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Post by Deleted on Apr 29, 2018 19:24:15 GMT -5
Roxas confirmed Black Waltz’ suspicions with a nod that slid blond bangs down his face. Welkin eyes that’d been respectfully lowered during the ceremony lifted. This choice was about as private as you could get, sacred even. It’d seemed wrong to intrude on somebody else’s Awakening. The only living soul that knew Roxas' choice was Sora, and vice versa. That they'd been different ... gave some hope.
“We’re deep in your Heart,” came the reply, Roxas’ quiet tenor nevertheless carrying eerily in the cavernous space. “The part that connects you to me,” the boy briefly placed a closed fist over his own heart. “To everyone.”
Roxas contemplated the grapeshot of questions regarding the departed spiritual armory. It occurred, definitely not for the first time during this brusque consultation, that he didn’t actually owe the killing machine any answers. Waltz’d already dismissed his continued survival as a matter of convenience. Number thirteen’s rather hypnagogic existence had inured him somewhat to the metaphysical logic of the dream towers, while the mage was clearly a fish flopping on the pier. The more ruthless part of Roxas’ Heart noted if there was a time to take another shot at Black Waltz, this state of confusion was it.
Yet, Roxas also remembered his own terror upon first falling into this place, the half-answered questions and being suffocated by living Darkness. Roxas’d been sure he was losing it, tried to fight the dream’s flow and got impaled by tortous thorns for his trouble. He tried muster schadenfreude at the mental image of his conqueror being subjected to something similar, but there only came cold horror at remembering his brush with spiritual annihilation.
Roxas wasn’t sure if it was smart to guide a guy like this out, but the alternative definitely didn’t sit right with him. “Those were your dreams,” replied the reluctant psychopomp with a gesture toward where the monuments once stood. “Everybody who y’ever could be, and the power they'd eventually have.” Roxas bit his lower lip, never the most skilled conversationalist; the boy struggled to put soul-deep knowing into words. “Choosing changed you. Just like it did me.”
The boy indicated the celestial colonnade at the tower’s center, pale complexion fading to near translucence in its silhouette.
“C’mon, gotta keep walking if we’re going to wake up."
@blackwaltz3
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Post by Deleted on May 2, 2018 7:56:54 GMT -5
"Get out of my way! Do you dare fight a Black Waltz?" "....My heart." The Machine repeated softly, his hand instinctively raising up to rest where such an organ might reside. Roxas' explanation as to what it was didn't exactly answer any more of his questions, suggesting that his "heart" was a bit that connected him to everyone. How... in the darkest pit of hades could an organ connect him to everyone!? That didn't make any sense whatsoever! Either he was talking in some kind of metaphysical senses... or he was completely out of his tiny mind. But if the latter were true... what could he offer as a more reasonable solution...? That this was an illusion Roxas cast? It was still possible. But then... this avatar of the child within said illusion didn't have the signs of a typical caster... He wasn't overly confident nor was he trying to guide the machine in any one direction. In fact, this whole time he had been standing back and had let The Waltz figure his way around this place himself. No opinions... no input... If he really were trying to keep him trapped here, he would be hesitant to help him out of this place. So... By heart... he meant Mind? Soul? It clearly wasn't body. Moving onto the explanation of the weapons, Roxas explained that they were his dreams, that they were effectively the potential of who he could be... By choosing these weapons, he had chosen his destiny... As Roxas had his own. The machine nodded slowly, trying to wrap his mind around all this... So... this was just some overblown metaphor for choosing who he wanted to be in life...? He knew the human mind was so completely indirect and imperfect but his OWN was conjuring up these fantasies...? Curses... these humans really had infected him... "...Yes. Let us go." The Waltz responded slowly, stepping into the light... As he drew closer, it would brighten and brighten, blinding both figures with it's sheer radiance until nothing but white could be seen! The Waltz held a hand up to shield his eyes, his mouth curled into an annoyed snarl... As he lowered his hand, though.... he saw not the same place they were in but a moment ago... But it was still a familiar one... They stood on the airship that had carried Zidane and crew to Lindblum! The world around them seemed frozen: No wind, no sound, as if they were standing on but a stage made to resemble this scene of the Walt'z life... Even the flames his Thundaras had left upon the deck appeared frozen in time! "...P-princess!?" The Waltz's eyes widened in shock, his gaze flicking over by the cockpit to spot Garnet over by the wheel! ...She too was frozen. On instinct programmed into him long ago, the Machine rushed over to her, reaching out towards the broken window she was looking through... only for the space between his hand and her face to distort and misshape upon his approach! It twisted and contorted as if it were made of some kind of water, his touch sending ripples that warped the entirety of the area! This distortion halted the Waltz in his tracks, his yellow eyes peering all around the ship... Not so fast... Tell me about yourself...
A familiar voice whispered behind him just as the distortions came to a standstill... Turning back around to face the deck, the Waltz came face to face 3 important figures of his life: Zidane was leaning back against the side of the airship, his arms crossed, one foot planted against the rim as casual as he pleased, looking intently at the Waltz. Vivi stood over by a broken, shattered piece of wood upon which a Black Mage hat rested, his chest rising up and down with his breathing signifying he wasn't frozen like the rest of this place... Kuja stood at the very end of the deck, hovering ever so slightly off it's face where the Waltz would've stood, smiling that deceptively graceful smile in the machine's direction, one that sent shiver upon shiver up his spine... @tag
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Post by Deleted on May 3, 2018 4:22:20 GMT -5
Roxas lifted himself up onto the airship’s taffrail, dwarfed by the cargo ship’s bulky mercantile construction. Leaning back on his hands upon that narrow perch of burnt timber, the boy’s venturous position would’ve been an instant death sentence in a world that possessed motion. Instead in this unnaturally quiescent juncture, watching Black Waltz with quiet expectancy against his backdrop of clouds and bright empyrean expanse, Roxas was given the mien of a presiding angelic witness. What the unlikely cherub thought of his charge’s spiritual path was revealed in the occasional troubled frowns and puzzled narrowing of eyes that came to that youthful semblance.
Far bellow, the bushland covered cliffs surrounding the city-state of Lindblum jutted up like the mammoth spinous vertebrae of some primordial beast time had re-fleshed with soil and stone. Patches of emerald verdure clung stubbornly to the sheer drops that formed mist filled ravines between the crags. The pale vapor was so thick that it obscured any glimpse of the shadowed valleys below. Billowing brume filled the great crevasse in the manner of a great river rather then filmy firmament. The titanic mass of Lindblum’s South Gate, graven with intricate solar pictograms across its central portal, seemed like a damn holding back that tidal haze.
Yet, what captured Roxas’ attention wasn’t the scenery, however sublime. Forever falling into the thick cloudscape like living flotsam, were unnervingly familiar figures frozen in free-fall. They were taller and bulkier in frame, brocade jackets and pantaloons favoring a more heliotropic span of hues, and more smoothly shaped hats that evoked toadstools. However this minutia didn’t save Roxas from the inescapable resemblance to a certain tiny Twilight Towner of his acquaintance.
…and there were dozens of them, tumbling like discarded dolls from a little girl’s bedside.
Roxas’ gaze rose to where Vivi Ornitier (or perhaps just the one Roxas knew, came the bitter suggestion in the back of his skull) shy Struggler from Twilight Towner stood in the middle of freakin war zone worlds away from what should’ve been home. A squint at the ill-fitting blue vest, gloves with over-large cuffs, and frumpy hat looming over a shadowed space with kiln bright eyes told him this was Vivi. The possibility of a look-a-like was still there, but Roxas was stubborn not stone. Black Waltz’s earlier words about models and machines trickled like frigid water down Roxas’ scalp and spine, sending tingling goosebumps across his skin. The Heart didn’t lie, everything here was the Truth, part of it anyway. Roxas’d been so confident, so smug in what he ‘knew,’ but were those memories of the time he’d spent with Vivi another part of the Truth, or just another fever dream that evoked feelings from empty figments?
Ugh, he felt like such a dumbass…
Acidic doubt eating away at what’d once been safely certain, Roxas surveyed the other specters of Black Waltz’s soul in an vain effort to distract himself from percolating apprehensions. The woman the wizard’d tried to grasp was a princess apparently. Her majesty was a slim girl with long tresses like cooling volcanic glass, a fashion sense that leaned towards full-body orange-cream soda, and delicate features whose passing resemblance to Xion brought a sharp pin-prick to Roxas’s gut.
Leaning with nonchalant deportment against the starboard railing across from Roxas was an older boy. Sandy blonde went down the nape of his neck in a ponytail, and framed a broad face with bright emerald eyes. Elaborate cuffs and collars seemed to be a dominate fashion on Gaia, if this guy, the black mages, and the maybe princess were anything to go by. But even that peculiar sleeveless lacy waistcoat with straps (sheesh that looked uncomfortable) didn’t really compare to the monkey tail. Was that …a normal thing on Gaia?
Wha-wait did Vivi have a tail too?
Whatever cheer the thought of asking the little magician about primate appendages later dimmed while just looking at real piece of work levitating over the ship’s stern. It was the man on the first tower who’d clutched Black Waltz like a pet canary. Though in the person the descriptor that came most readily to mind was ‘exposed’ rather then intimidating necessarily, Roxas lost the bellydancer vibe upon meeting the serene eyes of a gorgeous maniac. He was reminded enough of Marluxia in that moment to put ice-water in the veins, a creature whose beauty and cruelty transcended the limits of gender and sane restraint.
“This moment,” Roxas said, after giving Black Waltz time to take in the figures among the petrified pyres of electric flame, “and the people here each somehow made your Heart what it is now.”
The boy nodded to Vivi, the sole point of animation in this scene of stasis besides the sorcerer and himself.
“If you wanna move past this," a sweep of the boy's hand encompassed the vista of defeat, "we’ve got questions for you.”
@blackwaltz3
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Post by Deleted on May 5, 2018 22:44:45 GMT -5
Black Waltz 3 glanced back at the child as he once again offered insight into this ridiculously convoluted self-reflection, Roxas informed him that these were the people that helped make his "heart" what it was. The Black Waltz snarled as his eyes fell over each of them with only the exception of Kuja, where his blazing rage froze to a fearful ice... Even a representation of his creator filled him with terror... If he wanted to get past this... He had to.........Talk to them...? The Machine's eyes flicked back to Roxas, one of them expanding as if he were raising an eyebrow questioningly... He expected a fight, a "duel with his demons" as it were... Not a conversation. And did that boy just say "WE" had questions for him? Did he consider himself a major influence on his life merely for throwing him into an over-the-top illusion that represented his own inner struggles? He smiled a cruel smile at that... What an ego befitting a creature so weak... He could only be a big man in his head...
Whatever. They would see if Roxas' pretension was worthy. The Machine would (obviously) walk over the Vivi first, expecting the illusion to start the interaction... It did not... The fake simply continued staring at the hat, his back to his larger, superior counterpart.... As one could guess, this lack of his just due acknowledgement sent a (visible) spark of rage flashing across The Waltz's face, invoking a quick flick of his hand that knocked Vivi's hat off it's axis.
Speak, runt!" The Waltz demanded, extending a hand, ready to blast this mockery of a mockery into oblivion. Vivi did respond to this, but only by adjusting his hat back to it's appropriate position, barely glancing up and over his shoulder...
Why do you hate?
He inquired, the mage's tone lacking any of the meekness or fear it would've had were it a real interaction. The question took the Waltz by surprise not only due to it's content, but the way it was asked! He spoke almost as if he already knew the answer and he just wanted him to say it... Say it for the sayer's sake. Black Waltz 3 didn't respond... quickly. The answer... it wasn't a strong one nor one he could hope to win an argument with... He could've said anything from "your weakness" to "His superiority" but those would've been lies or at least not the whole truth. That was far simpler... And it was something he was compelled to say!
"Because I must." The Waltz growled, the words forming his lips instead of the opposite being true! "Because I am designed to hate you, prototype. I am designed only for killing!" Vivi simply stared at him quietly before nodding slowly and turning back to the hat, reaching up to take it in his tiny hands.
Aren't you more than the sum of your parts?
He whispered though the words came though strong. Black Waltz 3's eyes widened at that, his massive form taking an involuntary step back from his much smaller counterpart. He was shocked... speechless... He... That... Wh-what was he trying to suggest!?
"Wh... What did you say!?" He demanded once his senses returned to him, reaching out a hand to grab the child by the collar... only for his hand to phase right through him! Vivi's projection disappeared in column of light, leaving only Zidane, Roxas... and his master...<br><br>Letting out a frustrated hiss, Black Waltz 3 tightened his extended hand into a fist before turning sharply on his heels and stomping up to the thief, practically burning with anger! That damn smug smile Zidane wore didn't help his temper either....
"Speak..." He growled in a low, furious snarl... The Projection only smirked at the machine, pausing for a few annoying seconds before granting the Waltz's demands!
Are you afraid of how your friend would see you now?
The monkey-boy questioned smugly, leaning off the side of the ship and standing toe to toe with the massive Waltz without a drop of fear upon his features! AGAIN! These questions he was being asked... they came from a place so deep, the Machine didn't recognize them as his own! He blinked, left yet again off-centered by the thief's inquiry! He hated this... despised how he was forced to answer with honesty he never wanted to exercise... It felt... to pure! Disgusting! Even if this was all just him, HE had to see experience it! His answer came in the form of brute honesty... a single word:
"...Yes." It sounded almost sad... As if it shamed him to admit that he would fear what another would think! Zidane's smile fell slowly to a neutral expression, crossing his arms.
Is that really such a bad thing?
He asked before disappearing in another column of light... And then there were two... There really was only one person to go too from here... Lowering his head in shame the Black Waltz walked over to the mage, falling on his knees submissively before the projection of his master, Kuja smiling and nodding in approval...
"Master..." He mumbled...
What is it you fear...?
The wizard would ask... The Black Waltz wouldn't even pause so long to answer this one... He was speaking with his creator after all... Lies weren't possible with him...
"...To be useless." The Waltz responded softly. "To have no purpose..."
Kuja smiled wider at that, satisfied with his response.
A purpose... or your purpose?
...And he too was gone...
Each question cut DEEP into the "heart" that was the Black Waltz's scraping away all the thorns and bramble the machine had planted to keep himself... mechanized. To hide away what could be described as his "humanity" was to be what he was designed to be... to be someone else's man. That was so much easier than being his own... And it was agonizing to have that realization brought forth this quick. Slowly, the Waltz would rise to his feet, his body quivering slightly... His arms crossed slowly across his chest, his back turned to Roxas... No way out had presented itself yet... it seemed the boy wasn't a liar...
"Speak your question, child." The Waltz said, his voice shaking nearly as much as he was...
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Post by Deleted on May 6, 2018 4:06:52 GMT -5
“Light and Darkness are warring in you right now,” was the precursor. While spoken as a fact, the tone was subdued, maybe even gentle, the way one might try to explain disaster to the panicked while still still adhering to the truth. “Not night and day, good and evil, or whatever." The agnostic qualified, shedding celestial imagery and even dialectics of morality with a dismissive frown. “It’s building,” a mental command to surrounding photons coalesced a cruciate hologram above the photokinetic’s palm, “versus taking.” Summoning trace energies of the Dark Corridors slit a small back hole above Roxas’ left hand. The minute singularity ravenously siphoned surrounding light. The thorny cross began to dissolve into that spreading eddy-like distortion. “Finding’ strength in others,” Roxas continued as the snared radiance circumambulated the dark pit in an emergent horizon, bedecking nothingness with fleeting beauty “Or becoming Strength itself.” He clenched a stern fist over the dance of stellar decay, umbral wisps leaking up between his finger-tips before fading into stillness.The boy abandoned these metaphysics with a helpless shrug, leaving further theosophy those that’d actually passed Algebra I.
“It hurts,” Roxas admitted with the weary abandonment of bravado, looking over his tremorous companion without triumph at the other’s pain. “…a lot.” A swallow followed a slow rueful nod. He’d silently watched the hammer-blows come down upon the sorcerer’s Heart like hot steel mercilessly beaten on the anvil. Even knowing what was being forged here, the maze still seemed cruel. Compassion became visible if not spoken, the empathy of one who’d also been born into amoral innocence and found freedom to be deceptively double-edged.
The youth quickly broke the moment and their gazes. “But… this all started way before we fought,” was the keyblader’s abrupt dismissal his own significance. The memory of an entire year spent being coaxed to cognizance by a certain rude red-head had made the conclusion clear, even if the image of Black Waltz slurping down ice cream didn’t exactly fit.“I’m standing’ in for someone else,” the Chosen One’s Nobody stated his role with a small smirk of self-mockery. “The Key we need to get outta here.” Who'd been this guy's Axel?
Blue eyes lifted again to glowing pits. The question that followed came from Roxas’ lips, but was not his own.
When’d your Heart wake from sleep?
@blackwaltz3
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Post by Deleted on May 7, 2018 16:04:03 GMT -5
"Get out of my way! Do you dare fight a Black Waltz?" Given the Waltz was facing away from Roxas, the display he attempted to put on was lost on him, the machine merely listening to his vague and LATE explanation of what was going on right now. Light and Darkness? Night and Day? Good and Evil? What kind of human trash was this child spouting!? Whatever it was, it was apparently building, as Roxas described it, the conflict growing instead of lessening... The Waltz glanced over his shoulder, glaring at the young key-blader in annoyed confusion, holding up a hand right there to stop him from going on a tangent. The Waltz wanted to get out of this place sooner, not hear some half-baked informative pep-talk. He required a question. He would have one. There was one thing he understood, however. He sensed empathy in the boy's voice. He really did understand the effects this madness, this fever-dream could have on a being. It was revolting either... Artificial, overblown, infected with pity. Roxas was merely informing the Waltz that he understood this... Experienced it. The machine could respect that bit of him at least. For as annoying and self-important and utterly dumb Roxas has shown himself to be thus far, his empathy earned at least one solid point in the "Approval" category... still 1-3 but it was progress. "State your question, child." The machine said again, turning so that he stood perpendicular to the only other real creature in his immediate vicinity. "If you wish to be free, speak. We will discuss the details of this when we are no longer trapped in it." His voice held not hostility, but urgency. This dream was getting more surreal and sanity-threatening with each passing location. He didn't even want to know what perverse symbolism would be drug up from his soul by the fourth or fifth location! He didn't much want to stay in this one either... His intention to follow through with his previous threats on Roxas' life (spoken or implied) were lost on him for the current moment. At least while their goals remained the same. The boy spoke, that haunting whispering tune following his lips, replacing the voice that should've came from him... When did his heart awaken? He would've questioned how stupid Roxas was for assuming he had a soul, a life... but he didn't have the opportunity to work up the spite. Understanding as to his meaning came first... When did he become himself? "When I met her..." He responded slowly, his lips moving on their own. "Rina... A former mercenary turned Courier. She took me in when she didn't have too... Kept me alive when she could've let me die. She cares about me beyond reason even if she doesn't admit it... As I do for her." LORD KUJA ALMIGHTY WHAT KIND OF HUMAN UGLINESS HAD INFECTED HIM SO DEEPLY THAT THIS WAS THE TRUTH!? ...Embarrassed, but not revolted. He felt these feelings. They were not forced upon him. He sighed heavily, grabbing the rim of his hat and pulling it down so that it hid his face as if the shadow obscuring it weren't enough. "She made me feel... like more than a tool..."@tag
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Post by Deleted on May 12, 2018 20:39:43 GMT -5
Roxas demurred his own gaze at the same time as the awakening machine hid his. “Sounds, like she's worth it,” came the thick-voiced affirmation of grace.
Fire, wind, and wood shattered as if all the mountains of Lindblum were just a window hit by a sledgehammer. Fractals of shifting faces and reflections of disastrous struggle splintered in upon themselves seeming without end. Another’s world’s Light refracted and split into a dizzying cacophony of radiance and sound, as Waltz’s words reverberated into a deep droning hum.
Then it all ended in a bright blink, leaving machine and boy with firm footing again.
They were on another tower, the surrounding pitch blackness kept at bay by a prismatic glow issuing from the stained glass beneath their feet. It’s outer edge was rimmed by silver tai-pronged daggers pointed inward, interspaced between images of doves taking flight outward. At the panorama’s center was a woman, her face kind, if palpably sad. Her grown fanned out from a curvaceous frame. Smooth dark silks were bisected by a pale promenade of ruche fabric down the center. Bared arms revealed ink inscriptions, minute murals gathered from far-flung worlds. Cream skin bore the faded ravines of scars like lines through marble. Her right hand cupped a white lily, splayed slowed petals like mountain snow trickling down in teary rivers to the sea.
Broken worlds, rings of rubble forlornly floating in starry dark, encircled portraits and symbols. A soldier, the first to smile at her without a hint of fear, was berimed in a circle of blue glass set with rubies. A crown, broken birthright from a lineage languishing in Darkness, was sundered within a band of gold set with amethysts. The last held a familiar inhuman visage, narrowed xanthous flames peering from darkened recesses, circumscribed by azure pinions.
The rose clenched in the woman’s left hand was a cruel thorny thing, slim stem elegant as the regal arch of her neck. It’s petals were the same stygian softness as the thick straight hair that hung past her midriff. Red opals drops dripping down from where the rose pierced her fingers made Rina’s evening blue eyes all the more striking by contrast.
Roxas’ fingers unconsciously shifted in his right pocket. The severe spiked crown on Oblivion’s unattached keychain bit slightly against the skin of his palm with a reassuring pressure.
“It gets rougher after this,” he noted with a nod to the white wooden door hanging out beyond the tower’s far edge above a staircase formed by a thin steps of floating stained glass. “But we’re almost awake.”
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Post by Deleted on May 14, 2018 9:00:05 GMT -5
"Get out of my way! Do you dare fight a Black Waltz?" "Yes. Yes she is 'worth it.'" He agreed harshly, glancing up at Roxas. "She is what true perfection is." With his addition, this part the fever-dream seemed to collapse into the next, the area they were in shattering with a mighty noise, leaving them to fall into an abyss of the dark! It wasn't long before they had found solid footing again, finding themselves in a quite familiar location... Familiar, but different. The tower they now stood upon was smaller, the face upon the glass floor below them, different. The Waltz seemed to continually be bombarded with surprise because now she who was displayed below was Rina in a dress of her own, cupping a flower with the most destraught expression on her face... It was as if someone tore at her heart. ...The image reminded him of the time they went to go see her husband's grave, how... crippled she had been emotionally as she sobbed all the way there. At least then, it was out in the open... He knew the full extent of her suffering and how to curb it. Judging by her expression here, it was as if she was trying to keep it all in... to hide her pain... He felt pain of his own arch through his chest like bolts of lightning just looking at her suffer, his fingers twitching as the passing thought of reaching out to this portrait to comfort her passed through his mind. She's not real... He whispered as he shook his head. Get over yourself....The Waltz blinked and looked his way as Roxas warned that things only got harder from here... NO SOONER than he had stated this, however, several shadowy beings began to phase into existence around them, circling them ominously as they rose from the glass! They appeared... harmless if that was the right word... Hardly threatening by all accounts of monsters... but they slowly began to close in on them, ever tightening the circle they had boxed the pair into... The Machine glanced over at Roxas, his gaze seeming to ask what their course of action was. Do they fight? Do they let them do... what they're about to do? He had never seen these creatures, he knew not their capabilities! Lightning sparked and jerked around the Machine as the creatures continued to close the distance... Slowly, awkwardly lumbering and limping their way as if they knew not how to move with grace. @tag
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Post by Deleted on May 22, 2018 5:32:40 GMT -5
“Heartless,” Roxas replied to the telling glance. Oathkeeper and Oblivion materialized into his open palms, paired weapons of pure will at home in this place of spirit. “They’ll try to…”
The drop into two-dimensionality was seamless, a testament to a fluidity of form that transcended constraints of mass and density. One of the previously ungainly creatures collapsed into a dark spot on the stained glass’s prismatic surface. With a suddenness and soundlessness that played tricks with the mind, that blot streaked toward the unlikely pair, tenebrous outline cast in stark relief by the erratic sparking of the sorcerer’s lightning. As if that’d been some sort of signal, other pairs of the annular yellow eyes vanished into umbral tar pools that blurred across the mosaic with wordless malevolence.
Only the former heart-hunter’s ingrained reflexes allowed him to cross his blades against the vanguard’s momentum. The Shadow had leapt out from its extra-spatial slenderness in a motion something between a lion springing from the brush and a painting coming wondrously to life. Roxas jerked his head back as long raking claws swung over where his weapon’s pressed against the attacker’s bulbous body, trying to find purchase on his face. “…they do that,” finished Roxas belatedly. With a heave he pushed against the miniature monster, using larger size and superior leverage to force the insect-like creature into a stagger back. The opening proved all he need to send Oblivion and Oathkeeper into deadly momentum with alternating rolls of the wrists. A surge upward carried the keyblades down on the creature in seriate arcs. At their nadir Roxas shifted the positions of his feet and the blow’s centrical motion. A criss-cross of cuts tore clean through murky pseudo-flesh from opposite sides.
Despite complete bisection by two cleavers, the creature uttered absolutely no sound. Its inky form dissolved like powder in the wind. Its abrupt dissolution left no stain or gore, no hint of a physiological comprehensible by biology or engineering. All that remained in the wake of Roxas’ blades was a point of roseate light in the air, warm and pure as a sunset after a storm, before that too faded into the divine Oversoul from whence it came.
Roxas had little time to savor victory as their vicinity quickly became a leaping thronging war-zone of shadow-flesh.
@blackwaltz3 1) Roxas guards a Shadow's attack 2) Roxas inflicts 2 light damage hits on Shadow (Dualweilding) 1/3 HP 3) Roxas destroys a Shadow with 2 more light damage hits
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Post by Deleted on May 28, 2018 14:01:11 GMT -5
"Get out of my way! Do you dare fight a Black Waltz?" The Black Waltz was somewhat off-put by the creature's ability to go one-dimensional, slipping and sliding around them like the ants they resembled! Roxas simply explained them to be "heartless", more of the creatures he was apparently associated with and he STILL couldn't see why. They were feral... disgusting and featureless. Their movements resembled that of rag-dolls on strings, apparently possessing no bones or structure or sense to them at all and he could see that as Roxas began to engage the few that attacked him!
Black Waltz 3 didn't have any time to watch the young (swords?) man fight any longer, however, as a few more sprung up from where they skittered along the floor, their claws outstretched as they lunged for his chest! Lowered his staff in a defensive manner between himself and the heartless, their clawed little fingers caught on the wood that suddenly arose before them! Before they could react any further, the mage gestured with his free hand, an open palm crackling with immense amounts of electricity as a massive THUNDAGA erupted from his fingertips, jumping from heartless to attacking shadow spawn, filling them with more light than they could handle! 3 of them in total were sent flying back, their blackened, shadowy bodies twitching and convulsing as two of them melted into a dark puddle on the ground... There were still many yet to fight, much to the chagrin of the Black Waltz, the remaining Heartless seeming to have no regard for their fallen kin. They kept their distance, however, their heads twitching and bobbing infrequently.
"Pests.." He snarled, a ball of flame exploding to life at the head of his staff! "You will BURN..."
Black Waltz 3 guards a Shadow-attack, Destroys 2 Heartless with Thundaga, wounding one other (1/3)
3/10 Heartless destroyed. Thundaga Cooldown: 3 posts@tag
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Post by Deleted on May 31, 2018 9:51:11 GMT -5
A blinding cascade of fulmination broke over their narrow spherical arena, leaving little but burnt ozone and deliquesce in its wake.
“Nice one”
Mentally grabbing hold of the residual photons from Black Waltz’s fulgurkinetic evocation, Roxas internalized the energy, flooding his body with power under his very bones felt like they were burning. He begun with a headlong sprint and accelerated into bright streak of scintillation, carrying Roxas to the bobbing shadow being in eye blink. Release came with turning the momentum and gathered light into two radiant slashes that severed the Shadow into dissected dissolution. The remaining the umbral forms surged forward to to fill the gap. Spastic twitching became an erratic assault as the boy found himself flanked. Encirclement had been the plan, but Roxas reconsidered its merits as sinuous claws slipped past his beleaguered parries to sink deep into his side. Creeping cold accompanied physical ache, as if the talon had been a syringe bearing an injection of liquid void.
Bitting back a snarl of pain, Roxas kept the speaking his incantation as the living Darkness closed in. Light coalesced into thirteen austere crustjate symbols above the struggle. At the spells culmination, shouted by the junior sorcerer as he tried to heave off an attempted dog-pile by the quiver beings, pillars of light cascaded down from the shining sigils. The merciless crosses strafed outward in all directions, burning a swath in all directions through the misshapen throng. Heartless discorporated before the onslaught of their antithesis, tracelessly consumed by brilliance.
“Waltz, let’s finish this!”
1) Roxas uses Comet Charge to destroy 1 shadow 2) Roxas attempts to parry shadows, is hit for medium damage due to Comet Charge debuff 3) Roxas casts Event Horizon destroying 3 shadows
6/10 Heartless Destroyed, 1 is Wounded
0/2 Comet Charge, 0/3 Event Horizen
@blackwaltz3
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Post by Deleted on Jun 4, 2018 7:56:10 GMT -5
"Get out of my way! Do you dare fight a Black Waltz?" As Roxas dueled with his collection of heartless, The Black Waltz began charging up his next attack, his wings folded over himself to deflect the blows of hungry heartless. They would not wait for their prey to attack and they clawed relentlessly at the feather barriers that separated them from the hearts they craved. The Machine grit his teeth and bore the pain, blocking it out of his mind as his magic reached it's required levels! With a mighty heave, he quickly spread his wings wide, sending the 3 heartless that attacked him flying as he leveled his staff at them all! A massive Firaga-ball shot from the tip of it, flying right into the center of the recoiling creatures of the dark before exploding, encompassing them in a wave of flames! As the creatures faded from existence, the machine slammed the butt of his staff into the glassy floor below him, a wave of ice snaking behind him and underneath Roxas, making a bee-line right for the wounded and last remaining heartless! The instant it slipped beneath the thing, a small ice spine erupted from under the shadow, piercing it's dark chest and sending it back to the abyss that spawned it.
"It is finished." The Mage declared with a huff. With the defeat of the heartless, stairs of similar stained-glass platforms manifested in flashes of light leading to the next pillar off in the distance. It was obvious where his "heart" was leading them now and maybe... if one could look closely through the light that bathed the distant pillar... one could spot the vague outline of someone... Who was uncertain.
"Come." The Waltz stated, walking towards the stairs. "We must be close now. Quickly, before more of those pests appear." Despite what he said, however, the Waltz was moving much slower than he could've been. He would've FLOWN if those shadowy monsters hadn't raked up his wings the way they had... Now they had to settle for moving on foot. 3 Heartless Destroyed with Firaga 1 wounded heartless destroyed with Blizzard 10/10 Heartless destroyed
Firaga cooldown: 3 posts Thundaga cooldown: 2 posts Blizzard Cooldown: 1 post@tag
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Post by Deleted on Jun 15, 2018 4:09:30 GMT -5
From how Black Waltz was moving, it seemed the Shadow had done a number on him. Roxas tried not to grimace as he glimpsed shredded blue pinions and battered coverts. Then again, the boy glanced down at the cuts lacerating down in red ravines along his own arms, the places where the denim of his pants and shirt-cloth clung tight against him, soaked dark by the weeping wounds beneath. As a Nobody, his body wasn’t quite as vulnerable and real as a human's. But that didn’t stop the creeping weakness from spreading out from where Darkness had pieced his flesh. The memory of curative spells had been lost leaving Sora, and there wasn’t exactly a metaphysical mall with poultices to buy.
Just have to trudge this one through then.
Being the resident primate, Roxas went about opening the broad white door connected to no visible hallway. The gentlest of motions sent it swinging, bathing Roxas’ vision in pale radiance until all he could see was dark spots perforating all encompassing brightness.
Gradually the white blankness receded though rapidly blinking. Though there’d been no sensation of motion or sounds indicating mechanical shifting, they’d nevertheless shifted location, or semblance of such. Blink by blink, colors coalesced and differentiated themselves into boundaries and shapes. A first Roxas squinted and grimaced up into the shadowed visage of Black Waltz looming over him. Apparently the machina-mage had recovered faster and had been waiting impatiently.
Yet, an instinct of palpable wrong he couldn’t quite place caused Roxas to narrow his eyes. A shifting and tapping behind him, that of familiar taloned feet and a staff on stained glass let Roxas put it together moments before a thundercrack boomed and blackened the glaze he’d just been standing on.
“A copy…”
As the pale glow of the electric invocation faded, Roxas realized the Black Waltz in front of him had no eyes. The gap beneath the rumpled steepled face was completely empty, a black void bereft of the sorcerer’s usual luminous stare. As blue lightning began to gather around the Psudeowaltz again, the boy followed its unnatural jerking motions up thin chords that'd previously been imperceptible in the darkness. Far above was the towering form of a man, stooped over their tiny stained glass tower like a titan considering a checkerboard. “Woah who is…” Puppet strings extended from his fingers, the massive marionettist grinning with feline glee as the toy Black Mage twitched in response to somatic whim.
It was then Roxas realized he’d seen those delicate androgynous features, mad violet eyes, and silver tresses twice before in this Heart-dream. Yet emblazoned upon the this cruel creator’s brow was the barbed wire-sutured spade symbol of the Heartless, throbbing in the vast night above with steady scarlet light.
1: Roxas dodged Black Waltz Zero's Thunder spell
1/2 Comet Charge 1/3 Event Horizon @blackwaltz3
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Post by Deleted on Jun 20, 2018 15:20:16 GMT -5
"Get out of my way! Do you dare fight a Black Waltz?" The two of them made their way to the next platform and this one housed not the imps that attacked from before... but something much more disconcerting: A copy! This creature had not the same color pallet, sporting much darker yellows and blues than the mage himself did, just a mere shade or two from black. What was most intimidating about it, though was that's face possessed no eyes and that it's movements were increadibly loose and jerky, a complete opposite to the upright up-tight movements of the original!
The Machine stared in disgust as the creature turned slowly to face them, it's eyeless upper body leaning over limply in their direction. What was wrong with it!? The way this mockery moved, it was almost as if... It was then The Black Waltz notice the long, straight tendrils of darkness that shot up from key points on the copy's body, shooting up into the darkness above! The machine peered up into the void, his superior eyesight cutting through the black to see the perverted MASSIVE face of lord Kuja himself, dangling up there in the dark like a spider in a web, an enlarged hand reaching out to manipulate the many strings that controlled the copy! With a mere gesture of his massive finger, the fake raised a limp hand, a huge thunder-bolt erupting from it's flaccid fingers towards Roxas, a blow the boy was lucky to avoid! The magic attack left a searing scorch mark on the ground where he stood, no doubt emphasizing just how much more powerful this copy was...
"D-disgusting..." The Machine hissed, extending a hand. "DIE!" Massive Thundara bolts erupted from the Machine's hand, arching from two angles to come down on the fake! It must die! It was a disgrace to his own design and those of the master! Firaga cooldown 2 postsThundara Cooldown 2 posts Thundaga cooldown 1 post Blizzard Cooldown ended@tag
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Post by Deleted on Jul 5, 2018 7:22:47 GMT -5
Roxas shielded his face against the flaring lambency of the Black Waltz’s spell, not daring to get close as the wizard turned the air around his double to a hellscape of cobalt static. The action of averting his gaze drew Roxas’ attention to the great strings binding puppet to Heartless. Speculatively Roxas sent Oblivion and Oathkeeper in boomeranging spirals up towards the strands. A tug, and the coy serenity of the puppet-master above shifted to narrowed-eyed malice.
“Hey I think the strings are…”
The air became a crackling corona of azure light as the doll built its power to a crescendo. Roxas could practically taste the electrostatic in the air, the way the beach air becomes palpably heavy as a stormfront approaches. Sapphire brilliance built till the false Waltz was just a stark black shadow silhouetted within a coruscating nucleus of raw plasma. Trying to shout a warning, albeit probably unnecessary over the crepitating casting, Roxas attempted a headlong hustle away from the simulacrum sorcerer. Yet you can’t run from a danger that is suddenly everywhere.
First came the boom, the oscillating shockwave of air displaced by near instantaneous influx of heat that rent molecules into tortured paroxysms. The impact of that blistering air came next a millisecond later. After that there was only incandescent light and a pain that sent sent convulsions spasms through his limbs and chest as Roxas’ insides felt like they’d turned molten. For almost a solid minute his vision was nothing but blurs and dark floaters. At its recession and the return of feeling, Roxas chose to not give the raw red abrasions covering every inch of his skin too much thought, lest he give the agony more of a foothold. Hoisting himself up by a still spastic grip on a Keyblade, Roxas turned to see if his companion had made it through the evocation.
1) Roxas uses Dual Strike Raid on the Puppet Waltz 2) Roxas takes a Thundaja to the face
2/2 Comet Charge 2/3 Event Horizen @blackwaltz3
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