2022-08-12: Traitors to Kindred
- Log: Traitors to Kindred
- Cast: Caina, Eleanor Klein, Zhang Xiumei, Marivel Armitage, Elhaym van Houten, Ashley Winchester, Ruth Pauling, Ida Everstead-Rey, Seraph Clarine, Ryoko Mizore
- Where: Djose Temple
- Date: August 12, 2022
- Summary: A small team, aided by ARMS, breaches the defenses of one of the Diablo Pillars. Within, they encounter Caina... and Randolph the Magic Key.
<Pose Tracker> Caina has posed.
It would seem that at least one of the mysteries of just what Odessa had been doing in Spira all those years ago is now solved. Hidden by the mountains near Djose, it was only once the construction of this tower reached completion that some might have become aware of this Diablo Pillar.
That, or the coordinates gleaned from the spire that Ptolomea guarded. It would seem that this is a key relay for the others in some fashion, though knowing Odessa... there must be redundancies in the system to account for its loss. All four need to be brought down.
This will be the second.
Simply reaching the tall and thin blue tower is a minor ordeal: either one must approach from the air or one must brave narrow mountain passes. Whether it's monsters in the mountain passes or the pillar's defenses, there are obstacles in their path.
And these only double once the pillar itself is breached. Finding a way upwards, while Odessa forces fight to prevent their advance, will be a difficult task. But it must be done to prevent Odessa from utilizing the full strength of the weapons platform about which Matilda had warned ARMS.
Eventually, they reach the apex. Consoles line the room in this space, where the walls stretch upwards towards a point that can't be seen.
This place is not empty. Here there stands a young man with silvery hair, dressed in heavy robes. To one side of him there floats a large key. The smile on his face can only be called cruel.
"Did you interrogate someone for it? Or did you get lucky?" asks Caina, one of the members of Vinsfeld's inner circle, Cocytus. Caina, the bearer of Randolph the Magic Key. Caina, summoner of demons.
"Well, it doesn't matter. Your lives end here! Come, Randolph! For Lord Vinsfeld!" Caina stretches one arm towards the sky and the key begins to roll in a slow orbit about him.
<Pose Tracker> Eleanor Klein has posed.
Eleanor is in orange today, an ankle-length dress with sturdy boots and a gunbelt, along with her usual satchel full of useful and important items. She was ready to have to do some climbing... but has few complaints about not. With the help of an airship, she is one of many who makes their way to the Diablo Tower. And...
Once they reach the pillar itself, Eleanor is at the ready to help the group fight a way up; her spells look different than they have in the past, but they are certainly no less effective. Her gun still works, too. But thus far she's been conserving her energy, expecting to need it more at the top... which they do, in time, reach. Eleanor steps into the room with the consoles, and narrows her yellow eyes at Caina, with his heavy robes and silvery hair. She narrows her eyes at him. The question?
"It doesn't matter," she answers, and then watches Caina summon up the Key. She remembers it--she remembers the way he dropped them all into another dimension, which they barely escaped. ...Including her fiance, at the time. And now...
"...You wield the Key to a lock that should never have been opened. I'll end your schemes here."
She steps back, and lifts a Crest from her bag. Its inscriptions glint golden in the electric lights. e
"Let's go!"
<Pose Tracker> Zhang Xiumei has posed.
Xiumei is, as ever, with Eleanor. She has activated her Biometal; clad in an armored body suit, her white and green plates giving her protection, as she walks after her. She looks up -- up at Caina, who she has fought before. Her eyes glow a light green. They narrow, at the question, and she shakes her head. "Nora's right. It doesn't matter. And you..."
She looks at the Magic Key. She only sort of understands what it does, how it works. She trusts Eleanor's statement on the matter. Xiumei looks up, and holds her hand up. Cubes of light appear; like digital data, falling into place, until her finger curls around the trigger of the handcannon.
She points it right at Caina.
"...This is the end of the line," she says. "This world might not be perfect... but it's not Odessa's! And it's certainly not Vinsfeld's!"
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.
Marivel is a time traveler and by time traveler rules naturally told nobody about this Tower because that'd break the Time Traveler Code of never actually being helpful with your time travel. You only get to be helpful with your time travel once but like a Scott Pilgrim vegan, if you break the rule a second time you get your time traveler powers taken away. That's the rule.
And so Marivel had to pretend that she was oblivious about these towers and Heimdall Gazzo and even Lunar itself because if Marivel revealed that junk it could've thrown off the whole Time Travel Gambit she's got going on. It's only now, in these tiny little moments, she feels like she can make any kind of move based on this knowledge now that it's rapidly becoming too late for such revelations to change what is about to occur.
Why is this important? Well, Marivel feels a bit guilty about Caina. Oh he's a mass murderer who cnosorts with demons but Marivel, a demon, can hardly blame someone for that. All of Marivel's friends consort with demons too after all.
And sure, he's working for Vinsfeld a guy who wants to conquer the world, but Marivel's longtime ally and family member(?) Irving Valeria financed him so, you know, there's that.
Not that she's gonna reveal THAT any time soon ho ho ho!
Marivel arrives with Eleanor who dramatically speaks about Caina's key being used to open a door that should have never been opened.
"Hey. Rude." Marivel chides gently and probably not all that seriously?
And then she looks back to Caina.
"Actually before you kill us all, I'd like to offer you a deal," Marivel says. "Namely, I'd like to offer you and Vinsfeld an out."
She can already feel the Tindalos growling so she ignores it.
"Namely, you quit." Marivel says. "You quit now, abandon your conquest, dismantle Heimdall Gazzo--and I will happily allow you and Vinsfeld to live out happy little lives. If you're especially good, I'll even give you some of my land and you can populate it with all the people who want to follow Vinsfeld's law."
"I offer this because I appreciate your loyalty even if I am sort of asking you to bend it just a tiny weensy little bit."
"And also because I think war is dull and awful." Marivel adds. "I see no reason why this has to end in any more deaths."
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
Elhaym van Houten has no particular grudge against Odessa.
Does she LIKE them? Of course not. Odessa is really hard to like unless you're into international terrorism, and Elly is not a fan of that particular sport. Does she RESPECT them? Perhaps in the vague sense of 'they sure do accomplish goals, which shows gumption.'
But she is here for several reasons other than what one might call animus.
One is that she was asked by Shevat - a nation which still has a strange hold over her, of half-remembered echoed guilt. They gave her something precious and powerful, though it is not something she will use now. They gave it to her, one of their ancient enemies, almost without hesitation.
The other is that Shevat's request came with a significant sum of money. That wasn't decisive, but it helped.
If Elly - entering with a newly resurfaced iron rod, with leather wrapped grip and sheathed steel at either end - had something to say, though, it dies on her lips as her eyes turn towards the Key.
"I have a bad feeling about this," Elly says quietly.
<Pose Tracker> Ashley Winchester has posed.
Ashley is Ashley-shaped today, which is not an indication of what he may or may not look like in the near future. But to the relief of the world at large, he is still Ashley-shaped and not shaped like the kind of thing that would literally set multiple planets ablaze.
For now.
Considering who ARMS encounters near the zenith of the Diablo Pillar, that may not hold up for long.
"Caina," Ashley grunts, meaningfully racking the bolt action of his altogether far too large greatsword/anti-materiel rifle amalgam. "I don't know what you might have planned, but you know it won't be enough. Listen to Marivel and put down your weapons. Otherwise..."
Well.
He remembers what happened the last time he ran into Caina. And so does Caina. And so does Randolf.
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
Ruth doesn't change her outfit for the climate, but that's normal for her. She has, thus far, kept herself contained along the journey despite the pyrefly-lousy environs of Spira feeling both empty but also deeply stifling at the same time. She boasts arguably the best eyesight, and much less debatably the keenest marskwomanship of the gathered in terms of picking off defenses.
She enters the chamber not with her rifle at hand but a revolver in one and a Crest Graph in another at the tail end of whatever vague penultimate encounter came prior to the confrontation with Caina. Ruth is only aware in vague terms from a briefing about what is known of Cocytus' members.
"Is it the man? What he has said...? Or was all this... a means to be cruel?" She doesn't look Caina or the key head-on as she contemplates the Crest Graph in her hand as Marivel makes her deal to Caina, the appeal to peace.
Marivel is much longer-lived than her, but in a passing bit of vainglory oft reserved for the young and ignorant, stifles a dissonant grin to choke down something worse.
As Elly mentions her bad feeling and discomfort, Ruth takes two steps ahead to be kinda-sorta covering her left flank as if an unspoken gesture of kindness.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Last week, Ida helped kill a man in a desperate attempt to counter Odessa's doomsday weapon. Now, she's preparing to do it again.
As before, the trip up the tower is grueling; ambush, gunfight, desperate holding action. One by one, the waves of Odessa troopers--now more Ganondorf's than Vinsfeld's--break against the advancing force. Ida, for her part, tries to wound rather than kill when she can manage it. But she knows what's at stake.
As the final door opens, Ida stands behind Eleanor, battered and bloodied, but still fighting fit. She's pushed herself through worse than this. Her footsteps echo through the chamber as she approaches Caina--and she stops, her eyes tracking the key as it floats through the room.
Ida falls silent as Marivel speaks. He's going to refuse, she thinks. As Elly voices discomfort, Ida steps to her other side, next to Ruth. She nods, once, to the veteran sniper. There's a subtle sort of fear wafting off of her, which might explain why she hasn't spoken. She's seen what Caina is capable of; Ptolomea was a deadly foe, but Caina's powers aren't merely martial.
The void stands ready beyond the thin walls of this world, ready to swallow them all.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Clarine has posed.
Another Diablo Pillar has been uncovered - this time, on Spira, hidden near Djose. Accessing it was difficult, but fortunately, they have friends - friends with an airship, to transport them to their destination. But it is neither safe nor easy, even by air - the pillar has its defenses. Clarine does her best to shield them with her protective magic... and once they breach the pillar to itself, to provide aid to her allies as they fight their way to the pillar's heart.
It is a tiring ordeal, but one they must face - they can't spare even a moment. Eventually, however, they find themselves face-to-face with Caina. She has faced him before - she is well aware that the power he wields is anathema to a spirit of nature like herself. But still, she must fight.
"Cocytus Caina." Clarine greets, with a nod. Her tone is a bit more strained than it had been with Ptolomea prior. "You treat with forces beyond your ken. I must request that you cease, lest you risk destroying not only yourself but the very worlds themselves."
She has asked... but she doesn't expect a positive response. They'll do what must be done, whatever the outcome.
<Pose Tracker> Ryoko Mizore has posed.
Ryoko Mizore is along for the ride, trying to get more involved. The last big brawl had been kind of jarring to her. More going than she'd initially thought just running smuggling jobs and the occasional bit of thuggery. Xiumei is watched from the corner of her eye. That's the second time she's seen that sort of thing and it's weird man! Not that she's any better really. She's wearing her coat. A battered, patched and refurbished gebler jacket. Reinnforced at a few points to double as a work jacket based on the oil stains and other questionable things.
The ride on the airship is a fun enough thing. She mostly keeps to herself, watching the mechanics work more than anything. You learn from observation, even if it's mostly a familiar enough engine. However, with their arrival and the speeches by others. She hooks the handle of her mace with her foot and kicks it up to snag it with her gloved hands. Slinging it up and over, it clunks against her shoulder and she walks forward. Taking your typical tough-guy gangster look. Here to help, here to pick up some more information. Here to maybe do something better with her life. Maybe she was more shaken up by all the weirdness than she'd like to admit. She's actually wanting to get involved whether there was pay or not!
For now she doesn't have anything to say though. Half-lost in her thoughts and half relying on what amounts to muscle memory. She tightens the grip on her club, pops her neck and stands ready.
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.
"See," Marivel adds because she's like this. "Beyond your ken, way more respectful. Gold star Clarine."
<Pose Tracker> Caina has posed.
Is it the man?
Or is it simply the opportunity that presented itself?
"I follow Lord Vinsfeld," Caina replies curtly to Ruth's remark. "That is all."
Is it?
That cold smile widens as others speak. "Hmph. Say what you want," he tells Eleanor, glancing between her and Xiumei and back again. "We are more than a match for any of you." Whether he means Randolph and himself, or Odessa as a whole is open to interpretation. His eyes narrow at Xiumei's words. "That's where you're wrong. Both of these worlds... they'll belong to Lord Vinsfeld!"
Marivel...
Marivel makes him, and by proxy also Vinsfeld, an offer. Stand down now, and she'll let them live. He stares at her for a long moment, even the key stopping in its slow orbit to simply spin in place.
This is when Caina laughs in her face.
"How ridiculous! Quit, now? We're on the verge of victory! As long as Lord Vinsfeld has the will to fight, then so shall I!"
Ashley speaks up, on Marivel's behalf. Randolph holds its position, as if reacting to some aspect of Caina's will.
"...The failure speaks." Bold words, after their past confrontations. Caina has drawn himself up to his full height. "You have not yet seen the power we possess. We have only begun to fight!"
It's Clarine who accuses him outright of meddling in what he does not understand. "Beyond my ken?" he scoffs. "You have no idea what you're talking about. No one else alive understands -- and controls -- these powers better than I do! That is why I was chosen!"
By the key?
...By Vinsfeld?
Caina does not elaborate. If anything, the time for talking is, as far as he's concerned, come to an end.
At his side, Randolph vanishes, only to reappear in an eyeblink, floating before Caina. He stretches out his arms as if in reverance before his constant companion. "Randolph! Let's show them our power!" A strange unearthly light rolls from the surface of the key, bathing Caina in its glow; thus imbued, he gestures once, sharply, at those gathered before him.
Color. Flow. Coiling waves of light. It flows towards Eleanor, Xiumei, Marivel and Ashley as an otherworldly tide.
He gestures subtly with his left hand and a twisting formless riot rushes up to fleetingly engulf Elly, but it may not pass without leaving a mark.
Randolph, the Magic Key, disappears.
It appears again in the air at an angle from Ruth, shooting towards her as if it had gained terrible force and speed in its passage between the dimensions before it vanishes again.
Ryoko might want to be fast on her feet. It appears at a strange angle before her next erupting towards her as if it were instead a projectile. It vanishes.
And reappears, just to Clarine's left, shooting towards her with horrific intent before again slipping into the folds between the dimensions.
Ida will be last, before Randolph returns to its master's side. It comes in from behind, a cruel trick; perhaps the only hint of its presence there will be the displacement of air that comes before its rush of speed.
GS: Caina has attacked Caina with Initiate's Fervor! GS: Caina has gained 1 Combo! GS: Caina accepts Caina's Initiate's Fervor for 0 hit points! GS: Hyper applied to Caina! GS: Riposte applied to Caina! GS: Caina has attacked Marivel Armitage with Sarnath Wake! GS: Caina has attacked Ashley Winchester with Sarnath Wake! GS: Caina has attacked Eleanor Klein with Sarnath Wake! GS: Caina has attacked Zhang Xiumei with Sarnath Wake! GS: Caina has gained 1 Combo! GS: Caina has attacked Elhaym van Houten with Torment Grasp! GS: Caina has gained 1 Combo! GS: Caina has attacked Ryoko Mizore with Vacuum Rend! GS: Caina has gained 1 Combo! GS: Caina has attacked Ruth Pauling with Hyperphase Destruction! GS: Caina has attacked Seraph Clarine with Symmetry Breaker! GS: Caina has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Paradox Decay! GS: Caina has gained 2 Combo! GS: Caina has completed his action. GS: CRITICAL! Marivel Armitage solidly guards Caina's Sarnath Wake for 60 hit points! GS: Quick applied to Caina! GS: FP up! Arcane Font and Guard bonus activated! GS: CRITICAL! Eleanor Klein takes a solid hit from Caina's Sarnath Wake for 126 hit points! GS: COUNTER! Seraph Clarine counterattacks Caina with Counter Attack! GS: Seraph Clarine solidly guards Caina's Symmetry Breaker for 68 hit points! GS: Infect! Debuff durations extended!! GS: FP up! Charge bonus activated! GS: CRITICAL! Ryoko Mizore suffers a terrible blow from Caina's Vacuum Rend for 183 hit points! GS: CRITICAL! Ruth Pauling solidly guards Caina's Hyperphase Destruction for 58 hit points! GS: Quick applied to Caina! GS: FP up! Guard bonus activated! GS: Ashley Winchester takes a glancing hit from Caina's Sarnath Wake for 49 hit points! GS: Zhang Xiumei takes a glancing hit from Caina's Sarnath Wake for 50 hit points! GS: Caina solidly guards Seraph Clarine's for 56 hit points! GS: Elhaym van Houten takes a solid hit from Caina's Torment Grasp for 86 hit points! GS: Blind applied to Elhaym van Houten! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey partially evades Caina's Paradox Decay for 96 hit points! GS: Delay applied to Ida Everstead-Rey!
<Pose Tracker> Eleanor Klein has posed.
"Hmmmm," Eleanor says to Marivel as she chides her, and shrugs as she praises Clarine's statement of the matter instead. "It's fine," Eleanor says. Then she lifts an eyebrow at the offer of peace. It's... Well. Frankly, it lives up to Eleanor's ideals. But she doesn't like it very much all the same.
She stays with Xiumei though, nodding along as she mentions who the worlds don't belong to. ...And she notices Elly's bad feeling. Still...
"No, she's right. You don't understand what you're dealing with! You--"
Colors flow. Eleanor lifts up a hand to shield herself, but it isn't enough; the otherworldly light hits her, and that makes her hiss in pain. But she whirls around, and lifts the Crest in her hand. She saw something like this coming.
The Crest gleams, showing the power of Fray and Muse in combined condition--but the light around Eleanor as she invokes it is golden. "By the twin sides of all being be banished! LUSTROUS BRAND!"
From her outstretched palm comes a beam of fierce golden-white light, crashing straight for Caina--and lingering around him as an aura.
GS: Formation! Eleanor Klein has attacked Caina with Lustrous Brand! GS: Eleanor Klein has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Zhang Xiumei has posed.
"I can't accept that!" Xiumei calls back to Caina. She looks at the others -- and realizes he won't accept Marivel's offer. She looks at the wave of light that flies at her, and Xiumei cries out wordlessly as she leaps. She goes airborne, but it still comes close enough to throw her off -- the wave makes her spin, hit the ground, and bounce off it with a grunt.
She comes up, eyes locked onto Caina -- and the Magic Key, as it vanishes and reappears -- and then she raises the Pulse Cannon. A moment after Eleanor's wave of golden-white light, a trio of green-white bolts of light fire from the barrel of her gun at Caina.
"Mister Winchester isn't a failure! A person is more than their power and the shape of it!" she says. "He's proven himself time and again. And you... you're determined to make Vinsfeld's world a reality, but--"
She shakes her head. "Why? Why do you want his world?"
GS: Zhang Xiumei has attacked Caina with Pulse Cannon - Triple Burst! GS: Zhang Xiumei has gained 1 Combo! GS: Zhang Xiumei has completed her action. GS: Caina suffers a terrible blow from Eleanor Klein's Lustrous Brand for 138 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Caina gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Dispel! Hyper, Quick, and Riposte removed! GS: Caina solidly guards Zhang Xiumei's Pulse Cannon - Triple Burst for 64 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Caina gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Hyper and Mighty applied to Zhang Xiumei! GS: FP up! Countermeasures activated!
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
On the verge of victory? With this terrible weapon? For some reason Elly keeps looking at the key, stealing a glance towards Eleanor for a moment as her lips thin. She breathes out as the key proper emanates strange light towards Caina...
She raises her staff before her, in a two handed grip. Her center of gravity is lowered slightly. A stable stance -- which is good because while strange colours wash over others, something else a little paler washes over her, making her feel her eyesight swim for a moment as -
What was it!? Elly thinks. It doesn't even feel like radiation--
Disturbing. Unearthly. Something that subtly but profoundly shakes some part of her --
But another louder part is nearer, sharper. Because the key erupts from strange corners of space -
Once -
Twice -
Do I see it? Elly thinks, or am I hallucinating - and then at the last moment she lunges towards Ida raising the staff upwards in a double handed grasp with a full leap at the end! Hopefully Ida can read her intent because what LOOKS like sudden betrayal is in fact an effort to smite the flitting object with cold iron!
GS: Elhaym van Houten spends 1 Combo on Gatling, loading 1 into Gatling! GS: Formation! Elhaym van Houten has attacked Caina with Iron Staff! GS: Elhaym van Houten has gained 1 Combo! GS: Elhaym van Houten has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.
"Alright." Marivel says to Caina. "I mean I had a feeling you'd react like that but I mostly did this so I wouldn't feel bad about you, specifically, eating shit. Thank you for all of your help, Caina."
Marivel isn't expecting people to LIKE the offer either. If it was a pleasant offer, there'd be NO chance of Caina taking it. She gives Eleanor a pat on the shoulder. "Sorry if that was too far," She tells her before walking back and leaning against one of the consoles.
Caina unleashes a wave of light. Marivel quickly summons a barrier before her body. It hits hard, but the barrier holds and Marivel looks winded after. She lets out a whistle. "Well, you're no slouch huh."
She then looks to Ashley and gestures with a hand and Ashley will fill some power filling him. Marivel promised she would fight with him. It's not time yet, but she takes that seriously.
She makes no offensive move towards Caina. And it isn't her plan to.
"Oh yeah don't worry, Ashley's not a failure at all. You put a real big spook into him, don't you fret." Marivel says. "Course I get all the heat for that so thanks for that too."
She devolves into inarticulate Luceid grumbling.
GS: Marivel Armitage has attacked Ashley Winchester with Booster! GS: Marivel Armitage has gained 1 Combo! GS: Marivel Armitage has completed her action. GS: Ashley Winchester accepts Marivel Armitage's Booster for 0 hit points! GS: Pray grants a random effect! Amplify, Burst, Lock State, and Regen applied to Ashley Winchester!
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
There is a simple, unwavering answer to Ruth's question. Caina follows Lord Vinsfeld, and that is all. Where some start to build fire in their throats, it seems that spoken dedication chills her more than some of what they had to fight through to get here.
Where chromatic aberrations fill the space with one formless force goes towards Elly in the space between Ruth and Ida, the veteran sniper pockets the Crest Graph and gets both hands on her sidearm for stability as her left shoulder shoots pain through her from the sudden movement. She's about to draw a bead on Caina as Randolph, the Magic Key disappears...
She catches the glint of Randolph, still a Magic Key, from the very periphery of her vision. She swings to the side to shoot at it - missing by a hair - as it collides against her revolver and sends her onto her seat with side sidearm spinning off across the chamber ground.
It is much less injurious an exchange than first appears - the difference between being knocked down or being sliced open by a lightning-speed Randlph, the Magic Key. Ruth stays low through some of the lingering sorcerous aberrations and counter-barrages to recover the handgun in a moment where a previous battlefield experience's preception feels as though it is overlaying itself over reality.
She's able to successfully cover the distance crawling to retrieve her sidearm as she mulls over Caina's resolve. "To you... your Lord Vinsfeld must have been a kind man." She posits. "There, at a moment where none else would have seen you safe."
From her low position, Ruth raises the revolver again and fires off two shots towards Randolph, the Magic Key.
"...I knew someone like that," her voice sounds less like someone in the middle of a pitched life-and-death battle against an extradimensional force and more someone reminiscing.
GS: Ruth Pauling has attacked Caina with Echoes of an Excuse! GS: Ruth Pauling has entered Sage Stance! GS: Ruth Pauling has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Clarine has posed.
"Do you truly understand?" Clarine asks. "Do you truly know - or do you only know as much as you are allowed to? Are you the controller, or the controlled?"
It is clear, however, that Caina intends to fight. Clarine shuts her eyes and nods.
"Very well. Let us begin." She says. With a gesture, her mirrors fly around her sleeves, arranging themselves to float protectively around her - just in time for Randolph to come charging toward her. One of her mirrors moves to intercept it, key and mirror colliding. Clarine winces at the backlash, the force of the collision push her back through the air. With some effort, she repositions the mirror, pointing it at Caina... and the force is reflected back at him in a flash of light!
"Be warned, everyone... this is only a taste of his power. Mind yourselves, and your surroundings." Clarine warns. She turns her attention, then, back to the battle at hand.
"Acuteness!" Clarine incants. At her call, red light spreads from her position, settling over her allies to enhance their power!
GS: Seraph Clarine has attacked Ruth Pauling with Acuteness! GS: Seraph Clarine has attacked Marivel Armitage with Acuteness! GS: Seraph Clarine has attacked Elhaym van Houten with Acuteness! GS: Seraph Clarine has attacked Zhang Xiumei with Acuteness! GS: Seraph Clarine has attacked Eleanor Klein with Acuteness! GS: Seraph Clarine has attacked Ryoko Mizore with Acuteness! GS: Seraph Clarine has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Acuteness! GS: Seraph Clarine has attacked Ashley Winchester with Acuteness! GS: Seraph Clarine has gained 1 Combo! GS: Seraph Clarine has completed her action. GS: Ashley Winchester accepts Seraph Clarine's Acuteness for 0 hit points! GS: Hyper applied to Ashley Winchester! GS: Elhaym van Houten accepts Seraph Clarine's Acuteness for 0 hit points! GS: Hyper applied to Elhaym van Houten! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated! GS: Eleanor Klein accepts Seraph Clarine's Acuteness for 0 hit points! GS: Hyper applied to Eleanor Klein! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Marivel Armitage accepts Seraph Clarine's Acuteness for 0 hit points! GS: Hyper applied to Marivel Armitage! GS: Shield applied to Seraph Clarine!
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
There it is. A faint, sad smile crosses Ida's lips, but it doesn't linger long. Her gaze darts away from Caina proper, and towards the walls. She traces them with her eyes before she glances back at Randolph again. And there--
There's that hideous un-light. Sudden nausea clutches at Ida's stomach. Her vision starts to swim. But the light is not targeting her, and when Randolph disappears, Ida's brow furrows. She raises her arms to guard, and exoskeleton wicks out from her flesh, forming arm-length gauntlets. The key reappears in several gut-wrenchingly fast strikes--Randolph is a blur, and it gives Ida no time to warn anyone. A final disappearance--
Elly moves, and that's all the cue Ida needs. The heiress lunges forwards, twisting to the side and passing by Elly as she drives forwards. Randolph flies between them, glancing off the small of Ida's back. Pain blooms out from the site of impact, and Ida hisses out a breath, but she manages a counterattack regardless. Her right hand balls into a fist and drives at Randolph in a straight punch.
What happens if it breaks? Ida isn't sure. But right now it's being far too aggressive for anyone's good.
<Pose Tracker> Ashley Winchester has posed.
'The failure speaks.'
Ashley stares directly into Caina's too-young eyes. How does someone end up walking this path? One so fathomlessly devoted to someone like Vinsfield? At some point, did the leader of Odessa rescue this person, 'chosen' by the key, from some terrible fate? Somehow, it reminds Ashley of Tim's story. One who is 'chosen,' and then...
So many times, the 'chosen' one ends up carrying such a terrible burden, don't they? Especially if the power that had 'chosen' them had caused them no end of suffering, once upon a time. Randolf the Magic Key, what could it be used for if it were not Vinsfield who had won its master's loyalty?
Pointless questions. Ashley slowly exhales as one after another the usual platitudes are shot down. Why do they still ask? Maybe because someday, they might just work. But not here. Not today.
"For everyone at the Cathedral," Ashley says, gripping the Bayonet tight, "You're going to answer for everything that you've done, Caina of the Magic Key." Alien light rolls off of the young warlock, rippling like an aurora cast through a prism of nightmare. No two of the colors that assault them are alike, a phantasmagorical onslaught that twists the flesh and sunders the mind.
But, for a failure, Ashley Winchester is... strangely resistant to these kinds of things. Maybe it's just the fact that there's something even more terrible within his soul, something that even this foreign space-matter is loathe to touch. The Musketeer yells as he slams his Bayonet into the onrushing tide, splitting it around the edge of his blade. It sizzles and burns at his skin, leaving patches of rent flesh that hurt to look upon for too long. But the wave soon passes, and Ashley moves to capitalize.
A surge of crimson power surges through his body, filling every fiber of his being with strength-- and for once, it's not the kind of crimson that would bathe the world in a singular moment of all-consuming hellfire. "Thanks, Marivel," Ashley asides as he loads a canister into his weapon. "You might want to cover your ears."
He fires directly at Caina. The mage loves to teleport, but Ashley has come prepared. This particular canister is designed to emit a terrible onslaught of sound, the kind that rattles around in the head and lances straight through the eardrums. It's awful.
And also just the right kind of thing to knock a mage right off his rhythm.
GS: Ruth Pauling accepts Seraph Clarine's Acuteness for 0 hit points! GS: Hyper applied to Ruth Pauling! GS: Zhang Xiumei accepts Seraph Clarine's Acuteness for 0 hit points! GS: Hyper applied to Zhang Xiumei! GS: Shield applied to Seraph Clarine! GS: Ashley Winchester has attacked Caina with Canister - Thunder Cracker! GS: Ashley Winchester has gained 1 Combo! GS: Ashley Winchester gains 60 THP from Regen! GS: Ashley Winchester has completed his action. GS: Ida Everstead-Rey accepts Seraph Clarine's Acuteness for 0 hit points! GS: Hyper applied to Ida Everstead-Rey! GS: Shield applied to Seraph Clarine! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Caina with Fire Dragon Form! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has entered Avenger Stance! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Ryoko Mizore has posed.
Ryoko Mizore was certainly caught off guard. Mostly by the weird angle than anything else. She didn't quite get her kanabo around in time to block anything of it and gets hammered by the attack. Laying on her back gets her laughing though. "Hey that was good." She doesn't look like she's laughing admittedly. Pulling herself to her feet, she works her fingers a few times and shakes her hands. Second fight in a row she's glad she leans into red clothing. There's no more posturing though and there's a coldness in her eyes. Working her shoulders a few times, kicking her boots into place and then- just that quick she bolts forward, winding up for a homerun swing against Caina. All or nothing! Leaning in with a foot slammed into place and a heavy twisting swing. Using that momentum to slip to the side after, still heavy, crude in a way.
The warning that she should watch her surroundings noted, but probably not in her style really. She's uh... in desperate need of real training.
Whatever she was about to say is kind of superceded by the burst of sound though. Dancing away from that sound and her initial mix-up target. Shaking her head, trying to clear it. Still, she follows it up through gritted teeth, "Always a true believer." There was probably something else there at some point. Either way, with the use of odd tech and firearms, she does check her angles, trying to avoid creating a crossfire. It'll determine her footwork from here!
GS: Ryoko Mizore accepts Seraph Clarine's Acuteness for 0 hit points! GS: Hyper applied to Ryoko Mizore! GS: Ryoko Mizore has attacked Caina with Onslaught! GS: Ryoko Mizore has gained 1 Combo! GS: Ryoko Mizore has entered Avenger Stance! GS: Ryoko Mizore has completed her action. GS: Caina takes a glancing hit from Elhaym van Houten's Iron Staff for 70 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Caina gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Hyper applied to Elhaym van Houten! GS: FP up! Evade bonus activated! GS: Caina solidly guards Ruth Pauling's Echoes of an Excuse for 32 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Caina gains 1 additional Combo! GS: FP up! Countermeasures activated! GS: Caina's Mute Ward prevents an effect! GS: CRITICAL! Caina solidly guards Ashley Winchester's Canister - Thunder Cracker for 92 hit points! GS: Hyper applied to Ashley Winchester! GS: FP up! Countermeasures and Guard bonus activated! GS: Caina takes a solid hit from Ida Everstead-Rey's Fire Dragon Form for 148 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Caina gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Caina partially guards Ryoko Mizore's Onslaught for 122 hit points! GS: Disrupt applied to Caina! GS: FP up! Charge bonus activated!
<Pose Tracker> Caina has posed.
"Tell yourself whatever you want," Caina answers Marivel. "I am more than a match for all of you!" Once he's dealt with them all and defended the tower, then-- surely. He will be able to return to his side.
"Enough! I know what that ceremony was meant to do!" he snaps, as she says that Ashley was no true failure. He knows what was intended, and what was put into Ashley--
"Do you understand?" he curtly replies to Clarine. "I am the master of the Magic Key! There is nothing on the other side that I can't control!" He fears no demon. He fears in fact only one thing.
Or two things, if one counts that which slumbers within Ashley's spirit.
Force becomes energy. Energy becomes light. Clarine returns a portion of his attack to him in a concentrated beam of light. It snaps past the sleeve of his robes, tearing cloth.
The edges stain red.
Light, at Eleanor's command, surges directly at Caina, who throws up an arm and twists his body as if to ward it off. This does not suffice in the slightest. He gasps as he staggers back a step, the otherworldly glow scoured from him to be replaced by Eleanor's own, more firmly real light. "You dare-- Randolph!"
The true shape of that response comes as the key, still darting between targets, glows. For everyone else, that may be all that they experience. For Eleanor, reality itself tilts at a dutch angle.
There are many paths to the gate. Whether one travels at night or prefers alternate routes to that which stands without walls, the paths may vary but the destination remains the same. This amber route takes Eleanor low, though the places where the dead sleep uneasily, their howls and rattling bone enough to try any traveler.
This is not the gate, but it can be seen in the darkness ahead.
He stretches out a hand then, the wisps of that fell power open for him to grasp and use. This alone meets Xiumei's bullets as she opens fire upon him, the shots rebounding off the rapidly evaporating swath of impossible color. With a snap of his fingers, Caina sends the remnants of the spell that had targetted Eleanor off for Xiumei, the wash brilliant and terrible as it streams for her.
Why does he want Vinsfeld's world?
"Because... that's his wish," Caina replies. He looks no less than beatific in that instant.
Ashley cannot be ignored, however much Caina appears to wish to do otherwise. "Am I? You don't have the right," he tells Ashley, regarding him as coldly as his youth allows. Caina isn't a child, this is true. But he is young, perhaps twenty, twenty-one years at most. Far too young to be among the trusted inner circle of a terrorist with ambitions of domination.
Because it's Vinsfeld's wish is his reason for the atrocity at the cathedral, too. He would do anything. Anything.
"Enough of this. You've worried Lord Vinsfeld long enough," he tells Ashley, his hand beginning to move in what might be the start of an evocation. But there are two things that stop him from finishing that spell, sparking with otherworldly flames. One of them is the shot that Ashley takes, the explosion that comes in with a deafening roar of sound. It might not hurt -- Caina folds his spell into another, a barrier to shielf himself -- but it staggers him all the same.
The second might be Ryoko, driving in from the side with a homerun swing of her weapon. Caught off-guard, he can't simply teleport away and takes the attack, staggering under its strength. "You--"
<Pose Tracker> Caina has posed.
Make that three things, in a sense.
The key doesn't quite return to Caina's side on schedule. No sooner does it speed towards Ida does it meet instead with
clang
a trustworthy iron rod. Randolph hangs in the air for a moment, as if stunned. It's all the time that Ida needs to deck it. The key thumps to the floor after. It twitches there for a moment.
"Randolph!! How dare you!" Caina calls out, sounding aggrieved. That the key winks out in the next moment to reappear by his side in the moment thereafter may not be a... good sign. Even if its orbit about Caina is somewhat subdued (is this the magic dimensional key version of... a limp?) the look in his eyes promises murder. "Randolph! Show them the way!"
There are indeed many paths to the gate. Some of personal, private -- won with great sacrifice. Others may be trod with a great many others if all are indocrinated into the mysteries.
And with the understanding that walking the path is paid for in blood, however one should approach it. Whose blood is simply a matter of negotiation.
The path takes Elly. It takes her and others both near and far to her, seeking those for its journey seemingly at random. Elly, Ryoko, Ida, Ruth, Ashley and Clarine -- the path appears to draw them all up into the air, a whistling howling ungainly journey into and through the heart of a storm. They are thirsty, these winds. Best treat them well, for they shall take all that they seek and more if denied.
This is not the gate, but its outline can be seen, in the distance.
The key, even as the path self-terminates and returns all it has seized to reality, vanishes.
Marivel is its target as it comes flying in from an odd angle to smash right into her. Disappearing once again, it returns to Caina's side.
GS: Caina has attacked Eleanor Klein with Elayne's Ossuary! GS: Caina has gained 1 Combo! GS: Caina has attacked Zhang Xiumei with Dead Abyss! GS: Caina spends 1 Combo on Poison! GS: Caina has attacked Ryoko Mizore with Claws of Sebile! GS: Caina has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Claws of Sebile! GS: Caina has attacked Elhaym van Houten with Claws of Sebile! GS: Caina has attacked Ruth Pauling with Claws of Sebile! GS: Caina has attacked Seraph Clarine with Claws of Sebile! GS: Caina has attacked Ashley Winchester with Claws of Sebile! GS: Caina has gained 1 Combo! GS: Caina has attacked Marivel Armitage with Hyperphase Destruction! GS: Caina has completed his action. GS: Seraph Clarine solidly guards Caina's Claws of Sebile for 22 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Clarine gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Delay, Poison, and Reaper applied to Seraph Clarine! GS: FP up! Arcane Font, Guard bonus, and Gleam activated! GS: Seraph Clarine enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Eleanor Klein suffers a terrible blow from Caina's Elayne's Ossuary for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Eleanor Klein gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Cripple, Delay, Jam, and Mute applied to Eleanor Klein! GS: Charge!! You gain 30 FP! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Ryoko Mizore suffers a terrible blow from Caina's Claws of Sebile for 58 hit points! GS: Delay, Poison, and Reaper applied to Ryoko Mizore! GS: Ryoko Mizore enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Marivel Armitage solidly guards Caina's Hyperphase Destruction for 48 hit points! GS: Quick applied to Caina! GS: FP up! Guard bonus activated! GS: Elhaym van Houten solidly guards Caina's Claws of Sebile for 25 hit points! GS: Delay, Poison, and Reaper applied to Elhaym van Houten! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated! GS: Elhaym van Houten enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Zhang Xiumei solidly guards Caina's Dead Abyss for 63 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Zhang Xiumei gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Caina drains Zhang Xiumei! Caina gains 32 temporary hit points! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey solidly guards Caina's Claws of Sebile for 20 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Ida Everstead-Rey gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Delay, Poison, and Reaper applied to Ida Everstead-Rey! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Ashley Winchester partially evades Caina's Claws of Sebile for 38 hit points! GS: Delay, Poison, and Reaper applied to Ashley Winchester! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated! GS: Ashley Winchester enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: CRITICAL! Ruth Pauling solidly guards Caina's Claws of Sebile for 25 hit points! GS: Delay, Poison, and Reaper applied to Ruth Pauling! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated! GS: Ruth Pauling enters CONDITION GREEN!!
<Pose Tracker> Zhang Xiumei has posed.
Red light from Clarine washes over Xiumei -- and gives her a faint red glow for a moment, before it settles into her body and her clothing. She nods to Clarine's warning, and then she looks back at Caina.
She draws in a sharp breath as Caina throws up a barrier that intercepts the blasts of light, and then sees the wash of color that he unleashed on Eleanor come for her. She rushes at it, throwing out a hand -- and the Pulse Saber appears in it. She lashes at it, trying to cut through it, and her eyes narrow for a moment. "Because it's his wish? Do you--do you have things you want, or is it all what Vinsfeld wants?"
She breaks through the light, but not without a sharp pain as the colored light strikes into it and leaves her aglow. She runs in, tossing the hand cannon to the side -- the cannon vanishes into a series of digital cubes, then to nothing -- and then she grips the beam saber with both hands. She leaps -- and comes down, cutting at Caina with a two-handed slash.
GS: Zhang Xiumei has attacked Caina with Pulse Saber - Jump Slash! GS: Zhang Xiumei has gained 2 Combo! GS: Zhang Xiumei has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Eleanor Klein has posed.
"No," Eleanor tells Marivel, "It was the right thing to do. Stopping further bloodshed is a noble goal. ...I just don't like him very much."
She glances to Ruth for a moment, judging whether she's all rit--but the fact that she's still shooting suggests she's okay enough. ...She wonders the same as Clarine, does. What does this Key know...?
Apparently it knows IRON because Eleanor sees Elly jump in. "Good work, but be careful!" she calls, registering her intent immediately. Stowing her Crest, Eleanor indeed covers her ears when Ashley calls for them to. But it's Xiumei's question that lingers in her mind first.
"Fool!" Eleanor calls at Caina's answer to Clarine. "The 'other side' isn't a thing you can control!" She isn't sure, entirely, how she knows this--but she knows in the moment that she does. But when Caina asks if she dares, Eleanor narrows her eyes. "I do. I am a guardian of this realm. And I will not allow you to do as you wish!"
Reality tilts. Eleanor wobbles on her eet, and stares forward, through this route. She feels the dead around her, knows here she walks she thinks. And for a moment she is without the others. Except that she hears, distantly--
"Wish his you cannot simply demand!"
But she returns to presence in a moment. She, too, is perhaps twenty one. And that next spell...
"I invoke the Ley!" She pulls a Crest, even as she wobbles in place, invoking Wing and Geo. "By the Wind that calls us, by the Earth that lies beneath our feet, I invoke it!"
Her light turns golden again, shining through a spell that should not be entirely possible by the principles of Crest Sorcery.
"You will not dominate our reality! I call upon the Golden Spiral!"
Golden light shines forth, as green and brown turn in to become something brighter. Around Ida, Clarine, Elly.
GS: Eleanor Klein has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Golden Spiral! GS: Eleanor Klein has attacked Seraph Clarine with Golden Spiral! GS: Eleanor Klein has attacked Elhaym van Houten with Golden Spiral! GS: Eleanor Klein has gained 1 Combo! GS: Eleanor Klein has entered Stoic Stance! GS: Delay expired! GS: Eleanor Klein gains 20 THP from her Cautious! GS: Eleanor Klein has completed her action. GS: Elhaym van Houten accepts Eleanor Klein's Golden Spiral for 0 hit points! GS: Restore! Blind, Delay, Poison, and Reaper removed! GS: Seraph Clarine accepts Eleanor Klein's Golden Spiral for 0 hit points! GS: Restore! Delay, Poison, and Reaper removed! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Caina takes a solid hit from Zhang Xiumei's Pulse Saber - Jump Slash for 201 hit points! GS: FP up! Countermeasures activated!
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
Elly glances at Ruth, thinking 'a key!?' in midair, but then
CLANG!
The key is stunned and called a traitor, but it returns to its -- master's? -- side almost immediately. Wisps of glittering force rise, and Caina speaks something that...
It's horrifying, almost, Elly thinks.
Because she can understand the tone in Caina's voice, however it may be aimed... But then her heart is jerked to the side, for that moment of sorrowful sympathy does not have time to find voice before the actions of the KEY draw her upwards.
Elly yelps; she swings her rod at the Key but it is in vain. It is ripped out of her hand even as something in the back of her head feels like it's spasming, something telling her to unfold the-- the-- what?! The idea, the impression, sudden and panicked like an iron spike in its own right, is awful enough, though having found failure it seems to recede.
And then, peremptorially, she is thrown to the floor.
Elly doesn't get up right away. She sort of rolls to her side -- but it is Eleanor's drawing upon the Ley, and Clarine's glittering ruby light, that does so.
"... I'm sorry it came to this, Caina," Elly says, her head still lowered as she levers her way upwards. "... I'd argue with you, but I guess it isn't going to do much? Heh. The Magic Key... It sounds wonderful. I don't even really-- understand what you mean by the Other Side. It must be a lot more than just Seraphs and Normin, though, to hear you describe it."
Elly sweeps her hair back from her face with one hand, tilts her head back... Her arms come up as if she's stretching, even as the Key returns to Caina. "But -- even so"
AND THAT'S WHEN THE SHOE DROPS: The obscurely queasy feeling that she has people who are *watching* her, who she has to live *up* to, had crystallized under paralleled pressures. While she had been speaking, Elly had been mentally weaving the idea of an image of the core element of FIRE between herself and the Key, imagining it almost as a sort of rope. And when the Key stops moving, near Caina:
Well: Elly puts a hand out and in a moment, with a "HAH!" of effort, imagination becomes reality!
AN IMMENSE HOWLING GOUT OF SUPERHEATED FLAME, contorting slightly and narrowing towards the tip into a writhing tongue of white flame from the orange-red outer spaces near Elly, still themselves hot enough to throw furnace winds back behind her.
GS: Elhaym van Houten has activated a Force Action! GS: Surge added to Elhaym van Houten! GS: Elhaym van Houten has activated a Force Action! GS: Elhaym van Houten spends 3 Combo on Headshot and Gatling, loading 1 into Gatling! GS: Elhaym van Houten has attacked Caina with Thermo Incinerate! GS: Elhaym van Houten has gained 1 Combo! GS: Elhaym van Houten has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Clarine has posed.
"You are confident. Then I hope it is well-earned, lest you someday behold the consequences of misplaced confidence when dealing with the likes of the forces you wield." Clarine replies. She doesn't have any special knowledge herself, but she can feel it, every time he brings those powers to bear - the way it frays at her essence and makes the world feel askew, the way it makes her skin (or, more accurately, the outermost layer of her manifestation) crawl. Nothing good can come of that. Eleanor backs her up, too, and Clarine nods.
But Caina - Caina calls upon Randolph to show them the way, and suddenly she feels as if she's been lifted into the air and into a storm. Quickly, Clarine's mirrors hurry to her side, connecting to form a shelter of light around her. But it isn't so easily thwarted, and as reality returns, Clarine finds herself on her feet, feeling ill in a way Seraphim usually do not. It feels like her form is falling apart...
...But suddenly, she feels herself suffused with a light, as Eleanor invokes a spell - the greens and browns of wind and earth turning golden. The ill feeling washes away and, after a brief moment of unsteadiness, Clarine rises off the floor again.
"Th-thank you." She says, offering Eleanor a nod. She turns her attention back toward Caina, then.
"O seven brilliant blades, I call upon you to descend and loose your shining might..." Clarine begins to incant, a Seraphic glyph bursting into life beneath her feet. "Prism Sword!"
Six swords of prismatic crystal descend from above, to plant themselves into the ground around Caina. Beams of light connect each of them, as if forming a cage, and are soon followed by a seventh sword that descends for Caina himself. The moment the sword lands, all of them detonate once in an explosion of light and crystal shards.
GS: Seraph Clarine has activated a Force Action! GS: Seraph Clarine spends 2 Combo on Headshot! GS: Seraph Clarine enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Seraph Clarine has attacked Caina with Prism Sword! GS: Seraph Clarine enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Seraph Clarine has completed her action. GS: Caina's Mute Ward prevents an effect! GS: CRITICAL! Caina takes a solid hit from Elhaym van Houten's Thermo Incinerate for 347 hit points! GS: Hyper applied to Elhaym van Houten! GS: CRITICAL! Caina solidly guards Seraph Clarine's Prism Sword for 86 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Caina gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Quick, Quick, and Shield applied to Seraph Clarine! GS: FP up! Guard bonus activated!
<Pose Tracker> Ashley Winchester has posed.
"I'm the only one who has the right," Ashley answers, the rare flash of aggression bleeding in at the very fringes of his voice. "What was that ceremony supposed to do, Caina? Give Odessa an army of demons to wield at their leisure? Take Argetlahm for yourselves? Or did you just want to kill everyone inside?"
"Whatever your goal was," he growls over the din of his own thundering canister, "It didn't work out, did it? If your plans can be thrown into disarray by one 'failure,' then maybe the real failure here is you."
It's a dark impulse that drives the words that pour out of his mouth. One born from righteous anger and the need to put to rest the legion of ghosts born by his demon-twisted hands. He was the one who killed them, in the end. They were all demons, all made into monsters, but he killed them, he was the one who survived.
And so he was the one who was made the host to the Blazer.
And the host to something else as well.
But that doesn't change the fact that it is a dark impulse that rules him for a moment. He was told, once, to not hold it back as much. That to do so would kill him and everyone else faster than the alternative. But Ashley is Ashley, and he can't help but feel a modicum of guilt after all is said.
Though it's assuaged somewhat by the fact that Caina is drawing everyone into the gate. Or seeks to do so, at least. The terrible winds rip at him, but still his flesh and soul resist. He is more anchored to this world than most, for better or for worse, the vessel of its ultimate end. As the winds of dimensional torment whip around him, he never once takes his eyes off of Caina. The moment the opportunity presents itself, he kick-flips off from a conveniently positioned chunk of dimensional stuff, a shockwave propelling him through the air as he brings his sword down in a crushing, overhead blow...!
GS: Ashley Winchester enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Ashley Winchester has attacked Caina with Shockwave Crash! GS: Ashley Winchester has gained 2 Combo! GS: Delay expired! GS: Ashley Winchester enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Ashley Winchester takes 27 damage from Poison! GS: Ashley Winchester takes 56 damage from Reaper! GS: Ashley Winchester gains 60 THP from Regen! GS: Ashley Winchester has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
Somewhere in the sequence that happens, a red light washes over Ruth's form. Once more, a Seraph extends a kindness and acceptance to someone whose state of being endagers their all.
Once more, Caina reasserts his devotion, and Ruth just shuts her eyes as she rises, opening the chamber of her revolver to reload a few fresh slugs into the three openings with a discipline as intrinsic to her like breathing, and when she opens her eyes again...
There is something she doesn't get to vocalize as a path is taken. Surrounded by ghastly things without greater context, she clings to that heightened emotional sense that defines her. There is pain. There is anguish. She stops in that path for a moment, with only the odd glint of light about the rosary wrapped around her forearm to keep her going.
If this is a place of rest, she doesn't belong here.
Not because she draws breath and holds warm blood, but a gnawing, conflicting sense of guilt has decided she can't 'stay' where others are at peace. Is this peace? She is intruding. She 'leaves.' Does she really go anywhere?
There's a path in a sense beyond her reckoning, as she 'leaves' up high, taken into the air bereft of sense of place as wind deafens, blows, whips, and cuts. She follows the emotional ambience of those she's already been accustoming herself to in these weeks of heightened tension, grasping something as she is returned to reality as it is understood.
A Crest Graph, set down on the ground gently and invoked without the gusto and declaration of the Sage of Light, leaving Ruth in a kneel as she parts her hands from it - a Crest Graph that invokes Muse twice.
A gentle, Ley-infused rain washes through reality to try and cleanse the physical muck and malaise that clings to them.
"For all I am... I deserve their fear." Ruth smiles gently, hands clasped piously as she looms over the set Crest Graph. Though the strange spiritual pressure of Spira and the invoked enigmas of Randolph, the Magic Key, there is something she keeps holding tightly in the moment, eyes looking up to an unseen distance that a part of her fixates upon.
GS: Ruth Pauling has activated a Force Action! GS: Ruth Pauling has attacked Zhang Xiumei with Wash It Away! GS: Ruth Pauling has attacked Ryoko Mizore with Wash It Away! GS: Ruth Pauling has attacked Ashley Winchester with Wash It Away! GS: Ruth Pauling has attacked Ruth Pauling with Wash It Away! GS: Ruth Pauling has attacked Eleanor Klein with Wash It Away! GS: Ruth Pauling has gained 1 Combo! GS: Recover! Delay and Poison removed from Ruth Pauling! GS: Ruth Pauling takes 57 damage from Reaper! GS: Ruth Pauling has completed her action. GS: Delay! Attack greatly weakened! GS: Ruth Pauling accepts Ruth Pauling's Wash It Away for 0 hit points! GS: Restore! Recover! Reaper removed from Ruth Pauling! GS: Delay! Attack greatly weakened! GS: Eleanor Klein accepts Ruth Pauling's Wash It Away for 0 hit points! GS: Restore! Recover! Cripple, Jam, and Mute removed from Ruth Pauling! GS: FP up! Gleam activated!
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
"I dare," Ida says, glancing sideling to bare teeth at Caina. "Call it--"
'Show them the way!'
Clarine's light flickers around Ida's body like a halo, brightening as the room twists, the consoles disappear, and Ida falls up into an endless sky. A cry of alarm tears from her lips, and the wind howls in response. For once, the phrase is not metaphorical. The presence of a hungry predator comes to rest on Ida's back. She tucks into a tight ball, guarding her face with armored arms. The wind shrieks, and shakes her and rakes at her, and she can feel the heat and Breath within her seeping out--
Ida's eyes are closed. She sees the outline of the gate regardless, in the spots behind her eyelids.
Gravity returns. Ida falls gracelessly to the ground, shaking and pale as she sucks in a ragged breath. She plants both hands on the ground, gripping it as the wind lingers in her mind like a horrid after-image.
Eleanor speaks, and reality reasserts itself. Ida blinks, her eyes darting back and forth before settling on the newly-minted Sage. She lets out a breath, and smiles. But Eleanor isn't the one with the most at stake here.
"Ashley," Ida says, and she reaches for something beneath her coat. It's a hexagonal disc colored like a mountain peak piercing the clouds; it glitters with geometric patterns as the light hits it. Ida thrusts the Artificial Medium out, and with sincere conviction, cries: "The Mountain still stands!"
The Medium glimmers. Light washes off its face. And for a moment, a figure stands behind Ashley Winchester: a mountainous figure, with arms of stone and legs of iron and a flame on his brow. The apparition of Dinoginos brings a hand down to shield Ashley, and then is gone.
That sense of impervious protection lingers.
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey accepts Eleanor Klein's Golden Spiral for 0 hit points! GS: Restore! Delay, Poison, and Reaper removed! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Ashley Winchester with Material - The Mountain Still Stands! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action. GS: Delay! Attack greatly weakened! GS: Ashley Winchester accepts Ruth Pauling's Wash It Away for 0 hit points! GS: Restore! Recover! Poison and Reaper removed from Ruth Pauling! GS: Ashley Winchester accepts Ida Everstead-Rey's Material - The Mountain Still Stands for 0 hit points! GS: Shield applied to Ashley Winchester! GS: Delay! Attack greatly weakened! GS: Ryoko Mizore accepts Ruth Pauling's Wash It Away for 0 hit points! GS: Restore! Recover! Delay and Poison removed from Ruth Pauling!
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.
"Sure," Marivel tells Caina. "I mean maybe?"
Marivel wasn't exactly referring to the offer there--because she thought Eleanor was upset by the joking around. But she isn't going to press the matter because this kind of discussion is maybe something to happen after Caina stops trying to murder everyone.
But Marivel continues to not launch mystical power at Caina. She's not supposed to! Technically, she supposes she shuoldn't be buffing Ashley either but she does have some pride here.
Marivel winces when people go for the key. It unleashes its power and then vanishes.
And because Marivel isn't supposed to be here timeline wise, it promptly clobbers her upside the head and she flops forward into the floor. She wasn't expecting it. Because TIME.
""GBRglrjgrgk." Marivel ... says? ... as she stands herself back up and gestures a hand towards-- Xiumei this time!
"Booster!" She shouts again. Is that all she's gonna do???
YEP.
But she does salute Clarine all the same for her helpful assistance.
GS: Marivel Armitage has attacked Zhang Xiumei with Booster! GS: Marivel Armitage has gained 1 Combo! GS: Marivel Armitage has completed her action. GS: Delay! Attack greatly weakened! GS: Zhang Xiumei accepts Ruth Pauling's Wash It Away for 0 hit points! GS: Zhang Xiumei accepts Marivel Armitage's Booster for 0 hit points! GS: Pray grants a random effect! Amplify, Hyper, Regen, and Shield applied to Zhang Xiumei! GS: Zhang Xiumei enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Caina takes a solid hit from Ashley Winchester's Shockwave Crash for 197 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Caina gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Cripple applied to Caina! GS: Mighty applied to Ashley Winchester! GS: FP up! Charge bonus activated!
<Pose Tracker> Ryoko Mizore has posed.
Ryoko Mizore notes the reaction to the key b eing attacked. Something useful for later? Probably not, hitting anything accurately with a studded steel rod is wishing. Much more appropriate to just try to break the user instead of any toys at this point. Not that she's got a ton of time to think on that. That said, she's lifted into the air. Ripped at. Something she can't really rightfully defend against at this point. Shown some strange nastiness. Better than the first sucker punch, but she's going to be having a bad few days. Maybe she'll just sleep them off. - With the unceremonious drop back to the ground. She shakes her free hand. Grits her teeth and powers through the suck. There's not really an alternative at this point, right? You can't linger on it. You roll with it, you deal with it later. Always later. That's probably unhealthy on some level really. In a way, having no idea what that actually was, probably helped. In another, even knowing it she'd have doubled down. Can't let that kind of misery loose. Especially from a true believer.
The rain pulls her away from that mix of melancholy and promise of violence. Maybe even cruelty. She's got skeletons in her closet and she's not... ashamed of them, but lapsing into that mindset might make it easier to get back into the life. It's weird what kinds of things put your mind in it's wandering. "Thanks" she states simply enough to Ruth, realizing the source at least. Not sure how to better put it really.
She watches the others, detached briefly. Trying to avoid becoming a problem for her allies. There's another feeling buried that didn't get washed away. One that says she's not doing good enough. That she's probably going to become a burden to these people. Screw that. That thought gets shoved into the corner under a mask of bravado and she adds to the dizzying array of elements on display. Ice begins to creep up the length of her club. Coelescing, adding more weight to the already unweildy weapon. As this happens, she rolls forward again, getting some momentum into her, kanabo held in both hands at an angle that lets her throw all of her body weight and that momentum into a vicious and technically speaking, crude overhead swing with all of her might. Ice shattering away from the steel club regardless of the point of impact! No crests here. No training either...
GS: Ryoko Mizore has attacked Caina with Devastate! GS: Ryoko Mizore has gained 1 Combo! GS: Ryoko Mizore takes 50 damage from Reaper! GS: Ryoko Mizore has completed her action. GS: Caina takes a solid hit from Ryoko Mizore's Devastate for 215 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Caina has posed.
Caina simply grins nastily at Ida.
When the tide recedes from Xiumei, it takes a small piece of her lifeforce with it. Not enough to cause her great harm down the line, but just enough that in the moment, she may well miss it.
Does he have things he wants?
"Hmph. What Lord Vinsfeld wants is enough for me," Caina answers simply. But Xiumei's attack, soon after, catches him off-guard -- he twists as if to meet her, Randolph rising to intercede, but she is the faster in this moment, even more than the dimensional key. Her blade cuts across his chest from shoulder to hip, staining his robes red. He staggers, clutching a hand to his chest, but remains standing. Randolph hovers almost worriedly at his side.
'Fool!'
Caina snaps his head up. "Shut up! My power is absolute!" He is given to such great, blind faith in many things, it would seem.
"Then I'll defy you!" This is his promise, as Eleanor calls upon her defensive, healing spells, working to unseat his reality and reinstate her own.
"All of you are the same," he tells Clarine. "Always claiming to understand what you don't! It's so annoying. But that's fine. I'll show you what I can do!"
Clarine might have the drop on him first, though. Great swords of light descend one after another around him, pinning him -- even with his annoying ability to teleport -- to the spot. When the last one sparks the detonation of light about him, it may be his own anti-color, flaring from his hands, that saves him from the bulk of that flare of light.
He straightens, turning to regard Ashley. "You think you're entitled to an answer, don't you?" Caina tells Ashley. "Hmph. You're always so irritating. You think because you're a 'hero' that you can get whatever you want! But you're right. You've caused Lord Vinsfeld -- and the rest of us -- nothing but trouble. You weren't supposed to return with the demon inside you!"
The winds might not carry Ashley properly to the gate (he can see its outline on the 'horizon') but even when they deliver him back to reality with a crash, he makes good use of the disintegrating other-worldly matter, and uses it to pivot forward, towards Caina. Caina glances upwards. Randolph glows bright.
But neither of these things happen fast enough. Catapulting from the fragments of another dimension itself, Ashley is the quicker and scores a line across the warlock's shoulder. "Tch--" Caina hisses. "Why won't you die?!"
His back is to Ryoko, as she begins her attack. A sitting duck, she might well think.
It's at the last moment that he turns, his pale eyes widening. Raising one hand to meet her incoming swing, uncolor pours from his palm to be as a shield about him. But still, his knees buckle.
Still, eventually, under the force of the swing, the shell of color cracks. It deadens the blow, even if he still staggers away, steadying himself. "Not... crest sorcery. Or Althenian artes. Or Symbology?" he speaks aloud, confused by her sorcery.
'I'm sorry it came to this,' Elly starts to say. "You're annoying. Apologies won't do you any favors," he tells her, scowling at her where she lies. "You raised your hand against Lord Vinsfeld and me. Your penalty is death! Randolph--"
The key has returned to his side, and with it, something else.
"What," is as much as he gets out as the flame erupts in his face. For a moment, all that can be seen is the burning flame. But, is there still a figure within its depths--
Coughing heavily into his arm as the heat dies down, it becomes clear that part of the reason that he survived was Randolph interposing itself between him and the heart of the inferno. The key wobbles slightly but maintains its float. Slowly, the edges of his robes flaking away, Caina reaches out his hand to touch the surface of the key. He takes one ragged breath, then another, and when he turns his gaze upon those before him, there is murder in his eyes. "How... dare you."
"Randolph! Open the gate!!
A great magical circle burns its way into existence within the chamber. Circles loop within it, ensnaring and encircling every soul other than Caina now in this space. They gain such inscrutible symbols, are linked to one another by strange lines. There at the very center of the chamber stands Caina, with Randolph floating just above him. He stares up at the key, as if transfixed.
All paths lead to the gate.
The key shines silver.
There is light behind the gate. Look into it. See what lies beyond.
There's time only for a glimpse, before the gate closes, before everything burns away in a blaze of white. The mind may reel, however. Some things may be beyond what mortal -- or even immortal -- minds can properly comprehend.
To look into another reality is painful, indeed.
GS: Caina has activated a Force Action! GS: Caina has activated a Force Action! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Caina has attacked Ruth Pauling with Gate of Isolde! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Caina has attacked Eleanor Klein with Gate of Isolde! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Caina has attacked Seraph Clarine with Gate of Isolde! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Caina has attacked Zhang Xiumei with Gate of Isolde! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Caina has attacked Elhaym van Houten with Gate of Isolde! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Caina has attacked Ashley Winchester with Gate of Isolde! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Caina has attacked Marivel Armitage with Gate of Isolde! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Caina has attacked Ryoko Mizore with Gate of Isolde! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Caina has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Gate of Isolde! GS: Caina has gained 1 Combo! GS: Caina has completed his action. GS: Zhang Xiumei's Jam Ward prevents an effect! GS: Zhang Xiumei's Slow Ward prevents an effect! GS: Zhang Xiumei's Weaken Ward prevents an effect! GS: Zhang Xiumei takes a solid hit from Caina's Gate of Isolde for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Zhang Xiumei gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Blind, Break, Cripple, Disease, and Mute applied to Zhang Xiumei! GS: Marivel Armitage's Mute Ward prevents an effect! GS: CRITICAL! Marivel Armitage takes a solid hit from Caina's Gate of Isolde for 0 hit points! GS: Blind, Break, Cripple, Disease, Jam, Slow, and Weaken applied to Marivel Armitage! GS: FP up! Arcane Font and Sufferer activated! GS: Elhaym van Houten suffers a terrible blow from Caina's Gate of Isolde for 0 hit points! GS: Blind, Break, Cripple, Disease, Jam, Mute, Slow, and Weaken applied to Elhaym van Houten! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated! GS: CRITICAL! Ashley Winchester takes a solid hit from Caina's Gate of Isolde for 0 hit points! GS: Blind, Break, Cripple, Disease, Jam, Mute, Slow, and Weaken applied to Ashley Winchester! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated! GS: CRITICAL! Eleanor Klein takes a solid hit from Caina's Gate of Isolde for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Eleanor Klein gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Blind, Break, Cripple, Disease, Jam, Mute, Slow, and Weaken applied to Eleanor Klein! GS: Seraph Clarine's Blind Ward prevents an effect! GS: CRITICAL! Seraph Clarine partially evades Caina's Gate of Isolde for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Clarine gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Break, Cripple, Disease, Jam, Mute, Slow, and Weaken applied to Seraph Clarine! GS: FP up! Arcane Font activated! GS: Ruth Pauling has activated a Force Action! GS: Ruth Pauling's Blind Ward prevents an effect! GS: Ruth Pauling suffers a terrible blow from Caina's Gate of Isolde for 0 hit points! GS: Break, Cripple, Disease, Jam, Mute, Slow, and Weaken applied to Ruth Pauling! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated! GS: Ryoko Mizore solidly guards Caina's Gate of Isolde for 0 hit points! GS: Blind, Break, Cripple, Disease, Jam, Mute, Slow, and Weaken applied to Ryoko Mizore! GS: FP up! Guard bonus activated! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey's Cripple Ward prevents an effect! GS: CRITICAL! Ida Everstead-Rey takes a solid hit from Caina's Gate of Isolde for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Ida Everstead-Rey gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Blind, Break, Disease, Jam, Mute, Slow, and Weaken applied to Ida Everstead-Rey!
<Pose Tracker> Zhang Xiumei has posed.
Marivel's spell (or, well, something like it) makes Xiumei glow brilliantly -- a surge of power that erupts from her, and then settles into a glow that remains now after Clarine's own spell.
She steps back from him and Randolph. Xiumei's eyes widen as the magic circle explodes across the ground; it's ornate and complex and far, far beyond her rudimentary grasp of sorcery. She sees the gate that opens, and into it; a glimpse of something maddening, some flash of white, some look into another world. She makes a sharp, strangled noise as she sees it.
"What--what is--"
She doesn't know. She cannot.
She sucks a breath in, then she lunges for Caina again. She swings her Pulse Saber up -- and then chops down, with a diagonal slash as she gets closer to him. "This... Eleanor's right, this isn't a power that you should have!"
GS: Zhang Xiumei has attacked Caina with Pulse Saber - Double Slash! GS: Zhang Xiumei has gained 1 Combo! GS: Zhang Xiumei gains 15 THP from Regen! GS: Zhang Xiumei has completed her action. GS: Caina suffers a terrible blow from Zhang Xiumei's Pulse Saber - Double Slash for 189 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Caina gains 1 additional Combo! GS: FP up! Countermeasures activated!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Clarine has posed.
Clarine frowns at the response she gets. It doesn't bother her, but... he seems quick to become annoyed. An unwise combination, when dealing in such powers.
"I did not mean to upset - merely to warn. Can you not feel it - the way it strains upon the world?" She replies. It's probably too late to assuage any emotions, though - not that he'd probably accept that from her in the first place.
...Particularly, when she sees the look of murder in those eyes, as he commands Randolph to open the gate. A magic circle appears, twisting and turning with symbols. And then, there is light. But it is not the light that brings Clarine peace and comfort - she tries to look away, but even a glimpse is enough, and the sheer, indescribably overwhelming sensation of what weighs upon her next forces her to the ground. Clarine makes a sound similar to a sharp exhale, shutting her eyes tight.
It takes some effort to manage enough to force a spell incantation - it may not be strictly necessary for her, but she needs to focus on the words now more than enough to draw out the power.
"S-sacred spirits, bestow your... healing touch upon the weary... Nurse!" Clarine incants. From her position, several lights bearing fluttering wings swirl out and upward, floating around the room briefly before settling on her allies. Once more there is light - but this light is calm and refreshing, to hopefully bring peace to the body and mind after being faced with that which they cannot comprehend.
GS: Seraph Clarine enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Seraph Clarine has attacked Ryoko Mizore with Nurse! GS: Seraph Clarine has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Nurse! GS: Seraph Clarine has attacked Ruth Pauling with Nurse! GS: Seraph Clarine has attacked Ashley Winchester with Nurse! GS: Seraph Clarine has attacked Elhaym van Houten with Nurse! GS: Seraph Clarine has attacked Eleanor Klein with Nurse! GS: Seraph Clarine has attacked Zhang Xiumei with Nurse! GS: Seraph Clarine has gained 1 Combo! GS: Seraph Clarine enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Seraph Clarine has completed her action. GS: Seraph Clarine heals Ashley Winchester! He gains 30 temporary hit points! GS: Restore! Blind, Break, Cripple, Disease, and Mighty removed! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated! GS: Seraph Clarine heals Ida Everstead-Rey! She gains 30 temporary hit points! GS: Restore! Blind, Break, Disease, and Slow removed! GS: Quick applied to Seraph Clarine! GS: You can't do that. GS: Seraph Clarine heals Eleanor Klein! She gains 30 temporary hit points! GS: Restore! Blind, Break, and Cripple removed! GS: Seraph Clarine heals Ruth Pauling! She gains 30 temporary hit points! GS: Restore! Break, Cripple, Disease, and Jam removed! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated! GS: Seraph Clarine heals Ryoko Mizore! She gains 30 temporary hit points! GS: Restore! Blind, Break, Cripple, and Reaper removed! GS: Shield applied to Seraph Clarine! GS: Ryoko Mizore enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Seraph Clarine heals Elhaym van Houten! She gains 30 temporary hit points! GS: Restore! Blind, Break, and Cripple removed! GS: Quick applied to Seraph Clarine! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated!
<Pose Tracker> Ashley Winchester has posed.
"A 'hero...?'" Ashley parrots. The word has lost so much of its luster in recent years. It seems like everyone throws it around. What kind of meaning does the word 'hero' have? Anymore, it feels hollow, all except for that same implication. Someone 'special.' Someone with 'power.' "If a 'hero' could have anything he wanted, would there be so much suffering in the world?" Would Brad have lost his comrades, his homeland, his dearest friend? Would Anastasia have had to give up the life she loved so much?
Would he have this demon pressing against the walls of his soul...?
A wave of Guardian Power washes over him, protecting him. But even that doesn't explain why Ashley Winchester is so damn hard to kill. After all, under normal circumstances, the Guardians would have nothing to do with him. "Do you really think I'm a 'hero', Caina?" Ashley asks around Caina's own question, "If I am one, then who's responsible for making me into one?"
...Was it Caina? Marivel? Irving?
Or is it a bigger question than that?
A magic circle etches itself into the world. Ashley feels the very underpinnings of reality come undone. Physical law bends and warps at the boundary of the gate as a light from beyond the deepest depths of madness. Xiumei and Eleanor call it a power that Caina should not possess. By that reckoning, they're all guilty.
This stopped being a fight between 'ordinary people' a while ago, didn't it?
The Gate and Key are unified, and a world beyond is made manifest. For an instant, Ashley catches a glimpse of the other side.
More horrifying than what he sees, is that some part of him finds it a familiar sight. He chokes back the bile and the disgust-- this power, right or not, is not something that someone like him can withstand. At least, not under normal circumstances. Ashley Winchester is someone anchored in 'this world' by myriad forces, but before the gate, that resistance is meager at best. At least... as he is now.
But if he were to become someone else...?
As that terrible light floods the world, something else shines in the blinding abyss. It is felt more than it is seen, a flash of Cherenkov blue amidst the mind-shattering silver. Heat, but not... warmth. The kind of heat that scalds the skin in a flash, leaving nothing but numbness as flesh is flensed away if it gets too close. What appears to contest the silver light is not darkness-- it is yet more light. Light. Light. Terrible light. Light that strips all things clean. Lays all things bare. Reduces all to ash and memory, then destroys even that.
The light that will end the world.
BGM CHANGE:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7y-6KP5YOo
"Maybe you're not obliged to tell me," Ashley's voice reverberates as the black knight falls out of the silvery light. A tattered, crimson scarf flutters through the glare like the ruined wings of some half-dead devil. "I've made peace with that. But for what you did at the Cathedral-- what you did to us, to me-- I'm not entitled to revenge, but I'm going to do everything I can to make sure I can get it! To make sure you can't hurt anyone I love ever again!"
A pulse of healing energy washes across him. The Black Knight does not avert his eyes, even as some measure of the murderous wrath boiling within, barely restrained, is eased away. This power, today, will not consume him. "Caina of Cocytus!" Ashley Winchester-- the Knight Blazer roars, focusing the whole of his own terrible brilliance to a single point. The power that pulses through his body gathers, flowing from his limbs to the core of his chest. Armor unhinges, revealing a glowing sphere that shines like the surface of a hateful star, nestled in a mass of writhing, sinuous flesh. The light builds and builds and builds, the stuff of the twisted half-reality surrounding them melting before the terrible blaze. "I WILL SHATTER YOUR GATE!"
There is a flash. Knight Blazer turns, unleashing the whole of that gathered power... at the gate and the key still as-one.
Without them, what will be left of Caina of Cocytus...?
DC: Ashley Winchester switches forms to Knight Blazer! GS: Ashley Winchester has activated a Force Action! GS: Ashley Winchester has activated a Force Action! GS: Ashley Winchester spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Ashley Winchester has attacked Caina with Banisher! GS: Ashley Winchester has gained 1 Combo! GS: Ashley Winchester gains 60 THP from Regen! GS: Ashley Winchester has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Eleanor Klein has posed.
Ruth's spell rings out for Eleanor like a clear note, Muse invoked in double form. Something holds in the moment, and that ley-infused rain helps Eleanor to recover from the strange effect of time and space shifting to the side for her. However...
There is more. Eleanor did not see Marivel here in her visions... but that doesn't necessarily mean anything to her. She notice her strange presence, though. The way things are happening with her. "Marivel," she starts, "Are you...?"
But there is indeed still more. "As absolute as Vinsfeld's dominion," Eleanor assures Caina of his power. And he says he will defy her--which is indeed what she expects. It will be a great conflict to see reality brought where it must be here. She looks to Elly--kindness to BOOMs, all in a few moments! It's impressive. But...
The gate opens. All paths lead to it. There is light beyond it, but it obscures the gate, shadows it. Eleanor, nevertheless, can see that glimpse. It is another reality. It is something antithetical to existence. Comprehend it? Maybe. But merely coming into contact with it makes Eleanor stumble backward, blood trickling out of her nose as she half-swoons backward. Clarine's calm light however is a lifeline, and Eleanor opens her eyes, reaching out and somehow grasping some of that light, pulling herself up off of the ground into its peace. She is still unsettled, but... "Thank you," she says to Clarine, and then--reaches for her gun.
She pulls it and lifts it, aiming straight for Caina's center-mass. "Defy this."
With an instant of focus, she invokes another magic, one not seen on the surface for an age. She channels power through her weapon, and the bullet explodes into crystalline ice to put out all flame as soon as it hits its target.
And then she looks to Ashley. No, to Knight Blazer. She sees it so differently than she did before her awakening, sees the figure within... through Knight Blazer. The flames--There are flames everywhere--
Eleanor squeezes her eyes shut, but it doesn't do anything to put them away. "Marivel, what... what have you DONE?" she breathes, as if fully comprehending it for the first time.
Her golden revolver falls out of her hand, "No--No, I trust her--" It's going to take her a moment to recover though.
GS: Eleanor Klein used Force Action: Mystic on herself! GS: Disease removed! GS: CRITICAL! Caina suffers a terrible blow from Ashley Winchester's Banisher for 382 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Caina gains 1 additional Combo! GS: FP up! Countermeasures activated! GS: Formation! Eleanor Klein has attacked Caina with Frigid Bullet! GS: Eleanor Klein has entered Avenger Stance! GS: Eleanor Klein has completed her action. GS: Caina takes a solid hit from Eleanor Klein's Frigid Bullet for 175 hit points! GS: Entangle applied to Caina! GS: FP up! Countermeasures activated! GS: Seraph Clarine heals Zhang Xiumei! She gains 30 temporary hit points! GS: Restore! Blind, Break, Cripple, and Disease removed! GS: Shield applied to Seraph Clarine!
<Pose Tracker> Ryoko Mizore has posed.
Ryoko Mizore shrugs at the freezer-burned true believer's confusion about her magic. She's not having a great time, but bravado's carried her through worse, right? "You tell me man." is her response. She just knows she can hit people in the head with it! She starts to wind up for another swing. Having recovered from the whole unabalanced wild swing. She's getting that distinct sense of 'Should probably squish him sooner rather than later' at this point.
That was before the gate was opened up. She has absolutely no idea what any of this is and just barely holds onto the kanabo. She steps away from the key when the gate closes, quick as it started really. Her fingers clench and she slams the club down. Leaning on it, trying to catch her breath, clear her head. Fix whatever... whatever that was. As before she begins to painfully drag the club up. Spitting dismissively. "Come on, you're borrowing some freaky thing's power and that's the best you've got?" There's a grin showing now. A gesture with her hand, 'come get some'. Probably not the best idea, but angry irrational sorts make mistakes. And she's exploited that before. She holds her hand up like she's blowing something from it. Frost forming in the air, leeching from the water that's been cast. More visible than usual. There's a sharp crack as it all flash freezes around Caina. Sure, it's not as sharp as she'd like. Sure it's painful to move. Screw it. There's a mocking laugh followed up with, "You need to earn it. You can't lean on someone else's power." Not her... usual antics, but hey. Try something now! Mostly becuase he seems... maybe this will work? Or it'll blow up in her face. Hey that's a way of helping right? Drawing his attention so the others can do more? Maybe she should learn more than crude street brawling. Something for later-
There's another brief laugh. Her mind's wandering in weird places. Second time in as many weeks. She's been pushed further than she'd thought. Maybe it was that horror show through the gate. Or stress and the attempts to cope with it. That grin's back.
It's still there as she tears her focus away for a moment, looking at the others. Mostly at the fire. That's a lot of fire and... probably not helping her magic and vice versa. Maybe she'll stick to hitting the keymaster until something breaks. It's a slow reaction, but she does take a step away. Getting out of the way. Still very much at a loss. Eyeballs from ice giants, sure. Freaky otherworldly things. Burst? Yeah okay she's over her head. Later. Later, she'll deal with it later.
GS: Ryoko Mizore enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Ryoko Mizore has attacked Caina with Frost Strike! GS: Ryoko Mizore has gained 1 Combo! GS: Ryoko Mizore enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Ryoko Mizore has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
The gate opens, and Ruth witnesses. As she has (in)famously said in times of emotional lows, there are things she can never look away from. What she sees...
. . . . . .
She freezes, as if solidified into stone without the outward change in form or feel. Beautiful lights bearing fluttering wings, filled with the kindness and comfort of a benevolent interpretation of a celestial body, surround Ruth as they mend a body ailing of sensory inputs she simply does not have word or thought for.
It returns breath, pulse, more mundane sensation.
...Her heart fixates on the terror filling the room, and it exacerbates as Ashley taps into what rests within his. It is something Ruth was warned to be careful about, and to look upon it in this context...
To feel the heat is utterly foreign to her as a sensation now. The black knight that Ashley becomes, who makes his declaration to destroy with a heart-stopping, fear-inducing roar of will to use the power to destroy, and in turn...
As if fighting against great external pressure, Malevolence escapes Ruth's form, as she undoes the shackles on her heart. Bindings that keep clothes far too big on her snap free, and in its wake has that odd effect of of making her seem proportionally smaller even at the terminus of her reversion to who she is now.
A single wing juts out her back and curves inwards, clawed feet clutching at the ground as she draws her rifle and stabs that bayonet blade into the ground for traction.
She anchors herself to the feelings filling the chamber, as Lord Blazer focuses upon Randolph, the Magic Key and the gate that leads beyond.
For Caina... there is a sensation of a drenching, intensifying rain. Chilling, clammy, as a borderline immobilized Hellionized Ruth holds her posture a safe distance between Lord Blazer, and almost everyone else as angle and posture allows.
"No wonder they haven't come through yet," there's a bitter laugh, "this world... is full of monsters already."
GS: Ruth Pauling has attacked Caina with Inconsolable Heavens! GS: Ruth Pauling enters a Counter stance! GS: Ruth Pauling has entered Stance! GS: Ruth Pauling has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
'Shut up! My power is absolute!'
Ida slips the Medium back into its pocket, and glances at Caina. "The more you say that, the less I believe it." It's not entirely bravado--Caina has shown them terrible, blasphemous miracles, but he is mortal, and that key is clearly a focus. He can be beaten.
Ida's stance is aggressive; she circle-walks around him, but it's more of a darting motion, irregular and swift. She's looking for an opening. Elly unleashes her flame, and then--
'Randolph! Open the gate!!'
Shit, Ida thinks.
She feels a weight settling on her soul. Her head tilts up. Her eyes open. It all feels as automatic and vital as a flower turning towards the light, even as her brain screams STOP and DON'T LOOK.
It only takes a moment. Ida's eyes never stop staring, but the expression goes from terror to dull incomprehension, and from there to panicked, confused terror. Her breath quickens. Not even the blazing white can erase what she just saw. She can't describe it. It's all wrong.
And then a winged light rests on Ida's shoulder, and reality reasserts itself. Standing there, before her, is--
"Ashley?!" Ida yelps, and immolating LIGHT shines from him. Moments later, Ruth unmasks herself. And Ida--
Ida thumps a hand against her breastplate, and lets her own monstrosity out.
Hyadean flesh sluices out from her collar and cuffs. It washes up her body, perhaps like nanomachines from a Zeboim ARM to those who don't know better. It hardens into exoskeleton, coating her from neck to foot in blue and black and gold. Headgear solidifies around her brow and jaw.
It can't protect her from the visions. But Caina is no longer the only terror here. (He never was.)
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Third Method - Shaping the Battle-Forged Shell! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has gained 4 Combo! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action. GS: Ida Everstead-Rey accepts Ida Everstead-Rey's Third Method - Shaping the Battle-Forged Shell for 0 hit points! GS: Shield applied to Ida Everstead-Rey! GS: Cover applied to Ida Everstead-Rey!
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.
Marivel doesn't really want to meddle too much so close to the Heimdall Gazzo attack. It'd be rude to NOT HELP AT ALL since she came and all but this might be one of the last times she gets to be with them for some time (she thinks?) So...
She wonders. Is she like this when she thinks of her own friends and her devotion? She'd like to think she wasn't quite this extreme about it. She does feel the doubts, but are they real? They must be real. Caina claims that he wasn't supposed to return with the demon inside him, well--that was the real plan. And Marivel wonders for a moment if this makes her crazier and more fucked up than Caina. Sure, it already happened before they ensured it would happen but it isn't like she tried to stop it. She didn't. Because of The Promise.
Randolph opens a gate. Marivel raises an eyebrow. Is it...?
Marivel looks to the light. A blaze of white.
Marivel feels something... nostalgic... as something resembling her heart aches for a place she'd never been. A place almost the opposite of that summoned plane for rather than a blaze of white, there is instead an endless dark. Marivel stares all the same.
A tear drips down from her left eye, down her cheek. She even somehow misses the familiar place of the Blaze, so focused on the portal in this moment.
Marivel isn't supposed to be here. Eleanor can hear the Hounds. So far, Marivel's minimal interference and influence means that the river of time can just sort of endure.
And then Eleanor makes an innocent choice. In this moment of weakness of Marivel's heart, in this moment of longing and loneliness she says something to Marivel.
Marivel, what... what have you DONE?
Marivel turns her head away, forces her head away to look at Eleanor. She stares at Eleanor for a moment. The singular tear dries and fades away into skin as if it had never existed. For a moment there's confusion in her eyes, then understanding and a painful expectation.
Marivel's lips twitch.
And they slowly open up into a fanged grin.
"Heh."
Marivel then rears back her head. "Ahahah...."
And then she full on cackles, "HAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!"
"Finally!" Marivel says. "Finally you are ASKING that question with the GRAVITAS it deserves. FINALLY, you understand what I've done. I could opine time after time after time and never lie at all about Lord Blazer and it would still be deceiving you without a single lie, because you all have survived the Metal Demons so you think you are victorious heroes who cannot truly fail. You have a deadly confidence and now, NOW it is finally shaken, now that you've finally opened up your eyes, Eleanor, and USED THEM TO SEE."
"That's the problem with heroes." Marivel shakes her head. "They always think 'Heroes Never Die' so long as they have the will to fight! And perhaps that is true. But even if that were true, there are many fates worse than death."
"Now you see him, The truth of Lord Blazer, with your Sage's Eye but let me tell you, Eleanor, that what you see is not Lord Blazer at all. Lord Blazer, Eleanor, is MUCH worse. No, you have simply opened up your Sage's Eye to the amount of power that Ashley Winchester is able to call upon. MERELY that, Eleanor. And now that you truly see it, you feel fear, as you should! Because THAT LIGHT YOU SEE is the light from hell that destroyed this world! Lord Blazer is the Sin of humanity breathed flesh. The pain. THe misery. The violence. Humans summoned the daemon that CONSUMED MY PARENTS' SOULS and left me the last, the last of my people! Doomed to forever know that it was my FAITH in humanity that led them to their NON-EXISTANCE."
"So." Marivel coos. "What will you do now, Eleanor, now that you've seen what I've done?"
She gestures with her hand towards Caina. "Two can play at that game, Caina!"
She interrupts this kind of maniacal moment by channeling her own eldricht power.
A dark black triangle opens up behind Caina. The light of the AByss peeks out. A spectral hand lashes out towards Caina and runs its hand through Caina, a dark chill of the underworld passing through him as it tries to figure out how to drag him into Hell.
"Luceid was right to be angry with me even though they should have KNOWN. I know not yet the meaning behind that discrepency but I will learn it. I will even use The Blaze Conflagration to bring Ana back if I must and to ensure she has a home to return to! Because through all she has sacrificed, she should be allowed, finally, her WILL to come to pass!"
A horde of hunger lurks behind the portal to hell. Marivel leaves it there for the moment but it won't be long before it closes on its own. Marivel doesn't bring these things into existence and leave open the possibility of the fiends within to come slurping out.
"You see nothing new here, Eleanor." Marivel says, her tone calming, a dead look remaining in her eyes of one who has struggled and suffered for five thousand years of isolation. And another five thousand of living life on a world as prone to self destruction as Filgaia.
"You remember what Vasil said about my people? And how, while we may make it difficult, we enjoy nothing more than being SEEN."
Her predatorial grin flickers back. "Thank you, Eleanor, for seeing me."
GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Marivel Armitage has attacked Caina with DemonAngle! GS: Marivel Armitage has gained 2 Combo! GS: Marivel Armitage has completed her action. GS: Caina takes a solid hit from Ryoko Mizore's Frost Strike for 126 hit points! GS: Drowsy applied to Caina! GS: Caina takes a glancing hit from Ruth Pauling's Inconsolable Heavens for 81 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Caina gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Cover applied to Ruth Pauling! GS: FP up! Evade bonus activated! GS: CRITICAL! ROU|LET|TE: Catastrophic! Gamble: ??? Caina solidly guards Marivel Armitage's DemonAngle for 126 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Caina gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Drowsy and Hex applied to Caina! GS: FP up! Guard bonus activated!
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
Elly falters in her resolve for a moment when Caina calls her annoying.
Not enough to make a difference, though!
Or perhaps it was, because the Silver Key is still there; Caina is alive, and indeed not even burned enough to be dying quickly. If the burn gave him a mortal wound -- to say nothing of the called-forth and unusual sorcery of Eleanor, the blows others strike, the glittering swords of light and the punishing blows...
Well, it's not going to do them good right now.
THE GATE OPENS --
Elly gazes into it.
-- her vision must have distorted, put something familiar and comforting in there; because for a moment she thought she saw --
-- she saw --
She --
Elly finds herself coming back to herself, rocked back hard enough to have landed on her backside. It is good, indeed, as far as such things can be good, that Lord Blazer had chosen this time to make his appearance through his vessel... for Elly was sitting there like a second-grader at storytime, ripe for the headplucking.
The resonant voice of the KNIGHT BLAZER brings Elly back into something like coherence. As the brilliant light shines - her skin all but aching at its touch - The sparkling little lights guide her, ease her, and Elly is able to draw forth something else-- a simpler spell, a cubic shape of that same incinerating fire to box in Caina or at least punish his retreat, perhaps burning him for last and true - in silent shock.
But it feels as if ancient gods, not friendly, have joined them; and the worst is that *one of them was there all along.*
GS: Elhaym van Houten has attacked Caina with Thermo Boundary! GS: Elhaym van Houten has gained 1 Combo! GS: Elhaym van Houten has completed her action. GS: Caina suffers a terrible blow from Elhaym van Houten's Thermo Boundary for 188 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Caina gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Entangle applied to Caina!
<Pose Tracker> Caina has posed.
"Shut up," he tells Clarine, again. "I can't stand people like you. You're always thinking you know what's wrong and what's right!"
'As absolute as Vinsfeld's dominion', Eleanor says. "How annoying. You think you're being clever," he says to her. "But that's fine. You're not leaving here alive."
Ryoko accuses him of not even using his own power. "Hmph. That shows how much you know. The only thing that's almost as bad as wanna-be heroes are idiots. Why would it matter if I was?" he tells her, a sneer on his face.
Nor is she the only one to receive more of his vitriol. Ashley protests against some of his vitriol, but Caina responds in kind, "Of course you are. You sound just like them! Always talking about what's right and what's wrong, about how you'll save the world...!" He shakes his head. "...Me, responsible? Don't make me laugh! You weren't even supposed to survive! If I had my way...!"
If he had his way, Ashley would have become a different sort of demon.
Or perhaps, he would have preferred it if Ashley had died.
Ida, on the other hand... Ida in this moment is on the receiving end of a grimace that could have only been more appropriate had Caina paired it with some sort of invective.
They all see what lies behind the gate.
It begins to close. But... not yet.
Not just yet.
There is light outside the gate as well. A terrible, glowing blue. Yes -- it is the light that will end the world.
The gate doesn't close. It can't close.
"What-- what are you?!" Caina shouts, shocked -- horrified? -- as the gate, frozen, remains partially open. There before him, before all of them, stands Knight Blazer.
That existence that shouldn't be.
"No--!"
It is the wrath and fury of a dying star. All that circulates close to the celestial inferno is burned away, broken down into mere atoms. Nothing can survive such fire.
Not even the gate to another reality. There is ash in the air. Then not even ash. Then nothing at all.
Randolph drops to the floor and Caina, in a panic, dives for it. The fact that it twitches in his arms suggests that it is still 'alive', but...
It is in this position that Xiumei's blade finds him. Though he shudders under the blow, though... he still rises to his feet, the key in his arms.
"How dare you," he speaks, and the very boundaries of the world shudder at his words. The gate is broken-- but are there not still cracks in the world?
"You... you're the one who meddled!" he spits at Marivel then, and turns a sudden rush of otherworldly magic upon her. "If it weren't for you--"
A flash of gold interrupts his assault upon Marivel. He raises one hand as Eleanor levels a gun at him -- as battered and wounded as he is, with the key damaged, he is far from 'helpless'. The stuff of another reality flows in to meet his call, forms a barrier to meet her bullet.
It slows it, deflects it. He must be tired, for the projectile still cuts a line across his cheek.
"Yes," he tells her simply.
In his arms, the key stirs. "...Are you certain?" he asks Randolph. It vanishes, reappearing in the air before him, if to hang there at an angle. "Very well! Then we'll go together!" he tells his key, his oldest partner.
Eleanor may be the first to suffer the onslaught from the key. This time when it appears before her, already traveling at high speeds, it won't be the last time it does so. It comes for her again and again, over and over seemingly without pause. Then it's simply gone, back to Caina's side just as a low chuckling announces Ruth's presence.
She has... changed, to put it simply. "What are..." he begins to say, even as an unnatural chill begins to fill this space. He shivers, involuntarily, his wounds feeling all the stronger for that presence that has invaded. If he falls here, he will... Lord Vinsfeld will...
Randolph is faster, perhaps more resistant than he. Its retort is a quick one, crossing the distance between her and Caina in an eyeblink, erupting towards her as it blazes with silver-white light.
But this leaves Caina unprotected. Behind him a dark triangle has opened up. When he turns, it's in time to meet a shadowy hand as it plunges straight through his middle. "Randolph--" he gasps, collapsing to his knees. He stretches out one hand towards where the key hovers, now before him once more. "Take... get rid of it...!"
But it isn't Marivel whom the key assaults.
It's Elly, as the fire rises high around the badly-wounded warlock. Tit for tat appears to be something even Randolph can understand, even if it's against its master's wishes.
GS: Caina has become ENRAGED! GS: Caina has attacked Ruth Pauling with Negative Space! GS: Caina has attacked Eleanor Klein with Negative Space! GS: Caina has attacked Seraph Clarine with Negative Space! GS: Caina has attacked Zhang Xiumei with Negative Space! GS: Caina has attacked Elhaym van Houten with Negative Space! GS: Caina has attacked Ashley Winchester with Negative Space! GS: Caina has attacked Marivel Armitage with Negative Space! GS: Caina has attacked Ryoko Mizore with Negative Space! GS: Caina has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Negative Space! GS: Caina has gained 1 Combo! GS: Caina has attacked Marivel Armitage with Dead Abyss! GS: Caina has gained 1 Combo! GS: Caina spends 2 Combo on Headshot! GS: Caina has attacked Eleanor Klein with Degenerate Field Ripper! GS: Caina enters a Counter stance! GS: Caina has gained 2 Combo! GS: Caina has entered Stance! GS: Caina has attacked Ruth Pauling with 4D Hypo Blast! GS: Caina has entered Stance! GS: Caina spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Caina has attacked Elhaym van Houten with Zero Point Rupture! GS: Caina enters a Counter stance! GS: Caina has entered Stance! GS: Enrage purges all positive status! GS: Caina has completed his action. GS: Sneak! The true nature of Caina's attack becomes clear! GS: Marivel Armitage solidly guards Caina's Celephain Howl for 70 hit points! GS: FP up! Arcane Font and Sufferer activated! GS: Sneak! The true nature of Caina's attack becomes clear! GS: Eleanor Klein suffers a terrible blow from Caina's Celephain Howl for 231 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Eleanor Klein gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Charge!! You gain 55 FP! GS: Eleanor Klein enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Sneak! The true nature of Caina's attack becomes clear! GS: Seraph Clarine critically guards Caina's Celephain Howl for 43 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Clarine gains 1 additional Combo! GS: FP up! Arcane Font, Guard bonus, and Gleam activated! GS: Marivel Armitage solidly guards Caina's Dead Abyss for 54 hit points! GS: FP up! Arcane Font, Guard bonus, and Sufferer activated! GS: Marivel Armitage enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Caina drains Marivel Armitage! Caina gains 27 temporary hit points! GS: CRITICAL! Eleanor Klein suffers a terrible blow from Caina's Degenerate Field Ripper for 185 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Eleanor Klein gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Mute applied to Eleanor Klein! GS: Quick applied to Caina! GS: FP up! Countermeasures activated! GS: Sneak! The true nature of Caina's attack becomes clear! GS: CRITICAL! Ryoko Mizore solidly guards Caina's Celephain Howl for 102 hit points! GS: Sneak! The true nature of Caina's attack becomes clear! GS: Ashley Winchester solidly guards Caina's Celephain Howl for 68 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Ashley Winchester gains 1 additional Combo! GS: FP up! Guard bonus activated! GS: Sneak! The true nature of Caina's attack becomes clear! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey solidly guards Caina's Celephain Howl for 70 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Ida Everstead-Rey gains 1 additional Combo! GS: FP up! Guard bonus activated!
<Pose Tracker> Caina has posed.
The power streams in from all the little holes and cracks in reality. It flows like water. It pierces like a hundred thousand million blades. It appears to take up each and every space available within this chamber at once and yet could not be grasped if it were touched. It's anomaly in its purest form, the presence of the 'other side'.
GS: Sneak! The true nature of Caina's attack becomes clear! GS: CRITICAL! Zhang Xiumei takes a solid hit from Caina's Celephain Howl for 215 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Zhang Xiumei gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Sneak! The true nature of Caina's attack becomes clear! GS: CRITICAL! Elhaym van Houten critically guards Caina's Celephain Howl for 58 hit points! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated! GS: Elhaym van Houten enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Sneak! The true nature of Caina's attack becomes clear! GS: Ruth Pauling suffers a terrible blow from Caina's Celephain Howl for 162 hit points! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated! GS: Ruth Pauling enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: COUNTER! Ruth Pauling counterattacks Caina with Counter Attack! GS: Ruth Pauling solidly guards Caina's 4D Hypo Blast for 92 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Ruth Pauling gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Dispel! Cover removed! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated! GS: Caina suffers a terrible blow from Ruth Pauling's Counter Attack for 182 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Caina gains 1 additional Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Eleanor Klein has posed.
Marivel answers Eleanor's statement--for a brief, brief instant, she wishes she hadn't said it. She doesn't want to hurt her dear friend Mraivel. And yet...
And yet. Marivel answers her in turn, and she explains. She explains what she has seen, and what Marivel has done. That faith...
Eleanor stares at Marivel for a moment, and then another, and another. It feels much longer. Maybe it is longer; maybe her Sage's eye can allow her to stretch a moment into long, long seconds that are not seconds at all.
What will she do? There is not time, in the moment, to answer that, because Caina's wrath is great and immediate. But Eleanor thinks. She will have a long time to think about it, she is sure, because she has not seen her death today.
She knows of a certainty that there is yet disaster she will remain to witness. ...But she does not know what she will lose before she gets there, and Caina may yet have the answer to that.
As it turns out, she gains something: pain. The key slams into her, over and over, and Eleanor is knocked around by the repeated assaults over and over until she hits the ground, hard. This, and existing in concert with that which should Not, is almost too much; in the end she is thrown from the gate, tumbles to the ground with a groan.
But... She does live. A hand casts out to the ground--real, solid ground--and starts to push from there.
"...I don't know," Eleanor says as she rises from the ground, picking herself up again. "I don't know what I'll do, Marivel. Not now that I understand. But I know..." She lowers her hands, and closes her eyes, beginning to focus.
"You're my friend. ...My friend who I have a lot to talk about with, now. I see you, all right. ...But to see tomorrow, there's something here I have to do, yet..."
'You're the one who meddled', he says to Marivel. And Eleanor sets her yellow eyes upon him, opening them as she completes the beginnings of what she means to do. "...You have trespassed in a domain not yours, Caina of Cocytus. And by the Light of Filgaia..."
Eleanor's hands rise, and golden light shines from her eyes and her palms, as if too much for her body to contain all at once.
"I bring judgment upon you."
The light becomes blinding, and as surely as Knight Blazer should not be, this light must. It is not Ether, nor any other known form of sorcery, but something else--it is something sacred. And it builds, and builds, before Eleanor cannot be seen at all.
A thunderous sound erupts forth and light smites down upon Caina in a terrible blast that is nothing less than the purest expression of Light.
...And when it fades, Eleanor wavers on her feet, and tumbles back to the ground, unable to stand.
GS: Eleanor Klein has activated a Force Action! GS: You have activated the Force Action Snipe! GS: Eleanor Klein spends 2 Combo on Headshot! GS: Eleanor Klein has attacked Caina with Incandescence! GS: Jam, Slow, and Weaken expired! GS: Eleanor Klein has completed her action. GS: Caina's Mute Ward prevents an effect! GS: CRITICAL! Caina suffers a terrible blow from Eleanor Klein's Incandescence for 302 hit points! GS: Drowsy and Jam applied to Caina! GS: Strain! Eleanor Klein takes 29 damage!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Clarine has posed.
"Very well." Clarine replies with a nod, as Caina bids her to shut up. "But know that I did everything I could."
If he will not stop, then there is only solution - but in the end, that was already the plan. But the world is never quite so simple, as Ashley takes on the form of the Knight Blazer. It's always... concerning, to watch. Clarine does not need to draw breath, but if she did it would be caught in her throat. And then there's Marivel, and the way she cackles.
She has the utmost faith in Marivel. But a laugh like that in the middle of a pitched combat situation is always concerning.
The room is filled with power - unknowable, inscrutable, holes in reality that tear into every. All of Clarine's mirrors return to her side, forming a shell of light around her. Even so, the power continues to tear at her - biting and slicing at her form. Resisting the onslaught is... exhausting - motes of light leaking out from numerous cuts through her manifestation.
"...This ends." Clarine declares. Her mirrors disperse, winking out of existence.
"Hasten the pulse's flow... Enhance Cast!" Clarine incants. Violet-yellow light infuses her being, increasing both the strength of and the rate at which she can gather her power - which she immediately takes advantage of, to draw upon a power that was only until recently forfeit to her, except at great risk to her own being.
She raises, just a little higher, into the air.
"O holy one, cast thy purifying light upon these corrupt souls..." Clarine incants, before gesturing in Caina's direction. "Judgment!"
At her command, columns of light rain down from above, striking indiscriminately in the area around Caina and Randolph, as if to wipe the tower clean of their presence.
GS: Seraph Clarine spends 1 Combo on Link! GS: Seraph Clarine has attacked Seraph Clarine with Enhance Cast! GS: Seraph Clarine has gained 2 Combo! GS: Seraph Clarine has launched an attack Link! GS: Seraph Clarine has entered Link Stance! GS: Seraph Clarine accepts Seraph Clarine's Enhance Cast for 0 hit points! GS: Restore! Break, Cripple, and Mute removed! GS: Hyper and Surge applied to Seraph Clarine! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Seraph Clarine has activated a Force Action! GS: Seraph Clarine has activated a Force Action! GS: Seraph Clarine has attacked Caina with Judgment! GS: Seraph Clarine has completed her action. GS: CRITICAL! Gamble: Low! Caina suffers a terrible blow from Seraph Clarine's Judgment for 279 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Caina gains 1 additional Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
'What are...'
"Who." Ruth chokes that out, for what gumption she can muster before Marivel's confession and cackling, and Ashley's continued presence. The glow of her violet eyes doesn't quite meet Caina, as reality twists and bends itself through reality's cracks, assaulting the senses. Surrounding, prodding. Ruth rises to her full height with a pained, hissing shriek whose voice distorts in the changed space...
Randolph, the Magic Key erupts towards her in a blink, and the shaft of her rifle presses against the impact as she levels her gaze as she slams herself against it (in an impact a bit more injurious to her, in the exchange)... and the rain Caina feels, even in this leak of the 'other side'...
Worsens.
Though consensus reality suffers the presence of having to cope with an additional dimension in the moment, filled with the reason of a natural law applicable to a realm outside this one...
Will declares, through the medium of Malevolence, it is raining. The rain descends, it pools, it does not relent, even as any other liquids within the altered space are otherwise adhering to the reason of the realm beyond the gate. Even when it should, in the moment, simply be impossible for water to flow that way for now.
It simply does, because it is something that is.
She wants to pull Caina out of this worship of a man that is giving him permission to do terrible things, spare him the pain of life experiences not quite identical. She wants to savor the fear and anguish of knowing he might not be able to save him. Her heart wavers, and in that weakness, a contradictory strength.
It wavers further to hear Eleanor's shaking confidence, to Clarine's defiant discomfort... she opens her rifle's clip, letting the already loaded four rounds go to waste to go roll about, as a tear escapes her. It snakes into the open clip, and she closes it back up.
She doesn't clarify on 'who' she is, pointing upward with her left arm as her tail coils around the rifle for support, shooting it up into the... sky? It's a deafening sound, as the tear-shot pierces it.
There is a sense of clouds above, as Ruth exerts her Domain, and the rain starts to cease. A sense of crisis and hardship... lessening? But what is on the other side of that, as what seems to parse as sunlight cracks through the conjured clouds above in a place without a normal sky.
When our eyes meet with the heavens upon our deeds...
A stream of prismatic light descends - so translucent as to be nonexistent, but devoid of warmth or joy. It's bright, clear, and without blemish (the usual spiritual taints notwithstanding) - but... so empty. Like a storm has passed, and on the other end...
"What is left beyond this Hollow Radiance?"
The fell sunlight bears down upon Caina with an oppressive emotional weight, taking what should be the reward at the other end of hardship and making it... nothing.
"What lies beyond that... key... do you think it will make for a sky you can look upon with a smile?"
GS: Ruth Pauling has activated a Force Action! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Ruth Pauling has attacked Caina with Hollow Radiance! GS: Ruth Pauling has gained 1 Combo! GS: Ruth Pauling has entered Stoic Stance! GS: Ruth Pauling gains 20 THP from her Cautious! GS: Ruth Pauling has completed her action. GS: Caina suffers a terrible blow from Ruth Pauling's Hollow Radiance for 192 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Caina gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Delay and Weaken applied to Caina!
<Pose Tracker> Ryoko Mizore has posed.
Ryoko Mizore actually caught the attack coming this time! Mostly. The attack blunted as she slams her foot into the ground, kicking up a sheet of ice before her. It shatters almost immediately after, pierced in myriad places and she's still bleeding, but- even recently she's had worse. She's laughing at him again after the attack too. Taking a step forward, boot crunching the fresh ice. "You didn't earn it did you."
She's going to keep that bravado going. She's dealing in things well above her pay grade even at the darkesst days of thuggery. Beasties, demons, hell, let's just drink it all away later. She can chalk it up to fumes from a leak in the revenant. Sure. Let's go with that.
She leans hard on her glorified baseball bat, focusing. Trying to gather up the necessary power to pull of something big. Something flashy and... kind of erratic. Like just about all of her grasp of magic that isn't just tied to brute force. About the only finesse she's got are flash freezing walls of ice!
The burst of ether magic results in more biting cold! What else. She's got one trick and a few ways to abuse it! The ground begins to freeze. Then a sharp crack as the wild magic solidifies, almost literally. Jagged pillars of ice burst from the ground at different angles. Poorly aimed, but bitter cold and potentially dangerous if she's just got the focus for it. A work in progress! There's an almost self-mocking laugh as she calls it what it is. "Catastrophe" whether she means the potential results or how it's created, aimed and used. Something she'd prefer to save for intimidation since it's so eratic, but she'll do what she can!
There is a brief aside to Ruth. "Is this what you meant a few weeks back?" Gesturing to the wing. Dragging the mace back up and around onto her shoulder and getting ready for whatever nastiness might come back her way. She's more hurt than she'd like to admit, but she's still in the fight for now!
While she's too slow to try and catch Eleanor, having been mid-cast, she does try to position herself between Caina and Eleanor. Leaning into the suck as she always does.
GS: Ryoko Mizore has attacked Caina with Catastrophe! GS: Ryoko Mizore has gained 2 Combo! GS: Ryoko Mizore has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Ashley Winchester has posed.
The gate is no more. Nothing is left of it. But... The key still lives.
so that we can kill it again
This is something of a problem.
Even without its other half, the great Gate removed from this and all worlds by a mote of the final conflagration, Randolph is still a threat. It darts in and out of the corners and cracks of space and time, for space has many cracks and time many corners indeed (otherwise, it would not have Hounds). Once, twice, the key smashes into the Blazer, chipping at its armor. chipping at its cage
The third time, he is ready. A slender blade of blue flame intercepts the silver key, knocking it off course for just long enough...
For Ashley Winchester to reach out and chuck it straight back at its master.
Marivel's words ring in his head-- her most recent ones most loudly than the rest-- but little of it is surprising. The emotion, though. The full-throated, maniacal laughter. That's somewhat worrying. Is all this a circuitous means of exacting revenge on the whole human race? Ashley has more faith in her than to think that, but...
Well. You never really know with Marivel, do you?
But that is for another time to worry about.
"Enough, Caina," the thing with Ashley Winchester's voice intones, his wrist hinging down just low enough to reveal what looks to be some kind of organic barrel. It glows ominously, aimed square at the Cocytus agent's center of mass. Eleanor witnesses the horror beyond the filmy veil that is Ashley Winchester's soul, but... it's still there, at least. It has not yielded fully to the bloodlust within. "One more chance. Stand down, surrender to our custody and you can get through this alive. Or don't," he adds, coldly. "Holding back is not something I can do for long like this. But either way this goes down, I don't think it's going to do much to my conscience. Make your choice, life or death?"
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
'Marivel, what... what have you DONE?'
Marviel smiles, and Ida's heart leaps into her throat. Marivel laughs, and Ida steps forwards, hands tight at her sides. Rage and indignation twist in her chest, but they are nothing next to the raw fear of betrayal. Marivel confessed. Ida knew, just like she knew the Demons would come back, and it changes nothing, because there's nothing she can change, and she thought she could be a HERO--
Ida tries to meet Marivel's eyes for just a moment. Then a flash of gold, and horror hits her again as Randolph flies at Eleanor. "ELEANOR!" Ida cries, her voice raw--her hand halfway to Devil's Due when the walls crack and the light floods in. It cuts into her from every conceivable angle, and then some. It lasts for a moment. It lasts for an eternity. She feels it slicing and rasping and cutting, and her hand finds the grip of her ARM, and clings to it.
Muscle memory saves her. Without even thinking, she draws Devil's Due, aims, and pulls the trigger. What roars forth is not a bullet, but a gout of searing Dragonfire, a wave of golden-white death. Ida holds down the trigger. She doesn't need fuel. The bond with the weapon is so tight as to be meaningless, now; it is part of her, and not merely 'an extension'.
Ida doesn't even want to risk touching Caina. She wants to scour both him and his key from the face of Filgaia.
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has activated a Force Action! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey spends 4 Combo on Poison and Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Caina with Breath Of The Fire Dragon! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has gained 2 Combo! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action. GS: CRITICAL! Caina suffers a terrible blow from Ida Everstead-Rey's Breath Of The Fire Dragon for 307 hit points! GS: Poison applied to Caina! GS: FP up! Countermeasures activated! GS: Caina has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight! GS: ROU|LET|TE: Severe! Caina suffers a terrible blow from Ryoko Mizore's Catastrophe for 163 hit points! GS: Break and Weaken applied to Caina! GS: Caina has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight! GS: Elhaym van Houten suffers a terrible blow from Caina's Zero Point Rupture for 196 hit points! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated!
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
Elly feels exhausted. She perhaps made her best maneuver too soon. She sways for a moment, goggling silently at Ashley Winchester. This is too much and too fast. The place is wrong. Everything is simply wrong. It feels like her head is swimming. Elly raises one hand up to sweep her hair away from her face --
Light is roaring. There is darkness, too. What is Marivel? Her eyes turn towards the thing that was Ashley Winchester--
-- but then, she can't judge, can she? --
-- and even as the flame around Caina fails, Elly suffers the indignity of being assaulted by animate and sorcerous metal. It smashes into her shoulder, twists around --
Elly has only reflex, trained by brutal taskmasters in the sky and by more loving if no less stern hands on the shores of Spira. Thinking of those she loves, Elly throws up her left hand and --
The length of the key hits her palm...
And her fingers tighten in a grip...
And with a sudden wonder on her face, Elly realizes she's holding the seat of the enemy's power and it won't last long because it has some malign intelligence but while she DOES have it she can do THIS --
Elly grasps it with her other hand and twists her entire upper body around to SMASH the side of the Silver Key against the ground while gritting her teeth hard and throwing down the Etheric structure that, though not the one that comes to her easiest, is the simplest: pure refined negative-on-negative, the emanation that synchronizes with the primal subatomic particle - the ELECTRON - kicking her feet up in the air as the air tightens and
CRACK! CRACK! Miniature ('miniature') bolts of lightning smash down from towards the ceiling or the sky into the Silver Key, Elly twisting afterwards as she lands, the current having made her hands numb but not the rest of her to bring the Key over her head and smash it on the ground again!
And again!
Sadly, the Silver Key is more resilient than an electric guitar: and yet...
GS: Elhaym van Houten has activated a Force Action! GS: Elhaym van Houten has activated a Force Action! GS: Elhaym van Houten has attacked Caina with Anemo Zap! GS: Elhaym van Houten has gained 1 Combo! GS: Surge expired! GS: Elhaym van Houten has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.
The portal to the abyss remains open. And it will until remain open though its direct assault against Caina seems to hold off for the moment. Instead, he can feel the eyes on him. Eyes from before time, before anything. Before eyes, even. But they learned quickly because outside of that realm is something the denizens therein rarely see.
Light. Not from the Sun, an alien concept, but an alien light all the same. Dark tendrils reach out curiously and burn. They pull back as they feel another new concept. Pain.
A powerful pulse of magic crashes against Marivel. Let it not be said Caina is not gifted. A prodigy even, considering his youth. To open up a portal even with the aid of a magic key is no mean feat, and to channel counteracting energies into Marivel requires a kind of intuition that is second to none. Marivel is able to fashion a protective ward but not a perfect one and the energies hit Marivel. There's no visible wounds but something seems to be pulled from her as she drops into a crouch. Not permanent damage, but she was nearly wholly subsumed by extradimensional energies even more hostile to her than the ones belonging to this plane of existence.
Caina asks the key to seal up the portal but it doesn't go for her.
But the Key goes for Elly instead. Marivel wonders if it can sense the true depths of the Holy Mother's power. Or maybe it's just reacting to its magicks. This is the boon and bane of all magical artifacts with a bit of intellect in them.
Marivel is the one who meddled.
"I'd do anything for the one I love." Marivel says to Caina simply but without any sort of guise around it. "Because you are the same way, Caina, I wanted you to escape. But I see my presence here was a mistake. I should've just kept quiet, doing the things I was destined to do."
Marivel is a teacher at heart. Even her laughter is a lesson.
And she stares at Eleanor, someone who sees her, truly sees her. A Sage of Light--and Marivel was always a sucker for the Light.
Because like the creatures lying behind that Triangular Portal to the Abyss, Marivel's people too longed for the alien light. Even the way it burned them was a joy compared to the endless quiet dark. When that is all you know, even a light that hates you might seem...beautiful.
Some grew to loathe that light, but Marivel...despite being born on Filgaia...could only love it. Truly, it was the UV that was the problem anyway. The sun itself would've been just fine otherwise.
Because ultimately, the difference between Lord Blazer and Marivel is how much they eat and how they came into this world.
Eleanor tells her that she doesn't know what she'll do. Marivel's ancient eyes do not blink. They do not turn away. They simply stare, waiting to hear her Answers.
And she says, "Friend," softly.
She knows that it isn't true. Eleanor can believe what she wants but there are qualities of friendship that Marivel feels are impossible between her and most other people. No matter how much Marivel wants it, needs it, she can only dance with friendship. She cannot become it. Not as how she is right now. She might love them, she might even admire them, but friendship is not about who you love and care for, it's about who sees you and, ultimately, who can share secrets over a burning flame, who needs not hide any truths. So long as there are things unsaid, Marivel will only ever be able to approach Friendship.
Perhaps infinitesimally close, like the Event Horizon where her heartremains--but not dwelling within it.
So far the answer is 'I don't know,'. Marivel considers the answer 'I don't know' for another long moment.
"A good start." Marivel says. "We must begin from 'I don't know'. From there, learning begins."
She steps back. She brings her hands behind her back. She looks to Ida. The light does not return to Marivel's eyes, that sort of faux-jokey impersonation of the Althena she knew is gone, there is no Magilou impersonation here. This is just Marivel though perhaps that kind of current of boredom in those eyes is rather Magilou-like even so. In the end, masks are as much a part of you as anything else.
"You look at me as if I betrayed you," Marivel tells Ida. "But this is all old news for you. I just changed the wallpaper. The walls remain the same."
She cups her chin, looking at Ida. There are still some people who believe in her. It hurts, knowing that. It'd be easier if they didn't. It'd be easier if they saw just how dangerously desperate she was and destroyed her.
Guillotine crackles into her hand, blood red, sharp. And she swipes it in a single motion towards Caina. She derives no enjoyment from it.
But Marivel is a Hero. And a Hero sacrifices for the greater good.
Even if that sacrifice might be pieces of their own heart.
The DemonAngle portal will close shortly but she says, "I never lied, Ida. But...take this as the lesson. You can learn from us, work with us, grow with us, even love us..."
"But never be our kind of hero. It does not lead to a happy end. Find the new way. That is my gamble and my hope."
GS: Marivel Armitage has attacked Caina with Guillotine! GS: Marivel Armitage has entered Hero Stance! GS: Blind, Break, Cripple, Disease, Jam, Slow, and Weaken expired! GS: Marivel Armitage has completed her action. GS: COUNTER! Caina counterattacks Elhaym van Houten with Impact Eliminator! GS: Caina suffers a terrible blow from Elhaym van Houten's Anemo Zap for 296 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Caina gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Dispel! Quick removed! GS: Jam applied to Caina! GS: Caina has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight! GS: Caina partially guards Marivel Armitage's Guillotine for 189 hit points! GS: Hyper applied to Marivel Armitage! GS: Caina enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Disrupt expired! GS: Caina has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight! GS: Elhaym van Houten suffers a terrible blow from Caina's Impact Eliminator for 186 hit points! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated!
<Pose Tracker> Caina has posed.
'But know that I did everything I could'. Clarine is more right than even she may realize, even if in the moment Caina bares his teeth in a grimace her way.
"Randolph!" Caina calls out, watching as the key bounces against the floor and wincing in sympathy. It, at least, recovers quickly enough to teleport briefly back to his side, before continuing its assault in earnest elsewhere within the chamber.
'You have trespassed in a domain not yours,' Eleanor speaks unto him as he kneels there, leaning heavily on the one knee. "What... makes you think you have..." he begins to utter, before the golden light pours from Eleanor. From her eyes and from her palms, as if she were an overfull container. He stares up at her, his mouth dry. There is nothing but brilliance, brilliance, brilliance.
Even on his knees, he staggers. But he doesn't fall. Strange colors form at his fingertips, as if he were struggling now to pull forth the power of the other realm.
It is not to be. Further light, bright and purifying, pours down from the heavens, forcing Caina to his knees. The key attempts to dodge the storm, but a few key sprays of light catch it, sending it spiraling to the ground.
But what the light has also done is burn away the remaining traces of that other dimension. Assuredly the gaps between realities still exist, but there is nothing left of what had traveled over from the other side to this world.
The key vanishes, sensing in that moment Elly's attack upon Caina, even as the warlock shouts in vain for it to choose the target he's identified. It has its own mind about things, and it intends to batter Elly half to death--
Until, that is, she catches it. It doesn't get the chance to teleport from her grasp, not when she shocks it. Not when she slams it into the ground and repeats the process without mercy.
"Stop it! Stop it!!" Caina calls out, hoarse. But even when he rises to his feet as if he were about to take off in a run to assault Elly physically, ah, there is where the storm of ice erupts from Ryoko, forcing him back. He cannot advance without ripping his battered body to shreds. But if he doesn't--
Fortune, of a sort, smiles on Caina. Eventually Randolph has a half-second long enough enabling it to free itself from Elly's grasp and it reappears at his side to hang there limply. It doesn't move otherwise.
Misfortune, though, is known for a devilish grin. He turns away from the icy assault and receives for his pains a wash of fire not unlike the breath of a dragon. Ida has Devil's Due in hand and is not about to let him walk away from her. He falls back, collapsing onto the floor.
There he lies for a long moment, his chest telling the tale that every breath is hard-won for him. Rising slowly to his feet, it's already clear to everyone in this room that Caina has lost this fight. The only logical choice left would be to surrender the tower and turn himself over to the custody of ARMS.
Logical, yes.
There are two things that Caina fears, though. One of them is standing before him.
The other... is betraying the hopes and wishes of Vinsfeld.
Caina heaves, struggling to get a proper breath in his battered body. "You think... that I'll stop? Just... like that?" Randolph has returned to his side, hovering brokenly as if waiting for the next command.
"I-- I refuse! Glory to Odessa! GLORY TO LORD VINSFELD!"
This, Caina screams, as if the man could hear him, so far from Filgaia.
'I'd do anything for the one I love.'
Perhaps it's Marivel who sees what is truly in his heart.
"You-- how... dare you..." he breathes, possessed of the particular fury one possesses when they've been had dead to rights. "I-- I'm not running! I'll fight to my last--" Terrible, impossible color lives again in this space. Randolph shines with a brilliant silver light. For a moment, if one were to set their injuries aside, they might even be possessed of a particular 'glory'.
He charges at her, at Marivel. She swings her blade but the once. Caina staggers back but still stands.
"Why... is it raining? We're indoors. Is the roof leaking?" he utters, gazing up to the ceiling to meet the heavens brought down by Ruth's domain.
"I always... hated... rain."
It might be a miracle when the Domain shifts.
"Ah... look. There's the sun, Randolph--! We've almost... done it!"
Or perhaps it's merely an ill omen.
"Why... do I feel...so..."
He falls to his knees. He falls, flopping onto his side. Weakly, as the light begins to fade, he extends one arm to the heavens. Towards the vanishing brilliance. "Why do I feel so... Lord Vinsfeld...! Help me, I feel so..."
The key hits the floor near to him before it slowly dissolves away into motes of light.
"...empty..."
His arm drops. He's gone.
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.
Marivel swings. It's almost wholly instinct. But only almost.
She hates doing it. She hates it. She knew she'd hate it. She knew she'd hate it if she came here.
She steps backwards. She takes an unsteady breath. She takes another few steps backwards. She takes another step backward as she stares at Caina's fallen form. She warned him. She wanted better for him.
Eleanor can hear it, the dogs howling. The hounds are coming. There is one thing Marivel can do to keep them at bay.
She brings her hands to her face.
She grips tightly.
And she screams. She screams for an enemy who wanted to hurt her till the very end because the last thing Marivel wanted to do is...
...is this.
"He was just a kid..." Marivel manages when the scream is over. "Just... a dumb... kid... Too easily... Ahn...."
A new side of Marivel. Wrath so frequent. Now despair. She screams again in fury. At being in a world where this had to happen.
And that's how she leaves, too, as she vanishes in a flash of light. Charitably, to guide the Hounds of Tindalos away but really so she can stop seeing Caina.
But Caina's face won't leave her. Never again.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Clarine has posed.
The fight continues, everyone bringing everything they have to bear against Caina and Randolph, the Magic Key. Gradually, however, the fight draws to a close, and Clarine watches him quietly as his strength fades... and then, she closes her eyes respectfully.
"...Farewell, Cocytus Caina. What would your life have been like, I wonder, if you had never met him..." Clarine bids.
It's too late, though. It's a question that can never be answered.
She glances briefly toward Marivel. Marivel's screams are piercing - despair and fury... she does not blame her.
She turns away from Caina, then - to help treat the wounded, and then to help deal with the pillar however they must.
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
'Is that what you meant a few weeks back?' Ryoko asides to Ruth. To look upon her is to look upon something, well, kind of grotesque. The Hellion tilts her gaze away from Ryoko at the question. Her serpentine tongue flicks at the air, as she holds her posture like she could dare pretend she's a harmless statue of some kind as she watches Caina lose his resolve, to look upon the oppressive hollow light.
To watch his beloved key and companion disappear into nothingness, alongside them. The rains have ceased, the light fades, and Ruth drains all of the gnawing in her mind down into her chest. The sorrow is oft its own reward, if only to tell herself she is not a heartless monster.
Marivel screams. He was just a kid.
There's nothing to say to any of that. Malevolence, fortunately enough, does not travel very well in Spira thanks to the spiritual pressure of pyreflies. Ruth stands up, moves again, and holds out a hand towards the ambient Malevolence to pull it in as to not cause undue trouble to those in emotional turmoil at Marivel's revelations and the death of a young man so fully and unwaveringly dedicated to a world that Vinsfeld envisions.
A part of her mulls over how... he almost sounds like she must have when it came to Elise.
<Pose Tracker> Ryoko Mizore has posed.
Ryoko Mizore watches Caina fall. She works her fingers a few times. Right, then left, then back again. She jams it into the ground, leaving it standing there as she... just shrugs. There's a glance over her shoulder to make sure Eleanor's fine. Then she begins to peel her gloves off. Wiping her hands carefully against the red parts of her clothes. Coat dropped on top of the club in question. The monstrous form of Ruth is met with... nothing. Not now anyway. She's tired. Hurt. While she's no stranger to violence or even punching someone's ticket. This one felt off. Kid's dead. Taunting goes away now. There's a joke that wants to surface. She usually handles the darker parts of her life with humor, but it's not the right room for that.
She's moving to keep herself distracted. Her engineering pack has rough bandages. That she begins to wrap around the various injuries. A canteen is brought out to rinse her hands. That sort of thing. She sets her jaw instead. Slowly, painfully crouching down.
Definitely a day to forget. It's dredging up a few less-than-pleasant memories. You don't live in the underworld without that kind of misery raelly. She'll fix that problem later. Definitely a healthy habit right?
<Pose Tracker> Ashley Winchester has posed.
Caina ends, not with the bang of Knight Blazer's rootin' tootin' world-endin' shootin', but with the quiet pitter-patter of rain and the deceitfully gentle warmth of the sun.
One might say it was a death by natural causes. But not in polite company.
The Blazer stands, frozen and statue-like, for a moment longer before it fades away in a flurry of light. Ashley Winchester stands where the Blazer once stood, looking down at the body of the spent warlock. He's silent for a long time, but finally decides...
That he feels awful.
Awful.
The painful squeeze of guilt and anger are still there, even with Caina gone. Maybe even moreso now that there is no longer anyone left to blame. But if he were to spit on this corpse, kick it around a few times, would he feel better? Or would it just be a temporary burst of debased pleasure, afterwhich the guilt would only return worse.
...Why did he have to leave a corpse...?
With a quiet sigh, the musketeer kneels to pick up the fallen warlock's lifeless body. Down, out of the tower he goes. He has a hole to dig and a cairn to build.
Caina of Cocytus might have conjured a demon into his soul, but he did not make a devil of Ashley Winchester. Ashley will not allow him to-- especially not in death.