Description: Voices in the dark. Memories of destruction. Is it just the sound of dripping water, or is it a trickle of blood, someone's last message scrawled on the wall? Nahid and Frei descend into the subways, looking to root out the source of a gnawing terror preying on those who remain in the destroyed remains of Taizhou...
Above, Taizhou is a twisted nightmare. A city torn from its people, and now only a shell. Everywhere are the remnants of humanity, of civilization, of life. It is an unkind place to be. And yet... and yet... it seems as though there exists a place even MORE twisted than the city above. And where better for that place to be, than below? The subways that once connected all of Taizhou now serve as the ONLY connector between the Luqiao and Huangyan districts. People have come down here to escape from the city... and most do indeed make it out. They do not, however, make it out unchanged. Something is down there. Something that seems to be worse than the destruction-torn Taizhou.
And yet other than the subways themselves being destroyed, there seems to be nothing different.
...No, wait. On the periphery of hearing. What is that?
A song, echoing through the tunnels.
"I see... trees of green... red roses too... I see them bloom, for me... and you..."
Normally a cheerful song, this voice seems to come from all tunnels, and yet none. Slowly. Hauntingly.
Why do people actually go in here?
Nahid has been in subways before - proper subways, that run more or less on time and are busy with people. Subways full of life, and occasional police officers to dodge if you're a fare-jumper. (Nahid is a fare-jumper.)
This place is just creepy. Even if you do need it to get from one district to another, Nahid doesn't like it. Which means she is covering that up by being belligerent (more so than usual) and posturing.
"Kind of a dump, isn't it?" the punk-looking NESTS operative says, kicking a small rock far into the distance. It thunks against a wall, out of sight. "I mean, more so than most of this city." Physically, it's not too bad, except for those weird paths. But Nahid is a city girl, and any city with practically nobody in it is by definition a dump and a ruin.
She pauses, foot back as if to kick again, at the distant sound in the backgrund. She /has/ to be imagining that. Or someone left a radio on.
From the heights to the lows. Not that long ago, Frei stood atop the highest point in Huangyan, surveying both the destruction of Taizhou and the relatively unchanged world beyond. Below him, devastation; beyond it, the green and fertile valley south of the Great River that in ancient days of China was considered among the most prosperous and beautiful of kingdoms. He had believed, when he tried, that if he could find out what was going on, figure out the puzzle, he could keep the impending doom limited to Taizhou. It was Alma's presence, and his message, that started the downward spiral of doubt. Was this potentially all for nothing? What is Seishirou -- who Frei suspected, but now knows, to be very much alive -- planning?
The next day, the world erupted.
He's been slightly sick ever since; the chi swirling in the air, ripping through the ground, erupting into the sky... it's everywhere, but it's not the density of the chi-fueled disaster that upsets his equilibrium. It's the nature of it, or perhaps better said, the unnature of it. Frei has always ridden with the flow of the moment rather than against the current; his entire style and philosophy is built on concordance rather than control. This lightning storm, the fire around Nenzhao -- which holds its own secrets, now inaccessible -- all of it manmade, against the natural order. For the whole day he's felt like he's a salmon swimming upstream.
It was during a walk to clear his head that he got the news. Aren't you that guy? The one in the fights? I don't know about the others, but you might do something... it's down there. What is it? I don't know, but it's... I can't talk about it. See for yourself. We can't do anything about it, but maybe you can. All of these and more, from countless voices. Terrified people who live in a war zone, and the war is against all humanity.
The text message just sealed the deal.
So here he is, alongside Nahid, walking down the steps into the subway and glancing around. His hand sort of instinctively goes to the carved 'hilt' of his wooden sword, slung through his back belt loops, and he cranes his head to hear as Nahid gives her evaluation of the setting.
After a second he adds, in a passably good tenor voice, "And I think to myself..." He turns to Nahid and shrugs. "What a wonderful world..." At least you know it's not his voice coming from all the tunnels at once.
Almost as if waiting for Frei to accompany the formless singer, at the exact same time, the exact same cadence, pitch and tone, that singer joins his voice with Frei's in a rather skillful harmonization. Then, the words stop entirely, the song ending - at least from whoever the singer is. A moment of silence, only broken by the sounds of running water, an occassional sightless fish flopping around, and a crackle of a broken electricity line.
Then: "Welcome to God's domain, my children. Do you see around you His love, in its truest form? Do you feel the pain of the citizens of this city, who have truly been blessed?"
"They know god's love."
"Do you?"
This voice, like the song, comes from everywhere and no where. The tunnels themselves seem to be speaking, for all one could identify the source of that voice. Silence again, for minutes. As if waiting for an answer to the questions posed. But ultimately, whether silence is given in return, or answers are tried, the answer to the answer is the same. The tunnels /pulse/ as though a gargantuan heart beating somewhere in the depths of the subway. Once. Twice. -Then the third is accompanied by a wave of white that harmlessly passes through the tunnels, bathing everything for a moment in a soft glow.
And then there are people. Or, more preciously, silhouettes of people. They stand around Frei and Nahid as if the subway had not been torn asunder, going about business as usual. Some wait for the train. Some read news papers. Other scold children. Voices can be heard, though indistinct. ...And then something happens. Lights (but what lights?) blink off and on, the ground seems to shake (the ground is not shaking). Again it happens, harder. The non-voices shriek. They talk rapidly. What is happening, what is going on? Thud. Thud. THUD. The lights go out (the lights stay the same). And then panic creeps in. Fear. Horror. What happened, what happened, mommy why are the lights out?
The fear is a palpable wave that attempts to crush the two warriors.
COMBATSYS: Saint has joined the fight here on the left meter side.
[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ <
Saint 0/-------/-------|
COMBATSYS: Frei has joined the fight here on the right meter side.
[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > //////////////////////////////]
Saint 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Frei
COMBATSYS: Nahid has joined the fight here on the right meter side.
[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > //////////////////////////////]
Saint 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Frei
> //////////////////////////////]
|-------\-------\0 Nahid
COMBATSYS: Saint successfully hits Nahid with Whisperer in Darkness.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > //////////////////////////////]
Saint 0/-------/=======|-------\-------\0 Frei
> ////////////////////////// ]
|==-----\-------\0 Nahid
"What the hell?"
Nahid's first words that aren't solely an attempt to keep herself talking come after the voice, but before any light. "Who the hell are you? Get out here and - "
Though the light does not really make noise as such, it drowns out Nahid; her voice catches and she actually falls quiet for a few seconds. This is basically unheard of. Normally she can't/won't stop running her mouth even when it is actively detrimental to her health.
She does not know what's going on. Nahid is not terribly prone to fits of any sort, fear among them, but even she feels this freeze her heart, her breathing caught. Everything is different, and weird, and wrong. She reacts the only way she knows how.
Nahid pushes against the wave with the extremely untrained power of her own mind. Her talents do not lend themselves to this in the least; she may have an extraordinary understanding of and control over her own body, but her mind is as much a mystery to her as any other person off the street. Still, it's enough to shield her, at least a little.
"I don't know who the hell you are, but GET OUT!" The way Nahid has chosen to deal with her imposed fear is to turn it into anger and rage, channeling it to a productive use. A productive use that involves, apparently, going berserk on the spectral figures around her. They're all fakes. When she goes through them like a whirlwind, using long-armed strikes to move them away from her, it isn't hurting anyone real except, possibly, whoever's doing this to her, if she gets lucky.
COMBATSYS: Saint successfully hits Frei with Whisperer in Darkness.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > /////////////////////////// ]
Saint 1/------=/=======|=------\-------\0 Frei
> //////////////////////// ]
|===----\-------\0 Nahid
There's a split second where Frei has a moment to turn to Nahid, observing her sudden silence, before the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Then the weirdness starts, and his green eyes widen, pupils shrinking as his body can't quite tell if mental response or physical response is the right one. A mother and child stand in front of a dripping 'Ware the Boogieman' on the wall behind them, slick with red blood. A pedestrian reads his paper on a bench while a girder falls and neatly crushes a screaming teenage boy next to him. Visions of destruction, despair, and terror, made all the worse for the visions of perfect normalcy that dance in and out.
He shuts his eyes, he takes deep breaths. Not the first time someone's tried to invade his mind, though it's among the most... brutally intrusive. Even his own brother's ruthless, killing-curse Psycho Power wasn't quite the same. The fact that he's naturally receptive to it right now isn't helping, either, really. Already, he feels such deep sorrow about this place.
In the midst of the darkness, though, something makes his eyes open, jars him to wakefulness.
"The past is the past," he says quietly, putting a hand to his chest, palm down. Green-gold light spills out from underneath it, limning his body like faerie before. "It can't be changed, it can't be helped. I won't be held back by phantoms!" He raises the glowing hand toward the ceiling, and the light becomes spectral leaves, whirling around him in a column, slicing through shades as they come near.
COMBATSYS: Nahid successfully hits Saint with Falling Water Reach.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > ////////////////////////// ]
Saint 1/----===/=======|==-----\-------\0 Frei
> //////////////////////// ]
|====---\-------\0 Nahid
COMBATSYS: Saint endures Frei's Reiki.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > ////////////////////////// ]
Saint 1/-======/=======|===----\-------\0 Frei
> //////////////////////// ]
|====---\-------\0 Nahid
Fears crushes down like a tidal wave, hurting, spiking the mind with such intensity that it seems difficult to breathe. Memories can be glimpsed along with this pain. It seems Frei is correct: this is the memory of the citizens of Taizhou, the ones who were down here when the forces that began to tear the city apart started. The innocents that were caught in the war.
But these shades are not those people. They are merely psychic impressions left upon the world... or perhaps, being forced upon the world. Nahid's punches feel as though they connect with something solid, something that exists beyond mere shade. It isn't a strong feeling, but it is different from punching air. It also seems as though these shades... bleed. A lot. A mere punch makes blood splatter away from the impact, staining a wall, the ground. Frei's own chi leaves slice into the phantoms, tearing them apart, and leaving quite a bit of blood everywhere. But the shades are merely that, for as they get defeated, the bodies disappear completely, leaving only the strange blood... which seems real enough.
"AH ha ha ha ha ha ha!" Comes that voice, laughing, even though the tone is strained, in obvious pain. The shades seem to work both ways - producers of pain, and receptors of pain. What kind of power could this person be using, when he isn't even in the room? "Good. GOOD. GOOD!!! You are no strangers to the love of God. You have felt it for yourself. You know it, you dish it out. This. THIS!! Is Ryouhara wishes."
Another pulse, the tunnels practically shivering with whatever it is. And then the next memories come: the underground fires that blazed in the wake of the tunnels' collapse. White flames burst from the walls, accompanied by sounds of explosions (though nothing seems to actually be exploding). More shades of people appear, some being caught in the explosions, some running. Others are trapped. None seem to pay attention to Frei or Nahid - but at least Nahid seems unlucky, as some psychic flames from an explosion burst -right- next to her.
COMBATSYS: Saint successfully hits Nahid with Salem Horror.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > ////////////////////////// ]
Saint 2/<<<<<<</<<<<<<<|===----\-------\0 Frei
> ///////////// ]
|=======\==-----\1 Nahid
Nahid is becoming slowly more convinced that she is being driven insane. That she might /actually/ be insane is not possibly true; she knows she's perfectly fine. But the insane laughter she hears, the sense of psychic pressure - she is quite capable of believing that they are in her head.
She doesn't like it. That's really not nearly strong enough: she hates it.
"Shut up," Nahid practically growls, striding forward at another one of those bloody 'people' - as an explosion engulfs her and it. She never saw it coming as it surrounds her, hides her entirely from view, burns and scorches...
Nahid staggers out of it. The original flames may have been psychic. The lingering fire on her seems perfectly mundane, though it fades quickly, Nahid's fancy jacket covered in ash. She is lurching, her side still feeling like it's burning even though the fire is out.
Planting both feet, Nahid drives her palm at one of the spectres, forcing her own mental power - what there is of it - into the palm of her hand. There isn't much visible - it doesn't even glitter - but even the vaguely sensitive can feel a pressure coiled and condensed in Nahid's hand.
She delivers the palm thrust, and at the same time, releases it on contact, striking with her muscles and her mind at once. Against a normal human, it would be more than enough to launch them several tens of feet. Nahid has no idea what it will do against this.
"Listen..." Frei says carefully, looking sidelong at Nahid, blinking in surprise as she kinda sorta flips out a little bit. He can feel the heat, too, the flame roaring from both sides of the tunnel, but perhaps his inability to use psychic power is working to his benefit in this case. A part of him is always grounded in fundamental reality. Whether he can fight it off himself or the wave simply decided to focus on Nahid isn't clear, but he obviously has a moment of relative lucidity, and she does not.
"If it helps, focus on the sound of your heart beating," he says to Nahid, closing his eyes a moment. A hand drops back to the grip of his bokken, and then he starts walking forward, struggling to keep calm. Fear and doubt are still eating away at his sanity after that first wave, but he's fighting back, slowly but surely, bolstering his sanity by keeping in tune with the flow of chi. As hallucinations come close, he lashes out at them in any way he can, conserving his movements. A ripple of pure white flows across the wooden sword as it attempts to slice through one; his hand flickers with blue-white lightning as he shoves another aside.
"God has nothing to do with it," he says quietly but firmly as he advances toward the tunnels. "Man did this, and man will make amends. No more, no less."
COMBATSYS: Saint blocks Frei's Close-Quarters Draw.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > ////////////////////////// ]
Saint 2/<<<<<<</<<<<<<<|====---\-------\0 Frei
> /////////// ]
|=======\==-----\1 Nahid
COMBATSYS: Saint endures Nahid's Solitary Peak Palm!
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > ////////////////////////// ]
Saint 2/<<<<<<</<<<<<<<|====---\-------\0 Frei
> /////////// ]
|=======\===----\1 Nahid
The shades seem almost defenseless, as if they don't even want to put up a defense. If they can even -see- Nahid and Frei would be up for debate. None of them try to block, or fend away the blows. None try to move away from Nahid and Frei even as the other shades are 'killed', their blood splattering messily across the ground. It could be considered almost too easy... if the psychic pulses weren't almost obscene in their strength. Nahid punches one and rather than it flying, it simply /explodes/ into blood, possibly getting some onto the NESTS agent herself. Frei slices through another, seeming to bisect it, and more blood splatters. Then the shades fade.
More insane laughter, even more pained this time. Labored breaths, as if whoever was speaking were getting physically wounded by what is being done to the shades. "And what is man but tools of God? Man's actions are nothing; all is according to His will."
Another pulse. Faster, this time. Stronger. Different shades appear this time, largely running along the tracks of the subway, some up on the platform, all of them running towards Frei and Nahid - though none of them seem interested in attacking, specifically. Instead, white electricity crackles along points of the tunnel, especially along the rails of the subway. And then, shades are hit with sudden bursts of it, some of them collapsing, more still running faster.
The same electricity seeks out Frei, and attempts to /slam/ against the sage. Should it hit, it would feel something akin to getting hit with several dozen lightning bolts, all at once, despite the fact -there is no electricity-.
Heartbeat. Right. Focus on her own body. Nahid is /good/ at controlling her body; every beat of her heart, the feel of how her weight shifts when she takes a step, just everything about herself and where she is, now.
Nahid breathes in and out a couple times. Slow, steady. Controlled. She's /not/ really good at total focus in any aspect other than this; fortunately, she doesn't need to be. Not this time.
Her eyes snap open a moment later, even as new energy surges through her; she's going to pay for it later, she knows, but right now her entire body burns with power. Even her burns don't feel so bad, not right this instant.
"Crazy asshole," she mutters, as she comes to herself again. It feels good to. She doesn't see the non-electricity until it is too late - but none of it comes terribly close to her, so despite her slowness, nothing terribly bad happens to her.
COMBATSYS: Nahid enters a meditative state.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > ////////////////////////// ]
Saint 0/-------/=======|====---\-------\0 Frei
> /////////// ]
|=======\=====--\1 Nahid
COMBATSYS: Frei endures Saint's Crawling Chaos.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > /////////////// ]
Saint 0/-------/=======|=======\=------\1 Frei
> /////////// ]
|=======\=====--\1 Nahid
He walks right into it.
That might be the most unnerving thing of all: Frei seriously sees the incoming white-hot lightning and stops walking, puts the wooden sword back into his belt loops, and stands there, arms wide. "No. I won't say there's no God, but here it's only us."
The power -- or perhaps, the phantom of power? -- slams into his body with agonizing force, coursing through veins and neurons alike. But Frei doesn't falter. The pain is useful; the pain provides focus, and the pain gives him a way to not give in to fantasy. "The real illusion here is thinking we're dreaming," he says, voice taut, as he continues forward still. Sadly, this means leaving Nahid behind a little bit, but it's a risk he'll have to take. "But all these things happened. Pretending they didn't is the real illusion. People suffered, people died. For what?" He's forced to stop a second, gritting his teeth. The pain saps his strength, causing his extremities to feel a little numb, but he's not going to be deterred.
"If this is what you call the light of God," he says at last, holding his hand out in front of him, "then I'd pit the light of human will against it any day." Seven small white lights appear in Frei's palm, then explode outward toward the darkness as a person-high wave of white light. It's not psychic powers, but it is a reflection of Frei's will.
COMBATSYS: Saint endures Frei's Seiya.
[ \\\\\\\\ < > /////////////// ]
Saint 1/-----==/=======|=======\====---\1 Frei
> /////////// ]
|=======\=====--\1 Nahid
Nahid collects herself in order to try and fight off the psychic waves of pure pain. And it seems, whoever is controlling these phantoms is content to leave her alone. Frei, however, steps forward in order to deliberately hurt himself. To focus in on the pain. And that gives him strength, it seems. The sage takes it all in, affirms himself, and then he declares his own will shall banish whatever god decreed that the people who were in these tunnels had to suffer and die.
The white light that represents that pain doesn't seem to hit anything- and yet, as if the very tunnels themselves were the inside of someone's body and Frei were wrecking about inside of it, when the voice rises again, it almost sounds like the owner of it is coughing up blood. "Khk- grgh-" and then the noises shift to more laughter, more intensely focused on being /plum crazy/. "You don't- khk -seem to understand. These people understood God's love the most. He gave them a /gift/. Job. The Great Flood. His very own son on the cross. Innumerable instances throughout history show pain is how God shows his love. Now. NOW. FEEL IT!"
And that's when the tunnels pulse again - but this time, they only contract, like a heart siezing up. A moment later, and the tunnels release, as if sighing out some horrid whisper. And with it... comes the fog. White fog surges from the tunnel ahead, and races over towards Frei. If nothing is done, the fog will envelop the man... and then suddenly it's as if the WORLD is made of pain. Every death. Every burned victim. Every electrified person- no, more than that. Every bit of grief of people who lost loved ones, both during the war and prior to it when Taizhou was collapsing due to criminal control.
Every.
Single.
Bit of pain.
All of it, that Taizhou and its people have experienced... is thrown at Frei. The tunnels FILL with shades, as if suddenly every person that's ever lived in Taizhou is crowding in. Shouting, screaming, crying, punching, stabbing, shooting...
Nahid is... better.
Not good. She won't call herself good as long as whatever the hell is happening in these tunnels is still going on. But she's mobile, and the fear in her head has died down to something she can ignore. For the moment.
She strides forward, after Frei. She doesn't even /know/ Frei, not well. She's fought with him twice and ignored him (as she does with most people) around the place. She's never met him outside this ruined city, never spoken to him, but dammit, she's stuck with him. And he did have good advice that once.
The feeling of pressure surrounds Nahid again as she pushes out her control of her body, driving every iota of her mental power into one hand. The internal pressure is so much it actually hurts her to do it as she walks forward, her right hand vibrating and twitching occasionally as Nahid does something she has only done a very few times before. The technique was half-forbidden for a reason.
"I'm an atheist, you asshole," Nahid informs the air, before leveling that palm strike at the cloud of shades attacking Frei, swarming him. The mental shove is much, much stronger this time, enough that the recoil from it alone almost knocks Nahid on her rear. It's worse for her targets.
COMBATSYS: Saint successfully hits Frei with Wake the Sleeping God.
[ \\\\\\\\ < > ]
Saint 0/-------/-----==|>>>>>>>\>>>>>>>\2 Frei
> ///////// ]
|==-----\-------\0 Nahid
He starts to block it out. He really should; the psychic attack is not playing around. He might actually die. But part of the words about God that come echoing back at him from somewhere make him pause. Either because they cause him to falter and doubt, or because he made a decision because of that doubt, will probably never be known. But as Nahid surges forward, Frei stops moving, his fingers flexing one last time, and shuts his eyes.
He's hit with a falling girder.
Trampled by fleeing citizens.
Burned, scorched, electrocuted.
Sharp objects cut his flesh.
Fear resounds in his mind. Not the fear of everyday bad things, but the terror of absolute death, of staring one's mortality in the face. Something most people never do, and those who actually come out the other side, are never the same again. They can't handle the strain. But for Frei it's infinitely worse; it's not just his own fear of death, but that of thousands of people, maybe more. Their sorrow and pain. Enough for a thousand lifetimes, all squeezed into the span of a second. The effect is *pronounced*; blood trickles from his nose, his visible skin is marked with cuts and bruises as his body effectively destroys itself to keep the illusion consistent.
In the darkness, he wonders to himself if this is what death is like, after all... nothing but silence, after an eternity of pain and sorrow.
'I'm an atheist, you asshole.'
His eyes open to see Nahid at his side, striving to keep the darkness at bay, even though it hadn't struck at her. Coughing blood onto the floor, Frei rises from the ground, where he had inexplicably fallen, clutching his stomach on his knees, and he looks at his partner -- his brash partner, the loner one might never expect to do anything of the sort.
Empathy divides us from demons.
"If I die here," he says raggedly, bringing his hand back to grip the carved hilt of his wooden sword, barely keeping on his feet, "then all of their pain will have been for nothing. I've felt it, in my marrow. But if 'God' gave us suffering, he also gave us empathy and hope. All you've given me is... even more reason to go on. So they won't be forgotten. So nobody else will have to feel that fear."
Turning his head to the side, he gives Nahid a faint smile. "Sorry, Nahid... the rest is up to you."
He turns back to the darkness and draws the wooden sword, holding it in front of him horizontally, perpendicular to the ground. When he speaks, despite his injuries, his voice is loud and resonant, cutting through the whispering darkness. "O golden light that soars with the sun... red-plumed wings of crimson flame! Honor our pact and appear before me!" The sword blade suddenly explodes with curling tongues of scarlet-orange chi flame which turn into a ring that surrounds both Frei and Nahid.
For a moment, he says nothing, but Frei then levels the wooden sword at the darkness. "You could never understand the true meaning of God. Go and don't come back."
In a sweeping motion, the blade is pointed at the ceiling, and Frei's voice rings out one last time. "Flames of rebirth, engulf the impure! Suzaku!"
The world effectively explodes in flame. Only Frei and Nahid are truly safe; a massive form of fiery chi in the shape of a phoenix rises from the ring of fire, erupting up and outwards, looking to sear away all traces of the darkness in one go.
When the flames die down, Frei closes his eyes, and falls to the ground unconscious.
COMBATSYS: Frei can no longer fight.
[ \\\\\\\\ < > ///////// ]
Saint 0/-------/-----==|==-----\-------\0 Nahid
COMBATSYS: Saint blocks Frei's Shinra Banshou.
[ \\\\\ < > ///////// ]
Saint 0/-------/---====|==-----\-------\0 Nahid
COMBATSYS: Nahid successfully hits Saint with The Mountain Stands Alone.
[ < > ///////// ]
Saint 0/-------/=======|==-----\-------\0 Nahid
By now, the man on the other side of the psychic telephone seems to have gotten himself used to the idea of bracing against the psychic backlash he was getting. Each hit against shades seems more resistant than before... but not impossible to kill, oh no. With the strength both Nahid and Frei possess, even if the shades seem more resilient, they still splatter just as satisfyingly with blood across the ground, the immediate subway tunnel looking as if it had been repainted in red blood.
The summoning of the phoenix scours at the white fog that encloses Frei, incinerating shades. Nahid's own attack sends many more flying, slamming against walls, making easy targets for them to burn into ash and blood. Ultimately the two attacks seem to finish things off. For a moment, there is purely silence. Then... a noise. The sound of pained gasping, like some horrid beast just lurking in the darkness that's been stabbed a few too many times. And then once more, cackling. Even if the sound is -quite- pained. "And yet here you stand, giving me pain in return! Delicious, delicious!"
Once more, things are silent.
Then, seemingly from no where, comes one last shade. Its purpose? ...To hug Nahid. Just hug her. Merely touching the shade causes a lash of psychic pain, and yet, all it does... is hug. Whose memory of pain that could be, is a mystery.
COMBATSYS: Saint can no longer fight.
> ///////// ]
|==-----\-------\0 Nahid
COMBATSYS: Nahid dodges Saint's Love's Eldritch Ichor.
> ///////// ]
|==-----\-------\0 Nahid
It's up to /her/? Nahid hasn't ever won a professional fight and Frei's leaving it to /her/? He's nuts.
But it seems to be all right, if only because the fire and Nahid's own psychic palm strike were enough to clear most of the shades and spectres away from them. Nahid is left almost alone, with nothing but the voice in the dark and an unconcious Frei.
The voice sounds pained. That actually cheers her up. "Yeah, and you couldn't even be bothered to get your ass down here and fight us proper," Nahid taunts, her voice raspy but still intelligable. "You want pain? Look us up. I'll give you some proper pain - "
The last spectre lunges for her. Nahid does not realize what it is trying to do at first and does not care. She doesn't want any part of it; she wants no memories that are not her own. She scuttles back, almost tripping over Frei as she evades the last spectre - and almost lazily tries to push it over if it doesn't leave her alone of its own volition.
"Asshole," she says, into the silence.
Log created on 20:23:21 05/06/2010 by Frei, and last modified on 15:37:18 05/17/2010.