock, but smothers the victim in unbreathable air.
"Billy," Cyre calls over at the priest, "That thing-- the monster, it's just a bunch of ghosts made into a beast. I'm no proper exorcist, but you are. You gonna just let this old bastard walk all over you, or are you going to show him how a real Etone deals with stubborn hauntings!?"
GS: Cyre H. Lorentz spends 1 Combo on Poison! GS: Cyre H. Lorentz has attacked Gon Guado with Grand Pressure! GS: Cyre H. Lorentz has gained 2 Combo! GS: Cyre H. Lorentz has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.
"I'm seriously not fighting someone who is just stubbornly mistaken that his very much alive children are dead." Marivel says. "Timu and Pani have been trying to stop you from making terrible mistakes. Their love for you is more important than tradition. Being their father is more important than following your leader--!"
The revived WEndigo bellows and Marivel and takes a strong clawed strike to her chest. Marivel couldn't get out of the way in time, her wounds from the prior not having not fully healed. She didn't forge a new body from then.
She grunts and looks to Kaguya. She's got a point. But Marivel has managed to live her life without consciously creating orphans like in Alpha Protocol and she's not going to start today.
She does take a look to Billy for a moment, though. In some ways she's more worried about him than Kaguya right now. Who knows what Billy will do when faced with such a man?
"I'm not going to take revenge for the Al Bhed either. Rikku seemed pretty firm on that point," Marivel says, straightening up. "What do you care about more? Tradition, or getting to see your children grow up? Because you only get to choose one. Even if you kill all of us here, your children have already stepped away from these ideals, formed their own opinions. And they did it without us. Because children..."
She fills Boudicca's magic empowering her. She feels more secure in her footing. She smiles at her friend and gives her a nod before adding, "Because children are stronger than adults can ever know. Even if we do our best to protect them, they will always find a way to outgrow our embrace. And that's a good thing. That's what growing up is."
She extends her hand forward, sending a magical seal crashing against Gon Guado. She won't draw blood if she can help it.
"Are you so willing to follow Seymour and your traditions that you will take your own children's lives for him? If your answer to that is yes, then I will regretfully fight you, but you should at least tell it so to their face. If you don't believe them alive, then imagine that they were--would you kill them for Seymour's goals, and the Guado traditions?"
GS: Marivel Armitage has attacked Gon Guado with Magic Seal! GS: Marivel Armitage has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
It isn't long before help arrives - Boudicca is here, and she brings with her good news.
"They are...? Oh, thank goodness..." Jacqueline says, breathing a sigh of a relief. Hearing of their supposed deaths was like a stab to her heart... but to hear that that is not so is healing.
She is surprised to see, though, who comes next - Kaguya and a Summoner, Marivel, and...
Jacqueline flinches, just slightly, at the sound of Leo's voice. She hasn't faced him since their confrontation with Mauri. She's just a little nervous about what he might think... but, he makes it clear that they've got bigger problems.
"R-right." Jacqueline says, with a nod before turning her attention back toward Gon. She frowns as he brings up the Al Bhed, and his role in the tragedy that befell them.
"What Seymour wants isn't prosperity, or peace. It's death - nothingness." Jacqueline replies. "Is it the Guado way to march blindly ahead into oblivion? There is nothing waiting for you or the Guado, or Spira, if Seymour gets his way. Do you understand that?"
She looks toward Cyre, then, as he speaks - how he mentions how many times they've had to reassemble their view of the world. Jacqueline nods.
"...It's like he says. The world changes, people change, and so the Guado must too - it sounds like Pani and Timu understand that, that so why can't you, the man who raised them?"
The Wendigo is set upon by the others and falls... but soon enough is brought back to full fighting strength. Jacqueline frowns.
"That's... a problem. We're not going to be able to solve this with brute force - we'll need to find another way to stop it!" Jacqueline advises. "That spell seems strong enough to withstand most forms of dispelling, too..."
She lets the others handle Gon. She still doesn't feel like hurting him, so she goes for another bottle aimed at the Wendigo's feet. This time, rather than sapping strength, she goes right for its stamina with a mixture that induces drowsiness. If they can incapacitate it without killing it, then maybe they can buy themselves some time to think of a more permanent solution...
GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Gon Guado with Apothecary's Fire! GS: Jacqueline Barber has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Billy Lee Black has posed.
Billy remembers the Wels, the terrible fiendish cleverness that let them come in endless waves. One must always be prepared, when facing Wels, for the enemy to be more prepared. That is the most important lesson for a monster-hunter: None of them is mindless. They are all terribly cunning.
The fact that that cunning came from their formerly human thoughts is, for the moment, only a ghost of an impression upon his heart. The Wendigo getting back up earns little more than a glance, as Billy idly slots another shell in his gunsmoke and then tucks it away.
And Gon all but jeers at him for the purity of his faith.
"You misunderstand me," Billy says, with a cold hardness in his eyes, stepping forward, unwavering. "I too know full well the power of prayer. The warmth of God's love and light are real and true."
His hands stray back to his guns. "But you have taken that faith of yours...the most precious gift you possess....and you have given it to no God, but a monster who would turn this world to dust."
The Wendigo King swipes at him, and Billy throws his arms up in a cross-guard, absorbing the blow directly with his own defenses. An Etone's equipment contains protection against such strikes, and so though he is thrown a meter or two, he retains his stance and footing. "Meaningless," he says. "A meaningless offering to a god of nothing."
He snaps his arm forward and the sleeve-mounted ether guns he conceals slides out into his hand. He fires once, a blast of scything wind cutting out of the weapon, and then he surges forward, directly for the Wendigo's belly. "Can it keep this up, I wonder?" he asks.
And then he fires a second time, a bullet of light and fire exploding into a cursed pattern on impact with the beast.
GS: Billy Lee Black has attacked Gon Guado with Hell Blast! GS: Billy Lee Black has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> White Knight Leo has posed.
Leo hasn't seen hide or hair of Gon's daughters, but he knows Boudicca wouldn't lie--they must be here, somewhere, alive. But Gon denies this, and in the very next breath, confesses to massacre. The White Knight's ears flatten; he snarls, sharpened canines gleaming in the light. "I see you, now," he says. "'Order', at any cost--the blood of outsiders and heretics, first, then anyone else who becomes expendable." It's coming close to something, a truth Leo cannot bring himself to voice. What he says instead: "You're being used. As I was! Your order is built on death! Lies! An endless cycle of misery and suffering, for what? Is that what you want for your children?!"
For once, Leo is openly grateful for Cyre's presence. As the Fiend explodes into Pyreflies--as Billy opens fire--the White Knight makes a demand: "Surrender. I promise, you will yet live to atone for your crimes against Spira."
Light flashes across the icy ground. Leo's jaw drops open, and the Fiend rushes them; caught flat-footed, the White Knight takes that clawed paw straight to the gut. It knocks him off his feet, sends him tumbling across the ground. When he comes up to a knee, he presses a hand against the claw marks carved into his abdomen. His armor kept the thing from spilling his guts, but he's bleeding all the same. "Dame Kaguya," he grunts, gritting his teeth and rising to his feet. "I--"
But what if there is no other way? There are many, many people who would be glad to see the likes of Gon Guado dead.
Leo shakes his head. No. No, that's what Heldalf would think.
If only there was some way to just remove the Fiend from...
Wait a second.
Leo sheathes his blade. To those who've seen him fight, this might seem like sheer lunacy--leaving himself undefended, wounded as he is. Even stranger is the way he approaches the Wendigo King--arms held against his chest, fists clenched at his sides, his gait a peculiar hop-step that looks almost like a dance. Gon may or may not have had the privilege of seeing YKT-63 automatons in action, but there's no mistaking the technique for anything else. Leo drops to a squat, lashing out with one leg in a sweeping kick to the Wendigo's knees. Leo hops to his feet again, and kicks high, aiming for the Wendigo's center of mass. Enormous as it seems, there is tremendous force behind Leo's kick. The technique is still sloppy, but the basics are there.
GS: White Knight Leo has attacked Gon Guado with Thrust Kick! GS: White Knight Leo has gained 1 Combo! GS: White Knight Leo has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
It isn't long before help arrives - Boudicca is here, and she brings with her good news.
"They are...? Oh, thank goodness..." Jacqueline says, breathing a sigh of a relief. Hearing of their supposed deaths was like a stab to her heart... but to hear that that is not so is healing.
She is surprised to see, though, who comes next - Kaguya and a Summoner, Marivel, and...
Jacqueline flinches, just slightly, at the sound of Leo's voice. She hasn't faced him since their confrontation with Mauri. She's just a little nervous about what he might think... but, he makes it clear that they've got bigger problems.
"R-right." Jacqueline says, with a nod before turning her attention back toward Gon. She frowns as he brings up the Al Bhed, and his role in the tragedy that befell them.
"What Seymour wants isn't prosperity, or peace. It's death - nothingness." Jacqueline replies. "Is it the Guado way to march blindly ahead into oblivion? There is nothing waiting for you or the Guado, or Spira, if Seymour gets his way. Do you understand that?"
She looks toward Cyre, then, as he speaks - how he mentions how many times they've had to reassemble their view of the world. Jacqueline nods.
"...It's like he says. The world changes, people change, and so the Guado must too - it sounds like Pani and Timu understand that, that so why can't you, the man who raised them?"
The Wendigo is set upon by the others and falls... but soon enough is brought back to full fighting strength. Jacqueline frowns. The wendigo lashes out and Jacqueline gestures quickly with her left hand, bringing up a pillar of earth as the wendigo swings its arms violently. The pillar manages to slow its momentum but it still crashes through, smashing into Jacqueline and forcing her backward.
"That's... a problem. We're not going to be able to solve this with brute force - we'll need to find another way to stop it!" Jacqueline advises. "That spell seems strong enough to withstand most forms of dispelling, too..."
She lets the others handle Gon. She still doesn't feel like hurting him, so she goes for another bottle aimed at the Wendigo's feet. This time, rather than sapping strength, she goes right for its stamina with a mixture that induces drowsiness. If they can incapacitate it without killing it, then maybe they can buy themselves some time to think of a more permanent solution...
GS: Gamble: High! Gon Guado takes a solid hit from Pearl's Desperate Swing for 172 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Gon Guado gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Gon Guado guards a hit from Kaguya's Reaper's Toll for 58 hit points! GS: Mute applied to Gon Guado! GS: Gon Guado guards a hit from Cyre H. Lorentz's Grand Pressure for 93 hit points! GS: Poison applied to Gon Guado! GS: Gon Guado critically guards Marivel Armitage's Magic Seal for 0 hit points! GS: Gon Guado activates Guard bonus! GS: Gon Guado takes a solid hit from Jacqueline Barber's Apothecary's Fire for 42 hit points! GS: Drowsy and Poison applied to Gon Guado! GS: Gon Guado guards a hit from Billy Lee Black's Hell Blast for 60 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Gon Guado gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Hex applied to Gon Guado! GS: Gon Guado takes a solid hit from White Knight Leo's Thrust Kick for 151 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Gon Guado gains 1 additional Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Gon Guado has posed.
"It is as it was, as it will ever be," Gon retorts to Boudicca, "as Lord Jyascal brought us to prosperity as he brought Yevon to us decades ago," and there is something extraordinarily suspect about this statement that may be self-evident with the way he speaks now, about nothing changing. Enough that, perhaps, it is good that the presence of pyreflies keep a certain other spiritual problem-making thing from setting root.
Only now that the nature of the 'game' is here, does Gon start throwing his own personal weight into the offensive - into a rushing shoulder bash for Boudicca, first.
Pearl recites the praises and words of his elder daughter, of someone who once saw him as someone worthy of respect for his capabilities and feats. The users of 'prayers' among the Guado are few and far in-between, let alone one as skilled as he is. "I disbelieve you... why would she render herself upon an Otherworlder who usurped the Yevon way to turn against us," he looks mildly horrified at the implications as Pearl takes her previous teachings to bring the mighty Wendigo King low, her superior martial ability on display. Pearl would see an immediate problem with the long-term solution to the Fiend here: she can in theory Send, but the process takes longer than it does for the Fiend to reform. Though the Fiend flickers, it swipes a punch Pearl's way.
Kaguya receives a harrowing revelation about why something horrible to a people who did not deserve it happened - and she finds her resolve to just accept things as they are, and then not accept things as they were, as she weaves past the Wendigo King and prepares an energy-laden fist that is met with a hastily put-together Protect that buckles and shatters under the force her anger while his heels slide back against the cold, unfeeling stone underneath, breath leaving him as he hunches over. Today, he dies.
Today, he's not even sure he lives so much any more, but his pulse is still there. He's still taking in air, as the Wendigo King flails an arm behind themselves to try and clip Kaguya.
Cyre speaks of crises of faith and times of great change they've had to adjust for. Spira, as a whole, has been so genuinely resigned to things the way they are that almost their whole world has been dragged into that sorrowful morass - including his own people, no matter how much they profited and prospered under it, so callously. There is that spark of life in the wind so few in Spira have, that Yuna and her entourage carry with them now towards Zanarkand.
Cyre forms a bubble around Gon's head in which it will take him out from shock and loss of oxygen, were it not for what martial discipline Gon possesses to allow himself to close the distance, raise a hand, and try to drive it down on Cyre's scalp and slam him into the ground to break his concentration - but nonetheless fights through sheer will against sorcerous forces to break free to breathe.
To once again have to listen to Marivel, missing only the first few words from her reasoning as volume and fidelity return to his hearing. The continued certainty about the existence and life of his children, and what they've attained, what they care for. Those who know, insist, over and over to a grieving father nearly beyond reason. A magical seal forms around him, complex and intricate as the claws of his bare, large hands (by Guado standards, he's on the smaller side there in truth, maybe that's why he always wore such intimidating gauntlets) swipe at them like a beast, his own sorcerous acumen and hardiness tearing it off.
"Enough! Where are they now, then? That you would suggest they'd journey to a place so few live to see... children, of so few years!" He's in sheer disbelief as he comes at Marivel with a rushing lunge that closes the distance like a blink - like a Buer at their quickest.
<Pose Tracker> Gon Guado has posed.
The Wendigo King finds themselves incapacitated as Jay hurls forth another concoction. One thing she will know from her time on Spira that the toxic plants of Spira... are very, very toxic indeed. Spiran poisons are basically the finest on both worlds, and if she's used any in this mixture, it may prove that much more effective as she buys some time.
"What world do you see for our kind beyond this, then?" Gon turns his frigid gaze upon Jay. "How can you possibly understand? How can you... in your continued arrogance, speak to know more true of how my children felt?!" Past tense, past tense, past tense, the wrong tense. He steps in low with a sweeping blow of both hands, trying to take Jay's feet out from under her. (As part of some strange obscure Spiran proverb, this is effective for lowering sorcerous acumen.)
"You misunderstand everything," he retorts weekly to Billy, with all the same sweeping attempt at authority as a certain double-red-faced father figure might have. The two of them might... not be all that far from one another, in some ways. Gon is clearly more moved by the believed fate of his children, at least, that may be 'far' enough they aren't the same person, but he is someone who has misused faith for his own gain. As many of the Guado have, since Jyascal integrated Yevon into their ways. "This is not... meaningless," Gon grows verbally exhausted.
Billy wonders if it can keep it up, and he might find out as he drives the shots into the weakened Wendigo King's belly. To his senses, the Fiend may prove to have incredible elasticity on a spiritual level thanks to that damnable White Magic spell, as it grows more faint. It takes that last swipe at Billy as light and fire explodes to shove it back.
Leo speaks of something the two of them share in common, a bridging thing between the two of them - he's being used. Just like Leo has. Those above them, those they swore loyalty to, those who gave to them - have betrayed them. Just as Leo saw when Heldalf revealed far different colors from the one who taught him his swordmanship. The promise that if he surrenders, that he will yet live to atone for his crimes.
Leo performs a maneuver with precision matching that of the posture and technique of a machina automaton, adapted with barely any concessions for anatomical differences, a tremendous force in that kick not managing to eject the Wendigo King outright - but see it explode into a cloud of pyreflies... followed by the icy wings and the halos of aurora light streaks. It reforms too fast for a sending. It reforms too fast for alternate forms of cleansing. Somehow, the extremes of White Magic and Guado pyrefly weaving may have just created a newer, smaller-scale force of endless destruction for Spira to have to deal with.
"I am all that stands between," what? Gon can't finish that sentence, as he moves through the cloud of pyreflies moments before it reforms, a distinctive sweeping motion from his long arm towards the White Knight, before backflipping a ways away to the reformed Wendigo King's side. A memorable movement, a 'come at me' motion with fingers curled upward - but something suggesting that's not all there is to it.
The only way through, for now, is to keep fighting - to hope that the White Magic weakens with every reformation, perhaps only their very best will suffice.
GS: Gon Guado has attacked Seraph Boudicca with Garm Tackle! GS: Gon Guado has gained 1 Combo! GS: Gon Guado has attacked Pearl with Normal Attack! GS: Gon Guado has attacked Kaguya with Normal Attack! GS: Gon Guado has gained 1 Combo! GS: Gon Guado has attacked Cyre H. Lorentz with Gandarewa Slam! GS: Gon Guado has gained 1 Combo! GS: Gon Guado has attacked Marivel Armitage with Buer Blink! GS: Gon Guado has gained 1 Combo! GS: Gon Guado has attacked Jacqueline Barber with Spherimorph Sweep! GS: Gon Guado has gained 1 Combo! GS: Gon Guado has attacked Billy Lee Black with Normal Attack! GS: Gon Guado has attacked White Knight Leo with Iron Giant Provocation! GS: Gon Guado enters a Counter stance! GS: Gon Guado has gained 2 Combo! GS: Gon Guado takes 23 damage from Poison! GS: Gon Guado has completed his action. GS: Jacqueline Barber takes a glancing hit from Gon Guado's Spherimorph Sweep for 108 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Jacqueline Barber gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Mute applied to Jacqueline Barber! GS: CRITICAL! Kaguya takes a solid hit from Gon Guado's Normal Attack for 148 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Kaguya gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Pearl takes a glancing hit from Gon Guado's Normal Attack for 58 hit points! GS: Pearl activates Power Burst! GS: Billy Lee Black takes a glancing hit from Gon Guado's Normal Attack for 58 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Billy Lee Black gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Seraph Boudicca guards a hit from Gon Guado's Garm Tackle for 72 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Boudicca gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Disrupt applied to Seraph Boudicca! GS: Seraph Boudicca activates Sufferer! GS: White Knight Leo takes a solid hit from Gon Guado's Iron Giant Provocation for 148 hit points! GS: Delay applied to White Knight Leo! GS: Marivel Armitage takes a solid hit from Gon Guado's Buer Blink for 152 hit points! GS: Cyre H. Lorentz takes a glancing hit from Gon Guado's Gandarewa Slam for 72 hit points! GS: Cyre H. Lorentz activates Evade bonus!
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.
Marivel Armitage is clawed through the chest and sent sprawling back. Her unwillingness to harm a grieving father means it's difficult for her to really defend herself too. She gets gutted and smoke billows out of her as she collapses straight on her back.
"Well," Marivel says, taking a moment to close her eyes and give a faint sniff.
"Since you asked so nicely..."
She snaps her fingers and a flash of light appears back where the Drifters came in from, providing a harmless and cinematic opening for a dramatic entrance.
"Come on you two," Marivel says. "It's time for you and your father to have a family conversation that the rest of us..." Marivel's eyes slant back towards Gon Guado, "Really don't have a place in. Tell him what you've told us."
"Tell him what moved you to act, when even a Crimson Noble, a Seraphim, and all this system's heroes asked that you stay safe instead--ones you defied all on your own. For your own reasons and desires."
"Tell him..." Marivel says, letting out a ragged breath as she shakes--and then collapses back onto her back. "Finish your quest." She says. "Take hold of that future you sought. Here and now. If you cannot, then none can. This... I firmly believe."
And she just lays there.
GS: Marivel Armitage has attacked Gon Guado with She's Mari Poppins Y'all! GS: Marivel Armitage has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Pearl has posed.
Pearl, very briefly, breaks her attention on Gon and the Wendigo to look at Cyre. "I... do not believe that Is how any of this works." Is it? Her education was kind of fast and interrupted by about nine months. Regardless, Gon spouts his retort.
"I cannot say," she responds truthfully. How could she explain what Timu and Pani saw in her, a monster in Summoner's garb. "Perhaps because I was the person there at the time. Perhaps because I listened, Sir Gon." That's the keyword here. Listen. Listen you self important idiot.
*Sure. You're one to talk about listening. All you did was scream and rage and kill.*
And it's not just that he's self important. He's in the depths of despair. Once, Pearl had intended to put him there herself. She would have enjoyed it. Watching him suffer. It doesn't feel good now, though.
Her eyes shoot to Kaguya- her rage at that slaughter. The horrible fate the Al Bhed suffered. She saw it then, she just didn't care... or cared less, at any rate. Maybe she's right. He's a monster too. Maybe killing other monsters would clean her slate... But that would break her promise. Maybe she was always going to.
She is torn out of her thoughts by a Wendigo swiping at her, it's claws tearing her cloak and drawing blood, and she stumbles backward. But Gon's question chills her bones. Where were they? Why hadn't she stayed with them? Leo Jr can fight, but he's not on par with her or Jean. But Jean would keep them safe, right? Of course she would. But it doesn't stop the regret on Pearl's face. She promised to protect them as best she could. Was being here, now, doing that? Or just fueling her own hate.
"It recovers too quickly to Send." She says quietly, before her companions suggest it. "White Knight," she whispers, not sure she can be heard, "please watch your step."
And then she thrusts her staff into the air, and a ball of darkness appaears atop it, flying into the sky and exploding, and motes of darkness fall onto the battlefield, unaimed, unmanaged. Some of them will hit something, but most will fall harmlessly to the ground. For all she is a martial artist, perhaps she is a clumsy mage.
GS: Pearl has attacked Gon Guado with Darkness Rain! GS: Pearl has completed her action. GS: CRITICAL! Gon Guado takes a solid hit from Marivel Armitage's She's Mari Poppins Y'all for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Gon Guado gains 1 additional Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.
Unfortunately for Cyre, this victim of his attempted pressure-poisoning is somewhat more martially inclined (and significantly more conscious of his surroundings) than the last. Gon darts in and drives a palm into the shaman's scalp, and it's only by dint of his blade's-edge-honed reflexes (and a long history of Having An Older Brother) that Cyre is able to narrowly evade the attempted knock-out blow. It grazes his brow, cutting a gash across his forehead. Nevertheless, it's enough to disrupt his concentration just enough to shatter the shaman's arcana.
"You're talking to us about misunderstanding...?" Cyre hisses in response, fading back out of fisticuffs range-- but not entirely. The shaman's hands curl into fists of his own as he surges back in, wind howling with his passage. He launches an assault of his own-- a rapid series of body blows. But each strike is punctuated by a burst of wind, a shrieking pulse of pressurized force that stirs the surrounding air into a wrathful, turbulent storm. "You... You're so stuck in this fatalistic despair that you don't even want to entertain the thought of hope!"
The wind reaches a fevered pitch. The swirling gales spiral around the shaman's fist. As if to punctuate his point-- and terminate his combo, he hurls a final uppercut into the man's gut, looking to launch him into the air by unleashing a screaming tornado at the moment of impact.
...But that's not the end. No, Gon has inadvertently made this into a cage match. And that can only mean one thing.
Earthbound or not, regardless of whether his attempted aerial launch was successful, Cyre is right there. "What would you do, Gon Guado... What would you do if your children were still alive? Would you still throw your life away!? Would you have us kill their father!?" Cyre is there.
...And he reaches out to take Gon Guado into a one-armed embrace--
--No wait that's just an attempted command grab that segues into a clothesline into the mountainside, accompanied by a sudden but devastating (and unseasonable) downburst.
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
Jacqueline always uses local ingredients! It's much cheaper to produce her mixtures that way - and effective, too, judging from the results. The Wendigo King looks incapacitated for the time being. She doesn't know how long it'll last, but that'll buy them some time.
"Arrogant? Do you listen to yourself? Well, if you must know, I spoke with them. On the Thunder Plains - they wished to head to Bevelle, to help the people suffering there. They cared about them, cared about their plight." Jacqueline explains. Gon goes for a sweep, then. She's never been that good at close-range. She backpedals to try and get out of range and he still manages to catch one of her feet out from under her. She nearly falls, orienting herself toward the nearest wall to support herself and find her footing.
"As for what world I see for you... I can't tell you that. That's for you to decide, ultimately. ...But, I can give you some advice." Jacqueline says, taking a moment to regain her footing. "The war is over, but there are still displaced refugees. Still people who need medical attention. You said so yourself - none among your people are more versed in the power of prayer then you are, correct? Think about how many you could help if you turned away toward violence, and toward helping the people who need it most. It won't change the fact that you abandoned them at their time of greatest need... but it might help."
She backpedals, then. Her Sorcery isn't coming as easily to her, thanks to Gon's efforts. So it might be best to continue to focus on potions, then. She scans the area, taking stock of the situation, before...
"Ah, Leo... I don't know if you'll accept it from me but please, take this!" Jacqueline says, tossing a bottle his way - a potion of healing and restoration, with the added benefit of helping focus the mind.
GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked White Knight Leo with Focus Flask! GS: Jacqueline Barber has gained 1 Combo! GS: Jacqueline Barber has completed her action. GS: Cyre H. Lorentz spends 1 Combo on Link! GS: Cyre H. Lorentz has attacked Gon Guado with Sow the Storm! GS: Cyre H. Lorentz has gained 1 Combo! GS: Cyre H. Lorentz has launched an attack Link! GS: Cyre H. Lorentz enters the Avenger stance! GS: Cyre H. Lorentz has attacked Gon Guado with Reap the Whirlwind! GS: Cyre H. Lorentz enters a Counter stance! GS: Cyre H. Lorentz has gained 1 Combo! GS: Riposte expired! GS: Cyre H. Lorentz has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.
"If it is as it will ever be," Boudicca asks, achingly genuine, "then how did your Lord Jyascal change the Guado's fate to prosperity, back then?!" She is, yes, worried for the immense conflict weighing upon Gon's back; forcing someone to look at a truth long-denied is a dangerous task, and her Seer is back there, in the caves.
And Gon, who is right here, is a formidable foe in his own right. Boudicca brings her tonda up to defend her from Gon's shoulder bash, but she slides back on the cold ground before she's able to deflect him away.
It's a startlingly nonlethal way to deal with a monster, which is reflected just as much in the way she cries: "Kaguya!!" She isn't fast enough to intercede, but neither, it seems, will Gon go down so easily. She scarcely has time to organise her thoughts before Cyre, too, goes for the throat -- and let us remember now that Boudicca is the wind, and feels perfectly keenly the negative atmosphere of Cyre's blows. "I -- I understand your feelings," she cries, to them, taking a step back. "'Tis an unthinkable horror he has wrought, but -- but--!" they're looking for their father, she has protected them all this time, they are trying so hard,
Boudicca chokes on her own ethics, but Marivel is a fine orator; she says what Boudicca can't quite manage, and Boudicca nods, straightening. "Please, listen to Marivel!" She's looking at Gon, saying that, but maybe she's not just talking to Gon.
Gon isn't listening, though. Boudicca keeps trying. "They are here, in these caves! I left them to find a path to breathe, so thin lies this air!" She draws herself up, more anger entering her tone, and continues: "Do you understand how they feel?! Just as Jacqueline says, they braved the Thunder Plains, all on their own -- there we found them! I told them war was no place for the young, and still they declined to look away! And as Bevelle burned, they stood, they fought to save what lives they could! I was with them, Gon -- I saw their true desire for a better world! At every turn they have risen to the task, because..!!"
Boudicca's voice fades, grasping hand to her heart. "... because..."
And she thrusts that hand out, to enwrap the Wendigo King in a swirl of air, to confound it and keep it from rampaging around the arena. "This reason," she agrees with Marivel, again, "you must hear it from them, not from I."
GS: Seraph Boudicca spends 1 Combo on Gatling, loading 1 into Gatling! GS: Seraph Boudicca has attacked Gon Guado with Howling Gale! GS: Seraph Boudicca has completed her action. GS: Gon Guado takes a solid hit from Cyre H. Lorentz's Sow the Storm for 166 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Gon Guado gains 1 additional Combo! GS: CRITICAL! Gon Guado takes a solid hit from Cyre H. Lorentz's Reap the Whirlwind for 227 hit points! GS: Sneak! The true nature of Pearl's attack becomes clear! GS: Gon Guado takes a solid hit from Pearl's Shadow Glyph for 171 hit points! GS: Gon Guado takes a solid hit from Seraph Boudicca's Howling Gale for 236 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Gon Guado gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Jacqueline Barber heals White Knight Leo! He gains 110 temporary hit points! GS: Restore! Delay removed! GS: Surge applied to White Knight Leo!
<Pose Tracker> Pearl has posed.
The motes fall harmlessly to the ground, where they fill the area surrounding Gon and the Wendigo with unseen glyphs. Darkness glyphs. And when someone comes into contact with them, they explode up in a burst of potent shadow magic. A perfect trap for enemies who rely on mobility.
But even as they go up, Pearl looks to the cave Marivel has illuminated. "...Timu, Pani... Please be alright."
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
The Wendigo King does hit Kaguya, knocking her to the ground with sheer mass of ones of their huge limbs and sending her sprawling down for a moment, while she rolls out of the way of further counterattack and hops up to find her opening. She doesn't pull her weapon--she isn't going to use it right now, not for this. Talk of faith, Billy still believing...
Leo may have offered surrender, but the look in Kaguya's eyes isn't one that suggests it.
Nor does it suggest anything else after a moment, as a spasm wracks through her in her anger, making her cough up blood in the moment. "Not... now..."
"Stands between what!?" she demands. "They weren't 'consorting', you know. I was being friendly, because I saw something similar in them--because they were the only ones here who understood anything about science! And then they died. ...And you know? I didn't even speak their language! We couldn't even communicate! And for that, you thought they were 'consorting'!"
She looks back to Marivel for a moment, and then to Gon again. "...Maybe Rikku wouldn't want me to kill you. But I do. Because you're just like THEM!"
Kaguya bends at the knee, and begins to charge with energy, translucent force gathering around her. She breathes it in, and adopts a ready stance, fists and eyes starting to glow--before she LEAPS upward, high into the air above Gagazet, high enough that she glints for a moment in the fading sun, and then slams downward with the force of a meteor, metal-covered fist first.
"Temrood deserved BETTER!"
...But she does glance, at the end--towards the cavern where it's lit, as she's landing--
GS: Kaguya spends 2 Combo on Headshot! GS: Kaguya has attacked Gon Guado with Falling Star! GS: Kaguya has gained 1 Combo! GS: Kaguya has completed her action. GS: You do not have any attacks from that person in queue.
<Pose Tracker> White Knight Leo has posed.
Leo utters a curse under his breath as the Fiend reforms yet again. "It's Sin in miniature," he growls, looking directly at Gon. "Do you think you're teaching us a lesson here, old man? A lesson about what must be--how futile it is to oppose the order of things?"
Gon charges.
"What do you stand against," Leo breathes. Then Gon's claws rake across his chest, tearing through shirt and scraping against mail with an ugly metallic shriek. The force of it drives the breath from him again, and he stumbles back, eyes narrowed. Gon is daring him to come at him. Leo sinks to a three-point crouch. Althenan glyphs ignite in the frozen soil at his feet, surrounding him with brilliant amber light. He's never done this outside of Hashmal, but he tries.
"Mount Gagazet," he whispers, "aid your wayward son."
The earth erupts behind Gon, rising in a series of stony pillars that quickly start to encircle him. More rise near Leo--and he unsheathes his blade just long enough to SLASH clean through them, toppling them like trees before an axe. They fall directly at the Wendigo, even as the rest of the pillars try to hem Gon in.
Marivel has something up her sleeve. Gon may deny it, but Leo knows just what it is. A reckoning cannot be postponed indefinitely, after all.
GS: White Knight Leo spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: White Knight Leo has attacked Gon Guado with Grand Upheaval! GS: White Knight Leo has gained 2 Combo! GS: White Knight Leo has completed his action. GS: Gon Guado takes a solid hit from Kaguya's Falling Star for 181 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Gon Guado gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Cripple and Jam applied to Gon Guado! GS: Gon Guado takes a solid hit from White Knight Leo's Grand Upheaval for 171 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Billy Lee Black has posed.
Billy finally replies to Cyre, though his eyes are mostly on Gon and his beast. "I'm not letting him do anything," he says, with a possibly concerning cold. "His beast doesn't frighten me. An Etone's responsibility is to protect people from monsters."
He looks for Gon's eyes, his own face a mask. "Man or beast," he says.
He starts forward, his Ether gun slipping back into his habit as he reaches for his gunsmoke. "Do I? I understand that you protect a man who will kill everyone on this star and beyond. I understand that in your hypocrisy you will allow him to kill the wives and children of many men who would hate you as deeply as you hate these folk. I understand that you have sentenced numerous people to die already in the name of a God whose only blessing is death, and a high priest whose only sermon is the grave."
He pulls his gunsmoke, and this time he levels it straight at Gon. "I understand quite--!" he says, his voice rising.
And then Marivel conjures the children in question. Billy looks over with a strange, strangled noise in his throat. In that moment of weakness the Wendigo clobbers him, sending him stumbling backward. Blood drips from his lip, a small abrasion from the strike. His lip curls--
But he brings his other hand up to press against his chest, and closes his eyes. Even with the Wendigo rampaging, he closes his eyes and slows his breathing, until a bright light shines out from him and through him, the benedictions of God radiating out of him and granting strength and protection to, if nothing else, at least the kids who are now in the vicinity of a dangerous undying wendigo.
GS: Billy Lee Black has attacked Billy Lee Black with Sacred Veil! GS: Billy Lee Black has attacked Cyre H. Lorentz with Sacred Veil! GS: Billy Lee Black has attacked Marivel Armitage with Sacred Veil! GS: Billy Lee Black has gained 1 Combo! GS: Billy Lee Black has completed his action. GS: Billy Lee Black heals Billy Lee Black! He gains 110 temporary hit points! GS: Shield and Surge applied to Billy Lee Black! GS: Billy Lee Black heals Cyre H. Lorentz! He gains 110 temporary hit points! GS: Shield and Surge applied to Cyre H. Lorentz! GS: Billy Lee Black heals Marivel Armitage! She gains 110 temporary hit points! GS: Shield and Surge applied to Marivel Armitage!
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.
A bright healing light shines down on Marivel from above.
"Oh that feels..."
Smoke starts drifting up from her body.
She bursts into flames.
"FFfFFffff---!!" Marivel rolls around on the floor.
<Pose Tracker> Gon Guado has posed.
"Who are you speaking to," Gon can't grasp it when Marivel speaks - that they're here. He assumes they must be dead, and at best, Marivel must be referring to Unsent... but beyond the ambience present within this sacred land beyond Gagazet, he does not catch whiff of the scent of the Farplane beyond, as Marivel invites them to tell them.
Pearl is now in the place to lecture Gon about how she listened, as she summons forth motes of darkness from an exploding ball of the stuff, forming into yawning traps that the rampaging Wendigo King steps into and sets off. However... to Pearl's trained, honed senses, her heart may soon find reason to grow relieved. Elated, maybe - but more on that soon.
Cyre fights back, striking against Gon in his gut. He can feel how easily Guado bodies crumple to trauma, no matter Gon's mastery of White Magic as a means of recovering from and staving off the worst of it - launching him into the air, clotheslining him into the nearby mountainside and preventing a near-fatal hit because of setting off a glyph sprinkled about, holding Gon there but giving him a bad case of whiplash.
Jay speaks of things the man finds horrifying in his injurious reverie - they went through the Thunder Plains by themselves? To go to Bevelle? He never thought any Guado would want to set foot there. Why, he thinks. (Marivel, as pointed out earlier, is inviting them to say why.) Jay dresses down what Spira needs, what something Gon can unique provide because of his talents.
Boudicca echoes it. To see their desire. Where would they get these thoughts from? Even as Timu by necessity left Guadosalam every so often to play Blitzball with others from around Spira, even as Pani often was in the company of guests to Guadosalam while helping her mother with her shop, he can't see why, or how, they would leave Guadosalam against his people's wishes. (Seymour's wishes. Which, on more than one occasion, Gon technically defied by going out to try and find them.) A wave of wind enwraps the Wendigo King, further squeezing them within that gale as they grow translucent again from trauma and accumulated damages.
Kaguya's wrath will not be stayed, nor will her hand - this is the man who has helped author one of Spira's greatest mortal-made tragedies in recent years by his insistence that the Al Bhed have become a threat by associating with the Otherworlders, no matter how exaggerated or perceived his idea of it. As she comes down, for a moment, her wrath is met with an outstretched hand of another ice-cold spell of protection, a translucent angular shell that shines and reflects like ice as the metal-covered fist from on high keeps burning, keeps traveling like there isn't anything there and is looking to push through. By the time it does and makes impact... Gon only bleeds off enough with this defense to stop himself from being killed on the spot, flinging him aways onto his knees - around Leo's vantage point.
Leo asks what he stands against, and Gon exhales nothing but his breath, his weakening fighting spirit. Leo calls for the aid of Mount Gagazet on behalf of its wayward son. The earth erupts, and Gon, freed from the shackles of fatigue momentarily, leaps at Leo though propelled through injurious force as much as his own leg strength, swinging a downward swipe of his clawed hand that stands to graze Leo - but enough to impart some idea of its impact, some idea, some imprint, as the earthen pillars that rise collapse on the Wendigo King, at least one battering and shattering against Gon (it's not that Gon is tough, that one pillar was brittle).
Billy starts forward, finding that timing after the earthen pillars incident to speak of Gon's hypocrisy. His life has been full of it, all self-serving in the name of Guado advancement and prosperity in this corrupt, rotted, stagnant society. That allowing this to happen sees so many wives, children, and others stand to die - to repeat the tragedy he believes has befallen him - and a shining light spirals out to targets Gon can see right here and now...
And two more.
<Pose Tracker> Gon Guado, Timu Guado, and Pani Guado have posed.
At the beginning, it's wordless, as pyreflies leak out from between the fallen earth pillars, preparing to reform to the icy feathers and aurora light...
But something twists, pulls itself apart, and reforms into a hollow, barely-visible, round, cackling gray-hued sharp-mawed thing. It's like a child's drawing of a Grenade, a 'native' Fiend that often forms in Mount Gagazet, and the other remaining pyreflies twist and flit about into what should be a presumed, predestined, permanent shape to reform to but cannot because the exacting 'components' of whatever the pyreflies carry are missing.
Another such Grenade forms, and another, each one less perfect than the last. They are no less 'threatening,' in that they are Fiends. Fiends filled with envy and hatred for the living, that flit out among the gathered and explode.
With all the force of a gentle, warm breeze - and due to their simplistic construction, reform again and again in order to become a warm puff of air and repeat the process. Sometimes they bump into others, but without any real force. Like a rude shove, at best.
Gon looks upon this dumbfounded as he stands, looking past this harmless mosh pit of about twelve barely-there Grenades, all of whom have hijacked the White Magic blessing of Reraisega to see two figures standing there.
The shorter, a green-haired young Guado woman in robes and a staff too large, deep in thought as she continues to weave remaining pyreflies into simple shapes. The taller, a dark blue-haired young Guado woman, a younger teenager, in a Blitzball outfit with additional layers to better account for the cold - tears in her eyes. An awkward pause, as if she rehearsed but can't quite say it...
She throws her Blitzball first, which bounces off Gon's head. He catches it on the rebound, but not with strength.
"The Guado guard the Farplane... so the people of Spira may come visit their loved ones and find peace and strength." Timu says with a scowl a perfect match for her father's, because that's who she got it form. "And yet... the Maester would leave Spira to suffer when Bevelle's walls fell."
"We went back with you," Pani speaks up, falling to her knees from exhaustion. (Timu slaps an oncoming Weak Grenade away with a palm for her sake.) "But only us..."
Gon is seeing those two in the flesh. The pyrefly weaving, a technique only the Guado have, and Pani just undid his like an overly eager child 'helping' a parent through a critical and fragile task and making a mess of it.
Timu takes the time - and an Ether, which she is way too young to drink by the way - to cast a low-yield Cure spell on everyone who is ailing and fighting, filled with the warmth of Althena's White Fire.
"We live in Spira too," Pani says. She's about at her limit for words. "So do the Al Bhed. So do the Ronso. Why did we hurt them?"
"The Otherworlders have come to Spira too... many to help us," Timu says, looking to all those who were there - and even passing a glance to those she knows were fighting for the Guard.
"We were rude to them," Timu says of Jay.
"But they helped us," she says to Boudicca.
"They tried to tell us to go back," Timu says in regards to Marivel.
"They cared about what Spira goes through," Pani says in Cyre's direction.
"They don't live the same way we do," Timu says to Billy in acknowledgement of his foreign form of protective magic.
"...And sometimes they fought everyone over it," Pani is having trouble looking Leo in the eye.
"And... they'd still fight with us, with our ways," she says to Pearl.
Pani looks to the sheer anger in Kaguya's eyes, walks forward to a sickly Veruni woman who is ready to just explode and take vengeance, and looks downcast. "I'm sorry... we couldn't stop our father."
Almost like Gon isn't there, to them, who falls to his knees, hands on the ground. Has anyone ever seen a man on Spira die and not loose pyreflies? This may be as close to that as it gets. The Blitzball escapes his grasp and rolls towards Timu.
She punts it into her father's face, where it bounces off in some irrelevant direction to the proceedings, as the Grenades continue to distantly and faintly chatter, fill the air with steadily warmer, more pleasant temperatures, and otherwise be the cage of a seemingly unbeatable White Magic spell amongst themselves.
There is no more fight left in that man.
GS: Gon Guado has activated a Boss Action! GS: You have activated the Boss Action Extend! GS: Gon Guado has attacked Marivel Armitage with Cure! GS: Gon Guado has attacked Billy Lee Black with Cure! GS: Gon Guado has attacked White Knight Leo with Cure! GS: Gon Guado has attacked Kaguya with Cure! GS: Gon Guado has attacked Pearl with Cure! GS: Gon Guado has attacked Seraph Boudicca with Cure! GS: Gon Guado has attacked Jacqueline Barber with Cure! GS: Gon Guado has attacked Cyre H. Lorentz with Cure! GS: Gon Guado takes 20 damage from Poison! GS: Gon Guado has completed his action. GS: Gon Guado heals Cyre H. Lorentz! He gains 100 temporary hit points! GS: Gon Guado heals Jacqueline Barber! She gains 100 temporary hit points! GS: Gon Guado heals Kaguya! She gains 100 temporary hit points! GS: Shield applied to Gon Guado! GS: Gon Guado heals Seraph Boudicca! She gains 100 temporary hit points! GS: Shield applied to Gon Guado! GS: Seraph Boudicca activates Sufferer! GS: Gon Guado heals Pearl! She gains 100 temporary hit points! GS: Shield applied to Gon Guado! GS: Gon Guado heals White Knight Leo! He gains 100 temporary hit points! GS: Gon Guado heals Billy Lee Black! He gains 100 temporary hit points! GS: Shield applied to Gon Guado! GS: Gon Guado heals Marivel Armitage! She gains 100 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
She could explode with it--and indeed, seeing Gon down there on the ground, weakened, Kaguya knows she could finish it. He's on his knees, hands on the ground, and neither of the two young Guado before her could hope to stop her. Kaguya looks at him, staring... until she finally looks to Pani, who walks to her. She might be taller than Kaguya, even at her age; Kaguya is small as the Veruni go, small even as humans go. "You..."
Kaguya looks over to Boudicca and Marivel, surprisingly chill about Marivel being a little on fire. It happens. It's fine. And then, back to Pani... and back to Gon himself again.
"...You're lucky," she says quietly, "That they love you." She feels better for the Cure spell; it helps. But the way she felt, all that sheer hatred for Gon...
It seems distant, now.
"...You wanted honor, Sir Leo?" Kaguya says to the White Knight nearby, who'd cautioned her before. "Take it. I'm... done here."
To Pani, "...It's not your responsibility, you know. What your parents do. It's theirs. ...But taking up for it anyway, and trying to do something about it... I respect that. So you win. He lives."
To Gon, "I hope you live a long life. And treasure it." Then she turns, and starts to walk away.
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.
Marivel doesn't have to answer Gon. The kids can do that on their own. They pat out the flames--assisted by Pino's less ordained magicks and straightens herself up, stretching. It's anybody's guess if she was just doing a bit.
"They are good kids." Marivel says. "Spira's children are its greatest gift. Do you understand? Your future is the greatest gift you have."
She looks down for a moment and then adds, "Do not squander it, Gon Guado even if it is not quite what you expected."
And with that she turns into a bat and floats over to Boudicca so she can flop onto her shoulder and take a nap there. She's had a long couple of days and Boudicca is a dear friend and honestly a top tier perch. Boudicca may not be an orator, but with a heart like hers you do not always have to be.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.
Boudicca wished Pani were here, to shape the pyreflies. And when someone is very good and very true and very determined, sometimes, wishes are fulfilled.
She helps batter the Wendigo back to pyreflies again, and this time, they come back different. Different -- because here they are. Boudicca looks to Kaguya, in this moment, and does not say with her lips so much as her eyes to let this be enough.
They are his children.
Her attention goes back to Pani and Timu soon enough, though; she said he ought to hear them say it himself, and it is a worthy thing to witness. These youths, with so little years and so much experience within them...
Boudicca nods, as Pani concludes what they have learned. (She is relieved, too, to see Kaguya relent.) When she looks back to Gon, she speaks softly. "I hope you will be proud of your children. Spira has no finer future than they, true of heart and clear of mind."
She looks back to Pani and Timu, then, bowing to them -- in the wider Lunar fashion, rather than Spira's particular style, but they've just spoken on all those nuances. "... I, myself, feel privileged to witness your journey. I am so relieved to know Spira will pass to hands such as yours." Boudicca is proud.
She straightens up, and thusly becomes a bat perch, reaching up to scratch a poor, slightly-burnt Maribat behind the ears as she settles in for a nap. "Thank you," she says, to her, quietly. Don't worry, she'll be sure to whisk her away to a friendly camp.
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.
... ... . . .
Cyre, standing amidst the roiling dust cloud that he drifting along the mountainside, and gleaming with an Etone's blessing... Is deeply concerned. "Huh..." he thinks aloud, "...Maybe I shouldn't... use Elder Isaac as a benchmark for 'old man strength.'"
Beat.
"What do you mean that's not how it works?" He asks at Tio, then, as the catastrophe of spells and ARMsfire and flying kicks from the atmospheric mid-rope all slam into Guado and summoned fiend alike. It seems as though Kaguya may have to enact a more permanent solution, when...
There are... grenades.
It's nice and warm. And so is the sight of a couple of young Guado wandering into the battlefield. "Those are..." Gon's daughters, in the (very living) flesh.
The shaman stands and sighs. A warm, healing light flashes across his body, closing the gash bleeding steadily across his brow. As he makes his way back down, he just so happens to pass Kaguya mid-storming-away. His lips move to utter a hushed whisper, audible only to the two of them.
...What is it that he said? Well, that's private.
"...I asked you a question, Gon Guado," he says, finally close enough to speak without yelling. "...If your children were still alive, what would you do?"
"Well?" He gestures at the pair of teenagers and their flurry of bombs, "It looks like they're maybe a bit stronger than you thought they were, huh?"
<Pose Tracker> White Knight Leo has posed.
Even wounded, Gon is fast--and he proves it by rushing at Leo in a counterstrike that would be downright vicious if there were more power behind it. If Leo weren't expecting retaliation. The White Knight twists out of the way, and once again there's a horrible metallic shriek as Gon's claws grate against his armor. He skids to a stop, his jaw tightening as he sees the swirling Pyreflies.
And then the unexpected happens. Leo knows Grenades when he sees them--horror crosses his face, and he braces, shielding himself for the inevitable fireball, the concussive shockwave.
And then, fate ups the ante. Leo hears a *pop* that's more rubbery than explosive. Warm air washes across him. He opens his eyes, and turns back to the two young Guado who have risked everything to be here. The Cure spell settles into him; the bleeding slows and stops, and some of the claw-marks seal up entirely. Leo pats at his chest. He smiles, watches, and listens. Even Kaguya seems to abandon her bloodthirst in the face of the sisters' conviction, a fact that kindles quiet gratitude in Leo's heart.
"You tried," Leo says, to Pani. "No one should ever ask that of a child. Your father sinned. It is his duty to make restitution." Tears well up in his eyes. He thinks of Mauri, and Heldalf. "I know how it feels to love someone who's done--terrible things." This is the first time he's mentioned what Mauri did in Bevelle. He has no answers, no explanation, no rational reason for why his sister would do such a thing.
But this isn't the place for his own unresolved trauma. He steps forward, and reaches down to rest a hand on Pani's shoulder, if she'll allow it. "Marivel is right," Leo says. "You're Spira's future. And I bet there are others back in Guadosalam who feel the same way you do, but haven't had the chance to do what you have." He looks down at Timu. "All of Spira's peoples are wounded. I was used to deepen those wounds, and for that I am deeply sorry. Healing those wounds will be the work of lifetimes, but if anyone can start that work, it's you."
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
Two people arrive, thanks to Marivel - the two, perhaps, who are the only ones who can see to it that this doesn't end in tragedy. Pani and Timu arrive with healing for all and immediately lay into Gon, their verbal thrashing harder hitting than any spell, ARM, or martial technique displayed thus far. The Wendigo King is undone... and so, too, is Gon.
Jacqueline watches both of them, with a feeling of surprise, relief that they are in fact alright, and pride.
"...It's good to see you both again. I'm glad you're okay." Jacqueline says, offering the two children a smile. And then she turns her attention to Gon.
"...Once you've finished putting the shattered pieces of your dignity back together, then stand up, Gon Guado. You have a lot to answer for. You can't possibly make up for everything you've done, everything you've allowed to happen... but you can try to make things better." Jacqueline folds her arms in front of her, then, fixing him with a stern glance. "But if you leave it to your children to solve everything for you... then I might just lose any small amount of respect I still have for you. But you can still walk with them."
<Pose Tracker> Pearl has posed.
Pearl isn't sure who to thank for this, but she is nonetheless thankful. The two are alright. There is a quiet, gentle 'poik... poik... poik...' as the littlest Guardian (take that Pacce!) bounces up next to Pani, looking up at her silently. The onion (bulb?) friend that is Leo Jr positions himself next to Pani, to provide additional support. He's good at that. Behind him, just hidden in the shadows, someone else smiles, but doesn't bring attention to herself. Pearl lets out a breath she didn't know she was holding.
And then her next biggest worry is Duchess Alathfar who... walks away. Pearl blinks a few times. A part of her thought she might have to intervene, place herself between Kaguya and Gon. She doesn't. But Kaguya sees something from Pearl she might not ever have expected- a smile. Small and faint and quiet but real, not a mask- if she can tell. "...Thank you." She whispers, barely audible. But she says it.
Her eyes track back to Timu and Pani, and then to Gon. She kneels in front of him, close. "You are not a good man, Gon Guado." She is harsh, her voice is hard. "You have done awful things. But we both have." *Mine are probably worse.* "But without you, I would not have my freedom. Hope. A cause. So I thank you, earnestly." She does not smile, or soften. "Do not waste this chance. Try and be a man your daughters will feel happy to have saved. Change is possible for even the most foul and cruel of us."
*Keep telling yourself that. Maybe you'll believe it.*
"Timu and Pani deserve better than the hand you, Seymour and the Guado have dealt them." *They already had better than you had. Why do you care?* Pearl closes her eyes at her inner voice. "They may be the only hope the Guado have. Help them."
With that, she stands up, and walks away, over to Leo. And then he speaks to Timu and Pani and she pauses. Maybe the White Knight truly is the last good man of Althena's chosen. "...I think my promises are fulfilled for the moment, White Knight. There are matters you deserve answers to. And things I must tell you." She pauses. "But I would ensure they are alright first."
She walks towards Pani and Timu, and lowers herself to Pani's height, and looks up at Timu. "...I think you got through to him. Somehow." She says, that soft smile back. "Are you both alright? What will you do from here?"
<Pose Tracker> Billy Lee Black has posed.
Billy's eyes slowly reopen. He is surrounded by the lowly Weak Grenades - but even that is soon shorn apart by the Guado youths. Billy looks at fallen, fightless Gon with something inscrutable in his eyes.
He has prayed beside men like this before. That was his business, when he was trapped on Spira at the first. Befriend the people - prayer and solemnity, shared, forms bonds that last this life and beyond. Spreading his own Gospel could come with time, he thought. An Etone, a good one, would stay with this man in his moment of terror, and build him up. Even the demons he slew, the Wels and worse, he had some small prayer for their souls to send on their way.
Billy slides his gunsmoke away, feeling his knuckles ache as they release their fierce grip on the handle, hearing the leather creak as it accepts the barrel. The others are rallying to support this man. To build him back up now that he is fallen down, he thinks, a numbness crawling down his spine.
He sets his habit straight, and without a word, sets out for his rendezvous.
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
Kaguya does not stop at Pearl's smile or at Cyre's whisper. She stiffly continues her walk away, instead.
But she saw, and she heard. And they might've seen the barest hint of an answer in her face along the way.
<Pose Tracker> Gon Guado has posed.
Pani flinches a little as the little edge of hatred in Kaguya's voice may yet bleed through the quiet resignation and submission to the concept of honor, and takes a tep back to allow her to pass in the direction she just happens to be standing in the way of, and her eyes trail Kaguya for a bit, wondering just how deep her pain goes. Pani has seen a lot of truly hurt and sad people, in her time, and she clutches her staff tighter.
Between Kaguya's wishes he has a long life and Marivel's desire that Gon not squander it, the at last felled Guado Guardian works up the faintest vestiges of life after the decisive blow against his heart, tears starting to fall from his face. Pani nor Timu approach him yet.
"It will, won't it," Timu seems a bit stunned by the idea of something like the entirety of Spira being in her grasp. "I... thank you for... for protecting both of us, in Bevelle," Timu says to Boudicca, returning her Lunar-style bow. "So that I could... see who my people left behind." She doesn't say any further than that, for she is still processing a lot of what she did see there, what she had to help deal with.
"You went to Bevelle," Gon says meekly, as Pani nods in acknowledgement - and Cyre once again asks the question. What would he do, if his children were still alive? That's not even a question now. His children are still alive, right there - and he honestly can't answer, for how much he believed they were gone. "They went to Bevelle," that's not quite an answer to that question, moreso than an acknowledgement of Cyre's assertion about their strength.
Leo, once the head of the armies that would have subjugated Spira, addresses both children from a shared position of pain and humility - both were let down by those they looked up to, that they were raised to look up to and follow the teachings of without question. Healing, the work of lifetimes for a wounded people of Spira.
"...There will be a Spira, won't there?" Pani says, now fearful of what lies beyond this as she looks to Leo's gentler face as she lets his hand rest on her shoulder - the fight the adults are going to have to do. "What if everyone stays angry at us... forever? Like the people at Bevelle, and the Ronso, and, and..."
Jay, at last, gets to completely speak down to Gon on an uncontestable moral and martial position, after how many times he's talked down to her and others like her? It must be catharthic, as he can't even look her in the eye. He looks so pathetic. He can't say anything back to her.
Pearl, unexpectedly... thanks the horrid man before, and beneath, her. But that in his own way, somehow, he helped Pearl win her freedom. Under the false guise of Ena, he showed her the way to her own self-asserted strength and friendship with Leviatha, forging a power to help see a future beyond that under the thumb of... someone to be left in the dust of her past. "You would thank me," Gon chokes, as he is further lectured about change and the future.
Pearl just going to the two of them as Pani struggles with what comes next... it's Timu's turn, now, to act like the bigger sister after she nearly lost it with Pearl out of stress.
"I don't know," Timu says as she lays a hand down on Pani's shoulder opposite of Leo. "Spira's never had to think about that... has it. Maybe they will."
There was that man who helped unite so many in Bevelle after they were left to their own devices from the fall of its wall. He always seemed to speak with such passion about the winds of change and what comes next.
"If... if you're trusting Spira's future to us," Pani finally has it in her to assert herself, looking to Leo, Pearl, and all the others, "we need to, to you, too..."
Timu looks onward to Zanarkand. "We're... we're counting on you," she says with the humility that has been progressively seeping into both their hearts. "We can't stop... Seymour." No more formal titles for them. "We're not Summoners."
She catches Billy going off, silently, unsure what to say to a man who seems grimly resolute to keep going forward. Maybe there isn't anything more to be said.
Gon doesn't yet have the strength to speak up - as it is his daughters who are just going to have to buoy him as he stares back at all that has transpired with empty horror.
"We'll... pray for your success, everyone," Pani says. "Everyone! Please hear it when we do."
Timu at last retrieves her Blitzball, lifts it up, thinks about beaning her father again... and exhales a sigh. Can she ever forgive their father for abandoning them, and all of Spira, for Seymour's ambitions? Can he ever make up for it? Can they ever repair it?
Uncertainty hangs in the air, beyond this: the gathered here, and their friends, in all the myriad ways of life, thinking, and belief - however distant they are from one another, however differing their goals.
Spira's fate rests on their shoulders as much as it does Lady Yuna's.
Sin is everyone's enemy, and Sin hasn't defeated everyone yet.
Not even in a thousand years.