She no longer has someone who loves and accepts for everything that she is. Instead, she has a father that is like her entire village, someone who hates her and wants her dead, someone who'd be more than happy if she never came back. It only makes her angrier. It only makes her sadder.
It only makes her life worse.
It means Nier had to try twenty times harder to get her to join his party somehow.
The new memory weighs her down even more, and she can no longer dodge in time. The warnings are all too late. Her melancholy is too great. The explosion catches her fully.
She doesn't even scream as she flies and goes down on the stained glass. ]
[Can't believe you blew up both my Detonators. This is fine.
The Large Boy finally takes a good hit to the back! The smack peels sparkles out of it, and it stumbles over forward. But it's still standing! It bounds fatly out of the destruction of the blast. Both arms come up and then slam down on the platform, sending shock waves toward Taichi and Ichiro to try to toss them high into the air.
Two new creatures appear in the air, twitching and bobbing. (Please look at their lil feet, I love them.) They doff their hats at them!
--And then a ring of magic forms in the air behind their backs, and they start firing balls of flames in Kainé and Beauregard's directions. Hope... they got up...?]
[ alright. well! well, ichiro is sent flying with that in a jumble of his limbs right after taichi managed to elbow him in his ribs that just took a pretty nasty hit, so he's not great! but it's fine. he almost shoots him a look because what the fuck, dude, but thankfully, being yeeted into the sky is a nice redirect for that!
his body hurts, and the keyblade feels like it weighs a ton in his hand, weighed down by what's missing, or by the heaviness of remembering. he's supposed to have courage. isn't that what happened? he was afraid, and his fear cost his friend everything?
he grits his teeth as gravity kicks in, and this time, the fall is not going to be as light as it was when they landed. ichiro shouts and swings his arms up as he attempts to gets his wits around him as he's falling, hoping to bring this keyblade down onto some kind of monster's head, trying to focus all of his fury into defending the people here. that's what anger can be good for. that's what he's used his attacks for, protecting other people, even if they aren't ready to be protected.
fuck it! he's gonna hit this motherfucker and then probably break like five bones on impact but whatever at least he's gonna cause some damage first! fuck! ]
[well, it looks like both girls are down, at the moment, but beau isn't weighed down by the knowing her father thinks she's a waste of space, though, so she's got that going for her.
stubbornly, beau pulls herself up to sit. not for herself, so much. she has to. everything hurts, and she - well. she doesn't look great. she is... covered in burns, and she probably is like, bleeding from the ears from how loud it was? she can't hear super well. it's fine. explosions are bad.
the fireballs come flying at them, and she looks up just in time from where she's mostly slumped on the ground - she brings her keyblade up to half-assedly protect herself. more than anything she wants to bounce the fireballs back at the little flying bitches than she cares about being not-burnt further.
she does not protect kainé, though. can't trust her. she's paranoid.
... gotta make it back to the pod, too. caleb's in there and she's got the brain scramblies, so she can't remember shit's not real.]
[oh. okay! fuck! there's a startled yell as he and ichiro are thrown straight into the air. does this game have fall damage? it doesn't matter. beau can go off and save her friend or whatever, and kainé knows how to take care of herself better than he can, he thinks. all of these people are stronger than he is. it's like someone told him when they first came to this stupid school. he doesn't know how to fight. he can't even defend himself.
maybe it's that need to prove it wrong, or it's the way he wants to be better that means he redirects his keyblade for a downward strike in a spot ichiro isn't aiming for, not even thinking about how he might land. fuck off already!]
[ It takes considerable effort for Kainé to get up. Burns litter her front, and her breaths come in as hisses and gasps. She grits her teeth as she rises to her feet only to see fireballs coming her way.
Great! Just what she wanted when she's feeling like shit. At least spite keeps her going.
Not unlike Beau, she's going to try to hit a fireball back. She shifts her stance and holds the keyblade like a bat. Perhaps she's keeping in mind the things Luke could have told her about baseball if that mingle didn't hit captcha and I wasn't too weak to do captcha.
Who knows if she strikes out or not? Anna can decide if Kainé deserves a little kindness. ]
[There's fall damage because y'all wanna be chaotic. :pensive:
The keyblades clock the Large Boy great on the noggin on both sides. Taichi and Ichiro plummet to the ground, and the Large Boy promptly flops over when its legs give out from under it. Stunned, it sits on the platform with very literal stars spinning around its head.
Which helps when Beauregard tries to bounce the fireballs back. When firing, the lil bird feet Nocturnes can't dodge, so the one firing at Beauregard eats one of its own attacks. It erupts in a fiery blast. The next fireball shoots right by its flaming body, smacking the Large Boy in the back. OW!
Not far behind, Kainé Louisville slugs the shit out of one of the fireballs. Doesn't feel great on the burns, but it does return fire the red Nocturne. The hit sends it spiraling over and back, smashing into the back of the Large Boy, exploding in fire and sparkles. Just as the big creature starts to come to, the last hit does it in.
The sparkles it leaves behind as it blows up rain down on Ichiro and Taichi. It sears them like embers, but the burns look more radiant than they do like the ones from flames. Four pieces of notebook paper flutter to the ground where the creature use to be, pictures scribbled onto them:
Two younger brothers holding hands, a weathered grandmother with strangely kind eyes, a terrifying bone monster, and a POS somewhat short, pudgy man with widow-peaked dark hair.]
[ the fall knocks the wind out of ichiro immediately - he feels another crack that is probably one of his ribs and goes down like a sack of bricks, but they at least manage to knock out the big guy. it's something. he looks to taichi, quickly, hissing out a - ] Fucking ow - [ at how bad that hurts, but he is not dead. he's not sure if he can get up that easily, but. hey.
they are not dead! that's a good sign. he's got about enough reaction time to check on taichi and then the large boy gets fuckin fastball special'd. ichiro puts his keyblade up to try and shield them both, persistently annoying because if taichi is going to be all Edgy Lone Wolf then ichiro's going to keep protecting him out of sheer spite, but it's not gonna cut the blast radius nearly enough to do much besides protect their faces.
he takes the burns that come - they sear his jacket and leave painful burns on his shoulders and his arm that's holding the keyblade aloft to try and deflect - then looks down at the papers as he opens his eyes from where they were squinted shut against the brightness of the explosion of sparkles.
he's got that paper of the red haired kid in his pocket from earlier, but his heart lurches at the sight of the bone monster. some part of him thinks maybe he should tear it up, anger at his own failures prevalent and visceral, and he grabs the paper... but only just crumples it a little bit and picks it up.
ichiro takes a breath. wheezy, painful, and calls out - ] ...Everyone okay? [ fuck. he knows the answer is no. he is definitely not okay. but he's holding onto what that voice said. you have to be a leader, even if the ground crumbles under your feet. maybe it will? that's what anna says. he taps the ground. ] These - papers, these papers are here.
[ and it's so strange; ichiro's eyes keeps drawing back to the one with the two younger brothers. he cannot figure out for the life of him, why. ]
beau just. flops on the ground again for a second when the little enemy guy explodes. her everything hurts. wow. long pause.
but ultimately, this is a small tag because beau pulls herself to her feet eventually and doggedly makes her way to the pod. give her caleb, you stupid pod asshole. she will beat the fuck out of this pod with her fists until it opens!!
for flavor she steps on the face of the pudgy man on the paper as she passes, ignoring ichiro entirely.]
[fucking ow x3. down they go and there's a loud smack as he lands. he doesn't break his spine, but that's definitely going to leave a huge bruised area that'll make it difficult to move for a few days. while he's busy kinning dub yamato, he tries to roll out of the way but finds he can't move fast enough to shield himself from the blast. ichiro's guard is thrown up and he waits for the explosion to subside. the embers fall and burn holes in his sleeves and through his pant legs, leaving burns along his legs so i can finally force him to stop playing soccer for a while. but it's stubbornness that means he rolls to his knees.
he watches ichiro take the picture of the weird bone monster and something tugs at his brain, a little weird and something akin to a loss that doesn't quite fit. it's with a strange kind of tenderness that he picks up the picture of his grandmother though, folding it properly to tuck away in his pocket.]
...grab Caleb if we can. Papers too. Where the hell are the stairs...?
Her movements are not great for her burns, but pain is not new to her. She's fought with worse, but she's even slower and less agile now. Maybe she'll remember her keyblade can heal eventually.
For now, she grabs the pieces of notebook paper that are left on the ground even if she'd rather leave that piece of shit on the ground where it deserves to be. They're probably important for this somehow, but she doesn't have the brain to figure out how or why because - nothing seems too different....? Even if there's a pang when she sees Taichi pick up the one of his grandmother.
She looks for stairs, too, now that Taichi mentions them. ]
[The crack in the glass of the pod crackles when Beauregard bangs against it. After a moment, the petals shift and begin to fold open, and they will absolutely smack her if she doesn't back up.
Inside, Caleb is missing. But left behind in a piece of notebook paper, looking worse for wear. The edges and pieces of the middle are singed and charred. The scrawled, child-like picture of a man in a scarf with a cat isn't looking to great either.
Bits and pieces of him have been colored in black. One of his eyes is large and golden.
Stairs on the side of the platform raise up out of the nothingness, spiraling upward. Above them... another platform.]
[ it's slow getting up, but ichiro pushes his keyblade into the ground and uses it to help himself stand up. he's not doing good, chief! but up he goes, coughing once and letting it rattle around. that can't bet oo good.
ichiro casts a quick glance to the others, to make sure everyone's at least breathing. even if he feels angry, still, that low pulse of pain helps keep him grounded, and he glances over to the platform.
don't be afraid. well. he's not. he's angry and confused and feeling scattered - he watches kainé pick up the last picture on the ground, of the two younger boys, and sucks in a deep breath that aches at his ribs. ]
Me too. [ tired of this shit. he looks over at beau and sees the drawing and feels his heart lurch. that can't be good. ]
Stay together. [ he says, leaning on the keyblade and waiting for the others, nodding back towards the pod. ichiro likes caleb, a lot, and caleb was the one who said his little trip was full of illusions - he's gonna hold onto that. gonna force the pain and those thoughts forward. gonna keep moving. he pauses by beau, and says - ] ...They might be up further ahead.
[ he can't remember who was down on the floor below. but he knows, knows they were important to him, and ichiro won't give up on the fact that they could be gone. ]
[she does not back up. smack her, she doesn't give two shits!!
in fact, she pushes through them, trying to climb into the fucking pod itself, but. nothing. just a paper. she crouches down next to it, a fear rising in her throat. no. no, no. she doesn't like that it's singed. she doesn't like that he looks like this. it's the eye that fucks her up the most. it's not red, but it makes her feel sick to her stomach.
or maybe that's just the pain from stumbling around with a shitton of third degree burns! who knows.
she doesn't quite hear ichiro, expression tight as she stands up, unsteadily. keep going. move up. find him, find your way out, and get back to your brothers. she has a goal, and fuck the rest of them.
[he's starting to kind of hate being here, but he doesn't say so. the longer they're here, the less he finds he has to say. they all have a goal to reach, and all he's doing is...what? wasting time? helping them get what they want? it's hard to say.
likewise, he uses his keyblade to get to his feet even if every time he bends and moves his body would really love him to not. nevertheless he's on his feet and he watches beau walk past them.]
Be careful. If there's more of these things they're probably gonna get worse. Don't push yourself.
[it's a quiet aside, but he lifts his head a little higher and begins to walk forward to head up the stairs. losing them would mean people back at wiwaldi would be upset. too many people care about them to let that happen. he's already failed to save other people. this isn't the time to continue that pattern.]
[ Being tired and sorrowful doesn't make her that much of an asshole actually, not much more of one than she usually is anyway. She sees everyone move with so much effort, and she remembers (even if there is so much else she doesn't) what she can do.
She can heal and tries to do just that. Just a small Cure (can it even do more than just Cure) so they can move better because everyone deserves their injuries to frighten all their CR like good and loving people who do no wrong. There are more platforms to go and more monsters to fight, she bets, and they need to be able to beat the shit out of all of them.
They have to keep moving. They have to get to the bottom of this place—or to the top.
[The third rounded platform is a wash of blue, too, but it's lighter, a little greener, and the edges are tinged with a bit of orange. Taichi is here below their feet in the stained glass, cradled along the circular edge with his eyes closed, holding a strange device in his left hand.
The bubbles etched into the glass near him total three: a girl with short, coppery hair and red eyes; a familiar blonde boy; and a very small, orange reptile.
This platform has a pod, too, on the far side. Hikari stands inside of it, both hands curled close to her chest under her chin. The petals fold up around her, encasing her in sleep.
A challenger materializes out of the darkest ether of the heart. Two other lil feety boys appear. Hm.]
[ that little cure feels like jakurai’a mic - a wash of warmth that surges through his veins. Ichiro takes a deep breath and lets it out as he feels some of the pain leave him - and when kainé comes by, he gives her a grateful smile.
after that, it’s onwards and upwards, though. by now, this is routine, and after seeing everyone get fireballed to all hell, when they make it up the stairs, ichiro’s using his big ass keyblade to aim for one of the lil feety boys. he’s really tall, so therefore, he’s gonna try and whack these flying bastards into each other. He doesn’t know the girl, but by now, this is good. they’ve got this. even if these stupid fuckers won’t stop flying out of his reach, which is exceedingly annoying and pissing off his temper even worse by the second, but Ichiro grits his teeth and swings high. fuck u ] ]
[the cure makes it - easier to walk, at least. she feels less like yartzing! which is good, because there are more enemies, and she's getting tired of this battle royale. she clutches the singed paper in her left fist, taking a deep breath. closer. there can't be too much more of this, she thinks. jiro and saburo are counting on you. don't fuck up.
she feels fuzzy. feels - scared? which she hates, more than anything. not a lot scares beauregard lionett, but her memories feel like soup, a little, and caleb is gone. something else is gone too. something important that pings her especially hard when she looks around at the others slowly dragging themselves up the stairs.
are you guys glad you gave the paranoid-afflicted one the shield yet
she watches ichiro go straight for the feetsy boys, and beau takes a deep breath and shoves the paper caleb in her pocket, shifting her keyblade. squares her shoulders. and goes for the big icy boy in front of them. beau darts forward, aiming to smack it with her blade, and then - well, instinctively, she punches it. hm.]
[well. there's a nod of thanks for the cure as it means he can walk with slightly less stiffness, but it doesn't matter much. they make it up to the platform, and he recognizes himself obviously. he recognizes yamato. but it's the other two that the details are a little fuzzy on thanks to ichiro having memories of his partner and him having memories of only a grandmother that really cared for him.
he faintly remembers, and realizes, maybe, that this girl must be very important to him. is it possible? could it really be true that there's someone else? it's...stupid, maybe, to hope for something like that but he wants it anyway. he wants what the others have, relationships that matter and people important that are still here. yamato's not here. yamato's out there and yamato's making other friends anyway, including people like beau. people like ichiro. people that he likes better.
but whatever this is, whoever this is, maybe she's meant to be his and only his. it's why he walks forward across the glass, a passing, uncertain look at the three figures in the bubble before he dashes across the field and toward the pod. here's hoping he can get past the large icy boy that beau's taking care of, but he does jump a little to swing at the little feets of the floaty boy, too, as he attempts to get to the pod to open it.]
Well. To be fair to everyone else, maybe a little, sure.
She makes it onto the platform, and that's what matters! Same song and dance, same important people in pods. It's pissing her off that they are getting toyed with like this, that they're being played like this, with illusions or not of people they cherish. It pulls at the sadness of her heart, and she only gets angrier to try and combat it.
If the boys want to indulge in their feetish, Kainé will go about seeing if she can't get frostbite on top of her many burns.
It's a good idea to fight next to the really paranoid one, right? Anyway, she's going to try to hack at the blizzard boy in time with Beau's punch. ]
Because Ichiro connects! It bops the little bell-shaped creature enough to knock some sparkle off it. But! It sends a ripple of electricity down the conductive keyblade and straight into Ichiro's body.
Taichi can't quite reach the other one because it's so high. That's fine. Its little bird feet wiggle as its body shakes, and it zaps Taichi with a bolt of electricity from afar.
The Blizzard Lord bobs in the air until Beauregard and Kainé dive in. It tanks the hits--they cause sparks to fly off it, but it doesn't look too worse for wear, not even from the punch.
Beauregard can see... through its stomach? Like a globe. Weird. There is a vortex of... ice and snow inside...?
The belly starts to grow!!
The Blizzard Lord draws in a huge breath as it tips a little back. And then it rolls forward, blowing a wide, cone spray of ice out in front of it. It's so cold it burns, bad!]
by which i mean, fucking hell does that hurt. the metal connects, he wallops the bell shaped thing, and realizes the gravity of his mistake about a half second later. being shocked like that feels like getting hit with a mic in all of the worst kind of ways - the percussive nature of it and the white hot heat that comes with sizzles through his body, and ichiro this time lets out a shout of pain, unable to hold it back as he's thrown backwards and away from the lightning boy, left shaking with the force of the electric shock as it works through his system - the arm of his jacket smokes and he can feel the pain of injury vaguely before he goes down hard, and for a second, the whole world goes completely dark.
at least ichiro is used to taking a stupid amount of internal damage, which is such an unfortunate sentence, so his consciousness returns to him a moment later, blood trickling from his ringing ears, heart pounding, alive, but in a fuckton of pain.
ow.
get up. he tells himself, reminiscent of a battle a long, long time ago. they need you. get up. so with that, he's going to try and struggle back up to his feet and go back to helping and not hitting the lightning boy with his keyblade again. ]
beau, on the periphery of her vision, sees ichiro go down, and for a second there's a panicked response - this week in particular is bad for watching people go for an attack and get knocked out instead, haha - and not even her brain scramblies are enough. she can't trust any of them, but... she doesn't want them to die. right? that's not what you promised yourself you'd do.
but she doesn't have much time else to react, because the big guy that she and kainé are fighting expands, and she gets about two seconds to get out:] Oh, shit --
[before it's blasting both of them with ice. it's always ice, huh? it's always ice.
it burns, and it especially does not feel good on top of the other injuries she has. beau's tough but even she can't stop the yelp of pain as the ice covers her. she stumbles back, one, two steps.
the extra bad thing is that it's memshare week, and she's had a few memories that she's locked away knocked loose. for a second, she's in a different place. she's in several - a long dirt road facing down a demon that took - her friends? her brothers? she can't remember - she's frozen, a purple tiefling holding her up by the throat, grinning. it's always ice. and there's too much fear in her heart for her to move.
it is up to anna whether or not she actually memshares these since this is her fuckhouse but your local lesbian is dissociating a bit while mostly frozen, thank you have a nice day.]
[well. fuck. the bell-creature strikes with lightning and he yelps as the bolt hits, not quite the same amount of electrocution ichiro’s going through over there but enough to dizzy him and shock him briefly. the snow monster’s still attacking and he can hear it moving and growling...while he can’t entirely see the field behind him he knows they’re all taking too many hits to keep going much further.
what can he even do here? he doesn’t have a way to heal, and he doesn’t have a way to get them out of here. even if it’s with the risk of getting shocked again, he tries to jump even higher to knock out the little feety boy above him.
at the same time though…what was it that voice said? strength. they need strength to get out of this and they still have to work together. it doesn’t matter what the others have and what he doesn’t. he has the ability to help, somehow.
even his own selfish, lonely feelings aren’t enough to deter him from trying to swing his keyblade and send extra strength to the others. is that how it works? he doesn’t know. all he knows is that unlike the others he can keep moving easily and begins making his way to the pod once again after that.]
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She no longer has someone who loves and accepts for everything that she is. Instead, she has a father that is like her entire village, someone who hates her and wants her dead, someone who'd be more than happy if she never came back. It only makes her angrier. It only makes her sadder.
It only makes her life worse.
It means Nier had to try twenty times harder to get her to join his party somehow.
The new memory weighs her down even more, and she can no longer dodge in time. The warnings are all too late. Her melancholy is too great. The explosion catches her fully.
She doesn't even scream as she flies and goes down on the stained glass. ]
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The Large Boy finally takes a good hit to the back! The smack peels sparkles out of it, and it stumbles over forward. But it's still standing! It bounds fatly out of the destruction of the blast. Both arms come up and then slam down on the platform, sending shock waves toward Taichi and Ichiro to try to toss them high into the air.
Two new creatures appear in the air, twitching and bobbing. (Please look at their lil feet, I love them.) They doff their hats at them!
--And then a ring of magic forms in the air behind their backs, and they start firing balls of flames in Kainé and Beauregard's directions. Hope... they got up...?]
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his body hurts, and the keyblade feels like it weighs a ton in his hand, weighed down by what's missing, or by the heaviness of remembering. he's supposed to have courage. isn't that what happened? he was afraid, and his fear cost his friend everything?
he grits his teeth as gravity kicks in, and this time, the fall is not going to be as light as it was when they landed. ichiro shouts and swings his arms up as he attempts to gets his wits around him as he's falling, hoping to bring this keyblade down onto some kind of monster's head, trying to focus all of his fury into defending the people here. that's what anger can be good for. that's what he's used his attacks for, protecting other people, even if they aren't ready to be protected.
fuck it! he's gonna hit this motherfucker and then probably break like five bones on impact but whatever at least he's gonna cause some damage first! fuck! ]
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stubbornly, beau pulls herself up to sit. not for herself, so much. she has to. everything hurts, and she - well. she doesn't look great. she is... covered in burns, and she probably is like, bleeding from the ears from how loud it was? she can't hear super well. it's fine. explosions are bad.
the fireballs come flying at them, and she looks up just in time from where she's mostly slumped on the ground - she brings her keyblade up to half-assedly protect herself. more than anything she wants to bounce the fireballs back at the little flying bitches than she cares about being not-burnt further.
she does not protect kainé, though. can't trust her. she's paranoid.
... gotta make it back to the pod, too. caleb's in there and she's got the brain scramblies, so she can't remember shit's not real.]
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maybe it's that need to prove it wrong, or it's the way he wants to be better that means he redirects his keyblade for a downward strike in a spot ichiro isn't aiming for, not even thinking about how he might land. fuck off already!]
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Great! Just what she wanted when she's feeling like shit. At least spite keeps her going.
Not unlike Beau, she's going to try to hit a fireball back. She shifts her stance and holds the keyblade like a bat. Perhaps she's keeping in mind the things Luke could have told her about baseball if that mingle didn't hit captcha and I wasn't too weak to do captcha.
Who knows if she strikes out or not? Anna can decide if Kainé deserves a little kindness. ]
no subject
The keyblades clock the Large Boy great on the noggin on both sides. Taichi and Ichiro plummet to the ground, and the Large Boy promptly flops over when its legs give out from under it. Stunned, it sits on the platform with very literal stars spinning around its head.
Which helps when Beauregard tries to bounce the fireballs back. When firing, the lil bird feet Nocturnes can't dodge, so the one firing at Beauregard eats one of its own attacks. It erupts in a fiery blast. The next fireball shoots right by its flaming body, smacking the Large Boy in the back. OW!
Not far behind, Kainé Louisville slugs the shit out of one of the fireballs. Doesn't feel great on the burns, but it does return fire the red Nocturne. The hit sends it spiraling over and back, smashing into the back of the Large Boy, exploding in fire and sparkles. Just as the big creature starts to come to, the last hit does it in.
The sparkles it leaves behind as it blows up rain down on Ichiro and Taichi. It sears them like embers, but the burns look more radiant than they do like the ones from flames. Four pieces of notebook paper flutter to the ground where the creature use to be, pictures scribbled onto them:
Two younger brothers holding hands, a weathered grandmother with strangely kind eyes, a terrifying bone monster, and a
POSsomewhat short, pudgy man with widow-peaked dark hair.]no subject
they are not dead! that's a good sign. he's got about enough reaction time to check on taichi and then the large boy gets fuckin fastball special'd. ichiro puts his keyblade up to try and shield them both, persistently annoying because if taichi is going to be all Edgy Lone Wolf then ichiro's going to keep protecting him out of sheer spite, but it's not gonna cut the blast radius nearly enough to do much besides protect their faces.
he takes the burns that come - they sear his jacket and leave painful burns on his shoulders and his arm that's holding the keyblade aloft to try and deflect - then looks down at the papers as he opens his eyes from where they were squinted shut against the brightness of the explosion of sparkles.
he's got that paper of the red haired kid in his pocket from earlier, but his heart lurches at the sight of the bone monster. some part of him thinks maybe he should tear it up, anger at his own failures prevalent and visceral, and he grabs the paper... but only just crumples it a little bit and picks it up.
ichiro takes a breath. wheezy, painful, and calls out - ] ...Everyone okay? [ fuck. he knows the answer is no. he is definitely not okay. but he's holding onto what that voice said. you have to be a leader, even if the ground crumbles under your feet. maybe it will? that's what anna says. he taps the ground. ] These - papers, these papers are here.
[ and it's so strange; ichiro's eyes keeps drawing back to the one with the two younger brothers. he cannot figure out for the life of him, why. ]
no subject
beau just. flops on the ground again for a second when the little enemy guy explodes. her everything hurts. wow. long pause.
but ultimately, this is a small tag because beau pulls herself to her feet eventually and doggedly makes her way to the pod. give her caleb, you stupid pod asshole. she will beat the fuck out of this pod with her fists until it opens!!
for flavor she steps on the face of the pudgy man on the paper as she passes, ignoring ichiro entirely.]
no subject
he watches ichiro take the picture of the weird bone monster and something tugs at his brain, a little weird and something akin to a loss that doesn't quite fit. it's with a strange kind of tenderness that he picks up the picture of his grandmother though, folding it properly to tuck away in his pocket.]
...grab Caleb if we can. Papers too. Where the hell are the stairs...?
no subject
Her movements are not great for her burns, but pain is not new to her. She's fought with worse, but she's even slower and less agile now. Maybe she'll remember her keyblade can heal eventually.
For now, she grabs the pieces of notebook paper that are left on the ground even if she'd rather leave that piece of shit on the ground where it deserves to be. They're probably important for this somehow, but she doesn't have the brain to figure out how or why because - nothing seems too different....? Even if there's a pang when she sees Taichi pick up the one of his grandmother.
She looks for stairs, too, now that Taichi mentions them. ]
I'm tired of this shit already.
no subject
Inside, Caleb is missing. But left behind in a piece of notebook paper, looking worse for wear. The edges and pieces of the middle are singed and charred. The scrawled, child-like picture of a man in a scarf with a cat isn't looking to great either.
Bits and pieces of him have been colored in black. One of his eyes is large and golden.
Stairs on the side of the platform raise up out of the nothingness, spiraling upward. Above them... another platform.]
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ichiro casts a quick glance to the others, to make sure everyone's at least breathing. even if he feels angry, still, that low pulse of pain helps keep him grounded, and he glances over to the platform.
don't be afraid. well. he's not. he's angry and confused and feeling scattered - he watches kainé pick up the last picture on the ground, of the two younger boys, and sucks in a deep breath that aches at his ribs. ]
Me too. [ tired of this shit. he looks over at beau and sees the drawing and feels his heart lurch. that can't be good. ]
Stay together. [ he says, leaning on the keyblade and waiting for the others, nodding back towards the pod. ichiro likes caleb, a lot, and caleb was the one who said his little trip was full of illusions - he's gonna hold onto that. gonna force the pain and those thoughts forward. gonna keep moving. he pauses by beau, and says - ] ...They might be up further ahead.
[ he can't remember who was down on the floor below. but he knows, knows they were important to him, and ichiro won't give up on the fact that they could be gone. ]
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in fact, she pushes through them, trying to climb into the fucking pod itself, but. nothing. just a paper. she crouches down next to it, a fear rising in her throat. no. no, no. she doesn't like that it's singed. she doesn't like that he looks like this. it's the eye that fucks her up the most. it's not red, but it makes her feel sick to her stomach.
or maybe that's just the pain from stumbling around with a shitton of third degree burns! who knows.
she doesn't quite hear ichiro, expression tight as she stands up, unsteadily. keep going. move up. find him, find your way out, and get back to your brothers. she has a goal, and fuck the rest of them.
off she goes!]
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likewise, he uses his keyblade to get to his feet even if every time he bends and moves his body would really love him to not. nevertheless he's on his feet and he watches beau walk past them.]
Be careful. If there's more of these things they're probably gonna get worse. Don't push yourself.
[it's a quiet aside, but he lifts his head a little higher and begins to walk forward to head up the stairs. losing them would mean people back at wiwaldi would be upset. too many people care about them to let that happen. he's already failed to save other people. this isn't the time to continue that pattern.]
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She can heal and tries to do just that. Just a small Cure (can it even do more than just Cure) so they can move better because everyone deserves their injuries to frighten all their CR like good and loving people who do no wrong. There are more platforms to go and more monsters to fight, she bets, and they need to be able to beat the shit out of all of them.
They have to keep moving. They have to get to the bottom of this place—or to the top.
She climbs because she won't stop. ]
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The bubbles etched into the glass near him total three: a girl with short, coppery hair and red eyes; a familiar blonde boy; and a very small, orange reptile.
This platform has a pod, too, on the far side. Hikari stands inside of it, both hands curled close to her chest under her chin. The petals fold up around her, encasing her in sleep.
A challenger materializes out of the darkest ether of the heart. Two other lil feety boys appear. Hm.]
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after that, it’s onwards and upwards, though. by now, this is routine, and after seeing everyone get fireballed to all hell, when they make it up the stairs, ichiro’s using his big ass keyblade to aim for one of the lil feety boys. he’s really tall, so therefore, he’s gonna try and whack these flying bastards into each other. He doesn’t know the girl, but by now, this is good. they’ve got this. even if these stupid fuckers won’t stop flying out of his reach, which is exceedingly annoying and pissing off his temper even worse by the second, but Ichiro grits his teeth and swings high. fuck u ] ]
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she feels fuzzy. feels - scared? which she hates, more than anything. not a lot scares beauregard lionett, but her memories feel like soup, a little, and caleb is gone. something else is gone too. something important that pings her especially hard when she looks around at the others slowly dragging themselves up the stairs.
are you guys glad you gave the paranoid-afflicted one the shield yet
she watches ichiro go straight for the feetsy boys, and beau takes a deep breath and shoves the paper caleb in her pocket, shifting her keyblade. squares her shoulders. and goes for the big icy boy in front of them. beau darts forward, aiming to smack it with her blade, and then - well, instinctively, she punches it. hm.]
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he faintly remembers, and realizes, maybe, that this girl must be very important to him. is it possible? could it really be true that there's someone else? it's...stupid, maybe, to hope for something like that but he wants it anyway. he wants what the others have, relationships that matter and people important that are still here. yamato's not here. yamato's out there and yamato's making other friends anyway, including people like beau. people like ichiro. people that he likes better.
but whatever this is, whoever this is, maybe she's meant to be his and only his. it's why he walks forward across the glass, a passing, uncertain look at the three figures in the bubble before he dashes across the field and toward the pod. here's hoping he can get past the large icy boy that beau's taking care of, but he does jump a little to swing at the little feets of the floaty boy, too, as he attempts to get to the pod to open it.]
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Well. To be fair to everyone else, maybe a little, sure.
She makes it onto the platform, and that's what matters! Same song and dance, same important people in pods. It's pissing her off that they are getting toyed with like this, that they're being played like this, with illusions or not of people they cherish. It pulls at the sadness of her heart, and she only gets angrier to try and combat it.
If the boys want to indulge in their feetish, Kainé will go about seeing if she can't get frostbite on top of her many burns.
It's a good idea to fight next to the really paranoid one, right? Anyway, she's going to try to hack at the blizzard boy in time with Beau's punch. ]
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Because Ichiro connects! It bops the little bell-shaped creature enough to knock some sparkle off it. But! It sends a ripple of electricity down the conductive keyblade and straight into Ichiro's body.
Taichi can't quite reach the other one because it's so high. That's fine. Its little bird feet wiggle as its body shakes, and it zaps Taichi with a bolt of electricity from afar.
The Blizzard Lord bobs in the air until Beauregard and Kainé dive in. It tanks the hits--they cause sparks to fly off it, but it doesn't look too worse for wear, not even from the punch.
Beauregard can see... through its stomach? Like a globe. Weird. There is a vortex of... ice and snow inside...?
The belly starts to grow!!
The Blizzard Lord draws in a huge breath as it tips a little back. And then it rolls forward, blowing a wide, cone spray of ice out in front of it. It's so cold it burns, bad!]
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by which i mean, fucking hell does that hurt. the metal connects, he wallops the bell shaped thing, and realizes the gravity of his mistake about a half second later. being shocked like that feels like getting hit with a mic in all of the worst kind of ways - the percussive nature of it and the white hot heat that comes with sizzles through his body, and ichiro this time lets out a shout of pain, unable to hold it back as he's thrown backwards and away from the lightning boy, left shaking with the force of the electric shock as it works through his system - the arm of his jacket smokes and he can feel the pain of injury vaguely before he goes down hard, and for a second, the whole world goes completely dark.
at least ichiro is used to taking a stupid amount of internal damage, which is such an unfortunate sentence, so his consciousness returns to him a moment later, blood trickling from his ringing ears, heart pounding, alive, but in a fuckton of pain.
ow.
get up. he tells himself, reminiscent of a battle a long, long time ago. they need you. get up. so with that, he's going to try and struggle back up to his feet and go back to helping and not hitting the lightning boy with his keyblade again. ]
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beau, on the periphery of her vision, sees ichiro go down, and for a second there's a panicked response - this week in particular is bad for watching people go for an attack and get knocked out instead, haha - and not even her brain scramblies are enough. she can't trust any of them, but... she doesn't want them to die. right? that's not what you promised yourself you'd do.
but she doesn't have much time else to react, because the big guy that she and kainé are fighting expands, and she gets about two seconds to get out:] Oh, shit --
[before it's blasting both of them with ice. it's always ice, huh? it's always ice.
it burns, and it especially does not feel good on top of the other injuries she has. beau's tough but even she can't stop the yelp of pain as the ice covers her. she stumbles back, one, two steps.
the extra bad thing is that it's memshare week, and she's had a few memories that she's locked away knocked loose. for a second, she's in a different place. she's in several - a long dirt road facing down a demon that took - her friends? her brothers? she can't remember - she's frozen, a purple tiefling holding her up by the throat, grinning. it's always ice. and there's too much fear in her heart for her to move.
it is up to anna whether or not she actually memshares these since this is her fuckhouse but your local lesbian is dissociating a bit while mostly frozen, thank you have a nice day.]
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what can he even do here? he doesn’t have a way to heal, and he doesn’t have a way to get them out of here. even if it’s with the risk of getting shocked again, he tries to jump even higher to knock out the little feety boy above him.
at the same time though…what was it that voice said? strength. they need strength to get out of this and they still have to work together. it doesn’t matter what the others have and what he doesn’t. he has the ability to help, somehow.
even his own selfish, lonely feelings aren’t enough to deter him from trying to swing his keyblade and send extra strength to the others. is that how it works? he doesn’t know. all he knows is that unlike the others he can keep moving easily and begins making his way to the pod once again after that.]
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