azume | Eighth.

ENCOUNTER.

It's been days since you were brought here.

Or, at least, you think it's been days; even if it's not something you're necessarily unfamiliar with, the stagnation of time and space are likely taking a toll, as is the fact that it's impossible to become spatially oriented in this place. The rotation of the walls to become ground beneath your feet, the floating patches of land with their bizarre floral biology, the pools of water flowing silently and horizontally directly above your heads... It's all a bit much to take in, a bit much to acquaint yourselves with.

Perhaps it isn't meant for you to become acquainted with at all.

The massive creature here with you has been becoming bolder over the last few hours; it's difficult to tell what's gotten into it, but its path through the shadows has been bringing it closer. Once in a while a sleek, sharply-spiked body can be seen twisting its way through the darkness; sometimes long, black tendrils with wicked-looking red tips are seen cutting through the shadows, each of them far larger than you are, before disappearing again into nothingness. It seems to fade in and out with the contours of the abyss; sometimes it disappears entirely, only to reappear so close to the patches of land you've taken to standing on that it feels liable to collide with them, that it seems almost like you can reach out and touch it if you wanted to. Whatever it is, your Pokémon don't like it.

You can tell just by being in its presence that it's one of the old ones, one of those whose memories span far longer than most of you can comprehend - one that's always been, since the creation of the world. An ancient and powerful entity, and there comes a point on one of those passes that's too close for comfort that it doesn't pull away and disappear again.

Instead it stays, and its head breaches the darkness, and it finally lets you see it.

It's massive, alarmingly so, in the same way that Dialga and Palkia were massive - not just in physical size, but in the way that something about being in its presence makes you feel very, very small. Its body is long and graceful in a way that's almost repulsive; it doesn't set down anywhere near you, or anywhere at all; instead, it simply is, hovering before you in a way that commands the stagnant, empty space before you, floating over the abyss like it was meant to be in it, like it's been here for longer than you likely care to imagine.

Those long black tendrils ripple a little as they stream out behind it; its body seems to glimmer in the darkness as it watches you from behind bright, red eyes. For the time being, it doesn't seem about to attack; just the same, it's watching you very, very closely.

What happens from here is, evidently, your call.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[NO. NOT ALL.]

We all travel together, knowing the risks. We've risked death multiple times in the last few months alone.

[AND THE REGION?]

It deserves the chance to recover from what Cyrus has done to it. Seems most its citizens can't do much about it, so here we are.

[YOU ARE GOING TO DIE HERE. NOW. LATER. IT DOES NOT MATTER TO THE WORLD.]

Not in the long run, no.

I fought in a war I wanted no part in, a war where if we lost, the world as I knew it would have ceased to exist. But I still did it.

[THERE IS WAR, AND THERE IS RUNNING TO YOUR DEATH. A DIFFERENCE EXISTS. THIS IS NOT WAR.]

You were the one who brought us here.

[BY YOUR ACTIONS, YOU HAVE CHOSEN.]

And what actions were those?

[YOU HAVE PURSUED A PATH THAT WILL LEAD TO YOUR OWN DOWNFALL.]

By Cyrus or you?

[YOU CANNOT DEFEAT EITHER.]

What makes you so confident Cyrus is unstoppable?

[No arguments about Giratina being out of his league, though.]

[DO YOU BELIEVE YOU CAN STOP THE CREATOR?}

I'm not looking to fight gods, I'm interested in preventing a man from destroying this world and mine.

[YOU WILL NOT BE PERMITTED TO LEAVE THIS PLACE.]

The other gods are fine, free. The same will be true for the Creator.

'Defeat' in a strict definition isn't what we're setting out to do. We know we can't beat Cyrus; we seek to stop him through means unrelated to simple strength before anything else.

[THE HUMAN MATTERS LITTLE. DO YOU BELIEVE YOU CAN STOP THE CREATOR?]

...Is it not Cyrus who manipulates the creator's power?

[HE DOES.]

Then we would seek to sever that control and free the creator of this world. Perhaps that's likely to make our deaths certain, but so too should it restore this world to its proper state.

[YOU CANNOT BE PERMITTED TO LEAVE.]

Why.

[actually, fuck this?]

For the same reason that a girl trying to save this world apparently had to die?

(no subject)

azumods - 2018-11-10 20:42 (UTC) - Expand

discutio - 2018-11-10 20:45 (UTC) - Expand