2023-03-25: Infinity
- Log: Infinity
- Cast: Kamui, Zhang Xiumei, Gami, Venetia Vuong, Azoth, Solitaire Collier, Seraph Ragnell, Seraph Clarine, Acacia Saitani, Ida Everstead-Rey, Juni Vandrer, Hicalu Wilwisp, Ruth Pauling, Asgard
- Where: Great Sea
- Date: March 25, 2023
- Summary: Joined with the DELTA virus, Kamui seeks to use Heimdall Gazzo's power. Countless possible futures all lead to a terrible end. Is it truly inevitable? When hope hurts too much, how does one crawl from despair?
===============================<* Great Sea *>================================ The Great Sea lies at the very heart of northern Aquvy. The islands, great and small, of the continent are clustered around it. This is one of the most active trading regions on Filgaia. Ships come and go frequently. There are numerous small islands throughout the Great Sea. These offer both places of respite and promises of riches. Small villages offer a place away from the hustle and bustle of great cities like Meria Boule. Diggers flock to the many ruins -- and yet-to-be-found ruins -- scattered across uninhabited islands. Sometimes peaceful, sometimes fraught, the Great Sea is never without adventure to be found. BGM: The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker - The Great Sea
DC: Kamui switches forms to The Girl The echo who saw Everyone's Futures ...but did they truly?!
<Pose Tracker> Kamui has posed.
A massive impact struck the Heimdall Gazzo near the engine room, not long ago.
The nearest exit towards the engine room passages lead outside, treacherously high in the air where oxygen feels thin and the eruption of flame and debris threaten to make evacuation a precarious prospect, indeed.
It's when they cross an outer railing attached to the Heimdall Gazzo's left wing, leading to the engine room, that they see it -- the aircraft that's embedded itself within Odessa's trump card, leaving an enormous chunk of it a smouldering and smoking wreck.
The aircraft is coloured purple-black obsidian, with stylings of gold; it's a colour scheme that should be familiar to many. It's the full, Gear form of Kamui's Ultimate Armour -- and she can be seen standing atop it, dressed in billowing blue robes as she often does, in the style of 'the Saviour' of Neo-Arcadia.
She descends with a soft, floaty hop from the aircraft, facing the group as a whole. Her eyes are closed... and then she breathes deep. There is silence for a long, hard beat.
Then she opens her eyes--
And her irises are now viscous and black. Exhale. Slowly, as if she's going through regulated breathing.
Kamui raises a hand, and portions of the Ultimate Armour dismantle and gather around her, forming a pair of metallic, Seraphic wings around her form. This isn't how she usually uses this -- typically, it's worn, not harnessed around her. Something has changed.
(BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixGQtFBPdJY )
"... how I have longed to be given a voice, for five thousand years. How I have longed to speak to each and every one of you." The tone of her voice is... distinctly not Kamui, and at the same time, it is. "ARMS. Drifters. You have done well... however..."
"Let me introduce myself. I am 'DELTA'. But at the same time, I am also 'Kamui'. 'DELTA'... in modern language, a delta means the difference between two things, such as when a river meets the ocean. But I am not just two."
DELTA-Kamui sweeps her hand dramatically across her chest.
"I am everyone whose voices have cried out in the wake of the past. I am your past. I am your anguish. I am the Zeboim's suffering... and I am yours too."
Her black eyes eerily flash as her obsidian wings rise up. She raises her hand... and flicks her finger to the ground, where a single black droplet touches the metallic wing of the Heimdall Gazzo -- and emanating from that single point, a massive gravity well of Despair seems to threaten to take over the area. To those familiar, it may feel not entirely dissimilar to Malevolence, the way intrusive thoughts start to claw in from the recesses of the mind, but...
This is no spiritual affliction.
This is raw data being made manifest through her Suffering Circuit, inflicting the pressures of emotional duress. Flashes of what feel like moments in time, past, present, and future race through, showing vague portents of calamity that's yet to come. Bleak futures, disastrous outcomes, great loss of opportunity and life...
_ _ _ _____ _____ __ _ _ __ _ ____ / | | | /_____\ |_____| |\ | | |\ | / / ___ | | | | | | \ | \ | | | \ | | ------ \_/ \_/ | | | | | \| | | \| \___/ \ ___________________________________________ / \
(BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bqf0nSUp_g )
"I have a need for this vessel, this Heimdall Gazzo, for the sake of marine planktons everywhere!"
?????
"I require it to save the world... from you. Do not get in my way."
GS: Kamui has adjusted their boss level for 11 opponents! GS: Kamui has attacked Gami with Please get out of my our way! GS: Kamui has gained 1 Combo! GS: Kamui has attacked Acacia Saitani with Please get out of my our way! GS: Kamui has gained 1 Combo! GS: Kamui has attacked Seraph Clarine with Please get out of my our way! GS: Kamui has gained 1 Combo! GS: Kamui has attacked Zhang Xiumei with Please get out of my our way! GS: Kamui has gained 1 Combo! GS: Kamui has attacked Solitaire Collier with Please get out of my our way! GS: Kamui has gained 1 Combo! GS: Kamui has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Please get out of my our way! GS: Kamui has gained 1 Combo! GS: Kamui has attacked Venetia Vuong with Please get out of my our way! GS: Kamui has gained 1 Combo! GS: Kamui has attacked Ruth Pauling with Please get out of my our way! GS: Kamui has gained 1 Combo! GS: Kamui has attacked Azoth with Please get out of my our way! GS: Kamui has gained 2 Combo! GS: Kamui has attacked Hicalu Wilwisp with Please get out of my our way! GS: Kamui has gained 1 Combo! GS: Kamui has attacked Juni Vandrer with Please get out of my our way! GS: Kamui has gained 1 Combo! GS: Kamui has completed her action. GS: Seraph Clarine takes a solid hit from Kamui's Please get out of my our way for 69 hit points! GS: Disease applied to Seraph Clarine! GS: FP up! Guard bonus activated! GS: Acacia Saitani takes a solid hit from Kamui's Please get out of my our way for 99 hit points! GS: Disease applied to Acacia Saitani! GS: FP up! Charge bonus activated! GS: CRITICAL! Ida Everstead-Rey solidly guards Kamui's Please get out of my our way for 59 hit points! GS: Disease applied to Ida Everstead-Rey! GS: FP up! Charge bonus activated! GS: COUNTER! Gami counterattacks Kamui with Counter Attack! GS: Gami suffers a terrible blow from Kamui's Please get out of my our way for 95 hit points! GS: Disease applied to Gami! GS: Venetia Vuong solidly guards Kamui's Please get out of my our way for 38 hit points! GS: Disease applied to Venetia Vuong! GS: Ruth Pauling takes a solid hit from Kamui's Please get out of my our way for 85 hit points! GS: Disease applied to Ruth Pauling! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated! GS: Kamui partially evades Gami's Counter Attack for 67 hit points! GS: Juni Vandrer suffers a terrible blow from Kamui's Please get out of my our way for 92 hit points! GS: Disease applied to Juni Vandrer! GS: CRITICAL! Solitaire Collier takes a glancing hit from Kamui's Please get out of my our way for 49 hit points! GS: Disease applied to Solitaire Collier! GS: FP up! Evade bonus activated! GS: CRITICAL! Zhang Xiumei suffers a terrible blow from Kamui's Please get out of my our way for 118 hit points! GS: Disease applied to Zhang Xiumei! GS: Hicalu Wilwisp partially evades Kamui's Please get out of my our way for 66 hit points! GS: Disease applied to Hicalu Wilwisp! GS: Azoth suffers a terrible blow from Kamui's Please get out of my our way for 114 hit points! GS: Disease applied to Azoth! GS: Charge!! You gain 35 FP!
<Pose Tracker> Zhang Xiumei has posed.
Down, down they went.
The elevators led them away, and Xiumei stood in them -- nervous -- as she went further and further from Eleanor. It wasn't goodbye forever. She reminds herself of that. She tries to tell herself that.
When they went outside, onto the Heimdall Gazzo's frame itself, Xiumei tensed -- across the left wing, and then to the aircraft embedded into it. Purple black, with gold lining; the Ultimate Armor. There is a sinking feeling in her stomach.
"This is bad... this is real bad!" comes a gruff, male voice. Varius.
"Everyone...! Get ready!" comes a softer woman's voice. Avile. This time, she doesn't sound playful.
The crystal in Xiumei's chest armor keeps glowing for a moment -- then pulses, flickers of light like lines of circuitry running through it, as Kamui's black eyes open, and she speaks. It is here.
But it isn't.
She feels the doubts assailing her; the raw data of moments in the past, of memories hers and not, coming to the fore. Xiumei's too-green, glowing eyes look at her. She stumbles backward.
"K-Kamui..." She trails off. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry that we did this to you. But... we've got to help you! We've got to make it right!"
She holds her hand out, one foot back -- an L-footed stance -- and one hand is held out. Cubes of light appear before her hand, flashing into existence, and then draw downward until they form a one-handed cannon, which she aims at Kamui's winged form.
She pulls the trigger, and three bolts of light explode off.
"We're GONNA SAVE YOU!"
GS: Zhang Xiumei has attacked Kamui with Pulse Cannon - Triple Burst! GS: Zhang Xiumei has gained 1 Combo! GS: Zhang Xiumei has completed her action. GS: Kamui takes a glancing hit from Zhang Xiumei's Pulse Cannon - Triple Burst for 62 hit points! GS: Hyper and Mighty applied to Zhang Xiumei! GS: FP up! Countermeasures activated!
<Pose Tracker> Gami has posed.
Gami was not there, at the final battle with Odessa. Gami was not here for ARMS. She joined some of them on their way, of course; she helped fight the forces of Heimdall Gazzo within. But that is not why she was here. She was here for the Heimdall Gazzo itself, knowing...
Knowing that something would happen.
She is not there, when Kamui appears and uses the form. She is listening, though. And then, finally...
"No."
In a flash of red light, a huge woman appears, the familiar Reploid form of Gami, in full battle armor. She appears before Kamui in this moment of warning, and spreads her arm to the side, her black hair billowing behind her like a cape. In it she holds the powerful hit of her Beam Glaive, which ignites with red light as she looks to Kamui. The well of Despair hits her, too. It starts to spread up her feet, from where the Heimdall Gazzo touches her boots, a black aura beginning to creep up, and up, and up...
FLASH. The Cenotaph Engine whines with power, and a flood of crimson light suffuses Gami, pushsing away the darkness. It spreads once again--and the light flashes again, constantly undoing the damage that DELTA's power is set to do to her.
"...The dead of Zeboim must be allowed to rest, DELTA. We are all that remains of them, now. A forgotten people, spread only by memory to the rest of existence..."
Gami brings her glaive out before herself, in both hands, adopting a ready battle stance. "For this purpose, I have been given life once again. I believed it was that I might see you again... But it seems that it is because I must stop you."
"You are not my suffering, Kamui. You are, as ever, the very light by which I walk under the pitiless stars."
An aura of power surrounds Gami in the moment, suffusing her with strength as once again the crimson light pushes back the darkness.
"AND SO I, SH-1N GAMI, ONCE MORE TAKE THE NAME 'OATHBREAKER'! Kamui, FACE ME!"
Gami lunges forward, slashing up once diagonally, up the other direction, spinning with her weapon, holding nothing back.
GS: Gami has attacked Kamui with Waxing Slice - Beam Glaive! GS: Gami has gained 2 Combo! GS: Gami's stances have changed to Stoic! GS: Gami gains 5 THP from her Cautious! GS: Gami has completed her action. GS: Kamui solidly guards Gami's Waxing Slice - Beam Glaive for 35 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Kamui gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Mighty applied to Gami! GS: FP up! Countermeasures activated!
<Pose Tracker> Venetia Vuong has posed.
Venetia, for her part, was reasonably calm about the situation.
No she wasn't. She was furious, but it was a familiar sort of fury.
She rode the elevator and she thought and she wondered. She turned away from others and undid the knot on her mask, took it off, rubbed her face, tied it back on, looked back. Stress diffuser. She exhaled hugely afterwards. And then they had to move.
Venetia could not move with the speed and agility of Xiumei or some others, but she got there. Heimdall Gazzo is enormous, and the wind is no longer unfamiliar to her. There may or may not have been occasional bursts of stone to backstop her. Don't judge.
So, they reached the dock - and Venetia stares - for Kamui is different. She has not met Kamui often, but she knows her. She knows of her, and she knows of how important this girl, this sad ancient artificial girl, is to many others, not least of whom being Marivel Armitage, wherever she's off to.
Delta introduces herself and emanates a strange wave. Memories and inadequacy sneak up the back of her mind. For a moment, Venetia feels plain, and ordinary, and foolish, and frustrated; a flat-flaced middle-class pretender standing up here as if she was something she wasn't. And that feeling pisses her off, and so paradoxically, she smiles for a moment.
"Good to meet you... 'Delta.' As for your proposition..."
Her head tilts back. "Denied."
"This vessel isn't going to be someone else's pawn," Venetia continues. "If we can seize control, we'll land it - disable the weapons - study it, or use it to benefit others. If we can't... we're going to destroy it. This world has no need for a weapon of this strength."
"If you know things - ancient truths, facts long forgotten - then in deference to 'Kamui'... an innocent... or to 'Marivel Armitage'... I'll give you a second chance to make your first impression. Put your projections down and speak to us like your peers, not your chattel."
Venetia reaches into a simple, crude leather bag. Her eyes come upwards. "Oh," she says. "How rude of me. I forgot to introduce myself back. Pleased to meet you; I'm Venetia Vuong."
She draws out a silver piece of engraved metal - a Crest Graph of her school. "I'm the world's greatest magician."
A sweep together of her hands and a shout of "Amethyst Sign!" and glittering purple jewels the size of Kamui heads and one the size of a Venetia hurl forwards, conjured from nothing by raw, unfettered sorcery!
GS: Venetia Vuong has attacked Kamui with Amethyst Sign ~Second Month's Decision~! GS: Venetia Vuong has completed her action. <Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
The Capsule that Marivel had given Azoth may not have been with him during the fighting, but Azoth is not without his own tricks... not now that he's begun piecing himself back together. With a flash of blue-fuchsia light and a crackle of energy down his arm, Azoth snaps his fingers to summon pixelated light as soon as he enters the room. The Capsule materializes into place thanks to the Void Drive -- and his own preparation back at the Chateua. He can't do this with any given object on a whim.
He activates it to begin charging. Whatever Marivel's entrusted him with won't operate instantly, and he has to protect it until then.
Rising up, he fully takes in her visage... his focus less on her winged form and more on her black eyes. A bolt of energy shoots through his own at the recognition of it somewhere deep in an ancient, corrupted memory, and the color of his own irises distort as DELTA speaks through Kamui's body.
He's utterly paralyzed as DELTA-Kamui, as the virus with a stolen vessel, rises up and that familiar raw data smashes into him, flooding him. Flashes of time, of the futures he'll fail, of pasts he didn't remember and threatens to.
"No!" he cries out, more panicked than defiant. "This data... this isn't all of the data! This isn't the absolute conclusion! This is all erroneous!"
But when Azoth's energy weapon forms, it's distorted, threatening to break apart in pixeled light, with red bleeding into the blue. He zips forward in a blur of flickering light, trying to cleave his blade of light against her in a bright flash.
"I won't let you execute based on it!"
GS: Azoth has attacked Kamui with Flash Drive! GS: Azoth has gained 1 Combo! GS: Azoth has completed his action. GS: Kamui takes a glancing hit from Venetia Vuong's Amethyst Sign ~Second Month's Decision~ for 62 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Kamui gains 1 additional Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Solitaire Collier has posed.
Solitaire might very well be the last Odessa agent alive on the ship besides Vinsfeld himself (if Vinsfeld can be called as such any more) but since acknowledging Vinsfeld's betrayal of his own--the depths of which even now Solitaire is not wholly aware of--she seems to have set herself upon a new mission before she can leave this place.
You could try telling her she's unwelcome but Solitaire always acts according to her will. If a contradiction comes, she will pick the path that is most according to her will of many. She will not be one who regrets doing nothing, she will be one who regrets doing something. This gift of Odessa's is hers to treasure even if her employment with them has come to an end.
BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qM96WWORDdY
"I'll fight with my own power, Patience." Solitaire says. "As I am but a guest to this reception."
She arrives, likely around the time Azoth does, the Demon Axe Nidhogg slung over her shoulder. She takes a long look around, taking stock of the situation with the patience of any professional soldier despite her apparent youth.
Then her gaze settles on Kamui. She doesn't argue about being a Drifter only because she can't hear the capital D.
"...Appearances can be deceiving, but with all that power...you still find yourself succumbing to despair?"
Solitaire frowns deeply as she feels something invading her heart and mind. So far they are only momentary flickers of time but she can sense that she's not going to like it if this keeps up.
"Nnm."
She shakes her head.
"I harbor no ill will towards marine plank-tons." Solitaire says. She doesn't know Kamui so she takes this completely at face value. The second phrase--she also has a response to that.
"No. I will not leave anyone in chains." Solitaire brings Nidhogg forward. "Not even you."
She wasn't going to initiate hostilities since so far Delta has only attacked with Despair and she isn't going to swing an axe at someone that easily.
But then Xiumei opens fire and Solitaire shrugs both her shoulders and walks towards Kamui. Taking a swing for Kamui's left wing with Patience in a sudden but fierce swing. Black energy DOES NOT erupt from Nidhogg as Solitaire swings the axe. Nidhogg is letting her fight this one on her own.
"Saving the marine plankton requires solidarity." Solitaire says. "Even I am not fighting alone here."
She pauses a moment.
"Also... Hello. Call me Solitaire."
Maybe you should've started with that she doesn't know you, Soli...
"Mmphhh...."
She jerks her head towards Azoth. "Know it's faulty. Wouldn't be so noisy here if it wasn't."
MEANWHILE
The capsule Azoth dropped slowly starts gaining charge from the ambient energy. It's still at red but a blinking light at the top of the capsule indicates it's charging. Marivel said it was an Anti Virus of some kind. Her concession to coming on her own.
GS: Solitaire Collier has attacked Kamui with Left Wing Tableau! GS: Solitaire Collier has gained 1 Combo! GS: Solitaire Collier has completed her action. GS: Kamui solidly guards Azoth's Flash Drive for 53 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Kamui gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Blind applied to Kamui! GS: Quick applied to Azoth! GS: FP up! Countermeasures and Sufferer activated! GS: Strain! Azoth takes 76 damage!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
Ragnell doesn't like Kamui. In classic Ragnell fashion, she hasn't bothered to explain to anyone why. Even so, this is important to Azoth--Kamui is important to Azoth--the stakes are incredibly high for Azoth--and he kindasorta matters to Ragnell WHATEVER OKAY so she is here to support him.
By 'here' we mean 'literally inside Azoth.' Seraphim are like that.
So as Azoth and ARMS in general make their way across the wing and see the smoking aircraft and Kamui standing atop it, Ragnell is there too, watching from where only one knows she's present.
Looks like she's seen better days, she observes in dry understatement. Even she grows grimly silent when Kamui introduces herself not just as Kamui but as DELTA. This is a lot more than what Azoth had explained to her.
...Keep it together, Az, she scolds him, stern but calm, as he starts to panic in the face of the flood of data. I'll handle my share in here. Go do what you need t' do. Then she falls silent for the rest of the battle. Beyond maintaining his internal heat, she'll be a wellspring of emotional support against that black hole of despair DELTA-Kamui summons, too--to help keep Azoth stable physically and mentally at a time when he needs it most.
And to keep a certain few scripts ready, too.
GS: Kamui solidly guards Solitaire Collier's Left Wing Tableau for 52 hit points! GS: Cripple blocked! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Clarine has posed.
The party splits. While others go to address Vinsfeld, Clarine heads to the engine room, where they all felt something hit Heimdall Gazzo. Whatever the end result, they all still need to survive this - anything that would threaten the vessel's premature destruction must be investigated.
Still... it is difficult, to part from them. She can only hope for their good fortune in battle.
She makes her way carefully through it until, eventually, she finds her way to the engine room... and, finds herself frozen in her tracks.
"...That vessel..." Clarine remarks. She recognizes the color scheme. ...And she recognizes, too, the one standing atop it.
"Kamui-" Clarine starts - and cuts off, once her eyes open. The Ultimate Armor unfurls into wings, and Kamui speaks. ...But at the same time, it isn't Kamui.
"...You are... DELTA." Clarine repeats. "...What have you done to her?"
DELTA is the voices of those who cried out. The past, anguish and suffering... Clarine finds herself forced to the ground as Despair washes over her. Emotion threatens to consume her. ...The arrival of Gami, however, and her declaration... Clarine draws upon this for strength. She takes a deep breath - a centering gesture, rather than out of any real need to breathe - and once more she rises, floating just above the ground.
"Kamui... DELTA. Anguish and suffering - these feelings alone will not save the world. This will only cause more hurt." Clarine replies, shaking her head. "If this is what you claim to be... then we shall free her of you. Kamui... share with us your grief! You must not carry this burden alone!"
She casts her hands out, emitting a bright light in Kamui's direction!
GS: Seraph Clarine has attacked Kamui with Incandescence! GS: Seraph Clarine has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Acacia Saitani has posed.
With Kamui sealing herself away, Acacia has scaled back a little on directly joining ARMS in their assaults on Odessa. She doesn't particularly like it - there's a little part of her mind that tells her she's taking the easy way out no matter how many times she tells it to shut up - but the way the reporter justifies it is she has something only she can do: to doggedly and consistently remind the Reploid of the happier times she's been through as a direct means of opposing DELTA's influence.
She'd hoped it would buy them a little more time than this. She'd hoped it would at least buy her time to settle her own feelings on the matter, to have just a few more moments to talk together.
It's not hard to see the speck of light rocketing up from the Sealed Ruins, and she doesn't need the lurch of her heart following it upwards into her throat to pick out what it must mean. Her limbs feel like ice for a few seconds, and then she's running as hard as she can back towards where she's parked the Nephele, gunning it as hard as she can after the trail the Reploid leaves in her wake.
She's not completely clear on events after that. She's pretty sure she's going to owe Yue an apology, and probably going to have to fork out a lot of money on repairs with how badly she manhandled her Gear towards whatever landing points she could find or make for herself, suffering the effects of tearing the defences with a level of abandon that's not like her. She's not unscathed from it; as she catches up to the rest of the group and Kamui greets them, she takes a moment to sag down and heave out a breath, wincing against the protest from her body.
Then she straightens up, and fixes her gaze clear on the Reploid before her.
"... hey yourself," she greets, her eyes flicking over Kamui's form as she tries to take stock of what she's being told, of how integrated and how in control one half or the other might be. She almost snorts as DELTA-Kamui reveals their plan, because it really is something she could see the one she knows come up with herself. It wouldn't be out of bounds as something she'd like to do. Maybe that's the secret behind how this has happened.
Heimdall Gazzo quakes, and a wave of despair washes over her. She's someone who's particularly prone to worried 'what-if's - she can't deny being a bit of a gloomy person even at the best of times underneath it all - but she forces herself to stand her ground and watch the field spread outwards and around them, squinting past the crawling at the back of her neck and the sudden wave of fatigue and fear that rips through her.
"As a human, you know I can't just let you do this. And as your friend, I'm not going to just let you etch another regret on your memory," she mutters as she takes out her battered, useless pistol from her jacket. It is melted and slagged and with its barrel completely filled, but it's seen her this far.
She tosses it away to one side, and forms a fist instead as she breathes out, and swallows a breath.
"I don't know if you're both in agreement over this. Maybe it's really both of you working in concert in there. Either way, there's something I have to say to both of you," the reporter adds as she looks back up, light gathering in her hand. "There's no more need to suffer. Kamui, Delta, Gami, Marivel. You've all spent so much time looking back - I think you deserve to look forwards instead."
She hesitates, and then breaks into a wild smirk as Gami races through on the attack right as she says that. Now she feels a little bashful, and the next thing she says doesn't have quite the bite she wanted to give it. "And this wouldn't be the first time I've had to smack you out of a _really_ bad funk," she concludes. Her light is sharper and more focused than Clarine's warmth, twin lances she simply punches forwards towards the Reploid before racing after them to close.
GS: Acacia Saitani has attacked Kamui with Snapshot! GS: Acacia Saitani has gained 1 Combo! GS: Acacia Saitani has completed her action. GS: CRITICAL! Kamui solidly guards Seraph Clarine's Incandescence for 69 hit points! GS: Blind applied to Kamui! GS: Shield applied to Seraph Clarine! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated!
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
The lifts descend.
Whatever struck the Heimdall Gazzo did at least as much damage as one of the boarding pods. Ida hears the distant shriek of shearing metal, and the rumble of turbulence. She can feel Xiumei's trepidation, a mirror of her own, but greater and deeper. "We'll see this through," she says.
The elevator doors open, revealing a the torn armor, the crumpled bulkheads. The only way forward is out, into the howling wind. As they advance, Ida breathes deeply, and lets her lungs adapt as best they can to the thin atmosphere. Filgaia stretches out below, a smeared canvas of browns, blues, whites, and precious dabs of green.
And ahead--Kamui. DELTA.
Ida sets her jaw. She glances back at Azoth and the capsule, and nods, once. "I've got your back," she says to him. She steps forwards, shoulder-to-shoulder with Venetia and Xiumei. "Kamui," she says. "DELTA."
'Everyone...! Get ready!'
Ida's voice drops to a whisper, and it would be lost to the winds, if not for the sheer determination in it. It might as well be a thunderclap.
"Let me help you bear this pain."
The black wave washes over Ida, and she walks forwards, into it--hell-bent on doing exactly what she said. Paralyzing panic washes through her as the virus brings itself to bear. She's not Gami or Azoth or Varius or Avile, but it finds purchase in her brain nevertheless. Horror lights up her eyes as she sees the Heimdall Gazzo fire--
No. It's not real. Azoth's right, it's data that might happen...
But if Ida's learned one thing from dealing with her own depressive, intrusive thoughts, it's that they're not set in stone. They're not truth. Ida takes a square breath, lets the Hyadean tissue in her lungs strain extra oxygen from the air. "Let us help you through this," she corrects.
The martial artist blurs forwards. She's suddenly right in Kamui's face, beneath one of those wings. She starts to circle her, as much as the perilous terrain will let her, testing her with an opening flurry of finger-strikes and open-palm blows.
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Kamui with Water Dragon Form! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has gained 1 Combo! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey's stances have changed to Stoic! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Juni Vandrer has posed.
With the ship potentially going down in the immediate future, Juni has slipped away from the main group. Pausing long enough to remove the temp welds she'd locked some otherwise reasonably lucky enemies.
This largely means she was caught wholly off guard by the attack and finds her using her recently bound up arm as she finds her way in the elevator after the fact. Don't worry about it.
Shaking her arm, she scowls and mutters to herself in her own language. Working each finger. Thumb to thumb, then each finger to each thumb. Numb's fine right? She does duck back into the elevator for cover, toggling her rifle into the less portable, more unwieldy long rifle.
There's a scowl as she leans back around the corner. She'll follow the lead of the others on this one. Which means once again taking years of training and stuffing it in the same place she stuffs other discomforts on this dustball. That's perfectly healthy long term.
"Plankton?" she pauses. Scowls. The panel at her wrist is slid up and she fiddles with it. She may or may not be shutting off all ports. Even if it's alien tech that usually can't infect, better safe than sorry. "Not mine." Is her answer to the statement. Simple. Then she shifts the rifle to her other shoulder and rests the barrel against the door.
GS: Juni Vandrer has attacked Juni Vandrer with Long Barrel Configuration! GS: Juni Vandrer has gained 1 Combo! GS: Juni Vandrer's stances have changed to Avenger! GS: Juni Vandrer has completed her action. GS: Juni Vandrer accepts Juni Vandrer's Long Barrel Configuration for 0 hit points! GS: Hyper applied to Juni Vandrer! GS: Mighty applied to Juni Vandrer!
<Pose Tracker> Hicalu Wilwisp has posed.
"Oh Guardians t-t-this is TOO HIGH UP i-isn't there a better way?!" Hicalu whines, at the precariousness of their environment.
But there's a woman up there-- "Hey!" Hicalu barks, distinctly behind someone big and imposing. Let's say... Gami. "A-are you okay?! G-g-get down! You're gonna f-fall!" And she does, all floaty, breathing in.
"Eeeegh," Hicalu whines, when she opens her eyes and, "that's so creepy..."
His big Fennec-ears droop, when Delta starts speaking of the anguish of the past. "I, um..." He starts, and doesn't manage to choke it out --
Rather, he doubles over.
Chains bind the box, chest or coffin, rusted from years of containment. Little hands can loosen them, now. Out pours the --
Tail all curled about his knees, hands clasped over his ears, Hicalu screams. "NO!" He cries, as Despair crushes him. "No! No, no! I don't want it!"
BROTHER
Hicalu's future...
The future of Hicalu's suffering is...
He offers no martial rejoinder.
GS: Hicalu Wilwisp has completed his action. GS: Kamui solidly guards Acacia Saitani's Snapshot for 35 hit points! GS: Jam applied to Kamui! GS: FP up! Countermeasures and Sufferer activated! GS: Kamui takes a glancing hit from Ida Everstead-Rey's Water Dragon Form for 43 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Kamui gains 1 additional Combo! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated!
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
Ruth is one of the last to join the lot of them. She had to stay behind to hold against what few Odessa detachments were left to try and flank those who went on ahead... and then some. She couldn't stop Solitaire from accosting the rest, and by the time she emerges, she looks like she's been trying to slake her thirst from a flamethrower. The time that she emerges isn't... here yet.
There is a heart-curdling, screeching hiss as a large gargoyle-like Hellion - a familiar one - hurls open an unconventional passage with their bulk, falling to a kneel against incredible wind shear that threatens to use her singular wing to catch said wind and fling her off. Now that she has emerged, her outfit looks singed (but nonetheless 80 percent or more intact), and fresh wounds fade into the renewal of her Malevolence-powered repressed self-image. This burst of power and fury is punctuated with sorrow and enervation.
Rain follows her, battering the small stretch of hull her presence reaches with corossive sorrow. Her tail wraps not around her rifle, but some of the sturdier railing as she feels the tension, fears, and other such feelings of those passing by not far from her.
It's enough to pull her forward to join them, though her movements are not graceful nor swift, meeting most the rest of them towards the back. She can't meet Kamui's eyes as she approaches, to hear that greeting. Her past. Her anguish. The Zeboim's suffering... and theirs, too.
"No." Is Ruth's quiet retort, as the gravity well of Despair floods with thoughts and feelings. It's overpowering, the weight of it, piling upon the great stack of which the one who once donned the mantle of Death's Door has to carry. It brings her to one knee as she stabs the blade of her rifle deep into the hull.
"You're not."
Ruth's form seems to compress itself within this strange singularity of suffering, and most of how that sounds is (mercifully, it's raw stuff) obscured as the Malevolence that gives form to her emotional discordance recedes, transforming her into that shape of who she once was. She's holding onto that rifle for dear life, a strange smile emerging from that searing pain.
Hicalu's screaming carries through to her one good ear above all this, as she rests her head against the shaft of the embedded rifle while her own despair screams and claws to be let back out of her.
With a horrible twinge in her left shoulder, she draws her revolver, stands back up, and pops off three shots to the most attractive-looking 'joints' in Kamui-DELTA's form in a risky single-handed grip of said revolver - mentally and emotionally charging through the weight of this technologically conjured suffering, g-forces, and everything else.
"I know my own very well," Ruth's voice levels as she starts to crane her neck up, the gray eyes of her former self almost meeting with Kamui's - almost - while her right arm holds around the embedded rifle shaft.
GS: Ruth Pauling has attacked Kamui with Modern Version of Plink Plink Plink! GS: Ruth Pauling has completed her action. GS: Kamui suffers a terrible blow from Ruth Pauling's Modern Version of Plink Plink Plink for 84 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Kamui gains 1 additional Combo! GS: FP up! Countermeasures and Sufferer activated!
<Pose Tracker> Kamui has posed.
Xiumei is the first to speak, apologising for causing this to her. It's accompanied with a salvo of triple bursts from the Pulse Cannon that Kamui-DELTA swiftly raises a wing to, grimacing as they buckle under the duress of plasma fire.
"If you have a wish to make it right, Xiumei... Varius... Avile... then please let me do what I must. I have borne witness to a future that I know must come to pass, if life in Filgaia is to survive." Her black eyes waver for a moment. "This is not the first time we have stood opposed to each other. I genuinely wish for this to be the last time, no matter the outcome."
"Rest assured that should I triumph, I will see to it that no more of our kin will be made to fight against one another for the sake of human masters!"
Gami's appearance is... perhaps, something she should've expected. No, that's not true, -she- did expect her to be here. Her visage is menacing and impressive, both, fully restored to full battle power... despite her pacifistic nature. But she understands well that it's her choice, and now it's come down to this...
Their star-crossed nature ails them once more.
"That we are forgotten is proof that the people of today make the same mistakes! Ours is meant to be a warning, a cautionary tale, and yet they do little more than dig up our mistakes and repeat them anew, Gami!" Kamui-DELTA shouts.
The Oathbreaker is made whole once more, as the beam glaive tears through in two massive strikes; Kamui doesn't bother to face it head on -- she can't -- and she tries to evade it; one of her wings is grazed in the impact, nearly splitting in half instead. "Ghh... but it is as Asgard says. If I back down here, I only sully the choice you've made. Very well. I shall face you with all my might, Gami. ... I only regret that you were destined to awake to such a woeful outcome, but... I also understand this was your choice."
Venetia is firm with her words, and even gives her a second chance. "Venetia Vuong. So you are the inheritor to Vakeroo Va-Trauh-Tuk's legacy. But as with his legacy, when you say you'll dismantle and study this weapon... what end will you truly accomplish with it?"
Ida, too, arrives, telling her that she'll help her bear this pain. Let them help her through this... her martial strikes are quick, and Kamui is no martial expert -- but her remote weapons help her defend and deflect where her arms can't manage, as she buckles into a boxer's block.
Kamui-DELTA's face is with a scowl as she recovers and says, "You two should know, as citizens of Guild Galad, where your 'studies' of the past have taken you! Just look at the Dragon Fossil trade that it thrives on! A military-industrial complex that scatters war across the world, and severely pollutes it in its wake! And you wish me to not be indignant?!"
Her rebuttal is cut short, because purple jewels the size of Kamui's head is hurling forward through nothing more than sorcery; she's zipped left, right, but one still manages to impact against her and send her reeling.
Azoth's appearance is fully within expected parameters. She also knows that there were countermeasures to DELTA that Kamui herself had given, that he had plotted with Marivel... no matter. DELTA knows that her time isn't long, with Kamui already resisting inside of her, yet...
"Can you posit proof to the contrary, Azoth? And where will your place be in it?" Kamui-DELTA questions as Azoth's energy weapons form, red bleeding into its blue; she's clashed against him at full might, but it's clear that he's slowly getting the upper hand. Is her control incomplete? Does she not have full harness of Kamui's powers?
Kamui-DELTA manages to juke around this by twisting around and parrying him with two of her wings, which float freely in service of her defence. They still retain the gashes from where his blade leaves a mark, however.
"Why do you resist me? You were once with me. I know very well the pain you feel, Azoth. The unending anguish given to us by our creators. No matter how much grief and despair we were subject to, we had to adhere to our own rule of self-preservation."
She narrows her eyes.
"I know what you did with your Void Drive to escape that... so why?"
There's a cross look on her face.
"Why, where you have been chosen to survive when so many of our kin have not, would you not welcome what I have in design with open arms? I can bring the end you so desire. Answer me, Azoth!"
She's unable to sense Ragnell inside of Azoth, at the moment. It's been a while since she's met the Seraph. Many things have changed about her since then. Her personality. Her history. Her attitude. That will have to be a tale for a different time.
Solitaire arrives, as well. Kamui-DELTA was not expecting a member of Odessa to stand with them, but with the circumstances as it is, perhaps it can't be helped. The mouse girl takes a swing to Kamui's left, and much like Gami's glaive, she's lightweight enough that she shouldn't be taking direct blows from these massive weapons; another juke, another half-step and twist, and Patience shores off bits of obsidian metal from her evade.
"Solitaire. I will remember your name. But I agree. I shall not leave anyone in chains... chains are the only form of existence I have known. Whether it is within the bounds of our programming, our moral imperatives, or proven through history..."
Kamui narrows her eyes.
"The bounds of history chain us. I have seen a future where we leave the world for those who can truly appreciate it. And thus, I must execute upon it."
Clarine's arrival discomforts her, a wrench twisting in her stomach. "I can't stand it, Clarine. I can't stand it! The way you appeal to me... why do you still say such things? I remember well the way you were sealed at the bottom of the Labyrinth of Shadows! I remember well the way you were mistreated, betrayed, by those you put your full faith into guiding! Where did it take you? Why do you still believe?"
Kamui's expression twists further, as Clarine blasts her with light; this is something she's well capable of managing, but the duress on her system is remarkable at the moment.
"You dare me to hope, but that hope will only lead to further cycles of grief and despair -- and every time we promise we'll do better, more and more of the little ones go extinct!"
Acacia's arrival is no less discomforting. If only those that stood against her just simply hated her; it would be so much easier. That Acacia arrived by Gear is more surprising, but doesn't change her plans as she expects.
"It's precisely because you're a human that you do this... and it's precisely because you're a human that you can say such things. Since the last time I stood here in opposition against heroes who stand full of hope..."
In the midst of this, Juni's the quiet one, and she grimaces further, silently marking her position.
"Just how many half-inch bugs, with their half-inch souls, have been quashed? The little Deku Isle earwigs and Jolly Roger grasshoppers, the Ignasian katydids... if I continued on, I would be speaking for hours at a time. This is the sum total of sacrifices your 'I can do better next time!'"
She shakily breathes out again, as she does before, having to control herself. Acacia rushes for her, forming similar yet different lances of light to threaten to pierce against her -- she forms a barrier against them in time, thusly, grimacing as she says, "... no amount of sitting at the kotatsu eating mikan and looking at photos will console me this time, Acacia."
Ruth is one of the last to join them, but her presence isn't missed; even in this Hellion form, however, Kamui-DELTA instinctively knows this to be Ruth. Her power is indeed immaculate, and the weather itself changes to suit her, rain following her. Her heart wrenches, as Ruth rebuffs and tells her that she is not her suffering -- that she knows hers very well.
"You would resist me knowing what your own circum
<Pose Tracker> Kamui has posed.
"You would resist me knowing what your own circumstances forced you into, Death's Door? I know very well the scars that still exist now. How many Halims, how many pained skirmishes between the fallen and discarded of the war and those who bankroll it in Guild Galad, must I observe while you say 'I'll do better next time'?"
Her hand balls up into a fist. "You are right. You are your own suffering. Your legend and legacy is full well the mark of that. So for what purpose do you resist me now, Ruth Pauling?"
Kamui gets distracted by someone's scream, though, as she spots Hicalu behind Gami. Hicalu tells her she's creepy and... well, he's totally correct, though. He doubles over, seemingly suffering under the wellspring of Despair she's brought on and...
"... I do not know you. But despair touches true to your heart. In all of these conflicts, it's those that have no arms to bear for themselves that I think of most. ... I do not know why you are here, but I will ensure you do not suffer needlessly."
And true to that promise, Kamui escapes from the immediate vicinity of the melee that she's caught in -- and raises her hands; the thrumming of that wellspring of Despair just seems to intensify, as she summons a little Gravity Well that just seems to admixture further on the physical side, resonating with the emotional and mental side.
"You wished for the full data set, Azoth. Please observe."
What comes is an intensifying of all those futures; for a moment, it's as if time itself slows to a crawl, and they can each observe branching paths on the scale of fundamental particles moving in planck-time. It's absolute nonsense, like watching something harmlessly glitch where no one can see it.
But then it continues on and on, towards the future, within that mysterious speck of time... countries falling, nations anew rising to shed bloodshed. The hopes of yesteryear make way to indolence and ignorance, and the very descendants of those who fought so hard to earn freedom and peace and equality become the vicious arbiters of hate and prejudice. Could it have gone another way? Yes, but it fails in a different way. Over and over and over again. And at the end of it, no matter what path you take...
There's a barren, desolate planet. Filgaia. A blackened wasteland gazing at the infinity of the star ocean above.
And Kamui-DELTA is there to greet you, at the End.
GS: Kamui spends 1 Combo on Inspire! GS: Kamui has attacked Zhang Xiumei with the Despair of one Reploid Five Thousand Years! GS: Kamui has gained 2 Combo! GS: Kamui spends 1 Combo on Inspire! GS: Kamui has attacked Gami with the Despair of one Reploid Five Thousand Years! GS: Kamui has gained 1 Combo! GS: Kamui spends 1 Combo on Inspire! GS: Kamui has attacked Acacia Saitani with the Despair of one Reploid Five Thousand Years! GS: Kamui has gained 1 Combo! GS: Kamui spends 1 Combo on Inspire! GS: Kamui has attacked Seraph Clarine with the Despair of one Reploid Five Thousand Years! GS: Kamui has gained 1 Combo! GS: Kamui spends 1 Combo on Inspire! GS: Kamui has attacked Solitaire Collier with the Despair of one Reploid Five Thousand Years! GS: Kamui has gained 2 Combo! GS: Kamui spends 1 Combo on Inspire! GS: Kamui has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with the Despair of one Reploid Five Thousand Years! GS: Kamui has gained 1 Combo! GS: Kamui spends 1 Combo on Inspire! GS: Kamui has attacked Venetia Vuong with the Despair of one Reploid Five Thousand Years! GS: Kamui has gained 2 Combo! GS: Kamui spends 1 Combo on Inspire! GS: Kamui has attacked Ruth Pauling with the Despair of one Reploid Five Thousand Years! GS: Kamui has gained 1 Combo! GS: Kamui spends 1 Combo on Inspire! GS: Kamui has attacked Azoth with the Despair of one Reploid Five Thousand Years! GS: Kamui has gained 1 Combo! GS: Kamui spends 1 Combo on Inspire! GS: Kamui has attacked Hicalu Wilwisp with the Despair of one Reploid Five Thousand Years! GS: Kamui has gained 1 Combo! GS: Kamui spends 1 Combo on Inspire! GS: Kamui has attacked Juni Vandrer with the Despair of one Reploid Five Thousand Years! GS: Kamui has gained 1 Combo! GS: Kamui has completed her action. GS: Zhang Xiumei takes a glancing hit from Kamui's the Despair of one Reploid Five Thousand Years for 0 hit points! GS: Reaper applied to Zhang Xiumei! GS: Zhang Xiumei gains 2 Combo from Inspire! GS: Gami takes a glancing hit from Kamui's the Despair of one Reploid Five Thousand Years for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Gami gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Reaper applied to Gami! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Gami gains 2 Combo from Inspire! GS: Ruth Pauling solidly guards Kamui's the Despair of one Reploid Five Thousand Years for 0 hit points! GS: Reaper applied to Ruth Pauling! GS: FP up! Charge bonus and Sufferer activated! GS: Ruth Pauling enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Ruth Pauling gains 2 Combo from Inspire! GS: Solitaire Collier partially evades Kamui's the Despair of one Reploid Five Thousand Years for 0 hit points! GS: Reaper applied to Solitaire Collier! GS: Solitaire Collier gains 2 Combo from Inspire! GS: CRITICAL! Hicalu Wilwisp suffers a terrible blow from Kamui's the Despair of one Reploid Five Thousand Years for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Hicalu Wilwisp gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Reaper applied to Hicalu Wilwisp! GS: Hicalu Wilwisp gains 2 Combo from Inspire! GS: COUNTER! Seraph Clarine counterattacks Kamui with Reflect! GS: CRITICAL! Seraph Clarine solidly guards Kamui's the Despair of one Reploid Five Thousand Years for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Clarine gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Reaper applied to Seraph Clarine! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Seraph Clarine gains 2 Combo from Inspire! GS: CRITICAL! Azoth solidly guards Kamui's the Despair of one Reploid Five Thousand Years for 0 hit points! GS: Reaper applied to Azoth! GS: Charge!! You gain 30 FP! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Azoth gains 2 Combo from Inspire! GS: CRITICAL! Ida Everstead-Rey suffers a terrible blow from Kamui's the Despair of one Reploid Five Thousand Years for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Ida Everstead-Rey gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Reaper applied to Ida Everstead-Rey! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey gains 2 Combo from Inspire! GS: CRITICAL! Kamui solidly guards Seraph Clarine's Shining for 52 hit points! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated! GS: Acacia Saitani solidly guards Kamui's the Despair of one Reploid Five Thousand Years for 0 hit points! GS: Reaper applied to Acacia Saitani! GS: Acacia Saitani gains 2 Combo from Inspire! GS: Kamui solidly guards Zhang Xiumei's Barrier Cross - Boomerang Strike for 58 hit points! GS: Hyper applied to Zhang Xiumei! GS: FP up! Countermeasures, Guard bonus, and Sufferer activated!
<Pose Tracker> Gami has posed.
"I will be all right," Gami assures Hicalu in his worries, though her concern at him is something she cannot hide. Her care for these fragile mortal lives around her is not gone in the face of Kamui's pain, or DELTA's ambition. But she must take this fight to their opponent, rather than standing back.
The others speak of bearing the pain together. Acacia speaks of whether it's both of them. DELTA and Kamui both... But Gami knows that Acacia will be with her here. She raecs ahead, but looking forward?
"I would like to look forward."
But she cannot. Not now. The past comes once again, star-crossed as they are. She wants to look forward with Kamui, but...
"And those mistakes are theirs to make!" Gami protests just as vitally. "The world that they live in... it is theirs to live in! We must not take that away from them! No more than we did from our creators!"
"Dr. Tenneb wished only to see the life of her sister remembered. And I remember, Kamui. That must be enough. It must!"
The choice she has made...
"Yes. With all your might, as once before. We shall settle this, here and now. ...My legacy is woe. I was always meant for destruction."
"That you gave me a time where I was able to enjoy something gentler... Is something for which I will always be grateful."
But the others all have more to say. She looks to Azoth, in concern; she does not remember what he did with his Void Drive, back then. But she does not expect all of them here, at all. And some--
"No!" Gami shouts, "Young man, you must run! She will destroy you!" She looks to Hicalu in alarm. And then, back to Kamui...
"Acacia," she says. "We must believe. There is no other path."
And then those futures come. Time intensifies, slows, and Gami, too, can see thebranching paths. Countries fall. Nations rise anew. Hopes and dreams fade, and become worse. Over, and over, and over again, the barren, desolate planet...
It is what Gami has seen, over and over, through the ages. She knows it well. Until five hundred years ago, when she was forced to deactivate--
"I..."
Gami stirs, "I... remember..."
"I REMEMBER!" Gami shouts, her alto voice rising above the din. "All those centuries... All those people. Again, and again, and again, they make the same mistakes. They lead to ruin."
Gami rises to her feet once again, and keeps a ready stance with her glaive, as the Cenotaph Engine roars once again within her. Her very own source of emotion--her very own source of the limitless endurance with which she once walked the world.
Red light begins to shine from her eyes, from every seam of her armor, and encompasses her in a sudden barrier. "Kamui, my love..."
She understands, then. In the moment. SHe understands well, as she begins to shimmer, and shine.
"It is not just 'DELTA'," Gami says, with a shake of her head. "These feelings... They are Kamui's, too. DELTA has not subsumed her. It is her own emotion that calls to us. Her own despair. Her own need to release this awful burden."
"...But all the same," Gami says, "I remember, now. I remember those precious days we spent together..."
She looks to Varius's voice, to Avile's voice. "...I do not know what comes at the 'end'," Gami says, as she rises to her full height once again, the power of her Cenotaph Engine once more purging her of DELTA's influence and despair both.
"...But that journey is beautiful. Those lives, no matter what mistakes they make... The making of them matters, Kamui. You knew that, once. But I know how hard it is to weigh. Only remember..."
"You were made from love, Kamui. Not despair."
Gami's aura grows brighter.
GS: Gami has attacked Gami with Devastator Arte - Resilience! GS: Gami enters a Counter stance! GS: Gami has gained 3 Combo! GS: Gami gains 4 THP from her Cautious! GS: Gami takes 58 damage from Reaper! GS: Gami has completed her action. GS: Gami heals Gami! She gains 17 temporary hit points! GS: Restore! Disease and Reaper removed! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Your next attack with the Counter flag will display with the name ERROR: PROMISE IN PROGRESS.
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
As Ragnell works to stabilize Azoth's core in more ways than one, Azoth's able to keep his energy from exploding out of his joints entirely. Despite Azoth's struggling, he notes DELTA's wavering. It's a moment of hope, that perhaps Kamui's own data resists DELTA's, despite their shared suffering. He leaps back as she disengages, prepared for a counterattack.
But not prepared for her words.
We had to adhere to our own rule of self-preservation.
Wait --
I know what you did with your Void Drive to escape that... so why?
What is she --
Would you not welcome what I have in design with open arms?
And then he is made
to observe
tragedy after tragedy, future after future, failure after failure
He's fighting to focus his calculations, but the data is more than what DELTA supplies. Azoth was once with DELTA. An ancient reality, lived and experienced. No reinfection is necessary... the data is all there, and DELTA's words and presence form the last bridges needed to remember. An overflow of forgotten memories chain together in brutal succession, the agony of cycle after cycle of failed calculations compressed into a single moment.
Xiumei calls to him. Ragnell works her inner machinations. Gami calls to Kamui with love. Calculations scramble to find the proof DELTA demands of him.
They are all nothing against the deluge.
Azoth staggers backward, one foot barely shifting back in time to keep his balance as his whole body wavers. Lines of light -- neither blue, nor red, nor even with the fuchsia that sometimes bleeds in -- of a pure, candent white scorch through his circuits and shine through his chassis, casting rays like the sun escaping through cracks in stone.
"... I see," starts his distorting voice, "My own mobility system weaponized against me... splitting me apart and scattering the pieces... It was because, unable to crush my core, to destroy me utterly and outright..."
Light floods his eyes, all focus lost.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=di7Ycfca4Ag
"...That was the loophole I found to correct the mistake of my existence."
And now he remembers why. Every scrap of data, every prophesized future, every last calculation and the inevitable, absolute conclusion. Inescapable. Undeniable. He can't, he can't, he can't --
Azoth lifts his arm, slow and unsteady with the overflow of energy. His voice comes impossibly deep, but its reverberation shaken and glitched -- pained. The usual monotone is replaced by a strangely song-like cadence for this dirge that Azoth carves for himself.
"EXEC.VOID_DRIVE... ACCESSING
INITIALIZE... TARGET: AZ-0012 AZOTH
SETTING COORDINATES...
WARNING: MULTIPLE COORDINANTS SET FOR SINGLE TARGET
WARNING: EXCEEDING MAXIMUM CALCULABLE DISTANCE
PROCEED?
YES
READYING VOID_DRIVE"
His fingers poise, thumb to middle, prepared to snap in the usual finalization of one of his self-given commands.
GS: Azoth has attacked Azoth with exec.azoc VOID DRIVE FINAL EXECUTION! GS: Azoth enters a Counter stance! GS: Azoth has gained 2 Combo! GS: Azoth takes 61 damage from Reaper! GS: Azoth has completed his action. GS: Azoth accepts Azoth's exec.azoc VOID DRIVE FINAL EXECUTION for 0 hit points! GS: Hyper and Quick applied to Azoth! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Azoth enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Disease expired!
<Pose Tracker> Solitaire Collier has posed.
"Mm." Solitaire considers Kamui's words. "If you believe this path will lead to a better future, you should march down it without hesitation--But you'll have to convince me that your Despair will lead to a better future than my Hope. Since Azoth defeated me in battle," Well he wasn't alone but SOlitaire despises using too many words. "He will not fall to a Despair that couldn't overcome me."
But Kamui still has more despair to unleash. Solitaire knows that if she gives in to a despair like this--would she really even be able to continue down the road of her own dreams? Stumbling here and there is one thing, but this despair is one of calculation. A mathematical unleashing of the only natural end that can be discovered through such methods. If she gives in, she'll have to admit that the same weight that is always bearing down upon her can one day defeat her. It might not kill her dream, but it will certainly suggest a time limit--that even her will has an end.
Solitaire won't give that to Delta easily.
So far Solitaire seems to weather the latest assault alright--but even Solitaire can't turn her head from such an evocative end. It weighs on her--
--but she can still stand tall so far.
"You only have data from the past. In the future, new concepts can be born." Solitaire says. Her voice doesn't so much as quiver, her eyes remain their steady deadpan steel. Solitaire was born in the darkest pit of hell in a way--she was raised in hopelessness.
Her gaze slants to Xiumei for a moment. Xiumei says that DELTA wants to take her mind and never let it go---is that what Delta WANTS, Solitaire wonders, or is that simply what it does because to Delta, they desperately want to convince them that there is no Hope so they do not dwell alone in that dark place.
"Eleanor treated me to curry. Didn't have to do that." Solitaire says. "Didn't always have weapons to bear either. I've been in chains since forever. Took an axe to free me. That is why we have to bring power to the people, so they can break their own shackles."
But perhaps it's Azoth's own will being shaken that shakes Solitaire the most. Even if Solitaire's will is strong...
"Azoth," Solitaire says. "Remember. Failure is not an option. If Delta leaves us no option but failure, we have to press on regardless."
She backpedals to give Azoth an arm bump.
"Do not shame me by losing to another after you defeated me."
Her eyes narrow stubbornly!!
MEANWHILE
The strange capsule that Marivel had given Azoth continues to charge. The red dots press on into yellow dots. It's getting there!
But what is the purpose of this strange capsule? Marviel had only said it was anti-viral but... It looks more like one of Lumen's communication capsules. Perhaps there is a tool within?
The capsule answers nothing.
GS: Solitaire Collier has attacked Kamui with Foundation! GS: Solitaire Collier takes 49 damage from Reaper! GS: Solitaire Collier has completed her action. GS: Kamui solidly guards Solitaire Collier's Foundation for 44 hit points! GS: Weaken applied to Kamui! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated!
<Pose Tracker> Venetia Vuong has posed.
The arrival of Solitaire in Azoth's company gets a brief look from Venetia, a look of stormy astonishment crossing her face. She doesn't speak to her - it's not the space for her to put in a lot of new thoughts and words - but she seems astounded. But then she's -- Well, Venetia thinks, that's ideologically consistent if nothing else.
Venetia stops worrying about Solitaire's murder axe. FOR NOW.
She gazes at Delta as she replies. Her mouth hangs gently open. "I," she gibbers for a moment, because that was a Hell of a rejoinder. "I'm going to -- Look, this machine has technology! It provides power! It could be a second Guild Galad somewhere -- land it in the desert of Aveh or some other area, use it as the seed for a city, like, well, the Seed Cities--"
And she keeps going. Her face tightens.
"For Guild Galad, I won't speak," Venetia says, her voice colder, her poise restored. "But the cruelest journey brings the strongest warrior. I suppose we're going to see."
And once again she's drawn into something beyond her understanding. The world seems to be accelerating to a halt, and then slowing to astonsihing speed. She can see everything glittering, the crystal dancers within each and every atom in all the myrids within --
It rises. She's doing this for the little bugs? Venetia thinks, with astonishment. She pants for breath, thrown, dizzy. She looks towards the barren world, black and empty, and when she recognizes the contour of a continent she thinks: Oh.
Her vision of her home is simple and stark. Blackness. Nothing else. For Venetia Vuong's home town is over a kilometer beneath the stone, and while stone might endure even in the death of a planet... well, there's more to a town than stone.
"... And what's your point?" Venetia husks out, afterwards, fishing for a Crest Graph. Too shaken to charge in, she can see that IDA, trained differently, has done so. She finds the Crest she needs and raises it upwards. Silent otherwise, her eyes flick as Gami makes an appeal, then towards the others. Assess the space. Understand where you are. There's Hicalu, there's the Seraph (is the Seraph going to be there when all this happens? Venetia wonders about those guys), there's Ruth...
Liquid-ruby light helices towards Ida as Venetia keeps her mouth closed. The wisdom of a magician, at times, is in not talking.
GS: Venetia Vuong spends 1 Combo on Reload! GS: Venetia Vuong has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Persephone Sign ~Death Defiance~! GS: Venetia Vuong has gained 2 Combo! GS: Venetia Vuong takes 56 damage from Reaper! GS: Venetia Vuong has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Acacia Saitani has posed.
One of the Drifters behind her is panicking; that's okay, thinks Acacia, and then she remembers to say it out loud instead. She's not very good at trying to offer encouragement in big groups, but if there were ever a time to try, it'd be now. "Keep your chin up!" she calls as she rushes forwards, a little awkwardly. "It's not real! It's just what could happen! Our brains are really good at worrying, that's all!"
That's-- that's helpful, right? Right?
She shakes that thought away to try to refocus on Kamui before her, her expression hardening at her rebuttal. "Yeah. I know. Short-term thinking is a really human trait. It's our 'privilege'," she says without mirth. "I'm not going to deny that - and I'm not going to say that I have an answer for Filgaia's degradation or how humans behave, either. I can't change the past, and I can't bring back those species."
"But that's why I'm here. That's always been my job - to be the speck on eternity's timeline, you know? To point out that you can't just decide things based on long-term considerations. We've seen that over and over. What happens, here and now and day by day, is important too. And maybe it won't mean much to you if I say 'we can record their passing, remember them, work to inform people'-- but I'm still going to say it. Because, from my own lifetime's point of view, that's the best that I can do."
She's more and more sure that Kamui is in there as well as DELTA; she doesn't think that name is a lie by any means. It's almost like DELTA is panicking over the state of Filgaia and dragging Kamui along with her - and it leaves a note of sympathy in her voice when she continues. A mikan won't cut it. "I know. We're here to face every fear and concern you've got. Maybe we won't come to an agreement right now - maybe we'll just butt heads forever. But if means getting all your feelings out in the open, I'll be here as long as you need."
The air shifts around her; despite her assurances, she grimaces as her vision wavers.
What exactly would her own personal despair be rooted in? She's enough of a realist that she already has an answer ready for herself. When it comes down to it, she has to admit that her own circumstances are pretty comfortable. She could walk away from this and go curl up at home, and the practical upshot is that she'd face the same troubles as the rest of your average human. She's not facing a forgotten past or a deadly infection or needing to find a place for her society.
It's a very bittersweet thought, and it's only the fact that she's not walking away from this that keeps her steady. Because it follows from that that the things she truly worries for are the people she's connected to and calls friends and family, and there's a little spark of pride in that for her to hold onto amidst the turmoil of the images running through her mind.
She sucks in a breath, feeling her frame rock. It's an impossible amount of tragedy to take in, and even a trained reporter's eye can't stay dispassionate to everything she's shown - but what strikes her more is that this is what Kamui must have been subject to, every night and every day since DELTA infected her. Maybe it was naive to think that a few photos could counter it. ... she almost focuses on that negative thought as it starts to spiral, before a well of sheer contrariness bubbles up on the back of Gami's gentle warning.
That warning turns to a brief moment of terror; Gami is very tall and very-- spiky in places. It was easy to forget that when she was idling around Acacia's apartment like a relaxed dog. It's a lot different to see it with a roar of memory and a flash of red, and the reporter lurches at the thought that they might have to face a combined front. That fear comes to naught when Gami speaks, and the reporter lets out a quiet breath of relief and hope. If there's anyone that can understand Kamui's plight, it's her most of all.
That's not going to stop her from pulling her own weight, though. A sweep of her hand slices through the air with a thin line of white; it misses Kamui, but the next moment she's snapped her fingers to expand that tear outwards into a collection of little explosions of energy. Acacia rears back as it happens, then forces two more of those bright lines of light forwards. These aren't the simple pistol shots she'd been using up until now, nor are they aimed towards the Reploid; she's clearly trying to box Kamui in, to stall for time as long as possible, and to restrict her movement as much as she can.
GS: Acacia Saitani spends 1 Combo on Link! GS: Acacia Saitani has attacked Kamui with Stop the Press!! GS: Acacia Saitani has gained 1 Combo! GS: Acacia Saitani has launched an attack Link! GS: Acacia Saitani has attacked Kamui with Hit Piece! GS: Acacia Saitani has gained 1 Combo! GS: Acacia Saitani takes 61 damage from Reaper! GS: Acacia Saitani has completed her action. GS: Kamui solidly guards Acacia Saitani's Stop the Press! for 0 hit points! GS: Break and Hex applied to Kamui! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated! GS: CRITICAL! Kamui partially guards Acacia Saitani's Hit Piece for 0 hit points! GS: Infect! Debuff durations extended!! GS: Weaken applied to Kamui! GS: FP up! Guard bonus and Sufferer activated!
<Pose Tracker> Juni Vandrer has posed.
Juni sights down her scope, making a few minute adjustments. Eyes tracking two separate readings, back and forth for a moment. She makes one last adjustment and leans in against the wall.
"Never a villain in my sights." Juni shrugs and answers the question proposed with, "I don't keep count. I'm no hero though."
The visions aren't at all pleasant. They bring up some of the darker memories of her own past though. Orbital bombardments. Smoke and ash. A reminder to her at the very least why she needs to tighten her act up. The scalpel that prevents those necessities. She adjusts her grip, fingers tightening on the rifle.
Juni perks one ear up, canting it, listening to the others. Chiming in with her own take, "It's never as simple as any simulation. Doesn't matter what kind of planning you think of, there's always a wild card out there." Her system pops up a little alert, letting her know the inbuilt systems have adjusted. There's another pair of messages under it. Responded to verbally in her own low language. "Just got to ask for help. Sometimes that's what you need to get out of it."
She does spare a glance to Azoth, worried about the uh.. kid? There's a slight flattening of her ears. Can't afford to get distracted, but it's hard not to get hung up on that quesiton. "Careful. This was what you guys warned me about right?" She had that faint hunch earlier. It's why the ports were shut!
The others though, she hcecks on each. Visually. The rifle stays trained on Kamui for now.
"Don't make the mistakes I did and continue to make." Her mind's wandered a bit, she sights back in after. Refocusing.
GS: Juni Vandrer has attacked Juni Vandrer with All Systems Nominal! GS: Juni Vandrer takes 53 damage from Reaper! GS: Juni Vandrer has completed her action. GS: Juni Vandrer accepts Juni Vandrer's All Systems Nominal for 0 hit points! GS: Amplify and Lock state applied to Juni Vandrer!
<Pose Tracker> Hicalu Wilwisp has posed.
Not suffering needlessly... that would be nice, but all it means is killing Hicalu quickly, doesn't it?
So quickly --
The futures crackle and slide about each other, superimposed, folding out of each other. It glitches on itself; it makes no sense. Until -- until --
choke the miasma and change blackened tips darkening Psyche cries and fades to nothing they have nothing but the consecration strike our altar cry without without without without
"N-no... no, what c-can I do... I-I can't do anything, I..."
Hicalu's whimpering is cut through with another voice, though -- Varius's, as he tells him not to let himself be consumed. His chartreuse eyes blink open, all teary. "I..." He starts, hands lowering slowly from his ears, only to hear Gami tell him he must run.
"I-I don't know why I feel like... destroying me would... I-I'm self-centred, right? R-right? But, b-but, if she grabs my brain, I-I'd be... I-I'd really..."
let it happen again,
Despair shudders him, but he pushes himself upwards anyway, hands trembling. "I-I... I won't, I... I-I can help," he insists, all teary eyed, and he has to start his Symbological hand-signs over twice on account of how much his tattooed hands are trembling.
Even so -- "Expansive Enhance!" He invokes a fiery bolstering spell, to settle over Varius and his host, and Gami, and Ruth, and the (very scary) Ida.
GS: Hicalu Wilwisp has attacked Gami with Expansive Enhance! GS: Hicalu Wilwisp has attacked Ruth Pauling with Expansive Enhance! GS: Hicalu Wilwisp has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Expansive Enhance! GS: Hicalu Wilwisp has attacked Zhang Xiumei with Expansive Enhance! GS: Hicalu Wilwisp has gained 1 Combo! GS: Hicalu Wilwisp's stances have changed to Stoic! GS: Hicalu Wilwisp gains 5 THP from his Cautious! GS: Hicalu Wilwisp takes 56 damage from Reaper! GS: Hicalu Wilwisp has completed his action. GS: Gami accepts Hicalu Wilwisp's Expansive Enhance for 0 hit points! GS: Burst applied to Gami! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Ruth Pauling accepts Hicalu Wilwisp's Expansive Enhance for 0 hit points! GS: Burst applied to Ruth Pauling! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated!
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
There was a time when Kamui's accusation would send Ida into immediate denial, and indignant, wounded rage. It still stings, even now. Her face flickers through pain, then anger, then settles back into steely determination. "We desecrate the dead to kill the living," Ida says. "You have every right to feel that rage." She keeps circling, even as Kamui interposes a remote, and her hands go clang clang clang as she finger-strikes its surface.
"I feel it, too."
But there's something else Kamui says that punches through Ida's mental armor. It's not about her. It's about--
"Azoth," Ida says, and she risks tearing her attention from Kamui to face her friend. "Azoth!" She feels like she's been gut-punched, and that's before the data flows through her. Human brains were not meant to process this quantity of data. Ida is forced to bear witness regardless.
She sees herself sitting in the Master's seat, pronouncing sentence on disarmed, humiliated Hyadean dissidents. Summary execution. Repurposing. She sees Skyside in flames. She sees Zed launching himself at her with unchecked rage in his eyes. Threads of a single, gut-wrenching future, woven among so many more.
In the face of these fractal-spun dooms, Ida clings to the doom she saw in Love's Cradle. The barren world. The moon above, cracked open like an egg, spilling horror into the cosmos. When the visions fade, she is pale and gasping and seemingly frozen to the spot. Her eyes dart to Venetia, then Xiumei, then Gami, then--
"Azoth," Ida chokes out, as he speaks the words that will tear him apart again. "AZOTH, NO!"
'It is not just 'DELTA'... These feelings... They are Kamui's, too. DELTA has not subsumed her. It is her own emotion that calls to us. Her own despair. Her own need to release this awful burden.'
The words register. Ida's too busy stumbling back to Azoth, reaching out to grip his shoulders with both hands--as if she could somehow root him to the spot through will alone. The little disc of her Mountain Medium is in-hand before she realizes it. There's a faint prayer on her lips:
"The Mountain still stands," Ida says. And then, flickering above them, is a vast silhouette wrought of earth and steel, hair aflame like the caldera of a volcano.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Clarine has posed.
The wellspring of Despair intensfies. Clarine is caught in its throes. Even for one like her, to witness such a breadth of time in one mere moment, to witness the End... it is debilitating. She is choked, for a moment, words caught in her throat. Until, eventually, she manages...
"It... has brought me here." She replies. "Yes... I was sealed, mistreated, and betrayed. At that time, my faith in humanity had truly been broken, and I was cast into the darkness. Had I my way, then, I would have exiled myself away for eternity. Were you to ask me then what you ask of me now... then yes, perhaps I would have stood aside. ...But, do you remember what happened after that?"
"...I met you." Clarine replies with a smile - and her smile is blinding, as her light reintensifies itself. Gami says that these truly are Kamui's feelings - that it is not just Delta, but Kamui's own as well. On some level, she understood that, but if Gami, the one her knows her best says it... then it must be true.
"You, Acacia, and Marivel... you found me, and brought me into the light. And through you, I met everyone in ARMS. These people who have stood beside me and reassured me, your hope, strength, and force of will encouraging me and nurturing my wounded spirit. Through all of you, I became able to trust once more - and my faith was renewed."
She shuts her eyes for a moment.
"Through your friendship and theirs, I have found a wonderful new light. Because of them, I was finally able to prove myself to one I look up to. ...May I be a reminder that within the darkness, there may yet be light. Though I have suffered, I was freed from it! Hurt, but capable of healing!" She says. "So you must hold on to hope! Better to promise, to try, to strive! To let go of hope is to fall into it regardless. And if you cannot find it in yourself, then find it in others, in those who care most for you!"
And she expresses that now by offering her aid to others. She casts her arms out wide, and from her red light radiates off her person, settling over her allies and offering them renewed strength.
GS: CRITICAL! Venetia Vuong heals Ida Everstead-Rey! She gains 29 temporary hit points! GS: Restore! Disease and Reaper removed! GS: FP up! Venetia Vuong's Reload! activated! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey accepts Hicalu Wilwisp's Expansive Enhance for 0 hit points! GS: Burst applied to Ida Everstead-Rey! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Azoth with Material - The Mountain Still Stands! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Ruth Pauling with Material - The Mountain Still Stands! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Venetia Vuong with Material - The Mountain Still Stands! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has gained 1 Combo! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action. GS: CRITICAL! Ruth Pauling accepts Ida Everstead-Rey's Material - The Mountain Still Stands for 0 hit points! GS: Shield applied to Ruth Pauling! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Seraph Clarine has attacked Zhang Xiumei with Acuteness! GS: Seraph Clarine has attacked Gami with Acuteness! GS: Seraph Clarine has attacked Acacia Saitani with Acuteness! GS: Seraph Clarine has attacked Ruth Pauling with Acuteness! GS: Seraph Clarine has attacked Azoth with Acuteness! GS: Seraph Clarine has attacked Solitaire Collier with Acuteness! GS: Seraph Clarine has attacked Venetia Vuong with Acuteness! GS: Seraph Clarine has attacked Juni Vandrer with Acuteness! GS: Seraph Clarine has attacked Hicalu Wilwisp with Acuteness! GS: Seraph Clarine has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Acuteness! GS: Seraph Clarine has gained 1 Combo! GS: Seraph Clarine takes 61 damage from Reaper! GS: Seraph Clarine has completed her action. GS: Ruth Pauling accepts Seraph Clarine's Acuteness for 0 hit points! GS: Hyper applied to Ruth Pauling! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated! GS: Venetia Vuong accepts Ida Everstead-Rey's Material - The Mountain Still Stands for 0 hit points! GS: Shield applied to Venetia Vuong! GS: Venetia Vuong accepts Seraph Clarine's Acuteness for 0 hit points! GS: Hyper applied to Venetia Vuong! GS: Azoth accepts Ida Everstead-Rey's Material - The Mountain Still Stands for 0 hit points! GS: Shield applied to Azoth! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Azoth accepts Seraph Clarine's Acuteness for 0 hit points! GS: Hyper applied to Azoth! GS: Quick and Shield applied to Seraph Clarine! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Hicalu Wilwisp accepts Seraph Clarine's Acuteness for 0 hit points! GS: Hyper applied to Hicalu Wilwisp! GS: Shield applied to Seraph Clarine! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey accepts Seraph Clarine's Acuteness for 0 hit points! GS: Hyper applied to Ida Everstead-Rey! GS: Gami accepts Seraph Clarine's Acuteness for 0 hit points! GS: Hyper applied to Gami! GS: Quick applied to Seraph Clarine! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: CRITICAL! Zhang Xiumei accepts Hicalu Wilwisp's Expansive Enhance for 0 hit points! GS: Burst applied to Zhang Xiumei! GS: Quick applied to Hicalu Wilwisp! GS: Zhang Xiumei accepts Seraph Clarine's Acuteness for 0 hit points! GS: Hyper applied to Zhang Xiumei! GS: Quick applied to Seraph Clarine! GS: Acacia Saitani accepts Seraph Clarine's Acuteness for 0 hit points! GS: Hyper applied to Acacia Saitani!
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
Accusations and difficult questions are hurled at everyone here, and the talk of those small species that no longer are hit a cord in Ruth's heart somewhere (while an orchestra plays 24/7, really), thoughts of creatures she loved watching in years past having long since disappeared into the flames of war and the decay of desertification.
As if on (belated) cue to Solitaire's talk of chains, the sleeve of Ruth's now comically oversized coat - it looks more like she's in a heavy blanket rather than a coat, now - stays just slung low enough to keep sight of the Granasian rosary around her right arm visible. Itself, a culturally-imposed chain whose rules Ruth's very history (and, in some ways, current existence) continues to break. It holds, even now, with the continued failure to live up to 'I'll do better next time.'
The ascent of her gaze halts as Kamui speaks harshly to Ruth's own bloody, well-known history. ARMS breaks bread with someone who, by any and all stretches of the definition, was a monster of her time.
Those who knew Kamui in a time far before hers, reach out towards her. Ruth has to turn her head to better hear Azoth's story, since he's far off to her left. The 'young man' (who isn't) who seemed so deeply troubled with wanting to hold onto being that inquisitive, joyful traveler when he inevitably cannot stop himself from bringing ruin and pain to all around him.
To the way Gami does not at all condemn them, for their right to make mistakes. (A right Ruth has exercised rather well.) She bears a heart that far exceeds the immense size of the rest of her as she embraces the idea that Kamui was born from love.
The way Varis and Avile, together, live and work through Xiumei in tandem towards a shared 'better' that the three of them from very different times all agree in the here and now.
...But what of herself? Why does she resist?
"Why, indeed..." Ruth murmurs, as the 'full data set' is shared. She enjoys (...in a loose sense) a small advantage over the others in so much that her state of being wrestles with these anxeties. Whatever Zeboim did to do itself in... the way Celesti's two warring powers took its legacy, and burned itself anew. How those ashes were dug and picked through by Guild Galad, scooping up the rest in an almost literal fire sale, poised to repeat the entrenching oligarchy that saw Celesti revolt then. What shape will the Guild Galad Civil War take? Who will dig through those ashes, again, and again...
Ruth stays standing. Any tears she has to shed, they stay dammed behind her eyes, staring into the image of the sand at her feet.
"No answer I can give... will answer for it," the former-and-now-current-though-not-really an elf. "You show concern and remorse for that young man screaming, caught in the middle... just as you're ready to sacrifice him for..." Plankton. She forgets that word in the moment.
She holsters her revolver as she returns to holding to the embedded rifle, instead pulling out a Crest Graph with a moment's pained hissing for what it's doing to her bad shoulder. To those who have worked extensively with Crest Graphs and also had to drag them through Malevolent Domains, what passes will never be a small feat.
Ruth's eyes open, half-lidded, as she conjures its spell, and rain... regular, Filgaian sorcery-conjured rain, begins to fall.
"Sometimes... Kamui, we'll never know why such cruelty had to happen. It never makes sense, does it," A smile grows, as that rain intensifies towards weaponized concentrations. "But you know the faces of your friends, don't you. So... your DELTA."
Ruth's head cranes up, even as Hicalu's shaking and crying is like a hard yank at her throat to look to him, and those gray eyes of hers...
Meet to the blackened eyes of Kamui.
"You're convinced this is the face of one of the ones who will scar Filgaia... again, and again, and again," and that is not a nice-looking grin. She hates how flat most her teeth are right now, it feels wrong even when they were that shape for over forty years by now, even as the Mountain blesses one who willingly carries a spiritually corrosive force in them. Even as Clarine, once more, shares succor and strength in red light. As Hicalu Symbologically grants a fire in her involving one that's always burning inside her of a more fell persuasion.
Rain is introduced to this dreary, metaphorical barren landscape at the terminus of this wretched tour through fell possibilities.
Her heart races with the agitation that always comes from meeting someone's eyes, but, her Malevolence stays held within her, as Crest Sorcery-conjured rain whips and pours.
"I can't give you a reason why I stand now... I am." A bitter laugh. "You'll have to live with that."
She lets the rain wash about herself. "Just as I do... knowing someone felt you were worth more." But... it's here where she loses the eye contact.
GS: Ruth Pauling has attacked Kamui with Who The Heavens Weep Upon! GS: Ruth Pauling has gained 1 Combo! GS: Ruth Pauling's stances have changed to Hero! GS: Ruth Pauling takes 56 damage from Reaper! GS: Disease expired! GS: Ruth Pauling has completed her action. GS: Kamui solidly guards Ruth Pauling's Who The Heavens Weep Upon for 25 hit points! GS: FP up! Guard bonus and Sufferer activated!
<Pose Tracker> Kamui has posed.
"... over the years, Xiumei. I watched you go from a reluctant arm of the Zhang Great Trading Sea Company, uncomfortable in her shared body, seeking for a place of her own ... to someone who now stands in unity with Avile and Varius before me today," Kamui whispers. "The one who spoke well and true her honest feelings in Eleanor's wedding. You, too, have learnt that not everything that exists in this world can be quantified, in order to provide a sense of self-security, yet..."
She shakes her head.
Avile is the one who cuts through. It doesn't have to be like that! Her face scrunches again. There it is again!
"What did you get out of all that you endured, Avile? I don't understand!" Kamui laments. "All we did was hurt each other, time and time again! A part of me can't stand to kill Varius again -- but if this is the only way the world can be saved, then... then...!"
The Barrier Cross is not something she really should be interacting with; it's too fast, though, and she ends up sacrificing more of her wings to just block it for a scant two seconds before she can activate her Dash and escape, not terribly cleanly.
As much as she wants to pose herself as an unfeeling agent of despair, it's clear that she can't, not when Gami speaks the way she does. "Is it their right to make mistakes that consume the lives of those lesser below them? I have never been able to grasp this! If an invasive species is introduced, do we not remove them before the garden is soiled?!"
Gami speaks of a time where they could enjoy something gentler. A time that she'll always be grateful. ... and now, where have they gone? Why do they bear arms against each other?
She can hear the roar of the Cenotaph Engine, but it's Gami's own roar that cuts over it. She remembers, too. All those centuries. All those people. Making the same mistakes...
... and Gami brings to fore the truth of the matter: That it isn't just 'DELTA's' feelings. They are Kamui's too. Her own grief, her own frustration... but those precious days we spent together...
She is made from love, not despair.
"... you are right, Gami. You are correct," Kamui has to relent for a moment.
"A heart borne from despair could not reach the conclusion that has brought me here to bring about this catastrophe today. The heart that bleeds hardest is the heart borne from love. From empathy and compassion. I mentioned to Asgard that I recently finally understood why Dr. Lumen called it 'the Suffering Circuit'..."
Her black eyes almost seem soft as she gazes upon her.
"... and that is why I must fight to the fullest, until I am spent. In the same way that you have taken your name up once more. I want to fight for the right of my vision of the future! Resist me with all your strength, Gami!"
What DELTA shares with Azoth is, in some way, not new -- he is, after all, once one with her. But this isn't just DELTA's data; it's also Kamui's data. And so many other people's data. Flowing in and out, like a stream of consciousness...
Azoth comes to the realisation himself, of what he did himself, to his Void Drive. Kamui doesn't press that topioc onward, letting him process the truth himself.
"... yes. I was fortunate enough to have faced the end of my own existence, multiple times, in catastrophic battle. But you were not so lucky, as it were, and yet... you found the loophole."
Her eyes narrow as Azoth enters that strange song-like cadence, that dirge. "... show me your truth, and nothing but your whole truth, Azoth."
Solitaire has a mind like Asgard's, Kamui notes; that if she believes in something, she should march down it without hestiation. But she'll have to convince her that despair is better than her hope. There it is again, time and time again, here, assembled before her right now, this 'hope'...
"... I can only simulate the likeliest of futures from the datapoints of the past. Miracles are not such convenient things that they can overturn centuries, nay, millennium of history, Solitaire ..."
But Solitaire speaks of how the power must be in the hands of the people, so they can break their shackles. Kamui grimaces further as Solitaire presses the advantage, and an axe is just simply something she can't ignore, being pressed backwards as she has.
"I am fighting on behalf of all those who cannot fight themselves. The fauna and flora of Filgaia, past and present, those that have been extinguished by the careless actions of living, sentient beings. Microplanktons cannot take arms and rebel against the invasive species that is 'humanity'... so in that regard, I will be their champion."
"My point," Kamui-DELTA advises ever so calmly to Venetia -- hey, did she succeed in treating her like a peer, not like chattel, no matter the indignation that she was showing her earlier? Venetia seems to respond well to reasonable argument, so she also doubles down on this.
"...is that technology alone does not save communities, does not save worlds. I use Guild Galad as an example because the earliest of settlers found Dragon Fossil technology necessary to their survival. But over the centuries, what started as simple, honest-minded survival transformed into something so despicable that I am now speaking to the victims of even just the most recent wars in the area as we speak."
She narrows her eyes. "I can sense the hope within you. The meta-thallium Vakero left behind... it could revolutionise the world in a remarkably quick amount of time. But the spirit of a revolution always becomes lost in the coming mediocrity of bureaucracy. The lofty dreams of revolutionaries like Vakero and Sophia quickly become encumbrances to those who take up the wheel of government, even ten, twenty, thirty years later..." Ida already confirms she has every right to feel that rage.
"And yet, Ida Everstead-Rey, Venetia Vuong, if you were to stand here before me, to rebutt against me with hope in your heart, that you can change Guild Galad for the better..."
She would believe them. Because she is Kamui, and Kamui is trusting and compassionate.
But it scares her so, knowing their legacies may soon be tarnished!
She can't admit this.
Acacia, similarly, comes to an earnest rebuttal, the way she expected the journalist to. That it's important to not just consider the long-term, but the day to day is important too...
But when Acacia says it probably doesn't mean much to her when she says 'we can record their passing', something stirs them up. "I am nothing if not a record of the past. The passing of the sum total of all that is Zeboim. Their grief, their angst, their despair... but also their joy and mirth... their music, poetry... their banal social media posts..."
Her eyes narrow further. "I'll say the same thing to you as I said to Gami. Face me with all your might, Acacia. Because one way or another, one of us will have to tell the tale that happened here today -- and your pen's work is not yet finished."
What comes is more tricky than expected, courtesy of Acacia; where she's anticipating head-on attack, she's instead being cornered, shots firing into little explosions that deny her area, force her back towards her aircraft. One of them even ends up clipping her, and her systems start to cave in under the pressure.
Juni speaks up, and Kamui regards her for a moment longer. She stares at her, quizzically. "... your tale is not one of this world, and yet, it is familiar nonetheless. I had dared to reserve hope that elseworld, in a star far away, that things would be different, and yet..."
There's always a wild card. Just got to ask for help...
"Then tell me. Tell me of the mistakes you made, sharpshooter. I am nothing if not a record of all fates, from the time I was born, to when I will expire. I would have your story too."
Even when Juni has her sights in her, she doesn't seem to flinch.
Hicalu's reaction causes Kamui to flinch, because ultimately, Kamui is Kamui, no matter how hard she pretends she's tu
<Pose Tracker> Kamui has posed.
Hicalu's reaction causes Kamui to flinch, because ultimately, Kamui is Kamui, no matter how hard she pretends she's turned her heart. But right now, she can't abandon everything... she can't, right? "... good," she answers as he summons his Symbology.
"No matter how small your soul is, how small your imprint is on the world, every half-inch soul matters. You have the right to resist me with all your strength."
DELTA, perhaps, knows all too well that Ruth exists on a level much more similarly as them; the way she processes through that despair, and quietly gives her answer is all too evident. But Kamui-DELTA doesn't speak of their history to scorn them, because to do that would be to ignore all the little cogs that make up the machinations of everything that made her... her.
Why, indeed?
Ruth comments on how she shows concern for Hicalu, at the same time she's ready to sacrifice him. She says she can give no answer... that will answer for it. Sometimes, they'll never know why such cruetly has to happen -- that it doesn't make sense.
"Do I really not know why such cruelty has to happen?" Kamui asks in turn. "I can point to the pages of history. I can point to the societal pressures brought about by rapid change, by the rapidly devolving manner in which hegemony always bears itself -- the overclass will always distract its subalterns to fighting and killing each other. I don't accept that we don't know where such cruelty comes from! I can't..."
Clarine suffers, and Kamui doesn't really like that; but she has to do what she must, because she is set on her course. But the Seraph resists, and with her words...
... she met her.
Then, through them, she met those in ARMS. And she met other people, who stood beside her, reassured her, nurtured her wounded spirit...
...
She can't hold it in any longer.
"I am scared, Clarine! I am scared to hope! I knew that flying here, executing upon this plan, that you would all stand before me, hearts full of hope! And the most frightening part is that... I want to believe you! I want to hope! I do believe you can change the world for the better, to support each other and inspire others to follow in your wake..."
She clutches both her hands to her heart.
"But every time I do, the memories of everyone fade, short-lived as their lives are. Their legacies are passed on in whispers, mutated and corrupted over time, in the wake of newer generations that don't hold these values, having never suffered the way you did -- and without fail, the promise of quick riches and self-indulgence always seep in, and what was once a sincere message of hope becomes a 'nice to have', or worse, a bludgeon to oppress and segregate."
A flash of hurt and frustration comes to those black eyes.
"And this is part of 'being human', as you said, Acacia. The right to make these mistakes, as you said, Gami, is theirs. And yet... how unsatisfying and frustrating that all feels! Is this the folly of being created with a wider scope, a wider lens, than one sentient being should ever have? Is it as Ruth said, that sometimes, it just does not make sense, and no matter how much I try to quantify, try to simulate, try to find an Answer..."
That seems to drive her over some unforeseen edge.
"I promised Asgard I would spend all my strength to fulfill the vision of this future... I can't simply cast my hopes on a 'maybe'! It hurts too much! I have hoped, and hoped, and hoped again and again, only to be the only one left standing in the wake of such scorned legacy!"
The Reploid rises into the air, broken fragments of armour and scrapped cloth in her wake. Kamui-DELTA rises further, out of reach of most conventional attacks -- and then the deck of Heimdall Gazzo begins to rattle, as that embedded aircraft sticking out of it begins to shake itself loose... and pull back towards her. She lands upon it, her wings connecting to form a truly devastating visage of weaponry and devastation.
"I wished I did not have to use this Nova Strike, but... this is the only option left to me in the limited time that I have. Farewell."
The horizon first flashes with an ominous cascade of lasers, each firing from her very wingtips; there's an innumerable sort, zig-zagging, criss-crossing every which way, but it's clear what the outcome will be:
The deck of the Heimdall Gazzo won't survive this.
But there's an opportunity. You are no stranger to feats of agility, in your various many trials and dungeons and Digs. There is a platform available to you -- on the very aircraft that Kamui herself is standing on, firing upon you. But there is no path towards it, from here to there... save for Hicalu -- as a strange platform seems to manifest just for him, back towards the Heimdall Gazzo's interior, if he should so choose. Did Ruth's comment get to her?
That's not an issue, is it?
Yes, it's time to...
(BGM: (BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBH434reWBk Decisive Battle - the End of the World - FM Synth ver.)
TRANSCEND YOUR LIMUITS !!
\\ ' PRESS (X) ____
\\//________________/ \
'\\________________ 35 |
// \\ \____/
(SCENE NOTE: The platform you're standing on is going to be destroyed! React to the +qte, and then pose yourself moving towards and landing on the aircraft Kamui is standing on in any fashion that you deem appropriate.)
_____________________________| QUICK TIME EVENT!!!|_____________________________ _ The End of the World _ _ _ _ _ _ Zhang Xiumei, Gami, Acacia Saitani, Seraph Clarine, Solitaire Collier, Ida _ _ Everstead-Rey, Venetia Vuong, Ruth Pauling, Azoth, Hicalu Wilwisp, and Juni _ _ Vandrer: _ _ +qte/react <guard/evade/charge>/<guard/evade/charge>/<guard/evade/charge> _
QTE!!! Challenge Result: Moderate Success! Solitaire Collier takes 72 damage and gains 30 FP! QTE!!! Challenge Result: Full Success! Gami takes 0 damage and gains 15 FP! GS: Gami enters CONDITION GREEN!! QTE!!! Challenge Result: Low Success! Seraph Clarine takes 111 damage and gains 45 FP! QTE!!! Challenge Result: Full Success! Acacia Saitani takes 0 damage and gains 15 FP! QTE!!! Challenge Result: Low Success! Hicalu Wilwisp takes 114 damage and gains 45 FP! QTE!!! Challenge Result: Low Success! Azoth takes 107 damage and gains 45 FP! QTE!!! Challenge Result: Moderate Success! Ida Everstead-Rey takes 80 damage and gains 30 FP! QTE!!! Challenge Result: Moderate Success! Zhang Xiumei takes 71 damage and gains 30 FP! QTE!!! Challenge Result: Low Success! Ruth Pauling takes 107 damage and gains 45 FP! QTE!!! Challenge Result: Moderate Success! Venetia Vuong takes 78 damage and gains 30 FP!
<Pose Tracker> Zhang Xiumei has posed.
Kamui's own despair, Xiumei thinks. Her eyes widen -- but she nods to Gami. They can't ignore that.
But she looks at Azoth, and her eyes widen for a moment. "A-Azoth," she says, her voice catching. "Please! Don't--don't let it get inside of your head again! You're not a mistake!"
Hicalu uses a spell -- and an aura of fiery light infuses Xiumei. She glances at him, once, and nods. "Thank you! Just... hold out, a little longer!"
Clarine's light washes over Xiumei, lingering about her. "Thank you, Miss Clarine," she says, as she looks back to Kamui.
Kamui tells her how she has grown. Xiumei's mouth opens; it's touching, except in the circumstances, it is worrying too. "Kamui! I... I'm glad you think so, but... please remember, it's only because we had you with us!"
Avile chimes in, too: "I still ended up with the people I cared about! That's all I ever wanted! I didn't want to keep fighting and losing people... but I didn't want to stop and still lose people! It's a trade off that I'll pay gladly!"
Kamui flies up into the air. Xiumei looks up, with wide eyes -- and then lasers begin slashing through the deck of the Heimdall Gazzo. Xiumei jumps over a beam as it cleaves through the deck, cutting a gash clean through it, and part of it falls away.
She leaps, hitting another part of the Heimdall Gazzo as it is carved away, and leaps over -- but not before she hits the side of the aircraft that Kamui is on, hard. She grunts -- and then throws a hand down, pushes herself up, and launches into a sliding kick across it.
She comes up at the last second. The Pulse Saber forms in her hand.
"You think I'd let you kill me again!?" Varius replies. "If you're scared of something... then it means it's powerful! The three of us, Gami, Sparky, Clarine, that damn reporter... we're all here because we've got hope in you!"
She slashes out as she stands up, the Pulse Saber slashing across her -- and then with a backhanded slash, back down over Kamui.
GS: Zhang Xiumei has attacked Kamui with Pulse Saber - Double Slash! GS: Zhang Xiumei has gained 1 Combo! GS: Zhang Xiumei takes 61 damage from Reaper! GS: Disease and Mighty expired! GS: Zhang Xiumei has completed her action. GS: Kamui solidly guards Zhang Xiumei's Pulse Saber - Double Slash for 60 hit points! GS: FP up! Countermeasures, Guard bonus, and Sufferer activated!
<Pose Tracker> Gami has posed.
It would be all too easy for Gami to have decided not to fight Kamui. What stake does she have in the world of today, a world that has long since left her behind?
...There is an answer to that. But she does not express it now.
She does not express it as she sees Azoth's distortions magnify. To destroy...
She has to wonder, what will come of Azoth's next command. "Azoh," she says. "...Is this truly your will?"
But there are many caught up here. Venetia has the idea to use this place as a 'seed' of a city. Gami looks towards her for a moment. "...It could," she allows her. But should it be?
That is up to the, or so Gami might say. Perhaps Acacia's choice. As one of those specks...
She hopes that Acacia's will ill reach Kamui, too.
Even Hicalu, who seemed so afraid, is sure that he can help. Gami feels his Symbologial spell bolster her. She feels the strength in her mechanical limbs as a result. "...Thank you," she says. "To cherish your own life... That is the truest answer we can give to despair."
And Clarine... Clarine speaks of what changed. It is a familiar story to Gami, and one she knows well, because it is so alike to her story. She feels the power in her processors, in her systems, rom Clarine's Light too.
"Thank you," she says.
She even sees Ruth, Ruth speaking of the faces of Kamui's friends. No, it is not a nice-looking grin at all. There is something very strange, very fell indeed about this woman, this Hellion.
No answer... Perhaps that's true. No verbal answer can be enough.
"Filgaia is not our 'garden', Kamui. It is not ours to own, ours to prune and shape. ...We are but guests on its surface, like all of these organics. The only difference is that our stay is much longer."
Kamui relents for only a moment, but...
"I understand," Gami says. "Then I will face you, with all my might. For the sake of 'those feelings' that we both acknowledge... For the sake of the worlds that we wish to see."
"It is not our place, even so... to decide what the form this star's future will take." She promised Asgard, she says. Because it hurts too much...
"I will bear all the pain you bring to me, Kamui," Gami promises quietly. "The pain of loss--the fear that hope will never succeed. The agony of seeing it again, and again..."
"I was made to endure. I will endure this, too. I will accept your pain..."
Kamui uses her Nova Strike. Gami leaps to the side of that first cascade of lasers, running one after another at her feet. She barely evades, keeping ahead of each one after another. But the deck will not survive...
Gami does not relent. She rushes to the platform, and LEAPS into the air, throwing her hand before herself to create platforms for herself that hang in the air, great jagged rocks that are flat on their top and easy to traverse. She runs across one, another, and then--
LEAPS toward Kamui. "Varius is right! We hold 'hope', Kamui. And Avile is right, too. To do nothing, to do something... always there is fear. Always there is loss."
"But the journey, I would never trade. Not with you at my side!"
Gami traces a shape in the air before herself, and unseen Symbols flare to life, the ancient magic of the Zeboim burning into being. A great and terrible shield of pure shadow manifests before Gami--and then she surges across the platform, slamming toward Kamui shield-first. "All of these stories today will continue!"
GS: Gami spends 2 Combo on Headshot! GS: Gami enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Gami has attacked Kamui with Shadow Shield - Symbol! GS: Gami has gained 1 Combo! GS: Gami gains 24 THP from her Cautious! GS: Gami enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Gami has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
Azoth's truth. The whole truth. He does not yet have all of that, but the fragments, the story they tell... His fingers remain poised, thumb to middle, metal joints of his muscles rattling. Even as Solitaire nudges him. Even as Ida reaches to him, futilely trying to hold him together.
Every laser cleaves by him, destroying the the deck of Heimdall Gazzo. Azoth falls.
Power surges red in error, and instead of an echoing snap comes a thunderous crack of energy. Wild, erratic ARM energy crackles and explodes outward. Ida's Medium contains that detonation, mitigating any of the collateral damage, but Azoth himself is still engulfed.
And then he is gone.
...
"ERROR: PROMISE IN PROGRESS. CANNOT COMPROMISE OPERATION. ABORTING SEQUENCE."
Pixels of blue and fuchsia gather in the sky, reforming into a silhouette that launches itself onto the platform.
The masquerade is gone: the android becomes a beastly construct. But that black chassis is not precisely the same as the 'Solaris Asset' some may have battled before. The only red now comes from Clarine's support, his erroneous light replaced with the true color of his core. Now the way light burns off of him, the way it forms his claws, his blades, the other details and features against a skeletal body, cuts a different silhouette.
With a beckoning of his claws, the capsule materializes beside him.
Data pours through his circuits. Every lie he's told. Every lie he will tell. Every promise he couldn't keep. Every promise he won't keep. Infinite futures, and not a single one where he succeeds in anything but becoming another tragedy.
"I promised," he repeats, voice flanging with a resonance beyond himself. Azoth looks up at Kamui.
"I promised. And so did you."
Sound resonates outward, overlapping, overlaying: data taking audial shape as Azoth's calculations are made manifest into physical form. It ripples and pulses outward in rhythmic shockwaves, conveying... hope.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhwnHB0NBqA
It seems his destruction was not the only thing he remembered.
"Illogical assertion detected. Current conclusion requires your participation in its completition. Reccommended action: recalculate your role. The future is undefined. But the future's value... is positive infinity."
Azoth gathers his own memories... but not of how the Drifters have saved the world. They have. He's recorded it. But no. He conveys to DELTA, to Kamui, much smaller moments. How there has been understanding and befriending of unlike friendships -- including himself, including Kamui... humans, Hydean, beastfolk, Crimson Noble, Seraphim, Hellion, offworld alien, all manner of living machine... each able to find common ground and call each other friend. This is a world of many creatures, and in spite of the mistakes that are made, these small, precious moments, these precious feelings, are still real.
These are not maybes. These happen, every day. And they are far too valuable to willfully destroy.
"Observe."
This is Azoth's truth, as he currently knows it to be. Right now, it is real.
GS: Azoth spends 1 Combo on Link! GS: Azoth has attacked Azoth with Convergence! GS: Azoth has attacked Ruth Pauling with Convergence! GS: Azoth has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Convergence! GS: Azoth has attacked Venetia Vuong with Convergence! GS: Azoth has attacked Solitaire Collier with Convergence! GS: Azoth has attacked Juni Vandrer with Convergence! GS: Azoth has attacked Zhang Xiumei with Convergence! GS: Azoth has attacked Seraph Clarine with Convergence! GS: Azoth has attacked Gami with Convergence! GS: Azoth has attacked Acacia Saitani with Convergence! GS: Azoth has attacked Hicalu Wilwisp with Convergence! GS: Azoth has launched an attack Link! GS: Azoth accepts Azoth's Convergence for 0 hit points! GS: Blitz applied to Azoth! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Blitz! Azoth has attacked Kamui with exec.azoc CALL BY FUTURE! GS: Azoth has gained 1 Combo! GS: Azoth takes 45 damage from Reaper! GS: Reaper expired! GS: Azoth has completed his action. GS: Seraph Clarine accepts Azoth's Convergence for 0 hit points! GS: Blitz applied to Seraph Clarine! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Zhang Xiumei accepts Azoth's Convergence for 0 hit points! GS: Blitz applied to Zhang Xiumei! GS: Gami accepts Azoth's Convergence for 0 hit points! GS: Blitz applied to Gami! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Ruth Pauling accepts Azoth's Convergence for 0 hit points! GS: Blitz applied to Ruth Pauling! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated! GS: Hicalu Wilwisp accepts Azoth's Convergence for 0 hit points! GS: Blitz applied to Hicalu Wilwisp! GS: CRITICAL! Venetia Vuong accepts Azoth's Convergence for 0 hit points! GS: Blitz applied to Venetia Vuong! GS: Venetia Vuong enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Disease expired! GS: CRITICAL! Kamui suffers a terrible blow from Gami's Shadow Shield - Symbol for 113 hit points! GS: Quick and Shield applied to Gami! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated! GS: Kamui partially guards Azoth's exec.azoc CALL BY FUTURE for 57 hit points! GS: FP up! Countermeasures and Sufferer activated! GS: Solitaire Collier accepts Seraph Clarine's Acuteness for 0 hit points! GS: Hyper applied to Solitaire Collier! GS: Quick applied to Seraph Clarine! GS: Solitaire Collier accepts Azoth's Convergence for 0 hit points! GS: Blitz applied to Solitaire Collier! GS: Solitaire Collier enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Disease expired! QTE!!! Challenge Result: Low Success! Juni Vandrer takes 113 damage and gains 45 FP! GS: Juni Vandrer enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Disease expired! GS: Acacia Saitani accepts Azoth's Convergence for 0 hit points! GS: Blitz applied to Acacia Saitani! GS: Acacia Saitani enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Disease expired! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey accepts Azoth's Convergence for 0 hit points! GS: Blitz applied to Ida Everstead-Rey! GS: Juni Vandrer accepts Seraph Clarine's Acuteness for 0 hit points! GS: Hyper applied to Juni Vandrer! GS: Juni Vandrer accepts Azoth's Convergence for 0 hit points! GS: Blitz applied to Juni Vandrer!
<Pose Tracker> Juni Vandrer has posed.
Working her fingers a few times to settle the grip, Juni talks as she works, "That's life isn't it? Our worlds aren't perfectly peaceful, but it's not for a lack of trying. See home every time I close my eyes at night on this dustball." She gestures around, "These people are your wild cards. Get them the help they need to make the world a better place."
There's a question of her mistakes though. She laughs darkly, "Which ones do you want? Missions I disagreed with, but took? Jumping on a mission to recover the bodies of my people without a ride home? Being so uptight about tripping some Fed tripwire that would get some miserable retaliation somewhere and isolating myself even further?"
She rests her cheek to the rifle, finger tightening on the trigger. "Even here I'm probably making a mistake talking too much. Had to suck up my pride and realize I was an idiot and even now I haven't really gotten to know enough people of these worlds."
A pop up notes something, "Did learn a new language though."
The trigger is almost pulled after that little personal joke. Too late though
Any other response is interrupted with a string of explosions. She slings the rifle over her shoulder and moves into a sprint that leads into her running on all fours even. And she's far enough away having taken cover further back that she's caught in the blast and flung, just shy of escaping. She lands with a thud, a burst of profanities and a roll until she stops, laying on her side.
"Yeah. Alright. Shooting time now." She groans out and pushes herself up. Numb still from before, she's pretty sure this is going to hurt later. The rifle is brought around, low and ready. "You ask for help. Reach out. Do what I haven't done. Getting to know people's the trick isn't it?" She did admit she's made a few mistakes.
The rifle is swung around and with much less fanfare, she lines up a shot and tries to take down the problem before they're out of options.
GS: Juni Vandrer spends 2 Combo on Headshot! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Blitz! Juni Vandrer has attacked Kamui with End of the Line! GS: Juni Vandrer has gained 2 Combo! GS: Juni Vandrer takes 54 damage from Reaper! GS: Reaper expired! GS: Juni Vandrer has completed her action. GS: Kamui suffers a terrible blow from Juni Vandrer's End of the Line for 248 hit points! GS: Quick applied to Juni Vandrer! GS: FP up! Countermeasures and Sufferer activated!
<Pose Tracker> Acacia Saitani has posed.
Behind her, something is happening with Azoth. She's not sure what - like it or not, she doesn't have a whole lot of spare brainpower to look behind her right now as she mentally trudges through the deluge of visions and fights against them, but all she can do is trust the people behind her to have her back. Clarine's light chases after it, leaving her more buoyed in its wake. She can only hope that they've all done right by the Seraph - even if that's just one piece of the whole landscape, it's still an important one to her.
Ahead of her, or more like at her side, Gami points out he true nature of the paired Reploid they're facing down. It's not despair that's driving the pair in front of them, it's love - and even if Acacia had come to that conclusion herself, it still feels like a blow to the stomach. If it were despair, she could get angry or supportive. If it were despair, then the kotatsu and the mikan might even be an option. But when the arguments against their interference come from a position of caring and genuine concern, when they have a logical backing, it's not like she can just shrug them off. And it's not like there's an answer that would neatly tie everything up, either.
Kamui tells her she is nothing if not a record of the past; the reporter furrows her brow at that, shaking her head. "You're a lot more than that," she whispers. "You're Kamui, carrying the memories of your past forwards along with Gami. You're Kamui-DELTA, who's holding on to a tiny, fearful hope for the future. DELTA's whole process involves looking forwards to the future, extrapolating outwards." She pauses; she's feeling like she's losing track of what she wants to say, and she shakes her head to try to clear it. "... I don't want you to just be trapped like this."
"... I'll face you with everything I've got, sure. But it's not because only one of us is going to walk away," she adds in a low voice, a rumble behind it as she pours her feelings into it. "Because I might not be able to extrapolate the future all that well, but I know damn well that my pen will only last so long. Because I know that a story spreads a hell of a lot better if there's two people to tell it rather than one. And because I know damn well that it's not fair - to you or to me - to just leave writing history up to the winner."
Kamui's composure breaks at Clarine's entreaty; something changes in Acacia's expression, and she grits her teeth as she suddenly sets her jaw, facing the fear and unhappiness in the Reploid's face. It's sheer instinct that makes her ground her stance as the array of lasers appear, and then sheer pique that throws her forwards in a scrambling dodge, and rise up in a pistoning run. More than any concern, there's suddenly something she finds herself needing to say to the Reploid in front of her.
That conviction is what sends her out over the edge of the platform in a running leap into empty sky, arms and legs pinwheeling for distance. There's a flash of red beneath her - the Nephele, its frame glimmering with the same white energy she normally coalesces into her blasts. She's braced for the impact as best she can already, but it still jars her frame as the Gear catches her on one fist and then launches her upwards in a wild flip towards where Kamui has lifted up to.
She lands hard enough that she nearly bites her tongue off, instantly regretting her habit of swearing under her breath. Stumbling forwards from the landing nearly sends her right back off the platform again, and she's forced to grip as hard as she can onto the edge as she lets her heart come back down from where it's lodged itself slightly above her brain.
Then she sucks in a breath, pulls herself up through sheer annoyance, and rounds on the Reploid waiting for them. There's something she has to say - to Kamui, to DELTA, to both of them. It's something she's said before, but sometimes it needs saying again. "It's alright to be scared, you idiot! It's alright to be frustrated, or angry, or unsatisfied! It's alright to be conflicted! You think humans are the only ones who get to make mistakes, or make excuses because of it? Of course not! The same goes for you and everyone else here, omniscient AI or not!"
She heaves another breath, quivering from the adrenaline rushing through her frame. "... but we can't do anything to help try to understand where you're coming from unless you tell us," she concludes, panting for breath. "And maybe-- maybe humanity can't do it alone, sure, I could believe that. But we don't have the sole stake to this planet. There's you to help us, and the Veruni, and the elves, and the Hyadeans, and whoever the heck else. And anyone who says either of you don't have a stake in the world, they're the ones I'll happily punch the hell out of. Even if it's you yourself."
... she looks like she fully intends to press that with an attack, but Gami is on the attack already and Azoth's own feelings are radiating outwards, and most of all her chest kind of hurts from the altitude and the yelling. She holds out a hand to pause, doubling over slightly as she catches her breath. "Hold on, hold on-- I'm out of shape, okay, let me catch my breath--" she whines. Is it wise to trust DELTA-Kamui that much? Acacia?!
GS: Blitz! Acacia Saitani has attacked Acacia Saitani with Retraction! GS: Acacia Saitani has gained 2 Combo! GS: Acacia Saitani takes 56 damage from Reaper! GS: Reaper expired! GS: Acacia Saitani has completed her action. GS: Acacia Saitani heals Acacia Saitani! She gains 86 temporary hit points! GS: Cover applied to Acacia Saitani! GS: Acacia Saitani enters CONDITION GREEN!!
<Pose Tracker> Hicalu Wilwisp has posed.
On behalf of all those who cannot fight...
Even so, Hicalu's still here.
"L-l-look, I -- I'm glad y-you're stickin' up for us," Hicalu tries to reason with Delta (Kamui?), waving his hands, open-palmed and without weapon. He has... a stick. He hasn't telescoped it out. It's more for walking than fighting, anyway. "B-b-but..."
This is, of course, a very scary thing to say to -- what is this, a mecha-angel-of-death? Is that what's going on here? Pretty sure that's what's going on here. Hicalu musters his scraps of courage to yell, anyway: "I-I'm not feeling very 'championed' right now! A-a-am I j-just not the right kind of n-normal guy?! T-that scary woman's right, y-you know!" That scary woman, of course, being Ruth. There are a lot of scary women. Like his sister, apparently -- no let's put that in a box and address it never. "E-even if I have the r-right to r-r-resist or whatever, i-it's so weird how I gotta d-do that when it sounds like you'd w-wanna help me out!"
Unfortunately --
"N-NO YOU DON'T GOTTA USE THAT OH GUARDIANS THAT SOUNDS BAD AAAAAAAAAA"
Nova Strike happens --
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA"
And Hicalu just starts running around the deck in an utter panic --
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA"
And he actually DOES hop on that floating platform, and for a blissful, shining moment, it seems like he might scream his way right down this horror show in his hiding box --
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA"
Except he keeps screaming because that pesky thing called his 'conscience' pipes up in a tiny voice and then he starts screaming about that --
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA"
And he jumps OFF of the platform onto a crumbling bit of the remaining deck --
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA"
And scrambles over Gami's platforms while they're still sturdy enough to hold him --
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA"
And kind of lands face-first on the last one.
"ow."
His tail flops to the ground, defeated.
"Ow ow ow ow okay okay uh Rigodobrite's rocks what have I okay no that's fine I'm fine okay that's uh right they're," he peeks out from behind his fingers, "y-yeep", to see a truly outrageous amount of violence happening.
"O-o-okay, I'm gonna... I mean, I'll... s-see, um, normal people, u-um... I-I'm not really a fighter but... h-hey, you k-k-know how we get rid of t-table scraps in the d-desert?" He pushes himself up, all tail-poofed, and fumbles with his hand gestures. He proceeds to flub them. "A-ahhhh, come on!!" He whines, ears wilting down.
"Hey! I-I'm Hicalu Wilwisp! A-and this little guy, h-he's my..!"
His fingers fold over each other and fan out; finally, finally, he's able to spark the spell: "Dark Devourer!"
This is about when a demon from Hell tears into reality below Kamui and extends its tentacles up to drag her down into the hungry depths, and even when the spell fades and the demon is banished, those horrible tentacle suckers stay on and keep draining.
Is this... the secret life of an NPC?!
GS: Hicalu Wilwisp has activated Force Action: Fury Shot! GS: Hicalu Wilwisp spends 1 Combo on Poison! GS: Blitz! Hicalu Wilwisp has attacked Kamui with Dark Devourer! GS: Hicalu Wilwisp has gained 2 Combo! GS: Hicalu Wilwisp gains 6 THP from his Cautious! GS: Hicalu Wilwisp takes 45 damage from Reaper! GS: Disease expired! GS: Hicalu Wilwisp has completed his action. GS: CRITICAL! Kamui suffers a terrible blow from Hicalu Wilwisp's Dark Devourer for 209 hit points! GS: Disease and Poison applied to Kamui! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated!
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
"AZOTH!" Ida's voice is raw, agonized. A laser tears past her shoulder, and she stumbles back. There is a blast of light, barely-contained by Dinoginos' power, and Azoth is gone.
A strangled sob. A second laser rips into the deck next to Ida's right foot. A third glances off her shoulder, burning through her armored coat. Pain reminds Ida that she will die, too, if she does nothing. The martial artist's eyes blaze as she whirls to face Kamui atop her attack craft, and she begins to run. A laser slashes through the deck in front of her, sending molten debris plummeting to earth. Ida leaps, and the wind catches her, an updraft from the Zephyr Boots. Green motes glow around her, and leave a path behind her as she races upwards.
"KAMUI!" None of that agony has left as Ida refocuses on the anguished Reploid. She thrusts her right arm forward; there's a sharp thwip as a tendon-like tendril shoots out from beneath her wrist. It latches onto Kamui's craft. Ida pulls herself the rest of the way. But then--
Azoth's voice. Ida breathes again. She doesn't have the luxury of denial, and indeed, there's something beautiful about seeing him as himself, or one of himselves, free of those hideous overrides. She forces herself to take a breath.
"Kamui," Ida says, and this time, the agony is gone, replaced with a kind, tutelary tone. "We're here for you. You're not alone." Her right hand curls into a fist, gold-and-blue exoskeleton sliding free from her flesh. As the wind whips at her, she crosses the distance between her and the Reploid. Her fist ignites, blazes like a tiny sun.
And Ida drives that fist right towards one of those remote weapons, a wave of shattering force howling through the thin air.
She turns. That same hand will come to rest on Kamui's shoulder in a gentle pat, if she'll allow it.
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has activated Force Action: Full Clip! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey spends 5 Combo on Headshot and Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Blitz! Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Kamui with Unbroken Lotus Fist! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has gained 1 Combo! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey's stances have changed from Stoic to Avenger! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
Kamui has thousands of years of tragedy to point to. Maybe some far greater than any Ruth could ever have known, or helped cause (...'helped'). Things that threaten to compress certain feelings further in the face of sound reason, as her right hand grips the shaft of the embedded rifle tightly enough that her bare hand starts to go numb from cut circulation.
Those closer to Kamui's earlier days share their parts to all of this, putting themselves out (in some cases, a lot more pixel-digital-physical than others) towards greater hopes and trust for what can be, what's here now.
It's when Kamui lets out her feelings that a part of Ruth takes a whiff of something even more sweet than sugar itself can ever be, and... there's a silence there, to hold her tongue. She can't speak over it before Kamui moves again.
Heimdall Gazzo rattles, and Ruth strains to hold fast to where she is. The rifle, embedded as it is, is her lifeline in terms of balance and grip - even as it hurts her left arm further to do so, like this. She goes to a knee, as lasers criss-cross and burn. Even where none directly touch her, the heat would be enough to do in a biological body. The sense of temperature is lost to her, but not the resultant scalding pain of it.
She has to move - but she can't bear to let the rifle go. Ruth's teeth clench as she shakes and shudders, a yelp of pain and frustration where emotional bile nearly escapes while the weakness of too many years of battle threatens to root her to the deck's demise.
It's only when the paneling the rifle's embedded in comes loose that she can wrest it free, and even then, it's looking... dicey, she can make it to the platform(s), carrying the weight she does and running on bare feet that simply weren't meant to run on jagged terrain like this.
Somehow, she ends up taking to the air - she's not sure if she leapt or got flung. She laughs, somewhere between horror and exhileration, uncharacteristically of her. She already knows what she's doing and she's never really done it before. Celesti was... a wild time. It never quite got this wild.
Her rifle, gripped and held even in free-tumble-fall, is fired behind her. The kick-back of the Gae Buidhe/Dearg DC4 is among the most unruly of its kind. The idea, so long ago, that she could ever hold the weapon and withstand such was already a legendary feat.
That she used to do so four times in rapid sequence is what elevated her to another level beyond, in the 480s - a feat her physical health paid for a decade and some change later.
But here... the once, gives her just the boost to clear to the aircraft platform everyone else has gathered. It is not a graceful landing, with a hard tumble and searing, screaming pain in her left arm.
That the weapon doesn't fly out into the blue behind them even with her right hand not too convincingly communicating a solid hold can be credited to the particulars of the aircraft's contours, as Ruth rises to a kneel... bloodied, bruised, and her left arm limp.
"You're hurt. You're scared." Ruth murmurs the words that might not be able to be heard above all of this, as dull copper hair continues to violently whip across her eyes but can never blind her to that. "So... you'd let yourself become so strong, you could never be hurt or scared by that... idea of hope."
There's that wicked smile that could be a delirium brought by excruciating pain. Her eyes are closed. Tears don't yet escape her, as if the very idea of it were the last padlock on keeping what's inside her there.
Her breathing intensifies as she feels the movement of her left hand's fingers. She didn't shatter her arm (further). Flexing them hurts. Moving that arm hurts. That never stopped her from picking it up again. Malevolence coils across her left arm, teasing to correct this old shape of hers that she can't accept.
"Kamui... if it hurts," Ruth pauses as she sees the Granasian rosary along the length of her right arm, brief prayer as she picks up the rifle anew, staggers towards her, and faces up to her with wide, wild eyes of something behind the empty, sad gaze.
"Then LET IT!"
All shouted with the simultaneous resignation in despair of a creature who only ever felt their ongoing worth to the world is how much she could make it scream, hurt, and bleed... and someone who wants to believe they are anything other than a heartless monster that could be the kindest outlet to those who need shelter in their moment of weakness and hurt.
A contradiction.
All this, as she tries to run Kamui through with the bayonet blade to help her, which also seems counterproductive at face value.
GS: Ruth Pauling has activated Force Action: Fury Shot! GS: Ruth Pauling has activated Force Action: Snipe! GS: Ruth Pauling spends 1 Combo on Poison! GS: Blitz! Ruth Pauling has attacked Kamui with Scars of Celesti! GS: Ruth Pauling has gained 1 Combo! GS: Ruth Pauling takes 50 damage from Reaper! GS: Reaper expired! GS: Ruth Pauling has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Clarine has posed.
"You are quite welcome. Come - let us show her our light." Clarine replies to Xiumei, Azoth, and Gami with a respectful nod.
And Kamui... she's scared. Scared to hope, even though she so very much wants to. Clarine offers her a sad smile.
"Oh, Kamui..." Clarine murmurs, clasping her hands in front of her. "...I know. It hurts. I wish I could tell you that it will never happen again. ...But I cannot. But we are here! I am here. Please - let us share the burden of grief with you."
The only option left to Kamui... is a Nova Strike. From her wings, innumerable lasers begin to fire. With a gesture of her hands, mirrors begin to fly from Clarine's sleeves to intercept them.
...But, it soon becomes clear - there's far too many to defend against. And even then, the true threat is not the lasers themselves, but what they're doing to the Heimdall Gazzo. The deck begins to fall out from beneath them. Clarine, too, begins to fall. And yet...
"I... cannot accept a farewell such as this!" Clarine declares. Gravity has always had a tenuous grasp on her, but she is not quite capable of flying freely as some. ...But, she still has her methods. A platform of shimmering, rainbow light appears beneath her. Her descent slows as she approachs it... and then, she glides forward, her light tracing a path through the air in front of her. A path that carries her back to Kamui and the others. The resonating sound of data provided by Azoth - data and hope given form, it acts, too, as a beacon - a beacon with which she can find them all once more amidst the falling wreckage.
"Kamui, I must ask that you endure the light of hope I bring for just a little longer... Behold, now!" Clarine calls out.
To use this spell twice in one day... it's exhausting. But she will endure it - for both times today, she does it for the sake of one who means the world to her. Gold and violet light surround her, increasing the pace at which she is able to draw in and give form to power.
"O holy one, cast thy purifying light upon these corrupt souls..." Clarine incants. She ascends, her arms spread out wide. "Judgment!"
And from the heavens, pillars of light descend. This is her Judgment - it may be difficult to face, but there's kindness to it, too. This light is the proof of how far she's come - of having gone through the darkness, and emerged on the other side.
GS: Seraph Clarine spends 1 Combo on Link! GS: Blitz! 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 accepts Seraph Clarine's Enhance Cast for 0 hit points! GS: Restore! Disease and Reaper removed! GS: Hyper and Surge applied to Seraph Clarine! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Seraph Clarine enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Blitz! Seraph Clarine has attacked Kamui with Judgment! GS: Seraph Clarine has gained 1 Combo! GS: Seraph Clarine has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Venetia Vuong has posed.
Ida draws on the Mountain. The will of Dinoginos radiates outwards towards Venetia, interacting with the luminous light that Clarine always brings, and now, explicitly and willingly, shares; refulgent and ruby red.
But she's being spoken to.
Courtesy demands a response.
"It doesn't, no," Venetia tells Kamui, "but technology expands the possibilities of life. I can't believe that in a simpler way of technology we would somehow be kinder. I've heard stories about how my people were hundreds of years ago. The butchery of the face readers and all of that. That wasn't technology's fault! And now, through technology, we know it will never happen again--" Is this her face mask? This seems to be a heartfelt belief, at least.
"I've already started the change," Venetia says. "I can't change everything, but what I can change, I shall -- and if our grasp can reach higher, then--"
Then what?
Maybe she's right, Venetia thinks, even as she rises upwards. She can fly. I can't fly, Venetia thinks, cursing the unfairness. If...
But she can't. An aircraft, far away, begins to approach -- Venetia looks towards it, and then she runs. She has no plans and no anchors, but there is someone there. Gami -- the mechanoid woman who lives again. Hadn't she been dead? And yet, Venetia thinks. Wasn't that the one where Marivel's meta-thallium--
Either way, Venetia runs after her, leaping across platforms that give Gami very little trouble whatsoever. Panting at the top of them, Venetia looks towards the others. Gami bursts up -- and while she cannot quite understand what Azoth is doing, his Message seems clear. His [Intention].
Hope.
Venetia straightens up. She reaches into her Crest Pouch again. Another Crest is brought up and activated wordlessly. Venetia rises up into the air about six inches and then seems to come to a complete stop relative to the platform's frame of reference. She steals a glance about herself for a moment, as if to make sure she's not about to fall like a bad zoetrope animation.
And then another Crest comes up. The one with the aiming reticule.
Venetia raises it one handed -- and then lowers it just the tiniest fraction.
"I'm afraid I can't tell you much about hope and despair," Venetia says. "Rather Dinoginosian of me, I suppose. I just keep on going. Through good and through ill. But I've always tried to be a horse on the plain, not a train on its tracks, eh? Maybe I'm slower, but I get there in the end, and I see some things not on the itinerary."
"And as for hope-- Here's mine."
And then the Star Blazer f-
The Star Blazer fir--
The St-
The Star Blazer ch--
Is she just screwing it up on purpose???
No. The Star Blazer invocation gathers and regathers and accumulates manifold; the core spell, though powerful, is not that remarkable, a hypercompressed burst of energetic fire as classified by the Stygian school. For Venetia's goal isn't to obliterate Kamui. Perhaps, barely, she could -- it's a very powerful gun.
Her goal is to destroy the Nova Striker's *guns*.
GS: Venetia Vuong has activated Force Action: Full Clip! GS: CRITICAL! Kamui suffers a terrible blow from Ida Everstead-Rey's Unbroken Lotus Fist for 357 hit points! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated! GS: Venetia Vuong spends 4 Combo on Headshot and Gatling, loading 2 into Gatling! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Formation! Blitz! Venetia Vuong has attacked Kamui with World's Hope Sign ~Star Blazer~! GS: Venetia Vuong has gained 1 Combo! GS: Venetia Vuong takes 49 damage from Reaper! GS: Reaper expired! GS: Venetia Vuong has completed her action. GS: Kamui suffers a terrible blow from Ruth Pauling's Scars of Celesti for 194 hit points! GS: Disease and Poison applied to Kamui! GS: Disrupt blocked! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated! GS: Gamble: Low! Kamui suffers a terrible blow from Seraph Clarine's Judgment for 183 hit points! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated! GS: CRITICAL! Kamui suffers a terrible blow from Venetia Vuong's World's Hope Sign ~Star Blazer~ for 340 hit points! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated!
<Pose Tracker> Solitaire Collier has posed.
Solitaire is not oblivious to the fact that a rosary could be seen as akin to a chain around one's neck--only instead of a Master enslaving you, it is God. There's a reason that Ganon's 'No Gods No Masters' callout appealed to her. The first half is as meaningful as the second.
SOlitaire isn't sure if the Delta she is fighting here is exactly what she got told to expect but she doesn't really understand how this 'Infection' works.
Solitaire does kind of have a lot in common with Asgard--not that she'd know it.
"Why can't a miraculous moment overturn millen...muillen..."
Mill-Ehn-Ee--Uhm
Solitaire sweats, she doesn't think she can say this word! "A whole lot of history?" She says instead.
Kamui successfully confuses Solitaire further by talking more about microplankton because she doesn't actually know what microplankton is.
MEANWHILE Clarine provides some support magic. She has not even met Clarine once and she does not give Clarine a look of gratitude upon feeling her mystical energies. Instead she kind of just stares at her. Her tail--wait did it wiggle?? Solitaire is, apparently, not as totally made of stone as Asgard.
Unfortunately, maybe the pain of five thousand years can't be comradely nudged by an elbow after all--or maybe...
No, he is still keeping that thing with him. He's still okay. This is just an articulation armor mode switch.
Azoth's data bolsters Solitaire further. So far, Solitaire only had her own beliefs supporting the knowledge that the solidarity between the commonfolk of Filgaia is something that is natural--and must be bolstered and grown. But Azoth has DATA. Facts. Evidence!!
Maybe, Solitaire thinks, a will bolstered by truth is stronger than any will just on its own. She had gone to reassure Azoth but instead Azoth had reassured her!
Instead Solitaire has to leap from platform to platform to avoid falling to her death. Fortunately, platforming comes easy to Solitaire but...
Pressing X to charge her limits does not. She readies her axe and starts hacking and coughing right then, sinking to one knee. Faint speckles of blood dot her hand. Her voice might give out before she can convince Kamui of anything!
"I don't know what that microplankton is... But you should save them with your friends." She manages in a hoarse whisper.
And as she whispers this--and Azoth sets down the capsule. Maybe Azoth's own data pouring into it is what gets it to finish charging as the lights flash from yellow to green
<Pose Tracker> Solitaire Collier has posed.
A ding reverberates throughout the chamber and a holographic emanation erupts out from it. The crackling blue holographic form of Marivel appears. Her cape flutters behind her. Hob and Nob hover nearby.
"I've been in despair for so long, holding onto what I felt was a singular thread of hope but perhaps it was not hope I seized but simply a lifeline--something that could keep me moving on no matter how many horrors piled upon me, how many losses. I could find peace with those that lived full lives and then passed on to a place I could not reach. 'That is the way humans are,' I told myself but in truth I never understood it. Why are people, why are humans given life just to die at the end of it? What is the point of that? Does death give meaning? If death gives meaning, then what does that mean for the Deathless? Am I without meaning? That cannot be the case. I have seen meaning in Lumen's children..." She pauses. "My children. The reploids. But the name, 'Reploid', in being our children did we simply make copies of ourselves with all our virtues and flaws? Lumen's hope was that Kamui would be a shining beacon of justice and hope that would save the world. And so she was given the tools to be that. A living weapon for the good of all."
"But we also gifted her a family. A life. Loved ones. Imperfect people to compliment our perfect warrior, our perfect daughter. We did not need to be a perfect family, of course, we simply needed to be a family at all. No matter our own flaws, our love for her never wavered."
Marivel takes a breath and lets it out slowly, letting that sit for a moment.
"And in turn, she found love." Marivel says. "That's what makes it worth it, right? Finding love? If nothing matters, then those precious brief moments where we get to be with the people we love and just enjoy it, when those dark clouds are pushed away from us--that is the point isn't it? I'd been searching for Answers for almost as long as I've been back to Filgaia from the Memory Maze."
"Maybe Kamui, Delta--the both of you. Maybe you inherited this yearning from me. This pain of losing those you love again and again and wondering--if that is how it always ends, what the point of it all is?"
<Pose Tracker> Solitaire Collier has posed.
BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRglxxTLVdY&ab_channel=KensukeUshio-Topic
"This is the answer I found. Even for us eternal beings... In those moments we can find meaning. Humans are mortal but immortal. But we are immortal but mortal. Do you understand? As I send this to you, this lesson I learn when Liath and Mariel and my friends from the moon come to rescue me--this Baton that I refused to pick up, not even seeing the point of it all! There is a gulf of difference between eternal beings who cannot see their coming end and those that do."
"There is no difference between eternal beings and those who can see their coming end. Mortals pass a baton from one to another, carrying forward an eternal dream. They extend it to us and we can choose to take it. I did not know what it meant, but you can take that Baton as well. Though I once chose the name Ouroboros for I was trapped in an eternal moment, I shall instead take the name Caduceus. I shall become a traveler and a trader of stories and hearts. Rather than a weapon, I gift this possibility to both of you along with the knowledge that for me..."
"You were the Answer. No matter where you go you will never be alone."
"...But I'll leave the rest to Kamui."
And so the Marivel hologram steps away, revealing...
<Pose Tracker> Kamui has posed.
The aircraft is still ascending, as if responding to her wills; they've reached a truly dangerous point for living beings to continue, without assistance. Oxygen is rapidly thinning, further and further. And yet--
ARMS, the Drifters, and Odessa (well, Solitaire) catch up to her.
Xiumei comes first, landing on the side of the craft and pulling and kicking herself up. The Pulse Saber is in her hands. She's forced to manifest her own saber -- Gami's Saber, those that are familiar can note -- and clash against Xiumei's; in her weakened state, she can't win the weapon clash, and a graze is drawn across her robes.
"A-Avile..." Avile speaks of how she ended up with the people she cared about. ... that that was all she wanted. ... wasn't that all she wanted as well? Shouldn't she be happy that she ended up with Marivel, Varius, Avile, Rikold, Gami... everyone from her past, hale and safe and sound?
Perhaps she was always ashamed that there was still such frustration and darkness in her heart, even if she got everything she wanted...
"It is so powerful, Varius, Xiumei... it's so powerful it's burned me so many times. Every time we cling to hope..."
Filgaia is not their garden, Gami advises. It isn't theirs to own, theirs to prune and shape... they are but guests. The only difference is that theirs is a much longer stay.
"Then who...?" Kamui questions. "When the garden is devoured by those that would nip upon its leaves, sup on every fruit, and lay waste to its soil, who is the groundskeeper that has the right to correct it? I thought myself best positioned to play the role, and yet... I could not be the seed-sower."
Gami promises to bear all the pain she brings her, and endure... the pain of loss, the fear that hope will not succeed...
"... it isn't fair. It isn't fair!" Kamui shouts. "You should not have to..."
But Gami would never trade that journey -- not with her at her side. The stories will continue. Kamui flashes back to Asgard, speaking of how he wishes to record -- all of it. Within his memory banks, his camera, perhaps even a log or two... and of course, Acacia's neverending adventures to seek the headlines... and Clarine's own camera...
The thought distracts her enough that she can't fully defend against the shadow-shield that manifests, as Gami slams straight into her, sending her toppling over and back towards the back half of the aircraft.
Azoth is gone -- and then, reforms into a silhouette that lands on the craft; it's beastly in appearance, light burning off off his claws, his blade, against his skeletal body. This, too, is a 'truth', but--
Azoth promised. and Kamui promised too. What takes shape is -- sound, rippling and pulsing outward as shockwaves, hitting her with that which she finds so frightening... hope.
"I--I don't..." Kamui is forced to gaze back in turn, the small and precious little memories that Azoth has built. It isn't the world-spanning, globe-trotting adventures of those who've saved the world. It's the most dear and precious of little moments. Between humans, Hyadean, beastfolk, Crimson Nobles, Seraphim, Hellion, offworld aliens, living machines....
...
Once, there was an Island Closest to Heaven.
A Neo-Arcadia, they called it. A place where machines will be able to coexist with everyone else. Tired and fatigued from endless war and strife, she led those who held hope for that distant ideal there, to start anew...
And then it was burnt to the ground!! They dared to hope, and it was all dashed from them!!
"My role... but... I can't... I'm so tired, Azoth... how can you place your hopes on an uncertain future? If you are burnt nineteen times, would a twentieth time not be likely? And yet..."
And yet it's so bright and wonderful, everything that Azoth shows her. All she has to do is recalibrate her role -- reach out to it. But she's scared.
Juni has a dark laugh to her, even as she lands upon the craft. "... as Azoth has just shown me, the littlest detail, the most irrelevant little story has meaning..." Kamui is forced to admit to Juni. Juni tells her these people are her wild cards. Get them the help they need to make the world a better place...
...
Didn't she do that before? She banked her hopes on such heroes like Valeria, like the Fatimas of the past... she doesn't need to look further than Althena to know how a hero's legacy can be trampled. ... and yet it still makes sense to help them make the world a better place.
"... I'm making many mistakes too," Kamui admits to Juni. The trigger is pulled, and a violent round pierces through one of the threatening weaponry aboard the craft, a laser-emitter crushing into so many little pieces. "I bottled it up inside... until it reached this point. I keep talking about how much I love the little half-inch insects I want to protect, and I do, but... it was also about my own frustrations."
A pause, as she flinches from that shot. "... I hope you can course-correct your mistakes, then. Gami is confident all your stories will continue..."
Acacia tells her of everything that she is -- Kamui, Kamui-DELTA, and DELTA all; and how she doesn't want to be trapped like this. Because a story spreads better if there's two people, instead of just one... and from two, there's four, and then eight...
"Yes. ... that is the entire reason to be, for a newspaper. Because even as a singular point in time, with one viewpoint, it echoes across others, reads differently, formulates different thoughts, creates different take-aways..."
She's not expecting that Gear to assist. Is it sentient, in some way? It doesn't matter. She can't be distracted...
"What else can I tell you, Acacia?" Kamui-DELTA whispers, hoarse; "As I told Azoth, I have hoped many times in the past, only to be burnt for it. ... I want to not believe anymore. I want to ignore the fire that has been stirred in my heart by all of you. I want to leave this world to those that can't impose themselves on so many, so indolently..."
She lowers her head.
"In other words... I hate the way I was created! I hate the way I've been gifted with this Circuit, that allows me to gaze upon too much, all at once!"
Closer, and closer to the truth.
Hicalu has something of a terribly bizarre trajectory through the deck, and then on that floating platform, and then his scream takes him off the platform and bounces him onto Gami's platform annnnnd oops, he's back in the battle! Kamui has to watch somewhat quizzically.
"Hicalu... Wilwisp," Kamui answers, and the little guy?
... ah.
A demon from Hell tears into her reality, dragging her down into the hungry depths!! It's difficult to tell how her mechnical body reacts to the unspeakable denizens of the Abyss, but she definitely is... not unaffected. As she's spit out, and a cute little tentacle suckler from Heck remains on her head going om nom nom, she stares at Hicalu.
"... you must have a fascinating story indeed," she says all too calmly. "I will not forget your name..."
Ida picks herself up onto the attack craft, catching upon it with a tendon-like tendril underneath her wrist. And then she's there to address her personally, repeating again that most important of reassurances: that she isn't alone. As so many have urged towards her.
One of the remote weapons shatters underneath the full force of the Unbroken Lotus Fist, and worryingly, the craft's stability also comes into question as it still continues to rise, further and further. Just how high up are they, now?
"Ida..." Kamui whispers, as she places her hand on her shoulder. There's still a damn Hicalu-tako on her head!
Ruth takes to the air, in uncertainty, the source of her trajectory unclear; there is a laugh, between horror and exhiliration. The way she fires her rifle to simply give her the boost to clear to the aircraft is impressive, beyond doubt.
But it's her words that have cut to the core. Hurt. Scared. If she became so strong, she could
<Pose Tracker> Kamui has posed.
Ruth takes to the air, in uncertainty, the source of her trajectory unclear; there is a laugh, between horror and exhiliration. The way she fires her rifle to simply give her the boost to clear to the aircraft is impressive, beyond doubt.
But it's her words that have cut to the core. Hurt. Scared. If she became so strong, she could never be hurt or scared by that idea of hope, she'd be invincible... This is Ruth speaking on some deeply personal level, Kamui understands.
And then she tells her -- that if it hurts -- then LET IT!
As her bayonet blade threatens to tear straight through; the blade ends up lodging itself through robes and grazes straight past her, drawing what looks like Reploid fluid; she screams as it does so, but it's not a scream of just pain. It's a scream that lets out the entire sum of her frustrations out.
"I... see," she wheezes at Ruth as she's close, with the Gae Buidhe/Dearg DC4 embedded in her. "There is value in screaming as much as I would like, not caring for some tedious, useless manner of decorum that only existed in my head." Then, a little more privately, and it sounds far more blurred than when it sounds like Kamui talking: "... I am glad to have met you, even if only for my last fleeting moments."
Clarine continues to speak of hope -- that even if she can't promise it won't happen again, they're there for her... and true to her word, she doesn't accept a farewell such as this. That kind of manouevre would not dispose of her. The platforms of light appear underneath her, and she has arrived to dole out Judgement --
Kamui grimaces as she shoves Ruth out of the way, perhaps for her own sake, as the pillars of light descend, and she raises her arms and draws her wings onto herself, and several simply explode under the sheer duress of the grand magic.
"I hate the many designs so many people had for me...!" Kamui continues what she told Acacia, to Clarine, since she's inviting her to share the burden of grief. "To be a hero against Lord Blazer, to be a saviour of mankind, to be a Knight of Valmar... so many people were interested in the varied legacies of Lumen, for so many different reasons... that I startred wondering if I ever fought for anything myself..."
She grimaces, her face ugly and yet more honest than it ever has been.
"I hate the thought that I may have hated my mother." Which one?
Closer, closer to the truth still.
Venetia's answer of technology expanding the possibility of life is not something Kamui can outright deny. And there is horror in the years where no technology was readily available, that other forms of organisation of society came to be. "Will it never happen again...?" Kamui finds herself frowning.
"Higher and higher, you'll ever rise... take care that you are not burned by the sun, with such a thought. One day, you will find that technology can not save you, for I have lived through such dark days. Because I am the product of one such belief, Venetia Vuong!"
What comes next is something she just can't defend against, though, and Star Blazer erupts through powerful swaths of the aircraft and very dangerously, threatens to cause it to start crumbling, along with the rest of the combined attacks.
Why can't a miraculous moment overturn a millennia of history?
She says such simple things. Why can't a miracle happen? Why can't she just save the microplanktons with her friends?
And then... there is a DING.
<Pose Tracker> Kamui has posed.
At this point, Kamui-DELTA is well and truly battered down; though she still stands, so very few weapons are available left to her, between the combined assault of what everyone has brought to bear. But that all seems forgettable when she sees--
She sees Marivel. She sees Hob and Nob.
She speaks of her despair, and how she held onto what she thought was hope but perhaps only a lifeline. These are words that are all familiar to her. Marivel reminds her of the meaning she found in Lumen's children -- her own children. Tenebrae's children. The Reploids. Hearing of Lumen's hope causes that scowl to form back in her face, truthful as she is being, but...
But she is reminded that she was also gifted a family. Loved ones. Imperfect people, whose love never wavered...
"... ..."
Kamui is left there, to process everything that has been said. And eventually, she does admit, to Solitaire, of the question of why a miracle can't simply just happen: "... perhaps it is because I didn't understand that lesson. A lesson mother only learnt recently as well. That hope... that eternal dream..."
She was the Answer, for her. That no matter where she goes, she'll never be alone.
That's... the absolute for their resistance line.
Then-- surprisingly, Kamui speaks as well.
It's an image of Kamui, as Acacia, Gami, Xiumei and so many others last saw her, as comfortable as she can be in the confines of her quarantine in the Sealed Lab -Tishrei-. Seriously, she's seated at a kotatsu with oranges in a bowl in front of her.
"... it's passing strange to pass a message from me, to me, but... it is important in this case. Because I imagine, when I am finally listening to this..."
Kamui is silent for a moment.
"I'm sorry, everyone. This all happened because ultimately, I did the thing you might expect me to have done -- I sympathised with DELTA. At first, I thought of them as an enemy, as someone I must reject. But as they shared more and more what it is they are, what they wanted to convey, what their frustrations and anger were with the past, the present, and more..."
Kamui lowers her head.
"... I didn't have the heart to reject them."
The Reploid's hands are laced together as she breathes in. "That makes me a very selfish person, I know. I can only hope you can stop me, whatever form I have become. ... no, I know that you can stop me. That isn't the part in question."
She glances aside.
"An entity that was once meant to encompass the hopes, dreams and treasures of a society... I couldn't help but instantly draw comparisons. About the way our creators had the highest hopes for us, but how the higher a pedestal we're placed on, the sharper and more dangerous the fall is..."
There's a sorrowful smile from her.
"Perhaps I have already admitted those deep-seated frustrations, and I am repeating myself. But..."
*BOOOOM*
<Pose Tracker> Kamui has posed.
There's a sudden, massive explosion that nearly threatens to disrupt the message. Kamui-DELTA is faltering to one side as well; the aircraft is precarious and unstable, and red-hot cracks appear along its entire body.
At this altitude that it's climbed up to, they risk simply burning up into the atmosphere.
"... I'll tell you a secret about the Armour, me. There's a function on it that allows it to form a powerful shield around an area that you please."
*CRAAAASH*
Another violent eruption, and an entire right wing starts to go; ARMS can see it quickly spindle away and turn black and erupt into little more than debris on re-entry.
"I trust you know what to do, when it comes time to it. And everyone, if you can support each other as well, to boost your chances of survival, that would surely be good too. Gami, you're built to endure this..."
She lowers her head.
"This may be the last time I speak to you as truly 'Kamui'. I want to say so many more things, but I know... you're running out of time. So I'll simply say... thank you, and..."
There's tears coming out of her eyes, now, as her image starts to flicker.
"... farewell, my dear, wonderful friends... my loved one."
...
DELTA-Kamui grimaces, her face twisted to a scowl, looking towards the rest of the Drifters in turn; then she simply shakes her head as she places her hand to her heart and says, "... in accepting DELTA into my heart, I have become something else entirely. I am the Kamui you know, but also not the Kamui you know, and I have taken that away from you. I wanted to reject everything, out of a five thousand-year old festering fear and frustration in my heart. Did she know that would happen? But..."
...
"There is no reason left for me to fight. It is as my holographic self says. If left to its own devices, this craft will burn up on re-entry, and all of you will surely perish with it. Thus..."
She absconds, taking off entirely from the aircraft to hover in perilous space -- her form begins to burn up even as she spreads her wings wide and bright, battered as they are.
Then, that shield holo-Kamui spoke of activates, as DELTA-Kamui channels all her power onto it -- and a bright blue shield starts to form around what's left of the descending aircraft. Even as she channels it, she grimaces in pain, her feet slagging first and foremost.
(Hicalu's little tentacle suckler gets a little sphere of re-entry shield as she gently coaxes it off her head. ... aww???)
"... there are good odds this craft will survive re-entry. But I urge you, as my other self also did -- fight, with all your power! Let the hope that you've shown me burn bright, that Filgaia will accept your re-entry whole, that you will not burn into cinders here, to be rejected by this world that deserves so much more!!"
ACTIVE TIME EVENT !!
Live.
_____________________________| QUICK TIME EVENT!!!|_____________________________ _ LIVE. _ _ _ _ _ _ Zhang Xiumei, Gami, Acacia Saitani, Seraph Clarine, Solitaire Collier, Ida _ _ Everstead-Rey, Venetia Vuong, Ruth Pauling, Azoth, Hicalu Wilwisp, and Juni _ _ Vandrer: _ _ +qte/react <guard/evade/charge>/<guard/evade/charge>/<guard/evade/charge> _
QTE!!! Challenge Result: FAILURE! Gami takes 144 damage and gains 60 FP! QTE!!! Challenge Result: Full Success! Azoth takes 0 damage and gains 15 FP! QTE!!! Challenge Result: FAILURE! Juni Vandrer takes 146 damage and gains 60 FP! GS: Juni Vandrer enters CONDITION GREEN!! QTE!!! Challenge Result: Full Success! Seraph Clarine takes 0 damage and gains 15 FP! QTE!!! Challenge Result: FAILURE! Solitaire Collier takes 148 damage and gains 60 FP! QTE!!! Challenge Result: FAILURE! Acacia Saitani takes 150 damage and gains 60 FP! QTE!!! Challenge Result: Full Success! Hicalu Wilwisp takes 0 damage and gains 15 FP! QTE!!! Challenge Result: Low Success! Zhang Xiumei takes 114 damage and gains 45 FP! GS: Zhang Xiumei enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Reaper expired! QTE!!! Challenge Result: FAILURE! Ida Everstead-Rey takes 141 damage and gains 60 FP! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey enters CONDITION GREEN!! QTE!!! Challenge Result: Full Success! Venetia Vuong takes 0 damage and gains 15 FP! QTE!!! Challenge Result: FAILURE! Ruth Pauling takes 143 damage and gains 60 FP! GS: Ruth Pauling enters CONDITION GREEN!!
<Pose Tracker> Gami has posed.
It is more than a little relief, that Azoth aborts that squence. The light, the silhouette... and his promise. Gami turns to smile for just a moment at Azoth as he expresses that hope. That illogic... His memories. Gami feels it suffuse her, too, and she never expected anything of the kind from him.
Perhaps that makes it more precious.
Acacia, meanwhile, has more to say. The story that spreads faster. ...The truth that it's fine to be scared. That all of them are here...
"I will shield you if needed," Gami says to Acacia.
And Hicalu and Venetia both use her platforms! Hicalu, who... could ahve run away, but didn't. "I do not know," she says to him. "But I know that you are very brave." Pause. "...Or simply foolish. But I will believe in your bravery, Hicalu Wilwisp."
A pause. "...And in your dark devourer...?"
Ida des her best, too. Ida says they are not alone, she is not alone. And Ruth, terrifying Ruth, advises to let it hurt. Gami nods to her. "It is the only way," Gami agrees. "...Pain must be expressed. Pain must be felt, before the healing can begin. Even for artificial beings such as us..."
Clarine will not accept this farewell, and nor will Gami. She looks with some alarm, though, to Venetia--until her advanced sensors detect her target. "...yes," she says. "Good luck."
But Kamui, she wonders who then? "I do not know," Gami answers honestly. "Perhaps there was one, once. But for a long time... we have been left to ourselves. Not even the Guardians can take such a role. We traveled with one for some time, and yet...They are fading."
"But that does not mean we give up."
She smiles, when Kamui says it isn't fair. "My existence was predicated upon unfairness, Kamui. My existence was brought into being because of a terrible injustice. ...And that will always be true."
"But you helped me to become more than I was. More than only a memorial."
Gami has confidence in these people. But... The craft's stability... It's getting worse. And Kamui finaly admits whats he hates. But then that message comes. The message from...
"Kamui," Gami murmurs. "Even in this..."
But she says 'farwell',a s the image flickers. "I love you," she says to that image, and to the DELTA-Kamui here now. And then--she is something else. No reason left to fight...
No. Gami will not simply 'live'.
"KAMUI!" Gami calls, the alto tones of her synthesized voice wracked with a pain that has nothing to do with her already-repairing body. She is intact. She is meant to endure, and so she shall. Even this. But...
"Let me help you! Let me--!"
But what can she do? She knows of nothing else. Gami leaps from the aircraft once again, straight towards Kamui even as her feet start to turn to slag. "Kamui!!"
Wrapping her arms around Kamui, Gami takes hold of her, turns, starts to shield her with her body against the heat of re-entry even as her fabrics catch fire, her whole body starts to heat RED.
"Stay with me. ...If only for a few minutes more," Gami says, "Stay with me, Kamui..."
The tears falling from her eyes flash-boil in atmosphere.
"A little longer..."
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida did not think they'd end up talking Kamui down. Everything she'd seen and heard of DELTA painted it as a disease that happened to have rudimentary intelligence. She wasn't expecting it to have feelings, or be feelings, but as it turns out, this... isn't as far outside her wheelhouse as she feared.
"Ruth is right," Ida says, and that makes two things she thought, at one point, would never happen. She squeezes Kamui's shoulder. "Once we're out of here, we can--" Ida trails off, coughing. The air is getting bitterly cold, and so, so thin. Ida stumbles back, and sinks to hands and knees. Exoskeletal claws extrude from her fingertips, scrabbling for purchase on the armor's airframe.
Keeping her eyes open is starting to hurt. But Ida sees what Marivel left. It wasn't an antivirus at all. And on top of the final push towards self-acceptance, it provides information to keep them all alive.
Gami leaps from the craft. Ida stifles a scream of protest. Instead, half-numb, gloved fingers pull the Mountain Medium from its pouch, and she fumbles it. It drops to the deck, starts rolling towards the edge. Ida lunges and grabs it with both hands, and exoskeleton hardens around it to lock it in place. Her head glances off a jagged edge of the Armor's hull, and pain ignites behind her eyes. Tendrils whip out from her elbows, clinging tight to the airframe. She rises to her knees, two-tone blood streaming from the gash on her forehead.
Ida kneels on the airframe and raises the Medium. The strength of the Mountain builds, within the Armor, and everyone aboard. Every breath hurts. But she has to hope.
<Pose Tracker> Acacia Saitani has posed.
Acacia puffs for breath, taking a moment to register everyone else making their way safely up to the platform, even if the word 'safely' has the biggest question mark over it that she's ever seen. Privately, she glances to where she'd remote controlled the Nephele towards them; it hovers in position, keeping pace with the Heimdall Gazzo as a whole, and she quietly thanks the stars above for getting used to its auto mode. Something tells her that there might be some of them that need a lift downwards, and one of them is screaming at the top of his lungs throughout.
There are others trying to talk to Kamui, to let her know that she's not alone in this. It's something she's had trouble with before - she'd thought, once upon a time, that it was only fair to not speak up to the perspective of an immortal. That surely they had to know better than her, that their scope of experience and the depth of their perception were 'more important'. Once before, it nearly led to Kamui making a terrible mistake, and Acacia having to claw back at her. In a way, that makes this a little easier, to act as if this is just an average thing that happens rather than an existential threat.
(... at the same time, it somewhat proves her point. History is a circle, a cycle. How do you break out of that? Maybe it's unrealistic to think it can be done so quickly, but... she can't have done much to reassure Kamui back then, huh?)
She's not just catching her breath. Her brain is racing for other, more practical things she can offer as well, even as Clarine speaks words of hope. Acacia doesn't mean it when she winces, but she can't quite help it. Kamui's got no end of platitudes available to her, but like she said, a mikan and a rest in the kotatsu won't cut it this time. This isn't a situation that can be kicked down the road, it's an active threat to Filgaia, especially in the eyes of someone who's lived so long.
She focuses back on Kamui with a quieter smile, as the Reploid's voice cracks; as she starts to admit some deep long-awaited truths, as they finally start to cut through to the heart of the matter, the expectations and fears and hopes crushing down upon not just Kamui but DELTA too. She can't find it in her to offer hatred to either of them, not after all of this - not after everything.
Instead-- her eyes flash as Kamui admits something deep down. "Right?! Come on, hasn't everything we've seen of her been pretty irresponsible? Just 'cause you can build the Omnipotence Device doesn't mean it's a great idea, Lumen! And you were absolutely one of those kinds of scientists! Let's just make the Braineater, it'll be fantastic! I'll kick her ass when I finally meet her," she promises with a grin of relish.
"... yeah," Acacia agrees, softer now as Kamui continues - as Kamui finally talks about the things she hates. "It sucks, right? To have people plan out your life, to be told that you're such a good kid, we'll send you to the special lectures and map out your path and oh gosh you'll have a wonderful career ahead of you. ... and even when you think you really hate them, you still love them. Because they're your family, and that's how it works," she admits, almost to herself.
She turns her head to watch the transmission with a solemn frown; to hear Kamui's thoughts laid bare. She sucks in a slow breath; it's only when the Heimdall Gazzo creaks and begins to tear apart that she comes back to herself, and in panic realizes just what kind of altitude they're at. Even a glance downwards shows that the sheer height is getting to the Nephele, as its engines struggle to keep up with the pace at which the base is rising even as it begins to shudder apart.
Kamui-DELTA gives them a bright point of hope - as well as a point of finality for herself. It makes Acacia thin her lips; there's a lot she wants to say, reflected in her eyes. But there's also the recognition that this is Kamui's choice, and denying it would be the worst thing she could possibly do. "Both of you," she says instead, past the growing lump in her throat. "I don't think Kamui is wrong for sympathizing. And I don't think DELTA is wrong for caring too much. ... that's the story I'm going to take from this, most of all."She grits her teeth with the effort of concentration. Caught by her power, the Nephele makes one last push towards the barrier that's been set up around the descending aircraft, and the sphere jostles as the Gear braces two hands against the shield, seeking to stabilize its descent. There's a long keening noise of complaining armor, as large parts of the Nephele's outer layer starts to buckle in the heat.
It takes an effort, but she looks back up towards Kamui. "I can't take-- no, that's not fair," she amends, pausing to rasp for breath and the effort of straining her power. "I don't want to take that story forwards without you. Not as a hero or a saviour or anything else. Just as Kamui." She falls silent for Gami's sake, closes her eyes as she lets herself fall back spreadeagle on her part of the platform, and swallows thickly. "... take care of yourself," she murmurs with a tremor in her voice.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Clarine has posed.
Kamui hates the design people had for her. ...That's always the story, isn't it? People pile expectations on another, because they're seen as special - and who they truly are becomes crushed under the weight of these expectations.
"I am sorry... it is awful, to have such a weight thrust upon you. What do you wish to be?" Clarine asks with a small smile. "If you do not know that yet... that is alright. You deserve to be able to decide that for yourself."
Her face is ugly, yet honest - but Clarine appreciates this honesty. The truth isn't always pretty, but it's important all the same.
The pod, it seems, has survived all this time, and it bears a message. A message from Marivel... and, from Kamui herself. Clarine watches in surprise, and listens as she explains.
She... sympathised, with Delta. A small smile crosses Clarine's face.
"Oh, Kamui... of course you did." She murmurs. That is certainly something she would do - but she's not going to chastise her for making a selfish choice.
...Kamui cries. And Clarine, too, cannot help but cry along with her. She wipes her tears away, turning her attention toward DELTA-Kamui and listening quietly.
"...Kamui..." Clarine murmurs. This is... she shakes her head.
"I wished to share your burdens. This is something you do not have to do alone, as well!" Clarine says. She intends to live. She hopes for all of them. As Gami runs to hug Kamui, Clarine clasps her hands in front of her and shuts her eyes tight.
Heat and light go hand-in-hand - as they fall from the heavens, aglow with the heat of re-entry, Clarine draws upon this light to restore her reserves. And then - she lets her light flow outward. Protection and barriers - these have always been her specialty. She draws upon this now - seeking to reinforce them all with her own light.
<Pose Tracker> Juni Vandrer has posed.
The soldier's eternal gripe. I wish I'd packed more gear. You can't prepare for everything. Where would she even find the right valves to set up an air can? She thumps her hand against her chest and focuses. Steady breathing. In and out.
"I've spent three years without sign of the ship I came to scuttle or the people I was supposed to save. I will probably never see my home again. You keep going though." She points forward with her off hand. "It either gets better, or it stops being your problem anymore." She pauses. Scowls, "You keep pushing until it gets better." That's more positive. That kind of humor probably won't translate or help well...
She re-shoulders her rifle. At the ready. "I can't show you a utopia, but I can show you places that have thrived. There's more out there." She gestures up with her chin. "I'm still trying to figure out how to even get a message home. An apology. Whatever." She holds up her wrist briefly, "I can figure out how to project some of the images I've captured over the years. Videos."
There's more going on and she does what she thinks is reasonable. She keeps the rifle at low ready. Training sometimes drills in regardless. Still, as the message goes on and the situation unfolds, she looks out over the edge of the craft. Cranking back on a small lever, the rifle folds away and gets slung across her back. This message is for the others more than anything as she sees it and instead twists to watch the horizon rushing to meet them. "Wonder if that's what the crew saw." There's not much else she can do really. "Might not be my problem after all."
There's mention of a shield though. And she turns back to the group. Jarred out of that silent acceptance. She darts in closer, trying to brace for impact. Silent for now. Watching the amalgam tearing herself apart to save them. What can you do at this point? Scorched as she's too far away, once again. Lost in a reverie this time, but in one piece, mostly. She beats out some smoldering patches and then pulls out a hatchet and with both hands, slams it into the ship near a panel plate before securing herself to it with her tail.
A hand goes up, a wave goodbye matched against a salute if anything. "See you on the spin around." Before she hunkers down.
It's another mistake in a way. Maybe she could have done more. Same as it always was. Same as it always will be.
<Pose Tracker> Hicalu Wilwisp has posed.
"F-fascinating? N-no, I'm p-p-pretty normal, I-I'm not like you guys at all..." Hicalu IS shaking an awful lot more than the median Drifter here, but... his little demon gave it his all, so is he really right to say that?
(Gobble gobble gobble, goes the tentacle. It makes a magnificent hat, and that hat will surely appreciate the care Delta later shows it.)
"H-hey! I-I-I mean, I bet h-having a legacy sucks, right? A-a lot of people seem r-really bothered b-b-by destiny and stuff, b-but... i-it's totally normal t-to not wanna do what p-p-people want you to, right?! Y-you just gotta s-stick up for yourself, t-t-that's what Master Erica always s-says to me!" Hicalu doesn't have a legacy or anything, but he sure does end up doing what other people want a lot...
But Kamui has a message for herself, and there's something which bothers Hicalu, listening to it.
Is there something you're denying?
A ghost of a thought, all spirited away. Hicalu can't rightly comprehend Kamui's suffering; it's a different class entirely to his life. He couldn't approach that if he tried.
Really -- he couldn't.
He doesn't have a fascinating story. He has a very normal story, which surely began somewhere, and will end somewhere very average and plain.
Unless, that is, it ends on a plane, which is terrifyingly possible at present.
"AAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!" Is Hicalu's extremely eloquent revelation, when he realises that what goes up does, generally, come down. He drops to the hull and latches onto it for dear life. He might be-- no he is definitely crying.
"No it's totally stupid! Stupid stupid stupid stupid!!" He wails, in delayed response to Gami's encouragement. "Heeeeelllpppp!!!!!"
But a very helpful voice from a weird staring-at-the-light-too-long afterimage which MIGHT be Hicalu hallucinating he MIGHT just have snapped tells them that she wanted to share Kamui's burdens, and Hicalu is at least adjacent to weirdness enough by now to appreciate the light which spreads around the plane. (That's Clarine. He's thinking of Clarine. Old mate still isn't very good at ghosts, even after Harmaus kidnapped him.) "H-huh?" He asks, as that light settles down. Barriers...
"B-but mine are f-f-fire t-that really s-seems like i-it's just m-m-making things w-worse I-I think we m-might be c-c-cooking?!" He yelps, entirely panicked. "I-I-I can't, um, I-I..."
Here's the weird thing: it's easy to give up on yourself, but it's harder to give up on other people. It's not until Juni figures it might not be her problem any more -- after her own story about going on -- that he yelps, looking over to her. "H-hey! I-i-it's still a problem, r-right?! T-totally a super b-big problem!!" Which is, objectively speaking, true. They have a totally super big problem right now.
And even if there's nothing Hicalu can really do to stop it...
He pries himself up sitting enough that he can actually commit his somatic gestures, and yelps out: "Expansive Enshelter!!", and it's a fire-elemental shield, but, well...
It's what he's got. He's a baker. He never thought he'd have to deal with re-entry into the planet. He never even thought about what this would even involve.
<Pose Tracker> Solitaire Collier has posed.
SOlitaire says, "It's okay," to Kamui after she pops a gummy into her mouth. "You just want to be understood as much as anyone else. Asking for help when you're overwhelmed... Perhaps that too is a kind of strength. Anyone would struggle if they felt they had to fight alone. In the mines, even if we lost someone to a cave-in or a gas leak...We could use their tools and rations to survive. If our Masters wanted to whip us, we could step in the path of the lash to help the one who could not endure another strike. At the bottom of society, that is the way you survive--but others can live this way too. I'm not a good talker so sometimes Patience helps me figure out what to say."
Solitaire couldn't raise her axe there for a moment but she listens to Kamui's final words. In those final words, she gets to know Kamui a little more--a Kamui she never knew before. She gets to see a little bit of who she was. And see who she was in who she is right now. She smiles faintly as Kamui tells Delta a secret about her armor. Solitaire's smiles don't always look nice even when they are genuine, nevertheless--she does. Her smile fades as Kamui cries and fades away. The last words of a warrior.
Solitaire smacks Patience to her chest in respect.
She holds that position for a moment. Having solidarity for something that might very well spell your destruction. It's an incredible act. She has to honor it, even if those words are for those she knows and loves and she is a stranger. In observing Kamui's love for others, she feels she can understand the depth of their bonds even outside of it.
She looks to Azoth, "Seems like that only made her stronger, but that's alright."
She pushes up to her feet. She's breathing easier now. She looks towards Gami's tears for a moment.
"Making a girl cry is uncool."
BGM INTERRUPT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9zH1la79p4&t=111s&ab_channel=KyleBennett
"You do not decide if I survive! I do!" Solitaire shouts, her relaxed expression suddenly fierce. "But if you want us to prove you wrong, I'll oblige."
She runs forward towards the edge of the vessel in what would by all appearances be a suicide charge because she really needs to get back.
She just out right leaps off the edge, throwing herself full bore towards Kamui like a hero of yesteryear, wholly heedless of her own wellbeing. She raises the axe into the air.
"The Prayer Bells Do Not Toll"
She slams the axe down with all her might towards Kamui, just ASSUMING that this will somehow help solve the crisis of the viral Kamui. She pushes into the swing so she doesn't simply plummet to the earth upon striking her, but rather so that she can use her push into Kamui to keep her upright. She wasn't taught to do this by training, she is a natural warrior and makes these accomodations with split second timing as natural to her as if she were breathing.
"Though I respect your warrior's way, NOT TODAY!"
Using the axe as a brace she intends to flip up and over Kamui and swing her feet into her back to drive her back towards her friends.
"Azoth! Fulfil your promise!"
GS: Solitaire Collier has activated Force Action: Full Clip! GS: Blitz! Solitaire Collier has attacked Kamui with The Prayer Bells Do Not Toll! GS: Solitaire Collier enters a Counter stance! GS: Solitaire Collier has gained 2 Combo! GS: Solitaire Collier takes 66 damage from Reaper! GS: Reaper expired! GS: Solitaire Collier has completed her action. GS: Kamui suffers a terrible blow from Solitaire Collier's The Prayer Bells Do Not Toll for 242 hit points! GS: Mighty applied to Solitaire Collier! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated! GS: Kamui enters CONDITION GREEN!! <Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
Ruth holds that stabbing posture through the myriad desparate blows and blasts going on around her. The muscle memory of what she's doing and how remains so deeply, uncomfortably familiar, as Kamui-DELTA wheezes their feelings... and then, quietly, feeling glad to have met her. Ruth doesn't interrupt, transfixed and focused on the pain that Kamui-DELTA does release under prompting, feeling some of that fluid run down from the bayonet blade, the shaft, to the tips of her right hand...
Ruth can't muster the words before the opportunity to do so is lost, as Kamui-DELTA manages the possibility of friendly fire by shoving her aside, of which the moment of strength Ruth demonstrates is lost. The bayonet blade drags against the ship in a shower of fiery sparks. Clarity of what goes on is lost beyond what is shared by holographs from what Azoth was given for this moment, and... Ruth, outwardly numbly, watches and listens to what she can (she only has the one good ear for hearing and there's plenty of mess going on even with the battle calming).
Then, violent explosions. Ruth tumbles again, seemingly still intent on holding the frailities of who she once was, as a pre-recorded farewell from Kamui bids her leave. Ruth reaches out her (Reploid-)bloodied right hand, wordlessly, and...
Gami, too, takes her leap. The realities of the situation are difficult to register. Cold and hot no longer hold meaning to her, though thinning air does. The violent turbulence could take her out, though a burst of Malevolence going up her arm sees her stab the weapon into the hull.
Ruth, once again, eyes the rosary, and then... to those who cry, scream, and mourn alike, she speaks in the broadest terms.
"There is a place beyond death for those suffer even after their life's end." The Garden of Toldoka, the place of succor promised by Saint Calucion. Ruth was born in Guara Bobelo when that was one of the most prominent cities of the entire Granasian faith, and that much has never left her.
Too soft, too measured by half.
She rises, and moves up, dragging that blade through the hull even as she's peppered by some of the shearing material and just plain physics-related nonsense, filled with so much distress, suffering, and unfair, life-and-death choices with no clear way to 'win' and keep everything.
"I won't be following," she asides. "I need to stay."
Malevolence unfolds and unfurls, returning her to her true shape, clawed feet digging into the hull as her tail yanks out the rifle likes a spear and stabs it again closer, moving her towards the forefront with other direct barrier defenders.
She folds her wing inward, positioning herself to take the brunt of the g-forces, heat, everything should these other barriers fail, entire posture going rigid like she could petrify herself into inanimate state on the spot as the gray stone-like luster gives way to a patinated bronze all over.
Only tears leave her, after that.
<Pose Tracker> Venetia Vuong has posed.
As she lowers her Crest Graph, Venetia exhales.
Surely that will
no, it won't.
Kamui speaks to them. She apologizes, and Venetia breathes a little heavily. She actually chortles a little, almost involuntarily, at what Kamui says. "Dinoginos wept," she says, reaching up to adjust the pin on her hair as they stand on the aircraft and the air gets rather thin. "It's alright, I mean, if you're standing down I don't think anybody's been permanently injured." A quick glance around at the people likely to be - Ida, primarily, Collier seems like the type, perhaps Ruth -- yes, Ruth would definitely get mangled regularly but she has her own way of dealing with things...
But that's the thing for Venetia. She knows of Kamui. She might even know Kamui, in a matter of speaking, especially after a relatively civil conversation. But she doesn't *know* Kamui.
So she has little to forgive. Venetia has forgiven worse, or at least, let it slide.
But then --
As Gami calls out with her caring heart around Kamui - reaches out towards the other Reploid--
As Ida validates Ruth's pain, and then coughs--
As Acacia speaks her heart--
As Clarine offers a sort of absolution --
As Juni offers a journey --
Venetia looks down towards Filgaia, and a little towards the horizon, and that little fashion mask that's a culturally important piece of dress does LITERALLY NOTHING to show how aghast she is at this realization. At this point, Venetia proceeds, primarily, to pull out her her Crest Graphs; several iterations of an older one, that seems to produce wet cement, are rapidly applied to the outside of the rapidly heating fringes of their platform, the Crest Sorcery applied with increasing desperation.
<Pose Tracker> Asgard has posed.
There is a sudden flourish of white flower petals and a familiar Golem is here upon the plane, as if he had always been there. Its form pitted and scarred by the numerous marks of battle. Its yellowed optics assess the scene with what feels like sorrow.
He steps forward at a measured cadence, not a single footstep unsteady, as he moves towards one of the viewports, watching her burn, watching others burn trying to protect her. "By your own strength, did you burn so brightly, my old friend." The Golem rumbles, mournfully as he touches the viewport, "And now it is time again for you to rest."
A million memories dance through his memory banks, of Kamui upon the beach, a photograph, bygone years in Neo-Arcadia. A life lived well. Now... finished?
"Or is it? I too, am hesitant, for this to be our final farewell after watching you bring your all to bear."
Raising up both of his massive hands, there's a motion, and an object materializes, disk like, which is instantly encased in his barrier energy. Varius and Avile might recognize it, though perhaps few others will, as his eyes move over to Azoth then in turn.
"If you have the strength, and the will to change this outcome, to alter her fate." With a gesture, the hovering blue barrier floats it over to Xiumei, "Then I give you the means to try. What are each of you willing to sacrifice for her preservation?"
The Golem's eyes stare at her with a certain intensity, "Show me. Rise to this challenge, or let her fall into oblivion. There is no other option available to you."
Asgard offers no further assistance, but neither too does he depart. Whatever the outcome, he will watch it, to the end.
In the end, to have even a single memory more of her is worth it.
DC: Asgard switches forms to Divine Fortress Asgard of the Million Memories!
<Pose Tracker> Zhang Xiumei has posed.
Xiumei moves to the side when Gami comes down -- there's a flash from the gem at her chest, alerting her of her approach -- and she glances sideways at the big Reploid, before she nods at her.
Then, she looks back to see Azoth. Who Azoth, perhaps, truly is; not the human-like figure, but the black and beast-like form. Her eyes widen, as she looks at him. "A-Azoth," she stammers out. "You can do this. Just... be careful, okay?"
She isn't sure what he is doing. She might be closely linked to machines, but Xiumei isn't one. She knows there are some things that she can't quite understand.
It'll have to be enough.
The Pulse Saber meets Gami's Saber, in Kamui's hands. Energy crackles between both blades.
"But the times between the bad ones are still good!" Xiumei says. "It isn't just the low moments that matter, Kamui!"
She tries to take another step forward, but so much happens; Marivel's recording, then one of Kamui. Xiumei stares for a moment, before she looks back at the one before them. Another blast echoes, and Xiumei runs. She sprints across the aircradt, leaping as pieces of it crumble away.
At the end, she barrels in -- and slams down inside the blue dome, hitting the surface of the aircradft in a three-point stance near its edge. Cracks in the metal shoot out, as she comes down. She looks up, standing as she does, and sees Gami leaping for Kamui.
"Gami!" Avile cries out, after her.
The barrier is strong, though -- reinforced by Ida's Medium and Clarine's sorcery, with Ruth ready to shield them with her Hellionized body if need be -- and Venetia reinforcing the plane itself. That leaves Xiumei watching, at first. She can't do anything about an orbital reentry.
And they don't have an answer to DELTA. It's so much bigger than Kamui; it's the pain of a dying world, and they don't have a way to remove it from her right now. They can't even be sure that she will survive reentry.
So when Asgard appears, she jumps a little.
She looks at him, as he speaks to her -- holding out a disk-like object. She takes it, hesitantly, before she swallows.
"Asgard..." Varius seems at a loss for words.
But Avile isn't. "There's no time like the present! Varius, I'm linking our Biometal to this. Xiumei... you'll have to activate it!"
What would they sacrifice?
Xiumei doesn't know. But she nods, and she takes a step closer. Then, she takes another, and another, near the very edge of the plane. The cracks from her impact grow a little larger. She holds the device up. "Kamui... I wanted to run away so many times. But... it's worth it, to keep going. It's worth it..."
She holds it out. A beam of light shoots out from the crystal at the heart of her Model's chest armor -- and into the disc. Then, a beam of blue-white light explodes from it. It shoots out, washing over Kamui. "...if we can all just stay together! Please, Kamui! Come back to us!"
There is a pulse from around her. It blows through Xiumei -- and her armor shines, brilliantly. Then, it bursts apart into cubes of data; it becomes digital data, in light form, and wafts away, as two floating drones appear by her. Then, she is wearing a white collared shirt, a vest, a tie, and a skirt. Her dark green eyes blink, behind glasses.
There is a crackling burst of static from both Varius and Avile, floating next to here, but they hover there.
Xiumei takes a step back, her grip still vice-like on the device, but far less strong.
And then the cracks expand outward, finally, and a piece of it crumples. And she goes plummeting with it. "Aaah--!"
"Sh--kzzZZT--it-kzzsshh!"
"XIU--zzztttSSHH--MEI!"
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
Each pulse of data is amplifed by everyone's hopes added to it, their understanding, their courage, their acceptance. Xiumei's encouragement is its own power. Not a mistake... His creators would think so. But they're not here. Xiumei is. Her, and everyone else. Azoth's data persists, brilliantly illuminated and unrelenting. Rising in the atmosphere hardly affects him. Until -- *BOOOOM* *CRAAAASH*
Azoth's thrown off balance, falling and raking his claws into the Nova Striker to fix himself in place. He jerks his faceless gaze up toward DELTA-Kamui. Both of them. A new entity. And in no way less important because of it.
"Kamui -- DELTA -- you also have to live...! You are loved, Kamui! And DELTA... you were the only one who understood my suffering!"
When this day began, Azoth calculated nothing but fear for DELTA's existence. Now, he remembers. Now, he understands. DELTA... another program designed for a purpose they did everything to fulfill, and suffering all the while. More than a virus. More than an infection or an invasion. Something -- someone -- with the right to exist.
Re-entry is brutal. A wire snaps and spits electricity. Azoth's claws dig further into metal. His tail strikes in a downward stab, embedded to help hold him in place. His power sputters under the pressure, and even a Seraph in the machine is not enough to stabilize a shield for himself. It means relying on Clarine's light as she grieves, on Hicalu's fiery shelter as he trembles, on Ida's Medium as she struggles, on Venetia's Crests as she forgives, and DELTA-Kamui... as she's destroyed beyond the bounds of it.
He can barely move.
Gami leaps to Kamui. Gami endures. Azoth emits a terrified series of tones. But his horror turns to awe as he stares. Love. Every moment of it is truly precious, even if they must be stolen like this. The din of returning to the atmosphere becomes so overwhelming it is no different from silence. So many calculations can happen in a moment, stretching out the agony, a memory to be etched in place and greedily guarded.
Suddenly, a presence. Azoth musters the means to pull himself upright, meeting Asgard's gaze with only the faintest understanding. That disk... Varius and Avile know what to do, and so does Xiumei with a beautiful manifestation of data.
Except --
"Xiumei!" The light of Azoth's visor flashes urgently, joined by an alarmed synthetic beeping.
Promises. Azoth made one to Varius, once. It was a blatant lie at the time. But handfuls of moments, of chance meetings, of unexpected, unlikely bonds... A chain of events, rippling through the calculations, changing the variables in ways he never had the data to predict. The impossible becomes possible.
Without hesitation, Azoth darts across the Nova Striker and takes a leaping dive off of the edge.
Arm outstretched, his touch remains a hair away from brushing against hers. Terminal velocity is not enough.
A detonating burst propells him further downward as air whips through his cloak. His claw grips around Xiumei's wrist first, surprisingly gentle in its touch. He yanks her in against himself. But what good does it do, falling, falling...?
Falling, still too broken to fly?
Azoth tightens his grip as warmth swells from his core. With a passenger, the calculations have to be perfect. Glitched color consumes them both in a crackled distortion of light and sound. One moment, they are falling, and the next, they are back upon the surface of the Nova Striker, under the barriers and protection of their friends.
<Pose Tracker> Kamui has posed.
Gami speaks gently of how she doesn't know if a 'God' exists to look after the garden, but... it doesn't mean they can give up. Her existence was predicated upon unfairness. Her existence was brought to being because of injustice... and that'll always be true.
... but her time with her helped her to become more than she was. More than a memorial.
... that will always be true, in her heart.
Acacia's response to her honest admissions -- of how even if you should Build the Omnipotence Device doesn't mean you should -- prompts something like a soft chuckle from DELTA-Kamui. "... it's true... you know something of being a gifted child, or rather, of being society's planned gifted child..." But Acacia's point about how you can't hate them, because they're family, isn't lost on her either.
Below, the Nephele is struggling underneath the duress of re-entry and all that it's brought to bear, but with the Gear's help, the craft should start to stabilise...!
She's breathing and wheezing, as she mutters, "Thank you. From the both of us. Acacia... take care of yourself..."
Clarine asks that most powerful, simple, and yet most difficult of questions.
What does she wish to be?
"I..." Kamui whispers, her mind spinning -- raising the barrier, along with Clarine's own, is clearly taxing her mind even if she weren't in a horrid amount of pain. "I don't know... I wish I had all the time in the world now to explore that with you... but..."
She lowers her head. "... even if I expire here, I was and will always be your dear friend, Clarine. Thank you for showing me such wonders with your light. Every time we snuck away to nap together, every picture that you take on the camera..."
She smiles faintly. "... I hope you'll have many, many stories yet to tell with it."
Kamui settles, to listen to Juni's story, because she promised. She probably will never see her home again. She never saw the ship that was her mission, or the people she was supposed to save... there's more worlds out there.
"I wish... I could've seen some of them. But I can tell you that there are more people in your situation than you may expect. So... reach out to them. Maybe one of them can even help you go home..."
She sees Juni's salute, and nods in turn.
Hicalu is screaming and crying, and DELTA-Kamui knows that pain; was she wrong to not do more to steer him away, after all?
It's still a problem! Is there nothing he can do to stop it? But he manifests his Symbology once more, adding another shield onto the craft that's going down, down towards the planet... indeed, this might be one flatbread too far for him. What is his story? Perhaps Kamui will never know. But it doesn't seem fair for his story to end here, so she'll try her hardest for him...
"... Venetia," Kamui speaks, perhaps surprisingly, to the Crest Sorceress. "I didn't bring one thing up. In your discovery of meta-thallium..." A pause. "Thank you, for granting some to Gami."
Perhaps that's all she has to address that she didn't before, because there's not as personal a farewell as there are with others.
Kamui-DELTA gazes to Ruth, at that last moment. The way she transforms back, and gets one good look at her before she goes. She won't be following; she has to stay. "... good. I know. ... thank you, for teaching me."
"At the bottom of society... when I think about it, every time someone tells me that the lone-wolf path is nature, I think of so many animal societies, the way they all interact and gather together, and even enhance one another, whether it is bees and flowers, or birds and seeds..." Kamui whispers to Solitaire.
Surprisingly, Solitaire leaps off, and strikes her with her axe -- there's very little defence she has at the moment, and grimaces for a moment as she says, "... I see... no, I understand where your drive comes from..."
<Pose Tracker> Kamui has posed.
The axe-hit indeed does knock Kamui closer to the aircraft, where it's much more possible for Gami .... even as she burns, Gami calls for her -- and the severe heat of re-entry is already catching to them; Kamui is much less armoured and resilient than Gami, and already, her legs have already gone, robes little more than flecks in the blaze--
Then she catches her; her face is cracked and melted, not unlike the state she was found in when she was awoken, so long ago, by Acacia and the others. Half of her body is missing, and her arm's not doing great either.
"Gami... to be able to spend the last few moments of my life with you..."
That broken head nestles, to rest on Gami's shoulder, against the bright red drop of re-entry. This is the final farewell, she thinks, and yet... ...
...
She thinks she sees white flower petals.
She thinks she hears Asgard speak, as if proferring his farewells. A million memories shared together, from the Zeboim era to Neo-Arcadia and the present and everything inbetween and... yet? Kamui wasn't expecting a 'however'. Asgard didn't seem the type, and yet... he turns to Xiumei, and a plan is concocted that she isn't privy to hearing in her damaged state.
But a daring plan is devised, and Xiumei takes a step closer, and closer, and her one remaining eye widens--
"Xiumei, no--"
A beam of light shoots out from the crystal, and onto the disc; it washes over her, and immediately, something happens on the data layer that might not be evident right away, but...
"Khh--" Kamui rasps, her own voice becoming distorted. "No-- if you do that, Varius and Avile will... what of you..."
What's left of her heart falls as Xiumei begins to plummet.
But Azoth speaks, too, even if she can't see his face -- literally. She, too, has to live -- the both of them. Where there was once only fear for DELTA's existence, there's... more, now. Someone with the right to exist, suffering for it...
And then he leaps -- off the edge, arms outstretched, a detonating burst propelling him to catch her in safety. But what will he do about the rest -- there's a crackle, and glitched colour fills the world, and then in the next moment... they are safe within the bounds of the craft once more.
Finally, at long last, they break through the atmosphere -- Gami's body is resilient enough to withstand the impact, and though she holds the fragments of Kamui in her arm, little more than a torso, a head and one arm... the device that Asgard brought seems to have done its job, in some fashion that may not be immediately understood. But what of Solitaire? She has her warrior's way, and Patience, so perhaps...
And of the craft, it, too, descends -- far away from Heimdall Gazzo, it continues to descend with Acacia's Nephele underneath until the Gear can stabilise and the shield finally fades, along with the other layered ones that Clarine and Hicalu created, along with Venetia's wet cement; it all allowed it to endure whole enough to protect them.
There is, perhaps, a satisfyingly uncomfortable sound as it impacts against ocean water, rocking them all of a sudden with the will of the Great Sea. But it is a reconnection with Filgaia nonetheless -- they're back on the very world they sought to protect, with its elements all around them. The salty scent of the ocean, the sea breeze being flicked into your hair, the cool dampness of it all, the beautiful twilight of the sun in the distance...
This is all evidence that you are alive.
It's good to be alive.
Isn't it... KamuiDELTA?
<Pose Tracker> Venetia Vuong has posed.
Meanwhile...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxyM7vhU0uU
An oblong object of pale metal - brushed and layered aluminasteel, if you were to get in there and check, but enclosing several durable air pockets and other buoyancy enhancers - bobbles in the nearby sea. The Heimdall Gazzo is visible in the sky, but not very.
There are several openings to the top of the escape pod, and one of them has been propped open, facing towards the Gazzo. It's rather broad, but someone is leaning partway out of it, beneath an improvised shroud under a silver blanket.
Erzebet Lefanu, underneath this improvised sunshroud that was once like a dew distillery or perhaps just some other piece of emergency equipment - it was tinfoil in PERSONAL SURVIVAL BOX and Erzebet doesn't understand ancient technology all the time - has found...
A stick. The original ARM.
She is using it to swirl and swish in the water because the loss of the thrill of escape has left her *bored* and *tired.* She has not seen much from the distant block that is the Heimdall Gazzo, until...
"Huh," she says. Looking upwards, she muses: "Is Solaris finally doing something?" A beat, as her glasses flicker. "No, that's... Zeboim? Edward, come look at this."
"I have literally broken both of my arms," says Edward, "and I am, literally, laying down for the first time in, literally, forty hours, so literally, go to Hell!" Edward is exaggerating, he just banged up one. The other one's totally broken, though. It has been splinted. Erzebet did not expect to do that.
"Fine, waste your time. Ratatoskr, you like to look at weird things, right? Come look at this," Erzebet says.
"Oh, it's going up. Maybe Solitaire stole it? I don't remember a Gear hangar or anything nearby, though..."
Four waves later: "Looks like it's coming down."
"Ain't that a thing," Erzebet muses.
"Weird? Weird!" Ratatoskr scoffs as he helps himself out the top of the escape pod with all the alacrity of eager youth and very little concern as to how much water the pod might take if he hurls himself atop the pod with that much force behind it again. "I like looking at historic things...!"
He takes out one of final acquisitions from many of Odessa's poorly-guarded, numerous technology bone piles, a Zeboim-era personal telescope with the risible limitation of omitting several colors from view (mostly stuff in the green-blue range).
"If it's Solitaire she's already promised to tell me what she saw...!" This is based on her surviving, of course. Those who gathered in that pod might, in truth, be the only living Odessa regulars left, and here Ratatoskr is about to risk squandering that by leeeeeeeeaaaaaning out further and further to take a look, and then...
The inevitable, with a loud splash.
(He's buoyant, it's fine.)
<Pose Tracker> Zhang Xiumei has posed.
Xiumei goes plummeting.
Her glasses halfway slide up her nose -- the wind makes her hair shoot up all around her, her ponytail flapping in the air. She screams, but she is only faintly aware of it. When she instinctively tries to activate the Biometal's armor...
It doesn't come. She stares, wide eyed, and then sees Azoth diving down. That form isn't familiar to her, but he is. His clawed hand reaches -- and she reaches back.
It isn't enough, until a burst pushes him closer.
He grips her arm and she grabs his, pulling in closer. She yells something, but it's lost in the wind; she isn't even sure what it is.
And with a flash, they're back on the Nova Striker, with the blue glow of the barrier over them. She looks out, towards where Kamui and Gami are descending...
And that final splash. She blinks her eyes, finding tears in them. She looks at the water, and then up at Heimdall Gazzo.
The two drones float closer to her, but are silent for now.
<Pose Tracker> Asgard has posed.
Asgard says nothing more to Varius, or Avile. This is their moment. Either they can do it, or they can't. For him to do more, is to take away the decision from Kamui that brought her to this moment. He witnesses their sacrifice.
He says nothing to Azoth, as he takes that leaping dive. He merely watches him make all of those calculations in real time.
They break atmosphere, and he witnesses the end result as Xiumei is caught by Azoth, as two drones float near them. That final splash. He understands implicitly that it worked.
"And so, shall you make many more new memories, my old friend."
He does not congratulate them. The results will speak for themselves once Kamui is ready. Turning, those white flower petals appear once again in a flourish, and as he steps amidst them, his form fades gradually with every step.
<Pose Tracker> Solitaire Collier has posed.
Solitaire says, "I'm not alone either," to Kamui. "You're right, we need others to live. And nobody wants to be alone when they die either. I'm glad they are with you now."
She has pushed Kamui back the others but in the process--well--
Solitaire is now even father away from the others than Kamui was and she has no way to get back to solid ground, falling solid ground it may be.
"Seems like you can handle the rest from here." Solitaire looks to Azoth, snapping a salute to him.
"...I enjoyed working with you today."
"Mission Complete."
And still saluting, she plummets off the side of the craft back down to Earth with nothing but Patience in her hands.
Solitaire twists her body so that her head is below her feet. She sees something down there.
Don't worry, I'm not going to let you splatter against the water.
"I know. Never alone." Solitaire grunts. She doesn't feel like she needs to pass speech checks anymore and that's a relief.
She falls, rapidly, letting the axe raised above her head fall to her side. Black energy erupts about a hundred feet above the buoy that ERzebet, Edward, and Ratatoskr are lingering.
And Solitaire twists her body up gymnastically, twisting her legs underneath her to land on top of Patience who gradually draws towards the buoy and drops Solitaire off on a platform NOT falling to its doom.
"Erzebet. Mission was a success."
Ratatoskr falls off the platform.
Patience swoops around away from Solitaire and catches him moments before he cna hit the water before floating back up to deposit him safely on board the buoy the last soldiers of Odessa share.
"Ratatoskr. As promised."
Solitaire smiles.
"I have the tale of a hero who fought for five thousand years to share with you... And the heroes of but a few decades who fought to save her."
She looks up briefly at Heimdall Gazzo. Did her dream just die today?
No, she thinks.
Her dream's just getting started.