summonerd | i just wanna know: who broke it?

i just wanna know: who broke it?

[Sheena'd thought she was all done with dimensional travel, now that the two worlds were united. But here she is, having fallen asleep in one world and woken up in a Tethe'alla that's just different enough from the one she knows to be constantly jarring. Her connections to Aselia's summon spirits dangle loose, snapped by distance - not even Origin's power could follow her here, it seems. That's more than a little unsettling.

It takes her some time, alone in a bizarro version of Meltokio as she is, but eventually she stumbles on a lead - an old scientific journal, a mention of the power of something called an Aegis being able to transcend space and time, at least in theory. And a little asking around tells her that Tethe'alla has its own Aegis, though no one's seen it for years. Well. Worth a shot, right?

Somehow she manages to talk her way into the Tethe'allan castle where the Aegis's core crystal awaits being woken up, with a series of smiles and her very best politicking - yes, of course she's got nothing but loyalty for Tethe'alla, of course she's skilled at this, of course it'd be a great honor.

(Zelos would be proud, she thinks, wryly.)

They're dubious, but her persistence wears them down, or maybe they're just desperate enough for a return of the Aegis's power to let her try, and the orange core crystal is offered out to her.

She takes a deep breath, and reaches out to touch it.]

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Ha. Hahahaha, what the fuck is happening.

That didn't just happen, right? That Kratos-like hallucination just talked, just. Threatened Malos. And there's no way that could have happened, right? The world spins from under his feet, swimming like his mind his thoughts his vision. He's fucking hallucinating. Move. Move, Lloyd, move.

"Can't be," Lloyd breathes out, just loud enough to be heard. "Y-you left."

Staring in the general direction of where Kratos stands, the seemingly slow travel of his blood loud in his ears, Lloyd sluggishly raises an arm, holding it to his chest, right above where the locket rests below his jacket. What's he not putting together here? He thinks thinks thinks, frustration built with every piece placed and misconnected. He's forcing square blocks into circular holes, completely unable to put it all together.

It's the fucking worst.

Breaths coming out in short puffs, he slowly shakes his head, eyes narrowing in disbelief. Not him. Can't be him? Is it him? Does he want it to be him?

No.

Lloyd falls to his knees, no longer able to support himself. His wings help him drop down gently, beating hard against the weak air current of the cavern. A shuddering gasp escapes his mouth as he panics panics panics. He's useless and can't control himself Malos almost got hurt did get hurt Kratos is here and Lloyd is weak.

Count to ten.

One. Two. Three. Four.

One. Two. Three. Four. Ffffive?

Lloyd's head swims. He feels as sick as he can feel, as disconnected as his head is from his body.

Count to ten, Lloyd.

But he cannot.

Fine. Stand up Lloyd.

Stand up, Lloyd.

But he cannot.

Kratos closes his hands into tight fists, the hilt of of his sword digging into the skin of his fingers in a way that's grounding, almost comforting. He tries to breathe around the erratic roaring of his ether, the way-too-loud thump of his heart, beating off-beat to everything else inside of him. (He wonders not for the first time if it would just be easier to cut himself open and rip the damn thing out, but likely it is too late for that and he cannot afford dying, not now, especially not now.)

Malos remembers him. Anna is alive.

Martel is in a cannon.

That's all that matters, Kratos. You have to get to her, get to Mithos. Just focus on--

Lloyd speaks. Quiet and confused and hurting, a little desperate "You left" that Kratos tucks away to worry about later, as the severity of Lloyd's current condition makes itself apparent to him. The boy appears to be hyperventilating, and-- The mines. The mines are not safe for humans to travel through, not if they are in here long. Worry for his son (even if that is not his son) overrides his panic, for just a moment.

"How long have you been in here?" he demands of Malos.

"A while," Malos admits. "We got stopped by a bunch of fucks who wanted us dead, and between that and the cannon blast--" Kratos flinches at the mention of the blasted machine, not wanting to be reminded (as if he could forget). "--I think the ether levels in here got fucked, so we really gotta move."

Yes, he does. Martel is in a cannon and he is wasiting time he is wasting time--

(Martel, trembling in his arms clinging to his shirt
not again she pleads never let them put me in that machine again she pleads and
never again he promises, never again--)

"Hey, Kratos," Malos' voice cuts through the fog, and Kratos slams himself back down into the present, anchoring himself with the still-too-fast-too-loud beating of the heart he never asked for. "Stay with us, will--"

He cuts off abruptly, and before Kratos can ask Malos has shoved a knuckle in his mouth and bitten down on it, eyes squeezed shut with both the pain and the effort of keeping a scream in his throat. Confusion and discomfort roil up in Kratos' chest, under the roar of

Martel is in a cannon Martel is in a cannon and you are half a continent away from her while she is suffering, you need to hurry, you need to get her out before they fire it again you PROMISED--

"Fuckin, hell," Malos wheezes, finally. He sits down and shifts, yanking up the leg of his pants so he can assess damage. Kratos doesn't even bother looking becuase he doesn't care, he's wasting time-- "Well," Malos says, voice tight. "That's one way to stop a wound from bleeding. Fuck."

Martel is in a cannon. Anna is alive. She's alive, and every pain she feels Malos feels reflected. (Martel is in a cannon, this doesn't matter-- but Anna is alive. Doesn't that matter just a little?)

"...Anna?" Kratos asks, unable to articulate much else while he is warring with his mind such as he is.

Malos nods, short. "She's- unconscious, now. On the other side of that rubble." He gestures too specifically to be pointing at anything other than Anna herself. "Shit, fuck," Malos wheezes. "If- If you got an idea how to get through that, that'd be great, but-- Gimme a minute if you need my help. If I move I'm gonna pass out and that's the last thing y'all need right now."

"Right," Kratos says, turning to the problem. (Martel is in a cannon-- you cannot reach her until you get past this wall of rubble, anyway.) He wishes briefly that Presea was here, because an earth blade would certainly have better luck than he would. But a concentrated blast of ether, though sloppy, would likely--

Oh.

Kratos hastily slams a shield up around himself and his companions as the rubble explodes.

Edited (KRATOS WOULD NOT SHUT UP ) 2019-05-25 20:30 (UTC)

Lloyd can hear Kratos and Malos' conversation, can hear the way Malos' voice wavers in the face of so much pain, but like before, all he can do is sit and watch this shit go down, unable to process it, unable to do much more than try unsuccessfully to control his rampantly off-pace breathing. Eyes wandering around the cave, numb tears still falling from them, he sees the bright wings protruding from behind Lloyd curl around him, shrouding him in their light. It's a little comforting, even if Lloyd has no idea how they're being controlled right now, or even has the mind to wonder.

With a fight, he forces himself to sit back from on his knees, gasping a little from the effort it takes just to do so. Trying to bridge the disconnected gap between his weakened perception of the world around him and the distant heaviness of a body he feels like he's not in, Lloyd places a hand on the ground and forces his legs to hold him up, come on, come on, get up, Lloyd -

The cave earns a red tinge, and then the loud noise of an explosion echoes throughout. Lloyd flinches, greater angel hearing amplifying the sound and causing the harsh discord to ring through his ears. For a few seconds, the sound bounces around the cavern, and then it's gone, but the impact of the explosion and the sudden introduction of such an awful sound was enough to make Lloyd fall flat on his ass again. The wings are still curled up around him, covering his face, showering the cave in their vibrancy, but as he tries again to stand, they unfurl, instead helping him to stand again with powerful flutters.

He looks out from where the rubble once was. Three blurs, one of which is straight up lying on the ground. One of them is purple, the other orange. Lloyd squints, forces a better understanding of the situation, and grasps onto a rock protruding from the wall. Sheena is there? Right? Zelos? Maybe? Where's Anna, is that Anna on the floor?

Man, he's trying so fucking hard.

Either way, he forces a step forward. And then another, and another. The walk is slow, unsteady, and he's sweating harder than he was already, just before all of this, but. He needs to see Sheena, if that's her.

After a few moments, his feet stop meeting the ground. Lloyd blinks, looks down, and finds himself hovering only an inch of two off the ground, wings taking on his weight. And because of that, the few meters between him and Sheena are easily crossed, and he's able to properly see her. Already feeling the panic die down just a tad, he pushes the weakest grin he's ever worn in his life.

"Hi," Lloyd rasps out, exhausted and shaky, "high? I am."

Martel have mercy, this is the fucking worst.

Blowing up the wall of rubble to get to the other side? Probably a valid idea. Blowing it up by siphoning ambient ether into himself and then releasing it explosively, when said ether is destabilized and the action will most likely drain him of whatever ether Sheena's recovery item helped him gain? The stupidest idea, actually. By far. Ever. Of all time.

As soon as the wall's down and Zelos can see the cyan glow of Lloyd's wings, relief settles into his core at the fact that he managed to reunite both teams. Good, good. It's quickly replaced with confusion and alarm, however, when he sets his eyes on the newcomer instead, some blade with a red core crystal on his chest--and that is a blade, Zelos knows, because even if it's not as brilliant in the dust and dirt of the explosion, a core crystal's glow is still easy to pick apart from a mere ether crystal's glow. Zelos blinks, looks around. Malos is down, but that's to be expected; his driver did get injured, and they're sharing a core crystal, so.

That leaves him, Sheena, and the blade, because Lloyd sure looks like he's starting to feel the effects of poisoning.

Great.

With the situation assessed and the damage taken into account, Zelos' next instinct is to get on the defensive against the intruder. Maybe it's one of Dickson's blades, even if Zelos can't recall even seeing him in the fight. Still, he has to be careful. He spreads his legs into a fight stance, but, unfortunately, before he can do much else, with a zap of pain in his body the exhaustion at being drained of ether again settles in with a grunt.

His vision's swimming again. He's still injured and aching. Right away Zelos' legs give out under him, leaving him kneeling on the dirt and panting once again. He raises his sight to the blade and glares, as if daring him to move, trying in vain to gather more ether in his hands. It still burns. Architect damn it, not now, not when there's a new threat he can't fight back against.

Zelos's warning gives Sheena enough time to move Anna, at least - a little slowly, because she's not used to carrying people taller than her, even when she's not dealing with a handful of small injuries that are enough to slow her down further - and even to crouch down a little in front of where she settles her, hands up in front of her face to put up a shield that should hopefully protect the both of them. It's not perfect, but she'll take a little bit of hot air over the full strength of Zelos's ether.

He blasts the rubble away, and the ceiling doesn't immediately crumble on them, so Sheena lets her seal fade as she straightens up, taking stock of the situation. Malos, injured but conscious. Zelos, sitting down hard with exhaustion. Kratos, looking like he's having about as good a time of the rest of them. Lloyd, backlit by his wings, unsteady on his feet - no, he's not even on them, she realizes, as he crosses the cave.

Wait, Kratos?

Before she can ask about that, though, Lloyd's made his way to her. He sounds… gone. Anna and Malos had warned them that the caves were dangerous for humans, but she feels - well. She doesn't feel great, but she's pretty sure she's doing better than Lloyd is, right now. "Nah, I'm alright," she tells him, her answering smile more worried than anything. "Think you can hang in there a little longer? I'm not sure how we're gonna get all of us out of here." Her gaze roams over their group again, heart starting to sink. Even with Kratos's sudden appearance (seriously, what did she miss?), they're going to have a hard time with two people down, one unconscious, and Lloyd apparently in the grasp of an ether high.

The first thing Malos does when the rubble's out of the way is run to Anna's side, which Kratos can't exactly say he expected to go any differently. He has half a mind to follow the man, but for some reason it seems his feet are rooted to the ground. Anna is alive. She is alive, she is alive, even though he never thought he'd see her again--

(You never thought you'd see Martel again and she's the one in the cannon)

Kratos' eyes slide away from his wife, taking in the two faces he doesn't recognize. Actually. Just one face. The girl who's talking to Lloyd is a stranger, but the blade on his knees in the dirt, still glowing with expent ether-- that's Zelos. Tethe'alla's artificial Aegis. A lot of things quite suddenly click together in Kratos' mind, and with them quite a large handful of questions.

But first--

Realizing he is still holding his sword, which has every right to make the Aegis nervous, Kratos lets his weapon disolve again into ether and holds his hands up in a gesture of peace. The Aegis has nothing to fear from him.

"Right, now for getting out of here," Malos says, though Kratos does not take his eyes off of Zelos. "I can carry Anna--"

"That's a bad idea," Kratos interjects before he thinks, like he's a man five years younger, like the weight of unnecessary grief doesn't still sit on his shoulders.

"Irvings aren't exactly known for good ones," Malos counters, which Kratos concedes. "I'll be alright, though. Zelos, you good to walk?"

The blade dissolving his weapon is a good sign already, at least, and then the peace gesture sets in nicely once Zelos realizes he's literally the only one glaring and getting ready to go one-on-one with this guy. Okay, alright. Deep breaths, Zelos, and try to uncurl your posture, just get out of defense mode. No one here is looking for a fight.

At least, that's what it seems.

Slowly, after much hesitance, Zelos releases the ether gathered in his hands. With that excess ether gone, some of the pain dissipates from his lungs, though the ache on his shoulder remains. There's so much ether in the air. They need to get out of the mines, pronto. Trying to gather his bearings Zelos takes in a sharp breath just as Malos speaks, but he sounds like he's so far away, murky as if underwater. He shakes his head, and then the red blade's response comes a little clearer. Okay, okay. Workable. A blink. And hey, where's Sheena? Lloyd went somewhere, too. Architect above, Zelos is too fucking tired to be paying attention to any of this shit.

Malos addresses him, and Zelos... has no real idea what he's been doing this whole time, other than staring at the blade with the red ether, keeping eye contact, and thinking. He blinks himself back to the present. Tries to put on a brave face, or something nonchalant and fun, unbothered, light. Builds a mask with shaking hands and a clouded mind, paints it blindly as he keeps his little staring contest with the blade.

What comes out of his efforts is an exhausted laugh and barely a pull of his lips upwards. "Sure, chief," Zelos says, already starting to get up. His eyes are still on the red blade. Something in his dissociated mind tells him that he needs to keep this up to survive. "Aegis. Can do literally anything I want--"

He stumbles. Somehow manages to catch himself before he falls back on his ass, finally breaking eye contact due to the sudden brick-like exhaustion in his veins causing him to sway.

Sheena's. Not high. That's good, yes. Lloyd wishes he could feel more relieved about this fact, but even though he knows what those words mean, he's still pressed down by the fact that he can't fucking control himself and the anxiety that crushes him because of it. The others' words fly past his head, fuzzy as his mind feels, and he just stands for a second, blinking and trying to respond.

"I - no walking," he says, squinting, working past his high. His eyes feel itchy with the remnants of tears he hadn't been able to properly wipe away. "Wings," he adds, not quite noticing the way they fold a little closer to him in response. "I'll be okay."

Weakly, he grabs at Sheena's hand and squeezes it before letting go again. She's alright. That's good, yes.

Sheena squeezes back, fond. "Alright," she says, looking like she's not completely convinced. "If you're sure." He'll be okay, she knows, because it's Lloyd, but - she hates him having to use his angel powers like this.

"Maybe I should get Anna," she suggests - she's less injured, and supporting someone doesn't take quite as much as carrying them - but then a wave of exhaustion that's definitely not her own hits, and she stops, looking over at Zelos. He's right back where he started, huh? She frowns, making a decision, then crosses the cave to him. "Not sure about that, right now," she tells him, voice light as she presses down on her anxiety. "Let me carry you, okay? Otherwise you're gonna fall on your face." She turns away, with that, ducks down so he can climb onto her back without too much issue, tilting her head so she can still see him. There's a little twinge of guilt at not giving him much of a choice here, but really - what choice is there? She's not sure how she's managed to avoid the ether poisoning so far, but if it hits her, she won't have any angelic resistance to help her out. They need to move, and fast.

Getting up from the ground takes an incredible amount of strength and willpower, but eventually Zelos is back on his feet, just in time to catch Sheena ducking down in front of him like he's hoping for him to hop on her back. She's said something, but Zelos couldn't quite catch what, and the way his driver is looking at him like she's not going to take no for an answer, which kind of fucking sucks, but at least the guilty twinge in their resonance link reminds Zelos that she's probably worried about her ether poisoning and that this is probably for the best if they're going to get the fuck out immediately. Because, honestly, what's Zelos gonna do, walk out on his own? Yeah, right; he can barely stand still or think straight. And literally the only other person he could go to for assistance is a complete stranger, too.

Damn it, okay. Fine. Sheena's his best choice here.

But that doesn't mean he has to like the choice.

Zelos takes a deep breath, sighs it out. Grumbles under his breath as he gathers his conscious to form some sort of a complaint. "Architect, you're treatin' me like a goddamn baby. I can do it," he grits out. Zelos sways where he stands. Architect, he's so tired. So, so tired, the ether in his body dangerously low again, aching for reprieve to gather up again and reform, to produce a stable amount and heal his wounds. Zelos' mind swims, his eyes close, and he's made highly uncomfortable by the vulnerable side he's displaying out in the open like it's nothing, right in front of a blade he still isn't completely sure is on their side. "I don't need your help. I'm fine."

He opens his eyes again. Then, as if to prove the point that he doesn't need her, Zelos takes a step forward and away from Sheena. It's not perfect, but stable enough. "Go get Anna," he mumbles next. "I'm right behind you."

Edited (Edited bc I have an Agenda) 2019-05-30 14:51 (UTC)

"...I guess you carrying Anna and me spotting Zelos would be a smarter idea, Sheena," Malos admits after a moment. He hadn't gotten Anna much further than into his lap as he was checking on her, but he leaves her there for a second as he twists to look at Sheena. "How do you wanna do this?"

"I'm not treating you like a baby, I'm treating you like you just used all your energy saving us," Sheena snaps, but she loses steam even before she makes it to the end of her sentence. This is a dumb thing to argue about, isn't it? He's sure he's fine, and - honestly, Sheena's not, but if he wants to insist then that's on him. "Just - say something if you need help, alright?" she says, straightening up as Malos responds. That... probably is a better idea. Maybe he'll listen to Malos, if not her.

"That should be okay," she tells him. "Here, give me a hand getting her settled?" She steps towards Malos and Anna, turning away from Zelos as she goes.

There's a bit of cold guilt sliding down Zelos' throat when Malos and Sheena finally leave him alone, combined with some anxious feeling at the prospect of being left behind, but he swallows it down and keeps his eyes on the red blade instead. Because nobody here seems to think that watching this stranger as he sticks around their numbers is important, which is fucking bizarre, but he's still kind of making Zelos a little nervous, so.

Silently, through the fog in his mind, Zelos carefully observes what he's doing: collecting the intact and sleeping core crystals from Dickson's blades in his arms, slowly, one by one, as gently as if he were picking something precious like flowers in a field. The sight pops a bubble of curiosity in Zelos' chest, something that curls his lips into a disarming smile that he accompanies with a hum loud enough for the blade to hear. "Plannin' on returning them to the humans?" he asks softly, stepping forward. Then frowns. "Or do you... have..."

And that's as far as Zelos gets, because as his speech slows and slurs, his mind and body finally give out on him, conscious fading to black as he stumbles forward in free-fall.

She doesn't even make it all the way to Malos, let alone start moving Anna onto her back.

Zelos's words dissolve into mush, and there's just enough time for her to realize what's happening and move, the remnants of adrenaline in her system helping her whirl around and catch him as he starts to slump. His head lands on her shoulder heavily, too heavily for him to be awake, and oh, that's bad.

"Zelos? Zelos, fuck, hey," she says, as if he's not clearly dead to the world. He's alive, right? He's breathing, she can tell that much, but -- she should be able to feel his heartbeat, the way he'd landed, shouldn't she?

"Nevermind, I guess I'm getting him," she says to Malos, trying to hide the stress in her voice with a joke as she tries to heft his weight into a more stable position. Had he always been this heavy, or she just more tired than she'd realized?

Kratos tenses slightly at the question from Zelos-- having been quite certain no one was paying him any attention-- but waits until he's picked up the last core crystal and placed it in the bag with the others (not the kindest place to store them, but he does not have anywhere better at the moment) before he answers. It seems Zelos has passed out before Kratos could answer. Convenient, though Kratos supposes Zelos isn't the only one curious.

"Well I wasn't going to leave them here, where they would be unlikely to be found again," Kratos explains for whoever is listening, slinging his bag over his shoulder and straightening.

With Zelos down that makes only three of them concious, and only two of them uninjured. They should really hurry. (The longer they stay here the longer Martel remains in that cannon.) Kratos wonders if he should offer to help Anna, but he's quite certain the somewhat-fragile hold he has on his sanity right now is going to shatter if he has to endure the sensation of anyone touching him, even if it is his wife, even if she is unconcious, even if he willingly picked her up. So he lets Malos handle it, grateful that if Irvings are anything, it's stubborn. Malos seems to be alright.

So Kratos takes point as they make their way out of the mines, figuring the least he can do is take care of anyone else who might attempt to ambush them at this point. It's a good thing there's very little mines remaining before they're out in the open air again. From there it will only be a matter of deciding whether their wounds are bad enough to risk venturing into town for a healer or not, but that decision isn't on Kratos.

(If they do decide to go into town, Kratos might just go ahead on his own.)

Luckily for them, they don't have to even get as far as town to find a healer. One's waiting for them-- sort of. Nia had had other business, but once she sees three familiar faces she forgets entirely about it, especially since Malos is carrying Anna.

"Architect, the lot of you!" she swears, flagging them down. She does a hasty survey of the area-- lot of dirt and rocks, being the base of a mountain range and all, which isn't ideal but will have to do. "Malos, put Anna down, if she's bad enough off to be needing carrying, then so are you!"

"I'm concious and she's not," Malos protests, but he doesn't argue, easing Anna onto the ground where Nia indicated. He's moving like it's his leg bothering him-- of course it is. Fuckin' Irvings.

"Nia," she introduces herself to the lot Malos has got with him, figuring they might appreciate it. "Friend of Malos'." She doesn't recognize anyone here she hasn't met other than the Aegis, but he's corporeal if unconcious, so he can wait. The blade kid-- is he a blade? No human she knows has wings, but he's acting like a human high on ether right now-- is whimpering a little as the wings deposit him gently on the ground, so maybe she'll look at him next. After a moment, for their sakes, she appends: "Healing blade."

Normally she isn't so open about that fact (there's a reason her clothes hide both core crystal and ether lines, after all, even if she's not currently wearing a hat to hide her distinctly cat-shaped ears), but half of the present company already knows, and like hell she's not going to heal them just to keep a secret when they'd kick the arses of anyone who tried to give her trouble for it. (What if she loses them for real this time? Because she chose to forgo healing them? She'd never live with herself!)

Deciding that she'll have to endure Malos bitching about Anna regardless of which one of them she heals-- healing blade eaters works the same way hurting them does, so that's good if nothing else about today is-- Nia just sets herself beside Anna and finds the wound based purely on which leg Malos was favoring even before he sat down on the other side of his driver. ...A burn? It's careful, deliberate, which... Well that would be a fire blade's idea of handling a bleeding wound, wouldn't it? Nia rolls her eyes, just a little. As her ether hits the burned flesh and the depth of the wound underneath, though, she reconsiders-- It's not ideal, but it was quick thinking, and leaving Anna open and bleeding in those mines would have been significantly worse, and this would have been faster than getting it to stop bleeding otherwise-- if they'd even managed that. So she doesn't comment and keeps healing, instead asking a more important question:

"Do I even want t'know what you got yourselves into this time?"

Sheena's never been as glad to feel fresh air as she is when they finally make it out of the cave. Even with half their party unconscious or high off their ass, even with the knowledge that Tethe'alla definitely knows where they are - they'd made it out alive, at least.

Someone stands in front of them on the path, and Sheena tenses, trying to come up with a plan for dealing with another attacker with an unconscious Zelos on her back and no one else except maybe Kratos in any kind of shape to fight, but thankfully her no-nonsense familiarity and the others' reactions to her make it unnecessary. Malos knows her, which -- that's lucky. But then, Kratos had shown up at just the right time, too. Maybe that's related. Sheena doesn't voice her thoughts, just smiles gratefully in Nia's direction and offers her name in return before focusing instead on getting off her feet before she collapses and takes Zelos with her.

Movements slowed by her exhaustion, she pulls Zelos off her back carefully, lowering him to the ground as gently as she can manage, before she takes a seat next to him. It's hard to gauge how bad off he is - but he'd been out like a light the entire way out of the cave, and the wound on his shoulder had been slowly bleeding ether onto her for just as long, an uncomfortable, too-hot sensation that feels almost like getting too close to a fire. It's still going, and she brushes his hair away from it to get a look. Well. If it hasn't killed him yet, he'll be fine long enough for Nia to deal with Anna and Malos's wounds, hopefully. Not like she's got any healing abilities that would do anything, here. She beckons to Lloyd, patting the ground on the other side of her. The ether's effects should start fading now that they're free of the caves - her head feels clearer already, even with the fog of energy loss threatening to replace the ether headache - but maybe if he sits he can put his wings away, finally.

Nia asks a question, and Malos looks like he's too focused on Anna to answer - which, fair - and Sheena realizes again that she's the best-equipped here to have a conversation.

"A whole bunch of blades came after us," she says. "And then part of the cave came down on us. That was a cannon blast, wasn't it?" She hadn't even thought about what had caused it, but as soon as she says it it clicks, with a sinking of her heart. Oh, no. What are they doing to Colette, right now?

"Well that sounds about right," Nia mutters to herself. Again, fuckin' Irvings. Always getting into trouble. Was it their idea to just try and walk off with Tethe'alla's Aegis like no big deal? She's not even surprised they're involved.

Sheena mentions the cannon, and Nia flinches, eyes darting towards Malos, but if he's bothered he doesn't show it. She waits a second, but neither he nor Kratos look like they want to give Sheena an answer, which is just par for the course. Nia sighs.

"Yeah, it was," Nia answers, her anger making the last of her healing job roll over Anna like a particularly aggressive wave, and Malos sends her a dirty look as the effects of that hit him. "What? If you don't want me distracted, then you answer the question!"

Malos grumbles, fingers rubbing over the scars on his right wrist. "Hopefully they don't try it again," he mutters.

"It's weird, if you ask me," Nia says, scowling. "Sylvarant hasn't fired in-- well, at least as long as I've been around. But." She sends a look at Zelos, reconsiders. "S'pose they figure Tethe'alla's vulnerable right now, huh?"

Thinking about that pisses her off, so she'd rather just not think about it. Still got work to do, anyway. She checks on Malos' leg to make sure it's fine even though of course it is, that's how blade eaters work, then she moves onto her next charge-- might as well check the Aegis himself, especially seeing as he's bleeding all over the place.

"He'll be alright," she tells Sheena, since she looks worried. "Blades heal pretty fast on their own, so he'd probably be fine even without my help..." But he's pretty low on ether, and that's not going to regulate quickly at the rate he's losing it. So Nia takes a deep breath and sets about healing him-- easy work, if a little slow. What he could really use is healing blade who can afford to share more ether with him than Nia can, but unfortunately there's no one like that close. He'll have to settle for Nia closing the wound and work on regulating his own ether himself. There's plenty of ambient ether around, anyway. He'll build it back up.

She turns to Sheena next, holding her hands out for Sheena to take. "You want me to heal you, too?"

Edited 2019-06-03 01:06 (UTC)

Her heart manages to sink even further at that.

"It's my fault, then," she mumbles, a little quiet like she hadn't entirely meant to say it out loud, as her gaze drops to the ground. Of course it is. She'd gone in alone without a plan and with hardly any information - maybe if she'd been smarter about it, she could've figured out something that wouldn't have left the situation as bad as it is, that wouldn't have left one country defenseless and the other just itching to torture Colette for martial superiority. Typical.

She's lost in thought enough that she jumps a little when Nia makes her way over, but she moves, making sure there's room for Nia to check on Zelos without her getting in the way. Maybe she watches a little more closely than necessary as she heals him, but to be fair, they'd only just met. He groans, and she tenses a little, but - no, he's still out, just reacting as the wound closes. Sheena forces herself to relax again, nodding in acknowledgement at Nia's words. "It's not like we're in much shape to go anywhere right now," she tries to joke, weakly. "He just needs rest?" If he's not bleeding anymore, just sleeping off the exhaustion - that’s fine. It's fine.

"Pretty sure my leg's the worst of it," she says, shifting to let Nia see the wound. It's shallow, but wide enough that it'd be annoying the whole time it healed naturally. "If you can heal that, I think I'll be okay." She reaches out, taking her hands gently.

If you asked Lloyd what was worse, suffering from an ether high, or crashing down from said high, Lloyd would answer with a simple "yes."

The trip down from the mines is an exercise in keeping steady. Though the wings still protruding out from Lloyd's shoulder blades keep him up and carry him down the trail, he has to put all of his remaining focus into staying straight on the path. It's hard, and by the time they find a place to stop, one of Malos' old friends coming to greet them, there is a little headache building in the space between his brows, knitted together as they were by his constant squinting.

Within the time it takes for them to be back on flatland ground, the clarity of Lloyd's mind slowly returns, bit by bit, though the lingering effects of the trip remains. The high density of the ether in the mines isn't prevalent down here, and the regulated ether pull isn't oppressive. While Lloyd's incredibly grateful about the return to normalcy, he's left with the cruel reality of ether highs and mana overuse: his entire being hurts.

Lloyd's head throbs with merciless agony and exhaustion, that which flows through his blood and seeps into his bones. The space between his shoulder blades burns with pain, more intense than it's ever been when he's used his wings, and even the soft brush of his tank top over the area leaves him whimpering. The wounds on his leg and arm sting like pins and needles, and though Lloyd wants to process what's happening now that he can, the truth is he's just too fucking hurt to properly do so.

Some things do read clear to him. For one, he wasn't hallucinating, and that really is a Kratos, if not his own. Zelos is unconscious, and so is his mom, and Malos staggers about like he's ready to collapse too. Sheena seems alright, if not concerned and overwhelmed with everything that had gone down, and that acts as a grounding realization to Lloyd. She's alright, that's great.

When they stop, Malos' friend scolding him with a decisively worried tone, Lloyd starts to feel the wings flutter, ready to place him down. He hovers a little further, down to where Sheena has sat herself down, patting the ground next to her, and let's them deposit him there, curling around him one last time before breaking away into light particles. With the little brain power he has, he wonders just when his wings started doing that, curling around him, and asserts it must be instinctive. Who knows how these things work.

(Kratos would have, but Lloyd is pointedly not thinking about Kratos. Or his doppelganger, for that matter.)

Gently, he lifts his arm and grabs at Sheena's hand, interlocking their fingers and leaning against a tree backing them. Lloyd closes his eyes, takes a breath, and focuses on pain management. His everything hurts, but from what he can tell, the most physical damage was the swipes he took from the blade with the claymore, and those aren't deep enough to be lethal. His migraine is pretty bad, but that's due to ether high, and his back… well. Not much to be done about the fact that his body was never meant to handle an angel transformation. Lloyd will be fine, but the healing would be nice.

Still, Lloyd thinks, flinching and whimpering again when his shoulder blades touch the tree trunk, this fucking sucks. He sits himself back up, fixes his posture, and hisses when his body protests at the sudden movements. He wishes these pains were from actual wounds. Those could be healed easy!

He's totally zoning out, not being able to really follow the track of the conversation with everything that's fucking happened within the past hour, but he snaps to attention when he hears Sheena's muttered words, having just enough context to get what she's saying. "That's bullshit," he says, voice hoarse, squeezing her hand weakly. "You couldn't have known. We're not from here. And Zelos still needed saving."

"Bullshit," Kratos says the same moment Lloyd does, then hastily shuts his mouth. He's quiet for long enough for the boy to speak, but plods on with his own two cents the moment Lloyd is done. "He's right. You did what any sane person would have done, getting Zelos out of there. Sylvarant's the only one to blame for--"

He breaks off, clearly biting down anger.

Nia sighs, but rather than get involved, just takes stock of the leg wound Sheena shows her, and nods, squeezing Sheena's hand and channeling her ether. It'll feel much like a stream rushing through Sheena's veins-- the flow of water unforgiving and unrelenting, purging the body's impurities while rejuvinating dead cells in its wake. She's done in short order. "There you go," she tells Sheena, squeezing her hand one last time before letting go.

Time to check on Lloyd. Nia kneels down in front of him-- he's moving like he's sore all over, and now that the wings are gone, his ether signature is reading more like a human's. She thinks. It's still weird, but whatever he is, she supposes it doesn't matter. Healing's healing. She holds a hand out towards him. "Well, how 'bout you?" she asks.

"I know," she tells Lloyd, though her gaze drifts to Kratos as he speaks up. He'd been so quiet the whole way out of the caves she hadn't expected him to say anything. At least it sounds like he's mad about it, too. She sighs, squeezing Lloyd's hand back fondly. "I know, I wouldn't have left him there, I just-- I keep thinking that maybe if I'd been smarter about it, they'd both be safe now, instead of Colette having to suffer like this."

Nia's healing doesn't feel like she'd expected - a surge of water, rather than a ray of bright light - but it's appreciated, nonetheless, as the wound closes and the worst of her aches fade. "Thanks," she says, with a small smile as she lets her hand fall back to her side. "That's a lot better."

"Don't be so hard on yourself," Lloyd says to Sheena, pointedly ignoring Kratos' agreement from earlier. Don't think about it, focus on helping Sheena feel better. He coughs a little, willing his voice to clear up. "You already saved one Aegis, but there's no way you could have saved them both by yourself. That's why we're here and traveling with you."

Lloyd rolls his shoulders a little, flinching at the soreness that pins itself through his bones. "We'll save her too, Sheena. We'll save her and help her get the freedom she deserves, and then she'll be safe from those fuckers and their weapons."

At Nia's question, Lloyd turns and faces her properly, shooting her a weak and pained grin. "I dunno how much your healing can do for me, truthfully," he says, apologetic in tone, though he unbuttons his jacket and shrugs it off anyways, careful to keep his necklace under his tank top. Wincing at the feeling of the fabric on his back shifting, he holds out his arm, showing off the wound there. "I have another on my leg, but neither are too deep. Otherwise, it's - a lot of sore muscle, I think. My back is killing me, but I'm crediting that to mana - ether - overuse."

Nia lets them have their talk, not seeing the point in her getting involved. She likes this kid, though. Always refreshing to meet someone who actually gives a shit about blades.

She listens as Lloyd lists his wounds, then finally just takes him by the hand, sending her ether into him to get a better look. The first streams of water under his veins are somewhat gentle, feeling out the issue. Most of the wounds are straightfoward, and she directs the currents of healing ether to do their job there-- Purge infections and dying cells, help the body regenerate new cells to take the old ones' places. It's forceful, in a way, becuase water has trouble being anything but, until the currents of her ether reach the muscles on his back, and there, hit a wall.

She exhales, softly, having felt this before. Pathways of burned ether channels, scarred tissue left in their wake. Definitely ether overuse. Malos and Anna were the same, after--

Anyway.

"Bunch of burned ether channels back here," Nia tells Lloyd, just so he knows. "So you're probably right about ether overuse." The wings, she figures. No wonder, seeing as he's... Well, he's got a human heart, and he doesn't have ether lines or a core crystal, so even if his ether levels are too high to be a human he must be one. A human who can use ether, though? Fancy that. No suprise his body isn't taking it well. "I can ease the pain and heal some of the internal damage, but if you've got scars those aren't going to fade."

Nia pushes her waters a little harder, urging them to go deeper. There's some resistance, but only some, becuase few things can actually stand in opposition to water. It takes much more force than the river-like currents that healed Lloyd's other wounds, resulting in a sensation that must be much more like a tsunami overwhelming a shore of dead cells. There's a lot to regenerate, and she probably doesn't get all of it, but after a minute or so she lets her waters recede.

"There you go," she tells Lloyd, and then promptly finds a place to sit down. That was a lot of ether she expended. Where's Dromarch when you need him? He could have picked up some of the slack. She sends a scowl in Kratos' direction. "You're alright, aren't you?" she asks.

"I am not injured," Kratos answers, which Nia is grateful for, though it certainly sounds like Kratos at least has a stick up his ass if nothing else. After a moment, tone sharp, Kratos adds: "Colette isn't in the cannon, if that brings you any relief. It was Martel."

Nia raises her eyebrows, but Malos beats her to the question.

"Thought Martel was dead," Malos says.

"The same could be said of you," is Kratos' response, and Malos splutters while Nia does her best to bite down a laugh. Did Malos and Anna really not tell him? Oh, she hopes she's around long enough to hear that argument play out. "If I can believe that miracle, it's not difficult to believe another. Besides. I would be hard pressed to forget the taste of Martel's ether. I know it was her."

In the exhausted nothingness of unconscious, Zelos doesn't have to do much other than float about in the remaining ether his body hosts. Instinctively he begins the process of regenerating the amounts that he'd lost in the mines, but the process is slow and arduous, painful, at odds with the ether loss of the wounds he'd sustained. And then that ether leakage in his body suddenly stops as something enters his system, like a stream of water that freezes over in his injuries, tying the torn skin and keeping the rest of his ether inside.

Zelos groans, but otherwise doesn't wake. Instead he takes the time to begin regulating his own ether once again, running system checkups, sanity tests, configuring a few odd superficial things here and there. Breathe in, breathe out. It doesn't take too long before the ether regulation process in his core kickstarts itself back up again and Zelos' levels slowly begin rising.

10%, 12%, 13%, 15%. Slow rise, crawling through the minutes. It'll take a long while before Zelos can consider himself stable enough to actually do anything of importance, but at least, as his system restores and when his levels hit somewhere above the 20% threshold, he manages to wake.

And what a goddamn thing he wakes up to hear.

Someone's claiming that it's not Colette in the cannon. It sounds suspiciously like the blade from the mines, if he recalls correctly, and Zelos' first emotion upon waking is a sharp irritation when he still can't manage to catch the blade's name. Fine, then--he'll just be "That Guy" for now, for simplicity's sake. Slowly, with much effort, Zelos manages to open his eyes, then turn his head to the side to where he can hear That Guy speaking. And, honestly, what the fuck is he talking about? Zelos knows that was--it was--don't. Don't think about it right now, Zelos, it's fine.

His vision's still blurry, but he manages to catch the soft glow of the other blade's core crystal. At once Zelos struggles out a laugh, something weak and mocking rattling his exhausted lungs. "Who the fuck... do you think you are," Zelos manages out through laughs, softly shaking his head. Architect, he's still tired, but. "Some kinda... Aegis expert? That's--That's Colette."

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TAKES A HAMMER TO THE TAG IT'S FINE IT'S FINE

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He died

NO DYING IN THIS THREAD

NO DEATH!!!!

YOU CAN'T TELL HIM WHAT TO DO

I AM YOUR DRIVER AND I SAY NO DEATH

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a wild nia appears

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lloyd's next on the list promise

i love nia

SHES REALLY GOOD?

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rar write shorter tags challenge

No never I love them