paixaorpg | I only wished to become something beautiful [Completed]

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I only wished to become something beautiful [Completed]

Character(s): Lenne, Sinspawn, Karst, Shuyin
Content: Lenne says hello to Paixao
Setting: Niflheim gate
Time: Late afternoon
Warnings: Sinspawn decides to welcome Lenne... in a way.

The darkness had become overwhelmingly loud. And in the darkness she became acutely aware of a sharp pain... her tail bone?... What the?...

Returning consciousness was... not fun, to say the least. Slowly Lenne became aware of every part of her body, nerves, aching muscles, the sharp pain of air re-entering lungs unused for hundreds of years. Almost more painful were the flooding memories, her mind rebuilding itself... her last memories the most vivid, and infinitely the most brutal. Remembered fear swept over her, she could feel the aches in her legs from running, lungs heaving... the look in his cold blue eyes, love mingled with deep regret... the gunshots echoed painfully through her mind... A shrill scream ripped from her throat.... Wait, I didn't scream.....

Her eyes shot open, and she swiftly shut them again tight, the unexpected bright light causing her eyes to water, along with the sudden pain of a raw throat. She waited there a moment, letting her eyes slowly adjust, now aware she was sitting, knees hugged tightly to her chest. Her eyelids crept open bit by bit to reveal an unfamiliar landscape. Waving grasses, bright sunlight, and upon turning her head to the left she found a strange domed city, long lines of people waiting to get in, or so it seemed. Also, her Summoner's staff lay beside her. Then the inevitable, "Where... am I?"

She picked up her staff and stood swiftly, and wavered, shaking her head a moment to clear the dizziness, and shrugged lightly, walking slowly to join the line nearest her, brushing the dirt and dried plant-parts off of her skirt. "If only this is the gate to the Farplane... nah..." Her mind wandered, the others around her just fleeting, instantly forgotten memories, none leaving a lasting impression. A few moments later, she found herself greeted by the nondescript Caucasian presently doing their job.

"Your name, Miss?"

"Le-" she coughed suddenly, clearing her throat, her face flushing softly. "Lenne," she finally answered. "Sorry, been a while since I--"

"Welcome to Paixao," she was interrupted, "Here is a map of the city and your journal. Enjoy your stay." She took the items offered her, and at that she was ushered within the domes. She shook her head sadly. "Such emotionless eyes."

Her own eyes wandered the sights before her, large domes, an artificial sky, everything seemed hyper-real. "Well... it beats being... dead." But who's to know I'm not...

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Dead or not, one thing Lenne wasn't was alone. And for more reasons than the simple fact that there was always a crowd of varying proportions around the gate. She'd been spotted, plain and simple.

Which as far as the Sinspawn was concerned meant that she would have to die. Whether or not she would recognize it as a Sinspawn or even a fiend of Spiran design was another question altogether. It looked like none of those that had gone before, and looked much more like the ghost of woman... if said ghost had somehow managed to acquire a set of thin tentacles and had traded its arms for the arms of a praying mantis.

Lenne was still far from coherent, her mind still playing catch-up in trying to figure out this strange new world she found herself in, not to mention being "alive" again. Thusly is took probably much longer than it should have for her to sense the hostile presence that had joined her, and focused on her.

She gasped as she turned to see a ghost-like apparition, a strange, frightening, tentacle-ridden... woman-thing. It was like nothing she had ever seen before, which was unsurprising to her, but even more disconcerting in her present state. She wielded her staff defensively, unsure of what to expect, suddenly wishing she'd spent time learning more than the basics.... and wondering if an aeon could find her in this place if she found the strength to call.

What she could expect was well... violence. The Sinspawn were born with only a single urge in mind and would carry it out regardless of who or what ran into their path. Man or woman, child or beast, they would all die to pay for the suffering that had created Sin.

At the moment though, it looked almost entirely harmless as it glided slowly towards Lenne. It wouldn't be attacking until it got close enough to strike her with its tentacles, but once it had gotten that close it be lashing out at her, grabbing at wrists and arms.

Edited 2008-08-03 00:57 (UTC)

Lenne instinctively began to back away from the creature, unsure, but better safe that sorry, as those tentacles were beginning to look dangerous.... and the hostile aura, if you will, was overwhelming from the spawn. She forced herself to simultaneously focus and clear her mind of all distractions, in spite of everything. Tentacles bad. Must avoid. She snarled softly to herself under her breath.

She wielded her staff differently now, watching the spawn's movements, attempting to discern an element... she knew only the very basic black magic spells, having spent her time and extensive training in summons... however, she was unsure what kind of energy it would take out of her to summon in her state, and thus, would start small.

She raised both hands, one fiercely gripping her staff, the other empty, and made a choice, focusing her knowledge and her energies. "FIRE!" and pointed the staff directly at the fiend, her eyes hard, internally praying to whatever gods could hear her, oh please, oh please, let it work....

Well, it at least worked in the sense the the spell hit the Sinspawn. It wasn't near enough to kill it, of course, but it was at least a decent start - its tentacles curling back in disgust and pain. How dare its prey retaliate with things that burned. Magic. If it had had lips, it would have curled them.

But lacking that level of expression it would have to make do with what had, calling up the safety of a Protect before moving in once again, tentacles reaching out once again.

She wouldn't be able to dodge forever, right?

Edited 2008-08-04 17:13 (UTC)

Lenne gasped as the spell rained fire about the fiend, momentarily overjoyed. And that moment cost her the safety of distance as the spawn moved in much closer than she would have liked. She tried, rather futily, to strike at the fiend's tentacles with her staff, trying to regain her distance to cast another spell. While she could still cast without the aid of her staff, she'd rather not chance it, and tried to back up again, fully aware she was dangerously and frightening close to the fiend's outreaching tentacles.

Not terribly surprising, Lenne's attempts to attack the spawn with her staff was a good deal less effective than the spell had been, partly because as soon as the staff come within reach the spawn was already moving to wrap its tentacles around it. It had every intention of pulling the staff out of her hands, should it prove possible to do so.

And while most of its tentacles are working on that, there's still a few that are reaching out to ensnare wrists or arms.

Lenne growled as her staff was finally wrenched from her hands, tentacles wrapping around wrists and she struggled to free herself; she began to mutter under her breath once more, eyes glaring harshly at the spawn she was entangled by.

She did her best to refocus her energies, eyes harsh even though she felt trapped, and once again glared fire and brimstone at the fiend, almost literally, as the cry of "FIRE!" escaped her lips once more, this time more confident that the desired effect would come to be...

Death. Life. Both had come. Apparently, both had gone. Shuyin could feel his body reforming itself. Bones became solid, tendon and sinew wrapped themselves around bone, muscle tissue, organs forming. Shuyins conciousness observed all of this, his spirit calmly speculating that if he could feel this, it might....

A silent scream erupted from Shuyins mine as his spirit reconnected with his body. The rest of the process, a blur. Until finally, Shuyin found himself whole, alive once more.

But why?

"Le....nne....." His voice cracked, weak through a thousand years of unuse. With a growl, Shuyin tried again. "Lenne. LENNE."

A strange city sprawled out beneath Shuyin. He was....descending? Nearly falling through the sky. A smiling man was....floating next to him. "Here. This is your journal, and your map of the city. Please enjoy your stay!"

Then the man was gone. A confused Shuyin stared down at the journal and map, then stored them in his pouch, muttering. "Guess that beats being completely lost."

Something pinged inside of Shuyins head then, a thought, a memory. "Lenne!" He whispered excitedly.

With barely a whisper Shuyin landed, back to Lennes, a wry smile on his face as he turned his head. "Need a hand, beautiful?"

((OOC: Mind if I intrude? Karst hasn't seen any action in a while...))

And here she'd decided not to get involved with this messy "Sin" business. Still, a fellow flame user in apparent trouble was as good a reason as any, and in Karst's mind, the opportunity to fight with monsters was reason in itself.

So she approached, slowly, scythe at the ready in her hands, mind already selecting and preparing a Blast to throw the creature's way if the need arose. Was the other Adept in trouble, or did she actually have things under control? She'd been reprimanded more than once for getting the wrong idea and butting in on her sister's fights...

The fact that all of a sudden it had three people to fight where until very recently there had only been one didn't escape the Sinspawn's notice. But even outnumbered as it was, it wasn't going to give up. It would fight until the very end.

Besides, one of them didn't seem to have any sort of weapons and it still held the first woman in it's tentacles. Admittedly, it would likely need to switch its tactics a little in just a moment, but until then it might as well make use of what it held; tentacles wrapping tighter as the flames hit it again.

Such a bother, that. But it was time for some retaliation, as the Sinspawn let a Drain flow through its tentacles to Lenne. Time to make up a bit for the pain that the Fires had caused.

Lenne was oblivious to Karst's arrival, but definitely appeared to be in need of help now that she was caught. She tugged in vain at the restraining tentacles, then ceased abruptly. That voice... That voice she'd longed to hear for so long... it couldn't be? "Shu?"...

No sooner had she turned to see if it was truly him, that the fiend began to Drain her. She hissed in pain, eyes watering, and began to blindly kick at the spawn.

"Do I..." gasp, kick, "LOOK like I need a hand?!"

"Hey, last time I didn't ask if you needed a hand you got angry with me!" Shuyin grumbled.

"Haste." He muttered under his breath. In a blur his sword was drawn and the man was airborne, blade swinging at one, and then another, and then another of the tentacles holding Lenne, blade a silver streak against the rubbery tentacles.

Another Adept! What a day, what a day. But the Sinspawn was outnumbered, and aware of it, too, and with the way monsters seemed to work chances were good there would be more arriving in a minute. But both Adepts (or was the second a warrior? she could have sworn he'd used a power, but...) were too close to the creature for her to finish it off with her Psynergy without risking catching them in the Blast. She'd have to do this the old-fashioned way.

Karst watched the man for a moment so she could predict where he would be-- or rather, where he wouldn't be, when she darted forward to slash at the monster herself, then leaped back out of his way. He was moving faster than she'd ever seen anybody move before. Was that the effect of the Psynergy he'd used?

So the man had had a weapon after all. That was more than a little bothersome, and the fact that he knew Haste was even more bothersome. And now it was paying for that error as sword and scythe tore into it.

But it was strong and painful as it was, that wasn't going to be enough to kill it. Not yet. It was, however, going to be getting out of the way of the blades as soon as it had the chance, tentacles letting go of Lenne's wrists (but not her staff) as it backed out of the way.

It needed time to figure out what to do next, after all. Just a little bit of time, and then things would be better.

Lenne jumped back from the fiend as it released her, part joy at freedom from the tentacles, the other part to get a safer distance from Shuyin's blade.

"Mind if I keep my fingers?" She smirked at him, then winked, a subtle sign to remind him she was joking. She was still in complete shock of the new surroundings and being almost immediately attacked, thus his presence here had yet to truly sink in as any out of the ordinary... because everything was far from ordinary.

She gave Karst a smile an a nod, unsure what to say, and looked back at the fiend with a sigh. "I will have that staff back..." she muttered to herself and raised her arms in the air. Fire had been somewhat successful thus far... why not try again?

"FIRE!!"

"As long as you don't use them to cook...." Shuyin muttered as he desceneded from his jump.

But as Shuyin touched the ground, his knees seemed to buckle, toppling him forward. With a small gasp he slammed the blade of his sword into the ground to stop himself from falling.

"I guess being dead for a thousand years has made me a bit..... rusty." He whispered quietly to himself.

Karst nodded back, but paid more attention to the monster at hand than to idle banter. The man was staggering, the girl was without a weapon (but using fire attacks in the meantime, much to the Fire Clan girl's carefully-suppressed delight), and she was already involved in this...

She grinned. Much as her Psynergy powers had weakened from disuse, she'd missed the way it felt to swing a scythe in close combat with a foe just as much. So she charged back toward the monster, intent on distracting it from the apparently weakened man. If she took some friendly fire (literally) in the process... it didn't matter much.

Wonderful. More fire. But on the other hand, at least the swordsman had stopped his attack for the time being. But if it had to guess, the scythe that was shortly to be coming its way was going to be just as painful, possibly fatal.

And no matter what else happened it wasn't going to let itself be killed by these people. Or at the very least it wouldn't let them have the satisfaction of landing the final blow. Instead it simply waited until the woman with the scythe was nearly upon it before rather abruptly exploding in one final attack, Lenne's staff clattering to the ground as the pyreflies that had made up its body floated their way up to the 'sky' of the domes.

Lenne grinned as her spell connected once more, but her expression swiftly changed as the fiend suddenly exploded, she tried to leap back a little further, only to fall on her rump, an arm attempting to shield her face. Then she heard it. That all too familiar sound. Pyreflies? So we ARE still in Spira? What the...

She gasped, looking to Shuyin and the woman who was still unknown to her, and stood swiftly to rush back to them. She was unsure how the blast had affected them, and was more than a bit worried.

Shuyin ducked to the side a bit as Lennes fire went off, quickly falling in behind it for a second assault on the spawn. Halfway to his target, however, the entire thing exploded into a sea of pyreflies and pain, the resulting effect causing Shuyin to hop back several feet at fairly epic speeds.

"Lenne, are you okay? Speak to me!" Shuyin yelled back to Lenne.

"Hey, stranger?! Are you alright?" Shuyin then called to Karst.

That was interesting. Also, painful. Karst took the blast in the face and her swing went wild as she fell-- not that there was anything to hit any more. She Blasted at the glittery things that came from it, but her rage didn't hurt them.

"Aargh, I should have seen that coming!" she hissed, checking herself for significant damage. She'd have some interesting bruises and scrapes, but with her Healing Aura, those wouldn't last too long, and she didn't seem to have any broken bones. "I'm okay," she replied cautiously. "Nothing that won't heal in time, except maybe my dignity." But she grinned wryly as she said that. If there was one thing she had to spare, it was pride.

The man had blond hair and a tan, and he fought with a sword and with unfamiliar Psynergy, but it only took a moment's glance to tell he wasn't Isaac, and the girl was a stranger, too. Niether looked like faces she'd seen on the journals, either. That meant they were both new, and possibly allies... or they might be Organization members in disguise. Karst would have smirked if she'd noticed that she was getting as paranoid as her sister these days.

"Are you new?" she asked, knowing full well that the answer would be yes.

Lenne smiled genuinely at Karst. The woman seemed very able, and she was almost embarrassed that she had been so worried for her for a moment. She could sense easily that she did not need to mention that, as pride, however ample, needn't be poked at.

"To this place? Entirely." There wasn't much more to say. She knew it was called Paixao, or something to that effect. Quite frankly, she was just excited to be living again... assuming, of course, she was actually living and this wasn't some new, twisted limbo. Obviously this place must be large if someone need ask if they were new... or she was just playing polite. Either way, no reason to be unfriendly or anything other than honest.

Lenne squeezed Shuyin's shoulder softly, then walked to retrieve her staff, lifting it gingerly from the ground. It was still a bit warm from withstanding her fire attacks. She brushed off the bits of ash and dirt, and gripped it firmly in her hand, using it to lean on now, standing once again at Shuyin's side.

"Can't answer for him, though." She gave Shuyin a pointed stare, the corner of her lip just barely betraying her humour. She looked around for the items she'd been handed at the gate, unable to find them at the moment.

"If I may... is there anything you can tell us about this place? For example... I have no idea how or why I'm here." She laughed softly, feeling ridiculous a moment. It felt like such an absurd question somehow. Who just wakes up in a completely unfamiliar place like this? Something was amiss.

Shuyin smiled warmly at Lenne as she squeezed his shoulder. "Dispel." He whispered under his breath, touching his chest to rid himself of the effects of his haste spell.

"I just followed her here!" He said with a wide grin.

"Got here....ten minutes ago? Some one handed me a map and a journal as I was floating and...." He paused for a moment and blinked. "All that probably sounds crazy, doesn't it?"

He grinned, rubbing the back of his head. "Names Shuyin, and this is Lenne." He stood back then, nodding as Lenne asked her question of Karst.

(OOC: Sorry I took so long! School started, and things just got so hectic...)

Karst mentally groaned and hoped niether of them was a Jupiter Adept to notice. Looked like it was her turn to be showing new people around. Well, Timon couldn't be everywhere. "My name's Karst; I've been here for a while. Nobody knows how they came to Paixao, or why, except the locals, and all they ever want to talk about is the weather..."

In a spectacular moment of coincidence, a stylized cloud blocked out the smiley-faced sun on the ceiling of the domes (that was actually something of a relief), and a distant rumble promised storms to come. The girl looked up with a frown. "And the city finally decides to have weather. Lovely. There are signs of a sinister organization behind the scenes, the city's supposed mayor was recently assassinated, that Sin-thing and its armies, and now it's going to rain. There have been storms all of twice since I came here. Likewise, monster attacks. You two chose a great time to show up." She sighed. "Maybe we should find a place to go inside, first..."

Unfortunately, if she remembered the map from her journal correctly, the nearest Actua Are inn was the one downtown at Central Station. Maybe if the train was at the Niflheim train station...

Karst held Lenne's interest easily, even if she appeared to be listing off recent facts by rote, or maybe just to get the basics out of the way. Lovely. Fake weather, assassinations, sinister organizations, and sin. Honestly, nothing new there, other than the hyper-religious must be getting a hell of a kick out of a physical manifestation of sin. No pun intended. Really. And why should that be ringing more bells in her mind than it is... hmm.

Lenne laughed softly. "A great time, for sure, from what you've said... never a dull moment here, mm?" She knew she should be asking more, or even be feeling more curious. But somehow, she wasn't just yet.

As the weather began to crackle and rumble softly overhead, she looked about for her things once more, spotted them, and quickly went to fetch her 'journal' and pamphlet she'd been given upon entering. She tucked them into her belt at her hip, making sure they were secure, then looked back to Shuyin and Karst as she suggested indoors.

"What did you have in mind? Are there any inns nearby?" The thunder rumbling overhead, and from the sounds of it, even outside the city, was a little disconcerting, triggering memories she couldn't quite... well, remember. She fell silent again, lost in thought, eyes gazing up at the "sky" pensively.

Shuyin smiled cheerfully as the fake sky clouded over. No stranger to being wet, the thought of rain actually amused him. He listened intently to Karst as she recounted the local, recent events, nodding from time to time.

"Lenne and I are no strangers to war, or fighting, friend." Shuyin said, smiling brightly at Karst. "If there is some strange shadow organization running around, well, we'll just have to show them a bit of justice!" Shuyin grinned and bounced around, shadow boxing for all his worth.

A moment later he stopped though, scratching his chin thoughtfully. "One thing does bug me though. If Sin is here, does that mean Yu Yevon found a way to come back from the dead as well?"

Karst sighed. "Sometimes it is boring," she admitted to the girl, "and then sometimes there's so much going on that I don't know where I'm supposed to be or what I'm supposed to be fighting."

Shuyin's question was largely nonsense to her, but it had to do with someone else coming back from the dead...? "I have no idea," she finally said. "I'm not familiar with Sin to begin with. There was a man on the journals who knew about it, though, so you might want to ask him."

"There is an eatery nearby," she told Lenne in response to the girl's second question, checking her journal to confirm the facts. "We could get a meal. Most of the stores here accept trade and gold, and..." she indicated the glittering trees along the sidewalks with a wave of her journal, "... there's not exactly a shortage of accessible gold. But the nearest inn is in the middle of the city, near Central Station. It would be easiest to take the train to get there."

Lenne frowned slightly as Karst spoke of the journals, taking a few moments to glance at her own, prodding a couple buttons absently and nodding.

"Food sounds good to me, actually..." she said, trailing off when Karst mentioned methods of payment, seeming not to understand at first, then she took another moment to absorb the surroundings, the absurdly gaudy decorations finally sinking in.

"So, you just... grab a few leaves, and they'll take that as a payment?" She asked, partly amused, partly even more confused than before.

Shuyin grinned happily, crossing his arms behind his head and beaming at Lenne and Karst. "I'm always up for food! Not to mention I haven't eaten in who knows how long...."

Shuyin turned to where the Sinspawn had stood, a frown creasing his handsome face. Sin was dead. Yu Yevon had been defeated, and as far as Shuyin had been able to tell from summoner Yuna and her guardians account, even Yunalesca had been killed. Thus it should have been impossible to summon the final Aeon for Yu Yevon to corrupt.

Shuyin wrinkled his face up in consternation. "Ow." He muttered. "I am so not cut out for his deep thinking stuff."

"Yes, they take the leaves as payment. Niether food nor lodging is very hard to come by." It didn't make sense, but Karst had long since learned the hard way not to ask the locals about these things. A few of them had exceedingly tactful ways of changing the subject without her noticing.

Instead, she carefully consulted her journal's map and made a note of the nearest Cafe Ersesat, then began walking. Why wasn't there anything closer to Niflheim Gate? The other three all had food and inns close by...

(OOC: Shall we call this one done and set up a new thread at Cafe Ersesat, or am I just being paranoid about not being able to keep up?)

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I only wished to become something beautiful [Completed]

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