Present Possibilities: Angantyr

Present Possibilities: Angantyr
Date of Scene:	23 July 2013
Location:	Castle Oblivion
Synopsis:	The past is prologue. The present? Dark and terrible.
Thanks to:	Angantyr for patience.
Cast of Characters:	Riku, Angantyr Vespar
Tinyplot:	Fragmentary Passage

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Riku has posed:
And apparently, it has a plan. Or this place has a plan for the heartless surge forwards and the very first stroke rips a hole in the world. It peels back like curling ash to reveal VALKYRI HQ in the aftermath of it's destruction.

Angantyr stands at ground zero of that battle and all the heartless have evaporated like storybook monsters tucked away into a different tale. There is still the feeling of them outside this building, lurking on the edges of perception. There is no sign of the people who owned this building.

Destruction well warranted, perhaps, but destruction nevertheless.

And the heartless are waiting.

Maybe at least a /little/ thrashing is still in order.

Angantyr has posed:
Angantyr looks around...wait...

VALKYRI HQ? Why was...ugh, this place. He looks at the blade again...frowning for a moment. This place...VALKYRI HQ after its destruction...he knows what he did here...he knows why he did it too. But...

The burden was...still here, the heaviness of his deeds, even if it were protect them and the people around them...his deception was revealed in the end...but...

He regrets it, regrets he had to do it...maybe if he were stronger he could have stood against Garland...maybe he can now? But...first...this test.

Angantyr squeezes the weapons hilt, and he steps forward, towards the exit as he holds the weapon at his side, the heartless were there, he was just going to have to cut his way through them, because no matter where he ran, theyd follow him forever.

Riku has posed:
The first group comes around the corner just as he exits the remains of the headquarters. But they stare at him, twitching.. as if waiting for something. The Traverse Town streets are completely black save for a few small places to stand on the sidewalk. An oozing tar from which countless yellow eyes and claws strained and pushed against the barriers to be free. The darkness had even begun to crawl up the sides of the buildings like black moss or a virulent mold.

An armored figure stands on top of one of the buildings looking over the ruins, gauntleted hands sitting on the pommel of a sword. Streamers of darkness periodically rose from the joints in the black and gold armor, the head cast in the snarling horned visage of a behemoth.

The figure gestured casually in Angantyr's direction as he came out of the ruins. All at once the tension broke on the barrier and hundreds of heartless spilled from the street and the surrounding buildings and falling on Angantyr. Gargoyles swooped and pirates slashed and rolled. Shadows skittered around the edges of the combat while Soldiers with Lances and some with giant dogheads in the midst of great shields pressed in from all sides.

Angantyr has posed:
Angantyr looks around...darkness everywhere, the city has fallen? Was such a thing possible? Where would people go if Traverse Town fell? ...But this wasnt reality, right? Still...it could probably still kill him, fake or real. Angantyr turns the blade to the side, eyes narrowing as the figure stood before him.

Familiar...yet not. Angantyr draws upon the darkness too, what was needed was strength...Angantyr would provide. The armor changes, as darkness infuses itself with it, forming interconnected plate. Nothing was visible, except for the eyes, which glow crimson as he stares towards the figure..

"ARCADIAN!" he shouts, running forward and slashing through the heartless even as they formed ranks. They were no doubt being controlled, and Angantyr wasnt going to allow him the oppertunity to do so easily. He dives, slice and dicing before leaping over the heads of the last squad, aiming to try and come down on the Armored Soldiers head.

"Who are you!?" he shouts, trying to shove the weapon down, trying to break through his guard and end this quickly...before the heartless dogpiled on him.

Riku has posed:
There is a different feeling to plowing through the heartless. As they explode, as they turn into vapor there are brilliant flashes of light. Small snap flares around a crystalline heart that rises from the dark vapor and then winks out of existence. A fragment of that dark vapor steals into the sharp, jagged lines of the keyblade.

For each heartless that falls, it gets slightly stronger. The dangerous gleam of light and darkness becomes more pronounced, almost an aura around the weapon as he dives, slices and dices. The black sword comes up and there is another antipode of opposing forces. Windows shatter. Buildings shake.

The armored soldier takes a single step backwards and then lashes out with a smaller blade for his sword arm, blade scraping across the interconnected plate for a joint, trying to lessen his strength advantage. It happens in a flash, almost too quickly to be believed as they then attempt to crash a foot into Angantyr's knee just as the heartless descend on him.

As the heartless mob Angantyr, the figure evaporates like a curl of smoke. They reappear down the street, disappearing around the corner.

Angantyr has posed:
Angantyr is surprised by the force which the heartless explode...more than that...they explode, releasing their captive hearts. Something tells Angantyr that...he struck something more of an actual victory, than normal...that those heartless wouldnt come back. He dives in, aiming to smash through, but the figure was faster...something Ang is not used to.

The weapon hits the arm, but Angantyr is made of sterner stuff, the weapon draws blood...but not enough to drop his weapon. Instead, he clenched tighter, but the figure jumps away, and books it. Heartless crash down on Ang, but he responds in a terrible swing of merciless swipes and whirlwinds of blades, aiming to drive them all away.

Angantyr was no fool, he saw what the armored figure was trying to do...lead him into ambushes, wear him down because he couldnt win straight on. Angantyr knew the strategy well...and instead of following, moved down a different alley. He knew the city, he was familiar here...and he used that as a advantage...

He tried to come up around the figure, aiming to try and find the street he was on, going a bit farther down, and then coming back around to ambush from behind, aiming to drive the blade through heartless, and the figure...

Should he prove more wily.

Riku has posed:
Carving through the heartless is effortless. It's almost natural, the blade becoming stronger with every destruction. But when he comes around the next corner it is not the armored soldier that he finds.

It is Garland.

The armored destroyer stands at casual ease with one hand behind Maira's neck as she lay kneeling on the ground, her light all but extinguished and the expression on her face grey and nearly unconscious. As if the light and fire had been muffled by force.

Or simply extracted.

The heartless draw back from around him, skittering away into the fallen city like roaches under light. As suddenly inconsequential and meaningless as air. "How sickeningly predictable." The voice states in the calm and well assured voice of an executioner.

"This is what you've chosen to throw away my work - my /gifts/, my /teachings/, my /infinite patience/ for?"

A small and deathly silence. The echoes of these words have time to reverberate as they did once before. Maira looks up at Angantyr, and the entreaty there would have pulled the sun down from the sky. But at the same time, wishing that he would run. Wishing him not to be harmed, despite being the hostage in this situation.

"What a pity, that you do not even know how it works. Nor why it would choose you."

Another patient eons worth of jagged edged silence.

"..or the consequences thereof. Again, a grim lack of foresight."

Angantyr has posed:
Angantyr glares at the sight...Maira, despite their issues...she is still close to his heart. The weapon comes forward, the blade points forward, but he does not stop to shout speeches, that was something for Mercade or Sora. Angantyr let his actions speak for him, and he takes a step forward.

"You fear the thing so...that you would stoop to this? You hold the cards, so you say...and here you are trying to wield her against me." Angantyr says, with increasing anger. The issue though...is how to get her out of his grip without him breaking her neck. What can he do...what can he do...

"You hold the cards, you dont need her." He says, calmly, blade still held up, ready to strike...he just needs one shot...just one... "Unless you are so afraid of your former apprentice that you think you need to use a little girl against me." he tries for his ego.

Riku has posed:
Perhaps that was the wrong thing to say, or perhaps this was in the cards all along but as Angantyr advances his mentor continues to stare straight at him with mild curiosity. The look of a patient father examining the slipshod work of a pupil only partially paying any attention.

Maira lets out a strangled cry and the light goes out in her eyes as she slumps forwards in a broken heap at Garland's feet. "Ever the poor manipulator, boy." a shake of the head, "Ever the disappointment." his mentor turns away from him, disregarding him utterly as they begin to walk away.

He is of no consequence.

useless.

"You will learn." A beat. A vague bemused irritation as they walk. "Or your descendants will. Eventually."

Maira lets in a small cry. Whatever Garland did, it did not end in the dusk princesses death.

Although.. worse.. is still on the table.

Angantyr has posed:
N...no!

Damn it...no no no! Angantyr runs, Garland turns off, Angantyrs rage rises, but he focuses it...Maira first...he grabs her, trying to see what he did...was it darkness...? Was it...something, what was it?!

He looks, "Shh...Maira Im here just...hang on, youre not allowed to die." he says, "Not allowed to die, or anything...Im right here, so dont you go!" he says, biting his lips...be okay...please be okay.

What does he do...he doesnt know healing magic...where was the ghost? No...it was gone, right...damn damn damn!

"Maira, can you hear me?" He says near franticly.

Riku has posed:
Her light was going out.

It was indeed darkness and he could feel it trying to smother her. Trying to drown her and when it was done, everything that had been Maira will have been twisted by that darkness. Whoever lives after the darkness is done will not be anyone he knows.

And she would live.

His mentor would not make such a point of instruction so banal as to merely kill her and allow her to become a martyr, if only in memory. No. He would destroy everything at her core and let her do the rest herself.

"Ah.. damnit. I always hate this part." It's his younger self again, crouching down on the other side of Maira and taking her hand in both of his. Her face was ashen, stricken with such agony that the screams never ever got past her lips. She shuddered, trembling as if in the midst of a terrible blizzard instead of a street corner. "Her light's not enough to fight this off." The younger Angantyr frowns with worry.

"And you and I kinda know we're the last people on the list to go looking for that." A pause and then a moment of uncertainty. "If it's even in there." He looks over his shoulder to where Garland disappeared and then over at Angantyr again. "But.. you didn't follow him. You left. So.. maybe it is. Just locked away."

Angantyr has posed:
Angantyrs face twists...anger, but he keeps himself together...

"How do we find it? She cant fight the darkness alone, no...but we can." He says, with a narrowed gaze. "Weve learned to fight in it, and around it for years, we can...either destroy it, or take it out of her..." he says, desperate at this point. This was a fear of his...Garland did more than kill, he destroyed.

He looks at Maira, then back at his younger self. "Well, stop the idle chat and tell me how I get to her light?!" he says, determined and desperate.

About Garland he shrugs, hes made his choice, there was no reason to dwell on it.

Riku has posed:
"Well it's a /keyblade/ isn't it?" His younger self snaps, his face going through the same expression of swallowing anger as his hands clench slightly around Maira's hand, which is starting to become alarmingly cool.

"Isn't it supposed to unlock things?" He shrugs one shoulder, as if 'shouldn't this be obvious' is written six inches in front of his face. "You better hurry.." he says, looking up at the rooftops. "I think that archadian's coming back soon. With company."

Angantyr has posed:
Angantyr looks to his weapon...he looks towards Maira again...

How does he do this...he has the weapon, but that doesnt mean he knows everything...

Gritting his teeth, he looks at his younger self and takes a breath, letting go of her hand. It can unlock things huh...Maira needs help, her heart being swallowed by the darkness. He takes a deep breath, closing his eyes once.

And he lifts the blade to his own chest, aiming to stab it right into his own heart. Here goes nothing...