Shining a Light on Treachery

Shining a Light on Treachery
Date of Scene:	09 November 2012
Location:	Balamb Garden
Synopsis:	A few hours before the Raid on Balamb Garden, Jasmine senses the Darkness in a Garden 'student'; so-called David's lies to her about his identity seal her suspicions, or at least leave her greatly concerned. When Kaydin won't come quietly to get things straightened out, a fight erupts. Jasmine emerges victorious, but very confused, as the Light unexpectedly erupts from her with primal strength. Could this be what Jafar's been after all along?
Cast of Characters:	Kaydin, Jasmine

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Jasmine has posed:
Jasmine's out of her borrowed SeeD clothing -- not quite a student's uniform, since she's not quite a student, but close -- and into the traveling clothing she wore when she first arrived. Her transformation has accompanied Balamb Garden's; having taken heed of her warning, the facility is as busy as a kicked beehive. Classrooms are transformed into war rooms; it is less a school and more a fortress, now.
She misses how it was before.
Walking fairly casually down a hallway, she's nonetheless absolutely silent and relatively shadow-happy. She's not sneaking so actively as to be obviously doing so if seen, but she'd rather not be confronted by soldiers, even friendly ones, on the way to her destination.

Kaydin has posed:
Kaydin had infiltrated the school under the guise of a refugee from the diaz plains who enrolled to become a student. Now having been here for a few classes, he does as he is told. He was always quiet, obeyed instruction and orders quite well though his weapon of choice was a sword. Right now he was helping secure one of the doorways into the garden.

Jasmine has posed:
Garden's a big place, with a lot of people milling around; Jasmine and 'David' weren't in any of the same classes, and she's never seen him before. The former is an unremarkable fact, but the latter interests her. She always tries to welcome newcomers, when she can.
And so she's diverted from her path and walks over. "Need a hand?" she offers, reaching up to put her back into helping secure the barricade. From the looks of her, she won't be able to help much -- she's so tiny -- but she's giving it her all. "I don't think we've met before," she adds with a brilliant smile that lights up the entire hallway. "I'm Jasmine. What's your name?"
Something stirs at the back of her consciousness, but she doesn't recognize it quite yet... it is one signal of so many.

Kaydin has posed:
"David. I am a new student." Kaydin says without hesitation as he begins to push against the barricade, putting in more effort now that Jasmine was helping. He helped make sure the barricade was secure before listening to what the older student said, to secure the area and have Jasmine help him. "I am from the Diaz Plains."

Jasmine has posed:
Jasmine's not quite a living lie detector, but she is appallingly intuitive about that sort of thing; one too many years of fending off Princes full of false promises. And it's that instinct that suggests that 'David' is not on the level, in combination with the chill that starts creeping up her spine -- a very distinctive feeling, and one she has come to recognize all too well -- that causes confusion to rise in her eyes. A worried expression.
She glances over at the older student, but he's already gone. They're very much alone in this secluded part of the Garden.
"It's nice to meet you," she says carefully, instead. What should she do? If she leaves him to find help, he may well already be gone. Or he could be someone touched by Darkness looking for redemption... he wouldn't be the first. She can't judge him automatically.
She does study him more closely, however, looking him up and down curiously... an accidental tip of her hand that she might be a little suspicious.

Kaydin has posed:
"Likewise." Kaydin says as he looks about the area some more. He was relatively quiet during his time here so as he worked, he didnt seem to mind how she stared at him. "Arent you the girl that is taking classes not but a part of garden?" He asks as he watches her now as curiously as she watched him.

Jasmine has posed:
Jasmine submits to Kaydin's visual inspection without any loss of poise; she's accustomed to being stared at, and isn't self-conscious about it. Her cowl is up, which veils her face slightly, but not completely. He can see her brows knitting with concern, her gaze meeting his levelly, her lips pursed in thought. It's the expression of someone who knows they're being lied to. She ultimately answers his question with a question, softly spoken and all the more damning when delivered in her sweet, lilting voice. "Why are you lying about who you are? Please, tell me the truth."

Kaydin has posed:
"I dont know what your talking about." Kaydih says calmly though his facial expression does betray that calm, looking away as he focuses on the work ahead. "We should be trying to get the non combatants out of here, yet we are just fortifying the place." He says as he continues preparing, glancing back to her every now and then as he works.

Jasmine has posed:
Jasmine shakes her head; the tan fabric of her cowl swings behind her, heavy with a massive weight. Tons and tons of hair. Her tone remains carefully neutral as she continues to work alongside him. "The refugees -- sending them out of these walls into the arms of the armies coming, some of which are surely Heartless monsters -- that isn't going to happen."
But then she comes to a decision: this needs to be handled. It can't afford to /not/ be. She draws herself up to her full (tiny) height, and her sudden aura of majestic authority makes her seem much taller than she really is. This is no random refugee-student-person. "I'm sorry, but you know exactly what I'm talking about." A slender hand drifts up to touch her heart, unconsciously. She can feel his Darkness very strongly now; there is surety in her tone. "I think you'd better come with me to see the SeeDs. We need to get this sorted out, /before/ the attack arrives. If it's just a misunderstanding, then I'll apologize to you and the others, but... better safe than sorry."

Kaydin has posed:
Kaydin shakes his head. "Send them away from the direction the army is coming." Kaydin says as he then watches her with a curious gaze. "Your her...The princess of heart..." He says as he just seems to take in her aura and be awed. He shakes his head. "I am sorry, I really am. But I am afraid I cant go anywhere. You should have just focused on getting the non combatants out of harms away." He says as he watches her and he draws his sword.

Jasmine has posed:
If Kaydin can sense Jasmine's Light directly, it's frankly cosmic in scope -- a primal force, one of the six grand pillars of the Universe. It burns fiercely within her, yet totally invisibly... a power that, if released, could perform untold wonders.
Jasmine herself, however, is no longer interested in debating the relative merits of sheltering refugees in the basement versus sending them out on their own. Her eyes widen with mixed confusion, at his words, and defiance, as he draws his sword. "I'm a... what did you just call me?" She herself appears to be unarmed, though it's always possible there's something hidden in that brown robe. It's very spacious. Regardless, she sinks into a loose, fluid stance, clearly ready for the worst. "It's not too late to come quietly... we can protect you, if you're being forced to do this." Ever the optimist and occasionally frightfully innocent, she can hardly imagine someone infiltrating a place because they /want/ to. In the meantime, she'll let him make the first move.

Kaydin has posed:
"I am afraid that I cannot do that." He says as he takes a deep breath. Using his dark arts without a dark sword is difficult but slowly the blade of his sword begins to darken and turn black. "Please surrender yourself to me. I dont want to fight an unarmed woman." He says calmly as he watches her, pointing the now blackened sword towards the woman.

Jasmine has posed:
Jasmine seems both intrigued and repulsed by the dark magic the man works on his sword. She's always fascinated by new things, but feeling the Darkness rise makes her stomach congeal. But then he makes his request, and her eyes flash defiantly. "You have no idea how much you don't want to fight me," she warns him, fire rising in her tone. Tossing her head, her hood falls off behind her, revealing her glittering headband and much of her dark, silken hair. Also her furious expression. "Find out why, if you dare." Her soft palms seem like a dubious match to that wicked blade, but she raises them nonetheless.

Kaydin has posed:
Kaydin shakes his head. "It seems peace is an overrated option." He says as he lunges in, sending in two quick thrusts for the woman before raising his sword to try and bring it down hard ontop of her, to test the woman's defenses. He knew using a normal sword would be difficult to do his skills as a dark knight but for the moment he just simply used his swordsmanship.

Jasmine has posed:
"Tell that to my friends," Jasmine declares, pointing down the hallway even as she steps forward, directly into his personal space, swirling past the sword neatly. In that moment of distraction (there's no one there, of course), she puts her back to the barricade; one arm reaches out and rips a loosely secured metal strut off of it. She holds it not in a light fencer's stance, but with a grip that suggests she usually prefers a somewhat larger weapon.

Kaydin has posed:
"Your friends would rather stay and fight rather then retreat. Despite refugees, and knowing something is coming, they still would rather stay and fight instead of retreating and defendng the non combatants." Kaydin says as he moves in again, once more two quick strikes and then a hard slash downwards to try and cut the strut in two.

Jasmine has posed:
"You really /do not get it/!" Jasmine declares, parrying the first slash, the second slash, and then no longer having a strut at all as Kaydin's blade makes quick work of it. Her hands are badly jarred by the impact, and as the pieces of metal clatter away, they have sliced open a palm. She clenches it into a fist. "These people have nowhere to go, and there's nowhere to send them. There's an impassable mountain range behind us and open plains before us. Armies are approaching from virtually every direction, armies of Darkness... the kind that consume helpless people, transform them, destroy the very worlds these refugees had to flee. If we sent them away 'for their own good', they'd be Heartless within the hour. So, oh Dark one, stop condemning us for sheltering refugees when you're obviously here to help put them in harm's way. You have /no/ moral authority. Garden is their only hope to be protected from a fate worse than death." She punctuates her words with a trio of graceful and worrisomely quick attacks; a leg sweep she learned watching Jean Faraven, a knee to the groin Quistis taught her, and finally a spinning backhand, right to the kisser.

Kaydin has posed:
Kaydin tries to leap back but she is too fast and after getting hit, he is driven back. He shakes his head as if her beating on him was nothing new. "Got hit harder by children." He says as he would then move in to swing his sword, two more quick strikes before a swing that is too short, missing her completely though the dark blast of energy flying for her may be the reason why he missed.

Jasmine has posed:
Jasmine smirks at his insult, more amused than offended. "You seem like the type to only care about brute force," is her grim response, all while falling back to avoid the first two hits, then cartwheeling out of the way of all that dark energy. Her blue bedlah pants, so distinctively of Agrabah, are briefly visible in the motion, before they vanish beneath her robes again. /That/ has her a bit scared, eyes widening, brows lifting; at the very least, it's got her respect.
She rebounds off the wall and advances, whirling into a series of kicks, precise and dangerous, occasionally punctuated with a surprising elbow jab or palm strike. They accelerate, coming faster and faster in a blue-and-brown blur, and flawlessly aiming for the spots she's already softened up. For someone who looks like she's never worked a day in her life, she's certainly got some spunk, and now training to back it up. Sweetly, the princess adds, "Please, allow me to teach you the error of your ways."

Kaydin has posed:
Kaydin tries to leap back, going to the air but is beaten down. He pants as he shakes his head, and his body begins to glow with more darkness. Seems the more pain she inflicts on the man strengthens the darkness as he swings his sword with one hand now, sending a massive blast blast aimed right at her. He then leaps at her to send another blast at another direction and then lands to another side, swinging once more to send the last black blast, this time seeing how she dodges 3 blasts of darkness.

Jasmine has posed:
Jasmine, despite her bravado, is very distressed, both by inflicting harm on another like this, and the Darkness it seems to be summoning. She hesitates at a critical moment. The first blast knocks her open; the second blast blows her backwards; the third one catches her in midair and sends her tumbling down the hallway. She lands badly, in a pool of limbs and fabric, and for a long moment it looks like that might be it, that she isn't going to rise again.
Until she does. One protesting muscle at a time, she forces herself shakily back to her feet. Trembling with pain, she makes a fist again... and radiant white Light erupts out of her as she strikes, flowing from her eyes, her mouth, her fingertips. It's a lovely sight, and a terrifying one, as the holy energy carries her blows -- a leap-kick, followed up by a two-handed hammer of a strike -- towards the dark knight, heedless of the space between them.
The princess' jaw drops at this display; apparently she didn't know she could do that. She sways on her feet, looking exhausted.

Kaydin has posed:
Kaydin was surprised at the white light and in the end, it was that surprise which lowered his defenses so when he tries to dodge, he fails horribly. She knocks him about and he is hurled against the wall and falls unconscious. Of course, what she probably didnt know was he had already completed his duties and rigged it so the entrances would open from the outside, but lets not tell her that.

Jasmine has posed:
Jasmine stares at her hands. The bleeding on her palm has stopped; her cuts and bruises and burns have all vanished without a trace, in fact, purified out of existence by the power that just ran through her.
All that's left is the dull ache of utter weariness.
She closes the distance between them and quickly checks his pulse; much relieved to find him still alive, she tries focusing the last dregs of that holy energy she is suddenly aware of. Sure enough, it passes freely from her to him when directed by her will, mending his wounds while keeping him thoroughly comfortable and thus asleep.
Those last set of exchanged blasts shook the building; SeeDs come running. "Please, arrest him," she instructs them quietly. "He's an enemy agent of some kind. I don't know what he was up to, but he attacked me when I exposed him. The rest is up to you."
They thank her, and urge her back towards the safe area for refugees, but she gently declines, shaking her head. "I have a duty as well," she explains, before continuing on her way. Kaydin is thoroughly restrained and taken off to the holding cells. Much as Jasmine would love to ask him about that strange term he described her with earlier, there simply isn't time. This fight has left her entirely too much to think about...