high_seas | To go with your crew...

Entry tags:

To go with your crew...

Who: Everyone who is fighting in the battle to kill the witch.
Where: The Black Fortress in the East
When: Jan 24th-25th
What: The grand battle to get back what you have lost, get revenge for what was taken, and avert disaster.
Warnings: Language. Death. Victory. Defeat. True love. Miracles.
Style: Text or prose
Status: Open to all

The black fortress ripples with shimmering iridescent energy, the piles of black coral heaped on roped together barges around it, bobbing in the waves. On the largest barge stands a slender man with a copper belt, wearing a face mask, orange red hair flecked with black from ash or dust. As the dawn slowly folds over the ocean, he'll look up, as if hearing some hidden voice.

At the top of the fortress, a figure climbs into vision, a woman, dressed in gray, features obscured by a hood with impenetrable darkness behind it. She staggers a moment as if she is weary, then straightens to her full height. As she speaks, her voice comes out of the journals, echoing over the water, low but clear.

"This is no small task ye do. She that rots within'll do anythin' ta stop ye. Don't hesitate to kill what ye find. If they were human once, they hain't no more. Watch out for her golems, too, or they'll drain ye dry quicker'n a wink. But if ye can get rid of 'em, it'll weaken her." She hesitates, cants her head to the side. "And if ye lot aren't as much of a bunch'a idiots as usual, ye might come out alive through this."

That said, she raises her hands. After a moment so does the man on the barge. For a moment, nothing seems to happen and then iridescent light shimmers over the coral, seeming to match that which surrounds the fortress. It crackles and dances like a fire, and then without warning bursts into a furious life, slamming against the energy of the fortress. There is the sound like thunder and light snaps and crackles, zipping with energy. Then with a woosh the light flies upward, taking the figure with it. The man on the barge lets out a cry like a seagull and dives into the water as if intending to swim after her.

For the boats that remain, a part of the fortress will crumble away into the sea, revealing a small harbor and an open doorway. Enter all ye who dare.

[If things become too crowded, feel free to make another thread outside of these. Just put where you are in the header.]

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That arm around her is definitely comforting - she'd been afraid, on some level, they wouldn't want her around anymore, so this was a lot better than she'd expected. Still...

"I haven't exactly been in a good place either, so... I can't really blame you, Alice. I'm sorry I couldn't get to you sooner. I wish this hadn't had to happen. But we're together again now, right? It won't- it's going to be okay now."

Mana, however, is being her usual self. Which is both really good and a little bad. "Mana... do you see me right now? I only found the courage to come in here because I'm fighting with hatred. If I'd tried to fight with my love, I'd have been killed already. I couldn't feel anything through the pain, and the loss, and the rage. Everything still feels... dull. So I understand that you don't want us to keep going like this. But this is what you've got right now. If we keep going, I know I won't be able to control myself, because this will not happen again, and I'm willing to destroy anything in my way to ensure that. I think Alice feels the same way."

That said, she gently reaches up to Mana's face, and tries to soften her expression a little. "But it's not because we're violent people, or because we can't love anymore. It's because I love you that I have to do this. I can't let anything threaten you - threaten us - ever again, and if I have to do something I won't like later to keep you safe, I'll do it. So don't apologize, okay? I... well, I don't know what I'm doing, but I don't think there's any other way, unless we just left and let someone else take care of it."

Rikka? You're saying some really scary things with a smile on your face.

Alice's arm tightens around Diamond as she spoke. She does feel the same way. All of that anger and want to lash out that she had kept under wraps since she was a child, that she had learned to control... She wants nothing more than to unleash that again. Even in spite of Mana's words before, she wants to hurt that which has hurt them, if that's what it takes to shield both of them...

Yet, Mana's words still ring in her head, from now and before. She finds herself in the unenviable position of understanding both of them, of feeling like both of them are right. One driven by her instinct and heart, the other by her mind, and that which she knows should be rational. But then, this situation isn't very rational in general, is it?

"I know how you feel, Rikka-chan... I do... I... want to do everything I can to protect you both... even before this, I would have..."

A discussion aboard the Shepherd crosses her mind, before they confronted the Navy. Her resolve then was that if it was people who would hurt them, she wouldn't consider their lives over Mana and Rikka's. If anything, she had held that belief long before this past month.

"Um..." There is a slight tug at her shoe, but she barely notices it for the moment.

"To fight without that hate and anger right now would be so difficult, but- but Rikka-chan... our power rejected us on that beach..." She moves her left arm slightly, enough that she winces, but only a little bit. It's enough to show there's something wrong with it. "It- it's rejected me here, now... If that is all we can fight with, I do not know we can protect one another..."

She isn't saying that Rikka shouldn't feel like that. She can't say that. But if she can't rely on that power...

"Cure Ace took Mana-chan's Lovies when her heart was at its lowest... I think I understand that even more, now... but what I do not understand..." She looks at Cure Heart, and gulps again. "These feelings cannot simply be erased, Mana-chan... so I do not know how we can truly be Precure and have the power to even do that anymore..."

Then, there's a loud, screeching, panicked sound at their feet.

"Alice! Diamond! CURE HEART!"

A slight blink of her blurred eyes, and a look up.

Oh.

Right.

Zombies.

Edited 2014-01-27 16:27 (UTC)

"... I'm not saying you shouldn't do what you need to do," Mana said, closing her eyes. "I can't... I have no right to tell you both how you should think..."

She pulled away, and focused her gaze on the zombies that are practically on top of them. Mana clenches her hands into fists, and... rushes forward, tackling through several of the zombies and punching them away from the three of them.

"RIKKA!" Mana cries, trying to focus fully on the mission. "We have to get Alice out of here! Freeze them and we can work on escaping back to the ship!"

She grit her teeth, forcing herself to keep from crying out as a zombie raked her with its claws. "I'm not... saying that to keep you from fighting the witch... I'm saying that because Alice is in no condition to fight...!"

Edited 2014-01-29 04:04 (UTC)

Even before Mana starts to shout instructions, Rikka is moving. Cure Diamond breaks away from the group hug, turning, hands coming around and together in front of her, and she starts to call as much of her power to her as she can manage. The dark glow shows up again, starting to bleach itself back to its normal cool blue, but not fast enough. Her hands start to glow as she shouts a battle cry, finally letting her power coalesce into a massive icicle half the size of the hallway, pushing it forward with her power and sending it careening just to one side of Cure Heart and bouncing on the walls for maximum carnage. "Damn all of you... you won't take my girlfriends from me!"

As she pushes, though, she feels a tug when the icicle leaves her hands, almost as if something's being pulled away with it. On cue, there's a crackle and a dull blue flash as she's forced out of her transformation, leaving a tired Rikka standing there with Alice, just Cure Heart remaining to fight their way out.

"That's... not good. Sorry, Mana. I guess it's up to you-" And then her heart falls as something gets its claws into Heart, and she sees red. "Get your hands off of her-!" Even untransformed, she storms over and decks the beast, breathing hard, but having managed to knock it down for a moment.

"Mana-chan! Rikka-chan!" she shouts, emphasizing the latter as her powers then choose to give out, as well. The thought 'I can still fight' starts to find its way to her lips, but that's before she starts to move.

A little too fast.

She tries to bite back the shout, but fails, clutching her arm and just sort of finding herself frozen in place for a moment. Long enough to realize that no, she couldn't. Frustration at her own weakness starts to well up, then, on top of everything else.

She gazes at them with concern, but then quietly bows her head. She doesn't want to ask them to save her, not after everything she's done, but... She knows they won't just leave her there. And that she can't help, not now. She can't do anything to that witch in this condition, either...

The thought raises a new swell of anger in her, but she tries her best to push it back down. The excruciating pain helps, there.

She looks up, a simply terrified Lance trembling behind her as he observes Rikka's punch.

"N- no, I... I cannot help in this condition..."

Mana gaped as she saw what Rikka did. On one hand, it was incredibly impressive, but... the reaction she saw...

... but that's not important now. She has to carry on. She has to get them out of here. She has to get them to the Shepherd, ensure Gaius and Hubert are safe... and then... and then...

... Mana clenches her teeth, and lunges forward. Her body swells with pink light, and she's moving faster than she was before, her punches cracking earth and creating shockwaves that send zombies flying. For a while, it seems to work... Mana's powered up form begins to clear a path...

... but more and more zombies pour in. Their numbers seem meaningless.

But Mana has to do it. She has to protect them. She has to protect the people she loves.

There's nothing she can do but try. It doesn't work on living beings that aren't Selfish, but...

"Receive my feelings!" Mana cries, pouring energy into the brooch on her chest. "MY SWEET HEART!"

An enormous pink wave, shaped like a heart, pours from her chest, blasting forward. The zombies are consumed in a pink, warm light...

... that fades, revealing them completely unharmed.

Mana crumples to her knees. Her attacks aren't like Alice and Rikka's.

Her power... her love... it can't help them...

She was going to fail.

She's tired. But really... there are other things to worry about. Like the most important person in her world losing. That's something she can't allow. So Rikka forces herself to keep moving, over to Cure Heart, and reaches out to grab her hand, tugging as hard as her weary bones will manage. "Aida Mana... you're not allowed to give up here...!" She's straining, but if they lose here... no, better not to think about that. They won't lose. They can't lose...!

"We have... to keep going! There are people that are waiting for us...! And I... I need you! Don't... stop now...!"

...It's not enough. She might have enough strength to pull Mana up, but they can't escape as they are, even with the huge hole she herself had opened. Something was going to have to give...

Alice, meanwhile... what can she even do, then? Moving much sent excruciating pain jolting out from her arm, as opposed to the nearly unbearable pain of just standing there with it. She watches Rikka and Cure Heart, and knows she's helpless in that moment. She can't assist Rikka. She can't even save herself.

She finds herself just sinking to her own knees. She's tired. Everything aches, beyond just the broken arm. She'd had so little rest for how long?

The distance from her to them might be only a few feet, but it feels like something far more than that. These people she had gained her power to protect, that she cared for more than anything, and she can't even reach out to them. Can't even grab hold of them in what might be their final moments. All she is now is a liability, and more harm than good. To suddenly be so frail in the face of this, and to be unable to even move to them as the pain and weakness took hold of her completely... All of that self-loathing and hatred and anger swelled up in her to a greater extent than it ever had in this past week.

They deserved so much better than what she was right then, and because she wasn't better, they were going to die. She couldn't look away, but her vision of them was blurred as yet more tears clouded it.

"Rikka-chan... Mana-chan... I'm so sorry...!"

Edited (words are hard) 2014-01-30 04:42 (UTC)

Man, there sure are a lot of zombies clustered at this hallway! It's going to take absolute ages to clear them out, but Anise is still fuming from not being able to take all that treasure and eager to take it out on the unsuspecting masses. She stops right around the corner, hidden just out of sight to buy herself some time, and opens with a fonic arte:

"I'll smash you with a giant hammer! Miracle Hammer!"

While the giant hammer appears out of nowhere and smashes down in the middle of the hallway of zombies, Anise grows Tokunaga out to his full size and charges forward, bulldozing into the mass of confused zombies. Her advantage probably won't last long, but she'll try take care of a few before the ones stunned by her initial attack recover.

Jade strolls along behind Tokunaga, largely unconcerned with the incoming hordes of undead. Now that Anise is keeping them occupied, he has more than enough time for a fonic arte of his own.

"Grant mine enemies a final rest. Flame Burst!"

The rotten flesh of the zombies is practically asking to be set on fire, and cluttered together like this, they make for an easy target. An entire group of them is incinerated before they can so much as lurch at him.

"Looks like we made it in time." To absolutely no one's surprise, the colonel sounds unnecessarily cheerful. He peers past the remaining zombies where the Precures are. "You girls alright over there?"

And if all of that still wasn't enough, the remaining zombies that are a little too close for comfort are brought down thanks to a few quick lightning bolts. Henry gleefully runs up to the group, looking very much like an excited little kid. As always, he's having just a little too much fun. But at least it comes in handy.

"Nya ha ha, that could've been pretty bad, huh?"

He pauses at one of the fallen zombies, half incinerated from his own lighting bolt earlier and he kneels down besides it, poking it a little.

"I guess this one had quite the shock!"

He grins at his own lame joke, then looks over to the Cures, giving a casual little wave.

Mana was just about to answer Rikka, when... suddenly, hope literally exploded onto the scene. Anise, Jade, and Henry, all three of them appearing in short order. Mana found her expression brightening, and relief wash over her.

"E-Everyone...!" she exclaimed, standing up on shaking legs. "You came for us...!"

She turned around and grabbed Rikka into a hug, which was followed by her giving one (gently) to Alice as well. The others were here. They were going to make it out of this...!

The sudden arrival of qualified, and more importantly capable, backup made Rikka let out a sigh of relief. She'd thought this would be it, but... it looked like they'd live a little longer. This place wouldn't claim them yet.

"A little worse for wear, Colonel Curtiss," she answers, "but we're alive, somehow."

The hug from Mana is a surprise, but not an unwelcome one; the adrenaline is bleeding away finally, and with it the rage that's been mitigating her actions. And so, gently, she manages, "I'm sorry if I worried you, Mana, Alice."

Alice stared at the newly arrived carnage in awe. Henry, another person she had hurt, and... That girl's voice sounded familiar, and she'd appeared with Jade... Realization of who that may be dawned upon her, and she suddenly felt even lower. If that were possible.

She accepted the hug, but clutching her injured arm she didn't reach back out. Or perhaps she didn't feel as if she should. Either way, she just shifted her gaze a bit towards Rikka, and shook her head.

"You are the very last person who needs to apologize, Rikka-chan..." she murmured, and in spite of everything else, one thing was still true: "You saved us in the first place..."

Anise finishes off one last zombie with a swift uppercut and an energy blast with Tokunaga, sending it to slump against the wall in a crumpled heap. Seeing nothing left to fight, she hops off neatly from Tokunaga and shrinks him down again, slinging him back to his usual place on her back. Hands on her hips, she marches up to Henry, wrinkling her nose in disgust.

"I can't believe you're poking at it!" But she's got other things to worry about other than a crazy mage. Spinning around, she waves at Rikka, a big grin on her face now.

"Hey Rikka! I'm glad you're safe!" She hadn't seen the girls there when she first started attacking those zombies, but rescuing people is always a bonus, even when they can't pay up.

But who are those other two girls? Anise has a sneaking suspicion, especially since she could have sworn she heard Rikka say "Mana" and "Alice", but...

"So who's with you?"

"Ah, that's right. You haven't been properly introduced."

Jade pushes his glasses up.

"Anise, this is Captain Mana--" also known as the girl who'd casually threatened to attack every crew out there "--and Alice--" also known as the girl who threatened to drown you "--your new crewmates. Why don't you all say hello?"

Nothing awkward about this at all.

Henry stops poking the unfortunate zombie's remains, grinning up at Anise and shrugging, like what he's doing is perfectly normal. Of course, in his mind, it... probably is.

"It's not like it's gonna bite me or anything! Probably!"

He stands up, dusting his robes off a bit. Naturally, the awkwardness of the situation goes way over his head, but who here really expected Henry to pick up on that? Yeah.

"I'm glad you're all doing okay there!" He pauses briefly, as he looks at the Precure and realizes that perhaps 'okay' isn't exactly the right word to use here. "Well, okay-ish anyway!" Yes, much better.

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To go with your crew...

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