melodiesoflife | Event || The Enemy Within

Entry tags:

Event || The Enemy Within

Characters: All characters who signed-up for the event.
Where: In their heads.
When: January 15th.
Summary: The Heroes of Light have a vision-- They are living through a hypothetical future where the Sage share his knowledge with them, and things went horribly wrong as some Heroes of Light became the villains in this timeline. Maybe they'll revise their thoughts on getting all of that knowledge.
Warning: The apocalypse, deaths, tragedies, overall a lot of very bad things.

Mingle Threads: The Antagonists || The Protagonists || The Others || General
Free Open Threads: The Two Years || Other Events

#01 Attempts at Negotiations || Trano Golsaucia
#02 Tactical Espionage Action || Aqures Ixen
#03 Judgmental Glares || Aerilon
#04 The Fight for the Crystallized Bodies || Aqures Tosf
#05 The Dusk of the Heroes || Mysidia
#06 The Fight for the Moon || Lunar Gate
#07 Conflict Above the Stars || Moon Base
#08 The Birth of a God || Crystal Life Tree
#09 The Death of a World || Moon Base
#10 Where Everything Ends || Pandaemonium

Conclusion || The Sage in Mysidia

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Near three years, and Calamity close upon them. All the time, and pain- and the answer to freeing them all of this… It had to be here. The arrival of others was an unwelcome distraction, but she glanced over her shoulder to see who'd come anyway. If it came to a fight…

She looked back at Lydia when the other spoke, expression softening into something softer and pained. It wasn't fair that any of them should have been brought here- but especially not one of Lydia's age. Nor was it right to lose friends and family to this world. With that conviction in mind, she nodded. "Freedom is the best thing we can offer them," she said, and raised her eyes to meet those of the others in the room, daring them to argue.

Edited (extra letter) 2016-01-27 04:52 (UTC)

"Chrom... you know, by now, that isn't how this works."

Robin said it calmly, almost gently, but there was something incredibly firm in her words. She looked at him for a moment, hesitating completely. The thought of Morgan still gave her a shiver; still raised something terrified in her stomach. She looked down and she worried.

"We've found a solution," she said. "It isn't an easy one. But, sometimes... tacticians must choose the hard way. The way that grants life to everyone in the end -- not the way that dooms us all."

"Grants life...?" Chrom wasn't really sure what she meant, but he wanted to believe in her. Some had said that they'd come here to destroy the planet itself from afar, but surely that couldn't be true. It was said that method would destroy all of existence as well. That wasn't the sort of thing Robin would do.

So why was she looking at them like that, with that empty void filling the eyes that were once so full of life and laughter? Chrom was torn.

"Grant life how?" he asked, his eyes searching her face for some glimmer of hope.

Part of Bulma had come along with the small band of would-be heroes for the fact that among there numbers was a walking, talking robot; a miracle of science and invention. Another part of her had been done in by the visual beauty that was the swordsman known as Chrom. Very soon into her trip with them, however, and her intentions had gone from shallow to serious. For a long time she'd been ignorant, on purpose, of the situation occurring in Crystallis. Curiosity, answers, and truth had kept her standing beside the approaching party.. even if it meant she stood a few feet behind them out of fear.

Clearing her throat, she waved a hand over her head while the other held tight to a small container no bigger than a pocket mirror. Her intentional cry for attention was a meager effort, of which she did not expect much success, but at the very least it was worth a shot.

"Look. I hate to break up this reunion since it's obvious you two have some sort of history? Romantic history, maybe? Chrom..? Yeah? -Any way. How about some one point me in the direction of the main console to this station and the rest of you all can just catch up on lost time?"

Lydia offered a small smile, sad but at peace with herself too. "It's occupied already. Sorry." Polite, still so polite, even if the zest she'd once had no longer manifested itself. With her two puppets, and K'Pandolu helping translate, Lydia felt secure enough.

"Miss Robin, if you want to try and explain to him, Miss K'Pandolu and I will continue to work. We'll be safe enough." Still so peaceful, and insistent. If need be she'd cast virtual shield, and it would buy time.

Something that granted life. As one who fought with and against the dead that sounded too ominous to ignore. Ichigo's eyes roamed from Robin to the others by the terminal. They all seemed calm enough to talk to, at least for the moment, but he spared Bulma a bit of a surprised glance at her sudden bold remark. She'd been fairly quiet and distracted up until then. Maybe she was just as nervous as everyone else.

He returned his attention to Robin. There was no way the Moon Base held something that granted life--there were weapons and they were extremely dangerous. Were they planning on using them?

"I don't think anything in this place will be able to grant life. It doesn't work that way."

He hoped she wasn't trying to justify using any of the weapons with the memory of her dead son. Surely she must have heard some wrong information.

[ooc: Lemme know if I got any details massively wrong here; I can definitely edit to fix the tag if so!]

"Very well, Lydia."

Robin looked at them in turn -- at Ichigo, first, with a frown, and then at Chrom. She frowned a little more sharply at that.

"We have to think in a larger picture. The Calamity must be stopped. Until it is, we are caught in a cycle of death and rebirth -- and not as ourselves," Robin answered. "But... there is a way to be reborn. A way, I believe, that we would be reborn in the world we meant to. For that..."

She looked down, then. "...We must create an ending to an endless cycle."

[ooc: Iiii think everything looks all right? heading along anyhow.]

Satisfied for the moment that the others were not about to strike out at them, K'pandolu took a step back, towards the console again. Still- Robin's mention of rebirth struck a chord in her, that memory of seeing one of her closest friends fail to recognise her in any way, and she held out a hand, imploring. "We'll be free of all this," she promised. They'd understand that, wouldn't they? They had to.

"An ending...?" Then what they'd said, the things about destroying the world...! He shook his head in disbelief, his chest feeling tight all of a sudden. Dimly he heard the words of the others around him (poor Bulma, he was so completely oblivious to her admiring stares), but all of his attention was completely fixed on Robin.

"No... You can't mean that!" He reached out to seize her shoulders, searching her face desperately for some sign to prove him wrong. "As long as there's a cycle, we have a chance to fix things, to do it right! We have to keep trying, no matter how long it takes! Even if we fall...even if the people we love are lost to us...we can't give up. I won't let you lose hope, Robin! We need you... I need you. If it all ends, then we truly will have nothing left!"

Lydia stayed close to K'Pandolu, her puppets guarding them both. Half of her attention on their former friends, ready to cast a barrier if needed. The other half with Ms. K'Pandolu, as she translated and Lydia worked to hack into the ancient device.

"It's funny. We only started learning about it, back home, before I was brought here. In World Religions class. There's are a few Eastern beliefs that deal with reincarnation, cycles of death and rebirth. I think the one though, Buddhism? The goal, was to step outside of that cycle. To attain Nirvana, as a state of ultimate peace. Away from that cycle."

Her voice is deadpan, and there's a faint laugh as Lydia starts to speak--but it's not mirth, but a joyless laugh. Of all the things for her to remember now. "We're trying to achieve that." Ultimate peace...

By ending pain, suffering...ending everything.

Ichigo's gaze shifted between the three of them. What they were saying was insane. Larger picture? Rebirth and cycles? They were that determined in their belief that they had to help bring things to an end. Chrom was trying his damnedest but his words seemed to fall on deaf ears.

"Are you listening to yourselves?! You're talking about killing people! Murder! We're all supposed to be fighting together, not against each other!"

But he knew. He damned well knew they wouldn't see sense from words alone and he hated it. So many lives had been lost already and there were still people out there that depended on them all to keep them safe. He wasn't sure if Rock and Bulma were willing to fight but even if they weren't he wouldn't hold it against them. But that promise they asked both Chrom and him to keep... there was a good chance he'd have to break it.

"Don't do this."

This time, when Chrom approached, Robin batted his hands away from her shoulders. Her gaze hardened, ever so slightly, at his words. Then, she glanced at Lydia.

She nodded.

"We'll have everything, Chrom," she said. "Once we end it. We cannot keep going in this cycle. You--" She pointed at Ichigo. "--call it murder. I can't think of it that way. This is a chance to save everyone. A chance to break this cycle."

She lifted her head, her eyes reflecting the light and shining. "A chance to free everyone. We will take it."

K'pandolu tore her gaze away from the others, hand dropping, her tail beginning to twitch. The word Nirvana- she'd heard that before, but she abandoned all thought of trying to chase it down in favour of the concern that brought out in her. "Lydia…?" She reached out for Lydia's shoulder, eyebrows drawing together. "Come on. We're almost there…"

But- her ears twitched back at Ichigo's words, and she picked at the front of her coat, worrying out a thread. There'd been so much death already- was that what she'd wanted? Was that the duty she was called to?

She took a breath, hands tightening. "After that… everyone will be able to live their own lives, won't they?" A future full of life… That was what Erik had said, back in Mor Dhona.

"At what cost? All of those people, Robin..." His expression was pained, and yet, it was only a fraction of the agony he felt at hearing those words come from the woman he'd loved for so long. His gaze fell, then moved to Ichigo. The line on his brow almost seemed pleading before he closed his eyes.

"...Ichigo is right. This is murder...genocide. It won't save anybody, you know this.."

There was no talking it through, was there? He was still for a moment, his heart pounding in his chest. Then in a quick, fluid motion he drew Falchion and turned toward the console. He refused to harm a single living person in this room, but he could drive the blade into the machine that could prove to be the means of causing so much death. He wouldn't let it happen, and he certainly wouldn't let Robin soil her hands with that much blood.

"Initiating Virtual Shield." Annoying, and Lydia's voice was almost a monotone as she called on the spell from her Programmer job. A barrier coming to surround the console, along with Lydia and K'Pandolu. It would buy them time, and prevent Chrom from attacking the machine. Her two puppet-robots with the odd-skeletal heads standing nearby, away from the shell.

"So long as the cycle exists, we are not in control of our own lives, Ms. K'Pandolu." Another smile, tinged with sadness but not reaching her eyes. Too much had happened for Lydia to really find joy in much anymore.

It really looked like Chrom didn't want to fight. He couldn't blame the man one bit. The entire situation was wrong with people believing they could sacrifice the lives of others for the 'greater good'. They were making a mistake. When Chrom drew his blade Ichigo reached up to his shoulder and grasped the hilt of Zangetsu strapped to his back. There was no choice.

"If you won't listen to reason then we'll kick your asses until you realize what you're doing!"

He eyed the console Chrom was looking at before focusing his attention back on Robin. If they both went for it she would more than likely stop them before they could get close to the others. But the two at the console could pose a problem too.

"You gonna be okay with handling that computer, Chrom?"

"When we're freed of this cycle, K'pandolu... then, we will have new lives. That is what I believe. That is the only hope left to us!" Robin said, some heat entering her voice at the end.

She saw Chrom draw Falchion. In her nightmares, her hand moved beyond her control; some power forced her to, as red energy veined and pulsed in her vision, and seized her mind. Now, there wasn't any nightmarish power controlling her. She raised a hand, open palm, and pointed it towards Chrom in a quick motion. A massive gout of flame exploded off her hand, hurtling towards the blue-haired sword wielder.

Her eyes snapped towards Ichigo, then, and narrowed.

Around her, tendrils of black light began to curl and warp, as if hungry.

"What else has been tried, though? What else has even seemed to work?" But there was doubt threaded through her words, and she moved closer to Lydia- for whose comfort, she wouldn't admit to, were any of them to ask.

She flicked her ears back, uneasily glancing between the others. "Out of death? Is that the price we have to pay?" Not that her hands were clean- not in the least- but this wasn't like fighting the Empire for their freedom. But blades had already been drawn, and Robin had raised her hand-

She watched in horror, eyes snapping from the spell to the tendrils around Robin, the hairs on the back of her neck standing up. "Robin…!?"

The shield wasn't expected, but even more unexpected was the burst of intense fire. It exploded against Chrom, throwing the prince off of his feet and sending him skidding across the room as his corpse cooked inside of his armor. There was a sickening, greasy smell as the flames consumed his cloak, eating away the edges, and his sword clattered to a stop against the edge of the room.

Unless someone was quick on the draw with healing, there could be no question as to Chrom's fate.

He was dead.

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Event || The Enemy Within

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oops sorry!

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sorry for the delay! I, uh, had some pretty serious food poisoning.

no fear!

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