azume | Restart.

APOCALYPSE.

It's difficult to say how long you're unconscious.

Whenever you do wake up, it's warm; your limbs will probably feel a bit heavy, and it might take a while for you to come back into yourself fully - whatever just happened, it's disorienting, weighing heavily on your body and leaving a heavy fog over your senses, and for a long moment it may be tempting to go back to sleep.

Slowly, though, everything will start to seep back in. The confrontation with Cyrus. Countless beams of light smashing down to earth, tearing everything in their path away. Judgement.

The end of the world.

The ruins still seem, miraculously, to be intact; pushing yourself up to sit up and look around will make it clear that whatever protected you from the attack on the world is still present, a swirling field of white light encapsulating the area and forming a protective shield around your group. The Lake Guardians are present for a brief moment, hovering overhead in a manner that's easily read as concerned, but as soon as enough of you are awake they'll take their leave - it's difficult to say where they're going and why, given that they don't offer an explanation, but all three of them are together still, having seemed to have found each other eventually over the past little while.

Their protection vanishes with them, and their departure may leave you feeling empty; on the other hand, it may not affect you at all, seeing as you have other things to worry about. Leaving the ruins themselves and returning to the center of Celestic Town, it will be immediately obvious that something is very, very wrong.

The first noticeable difference is in the people of the town; it seems that Cyrus adhered to his word in that everyone is alive, having been reborn after the world was destroyed. But there's something unwelcome and familiar about them now - the inability to process very much, the staring with nothing behind it, the lack of drive or desire to do anything for themselves, it seems that everything about them that made them a person has once again been torn away from them, leaving them dead-eyed and spiritless.

The other differences are less noticeable, but as the day goes on, something seems...off. Not just with the people, but with the world as a whole.

The passage of time and the expansion of space are things that everyone takes for granted; as long as the day passes by, the sun moving across the sky to fade into night, it can be assumed that everything is working as it should be. But the longer you spend here, the more it becomes obvious that something feels wrong; the sun continues to pass overhead, night will eventually fall, but there's an undeniable sense that nothing is really happening. The perceived passage of time seems more and more irrelevant to you, giving way to a notion that you're just...stuck, somehow. That nothing is changing, despite evidence that it should be; that everything is strange and stagnant and still despite the fact that you're still moving forward.

It's this, maybe, that makes you realize why Lucas is twelve at the oldest, despite the passage of at least five years; the flow of time, the expansion of space... Both have been disrupted and brought to a standstill.

Take the day to get used to your new reality; it might take some time to get accustomed to.

[OOC: Welcome to the start of Week 14, the end of the world, and the beginning of the second half of the game!

No NPC response will be given to this post, though you can thread here amongst yourselves if you wish; we'll see you tomorrow at noon with a new log for your further adventures!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

But nothing. This sort of thing is what I do now - I look out for kids like you, so you don't have to do anything like that.

Besides, I'm pretty sure Camilla and Ignis will be pretty pissed if they don't get at least a shot at anyone coming at us. You leave that sort of shit to us.

A...alright...

[But...still...]

If there's anything I can do to help...

[...]

Look, this... All of what just happened changed a lot, but I don't think it's changed everything. We're probably still going to try to do the pacifist thing. But everyone's really pissed off right now, it's going to take us a while to get past this.

I don't think we're gonna get too violent, though. Don't worry about that, just keep doing what you've been doing.

[Sena nods slowly, taking it in. A compromise. A chance to keep things from going too far. To keep Jake from going at things alone again.]

...If you say so...

[...really, what has he been doing, though? He doesn't feel like he's been particularly helpful with finding the lake deities, and it's not like anything he does isn't something that anybody else can't contribute.

Is doing what he's just been doing this whole time enough? After everything they've said, Sena's not so sure, and it shows by how doubtful he sounds when he answers.]

I do, yeah.

[...]

You're a good kid, Sena. You know that, yeah?

[Again, Sena's caught off-guard by the sudden change in topic.]

Um?

...You shouldn't be involved in shit like this, or have to make decisions like that. It bothers me, I dunno.

Yeah, but...

[The shrug shouldn't come as easily as it does. Maybe seeing the end of the world has something to do with how gracelessly he holds himself.]

I am.

[That's all there is to it, isn't it?]

...Stay away from as much of the violent shit as you can. You don't need that.

...I'll try.

[No promises. He reserves the right to charge in if you need help.]

Do you even know how to fight? You look like you couldn't throw a punch if your life depended on it.

[Jake.]

...Or, well, I guess maybe you could, but you'd start apologizing immediately afterwards.

[JAKE.]

Um...not really...

[HE'S NOT WRONG, AND SENA KNOWS IT. The closest he's ever gotten into a fight is whatever the hell he does on the football field, blocking tackles and dodging arm chops.

So...it's not like he can't take a blow or anything. It's just that he doesn't really know how to do anything other than blocking and dodging.]

S...sorry?

[sena.]

I could try to teach you some, if you wanted? Maybe?

[He perks up.]

Really?

[No one's ever offered that kind of thing before. Probably because he's an average kid with slightly less than average strength but still.]

I don't get why not? As long as it's non-lethal stuff I don't see why it isn't good to know, at least.

I-I-I'd like to learn, if you'd have me...

[Really! It'd be awesome and maybe he'd be a more rounded football player after all this?]

Yeah, sure. As soon as we've settled down somewhere, come find me and we can work something out.

Alright!

[he's gonna hold you to that once they get to Canalave, okay.]

Th-thanks! For not, um...

[continuing to push him away.]

...You don't have to thank me for anything.

...You want to do hard things so I don't have to.

[He pushes his fingers together, looking away.]

That's enough reason, right?

[...eye contact is hard right now, um.]

I guess.

[really hard.

um.]

S...sorry-! [squeak.

he embarrassed you or something, right?]

Restart.

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