melodiesoflife | Event || In Your Worst Memory

Event || In Your Worst Memory

Characters: All Heroes of Light. Only those who signed-up can start a memory.
Where: Interdimensional Rift
When: May 27th - May 30th
Summary: The Heroes of Light relive some of their worst memories, with a twist. All characters participating in this will be physically missing from Crystallis for the duration of the event.
Warning: It depends on the memory.

Where you were or what you were doing— It does not really matter. Not any more. Everything around you freezes, nearly as if time itself stopped, as if the world was frozen in time. And before you have a chance to understand what is happening, you can hear a voice right behind you.

"Kali Shashidhwaja."

Should you turn around, you may see a child who seems to be the only one aside from you unaffected by what is happening. And as she stares right at you, it makes no doubt these strange words are aimed at you. But before you can reply to her, the world around you collapses. Reality twists and shatters... Or maybe you are the one who is collapsing and shattering away from reality as you know it. No matter what the answer is, it will only take a few seconds for you to find yourself sinking into a void, Crystallis vanishing into the distance. There is nothing but darkness as far as the eye can see.

And once again you feel different: all the powers from your Jobs are fading. Not only that, but you might find that your Crystal is gone and your clothes back to what they were before you woke up in Crystallis. It is silent, cold and before long it feels as though life itself is slipping out of you... And yet, slowly the world reforms around you. The darkness fades away and a new world appears, yet at the same time this is not a world.

This is a memory. The question is, is it yours or that of someone else?

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The window Sparks opens helps somewhat, the light reflecting handily off an old, dusty chandelier, but it's far from the direct light needed to completely illuminate the space they have to work in.

As if in answer to Ramza's question, the young princess exhales audibly, nodding to herself. "Here it is..." She looks back to the door, pausing for just a moment when she sees the barricade, but then turns back to the large wardrobe in between her and the door to the servants' stairwell. She leans back, fingertips white as she tries to find any kind of solid grip on the seemingly obstinate wardrobe, and begins to pull.

With the help of the Heroes, the wardrobe moves easily enough, but it scrapes audibly against the stone floor. "Did you hear that?" A rough voice drifts through the barricade in front of the door leading out into the hallway.

Ashe's breath catches in her throat and she stops pulling. She looks around the side of the wardrobe, though, and sees that it has moved enough for her to squeeze by. She rushes through, sliding the door shut behind her, just as the soldiers start to pound on the storeroom door.

The stairwell she finds herself in is narrow and steep. After taking a second or two to catch her breath, she begins her descent. She shivers slightly in the cold breeze of the desert at night and clutches the hilt of her sword with both hands, bringing the pommel close to her chest with the blade pointing down. She shakes her head . "Should have put something on..."

Ashe slows down when she hears voices through on the of many doors to various rooms she passes. The door in question is slightly open. She peers through the crack and looks down to see what it is that's blocking it from closing - and just barely manages to stop herself from screaming. A hand, palm up, is wedged between the sliding door and the jamb. Following the arm up from the wrist, Ashe stumbles backward, one hand over her mouth. She recognizes that face; one of the younger servant boys. His eyes are still open...

She closes her eyes, trying to focus more on the goings on in the room. She needs information. She holds her breath, keeping herself out of the sliver of light that made its way into the servants' staircase as much as possible, and moves in to hear what the soldiers inside are discussing.

"Heard back from upstairs yet?" one of them asks. He sits on one of the beds - the room looks to be full of single bunks - and wipes his sword with a cloth. It comes out red. There's slight movement on the bed behind him...is someone still alive?

"Nay," comes an older, more cultured voice from the doorway. "We're to stay here. There is still resistance on the ground floor."

"But the princess is up there, isn't she? She's supposed to be beautiful, I wanna - "

"You will not!" comes the stern reply. "She has suffered enough. The last thing she needs is to look upon a nasty cur like you."

The younger man shrugs. "Suffered enough? She sits atop her tower on a bed plush with feathers while we massacre her household. Suffered enough..."

The older man waves away the other soldier's words. "She's a long, hard road ahead of her, more difficult even than what she's endured so far. You know what happened in Nabradia, and at Nalbina. The prince's homeland completely destroyed in seconds, and himself following scant weeks later. And now her father, at the treaty signing that was to save them all."

Ashe fumbles with the sword in her hand, but manages not to drop it. "Father...no..." she whispers, shaking her head. The tears fall silently down her face.

The younger soldier snorts in laughter. "And at the hand of their own Captain! Protecting Dalmascan sovereignty, my arse."

"Yes, well. We've all got our own ideals when it comes to such things." The older soldier sounded completely done with the younger man. "Besides, it's all a little to convenient for me."

"Convenient?" The younger man sounds incredulous. "One of their own witnessed the whole thing, no? He's the one that pointed the finger, so I hear."

"Apparently so," comes the answer.

They continue talking, but Ashe doesn't seem to hear them. She stumbles backwards, all the way to the outer wall of the staircase, and sinks to the floor. She sets the sword across her lap and draws her knees up, encircling her head with her arms as she gives herself over to grief. It's almost impressive how silent she manages to be, even with her body shaking with sobs.

The noise of the wardrobe scraping across the floor seemed a lot louder than it was, probably due to the fact it was the one thing they didn't need. Already Sephiroth's pulse was drumming high up in the back of his own throat as he helped to move the heavy furniture aside. The silence in the seconds after the noise, was almost thick enough to choke on. If only the soldiers hadn't been exactly on the other side of the barricaded door right then. Sephiroth bit back a curse and swallowed it down, making to -tightly- follow Ashelia through the passageway; his intention to at least pull the door to behind them somehow once all the Heroes were through.

Coming to a stop only when Ashelia did, he listened well and watched her composure disintegrate as the conversation within the servants area continued. In the shadows, his own expression fell into the careful mask he kept when faced with something he didn't like. A large part of him wanted to burst right in there and exact vengeance, for the Princess, for her family, and it would serve all those traitors right. Though he knew that it wasn't his place.

After a few moments, trying not to eye Ashelia directly as she silently cried her world into the top of her knees, he turned to the others and commented lowly. Perhaps too coldly; ever the soldier himself.

"We need to move. It's not safe for her to stay here..."

Ramza nodded in agreement with Sephiroth's cold assessment. There was not much they could do to help Ashelia, but at least it was something; the rest of the castle had fallen and was beyond their aid now.

The blond had eyed the dead boy as they passed, ready to strip his corpse of anything he thought might be useful to the young princess. Alas, his feet were the wrong side for his sandals to fit Ashelia's delicate soles, and these desert folks wore little to protect themselves from the cold when they thought themselves safe inside walls. The boy could be of no help to Ashelia, except to block their pursuers with his body.

He knelt beside the grieving princess and whispered words he hoped would steel her. "Princess, you must away. Your Father's hopes and your people's future rest upon you now. Stay your tears and remember your duty."

He knew not if she would hear her words, and if she did, if they would make her brave or just remind her what she had lost.

Ramza stood. "I'll scout ahead, see if I can find us a path out," he told the others, as if he had not just scolded a brokenhearted girl for her justified tears.

Edited (coding is hard) 2015-06-23 00:38 (UTC)

Sparks is never good with such displays of emotion, even when as restrained as Ashe's. What he does know is that he doesn't take kindly to anyone doing such horrible things to someone he considers a friend, and he responds by drawing his pistols. He looks to his cohorts.

"I can just go shoot those guys. I think. I can try, right?"

He grumbles about not being able to just fire lasers at all the things causing problems in these dreams, and follows after Ramza as cover fire, just in case.

The tale that was weaved took Cloud by surprise as well. He thought highly of the Queen but he never knew how painful her own journey had been. She had done such a good job of either hiding it or moving beyond it that the woman he saw her almost seemed like a different person entirely.

The blonde soldier gave Sparks a nod. If it came to it he'd help him take down the soldiers. "Maybe we can distract them though? I could run down the hall that way and knock some things over." He glanced back at Ramza and Sephiroth. It was all about getting her to move though. Sephiroth was right, they wouldn't have much time and it wasn't safe to stay.

Ramza will find the stairwell is exactly the same all the way down; periodically, sliding doors set into the inner wall will grant access into various rooms, from bedrooms to storage rooms to meeting and dining rooms, but they are all filled with Imperial soldiers. At the bottom of the stairwell, there is a simple, unassuming wooden door leading outside.

Ashe's head jerks up when Ramza speaks to her. She looks around for the moment, almost as if she senses the Heroes around her, but scrambles to her feet quickly enough, sword in hand. Wherever that voice came from, it was right. There was still work to do. No time for grief. Not until...

She clenches her jaw and narrows her eyes, despite the tears that still fall - a look that may be familiar to some of the observing Heroes, despite how much younger Ashe looks. It doesn't take long for her to begin her descent. She stumbles at first, but as time goes on her steps become more steady.

It takes several minutes for her to reach the bottom of the tower, but she does so without further incident. She opens the wooden door cautiously, peeking outside. In front of her is a garden, open to the sky but with high walls on all sides. Vines drape artfully over the small paths leading into the surrounding buildings, luscious desert trees leaning heavily to one side or the other. A wide channel of water runs around the perimeter of the garden; water bubbles up in the centre of the space, and at various other points, in mimicry of a real desert oasis. It's truly a sight to behold, and quietly beautiful under the moonlight, despite the faint sound of fighting taking place from a direction hard to pinpoint. "He said...he said there was still resistance..." Ashe's small voice is tinged with hope.

She takes a delicate step outside, keeping her eyes peeled. It's almost impossible to know for sure that she's alone in the garden, with its twisting paths and the trees and vines everywhere. But it looks like she might be...

"There! Is that - ?"

"The princess? Who's that with her-?"

"Get her! Let loose the flare!"

Not so much.

The soldiers, six in total, run towards Ashe and the Heroes. They spread out, seemingly taking the Heroes' presence into consideration - it seems they can indeed see Ashe's companions. One of them, a mage, stands back, dim light dancing around him as he readies some kind of spell.

Ashe takes a step back, bringing her late friend's sword up in front of her shakily. She opens her mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. The soldiers advance quickly, brandishing their weapons, swordsmen all.

"Come quietly, or face the consequences!" one of them calls out. The mage continues his casting...

Sephiroth delivered a careful look between Ashelia and Ramza as his words seemed to have some immediate effect on her; was that some type of magic that Ramza had used? Seemed like it. More important to note, that their abilities could indeed affect not only the world they were in but the charge they were to protect as well.

Someone needed to stay with the Princess and so Sephiroth did so instead of scouting ahead. He couldn't well be two places at once even if he generally wasn't a team player. Sparks' comment about going in guns-a-blazing was suitably ignored. Once Ashelia was ready to begin to descend the stairwell, he'd accompany her. Who knew if he might have to catch her; shaky as she was to begin with.

As they entered the garden, the night time tranquility afforded it a long sweeping look around. Despite the distant clashing of weapons that could be heard seemed to be on another world for a moment but as they accompany Ashelia through the garden the shout of voices instantly shock Sephiroth back into a battle stance; Masamune is raised instantly as the soldiers then begin their charge.

"Quickly-" He grunts, noting the obvious spell being cast on the back line but otherwise doesn't hesitate. There is no question that these soldiers, for one reason or another, can see them.

The alacrity awarded by a life time of mako-infusion is quite unlike anything Sephiroth is capable of in Crystallis, one moment he's there all tense and ready slightly behind Ashelia and the next he's darted forwards and answered their threat with a long sweep of his sword at the front-line of the six-piece charge as they conveniently come to meet it.

He might be showing off, just a little, though it's for a very good cause.

Sephiroth's long sword was a sight to behold, but Masamune had never been a sword meant for wielding in close quarters with allies. Ramza held back his instinct to charge forth as well, not wanting to get in the way of that blade nor hinder Sephiroth's ability to maneuver it. The man was skilled, and Ramza did not want to interrupt his attack.

Instead, he drew out one of the many daggers he had tucked into his clothes. The silver-haired general seemed to have the front line under control, so he aimed for the sword hand of one of the soldiers in the back row and threw the blade.

Luckily, Sparks didn't have to get too close to his allies and their bladed weapons in order to cause some havoc. He had no idea why those soldiers could see them, but he'd make sure they'd regret their charge. Besides, he was also sure that Ashelia's planet didn't have laser guns, and that meant he also had the element of surprise on these soldiers.

Stepping between Ashe and the fight, Sparks drew both of his pistols and opened fire on the other soldiers towards the back. The soldiers were armored, but these guns had also taken out countless robots back on Mars. Sparks figured there wouldn't be too big of a difference.

All told, Cloud was likely the least equipped to fight compared to his compatriots, save perhaps for Ashe herself. He did not yet have the mako advantage that would be afforded to him in his future nor the plethora of training that Ramza had, or Sparks' variety and sheer style.

At this point in his life he was as much mook as the soldiers before him.

But he had his rifle. And an appreciation for the damage a mage in the back row could do.

Throwing down his helmet's visor he took aim and fired at the magic user, trying to put him down before he could finish casting his spell.

Between Sephiroth's frontal assault and Ramza and Sparks' volley to the back line, the threat is gone just as soon as it had arrived. Cloud's bullets rip through the mage's armour; there is a gasp, muted by the man's helmet, and then he falls to the floor, dead...

...but at the same moment, the flare flies up into the sky and explodes. It's silent, but so bright that the world seems black and white for just a moment. If any of the Heroes were looking up at it, they'd be blinded for next while for sure.

The silence that follows is deafening. Ashe, who had covered her eyes, picks her sword back up off the ground. "What was the flare for? Are there more soldiers coming?" She looks around at her protectors, eyes wide, but not at their presence - it seems that, for now at least, she was always able to see them.

She begins to walk forward cautiously, but stops when she hears a strange whirring sound. She cocks an eyebrow and looks back at the Heroes. "Some kind of aircraft?"

Young and somewhat inexperienced she may be, but she's not wrong. Out of the sky drops an Air Cutter Remora - not a large aircraft, but certainly bigger than the party. "Surrender now or face the wrath of the Empire!" booms a voice over a loudspeaker.

Ashe gasps and runs sideways and towards the Remora, aiming to take cover in the garden's undergrowth as the guns rev up. Perhaps the others should follow her lead...

Of course, as the soldiers he'd cut down with a single sweep of his sword were falling to the floor, knowing that the others were undoubtedly dealing with the remaining soldiers, Sephiroth had all the time in the world to watch as the flare flew up into the sky-

And then his world was exploded into blinding white. The extra sensitivity he had both naturally and as a result of the mako burned suddenly and violently right into the back of his eyes. So much for being near-invulnerable. Sephiroth cursed in a loud whisper, lowered his head and brought an arm up - blinking hard into the leather at his forearm. That hadn't been smart; talk about karma for his overconfidence.

He heard words going on around him -Ashelia, he identified it easily since she were the only female in their group. But it was the vague whirring of machinery, followed soon after by the loud noise near enough shouted at them that made Sephiroth pull his arm away. There were large, violet shapes blotched all over his vision as he tried to make out the threat that now faced them; squinting again before shaking his head again to try and see clearly.

Dammit.

He reached out as his balance swayed a little as a result and found there was a supportive arm there to help guide him, quickly towards the cover that Ashe had ran towards. There was an obvious sense of urgency there, the sound of guns charging seemingly right behind him as Sephiroth was half-pushed, half-stumbled forwards from where he was led. He might well lose a few threads of silver hair to some of the greenery, but amazingly his sword remained tucked tightly against the back of his left arm, his grip vice-like around the handle.

Ramza followed Ashelia, leaving behind the knife he'd thrown. He did his best to keep himself situated between the princess and the flying machine, to shield her if need be.

He stole quick glances over his shoulder as they moved to the little shelter the garden offered, scanning for weaknesses in the machine's armor. What he knew of metal constructs, which was limited, was that they were immuned to the effects of faith magic, and heavily armored against physical attack. It would take a furious attack in just the right spot to stop the machine's advance...

"Constable Nevada, do you see any vulnerable spots in its armor?" he asked the person he figured would be most familiar with machinery such as that.

"... A robot." It would be a robot, wouldn't it? But that was nothing new to Sparks. Joining the others under some cover, Ramza's question is met with an "Uh?". Sparks took a moment to look the machine over.

"Anywhere it moves, I reckon. The joints. Otherwise, just keep hammerin' on the same spot til we get through. Robots can be tough, but none of 'em are perfect."

He shrugged at the others; every robot seemed to be different, and this one wasn't even from his world. But he wasn't any less confident in his assessment, as he did his best to open fire on it from their spot. His pistols always worked on the robots on Mars, after all.

Cloud's visor had offered the young soldier an advantage. While Sephiroth was blinded by the burst of light the filter's in Cloud's own helmet protected him. At least he didn't have night vision mode on or he would have been in an even worse state.

But Cloud saw the state that his hero was put in and didn't bother to stop to ask if he needed help. Grabbing onto the taller man he got under his arm and helped carry him to cover. It wasn't perfect, but there was as much stone as there was shrubbery providing their shield. It should save them from a single volley of gunfire at least.

Once Sephiroth was set Cloud spared a glance at the Remora, watching it move. "I don't think it's a robot..." It was too bulky, and the movement seemed centered at an oddly high point, making it wobble slightly. A bit like the magitek armors he'd seen with the Heran Imperial Forces and some Shin-Ra tech as well... "I think it's a troop carrier. I think someone's in there." The voice over the loudspeaker supported that theory as well.

The bottom of it had a gun, and those whirling glowing rings were the engine maybe? He leaned his rifle over the shubbery and fired his rifle at center of the glowing area.

(ooc: here, have a video link )

Ashe peeks over the trunk of the tree the group is behind, the heavy wood low and parallel to the floor before arching upwards towards the sky, its equally-heavy branches weighed down by the dense tropical leaves. She gasps and tucks her head back under as the ship - as indeed it is a ship - fires upon the group. The tree, however, provides the perfect cover...for now.

"An Air Cutter Remora," Ashe says, looking at the Heroes. "Yes, used for transport, but ship-to-ship combat as well." Her voice quivers, both hands on either side of her head. "The glossair rings make it able to fly, yes. Not an engine, but...yes."

The majority of the fire from Sparks and Cloud's guns goes wild, but a couple shots do find their mark - however, they don't seem to do much damage, only causing the Remora to bob in the air a bit.

Suddenly, there is a loud click and Ashe flinches, covering her ears. "A volley comes!" A moment later, the air open up with the sound of explosions, hitting the tree in front of them and the foliage around them, the cold nighttime desert air suddenly unbearably hot. Ashe dives away from their cover as the area is engulfed in flames.

Sephiroth only really registered some of the words passed between their group as he was blinking hard in order to get his vision back.

By the time that Ashelia shouted, the majority of his vision had returned to normal -it was just as well their cover was sufficient- but it ached noticeably to open his eyes too wide. Still, squinting was better than not being able to see at all. Just like the others he ducked closer behind the cover as the loud explosions seemed to shudder the entire atmosphere around them.

Hauling himself away from that particular area, just as it seemed to erupt in flames had been lucky that he'd picked exactly then to move. The smoldering remains of shrubbery itched right up his nose, wrinkling it up voluntarily for a moment. Though, Sephiroth had dodged purposefully in a different direction from the rest of the group.

"It can't target us all at once, split up around it!"

Pulling Masamune back around into a ready stance, he kept half an eye on the others and half an eye on whom the Remora would pick next.

"Damn!" Ramza cursed as he rolled out of the Remora's line of fire. He did not like Sephiroth's plan, though the strategy was sound. One loss was better than four, but it was still one too many.

The words of the spell arose in his mind without conscious effort. They had been burned there by a crazed sorcerer lurking in a dark, deep dungeon. And while Ramza hated to use the power he had gleaned from such a dubious source, allowing his allies to be gunned down was not an option. He began to chant the forbidden words of the Ultima spell.

The chant was a long one, and could be interrupted by the Remora's bullets. Still, the weak points Sparks had pointed out to attack were out of Ramza's reach, and he could not do nothing.

Sparks only manages to jump out of the way in the nick of time, partially propelled by one of the explosions. He hits the ground hard, but this is hardly the first time in his life this has happened, and he rolls with it like a pro. After a few moments he's back on his feet, shaking his head to clear it and muttering unkind things about the Remora's mother.

Since his guns' lasers weren't doing much to hurt it, he'd have to do something else. However, without his Job skills, he didn't have much else to throw at it from a distance. He caught Ramza readying a spell, and figured something like that was their best chance. Time to make sure that more gunfire from the machine didn't interrupt him.

Sparks leaped forward and grabbed a chunk of debris from the courtyard floor, and hurled it at the Air Cutter Remora to get its attention.

"Hey! You can't even hit the broad side of a space barn with all those fancy guns. What good're you?"

And with that, he sprinted off away from Ramza's vicinity. Sparks might not have had a weapon or magic, but he was quick on his feet.

Like Sparks, Cloud's escaping the volley comes at the last second. He can feel the burning of the bits of shrubbery that had been set aflame by the gunfire as it rains down on his back. He stumbles a bit as he scrambles for a new place to hide, slower than the rest.

His dive behind a statue is awkward, his uneven momentum rolling his shoulder into a marble railing but he at least finds a new place to hide from the mech's attack. However if it attacks again he won't have anywhere else to run, or he'll have to risk the jump over the railing.

Looking around the side of the statue he spots what Ramza and Sephiroth are doing. Time to bet on them. He raises his rifle again and opens fire on where he thinks the pilot is. Like Sparks his hope is that he can keep their enemy distracted.

Ashelia attempts to roll out of her dive, but this is not the Queen the Heroes know - not yet, anyway. She shouts in surprise as she's propelled further away than she judged by the explosion, landing face first in the nearby shallow pool of water.

The Remora turns, apparently choosing to follow Sparks. Its guns rev up again, but begin firing when they haven't quite reached the Marshal, giving him a chance to run away, the others seemingly safe for now.

Cloud's bullets embed themselves in the ship's armour, but just as Ashe said, the ship is built for air combat against other ships, and the bullets don't do much damage.

As soon as it became obvious that the Remora hadn't picked him for a target, Sephiroth stances back and -familiar to Cloud only- calls upon the power within one of the Materia he's equipped with. A surge of energy covers Sephiroth's hand and wrist for a moment before the spell is issued forth.

Two forks of lightning were issued forth from Sephiroth's hand at the hovering robot.

[a little like this, but larger in scale]

Ramza was blind and deaf to all that happened around him as he quietly muttered the words to the spell. No bullets had hit him and caused him to falter in his casting, and that was all that mattered at the moment. He could not afford any distractions, not with the power he was calling down.

He came to the end of the spell, and spoke the final words aloud to bring the magic into reality. "Brush off vanity and show reality! Ultima!"

Bright light rained down upon the machine and then burst.

Ramza staggered a little from the magical drain, but he forced himself to lock his knees and began the chant again.

Sparks kept running until he could hear the Remora finish its round of firing, before ducking behind some cover. He spots Ashelia in the pond, and after checking his path, makes a bee-line right for her. He could only hope that the others could keep their enemy occupied while he did so.

Cloud scowled as he saw his bullets casting no effect. But then spotting Sephiroth casting his spell the Corporal frantically searched his pockets. He had some materia with him before he wound up in Crystalis right?

His eyes lit up as he pulled the green orb from a pouch and held it out. As with Sephiroth it glowed with power as he called down a lightning bolt on the ship. Not as strong as his Hero's but that was the true difference between them.

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Event || In Your Worst Memory

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slides back in 15 days late with Starbucks

Re: slides back in 15 days late with Starbucks

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[Included Cloud, with permission]

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