driftfleet | /muffled dragonforce in the distance

[Though she doesn't remember it herself, Nightingale's been an adventurer for several years now. She was never as serious about it as some others, never as good at it as those she knew, but she was still an adventurer who fought and came close to death, and actually died, many times.

Her instincts and reflexes and senses for danger were honed through fighting and exploring, having to pick the optimal course to protect her friends on instincts when she couldn't consciously process information fast enough. And her time at the castle only served to hone those instincts further, brushing with death so often it's always in the back of her mind.

As soon as Sorey moves, danger flashes through her head, and she leaps away, comm vanishing into her inventory. Skidding, digging her heels into the wet ground, and equipping her staff, she's turning to face them.]

Go to sleep!

[She thrusts her free hand out, fingers curled, in Sorey's direction, The time for pretenses is gone, and her cover is blown. She's just hurling a Sleep spell at him and praying.]

Edited (tfw you look back hours later and realize you used the very wrong icon) 2016-09-09 02:30 (UTC)

[He staggers for all of a second before flicking off the spell. Yeah he's boss-level resistance now. She was awful quick with that spell though; she must've figured out he was going to attack her.]

So much for killing you after you've said your piece. [He points his sword at her as Mikleo slithers up behind him, hissing, steam curling up from between his teeth.] Were you lying to me about helping me find Dezel and Zaveid?

[This time, her eyes glow as she casts Scan, checking for weaknesses.

Resists fire, wind, and water? Just resist all of her damn spells, why don't you?]

Not at all. I was genuinely trying to look for them to find them. I was even going to pass along your message, exactly as it was.

... So they could see for themselves what kind of state you're in now, and get as far away as they can.

Dezel might. [Though he thinks Dezel might come back anyway. He's surely blaming himself.] Zaveid will absolutely come back, though. He'll want to kill Mikleo.

[Of course, that's what Sorey's betting on. He turns to Mikleo and gives his snout a gentle shove.] Get going, this'll draw enough attention. [When Mikleo growls and huffs and angrily chews at Sorey's hair he shoves his muzzle a little harder.] I have this. Go.

[Mikleo takes to the air but he doesn't go far, circling overhead and landing on mountain peaks within eyeshot, roaring and breathing out irate puffs of flame.

Sorey returns his attention to Nightingale.] I wish you hadn't lied to me. If you came here saying that you wanted to kill me, I'd have understood. [Wouldn't have let it happen, but he'd have understood.]

... You don't get it, do you?

[She grips her staff, taking careful steps and angling herself so that Mikleo and Sorey both remain in her field of vision at all times.]

I didn't lie. ... About that part. I don't want to kill you. We both know I don't have anywhere near the power to kill you- And even if I did, I still wouldn't want to. I've written off people I loved before, letting them die through my inaction.

I'm never going to do that again. My inaction won't doom anyone else. If I can save you, I'm going to... If saving you through words won't work, then I'll have to figure out a new way to do it.

[She keeps talking, slowing her breathing. Shut out all useless information. Focus all of your brainpower on the situation. Prioritize your objectives, and figure out the methods that can achieve them.

Her first priority is to save Sorey and Mikleo. Surviving... That's second. If she dies here, though, then if they do get saved, they'll never forgive themselves... That's not saving them at all.

She can't run away. She can't win in a fight. She can't stall with sleep spells. So, what can she do? ... There's only one chance. One small, tiny chance, her only chance.]

And... There's one more thing I understand that you don't.

Well? Don't keep me in suspense. [Sorey pays her little mind as she circles slightly, tapping his sword against his leg again. It leaves little frosted patches on his clothes.]

If you insist...

[She lifts her staff, and without any warning or casting or preparation, a (weak) bolt of lightning will strike Sorey.]

Thirty percent chance to inflict Paralysis, asshole!

[Her spell strikes true, but it's not so much the strength of it that makes Sorey pause. Sorey on his own isn't particularly powerful; he's just a boy who's learned how to efficiently swing a sword. What makes him fearsome is the strength the Shepherd pact gives him, and the elements he wields as a result. Take away that pact and he's as fragile and easily killed as any other human knight (which, as everyone knows, die with alarming frequency). It's why Mikleo hovers even when people cower in the face of his might. Mikleo knows just how much of that might isn't actually Sorey's.

The lightning isn't really much. Nightingale hadn't been wrong when she'd said they both knew she wouldn't have the power to win against him, and that's not even factoring in Mikleo's terrifying strength. No, what makes him stop is the feeling.

When he and Mikleo were small, too young for words to really stick but too inquisitive to keep from getting into trouble, Gramps had taken to zapping them lightly with static as punishment. It never hurt, and he used it on Mikleo far less frequently than Sorey just because of the way the elements interacted, but it was still often enough that just that zap is enough to make Sorey freeze in his tracks at the flood of homesickness. Gramps- Gramps protected them, taught them, shielded them from harm. If Gramps saw him like this-

If Gramps knew what he was doing-]

MiklEO- [Sorey howls, bowing over and covering his face. He doesn't want to see- He doesn't want to do this, he doesn't want to deal with this- Save him, save him, stop him-

Mikleo screams and tears down from the nearby mountain with horrifying speed, divebombing and landing hard enough to shake the earth, bounding over to cover Sorey with a wing and swinging his great horned head at Nightingale to try and knock her away from his.]

[... One she could stall, but with both in the mix? Now she's just doomed.

But that doesn't mean she's going to give up. The impact, the shaking ground, the rush of wind from his landing, those are enough to send Nightingale to the ground. But with practiced reflexes, she rolls over, springing back upright, and hurls another Sleep spell at Mikleo.

She's not doomed yet, a voice in her head argues. It's true she's hopelessly outmatched, but it's not truly hopeless, for two reasons. They're not operating on the same objectives- Sorey has to kill her, but all Nightingale has to do is stall. The other? Nightingale has used Scan, and she's talked to Sorey and Mikleo about their abilities before. She knows a lot of what they can do, and they don't know the same about her own abilities. She has tricks she can use.

... But tricks may not work in the face of overwhelming power. So... She prays, and begs, and pleads with her own magic- If she can do anything, please, let this one spell work. If she can just remove Mikleo from the fight for a bit, then...]

[The spell leaves Nightingale and hits Mikleo; a dragon is even better at shaking off status effects but he still growls and sags, blinking away the sudden drowsiness. Maybe it’s because they’ve been running each other ragged; maybe it’s because Mikleo actually needs sleep now, and isn’t used to fending it off. It doesn’t matter. Mikleo sags and Sorey ducks out from under his wing to face Nightingale head-on, indecision vanished. Seeing her go after Mikleo was enough; rational thought, recognition, that’s all gone.

Sorey grabs onto the wind and yanks, spinning it into screaming, cutting gales that tear through the crags of the mountains around them before he brings it down onto Nightingale with all the force of a village-devouring typhoon. She went after Mikleo. She’s no longer just a nuisance. It’s time to get her out of the way.]

[Mikleo is out, and Nightingale is in danger. Wind wraps around his blade... If she takes a hit from that, she's dead. There's not even a small, narrow chance of survivability- It's game over right then and there.

Wind is the element she's practiced most, though. She can't use it to fight, but maybe...

She jumps backwards, yanking on his wind with her magic. She can't take all of it, but she doesn't have to. She just points the wind at herself mid-jump, blowing herself further back.

As she lands, she's hurling another bolt of lightning at Sorey- Weak, but quick. She just hopes it slows him down.]

[Yeah he's not chasing her down; he knows she's a mage and he knows she knows he's a melee fighter, so she's not likely to let him get close.

Instead of pressing that wind onto his sword he's just going to let it fill the distance between them like invisible razorblades, calling down buckets of rain while he's at it. There's no reason for him to go after her and try to kill her the dirty way; he's got Shepherd powers. And Shepherds are, consistently and historically, terrifying masters of nature.]

[Normally, he'd be right. Normally, Nightingale would try to keep her range and engage from a safe distance.

The problem is, the monsters on her way up drained so much of her MP. Her little rest gave her back enough for a few spells, but now she's almost dry again. She has 33 MP left... That means eleven casts of Lightning, sure, but Lightning is conclusively not really doing anything.

She throws another bolt (30 MP now), and this time, charges forward, her staff held to thrust at his stomach.]

Ohhh, [Sorey hums in interest when she charges. The bolts are hard to avoid but he's building up a resistance to it; Gramps is pretty far from his mind now with Mikleo grumbling and rubbing his face against the ground to rouse himself.

When she charges he sidesteps and flicks out his sword to knock her thrust down to the ground. He sweeps up with his free hand, calling upon the water in the ground to surge up and send a wave of mud to try and swallow her up.]

[She's swallowed up, and for a moment, fear grips her. The memory- Cold water rushing over her head, her burning chest, the words carved into the glass- suffer yourself, or hurt others to escape?- Her mind goes into overdrive, panic and emotions bubbling up, memories coming unbidden.

The last time she felt this fear... Last time, in the Fleet, was in Allen's 'calibration'- His heart game. But there, his heart had given her the means to fight back- A spear she could channel her power into, a magical ability far beyond her own. A magical ability, in fact, that strongly resembled her grandfather's Spellblade techniques.

Her grandfather... If he were here, if he and her grandmother were here, they could take down Sorey and Mikleo with ease. They could wear them down with force, and with their words, they'd be able to save him. If it were her parents... They aren't good people. They would just kill both Sorey and Mikleo and be done with it. But, they have the power to. They could do it. They could do something. They could save people- They could save these two, who don't really want to hurt people like they are.

Archmage, Steelwall, Spellblade, Blood Knight... Her parents and her grandparents all have special classes, with amazing powers. What about her? She's just a normal Mage, and not even a particularly high-level one- She's screwed from the start. She's at her MP limit- She can use a few more useless little spells, or blow it all in one big spell. If she had more powerful magic, like her mother... No, that wouldn't help her. If she only had more MP. If she had more power than just a mage...

Channel your power into the spear

With a flash his sword coats itself in razor-sharp ice

Something clicks.

Something in her mind, something she doesn't understand well herself, slides into place.

Channeler class unlocked!

Class changed to Channeler.

Set skills?

Elemental set.

Her purpose is clear now. As a new class, her stats have reverted to level 1, but maybe all she needs is the element of surprise.

With a loud scream, a scream of defiance at her own fear, triumph at her success, and perhaps even a bit of surprise, she bursts out of the stream of mud and water, flames coiling around her staff, a stream of erupting fire sliding around her arm and weapon as if it were natural.

She swings this staff as hard as she can at Sorey's head.]

[Maybe, maybe it would have, maybe. If she'd caught him before he'd gone malevolent. If he was just Sorey, if it was just a spar, if this was about technique and skill only and not about elements and storms and weighty, overwhelming power. If she hadn't changed herself to fit into a new role that is a little too big on her, like a girl trying on her grandmother's shoes.

Sorey's head tilts with the blow and steam hisses up from the flames, but even without Lailah here, Sorey still has some control over flames. Something of this caliber? Is child's play.

Sorey wraps his fingers around her burning staff and slowly moves it aside, holding fast.] The bird names are so appropriate, [he mumbles as he makes spins his sword in his grip, makes a fist around the hilt and drives it into her face.]

Edited 2016-09-11 02:27 (UTC)

[No- Is all she can think. For her best spell, in a new technique, to be shrugged off? It definitely hit, but he's just grabbing it? And...

Confusion is written over her face as he talks about her name. She almost doesn't notice before his fist is in her face- It hurts, but she's keeping a death grip on the staff. She can't cast again, she can't fight back, but she isn't letting go of that staff.]

[Good. Makes it easier to drive his fist into her face again, and again until her nose bleeds, until her lips split. She's a reflection of himself, of a boy who thought he could reshape the way things are if he just tried hard enough, if he just trusted his friends enough. He hates him. He hates her. He wants to see that face shatter.]

When you talk about changing yourself, all I see [whuk he yanks up the staff when her knees buckle] is a silly little songbird [the sound of his strikes turn wet and he follows her to the ground] beating herself against the side of a mountain [he lets go of the staff to stomp down on it with one foot, driving the other into her side] and begging it to move.

[People don't change. Humans, mortals, they don't change. They've bred malevolence, murdered their own, sold out their own families since the beginning of time and they'll continue, ever onward, until the universe collapses in on itself, trying to rectify its mistake.]

[She hits the ground, and struggles. If she can fight back, she has to fight back. If she can defend herself, she has to defend herself. If she can stall, she has to stall. If all she can do is huddle on the ground, and try to cover her body with her arms to stop his blows, then she has to do that.

But it hurts. The blows hurt, the attacks hurt, but it hurts most that it's Sorey doing this. That bright, shining guy who seemed like he would have belonged perfectly on Takshaka. To see that turned into this...

Her bones crack. Her arms, her ribs. Her body is covered in wounds quickly, until she's covered in blood and mud. And still, all she can turn to say to him, the last thing she can focus to say:]

This... isn't you...

[And then, her mind blurring from the pain, all her thoughts turn to one person. And all she can do is breathe out a quiet apology, that no one will hear.]

Sorry, Opal... I wish I could have moved there after all...

[Nothing else is going to come from her mouth except bloody coughs from his kicks.]

[before one more kick can land on nightingale, suddenly a barrier springs up between her and sorey - it expands and pushes into him, trying to force him away. it's not incredibly strong, so it won't last very long, especially if he has any sort of magic to fight against it.

the girl who's charging near the two of them, though, is hoping it will at least give her enough time to grab nightingale and run. as she gets closer and sees just how bad the damage is, she kneels next to nightingale, trying to figure out the best way to get out of here with both of them alive.

that doesn't stop her from glancing his way for a moment, hatred in her gaze.]

Fuck you.

[this is an excellent use of the limited time she has to get out before being eaten by a dragon. at any rate, she's wrapping her arms around nightingale so she can pick her up to get her out of here.]

[Sorey steps back in surprise at the barrier, rapping a couple knuckles against it in interest. It's- oh, it's Opal. She's got some malevolence of her own, look at that. He's not sure how long she can keep up these barriers, but in the end it doesn't matter. Nightingale can't even hear him any more. There's no point.]

Mikleo.

[Sorey glances back over his shoulder as the dragon's great head snaps up. Frosty breath cascades from between his teeth as he uses the chill to chase away the sleep from his eyes.]

Dinnertime.

[Mikleo clicks deep in his throat, seeming to grin as he creeps closer. The glow behind his teeth changes to orange; he likes his meals well-done.]

[Right as Mikleo opens his mouth enough, a shout is heard from behind Nightingale and Opal]

CROWN EDGE!

[With a swipe of his claws, several small projectiles go flying- high enough so it's over Opal and Nightingale's heads but instead aiming directly at Mikleo's mouth. As soon as they hit, they explode with holy power. Not enough to cause serious damage to a dragon

[After the attack he runs forward to Opal and Nightingale, his powers activated and his cape glowing white among all this darkness]

Sorry I'm lat-

[he trails off when he seems to notice something, his cursed eye red in color as he stares off at the dragon in slight horror. Or rather, right above it]

...Mikleo.

[So that's why they said there no cure from becoming a dragon. Oh God...]

[she starts to pick nightingale up, but she realizes as soon as sorey speaks that she won't be fast enough to get away, and the barrier won't last long enough to save them. she flinches as the dragon moves forward, instinctively trying to shield the other girl - and then the projectiles go flying and the sounds of explosions fill the air.

she takes a few quick, shallow breaths, trying to keep calm. then she looks towards allen as he comes over.]

I need to get her out of here. Can you take it from here?

[Mikleo roars in pain, shoving his face against the ground and wiping furiously with his claws. Sorey races to Mikleo's side, cradling his scorched muzzle, trying to pull open his jaws,] Let me see, let me see- [but Mikleo simply bats him away.

The humans behind them talk and Sorey snaps around to glare. They hurt Mikleo.

Rage surges up like a beast unchecked; their names, faces, voices fall away as background noise as Sorey becomes nothing more than a vicious channeler of twisted retribution as the wind begins to squall, shrieks and lops the tops off the trees, cutting its way down. He'll level this entire forest. He'll slice them to ribbons for what they did.]

/muffled dragonforce in the distance

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