melodiesoflife | Event || Doppelgangers

"Those... crystal creatures. Their shapes... they... Perhaps I'm tired... But I could have sworn they looked to have taken the shape of my sisters." She was certain, but... at the same time, perhaps it was mere trickery.

She held a hand to her side, asking for no help, and providing no words to say she had been hit by them. "I would suggest not letting a familiar face shake your resolve."

Sandy peers through the walls and the layers of ice. "Though there are many, the ones outside the door only count half a dozen, for now. I can't imagine that number will stay so small for so long."

He did look at her at that report. Familiar faces...?

"That's good advice, if unsettling. Pass that to Daphne when she returns so she can tell the others. We need to be completely prepared." He paused, glancing at where she held her side. "I asked Nanami to heal, but monitor your condition."

Suiting his own words, he took out his last ether and drank it down quickly. He had one precious hi-ether left, to use in a last pinch.

"We must return with the information." Or everything will be lost.

"Hrmph." Asuka is remaining close to the hacking group, gunblade drawn and ready. "I didn't see a thing. If the best they can throw at us are these mindless dolls, they don't really stand a chance." Of course the Second Child will downplay the seriousness of their situation. Although there are some gouges in her deep red armor, she seems uninjured.

Asuka aims at the first crystal figure, where the ice is beginning to splinter the most. But she waits, bides her time.

Let them come to you. You've got this.

"Right. We're the Heroes of Light!" Nanami wasn't so sure in private. She couldn't remember what her parents and brother looked like; he's never shown up in Crystallis. But now that Sandy mentioned it, they did look like fallen Heroes of Light. She'd be fine casting a spell or swinging her sword, but then one would turn and look at her, and her shots would be slow, or slightly wide.

What is going on? What kind of nightmare is this?

Edited 2015-04-20 03:46 (UTC)

Daphne was preparing herself for when they had to really get ready for the long battle ahead. For now she was sure she was recognizing the one leading the charge.

'Is that...mum?'

That was enough to cause Daphne's eyes to widen. Now that her sisters voice said it, that one leading the charge did look an awful lot like her mother. Well, that's going to be fun.

"That's because they have. I bet that is to distract us." She knew she would be, she wasn't sure she could even attack that one herself. But for her her arms moved into themselves and her eyes closed slightly. She wasn't sure if she could do it. Just the thoughts passed by her mind. She couldn't kill her mother, even though she knew it wasn't them.

"Just remember... It's not them."

"It's not them!" Fukutomi shouted it clearly, years on Crystallis not dimming his Captain's voice.

He shouted it for his allies, and he shouted it for himself. Because a yellow crystal figure burst through the ice and made a line directly for him, as if it knew him.

('Souhoku's Captain?' whispered Manami, who was watching this strange dream unfold with growing surprise. But his soft whisper to himself was lost under Fukutomi's words,)

"Kinjou Shingo." His tone filled the name with regret from the depth of his heart. The second stage of the Inter-High, never completed. Their contest never resolved. Even after over three years here, he still remembered it like yesterday!

"Why like this?!" he growled heavily, swinging his sword with all his might into the crystal Kinjou. "It's not him, but why like this?" He hit again, the magic augmentation fading from his sword.

Why did he have to see this face again here, like this? This was not the resolution he sought!

"If you can't fight a familiar face then fi--" They had an advantage, an obvious one, surely. It was just a matter of realizing and implementing it. However...

Sandy moves behind the yellow crystal figure, plunging her knife it's neck without regard for who's face it was. She stood there rather stoically, as she pulls her knife free and lets the creature fall to pieces.

"Can you still fight?" She worries for her ally, rather than what comes up from behind her and returns the favor, crashing a red, and now bloodied, crystal hand through a lung.

Asuka fires her held shot, then flips the weapon around to be able to use it as a blade, as the first few crystal figures close into melee range. Someone is hurt, no time to focus on it. Electricity arcs through the blade as she swings down, using Thunder Blade on the first figure. A block, and another slash, and it drops. She spins to engage the next opponent, ignoring the people around her in favor of falling into the fight.

Just so long as none of them make it past you.

"They won't! Verdammt idiot!" She shouts out loud in response to the familiar voice in her head. She's a little used to it, like a buzzing frequency she has to tune out in order to maintain sync ratio. But, it does keep her focused on guarding the final line. If it looks like one of the figures is going to pass her, even has a chance at getting to the people at the computer, she instantly turns to strike at that one, engage it, so that it picks her as a target, instead. A tactic that'll get her swarmed, but keep them clear. 'Come on. Don't waste your time with them. You want to come and fight me.'

Daphne had quickly used flight on herself, moving up into the air and floating about most of the crystallized people. Up here she had a better change at hitting more than just one at a time and it helped them not to reach her just yet. She needed to watch and think about what to do. She needed a plan.

"Okay guys, I can't take on the one that looks like my mother... She's the one on the left, if someone can please take her on, I will appreciate it and deal with a decent amount of them in exchange."

She also wanted to make sure she couldn't see it as well before she notices that there were a few more. "Fukutomi! Watch your left side, there are a couple coming from there." She yelled before turning her arm once more into Ifrit's arm and swings it down, cracking at least three of them badly.

Of course he can still fight, he wanted to say, but he didn't get to utter a word before Sandy was so brutally wounded before his very eyes- he was certain he felt the blood droplets hit his chest...

(Manami shuddered, wanted to close his eyes, but could not shut out what he was seeing.)

"Na-" Fukutomi's breath caught in his throat, then he managed to yell clearly, "Nanami!" He drove his sword just past Sandy's face, into an eyeless face. This one he didn't recognize. He blew it away with Dark Cloud.

And he would truly have to trust Nanami to see Sandy and heal her, because he heard Daphne's warning, and had only time to turn to face the now weakened enemies.

"Thundaga!" Three of them crumpled, but there were two more behind them.
He had to at least buy a moment here for Sandy to be healed. If she wasn't gone already...

"I'm... I'm on it! Curaga!" It was hard to focus on anything here, but keeping the crystals from reaching the people at the computer, but as soon as Fukutomi called out, Nanami cast the cure spell at Sandy, hoping it wasn't too late.

Someone was screaming in the back of her head.

Sandy drops to her knees once her body is free from impalement, and soon healed. She's glad she didn't see the face of the creature that got her, or she'd be far more rattled than she was already.

"Th-thank you..." The front line are both a place for, and not for her, and soon she's gone, now poised up on the ceiling and raining several javelin down on crystal monsters pouring into the room, too far to see their faces and worry about who is or isn't who.

There is a constant stream of sound coming from Asuka, either screaming with her attacks, or yelling at their allies they're supposed to be protecting. A second wave is starting to surround her, but as soon as it looks like she's faltering, she knocks most of them back.

"Someone block up that door again, or we're going to be swimming in them!" She has some choice comments for her other allies, but then, as the next few enemies charge, something seems to be briefly going wrong. It's hard to see details between the group of crystal bodies around her, but Asuka is physically holding off the front of another wave with her blade, pushing back to prevent them from charging forwards any more.

A knot of tension left Fukutomi at the words he heard from behind him. Sandy was still alive.

Casting the fire magic on his blade again, he turned all his focus to finishing off the two crystalline forms in front of him. There were none immediately behind those. A precious lull, for how long?

He took out his hi-potion, his deep breathing the only thing preventing him from downing it in one swallow, and looked around.
A stately figure was rapidly closing on him from the left, where Daphne had warned of more enemies.
Asuka shouting for a block on the doors- damn, but it seemed that there was no end to them, and if anything the tide was swelling.
And then he noticed- throbbing pain in his legs, burning pain on his arms and chest, a warm wetness down one side of his temple- he'd been injured. When and by what enemies didn't matter now. He'd continue ignoring it.

What did matter now was whether to turn a double-cast of blizzaga on the doors or on the Queen. Had anyone else heard Asuka's command in the midst of everything?

Daphne knew that the numbers were getting to much as she attacked a few more. She wasn't even sure how long it will be before they overwhelm them all. As she landed, she didn't think to look behind her as a slash attached to her back. She could feel the pain and knew that it wasn't that deep thankfully.

She quickly turned to disposed of the one who attacked her before once more looking at the one shaped like her mother. She could tell that one would go for her sooner or later, but right now she knew that the numbers increased.

"I'm not sure how much longer we can keep this up! The numbers are increasing at such a rate." She yelled as loud as she could before checking to see how the other team was doing. It looked like it was going along well, she hoped that they were nearly done.

"We just need to keep it up until they're done," Nanami said. After that... well, maybe they could run?

No, you can't! You're all going to die!

She did hear Asuka and was advancing to the door. Slowly. She didn't remember much form home any more, but she couldn't look directly at the crystals to see if they looked like other Heroes. "I'm coming, all right!" It didn't have the bite it usually did. She wasn't seriously hurt, but she could feel grazes and that her body was still sore, despite the curaga.

A crystal being grabbed at her, and Nanami shrieked as she hacked at it. "Fireaga!"

As Sandy dropped from her post on the ceiling, she aimed to land down upon the very same creature that Nanami was setting ablaze. She held more value here than she did herself. It was more important to save the one who could help everyone else. Her own life was--

"Don't you dare think you're any less important! Save her but don't sacrifice yourself!"

She dropped a knife into the crystal's back, but again, left herself exposed rather than keeping focus on everything else around her. As if to rub salt on a just-healed wound, a crystal spear pierced right through the same place she'd been hit before.

Sandy coughs up blood to face the creature that took her, an all too familiar face that haunted both the Assassin, and the woman watching her.

"No! That's not me! I'm--"

It didn't matter too much as another creature took advantage of Sandy's shock and caught her in the side, and a third as well; surrounded by those which she once called kin. Family.

Sandy's eyes went lifeless as she slumped forward, barely clutching a hand against the creature that impaled her, and soon let her simply drop to the floor, a crumpled heap of what was once a Mid-Boss.

It all goes wrong at once. At first, Asuka seems to be successfully holding the wave of crystaline people back, but she sees a familiar face, she hesitates at just the wrong instant. Her screech of pain and betrayal can be heard, even over the din of battle.

There are far too many of the figures around her, as she just seems to stop fighting. Similar to what everyone else has seen, she has seen someone familiar, and it is too much for her. Her voice begins to beg, "Look at me, Kaji! Look at me!"

And then it is cut off. One of the figures has Asuka around the throat, cold eyes stare into hers as it throttles her. Finally, with a wet snap, Asuka collapses to the floor.

She could see already that things were going horribly, horribly wrong. She didn't know what she wanted to do. She was trying her best but the moment she saw one of her comrades killed, stabbed and another she was pretty sure was not alive right now.

She slowly started to physically shake, she was seeing everything fall apart in front of her and it didn't help that all she could see was the crystalline figure of her mother edging closer and closer to her.

She couldn't moved, she couldn't do anything as they got closer. She was in her own world. Maybe she should just accept it and just let her death happen, even if deep down her sister would want her to fight. In fact Blooms voice was telling her to not believe that figure, fight and at least help.

That was enough to snap her out of it long enough to move just as one figure slashed at her on the side. All she could do was see who was left and see what she could do. Although that this moment in time she felt like fighting would just lead to them all dying right now.

"Guys... whose left? I think the mission has failed, we can't hold them off any more."

Grinding his teeth, he cast blizzaga twice on the doors. Immediately, the ice started cracking under the sheer number of crystalline bodies trying to come through.
Had he made the wrong choice? Their numbers were so overwhelming...

He heard Asuka's screech, stirring the hair on the back of his neck.
The royal figure now had her face turned towards Daphne, and was approaching her.
He couldn't see Nanami or Sandy.
He had no idea how the hackers were progressing. But then he heard Daphne from the midst of a growing crowd of crystal beings- I think the mission has failed...

"Don't give in!" he shouted back to her, as much to let her know that he was still alive as to encourage her. "Until you know the information can't be found, we aren't done!"

He hacked his way through the enemies that were growing more and more in number, despite his last attempt to stop the doors.
Yes, things were desperate. Bleakly so. But-!
"Just one of us- has to- make it out-- with the information!"

It would not be him. If the hackers did succeed, he would not be the one to get out. In the Red was active. His magic was running low.
He would burn out here.

('Fukutomi-san-!' Manami understood that reasoning in a bike race, but with life and death on the line... 'You're strong.')

Of course he is.

And then Fukutomi found himself near that Queen. It turned its eyeless face towards him as if wondering who would dare disturb her as she closed in on her chosen target.
He had no time for words of rebuttal against such a look. This was simply another enemy, but one with some grip over Daphne. So he would take care of it.

"Waterga! Thundaga!" He closed quickly, sword aimed for the face.
If this will hurt, don't watch, Daphne.

Nanami was having to blink back tears, in addition to the anger she felt. She was a Hero! She couldn't lose to people like this. She was going to make them pay, even if she was running out of reserves.

With a scream, she put all her stamina into helping Fukutomi bring down the Queen.

Daphne didn't want to see any more death and destruction, but she new right now the numbers were way to low to do anything about it. They were doomed and she knew it. Holding back tears she watched the last two of them try, but deep down she knew if they wanted to live they would have to go now.

"Guys...It's too late to keep fighting, we have to go, unless you want to die fighting."

Fukutomi grunted in surprise as a scream was punctuated with a sword coming through from the other side of the crystal Queen, killing it.

"Nanami?"

Indeed, it was her on the other side. The crystal form slumped and started breaking down, but there was little sense of victory. They were hopelessly outmatched, surrounded and-. He looked up at Daphne. She was right. Maybe even two of them could escape. (But was it with the all-important information?)

"Use your skills and go! Take Nanami. Go!" He knew they would have protests, but it was the only way, and there was no time to say more. He shoved Nanami in Daphne's direction, just as five dark blue figures with familiar faces closed in around him... The faces like his teammates'.

('No, but they're-!')

"You are not them. How dare you wear their faces."

(Manami cringed. 'It's not me!')

I know, Manami. So nor are they strong like you.

They smiled eerily, and attacked.

Nanami looked back at Fukutomi. She wanted to do what was expected of her; Fukutomi had asked to to leave, but she had to guard the group trying to get into the computer. Being shoved towards Daphne knocked her off balance. "What do we do?"

Daphne felt conflicted. She knew that now the crystallized figures had managed to get to the computer hacking team. Her eyes looked over before looking away. They really had been too late she could tell. But as she managed to kick another one away she had gone to grab Nanami. "We'll see if we can get the information, but we can't stay. We have to go!"

She wanted to make sure if they had gotten the information that it would make it to the outside world, but they had to see if they could first.

Event || Doppelgangers

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-1 Assassin

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